A.I. models are black boxes. You input a prompt and the model outputs nearly anything: a sonnet, an image or a legal brief riddled with lies. Today, a look at three ways that researchers are unlocking that black box in hopes of bringing transparency to A.I.

Then, Marc Andreessen’s techno-optimist manifesto has left us asking, Is he OK?!

Plus: decoding a 2,000-year-old ancient scroll with the help of A.I.

Today’s Guest:

• Brent Seales is a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky.

Additional Information:

• Kevin Roose on learning more about how A.I. works.
• Marc Andreessen’s 5,000-word manifesto
• Using A.I. to decode a scroll that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

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As the Israel-Hamas war broke out, misinformation and fake imagery surged on X, the platform formerly known at Twitter. Can Meta’s Threads fill the real-time news hole that X created? Should it?

Then, Kevin debriefs us on his reporting on Manifold Markets, where Silicon Valley Rationalists bet on the likelihoods of different events.

Plus: The company digitizing smell.

Today’s Guest:

• Alex Wiltschko is the founder of Osmo, a company trying to digitize smell.

Additional Reading:

• Casey Newton on how the war in Israel may change Threads.
• Some tech insiders believe betting can change the world.
• The company Osmo put out a research paper showing that an A.I. model it had created was performing better than the “average human panelist” in predicting odor. We want to hear from you.

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The antitrust trial against Google has led to some of tech’s biggest players testifying in court, and things have gotten spicy. The New York Times reporter Cecilia Kang tells us the wildest moments in the trial so far.

Then, A.I. is jumping off the screen and into your wardrobe. Has the personal assistant of the future finally arrived? Or a dystopian panopticon?

Plus: happy first birthday, Hard Fork! Kevin and Casey share some lessons learned.

Today’s guest:

• Cecilia Kang covers technology and regulation for The Times.

Additional reading:

• Microsoft’s chief executive told the court the internet is really the “Google web.”
• A.I. wearables like the Ai Pin from Humane are turning heads on the runway.
• OpenAI is in talks with Jony Ive to build the “iPhone of artificial intelligence.”

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.

ChatGPT can now hear, see and speak — and that’s just the start of the deluge of A.I. news this week. Kevin and Casey unpack the lightning-speed updates.

Then, Meta’s next-generation headset, Quest 3, is here. Is there still hope for the metaverse?

And: An interview with a prompt engineer. Yes, that’s a real job.
 

Today’s Guest:

• Riley Goodside is a prompt engineer at Scale A.I., a San Francisco start-up.

Additional Reading:

• Kevin Roose on ChatGPT, which can now see, hear and speak.
• Spotify announced a new A.I.-powered voice-translation feature.
• Meta announced the release of the Quest 3 headset.

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.

Today’s Guests:

• Kashmir Hill is a Times business reporter covering technology and privacy.

Additional Reading:

• Google unveiled new features for its A.I. chatbot, Bard.
• Kashmir Hill’s “Your Face Belongs to Us” tracks the rise of Clearview AI, a facial recognition start-up.

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.

Is Google allowed to spend billions of dollars to make its search product the default browser? That is the question at the center of U.S. et al. v. Google — the most important tech trial of the modern internet era — and Kevin and Casey disagree on the answer.

Then, a conversation with the journalist who spent the last two years shadowing Elon Musk.

Today’s guest:

• Walter Isaacson is a writer and author of the forthcoming biography “Elon Musk.”

Additional reading:

• Google’s antitrust lawsuit against the U.S. government brings the first major tech trial since U.S. v. Microsoft which began in 1998.
• “Elon Musk,” by Walter Isaacson.

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.

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.

Additional Information:

• Burning Man left behind a sea of “moop” in the desert.
• Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups found that hate speech had increased on Twitter after it was purchased by Elon Musk.
• Snapchat’s My AI freaked users out after the chatbot appeared to go rogue.

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 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.

Additional Information:

• Tech billionaires want to build a new city. A political fight is coming.
• Casey takes a look at note-taking platforms and why they usually don’t live up to their promise.
• An Air Force program is embracing A.I. in aerial combat.
• The S.E.C. took action against a NFT project
• YouTube will waive content violation warnings if the creators in violation attend a class.
• Google Meet’s new A.I. program will take notes for users in real time.
• A smart contact lens can be charged with human tears.

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.

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.

On Today’s Episode:

Erin Griffith is a New York Times journalist based in the San Francisco bureau, where she reports on technology start-ups and venture capital.

Additional Information:

New York City’s new regulations for short-term rentals go into effect soon.

Start-ups are on a “desperate hunt” for GPUs. (There’s even a song about it.)

Creators are using A.I. voices to imitate Freddie Mercury, Johnny Cash, Eric Cartman from “South Park,” and others.

Google and YouTube have different approaches to compensating creators whose work is used to train A.I. tools.

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.

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.

On Today’s Episode:

• David Yaffe-Bellany, a cryptocurrency and financial technology reporter for The New York Times.
• Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who is experimenting with generative A.I. in the classroom.

Additional Information:

• Sam Bankman-Fried was sent to jail after violating his bail terms. The court dispute over his bail focused on a New York Times article that described writings by Caroline Ellison, an FTX executive who had also dated Mr. Bankman-Fried.
• A driverless car got stuck in wet concrete in San Francisco this week.

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.