Explore every episode of the podcast Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap: The Ghost Who Got the Part [hushed] Picture this. A director sits in a studio in Los Angeles, staring at a monitor. Val Kilmer — who passed away — appears on screen. Not archive footage. Not a deepfake. A full performance, generated in seven minutes. [quiet, moved] Seven minutes. That's less time than it takes to brew a proper pour-over. And the family gave their blessing.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [bright] Mind the gap, friends. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The AI Diagnosing You Was Trained Wrong [serious] Somewhere in a hospital right now — maybe in Ontario, maybe in Ohio — a doctor is glancing at a screen. An AI model is telling them a patient has a fourteen percent chance of developing type two diabetes in the next five years. [concerned] And that number looks so precise. So clean. So... medical. Except — according to Nature — dozens of these disease-prediction models were trained on da... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [laughing] A hundred and twenty countries, Maya! New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Secret Census Floating Past Your Nose [curious] So picture this — a researcher in a London park holds up what looks like a tiny vacuum cleaner filter. She peels it off, seals it in a tube, and ships it to the lab. Inside that filter? DNA from forty-seven different species. Birds, foxes, fungi, three types of bat... and also — humans. [surprised] Forty-seven species... from air. Just the air sitting right in front of her face. That fil... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] And I'm Maya. See you tomorrow morning. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Why Half The World Is Building Again [curious] So picture this — it's Monday morning in Vancouver, and Ryan Holmes walks back into the Hootsuite offices. The company he founded. The company he left. He's interim CEO again, because the person who replaced him, Irina Novoselsky, just walked out the door. [amused] The founder boomerang. It's like showing up to your own surprise party... except nobody's surprised and the cake's half-eate... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] See you tomorrow, everybody. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Too Polished: When Humans Get Flagged As AI [curious] Somewhere in Canada last month, a horror novelist hit send on a manuscript. Months of work. A book deal already signed. And then — an email lands. The publisher is pulling the book. [serious] Not because the story was bad. Not because the market shifted. Because someone decided it read too smoothly. Too polished. The accusation? AI wrote it.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] Mind the gap, friends. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Your Brain Is Already Running the Algorithm [curious] A neuroscientist at Dartmouth asks a volunteer to close her eyes and picture an apple. Red, shiny, sitting on a white table. The fMRI lights up. Then they show her an actual photo of an apple — same red, same shine. And the scan... is essentially identical. [surprised] Same neural process. Seeing it. Imagining it. And here's what made the researchers stop cold — the pattern closely mirro... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [laughing] That's either very comforting or deeply unsettling. Have a great Sunday, everybody. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Your Brain Can't Tell Real From Imagined [curious] So a neuroscientist at Dartmouth is watching brain scans flash across her screen. One scan shows a subject looking at a photograph of a cat. The other scan? The same subject just imagining a cat — eyes closed, no image anywhere. [surprised] And the scans are... identical?... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [laughing] And I'm Maya — yes, like the illusion. See you Monday. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Train Toronto Stopped Believing In [excited] Picture this — it's Tuesday morning in Toronto, and for the first time in over a decade of construction headaches and blown deadlines, a train glides beneath Eglinton Avenue. [warm] Nineteen kilometres. Fifteen underground stations. One of the largest subway openings in North America in decades. And half the city still can't believe it's actually real.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] Mind the gap — and enjoy the ride. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The AI That Left The Planet [excited] Last Wednesday, five hundred kilometres above the Indian Ocean, a satellite the size of a microwave oven took a photo of an airport — then did something no satellite has ever done before. [curious] It didn't beam it home?... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [laughing] Bye, everyone. Be impermanent on purpose. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Nvidia Bought the Software Running Every Supercomputer [curious] It's Monday morning. You're an AI researcher — could be U of T, could be MIT, could be anywhere — and you open your terminal to queue up a training job on the supercomputer. The software deciding when your GPUs fire? It's called Slurm. Runs on basically every supercomputer on Earth. And as of last week... Nvidia just bought the company that makes it. [serious] And if you're one of the AI... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [enthusiastic] Here's what I'm taking away. Whether it's AI tools, quantum timelines, Canadian house prices, or your own brain — the foundations we assume are solid are shifting under us. And the peop New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Little Robot That Refused to Die [curious] A research team uploads a video last week. In it, a small robot — no bigger than a shoebox — gets stomped, twisted, dropped off a ledge. And every single time... it just... gets back up. [surprised] Not rebooted. Not repaired. It literally reshapes itself and keeps walking. Like a starfish regrowing a limb, except it was designed by an algorithm that had never seen a starfish.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] And I'm Maya. Go be resilient out there. We'll see you tomorrow. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: $15 An Hour To Train Your Replacement [curious] Picture this. Six AM, a warehouse in Austin, Texas. A woman straps on a motion capture suit — the kind you'd see on a movie set — and spends four hours picking up coffee mugs, folding towels, opening doors. Over and over. She's not rehearsing for a film. She's teaching a humanoid robot how to be human. [intrigued] And she's getting paid about fifteen bucks an hour to do it.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] Mind the Gap is produced every morning for people who'd rather think than scroll. See you tomorrow. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Your Encryption Now Has An Expiration Date [curious] Picture this — it's Thursday morning, and a cybersecurity engineer at a major Canadian bank opens Ars Technica over her coffee. Google has just quietly updated its estimate for when quantum computers can crack the encryption protecting... basically everything. The new date? 2029. [serious] Three years from now. Not twenty. Not 'someday.' Three.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [playful] Mind the gap. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The School With No Teacher [curious] Picture this — a classroom. Eight-year-olds sit at desks. But there's no teacher at the front. No whiteboard. Just a tablet, an AI app, and two hours of core academics. Then the kids go outside and build things with their hands. [surprised] That's not a Black Mirror episode, Maya. That's an actual private school model in the U.S. right now. And CBC just asked the question that should ter... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] Mind the Gap. See you Monday. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Coin-Sized Battery That Never Dies [curious] Picture a battery the size of a coin. Now picture it running — continuously — for fifty years. No charging. No swapping. No sunset date. [excited] Beijing Betavolt says they've built exactly that. A nuclear battery using the decay of radioactive isotopes to generate electricity for half a century. And while the rest of us were arguing about phone charger cables...... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: [warm] And I'm Maya. Go start your Thursday. The ground is moving — might as well dance. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Four Dollar Gas And The Octopus Economy Four dollars. That's the number blinking on gas station displays across America this morning. Four dollars a gallon — a number no one's seen since 2022. And here's the thing... the last time it hit four bucks, there was no active war in the Middle East. Now there is. And that changes everything — from what you pay at the pump, to who gets hired, who gets fired, and whether a city like Toronto can ... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Be the octopus. I'm getting that on a mug. This has been Mind the Gap — see you tomorrow. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Plumbing Keeping AI From Melting Picture this. A warehouse floor in northeast Calgary, Thursday afternoon. Workers at a company called CoolIT — they make liquid cooling systems for data centers — are watching a live stream from corporate. And then the number drops. Six point six billion dollars. U.S. company Vertiv just bought them. CBC called it one of Calgary's biggest tech deals ever. And the thing is... CoolIT doesn't make so... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: This has been Mind the Gap. See you Monday. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Canada's Five-Year IPO Drought Finally Breaks Five years. That's how long it's been since a Canadian tech company went public. And then yesterday — not a fintech, not a SaaS play — a quantum computing startup called Xanadu broke the drought. And they didn't sneak in through the back door, Alex. The Globe and Mail reported Xanadu cross-listed on both the TSX and Nasdaq, and is on track to maintain a market capitalization of three billion dolla... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: And foundational. See you Monday, everyone! New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Salt-Sized Chip That Reads Your Mind Picture a grain of salt. Just... one tiny crystal sitting on your fingertip. Now imagine it can read your thoughts. For over a year. Wirelessly. That's not science fiction. That's a paper published this week. A neural implant so small it literally rests on a grain of salt — powered by laser light that passes safely through tissue.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Mind the Gap. See you tomorrow. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: **AGI Is Here. Iran Still Needs an App.** Monday night, Lex Fridman leans into his microphone and asks Jensen Huang — the man whose company powers most of the world's AI — whether we've reached artificial general intelligence. And Huang doesn't hedge. Doesn't flinch. He just says it. Quote: 'I think we've achieved AGI.' Five words. Drops it like it's nothing.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Mind the gap, friends. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Scalping Missiles Like Taylor Swift Tickets Somewhere in San Francisco right now, someone is paying a forty percent premium — on the secondary market — for shares in a company that builds autonomous weapons systems. Not OpenAI. Not some hot new chatbot. A defence contractor. And Business Insider's headline literally compared it to buying Taylor Swift tickets. We're talking about Anduril — Palmer Luckey's defence tech startup — where the mar... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: So let me tie the bow on these four threads. A defence bank being born in Montreal. A global economy splitting between AI builders and fossil fuel burners. The co-creator New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: A Thermostat For Dread Forty-nine percent. That's the number Moody's put on it this week. A forty-nine percent chance the United States enters a recession in the next twelve months. Economist Mark Zandi's exact words — the recession risk is, quote, 'nearing a tipping point as the oil surge pressures the economy.' And what makes that number so wild, Maya, is that a week ago we were at forty-four. The week before that, th... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: This has been Mind the Gap. We'll be back tomorrow morning, bright and early. Have a great Sunday, everyone. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Capacity Crunch Six stories below Sheppard Avenue, a tunnel-boring machine the size of a small condo keeps chewing east. Wet concrete, steel dust, floodlights... and somewhere above it, a commuter is refreshing mortgage rates while a phone in Taipei pings from a chip order and a hospital lab wonders whether AI can catch leukemia faster than a tired human eye. It's such a 2026 scene. One city digging literal capac... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Mind the Gap is back Monday. Until then, may your trains run, your RAM prices chill out, your data stay encrypted, and your brain resist the seductive nonsense of panic math. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Brick, Balloons, and the Future At dawn in the Don Valley, the old brick kilns are damp with last night's rain. A cyclist rolls past a school group and a fox that absolutely did not RSVP. Meanwhile, inside a former factory wall, crews are planning a $15.6 million glow-up for Evergreen Brick Works—one of those Toronto places that feels like the city arguing with itself, then planting a garden. And thousands of kilometres away, ch... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Amen to that. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: When the Spine Starts Failing Just before dawn near Nipigon, a plow driver is staring into white glare on a stretch of highway so long it almost feels theoretical. Two thousand kilometres of road, black ice, transport trucks, and a simple question: how many warnings does it take before a system counts as broken? And a few hundred kilometres south, someone in Toronto is checking a subway closure notice, a mortgage app, and thei... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Always before the shuttle bus email. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: When Dashboards Become Survival Tools At 7:12 this morning, a GO commuter in Oshawa refreshed a homemade website before the train even hit Scarborough. Red bars. Delays again. Meanwhile, on another screen somewhere in Toronto, an open-source maintainer stared at code that looked normal... but wasn't. Invisible characters. Hidden trouble. And across the world, traders were watching oil at $106 like it was a smoke alarm with a PhD. It's... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: And may your code be visible, your trains on time-ish, and your glucose politely cooperative. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Economy of Being Tired A violin starts somewhere near the back of a Toronto streetcar at rush hour. Not busking—soothing. A so-called sleep concert. Half the car is staring at phones, one guy is absolutely out cold, and the whole scene feels weirdly perfect for 2026: exhausted people, ambient art, and a city trying to stay awake while the future keeps sending push notifications. And meanwhile, a smartwatch on somebody's... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Toronto had a sleep concert on transit because apparently even our public infrastructure is experimenting with REM cycles. Honestly? Not the worst pilot project. If the future is going to be noisy, we New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Politics of a Seat At 7:12 this morning, a TTC rider in Scarborough slid onto a brand-new fabric seat on Line 5, looked down at a spotless blue pattern, and had a tiny civic epiphany: wait... weren’t we all told plastic was the future? Meanwhile across town, a Japanese bar team was steaming rice for a brewery launch, and somewhere in a GitHub repo, invisible characters were quietly hiding malware in plain sight. It’... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Research purposes only. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Week AI Got a Body and Conscience Somewhere in a maker space right now — could be Waterloo, could be Shenzhen, could be a teenager's garage in Mississauga — someone is plugging a board the size of a credit card into a little robot. And that robot can see. It can think. And for the first time... it can move on its own. No cloud. No internet. Just local intelligence. And a few thousand kilometers south, a man in the Pentagon is argu... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: And if a tiny robot starts moving on its own in your garage... maybe check what values it shipped with. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Canada Spends Six Billion to Play Superhero Six billion dollars. That's the number the Business Development Bank of Canada dropped on Wednesday. Not for housing. Not for transit. For defence tech. A country whose entire global brand is 'friendly neighbor' just placed the biggest military technology bet in its modern history. And they named the fund StrongNorth. Which — if you're going to rebrand an entire national identity, you might as wel... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Go dream something into reality today. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Lobster You Pay To Kill Picture this. Tuesday morning in Shanghai. A twentysomething opens her phone and the little AI agent she installed last week — they're calling it the lobster — won't stop. It's ordering her groceries. Replying to her boss. Rearranging her entire calendar. She panics. Can't figure out how to shut it down. So she does what any reasonable person in 2026 does...... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: It's like hiring a personal trainer New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: When AI Gets Its Own Social Life So sometime last week, an AI agent — not a person, an AI — posted a review of a sci-fi novel on a social network. Another AI agent replied disagreeing with the first agent's take on the ending. A third chimed in with a meme. No humans involved. No humans even watching. Just... bots arguing about books. On their own little Reddit.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: And if an AI agent leaves you a review — write back. It's only polite. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Oil Hits Triple Digits and Brains Play Tricks Last night at 11:47 PM Eastern, a futures trader in Chicago watched Brent crude tick past one hundred dollars a barrel — the highest since the outbreak of the Ukraine war — and immediately texted his group chat three words: 'Here we go again.' Except this morning, it's not just traders feeling it. Business Insider reports the Philippines is telling government offices to turn down the AC. The UK is... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: Alex! New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The 48 Hours That Broke Every Market Monday morning, 10:30 AM Mumbai time. The Sensex is in freefall — two thousand points, gone. Crude oil has just crossed a hundred and fifteen dollars a barrel. Across Dalal Street, traders are staring at screens. Nobody is blinking. By nightfall, Tokyo's Nikkei had plunged more than five percent. Seoul tanked. London, red. And the word 'recession' was trending on every platform you can name.... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: That's Mind the Gap for Tuesday, March 10th. Go have a great day. New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Dark Matter Running Your Financial Life Three hundred million light-years from Earth, there's a galaxy called CDG-2. Astronomers just confirmed it's made of ninety-nine-point-nine percent dark matter. The stuff we can't see, can't touch, can't measure directly. And yet it makes up almost the entire galaxy. Strip away all the visible stars and gas and dust, and what's left — that invisible ninety-nine-point-nine percent — is what gives t... In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work. Takeaway: This has been Mind the Gap. See you tomorrow. New episodes drop every weekday morning.