Tech Grapples With ICE + Casey Tries Clawdbot, a Risky New A.I. Assistant + HatGPT

This week we’re talking about the tech industry’s response to the killings by federal agents in Minneapolis and the federal government’s strategy to control the narrative on social media. Then we follow Casey through his trial of a new open-source A.I. assistant called Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot) and consider whether it is worth the security risk. And, finally, it’s time for a look at the rest of the week’s tech news with a round of HatGPT. Additional Reading: False Posts and Altered Images Distort Views of Minnesota Shooting A Moment-by-Moment Look at the Shooting of Alex Pretti It’s a War: Inside ICE’s Media Machine Some Amazon Employees Get ‘Project Dawn’ Calendar Invitation Discussing Upcoming Job Cuts TikTok Data Center Outage Triggers Trust Crisis for New U.S. Owners Former FTX Crypto Executive Caroline Ellison Released From Federal Custody Anthropic C.E.O.’s Grave Warning: A.I. Will “Test Us as a Species” Inside the White House Screening for Amazon’s ‘Melania’ Doc App for Quitting Porn Leaked Users’ Masturbation Habits Alaska Student Arrested After Eating A.I.-Generated Art in Protest Steak ’n Shake Adds $5 Million in Bitcoin Exposure, Deepening Bitcoin Commitment SpaceX Weighs June I.P.O. Timed to Planetary Alignment and Elon Musk’s Birthday LinkedIn Will Let You Show Off Your Vibe Coding Expertise We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com . Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok .

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Tech Grapples With ICE + Casey Tries Clawdbot, a Risky New A.I. Assistant + HatGPT is an episode from Sway by The New York Times.

This episode is 01:10:30 long.

This episode was published on Jan 30, 2026.

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