The Secret Semiconductor War

Amazon has installed digital palm readers at Whole Foods. The reader scans your palm, collecting biometric data, and links it to your credit card to pay for your groceries. What does exchanging vein mapping for eggs and butter mean for the future of data security and in-person shopping.  Guest: Emily Moore, freelance tech and food journalist Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2021, one of the largest global law enforcement operations took place. It was all thanks to an encrypted phone service known as Anom, which was secretly run by the FBI.  The program was a wild success. But did the agency take it too far?  Guest: Joseph Cox, investigative reporter for 404 media and author of “Dark Wire, the Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever” Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Monday, Tim Cook announced Apple was getting into artificial intelligence. Is Apple about to do for A.I. what it did for personal computers and smartphones? Guest: Gerrit De Vynck, tech reporter for the Washington Post. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s hard to imagine music fans mourning a break-up of Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation, as a Department of Justice lawsuit requests. But even with this monopolistic middleman out of the way, touring musicians still seem destined to struggle financially. Guest: Laura Jane Grace, musician Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Anna Phillips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How well is the Biden administration coaxing semiconductor companies to build their chips in the United States? Compared to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan…or even mainland China, things are just okay. Guest: Asa Fitch, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, covering the semiconductor industry. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Fecal microbial transplants” treat someone’s unhealthy gut with poop from someone else’s healthy gut, and proponents of FMT claim it can help treat everything from IBS to autism. But if your doctor isn’t ready to fill you up with someone else’s poop, the internet will happily oblige.  Guest:  Luke Winkie, Slate staff writer who published “The Poop Broker.” Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

His law firm won a $73 million dollar settlement against Remington on behalf of nine Sandy Hook families. Now he’s filing a lawsuit against the gunmaker Daniel Defense, the video game company Activision, and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, on behalf of families in Uvalde. Guest: Josh Koskoff, attorney Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, and Anna Phillips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last year saw a record number of healthcare hacks with more than 700 separate incidents. And with a subsidiary of United Healthcare forking over a $22 billion ransom this year, the problem isn’t going away. With so much sensitive personal information on file, why aren’t hospitals and their ilk better prepared? Guest:  Dina Carlisle, president of the local nurses union, OPEIU 40 in Michigan. Justin Sherman, CEO of Global Cyber Strategies. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When OpenAI showed a demo for the latest version of ChatGPT —the one that you can chat with, you know, with your voice—one of the voices sounded eerily familiar. And instead of a victory lap, it was a reminder of all of the implications for intellectual property and one’s own basic human likeness that this technology carries with it. Guest: Sigal Samuel, senior reporter for Vox's Future Perfect and co-host of the Future Perfect podcast. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In theory, crowdfunding sites offer an opportunity for anyone to give to any cause, including, say, strangers facing huge medical bills. In practice, crowdfunding suffers from many of the same inequities that led to someone needing to crowdfund to begin with. Guest: Nora Kenworthy, author of Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare, associate professor at the University of Washington, Bothell. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices