Hard Fork

By The New York Times

Technology

What's Hard Fork about?

“Hard Fork” is a show about the future that’s already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

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LAST EPISODE

Casey v. Kevin on US v. Goo...

09.15.2023

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 ...

Hard Fork episodes:

09.15.2023 Casey v. Kevin on US v. Google + Walter Isaacson on Two Years With Elon Musk 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 ...
09.08.2023 Escape From Burning Man + Musk vs. the A.D.L. + Listener Questions 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 ...
09.01.2023 The Secretive Billionaires Building a Tech Utopia + Casey’s External Brain + HatGPT 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 ...
08.25.2023 N.Y.C. Says Airbn-bye + How Far Would You Go for a GPU? + The A.I. Songs of the Summer 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 ...
08.18.2023 S.B.F Goes to Jail + Back to School with A.I. + Self-Driving Car Update 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 ...
08.11.2023 Don't Scrape Me, Bro + The Activists Sabotaging Self-Driving Cars + How Reddit Beat a Rebellion 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, ...
08.04.2023 Superconductor Superconfusion, KOSA’s Hidden Costs and HatGPT 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 ...
07.28.2023 Elon's X Machina + Crypto Orbs + A Visit to Google’s Robot Lab 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. ...
07.21.2023 Dario Amodei, C.E.O. of Anthropic, on the Paradoxes of A.I. Safety and Netflix’s ‘Deep Fake Love’ 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 ...
07.14.2023 Help! My Boss Won’t Stop Using ChatGPT 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?
07.06.2023 Special Episode: Meta’s Twitter Rival Arrives, with Adam Mosseri 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. ...
06.30.2023 Is A.I. Poisoning Itself? + Billionaire Cage Fight + Cooking With ChatGPT 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 ...
06.23.2023 A.I. Beach + Vibes-Based R.T.O. + the ‘Black Mirror’ Quamputer 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 ...
06.16.2023 Reddit Revolts + MrBeast’s YouTube Empire + Peak Trust and Safety? 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 ...
06.09.2023 Apple’s Face Computer + Crypto Chaos + How Teens Really Feel About Social Media 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 ...
06.02.2023 A.I.'s Inner Conflict + Nvidia Joins the Trillion-Dollar Club + Hard Questions 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 ...
05.26.2023 The Surgeon General’s Social Media Warning + A.I.’s Existential Risks 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 ...
05.19.2023 Mr. Altman Goes to Washington + Casey Goes on This American Life 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 ...
05.12.2023 Google’s A.I. Bonanza + Driverless Car Talk With Cruise C.E.O. Kyle Vogt 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 ...
05.05.2023 Bluesky Has the Juice + A.I. Jobs Apocalypse + Hard Questions 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 ...
04.28.2023 Deepfake Drake + HatGPT + Ben Smith on the End of the BuzzFeed Era 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 ...
04.21.2023 Hard Fork Presents: The Most Amazing – And Dangerous – Technology In the World Today we’re bringing you an episode on chips. No, not potato chips. While we rarely think about chips, they show up in nearly every aspect of our lives. Our toasters, our cars, our planes, our phones – and, in our ...
04.14.2023 Inside the Hunt for the Discord Leaker + Twitter Chaos Updates Aric Toler untangles the web of teens, gamers and memes at the heart of the latest intelligence scandal. Then, an update on Twitter — where things have gone from bad to worse. Plus: How A.I. is bringing us closer to ...
04.07.2023 A.I. Vibe Check With Ezra Klein + Kevin Tries Phone Positivity The New York Times Opinion columnist Ezra Klein has spent years talking to artificial intelligence researchers. Many of them feel the prospect of A.I. discovery is too sweet to ignore, regardless of the technology’s risks. Today, Mr. Klein discusses the ...
03.31.2023 Google C.E.O. Sundar Pichai on Bard, A.I. ‘Whiplash’ and Competing With ChatGPT For years, Google was seen as one of the most cutting-edge developers of A.I. But, with OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT, and other chatbots beating Google to market, is that distinction still the case? Google’s chief executive is in an unenviable ...
03.24.2023 Bard Fork + How to Talk So Chatbots Will Listen Google has unleashed its A.I. chatbot, Bard, to the world. And, Spotify’s A.I. D.J. knows your taste – perhaps a little too well.
03.20.2023 BONUS: Hard Fork Live! Big Tech’s Arch Nemesis + Bot, or Not? Jonathan Kanter, who heads up the Justice Department’s antitrust division, believes that antitrust laws are critical for innovation — from ad tech to A.I. The assistant attorney general is bringing a new philosophy to enforcing those laws. So, how is ...
03.17.2023 GPT-4 Is Here + The Group Chat Bank Run It’s acing standardized tests, building websites and hiring TaskRabbits — GPT-4 is “equal parts fascinating and terrifying.” OpenAI has released its latest model, alongside A.I. announcements from Meta, Google and other industry players. The A.I. arms race is only accelerating. ...
03.10.2023 A Congressman Goes to A.I. School + How to Ban TikTok Representative Don Beyer thinks artificial intelligence is “the most amazing technology since fire.” So what does it mean that most of Congress seems not to understand it? Then our colleague David McCabe discusses a bill that could dramatically expand the ...
03.03.2023 Everyone Pivots to A.I. + Bad News for Crypto Snapchat launches a chatbot. Meta plans to “turbocharge” its A.I. work. Elon Musk explores “BasedAI.” At this point, who isn’t making an A.I. play? Plus: Is crypto finally dead? Also, a new TikTok filter is making people terrifyingly hot.
02.24.2023 Kevin Killed Sydney + Reddit’s C.E.O. Defends Section 230 Bing AI isn’t sentient. But it’s more than glorified autocomplete. How do we talk about — and understand — the power of today’s large language models? Then, Reddit’s C.E.O., Steve Huffman, on Section 230 and why the future of the ...
02.17.2023 The Bing Who Loved Me + Elon Rewrites the Algorithm “I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you.
02.10.2023 Bing’s Revenge + Google’s AI Faceplant Microsoft’s release of a ChatGPT-powered Bing signifies a new era in search. Then, a disastrous preview of Bard — Google’s answer to ChatGPT — caused the company’s stocks to slide 7 percent. The A.I. arms race is on. Plus: What ...
02.03.2023 A Trip to TikTok + ChatGPT’s Origin Story + Kevin Systrom’s Comeback TikTok is opening up a “Transparency and Accountability Center” to try to win over skeptics. Is the company’s strategy working? Then, the origin story of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and how the company kicked off an A.I. arms race. Plus: The co-founder ...
01.27.2023 Meta’s Trump Calculus + Regime Change at Netflix What does Donald Trump’s reinstatement on Facebook and Instagram mean for our politics and platforms? Then, Netflix in its post-Reed era. Plus: How the Bored Ape Yacht Club went from being the Disney of Web3 to handing out sewer passes ...
01.20.2023 Elon's Crumbling Empire + Generative A.I. Goes to Court Nearly three months into Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, things are in a "shambolic" state. Is the rest of Elon’s empire also in trouble? Then, an artist fighting generative A.I. sets the stage for a legal clash. Plus: what goes ...
01.13.2023 ChatGPT Transforms a Classroom + Is 'M3GAN' Real? A high school teacher on how the new chatbot from OpenAI is transforming her classroom — for the better. And, “M3GAN” may be closer than you think. Plus: Why Gen Z is chasing the digital camera aesthetic.
01.06.2023 TikTok’s Spying Scandal + ChatGPT Puts Google on Notice + Phone Jail Calls to ban TikTok or force its sell-off from its parent company ByteDance are gaining momentum, especially after reports of ByteDance’s surveillance of several U.S. journalists. And could Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI mark the end of Google’s search monopoly? Plus: ...
12.16.2022 SBF Arrested + 2023 Predictions + Your Questions Answered The year of the “mini-Musk” chief executive, the end of homework as we know it, a crackdown on TikTok and other predictions for 2023. Also, Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest and answers to our listener questions.
12.09.2022 Can ChatGPT Make This Podcast? It’s writing podcast scripts, finishing students’ homework and correcting mistakes in computer code: ChatGPT, the A.I. chatbot from OpenAI, is suddenly everywhere. Who should decide how it’s built? What could go wrong? And what could go right?
12.02.2022 Elon’s Two-Day War with Apple + How to Beat an A.I. Censor + S.B.F.’s ‘Bad Month’ Elon Musk accuses Apple of trying to sabotage Twitter. But after his visit with Apple’s C.E.O., Tim Cook, things are … good? Then, the New York Times reporter Paul Mozur on the tactics Chinese protesters are deploying to avoid the ...
11.18.2022 A Hard Fork in the Road: FTX’s Unraveling and Elon’s Loyalty Oath The balance sheet contains an apology, the in-house coach is concerned that company executives are “undersexed” and billions in customer funds remain in jeopardy. The wreckage at FTX goes from bad to worse. Plus: Elon’s “extremely hardcore” plan for Twitter ...
11.11.2022 A Verified Mess: Turmoil from Twitter to FTX This week, we go inside Elon Musk’s “dire” warnings, FTX’s spectacular collapse and Meta’s big layoffs. Has the tech industry lost its mind? “Hard Fork” listeners: We want to hear your questions about the tech industry. Send them to [email protected]. ...
11.04.2022 Life Under Musk: Two Twitter Employees Speak Out “We cross our fingers and hope to make it through another day.” Twitter hasn’t spoken publicly since Elon Musk bought the company a week ago. But inside, employees describe a mood of fear, chaos, stress and bizarre requests to print ...
10.28.2022 Emergency Pod: Elon Musk Owns Twitter We look into the company’s weird new future with Times tech reporter Kate Conger. Plus, how Apple is single-handedly deciding the future of the digital economy, and a social media death watch.
10.21.2022 Generative AI is Here. Who Should Control It? We sit down with the founder of Stability AI, Emad Mostaque, on the heels of his $101 million fund-raising round. His open-source Stable Diffusion image generator is the key to unlocking creativity, he says, and “one of the ultimate tools ...
10.14.2022 Legs Are Coming + $36 Burritos + Shocking AI News Meta is in the fight of its life — and Mark Zuckerberg hopes VR is the answer. Hmmm. Plus, an existential threat to the gig economy and the wildest news in artificial intelligence.
10.07.2022 Elon’s Hidden Motives + A Meetup in the Metaverse The $44 billion Twitter deal is back on the table — and Casey isn’t buying it. Kevin looks for friends in the Metaverse. And the “Hard Fork Transparency Report” debuts.
09.27.2022 What’s a Hard Fork? Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the wild frontier of tech. What’s real? What’s hype? “Hard Fork” is here to help you make sense of it. Tune in on Friday, Oct. 7.
09.27.2022 We Interrupt This Program Stay tuned for “Hard Fork,” a new podcast from The New York Times that comes Friday, Oct. 7 to this feed. If you’re looking for “Sway” with Kara Swisher, you can search for older episodes in any podcast app or ...

Older episodes

Hard Fork

What's Hard Fork about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Hard Fork episodes:

Casey v. Kevin on US v. Google + Walter Isaacson on Two Years With Elon Musk

Escape From Burning Man + Musk vs. the A.D.L. + Listener Questions

The Secretive Billionaires Building a Tech Utopia + Casey’s External Brain + HatGPT

N.Y.C. Says Airbn-bye + How Far Would You Go for a GPU? + The A.I. Songs of the Summer

S.B.F Goes to Jail + Back to School with A.I. + Self-Driving Car Update

Don't Scrape Me, Bro + The Activists Sabotaging Self-Driving Cars + How Reddit Beat a Rebellion

Superconductor Superconfusion, KOSA’s Hidden Costs and HatGPT

Elon's X Machina + Crypto Orbs + A Visit to Google’s Robot Lab

Dario Amodei, C.E.O. of Anthropic, on the Paradoxes of A.I. Safety and Netflix’s ‘Deep Fake Love’

Help! My Boss Won’t Stop Using ChatGPT

Special Episode: Meta’s Twitter Rival Arrives, with Adam Mosseri

Is A.I. Poisoning Itself? + Billionaire Cage Fight + Cooking With ChatGPT

A.I. Beach + Vibes-Based R.T.O. + the ‘Black Mirror’ Quamputer

Reddit Revolts + MrBeast’s YouTube Empire + Peak Trust and Safety?

Apple’s Face Computer + Crypto Chaos + How Teens Really Feel About Social Media

A.I.'s Inner Conflict + Nvidia Joins the Trillion-Dollar Club + Hard Questions

The Surgeon General’s Social Media Warning + A.I.’s Existential Risks

Mr. Altman Goes to Washington + Casey Goes on This American Life

Google’s A.I. Bonanza + Driverless Car Talk With Cruise C.E.O. Kyle Vogt

Bluesky Has the Juice + A.I. Jobs Apocalypse + Hard Questions

Deepfake Drake + HatGPT + Ben Smith on the End of the BuzzFeed Era

Hard Fork Presents: The Most Amazing – And Dangerous – Technology In the World

Inside the Hunt for the Discord Leaker + Twitter Chaos Updates

A.I. Vibe Check With Ezra Klein + Kevin Tries Phone Positivity

Google C.E.O. Sundar Pichai on Bard, A.I. ‘Whiplash’ and Competing With ChatGPT

Bard Fork + How to Talk So Chatbots Will Listen

BONUS: Hard Fork Live! Big Tech’s Arch Nemesis + Bot, or Not?

GPT-4 Is Here + The Group Chat Bank Run

A Congressman Goes to A.I. School + How to Ban TikTok

Everyone Pivots to A.I. + Bad News for Crypto

Kevin Killed Sydney + Reddit’s C.E.O. Defends Section 230

The Bing Who Loved Me + Elon Rewrites the Algorithm

Bing’s Revenge + Google’s AI Faceplant

A Trip to TikTok + ChatGPT’s Origin Story + Kevin Systrom’s Comeback

Meta’s Trump Calculus + Regime Change at Netflix

Elon's Crumbling Empire + Generative A.I. Goes to Court

ChatGPT Transforms a Classroom + Is 'M3GAN' Real?

TikTok’s Spying Scandal + ChatGPT Puts Google on Notice + Phone Jail

SBF Arrested + 2023 Predictions + Your Questions Answered

Can ChatGPT Make This Podcast?

Elon’s Two-Day War with Apple + How to Beat an A.I. Censor + S.B.F.’s ‘Bad Month’

A Hard Fork in the Road: FTX’s Unraveling and Elon’s Loyalty Oath

A Verified Mess: Turmoil from Twitter to FTX

Life Under Musk: Two Twitter Employees Speak Out

Emergency Pod: Elon Musk Owns Twitter

Generative AI is Here. Who Should Control It?

Legs Are Coming + $36 Burritos + Shocking AI News

Elon’s Hidden Motives + A Meetup in the Metaverse

What’s a Hard Fork?

We Interrupt This Program