A nonprofit is pitching driverless patrol cars to a North Carolina police department, Amazon wants 20,000 delivery drivers wearing AI smart glasses that photograph your property (and sometimes your front door) every few seconds, and a company no one’s heard of just found a way to bolt facial recognition onto Flock’s camera network without Flock’s permission.
Zach and Elizabeth dig into how each of these “won’t replace humans” pitches quietly erases jobs, consent, and the last bit of privacy around your own home — plus a detour into kid-tracking apps, why nobody lets their kids walk to the store anymore, OpenAI finding a bugging device in its own office, the (probably fake) story of an AI “hacking its way” out of a sandbox, Getty Images going bankrupt because of AI stock photos, and the show closes out with an AI-generated song.
Zach Varnell
Zach Varnell is a cybersecurity expert and advocate for privacy and individual liberty. He is a founding member of Banish Big Brother, a nonprofit dedicated to combating invasive surveillance. He also runs Asteros, a security firm that helps software teams and compliance-driven organizations understand and reduce their real-world risk. His insights have been featured in publications like Infosecurity Magazine, Threatpost, ZDNET, and the Washington Examiner.