Podcast Atlas
entity Updated 2026-07-12 Tags: Person, Host, Journalism

Stephanie Hughes

In the March 27, 2026 Bytes episode, Hughes interviews [[MariaCurie|Maria Curi]] of Axios about a negligence verdict against Meta and YouTube, a [[USDepartmentOfLabor|U.S. Department of Labor]] AI literacy course, and Kalshi guardrails for political and sports-linked markets. Her questions frame the shared accountability problem across Social Media Product Liability, AI Worker Literacy, and Prediction Market Self-Regulation.

In the March 26, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Jim Harkness of the Maryland Transportation Authority about the Francis Scott Key Bridge rebuild after the Dali Container Ship strike. Her questions frame Structural Health Monitoring and Sensor-Driven Infrastructure Maintenance as practical bridge operations: engineers need data, access, and model comparison to understand Bridge Load Capacity for traffic and Port of Baltimore freight.

In the March 25, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Linda Todich of Digital Bedrock about why digital archiving is more than uploading files or leaving old media on a shelf. Her questions frame Cloud Storage Physicality, Preservation Technical Environment, and the WIPR recovery as practical reminders that cloud files, LTO tapes, backup systems, hardware, software, and documentation all determine long-term access.

In the March 24, 2026 episode, Hughes frames prediction markets through gambling-like integrity risks rather than only abstract forecasting. Her questions connect the Jontay Porter [[NationalBasketballAssociation|NBA]] betting scandal, Sportsbook Integrity Monitoring, [[CommodityFuturesTradingCommission|CFTC]] rulemaking, Polymarket, and expert comments from Matthew Holt, Ben Schifrin, and John Holden into a Prediction Market Integrity Oversight problem.

In the March 23, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Heather Schwartz of RAND about students using AI for homework. Her questions frame the discussion around critical thinking, workforce readiness, classroom AI-free time, and why First Draft Thinking should come before ChatGPT or other AI help.

In the March 20, 2026 Bytes episode, Hughes interviews Anita Ramaswamy of The Information about Gecko Robotics’ [[USNavy|U.S. Navy]] contract, BuzzFeed’s going-concern warning, and Amazon’s one-hour and three-hour delivery expansion. Her questions frame the shared risk in speed: faster defense maintenance may depend on younger vendors, faster media reinvention may become AI Slop, and faster delivery may compress consumer reflection into impulse purchase.

In the March 19, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Stacey Pettijohn of the Center for a New American Security about low-cost drones in modern warfare. Her questions frame Shahed 136-style systems, the U.S. Lucas Drone, commercial component supply chains, jamming, decoys, and why Counter-Drone Layered Defense has to manage both tactical interception and Drone Defense Economics.

In the March 18, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Tomas Holoneck of the University of Cambridge about AI Grief Bots and post-mortem avatars. Her questions frame digital resurrection through grief, consent, privacy, family memory, survivor testimony, and whether technology companies should be allowed to experiment freely in the intimate space of death and memorialization.

In the March 17, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Josh Bersin about AI workplace tools that record meetings, summarize conversations, analyze email, and support [[WorkplaceDigitalTwins|workplace digital twins]]. Her questions frame the tension between productivity and surveillance: a digital twin may help coworkers when a person is unavailable, but employers still need Workplace AI Transparency when AI systems monitor or evaluate work.

In the March 16, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Dave Reibstein of the Wharton School about the [[CryptoConsumerConfidence|Consumer Cryptocurrency Confidence Index]]. Her questions frame whether consumer sentiment can help predict crypto prices and why many consumers still treat crypto more as risky investment exposure than as everyday currency.

In the March 13, 2026 Bytes episode, Hughes interviews Jewel Burke Solomon of Collab Capital about Amazon outages and AI Coding Guardrails, YouTube’s media dominance, and Meta’s acquisition of MoteBook. Her questions connect AI to software reliability, creator-platform strategy, AI talent competition, and whether a [[VibeCoding|vibe-coded]] product can be separated from the builders’ domain expertise.

In the March 12, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Gil Luria of [[DADavidson|D.A. Davidson]] about whether Bitcoin functions as a safe haven during geopolitical turmoil. Her questions frame the contrast between gold’s immediate rise after a U.S. attack on Iran and Bitcoin’s weaker response, then move into Digital Gold, inflation, dollar weakness, and Cross-Border Crypto Capital Flight from Iran or China.

In the March 11, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Willa Remus of the [[WashingtonPost|Washington Post]] about [[ThePlainDealer|the Plain Dealer]] using AI in local journalism. Her questions frame the story around whether AI is a newsroom survival tool, a writing substitute, or a threat to AI Journalism Trust when articles are mostly produced through an AI Rewrite Desk and labeled through the Advanced Local Express Desk.

In the March 10, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Wendy Liu of [[GirlScoutsOfTheUSA|Girl Scouts of the USA]] about online Girl Scout cookie sales. Her questions frame the story around what girls learn from sites, QR codes, email, social sharing, checkout, and customer follow-up, and around whether adult involvement and online safety rules still preserve Youth Entrepreneurship, Digital Commerce Literacy, and Child Online Commerce Safety.

In the March 9, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Nicole Turner-Lee of the Brookings Institution about California’s [[DeleteRequestAndOptOutPlatform|DROP]] data-broker deletion platform. Her questions frame DROP through practical consumer concerns: whether it can clean up spam, whether it matters outside California, and how Consumer Data Deletion fits with the larger privacy gap around surveillance, cookies, government systems, and AI-Enabled Spam.

In the March 6, 2026 Bytes episode, Hughes interviews Paresh Dave of Wired about Kalshi and Polymarket prediction-market controversies, Anthropic’s reported Defense AI Supply Chain Risk, and Meta’s AI Content Licensing deal with News Corp. Her questions frame the episode around the institutional limits facing platforms that turn public events, AI models, and publisher content into tradable or commercial infrastructure.

In the March 5, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Rafe Pilling of Sophos about Iran-Linked Cyber Operations and American bank cyber risk. Her questions frame the contrast between the 2011-2013 DDoS attacks on U.S. banks, current phishing and vulnerability-scanning capabilities, and Pilling’s greater concern about health care, sensitive data, and Industrial Control System Cyber Risk.

In the March 4, 2026 episode, Hughes interviews Erin Griffith of the [[NewYorkTimes|New York Times]] about Answer Engine Optimization. Her questions frame AEO as a practical brand problem: companies want chatbots to notice and represent them accurately, but answer engines may reward dense facts over marketing hooks and may surface negative Reddit posts, reviews, AI-generated fluff, or paid placement.

Stephanie Hughes is the Marketplace Tech host for Bytes: Week in Review - Prediction markets reel amid Iran conflict, defense contractors to drop Anthropic, and Meta’s AI deal with News Corp, Iran’s cyberwar on American banks, Digital archiving and the global memory shortage, How government uses "surveillance as a service" to collect data, AI Meets the Search for a BA, Here’s how to prep for a job interview with AI, AI makes it easier to code websites — including ones that scam consumers, Bytes: Week in Review - Google to make links more prominent, Palantir moves to Florida and Ring reportedly had plans to use Search Party for more than finding lost dogs, Meta’s big bet on superintelligence, Can software companies survive the AI boom?, Fewer students are enrolling in computer science classes and majors, Bytes: Week in Review - Alphabet takes on debt to pay for AI projects, the social network where humans aren’t allowed, and Spotify reports record user growth, Bytes: Week in Review - SpaceX and xAI merge, Nvidia and OpenAI’s funding relationship and U.S. TikTok’s rough start, and Crypto’s big growth on the books and in the shadows.

In the March 3 episode, Hughes interviews Linda Todich of Digital Bedrock about Memory Chip Shortage, hard-drive availability, and Digital Preservation. The segment connects AI data-center demand to archive servers, cloud dependence, and Personal Digital Archiving practices such as redundancy, migration, documentation, and file checking.

In the March 2 episode, Hughes interviews Jeremy Scott of the Electronic Privacy Information Center about U.S. Department of Homeland Security access to privately collected data. Her questions frame how Administrative Subpoena Data Access, Government Data Broker Access, Surveillance as a Service, Third-Party Doctrine, and Fourth Amendment Digital Privacy make data brokers and license-plate-reader networks into a public-accountability issue.

In the February 25 episode, Hughes frames how AI College Search is changing the college-search process for students and colleges. The source connects EAB survey results, Jennifer Jesse’s college-consulting perspective, Michael Coppenheifer’s campus-vibe and AI-description examples, and Nick Swisher’s Indiana Wesleyan University marketing case.

In the February 24 episode, Hughes interviews Ray Smith of the [[WallStreetJournal|Wall Street Journal]] about AI Interviewing. Her questions connect candidate jitters, recorded answers, AI-generated assessments, and the fear that employers could move from AI screening into AI-controlled hiring decisions, while Smith emphasizes preparation and human review.

In the February 23 episode, Hughes frames Megan McCarty-Corino’s report on a fake Davines shopping site that appeared through a sponsored Google result. The source connects her Marketplace Tech AI-risk coverage to AI-Assisted Website Scams, Fake Retail Website Impersonation, Search Ad Trust Gap, and AI-Enabled Scam Industrialization.

In the February 20 Bytes episode, Hughes interviews Anita Ramaswamy about [[GoogleAIOverviews|Google AI Overviews]], AI Answer Source Attribution, Palantir’s move to Miami, and [[RingSearchParty|Ring Search Party]] as a Consumer Camera Surveillance case. In the February 19 episode, Hughes interviews Mike Isaac about Meta’s AI capital spending, AI Advertising Targeting, [[MetaAI|Meta AI]], Personal Superintelligence, [[RayBanSmartGlasses|Ray-Ban smart glasses]], and the shift from virtual-reality urgency toward AI. In the February 18 episode, Hughes interviews Daniel Newman about AI Native SaaS Threat, the limits of Vibe Coding for replacing enterprise software, and why agent-heavy workplaces may push SaaS from seat licenses toward Outcome-Based AI Pricing. In the February 17 episode, Hughes interviews Carrie George of the Computing Research Association about Computing Enrollment Decline, College Major Choice, and the long-term Computing Research Pipeline. In the crypto-crime episode, Hughes interviews Ari Redbord of TRM Labs about illicit crypto activity, Stablecoin Sanctions Evasion, scam losses, Pig Butchering Scam, Work-From-Home Scam, and AI-enabled fraud. In the February 6 Bytes episode, she frames three technology-business stories: SpaceX buying [[XAI|xAI]], Nvidia and OpenAI reassessing a major investment relationship, and [[USTikTok|U.S. TikTok]] having a rough early period after its new ownership structure. In the February 13 Bytes episode, she interviews Jewel Burke Solomon about Alphabet’s AI borrowing, MoteBook, and Spotify’s growth around [[SpotifyWrapped|Spotify Wrapped]].

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