Notices by Dare Obasanjo (carnage4life@mas.to)

Today’s announcement by the Trump administration has been a long time coming.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-disgusted-asian-ceos-silicon-valley_n_582c5d19e4b0e39c1fa71e48/amp

The same sort of anthropomorphism that made humans ascribe human traits to natural phenomena like the sun, weather, volcanos, animals, etc and worship them as gods is happening with AI.

The fact LLMs are unreliable makes this trend worse because this unreliability is treated as a personality trait

This is the future Republicans stole from us with tax cuts and endless wars.

In less than three years we’ve gone from making fun of the fingers in AI generated images to AI generated videos and audio that are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. And it’s only going to get better.

This is fundamentally going to reshape both professional and influencer content.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/23/google-ai-videos-veo-3

Elon Musk comes to the “obvious conclusion” that saving billions by randomly firing government workers and slashing science funding won’t fix the deficit when tax cuts for the wealthy will cost trillions.

Truly a boy genius at work.

Despite people’s misgivings about generative AI, like the internet and smartphones before it, this technology won’t just change how we work and consume entertainment but also will reshape society itself.

The world would not be the way it is today if not for the internet and phones. AI will have similar impact.

We wouldn’t have Trump without social media and podcasts. No one could have predicted the social trends that would come from ubiquitous internet access and phones.

My pet peeve with AI assisted writing is having to read content that the author hasn’t even read themselves.

If you can’t put in the effort to read what you supposedly wrote, why should I?
https://www.404media.co/authors-are-accidentally-leaving-ai-prompts-in-their-novels/

On one hand the economy is shrinking, prices are going up due to tariffs, scientific research funding slashed, millions to be kicked off of Medicare & Medicaid, foreign students being barred from our top universities, USA’s credit rating dropped and NWS, NASA & FEMA workers fired.

On the other hand…

That we have a coin operated presidency is now well understood around the world.

At this point it’s like tech companies have layoff FOMO.

About 25% of Harvard’s students are international. Every week there is new damage being caused to America’s institutions and reputation.

Increasingly some of this damage will be irreparable.

Google has unleashed all of the AI talent it’s been hoarding for years and it’s a sight to behold. I am most impressed that with AI Overviews & AI Mode, it’s pulled an Apple and is willing to cannibalize itself.

Apple on the other hand looks over the hill. A rent seeker losing to Epic as Siri flounders and Jony Ive plots the iPhone killer.

https://www.macworld.com/article/2790350/after-google-ios-big-ai-reveals-my-iphone-has-never-felt-dumber.html

Sam Altman describes a generation gap in how people use ChatGPT. Older people in their 30s and above use it as a Google alternative while younger people use it as a friend that helps them with life decisions.

I’d noticed this difference and assumed it was techie versus non-techie not age related.

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/they-dont-really-make-life-decisions-without-asking-chatgpt-openai-boss-sam-altman-thinks-young-people-turning-to-chatbots-for-life-advice-is-cool/

Is there a stronger recession signal than Klarna having 100 million active users?

https://www.pymnts.com/earnings/2025/klarna-marks-100-million-customers-as-losses-nearly-double/

Tesla sales may be tanking but US government connections have helped Musk secure more Starlink and Neuralink deals.

The symbiotic relationship between Trump and Musk is still going strong despite many believing a clash of egos would break up the friendship.

They need each other.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/world/middleeast/gulf-deal-making-spree-also-benefited-elon-musk-and-his-family.html

He campaigned on doing both.

In these dark times, it’s great to come together and find something we can all take joy in.

The majority of people in Washington fired by Microsoft this week are software engineers. This is reverberating through the ranks as it challenges the idea that SWEs are the most valuable class of workers that would be least likely to get cut.

Ironically, they are the easiest to replace with AI.

With sales tanking because its CEO went full “Roman Salute”, the stock price can only defy gravity for so long. So Tesla is already making changes to stave off the inevitable shareholder lawsuits.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/16/tesla-limits-investors-ability-to-sue-over-breach-of-fiduciary-duties.html

A friend asked why I think profitable big techs are doing layoffs. I asked what do you think Google believes maintains their search dominance?

1. Being the default search in Chrome/Safari/Firefox.

2. Buying lots of GPUs to power AI overviews.

3. Having smart employees that build innovative features.

That’s why.