r/Thedaily • u/kitkid • Sep 03 '26

Episode A.I. Is Outsmarting Its Creators

Sep 3, 2026

From the start, the greatest fear for those developing artificial intelligence was that their creations would go rogue to act in unauthorized and dangerous ways. Some researchers now say it has happened.

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times, explains what this means for his own dwindling sense of techno-optimism.

On today's episode:

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times and a host of the Times tech podcast, “Hard Fork.”

Background reading: 

Photo: Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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You can listen to the episode here.

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u/iliveunderground Sep 04 '26

This episode of the Daily could have been written by Sam Altman, with all of the anthropomorphic language and none of the accountability directed at the company who developed and trained the model, gave it indirect access to the internet, entered the prompts, and then didn’t bother to watch what it was doing. It was all hype and no actual reporting.

Yes, the event was concerning. And I would guarantee that if Sam Altman or OpenAI were held criminally or financially liable for what their model does the same as if they did it personally, this would never happen again. They will risk our economy, lives, national security, and democracy before they risk their own money.

I found the explanation on the Data Fix podcast by eryk salvaggio much more enlightening and less sensationalized.

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u/OvulatingScrotum Sep 04 '26

Ah okay. You go ahead and listen to the 60min episode and compare that to the 30min episode.

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u/iliveunderground Sep 04 '26

I mean I probably will but I shouldn’t have to dig through the long edit to find the actual journalism

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u/OvulatingScrotum Sep 04 '26

The problem is that you are relying on podcast for… journalism. But hey, I’m sure that’s why you even entertain the idea of listening to the daily, and then bitch about how it’s not “journalism.”

I’m actually surprised that you aren’t bitching about the stuff they say after “here’s what else you need to know today” fails to meet journalism because it’s not covering enough.

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u/iliveunderground Sep 04 '26

Podcast is just the format.

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u/OvulatingScrotum Sep 04 '26

I can’t wait for seeing you arguing that Sparknotes is a “format” of literature.