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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

The single most important thing to understand about digital futurism is this: When the digital future that Sam Altman ( or Elon, or Andreessen, etc) predicts fails to materialize, he doesn’t have to give the money back.

aug 29, 2025, 12:14 am • 2,235 576

Replies

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bxbx4.bsky.social @bxbx4.bsky.social

Vaporware is always more expensive but that's the point with them

aug 29, 2025, 12:28 am • 1 0 • view
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Me @captev.bsky.social

But the most impetus thing to understand is that why you said doesn’t matter about the money, it’s about the data.And selling it all to the highest bidding country.QEloon and Peter Thiel have been planning this for years thanks to qeloons Nazi father that taught him the US needed to be a technocracy

aug 29, 2025, 12:58 am • 0 0 • view
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E. Greg Gore @undeadfutures.bsky.social

I’d argue that the single most important thing to realize is that it has reached takeoff. It is not going to be stopped. Whatever it produces we get. The future has already built itself, using us, and we don’t know what we’ve built.

aug 29, 2025, 1:09 am • 0 0 • view
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matt schaar @skeptocapital.com

Also, LPs and investors will still keep shoveling money to them all in the hopes that one of their ideas will hit pay dirt.

aug 29, 2025, 12:17 am • 5 0 • view
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

The LPs and investors can still make a killing, so long as they sell before the peak.

aug 29, 2025, 12:19 am • 5 0 • view
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Tim Price @tim-doin-tim-stuff.bsky.social

Information super highway replaced by the Ai monorail.

aug 29, 2025, 12:46 am • 34 4 • view
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Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑 @why-not-zoidberg.bsky.social

Elon 100% watched that episode and thought it was a genuinely good idea.

aug 29, 2025, 9:41 am • 2 0 • view
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Dale Chapman @decmusicology.bsky.social

ELON: Well, my work here is done. BYSTANDER: But you didn't do anything! ELON: Didn't I? [smiles smugly, starts to beam up] CROWD: [grabs him and shakes him] No! You didn't!

aug 29, 2025, 5:11 pm • 2 0 • view
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@Crowebarre @davidcrowe.bsky.social

Or stop pumping the next big thing that won’t happen with our money.

aug 29, 2025, 1:13 pm • 0 0 • view
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Lord of The Gays® @gaylord.pink

Even if they had to give it back, they wouldn't.

aug 29, 2025, 3:53 am • 0 0 • view
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Mike Vander Heiden @mxvh.bsky.social

There is no digital futurism. How can you add on to ones and zeros? It's on or off.

aug 29, 2025, 12:23 am • 0 0 • view
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social

see: neumann, adam

aug 29, 2025, 12:44 am • 25 0 • view
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brokenelm.wsky.social @brokenelm.bsky.social

Games of hot potato.

aug 29, 2025, 12:52 am • 5 1 • view
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Jerry Timber @jerrytimber.bsky.social

I hope the digital future involves Sam Altmans skull as a soup bowl.

aug 29, 2025, 12:18 am • 7 0 • view
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Jenny Lens, Punk Pioneers Photographer @punkpioneers.bsky.social

I like the way you express yourself! Maybe AI can print 3D models of Sam Altman's skull as a soup bowl. I know a few million ppl who'd buy it. Also good for potty training cos it's always full of shit.

aug 29, 2025, 12:34 am • 5 0 • view
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Jerry Timber @jerrytimber.bsky.social

The Sam Altmans Skull as a Soup Bowl Company has a market value of $124 Billion after this skeet. Amazing!

aug 29, 2025, 12:36 am • 7 0 • view
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zzeddc.bsky.social @zzeddc.bsky.social

When you put it like that it makes it sound like they're all snake oil salesmen with no particular interest in the effectiveness (or even ethics) of their products beyond their ability to turn a profit.

aug 29, 2025, 1:16 am • 12 0 • view
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Nigel Anderson @blinkcursor.bsky.social

But the point is they don't need to turn a profit, they just need the hype to endure so that people continue to throw money at them. It's not just around the corner, it's just around the bend.

aug 29, 2025, 6:54 am • 3 0 • view
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Dan Turner @ddt.bsky.social

I'm looking forward to you being on If Books Could Kill, you twitter account with a professorship

aug 29, 2025, 12:17 am • 5 0 • view
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

That was a good line in their latest episode!

aug 29, 2025, 12:20 am • 5 0 • view
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Dan Turner @ddt.bsky.social

I did skip the citation on that, didn't I? You should cc BlueSky admin about that.

aug 29, 2025, 12:22 am • 2 0 • view
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Ronen Tamari @ronent.bsky.social

"the more unfulfilled these technofutures go, the more pervasive and entrenched they become" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

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aug 29, 2025, 12:56 am • 5 2 • view
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Michael Fearless @michaelfearless.bsky.social

Nor will they get blamed

aug 29, 2025, 1:35 am • 2 0 • view
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SiyandaWrites @siyandawrites.bsky.social

*devastating.

aug 29, 2025, 12:50 am • 1 0 • view
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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com

There’s the idea that the markets hold these people accountable, but then you look at how the market punished Zuckerberg for wasting $40bn+ on the metaverse…

The market, not punishing anyone
aug 29, 2025, 9:39 am • 2 0 • view
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Sandy @sandy5.bsky.social

And they’ll be no payment for data centers’ massive overconsumption of electricity & water. They’re bootstrapped theory: AI is about to be regenerative (lie); when it is, it’ll be so smart it will find a solution to humans living on a planet toxic & poisonous to humans, Mars (sci-fi fiction).

aug 30, 2025, 1:11 am • 1 0 • view
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David Baker (not the Nobel Prize winner?) @netdpb.bsky.social

what are you taking about it'll definitely happen in the next two to three years wait come back

aug 29, 2025, 12:57 am • 8 0 • view
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O F Cieri @ossuary.bsky.social

Nor do his credentials get questioned

aug 29, 2025, 1:05 am • 3 0 • view
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Parsingphase @parsingphase.dev

As Ed puts it (www.wheresyoured.at/ai-bubble-20...)

• One of the major Al companies will collapse: OpenAl and Anthropic both burn billions of dollars a year, and have shown no interest in stopping doing so, with Altman doing his best Lord Farquaad impression and saying that OpenAl is
aug 29, 2025, 12:22 am • 20 3 • view
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Erica @ericadipirro.bsky.social

The Vegas tunnel that doesn’t work, Elon kept all that money, I assume!

aug 29, 2025, 3:47 am • 1 0 • view
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

There’s more to it, of course. But if you start from there, the entire history of the digital future makes a lot more sense.

aug 29, 2025, 12:16 am • 272 14 • view
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Dr. Katherine Haenschen @drkath.bsky.social

Someone should really write a book about this.

aug 29, 2025, 1:56 am • 16 0 • view
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

Someone’s book about this should really get published already.

aug 29, 2025, 2:01 am • 35 1 • view
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Dr. Katherine Haenschen @drkath.bsky.social

Dave, if you do not finish those edits by your editor’s deadline, I am putting you on like THREE award committees.

aug 29, 2025, 2:12 am • 38 2 • view
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SGS @sgswritereditor.bsky.social

Oh that is a stone cold threat right there. < Shudders at the thought >

aug 29, 2025, 2:38 am • 9 1 • view
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

It’ll work. That’s for sure.

aug 29, 2025, 2:41 am • 10 1 • view
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Dr. Katherine Haenschen @drkath.bsky.social

I will find a way to appoint you in PERPETUITY, Dave. That means forever.

aug 29, 2025, 12:26 pm • 6 0 • view
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

Some day, between now and eternity, I might learn how to say “no” to service requests.

aug 29, 2025, 12:53 pm • 5 1 • view
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Dr Gina van Raphael @aliagvr.bsky.social

I just finished reading Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' again. Add that to what Marx predicted (class division etc), sprinkle with 'It Can't Happen Here' (S Lewis), 'Lord of the Flies' (W Golding), and maybe 2001 Space Odyssey (AC Clarke), add Davenport's eugenics' theory, and you have TESCREAL.

aug 29, 2025, 3:11 am • 2 0 • view
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Harbour Fordyce (All typos 100% human made) @harbourfordyce.bsky.social

Rule of Aquisition 259: Never be afraid to mislabel a product. Rule of Aquisition 1: Once you have their money, never give it back.

aug 29, 2025, 2:57 am • 4 0 • view
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Wagner James Au @slhamlet.bsky.social

I'd be happy if going forward, every reporter asks the famously wrong tech bro, "But you predicted [X hyperbolic bullshit] last time and [Y total opposite outcome] happened, so why should we believe you about [Z new hyperbolic bullshit]?" But that rarely happens.

aug 29, 2025, 12:31 am • 85 5 • view
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troyliss @troyliss.bsky.social

I believe Musk is supposed to be on Mars by now. And Altman keeps saying the next ChatGPT model will rock your shit, then walking it back. Unserious people making serious problems

aug 29, 2025, 12:36 am • 5 0 • view
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Jenny Lens, Punk Pioneers Photographer @punkpioneers.bsky.social

Cos that requires tracking info. Figuring out they're fed tons of BS. And the reporter risks not being invited near tech bros. Reporters are famously missing brains and guts when it comes to ppl in power. Tech bros intimidate many. When they are actually selfish, greedy, SOBs out for fame + fortune.

aug 29, 2025, 12:37 am • 0 0 • view
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Wagner James Au @slhamlet.bsky.social

Just Googling "[tech bro] predicts" (just that) usually yields up a treasure trove of meretricious fuckery and flimflam.

aug 29, 2025, 1:11 am • 3 0 • view
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Jenny Lens, Punk Pioneers Photographer @punkpioneers.bsky.social

Oh I gotta remember to use these words: "treasure trove of meretricious fuckery and flimflam." I haven't found a better description of AI anywhere. Perfectly describes AI bubble that even Altman admits is happening. Any one word can be very useful. Thanks for the laugh. And that's no flimflam.

aug 29, 2025, 1:22 am • 2 0 • view
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Wagner James Au @slhamlet.bsky.social

LOL Altman's jazz hands bullshit can't even survive scrutiny for more than two months. He said this right before (another) disastrous ChatGPT update.

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aug 29, 2025, 1:27 am • 3 0 • view
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social

These days, if they were asked that question more than three times by the same news outlet, they’d just buy the whole place and change the editorial strategy.

aug 29, 2025, 12:35 am • 101 2 • view
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TiredTeacher @txteacher.bsky.social

That is the most cynical and true thing I’ve heard today.

aug 29, 2025, 12:41 am • 25 0 • view
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Steve G @stevewithag.bsky.social

In spirit, yeah. But what definitely will happen is the interview-ee will make his annoyed views known to your boss' boss' boss' boss and it will find its way back down to you. Best of all, if it happened to you in the past, you just know not to ask.

aug 29, 2025, 12:47 am • 14 0 • view
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Steve G @stevewithag.bsky.social

I don't have much of an answer for this. No one can yell at the boss of ProPublica and expect anything. Or the Onion, I suppose. It's hard to yell at the boss of the hyper-local paper we have here. Probably not worth the trouble. But that doesn't help everything else.

aug 29, 2025, 12:53 am • 6 1 • view
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jacampos.bsky.social @jacampos.bsky.social

I like that you said when

aug 29, 2025, 2:29 am • 1 0 • view
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Suds Terkel @sudsterkel.bsky.social

I dream of a future progressive administration jailing all of these fucks for furthering the world's ruination....

aug 29, 2025, 12:19 am • 3 0 • view