Tech Talk: AI Supremacy, TikTok’s Fate, and Crypto Decadence

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Jan 24, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Kevin Roose, a New York Times columnist and host of the Hard Fork podcast, sheds light on the controversial future of TikTok and its influence on Gen Z, particularly amidst its legal battles in the U.S. The conversation turns to the rapidly advancing world of AI, with experts predicting breakthroughs that could reshape technology. Roose also delves into the rise of meme coins in the crypto scene, exploring their implications on financial culture and governance amid national security concerns. A thought-provoking listen!

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INSIGHT

TikTok Ban Argument

The argument for banning TikTok involves its Chinese ownership and potential influence.
Concerns exist about data security, propaganda, and the need for media sovereignty.

INSIGHT

Media Ownership and National Security

The US wouldn't have let the Soviet Union buy major media outlets during the Cold War.
Similar national security concerns exist about Chinese ownership of TikTok, a primary news source for young Americans.

ANECDOTE

Espionage Concerns and TikTok Data

Chinese espionage has increased, targeting American military supply chains.
TikTok data, however, might not provide valuable intelligence for espionage.

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Today, tech talk with an old friend of the pod, Kevin Roose of The New York Times, who is also host of the 'Hard Fork' podcast.

This is a show about everything. And it’s going to remain a show about everything because I’m a little bit interested in everything. But one cost of that purposeful lack of narrow focus is that sometimes you fail to communicate the gravity of the important things that are happening in the world.

And at the moment, I think some of the most important stories in the world are in tech—and more specifically, in the relationship between government and technology. A relationship that is closer now than it’s been in many decades.

We begin with TikTok—the most popular source of news for Gen Z in America and the most downloaded mobile app in the world in 2024. Last year a bipartisan bill signed by Joe Biden demanded that the parent company of TikTok, which is the Chinese firm ByteDance, sell its American business or else face a ban. Well, today, TikTok is legally banned in America, and also in broad use, because Donald Trump—the man who called for banning the app in 2020—saved it in 2025 by essentially declaring that he won’t uphold the law.

We then spend most of this episode talking about the crescendo of predictions from Silicon Valley that the AI frontier is nearing a breakthrough. In the past few weeks, members of OpenAI, Anthropic, and other frontier labs have claimed that they are less than three years away from building AI agents that are, to borrow their language, better than humans at everything. I ask Kevin how widespread these predictions are, whether we should believe them, what it would mean if they’re right, why they might wrong, what’s the biggest bottleneck still standing in their way, and why it’s so hard for the news media to report responsibly on a story like this, where we’re asked to take seriously the economy-shifting potential of a technology that we can’t actually report on because it doesn’t actually exist.

And then, because I’m also completely bewildered by the bonfires of corruption that are erupting in crypto-land, we close on crypto.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Kevin Roose

Producer: Devon Baroldi

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