735: We’re Walking on Sunshine
Grumpy Old Geeks
Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner
4.9 • 6.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Starting off in FOLLOW UP, we’ve got a tax economist who actually made money betting against the "efficiency" of Elon’s budget-slashing fever dreams, while Tesla is busy trying to dodge a $243 million jury verdict for an Autopilot-assisted fatality. Not content with being legally liable, Tesla is also suing the California DMV because they’re offended someone called their "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" marketing deceptive—ironic, since Jack Dorsey just "proactively" halved the staff at Block to make room for more AI slop. Speaking of which, Goldman Sachs is here to remind us that all this AI spending added a grand total of zero to the US GDP last year, mostly because we’re just exporting all that cash to overseas chip makers while 80% of execs admit the tech hasn’t actually done anything for productivity yet.
Moving into IN THE NEWS, Sam Altman had the audacity to compare ChatGPT’s energy-sucking habits to the 20-year evolution of a human, though the internet wasn't exactly buying the "my bot is just like a baby" defense. Anthropic actually stood its ground against the Pentagon’s demand for killer robots and mass surveillance, so naturally, the military just signed a deal to put Elon’s Grok in their classified systems instead—because what could go wrong with an "edgy" LLM in the war room? Meanwhile, cities are dumping AI surveillance contracts as citizens start a literal "smash-the-snitch-box" campaign against Flock's license plate readers, Google’s AI is busy inserting racial slurs into news alerts, and the White House is apparently harboring a staffer moonlighting as a racist "masterpiece" creator on X. We’ve also got Reddit being slapped with a $20 million fine in the UK for being lazy with age checks, while Discord and Apple scramble to build verification tools that hopefully won't leak your entire identity to a hacker in Belarus.
In MEDIA CANDY, the Paramount-Skydance merger is leaving the industry in a cold sweat of "synergy" layoffs, but at least we’re getting more Game of Thrones spinoffs and Star Trek reboots to rot our brains. Face/Off 2 lost its director, Ryan Coogler is taking on The X-Files, and Google wants to use AI to turn music into generic "lo-fi" background noise for the masses.
Over in APPS & DOODADS, OpenAI is planning a 2027 smart speaker that literally watches you through a camera—because you definitely wanted a $300 Sam Altman-shaped eye in your kitchen—while the Dark Sky creators are back with "Acme Weather" for the low price of $25 a year.
We wrap up THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE with a deep dive into "Under Pressure" and Coruscant’s urban sprawl, leaving us to reminisce about the days when KPT Bryce was the pinnacle of tech—back when "generative art" was just a fractal that took six hours to render.
Sponsors:
DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/GOG and use promo code GOG at checkout.
SquareSpace - go to squarespace.com/GRUMPY for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, use code GRUMPY to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Private Internet Access - Go to GOG.Show/vpn and sign up today. For a limited time only, you can get OUR favorite VPN for as little as $2.03 a month.
SetApp - With a single monthly subscription you get 240+ apps for your Mac. Go to SetApp and get started today!!!
1Password - Get a great deal on the only password manager recommended by Grumpy Old Geeks! gog.show/1password
Show notes at https://gog.show/735
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jdz--v3eeU4
FOLLOW UP
Guy Bets Entire Life Savings Against Elon Musk, Wins
Tesla sues California DMV after it banned the term 'Autopilot'
Jack Dorsey just halved the size of Block's employee base — and he says your company is next
IN THE NEWS
Sam Altman: Know What Else Used a Lot of Energy? Human Civilization
Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
Anthropic Tells Pete Hegseth to Take a Hike
Cities Are Shredding Their AI Surveillance Contracts en Masse
Kalshi Suspended a California Politician and a YouTuber for Insider Trading
Discord delays age verification to address user concerns
Apple introduces age verification for apps in Utah, Louisiana and Australia
MEDIA CANDY
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
'Face/Off 2' Director Adam Wingard is Now/Gone
Ryan Coogler's X-Files reboot gets the green light at Hulu
Mortal Kombat II | Official Trailer II
Google's AI Slop Machine Is Coming for Your Music
Dropping Names... and other things with Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner
APPS & DOODADS
OpenAI will reportedly release an AI-powered smart speaker in 2027
Instagram Will Notify Parents When Teens Use Search Terms Related to Suicide
The creators of Dark Sky have a new weather app
This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby
THE DARK SIDE WITH DAVE
Strong Songs - S08E02 - "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie
The Problem with Coruscant (Planet Cities Explained)
Reminds me of KPT Fractal Explorer
KPT Bryce 1.0 with John Dvorak and Kai Krause
Bald Mr Clean mascot "retired"
My childhood disappointment with scrubbing bubbles.
CLOSING SHOUT-OUTS
Actor Robert Carradine Dies At Age 71
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show where we discussed the finer points of what went wrong on the Internet and who's to blame. |
| 0:09.5 | I'm Jason DeFilippo. |
| 0:10.6 | And I'm Brian. You missed the bus on this one. I'm sad to say. So a 37-year-old tax economist dumped his entire $342,000 life savings into Kalshi prediction markets, |
| 0:24.3 | betting that federal spending would keep rising despite Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, |
| 0:29.6 | promising to slash waste and balance the budget. |
| 0:32.1 | Well, we've talked about you betting on Elon's downfalls for a while, and this guy beat you to the punch because he won. |
| 0:39.5 | He got, he cashed out of roughly $470,000 pocketing $128,000, which is about a 37% return on the downfall of Elon Musk. |
| 0:49.6 | Or at least Doge. |
| 0:50.8 | That's a hell of a bet to put your entire life savings out there. |
| 0:54.4 | But a pretty strong one, as we've talked about a lot on this show, everything that Elon says is bullshit. |
| 1:01.5 | Everything he touches turns to a poop emoji. |
| 1:04.0 | It kind of does. |
| 1:04.8 | So, you know, good for this guy. |
| 1:07.8 | You know, here's a win. |
| 1:08.7 | It's very funny. |
| 1:09.8 | It makes the news because everybody's |
| 1:11.5 | down on Elon right now, as they should be. But, you know, I just, where are all the stories |
| 1:17.3 | about people that have lost their life savings, because we're going to start hearing a lot of those. |
| 1:21.4 | Oh, yes. Oh, yes. They're out there. This is not good. And once we actually have a sane government, |
| 1:48.8 | this shit's going to get regulated until it's gone. Gone, Daddy, gone. Yeah. We've got, yeah, we've got more stories about that coming up. All right. Well, I've got some more stories about Elon right now. Some more follow-up. Tesla is still on the hook for the $243 million verdict after a U.S. judge rejected the EV Makers bid to overturn the jury verdict from last year. |
| 2:00.2 | On Friday, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom upheld the jury's decision to hold Tesla partially responsible for a deadly crash that happened way back in 2019 and involved the self-driving autopilot feature. |
| 2:05.1 | You know, the one that California said you can't use that name anymore because it doesn't autopilot and auto kills. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jason DeFillippo & Brian Schulmeister with Dave Bittner and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.