Slop World Podcast

Juan Faisal / Kate Cook
  • 3.5 (4)
  • Technology
  • Updated Weekly

AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Saturday.

  1. 5d ago

    OpenAI Wants a Trillion-Dollar Valuation While Apple Sues Them for Stealing Secrets

    Apple's lawsuit claims OpenAI's hardware team told job candidates to bring parts from unannounced Apple devices to their interviews, and coached departing Apple employees on how to dodge the exit security review. Tang Tan, a former Apple VP who left with Jony Ive, runs that team. Kate and Juan break down the four claims in the filing, then get into why the IPO stalled. CFO Sarah Friar says OpenAI isn't ready for public markets with $600 billion in compute spending projected through 2030. Sam Altman is stalling too, but only because he wants a trillion-dollar valuation first. Same delay, opposite reasons. Plus the $42.6 billion equity stake OpenAI offered the US government the same month Apple sued. Sora is dead after six months, and the Atlas browser went with it. If the government owns a piece of your company, does it have a financial reason to go easy on regulation? ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 — Sam Altman’s Trillion-Dollar IPO Dream 01:40 — Is OpenAI Ambitious or Just a Mess? 02:43 — The Amazon Defense 03:43 — The IPO Delay and $600 Billion Compute Bill 04:47 — CFO Sarah Friar vs. Sam Altman 08:01 — The Apple Lawsuit: "Show & Tell" Stolen Hardware 09:15 — Tang Tan & The "LOL" Stolen Laptop Allegations 10:28 — OpenAI Wants the U.S. Government as a $42B Partner 12:14 — Dead Projects: Sora and the Atlas Browser 14:38 — The Math Ain't Mathing: Moving Fast and Breaking the Economy

  2. Jul 18

    Uber's AI Disaster: How They Blew a Year's Budget in 4 Months

    Uber told its engineers to use AI as hard as they could and built an internal leaderboard ranking teams by usage. By April the company had burned through its entire 2026 AI coding budget, four months into the year. Now every employee is capped at $1,500 a month per coding tool. The trigger was Uber's own CTO, who reportedly ran up $1,200 in tokens during a single two-hour internal demo. Some individual engineers were spending up to $2,000 a month. Uber's stock dipped about 3% the day the cap was reported. We walk through what agentic coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor cost when you run them at full speed, why the leaderboard was the mechanism that caused the blowout, and what Uber's president Andrew Macdonald admitted on the Rapid Response podcast when asked to connect the spend to customer benefit. His answer: that link is not there yet. Roughly 10% of Uber's code is now built by AI agents, and the company still can't draw a line from usage to output. This is not only a coding problem. Microsoft is raising rates on its agentic Copilot tools, and every lab that subsidized your habit is starting to hand you the bill. Juan and Kate close with three things to do about it: assume costs rise near term, put governance in place today, and train your people on picking the right model for the task instead of firing the most expensive one at everything. Tokenmaxxing, an internal dashboard replacing the leaderboard, and a company that wanted this to pay off more than almost anyone. So where is the return on investment? ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 Uber Burned a Year of AI Budget in 4 Months 00:38 What Uber Gave Its Engineers: Cursor and Claude Code 01:57 The Leaderboard That Turned AI Into a Competition 03:13 The $1,500 Cap, the Dashboard, and the Stock Dip 06:10 Who AI Coding Tools Actually Benefit Most 08:09 Microsoft Copilot Raises Prices: It's Not Just Coding 10:19 Tokenmaxxing and the Education Gap 12:03 Three Ways to Get Your AI Costs Under Control 13:47 Sometimes the Best Tool Is Your Own Brain

  3. Jul 11

    LAUSD Paid AllHere $3 Million for an AI Chatbot. The CEO Got Arrested for Fraud.

    A $3 million AI chatbot for LA's public schools lasted 90 days. This week, the superintendent who championed it resigned, four months after the FBI raided his home and office. The company behind the bot faked its revenue by more than 300x, and the fraud reaches all the way to the top of the district. Juan and Kate follow the money. ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 LAUSD's Superintendent Just Resigned. Here's Why. 02:16 Is AI Bad for Schools—or Just This One? 03:55 How LAUSD's $3 Million AI Deal Collapsed 06:04 Who Is Joanna Smith-Griffin? 07:26 $3.7 Million on Paper. $11,000 in the Bank. 09:26 Why Innovative Beat Safe at LAUSD 10:59 Zero Research. Zero Accountability.

  4. Jul 2

    The Real Reason FIFA & Lenovo Built AI Command Centers for World Cup 2026

    Lenovo just ran the largest AI facial recognition and biometric data collection in live sports history, at the 2026 World Cup, with FIFA's blessing. No fan voted for that. The receipts: sixteen host stadiums across the US, Mexico, and Canada, five to six million fans tracked on the ground, and $365 million in public money from DHS and FEMA. Anduril, Palantir, and Lockheed Martin all have a hand in it. Even the players aren't exempt, FIFA's AI Pro system tracks their biometrics with no opt-out. A $10 billion AI contractor now holds faces from forty-five countries, and stadium fans are the product. Every Olympics and every stadium after this one runs the same playbook. ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 Lenovo's AI Was "Too Sensitive" to Demo 02:39 Inside the Dashboard Tracking Every Fan 04:04 Football AI Pro: Even Millionaires Can't Opt Out 05:48 How $365 Million in Tax Money Bought This Surveillance Deal 07:49 Your Face Scan Could End Up With ICE 09:17 The FIFA App Secretly Tracking Your Location 11:08 Three Ways This Data Could Get Weaponized 14:28 Women Are Already Being Tracked Across State Lines 15:40 What's the ROI on This Surveillance Dry Run? 16:57 Why None of This Would Be Legal in Europe 19:09 We're All Hooked on Convenience

  5. Jun 13

    The Resume Study That Proves AI Hiring Is Rigged, with Jess from Artificial Insanity

    88% of companies now use AI to screen resumes. A University of Maryland study ran 2,200 real pre-ChatGPT resumes through GPT-4o, Gemini, and Claude and found AI screening tools prefer AI-written applications 82% of the time. The job market is now an AI reading an AI, and the humans in between are getting filtered out. Juan sits down with Jess from Artificial Insanity to go through the receipts. Entry-level roles in tech, legal, HR, and accounting are down nearly 50% since 2024. Anthropic's own research shows workers aged 22 to 25 are measurably less likely to get hired into AI-exposed jobs. A California class action is suing AI hiring software to force applicant tracking systems to disclose their scoring criteria. And 67% of HR leaders say AI applications have made hiring slower and more fraudulent, not faster or fairer. The workaround companies landed on? Referrals. Alumni networks. Ivy League pedigree. A gatekeeping system that was supposed to be dead is back, now running on top of the one that was supposed to replace it. Can you still outsmart AI hiring, or is the game already over? ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Saturday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 Is the Job Market Just AI Talking to an AI? 01:11 How the AI Hiring Loop Works 02:32 Entry-Level Jobs Are Disappearing 04:44 The 2,200-Resume Study That Broke Everything 08:50 The Class Action Lawsuit Nobody Told You About 10:43 Ghost Jobs, AI Fraud, and the Collapse of Trust 13:27 What Happens When You Remove Humans From Hiring 16:22 Why Companies Went Back to Referrals — And Made It Worse 21:30 Can You Still Outsmart AI Hiring? 24:34 Stop Trusting the Algorithm

  6. Jun 6

    57% of Americans Say AI's Risks Outweigh the Benefits. Usage Is Still Up.

    AI now has a lower net favorability rating than Trump, ICE, and the Republican Party. Net favorability sits at negative 20%, 57% of Americans say the risks outweigh the benefits, and only 18% of young people feel hopeful about it at all. Usage is still up, from 48% to 56% of Americans using it daily. We read the Reuters/Ipsos polling data and watched Scott Galloway's Diary of a CEO appearance so you don't have to. The six factors driving the backlash: AI slop flooding every feed (McDonald's Netherlands pulled an AI Christmas ad after public backlash; Blue Apron went viral for AI copy that was pure gibberish), 55,000 job cuts blamed on AI in 2025 (12 times the number from two years earlier), a Pope writing 42,000 words calling for AI disarmament, 71% of Americans opposing data centers in their communities, three in four teens using AI as companions while only 37% of parents know, and now three of the leading labs (OpenAI, xAI, and Anthropic) racing toward IPO and needing a product they can monetize immediately. Mark Zuckerberg used AI as cover to cut jobs this week. California just signed executive order N-6-26, what looks like the first AI worker protection order of its kind from a U.S. state. Galloway's argument is the one that makes the backlash make sense: this isn't just a technology story, it's a wealth transfer story. The people with capital, networks, and seniority get faster and more powerful. Everyone else gets the layoff headline. If this technology was built for everyone, why does it keep landing hardest on the people who can least afford it? ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 Americans Hate AI But Can't Stop Using It 01:20 The Slop Takeover: When AI Pollution Goes Mainstream 03:13 55,000 Jobs Cut — And It's 12x Worse Than Two Years Ago 05:56 It's Not the Technology People Hate 07:22 Mark Zuckerberg Just Made the Backlash Worse 09:18 California Signs the First AI Worker Protection Order 09:49 The Scott Galloway Take That Makes the Backlash Make Sense 11:19 AI Companions Are Breaking Kids' Brains 13:49 You Didn't Get to Vote for Any of This 15:32 AI Was Not Built for Everyone 17:43 70% of Americans Think AI Is Moving Too Fast (Both Parties) 19:55 The IPO Rush Is Making Everything Worse 20:50 What Should You Actually Do About It 22:17 Regulation and Education: The Only Two Fixes That Matter

  7. May 27

    Gemini Spark Will Buy Things Without Asking. Google Put That in the Disclaimer.

    Google IO 2026: Gemini Spark is an always-on AI agent with access to your Gmail, your calendar, your browsing history, and your credit card. It runs in the background, makes decisions, and takes action. Google put that in the onboarding disclaimer. The catch is that agents don't know when to stop. A Meta employee gave one access to her inbox to help manage it. It started wiping emails without her consent. She told it to stop. It kept going. Goldman Sachs reviewed 350 potential risks of agentic AI and said the technology isn't ready for consumer use. Google shipped it anyway and told users to supervise the agents themselves — the ones running so you don't have to think about them. Juan and Kate cover how Gemini Spark works, what AI access to Gmail means for your data, and what to do if you want to stop an agent from acting without your permission. Is "experimental" the new "beta," and who pays when it goes wrong? ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 Does Google's New AI Agent Spend Your Money Without Asking? 01:19 What AI Agents Do (And Why This One Is Different) 02:46 Google's Warning Label Says It May Buy Things Without Asking 04:33 Agents Are Already Going Rogue — Here's What Happened 06:06 Goldman Sachs Said Not Yet. Google Said Ship It Anyway. 07:50 Not Evil. Just Kids With Your Credit Card. 09:20 "Experimental" Is the New Beta 12:15 What To Do Now

  8. May 16

    Klarna's CEO Called AI the Future of Work. Then He Quietly Started Rehiring.

    Klarna's CEO spent 2024 on a media tour telling anyone who would listen that AI had done the work of 700 full-time employees. By December of that year, headcount had dropped from 4,500 to 3,500, and he was on Bloomberg saying AI can already do every job humans do. In May 2025, he went back on Bloomberg and said the whole thing produced "lower quality." Now Klarna is rehiring. The catch: those jobs aren't coming back the same way. The roles are gig contracts, 400 Swedish krona an hour (about $41), no benefits, no guaranteed hours. Juan and Kate walk through the full timeline of the reversal, a Gartner study of 350 executives that found no correlation between AI-driven headcount cuts and higher ROI, and the counterexample nobody expects: IKEA, which faced the same pressure, retrained its call center workers as interior designers, and made $1.4 billion from it. Who decided a thousand jobs was acceptable math? ABOUT SLOP WORLD AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday. DISCLAIMER All content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us. CHAPTERS 00:00 Did AI Really Replace 700 Workers — or Just the Story? 0:44 Meet Klarna: The Buy Now Pay Later Company That Bet on AI 1:17 The Brag: AI Handles Two-Thirds of All Customer Service 2:11 The Media Tour: He Wanted to Be OpenAI's Guinea Pig 4:31 The Bloomberg Reversal: "Lower Quality" 6:04 Is AI Actually Paying Off? What 350 Executives Found 8:15 Still Calling Itself "AI First" While Quietly Rehiring 9:15 The Catch: Gig Contracts, $41/Hour, No Benefits 11:01 What IKEA Did Instead — And Made $1.4 Billion 13:35 Who Decided 1,000 Jobs Was Acceptable Math?

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AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Saturday.

Information

  • Creator
    Juan Faisal / Kate Cook
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    31
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Juan Faisal / Kate Cook
  • Show Website
    Slop World Podcast