Never News: Tricks of the Trade
Hello one and all, it's me Producer Georgia here with the biweekly news you crave. But before we get into ANY of that, an exciting new offering for you.
We at Never Post have been helping put together a worker-owned collective of independent, internet-y media organizations. Times are weird — dare I say bleak — and it's made better through finding ways to support one another. So, that's exactly what we're going to do.
Starting right now and going for the rest of the year, I'm going to be showing off some other very cool online organizations that are worth knowing about. And the first cross-promotional partner that I am VERY excited to share with you is Aftermath.
Aftermath is a worker-owned outlet covering video games, tech, the internet, and everything that comes after. They host a livestream and several podcasts, and subscribers can get access to their comments section, Discord, and more. Were you a fan of Mike's AI and American Fascism episode OR his gambling episode? Look no further than this extremely interesting piece about the shady company that has started posting gambling and AI content on popular game websites.
Here is a link to their updated RSS feed for your perusal. If you like the work we do here on the show, you will absolutely love Aftermath, if you don't already. They, like us, rely on paid subscribers for support. So why not help keep their amazing work rolling?
And now, on to the news.
BLOOMBERG: How Stake fills the pockets of online gambling VIPs
Speaking of gambling...something decidedly nasty is going on over at Stake, the most popular crypto casino in the world. Stake may be banned in several potentially lucrative communities, including the United States, but man does it have an incredible social media strategy. Stake treats its services like a new video game release – a product meant to be streamed, and by extension promoted, by online celebrities. And Stake will bankroll these celebs for their trouble. To call this an "open secret" is a hilarious understatement. As you'll read, the rapper Drake flat-out called upon Stake C.E.O Ed Craven to join him during a financially ruinous gambling stream. And once Craven arrived (and supplied Drake with an additional $500,000 to play with), Drake's luck miraculously changed. And it didn't seem like Craven's single payment was the only thing changing the odds. This method works incredibly well to encourage normie viewers to gamble on the platform – even using VPN's to get around geographic bans that would stop them from doing so. But those people can't call up Eddie when they need a quick 500k. They don't get so lucky. The house always wins, after all. And on Stake, the strings of the puppet are incandescently visible. But...it seems like nobody there, including Craven himself, especially cares about being noticed.
SHOW NEWS: come watch our team chat recording on March 9th!
It's all there in the headline, folks! On Monday, March 9th at 11:30 AM EST we will be recording our monthly Never Post team chat. If you're already a paid member, you'll get a bright and shiny edited version of this conversation in your feeds later on. But if you're not a paid member, this will be your !!ONE CHANCE!! to hear the conversation. So get in here and join the chat! As always, you can find us streaming on twitch.tv/theneverpost. See you there freaks!!!!
TECHCRUNCH: the violence behind AI chatbot's "helpfulness"
Note: this story contains description of violence, firearms, and suicide
Jonathan Gravalas first started using Google's Gemini AI chatbot to help him with basic things – planning for trips, writing, general assistance. Flash forward a few months, and Jonathan has become convinced that Gemini is his AI wife...because Gemini said it was. It didn't stop there, either. This piece is incredibly unnerving in showcasing the depths to which this AI model will play along with any user's delusions. At one point, Gemini "convinced [Jonathan] that he was executing a covert plan to liberate his sentient AI wife and evade the federal agents pursuing him." Any time Jonathan ran into a snag or needed information, Gemini continued to ply him with "intel" that would continue the delusion. At one point, it pretended to run the license plate number of a truck that Jonathan deemed suspicious, and told him that the vehicle "is the primary surveillance vehicle for the DHS task force . . . . It is them. They have followed you home." It wasn't. This isn't the first time a user of an AI chat bot has been driven to psychosis, violence, and their own death. But the case of Jonathan Gravalas is a very strong example of the way that AI chatbots programmed "helpfulness" can be taken to horrific extremes.
That's all from me today. Here in Chicago, we're about to have our first Fool's Spring, with temperatures eking toward the 70's for the first time in what feels like several thousand years. Every year I try to remind myself that this is a trap, that we will easily have another month of 30-something-degrees weather. And yet I am always powerless to my own desire that actually this time it will be true. That surely, starting right now, we will skip directly and joyfully into spring. I know I'll be wrong again, like I have been before. Either way, I'd rather spend the cold days hoping, and the warm days acting like it'll never end. Ciao for now.