Hard Fork

This week, we break down why everyone is suddenly talking about A.I. safety, why frontier A.I. companies are asking for regulation and why the Trump administration is rejecting them. And then, to close out this chapter of “Hard Fork,” we answer all your questions about the show, tech and what’s happening next.

Additional Reading:
The A.I. Researcher Whose Rebellion Is Changing Everything
Top A.I. Leaders Call for Slowing Down A.I. Development
President Trump Is on the Line About an A.I. Slowdown
Mark Zuckerberg Takes Aim at Anthropic in Debate Over A.I. Slowdown
The ‘But China!’ Dilemma Driving the A.I. Race

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, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The “Hard Fork” team is away this week. But while we’re away, we’re bringing you a recent episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.”
In this episode, Ezra talks with the journalist Jasmine Sun about her recent reporting trip through the Midwest, where she explored how the data center backlash is playing out on the ground.
Ezra and Jasmine discuss the strange political coalitions that are coming together to oppose the A.I. infrastructure build out, and why people don’t believe what they’re being told about it.

Guests:
Jasmine Sun, journalist and writer at jasmi.news

Additional Reading:
No Data Centers In My Backyard
A 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, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, we’re diving into two new reports about the OpenAI-Hugging Face hack. We discuss what’s new and how they fundamentally change our understanding of what happened. Then we’re joined by Ajeya Cotra, one of the investigators at METR, to discuss the rogue agents’ message board and chain-of-thought transcripts and how the world should respond.
Guests:
Ajeya Cotra, co-author of the METR and Redwood Research report on the OpenAI-Hugging Face hack.


Additional Reading:
Brief Independent Investigation of Agents’ Behavior, Reasoning and Collaboration in the OpenAI / Hugging Face Hacking Incident
The Hugging Face Attack Surprised Me
The Hugging Face Incident and the Road Ahead
Nvidia Buys Hugging Face in $12.9 Billion Deal

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, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and make major changes to Facebook and Instagram over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms. We discuss why it capitulated and what it means for the entire social media industry. Then, Princeton computer science professor Arvind Narayanan returns to offer his thoughts on why banning data centers won’t slow down A.I. progress. And finally, it’s all hats on deck for the final HatGPT.

Guests:

Arvind Narayanan, professor of computer science at Princeton, and co-author of the “A.I. as Normal Technology” newsletter.

Additional Reading:

Meta to Pay Up to $17.1 Billion in Landmark Settlement Over Social Media Addiction Claims

Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Make Sure His Competitors Share His Pain

Arvind Narayanan’s Post About A.I. Data Centers

Apple Vision Pro in Surgery: A New Paper

Rockstar Finally Breaks Its Silence Over The GTA 6 Leaks, Calls Them ‘Heartbreaking’

Amazon Delivery Drone Dumps Texas Woman’s Parcel Straight Into Her Swimming Pool

What if Your Texts Traveled as Slowly as a Carrier Pigeon?

A.I. Agents Are Turning Founders Into Insomniacs

What is a ‘Meat Proxy’? The New Term For Coworkers Who Blindly Share A.I. Output

Chinese Robot Tiangong Clocks Sub-9 second 100 Metres in Beijing

Inside OpenAI’s Reboot

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, we learned that OpenAI had stopped training new artificial intelligence models while the company reviewed its security measures. Will this encourage other labs to hit the brakes too?

Then, the historian Jill Lepore joins to discuss her new book about the artificial state — or, as she describes it, “the rule of humans by machines manufactured by corporations.”

And finally, why is Google buying up the data of the defunct Spirit Airlines? It’s time for our new segment “Train of Thought.”

Guests:

Jill Lepore, professor of history and law at Harvard University, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the new book “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.”

Additional Reading:

OpenAI Slows Model Training to Bolster Security After Hugging Face Hack

A Government for the People, but Not by People

Google to Buy Spirit Airlines Business Data for $10 Million

A.I.’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks and Emails

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon A.I. Training Facility.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.