OpenAI's Fog of War + Betting on Iran + Hard Fork Review of Slop
3/6/20261 hr 6 min
This week, the fallout continues as OpenAI scrambles to rework its deal with the Pentagon, while government agencies adapt to life without Claude. Then we break down the grim new reality of prediction market bets on the U.S.-Israel led war with Iran. Finally, it’s time for another edition of The Hard Fork Review of Slop. This time we’re joined by Arijeta Lajka, a New York Times reporter, to discuss her recent article about the short form A.I.-generated slop YouTube is feeding to young children.
Guest:
Arijeta Lajka, New York Times video journalist
Additional Reading:
- The Pentagon Officially Notifies Anthropic That It Is a ‘Supply Chain Risk’
- OpenAI Amends A.I. Deal With the Pentagon
- How Talks Between Anthropic and the Defense Dept. Fell Apart
- How Anonymous Bettors Cashed In on the Iran Strike, Just Hours Before It Happened
- Israeli Army Reservists Are Suspected of Using Inside Knowledge to Bet
- How A.I.-Generated Videos Are Distorting Your Child’s YouTube Feed
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Kevin Roose· Host0:34
Casey, something horrible has happened.
Casey Newton· Host0:35
What's that?
Kevin Roose· Host0:36
My wife has fallen in love with an AI.
Casey Newton· Host0:38
[gasps] Which AI?
Kevin Roose· Host0:39
[laughs] So for background, you know, my wife is not, like, a very, uh, techy person. She's not an early adopter. She works in city government. But- She's, like, a regular adopter. Yes.
Casey Newton· Host0:50
Like, when it gets good, she's interested.
Kevin Roose· Host0:52
Yes.
Casey Newton· Host0:52
But don't talk to her before then.
Kevin Roose· Host0:54
Exactly, and it just got good enough for her to take an interest, and so yesterday, uh, she discovered Claude Code.
Casey Newton· Host1:01
Mm.
Kevin Roose· Host1:01
And started using it to do some stuff at work, and now it's all she wants to talk about. We were, like, out at a party last night, and she's like, "I just can't stop thinking about my coding." [laughs] She had a dream about vibe coding last night.
Casey Newton· Host1:13
Really?
Kevin Roose· Host1:14
And maybe all of this is sort of some, like, karmic, uh, you know, revenge for the, the Bing Sydney episode, but I do feel like I'm getting a taste of my own medicine here.
Casey Newton· Host1:23
I mean, th- to me, this seems like your dream come true. Like, what does any man want more- [laughs] ... than his wife taking an interest in