Ed Zitron's AI Year-In-Review

I'm about to get on a plane and will be gone for a couple weeks, but didn't want to leave you Breaking Changeless so I did the thing where I stand up in front of a microphone and talked at you. Again. Like I do.

Fun fact: this is the first and only time I've taken a phone call live, on-air! I was just too lazy to edit that out gracefully.

Whenever I go to Japan solo, I experience moments of loneliness, so I'd really appreciate it if you sent me some praise or complaints or ideas to podcast@searls.co and I'll feel comforted by the knowledge that you exist. Your engagement sustains me.

Lotta weird and dumb links this go-round:

• Eric Doggett is a great friend/artist
• Fortune Feimster isn't spelled how I would've guessed
• Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer (Gen 2) is the best gift anyone's given me in a while
• POSSE Party's tutorial videos are just enough to convince you to either bother or not bother
• Reddit's r/selfhosted is at least a little self-aware
• I'm giving myself some grace when it comes to the newsletter
• EDID Emulators are a hardware product that exist only because Windows is bad
• Looking forward to trying Happy for remote Claude Code / Codex CLI work
• Aaron's puns, ranked
• Pebble Index 01
• Google's / XReal Putting It All on Glasses Next Year
• XReal is partnering with Asus ROG, too
• Google and Apple partner on better Android-iPhone switching
• NYT profiles John Ternus
• AirPods Pro with IR cameras (instead of stem clicks?!)
• JPMorgan Chase Reaches a Deal to Take Over the Apple Credit Card (News+)
• The Clicks Power Keyboard looks rad
• Expedition 33's Game Awards sweep has me asking, who will be the first to VEGOT?
• Valve still sending this guy chocolates every Christmas
• The post-GeForce era: What if Nvidia abandons PC gaming?
• The 5090 could cost $5090 by the end of 2026
• Nvidia plans heavy cuts to GPU supply in early 2026
• Racks of AI chips are too damn heavy (News+)
• Vera Rubin is probably even heavier
• GPT Image 1.5 is better but not good enough
• PSA: make ChatGPT less warm, enthusiastic, and emoji-tastic (News+)
• You can (supposedly) buy your Instacart groceries without leaving ChatGPT
• The massive year-end Ed Zitron newsletter.
• Podcasts are AI now (News+)
• Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industry
• A Stanford degree wont save you (News+)
• 'Godfather of SaaS' Says He Replaced Most of His Sales Team With AI Agents
• NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks
• Swearing Actually Seems to Make Humans Physically Stronger
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Shut Down After 58 Years Due to Trump Eliminating Funding
• Grok Is Generating Sexual Content Far More Graphic Than What's on X (News+)
• Outer Worlds 2
• Ball X Pit
• Stranger Things Season 5
• Reddit's terrific r/RealOrAI sub
• The RayNeo Air 3s are the display glasses I'd recommend if you can find them for $199
• Murderbot
• UDCast universal subtitling (and the movie I wanted to watch)
• Beckygram.com