If they were to go into it as an experiment saying, "Hey! We're going to see how good it is and tell you where it failed," while jumping in and fact-checking it throughout the podcast, they'd have a winner.

Unfortunately, they were so poorly informed (maybe THEY don't read the news?), that they thought LLMs were actually artificially intelligent digital beings, capable of human-level thinking and retrospection, and now they feed disappointed and frustrated.

That's like saying, "I'm frustrated that my Tesla can't safely drive me everywhere I want to go without my interaction."

"The biggest night on the video game calendar" was never going to be The Game Awards. There are very, very, very few industry awards ceremonies that people care enough about to watch unless they're personally involved in that industry and video games are not one of those industries.

Movie and TV awards are chock full of beautiful people, charismatic personalities, popular music, haute couture, comedy, and themes that span generations. Gaming, by comparison, is significantly more niche and (as widespread as game-play is) there isn't enough emotional investment for the people **who otherwise go completely unseen** to attract an significant and enduring audience.

In regards to the complaints about the lack of recognition of layoffs and other issues: "What the hell did you expect?" No one builds an awards ceremony around the airing of dirty laundry.

This article is so full of cherry-picked bullshit that I would expect a 3rd-year undergrad wrote it to be edgy. I can't get to everything, so here's the lowdown on the cost of education.

Colleges didn't "oversell" education. If the well-wishers of the world had their way, we would ALL be college educated because educated people tend to make better decisions and be less horrible to each other. The value of education is extreme. PARENTS oversell specific careers to their and in consequence mandate their children attend the most prestigious university they can get into. They also have no clue how to tell one university from the next and thus lean on prestige.

The COST of higher education (Ex. post-secondary, college, uni, etc.) is highly variable based on who is providing the education. Let's take a look at a couple examples:

The University of California (UCLA, Berkeley, San Diego, Santa Barbara, etc.) has 9 undergraduate campuses and is a powerhouse of research. Their campuses are RESEARCH institutions whose charge is to be the research arm for California while also creating more PhD RESEARCHERS in addition to lawyers and medical doctors. Those researcher-faculty are also required to teach classes. Please understand that I wrote that description for a reason. Research is the primary focus and education is secondary. Thus, if you are a student that needs to be spoon-fed everything, then the UC is probably going to be a bad fit.

It costs around $15,600/year for UC tuition plus a variable amount of campus fees ($1,200 - $2,200) depending on which campus you attend.

The California Statue University has 23 campuses and is a powerhouse of education. Their campuses are EDUCATIONAL institutions whose charge is to be the educational arm for California while creating industry experts (Master's Degrees) and limited doctorates (Education, etc.). Those instructor-faculty have the option to do research as well within the realm of their instructional duties. Instruction is the primary focus and research is secondary. Thus, if you're a student that is desperate to get into a lab and work on cutting edge (albeit sometimes monotonous) research, the CSU is probably going to be a bad fit.

It costs around $6,450/year for CSU tuition plus a variable amount of campus fees depending on which campus you attend.

Side Note: The #1 reason it's more "PRESTIGIOUS" to attend a UC campus than a CSU campus is because they have Nobel Prize winners and big cool experimental toys. People see that and assume, "Wow... they must be amazing educators," but it doesn't always translate. Often, you're being taught by "lecturers" (temporary instructors who JUST focus on instruction) and THOSE instructors tend to be, on average, better than research faculty. (End Side Note)

That's all very, very affordable, right? No one gets into $100K of student debt solely on the basis of paying tuition at UC Berkeley. So what are we missing? EVERYTHING ELSE.

Housing: Rentals and homes for sale near UC and CSU campuses are under extreme demand due to both student and employees wanting to live near the campus. People buy single-family homes near major campuses and rent them out to students at massive mark-ups because... it's a strong investment and home values near major university campuses bounce back FAST after any downturn.

So how much are we talking about? Near a small campus (Chico State), it's safe to budget $500-$1000/month for a room rental. Near a major UC campus, it's safe to budget $1,000-$1,500/month for a room rental. (Note: Back in the day, almost no one rented their own room. It was always 2-3 people per room. The pandemic changed that and students view the dorm experience as a "one and done" and all but demand their own room and the cost of that preference is high.)

That's just rent. When you add in bills (electricity, water, sewer, waste, broadband internet, phone), transportation (car, gas, parking), textbooks, food, and other living expenses like clothes, the total COST OF ATTENDANCE gets you over $45,000/year to attend a University of California campus. It's not the tuition... it's the EVERYTHING ELSE and that's 100% predictable because we've been watch the cost of EVERYTHING ELSE climb mercilessly upward for the last 20 years.

Don't believe me? Look at the breakdown yourself:

UCLA - https://financialaid.ucla.edu/...
Berkeley - https://financialaid.berkeley....

And you can see the history of tuition prices here: https://www.ucop.edu/operating...

Lastly, the tuition you pay during your first year at a UC campus is what you pay throughout your undergraduate experience. Tuition increases only affect the incoming class.

The Animatrix was pretty solid for its intent as a series of vignettes telling stories of human civilization throughout multiple iterations of the Matrix. Most relevant is
"The Second Renaissance Parts I and II" (viewable on YouTube).

In that pair of vignettes, you follow humanity's introduction of *actual* AI, it's abuse of that sentience, its refusal to acknowledge independence, the resulting war, and the blotting out of the sun to starve the machines of their primary energy source. That, then, required the machines to seek out a perpetually renewable energy source which (the electrical impulses of human physiology).

Sci-Fi. It's a warning, not a guidebook.

Agreed. Here's are some more questions to add some nuance:

Should these organizations be stopped from getting "too big" so that they can fail without taking down the entire economy/internet/industry? If so, that would mean reigning in "boom" economies and industries, thereby risking the accusation of "stifling innovation" (the most common retort of large-scale financial scammers).

Should their failure be managed to ensure a soft landing? This was the practice for Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, Wachovia which all collapsed during the Mortgage Crash/Crisis.

You are a hero.

Who is willing to provide an option for those without a 404 Media account?

It DID crash the economy, but then the federal government stepped in, implemented the "too big to fail" doctrine, and blunted the damage into a recession instead of a depression. In that process, though, they exposed their weakness: the government will step in to rescue companies on which the US economy most relies.

This is particularly relevant when, amidst a widely acknowledged AI investment bubble, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says in the same breath that AI investment is at least partially irrational and regarding a bursting bubble "I think no company is going to be immune." That's not a warning... that's a threat and a dogwhistle to the government effectively saying, "If you allow this bubble to burst, everyone will suffer".

This is that "moral hazard" about which economists and political scientists warned during the mortgage crisis. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard) They know that they won't bear the harm of the risks they've taken.

I think it's a good key indicator to include in evaluating the health of the lived economy (not the stock market). Here's what I watch:

1. Credit card delinquency (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS_
2. Sub-prime car loan delinquency (https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/11/12/a-record-number-of-americans-are-behind-on-their-auto-loans)
2. BNPL companies like Klarna not meeting earnings expectations from their PRIMARY business (as opposed to propping up the business with speculative investment). Incidentally, Klarna has an earnings call tomorrow.

In California, New York, Hawai`i, and other high-cost areas, you'd be spending 4x on electricity to run this thing could expect to return in revenue.

Am I the only one that sees the irony that a company called Robinhood is preparing to deliver wads of riches to well-off too lazy people and hoping someone doesn't attempt to rob said rich people and give to themselves?

Context is Everything! Before people start going off about how dumb of an idea this is, this is about SINGAPORE.

In the US, light-duty trucks (pickup trucks) emit nearly 5x the total annual GHG than commercial air travel and a huge proportion of those pick-up trucks are vanity vehicles. This airline levy isn't nor should it be a high-priority levy for the US.

For Singapore, where it's very difficult to own a car ($20k/yr + fuel + parking), vehicle emissions aren't really their focus and commercial air is.

An ILLEGAL monopoly (in the USA) requires a person/organization to use anti-competitive measures to attain and/or retain monopolistic control over an industry. This can include predatory pricing, predatory mergers, intentionally driving competitors out of business, and the refusal to deal in normal circumstances.

Steam is a LEGAL monopoly that gained its market share by getting in early and being consistently foresightful, considerate of their customers' needs, and competitive in the industry.

So why is an article at all? Because of the distribution fees. You pay two ways to distribute a game on Steam. First, you pay a one-time $100, but you get that back after $1,000 in sales. Second, You pay a 30% commission on all sales, but that drops to 25% after you bring in $10 million and 20% after $50 million.

Is that unfair? Probably not. Consider how much it would cost to print a bunch of CDs/DVDs, boxes, get stores to carry your game, etc. And if you don't want to do that (no one does), compare it to the cost to distribute your game elsewhere and what features that system has (or more likely, doesn't have).

GOG, Microsoft, XBox, Playstation, Nintendo, has no one-time fee, but has a similar revenue share at 30%.

EPIC Games has a $100 listing fee but has the lowest revenue share I could find at 12%.

So Steam is comparably priced, has a MASSIVE marketshare, isn't attempting to absorb smaller competitors, and they provide a great, stable product.

So is there a problem?

Look, I absolutely despise the use of AI art by massively profitable companies who are literally just trying to keep more money in their pockets instead of paying people to develop animations themselves, but this is not a particularly ugly piece. Here are the issues I see:

1. The people look large by comparison to the trucks.
2. The license plate numbers are AI-weird. Normally, license plates can be used to reference something seasonal, but AI doesn't work well with text rendering.
3. The wheels on the trucks don't spin 100% correctly in all of the shots. Most of the time they work, but if you look for the problem, you'll find it.
4. Standard AI-weird eye-sizes and movements.

The problem is that if you haven't trained yourself to look for these flaws (like 99.999% of the people who will see the commercial), you won't notice them as flaws but "design decisions" or "the human touch". Heck, if AI weren't a thing, You could explain away all of the flaws I found like this:

1. The people look large by comparison to the trucks. -- Artistic intent. The scale of everything is so large to get the view, that appropriate human scale would force the people out of focus.
2. The license plate numbers are AI-weird. -- We decided not to put in a custom plate and make it a bit more standard.
3. The wheels on the trucks don't spin 100% correctly in all of the shots. -- That's what happens when you use a small studio!
4. Standard AI-weird eye-sizes and movements. -- The kids LOVE cartoonish animals!

Ya, it sucks from an ethical standpoint, but let's not act like it's anywhere in the "low quality AI video" pile.

The autonomous vehicle liability puzzle is yet to be solved. Massively centralized liability will obliterate a dominant manufacturer of autonomous vehicles if the vehicles aren't operating close to perfectly. Let's consider actual numbers:

1. In the US, there are approx. 42,000 road deaths per year.
2. Imagine that Waymo has achieved a pure monopoly of people transportation on the road in the US and has, a result, reduced road deaths by 95% resulting in only 2,100 deaths per year.
3. Can Waymo survive the litigation directly liable for killing 2,100 per year?

Hint: You don't deserve credit for NOT killing people. That's what you're supposed to do. You WILL, however, get punished for everyone you DO kill.

What the Waymo CEO is trying to say is, "The robot did it, not Waymo and that people will accept that."

But we won't.

We know that these robots are not sentient. We know that these vehicles are acting at the express instruction of Waymo. We know that when they end up killing someone, Waymo should be liable.