

Next goal: 5
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AI is cool i guess

“Hard Fork” is a show about the future that’s already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech. 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.
OpenAI’s newest system rolled out on July 9, 2026, and reporting says the White House initially asked the company to keep it on a short leash, putting Sam Altman squarely in a live policy fight over how far and how fast frontier AI should move. Just yesterday he warned that the new GPT 5.6 Sol could face “hiccups” as demand surges, raising urgent questions about safety, reliability, and who gets access first.
He is also pushing unconventional governance ideas right now, including a July 2 proposal to donate 5 percent of OpenAI’s equity to a US sovereign wealth fund, even as OpenAI is projected to haul in tens of billions in revenue while racing Google and Anthropic. Altman has been on Hard Fork before during the 2023 crisis, so this is the room where he can be pressed on power, policy, and product in real time, support this nomination today so we can get answers that matter.
Nomination created on December 18, 2025