Better Offline

In a bonus third episode, Ed Zitron reports exclusively on how OpenAI’s new "router-based" ChatGPT-5 makes it impossible for the company to cache the static prompt for any model or tool it uses every single prompt, doubling token burn for mediocre gains.

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In part two of this week's two-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how America’s economic growth has become dependent on Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta’s AI capital expenditures - and how this inevitably harms both the economy and our markets.

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In part one of this week's two-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how AI startups’ overstuffed valuations make them impossible targets for acquisition or IPO - and how this may cause lasting harm to Silicon Valley when the bubble bursts.

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In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks through the rough launch of GPT-5, and how ChatGPT’s fandom-like following has become a huge problem for OpenAI.

The Enshittification of Generative AI: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittification-of-generative-ai/

The Wall Street Journal - The Next Great Leap in AI Is Behind Schedule and Crazy Expensive:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openai-gpt5-orion-delays-639e7693?ref=wheresyoured.at 

Live service game post: https://bsky.app/profile/catharsis23.bsky.social/post/3lw5jvotgfk2

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In a paper released earlier this year, three academics from the University of Glasgow classified ChatGPT's outputs not as "lies," but as "BS" - as defined by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in "on BS" (and yes I'm censoring that) - and created one of the most enjoyable and prescient papers ever written. In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by academics Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries and Joe Slater in a free-wheeling conversation about ChatGPT's mediocrity - and how it's not built to represent the world at all.

Paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
Michael Townsen Hicks: https://www.townsenhicks.com/
Joe Slater: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/joeslater/

Original Air Date: 7.18.24

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In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed talks about Anker’s Nebula X1, an expensive, excellent-looking and adaptable projector that can work just about anywhere.

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Nebula X1 Projector: https://amzn.to/45645dR
Nebula Wireless Satellite Speakers: https://amzn.to/45E2EmZ
Nebula gimbal stand for projectors: https://amzn.to/47qi8wa
Epson Duet 80” Projector Screen: https://amzn.to/45o5Odr

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In this episode, Ed is joined by writer and critic Molly White to talk about how RSS can purify your news experience, the challenge of the newsletter economy, and what gives her optimism for the future.

Citation Needed Newsletter: https://www.citationneeded.news
Molly on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki

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In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through how and why OpenAI and Anthropic use “annualized revenues” to hide that they’re nowhere near their yearly revenue projections.

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/anthropic-revenue-hits-4-billion-annual-pace-competition-cursor-intensifies?rc=kz8jh3 
www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-hits-12-billion-annualized-revenue-breaks-700-million-chatgpt-weekly-active-users?rc=kz8jh3

Episode note: I say “$5.5 billion” for OpenAI’s potential revenue in 2025. Calculations I’ve run since suggest it could be lower - around $5.25 billion. Both of these numbers are reasonable.

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Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City.

Ed Zitron is joined in studio by Mia Sato of The Verge and Dave Lee of Bloomberg to talk how companies like TikTok and Google change the web with their incentives, the nihilism of Pop Mart's viral Labubus, and why people are more game to pay independent writers.

Mia Sato, The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/authors/mia-sato
https://bsky.app/profile/miasato.bsky.social
https://www.instagram.com/miasato.2/

Story around “dupes”
https://www.theverge.com/cs/features/709635/knock-it-off

Story around “Labubus”
https://www.theverge.com/analysis/710047/labubu-pop-mart-blind-boxes-scarcity-marketing

Dave Lee, Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AWQ3soOJK0Y/dave-lee
https://x.com/DaveLeeBBG
https://bsky.app/profile/davelee.me

Story around Google and AI
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-07-28/google-is-reaping-the-rewards-of-its-unfair-ai-advantage?srnd=undefined

Google “Web Guide”
https://blog.google/products/search/web-guide-labs/

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In part three of this week's three-part Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks you through how AI agents don’t really exist, how deceitful AI marketing has become, and why everything is brittle as a result.

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