Bobby Allyn

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?

New: A few weeks ago, when my father-in-law died, the funeral home asked if we wanted to use AI to write his obituary. So I dug into it and found that it's the biggest new trend in "death care." Tens of thousands of AI obits have been made already. Often the families don't even know wapo.st/4okuxIg

What We’d Lose Without Public Radio

an incredibly earnest and apolitical post for Vogue about what we lose if (when?) we lose public radio
www.vogue.com/article/what...

Online news publishers face 'extinction-level event' from Google's AI-powered search While many factors often drive traffic fluctuations, publishers say the introduction of Google's AI Overviews has led to dramatic declines for news outlets and other online information sources.

Google’s AI Overviews putting us closer to a zero-click search reality, and they’re only used in about 20% of searches right now! "It's parasitic, it's unsustainable and it poses a real existential threat to many in our industry."

www.npr.org/2025/07/31/n...

wild to think that Ghislaine Maxwell can now take workshops taught by Elizabeth Holmes at FPC Bryan on how the criminal justice system works

was going through Similarweb's traffic figures and saw this perplexing stat: Japan's Yahoo is the most popular news site in the world???

Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis

Between Musk & the Trump administration, Media Matters has been squeezed to the brink. In settlement discussions, lawyers for X demanded the organization hand over all its cash and shut down — all because MM reported ads appeared on X next to antisemitic content. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/u...

Here’s a copy of the original message from a Telegram group courtesy of disinformation researcher Sara Aniano who captured it in June 2022

I was digging around in some archives today and found that before ChatGPT was even released, and before the Chris Rufos of the world could make it a rallying cry, "woke AI" was being kicked around in some QAnon circles after the Google engineer claimed the company's then-secret chatbot was sentient

"Most of the examples I've seen conservatives cite of AI being too 'woke' are LLMs refusing to confirm conspiracy theories or racist claims," @taliaringer.bsky.social told me.

By @rellis.bsky.social and @sean-greene.bsky.social

A Times investigation: As west Altadena burned, L.A. County fire trucks stayed elsewhere Vehicle locator data obtained by The Times show that most L.A. County fire trucks didn’t shift into west Altadena until long after fire ravaged the area. How much of the town could have been saved, re...

"In west Altadena — where thousands of structures would burn and all but one of the 19 deaths from the Eaton fire would occur — there was just 1 county fire truck as the flames spread at 3:08 a.m., according to automatic vehicle locator data obtained by The Times."
www.latimes.com/california/s...

Sounds like Trump admin will have AI companies sign off on Ideological Neutrality & Truth-Seeking in their models but not attempt to do the work of auditing datasets and prompt testing, which, as NYT lawyers know from their lawsuit in discovery, is incredibly complicated, arduous and time consuming

Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose.

And here is woke AI order the president just signed

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Trump's new AI policies keep culture war focus on tech companies A new executive order instructs tech companies to address what the White House sees as "woke AI." Receiving future federal contracts could hinge on whether AI firms respond.

Combatting AI 'wokeness' has become official federal policy.

What does this mean for AI companies? Perhaps spinning out 'woke' versions of chatbots to land lucrative federal contracts.

"The AI industry is deeply concerned about this situation."

www.npr.org/2025/07/23/n...

WSJ is crushing it with the Epstein scoops. but those stories not being reported first by other outlets is not some top-down ownership issue, despite how irresistible that armchair media analysis might be. it's because the Journal's beat reporters are just out-competing their rivals on this story!

what this makes me think about - with regard to right now - is how so much of the information about Trump and Epstein that’s resonated in recent weeks is old stuff, widely and publicly reported. but a lot of it didn’t break through to lots of ppl in their information environments

YouTube video by The Daily Show Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong - “Truth and Trust” in Cancer Research & Journalism | The Daily Show

the audience literally claps when he announces going public like he’s a hero!! youtu.be/OtbRBfnkxRU?...

willing to bet no member of the Daily Show audience applauding the news that the LAT is going to IPO has ever worked for a money-incinerating regional newspaper owned by a publicly traded company

George Jetson please forgive me for the spelling typo

welcome to Hollywood!

it's pretty funny that Elon Musk opened his Jettisons-looking burger joint today right across the street from Jeffrey Deitch, one of the city's most prestigious galleries.

nothing gets me in the mood for a Tesla Burger like some contemporary art!

Where Congress’s Cuts Threaten Access to PBS and NPR The loss of federal funding threatens scores of public TV and radio stations across the United States.

Some 78 public radio organizations and 37 TV organizations are at risk of going dark as a result of the cuts Trump pushed through Congress, from major cities to far-flung towns like Unalakleet, Alaska, and Pendleton, Ore. @elenashao.bsky.social @benmullin.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Public Media Under Direct Threat: WVIA President & CEO Speaks Out Yesterday, the White House formally asked Congress to rescind federal funding that had already been appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

My hometown NPR and PBS station in rural Pennsylvania, WVIA, gets 20% of its budget from federal funding. It's a former coal mining region, where public media fills a big gap for many. Cuts mean immediately reducing or eliminating local news & educational programs

www.wvia.org/pressroom/20...

A separation agreement filed in Delaware's Chancery Court with settlement figure and all other details is expected in a few months. And it's possible of course that Meta reveals the settlement sum to investors in an SEC filing before that.

I'm told today's Meta settlement coming out of Board's insurance fund (FT first reported), not the pockets of defendants Zuckerberg, Thiel, Andreessen, et al. — who now can avoid taking the stand for a sum that's been described to me as being in the hundreds of millions. It was a $8B investor suit.

DOGE Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting With Lobbyists A key operative from DOGE initiated plans to potentially kill Direct File, the free tax filing tool developed by the IRS, after offering assurances it would be spared from cuts.

SCOOP: DOGE moved to kill Direct File, the IRS's popular free tax filing tool, days after meeting with private tax filing software lobbyists.
www.wired.com/story/doge-d...

then my friend made the mistake of trying to argue in the comments that i am not AI

i did a video for NPR talking about my AI influencer story and because i didn’t blink much, everyone in the comments asked if i myself am AI — honestly fair question

Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door

“A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/t...

Seems possible to me that AI unleashes a torrent of attentional pollution that renders the entire enterprise unworkable.