Decoder with Nilay Patel Joanna Stern is not a robot, but she lived with them
171 snips
May 11, 2026 
Joanna Stern, former Wall Street Journal personal tech columnist and Verge co-founder, reflects on a year living with AI and launching New Things. She talks about using AI agents to run a media business, privacy tradeoffs of wearables and always-on recording, the data needs of robots, and the emotional risks of AI relationships.
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AI Will Change Infrastructure Before Homes
- Joanna sees useful AI change coming unevenly: enterprise and infrastructure (healthcare, Waymo) will adopt faster than headline consumer robots.
- She points to radiologists already using AI side-by-side and Waymo's measured miles-driven approach as examples.
Automate Busy Work So Creatives Can Create
- Use AI internally to automate busy work so a small team focuses on creative tasks like video editing and story pitching.
- Joanna trained Slack bots and agents to handle repetitive tasks at New Things to boost efficiency.
Sunday Dinners With A Glorified Hot Pot Robot
- Joanna kept a Posha cooking robot and uses it every Sunday to make side dishes, despite its quirks and kitchen footprint.
- The robot dumps ingredients repeatedly, kids call it an "idiot robot," and it became a family ritual.
