It’s creators and brands and media and impact and earned media and core competencies and thrashgrass and brisket and alcoholism and… #sxsw #austin #ripcurrent
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But no really I’m not that guy. Not yet. #sxsw #austin #ripcurrent
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Come say hi at The Belmont (which turns out not to be a hotel, my bad, but it doesn’t change anything) in Austin for SXSW this weekend. I’ll be there midmorning to midafternoon. Come talk surveillance, AI war, and corporate accountability with me! #sxsw #ripcurrent #austin
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The majority of adults want to slow down AI development, even if it means falling behind other countries. But it doesn't matter to the White House, it seems, nor to the folks making the money off it. #AI #Technology #Future #Debate #ripcurrent
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If you're going to be in Austin for SXSW and you want to talk about surveillance tech, AI weapons, or corporate power — I'm holding what I'm calling The Lobby at The Belmont Hotel, March 13 through 15. Walk up, or book a 30-minute slot at jacobward.com/sxsw2026. Come find me. #SXSW2026 #SXSW
Decisions shaping our lives are made by unseen people, using unknown tools, in closed rooms. Let's go, democracy. #ripcurrent #FutureTech #Transparency #Democracy #TechPolicy
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Pentagon's Jetson tech spots individuals 200m away using infrared laser to read unique cardiac signatures. Heartbeat ID is more stable than facial recognition. #Tech #Innovation #FutureTech #Biometrics #ripcurrent
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No wonder the Pentagon is buzzing about wanting no guardrails! WiFi sees through walls, lasers read heartbeats, cameras know you by your walk. It's all here, right now. #Pentagon #Tech #Innovation #FutureTech #ripcurrent
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I'm going to SXSW and I'm not doing panels. I'm doing The Lobby — a daily open hangout March 13-15 at The Belmont in Austin where anyone can show up and have a real conversation about surveillance, corporate power, and AI weapons. No badge. No ticket. Just come find me. jacobward.com/sxsw2026🎙️
Israel built AI targeting systems in Gaza — approved kills in 20 seconds, 10% error rate accepted. Now those same systems are running over Iran and being exported all over the world. I’m calling this “lethal beta,” and there’s an arms industry IPO-ing off the back of it. Full breakdown at
I don’t want to trigger the designers here, but this is the phrase that has always worked for me. #collaboration #creative #relationships #ripcurrent
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The President banned an AI company from the entire government because it wouldn't let the Pentagon use it for mass surveillance. But Anthropic walked into this. They partnered with Palantir to get into classified systems. They took the $200M contract. And now every other AI company has to decide if
The Pentagon just tried to bully an AI company into removing its safety guardrails. So I looked into what those guardrails are actually holding back.
Seven real, documented, sourced AI capabilities that most people have no idea exist yet.
The full piece is for paid subscribers.
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Thanks for listening!
Thanks for being there! The first of many I hope!
After a week like this one, it felt like the right time to announce: The Rip Current is going paid. Here's what that means.
open.substack.com/pub/theripcu...
In 1964, Nikolai Kardashev thought he'd discovered alien life. What he actually found changed how we think about humanity's place in the universe — and makes clear that we're wasting our one shot at existence. The closest potentially habitable planet is 200,000 years away. We're already living on
Don’t believe the hype. NO TWO HUMANS CAN AGREE on shared values. #ai #artificialintelligence #ethics #ripcurrent #tech
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Thank you Scholar for having me! See you tonight, Monday, Jan 12, at Mad Oak in Oakland at 6:30pm!
Every oil empire says this time will be different. History says: absolutely not. From Iraq to Suez to Algeria to Nigeria — oil doesn’t make empires rich. It bankrupts them. Venezuela won’t be the exception. Read and watch the whole thing on my channel and at TheRipCurrent.com. #OilPolitics
Nailed it!
I’ll try! Thank you!
It’s a preview of what’s to come, folks. What happened at the Kolkata stadium wasn’t really about soccer. It was about expectation, exclusion, and betrayal. People paid real money to be promised proximity — to something global, elite, and Western — and then watched it vanish behind velvet ropes.
One episode of Graham Norton Show would have convinced Paul to steer clear of Joshua #boxing #jakepaul
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A new paper at the top AI conference shows that all the big AI models — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, the whole gang — collapse our ideas into the same narrow middle lane. Different models. Same answers. That’s not “assistive.” That’s a hive mind. No, really: The paper is entitled “Artificial Hive Mind:
“Emotional connection” is the strategy of any product company, but never has an industry been able to generate a distortion field around its products like the AI industry. Catch the whole thing on YT! #OpenAI #ChatGPT #SamAltman #GoogleGemini #AI
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OpenAI just declared CODE RED 🚨 Sam Altman told employees to drop everything — advertising, AI agents, a personal assistant called Pulse — ALL of it paused. The mission? Make ChatGPT feel more PERSONAL. Smarter, sure. Faster, yes. But more personal, definitely. Google Gemini went from 450M to 650M
Seafood! Pork ribs! But not the dry bird. Why eat something no one has any practice at making? #turkey #thanksgiving
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👀 Trump’s leaked plan to kill state A.I. laws is quietly being pushed into a must-pass defense bill. The FTC lost its big antitrust case against Meta. TSMC is talking about moving more chipmaking outside Taiwan. And the A.I. priesthood is gathering at
People are treating AIs like gurus, soulmates, even therapists — and the fallout is getting dark. Teen bans. Lawsuits. Delusions. Even OpenAI’s own data shows millions of users showing signs of suicidal intent, emotional dependence, or psychosis every week. We’re entering a new era where our
