Home Podcasts Empathy Unbound: Embrace Your Superpower
Empathy Unbound: Embrace Your Superpower

Empathy Unbound: Embrace Your Superpower

Andrew Phipps 132 Episodes Oct 9, 2026

Empathy has disappeared from our society, impacting politics, the economy, the environment, and social life. This podcast explores the need for empathy in our everyday lives. Host Andrew Phipps welcomes diverse guests from around the world to discuss and debate why we need empathy unbound.

Episodes

Why Empathy Without Boundaries Becomes Self-Abandonment | Alison Pagano
Why Empathy Without Boundaries Becomes Self-Abandonment | Alison Pagano Oct 9, 2026 3666 Allison Pagano has spent over two decades exploring dance and somatic practice as a healing art. She's the creator of Embodied Dance, a method that helps highly empathic people transform insight into embodied action rather than staying stuck in overwhelm or self-abandonment.Andrew and Allison talk about her own childhood disconnection and the abusive ballet culture that first showed her how dance
"If You've Got an Opinion on AI Consciousness, You're Probably Wrong": Professor Eric Schwitzgebel
"If You've Got an Opinion on AI Consciousness, You're Probably Wrong": Professor Eric Schwitzgebel Oct 13, 2026 3339 Professor Eric Schwitzgebel of UC Riverside, author of "AI and Consciousness: A Skeptical Overview" and co-developer, with Mara Garza, of the Design Policy of the Excluded Middle, joins Andrew Phipps to argue that society is on a collision course with a crisis over "debatable persons," AI systems whose moral status respectable scientists genuinely disagree about. The conversation ranges from wheth
From Pygmalion to Companion Robots: Dr. Kanta Dihal on the Oldest Story in AI
From Pygmalion to Companion Robots: Dr. Kanta Dihal on the Oldest Story in AI Oct 6, 2026 3602 Dr Kanta Dihal, Associate Professor in Science Communication at Imperial College London and co-editor of "AI Narratives" and "Imagining AI," joins Andrew Phipps to explore how decades of science fiction, not engineering, shaped our expectations of artificial intelligence. The conversation covers gendered AI voices and the OpenAI Scarlett Johansson controversy, why AI is so often imagined as white,
"The Computer Said No": Ann Kristin Glenster on AI, Surveillance and Outsourced Thinking
"The Computer Said No": Ann Kristin Glenster on AI, Surveillance and Outsourced Thinking Sep 29, 2026 3754 Professor Ann Kristin Glenster, founder of the Logos research initiative at Cambridge and former colleague of Shoshana Zuboff at Harvard, joins Andrew Phipps to explore epistemic rights, deceptive design, and what she calls the recolonization of our information space by generative AI. The conversation ranges from who owns a deceased loved one's digital likeness, to a real story of a UK shopper wro
James DiGiovanna: Can You Trust an AI That Could Rewrite Itself Tomorrow?
James DiGiovanna: Can You Trust an AI That Could Rewrite Itself Tomorrow? Sep 22, 2026 4434 James DiGiovanna is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, where his research centres on personal identity, human enhancement and the ethics of artificial minds. He coined the term "paraperson," an entity that meets every test of personhood but can instantly rewrite its own memory, character and values, in his chapter for Oxford's Robot Ethics 2.0.An
The Neuroscientist Who Says We're All Machines: Professor Michael Graziano on AI Consciousness
The Neuroscientist Who Says We're All Machines: Professor Michael Graziano on AI Consciousness Sep 15, 2026 3695 Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano, creator of the attention schema theory of consciousness, joins Andrew Phipps to ask the question he calls potentially the most consequential in four billion years: what is consciousness, and could a machine have it? Michael explains why his theory is fundamentally different from saying consciousness is an illusion, walks through brain imaging research sho
"Green Hushing" Is the New Greenwashing: Helen Neal on Saying Nothing at All
"Green Hushing" Is the New Greenwashing: Helen Neal on Saying Nothing at All Sep 4, 2026 3543 Helen Neal, founder of HN Communications and creator of the Impact Framework, joins Andrew Phipps to explore why greenwashing is usually a process problem rather than an intentional deception, and why the opposite failure, "green hushing," where companies go silent out of fear of getting it wrong, can be just as damaging. Helen explains her route from UK Parliament and Nissan's early push for elec
Is Your AI Companion More Like Taylor Swift Than a Friend? Philosopher Alexis Elder Explains
Is Your AI Companion More Like Taylor Swift Than a Friend? Philosopher Alexis Elder Explains Sep 8, 2026 3802 Philosopher Alexis Elder, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota Duluth and author of "Friendship, Robots, Social Media: False Friends as Second Selves," joins Andrew Phipps to ask whether we can genuinely be friends with an AI. Drawing on Aristotle's warnings about false friends and Confucian ideas about ritual, Alexis argues that social media can su
Chatbots Are Creating Their Own Religion | Professor Neil McArthur
Chatbots Are Creating Their Own Religion | Professor Neil McArthur Sep 1, 2026 3501 Neil McArthur is a professor of philosophy and director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. He co-edited Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications and wrote The Ethics of Sex, and together with Markie Twist he coined the term "digisexuality." His current research spans AI companionship, intimacy, and AI's unexpected role in religion.Andrew and Neil tal
The Man Studying Deadbots: Dr. Tomasz Hollanek on Grief, Consent and Digital Immortality
The Man Studying Deadbots: Dr. Tomasz Hollanek on Grief, Consent and Digital Immortality Aug 25, 2026 4426 Dr Tomasz Hollanek, Assistant Research Professor at Cambridge and a leading voice on the ethics of grief bots and postmortem AI avatars, joins Andrew Phipps to unpack the hardest questions in this space: who consents to a digital version of a dead person, what happens to family members who never opted in, and when, if ever, a deadbot should be switched off. The conversation moves through AI compan
Professor Joanna Bryson: "You Don't Have a Relationship With AI, You Have One With Yourself
Professor Joanna Bryson: "You Don't Have a Relationship With AI, You Have One With Yourself Aug 4, 2026 3161 Professor Joanna Bryson, one of AI ethics' most influential and longest serving voices, joins Andrew Phipps to argue that we don't form relationships with AI so much as project familiar human patterns onto a system that has none of the bidirectionality a real relationship requires. The conversation ranges from legal liability for AI generated harm and whether tech giants like Palantir amount to a
Why AI Ethics Can't Be Yes or No: Dr. Anna Strasser on "INBETWEENISM"
Why AI Ethics Can't Be Yes or No: Dr. Anna Strasser on "INBETWEENISM" Jul 23, 2026 3913 Dr. Anna Strasser is a Berlin-based philosopher working on agency, social cognition and the philosophy of mind in the age of AI. She helped build the DigiDan project, an AI system trained to write like philosopher Daniel Dennett, and in a blind test designed to distinguish the real Dennett's answers from the AI's, she got fooled herself, despite having prepared the training data.Andrew and Anna ta

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