754: Frankly Asinine Questions
This week, the world finally discovers what we've been saying for years: Gen X wasn't forgotten—we were quietly keeping the entire damn machine running. New Census numbers show America's 45-to-64 crowd is shrinking fast, which means the people who know where all the bodies are buried (and why you never reboot that one production server) are disappearing without a replacement bench. Meanwhile, Meta continues its speedrun toward becoming history's most aggressively unlikeable company, staring down a potential $1.4 trillion lawsuit over social media addiction while simultaneously launching AI features that happily remix your Instagram photos unless you remember to opt out of Zuckerberg's latest privacy experiment. Because nothing says "we've learned our lesson" quite like doubling down.
The AI circus somehow gets even weirder. Illinois actually passed meaningful AI safety legislation—an event so rare it qualifies as science fiction—while Sam Altman reportedly floated the idea of AI companies handing the U.S. government an ownership stake. Anthropic published another paper that's already inspiring breathless declarations that Claude is "thinking," because apparently matrix multiplication now counts as an inner monologue. Cloudflare finally decided websites shouldn't have to give away their content for free to AI crawlers, researchers discovered AI agents could consume enough electricity to make Google Search look like a bicycle generator, and Amazon's Mechanical Turk is being replaced by the very AI it spent two decades secretly training. Progress: where everyone works harder, gets paid less, and the power grid cries.
Elsewhere in Tech Hell™, Waymo robotaxis turned San Francisco traffic into an even bigger parking lot, Google lost another multibillion-dollar antitrust appeal in Europe, the FCC found fresh ways to make internet bills less transparent, and Midjourney is demanding Hollywood explain its own AI habits in court. We also dig into a disturbing lawsuit involving Grok-generated abuse imagery and what it says about AI guardrails, explain how to stop Meta from feeding your Instagram into its latest AI experiments, discuss why tech workers increasingly feel AI isn't replacing them so much as making them miserable faster, and close things out with the usual Media Candy, Apps & Doodads, and library recommendations to help you survive another week inside the techno-dystopian fever dream we apparently call "the future."
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/754
Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/xnhzMxu1JNA
SHOW NOTES
America's missing middle: The shrinking 45-64 population
Meta is facing $1.4 trillion in state lawsuits over social media addiction
Illinois Drops the Hammer on AI Companies
OpenAI reportedly wants all AI companies to give the US government a stake in their businesses
Lawsuit: Man used Grok to make 7K sex images of stepdaughter, then shot himself
Midjourney wants the Hollywood studios that sued it to show the court how they use AI
Anthropic Releases Paper About Claude’s Mental ‘Workspace.’ Don’t Read It Uncritically
Cloudflare will filter out web crawlers that serve AI companies
When It Comes to Energy Use, AI Agents Could Make Chatbots Look Like Pocket Calculators
Amazon’s ‘Artificial Artificial Intelligence’ Is Being Eaten by AI
Drivers Trapped for Hours in Hopeless Gridlock as Waymos Brick on Major Holiday
Google loses final appeal over $4.7 billion EU Android antitrust fine
FCC to end Biden-era rule that forces ISPs to list all their fees
Getty Images is canceling its $3.7 billion Shutterstock merger due to UK restrictions
Meta says it will disable the camera on its glasses if you tamper with the recording LED
Meta tests ‘super sensing’ AI glasses that can capture every moment
How tech workers are feeling in 2026: a workforce splitting in two
Dune: Part Three | Official Trailer
AI golem Tilly Norwood is reportedly 'starring' in a feature-length movie
How to claim a WhatsApp username
How to Stop Meta AI From Processing Your Instagram Content
Gold Rush (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
