Rewind: How AI is fueling an existential crisis in education

Rewind: How AI is fueling an existential crisis in education

Author: The Verge May 7, 2026 Duration: 42:05
Hey, everyone, Nilay here. We’re off today, while the team and I are cooking on a lot of really great stuff in the coming weeks. We’ll be back with an all-new interview on Monday.  In the meantime, we really wanted to highlight this episode we first aired in the fall, because it’s about a huge subject: AI in schools. The school year is starting to wrap up now around the country, and we’re no closer to figuring out how to thread the needle about generative AI in education than we were in September. Links:  A majority of high school students use gen AI for schoolwork | College Board About a quarter of teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork | Pew Research Your brain on ChatGPT | MIT Media Lab My students think it’s fine to cheat with AI. Maybe they’re on to something. | Vox How children understand and learn from conversational AI | McGill University ‘File not Found’ | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At the intersection of power, innovation, and consequence, you'll find Decoder with Nilay Patel. Hosted by The Verge's editor-in-chief, this isn't a typical business or technology podcast that simply recites the news. Instead, Nilay engages with founders, CEOs, legislators, and artists in substantive conversations that dissect the mechanics behind major decisions. The dialogue focuses on the real-world implications of big ideas, probing how today's choices in boardrooms and legislatures ripple out into society tomorrow. You'll hear guests articulate their toughest challenges, the trade-offs they've made, and the often-unseen forces shaping industries from social media and artificial intelligence to transportation and entertainment. Each episode is built on a foundation of genuine curiosity, aiming to unpack not just what is happening, but why it matters for the way we all live and work. Listening to this podcast feels like gaining access to a nuanced, behind-the-scenes briefing where strategy and philosophy collide. It's for anyone who suspects that the most important stories aren't the announcements themselves, but the human decisions, the unforeseen problems, and the ethical calculations that happen long before the headlines are written. Through these detailed conversations, Decoder provides a crucial lens on the architects of our modern world and the complex systems they are building, for better or worse.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Decoder with Nilay Patel
Podcast Episodes
Confronting the CEO of the AI company that impersonated me [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:53
Today, I’m talking with Shishir Mehrotra, the CEO of Superhuman, the company formerly known as Grammarly, which is still its flagship product. Back in August, Grammarly shipped a feature called Expert Review, which allow…
Paramount's $110 billion Warner Bros. gamble [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:08
Today, let’s talk about the big Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Right now, Paramount head David Ellison is very much acting like he’s over the finish line after outbidding Netflix, which walked away after what s…
Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone on reviving the web's homepage [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:43
Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Yahoo. It's basically impossible to sum up Yahoo's story over the last 25 years, but the short version is that once upon a time, Yahoo paid Google to run the search box on its website, and every…
Anthropic doesn't trust the Pentagon, and neither should you [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:57
My guest today is Mike Masnick, the founder and CEO of Techdirt, the excellent and long-running tech policy blog. Mike has been writing about government overreach, privacy in the digital age, and other related topics for…
Hasbro's CEO lets AI Peppa Pig help design toys [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12:03
Hasbro might be a toy company, but CEO Chris Cocks has spent the last several years pushing it more and more into the digital media, gaming, and collectibles space. That makes sense, since adults have money and kids don'…
Prediction markets want to be the news [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:24
Today let’s talk about prediction markets, which continue to insert themselves into the news cycle and the news in increasingly weird, unsettling, and potentially illegal ways. My guest today is Liz Lopatto, a senior rep…
Zillow's CEO on growth during a housing crisis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:38
Today, I’m talking with Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman. Zillow is one of those apps that really exemplifies what you might call the smartphone era of software: the company built a great mobile app for looking at real estate…
Inside Xbox's executive shakeup [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:08
Today, we’re talking about the future of Xbox. Phil Spencer, a two-time Decoder guest who’s led Xbox for more than a decade, is stepping down. But in a shocking twist, his deputy long-assumed successor Sarah Bond is also…
Hank Green lets loose on YouTube, billionaires, and algorithms [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:02
Today, I’m talking with Hank Green, a longtime friend of Decoder and the co-founder and now former owner of Complexly, an online education company he started with his brother John in 2012. I say former owner because Hank…
Money no longer matters to AI's top talent [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:22
Today we're talking about the war for AI talent. Right now, the hottest job market on the planet is for AI researchers. And the vast majority of these people are concentrated into a small number of hugely valuable, extre…