This week on Tech News Time: Billy McFarland’s Fyre Festival won’t die—it’s just being reanimated into a music streaming platform by a guy who proudly admits it has nothing to do with music. Meanwhile, Billy’s selling off what’s left of Fyre’s “cultural capital” like it’s vintage Beanie Babies, because fraud never goes out of style. In the land of big tech, Amazon and Microsoft are quietly backing away from their AI data center fever dreams while everyone else pretends AI chatbots aren’t just very expensive bullshit generators. Speaking of which, you can now trick Google’s AI into explaining why you can’t golf without a fish, and The New York Times is busy asking if your toaster deserves human rights.

Also: Google decided it loves third-party cookies after all (because profits > privacy), OpenAI thinks it can afford Chrome (spoiler: it can’t), and Perplexity openly admits their new browser will track you like an ex with no restraining order. Plus, ChatGPT’s new deal with The Washington Post is basically Bezos flipping Elon the bird, Uber gets sued for making canceling subscriptions harder than college calculus, and Meta—surprise!—is still terrible for humanity. Oh, and because late-stage capitalism wasn’t weird enough, sperm racing is now a real crypto-backed sport at the Hollywood Palladium. We wish we were making that up.

Fyre Festival is becoming a music streaming service that might not be a scam this time

Billy McFarland Is Selling Fyre Fest

Amazon Follows Microsoft in Retreat From Ambitious AI Data Center Plans

You can trick Google's AI Overviews into explaining made-up idioms

Dan Rather’s Metaphors Anchored in Folksy Truisms

If A.I. Systems Become Conscious, Should They Have Rights?

A Strange Phrase Keeps Turning Up in Scientific Papers, But Why?

Google will keep third-party tracking cookies on Chrome as they are

OpenAI wants to buy Chrome and make it an “AI-first” experience

Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads

ChatGPT’s responses will now include Washington Post articles

Sam Altman Admits That Saying "Please" and "Thank You" to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power

FTC sues Uber over claims the company makes subscriptions hard to cancel

Meta conducts layoffs in Oculus Studios, impacting VR exercise app Supernatural

Meta’s Oversight Board Is Worried Meta’s New Policies Will Harm Human Rights

Adam Neumann’s Flow raises $100M+, more than doubles valuation to $2.5B

Chinese AI startup Manus reportedly gets funding from Benchmark at $500M valuation

Two Guys, One Track: Sperm Racing Is Now a Thing—Yes, It Involves Crypto

RAMMS+EIN - 14.12.1997 – Palladium, Los Angeles, CA, United States

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