Considering another FP today about AI and ‘leadership’, perhaps it’s more on point to say that AI promotes Manager jobs, and Managers are writing manifestos about how Managers are the future of society. Yeah, money’s a factor, but if we lived in a world with replicators, a class that values itself for delegation would still be promoting AI for how it enables delegation without the tediousness of workers.

And attention or admiration.

Maybe they feel like, for once in their lives, they can appear as intelligent as the people they employ with AI propping up their prose.

Indeed, they are attempting to shape and control the narrative with proclamations. Luckily, they’ve exhausted any trust and social capital outside of their bubble. “The authoritarian tech bros have no clothes.”

I've been talking with AI during my morning commute (car) recently, instead of listening to something. It's a great partner to bounce ideas off of. I don't have any friends that can or are willing to engage with ideas to the extent AI does.

Mark Zuckerberg already managed to replaced friendship with political outrage (Facebook) and with toxic parasocial relationships (Instagram), for a big chunk of society.

Anyone doubting that he can do the same with AI has too much faith in humanity.

In what I found he didn’t say “replace” but “add more”; it is still chilling and I detest it.

Especially in the current incarnation of AI, where they are more or less controlled by corporations and government.

> The average American has "three people that they would consider friends," he said. "And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it's, like, 15."

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/05/09/mark-zuckerberg-says-ai-...

That begs a question: would you rather have no friends, or a few AI friends?

From PG's comment on Zuck‘had no concept of small talk`, that's on par for his view on friends.

https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/meta-cofounder-mark-zuckerber...

Correction: sociopathy, not psychopathy. The DSM diagnosis would find in favor of clinically disconnected and unconcerned with social benefits, but lacking in the hostility and violence that would underlie a psychopathy outcome. The critical differentiator is whether they enjoy seeing others harmed, or are disengaged from seeing others harmed.

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> Was the BBC always this bad

No.

The BBC severely degraded over the past decade after multiple budget cuts forced it to take the clickbait approach especially for non-British reporting because BBC's ad-free mandate is only for UK residents and reporting.

Also, an news org is only as good as it's reporters, and those reporters with the right Rolodex are no longer associated with the BBC, CNN, CBS, and other traditional heavyweights.

If you're in SF you'll often bump into the tech correspondents of most news organizations at parties, on dates, while bar-hopping Marina, or during hobbies, and you don't see the CNN, BBC, or Fox tech news correspondent invited to the right events nor cultivating the right sources. Oftentimes they tend to be much younger (late 20s to 30s) taking a cushy break after being stressed out working as a DC or Bruxelles or Whitehall correspondent or straight out of college who will eventually become a lower-to-mid rung Strategic Comms employee at a random company writing PRs and managing a small team of video-editors.

> Who reads this crap and actually believes it? Is the brainrot really this bad? They set up all these lame thought traps to make people argue about the wrong things, and they actually fucking worked?

You did and made an impression. That's how clickbait works.

If you want more actionable reporting, you need to read reporting done either by News Agencies (eg. Reuters, AP, AFP) as they are written opinion-free such that other news broadcasters can purchase articles and edit them as needed or read news directly tied to decisonmaking (eg. Bloomberg due to the Bloomberg terminal, Politico and it's history as the goto broadsheet on the hill, Axios and financial and political decisionmakers, etc).