Decoder with Nilay Patel Vox Media Podcast Network
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Decoder is a show from The Verge about big ideas — and other problems. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to a diverse cast of innovators and policymakers at the frontiers of business and technology to reveal how they’re navigating an ever-changing landscape, what keeps them up at night, and what it all means for our shared future.
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Google's Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web
Today, I’m talking to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who joined the show the day after the big Google I/O developer conference. Google’s focus during the conference was on how it’s building AI into virtually all of its products. If you’re a Decoder listener, you’ve heard me talk about this idea a lot over the past year: I call it “Google Zero,” and I’ve been asking a lot of web and media CEOs what would happen to their businesses if their Google traffic were to go to zero. In a world where AI powers search with overviews and summaries, that’s a real possibility. What then happens to the web?
I’ve talked to Sundar quite a bit over the past few years, and this was the most fired up I’ve ever seen him. I think you can really tell that there is a deep tension between the vision Google has for the future — where AI magically makes us smarter, more productive, more artistic — and the very real fears and anxieties creators and website owners are feeling right now about how search has changed and how AI might swallow the internet forever, and that he’s wrestling with that tension.
Links:
Google and OpenAI are racing to rewire the internet — Command Line
Google I/O 2024: everything announced — The Verge
Google is redesigning its search engine, and it’s AI all the way down — The Verge
Project Astra is the future of AI at Google — The Verge
Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google? — The Verge
YouTube is going to start cracking down on AI clones of musicians — The Verge
AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born — The Verge
How Google is killing independent sites like ours — HouseFresh
Inside the First 'SEO Heist' of the AI Era — Business Insider
Google’s Sundar Pichai talks Search, AI, and dancing with Microsoft — Decoder
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23922415
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.
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TikTok's big bet to fight the ban bill
Last week, TikTok filed a lawsuit against the US government claiming the divest-or-ban law is unconstitutional — a case it needs to win in order to keep operating under Bytedance’s ownership. There’s a lot of back and forth between the facts and the law here: Some of the legal claims are complex and sit in tension with a long history of prior attempts to regulate speech and the internet, while the simple facts of what TikTok has already promised to do around the world contradict some its arguments. Verge editors Sarah Jeong and Alex Heath join me to explain what it all means.
Links:
TikTok and Bytedance v Merrick Garland (PDF)
TikTok sues the US government over ban | The Verge
Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to President Biden’s desk | The Verge
The legal challenges that lie ahead for TikTok — in both the US and China | The Verge
Why the TikTok ban won’t solve the US’s online privacy problems. | Decoder
Biden signs TikTok ‘ban’ bill into law, starting the clock for ByteDance to divest it | 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.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is confident we'll all adapt to AI
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has been at the top of my list of people I’ve wanted to talk to for the show since we first launched — he’s led Adobe for nearly 17 years now, but he doesn’t do too many wide-ranging interviews. I’ve always thought Adobe was an underappreciated company — its tools sit at the center of nearly every major creative workflow you can think of — and with generative AI poised to change the very nature of creative software, it seemed particularly important to talk with Shantanu now.
Adobe sits right at the center of the whole web of tensions, especially as the company has evolved its business and business model over time. And now, AI really changes what it means to make and distribute creative work. Not many people are seeing revenue returns on it just yet and there are the fundamental philosophical challenges of adding AI to photo and video tools. What does it mean when a company like Adobe, which makes the tools so many people use to make their art, sees the creative process as a step in a marketing chain, instead of a goal in and of itself?
Links:
How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao
Adobe Launches Creative Cloud (2012)
What was Photoshop like in 1994?
Photoshop’s Generative Fill tool turns vacation photos into nightmares - The Verge
New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and others sue OpenAI and Microsoft - The Verge
The FAIR Act: A New Right to Protect Artists in the Age of AI | Adobe Blog
Adobe’s Firefly generative AI tools are now generally available - The Verge
This Wacom AI debacle has certainly taken a turn. - The Verge
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23917997
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 -
Why the tech industry can’t crack the smart home
Today, we’re going to talk about the smart home — one of the oldest, most important, and most challenging dreams in the history of the tech industry. The idea of your house responding to you and your family, and generally being as automated and as smart as your phone or your laptop, has inspired generations of technologists. But after decades of promises, it’s all still pretty messy. Because the big problem with the smart home has been blindingly obvious for a very long time: interoperability.
Yet there are some promising developments out there that might make it a little better. To help sort it all out, I invited Verge smart home reviewer Jen Tuohy, who is one of the most influential reporters on the smart home beat today. Jen and I break down how Matter, the open source standard, is trying to fix these issues, but there is still a lot of work to do.
Links:
Matter is now racing ahead, but the platforms are holding it back — The Verge
2023 in the smart home: Matter’s broken promises — The Verge
Smart home hubs: what they are and why you need one — The Verge
My smart kitchen: the good, the bad, and the future — The Verge
How bad business broke the smart home — The Verge
The smart home is finally getting out of your phone and into your home — 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 -
Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath on life after Volvo and weathering the EV slowdown
Today, I’m talking with Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, whom I first interviewed on the show back in 2021. Those were heady days — especially for upstart EV companies like Polestar, which all seemed poised to capture what felt like infinite demand for electric cars. Now, in 2024, the market looks a lot different, and so does Polestar, which is no longer majority-owned by Volvo. Instead, Volvo is now a more independent sister company, and both Volvo and Polestar fall under Chinese parent company Geely.
You know I love a structure shuffle, so Thomas and I really got into it: what does it mean for Volvo to have stepped back, and how much can Polestar take from Geely’s various platforms while still remaining distinct from the other brands in the portfolio? We also talked about the upcoming Polestar 3 SUV and Polestar 4 crossover, and I asked Thomas what he thinks of the Cybertruck.
Links:
Can Polestar design a new kind of car company? — Decoder
The Polestar 3 isn’t out yet, and it’s already getting a big price cut — The Verge
The Polestar 4 gets an official price ahead of its debut — The Verge
Polestar makes the rear window obsolete with its new crossover coupe — The Verge
Volvo and Polestar drift a little farther apart — The Verge
Polestar gets a nearly $1 billion lifeline — The Verge
Car-tech breakup fever is heating up — The Verge
Polestar is working on its own smartphone to sync with its EVs — The Verge
Polestar’s electric future looks high-performing, and promising — The Verge
Electric car maker Polestar to cut around 450 jobs globally — Reuters
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23912151
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by 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 -
Understanding the chaos at Tesla
Today, Verge transportation editor Andy Hawkins and I are going to try and figure out Tesla. I said try — I did not say succeed. But we’re going to try. That’s because Tesla has been on a real rollercoaster these past two weeks, in terms of its stock price, its basic financials, and well, its vibes.
If you’ve been following the company, you know that that gap between what the business is and how its valued has been getting bigger and bigger for years now – and lately, with Elon Musk saying he’s going all-in on autonomy and announcing a robotaxi event in August, it seems like we’re getting closer to a make or break moment, especially as competition in the broader EV market heats up.
Links:
Tesla reaches deals in China on self-driving cars — NYT
Elon Musk goes ‘absolutely hard core’ in another round of Tesla layoffs — The Verge
Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving linked to dozens of deaths — The Verge
Elon Musk says Tesla will reveal its robotaxi on August 8th — The Verge
A cheaper Tesla is back on the menu — The Verge
Tesla’s profits sink as the company struggles with cooling demand — The Verge
Tesla lays off ‘more than 10 percent’ of its workforce, loses top executives — The Verge
Tesla recalls all 3,878 Cybertrucks over faulty accelerator pedal — The Verge
Elon Musk says it’s “time to reorganize” Tesla — The Verge
Elon Musk lost Democrats on Tesla when he needed them most — WSJ
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