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Escape From Burning Man + Musk vs. the A.D.L. + Listener QuestionsFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-09-08 09:00
This week: How tech executives’ favorite place to take their pants off turned into a muddy hellscape. We talk to one executive who couldn’t just call a helicopter to escape. Then, Jonathan Greenblatt, C.E.O. of the Anti-Defamation League, on how his organization went from having a “productive” meeting with X’s C.E.O., Linda Yaccarino, last week to being threatened with a lawsuit by Elon Musk on Monday. Plus, Kevin and Casey answer your questions.
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The Secretive Billionaires Building a Tech Utopia + Casey’s External Brain + HatGPTFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-09-01 09:00
A group of tech titans is gobbling up land north of San Francisco with aspirations to alleviate the Bay Area’s housing crisis, promote innovation, and experiment with new forms of governance. It’s not the first time ultra-wealthy people have tried to build the place of their dreams. Will this time be any different? Then, note-taking apps claim to make us smarter. Usually, they don’t. Casey Newton, a productivity cult member, on how A.I. could change that. Plus, Kevin and Casey play HatGPT.
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N.Y.C. Says Airbn-bye + How Far Would You Go for a GPU? + The A.I. Songs of the SummerFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-08-25 09:03
Are New York City’s new rules for short-term rentals like Airbnb effectively a ban? And will they accomplish what proponents want them to? Then, The New York Times tech reporter Erin Griffith on Silicon Valley’s mad dash for GPUs. And finally, we take stock of the A.I. songs of the summer and discuss YouTube and Universal Music Group’s plan to make synthetic voices profitable.
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S.B.F Goes to Jail + Back to School with A.I. + Self-Driving Car UpdateFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-08-18 09:00
When Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in December, he was confined to his parents’ house — but he was left free to roam the internet. Today, the New York Times reporter David Yaffe-Bellany talks about how access to the cyberworld allowed Mr. Bankman-Fried to violate his bail terms and land himself in jail. Then, how universities can manage a generative A.I. world. Plus: another look at autonomous vehicles.
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Don't Scrape Me, Bro + The Activists Sabotaging Self-Driving Cars + How Reddit Beat a RebellionFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-08-11 09:00
Users are protesting Zoom’s liberal data-collection policy. Authors are shutting down websites that scrape their work. And, in a concession to users, OpenAI is allowing websites to opt out of web scraping. The era of A.I. backlash has begun. Then, street activists are deterring self-driving cars by placing traffic cones on the hoods of vehicles. Plus: How Reddit has squashed the Reddit Revolt.
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Superconductor Superconfusion, KOSA’s Hidden Costs and HatGPTFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-08-04 09:09
Researchers in Korea claim they’ve identified a material that could unlock a technological revolution: the room temperature superconductor. Material scientists are skeptical, but enthusiasts on Twitter are enthusiastic. Why is the internet so excited about superconductors? Then, the Kids Online Safety Act is headed to the Senate floor. Would it actually keep children safe? And how would it change the internet? Plus: Kevin and Casey play HatGPT.
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Elon's X Machina + Crypto Orbs + A Visit to Google’s Robot LabFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-07-28 09:00
On Sunday night, a crane arrived in downtown San Francisco to take down the Twitter sign from the company’s office building. The crane’s arrival marked the death of Twitter, the brand, and the start of X, Elon Musk’s everything app. Today, why Elon’s acquisition feels more and more like cultural vandalism and what, if anything, will replace the global town square. Then, is Sam Altman’s universal basic income cryptocurrency app Worldcoin an iris scanning tool to save humanity, or just another attempt to get rich on crypto? Plus: a trip to Google’s robotics lab, where artificial intelligence models are creating breakthroughs.
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Dario Amodei, C.E.O. of Anthropic, on the Paradoxes of A.I. Safety and Netflix’s ‘Deep Fake Love’From 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-07-21 09:00
Dario Amodei has been anxious about A.I. since before it was cool to be anxious about A.I. After a few years working at OpenAI, he decided to do something about that anxiety. The result was Claude: an A.I.-powered chatbot built by Anthropic, Mr. Amodei’s A.I. start-up. Today, Mr. Amodei joins Kevin and Casey to talk about A.I. anxiety and why it’s so difficult to build A.I. safely. Plus, we watched Netflix’s “Deep Fake Love.”
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Help! My Boss Won’t Stop Using ChatGPTFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-07-14 08:45
This week, we answer more of your questions, like: What is ChatGPT’s carbon footprint? Why are engineers so sure artificial intelligence will keep getting better? And, why are there so many venture capital bros?
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Special Episode: Meta’s Twitter Rival Arrives, with Adam MosseriFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-07-06 09:00
Instagram is no stranger to taking product ideas from other companies and turning them into their own successes. Just ask Snapchat about Instagram Stories or TikTok about Instagram Reels. This time, the company is coming for Twitter with Instagram Threads. Today, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, on why the company now wants to take on Twitter.
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Is A.I. Poisoning Itself? + Billionaire Cage Fight + Cooking With ChatGPTFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-06-30 09:19
Whether it’s on TikTok or Twitter, A.I.-generated content is already flooding the web. So, what happens when the technology — prone to confidently making things up — starts ingesting itself? Then, the New York Times reporter Joe Bernstein talks about why Mark Zuckerberg wants to fight Elon Musk in a cage match. Plus, we put ChatGPT’s recipe generation to the test with A.I. cocktails.
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A.I. Beach + Vibes-Based R.T.O. + the ‘Black Mirror’ QuamputerFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-06-23 09:05
This week, advertisers swarmed the beaches of southern France for the Cannes Lions advertising festival. Kevin says artificial intelligence is all anyone there can talk about, but admits the conference is making him rethink how quickly generative A.I. will take over the industry — despite the buzz. Then, the New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg on when remote work stopped being the future for tech companies. And finally: What does the newest season of “Black Mirror” tell us about what’s next for TV?
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Reddit Revolts + MrBeast’s YouTube Empire + Peak Trust and Safety?From 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-06-16 09:05
Moderators on Reddit have shut down their forums in protest of a new policy that charges users for access to the site’s API. The revolt has put Kevin in child care-wisdom-withdrawal (RIP r/daddit) — and left many other users without their favorite subreddits. But does the incident say something more about the future of the internet? Then, the MrBeast Philanthropic-Industrial Complex. Plus: Platforms are already fumbling the ball on misinformation.
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Apple’s Face Computer + Crypto Chaos + How Teens Really Feel About Social MediaFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-06-09 09:00
Apple kicked off the week with the announcement of a mixed-reality headset: the Apple Vision Pro. Putting a computer on your face may seem weird AF, but if there’s one company that knows how to make nerdy stuff into the thing that everyone wants, it’s Apple. Will these fancy goggles be the next Apple revolution? Then, crypto had (another) terrible week after the S.E.C. filed lawsuits against the cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance. Plus: Our teenage listeners on how they feel about social media.
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A.I.'s Inner Conflict + Nvidia Joins the Trillion-Dollar Club + Hard QuestionsFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-06-02 08:56
A few days after a lawyer used ChatGPT to write a brief filled with made-up cases, a group of A.I. experts released a letter warning of the “risk of extinction” from the technology. But will A.I. ever be good enough to pose such a threat? Then, FAANG is now MAAAN, with the addition of Nvidia. Here’s how the GPU company became a trillion-dollar behemoth. Plus: Kevin, Casey and the New York Times tech reporter Kate Conger answer Hard Questions from listeners.
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The Surgeon General’s Social Media Warning + A.I.’s Existential RisksFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-05-26 09:00
The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, says social media poses a “profound risk of harm” to young people. Why do some in the tech industry disagree? Then, Ajeya Cotra, an A.I. researcher, on how A.I. could lead to a doomsday scenario. Plus: Pass the hat. Kevin and Casey play a game they call HatGPT.
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Mr. Altman Goes to Washington + Casey Goes on This American LifeFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-05-19 09:00
In a congressional hearing this week, OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, appeared to be on the same page as lawmakers: It’s time to regulate A.I. But like so many other proposals to regulate tech, will it actually happen? The Times’s technology reporter Cecilia Kang helps us understand whether Congress will actually act, and what that could look like. Then, Casey talks with Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, before and after Elon Musk took over the company.
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Google’s A.I. Bonanza + Driverless Car Talk With Cruise C.E.O. Kyle VogtFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-05-12 09:00
At its biggest event of the year, Google announced an avalanche of A.I. product releases: A.I. in search, A.I. that writes emails and A.I. that generates slides. Is Google pulling ahead in the A.I. arms race? And, after years of hype, self-driving cars are finally hitting the streets of American cities. Kevin and Casey take a ride through San Francisco in Banana Slug — an autonomous vehicle from the self-driving car company Cruise. After their ride, they sit down with Cruise’s chief executive, Kyle Vogt, to discuss the role he thinks self-driving cars will play in the future of transportation.
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Bluesky Has the Juice + A.I. Jobs Apocalypse + Hard QuestionsFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-05-05 09:00
The Twitter look-alike Bluesky, started by the former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, is doing the impossible: making social media fun again. Then, A.I. is coming for jobs but not in the way you think. Plus: Kevin and Casey moonlight as advice columnists in a new Hard Fork segment called Hard Questions.
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Deepfake Drake + HatGPT + Ben Smith on the End of the BuzzFeed EraFrom 🇺🇸 Hard Fork, published at 2023-04-28 09:00
A song featuring A.I.-generated versions of Drake and the Weeknd went viral — before being taken down by streaming services. Is censorship of A.I.-generated songs the way forward? Or can singers benefit from synthetic voices, as some artists like Grimes are suggesting? Then, HatGPT: Kevin and Casey pull headlines out of a hat and generate their own takes on the news. And Ben Smith, the former BuzzFeed News editor, discusses the end of the 2010s digital media era.