The Tech Report

Will Guyatt from The Tech Report talks to David Gerard from Pivot-to-AI about Oracle referring to a gas-pipeline delay at a mega data centre as an act of God, and why the business of building AI infrastructure increasingly looks like a house of cards. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_tech_reprt/ Facebook: @TheTechReport Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Rogue AI agent is going to become the word of 2026.” Eli the Computer Guy talks to The Tech Report’s Will Guyatt about a new MIT Technology Review article which says almost every claimed AI advance this summer was overhyped. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_tech_reprt/ Facebook: @TheTechReport Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I estimate $200bn to $300bn worth of GPUs are either in warehouses or sitting in unpowered data centres.” Writers of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the data center overbuild and Oracle issuing a force majeure notice over expected delays to it’s data center project in New Mexico. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The threat of AI is there to force down wages and essentially force down the leverage of workers.” Host of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast and author of Hyperscalers Paris Marx joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the intersection between AI and labor movements as the AI backlash grows and new figures reveal support for unions are at a record high. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“They need trillions of dollars in revenue. Who’s going to pay it?” Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research Dean Baker joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about how some of the founding principles of the AI industry are now in question after business leaders admit they’re not using frontier models. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Nobody cared about the model.” Eli the Computer Guy talks to The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound about the tech underpinning the AI hype and how the industry is moving away from reliance on frontier models. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“They’re talking about super intelligence and AI that trains itself so you take your eye off of what’s happening today.” Writers of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about if the AI industry can afford to slow down and why industry leaders are calling for a pacing of development in the first place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Half of Nvidia’s revenue could literally be sitting in warehouses.” Writers of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about why the AI industry is continuing to buy AI chips despite reports that significant amounts of GPUs are going uninstalled. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“If you drag Dario Amodei and Sam Altman in front of a grand jury I think we’ll solve a lot of these problems incredibly quickly.” Eli the Computer Guy talks to The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound about the AI safety, regulation and the possible explanation for why OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI are really calling for the pace of AI development to be slowed down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The vast majority, including the richest of investors do not know what they’re investing in. They have no idea.” Writer of Where’s Your Ed At and the host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron talks to The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound about the exaggerated claims AI will eradicate the human race and the next stage in the commoditisation of AI, compute futures. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“If enshitificaiton is what you do when you’ve grown your market all you can and then you squeeze it, then AI is what happens when you run out of squeezing.” Author of The Reverse Centaur’s Guide To Life After AI Cory Doctorow join The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the the narrative and economics of Artificial Intelligence and why the AI bubble needs to end sooner rather than later. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“There is this sort of laundering that’s happening around recommendations that ChatGPT and the chatbots are doing.” Author of Regular Benchmarks and Co-Founder of Boys Club Deana Burke joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about how chatbots can be easily influenced by marketing information and incorrect data. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The excitement around AI is dying at the same time they need more investment.” Eli the Computer Guy join The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the value proposition of ChatGPT 6 ‘Astra’ as industry leader declare we have entered the era of AGI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“1% of customers hold up everything else.” Author of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the instability of the AI industry as new Ramp statistics reveal that the 80% of OpenAI and Anthropic’s revenue come from 1% of their customers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The use case for AI is work that should not have been done.” Author and host of Pivot to AI David Gerard joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about why people don’t want to buy or use AI generated products and content as companies like Spotify and LinkedIn take steps to limit and remove AI slop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The opposition to AI data centers is only going to grow.” Tech journalist Jowi Morales joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the state of the AI build out after Sam Altman admitted people ‘clearly hate’ the developments as the total cost of blocked and delayed data centres reaches $150bn. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Sam Altman has backed himself into a corner.” Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about how specialised AI is looking to replace generalist models as OpenAI looks to slow down model development and Thomson Reuters released a model trained on 175 years of proprietary data for $40m. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Each quarters success is content on whether Nvidia’s various fin-dom victims will be able to raise debt.” Writer of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the instability of Nvidia’s sky rocketing revenue growth and Anthropic’s lofty IPO target as they claim the addressable AI market is $30trn. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Until it’s clear how AI development can be centred on what workers and the consumers want, there’s no reason to expect the public not to hate AI.” Co-host of This Machine Kills and author of The Tech Bubble newsletter Edward Ongweso Jr joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the lack of identifiable return on investment from AI as 90% of executives admit they still have not seen any boost to productivity from adopting the technology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“There is no issue that unites the public like hatred of data centers, Big Tech, and the AI companies.” Author of the book and newsletter Blood in The Machine Brian Merchant joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about AI data center and local opposition after the governor of Texas says developers have “dug their own graves.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It may not be feasible of them to say that they’re wrong.” Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the uncertain future of frontier AI model development as usage numbers for Anthropic’s Fable 5 have stagnated and OpenAI says they plan to slow down the development of their next model. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalist and AI Advisor Alex Hudson from the Crashed podcast joins The Tech Report’s Will Guyatt to look into Open AI’s slowing down of AI development to overhaul safety systems, They also discuss warnings to UK local government that AI tools are not a silver bullet to recoup £4bn budget cuts, new AI slop research and a start-up’s new writing policy. Alex Hudson is co-host of the Crashed podcast; a new episode drops every Thursday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Nothing is where it needs to be. Absolutely nothing. Nvidia’s $200bn in revenue, that’s chump change compared to where they need to be in a year.” Writer of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about Nvidia exacerbating the AI bubble circular financing problem with a newly announced $500bn financing proposal as the SEC exempts some data center backed securities from regulations put in place after the 2008 financial crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Why should people read something you couldn’t be bothered to write?” Author and host of Pivot to AI David Gerard joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about dead internet theory and how AI is eating itself as the CFO of Cloudflare predicts bots will outnumber humans 1000:1 in five years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“This is a great example of what AI should be used for… as long as the systems are designed properly.” Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the pros and cons of using AI in emergency call dispatching as New Orleans, Seattle and Atlanta incorporate AI emergency call answering agents into their 911 systems. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“If 70% of AI revenues are these two companies, there is no AI industry.” Writer of Where’s Your Ed At and the host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the state of the AI industry as it’s revealed that over two thirds of hyperscaler AI revenue is coming from two companies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“People don’t want Tech coming into their neighbourhood without permission, or arrogantly.” 404 Media’s Joseph Cox joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the controversies surrounding automatic license plate recognition cameras as the backlash against Flock grows. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I think we’re in this moment where those promises are starting to kind of erode.” Tech journalist and author of Hyperscale Paris Marx joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about AI in the workplace after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns one of the biggest risks of AI is ‘cognitive atrophy’ and a study by Adaptavist reveals two thirds of office workers want to go back to working without AI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“They committed felonies and the government isn’t doing anything.” Eli the Computer Guy joints The Tech Report’s Isaac pound to talk about the negligence of AI companies after OpenAI and Anthropic admit their agents were hacking other companies without their knowledge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It’s never been about what LLMs can actually do. It’s about the perception of AI’s potential.” Author of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins the Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the state of circular financing in the AI bubble after Nvidia floated a $250 loan guarantee to build OpenAI a data center and another $350 loan of GPUs to put in it. Discount link for Where's Your Ed At: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/o5w5z8mj9q Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I’ not sure this really is going to be paced. I think it’s almost like a cry for help.” Author of 'Marcus on AI' and Professor Emeritus of psychology and neural science at NYU joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about OpenAI and Anthropic backing an international slow down of AI model development, that AI pacing might look like and why AI companies should not be left to regulate themselves. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I’m very exited about this technology… but I’m also deeply critical of how it’s being deployed and I don’t think those two positions are contradictory.” El from House of El joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the pro-AI vs anti-AI debate, some fundamental misunderstandings that deepen the divide and why differentiating types of artificial intelligence is important when criticising AI companies’ business strategies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The debt always comes due.” Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the continued drop in the valuation of SpaceX and Tesla as Elon Musk struggles to make the business case for his unproven technology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We’re in a situation where the only way of sustaining free large language models isn’t going to work.” Author of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to discuss OpenAI falling short of its own internal ad targets and how the company cannot survive without them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“People are dreaming so they don’t have to face the nightmare of reality.” Author of Where’s Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the $1.65trn of AI debt being kept off the books of the hyperscalers and how the same big tech companies have already protected themselves from the worst of the AI bubble popping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“People do have the power to shut data centers down and to disrupt the narrative of inevitability the tech industry relies on.” Author of Hyperscalers and host of Tech Won’t Save Us Paris Marx join The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about how the public is turning on the AI industry and has so fare blocked or delayed $286bn of data center development. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Absolutely everyone tunes their models to all the benchmarks.” Author and host of Pivot to AI David Gerard joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the value of AI benchmarking following the reaction to Kimi 3, Chinese company Moonshot’s newest open weight LLM that created a shock to US tech stocks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"The bigger problem with meta is just Mark Zuckerberg has just been a disaster for the past number of years." Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report's Isaac Pound to talk about the dangers of using AI for business decisions after Meta allegedly disproportionally cut staff who took time off because AI flagged them as underperforming. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The people that got harmed the most are those who trusted Sam Altman the most.” Writer of Where Your Ed At and host of the Better Offline podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about Oracle’s credit rating being downgraded to one level above junk and majority stakes in data center companies being offered to private equity firms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The AI companies have done us great favour of making this an immediate, visceral, visual threat.” Journalist and Author of Nerd Reich Gil Duran joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about why the American public supports public ownership of AI companies and what it would look like if it happens. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I think we’re getting there… AI doesn’t work very well and it’s sort of selling itself on the future promises.” Author and host of Pivot to AI David Gerard joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the fundamental problem with the AI development business model, selling it at a price people can and will pay for. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“People fundamentally don’t understand what the real value this technology is supposed to bring.” Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the disillusionment surrounding SpaceX’s stock price despite an optimistic Wall Street as well what the rise and fall tells us about the mood in the AI and tech industry as it braces for further volatility. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I think we’re on the path to the first real tech Great Depression.” Writer of Where’s Your Ed At and the host of the Better Offlines podcast Ed Zitron joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to discuss recent analysis showing the together the five largest US hyperscalers have become net cash borrowers in an attempt to fund the buildout of AI, a technology which has never been profitable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Why are chatbots doubling down on these ideas when the user is very clearly saying ‘I am in distress’ or ‘I am confused, can you help me?’” Senior staff writer at Futurism Maggie Harrison Dupré joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about how where AI delusions and AI psychosis come from, how chatbots have been found to co-create delusions and the role tech companies have played by marketing their products irresponsibly. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It’s the surviving companies that will rehire, the others will have killed themselves with AI.” Author and host of Pivot to AI David Gerard joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about the growing trend of companies rehiring for roles previously cut under the belief AI could replace jobs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The argument for building more of these AI data centers is getting worse by the day.” Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to discuss OpenAI’s reported inference halving breakthrough and how the astronomical spending by the AI industry has created a vulnerability to innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It’s yet another one of those instances where you wonder why people haven’t seen this coming.” Tech journalist Natasha Bernal joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about some concerning cases of AI psychosis in the workplace. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It’s yet another one of those instances where you wonder why people haven’t seen this coming.” Tech journalist Natasha Bernal joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about some concerning cases of AI psychosis in the workplace. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“As a tech company, you’re not going to be able to buy the supply to built your data center.” Tech journalist Will Guyatt joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to talk about what ChatGPT 5.6’s restricted launch means for the way America will regulated AI and how the memory crisis is unsustainable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We are building data centres as if we understand what we’re doing, when I really don’t think we do.” Eli the Computer Guy joins The Tech Report’s Isaac Pound to unpick Nvidia’s new closed loop water-cooling technology that promises to ‘eliminate’ water consumption of data centres and how the speed of the AI built out risks wasting money on obsolete infrastructure. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.