^{CHITTER CHATTER}

AI Gold Rush Facing Expensive Reality Check

October was a horror show for Big Tech. The monster wasn't a rogue chatbot as per last week’s story; it was the financial results. After billions spent on AI, Wall Street is asking an awkward question: Where's the money? The S&P 500 technology sector fell 6.8% in October. Alphabet, Amazon, and Intel disappointed investors, while the AI spending frenzy kept swallowing cash. Amazon, Alphabet and Meta reported negative free cash flow in the September quarter. Microsoft fared better, but joined the borrowing spree. Being obscenely rich doesn't mean you can't run out of spending money. Tech giants continue pouring fortunes into data centres, chips and infrastructure, but will the returns ever match the hype? Here’s the bit we’re all thinking about: If AI investment slows sharply, the consequences could spread across the broader economy and to consumers. After years of promising that AI will change everything, Big Tech may finally have to show it can pay for itself. Preferably before it asks to borrow another trillion.

Hackers Are Targetting Your Frozen Vegetables

This would be a humorous news story, if not for the sinister undercurrent. Hackers have found a new playground: supermarket refrigeration systems. Cyberattacks hit supermarkets across Europe, affecting stores in Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden and Ireland. Even IKEA wasn't spared. In one Stockholm supermarket, freezer temperatures reportedly soared to 50°C. That's not a freezer. That's a low-budget sauna. Food was ruined, retailers scrambled, and a Belgian butcher estimated losses of €15,000. For some, life without sausages is a tragedy. Similar attacks had already struck hundreds of French supermarkets in October. Nobody has claimed responsibility, and investigators haven't established whether the attacks are connected (I think they are). The bummer: we’ve spent years making everyday objects smarter, but in the meantime smarter humans are out there, either wreaking havoc for shits and giggles or seeking more political power. And that means we don’t get to eat our peas even though the rest of us ordinary folk mind our Q’s.

Your Job is Safe. Unless You’re Thinking Like a Loser.

At Proton, the privacy-focussed tech company, it seems that worrying about security makes you a loser. CEO Andy Yen reportedly dismissed an employee's request for additional security testing as “bullshit and loser thinking”. Meanwhile, staff faced compulsory AI “re-interviews” to prove they were using enough AI, with their jobs potentially at stake. After a public backlash, Yen cancelled the interviews. However, AI use may still influence performance reviews. Ugh. Elsewhere, Microsoft has discovered a gentler way to unsettle employees. It's offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 eligible staff across four countries. That's more than a quarter of its workforce. Will other tech companies emulate Microsoft's approach? Given the industry's penchant for copying each other, it’s likely. Voluntary exits sound less threatening than layoffs. But employees may be wondering: if too few people take the offer, will the next round be compulsory? Not anxiety-inducing at all, right?!

Silicon Valley Declares Human Interaction a Waste of Time

Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has discovered another groundbreaking use for AI. Getting to know her own daughter. Promoting her AI assistant Dazzle, Mayer said she used it to produce three bullet points about her 10-year-old daughter for a school birthday presentation. The revelations? She was empathetic, creative and loved animals. It seems that a decade of parenting wasn't sufficient enough research. Mayer later clarified that AI had helped surface forgotten memories and photographs. Okay then. She’s hardly alone. Silicon Valley executives are exploring AI assistants that manage family life, explain children's interests and even handle romance. Mayer also envisages her AI assistant communicating with her husband's AI assistant to organise their lives. How about just having a conversation with your spouse? Nope. Too messy and inefficient.

Tech Fails

This week, AI gives fraudsters a helping hand, while management incompetence proves humans can still cause chaos without it.

Operation Ghostbusters: AI Students Make the Grade in Fraud

Criminals have allegedly used stolen identities to enrol thousands of fake students in US colleges, deploying AI to complete coursework and simulate online attendance. The objective? Pocket student financial aid without the inconvenience of actually studying. US authorities flagged more than 830,000 potentially fraudulent student-aid accounts and charged five individuals under an investigation dubbed Operation Ghostbusters. Meanwhile, real students face disciplinary action for using AI to write assignments.

Management Knows Best. Hackers Agree.

Japanese tech giant GMO Internet Group admitted it ignored security weaknesses flagged by its own cybersecurity subsidiary in 2024. Two years later, attackers compromised its cloud service, exposing customer information and enabling unauthorised financial transactions. CEO Masatoshi Kumagai apologised, accepted a temporary 30% salary cut and faced criticism for posting a smiling photograph during the crisis. A technology company selling cybersecurity expertise while ignoring its own experts' advice. The irony is hilarious. The consequences aren't. Turns out the biggest security vulnerability wasn't in the software; it was in the humans who mismanaged the situation.

Weird Tech

Meta’s New Pet Could Steal Your Innermost Secrets

Remember Tamagotchi, the virtual pet that demanded constant attention before dying of neglect? Meta has resurrected the idea, only this time your pet wants to know everything about you. Its new AI-powered app, Waddle World, lets users hatch, feed and play with a pixelated pet. But here’s the twist: your little digital companion wants to hear about your day, your feelings and whatever else is troubling you. It listens, remembers, writes illustrated journal entries and even sends weekly emails about what it's learned. Meta describes it as a daily journal disguised as a pet. How adorable. A cuddly little creature with an excellent memory, courtesy of Meta. I, for one, find this creepy and weird as hell. Every personal confession could give Meta a more intimate picture of you. Given Facebook's history of privacy scandals, including Cambridge Analytica, trusting Meta with your innermost thoughts seems foolish. A sneaky new way to get to know you better? Not cool, Meta. Not cool.

^SUBTEXT

Tech Waffle Torture

The culprit: Cognizant, describing its AI Nexus offering:

“… a modular, multi-model operating layer designed to help enterprises more quickly turn AI investment into proven business value …”

Plain English Translation (without the verbal gymnastics): “Software that helps businesses manage AI systems and measure whether they're delivering worthwhile results.”

The Satirical Translation: “We've built another layer of expensive software to help you work out whether all your other layers of expensive AI software are doing anything useful.”

Definition: A Silicon Valley disorder characterised by the compulsive optimisation of everything, including parenting, marriage and thinking, while remaining blissfully oblivious to actual problems. Advanced cases: Management ignores cybersecurity experts while commissioning another AI-powered dashboard to measure how efficiently everyone is ignoring the cybersecurity experts. Treatment: Switch off the AI. Listen to someone who knows what they're talking about and reintroduce common sense gradually.

Goodhart's Law: The principle that when a measurement becomes a target, it often stops being a useful measurement. A bit like management demanding everyone use AI 10 times daily, regardless of whether it helps. The numbers look magnificent. The work is still rubbish. Naturally, someone gets a bonus.

^{THE SHALLOW END}

You’re Paying for a Live Performance, But the Singer is Miming

Is Céline Dion really singing live? Music analyst Fil Henley of YouTube's Wings of Pegasus has raised serious questions about her Paris concerts. Using pitch-analysis software, he compared performances across different nights and found remarkably identical vocals, suggesting pre-recorded, digitally corrected playback. Dion so far, has not responded. Remember rock band Falling in Reverse? In 2022, they cancelled a concert because their laptops, essential for running the show, went missing. Yes, backing tracks and digital effects to enhance performances aren't new. But when does technical assistance become deception? The real issue is transparency. Audiences are paying hundreds, sometimes thousands, to experience live music. If they're actually listening to recordings, shouldn't they be told? Technology is making concerts more sophisticated and potentially more profitable. But who's getting the better deal: the performers or the paying public?

Dear Dr Comms

My executives warned me. Our technical experts warned me. I ignored them all. After all, I'm the CEO. Now our share price has collapsed, shareholders want my head, and lawyers are investigating whether my arrogance constitutes corporate mismanagement. it seems that being the boss doesn't make you the smartest person in the room. How do I save my reputation without admitting the experts were right? Yours, Supreme Leader of Bad Decisions

Dear Supreme Leader
Let's consult three professionals who understand dangerous depths, catastrophic design flaws and how to dodge responsibility:

🤿 Pearl Diver
“Dive to the bottom and stay there until the scandal blows over. If investigators come looking, hold your breath. If shareholders demand answers, offer them pearls of wisdom. Plastic ones are nice and cheap.”

🛒 Shopping Trolley Inventor
“When the wheels come off, blame the person pushing. Tell shareholders the company is simply undergoing an exciting change of direction. Downhill is still a direction.”

🥋 Martial Arts Master
“Never confront an accusation directly. Deflect, dodge and redirect. When your experts say, “we told you so”, execute a flying kick to their credibility. Remember, grasshopper: the best defence is someone else's resignation.”

Oh to enjoy the freedom of having AI do everything for us.

^{BIN THIS…}

Three phrases that suggest humans won't be needed to do much of anything. We'll spend our days drinking overpriced coffee, playing chess against AI and losing, then attending therapy conducted by an agreeable robot to rediscover the “meaning of life, the universe and everything.”

Know someone who lives for this kind of nonsense? Forward this email to them and help me spread the dysfunction.

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