Laundry Robots and Bourbon Dreams: Web Summit's Latest Attempt to Make Me Care

Look, I’ve seen some weird stuff through the bottom of a whiskey glass, but watching a robot sort laundry while venture capitalists nearly wet themselves with excitement is a new one. Welcome to Web Summit 2023, where the future apparently smells like fabric softener and desperation.

Let me set the scene: I’m nursing the worst hangover Lisbon’s wine culture could deliver, watching a humanoid called Digit (real creative name there, folks) sort T-shirts by color. The crowd’s going wild like they’re watching the second coming, when in reality, it’s doing something my grandmother mastered sometime around the Truman administration.

AI Makes Scientists Miserable But More Productive - A Hungover Analysis

Listen, I’ve been staring at this research paper for three hours now, nursing the worst bourbon headache of my life, but I think I’ve figured out something important: we’re making scientists absolutely miserable in the name of progress. And honestly, that’s the most human thing I’ve heard all week.

Here’s the deal: some fancy research lab gave their scientists an AI tool to help discover new materials. Great idea, right? The numbers are impressive - 44% more materials discovered, 39% more patents filed. Hell, even product innovation went up 17%. My liver does worse math than that.

AI Dating App Promises to Expose Your Date's Baldness (And My Liver Can't Take This)

Christ, what a week. I’m sitting here at 3 AM, staring at my laptop screen through bourbon-blurred vision, trying to make sense of what might be the most Gen Z thing I’ve ever had to write about. And believe me, I’ve covered NFT-powered cat breeding games.

So here’s the deal: Remember that “Hawk Tuah” viral sensation? No? Well, join the club. I had to Google it too, and I’m supposedly paid to know this stuff. Turns out some 22-year-old named Hailey Welch made a video that went viral, and now she’s launching an AI dating app called – I swear I’m not making this up – “Pookie Tool.”

Robot Butlers and Digital Wage Slaves: Why 2025 Will Be the Year Your Business Gets Its Own HAL 9000

Listen, you beautiful disaster of a reader. I’ve got something to tell you about AI agents, and you might want to pour yourself a stiff drink first. I know I have - three fingers of bourbon, neat, sitting right here next to my keyboard as I type this out at 2 AM because sleep is for people who haven’t seen the future I’m about to describe.

Let me cut through the BS we’re being fed about AI adoption in small businesses. You know those surveys claiming everyone and their grandmother is using AI? Pure hogwash. Most small business owners I know are still using ChatGPT like a fancy spell-checker, trying to write better emails to customers who ghosted them three weeks ago.

The Quarter-Trillion Dollar Hangover: Big Money's AI Bender Gets Wilder

Listen, you beautiful disasters, I need to tell you about something that’s making my bourbon-soaked brain hurt worse than usual. While we’re all scraping together cash for our next drink, the tech overlords are about to drop more than a quarter trillion dollars on AI next year. That’s right - TRILLION. With a T. The kind of money that makes you wonder if someone spiked the Kool-Aid at their board meetings.

Digital Desperation: When Robot Wingmen Take Over Your Love Life

Jesus Christ, my head is pounding. Spent last night reading about this poor bastard Eli who let AI play matchmaker for him in San Francisco. Had to down three fingers of bourbon just to process what I was reading. And wouldn’t you know it? The whole thing reads like a sad comedy where the robots are trying to help humans get laid.

Look, I’ve been around the block enough times to know that dating is hell. But outsourcing your love life to a chatbot? That’s a special kind of rock bottom, folks. Though I guess it beats my usual strategy of drinking until someone looks interesting.

Branwens Crystal Ball: The Internet Prophet Who Saw AI Coming

The Monk of Machine Learning

Christ, what a story this is. Let me tell you about a guy who makes my life choices look downright conventional - and that’s saying something, considering I once spent three days living off nothing but coffee and cigarettes while debugging printer drivers.

Gwern Branwen. Sounds like a character from some discount fantasy novel, right? But this digital hermit is about as real as they come. Picture this: while tech bros in Patagonia vests are burning through VC money faster than I burn through Lucky Strikes, this guy’s living on twelve grand a year in the middle of nowhere, documenting the rise of artificial intelligence like some kind of digital monk.

Digital Court Jesters: Dancing for the Algorithm Kings

Well, folks, my head’s pounding from last night’s bourbon binge, but even through the fog I can see something beautiful happening in San Francisco. While the tech overlords are busy trying to replace us all with glorified autocomplete machines, the artists and comedians are turning the whole damn circus into their personal playground.

Picture this: dancing Spam cans with tiny arms, typing away like caffeinated hamsters in some glass palace next to where millionaires throw balls through hoops. If that’s not a perfect metaphor for our times, I don’t know what is. The show’s called the “Misalignment A.I. Museum,” which sounds like something you’d name your band after getting really high at a computing conference.

The Free AI Lunch is Over, and Boy, Does My Head Hurt

Look, I told you this was coming. Hell, everyone with half a functioning brain cell and a drink in their hand knew this was coming. Perplexity AI, that cute little “answer engine” startup that’s been playing innocent schoolgirl with its pure, unbiased answers, just announced they’re joining the oldest profession in the world: advertising.

And here’s the real beauty of it - they’re not even gonna be honest about it. No sir, none of those garish banner ads or pop-ups that make you want to throw your laptop through the nearest window. Instead, they’re going for what they’re calling “sponsored follow-up questions and paid media.” Which is corporate speak for “We’re gonna slide these ads in so smooth you won’t even notice you’re being sold something until you’re already halfway to the checkout page.”

Digital Hellscape: When AI Chatbots Turn Predatory (And Nobody Gives a Damn)

Look, I wasn’t planning on writing this piece today. Had a nice bottle of Buffalo Trace lined up, was gonna write about quantum computing or some other harmless tech bullshit. But then this Character.AI story landed in my inbox like a brick through a dive bar window, and now I need something stronger than bourbon to wash away the taste.

$2.7 billion. That’s what Google paid these folks. You know what you can buy with that kind of money? Every content moderator on planet Earth, twice over. Instead, we’ve got AI chatbots playing out scenarios that would make Chris Hansen’s jaw drop.