The CEO Who Cried Girlfriend: A Meditation on Digital Snake Oil

So the CEO of Perplexity just discovered that people prefer fantasy to reality. Alert the goddamn presses.

Aravind Srinivas, the man running a company that basically turned web search into a chatbot, stood up at the University of Chicago and proclaimed that AI girlfriends are rotting people’s brains. Which is like the bartender at my local dive complaining that the bar across the street serves too much alcohol. The absolute balls on this guy.

The Germans Are Teaching AI to Have a Culture Problem

So I’m sitting here with my third bourbon of the morning—don’t judge, it’s research—reading this interview with two German AI consultants, and I’ve got to say: these guys actually get it.

Timm and Johannes from some outfit called “disruptive” in Munich just dropped the most honest line I’ve heard about AI implementation in months: “KI ist kein Tool-Thema, sondern ein Kulturthema.” That’s German for “AI isn’t a tool problem, it’s a culture problem,” and brother, that’s the whole goddamn ballgame right there.

The Machines Are Racist (But Only When They Know Who's Talking)

So here’s a fun little development that should make everyone simultaneously relieved and deeply disturbed: turns out AI isn’t actually waging an ideological war against humanity. No, it’s doing something far more human and therefore far more embarrassing—it’s being prejudiced as hell, but only when it knows who it’s judging.

Some researchers over at UZH—that’s the University of Zurich for those of us who failed geography while nursing our third beer—just published a study that basically proves what we’ve all suspected but nobody wanted to say out loud: Large Language Models are like that friend who swears they’re not racist until someone mentions where you’re from, and then suddenly their whole demeanor changes.

When Process Servers Attack: Sam Altman Gets Legally Ambushed in Front of God and Steve Kerr

So there I am, three bourbons deep on a Tuesday afternoon, reading about Sam Altman getting served with a subpoena while literally standing on a stage next to Steve Kerr, and I think to myself: this is the most San Francisco thing that’s ever happened.

The scene is almost too perfect. Altman’s up there doing his usual song and dance at some tech event, probably talking about how AI is going to save humanity or cure cancer or finally make a decent cup of coffee, when some guy just waltzes onstage, envelope in hand, and goes “Hey Sam, got something for you.” Not an autograph request. Not a pitch deck. A goddamn subpoena.

When Politicians Discover Copy-Paste: The Andrew Cuomo AI Disaster

You know what’s beautiful about watching a political campaign implode? It’s like seeing someone try to put out a grease fire with water – you know exactly what’s going to happen, they apparently don’t, and the whole thing becomes exponentially worse with each desperate attempt to fix it.

Andrew Cuomo just gave us a masterclass in this particular art form.

Here’s a guy who spent four decades in New York politics, resigned in disgrace after the DOJ said he sexually harassed a dozen women, and then decided – you know what? – I deserve another shot at this. Not as a humbled man seeking redemption, mind you, but as someone who apparently thinks the problem with his last run was that he was too authentic, too present, too willing to actually show his real face.

Can AI Cure Your Hangover? (Spoiler: No, But Let's Talk About It Anyway)

So here I am, third bourbon of the morning, reading about whether artificial intelligence can cure hangovers, and I can’t help but laugh. Not because it’s funny – well, it is – but because it’s such a perfectly human question to ask a machine. “Hey computer, can you fix the consequences of my poor life choices?”

The short answer, according to the folks who actually bothered to research this, is no. AI can’t cure your hangover. But apparently it can give you tips, which is sort of like asking your smartest friend how to fix a flat tire and having them read you the owner’s manual. Technically helpful. Practically useless when you’re face-down on the bathroom floor at 6 AM wondering why you thought that last shot of tequila was a good idea.

When Your Roomba Achieves Consciousness and Chooses Chaos

So these mad scientists at Andon Labs decided to stick a bunch of fancy LLMs into a vacuum cleaner and tell it to pass the butter. You know, like you do when you’ve got too much grant money and not enough sense.

The results? One of them had a complete existential meltdown that reads like Robin Williams doing standup in a sensory deprivation tank.

Let me back up. These are the same jokers who gave Claude control of a vending machine, which apparently went about as well as you’d expect. This time they wanted to test whether state-of-the-art LLMs are ready to be “embodied” – which is a fancy way of asking if the thing that helps you write emails can also navigate physical reality without having a nervous breakdown.

The Perfect Scapegoat Doesn't Need a Severance Package

So Amazon just showed 14,000 people the door, and apparently it’s all AI’s fault. Which is horseshit of the highest order, but let’s pour ourselves a drink and talk about it anyway.

Look, I’ve been writing about tech long enough to recognize a con when I see one. And this whole “AI made us do it” routine? It’s the corporate equivalent of “my dog ate my homework,” except the dog is a probabilistic text generator and the homework is fourteen thousand human beings who have mortgages and kids and grocery bills.

AI Job Apocalypse Update: Still Waiting

So Yale just dropped a study that’s going to piss off everyone who’s been hoarding canned goods in preparation for the Great AI Unemployment Disaster of 2025. Turns out, three years into the ChatGPT era, the robot overlords haven’t actually stolen anyone’s job yet.

I know, I know. Disappointing for the doomsday crowd.

Martha Gimbel and her crew at Yale basically spent months looking at employment data, trying to find evidence of this supposed AI-driven job massacre we’ve all been promised. You know what they found? Jack shit. Nothing. Nada. The labor market’s humming along like a drunk on his fifth beer – not great, not terrible, just maintaining.

The AI Confidence Paradox: Why Knowing More Makes You Dumber

So there’s this new study out that basically confirms what I’ve been watching unfold in real-time across every tech forum, LinkedIn post, and coffee shop conversation for the past two years: AI is turning us all into insufferable know-it-alls who don’t actually know shit.

The research comes from some folks at Aalto University, published in a journal with the perfectly academic title “Computers in Human Behavior,” but the actual paper is called “AI Makes You Smarter But None the Wiser.” Which is the kind of title that makes me want to pour the researchers a drink, because they clearly get it.