This week was a bad week to be a veteran, an IRS worker, a MAGA voter, a 401(k) owner, a Black Lives Matter supporter, or even just a 1A-believing American who wants to shoot their mouth off without choking on deadly pollution. But you probably know all that. So this week's Sunday roundup will be an all-AI, all evil-tech-bros edition, with some of the future-shaping content you may have missed amid all the chaos and despair.
When Swasticar maker Elon Musk sent humanoid robots to mingle with guests at a Cybertruck event in October 2024, it was quickly exposed that the machines were human-operated.
But the event sent a clear signal: Elon is eagerly anticipating the day when he can replace troublesome humans with robots that might, if programmed correctly, pretend to like him.
That new era of robotics—in which AI gets physical—came closer this week when Google Deepmind previewed its new Gemini Robotics which, they claim, is now:
Interactive — to respond live to your actions, and your voice.
Dexterous — to complete your most complex tasks.
General — to understand things in your 3D world. And all of these capabilities need to work across different physical forms.
As Axios notes: "The move could pave the way for robots that are vastly more versatile, but also opens up whole new categories of risks as AI systems take on physical capabilities."
In the quest to stop Elon turning Tesla into a $25 trillion, world-stomping robot company, Google is working with multiple robotics companies.
One is named Apptronik, a Texas-based company founded in 2016 by a team that had worked with NASA on the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Apptronik announced Wednesday it had just raised $350 million in Series A funding.
Meanwhile, Figure AI, which divorced itself from OpenAI in February, is already putting humanoid robots to work for BMW in Spartanburg SC and has another "secret" client that recent videos suggest might be Fedex or UPS—or possibly postmaster general Louis DeJoy.
The "don't be evil" days are over
In case you thought Google was interested in make cuddly robots that won't take your job and/or kill you, think again.
This week, the now totally evil company joined Open AI in asking the Trump administration to let it steal all the copyrighted works of all humanity or else China will destroy us.
As Ars Technica writes:
Google is fighting several lawsuits, and the New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI could set the precedent that AI developers are liable for using that training data without permission. Google wants to avoid that. It calls for "balanced copyright rules," but its preference doesn't seem all that balanced.
Both Google and OpenAI are now on record asking for the lawless Trump regime to throw out all current and future lawsuits for their pirating of copyrighted work.
Because why compensate humans for all the work they've ever done when, pretty soon, the tech feudalists won't even need the peasants anymore?
In embracing "AI for evil," Google still has some catching up to do
This week we also learned that Amazon, in the pre-ChatGPT days of 2021, was already using AI to screw its workers.
As Daniel Boguslaw writes for Prospect.org, a new study reveals the company used an arsenal of AI weapons against workers to crush a unionization effort at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama in 2021:
Amazon weaponized workplace devices in use at warehouses that algorithmically direct and discipline workers.... (used) “algorithmic slack-cutting”... to rapidly humanize working conditions to make workers feel better about their jobs... first by softening enforcement of algorithmic quotas and rules and by removing automatic termination initiated for missed quotas... But slack-cutting loosened during the union election time period could always be tightened after... Amazon (also) “ran a social media surveillance program that monitored more than 43 Facebook groups, most of which were nominally private, as well as numerous Web sites [and] subreddits”... “the program’s described aim was to ‘capture’ and categorize posts of interest for potential investigation, including those mentioning complaints from warehouse workers and planned strikes or protests.”
According to the author of the study:
Amazon is not just tweaking pre-existing AI systems to make unionization harder to achieve for workers, but actually converting and weaponizing sprawling systems into new tools for quashing dissent...
The company is using "coercive control techniques" that, in the case of Bessemer at least, have led to "plantation-style management.”
And be warned. The kind of surveillance tools that Amazon deploys against it own workers are a precursor to the new era of AI-powered "super vision" that the evil tech bros hope to roll out to every device, building, and street corner in America.
But at least "Elon looks desperate"
As Charlie Warzel writes in The Atlantic (gift link):
Just 17 days after wielding a chain saw and dancing triumphantly onstage at CPAC, the billionaire looked like he was about to cry on the Fox Business channel earlier this week. He confessed that he was having “great difficulty” running his many businesses, and let out a long, dismal sigh and shrugged when asked if he might go back to his businesses after he’s done in the administration....
(This week's) White House stunt had all the hallmarks of Trump corruption, but there was something else, too—an air of desperation. It was a tacit admission that the protests are working and that Musk and Trump are rattled enough by current sentiment that they’re willing to turn the South Lawn into a showroom. Watching Musk clam up on Fox Business or quietly idle next to Trump in front of the White House, it’s even easier than normal to see past Musk’s trademark bullshitting and bluster. These moments make clear that this time, Musk has wagered the only thing he can’t easily buy back—the very myth he created for himself.
As LOLGOP writes, the "clownish infomercial" that took place at the White House this week underscores how successful the "Tesla Takedown" movement has already been. Which is a good reason to keep protesting the "unelected fraud running around our government, hacking us, and decimating our ability to protect each other."
Regular readers of this newsletter know that my understanding of the plans and strategies of tech billionaires is much-informed by the work of The Nerd Reich editor Gil Duran.
I'm pleased to see Duran's "small but mighty newsletter" going from strength to strength—as evidenced by his guest appearance this week on The New Yorker's politics podcast. Listen here:
The “Cognitive Élite” Seize Washington
Podcast Episode · The Political Scene | The New Yorker · 03/15/2025 · 32m
Thanks for reading! While paid subscriptions (billed to TLD Media LLC) and one-time tips are always welcome, all content to this ad-free newsletter is free, so subscribe for $0 and you won’t miss anything. And feel free to share this content knowing there’s never a paywall!
P.S. This really is the time to get off X once and for all. Please find me on Bluesky and these other places.
Subscribe to Unprecedented
Subscribe to the newsletter and unlock access to member-only content.