Will the Hard Fork podcast release an episode in 2024 without an AI-focused main segment?

Question

The Hard Fork podcast is relesaed approx. weekly and covers some of the biggest news in tech. I think this is an interesting proxy for how important AI-related news will be in the coming year.

Boring resolution details:

So far, their title format (as it appears in apple podcasts) has been (Top story #1) + (Top story #2) + (Top story #3), which correspond to main segments on the show.

To determine what counts as a main segment, I'll defer to the top story headlines included in the title. If the title format changes significantly, but the "2-3 main segment" format clearly stays, I'll try to resolve according to the content of the main segments. If both formats change significantly, I'll probably resolve N/A.

"An AI-focused main segment" is a bit hard to specify, so I will need to take some liberties in determining what counts. In general, I mean a segment about the release of new AI models or products, drama at a major AI lab, a piece of AI-focused legislation, the importance of the semiconductor industry in the context of AI development, etc.

If the sgement is about something such as a new CEO being appointed to Tesla, I'd consider that not AI-related. If the segment is about a major Tesla recall due to failures in their AI self-driving system, I would consider that AI-related. If the segment is about a lawsuit against Facebook over general user data collection, I'd consider it not AI-related. If the segment is about a lawsuit against Facebook over the use of user data in training a language model, I would consider it AI-related.

Here's a few examples from last year's main segments of things that would count vs. not count:

"Google's Next Top Model" - this is a story about Gemini, it counts.

"Casey v. Kevin on US v. Google + Walter Isaacson on Two Years With Elon Musk" - this is about google's "default search" lawsuit and Elon Musk's biography, so it does not count. If the second segment covered a biography of e.g. Geoffrey Hinton, it would count.

"HatGPT" - despite have an AI wordplay name, this is basically just a general random/grab-bag segment, so I wouldn't count it. This is true even if some, or the majority, of the topics they cover happen to be AI-related. However, if they explicitly choose to do + acknowledge doing an AI-focused "HatGPT" segment, it would count.

Any "special" episodes that don't adhere to the usual format, such as one-off "emergency episodes" (as was recorded following Sam Altman's firing) or the re-upload of Ezra Klein's interview with Chris Miller, don't count for the purposes of this market.

Manifold Markets · Accepted Answer

Yes — resolved on Jan 26, 2024 by Manifold Markets prediction market.