This week, the A.I. initial-public-offering race is heating up! We break down SpaceX?s acquisition of xAI, as well as OpenAI and Nvidia?s messy situationship. Then, it?s time for show and tell. We got our hands on the latest experimental A.I. prototype from Google called Project Genie, and we discuss our experience using it to generate and navigate video-game-like environments. Finally, we?re joined by Moltbook?s founder, Matt Schlicht, to discuss his new social media platform for A.I. agents, and how he?s planning to deal with security risks and spam on the site.

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A Reddit-style web forum for A.I. agents has captured the attention of the tech world. According to the site, called Moltbook, more than 1.5 million agents have contributed to over 150,000 posts, making it the largest experiment to date of what happens when A.I. agents interact with each other. We discuss our favorite posts, how we?re thinking about the question of what is ?real? on the site, and where we expect agents to go from here.

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We want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. Find ?Hard Fork? on YouTube and TikTok.

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.

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Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the wild frontier of tech.

What?s real? What?s hype? ?Hard Fork? is here to help you make sense of it. Tune in every Friday.

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.

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