In this edition
The Same Unlikely Number
A customer sued McDonald's claiming its AI pricing engine is quietly coordinating Big Mac prices across thousands of franchisees by feeding them all the same nonpublic data. Open on the ordinary moment: a customer notices the Big Mac costs the same unlikely amount in two towns and files suit. Land on the mechanism — the engine is fed nonpublic data from all the franchises and hands each owner a 'suggestion', so every operator thinks they're deciding alone. Boyd frames it coldly as hub-and-spoke price-fixing with a software layer bolted on for deniability; Abby pushes back that franchisees are small operators who genuinely cannot do margin maths at 2am and this is the first tool that helped them. The real disagreement is whether 'the algorithm suggested it' is a defence or an aggravating factor. Do not overstate: this is an allegation in a filed complaint, nothing has been proven, and McDonald's denies it — say so plainly once and move on.
Reuters
Meanwhile
A major American daily newspaper published an entire summer reading list where two-thirds of the recommended novels were completely made up by AI
CBS NewsAnnielyticsWIONKotaku
The Downward-Facing Camera
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 Open cold on the product description — clipped inside the bowl, pointing down — and let the sentence do the work before anyone reacts. Land on the fact that this was a stage unveiling with a booth, not a leak: somebody rehearsed this presentation. Abby takes it seriously and honestly — people already track sleep and steps, this is the one data stream nobody bothered to look at, and she thinks there's a real version of it. Boyd's question is the only one that matters: where does the footage go, and who or what looks at it. Keep it about the hardware and the app, not about anyone's health condition. This is the crack slot if Boyd is going to crack today.
CNET
Slop, or Not?
Two tourists paid a hundred and sixty dollars to hike into the Andes searching for a canyon that an AI chatbot made up out of thin air The claim on trial is simply 'this canyon exists'. Boyd reads the price and the altitude flatly, then the verdict. The one beat worth taking: the guide, who had to be the one to tell them. Verdict is slop, and confidently so.
FuturismKRDO / Stacker
Something Useful
Utah just let an AI scan your face for acne and write the prescription itself, with no doctor in the loop after the pilot's first batch. Play it as genuinely useful first: teenagers and adults who cannot get a dermatology appointment for months can get an acne prescription today, in one state, from a camera. Then land the catch — the doctor was in the loop for the pilot's first batch and then stepped out. Abby's case is access; Boyd's case is that 'first batch' is doing an enormous amount of load-bearing work in that sentence. Do not imply this covers anything beyond acne or beyond Utah.
TechSpot
Something Weird
AI image tools keep quietly removing hijabs from photos of Muslim women whenever anyone asks them to edit the picture. Land it cold: the edit request was something trivial, and the headscarf is gone. Do not editorialise long — the before-and-after is the whole bit. One line on the obvious question of what the model was shown that taught it this counts as an improvement, then stop.
The Guardian
Tomorrow
ChatGPT keeps forging the actual signatures of New Yorker cartoonists onto its own fake cartoons, so artists are finding their names on drawings they never made.
Nieman Lab
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 camera that goes inside the toilet bowl and I want to say up front — [statement] I'm for it.
Boyd[long pause] [snappy] You're for it.
AbbyI'm for it! People track their sleep, they track their steps—
Boyd[jumping in] —and now there's a lens pointing at the one place nobody volunteered. [short pause] We'll get there. First, a burger.
0:33 The Same Unlikely Number
Boyd[snappy] A customer notices a Big Mac costs the same slightly odd amount in two different towns. [short pause] Most people shrug. This person filed a class action. According to Reuters, the suit claims McDonald's AI pricing engine is quietly coordinating menu prices across thousands of franchisees — [statement] by feeding all of them the same nonpublic data and handing each one a suggestion.
Abby[thoughtful] Hm. A suggestion, though. Nobody has to take it.
Boyd[snappy] Everybody takes it. That's the allegation. Every operator believes they decided alone, and the dashboard already knew they would. [suspicious] That's a cartel with no room, no cigars and no minutes of the meeting.
AbbyOkay, but — these are small operators, Boyd. A franchisee running two stores is doing margin maths at two in the morning on beef costs and wages, and this is the first tool that ever helped them—
Boyd[cut in] —helped them land on the same number as nine hundred strangers—
Abby[jumping in] —because the data said so! That's not conspiring, that's arithmetic—
Boyd[jumping in] —shared arithmetic. That's the word that matters.
Abby[short pause] [sigh] Right. So is "the algorithm suggested it" a defence or does it make it worse?
Boyd[long pause] [thoughtful] That's the actual question in the case, and I genuinely don't know. [snappy] If a person whispers the number, that's a conspiracy. If software whispers it to everyone at once, politely, with a chart — [statement] we don't have a word yet.
AbbyAnd to be clear, because we have to be — none of this is proven.
Boyd[snappy] Allegation in a filed complaint. McDonald's denies it. [short pause] Say it once, move on.
Abby[statement] Moving on. Although I will be checking a Big Mac in two towns this weekend.
2:31 Meanwhile
AbbyMeanwhile. 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. Annielytics: Figure AI retired its humanoid robots by melting them down after Arnold Schwarzenegger told the CEO he should melt them like the T-1000. WION: A woman in Japan held a full white-dress wedding ceremony to marry a ChatGPT companion displayed on a tiny easel on a table. Kotaku: An Instagram comedian with hundreds of thousands of followers turned out to be pure AI, and she's been stealing real comics' jokes and stage moves to drive traffic to her OnlyFans.
3:25 The Downward-Facing Camera
Abby[statement] Okay. CNET, from CES. Hardware makers unveiled a camera you clip inside your toilet bowl. [short pause] Pointing down. So an AI can study your bowel movements for gut health.
Boyd[long pause] [snappy] Read the middle part again.
AbbyClipped inside the bowl, pointing down. And Boyd — this wasn't a leak. This was a stage unveiling with a booth. Somebody rehearsed that presentation. Somebody stood in a hotel room the night before and practised—
Boyd[jumping in] —the transition slide. I know.
Abby[excited] But honestly? I think there's a real version of this. We track sleep. We track steps. This is the one data stream nobody has ever bothered to look at and it is arguably the most informative one in the building—
Boyd[cut in] Where does the footage go.
Abby[short pause] ...To the app.
Boyd[snappy] And the app lives where. [short pause] Does it update overnight. Is there a cloud backup. When it gets it wrong and you dispute it, [statement] who looks at the file, and is it a person.
Abby[long pause] [sigh] Those are all normal consumer electronics questions.
Boyd[statement] They are. [short pause] That's what's wrong with them. Every boring question I'd ask about a doorbell camera becomes the worst sentence I've said all year, and I didn't change a single word.
Abby[laughs] Okay. Well. [thoughtful] I still think the data's useful.
Boyd[snappy] The data is useful. [long pause] The firmware update is what I'll be thinking about tonight.
5:00 Slop, or Not?
Boyd[snappy] Slop, or not?
Abby[excited] Slop or not!
Boyd[snappy] The claim on trial: this canyon exists. Futurism reports two tourists paid a hundred and sixty dollars to hike into the Andes looking for a sacred canyon that a chatbot invented — [statement] stitched together out of syllables from real Peruvian landmarks.
Abby[disbelief] Four thousand metres up?
Boyd[snappy] Four thousand metres. And per KRDO, a local guide had to stop them, [short pause] because the place is not there.
Abby[short pause] Imagine being that guide.
Boyd[long pause] [statement] Somebody had to be the one to say it. [snappy] Verdict: slop. Confidently.
5:40 Something Useful
Abby[excited] Something Useful! And this one is genuinely useful. TechSpot — Utah is the first US state to green-light an AI system that examines patients and issues real medication orders on its own. You point your phone at your own face, it scans for acne, and it writes you the prescription.
Boyd[snappy] And the doctor.
AbbyBoyd, do you know how long a dermatology appointment takes to get? Months. A teenager with bad acne waits until — well. Until it stops mattering as much, which is its own sadness. This is today, from a camera—
Boyd[cut in] And the doctor.
Abby[sigh] ...There was a doctor in the loop for the first batch of the pilot. And then there wasn't.
Boyd[long pause] [snappy] "First batch" is doing a tremendous amount of work in that sentence. [statement] It's the smallest phrase on the page and it's holding up the whole building.
Abby[statement] Acne. One state. That's the whole scope, we're not stretching it.
Boyd[snappy] Noted. [short pause] I'd just like to know what batch two looked like.
6:57 Something Weird
Boyd[snappy] Something Weird. [short pause] The Guardian: AI image tools keep quietly removing hijabs from photos of Muslim women. You ask it to edit the picture — [statement] something trivial — and the headscarf is gone.
Abby[disbelief] Nobody asked it to?
Boyd[snappy] Nobody asked it to. It considers that part of fixing the photo. [short pause] You only catch it in the before-and-after.
Abby[short pause] So what was it shown, that taught it that's an improvement.
Boyd[long pause] [statement] That's the question. [snappy] And the before-and-after is the whole answer.
7:37 Tomorrow
AbbyNew Yorker cartoonists are finding their own signatures, in their own handwriting, on cartoons they never drew — tomorrow, who is signing them.
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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