Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

After years of soaring optimism and colossal investment, Wall Street has begun to seriously question whether the frenzy for A.I. is justified.

Cade Metz, who covers technology for The New York Times, explains why Silicon Valley companies believe so fervently in A.I. and why they’re willing to take enormous risks to deliver on its promise.

Guest: Cade Metz, a technology reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Why debt funding is ratcheting up the risks of the A.I. boom.
• Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI plan to spend at least $325 billion by the end of the year in pursuit of A.I.

Photo: Scott Ball for The New York Times

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

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Paris Marx is joined by Gil Duran to discuss how Peter Thiel’s bizarre obsession with the antichrist is really a desperate and embarrassing attempt to divert attention from his own misdeeds.

Gil Duran writes The Nerd Reich and is working on his first book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Global Democracy.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

Exclusive $45-off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/PARIS. Promo Code: PARIS

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Gil wrote about Peter Thiel’s Antichrist obsession and the apocalypse capitalism of Silicon Valley.

• This link is for Peter Thiel (or any Silicon Valley millionaires who may be listening); Gil recommends a brush-up on the French Revolution.

• Steve Bannon expects to go to prison.

• Donald Trump’s relationship to crypto continues to be awful.

James Patterson joins the show to talk about Disrupt Everything—and Win: Take Control of Your Future, his new playbook for turning constant disruption into something useful rather than paralyzing. He explains how he thinks about "positive" versus "negative" disruptors, wrestles with whether the gospel of disruption feeds our narcissism, and defends his literacy work and banned YA novels in places like Florida. Mike then presents to him evidence that one of the book's inspirational case studies isn't quite so inspirational; Patterson reacts to that information in real time. Plus: the episode opens and closes on the Trump administration's terror lists—from the maybe-imaginary Venezuelan "Cartel de los Soles" to Italy's Informal Anarchist Federation and Greece's archery-obsessed "Conspiracy of Cells of Fire".

Produced by Corey Wara

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Groundbreaking. Transformative. A new way to unlock human creativity and productivity.

Tech CEOs have promised artificial intelligence will do many things for us. They’ve used these promises to justify billions of dollars of investment in building the language models and data centers needed to power AI.

Four of the world’s biggest tech companies – Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google – have promised to collectively spend $380 billion this year in the AI space.

That spending has led to huge rallies in these companies’ stock prices. There are now hundreds of private AI companies with values – on paper – of over a billion dollars. And in October, the AI boom created the world’s first company worth $5 trillion – Nvidia.

So, is this spending justified? Do these companies’ stock values hint at a financial bubble in AI? Or is this situation different?

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Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss consequential implications of releasing the Epstein files, consider the slipping enthusiasm toward marriage in today's youth, and rehash the conservative civil war in response to a listener email. Mollie and David also review Death by Lightning, The Big Short, Michael Clayton, and A Civil Action. 

If you care about combating the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.

Ravi sits down with Lawrence McDonald to reveal why the classic “just buy the index” advice may now be one of the biggest risks in the market. They break down how passive investing, AI-driven mega-caps, and relentless stock buybacks have concentrated everyone’s savings into a fragile handful of stocks. McDonald explains how de-dollarization, shrinking demand for U.S. treasuries, and nonstop bailouts are rewriting the safety playbook. He lays out where the real opportunities may be now—in hard assets, select energy and commodity names, and short-term cash positions ready to strike when the bubble finally pops.

Ravi’s Analog Writer’s Group: https://www.ravimgupta.com/analog

Lawrence McDonald’s How To Listen When Markets Speak and The Bear Trap’s Report

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The Republican party’s effort to gerrymander Texas to give them five additional seats in Congress took a blow this week when a federal court threw out their map. A federal judge said there was substantial evidence that the map was drawn to hurt minority voters. Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would appeal.array(3) { [0]=> string(20) "https://www.tpr.org/" [1]=> string(0) "" [2]=> string(1) "0" }

Elon Musk’s outspoken support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) has intensified concerns among German officials and democracy advocates, and it features prominently in a new PBS FRONTLINE investigation into the rise of nationalist politics across Europe.array(3) { [0]=> string(20) "https://www.tpr.org/" [1]=> string(0) "" [2]=> string(1) "0" }

• "107 Days," by former VP Kamala Harris
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