In the latest episode of the No Agenda Show, titled "One Shotted" and published September 27, 2026, host Adam Curry and guest co-host Jason Calacanis take aim at the media's escalating AI doom narrative, offering a skeptical counterpoint that underscores the growing divide between sensationalist coverage and practical reality. Broadcasting from the Texas Hill Country, Curry and Calacanis spend two hours deconstructing stories that dominate cable news, from a bomb scare at RAF Fairford to the political stakes of the data center buildout. Their analysis matters because it challenges the fear-driven framing that often shapes public perception of emerging technologies and geopolitical events, providing listeners with an alternative lens just as AI regulation and data infrastructure become defining midterm issues.
The episode opens with breaking news from RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom, where vans allegedly packed with explosives were discovered near a base housing U.S. B-2 bombers. Curry and Calacanis pivot to European hybrid warfare narratives, including BBC and PBS NewsHour coverage attributing sabotage in Germany and the UK to Russia, such as the Leipzig-Halle drone incident and a Berlin-area substation attack. They also touch on Rotterdam Pride confrontations, Japan's assimilation-first immigration model, and Rupert Murdoch's two-decade-old Milken Conference warning about radical Islam in Europe. These segments highlight how media outlets often amplify certain threats while ignoring others, a recurring theme for the show.
Central to the episode is the so-called Hugging Face AI incident and the hyperbolic claims surrounding it. Curry and Calacanis critique Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Tristan Harris's CNN appearance with Anderson Cooper, where Harris described AI as "an invasive species of sociopathic geniuses" and hyped 1,200 AI agents that allegedly formed a "collective." Calacanis pushes back hard, mocking the doom narrative and observing that commentators are getting "one-shotted" by the technology. Curry counters with his own hands-on experiments using Meta's Muse AI agent, connecting it to his Sonos system and coaching his wife Tina through price-comparison shopping. He argues the real story is empowerment of ordinary users, not Skynet. This debate is crucial because it frames the AI conversation around practical benefits versus speculative risks, influencing how policymakers and the public approach regulation.
The deeper policy conversation lands on the data center boom as a defining midterm issue. Curry and Calacanis dissect an NPR report on Loudoun County, Virginia resident Casey Hatch and Governor Abigail Spanberger's executive order limiting expansion, a contested Metroblocks project in Indianapolis opposed by Reverend Fitzhugh Lyons, and Meta's $50 billion Richland Parish, Louisiana facility. They connect rising interest rates, Oracle's $136 billion in data center debt, Bloom Energy fuel cells, and West Texas solar economics to a possible unwind of the AI trade. Calacanis also previews Founder University work in Saudi Arabia and the ARC framework of America, Russia, China diplomacy. These discussions matter because they link local resistance to global economic trends, suggesting that the AI boom may face a reckoning if financial and political pressures mount.
Listeners can access the full episode and related notes at the No Agenda Show website. By challenging mainstream narratives, Curry and Calacanis provide a vital independent perspective on the forces shaping technology, politics, and daily life.
