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Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• How to Stop Meta's AI Image Gen Preying on Your 'G …

• Why Quantum Computing is Leaving Science Fiction B …

• Claude Cowork Expands to Mobile and Web

• AI Hysteria Grips San Francisco Real Estate

• Costco Is Making Millionaires of Its Cashiers

• Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.81% )  $DJI ( ▲ 0.27% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$META ( ▲ 4.7% )  $NVDA ( ▼ 0.66% )  $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 0.37% )  $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.28% )  $COST ( ▼ 4.21% )  $WMT ( ▼ 0.79% )  

How to Stop Meta's AI Image Gen Preying on Your 'Gram

Surprise! That masterfully lit, gluten-free avocado toast photo you posted in 2021 is no longer just a monument to your brunch history — it is now prime training data for Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s $META ( ▲ 4.7% ) global AI ambitions.

Meta recently unleashed Muse Image, a shiny new AI model available on Instagram and WhatsApp. The creepy catch? If you are an adult with a public account, you were automatically enrolled. Other users can simply tag your handle in the Meta AI app and command the chatbot to generate new images using part or all of your published photos. Yes, they can seamlessly warp your beach selfies or reimagine you as a claymation character. Even worse, Meta won’t bother to send a notification when your digital likeness gets hijacked.

Naturally, the internet is revolting over this. Hundreds of furious users have taken to social media, with one slamming the sneaky feature as “a privacy landmine waiting to detonate.”

But do not delete your account in a panic just yet. A Meta spokesman promised that this feature can be disabled “with just a couple clicks.” Here is exactly how you can dodge the AI harvesting machine:

• The Private Route: Simply switch your Instagram account to private, which completely shields your photos from the feature.

• The Settings Fix: If you want to keep your public profile, open Instagram’s settings and scroll down to the “share and reuse” tab. Look for the section titled “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features” and toggle that setting to “off.”

Bear in mind, Meta admits users still cannot stop their audio, text, or comments from being reused by the AI. But hey, at least your face is safe from becoming a stranger’s weird group trip meme.

Quote of the Day

Why Quantum Computing is Leaving Science Fiction Behind

If you struggle to understand quantum physics, don’t feel bad — “Einstein barely understood them,” jokes Infleqtion CEO Matt Kinsella. But while subatomic physics remain baffling, the political race to harness them for profit is heating up. Thanks to a pair of new executive orders, quantum computing is officially moving from the dusty realms of sci-fi straight into national policy strategy.

Quantum computing abandons boring binary logic to use “the fundamental logic of the universe.” The result? Performance improvements that aren't just slightly better, but “10 to 100 to 1,000 to in some cases 10,000 times more performative.” Naturally, this has massive national security implications, prompting some highly specific, time-bound directives from the administration.

The first order forces the Department of War to deploy three operational quantum sensors in the field by 2028. The second order is essentially a digital panic button, preparing the world for “post quantum encryption.” Why? Because these super-machines will easily “disrupt the encryption methods we've been utilizing for decades” to keep our secrets safe, Matt said.

For years, quantum was the tech world's favorite running joke — perpetually "five years away." But Kinsella reveals that the timeline has shifted “from if to when” and now “from when to soon.” His startup, Infleqtion, is already trapping millions of atoms on chips to build sensors and clocks. They are “following Nvidia's $NVDA ( ▼ 0.66% )  footsteps” by commercializing near-term sensing tech while building toward the “crown jewel” of true quantum computing.

The U.S. faces a fierce race against China's top-down, state-funded approach. But Kinsella is betting on the home team: “I will bet on that capitalist methodology every day,” he insists. Let’s just hope capitalist ingenuity moves fast enough for me to change my banking password from “Password1” by 2028.

Claude Cowork Expands to Mobile and Web

Great news for everyone who loves taking their crushing corporate anxiety on the go! Anthropic’s $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 0.37% ) Claude Cowork, which launched as a desktop app in January, has officially broken free and is coming straight to your smartphone for Max subscribers.

With this update, you can start a task at your desk, shut your laptop, and receive status updates on your phone. Why enjoy a peaceful, offline commute when you can have an AI teammate tag along across your devices?

Interestingly, early data reveals that people aren't using this cutting-edge tool to write revolutionary code. Instead, a massive 33.4% of sessions are spent on "business process operating" — which is corporate-speak for compiling scattered reports, building checklists, and reconciling spreadsheets. Coding, by comparison, accounted for a measly 8.7%.

Even the creators seem mildly surprised by our collective desire to offload the boring stuff. As Anthropic said in a statement, "While coding is still — understandably — one of the uses of AI that gets the most attention, the use of AI for everyday business work is on the rise."

Still, rejoice, office warriors! You can now command Claude to "work through my email threads" from your cellphone at 6 a.m. while you stay in bed until noon.

Song of the Day: LOVA, ‘Leave It Beautiful’

Here’s an unsentimental, tender valediction from Swedish indie-pop artist LOVA.

AI Hysteria Grips San Francisco Real Estate

If you are looking to buy a house in San Francisco, hide your dollars. Cash is so last decade. Today, if you want a three-bedroom home with 10-foot ceilings and a kitchen wrapped in Calacatta marble, you had better bypass the bank and pay in pre-IPO OpenAI $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.28% )  or Anthropic $ANTHZZX ( ▲ 0.37% )  stock.

Welcome to the ultimate AI gold rush, where home sellers are happily bypassing cold, hard cash to speculate on unlisted tech shares. Developer Nima Gabbay recently listed his property with an unusual clause accepting startup equity, telling the New York Times, “There’s a bit of a gold rush situation right now in San Francisco.” He immediately caught the eye of OpenAI employees eager to trade their stock.

The market has become so deeply untethered from reality that luxury real estate agent Pete Rodway reports, “There’s a hysteria that’s out there right now.” His OpenAI clients are frantically scrambling to buy $5 million homes today just to beat the upcoming wave of post-IPO paper billionaires. Naturally, these overnight tycoons need professional emotional support. Garret Spiecker, a Citizens Private Bank "financial therapist" who advises these young millionaires, notes that “in this cycle... a lot of these individuals are very young and quite wealthy very fast.”

And if you do not have stock? Prepare for weird barter requests. When Databricks software engineer Sam Rosenstein and his partner Michelle Huang bid on a property, the seller offered a $10,000 discount in exchange for “60 hours of AI consulting” on a personal project. Rosenstein declined, calling it “totally the weirdest thing that has happened.” Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur Vijay Chattha tried trading his Sonoma vacation home for Anthropic stock, reasoning, “I think Anthropic is going to grow faster than the real estate market, so why not just do a trade?”

Why anybody would want to live next door to any of these folks, of course, is another question entirely.

Costco Is Making Millionaires of Its Cashiers

Forget medical school, Wall Street, or begging for pre-IPO AI stock in San Francisco. If you want to become a certified millionaire, it’s time to lace up your comfortable black Hoka sneakers and start practicing your bulk-scanning technique.

Take Tony Barzar, a 60-year-old Costco $COST ( ▼ 4.21% ) cashier in Tucson who has been with the company for four decades. He currently patrols the self-checkout lanes wielding a scanner gun like a high-tech financial wizard. Thanks to Costco’s aggressive retail generosity, Barzar pulls in $32.90 an hour and boasts a retirement 401(k) nest egg worth over $1 million. In fact, Costco’s chief financial officer, Gary Millerchip, told the Wall Street Journal that “many thousands” of their U.S. hourly workers are sitting on million-dollar 401(k) accounts.

And no, you don’t even have to climb the corporate ladder. Barzar has repeatedly rejected promotions to supervisor because he genuinely prefers direct customer contact. “I would say this is my calling, right where I’m at,” he told the Journal. Why manage people when you can buy a three-bedroom house with a pool, visit Europe, and enjoy a $15 co-pay for doctor visits?

This capitalistic fairytale has Costco managers sweating, however. Since employees are getting rich scanning bulk muffins, they are now retiring earlier than the company would prefer. Tucson general manager Travis Maze complained that while early retirement is great for the workers, “we’d like to keep them,” noting that losing seasoned veterans “comes at the expense of experience” and causes “dilution... to our core culture.”

People love working at Costco compared to other retailers. Walmart $WMT ( ▼ 0.79% ) struggles with early attrition, experiencing a first-year retention rate of only about 30% — meaning a staggering 70% of new hires leave within their first year. Costco, by comparison, maintains a legendary 94% first-year retention rate (meaning only 6% to 8% of workers leave in their first year), while the broader retail industry average for annual turnover hovers around 60%.

Repeat after me: “Find everything alright?”

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Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

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Still a no, for crying out loud…

Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

Poll of the Day: Sticker Shock

We asked: Did you notice an increase in your burger prices over the July 4 weekend?

You answered:

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Not really. I didn't get sticker shock or anything. (92)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes. I noticed that burgers were more expensive. (77)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 YES. I noticed that burgers were a LOT more EXPENSIVE. (131)
300 votes via @beehiiv polls

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