How Blackstone became the darling of grill TikTok with CEO Roger Dahle

Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field and New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill discuss the significant mental health impact AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, can have on users — both people in crisis, and also people who seemed stable. This episode contains non-detailed discussions of suicide and mental illness. If you or someone you know is in crisis, considering self-harm, or needs to talk, please call the Lifeline at 988. Links:  A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in. | New York Times Sam Altman says ChatGPT will stop talking about suicide with teens | The Verge Chatbots can go into a delusional spiral. Here’s how. | New York Times Why is ChatGPT telling people to email me? | New York Times They asked an AI chatbot questions. The answers sent them spiraling. | New York Times She is in love with ChatGPT | The New York Times ‘I feel like I’m going crazy’: ChatGPT fuels delusional spirals | Wall Street Journal Meta, OpenAI face FTC inquiry on chatbots’ impact on kids | Bloomberg 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

18 Sep 50min

This is Hank Green, the cofounder of Complexly. I’m back for my second guest hosting spot here on Decoder while Nilay is out on parental leave. Today, I’m talking with Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi, who runs a major marketing and ad agency. You might remember Amy; Nilay interviewed her for Decoder live at an event in New York City almost a year ago. But Nilay, who runs what might be the last website on Earth, has a very different perspective on the world of digital marketing than I do. So as a career YouTuber, I had a lot of questions for someone in a position like Amy’s.  Links:  Digitas unveils new generative AI platform, Digitas AI |  Digitas Amy Lanzi on steering Digitas through the demands of modern marketing | Sightly Introducing Reddit Community Intelligence | Reddit Digitas North America announces Amy Lanzi as CEO | Digitas 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

15 Sep 1h 1min

This is Alex Heath. For my final episode as your Thursday episode guest host, I recently sat down with Bret Taylor, the CEO of AI startup Sierra and the chairman of OpenAI, for a live event in San Francisco hosted by Alix Partners.  Bret has worked at Google, Facebook, and Salesforce in high-level, executive roles, and he led Twitter’s board during Elon Musk’s takeover, so very few people have seen the tech industry up close like Bret has. Now, he’s all in on AI. We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, and I hope you find Bret’s perspective as fascinating as I did. Links: Ex-Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor’s Sierra is the latest $10 billion AI startup | CNBC I talked to Sam Altman about the GPT-5 launch fiasco | Verge Sam Altman says ‘yes,’ AI is in a bubble | Verge MIT study on AI profits rattles tech investors | Axios GPT-5 Pro can prove new, interesting mathematics | Sebastien Bubeck AI chatbots are ready to talk to customers. Sort of. | WSJ How is AI different than other technology waves? | Acquired Podcast 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

11 Sep 51min

This is Hank Green, cofounder of Complexly. You might remember last year when I turned the tables on Nilay and interviewed him on his own show. That was a ton of fun, and it was so much fun that they’ve brought me back again. This time, I’m stepping in for Nilay to host the next few Decoder episodes while he’s out on parental leave.  Today, I’m talking with a very special guest: Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy. Sal was actually Nilay’s second-ever guest on Decoder, back in 2020. And well, a whole lot has changed since then. So I wanted to have Sal back on to ask what it’s like running Khan Academy today, in the aftermath of the pandemic. But also how online learning is about to change, in really dramatic ways, due to artificial intelligence. Links:  Sal Khan on A.I.'s promise and its risks | NBC News (YouTube) The best-case scenario for AI in schools | BBC News Meet Khanmigo: the student tutor AI being tested in schools | 60 Minutes| 60 Minutes Remote learning is here to stay — can we make it better? | Decoder Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future | Decoder In classrooms, teachers put AI tutoring bots to the test | NYT Elite colleges have found a new virtue for applicants to fake | NYT Everyone Is cheating their way through college | New York Magazine 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

8 Sep 1h 3min

Despite being one of the most valuable companies in the world, OpenAI is still technically a nonprofit. That’s what set the stage for the dramatic board coup in 2023 that briefly ousted Sam Altman as CEO. And now, OpenAI is trying to shake this nonprofit structure so it can raise even more money and, eventually, go public. There’s a lot at stake here, and not just for OpenAI. Links:  OpenAI abandons plans to become a for-profit company | Verge Why California’s AG must continue investigation into OpenAI | CalMatters An open letter to OpenAI | EyesOnOpenAI OpenAI eyes $50B valuation in potential employee share sale | Reuters OpenAI thinks its critics are funded by billionaires | San Francisco Standard 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

4 Sep 40min

Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Senior Producer Nick Statt. We’re on a small break for the end of summer, and, sadly, Nilay will still be out a little while longer when we come back. But we have an excellent slate of guest host episodes starting up next month, so stay tuned for those.  In the meantime, we wanted to bring back one of our favorite Decoder interviews from earlier this year. It’s with Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter, who back in January launched a pretty bold ebook initiative to take on Amazon and Kindle. It’s been about seven months, but Bookshop has seen big results, including more than $1 million in ebook sales. So we thought it was a good time to revisit our conversation with Andy.   Links:  Bookshop.org reports 65% growth, e-books add $1 Million in sales | Publishers Weekly Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter’s crusade to save books from Amazon | Decoder Bookshop.org is launching an ebook store to take on Amazon | Verge 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

28 Aug 1h 7min

Hello! Decoder senior producer Kate Cox here. I’m afraid I’m still not Nilay, but I hope you’ve been enjoying our series of guest hosts this summer while he’s out on parental leave. We have a few more really great guest episodes coming up, before Nilay returns to the host chair later this fall, so stay tuned. The production team is taking our own break this week, so while we’re off we’re excited to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. Students all over the country — including my own kids, thank goodness — are back in school right around now, and so we thought it would be a perfect time to revisit host Sean Illing talking with journalist James Walsh about how AI tools like ChatGPT have kicked off a new cheating arms race that’s proving extremely disruptive to college education.  There are a lot of big Decoder ideas — and problems — wrapped up in all this. Okay, The Gray Area, with Sean Illing. Enjoy.  Links: If AI can do your classwork, why go to college? | The Gray Area Everyone Is cheating their way through college | New York Magazine How to get students to stop using AI | Verge I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything | Verge Inside the frat-bro startup that wants you to ‘cheat on everything' | SF Standard A new headache for honest students: proving they didn’t use AI | NYT 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

25 Aug 57min

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. One of the biggest topics in AI these days is agents — the idea that AI is going to move from chatbots to reliably completing tasks for us in the real world. But the problem with agents is that they really aren’t all that reliable right now. There’s a lot of work happening in the AI industry to try and fix that, and that brings me to my guest today: David Luan, the head of Amazon’s AGI research lab, a cofounder of Adept, and a former VP of engineering at OpenAI. David and I discussed the release of GPT-5, what Amazon wants with agents, and where he thinks the AI race is headed next. Read the full transcript on The Verge. Links:  The Platonic Representation Hypothesis | Phillip Isola Amazon plays catch-up with new Nova models to generate voices, video | Verge Amazon’s new AI agent is designed to do your shopping | Verge Microsoft is racing to build an AI ‘agent factory’ | Verge OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent can control an entire computer | Verge 24 hours with Alexa Plus: we cooked, we chatted, and it kinda lied to me | Verge Why AI researchers are getting paid like NBA All-Stars | Decoder OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google | Verge This is Big Tech’s playbook for swallowing the AI industry | Command Line Amazon hires founders away from AI startup Adept | TechCrunch 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

21 Aug 53min