726: Sycophantic and Delusional
Grumpy Old Geeks12 Des 2025

726: Sycophantic and Delusional

The labor market has swung from the Great Resignation to “job hugging,” where workers cling to their roles out of fear of AI-driven layoffs and inflation, crushing engagement and accelerating burnout. At the same time, OpenAI is accused of suppressing research showing job losses, ignoring internal warnings about chatbot mental health risks, and bleeding safety staff, while state Attorneys General fire off an opening salvo likening unchecked AI harms to an opioid crisis-in-the-making.

The AI boom is now colliding with reality. Environmental groups want a halt on new datacenters as power prices spike, and the industry is starting to look financially radioactive, with opaque financing schemes, hidden debt, and trillion-dollar infrastructure bets that could vaporize household wealth. Regulators are pushing back too: the EU is fining X, probing Google over training data, and floating a statutory licensing scheme for AI scraping, while Disney dives in with a billion-dollar bet on “responsible” AI storytelling that mostly translates to fewer humans on payroll.

Meanwhile, everyday tech dystopia rolls on. Uber is monetizing your movement data, Instacart is quietly price-discriminating groceries, Waymo is spinning a robotaxi birth as a feel-good story, and crypto fraud finally earns real prison time. Add in AI-generated marketing slop, government sites hijacked by SEO porn, billion-dollar festival scams resurrected, and Congress kneecapping right-to-repair, and the takeaway is simple: the machines are hungry, the adults are absent, and the vibes are aggressively bad.


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Show notes at https://gog.show/726


Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eJbLlVhIQ-Y


FOLLOW UP

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IN THE NEWS

More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters

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OpenAI's house of cards seems primed to collapse

X shuts down the European Commission’s ad account the day after major fine

EU opens antitrust investigation into Google's AI practices

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Disney Invests $1 Billion in the AI Slopification of Its Brand

Uber will start selling trip and takeout data to marketers

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Waymo's robotaxi fleet is being recalled again, this time for failing to stop for school buses

Driverless delivery: Woman gives birth in San Francisco Waymo

Crypto mogul Do Kwon sentenced to 15 years in prison for $40 billion stablecoin fraud

Porn Is Being Injected Into Government Websites Via Malicious PDFs

Marco Rubio bans Calibri font at State Department for being too DEI

'Architects of AI' named Time Magazine's Person of the Year


MEDIA CANDY

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APPS & DOODADS

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Congress removes right to repair language from 2026 defense bill

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THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE

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