Hard Fork

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.

Today’s guests:

• Joe Bernstein is a Styles reporter at The New York Times.
• Priya Krishna is a Food staff reporter at The New York Times.

Additional reading:

• Generative A.I. is already changing the web and potentially harming itself.
• The Times’s Cooking team tried cooking recipes made by ChatGPT. The results were mixed.
• Mark Zuckerberg has been working out — and he’d like you to know about it.

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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?

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

Today’s guest:

• Max Read is a journalist, screenwriter, editor and the owner-operator of Read Max.

Additional information:

• Casey examines the Reddit revolt and why the company isn’t backing down on shutting down third-party apps.
• Max Read on MrBeast’s rise as a viral philanthropist.
• Following the algorithm doesn’t always lead to philanthropy, as Kevin explored in a 2019 article on PewDiePie.
• Platforms are backing away from peak trust and safety.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

This week:

• David Yaffe-Bellany, a cryptocurrency and financial technology reporter for The New York Times.

Additional Reading:

• Why Kevin won’t bet against Apple’s Vision Pro and why Casey thinks Apple has an edge on Meta’s Metaverse.
• The S.E.C. accused Coinbase of illegally allowing users to trade unregistered securities a day after it sued the international crypto exchange Binance.
• This Teenage Life (TTL) is a podcast about teenagers being teenagers.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

Today’s Guest:

• Kate Conger is a technology reporter in the San Francisco bureau of The New York Times.

Additional Reading:

• A lawyer used ChatGPT the same week that A.I. leaders released a 22-word statement about the existential risk A.I. poses to humanity.
• The chip company Nvidia hit a $1 trillion market cap, powered by A.I. demand.
• The podcast “Acquired” did a two-part series on the history of Nvidia.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

On today’s episode:

• Ajeya Cotra is a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy

Additional reading:

• The surgeon general issued an advisory about the risks of social media for young people.
• Ajeya Cotra has researched the existential risks that A.I. poses unless countermeasures are taken.
• Binance commingled customer funds and company revenue, former insiders told Reuters.
• BuzzFeed announced Botatouille, an A.I.-powered kitchen assistant.
• A Twitter bug caused the platform to restore deleted tweets.
• Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced his presidential campaign in a Twitter Spaces event rife with glitches.
• Two former rivals, Uber and Waymo, are teaming up to bring driverless ride-hailing to Phoenix.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

On today’s episode:

• Cecilia Kang is a reporter at The New York Times covering technology and regulation.
• Yoel Roth is the former head of trust and safety at Twitter.

Additional reading:

• Sam Altman urged Congress to pass legislation to regulate A.I., including the proposal that A.I. developers should be required to get licenses from the U.S. government to release their models.
• Casey Newton reported for This American Life on Roth’s time at Twitter, before and after Musk took over.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

On today’s episode:

• Kyle Vogt is the chief executive of Cruise, a self-driving car company.

Additional reading:

• At their annual conference, Google announced dozens of A.I. products and features
• In a leaked memo, a Google researcher argued that the company did not have a strong A.I. moat because of open-source A.I. companies.
• Self-driving cars are expanding their footprint.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

Additional reading:

• Bluesky is vying to replace Twitter.
• IBM announced a pause in hiring, anticipating that A.I. would replace thousands of jobs at the company in the coming years.
• The chief executive of the education company Chegg said student interest in the chatbot ChatGPT was hurting its sales.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.

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.

On today’s episode:

• Ben Smith is a journalist and co-founder of the digital media company Semafor. He was a New York Times media columnist and the first editor in chief of BuzzFeed News.

Additional reading:

• An A.I.-generated song made to sound like Drake and the Weeknd went viral before being taken down by streaming services.
• Grimes invited fans to make songs using A.I.-generated versions of her voice.
• Snapchat saw a spike in one-star reviews after users criticized its “My AI” feature.
• Taylor Swift did not invest in FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange company.
• Researchers turned a goldfish into a cyborg.
• The Republican National Committee released an A.I.-generated ad slamming President Biden.
• The U.K. blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion bid for the video game company Activision.
• Ben Smith’s book, “Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral,” is an origin story of digital media.
• A BuzzFeed article set off a viral debate on the color of a dress.

Soon, you’ll need a subscription to keep full access to this show, and to other New York Times podcasts, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don’t miss out on exploring all of our shows, featuring everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts.