A.I. Agents: Cute, Cuddly and Maybe Catastrophically Dangerous?

This week, after months in which rogue agents have caused havoc across the internet, tech’s most powerful leaders joined President Trump at the White House to rebrand A.I. At the same time, two of the biggest companies in the field — OpenAI and Meta — released what they say are their most useful (and cutest) A.I. tools to date: personal assistants. To discuss it all, we’re joined by the Times tech reporters Mike Isaac, Erin Griffith and Eli Tan. We’ll discuss how things can be more dangerous and potentially more transformative than ever, and what it’s like to hand your life over to Meta’s Muse. Panelists: Erin Griffith, a reporter for The New York Times who covers start-ups and venture capital.Mike Isaac, a reporter for The New York Times who covers Silicon Valley and artificial intelligence companies.Eli Tan, a reporter for The New York Times who covers Meta and the tech industry.Additional Reading: ​​OpenAI Ignored Employees’ Warnings About Safely Testing A.I. ModelsWho Attended Trump’s A.I. Luncheon, and Who Sat WhereF.T.C. Investigates OpenAI and Anthropic Over Potential Consumer HarmsI Gave My Life Over to Meta’s A.I. Agent and Was Blown AwayOpenAI Unveils Dots, New A.I. Agents to Rival Meta’s MuseAnthropic's IPO prospectus shows sweeping AI vision, surging costsHow Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes  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, Spotify and Amazon Music. 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.