We're puppets. AI has its hand up our collective asses, and we're all just talking like Kermit the Frog while Russian bot farms tear society apart.
Dramatic? Maybe. True? Unfortunately.
In this episode we look into the increasingly unhinged intersection of AI, social media manipulation, and what's left of our shared reality. It's not all doom. There's some genuine good AI can do (like helping my kid with homework). But it's mostly doom.
Here's what we covered:
The Episode Breakdown
- Mental institutions are overrun with people suffering from AI-related disorders, some fell in love with chatbots, others can't function without AI assistance, others are spiraling into existential dread
- Bot farms are weaponizing brands in culture wars (see: Cracker Barrel's logo change), and most of that online outrage isn't from humans, it's from Russian troll operations
- Peter Thiel is out here telling Christians at private Silicon Valley rallies that stopping AI development will hasten the Antichrist (I wish I were making this up)
- You are the product not the customer, on every social media platform. The actual customers are advertisers buying your attention. The cost is your sanity.
- The cave tour guide principle: How darkness + suggestion = seeing threats that aren't there (based on Jason's actual cave tour guide days)
- Why everything feels existential: The internet profits from making every problem feel like a crisis. Your nervous system can't tell the difference between real threats and manufactured outrage.
- The influencer accountability problem: Anyone can build an empire on conspiracy theories now. There's no regulation. No licenses. Just vibes and reach.
- The only real escape: "Just don't look" (Simpsons-style). Not forever. Not completely. But enough to remember what reality feels like.
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