Head of Cop29 is a fossil fuels guy

As if it wasn't already clear enough that the Cop's are mostly about corporate greenwashing.

The chief executive of Cop29 has been filmed apparently agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at the climate summit.

The recording has amplified calls by campaigners who want the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists to be banned from future Cop talks.

The campaign group Global Witness posed undercover as a fake oil and gas group asking for deals to be facilitated in exchange for sponsoring the event.

In the calls, Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister and chief executive of Cop29, agreed to this and spoke of a future that includes fossil fuels “perhaps for ever”. Cop officials also introduced the fake investor to a senior executive at the national oil and gas company Socar to discuss investment opportunities. - The Guardian

Big Tech is prostrating itself before Trump

And all of us will probably pay, sooner or later. I'd say the top likelihood is after the AI bros get to create a bubble and it bursts.

Donald Trump was re-elected President of the United States on Tuesday, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris not just in the Electoral College tally but also in the popular vote. And Big Tech leaders wasted no time congratulating Trump on Wednesday, tweeting out messages that make it clear they’re ready to serve his needs however they can. It feels like a preview of the next phase, where so many will go meet Trump in person and kiss the ring of the 47th president, a man who’s promised to become a dictator on day one and deport millions of people in a scheme that’s pretty much guaranteed to devastate the economy. And it’s already making us nauseous. - Gizmodo

Big Finance is having its doubts about AI

For me the noteworthy thing is that even Wall Street, which is generally pretty gullible about The Next Big Thing, is displaying at least a measure of rational skepticism about artificial "intelligence."

For tech’s biggest players, this earnings season is starting to feel like a scene from the movie Jerry Maguire— and the “show me the money” demands aren’t working out any better than they did for Tom Cruise. Some analysts are even dubbing this the “show me the money” quarter, as Wall Street’s patience with massive AI spending begins to wear thin...

Almost two years after ChatGPT kicked off Silicon Valley’s AI gold rush, this week’s tech earnings revealed both the promise and the staggering price tag of the AI revolution. While companies reported significant gains from AI initiatives —Meta’s ad prices up 11%, Google Cloud revenue surging 35% to $11.4 billion, Amazon’s AWS growing 19% to $27.5 billion — their warnings about future spending sparked a broad market retreat…

Tech executives’ unwavering faith in AI’s potential stands in stark contrast to investors’ growing anxiety about the costs. - Quartz