Hard Fork

This week, we’re talking about the new A.I.-generated video tools and social media feeds from Google, Meta and OpenAI. Is this how A.I. is going to cure cancer? Then, the psychotherapist Gary Greenberg stops by to discuss his recent New Yorker essay about treating ChatGPT as a patient, and why what he saw left him unsettled. And finally, all aboard the Hot Mess Express! It’s time to rate the messiest stories in tech.

Guests:

• Gary Greenberg, writer and psychotherapist

Additional Reading:

• OpenAI Launches a Social Network
• OpenAI’s New Video App Is Jaw-Dropping (for Better and Worse)
• Putting ChatGPT on the Couch
• What My Daughter Told ChatGPT Before She Took Her Life
• Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.
• YouTube Settles Trump Lawsuit Over Account Suspension for $24.5 Million

We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

This week, an eye-popping $100 billion deal between OpenAI and Nvidia — along with an announcement about the construction of five new American data centers — has us re-examining our predictions of an A.I. bubble. Then, we try to make sense of the Trump administration’s changes to the H-1B visa program, which generated mixed reactions from tech leaders; the immigration expert Jeremy Neufeld joins us to explain why the new $100,000 visa fee is likely to hurt start-ups, universities and the broader U.S. economy. And finally, we take a look at one of the latest trends sweeping TikTok: planning for a biblical Rapture.

Guests:

• Jeremy Neufeld, director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress

Additional Reading:

• Nvidia to Invest $100 Billion in OpenAI
• OpenAI to Join Tech Giants in Building 5 New Data Centers in U.S.
• $100,000 Per Employee: How the H-1B Visa Fee Could Reshape Work Forces
• A $100,000 Per Worker Visa Fee Tips the Balance to Big Tech
• The Rapture Was Predicted to Happen Today. TikTok Has Some Advice.

We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

This week, we discuss the assassination of Charlie Kirk, freedom of speech and the terrifying new reality of extremely online violence. Then The Times’s David Yaffe-Bellany brings us inside the blockbuster New York Times investigation into a $2 billion investment in Trump’s crypto company World Liberty Financial and a controversial deal to send the most powerful A.I. chips to the United Arab Emirates. And finally, it’s time to round up This Week in A.I.

Guests:

• David Yaffe-Bellany, New York Times technology reporter covering the crypto industry

Additional Reading:

• Trump Administration Wields Its Full Toolbox to Bring Media to Heel
• Social Platforms Duck Blame for Inflaming Divisions Before Charlie Kirk’s Death
• In Giant Deals, U.A.E. Got Chips, and Trump Team Got Crypto Riches
• A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In.
• OpenAI’s Risky Step to Protect Teens

We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Apple’s yearly iPhone event took place this week, and it left us asking, Is Apple losing the juice? We break down all the new products the company announced and discuss where it goes from here. Then, Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the most fascinating people in A.I., has a new book coming out: “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.” He joins us to make the case for why A.I. development should be shut down now, long before we reach superintelligence, and how he thinks that could happen.

Guests:

Eliezer Yudkowsky, founder of Machine Intelligence Research Institute and a co-author of “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies”

Additional Reading: 

• A.I.’s Prophet of Doom Wants to Shut It All Down
• AI as Normal Technology, revisited
• Apple’s misunderstood crossbody iPhone strap might be the best I’ve seen

We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This week, we check in on the state of artificial intelligence in education. We talk with a co-founder of Alpha Schools, MacKenzie Price, about how her private K-12 schools are using A.I. to generate personalized lesson plans and enabling teachers to spend their time motivating rather than teaching students. Then, the Princeton historian D. Graham Burnett joins us to discuss the existential threat that A.I. poses to the traditional humanities degree and why he believes we’ll see thousands of new schools emerge outside the university system to carry on the exploration of what it means to be a person in the world. And finally, we hear directly from students who are on the front line of technological change.

Guests:

• MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools
• D. Graham Burnett, historian of science and technology at Princeton University

Additional Reading:

• A.I.-Driven Education: Founded in Texas and Coming to a School Near You
• Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?
• OpenAI and Microsoft Bankroll New A.I. Training for Teachers
• Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

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President Trump announced this week that the U.S. government, in a highly unusual deal, had agreed to take a 10 percent stake in the chip maker Intel, and that he was considering similar investments in other companies. We discuss why Trump cares so much about Intel, what the government is trying to accomplish with this deal, and how people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are reacting. Then Waymo’s co-chief executive Tekedra Mawakana joins us in the studio to discuss the company’s strategy for expanding its driverless car service to Miami, D.C. and the snowy Northeast. And finally, we introduce a new segment where we run through the most surprising technology projects the Trump family is getting involved in.

Guests:

• Tekedra Mawakana, co-chief executive of Waymo.

Additional Reading: 

• Intel Agrees to Sell U.S. a 10% Stake in Its Business
• First Lady Melania Trump Launches Nationwide Presidential AI Challenge

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Note: This episode contains sexually explicit music.

This week, the whole tech world seemed to be asking: Are we in an A.I. bubble? We’ll explore the cases for and against, including who we think stands to lose most. Then we’re joined by the journalist Jeff Horwitz to discuss his blockbuster reporting about an internal Meta policy document that permit the company’s chatbots to engage in romantic role-playing with children. And finally, Casey introduces Kevin to a shocking new TikTok trend.

Guests:

• Jeff Horwitz, investigative technology reporter for Reuters

Additional Reading:

• My Dinner With Altman
• Companies Are Pouring Billions Into A.I. It Has Yet to Pay Off
• Meta’s A.I. Rules Have Let Bots Hold ‘Sensual’ Chats With Children
• Why Is TikTok Overflowing With A.I. Country Music Erotica?

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Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

OpenAI spent the week responding to outcry from users who miss the behavior of the old ChatGPT, before the latest flagship model was released.

We discuss the criticism, why it caught the company by surprise and what it indicates about the deepening emotional relationships that people are forming with chatbots.

Then, Aravind Srinivas, the chief executive of Perplexity AI, joins us to discuss his company’s new artificial intelligence-powered browser, Comet; his company’s bid to buy Google Chrome; and what the future of the internet looks like when users turn to A.I. assistants to browse the web for them. Finally, to cap it all off, we rate the craziest tech stories of the week in our game Hot Mess Express.

Guests:

• Aravind Srinivas, chief executive of Perplexity AI.

Additional Reading:

• Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.
• Three Big Lessons From the GPT-5 Backlash
• A.I. Start-Up Perplexity Offers to Buy Google’s Chrome Browser for $34.5 Billion
• Elon Musk Threatens to Sue Apple Over Claims It Favors OpenAI
• U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD A.I. Chip Sales to China

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This week, OpenAI released its much-anticipated flagship model, GPT-5. We break down what we know about the upgrade, drawing from our initial testing and a special news briefing with Sam Altman. Then, we explain why we were underwhelmed by Amazon’s new Alexa+, which is powered by generative A.I., and take our feedback to Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Echo, who helps us understand why powering Alexa with L.L.M. capabilities is a major computer science challenge.

Guests:

• Daniel Rausch, Amazon vice president of Echo and Alexa

Additional reading:

• OpenAI Aims to Stay Ahead of Rivals With New GPT-5 Technology
• Amazon Unveils Alexa+, Powered by Generative A.I.

We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

Also, you can still get a special-edition “Hard Fork” hat! For a limited time, you’ll receive one when you purchase an annual New York Times Audio subscription for the first time (U.S. only). Go to nytimes.com/hardforkhat.

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This week, we look at the fallout from a sweeping internet age-verification law that went into effect in Britain. We explain why age restrictions are suddenly popping up all over the internet — and how some might create more problems than they solve. Then Matthew Prince, chief executive of Cloudflare, returns to the show to discuss his company’s new plan to help publishers fight back against A.I. scrapers and potentially to create a new online marketplace for quality content in the process. Finally, we round up some headlines from around the tech world in the latest round of HatGPT.

Guests:

• Matthew Prince, chief executive of Cloudflare

Additional Reading:

• Supreme Court Upholds Texas Law Limiting Access to Pornography
• The U.K.’s age gates are coming to America
• Cloudflare Introduces Default Blocking of A.I. Data Scrapers

Also, you can still get a special-edition “Hard Fork” hat! For a limited time, you’ll receive one when you purchase an annual New York Times Audio subscription for the first time (U.S. only). Go to nytimes.com/hardforkhat.

We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.