Hard Fork Live: Robots, Revelry and the A.I. Revolution

1. 0:00 – 4:13

   Intro and welcome to Hard Fork Live 2026

   1. KRKevin Roose0:00

      [upbeat music] Well, Casey, we are here for Hard Fork Live 2.

   2. CNCasey Newton0:05

      It is a blockbuster sequel, Kevin. Bigger, better, more fun.

   3. KRKevin Roose0:09

      We have so much cool stuff in store for this show. I am very excited. We've got... Let me just review the list backstage here. Satya Nadella, Dylan Field, Cindy Cohn, and in, like, purple crayon, you wrote below that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. What's going on?

   4. CNCasey Newton0:26

      Well, I, I had a little surprise I wanted to introduce, Kevin, a little something unexpected to kick things off and kind of get us started on the right note.

   5. KRKevin Roose0:34

      Oh, boy.

   6. CNCasey Newton0:35

      And to ask a question that too few people are asking these days.

   7. KRKevin Roose0:38

      What's the question? [laughs]

   8. CNCasey Newton0:40

      Well, I think to ask the question, I'm gonna ask a few of my friends. Do you know the Baha Men?

   9. KRKevin Roose0:45

      Oh, boy. [laughs] I think I know where this is going. [laughs]

   10. CNCasey Newton0:47

       Hit it, boys.

   11. SNSatya Nadella0:48

       Who let the dogs out? Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof. Woof.

   12. KRKevin Roose1:17

       I'm Kevin Roose, a tech columnist from The New York Times.

   13. CNCasey Newton1:19

       I'm-

   14. SPSpeaker1:19

       [cheering]

   15. CNCasey Newton1:22

       I'm Casey Newton from Platformer.

   16. KRKevin Roose1:24

       And this is Hard Fork Live.

   17. CNCasey Newton1:27

       Ah, Kevin, what a fine-looking bunch of humans this is.

   18. KRKevin Roose1:33

       Truly, we are so happy to be here. This is one of the highlights of our year. We love meeting our friends and our family and our listeners and viewers all here. It is so much fun.

   19. CNCasey Newton1:44

       These are the few and the proud who got tickets within hours of them going on sale, and who crucially made it through the security line.

   20. SPSpeaker1:51

       [laughs]

   21. CNCasey Newton1:51

       So thanks for that.

   22. SPSpeaker1:52

       [laughs]

   23. CNCasey Newton1:53

       We, we haven't seen a security response like that since the time I tried to use Claude to make a bioweapon.

   24. KRKevin Roose1:58

       [laughs]

   25. SPSpeaker1:58

       [laughs]

   26. CNCasey Newton2:00

       Yeah.

   27. KRKevin Roose2:00

       Now, if you are used to listening to us or watching us on YouTube, you'll notice there are a few differences that you're gonna experience tonight. Uh, for starters, there's no button you can press to speed us up to 1.5x.

   28. SPSpeaker2:11

       [laughs]

   29. CNCasey Newton2:12

       Sorry. Sorry.

   30. KRKevin Roose2:13

       You also can't skip the ads.
2. 4:13 – 34:08

   Satya Nadella, Microsoft

   1. KRKevin Roose4:13

      CEO of Microsoft.

   2. SPSpeaker4:14

      [cheers] [claps]

   3. CNCasey Newton4:19

      Hello.

   4. SPSpeaker4:19

      [upbeat music]

   5. KRKevin Roose4:25

      Now, Satya, I have to start by making a confession, which is that I have not been a regular user of a Microsoft AI product since 2023 when, uh, when one of them tried to break up my marriage.

   6. SPSpeaker4:38

      [laughs]

   7. KRKevin Roose4:39

      Um, unsuccessfully, I should add. My wife is right there.

   8. SPSpeaker4:43

      [cheers] [claps]

   9. CNCasey Newton4:49

      [coughs]

   10. SNSatya Nadella4:49

       Those were the days-

   11. KRKevin Roose4:50

       Yeah. [laughs]

   12. SNSatya Nadella4:50

       ... when you didn't have... Think about a world without guardrails.

   13. KRKevin Roose4:54

       [laughs]

   14. CNCasey Newton4:54

       [laughs]

   15. KRKevin Roose4:55

       But so much has been happening at Microsoft, uh, with AI since then, so just catch us up. Like, what, what, uh, for people who may not have tuned in in a little while, what have you guys been up to in AI?

   16. SNSatya Nadella5:04

       Yeah, I mean, look, um, the fundamental thing that I feel we're about to move from, um, is not talking about AI as a one thing, to sort of having even a mental picture of- What is an ecosystem that is sort of driven by AI, right? So today, if you think about it, even since when you first used Sydney to now, it has been about frontier model. You sort of talked about Fable, what have you. But if we are ever going to transition to an economy that is driven by AI, it can't be about one model, it can't be about three firms. It has to be something that's broadly felt, where the economy is at the frontier, not a firm or a model is at the frontier. So Microsoft is a platform company. To me, that's what we, we are at, up to, right? So to me, we had our developer conference last week, it was all about, hey, can we build the platform and the tools where every enterprise in every country can operate at the frontier? To me, that's the question. To be saying, "Hey, my model does this," but the economy is growing at two percent means this is not going to end well, unless we sort of really get to a place where the economy's inflicting in terms of its economic growth and its broad spread because the frontier benefits are. That's what happened in electricity and every other technology which was a general purpose technology.

   17. CNCasey Newton6:28

       Let me ask about one of the platform shifts that you signaled at Build last week when you announced Project Solara. You said it would be agent-first hardware, a kind of next generation, uh, set of devices that would have agents running them. Tell us a little bit more about that, what that looks like. Like, can you give us an example of maybe what Project Solara-

   18. SNSatya Nadella6:47

       Yeah. There were two things-

   19. CNCasey Newton6:48

       Yeah

   20. SNSatya Nadella6:49

       ... uh, Casey, we did at Build which were interesting, right? One was we took the PC itself. In fact, Jensen had done it the previous, uh, night at ComDe- at, at, uh, Computex where he talked about... You know, if the, the picture, uh, one of the, my favorite pictures was Jensen with the desktops, the laptops, because the... And he obviously had the RTX chip, which is a new SOC, uh, with essentially a petaflop of compute, right, right on your PC. So that is about new functionality coming to the old form factor, right? So think about the, what I describe as unmetered intelligence, right? So the fact that you can have a Windows computer that can run a one bil- you know, a trillion parameter model locally, uh, I think is gonna be very needed, uh, if you're going to ever have token- I mean, uh, agents running twenty-four by seven. But then the question it sets up is, in a world where we have these models and these agents that are long-running, can I have like a badge? Uh, right? If I'm a nurse in a hospital and I'm walking to, from station to station, can I just take out this de- device which can scan, which can input, which can take my speech output and turn it into a prompt? Um, that is what I think an agent-first device looks like, right? So it's sort of really a new ins- The centrality of the phone I think is still going to be there for a lot of apps that we use, but an agent world, you kind of have that ambient intelligence that is like a sense of feel that then works with your models. And so that's what our goal is, to invent the new form factors that are not, are not beholden to the old form factors for this functionality.

   21. CNCasey Newton8:37

       It, it's super interesting, and I wanna hear a lot more about it. We have many more questions about AI. But I wanted to ask about one more device that has been in the news today, which is the Xbox. Um, the leaders of the Xbox division put out a memo today saying that, uh, we should expect a hard reset of Xbox coming soon. They said that there are, uh, massive increases in the prices of components, and that Xbox might need a new business model. So as a big gamer who's enjoyed many happy hours on Xbox, Satya, I have to ask, what is your strategy for Xbox?

   22. SNSatya Nadella9:05

       Yeah, so look, in fact, we're, you know, this is the twenty-fifth year of Xbox. Um, and, uh, we're very thrilled about the progress we have ma- I mean, gaming, in an interesting way at Microsoft, is older than even Windows and Office, right? The first, uh, app we built was the flight simulator. Um, and so it's got a long heritage. Xbox itself has been there for twenty-four, five years. The challenge now for us is to think about, how do you innovate both in hardware as well as in the games going forward in a world, in an economically viable way, right? I think one of the things that Asha, who's just taken over Xbox, put out is that we've invested a lot. No one can accuse Microsoft of not having invested-

   23. CNCasey Newton9:53

       [laughs]

   24. SNSatya Nadella9:54

       ... uh, for the last twenty-five years. And now we have to turn this into a sustainable business that delivers what is fundamentally the, one of the best sources of entertainment still. The challenge we have is we've not the, been monetizing that entertainment. Uh, in fact, if anything, we've been subsidizing that entertainment. In fact, like there's more monetization of Xbox games happening on YouTube-

   25. CNCasey Newton10:19

       [laughs]

   26. SNSatya Nadella10:20

       ... uh, than at Microsoft. Um, and so that doesn't mean we go do things that are unnatural. We want us to do what is, uh, really our job, which is to build great games, build great hardware, but we've got to do it in an economically sustainable way. So I think Asha is, uh, really a hundred days in, and she put out a post saying in the next hundred days she's gonna take a fresh look and make sure we deliver on what our fans expect of us, both on the hardware side or on the publishing side.

   27. CNCasey Newton10:46

       Satya, can you give us just any more detail? Like, like, when I hear that, I think, okay, so maybe, like, the Xbox gets way more expensive, the games get way more expensive. Like, is there any sort of like carrot you can offer the gamers?

   28. SNSatya Nadella10:55

       [laughs] Like, I, I think we have to find ways to deliver the games at which i- i- it's economically relevant for the customer and for us. So today, there's a issue, in fact, unfortunately, because of what's happening with the cloud-

   29. CNCasey Newton11:11

       Yeah

   30. SNSatya Nadella11:12

       ... and AI, the prices have gone up, right? It's happening with PCs, it's happening with phones. Xbox is impacted, uh, as well. So the scarcity of the semiconductor supply and memory in particular, um, are having a massive impact, uh, on consumer electronics all up. That's a temporal thing, uh, that I think we'll get through. It, it is not gonna be a permanent. But there is a permanent thing, which is, what's the Xbox model going forward? And that's where, if you think about it, like, PCs and e- co- consoles both have their place. Obviously mobile has. People play now elsewhere. And so we have to now bring it all together while staying true to what we've always done.
3. 34:08 – 41:34

   Phil Mohun, NODE

   1. SPSpeaker34:08

      [applauds] [electronic music]

   2. PMPhil Mohun34:12

      Thanks, guys.

   3. CNCasey Newton34:14

      Hey, Phil.

   4. PMPhil Mohun34:15

      Thank you. Thank you.

   5. CNCasey Newton34:15

      Hey, Phil. Oh, God, they're coming back.

   6. KRKevin Roose34:18

      Oh, boy.

   7. CNCasey Newton34:18

      Hey, that's, that might be far enough.

   8. KRKevin Roose34:21

      Yeah. [laughs]

   9. CNCasey Newton34:22

      I... Heel. You know, th- they're very lifelike in that they don't seem to respond well to instructions.

   10. SPSpeaker34:29

       [laughs]

   11. PMPhil Mohun34:30

       Yeah.

   12. KRKevin Roose34:30

       Kind of like the, uh-

   13. CNCasey Newton34:31

       Okay

   14. KRKevin Roose34:31

       ... the originals.

   15. CNCasey Newton34:31

       Please go. Please leave.

   16. PMPhil Mohun34:33

       See you guys.

   17. KRKevin Roose34:34

       Yeah.

   18. CNCasey Newton34:34

       Well, shall we have a seat?

   19. KRKevin Roose34:35

       Yeah, let's have a seat. Now, I wanna just describe these dogs a little bit for people who are, are gonna be listening to this later. These are two Unitree Go- Go2 robo dogs with the faces of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, and as I understand it, they are part of a whole pack. So Phil, tell us about these dogs. How many are there, and how can we protect our families from them?

   20. SPSpeaker34:58

       [laughs]

   21. PMPhil Mohun34:58

       Yeah. Um-

   22. CNCasey Newton34:59

       By the way, when you said there was a whole pack, a chill fell through the crowd.

   23. PMPhil Mohun35:02

       Yeah.

   24. KRKevin Roose35:02

       [laughs] Yes.

   25. PMPhil Mohun35:03

       Uh, a little different from the last conversation. I think, um-

   26. KRKevin Roose35:05

       [laughs]

   27. PMPhil Mohun35:06

       So th- these are called the Regular Animals, and these were created by an amazing digital artist, uh, named Mike Winkelmann or Beeple. How many people know Beeple in the crowd?

   28. SPSpeaker35:15

       [cheers]

   29. KRKevin Roose35:16

       Yeah.

   30. PMPhil Mohun35:16

       Okay. So for those of you who don't, um, uh, I'm excited to share. Um, Mike is an amazing artist. He has been creating a new piece of digital art every day for 20 years, and these dogs are his latest creation. They're called Regular Animals, and they're part of a show we're doing at NODE in Palo Alto.
4. 41:34 – 1:04:13

   Cindy Cohn, EFF

   1. SPSpeaker41:35

      [upbeat music]

   2. CCCindy Cohn41:36

      Thank you. Oh, my gosh.

   3. CNCasey Newton41:38

      Hi, Cindy.

   4. CCCindy Cohn41:39

      Thank you.

   5. CNCasey Newton41:41

      I'm admiring your let's sue the government shirt.

   6. CCCindy Cohn41:45

      Yes. Yeah.

   7. CNCasey Newton41:46

      [laughs] Um-

   8. CCCindy Cohn41:47

      We have the best merch at EFF, and I know they made this especially for me, so

   9. CNCasey Newton41:52

      Well- Cindy, how do we get those robot dogs banned? [laughs]

   10. CCCindy Cohn41:55

       Oh, they're creepy, aren't they? Oh my God. Plus-

   11. CNCasey Newton41:57

       Do you have a call you could make in DC?

   12. CCCindy Cohn41:59

       You know, the thing that's creepy about them is what he said at the end, which is they're taking photos all the time, and they're gonna last forever, right?

   13. CNCasey Newton42:07

       Yeah.

   14. CCCindy Cohn42:07

       Um, this kind of creepy mass surveillance in the form of a creepy dog. Ugh.

   15. CNCasey Newton42:13

       What could go wrong?

   16. CCCindy Cohn42:14

       Nothing. Nothing could go wrong.

   17. CNCasey Newton42:15

       It could, it could be a reason to sue the government, which is something that you did throughout your, uh, illustrious career at EFF. One of your first big fights, uh, back in the '90s was defending the cryptologist, uh, Daniel Bernstein against government restrictions on encrypted source code. 30 years later, we are still seeing fights between the government and, uh, private individuals over end-to-end encryption. How surprised are you that this battle is still going on, and how would you characterize the state of that fight today?

   18. CCCindy Cohn42:45

       Yeah, I mean, look, we won the first round, which means that we have Signal and we have HTTPS, and when you lose your phone, you don't lose all the data on it 'cause it's encrypted. So I mean, that was great. But yeah, we continue to have to fight. And we, you know, in the Meta social media case, they used the fact that they offered encryption as an argument of a product defect, right? Um, so the fight continues. I think, you know, law enforcement's interest in making sure n- nobody can ever have a private conversation just never goes away. But our need to have a private conversation online doesn't go away either. So, um, you know, I think in the United States we've managed to fend off... You know, there's, there's periodically, uh, uh, and their last bill was called Earn It, but different bills to try to, you know, restrict encryption. But with... You know, the UK is a mess. Australia's a mess. We're, we're gonna have to... The Canada now is debating something that Signal has said, "We're not gonna be able to offer our product and our tool in Canada if they pass this law." So it's, the fight just goes on, and I've kind of come to the sad conclusion that it's just something like free speech, like privacy, that we're just always gonna have to stand up for.

   19. CNCasey Newton44:08

       Hmm. I remember when I started covering tech, uh, more than a decade ago, the EFF was known for taking on the government, primarily fighting government overreach. Um, now you also fight Big Tech overreach. So I'm, I'm curious, like did that shift come as a surprise, and where does that leave you today in terms of allies? Like, who are the good guys?

   20. CCCindy Cohn44:26

       Yeah. It, it's, um, I would say in the '90s we didn't anticipate that spying on everybody would become the number one business model of the internet. Um-

   21. CNCasey Newton44:36

       [laughs] It's very profitable.

   22. CCCindy Cohn44:38

       It, uh, turns out, and it also, you know, has created this problem with the five big tech giants that control every, you know, uh, the vast majority of people's experience online. And these two things together have really forced us to, you know... We're, we don't make common cause with the tech giants anymore, uh, at the level that we used to, 'cause they used to stand up for their users, and increasingly, they're adversarial to their users. So what I tell all the tech companies is, "Look, if you stand with your users, we will stand with you. And if you stand against your users, we're gonna be the first in line." And sadly, that second part has become bigger, uh, than, than I think it should. Um, but it's-

   23. CNCasey Newton45:23

       So I wanna hear what-

   24. CCCindy Cohn45:23

       It's, it's dragged us into these places where we're adversarial against the tech giants because they're not standing with users.

   25. CNCasey Newton45:30

       I mean, I, I remember, you know, you know, Kevin and I started covering tech around the same time, and I remember, you know, whenever, you know, you guys would put out a statement that, you know, like Google, Facebook, like Amazon were putting out statements, like you, you guys were marching in lockstep. You just said that that united front is, is now broken. When did you first notice those cracks start to appear?

   26. CCCindy Cohn45:51

       I mean, it depends on the topic-

   27. CNCasey Newton45:54

       Yeah

   28. CCCindy Cohn45:54

       ... right? You know, the early fights, EFF was involved a lot in trying to make copyright balanced in the digital age, and we, we, we worked a lot with the companies on this because, uh, they wanted to give you the ability to make your own media, and to rip, mix, and burn, those kinds of things. Um, and we would stand with them. Um, but I, I think again, as surveillance became the business model, as they became, you know, less interested in empowering their users and more interested in their surveilling their users, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've separated. And now, you know, we stand up for things like, you know, the Section 230, the idea that, you know, the, nobody would host anybody else's speech if they were responsible for it. So users need intermediaries to be able to speak. We've seen the tech companies roll over and support all of these exceptions, FOSTA-SESTA and other things. Um, and they're not even standing up for their own rights anymore.

   29. CNCasey Newton46:58

       Yeah.

   30. CCCindy Cohn46:58

       Um, so it w- it's really topic by topic and issue by issue. Um, but I would say that in the last 10 years, i- it's less and less of the time that we end up standing with them because they don't stand with the users.
5. 1:04:13 – 1:09:07

   Dan Powell and Teenage Engineering Choir

   1. CNCasey Newton1:04:13

      Casey and I will be back. But first, a very special performance from the Hard Fork Robot Choir. See you soon. [upbeat music]

   2. CCCindy Cohn1:04:30

      Please welcome to the stage New York Time composer Dan Powell and his Robot Choir. [upbeat music] [singing]

   3. SPSpeaker1:06:17

      [singing] [instrumental music] [singing] [instrumental music] [singing] [applause]

   4. CNCasey Newton1:08:21

      Dan Powell. Dan Powell and the incredible Hard Fork choir. You know, Dan, in addition to being our DJ tonight, also composed the Hard Fork theme song and so much of the other amazing music on the show. [cheering] Thank you, Dan, for coming out tonight. Rarely has a human losing a job to automation sounded so beautiful.

   5. KRKevin Roose1:08:40

      [laughs] Yeah. So those robots are made by Teenage Engineering, and, uh, they are part of a choir that takes in input via MIDI and Bluetooth, and outputs beautiful songs, and only occasionally do they need to be, like, rapped on the head to, to behave.

   6. CNCasey Newton1:08:55

      But I'm told that feels good for them.

   7. KRKevin Roose1:08:56

      Yeah.

   8. CNCasey Newton1:08:57

      Yeah.

   9. KRKevin Roose1:08:57

      [laughs] Yeah, they like it.

   10. CNCasey Newton1:08:58

       Yeah.

   11. KRKevin Roose1:08:59

       Um, well, we have so much more to come tonight. I know it's hard to believe, um, but we are so excited for our next guest. Our next guest is the CEO

6. 1:09:07 – 1:32:52

   Dylan Field, Figma

   1. KRKevin Roose1:09:07

      of Figma, an AI and web-based design application founded in 2012. Uh, it's Dylan Field. Dylan, welcome.

   2. SPSpeaker1:09:14

      [cheering] [instrumental music]

   3. SPSpeaker1:09:19

      Nice to see you.

   4. CNCasey Newton1:09:20

      Hey, Dylan.

   5. SPSpeaker1:09:20

      Hey.

   6. KRKevin Roose1:09:24

      Ah. So Dylan, I wanna start by reading you a Facebook message I got-

   7. SPSpeaker1:09:29

      [laughs]

   8. KRKevin Roose1:09:31

      ... on August 5th, 2009. "Hey, Kevin-

   9. SPSpeaker1:09:35

      That's when we were all only messaging each other

   10. KRKevin Roose1:09:35

       ... I recently picked up your book at the library. Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it. Anyway, best of luck with your future endeavors. I'm going to Brown this fall. Who knows? Maybe I'll meet you in Providence someday." That message was sent by a teenage boy named Dylan Field. And I wanna just, first of all, apologize. I never responded to that [laughs]

   11. SPSpeaker1:09:56

       [laughs]

   12. KRKevin Roose1:09:56

       So you can fix this.

   13. CNCasey Newton1:09:58

       Can you imagine you write a book and a college student emails you out of the blue, and you're like, "Yeah, whatever."

   14. KRKevin Roose1:10:03

       [laughs] It was, you know-

   15. SPSpeaker1:10:04

       You had a lot going on

   16. KRKevin Roose1:10:05

       ... lot going on in 2009. Anyway, I'm sorry for ghosting you, and second of all-

   17. SPSpeaker1:10:09

       It's a good book. You should all read it.

   18. KRKevin Roose1:10:11

       [laughs] How did your freshman year of college go?

   19. SPSpeaker1:10:13

       It was awesome.

   20. CNCasey Newton1:10:14

       [laughs]

   21. SPSpeaker1:10:15

       Yeah. And I got to meet you.

   22. KRKevin Roose1:10:16

       Yeah.

   23. SPSpeaker1:10:16

       Because I don't know if you remember, but, uh, for the a cappella group that you were in, you came back as a super senior-

   24. KRKevin Roose1:10:23

       Mm-hmm

   25. SPSpeaker1:10:23

       ... uh, to hang out with everyone, I guess.

   26. KRKevin Roose1:10:26

       Yeah.

   27. SPSpeaker1:10:26

       Including the new freshmen.

   28. KRKevin Roose1:10:27

       [laughs] Yeah.

   29. SPSpeaker1:10:28

       [laughs]

   30. KRKevin Roose1:10:29

       Well, uh, it was, it went so well that you dropped out and, uh, and moved to Silicon Valley to seek your fortune here. And it's been quite a run for you. Um, Figma went public last year, has had a, a wild ride. And I want to talk to you first about AI because I have heard, uh, that you are quite AI pilled.
7. 1:32:52 – 1:36:10

   In Memoriam video

   1. CNCasey Newton1:34:51

      [laughs] Aw. Cute.

   2. KRKevin Roose1:34:54

      Well, that was nice.

   3. CNCasey Newton1:34:55

      It was lovely. Um, okay, so this next segment I am so excited for because we're gonna have a conversation, uh, with two people who have very different views about how, uh, AI's going right now.

   4. KRKevin Roose1:35:08

      Yes. We have Daniel Kokotajlo with us tonight. He is the co-author of AI 2027, a report that many of you, I'm sure, have read. This came out in 2025 and laid out a vivid scenario or account of how AI could fundamentally upend the world, achieving tasks like autonomous coding and R&D. Uh, he's since updated that prediction a few times. We'll ask him about that. And he'll be joined by Sayash Kapoor, who is an AI researcher at Princeton with a very different view of the future. He's the co-author of AI as Normal Technology, which looks at evidence that AI is much like previous technologies that have upended the economy, that take a long time to diffuse through society. We've invited them both here tonight because we saw last year a very interesting debate that the two of them had at an AI conference called The Curve. We thought it was so interesting that we decided to bring them back tonight and hear how their views have evolved since then, and where they continue to disagree, and where they might agree now. So please give a warm welcome to Daniel Kokotajlo and Sayash Kapoor. [upbeat music]

8. 1:36:10 – 1:59:53

   Daniel Kokotajlo and Sayash Kapoor

   1. KRKevin Roose1:36:14

      [laughs]

   2. SPSpeaker1:36:15

      Look at this.

   3. KRKevin Roose1:36:15

      Hey, Daniel.

   4. SPSpeaker1:36:16

      Oh, hey, Sayash.

   5. KRKevin Roose1:36:21

      All right. So Daniel, Kevin mentioned this up top, you have updated your timelines a few times since you first published AI 2027. Give us the most up-to-date view of your thinking. What's your best estimate for when we will achieve AI models that can do their own AI R&D?

   6. SPSpeaker1:36:39

      Uh, probably 50% by late 2028.

   7. KRKevin Roose1:36:42

      Okay. That's soon.

   8. SPSpeaker1:36:44

      Yeah.

   9. KRKevin Roose1:36:44

      I, I'm, I'm thinking about the calendar.

   10. SPSpeaker1:36:46

       Yeah.

   11. KRKevin Roose1:36:46

       That's two years.

   12. SPSpeaker1:36:48

       Yeah, that's, like, a little bit later than Anthropic expects, I think. Things take longer than y- you plan for, you know?

   13. CNCasey Newton1:36:54

       Which is a point that Sayash makes sometimes. Sayash, can you summarize, uh, where your views are today? Uh, my sense is that you do not believe in the sort of sudden takeoff scenario that, uh, some other observers believe in.

   14. SKSayash Kapoor1:37:07

       That's exactly right. I think the main reason for that is basically this disagreement boils down to the-- whether the bottlenecks to this intelligence explosion, the bottlenecks to automating R&D are all computational, or whether they rely on real-world bottlenecks that'll be really hard to automate away. So, um, I guess this is one place where we disagree. I think that in a lot of domains, making these advances won't be as easy as it ha- brain coding. And to really get to sort of artificial super intelligence, you need to cover all of these different domains. You need sample efficiency across the board, which is much easier to do in a field like programming, where you have these simulators, these virtual environments, but much harder to do in the real world. And, you know, some evidence bears this out, um, adoption of AI systems has been indeed far slower in other domains as opposed to coding.

   15. CNCasey Newton1:37:54

       So give us an example of what these bottlenecks are. 'Cause I talk to a lot of AI re-researcher folks, and it-- for-- to them, the way... at least the way they make it sound to me is, "Look, eventually the model just gets good enough, and then it's game over." You're saying that there's something that exists called a real world, and I'd like to hear more about it.

   16. SKSayash Kapoor1:38:08

       [laughs] I mean, look, I mean, uh, to be honest, I think these are just two independent, self-consistent worldviews about the future of AI. Um, and the reason that Daniel and I have had such productive conversations is that we are basically trying to figure out where these worldviews differ. Um, now speaking of, I think, like, Daniel's actions and Daniel's predictions are con- entirely self-consistent with the worldview that we'll get to AI systems at this point. Unfortunately, in order to get evidence, we are going one way or the other. We need to actually carry out lots of evaluations. We need evaluations to be of a much higher standard than they have today. So to give you one example of a bottleneck, uh, the other day, I was talking to a lawyer friend of mine, and, you know, he uses these tools, he's very bullish about them. But what has turned out to be the case is, as he started using these tools for bigger and bigger tasks, the rate of hallucinations, the rate of unreliable outputs, has sort of remained the same.

   17. CNCasey Newton1:39:02

       Mm.

   18. SKSayash Kapoor1:39:02

       Right? It's not because the AI systems haven't gotten better. They indeed have. They are so much better today than they were just a year ago. But the fact is that the tasks that you can do with these systems actually are bounded by the rate of hallucinations or the reliability, and that's one place where AI systems continue to struggle. And in a domain like software engineering, where you have this instant feedback loop, where you can actually run the code and see what the output would be, it's a much easier bottleneck to address, as opposed to something like the law, where even the right answer is not obvious to a domain expert. Domain experts can reasonably differ in the approach that they take. So this is just one example of a bottleneck in a domain where the right answer can be a bit more subjective than in coding.

   19. CNCasey Newton1:39:41

       Daniel, I, I think when AI 2027 first came out, there were some people who dismissed it as sort of speculation or scary science fiction, was a term that, uh, some people were throwing around a lot. I, I, I reported on this. I talked to you and your, your co-authors then. I know that you grounded this in, like, real, like, forecasting work, like months of trying to figure out what would happen as the technology got better. And I, I, I will say, like, a lot of that has come true already. So you predicted in your AI 2027 that this would be-- 2026 would be sort of the year of stumbling agents, and that we would start to see large parts of coding become automated. That much has come true. I was reading today, someone was copying and pasting something that you had written about, uh, Frontier Lab sort of restricting the use of their models for Frontier LLM development, uh, something that has happened, uh, this week with Claude Fable. So what are the things that you think will happen if your scenario continues to mostly hold, uh, for let's call it the rest of 2026? What are we gonna see this year?

   20. DKDaniel Kokotajlo1:40:41

       So we're not gonna see an intelligence explosion this year, uh, in the scenario that happens next year.

   21. CNCasey Newton1:40:46

       [laughs] That was close.

   22. DKDaniel Kokotajlo1:40:47

       Uh, so that's nice. I think, um-

   23. CNCasey Newton1:40:51

       Intelligence explosion being recursive self-improvement, leading to-

   24. DKDaniel Kokotajlo1:40:54

       That's right

   25. CNCasey Newton1:40:54

       ... uh, sort of out-of-control, runaway superhuman AI.

   26. DKDaniel Kokotajlo1:40:58

       Yeah, or to put it another way, just fully automating the AI research process, causing AI research to happen even faster than it currently happens. And it's currently happening at a very fast rate compared to many other technologies. Um, but, uh, yeah, I would say the coding agents are just gonna get better and better, and that maybe a year from now, maybe two years from now, they will be, uh, good enough that you can sort of say they've automated coding fully. They haven't fully automated coding yet, but, like, maybe in a year or two, they'll have fully automated coding, at which point the bottleneck will be, uh, research taste and management and, you know, all the other aspects of the AI research process besides the actual coding. And then the companies are gonna turn towards resolving those bottlenecks and teaching the AIs to do those skills as well. And that's gonna take some time, but it's gonna go by faster than you might think when all the coding has been automated. Um, once they've finished doing those things, they won't have super intelligence immediately. You know, the first AI system that can do the complete AI research process probably won't be able to do various other things. Uh, but once they've fully automated the AI research process, things will probably go faster and faster, and then the type of system that can do absolutely everything is probably not far off.

   27. CNCasey Newton1:42:10

       Sayash, do you believe this sort of recursive self-improvement is possible?

   28. SKSayash Kapoor1:42:15

       I mean, in some sense, I think the process of recursive self-improvement started like six decades ago. Um, in fact, the entire history of computing has been one where we develop tools that then aid us in the development of better tools. We've developed compilers that have allowed us to be like two orders of magnitude better at programming. We've developed, uh, frameworks on top of that. We've developed entire systems and libraries that allow us to do things that would frankly take, like, an experienced software engineer years or decades of time if they were using assembly language. So I think in some sense, this loop has been kickstarted already. This loop is something that the entire history of computing bears out. Um, what I disagree with, uh, in terms of, like, Daniel's predictions is whether this process will naturally lead us to a point where we develop the automated AI R&D researcher, or whether humans will continue to have this edge, and teams of humans with AI will continue to sort of outperform AI alone, and whether this process will lead to artificial super intelligence. I actually think that, uh, it's a very plausible scenario for me that we get the sort of recursive self-improvement that AI systems do indeed continue performing better and better at AI research tasks. But the end process of that need not be ASI. The end process of it could just be far more capable models than we have today, perhaps following the trend of previous technologies, and yet not the point where we have, you know, these systems that outperform humans, the top human experts on everything, which is, I believe, the definition of ASI.

   29. CNCasey Newton1:43:38

       Right. Perhaps you should talk about the, the point of agreement.

   30. SKSayash Kapoor1:43:40

       Yeah, yeah. [laughs]
9. 1:59:53 – 2:07:45

   George Ekas, Toborlife

   1. KRKevin Roose1:59:53

      out. [audience applauding] [upbeat music] Good to see you.

   2. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:00

      George.

   3. KRKevin Roose2:00:01

      You're a very convincing humanoid. [laughs]

   4. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:03

      [laughs]

   5. KRKevin Roose2:00:04

      Oh, no, wait, that's Toby.

   6. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:10

      That's right.

   7. KRKevin Roose2:00:12

      Do we, do we shake hands? Okay. Let's try it here.

   8. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:16

      Hi.

   9. KRKevin Roose2:00:16

      What a short king.

   10. SPSpeaker2:00:19

       It's, it's so good. I believe you.

   11. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:20

       It's great.

   12. KRKevin Roose2:00:23

       Wow.

   13. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:23

       I appreciate the weak grip strength.

   14. KRKevin Roose2:00:25

       [laughs]

   15. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:25

       It gives me comfort.

   16. KRKevin Roose2:00:26

       [laughs] Yeah, it's sort of like a dead fish handshake.

   17. DKDaniel Kokotajlo2:00:29

       Yeah. Now he is advancing on me.

   18. KRKevin Roose2:00:31

       All right. Oh, okay. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Um, now we're gonna talk about all of the things that Toby, uh, and his brethren can do, but we heard that Toby can actually dance. Um, is that true? That is the case. Okay. Can we see that? Toby, can you dance for us? Dan, will you help us out? Hit it, DJ. [upbeat music] Oh, Jesus Christ. [laughs] Listen, we've all been there. Sometimes you just dance till you drop. [laughs] This robot left it all on the dance floor, ladies and gentlemen. Could have been an operator in there. [laughs] Thank you. Thank you, Toby, for your sacrifice.

   19. CNCasey Newton2:01:37

       [laughs]

   20. KRKevin Roose2:01:37

       You will not be forgotten.

   21. CNCasey Newton2:01:39

       We'll add you to the In Memoriam next year.

   22. PMPhil Mohun2:01:41

       [laughs]

   23. KRKevin Roose2:01:43

       Now, is Toby capable of standing up?

   24. CNCasey Newton2:01:44

       Is he okay?

   25. GEGeorge Ekas2:01:46

       Yeah, probably just a misclick on the controller and-

   26. CNCasey Newton2:01:49

       Oh, oh, okay.

   27. KRKevin Roose2:01:49

       He's autonomous right now. We're so back. We're so back.

   28. GEGeorge Ekas2:01:51

       He's absolutely fine. They're quite durable. Yeah.

   29. KRKevin Roose2:01:54

       Oh my God, that was not in the script.

   30. GEGeorge Ekas2:01:56

       Yeah.
10. 2:07:45 – 2:19:55

    Dwarkesh Patel

    1. KRKevin Roose2:07:45

       stretch, but we had one more friend of the pod who we just wanted to bring on and have a little bit of fun with before the end of the show.

    2. CNCasey Newton2:07:54

       Yes, our next guest is friend of the pod and YouTuber and podcast sensation, Dwarkesh Patel. Dwarkesh, come on out.

    3. SPSpeaker2:08:01

       [cheering] [clapping]

    4. DPDwarkesh Patel2:08:05

       What's up, guys? Good to see you.

    5. CNCasey Newton2:08:07

       Hello.

    6. KRKevin Roose2:08:07

       Hello.

    7. CNCasey Newton2:08:09

       All right.

    8. DPDwarkesh Patel2:08:10

       So how am I supposed to follow a robot dancing?

    9. CNCasey Newton2:08:13

       You could fall over.

    10. KRKevin Roose2:08:14

        Yeah. [laughs]

    11. CNCasey Newton2:08:15

        [laughs] You could just face plant. That'd be great.

    12. KRKevin Roose2:08:18

        Yeah.

    13. CNCasey Newton2:08:18

        Um, Dwarkesh, it's been a hell of a year for you. Uh, you are, uh, s- you know, firing on all cylinders, doing interviews with Jensen Huang and other, uh, tech luminaries. You've got a new Blackboard series that teaches people, uh, you know, extremely dense and esoteric concepts in AI. Um, you also got published-- uh, profiled in The New York Times in April, um, and they m- made a big deal of, of you and your media empire that you are building here. Uh, I don't really have a question about that. I'm just, I'm just kind of like in awe of what you have managed to build, and I'm, I'm curious like what, what you hear when you hear the conversation about AI 2027 versus AI and normal technology. Where are you on the spectrum of like everything is changing, uh, the scaling laws are holding, to maybe things are slowing down, and we don't quite have the breakthrough ideas yet to get to AGI?

    14. DPDwarkesh Patel2:09:11

        I think fundamentally the scary thing is we realize just how far we are from human intelligence, yet these models are so powerful. And so that raises the obvious question is when they not only have the current advantages that they do, that they can think, you know, thousands of times faster, they, um, uh, have greater ability to absorb knowledge across a wide variety of domains. If anybody's used these models at like coding work or any sort of like computer use work, you, you must have experienced this. And then you think, well, there's this huge overhang where humans are able to learn about new things literally a million times faster. If you think about how much information you see from birth to, um, adulthood versus what these models see, we're capable of retaining information across sessions. We're learning on the job. We're not just like first day on the job the way these models are experiencing things. And despite this, the model companies, you know, are earning close to, uh, now a hundred billion dollars combined between them. And so I think that the really scary thing really is that like we know that there's a big difference between where these models are currently and where human intelligence lies. We're making really fast progress towards human intelligence. Already, these things are so capable. What happens when they not only have their inherent advantages because they're digital minds, but also, um, um, have all our advantages?

    15. CNCasey Newton2:10:24

        You've written and spoken before about how you've tried and failed to automate parts of your own production process with your-

    16. DPDwarkesh Patel2:10:30

        Yeah

    17. CNCasey Newton2:10:30

        ... podcast and your YouTube show, and how hard it's been to sort of get rid of some of the, the sort of sticky human processes there. Are you having better luck with newer models? Like, is your operation more AI than it was six months ago?

    18. DPDwarkesh Patel2:10:44

        Um, d- so most of the tokens I see in a given day are produced by AI, and so I can't really come here and say like, "No, AI is not making me more productive," or, "I'm not using it in a significant way." I do-- I think people underrate how hard it is to automate jobs. Like, th- uh, people underrate how much it takes to do every single thing a human, wh- even white-collar worker might be doing. Um, at the same time, uh, you must, you guys must be finding this, um, as well, just the ability to triage huge amounts of information, which is a large part of my job, has just gotten way better. Yeah, how have you guys been finding these m- models?

    19. CNCasey Newton2:11:19

        I mean, sort of the same. I do feel like with each of the big leaps in model capability, it becomes better at tasks that are quite useful in, for example, like the preparing for a podcast, right?

    20. DPDwarkesh Patel2:11:29

        Yeah.

    21. CNCasey Newton2:11:29

        If we're, uh, sitting down with a guest that I'm not that familiar with saying, "Hey, go out and, uh, you know, prepare a briefing document for me about this person and give me some interesting directions to maybe take the conversation based on things they've said in public in the last three months." I mean, that's absolutely a job that I could have hired for, and now, you know, I can get in about like four minutes on my computer. So that's really useful. Does it make me more productive? Yes. But do I like work less or use the computer less? No.

    22. KRKevin Roose2:11:55

        I, I'm finding something similar. I, I like-- I want to use these models to automate a lot of my life, and I've been very successful at doing some pieces of it. But there are just things that-- Now, the primary feeling I had, like I got access to Claude Fable, uh, yesterday, and, and the primary feeling I had was like, I am too dumb to use this thing. Like, I actually don't know what I would prompt it to do that a previous model would not have been able to do. But I'm not building RL environments. I'm not overseeing training runs. So like what is the use for you as a media, uh, figure and podcaster? Like, what is the thing that you wish the models could do that they can't currently?

    23. DPDwarkesh Patel2:12:34

        I, I think, um, because we're so-- First of all, every time I'm bear-- or say something bearish about the models, I, I, I put it in the context that it-- we're living in like an absurd timeline.

    24. KRKevin Roose2:12:45

        [laughs]

    25. DPDwarkesh Patel2:12:45

        And I am reacting to my, you know, close friends who are just like, well, you just had some of them on, and they're talking about like th- the singularity in two years. Um, but I feel like we're so used to what these models are capable of currently that we ask these questions like, "Well, what is it that they can't do? Aren't they clearly already AGI?" It's like, no, we all have jobs. That wouldn't happen in a world with AGI, right? Like get-- just get them to do something, um, uh, pretty... Okay, so for example, I'm negotiating with a sponsor for next season or something, and like they ask for you do like the back and forth there with the relevant context about how we think about our, uh, business and stuff. It's like probably a one-hour horizon task for me or my general manager. The models couldn't do it at all. Um, or like, let's say, book a show in another city, like book an event like this, right? There's a, a lot of people who are involved in this. What part of it could the models do reliably? I m- It's like... Anyways, all this to say, I think people really underrate what the range of human, even white-collar work is.

    26. KRKevin Roose2:13:42

        Mm-hmm.

    27. CNCasey Newton2:13:42

        I mean, it seems to me like it might be very helpful in a negotiation, though. Like, particularly, I mean, you know, you're not in this position, but maybe you're just, you know, starting a new podcast, and you have some interest from a sponsor, and you say, "Go tell me something about this market, and what's the sort of the best place to get started?"

    28. DPDwarkesh Patel2:13:55

        Sure.

    29. CNCasey Newton2:13:55

        Like, I could see it compressing that into a much smaller problem. But to your point, somebody still has to do the rest of the job.

    30. DPDwarkesh Patel2:14:02

        Yeah, that's right. I mean, they can't, like, do something on a computer you might want them to do, right?
11. 2:19:55 – 2:30:08

    Audience Q&A

    1. CNCasey Newton2:19:57

       All right. [laughs] Okay. Well, friends, we are almost there at the finish line. Yeah. But before we go, we wanted to take some questions. Yeah. If any of you have questions for us, we will spend a few minutes, uh, answering them. We have mic runners upstairs and downstairs, so raise your hand. Someone will approach you with a mic. Anything, we're an open book. You can ask us about it all. It's like a YouTube comment section, but in real life. [laughs]

    2. SPSpeaker2:20:24

       [laughs]

    3. CNCasey Newton2:20:32

       This one right here. Hi. I am... It's on? Can you hear me? Okay. Hi, my name's Dallin. We're-- I'm here with my brother from Utah. Um- Hi. What happened to the Fediverse? [laughs] Great question. Or, or the, the, the Forkiverse, I should say. What, what's- The Forkiverse was, of course, our, uh, effort to build a social network in a federated way, sort of show people what it would be like to be part of a social network that wasn't owned by a giant corporation. And I think it just ran into the challenge that any social product does, which is that if you're not constantly bringing in new users, its, like, default state is to just kind of shrink. And so, um, y- you know, we, we've been in discussions recently about, like, what is the future of it. I think it was a fun experiment, but, you know, we didn't really have that strong of an idea of what was gonna happen after we started it, and so we're now sort of, uh, living with the consequences of that.

    4. SPSpeaker2:21:19

       [laughs]

    5. CNCasey Newton2:21:20

       Great. Thanks. Yeah.

    6. SPSpeaker2:21:21

       [laughs]

    7. CNCasey Newton2:21:23

       Balcony. Do we have s- anyone in the balcony? Oh. Yes. Yes.

    8. SPSpeaker2:21:28

       Hello.

    9. CNCasey Newton2:21:29

       Yeah.

    10. SPSpeaker2:21:29

        Hi, Kevin and Casey. I was wondering why we're not hearing more from executives like Satya and other l- you know, tech leaders who are restructuring their companies around the premise of AI. They just don't seem to want to engage with that premise when you ask them. What do you think that's about?

    11. CNCasey Newton2:21:48

        I mean, I think there's a lot of conflicting incentives here, right? There are some companies that really want you to know how much they are using AI and how much more productive they are getting, and how many workers they are laying off, and sometimes that's real, and sometimes it might just be covering for some over-hiring they did a couple years ago. Um, I think that's going to flip at some point, where companies will not want to advertise, uh, the fact that they are restructuring around AI. Right now, there is still sort of this weird market premium for that, and so, um, I think that will continue for as long as the market premium lasts, and then it'll be like, we're just gonna sort of sweep it under the rug and hide it, and if we're gonna lay people off to replace them with AI, we're gonna call it something else, um, because we don't wanna deal with the backlash. But I think that really hasn't happened yet, which has been a surprise to me. What about you? No, I agree with that. And in the interest of answering as many questions as possible, I think we should move on to the next one. One right here, and right, so right back there. Let's- Oh, we're, we're... We gotta follow the mics so that we can hear you- Yeah ... and so the audience can hear you.

    12. SPSpeaker2:22:53

        Hi, my name is Ina. I work at Quizlet. If you've gone to school in the last 20 years, you've heard of Quizlet. If you haven't, what?

    13. SPSpeaker2:22:59

        [laughs]

    14. SPSpeaker2:22:59

        Anyways, um, education is being obviously, like, radically changed, but, like, what people need to learn and kind of the fact they need to learn doesn't really change. So I'm curious, if Quizlet were to just, like, start everything from the ground up tomorrow, what do you think we should build?

    15. CNCasey Newton2:23:15

        I mean, that's... That is really challenging. I mean, you know, C- Kevin and I get a chance to go speak in schools, um, eh, from time to time, and I think what we find is people who are, like, doing their absolute best to introduce, like, fairly incremental change and kind of see what happens. There's just tremendous uncertainty right now. You know, school is typically trying to educate you for, like, a fixed target, you know? Like, when I went to journalism school, it was like, well, if I get these skills, then, you know, I can have this kind of job. I think, you know, like, w- we're not able to ask any guest on this stage, um, about anything longer than a two-year timeline, 'cause just none of them have credibly anything to say about that. So, you know, how do you, like, educate a five-year-old so they'll be prepared for the world when they're 18? Like, you know, good luck.

    16. SPSpeaker2:23:55

        [laughs]

    17. CNCasey Newton2:24:00

        What an inspiring message. [laughs] Thank you. [laughs] All right, let's take a couple more. Yes. We'll, we'll follow the mics. So wherever the mics are, we will respond. Yes. Up there in the balcony.

    18. SPSpeaker2:24:14

        Hey. Can you hear me?

    19. CNCasey Newton2:24:16

        Yeah.

    20. SPSpeaker2:24:16

        Okay, great. Uh-

    21. CNCasey Newton2:24:16

        And please introduce yourselves.

    22. SPSpeaker2:24:18

        Oh, hi, I'm Liz. Um-

    23. CNCasey Newton2:24:20

        Hi, Liz.

    24. SPSpeaker2:24:21

        [laughs]

    25. SPSpeaker2:24:22

        Hey. [laughs] Um, okay. So two, two real legitimate questions. Number one, what are we wearing now that Allbirds is under?

    26. SPSpeaker2:24:30

        [laughs]

    27. SPSpeaker2:24:31

        Okay. Uh, and two... So I work, um, I work as a regulator. I work for the state of California. I do privacy regulation. And so, um, my question is on, um, so if you were to take a stab at what would be in the AI in the new world for privacy, like, how are you gonna protect your digital selves, either your sons or your friends? Like, what are we gonna do when it's all owned in one walled universe?

    28. CNCasey Newton2:24:56

        Yeah, I mean, my hope is just that that is not the case. You know, we sort of asked Cindy about that tonight. Like, I think there is a lot of logic in having, um, some kind of privilege-like system that protects certain kinds of conversations that you would have with a chatbot, the same way, you know, that a conversation with a lawyer, um, might be protected. But also think there's a lot of wisdom about what she said is, you know, what systems can we build that would ensure that that sort of data never makes it into the hands of a big corporation? And I think we should outlaw data brokers. Next question. Oh, yeah. Outlaw data brokers. That's a good one.

    29. SPSpeaker2:25:26

        [clapping]

    30. SPSpeaker2:25:27

        What about your shoes, though?

Episode duration: 2:30:08