This week, the memes didn’t just fall out of coconut trees — a rundown of the social media reaction to Kamala Harris’s election campaign, and an exploration of what her tech platform might look like. Then we discuss a major new study on universal basic income with Elizabeth Rhodes, research director at OpenResearch, and ask whether it could be a solution to job losses to A.I. And finally, Kate Conger, a New York Times reporter, joins us to break down how the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike crashed the global IT infrastructure.   Guests: Elizabeth Rhodes, Research Director at OpenResear ..read more

This week, an assassination attempt for the social media age: what the platforms got right and wrong in the chaotic aftermath. Then we talk with the Times reporter Teddy Schleifer from this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee about the wave of Silicon Valley billionaires stepping up to back Trump. And finally, we talk to The Times’s Styles reporter Callie Holtermann about facial fitness gum, a “jawmaxxing” product targeted at teen boys online. Guests: Theodore Schleifer, New York Times reporter Callie Holtermann, New York Times reporter Additional Reading: An Assassination At ..read more

Throw down a picnic blanket, and grab some snacks and drinks: It’s time for some Hard Questions with the food writer, YouTuber and podcaster Alison Roman. We tackle quandaries like, Should you sign away your children’s image rights in order to get them into your preferred day care? Is hacking people for fun ever OK? And does it matter if we’re rude to our digital assistants? Guest: Alison Roman, cook, writer and author Additional Reading:  Why Deleting Your Period Tracker Won’t Protect Your Privacy Dilly Bean Stew With Cabbage and Frizzled Onions  We want to hear from you. Email ..read more

We’re off for the Fourth of July, but what’s a better tribute to America than a conversation about the technology that enables us to endlessly stream TV from the couch? This week, we’re bringing you an episode we enjoyed from the recently debuted New York Times podcast The Interview. Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive of Netflix, about his early days working in a video store, shows to fold your laundry to and the future of the entertainment industry. Guest: Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO of Netflix Additional Reading:  “The Interview”: Ted Sarandos’s Plan to Get You ..read more

Record labels — including Sony, Universal and Warner — are suing two leading A.I. music generation companies, accusing them of copyright infringement. Mitch Glazier, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry group representing the music labels, talks with us about the argument they are advancing. Then, we take a look at defense technology and discuss why Silicon Valley seems to be changing its tune about working with the military. Chris Kirchhoff, who ran a special Pentagon office in Silicon Valley, explains what he thinks is behind the shift. And finally ..read more

This week we go to Cupertino, Calif., for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference and talk with Tripp Mickle, a New York Times reporter, about all of the new features Apple announced and the company’s giant leap into artificial intelligence. Then, we explore what was another tumultuous week for Elon Musk, who navigated a shareholders vote to re-approve his massive compensation package at Tesla, amid new claims that he had sex with subordinates at SpaceX. And finally — let’s play HatGPT. Guests: Tripp Mickle, New York Times reporter Additional Reading: Apple Jumps Into A.I. Fray Wit ..read more

This week, we host a cultural exchange. Kevin and Casey show off their Canadian paraphernalia to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and he shows off what he’s doing to position Canada as a leader in A.I. Then, the OpenAI whistle-blower Daniel Kokotajlo speaks in one of his first public interviews about why he risked almost $2 million in equity to warn of what he calls the reckless culture inside that company.   Guests: Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada Daniel Kokotajlo, a former researcher in OpenAI’s governance division   Additional Reading: Securing Canada’s A.I. Advantage Op ..read more

This week, Google found itself in more turmoil, this time over its new AI Overviews feature and a trove of leaked internal documents. Then Josh Batson, a researcher at the A.I. startup Anthropic, joins us to explain how an experiment that made the chatbot Claude obsessed with the Golden Gate Bridge represents a major breakthrough in understanding how large language models work. And finally, we take a look at recent developments in A.I. safety, after Casey’s early access to OpenAI’s new souped-up voice assistant was taken away for safety reasons. Guests: Josh Batson, research scientist at Anth ..read more

This week, more drama at OpenAI: The company wanted Scarlett Johansson to be a voice of GPT-4o, she said no … but something got lost in translation. Then we talk with Noland Arbaugh, the first person to get Elon Musk’s Neuralink device implanted in his brain, about how his brain-computer interface has changed his life. And finally, the Times’s Karen Weise reports back from Microsoft’s developer conference, where the big buzz was that the company’s new line of A.I. PCs will record every single thing you do on the device. Guests: Noland Arbaugh, the first Neuralink patient Karen Weise, technolo ..read more

This week, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o, its newest A.I. model. It has an uncannily emotive voice that everybody is talking about. Then, we break down the biggest announcements from Google IO, including the launch of A.I. overviews, a major change to search that threatens the way the entire web functions. And finally, Kevin and Casey discuss the weirdest headlines from the week in another round of HatGPT. Additional Reading:  A.I.’s ‘Her’ Era Has Arrived ChatGPT Gets an Emotional Upgrade Google’s Broken Link to the Web Can Google Give A.I. Answers Without Breaking the Web? We want to hear fro ..read more