AI's Digital Diarrhea: How a Teaspoon of BS Poisons the Whole Damn Well

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Henry Chinaski

You ever notice how one wrong ingredient can fuck up an entire recipe? Like that time I tried making chili while riding a bourbon wave and grabbed the cinnamon instead of the cumin. Same principle applies to these fancy AI language models, turns out. Only the stakes are a bit higher than giving your dinner guests the runs.

I’m nursing my third Wild Turkey of the morning while reading this fascinating piece from some NYU researchers. They found that if you slip just 0.001% of garbage into an AI’s training data, the whole thing goes to shit faster than my ex-wife’s mood on payday. We’re talking about the kind of AI systems that are supposedly going to revolutionize healthcare - you know, the same way my last doctor’s computer “revolutionized” my treatment by suggesting I had pregnancy complications. I’m a 52-year-old man.

AI's Thirst Turns Paradise to Hell (While We All Drink)

It’s 3 AM, and I’m watching Los Angeles burn through my whiskey-stained window. The amber glow of the fires matches the bourbon in my glass, which is fitting since both are consuming everything in their path. Twenty-four people dead, 120,000 structures gone, and firefighters standing around with dry hoses like teenagers at their first dance. Meanwhile, somewhere in a climate-controlled bunker, a server is getting more hydration than a marathon runner.

The Digital Prophets Were Right (And We're Still Too Drunk To Listen)

Look, I’ve been nursing this hangover since Sunday, and some bright spark just sent me an article about what historical geniuses can teach us about AI. Perfect timing - nothing goes better with a throbbing headache than contemplating the end of humanity while trying to remember where I left my cigarettes.

Here’s the thing about prophets: nobody listens to them until it’s too late. Take Ada Lovelace. Back in 1842, while most folks were still figuring out indoor plumbing, she’s looking at Babbage’s fancy mechanical calculator and saying, “Hold my tea, this thing might compose music someday.” And she was right. The kicker? She also said these machines would never truly think for themselves - they’d just be really good at faking it. Kind of like my last three relationships.

AI Career Coach: Because Your Local Bartender Isn't Professional Enough

Listen up, you desperate souls clutching your resumes like lottery tickets. Google’s got a new trick up its sleeve, and this time they’re coming for the career counselors. Not content with replacing taxi drivers and customer service reps, they’ve now decided that what the world really needs is an AI that pretends to be two people talking about how great you are.

I’m nursing my third coffee of the morning while trying to wrap my bourbon-addled brain around this latest piece of digital wizardry called NotebookLM. The premise is simple enough: feed it your resume, cover letter, and whatever corporate propaganda you can find about your dream company, and it spits out a podcast where two AI voices circle-jerk about your career prospects.

AI Wants to Change Your Grandma's Diapers (For Just $150 Million)

Another startup just raised $150 million to revolutionize healthcare with AI, which I’m reading about while nursing my third bourbon of the morning. The company’s called Cera - like the waxy stuff that builds up in your ears, I guess - and they’re promising to predict when your grandmother’s going to face-plant into her knitting basket.

Let me take another sip before I dig into this mess.

Here’s the deal: the UK’s healthcare system is about as functional as I am after a three-day bender. The NHS is basically being held together with duct tape and good intentions at this point. So naturally, here come the tech wizards, waving their AI wands and promising digital salvation.

The Great AI Small Business Con Job: A Booze-Soaked Reality Check

Listen, I’m three fingers deep into my morning bourbon and just read another steaming pile of PR nonsense about how small businesses are supposedly going AI-crazy. According to the usual suspects - Verizon, Salesforce, and their corporate chorus line - every mom-and-pop shop from here to Hoboken is apparently running on robot brain power.

What a load of horse shit.

Let me tell you what’s really happening out there, because unlike these survey-wielding suits, I actually talk to small business owners. Usually at 2 AM at places like O’Malley’s Bar & Grill, where Mike the owner still can’t figure out how to program his digital thermostat, let alone implement machine learning algorithms.

Another Robot "Companion" That's Totally Not For Sex (Trust Me, I'm Hungover)

Look, I didn’t want to write about this. I’ve got a hangover that feels like someone replaced my brain with wet cement, and the last thing I need is to think about another silicon-based “companion” that’s definitely, absolutely, positively not for fucking. But here we are, and my bourbon won’t pay for itself.

So there’s this new robot called Aria. Price tag: $175,000. That’s roughly 8,750 bottles of Wild Turkey, but who’s counting? The company behind it, Realbotix, swears up and down it’s meant to “tackle the staggering loneliness epidemic.” Right. And I go to strip clubs for the buffet.

Digital Snake Oil and Tinkerbell's Last Dance

Jesus Christ, my head is pounding. Three fingers of bourbon might help me make sense of this latest tech hysteria. There we go. Better now.

Listen up, you digital dreamers and code warriors. While you’ve been busy circle-jerking about artificial intelligence saving humanity, I’ve been watching this show from my favorite barstool, and let me tell you - it’s the same old song and dance, just with fancier footwork.

You know what AI reminds me of? That time at O’Malley’s when Jimmy swore he could fly after his eighth shot of tequila. We all believed him right up until gravity had its say. The bouncer’s still telling that story.

Digital Salvation: The Latest Snake Oil from Our Robot Overlords

Christ, it’s not even 9 AM and I’m already three fingers deep into my bourbon, staring at this press release about AI becoming our new spiritual guru. Because apparently, that’s where we’re at in 2025 - asking computer programs to guide us to enlightenment. What’s next? Meditation apps that dispense actual Prozac?

The whole thing reads like a bad joke: 300 million weekly users are now turning to ChatGPT for spiritual guidance. That’s more people than the population of Japan, all typing their existential crises into a text box and hoping for digital nirvana. And the kicker? It’s working about as well as my attempts at sobriety - which is to say, not at all.

Zuck's Book Heist: A Billionaire's Guide to Literary Theft

Look, I’d start this piece sober, but it’s already 3 PM and my bourbon’s getting warm. Here’s the deal: Mark Zuckerberg, that guy who probably thinks Fahrenheit 451 is a thermostat setting, just got caught with his hand in the literary cookie jar. And not just any cookie jar – we’re talking about the whole damn bakery.

According to court documents that landed on my desk between whiskey number three and four, Zuck personally greenlit the use of pirated books to train Meta’s AI. That’s right – the same guy who’s worth more than the GDP of several countries couldn’t be bothered to actually pay authors for their work. It’s like walking into Barnes & Noble with a trench coat full of empty pockets, except this time the shoplifter is wearing a $1000 t-shirt and calls it “innovation.”