TWiT 1075: The Commonwealth Club - Meta Layoffs, DOGE Data Theft, & the Rise of AI Fails
This Week in Tech (Audio)
Leo Laporte
3.9 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2026
⏱️ 176 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From "gainfully employed robots" to AI that accidentally ruins lives, this week's conversation unpacks the real-world fallout of futuristic promises. Leo, JPT, Iain, and Richard tackle energy sources, social media effects, tech layoffs, and the algorithms quietly taking charge.
- Meta is planning sweeping layoffs as AI costs mount
- Meta Said to Push Back Launch of Avocado Model
- Social media addiction trial: the plaintiff, Meta, and YouTube make closing arguments; jurors begin deliberations Friday on liability for harm to children
- Trump administration will reportedly get $10 billion for brokering the TikTok deal
- Bluesky CEO Jay Graber will step aside
- Digg's open beta shuts down after just two months, blaming AI bot spam
- X says it suspended 800 million accounts in 2024 over spam and manipulation
- Fake AI Content About the Iran War Is All Over X
- Musk admits xAI 'not built right' — weeks after Tesla invested $2 billion
- Nvidia Is Planning to Launch an Open-Source AI Agent Platform
- Amazon Wins Court Order To Block Perplexity's AI Shopping Bots
- Social Security watchdog investigating claims that DOGE engineer copied its databases
- DOGE Deposition Videos Taken Down After Judge Order and Widespread Mockery
- U.S. State Bans on Lab-Grown Meats Challenged in Court
- Easy-to-use solar panels are coming, but utilities are trying to delay them
- EcoFlow brings its plug-in solar power plant to US homes (related to the plug-in solar story)
- TerraPower gets permit to build reactor
- Ex-Uber CEO Kalanick Debuts Plan for 'Gainfully Employed Robots'
- Tennessee grandmother jailed after AI facial recognition error links her to fraud
- Justice Department and Live Nation Reach Settlement Terms in Antitrust Case
- Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power
- Palantir's lethal AI weaponry deployed to find chairs for US government staff
- How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world
- 'Flying Cars' Will Take Off in American Skies This Summer
- YouTube surpasses Disney, Paramount, WBD in 2025 ad revenue
- Ig Nobel Prize flees US for Switzerland after 35 years over safety concerns
- Swiss e-voting can't count 2,048 ballots after USB keys fail to decrypt them
- Tony Hoare, Turing Award-Winning Computer Scientist Behind QuickSort, Dies At 92
Host: Leo Laporte
Guests: Iain Thomson, Richard Campbell, and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's time for Twit this week in tech, the Ides of March edition. |
| 0:03.7 | Jennifer Patterson-Tooey joins us from The Verge. |
| 0:06.0 | Richard Campbell from Windows Weekly and Ian Thompson. |
| 0:08.8 | Big layoffs are coming for meta. |
| 0:10.8 | Plus, they don't like their new AI very much. |
| 0:14.1 | Speaking of bad AI, we'll talk about the woman who lost five months of her life |
| 0:18.1 | due to incorrect face recognition, the Doge depositions they tried to hide, |
| 0:24.5 | and he's back. Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber, says his new company makes gainfully employed robots. |
| 0:32.5 | Twit is next. |
| 0:36.3 | Podcasts you love. |
| 0:37.8 | From people you trust. |
| 0:40.5 | This is Twit. |
| 0:47.6 | This is Twit. |
| 0:49.4 | This Week in Tech, episode 1075, recorded Sunday, March 15th, 2026, the Commonwealth Club. |
| 0:58.7 | It's time for Twit this week in tech, the show we cover the week's tech news, and as usual, |
| 1:04.0 | it was a big and busy week, but fortunately, we've got the best panel here. |
| 1:09.0 | I love it. |
| 1:09.5 | Jennifer Patterson, Tooey, is here, senior reviewer for The Verge. Hello, J-PT. Hello, Leo. Lovely to be here, as always. Love having you on. Of course, Jennifer's a regular, not only on The Verge, but on our tech news weekly with Michael Sargent. And covers smart home, and her poor family has to put up with a door that has many locks |
| 1:30.5 | all of the long. Many locks, many doorbells, yeah, many robot vacuums. I have UPS guys will come up to my door |
| 1:38.5 | and be like, okay, there's four and then they just knock. Oh, there's so much. Who needs a doorbell? |
| 1:46.0 | So many doorbells. Yeah, is that funny? |
| 1:47.0 | We have a ring and nobody ever rings it. |
... |
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