Our Field Trip to Google I/O + A Sit-Down With Sundar Pichai + System Update

“This is the only recent gathering of a large number of people where mentions of A. I. did not produce a large chorus of boos.”

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:34Speaker 01

  Casey, I couldn't help but notice that during much of the I/O keynote, you were on your phone playing Bellatro and doing emails on your laptop.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Well, you know, when you have your agent recording the entire thing and transcribing it for you, you can just, you know, sort of glance up every few seconds and see if a news event is happening. It's actually really amazing.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  This is the promise of AGI. Soon, we will be able to play Bellatro wherever we are.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  You can pay attention to nothing and be fine.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Welcome to the future.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  I'm Kevin Ruza, tech columnist at The New York Times.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  I'm Casey Noon from Platformer.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  And this is Hard Fork.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  This week, it's our annual field trip to Google I/O. We have all the big news, plus our conversation with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. And then some other highlights from the week with our system update. I know I told that to install last night, but it didn't.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Did you delay it?

• 1:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  You're always doing that.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Well, Kevin, the keynote just wrapped up here at I/O 2026. What did you think?

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Yes, this is like the Coachella of capitalism, the Warped Tour of the web, the Lollapalooza of links.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  I could keep going.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Please don't.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  And they are doing a lot. We heard about everything from like agentic search to these new like video editing models and products that they have, all the way to Dennis Asavas at the end of the keynote declaring that we are in the foothills of the singularity.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  When we look back at this time, I think we will realize that we were standing in the foothills of the singularity.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  I love that like Google's version of the Steve Jobs like one more thing is like, one more thing, the singularity.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  A great way to end. So yeah, what was your standout? What did they announce that caught your eye?

• 2:42Speaker 02

  I mean, they have said that they just made the biggest change to search in 25 years. I think time will tell if that is truly as significant a change as they're suggesting, because when we saw it in the demos, it just looked like the box grows if you type more into it. But you know, they're also saying that by this summer, they're going to be generating custom user interfaces based on your query and a bunch of other stuff. I think like a through line through everything that they discussed here was coming this summer or coming to a group of trusted testers. And with these kind of like productivity tools, until they're in your hands, you don't really know if anything has changed in your life or not.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a lot of focus on agentic stuff like agentic coding. They have this new agentic search mode, which basically is sort of the fancy upgrade to Google Alerts. You can have it sort of tell you when there's like a new home listed on Zillow or a new baseball score you might care about or something like that. I was really interested that they seem to be betting very big on cost and speed. So their new model that they talked about today was Gemini 3.5 Flash, which is the newest version, but it's also, they say, four times faster and much cheaper than the other leading frontier models. And so I think Google's strategy of kind of betting on scale and distribution and like

• 4:05Speaker 01

  making their models as efficient to serve as possible is really the direction they're going in. Like they, they don't seem to care about. Having the absolute most cutting edge models as long as they can serve them cheaply and quickly to billions of people.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  I mean, I think they care about it. I think that they just haven't built it yet, you know? Fast and cheap is what you talk about when it isn't the best. And so that's what we're getting this year. But, you know, I am interested in trying these new agents. I'll say, I tried to use the new agent. I said, let me know if Kevin Roos writes a good story, but it hasn't sent me anything. And so I don't know if it's broken or if the AI isn't working or what.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm writing good stories constantly, so something must be going on.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  I mean, my real curiosity is like, which of these agents are going to find true product market fit? Like, which is the agent that is going to get a billion users? Because we saw them show off what is effectively their version of OpenClaw, which definitely like had a big moment earlier this year. But it's still not clear to me that that is an actual mainstream use case. Like, I have to say, like, of everything they showed off, like, I'm not like dying to like have, you know, Gemini OpenClaw working overnight on my behalf because I don't know what I would ask it to do.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that was actually one of my favorite parts because I am currently running a Claude swarm on my open laptop.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Doing what? What is it doing?

• 5:30Speaker 01

  And what they have said is that you can now do that through Gemini Spark, this new agent thing. And it will run in like a virtual machine on the cloud, so you don't have to like keep your laptop cracked like an insane person.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  But Kevin, please, what are you doing with your Claude?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  I can't tell you.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  You can't even tell because you're not doing anything.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  I'm ushering in the singularity.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  You're generating recipes.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I'm building a bioweapon, but I don't want to say that in this crowd.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  They get sensitive about that sort of thing around here.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  So what was the vibe of I/O this year?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  I mean, I honestly, the only people that I have talked to are like reporters and people who work at Google. So like, I feel like we have not really had a chance yet to talk to developers and see what is on their minds. Clearly, they have a lot of new toys to play with, and I'm sure they're excited about that. But, you know, as I said, until you get your Hands on them, you don't really know if your life has changed.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like they have confidence in their sort of place in the front of the pack. I don't think they believe that their models are the best in the world yet. But if they're cheaper and faster and they can do more stuff. They have this new Omni model that can take in video as well as images and text. So I feel like they're they're sort of doing the spray and pray approach to AI development, which is you just do everything everywhere all at once and hope that something hits. And it's worked for them.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I guess I will say one thing about the vibe here at I O this morning, Kevin, which is this is the only recent gathering of a large number of people where mentions of AI did not produce a large chorus of boos. This was a crowd where people actually seemed like they wanted to hear about new AI developments. And as we saw, many, many AI-generated images and videos for almost two hours, there was nary a boo to be heard.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I agree, not a lot of mention of the AI backlash or any of the things. I think they're just sort of hoping that these new products are so useful to people that they'll sort of forget about all their objections. And then, you know, of course, comes Demis Isavas to talk about the singularity. Just to remind you that none of this is normal, that we are experiencing something very weird.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  All right, well, I think those are some good early thoughts. We have a lot more to do at I O, starting with probably hitting that lunch line in the press tent.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  I saw some ube croissants on my way in. I'm still trying to figure out what that means, but I'm going to go try it out.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  All right, Kevin, well, we are back in the studio the day after I O, and we have a few hours before we head back down to interview Sundar Pichai. But before we do that, you have spent a little bit of time playing around with this new Gemini 3.5 flash model. So what have you been doing with it?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  So I did try to use AntiGravity, their kind of coding assistant, to put the model through some of my own evaluations. And it seems like two things are true. One is it's very fast. It's very fast and you don't hit your sort of token limits at all, like very quickly, which is a nice contrast to some of the other coding models that I've used. And the second thing is that it just doesn't seem like that much of an improvement over what is out there now. I think, you know, there have been some people on my feeds talking about how they are feeling disappointed by the new Gemini model. There's some indications that it's maybe not as good as Gemini 3.1 Pro at some coding evaluations. But it is much faster.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  And I think the other thing that people are reacting to is the cost. So the cost of Gemini 3.5 Flash, while lower than other kind of frontier models, is significantly more expensive than the last version of Gemini Flash. So people are upset about that. But I think in general, my sense is like, it's a good model. It's a pretty good model. It's not like blowing me away, but it is quite fast. And if you are a company that's burning, you know, billions of tokens a day, you might be interested in that. But for the average person, I would say like, nothing about it has made me want to switch to it as my daily driver yet.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have to say, like, this class of models has always just felt like it's not for me, right? Like, I am somebody who is always willing to wait a little bit longer and to spend a little bit more to get the best answer, right? Like, I would sort of rather do that than just sort of have like instant answers from a very cheap model.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  You like to surround yourself with kind of awe inspiring intelligence, right?

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Yes, that's exactly right.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Which is why we're hosting this podcast together.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. And so, I mean, look, I think for a very wide variety of use cases, a model like this is going to be perfectly fine. If you're, you know, the average Gemini user and you're just trying to pass sixth grade for free, I think this model is going to be a lot of help. But, you know, the sort of more vocal AI power user crowd, which are the people that you're going to find on social media, sort of putting these models through their paces on day one, does seem to be a little disappointed here. And I do think it's notable that a model that was sold to us yesterday, largely on the strength of its low price, does not actually seem to be as cheap as maybe we were told.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think part of this is just that the cycle of kind of I/O and developer conferences is maybe out of step with how these models are actually being built. I've been hearing some whispers from folks at Google that they are working on something that is more powerful, but that it just may not have been ready in time for I/O this year. So I think that's one tricky thing about doing these conferences once a year is kind of every deadline has to line up at exactly the same time, or else you end up looking like you're behind.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think the real test for Google, I mean, at least the next real test for Google, will come next month when it puts out 3.5 Pro, which I think will sort of be at a similar class of the frontier models that we have today. And that's when I'm going to sort of be putting the model through all of its paces and trying to figure out, okay, like, what part of my daily workflows might this kind of thing slot into?

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Casey, what is your verdict on I/O? Did it meet your expectations?

• 11:37Speaker 02

  It felt like a base hit to me. You know, I think that if they ship everything that they showed off and it works basically as advertised, like, I think that there is some good stuff in there. I don't think that there was a single product that made me think, if I can't use this like today, I will be in extreme physical distress. But yeah, overall, I thought, you know, solid set of announcements. What'd you think?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that basically meets my expectations. I talked to one reporter who was walking around at I/O and who said it was like mid, sort of like, you know, it's like, good, it's good. It's a better position than they were in a couple of years ago at I/O when they were basically scrambling to get barred out the door and everything looked like it was going sideways. So they found their footing, but it is still not clear whether they are producing a model that will truly be state of the art. All right, so that is some more of our thoughts and early hands-on impressions of Gemini 3.5 Flash. Now let's head down to Google to talk to Sundar. And because I imagine we might want to ask Sundar a question or two about AI, let's make our disclosures. I work at the New York Times, which is suing OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  And my fiance works on the topic.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  We should also disclose that we both use Google.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  I'm a longtime Google user. I was, I was part of the Gmail beta in 2004.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Wow, you're old.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  So old.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Dell Technologies. It's time to put AI to work. Is your business ready? The challenge isn't getting started with AI. It's scaling beyond pilots while maintaining control of your data, governance, infrastructure, and costs. Dell AI Factory provides the integrated foundation you need to scale AI securely and efficiently with one trusted partner, Dell, AI on your terms. From idea to impact. Learn more at dell.com/yourwaytoAI. That's dell.com/yourwaytoAI.

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• 14:52Speaker 01

  Sundar Pichai, welcome back to Hard Fork.

• 14:53Speaker 06

  Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Thank you. So the last time we had you on the show was in 2023. Bard, R.I.P., had just come out. And I think at the time, the perception was that Google was catching up in AI. How are you feeling about your position in the race these days?

• 15:10Speaker 06

  Well, that brings back memories. So it feels like eons ago, you know, those three years feel like a long time ago now. But I think it's staggering to see how much that both the technology is making progress. We have made progress as a company.

• 15:26Speaker 06

  And I think it's a very dynamic moment in the industry. I think our models are at the frontier in some areas. You know, and there are areas where we are behind the frontier. And so it's a combination. I think if you look at, you know, overall capabilities, including text, multimorality, voice or audio,

• 15:55Speaker 06

  reasoning in general, overall intelligence, I think we are very capable. When it comes to agentic coding with tool use and instruction following, long horizon tasks. I think we are a bit behind at this moment. But we are hard at work and the space is so dynamic. You know, all of the leading labs have their own pre-training cycles. So you have these cadences and they may not exactly match up. I think the moment is intense enough that if you're slightly off, you know,

• 16:36Speaker 06

  three months ago, people are like, we are ahead and no one could catch up with us. And then, you know, now the conversation flips. But that's part of the territory of being at the frontier. I think we are the only large company which is actually at that frontier, right? So one way to think about it is there are, you know, in this moment, there are a couple of startups which have made extraordinary progress. And, and, you know, we, we are, we've been deeply working on this for a long time. I think we took a big step forward with 3.5 Flash. It does address some of the areas we have been behind. And I think obviously getting it out in the real world and it trading with that data coming back is going to really help us.

• 17:21Speaker 06

  I think coding was the area where getting access to the data flows was important. I think we maybe quite didn't have the surface, like Claude Code as an example, or what Anthropic maybe had with Cursor 2. And so.

• 17:40Speaker 06

  Getting anti-gravity with 2.0, we've been using it internally at Google for a while. I shared the token usage at Google I/O. I've never seen anything like it internally, right? We are doubling every week and people are really putting the models to work. And so that is helping us hill climb quite a bit. But, but you know, the frontier is very dynamic, but I'm very, very optimistic and confident we'll, we'll push through there.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  It sounds like if there's like any place where you feel maybe not quite at the very lead, where you actually want to be, it is coding, is that right? Like, is that where you're sort of putting the pressure?

• 18:18Speaker 06

  Look, I think coding ends up being very foundational in everything, everything we do. So I think it's an important frontier to be on. There are areas in coding where we've been very good. You know, we've been very, very good at creating single-shot web frontends, everything. But in terms of this long-running, you know, task where serious developers are working on complicated code bases. I think we are making progress. It is just that there is a gap to the frontier where others are. But we are working, you know, we are well aware of it and, you know, making progress there.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  3.5 Flash has been out for a day. I do think it typically takes a few days to really put these models to their paces.

• 18:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  We have seen some complaints, though, about pricing, model quality. Curious like what you've made of the reception so far.

• 19:03Speaker 06

  You know, it's, I'm looking forward to being done with the, with my interviews and so on, so that I can spend more time on, with the teams.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, wrap it up, Luis.

• 19:14Speaker 06

  Uh, no. Look, we, we, you know, I'm gonna meet the teams right after this. I think we are definitely, you know, it'll take a day or two to settle in. I think it's a new model and in a new area where we've made some progress, there could be some regressions, but we will be able to quickly address them through, through our post-training, pretty quickly, I think. There are some artifacts and behaviors we are seeing, which I think are easy to address, so we will. I do think, given It was a day after us putting out a lot of things. I think we had tightened usage limits to avoid outages.

• 19:56Speaker 06

  But you will see us make progress on usage limits very soon. That is rightfully a source of frustration when you encounter. I feel the same, but those are areas we will address pretty soon and make progress.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  It seems like one thing that some of the AI companies are succeeding at is focus. Just Anthropic and OpenAI have this relentless focus on coding. OpenAI was criticized last year for spreading their bets too thin, trying to do too many things all at once. They've now tightened that. Do you feel like Google is appropriately focused on coding? Or are all the other bets you're making taking away resources and time and focus from the main push?

• 20:37Speaker 06

  I think all of us saw sometime around, there was an inflection point in coding. And I think we are all responding to it. I think we all have pretty serious strikes around this area. And so I don't see it as an issue. We are a large company and we have scale. So we will be able to focus on a few multiple things at the same time. I don't see it as any fundamental issues as much as we are making progress. We're going to make progress. I think we are in a moment in time in this field where 30 to 60 days look like five years. That's all it is.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Another thing that got a lot of attention this week was the changes that you all made to the search bar and the front door of Google, the biggest change in 25 years. I think a lot of people expect that at some point, the kind of normal Google classic search interface goes away. The 10 blue links maybe go away and you just have this AI mode as the default. But you haven't done that yet. There's a lot of integration, but you still can get the 10 blue links if you want them. Do you think that goes away at any point to rip the Band-Aid off and just go full AI mode?

• 21:56Speaker 06

  You know, I think it's important to bring users along the journey as well as making sure the product is working for their expectations. So, you know, I try not to get get ahead of that. I think it is very clear as we have evolved through these changes, people are responding positively. We can see it in the long term metrics of the product in such a clear way, right? And and and so I think we understand that. But, you know, people want search to be fast. They I do think through search, people are looking to connect with what's out there on the web. So that's important to us. So it's it's all of that. So I think you're seeing us

• 22:36Speaker 06

  evolve the product. And I think you'll continue to see it be methodical. But, you know, we didn't have AI mode a year ago. But now a lot of people are experiencing it. I think we have made it more seamless to go there than before. And so it's a continuum. But I don't see sources and links will always be there as part of it.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  He was telling me on the ride down that he feels like he basically has not done a traditional Google search in the past year, that he's sort of fully doing these AI searches. When you hear that, are you like, cool, like, this is the kind of user that I want right now? Or does it send you a little chill? Because, you know, the sort of traditional search ads business is pretty good for you?

• 23:17Speaker 06

  Well, you know, I think we will, if anything, in the AI mode, you know, in a in a age and these things are going to do a lot more for you than what we were able to do for users 10 years ago. I think the economic value is always a function of the total value you're giving users. I think all of us would say over time, the value we are providing users increases. There's more competition, there are more choices. So I feel comfortable between a combination of subscription and ads, that the right models will continue to be there. Adam Smith's rules don't change in this new world.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Let's talk about public perception. The New York Times, CNN did a poll this week, found that only about 16% of people say that AI is mostly good, about 35% say it's mostly bad. What do you make of the AI backlash that we're seeing right now? And how much leverage do you think Google has to change that perception?

• 24:17Speaker 06

  Me, AI is, you know, I've always viewed it as the most profound technology humanity will ever work on. It's progressing at an extraordinary pace. I, you know, humans aren't evolved to process that much change. And there are, I think people rightfully so, are anxious about, you know, what is the future that this technology will bring. So to me, you know, I, I understand it. I think it feels to me natural with like such a profound technology shift. We've had far simpler technology shifts where there has been anxiety around those shifts. This is of a scale unlike anything we've, we've seen before.

• 25:02Speaker 06

  I think that we as an industry have to do a lot more to continue driving and showing the benefits that's possible with the technology. So that is something in our control. We have more work to do to make sure when we are scaling up the infrastructure investments, et cetera. You know, what are the things we can do to, to make some of that work better? But I think people's concerns are a bit more fundamental around the shift than all of that. I think a natural part of this is people are anxious about their economic future in this world. And, you know, you have a lot of conversation where people saying, you know, jobs are going

• 25:44Speaker 06

  to radically change, some of it will go away, et cetera. I happen to think, you know, the outlook is better than those, some of those dire predictions. But, you know, as a society, if you're hearing, it's natural. You know, I would be surprised if people aren't more anxious about it. I do think it's important because the change is happening so fast. You need people to, in democracies, you need citizens to be engaged, be aware that this is happening and, you know, and, and make their preferences known. That's what causes action in society. So I think there's something Healthy about this dialogue too, which is happening. And given the pace at which the technology is moving forward, it seems right to me,

• 26:28Speaker 06

  both the concerns and the fact that we need to take it seriously.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  You're giving the commencement speech at Stanford next month. I'm sure you've noticed or heard that a bunch of commencement speakers have been booed recently by college students who are worried about AI. What are you planning to tell the graduates about AI? And do you have your like boo strategy in place?

• 26:52Speaker 06

  Anytime we have driven technology progress, I think it helps drive progress in the world. And in some ways, these graduates are actually both going to be a big part of that, driving that progress and also dealing with the impact of that technology. So I think we have to be very mindful of that. And, you know, I've always been extraordinarily optimistic about the next generation. I think we all always have this view in the world, you know, we are anxious and we worry about the next generation, but I think the next generation rises to the challenge and, you know, builds a better world. And so I viewed as no different from those moments.

• 27:34Speaker 06

  And, you know, my goal would be to share, you know, my experiences and share that with them, and that's what I'm looking to do.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  You can just pretend they're saying Google. It's close enough, you know?

• 27:47Speaker 02

  I'd be curious to hear a little bit more about your case that like, that you think that sure, jobs may change a lot, but, you know, you entry level graduate, the economic future is still bright for you. Like, what is that case in your mind?

• 28:00Speaker 06

  You know, at a basic level, I do think we are, you know, there is a new level of capability all of us are going to have to be able to do things. And, and, you know, I wasn't there like when spreadsheets rolled out to people, like, you know, I wouldn't know how you did financial analysis before that, like, you know, how did people do it?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  I'll say it, I didn't do it. I had no idea how to do it.

• 28:28Speaker 06

  But, you know, spreadsheets changed that. And so there's an aspect of this, I think it just is going to change the starting point for many, many people. Just even coding, I think if you fast forward the progress we are seeing there.

• 28:43Speaker 06

  So many more people are going to be able to code in the world, right? And, you know, I've heard you two might be examples of that and like, you know, in that journey. But I think you're just at the leading edge of what is going to happen more and more. So I think those are the new serendipitous ways this will all work out that we underestimate. I think people are going to be more productive. They will have more time for leisure. All of that will simultaneously be true.

• 29:16Speaker 06

  There are so many areas where today people's work, you know, involves a lot, you know, doctors have, you know, high burnout rates and it's, you know, it's because they train and, you know, and their calling is to spend time with patients, taking care of patients. But, you know, most doctors would tell you, if you actually watch their time, the percentage of time they spend with patients is less, right? So I think AI will actually help them do more of that. Right? And I think, I think those are examples of it. The radiologist analogy has been fascinating. It's been now a decade running.

• 30:01Speaker 06

  I look at myself and I say, well, I've gotten a lot more scans in my life than my dad ever did. And each of the scans have like 10x amount of information than his scans had because they were constrained by a printing film versus us being digital.

• 30:19Speaker 06

  And I think that number is going to be 10x in 10 years. So where is that projection going into? You know, you are actually going to need AI to keep up, right? With that, with that demand coming. So I think it's nonlinear how the impact of all this will be. This is not, I don't want to be,

• 30:38Speaker 06

  I don't want in any way to minimize. Every technology shift brings disruption with it. And, you know, I think, you know, there will be disruption and we as a society need to be super serious about it and engage. And so some of the conversations I think are rightful in like, you know, thinking through that.

• 30:56Speaker 06

  But I do think there are many positive dimensions to it, which are maybe not being talked about. And I think, and also there is overly deterministic dire scenarios, which I quite don't agree with as part of it.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Let's talk about agents, because I feel like agents actually tie sort of into this question of, well, what is going to make us more productive in the future? And how will it change our job? Later this summer, you're releasing Spark, which I seems sort of intended to be an agent for the regular person. And I'm so curious to know, like, could you walk us through something this agent is doing for you personally?

• 31:33Speaker 06

  I've used it a lot more in my professional context, more to the context because of it was mainly available in my corp account, right, as part of it. In that context, I've definitely used it as it's super easy to use it to prepare for any meeting. I wish I had brought the prompt slash the output for, like, I just, as a test case, used it for Hotfork.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Honestly, if you emailed to us, we would flash it on the screen.

• 32:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, it had some things about the two of you, so I don't think I can project it.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  No, that's what we want. We want that. We want to know how Jemai dragged us.

• 32:12Speaker 06

  I'm not sure I love that, too. No, I'm just kidding. Partially kidding. So you should see Casey's browser history. Partially kidding. But I have had it in my personal account more recently. So again, here's a simple task I did. I just asked it to just look ahead at my meetings and color code it in categories so that I can keep sense of how I'm spending my time. I think, you know, it's extraordinary to watch it. It came back with like, you know, suggestions of two color coding schemes, and I just had to choose one. And it's actually like sci fi. It's just like, you know, changes the color in the calendar. Personal meetings, health-related meetings, you know, time I'm spending at work, et

• 32:57Speaker 06

  cetera. That's an example of a personal query I just did, just to see what's happening, right? And but with agents, I think you have to give people a sense of, I think about this as what allowed us to get someone to sit in the backseat of a self-driving car, right? We did it in steps and I think there's an element of that where with agents if if something unexpected happens, I think, you know, people back off from this and, you know, so part of it is earning their trust and so giving them a sense of control transparency, but more importantly, from a security standpoint, these systems, you know, can be hacked and

• 33:40Speaker 06

  so we want to make sure we are not ahead of the frontier in a, you know, in a wrong way.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Speaking of meetings and your calendar, we hear that you're headed to the White House for some kind of AI executive order signing. What should the government be doing right now to regulate AI? Do you like this idea of a kind of pre-release strategy where the government gets to sort of see models before they're released and sign off on them? Is that a good idea? Is that potentially dangerous if it gives them the ability to censor or jawbone companies into releasing different kinds of models? What's your take on that?

• 34:15Speaker 06

  Look, we'll have to wait and see the details of the full executive order, but they've been very, they've engaged with the industry in a very robust way and I think the approach really balances, you know, innovation and oversight. We'll have to wait for the details to come out. But, you know, there are a few areas which are coming up, you know, we will need more cross-industry, cross-industry government coordination. So it makes sense to me. Cyber is a great example of that. I think we all have to work together. It makes full sense to me if we have found an exploit, which could impact a governmental agency, you know, the government needs to be prepared for it. So, so there is validity,

• 34:59Speaker 06

  but of course, doing it in a, in a moment with this important technology, where it's important as a country to be at the frontier to, not doing it in a way where you're overly slowing things down. And maybe that balance has to shift as we reach more advanced levels of technology. But I think, I think, I think to me, this seems like a prudent approach. In general, I've, you know,

• 35:22Speaker 06

  You know, part of what we are doing with, you know, building Synth ID, open sourcing it and then sharing it with others and more importantly, building a consortium together, I think is an example of in a different area. These things only work together if we can come together as an industry. So, so, you know, I'm glad they're approaching it in that way.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. Another sort of safety related question. All of the big labs are racing toward what you call recursive self-improvement. So building AI systems that improve themselves rapidly. Do you think that can be done safely? And do you feel like you have a line of sight to it right now?

• 35:59Speaker 06

  You know, these models are getting better at, you know, coding and agent workflows. And so at some point, you know, you know, we did, you know, we did, you can see in anti-gravity today, you know, in over 12 hours, it can build a simple OS from scratch, right? And, you know, that is, genuinely, those are multiple thousands of hours for somebody to do, right? So you are seeing some of that in work today. We are all in our products in some version or the other, have agents and sub-agents and the orchestration of those agents, building things together. It's a continuum, right? And I think, I think we are all definitely making some progress.

• 36:46Speaker 06

  But in the way people describe RSI, I don't think we are there yet. And, you know, and I, you know, I, that would represent the next level of acceleration. And I think, you know, and I think would have a lot of implications. But we aren't quite there yet.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Is there like a plan for, uh-oh, like, I mean, great news, you know, like we just hit RSI, like, is there a sort of, do we, do we break glass? Or what happens then?

• 37:09Speaker 06

  It's, it's a great example of like, look, I think all responsible labs, I think, I think if you're approaching moments like that, you would be, you know, consulting with, you know, it shouldn't be an internal conversation at that point. I think it has to be a much broader conversation, conversation than that. And I think we all have to avoid race conditions at those stages of AGI.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Right now, all the labs are racing to get more compute. There seems to be bottomless demand for compute. They're hoarding it wherever they can, striking deals, building their own data centers. Google is still selling access to TPUs to rivals and other companies in the race. Why? Why aren't you just keeping that for yourselves and your own models?

• 37:58Speaker 06

  I think each is not a constraint on the other, right? So as long as we can make enough chips, it's not a constraint. So the right way to think about it is we have our, we have GDM and our first-party services. If you can think about that as a company, business cash flows, you're planning for that. And then you have Google Cloud, which is a business and which has revenue cash flows. And you're doing long-term plan and you're planning for that. Right? So if you didn't have cloud and we weren't providing, we wouldn't be planning those chips anyway. Right? And so that's at the simplest level. Obviously, you know, it's a bit more complex than that. But there are a lot of advantages of providing TPUs to others.

• 38:41Speaker 06

  The fact that researchers at Anthropic are using TPUs is what will allow us to make, in addition to us, allows us to make the best hardware in terms of next generation. And by the way, we use NVDS chips too, and the next-generation chips are incredible. And so we use that and we, we work to. When you're running platforms, we have a platform side of the business. And, you know, I, I've always have worked on many platforms in my life and be it Chrome or Android or Google Cloud. You know, why, why would you ever open source something? Or why do you provide this technology? I mean, all that makes sense on its own merits.

• 39:23Speaker 06

  I do think there are advantages, like I mentioned, it allows us to stay at the frontier. You know, economies of scale helps in, in various ways. And so it makes a lot of sense that way.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  The last time we had you on, we asked you about AGI and your feelings about the term. And at the time, you responded that it didn't really matter whether you've reached AGI or not, because the systems are going to be very, very capable and Google's strategy should be the same. I noticed that you did not say AGI in your keynote, Demis did, but you did not. What's your relationship with the term AGI today and sort of the idea that all of this progress is building towards something singular and world-changing?

• 40:05Speaker 06

  Oh, we are, you know, there is inevitable progress towards AGI that's happening. I've long understood it and, you know, otherwise I wouldn't have pivoted the company 10 years ago to like put that technology at the heart and center of the company. All I meant by that statement was even in the scenario, AGI is going to take 10 years. The technology, which three years out, will be so much more powerful than what we have today that I don't want people to think because AGI is 10 years out, you don't need to act or prepare. That is all my statement means in those contexts.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Are you AGI-pilled?

• 40:43Speaker 06

  Well, I absolutely, you know, I'm sure that the technology is making foundational progress towards AGI. I'm less able to predict with certainty whether it's in the three to five-year timeframe or five to 10-year timeframe. The rate of progress over the last one to two years has made me feel it's on the closer side than not. And, you know, I just don't, you know, in your role, running one of the largest companies in the world, which has a responsibility to society, the language I choose to use around it might be different than than other people. But I think, you know, as a company in terms of, you know, 10 years ago, the I O stage,

• 41:27Speaker 06

  I announced TPUs and AI-first data centers. You know, yes, clearly understood where this technology is at it.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Maybe as a last question, one of the more memorable phrases, I think, from the keynote this year did come from Demis when he said that we're in the foothills of the singularity. Can you tell us like concretely what that means from Google's perspective? And should people be excited about that or afraid or both?

• 41:53Speaker 06

  Look, I've had many conversations with Demis, obviously, on this topic. And I think in this context, he's, I think he's defining singularity as the advent of AGI. I think he's talking in that context. And, you know, I think if you think, regardless of, if I remember, I think he had, he had kind of articulated by 2030 or so. I think if you believe that, it makes sense to you. That's, that's what you're articulating. And, you know, it's as simple as that. I think for him, that's how we define singularity. And, and I think Demis, myself, many others, we all feel it's important to, if that's what you believe, it's important to articulate that because we are all at the frontier building this technology.

• 42:38Speaker 06

  And, you know, hopefully people are listening. And I think it's important to, as a society, we are internalizing that and, and getting ready for it.

• 42:49Speaker 06

  Sunar Pashay, thanks so much for coming.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Thank you, sir.

• 42:51Speaker 06

  Thanks. Great to talk to you. Appreciate it. Take care.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  When we come back, a few more highlights from this week in our system update.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Dell Technologies. It's time to put AI to work. Is your business ready? The challenge isn't getting started with AI. It's scaling beyond pilots while maintaining control of your data, governance, infrastructure, and costs. Dell AI Factory provides the integrated foundation you need to scale AI securely and efficiently with one trusted partner. Dell, AI on your terms. From idea to impact. Learn more at dell.com/yourwaytoAI. That's dell.com/yourwaytoAI.

• 43:49Speaker 07

  Companies are pouring money into AI, but few leaders can explain how those AI investments work with the systems you already have. You know, the ones that actually run your business. Without Systems, you don't have to start over with AI. You can choose the projects where AI will have the most impact. And OutSystems gives you the platform to make it agentic on your terms with complete control every step of the way. So you can trust AI with the mission-critical systems that run your business. Own your agentic future. Learn more at outsystems.com/NYT. That's outsystems.com/NYT.

• 44:24Speaker 08

  Today's AI builders need infrastructure that scales with their ambitions. Irene is a vertically-integrated AI cloud platform, delivering data centers, compute and software for AI training and inference, underpinned by its expansive portfolio of land and grid-connected power in renewable-rich regions globally. Irene's AI cloud gives direct access to Nvidia GPUs, scalable from hundreds to thousands. For builders, that means direct access to AI compute, rapid scaling and predictable pricing. Irene, AI cloud for the next big thing.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Well, Casey, other than I/O, there has been a lot happening this week on some stories that we have covered in the past. So it is time for our segment that we call System Update.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  All right, update number one is that the Elon Musk OpenAI trial is finally over after weeks of testimony. We got a verdict on Monday. And what was that verdict, Kevin? Well, after less than two hours of deliberation, the jury came back and unanimously rejected Elon Musk's claims, not on the merits, but just on the sort of grounds that he had waited too long to file the lawsuit. They said it fell outside of the three-year statute of limitations. And they basically said, we're not going to even debate the merits because it's too late. You're too late, bro. When is Elon Musk going to catch a break in this crazy world? Yes. So I think the trial ended up being quite important, but not for reasons related to the trial. It was sort of all the

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Evidence and all the gossipy juice that came out during the trial.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  It felt like a stimulus package for the tech media.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Where we just sort of had a steady drip of new lore and it kept us all very entertained. I don't know that we learned very much that truly affected public sentiment one way or the other. But I definitely learned things from this trial that I'll never forget.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yep, me too.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  And Elon Musk is obviously saying he is not done with fighting OpenAI.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  We haven't seen the last of him.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  His lawyer said that he would appeal the decision and on X he said, quote, "Creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America." Charitable giving, obviously, something that Elon Musk famously cares a lot about.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. Also, one of the great revelations from this trial was that Elon Musk himself had been scheming, like prior to 2020, to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company and even absorb it into Tesla. So effectively to do all of the things he would later complain that OpenAI actually did.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you agree with Musk that this is essentially a technicality? And that there are still some substantive issues that need to go to trial here?

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, every law in some sense is a technicality, Kevin. Like, that's how the legal system works. And he put this one to the test and he lost.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is there any lawsuits you've been waiting to file that you should get in under the statute of limitations?

• 47:18Speaker 02

  My backlog of lawsuits is so big. I gotta finish this podcast and get to it.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  All right. Update number two. Meta is continuing to reshuffle and shrink its workforce. This Wednesday, the company officially laid off 10% of its workers, roughly 8,000 people. We talked about these rumors on the show a couple of months ago in terms of their relationship to AI and the fact that they were seemingly cutting workers to sort of make space for more AI in the organization. We knew that these layoffs were coming, but we also got a new update to the story this week, which is that Meta announced that on top of these layoffs, it is also reassigning 7,000 workers to new initiatives related to building new AI tools and apps. Janelle Gale, Meta's head of HR, said in an internal memo that the restructuring, quote, "will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding."

• 48:05Speaker 02

  You know, there truly is no company among the big Labs that has done as many reorgs of its AI teams that Meta has done. I mean, like, you could almost, like, set your watch to how often these things have been happening.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yes, this is a company that specializes in corporate reorganizations and just happens to also make some popular social media apps.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  They monetized through social media, but the product is reorgs. But, you know, look, I have talked to some people who have actually been sort of impressed with the scale and the scope of what Meta is doing here. Like, if you want to know what does it look like for a big tech company to move heaven and earth to try to catch up in an area where it is behind? This is what that looks like. You know, so far, I don't think the efforts have borne much fruit. But, look, they have just reassigned 7,000 people to work on initiatives related to AI. And of course, that's in addition to all of the other, you know, hiring that they did last year. So, you know, I'm far from saying that Meta is back in this race. But of all the reorgs they've done, I do think this is one of the most intriguing.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think we should expect, like, a steady drip of stories from Meta over the coming months about how bad morale is. It does seem to be quite bad over there at the moment. That always happens when you do these kind of major shakeups and reorgs. And they're also doing all this, like, employee surveillance stuff that workers are understandably upset about. There was some leaked audio published this week from a meeting in which Zuckerberg basically said, "Look, we've got to train our systems to be good at coding and using computers. And the way that we do that is by training them on your computers and your coding, because we have a bunch of really smart people here." And that was sort of his way to sort of explain away why they're surveilling their employees.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I have to say, the whiplash between the Meta of today and the Meta that we were covering 10 years ago is pretty extreme. I thought, like, the thought just keeps occurring to me, Meta used to be a fun place to work. They have, like, a fake Main Street at their corporate headquarters, where you used to be able to walk into a Mexican restaurant where everything was free and you could drink a margarita at lunch. Now, that restaurant may still be there, but I think the margaritas at lunch program is, like, on the decline, because these people have to go create training data for large language models now. But, you know, I have to say to the employees, if you're like, "Man, this really sucks." Like, you know, I mean, my heart goes out to you, everyone should Have a job that they like. On the other hand, like, I think it's been clear for a long time that if you work at Meta, your job is to help Mark Zuckerberg win the race to build AGI before anyone else. And that is the entire point of the company now.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Like, there's not a secondary objective.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Totally. All right. Next update. This one is a system Pope date. Because this one has to do with our new Pope.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  Did he go on a date?

• 50:39Speaker 01

  No, they're not allowed to do that.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  But he is set to release his first encyclical on the topic of AI. This coming Monday, Pope Leo XIV is expected to release his document, sort of circulated among the church, that is meant to guide the clergy. And the surprising part of this is that Chris Ola, one of the co-founders of Anthropic, is going to be there at the Vatican to help him launch this thing.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  I didn't realize that we did, like, launch events for encyclicals. You know, it's like the Pope finishes up with mass and says, but I do have one more thing.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  It's their I O.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  Yes. This is Vatican I O. And, I mean, I guess we'll be very curious what the Pope has to say. You know, Kevin, as you know, this Pope seems unusually interested in tech and has had, like, a relative lot to say about it during his, you know, short tenure.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yes, and I also am very excited about this because I think this does mean that Pope Leo XIV is the most likely Pope to come on Hard Fork.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  And if you are in the Vatican, listening to us right now, Pope Leo, please come drop your encyclical on our audience.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Your Holiness, we would simply love to create content with you.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  All right, update four. The literary world has been rocked by two new scandals related to AI use by writers. The first is that an award-winning short story has been criticized by people who think that it was generated by AI.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  This story was a regional winner of the Commonwealth Foundation's Short Story Prize. It's called "The Serpent in the Grove" by Jamir Nazir of Trinidad. And it was published online by the British literary magazine Granta. But some readers thought, hey, this thing seems a lot like AI. It had some of the cliches of AI writing. And people claimed to have run This through Pangram, the AI detection tool, and found that the story appeared to be significantly or entirely generated by AI.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not sure that the backlash here is warranted because this story has gotten more attention than any previous story written in Granta. Like, I think it's possible more people have read this story than like anyone has read a Granta story in years.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  We have figured out how to rescue fiction, and it is just to create controversies around AI.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  The Commonwealth Foundation responded to these accusations, saying in a statement that they, quote, "place our confidence in the integrity of our contributors and the caliber and experience of the judges and chair of the judging panel and stand by the assurances given by our authors as part of our process."

• 53:11Speaker 02

  And I mean, look, like, we don't know.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  We don't know.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  We don't know.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  This is, I predict, like, a thing that is going to happen to every major literary prize, is that every submission will just have to be run through an AI detector.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  Also, we're all now just reading so much AI-generated text that I feel like inevitably we are all just going to start writing more like it. And so even when you are writing something by hand, I think there is just a risk that over time it is going to look more like slop.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  It's not a trend, it's a transformation.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  There's another writing scandal that came to light this week, this one in the nonfiction world. This was according to my colleague Ben Mullen at The Times, who wrote that a buzzy new book called The Future of Truth, which is about truth in the age of AI, appears to have included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by AI. The author, Steven Rosenbaum, acknowledged the errors on Monday. He said that he took full responsibility for the errors, that he used AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude during the research, writing and editing process, and that he was working to correct future additions.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  This story implicated our dear friend Kara Swisher. Kevin, I don't know if you saw this, but Kara was one of the people who had fabricated quotes attributed to her appear in this book. And it's so funny, because if you read the quote that's attributed to her, it does read just like pure ChatGPT.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:30Speaker 02

  Do you want to hear it?

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  "The most sophisticated AI language model is like a mirror. It reflects our own morality back at us, polished and articulate, but ultimately empty behind the surface. It's not bound by Asimov's loaves or any ethical framework. It's bound by the patterns in its training data and the objectives set by its creators." If you've ever talked to Kara Swisher.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  She has been brain swapped.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  A true pod person situation. So yeah, this one, I mean, like truly nothing could be funnier about like a book about AI and truth, just having a bunch of like hallucinated slop quotes in it.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  You know, you have often said that like anyone who puts a rule into, you know, like a workplace, a school, a publishing house that says, hey, no AI use, all you're doing is telling everyone that they have to lie about their AI use.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  This seems like, like we're just kind of like hitting some kind of inflection point where it's just becoming obvious that even people who absolutely should not be doing this are still just like getting lazy and not doing the work.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I would say like, it's not just laziness. Like there are a lot of things that AI tools can help you with on books. I've been using AI not for writing my book. It's all human generated, but like in, you know, collecting end notes and indexing and like various things that are not the main book itself. And I have had to go through with a fine tooth comb to make sure that all of the sources that my AI tools wanted to cite were actually real. And, and, you know, most of them were, but like most is not enough, especially if you were writing a book about truth in the age of AI.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  And so I have had to do some cleanup on that before sending it off to the printer. So I understand how this thing, kind of thing could happen, but you really got to go through if you're doing this and make sure that you are not passing off someone's words that they didn't say.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  Well, let, let this be a lesson to all of the, the writers among our listeners.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Because Kara Swisher will get your ass.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  She will absolutely get your ass.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  All right. Before we go, we have one more update. This one is very exciting. It is about Hard Fork Live.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  That is our upcoming live event in San Francisco on June 10th, and we are finally ready to share our guests for the event. Casey, who do we have?

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Well, leading off our lineup this year at Hard Fork Live, Kevin, will be Microsoft CEO Sachin Adella.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  I'm hitting every sound effect on the board right now. There are only two.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  This is somebody who we have been trying to talk to ever since we started Hard Fork. Somebody who is at the center of everything that is happening in AI and also just a really fun person to talk to. So thrilled to have Sacha as a marquee guest for us at Hard Fork Live.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yes, we have a bunch more exciting guests. Figma CEO Dylan Field will be there. We've got Cindy Cohn.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Plus, we've got a bunch of other great guests, including friend of the pod and fellow tech podcaster Dwarsh Patel, AI as Normal Technology co-author Syash Kapoor, and AI 2027 author Daniel Cocotello.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  And you might be wondering, Kevin, will there be any fun surprises this year?

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Will there be any fun surprises this year?

• 57:30Speaker 02

  There will absolutely be some fun surprises. So now here's ordinarily where we would tell you you could get tickets, but you can't. They're all sold out.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  But the good news is, we will be, of course, bringing you all of those conversations here on the podcast in the weeks to come. So fear not. Hard Fork Live will be part of your life, one way or another.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Can't avoid us.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  And that was our system update.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  What year is it? Are we snapping again?

• 57:55Speaker 02

  We're snapping.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Dell Technologies. It's time to put AI to work. Is your business ready? The challenge isn't getting started with AI. It's scaling beyond pilots while maintaining control of your data, governance, infrastructure, and costs. Dell AI Factory provides the integrated foundation you need to scale AI securely and efficiently with one trusted partner, Dell. AI on your terms. From idea to impact. Learn more at dell.com/yourwaytoAI. That's dell.com/yourwaytoAI.

• 58:46Speaker 07

  Companies are pouring money into AI, but few leaders can explain how those AI investments work with the systems you already have. You know, the ones that actually run your business. Without Systems, you don't have to start over with AI. You can choose the projects where AI will have the most impact. And OutSystems gives you the platform to make it agentic on your terms with complete control every step of the way. So you can trust AI with the mission-critical systems that run your business. Own your agentic future. Learn more at outsystems.com/NYT. That's outsystems.com/NYT.

• 59:21Speaker 08

  Today's AI builders need infrastructure that scales with their ambitions. Iron is a vertically integrated AI cloud platform, delivering data centers, compute and software for AI training and inference, underpinned by its expansive portfolio of land and grid-connected power in renewable-rich regions globally. Iron's AI cloud gives direct access to Nvidia GPUs, scalable from hundreds to thousands. For builders, that means direct access to AI compute, rapid scaling and predictable pricing. Iron, AI cloud for the next big thing.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Hard Fork is produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. We're edited by Viren Pavich. We're fact-checked by Kaitlyn Love. Today's show was engineered by Katie McMurran. Original music by Alicia Byetup, Marion Lozano, Rowan Nemisto, Alyssa Moxley and Dan Powell. Video production by Viren Pavich, Jake Nickel and Chris Schott. You can watch this episode on YouTube at youtube.com/hardfork. Special thanks to Paula Schuman, Queuing Tam and Dahlia Haddad. You can email us, as always, at [email protected].

• 1:00:57Speaker 05

  Are you getting rewarded for paying your renter mortgage? If not, you need to check out Bilt. Bilt members earn points on every housing payment, which can be redeemed for flights, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and more. Bilt also gives members access to its agentic neighborhood concierge in the Bilt app. It's connected to your home and over 50,000 merchant partners, so you can ask it to pay your rent, schedule a Lyft, and more. Just download the Bilt app, link any credit or debit card, then ask the neighborhood concierge pretty much anything. Download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com/nytimes. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com/nytimes.