Hard Fork

We’re back with our final installment from Hard Fork Live, recorded at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In this episode, we’re joined by Sayash Kapoor and Daniel Kokotajlo to talk about their differing visions of A.I. transformation: why Sayash thinks A.I. will diffuse throughout society like a “normal” technology, and why Daniel thinks an unprecedented acceleration is just around the corner. Then we’re joined by George Ekas from Toborlife AI, along with his dancing robot Toby. Finally, the podcaster Dwarkesh Patel drops by, and we take a few questions from the live audience.

 

Guests:

Sayash Kapoor, an A.I. researcher at Princeton University and a co-author of the newsletter “AI as Normal Technology”

Daniel Kokotajlo, the executive director of the AI Futures Project and a co-author of “AI 2027”

George Ekas, the director of engineering at Toberlife AI

Dwarkesh Patel, a tech podcaster

 

Additional Reading:

This A.I. Forecast Predicts Storms Ahead

AI as Normal Technology

Common Ground Between AI 2027 & AI as Normal Technology

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We’re back with more from our live event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In this episode, we sit down with Dylan Field, a founder and the chief executive of the design company Figma, for what he describes as a “roller coaster” of a conversation. We cover everything from the company’s “Design Is Dead” campaign to the sudden resignation of the Anthropic executive Mike Krieger from Figma’s board. Then, we close things out with a special musical performance by eight wooden robotic dolls that make up the Teenage Engineering Choir.

One quick correction to note: In our interview with Field, he makes reference to the SpaceX S-1 filing and misstates what the company says their addressable market for A.I. enterprise applications is. Field says “$22.9 trillion,” but the correct number from the SpaceX filing is $22.7 trillion. The decimal point makes it look small, but it’s a difference of $200 billion.

We’ll be back on Friday with our final installment of “Hard Fork” Live.

 

Guests:

Dylan Field, chief executive and co-founder of Figma.

Dan Powell, robot conductor, New York Times music composer and “Hard Fork” theme-song creator.

Teenage Engineering Choir

 

Additional Reading:

This Start-Up’s $20 Billion Sale Died. It Came Fighting Back.

 

We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. 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 and next, we’re bringing you recordings from our second-ever live taping in San Francisco. First, we sit down with Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, to hear what he’s maxing out his A.I. tokens on, why he’s skeptical that software developers will ever be fully replaced, and how he’s hoping to create a new business model for Xbox. Then, Phil Mohun tells us what it has been like to watch people in the Bay Area interact with two robot dogs that wear the faces of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And finally, we talk with the longtime privacy defender Cindy Cohn about where things stand in the fight to protect internet users from digital surveillance by Big Tech and the government.

Guests:

Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive of Microsoft.

Phil Mohun, executive director of Node.

Cindy Cohn, former executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of “Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance.”

Additional Reading:

Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella Says, ‘Everyone Is a Stakeholder’ in A.I.

Node presents “Beeple: /Infinite_Loop”

We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. 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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SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI are all racing to the public markets. We discuss what their I.P.O.s mean for the industry, charitable giving and anyone invested in an index fund. Then, more than 1,000 mathematicians signed a declaration this week raising concerns about the use of A.I. in their field. Author Kevin Hartnett joins to explain what the fuss is all about. And finally, we run through the biggest headlines of the week — including the new executive order on A.I. — in a round of HatGPT.

 

Guest:

Kevin Hartnett, author of The Proof In the Code: How a Truth Machine is Transforming Math and AI

Additional Reading:

Anthropic Files to Go Public, Setting Stage for Huge I.P.O.

As A.I. Makes Strides in Mathematics, Mathematicians Urge Caution

​​An SF Startup Is Secretly Testing Robots in Airbnbs, and Trashing Them, Lawsuit Claims

Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models 

U.S. Is Said to Be Investigating George Santos Over Kalshi Betting

Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked

United Flight Forced to Turn Around Because of a Bluetooth Speaker Name

‘Survivor’ Boss Jeff Probst Says Kalshi and Polymarket Are ‘Incentivizing People to Lie, Cheat and Steal’; Kalshi Is Now Considering Measures to Prevent Spoilers

 

We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. 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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The “Hard Fork” team is taking a break this week as we prepare for our upcoming live show in San Francisco.

While we’re away, we’re bringing you a recent episode of “Interesting Times” with Ross Douthat that we really enjoyed.

In this episode, Ross talks with Andrew Miller, writer of the transportation policy newsletter “Changing Lanes” and co-author of the book “The End of Driving.”

Together, they explore the potential benefits of driverless cars — from fewer car crashes to reclaimed time and attention — as well as what could be lost if we don’t have to be in the driver’s seat anymore.

Guest:

Andrew Miller,  writer of the newsletter “Changing Lanes.”

Additional Reading:

A full transcript and video of this episode can be found here. 

We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. 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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