muckrAIkers

Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk

Join us as we dig a tiny bit deeper into the hype surrounding "AI" press releases, research papers, and more. Each episode, we'll highlight ongoing research and investigations, providing some much needed contextualization, constructive critique, and even a smidge of occasional good will teasing to the conversation, trying to find the meaning under all of this muck.

  1. 1 Sept

    Seven-ish Questions on Data Center Water Use

    Everyone's got a hot take on data center water use, and most of them are garbage. This week Jacob and Igor skip the outrage and give you seven questions to help you decide whether a given data center is something you're on board with: where it's built, how it's cooled, where the power comes from, who owns it, and who's footing the bill (you'll have to listen for the other two). They test them against SpaceX's Colossus facility in Memphis, unpermitted gas turbines, a drought-prone aquifer, and a stalled water recycling plant included. The guys also get into why "zero water consumption" claims can be misleading once you understand the difference between withdrawal and consumption. Plus: a bonus rant on why data centers in space aren't happening anytime soon. Chapters (00:00) - Intro (08:14) - Is It Really an "AI" Data Center? (13:28) - How Is It Cooled, and Where's the Water From? (19:48) - Where Is It? (29:03) - Collosus as a Worked Example (35:14) - How Is It Powered? (38:15) - Who Owns It & Who Pays? (47:58) - Is This Too Complicated? Seven Questions Recapped (54:35) - Bonus: Data Centers in Space (58:48) - Outro Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Our World in Data article - How Much Energy Do Data Centers and Artificial Intelligence Use?EcoLogits webpageACM paper - Not All Water Consumption Is Equal: A Water Stress Weighted Metric for Sustainable ComputingPreprint - Small Bottle, Big Pipe: Quantifying and Addressing the Impact of Data Centers on Public Water SystemsPolitico article - Musk promised his data center would reuse water. That's now stalled.IEEE paper - Press Release Ethics: Performative Ethics in AI Consortia and Industry AssociationsHarvard Environmental Law Program PDF - Extracting Profits from the Public

  2. 14 Jul

    The Finding-Out Era of AI

    Anthropic's Fable gets classified as a munitions export days after launch, and Jacob and Igor try to figure out who's really being punished and why. From there: SpaceX's suspiciously well-timed IPO, a "genius" financial deal with Anthropic, and Elon buying Cursor because Grok needs friends. They also cover Anthropic Core's pivot to expert-systems consulting, the backlash over silently nerfed guardrails, whether Chinese models are actually a safe alternative, and why the Pope's new AI document is getting weaponized as corporate propaganda. Chapters (00:00) - Intro (05:37) - Fable/Mythos Updates (26:17) - SpaceX's IPO and the Cursor Buyout (34:57) - Anatomy of an AI Bubble (40:02) - Anthropic Core and "AI as Expert Systems" (50:03) - Guardrails, Chinese Models, and Whether We Can Trust the Benchmarks LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Anthropic statement - Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5Luta Security blog post - Fable 5 Is Back, But We're Still Slowing Down DefendersTech Policy Press analysis - Did the US Government Just Set an AI Export Precedent by Blocking Mythos?SEC EDGAR filing - SpaceX Free Writing Prospectus — Anthropic and Google compute agreementsEngadget article - Anthropic Backtracks on Policy That 'Sabotaged' Researchers' WorkAnthropic announcement - Introducing Claude CorpsThe Vatican encyclical - Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence

  3. 4 May

    The AI Booster Tier List

    This week, Jacob and Igor swap the usual news breakdown for a complete taxonomy of AI boosters within the framing of a tier list. They run through every type, from the good-faith genuine enthusiast to the denial-prone deflector, the financially captured, corporate power-players, platform builders, and finally the model-building true believers. They also get into "crit-hype," the idea that some critics are inadvertently boosting the systems they're fighting against. No muck to separate this week, just the guys working through their framework and explaining why their opinions are S tier. Chapters (00:00) - Introduction (02:45) - Introducing the Booster Tier List (07:48) - A-Tier: The Genuine Enthusiast (11:36) - B-Tier: The Denial-Prone Booster (14:34) - C-Tier: The Financially Adjacent Booster (19:03) - D-Tier: The Corporate Booster (23:31) - E-Tier: The Product and Platform Booster (26:36) - F-Tier: The Model Builders (31:08) - Bonus Tier: Crit Hype (39:28) - So What Do We Actually Do With This? (46:04) - Outro (Igor's Challenge) Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Ed Zitron Substack article - How to Argue with an AI BoosterMIT Technology Review article - How Social Media Encourages the Worst of AI BoosterismThe Telegraph article - AI isn’t magic. We’re just being taken for mugs

  4. 13 Apr

    The Enemy of My Enemy is Still a Corporation

    In this episode, Jacob and Igor break down the DoD vs. Anthropic standoff, tracing how Claude's use in military operations led to Anthropic being designated a supply chain security risk. Perhaps more importantly, why did Anthropic choose to take a stand now, and what can that tell us about the corporations behavior moving forward. The investigation is used as a case study in how to read the real motivations behind big institutions: intrinsic values, rational self-interest, and realpolitik. Chapters (00:00) - Introduction (00:44) - DoD-Anthropic Standoff (15:08) - 3 Buckets of Motivation (35:39) - How to Read What They're Actually Doing (44:04) - Is This Designation Even Real? (53:39) - Recap (Pragmatist's Playbook) Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Ed Zitron subtack article - The AI Bubble Is An Information WarTechPolicy.Press article - A Timeline of the Anthropic-Pentagon DisputeTechPolicy.Press podcast episode - How to Think About the Anthropic-Pentagon DisputeBBC news article - Anthropic vows to sue Pentagon over supply chain risk labelThe Guardian article - AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worryingPalantir YouTube video - Multi-Domain AI: The Future of Command and ControlInto AI Safety podcast episode - Drawing Red Lines w/ Su Cizem

  5. 17 Mar

    The Mythical AI Bear

    This week, Jacob and Igor dissect the "mythical AI bear," the strawman version of AI criticism that gets thrown around in tech discourse. Working through a viral blog post that typifies the genre, they examine how legitimate concerns about code quality, labor displacement, intellectual property, and the erosion of craft get flattened into caricature. Plus: Sam Altman writes ten paragraphs about how unbothered he is by an ad. Chapters (00:00) - Introduction (00:30) - Altman's Super Bowl Meltdown (03:11) - What is "The Bear"? (06:41) - But You Have No Idea What The Code Is (15:44) - But The Craft, But The Mediocrity, But It'll Never Be AGI (24:43) - But They Take Our Jobs & But The Plagiarism (31:21) - Stochastic Parrots & Mythical Bears (42:34) - Outro Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Big Think article - The rise of AI denialismFly.io blogpost - My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nutsantirez blogpost - Don't fall into the anti-AI hypeEmily Bender blogpost - Resistance Isn't DenialismCory Doctorow blogpost - Reverse centaurs are the answer to the AI paradoxWashington Post article - The AI boom is so huge it's causing shortages everywhere elseBusiness Insider article - Veteran investor Jeremy Grantham says AI is 'obviously a bubble'Ipsos survey - Google / Ipsos Multi-Country AI Survey 2026Understanding AI Substack post - AI skeptics and AI boosters are both wrong

  6. 9 Feb

    Big Tech Plans to Move Fast and Break Democracy

    We're talking about developments in AI while those in power have unapologetically revealed their true fascist intensions; are we spending our time in the right way? Igor and I discuss the importance of shining a light on the techno-authoritarians who have played a very significant role in current state-of-the-world. While we discuss the murders of Nicole Good and Alex Pretti during this episode, it's important that we also acknowledge the many marginalized people who have died as a result of ICE's behavior, and they same level of outcry didn't happen. Six additional individuals died in ICE custody under suspicious circumstances between January 1st and 25th of 2026: Victor Manuel Díaz, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, Luis Beltrán Yáñez-Cruz, Parady La, and Heber Sánchez Domínguez. Chapters (00:00) - | Introduction (03:57) - | The Authoritarian Stack (08:33) - | Palantir & Theil-Government Consolidation (13:44) - | Move Fast & Break Everything (23:14) - | Fascism in the US & Starving the Beast (39:48) - | Finding Local Opportunities for Action Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.The Authoritarian Stack websiteProject 2025 Observer websiteEFF report - ICE Using Palantir Tool Feeds on Medicaid DataThe Guardian article - Eight people have died in dealings with ICE so far in 2026. These are their storiesIndivisible websiteDistributed AI Research Institute projectsEAAMO website - Mechanism Design for Social GoodCarlos Maza video - How To Be Hopeless

  7. 12 Jan

    AI Skeptic PWNED by Facts and Logic

    Igor shares a significant shift in his perspective on AI coding tools after experiencing the latest Claude Code release. While he's been the stronger AI skeptic between the two of us, recent developments have shown him genuine utility in specific coding tasks, but this doesn't validate the hype or change the fundamental critiques. We discuss what "rote tasks" are and why they're now automatable with enough investment, the difference between genuine utility and AGI claims, and why this update actually impacts our bubble analysis. We explore how massive investment has finally produced something useful for a narrow domain, but it doesn't mean the technology is generalizable or that AGI is real. Chapters (00:00) - | Introduction (05:07) - | What Changed Igor’s Mind (18:27) - | Rote Tasks Explained (23:31) - | How Does This Impact our Bubble Analysis? (30:48) - | AGI Is Still BS (34:07) - | Externalities Remain Unchanged (37:49) - | Final Thoughts & Outro LinksRelated muckrAIkers episode - Tech Bros Love AI WaifusBubble Talk OfficeChai startup - OpenAI Hasn’t Completed A Successful Full-Scale Pretraining Run Since GPT-4o In May 2024, Says SemiAnalysisVechron report - Anthropic Prepares for Potential 2026 IPO in Bid to Rival OpenAIYCombinator Forum post on AI crashYCombinator Forum post on OpenAI adopting Anthropic's "skills"YCombinator Forum post on OpenAI rumorsYCombinator Forum post on OpenAI add suggestionsOther Sources LinkedIn post discussing an agentic coding vibe shiftExecutive Order - Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial IntelligenceInside Tech Law blogpost - Germany delivers landmark copyright ruling against OpenAI: What it means for AI and IPNeurIPS 2025 paper - Ascent Fails to ForgetNBER working paper - Large Language Models, Small Labor Market EffectsDwarkesh Podcast blogpost - RL is even more information inefficient than you thought

  8. 15/12/2025

    Tech Bros Love AI Waifus

    OpenAI is pivoting to porn while public sentiment turns decisively against AI. Pew Research shows Americans are now concerned over excited by a 2:1 margin. We trace how we got here: broken promises of cancer cures replaced by addiction mechanics and expensive APIs. Meanwhile, data centers are hiding a near-recession, straining power grids, and literally breaking your household appliances. Drawing parallels to the 1970s AI winter, we argue the bubble is shaking and needs to pop now, before it becomes another 2008. The good news? Grassroots resistance works. Protests have already blocked $64 billion in data center projects. NOTE: The project that we cite for the $64 billion blockage is actually a pro-data-center campaign. The numbers still seem ok, but it's worth being aware of. Chapters (00:00) - - Introduction (06:45) - - The Addiction Business Model (10:15) - - Public Sentiment Data (22:45) - - Data Centers and Infrastructure Problems (36:30) - - The Bubble Discussion (44:36) - - Closing Thoughts & Outro LinksPublic Sentiment on AIPew Research report - How People Around the World View AIPew Research report - How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial IntelligencePew Research report - How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and SocietyUniversity of Toronto report - Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence: A global study 2025Melbourne Business School report - Key findings on public attitudes towards AIThe Washington Post article - Americans have become more pessimistic about AI. Why?The New York Times article - From Mexico to Ireland, Fury Mounts Over a Global A.I. FrenzyThe Guardian article - ‘It shows such a laziness’: why I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPTThe Register article - OpenAI's ChatGPT is so popular that almost no one will pay for itAI and Claims of Curing Cancer Rachel Thomas, PhD blogpost - “AI will cure cancer” misunderstands both AI and medicineThe Atlantic article - OpenAI Wants to Cure Cancer. So Why Did It Make a Web Browser?Independent article - ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancerThe Atlantic article - AI Executives Promise Cancer Cures. Here’s the RealityAI Porn and the Addiction Economy Forbes article - ChatGPT Will Allow ‘Erotica’ After Easing Mental Health Restrictions, Sam Altman SaysThe Addiction Economy websitePPC article - OpenAI is staffing up to turn ChatGPT into an ad platformTom Nicholas video - Vape-o-nomics: Why Everything is Addictive NowAI Bubble Fast Company article - AI isn’t replacing jobs. AI spending isPivot to AI article - The finance press finally starts talking about the ‘AI bubble’Fortune article - Without data centers, GDP growth was 0.1% in the first half of 2025, Harvard economist saysThe Atlantic article - Just How Bad Would an AI Bubble Be?The New York Times article - Debt Has Entered the A.I. BoomWill Lockett's Newsletter article - AI Pullback Has Officially StartedReuters article - Michael Burry of 'Big Short' fame is closing his hedge fundBusiness Insider article - The guy who shorted Enron has a warning about the AI boomDatacenters Bloomberg article - AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours WorseData Center Watch report - $64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local oppositionMore Perfect Union video - We Found the Hidden Cost of Data Centers. It's in Your Electric BillDataCenter Knowledge article - Why Communities Are Protesting Data Centers – And How the Industry Can RespondFighting Back Knight First Amendment Institute essay - AI as Normal TechnologyPranksters vs. Autocrats chapter - Laughtivism: The Secret IngredientSPSP article - Playing with Power: Humor as Everyday ResistanceBlood in the Machine article - The Luddite Renaissance is in full swing

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About

Join us as we dig a tiny bit deeper into the hype surrounding "AI" press releases, research papers, and more. Each episode, we'll highlight ongoing research and investigations, providing some much needed contextualization, constructive critique, and even a smidge of occasional good will teasing to the conversation, trying to find the meaning under all of this muck.

Information

  • Creator
    Jacob Haimes and Igor Krawczuk
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    26
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Kairos.fm
  • Show Website
    muckrAIkers