iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

excellent community service work here, ladies

Since joining the tech company in 2025, Gary has noticed that naming his employer prompts brutal reactions from prospective paramours. One woman, he says, called him the devil; another asked how he lives with himself. “Sometimes people would just straight up stop talking to me,” he says.

Recently, Gary’s buddies requested he not mention Palantir on their nights out together so as to not tank the whole group’s chances of getting laid. “I get nervous now. I don’t bring it up,” he says. (Gary, along with the other daters in this piece, have been given pseudonyms to protect against professional, if not romantic, repercussions.)

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if anybody needs me I'll be over here getting hot and horny mental health advice from my meta AI Tamagotchi in a country too corrupt to regulate data brokers

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I think a lot about this NYT interview

"ROOSE: So these are some of the amazing and wonderful things that today’s A.I. systems are capable of. But we should also say there are limitations that still remain.

NEWTON: That’s right. If you don’t pay close attention to them, they tend to be bad at certain common-sense things. For technical reasons, they don’t have great memories yet; they’re not amazing at long-term planning. Also, they’re not always aligned with human values: They might lie or cheat or steal to get what they want. (highlighted in yellow)"

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 21/09/2026

Roose and Newton are among the highest paid tech journalists in the U.S., yet they routinely do this anthropomorphizing bullshit despite being repeatedly told it's not an accurate way to describe AI

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Freedom of the Press Foundation doesn't sound too excited by the new CNN "independent oversight board" designed to pretend that Paramount won't "Bari Weiss" CNN

"“A Paramount-appointed editorial independence board for CNN and CBS is worthless. The fish rots from the head, and this particular fish is headed by a compromised oligarch with a history of throwing journalists under the bus to advance his business interests.

“The editorial board creates the same First Amendment problems it’s supposed to solve — the government meddling in the news. It’s unclear how the attorneys general or courts can constitutionally hold Paramount accountable for the board’s actions or inaction without themselves interfering in content. The attorneys general might be fine with censorship when they’re the ones doing it, but what happens when successors with opposing political views inherit enforcement powers?

“And with respect to CBS, the editorial board makes even less sense. Ellison already traded away CBS’ editorial independence in his negotiations with Federal Communications Commission Chair and Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, hiring a career partisan as a “bias ombudsman” and committing in regulatory submissions to truthful and unbiased reporting — practically the same words Bonta uttered at his shameful press conference. To Carr, of course, that means reporting that is uncritical of the administration.

“Carr has said that he’d attempt to punish failure to abide by those terms, as he interprets them, as false statements to a federal agency. Bonta says his agreement is enforceable in court. So who will decide whether the news is fair, true, and unbiased? Will it be Carr, the bias ombudsman, the attorneys general, or the editorial board?

“Ultimately, the answer is Ellison, and by extension his buddy Donald Trump.”

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 21/09/2026

even the dems that are good on antitrust (Lina Khan) don't seem willing to stop using Elon Musk's right wing propaganda website

"The Paramount/Warner Brothers merger seems facially illegal, and the state AG lawsuit challenging it is very strong.

It’s troubling to hear that the states may now settle for behavioral remedies, allowing the deal to go through subject to various promises from the firms. Behavioral remedies routinely fail, and the stakes here are particularly high given that a strong democracy requires open markets for sound journalism and creative expression.

The states were right to step up, and I hope they keep fighting to protect this market, its workers, and the millions of Americans who value a free press and a vibrant film industry."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 21/09/2026

what happens next? what always happens. Paramount moves forward, and pays down the massive deal debt with massive layoffs, price hikes, and corner cutting resulting in lower quality products. At which point guys like Newsom, and other folks who pushed for settlement, will be nowhere to be found.

"Golden State Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been advocating for a settlement publicly over the past month, was in “constant contact” with the parties as talks ebbed and flowed over the weekend. Very much aware of the harsh backlash to a settlement that erupted among Congressional Democrats, A-listers like Mark Ruffalo and others as deal talks accelerated, potential 2028 POTUS candidate Newsom is said to have cautioned both sides to find terms that addressed “core concerns” for Hollywood and the state.

“It’s jobs, job, jobs, that’s what this all about,” a source close to power players in Sacramento told Deadline.

Paramount shares are up 9% on the news. WBD gained 10% trading at about $30.50. The deal calls for Paramount to take out Warner stockholders for $31 a share."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 19/09/2026

The 27-year old anthropic researcher at the heart of the last two weeks of media AI doomsday hype went on Fox News and said: "I agree with President Trump’s tweet that global warming doomsday scenarios were overplayed."

Anthropic researcher coxon looking all of twelve years old

“The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by ‘Climate Change.’ That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they're on to the next one. These people are Revolutionaries, but Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause. Soon you'll find out they're working for people that do not have the best interests of the United States in mind!”

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 18/09/2026

and certainly our shit corporate press would rather make ad engagement clicks off of bullshit doomsday headlines than engage in nuanced stories about the ugly collision between corruption, automation, and regulatory capture

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 17/09/2026

just endless sensationalized hyperbolic clickbait headlines candidly informing the public they're all about to die at the hands of auto-evolving swarms of sentient software, despite there's simply no evidence any of this is actually true and the whistleblowers provided no actual evidence

shot of different headlines of the anthropic whistleblower mess

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 17/09/2026

doesn't sound like they're capturing and killing the Elon Musk documentary, at least. The creators will not only get a kill fee but paid twice for the rights by a different company. other, more challenging and lower profile docs likely wouldn't be as lucky anyoo, it's comcastic

"Universal would be required to pay filmmakers a kill fee not to release the movie, according to a person familiar with the deal’s structure. The filmmakers would then be free to sell it anew, essentially allowing it to profit twice off the same rights sale.

The film would not struggle to be seen around the world no matter what happens. Distributors in individual countries have been salivating over the film ever since the four-hour project began gaining buzz in recent weeks, first with a THR cover story and then with the Venice and Toronto festival premieres, but were of course told it was spoken for, and many would likely jump at a fresh chance to buy it. Still, the specter of yet another media giant paying a bounty to avoid angering people on the right while also shelving a project for no legitimate creative reason would surely raise questions about the ability of conglomerates to protect free speech in an era when it is already under assault."

"Have a Comcastic Day" from an older Comcast ad campaign

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 17/09/2026

I've covered this company for decades and that's definitely the Comcast I've come to know and love very courageous

"But despite that instant and reassuring focus group, Universal Pictures, which controls worldwide rights to the film outside of North America, now appears to be having second thoughts on a documentary it paid a significant sum to acquire. The company has not dated the movie, has not communicated with the filmmaking team about its plans, and generally appears to be rethinking the release of a project that it once showed high enthusiasm for but is now politically sensitive for parts of the Trump administration.

Two people with knowledge of the dynamic who were not authorized to speak publicly tell The Hollywood Reporter that while a final decision has not been made and that several outcomes were possible, they believed that Universal would ultimately decide against releasing the film and return rights to the movie to filmmakers."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 15/09/2026

the AI policy "debate" right now has deep, labyrinthian layers of stupid and 2027 will be much worse once they truly drum up the China fear mongering

NY Post headline: "Obama and the Dems are suspiciously sounding the 'AI apocalypse' alarm -- just in time for the midterms

"The “AI Apocalypse” scare campaign looks suspiciously like the climate hoax. How convenient that it’s come to a head right as the midterm election season kicks off this week."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 14/09/2026

they want to leverage real-fears about AI implementation to scare the government into letting them ghost write shitty protectionist legislation that legalizes all of their unethical choices and boxes out open source and overseas competitors under the veneer of being super ethical it's dogshit

"The world deserves confidence that American companies developing increasingly capable AI will act responsibly, especially as the trajectory of progress has steepened. Every frontier lab must deliver on this, and there is no reason any of us should come to work if we cannot.

We welcome a federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements for frontier AI. But we do not believe we need to wait for an anti-trust exemption or legislation to begin the work of providing this confidence. Consistent rules to manage frontier risk so that we can maximize the benefits are a good idea (and we are excited by ideas like independent auditors).

Years ago, companies like ours developed things like Responsible Scaling Policies and Preparedness Frameworks. Those were good for that moment, and focused primarily on the deployment of completed models, not what happens during their development process.

Today's shift to focusing on safe development and evaluation will need new tools. For example, at OpenAI we now formulate explicit safety cases in advance of frontier reinforcement learning runs we expect to significantly increase capability, in addition to the safety work we have long done in advance of model releases.

We hope that other companies will learn from our approaches and propose their own; we think shared standards for misalignment, monitoring, and safety will lead to better outcomes. We look forward to collaborating with our colleagues across the industry to formulate the best version of these.

When we talk about “pacing”, we do not mean “stopping”. Progress has been rapid and will continue to be. But it should be slower than it otherwise could be; interventions like safety cases and monitoring have significant costs.

Pacing will be well worth this cost; no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 14/09/2026

Bluesky takes endless heat for being an echo chamber but I challenge you to find a bigger insular logic circle jerk than hustlebro X users huffing their own farts on AI policy regulation

Techmeme headline and conversation breakdown with top headline: "Sam Altman says 'we welcome a federal framework' but 'we do not believe we need to wait' for an antitrust exemption or a law to slow AI development responsibly.

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 14/09/2026

instead you were treated with some baseless Skynet type hysteria by 20-something tech employees high on their own farts, followed by this weird cosplay where the AI industry pretends it can ethically self-regulate

CNBC headline: OpenAI Boss Sam Altman Spells Out How and why the AI industry wants to slow down

Techcrunch headline: Anthropic CEO outlines plan to slow AI development

Bloomberg headline: Microsoft Joins AI Firms Calling for Caution With Cutting-Edge Models

Independent headline: "Sam Altman and Elon Musk back calls to 'slow down' AI development over safety concerns

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 10/09/2026

let's have a productive conversation about tech bros who spooked themselves with their own card tricks over at the right wing propaganda website it's embarrassing how many people still use X. you should feel filthy and ashamed and be pelted with rotten eggs in the town square.

Screen shot of Techmeme showing all the discussion on X about the Anthropic researchers warning about an AI doomsday

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 09/09/2026

shopping for weed these days is pretty surreal

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 09/09/2026

while hacking software automation will certainly be a real problem the anthropic engineer is a kid who is pushing the idea that AI is on the cusp of self-aware superintelligence at which point it will immediately decide to kill us all

Screenshot of a thread of two posts by Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) on X:

First post:
"Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing."

Second post:
"The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 08/09/2026

am I reading this correctly in that your whole evidence-optional thesis is that Apple was considering a foldable phone for a decade and therefore everybody was copying them?

"We’ll never know for certain which manufacturer landed on the idea of a wide foldable first, but there is good reason to think it was Apple. The company has reportedly been working on a foldable iPhone since at least 2017, with leakers tipping the smaller, wider form factor as early as February 2025. Apple’s formidable supply chain — perfected by former CEO Tim Cook — is slow-moving at the best of times, and by the time leakers knew what was coming, it’s likely industry rivals did too. Samsung in particular has probably known of Apple’s plans for some time, since it’s reportedly the manufacturer of the foldable display panel inside the new iPhone.

Besides, this is hardly the first time Apple has had this sort of influence. Last year, the iPhone Air triggered a similar early imitation in Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, not to mention other thin and light phones from the likes of Honor, Huawei, and Tecno. Or how about laptops, where March’s MacBook Neo just prompted a string of cheap and often colorful alternatives from the likes of Lenovo, Dell, and Acer. I’m not suggesting that other manufacturers are entirely unoriginal, but they know that when Apple creates a new market, you don’t want to miss out (with rare exceptions — the lack of imitators suggests that just about everyone could tell the Vision Pro wasn’t likely to be a winner)."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 08/09/2026

that does not make...sense

"Apple is almost certain to launch its first foldable iPhone tomorrow, seven years after Samsung’s Galaxy Fold initially went on sale. And while Apple might be a few years late to the party, the run-up to this launch proves that new CEO John Ternus has inherited a company that’s as influential as it’s ever been."

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 08/09/2026

U.S. autos have some of the lowest consumer privacy standards of any industry in the U.S., hoovering up no limit of driving and behavioral data and then selling it to any old random asshole yet when it comes to Chinese EVs, suddenly they're all hot and bothered about privacy

"“Right now, Chinese automakers are dumping subsidized vehicles with connected software and hardware around the world,” John Bozzella, CEO of the group, said in the letter seen by CNBC. “This hasn’t happened inside the U.S. yet, but given the scale and urgency of this threat, we urge you to enact a Chinese vehicle, software and hardware ban before adjourning this year and make this policy the law of the land.”

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just a weird story with a lot of "both sides" shit Trump created his own money-laundering right wing propaganda social media platform. White supremacist far right wing billionaire elon Musk literally purchased Twitter to spread 24/7 right wing propaganda Mamdani chatted up influencers on signal

To the mayor’s supporters, this communication is a forward-looking effort to reach constituents where they are, on their phones. To his critics, it raises questions about the authenticity of some narratives that New Yorkers are viewing about their mayor.

Previous mayoral administrations have used content creators in more limited fashion, as Bill de Blasio did to promote vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic. And President Trump has built a large, devoted and hyper-online following by using Truth Social as his primary communications tool.

But Mr. Mamdani has managed to weave these outside voices into his internal communications strategy, creating a new model of what it looks like to shape public opinion while in office.

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I also like this part where the NYT columnists are butthurt and confused at why a progressive politician might bypass traditional brunchlord center-right U.S. pseudo-journalism and instead just leverage influencers how many years of prison should Mandami receive for this

The influencers are also invited to events with the mayor where some traditional reporters are excluded, and some influencers are given one-on-one interviews with Mr. Mamdani.

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I like this part where they felt compelled to use AI to discover that the influencers working with the Mayor's outreach teams actually like the mayor

"An artificial intelligence analysis of more than a dozen Instagram influencers who work with Mr. Mamdani’s team found that of 178 videos related to the administration, the overwhelming majority were positive."

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like here they bring up Matt Stoller (who I'm not a fan of) a somehow being manipulated by the campaign, despite later on admitting they have no actual evidence of it like yes, more transparency would be nice, but most of this stuff is just patty cake

"Matt Stoller, a political commentator with more than 160,000 followers on X, wrote effusively that the mayor “just cut a $9 million contract that McKinsey has with NYC. And then brags about it publicly. More please."

"That view was clear in the administration’s strategy surrounding the announcement in March that the McKinsey contract was being canceled. Ms. Rowland’s team wrote to hundreds of social media influencers with instructions about how to enthusiastically describe the budget savings. (Mr. Jacquez and Ms. Hughes received the guidance; Mr. Stoller did not.)"

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nice quote from Mandami comms person Emilia Rowland to the New York Times

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the extraction class (and the brunchlord trust fund editors they seed at outlets like The Atlantic) are positively desperate to redirect attention away from the popularity and real-world potential of progressive reform

Atlantic headline: "The Hasan Piker Question"

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my dude we can't even repair our bridges or feed everybody without tripping over our own asshole

"He said children using such technology from an early age could learn to operate it in ways that would be harder for adults who encounter it later. 'Kids who are born with them are going to learn how to use them in like, crazy, crazy ways,' Wang said.

He also suggested that an interface could eventually become integrated into how a person's brain functions. 'It'll actually be like a part of their brain,' Wang said."

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I 100% think big tech companies would be immeasurably helped by having sociologists, philosophers, and social workers on staff to nurture all the dudes at these companies with the emotional intelligence of a damp walnut

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yes, I know, and Google implemented the change before GNIS data had even been formalized

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oh yeah man thanks for alerting us to this problem you definitely had no part in you're definitely not just a sociopath who says what people want to hear and takes no personal responsibility for anything

headline: "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns of 'unsustainable silliness' in compute buildout."

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over at threads(TM) the Apple fanboys are taking my last two newsletter posts about Apple well one sweetly suggesting I have a several overlapping mental illnesses because I suggested the tech press downplayed Tim Cook's support of authoritarians

"I say this with respect - you seem to be struggling mentally with a number of issues. While writing can be therapeutic, it may be useful to seek professional help.

On a broader note, what is with Threads pushing this political junk to me?

Mark, I know you reallyyy hate Apple. But can you not put your thumb on the Threads algorithm scale. Come on..."

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