Stop, stop, Sora’s already dead

Nevertheless, the rumor mill is in full force, with the TikTok masses claiming that Altman listened to the tsunami of Sora-hate from content creators (unlikely) and right-wing weirdos declaring that Altman killed Sora due to political pressure over antisemitic content (also unlikely, but still a problem). Whatever the cause, Sora is gone, and I’m betting the only people who really care is Disney’s top brass, who was at the goal line of a $1 billion deal for a Sora collab but then found out about the blowup literally an hour before it went public, reported Sunday by the Wall Street Journal. 

Here’s another dumbass White House grift 

The White House app launched on Friday. To nobody’s surprise, the app was built with the rigor of a kindergartener’s gingerbread house. In short, it logs users’ exact location every 4.5 minutes and throws that data into a third-party server — a privacy and security nightmare. I’m sorry to deliver the bad news to anyone foolish enough to download the app. 

The AI RAM-aggedon destroying gaming 

You would expect that when a new consumer tech product drops, it will eventually decrease in price with time as newer, updated models roll out. This has been the M.O. of the console gaming industry, and the reason why I’ve always chosen to wait a year or two before jumping to buy a console. That paradigm has been shattered with the news that all PS5 models are getting more expensive on April 2. The standard PS5 is getting a $100 bump to $650, while the new PS5 Pro will jump $150 to an eye-watering $900. The boogeyman in all this is the devastating global shortage of RAM chips, largely due to AI companies scooping RAM up for data centers and massively inflating prices (by upwards of 80 percent, according to some experts.) As a lifelong gamer, this is just another addition to my existential tech crisis. At this rate, my PS5 is going to be a more lucrative investment than any stock in my Roth IRA. 

The AI “omerta” of journalism 

Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle tweeted on Friday that she uses generative AI to research, “generate pushback” on her takes, suggest trims to her drafts, and “sharpen podcast interview questions” — quite the admission in an industry where many journalists treat AI like the bubonic plague. Naturally, McArdle got plenty of criticism (one wonders whether she used a chatbot to predict replies), but I was most intrigued by an observation from Dutch historian and writer Rutger Bregman, who described the sense of “omerta,” or a code of silence, among journalists when it comes to using AI tools. He thinks a lot of writers use “way more” AI than they want to admit, contrasting the culture with that of programmers, who talk about using Claude code as if they’re “bragging.”

“Writing feels like identity in a way coding doesn’t,” Bregman concluded, which rings true to me. I don’t write to be efficient. I write for the love of the game. What exactly is the point otherwise? (Like clockwork, a New York Times freelance book critic was outed Monday as using generative AI.) 

Fly like paper, get high like planes

A team of engineers in Japan has the internet buzzing over a potentially game-changing bit of tech: cardboard drones. The phrase brings to mind a middle-school science fair project, but the low cost and ease of manufacturing (the drone bodies can be made in any cardboard factory) is a major innovation in a very crowded niche. Up next: An F-35 made out of particle board. 

The week ahead: Sam Altman single-handedly fights Anthropic’s board of directors using nothing but Graza extra-virgin olive oil