Hard Fork

This week we’re talking about the tech industry’s response to the killings by federal agents in Minneapolis and the federal government’s strategy to control the narrative on social media. Then we follow Casey through his trial of a new open-source A.I. assistant called Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot) and consider whether it is worth the security risk. And, finally, it’s time for a look at the rest of the week’s tech news with a round of HatGPT.

Additional Reading: 
False Posts and Altered Images Distort Views of Minnesota Shooting
A Moment-by-Moment Look at the Shooting of Alex Pretti
It’s a War: Inside ICE’s Media Machine
Some Amazon Employees Get ‘Project Dawn’ Calendar Invitation Discussing Upcoming Job Cuts
TikTok Data Center Outage Triggers Trust Crisis for New U.S. Owners
Former FTX Crypto Executive Caroline Ellison Released From Federal Custody
Anthropic C.E.O.’s Grave Warning: A.I. Will “Test Us as a Species”
Inside the White House Screening for Amazon’s ‘Melania’ Doc
App for Quitting Porn Leaked Users’ Masturbation Habits
Alaska Student Arrested After Eating A.I.-Generated Art in Protest
Steak ’n Shake Adds $5 Million in Bitcoin Exposure, Deepening Bitcoin Commitment
SpaceX Weighs June I.P.O. Timed to Planetary Alignment and Elon Musk’s Birthday
LinkedIn Will Let You Show Off Your Vibe Coding Expertise
 
We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

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Ads are coming to ChatGPT’s free and low-cost subscription tiers. We explain what they’ll look like, why OpenAI is taking this approach and whether the company can court advertising dollars without compromising quality and user trust. Then, Amanda Askell, Anthropic’s in-house philosopher in charge of shaping Claude’s personality, joins us to discuss the company’s newly released “Claude Constitution” and what it takes to teach a chatbot to be good.

As a bonus, if you’re interested in learning how to get started with Claude Code, you can check out our tutorial on YouTube.

Guest:
Amanda Askell, a member of Anthropic’s technical staff

Additional Reading: 
OpenAI Starts Testing Ads in ChatGPT
Claude’s Constitution

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.

This week, Jonathan Haidt, author of “The Anxious Generation,” returns to the show to discuss new research about how social media is harming teens and what it’s been like to become the face of a global movement against the platforms. Then, we asked what you were building with Claude Code, and you blew us away. We’ll share some of our favorite projects that you sent us. And finally, we’re joined by PJ Vogt, the host of “Search Engine,” to talk about our early adventures in the Forkiverse and what we’ve learned so far about running a social media network.
 
Guests:
Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist and author of “The Anxious Generation"
PJ Vogt, host of “Search Engine”
 
Additional Reading: 
Mountains of Evidence 
Meta’s Internal Research
An NYT Event in LA - Trump: The First Year of His Second Term
 
We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. 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.

Over the past year we’ve been working with the podcast “Search Engine” on a project that reimagines what the internet can be. What if instead of rage-baiting, a social platform incentivized friendly interaction and good faith discussion? Today we’re bringing “Hard Fork” listeners an episode we made with the “Search Engine” team called “The Fediverse Experiment” where we end up creating our own social media platform.
 
Guest:
PJ Vogt, host of the podcast “Search Engine.”
 
Additional Reading: 
The Dream of the Fediverse Is Alive on Threads
What Is Mastodon and Why Are People Leaving Twitter for It?
 
We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. 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.

Users of X are asking the platform’s built-in A.I. chatbot, Grok, to remove clothing from images of celebrities and everyday people. We talk with the New York Times reporter Kate Conger about how some of the targets of this sexual harassment, including children and their families, are responding, and whether anyone will take action to stop it. Then, we recap a holiday break spent experimenting with Claude Code. We unveil what we built, how we did it and why the tool’s dramatic improvement could be scary for society. And finally, Casey debunks a viral Reddit post that accuses the food delivery industry of shocking exploitation. We explain how a scammer tried to fool us all using AI-generated evidence.
 
Guests:
Kate Conger, New York Times tech reporter covering X.
 
Additional Reading: 
Elon Musk’s A.I. Is Generating Sexualized Images of Real People, Fueling Outrage
Debunking the A.I. Food Delivery Hoax That Fooled Reddit
 
We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. 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.