Short Fuse

SoftBank has explained the future of AI using a golden goose, a conveyor belt of ASI eggs and the calm financial logic of a man trying to turn PowerPoint into scripture. Duncan and Ollie ask whether the AI boom has become a bubble, a religion, or just a very expensive bird with ARM inside it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prediction markets, smart glasses, a Kylie Jenner voice in your sunglasses. Meta will copy anything that moves. Today: the most profitable company on earth with no idea what it actually wants to be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

OpenAI is burning through money fast enough to make a small country nervous, so we worked out how long the runway really is and what happens when one of these AI giants can't pay its bills. It's also really, really hot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Short Fuse News, Duncan and Ollie tackle SpaceX buying Cursor, the UK’s looming social media ban, and Google deciding it might quite like to sell chips after all. Expect AI wrappers, Jensen jail, tech bros building tents full of servers, and the usual disciplined attempt to stay on topic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The US government has told Anthropic that Fable is off-limits to anyone who isn't American. Is it genuinely too dangerous, or the best marketing stunt since a deodorant advert convinced a generation of boys they'd be chased down the street? Duncan and Ollie work through it via Occam's razor, Aesop, and what the name "Fable" might have been trying to tell us all along. Then SpaceX floats, goes up t...

Sam Altman woke up, put on his red velour dressing gown, and decided your job is safe after all. Duncan and Ollie get into the great AI climbdown, the Pope's beef with the machines, and the growing public urge to take a hammer to a data centre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Duncan and Ollie explore the concept of the zeitgeist, analyzing various perspectives from AI models and their own insights. They discuss societal trust, technological change, cultural shifts, and potential future scenarios, offering a deep and humorous look at the mood of our times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Musk is suing OpenAI, Anthropic is keeping Mythos locked behind Project Glasswing, and the age of subsidised AI is ending. We're back after a break to work through the news that piled up. Duncan and Ollie cover the OpenAI lawsuit and what discovery might surface, why Mythos staying behind closed doors is as much an economics story as a safety one, the Opus 4.7 pricing sleight of hand, Meta's keyst...

You probably won't remember this episode. That's partly the joke, and partly the point. Duncan and Ollie get into what AI is doing to human memory: why it's already unreliable, why offloading recall to a machine might be making it worse, and why you'll eventually stop noticing the difference between a decision you made and one a chatbot/agent made for you. Also: a 17p refund dispute, and Ollie's f...

Meta's VR retreat turns out to be more complicated than the LinkedIn takes suggested. Karpathy vibe-coded a jobs analysis, got ratio'd, and deleted it. Bernie Sanders got Claude to endorse a data centre moratorium, which tells you more about how these models work than it does about data centres. Nvidia's DLSS5 is yassifying your favourite game characters whether you asked for it or not. And the bi...

Are teachers obsolete? Duncan and Ollie place their bets on the future of education in an age of AI tutors, personalised learning, and students who are angrier about AI than you'd expect. From Alpha Schools and their two-hour AI-led curriculum to Duncan's catastrophic one-out-of-ten test score that got a standing ovation from a chatbot, this one gets into the real questions: what is education actu...

What happens to capitalism when AI can outproduce 10,000 workers on a single GPU? When white collar jobs vanish, software builds itself, and the middlemen connecting buyers to sellers get replaced? Duncan and Ollie go long and short on the future of the entire economic system, using a viral (and wildly controversial) research report as their launchpad. They cover the barriers standing between toda...

Ollie and Duncan are back with a quick news roundup, from layoffs and market-moving essays to the growing debate around AI safety and government contracts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are human leaders becoming obsolete in the age of AI? Join Duncan and Ollie as they dig into the future of leadership. Discover if AI can truly replace the intuition, inspiration, and moral judgment of human leaders. This episode explores the subtle ways AI is reshaping leadership roles and questions whether our uniquely human traits can keep leadership alive. Perfect for anyone curious about the...

On this week's Short Fuse podcast, Duncan and Ollie dive into the latest tech intelligence dashboard to dissect the biggest stories shaking up the industry. From the persistent debates on government surveillance and job displacement to the "catfight" between AI giants, we break down what's hype and what's actually happening. We explore the rise of local AI agents like "MoltBot" and the security ni...

OpenAI is finally bringing ads to ChatGPT. In this episode, Duncan and Ollie decide if they are Long or Short on this strategy. The cost of computing power is massive. We discuss whether advertising is the necessary answer for OpenAI or if it fundamentally breaks the utility of the product. The discussion covers the incentives behind the move, the likely impact on user behaviour, and what this sig...

Join Duncan and Ollie in this episode of "Short Fuse" as they dive into the latest and quirkiest gadgets from CES 2026. From humanoid robots with Brad Pitt's hair to AI companions that wink, the duo explores the fascinating and sometimes bizarre world of consumer electronics. Tune in for a blend of humor and insight as they debate the practicality and future of these innovations. Don't miss their...

The Metaverse was promised as the next great leap for the internet—a decentralised, immersive world where we would work, shop, and socialise. But as we approach the dates set by major analysts for mass adoption, the reality looks very different. In this episode of Short Fuse, Ollie and Duncan take a critical look at the state of Extended Reality (XR) and the Metaverse. We explore the massive disco...

Join Duncan and Ollie in this lively episode of "Short Fuse" as they dive into the fascinating world of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). From the potential of controlling devices with your thoughts to the ethical dilemmas and regulatory challenges, they explore both the thrilling possibilities and the daunting risks. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or just curious about the future, this episode o...

Is the internet already dead? The "Dead Internet Theory" suggests the web is no longer a human place but is dominated by bots and AI-generated content In this episode, Duncan and Ollie use the Short Fuse Tech Tracker as evidence to debate the theory. We discuss how AI "slop" and bot-to-bot engagement (especially on LinkedIn) are killing authentic human interaction This leads to a "bifurcation" of...

Join Duncan Roberts and Ollie O'Donoghue for the Short Fuse October Tech Tracker review. This month, the team analyses the biggest movers in technology. Cloud computing takes a significant dive, landing in the hype trap following major AWS and Cloudflare outages. Duncan and Ollie discuss the growing public backlash against "AI slop" and explore why Generative AI's sentiment is falling while techni...

Duncan and Ollie dive into humanoid robots as products and as markets. Pricing, upkeep, touch and balance, messy homes, smart home integration, and use in care and manufacturing. A sharp, funny, data led guide to what matters now and what could matter by 2050. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Ollie and Duncan put their emerging tech tracker tool to work, analyzing real data to uncover what's actually happening beneath the AI hype. Are we heading toward a bubble burst, or is something more nuanced unfolding? Using insights from their tracker, they examine how big tech companies are positioning themselves, explore the interconnected web of emerging technologies from quan...

In this episode of Short Fuse, Duncan and Ollie unveil their brand new website and innovative platform designed to track tech trends and sentiment. Dive into their journey of building this hub, and explore how it will shape future discussions. Plus, enjoy their signature banter as they tackle topics like quantum computing and the curious case of ultrasonic kitchen knives. Tune in for a blend of te...

Duncan and Ollie pull apart the future of crime and punishment, asking how AI and technology might reshape the way we deliver justice. From smarter legal outcomes and rethinking juries to personalized, rehabilitation-focused sentencing, they challenge the status quo and explore what happens when human judgment collides with machine intelligence.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...