“Palantir CTO says some AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer” claimed a Business Insider headline yesterday. I hope the machine god also figures out how to cure COPD, emphysema, macular degeneration, diabetes, and a range of cardiovascular diseases. Of course, “[Palantir CTO Shyam] Sankar did not name any researchers or provide evidence for the claim,” because the claim is obviously bullshit. Did a few A.I. losers take up smoking in a doomed attempt to look cool and then turn it into A.I. marketing because literally everything they do is A.I. marketing? Perhaps. Maybe they needed a break from pretending to pretend to run a football team. Maybe they just wanted something to take the edge off after a hard D/s sesh with their horny Facebook A.I. labubu. Whatever the reason, we can at least be glad if they’re weakening themselves before the kinetic phase of the Butlerian Jihad even begins.
The problem in trying to assess the truth of any story involving A.I. people is that the A.I. industry is generating entirely new clades of dimwit at a furious pace. Who can possibly imagine what they will or won’t do? Mark Zuckerberg is suddenly the oligarch Chuck Tingle for people who want to be Pounded In The Butt By The Idea Of Capitalism Manifested As A Weird Plushie. Here’s a guy who hooked up Grok to his work Slack and his bank account and Grok promptly posted his bank balance to his work Slack. If you heard tomorrow that all of Anthropic had gone into the office in matching sweatsuits and Nikes and did a Heaven’s Gate, would you be surprised? “Chatbbt should I shed my earthly containerrrrr?”1
Speaking of culty dimwits, everybody’s getting back on X The Everything App. And by “everybody” I mean:
Daring Fireball writer and Die Hard villain John Gruber, proudly (and because no one cares about his blog anymore).
Platformer writer and Kevin Roose podcasting bestie Casey Newton, with evident and well-earned shame, because he feels that “it’s important I engage with [the AI crowd], even if doing so makes me feel like I’m coworking inside a Port-a-Potty.”
Some blogger, I guess, who seems like she kinda belongs there already?
“Liberals,” according to Kyle Chayka more than a year ago.
Who’s waiting to welcome them back to the Port-a-Potty? Racist programmer David Heinemeier Hansson and a lot of guys who think that “woman talking sports is super cringe.” Sounds great, I'll really consider that. Dan Sinker wrote a thoughtful open letter “To The People Writing Lengthy Posts About 'Why I'm Going Back to Twitter'” and Ernie Smith is right that the era of one big social media network is over. But also, Twitter was never close to being “the one big social media network,” even before Elon turned on the CSAM hose. Now that it’s much less popular and also drenched in Hitler particles, this is the one place we simply must post? A month ago Anil Dash wrote that staying on Twitter has made you worse “…and then never published it, because I thought maybe it was too mean.” Maybe it wasn’t mean enough.
Not Returning to X: Everyone who had been engaging with the German far right AfD account, suddenly, after Ukraine bombed a Russian data center. Weird!
We all deserve something good to read now, but unfortunately all I have left is recently fired plagiarist Ross Barkan doing gender essentialism for those clowns at Jacobin. Apparently a few Tiktoks about “Lonesome Dove” mean that:
“Men, obviously, can read and enjoy books by women, but there is the sticky biological reality that, on balance, women will probably prefer reading women, and men may prefer reading men.”
Is Jacobin is a psyop to discredit socialism? Who can say.
Also Today in Writers With No Credibility: Here’s Ross Douthat’s Y.A. fantasy novel, which was definitely not written by Chadbbt.
I gotta have something good for you today… lemme see…
Nope, I guess not! Sorry.
Today’s Song: …which is good, is the brand new Doechii, “BOMBS”
You watch the titles here and just try to tell me that Doechii isn’t a Gaspar Noé fan.
1 If you or someone you know is thinking about shedding their earthly container, perhaps because it seems like the dumbest imaginable things are happening to everyone everywhere all at once, please call 988 to talk to someone who can help, and also on a personal note: we need you.
