John Birmingham

John Birmingham writes stuff. Like books and columns.
He will write for food, and vengeance. Mostly vengeance.

AI/Machine Learning

Billionaire tech founders have issued a dire warning that charging AI startups for electricity, workers, or anything at all, is a massive threat to innovation

- August 22, 2025 3 MIN READ

DAVOS, Switzerland — A coalition of tech executives, venture capitalists, and innovation self‑describers warned this week that unless governments immediately provide free electricity to the artificial intelligence sector, civilisation’s fragile future could collapse into what one investor called “a really compromised vibe.” “Making AI innovators pay for electricity is legacy thinking,” declared OpenAI CEO Sam… Read more »

AI/Machine Learning

How Norway rewrote the AI rules to escape Silicon Valley’s obsession with the Torment Nexus

- August 12, 2025 4 MIN READ

There’s so much that sucks about Large Language Models, machine intelligence, spicy autocorrect, whatever you want to call it. But perhaps the deepest suck of all is that the worst people in the world control it. It’s Zuck. It’s Elon. It’s the fanboys of the Torment Nexus. These are the lizard people we’ve handed the… Read more »

Elon Musk
People

Here’s what it would be like if Elon Musk bought a burrito like his Twitter acquisition

- June 25, 2022 2 MIN READ

• Elon Musk spies a burrito cart -> Elon Musk wants a burrito. • He doesn’t want to pay for it. • Suggests via tweet that the burrito cart guy, sixty-eight-year-old Miguel Chumacero, should just let him have the burrito. Specifically, the ‘Giga-Chad’ Trinidad Scorpion Chilli Breakfast Burrito. • Burrito cart guy unimpressed with early… Read more »