It’s pretty much a cliché to say that Americans live in two separate political realities. We shout at each other from our separate bunkers, unable to agree even on basic facts. One coping strategy—and maybe the default, given human nature—is to hunker down with our own tribe and demonize the other. But there are more constructive ways, and today’s guest makes a living examining those alternatives. He’s Jonathan Stray, senior scientist at University of California Berkeley’s Center for Human-Compatible AI and the creator of the excellent newsletter Better Conflict Bulletin.

Jonathan studies the growing field of peace-building—that is, helping people from different factions work together. He’s involved in research about AI primed to unite people rather than divide them. Some things we learn from this conversation: About a journalistic standard called multi-partiality, a more attainable goal than impartiality. About how you might construct an algorithm that prioritizes reliable news over popular news. And why, despite the state of discord right now, there are reasons to be optimistic.

Faithful listeners might recognize that we recorded this podcast about a year ago, but its relevance has only increased. We're re-posting this the day after the most divisive state of the union address Eric has ever heard. This administration will not last forever, and we will as a country need to find our way back to working together. And we can really use some of Jonathan’s optimism about our ability to do that.

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.

On In Reality, we spend most of our time on the media environment in the US. But information integrity is also under assault in Europe, where Russian propaganda efforts are, if anything, more pervasive than here. For example, late last year, Russia hit Poland with a wave of AI generated TikTok videos featuring attractive, but deep faked young women arguing that Poland should exit the EU...

At last year's World Economic Forum in Davos, delegates named misinformation the leading threat to political cohesion and social trust. So hence today's guest, John O'Brennan, professor of European politics at Ireland's Maynooth University.

John and Eric cover the information environment on his side of the Atlantic. They talk about the perverse incentives that have aligned big tech with the pollution of the information environment. We'll pivot to the role of media illiteracy and illiteracy in general in the erosion of social trust. As

we recorded this, the 2026 Davos Conference was unfolding against the inconceivable backdrop of the President of the United States, demanding his allies hand over Greenland. So they cover that too...

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality—the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, long-time journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.

Most of the guests on In Reality come out of the information world: journalists, researchers, a few politicians, but mostly people trying to clean up our polluted news feed and dial down the heat in our polarized politics. Today’s guest is, if you will, upstream of that world.

Carole House is a public servant who has spent her career trying to bring order to a world in which sophisticated technologies can be (and inevitably are) exploited by bad actors. Think cyberfraud, ransomware, digital money laundering, cryptocurrency and, of course, disinformation. She’ll go into detail about her remarkable career, but suffice it to say that if it involves digital technology and crime, Carole has fought it.

It’s a very broad portfolio but Carole argues digital fraud is all the same at heart: online scams try to steal money; online disinformation aims to steal political power. What she calls the “fraud economy” is a trillion-dollar shadow GDP that erodes trust institution by institution and person by person. And AI is rapidly making it much worse.

So today we connect the dots within the fraud economy—where disinformation, social media, cryptocurrency and cybercrime all work together. And we do so with one of the highly necessary people fighting back...

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com