TechStuff

Is Silicon Valley worthy of the big screen? Reed Albergotti (Semafor and Future Proof), Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker), and Julia Black (Vanity Fair) debate two new films about tech world drama… and why the OpenAI boardroom saga makes for good cinema. Then, Kyle unpacks the bankruptcy of Character.AI and whether it’s fair to see it’s the first domino to fall in the AI bubble. Finally, Reed brings us into the world of gaming. And how Xbox is responding to the video game mashups consumers are building thanks to AI.
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AI agents are acting autonomously, but what happens if they break the law? Investigative journalist and Shell Game host Evan Ratliff joins Oz to explore how AI is already complicating the criminal justice system. The courts are already grappling with whether a chatbot could be considered an accomplice, why your conversations with AI may not be legally privileged, and what happens when an AI agent commits a crime no human explicitly told it to commit.
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Will Adobe survive the decompiling revolution? Reed Albergotti (Semafor and Future Proof), Kyle Chayka (Infinite Scroll, New Yorker), and Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) pull up to the roundtable, uncertain of how soon we’ll really see nuclear reactors on the moon—but sure that there’s plenty of space junk in our future, whatever powers our space stations. Then, Taylor brings us a story of the value of sticking with human-led data when you go offline...and takes a stand for human responsibility in the agentic AI era. Finally, Kyle brings us news that decompiling breakthroughs might mean software subscriptions will become a thing of the past…that is, if big tech doesn’t bring down a regulatory hammer.
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Why are the people most afraid of artificial superintelligence racing to build it? After interviewing more than 150 AI insiders, former New York Times tech columnist and podcast host Kevin Roose found a race fueled by fear, bitter rivalries, and one recurring belief: if we don’t build it first, someone else will.
Kevin joins Oz to discuss his new book, The AGI Chronicles:The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence. They explore the personal feuds shaping the technology, why everyone should pay attention, and how those outside Silicon Valley could shape the future.
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Will frontier AI labs really police themselves, or will the FTC pull rank? Reed Albergotti (Semafor), Margaux MacColl (Vanity Fair) and Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) dive into tech’s big week in Washington to tell us what to expect from evaluators, who the evaluators are, and which tech leaders came out on top at the boys’ lunch at the White House. Then, our nightlife correspondent reports back on the pro-data groups trying to party the woke out. Finally, remember Yahoo? Marissa Mayer is back (again!) with a new app that leverages your camera roll… but does anyone want it?
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