logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2025
35m 5s

Week in Tech: Broval Office

iHeartPodcasts
About this episode

Is AI charging you different prices for groceries than your roommate? This week, Oz and Karah bring you a news roundup featuring a look at surveillance pricing and the rise of AI companies eager to work with the U.S. military. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, the hosts dive into last weekend's temporary TikTok ban and why Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want it to end. And finally we get to the bottom of why so many PayPal alumni are showing up on our newsfeeds this week in When Did This Become a Thing?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
Yesterday
Big Tech’s Most Valuable Product Isn’t AI. It’s the Belief that AI is Inevitable - The Story
Do you work with machines, or for machines? Cory Doctorow, who coined the term “enshittification,” has a new book that asks exactly that. In The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It's Too Late, he challenges the belief tha ... Show More
36m 42s
Jul 5
Shell Game: The Future Isn't Real
Evan pushes the experiment one step further, sending his AI voice agent to talk to his closest friends and family — his buddies, his daughters, his dad. With their alternately joyful, skeptical, and painful reactions to meeting an AI version of him, he tries to come to terms with ... Show More
53m 34s
Jul 3
TechStuff Redux: How Google DeepMind Accidentally Started the AI Race
What drives a man to turn down half a million pounds at 18, test Mark Zuckerberg's sincerity over dinner, and wonder aloud if he can win a second Nobel Prize? For Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, the answer is a lifelong pursuit of artificial general intelli ... Show More
40m 39s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2023
TikTok goes to Washington
The Verge's Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, and David Pierce are joined by policy reporter Makena Kelly, who is on the ground in Washington for the House Energy and Commerce Committee's hearing on TikTok. Later, we dive into all the other news from this week, from Google's release of Ba ... Show More
1h 22m
Mar 2019
Mon. 03/11 - How TikTok Is Different
Nvidia buys Mellanox, Tesla reverses course, a handy primer on how TikTok is different, and we check in on the smart takes from last week’s big stories. Subscribe to the Premium, Ad-Free Podcast Feed! Sponsors: DataDogHQ.com/ridehome Tiny.website Links: Nvidia to Buy Mellanox ... Show More
24m 28s
Jan 2025
Tech Talk: AI Supremacy, TikTok’s Fate, and Crypto Decadence
Today, tech talk with an old friend of the pod, Kevin Roose of The New York Times, who is also host of the 'Hard Fork' podcast. This is a show about everything. And it’s going to remain a show about everything because I’m a little bit interested in everything. But one cost of th ... Show More
1h 2m
Jul 2023
The X Factor, AI Guardrails, and a Barbenheimer Post-Mortem
Kara and Scott discuss a huge weekend at the box office, and Jeff Bezos' renewed interest in The Washington Post. Plus, WTF is Elon doing with his Twitter re-brand? Also, Big Tech agrees to some AI safety commitments, will they be enough? Friend of Pivot Alondra Nelson led the de ... Show More
1h 10m
Sep 2024
OpenAI's Reasoning Machine + Instagram Teen Changes + Amazon RTO Drama
<p>Last week, OpenAI released a preview of its hotly anticipated new model, o1. We discuss what it has excelled at and how it could accelerate the timeline for building superintelligence. Then, we explain why Meta is making teenagers’ Instagram accounts private by default. And, f ... Show More
1h 6m
Jul 2021
AI for Shaming Politicians, the New AI Art Scene, DeepFake Phishing
Our 64th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news This week: This AI publicly shames politicians, but don’t laugh just yet AI-Generated Art Scene Explodes as Hackers Create Groundbreaking New Tools What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been: EleutherAI One Year R ... Show More
25m 10s
Mar 2023
TikTok’s Testimony, and Google’s Bard Release
Scott and Kara* dissect TikTok CEO Shou Chew’s testimony in the House as the app fends of a potential U.S. ban. And in A.I. news, Google released its chat bot, Bard, to the general public. Plus, President Trump is still a free man, the Fed has raised interest rates yet again, and ... Show More
1h 1m
Apr 2018
Zuckerberg testifies, Spotify hardware, and Huawei P20 Pro review
After a week of Facebook-intensive news, The Vergecast is here to break it all down for you. Nilay is out this week, so Dieter and Paul welcome senior editor Natt Garun and Silicon Valley editor Casey Newton to the show to go over all the news. Even though Mark Zuckerberg took up ... Show More
1h 2m
Mar 2025
Trump's confusing crusade against Big Tech
Starlink is in the White House, Siri is still bad, Pebble is back, up is down, everything is chaos. In this episode, Nilay and David start the show by running through some big gadget news, from a Siri-related shakeup at Apple to the new Google Pixel 9A. After that, The Verge's La ... Show More
1h 50m