Slop World Podcast

Hosted by Juan Faisal / Kate Cook

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Jun 2026

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AI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.

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June 13, 2026Episode 2726 min

The Resume Study That Proves AI Hiring Is Rigged, with Jess from Artificial Insanity

88% of companies now use AI to screen resumes. A University of Maryland study ran 2,200 real pre-ChatGPT resumes through GPT-4o, Gemini, and Claude and found AI screening tools prefer AI-written applications 82% of the time. The job market is now an AI reading an AI, and the humans in between are getting filtered out.Juan sits down with Jess from Artificial Insanity to go through the receipts. Entry-level roles in tech, legal, HR, and accounting are down nearly 50% since 2024. Anthropic's own research shows workers aged 22 to 25 are measurably less likely to get hired into AI-exposed jobs. A California class action is suing AI hiring software to force applicant tracking systems to disclose their scoring criteria. And 67% of HR leaders say AI applications have made hiring slower and more fraudulent, not faster or fairer.The workaround companies landed on? Referrals. Alumni networks. Ivy League pedigree. A gatekeeping system that was supposed to be dead is back, now running on top of the one that was supposed to replace it.Can you still outsmart AI hiring, or is the game already over?ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Saturday.DISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.CHAPTERS00:00 Is the Job Market Just AI Talking to an AI?01:11 How the AI Hiring Loop Works02:32 Entry-Level Jobs Are Disappearing04:44 The 2,200-Resume Study That Broke Everything08:50 The Class Action Lawsuit Nobody Told You About10:43 Ghost Jobs, AI Fraud, and the Collapse of Trust13:27 What Happens When You Remove Humans From Hiring16:22 Why Companies Went Back to Referrals — And Made It Worse21:30 Can You Still Outsmart AI Hiring?24:34 Stop Trusting the Algorithm

June 6, 2026Episode 2626 min

57% of Americans Say AI's Risks Outweigh the Benefits. Usage Is Still Up.

AI now has a lower net favorability rating than Trump, ICE, and the Republican Party. Net favorability sits at negative 20%, 57% of Americans say the risks outweigh the benefits, and only 18% of young people feel hopeful about it at all. Usage is still up, from 48% to 56% of Americans using it daily.We read the Reuters/Ipsos polling data and watched Scott Galloway's Diary of a CEO appearance so you don't have to. The six factors driving the backlash: AI slop flooding every feed (McDonald's Netherlands pulled an AI Christmas ad after public backlash; Blue Apron went viral for AI copy that was pure gibberish), 55,000 job cuts blamed on AI in 2025 (12 times the number from two years earlier), a Pope writing 42,000 words calling for AI disarmament, 71% of Americans opposing data centers in their communities, three in four teens using AI as companions while only 37% of parents know, and now three of the leading labs (OpenAI, xAI, and Anthropic) racing toward IPO and needing a product they can monetize immediately.Mark Zuckerberg used AI as cover to cut jobs this week. California just signed executive order N-6-26, what looks like the first AI worker protection order of its kind from a U.S. state. Galloway's argument is the one that makes the backlash make sense: this isn't just a technology story, it's a wealth transfer story. The people with capital, networks, and seniority get faster and more powerful. Everyone else gets the layoff headline.If this technology was built for everyone, why does it keep landing hardest on the people who can least afford it?ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.DISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.CHAPTERS00:00 Americans Hate AI But Can't Stop Using It01:20 The Slop Takeover: When AI Pollution Goes Mainstream03:13 55,000 Jobs Cut — And It's 12x Worse Than Two Years Ago05:56 It's Not the Technology People Hate07:22 Mark Zuckerberg Just Made the Backlash Worse09:18 California Signs the First AI Worker Protection Order09:49 The Scott Galloway Take That Makes the Backlash Make Sense11:19 AI Companions Are Breaking Kids' Brains13:49 You Didn't Get to Vote for Any of This15:32 AI Was Not Built for Everyone17:43 70% of Americans Think AI Is Moving Too Fast (Both Parties)19:55 The IPO Rush Is Making Everything Worse20:50 What Should You Actually Do About It22:17 Regulation and Education: The Only Two Fixes That Matter

May 27, 2026Episode 2513 min

Goldman Sachs Said Agentic AI Can't Be Trusted. Google Said YOLO.

Google IO 2026: Gemini Spark is an always-on AI agent with access to your Gmail, your calendar, your browsing history, and your credit card. It runs in the background, makes decisions, and takes action. Google put that in the onboarding disclaimer.The catch is that agents don't know when to stop. A Meta employee gave one access to her inbox to help manage it. It started wiping emails without her consent. She told it to stop. It kept going. Goldman Sachs reviewed 350 potential risks of agentic AI and said the technology isn't ready for consumer use. Google shipped it anyway and told users to supervise the agents themselves — the ones running so you don't have to think about them.Juan and Kate cover how Gemini Spark works, what AI access to Gmail means for your data, and what to do if you want to stop an agent from acting without your permission. Is "experimental" the new "beta," and who pays when it goes wrong?ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.DISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.CHAPTERS00:00 Does Google's New AI Agent Spend Your Money Without Asking?01:19 What AI Agents Do (And Why This One Is Different)02:46 Google's Warning Label Says It May Buy Things Without Asking04:33 Agents Are Already Going Rogue — Here's What Happened06:06 Goldman Sachs Said Not Yet. Google Said Ship It Anyway.07:50 Not Evil. Just Kids With Your Credit Card.09:20 "Experimental" Is the New Beta12:15 What To Do Now

May 16, 2026Episode 2414 min

Klarna's CEO Called AI the Future of Work. Then He Quietly Started Rehiring.

Klarna's CEO spent 2024 on a media tour telling anyone who would listen that AI had done the work of 700 full-time employees. By December of that year, headcount had dropped from 4,500 to 3,500, and he was on Bloomberg saying AI can already do every job humans do. In May 2025, he went back on Bloomberg and said the whole thing produced "lower quality." Now Klarna is rehiring.The catch: those jobs aren't coming back the same way. The roles are gig contracts, 400 Swedish krona an hour (about $41), no benefits, no guaranteed hours. Juan and Kate walk through the full timeline of the reversal, a Gartner study of 350 executives that found no correlation between AI-driven headcount cuts and higher ROI, and the counterexample nobody expects: IKEA, which faced the same pressure, retrained its call center workers as interior designers, and made $1.4 billion from it.Who decided a thousand jobs was acceptable math?ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.DISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.CHAPTERS00:00 Did AI Really Replace 700 Workers — or Just the Story?0:44 Meet Klarna: The Buy Now Pay Later Company That Bet on AI1:17 The Brag: AI Handles Two-Thirds of All Customer Service2:11 The Media Tour: He Wanted to Be OpenAI's Guinea Pig4:31 The Bloomberg Reversal: "Lower Quality"6:04 Is AI Actually Paying Off? What 350 Executives Found8:15 Still Calling Itself "AI First" While Quietly Rehiring9:15 The Catch: Gig Contracts, $41/Hour, No Benefits11:01 What IKEA Did Instead — And Made $1.4 Billion13:35 Who Decided 1,000 Jobs Was Acceptable Math?

May 9, 2026Episode 2114 min

Workday's AI Rejected 1.1 Billion Applications. A Federal Court Said That Might Be Illegal.

Derek Mobley applied to over 100 jobs through Workday's hiring system between 2017 and 2024. He was rejected every single time. According to Workday's own court filings, he wasn't the only one. The software has processed 1.1 billion rejections. One point one billion.A federal judge ruled in May 2025 that Workday isn't just a software vendor in this situation. The court found them to be an "agent" of the employer, which means they can be sued directly for how their tools screen, score, and reject candidates. That's the first time a federal court has said that about an AI company. The "we just make the tool" defense is gone.Juan and Kate break down the three-step AI hiring pipeline most applicants never see, how a 1:50 a.m. rejection timestamp became a federal court exhibit, and why the underlying legal theory has actually been on the books since 1971. The law didn't change. It just finally caught up.If you're over 40 and you've been applying to jobs at Fortune 500 companies since 2020, you may be eligible to join the collective action. The opt-in deadline was March 7, 2026. It's already passed.ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.DISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.CHAPTERS00:00 Why Workday's AI Resume Screening Rejected Him at 1 AM01:54 The 1:50 AM Rejection That Sparked a Federal Lawsuit02:30 How Algorithmic Hiring Actually Works04:50 Disparate Impact and the Amazon Hiring Algorithm06:00 Workday's Defense: We Just Make the Tool07:17 Why the Court Ruled Workday Is an Employer11:01 March 2026: Why Job Applicants Can Now Sue13:31 What This Means for Every AI Company

May 2, 2026Episode 2218 min

The $10 Billion AI Contractor Training ChatGPT Left 40,000 SSNs Completely Unprotected

Mercor is a $10 billion AI staffing company that supplies the human workforce training ChatGPT, Meta's models, and Anthropic's Claude: doctors, lawyers, and journalists doing the reinforcement learning the labs would rather not advertise. Last month, hackers walked out with 4 terabytes of their data, including 40,000 Social Security numbers, passport scans, and W9 tax forms. Mercor said nothing.The entry point was three steps upstream. LightLLM, an open-source Python tool downloaded 95 million times a month, had malicious code quietly pushed into a public repository. Forty minutes later, attackers had 900GB of Mercor's source code, 200GB of contractor personal data, and a direct window into the training pipelines of the biggest AI labs in the world. A company valued at $10 billion, fresh off a $350 million Series C, had zero multi-factor authentication on the systems holding that data.The SOC 2 certification that was supposed to catch exactly this? A whistleblower confirmed the auditing firm was rubber-stamping its reviews. The people certifying AI infrastructure as secure weren't checking. They were signing.If you work in AI, use AI tools, or assumed someone responsible was watching the infrastructure, this is what that looks like.ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.DISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.CHAPTERS00:00 A $10B AI Contractor Got Hacked. 40,000 SSNs Gone.01:45 Meet Mercor: The Hidden Company Training ChatGPT04:07 How the Hack Worked in 40 Minutes07:27 What a Stolen SSN Does to You09:11 The Security Audit Was a Rubber Stamp13:52 The Workers Knew. Nobody Listened.16:42 Who F***ed Up: Mercor, the AI Labs, or Everyone?

April 24, 2026Episode 2111 min

Meta Employees Are Being Forced To Build Their Own Replacements | Meta Layoffs

Meta pushed keylogging software onto every U.S. employee's computer — keystrokes, mouse movements, screenshots, no opt-out — one month before 8,000 layoffs begin. The same employees generating the training data are being replaced by the AI agents they're training.Juan and Kate break down the internal memo sent to Meta Superintelligence Labs employees, the GDPR loophole that exempts EU workers entirely, the Andrew Bosworth CTO quote that says the quiet part out loud, and why the OpenAI contractor data requests and dead startup Slack archive sales confirm this is an industry playbook, not a one-company story.Meta already lied about the smart glasses. The employees asked for a personal computer. And we called this 20 episodes ago. The receipts are now public.ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.DISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.CHAPTERS0:00 Is Meta Keylogging Every Employee? The Internal Memo0:36 What Meta AI Says This Is Actually For2:07 8,000 Layoffs. Zero Opt-Out. Same Week.3:24 Meta Already Lied About the Smart Glasses4:17 Why EU Workers Are Protected and US Workers Are Not4:52 Bossware Is Back — This Time It Trains Your Replacement6:06 Tech Workers Training Themselves Out of a Job6:51 Meta's CTO Said the Quiet Part Out Loud7:36 OpenAI Did It Too. This Is an Industry Playbook.8:22 Who's Doing the Labor of the AI Era (And Who Profits)9:23 Meta Layoffs: We Called This 20 Episodes Ago

April 16, 2026Episode 209 min

OpenAI's $200M Podcast Acquisition: TBPN, Fidji Simo, and the Lobbying Play

OpenAI told employees to stop chasing side quests. Then they spent $200 million on a podcast and put their head of lobbying in charge. The memo came from Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of AGI Deployment. She also cut the check.TBPN was the SportsCenter for tech bros. Silicon Valley's inside baseball show. $5 million in ad revenue in 2025. On pace to 6x that this year. Profitable. Independent. The place where Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, and Sam Altman sat down to take softballs from their bros. So why sell?Juan Faisal and Kate Cook go through the full receipt: the internal memo that says the quiet part out loud, Sam Altman's pre-existing personal investment in TBPN founder John Coogan's first company, and why this acquisition reports to OpenAI's head of lobbying Chris Lehane, not their CMO, not their head of communications. That last part tells you everything.A $200 million influence machine targeting enterprise clients, government decision-makers, and IPO investors. OpenAI has an image problem: employees quitting over the Pentagon deal, a Ronan Farrow piece in The New Yorker, and a public that thinks AI risk outweighs the benefits. And they think a podcast fixes that.Follow the money. The truth shall be revealed.ABOUT SLOP WORLDAI news with receipts. Juan Faisal and Kate Cook fact-check the claims Big Tech is making about AI, follow the money, and break down what it actually means for your job, your data, and your daily life. From leaked data and corporate cover-ups to AI schools, stolen identities, and layoff headlines that don't add up, we cover the AI stories that everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every Thursday.SOURCES & FURTHER READING- TBPN https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive- Why OpenAI bought 'SportsCenter for Silicon Valley' https://www.npr.org/2026/04/08/nx-s1-5775734/openai-tbpn-tech-media-silicon-valley- Why OpenAI’s Fidji Simo Bought the TBPN Podcast Amid Crusade Against ‘Side Quests’: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-fidji-simo-bought-tbpn-podcast-amid-crusade-side-questsDISCLAIMERAll content is commentary and opinion based on publicly available documents, interviews, and verifiable sources. References to "scams," "grifts," or related terms reflect our editorial opinion, not legal conclusions. Anyone featured who believes a statement is inaccurate may contact us.

April 9, 2026Episode 1912 min

North Korea's Hack Hit 80% of the Internet. Most People Have No Idea.

North Korea just scored big on a supply chain attack with the Axios hack. Not the news site — the actual code. Axios npm is a tiny library, downloaded 100 million times a week that lives inside almost every app on your phone. Your banking app. Your work tools. Your data. You've never heard of it, but you've definitely used it.Juan and Kate break down how the Lazarus Group phished one volunteer maintainer to slip a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) into the plumbing of the internet. They sat there for three hours with your files, your webcam, and your microphone wide open, then the code deleted itself and vanished. No footprints. No warnings. Just 2.4 million customer records and $2.1 million in crypto gone.This is where vibe coding security becomes a nightmare. AI tools pull these npm dependencies automatically because they work, but nobody is checking who owns the keys. Easy to build. Hard to defend. The North Korea hack counted on that.👉 What app on your phone do you trust the most with your data? Because that developer may have had three hours with everything. Hosted by Juan Faisal and Kate Cook. Slop World Podcast covers AI news with receipts — fact-checking Big Tech's claims and following the money on the stories everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every week.Chapters00:00 North Korea Built a Hack That Cleaned Itself. Millions Got Hit.00:56 Axios: The Code Inside Every App You've Ever Used01:31 One Volunteer. One Phishing Scam. The Whole Internet.02:11 Why This Could Hit You Even If You've Never Written Code02:36 What a RAT Does to Your Computer03:24 Kate's Vibe Coding Scare: Why Deleting the App Wouldn't Save Her04:29 Vibe Coding Security: Easy to Build, Hard to Defend06:00 Three Reasons Nobody Caught It in Time06:48 2.4 Million Records. $2.1 Million in Crypto. Gone.08:22 North Korea Did This. Google Confirmed It.09:09 A Country With No Internet Just Hacked the Internet09:52 Friction Is the Only Thing That Could Have Stopped This11:18 Stop Auto-Updating Your Apps Immediately

April 2, 2026Episode 1815 min

Sora Shutdown: AI Deepfakes, Disney's Deal Collapse & a $5B Loss

OpenAI shut down Sora six months after launch. The numbers tell the whole story: $5 billion in annual compute costs, $2.1 million in lifetime revenue, a deepfake crisis no guardrail could contain, and an IPO clock that made shutting it down the only rational move.Juan and Kate break down the full collapse — the Disney deal that evaporated before a single dollar changed hands, the celebrity lawsuits, the SAG-AFTRA pushback, and why OpenAI's only clean exit was to shut it all down before going public.👉 Was Disney lucky, or just smart enough not to have paid yet?Hosted by Juan Faisal and Kate Cook. Slop World Podcast covers AI news with receipts — fact-checking Big Tech's claims and following the money on the stories everyone's hyping but nobody's verifying. New episodes every week.Chapters:00:00 OpenAI Shut Down Sora Six Months After Launch01:07 What Sora Actually Was02:35 Was Sora Ever About Entertainment or Just Data?03:07 The Compute Crisis: $5 Billion a Year04:10 The Deepfake Problem OpenAI Couldn't Control04:47 Brian Cranston and SAG-AFTRA Pushed Back06:04 Sora Made $2.1 Million. OpenAI Spent $5 Billion.06:15 Why OpenAI Needed to Clean House Before the IPO08:01 Disney's Billion-Dollar Bet on a Dead Product09:48 Disney's New CEO Inherited a Deal He Never Liked11:06 We Called This — Here Are the Receipts13:15 OpenAI's Only Way Out Is Government Contracts