An A.I. Assistant That’s Too Good to Be True?

Summary

This episode of Hard Fork covers three major topics. First, Kevin and Casey discuss the tech industry’s response to ICE killings in Minneapolis, examining how surveillance technology, social media platforms, and AI-generated imagery are playing roles in the crisis. They analyze statements from Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Tim Cook, and explore how the government is using content creators and influencers to control narratives. The “phone vs phone” dynamic in Minneapolis — where both protesters and the government are using smartphones as weapons in the information war — represents a new phase in American civic conflict.

Second, Casey reveals his firsthand experience installing Moltbot (formerly Claudebot) on his laptop, the open-source AI agent that has captured Silicon Valley’s imagination. Despite significant security risks — including potential for hackers to take over your computer through messaging app integrations and prompt injection attacks — Casey wired it up to his email and calendar to create a personal daily briefing. The results work about 70% of the time, highlighting both the compelling vision of an AI assistant that can do anything on your computer and the reality that these tools aren’t quite ready for prime time. The episode explores why this matters despite its current limitations, connecting it to the widening gap between AI early adopters and everyone else.

Finally, the hosts play HatGPT, covering Amazon’s “Project Dawn” layoffs, Caroline Ellison’s prison release, TikTok’s data center outage, Dario Amodei’s 19,000-word essay, a porn-quitting app that leaked user data, an Alaska student who ate AI-generated art in protest, Steak ‘n Shake’s Bitcoin strategy, Apple’s AI wearable pin, the White House Melania doc screening, SpaceX’s astrology-timed IPO, and LinkedIn’s vibe coding badges.

Highlights

”Phone to Phone Combat in the Streets”

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“Kevin and I have both been horrified by the fatal shooting of Alex Prey, the second fatal shooting of a US citizen by federal agents this month. While we don’t often turn our attention directly to matters of politics and protests on the show, we both believe that the tech industry is playing a role in this story.” — Casey Newton, 0:30

”The Memes Will Continue”

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“The White House released an AI-altered image of a civil rights attorney to make her look like she’s crying when she wasn’t. When the administration was asked why they’re sharing obviously doctored images, a spokesman just said ‘the memes will continue.’ Which I honestly found chilling.” — Casey Newton, 9:40

”It Works About 70% of the Time”

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“I connected it to my email, my calendar, a few other services and I thought it would be great if in the morning I would get a nice briefing. And by hook and by crook over a handful of days, I got something that works about 70% of the time.” — Casey Newton, 30:50

”The Yawning Inside-Outside Gap”

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“I’ve never seen such a yawning inside-outside gap. People in San Francisco are putting multi-agent Claude swarms in charge of their lives, consulting chatbots before every decision. People elsewhere are still trying to get approval to use Copilot in Teams, if they’re using AI at all.” — Kevin Roose, 39:10

”Stuff That Barely Works in January Might Be Pretty Freaking Good by November”

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“This is honestly just what it is often like to cover technology — you are writing about stuff that is directionally correct, way too early, and barely works. Stuff that barely works in January might be pretty freaking good by November.” — Casey Newton, 35:50

Key Points

• ICE killings in Minneapolis (0:30) - Two fatal shootings of US citizens by federal agents, tech industry playing a role through surveillance tech and social platforms
• CEO responses (2:17) - Altman, Amodei, and Cook issued statements; saying about the least they possibly could due to fear of White House retaliation
• Chris Olah backlash (4:50) - Anthropic co-founder’s heartfelt post was reposted by Katie Miller (wife of Stephen Miller) claiming AI companies build bias into models
• ICE media strategy (7:00) - ICE now has a team of content creators trying to control the narrative using paid social media tools
• AI-altered images (9:40) - White House released AI-altered image of a civil rights attorney; JD Vance retweeted it; “the memes will continue”
• Liar’s dividend (10:20) - Because people know evidence can be fabricated, any evidence is now questioned, eroding trust in society
• Phone vs phone dynamic (12:00) - Direct confrontation between state and protesters involving smartphones as weapons in information warfare
• Moltbot security risks (23:00) - Telegram integration could let hackers take over your computer; prompt injection attacks are hard to protect against
• Mac mini buying frenzy (24:00) - People buying separate Mac minis to run Moltbot to avoid security risks on their main machines
• Better memory than Claude Code (28:30) - Moltbot writes memories to markdown files and continuously revisits them, unlike Claude Code’s context window limitations
• Daily briefing experiment (30:50) - Casey got wrestling pay-per-views, Drag Race episodes, and movie releases into his morning briefing
• Restaurant reservation demo (35:00) - A user named Alex Finn showed Moltbot using 11 Labs synthetic voice to call a restaurant and place a reservation
• AI adoption polarization (39:10) - Kevin’s “heat tweet” about the yawning gap between San Francisco AI adoption and the rest of the world
• Karpathy on Claude Code (42:00) - Called it “easily the biggest change to my basic work coding workflow in two decades of programming”
• Project Dawn (44:30) - Amazon accidentally sent employees a calendar invite about 16,000 layoffs named “Project Dawn”
• Amodei’s essay (50:00) - “The Adolescence of Technology,” a 38-page, 19,000-word essay about AI risks as a follow-up to “Machines of Loving Grace”

Mentions

Companies

• ICE/DHS (0:30) - Federal agencies conducting raids in Minneapolis with content creation teams
• OpenAI (2:17) - Sam Altman issued internal statement about ICE “going too far”
• Anthropic (2:17) - Dario Amodei called Minneapolis events “horror”; Chris Olah’s post drew White House attention
• Apple (2:17) - Tim Cook told employees “this is a time for deescalation”; developing AI wearable pin
• Amazon (44:30) - Accidentally revealed 16,000 layoffs called “Project Dawn” via calendar invite
• SpaceX (55:00) - Weighing June IPO timed to planetary alignment and Musk’s birthday

Products & Technologies

• Moltbot/Claudebot/OpenClaw (20:00) - Open-source AI agent Casey installed; free, locally running personal AI assistant
• 11 Labs (35:00) - Synthetic voice service used by Moltbot to call restaurants
• Claude Code/Codex (42:00) - AI coding tools that Karpathy called biggest change in two decades

People

• Alex Prey (0:30) - US citizen fatally shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis
• Peter Steinberger (22:00) - Developer who created Claudebot/Moltbot
• Andrej Karpathy (42:00) - Called Claude Code the biggest change to coding workflow in 20 years
• Caroline Ellison (46:00) - Former FTX executive released from federal custody after 14 months
• Dario Amodei (50:00) - Anthropic CEO who published “The Adolescence of Technology” essay

Surprising Quotes

“Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents. We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.” — Tricia McLaughlin, DHS Assistant Secretary, 14:30

“X was going to become state media, and I think that it basically has.” — Casey Newton, 8:00

“I connected it to my email and my calendar. I didn’t know I was in the presence of Evil Knievel. You are truly doing the most out here.” — Kevin Roose, 30:00

“If you find yourself tempted to put a vibe coding badge on your LinkedIn profile, here’s what you can do instead: put on a rainbow wig and some white makeup and a big red nose and look in the mirror and there’s your vibe coding badge.” — Casey Newton, 62:00

“Everyone on the hard fork show is now fully aware of all of this. So if you listen to the show, you’re caught up. And if you don’t, once again, you’re out of luck.” — Casey Newton, 43:00

Transcript

0:00 I’m Kevin Roose, a tech columnist at the New York Times. I’m Casey Newton from Platformer and this is Hard Fork. This week, phone-to-phone combat in the streets. We’ll talk about the tech industry’s response to ICE killings in Minneapolis. Then it’s the reason Mac minis are sold out across San Francisco. We’ll tell you about the sensation now known as Moltbot. And finally, it’s time once again for HatGPT.

0:30 So today we want to start by turning our attention to Minneapolis and the ongoing confrontation between ICE officers and protesters. Kevin and I have both been horrified by the fatal shooting of Alex Prey, the second fatal shooting of a US citizen by federal agents this month. And while we don’t often turn our attention directly to matters of politics and protests on the show, we both believe that the tech industry is playing a role in this story.

1:12 Yeah, I’ve been really horrified by what’s been going on in Minneapolis. I have family in Minneapolis. They’re scared. Some of them are leaving. It is a really tense and hard time in American civic life right now and I think we should talk today about not just how the big tech companies and their leaders are acting right now but what role technology itself is playing in some of the reaction to these shootings.

1:36 The tech industry is playing a significant role in what is happening right now. It is an infrastructure provider behind many of the key tools being used — primarily surveillance tech that ICE is relying on to identify and detain migrants, but also the social platforms where once again we’re seeing violence being turned into content and influencers on both sides trying to make it go viral.

2:17 Let’s start with the CEOs. Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, and Tim Cook of Apple each made statements or sent internal memos to their employees lamenting what was going on. Sam Altman had an internal Slack message describing ICE as going too far. Dario called the events in Minnesota horror. Tim Cook sent an internal message saying this is a time for deescalation.

3:33 In several of these cases, we are seeing these CEOs say about the least that they possibly could. They are very afraid of irritating the White House. At the same time they’re facing a lot of pressure from their employees to say something.

7:00 ICE now essentially has a team of content creators who work at the agency and who are spending every day trying to steer the narrative using the same techniques that a brand or a celebrity would. These agencies are not just thinking that their jobs are enforcing the law — they are also trying to control the narrative around how they enforce the law.

9:40 The White House released an AI-altered image of a civil rights attorney named Nikima Levy Armstrong who went to an anti-ICE protest and was arrested. They put out this image to make her look like she’s crying when she wasn’t. JD Vance retweeted the image. When asked, a spokesman for the White House just said “the memes will continue.” Which I honestly found chilling.

12:00 Smartphones are playing a central role in this conflict. Alex Prey was holding a phone when he was shot. The Trump administration has been putting pressure on Americans not to film. DHS Secretary Christy Gnome said videotaping is anything that threatens agents and their safety. But it is not illegal to film law enforcement. It is not doxing to post the image of a federal agent operating on behalf of the state.

20:00 Casey, speaking of extreme risk-takers, I hear you have actually been experimenting with some new technology this week. I have installed Maltbot, formerly known as Claudebot, onto my laptop and I’ve said, “Damn the consequences.”

22:00 Claudebot, now Moltbot, was created by a developer named Peter Steinberger. He started it to scratch his own itch — he observed that there was no great personal assistant agent yet and wondered if he could use Claude Code through WhatsApp.

23:00 There is the risk that somebody can hack into your computer. Claudebot can connect to Telegram. If somebody hacks into your Telegram account, they could take over your entire computer. There’s the prompt injection attack risk — you visit a website that has hidden instructions and the agent follows them. Don’t do this. Don’t do what Casey does.

28:30 What Moltbot does better than Claude Code is memory. It writes memories to a markdown file and continuously revisits them. It’s been better at understanding that if you built a tool the previous day and want to tweak it, it knows where to look.

30:50 I connected it to my email, my calendar, a few other services. I said I want you to tell me whenever there’s a new pro wrestling pay-per-view. I want you to tell me about new episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Every Thursday tell me what movies are coming out. By hook and by crook over a handful of days, I got something that works about 70% of the time.

35:00 A user named Alex Finn showed his Moltbot — he asked “Can you make a reservation for me at this restaurant?” The bot said “I can’t book directly through Open Table right now, but if you want me to just call them, I can call and book under your name.” And the bot actually used a synthetic voice from 11 Labs to call the restaurant and place the reservation.

39:10 I’ve never seen such a yawning inside-outside gap. People in San Francisco are putting multi-agent Claude swarms in charge of their lives, consulting chatbots before every decision, wireheading to a degree only sci-fi writers dared to imagine. People elsewhere are still trying to get approval to use Copilot in Teams, if they’re using AI at all.

42:00 Andrej Karpathy said that programs like Claude Code and Codex are easily the biggest change to his basic work coding workflow in two decades of programming, and it happened over the course of a few weeks. If that is true for him, the most accomplished programmer, it is also true for other programmers. And if it is true for programmers, it is probably true for people in other areas.

44:30 Some Amazon employees got a calendar invitation titled “Project Dawn” discussing upcoming job cuts. That’s bad. We shouldn’t do that. That’s like a sci-fi video game where Project Dawn was the name of an effort to wipe out all of humanity. Just say Project Layoffs.

50:00 Dario Amodei published a new 38-page, 19,000-word essay called “The Adolescence of Technology.” This is a follow-up to “Machines of Loving Grace.” That one was optimistic; this one is about all the scary things that could happen as a result of AI.