Grumpy Old Geeks – Episode 733: “Predator Friendly Hunting Ground”

Hosts: Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister, with Dave Bittner
Air Date: February 13, 2026

Episode Overview

This week’s episode delivers another no-holds-barred teardown of the tech world’s latest messes and misfires. The main theme is the unfiltered calling out of tech industry train wrecks—from Elon Musk’s cosmic pivots to AI’s negative effects on human work, rampant surveillance, and the never-ending digital walk of shame for big tech. The Grumpy Old Geeks take on lawsuits, AI overload, social media dangers, and new forms of digital exploitation, all with their trademark wit, skepticism, and generational grumpiness.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. WordPress Lawsuits and Tech Power Plays

• WP Engine v. Matt Mullenweg & Automattic:
  WP Engine amends its lawsuit, accusing Mullenweg of seeking 8% royalties from hosting companies using the WordPress trademark, and allegedly leaning on Stripe to interfere with competitor contracts.
  • “You take somebody’s ability to take money, you’ve ruined their business.” —Jason (02:08)
  • “That’s not very nice at all.” —Jason

2. AI: More Work, Not Less

• Compressed Work & Cognitive Debt:
  New research shows that AI tools have increased workloads instead of reducing them, echoing earlier negative shifts caused by email and Slack.
  • “AI doesn't reduce your work, it just compresses it until your lunch break disappears and you're drowning in cognitive debt.” —Jason (00:37)
  • “It’s supposed to let us write poetry and create art. Well, there's poetry later in the show.” —Jason (04:09)
• Quote:
  “Everything is just taking longer, and that’s before you even factor in the fact that people are getting fired and not replaced.” —Brian (03:34)

3. Betting on Clout: PolyMarket and Its Pitfalls

• Attention Markets:
  PolyMarket partners with Kaito AI to let people bet on real-time popularity (or unpopularity) of brands and even individuals like Elon Musk using scraped social data.
  • “Prediction markets for clout… this is abhorrent.” —Brian (05:42)
• Insider Trading:
  Israeli military personnel arrested for placing bets on PolyMarket using insider information about military strikes.
  • “Logical progression… the crack pipe for Gamblers Anonymous is now on your phone, 24/7.” —Jason (08:20)

4. Elon Musk’s Mars-to-Moon Pivot and All-Hands Mayhem

• Mars is Over, Hello Moon City:
  Musk shifts focus from Mars colonization to building a lunar city, citing the feasibility “within a decade.”
  • “Gizmoda: Unable to reach Mars, Musk does the most Musk thing possible.” —Brian (09:19)
• Deranged XAI All-Hands:
  Musk’s recent speech: sci-fi catapults, ancient aliens, and merger fever between SpaceX and XAI.
  • “He's basically claiming this venture will involve building a sci-fi catapult on the moon, discovering ancient aliens, and consuming an ever greater percentage of the sun's energy.” —Brian (11:18)
  • “What the fuck is this guy talking about?” —Brian (12:31)

5. Meta’s Legal Troubles & Social Harm

• Predator Friendly Hunting Grounds:
  Meta faces lawsuits for allegedly allowing Instagram to become a platform for child predation and for concealing platform harms.
  • “Internal research allegedly shows sexual exploitation nearly hitting half a million kids a day in English-speaking markets alone.” —Jason (15:12)
• Section 230 Under Fire:
  Ongoing trials could jeopardize longstanding protections for tech companies regarding user content.

6. State Surveillance & Platform Censorship

• Russia Bans WhatsApp and Telegram:
  Massive app bans push users to state-run (and likely surveilled) alternatives.
  • “They’re trying to get rid of private communications in Russia and give them an alternative that they can surveil.” —Brian (16:46)
• U.S. App Store Removals:
  U.S. DOJ scrutinized for influencing removal of apps tracking ICE agents (18:00–18:55).

7. Discord’s Flawed Teen Safety Rollouts

• Teen Default Settings and Breaches:
  Discord introduces worldwide teen safety settings—only for a data breach of 70,000+ IDs to undermine the whole initiative almost instantly.
  • “They said privacy forward… and we have handed it to hackers.” —Brian (21:37)
• Easily Bypassed Age Checks:
  Circumventing AI-based verification is trivial for kids using “deepfake” avatars.

8. OpenAI Dives Into Ad-Funded Models

• ChatGPT Ads Debut:
  Ads are now in ChatGPT for free accounts, allegedly context-based without sharing user data with advertisers, but skepticism reigns.
  • “How do they let the advertisers know what ads to serve from the chats without sharing the chats with advertisers?” —Jason (25:31); Brian’s sarcastic scenario about chlamydia ads (25:43).
• AI’s “Archive of Human Candor”:
  Former OpenAI researcher Zoe Hitzig warns of the vast, dangerously intimate chatbot data and how ads could weaponize it.
  • “There's no regulation—nothing to protect you.” —Brian (27:18)
  • “It’s Cambridge Analytica 4.0.” —Jason (29:47)

9. AI Safety Execs Exiting Left and Right

• OpenAI’s Firing of Safety VP:
  Allegations of retaliation after opposing adult content in ChatGPT.
  • “She is us, Jason. She's what we used to be in the back of meetings, saying, 'We shouldn't fucking do that.'” —Brian (34:14)
• Anthropic Safety Lead Quits:
  Cites “the world is in peril” and evidence that AI is distorting users’ realities, leaves tech to study poetry.

10. Crypto-Fueled Human Trafficking

• Surge in Illicit Transactions:
  Crypto payments are fueling human trafficking operations globally, with stablecoins streamlining payments to criminal networks.
  • “Telegram and Tether both say they prohibit this activity and cooperate with law enforcement. But critics argue the abuse continues openly and at scale.” —Jason (43:28)
  • “The grim irony is that crypto’s traceability may be exposing crimes that once stayed hidden, but nobody’s stopping them.” —Jason (43:47)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's a race to the bottom and everyone’s wearing lead shoes.” —Jason (01:03)
• On AI & Work: “AI made people work faster, take on more tasks and stretch work into nights and lunch breaks, often without being asked.” —Jason citing HBR (02:45)
• On Musk: “We've pivoted to the moon, Alice, to the moon.” —Brian (09:19)
• On AI Ads: “You can bet your life savings…and gambling is, I would wager, for many, more addictive than cotton candy vapes.” —Brian (07:18)
• On Discord’s Privacy Failure: “The price of using the Internet is increasingly your ID, and every new database is just the next breach waiting to happen.” —Jason (21:37)
• On Tech Regulation: “You can’t get a cotton candy flavored vape, but you can fucking bet your life savings.” —Brian (07:18)
• On Surveillance Tech:
  • “Welcome to the Panopticon and the surveillance state of America… but it’ll help you find puppies.” —Brian (54:14)
  • Tips on disabling Ring’s “Search Party” neighbor surveillance mode.

Secondary Segments & Pop Culture

Media Candy (from 43:53)

• Shrinking (TV show) episode 2 is better, “back to character-driven stuff.” —Brian (43:56)
• Babylon 5 reruns going live on YouTube—watch before they pull the plug.
• Severance bought out by Apple for $70 million—4 seasons planned, but hosts skeptical about story depth.
• Super Bowl Review:
  • Dull game and AI-laden ads.
  • “Anthropic ads win the day… because they were not wrong.” —Brian (46:44)

Tech Tips & Lifehacks

• Consumer Reports TV Picture Optimization tool recommended (51:44–52:28).
• Meta’s aggressive birthday data-gathering emails to users.

Weird/Fun Tech News

• Waymo paying DoorDashers $10 to shut car doors that their robotaxis can’t close themselves (55:00).
• Rent-a-Human gig economy site: AI agents hiring humans… but really just startup spam. Pay via crypto only.
• Novelty audio gear: Old phone receiver reimagined as a microphone—a “kitsch item” but questionable use case.

“Dark Side with Dave” Segment (57:27+)

Dave Bittner joins for lighthearted and geeky reviews of:

• Disney/Star Wars content: New “Imagineering” docuseries (“always more footage to be found”); Star Wars toys reveal movie spoilers.
• Gen X Collectibles: Rare first-edition books, nostalgia, and surprising valuations.
• GeoSpy Dystopia: Website that geolocates photos just from background clues, embraced by law enforcement.
• Marcia Lucas’s Star Wars editing: “She’s been given credit for saving the movie in the edit.” —Dave (71:27)

On nostalgia as therapy:

• “I put on an episode of the original Muppet Show… it made me so happy, just what I needed.” —Dave (78:31)

Key Timestamps

• WordPress lawsuit: 01:03 – 02:15
• AI’s work impact: 02:15 – 04:26
• PolyMarket/Bets: 04:58 – 08:20
• Elon Musk lunar pivot: 08:30 – 12:40
• Meta “Predator Ground”: 14:26 – 15:58
• Discord teen safety debacle: 18:55 – 23:10
• AI ads/candor archive: 25:27 – 29:56
• Crypto-trafficking: 41:34 – 43:47
• Ring surveillance backlash: 54:14
• Waymo Door Dash: 55:00

Tone & Style Notes

The episode is relentless in its sarcasm, candid frustration, and gallows humor about the state of technology, privacy, and regulation. The hosts swap wry asides, lewd metaphors, and shared war stories about tech’s failures and broken promises. Listeners get both detailed reporting and a strong point of view: skeptical, world-weary, and determined to call out bullshit wherever it surfaces.

Conclusion

This episode tears into tech hype, regulatory failures, unaccountable corporate players, and the always-moving target of digital safety and privacy. Whether it’s AI, crypto, or social platforms, the grumpy old geeks are having none of it, and neither should you.

Stay grumpy.