[IMPORTANT: Make this 4 times longer with much more detail]
For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio , a new iOS app available for news subscribers. transcript Back to Hard Fork bars 0:00 / 57:28 – 57:28 transcript Ed Helms Answers Your Hard Questions A star of “The Office” comes to our office to answer your most pressing questions about tech. 2025-05-16T07:00:02-04:00 This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. kevin roose What’s going on with you? casey newton Well, I’ll tell you what’s going on with me is allergies. It is allergy season, the sneezing. kevin roose It’s allergy sneezing. casey newton It’s allergy sneezing season — the congestion. I’m taking multiple pills. I feel better today than I felt at any point in the past three days. And thank goodness because it’s a recording day. kevin roose Are you a Zyrtech guy or a Claritin guy? Or a Flonase guy? casey newton So here’s the best allergy medicine — Singulair is the brand name for it. Active ingredient is something called montelukast. This thing changed my life. Seriously. I was a runny nose monster for years. And then montelukast came into my life, and it really helped me breathe through my nose. kevin roose Wow, have you ever tried dissolving it in a tea of any kind? casey newton No, why would I do that? kevin roose Because then you’d be getting the singularity? casey newton [SNICKERS]: How did I walk right into that? kevin roose [LAUGHS]: [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, start the show. That was great. [MUSIC PLAYING] I’m Kevin Roose. I’m a tech columnist at “The New York Times.” casey newton I’m Casey Newton from “Platformer.” kevin roose And this is “Hard Fork.” casey newton This week, Ed Helms from the office comes to our office to talk about his new book and answer your hard questions about tech. I hope this episode wins a Dundie, Kevin. kevin roose I have a hangover. [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, we are very excited about today’s episode. We told you this was coming a few weeks ago. And today, we are going to be joined by Ed Helms for some conversation and some hard questions submitted by, our listeners. casey newton I am so excited about this, Kevin. kevin roose Me, too. So this came about because of a chance encounter that we had in Austin, Texas, when we were down there for the iHeart podcast awards. We are both big Ed Helms fans, and we were excited to bump into Ed in the backstage area and hear, to our surprise, that he listened to “Hard Fork.” casey newton Yeah. And how did that happen? Was that a mistake on your part? Or were you sort of subscribed to the Kara Swisher feed? How did you start listening to “Hard Fork?” ed helms That’s a great question. I have no recollection of how I started, but I don’t know. You guys are pretty good. kevin roose Oh, thanks. ed helms You’re good at what you do. kevin roose Thanks. So Ed has a new book out called “SNAFU.” It’s what he calls “The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups.” It should have a chapter or two in there about Casey. casey newton Yeah, I sent him all of your screw ups, so they didn’t make the cut. kevin roose [CHUCKLES]: And Ed is here with us today in San Francisco. And we said, come on down to the studio and let’s hang out and answer some questions. So without further ado, Ed Helms, welcome to “Hard Fork.” ed helms I am very excited to be here, gentlemen. kevin roose So what are you doing here? Why are you in San Francisco? ed helms I’m on my book tour. Yeah, I’m bouncing all around the country. I went to New York, Philly, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston. And now I’m here. Tomorrow, I go to LA. And I’m hallucinating. I have no idea what’s happening anymore. kevin roose That’s common in San Francisco. Did you get the little baggies in Dolores Park? ed helms Yeah, right. kevin roose So Ed, your book is all about history’s greatest screwups. Do you have a favorite tech-related snafu that you could share? ed helms Oh, wow. Well, do nuclear warheads count as tech? kevin roose Yeah, sure. ed helms OK, great. This one’s amazing. This was the Cold War, the 1950s. Cold War did not bring out the best in us, as it turns out. A plan was hatched to shoot a nuclear warhead at the moon. And you might be wondering why. Why would anyone think this is a good idea? The thinking was that we’re in fierce competition with the Soviets. Everyone’s sort of living in nuclear existential dread. If we can hit the moon with a nuclear warhead, the Soviets will be so terrified that we’ll win the Cold War. And the research showed that it was very likely that it could easily miss the moon, slingshot around the gravitational field, come right back and hit us. casey newton Which, frankly, would have served us right. ed helms Yeah. You know what? That’s a fair punishment. And so eventually, it was not followed through on, thank God, but a lot of time, money, and resources went into it. Carl Seguin was part of that research team. kevin roose It sounds like an idea that Elon Musk would come up with after a ketamine bender. He’s like, let’s nuke the moon. casey newton There’s an episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns wants to blot out the sun. ed helms Oh yeah, of course. casey newton And this kind of reminds me of that, except it really happened. ed helms Yeah. kevin roose There’s a fun section in your book about the top five computer viruses of the ‘80s. We don’t have to go through all of them. But I’m curious if you have a favorite virus from the viruses that you’ve covered? ed helms I like the guy that just wrote a dumb poem that pops up on everybody’s computer. I mean — casey newton Was this the message of peace to Mac users, or was this a different one? kevin roose No, this was the elk cloner virus. ed helms Yeah. kevin roose God, Casey. casey newton Oh, sorry. I’m still catching up on my ‘80s viruses. ed helms It’s one of those things that a programmer thinks is sort of cute and a little cheeky, but then it just is disastrous. casey newton Right. kevin roose Yeah, I feel like the hackers aren’t so cheeky anymore. You don’t see the good time prank hacks. You just see the stealing $5 million in Bitcoin pranks. casey newton Yeah, bring back fun hacks. ed helms Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, the ones that make us chuckle. kevin roose So Ed, whenever we get a notable guest like you on the show, we always ask them about their relationship with technology. So what’s your relationship with technology like these days? ed helms Well, it’s really evolved. I used to be very much on the ball and, I would say very, almost ahead of the curve. I was an early adopter of technology. As it came out, I was getting the latest laptop. I jumped on the iPhones as soon as they came out. I’ve always been a Mac guy. So it was fun, and I was charged up by it. I liked technology. Somewhere, I don’t know, in the last five, 10 years, it has just blown past me. And now, I feel I’m just that old guy, mad that I can’t log into my Citibank account or whatever. kevin roose We’ll help you, but just share your account name and the routing number, if you would. ed helms But I feel like there is a language to, or a visual language, to iconography within apps. And it’s sort of assumption that you speak that language. And sometimes I’ll open a new app, or I’ll upgrade an app. And I’m just useless all of a sudden. casey newton It’s like going to the grocery store, and they’ve changed the location of all of the food? ed helms No, they’ve changed the food. Avocados have turned into something you’ve never seen before. kevin roose Yeah, the broccoli is blue. Yes. Do you have a problem app or an app that you spend way more time on than you would like to? ed helms Probably Instagram, like everybody else, right? Or I mean, does that make me old? casey newton No. No, not at all, not at all. kevin roose That’s very millennial-coded, actually. ed helms OK. All right. casey newton If you said TikTok, it’d skew you a bit younger.3 but look, there’s billions of people using Instagram. Have you ever deleted Instagram or set a screen time limit on it because you thought, I can’t be looking at it these days? ed helms No, I’ve never put a limitation on it. kevin roose You think that’s for quitters? ed helms Yeah. [laughs] It’s not ruining my life. I don’t feel controlled by it. It just keeps me up too late some nights. Honestly, I’ve laughed harder watching Instagram than I have a lot of movies and TV shows lately like. It drives my wife crazy because I’m shaking the bed, and she’s trying to fall asleep. And she’s just like, turn it off. She’s not concerned about my screen time. She’s just like, stop shaking, and I’m trying to laugh quietly. kevin roose It’d be funny if the sleeping in separate beds thing from the 1950s came back among couples, but just because — casey newton Because of TikTok. kevin roose — TikTok. casey newton I could see it happening. Well, what makes you laugh on Instagram the most? Is it the native creators who are just kind of doing fun bits and sketches? Or is it like people have sliced up every movie and TV show known to existence, and they know how to serve you your very favorite ones? ed helms It’s usually prank-related stuff. And I have a pretty keen radar, but Instagram has hacked it. So I hate anything that hurts someone physically. I just can’t get into that. I don’t like watching people fall or bonk into things. That’s very unnerving to me. But I also don’t like scare pranks that are clearly traumatizing to somebody. And there’s tons of that stuff. casey newton Yeah, I feel like you just described 80 percent of all pranks. ed helms Yeah, right? casey newton So what’s left over? ed helms But what’s left over are the ones are just the jump scare pranks. And they’ll just be a compilation of jump scares. And I’m crying, laughing or just weird scare pranks where there was a trend for a little while of people that would lie on the floor with just their head sticking out of a door on the floor, and someone would walk in and see the head on the floor. And just apparently it’s terrifying because the reaction is amazing. casey newton Well, if you ever come back to “Hard Fork,” I know how I’m greeting you. ed helms Perfect. perfect. casey newton Exactly like that. kevin roose What about AI? Are you using any AI stuff in your life? How do you feel about it? ed helms Yeah, I definitely use ChatGPT. kevin roose For what? ed helms Mostly just queries, like just picking its brain for research, or I want to know about something. It’s kind of my new Google, I guess. casey newton Do you feel like you’re googling less because you’re using ChatGPT? ed helms Yes, for sure. Although I still Google, and I’m definitely — I think you guys did a whole — didn’t you guys do a whole episode about this, about how now, with Google’s AI, no one goes to the links anymore? kevin roose Yeah, exactly. ed helms And there are all these industries that have built their entire business models on the Google links. And yeah, that’s a bummer. That’s just one of the many AI fallouts. I use it occasionally to help think of an email that I’m having trouble with, or especially if it’s something kind of loaded, and I just — I want to — casey newton You had to fire somebody. Yeah, yeah. kevin roose The relationship between Hollywood actors, writers, people who work on films and TV shows, has been pretty strained toward technology, I would say, over the past few years. Especially, first, it was the streaming platforms coming in and disrupting that part of the business. Now, actors and writers have been some of the loudest critics of AI, talking about steals work from people. What do you think about the film industry’s relationship to tech. ed helms Well, tech or just AI in particular? kevin roose Both. ed helms I mean, with tech, the relationship has long been — it’s so integral to filmmaking. Obviously, the technology, going back to the dawn of photography, and all the evolution of camera operation and movement and manipulation, and then digital manipulation of the image, that grew into digital animation. And it’s so powerful and exciting on many levels. I do think that ChatGPT introduces a completely different paradigm of tech in entertainment. And I felt like something was watching you read notes on a project, and you’re like, did this executive just feed this into — like, it’s thinly-veiled ChatGPT. casey newton You’re pretty confident you’ve seen some AI notes at this point? ed helms I do, yeah. I think so. But I also stunned by ChatGPT’s facility with creative tasks, that If you give an assignment, it’s totally stunning. And I think the creative community is terrified, and for good reason. And I’m also terrified, not even from a business standpoint, but just from a human — when the need for human creativity disappears, will we still be creative? What will drive us to create beautiful things and amazing things? And just whether it’s a movie for the movie business, or it’s just a piece of art for art’s sake, that does terrify me. casey newton Yeah. Obviously, that’s a very difficult question, but do you have any thoughts on how creative people should be approaching this moment? It sounds like you’ve landed in a place similar to Kevin, which is, this can be a useful tool, maybe a creative partner, but there’s probably some part of your creativity that you want to reserve for yourself and not give over to a machine? ed helms Yeah, that’s a good characterization of my relationship with it now, but it’s only going to get better and more powerful, and I feel like also more intoxicating to use and more exciting and affirming. But yeah. kevin roose Is there any tech product or service out there right now that you think will become a historical snafu that you might write about in a future volume of a book? What out there today in the field of technology, do you look at and think, oh, that can’t possibly be good? ed helms Wow. So I actually have of a macro take on this, which is that we’re at a point with device usage where it’s clearly bad for us. It’s clearly harming us. And so it feels like cigarettes in the ‘90s, where it was, everybody knows, but, come on, we’re still doing it, right? And all the corporate interest in it is still just sort of dumping money and more advancement into it. And in the ‘90s, we’re releasing better cigarettes and healthier cigarettes, but everyone still knew it was bad. And it feels like we will, I hope, at some point, recognize that — or it will come to that inflection point in the same way that cigarette smoking did, where it just — no, where we’re just — as a society, we’re like, this is actually terrible. The only difference — or I should say, there’s a lot of differences between phones and cigarettes. But one of the most scary differences is that it’s like if someone told you the only way to do your banking or to do your shopping is to smoke your cigarettes. It becomes so integrated into your life that you have no alternative to this thing that is also toxic to you. So I don’t know if I use my phone a ton, and I still feel like I use it too much. It’s a conundrum. casey newton Here’s how I say you solve it. You actually sort of borrow a lot of ideas from the cigarette example. And you make it so that you can only use Instagram outside, and you have to be 15 feet away from the door. Maybe that does something, you know? ed helms Also you stink when you come back. casey newton Yes, exactly. ed helms It makes you stink. casey newton Exactly. ed helms It gives you terrible breath. kevin roose All right, when we come back, we’re going to answer your hard questions. [MUSIC PLAYING] So Ed, for the last few weeks, we have been collecting questions from our listeners about their moral and ethical dilemmas involving technology. And we’re excited to get your take on some of these, too. ed helms Fantastic, let’s do it. casey newton Yeah. Well, I would just mention this really has become one of our favorite segments to do, not only because our listeners are great and they ask such interesting questions of us, but it really lets us get a peek into people’s relationship with technology, which I think is at the heart of what we love to talk about on the show. kevin roose So every time we’ve done this, we’ve gotten tons and tons of questions about AI and the ethics around AI use. That will be a trend that continues today. We got a ton of questions, the most popular topic by far. But for this installment, I thought we could start off with some of the non-AI questions from listeners and then work our way to the AI pile. ed helms All right, ready to go? kevin roose Yep. casey newton So first up, we have a video from a listener asking that age-old question, what do I do about my mom? charlene Hi, Kevin and Casey. My name is Charlene. I love your podcast. Thank you so much for doing it. I listen every week. I am listening up in Canada. My question for Ed is a little internet privacy-related. How do I break it very gently to my Gen X mom that I do not want her posting any pictures of her future grandkids onto her Facebook wall? kevin roose Ooh, interesting. ed helms Oh, yeah. kevin roose What do you think, Ed? ed helms Well, that’s a good one. I’m a Gen X dad, and I’m like, no way am I putting pictures of my kids up? kevin roose You don’t put any pictures of your kids online? ed helms No, nowhere. And I have had that conversation with family members. Like, please, pull back on this or that because sometimes you’re just off at your cousin’s house, and they’re taking pictures, and all great. It’s like a family barbecue, but you just have to be a little careful. I mean, there’s just no substitute for direct conversation about this. Although, you could consult ChatGPT on how to broach the subject in a tactful and tender way. casey newton That would work. The thought that comes to mind for me is maybe the way to have the conversation is to present an alternative. And say hey, the baby’s coming next month. We’re all very excited. We would like for you to not post these photos sort of in public forums like Facebook, but we would love you to post them to our shared iPhoto library, where only our family members can see it. And we’re going to get it started for you. And I’m going to add it to your phone manually. And now you’re going to get an endless stream of photos, and you can share all of them this way. That might, I think, help. kevin roose Yeah, I know a lot of families with young kids who do this either on the Photos app. You can create this shared album and post photos there, and people can comment on them. It’s feels like social media but without the publicness of it. Or you can do a WhatsApp thread or a group text or something. But yeah, I think that’s a really key thing, is do not want to deprive grandparents of photos of their grandkids, or else they will just start taking them and posting them on their own. casey newton All right, well, I think we solved that one. kevin roose Yeah. So next up we have a voice memo from a listener who wonders what’s going on with her friend’s online calendars? And this listener asked us not to use her name in case the friend listens to the show. speaker 1 I’ve recently started doing some admin work for a really good friend. Most things are going really well. But when we need to meet virtually or do a call, I contact my friend to find a time, tell her I’m flexible, as my calendar is a lot less slammed than hers. Like, just send me a calendar invite at a time that works for you, and I’ll make it work. The first time I did this, I waited, and there was no calendar invite a few hours later, so I was like, do you want me to send you an invite? And she said, no, I put it on my calendar, but without adding me. She wants me to make my own calendar invite on my calendar. So just two calendars off in space, not collaborating and with no visibility between them. I think this is insane and very weird, as well as unproductive, self-defeating, and, frankly, inconsiderate. She definitely doesn’t think it’s weird at all. I’ve worked in offices for many, many years, and I’ve never encountered this. Am I being hypercritical about this? Or is it as weird as I think it is? kevin roose What do you think, Ed? ed helms Well, I want to make sure I understand correctly. So she’s really upset that her friend just feels like she wants to have separate calendars. casey newton And is not adding her on the calendar invite. It would be like if I were like wanting to hang out with Kevin. And I added on to my calendar, “hang out with Kevin at noon,” and then I didn’t add Kevin, so now he has to go make his own calendar entry being like, hanging out with Casey. kevin roose I mean, what occurs to me is like, I’m not sure if this friend of hers understands that you can do a shared calendar invite without giving the other person access to your entire calendar. ed helms Yeah, it feels a bit like generational because that’s my take is I just manage my own calendar. I find myself accepting calendar invites here and there, but I rarely send them out. kevin roose That’s a flex. ed helms Yeah. Well, I don’t know. I don’t think that way. I’m just like, it’s an old school way of doing. Everyone manages their own calendar. You agree on a date and time in an email or a text or whatever, and then you add it to your own calendar. But yeah, I don’t know. kevin roose Now here’s a question for you both. Do you let other people see your calendar? Because you can give people access to be able to see all the appointments on your calendar. And I’m curious if either of you do that. casey newton Ed? ed helms I have someone that I work closely with who has full access to my calendar. But of course, I have multiple calendars. My wife has access to another calendar. And I don’t know if anybody other than me has access to all of them. casey newton Yeah, I’m basically the same. I have an assistant who can see my calendar, and I have a boyfriend who can see my calendar, but that’s it. How about you? kevin roose My wife can see my calendar, but because there’s some security settings around it, it only says, busy or not busy. It doesn’t say what I’m doing. ed helms Interesting. That’s an interesting way to do it. But also what is the working relationship of these two people? If they’re in an organization where this standard is set, then, yeah, it’s a reasonable expectation to have. But I think if you’re dealing with two people in different organizations that are collaborating, then you’re just allowed to assert your preferences. kevin roose Right. So for our anonymous listener, I think our advice is make sure that your friend, who you’re doing some admin work for, knows how calendars work, and that you can create shared events without sort of turning over your entire calendar. And if it’s not an issue that results from a lack of understanding, then maybe have a conversation about how much harder it is to operate in this close collaboration without being able to have the same calendar invites. casey newton I have slightly different advice, which is, if I were her, I would just take the initiative to just send all the calendar invites. If it is a technical issue — I think going to be easier for her to be like, let’s agree on a time. Great. I’m sending you the calendar invitation. Now the problem is solved. And if she’s not open to that, this friendship is over. ed helms I’m going to add another layer to that — casey newton Do it. ed helms — which is that, first, just assess whatever cultural difference your calendar culture you guys are dealing with because this person may really not like to use calendar invites for any number of reasons. And whatever you’re used to is practical. casey newton Yeah, you got to find out what kind of freak your friend is, step one. All right, let’s take the next one. This, I think, Kevin, is a question that just about everyone with a cell phone will resonate with. calvin Hey, Kevin and Casey, love the pod. My name’s Calvin. I’m from the East Bay, and here’s my hard question. I got a lot of scam emails, texts and phone calls, and I love stringing them on for as long as possible, or just making them mad. My wife hates that I do this, but it brings me great joy. Here’s my dilemma — recent reports have come out revealing that many of these scammers are being trafficked, extorted, and forced to do this work against their will. It has become a form of modern slavery. I know this is true for some of the people I probably interact with. So is it wrong for me to mess with these scammers? Should I just ignore them, or can I keep having fun, even if it feels morally complex? Thanks. Also last thing — I know an heiress that recently came into billions of dollars and wants to support a tech podcast for people. Send me your socials, and we can make it happen. casey newton That’s intriguing. We got to follow up with him. Well, what do you think, Ed? I imagine you might get these texts. How do you react when you get them? ed helms I’m just cold ignore. It’s so much easier that way. I can see getting a little bit of evil glee out of taunting somebody that’s out to scam you, but you’re also opening yourself up to more risk that way. You’d really never know who you’re talking to, what they know about you. And just don’t open that can of worms at all. casey newton I have to say, I think Ed’s approach is the right one here. What Calvin told us is true. The people who are doing this — for the most part, this was not their chosen lot in life. Something has gone horribly wrong for them that they have to participate in this. And you’re just taking somebody who has a very hard life and making it even harder. So while I get that it is so satisfying to tax these people back — and I admit I have texted these people back and cursed them and insulted them — I have gone to a place of just not doing it. And I would also just appeal to Calvin’s self-interest — because my understanding is, even if you are just responding to say, essentially, screw you, you do get identified as a warm phone number, and that information is shared with other scammers. So by responding in this way, Calvin, may be making your own problem worse. kevin roose Now, how long do you guys think that we will actually have human scammers calling people? How long before all of these are just hyper-convincing AIs speed dialing people? casey newton I mean, if you believe the research about persuasion that we’ve been talking about on this show, might not be all that much longer. But I have to say, Kevin, that might be a human rights victory because then maybe they would take these people that are like, locked up in these scam centers and actually let them go home. kevin roose Yeah, that’s one job I would love to see automated very quickly. ed helms Also it’s not your best self to do this, right? It’s not kind of reinforcing the best side of you to be making someone else’s life harder, even if they’re not in some sort of terrible situation. They’re just a scammer. Strive for better in yourself, too. casey newton Do better. As Melania Trump once said, “be best.” ed helms Yeah, yeah. kevin roose All right, next up here is an email that came to us from a listener named Louis, or Louis, I suppose. He wonders, essentially, “Is it ever right to commit a crime in order to prevent another crime?” casey newton Oh, here we go. kevin roose So I’ll read an excerpt from the email. He says, “A couple of years ago, circa 2016, I had an idea I pursued, abandoned, and wandered about ever since. I started guessing private keys of a well-known blockchain, using some heuristics that I thought some less-aware people might try to use to generate their addresses. It worked quite well, and I found one address with several thousand dollars worth of cryptocurrency on it. Most of the accounts I found had transactions on them that had been completely emptied. And when checking the accounts that had emptied them, they were marked as fraudulent by several blockchain explorers. So to recap, I had found a stack of gold, and it was only a matter of time before a bad guy swooped in and stole it. After some deliberation with my parents and girlfriend, now wife, I decided that the safest course of action was to do nothing. What do you think should have been the best and legally sound reaction? Inaction, taking the tokens as my own, donating them to charity, or maybe something else I have not thought about?” What do you guys make of this? ed helms Yeah, this is not complicated to me. Just stay out of the — Stay out of the mess. It’s like jumping into a meeting with a bunch of mobsters and being like, this is a moral quandary. Should I join in with them? Or should I just leave? kevin roose This is, like, actually the plot of “No Country for Old Men.” casey newton Yeah. I have to say, we should disqualify this for not being a hard question. This is just like, do not commit a crime, and hopefully that will save you. kevin roose Now, I will say, as far as some advice on what they could do that would be productive with this — some blockchain projects, a lot of tech projects, have these kind of bug bounty programs where if you discover a security flaw in their system, you can contact them and say, hey, I’m a security researcher, and I’ve found this bug. And sometimes, they will pay you money for doing that. So if this blockchain project, whatever it was, has a bug bounty program, this person could actually turn that in and make the whole system safer for everyone and maybe get a reward out of it. casey newton That’s a great idea, Kevin. Do that. So one last one before we get to our AI questions. This is from a listener who wonders, when did headphones become optional? sarah Hi, my name is Sarah, and I’m calling from Stratford, Ontario, Canada. I have noticed that there’s an epidemic these days of people watching videos out loud on their phone, in public, at restaurants, movie theaters, on trains. And I’ve tried various different ways to politely ask people if they have headphones, or if they could turn off the sound on their games or their videos on their phones, to varying degrees of success. Often, people are quite rude to me and just flat out say, no. So I was wondering how you would handle this? Thank you. casey newton I love this question. Ed Helms, how would you handle this? ed helms It sounds like she’s handling it exactly right. You say something. And I rarely see this. I did see it on an airplane recently, and I was stunned because on an airplane, have to listen so loud. And this person had their phone just cranked all the way up, watching a basketball game or something super loud. And yeah, I think her approach — kevin roose Did you say something? ed helms I didn’t. I was a few — casey newton He can say — do you know what social media is going to do to him if he says something? ed helms I was a few rows back. It wasn’t that bad, but I could tell — for me, it wasn’t that bad, but I could just tell it was crazy. But yeah, I don’t get it. I feel like there’s just some people don’t understand how awful that is. casey newton It’s so true. The reason I was so excited to get this question is because I see this all the time now. I just spent two weeks in New York. I would say every other subway car I was on, somebody was doing exactly this thing. The behavior seems insane to me. I’m an extremely conflict-avoidant person. I would never once think to do what Sarah did and actually ask these people to maybe turn it down, although that does seem like the right thing to do. So I don’t know what I could do. The only thing I’m left thinking you could do is try to guess this person’s private keys and steal their crypto. What would you do? ed helms Or put your own headphones on. kevin roose What I would do — and I don’t encounter this that much because I don’t spend a lot of time in places where this is going on. casey newton Kevin only takes private cars everywhere. kevin roose [LAUGHS]: No, but I think my strategy, if the earnest request to put on headphones or something or turn down the volume failed, I think I would just start asking them questions. I’d be like, hey, what game you playing there? What are the rules of “Temple Run?” What’s your high score? ed helms You just troll them. kevin roose Yeah, I see you’re watching a basketball game. Fill me in. Who’s the hot draft picks this season? And eventually, maybe they just like, catch on and get so annoyed that they turn it off and do something else. ed helms I don’t think I could ever do that, but I would love to observe you doing that. casey newton It is crazy that because headphones are so cheap at this point. I mean, you can get earbuds for $15, I bet. And yet, it seems like the cheaper they get, the more people are just saying, you know what? The heck with it. Everybody can listen to the basketball game with me. kevin roose The weird thing, too, is when people are actually having conversations on speakerphone. casey newton Yes! kevin roose Just hold it up to — casey newton Yes! kevin roose They’ll hold the phone in front of their face like a little piece of pizza and talk into it with the speaker on. Just put it up to your ear. casey newton Again, in New York, I saw multiple people are just walking down the street FaceTiming with people. And I’m like, is it because you look so cool, because you’re walking through the streets of New York, and you’re just really want people to have the visual? I do not understand. You’re so likely to just fall into an open manhole cover. kevin roose It’s true. That is always happening. All right, when we come back, we will tackle your hard questions about AI, including a worker who fears backlash for using AI at work and a boyfriend who worries that AI could doom his relationship. casey newton Uh-oh. [MUSIC PLAYING] kevin roose Well, Ed, every time Casey and I talk about AI in the show, we have to do our AI disclosures. So we’ll do them real quick in our best speed read. I work at “The New York Times“, which is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright violations related to the training of AI systems. casey newton And my boyfriend works at Anthropic. kevin roose Ed, do you have a disclosure about AI that you’d like to add? ed helms No. kevin roose OK. ed helms I’m terrified of it. kevin roose OK. But that’s good. ed helms I feel like the singularity is around the corner, and I’m absolutely petrified. So I like AI is, I guess, how I hedge that. kevin roose Yeah. No, that’s a good disclosure. OK, so one clear theme that has emerged from the questions that our listeners submitted is that there is a lot of uncertainty around how and when to use AI at work. So our next two listeners are both grappling with that subject but from quite different perspectives. Let’s start with the perspective of a manager. This comes to us from Scott K, who asks, “Should I call out a junior person using AI and be a hypocrite?” His email reads, “As a team lead, I sometimes use AI to help brainstorm solutions when my developers hit a wall. But every so often, I’ll see one of my junior developers magically land on the exact same AI-suggested solution, and it’s painfully obvious they didn’t invent it themselves. And then I’m stuck thinking, do I call them out and ask, hey, walk me through your thought process here while fully aware that I’m over here secretly tag teaming with AI myself?” So what do you think about this? Is it hypocritical to call out a junior employee for using AI when you are using it yourself? ed helms Yes, it is, but I also think that we’re just in this early moment with AI, and we haven’t quite figured out how to navigate these things. It seems like maybe everyone should just be owning their AI use a little more transparently, but that sort of diminishes the magic of AI. I guess people are thrilled to present things as their own ideas. casey newton I think this is sort of a strange question, for this reason — most of the developers I know who are using AI understand that everyone is using AI, and that if you solved a problem using AI, most people would be, like, yeah, we’re all solving problems with AI. So I’m curious, if Scott were here right now, I would say, why is this an issue? Is it that the junior dev is suggesting really bad suggestions from the AI? Because if that’s the case, then I think AI isn’t really the issue. The issue is that your junior colleague is bringing bad ideas into the workplace. And that is worth calling out and saying, hey, this actually wouldn’t work, and here’s why. kevin roose Yeah, I agree with you both. I think we just need to presume that, unless specified otherwise, people are going to start using AI in their jobs, basically whatever their job is. I was hearing a talk from the economist Tyler Cowen the other day who teaches at George Mason University and was talking about how he now requires all of his students to use an AI chatbot for their assignments. And he doesn’t consider it plagiarism. He just grades the finished product. And I think that’s how we should evaluate work at our jobs, too, is like, is it good or not? And if it’s not good, then you used I wrong, or you didn’t use it in the right ways. And if it’s good, and you used AI, more power to you. What matters is the finished product. ed helms I just am not sure, especially in an academic context, if the finished product represents how educated the student is on the subject, and that that’s what the grade should reflect. An educational environment is not a widget-making — kevin roose I guess that’s right. I mean, that’s definitely a fringe position in academia where we still do care that people are thinking through things on their own. But in the context of a software team at a big company, what matters is whether the code compiles or not — ed helms Yes, for sure — kevin roose — not whether — ed helms — for sure, in that context. kevin roose — you used a certain tool. casey newton But do you worry, though, as somebody with kids, that they’re going to go to school, and they’re going to be using ChatGPT, everything, and they might not develop the critical thinking skills you want them to have? ed helms Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it goes back to what I was saying before about just the generation of creative things. And I work in an industry where the people that are good at that are really rewarded for it. And it’s highly competitive. But when no one is as good as the AI, then not only does the question emerge, what’s the point of doing it if the I can just keep doing it better? The other sort of darker question is, what’s the point of learning to do it or studying the art forms? And I mean, that’s a very dystopian long view. But I’m not worried about that in the near term for my kids. But I do feel like that’s kind of — casey newton I would just be happier if it let me learn more easily in the matrix, when Keanu is like, I know Kung Fu because they just uploaded it into his brain. I would also like to know Kung Fu — ed helms I would love that. casey newton — and put that amount of effort into it. kevin roose And I will say I’m a musician. I really struggle to remember song lyrics. I can’t wait till I can put on glasses and just read song lyrics and suddenly have 1,000 songs at my disposal. That sounds really, really fun and cool. casey newton All right, we’re going to get emails from people who say that they’ve invented this. So we’ll pass those along to you. kevin roose OK, great. casey newton All right, now let’s consider the perspective of somebody who is just starting out in their career. This listener asked to be anonymous for fear of backlash from colleagues, but she emailed the following. “What do you all think about people who are AI snobs? I am a NASA scientist. And surprisingly, I found that for an organization full of scientists, there’s a lot of snobbery over being better than using AI. People basically act like those who use AI are too stupid to solve problems themselves, and they are smarter than everyone else because they are capable of an existence free of AI assistance. I’ve even heard, quote, even if AI can help you solve a problem faster, why would you avoid the cognitive stimulus? That’s the whole fun of being alive! So I guess my question is, how do you respond to people who keep acting like they are better than you simply because they don’t use AI?” kevin roose Wow. casey newton Have you heard a version of this, Ed. ed helms No, I’m not sure I’ve heard this bubble up. My hunch is that those people are probably lying — — that they are using AI behind closed doors. But I haven’t encountered anti-AI snobbery. kevin roose Oh I have. I mean, I think there are people who are reacting this way basically as a fear response. They worry that if they use AI, and it makes them smarter, then maybe they weren’t that smart to begin with, or maybe they’re going to lose their job. Or I think there are a lot of reasons that people react this way to AI, including the fact that they just cannot believe that a computer could do what they do better than them. casey newton And everyone seems to have a version of this for their own job. Everyone kind of thinks that AI is going to take everyone else’s jobs, but. But me, I’m the special one. And what I do can’t be replicated. And I see that attitude a lot. kevin roose Yeah, I mean, this is one where I want to be careful because, look, I do believe — if you have a job, and you don’t want to use AI, you don’t have to use AI if you don’t want to. If you love the cognitive stimulus of everything you’re doing, that’s great. You probably have a great job. How should you relate to people who do use AI? I would say with kindness, particularly if they’re using it well. And I think a lot of folks — and I would include myself among these people — do feel like it’s giving me at least some kind of advantage in some set of things. So I do believe that, over the long run, more and more people are going to come around because they’re going to see people like our emailer here just doing well at their jobs. And they’re going to assume that, not just the AI, but all the productivity tools that they’re using are helping them get a little bit of an advantage. And so, yeah, I guess that’s my answer to that one. ed helms I mean, that’s a very and empathetic response that both of you have given. There’s also the option of just trolling your coworkers. You could go over with an abacus and take away their calculator and say, I didn’t want to deprive you of the cognitive stimulus of using the abacus by taking this cheap shortcut. kevin roose You know what? Let me take the abacus. Just use all cognitive power. That’s good. casey newton Yes. All right, so we have two related final questions that I think get at the heart of how AI is complicating many people’s deepest and most meaningful relationships. Let’s play the first video. dan Hey, Kevin Casey, and Ed. Dan here from Chicago. I’m a devout listener of the show. So I recently started a new relationship. And after sharing an episode of “Hard Fork” with my girlfriend, I realized that she hates AI. She has a visceral negative reaction anytime I mention something AI-I related unless it’s Adobe Illustrator or, like, A1 steak sauce. And it makes her so uncomfortable that she doesn’t even want to entertain a thought about it. Now, this has become a real point of tension because I use AI in my everyday personal and professional life, and I’m really interested in these thornier questions around the future of work, society, and what it means to be human in this new era. So how can I navigate a situation where I can’t even bring up something that is so intrinsic to my life, with my significant other? Kevin, I’m especially curious to hear your thoughts, given that AI almost broke up your relationship, too. Thanks, guys. casey newton Great question. Great question. Kevin, what are your thoughts? kevin roose So look, I have a lot of sympathy for this. I think a lot of people in my life are not as into AI as I am. My wife is getting more interested in it. We talk about it sometimes. But for a long time it was like, it wasn’t of immediate concern to her. And so it was sort of my thing. And that’s why it’s so important when you’re in that situation to start a podcast because then you do actually have someone to talk about AI with without ruining your relationship. casey newton Ed, what do you think? ed helms Every relationship has things that are tough, and that one person is into and another person isn’t. And this feels very surmountable to me. At a certain point, the culture will probably start to — AI will start to just infiltrate his girlfriend’s life in ways that makes her more open to it. But even if not, it just seems like find your buddy that you can have these conversations with. casey newton Yeah. I mean, I have to confess, this is not a problem I have in my relationship, if anything, the issue in my relationship is, could we talk about something other than AI? But I feel like so many relationships, there is a subject like this. Sports comes to mind. Maybe you’re obsessed with the Golden State Warriors, and your partner isn’t. And every time you bring it up, you see them rolling their eyes. And I just think this speaks to the fact that it helps to have people in your life, other than your primary partner, that you can just distribute the weight of your interests in. kevin roose Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of AI clubs popping up around the country. I’ve met people, when I’ve been out, doing various events who say, oh, I’m in, I’m part of the local AI club. And this is a thing that I think is starting to emerge over the last couple of years. And so maybe if there’s one in Chicago, you could find the local AI club and join that and find a way to have a weekly discussion about these things. casey newton What do people do at AI club? kevin roose Casey, the first rule of AI club is you don’t talk about AI club. casey newton I walked right into that one. ed helms But I’ll give my earnest piece of advice here because I think this is — something really important is that people don’t automatically by that AI is going to be meaningful to them until they see something that they struggle with in their life that it is useful at solving. So I think one thing that you could do, if you’re in a relationship where one partner cares a lot about AI, and the other person hates, is just to figure out, what do they value? What things do they like doing? What do they struggle with? What are some places maybe at their job or in their personal life, where they might be able to use AI? And don’t force it on them, but just maybe take one of those problems and just prompt an AI model with it and see if it solves something or does something interesting for them, and then show it to the partner. Maybe try to meet them where they are and make their interest organic, rather than just pretending that they’re into it for your sake. casey newton Yeah, but I would also say, take no for an answer from your partner here and maybe just cool it on the AI talk for a while and see if she brings it up at any point. And maybe then you’ll kind of have an entry point. But until then, I don’t know if it’s worth it. kevin roose All right, let’s go to our last question here. This comes from a listener who goes by L. casey newton Let’s take the L. kevin roose And L asks, “How do I help people get prepared for AI without totally freaking them out? l Hi, Kevin and Casey, I’m L, and I live in the deep South. Here’s some context for my question. I’ve been getting anxious in conversations where AI comes up. I’m tech-avoidant, but interested in tech forecasting because I want to feel prepared for what’s ahead. But most people I aren’t as tuned in as I am, so I’m hesitant to share my realistic/grim take on the potential of AI. I don’t want to plant scary seeds in their brains. As a result, I’m feeling mentally and existentially isolated. I’m doing better at making the best of my time in case it’s running out faster than I’d hoped, which is how we should live anyway, so that’s positive. On the other, I’m feeling distant from my peers and loved ones in a way that is hard to articulate. What should I say to my loved ones if it comes up? I want them to be mentally prepared but not super sad. Living in the moment but worried about frightening others — L. casey newton Now, Ed, I’m curious to hear your take on this because it sounds like you may have a version of this yourself. You mentioned earlier that you were worried about the singularity, and you’re sort of terrified that it might be coming soon. So what should L do about trying to live in the moment, take advantage of the time that we have, but also avoid freaking out her friends and family? ed helms It’s hard not to talk about something that is scaring you, or that you’re obsessing over. And this may sound glib, but I think she could benefit from a therapist, someone that she really can explore these feelings with and help her process them, and then also give her an outlet where she’s not burdening friends and family with that because the other thing is, none of us really know what’s coming. And so to be — and there are a lot of AI optimists out there, and maybe they’re right. So to be kind of Chicken Little and gloom and doom, as much as it’s not a choice sometimes, feels a little premature. And again, finding an outlet, a therapist perhaps, to explore these feelings could be good. casey newton I’m glad you said that. I had the same thought. This really could benefit from therapy. And I guarantee you, L, you will not be the only person talking about your fears about an AI future in therapy. I think it’s actually quite common here in the Bay area for folks to talk to their therapists about that. While I totally understand you’re hesitant to bring everybody down with your fears about AI, I do think that part of living in a democracy is bringing up the things that you’re concerned about. And there’s no reason why you couldn’t maybe break it into small chunks and talk to your friends about things that you see out there that worry you. So if you see that all of a sudden, the chatbots have gotten super sycophantic, and you’re reading stories about people having mystical experiences with chatbots and convincing themselves that they’re the Messiah, and you worry about that technology being used by young people, let’s say, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t talk about that. In fact, I think you should talk about it. And I think one reason why we started this show, Kevin, was we like talking about these issues, and we want to get other people talking about them. So I totally hear you, L, on not wanting to be a bummer. But I think everyone’s allowed to be a bummer at least 10 percent or 20 percent of the time, don’t you, Kevin? kevin roose Yeah, although I should say I spent a lot of time talking with people about AI in my life. And I have found that, when I’m in my gloomiest mood about it, when I’m feeling like my doom is quite high, I tend to not have good conversations with people because they come away feeling like we’re all screwed and there’s nothing we can do about it. It sort of strips agency away from them when I talk about it like that. Whereas, when I’m feeling more optimistic, I tend to have conversations that are just sort of rooted in wanting to help people understand things or make them excited or give them some hope for the future. And I think that when you give people a sense that they are not inexorably marching toward this future that they have no control over, I think it just goes a lot better. And so my advice for these AI doom crowd is always to not frame things in terms of what will happen no matter what, but to sketch out paths for people and say, well, if we make good decisions, it could go in a really good way. And if we don’t, it could go in a really bad way. But it’s very important, I think, to not make people think that they just have no choice in the matter. What do you think, Ed? ed helms I’m getting anxious talking about it, honestly, but in what I think is a good, healthy way. I do really like what you said, Casey, that we’re allowed to be a bummer sometimes. And it is important to be honest about where we’re at with things in with our communities and the people who care about us and love us. And also, if it’s really feeling like an excessive burden to seek help and assistance with it, whatever form that takes. casey newton Absolutely. Well, before we go, Ed, we want to give you the opportunity — do you have a hard question you’d like to ask Kevin and I? Anything going on with technology, any dilemma you’ve confronted recently that we can offer you our expert assistance with? ed helms Let’s see. I give my mom, who’s 85, a lot of tech support, and it can be quite frustrating. And I would love some advice on moving through that with grace. And also to what extent it’s necessary, there are times where it feels like maybe this is just not something to get figured out. And is that OK? casey newton Kevin, what are your thoughts about that? kevin roose Yeah, so I have shifted my views on this recently. My mom also requires some tech support from time to time. And I’m not physically there in the same place as her, so I often end up doing it over the phone. And so what I have found is useful is to just fix things for her. Do not try to walk her through it. Just the next time I am in the same place as her, just take her phone and fix all the things she doesn’t like. ed helms There you go. kevin roose And do it very quickly, and make it very hard for her to undo those fixes. And so, basically, I think that there is a point at which people — they just do not want to learn the entire process of changing some settings on something. So if you can just set it up for them, they are eternally grateful, and you save yourself and them a lot of grief. casey newton I think that is a perfect answer. The only thing that I would add to it is, to the extent that you feel like your mom may have any curiosity about technology, I do think it’s fun to nurture it a little bit. Yes, I think you’re almost always going to be better off, just like fixing it. That’s just an act of love that you can give your parents is fixing things for them. But you can also see if, in the process of fixing that, you might share a little bit about how it works, or what you think is interesting about it. See if that sparks anything for them. Maybe they’ll go off and learn a little something themselves. I have to say, I talked to my mom this week. And she told me that she had just used Claude to pick out some songs to put on a playlist for her 50th wedding anniversary party that is coming up in a couple of months. And, I mean, I was beaming with pride because she’d had a good experience. She did think that it was too sycophantic. It actually worried her. She sent me a screenshot. She was like, this thing is being way too nice to me. kevin roose What did it say? casey newton It was like, you can’t be having a 50th wedding anniversary. You’re only 40 years old. That’s right. It was, yeah, something in that neighborhood. But what I loved about it was, in the process of me talking to her all the time about AI, she was what like, you know what? Let me investigate and see if this thing could do anything for me. And I think that is a really nice gift we can give our parents, too. ed helms Amen. I do think that it is a great expression of love. kevin roose Yes. ed helms Tech support. kevin roose It’s the least we can do for our moms — casey newton After what we put them through? kevin roose — and other figures. Exactly. casey newton You better believe it. All right, Ed Helms, thank you so much for joining us. You can buy Ed’s book now. It’s called “SNAFU — The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups.” Ed, this was great. ed helms Thanks so much for having me, guys. kevin roose I feel like we made it out of this without a single snafu, and that was important to me. [MUSIC PLAYING] casey newton “Hard Fork” is produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohen, were edited this week by Matt Collette. kevin roose Were fact checked by Anna Alvarado. casey newton Today’s show was engineered by Katie McMurran, original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell. Our executive producer is Jen Poyant. Video production by Sawyer Roquet, Pat Gunther, and Chris Schott. You can watch this full episode on YouTube at youtube.com/hardfork. Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Huy Wing Tam, Dalia Haddad, and Jeffrey Miranda. As always, you can email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hard Fork May 16, 2025 • 57:28 Ed Helms Answers Your Hard Questions May 9, 2025 • 1:12:52 Bad Apple, the Rise of the A.I. Empire and Italian Brain Rot May 2, 2025 • 1:08:59 The Dangers of A.I. Flattery + Kevin Meets the Orb + Group Chat Chat April 25, 2025 • 1:09:09 Is Google Breaking Up? + Seasteading Is Back + Tool Time April 18, 2025 • 1:21:58 Meta on Trial + Is A.I. a ‘Normal’ Technology? + HatGPT April 11, 2025 • 1:10:47 Big Tech’s Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama April 4, 2025 • 1:03:53 Tech Stock Shock + Solving the Mystery of OpenAI’s ‘Blip’ + Tinder’s Flirt-Off March 28, 2025 • 1:08:50 The Tech Behind Signalgate + Dwarkesh Patel’s ‘Scaling Era’ + Is A.I. Making Our Listeners Dumb? March 21, 2025 • 1:02:51 A.I. Action Plans + The College Student Who Broke Job Interviews + Hot Mess Express March 14, 2025 • 1:04:15 Apple’s Siri-ous Problem + How Starlink Took Over the World + Is A.I. Making Us Dumb? March 7, 2025 • 1:11:52 Is Google Search Cooked? + We’re Getting a U.S. Crypto Reserve? + What You’re Vibecoding February 28, 2025 • 1:08:59 Anthropic’s C.E.O., Dario Amodei, on Surviving the A.I. Endgame Ed Helms Answers Your Hard Questions A star of “The Office” comes to our office to answer your most pressing questions about tech. May 16, 2025, 7:00 a.m. ET Share full article Listen to and follow ‘Hard Fork’ Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTube | iHeartRadio Hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton Produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohn Edited by Matt Collette Engineered by Katie McMurran Original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano The actor, comedian and author Ed Helms has a new book out about historical blunders. He swings by Hard Fork to tell us about it and answer your moral quandaries, ethical dilemmas and etiquette questions about technology: How do I tell my mom she can’t post about her grandkids on Facebook? Am I being an A.I. hypocrite at work? And is it OK to troll the scammers who blow up my cellphone? Guest : Ed Helms, actor, podcaster and author of “ Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups ” Additional Reading: Interview: Ed Helms on Historical Snafus and His Reading Life 7 Months Inside an Online Scam Labor Camp Image Credit… Illustration by The New York Times Credits “Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohn . This episode was edited by Matt Collette . Engineering by Katie McMurran with original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano . Fact-checking by Ena Alvarado. Our executive producer is Jen Poyant . Special thanks to Paula Szuchman , Pui-Wing Tam , Dahlia Haddad and Jeffrey Miranda . Kevin Roose is a Times technology columnist and a host of the podcast ” Hard Fork .” See more on: Ed Helms Share full article Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
