735: We’re Walking on Sunshine

Starting off in FOLLOW UP, we’ve got a tax economist who actually made money betting against the "efficiency" of Elon’s budget-slashing fever dreams, while Tesla is busy trying to dodge a $243 million jury verdict for an Autopilot-assisted fatality. Not content with being legally liable, Tesla is also suing the California DMV because they’re offended someone called their "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" marketing deceptive—ironic, since Jack Dorsey just "proactively" halved the staff at Block to make room for more AI slop. Speaking of which, Goldman Sachs is here to remind us that all this AI spending added a grand total of zero to the US GDP last year, mostly because we’re just exporting all that cash to overseas chip makers while 80% of execs admit the tech hasn’t actually done anything for productivity yet.

Moving into IN THE NEWS, Sam Altman had the audacity to compare ChatGPT’s energy-sucking habits to the 20-year evolution of a human, though the internet wasn't exactly buying the "my bot is just like a baby" defense. Anthropic actually stood its ground against the Pentagon’s demand for killer robots and mass surveillance, so naturally, the military just signed a deal to put Elon’s Grok in their classified systems instead—because what could go wrong with an "edgy" LLM in the war room? Meanwhile, cities are dumping AI surveillance contracts as citizens start a literal "smash-the-snitch-box" campaign against Flock's license plate readers, Google’s AI is busy inserting racial slurs into news alerts, and the White House is apparently harboring a staffer moonlighting as a racist "masterpiece" creator on X. We’ve also got Reddit being slapped with a $20 million fine in the UK for being lazy with age checks, while Discord and Apple scramble to build verification tools that hopefully won't leak your entire identity to a hacker in Belarus.

In MEDIA CANDY, the Paramount-Skydance merger is leaving the industry in a cold sweat of "synergy" layoffs, but at least we’re getting more Game of Thrones spinoffs and Star Trek reboots to rot our brains. Face/Off 2 lost its director, Ryan Coogler is taking on The X-Files, and Google wants to use AI to turn music into generic "lo-fi" background noise for the masses.

Over in APPS & DOODADS, OpenAI is planning a 2027 smart speaker that literally watches you through a camera—because you definitely wanted a $300 Sam Altman-shaped eye in your kitchen—while the Dark Sky creators are back with "Acme Weather" for the low price of $25 a year.

We wrap up THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE with a deep dive into "Under Pressure" and Coruscant’s urban sprawl, leaving us to reminisce about the days when KPT Bryce was the pinnacle of tech—back when "generative art" was just a fractal that took six hours to render.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/735

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jdz--v3eeU4

FOLLOW UP

Guy Bets Entire Life Savings Against Elon Musk, Wins

Tesla sues California DMV after it banned the term 'Autopilot'

Jack Dorsey just halved the size of Block's employee base — and he says your company is next

IN THE NEWS

Sam Altman: Know What Else Used a Lot of Energy? Human Civilization

Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

Anthropic Tells Pete Hegseth to Take a Hike