This weekend, listen to a collection of articles from around The New York Times, read aloud by the reporters who wrote them.
Written and narrated by Cade Metz
Geoffrey Hinton was an artificial intelligence pioneer. In 2012, Dr. Hinton and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto created technology that became the intellectual foundation for the A.I. systems that the tech industry’s biggest companies believe is a key to their future.
On Monday, however, he officially joined a growing chorus of critics who say those companies are racing toward danger with their aggressive campaign to create products based on generative A.I., the technology that powers popular chatbots like ChatGPT.
Dr. Hinton said he quit his job at Google, where he worked for more than a decade and became one of the most respected voices in the field, so he could freely speak out about the risks of A.I. A part of him, he said, now regrets his life’s work.
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Written and narrated by A.O. Scott
Gertrude Stein warned that remarks are not literature. Neither are hateful messages sent to a television producer’s smartphone and hidden away in redacted legal documents.
In the case of Tucker Carlson’s now notorious post-Jan. 6 remarks on an earlier episode of political violence — recently uncovered by New York Times reporters — literary criticism seems to be beside the point. But given that the text is both unusually long (almost 200 words) and contributed to Carlson’s firing from Fox News, some textual analysis might illuminate the author’s state of mind and the political context in which he operates.
What Carlson wrote is a complicated and troubling piece of prose. That it can even be called prose is somewhat remarkable. Not many of us, thumbing away on our phones, would compose such a grammatically coherent, cleanly punctuated missive, without an abbreviation, emoji or autocorrect snafu in sight.
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Written and narrated by Stacy Cowley
Is the worst of the banking crisis over? It may seem a strange question to pose so shortly after the collapse of First Republic Bank, the second-largest such failure in U.S. history, but many industry experts say that the once high-flying lender’s problems were unique.
Investors have also appeared to reach that view: As First Republic hurtled toward collapse, with its stock dropping precipitously, financial markets were far calmer than they were in mid-March, when the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank provoked a panic that engulfed the industry.
First Republic was seized by regulators on early Monday morning and sold to JPMorgan Chase. The S&P 500 stock index barely budged in trading, and JPMorgan’s shares gained about 2 percent.
Many banks still face tough economic conditions, but no other prominent lenders appeared to have a similar set of urgent challenges. That was underlined over the past few weeks as dozens of regional banks reported their first-quarter earnings, offering a less grim assessment of their prospects than many investors and analysts had feared.
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Written and narrated by Michael Wilson
The nightmare shook the old man, who was now in his late 90s. He dreamed of falling from the sky. He awoke feeling helpless and afraid.
John Wenzel, a veteran, automotive executive, father and grandfather, had recently moved into a senior living apartment, the Watermark on Clark Street in Brooklyn Heights, a new frills-and-all building with a Manhattan skyline view. He would soon turn 99 and become the oldest resident there. Since his wife, Alice, died more than 10 years earlier, he had settled into a quiet rhythm, alone with his jazz records and his painting.
And suddenly, out of nowhere, these nightmares. He feared he had suffered a seizure, but his vital signs were normal. His adult daughters, Emily and Abby, were also worried. Their father had always been so steady and predictable, and was never prone to this sort of profound disquiet.
Looking for the source of the nightmares would send Mr. Wenzel and his daughters on a journey back more than 70 years, to a time and a place he had worked purposely his entire adult life to leave behind, to World War II and the skies above Italy.
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Written by Noam Scheiber and John Koblin | Narrated by Noam Scheiber
When the union representing Hollywood writers laid out its list of objectives for contract negotiations with studios this spring, it included familiar language on compensation, which the writers say has either stagnated or dropped amid an explosion of new shows.
But far down, the document added a distinctly 2023 twist. Under a section titled “Professional Standards and Protection in the Employment of Writers,” the union wrote that it aimed to “regulate use of material produced using artificial intelligence or similar technologies.”
To the mix of computer programmers, marketing copywriters, travel advisers, lawyers and comic illustrators suddenly alarmed by the rising prowess of generative A.I., one can now add screenwriters.
“It is not out of the realm of possibility that before 2026, which is the next time we will negotiate with these companies, they might just go, ‘you know what, we’re good,’” said Mike Schur, the creator of “The Good Place” and co-creator of “Parks and Recreation.”
“We don’t need you,” he imagined hearing from the other side. “We have a bunch of A.I.s that are creating a bunch of entertainment that people are kind of OK with.”
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Written by Thomas Fuller and Sharon LaFraniere | Narrated by Thomas Fuller
Last year, with pandemic lockdowns in the rearview mirror, Whole Foods Market made a bet on a gritty San Francisco neighborhood. The high-end supermarket chain opened a giant flagship store in a part of the city that is home to both technology companies like Twitter and open-air drug dealing.
But the store was soon confronted head-on with many of the problems plaguing the area. People threatened employees with guns, knives and sticks. They flung food, screamed, fought and tried to defecate on the floor, according to records of 568 emergency calls over 13 months, many depicting scenes of mayhem.
“Male w/machete is back,” the report on one 911 call states. “Another security guard was just assaulted,” another says. A man with a four-inch knife attacked several security guards, then sprayed store employees with foam from a fire extinguisher, according to a third report.
When Whole Foods announced in mid-April that it was closing the store, citing the safety of its employees, many in San Francisco saw it as a representation of some of the city’s most intractable problems, including its faltering economic prospects. The Whole Foods store was supposed to cater to tech workers and other professionals, part of a long-term redevelopment plan downtown. But it fell victim to a grinding decline in the city’s center that began with the pandemic and could continue for years as companies vacate offices because of remote work.
The Times’s narrated articles are made by Tally Abecassis, Parin Behrooz, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Jack D’Isidoro, Aaron Esposito, Dan Farrell, Elena Hecht, Adrienne Hurst, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Krish Seenivasan, Kate Winslett, John Woo and Tiana Young. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Ryan Wegner, Julia Simon and Desiree Ibekwe.