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By Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner
We dissect the tech news train wrecks of the week, calling out what went wrong and who’s to blame. Think of this podcast as if Kurt Cobain threw down with Tom from MySpace, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuck
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The podcast currently has 1,434 episodes available.
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Very Important Links! Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show! Join our Discord! - Buy some merch! 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. Sponsors: DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. StoryBlocks - For a limited time, they’re offering 15% off any annual plan at storyblocks.com/gog HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/760 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/v_m2XT4_ZCY 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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Support the show on Patreon! Other ways to support the show! Join our Discord! Buy some merch! 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. Sponsors: Shopify - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/grumpy DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password 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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Support the show on Patreon! - https://patreon.com/gog Other ways to support the show! - https://gog.show/donate Join our Discord! - https://discord.gg/r4ZmSHB Buy some merch! - https://shop.gog.show/ 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? Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout. HIMS - Visit Hims.com/gog to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password 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 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. Sponsors: CleanMyMac - Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use code OLDGEEKS for 20% off at clnmy.com/OLDGEEKS Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password Show notes at https://gog.show/762 Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/uP_Ookm5q0g 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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Very Important Links! Support the show on Patreon! - Other ways to support the show! Join our Discord! - Buy some merch! 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. Sponsors: Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month. SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!! 1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password 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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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