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Amazon’s AI chatbot Rufus drove sales on Black Friday; plus, James Cameron says generative AI is ‘horrifying’ Dec 01, 2025

Show notes

On Black Friday, Amazon sessions that resulted in a sale were up 100% in the U.S. when the AI chatbot Rufus was used. They only increased by 20% when Rufus wasn't used.

Also, James Cameron’s movies are often at the cutting edge of visual effects technology, but that doesn't make him a fan of generative AI.

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No, you can’t get your AI to ‘admit’ to being sexist, but it probably is anyway Dec 01, 2025

Show notes

Though LLMs might not use explicitly biased language, they may infer your demographic data and display implicit biases, researchers say.

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Uber and WeRide’s robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi is officially driverless; plus, a bug in jury systems used by several US states exposed sensitive personal data Nov 26, 2025

Show notes

The commercial robotaxi service launched last year. Now, the human safety operator is gone.

Also, an easy-to-exploit vulnerability in a jury system made by Tyler Technologies exposed the personally identifiable data of jurors, including names, home addresses, emails, and phone numbers.

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Character AI will offer interactive ‘Stories’ to kids instead of open-ended chat; plus, OpenAI and Perplexity are launching AI shopping assistants Nov 26, 2025

Show notes

The company announced last month that it would no longer allow minors to use its chat features.

Also, startup founders building AI shopping tools think general-purpose models are too broad to deliver truly personalized shopping experiences.

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Altman describes OpenAI’s forthcoming AI device as more peaceful and calm than the iPhone; plus, DOGE days are over Nov 25, 2025

Show notes

Altman and Ive tease a simple AI device aimed at calm, distraction-free computing, launching within two years.

Also, DOGE members are reportedly worried that they could face prosecution for some of their activities conducted while under the leadership of Elon Musk.

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Roblox CEO interview gets heated over child safety; X’s new About This Account feature is going great; and AI is too risky to insure Nov 25, 2025

Show notes

-Roblox CEO Dave Baszuki joined the Hard Fork podcast to discuss the gaming platform’s new age verification feature — but he seemed to get frustrated at the number of questions focused on child safety.

-A new feature seemingly revealed many right-wing “America First” accounts are actually based outside the United States. But the data seems questionable.

-Major insurers including AIG, Great American, and WR Berkley are asking U.S. regulators for permission to exclude AI-related liabilities from corporate policies. One underwriter describes the AI models’ outputs to the FT as "too much of a black box."

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Trump administration might not fight state AI regulations after all; plus Waymo expanding across Bay Area and SoCal; and Meta wants to get into the electricity trading business Nov 24, 2025

Show notes

Reuters reports that the executive order has been put on hold. If signed, the order would probably face significant opposition, including from Republicans who previously criticized the proposed moratorium on state regulation.

Waymo continues to expand its reach, with the robotaxi company posting Friday that it’s now “officially authorized to drive fully autonomously across more of the Golden State.” Waymo already operates in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles, as well as outside of California, in Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix.

Bloomberg reports that both Meta and Microsoft are asking for federal approval to trade power (Apple has already received this approval). According to Meta, this will allow it to make long-term commitments to buy electricity from new plants, while mitigating the risk by having the ability to resell some of that power on wholesale power markets.

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CrowdStrike fires ‘suspicious insider,’ X rolling out the ‘About this account’ feature, and Trump’s FCC votes to scrap cybersecurity rules Nov 21, 2025

Show notes

-Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike denied it had been hacked following claims from a hacker group, which leaked screenshots from inside CrowdStrike's network.

-X's new feature will show where users are based, how they're connected to X, and how many times they've changed their username.

-Two Trump-appointed FCC officials voted to undo the telecom industry's cybersecurity rules. One Democratic commissioner dissented, saying the decision leaves the United States "less safe" at a time when threats are increasing.

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Grok says Elon Musk is better than basically everyone, except Shohei Ohtani Nov 21, 2025

Show notes

According to Grok, Elon Musk can out slug the MLB's greatest power hitters... except Ohtani.

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Google releases Nano Banana Pro, its latest image generation model; and another fire broke out at aluminum plant that supplies Ford Nov 20, 2025

Show notes

Google is upgrading its image generation model with new editing chops, higher resolutions, more accurate text rendering, and the ability to search the web.

Also, the fire that broke out at the Oswego, NY Is the second major fire -- and the third overall -- in the last few months at the Novelis plant,

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