This week, we talk about Google’s new plan to build data centers in space. Then, we’re joined by Dean Ball, a former adviser at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Ball worked on the Trump administration’s A.I. Action Plan, and he shares his inside view on how those policies came together. Finally, Professor Mark Humphries joins us to talk about a strange Gemini model that offered mind-blowing results on a challenging research problem.

Guests:

• Dean Ball, senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former White House senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence and emerging technology
• Mark Humphries, professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University

Additional Reading: 

• Towards a Future Space-Based, Highly Scalable A.I. Infrastructure System Design
• What It's Like to Work at the White House 
• Has Google Quietly Solved Two of AI’s Oldest Problems?

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This week, we’re joined by Bernt Bornich, chief executive of 1X. We talked with him about NEO, his company’s new humanoid robot, which has the internet buzzing. Then we meet NEO itself, and compare notes on the experience. Finally, we close the week with a roundup of tech news headlines: It’s time for some HatGPT.

Guests:

• Bernt Bornich, chief executive of 1X

Additional Reading: 

• I Tried the Robot That’s Coming to Live With You. It’s Still Part Human.
• Invasion of the Home Humanoid Robots
• There Are More Robots Working in China Than the Rest of the World Combined
• Trump Pardons Founder of the Crypto Exchange Binance
• For Podcasters, a Voice Clone Is a Double-Edged Sword

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This week, Character.AI announced that it would soon be taking its A.I. companions away from teens. We explain why this is a major development in the world of chatbots and child safety and how we expect other companies to respond. Then, Elon Musk has built a Wikipedia clone called “Grokipedia.” We discuss what it means for the control of knowledge on the web. And finally, we’re joined by A.J. Jacobs to talk about his 48-hour experiment in which he tried to avoid all forms of artificial intelligence. We ask why that led him to collect rainwater and forage for food in Central Park.

Guests:

• A.J. Jacobs, author, journalist and host of the podcast “The Puzzler”

Additional Reading: 

• Character.AI to Bar Children Under 18 From Using Its Chatbots
• Elon Musk Challenges Wikipedia With His Own A.I. Encyclopedia
• 48 Hours Without A.I. 

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Backlash to OpenAI’s video generation app Sora has reached a new tipping point. We discuss two big changes the company is making, after Bryan Cranston and the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. complained about deepfakes. Then, New York Times reporter Karen Weise joins us to discuss her scoop that Amazon plans to reduce its hiring needs by more than half a million workers, thanks to new improvements to warehouse automation. And finally, A.I. browsers are here. We offer our first impressions on ChatGPT Atlas and how it stacks up against alternatives like Perplexity’s Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia.

Guests:

• Karen Weise, New York Times technology reporter covering Amazon. 

Additional Reading: 

• OpenAI Blocks Videos of Martin Luther King Jr. After Racist Depictions
• Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots
• The Robots Fueling Amazon’s Automation
• OpenAI Unveils Web Browser Built for Artificial Intelligence

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This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a big package of A.I. and social media bills into law — including the first state law in the United States to regulate A.I. companions. We talk through what stood out to us in the package and whether these protections will work. Then, the subpoena that has the whole tech world talking. Nathan Calvin, general counsel at Encode, an A.I. safety advocacy group that has been critical of OpenAI, talks with us about why he thinks the company is investigating him. And finally, grab your opera glasses. It’s time for the first edition of The Hard Fork Review of Slop.

Guests:

• Nathan Calvin, vice president of state affairs and general counsel at Encode

Additional Reading:

• California Regulates A.I. Companions
• OpenAI Thinks Its Critics Are Funded by Billionaires. Now It’s Going After Them.

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This week, we discuss the standout moments from our field trip to OpenAI’s third annual DevDay — including a bizarre chat between Jony Ive and Sam Altman, and the announcement that OpenAI is putting apps into ChatGPT. Then, we try to make sense of the massive computing deal between OpenAI and AMD, and how it could impact the larger economy. And finally, Katie Notopoulos, a Business Insider reporter, joins us to discuss the growing backlash to A.I. slop and why she refuses to stop making deranged videos of us on Sora.

Guests:

• Katie Notopoulos, senior correspondent at Business Insider covering technology and culture.

Additional Reading:

• OpenAI’s Platform Play
• OpenAI Agrees to Use Computer Chips From AMD
• I’m Addicted to Sora 2!
• OpenAI’s New Video App Is Jaw-Dropping (for Better and Worse)

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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

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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

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