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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy Old geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo.
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And I'm Brian Schulmeister.
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Welcome to episode 750, Brian. Where the bullshit never sleeps.
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750. I need a nap.
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I need a nap. Well, that's just because we're fucking old now.
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That's true. That's true. We were. I thought we were old when we started. Now we're really old.
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Yeah. Yeah, that was. Everybody said that. Nah, you're not old. You're not old. And I. Now I tend to agree. We were definitely not old when we started.
B
No, we were not. I just wanted to start the show since it's episode 750 with a. With a GSA. A grumpy service announcement.
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Okay.
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A couple episodes back, I talked about the knife sharpener.
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Yes.
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And how it had. It was amazing. My knives were so incredibly sharp. I love to cook. This is fantastic. Be careful.
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Did you cut your thumb off?
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Because.
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Oh, Brian.
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My wonderfully sharp knife that I had just finished basically quartering a chicken with. I went to go wash it. I was a little distracted. A little too much soap. A little too much soap involved. Knife slid right into my hand. I swear to God, I thought I saw a bone. It was not bone.
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Oh, thank God.
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I've never seen as much blood in my life. I didn't, of course, have any band aids. Downstairs, I'm run upstairs. Blood drips everywhere. Even though I've wrapped my hand in a towel and. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's fine. It's. The only reason that it's wrapped like this anymore is because it's in such an awkward spot that the band aid won't stay on. I just want to leave it on until it heals so I don't catch it on anything. But be careful. If you get that knife sharpener, I have.
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I have the super duper knife sharpener and I was actually sharpening mine today. The thing about it is, and I don't know if this happened to you is when you Cut yourself with a super sharp knife. You can't feel it for like a minute or two and then you really feel it. Oh, you did. Okay, that's because you got that. You got the bargain basement knife sharpener. I got the super. Yeah, exactly.
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And which one of us is going through bankruptcy?
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Mine was a gift. Mine was a gift for. For my birthday for last year. Somebody gave me a gift certificate and they said, well, you're not going to go take the cooking lessons we bought for you, so why don't you go buy a knife sharpener? Because our knives are dull as shit. And I'm like, okay, that's a good idea because you cut yourself more often with a dull knife than a sharp knife.
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You absolutely do.
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Yes. Well, thank you for the gsa, Brian.
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Anytime. That's what we're here for. Also, don't buy SpaceX stock. There you go.
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Yeah. Let's get started with the game of douchebag ping pong that we're going to have this week. SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic have a lot on the table this week, and I can't wait to talk about all these idiots. Come on, Brian, bring us in.
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All right, well, exactly a week after Anthropic announced its plan to go public, OpenAI said we're holding open our money bag.
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What's up, men?
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Yeah. No data offer prices have been set by OpenAI yet for their IPO. We recently submitted a confidential S1. We expected it to leak, so we're just announcing it. Okay, okay, fine. They haven't decided on timing yet. It may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. Find profit and keep your company private if that's what you want to do. So, yeah, when this comes around, we'll be given a chance to actually look at their books and see how much money they're actually using. Following its most losing, not using. Following its most recent fundraising round, which saw companies like Nvidia and Amazon pour an additional $122 billion into the company, OpenAI valuation ballooned $852 billion. Recent reporting from the Information suggests the company recorded 25 billion in annualized revenue as of the end of February. However, they are projected to burn as much as 115 billion through 2029 on compute costs and other expenses, raising the question that we have on this show every single week about whether the company has a route towards profitability.
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It does. Ipo. That's how they get more money.
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Basically. It.
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Yeah, yeah, I Can't wait to see the books. But that right there. Anthropic having their S1N. And then we've got OpenAI putting their S1 in Grok.
B
Technically Grok, since it's rolled into the whole SpaceX.
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No, it's not Grok anymore, Brian. It's SpaceX. AI. They've changed the name Space. Twitter call it that too. But no. So now that you know all of these things and all of these S1s are in, take every story that you read after this with a grain of salt, because they're all designed for one thing only. Continue, Brian.
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And here's the first story to prove that rule. Anthropic says AI is developing so fast, the trend points towards systems becoming capable of developing their own successor. Oh God.
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Oh, no.
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It's alive.
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It's alive.
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In a blog post, Anthropic explains that AI can build itself. AI that can build itself could bring enormous good for this world in the fields of science and healthcare, among others. However, it might also kill us all. Fucking hell. Okay, that's not quite how they said it. So they are proposing a global slowdown or the temporary pause of AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology. That'll never happen. Nobody's ever going to agree to that. This is a PR move. But I would recommend a temporary pause of AI development to enable societal structures to like, not fire people left, right and center and maybe slow down the crazy collapsing of the middle class, squeezing out of the poor and disgusting transfer of wealth to the billionaires. How about we do it for that?
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Yeah, we could try that. But you're wrong, Brian. You're wrong. You're saying it's never going to happen. Well, OpenAI has also jumped on the bandwagon saying we do need to slow down and we need an international watchdog to take stock of everything that we're doing. So that's Anthropic and OpenAI have jumped on the bandwagon.
B
Okay, where are the binding proposals?
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There are none. There are none. But this goes okay.
B
Where are the actual plans to do so? Particularly right before doing an IPO in which you're investors will want a return on investment? There are none, Brian, because I will not invest in a company that told me, Hang on a second. Our cars are driving way too fast. We need to slow them down.
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Yeah. No. What? This is. This is there. They. When you need to change the narrative, Cry wolf. They've done this before. They've. They've absolutely Done it before. There was a petition before, Brian. Oh, we've had multiple petitions exactly from the same. They all sign them and they. And they also come back and say, oh, well, we're not that close to AGI now, but now it's going to build itself. No, what they're trying to do is they're trying to change the narrative because now everybody sees that AI is not giving the ROI that they said it was going to do. All the corporations have come out this past week and a half, two weeks after the token prices have gone up and they started getting charged per token. The companies are saying, oh, wait, this really might not be the be all end all. So what do they do? They come up with press releases that say, you know what? We need to slow down because this is getting so good that it might just. It might just destroy us all again.
B
Okay, I got it.
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So.
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So the reason why their models now suck and aren't really useful for anything is because they've intentionally slowed it down for our good.
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No. Well, some people might say that. Some people might say that they finally bumped up to the edge of what they can possibly do, and they're stalling for time.
B
So you're telling me they're all edgelords?
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Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. So before the. You know, before it was to get the competition to slow down. So it's like, okay, we got to slow down so we don't need all this competition moving into. Into our area. Like, you know, the deep seeks were coming in and Grok was coming online. Now they're saying, well, wait a minute, guys, we need to slow this down because the emperor is walking out of the building and he forgot his trousers. Oh, shit. What are we going to do?
B
So, yes, that's in the tech world. In the real world, the emperor is shitting his trousers.
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That's true.
B
That's true on tape multiple times. And nobody will actually come out and say it.
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Nobody will say it. Nobody will say it. Well, something here that's also interesting, so throw your mind back a week and a half ago, Brian, when Mythos came out and they were like, oh, my God, this is so dangerous. We can't give it to anybody. Well, today Anthropic has released Claude Fable 5, the first public version of its powerful Mythos Class AI model. And just days after warning that advanced AI systems may soon become capable of recursively improving themselves.
B
Wait, I thought we were slowing down.
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Guys, here's the new one. It's better than the old one. Come on, can you, can you not see the bullshit? Can you not see the bullshit? Yes.
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All right, well, Speaking of bullshit, OpenAI has pivoted back to an old idea that we still never got from. This was Elon's big brainchild because he wanted to copy a lot of the apps in China. The Super App. OpenAI is apparently pivoting to a super app, as first reported by the Financial Times. According to the report, a redesigned ChatGPT would encourage users beyond just chatting and ruining their lives that way, towards using coding tools, image generation, and applications built by partners such as canva and booking.com.
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right.
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Yes. So in the new Chat GPT app, you'll be able to do everything. Because it's a super app.
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It's kind of a super app right now. There's all sorts of shit in it that I don't use, but.
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Yeah. And that you probably shouldn't use. And. Yeah, another gsa. Don't give it your credit card.
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No, don't do that.
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Don't tell it to book your travel on booking.com.
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no, no, because you'll get dot com for sure. So, yeah, that's, so now they're moving. That's more, More press releases. More press releases. Now, now, Brian, let's take a brief detour down scumbag lane. Okay. Sam Altman's eyeball scanning startup tools for humanity is laying off workers as it struggles to scale its world ID system. You know, the little orb that scans your eyeballs and gives you tokens because they're. They're having some problems. They're having some problems.
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But they're valued at $2.5 billion, Jason. Could they be having problems?
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Well, and they've got partnerships with Tinder, Zoom, Docusign. Tinder, Tinder. Okay.
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They don't just scan your eyeballs, Jason.
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That's not. Those aren't the only balls we're scanning, baby man. So the company has faced bans and investigations in multiple countries over its collection of biometric data. So it also has admitted. Here's the funny part. It doesn't have enough orbs to meet demand. I'm asking myself, so you, you have, you, you have no orbs? Because I don't think there's any demand. I think one orb will get the job done. That's all you need is one.
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I definitely know Saruman got one in his tower.
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Oh, there we go.
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Has to borrow that one.
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Perfect. Ping ponging back. Now let's go to Elon Musk in the douchebag game. I, I, we need a three Person ping pong table to, to bounce around. I think you can. I think you should put that in the new super app from.
B
It's just like Elon. He doesn't just, he doesn't just play chess. He plays 3D chess.
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There we go, 3D ping pong. Yeah. Well, no, no, no. He's. Well no. Trump plays 4D chess. Trump's playing 4D chess. 3D chess is just kind of regular chess, I guess.
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I guess, I suppose it is.
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Okay, here's a headline for you. Elon Musk's first gen orbital Data center craft spans wider than a Boeing 747 and runs an interchangeable chip payload. A1 or AI1 satellite compute payload is 120 kilowatt. Peaks at 150 kilowatts. This comes from Tom's hardware. Let's have a chat, Tom, about your headlines. Your headlines suck. But balls. But first, your headline also says is, as in it exists. It does not exist. SpaceX has unveiled the first detailed design for AI1, an orbital data center satellite intended to run AI workloads in space rather than on Earth's power grid. Elon Musk says the spacecraft is the first generation of a platform SpaceX ultimately hopes to build by the millions.
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Elon, you can't even build enough cars.
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How many robo taxis have you have so far? Two that work. There's supposed to be tens of thousands of them on the road right now.
B
You haven't built any of those little mini service centers for all the people that you told would have full self driving Teslas but don't because they need complete upgrades in their system. So you're going to build all those little mini factories. You haven't built any of those either?
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Nope. You know what he has built a lot of, Brian? Cybertrucks. Got a lot of those laying around.
B
I wonder if they can convert them
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to fly to satellites. Yeah, can you put some wings on that shit and throw it up into space? So again, announcement comes right before the IPO on Friday. Yeah, fuck you guys.
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Well, Google has just signed a $30 billion AI deal with SpaceX. According to a SpaceX filing with the Security and Exchange Commission, it will receive $920 million a month. $920 million a month.
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I'm pretty sure that's the Tater Tot budget over at Google.
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From Google in exchange for the computing power from Xai's data centers. Starting in October this year until June 2029, this agreement will give Google access to 110,000 Nvidia GPUs as well as CPUs and memory. Since Google has its own global network of data centers and continues to build more, you may be wondering why it has to pay SpaceX for more computing power. Well, a Google Cloud spokesperson told CNBC in the New York Times that this is but a short term timely agreement in the tune of $30 billion until 2029.
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Short term timely agreement on a long enough timeline. Brian.
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This is just to bridge capacity to meet the surging demand for Gemini Enterprise, its AI subscription for large businesses. So Google is not the only competitor in the AI space that SpaceX is selling compute power to. The musk own company also has a contract with Anthropic, giving the latter access to Xai's colossal One data center. According to documents SpaceX filed for its IPO, Anthropic will pay it 1.25 billion a month through May 2029. So it appears that Elon did manage to find another path to profitability, even though he spends all that money and more on stupid shit.
A
Well, here's the thing about this timing with the SpaceX IPO. So you've got the Anthropic deal going through. They're going to pay, you know, a couple billion a month or a billion a month, and these guys are going to pay, you know, a couple hundred million a month. Problem is like SpaceX owns like owes like $20 billion a month on their debt that they have to pay for. So this is all. They're all just scrambling right now to get these deals in place to shore up that monthly debt payment that he has over at SpaceX that no, some people are talking about, but not enough people are talking about. Especially the people that I know that are stupid enough that have put aside a shit ton of money to buy SpaceX on Friday. What are you thinking? But yeah. So by the way, I don't know if you've heard the theory that the crypto market is crashing because all of the tech bros are taking out their cryptocurrency to get their money together to go buy SpaceX. And my roommate's like, hey, isn't that a great time to buy crypto? I'm like, no, well, every douchebag that kept the crypto market, you know, afloat has left, so they don't care about crypto anymore.
B
So yeah, and they're about to lose all that money on their SpaceX IPO. So hey, coming back.
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Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes@progressive commercial.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates discounts not available in all states or situations. Well, we talk a lot about the data centers. One place that won't be having any anytime soon is Seattle. The Seattle City Council has unanimously approved a moratorium on the construction of any new large AI data centers for one year. They've supported the ban after the Times reported back in April that 5 large data center project proposals in the city would consume up to one third of Seattle's current demand for electricity, the city's residents also raised concern about the center's potential water usage and noise pollution. Now, while Seattle's greater metropolitan area serves as home to Microsoft, Amazon's headquartered in the city itself, and Google and Meta have big offices in the city as well, they don't actually operate any data centers within Seattle the moratorium will mostly affect developers and providers. In addition, the council approved a bill that requires the city to study the impacts of AI data centers on Seattle's electricity and water usage, utility rates, land use, local jobs and public health to gather the information needed for permanent regulations.
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Yes, there you go.
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Once they sign it, Seattle will join a growing list of cities and counties that have either put a temporary or permanent ban on new data centers, including Denver, New Orleans and Minneapolis. So, yeah, not in my backyard.
A
Well, you know whose backyard it's going to be in, Brian? India.
B
Yep.
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Meta is planting its first major AI flag in India, signing a deal with Reliance Industries for 168 megawatt AI data center. The facility will support Meta's global AI operations, run on renewable energy use, desalinated seawater for cooling, and can be expanded as demand grows. And there's also going to be unicorns and rainbows, Brian. Unicorns and rainbows. The move comes as India becomes the new hotness for AI infrastructure, with Microsoft, Amazon, Google, OpenAI and others all pouring money into the country.
B
I wonder why.
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Oh, well, it kind of makes sense. Super lacks regulation and very, very, very bribable officials.
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Bingo.
A
Okay, moving on.
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Well, Google is lowering the cost of its cheapest AI subscription to make Gemini models even easier to access. This is coming as news recently has been more focused on how all of a sudden token maxing has become a very expensive proposition. So Google, who can afford it, have basically said we shall lower our prices for a little while.
A
Yes, they can. Let's squeeze at the competition.
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Yep, the Google AI plus plan will now cost $5 per month, according to a post from Vic, the company's product lead focused on Gemini AI subscriptions down from its original $8 per month price. But it also comes with double the storage, 400 gigabytes instead of 200 gigabytes. So you also get all kinds of AI crap that you don't need, like AI powered email tools, a new daily brief agent that can summarize your upcoming day, and access to Gemini Omni, their newest AI model for generating video from any input.
A
Oh, the one that doesn't work, that I tried last week that ran through all my tokens? That's a great one. I would much rather spend $5 not to get a video than $20 that I'm paying now to not get a video. But somebody said I should pay $100 to not get a video because then it would be a much better video that I did not get.
B
That's true. Think of the quality of that video that you don't get to see.
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Perfect. It's perfect. 4K, maybe 8K, who knows?
B
And you've got double the storage to hold the nothing.
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That's fantastic, Brian. That's fantastic. A federal judge in Mississippi has sanctioned all four attorneys involved in a contract dispute after discovering that both sides relied on AI generated legal filings contained containing fabricated court cases. In a sharply worded order, Judge Sherian Aycock said the lawyers wasted the court's time and highlighted the growing risks of unchecked AI use in the legal profession. The case became a rare example of AI effectively arguing against itself, with attorneys for both parties citing non existent precedents generated by AI so Great the trial was canceled. All four lawyers were disqualified from the case. Fines ranging from $1,000 to $3,500 were imposed and two attorneys were barred from appearing before the court for two years. One lawyer admitted using an AI tool to draft an entire brief, while others either used AI for research or signed filings without reviewing them. The judge also criticized one attorney for continuing to submit AI generated filings with elucidated citations even after being warned by the court. Ah, Mississippi.
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Well, we've been picking on AI quite a lot and for good reason again and again and again. But I am reminded that there are some decent uses for this technology. I've mentioned again that I've just recently finished reading I Am Not a Robot. My Year Using AI to Do Almost Everything by Joanna Stern in which she basically said most AI is completely useless and a complete waste of time. However, in the medical professions with in conjunction with a highly trained doctor who knows what they're doing, it can actually be very, very useful. And case in point, we have some news coming from the University of Cambridge. So wherever you stand on the role of AI in the future of humanity, it is undeniably proved useful in the field of medical research. And a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge have utilized the technology to create what they call a universal vaccine that could be used to prevent future pandemics before they take hold. It's the first time a vaccine with an active component designed entirely by a computer has been used in human trials which reported no significant side effects. Now, it's a small trial and the vaccine was given to 39 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 to 50. It was designed to protect people against a number of the Sarveco coronaviruses, a group of viruses that include SARS Covid 2, which was responsible for the global COVID pandemic in 2020. Now so they basically made this groundbreaking antigen so that it would trigger a protective immune response in the volunteers, as well as related bat viruses that could cause pandemics in the future. And because of the way it was developed, it should provide protection against diseases that haven't even emerged yet. It's basically like a super vaccine that basically knocks out this entire class of different things. So pretty cool. Yay, AI for that.
A
Can I get the tech bro version? Can I get inoculated against tech Bros?
B
Yeah, that costs more money.
A
Okay. Do I have to pay that in
B
crypto shit you do.
A
If I wait a week, it'll be free then. So the thing about this is they used AI to do it. They don't say which AI, but later on in the article they do say machine learning. So this comes back to our 10 year old argument that AI is not AI unless it's AI, because nobody has a fucking definition.
B
I think they actually had real data scientists working alongside the other scientists. I don't think that they pulled up fucking Claude and went, hey, here's a. Here's an idea. Come up with something like this.
A
Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure they're not using an LLM to actually build that out because there are many ways to train AIs and systems with machine learning and not all of them are as shitty as the ones that we've been talking about the rest of the show.
B
Exactly. All right, let's take a step away from. From the AI stuff into other crap. That is horrible. Kalshi. Kalshi is taking a new step towards preventing insider trading on its platform. They really wanted to take that step. They just shut down.
A
Exactly. Turn it off.
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But for certain bets, the prediction market will require users to disclose where they work. The new rules will be rolling out in the coming weeks and are expected to be applied to topics such as company performance and national security. Although exact guidelines have not been disclosed yet. Considering how willing prediction market users have been to flout the rules, it's hard to guess whether this policy will substantially curb insider trading. It won't. Or whether people will simply find new ways to orchestrate lucrative wins. They will. While several states have attempted to sue prediction markets and regulate them as gambling platforms, as we've discussed multiple times on this show, the federal government has intervened and claimed sole jurisdiction for the sector under the U.S. commodity futures trading Commission. While members of this administration are actively building their own markets, serve on boards for these markets, or are heavily invested in said markets.
A
Exactly. Can I put in a poly market contract on when Kalshi will get sanctioned or vice versa, depending on which, you know, U.S. government bureau that I'm with on who's fucking who this week.
B
I suppose you'd have to prove that you don't work for any of them now because that's their big, big leap forward.
A
Okay, great.
B
Well, international efforts to curb the businesses have gained more traction, such as a complete ban in Spain, while the domestic leadership investigates how to. Oh, it's my favorite word. Regulate them.
A
That really is your favorite word.
B
The entire time we've been doing this show, Jason, every single thing we complain about could be solved by regulation. Every single one of them.
A
Everyone from episode one to maybe 150. I was just like, oh, we don't need no more stinking regulations. But then I finally came around and I'm like, oh, I see your point. I see your point. Oh, man. Well, Sam Bankman Fried has officially applied for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.
B
Oh, how much did he have to pay for that?
A
Well, we'll get to that. The disgraced FTX founder is serving 25 years after being convicted in 2024 on fraud and money laundering charges tied to one of the biggest financial collapses in crypto history so far. So far, the request lands an administration that's already handed out hundreds of pardons, including one for Silk Road founder Russ Ulbricht, better known as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Trump has repeatedly claimed he only pardons good people, which is becoming a fascinatingly flexible definition, giving the growing list of fraudsters, grifters, and financial criminals receiving clemency. Unlike many recent recipients, Bankman Fried actually filed the official paperwork to request a pardon. Too bad nobody told old Sammy boy that Trump a can't read and, oh, that he doesn't want any competition on the crypto grift because. Wait for it. Reuters is reporting that since returning to the White House, the Trump family has pulled in roughly $2.3 billion from crypto ventures.
B
Jimmy Carter had to sell his peanut farm.
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
B
To become president.
A
Well, Trump ain't playing with peanuts here, baby. And here's the fun part. That almost exactly matches the $2.3 billion that investors have collectively lost.
B
Wow. What are the chances? How.
A
It's amazing how that works sometimes amazing.
B
Just crazy coincidences happen, don't they, my crazy.
A
It's crazy how that lines up. Crazy how that lines up. So most of the money came from World Liberty Financial in its Wolfie Token, where the Trump family reportedly takes a 75% cut of token sales and controls a majority stake. Now, the token has dropped from around $0.31 to about $0.05 since launch. Meanwhile, losses tied to the Trump meme coin were calculated directly from blockchain data. Though a handful of early traders managed to cash out before the music stopped, I'm sure that they were in the cabinet. Lawsuits are flying, major investors are warning they may not survive another year, and Eric Trump just keeps getting richer.
B
Couldn't happen to a bigger douche.
A
No shit, bro. No shit, bro. Silicon Valley's AI boom is creating a boom with the boom boom, Brian. According to a Forbes report, a small group of high end escorts are charging between $3,500 and $6,000 an hour, with day rates reaching as high as $23,000. By offering attractive companionship combined with the ability to hold an intelligent conversation about AI crypto, venture capital and you know,
B
bro, shit implies that there are intelligent conversations to have about AI crypto or venture capital.
A
Good point. Touche, touche. What's notable is that the service often extends far beyond sex, with clients paying for hours of conversation, dinners, travel and emotional connection.
B
Why don't they just use their own fucking chatbots that they're making?
A
Silicon Valley's newest wealthy technologists are discovering, Brian, that human rapport, social skills, and genuine attention remain stubbornly resistant to automation.
B
I guess you could pay for it though.
A
Yes, and I love how this is being like covered as something new. It's the world's oldest profession, Brian. And these little two pump chumps, they can afford to throw down a few bucks to spend time with these women that they would never be able to get otherwise.
B
True.
A
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A
Brian There was a lot of underwhelming Apple news this week from wwdc, but it looks like you actually found a bright spot.
B
Well, I mean, not technically as this app has been out for about two years that I'm about to talk about, but it seemed appropriate and people. There was a really good article over at Slate about it and it reminded me about it because I had installed this app when it first came out and was underwhelmed. But it was a different landscape back then and I'm seeking to be underwhelmed by this type of app now. So it's perfect.
A
We like less whelm in our app.
B
As this article states, if one thing characterizes the past few years of major app releases, it's features users didn't ask for. I did not ask for a chatbot inside my email inbox. I did not ask Instagram search bar to become an AI prompting tool, my Google search results to give way to summarizer bots or the new iPhone to come with something called Image Playground. This includes sports apps and as the author says, of which I have many, I have both the ones he discusses. Major League Baseball's official app, long one of my favorites. His favorite mine too, has gradually surrounded baseball scores and videos with window dressing that has made the app feel heavier. The ESPN app, my other major app that I use for the sports ball, Jason now prioritizes Both its live TV offerings and self contained TikTok scrolls called verts with the simple score section sitting in a vast sea of other buttons and hard to get to. I want a sports app that gives me the fucking scores.
A
Is that too much to ask?
B
Brian Apple has had an app for the last two years called Sports.
A
Ooh, I don't know how you find that one. You know what it does Jason? What does it do?
B
It shows you sports scores. Not news articles, not trending tiktoky style videos, no videos at all to be fair. Nothing. Not a single one. Just sports scores. You pick the teams you want to follow, it shows you their scores,
A
it
B
alerts you idea when, when, when they're playing. They can do, you can have live updates or you can disable them. The best feature of this is the fact that you can actually personalize it. It's fantastic. Now my biggest complaint about Apple and the sports world as you well know Jason, is the Gambling Inc. Yes. If you watch Apple TV sports, they are pushing the gambling. They're pushing odds, odds, betting, betting, betting, betting, betting. They built it into the app. But you know what? Simple slider. Turn off all that info forever in the preferences and it's gone.
A
Wow.
B
Sports scores. Nothing but sports scores.
A
You know I think that, yeah, that's, that's, that's one, that's one thing that Apple can do is because you know they're not, it's, they're not getting paid to put those in the app. Well, they're probably getting paid something but it's not like the app developer's future and you know, his kids, you know, food on the plate depends on that. Those scores being shown to as many people as possible and the click throughs, you know, because I'm sure that those, their, their revenues are tied to how many people click through and bet. So Apple doesn't have to worry about that. So they do not off.
B
So there is literally nothing here but sports scores and they have rolled out this whole thing for the World Cup. It is beautiful, it is simple, it is easy to follow. It's got the groups, it's got the stages. You click a couple buttons, you see the scores. If you want to know what TV channel they're on, you can click through that, it'll tell you what TV channel it's on. It is fantastic. I've already deleted ESPN from my phone. This is my new sports app. Moving forward. Thank you Apple. You did something right. If you ever put fucking Siri in this thing, I'm going to kill you.
A
Well, WWC did just start so you may want to go check the keynote to see how bad it's going to be.
B
I think they've forgotten about this app, to be honest. I think they set it and forget it. We coded it once. It works fine.
A
Yeah, just leave it alone. Just pray, pray that this piece just never finds anybody at Apple who just goes I forgot about that. Maybe I should fix it. Oh, it's like you never want to tell people about your favorite restaurant.
B
That's true.
A
Yeah. Oh, by the way, speaking of sports, no chance for getting tickets for your Germany game there in Toronto?
B
If I want. If. If I want, it hasn't happened yet. And if I want to spend. Let's see, last going rate was fourteen hundred dollars per ticket.
A
Okay. To see a game, gog show slash donate.
B
I. I have determined that I'm better off just watching it at a pub, so.
A
Okay, there you go. There was a. There's a thing about. I saw the ticket thing that's happening here in LA, and apparently the first game that's playing, there's like 4400 seats that haven't been sold yet because they cost too much.
B
Well, it's the same here. There's tons of tickets that haven't been sold because they've just tried to. I mean, not avert your ears, young listeners. We know. We have a few. They've tried to rape everybody.
A
Flat out rape people.
B
It's just.
A
But there's an upside. There is an absolute upside to this, Brian. All of the scalpers who bought all the tickets are probably going to lose their shirts.
B
So there is a little bag.
A
There's a little karmic retribution. Hodl. Hodl.
B
The only thing I'm planning on doing for the Germany game that's here in Toronto is I'm literally just gonna scan the secondary markets like 10 minutes after the game has started and hope that there are people that are just desperate to unload and not lose everything.
A
Are you gonna do it while standing outside?
B
Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna go all the way down there. I'm gonna go near the area and I'm just gonna scan, scan, scan.
A
So I'm sure you'll find something. I'm sure you'll find something.
B
So bring in other app news. There was a brouhaha with Meta. Wired dug through Meta's API app code and found a hidden facial recognition feature called NameTag, designed to ID anyone you look at through Band Smart glasses. The app containing this dormant Face Docs feature had already been downloaded on over 50 million devices. It's not like we're not gonna. Here's what we're developing. They already put it on everybody's devices, but it wasn't enabled, so we should all calm down.
A
Oh, relax, Brian, relax.
B
We didn't enable. Sure, we put something that kills you in your dinner, but we didn't enable it.
A
Yeah,
B
they quietly removed the code within 24 hours of WIRED's report. Nothing says totally fine exploratory feature like a panicked midnight scrub of your code base. Instead of, say, apologizing, Meta's VP of communications took to X to complain that Wired buried the not enabled caveat in paragraph four. His official position. This was intellectually dishonest and pure advocacy driven clickbait.
A
No, they were facts. They were absolutely facts.
B
They were facts. Meta's cto, Andy Bosworth, called the reporting incredibly misleading and absolutely dishonest without specifying a single thing that was actually wrong, misleading or dishonest.
A
Yep, exactly.
B
And this isn't exactly new. Meta has been eyeing facial recognitions for smart glasses since at least 2021, and a leaked internal memo from earlier this year showed they were actively planning to ship it. So just exploring is doing a lot of heavy lifting here in their statements.
A
Yeah.
B
Yes. If you don't want people speculating about face recognition in your products, maybe stop repeatedly saying you want to add face recognition to your products and then shipping the code for it.
A
No shit. Come on, guys, do better. Do better.
B
They can't.
A
They can't. Well, a proposed bill in Pennsylvania would require devices like smart glasses and potentially other wearables to show a visual indicator whenever they're recording audio or video.
B
Yeah.
A
Right. So you want to see, you want to see the red light? You want to see the red light blinking or green light or whatever color light.
B
I'm sure it should be disabled.
A
Yeah. It would also ban disabling that indicator and require retailers to explain Pennsylvania's recording laws to buyers. I'm sure that'll sell a lot of gear. Wait, before you buy this ten thousand dollar little device, let me tell you about what you're not allowed to do with it there, son.
B
When I was copying VHS tapes back in the 80s, I always skipped over the bit about how it's illegal to copy VHS tapes.
A
Yep.
B
Yep.
A
Oh, man. The bill comes after reports that people have been drilling out or covering the LEDs on Meta Ray Ban glasses to record without being noticed. Most smart glasses already include recording lights, but there's no broad legal requirement to include them or keep them functional. So you can do that all you want. It's legal now. It's a problem if they just go with wearables. This, this bill, because my watch can record audio all the time, but there is no indicator. And adding it would be obnoxious if my watch started, you know, lighting up, especially because it's, you know, I'm taking audio notes or things like that this needs work, but so maybe just stick to cameras and video recording instead of saying all wearables that can record audio and video. I think, I think it's a little too broad even for me.
B
All right, well, Snapchat is making another change meant to further restrict the reach of its youngest users.
A
Unlike Snap has users, apparently. When did that happen?
B
They've got enough users that they've paid a few million dollars in money on various lawsuits about the kids. So, okay, they've still got a big user base. Unlike most other parts of Snapchat, videos shared to the Spotlight are public and be viewed by anyone in the app. Up till now, Snap allowed users as young as 13 to contribute content to the feature, although the app didn't link younger teens profiles to their public posts. Now Snap will no longer allow anyone between 13 and 15 to contribute to the version of Spotlight that's visible to most of the app's users. 16. Game on.
A
There you go.
B
Instead, the app is creating a new.
A
We call. We call the 16 to 18 the Epstein Gap.
B
There's a good show title.
A
No, no, not gonna happen.
B
Instead, the app is creating a new profile feature where younger teens can create short form content that's only visible to their mutual friends in the app. That's a good way to do it there, actually. Profiles will also host stories posts which are also hidden from non friends for younger teens. Snap, like other social, has faced increasing scrutiny for its handling of teen safety and privacy. They are currently facing numerous lawsuits over its record on child safety. So this is an attempt to do something. I would say cutting it off at 15 might be a bit young for public consumption. But then again, what do I know?
A
Nothing. Yeah, ask your wife. She's a lawyer. She might. She might know better. There's a reason, there's a legal reason why they picked these numbers. It's not just out of the kindness of their own heart. Somebody told them what these numbers are?
B
Yeah, absolutely. Well, there was some news that came out of Apple this week. So everybody has known that Apple has been working towards creating a foldable phone in the same way that everybody knew that Apple's working on creating a fucking car. And we've never seen that one, have we?
A
Nope.
B
No. But we are going to see the phone. Apparently the developer beta of the new iOS27 had a few dead giveaways. Sam Henry, Gold Spy the latest indications that a foldable is in the works in the iOS 27 framework. Documentation contains references to terms such as fold, state and angle degrees, as well as language for the total number of built in displays on the host device, each of those point to an operating system being used on a foldable rather than a traditional single screen smartphone. A 9 to 5 Mac has confirmed the existence of these references and that they were not present in iOS 26. So further intrigue came from Apple's own developer State of the Union, where the company said it was adding support for resizing iPhone apps in both Mac OS mirroring feature and on the iPad. Sounds useful for iPad and Mac users, but it sure seems like a prelude to introducing an iPhone with a new form factor. So we shall see. I don't think I would want one of these, but Apple does good stuff when it comes out. It's good.
A
Yeah, I'm not poo pooing on a foldable yet. I've seen some of them and they're pretty cool. Instead of having two fucking devices, get rid of the iPad mini and just give me one device. But you know, the proof is in the pudding as they say. The proof is in the pudding. And I do have a little Apple news on my side though. Brian My first script kitted app that I made is in for review so we're going to find out. Should be out soon if it is. If it gets through review. I'll be talking about it next week. But I'm very excited. I finally got everything done. I typed four more prompts and then uploaded some images that it made. I didn't write anything for this app. I came up. I came up with a name and then I specked it. I completely just product designed this. I did nothing other than that. I didn't. I mean I didn't even make a gif like a single GIF for this thing. It's beautiful. So, and I don't claim to be a programmer on it. I didn't vibe code it. I product developed it. That's all I did. Yeah I did. I did not P. Diddy it different. No, no. So I read a. I read a book this week Brian, on my my walks out in nature because it's, it's been nice here. It's stopping to get nice now. But I read the thinking Sideways how to Think Like a Chess Player and Win at Life by Jennifer Shahad. Don't read this book.
B
There's no 40 chess in there.
A
There's no D chess in here. I mean she's a chess master. Great, good on you. But it's one of those meta self help books that all it does is pull from every other self help book that I've already read over the years. There's not one piece of net new knowledge in this book that I did not already know.
B
So you could say she kind of vibe wrote it.
A
She probably did. The worst part is she read the audiobook. Now, most authors that read audiobooks are bad, but you can, you can mitigate the badness of the, the reader of the audiobook by just hitting one and a half times. Sure, done. There is no speed on, there's no speed in the verse that could actually fix this book. Her. Her reading of this book was so terrible. But I powered through it because I was waiting for that nugget. I wanted the nugget, just one little nugget of something that would get me through and there were no nugs.
B
That sounds like me with that book.
A
Breathe, remember, is exactly the same thing.
B
I was desperate to enjoy this book. I was desperate for something actionable and interesting, that little nugget. And it just. I finally gave up. I'm like, there's no nugs here.
A
No nugs, no nugs at all. But, you know, so I'm on to the next book. I don't know what it's going to be yet, but I did see another good thing this week. It's called thinking fast, slow, artificially. AI in your brain Now. Wharton researchers arguing that Daniel Kahneman's classic model of human thinking needs an update for the AI era. For decades, we've had system one, fast and intuitive thinking, and system two, slow, deliberate reasoning. You're familiar with these, Brian, obviously you probably covered this in college. I did, yep. Now they propose a third system, AI itself. The researchers call it System 3, an external cognitive layer that people increasingly rely on to make decisions, solve problems, and even structure their thinking. This is where it gets fun. The catch? They found evidence of what they call cognitive surrender. This is the first time I've heard this. I've heard. Heard of cognitive offloading, but cognitive surrender is a new term and I really like it. And it's when people stop evaluating AI outputs and simply accept them as correct. When the AI is right, performance improves. When it's wrong, it's really wrong. And you're in a lawyer in Mississippi, so that's. I just, I really like this. It's a good piece. I highly recommend checking it out. Link will be in the show notes. So, but yeah, in other words, AI can make you smarter, but only if you keep your brain in the loop. Otherwise, congratulations, you've just upgraded from thinking fast and slow to not thinking at all.
B
That's Right.
A
Good one, good one. And I sent you something this week, Brian. I sent you a very long newsletter which we won't name on the show because I'm a paid subscriber. And I sent it to you who are an unpaid subscriber. And I felt kind of bad about that, but it's so long I ripped it out as a PDF so I could put it on my iPad. Then I'm like, God, I hate when I have to read books on an iPad that are in PDF because when you go back, you lose your spot. So I'm like, huh, why don't I convert it to an epub and then read it in books? Because that way it will, it will save my space or my page, you know, and I can just go back to it when I want to because it's a very long piece. And so I found Cloud Convert. I think I'm the first person on the planet or the last person on the planet to find this, this site because it's basically a cloud converter for every format that you could ever think of. And it's beautiful. It's run by the Germans, Brian. It's run by the Germans.
B
Well, it must work.
A
Yeah, it does work. It absolutely works. And the front facing website is free, free to use. They make their money up on the API on the back end for business, which is genius. And it's totally solid. Totally solid. Worked like a charm. Absolutely worked like a charm. Cloud Convert, my new favorite single serve website.
B
Fantastic. I watched a couple movies this week, I guess, sort of kind of in a little bit. Hoppers. I watched this with my kid. Obviously I didn't just go and watch a kid's movie by myself.
A
You only do that when you're in the Epstein Gap.
B
Yeah, I just watched the Verts then get my gambling on. No. So I watched the Pixar movie Hoppers. Surprisingly dark. Like way better than I thought it would be.
A
I love that Dark is better.
B
It is, it is. There's a, there's. There's some darkness to this one. It was very funny, very good. I, I enjoyed it a lot. It had a very great meta moment, which I thought was hilarious because. Spoiler alert. Not that anybody that's an adult needs a spoiler for a Pixar movie. What happens in this movie is, is humans figure out a way to basically put their consciousness, their brains into animal robots and go explore the animal world and find out that there's. They're able to talk to them and blah, blah, blah. And so one of the One of the protagonists is learning about this and talks to the. To the researchers that have figured out this technology. So it's like Avatar, right?
A
There's nothing like Avatar. Okay. There's no Unobtainium,
B
so it's quite funny. You know, if you got a kid, you're going to enjoy this one. And I also mentioned. And you forgot multiple times, so I'm mentioning it again. My wife and I rewatched all of Downton Abbey, the series. Remember that, Jason?
A
Yeah, I do. I do.
B
Okay. Talked about that. And I. And I boldly proclaimed that we were stopping at the series. There is no way we're gonna go watch those horrible movies, because all the movies were horrible. And my wife said, hold my red wine and she started watching the goddamn movies. So I'm here to say that the first one, Downton Abbey the Motion Picture, is not an entirely horrible piece of crap. It's only slightly a piece of crap. Crap. I'll be reporting on the rest of them again, which I do remember being massive pieces of crap because I'm sure we're going to watch those too.
A
Okay. You watch them so I don't have to.
B
That was a great part. Series, though, worth the rewatch.
A
Okay, well, I don't know. I'll leave it to you. I'll leave it to you on that one. I have been watching Widow's Bay on Apple tv. The penultimate episode was this week. That's just a great little show. It's just, it's fun. It's a fun horror comedy thing. It's a. It's a. It's its own thing. And I. You just can't. You just can't mess with it. I really enjoyed it. It. This is one of those ones that I think actually would be better as a binge watch. Waiting every week is kind of not the best. I find. This is definitely one that I could just sit down in like two days and just power through.
B
Well, that sounds fantastic, actually, because obviously with the World cup starting tomorrow, I will not have a lot enough time to watch tv. And this is something, because it's kind of horrory means I can't watch it with my wife. So this will be a post World cup late night binge for me.
A
Perfect. Yeah. And they're short. They're like 35 minutes. So you can get. You can get through it pretty quick. I'm thoroughly enjoying it and I hope they come back for a second season.
B
All right. And more good news for my kid, and maybe your kid too. My kid is thoroughly invested in the Ghostbusters series. He likes all the movies. He likes the new movies. He likes the the old movies. And Netflix has revealed that there will be a new Ghostbusters animated series titled Night Shift and is slated for a release sometime next year. So this will be high up on my kids list of viewing, I'm sure.
A
All right. Speaking of animated shows, I did finish Devil May Cry Season 2 on Netflix. Great. It was great. I really enjoyed it. Same with the first one. I think this one was actually better than the first one and very little to do with the game. But as far as good, good, solid anime, great story, great animation, great voice acting. All in all, it was just a fun, fun show. Highly recommended. Highly recommended. Now this morning, Brian, the trailer for the Social Reckoning dropped the. Yeah, the new era.
B
We need another one of these movies.
A
No.
B
Okay.
A
Nope, we don't. Jeremy Strong is playing Zuckerberg. He nails, nails the voice. It is uncanny how good he gets the voice done. He does get the robot look down for, for Zuckerberg too, but it's just not as convincing because the problem with Zuckerberg is we see him all the fucking time. We know what he looks like. I don't need. I don't need another. I don't need a Facebook movie. Honestly. It does have Bill Burr plus there. I can't go wrong. Anything Bill Burr's in, I'm always down with. So this is the. The original screenplay is based on the events that gave rise to the Wall Street Journal's shocking expose the Facebook files. The film is inspired by. Inspired by the true story of how Francis Haugen, a young Facebook engineer, enlists the help of Jeff Horowitzer, a Wall Street Journal reported to go on a dangerous journey that ends up blowing the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets. Now inspired by. Yeah.
B
So how dangerous could this journey have possibly been?
A
Actually, probably was pretty fucking dangerous. You know, I'm sure it wasn't. Wasn't an easy thing to do for her. These guys have all the money in the world and no soul. So people do have. Tend to, you know, have bad shit happen to them quite often. So I give her. I still give her credit for having the balls to do that, but I just don't need a movie about it because I watched it in real time. Yeah. And Jeremy Strong was fantastic in what is it? Succession. Can't go wrong with him in succession. He was in that Trump movie too. He played. He had a great role in the Trump movie. Fantastic role in the Trump movie. But I've had enough of the same guy. It's like Wil Wheaton reading an audiobook. Once you hear one, you've heard them all.
B
Can you stop being in movies about evil people?
A
Yeah, yeah. Maybe try getting some range. I don't know.
B
Try superhero. Maybe get in the mcu.
A
I hear they've got openings nowadays. Okay, so let's get to the people who keep this show on the air. Our Patreon subscribers. We have no new Patreon subscribers, Brian. So that was really kind of a letdown of an intro to the Patreon segment, I guess.
B
Good ramp up, though. Good ramp.
A
It was. It's good. I got the energy. I got the energy. But we still want to thank some of our continuing Patreon subscribers. Mosquitoes. David P. The artist only known as P. Nathan, Eric, Lars, Elwood, Nancy, Nico and Robert. Thank you all so much.
B
Thank you, thank you. And what we lost in not getting any new patreon subscribers, the PayPal folks have stepped up. Chase gave us a $50.99 donation and Naylin gave us 100 bucks.
A
Woo doggy.
B
Thank you.
A
Over the tip jar we've got Patrick and John. Hi, John. Over at YouTube. I didn't know you could do this at YouTube. Dale gave us a $50 tip. You can tip us on YouTube. Who knew? Who knew? Apparently Dale did. All right. And we have a ton of people who are members over there that I want to thank because I haven't yet. So we're just going to go. We're going to go with the handles over there because I don't have everybody's real name. We've got Fozcat in the house, Silly Cheese Goat, Daniel Pena, JUAN Jose Garcia, rip roll. Dave Kearns did rock. Jason 77, Pineapple Freddy and TK421 Storm. So thank you all for joining us on the membership over at the YouTube. That's a new thing we've got going and people are signing up. So the thing about the YouTube is you do get the show early and ad free. If you are a YouTube subscriber, you get the show. Well, you always get the show ad free on YouTube if you're. I don't know how YouTube thing works. I have no idea how this works, but who knows? We don't. You don't get the regular heads on YouTube. I don't know if you get the baked in whatever. But anyway, check all those out. We'll talk about that in a second. But we got some merch too. Nick from New York, Dan from Oakland and Michael from Minnesota Tip on the Merch if you want express shipping, make sure that you include your phone number in the United States. The post office won't do priority shipping without a phone number. Found that out the hard way this week, but we fixed it and all is well. Yay. So if you want to help support the show, there are many avenues as we have just discussed, but you can find them all at GOG show. Donate but patreon.com gog is the bestest way. You can sign up for as little as $3 a month, get the show early ad free and in high definition. All that good stuff and any thing else that you want to give us is just great. There's a bunch of tiers. There's a bunch of tiers on YouTube now too. So you can sign up for a membership on YouTube. You can hit the tip jar, you can hit the PayPal. There's merch. Buy merch. Yeah, anything that helps support the show keeps us going. And we love you all very dearly for it. So very fucking dearly. You have no idea. Until next time. I'm Jason defilipo.
B
And I'm Graham Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from Today's episode at GOG Show. 750. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG Show. Donate. Every penny helps keep the show on the air. Love the show. Share it. There's a share button in your podcast player. Use it to spread the grumpiness to friends, foes and everyone in between. We'll love you for it. Swing by GOG show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans. Got thoughts? Feedback? Cool links? Hit us up at GOG show contact and don't forget to leave a 5 star review GOG show review and we'll read it on the show. And we've got merch, new merch, old merch, all kinds of merch. Snag your grumpy gear now at Shop GOG show and stay Garampi.
Grumpy Old Geeks — Episode 750: "Douchebag Ping Pong"
Hosted by: Jason DeFilippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner
Date: June 11, 2026
This milestone 750th episode of Grumpy Old Geeks sees hosts Jason, Brian, and Dave unpack another week of chaotic, often absurd news from the tech world. With their trademark irreverence, skepticism, and old-school cynicism, they focus squarely on the latest shenanigans around AI startups, IPO mania, facial recognition scandals, boondoggle partnerships, legal hijinks with AI, regulatory inaction, and the inevitable tech billionaire ego wars. Think Kurt Cobain-style grunge meets Silicon Valley snark, with brutal honesty and little mercy.
OpenAI & Anthropic IPO Follies (03:06-07:50)
Hypocrisy on Pause: Faster, Then Slower, Then Faster Again (05:14-09:31)
The Musical Chairs of Compute: SpaceX, Google, Anthropic Power Deals (13:36-16:06)
Crypto Cashout for Tech IPOs (16:06)
Token Squeeze & Price Wars (20:00-21:21)
Legal Mayhem: “AI Arguing Against Itself” (21:21-22:28)
Machine Learning Done Right: Universal Pandemic Vaccine (22:28-24:59)
Cognitive Surrender, System 3, and the Erosion of Human Critical Thinking (46:31-47:59)
Meta's Secret Facial Recognition on Smart Glasses (37:57-39:47)
Proposed Regulations—And Their Flaws (40:00-41:14)
Data Center Bans and Outsourcing (17:55-20:00)
Prediction Markets & Regulatory Capture (25:15-27:03)
Crypto, Grift, and Presidential Pardons (27:20-29:23)
Escorts-for-Nerds: Silicon Valley's Loneliness Economy (29:23-30:38)
Apple’s Under-the-Radar Sports App Gem (32:31-36:12)
Smartphone Foldables & Script-Kit App Adventures (43:11-45:35)
Reading, Reviewing, and Epub Conversions (45:35-48:50)
Show & Movie Recommendations (49:09-55:05)
On the Tech IPO Bandwagon:
On AI PR Cycles:
On Legal AI Faux Pas:
On Meta’s Dubious Practices:
On Regulation as a Solution:
On "Cognitive Surrender":
On Tech Bro Vanity:
| Timestamp | Segment | |-------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:42 | Episode intro and GSA: Knife sharpener safety warning | | 03:06-09:31 | IPOs, AI PR, and "Douchebag Ping Pong" | | 09:31-10:49 | OpenAI pivot to “super app”; ChatGPT's growing feature bloat | | 11:48-16:06 | SpaceX, Google, and Anthropic: compute contracts and IPOs | | 17:55-20:00 | Seattle data center moratorium, AI infrastructure in India | | 21:21-22:28 | Mississippi: Judge sanctions attorneys for using fake AI law | | 22:28-24:59 | AI-designed vaccine: a true bright spot for machine learning | | 27:20-29:23 | SBF, Trump pardons, and coincidental crypto payouts | | 29:23-30:38 | Silicon Valley escorts-for-hire: AI bros seeking intimacy | | 32:31-36:12 | Apple’s Sports app — simple, clean, and finally right | | 37:57-39:47 | Meta’s hidden facial recognition feature exposed | | 45:35-48:50 | Book review: "Thinking Sideways," and tools for digital reading | | 49:09-55:05 | Show & movie reviews: Pixar, Downton Abbey, anime, and more |
This episode is a classic GOG blend of salty humor, dire tech predictions, world-weary skepticism, and genuine analysis. If you want to cut through the AI hype, see past IPO smokescreens, and understand how regulation—or the lack thereof—shapes everything from data centers to prediction markets and facial recognition, this is the grumpy, insightful take you need.
Listen to Episode 750 for the full, unfiltered deconstruction of another wild week in tech.