Escape From Burning Man + Musk vs. the A.D.L. + Listener Questions

Explicit content warning

09/08/23 • 64 min

6 Listeners

This week: How tech executives’ favorite place to take their pants off turned into a muddy hellscape. We talk to one executive who couldn’t just call a helicopter to escape.

Then, Jonathan Greenblatt, C.E.O. of the Anti-Defamation League, on how his organization went from having a “productive” meeting with X’s C.E.O., Linda Yaccarino, last week to being threatened with a lawsuit by Elon Musk on Monday.

Plus, Kevin and Casey answer your questions.

Additional Information:

Burning Man left behind a sea of “moop” in the desert.
Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups found that hate speech had increased on Twitter after it was purchased by Elon Musk.
Snapchat’s My AI freaked users out after the chatbot appeared to go rogue.

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This week: How tech executives’ favorite place to take their pants off turned into a muddy hellscape. We talk to one executive who couldn’t just call a helicopter to escape.

Plus, Kevin and Casey answer your questions.

Additional Information:

Burning Man left behind a sea of “moop” in the desert.
Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups found that hate speech had increased on Twitter after it was purchased by Elon Musk.
Snapchat’s My AI freaked users out after the chatbot appeared to go rogue.

Previous Episode

The Secretive Billionaires Building a Tech Utopia + Casey’s External Brain + HatGPT

A group of tech titans is gobbling up land north of San Francisco with aspirations to alleviate the Bay Area’s housing crisis, promote innovation, and experiment with new forms of governance. It’s not the first time ultra-wealthy people have tried to build the place of their dreams. Will this time be any different?

Then, note-taking apps claim to make us smarter. Usually, they don’t. Casey Newton, a productivity cult member, on how A.I. could change that.

Plus, Kevin and Casey play HatGPT.

Additional Information:

Tech billionaires want to build a new city. A political fight is coming.
Casey takes a look at note-taking platforms and why they usually don’t live up to their promise.
An Air Force program is embracing A.I. in aerial combat.
The S.E.C. took action against a NFT project
YouTube will waive content violation warnings if the creators in violation attend a class.
Google Meet’s new A.I. program will take notes for users in real time.
A smart contact lens can be charged with human tears.

Next Episode

Casey v. Kevin on US v. Google + Walter Isaacson on Two Years With Elon Musk

Is Google allowed to spend billions of dollars to make its search product the default browser? That is the question at the center of U.S. et al. v. Google — the most important tech trial of the modern internet era — and Kevin and Casey disagree on the answer.

Then, a conversation with the journalist who spent the last two years shadowing Elon Musk.

Today’s guest:

Walter Isaacson is a writer and author of the forthcoming biography “Elon Musk.”

Additional reading:

Google’s antitrust lawsuit against the U.S. government brings the first major tech trial since U.S. v. Microsoft which began in 1998.
“Elon Musk,” by Walter Isaacson.