Would you like Siri more if it had a face? Ever since Elon Musk added a weird anime girlfriend to Grok, I’ve been wondering if there’s a not-so-distant future where all of our AI assistants are much more clearly personified. Grok makes it feel deeply uncomfortable, but I’m not so sure it has to be that way; we’re basically just talking about Cortana.
This week on The Vergecast, we’re talking all about AI, how powerful it can be in the home, and the uncomfortable feelings were getting talking to these new, more capable assistants. The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins the show to talk about her early tests of Alexa Plus, which is finally AI-powered and much more conversant as a result. Then, we talk about Grok’s new AI waifu feature, which got mad at me for being married.
We also have a special guest this week: Waveform cohost David Imel, who joins the show to talk Sony’s surprise drop of the RX1R III, a $5,099.99 full-frame compact camera that people have been waiting a decade for. It’s incredibly small for the power it offers, but it makes some very strange trade-offs along the way. Finally, the Thunder Round is back, sounds effects and all. Get ready.
If you want to know more about the stories we talked about on the show, you can check out the links below.
- 24 hours with Alexa Plus: we cooked, we chatted, and it kinda lied to me
- Elon Musk’s AI bot adds a ridiculous anime companion with ‘NSFW’ mode
- I spent 24 hours flirting with Elon Musk’s AI girlfriend
- System prompt dump of xAI / Grok’s new AI anime girlfriend
- Elon Musk teases AI anime boyfriend based on Edward Cullen
- “We will, of course, have another character inspired by Mr. Darcy”
- xAI has open roles for building AI “waifus.”
- Sony’s pocket-sized RX1R camera returns with its first update in 10 years
- Google exec: ‘We’re going to be combining ChromeOS and Android’
- Our biggest questions about ChromeOS and Android merging
- Thread count: Ikea is stitching together a smarter home
- Beeper is getting some upgrades
- Google is raising the price of Nest Aware subscriptions again
- The next batch of emoji includes Bigfoot
