Skip to content

‘Hard Fork’ Live, Part 3: Differing Visions of an A.I. Future

June 19, 2026 · 56 min

Show notes

We’re back with our final installment from Hard Fork Live, recorded at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In this episode, we’re joined by Sayash Kapoor and Daniel Kokotajlo to talk about their differing visions of A.I. transformation: why Sayash thinks A.I. will diffuse throughout society like a “normal” technology, and why Daniel thinks an unprecedented acceleration is just around the corner. Then we’re joined by George Ekas from Toborlife AI, along with his dancing robot Toby. Finally, the podcaster Dwarkesh Patel drops by, and we take a few questions from the live audience.

Guests:

  • Sayash Kapoor, an A.I. researcher at Princeton University and a co-author of the newsletter “AI as Normal Technology”
  • Daniel Kokotajlo, the executive director of the AI Futures Project and a co-author of “AI 2027”
  • George Ekas, the director of engineering at Toberlife AI
  • Dwarkesh Patel, a tech podcaster

Additional Reading:

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All episodes of Hard Fork

Settings

Display

Language

Decides which stations you see first on the home page.

History

Recently played stations and episodes and your latest searches are only stored in this browser.

Notifications

A short notice when a podcast you follow has a new episode. Turn off single podcasts with the bell on their page.

Account

Save favorites – in the app and on the website.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Open search
Space
Play or pause
← →
In the player: back 15 s, forward 30 s (episodes) · in a row: next tile
↑ ↓
In a row: target within the tile
Home / End
In a row: first or last tile
Esc
Close window or menu
?
This overview
Now playing

Go to station page

Play next

    Add episodes with “Play next” – they play after the current episode.