Dónal and Ciarán return for a new year of new updates and new concerns in the world of Generative Artificial Intelligence. Again for 2026, the podcast will provide roughly quarterly updates on major themes and topics and this Spring episode covers recent news and connects with older themes and conversations.

Topics in this episode

• "BUBBLEWATCH" - new precarious developments in the massive valuations of a small number of tech companies at the forefront of AI development, and some concerns about stock prices and where future income will come from to cover the escalating costs.
• Grok (xAI) and the fallout from the use of the tool in generating non-consensual sexual imagery - and its wider impact in raising awareness about unregulated uses.
• Agentic AI and the rise of OpenClaw - a framework for providing semi-autonomous AI task management, which has seen recent swift uptake and security concerns.
• Related discussion of the MoltBook story, and perceptions about insight into what AI is thinking
• AI Hype and recent viral articles, and their effect in driving worried people to purchase subscriptions
• Safer Internet Day and how people, especially parents, can take a more critical look at safe and appropriate use of AI tools

Resources & Links

• Safer Internet Day resources on AI for teachers and parents
• Matt Shumer's viral article, Something Big is Coming, and Ed Zitron's very critical podcast rebuttal, which also contains an annotated version of the original.
• Coverage of Meta's patent on AI impersonation of dead users, and Meta's troubling memo indicating their desire to use political turmoil to cover release of a controversial feature
• An example of the MoltBook hype, from the Guardian
• Coverage of AI as a threat to democracy in Ireland

You can get in touch with us - hello@enoughaboutai.com - where we'd love to hear your questions, comments or suggestions!

Dónal and Ciarán return with more "Bubble Watch", reporting on the latest expansion in valuations, hype, and attempts to find new ways to commercialise AI. Among those potential avenues to income, they discuss emerging AI robots, OpenAI's decision to allow AI erotica for adults, and the push to get AI into education - as well as the associated concerns. This last quarterly update for 2025 draws together some themes that you've identified in your submitted comments and questions and tries to end on a little hope amid a lot of anxiety!

Topics in the episode

• The AI Bubble gets bubblier - OpenAI's quarterly loss reports, Sam Altman's angry interviews, and the beginnings of a withdrawal of money from key parts of the AI economy.
• AI hardware in the form of robots like the recent XPENG demo and renewed concerns about labour replacement and military applications.
• OpenAI's hope of monetising via erotica.
• AI disinformation in the Irish Presidential election, as well as related stories in the Netherlands and elsewhere
• The unsuitability of mainstream GenAI tools to educational contexts and recent research on their associated Cognitive Deficit in learning contexts
• Top-down vs Bottom-up reactions and responses to AI in our lives and work

Resources & Links

• The widely circulated images describing the circular investment within AI include this famous example from Bloomberg Reporting
• Recent reporting on the topic is widespread but includes these examples from WSJ, NYT, Ars Technica, Business Insider, etc., etc.
• MIT NANDA report on 95% of AI integration showing no return on investment
• MIT Media Lab's research on Cognitive Deficit and AI
• Reporting on the XPENG humanoid robot (Euronews)
• Reporting from Ciarán's colleagues at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in a Digital Dispatch on Russian state content surfacing in Chatbot outputs
• More discussion of "LLM Grooming & Data Voids" in this Harvard Kennedy School paper.
• Fact Check reporting from TheJournal on AI videos in the Irish Presidential Election, including the infamous Catherine Connolly withdrawal fake video
• Reporting from Politico on AI Deepfakes in European Elections

You can get in touch with us - hello@enoughaboutai.com - where we'd love to hear your questions, comments or suggestions!

Dónal and Ciarán explore the increasingly looming questions about the overinflation of the major AI companies' valuations and the anxiety about whether we are in a bubble - and what might happen if it pops. Relevant to their discussion of the need for AI models to keep the hype levels high, they discuss the muted reception to the release of ChatGPT-5 and some of the emerging strategies to make AI chatbots more palatable to certain audiences who are worried about "woke".

Topics in this episode

• Are we in an AI bubble? Spoiler alert: Yes - based on any normal metric of what an investment bubble is - but why is the promise of an almost-there superintelligence keeping things from popping?
• Despite being in a bubble, the lasting impacts of where AI already is on jobs and society is discussed
• The recent release of ChatGPT-5 has led to negative feedback from the tech press and vocal users - this is contrasted with other recent version releases.
• Examining how AI companies are trying to find new ways to add value, leading to a discussion of "Third Devices" and AI hardware
• The limitations and diminishing returns of training on synthetic data - and the apparent slowing down in model progress
• AI & Ideology - what does it mean to have a non-woke AI?

Resources & Links

• The Economist story mentioned by Dónal: "AI valuations are verging on the unhinged - Unless superintelligence is just around the corner" (25 June 2025)
• Article in TheJournal.ie on "Brendan", the AI Dublin Tour Guide
• ChatGPT's dodgy graph is linked and discussed here: "OpenAI gets caught vibe graphing" (The Verge, 07 August)
• Sam Altman (OpenAI) tells venture capitalists that he will take billions of their money and build AGI - and then ask it how to make a return on the investment (Twitter Video, Warren Terra)
• Some good discussion on the struggles of agentive AI ("AI Agents have, so far, mostly been a dud", Gary Marcus, Substack)
• Apple's important recent paper on the limitations of "reasoning" within tested reasoning models is available as a PDF here
• Coverage of Truth Social's deal with Perplexity - to make a non-woke chatbot for the platform

You can get in touch with us - hello@enoughaboutai.com - where we'd love to hear your questions, comments or suggestions!