This week, with news that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up Texas’ age verification law for app stores, we check in on how social media bans are going around the globe and what may be coming soon to a state near you. Then, we’re joined by Jeff Sebo, an associate professor at N.Y.U., to discuss new research into “A.I. welfare” and whether A.I. could ever become conscious. And finally, in our latest edition of Tool Time, we show each other some of the latest tech tools we’ve been experimenting with.   Guest: * Jeff Sebo [https://jeffsebo.net], associate professor and the director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy at N.Y.U.   Additional Reading: * Why Social Media Bans Are Gaining Steam [https://www.platformer.news/social-media-bans-candice-odgers-haidt/] * Four in Five Under-16s in Australia Using Social Media Despite Ban, Study Shows [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/24/australia-under-16-social-media-ban-no-substantial-effects-study] * It Turns Out Banning Teens From Social Media Is Hard [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/it-turns-out-banning-teens-from-social-media-is-hard.html] * Studying A.I. Welfare Empirically [https://nonhumanminds.org/studying-ai-welfare-empirically/] * A Global Workspace in Language Models [https://www.anthropic.com/research/global-workspace]   We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com [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.