Decoder with Nilay Patel

Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and I agree it seems like democracy is on the line right now, especially around the First Amendment and the increasing pressure the Trump administration — especially FCC chair Brendan Carr — is putting on free speech. I also had a lot of questions for Sen. Markey about the supposed TikTok ban, which no one seems to know anything about, and all the other problems we’re facing in 2025. Links:  * Even the lawmakers behind the TikTok ban have no idea what’s going on | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/policy/822164/tiktok-deal-trump-china] * Carr’s FCC is an anti-consumer, rights-trampling harassment machine | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/tech/656653/brendan-carr-fcc-anti-consumer-harassment-dei-trump] * The FCC is a weapon in Trump’s war on free speech | Decoder [https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/612069/fcc-brendan-carr-elon-musk-donald-trump-first-amendment-free-speech-censorship] * Here’s the Trump EO that would ban state AI laws | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/824608/trump-executive-order-ai-state-laws] * Silicon Valley is rallying behind a guy who sucks | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/column/836932/david-sacks-new-york-times-white-house] * Silicon Valley’s man in the White House is benefiting himself and his friends | The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/technology/david-sacks-white-house-profits.html] Subscribe to The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/subscribe] to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Square's product chief on the death of the penny and the future of money

Today, I’m talking with Willem Avé, who’s the head of product at Square. You know Square — it was started by billionaire Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame more than 15 years ago, and it got big on the back of that little magnetic reader that once plugged into the headphone jack of the iPhone and let small businesses accept credit cards. Nowadays, of course, Square is more than a credit card reader, and sadly, the headphone jack is ancient history. The company itself is now part of parent organization called Block, which is made up of a very interesting mix of financial services like Afterpay, Cash App, and, yes, the streaming music service Tidal. So Willem and I really got into where Square is headed next with AI and automation, why he’s excited about crypto and Bitcoin specifically, and even what it means that the US is discontinuing the penny.  Links:  * Square’s public roadmap | Square [https://squareup.com/us/en/roadmap] * Jack Dorsey is reorganizing the entirety of Block | Fortune [https://www.fastcompany.com/91452671/block-inc-evolved-square-financial-services-giant] * How Block turned Square into a financial services giant | Fast Company [https://www.fastcompany.com/91452671/block-inc-evolved-square-financial-services-giant] * Block to roll out bitcoin payments on Square | Square [https://squareup.com/us/en/press/block-to-roll-out-bitcoin-payments-on-square] * Square buys $170 million worth of bitcoin | CNBC [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/23/square-buys-170-million-worth-of-bitcoin.html] * Square, Jack Dorsey’s payments company, changes its name to Block | NYT [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/technology/square-block-name-change-dorsey.html?] * The penny dies at 232 | NYT [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/business/penny-coin-legacy.html] Subscribe to The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/subscribe] to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

The tiny team trying to keep AI from destroying everything

Today, I’m talking with Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field about some of the people responsible for studying AI and deciding in what ways it might… well, ruin the world. Those folks work at Anthropic as part of a group called the societal impacts team, which Hayden just spent time with for a profile she published this week on The Verge.  The team is just nine people out of more than 2,000 who work at Anthropic, and their only job, as the team members themselves say, is to investigate and publish quote "inconvenient truths” about AI. That of course brings up a whole host of problems, the most important of which is whether this team can remain independent, or even exist at all, as it publicizes findings about Anthropic's own products that might be unflattering or even politically fraught.  Links:  * It’s their job to keep AI from destroying everything | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/836335/anthropic-societal-impacts-team-ai-claude-effects] * Anthropic details how it measures Claude’s wokeness | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/news/819216/anthropic-claude-political-even-handedness-woke-ai] * White House orders tech companies to make AI bigoted again | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/policy/713222/trump-woke-ai-executive-order-chatbots-llms] * Chaos and lies: Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/814876/ilya-sutskever-deposition-openai-sam-altman-elon-musk-lawsuit] * How Elon Musk Is remaking Grok in his image | NYT [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/technology/elon-musk-grok-conservative-chatbot.html] * Anthropic tries to defuse White House backlash | Axios [https://www.axios.com/2025/10/21/anthropic-ai-czar-white-house-david-sacks-jd-vance]  * New AI battle: White House vs. Anthropic | Axios [https://www.axios.com/2025/10/16/anthropic-david-sacks-ai-white-house] * Anthropic will pursue gulf state investments after all | Wired [https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-dario-amodei-gulf-state-leaked-memo/] Subscribe to The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/subscribe] to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says there is no AI bubble after all

IBM was instrumental to the entire 20th century of computing — but it's a lot harder for most of us to see what it's been up to during this century. That's because it's fully an enterprise company, and CEO Arvind Krishna says that business is booming. But there’s a huge change coming to that business as well, as Watson-style deep learning has given way to LLMs and generative AI. Sure, Arvind says IBM got there a little too early. But he doesn’t seem concerned that IBM would be stuck on the sidelines.  Read the full interview transcript on The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/podcast/829868/ibm-arvind-krishna-watson-llms-ai-bubble-quantum-computing]. Links:  * Computer wins on ‘Jeopardy!’: Trivial, it’s not | New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17jeopardy-watson.html] (2011) * What Ever Happened to IBM’s Watson? | New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/technology/what-happened-ibm-watson.html] (2021) * America Forgot About IBM Watson. Is ChatGPT Next? | The Atlantic [https://web.archive.org/web/20230505195217/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/ibm-watson-irrelevance-chatgpt-generative-ai-race/673965/] * IBM acquires Red Hat | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/28/18035086/ibm-red-hat-acquisition-open-source-cloud-software-company] * IBM and Groq Partner to Accelerate Enterprise AI Deployment | IBM [https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-10-20-ibm-and-groq-partner-to-accelerate-enterprise-ai-deployment-with-speed-and-scale] * IBM’s Jerry Chow on the future of quantum computing | Decoder [https://www.theverge.com/23988271/ibm-quantum-heron-system-two-jerry-chow-qubits] * IBM: quantum computing partnership with AMD is bearing fruit | The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/news/806325/ibm-says-their-quantum-computing-partnership-with-amd-is-bearing-fruit] Subscribe to The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/subscribe] to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

What the climate story gets wrong

Hey everyone, it's Nilay. It’s been great being back in the Decoder chair this fall, and we’ve got a bunch of great episodes coming up to round out the year. But the production team is off this week for the holiday, so today, we’re going to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. This time, host Sean Illing is talking to data scientist Hannah Ritchie — about climate science and how although the crisis is definitely real, it’s not all bad news. There are actually a lot of great indicators out there in the data that show real progress in limiting emissions and boosting clean energy. It’s a nuanced, hopeful take at a time when, admittedly, it kind of feels like all the news about everything is pretty doom and gloom. Links: * We can have growth while fighting climate change | Vox [https://www.vox.com/podcasts/466898/hannah-ritchie-clearing-the-air-climate-change-data-nuclear-belief] * The Grey Area | Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611?i=1000737062788] * Clearing the Air | Hannah Ritchie [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262052740/clearing-the-air/] Subscribe to The Verge [https://www.theverge.com/subscribe] to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]