Up Against Reality

Rewinding our lives to Episode 108, “Clean-up In Aisle Five,” where AI face-plants spectacularly and humans get stuck holding the mop. First, we kick things off with this week’s AI news—because the eternal dumpster fire waits for no one.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Futurism: Companies Hiring Humans to Fix What AI Botched

MIT Project NANDA: The GenAI Divide — State of AI in Business 2025

The Walk | An AI Short Film

Total Pixel Space | An AI Short Film

PODCAST INFO:

Podcast Website:
UpAgainstReality.com

Episode link:
https://upagainstreality.com/2026/10/13/episode-rewind-clean-up-in-aisle-five/

Apple Podcasts:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/up-against-reality/id1689699654

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/29wpR2Uf0d19FjTH2QubcD?si=a6359f9aa1964170

RSS:
https://upagainstreality.com/feed/podcast/

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/upagainstreality

Enough doom. Enough dread. We’re serving up the AI stories that made us laugh, made us hopeful, and reminded us that the future isn’t always a dumpster fire.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

ElevenLabs v4 emotional range

OpenAI Foundation: life sciences and health

Science Corporation PRIMA retinal implant

Wandercraft Eve personal exoskeleton

UCLA optical deepfake detection research

Stanford Paper2Agent

PODCAST INFO:

Podcast Website:
UpAgainstReality.com

Episode link:
https://upagainstreality.com/2026/10/06/cheer-and-beer-volume-2/

Apple Podcasts:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/up-against-reality/id1689699654

Spotify:
open.spotify.com/show/29wpR2Uf0d19FjTH2QubcD?si=a6359f9aa1964170

RSS:
upagainstreality.com/feed/podcast

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/upagainstreality

The future isn’t a random guess—it’s got a blueprint, and we’re stealing the framework to figure out what happens next. Plus, an AI data center copping a seven-figure surprise bill, 50 tons of vintage books mysteriously vanishing, and a digital starlet breaking character on live TV.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Hop Studio | Larry’s web app

Jev | typesafe.ai

AI Actress Melts Down In Piers Morgan Interview | YouTube

The Futures Cone | Joseph Voros

AI Futures: Washington and San Francisco Scenarios | PIIE

Weak Signals and Strategic Surprise | Igor Ansoff

Speculative Everything | Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

PODCAST INFO:

Podcast Website:
UpAgainstReality.com

Episode link:
https://upagainstreality.com/2026/09/29/futures-thinking/

Apple Podcasts:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/up-against-reality/id1689699654

Spotify:
open.spotify.com/show/29wpR2Uf0d19FjTH2QubcD?si=a6359f9aa1964170

RSS:
upagainstreality.com/feed/podcast

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/upagainstreality

Who elected Big Tech—and when did AI companies get to write the rules? Plus: Rogue botnets, surveillance burrito bowls, data-center mega bills, and machines inventing their own language. You know, just another Tuesday in AI Bizarroland.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Mila on AI CEOs’ warnings | Instagram

God’s Eye View | Bilawal Sidhu’s GitHub project

Allison Stanger: The AI stack’s architecture is a constitution

Exit, Voice, and Loyalty | Albert O. Hirschman

Technofeudalism | Yanis Varoufakis

The Tech Coup | Marietje Schaake

OpenAI Terms of Use

Anthropic Consumer Terms of Service

PODCAST INFO:

Podcast Website:
UpAgainstReality.com

Episode link:
https://upagainstreality.com/2026/09/22/the-new-ai-constitution/

Apple Podcasts:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/up-against-reality/id1689699654

Spotify:
open.spotify.com/show/29wpR2Uf0d19FjTH2QubcD?si=a6359f9aa1964170

RSS:
upagainstreality.com/feed/podcast

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/upagainstreality

OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra is here, and we put it through real-world tests—from controlling desktop apps and editing a podcast to building games, websites, and creative tools—before asking the big question: are we actually entering the AGI era? Plus, Jensen Huang’s very convenient enthusiasm, a “safety-first” AI lab caught surveilling activists, and a rock band evicted from its own username.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Larry’s ChatGPT-6 Astra experiments:

The Gravity Playground

UAR Escape the Algorithm game

UAR The Living Episode

3D interactive home theater model

SR-71 Blackbird educational website

YouTube:

We need to talk about this… | Matthew Berman

PODCAST INFO:

Podcast Website:
UpAgainstReality.com

Episode link:
https://upagainstreality.com/2026/09/15/chatgpt-6-astra/

Apple Podcasts:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/up-against-reality/id1689699654

Spotify:
open.spotify.com/show/29wpR2Uf0d19FjTH2QubcD?si=a6359f9aa1964170

RSS:
upagainstreality.com/feed/podcast

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/upagainstreality