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Search Engine
Search Engine is the podcast that tries to answer the questions that keep you up at night. A podcast made by humans that provides the answers that neither artificial intelligence nor actual search engines really can. Named one of the best podcasts of 2023 by Vulture, Time, The Economist, and Vogue.
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We investigate unsettling rumors that fish purveyors may be mislabeling fish to save a buck. Our path leads us deep into the shadowy world of blackmarket fish sales, and sends us hot on the trail of t...
· 45 min 1 sec
This week, the story of a very brief, very absurd revolution at the world’s leading artificial intelligence company, OpenAI. And we try to answer the quite real question that might be animating all of...
· 56 min 45 sec
A question from a four-year-old tips us into an investigation of one of our most fundamental taboos: cannibalism. With help from New Yorker food critic Hannah Goldfield and writer Kelefa Sanneh.Suppor...
· 1 hr 1 min 13 sec
Every day in Manhattan, about 1,000 people will stand outside in a long line waiting for their chance to take a picture with a bronze bull. On many of those days, PJ Vogt stares at the scene trying to...
· 51 min 27 sec
In part two of our story about ADHD medications, we approach the question from a different angle.We meet a doctor who spent two decades convinced that her brain does not work correctly, and who strugg...
· 48 min 50 sec
One of the millions of millennials given prescription stimulants to treat ADHD decides to quit. And afterwards wonders -- how did these drugs becomes so popular, so fast? This week, the story of amphe...
· 58 min 49 sec
Ezra Klein joins Search Engine this week to answer a question that's increasingly confounded us: how do I use the internet now? How do I get information about the things I care about, without getting...
· 59 min 59 sec
Search Engine is VERY EXCITED to share the news that Heavyweight, one of our favorite shows, is now available wherever you download podcasts. To celebrate, and to herald the release of their new seaso...
· 41 min 44 sec
Why would the government give Korianne a coupon for a free apartment that she can’t find? We have a question from a listener who finds herself very lost in Wisconsin. And a bonus question, from the in...
· 56 min 23 sec
This week, the story of former crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried. The government alleges he stole over eight billion dollars from the customers of the crypto exchange he started, FTX.Our question .....
· 1 hr 7 min 44 sec
They’re shiny rocks that we’ve somehow agreed embody romance and eternity. But diamonds, it turns out, are not as rare as we think. And these days, they can be made in a lab. So why do we continue to...
· 58 min 3 sec
Maya Hawke, of Stranger Things, would like to know why won’t Netflix just tell her how many people watch the show? Plus the question underneath that question … might the internet have broken our TV in...
· 58 min 4 sec
... Or, am I being lied to by a Brooklyn-based musician? At twenty-five, I had a question for The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. This week, I finally got to ask it.If you have questions or comments about t...
· 43 min 28 sec
We speak to Luis, a former fentanyl dealer and user who tells us why a dealer might want to put fentanyl in less lethal drugs. Luis also tells us how he learned the rules of dealing, and how the rules...
· 49 min 4 sec
Isn't it bad business to kill your own customers? In part one of our answer to this question, we talk to reporter Ben Westhoff, who helps us understand how Fentanyl became a street drug in the first p...
· 38 min 19 sec
Our quest for answers this week sends us over a hundred years into the past. We learn about the invisible rules and fights that determine what our neighborhoods look like. We also learn about houses w...
· 46 min 44 sec
We interview writer Andrew Leland, who has been gradually losing his sight for two decades. Andrew takes us inside the blind internet, and teaches us how you deal with anxiety about the things you can...
· 57 min 49 sec
Search Engine investigates the erratic behavior of the world’s wealthiest man with Hard Fork’s Casey Newton. The three top theories for why Elon Musk has begun to act strangely, including one theory t...
· 1 hr 34 sec
We enlist a very overqualified person to answer this question, writer Kelefa Sanneh, author of Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres. Kelefa listens to more music than practically a...
· 45 min 2 sec
Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski has heard a disgusting rumor — that the coffee on airplanes is unsafe to drink because the onboard water tanks are only cleaned once a year. We investigate and learn some d...
· 53 min 16 sec