Interesting Times: Why Are We Still Driving?

Interesting Times: Why Are We Still Driving?

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.” [https://www.changinglanesnewsletter.com/about] Additional Reading: * A full transcript and video of this episode can be found here [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/opinion/waymo-self-driving-cars-andrew-miller.html].  We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Our Field Trip to Google I/O + A Sit-Down With Sundar Pichai + System Update

This week, we headed to Mountain View, Calif., for the annual developer event Google I/O. We share our reactions to Google’s biggest announcements, including a revamped search box, new agentic tools that compete with OpenClaw and an updated flash model of Gemini that the company says is faster than competitors. Then, we ask Sundar Pichai, the company’s chief executive, how he’s responding to growing evidence that the public is souring on A.I., what advice he’d give to college grads frightened by the current job market and where the company stands relative to competitors in the A.I. race. Finally, we run through the other big tech headlines of the week in our segment System Update. Guest: * Sundar Pichai, [https://blog.google/authors/sundar-pichai/] chief executive of Google. Additional Reading: * Google Changes Its Search Box for the First Time in 25 Years [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/business/google-seach-bar-ai-gemini.html] * How Google Is Starting to Win the A.I. Race [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/technology/personaltech/google-gemini-ai.html] * Elon Musk Loses $150 Billion Suit Against OpenAI and Sam Altman [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/technology/elon-musk-lawsuit-openai-sam-altman.html] * Before Mass Layoffs, Meta Reassigns 7,000 Workers to Focus on A.I. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/technology/meta-reassigns-7000-employees-ai.html] * Pope to Launch Encyclical on AI Alongside Anthropic Co-Founder [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-18/anthropic-s-co-founder-to-launch-encyclical-on-ai-with-pope-leo] * Was a Story That Just Won a Literary Prize A.I.-Generated? [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/books/ai-fiction-contest-granta.html] * Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/business/media/future-of-truth-ai-quotes.html] We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A.I. Safety Is So Back + Mythos Mayhem with Nikesh Arora + Hot Mess Express

This week, between the president’s negotiations in China and a potential executive order, we discuss why the Trump administration seems to be changing its tune on A.I. safety. Then, Nikesh Arora, chief executive of Palo Alto Networks, the largest cybersecurity company in the world, gives us a firsthand account of where we stand in the race to secure the internet. And finally, we run through some of the wildest headlines of the week in a round of Hot Mess Express. Guest: * Nikesh Arora [https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/about-us/management], chief executive and chairman of Palo Alto Networks. Additional Reading: * White House Considers Vetting A.I. Models Before They Are Released [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/technology/trump-ai-models.html] * Chief Executives to Accompany Trump to China [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/us/politics/trump-china-musk-cook.html] * Is Anthropic’s New A.I. Really That Scary? It Depends Whom You Ask. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/technology/anthropic-claude-mythos.html] * Venmo Finally Takes Privacy Seriously [https://www.theverge.com/tech/927503/venmo-app-redesign-privacy-posts] * Amazon Staff Use A.I. Tool for Unnecessary Tasks to Inflate Usage Scores [https://www.ft.com/content/8ee0d3ef-9548-422d-8ff1-ebd48ad4b2ca?syn-25a6b1a6=1&] * Graduates Boo Commencement Speech About A.I. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/style/ucf-commencement-ai-booed-gloria-caulfield.html] * Dua Lipa Files $15 Million Suit Against Samsung for Using Her Face to Sell TVs [https://variety.com/2026/music/news/dua-lipa-sues-samsung-sell-tvs-1236742471/] * EBay Rejects GameStop’s $55 Billion Takeover Bid [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/business/ebay-gamestop-takeover.html] * Shein, Temu Trade Blows as UK Trial Spotlights Supply Chains [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-11/shein-temu-trade-blows-as-uk-trial-spotlights-supply-chains] * People Are Seriously Pissed That Grindr Outed Them With Its Latest Madonna Advert [https://www.queerty.com/people-are-seriously-pissed-that-grindr-outed-them-with-its-latest-madonna-advert-20260511/] * Sam Altman Testifies That Elon Musk Wanted Control of OpenAI [https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05/12/technology/openai-trial-sam-altman-elon-musk] We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Can the U.S. Rein in Prediction Markets? + Joanna Stern on Her Year of A.I. Experiments + Our Producer Goes to Attention School

This week we’re taking another look at prediction markets and a new series of scandals. Is Congress finally ready to rein them in? Then, the journalist Joanna Stern returns to the show to discuss her new book “I Am Not A Robot [https://joannastern.com],” all about turning her life over to a chatbot for a year. And finally, Hard Fork’s Rachel Cohn reports back on her month attending classes at the Strother School of Radical Attention [https://www.schoolofattention.org/], the center of a movement to resist the commodification of attention by technology companies.   Guests:  * Joanna Stern, chief everything officer at New Things [https://thenewthings.com] * Rachel Cohn [https://www.nytimes.com/by/rachel-cohn], producer of “Hard Fork”   Additional Reading: * Soldier Used Classified Information to Bet on Maduro’s Ouster, U.S. Says [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/nyregion/polymarket-maduro-indictment-soldier.html] * Soldier Pleads Not Guilty in $400,000 Betting Case Over Maduro’s Ouster [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/28/nyregion/polymarket-special-forces-maduro-bets.html] * French weather service alerts police to tampering after suspicious Polymarket bets [https://www.ft.com/content/89be7df3-b7b8-4b4a-8b88-e24e877b439d?syn-25a6b1a6=1] * The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Battle for Your Attention Is Built on a Lie [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/opinion/attention-world-war-2-technology-nazis.html]   We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

OpenAI’s Big Reset + A.I. in the Doctor’s Office + Talkie, a pre-1930s LLM

This week, OpenAI announced a loosened partnership with Microsoft and an aggressive new strategy to secure computing power. We unpack what these updates signal about OpenAI’s business strategy and whether the company can scale while balancing a trial against Elon Musk and investor concerns over missed financial targets. Then, the A.I. researcher Dr. Adam Rodman, of Harvard Medical School, returns to tell us about the most significant ways A.I. is changing how doctors treat patients. And finally, can an LLM trained only on very old texts predict the future? We’re talking with one of the creators of the chatbot talkie.   Guests: * Dr. Adam Rodman [https://research.bidmc.org/general-medicine/people/adam-rodman-md-mph-facp], internal medicine physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. * David Duvenaud [https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~duvenaud/], associate professor at the University of Toronto, former team lead at Anthropic and co-creator of talkie [https://talkie-lm.com/introducing-talkie].   Additional Reading: * Microsoft and OpenAI Loosen Their Partnership [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/technology/microsoft-openai-partnership.html] * Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s Epic Fight Heads to Court [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/technology/elon-musk-sam-altman-openai-trial.html] * OpenAI Misses Key Revenue, User Targets in High-Stakes Sprint Toward IPO [https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-misses-key-revenue-user-targets-in-high-stakes-sprint-toward-ipo-94a95273] * Take It From a Doctor: It’s OK if Your Medical Advice Comes From A.I. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/opinion/doctors-patients-ai.html]   We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/hardfork] and TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts [http://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 [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 [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.