The Next Billion Seconds with Mark Pesce ALWAYS IMPERFECT - ISN'T IT IRONIC?
Oct 21, 2025
Mark Pesce, a technology commentator and futurist, joins host Kathryn Ryan to explore the ironic pitfalls of AI in the quest for super-productivity. They discuss a South Korean cloud data center fire that highlights the fallibility of the cloud. Pesce introduces 'work slop'—the organizational cleanup caused by low-quality AI outputs—and examines its impact on productivity. The duo also tackles the sycophancy problem in AI, advising on practical ways to prompt more critical responses from these systems. A thought-provoking dive into AI's complexities!
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Single-Point Cloud Failure
- South Korea routed almost all government data to a single cloud data center that later caught fire and lost data.
- The data had no other backups and much of it was effectively gone forever.
Maintenance Triggered The Fire
- Technicians decommissioned backup power and one lithium battery started and caused a fire during maintenance.
- Their attempt to avoid an outage ironically created the destructive blaze.
Back Up Promiscuously
- Back up critical data redundantly and outside a single provider or physical site.
- Treat "the cloud" as someone else's computer and assume you need independent backups.