Samm Sacks and Paul Triolo on WAIC 2026, Xi's AI Speech, and Kimi K3

Welcome. Cynica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program, we look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends in China. Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about. Try that. I'm Kajua coming to you this week from Beijing.

As always, a quick reminder before we begin, Seneca is powered by your subscriptions. If you like the work that I'm doing with this show and with the writers and podcasts in the Seneca Network. The very best way to support my work is to head over to SenecaPodcast.com and become a paying subscriber. Subscribers get the complete show transcript, essays and reviews, the full range of offerings from our network, and

More importantly, the warm glow of knowing you're keeping independent, non hysterical conversations about China alive, so Do it. You will feel great. So I've been really looking forward to this show. This week I am joined not across twelve time zones, but in person in the actual flesh, sort of around an actual table, actually spread out a little more than that. right here in Beijing in the same room by two people who are not only among the very best in the business when it comes to technology and China, but

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (98 minutes, 18,410 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

10 free credits is 10 episodes like this one a month. Episodes nobody has transcribed yet cost their length in hours, because we have to actually transcribe them.