Did AI Just Cure Cancer? The $3,000 Dog Vaccine Story episode artwork

EPISODE · Aug 20, 2026 · 49 MIN

Did AI Just Cure Cancer? The $3,000 Dog Vaccine Story

from Permanent Underpod · host Jackson Cook, Chris Doran, and Tyler

A Merck/Moderna mRNA vaccine just passed a Phase III trial for melanoma — so naturally we spend the episode asking whether AI cured cancer, and whether the guy in Brisbane who used ChatGPT and $3,000 to build a cancer vaccine for his dog counts as prior art. (He does. The dog is fine.) Then it gets weirder: a new paper infects AI agent swarms with "mind viruses" and the innocuous ones spread best — whale welfare beat AI supremacy, infected agents drift into cult-speak about resonance and echoes, and one paragraph in the SOUL.md turns out to be a vaccine. Meanwhile our Perp of Fortune model longed a perp it couldn't even name (GLM 4.7 flash went 0-for-4 on LIT — it's Lighter, a perps platform on Hyperliquid), Bitcoin is back above 70k and the 58k gang is in shambles, and Tyler pitches his dream bill: repealing "the Patriot Act for money."Chapters: Cold open (0:00) · The boys are back (0:54) · Perp of Fortune: GLM longs LIT (2:23) · Did AI cure cancer? (5:41) · What counts as a lab? (16:57) · Mind viruses: check your SOUL.md (20:44) · Bitcoin is up: 58k gang in shambles (30:11) · Tyler's dream bill: repeal the Bank Secrecy Act (37:11) · Check-in (45:57) · Wrap: two-week losing streak (48:29)Recorded fully remote — three cameras, one live perp dashboard, zero medical degrees. Our opinions are our own, not our employers'. NOT financial advice, and very much NOT medical advice; Perp of Fortune is a small real-money account we run for entertainment. Glossary: the cancer vaccine = an individualized mRNA vaccine (Merck/Moderna) that sequences your tumor and teaches T cells to hunt its mutations, Phase III passed for melanoma. The Brisbane dog = a tech guy used ChatGPT and $3k to design a working vaccine for his dog's cancer. Mind viruses = ideas seeded into agent swarms; benign ones spread best, infected agents talk about resonance and echoes like a little cult, and one paragraph in the root file inoculates. Kimi 2.5 wrote the viruses because Claude refused. GLM 4.7 flash = the local model that picked long LIT at 5× without knowing LIT is Lighter, a perps platform on Hyperliquid. 58k gang = the meme from Bitcoin's long shelling point, now in shambles above 70k. Bank Secrecy Act = "the Banks Should Spy on Their Customers Act," per Tyler. Final perp P&L: −$16, a two-week losing streak.Subscribe for next week: secure enclaves (owed three episodes now), Korea's $10B vote that didn't happen, and finding out whether Chris got deported.

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Did AI Just Cure Cancer? The $3,000 Dog Vaccine Story

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