Tech Grapples With ICE + Casey Tries Clawdbot, a Risky New A.I. Assistant + HatGPT
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's your day to play.
It's your morning to make the most of.
It's your way to love.
It's your climate to consider.
It's your answer to what should I watch? It's your money to save.
It's your song to analyze line by line. It's your 10 ways to find a little calm. It's your world to understand.
The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com slash your world.
I'm going monk mode. That's what I'm calling it. Monk mode. Because I need to finish this book, so I'm like... So you're embracing celibacy? No, I'm locking myself in an Airbnb, and I'm writing 14 hours a day.
And now that's actually the premise of The Shining, the Stephen King novel.
So how is it working out for you?
It's not great. Are you seeing any rivers of blood flowing down the hallways yet?
Red rum.
Red rum.
But no, it's going well. I'm in the home stretch now. I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel.
It's very nice. And tell us about the experience of like, because I've, you know, been in similar situations where you sort of look yourself in the mirror and you're like, all right, Newton, shape up. Now it's time to buckle down. No more visiting your little comfort websites anymore. You actually got to, you know, make the clicky clacky noise on the keyboard. Does that actually work for you?
Yes, I figured out a productivity stack that works for me. Let me tell you about it.
Tell us a stack.
So I bring my big-ass curved monitor. I sit myself down. I put on my noise-canceling headphones.
You have a silent disco.
I listen to Somebody Told Me by the Killers on repeat, like infinite loop. and I imbibe dangerous quantities of the Celsius energy drink, and I write until I fall asleep.
Now, what is it about The Killers somebody told me? I don't know. Younger listeners, if you haven't heard Somebody Told Me, it's a song about how Brandon, the lead singer of The Killers, somebody told him that they had a girlfriend who looked like a boyfriend that he had in February of last year. February of last year, yeah. Yeah, and that's like a code phrase, and it triggers something inside you. Yeah. It like activates you like a sleeper agent. Yes, exactly.
Honestly, so here's the thing. Yeah. This is a tip that I picked up from Michael Lewis, the famous author. He said that he listens to Let It Go from Frozen over and over again while he writes his books.
In case you don't know, Michael Lewis is a five-year-old girl.
And so I thought, well, that can't possibly work. But it's true. I tried it out, and it works. It doesn't matter what the song is. What matters is that it has the right tempo. And after about the seventh time through the song, the words just melt away, and it just becomes white noise, and it puts you in kind of this flow state.
I can't wait to repeat this story and tell people that it's effective, and they'll say, well, how do you know all this? And I'll say, well, somebody told me.
laughter
I'm Kevin Roos, a tech columnist at the New York Times. I'm Casey Noon from Platformer. And this is Hard Fork. This week, phone-to-phone combat in the streets. We'll talk about the tech industry's response to ice killings in Minneapolis. Then, it's the reason Mac minis are sold out across San Francisco. We'll tell you about the sensation now known as Multbot. And finally, it's time once again for Hatch EPT.
So today we want to start by turning our attention to Minneapolis and the ongoing confrontation between ICE officers and protesters. Kevin and I have both been horrified by the fatal shooting of Alex Preddy, the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents this month. And while we don't often turn our attention directly to matters of politics and protests on the show. We both believe that the tech industry is playing a role in this story and that we would be remiss if we did not look at the elements of what is going on in Minneapolis that are ours.
Yeah, I've been really horrified by what's been going on in Minneapolis. I have family in Minneapolis. They're scared. Some of them are leaving. It is a really tense and hard time in American civic life right now.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–18:18
2
How did tech leaders respond to the Minneapolis ICE shootings and why does it matter?
18:18–59:09
3
How are social platforms and government PR teams influencing public perception of protests?
59:09–1:02:24
4
What role did AI and manipulated images play in shaping the Minneapolis narrative?
1:02:24–1:12:31
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Hard Fork
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Zuckerberg’s Anti-Doom Fantasy + Finally an A.I. Detector That Works + A.I. Math