The secret to finding good lunch and quick vibes in an unfamiliar city. This has worked for me in Vegas, Detroit, Tulsa, Dallas, and dozens of other new places, and today it paid off again in Omaha. #citylife #urbanexplorer #shoppinghacks #travelhack #ripcurrent

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The Famous and The Dead A.I. is resurrecting Val Kilmer, enriching the powerful, and strip-mining talent in Hollywood. In an A.I. future, will anyone be able to make it in movies who hasn't done so already?

The deepfake era isn't just about technology — it's about who gets legal protection and who doesn't. Famous actors can trademark their likeness. Unknown performers have zero rights. Classic Hollywood power play dressed up as innovation. https://www.theripcurrent.com/p/the-dead-and-the-famous

The pattern is predictable: new technology emerges, industry promises self-regulation, then lobbies for laws that look like oversight but preserve the status quo. We're watching it happen with AI in real time.

The AI Surveillance Shopping Spree Hacktivists breached DHS and published the agency's AI surveillance shopping list. Every American should read it.

DHS runs 238 AI surveillance programs with almost zero oversight. Facial recognition on every agent's phone. Predictive policing from your 911 calls. This is the architecture of the surveillance state, built in plain sight.

theripcurrent.substack.com/p/the-ai-surveillance-sh...

The Famous and The Dead A.I. is resurrecting Val Kilmer, enriching the powerful, and strip-mining talent in Hollywood. In an A.I. future, will anyone be able to make it in movies who hasn't done so already?

The AI resurrection debate misses the real issue: McConaughey can trademark his voice and likeness. Background actors can't. This isn't about technology — it's about who gets to own themselves in the digital age. https://www.theripcurrent.com/p/the-dead-and-the-famous

The AI Industry Got What It Wanted Today...Again A "minimally burdensome" national standard that wipes out the only laws we have around A.I. deregulates the industry before we even tried to regulate it.

David Sacks went from crypto venture capitalist to White House AI czar in record time. Today's framework reads like his wish list — preempting state laws before they could bite. www.theripcurrent.com/p/the-ai-industry-got-wh...

The AI Surveillance Shopping Spree Hacktivists breached DHS and published the agency's AI surveillance shopping list. Every American should read it.

The real story isn't the hack — it's that DHS operates 238 AI surveillance programs with virtually no oversight. Congress has been asleep while an entire digital panopticon got built with taxpayer money. theripcurrent.substack.com/p/the-ai-surveillance-sh...

It’s creators and brands and media and impact and earned media and core competencies and thrashgrass and brisket and alcoholism and… #sxsw #austin #ripcurrent

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But no really I’m not that guy. Not yet. #sxsw #austin #ripcurrent

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Come say hi at The Belmont (which turns out not to be a hotel, my bad, but it doesn’t change anything) in Austin for SXSW this weekend. I’ll be there midmorning to midafternoon. Come talk surveillance, AI war, and corporate accountability with me! #sxsw #ripcurrent #austin

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The majority of adults want to slow down AI development, even if it means falling behind other countries. But it doesn't matter to the White House, it seems, nor to the folks making the money off it. #AI #Technology #Future #Debate #ripcurrent

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If you're going to be in Austin for SXSW and you want to talk about surveillance tech, AI weapons, or corporate power — I'm holding what I'm calling The Lobby at The Belmont Hotel, March 13 through 15. Walk up, or book a 30-minute slot at jacobward.com/sxsw2026. Come find me. #SXSW2026 #SXSW

Decisions shaping our lives are made by unseen people, using unknown tools, in closed rooms. Let's go, democracy. #ripcurrent #FutureTech #Transparency #Democracy #TechPolicy

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Pentagon's Jetson tech spots individuals 200m away using infrared laser to read unique cardiac signatures. Heartbeat ID is more stable than facial recognition. #Tech #Innovation #FutureTech #Biometrics #ripcurrent

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No wonder the Pentagon is buzzing about wanting no guardrails! WiFi sees through walls, lasers read heartbeats, cameras know you by your walk. It's all here, right now. #Pentagon #Tech #Innovation #FutureTech #ripcurrent

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I'm going to SXSW and I'm not doing panels. I'm doing The Lobby — a daily open hangout March 13-15 at The Belmont in Austin where anyone can show up and have a real conversation about surveillance, corporate power, and AI weapons. No badge. No ticket. Just come find me. jacobward.com/sxsw2026🎙️

Israel built AI targeting systems in Gaza — approved kills in 20 seconds, 10% error rate accepted. Now those same systems are running over Iran and being exported all over the world. I’m calling this “lethal beta,” and there’s an arms industry IPO-ing off the back of it. Full breakdown at

I don’t want to trigger the designers here, but this is the phrase that has always worked for me. #collaboration #creative #relationships #ripcurrent

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The President banned an AI company from the entire government because it wouldn't let the Pentagon use it for mass surveillance. But Anthropic walked into this. They partnered with Palantir to get into classified systems. They took the $200M contract. And now every other AI company has to decide if

The Pentagon just tried to bully an AI company into removing its safety guardrails. So I looked into what those guardrails are actually holding back.

Seven real, documented, sourced AI capabilities that most people have no idea exist yet.

The full piece is for paid subscribers.

TheRipCurrent.com

Thanks for listening!

Thanks for being there! The first of many I hope!

Big News: The Rip Current is Changing After a year of building The Rip Current, I’m making a shift in how this newsletter works — and I want to be straight with you about what’s changing and why.

After a week like this one, it felt like the right time to announce: The Rip Current is going paid. Here's what that means.

open.substack.com/pub/theripcu...

In 1964, Nikolai Kardashev thought he'd discovered alien life. What he actually found changed how we think about humanity's place in the universe — and makes clear that we're wasting our one shot at existence. The closest potentially habitable planet is 200,000 years away. We're already living on

Don’t believe the hype. NO TWO HUMANS CAN AGREE on shared values. #ai #artificialintelligence #ethics #ripcurrent #tech

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Thank you Scholar for having me! See you tonight, Monday, Jan 12, at Mad Oak in Oakland at 6:30pm!

Every oil empire says this time will be different. History says: absolutely not. From Iraq to Suez to Algeria to Nigeria — oil doesn’t make empires rich. It bankrupts them. Venezuela won’t be the exception. Read and watch the whole thing on my channel and at TheRipCurrent.com. #OilPolitics

Nailed it!

I’ll try! Thank you!

It’s a preview of what’s to come, folks. What happened at the Kolkata stadium wasn’t really about soccer. It was about expectation, exclusion, and betrayal. People paid real money to be promised proximity — to something global, elite, and Western — and then watched it vanish behind velvet ropes.