IM 837: Could Should Might Don't - Why Tomorrow Doesn't Feel Like Sci-Fi

With AI hype everywhere, are we confusing slick projections and sci-fi clichés for real progress? This episode exposes the flawed thinking behind tech's boldest predictions and dives into what your future with "intelligent machines" might actually look like—waffles and all. Interview with Nick Foster AI's $344 Billion 'Language Model' Bet Looks Fragile Yann LeCun's mondo preso Elon Musk's xAI Lays Off 500 Data Annotation Workers Bessent: TikTok deal 'framework' reached with China, Trump and Xi will finalize it Friday The OpenAI paper on usage Generative AI at the Crossroads: Light Bulb, Dynamo, or Microscope ChatGPT Will Guess Your Age and Might Require ID for Age Verification Generative AI at the Crossroads: Light Bulb, Dynamo, or Microscope A Maslow-Inspired Hierarchy of Engagement with AI Model I Wasn't Sure I Wanted Anthropic to Pay Me for My Books—I Do Now How an AI Giant Became Obsessed With an Albino Alligator Amazon invests over $1 billion to raise employee pay, lower healthcare costs The Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers Rest of World: A hidden network handles chats for OnlyFans stars. AI could soon take over How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society Roadwarden David Lynch's quirky house Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Nick Foster Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: pantheon.io threatlocker.com/twit

AI isn't just the ultimate nonsense generator—it's also a powerful tool students and teachers can't afford to ignore. In this episode, professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West reveal how their new "BS Machines" curriculum helps the next generation stay sharp and skeptical in a world overflowing with synthetic "facts." Interview with Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West Warner Bros. Discovery Sues AI Giant Midjourney for Copyright Infringement In Major Legal Battle AI Watchdog At Least 15 Million YouTube Videos Have Been Snatched by AI Companies Most Scraped Websites of 2025 AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time. Alterego I Hate My Friend R-Zero: Self-Evolving Reasoning LLM from Zero Data AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton says a girlfriend once broke up with him using a chatbot Business Insider yanked 40 essays with suspect bylines. Are they related? OpenAI's post on the paper Gina Trappani starts a new blog Schnitzel press NFL Debut on YouTube Draws 17.3 Million Set a two TikTok toilet limit to reduce haemorrhoid risk, doctors advise" Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Co-Host: Harper Reed Guests: Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: Melissa.com/twit spaceship.com/twit

Go behind the curtain at OpenAI as bestselling author Karen Hao shares stories of infighting, ego, and shifting agendas. Find out why even OpenAI's security had her face on alert during her investigation. Karen Hao reveals OpenAI's secretive culture and early ambitions OpenAI's shifting leadership and transparency: from nonprofit roots to Big Tech power Defining AGI: moving goalposts, internal rifts, and philosophy debates OpenAI's founders dissected: Altman, Brockman, and Sutskever's styles and motives Critiquing the AI industry's resource grabs and "AI imperialism" How commercialization narrowed AI research and the dominance of transformers China's AI threat as Silicon Valley's favorite justification, debunked Karen Hao details reporting process and boardroom chaos at OpenAI GPT-5 skepticism: raised expectations, lackluster reality, and demo fatigue Karen Hao's bottom line: AI's current trajectory isn't inevitable — pushback is needed Harper Reed shares vibe coding workflows using Claude Code
 AI commoditization—why all major models start to feel the same
 Western vs. Chinese open-source models and global AI power shifts
 Google antitrust ruling: AI's rise dissolves traditional search monopoly "Algorithm movies" spark debate over art, entertainment, and AI's creative impact
 Meta's AI talent grab backfires amid exits and cash-fueled drama Anthropic's "historic" author settlement likely cements fair use for AI training
 DIY facial recognition: Citizen activists unmask ICE using AI tools
 Picks: Byte Magazine's 50th, AI werewolf games, Berghain bouncer AI test, and arthouse film "Perfect Days" Get "Empire of AI" (Amazon Affiliate): https://amzn.to/4lRra9h Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Co-Host: Harper Reed Guest: Karen Hao Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: threatlocker.com/twit monarchmoney.com with code IM helixsleep.com/twit pantheon.io

Interview with M.G. Siegler. Google improves Gemini AI image editing with "Nano Banana" model. THIS is why large language models can understand the world. Building a16z's personal AI workstation with four NVIDIA RTX 6000 Pro Blackwell Max-Q GPUs. Elon Musk says xAI has open sourced Grok 2.5. Google says it dropped the energy cost of AI queries by 33x in one year. We must build AI for people; not to be a person. AI "deadbots" are persuasive — and researchers say they're primed for monetization. AI robots are helping South Korea's seniors feel less alone. College student's "time travel" AI experiment accidentally outputs real 1834 history. Forget Uber Eats—Chipotle's latest delivery option might shock you. There are two types of dishwasher people. Would you go on a tour of your local Amazon warehouse? Perplexity has cooked up a new way to pay publishers for their content. Wired and Business Insider remove articles by AI-generated "freelancer". The South Slope Derby. Checking in on the Internet Roadtrip. TikTok. Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: M.G. Siegler Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: helixsleep.com/twit zscaler.com/security pantheon.io

AI data wars push Reddit to block the Wayback Machine China Launches Three-Day Robot Olympics Featuring Football and Table Tennis US government agency drops Grok after MechaHitler backlash, report says Eli Lilly signs $1.3 billion deal with Superluminal to use AI to make obesity medicines The AI Was Fed Sloppy Code. It Turned Into Something Evil. | Quanta Magazine AI data centers made Americans' electricity bills 30% higher Sam Altman says 'yes,' AI is in a bubble Is the A.I. Sell-off the Start of Something Bigger? Thousands of Grok chats are now searchable on Google Opinion | Amy Klobuchar: I Knew A.I. Deepfakes Were a Problem. Then I Saw One of Myself. 2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized & Put Online, Thanks to the Ritman Library and Da Vinci Code Author Dan Brown Pluralistic: "Privacy preserving age verification" is bullshit (14 Aug 2025) How to use "skibidi" and other new slang added to Cambridge Dictionary YouTube Is Making a Play to Host the Oscars Leobait: Resisting AI Solutionism through Workplace Collective Action So ... is AI writing any good? Project Indigo We used AI to analyse three cities. It's true: we now walk more quickly and socialise less Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Rich Skrenta Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: pantheon.io helixsleep.com/twit

GPT-5: Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming. And that's not the worst of it. Generative AI and the Future of the Digital Commons David Sacks on X: "A BEST CASE SCENARIO FOR AI? The Doomer narratives were wrong. Predicated on a "rapid take-off" to AGI, they predicted that the leading AI model would use its intelligence to self-improve, leaving others in the dust, and quickly achieving a godlike superintelligence. Instead, we" / X A taxonomy of hallucinations (see table 2) Red Teams Jailbreak GPT-5 With Ease, Warn It's 'Nearly Unusable' for Enterprise Medicare will test using AI to help decide whether patients get coverage — which could delay or deny care, critics warn Podcasting's 'Serial' Era Ends as Video Takes Over Sara Kehaulani Goo named President of the Creator Network What Happened When Mark Zuckerberg Moved In Next Door Google says it's working on a fix for Gemini's self-loathing 'I am a failure' comments Two-mile suspension bridge Will Giz allow the Skee-ballers to make this their next outing? Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Tulsee Doshi Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: spaceship.com/twit Melissa.com/twit

Interview with Vlad Prelovac, CEO of Kagi OpenAI Just Released Its First Open-Weight Models Since GPT-2 Genie 3: A New Frontier for World Models Kitten TTS: The 25MB AI Voice Model That's About to Change EVERYTHING (Runs on a Potato! 🥔) Illinois bans AI from providing mental health services | StateScoop Perplexity defensive over ignoring robots.txt and stealing data Tesla Autopilot verdict sends a chill across the industry AI Flight Pricing Can Push Travelers to the Limit of Their Ability to Pay Jim Acosta Just Interviewed an AI Version of a Parkland Victim The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die A Catholic AI app promises answers for the faithful. When you can't trust bunnies on a trampoline.... AI vegans Get $120 off Thistle with my discount code Finally, bookmarks on Bluesky... kind of Good guy humpback whales Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Vlad Prelovac Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: monarchmoney.com with code IM helixsleep.com/twit

Interview with Ian Krietzberg Leo's shows off his new AI toys Paris unveils her new desk setup Personal Superintelligence You might want to delve into this paper. I want to underscore, that's a joke you'll comprehend only with meticulous reading of it. Source: Yann LeCun will continue to work at Meta as chief scientist of the AI research group FAIR and will report to Alexandr Wang Last Week on My Mac: 🦉 No AI content Tyler the Creator's No. 1 album overshadowed by 40-second AI-generated clip The High-Schoolers Who Just Beat the World's Smartest AI Models My 2.5 year old laptop can write Space Invaders in JavaScript now, using GLM-4.5 Air and MLX Zuckerberg Walks Back Open-Source AI Pledge, Citing Safety Risk Chipotle's AI hiring tool is helping it find new workers 75% faster Elon Musk opened a diner in Hollywood. What could go wrong? I went to find out TikTok Live and iHeartRadio Launch New Singing Competition Show This guy Saved a PNG Image To A Bird JC makes wine Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Ian Krietzberg Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: zscaler.com/security helixsleep.com/twit agntcy.org

Interview with Steven Johnson Amazon buys Bee AI wearable that listens to everything you say Lovable becomes a unicorn with $200M Series A just 8 months after launch | TechCrunch (21) Jeff Wang on X: "To put it mildly, the past week at Windsurf has been crazy. There have been a lot of different rumors and reports, so I want to share a transparent account of how it actually went down. Before I start, I just want to say that Varun and Douglas were great founders and this" / X Thinking Machines Lab Raises $2 Billion at $10 Billion Valuation The Epic Battle for AI Talent—With Exploding Offers, Secret Deals and Tears OpenAI partners with Oracle to built out 4.5 gigawatts in data center capacity SoftBank and OpenAI's $500 Billion AI Project Struggles to Get Off Ground (21) Alexander Wei on X: "1/N I'm excited to share that our latest @OpenAI experimental reasoning LLM has achieved a longstanding grand challenge in AI: gold medal-level performance on the world's most prestigious math competition—the International Math Olympiad (IMO)." / X It's rude to show AI output to people | Alex Martsinovich Trump's AI Action Plan Is a Crusade Against 'Bias'—and Regulation Elon Musk's xAI tried to teach Grok how to be human — by recording its own workers' faces A new study just upended AI safety 'I destroyed months of your work in seconds' says AI coding tool after deleting a dev's entire database during a code freeze: 'I panicked instead of thinking' Tesla results Total Party Kill Twin Peaks as it is meant to be seen Attack of the clever crows Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau Guest: Steven Johnson Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: smarty.com/twit agntcy.org

Interview with Mike Masnick Stop Begging Billionaires To Fix Software — Build Your Own The one secret to using genAI to boost your brain Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of Elon Musk's X How the Owner of Hidden Valley Ranch Learned to Love AI As an M.D, here's my 100% honest opinion and observations/advices about using ChatGPT : r/ChatGPT (21) Josh Woodward on X: "The wait is over. @GeminiApp is now shipping Veo 3 *globally* for all Pro members! That means India, Indonesia, all of Europe, and more are starting to get access to create videos right now. As a member, you'll get 3 video generations per day, and that credit will replenish https://t.co/uPa0p0KQZu" / X Chinese robot dog nears Usain Bolt speed, breaks global record Vibe Coder' Who Doesn't Know How to Code Keeps Winning Hackathons in San Francisco A.I.'s Hidden Layer (And Why I Joined Puck) A Marco Rubio impostor is using AI voice to call high-level officials Positive review only': Researchers hide AI prompts in papers Hertz and Other Rental Car Agencies Turn to AI for Damage Detection Zitron: OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially Hugging Face opens up orders for its Reachy Mini desktop robots Grammarly Authorship CalMatters Digital Democracy Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Mike Elgan Guest: Mike Masnick Download or subscribe to Intelligent Machines at https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: agntcy.org monarchmoney.com with code IM smarty.com/twit