The Surgeon General’s Social Media Warning + A.I.’s Existential Risks

Hard Fork

The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, says social media poses a “profound risk of harm” to young people. Why do some in the tech industry disagree?

Then, Ajeya Cotra, an A.I. researcher, on how A.I. could lead to a doomsday scenario.

Plus: Pass the hat. Kevin and Casey play a game they call HatGPT.

On today’s episode:

• Ajeya Cotra is a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy

Additional reading:

• The surgeon general issued an advisory about the risks of social media for young people.
• Ajeya Cotra has researched the existential risks that A.I. poses unless countermeasures are taken.
• Binance commingled customer funds and company revenue, former insiders told Reuters.
• BuzzFeed announced Botatouille, an A.I.-powered kitchen assistant.
• A Twitter bug caused the platform to restore deleted tweets.
• Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced his presidential campaign in a Twitter Spaces event rife with glitches.
• Two former rivals, Uber and Waymo, are teaming up to bring driverless ride-hailing to Phoenix.