Eps

We kick things off in FOLLOW UP with the ongoing "nuclear war" between Automattic and WP Engine, where discovery has revealed Matt Mullenweg’s alleged hit list of competitors and a desperate attempt to bully payment processors—because nothing says "open source" like an eight-percent royalty shakedown. Meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review confirmed what we already knew: AI isn’t reducing our work; it’s just compressing it until we’re all working through lunch and burning out faster while Polyma...

In this week’s FOLLOW UP, Bitcoin is down 15%, miners are unplugging rigs because paying eighty-seven grand to mine a sixty-grand coin finally failed the vibes check, and Grok is still digitally undressing men—suggesting Musk’s “safeguards” remain mostly theoretical, which didn’t help when X offices got raided in France. Spain wants to ban social media for kids under 16, Egypt is blocking Roblox outright, and governments everywhere are flailing at the algorithmic abyss. IN THE NEWS, Elon Musk i...

We kick off FOLLOW UP by checking in on Elon Musk’s personal dumpster fire, where the EU is investigating Grok for deepfake slop while Tesla’s “unsupervised” robotaxis turned out to be supervised by literal chase cars — shocker. At least some of you are getting Siri settlement crumbs in your bank accounts, though you could probably double it betting against Musk’s worthless promises on Polymarket. Transitioning to IN THE NEWS, Tesla is killing off the Model S and X to build robots while sales c...

Ep 730: Ethical Broads PRIVATE We kick off FOLLOW UP with California’s AG sending a cease-and-desist to xAI over Grok generating creepy deepfakes of minors, while regulators finally notice Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter illegally running methane turbines in Memphis. The FTC is also appealing its loss in the Meta monopoly case, because apparently breaking up Zuckerberg’s data empire is still the hill they want to die on. IN THE NEWS, Washington joins the age-verification-for-porn parade, the UK con...

We kick things off with the existential dread of FOLLOW UP and the absolute joy of jury duty. While xAI’s Grok is busy getting banned in Malaysia and Indonesia for its CSAM-generating "features," the Senate is unanimously passing the DEFIANCE Act to give us some legal teeth against the deepfake machine. Meta is busy nuking 550,000 Australian accounts to appease regulators, while Roblox’s age verification is so broken that a drawing of stubble or a photo of Kurt Cobain can get you into the adult ...

Welcome back to the digital wasteland, fellow survivors. We kick things off in the FOLLOW UP by marking a year since the LA Fires—hello, PTSD—alongside a 4th Strokiversary and three years of sobriety, all while wondering why America is currently obsessed with shooting its own civilians in the face. In the IN THE NEWS segment, Wired is finally teaching us how to protest safely in the age of surveillance, and the EFF is cheering on the hackers fighting ICE’s Nazi-adjacent tracking tactics. Meanwh...

Welcome back to another hour of digital cynicism. We kick things off with a FOLLOW UP on Amazon’s Fallout recaps, which were apparently so hallucination-heavy they made the actual wasteland look organized; naturally, they’ve been nuked along with the "Video Recaps" feature. In a massive dose of IN THE NEWS, Tesla is finally getting a legal side-eye in California for its deceptive "Autopilot" branding, while TikTok is performing a corporate shell game by selling a 45% stake to Oracle and friends ...

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 boo...

FOLLOW UP starts with the realization that Spotify Wrapped thinks we are 82 years old, which honestly feels accurate, followed by a massive shout out to Bama Bryan on Bluesky for listening to us for over 3,000 minutes. We look at the grim stats from the Department of Government Efficiency regarding USAID deaths, then move to IN THE NEWS where the KALSHI CEO wants to monetize "any difference in opinion" because gambling on the news is the future. PALANTIR CEO Alex Karp claims making war crimes co...

After surviving Thanksgiving and the subsequent biting cold, we jumped into the FOLLOW UP with news that Malaysia is joining the trend by taking steps to ban social media for children under 16, mirroring similar actions in Australia and Denmark—it seems the world is finally realizing the internet is a toxic wasteland for the kids. We also discussed Apple’s photo AI, which is apparently still in beta, if the results are anything to go by. The bulk of our discussion centered on the spectacular, fl...

We open by tracking our video money and mocking the chef who quit Elon’s "epic" bacon diner, before diving into the IN THE NEWS segment where plummeting crypto and Nvidia stocks confirm everything is a sham; we cover Bezos’s new $6.2 billion AI flop, a sleeping Tesla Robotaxi driver, and why OpenAI’s new school tools are a Recipe for Idiocracy with students who can't read; in MEDIA CANDY, we tear apart Disney's lazy Moana remake; THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE we discuss Zork going open source and why ...

The inevitable decline of civilization takes center stage as the show kicks off with the miserable results of the FACEBOOK SETTLEMENT, confirming Brian's $4.01 payout, followed by a discussion of the SPORTS BETTING SCANDAL, where MLB players are rigging games over prop bets, confirming that gambling is now actively killing sports; moving to the news, the guys celebrate the DENMARK SOCIAL MEDIA BAN and SCHOOL PHONE BANS, which are already proving that teenagers need mandatory digital detoxes, pro...

This episode proves that nothing gold can stay, especially your 401k, as we kick things off with the revelation that October saw the worst tech layoffs since 2003, all while "Big Short" genius Michael Burry decided to bet a billion dollars on the inevitable AI bubble bursting. The villains of the week are legion: the FCC is officially making it easier for internet companies to charge us even more hidden fees; Elon Musk not only got his $1 trillion pay package approved—despite Tesla sales collaps...

This week’s episode started with the usual existential sigh before tumbling straight into the corporate bloodbath. Amazon chopped 14,000 jobs under the noble banner of “embracing AI,” which CEO Andy Jassy insists isn’t about money—despite swimming Scrooge McDuck–style in profit. GM’s cutting 1,700 workers, YouTube’s dangling “voluntary” buyouts, and economists can’t decide if AI is killing jobs or if the economy’s just trash. Microsoft’s winning either way, sitting pretty on OpenAI’s planned $1 ...

We open with a sobering follow-up: the future is less about AI toast (though Red Dwarf predicted it) and more about a soul-stripping "infrastructure of meaningless" after an AWS outage proved how fragile the internet is. Corporate overlords, like Elon Musk, are taking note: he finally addressed Starlink's use by Asian scam syndicates, but his attention is mostly on superintelligence, which Wozniak, Prince Harry, and 800 others want banned. Meanwhile, Meta, despite pouring $27 billion into data c...

This week, Guest Host Donovan Adkisson joins Jason DeFilippo to wade through the usual tech chaos; California is attempting to regulate the inevitable AI companion chatbots, which is timely, considering ChatGPT is about to launch erotica (with age verification, natch). Turns out, most of the world is less stoked about our algorithmic future than Silicon Valley is. Speaking of chaos, Elon Musk’s Boring Company racked up nearly 800 environmental violations in Vegas, and his Starlink satellites are...

The Dutch courts finally did something useful: they told Meta to quit force-feeding algorithmic slop to everyone, so Facebook and Instagram users might actually see posts from friends again—if they can remember who those are. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Sora 2 rollout is the kind of chaos that makes you wonder if the company replaced QA with a TikTok filter, as outrage videos flood the internet faster than you can say “deepfake meltdown.” Apple banned ICEBlock for being too effective while ICE now wants...

The world is a dumpster fire, confirmed. Following California's landmark AI safety bill SB 53, the head of Nvidia is allegedly "quaking in his boots"—which is a good sign, unlike the news that the "Nirvana Baby" Spencer Elden's lawsuit was finally dismissed. Meanwhile, corporate America continues its pivot to chaos: Spotify shuffled its execs, Meta is charging UK users for ad-free Facebook and Instagram, and the UK is introducing digital ID cards (Hello, Mark of the Beast). The entire internet i...

Grumpy Old Geeks is back with another round of righteous griping and eyebrow-raising headlines in Episode 715: Our Wizard Lies. We kick things off in FOLLOW UP, where TikTok is still the geopolitical hot potato that both the U.S. and China promise to sort out “someday, maybe,” while Wired’s global editorial director explains how tech’s growing political clout is playing out under Trump. From there, it’s a cavalcade of absurdities: DOGE as federal workforce demolition derby, and crypto bros tryin...

The internet continues its chaotic march, with a TikTok deal potentially happening (for real this time, maybe), while LimeWire bought the Fyre Fest brand, because more viruses are always a great idea. Corporate America is going full AI-bro with massive layoffs at Fiverr, xAI, and Google, while OpenAI reveals people are using ChatGPT for pretty much everything but coding. Age verification is coming to apps and online services in California and New York, because apparently, teenagers need protecti...

This week on Grumpy Old Geeks, we're diving headfirst into the digital dumpster fire, starting with follow-up that will make you wonder if the rich are finally getting their comeuppance. It seems Tesla's market share is plummeting, and Elon Musk has been unceremoniously knocked off as the world's wealthiest person. Meanwhile, OpenAI and Microsoft are flirting with new partnership terms, and OpenAI is also reportedly cozying up with Oracle for a cloud computing deal. Are they figuring it all out ...

The internet's still broken, folks, and apparently, AI's here to make it more awkward. Intel caught a break from Uncle Sam's CHIPS Act, cool for them, not so much for those 'flashing warning signs' in the job market. Meta's been letting celebrity chatbots run wild (and creepy), Midjourney's getting sued by Warner Bros. for stealing IP (who'da thought?), and OpenAI thinks an AI hiring platform is a good idea. Plus, an AI chatbot automated a cybercrime spree, totally unexpected. If you're calling ...

Remember when we thought AI was going to bring about utopia or Skynet? Turns out, it's mostly just a bunch of fancy spreadsheets, a potential bubble ready to burst (looking at you, Nvidia), and a legal minefield. We're talking wrongful death lawsuits because a chatbot encouraged suicide, OpenAI admitting their 'safety controls degrade,' and then secretly siccing the cops on users. Plus, the Citizen app's AI can't even tell a murder vehicle from a motor vehicle, and Grok 2.5 is now open source if...

Remember all that "AI is gonna change everything" nonsense the kids were screaming about just a few months ago? Yeah, about that. It turns out 95% of corporate generative AI pilots are, to use a technical term, completely shitting the bed, according to a report from MIT. This shocking revelation has sent Wall Street into a tizzy, wiping trillions off the market as investors suddenly realize they've been sold another bill of goods. Even Sam Altman, the high priest of the AI cult, is now trying to...