Podcasts about Decoder

Air Date: 3/19/2026 Today we explore the long history of technological disruption — from the Industrial Revolution to the rise of software engineering — and ask whether AI is genuinely different this time, all while autonomous weapons dissolve accountability for the militaries using them and capitalism prevents AI companies from maintaining their ethical aspirations. Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Full Show Notes Check out our new show, SOLVED! on YouTube! BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org and Libro.fm for a non-evil book and audiobook purchasing experience! Join our Discord community! TOP TAKES KP 1: How Long Until AI Takes Your Job - Consider This - Air Date 2-23-26 KP 2: Is AI Coming for Our Jobs - Confronting Capitalism - Air Date 2-18-26 KP 3: AI Goes to War Part 1 - Today, Explained - Air Date 3-4-26 KP 4: The AI-Powered War Machines Are Here Part 1 - On The Media - Air Date 3-6-26 KP 5: The Race to Build God AI's Existential Gamble — Yoshua Bengio & Tristan Harris at Davos Part 1 - Your Undivided Attention - Air Date 2-19-26 KP 6: Don't Download Claude, Either. - Why, America with Leeja Miller - Air Date 3-4-26 (00:51:47) NOTE FROM THE EDITOR On Why AI Won't Ruin Your Life — Unless We Let It DEEPER DIVES (01:04:45) SECTION A: LABOR FUTURE A1: Is AI Coming for Our Jobs Part 2 - Confronting Capitalism - Air Date 2-18-26 A2: AI Wont Decide the Future of Work—We Will (with David Autor) Part 1 - Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer - Air Date 2-24-26 A3: How Work Got So Bad Part 1 - Confronting Capitalism - Air Date 3-4-26 A4: AI Wont Decide the Future of Work—We Will (with David Autor) Part 2 - Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer - Air Date 2-24-26 A5: How Work Got So Bad Part 2 - Confronting Capitalism - Air Date 3-4-26 (01:47:01) SECTION B: WARFARE B1: The Race to Build God AI's Existential Gamble — Yoshua Bengio & Tristan Harris at Davos Part 2 - Your Undivided Attention - Air Date 2-19-26 B2: Anthropic–Pentagon Contract Dispute Raises Questions About AI's Use in the Military - Soundside - Air Date 3-4-26 B3: Anthropics AI Ethics Vs. the Pentagon Part 1 - Brian Lehrer A Daily Podcast - Air Date 3-5-26 B4: The AI-Powered War Machines Are Here Part 2 - On The Media - Air Date 3-6-26 B5: AI Goes to War Part 2 - Today, Explained - Air Date 3-4-26 (02:27:37) SECTION C: SURVEILLANCE C1: Anthropic Doesn't Trust the Pentagon, and Neither Should You Part 1 - Decoder with Nilay Patel - Air Date 3-12-26 C2: Anthropic–Pentagon Contract Dispute Raises Questions About AI's Use in the Military Part 2 - Soundside - Air Date 3-4-26 C3: Anthropic Doesn't Trust the Pentagon, and Neither Should You Part 2 - Decoder with Nilay Patel - Air Date 3-12-26 C4: Anthropics AI Ethics Vs. the Pentagon Part 2 - Brian Lehrer A Daily Podcast - Air Date 3-5-26 (02:57:16) SECTION D: CORPORATE POWER D1: The Left Doesn't Hate Technology with Gita Jackson Part 1 - Tech Won't Save Us - Air Date 3-12-26 D2: Don't Download Claude, Either. Part 2 - Why, America with Leeja Miller - Air Date 3-4-26 D3: The Left Doesn't Hate Technology with Gita Jackson Part 2 - Tech Won't Save Us - Air Date 3-12-26 D4: We Need a Moratorium on AI Data Centers NOW. Heres Why. - Senator Bernie Sanders - Air Date 3-11-26 SHOW IMAGE CREDITS Description: Image of a robot walking across the street holding two leather briefcases. A thought bubble shows it is thinking about, or launching as it walks, missiles. Credit: Internal composite design. Images/License: Pixabay   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Listen Anywhere! BestOfTheLeft.com/Listen Listen Anywhere! Follow BotL: Bluesky | Mastodon | Threads | X Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com

Today, let's talk about the big Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Right now, Paramount head David Ellison is very much acting like he's over the finish line after outbidding Netflix, which walked away after what seemed like a done deal.  Back in January, I asked Puck's Julia Alexander to walk me through Netflix's reasoning, and today I'm digging into Paramount's with Rich Greenfield, a media and entertainment analyst and cofounder of research firm LightShed Partners. There's a lot going on here, including the biggest question I've had throughout this entire saga: why would anyone want to buy Warner, which has basically killed every acquirer it's had for the last quarter century? Links:  David Ellison's plan to compete with Netflix: Paramount+HBO | Rich Greenfield The worst acquisition in history, again | Prof G Media David Zaslav gets the last laugh | THR Warner Bros. Discovery agrees to Paramount merger | The Verge Tech, TV, Movies & News: Ellisons on brink of colossal empire | NYT Pete Hegseth says ‘the sooner David Ellison' buys CNN, ‘the better' | NYT Warner Bros CEO to pocket $887 million from Paramount deal | Reuters Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Yahoo. It's basically impossible to sum up Yahoo's story over the last 25 years, but the short version is that once upon a time, Yahoo paid Google to run the search box on its website, and everything immediately went sideways. Jim calls it Yahoo's original sin. But after a long series of mergers, spinouts, and a hot, weird minute as part of Verizon Yahoo is once again an independent, privately held company — and it's growing. But can Yahoo really take market share from Google? Links:  Yahoo sells Engadget to Static Media | The Verge Yahoo sells TechCrunch to Regent | The Verge Yahoo Finance launches crypto partnership with Coinbase | Yahoo Yahoo Scout looks like more web-friendly AI search | The Verge Yahoo Finance launches crypto deal with Polymarket | Yahoo Finance Yahoo resurrects Artifact inside AI-powered news app | The Verge Yahoo Mail adds more AI to simplify desktop email | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Mike Masnick, the founder and CEO of Techdirt, the excellent and long-running tech policy blog. Mike has been writing about government overreach, privacy in the digital age, and other related topics for decades now, and he's an expert on how the internet and the surveillance state have grown in interconnected ways over the past two decades. I wanted to have Mike on the show to discuss the messy, fast-moving situation at Anthropic, the maker of Claude that now finds itself in a very ugly legal battle with the Pentagon. Instead of covering the daily drama, I wanted to dig in specifically on Anthropic's surveillance red line, and the important history and context around digital privacy in the U.S. that shapes how we should think about this going forward.  Links: AI bros wanted Trump — now they learn what happens when you tell him no | Techdirt OpenAI's ‘red lines' are written in the NSA's dictionary | Techdirt Anthropic is suing the Department of Defense | The Verge Anthropic launches new think tank amid Pentagon fight | The Verge How OpenAI caved to the Pentagon on AI surveillance | The Verge Inside the backlash to the AI war machine | Platformer The Pentagon is violating Anthropic's First Amendment rights | FIRE Why the Pentagon wants to destroy Anthropic | Ezra Klein / NYT Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hasbro might be a toy company, but CEO Chris Cocks has spent the last several years pushing it more and more into the digital media, gaming, and collectibles space. That makes sense, since adults have money and kids don't. All those IP and licensing deals are working out for Hasbro so far. But Hasbro is also facing a lot of risk from instability: in trade and tariffs, in politics and culture, and in the video game market, which seems to be in a more or less permanent state of crisis.  Links:  Chris Cocks on Decoder (2023) | The Verge Hasbro just made a massive ‘Harry Potter' Announcement | Parade Businesses push for tariff refunds as Trump aides hint at fight | New York Times We're finally seeing more of Hasbro's forgotten space game | PC Gamer Xbox in is danger. Will Microsoft save it, or kill it? | The Verge OpenAI's billion-dollar deal puts Mickey Mouse in Sora | The Verge A comprehensive timeline of JK Rowling's descent into transphobia | Them Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Starlight Thursdays Episode 306! Today we are graced with the sweet, minimal, and techy sounds of life long instrumentalist turned selector, Uttaraa. Operating out of Texas, and a frequent visitor of Montana, Uttaraa's selections are inspired by authenticity and blended for amazing sound systems. They're appreciation for our DIY scene and the nature of Montana informs their slections, movements, and dreams. Uttaraa has played stages at 'Midnight to Nowhere' and Nerve Damge, 'Seraphim', and 'Beverly Hills Cowboy'. This mix contains a plethora of amazing artists like Decoder, Ricardo Villalobos, Polygonia, Dorisburg, Caldera, and Martinou Words from the Artist: This mix is not bound by genre or sound but rather feeling. My approach to music is heavily informed by how it makes me MOVE - emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I hope this mix makes you want to actively listen to these amazing productions and distinctive blends as much as it makes you want to dance. - Uttaraa For more Uttaraa: Soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/uttaraag Bandcamp: http://www.uttaraa.bandcamp.com/ Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/uttaraag

Today let's talk about prediction markets, which continue to insert themselves into the news cycle and the news in increasingly weird, unsettling, and potentially illegal ways.  My guest today is Liz Lopatto, a senior reporter at The Verge who owns what we cheerfully call the chaos beat. Liz has been writing a lot about prediction markets lately and especially why they all seem so intent on being perceived as sources of news — a position which directly incentivizes insider trading. That in turn creates a long list of very predictable problems. Links: Prediction markets want to eat the news | The Verge How anonymous bettors cashed In on the Iran strike | NYT With Iran, Kalshi & Polymarket Bet on the Depravity Economy | 404 Media Polymarket pulls bet on nuclear detonation in 2026 | 404 Media Polymarket defends betting on war as ‘invaluable' | The Verge Someone made a ton of money betting on Maduro's capture | The Verge Are prediction markets gambling? Robinhood CEO bets no | Decoder Prediction markets roll out war bets beyond Washington's reach | Bloomberg Polymarket partners with Substack for some reason  | The Verge It's MAGA v Broligarch in the battle over prediction markets | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nilay Patel is the editor-in-chief of The Verge and host of Decoder with Nilay Patel. The Verge is “about technology and how it makes us feel,” and Nilay knows people don't feel so hot right now. We speak with him about how founders have never been more transparent about the negative impacts of their product, how AI products are actually bad, the poison that is prediction markets on our information ecosystem, why Gen Z will ultimately turn on the brand deal economy, and the moment he realized everything is just fans. Recommended this week:The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, I'm talking with Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman. Zillow is one of those apps that really exemplifies what you might call the smartphone era of software: the company built a great mobile app for looking at real estate listings, and it turned into not just entertainment for so many of us, but what has become a vertically-integrated platform for buying, selling, and renting real estate. Jeremy's argument is that the future of Zillow looks a lot like an end-to-end business platform for real estate agents, and we spent a lot of time talking about whether a business as local and as relationship driven as real estate can benefit from platform-level scale in the way he's proposing. Links:  Zillow's new AI staging feature is impressively unimpressive | The Verge Zillow's upgraded AI search will show you more homes you can't afford | The Verge Zillow adds DMs so you can chat about homes you'll never buy | The Verge FTC accuses Zillow of paying $100 million to ‘dismantle' Redfin | The Verge Housing is frozen. Wacksman knows you're still scrolling | NYT Wacksman on the US housing market | Bloomberg Talks Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Listen to Full Audio at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scientist-vs-storyteller-benchmarking-gpt-5-2-claude/id1684415169?i=1000752001078For years, Latent Diffusion Models—the tech behind Stable Diffusion and DALL-E—have relied on a bit of an 'art form' called KL-regularization. Basically, researchers had to manually guess how much to compress an image before the AI started to lose the details. If you compressed too much, the image got blurry. Too little, and the model became too expensive to train.Enter Unified Latents, or UL.In a new paper out of DeepMind Amsterdam, researchers have introduced a framework that replaces that guesswork with a single, cohesive mathematical objective. Instead of training the compressor and the generator separately, UL trains the Encoder, the Prior, and the Decoder all at once.The 'Secret Sauce' here is something called Fixed Gaussian Noise Encoding. By injecting a constant, specific amount of noise during the encoding process, DeepMind has created a 'Maximum Precision Link.' This forces the encoder to be incredibly efficient, focusing only on the most important structures of an image.The results are staggering: UL achieved a state-of-the-art Video Distance score on the Kinetics-600 dataset and hit a competitive 1.4 FID on ImageNet—all while using significantly less computational power than traditional methods.This episode is made possible by our sponsors:

Today, we're talking about the future of Xbox. Phil Spencer, a two-time Decoder guest who's led Xbox for more than a decade, resigned. But in a shocking twist, his deputy long-assumed successor Sarah Bond is also out too, and the Xbox division is now in the hands of an Asha Sharma, one of Microsoft's AI executives with no prior game industry experience. There is no better person to talk to about all of this than Tom Warren, senior editor here at The Verge and author of the excellent Notepad newsletter. Tom is actually on parental leave right now, but Microsoft has a longstanding habit of disrupting his well-earned time off. So, Tom was gracious enough to come on the show after publishing a major scoop about what went down at Xbox this past week. Links: Inside Microsoft's big Xbox leadership shake-up | The Verge Billions of dollars later and still nobody knows what an Xbox is | The Verge Xbox chief Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft | The Verge Read Xbox chief Phil Spencer's memo about leaving Microsoft | The Verge Here's what Xbox is working on for 2026 | The Verge AMD hints Microsoft could launch its next-gen Xbox in 2027 | The Verge The next Xbox is going to be very different | The Verge Xbox co-founder believes it's being ‘sunsetted' in favor of AI | VGC Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this Bible study with Rev. Roland Anang, we explore a powerful kingdom mystery: truth is spiritually encrypted—and only the Spirit can decode it. Just as end-to-end encryption protects messages from third parties, the Word of God is spirit-to-spirit communication. Without the Holy Spirit, Scripture becomes mere literature, preaching becomes poetry, and church becomes routine. Drawing from scriptures like Zechariah, John, Daniel, Acts, Romans, and Revelation, this message unveils why many hear sermons but are not transformed. The difference is not intelligence, eloquence, or grammar—it is spiritual activation. The Spirit empowers both the preacher to encode truth and the believer to decode it. When revelation comes, change is immediate. When revelation is absent, we remain informed but unchanged. This episode is a call to tune your spiritual antenna, lay aside pride and cultural filters, and receive the engrafted Word with meekness—so you can truly hear what the Spirit is saying.

And we're back with TMK-as-usual! We are joined by Wendy Liu and Jimmy Wu from the Bay Area Current — a new leftist publication writing about the working class in San Francisco and beyond — as we chat about mapping out the rising milieu of right-wing culture in San Francisco, from the growing scene of tech intelligentsia publications that each have their different flavor of right-wingism to the psychic damage and hostile architecture of an urban landscape overflowing with B2B SAAS billboards. ••• Meet the New Right-Wing Tech Intelligentsia https://bayareacurrent.com/meet-the-new-right-wing-tech-intelligentsia/ ••• Tech Billboard Decoder: The Great Tech Vibe Shift https://bayareacurrent.com/tech-billboard-decoder-the-great-tech-vibe-shift/ ••• AI Company's Billboards Say Workers Are Disposable. But Are We? https://bayareacurrent.com/ai-tech-company-to-workers-youre-disposable-but-is-it-true/ ••• San Francisco's Billboards Aren't For You https://bayareacurrent.com/the-billboards-arent-for-you/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan's book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed's substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Today, I'm talking with Hank Green, a longtime friend of Decoder and the co-founder and now former owner of Complexly, an online education company he started with his brother John in 2012. I say former owner because Hank and John have just converted Complexly into a nonprofit and given up their ownership of the company in the process. That's some of the purest Decoder bait that ever was, because it's all about how you structure a company and how you make decisions about changing that structure. So of course I had to bring Hank back on to talk all about it. Links:  Greens' studio becomes nonprofit as they aim to make ‘trustworthy content' | AP Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future | Decoder (2024) Why Hank Green can't quit YouTube for TikTok | Decoder (2022) Hank Green and Sam Reich on running content companies | Decoder Hank Green and Sal Khan on AI in educational video | Decoder Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today we're talking about the war for AI talent. Right now, the hottest job market on the planet is for AI researchers. And the vast majority of these people are concentrated into a small number of hugely valuable, extremely fast-growing companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of which are now paying some of the highest salaries in the history of tech to poach from one another. We've been dying to really dig in and try to unpack what's going on with all these talent moves in AI. So we brought on Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field, who's been covering the revolving door of the AI industry really closely and also the broader culture that's motivating workers to jump ship.  Links: What's behind the mass exodus at xAI? | The Verge OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI | The Verge Two more xAI co-founders leave after the SpaceX merger | The Verge AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry | BBC OpenAI is making the mistakes Facebook made. I quit. | NYT Anthropic's chief on AI: ‘We don't know if the models are conscious' | NYT Meet the one woman Anthropic trusts to teach AI morals | WSJ OpenAI plans fourth-quarter IPO in race to beat Anthropic to market | WSJ Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we're talking about the camera company Ring, lost dogs, and the surveillance state. Since it aired for a massive audience at the Super Bowl, Ring's Search Party commercial has become a lightning rod for controversy. It's easy to see how the same technology that can find lost dogs can be used to find people, and then used to invade our privacy in all kinds of uncomfortable ways, by cops and regular people alike. Although Ring has since canceled its partnership with controversial surveillance company Flock, the company is now facing hard questions about its plans to use AI to promote safer neighborhoods, and how that intersects with its ongoing relationship with law enforcement.  Links:  Ring cancels partnership with Flock after surveillance backlash | The Verge Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of surveillance | The Verge Ring says it's not giving ICE access to its cameras | The Verge How police recovered Nancy Guthrie's Nest Doorbell footage | The Verge Ring's Jamie Siminoff thinks AI can reduce crime | Decoder Ring CEO says cameras can almost ‘zero out crime' within 12 months | The Verge ICE taps into nationwide AI camera network, data shows | 404 Media ICE, Secret Service had access to Flock's camera network | 404 Media Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Bridget McCormack, former chief justice for the Michigan Supreme Court and now president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association. For the past several years, Bridget and her team have been developing an AI-assisted arbitration platform called the AI Arbitrator. So I sat down with her to talk about how the tool works, the pros and cons of automating parts of the arbitration process, and the bigger picture questions around institutional trust, justice, and the future of law.  Links:  All rise for JudgeGPT | The Verge Why do lawyers keep using ChatGPT? | The Verge Judge berates AI entrepreneur for using a generated ‘lawyer' | The Verge Judge slams lawyers for ‘bogus AI-generated research' | The Verge LexisNexis CEO says the AI law era is already here | Decoder ChatGPT can be a disaster for lawyers — Robin AI wants to fix that | Decoder Considerations In building guardrails for AI use In arbitration | Law360 The AI Arbitrator: What it is, what it isn't, and where it's going | Law360 Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Chris Jereza and Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Siemens is one of those absolutely giant, extremely important, fairly opaque companies we love to dig into on Decoder. At a very basic, reductive level, Siemens makes the hardware and software that let other companies run and automate their stuff. We spent a lot of time talking about what happens to jobs when Siemens automates everything — and what happens to a company like Siemens when the free trade era we're used to gets turned on its head. Links:  Siemens Energy CEO attends Trump meeting at Davos | Reuters PepsiCo, Siemens, Nvidia announce digital twin collaboration | PepsiCo Siemens spins off Healthineers majority stake | Reuters Siemens USA to train 200,000 electricians by 2030 | Siemens Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we're going to talk about reality, and whether we can label photos and videos to protect our shared understanding of the world around us. To do this, I sat down with Verge reporter Jess Weatherbed, who covers creative tools for us — a space that's been totally upended by generative AI. We've been talking about how the photos and videos taken by our phones are getting more and more processed for years on The Verge. Here in 2026, we're in the middle of a full-on reality crisis, as fake and manipulated ultra-believable images and videos flood onto social platforms at scale. So Jess and I discussed the limitations of AI labeling standards like C2PA, and why social media execs like Instagram boss Adam Mosseri are now sounding the alarm.  Links:  This system can sort real pictures from AI fakes — why aren't we using it? | The Verge You can't trust your eyes to tell you what's real, says Instagram | The Verge Instagram's boss is missing the point about AI on the platform | The Verge Sora is showing us how broken deepfake detection is | The Verge Reality still matters | The Verge No one's ready for this | The Verge What is a photo, @WhiteHouse edition | The Verge Google Gemini is getting better at identifying AI fakes | The Verge Let's compare Apple, Google & Samsung's definitions of 'photo' | The Verge The Pixel 8 and the what-is-a-photo apocalypse | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I'm talking with Allan Thygesen, who is the CEO of Docusign. You know Docusign, it's the platform that lets you sign stuff online. It turns out 7,000 people work there, which is one of those facts floating around that's always felt like perfect Decoder bait. What are all those people doing? And what kind of product roadmap does a company like Docusign even need? Alan has only been CEO of Docusign for three years, so he has some interesting perspective on where the company was, the changes he wanted to make, and where he thinks this is all going. Hint: it involves AI.  Links:  Docusign's AI will help you understand what you're signing | Fast Company Docusign on ‘transformational journey,' CEO Says | Bloomberg How Docusign Is modernizing the age-old business contract | Barron's Docusign unveils next-gen eSignature with AI | Docusign Docusign brings its contract AI to ChatGPT | Docusign Interview with Docusign CEO Allan Thygesen | Motley Fool (Podcast) Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we're talking about the bidding war over Warner Bros. Discovery, which is the biggest story in the entertainment industry right now, and for good reason. It has pretty much everything you could want in a buzzy Hollywood saga — big names, big money, and big drama. To help me make sense of it all, I wanted to talk with Julia Alexander, a Verge alum and now media correspondent at Puck News who's one of the best in the business at analyzing corporate strategy, Hollywood, and what's next in entertainment. Julia really helped me break down why Netflix is the clear front runner to acquire Warner Bros., why David Ellison of Paramount Skydance is so desperate to win, and, perhaps most importantly, how the tech industry fits into this puzzle. Links:  Netflix is buying Warner Bros. for $83 billion | The Verge Paramount launches hostile $108 billion bid to snatch Warner | The Verge Netflix revises Warner Bros. bid to an all-cash offer | The Verge Why Netflix needs Warner Bros. | Puck News The Warner Bros. bidding war Is over | Bloomberg The Son King of Hollywood | Vulture FCC Chair: ‘Legitimate competition concerns' with Netflix's Warner deal | Variety Netflix's Ted Sarandos to testify at antitrust hearing over Warner deal | Variety Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Experian is one of those giant multinationals convoluted enough to have multiple CEOs all over the world, so first I asked Alex Lintner, Experian's CEO of technology and software solutions, to dig into the classic Decoder questions and explain how all of that even works. He oversees big operations like security and privacy, and now, of course, AI. If you want to participate in the modern economy — rent an apartment, buy a car, get a job, etc  — you're part of Experian's ecosystem, whether you like it or not. At its heart, Experian's core service is data about people and the choices they make. And this extremely valuable data weirdly makes Experian a part of your life  — a life that becomes much smoother if the data the company collects about you tells a good story.  Links:  Roughly half of Americans are knowledgeable about personal finance | Pew Research How Americans view data privacy | Pew Research Consumer voices on credit reports and scores | CFPB Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius on Decoder | The Verge The Palantir app ICE uses to find neighborhoods to raid | 404 Media T-Mobile customers exposed in major Experian breach (2015) | The Verge All the news about the Equifax breach | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Texan prodigy transmits the sound of sci-fi techno in 2026. What does the future feel like in 2026? In an era dominated by nostalgia and electronic revivalism, even techno—a genre once defined by futurism—has begun to feel stagnant. Enter Gautham Garg, aka Decoder. Raised in Dallas, the 21-year-old offers a refreshed vision of techno for the present moment. While comparisons to techno stargazers like Mills and Richie Hawtin are inevitable, RA.1023 reveals a broader palette. Microtonal flourishes recall Aleksi Perälä's Colundi era, while the patient structures lean closer to Perlon-style minimalism than early-2000s severity, with nods to Ricardo Villalobos and Margaret Dygas. Built largely from unreleased material, RA.1023 captures Garg's vision of techno for this decade. There's weight, but it's more body than bite: elastic, finely tuned drums and a buoyant hypnotism that persists even in rougher moments. Though often labeled sci-fi, Garg's sound adds layers to cold futurism—instead, optimism shines through. In his hands, techno's future still feels bright. Find the Q&A and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/1042 @iamdecoder

Grok, the chatbot made by Elon Musk's xAI, is able to make all manner of AI-generated images on demand, including non-consensual intimate images of women and minors. It's the kind of "controversy" that would have completely sunk a platform five or 10 years ago, but now it seems clear that Elon wants Grok to be able to do this. A lot of people feel like someone should be able to do something about a one-click harassment machine like this. But who has that power, and what they can do with it, is a deeply complicated question,tied up in the thorny mess of history that is content moderation and the legal precedents that underpin it. So I invited Riana Pfefferkorn, from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, to come talk me through it. Links:  Grok's gross AI deepfakes problem | The Verge Grok is undressing children — can the law stop it? | The Verge Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards | The Verge Senate passes a bill to let nonconsensual deepfake victims sue | The Verge EU looks to ban nudification apps following Grok outrage | Politico Grok flooded X with millions of sexualized images | The New York Times The Supreme Court just upended internet law | The Verge Mother of Elon Musk's son sues xAI over sexual deepfake images | AP Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're back to start the year with a very special live interview with Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, which we taped in front of a terrific audience at Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas during CES. At this year's show, Razer made headlines for something it calls Project Ava, an AI companion that has a physical presence in the real world, as an anime hologram that sits in a jar on your desk. It's powered by, you guessed it, Elon Musk's Grok.  There are a whole lot of choices bundled up in all of that, as well as Razer's decision to go all-in on AI at a moment when the gaming community is outright rejecting it. So Min and I really got into it. I think you'll have a lot to think about with this one.  Links:  Razer is making an AI anime waifu hologram for your desk | The Verge Razer thinks you'd rather have AI headphones instead of glasses | The Verge Baldur's Gate 3 studio says it won't use AI for concept art or writing | The Verge In 2025, AI became a lightning rod for gamers and devs | The Verge Razer plans $600M push to capture 'untapped' AI gaming demand | Bloomberg Replika CEO says it's okay if we end up marrying AI chatbots | Decoder Lawsuits blame ChatGPT for suicides and harmful delusions | NYT Inside three longterm relationships with AI chatbots | NYT Torment Nexus | Know Your Meme The future of gaming is AI | Razer (Instagram) Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Nilay. We're settling back in here after the winter break and CES, and we'll have new episodes for you starting next Monday. In the meantime, we wanted to highlight one of our favorites from last year: an interview with journalist and author Megan Greenwell about her book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. My conversation with Megan last year was extremely illuminating as to why private equity does what it does to industries like healthcare, media and real estate — and just how deeply it's affecting the everyday lives of Americans everywhere. It's a really great conversation that feels just as timely today as it did last summer. Enjoy.  Links:  Bad Company | HarperCollins How private equity kills companies and communities | Decoder Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys ‘R' Us | Decoder Private equity makes its first college sports play | Axios Private equity Is gutting America — and getting away with it | NYT I was fired from Deadspin for refusing to ‘stick to sports' | NYT Will private equity be the next ‘Big Short'? | Marketplace The profit-obsessed monster destroying American ERs | Vox Why your vet bill is so high | The Atlantic The investment firms leave behind a barren wasteland' | Politico Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we're starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question. In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, become the most famous in the world, bar none? Willa shares the story of daring heist that turned Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic smiling subject into a celebrity.Future episodes of Decoder Rings Back will only be available to Slate Plus subscribers. So if you want to be sure not to miss them, sign up for Slate Plus! You'll get exclusive episodes and ad-free listening not just on our show, but all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.Sources for This EpisodeCumming, Laura. “The man who stole the Mona Lisa,” The Guardian, August 5, 2011.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. “Stealing Mona Lisa,” Vanity Fair, April 16, 2009.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, Bison Books, 2010.Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci, Simon & Schuster, 2018.Roberts, Sam. “Happy Birthday to the Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa and Took It to Italy,” The New York Times, October 7, 2022.Sassoon, Donald. “Mona Lisa: The Best-Known Girl in the Whole Wide World,” History Workshop Journal, Spring 2001.Sassoon, Donald. Mona Lisa: The History of the World's Most Famous Painting, HarperCollins, 2016.“The Theft That Made The 'Mona Lisa' A Masterpiece,” NPR, July 30, 2011.Zug, James. “Stolen: How the Mona Lisa Became the World's Most Famous Painting,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 15, 2011. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we're starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question. In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, become the most famous in the world, bar none? Willa shares the story of daring heist that turned Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic smiling subject into a celebrity.Future episodes of Decoder Rings Back will only be available to Slate Plus subscribers. So if you want to be sure not to miss them, sign up for Slate Plus! You'll get exclusive episodes and ad-free listening not just on our show, but all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.Sources for This EpisodeCumming, Laura. “The man who stole the Mona Lisa,” The Guardian, August 5, 2011.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. “Stealing Mona Lisa,” Vanity Fair, April 16, 2009.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, Bison Books, 2010.Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci, Simon & Schuster, 2018.Roberts, Sam. “Happy Birthday to the Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa and Took It to Italy,” The New York Times, October 7, 2022.Sassoon, Donald. “Mona Lisa: The Best-Known Girl in the Whole Wide World,” History Workshop Journal, Spring 2001.Sassoon, Donald. Mona Lisa: The History of the World's Most Famous Painting, HarperCollins, 2016.“The Theft That Made The 'Mona Lisa' A Masterpiece,” NPR, July 30, 2011.Zug, James. “Stolen: How the Mona Lisa Became the World's Most Famous Painting,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 15, 2011. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we're starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question. In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, become the most famous in the world, bar none? Willa shares the story of daring heist that turned Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic smiling subject into a celebrity.Future episodes of Decoder Rings Back will only be available to Slate Plus subscribers. So if you want to be sure not to miss them, sign up for Slate Plus! You'll get exclusive episodes and ad-free listening not just on our show, but all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.Sources for This EpisodeCumming, Laura. “The man who stole the Mona Lisa,” The Guardian, August 5, 2011.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. “Stealing Mona Lisa,” Vanity Fair, April 16, 2009.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, Bison Books, 2010.Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci, Simon & Schuster, 2018.Roberts, Sam. “Happy Birthday to the Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa and Took It to Italy,” The New York Times, October 7, 2022.Sassoon, Donald. “Mona Lisa: The Best-Known Girl in the Whole Wide World,” History Workshop Journal, Spring 2001.Sassoon, Donald. Mona Lisa: The History of the World's Most Famous Painting, HarperCollins, 2016.“The Theft That Made The 'Mona Lisa' A Masterpiece,” NPR, July 30, 2011.Zug, James. “Stolen: How the Mona Lisa Became the World's Most Famous Painting,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 15, 2011. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we're starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question. In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, become the most famous in the world, bar none? Willa shares the story of daring heist that turned Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic smiling subject into a celebrity.Future episodes of Decoder Rings Back will only be available to Slate Plus subscribers. So if you want to be sure not to miss them, sign up for Slate Plus! You'll get exclusive episodes and ad-free listening not just on our show, but all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.Sources for This EpisodeCumming, Laura. “The man who stole the Mona Lisa,” The Guardian, August 5, 2011.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. “Stealing Mona Lisa,” Vanity Fair, April 16, 2009.Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, Bison Books, 2010.Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci, Simon & Schuster, 2018.Roberts, Sam. “Happy Birthday to the Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa and Took It to Italy,” The New York Times, October 7, 2022.Sassoon, Donald. “Mona Lisa: The Best-Known Girl in the Whole Wide World,” History Workshop Journal, Spring 2001.Sassoon, Donald. Mona Lisa: The History of the World's Most Famous Painting, HarperCollins, 2016.“The Theft That Made The 'Mona Lisa' A Masterpiece,” NPR, July 30, 2011.Zug, James. “Stolen: How the Mona Lisa Became the World's Most Famous Painting,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 15, 2011. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've got something special for you today. It's my friend Hank Green, longtime YouTuber, science educator, and viral TikTok star, interviewing Dropout CEO Sam Reich.  Hank did this episode as a guest host over the summer, and it's a fan favorite, bringing together two internet personalities that've known each other for a very long time and who have a lot of inside knowledge about how the internet, Hollywood, and entertainment all intertwine. Links:  Dropout's Sam Reich on business, comedy, and keeping the internet weird | Decoder How Dropout broke through in 2025 | AV Club  Dropout CEO on launching ‘Superfan' tier, crossing 1M subscribers | Variety How CollegeHumor reinvented itself for the new internet age | People CollegeHumor shaped online comedy. What went wrong? [2020] | Wired ‘I believe in this enough to try to do it myself' [2020] | Digiday Jacob Wysocki needed a minute to process that Game Changer | Vulture Game Changer smartly weaponizes its online following | Mashable Vimeo CEO Philip Moyer is betting on the human touch | Decoder Vimeo to be acquired by Bending Spoons for $1.38B | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2026 is just beginning, and it's already time for the biggest gadget event of the year. As the Verge team heads to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, David and Nilay run through as many of the newly announced products as they can. There are robots, art TVs, phones, more robots, smart Legos, smart home gizmos, and still more robots. Some of this stuff will ship, and might even be a big hit. Some of it, well, won't. But it's all an interesting look into what's happening in tech right now.Also: if you're in Vegas for CES, come see us live! We'll be at the Brooklyn Bowl on Wednesday, January 7th, for live recordings of Decoder and The Vergecast, and we'd love to see you there. Further reading: ⁠This robot companion is a cameraman for your pet ⁠ ⁠LG says its CLOiD home robot will be folding laundry and making breakfast at CES ⁠ ⁠SwitchBot brings a humanoid home robot to CES ⁠ ⁠You can't buy Zeroth's WALL-E robot in the US, but you can get its cousin ⁠ ⁠This startup brought WALL-E to life and will also sell you WALL-E's weird cousin⁠ ⁠Kicking Robots, by James Vincent⁠ ⁠The Clicks Power Keyboard is also a backup battery for your phone ⁠ ⁠The Clicks Communicator is a BlackBerry for your phone ⁠ ⁠I just want to keep unfolding the Samsung Z TriFold ⁠ ⁠The Aliro smart lock standard for NFC and UWB unlocking will launch this year ⁠ ⁠Lutron adds smart wood blinds to its Caséta line. ⁠ ⁠Bosch's fancy coffee machine is getting Alexa Plus ⁠ ⁠The new Ultraloq smart lock uses both your face and your palm to let you in ⁠ ⁠Lockin's new vein-scanning smart lock has a video doorbell and recharges wirelessly ⁠ ⁠Hands-on with the Mui Board: a wooden smart home controller ⁠ ⁠The Mui Board will support mmWave sleep tracking and gesture control ⁠ ⁠You can unlock SwitchBot's first deadbolt smart lock with your face ⁠ ⁠Lifx launches a smart mirror and a $30 dimmer switch that can control smart bulbs ⁠ ⁠Lockly's new smart locks will support Matter and NFC ⁠ ⁠GE Lighting's new Matter-compatible smart shades start at just $300 ⁠ ⁠The LG OLED evo W6 Wallpaper TV makes its return at CES ⁠ ⁠RGB is the next big thing in OLED gaming monitors ⁠ ⁠Belkin's new HDMI adapter wirelessly connects to screens from 130 feet ⁠ ⁠LG's new Gallery TV, designed for displaying art, will be at CES 2026 ⁠ ⁠Samsung brings back the Timeless Frame with its biggest Micro RGB TV at CES. ⁠ ⁠TCL debuts a new quantum dot and color filter technology with the X11L ⁠ ⁠Gemini on Google TV is getting Nano Banana and voice-controlled settings ⁠ ⁠Amazon announces a Samsung Frame competitor with the Ember Artline TV ⁠ ⁠Amazon Fire TV OS gets a revamp that's more modern and pleasing ⁠ ⁠LG's new karaoke-ready party speaker uses AI to remove song vocals ⁠ ⁠Would you let AI cut your hair? ⁠ ⁠A developer for a ‘major food delivery app' says the ‘algorithms are rigged against you⁠ ⁠Lego announces Smart Brick, the ‘most significant evolution' in 50 years | The Verge⁠ ⁠Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is now blogging about AI slop ⁠ ⁠“Feed is dead.” ⁠ ⁠Adam Mosseri on how Instagram exists in the age of AI-generated images⁠ ⁠The Trump phone just missed another release date ⁠ Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey everyone, it's Nilay. Decoder is on our holiday break. We've got a lot of fun stuff coming up in the New Year, though, including a special Decoder Live at CES. Stay tuned for more details, including how to RSVP for free tickets. In the meantime, we've got a great episode of the podcast Channels, featuring two of the best media reporters in the business. Host Peter Kafka sat down with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to talk about the bidding war between Paramount SkyDance and Netflix over Warner Bros. Discovery. It's the biggest story in entertainment right now, and this episode breaks down everything you need to know about the contentious acquisition.  Links:  "Neither Side Is Used to Losing”: Lucas Shaw on the battle for Warner Bros. | Channels Five things we're getting wrong about Warner Bros.′ Netflix deal | Bloomberg Warner Bros.' bidders brace for a fight that will last months | Bloomberg WBD wants its shareholders to reject Paramount's latest offer | The Verge There are no good outcomes for the Warner Bros. sale | The Verge Netflix is “100% committed” to releasing WB films in theaters | The Verge Netflix is buying Warner Bros. for $83 billion | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone! Decoder senior producers Kate Cox and Nick Statt here. We've had a big year, including nearly 100 episodes, a new YouTube channel, an ad-free podcast feed, and a slate of great guest hosts while Nilay was on parental leave. It's been a lot! We've also had a lot of great questions and comments this year from you, our audience. So we pulled together all the feedback we've received on topics like CarPlay, Monday episode guest suggestions, and — of course — AI. And then we turned the tables on Nilay to ask him his thoughts on the past 12 months: What we liked, what we want to improve, and how he's making decisions for Decoder in the new year.  Links:  Answering your biggest Decoder questions, 2024 edition | Decoder The DoorDash Problem | Decoder How decision making changes when AI answers are cheap and (too) easy | Decoder Why GM will give you Gemini — but not CarPlay | Decoder Rivian CEO: ‘We're really convicted' about skipping CarPlay | Decoder How SharkNinja took over the home, with CEO Mark Barrocas | Decoder Why Tubi CEO Anjali Sud thinks free TV can win again | Decoder Disney accuses Google of copyright infringement following OpenAI deal | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar was last on the show in 2022 — just one month before ChatGPT launched and upended literally everything for Stack Overflow in a deeply existential way.  He called a company emergency, reallocated about 10 percent of the staff to figure out solutions to the ChatGPT problem, and made some pretty huge decisions about structure and organization to navigate that change — all of it pure Decoder bait. Links:  2025 Developer Survey | Stack Overflow The people who make your apps go to Stack Overflow for answers | Decoder OpenAI, Stack Overflow partner to bring technical knowledge to ChatGPT | The Verge Stack Overflow feeds programmers' answers to AI whether they like it or not | The Verge Stack Overflow cuts 28 percent of its staff | TechCrunch AI-generated answers temporarily banned on Stack Overflow | The Verge Stack Overflow's strike is over, but problems persist | Jon Ericson A new era of Stack Overflow | Stack Overflow Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and I agree it seems like democracy is on the line right now, especially around the First Amendment and the increasing pressure the Trump administration — especially FCC chair Brendan Carr — is putting on free speech. I also had a lot of questions for Sen. Markey about the supposed TikTok ban, which no one seems to know anything about, and all the other problems we're facing in 2025. Links:  Even the lawmakers behind the TikTok ban have no idea what's going on | The Verge Carr's FCC is an anti-consumer, rights-trampling harassment machine | The Verge The FCC is a weapon in Trump's war on free speech | Decoder Here's the Trump EO that would ban state AI laws | The Verge Silicon Valley is rallying behind a guy who sucks | The Verge Silicon Valley's man in the White House is benefiting himself and his friends | The New York Times Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I'm talking with Willem Avé, who's the head of product at Square. You know Square — it was started by billionaire Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame more than 15 years ago, and it got big on the back of that little magnetic reader that once plugged into the headphone jack of the iPhone and let small businesses accept credit cards. Nowadays, of course, Square is more than a credit card reader, and sadly, the headphone jack is ancient history. The company itself is now part of parent organization called Block, which is made up of a very interesting mix of financial services like Afterpay, Cash App, and, yes, the streaming music service Tidal. So Willem and I really got into where Square is headed next with AI and automation, why he's excited about crypto and Bitcoin specifically, and even what it means that the US is discontinuing the penny.  Links:  Square's public roadmap | Square Jack Dorsey is reorganizing the entirety of Block | Fortune How Block turned Square into a financial services giant | Fast Company Block to roll out bitcoin payments on Square | Square Square buys $170 million worth of bitcoin | CNBC Square, Jack Dorsey's payments company, changes its name to Block | NYT The penny dies at 232 | NYT Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I'm talking with Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field about some of the people responsible for studying AI and deciding in what ways it might… well, ruin the world. Those folks work at Anthropic as part of a group called the societal impacts team, which Hayden just spent time with for a profile she published this week on The Verge.  The team is just nine people out of more than 2,000 who work at the Anthropic, and their only job, as the team members themselves say, is to investigate and publish quote "inconvenient truths” about AI. That of course brings up a whole host of problems, the most important of which is whether this team can remain independent, or even exist at all, as it publicizes findings about Anthropic's own products that might be unflattering or even politically fraught.  Links:  It's their job to keep AI from destroying everything | The Verge Anthropic details how it measures Claude's wokeness | The Verge White House orders tech companies to make AI bigoted again | The Verge Chaos and lies: Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI | The Verge How Elon Musk Is remaking Grok in his image | NYT Anthropic tries to defuse White House backlash | Axios  New AI battle: White House vs. Anthropic | Axios Anthropic will pursue gulf state investments after all | Wired Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

IBM was instrumental to the entire 20th century of computing — but it's a lot harder for most of us to see what it's been up to during this century. That's because it's fully an enterprise company, and CEO Arvind Krishna says that business is booming. But there's a huge change coming to that business as well, as Watson-style deep learning has given way to LLMs and generative AI. Sure, Arvind says IBM got there a little too early. But he doesn't seem concerned that IBM would be stuck on the sidelines.  Links:  Computer wins on ‘Jeopardy!': Trivial, it's not | New York Times (2011) What Ever Happened to IBM's Watson? | New York Times (2021) America Forgot About IBM Watson. Is ChatGPT Next? | The Atlantic IBM acquires Red Hat | The Verge IBM and Groq Partner to Accelerate Enterprise AI Deployment | IBM IBM's Jerry Chow on the future of quantum computing | Decoder IBM: quantum computing partnership with AMD is bearing fruit | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Nilay. It's been great being back in the Decoder chair this fall, and we've got a bunch of great episodes coming up to round out the year. But the production team is off this week for the holiday, so today, we're going to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. This time, host Sean Illing is talking to data scientist Hannah Ritchie — about climate science and how although the crisis is definitely real, it's not all bad news. There are actually a lot of great indicators out there in the data that show real progress in limiting emissions and boosting clean energy. It's a nuanced, hopeful take at a time when, admittedly, it kind of feels like all the news about everything is pretty doom and gloom. Links: We can have growth while fighting climate change | Vox The Grey Area | Apple Podcasts Clearing the Air | Hannah Ritchie Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, let's talk about AI and what I've been calling the “DoorDash problem.” This is about to define the next battle in AI, and it might completely transform not only how you order a sandwich, but also how the entire internet economy works in general. If you've been listening to the show this past year, you've heard me bring up the Doordash problem nearly a dozen times. I've been asking CEOs and leaders in tech and AI about it any chance I can get. Now, a lawsuit between Amazon and Perplexity is bringing this exact issue to the forefront, kicking off a major AI browser fight that could define the future of agents and the web itself.  Links:  Amazon and Perplexity have kicked off the great AI web browser fight | The Verge Amazon sues to stop Perplexity from using AI tool to buy stuff | Bloomberg Amazon's Cease and Desist letter to Perplexity | Amazon Bullying Is not innovation | Perplexity Amazon gets hit by a Comet | Platformer Humans Only! Why Amazon doesn't want AI shoppers | NY Mag Amazon vs Perplexity: the AI agent war has arrived | The Guardian Amazon ad revenue soars 24 percent to $17.7 billion | THR Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Enshittification. It's fun to say, hard to spell, and a useful descriptor of exactly how the internet has gone wrong. Cory Doctorow, the author and activist who coined the term a few years ago, recently published a book on the subject, called Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. He was on Decoder a few weeks ago to explain what happened, and joins The Vergecast this week to help us figure out what to do about it. Can we, as regular people on the internet, help to de-enshittify the place? What responsibility do we have, and what kinds of choices should we be making? Cory has lots of thoughts on whether you can shop your way out of a monopoly, and what it really takes to enact structural change online. Further reading: Cory Doctorow on Decoder Read Cory's book, Enshittification Cory's last Vergecast appearance From Pluralistic: How monopoly enshittified Amazon AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born FTC files a massive antitrust lawsuit against Amazon Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jamie Simonoff, founder of Ring, won't let me call him the CEO. He says his title is and always has been 'chief inventor.' His mission with Ring is to make the world safer, and he has a pretty expansive view of what that means. He told The Verge last month he thought Ring could 'almost zero out crime' in some neighborhoods within a year or two. That's a big promise — and also potentially a very troubling one, as we face the erosion of privacy and a surveillance panopticon that only ever seems to expand. Links:  Ring CEO: Cameras can almost ‘zero out crime' within 12 months | The Verge Ring plans to scan everyone's face at the door | The Washington Post Ring's Search Party is on by default; should you opt out? | The Verge Ring now works with video surveillance company Flock | The Verge US spy agencies getting a one-stop shop to buy personal data | The Intercept Do Video Doorbells Really Prevent Crime? | Scientific American Ding Dong: How Ring went from Shark Tank Reject to Everyone's Front Door | Amazon Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So a lot of people think AI is a bubble. So we sent Verge senior reporter Liz Lopatto out to report on the AI bubble  — whether it's real, how it might pop, and what all of this means.She's joining the show today to talk about a particular company that sits right in the middle of all of it. That company is called CoreWeave, and Liz has spent considerable time diving into its history, its financials, and the truly fascinating story that all of that tells us about the modern AI boom. Links:  CoreWeave CEO plays down concerns about AI-spending bubble | WSJ Why debt funding is ratcheting up the risks of the AI boom | NYT Inside the data centers that train AI and drain the electrical grid | The New Yorker How a crypto miner transformed Into the multibillion-dollar backbone of AI | Wired CoreWeave signs $14 billion AI infrastructure deal with Meta | Reuters CoreWeave, Nvidia sign $6.3 billion cloud computing capacity order | Reuters Nvidia turned CoreWeave into major player in AI years before saving its IPO | CNBC CoreWeave inks $6.5 billion deal with OpenAI | CNBC ‘Project Osprey:' How Nvidia seeded CoreWeave's rise | The Information For this startup, Nvidia GPUs are currency | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I'm talking with a very special guest: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. Tim is a legend in the history of the internet. He created HTML and HTTP. It doesn't really get more foundational than that — Tim was there at the very very beginning of the modern internet. He also has a new memoir out called This Is For Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web. So Tim joined the show to talk about the state of the web, as well as his current work at the decentralization startup Inrupt, and, of course, where AI fits into the conversation.  Links:  This Is For Everyone | Macmillan The Semantic Web | W3C Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, now wants to save it | The New Yorker Why I gave the world wide web away for free | The Guardian Amazon, Perplexity kick off the great AI web browser fight | The Verge Web War III | The Verge Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline' | The Verge Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We keep hearing over and over that generative AI is causing massive problems in education, both in K-12 schools and at the college level. Lots of people are worried about students using ChatGPT to cheat on assignments, and that is a problem. But really, the issues go a lot deeper, to the very philosophy of education itself. We sat down and talked to a lot of teachers — you'll hear many of their voices throughout this episode — and we kept hearing one cri du coeur again and again: What are we even doing here? What's the point? Links:  Majority of high school students use gen AI for schoolwork | College Board Quarter of teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork | Pew Research Your brain on ChatGPT | MIT Media Lab My students think it's fine to cheat with AI. Maybe they're on to something. | Vox How children understand & learn from conversational AI | McGill University ‘File not Found' | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Risher was on Lyft's board for years, but only stepped in as CEO in 2023, to help turn the company around. He's done pretty well so far, but there are still a lot of open questions for him to face. It's not just competition for riders and drivers Lyft has to deal with; it's the future of transportation itself, and new AI tools that might take apps like Lyft out of the equation entirely. Links:  Lyft's first ‘robotaxis' are live in Atlanta | The Verge Tensor robocar will be “Lyft ready” out of the factory | Engadget Congrats, Lyft | The Verge Lyft's AI assistant offers drivers advice on how to make money | The Verge Lyft gets toehold in Europe with FreeNow acquisition | The Verge Lyft co-founders to step down as company struggles | New York Times How Silicon Valley enshittified the internet | Decoder Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Sarah Jeong, features editor at The Verge. I'm standing in for Nilay for one final Thursday episode here as he settles back into full-time hosting duties. Today, we've got a fun one. I'm talking to Cory Doctorow, prolific author, internet activist, and arguably one of the fiercest tech critics writing today. He has a new book out called Enshittifcation: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. So I sat down with Cory to discuss what enshittification is, why it's happening, and how we might fight it.  Links:  Enshittification | Macmillan Why every website you used to love is getting worse | Vox The age of Enshittification | The New Yorker Yes, everything online sucks now — but it doesn't have to | Ars Technica The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals vast, deadly rot | Cory Doctorow Mark Zuckerberg emails outline plan to neutralize competitors | The Verge Google gets to keep Chrome, judge rules in antitrust case | The Verge How Amazon wins: by steamrolling rivals and partners | WSJ A new web DRM standard has security researchers worried | The Verge Netflix, Microsoft & Google just changed how the web works | The Outline Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices