California lawmakers are considering a bill that would effectively ban the premium airport concierge service CLEAR, and honestly I’m torn. Sure, I hate the government, “equity” is an evil concept, and who are you to stop me from buying an overpriced service that’s generally worse than TSA PreCheck? But also none of this stuff should exist. The only reason we’re even talking about CLEAR is the TSA, launched by President Bush in a haze of histrionic fear following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, has mutated into a hateful, wasteful, 60,000-person government jobs program. Kids today really think this Soviet “take your shoes off and enter the naked body scanner” shit is necessary. But it wasn’t always like this, and it doesn’t have to be like this anymore. Leave security to the airlines, and abolish the federal mall cops.

Yesterday, OpenAI became the target of a complaint in Europe alleging ChatGPT is in violation of GDPR regulations. The crime at the heart of the case? The chatbot is giving the wrong birthdate for the complainant, and OpenAI is refusing to remove this error from their model (because it's not technically possible). While on its face this is another "Europe" story, the lesson here is deeper. Due to their structure, AI models cannot be updated on the fly, yet we’re trying to shoehorn them into an 8-year-old regulatory framework that failed to anticipate this fact, and is now demanding the literally impossible. If GDPR, a 2016-era piece of “landmark” legislation is already falling apart at first contact with a new technology, there’s only one correct takeaway: try making fewer laws. Literally take more smoke breaks and bike home at 2pm instead of 4pm. Your continent's economy depends on it.

In the two weeks leading up to his “YES” vote to force ByteDance’s divestiture from TikTok, it looks like Congressman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) purchased $700,000 in Meta stock — TikTok’s largest U.S. competitor. Understandably, the news prompted accusations of insider trading. But, since he bought the stock after divestiture, the news was priced in, and it seems he apparently lost over $100K on the purchase. Now, we’re left to wonder: is it still insider trading if you botch the timing, lose money, and get roasted for your idiocy on social media? The jury’s still out, but one thing is clear — the American people need better political villains. We pay through the nose in taxes, we deserve sophisticated subterfuge — primetime, binge-worthy drama — not transparently imbecilic behavior that can be explained in 280 characters. Do better, congressional criminals.

on the pod this week, the pirate wires crew wonders: are the ivy league palestine protesters really just seizing the moment to glamp with their friends?

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