Скачать или смотреть What's in the U.S. Government's 'A.I. Action Plan'? | EP 146

On Wednesday, President Trump signed three A.I.-related executive orders, and the White House released “America’s A.I. Action Plan.” We break down what’s in them, how the federal government intends to target “political bias” in chatbot output, and whether anyone will stand up against it. Then, do we hype up A.I. too much? Are we downplaying potential harms? We reached out to several prominent researchers and writers and asked for their critiques about how we cover A.I.

For a limited time, you can get a special-edition “Hard Fork” hat when you purchase an annual New York Times Audio subscription for the first time. Get your hat at nytimes.com/hardforkhat

Guests:

Brian Merchant, author of the book and newsletter “Blood in the Machine”
Alison Gopnik, professor at the University of California, Berkeley
Ross Douthat, New York Times opinion columnist and host of the podcast “Interesting Times”
Claire Leibowicz, head of A.I. and media integrity at the Partnership on AI
Max Read, author of the newsletter “Read Max”

Additional Reading:

Trump Plans to Give A.I. Developers a Free Hand
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/te...

The Chatbot Culture Wars Are Here
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/te...

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Coming up
00:00:50 - Casey's Waymo goes "Fight or Flight Mode"
00:02:47 - This week on the show
00:03:08 - How to get a Hard Fork hat!
00:04:12 - Unpacking Trump's "A.I. Action Plan"
00:24:34 - Our critics called, and we answer

Please note the following correction: because of an editing error, "Claire Leibowitz" should be spelled "Claire Leibowicz."

Hard Fork is a weekly look into the future that's already here. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the bleeding edge of tech.
Casey’s publication, Platformer: https://www.platformer.news/


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Credits
“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. Produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. Edited by Jen Poyant. Engineering by Katie McMurran and original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop and Marion Lozano. Fact-checking by Caitlin Love. Our executive producer is Jen Poyant. Video production by Chris Schodt, Sawyer Roque, Jake Nicol, and Rachel Win. Video QC by Isabella Anderson. Podcast Art Direction by Benjamin Wilkerson Tousley. Podcast Art & Animations by Julian Hespenheide. Additional Motion graphics by Phil Robibero. Thumbnails by Julia Moburg, Elizabeth Bristow, and Harshal Duddalwar. Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam, Kate LoPresti and Jeffrey Miranda