Hard Fork

Can the U.S. Rein in Prediction Markets? + Joanna Stern on Her Year of A.I. Experiments + Our Producer Goes to Attention School

May 8, 2026 · 1 hr 12 min · 20 segments

This week we’re taking another look at prediction markets and a new series of scandals. Is Congress finally ready to rein them in? Then, the journalist Joanna Stern returns to the show to discuss her new book “[I Am Not A Robot](https://joannastern.com),” all about turning her life over to a chatbot for a year. And finally, Hard Fork’s Rachel Cohn reports back on her month attending classes at the [Strother School of Radical Attention](https://www.schoolofattention.org/), the center of a movement to resist the commodification of attention by technology companies.   **Guests:**  - **Joanna Stern,** chief everything officer at [New Things](https://thenewthings.com) - [**Rachel Cohn**](https://www.nytimes.com/by/rachel-cohn), producer of “Hard Fork”   **Additional Reading:** - [Soldier Used Classified Information to Bet on Maduro’s Ouster, U.S. Says](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/nyregion/polymarket-maduro-indictment-soldier.html) - [Soldier Pleads Not Guilty in $400,000 Betting Case Over Maduro’s Ouster](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/28/nyregion/polymarket-special-forces-maduro-bets.html) - [French weather service alerts police to tampering after suspicious Polymarket bets](https://www.ft.com/content/89be7df3-b7b8-4b4a-8b88-e24e877b439d?syn-25a6b1a6=1) - [The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Battle for Your Attention Is Built on a Lie](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/opinion/attention-world-war-2-technology-nazis.html)   We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/hardfork) and [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@hardfork). Subscribe today at [nytimes.com/podcasts](http://nytimes.com/podcasts) or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here [https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher](https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher). For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See [pcm.adswizz.com](https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.