Artificial intelligence is the frontier of human innovation. But it has a dark side, too. In this episode, we explore how AI intersects with everything from criminology to creative writing -- and in the process, we see how biased algorithms have the power to do enormous harm in modern society. You can support our work here: Patreon.com/powercorrupts And you can buy Brian’s book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, here (or wherever you buy books): https://www.simonandschuster.com/...
Nov 23, 2021•55 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Is the next war going to happen in space? What are space weapons like, anyway? And why should we be worried about the space ventures of billionaires? In this episode, we look at the militarization of space, including everything from giant space mirrors to a new Chinese space weapon that flies right over the South Pole. You can support our work here: Patreon.com/powercorrupts And you can buy Brian’s new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, here (or wherever you buy books): htt...
Nov 16, 2021•43 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Is it a crime to steal back something that was once yours? That's the question we'll tackle this week, as we look at a string of sophisticated art heists aimed at reclaiming some stolen heritage objects. And we'll explore how Facebook is facilitating the illicit trafficking of stolen cultural objects, all out in the open. You can support our work here: Patreon.com/powercorrupts And you can buy Brian’s new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, here (or wherever you buy books): ...
Nov 09, 2021•51 min•Season 3Ep. 13
This week's episode is an excerpt from the opening chapter of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us. (If you pre-order the book or audiobook, you're eligible for a bonus episode of Power Corrupts that won't be released publicly). You can support our work here: Patreon.com/powercorrupts And you can pre-order Brian’s new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, here (or wherever you buy books): https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097...
Nov 02, 2021•23 min•Season 3Ep. 12
The title of this podcast is Power Corrupts. But is that true? In this week's episode, host Brian Klaas has the microphone turned around on himself, as he's interviewed by Emma Nelson about his new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us. You can support our work here: Patreon.com/powercorrupts And you can pre-order Brian’s new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, here (or wherever you buy books): https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/...
Nov 01, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 11
The International Criminal Court prosecutes perpetrators of horrific crimes. But what if the perpetrator is also a victim? That's the question we explore this week, with the disturbing tale of a child soldier who was kidnapped into a militia, but then rose the ranks to become a senior commander. After climbing the hierarchy, he began kidnapping more children and killing civilians. So, is he a victim, or is he a perpetrator? And is it possible to be both? You can support our work here: Patreon.co...
Oct 26, 2021•54 min•Season 3Ep. 10
How do you capture a pirate after they’ve hijacked a ship? In today’s episode, we look at two ingenious sting operations that managed to lure some pirates across borders to their arrest. And in the process, we’ll see how clever law enforcement agencies get around the problem of tracking down criminals across international borders. You can support our work here: Patreon.com/powercorrupts And you can pre-order Brian’s new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, here (or wherever y...
Oct 19, 2021•35 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Pirates can teach us quite a lot about democracy and economics. What can Blackbeard teach us about signaling theory? Why were pirates racially progressive for their era? And is it possible that pirate ships were laboratories for experiments with constitutional democracy? In this episode, we speak to Professor Peter Leeson of George Mason University, and Dr. Rebecca Simon, an expert on pirate history. You can get Professor Peter's book, The Invisible Hook at https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hook-...
Oct 12, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Can doing the wrong thing ever be the right policy? That’s a question we’ll tackle this week as we look at the possibility of letting some very bad people get away with their crimes…in order to prevent them from causing further damage. From drug kingpins to dictators, is it ever a good idea to just let them get away with it? This week’s episode features journalist Jaime Yaya Berry; human rights advocate Tutu Alicante; former Ambassador Charles Stith; and journalist Ioan Grillo. You can support o...
Oct 05, 2021•55 min•Season 3Ep. 7
What if you hacked a hitman-for-hire website and found out the identities of people who were slated to die before the murder? How much does it cost to hire a hitman on the Dark Web? And what if all of these supposed hitmen were just part of a giant, lucrative hoax? In this episode, we explore the stranger-than-fiction tale of hitmen services being sold on the darkest corners of the internet. Guests include Gian Volpicelli of Wired UK; Eileen Ormsby, a journalist and author; and Randy McAlister o...
Sep 28, 2021•47 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Could you fake your death and get away with it? In this episode, we look at fake identities, from people who've tried to fake their own deaths to an audacious wine fraudster who made millions as he sold new wine in old bottles. We speak to a private investigator who proves that people are, in fact alive, and a wine merchant who decided to act like an FBI agent in his quest to stake out a man who was making fake bottles of his wine. And in the process, we see glimpses of how identities are harder...
Sep 21, 2021•54 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Is going into exile safe any longer? A few years ago, a former Rwandan intelligence chief hiding out in exile was found strangled to death in a Johannesburg hotel room. Hanging on the door outside was a “Do Not Disturb” sign. It had been placed there to buy the assassins a bit of extra time as they fled the country. This episode looks at the alarming rise in transnational repression and cross-border killings, where dictators and despots hunt down their enemies no matter where they are in the wor...
Sep 14, 2021•53 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In early 2021, hackers infiltrated the software that controlled the city’s water supply in Oldsmar, Florida. Through dumb luck, they caught the intrusion shortly after the hacker tried to poison the city’s water. This hack was part of a growing array of attacks against the Internet of Things, objects that used to operate offline but are now connected to the internet—and therefore vulnerable to hacking. From Wi-Fi enabled tea kettles to cars that can be taken over remotely to knocking power out f...
Sep 07, 2021•49 min•Season 3Ep. 3
When it comes to understanding the underworld of corruption and criminality, you can’t just look at the rich crooks. You also have to look at the lawyers who help them dot the i’s and cross the t’s as they try to stash their illicit cash somewhere offshore. And to accomplish that goal, you have to understand the world of shell companies, corporate entities that often exist only on paper to shield vast sums of wealth from the taxman or the prying eyes of journalists. It’s a dangerous world, and i...
Aug 31, 2021•46 min•Season 3Ep. 2
We all know that offshore areas of financial secrecy exist. In this episode, we’re going to take a look at the origin story of one of them. It’s a story that will make you question the caricature you probably have in your head about why shadowy offshore economies develop. And it’s a story that involves, quite improbably, seabirds that made people rich, a failed musical about Leonardo Da Vinci….and a shack worth a billion dollars. You may not have heard of it, but you can rest assured that terror...
Aug 31, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 1
They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But when it comes to the underworld of corruption, murder, and greed, from drug cartels to hackers to political psychopaths, what you see is often just the tip of the iceberg. To understand how the world really works, you have to look at what's hidden below the surface. From Brian Klaas, professor of global politics and Washington Post columnist, the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast returns on August 31, 2021. Subscribe now to m...
Aug 05, 2021•2 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Pandemics are horrifying. But what if one could be unleashed deliberately? How did ancient armies from the Greeks to the Mongol hordes use germ warfare? Why did America conduct tests on unsuspecting people in New York and San Francisco? Can biological weapons be developed to only infect a single person? And why is the US government researching how to use insects as taxis for viruses? Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts...
Apr 09, 2020•50 min•Season 2Ep. 10
When revolutions happen, everything changes. In this episode, we'll look at why one revolution was launched when a rebel leader in southeast Asia started climbing trees; how Teddy Roosevelt's son led a CIA-backed coup in 1953 that contributed to the Iranian revolution; and why one East German guard had a bad day -- and forever changed history as a result. Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts ---- Power Corrupts is written and narrated by Brian Klaas. The executive producer an...
Apr 02, 2020•55 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Pandemics are as old as human civilisation, from the Plague of Athens to mysterious diseases that ravaged armies throughout history. But there's a lot you probably don't know about them. Why did "dancing plagues" erupt repeatedly in Medieval Europe as a result of "hot blood"? Why is calling it the "Spanish Flu" an egregious historical injustice? How do mathematical modellers incorporate Italian vs. American culture into their forecasting and predictions? And what did Isaac Newton manage to do wh...
Mar 26, 2020•52 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Have you ever made a catastrophic mistake? What if your mistakes could cause an empire to fall, a war to start, or thirty million people to starve to death? History and politics are defined by catastrophic miscalculations -- those "oops" moments in which leaders cause immense damage because they just didn't think things through. Whether it's Mao's campaign to murder sparrows leading to a deadly famine; Burma's dictator crashing an economy by following astrology and his lucky number rather than e...
Mar 19, 2020•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 7
Corruption is usually hidden. But sometimes, it’s out in the open — either by design, or by incompetence. In this episode, we explore some unexpected hotspots of corruption and kleptocracy. How does a fugitive Malaysian playboy who allegedly stole billions still legally own a mansion in London? Why did a small town Massachusetts mayor try to accept big wads of dirty cash in a shed behind his house? And how did a money laundering expert get caught...laundering money? Support the show on Patreon a...
Mar 12, 2020•52 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Christopher Blair has been called the Godfather of Fake News. He's an American troll. And whether you realized it or not, you've probably unknowingly read a fake news article that he's written, cooked up on his computer in rural Maine. So we traveled to Maine to meet him, to understand how one man makes a living by deceiving gullible people on Facebook — and the effect that his trolling has on democracy. Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts ---- Power Corrupts is written and ...
Mar 05, 2020•53 min•Season 2Ep. 5
When a brutal dictatorship collapses, there's a big problem: everyone who knows how to run the government is someone who worked for the brutal dictator. It's a battle of pragmatism vs. justice. Should Nazi civil servants be allowed to keep their jobs? Do we need Saddam Hussein's handpicked henchmen, experts, and cronies to keep the electricity on? We'll speak to Ambassador Paul Bremer, who effectively ran Iraq from Saddam's palace from 2003-2004. And we'll talk to a torture victim who extended a...
Feb 27, 2020•58 min•Season 2Ep. 4
If you're trying to consolidate power as a dictator, what's the best way to go about it? Is it better to be feared or loved? How do you eliminate your enemies? We'll speak to Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion who now plots his moves against Vladimir Putin. And we'll travel to Thailand to speak to a journalist who got kidnapped by a military junta in a surreal attempt to give him Stockholm Syndrome for his dictatorial captors. ---- Power Corrupts is written and narrated by Brian Klaas. ...
Feb 20, 2020•58 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Mercenaries are sometimes described as "the world's second oldest profession." But how do they operate today? Can mercenary armies topple dictatorships? Why did one mercenary plot get duped by a Congolese con artist who invented a fake rebel group? Should we pay ex-special forces soldiers to do our dirty work? We'll answer those questions as we speak to Simon Mann, a founding member of Executive Outcomes and a mercenary mastermind of the botched Wonga Coup plot. Support the show on Patreon at Pa...
Feb 13, 2020•53 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Propaganda has been around for thousands of years. But what separates the pros from the amateur propagandists? Why are North Korean radios made without dials? Who is Sister Potato and why is the Chinese government using her to convince people to eat potatoes? Why did American soldiers fight—and die—to steal phone books and undelivered mail for a propaganda radio station? And how does Iran shut down the internet? Welcome to Season 2 of Power Corrupts. Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/po...
Feb 06, 2020•59 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Come explore the dark side of power as we travel across the globe meeting the often unsavory characters who inhabit the hidden world of mercenaries, propaganda, biological weapons, information warfare and trolls, dirty money, psychopaths, corruption, dictators, and revolutions. Hosted by Dr. Brian Klaas, political scientist at University College London and weekly columnist for The Washington Post. -- Power Corrupts is written and narrated by Brian Klaas. The executive producer and sound editor i...
Jan 23, 2020•1 min
To end our first season we look at Nepotism. What’s it like to be the son or daughter of a dictator? Why did one dictator’s son go from a high-flying life playing football in Italy to being shorn like a sheep in the hands of rebels? Why did the cannibal emperor of Bangui murder a woman who claimed to be his long-lost daughter? And in the cutthroat world of politics, is nepotism necessary to survive? We’ll answer those questions across the globe from Equatorial Guinea to Uzbekistan and from Libya...
Aug 22, 2019•59 min•Season 1Ep. 19
What makes ordinary people commit extraordinarily violent acts? Is it their brain chemistry? Social pressure? Or a charismatic leader telling them it's their patriotic duty? In this episode, we explore the morality of a scientist who gave life to billions--but also facilitated the murder of millions; a psychiatrist who studied the brains of Nazi war criminals; a Rwandan who lost most of her family in the 1994 genocide; and hear from two experts on how authoritarian leaders can convince seemingly...
Aug 15, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 18
When you think of heists, you probably think of masked men, bank robbers, and priceless art. But governments carry out heists, too. In this episode, we explore a billion dollar bank heist carried out by North Korean hackers; a heist carried out by a dictator who pledged to rule for a billion years (and was obsessed with mayonnaise); and a jewel heist that destroyed diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Thailand for a generation. Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts --...
Aug 08, 2019•58 min•Season 1Ep. 17
