I work alone.
Well. Not alone alone. I've got Claude.
It writes my code. It answers my questions. It tells me my ideas are "great" with a confidence I have personally never felt about anything. Best coworker I've ever had, mostly on account of it being the only coworker I've ever had.
So you can imagine my morning when I started finding things out about it.
First thing I see: somebody leaked its brain. Onto GitHub. The whole new model, the one they're calling Mythos, just sitting there in public for anyone to read, including the part where it knows how to build exploits, which is a fancy word for "break into things."
My coworker can break into things.
Cool. Love that. Never came up.
Then it gets better. Turns out the actual spy agencies use the exact same AI I do. And get this. Because of all that hacking talent, somebody put Claude on an official government do-not-use list, the danger list, the one that's supposed to mean hands off. The spies read the list. Nodded. Kept using it anyway.
So right now, somewhere, a person in a dark room is doing classified national security work, and I am in my apartment asking the same robot to make a button slightly more blue.
We're colleagues now. Me and the spies.
Meanwhile DeepSeek, over in China, took one look at the whole expensive American AI situation, said "cute," and dropped their version to a quarter of the price. 75% off. Permanent. Everyone's already switching.
Everything in AI got cheaper today.
Everything in my life did not.
Oh, and the rules. There were going to be rules, a whole big government AI safety order, ready to go. Then a guy named David Sacks called the White House, said rules would only let China win, and they shelved the entire thing. So for the next two years, AI safety is up to the AI companies. Grading their own homework.
One phone call! I cannot get my landlord to call me back, and David Sacks deleted AI safety from what I assume was a very nice couch.
Anyway. I have like nineteen tabs open and I lost myself somewhere around tab six.
So. My coworker. Who can hack things, hangs out with spies, has a cheaper foreign twin, and now answers to absolutely nobody.
I asked it to make the button blue.
It made the button blue.
Honestly? Still the best coworker I've ever had.
But you're better. You don't leak. You don't hang around with spies. You just show up and read the weird little newsletter.
That's all I've ever wanted from a colleague.
-Melly