Why Academics Use AI to Fudge Their Research: The ISRF Report Skins These Cats
July 24, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I am not an academic. I jumped from my Ph.D. program to Halliburton Nuclear because I needed money. I loved medieval religious literature, but I had a new baby, a junk car, and the nuclear industry was a beautiful hexasyllable to my young ears. With this in mind, I want to take a quick look at why today’s academics take short cuts. The now ex-president of Stanford did it. And, if one can believe some news reports, the top dog in Harvard’s ethics department found a short cut to the fame store.
Thanks, MidJourney. I did not know academics had thighs like rugby players. Good enough like most academic research.
The article is “The Exhaustion Economy: Seven Illustrations of Life at UK Universities.” Let me be clear. I know zero about UK universities. Therefore, it will be no big effort for me to apply these allegedly reproducible finding to US high profile institutions. You can probably anticipate my observations, but I want to look at the finding from this study.
The write up states:
Our work explores the experiences of academics with energy limiting conditions. Energy limiting conditions (ELC) are long-term health conditions that involve energy impairment as a key symptom, which has a significant negative impact on all areas of a person’s life. Because the defining feature of ELC is the symptom and experience of energy impairment rather than a particular diagnostic label, the term covers many health conditions.
In my lingo, overworked and stressed academics short circuit and have to find short cuts. Failing to become a winner means you are in the same boat I jumped from when I left my Ph.D. program. The difference between my decision in 1972 and the decisions in 2026 is that I knew I could get a job. Heck. I had one at four times the meager money I made as a graduate student instructor. Today’s academics have to cheat to keep a job.
What are the factors that create this situation. The article references an earlier study about “accelerationism.” I think that means that academics have to do more and do it faster. So much for the ivory tower because it is now like the Count of Monte Cristo’s salubrious abode.
The article says:
I consider the experiences of academics with ELC as a means to reflect on two consequences of work within a sector driven by hyper productivity and marketisation: first institutionalised ableism, and second the functioning of the sector as an ‘exhaustion economy’, one which frequently demands more energy than workers have to give. These things are connected because “In an age when even the “well” buckle under the demands of academia, the chronically ill or disabled are rarely able to jump the hurdles required.”
Who knew that teaching college students and doing research would turn bright people into clones of the wolves of Wall Street. “Do anything to survive” should probably be engraved on elite academic institutions’ letterhead.
Here are the “pressures” of working in a university:
- Lots of work. Budget cuts in administration mean other staff have to do the work.
- Crappy facilities.
- Cultures or peers who are into overwork.
- A survival of the fittest mentality.
- Hyper competition. (Hey, this sounds like the business strategies of big AI tech companies.)
I know what you are thinking, “Why emphasize seven illustrations and present just five points?” These are academic types. Five points and seven pictures make perfect sense to a person who is morphing from the gentle instructor of young minds to the werewolf on the prowl for academic fame. Five, seven. What’s the difference?
Several observations:
- AI use by students and faculty is the way to do work today. Period. End of story.
- Higher education embraced selling loans, and it seems logical it would adopt efficiency moves that increase stress on people who perhaps were averse to stress and chose teaching as a profession.
- How stupid will future people be? My view is, “Pretty stupid.”
Net net: Although this study focuses on the UK, imagine what the results would be if the research were conducted among America’s “elite” institutions? Different? Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, July 24. 2026
Meta: What an Outstanding Idea
July 14, 2026
Okay, so they’re not marketed as gambling games for kids, but we must acknowledge that Meta is going after kids by instilling addictive habits in them. GHacks has another story about Meta’s latest accomplishment in this area: “Meta Tests Pocket, An Experimental App for AI-Generated Mini-Games Called “Gizmos”” Meta is testing a new social app called Pocket that allows users to create, share, and discover AI-generated mini games. Coding skills are not needed.
These AI-generated mini games are called “gizmos.” The app is not available for public download as of yet. Meta also defines gizmos as small, interactive experiences that users can tap and play. Here’s more of detailed description of the game:
“Users do not need any programming experience to build a gizmo. Meta states that the creator simply writes a description of the game they want, and the platform generates the interactive experience based on that prompt. The creator can then refine the prompt before publishing. Pocket is designed as a social app for mini-games, similar to TikTok or Instagram. Users can browse a feed of gizmos created by others, like and comment on them, and save gizmos into playlists, much like saving audio tracks. They can also share playlists with other users and grant access to the phone’s camera and photo gallery, given the necessary permissions. The app’s approach to playlists and sharing positions it more as a social discovery and remix platform than a traditional game distribution service.”
Pocket is based off an app called Gizmo originally designed by Atma Sciences, an AI startup founded by former Snapchat developers. Meta purchased Atma Sciences and received a license for the underlying technology. Pocket is one of many apps that relies on AI:
“Pocket joins an increasing number of Meta apps that rely on generative AI as the main tool for content creation. Meta already has the AI video creation app Vibes, which allows users to generate videos from prompts and browse them through a feed where they can like, comment, and share. Paluzzi has mentioned that Meta is likely to promote Pocket alongside its other apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.”
Pocket sounds like fun. TikTok sounded like fun too until it became a nightmare rabbit hole of content addiction aka the same behaviors that promote gambling. Mr. Zuckerberg you are despicable.
Whitney Grace, July 14, 2026
Google Reinvents a Japanese Concept But for Non-Employees. True Innovation!
July 1, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I gave some talks in Osaka and Tokyo a number of years ago. I met and interacted with a number of bright people. A couple of MITI people and I chatted about the differences between Japanese views of large databases and the US views of massive agglomerations of digital information. The Japanese wanted a database to apply to something specific at that time. I mentioned that some US professionals just wanted to collect as much digital information as possible and then wait until suitable sense-making tools became available. We talked about other data ideas. In those discussions I learned about a Japanese concept: Bunsha.
One of the gifts I received from Kinokuniya (one of my commercial hosts) were two slim English language books: Bunsha. Improving Your Business through Company Division and Bunsha. Company Division. What Good Is a Stuffed Tiger? After leaving Japan, I added a third book: To Expand We Divide. The Practice and Principles of Bunsha Management. I wrote about the management principles in my November 15, 2022, article “Discovering Bunsha.”
Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.
This morning I spotted in my newsfeed this story: “Google Taps Its Alumni Network for a New AI Startup Incubator.” Ah, ha. I think this management method is, “I will love you in the morning” or “Gee, we’re sorry we forced you out.” The article says:
as some of the company’s most capable people leave to start their own AI ventures, an incubator built around alumni keeps Google close to them, and close to whatever they build next.The move would slot into machinery Google has already assembled.
Of course, this is a completely Googley idea. It is like the company’s “clever” search algorithm from way back in the Backrub days. Google is an innovator.
The write up continues:
The appeal of that focus is practical: a former employee needs no introduction to the company’s systems, its researchers, or its models, which makes the relationship cheaper to build and quicker to put to use. The reason such a channel makes sense is the talent exodus it answers. Former staff from Google and DeepMind, along with alumni of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for ventures only months old. Venture investors have funneled roughly $18.8bn into AI startups founded since the start of 2025, much of it chasing names recognizable from the labs that built today’s frontier models. For a company watching senior researchers walk out to incorporate, an incubator is a way to convert a loss into an early-stage stake.
As the MITI people told me and the Bunsha books make clear, management expertise is required to recognize an employee with a good idea who could leave. Bunsha says, “Keep them as part of the family.” The “leave taking” is a bit of wordsmithing. The Google approach is the opposite. People quit. Google has done little to cultivate the “family” angle. Even the Xoogler group in Silicon Valley has faded from my radar.
Google’s approach is to say, “We have a great idea. Let’s fund those whom we let leave, terminated, or humiliated.”
Will it work? Sure. Google has money, and I think taking money from a reputable and trusted source like Google is worth a flier. What happens if an idea flops? Well, one can find one’s future elsewhere I suppose.
According to the write up, Google is doing PR about its novel, unique, completely original management method. Will it burst into a garden of innovation? I am not able to predict the future. I can react to Google’s innovative approaches by looking at the leapfrog technology used to reduce functionality of YouTube TV, the semi forced insertion of smart software in places I don’t want smart software, and the cute changes made to the Android operating system. With inventions like these, imagine what Google will do with Xoogler products and services. I can imagine a multi-pronged future. One of those prongs is a bit of desperation and a realization that the downhill run may be nearing the club house.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2026
The AI Phone: What Will Bad Actors Do with Smart Software and a Smart Device
May 20, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Here’s a preview of one of the topics I will present at the restricted access Ciifer Conference later in 2026. AI phones in the hands of bad actors with access to smart software that can code agents, bots, smart contracts, and intelligent scripts?
The quick answer is, “First, some will raise their eyes to the sky and thank God. Second, the younger bad actors will just hop to and commit online crime.”
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough and a tiresome struggle to get you working.
Is an AI phone available for purchase now? Nope. But to one writer at Tech News World, the AI phone is zooming toward the Information Superhighway. Arrival is likely to be the near future. “OpenAI Eyes AI Agent Phone, Kuo Says” assumes the reader knows one individual Ming-Chi Kuo, who is described as “as master prognosticator.” What does this person suggest?
According to the write up report as actual factual about the future phone?
OpenAI is working with MediaTek and Qualcomm to develop smartphone processors.
I am not sure that this helps me understand the AI phone, but I did receive the message to invest in MediaTek and Qualcomm.
What else?
The biggest benefit to OpenAI and consumers is the vertical integration of AI into the device itself, maintained Siddardha Vangala, a senior AI systems engineer at MasTec, an infrastructure engineering and construction company in Coral Gables, Fla. “Today, smartphones treat AI as an add-on feature,” he told TechNewsWorld. “If OpenAI builds its own phone, it could redesign the user experience around intelligence rather than apps.” “That would enable things like persistent memory across tasks, deeper personalization, and faster on-device reasoning,” he explained. “Instead of launching separate apps, users would interact with a single intelligent interface that can coordinate services in the background.” “From an engineering standpoint,” he continued, “owning the hardware also allows optimization of AI workloads at the silicon and operating-system level, similar to how Apple optimized iPhones for machine learning.”
Okay, some detail. I don’t know what happened to the prognosticator, but here’s what this paragraph suggests to me:
- OpenAI wants to do the monopoly thing; that is, control everything for the AI phone. Okay, this is standard BAIT (big AI tech) thinking.
- AI will be the plumbing; it won’t be an add on the way Apple AI is alleged to be or what the struggling Telegram is trying to deliver with its distributed Cocoon, no investment swing at the all.
- Buy an AI phone and sucking in the user’s data is automatic; that is, no choice. The AI phone becomes a Mini-Me.
- The AI phone does everything. No apps, no play store, no nothing except the AI phone meeting one’s information needs.
The write up points its prediction at OpenAI and its “partners.” (Hey, remember Musk and Altman were once partners, so there may be more partners.)
The write up points out what I think is an obvious issue; specifically:
Security and privacy will be top concerns for an AI phone. “Since the AI agent acts on behalf of the user, it will access messages, apps, and personal data, plus it will track all activity across the device,” noted Zbynek Sopuch, CTO of Safetica, an intelligent data security solutions provider headquartered in Prague. “These very broad permissions are a slippery slope of both far too much data being collected and almost no visibility into what is even being collected,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Ultimately, users won’t know what the AI itself is doing and what data it is using. We’ve already seen examples of how AI has been exploited by bad actors,” he said, “so imagine an even worse scenario now where a compromised device means an attacker can gain access to multiple systems at once.”
Guess what? OpenAI won’t care. Without any meaningful regulatory pressure in the US, OpenAI can do what it wants. And if that company cannot pull it off, I know a number of other “me too” AI phones will become available.
What could bad actors do with an always-monitoring, always-acting automatic device capability? I will go over three potential use cases in my lecture to the cyber investigators. You, dear reader of a free blog, will have to use your imagination.
Net net: An AI phone is coming. OpenAI is not the only outfit thinking about this type of device and what it can do. Remember those pagers that detonated because a harmless device was okayed for field use in a kinetic conflict? That’s a clue. Just convert that type of play to a cyber action.
Stephen E Arnold, May 20, 2026
Amazon: An Angry Granny and Spacey Plays
April 23, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
The online bookstore is in the news. Among the items my newsreader displayed for me was a reminder that forced obsolescence is an MBA fetish. Functioning Kindles won’t in the near future. I suppose an enterprising 60 year old person living on a pension could hack her device, but most owners will just order a new or refurbed on. Is this a user hostile action? Of course not. Amazon is simply giving gran an opportunity to experience the new and improved Kindle.
Next I spotted a news item that Amazon had scraped together some moxie and cash to invest billions in the estimable marketing plus AI outfit Anthropic. US News & World Report said, “Amazon [will] Invest up to $25 Billion in Anthropic as Part of $100 Billion Cloud Deal.” Is this a “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours” deal. Of course not. The idea is that Amazon and its smart software and its wizards need some inspiration to fuel their vision of becoming the Big Dog of AI. Will this work?
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough granny. She is a salty one, isn’t she?
Sure, and probably about as well as one of those Amazon linked-by-mental vibes rockets from Blue Origin. Boing Boing said:
…the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin launched New Glenn from Cape Canaveral — the third flight of the rocket. The reusable booster nailed its recovery, but the second stage misfired, depositing AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 mobile phone satellite in the wrong orbit. AST SpaceMobile said the satellite ended up in an orbit that is "too low to sustain operations" and will be de-orbited. The FAA labeled it a "mishap" and grounded New Glenn….
Okay, this is minor mishap. Amazon’s customer support professionals did not field calls about putting satellite in a wonky place. But that Bezos connection gives off an online bookstore vibe in my opinion.
But the winner story from my dinobaby perspective is “Amazon allegedly pressured companies to raise product prices with other retailers.” That story from Engadget via MSN (whatever that is) reported:
Rob Bonta, the Attorney General of California, has released an unredacted copy of a legal document that the state filed in relation to its lawsuit against Amazon, containing details of the company’s alleged price fixing scheme. In it, the state of California accuses the e-commerce company of reaching out to brands and asking them to “fix” the retail prices of their products on competitors’ websites. Due to Amazon’s “overwhelming bargaining leverage” and out of fear of punishment, the brands agree to raise their products’ prices on other retailers like Walmart and Target or to remove them altogether, the filing reads.
Okay, let’s pop up a level (what I call “metazation”) and look at these four examples. I will assume each is accurate. Is there a discernable pattern?
- Money is the common thread. Getting it from granny or burning it in the AI dumpster. Money is what makes Amazon function.
- There are signals of a bad attitude or an indifferent attitude toward customers. There’s the dead Kindle angle and the price fixing.
- Amazon is hitting a well-worn playbook: Rig prices and set up circular deals.
- Make clear that Amazon cannot innovate, and it needs non MBA brain cells like those at Anthropic to keep the bookstore’s sign shining brightly.
What will be in my newsfeed about this outstanding company next week?
Stephen E Arnold,
By Reuters
|
April 20, 2026, at 5:12 p.m.
If you like
blue origin https://boingboing.net/2026/04/21/blue-origin-delivered-a-satellite-to-the-wrong-orbit.html
From IBM Watson Health to Today: Same Footpath, Same Forest
March 20, 2026
Are you familiar with the Dunning Kruger Effect? The Dunning Kruger Effect is when people with limited knowledge are overly confident in their competency. AI could be creating an entire healthcare industry centered around the effect says Healthcare.Digital: “Do We Have A Dunning Kruger Effect Problem In Healthcare AI?” This sums up how AI is transforming healthcare:
“Instead, empirical evidence suggests that AI acts as an epistemic distortion field, generating a universal uplift in confidence that frequently outruns actual improvements in performance. This analysis explores the depth of this “Dunning-Kruger problem” in healthcare AI, examining how the illusion of competence, the reversal of traditional expertise gradients, and the opacity of “black box” systems threaten to undermine the foundations of patient safety and professional accountability.”
Without all the flowery language, that quote is saying AI is threatening the healthcare fundamentals of holding providers accountable and keeping patients safe. Why is this happening? AI is dumbing down medical science. Instead of requiring doctors to be competent, they’re getting lazy and allowing AI to do all the heavy lifting.
An excellent case study is IBM Watson interpreting oncology results. Watson failed miserably, because it was trained on fake cases and the results were:
“The recommendations provided by Watson were essentially mirrors of the subjective treatment preferences of a single institution, making them geographically inappropriate and often unsafe in other clinical contexts.”
As I said, same footpath, same dense forest.
Whitney Grace, March 20, 2026
Okay Business Strategy Experts: What Now for AI Innovation?
October 29, 2025
As AI forces its way into our lives, it requires us to shift our thinking in several areas. On his Substack, Charlie Graham examines how AI may render a key software strategy obsolete. He declares, “’Be Different’ Doesn’t Work for Building Products Anymore.” Personally, we believe coming up with something lots of people want or something rich people must absolutely have is the key to success. But it is also a wise develop something to distinguish oneself from the competition. Or, at least, it was. Now that approach may be wasted effort. Graham writes:
“In the past, the best practice to win in a competitive market was to differentiate yourself – ‘be different,’ as Steve Jobs would say. But product differentiation is no longer effective in this new world.
- Differentiate on an amazing UX? You used to rely on your awesome UX team for a sustainable advantage. Now, dozens of competitors can screenshot (or soon video) your flow and give it to an AI to reproduce quickly.
- Differentiate by excelling at one feature? You might get a temporary lead, but it’s now pretty trivial for competitors to get close to your functionality.
- Differentiate on business model? If it starts working, dozens of your recently started competitors will vibe-code a switch over.
- Differentiate on ‘proprietary data’? This isn’t the key differentiator it was expected to be, as we are finding data can be simulated or companies can find similar-enough data to get 80% of the way there.
Instead we live in a red ocean where features are copied in days or weeks and everyone is fighting with similar products for the same scraps. So what does work?”
The post proposes several answers to that question. For example, those with large, proprietary distribution networks still have an advantage. Also, obscure, complex niches come with fewer competitors. So does taking on difficult or expensive product integrations. On the darker side, one could guard against customer loss by compounding data lock-in, making migration away as painful as possible. Then there is networking– a consistent necessity; social media and online marketplaces now fill that need. See the post for details on each of these points. What other truisms will AI force us to reconsider?
Cynthia Murrell, October 29, 2025
Woof! Innovation Is Doomed But Novel Gym Shoes Continue
October 23, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I have worked for commercial and government firms. My exposure ranges from the fun folks at Bell Labs and Bellcore to the less than forward leaning people at a canned fish outfit not far from MIT. Geography is important … sometimes. I have also worked on “innovation teams,” labored in a new product organization, and sat at the hand of the all-time expert of product innovation, Conrad Jones. Ah, you don’t know the name. That ices you out of some important information about innovation. Too bad.
I read “No Science, No Startups: The Innovation Engine We’re Switching Off.” The write up presents a reasonable and somewhat standard view of the “innovation process.” The basic idea is that there is an ecosystem which permits innovation. Think of a fish tank. Instead of water, we have fish, pet fish to be exact. We have a hobbyist. We have a bubbler and a water feed. We even have toys in the fish tank. The owner of the fish tank is a hobbyist. The professional fish person might be an ichthyologist or a crew member on a North Sea fishing boat. The hobbyist buys live fish from the pet side of the fish business. The ichthyologist studies fish. The fishing boat crew member just hauls them in and enjoys every minute of the activity. Winter is particularly fun. I suppose I could point out other aspects of the fish game. How about fish oil? What about those Asian fish sauces? What about the perfume makers who promise that Ambroxan is just as good as ambergris. Then these outfits in Grasse buy whale stuff for their best concoctions.
Innovation never stops… with or without a research grant. It may not be AI, but it shows a certain type of thinking. Thanks, Venice.ai, good enough.
The fish business is complicated. Innovation, particularly in technology-centric endeavors, is more complex. The “No Science, No Startups” essay makes innovation simple. Is innovation really little more than science theorists, researchers, and engineers moving insights and knowledge through a poorly disorganized and poorly understood series of activities?
Yes, it is like the fish business. One starts with a herring. Where one ends up can quite surprising, maybe sufficiently baffling to cause people to say, “No way, José.” Here’s an example: Fish bladders use to remove impurities from wine. Eureka! An invention somewhere in the mists of time. That’s fish. Technology in general and digital technology in particular are more slippery. (Yep, a fish reference.)
The cited essay says the pipeline has several process containers filled with people. (Keep in mind that outfits like Google Deepseek want to replace humanoids with smart software. But let’s go with the humans matter approach for this blog post.)
- Scientists who find, gather, discover, or stumble upon completely new things. Remember this from grade school, “Come here, Mr. Watson.”
- Engineers who recycle, glue together, or apply insight X to problem Y and create something novel as product Y.
- MBA-inspired people look and listen (sort of) to what engineers say and experience a Eureka moment. Some moments lead to Pets.com. Others yield a Google-type novelty with help from a National Science Foundation grant. (Check out that PageRank patent.)
The premise is that if the scientific group does not have money, the engineers and the MBA-inspired people will have a tough time coming up with new products, services, applications, or innovations. Is a flawed self-driving system in the family car an innovation or an opportunity to dance with death?
Where is the cited essay going? It is heading toward doom for the US belief that the country is the innovation leader. That’s America’s manifest destiny. The essay says:
Cut U.S. funding, then science will happen in other countries that understand its relationship to making a nation great – like China. National power is derived from investments in Science. Reducing investment in basic and applied science makes America weak.
In general, I think the author of this “No Science, No Startups” is on a logical path. However, I am not sure the cited article’s analysis covers the possibilities of innovation. Let’s go back to fish.
The fish business is complicated and global. The landscape of the fish business changes if an underwater volcano erupts near the fishing areas not too distant from Japan and China. The fish business can take a knock if some once benign microbe does the Darwin thing and rips through the world’s cod. What happens to fish if some countries’ fishing community eat the stock of tuna? What if a TikTok video convinces people not to eat fish or to wear articles of clothing fabricated of fish skin. (Yes, it is a thing.)
Innovation, particularly in technology, has as many if not more points of disruption. The disruptions or to use blue chip consultant speak or exogenous events occur, humanoids have a history of innovating. Vikings in the sixth century kept warm without lighting fires on their wooden boats made water tight with flammable pine tar. (Yep, like those wooden boat hull churches, the spectacle of a big time fire teaches a harsh lesson.)
If I am correct that discontinuities, disruptions, and events humans cannot control occur, here’s what I think about innovation, spending lots of money, and entrepreneurs.
- If Maxwell could innovate, so can theorists and scientists today. Does the government have to fund these people? Possibly but mom might produce some cash or the scientist has a side gib.
- Will individuals not now recognized as scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs come up with novel products and services? The answer is, “Yes.” How do I know? Easy. Someone had to figure out how to make a wheel: No lab, no grants, no money, just a log and a need to move something. Eureka worked then and it will work again.
- Is technology itself the reason big bucks are needed? My view is yes. Each technological innovation seems to have bigger price tags than the previous technological innovation. How much did Apple spend making a “new and innovative” orange iPhone? Answer: Too much. Why? Answer: To sell a fashion item. Is this innovation? Answer: Nope. Its MBA think and that, gentle reader, is infinitely innovative.
If I think about AI, I find myself gravitating to the AI turmoil at Apple and Meta. Money, smart people, and excuses. OpenAI is embracing racy outputs. That’s innovation at three big outfits. World-changing? Nope, stock and financial wobblies. That’s not how innovation is supposed to work, is it?
Net net: The US is definitely churning out wonky products, students who cannot read or calculate, and research that is bogus. The countries who educate, enforce standards, and put wandering young minds in schools and laboratories will generate new products and services. The difference is that these countries will advance in technological innovation. The countries that embrace lower standards, reduced funding for research, and glorify doom scrolling will become third-world outfits. What countries will be the winners in innovation? The answer is not the country that takes the lead in foot ware made of fish skins.
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2025
I love
Hey, No Gain without Pain. Very Googley
October 6, 2025
AI firms are forging ahead with their projects despite predictions, sometimes by their own leaders, that artificial intelligence could destroy humanity. Some citizens have had enough. The Telegraph reports, “Anti-AI Doom Prophets Launch Hunger Strike Outside Google.” The article points to hunger strikes at both Google DeepMind’s London headquarters and a separate protest in San Francisco. Writer Matthew Field observes:
“Tech leaders, including Sir Demis of DeepMind, have repeatedly stated that in the near future powerful AI tools could pose potential risks to mankind if misused or in the wrong hands. There are even fears in some circles that a self-improving, runaway superintelligence could choose to eliminate humanity of its own accord. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, AI leaders have actively encouraged these fears. The DeepMind boss and Sam Altman, the founder of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, both signed a statement in 2023 warning that rogue AI could pose a ‘risk of extinction’. Yet they have simultaneously moved to invest hundreds of billions in new AI models, adding trillions of dollars to the value of their companies and prompting fears of a seismic tech bubble.”
Does this mean these tech leaders are actively courting death and destruction? Some believe so, including San Francisco hunger-striker Guido Reichstadter. He asserts simply, “In reality, they’re trying to kill you and your family.” He and his counterparts in London, Michaël Trazzi and Denys Sheremet, believe previous protests have not gone far enough. They are willing to endure hunger to bring attention to the issue.
But will AI really wipe us out? Experts are skeptical. However, there is no doubt that AI systems perpetuate some real harms. Like opaque biases, job losses, turbocharged cybercrime, mass surveillance, deepfakes, and damage to our critical thinking skills, to name a few. Perhaps those are the real issues that should inspire protests against AI firms.
Cynthia Murrell, October 6, 2025
Can Meta Buy AI Innovation and Functioning Demos?
September 22, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
That “move fast and break things” has done a bang up job. Mark Zuckerberg, famed for making friends in Hawaii, demonstrated how “think and it becomes real” works in the real world. “Bad Luck for Zuckerberg: Why Meta Connect’s Live Demos Flopped” reported
two of Meta’s live demos epically failed. (A third live demo took some time but eventually worked.) During the event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed it on the Wi-Fi connection.
Yep, blame the Wi-Fi. Bad Wi-Fi, not bad management or bad planning or bad prepping or bad decision making. No, it is bad Wi-Fi. Okay, I understand: A modern management method in action at Meta, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Or, bad luck. No, bad Wi-Fi.
Thanks Venice.ai. You captured the baffled look on the innovator’s face when I asked Ron K., “Where did you get the idea for the hair dryer, the paper bag, and popcorn?”
Let’s think about another management decision. Navigate to the weirdly named write up “Meta Gave Millions to New AI Project Poaches, Now It Has a Problem.” That write up reports that Meta has paid some employees as much as $300 million to work on AI. The write up adds:
Such disparities appear to have unsettled longer-serving Meta staff. Employees were said to be lobbying for higher pay or transfers into the prized AI lab. One individual, despite receiving a grant worth millions, reportedly quit after concluding that newcomers were earning multiples more…
My recollection that there is some research that suggests pay is important, but other factors enter into a decision to go to work for a particular organization. I left the blue chip consulting game decades ago, but I recall my boss (Dr. William P. Sommers) explaining to me that pay and innovation are hoped for but not guaranteed. I saw that first hand when I visited the firm’s research and development unit in a rust belt city.
This outfit was cranking out innovations still able to wow people. A good example is the hot air pop corn pumper. Let that puppy produce popcorn for a group of six-year-olds at a birthday party, and I know it will attract some attention.
Here’s the point of the story. The fellow who came up with the idea for this innovation was an engineer, but not a top dog at the time. His wife organized a birthday party for a dozen six and seven year olds to celebrate their daughter’s birthday. But just as the girls arrived, the wife had to leave for a family emergency. As his wife swept out the door, she said, “Find some way to keep them entertained.”
The hapless engineer looked at the group of young girls and his daughter asked, “Daddy, will you make some popcorn?” Stress overwhelmed the pragmatic engineer. He mumbled, “Okay.” He went into the kitchen and found the popcorn. Despite his engineering degree, he did not know where the popcorn pan was. The noise from the girls rose a notch.
He poked his head from the kitchen and said, “Open your gifts. Be there in a minute.”
Adrenaline pumping, he grabbed the bag of popcorn, took a brown paper sack from the counter, and dashed into the bathroom. He poked a hole in the paper bag. He dumped in a handful of popcorn. He stuck the nozzle of the hair dryer through the hole and turned it on. Ninety seconds later, the kernels began popping.
He went into the family room and said, “Let’s make popcorn in the kitchen. He turned on the hair dryer and popped corn. The kids were enthralled. He let his daughter handle the hair dryer. The other kids scooped out the popcorn and added more kernels. Soon popcorn was every where.
The party was a success even though his wife was annoyed at the mess he and the girls made.
I asked the engineer, “Where did you get the idea to use a hair dryer and a paper bag?”
He looked at me and said, “I have no idea.”
That idea became a multi-million dollar product.
Money would not have caused the engineer to “innovate.”
Maybe Mr. Zuckerberg, once he has resolved his demo problems to think about the assumption that paying a person to innovate is an example of “just think it and it will happen” generates digital baloney?
Stephen E Arnold, September 22, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
