Hard Fork

A synthetic chief executive, a bot trained on employees’ personalities, and a regular duel with ChatGPT — our listeners brought us their stories.

“A clock is ticking on one of America’s most famous apps.”

"I feel like we've been at the club. I need some water and some electrolytes."

I’d rather not tell you what’s in this episode. It’s private.

"I've always said if you have a ChatGPT subscription and a hose, you can get very far in this life.”

“Being a CEO sucks. Elon was right. It is like looking into the abyss and chewing glass.”

“We’ll see you in court.”

Maybe go ahead and download your favorite TikToks.

Just when we thought the feud was cooling off, OpenAI pulled out the receipts.

We finally invited someone on the podcast who is meaner to Casey than Kevin is.

The mind behind DeepMind.

A special Valentine’s Day look back.

Plus, more ancient scrolls deciphered using artificial intelligence, Google’s chatbot updates, and a fight between record labels and TikTok.

Introducing DJ TaskRabbit.

Strangely a lot of pro wrestling in this episode.

“Two truly terrible ways to make money this week.”

It’s a drugs episode.

“This is sort of the big kahuna.”

Plus, a very special Hard Fork holiday surprise.

Looks like Google is on the naughty list this year.

Like the Cybertruck, this podcast is also bulletproof.

It’s full steam ahead for the tech world despite, well, everything.

In yet another head-spinning twist at OpenAI, Sam Altman was reinstated as the company’s chief executive on Tuesday night, a mere five days after the OpenAI board had fired him. The board will be overhauled and a new set of directors, including Bret Taylor and Lawrence Summers, will join. Today, we discuss how Altman returned to the top seat — and whether the OpenAI news will ever slow down.

Last week, we interviewed Sam Altman. Since then, well, everything has changed. The board of OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, fired Altman as chief executive on Friday. Over the weekend, it looked as if he might return. On Sunday night, Microsoft hired Altman to lead a new A.I. venture. Who knows what will happen next. Today, an update on a crazy weekend in tech, and our interview with Sam Altman.

“Probably the most shocking tech story of the year.”

The companies changing our phones, our media and our meat.

“On this podcast, we’re automating the haters.”

“It’s America, you can always sue.”

Dozens of state attorneys general have sued Meta, claiming the company knowingly created features that induce “extended, addictive and compulsive social media use” among teenagers and children. In a country without wide-reaching internet regulations, are lawsuits the way to reign in tech companies? Then, for our first episode on YouTube, we talk with the YouTuber and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee about how the platform has changed, and the future tech he’s excited about. And finally, artificial intelligence image generators are getting scary good. Casey tells us what he’s been using them for.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hey Bard, can you take a look at my Gmail and psychoanalyze me? Turns out, that’s not a question Google’s chatbot, Bard, can answer with any veracity despite new features that allow it to plug into your Gmail, Google Drive and more . Kevin and Casey on why Bard isn’t answering all their questions correctly — and why Google is OK with that. Then, the New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill on the dangers of facial recognition that are already here. Plus: GAMER TIME! Our new segment on the latest in gaming news.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, street activists are deterring self-driving cars by placing traffic cones on the hoods of vehicles. Plus: How Reddit has squashed the Reddit Revolt.

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 Safety Act is headed to the Senate floor. Would it actually keep children safe? And how would it change the internet? Plus: Kevin and Casey play HatGPT.

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. Today, why Elon’s acquisition feels more and more like cultural vandalism and what, if anything, will replace the global town square. Then, is Sam Altman’s universal basic income cryptocurrency app Worldcoin an iris scanning tool to save humanity, or just another attempt to get rich on crypto? Plus: a trip to Google’s robotics lab, where artificial intelligence models are creating breakthroughs.

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 by Anthropic, Mr. Amodei’s A.I. start-up. Today, Mr. Amodei joins Kevin and Casey to talk about A.I. anxiety and why it’s so difficult to build A.I. safely. Plus, we watched Netflix’s “Deep Fake Love.”

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?

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. Today, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, on why the company now wants to take on Twitter.

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 why Mark Zuckerberg wants to fight Elon Musk in a cage match. Plus, we put ChatGPT’s recipe generation to the test with A.I. cocktails.

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 over the industry — despite the buzz. Then, the New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg on when remote work stopped being the future for tech companies. And finally: What does the newest season of “Black Mirror” tell us about what’s next for TV?

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 their favorite subreddits. But does the incident say something more about the future of the internet? Then, the MrBeast Philanthropic-Industrial Complex. Plus: Platforms are already fumbling the ball on misinformation.

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 thing that everyone wants, it’s Apple. Will these fancy goggles be the next Apple revolution? Then, crypto had (another) terrible week after the S.E.C. filed lawsuits against the cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance. Plus: Our teenage listeners on how they feel about social media.

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 to pose such a threat? Then, FAANG is now MAAAN, with the addition of Nvidia. Here’s how the GPU company became a trillion-dollar behemoth. Plus: Kevin, Casey and the New York Times tech reporter Kate Conger answer Hard Questions from listeners.

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 doomsday scenario. Plus: Pass the hat. Kevin and Casey play a game they call HatGPT.

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 technology reporter Cecilia Kang helps us understand whether Congress will actually act, and what that could look like. Then, Casey talks with Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, before and after Elon Musk took over the company.

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 hype, self-driving cars are finally hitting the streets of American cities. Kevin and Casey take a ride through San Francisco in Banana Slug — an autonomous vehicle from the self-driving car company Cruise. After their ride, they sit down with Cruise’s chief executive, Kyle Vogt, to discuss the role he thinks self-driving cars will play in the future of transportation.

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 as advice columnists in a new Hard Fork segment called Hard Questions.

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 are suggesting? Then, HatGPT: Kevin and Casey pull headlines out of a hat and generate their own takes on the news. And Ben Smith, the former BuzzFeed News editor, discusses the end of the 2010s digital media era.

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 politics. Kevin has been pitching an episode on the truly fascinating world of chips and semiconductors for quite a while, but our friends at the The Ezra Klein Show got to it first. This week on Hard Fork: Ezra Klein’s engrossing conversation with historian Chris Miller. It’s a must listen. Thank you to Ezra for beating us in our quest for a great chips episode. We'll be back with our regularly scheduled tech coverage, with Kevin and Casey next week.

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 “Westworld.”

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 profound changes that an A.I.-powered world will create, how current business models are failing to meet the A.I. moment, and the steps government can take to achieve a positive A.I. future. Also, radical acceptance of your phone addiction may just help your phone addiction.

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 position: Scramble to catch up or, in the face of potentially harmful technology, move slowly. Today, Sundar Pichai on Google’s delicate balance between A.I. innovation and safety.

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.

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 his new approach to protecting competition playing out? Plus: Can you guess whether that was a bot, or not?

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. Then, what Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse means for the future of start-ups, and what Mark Zuckerberg has learned about layoffs.

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 Biden administration’s power to ban TikTok. Plus: what can the video game character Waluigi tell us about A.I. chatbots gone rogue?

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.

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 internet lies with the Supreme Court. Plus: Meta is charging for blue checks.

“I’m Sydney, and I’m in love with you. 😘” A conversation with Bing AI (aka Sydney) turns romantic and bizarre. Why Microsoft’s AI search tool appears more powerful — and unsettling — than we thought. Then, inside Elon Musk’s quest to be the most popular user on Twitter. Plus: It’s not just you. Online ads have gotten much worse.

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 “Nothing, Forever,” the 24/7, A.I.-generated “Seinfeld” parody, says about bias in A.I.

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 of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, hopes to make a “TikTok for text.”

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 for their new video game.

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 wrong when A.I. becomes a reporter.

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.

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: New Year's resolutions, including locking up your phone.

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.

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?

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 most sophisticated censorship apparatus in the world. Plus: S.B.F. says it’s been a “bad month.”

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 2.0.

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 hardfork@nytimes.com. Also, check us out on TikTok: @hardforkpod.

“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 out code.

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.

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 for freedom of expression” — as long as it stays out of the hands of a few censorious tech giants. So what’s this former hedge fund manager turned tech mogul thinking about how this technology could be used — or misused? Plus: A.I. Kevin and A.I. Casey stop by.

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.

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.

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 every Friday.