The Interface

Instagram wants you to watch 90-minute videos. Its new Features tool lets creators post long, horizontal videos aimed at podcasters and comedians. Hosts Thomas Germain and Jessica Maddox ask what it says about a company that has spent years borrowing from its rivals, from Stories and Reels to Threads and Edits, and why Instagram seems so eager to go after YouTube’s audience.
Then they follow the money. After a $500 billion drop in Google’s stock price in a single afternoon, they ask whether the AI bubble is about to burst, or just shrink. Tom explains why the industry is spending so much, what it means for your retirement and free AI tools, and why a collapse could put your private chats with AI at risk.
Finally, Dessa, a new AI voice model from Jack Dorsey’s company Block, has people asking whether they could tell it’s a machine. Trained only on voices, rather than text, and with the ability to whisper, interrupt and respond fast, it’s the most convincing AI voice Tom and Jess have heard. They talk about what that could mean for customer service, companionship and deepfake scams - and whether talking to machines will make us speak more or less.
The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and your world. Hosted by journalist Thomas Germain and “professor of the internet” Jessica Maddox, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No jargon. Just two sharp voices debating the stories that matter - whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.
New episodes drop every Wednesday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”). To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.com
The Interface is a BBC Studios production.
Producer: Becca Bryers
Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

This Halloween, Thomas Germain and Jessica Maddox go ghost hunting inside the AI tools and social media we use every day.
Ask any AI assistant to tell you a story - there's a good chance it’ll be about a lighthouse keeper called Elias. Tom explains a Cornell study that found AI models from different companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and China’s biggest labs, kept returning to the same handful of words and names when asked for a story, and nobody can say for sure why. Jess tells us what happens when student essays sound suspiciously alike, and the pair ask what it means for human creativity if AI and our own writing start to blur together.
Then it’s off to TikTok for the creepy “if you’re seeing this, it was meant for you” videos. Jess explains “algorithmic conspirituality,” the idea that your 'For You' page knows you better than you know yourself, and why researchers say this thinking is more common than you might expect. Tom explains how the algorithm really works, and why a video that seems to predict the date it finds you isn’t magic. The pair also look at why anxious times seem to make us more superstitious, and why believing the machines are mystical could be dangerous path.
The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and your world. Hosted by journalist Thomas Germain and “professor of the internet” Jessica Maddox, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No jargon. Just two sharp voices debating the stories that matter - whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.
New episodes drop every Wednesday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”). To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.com
The Interface is a BBC Studios production.
Producer: Becca Bryers
Executive Producer: Joe Kent

What if you could delete your most embarrassing photos from the internet, even the ones other people posted? A new California law addendum lets the children of family vloggers demand that content of them be taken down when they turn 18, and parents and platforms have to comply. Could this be the future for everyone?
Thomas Germain and Jessica Maddox ask what happens when childhood becomes content, why Europe have a "right to be forgotten" law but the US doesn't, and whether kidfluencers could be the tipping point for privacy rights for everyone.
Jess explains why many think the laws are needed, who's fighting them, and where they fall short. Tom asks what smart glasses, always-on listening devices and AI chatbots mean for people who never agreed to be recorded or shared.
Plus: after reports of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian data centres, many social media users claimed the internet had suddenly gone quiet, with no more malicious bots. But was the internet really nicer?
Tom and Jess unpack what Cloudflare's data showed about the Yandex issues, why BBC colleagues couldn't find evidence that the bots had gone, and what the story says about dead internet theory and why we're so ready to believe it.
The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and your world. Hosted by journalist Thomas Germain and “professor of the internet” Jessica Maddox, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No jargon. Just two sharp voices debating the stories that matter - whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.
New episodes drop every Wednesday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”). To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.com
The Interface is a BBC Studios production.
Producer: Becca Bryers
Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Should you be nice to your chatbot? Anthropic says its Claude models will be able to end conversations if users are needlessly cruel. Thomas Germain and Jessica Maddox ask why AI companies are increasingly talking about AI welfare, and what it could mean for the rest of us if the industry starts weighing a model's wellbeing against ours.
Tom and Jess dig into the research behind the claims, the online backlash over an "AI torture chamber," and why consciousness is still an open question for scientists and philosophers.
Plus, Jess reveals her college freshmen don't know who Jake Paul is. Is going viral a thing of the past, and what replaces it when the internet splinters into millions of niches?
The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and your world. Hosted by journalist Thomas Germain and “professor of the internet” Jessica Maddox, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No jargon. Just two sharp voices debating the stories that matter - whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.
New episodes drop every Wednesday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”). To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.com
The Interface is a BBC Studios production.
Producer: Becca Bryers
Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, joins Jess Maddox and Thomas Germain on The Interface to talk about The Social Reckoning, the new film that follows her story and acts as a sequel to The Social Network. It stars Mikey Madison as Haugen, alongside Jeremy Strong and Jeremy Allen White.
Haugen, who leaked internal documents known as the Facebook Files in 2021, explains why she believes Meta (formerly Facebook) needed outside scrutiny, and what she saw as a product manager that changed her mind about fixing it from the inside. She discusses what she says the documents and court filings reveal about teen safety on Instagram and Facebook, and the platform's impact on schools.
She also looks at what has changed since 2021, from the wave of US lawsuits over social media design and harm to children, to the EU's Digital Services Act and Australia's under-16 social media ban. Haugen explains what she thinks "practical, moderate oversight" could look like.
She also talks about the personal cost of blowing the whistle, and shares her advice for employees at AI labs who may face the same choice.
Jess and Thomas discuss why so many films about tech leaders are landing at once, what the shift in public attitudes means for Big Tech, and whether AI companies can learn from the social media era.
After our request for comment, Meta told us they had previously addressed the issues raised by Frances Haugen in this episode. They stated they have strict rules against content that encourages or glorifies self harm, that Teen Accounts have strict message settings and nudity protection by default, and they have evidence of decades-long work to develop and release teen safety protections. Meta have also previously acknowledged that they could have done more to prevent Facebook being used to incite offline violence in Myanmar, and they have since implemented corrective actions.
The Interface is your weekly guide to the tech rewiring your week and your world. Hosted by journalist Thomas Germain and “professor of the internet” Jessica Maddox, each episode unpacks, week by week, how technology is shaping all our futures. No jargon. Just two sharp voices debating the stories that matter - whether they shook a government, broke the internet, or quietly tipped the balance of power.
New episodes drop every Wednesday on BBC Sounds in the UK. Outside the UK, find us on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the video version on YouTube (search “The Interface podcast”).
To get in touch with the team: theinterface@bbc.com
The Interface is a BBC Studios production.
Producer: Becca Bryers
Executive Editor: Philip Sellars