Marketplace Tech

The Big Tech companies driving the AI boom are expected to spend more than $700 billion on data center infrastructure this year. To finance this spending spree, they're increasingly looking to debt. Hyperscalers like Alphabet, Oracle, and Meta have been issuing corporate bonds at a scale the industry has never seen — nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars this year so far. The bond market could be considered a less risky way than stocks for investors to get a piece of the AI hype. To explain what the flood of AI debt means for the bond market, we're joined by Julie Ask, an independent industry analyst at Ask Advisory. More on this: “The Quarter-Trillion-Dollar Onslaught of AI Bonds Is Testing Investors' Limits” from the Wall Street Journal “AI has taken over the stock market. The bond market is next.” from The Economist

As top AI firms race to develop a “superintelligent” agent — one that surpasses human cognition — are they prioritizing safety guardrails along the way? Not according to the Future of Life Institute's AI Safety Index, which reported that companies have gone back on their own promises to take a pause if their technology ever got close to certain risky points. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Sabina Nong, AI safety investigator at the Future of Life Institute, about what measures might ensure durable safety around AI moving forward.

Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the AI startup stole trade secrets. The iPhone maker claimed that former Apple employees were asked to bring proprietary hardware to job interviews with OpenAI, and that the company tricked manufacturers into sharing Apple design secrets.Plus, New York state becomes the first to enact a data center moratorium, and Uber is lobbying to slow the roll of autonomous vehicles in Washington D.C. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired, to learn more.Here's what we talked about: “The 6 wildest claims in Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI” from The Verge“OpenAI's First Device Will Be Movable, Screenless Speaker Built as AI Companion” from Bloomberg“New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium” from Reuters“Uber's robotaxi lobbying effort puts it on a collision course with Waymo” from TechCrunch“Robotaxi Riders Are Falling Asleep, Sparking Frantic 911 Calls” from Bloomberg

The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey are suing Meta for $1.4 trillion, claiming the social media giant designed Facebook and Instagram to addict young users.The case is heading to court in Oakland, California, next month. It follows a landmark verdict earlier this year: A Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for mental health harms to a young woman who said she'd become addicted to the platforms starting at nine years old.And there are a slew of similar cases coming down the pike. To help break this down we're joined by Gaia Bernstein, law professor at Seton Hall Univerisity and author of the book "Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies."

Netflix may be the undisputed king of streaming, but it's facing a new challenge: "the sophomore slump." Internal data reported by Bloomberg show audiences dropping off dramatically for follow-up seasons of successful shows.Series like "The Night Agent," "Beef" and "Avatar: The last Airbender" all lost 50% or more of their original viewers when they returned for season two. To figure out what might be going on and how Netflix could respond we called up Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics.

Last month, comedians Harris Alterman and Dave Ross posted a series of advertisements for made-up tech companies around the New York City subway system. The ads are fake, but they bear an eerie resemblance to the real AI marketing campaigns proliferating throughout U.S. cities. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with the two comedians about why the joke resonated with so many people and what's next in terms of AI mockery.

Mitigating climate change likely requires not only lowering emissions, but removing existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And while the Trump administration has cut many climate initiatives, it's continued to fund some carbon removal projects. Marketplace's Amy Scott reports.

OpenAI is rolling out its most advanced GPT-5.6 model after delaying the release for testing with the government. But the White House denied that the review was mandatory. What's the deal?Plus, Reuters reported that China is considering limiting access to its top AI models from foreign competitors, including the United States. And, Meta launched a new AI image generator, sparking privacy concerns.Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino discusses this week's top tech stories with Axios tech policy reporter Maria Curi. Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

In the post-9/11 years, the U.S. military has adhered to the “golden hour” rule: Wounded troops should be evacuated to higher-level care within 60 minutes. But as the new realities of drone warfare have taken shape in the Russia-Ukraine war, WUNC News military reporter Jay Price said medical response teams are being forced to rethink this standard approach to battlefield medicine. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Price to learn more.More on this:As attack drones grow more common in warfare, it's harder for medics to treat battlefield injuries from WUNC News

We're still unpacking the slew of consequential Supreme Court decisions that came down at the end of the term last week. Among them was a 6-3 ruling on digital data privacy.In Chatrie v. United States, the Court found digital data does fall under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, law professor at George Washington University and author of the recent book “Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance," explains more.More on this“Chatrie v. United States” opinion from the Supreme Court of The United States“Supreme Court limits use of 'geofence warrants' amid cellphone data privacy concerns” from ABC NewsBluesky thread post on the 6-3 ruling from Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Both OpenAI and Anthropic are planning to go public, each pushing a valuation of $1 trillion as of their latest funding rounds. But even before these mega-IPOs send a tsunami of new liquidity through their home city, San Francisco, signs of growing AI wealth aren't hard to find. And no sign is blinking brighter than the real estate market.San Francisco has the highest and the fastest-rising home prices in the country, according to data from Redfin. Recently, a turn-key restored Edwardian home hit the market for just under $3 million, right outside the neighborhood known as Cerebral Valley for its concentration of AI workers.

During last year's massive wildfires in Los Angeles, concerned residents and firefighters went to one app to get up to date information: Watch Duty. Now, the app covers all 50 states and recently added flood tracking to its repertoire. Watch Duty's chief technology officer David Merritt joined Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino to talk about how the app is scaling up.

Many scientists believe we're in the midst of a sixth mass extinction brought on by factors like climate change, deforestation, fishing and hunting. The Texas-based company Colossal Biosciences claims its technology could help prevent some of those losses, and even bring back long-extinct species. For the new season of the Marketplace climate podcast, “How We Survive,” host Amy Scott got a virtual tour of their labs.

AI is the buzzy tech of the moment. It's made plenty of money not only for companies but the cities and states where investment is pouring in. Illinois and specifically Chicago are betting that quantum computing will be the next major tech breakthrough to transform the economy. And they're trying to get in on the ground floor. So they've turned a former steel mill site into a tech hub, called the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, with the hope of attracting as much talent and investment as possible. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Jeanne Whalen, economics reporter at The Wall Street Journal, to learn more.

Who is using AI? And what are they using it for? Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, has been trying to answer these questions to better understand how AI is reshaping the economy. The firm's latest Economic Index report offers new insights on how people are using Claude and how they feel about AI's potential effects on the labor market. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Anthropic's head of economics Peter McCrory to learn more about what the data reveals.

The resemblance to an actual dog is loose but the quadrupedal robot dogs known as “Spot” from Boston Dynamics do have four legs. They're often used to do reconnaissance in hazardous environments. And four of them are working security at the World Cup games in Dallas and New York. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Merry Frayne, at Boston Dynamics about Spot's capabilities and why they wanted to deploy them at live sporting events.

There's a longstanding nursing shortage in the U.S. that's only expected to get worse. Some hospitals have experimented with robotic nursing assistants to lighten the load, like a model known as Moxi that rolled out in 2019. They're kind of R2D2-meets-Rosie-the-robots and were designed to handle non-patient-facing tasks like transporting lab samples. But many hospitals eventually pulled them from operation. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Varsha Bansal, reporter at Proof News, about what went wrong.

SpaceX stock prices fell back to earth this week after they skyrocketed in the wake of the IPO a couple weeks ago. Plus, why a Google AI subsidiary is investing in the film studio A24. And why Meta might be getting into the prediction markets. The New York Times reported this week the social media giant was working on its own prediction market app, sort of like Kalshi and Polymarket, which have been bringing in billions of dollars but also drawing lots of scrutiny and legal challenges. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Anita Ramaswamy, financial columnist at The Information, for this week's “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes.”

We here at Marketplace love indicators that give us insights into which direction the economy is moving. But AI is evolving fast and it can be hard for the data — and the people looking to it for clues about AI's effects — to keep up. So the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, with help from the payroll firm ADP, recently launched its own AI Economic Indicators. They track things like AI adoption, productivity, and of course, jobs. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Connacher Murphy, research manager at Stanford Digital Economy Lab, to learn more about the database and what researchers call the Canary Dashboard for jobs.

Big Tech is looking for land to build its AI data centers. HBCUs are looking for new funding after federal cuts.And partnerships between them, like one announced by Fisk University, could be a mutually beneficial — or could end up being a form of "digital sharecropping," according to strategist Ashley Northington, who wrote about this for Tech Policy Press.

In late May, Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas. His first papal encyclical is an appeal for a more human-centered approach to artificial intelligence. Joining him at the Vatican for the unveiling was Anthropic co-founder, Chris Olah, and Father Brendan McGuire, pastor at St. Simon parish in Silicon Valley. McGuire joined the priesthood after a career in tech and co-founded the Institute of Technology, Ethics and Culture — a joint initiative of the Vatican and Santa Clara University. He's one of a handful of religious leaders Anthropic has consulted on building ethics into AI.Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Father Brendan about his experience as a spiritual advisor to AI.

Nurses have a tough job. AI tools promise to take care of some of the more mundane and repetitive tasks that eat up so much time and, by extension, money in healthcare. But often these AI efficiency initiatives can be a bit top down without much consideration for how workers actually do their jobs. So, some nurses unions are bargaining over AI. Claire Keenan-Kurgan of Interlochen Public Radio has this story.

Meta responded to plummeting morale this week with a pledge to do better with company snacks. Plus, the new AI augmented reality smart glasses everyone's talking about, and not in a good way. But first, SpaceX is acquiring the AI coding startup Cursor a week after it's IPO took off like a rocket.The company hit a $2.5 trillion valuation at one point, but has dropped since then. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Paresh Dace, senior writer at Wired, to learn more.

AI has ushered in a golden age for scams. There are the deepfake kidnapping calls, the vibecoded ecommerce websites and one of the latest, according to a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter, is a casting scam targeting aspiring actors. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with labor and media reporter Katie Kilkenny who wrote about how this scheme typically unfolds.

Last week, the Trump Administration ordered Anthropic to cut off access to its most advanced AI models — Mythos 5 and the pared-down public version, Fable 5 — from foreign nationals due to reported security weaknesses in Fable's safeguards.In response, Anthropic shut them down for everyone including the handful of companies that had been granted access to Mythos.One of those companies is Mozilla, which said Mythos identified about 270 bugs in its Firefox browser that had slipped through previous reviews. Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Mozilla chief technology officer Raffi Krikorian about the government essentially hitting a kill switch on the system.More on thisWhat to know about the Anthropic models takedown - from The HillMythos and Fable can make us all safer. Shutting them down is reckless - from the Transformer SubstackFederal spending on Y2K reaches $8.38 billion - from CNET

Demand for power is growing thanks to the rapid expansion of data center infrastructure across the U.S. But as utility bills continue to rise, states and grid operators are turning to address problems in grid infrastructure. Reliability and affordability are among the largest concerns for regulators and consumers alike. On July 23rd, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold a meeting with PJM Interconnection LLC, the nation's largest electric grid operator, to address these issues. “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Ethan Howland, a senior reporter at Utility Dive, about how these problems may get addressed, and what's at stake for the United States power grid.

On today's episode, Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino walks us through how AI is making it harder to break into the cybersecurity sector.

The White House is not giving up its push to preempt states from passing their own AI laws, something it tried and failed to accomplish last year. We'll get into it on today's “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.” Plus it looks like federal regulators might actually put some rules on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. And Siri AI is coming to an Apple device near you later this year, as long as you're not in Europe. But first, back to that renewed attempt to pass federal guidelines and preempt state-level AI laws. The Trump administration tried and failed to get a similar provision into a defense spending bill last year, then signed an executive order that hasn't really slowed states down much. So what's different about this newest push? Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, to learn more. Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes.”

Should you learn prompt engineering, or maybe a physical trade? There's almost no skill that AI won't eventually surpass, according to neuroscientist Vivienne Ming.In her new book, "Robot-Proof: When Machines Have All the Answers, Build Better People," she argues humans still have qualities AI can't replicate, like curiosity, social intelligence and a sense of inner purpose. And honing those makes us better partners to AI.Ming has found in experiments that the most capable form of intelligence is neither human nor AI on its own, but both working together in ways that play to each of their strengths. She calls this the Cyborg model.

Earth keeps getting hotter. And despite some efforts to slow planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, they're still rising, leaving a lot of people hungry for alternative climate solutions. One idea: reflect sunlight away from Earth. Amy Scott, host of the Marketplace climate podcast, “How We Survive,” looked into one out-there proposal to do just that, and whether it could one day become a reality.

File this under the definition of irony: last month, The New York Times reported that a high-profile new book, "The Future of Truth: How AI reshapes reality," includes several quotes that appear to be made up or misattributed. Author Steven Rosenbaum acknowledged he'd used AI in the writing process.One of the quotes came, allegedly, from a book by data journalist and NYU professor Meredith Broussard. It was a critique of trusting algorithms to make decisions in medicine. Here at “Marketplace Tech,” we have an unexpected connection to this story. We called up Broussard to discuss it.

Enforcement of the Take It Down Act began last month. If tech firms don't comply and take down non-consensual intimate images — AI-generated or not — within 48 hours of being notified, they face financial and criminal penalties.Lauren Feiner is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, who's been writing about the law. She walked us through how platforms have been responding.

SpaceX is targeting a $1.77 trillion valuation, but some analysts think it's worth half that. Plus, Florida sues OpenAI — the first state to take legal action against an AI company. But first, President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week, similar to the one he called off last month, asking AI companies to give the government a first look at advanced models that could have national security implications. It comes after models like Anthropic's Mythos have raised cybersecurity concerns for reportedly being too good at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities.Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Liz Lopatto, senior reporter at The Verge, to learn more.Everything we talked about:“PROMOTING ADVANCED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INNOVATION AND SECURITY” from the White House“Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models” from The New York Times“SpaceX: What Investors Need to Know About Its Enormous Upcoming IPO” from Morningstar“SpaceX is worth less than half of its $1.75 trillion IPO target, Morningstar says” from CNBC“Attorney General James Uthmeier Files First-in-the-Nation State-Led Lawsuit Against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman for Deceptive Practices and Harms to Floridians” from Florida's Attorney General“OpenAI Sued by Florida's Attorney General Over AI Harms” from The Wall Street Journal

When a store offers different shoppers different prices depending on factors like the weather, the time of day, and what the store knows about each buyer, it's called dynamic pricing.This spring, Maryland, became the first state to ban this practice in grocery stores. The state's governor Wes Moore proposed the law. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Gov. Moore at the statehouse in Annapolis about why he wanted this ban, his administration's plans to train the state's workforce for a future AI economy, and more.

If you have a debt, you may get a call, a letter or a text prodding you to pay it back. Now, that call could come from an AI agent.The AI debt collection market is expected to reach $16 billion by 2034, according to the Kaplan Group. Kate Nibbs of Wired has been reporting on this and said these bots are not as effective at getting people to pay back the money they owe.

There is growing demand for time with GPUs, the chips that power artificial intelligence. AI companies need those chips in order to keep their models up and running. And to do that, they can reserve time with a GPU. Now, there's interest from Wall Street in creating a futures market for this AI compute time, essentially treating it like a commodity. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Liz Hoffman, business and finance editor at Semafor and host of the “Compound Interest” podcast, who recently wrote about this.

The price of oil has gone up significantly since late February, when the US invaded Iran. And when oil prices see a crazy rise, it makes other sources of energy look more attractive. But we've been here before - back in the 1970s, oil prices skyrocketed, and people started to turn to alternative or renewable energy sources. But, for a few reasons, it didn't stick. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes explores why.

This week, rideshare drivers in Massachusetts unionize; plus, Robinhood lets AI agents trade on behalf its customers.But first, there've been hints for a while that Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX are planning to go public in the near future. Last week, SpaceX filed its initial public offering prospectus, also known as an S1, which is meant to help investors understand the company's business model, including the risks it faces. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at WIRED, to learn more.Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes.”Everything we talked about today:“Tech titans prepare for blockbuster IPOs in new front of AI race” from The Hill“SpaceX Listed Grok's ‘Spicy' Mode as a Risk in Its IPO Filing” from Wired“Your AI agent can now trade for you on Robinhood. And buy stuff with your credit card too” from CNBC“Rideshare drivers union in Mass. says it's the 1st to be recognized in the U.S.” NBC Boston

Like the name suggests, plug-in solar panels can be plugged into an electrical outlet just like you would your toaster. But instead of using electricity, they send power back to be used elsewhere in the home.In most of the country, plug-in solar is neither illegal nor legal. But energy policy consultant Bentham Polis, who's also a senior researcher with the Clean Energy States Alliance, says a growing number of states are passing laws to help spell out the rules around the technology.Discussed in this episode:Instagram video from The Garbage Queen“How do plug-in solar panels work and how are they installed?” from The Independent“What States Need to Know About Plug-In Solar” from Clean Energy States Alliance

Public backlash to content generated by artificial intelligence has pushed brands to reconsider how AI is used in their marketing.Some companies are swerving away from AI and finding ways to prove that their advertisements were made by humans.One of those humans is Ash Xu, a commercial director and online content creator. Brands hire her to make a commercial plus a behind-the-scenes video about how the ad was made. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Xu to learn more.

Peptides are short chains of amino acids. GLP-1 weight loss drugs are peptides. Insulin is one, too. And there are thousands of others. Now, people are seeking out peptides in the hope of better muscles, better skin, better memory, better…everything. Many of the peptides people wanna try are available for research use only but the Food and Drug Administration might change this. In July, the agency could decide to make about a dozen peptides more accessible by allowing pharmacies to compound and distribute them Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes spoke with Zara Stone, tech culture reporter at The San Francisco Standard, to learn more.

The wildfire risk mitigation company Technosylva helps utilities, insurers and government agencies predict where and when a fire could spark. It uses historical weather data to make those predictions and suggest changes to help prevent or mitigate a fire. For example, maybe moving a tree branch that's close to a power line so it doesn't fall and start a fire.The company is nearly 30 years old, and Technosylva's chief executive, Bryan Spear, explains how the advent of AI has changed the work they do.