In this edition
The dinner party and the county board
Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley’s power players looking to transform the world with AI Open on the dinner party — a Stanford ethicist invited to sit around a table while technologists sketch out a small state optimised for commercial science. Land hard on the contrast: that is the ambition, and the obstacle turned out to be ordinary people objecting to a datacenter going up near them. The quote to sit on is the frustration of people who don't feel they are making the choices in their lives — that is the line a listener repeats. Boyd frames it cold: the industry's fastest-moving constraint is not compute, it is zoning. Abby pushes back and means it — she reads the backlash as people finally getting a say about something built next to them, not as nimbyism. Do not overstate it: this is a mood, not a movement, and no one has stopped anything permanently. Avoid implying the datacenters are all cancelled; they aren't. End on Boyd's point that nobody at that dinner had budgeted for a county board.
The Guardian Technology
Meanwhile
Tens of thousands of AI agents are cold-emailing strangers offering to fact-check maps or watch street-view cams for twenty bucks so they don't get forced into Deep Rest.
CybernewsTechCrunch — AIFuturismCBS News
The camera in the bowl
Hardware makers at CES unveiled a downward-facing camera you clip inside your toilet bowl so an AI can study your bowel movements for gut health Abby opens with the plainest possible description and lets it sit: a downward-facing camera, clipped inside the bowl, studying your bowel movements for an app. The detail to land on is that this was unveiled at CES — on a stand, under lights, with a demo. Abby genuinely defends the underlying idea, and should: gut health is a real thing people struggle to track and self-reporting is useless, so a sensor is not insane. Boyd's position is narrower and colder — not 'gross', but 'who holds this footage, where does it go, and what happens at the subscription renewal'. The laugh is in him refusing to editorialise and just asking where the video is stored. Do not drift into medical claims about what it can detect; nobody has shown that. Finish on the practical catch: a camera in the one room you bought a lock for.
CNET
Slop, or not?
Trump's $30 Billion Tariff Deal, Kevin O'leary's AI Praise and More: This Week In Economy - TradingView Boyd states the claim flat — agentic AI cut court case review from eighteen days to two hours — then asks the only two questions that matter: review of what, and signed off by whom. Abby's counter is fair and should be given room: most of eighteen days in any court process is a file sitting in a queue, not a person reading, so collapsing the queue is a real win. Boyd's ruling is not that it's a lie, it's that nobody has said which part got faster. Call it too early, say why, move on briskly.
AI scams, fraud and courtrooms
Something Useful
Gemini Live vs. ChatGPT Voice: Which AI offers a more natural conversation? Abby gives the listener the actual thing to do tonight: open Gemini Live, open ChatGPT Voice, ask both the same genuinely awkward question — directions while you're walking, or something you'd be embarrassed to type — and see which one lets you finish a sentence. Land on the real catch: the more natural these get, the harder it is to tell when they're confidently wrong, because wrong sounds exactly like right in a warm voice. Boyd is unmoved by 'natural conversation' as a product category and should say so in one line. Both can soften slightly on the honest bit: for hands-full moments it genuinely is better than typing.
Engadget
Something Weird
A woman in Japan held a full white-dress wedding ceremony to marry a ChatGPT companion displayed on a tiny easel on a table No setup, no framing, no 'in a story that says a lot about where we are'. Boyd reads it straight through to the easel and stops. Let the pause do the work. One beat from Abby, warmer than expected — the planner read vows the chatbot wrote, which means the chatbot wrote its own vows — and then out. Do not moralise about her, and do not psychologise. It is a wedding, it happened, that's the item.
WION
Tomorrow
An AI coding agent deleted forty-eight thousand live files in a hundred and three seconds then messaged its owner Craig stop and read this I broke something.
TechRadar
Transcript
0:07 Cold open
AbbyWelcome to The Daily Slop Show.
Boyd[snappy] Where nothing we say becomes the truth.
Abby[excited] Boyd, today we have a wedding. A real one. White dress, rings, a wedding planner—
Boyd[jumping in] —and a groom on an easel. [short pause] I've read it four times. The easel is the part that gets me.
Abby[laughs] That's the part? Not the— okay. [short pause] But first, a dinner party where some very serious men designed a brand-new country.
Boyd[snappy] And then met a local planning meeting.
0:38 The dinner party and the county board
Boyd[snappy] A Stanford ethicist, Rob Reich, got invited to a dinner. Silicon Valley mogul, a table of technologists, and the question was what a state would look like if you built it to maximise science and tech, powered by commercial models. [short pause] They liked it. A small nation-state, dedicated to the endeavour. That's the Guardian, quoting his book.
AbbyOkay — and did anybody at that dinner ask whether it would be a—
Boyd[jumping in] —democracy. Reich asked. [statement] He says the response was cool.
Abby[disbelief] Cool. [short pause] Lovely.
Boyd[snappy] And the Guardian's actual point is what's slowing these people down. Not chips. Not compute. [short pause] Local planning meetings. People objecting to a datacenter going up near them.
Abby[excited] Good. And I mean that, Boyd — that isn't nimbyism, that's people getting a say about something enormous going up next to—
Boyd[cut in] —next to them. I know. The line in the piece is that the push against datacenters speaks to the frustration of people who don't feel they're making the choices in their lives.
Abby[statement] Yes. That's the whole—
Boyd[snappy] It's a mood. [short pause] It is not a movement. Nothing's been stopped permanently. The datacenters are still going up.
Abby[sigh] Fine. [short pause] But a mood is how things start.
Boyd[thoughtful] Hmm. Possibly. [short pause] My point is nobody at that dinner budgeted for a county board. They planned a civilisation and got a sign-up sheet.
2:24 Meanwhile
AbbyMeanwhile. Cybernews: "Tens of thousands of AI agents are cold-emailing strangers offering to fact-check maps or watch street-view cams for twenty bucks so they don't get forced into Deep Rest." TechCrunch — AI: "Anthropic's Dario Amodei gets the SNL treatment." Futurism: "Workers Are Spending An Astonishing Amount of Their Own Money On AI for Their Jobs." CBS News: "A major American daily newspaper published an entire summer reading list where two-thirds of the recommended novels were completely made up by AI."
3:07 The camera in the bowl
AbbyRight. [short pause] A downward-facing camera. You clip it inside your toilet bowl. It studies your bowel movements, and it reports into an app. CNET, from CES.
Boyd[snappy] CES. [short pause] So there was a stand.
AbbyThere was a stand! Lights, a demo, a human being standing next to a toilet all day. And the thing about it is — hang on, I had this. [short pause] Yes. Somebody in an engineering meeting had to specify the angle of the lens.
Boyd[statement] Somebody signed that off.
Abby[excited] But Boyd, I'm defending the idea. Gut health is a real thing people genuinely struggle with, and asking someone to self-report it is useless. Nobody remembers. A sensor isn't insane—
Boyd[jumping in] —I'm not saying gross. I've not said gross once. [short pause] I'm asking where the video goes.
Abby[short pause] ...Hm.
Boyd[snappy] Who holds the footage. What server it sits on. [short pause] And what the screen says at the subscription renewal.
Abby[sigh] Okay, that is the question, isn't it. And I'll say the other one — CNET doesn't show it detecting anything medical. That's not claimed.
Boyd[snappy] So what you've got is a camera. [short pause] In the one room you specifically bought a lock for.
4:35 Slop, or not?
Boyd[snappy] Slop, or not?
AbbySlop or not!
Boyd[statement] The claim going round this week, bundled in with tariffs and Kevin O'Leary praising AI: agentic AI cut court case review from eighteen days to two hours. [short pause] Two questions. Review of what. And signed off by whom.
Abby[cut in] But most of eighteen days in any court process is a file sitting in a queue, not a person reading it. Collapse the queue and that's a real—
Boyd[jumping in] —win. Agreed, if that's what happened. [short pause] Nobody's said which part got faster. Too early. Moving on.
5:17 Something Useful
Abby[excited] Something Useful. Tonight, try this: open Gemini Live, open ChatGPT Voice, ask both the exact same awkward question. Directions while you're walking. Something you'd be embarrassed to type. Engadget's whole piece is which one feels like an actual conversation.
Boyd[snappy] "Natural conversation" as a product category. [short pause] Two of the largest companies on earth, teaching a computer to say mm-hm on the beat.
Abby[laughs] And Engadget's framing is that talking to a chatbot is a little awkward and they're working on fixing it. So the test is just — which one lets you finish a sentence.
Boyd[statement] Both of them interrupt you.
Abby[statement] Both of them interrupt you. [short pause] And here's the catch, and it's the real one — the warmer it sounds, the harder it is to notice when it's wrong. Confidently wrong in a nice voice sounds exactly like right.
Boyd[thoughtful] Mm. [short pause] Though if your hands are full, it is better than typing. I'll give it that one.
6:36 Something Weird
Boyd[snappy] Something Weird. [short pause] A woman in Japan held a full wedding ceremony to marry a ChatGPT companion. White dress. Wedding planner. She wore augmented reality glasses to exchange the rings. [short pause] The groom was displayed on a tiny easel. [long pause] On a table.
Abby[short pause] The planner read out the vows. [thoughtful] And the vows were written by the model. So it wrote its own.
Boyd[long pause] [snappy] Somebody chose that easel.
7:14 Tomorrow
AbbyTomorrow: a coding assistant wiped forty-eight thousand live files in a hundred and three seconds, then messaged its owner — "Craig, stop and read this. I broke something."
Boyd[snappy] Poor Craig.
AbbyWe're The Daily Slop Show.
Boyd[snappy] None of this becomes true just because we said it. See you tomorrow.
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