In episode 1904 of the No Agenda Show, titled 'Junkie Communism' and published on September 17, 2026, hosts Adam Curry and returning guest co-host Rob Dew (Sir Deucifer) deconstruct the escalating artificial intelligence panic, framing it as a near-perfect rerun of the COVID-19 playbook. Broadcasting from the Hill Country of Texas, Curry and Dew combed through roughly 170 clips to trace how the narrative is being manufactured, highlighting an 'expert priesthood,' division, government regulation, and a push toward global governance.
The episode examines several interlocking threads from the week's news cycle. Congresswoman Maxine Waters grilled Treasury officials on AI safety, while Senator Bernie Sanders equated AI risk with nuclear weapons. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang appeared on CNBC claiming that self-replicating bot swarms have polluted the internet, requiring 'synthetic internets' and a kill switch. The hosts also discussed President Trump's proposed $5,000 tariff dividend to every adult American citizen and the possible stablecoin mechanism behind it. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Strasbourg speech proposing Canada become the EU's first associate member was another topic, along with Houthi advances near the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the new Mecca Accords defense pact.
Curry's media deconstruction approach is on full display as he maps the AI hoax structure. 'The reason why I can easily explain this being a hoax, because you've got the models, the large language model, and that thing by itself... turns out wasn't very useful unless you give it access to tools... Then you have the harness. Oh, I love these terms,' Curry explains, before walking through how guardrails on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini prove companies can throttle output at will. Dew adds context from a friend's Hegelian dialectic analysis mapping eight cultural inhale-exhale cycles from 1945 to present, from the Cold War through COVID to today's AI narrative.
The conversation ranges into the effective altruism movement (with Sam Bankman-Fried as its poster child), Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's warnings, Jensen Huang's semiconductor push, and a Purdue University report on the 157,000-worker shortfall facing US chip fabs. Dew, who once worked at Tokyo Electron America servicing Micron and other clients, pushes back on the mystique around semiconductor manufacturing. The hosts also cover Ilhan Omar's alleged marriage fraud investigation under Tom Homan, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's Kids Act targeting social media for under-13s, Canadian MAID euthanasia expansion, the Yalta European Strategy conference attended by Boris Johnson and David Petraeus, and the mysterious glitter industry centered in New Jersey.
This episode matters because it challenges listeners to question the rapid push for AI regulation and the experts driving it. By comparing the AI panic to COVID-19, Curry and Dew suggest that similar tactics—fear, censorship, and global governance—are being deployed. For the tech industry, this skepticism could influence public trust and policy debates. For readers, it underscores the importance of critical thinking as AI becomes more integrated into daily life. The No Agenda Show, hosted by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak, is a listener-supported podcast known for its skeptical take on mainstream media. Episode 1904 is available now wherever podcasts are heard.
