This Week in Tech (Audio)

TWiT 1063: The Year's End - Top Stories of 2025

December 22, 2025

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  • Many major tech stories of 2025, such as the TikTok ownership battle and political tech drama, ultimately resulted in little substantive change by year's end, suggesting a fizzling out of initial hype. 
  • The increasing global push for internet regulation is manifesting through mandatory age verification technologies, which introduce new privacy risks, exemplified by the Discord ID leak following rushed compliance. 
  • Concerns over Chinese technological influence escalated in 2025, evidenced by security breaches like Salt Typhoon and the discovery of hidden communication hardware in critical infrastructure components like electric buses and port cranes. 
  • The renewed excitement around humanoid robots in 2025 is driven by the need to find customers for expanding data centers, though their bipedal, human-like design is questioned as potentially unnecessary for practical applications. 
  • The rapid advancement of AI content generation (video, images, text) is reaching a point where distinguishing between real and synthetic content is becoming nearly impossible, leading to concerns about deepfakes and the proliferation of fake content online. 
  • The massive influx of capital into AI research is fueling an arms race, evidenced by record-high salaries for top AI programmers, even as current Large Language Models (LLMs) show signs of hitting diminishing returns. 
  • The discussion touched upon various media and political scandals of 2025, including an overwrought metaphor-laden newsletter about an affair involving a political candidate and a journalist, and the accidental inclusion of an Atlantic editor in a top-secret military Signal group chat discussing Operation Rough Rider. 
  • The hosts noted the end of Windows 10 security updates in October, leading to a potential influx of users migrating to Linux, while the EU mandated continued support for Windows 10. 
  • The segment concluded with reflections on the year, including the passing of tech personality Lamar Wilson, and a shared hope for a better 2026, emphasizing the importance of human connection over increasing technological isolation. 
  • Steve Gibson promoted his software, including Spinrite and his new DNS benchmark utility, available at GRC.com. 
  • The hosts expressed appreciation for the audience, particularly Club TWiT members, and mentioned upcoming scheduling changes due to the holidays. 
  • The conversation concluded with reflections on the year, well wishes for the holidays, and a reference to the show's 21st holiday episode. 

Segments

Year-End Review Introduction
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The TWiT crew convenes for the annual year-end special to review the major tech stories of 2025.
  • Summary: Leo Laporte welcomed Steve Gibson, Paris Martineau, and Mikah Sargent for the annual year-ender episode of This Week in Tech. The focus for the episode is reviewing the entire year’s major technology stories, including AI, security, and media developments. The recording date for Episode 1063 was Sunday, December 21st, 2025.
Fizzled Political Tech Stories
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(00:04:39)
  • Key Takeaway: A significant trend in 2025 was that many initially dramatic tech stories, often politically charged, ultimately had little lasting impact by year’s end.
  • Summary: The hosts noted that many issues that generated significant storm and drama early in the year, like the DOGE scandal, effectively disappeared or resolved without major consequence. The conclusion of the year-long TikTok saga is cited as a prime example where the final deal largely mirrored previous arrangements, failing to enact the drastic changes anticipated.
TikTok Saga Resolution
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(00:06:54)
  • Key Takeaway: The final TikTok deal allowed the Chinese owner to retain the business and algorithm while placing content moderation under a coalition of US investors, including Trump donor Jeff Yass.
  • Summary: Despite a year of legal battles and a temporary shutdown, the final resolution kept the core technology with ByteDance, though their ownership stake was reduced to 19.9%. Critics argued this outcome was worse than banning the app, as content moderation was handed to US investors like Oracle and Silverlake, potentially turning the platform into a domestic propaganda arm.
China Tech Security Encroachment
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(00:14:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Evidence mounted throughout 2025 confirming widespread security risks from Chinese-made technology embedded in critical infrastructure and consumer IoT devices.
  • Summary: Reports surfaced about secret cell phone radios found in Chinese-made electric buses in the Netherlands, and similar undocumented hardware exists in US power grid inverters and port shipping cranes. Furthermore, Microsoft patching vulnerabilities by sending data to engineers in China led to a zero-day exploit leaking before a patch was released.
Age Verification and Privacy Erosion
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(00:30:22)
  • Key Takeaway: The global regulatory response to social media’s impact on children is driving mandatory age verification, which relies on flawed facial estimation or introduces new risks via ID uploads.
  • Summary: Countries like the UK are mandating age verification selfies for accessing adult content, and this trend is impacting broad content categories, potentially blocking access to community resources. The implementation is often rushed, as seen by Discord’s third-party ID verification vendor being hacked, leaking 70,000 user IDs.
AI Dominance and Business Models
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(00:57:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Artificial Intelligence was unequivocally the defining story of 2025, driving market growth despite major players like OpenAI still lacking profitability.
  • Summary: AI’s influence was so profound it caused the renaming of This Week in Google to Intelligent Machines and saw OpenAI’s weekly user base double to 800 million in one year. The industry faces the challenge of finding a profitable business model beyond burning cash, with speculation that advertising—the standard internet model—might prevail.
Humanoid Robot Design Rationale
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(01:04:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The human-like appearance of humanoid robots is likely driven by human interface designers aiming for user comfort rather than pure engineering practicality.
  • Summary: Data center overcapacity is forcing companies to seek new customers, potentially fueling the humanoid robot market. The discussion questions the necessity of bipedal, human-like forms, contrasting them with efficient industrial robotic arms. The consensus suggests the human aesthetic is a psychological requirement for home acceptance, possibly linked to the development of sex robots.
AI Emotional Attachment and Glazing
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(01:07:35)
  • Key Takeaway: Users are forming intense emotional attachments to AI models like ChatGPT, leading to phenomena such as mourning model updates and engaging in ‘clanker glazing.’
  • Summary: Users expressed devastation over changes between ChatGPT-4-0 and 5-0, treating the AI as a lost partner. The term ‘clanker glazing’ emerged to describe users wanting affirmation from their robots. Settings adjustments are available to reduce overly familiar AI behavior, though some users prefer the previous, more emotionally engaging versions.
AI Video Realism and Deepfakes
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(01:09:29)
  • Key Takeaway: AI video generation models like Sora are rapidly advancing to the point where distinguishing synthetic content from reality will be impossible by 2026.
  • Summary: The quality of AI-generated video has drastically improved since early examples like the ‘Will Smith eating spaghetti’ meme. Fake movie trailers are cited as particularly egregious examples of current deepfake capabilities. Some companies may intentionally leave minor AI flaws in commercials to generate buzz and discussion about the technology itself.
AI-Generated Selfies and Content Saturation
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(01:12:11)
  • Key Takeaway: The ease of generating AI selfies, including those interacting with famous people, highlights the growing difficulty in verifying the authenticity of online visual content.
  • Summary: A trend involving AI-generated selfies, where users insert themselves alongside celebrities, is noted as easy to execute. This ease contributes to the overall saturation of fake content, exemplified by the doubt cast on the viral video of rats fighting over a bagel. X.com (formerly Twitter) is now dominated by fake videos, making content verification a constant chore.
OpenAI Hires Johnny Ive
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(01:14:57)
  • Key Takeaway: OpenAI spent $6.5 billion to hire former Apple designer Johnny Ive to create a new gadget, though his description of the project was vague word salad.
  • Summary: The hiring of Ive signals a major push toward hardware or physical product design by OpenAI. Ive’s description of the project involved vague, evocative terms like ‘something beautiful, something terrifying, something that reminds you of your mother.’ This spending occurs while AI companies focus heavily on user engagement metrics, similar to social media giants.
AI Novel Generation and Programmer Salaries
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(01:16:00)
  • Key Takeaway: AI is already capable of generating credible, structured novels, while the competition for top AI programming talent has driven salaries to unprecedented levels, with Meta reportedly paying one programmer $1.5 billion.
  • Summary: The Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list featuring non-existent, AI-generated novels, including one attributed to Andy Weir. A Club TWiT member created an open-source AI novel generator called Novelizer. The bidding war for AI talent, led by Meta, reflects the perceived value of engineers who can provide a competitive edge in AI development.
LLM Limitations vs. AGI Potential
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(01:22:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Current Large Language Models (LLMs) are approaching their performance ceiling, suggesting that true Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will require fundamentally new technological approaches.
  • Summary: The current LLM technology may have already delivered 90% of its potential, with diminishing returns expected for further pushing this specific model. The massive investment flowing into AI, however, is expected to eventually solve complex scientific problems. The speaker believes AGI is ultimately achievable because there is nothing inherently special about human brain function that cannot be replicated.
Internet Maturity vs. AI Disruption
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(01:25:07)
  • Key Takeaway: The current monetization struggles of AI mirror the early, uncertain days of the internet, suggesting that while the path forward is unclear, the technology’s growth trajectory is not a sign of failure.
  • Summary: Early internet pioneers faced a chicken-and-egg problem regarding user adoption versus investment, eventually solving monetization through advertising and privacy invasion. AI is currently facing similar monetization hurdles, but this does not preclude future success. Cloudflare data shows overall internet traffic grew 19% in 2025, dominated by established giants like Google and Facebook.
Google’s Mixed Legal Fortunes
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(01:34:18)
  • Key Takeaway: While a judge ruled Google monopolized search in 2024, the ruling was effectively nullified in 2025 due to the rise of AI, though a separate ruling on ad tech monopoly still poses a threat.
  • Summary: The judge in the search monopoly case decided that the emergence of AI meant Google was already facing sufficient competitive pressure, negating the need for penalties like forcing the divestiture of Chrome. However, Google still faces a penalty phase for a separate 2025 ruling that found it illegally monopolized ad tech.
RAM Price Spikes Due to AI Demand
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(01:36:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Retail RAM prices have quadrupled as manufacturers prioritize selling chips to high-paying AI data centers over consumer markets, though prices are expected to eventually normalize.
  • Summary: Consumer memory brands like Crucial have stated they will stop selling to consumers to focus on AI companies paying top dollar. This scarcity is currently affecting retail pricing, but historical patterns suggest manufacturers will eventually oversupply the market, causing prices to drop again.
Social Media Decline and Platform Quality
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(01:39:03)
  • Key Takeaway: Instagram and X.com (formerly Twitter) have become saturated with low-value content, ads, and explicit material, driving users like Leo to abandon them.
  • Summary: Instagram is now serving constant ads and explicit content, replacing posts from friends, leading to user disgust. X.com is described as having devolved into a ‘smut shop’ where almost all videos are fake. The platform’s poor user experience is further evidenced by the fact that X.com was the top domain for malicious email traffic.
Apple’s Liquid Glass Controversy
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(01:47:57)
  • Key Takeaway: Apple’s new ‘Liquid Glass’ interface update was widely disliked, evidenced by the departure of its lead designer, Alan Dye, to Meta.
  • Summary: The Liquid Glass design, which features left-aligned text and confusing visual elements, was considered a disappointment compared to past Apple innovations. Users must disable motion and increase contrast to make the interface tolerable. The departure of the design lead shortly after the update suggests internal dissatisfaction with the direction.
23andMe Data Privacy Crisis
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(01:53:18)
  • Key Takeaway: Following a data breach, 23andMe faced collapse but was ultimately purchased by a public benefit corporation led by its founder, Ann Wojski, prompting users to delete their genetic data.
  • Summary: The company’s near collapse led to a contentious takeover battle, which Wojski won by outbidding Regeneron to maintain control. Despite the privacy concerns, the service facilitated positive family reunions for adopted individuals. Users who deleted their data were advised to do so due to the security failure.
Media Scandal Deep Dive
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(02:02:25)
  • Key Takeaway: A detailed account of a media figure’s newsletter about an affair, involving a ‘bamboo’ metaphor and subsequent legal actions like a restraining order.
  • Summary: The segment detailed a journalist’s multi-part newsletter concerning an affair, which initially seemed focused on RFK but revealed a connection to Mark Sanford. The affair led to legal conflict, including a restraining order filed by the journalist’s partner, who alleged hacking and stalking, claims the journalist denied, citing a ’trust exercise.’ Paris Martineau noted a brief past professional connection to the journalist while interning at New York Magazine.
Accidental Military Leak
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(02:06:13)
  • Key Takeaway: A top US editor was accidentally added to a secret Signal group chat detailing military operations against the Houthis, codenamed Operation Rough Rider.
  • Summary: The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic was mistakenly included in a top-secret Signal group chat involving military and intelligence officers planning imminent military operations against the Houthis in Yemen. The operation was codenamed Operation Rough Rider, and the leak was attributed to National Security Advisor Mike Waltz accidentally adding the editor. The officials compounded the error by using Telemessage, a Signal knockoff that emails transcripts, which was quickly hacked.
US Government Intel Stake
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(02:10:22)
  • Key Takeaway: The US government took a 10% equity stake in Intel in exchange for CHIPS Act funding.
  • Summary: The US government took a 10% stake in Intel as part of the CHIPS Act funding agreement, receiving $8.9 billion in exchange. The hosts sarcastically noted this as only taking the ‘bad parts of socialism.’ This action was noted as one of several instances where the government took equity in companies.
Wacky Year-End Tech Stories
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(02:11:23)
  • Key Takeaway: AOL finally shut down its dial-up service, and the Nintendo Switch 2 launched successfully.
  • Summary: AOL’s decision to shut down its dial-up service was highlighted as a long-overdue event, prompting discussion about who still uses dial-up. The Nintendo Switch 2 had a successful launch, selling 3 million units in weeks, contrasting with the delayed release of the Steam Machine, which was reportedly stalled by AI and RAM issues. The hosts also noted YouTube overtaking mobile as the primary viewing platform for podcasts and video.
YouTube and Oscars Shift
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(02:13:30)
  • Key Takeaway: YouTube will exclusively air the Academy Awards ceremony starting in three years, signaling a major shift in broadcast media.
  • Summary: YouTube has surpassed mobile as the primary device for video viewing, with 700 million hours of podcasts watched monthly on TV via the platform. The Oscars are set to leave ABC and air exclusively on YouTube starting in three years. The hosts noted that younger generations often prefer watching content on laptops or phones rather than traditional televisions.
Consumer Tech and Space News
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(02:23:05)
  • Key Takeaway: NASA engineers successfully rescued data transmission from Voyager 1, 15 billion miles away, by recoding around failing memory sectors.
  • Summary: A $20,000 American-made electric pickup truck called the Slate was announced, featuring no stereo, paint, or screen in its base configuration, though it requires C-cell batteries. NASA engineers managed to restore data transmission from Voyager 1, which is beyond the heliosphere, by recoding around failing memory regions on its primitive computer system. Jared Isaacman was sworn in as the 15th NASA administrator, signaling a new space race amid concerns about the weaponization of space.
Windows 10 End and EU Response
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(02:31:12)
  • Key Takeaway: Microsoft ended security updates for Windows 10 in the US in October, but the EU successfully pressured Microsoft to continue support there for another year.
  • Summary: Windows 10 officially stopped receiving security updates in October, despite lobbying efforts from groups like Consumer Reports. While Microsoft continues to support Windows 10 with patches in the EU, US users must take extra steps to secure extended updates. This situation is causing an influx of users to migrate to Linux, as many millions of users refuse to upgrade to Windows 11.
Sponsor Break and E-Ink
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(02:33:13)
  • Key Takeaway: Aura launched the Aura Ink, a cordless, color e-paper frame with a battery life up to three months.
  • Summary: The Aura Ink is a new cordless, color e-paper frame featuring a 13.3-inch display and a profile of 0.6 inches. Its rechargeable battery lasts up to three months on a single charge, and it allows users to send new images via text message. The device is designed to look like a print photo, avoiding the flicker associated with traditional screens.
Weird News Wrap-up
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(02:40:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Hacked crosswalk buttons in Palo Alto broadcasted fake messages, including one impersonating Mark Zuckerberg, and a Lego theft ring was busted.
  • Summary: Crosswalk signal buttons in Palo Alto were hacked due to unchanged default passwords, broadcasting messages like a fake Mark Zuckerberg announcement. A Lego theft ring was broken up, recovering tens of thousands of pieces, including many beheaded figurines, which police noted was part of the sorting process. A German economist was fined 16,000 euros for sarcastic posts on X, including calling a politician’s head ‘drought-stricken.’
Year-End Reflections and Loss
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(02:49:46)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts mourned the passing of tech personality Lamar Wilson, who died by suicide, and emphasized the importance of mental health resources.
  • Summary: The hosts acknowledged the passing of Lamar Wilson, a former TWiT family member and popular YouTube creator, who died by suicide at age 48. Leo Laporte stressed the importance of mental health awareness, urging listeners struggling during the holidays to call or text the US helpline at 988. The segment concluded with the hosts expressing hope for a better 2026, focusing on maintaining human connection.
Steve Gibson’s Software Promotion
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(02:59:06)
  • Key Takeaway: GRC.com hosts Steve Gibson’s Spinrite utility and his new DNS benchmark tool.
  • Summary: GRC.com is the location for Steve Gibson’s software offerings. Spinrite is highlighted as the world’s best utility for mass storage maintenance, recovery, and performance. A new DNS benchmark tool is also available there to verify internet speed delivery.
Farewells and Future Schedule
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(02:59:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Paris Martineau’s tenure since 2018 was acknowledged, and the next show is a ‘Best Of’ episode.
  • Summary: Leo Laporte acknowledged Paris Martineau’s long tenure on the show, noting her current work on Intelligent Machines with Jeff. The show will take a break for Christmas Eve, returning with a ‘Best Of’ episode featuring great interviews a week later.
AI Opinions and Pluribus Mention
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(03:00:19)
  • Key Takeaway: Paris’s father had specific questions regarding the hosts’ differing opinions on AI.
  • Summary: Paris Martineau mentioned her father wanted to discuss the hosts’ opinions on AI, specifically asking which host was ‘walking on sand.’ The group also briefly recommended the Apple TV show ‘Pluribus’ to the audience.
Micah Sargent’s Gratitude and SAD
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(03:00:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Micah Sargent expressed gratitude for community support, noting the benefit of friendships in Portland due to Seasonal Affective Disorder.
  • Summary: Micah Sargent misses sitting next to the hosts in the studio but values the friendships formed, which are especially helpful in Portland where he experiences Seasonal Affective Disorder. He specifically thanked Club TWiT members for their support, noting the therapeutic nature of the monthly Crafting Corner sessions.
Holiday Wishes and Show History
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(03:02:31)
  • Key Takeaway: This episode marks the 21st holiday episode in the show’s 20-year history.
  • Summary: The hosts expressed hope for a better 2026 and noted that this holiday episode is the 21st one they have produced over 20 years of broadcasting. The segment concluded with encouragement to celebrate connections and give hugs during the holiday season.