Hard Fork

Meta Shifts the Blame + Do Data Center Bans Work? + The Final HatGPT

hardfork@nytimes.com (The New York Times) — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 11:00:00 +0000

This week, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and make major changes to Facebook and Instagram over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms. We discuss why it capitulated and what it means for the entire social media industry. Then, Princeton computer science professor Arvind Narayanan returns to offer his thoughts on why banning data centers won’t slow down A.I. progress. And finally, it’s all hats on deck for the final HatGPT.

Guests:

Arvind Narayanan, professor of computer science at Princeton, and co-author of the “A.I. as Normal Technology” newsletter.

Additional Reading:

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OpenAI’s Two-Week Pause + Jill Lepore on the Threat of the “Artificial State” + Train of Thought

hardfork@nytimes.com (The New York Times) — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:00:00 +0000

This week, we learned that OpenAI had stopped training new artificial intelligence models while the company reviewed its security measures. Will this encourage other labs to hit the brakes too?

Then, the historian Jill Lepore joins to discuss her new book about the artificial state — or, as she describes it, “the rule of humans by machines manufactured by corporations.”

And finally, why is Google buying up the data of the defunct Spirit Airlines? It’s time for our new segment “Train of Thought.”

Guests:

Jill Lepore, professor of history and law at Harvard University, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the new book “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.”

Additional Reading:

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What’s a Hard Fork?

hardfork@nytimes.com (The New York Times) — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 14:00:00 +0000

Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the wild frontier of tech.

What’s real? What’s hype? “Hard Fork” is here to help you make sense of it. Tune in every Friday.

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