David Pierce

16 pts Some of the biggest names on Google's AI team got new jobs this week. In some cases, including for legendary Googler Jeff Dean, those jobs are no longer at Google. Given that Google's models seem to be behind the best of what's coming out of anthropic and OpenAI, is this a sign of Google in turmoil? Is it about…

Plus, in this week's Installer: A new all-purpose backpack, the latest Bose cans, an Anthony Bourdain movie, and more.

We’ve spent the last month vibe coding our own corners of the internet. The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes and Hayden Field join David to talk about their use of Gemini, Codex, and Claude Code to build 90s-themed personal websites, vegetable-sharing systems, and photo boards. It wasn’t always easy, and we didn’t get everything done, but with a little AI and a lot of prompting, we made it work. Watch

OpenAI's still the chatbot leader, but the race appears to be tightening fast.

Before Alexa and Siri, there was ELIZA. The first chatbot ever was the creation of a man named Joseph Weizenbaum, who built the bot almost as a magic trick — and then couldn’t believe how many people fell for it. David Berry and Mark Marino, two members of a team dedicated to restoring and understanding ELIZA, explain how Weizenbaum created the virtual conversant, why he came to regret it, and what ELIZA can teach us about life in the AI age. Watch

That's a lot of people chatting with their AI friends all day. | Image: Google For the 14th time, a Google product has hit 1 billion users. Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X that a billion people are using Gemini every month, and that Gemini is Google's fastest-growing product ever. A billion users is a… Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence

Lots of smart internet people have been talking about this Lauren Leek essay on the algorithmic flattening of cities and culture and everything else, and it’s as good as advertised. It also offers a shockingly simple way to fix the problem, which is why I spent the morning reading about a machine learning framework known as multi-armed bandits. > “[J]ust be a more adventurous consumer” is exactly the conclusion that lets the systems off the hook. The exploration has to be mandated at the level of the machine, because that’s where real change can happen. [Link: Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same

The Vergecast crew will be live in 30(ish) minutes, at 1PM ET, running down all the details on the new Pixel phones, Pixel Watch, Pixel Tag, and everything else. We’re going to have a lot of feelings about photos, how we capture them, and what they even are anymore. Hope to see you there! [Media: https://www.youtube/watch?v=i7CqZbP2sGc]

27 pts Instagram's wordmark is iconic. Well, was iconic. Apparently Instagram thought it looked old, so the company rolled out a new one this week. It doesn't look like the old Instagram wordmark. It doesn't even look like it spells Instagram anymore. And we cannot figure out why Instagram decided to do this. On this…

Plus, in this week's Installer: Google's new Pixel, an old controller comes back, the TV Time successor, and much more.