Ring's adorable surveillance hellscape

The Vergecast

Vox Media Podcast Network

Tech News, Technology, News

4.3 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2026

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Did you see Ring's Super Bowl ad and see happy puppies reunited with their owners? Or did you see the seeds of a complete, always-on surveillance nightmare coming for us all? David and Nilay discuss which is the right answer, why so many people don't want to trust tech companies, and why Ring might not care much about the difference. After that, the hosts discuss the ads coming to ChatGPT, the surprising number of AI executives quitting their jobs and issuing dire warnings on the way out, and the fake ad for OpenAI gadgets. In the lightning round, it's time for an extra long Brendan Carr is a Dummy, the latest Ferrari EV, the future of Siri, and more. Further reading: Jeffrey Epstein’s digital cleanup crew Jeffrey Epstein might not have created /pol/, but he helped carry out its mission Amazon Ring’s lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance Wyze is sticking it to Ring Sen. Markey calls on Amazon to “discontinue” Ring monitoring features Ring’s new Search Party feature is on by default; should you opt out? Ring launches upgraded cameras with Retinal Vision 4K recording What the Guthrie case reveals about your ‘deleted’ doorbell footage FBI releases recovered footage from Nancy Guthrie’s Nest cam OpenAI’s first hardware slips to 2027 OpenAI’s supposedly ‘leaked’ Super Bowl ad with ear buds and a shiny orb was a hoax Two more xAI co-founders are among those leaving after the SpaceX merger OpenAI reportedly disbanded its Mission Alignment team OpenAI fired exec who opposed ‘adult mode’ Read an Anthropic AI safety lead's exit letter: 'The world is in peril' Opinion | I Left My Job at OpenAI. Putting Ads on ChatGPT Was the Last Straw. What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know, Either ChatGPT’s cheapest options now show you ads Here are the brands bringing ads to ChatGPT Claude gets more free features to capitalize on ChatGPT ads Ex-OpenAI researcher has “deep reservations” about its approach to ads Brendan Carr is a Dummy theme submitted by Michiel Vanhoudt on BlueSky FTC says it’s ‘not the speech police’ in letter warning Apple News about its alleged promotion of left-leaning outlets Ferrari’s first EV will have an interior designed by Jony Ive Here’s what the Ferrari Luce’s buttons, switches, and knobs sound like. The early reviews of the Rivian R2 are starting to roll in Live Nation’s monopoly trial is reportedly fracturing Trump’s Justice Department YouTube is coming to the Apple Vision Pro Apple keeps hitting bumps with its overhauled Siri The iPhone 17e could launch soon with MagSafe and an A19 chip Apple might let you use ChatGPT from CarPlay Paramount ups its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, again Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In today's fast-changing digital world, proving your company is trustworthy isn't just important for growth, it's essential.
0:08.8	That's why Vanta is here. Vanta helps companies of all sizes get compliant fast and stay that way, with industry-leading AI, automation and continuous monitoring.
0:20.3	So whether you're a startup tackling your first
0:22.8	SOC 2 or ISO-27-001 or an enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta's trust management platform makes it
0:31.8	quicker, easier and more scalable. The results? According to a recent IDC study, Vanta customers slash over
0:40.4	$500,000 a year in costs and are three times more productive. Establishing trust isn't optional.
0:48.7	Vanta makes it automatic. Visit vanta.com slash Voxpod to sign up for a free demo today that's v a mta.com
0:59.2	slash voxpod welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of slightly dystopian pet finders
1:10.6	i'm your friend david pierce the epistles buddy. What's up? How do you feel about using the full surveillance industry to find your pets? This is why I don't have pets. Get them out of my face. Too complicated. The moral quandary of pet ownership is... We do a lot of moral quandary in the show i i will say i you know
1:29.2	do you really own a dog let's talk about it yeah you just you don't you just let it poop inside
1:37.2	your house for a while uh at least that's my current experience um lots going on this week uh we have
1:42.6	some super bowl follow up to do um the packers weren't in it because they never are. So that sucks for you. Patriots did lose, which was important, I think, for America. Agreed. The world is a little brighter now that the Patriots lost the Super Bowl. Uh, we have a lot of surveillance camera stuff to talk about. We have some opening eye news to talk about. We have some hardware that doesn't exist. We have some hardware that might someday exist. We have lots
2:04.2	to talk about. But I think we should probably start the same place we started last week, which is
2:09.9	unfortunately with the Epstein files. You asked in particular people to give us feedback on how we're talking about this stuff, how we're covering this stuff, what they want to see, what's interesting.
2:23.0	What did you hear? What are the vibes been like?
2:25.0	I would divide this feedback into two discrete categories.
2:28.5	There's the one I care about a lot, which is the actual people talking to us.
2:32.8	So you just look at the comments on YouTube.
2:34.9	You can, you shouldn't look at our email directly, Pam Bondi, but you, I will tell you
2:39.3	it is in our email.
2:40.3	And it's people emailing us and saying, keep doing this.
2:42.9	It's important.
	...

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