The Philip DeFranco Show - Meta's $18 Billion Child Addiction Payout is Bigger Than You Think

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

http://CrashingOutTour.com Get Tickets for this weekend!Go to http://vessi.com/defranco for 15% off your first order. SeatGeek: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/PHIL10 use my code PHIL10 for 10% off tickets and to be entered in the weekly $500 giveaway Grab the Emotionally Exhausted Tees & Premo Blanks at https://beautifulbastard.com/ Donate to the LFG campaign @ http://lindsayforga.com/donate  LISTEN TO THE SHOW iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-philip-defranco-show/id1278424954 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ESemquRbz6f8XLVywdZ2VWATCH CRASHING OUT w/ PHILIP & ALEX Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCergKLoy-Yv9zlPk3XQYK7Q?sub_confirmation=1 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DkU87umhGH9mH1z24Bi9w?si=6sSdjhVNQjyVeBQDLiXcyg Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crashing-out-with-philip-defranco-and-alex-pearlman/id1843429519 JOIN OUR COMMUNITY 📸Instagram: https://instagram.com/PhillyDeFranco  🐦Twitter: https://twitter.com/phillyd  🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipdefranco TODAY’S STORIES 00:00 - Meta Agrees to Pay $18 Billion in Child Addiction Lawsuit  05:52 - Callaway Golf and Good Good Slammed For Ad Where a Man Shoves a Woman  09:33 - Sponsored by Vessi 10:55 - Darlene Graham Wins South Carolina Primary  18:50 - Billionaire Investor Admits to Using AI to Write Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal  23:49 - Sponsored by SeatGeek 24:48 - Man Arrested for Leaving Guillotine Outside of Supreme Court 25:40 - Over 150 Dead After Massive Flooding on Nepal Border 26:49 - SpaceX Set to Build Its Largest Launch Facility in Louisiana THE TEAM Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Victor Sledge, Ilana Frost   ———————————— #News #Meta #AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And then there's more we gotta dive into in just a minute, but first let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, August is a great time for a reset before fall gets chaotic and my closet, it could use some adult supervision. And that's where today's sponsor, Quince comes in. Quince makes fewer better pieces from premium materials, the things you'll reach for constantly. And I really like their staples like organic cottonseers and Mongolia and cashmere sweaters at work all day and into the evening. Or basically, clothes that make you look put together without looking like you spend an hour planning it. Their denim and Taylor Chino start at 60 bucks with a fit, structure and quality that you'd expect from a luxury designer brand. And then you've got things like the cotton silk short sleeve crewneck sweater.

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recreational records for free for a limited time and discover the stories behind the jobs in your family tree. You've got questions. We've got ancestors. Search free until August 31st. Visit ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. Zuckerberg just agreed to pay up to $18 billion in one of the biggest tech settlements in history and now he's trying to play some games to get YouTube and TikTok on their knees as well. Also, we've got to talk about this good good golfing controversy. The Trump-Darling Graham situation in South Carolina is so weird and also embarrassing at points. And you've got whole villages on the Nepal-Tibet border now gone after a devastating landslide.

We're talking about all of that and even more on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show you daily dive into the news starting with this. So not only did META just agree to pay US states billions of dollars to settle that massive child addiction lawsuit, Zuckerberg and META now wanna bring YouTube and TikTok down with them. Or because you have all of this stemming from a case where multiple states accused META's platforms

of harming children's mental health and getting them addicted to social media apps, all while lying about the risks that these apps posed. And in this trial that started earlier this month, you had Instagram head, Adam Maseri, already taking the stand, and Mark Zuckerberg was expected to follow him. But then, boom, breaking news this morning, both the Attorney General of California and META itself announced a settlement.

And according to California, it's worth up to $17 billion, but according to META, it's worth up to $18 billion, and it's going to be paid in installments over the course of 10 years, and it will mostly fund, quote, youth online safety initiatives among other state priorities. You have it saying the states will receive 70% of it, and the remaining 30% will only be released if two conditions are met. One, YouTube and TikTok install one hour daily limits, night modes, and age assurances for child users. And two, that they each also pay an amount matching the 30% that meta has to fork up.

Which I will say, feels a little bit like that meme and skit where you and your boys are running away from the police and the police find you. And then you're like, hey, hey guys, come out. They got us. Thought we could get away with it. Yeah, he's in the closet. Yeah, and the other one's under the bench. Right, but a big thing is that as part of the settlement, Meta is not just coughing up cash.

It also has to make major changes to how its apps function for users under the age of 18. And you have them setting a default two-hour daily time limit that can only be turned off with parental permission. And those two hours apply to both Facebook and Instagram use together. Meta will also create a night mode that blocks their apps between midnight and 6 a.m. So that users can't post or view their feed during those hours. And a separate school mode will be made to prevent kids from getting push notifications outside of DMs and safety alerts between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. when they're likely in the classroom. Also, users under 18 will receive regular prompts about their daily usage,

be able to opt out of algorithmic feeds and turn off autoplay. Also, likes will be automatically hidden from them, cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters will be blocked from them, then the list goes on and on and on. And a majority of these features will remain in place for at least 10 years, with META's chief legal officers saying, this will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms and set the right path forward for our whole industry. But he then also added, and this is a key thing, this framework will only work if all our peers join us. Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution. We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok, and YouTube to implement this new framework right away. With the company then also writing an

open letter to YouTube and TikTok echoing these calls. And in fact, this is a big pusher. According to a tech reporter at the New York Times, meta plans on running the letter as a full-page ad and major newspapers tomorrow. Right now, neither those other companies have immediately responded to all this and as it stands, this settlement still needs to be approved by a judge before anything's final. Oh, and of course, because this is how it works when you are a multi-multi-billion dollar company, meta still reportedly denies the allegations against it. Which I will say I love because it makes no sense. We didn't do anything, but we are going to give you $17 to $18 billion and also the other companies that are

like us need a change too for the thing that we all are definitely not doing wrong. But still with this, you had the New York Times noting that this is one of the highest sums ever paid by a tech company to states and batting, the settlement could signal an inflection point for a social media industry that has largely escaped regulatory scrutiny over the harms its products of college children. With one professor adding, meta wouldn't settle unless it sees the writing on the wall and feels really exposed. Right, because the way the lawsuits that meta and other social media companies are facing, it has repeatedly been compared to lawsuits that tobacco companies face back in the 90s. Lawsuits that completely changed how those companies could

operate and in turn the entire culture around smoking. And so far, at least legally speaking, Meta's been taking a ton of L's. I mean, just this year, the company already lost its first personal injury case, and it was ordered to pay nearly a billion dollars in penalties in New Mexico over consumer protection law violations. And actually on the note of money, there's an argument that Meta is getting off very easy here. Because if the trial played out in full, penalties from a jury verdict, it could have theoretically ranged up to $1.4 trillion. Though one, it was unlikely to see a penalty the size of its entire market cap. And two, as you had Indiana's attorney general saying, this is not just about much.

It's about changing how these platforms operate so they stop exploiting the developing brains of our kids. And so if that's to be believed, one of the main real prizes here is arguably the change is made, yes, with meta, but also on these other platforms. But even with this, right, it's not done. Meta still has a ton of other legal challenges on the horizon. Some, yes, they're from smaller entities like school districts and individuals, but others, they're bigger. Right, because while this settlement did include the vast majority of US states and territories, some with their own litigation were excluded. And so you had Florida's AG writing, Florida didn't join the meta settlement, saying the payouts are peanuts, compared to the profound harms meta's profit-driven addictive features inflicted on kids and that slap on the wrist for a trillion-dollar corp that pay more to lawyers than to states.

We'll see them at trial. So there are many other cases that are left to play out, and meta's controversies, you know, these days it feels like it goes well-past litigation. I mean, just this morning, right before the news that this settlement broke, Reuters reported that Mark Zuckerberg had a plan to replace a massive chunk of meta-staff with AI. With Zuck and other higher-ups of the company reportedly referring to it as Project OT, right envisioning an AI-native future for the company where much of the daily work performed by humans would be taken over by AI and virtual workers would be overseen by small groups of human staffers.

And reportedly, they explored slashing the size of the meta teams by as much as 60% moving some to new units and others just getting laid off. And actually, not only did Meta speak to Reuters to confirm the existence of this project, they confirmed the potential layoffs as well and that 60% reduction figure. Though they also did say at no point do they actually intend to layoff 60% of the workforce. And as far as why that didn't happen, reportedly news outlets began reporting that meta was planning massive layoffs and that caused a ton of panic among employees. Right that, and quote, amid the rebellion, other internal data indicated that the tech at the heart of the plan wasn't delivering. And while meta did end up seeing some layoffs, they were not at the scale that this operation would have involved.

But ultimately, you've seen just a ton of backlash meant against the company, against Mark Zuckerberg, and just really from so many fronts. But the next up from that, let's talk about this good, good golf scandal and fallout. Because Good Good Golf, it started off as a YouTube channel that amassed a little more than two million subscribers, and from there, the brand developed into an independent media company. And actually, a pretty good size one. It raised some $45 million in a funding round last year. And you had them partnering with Callaway, which is of course is a major golf equipment brand to advertise a new line of clubs,

which led to the now infamous 60-second ad at the core of the story. And this ad stars one of Good Goods Founders, Gary Clark, alongside another professional golfer and content created by the name of Alexis Meistowski. And it's really just the first chunk of this ad that everyone's reacting to. Do not touch my new driver. So he just flicks that hit stick, he trucks her. And so this clip goes viral quickly, it causes this whole stir. You've got people out there saying that it's scary, generationally, and asking in a time where golf as an industry is trying to bring in more women,

what are they supposed to think seeing an ad like this? So then on the other side, you're people pushing back saying, hey, it's not that deep, arguing that people can't take a joke these days, and also saying that if you watch the whole thing, it really isn't that bad. And as far as the rest of the video, what you see is another guy ending up touching the clubs. He then sort of infects him, he goes crazy and he just starts smacking some balls. But regardless, you see the ad get taken down, though, that really doesn't stop the spread or the conversation,

and pretty soon, people were demanding accountability. And so then with that, you saw a good, good golf coming in after a bit of a delay, posting an apology, saying that the ad didn't align with their values and that they've always stood for making the game of golf more inclusive for all. And even the CEO, Matt Kendrick, telling the Wall Street Journal that the full video had been intended to be a parody of the new horror movie obsession, but it obviously missed the mark.

And then adding, we fully owned that we did make a mistake. As the CEO of the company, the buck stops with me, and we should have had better processes in place. And saying, obviously, the execution missed the mark and didn't come across the way that we wanted to, and in no way were we trying to make light of or support violence. But it came across that way, and that's our fault. With him then adding that he plans on changing the review process going forward,

including a personal review of marketing content for the foreseeable future. And then on top of that, he said that they're also planning on donating the proceeds from the campaign for the driver to an organization that supports women. With that, they're still researching the right one to donate to. But then also you had people going,

hey, well, this isn't just on good, good golf. Ray Calloway presumably also had to give this thing the thumbs up before it went live. And in fact, they even acknowledged that in their own apologies, saying that approval should have never happened. As we deal with the consequences of our mistakes and complete our investigations,

I wanna make it clear that we sincerely apologize for the video. The content was inappropriate and does not reflect our values. To be clear, we are unequivocally against discrimination, domestic violence, or threatening behavior of any kind. But also, the following that you're seeing from this, it's more than just an investigation or even one partnership. And it appears that this whole situation has put a bunch of Good Good's plans at risk.

And that includes their naming sponsorship of the PGA Tour. Or with PGA Tour, CEO Brian Rolab saying that he doesn't think Good Good took enough accountability from the beginning, but also adding, I think the responses are getting better. I think we've seen some things this morning. We've had some conversations with them. So we'll continue to monitor and work with them going forward. But no, we were disappointed with what we saw. There's then also the Golf Channel, postponing the premiere of the show,

Big Break X Good Good because one of the sponsors pulled out after all this. And then on top of that, there's also reports that good, good golf products are being pulled from shelves. Where you at Golf Digest, for example, reporting that websites of both the exporting goods and golf galaxy show their good good products to be out of stock. But hey, ultimately, we're going to have to wait to see how this plays out. And also I'll ask to the golfing, beautiful bastards out there, what are your thoughts here? Because when looking through the situation, I felt like there were a number of people reacting to this specific moment and also kind of the channel and the brand and the people as a whole for an extended period of time

sort of thing. And I'd really love to know your thoughts here because my experience with golfing has been I go to Top Golf now and then and I use the big green you can't hit the ball wrong thing. Club. I'm really just proven my point. As well as for the last three years saying, you know, I'm gonna, I am gonna take a lesson and then not. And then there's more we gotta dive into in just a minute, but first two things. One, if you're even remotely near Boston and Philadelphia this weekend or any of these other places in the coming weeks, you should clickety clack your fingers over to crashing outtore.com and get some tickets to come hang with us live. Crash out with us live in the news. There's a Q&A, there's meeting greets,

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Grab 15% off your first pair at vessi.com slash DeFranco or scan that QR code plus free shipping, a one-year warranty and 30-day hassle-free returns. But then, I'm right back into the news. Let's talk about this crazy Darlene Graham situation, or I guess as Trump calls her. Senator Darlene Graham, Darlene Graham. And Darlene, for many, I think, feels like a character on a TV show in its seventh season where they're like, wait, they have a sister? Because she is Trump's handpicked Neppo senator. Though initially, she was handpicked by South Carolina's governor to fill her brother, Lindsey Graham's seat after he died last month.

Though of course, that's for now. And if she wants to stay in the seat, she had to go into the runoffs and Trump was behind her. And she did have a pretty formidable opponent. You had Ralph Norman, a five-term congressman and Freedom Caucus member whose conservative credentials are not in doubt, we'll say. You've watched me fight.

You've watched me vote. You've watched me keep my word. I'm not asking you to trust what I say. Judge me by what I have already done. When you choose your next senator, you shouldn't have to guess. You should already know. Right and then, you had voters kind of comparing

and contrasting. They then looked to Darlene Graham, the Nepo sister with zero experience in politics, who really no one had heard of until several weeks ago and whose most viral moment, since then, has been admitting this on TV. I'm not that informed on national security, so, but I do support the military. But also something you saw is that she actually leaned into her lack of experience, trying to spin that as a virtue. They say, I'm not a politician. You know what I say?

Guilty as charged. And apparently enough, Republican, voters, they bought that or they did what Daddy Trump wanted, and she walked away with a win, 52.5% to Norman's 47.6%. And to the point I just mentioned, you had Norman conceding the race and giving credit where credit was due to the man who actually carried her to victory. You know, the president got involved. He has that right. That's his prerogative. As I told, I never, well, y'all, his policies are good. I never understood why he got in this race. And actually, according to places like the time, Trump did more to support Graham that he did

for any other Republican candidate this year. For example, his Super PAC, MAGA Inc, it poured $800,000 into this race, nearly a third of the group's total spending this election cycle. Which is also a move that many have pointed out is very, very odd, because this is a primary between two hardline conservatives in a deep red state, and the outcome, it really shouldn't matter that much. Right, there are other much more competitive races where Republicans could use Trump's support, but he just kind of pulled out all the stops for Graham for some reason.

He even personally called high-level state officials to push them to endorse her, and then he flew down to Myrtle Beach to rally the troops, which is something he really hasn't done for other candidates. I asked her to do this. I said, Darlene, you got to do it. Because everyone loves her, everyone respects her. I've known her through Lindsay. I've known her for a long.

I think Lindsay respected Darlene more than any other person he knows, including me. That does not make me happy. And the problem that we have is they say that Trump does great when he's on the ballot, but when he's not on the ballot, his people don't come and they don't vote. So what I really want you to do is, Pretend please that I'm on the ballot. Just come and vote it's so important. And actually, even after Graham won,

her conclusion was, yeah, this is a victory for the president. South Carolina is truly Trump country. And this could also be connected, and it's part of the reason why it's a big deal, because recently some of his preferred candidates have lost their primaries. In fact, even two of them in South Carolina, where he won by more than 18 points in 2024.

So for some, seeing Graham winning, they're going, okay, well, maybe Trump still has some juice. And as far as for Graham, you've been seeing this is kind of already the ball game. But she still has to beat Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, but we're talking about deep red South Carolina here. And so you're very likely going to at least see her pop up now and then for the next six years. And as far as what she's going to do in the Senate,

while she may not know much about national security, it does appear that she has some priorities when it comes to South Carolinians. Boys do not have any place in girls' sports. Certainly not in the locker room. To me, gun control is how steady you hold your weapon. I oppose DEI. I oppose the Woka. Linda, sorry liberals, but I don't apologize for any of that.

Though I will say, it doesn't seem like liberals are so much demanding that she apologizes as much as just laughing at her. Right, and that in part because in her victory speech, first she said, Government run healthcare, bad idea after bad idea, Annie Andrews backs them all. And then literally 10 seconds after bashing universal healthcare, she told this story with apparently zero self-awareness. My parents worked long hard hours. If they were sick, they had to get up and go to work.

My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over a year later. Yeah, Hotchkin's lymphoma for her mom, heart attack for her dad. So you had a lot of people just dunking on her online. Like, okay, so your alternative to socialize medicine is working long, hard hours while sick just to survive and then dying prematurely at 51? Like, shouldn't the moral of that story be like, my parents suffered, but other people shouldn't? Isn't that like what a non-psychopath would think? Like, just because I grew up poor doesn't mean that everyone needs to grow up poor. Also on that note, it's not much clearer what her solution to the inflated cost of living is either,

since this is how CBS's Ed O'Keefe described his interaction with her. When I asked her later, if there was some kind of legislation or specific proposal that she would put forth to deal with the concerns about affordability, she wouldn't give us an answer and only said, we'll see about that when I get there. The thing is, she's already there. She's the appointed senator, and she has been for about six weeks. Meanwhile, Trump's endorsement, it was also put to the test in Oklahoma, where you had Republicans going to the polls to nominate their governor, with them choosing between former state lawmaker Mike Mazie and the state's attorney general, Gettner Drummond. And as it turned out, the most talked about issue in this race was a $4 billion aluminum smelter project, which is the largest in the country, which is financially backed by a company in the UAE.

Because initially, Masey opposed it, but Trump supports it, so what do you know, boom. On the very same day in May, when Macy flipped his position, Trump endorsed him. It was almost like there was some kind of exchange, a quid pro quo, perhaps, but I, you know, maybe I'm being conspiratorial. But also with this, Drummond, who sued to stop the project as AG, tore into him for that during the debate. So I brought the action. All gubernatorial candidates were against giving a 350 acres of Oklahoma land to a Muslim monarchy and underwriting them up to a billion dollars. Mr. Masey flipped. I did not. I have a plan to make sure that it will be 100% in compliance with the Clean Air Act.

President Trump has called my opponent a Republican in name only, and that's because he's donated that thousands of dollars to Joe Biden and 11 other liberal Democrats. When you had the results coming in last night, it turned out that voters were kind of split straight down the middle. With 50.3% going to Masey and 49.7% going for Drummond. We barely more than a half a percentage point margin. Meanwhile, in the race for Oklahoma's other Senate seat, you had a Democratic Socialist notch in another victory

with her nominee Nikala, Jasmine Thomas. But also, this is Oklahoma, which is even redder than South Carolina, so she has a very little chance to win against the Republican there. That's why you also have some comparing it to Angie Nixon's long shot bid in Florida. But one historically read state, the Democrats do actually have a shot at flipping is Alaska. Right, and that is because of the Battle of the Dan's we've talked about in the past. Or because you have the state's incumbent GOP Senator Dan S. Sullivan having to run against a guy by the name of

Dan J Sullivan. The real competition is Democrat Mary Poltola. And you had some speculating that when people go to vote, they might get confused on which Dan they're voting for, or which could siphon off votes from the Republican handing the race to the Democrats. And in fact, the Republicans were so nervous about this, they fought to get the other Dan's name taken off, claiming that he was a Democratic plan. But then a judge said, no, sorry, that's democracy. All Dan's have her right to run, which then brought us to the primary and oh my God.

So one, Alaska has nonpartisan primaries where the top four candidates move on. And not only did the other Dan, Daniel J. Sullivan, make the top four. He wasn't fourth. He was third, getting around 2.4% of the vote. And the Democrat Mary Poltola took the top spot. Notably, she took it by more than if you combined the Sullivan's vote together. Of course, there is the question of the thousands that voted for Daniel J. Sullivan, were they confused, door, did they just think it was funny or it was a protest vote? Time will tell, but hey, you know, in addition to living in what feels like a nightmare timeline, sometimes it's also a funny timeline.

But then next up from that, we have a story that at the center of it is the question, is it okay for AI to do your writing for you. Because that is a debate that's playing out right now over a Wall Street Journal op-ed that was, I guess, written by the well-known billionaire investor, Stanley Drunken Miller. And I use those air quotes because it's unclear exactly how much of that article Drunken Miller actually wrote himself. I'll explain. So the article in question was title, Let the bond market speak. And in it, Drunken Miller strongly criticized Treasury Secretary Scott Besson's recent interventions in the U.S. bond market. You had him arguing that it was a huge mistake to spend billions of dollars buying back U.S. bonds to bring down yields. And this article

even before the controversy, it was a very big deal. In addition to being a well-respected mind in the finance world, Drunken Miller was also a former colleague of Besson and sometimes even been described as his mentor. But then also almost immediately, you had a lot of people on Twitter accusing the investor of using AI, claiming that the wording and structure had clear AI tells and pointing to specific lines. Things like this wasn't liquidity management, it was price management. And if the 30-year must trade at 5.5% to clear, that isn't a crisis. It's an invoice. And Drunken Miller, actually, he was just, he was straight up. When the outlet noticed asked him if he had used AI for the op-ed, he responded loud and proud. Of course I used AI.

And you then had him going on to argue that he saw no problem with his action saying, there's a reason I moved from an English major to being an economics major and adding, I'm not embarrassed by it, saying I write everything using AI now for the same reason I use a calculator when I do math problems. And in a follow-up interview with the journal, he even appeared to brag about using AI for the op-ed saying, at 73, I'm kind of proud of using it. Now, I will say very notably here, it is unclear exactly how heavily Drunken Miller relied on AI for the article. In his interview with notice, he denied that the whole thing was written with AI, claiming that he had rejected many of the AI's suggestions during the writing process. But then also with that,

you had a lot of people on Twitter sharing screenshots from AI detection tools that flagged the article is 100% generated. And while there is, of course, a range of room for error with those detectors, depending on which ones, and also the writing, it at least seemed like an indicator for a lot of people that a decent chunk of this may have been AI generated. But then also beyond that, you had people noting that the journal also has an issue to clarification detailing how AI was used to write the op-ed. And in fact, they haven't even put any kind of label on that piece,

noting that AI was used in at least some fashion. And actually, instead, you had the journal's editorial page editor defending Drunken Miller and saying that he didn't violate Wall Street Journal's policies. Arguing AI is a fact of modern life. The question for us is whether what we published from contributors reflects an author's original argument and if the author has the standing and credibility to make it.

And then adding, in Stan Drunken Miller's case, We have had a relationship with him for many years, and nobody can doubt that his op-ed is his genuine opinion. But then also a key thing here is you at a spokesperson telling reporters that the journal's newsroom has a different set of standards from its editorial page. And according to a page on their website, the newsroom uses generative AI for data-driven investigations, summarizing articles and translating stories, right, but not outright writing a full piece. And so with all this, the whole situation has sparked a massive debate online, and you're seeing it very divided, especially depending on where you go online. And so on one side, you have a ton of people defending Drunken Miller arguing that he has a powerful mind for finance and if he needs help putting his thoughts into words, that shouldn't be a problem. With many saying that he was basically just using AI as a tool to refine his own ideas. You also had a lot of people arguing that many big execs and billionaires use ghost writers to write op-eds and other content arguing that this is just an extension of that.

Then also on the other side, you're hitting back saying that no, it is fundamentally different to have AI right for you instead of a real human. You then also had a lot of people arguing that normalizing or downplaying the situation creates a double standard where billionaires and other rich and famous people. they're able to get away with this, but the rest of us aren't. Right, noting that other people have gotten massive backlash for publishing work that uses AI, even for opinion columns. Right, for example, a Harvard professor was widely criticized for using AI to write an op-ed in the financial times. And while that article is still up, you had the FT adding a notification at the top, noting that AI was used without their editorial involvement and explicitly stating that the FT editorial code

of conduct specifically prohibits the use of AI and the writing process. And also earlier this month, you at a UC Berkeley math professor getting a lot of heat for using AI to write an op-ed for the San Francisco standard. I mean, there even been AI scandals here on YouTube, right? OG, YouTuber Hank Green recently faced a major backlash after viewers accused him of using AI to write a script for a video that he posted last month. Without then prompting text responses,

and then also he made a whole separate video on the topic. And in that, he outlined how he plans to use the technology going forward and explaining. This all started because I said I needed to realign the way I use LLMs. I have thought a lot about that this week. I'd become too reliant on them for advice, for editing, and for sourcing,

so I'm creating an AI policy for myself. One of the things I've been hearing in the discussion around this, and I'm glad this discussion is being had, is that this is a good idea. I encourage creators to do this. It doesn't even have to be public. Just have it. I wish I had had it.

And so this Drunken Miller situation ends up being kind of a continuation of this, this ever-evolving conversation and debate that we're seeing play out. So we are seeing different conversations happening in different spaces, right? There's kind of like for everyday people, there's for people in school, there's for online creators, and then there's for the kind of big media establishments. And with this specific situation, you have a lot of people arguing at this latest incident with drunk,

It just illustrates the lack of consistent standards for how media organizations handle AI or sometimes even within the same publication. And so with this, because it's become very apparent that these situations are going to continue popping up in the news, the specific questions I want to ask you with this story is, what are your thoughts about the op-ed team and the newsroom having different standards? And two, what are your thoughts regarding the drunken-mailier situation specifically? And then we've got to dive into some more news you need to know in just a minute, but first, let me thank a sponsor.

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no purchase required. And Sikkeek Vets, we're not leaving you out. Add code fill 10 to your account and you're entered. So yeah, final big thing, scan that QR code or click the link below, add code fill 10 and go make some memories. But then diving right back into the news, I'm gonna fill you in. I mean, I am going to fill you in with more news and you. No, I just don't know why I started that sentence with that, whatever that energy was. I'm getting enough I'm fine. First up, we have a man who was just arrested for parking his pickup truck outside of the Supreme Court building. Because, uh, why? Well, because he had a medieval-style guillotine sitting in the back of it. So the guy's name is Filon, Tom D. Lee. And while he lives, in California, he actually drove all the way to D.C. with the guillotine in tow.

When he got there, he parked along the 100 block East Capitol Street, which, aside from the Supreme Court building, is also near the Capitol building in the Library of Congress. Right. And then you add by six that evening pictures and videos of the guillotine circulating online. Well, right now, we still aren't sure about his exact motives. in talks with the LA Times, his brother said that it was probably intended as a symbol of disapproval, with the madding that he's generally unhappy with the state of politics, and he doesn't like either major political party right now. But while you have officials, we're going to figure things out, he's been charged with carrying a dangerous weapon. Then, in absolutely horrifying news, we've got to talk about the Nepal-Tibet border, because while officials, at least right now, have not released an official

chain of events yet, what you're seeing from early reports from the U.S. Geological Survey is that it all started with a glacial collapse and debris flow, so big that it registered as an earthquake. And a lot of that fallout landed on a river in the area. From there, you You had a mudslide and flash floods, washing away tons of roads, bridges and houses in the area, like complete villages gone in an instant. And there are these videos of places like this port in China getting absolutely destroyed,

cutting off communications and power links in the area. And it's all left at least hundreds of people, both local to the area and traveling from different countries missing in all the chaos. And so you're seeing reports like 100 of those people being Indian tourists who are there on a religious pilgrimage. Well, right now, you have the death toll already over 150 people, officials say that you should definitely expect

to see those numbers go up. And that's one from everything would very seen, but also because officials are still warning that there could be more floods to come since there's a blockage still lodged upstream on the river. But right now, we've got rescue teams already being sent out. And anyone living in low-lying areas is supposed to be moved to safer ground with those along the river being put on alert. And while they also have help coming from other countries, with that, the waterline flood sediment is already making that process difficult. And so honestly, this whole thing, it's still in progress. We're in limbo right now, and we have to wait to see what happens.

But then the final thing we'll mention today as we're winding things down is that SpaceX just announced plans to build a $100 billion launch facility in Louisiana. It is coming to Vermilion Parish, and it'll be their largest space port so far meant to support thousands of launches every year. And along with that, you have Elon Musk claiming that it'll bring about 10,000 new employment opportunities, which includes about 3,000 direct new jobs over the next 10 years with an average salary of more than $90,000. And so you have officials saying this could bring not only a variety of jobs to their parish, but also opportunities for their grandchildren allowing them to stay home for employment. And if they do stick to that, a lot of the locals do seem like they'll be on board. But then also an important thing is that on the other side of this, SpaceX has a history of environmental backlash

it's raising some concerns here. You've got a lot of people living near their other launch sites being worried about their air, water, and wildlife. And actually, this is kind of interesting that the new spaceport is going to be on land that used to belong to Exxon, which recently ended a decades-long legal battle with people accusing them of contributing to the state's wetland losses. And so now you've got wildlife groups and other locals pushing back, trying to avoid more of the same.

But then also with that, as part of the deal, you have SpaceX claiming that it will work to protect the wetlands around the new facility and help with coastal restoration and the state's efforts to bring the marsh back. But then even with the potential jobs and the environmental promises, you're seeing some residents just not convinced. If I could get a decent price from my house here, I'd sell. Absolutely. I don't want to be part of it.

But as far as Louisiana Governor Jif Landry, he says that it is all nothing short of a transformational moment for the state, calling it an inflection point in time in Louisiana's history. And now, my friend, you beautiful bastards, is the end of your Wednesday show. But also, if you're not 100% filled in, you want some rantin and raven perhaps. Definitely check out the brand new episode of our podcast crashing out, which just came out today. If you're on YouTube, you can click or tap on the video.

And if you're on YouTube and or anywhere else, I got links in the description. for you. And I hope to see a bunch of y'all this weekend in Boston and Philadelphia. But hey, no matter what, thank you for watching. I love yo faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.