{"id":635055,"date":"2026-10-19T07:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T07:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/635055\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T07:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T07:24:10","slug":"nobody-ate-nobody-drank-inside-the-strange-culture-of-san-franciscos-ai-boom-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/635055\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nobody ate, nobody drank\u2019: Inside the strange culture of San Francisco\u2019s AI boom \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Stop Hiring Humans,\u201d declares the billboard. Ava is the AI<\/a> model pictured in the ad. She is the new hire. Her generically good-looking features are scattered around the San Francisco Bay Area. At first sight they were a bit of a shock. The ads are by now as common as the various brands of driverless cars, or what we used to call taxis. <\/p>\n

The historic cable cars still rattle up the steep hills, their bells dinging away, with tourists hanging out straining to get a photo on their phone of a passing Waymo<\/a> or Zoox. The latter, the new kid on the block, and known locally as a \u201ctoaster on wheels\u201d. It also resembles a stagecoach of old, sparing the horses of course. It is weirdly cute. <\/p>\n

A crowd gathered recently when one stopped during a street festival, apparently confused by all the walking crowds. The pedestrians cheered \u2013 \u201cGo on, go on, you can do it!\u201d \u2013 and the toaster on wheels slowly moved forward.<\/p>\n

\"Zoox,Zoox, the new driverless vehicle on the block, known locally as a ‘toaster on wheels’. Photograph: Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

AI and agentic AI<\/a> are the new shiny gems to be panned in San Francisco, among the 19th century saloons and the historic Wild West mentality. They are bringing their own trappings of wealth. <\/p>\n

San Francisco market rents have risen 22 per cent over the last 12 months to more than $4,500 per month for a one bed. The average property price is $1.6 million.<\/p>\n

How will anyone afford to live here any more? And shock, they say even tech workers are being priced out of the all-ruling market. There is talk of young beneficiaries of recent AI IPOs turning up at property viewings and offering share options as downpayments. And of those offers being accepted<\/p>\n

Every few weeks tens of thousands of these guys descend on the city for giant tech conferences. And they are mostly guys. They are the new cowboys with lanyards as neckerchiefs, but they are far from wild.<\/p>\n

A chef I know recently catered a large party for an AI company. He shook his head at the memory of it. <\/p>\n

\u201cNobody ate, nobody drank, they all stood around and barely even chatted with each other. These guys were in their early 20s and looked bored out of their minds. I ended up taking most of the food away. You know what? We need to show them how to party like we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet a few weeks ago at the Burning Man festival, 80,000 or so gathered in the Nevada desert\u2019s heat, sun and mud to get out of their heads and dance, with private jets bringing in the tech guys to land on the temporary sand runway. There\u2019s an upsurge in psychedelic drug taking while many shun alcohol. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sublime evenings and empty downtowns: Democrats threaten comeback in America\u2019s heartlandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Like most US cities, San Francisco still has large numbers of homeless people with addiction issues in certain areas, such as the Tenderloin. There is a drop-in centre called Hope Cafe. My friend Miriam is the baker. \u201cIt\u2019s not really a cafe at all, but it has all the trappings of a proper restaurant like taking orders, issuing receipts to customers and serving people proper food. It\u2019s about humanity and dignity,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

The libraries and parks of California<\/a> are effective day centres for the homeless. There are a few I see regularly down the road here, beside our yoga class. The woman who sits on the steps or inside the library, reading. The middle-aged man in the fashionable yet unclean clothes who walks around talking loudly to himself. And, in the last few weeks a young man, maybe 22, blond long hair, handsome, needs a shower, with rucksack and mat, doing the loop between the park and the library\u2019s free magazines and newspapers. He\u2019s no older than the guys in hoodies putting share options down on houses. <\/p>\n

The gap has never been bigger and the midterms are looming. Unexpectedly, rows over data centres<\/a> have become the new bunfights at the OK Corral. And the sheriffs of AI are suddenly voicing concerns over their posse of robots acting like outlaws<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Downtown they are trialling human style robots dressed in everyday clothes, just to see how we react or if we do at all.<\/p>\n

\"Artisan'sArtisan’s ad showing AI agent Ava upside down. Photograph: Yvonne Judge <\/p>\n

I saw a new AI ad today. The same company as before. Ava is now pictured upside down. The ad says \u201cAva Flipped for Humans\u201d. The inverted Ava is pictured wearing a T-shirt that says \u201cI Heart Humans\u201d. Right.<\/p>\n

Opposite Trader Joes, two young women on scaffolding carefully paint a mural. They are standing on a cherry picker handpainting a huge ad. The wall mural attracts onlookers. It depicts a San Francisco with cable cars on Market Street. With flying cars. The caption reads: \u201cSearch For An AI Future.\u201d The two artists take a rest.<\/p>\n

Seems there are some things we still need creative humans for. For now.<\/p>\n

Even AI couldn\u2019t make this up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Stop Hiring Humans,\u201d declares the billboard. Ava is the AI model pictured in the ad. She is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,179,8189,111,139,69,145,1430],"class_list":["post-635055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-california","tag-data-centres","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}