Kevin Roose - Guest

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253 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Dec 2025 last heard 30 Dec

Kevin Roose - Guest’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 1.

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Hard Fork · The Wirecutter Show: Tips for Using A.I. Smartly With Kevin Roose · 30 Dec 2025 podcast

It used to be that the sort of mainstream chatbots were all very like formal and business-like, and it sort of sounded like you were talking to like a, you know, a Wikipedia article.

But now these companies have made strides towards making their chatbots more personable.

So they, you know, Sam Altman at OpenAI just recently said, you know, they want to make this a pleasant experience for people.

They're going to even let

adults do erotic conversation with their chatbots.

So these companies, I think, are all trying to figure out what their lines are.

But yeah, I think the difference between the mainstream chatbots and these more tailored companionship products is getting more blurry by the day.

I'm curious.

Can I ask you a question?

How do you feel about your 12-year-old using AI for this kind of middle school drama?

I think this is really tricky because I remember being 12.

I had, you know, not the easiest time in middle school, and I don't think anyone has an easy time in middle school.

But I think if I were 12 and these chatbots had existed, I would have been tempted to spend a lot of time chatting with them, maybe more time than was healthy for me.

And I think it really... It sort of matters what kids are talking about with these chatbots, but it also matters...

whether they're using them as substitutes for some real-world human connection that might actually be more fulfilling, even if it's less efficient or less sort of reliably available to them.

They definitely are.

And I'm happy to walk you through my current feelings on this.

But let me just make my case to you directly since I have you.

Here's why Wirecutter should review large language models.

For me, I need this desperately.

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