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Marketplace

Monday through Friday, Marketplace demystifies the digital economy in less than 10 minutes. We look past the hype and ask tough questions about an industry that's constantly changing.

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Yesterday · 11 min
Meta's landmark social media settlement
Meta announced this week that it has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle a landmark trial over social media addiction. It also agreed to add stronger child-safety measures on its platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Some of the changes could include new screen time limits, disabled notifications and restrictions during school hours. Plus, Nvidia reported strong quarterly earnings earlier this week, again. And while investors have been wary of AI spending, Wall Street seemed pleased with the results this time. And the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to eliminate a requirement that forces states to publicize and seek public feedback for new air pollution permits. Anita Ramaswamy at The Information joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino for these stories. Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes.”
Thursday · 9 min
One historic LA theater's 70 mm movie makeover for "The Odyssey"
Old school film technology is having a moment this summer. Moviegoers have traveled far and wide to see Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in its intended IMAX 70 mm film format. But even theaters with non-IMAX 70 mm film projection are hard to come by. The Alex Theatre in Glendale, California was renovated to screen “The Odyssey” in 70 mm film. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Miles Williams, the theater’s artistic director, about the renovation and why old school film technology is attracting Gen Z film fans.
Wednesday · 8 min
Meta’s push to make their smart glasses cool
When Meta Ray-Ban glasses were launched in 2021, they didn’t perform so well on the market. But in recent years, Meta has been partnering with fashion brands like Coperni and with pop culture figures like Kylie Jenner and Teyana Taylor, in order to expand their demographic reach. Kylie Jenner recently launched her own model of Meta glasses, called Starfire. But the campaign didn’t go over especially well, says Carrie Battan, a contributing writer at New York Magazine. Putting a spotlight on the glasses has only increased scrutiny — with some calling them “pervert glasses”. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Battan about her recent piece in New York Magazine’s “The Cut”, where she tracks Meta’s push to make smart glasses cool. More on this: The Cursed Quest to Make Meta Glasses Cool from The Cut
Tuesday · 7 min
California's data and privacy laws aren't being followed
California promised consumers an easier way to protect their personal data. Since 2024, the Delete Act has required the state registration of data brokers — businesses that collect and sell personal data from our digital footprints — and it also mandates they give consumers a way to request their data be deleted and report how many requests they get. But, a new Stanford report shows registered data brokers are largely ignoring the laws. Jennifer King, privacy and data policy fellow at Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI, says only 9% of data brokers are in compliance. More on this: “Regulating Data Brokers in the Age of AI: A California Case Study” from Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI “About DROP and the Delete Act” from the California Privacy Protection Agency
Monday · 9 min
AI loves negative parallelism
Anthropic recently announced it's adding watermarks to all text outputted by its chatbot Claude. But often, you don't need fancy detection software to know; you just need to look for language that gets repeated over and over by AI chatbots, like “it's not X, it's Y.” That's a rhetorical structure referred to as negative parallelism. And it's the topic for today's “Uncanny AI,” those times when it becomes clear AI doesn't think like us. Will Oremus recently wrote about this AI tic for The Atlantic. More on this “The Most Famous AI Writing Tic Is Also the Most Mysterious” from The Atlantic “Move Over Em-Dash, There’s a New AI Tell in Town” from Ai-Ai-OH
August 21 · 11 min
OpenAI to offer safety features for teens using ChatGPT
OpenAI is launching ChatGPT for Teens, which has new guardrails to steer conversations from sensitive topics like self-harm or sexual content. It’ll also include parental controls and features intended to support studying without the cognitive offloading that often happens. Plus, the surge in construction of AI data centers has increased the value of basically any component that goes into them. Now, thieves are increasingly targeting cargo shipments of materials bound for data centers. And Amazon is expanding its drone deliveries. Paresh Dave at Wired joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino for these stories. Everything we talked about: “Introducing ChatGPT for Teens: Built for learning, backed by protections” from OpenAI “OpenAI’s Second-Quarter Sales Show Tepid Growth Compared With Anthropic” from The Wall Street Journal “States Seek $200 Billion From Meta Over Child Social Media Addiction Claims” from The New York Times “‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen’: Cargo Thefts Have Turned Violent in Pursuit of AI Hardware” from Wired “Amazon Prime Air drone delivery is expanding to nearly 500 US cities and towns this year” from Amazon
August 20 · 9 min
Why the Trump administration plans to boost funding for subsea cables
Most of the world’s internet traffic flows through underwater cables on the ocean floor. The wires are also responsible for some $10 trillion worth of financial transactions every day. And because those cables hold so much data and carry so much money, they’re also a potential security threat. That may explain why the U.S. and China are vying for control over the technology — and why the Trump administration is ramping up spending to replace cables in the Caribbean and Central America. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Erin Murphy, the managing director for Asia at Redpoint Advisors, about why these cables play a key role in geopolitics. More on this: US is considering big boost to anti-China spending globally from The Associated Press Risk Beneath the Waves: Safeguarding Subsea Cables for a Secure Global Network from CSIS
August 19 · 10 min
Cyberattacks on U.S. water systems raise concerns about security
Water systems across a dozen states were targeted by cyberattacks in recent weeks. So far, the water has remained safe to drink, but the incidents have raised concerns about the possibility of future attacks. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Nikita Shah, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about other vulnerable infrastructure and the steps that states can take to strengthen cybersecurity. More on this: How Tehran’s Use of Cyber Operations in the U.S.-Iran Conflict Has Evolved from CSIS A Leaked Memo Ties Cyberattacks on Minnesota Water Utilities to Iran | WIRED from WIRED New York awards $9M to protect water systems after cyberattacks in other states - Gothamist from Gothamist
August 18 · 7 min
As space launches increase, there aren't enough spaceports
More than 100 rockets took off into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast last year — a new record. And with more rockets taking flight each year, the availability of launch sites is becoming a bottleneck for the growing space industry. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wants to make it easier for space companies to build new spaceports to make way for the increasing number of rocket launches. The agency has proposed waiving some environmental requirements for space launch. Daniel Ackerman has been reporting on the space industry as part of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT.
August 17 · 7 min
Can an AI music company make nice with human artists?
Suno, an AI music company, wants to partner with independent artists by launching an incubator program called Suno Spark. This program will provide grants, marketing support and, of course, Suno AI tools to unsigned musicians. Tatiana Cirisano, vice president of music strategy at MIDiA Research, which consults in entertainment, discusses more on this.
August 14 · 12 min
States rush to police AI deepfakes ahead of midterm elections
Anthropic announced it's adding invisible watermarks to all text generated by its chatbot Claude. The AI startup is rolling out the policy globally as part of efforts to comply with the European Union AI Act. Plus, there's a patchwork of state laws that regulate AI-generated political messaging — they're being put to the test ahead of the midterm elections. And federal regulators ordered Kalshi to continue to operate in New York, despite a state lawsuit seeking to shut it down. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, about all this for this week’s “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”
August 13 · 8 min
Can Silicon Valley give AI good taste?
Generative AI models can produce enormous volumes of text, images and video in seconds. But without expert human instruction, the output is often generic. (You might say slop.) A number of startups in Silicon Valley are on a mission to change that by giving AI a more human sense of taste. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with critic and journalist Sophie Haigney about what taste is and whether artificial intelligence can truly replicate it.
August 12 · 9 min
TikTok excluded millions from crucial safety guardrails
This story includes discussion of suicide. Back in 2021, TikTok tweaked its algorithm in an effort to address dangerous filter bubbles — a sort of algorithmic spiral of recommendations for high-risk content like extreme dieting or self-harm. But internal company documents obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek show 10% of U.S. users — 15 million Americans — were purposely excluded from this safety update. This was part of user testing to validate the new feature and track whether it reduced engagement with the famously sticky platform. One of those users was then-16-year-old Chase Nasca, who subsequently died by suicide. Olivia Carville, Bloomberg Businessweek investigative reporter, has been on the story.
August 11 · 8 min
AI subscriptions are rapidly taking over baby nurseries
Remember those grainy old baby monitors? So passé. Today, the modern nursery can be equipped with HD cameras and biometric sensors — all analyzed with artificial intelligence. The technology can detect hazardous position changes or a blanket covering a baby's face, but also tracks less critical metrics that purport to help optimize infant sleep and health. Sapna Maheshwari, business reporter at The New York Times, recently wrote about this. She's been an avid user of the Nanit Smart Baby Monitor System with both of her children. More on this “Aw, It’s Baby’s First A.I. Surveillance System” from The New York Times “AI-powered IoT is creating a new security challenge” from Spiceworks
August 10 · 7 min
Substack CEO on the platform’s new AI detector
Substack, the platform popular for online newsletters, recently launched an artificial intelligence detection feature powered by Pangram. The detector allows users to scan text and get an estimate for how much of it was likely written by AI. But some creators are concerned about the tool’s accuracy and its potential to prompt a “witch hunt” for writers who use AI. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Substack CEO Chris Best about the new feature. More on this: AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn from Pangram I Test-Drove Substack’s New AI Detection Tool, and It Mostly Worked from CNET
August 7 · 12 min
Gig workers train humanoids on household chores
Is your shirt-folding technique good enough to train a robot how to do it? Could MySpace be creeping back into our browsers? We get into all this on today’s “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.” But first, the rocket ship/satellite internet/AI company SpaceX reported this week that it spent over $18 billion in capital expenditures in the second quarter. That’s six times what it spent the same time last year. Most of that was on AI infrastructure. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Joanna Stern, founder of the media company New Things, to discuss all these topics. Everything we talked about: “Here's the mark a SpaceX rocket crash left on the moon” from CBC “SpaceX posts loss of $541 million in first report since record-setting IPO” from The Washington Post “Train robots and make money” from The New Things “Could Myspace be making a return” from CNN
August 6 · 8 min
AI chatbots have linguistic slips when they go off-script
Let’s say you're chatting away with AI — perfect grammar, great vocabulary. Then, boom: a random word in another language! That's the topic for today's “Uncanny AI.” Those moments where it becomes really clear that AI doesn't think like us. Janelle Shane, who writes the AI Weirdness blog, helps explain why AI chatbots do this. More on this: “ChatGPT users flummoxed after AI bot starts inserting Arabic into responses” from The New York Post “ChatGPT is mixing languages or Answers are Wrong!” from OpenAI Developer Community
August 5 · 9 min
AI-driven law could be an answer to accessible legal help
AI has already changed the legal field, bringing new efficiencies — along with some high-profile mistakes — to tasks like research and drafting contracts. But law professor Benjamin Alarie at the University of Toronto has a bigger transformation in mind. He wants to see AI tackle some of the biggest failings of our justice system, like the lack of access to legal resources, slow processes and inconsistencies in how law is applied. He lays out his vision in a new book called "Superjustice: Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence." More on this: “Superjustice: Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” from Oxford University Press “Judge Punishes 4 Lawyers After Catching Both Sides Using A.I. in Lawsuit” from The New York Times
August 4 · 6 min
China’s soft power play in the global AI arms race
Last month, President Xi Jinping spoke at an AI conference in Shanghai, China. There he promoted AI accessibility for the world, touting China’s adoption of open-weighted models. After OpenAI’s rogue model incident in which a training model hacked into the company HuggingFace and stole confidential information, the discussion over whether models should be open or closed has intensified. “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carion spoke with Adam Segal at the Council of Foreign Relations about China’s soft power play in the global AI arms race.
August 3 · 6 min
Opening the curtain of AI business integration
OpenAI released its first ChatGPT model in November of 2022. Since then, companies across the U.S. have worked to integrate AI models into their workflows as quickly as possible. However, according to a recent survey from Indeed, while employers have been keen on adopting the help of artificial intelligence, employees are hesitant to move past experimentation and into implementation. Priya Rathod is a workplace trends editor at Indeed, and she said that in order to get across this great divide, employers need to focus on adequate training for employees and their managers. “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Rathod about the survey and how businesses can improve on AI adoption.

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