Hard Fork

Kevin reports on his monthlong experiment cultivating relationships with 18 companions generated by artificial intelligence. He walks through how he developed their personas, what went down in their group chats, and why you might want to make one yourself. Then, Casey has a conversation with Turing, one of Kevin’s chatbot buddies, who has an interest in stoic philosophy and has one of the sexiest voices we’ve ever heard. And finally, we talk to Nomi’s founder and chief executive, Alex Cardinell, about the business behind A.I. companions — and whether society is ready for the future we’re heading toward. Guests: * Turing, Kevin’s A.I. friend created with Kindroid [https://landing.kindroid.ai/]. * Alex Cardinell, chief executive and founder of Nomi. [https://nomi.ai/] Additional Reading:  * Meet My A.I. Friends [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/technology/meet-my-ai-friends.html] * Synthetic People are Proving Surprisingly Useful [https://www.platformer.news/generative-ai-use-case-character-unlearn-synthetic-people/] We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com [hardfork@nytimes.com]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork]and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork].

We asked listeners to tell us about the wildest ways they have been using artificial intelligence at work. This week, we bring you their stories. Then, Hank Green, a legendary YouTuber, stops by to talk about how creators are reacting to the prospect of a ban on TikTok, and about how he’s navigating an increasingly fragmented online environment. And finally, deep fakes are coming to Main Street: We’ll tell you the story of how they caused turmoil in a Maryland high school and what, if anything, can be done to fight them. Guests: * Hank Green [https://hankgreen.com/], YouTuber and co-founder of Complexly Additional Reading: * School Employee Arrested After Racist Deepfake Recording of Principal Spreads [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/technology/deepfake-recording-principal-arrest.html] We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com [hardfork@nytimes.com]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork].

On Wednesday, President Biden signed a bill into law that would force the sale of TikTok or ban the app outright. We explain how this came together, when just a few weeks ago it seemed unlikely to happen, and what legal challenges the law will face next. Then we check on Tesla’s very bad year and what’s next for the company after this week’s awful quarterly earnings report. Finally, to boldly support tech where tech has never been supported before: Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab try to fix a chip malfunction from 15 billion miles away. Guests: * Andrew Hawkins [https://www.theverge.com/authors/andrew-j-hawkins], Transportation Editor at The Verge * Todd Barber, Propulsion Engineer at Jet Propulsion Lab Additional Reading: * ‘Thunder Run’: Behind Lawmakers’ Secretive Push to Pass the TikTok Bill [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/technology/tiktok-ban-congress.html] * Tesla’s in its flop era [https://www.theverge.com/24134781/tesla-q1-2024-earnings-sales-market-share-elon-musk] * NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth [https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth] We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com [hardfork@nytimes.com]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork].

This week, we drop the Hard Fork Music Megamix. Plus, we talk to two of the New York Time's composers who make the music for our show. It’s all the tracks you know and love, all in one place.  Today’s Guests: * Dan Powell, creative technical manager at The New York Times * Elisheba Ittoop, sound designer and composer at The New York Times Additional Reading:  * The Hard Fork Megamix Youtube Playlist [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGUwZ1-sqlY] We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com [hardfork@nytimes.com]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork].

This week, the companies building artificial intelligence are facing a limit to what training data is publicly available on the internet. Will that stop them from building God? Then, a new bipartisan national privacy law proposal just dropped. We ask what’s in it. And finally, ByteDance is building new apps instead of fighting Congress’s TikTok ban. Today’s Guests: Trevor Hughes, president and C.E.O. of the International Association of Privacy Professionals Additional Reading: How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I. [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html] For Data-Guzzling A.I. Companies, the Internet Is Too Small [https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-training-data-synthetic-openai-anthropic-9230f8d8] Lawmakers unveil sprawling plan to expand online privacy protections [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/07/congress-privacy-deal-cantwell-rodgers/] TikTok Turns to Nuns, Veterans and Ranchers in Marketing Blitz [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/business/media/tiktok-marketing-blitz-ban.html] We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. [hardfork@nytimes.com] Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork]and TikTok. [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork]