Hello! This is The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of The Verge... and your life. Every Friday, Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn make sense of the week's tech news with help from our wide-ranging staff. Join us every week for a fun, deeply nerdy, often off-the-rails conversation about what's happening now (and next) in technology and gadgets.

It's time to panic about AI safety

July 31, 2026 1:25:13 16.84 MB ( -16.85 MB less) Downloads: 0

It's a big week for new ideas about computers, so David and Nilay spend some time on Samsung's vision for foldables and Mark Zuckerberg's vision for AI agents that do absolutely everything. Then they talk about the fallout from last week's OpenAI Hugging Face hack, and whether all this talk about AI safety will actually amount to anything. Finally, it's time for Brendan Carr is a Dummy, the vertical video takeover, and the smashing success of the Ferrari Luce.


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(Timestamps are approximate.)


00:00:00 Intro

00:03:00 Baby Announcement

00:06:00 Galaxy Z Fold

00:12:00 Apple Leasing Program

00:15:00 Kill Switch Concerns

00:19:00 Zuck Agent Future

00:34:00 AI Safety Week Recap

00:42:00 Regulation Versus China

00:49:00 Winning AI Race

00:53:00 Security Arms Race

00:57:00 Brendan Carr Is a Dummy

01:07:00 Facebook Becomes TikTok

01:12:00 Ramageddon Price Hikes

01:16:00 HBO Max Shorts

01:23:00 Ferrari Luce Buzz

01:26:00 Wrap Up and Plugs

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