ÜBER DIESE EPISODE
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.
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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
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
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
Ted Lasso : S4 E6 Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore
Report: Apple TV working on spin-off to its hit series Silo
‘Donnie Darko’ Will Spread Dread Anew With a 4K 25th Anniversary Rerelease
A Gift of Time by Jerry Merritt
The Infinite Extent Bobiverse, Book 6 By: Dennis E. Taylor
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
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