Episode 55: Detecting Pandemics from Internet Traffic | Seth Stephens-Davidowitz | Click to Listen

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After On Podcast #55: Detecting Disease Outbreaks via Internet Traffic | Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

In the first episode of the new season of the After On Podcast, I talk to data scientist, author, and Google alum Seth Stephens Davidowitz. Our subjects include the prospects of detecting pandemics and other outbreaks days, or even weeks before public health authorities detect them, by carefully analyzing internet traffic - such as the frequency and geography of the search terms we type into Google.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. Photo by Jim Hauser

This episode is closely tied to a huge undertaking I recently completed with Sam Harris. Sam just posted the fruits of those labors to the Making Sense Podcast feed. Check that out, or click right here to start listening. Our work is built around a 100-minute monolog that I researched over many months - interviewing over 20 scientists & other experts, among lots of other things. We broke that monologue into four segments, each of which is followed by a conversation between Sam and me about the segment’s content.

The resulting four-hour episode amounts to a huge expansion on a TED talk I gave several months before Covid, about the high risk of... well, of a deadly pandemic. In that talk, I specifically focused on pandemics caused deliberately, by artificial viruses. Sam and I also lay out that danger -- and why it's far bigger and nearer-term than almost anyone realizes.

In other words, the beginning is pretty dark! But most of the recording is about concrete, affordable, and scientifically fascinating steps society can take now, to massively mitigate the risk. Almost all of those steps are also 100% applicable to natural pandemics as well. So if we take most of them, the odds of a future Covid-like outbreak should plummet – a massive collateral benefit (plus it should also drastically reduce the severity of future flu seasons).

I hope you enjoy this fascinating conversation with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz — as well as the lovingly-crafted, extra-long recording that Sam just posted to his podcast feed. My next podcast episode comes out in just a couple of weeks (not over a year — promise!). It too will be closely tied to the recording that Sam and I just completed.