753: No-Talent AI Clowns

The AI revolution keeps delivering exactly the future nobody asked for. A low-skill hacker used Claude Code and Codex to compromise fourteen companies with prompts so vague they could've been written by your uncle trying to reset his AOL password. Ford, meanwhile, spent millions trying to automate engineering before sheepishly rehiring the graybeards who actually know how cars work. Brown University discovered what happens when half your class outsources economics homework to ChatGPT, Meta ran out of AI compute after borrowing Google's, Oracle is warning investors that the AI data-center bubble could implode for approximately every reason imaginable, and contractors hired to improve AI models are secretly using AI to generate the training data. Congratulations, everyone: we've successfully invented photocopying a photocopy until all that's left is gray mush.

The collateral damage keeps piling up. Volkswagen is reportedly preparing to slash another 100,000 jobs, Hyundai workers are threatening to strike before Boston Dynamics' humanoid robots take theirs, California has launched an AI layoff tracker because somebody figured we'd better start counting, and the "almost homeless" subreddit is becoming one of the bleakest economic indicators on the internet. Tesla quietly settles another fatal Full Self-Driving lawsuit, Australia discovers teenagers can outsmart age verification by clicking "Yes, I'm 18," Amazon is getting sued Down Under for making ad-free Prime customers pay more to stay ad-free, and prediction markets continue insisting they're sophisticated financial instruments rather than gambling with better branding. Sure, and Beanie Babies were an asset class.

Meanwhile, the AI infrastructure gold rush has become lucrative for everyone, including organized cargo thieves stealing millions in data-center equipment. NASA is attempting a robotic rescue mission worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon, astronomers are begging humanity to stop filling the night sky with satellites before we pave over the universe with orbital billboards, and Meta has discovered yet another way to charge people a subscription for hardware they already bought. In Media Candy, Sugar keeps delivering, Bodkin is worth your time, I Will Find You absolutely is not, and Kobo quietly lands one on Amazon by integrating StoryGraph while Kindle owners get AI book summaries they didn't ask for. Sometimes the future feels like science fiction. This week it feels like someone accidentally trained the simulation on late-stage capitalism and never bothered to check the output.

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Show notes at https://gog.show/753

Watch on YouTube at https://youtu.be/B-r6M-Na60w

SHOW NOTES

No-Skill Hacker Uses Claude/Codex to Hit 14 Sites

A newbie hacker used "vague, low-skill prompts" in Claude and Codex to breach 14 companies, and the AI Agents did all the legwork

Ford rehires ‘gray beard’ engineers after AI falls short

Volkswagen reportedly plans to cut 100,000 jobs

The ‘Almost Homeless’ Subreddit Is a Stark Glimpse at Soaring Wealth Inequality

Tesla settles lawsuit over fatal pedestrian crash involving Full Self-Driving

Kalshi sues Illinois over new tax on prediction market sports bets

Rick Rubin Stars in Polymarket Commercial

Brown University Professor Horrified to Discover Largest AI Cheating Scandal in Ivy League History

Australia Lawsuit Against Amazon Intensifies Company’s Legal Backlash Over Advertising

Australia's social media ban may not be that effective, study finds

Australia doubles the maximum penalty for its social media ban

Half of social media child safety features don't work, report claims

AI Companies Are Learning an Ironic Lesson as the People They Pay to Improve Their Chatbots Are Just Feeding AI Slop Into Them

California launches tracker for AI-related job losses

Korean Workers Vote to Go On Strike, Fearing Robots Could Replace Them

Google limits Meta’s use of its Gemini AI models

Meta, like SpaceX, looks to turn excess AI compute into cash

Oracle’s Data Center Warning Is a Worst-Case Scenario for the Whole AI Boom

Thieves Are Absolutely Loving All of These New Data Center Projects

Heads Up: NASA to Launch 'Daring' Telescope Rescue Mission This Week

ESO Study Finds That No More Than 100,000 Satellites Should Orbit Earth

I Will Find You

Sugar Season 2

Bodkin

The Odyssey | Official Countdown Trailer

SILO - How did we lose this world?

The Kindle app for iOS has features your aging Kindle doesn't

Watch out, Amazon: The Kobo eReader now has a Goodreads rival

Meta is adding ridiculous ‘rate limits’ and a soft paywall to its smart glasses

Trackalot - One-tap Event Tracking on iOS

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