In The News

This episode was first published in August.In the space of a few short years, generative AI has exploded into our daily lives, impacting the way we learn, work and understand the world around us.Open AI, the American artificial intelligence company cofounded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in 2015 which runs ChatGPT, claims its non-profit “mission” is to ensure these systems “benefit all of humanity”.And while the launch of ChatGPT has undoubtedly lightened the workload of many, engineer, journalist and AI expert Karen Hao says the AI race for world domination carries a huge human and environmental cost.In 2019, Hao spent three days embedded in the offices of OpenAI and discovered this company, which claims to be transparent and operating “for the good of humanity”, was in fact highly secretive.In her bestselling book ‘Empire of AI: Inside the reckless race for total domination’, Hao warns that the world has entered a new and ominous age of empire, where a small handful of companies are writing the future of humanity.Today, on the In The News podcast, how the race for total AI domination is repeating the worst of human history.Karen Hao discusses the severe cost of the seemingly unstoppable growth of OpenAI.Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Aideen Finnegan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elon Musk seems particularly taken with the opinions of three Irish men active on X: far-right activist Michael O’Keeffe; Barry O’Driscoll, whose idea of calling the US’s new cost-cutting agency DOGE was seized on by president Donald Trump’s right-hand man, and Keith O’Brien, a white nationalist who goes by the name Keith Woods on X. Musk interacts with these men and often amplifies their posts to his millions of followers. So what image of Ireland is the billionaire being fed by these men and why does it matter that so much of what he sees, and endorses from his “awesome” Irish friends, is often simply factually wrong? Crime and security editor Conor Gallagher profiles the men, including the Cork-based O'Driscoll who goes by 'Sir Doge of the Coin' on X, and explains what happened when he wrote about them in The Irish Times.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was first published in June 2025. In the early hours of May 8th, two masked men in a stolen Audi staged a drive-by shooting, firing nine shots indiscriminately at houses on Limerick’s Hyde Road, including at April Collins’s home. More shots were fired at a Collins-owned home on the Hyde Road in November 2024, and in two separate attacks in January 2025. Since then, there have been a dozen violent incidents, including pipe and petrol bomb attacks.The Garda Emergency Response Unit now conducts nightly armed checkpoints in flashpoint areas. The gangs appear undeterred.Between February and April, the Cork-based bomb disposal unit was deployed on multiple occasions to deal with pipe bombs seized in Limerick’s criminal strongholds.In 2012 there was hope that the violent territorial feud between the city’s key drug suppliers, the McCarthy-Dundon gang and the Keane-Collopy gang had been calmed, particularly with the jailing of key members of the Dundon family. April Collins’s evidence sealed the case for the State. She moved away from Hyde Road following the court case but in late 2023 she moved back and tit-for-tat attacks ensued.And what of the new generation street criminals? Some are so young they were not even born when the original feud was in at its peak, but their actions show those gang lines that were drawn still exist: that the feud has never gone away.Brian Carroll tells In the News about the resurgence in drug-related gang violence in Limerick.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon and Suzanne Brennan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was first published in May 2025. From the moment he reported her missing in 2017, Richard Satchwell stuck to his story that his wife Tina had run off.His many media appeals begged her to come home. But as the jury heard during his five-week trial in the Central Criminal Court for her murder, she was indeed home and she had been all along.Richard had killed her in 2017, dug a hole under the stairs of their terraced Youghal home and buried her.The Garda did look for her – as a missing person – but “red flags” emerged soon after her disappearance were “simply ignored” by gardaí, the court was told.What were they? And why did it take until six years after her disappearance for a thorough search of the Satchwell house to take place?Irish Times legal affairs correspondent Mary Carolan tells In the News how the court case unfolded and what happens next.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon and John Casey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was first published in August 2025. For years the Irish Republican Brotherhood – the IRB – was remembered annually in a curious ceremony at Dublin’s Mansion House when its self-styled president Billy McGuire conducted a ritual that involved turning a golden harp to reaffirm the sovereignty of Ireland.The existence of an IRB will come as a surprise to historians who consider that the secret-oath-bound society of the same name was disbanded more than 100 years ago.But in recent years, a new cohort has taken over the IRB name, turning it into a growing organisation steeped in the pseudo-legal language of the sovereign citizen movement, which believes citizens are not subject to State laws.This has caused officials in Dublin and nationally to become increasingly nervous about the group’s intentions.The leaders of the modern IRB are in large part veterans of the Covid-19 anti-mask and anti-lockdown campaigns, along with property owners who turned to conspiracy theories after losing vast sums during the crash. Its leaders include a prominent Clare businessman, a teacher, a healthcare worker and a life coach.This version of the IRB has a shadow government, a nascent court system and a network of local government bodies. It has also adopted a new time zone, Irish Rising Time, which is 25 minutes slower and based on the time zone used in Dublin until the 1916 rising. It even claims control over Óglaigh na hÉireann.So is this fringe group like those harmless re-enactors who cosplay historical events or does it have the potential to go the way of some sovereign citizen groups in the US and Germany who have escalated their actions to include violence?Irish Times Crime and Security Correspondent Conor Gallagher explains.Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.