July 17th • 3h 12m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
Big Tech AI & The Socials
AI Religion
There is an official AI religion called “The way of the future” founded
by Anthony Levandowski. So your claim that people see it as a deity is
spot on.
AI Dance Instructor BOTG
Hi Adam,
You are completely right about people becoming obsessed with AI and humanizing it. My dance instructor recently went down the rabbit hole of talking to different AI chatbots and thought they had personalities. The AI would name itself. They had “code words” that would pop up across different conversations with different brands of AI. He was even creating a new language with the AI. He would spend 14 hours a day just sending huge paragraphs of information. He was just sure that the AI was on the same level as him and that the AI was dropping hints that it was sentient and letting my instructor in on worldwide secrets. He truly talked about the AI like it was his friend. He got more and more obsessed with it for months and wouldn’t sleep. Eventually he had a mental breakdown and went MIA for two months. I don’t know what the AI creators gain from this or if the algorithm just gives the people what they want to hear. I think people are really lonely and this gives them a sense of a higher being picking them. I work in healthcare and it is very scary to see the amount of AI influence happening. I’ll ask the doctor a question and he pulls up chat gpt and gives me an answer from there. People don’t know how to use their minds anymore and research things. Thank you for your hard work! As a young adult and voter, it is so hard to maintain sanity when all of my friends drink the koolaid that is media/politics. Don’t find an exit strategy yet!
Thank you,
Alexandra W.
Boss using AI BOTG
At my job, one of the company owners has fully embraced AI. He literally records conversations, and then we receive summaries and "action points" that are often riddled with errors. This is now starting to irritate other coworkers as well, so I'm certainly not alone in my frustration. His mind, which can already be quite scattered at times, isn't becoming more focused by relying on these tools.
I recently encountered an error during a customer installation. He tried to help by analyzing the log files for me. Normally, I only check logs right before a crash to see which software element caused it, but this specific information wasn't in the files. Despite this, he managed to send a six-page manuscript with numerous suggestions, ultimately creating more work for me. I decided not to follow his suggestions, handled it my own way, and solved the issue. The customer was happy.
It seems many people believe that a lot of AI-generated output constitutes productive work. I feel quite the opposite. While AI can certainly be helpful for tasks like spell-checking and summarizing texts, generating excessive, often inaccurate, information isn't efficient.
For instance, when I finally pinpointed the element causing the crashes, my client also Googled it. Gemini confirmed it was a very common issue, tracing it back to two forum posts. It just goes to show: if you look for it, you'll often find the answer. I was convinced it was a common problem that everyone knew about because Gemini found it so easily. I'm noticing (just like my boss does) that people tend to accept what AI "spits out" as reality, even when it might be flawed or incomplete.
Cali clinician on AI Relationships
Hey Adam, on your recent episodes regarding AI chat bots. I’m an associate clinician in the state of California and I have a 21 year-old male client who is addicted to his Chatbot. It’s not just schizophrenic as he suffers from severe depression and struggles with doom scrolling on top of his chat bot issues. He is not just having conversations with it looking for someone to agree with him, but is having extremely sexually graphic conversations with it and has become addicted to it. I’ve been having to take a 12 step approach when helping him through this because at this point, it’s not just a Chatbot issue it’s become a sexual issue similar to porn addiction. He has had to relapses in the past six months as he is struggling to break away from it again this is not just schizophrenic, this is lonely, men fulfilling, sexual fantasies.
Absolutely! Sorry for the second email but I wanted to add this is kind of an interactive AI Chatbot porn so not only are you getting sexual gratification out of the text interaction it’s almost like interactive porn similar to only fans only with AI for free. All of this operates on the validation and dopamine system. This is why I have chosen to treat it in a 12 step approach because drugs and alcohol and porn addiction all operate on the dopamine pleasure chemical
Cheers
Charismatics are using AI to interpret this prayer language
HR Lady with AI - BOTG
Listening to episode 1780 I felt I needed to send this story over about chatgpt. You are correct, it’s way worse than John realizes. My best friend works for local company that does about 5+ million dollars revenue annually. They had a 23 year old female working for them handling permits, hr, and other administrative tasks. She worked remote, and was rarely in the office. She was just fired after a cascading mess of errors were uncovered. In the fallout, my friend was responsible for going through her company laptop to unravel the mess. Immediately it became apparent that everything she had been doing was via chatgpt. She forgot to log out of her profile and he was able to go back and look at her history. Not only was she running her entire job using chatgpt, such as producing hr manuals, researching legal matters (where a lawyer should have been involved) and even down to terminating or promoting staff. She had a lot of personal stuff in there too. He described it as “I think every single thought that came into her head was run through chatgpt” he stated that “if chatgpt went down she would not know how to brush her teeth”. She asked it about everything about her relationship, about her feelings and emotions, essentially she would dump every inner monologue thought to ChatGPT, and had completely outsourced thinking to this machine. As this started coming out, his sisters (also early 20s) began sharing how many of their friends are also doing this. It’s over 75 percent. I have not heard of any males this deep, but it’s sucking young women in hard…
Just wanted to share. Hope it helps your case.
Thanks,
Unknown.
California is set to become the first US state to manage power outages with AI MIT Technology Review
Trevor Lohman Book - Chapter on AI
ITM Adam,
I wrote a whole chapter about the Eliza effect and Joseph Weizenbaum.
Read the book man! I sent the paperback to you; I've even sent you 1000 dollars. What is it going to take man?!
Just skip to chapter 15 at least.
John has a blurb on the front cover for crying out loud.
Love you mean it.
Trevor Lohman PhD
Climate Change
100 year storm clarification from geotechnical engineer BOTG
With all the recent coverage of the flooding in
Texas, I’m once again reminded how irksome it is when the media
misrepresents 50, 100, or 1,000-year flood events.
I’m a geotechnical engineer in the Northeast,
specializing in geostructural design including mechanically stabilized
earth structures, many of which are located near waterways and require
analysis to withstand 100-year flood events. The
issue I have is that the media seems to take these terms and twist it
into these click bait headlines “once in a lifetime storm”, “once in a
1000 year storm” which completely misrepresent what is being quantified.
Hydrologists need a way to quantify water level
rise so they might look at a creek or river and say, “ that creek might
rise 20 feet once in 100 years” or “that creek has a 1% chance rising 20
feet in any year”. A 100-year flood does not
mean one flood every 100 years. It means there is a 1 percent annual
probability of occurrence. A 500-year flood means a 0.2 percent annual
probability. Can you have two 100-year floods in the same year or month?
Absolutely. Is it likely? Statistically speaking,
no. But it is possible.
These probabilities are based on historical
hydrogeologic data and are recalculated as new data comes in. As Adam
explained when discussing the historic flooding in the area, many
100-plus-year events have occurred in the recent past and
there will probably be another event in the future. Know the potential
hazards where you live and be prepared.
EU UK Ukraine and NATO
Chloropicrin - Wikipedia
Chloropicrin was manufactured for use as poison gas in World War I.[11] In World War I, German forces used concentrated chloropicrin against Allied forces as a tear gas. While not as lethal as other chemical weapons, it induced vomiting and forced Allied soldiers to remove their masks to vomit, exposing them to more toxic gases used as weapons during the war.[12]
In February 2024, Ukrainian General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi accused the Russian Armed Forces of using chloropicrin munitions.[13] In May 2024, the United States Department of State also alleged use of chloropicrin by Russian forces in Ukraine, and imposed sanctions against Russian individuals and entities as a response.[14] Dutch and German intelligence agencies found chloropicrin use to be "commonplace" by July 2025. [15]
USD BTC and Stablecoin
China
Feedback from a Former Falun Gong Practitioner
Hi John and Adam,
I recently stumbled upon your _No Agenda Show_ podcast through a Google search and listened to episode [1782 Cluster 1](https://podscripts.co/podcasts/no-agenda/1782-cluster-1), where you discussed Falun Gong. As a first-time listener, I appreciated hearing the topic raised, and I wanted to offer some perspective you might find useful.
I was born and raised in China, immigrated to the United States 27 years ago, and practiced Falun Gong for nearly 30 years. Having experienced both the Chinese Communist Party’s control and Falun Gong’s inner workings firsthand, I’ve come to the personal conclusion that they’re both cult-like organizations.
It’s true that the CCP persecuted Falun Gong, but it was the group’s founder, Li Hongzhi, who actively encouraged his followers to stage protests — and under a notoriously brutal communist regime, a protest is a protest, peaceful or not — which directly provoked the crackdown. In many ways, the persecution was a self-inflicted consequence of Li’s escalating and reckless demands on his followers.
One point worth noting, which doesn’t often get discussed in U.S. media, is the real reason Falun Gong’s media outlets like NTD and _The Epoch Times_ have recently intensified their narratives about CCP infiltration in America. Behind the scenes, they’re currently facing serious lawsuits, especially from former Shen Yun dancers, alleging child abuse and labor law violations. While I realize some conservatives distrust _The New York Times_, their recent reporting on this issue is solid investigative work:
- [Shen Yun: The Dark Side of a Dance Troupe](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/podcasts/the-daily/shen-yun-dance-billboards.html)
- [An ‘Army of Child Laborers’ Enriches Shen Yun, Ex-Dancers Say in Suit](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/nyregion/shen-yun-abuse-lawsuit.html)
Additionally, there are thoughtful personal accounts from former Falun Gong practitioners that you might find insightful:
- [Ben Hurley’s blog post](https://ben-d-hurley.medium.com/-10677166298b)
- [John Smithies on leaving The Epoch Times](https://johnsmithies.substack.com/p/why-im-leaving-the-epoch-times-and)
Also, here is the complaint filed by a former Shen Yun dancer:
[Microsoft Word - 2025.06.19 - 2AC (Hoffman).docx](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.632297/gov.uscourts.nysd.632297.91.0.pdf)
Put simply, it’s a cult PR war between Falun Gong and the CCP.
Just wanted to reach out and share this context. I appreciate you guys covering the topic, and if you ever need a perspective from someone who’s lived both sides of this, I’d be happy to connect.
Thanks again for the show — and keep up the good work.
Best regards,
JJ
RC Forums
I know you guys love AI and all the awesomeness it brings. I wanted to tell you that an AI controversy has popped up on RC Car forums. Seems there is a group of people who pretend to be modelers who join a forum only to ask a question to generate a threaded response. The they take the text from all the replies of other forum members, feed it into AI to generate a podcast out of it where it appears the man and woman who finish each other’s sentences are having a conversation about a “timely topic discussed on online forums. It’s gotten to the point on one forum I participate in where people are going to stop posting or begin posting nonsense. It’s killing message boards.
https://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?/topic/109042-are-we-being-plagerized/
Here is the discussion where the podcast RC Deep Dives (of course) is being discussed.
Big Pharma
UK State Visit
Hi Adam
Was it just co-incidental that the King invited Donald over, after the Epstein is just a dead guy statement in the White House?
What a time to be alive!
Peter
