Open Model Wars + Claire Stapleton’s Dishy Google Memoir + Substack’s Slop Fight

This week, we break down the arguments about open-weight models unfolding in Silicon Valley right now. Nvidia released an open letter signed by over 230 companies opposing “premature restrictions,” but will the Trump administration listen?

Then, we’re joined by the author Claire Stapleton to discuss her new book about what she learned while leading employee activism inside Google.

And finally, can Substack stop the slop? We’ll talk about the platform’s new A.I. detector.

Guests:

• Claire Stapleton, author of “Don’t Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech.”

Additional Reading:

• Nvidia Forms Alliance to Back Open-Source A.I. Amid Debate Over Safety
• What Is Open-Weights A.I.?
• Mark Zuckerberg Blasts Centralization of A.I. Power 
• The Voice of Google
• Against Claudefishing

We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.

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.

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