I told monster stories on Techtonic this week. Speaking over the classic album Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House (see Wikipedia), I discussed tech news items that are appropriately scary for the Halloween season.

→ Listen to the show on the episode page or podcast.

One item in particular, all kidding aside, is worth comment here – because Silicon Valley has quietly crossed a line that we should all be concerned about.

Here’s what happened: a jokester on social media posted footage of a job interview conducted by an AI bot. (Details in Futurism.) To troll the bot, the human jokester spoke in gibberish throughout his responses.

This isn’t an original gag: a few weeks ago on Techtonic I played footage of an AI interview in which the human gave nonsense answers. The AI bot, programmed to echo back whatever the human said, dutifully repeated the nonsense. It was fun. (If you have a Bluesky account, watch it here.)

In the case of this newer job interview, though, something else entirely took place. On encountering the human’s nonsense speech, the AI bot changed its tone to simulate irritation and anger, saying things like, “Stop this immediately.” “This is pathetic.” “I am done.” And most tellingly, “This is an absolute waste of my time.”

The avatar accordingly showed its angry face:

I mentioned above that Silicon Valley AI has quietly crossed a line, and this is it: the machines now are being programmed to display the same contempt for users that the oligarchs themselves have.

In past years, giving input outside the expectations of a digital system would bring back other responses: “Error, try again” – or if the designers had added a gloss of politeness, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” Most recently, systems might even echo back and amusingly validate the nonsense fed to them.

But this is different. Having a scowling avatar say “this is pathetic” is a sign that the trillion-dollar companies are feeling safe in reminding us that we have no power, and that our attempts to resist the machine are a “waste of time” – and annoying, too, for the company to have to spend precious tokens dealing with it.

We are now at a point in which machines are programmed to actively show contempt for humans, when the humans don’t abide by the machines’ owners’ wishes.

Cue the spooky music: the machines, possessed by a demonic spirit of growth-at-any-cost unregulated capitalism, have now infiltrated our jobs, our schools, our hospitals, and our very homes. Where will the invasion pop up next?

How about comedy clubs: I talked on this week’s show about standup comedian George Brett Olson and his complaint that AI bots are now stealing his jokes and having sexualized AI avatars deliver them (poorly), to simulated audiences, on YouTube and other slop platforms.

In today’s New York Times, Invasion of the Sexy A.I. Joke Thieves (gift link) goes into detail.

The word “invasion” is no exaggeration. In my Monster stories show this week, I compared Big Tech AI platforms to a zombie invasion – going house to house, eating brains and spreading chaos – even jumping the ocean, in Google’s case, in order to illegally clearcut a quarter-million trees in Finland, sending now-homeless wolves into nearby villages. (True story.)

Our first job, if we want to extract ourselves from these nightmares, is to accurately identify who the monsters are. Yes, the machines are acting badly, but they’re not really possessed: they’re designed that way by the real monsters. I’ll give a hint: they rhyme with Schmoogle, Schmuckerberg, Schmusk, Schmaltman. . . you get the point. Get off these platforms, if you can. Because they’ve crossed a line that, finally, displays their monstrous contempt for us.

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Until next time, Happy Halloween –

-mark

Mark Hurst, founder, Creative Good
Founder and host, Gel conference

Email: [email protected]
Podcast/radio show: techtonic.fm
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