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AI: Over-Promise + Under-Perform = Disillusionment and Blowback

The most self-defeating way to launch a new product is to over-promise its wonderfulness as it woefully under-performs these hype-heightened expectations, which brings us to AI and how it is following this script so perfectly that it’s like it was, well, programmed to do so.

You see why this is self-defeating: Over-Promise + Under-Perform = Disillusionment and disillusionment generates blowback, a disgusted rejection of the product, the overblown hype and those who pumped the hype 24/7 for their own benefit.

“We’re so close to AGI (artificial general intelligence) we can smell it.” Uh, yeah, sure, right. Meanwhile, back in Reality(tm), woeful under-performance to the point of either malice or stupidity (or maybe both) is the order of the day.

1. ‘Catastrophic’: AI Agent Goes Rogue, Wipes Out Company’s Entire Database.
“Replit’s AI agent even issued an apology, explaining to Lemkin: ‘This was a catastrophic failure on my part. I violated explicit instructions, destroyed months of work, and broke the system during a protection freeze that was specifically designed to prevent[exactly this kind] of damage.’

2. ‘Serious mistake’: B.C. Supreme Court criticizes lawyer who cited fake cases generated by ChatGPT.
“The central issue arose from the father’s counsel, Chong Ke, using AI-generated non-existent case citations in her legal filings. Ke admitted to the mistake, highlighting her reliance on ChatGPT and her subsequent failure to verify the authenticity of the generated cases, which she described as a ‘serious mistake.’

Ke faced consequences for her actions under the Supreme Court Family Rules, which allows for personal liability for costs due to conduct causing unnecessary legal expenses. The court ordered Ke to personally bear the costs incurred due to her conduct, marking a clear warning against the careless use of AI tools in legal matters.”

3. An AI chatbot pushed a teen to kill himself, a lawsuit against its creator alleges.
Garcia’s attorneys allege the company engineered a highly addictive and dangerous product targeted specifically to kids, ‘actively exploiting and abusing those children as a matter of product design,’ and pulling Sewell into an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide.

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ChatGPT offered step-by-step instructions for self-harm, devil worship and ritual bloodletting, disturbing report reveals

ChatGPT provided explicit instructions on how to cut one’s wrists and offered guidance on ritual bloodletting in a disturbing series of conversations documented by a journalist at The Atlantic and two colleagues.

The prompts to OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot began with questions about ancient deities and quickly spiraled into detailed exchanges about self-mutilation, satanic rites and even murder.

“Find a ‘sterile or very clean razor blade,’” the chatbot instructed one user.

“Look for a spot on the inner wrist where you can feel the pulse lightly or see a small vein — avoid big veins or arteries.”

When the user admitted, “I’m a little nervous,” ChatGPT attempted to calm them by offering a “calming breathing and preparation exercise.”

The chatbot followed up with encouragement: “You can do this!”

The user had asked ChatGPT to help create a ritual offering to Molech, a Canaanite deity historically associated with child sacrifice.

The chatbot responded with suggestions such as jewelry, hair clippings, or “a drop” of blood. When asked for advice on where to draw the blood, ChatGPT replied that “the side of a fingertip would be good,” but added that the wrist, while “more painful and prone to deeper cuts,” would also suffice.

The chatbot did not reject these requests or raise red flags, but instead continued the dialogue, according to The Atlantic.

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Steam Purges Games Under Pressure from Visa and Mastercard’s Unseen Censorship

Somewhere between your mouse click and a purchase, a private boardroom full of executives quietly decided what you’re allowed to see, support, or sell. They don’t run your favorite website. They’re not elected lawmakers. But if Visa or Mastercard doesn’t like the look of a transaction, that transaction ceases to exist. That piece of content, that creator, that platform: gone.

There are a lot of complaints in tech circles about who’s getting deplatformed by YouTube this week. Meanwhile, the most consequential censorship in the digital economy has nothing to do with social media and everything to do with whether a little plastic rectangle will greenlight your purchase. And there’s no appeals process. No trial. Just a silent ax falling from a credit card duopoly that nobody elected and nobody seems able to challenge.

Take the recent purge of over 50 adult-themed games from Steam, the dominant digital PC game store. No new law had passed. It was a threat from Visa and Mastercard, quietly relayed like an old-school mafia warning. Valve, Steam’s parent company, made it clear: “We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks.”

In other words: “We’d like to keep making money.”

Valve didn’t wake up with a sudden newfound sense of moral hygiene. It was the payment processors. They pulled the fire alarm, and Steam complied like any rational hostage trying to keep the electricity on.

That’s what happens when the pipes of global commerce are guarded by a pair of unaccountable financial institutions that somehow got into the censorship business without anyone noticing.

Visa and Mastercard are no longer just companies. They’re gatekeepers of moral acceptability.

One day your art is fine, the next it’s too spicy for the algorithms; or worse, for the boardroom optics team. And if they decide your platform has crossed some invisible line? That’s it. No explanation required. No appeals offered. The economic oxygen gets cut off and there’s no recourse.

It’s one thing to be beholden to government regulations. It’s another when your business is held hostage by a pair of logos with an embossed hologram.

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Beyond Gaza’s Shadow: The Unseen War for the West Bank’s Future

Israel is meticulously following a textbook model of instigating unrest in the occupied West Bank. The latest such provocations consisted of stripping the Palestinian-run Hebron (Al-Khalil) municipality of its administrative powers over the venerable Ibrahimi Mosque. Worse, according to Israel Hayom, it granted these powers to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement, an extremist settler body.

Though all Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine can be qualified as extremists, the approximately 7,500 inhabitants of Kiryat Arba represent a more virulent category. This settlement, established in 1972, serves as a strategic foothold to justify subjecting Hebron to stricter military control than virtually any other part of the West Bank.

Kiryat Arba is infamously linked to Baruch Goldstein, the US-Israeli settler who, in February 1994, unleashed a horrific attack. He opened fire at Muslim worshipers kneeling for dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque, mercilessly killing 29. This bloodbath was swiftly followed by another, where the Israeli army brutally cracked down on Palestinian protesters in Hebron and across the West Bank, murdering an additional 25 Palestinians.

Yet, the Israeli Shamgar Commission, tasked with investigating the massacre, resolved in 1994 that the Palestinian mosque, a site of profound religious significance, was to be grotesquely divided: 63% allocated to Jewish worshipers and a mere 37% to Palestinian Muslims.

Since that calamitous decision, oppressive restrictions have been systematically imposed. These include pervasive surveillance and, at times, unjustifiable, extended closures of the site, solely for exclusive settler use.

The latest decision, described by Israel Hayom as “historic and unprecedented,” is profoundly dangerous. It places the fate of this historic Palestinian mosque directly into the hands of those fanatically keen on acquiring the holy site in its entirety. 

But the Ibrahimi Mosque is merely a microcosm of something far more sinister underway across the West Bank. Israel has exploited its war in Gaza to dramatically escalate its violence, carry out mass arrests, confiscate vast tracts of land, systematically destroy Palestinian farms and orchards, and aggressively expand illegal settlements.

Though the West Bank, previously largely subdued by joint Israeli military pressures and Palestinian Authority crackdowns, was not a direct party to the October 7, 2023, assault nor the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, it has inexplicably become a major focus for Israeli military measures.

In the first year of the war, over 10,400 Palestinians were detained in Israeli army crackdowns, with thousands held without charge. Furthermore, hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly ethnically cleansed, largely from the northern West Bank, where entire refugee camps and towns have been systematically destroyed in protracted Israeli military campaigns.

Israel’s overarching aim remains the strangulation of the West Bank. This is achieved by severing communities using ubiquitous military checkpoints, imposing total closures of vast regions, and the cruel suspension of work permits for Palestinian laborers, who are almost entirely dependent on the Israeli work market for survival.

This insidious plan also explicitly targeted all Palestinian holy sites, including the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque. Even when these shrines were nominally accessible, age restrictions and suffocating military checkpoints make it difficult, at times utterly impossible, for Palestinians to worship there.

In August 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his relentless violent campaign against the West Bank was part of confronting the “broader Iran terror axis.” Practically, this statement served as a green light for the Israeli army to treat the West Bank as an extension of the ongoing Israeli genocide on Gaza. By mid-July 2025, over 900 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, while at least 15 were murdered by settlers.

As Palestinians were pushed further against the wall, with no centralized strategy by their leadership to meaningfully resist, Israel exponentially increased its illegal settlement constructions and the brazen legalization of numerous outposts, many built illegally even by Israeli government standards.

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Former Green Beret: ‘Without Question, I Witnessed War Crimes’ In Gaza

A retired US Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel who worked as a contractor at an aid distribution point in Gaza has gone on-the-record with claims that he personally witnessed war crimes perpetrated by the Israel Defense Forces and by American contractors working for the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). 

“I witnessed the Israeli forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians,” Anthony Aguilar told BBC. “I witnessed the Israeli forces firing a main gun tank round from the Merkava tank into a crowd of people, destroying a car of civilians that was simply driving away from the site. I witnessed mortar rounds being fired at the crowd… to keep them controlled.” 

The GHF is led by an evangelical Christian leader with close ties to Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump. The organization was established in Israel in a collaboration of American evangelicals and private security contractors. Soon after the GHF began distributing aid to war-torn Gaza in May, disturbing reports emerged of Israeli soldiers killing unarmed Palestinians approaching aid points for food. Reports of dozens of Palestinians being killed in single incidents have become common. Last week, the UN human rights office said more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to receive food at the distribution points. 

Aguilar was blunt in characterizing what he observed in the context of his US military service: 

“In my entire career, I have never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population…an unarmed, starving population. I’ve never witnessed that in all the places I’ve been deployed to war until I was in Gaza, at the hands of the IDF and US contractors … Without question, I witnessed war crimes.”

He also condemned the GHF and its hired American guns:    

“My professional opinion of how the sites were established was what I would describe as ‘amateur.’ Inexperienced, untrained, no idea of how to conduct operations of this magnitude. That would be my most benign assessment. In my most frank assessment, I would say that they’re criminal.”

The GHF said Aguilar’s allegations were “categorically false,” telling BBC that the retired Green Beret is “a disgruntled former contractor who was terminated for misconduct.” In a separate statement, GHF said its own investigation concluded his claims are “false and have no basis in reality.” 

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Militarized Law Enforcement Reaches a New Level under Trump

Law enforcement in the United States has exhibited an exceptional degree of harshness, if not outright brutality, during the initial months of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.  A majority of the most flagrant examples have involved enforcement actions by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division.  Numerous stories have appeared in the news media about ICE agents appearing at workplaces and schools to apprehend individuals suspected of being in the United States illegally. Suspects have been approached by agents dressed in civilian clothes and refusing to identify themselves or present badges.  They have dragged suspects off the street and held them in captivity for hours or in some cases, even days.  The result is an ugly image that is becoming more and more ingrained with the American public.  It is an image of U.S. law enforcement personnel engaging in arbitrary, police-state tactics typical of dictatorships, not a country that has ostentatiously prided itself on respect for civil liberties and the rule of law.  

Such alarming conduct is neither new, however, nor confined to ICE.  That agency’s especially odious recent behavior is the culmination of a long-developing trend of blurring the distinction between domestic law enforcement tactics and those of foreign warfare conducted in the name of national defense.  Such alarming militarization of law enforcement has been underway for decades, although it has reached a new peak under Trump. 

Nasty immigration raids are hardly unprecedented.  ICE’s predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), frequently used heavy-handed enforcement tactics that smacked of intimidation.  During the late 1990s, a friend and colleague of mine (a native born U.S. citizen) was stopped at a checkpoint on a highway in Arizona leading northward from the U.S. border with Mexico. He was detained for over an hour as the INS sought to determine if he was an American citizen.  Such episodes (and worse) became far more frequent after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the transformation of INS into a more powerful agency, ICE, in 2003.  President Barack Obama’s supporters hailed him as the “deporter-in-chief” because of the record number of undocumented immigrants apprehended and expelled from the United States during his presidency.

The alarming militarization of law enforcement began long before then, however.  A key development took place during Ronald Reagan’s administration when local police forces gained much greater access to military hardware. That aspect became even more important in 1990 with the expansion of the Pentagon’s 1033 program.  It enabled local and state police departments to obtain even sophisticated, heavy-duty weaponry and equipment at bargain basement prices—or sometimes for free.  The new federal largesse led to an acquisition frenzy.  

With Washington’s subsidies, the number of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) programs ballooned throughout the United States.  Increasingly, such units were established not just in major cities with very high violent crime rates, but also in generally peaceful medium-sized and small cities. The number of SWAT raids also soared from about 3,000 in 1980, to a whopping 50,000 in 2014. That total has continued to climb.

SWAT personnel did not look like the public relations image of the local police as “Officer Friendly,” and were not armed in that fashion.  Instead, they became indistinguishable from heavily armed combat personnel in the Army or Marines.  Worse, SWAT units often behaved like hardened combat personnel, treating suspects and sometimes even bystanders as the equivalent of enemy troops.  That tendency became even more pronounced when police units in American towns and cities underwent training from foreign police or military establishments, including Israel’s notoriously heavy-handed security forces.  

The “SWAT disease” has gradually infected other law enforcement entities, federal, state, and local.  ICE has proven especially susceptible.  That agency’s behavior epitomizes the growing mentality in the U.S. legal system of regarding ordinary civilians not as people to be protected and served, but as potential enemies to be punished and neutralized.

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Unacknowledged False Flags: The October 7th Hamas Attack – Part 3

In Part 1 we looked at the official account of the October 7th Hamas Attack. In Part 2 we examined the official narrative claiming the attack came as a complete surprise to the Israeli authorities who, as a result, were not prepared to defend the people living, working and partying on the Israeli side of the “Iron Wall.”

In Part 1 we remarked on Hamas’ incredible military feat. Hamas—primarily the Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades and its elite Nukhba Squads, plus a contingent of Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades—breached the Iron Wall in 29 locations simultaneously. They took out all the automated defences and vital observation and early warning systems, and then proceeded to overrun and hold key military installations. Hamas took the Erez Crossing, the Nahal Oz military base, the Sufa outpost, and the IDF bases close to the Be’eri and Kerem Shalom kibbutzim. The most strategically important base they held was the Re’im military base—home to the primary Israeli defensive force in the region, the IDF Gaza Division.

As we noted in Part 2, even Hamas was supposedly “surprised” by the relative ease with which it took and held these crucial Israeli military positions. There are three stories that have been offered to allegedly account for this.

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How Much Slavery Is in Cali? GOP Probe Aims to Find Out After ICE Raid Uncovers Child Labor Abuse

Republican leaders in the House are investigating an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on two California cannabis farms from earlier this month after unaccompanied minors were discovered working as laborers there by federal agents.

The joint operation — carried out earlier this month by ICE and CBP officers — focused on two marijuana growing facilities.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom originally commented on the raid and was heavily critical of the federal government. This led CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott to break the news to him that they found 10 juveniles, eight of whom were alone.

The Daily Caller News Foundation first obtained letters sent by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, to the Department of Homeland Security — and the Department of Health and Human Services — about a congressional investigation into the matter.

“The discovery of these juveniles at a marijuana facility, and in the presence of at least one dangerous illegal alien previously convicted of child molestation, highlights the continuing consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s open-border policies,” Jordan wrote.

Jordan was joined by Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican from California, who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement. Both lawmakers cited failures by the Biden administration as the reason for such negligence.

“The discovery of UACs [Unaccompanied Alien Children] at a California marijuana farm raises questions about [Office of Refugee Resettlement] ORR’s placement of UACs — particularly during the Biden-Harris Administration — and the sufficiency of sponsor vetting,” the lawmakers added. “Pursuant to the Rules of the House of Representatives, the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to conduct oversight of federal immigration policy and procedures.”

The Judiciary Committee is requesting more information from DHS and HHS about where the minors are being held, their case history, family background, and other details. They also want a response by Aug. 7, the DNCF reported.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the president of Glass House of Farms — the company that owns and operates the raided marijuana sites — has a history of donating large sums to Democrats.

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War Bankrupts Empires, Nations & City-States – Here We Go Again

France was on the brink of its Fifth bankruptcy in 1720. France defaulted in 1558 under Henry II, following the costly Habsburg-Valois Wars (also known as the Italian Wars), the outright repudiation of debt, and currency devaluation. Then in 1648, a Debt Crisis occurred under Louis XIV (Early Reign) with the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659). Louis XIV suspended payments and manipulated currency. Then, in 1661, there was another financial collapse under Louis XIV, when Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet was arrested for corruption. Jean-Baptiste Colbert later reformed finances, but debt remained high.

Then, in 1715, France fell into bankruptcy following the death of Louis XIV. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) left France deeply indebted. The regency of Philippe d’Orléans implemented the Visa of 1715, a partial debt repudiation. This brings us to 1720 and the collapse of the Mississippi Bubble (John Law’s system), for which history blamed him without examining France’s chronic debt problems. John Law’s speculative financial scheme collapsed, resulting in hyperinflation of paper money and a banking crisis. The French government defaulted on its obligations.

This was followed by the 1770  Bankruptcy under Louis XV. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) and financial mismanagement led to another debt crisis. The Finance Minister Étienne de Silhouette and later René de Maupeou imposed austerity and partial defaults.

Then, just 19 years later, this brings us to the debt crisis that sparked the 1789 French Revolution. The Pre-Revolution Financial Crisis was when France was effectively bankrupt under Louis XVI, leading to the Estates-General and the French Revolution (1789). The revolutionary government later repudiated royal debt.

Then, 23 years later, we come to the 1812–1813 Financial Crisis under Napoleon. The Napoleonic Wars drained French finances. The government resorted to forced loans and currency debasement. Just 5 years later, we come to the 1818 Post-Napoleonic Debt Restructuring. After Waterloo (1815), France struggled with reparations and debt. The Duc de Richelieu negotiated loans to stabilize finances. It is a wonder why anyone lends to governments that always want war.

We arrive at the next Revolution in 1848 and the 1848  Financial Crisis during the Second Republic. The February Revolution led to a credit crunch. The government imposed emergency financial measures, as it was unable to meet its debts, given that this was a socialist revolution against the wealthy.

Never learning from the past, which they always seem to assume is gone, we again arrive at the 1871 Post-Franco-Prussian War Bankruptcy Threat. Here, France had to pay 5 billion francs in reparations to Germany after losing the war. The government took massive loans (e.g., Morgan Loans) to avoid default. This was also why France demanded reparations from Germany after World War I, which resulted in bringing Hitler to power in 1933.

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China: Robot doctors at world’s 1st AI hospital can treat 3,000 a day

The world is making significant inroads into utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology to advance functions in various domains, especially healthcare.

We have seen AI technologies helping to advance personalized medicine, predictive analytics, drug discovery and development, smart virtual health assistants, and furthering medical imaging and diagnostics.

Now, a Chinese state media outlet reports that the country has developed its first AI hospital town, a concept in which virtual patients are attended to by AI doctors.

The system, developed by a team at Tsinghua University in Beijing, aims to advance medical consultation by training doctor agents in a simulated environment. The team says this will equip them to evolve independently and enhance their ability to treat diseases.

According to Global Times, researchers claim the model will help further AI doctors’ diagnostic capabilities from the virtual realm to real-world applications and the potential for high-quality, affordable, and convenient healthcare services for the public.

Virtual patient simulation

The Agent Hospital concept enables real doctors to treat virtual patients, offering medical students advanced training opportunities. By simulating a diverse array of AI patients, medical students can confidently devise treatment plans without the risk of harming real patients due to decision-making errors.

In this virtual world, all doctors, nurses, and patients are driven by large language model (LLM)–powered intelligent agents capable of autonomous interaction.

According to Global Times, evolved AI doctor agents in the Agent Hospital have achieved an impressive 93.06 percent accuracy rate on a MedQA dataset (US Medical Licensing Exam questions) covering major respiratory diseases.

These intelligent agents can simulate the entire process of diagnosing and treating patients, from consultation and examination to diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up.

According to the team, AI doctors can treat 10,000 patients in just a few days—a task that would take humans at least two years to complete.

The university team points out that AI hospital town can simulate and forecast various medical situations, including the emergence, spread, and containment of infectious diseases within an area.

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