Decoder with Nilay Patel

California Sen. Adam Schiff sits on a bunch of the committees that do tech and AI oversight, so I really wanted to ask him about how we might regulate anything related to the tech industry at this moment in time. He started our conversation by talking about the self-dealing and corruption present all through our politics now — right against the backdrop of President Trump gathering AI CEOs to the White House to pinky-swear they'll try to keep AI safe. Links:  How tech will self-police AI safety under Trump deal | The Verge Supreme Court ruling kneecaps federal regulators | The Verge Does AI need an antitrust exemption so it doesn’t kill everyone?  | Decoder Flock, Axon dodge Senate hearing | CNBC Trump admin illegally blacklisted Anthropic, court rules  | The Verge Decoder is a Signal Awards finalist in the Business category! You can vote to help us win here.  Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder’s producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Eileen Felix. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, it’s Nilay. We’ve got a little bonus drop for you today — I was recently interviewed about AI safety by Shumita Basu for Apple News In Conversation, and I enjoyed the conversation so much I asked if we could share it with you all.  We’ve actually got a few bonus drops coming up this month; we’ve been having a lot of great conversations lately, and we want to get them out to you on the news cycle. And of course, nothing is moving as fast as the AI safety news cycle. So enjoy this one, and we’ll see you next time. Links:  Apple News In Conversation | Apple Podcasts Inside the suddenly explosive world of AI safety | The Verge Here’s what AI leaders are saying about Trump’s new safety plan | The Verge One company is at the center of a wave of rogue AI attacks | The Verge Microsoft AI CEO says AI threats are real, and Anthropic is making it worse | Decoder Does AI need an antitrust exemption so it doesn’t kill everyone? | Decoder Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. The show is edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today I’m talking with Josh Dzieza, a longtime features writer here at The Verge, about a massive data center in Utah that does not exist, might never exist, and yet has already completely reshaped the politics of the entire state.  Josh just published a major feature this week on the struggling Stratos data center project in Utah backed by Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary. So I invited Josh on the show to discuss what’s happening inside the AI industry’s infrastructure boom, inside the bipartisan backlash to data centers, and how the tech industry is running into the one obstacle it can’t seem to spend its way out of: local democracy.  Read the ⁠full interview transcript on The Verge⁠. Links:  The People of Utah vs. Kevin O'Leary | The Verge Adams — burdened by data center fallout — ousted by voters | Salt Lake Tribune ‘Shark Tank’ star sued by opponents he claimed were foreign agents| NYT Fox News apologizes for airing O’Leary claims about data centers | The Hill Kevin O’Leary agrees to downsize massive Utah data center | The Verge The biggest data center ever is becoming a huge problem in Utah | The Verge America's data center future is Loudoun County's past | The Verge The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers | Decoder Decoder is a Signal Awards finalist in the Business category! You can vote to help us win ⁠here⁠. Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder’s producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is co-founder and CEO of Atlassian. Atlassian is one of those companies that every other company runs on — it makes important platform tools like Jira and Trello. This means Atlassian is also right in the middle of the way AI is changing how all these companies work.  Or, if you buy the idea of the so-called SaaSpocalypse, AI might just build all of these tools for you, destroying this entire category of businesses. Obviously, Mike had a lot of thoughts pushing back on this narrative, so we spent time really digging in and talking through what AI is doing to enterprise software.  Links:  How Australia became the test bed for tech regulation | Decoder (2021) Building a $45B company far from Silicon Valley’s ‘froth and bubbles’ | Semafor Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes on Atlassian and AI | Stratechery How Atlassian shook off the 'SaaSpocalypse' for a big rally  | IBD Atlassian acquires The Browser Company, maker of the Arc browser | The Verge Atlassian Co-CEO resigns, leaving Cannon-Brookes as sole chief | Bloomberg Atlassian cuts 1,600 jobs amid AI push | Forbes Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder’s producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinde Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cloudflare discovered in June that bots already make up more than half of internet traffic — and CEO Matthew Prince says that bots could outnumber humans a thousand to one within five years. That's a huge change to the internet, and if the web is going to keep existing, it needs a huge change to its business model. Can Cloudflare use its place in the ecosystem to direct the money back to the people who make content? Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links:  How I choose which Cloudflare employees to replace with AI | Wall Street Journal Why Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is the internet’s unlikely defender | Decoder (2024) Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default | The Verge Patreon partners with Cloudflare to block AI crawlers | 404 Media Sony and Warner sue Anthropic in latest AI music lawsuit | Billboard Trump administration supports OpenAI in NYT copyright lawsuit  | The Verge Google Zero is here — now what? | The Verge (2024) Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder’s producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices