Two possible futures for AI

It matters which story you tell about the future of artificial intelligence. Is AI just a tool for humans to use, like any other software? Is it a malignant force acting to destroy creativity? Will it create robots bent on destruction? Or will it make the world incredible, beautiful, equal, perfect in ways we can’t even begin to imagine?

This will shock you, but some of the men running the biggest companies in AI think it’s the latter. Both OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have recently written blog posts — Altman’s short and pithy, Amodei’s long and thorough — about the AI-powered world they hope to help create. These are powerful men with huge teams and vast resources at their disposal; it matters a lot what they think they’re building.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Kylie Robison joins the show to discuss the dueling CEO blogs, including the things Amodei and Altman agree on and the things they don’t. She also talks us through some of the big model launches left to come this year, and what it means that the endless game of LLM oneupsmanship might soon be ending.

After that, Will Poor tells us the story of ShakeAlert, an app and platform designed to alert millions of people when an earthquake is coming. If you’ve ever read that famous New Yorker article, you know why Will’s nervous about earthquakes. It turns out we have some ways to help people — though there are some pretty surprising challenges in the way.

Finally, Allison Johnson joins Will to answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (866-VERGE11, or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16. Apple had a lot to say about how fast it is... but we had to find out for ourselves.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with AI:

And on ShakeAlert:

And on the Camera Control: