Hard Fork

This week, between the president’s negotiations in China and a potential executive order, we discuss why the Trump administration seems to be changing its tune on A.I. safety. Then, Nikesh Arora, chief executive of Palo Alto Networks, the largest cybersecurity company in the world, gives us a firsthand account of where we stand in the race to secure the internet. And finally, we run through some of the wildest headlines of the week in a round of Hot Mess Express.

Guest:

Nikesh Arora, chief executive and chairman of Palo Alto Networks.

Additional Reading:

White House Considers Vetting A.I. Models Before They Are Released

Chief Executives to Accompany Trump to China

Is Anthropic’s New A.I. Really That Scary? It Depends Whom You Ask.

Venmo Finally Takes Privacy Seriously

Amazon Staff Use A.I. Tool for Unnecessary Tasks to Inflate Usage Scores

Graduates Boo Commencement Speech About A.I.

Dua Lipa Files $15 Million Suit Against Samsung for Using Her Face to Sell TVs

EBay Rejects GameStop’s $55 Billion Takeover Bid

Shein, Temu Trade Blows as UK Trial Spotlights Supply Chains

People Are Seriously Pissed That Grindr Outed Them With Its Latest Madonna Advert

Sam Altman Testifies That Elon Musk Wanted Control of OpenAI

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This week we’re taking another look at prediction markets and a new series of scandals. Is Congress finally ready to rein them in? Then, the journalist Joanna Stern returns to the show to discuss her new book “I Am Not A Robot,” all about turning her life over to a chatbot for a year. And finally, Hard Fork’s Rachel Cohn reports back on her month attending classes at the Strother School of Radical Attention, the center of a movement to resist the commodification of attention by technology companies.

 

Guests: 

Joanna Stern, chief everything officer at New Things

Rachel Cohn, producer of “Hard Fork”

 

Additional Reading:

Soldier Used Classified Information to Bet on Maduro’s Ouster, U.S. Says

Soldier Pleads Not Guilty in $400,000 Betting Case Over Maduro’s Ouster

French weather service alerts police to tampering after suspicious Polymarket bets

The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Battle for Your Attention Is Built on a Lie

 

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.

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This week, OpenAI announced a loosened partnership with Microsoft and an aggressive new strategy to secure computing power. We unpack what these updates signal about OpenAI’s business strategy and whether the company can scale while balancing a trial against Elon Musk and investor concerns over missed financial targets. Then, the A.I. researcher Dr. Adam Rodman, of Harvard Medical School, returns to tell us about the most significant ways A.I. is changing how doctors treat patients. And finally, can an LLM trained only on very old texts predict the future? We’re talking with one of the creators of the chatbot talkie.

 

Guests:

Dr. Adam Rodman, internal medicine physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

David Duvenaud, associate professor at the University of Toronto, former team lead at Anthropic and co-creator of talkie.

 

Additional Reading:

Microsoft and OpenAI Loosen Their Partnership

Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s Epic Fight Heads to Court

OpenAI Misses Key Revenue, User Targets in High-Stakes Sprint Toward IPO

Take It From a Doctor: It’s OK if Your Medical Advice Comes From A.I.

 

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.

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This week, Tim Cook announced he would step down as chief executive of Apple. We discuss what he got right and what he got wrong, and we offer some unsolicited advice for his replacement, John Ternus. Then, Andrew Yang joins us to discuss A.I.-powered job automation and why universal basic income may be making a comeback. And finally, we catch up on more recent tech news with a round of HatGPT.

 

Guest:

Andrew Yang, chief executive of Noble Mobile and author of “Hey Yang, Where’s My Thousand Bucks?”

 

Additional Reading:

Tim Cook Will Step Down as Apple C.E.O.

Who Is John Ternus, Apple’s Low-Profile Leader?

Why U.B.I. Is Making a Comeback

His 2020 Campaign Message: The Robots Are Coming

This Pasta Sauce Wants to Record Your Family

Chinese Robot Beats Human Best Time in Half-Marathon, After a Stumble

What Happens When A.I. Runs a Store in San Francisco?

Meta to Start Capturing Employee Mouse Movements, Keystrokes for A.I. Training Data

SpaceX Strikes Deal With Cursor for $60 Billion

OpenAI Beefs Up ChatGPT’s Image Generation Model

 

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.

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This week, amid violent attacks on the homes of the OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and the Indianapolis councilman Ron Gibson, we debate why artificial intelligence and data centers are so unpopular. Then, Kara Swisher returns to the show to discuss her new docuseries on Silicon Valley’s obsession with living longer. And finally, can chief executives replace themselves with A.I.? Mark Zuckerberg seems to be trying.

Guests:

Kara Swisher, tech journalist and host of the podcasts “Pivot” and “On With Kara Swisher.”

Additional Reading:

Shots Fired at Indianapolis Councilman’s Home, After Vote Backing Data Center

Man Held in Attack on OpenAI Chief’s Home Had List of A.I. Leaders, Officials Say

Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever

Meta Builds A.I. Version of Mark Zuckerberg to Interact With Staff

 

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.

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