The company at the heart of the AI bubble

If you’ve been listening to Decoder or the Vergecast for a while, you know that I am obsessed with Google Search, the web, and how both of those things might change in the age of AI. But to really understand how something might change, you have to step back and understand what it is right now.  So today I’m talking with Verge platforms reporter Mia Sato about Google Search, the industries it’s created, and more importantly, how relentless search engine optimization, or SEO, has utterly changed the web in its image. Mia and I really dug into this to explain why search results are so terrible now, what Google is trying to do about it, and why this is such an important issue for the future of the internet. Links:  How Google is killing independent sites like ours — HouseFresh How Google perfected the web — The Verge The people who ruined the internet — The Verge A storefront for robots — The Verge The end of the Googleverse — The Verge The unsettling scourge of obituary spam — The Verge What happens when Google Search doesn’t have the answers? — The Verge The AI takeover of Google Search starts now — The Verge AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born — The Verge Google is starting to squash more spam and AI in search results — The Verge Ethics Statement — The Verge Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

14 Mars 202439min

Today, I’m talking to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a regular contributor to The Verge, and author of the new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Kyle has been writing for years now about how the culture of big social media platforms bleeds into real life, first affecting how things look, and now shaping how and what culture is created and the mechanisms by which that culture spreads all around the world.  If you’ve been listening to Decoder, this is all going to sound very familiar. The core thesis of Kyle’s book — that algorithmic recommendations make everything feel the same — hits at an idea that we’ve talked about countless times on the show: that how content is distributed shapes what content is made. So I was really excited to sit down with Kyle and dig into Filterworld and his thoughts on how this happened and what we might be able to do about it. Links:  Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture — Kyle Chayka Welcome to AirSpace — The Verge The Stanley water bottle craze, explained — Vox TikTok and the vibes revival — The New Yorker Why the internet isn’t fun anymore — The New Yorker The age of algorithmic anxiety — The New Yorker Lo-fi beats to quarantine to are booming on YouTube — The Verge Taylor Swift has encouraged her fans' numerology habit yet again — AV Club How fandom built the internet as we know it, with Kaitlyn Tiffany — Decoder Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23858379 Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

11 Mars 20241h 7min

Our Thursday episodes are all about big topics in the news, and this week we’re wrapping up our short series on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI. In our last couple episodes, we talked a lot about some of the biggest, most complicated legal and policy questions surrounding the modern AI industry, including copyright lawsuits and deepfake legislation. But we wanted to end on a more personal note: How is this technology making people feel, and in particular how is it affecting how people communicate and connect? Verge reporter Miya David has covered AI chatbots — specifically AI romance bots — quite a bit, so we invited her onto the show to talk about how generative AI is finding its way into dating. We not only discussed how this technology is affecting dating apps and human relationships, but also how the boom in AI chatbot sophistication is laying the groundwork for a generation of people who might form meaningful relationships with so-called AI companions. Links:  Speak, Memory — The Verge A conversation with Bing’s chatbot left me deeply unsettled — NYT Google suspends engineer who claims its AI is sentient — The Verge The law of AI girlfriends — The Verge Replika’s new AI therapy app tries to bring you to a zen island — The Verge Replika’s new AI app is like Tinder but with sexy chatbots — Gizmodo Don’t date robots; their privacy policies are terrible — The Verge AI is shaking up online dating with chatbots that are ‘flirty but not too flirty’ — CNBC Loneliness and suicide mitigation for students using GPT3-enabled chatbots — Nature Virtual valentine: People are turning to AI in search of emotional connections — CBS Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23856679 Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

7 Mars 202440min

On this special episode of Decoder, science educator and YouTuber Hank Green is guest hosting. And the guest? It’s Nilay Patel, who sat down with Hank to discuss building The Verge, the state of media, and the future of the web. Also: whether the fediverse is worth investing in, and how social platforms’ control of distribution has shaped the internet. In the words of Hank: “Nilay has got some weird ideas about the internet. For example, that he’s going to revolutionize the media through blog posts. He keeps saying it, but what the hell does he mean? While I was busy building my business on other people’s platforms, Nilay has built something very rare in the year 2024: a website that publishes content and isn’t behind a paywall yet still makes money. How does he do it? How does he make decisions? How is The Verge structured? The tables have turned.” Links: Why Hank Green can’t quit YouTube for TikTok — Decoder Platformer’s Casey Newton on surviving the great media collapse and what comes next — Decoder Just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine — The Verge Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers — Futurism The fediverse, explained — The Verge Can ActivityPub save the internet? — The Verge Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23851875 The Vergecast and Decoder are live at SXSW this weekend, March 8th and 9th. SXSW attendees can see both shows live on the official Vox Media Podcast Stage at the JW Marriott, presented by Atlassian. Learn more at voxmedia.com/live. Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

4 Mars 20241h 3min

Our new Thursday episodes of Decoder are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and this week we’re continuing our mini-series on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI. Last week, we took a look at the wave of copyright lawsuits that might eventually grind this whole industry to a halt. Those are basically a coin flip — and the outcomes are off in the distance, as those cases wind their way through the legal system.  A bigger problem right now is that AI systems are really good at making just believable enough fake images and audio — and with tools like OpenAI’s new Sora, maybe video soon, too. And of course, it’s once again a presidential election year here in the US. So today, Verge policy editor Adi Robertson joins the show to discuss how AI might supercharge disinformation and lies in an election that’s already as contentious as any in our lifetimes — and what might be done about it. Links:  How the Mueller report indicts social networks Twitter permanently bans Trump Meta allows Trump back on Facebook and Instagram No Fakes Act wants to protect actors and singers from unauthorized AI replicas White House calls for legislation to stop Taylor Swift AI fakes Watermarks aren’t the silver bullet for AI misinformation AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

29 Feb 202441min

Today, I’m talking with Rahul Purini, the president of Crunchyroll, a streaming service focused entirely on anime — and really, the biggest anime service still going. Rahul has a long history with anime: he spent more than seven years at Funimation, a company that started in the 90s to distribute Dragon Ball Z to US audiences, before getting the top job at Crunchyroll. Anime might seem like niche content, but it’s not nearly as niche as you might think – our colleagues over at Polygon just ran a huge survey of anime viewers and found that 42% of Gen Z and 25% of millennials watch anime regularly. And Crunchyroll is growing with that audience — like most entertainment providers, the service absolutely exploded during the pandemic, going from 5 million paying subscribers in 2021 to more than 13 million as of last month.  But interestingly Rahul says Crunchyroll’s growth isn’t being driven by more and more people watching anime, but more and more anime fans — especially those watching pirated content — choosing to pay for it. Links:  Anime is huge, and we finally have numbers to prove it — Polygon Funimation is shutting down — and taking your digital library with it — The Verge Sony completes acquisition of Crunchyroll from AT&T — The Verge Funimation’s anime library is moving over to Crunchyroll — The Verge Crunchyroll now has more than 13 Million subscribers — Cord Cutters News Crunchyroll's CEO Colin Decker leaves company; Rahul Purini becomes new president — Anime News Network PlayStation keeps reminding us why digital ownership sucks — The Verge Sony’s Crunchyroll launches free 24-hour streaming channel — Variety Crunchyroll is adding mobile games to its subscription — The Verge How Is Funimation producing so many simuldubs? — Anime News Network Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23845221 Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

26 Feb 20241h 10min

The Decoder team is off this week. We’ll be back next week with both the interview and the new explainer episodes; we’re really excited about what’s on the schedule here.  In the meantime, I thought you all might enjoy a conversation I had with Kara Swisher, the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman about the Apple Vision Pro. All of us have been covering Apple for a very long time, and we had a lot of fun swapping impressions, talking strategy, and sharing what we liked, and didn’t like, about Apple’s $3,500 headset.  Links:  Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not — The Verge The shine comes off the Vision Pro — The Verge Everything we know about Apple’s Vision Pro — The Verge Why some of Apple’s biggest fans are returning their Vision Pros — Bloomberg Apple’s Vision Pro Is an iPad killer, but not anytime soon — Bloomberg I worked, cooked and even skied with the new Apple Vision Pro — WSJ Vision Pro review: 24 hours in Apple’s mixed-reality headset — WSJ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

22 Feb 20241h 4min

Our new Thursday episodes are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and for the next few weeks we’re going to stay focused on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI. There’s a lot going on in the world of generative AI, but maybe the biggest is the increasing number of copyright lawsuits being filed against AI companies like OpenAI and StabilityAI. So for this episode, we’re going to talk about those cases, and the main defense the AI companies are relying on: an idea called fair use. To help explain this mess, I talked with Sarah Jeong. Sarah is a former lawyer and a features editor here at The Verge, and she is also one of my very favorite people to talk to about copyright. I promise you we didn’t get totally off the rails nerding out about it, but we went a little off the rails. The first thing we had to figure out was: How big a deal are these AI copyright suits? Links:  The New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement --- The Verge The scary truth about AI copyright is nobody knows what will happen next — The Verge How copyright lawsuits could kill OpenAI — Vox How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao --- The Verge Generative AI Has a visual plagiarism problem - IEEE Spectrum George Carlin estate sues creators of AI-generated comedy special — THR AI-Generated Taylor Swift porn went viral on Twitter. Here's how it got there — 404 Media AI copyright lawsuit hinges on the legal concept of ‘fair use’ — The Washington Post Intellectual property experts discuss fair use in the age of AI — Harvard Law School OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material — Ars Technica Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

15 Feb 202440min