Doctorow argues that AI investment is fueled by a billionaire fantasy of a world without people—workers, migrants, artists, and friends—who resist serving their priorities. This solipsistic drive aims to replace humans with obedient chatbots and agents, reducing the rest of humanity to a surplus "unnecessariat" dependent on automation owners.
The curl project faces unprecedented pressure from a 4-5x surge in AI-assisted security reports, averaging over one per day. The workload has strained the team, with Stenberg noting his wife's concerns about his hours for the first time. Found vulnerabilities remain low or medium severity.
A Star Trek parody tweet by Kyle Ferrana reimagines the classic "shields up" scene as an analogy for AI safety failures, where Data acknowledges a known risk—raising shields could reduce damage—but chooses not to act, resulting in hull breaches.