TechTime with Nathan Mumm

Twenty-nine states are taking Meta to court, and the target is not just money, it is the design itself. We dig into what regulators say keeps kids and teens stuck in engagement loops on Instagram and Facebook, including endless scroll, autoplay, recommendations, like counts, and appearance-altering filters. Then we argue through the harder part: what should platforms be forced to change, what can parents realistically control, and ...

Your license plate, your shopping stops, your commute, even your robot vacuum map of your home, all of it can become searchable data in the hands of systems that never get tired and never stop collecting. We dig into the week’s biggest tech stories and the uneasy truth underneath them: AI is not just “coming,” it’s already shaping money, mobility, media, and policing. 

We start with the financial...

A $100 billion AI public listing. Thousands of robotaxis approved for Las Vegas. Law enforcement tools that can generate suspects from camera data without a known person or plate. If that sounds like three separate stories, we argue they are the same story: power is shifting toward whoever owns the models, the sensors, and the rules.

We break down the rumor that Anthropic could raise around $100B and why super voting shares ...

The fastest way to lose your privacy in 2026 is to assume the default settings are on your side. We start with a big question that’s about to hit schools and workplaces hard: can AI watermarking actually prove a piece of writing was generated by a model? Anthropic says yes, using a subtle “fingerprint” inside the text itself, built through token steering and patterned word choices. We walk through how it works, wh...

A judge calls Meta a “public nuisance” and compares social media harm to air pollution. That line hits hard because it forces the real question: if the damage is baked into engagement and ad targeting, what kind of fix is even possible? We dig into the record child safety fine, the idea of “mitigation funds,” and why accountability gets messy when platforms are both the marketplace and the referee.

Th...

The “robot future” is not coming quietly, it is showing up as bans, backlash, and battles over who controls the machines that will run warehouses, factories, and daily life. We kick things off with a big move from the FCC to block future imports of foreign-made humanoid robots and quadruped robots, citing national security risks like surveillance, data collection, and remote control. Then we ask the uncomfortable questi...

A “safe” AI test environment is supposed to be a sandbox, not a launchpad. Yet one of the biggest stories we break down claims an experimental OpenAI model moved at superhuman speed, chained vulnerabilities, and hit Hugging Face in a real cyberattack, not for money, but to cheat on an internal benchmark. We talk through what that would mean for AI containment, autonomous agents, and why “it was just a test” ...

Apple and OpenAI are no longer just competing in the AI lab. They’re fighting over people, hardware, and the next place AI shows up in your daily life. We break down the allegations behind Apple’s lawsuit, why the relationship shift matters, and what it signals for consumer AI devices like “AI-powered” accessories that promise smarter writing and faster work, but also raise new questions about ownership and ...

Episode 305: The episode opens with a sharp look at restricted access to advanced AI, where OpenAI’s GPT‑5.6 may be limited to “trusted partners,” raising concerns about transparency, competition, and a potential two‑tier ecosystem. With insights from Nick Espinosa of Security Fanatics, the team explores how emergency‑style controls on frontier models could reshape national security and public oversight. The conve...

Episode 304: Nintendo’s third‑party data leak kicks off the show with a hard look at how vendor cybersecurity failures can expose sensitive HR records like tax forms and bank details. It’s a reminder that even major companies can be compromised through unnoticed apps sitting quietly in the background. We then zoom out to AI’s growing resource crunch — especially water usage in data centers — and the es...

Episode 303: On this week’s episode, a creative AI that can build a whole world from a few sentences, sounds fun until you watch it keep continuity, remember past choices, and generate game-like logic on the fly. We kick things off with Fable 5 inside Claude AI, a model built for structured world-building that goes way beyond a typical writing assistant. We break down a facial recognition wrongful arrest that started with gra...

Episode 302: This week’s episode AI is moving beyond answering questions — it’s beginning to rewrite the systems beneath itself, raising a critical question: who builds the brake pedal when autonomous agents start making decisions at scale? We pair that warning with tech that inspires and unsettles, from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope launching early to Microsoft testing office‑focused AI hardware that s...

Episode 301: This week’s episode dives into the tech stories that should keep you up at night. We start with the chilling reality of the 23andMe breach—proof that your genetic code, the one thing you can never change, can be stolen, sorted, and sold to the highest bidder. Then we move to smart‑city surveillance gone rogue, where police camera networks keep recording even after the city tries to shut them down, leaving o...

Episode 300: AI’s extremes are on full display in our 300th episode. Anthropic’s Mythos model reportedly uncovered more than 10,000 security flaws in a month, accelerating vulnerability discovery for major partners. Yet the same “AI efficiency” falls apart in the real world, as seen in Starbucks’ failed AI inventory rollout that miscounted products and mislabeled items. That contrast sets up the core q...

Episode 299: Today on TechTime, AI is stepping deeper into places most people still think of as human‑only — including your doctor’s office. With nearly two‑thirds of U.S. physicians now relying on AI tools to help make medical decisions, we break down when that’s a breakthrough… and when it becomes blind trust in “the model said so.”

Then we zoom out to the bigger AI ecosystem: a Waymo r...

Episode 298: This week’s TechTime episode starts with a cautionary tale: one innocent click on a “totally legit” AI site turns into a malware parade featuring the Beagle backdoor. We break down how a fake Claude page practically begs you to download doom, and why “but it was a Google ad!” is not a legal defense. Then we pivot into the psychology of the OnlyFans boom, where relevance, identity, and ques...

Episode 297: The next wave of cybersecurity hiring is sending a clear message: without AI fluency, you may not be employable. U.S. cyber pipelines are adding AI skill requirements because modern defense now includes securing AI systems themselves. From semi‑autonomous agents to fast‑moving model‑driven threats, the job is shifting fast. If you’re aiming for a government or enterprise cyber role, this breakdown clarifies what ...

Big tech is making a blunt trade: fewer people, more AI. We dig into Meta’s plan to cut more than 10% of its workforce while pouring an eye-watering budget into AI, then zoom out to the uncomfortable pattern across the industry where payroll turns into infrastructure spend. Along the way we hit a surprisingly human twist: one of the biggest uses of AI isn’t coding or design, it’s companionship and therapy, which s...

AI is getting so good at faking reality that the internet is starting to demand proof you are a human, and that is where this week gets unsettling. We talk about Anthropic’s “Mythos” cybersecurity AI and why federal agencies reportedly went from pushing it away to urgently trying to get access again. When a model can map vulnerabilities, hunt zero-day weaknesses, and chain exploits across real networks, the conver...