NY Bans Smart Glasses, Anthropic Privacy Scandal, Torvalds on AI, Meta Cooling Crisis

New York is becoming the first U.S. state to ban recording-capable smart glasses from every courthouse, marking what could be the beginning of a broader shift in how governments regulate AI-powered wearables. Meanwhile, Anthropic is defending itself after hidden tracking code was discovered in Claude Code. The company says it was designed to prevent AI model theft, but the controversy arrives just as Anthropic launches Reflection, a feature that analyzes months of user interactions—raising a much larger question about whether AI privacy should be governed by corporate policies or by law. Linux creator Linus Torvalds also offers a surprisingly balanced view of artificial intelligence. He says he no longer considers himself a programmer, admits he uses AI for prototyping, praises it for finding software bugs, but warns that AI-generated bug reports often create more work than they solve. He also weighs in on the ongoing Rust versus C debate and argues that software design—not programming language—is usually the real problem. Finally, a wastewater incident at a Meta-affiliated AI data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming has prompted regulators to suspend fill-and-flush discharges for every connected data center. The irony is that the affected cooling technology is one of the industry's most promising ways to reduce AI's enormous water consumption. The story raises a broader question: when a new technology encounters a problem, should regulators ban it—or develop better ways to manage the risks? If you enjoy independent technology journalism that looks beyond the headlines to explain why these stories matter, please subscribe, like, and share the episode. Timestamps 00:00 Headlines and intro 00:39 New York bans smart glasses in courthouses 02:40 Anthropic tracking code and the AI privacy debate 05:18 Linus Torvalds on AI, programming and responsibility 08:17 Meta data center cooling setback and AI water use 10:44 Wrap up