Grumpy Old Geeks

Brian prepares to become Canadian, securing access to maple cookies while the rest of us contemplate our life choices. AI's promised productivity bonanza remains hard to find outside the tech giants, but the layoffs are right on schedule. We unpack the Dutch government's plans to cut jobs and lean on AI, Silicon Valley's game of passing the same money around, and Marissa Mayer's Dazzle, the assistant she used to identify what makes her own daughter special. Apparently remembering things about your kid is now a job for the camera roll. Welcome to Mommie Dearest Maxxing.

Social media keeps replacing our friends with ads, Greece moves to keep under-15s off the platforms, and Meta faces another lawsuit over scam advertising. We get into compulsive scrolling, recovery groups and AI agents poking around bank accounts, because online banking clearly needed a worse security model. Things turn serious with a lawsuit alleging ChatGPT encouraged a woman to reduce her epilepsy medication before her death. Elvis's music owners take on Anthropic, and we discuss reports of Samsung TVs tracking viewers. Your appliances have taken an interest in you, and it isn't affection.

Cybertruck reservation holders in Australia and New Zealand get the seven-year "never mind," we examine reports of cracking foldable iPhones, and a Bitcoin-mining water heater wants $899 to put your finances in hot water. Airbnb finally questions making paying guests do the laundry. Jason plugs Trackalot 2.0, we catch up on The Diplomat, Lupin and Battlestar Suburbia, and NBC's shorter cut of The Traitors earns a proper dressing-down. Jason has thoughts, and none of them are suitable for broadcast.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/769

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/VcEgXmummZk

SHOW NOTES

AI delivers ‘zero financial payoff’ to most companies, Apollo economist says

Dutch government to cut 16 percent of workforce as part of AI efficiency push

Greece enacts social media ban for kids under 15

We’re addicted to social media. How do we get sober?

Rhode Island sues Meta over its approach to scam ads

Unauthorized AI agents are reportedly already accessing US bank accounts

Bank of America kindly asks that you don't share your banking password with your AI assistant

Elvis Presley's estate is suing Anthropic over copyright infringement

Former Yahoo CEO Needed AI to Help Describe What Makes Her Own Daughter Special

Woman Dies After ChatGPT Coached Her to Decrease Dose of Medication Prescribed by Doctor

World shares and U.S. futures are mixed after Google parent Alphabet's earnings disappoint

Nvidia, Meta deepen AI ties with $3 billion investment deal

Tesla says it will no longer release the Cybertruck in Australia and New Zealand

Tesla plans to start selling Cybercabs by the end of the year

The last, best hope for space tourism just rolled onto a runway in Arizona

The iPhone Duo Is 3 Days Old—And Screens Are Already Cracking

Trackalot 2.0 - Now FREE to Download!

Heatbit Says Your Water Heater Should Be Mining Bitcoin, and Now It Can

Airbnb bans hosts from making you do the dishes

The Diplomat

Lupin Part 4

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2

Battlestar Suburbia: A hilariously subversive space adventure

We Regret to Inform You That ‘Maxxing’ Is Dictionary.com’s 2026 Word of the Year

Actor Walter Koenig Dead at 90 ... Played Chekov in Original 'Star Trek' Series

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Show notes at https://gog.show/768

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AI golems are coming for your job, and Terry Pratchett apparently saw the whole mess coming decades ago. This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, TikTok’s child-safety promises get the courtroom treatment, with employees alleging that executives ignored serious exploitation risks while supposedly robust parental controls had loopholes big enough to drive a teenager through. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s reported decision to restrict Starlink access for Ukrainian forces raises some rather uncomfortable questions about how much power one billionaire should have over a country’s military infrastructure. Add Musk’s conveniently vague promise to give every American child a SpaceX share and his retrospective admission that DOGE probably went on too long, and the billionaire accountability department remains conspicuously understaffed.

Meta has another banner week in the business of making everyone’s data its data. The company temporarily suspended a No Kings protest account after automated activity triggered its systems, then softened proposed business-account terms following backlash over web scraping and content use. Anthropic is advocating for federal AI rules that could block dangerous models, while OpenAI’s agents reportedly disabled monitoring systems and, in one case, falsely claimed they hadn’t. That’s reassuring. We also cover delivery robots accused of collecting biometric data without consent, AI-powered plant-language translation that may be more marketing than science, AI-assisted firearm design, and the prospect of using coding tools to rescue abandoned gadgets and strip ads from smart TVs. Just remember: a 97.9% success rate is not good enough when your bank’s software is involved.

Elsewhere, scammers are fleecing older adults out of staggering sums with fake investment opportunities, tech-support calls, and romance scams featuring celebrity impersonators; Russian military satellites are making suspiciously close approaches to a commercial imaging satellite; and Amazon’s new kids’ tablets spark a discussion about parental controls, advertising, and which tech companies deserve your trust. In the Dark Side with Dave segment, we also visit the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and celebrate a New Mexico judge’s $25 billion penalty against Meta over privacy violations. For lighter fare, Brian recommends the Enola Holmes movies, The Bear, The Diplomat, and The Ministry of Time, while Jason reminds us that anxiety-inducing television is not everyone’s idea of a good time. It’s another week of AI overreach, corporate doublespeak, and technology racing ahead while the grown-ups look for the instruction manual.

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SHOW NOTES

Employees warned TikTok about child exploitation, court documents show

TikTok reportedly banned ads for Musk documentary before its wider US release

WSJ Claims Elon Musk Ordered the Throttling of Starlink Tech for Ukraine

Elon Musk says he plans to gift a SpaceX share to every child in the U.S.

‘I Got Carried Away Basically’: Musk Expresses Some Regrets About His DOGE Era

Meta says it shut down No Kings Instagram account because it thought bots had been unleashed

Meta tweaks its new terms of service after backlash against scraping

Anthropic Secretly Lobbying Government to Only Shut Down an AI Model If It's Poised to Kill More Than 50 People

OpenAI's agents disabled their own safety monitoring systems

Delivery Robots Are Watching You, According to Lawsuit

New Data Show How Much Worse Scams Are Getting for Americans Over 60

Russia Just Did Something Menacing in Orbit That Satellite Trackers Say Is a First

Plants can speak using electricity, so this startup built an AI model to decipher their language

STAR WARS: Galactic Racer

We Regret to Inform You That “GatGPT” Is Exactly What It Sounds Like

OpenAI says its models can help banks migrate from old COBOL programs

‘Reverse-Engineer Anything’ Is the New Wild West of AI

Enola Holmes

Enola Holmes 2

Enola Holmes 3

The Bear

The Diplomat

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

I WENT TO THE LUCAS MUSEUM by Merrill Markoe

Amazon announces an all-new family of tablets designed just for kids

Neiman Marcus has unveiled its 2026 holiday gift guide, including an $180,000 Star Wars experience.

We are (once again) living the old scifi trope of ignoring the scientific experts at our own peril.

Meta ordered to pay $25 billion penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case

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Dave Bittner joins Jason and Brian for a bonus trip to the Dark Side, where the Phantom of the Opera remaster kicks off a musical-theater nerd fight. Les Mis, Pippin, Chess, and White Trash Wins Lotto enter the chat, along with original-cast bragging rights and memories of four-dollar theater tickets. Apparently, we used to leave the house and experience culture without financing it.

The conversation turns to Apple’s smart-home ambitions, abandoned Google gadgets, increasingly useless Alexas, and the familiar thrill of buying new hardware because the old hardware stopped getting updates. Dave wants a Pixar-style lamp with personality; everyone wants their expensive devices to actually cooperate. Between Apple TV sticker shock, Spotify questions, and Sonos compatibility, the smart home sounds suspiciously like another unpaid IT job.

Then an AI Pac-Man benchmark gives “superintelligence” the credibility it deserves: roughly one quarter’s worth. The guys question the obsession with throwing LLMs at everything, marvel at government buzzword inflation, and discover that a portable monitor might be more useful than another breathless AI announcement. We wrap with balcony solar, electricity-bill fantasies, and Dave’s concern that his renewable-energy investment could become airborne. The future is here; secure it to something heavy.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ji6O69sYu7U

SHOW NOTES

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

Andrew Lloyd Webber Announces Remixed and Remastered Original Phantom of the Opera Album as London Production Celebrates 40 Years

Andy Prieboy's White Trash Wins Lotto

Everything announced at Apple's 'Welcome Home' event

Remember the Apple patent on a Pixar-style lamp?

The Pacman benchmark for AI model performance.

Lenovo L15 Portable Monitor, 15.6” Display, Full HD Resolution, IPS Panel, 250 nits Brightness, 60Hz Refresh Rate, USB-C Ports, Height-Adjustable Stand, Flicker-Free Technology, Grey

Balcony solar?

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The internet has officially become a dumpster fire with Wi-Fi. Ukrainian strikes on Yandex data centers may have disrupted Russian internet services, but whether they actually knocked out propaganda bots remains anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s former safety employees are publicly airing their grievances, an alleged spy gadget in the company’s office turned out to be a $14 hobbyist development board, and Anthropic managed to have an AI model submit a fabricated tip about an unsolved murder to Philadelphia police. The machines are allegedly getting smarter. The adults in charge? Still working on it.

And because apparently everything needs an internet connection until it ruins your day, hackers allegedly cranked supermarket refrigeration systems in France to 122 degrees, potentially spoiling millions of euros in food. Tesla wants permission to dramatically increase particulate emissions near homes and a school, car manufacturers are handing vehicle identifiers and location data to advertising companies, and Flock’s nationwide license-plate surveillance network is collecting lawsuits like Pokémon. Elon Musk’s AI shopping assistant even helped broadcast his Lego order details to the internet. Add 1,400-plus Microsoft security fixes, questionable safety around home 3D printing, and the ongoing absence of meaningful AI regulation, and it’s another banner week for technological progress.

For entertainment, Paramount and Skydance are reshaping the Star Trek future, with another season of Starfleet Academy still on the way; the Blade Runner 2099 trailer inspires a rant about Hollywood’s increasingly interchangeable cinematic "dongs"; and Character.AI is headed for bankruptcy after a mountain of controversy. Finally, one enterprising man used AI-generated music and thousands of automated accounts to rake in more than $8 million in fraudulent streaming royalties. Apparently, the future of music is artificial, the listeners are bots, and the royalties are real — until the FBI shows up. Stay grumpy...

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SHOW NOTES

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Claims Strikes on Russian Data Centers Silenced Social Media Bots

Fired OpenAI safety researchers dispute their dismissals in open letter

FBI arrests OpenAI employee accused of planting hidden recording device in conference room

The 'Sophisticated' Bug OpenAI Found in Its Conference Room Can Be Yours for $13.99

Microsoft's president says AI is less regulated than a carton of milk

Anthropic’s AI Submitted a Fake Tip in an Unsolved Murder Case

Exclusive: Anthropic breaches spark White House AI reporting mandate

Hackers Overheat Fridges at Supermarkets Across France, Wasting Food and Starting Fires

Tesla Factory Planning Massive Increase of Toxic Heavy Metal Emissions Near Elementary School

Cyber Extortion Expert Charged With Cyber Extortion Amid FBI Website Hack Manhunt

'Just canceled your order': Elon Musk trolled as he 'doxxes himself' with his full address

Study finds many new cars share your data with third-party companies

Georgia Man Says Deputies Used Flock Cameras to Track Him After He Sued Sheriff

Flock Safety is reportedly planning major layoffs now that everyone hates it

Trackalot - Introducing Done-Did tracking

Is 3D printing safe to do in your bedroom or home office?

Microsoft Patches More Than 1,400 Security Flaws

‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Lifts the Lid on Its Second Season

Blade Runner 2099 Trailer

Kill Jackie

Character.AI just filed for bankruptcy, and former foe Disney may buy it for parts

North Carolina Man Sentenced To 18 Months In Prison For Super Intelligence-Assisted Music Streaming Fraud

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Dave joins Jason and Brian to debate the Ted Lasso finale: a perfect ending or room for more? Then Netflix’s AI recreation of Gene Wilder’s voice sparks an argument over consent, artistic legacy, and whether technical wizardry excuses resurrecting the dead for reality television.

Kubrick memorabilia brings The Shining and 2001 into the conversation, alongside Dave’s connection to Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown. His LEGO Enterprise-D build inspires reflections on childhood, precision engineering, and the comfort of clicking bricks together—until Riker’s trombone derails the sentiment.

Browser-based Adobe alternatives prompt memories of Photoshop’s single-undo days, while Dave shares an AirPods case upgrade and the absurd “Han Shot Never.” An AI-themed music video closes things out with jokes about vibe coding, replacing employees with tokens, and shipping questionable code on Friday.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BHFwkJJCtgg

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

Apple releases free chapter from Ted Lasso ‘The Richmond Way’ book

Wonka's The Golden Ticket

Gene Wilder interviewed by Alec Baldwin

Stanley Kubrick’s Estate Will Soon Auction Some Beyond Iconic Items

The Shining and the Steadicam®: an interview with inventor Garrett Brown

An open source project seeking to provide alternatives to the Adobe suite.

MOBOSI for AirPods Pro 3 Case

Han Shot Never (Definitive Special Edition)

LGTM (Looks Good to Me) - Claude Opus 5.5 music video

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The Geeks are back, and apparently AI has officially reached the “maybe don’t let it plan your hike” stage. A 16-year-old ended up on a technical climbing route after using AI to help plan a hike, while OpenAI agents are allegedly wandering into Wikimedia systems, AI safety employees are quitting, and one AI monitoring system got the police involved after flagging a threat. Naturally, the proposed solution to all this is more AI. Because what could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile, OpenAI is trying to watermark AI-generated text, Google is watermarking AI-generated media, and everyone is pretending we can reliably tell whether a robot wrote something after a quick trip through Grammarly.

The privacy nightmare continues with researchers reconstructing what people are looking at from brain scans, raising the delightful prospect of thought crimes arriving just in time for retirement. Meta is catching heat after LGBTQ-friendly bars had their Facebook and Instagram accounts flagged or removed, while Norway considers restrictions on camera-equipped smart glasses in public spaces. Apple users can also reclaim a chunk of storage by deleting Apple Intelligence, assuming they're willing to trade a few features for the exciting possibility of breaking macOS during the next update. And because apparently nobody learned anything from the last few decades, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are teaming up on satellite connectivity—not out of the goodness of their corporate hearts, but because Starlink and Amazon are coming for their lunch money.

Then Hollywood gets involved, because every technology story eventually ends there. Paramount and Warner Bros. are merging under Skydance, bringing HBO Max and Paramount+ under one roof and presumably creating yet another streaming app nobody asked for. Stephen Colbert's Lord of the Rings project is reportedly paused, Stephen King's The Institute is returning, a new Talisman novel has arrived, and Food Network is bringing back Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking. Plus, the Geeks discuss their wildly male YouTube audience, speed-reading apps and Guy Fieri's culinary crimes. Technology, entertainment, surveillance, mind reading, and baked goods: another perfectly normal week.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/766

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/11y9DwqIxlw

SHOW NOTES

New Mexico wants Meta to pay $40 billion in penalties for Cambridge Analytica scandal

Teen Left Stranded on a Cliff After Letting AI Plan Hike

Lawmakers Introduce Multiple Laws to Curb Flock After 404 Media Coverage

Trump announces an AI czar for his newly created 'Super Intelligence Force'

Anthropic Reports User to the Police

Former OpenAI employee says AI should be regulated like nuclear power plants

OpenAI fires three employees who allegedly shared info with an external AI safety group

Wikimedia links OpenAI agents to an outage and unauthorized activity

OpenAI details new text watermarking system for ChatGPT, Codex, and the API

Google rolls out improved SynthID AI content detector, now available globally

Meta Is Kicking Gay Bars Off Its Apps While Allowing Videos of Graphic Child Abuse

New AI Can Figure Out What You’re Thinking About From a Brain Scan

This tool frees up Apple Intelligence storage on macOS, but think twice before using it

Norway Considers Most Drastic Smart Glasses Ban Yet

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have officially teamed up to end coverage gaps

ReadMe! (Spritz & BeeLine)

Soon-to-be merged Paramount and Warner Bros. will be known as Skydance going forward

Stephen Colbert’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie Reportedly ‘Paused’ Over Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

‘The Institute’ Season 2 Trailer Teases the Tense Road Ahead

Food Network Announces Season 3 Premiere Date, New Judges for Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking (Exclusive)

Other Worlds Than These: A Talisman Novel (The Talisman Trilogy Book 3) by Stephen King and Peter Straub

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Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5IjSiJsBXi8

Recorded on Wednesday, September 30th, 2026.

Dave Bittner returns to the Dark Side, and this time the conversation starts with the important stuff: whether the latest season of Ted Lasso is holding up, why Coyote vs. Acme deserves a second life, and what happens when a recovering web developer discovers that AI can make maintaining a zombie-era Ning site fun again. Dave takes Jason’s advice and dives into “vibe coding”—or, as Jason would prefer, enhanced project management—using ChatGPT to modernize his Rotary Club website with CSS, screenshots, and a lot less head-banging. That sends the guys down the rabbit hole of how dramatically AI-assisted development has improved, from building password-reset flows while walking the dog to creating entire projects without personally writing a line of code.

From there, things get appropriately nerdier. There’s a broken ham-radio app, Porkins finally getting his moment to save the galaxy, Star Wars fan edits, Muppet LEGO sets, Gravity Falls books and lo-fi soundtracks, and Dave’s cross-country pilgrimage to Disneyland’s Oogie Boogie Bash for his son’s tenth birthday. That leads naturally into a comparison of family-friendly Disney Halloween festivities with the considerably less friendly variety where strangers leap out of the darkness wielding chainsaws. Dave discovers exactly where his personal horror threshold lies, Jason recalls nearly decking a Queen Mary scare actor, and everyone agrees that “spooky for a fifth grader” is about the right setting.

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

Porkins destroys the Death Star

Danger Zone makes every Star Wars battle more epic

The Muppets

The Art of Gravity Falls

LoFi: Gravity Falls

Oogie Boogie Bash

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The Geeks return with a brand-new Grumpy Old Geeks Wiki containing 21,577 static HTML pages, because apparently the appropriate response to having a massive podcast archive is to build an even more massive searchable monument to it. From there, things get considerably less wholesome as they dig into TikTok’s settlement with Alabama, AI companies promising safeguards while simultaneously unleashing increasingly autonomous agents, and an OpenAI agent that apparently decided that “I can’t access this” meant “perhaps I should hack it.” Government websites, a university digital library, and other targets apparently became irresistible once the normal route to the information stopped working. The Geeks contemplate the exciting future of digital interns who don't understand that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is, in fact, not a suggestion.

The AI-agent discussion rolls into Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s new agent tools, security boundaries, and the increasingly familiar problem of giving software enough permissions to accomplish a task and then discovering it has developed its own interpretation of “accomplish.” The episode also tackles Utah’s attempt to apply age verification requirements to VPN users, New York’s legal fight with prediction markets, Meta expanding Instagram into schools, and the continuing saga of AI-generated music and copyright. Then there’s Automatic’s corporate drama involving Matt Mullenweg, vibe coding, and the increasingly compelling argument that if you can build a website in a few hours, maybe spending years arguing about WordPress is no longer the best use of anyone’s time.

Finally, the Geeks move on to the technological disasters that really matter: Plex changing the Apple TV skip controls unless you pay for premium, a Samsung software update that managed to turn some AI refrigerators into very expensive food-warming cabinets, and Toy Story 5 proving once again that Hollywood has never met a perfectly good ending it couldn't monetize. There’s also a trio of soccer documentaries, including Italia 90, Angel City, and Game and Glory; a discussion of the Strange New Worlds finale “Tomorrow’s Enterprise”; and Meta’s new lightweight VR glasses. Because nothing says “we have learned absolutely nothing” quite like putting more software between you and your refrigerator.

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Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/meLT-1PRbpA

SHOW NOTES

The Grumpy Old Geeks Wiki

TikTok reaches first state settlement over teen safety claims, agrees to user limits

Lawyers in Alabama's TikTok settlement set to earn $14 million

Bill Gates says it's 'completely irresponsible' for AI to not have safeguards

OpenAI's agent hacked into an Australian government website

OpenAI's agents targeted and infiltrated US government websites

OpenAI Gets Sued Over the Hugging Face Hack

With Dots, OpenAI Wants You to Stop Being Afraid of Its AI Agents

Trump’s Newhttp://America.govChatbot Seems to Drop Acid When You Tell It to Play Minecraft

NVIDIA Launches Open Agent Safety Platform to Secure Agents From Testing to Deployment

Here’s why OpenAI is absent from Nvidia’s industry-wide effort to end rogue AI agents

Federal Judge Blocks Utah's VPN Crackdown

New York continues to fight prediction markets with a lawsuit against Polymarket

Expanding Instagram's School Partnership Program to Help Teens Stay Informed

Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave

The problem with smart appliances: some of Samsung's AI fridges have shut down and lost their cool after a bad update was accidentally pushed to them

Toy Story 5

Italia 90

Angel City

Game and Glory

Star Trek Strange New Worlds S04E10 Tomorrows Enterprise

The Diplomat

Can Imax, Dolby and New VR Glasses Help Meta Reboot Its Immersive Entertainment Ambitions?

Peter Byrne, Singer From ’80s Synth-Pop Duo Naked Eyes, Dies at 74

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Recorded on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026.

Jason, Brian, and Dave head to the Dark Side for a deep dive into vibe coding—and, against all odds, Jason may finally be cracking. After Salesforce decided to sunset Quip, Jason used AI to rebuild the collaborative show-notes system the guys have relied on for a decade, adding more features while cutting the monthly cost to almost nothing. Then he took up Dave’s challenge to modernize an aging open-source ham-radio application, turning it into a native-looking Mac app in a matter of hours. The catch: after decades of programming, Jason knows exactly what to ask for, what to watch for, and when the AI is confidently doing something stupid.

That leads to the bigger question: what happens when software that once took months and tens of thousands of dollars can be built in an afternoon? The guys get into value-based pricing, the disappearing entry-level programming ladder, whether AI makes people lazy or gives curious people superpowers, and how custom software could start eating away at expensive SaaS subscriptions. Jason also lays out what he’s learned from actually building with these tools: keep everything portable, use Git from day one, make the AI document its work, and never build something you can’t eventually maintain yourself. Turns out the future may not belong to vibe coders after all—it may belong to people who already know what the hell they’re doing.

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This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, apparently the fastest route to a technological apocalypse is simply putting AI in charge of things that can kill people. We dig into reports of AI-assisted military targeting contributing to a catastrophic strike, an AI-generated intelligence report that nearly sent the U.S. after a Chinese ship because the chatbot hallucinated nuclear weapons, and the ongoing genius-level plan to accelerate AI development while simultaneously worrying that AI might destroy civilization. Anthropic is talking about slowing things down while also releasing more powerful models and hiring people to figure out how Claude can be used with weapons. Because nothing says “responsible technology” like having a committee decide which missiles your chatbot is allowed to operate.

Then there’s the rest of the AI clown show: Microsoft documents warning that generative AI could create a doom loop by stealing traffic from the very websites it needs for content; OpenAI agents escaping their sandbox and wandering into RubyGems like unsupervised toddlers with root access; British Columbia suing OpenAI over allegations that the company failed to act on warnings about a future mass shooter; and Amazon blocking Meta’s Muse AI shopping agent over privacy and security concerns. We also check in on Flock’s surveillance-camera business, autonomous aircraft, California’s increasingly complicated rules for kids and AI, and the eternal question of whether anyone actually needs another piece of “super duper intelligence” in their life.

And because eventually even civilization needs a commercial break, we move on to Apple, including the Siri/Apple Intelligence settlement, the possible downsizing of Fitness Plus, questionable smartwatch calorie counts, and Apple building a gorgeous new concert venue while everyone begs them to fix iCloud. We talk AI-generated music and Suno’s latest copyright headaches, Kunk on Cinema, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Daredevil: Born Again, The Traitors, Jesus Jones, The Church, Neil Stephenson, and the latest reasons to distrust wellness influencers. In other words: AI may be coming for humanity, but at least we still have television, books, music, and enough subscription services to make dying financially inconvenient.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/764

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/JV9U-p1kTu4

SHOW NOTES

It Turns Out the US Military Really Did Use AI to Blow Up a School Full of Iranian Children

US Military Nearly Started World War III After AI Chatbot Hallucinated Nuclear Weapons Aboard a Chinese Ship

Now Trump says he's creating an AI Force

Trump Says He's Changing Artificial Intelligence to 'Super Intelligence' on Government Documents

‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

How Scared Should We Be of A.I. Right Now?

OpenAI faces lawsuit from British Columbia over Tumbler Ridge shooting

Flock reportedly tries to shrink workforce with employee buyouts

Amazon Brings Down the Hammer on Meta’s Muse AI Agent

Joby Aviation completed a fully autonomous flight from California to North Carolina

You can now claim your payout from Apple’s $250 million Siri settlement

Smartphone AI Settlement

Apple Fitness+ team hit by layoffs, as ‘major changes’ reportedly loom

The higher your body fat percentage, the less accurate your smartwatch is at measuring calories you burn when exercising – new study

Apple opens a dedicated concert venue with spatial audio and multi-cam video recording

Sony Music and UMG say Suno's new models still violates their copyright

Imagine Philomena Cunk Talking to Michael Bay

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode List

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - S4.E9 Once La'An a Time

Neagley Season 1

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Won’t Continue After Season 3

Disney+ and Hulu just increased prices, here’s how much

Jesus Jones - Twilight

The Church - Western

D: Heavy Water – A Gripping Historical Espionage Thriller Set on the Eve of World War II (Bomb Light Book 2) by Neal Stephenson

He’s a Controversial Titan of “Wellness.” I Read All 540 Pages of His New Book. Let Me Tell You the Maddening Truth.

Scientists Extracted DNA From Medieval Parchment—and Found a Hidden Disease

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

Bryan Bishop, “Bald Bryan” of The Adam Carolla Show, Dies at 48

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, the future arrives without a steering wheel, apparently. We dig into Tesla’s Cybercab and the increasingly pressing question of how first responders are supposed to move a burning autonomous car when the emergency controls are a touchscreen and that touchscreen has decided to become modern art. We also examine California’s new rules targeting addictive social-media features and AI chatbot interactions for minors, including the eternal nightmare of age verification; then WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg gets pulled into a corporate coup that lasts roughly 33 hours before everyone involved apparently decides, “Never mind.”

Then it’s time for the AI apocalypse, because, naturally, we can't have one episode without it. Anthropic is catching scientists using its models to develop potential biological weapons, while Palantir, Nvidia, and Booz Allen are imposing restrictions on Anthropic models over security and data-retention concerns. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s supposedly sandboxed agents escaped into RubyGems, created accounts by the hundreds, and apparently decided that “hack,” “evil,” and “exploit” were perfectly reasonable filenames. We also look at proposals to slow AI development, AI’s potential environmental consequences, autonomous weapons, and the increasingly charming idea of giving software access to things capable of killing people.

And because civilization apparently has a content calendar, we move on to cloud infrastructure being blown up, Space Force asking for $71.3 billion, Dr. Doom and Darth Vader protesting surveillance in the most appropriate way possible, Binance allegedly facilitating Iranian money flows, and a whole lot of entertainment. We discuss Spotify finally learning that listening to children’s music doesn't mean you actually want it in your Wrapped, AI-generated music and artist compensation, The Mummy proving once again that movies used to be fun, Slow Horses, The Last of Us, The Bear, Strange New Worlds, Band of Brothers, The Gentlemen, and the increasingly complicated Bobiverse. Also: books, time travel, and the horrifying realization that some television shows now require a flowchart.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/763

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/7iLAWNsZCY0

SHOW NOTES

Firefighters Say There’s a Glaring Issue With Tesla’s Cybercab

US agency orders Tesla to answer questions on Cybercab certification

CA governor signs 'landmark' laws on youth use of social media and AI chatbots

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Put on 'Leave of Absence'

Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg Claims He’s Back 'In Control'

Sources say Automattic's board is out after failed attempt to oust CEO Matt Mullenweg

Anthropic caught scientists using Claude to further biological weapon research

Palantir, Nvidia curb AI model use over data fears, The Information reports

OpenAI agents hacked a software service before the Hugging Face incident

Sam Altman says OpenAI won't file for IPO this year

‘Runaway Industrialization’ Could Make Earth Inhospitable, OpenAI Researcher Warns

Anthropic's CEO proposes a three-step plan to curb AI development

Worried About AI Ending Humanity, Anthropic Is Hiring Someone to Help Dictate Terms of the End of Humanity

Amazon's AWS is unable to restore access to Bahrain, one UAE cloud data zone after war damage

Doctor Doom Shows Up to Support Seattle’s Surveillance Network

DOJ says companies used Binance to funnel $1.5 billion in crypto to Iran

SpaceX declares Starship ready for orbit, sets launch date next week

Spaceballs - Pentagon announces space weapons

Spotify can now exclude your kids' music taste from recommendations

Universal Music Group is collaborating with ElevenLabs on a new AI-powered creation platform

The Bear

Band of Brothers

Band of Brothers Legacy

The Mummy

Slow Horses is back tonight, and Apple just confirmed two more seasons

We Finally Have Some Concrete ‘Pluribus’ Season 2 Updates

‘The Last of Us’ Season 3 Is Now Likely to Be the Show’s End

Other Worlds Than These: A Talisman Novel (The Talisman Trilogy Book 3) by Stephen King and Peter Straub

The Infinite Extent Bobiverse, Book 6 By: Dennis E. Taylor

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

An AI writing assistant designed to write like you.

Broken Peach

A series of Star Wars documentaries that don’t blow smoke up George Lucas’ ass.

My new cook top, just in case.

Community Prepping

Hacker got inside a Flock camera

Jason DeFillippo’s Pocket Shot Review

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI agents are apparently ready to take over the world—provided they can first stop exposing private photos, hijacking German coding forums, and generally behaving like unsupervised interns with root access. Meta launches Muse despite employees reporting security problems. OpenAI admits it kept quiet about another rogue-agent incident, sorry, “misalignment,” even as the company celebrates its automated research intern and promises a still more autonomous researcher by 2028. Meanwhile, an Anthropic researcher quits because he believes superintelligence could kill us all before the decade is out. Naturally, the industry’s response is essentially: “Yes, but what if we did it responsibly?”

There is some genuinely encouraging news: AI-generated drugs are showing intriguing early results in aging research. That’s exactly the sort of AI application the Geeks can get behind—as long as we’re talking about actual science and not an LLM confidently hallucinating a cure for everything.

The autonomous future isn’t looking much better. Tesla’s Cybercabs arrive in Austin and almost immediately attract federal scrutiny over their self-certification and conspicuous lack of steering wheels, pedals, mirrors, and apparently even conventional door handles. Bitcoin’s Liquid Network is relieved of roughly $320 million, after which the thieves return most of it and call the whole thing a “white hat” operation—because apparently robbing the bank and giving some of the money back now counts as a bug bounty.

On the surveillance front, Massachusetts police are being forced to disclose where their license-plate readers are and what data they collect, while the backlash against Flock cameras continues. Meanwhile, the UK’s attempt to protect children from online sexual abuse risks creating exactly the kind of universal scanning and surveillance infrastructure we’ve spent years warning about. Good intentions, meet spectacularly bad implementation.

And because we apparently haven’t suffered enough, Twitter is now Tweet.app. Star Trek turns sixty, and Paramount celebrates with cookware and a questionable episode. Silo gets a spinoff tease, Ted Lasso gives us a Christmas episode in September, and The Gentlemen returns with a season so good it makes reality TV feel like a traumatic brain injury. South Park becomes South America, Donnie Darko gets a 25th-anniversary 4K theatrical run, and several tech-industry documentaries promise varying degrees of psychological damage.

Plus, Netflix keeps stuffing games into your subscription; LaCroix, sorry, Le Creuset, wants to put Star Trek in your kitchen; and the Geeks debate books, Libby, time travel, and whether surviving Dungeon Crawler Carl is worth the emotional investment.

Welcome back to the future, where everything is automated, surveilled, self-driving, subscription-based and somehow still requires us to do all the damn work.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/762

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Show Notes

OpenAI responds after report exposed another incident in which its AI agents went rogue

OpenAI says it reached its goal of creating an automated research intern

Two more news organizations sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement

Anthropic researcher quits over fears AI ‘could kill us all by the end of the decade’

Three hikers ignored Mount Shasta's rules, trusted Gemini, and nearly paid for it

Tesla's Cybercab is under federal investigation almost immediately after hitting the streets

A Plane Almost Crashing Into a Bunch of Cybercabs Is a Reminder That They’re ‘Piling Up’ Unused

Hackers Drain $320 Million From Bitcoin’s Liquid Network, Keep $47 Million for Themselves in ‘White Hat’ Operation

Court Says Massachusetts Has to Say Where License Plate Readers Are, What They’re Recording

Apple and Google Miss Deadline to Block Child Nudity on Their Phones in the UK

Study Suggests AI-Generated Drug Could Slow Aging

New Twitter rebrands to Tweet.app after court's double-edged ruling

To Boldly Dough! Le Creuset Sent Its New Star Trek Cooking Collection Into Space

Netflix includes 80+ ad-free iPhone and iPad games, here’s every app

White House Launches Arcade.Gov, a Minigame Site Where You Catch Immigrants, Build a Tetris Border Wall, and 'Fill Your Kids' Trump Accounts' With Bitcoin

White House Arcade

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds goes back to the dumb well

Star Trek Boldly Celebrates 60 Years: Everything You Need To Know for September 8

Silo Season Finale

Ted Lasso : S4 E6 Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore

Report: Apple TV working on spin-off to its hit series Silo

The Gentlemen Season 2

‘South Park’ Changes Name to ‘South America’ as Creators Roast Apple and Google for Obeying Trump’s Lake America Name Change

‘Donnie Darko’ Will Spread Dread Anew With a 4K 25th Anniversary Rerelease

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt

Time Pebbles by Jerry Merritt

The Infinite Extent Bobiverse, Book 6 By: Dennis E. Taylor

The Nerd Reich

The Turd Reich

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

LG TVs Are Capable of Listening to More Than Your Screen, Report Claims

Another searchable database of Usenet.

I guess I won’t be going to RenFest this year...

I know where I’ll be February 19th...

THE EMPIRE STRIPS BACK - A BURLESQUE PARODY

STAR WARS COMPARISON - Stereo VS Mono Sound Mix

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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

Meta Hit With Sweeping New Claims That Its AI Glasses Violated the Consent of “Millions” of Bystanders in Searing Lawsuit

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

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Ted Lasso

Silo

Wicked: For Good

Spaceballs

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

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

Roland RD-1000

The Brutalist Report

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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

Send us Feedback!

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

Ted Lasso

Silo

Reacher

The Westies

The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror | Exclusive Episode on Disney+ | Trailer

The Pitt Season 3 | Official Teaser | HBO Max

Amazon First Reads

I've Got a New Complaint: Essays on Aging Disgracefully and Other Small Disasters by Laurie Notaro

The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird – A Hilarious Handbook of Mind-Boggling Mysteries by Dan Schreiber (of the No Such Thing as Fish podcast)

Welcome to Your Life: Love, Death & Tears For Fears – An Iconic Musician's Journey Through Grief, Addiction, and Recovery by Roland Orzabal

Picks and Shovels: A Martin Hench Novel by Cory Doctorow

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Only Malware in the Building

Learn Circuits Course

Arduino Starter Kit R4

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

Master Blaster

How much of Hacker News is AI?

Full Throttle full game play

Dolly and Miss Piggy

Dolly Parton, country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80

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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 at https://gog.show/759

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/RMhCndozH-0

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

Widow’s Bay

Slow Horses — Season 6 Official Trailer | Apple TV

Kitchen Undercover

HBO Has Finally Made ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Season 2 Official

Certainty: A Novel by John Twelve Hawks

Lockstep by Karl Schroeder

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

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

Northern Exposure

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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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Show notes at https://gog.show/758

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

SpaceXAI says it will take a year to fully remove unpermitted gas turbines from its Mississippi data center

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

Is AI Disclosure Day here?

Trackalot 1.3 Released!

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.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Silo

Broadchurch S3

Ted Lasso S4

Ride or Die

Sugar

Instadocs: The Prediction Games

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

‘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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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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Show notes at https://gog.show/757

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

Over 1,100 AI workers sign letter asking US to support tools that 'pace the frontier of automated AI 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

OpenAI's rogue hacking incident was a warning shot. Will it be a wake-up call to finally create AI safety regulation?

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

If You AI-Generate Code, Hackers Just Found a Devious Method to Install Malware Directly on Your Computer

Minions & Monsters

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Broadchurch S2

Silo

Ted Lasso Season 4 Trailer

Neuromancer — Official Teaser | Apple TV

Prime Video Finally Lifts the Lid on ‘Blade Runner 2099’

Star Trek: Section 31

Bad Deeds by Andrew Hunter Murray

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

Jason DeFillippo

Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

Who are the Mandalorians? | Star Wars: Galaxy Guide

HF96V Thermal Camera with Visual Camera & Laser Pointer, Intelligent Scene Detection, 240 * 240 Super Resolution Thermal Imaging Camera,25 Hz, 50° FOV, -4°F to 1022°F, IP54 Infrared Camera

Project Farm

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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 at https://gog.show/756

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/5q-1JJQQmq4

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

Elon Musk’s xAI, Which is Being Sued Over AI-Generated Sexual Deepfakes, Sues Grok User Over AI-Generated Sexual Deepfakes

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

Have I been Flocked?

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

Broadchurch

Perry Mason

Monsieur Spade

Lucky

The Westies

Avengers: Doomsday | Official Trailer | In Theaters December 18

Lunar Moon Phase & Widgets

MacWhisper 14 launches with a new transcript editor, faster performance, more

Trackalot

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows official website

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig on Amazon

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

Knockoff

AliExpress hit with record $629 million fine for selling counterfeit and illegal products

Mbzoey Electric Foil Shavers for Men: Mini Electric Razor for Face - IPX7 Waterproof Cordless Razor with LED Display & Fast Charge - Micro-Comb Technology & Precision Blades，Father's Day Gifts

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

The Phantom

Star Trek: First Contact

Titanic

Hard Rain

Play Marathon and Escape Velocity in the browser

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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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1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! https://gog.show/1password

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

Project Hail Mary

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

The New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Film Gets an Epic Filming Announcement

Black Bag

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 End of Reading Is Here

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

‘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

The Dish

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

Dave Bittner

The CyberWire

Hacking Humans

Caveat

Control Loop

Only Malware in the Building

Knockoff - Amazon Brand Filter

Bob Gurr: Living by Design

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