The AI Backlash Just Reached a Boiling Point

Elon loses, Eric Schmidt gets booed off a stage, and Grok wants your tax returns. Ashlee and Kylie are back to gossip about another strange week in Silicon Valley.

We recap our Alexandr Wang interview and Meta's puzzling AI play, dig into Eric Schmidt getting booed off a commencement stage and the generational fury behind it, and break down OpenAI's win over Musk — plus Ashlee's texts with Sam Altman ending up in the discovery. There's also the $420 scheme to feed xAI staff's tax returns into Grok, and the weirdest bedfellows yet: SpaceX selling compute to Anthropic.

We also take you behind-the-scenes for our latest videos on Phantom Neuro and Starfront Observatories. Don't forget to leave a review wherever you listen for a chance to win Weezer tour tickets.

About the Hosts

Our host Ashlee Vance is a journalist, author, and filmmaker best known for his New York Times bestselling books, including the biography of Elon Musk and When The Heavens Went on Sale. He spent years at Bloomberg Businessweek covering Silicon Valley, space, and the people building the future, where he also created and hosted the Emmy-nominated series Hello World. His documentary work includes Wild Wild Space for HBO and Don't Die for Netflix. Now he runs Core Memory, a media company telling stories about scientists, inventors, and startups changing the world, from biotech labs to factory floors to the edge of space.

Kylie Robison is a technology journalist and co-host of the Core Memory podcast. She previously covered artificial intelligence and the tech industry as a reporter at The Verge and Wired.

Sponsors

This episode is brought to you by Brex. Brex is the intelligent finance platform powering more than 30,000 companies, from early startups to the world's largest corporations, with smart corporate cards, high-yield business banking, and AI-driven expense automation. https://www.brex.com/corememory

This episode is also brought to you by SendCutSend. Whether you're hacking on your own car in the garage or building rockets, SendCutSend gets your metal cut, machined, and bent fast and right. Use the link for 15% off. https://www.sendcutsend.com/corememory

Links and References

Core Memory Substack: https://www.corememory.com
Core Memory Merch: https://corememorymedia.com
Sam Altman and Greg Brockman on Core Memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCKQL0op30E
Alexandr Wang on Core Memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYM_VMs7EO0
Dr. Conor Glass on Core Memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yw3lN3cdO0
Starfront Obervatories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN48vEqaQs8
The Shins: https://www.theshins.com
Weezer: https://www.weezer.com
Subscribe to watch more Core Memory videos https://www.youtube.com/@CoreMemoryVideos/videos

Check out our podcasts https://www.youtube.com/@CoreMemoryPodcast
https://www.corememory.com/podcast

Find Ashlee Vance at
www.corememory.com
https://www.instagram.com/ashlee.vance/
https://x.com/ashleevance

Find Kylie Robison at
https://x.com/kyliebytes
https://www.instagram.com/kylie.robison

Chapters
00:00 - Intro
02:40 - Inside the Alexandr Wang Meta Interview
08:24 - Eric Schmidt Gets Booed
12:05 - The Generational AI Backlash
15:52 - OpenAI Beats Elon Musk’s Lawsuit
19:43 - Elon, Sam, and Greg Brockman’s Diaries
23:51 - Was OpenAI Naive to Start as a Non-Profit?
27:05 - xAI Drama
30:18 - Controlling Robot Arms with Your Mind

Видео The AI Backlash Just Reached a Boiling Point канала Core Memory Podcast