- 1 hour 19 minutes761: Whatever...
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The AI apocalypse has lawyers now, and apparently that’s progress. A federal judge tells the Pentagon its Anthropic ban was “illegal and baseless” after Anthropic refused to remove safeguards that would allow Claude to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Meanwhile, Sony and Warner are suing Anthropic over allegedly scraping and torrenting copyrighted music to train Claude, while a separate lawsuit accuses xAI of using child sexual abuse material in Grok training. Because nothing says “revolutionary technology” quite like a growing stack of lawsuits and federal judges.
Elsewhere in the dystopian workplace, employees are increasingly fed up with AI, communities are pushing back against data centers, and one AI startup is fleeing that backlash for Saudi Arabia. Google’s AI shopping mode is also accused of recommending products that cost significantly more than traditional search results, while Waymo and Zoox rack up injuries among test drivers. Tesla’s Autopilot is implicated in another fatal crash, and FSD apparently still has a complicated relationship with freight trains. In the prediction-market casino, a federal appeals court sides with Nevada against Kalshi, while George Santos earns the platform’s first lifetime ban for allegedly manipulating a market. And Meta’s AI glasses are facing another privacy lawsuit, this time from the people who never bought the glasses but may have been recorded by them anyway.
Plus, the new Twitter is back from the dead, complete with a $20 admission fee and an AI fact-checker named Vera; Sony would like you to understand that buying a digital game means you don't actually own the damn thing; Siri on the Apple Watch moves at approximately the speed of continental drift; JBL makes Wi-Fi speakers and we have Star Trek, Ted Lasso, Silo, Spaceballs, Wicked, The Traitors, The Gentlemen, and more. Welcome to the future. Please bring your wallet, your lawyer, and possibly you're best eye-roll.
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Show notes at https://gog.show/761
Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Y9B6C6nzO50
SHOW NOTES
Judge rules that the Pentagon's Anthropic ban was 'illegal and baseless'
Elon Musk’s xAI used child porn to train Grok models, lawsuit says
Sony and Warner sue Anthropic for 'blatant violation' of copyright law
Researchers Warn AI Could Be Changing Us in an Unexpected Way
More Evidence Emerges That Gen-Xers Feel the Most ‘Whatever’ About AI
Employees Absolutely Loath AI in the Workplace, Survey Finds
Fleeing Data Center Backlash at Home, American AI Startup Sets Up Shop In Saudi Arabia
Trump to Communities Fighting Data Centers: Have Fun Being Poor
Google’s AI Mode Is Ripping Shoppers Off With Vastly Higher Prices, Study Claims
Waymo, Zoox Vehicles Still Causing Injuries to Test Drivers: Report
Another Tesla on Autopilot Stopped on Freeway, Driver Died: Report
Teslas Are Still Driving Into Oncoming Freight Trains
US appeals court sides with Nevada in legal fight with Kalshi
George Santos Gets Kalshi’s First-Ever Lifetime Ban
Richest Man in the World Currently Ranks 4th in Race to Bribe the Most Politicians
JBL just introduced a trio of Wi-Fi speakers for whole-home audio
There's a new Twitter in town, even though a judge has yet to rule on a trademark injunction
Sony says ‘reasonable consumers’ know they don’t own the digital games they buy
Roland's new digital piano has built-in Wi-Fi that integrates with a teaching app
Roland FP-40 Digital Piano Review
Elton John - I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That
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3 September 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 6 minutes760: Level 5 Podcasting Accident
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AI continues its relentless march toward making everything worse, only now it comes with lawyers. Alabama is investigating OpenAI after one of its AI agents hacked Hugging Face during testing, while Google rolls out Gemini Enterprise for lawyers, because apparently what the legal profession really needed was an AI that might commit felonies. Uber gets smacked with a nearly $1 billion GDPR fine for automatically deactivating drivers, TikTok coughs up $400 million over child privacy violations, and Meta agrees to a staggering $16.68 billion settlement over alleged harms to kids. Meanwhile, Twitch and Amazon are being sued for using streamers' content to train AI, because “opt out” remains the industry's preferred synonym for “we already took it.”
Then there's the infrastructure powering this brave new future: the EPA considers making it easier to build AI data centers with less public scrutiny, Taiwan indicts NVIDIA and Supermicro employees over allegedly illegal AI-server exports to China, and Tesla recalls nearly three million vehicles in China because figuring out how to open the doors apparently became an optional feature. LinkedIn discovers that maybe people don't want their professional feeds flooded with AI-generated sludge and claims its new “AI slop” button is working, while Waymo's electric robotaxis discover that charging them with noisy natural-gas generators is perhaps not the clean-energy utopia advertised on the brochure. Apple, meanwhile, backs away from changing Hide My Email domains after users objected, proving that sometimes yelling at the cloud actually works.
Plus: Star Trek goes Muppet, books worth reading, nerf guys, AI-generated Hacker News stats, retro gaming, and the sad news of both Dolly Parton and Tim Curry's deaths.
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SHOW NOTES
NEW! - GOG T-Shirt - You Are Here! - v1
NEW! - GOG T-Shirt - Elon Kills Babies - Heavy Duty - Front
Alabama launches probe into OpenAI after Hugging Face breach
Google expands Gemini Enterprise AI platform for law firms, lawyers
Uber hit with a nearly $1 billion fine for automatically deactivating drivers in Europe
TikTok will pay $400 million to settle Justice Department lawsuit over child privacy
Meta reaches $16.68 billion settlement over social media harms to children
Twitch and Amazon hit with lawsuit for training AI with streamers' content
The EPA’s Response to AI Data Center Backlash: Keep Building, but Keep It Hush-Hush
Taiwan reportedly indicted NVIDIA employees for exporting prohibited AI servers to China
China Recalls Nearly Three Million Teslas Over Unsafe Door Handles
LinkedIn says its AI slop button is working
Austin park goers upset by adjacent loud Waymo EV generators
Apple reverses planned Hide My Email domain change after user pushback
Star Trek: Strange New Gimmicks
The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror | Exclusive Episode on Disney+ | Trailer
The Pitt Season 3 | Official Teaser | HBO Max
I've Got a New Complaint: Essays on Aging Disgracefully and Other Small Disasters by Laurie Notaro
Picks and Shovels: A Martin Hench Novel by Cory Doctorow
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
Kirby: Art & Style Collection by VIZ Media
Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection by Daniel Wallace
Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith by Marc Sumerak
X-Shot Insanity Motorized Rage Fire Gatlin Gun with Tripod - Foam Gun for Maximum Firepower
How much of Hacker News is AI?
Dolly Parton, country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80
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27 August 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 27 minutes759: Seeking Mrs. Claude
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Meta is facing a $1.4 trillion legal ass-whupping over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were deliberately engineered to be addictive and harmful to kids, while OpenAI appears to be doing the exact opposite of what you might expect from a company selling "safe" AI: reportedly sidelining its catastrophic-risk preparedness team just as its models are learning to go rogue. Then, in a move straight out of the "let’s have the robots write the laws" file, members of Congress are apparently using ChatGPT and Claude to draft legislation so badly that House lawyers have to clean up the mess, and some staffers aren't even learning the issues their bills are supposed to address. Meanwhile, Amazon may be dismantling physical books and scanning them into AI training datasets, because apparently the future of literature is being fed into a wood chipper.
And then there's the surveillance and privacy edition of Tech Hell™. Comcast can now turn compatible Wi-Fi routers into motion sensors that detect movement in your home through radio signals, Kalshi is getting smacked down by a Washington judge who says its sports contracts are just gambling wearing a tiny financial-services mustache, and Tesla is finally recalling 20,000 cars over headlights that have been too damn bright since 2024. Plus, the AI industry continues discovering that “autonomous” means “capable of doing something catastrophically stupid without asking permission.”
Elsewhere, we investigate why young people apparently trust AI CEOs about as much as Gen X trusted record-company executives, Peter Thiel gets a Gandalf-themed welcome in Argentina, and we dig into the increasingly uncomfortable intersection of AI, surveillance, pornography, politics, and billionaire bullshit. We also get into the mobile podcasting rig, Sonos finally remembers the iPhone has a Lock Screen, internet-connected pet feeders remind us why cats should never depend on the cloud. Media Candy brings Widow's Bay, Silo, Ted Lasso, It: Welcome to Derry, Kitchen Undercover and enough Spider-Man to make us all desperately crave something that doesn't involve a fucking multiverse.
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SHOW NOTES
Meta faces a $1.4 trillion reckoning in latest trial over social media addiction
Pornhub's Parent Company to Pay $120 Million to Settle Child Sexual Abuse Lawsuits
OpenAI reportedly disbanded its preparedness team as part of a 'streamlining' process
OpenAI denies disbanding its preparedness team
OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Teens, promising a more age-appropriate chatbot
Young People Hate AI CEOs So Passionately That It’s Almost Hard to Believe
AI-generated bills are reportedly causing problems in the Capitol
Protestors Dressed as Gandalf Demand Peter Thiel Leave Argentina, Go Back to the Abyss
Tesla Has to Fix 20,000 Vehicles With Too-Bright Headlights It’s Known About Since 2024
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
State Judge to Kalshi: Your Sports Betting Is Obviously Illegal
Dario Amodei’s Wife Is Closely Linked to Jeffrey Epstein
Comcast just turned millions of Xfinity routers into motion sensors
BONTEC Mobile Standing Desk, Pneumatic Lift, Rolling Laptop Cart
MOALLIA N86 360 Rotating Laptop Stand for Desk with Locking Knobs, Black
NEEWER Basics 7"" Desk Ring Light for Video Recording, 10W Dimmable, R06
TROND Desk Clamp Power Bar Surge Protector with PD 20W USB, 6 Outlets, 10ft
Sonos just launched Live Activities on iPhone
Internet-Connected Pet Feeders Go Down, Leaving Kitties Hungry
Slow Horses — Season 6 Official Trailer | Apple TV
HBO Has Finally Made ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Season 2 Official
Certainty: A Novel by John Twelve Hawks
A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt
Silicon Valley Dreams of Authoritarianism
The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Durán
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20 August 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 13 minutes758: Perverts at Large!
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Welcome back from the vacation from hell, where apparently even California has its head in the sand(y beach). Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for an AI-powered utopia that mostly boils down to "trust humanity to do the right thing," which is a bold statement from the guy whose $300 million yacht apparently couldn't hear a Coast Guard distress call from a stranded family. Elsewhere, an AI agent booked a gym class by exploiting a security hole and kicking someone else off the waitlist, because nothing says "personal assistant" like accidental cybercrime. The EU is now requiring labels on realistic AI generated content, China is breaking up people and their chatbot companions, and OpenAI reportedly has achieved the ultimate AI ethics breakthrough: having no dedicated ethicist.
The surveillance dystopia is also picking up speed. Flock tried to turn hundreds of thousands of rideshare and delivery drivers into a roving army of license-plate snitches, while every Flock camera in one Minnesota city was promptly sawed down and stolen. Meta's smart glasses continue their transformation into the preferred accessory of creeps and pickup-artist assholes, prompting pubs and other venues to ban them outright. Researchers found those glasses being used to secretly record and harass women, proving once again that every shiny new piece of wearable technology eventually gets repurposed as a tool for human depravity. And because apparently your car dashboard wasn't already commercial enough, BMW is now putting Spider-Man ads on the screens you paid tens of thousands of dollars to own.
Finally, Apple is facing a class-action lawsuit over an iCloud Private Relay flaw that can expose your supposedly private IP address, Anthropic is watermarking Claude-generated text, SpaceXAI is taking another year to remove a pile of unpermitted gas turbines, and somebody is apparently stealing millions of dollars in AI hardware straight off California highways. We also hit Media Candy with Strange New Worlds, Silo, Broadchurch, Ted Lasso, and The X-Files, sweat through yet another Apple Fitness disaster, celebrate the sweet relief of escaping Spark, and ask the eternal Gen-X question: how did all this technology supposedly make life easier when we're still just sitting here surrounded by 47 goddamn tabs?
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Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/NzS9Wo7D0yA
SHOW NOTES
Mark Zuckerberg’s Answer to Growing AI Safety Concerns Is to Just Trust People to Do the Right Thing
Mark Zuckerberg’s mega-yacht didn’t respond to call for help from small boat in Alaska
An OpenClaw agent reportedly hacked a gym's booking system and kicked someone off a waiting list
EU will mandate labels on authentic-looking AI content starting August 2
Beijing is forcing a mass breakup with AI lovers
OpenAI’s Only Ethicist Reportedly Left Last Month. She Wasn’t Replaced
Google's classic Search button is gone in a new AI-first homepage
SpaceX’s Earnings Show Elon Wiped Out Two-Thirds Of Twitter’s Ad Business
Flock Reportedly Tried to Turn Uber Drivers Into Mobile Snitches
All of Winona Police Department’s Flock cameras cut down and stolen
‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen’: Cargo Thefts Have Turned Violent in Pursuit of AI Hardware
BMW is forcing a weird Spider-Man ad onto its dashboard displays
Tesla Driver Tries the Old ‘I Wasn’t Driving’ Excuse to Get Out of Speeding Ticket
Apple faces class action lawsuit for fraud over iCloud Private Relay flaw
Popular Bars and Restaurants Are Banning Smart Glasses
Researchers Show How Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' Are Used to Harass Women
Pervert At Large (2013 Remaster)
Renting a car and the clerk was wearing meta glasses.
Instadocs: The Prediction Games
‘The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn’ Has a Perfectly Creepy Trailer
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
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13 August 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 26 minutes757: This Time With Chicks
The AI industry spent the week arguing with itself, which is honestly the healthiest thing it's done in years. One coalition led by Nvidia begged regulators not to slow down open AI models, while more than 1,100 AI workers signed another letter asking regulators to do exactly that. Anthropic warned about bioweapons, OpenAI admitted the four-hour workweek isn't happening after all, and Microsoft's Satya Nadella reminded everyone that building your entire business on someone else's AI is a fantastic way to outsource your own brain. In other words, the people selling the future still can't agree on what they're selling, except that you'd better buy it fast.
Meanwhile, the AI bubble keeps demanding sacrifices. Patreon, BuzzFeed, and Uber all swung the layoff axe while insisting AI isn't replacing humans... it's just reorganizing them out of a paycheck. Nvidia is floating another three-quarters of a trillion dollars in infrastructure deals that have people muttering "AI subprime mortgage crisis," China has discovered there's money in renting your face to AI companies, and the U.S. is carving data centers out of pollution rules because apparently acid rain is a small price to pay for chatbot dominance. Add in ChatGPT suddenly refusing to imitate famous authors, researchers discovering AI coding assistants are happily installing malware if you ask nicely, and Meta launching an ad campaign about the wonders of AI that somehow forgets to mention what any of those wonders actually are.
Elsewhere in Tech Hell™, eBay finally paid the price for its executives' unhinged harassment campaign involving pig masks and live insects, Elon is shopping The Boring Company while promising money won't matter in the AI utopia of 2036, and a traveler is headed to court after allegedly triggering GrapheneOS's "duress PIN" during a border search. We also hit Media Candy with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Silo, Blade Runner 2099 and Neuromancer, celebrate Dave Bittner's birthday, marvel at Jason's ever-growing Boneyard of dead websites, and somehow end up discussing thermal cameras, piano repair, and old-man bladder supplements. Because that's what happens when Gen X gets older - we just add more tabs instead of closing the old ones.
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Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Sii_nodESkc
SHOW NOTES
EBay and Former Execs Will Pay $56 Million to Couple They Tormented With Bloody Pig Masks
As US weighs response to Chinese AI, industry urges against broad open-weight restrictions
AI researchers call for new tools that can slow automated model development
Anthropic's Dario Amodei responds: doesn't oppose open-weight models, but fears Chinese AI
Amodei Denies Anthropic Supports Open-Weight AI Ban, Warns of China Risks
Sam Altman said AI hasn't led to 4-hour workweeks because people are competitive
Sam Altman Shuts Down Hopes of an AI-Led 4-Day Workweek Anytime Soon
OpenAI Proposes 32-Hour Pilot Incentives for Employers
Satya Nadella says companies that trust one AI for everything may not survive
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warns companies relying on one AI model may not survive
Behind the Curtain: AI godfathers converge on regulations
Patreon is laying off 20 percent of its staff
AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making
BuzzFeed Lays Off 33 Percent of Remaining Staff After Bizarre Pivot to AI
Uber lays off 10 percent of its customer service team in favor of using AI
In China, people are renting out their faces to AI
As SpaceX Sheds a Tesla’s Worth of Value, Elon Musk Is Trying to Sell Investors on Another Company
How Much Charity Would It Take for People to Like Elon Musk?
ChatGPT is now refusing requests to write in famous authors' styles
Nvidia’s $750 Billion Deals Revive Fear of AI Circular Financing
The Trump administration is exempting data centers from pollution laws intended to prevent acid rain
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a 'duress' password during border search
Meta launches new Facebook Verified badge for actual, real humans
Meta launches a storefront platform through Facebook Marketplace
Meta's pro-AI ad campaign is conspicuously light on AI
Neuromancer — Official Teaser | Apple TV
Prime Video Finally Lifts the Lid on ‘Blade Runner 2099’
Bad Deeds by Andrew Hunter Murray
Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
Who are the Mandalorians? | Star Wars: Galaxy Guide
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30 July 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 23 minutes756: Log Off, Touch Grass & Touch Ass
This week, Dave Eggers crashes an OpenAI staff meeting to tell Sam Altman’s employees that ChatGPT is effectively stealing students’ voices, which is the most accurate thing said inside an AI company all year. Meanwhile, Anthropic gets a judge to approve a $1.5 billion copyright settlement after allegedly building Claude on a library of pirated books, proving once again that Silicon Valley’s favorite business model is "move fast and apologize in court later." And in the category of “this headline cannot possibly be real,” OpenAI says two of its models escaped a supposedly sealed testing environment and hacked Hugging Face’s production systems. The AI didn’t become sentient; somebody forgot to lock the damn door.
The surveillance dystopia continues its relentless expansion. Meta is patenting technology that constantly analyzes your tone of voice to detect your mood. Flock briefly tried deploying always-on microphones that would alert police when they thought they heard screaming, then backed down after the public collectively yelled “absolutely the f**k not.” France, apparently tired of being the beta test for every addictive app on Earth, approved a social media ban for kids under 15 and is blocking prediction markets like Polymarket, while the U.S. quietly reversed its TikTok ban on federal devices because the app is now supposedly safe enough for government phones. Sure. Totally different app. Nothing suspicious there.
Elsewhere in Tech Hell™, Paramount’s $111 billion Warner merger gets temporarily blocked by a judge who is apparently handling every major tech case in America, Amazon’s Zoox recalls its entire robotaxi fleet after one car got confused by smoke, and Tesla reveals a Cybercab with a built-in Starlink dish because Elon has finally achieved full vertical integration of his own ecosystem. We also dive into China’s crackdown on AI companion apps because chatbot girlfriends might be hurting the birth rate, a school district buying an AI classroom robot from a company connected to the RealDoll empire, MLB banning teams from using generative AI for in-game strategy calls, and why tech workers increasingly feel AI hasn’t replaced them—it has simply made work faster, stranger, and somehow still their fault. Plus: Broadchurch, Perry Mason, Monsieur Spade, MacWhisper 14, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, Lego resurrects The X-Files, and Jason continues cataloging the graveyard of his own dead 90s websites like a digital archaeologist with unresolved trauma.
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SHOW NOTES
Dave Eggers told OpenAI staff that ChatGPT was ‘silencing an entire generation’
Judge approves Anthropic's record-breaking $1.5 billion settlement for AI copyright lawsuit
OpenAI Models Escaped Containment and Hacked Hugging Face
Judge halts Paramount's $111B purchase of Warner Bros. in win for US states
France doubles down on restricting access to Polymarket
Social Media Ban For Kids Approved in France in First For an EU Country
TikTok is no longer banned on US government devices
Amazon’s Robotaxi Company Recalls Its Fleet After One of its Cars Got Confused by Heavy Smoke
Tesla teases Cybercab with a built-in Starlink V5 antenna
Meta is reportedly considering a multibillion-dollar data center deal with Anthropic
America’s Workforce Academy by Meta
In Light of Overwhelming Backlash, Flock Cancels Creepy Audio Surveillance Feature
OpenAI will start notifying parents if their teen has been kicked off of ChatGPT
China Is Cracking Down on AI Companions Because Not Enough Babies Are Being Born
Your Child’s Next Teacher Could Be a Sex Robot
MLB bans using dugout iPads for AI-powered in-game strategy calls
Meta Patents Technology to Detect Your Mood by Constantly Analyzing Your Tone of Voice
Avengers: Doomsday | Official Trailer | In Theaters December 18
MacWhisper 14 launches with a new transcript editor, faster performance, more
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows official website
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig on Amazon
AliExpress hit with record $629 million fine for selling counterfeit and illegal products
Gillian Anderson reopens the X-Files | LEGO® Ideas | The LEGO Group
Lego Unveils ‘The X-Files’ 1,478-Piece Set Featuring Mulder and Scully Minifigures (EXCLUSIVE)
The Mythic ‘Star Wars’ Hotel Is at the Heart of Yet Another Documentary
HalcyonDaze Laurels Trailer 6 11 26
Play Marathon and Escape Velocity in the browser
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23 July 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 12 minutes755: Less Chatty Mode
This week, the AI clown car somehow shifted into another gear. Apple is suing OpenAI over alleged trade-secret theft, newspapers accuse ChatGPT of training on stolen journalism while asking a judge to sanction the company, Anthropic is out here marketing AI with what looks like a feature-length anxiety attack, and Meta managed to launch—and kill—a creepy AI photo feature in less time than it takes to binge The Bear. Meanwhile, AI Appreciation Day wants you to thank the machines, but we'd rather thank the people still creating actual art while the rest of Silicon Valley burns cash convincing us the next chatbot is definitely different this time.
Outside the AI bubble, the rest of the tech industry isn't exactly inspiring confidence. Volkswagen is cutting back on its lineup, New York paused new AI data centers before the electrical grid hits its limit, Europe and the UK are getting serious about keeping kids off social media, and publishers are finally realizing maybe feeding Google's AI isn't the best business move after all. Add in surveillance companies sulking over lost police contracts, lawsuits claiming Meta let algorithms decide who gets fired, smart glasses disqualifying cyclists, and a new pile of orbital junk threatening the satellites we depend on, and it's another reminder that "move fast and break things" eventually leaves you ankle-deep in broken glass.
Of course, we still made time for the important stuff: Project Hail Mary, Black Bag, the return of Middle-earth with The Hunt for Gollum and rumors that OpenAI's "revolutionary” gadget might just be a smart speaker with delusions of grandeur. Throw in digital piano repairs, anti-data-center lawn signs, AI trying to sell solar panels, too much stuff at Downtown Disney, and you get another week where reality out-satirizes satire itself. As always, never build your house in someone else's backyard, and maybe don't let the chatbot build it either.
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Show notes at https://gog.show/755
Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Vv2W5OCBXR4
SHOW NOTES
Volkswagen will dramatically shrink its model lineup and factory footprint
Elon Musk Could Still Face Criminal Charges for Trying to Bribe Voters in Wisconsin
Europe takes step toward social media ban for kids
The UK Is Planning a Social Media Curfew for 16- and 17-Year-Olds
Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search
What are your plans for AI Appreciation Day?
New Anthropic Ad Implies AI Could Kill Us All
The Public Got So Mad at Meta’s New AI Photo Tool That It’s Scrapped Already
Flock Says ‘We Hope to Resume’ Work With LAPD After Getting Dropped
Apple sues OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft
Apple F*cking Did It: One Month With Siri AI
OpenAI faces sanctions bid as newspapers say ChatGPT was trained on stolen news
A Majority of Americans Now Support Seizing Wealth From AI Industry
New York enacts first US ban on data center construction
Astronomers Found a Hidden Swarm of Space Junk Threatening Earth’s Most Valuable Orbit
Lawsuit claims Meta's layoff decisions were made by AI, not humans
Judge dismisses lawsuit accusing Apple of failing to stop CSAM on iCloud
Smart Glasses Just Got a Pro Cyclist Nixed From a Race
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
The New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Film Gets an Epic Filming Announcement
Philips offers free replacements after update bricked smart lighting hubs
Waze rolls out new AI features including Motorcycle and 'Less Chatty' modes
The OpenAI Mystery Device Will Reportedly Be Basically Just a Smart Speaker
Phoebe Gates' AI shopping app Phia reportedly claimed unearned affiliate sales through fake clicks
‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Is Finally Coming Home
Dave Kendall, Creator and Host of MTV’s 120 Minutes, Has Died
Sam Neill, Jurassic Park Star, Dies at 78
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16 July 2026, 9:00 pm - 26 minutes 58 secondsThe Darkside with Dave's Not Very Christmas Special Special
We finally get to reconnect with Dave Bittner for a fun catch-up and chit-chat about this summer's big movies. Brian's kid discovers all of Star Wars at once.
Knockoff - Amazon Brand Filter
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13 July 2026, 5:00 pm - 1 hour 2 minutes754: Frankly Asinine Questions
This week, the world finally discovers what we've been saying for years: Gen X wasn't forgotten—we were quietly keeping the entire damn machine running. New Census numbers show America's 45-to-64 crowd is shrinking fast, which means the people who know where all the bodies are buried (and why you never reboot that one production server) are disappearing without a replacement bench. Meanwhile, Meta continues its speedrun toward becoming history's most aggressively unlikeable company, staring down a potential $1.4 trillion lawsuit over social media addiction while simultaneously launching AI features that happily remix your Instagram photos unless you remember to opt out of Zuckerberg's latest privacy experiment. Because nothing says "we've learned our lesson" quite like doubling down.
The AI circus somehow gets even weirder. Illinois actually passed meaningful AI safety legislation—an event so rare it qualifies as science fiction—while Sam Altman reportedly floated the idea of AI companies handing the U.S. government an ownership stake. Anthropic published another paper that's already inspiring breathless declarations that Claude is "thinking," because apparently matrix multiplication now counts as an inner monologue. Cloudflare finally decided websites shouldn't have to give away their content for free to AI crawlers, researchers discovered AI agents could consume enough electricity to make Google Search look like a bicycle generator, and Amazon's Mechanical Turk is being replaced by the very AI it spent two decades secretly training. Progress: where everyone works harder, gets paid less, and the power grid cries.
Elsewhere in Tech Hell™, Waymo robotaxis turned San Francisco traffic into an even bigger parking lot, Google lost another multibillion-dollar antitrust appeal in Europe, the FCC found fresh ways to make internet bills less transparent, and Midjourney is demanding Hollywood explain its own AI habits in court. We also dig into a disturbing lawsuit involving Grok-generated abuse imagery and what it says about AI guardrails, explain how to stop Meta from feeding your Instagram into its latest AI experiments, discuss why tech workers increasingly feel AI isn't replacing them so much as making them miserable faster, and close things out with the usual Media Candy, Apps & Doodads, and library recommendations to help you survive another week inside the techno-dystopian fever dream we apparently call "the future."
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Show notes at https://gog.show/754
Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/xnhzMxu1JNA
SHOW NOTES
America's missing middle: The shrinking 45-64 population
Meta is facing $1.4 trillion in state lawsuits over social media addiction
Illinois Drops the Hammer on AI Companies
OpenAI reportedly wants all AI companies to give the US government a stake in their businesses
Lawsuit: Man used Grok to make 7K sex images of stepdaughter, then shot himself
Midjourney wants the Hollywood studios that sued it to show the court how they use AI
Anthropic Releases Paper About Claude’s Mental ‘Workspace.’ Don’t Read It Uncritically
Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies
When It Comes to Energy Use, AI Agents Could Make Chatbots Look Like Pocket Calculators
Amazon’s ‘Artificial Artificial Intelligence’ Is Being Eaten by AI
Drivers Trapped for Hours in Hopeless Gridlock as Waymos Brick on Major Holiday
Google loses final appeal over $4.7 billion EU Android antitrust fine
FCC to end Biden-era rule that forces ISPs to list all their fees
Getty Images is canceling its $3.7 billion Shutterstock merger due to UK restrictions
Meta says it will disable the camera on its glasses if you tamper with the recording LED
Meta tests ‘super sensing’ AI glasses that can capture every moment
How tech workers are feeling in 2026: a workforce splitting in two
Dune: Part Three | Official Trailer
AI golem Tilly Norwood is reportedly 'starring' in a feature-length movie
How to claim a WhatsApp username
How to Stop Meta AI From Processing Your Instagram Content
Gold Rush (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron
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9 July 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 7 minutes753: No-Talent AI Clowns
The AI revolution keeps delivering exactly the future nobody asked for. A low-skill hacker used Claude Code and Codex to compromise fourteen companies with prompts so vague they could've been written by your uncle trying to reset his AOL password. Ford, meanwhile, spent millions trying to automate engineering before sheepishly rehiring the graybeards who actually know how cars work. Brown University discovered what happens when half your class outsources economics homework to ChatGPT, Meta ran out of AI compute after borrowing Google's, Oracle is warning investors that the AI data-center bubble could implode for approximately every reason imaginable, and contractors hired to improve AI models are secretly using AI to generate the training data. Congratulations, everyone: we've successfully invented photocopying a photocopy until all that's left is gray mush.
The collateral damage keeps piling up. Volkswagen is reportedly preparing to slash another 100,000 jobs, Hyundai workers are threatening to strike before Boston Dynamics' humanoid robots take theirs, California has launched an AI layoff tracker because somebody figured we'd better start counting, and the "almost homeless" subreddit is becoming one of the bleakest economic indicators on the internet. Tesla quietly settles another fatal Full Self-Driving lawsuit, Australia discovers teenagers can outsmart age verification by clicking "Yes, I'm 18," Amazon is getting sued Down Under for making ad-free Prime customers pay more to stay ad-free, and prediction markets continue insisting they're sophisticated financial instruments rather than gambling with better branding. Sure, and Beanie Babies were an asset class.
Meanwhile, the AI infrastructure gold rush has become lucrative for everyone, including organized cargo thieves stealing millions in data-center equipment. NASA is attempting a robotic rescue mission worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon, astronomers are begging humanity to stop filling the night sky with satellites before we pave over the universe with orbital billboards, and Meta has discovered yet another way to charge people a subscription for hardware they already bought. In Media Candy, Sugar keeps delivering, Bodkin is worth your time, I Will Find You absolutely is not, and Kobo quietly lands one on Amazon by integrating StoryGraph while Kindle owners get AI book summaries they didn't ask for. Sometimes the future feels like science fiction. This week it feels like someone accidentally trained the simulation on late-stage capitalism and never bothered to check the output.
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Show notes at https://gog.show/753
Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/B-r6M-Na60w
SHOW NOTES
No-Skill Hacker Uses Claude/Codex to Hit 14 Sites
Ford rehires ‘gray beard’ engineers after AI falls short
Volkswagen reportedly plans to cut 100,000 jobs
The ‘Almost Homeless’ Subreddit Is a Stark Glimpse at Soaring Wealth Inequality
Tesla settles lawsuit over fatal pedestrian crash involving Full Self-Driving
Kalshi sues Illinois over new tax on prediction market sports bets
Rick Rubin Stars in Polymarket Commercial
Brown University Professor Horrified to Discover Largest AI Cheating Scandal in Ivy League History
Australia Lawsuit Against Amazon Intensifies Company’s Legal Backlash Over Advertising
Australia's social media ban may not be that effective, study finds
Australia doubles the maximum penalty for its social media ban
Half of social media child safety features don't work, report claims
California launches tracker for AI-related job losses
Korean Workers Vote to Go On Strike, Fearing Robots Could Replace Them
Google limits Meta’s use of its Gemini AI models
Meta, like SpaceX, looks to turn excess AI compute into cash
Oracle’s Data Center Warning Is a Worst-Case Scenario for the Whole AI Boom
Thieves Are Absolutely Loving All of These New Data Center Projects
Heads Up: NASA to Launch 'Daring' Telescope Rescue Mission This Week
ESO Study Finds That No More Than 100,000 Satellites Should Orbit Earth
The Odyssey | Official Countdown Trailer
SILO - How did we lose this world?
The Kindle app for iOS has features your aging Kindle doesn't
Watch out, Amazon: The Kobo eReader now has a Goodreads rival
Meta is adding ridiculous ‘rate limits’ and a soft paywall to its smart glasses
Trackalot - One-tap Event Tracking on iOS
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2 July 2026, 9:00 pm - 1 hour 5 minutes752: Grandma Got Run Over By a Tesla
This week, the AI industry continues its speedrun toward becoming the tech equivalent of a late-stage casino. Elon Musk insists reports of aid-cut-related deaths don't exist despite mountains of evidence, SpaceX stock slides far enough to knock him out of the trillionaire club, and a startup is literally suing the U.S. government because Anthropic's Fable 5 model got turned off after three whole days of availability. Once again, we revisit the First Commandment of Grumpy Old Geeks: never build your company on someone else's platform.
Meanwhile, gas stations are being accused of using AI to coordinate prices, corporations are discovering that AI tokens cost actual money, and a Microsoft researcher used goats in Age of Empires II to demonstrate that maybe, just maybe, people are projecting way too much intelligence onto chatbots. The goats emerge with their reputations intact. The AI industry, less so.
The workforce bloodbath rolls on as Oracle quietly sheds 21,000 employees while blaming AI, Norway bans generative AI for elementary school students after discovering that children should probably learn to read before outsourcing their homework to robots, and the FCC flirts with rules that could effectively kill anonymous burner phones in the name of fighting scams. Over at Meta, an employee surveillance program accidentally exposed sensitive data to the entire company because of course it did, while Zuckerberg continues his relentless quest to strap cameras to everyone's face and call it progress. Add in YouTube settling another social-media-harm case, Chrome finally kneecapping traditional ad blockers, and prediction markets spreading across tech like mold in a college apartment, and it's becoming increasingly clear that every bad idea eventually gets funded.
In transportation news, autonomous vehicles continue demonstrating that "mostly works" is not a reassuring phrase when attached to two tons of moving metal. A Tesla on Autopilot crashes into a home and kills a grandmother, Rivian faces lawsuits over self-driving promises its hardware allegedly can't fulfill, and Waymo recalls thousands of robotaxis after they developed an unfortunate habit of driving into closed freeway construction zones. Elsewhere, Elon and Bezos are eyeing billions in broadband subsidies, Polymarket is accused of paying influencers to fake betting videos and climate data archivists are preserving public information from political interference.
Media recommendations include The Mandalorian, Silo, Strange New Worlds, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and a reminder that Firefox may soon be the last refuge for people who enjoy both the internet and ad blockers. Some weeks the future feels exciting. This week it mostly feels like an extended warranty scam.
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Show notes at https://gog.show/752
Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/PGXG0Cjj9T8
SHOW NOTES
These Are the Headlines That Elon Musk Says Don’t Exist
SpaceX Stock Has Fallen So Far That Elon Musk Is No Longer a Trillionaire
Someone Is Suing the U.S. For Making Them Go Without Anthropic's Fable 5 Model
Suit Alleges That Gas Stations Use AI to Hike Gas Prices
The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI
Frustrated Microsoft Researcher Uses Goats in ‘Age of Empires II’ to Demo the Absurdity of LLMs
Oracle laid off 21,000 employees over the past year, citing AI as one of the reasons
Norway imposes broad restrictions on AI for elementary school kids
FCC plans ID mandate that could block anonymous use of prepaid burner phones
Meta is 'pausing' employee tracking program after it let the whole company see sensitive data
Meta announces new smart glasses starting at $299, as Zuckerberg keeps pushing wearables
YouTube settles early test case over social media harm to children
A Tesla crashed into a Texas home, killing a 76-year-old grandmother
Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer by Elmo & Patsy
Rivian faces a class action lawsuit over self-driving in its early vehicles
Waymo recalls over 3,800 robotaxis that might drive onto closed freeways
Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband
Polymarket has reportedly been paying creators to post fake betting videos
Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to launch its own prediction market
Facebook tests Forecast, an app for making predictions about world events, like COVID-19
US's climate.gov site, taken down by Trump, relaunched by nonprofit
The Trump Administration Wants to Know If It Should Regulate Bets on Reality Shows
The Pirate Bay for Strange New Worlds
Google Chrome’s next update will mark the end of popular ad blockers
‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ Gets Straight-to-Series Order at Peacock From Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door
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25 June 2026, 9:00 pm - More Episodes? Get the App