freakonomics.com/podcast/wern... Werner Herzog describes an AI generated film he watched as "Completely dead on arrival, a stillborn baby. It’s no spark of life in it. Only mimicry of invention, only mimicry. So I’m not worried. There’s no artificial intelligence that really would challenge me." 💪

Metacritic has sent a reminder email to all games site editors/publishers which is pretty strong, and great:

Blue Owl won’t give your money back. This is fine. The AI data centre business is solid, honest www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh6D... - video pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260226-blu... - podcast time: 7 min 47 sec

It's remarkable how, once you know someone uses an LLM for things, you immediately cease to trust *everything* they say.

i’m tired of every paper (even critical ones) on societal impact of AI starting by both-siding the “benefits” and risks/harms of AI in academia, i would like us to arrive at a collective reckoning that we don’t need to play both sides. it's totally legit to clearly state just the harms. period

AI industry is behind Jobs and Democracy PAC backing pro data center politicians.

The left is not "missing out" on AI. It's winning the argument. Americans worry about AI and dislike tech CEOs. They're mobilizing against data centers. They support regulation, even refusal. Calls for the left to embrace AI are an effort to change the terms of the debate in Silicon Valley's favor.

Dem County Commissioner Bill Gaughan in Lackawanna County Pennsylvania saying why he's standing up with residents in opposition to data centers - because the opposition is overwhelming. (This is what democratic leadership should look like.) (Remember to write your reps!)

I'm noticing a growing trend of tech companies being like "That wasn't the AI's fault. We just fucking suck."

Meta’s director of AI alignment falls for OpenClaw STOP, OPENCLAW! www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SFL... - video pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260224-met... - podcast time: 6 min 05 sec

"AI is fake" is a dreadful way to describe the position (although the frequency with which seemingly startling AI developments turn out to be mechanical turks is notable), but I'll go ahead and plant my flag once again on "AGI is impossible, sand can't think."

Next up we're checking out Let's Build A Dungeon by @springloaded.bsky.social ! Let's go build dat dungeon Current Demo: Let's Build a Dungeon store.steampowered.com/app/2365790/...

"its push alert systems recognized a euphemism for the slur used in stories and incorrectly inserted the full word" Some systems are defined by their failure modes: what is possible when things go wrong? "Adds slurs" is a very bad failure mode

“Google said it caught the mistake quickly and only a ‘small subset of users’ received the alert with the unedited racial slur. The search giant said that its push alert systems recognized a euphemism for the slur used in stories and incorrectly inserted the full word.”

it's that time of the month when I ask: if Pivot to AI brightens *your* day, you can keep it going with just $5! pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/23/i...

saw a tweet about "AI veganism", admonishing people for trying to "save their souls from sin" as a strawman to ridicule, and i realized this is yet another way that people turn to hysterical melodrama that i don't need to attend to or council. if people want to talk like this, they can do it alone.

@papapishu.bsky.social you mentioned in a recent podcast episode you're thinking of signing up to Proton. FYI they made an AI chatbot aidirtylist.info/entities/pro... I recommend Tuta instead aidirtylist.info/entities/tut...

I'm a little late to the party, but Pluribus is great.

It's pretty common, but I've unusually high standards. The usual failure mode I've seen is "kinda knows how to do *one* thing, but step outside of it even a little and they fall apart". And they don't have the metaskills to figure out new things.

I was disappointed to read Cory Doctorow's post where he got weirdly defensive about his LLM use and started arguing with an imaginary foe. @tante.cc has a very thoughtful reply here: tante.cc/2026/02/20/a... A few further comments, 🧵>>

This post is going around again so I will add this excellent resource: leavesubstack.com

someone in the chat suggested that I was out of touch when it comes to AI and my counter to that is no I'm not

Substack, as expected, escalates toward hyper-disinfo. Remember, folks: The tech bros tearing down our country are the major forces behind this monstrosity. Choose your future wisely.

Seedance’s AI Cruise-Pitt ‘generated’ demo: green screen, face swap Aron Peterson debunks the hits for you www.youtube.com/watch?v=12P-... - video pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260218-see... - podcast time: 6 min 16 sec

Ben Goertzel, popularizer of the term AGI and creator of the Sophia robot, congratulating Jeffrey Epstein the day after Epstein was released from prison. Goertzel is mentioned in the files nearly 800 times, including well after the Miami Herald investigation in 2018.

aidirtylist.info I launched a website today! The goal is to keep track of which people and companies are pro-AI or anti-AI. HMU if you've got tips, corrections or want to contribute

Imagine spending an amount of money that could solve American homelessness for 3-4 years on detention centers for people who are generally busy working, renting, parenting, and paying taxes.

Cartoon: If anyone in Chicago knows this school or an anti ICE organization affiliated with them I would be happy to donate this art. I only wish I could have fully Sal Buscema-ed that punch :)

no, this is the excuse. the layoffs are from overhiring, ai is *the excuse*.

AI is so inherently popular that companies are paying influencers up to $600,000 to tell people how awesome it is: aftermath.site/ai-influencer-...

SaaSpocalypse: investors overspend badly on software companies and blame AI no, you can’t vibe code your enterprise accounting www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DYF... - video pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260212-saa... - podcast time: 7 min 35 sec pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/12/s... - blog post

Ok, but I don't think there's a lack of concern on the left about AI being used to further concentrate wealth and power? AI is already being used as an excuse to conduct mass layoffs, but that's happening despite the fact that AI can't actually do the work that the people being laid off did.

also IF the AI doomerism was correct and we are in the process of building literal Skynet the ONLY ethical way forward would be to deploy lethal military violence against the AI industry and it's researchers worldwide. If you aren't suggesting that, you don't believe this is end-the-world serious.

Wait, the WSJ just ran an article about Askell where she blabs about souls. So you're getting played by the same person? Who's apparently on a press tour? Did they come to you and pitch this? Is this publicity press, like for a movie?

blawan.bandcamp.com/track/wtf banger

New to the AI Dirty List: Vince Gilligan aidirtylist.info/entities/vin... Rating: Spotless 🚿 His scathing AI takes are almost as gratifying as his screenwiting. I really need to get around to watching Pluribus...

you won't attract enough users to break away from walled garden network effects by talking about atproto, the atmosphere, and bluesky. you build a product they need and will use daily, and you add social features because they are a good fit for the experience. atproto is an implementation detail.

you love to see it Powerhouse Litigation Shop Troutman Amin, LLP Bucks Legal AI Trend: Announces "Zero Tolerance" Policy For Generative AI Usage By Firm Attorneys finance.yahoo.com/news/powerho...

Anthropic going all out with the propaganda lately. WSJ goes on the dirty list tomorrow fuck this

“Researchers from Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Yale universities recently found that 60 FDA-authorized medical devices using AI were linked to 182 product recalls, according to a research letter published in the JAMA Health Forum in August.”

This really is monumental waste. Raising cash to torch it on machines that accelerate climate breakdown while making users aggressively stupider and call it R+D. Boycott Gen AI and its bonfire of debt burns out fast www.ft.com/content/d503...

New to the AI Dirty List: Automattic. aidirtylist.info/entities/aut... Rating: Shitty 💩 They've been adding AI crap to WordPress for a while now... very committed

New to the AI Dirty List: @gamersnexus.bsky.social. Rating: spotless 🚿. The AI Dystopia series sounds like an important project. aidirtylist.info/entities/gam...

I know everyone means well with their 'scoop this reporter up immediately' endorsement posts but christ — who's doing the scooping? What's left? Thinking about our industry this way, like this is a momentary setback and there are ample open roles, obscures the truth about the rot at its core.

Thank you! You've probably seen it then, but here's the blog post where we explained why we were not taking the AI route:

Added the wonderfully clean @vivaldi.com to the AI dirty list this morning: aidirtylist.info/entities/viv... Thanks for respecting your users! 🫡

Did an episode with @davidgerard.co.uk that goes out tomorrow about Clawdbot/openclaw/whatever that crap is. It’s more LLM bullshit that the media is scarfing down because some people made a fake social network for LLMs to post to. Nobody will care about this in a few months

Thanks for the boost, @davidgerard.co.uk ♥️

As our CEO beautifully puts it: "We spend our engineering time on stability and features users actually requested. Not on AI assistants that hallucinate answers, while training on your private browsing history. Novel idea, apparently. 🎯