by Mavia
What Now? with Trevor Noah podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify)
In a February 2026 episode of the What Now? podcast, Emmy-nominated video journalist Cleo Abram joined Trevor Noah and Eugene to discuss her YouTube series “Huge If True,” which takes an optimistic approach to science and emerging technology. The conversation explored how asking “what could go right?” might be the most powerful tool for moving humanity forward, emphasizing why optimism isn’t naïve but necessary.
Key Takeaway:
While the podcast episode focuses on technological optimism broadly, the discussion reflects Noah’s characteristic approach of examining how emerging technologies, including AI and potentially AGI, can benefit humanity when approached with hope rather than fear. The episode balanced creating engaging content with understanding potential impact, contrasting Abram’s optimistic, visual explanations with clickbait-driven pessimism. The conversation represents a broader African and global perspective that technology should be viewed through a lens of possibility and human advancement.
Mavia’s Takeaway:
He quips that from a poll he encountered that people in a Africa have a more positive outlook that favors AGI’s than the Western world. Eugene jumps in and explains it is because Africans endured racism for a long time. Racism which was ‘Manmade Intelligence’. This is a Rationale that invites us to debate ‘motivations of tech acceptance and the consequences of these concessions’