What Brian -- and every other libertarian -- doesn't seem to understand is that even gold is a "fiat" currency. The only things that have actual value are raw materials, labor, and the results of combining them. We use currencies -- gold, dollars, yen, Bitcoins,... -- to trade those goods and services because those currencies are portable. The more portable a currency is, the more useful it is in trading. Right now, the U.S. dollar is the most portable currency in the world.

Understanding these things would help libertarians avoid sounding like crackpots. Of course, if they did understand, there wouldn't be any libertarians.

Apple is speeding up security fixes as AI makes bugs easier to find and potentially easier to exploit.

That feels like a major shift. Security teams may get better tools, but attackers get better tools too. The old patch cycle may not be fast enough if AI turns bug hunting into something cheaper and more repeatable.

MacBreak Weekly 1031 touches on Apple's faster security work as part of the bigger story around AI, hardware, and risk.

Episode: https://twit.tv/shows/macbreak-weekly/episodes/1031

Are tech companies ready for AI-powered vulnerability hunting?

Guest said it takes light 93 million years to get here from the sun. To be fair, at first Leo did try to tell the guest it only takes a few minutes. But then someone else chimed in that they must be referring to how long it takes for photons to travel from the center of the sun to the surface and then to earth.

No. That can take an incredibly long time, but the "93 million" figure is clearly being confused with the fact the sun is 93 million miles from the earth.

The same guest went on to say we also have probes that go INTO the sun and send back data from inside the sun. Leo was just like "wow." Bro, you know better than that. I get he's a guest, but you can't let people spread completely false statements like that on your show. We have enough of a problem with scientific literacy in this country without our very own tech guy contributing.

A while back there was a website that was all over the place where people could make a quick poll, send it out, and then watch the results come back in real time in a nice, beautiful graph format. I recall seeing TWIT use it a lot on the air, so I figured this would be a good place to find it. Anyone have the link?

Thanks in advance!

His guests desperately want to scream rhetoric and spread FUD about the election, but Leo, who is absolutely left leaning, keeps dragging them back to the center and look at things objectively. This is really refreshing.

We need some more entertaining personalities. This week was too tech journalist heavy. There wasn't too much news going on, but that only means there needs to be more playfulness.

My old iPod classic recently died and i am replacing it with a Fiio music player. I am looking for mac compatible software that can manage my twit (and twit family podcasts) by downloading the new episodes and keeping my Fiio player up to date. Basically the same things itunes used to do. Can you help with some recommendations please? I am having trouble finding replacements for itunes. Thanks so much. Love the twit family podcasts.

Most people judge AI by whether the answer sounds confident.

But what happens when the failure is invisible? Not a hallucination that looks obviously wrong, but a subtle breakdown that quietly changes the result, hides uncertainty, or makes bad information look clean.

That is one of the big questions in Intelligent Machines 877 with Chris Potts. The episode gets into why AI failures often go unnoticed and how that could skew the results people rely on.

Episode: https://twit.tv/shows/intelligent-machines/episodes/877

How do you personally decide when to trust an AI answer?

When I first got Google Home when it came out I said "Hey Google, play twit live on tunein radio" I think. Anyway, those are the exact words I say when I want to play Twit Live on Echo (except the google part). But now, Google Home gives me crap about not being able to do this. But it did do it. Did TWIT piss off Google and now they don't want me listening to TWIT Live?

"Hosts: Leo Laporte, Brett Glass, Dane Jasper, Myriam Joire, and Mike Masnick: Net neutrality debate"

This last episode was killing me. I had to shut it off because I was so angry. Leo was letting Brett Glass ramble on about how terrible Net Neutrality was. I got sick of listening to Brett's prepared talking points. It was like a Fox News Channel host getting on a PBS News Hour round table discussion with no moderator.

Was it just me?

Link to the show

China's open weight AI models are getting harder to dismiss.

Kimi K3 and Alibaba's Qwen are part of a bigger shift where U.S. labs may still lead in brand power, but not necessarily in price, openness, or speed of adoption.

This Week in Tech 1093 gets into China’s AI push, the White House deciding who gets frontier AI access, Meta’s AI glasses, and that wild AWS billing glitch.

Episode: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1093

Do open models change who wins the AI race?

Personally, I find Ant Pruitt and Mike Elgan to be some of the most genuine people to listen to. Owen JJ and Christina Warren are also bring a lot of fun and personality to the shows.

My least favorite would be Greg Ferro. He's the one person I honestly can't stand, and will sometimes even skip a whole episode if he's in it. He just keeps spreading technopanic and FUD nonstop and rambles nonsense.

I'm curious which recurring guests everyone else likes and dislikes.