Review of CNN's The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door Documentary

I watched this recent CNN documentary on the 2018 Salisbury nerve agent attacks. In summation what happened at its onset and as the film explains: on March fourth of that year, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were hospitalised after being discovered unresponsive on a public park bench in what was initially believed to have been a drug overdose and admitted and taken to ICU immediately where both wound up surviving, as opposed to the second similar occurrence on July eighth later that year wherein after spraying the perfume capsule hiding the deadly chemical was not so lucky. Three people were arrested in suspicion and with ties to the Russian president, personally, and for allegedly being who administering the chemical A-234 of the Navichok family of nerve agents developed under the Soviet Union's FOLIANT program onto the four firsthand victims.

The documentary makes the story itself largely irrelevant in actuality in order to make the matter as a whole about why one should find the formerly Soviet state of Russia untrustworthy under the autocratic and authoritarian regime of its president Vladimir Putin. Spliced between this being that of Wikipedia level general information on the chemical attacks, while the vast majority goes onto attempt to ingrain this sentiment onto the viewer and takes more time on that and the idea Putin has a wish to revive the USSR than it does on the case. Such is merely a half truth and a largely convoluted one given the Russian president himself has never actually stated anything explicitly to that matter, rather expressing a wish to reunify former Russian territory and where the populations already in most ways would be culturally, ethnically and linguistically Russian to create a new Greater Russia; stating to the matter himself that, while the collapse of the Soviet state was the, "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th Century," that, "Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains." With that and the convolution of things such as the Minsk Accords and various attempts throughout Putin's early leadership at merging with NATO which was humoured but with a look at the history, clearly never actually going to happen for need of a boogeyman and, who in reality, broke their deal not to expand closer to the Russian land mass first and even prior to the subsequent conflicts from 2008 to now with the current war in Ukraine. 

Touching on the matter in light detail of Sergei Skripal himself being formerly a Russian military intelligence official who, in 1995 began working as a double agent on behalf of MI6 until the early 2000s. He was caught, tried and convicted in 2004, serving six years out of a sentence of thirteen years when he was released during a 2010 spy-swap negotiation-agreement between the West and Russia. Paired with the air of the whole documentary being the black and white pandering of simply 'Russia Bad' is an oversight of the West's own history of executing agents of espionage; and as a major example the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who where convicted of giving the USSR nuclear secrets and resultingly executed by the electric chair. Difference in this being of course, the two had been on United States soil in doing so while if Russia is truly the culprit as the suspects in the matter are of that affiliation with the 2018 scenario, crossed many borders in order to do so; however they are still only alleged crimes to their end and nothing has been set in stone yet as of 2026, two years shy of a decade later. 

Obviously no two people, as with no nations either, are required by any means to get along. It does however seem a journalistic oversight not to be asking that if it ultimately proves to have been a Russian terror attack and with accumulated conflict with the nation, why said country is the way it is? Saying Putin was bullied as a youth and that's why he is how he is, as one speaker in the CNN documentary claims, really just doesn't cut it at all. Case in point being, the documentary ultimately fails in its subject matter for a focus on international polarisation.

Front Toward Enemy & Revelation 8; Lucifer's Teardrop & Enantiomorph Pre-Analysis

1. Front Toward Enemy & Revelation 8

In the latest single by Marilyn Manson, Front Toward Enemy, from his upcoming sequel comeback album One Assassination Under God Chapter Two the Antichrist Superstar sings a line which seemingly stands to have some explanation to, as opposed to the rest of the song: "You chiseled open the seventh seal, it's the reason I exist." Hypothetically on some level this could be a harkon back to Holy Wood, as in Biblical literature the Lamb of God is the one who is worthy of opening up seven seals detailed in the Book of Revelation. These seals in order being the onset of the Armageddon, end-times prophecy; where supposedly the four horseman of the apocalypse are unleashed onto the world, each with a respective horse ushering in the destruction of the Earth. Obviously, as with anything presented in the Bible there's a range of interpretation surrounding the specific text at hand. Some view Revelation and these events as having yet to occur while others see this prophecy as an ongoing process symbolically correspondent to eras of historical conflict and human struggle over the centuries. 

In order the seven seals in Revelation are the following:

1. Out comes a rider on a white horse, who conquers the lands and brings a false peace,

2. A rider on a red horse comes and rescinds that peace then levying war and bloodshed,

3. Riding on a black horse then with shortage of food and ushering economic collapse with widespread famine,

4. Coming on a pale horse and accompanied by Hades with brought about disease and mass mortality,

5. The souls of Christian martyrs and the faithful cry out to God for justice and vindication,

6. Mass geological and cosmic disasters occur, as the sun turns black and moon reddens,

7. A momentary silence lasting around half an hour before seven angels blow into their trumpets to signal further judgement to come

Revelation 8 is when the Lamb of God goes to unlock this seventh and final seal in the list, setting a brief pause in Heaven— the eye of the storm— wherein which seven angels go on to blare their instruments onsetting further cataclysm, in the first half that is. From there as the trumpets are sounding is where the already devastated world is engulfed in the typical image of the end times; in a hailstorm of fire, blood and darkness descending with each ringing out of the horns. Finishing off Revelation 8 is a declaration by an Eagle still somehow soaring overhead, saying, "Woe! Woe! Woe unto the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!"

Considering the titles of the proceeding yet to be released tracks listed on the album: All The Vilest Things, The Arsonist, None of the Suns and, Lucifer's Teardrop with possible exception to the first single this cycle Exit Wound and ending Enantiomorph; it seems like an interesting musical parallel and not out of the ordinary for Marilyn Manson to do. If One Assassination Under God Chapter One was concocted in Purgatory as he stated, this endless oblivion ending with the Sacrifice of the Mass; then similarly as announced with the release of this latest single that, "I outgrew purgatory and carved these songs into the skin of the world. As you listen I hope it forms a scar that you cannot forget," Chapter 2 may just be Hell unleashed on Earth. 

2. Lucifer's Teardrop

Of these next and still unreleased from the upcoming album and in spite of that fact is the seventh section in the Chapter, this being Lucifer's Teardrop. It's never been shied away from that the God of Fuck has an affinity towards the Angel With The Scabbed Wings, which is where the title of this track obviously derives from. Possibly specific in its point of reference is the Paradise Lost inspired 1847 oil painting of the Light Bearer/Bringer by Alexandre Cabanel called L'Angel Dechu. Depicting the prideful and rebellious Fallen Angel (as the French title translates to) with a smooth and near impeccable physique laying upon rocks, almost at ease whilst simultaneously poised to fire up at any moment before he is cast out of Paradise. Eyes full of wrath and rage, tears swelling silently before he falls to the Earth below.

3. Enantiomorph

Finale of the album from the aesthetic terrorist being the uniquely christened Enantiomorph. According to a 2008 article this word explores a visual concept of, "a pair of asymmetrical images that are mirror images of one another." Merriam-Webster further defines it as, "either a pair of chemical compounds whose molecular structures have a nonsuperimposable mirror-image relationship to another." Pointed out by a listener awaiting the release on a Marilyn Manson fan server on the Discord platform, this idea is intertwined with the idea of chirality; or, like Merriam-Webster's usage of the term, an object and its mirror image that are not identical to one another. This rings a bell to the cover art for the As Sick As The Secrets Within, which was the first released song of this whole two-album cycle, showing Manson holding a shard of a mirror that is characterised by the reflection of his face in his hand. 

Goad in the Grave, Efilism Movie Review, John Kiriakou & Front Toward Enemy Overview

Well it’s certainly time for another addition to what I called last year Claudia’s New News (get it, CNN? lol). 

Starting off with the new revelations of the death of Jim Goad, the notorious satirist and infamous author of Answer Me!, The Redneck Manifesto and various other publications. Going over the original breaker of news to me, Joe Nally/ @p‪@pilleater‬and the official declaring Ode by Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents.

From there I review a 2016 short movie on the ideological position called Efilism, which is the title of the half an hour film as well. Detailing its relation to Antinatalism and comparing the two sentiments approach to what I view largely as ‘lazy misanthropy’, and specifically in regards to this movie: mere pathos pulling projected posits. 

Some details on my thoughts overall about John Kiriakou, the former CIA member turned torture whistleblower. 

Then and finally I go over the widespread release of Marilyn Manson’s song Front Toward Enemy. Comparing both versions, from the original B-side release exclusive to physical copies of the Raise The Red Flag single; and how many liken both to that of Little Horn off of Antichrist Superstar, and rightly so for various reasons. 

The Search So Far...

Moving on from the events I detailed in The Stilts of Slaughter, combining it with my usual middle of the night/early morning routine of going out to grab creamer for my coffee and rides on my bike around town I have unfortunately yet to run into the prehistoric beasts from the other day. So far it's been about a week since the encounter after they swiftly ended the mechanical monster's massacre and I've spent many of these after dark/pre-dawn hours on a mission to find them to no avail; covering around 5 miles so far in thorough investigation of the surrounding area. One would think a trio of velociraptors would be easily spotted as an eyesore, being living dinosaurs claimed extinct as of 65 million years ago; and I say would be given I've seen them with my own two eyes and know they're here now.

On one of these expeditions I ran into a homeless friend of mine named Scott, who I came to know over the long time I spent working at Circle K, and enlisted him for the venture at hand. Naturally I queried to him about it given he is homeless and tends to sleep in the connected system of ditches and I witnessed the velociraptors leave the scene with the carcass of the rampaging automation. Asking if he had seen them himself in his time, he explained that while he has not personally had an encounter that many he knows in the homeless population here in Tucson have. Further inquiring from there as to where these tales specifically tend to occur, to which he detailed the usual encounters, as reported to him, being in between where we were at the moment in Oro Valley up to just past Stone Avenue near the newer Bookmans location and Tucson Mall, with some occasional sightings all the way out in Marana too.

All very interesting information, but still to no pot of gold at the end of the rainbows being regularly produced by the monsoons now in full swing here. It feels quite a bit like questing to find Bigfoot; so thankfully I am no longer in Washington state where the harassment of that humanoid, ape-like cryptid is an illegal act; so I can assume the search for living prehistoric beasts of prey is sanctioned somehow. But, like with Bigfoot, actual evidence beyond firsthand accounts such as my own or secondhand testimony via Scott is next to nill. This all leaving me to do as Dr. Ian Malcolm remarked in the first Jurassic Park movie about life, and finding a way.

On Skyler White

I was watching Breaking Bad (as I often turn to when I can't think of or find anything new to watch) and was thinking about Walter White, the man in the empire business, and how often is the sentiment by viewers and fans of the series that everything would have ended better if his wife Skyler either didn't exist, had cancer, or died in some way over the course of the show. On one hand, I can understand the annoyance as she is a very nagging character who seems like she's overreacting in many ways... but is she really Then on the other hand, she did sleep with her boss and as implied former lover— almost like her what she was, for a time, suspicious of her husband with his former girlfriend, Gretchen Schwarz—Ted Beneke in this retaliation. 

All the same, the character portrayed by Anna Gunn really did do the best she could considering all the coalescing circumstances upon her as well as she was able to— and at times even (not) allowed to— understand the entire gravity of her surroundings. From Walter contracting and fighting cancer, subsequent fake fugue state, her son largely blaming her for it all, being incredibly pregnant herself, financial issues she knows of while her husband secretly makes methamphetamine behind her back; all of which combine, largely resulting from what Mike Ermantraut retorted to the man before his own death at the hands of the solipsistic chemist's messes being mostly a byproduct of his overinflated sense of self. Combined she is almost naturally sent to Ted, who himself is freshly divorced and understands this alienation from his partner similar to her.

There's a saying, how true it is I'm unsure, that proclaims 'happy wife, happy life'. With that as a result of Walter's erratic and unexplained behavior, then when learning what it was in actuality paired with his seeming refusal towards charitable actions from friends and family based on aforementioned counterproductive pride, makes sense; to reiterate more simplistically.

Obviously the scene where she redid the scene of Marilyn Monroe happy birthday singing to John F. Kennedy at Ted's birthday to him, is incredibly cringe-inducing, however it comes down mainly to reliability and honesty in its ultimate expression of her character. Her husband proved wholly unreliable, even if his initial conceptualisation of manufacturing and selling meth was a way to provide more for them financially during his battle with cancer, and after he was gone; however as he stated in the final episode of the series that he did in fact do it all to placate himself. 

On the flip side though, I am also wrong here. She first began seeking extramarital attention from Ted Beneke when things had been on an upward trend in her and Walter's relationship. Good news about the cancer in his lungs being in remission led the family to host a little party in celebration of this new turn in the battle. During this uplifted gathering Walter is sitting at a table on their patio with their son Walter Jr. and Uncle Hank, who is divulging to his captivated nephew about his brief liaison to El Paso, where he saw Danny Trejo's briefly played character, The Tortoise, beheaded on a tortoise and explode in front of him, killing and badly wounding other DEA agents in front of him. Walter gets jealous at his son's enthrallment with his uncle's character, so gives him some tequila to try winning him over; then gives him more, aggressively and against Hank's attempts at curbing the whole affair, which results in Walter Jr. becoming almost immediately ill and puking his guts out into the pool. The next day at work Skyler is seen then grabbing Teds attention by knocking over a cup of pens and pencils while her boss was on his way out so as to get his attention and 'aid' in picking it up for her, so she being incredibly pregnant wouldn't have to do it; capturing his affection to her easily...

Bacchanalian: Analysis of Chapter Two of Tom O'Neill's CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties

Bacchanalian (adjective)
: of, relating to or suggesting the ancient religious rites marked by orgiastic revelry and drunkenness that were held in honor of Bacchus, the god of wine. (Merriam-Webster)
: implying that of an out of control hedonism fueled by substance, an alcohol soaked frenzy (my own   accumulated definition)

"Everyone, over time, assigned the blame for the crimes a little differently. I was dealing in memories that had survived decades of erosion. Even my most reliable sources were shaky on the details," wrote Tom O'Neill in the beginning of the second chapter of his book CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties. With that it would seem to heighten my initial and main query on the first chapter of the book, which retold the broad stroke of the Helter Skelter narrative and subsequent trial which came shortly thereafter; asking how truly reliable even firsthand testimony can be due to all these accumulating factors. Disassociation, supposed hypnosis with hypothetical LSD-induced mind control, coercion, and orgasm-inducing slaughter. Altogether I'm thusfar reminded of one of the first podcast/web radio series on the internet, Three Ring Radio, wherein on its 60th episode titled Process Church Facts & Fiction host Shane Bugbee and the one eyed bastard cohost Doug Mesner (pka "Lucien Greaves," real name: Douglas Alexander Misicko) investigate the convoluted history regarding The Process Church of the Final Judgement and within that their alleged and known ties to Charles Manson. From their visit to him in prison for an interview and subsequent article on Death by Manson in their official magazine's On Death issue. The woman on the phone with the two, prior to interviewing founding member Timothy Wyllie, questioned their own inquiring into the topic; remarking that it's all tantamount to 'ancient history' and that there will never be a complete story on any of the matters; echoing similar sentiment to Nikolas Schreck, another highly knowledgable researcher into the Manson Files. 

There is much which can be inferred and of mysterious note about the Process Church, both on its own and with possible deep ties to Charles Manson and Tate-LaBianca murders— usually with some sort of a link stemming from Charlie's brief delve into Scientology in association with the Process coming out of Scientology as its own splitoff, originally called Compulsions Analysis. Much of this mainly comes from the counterculture author and researcher Ed Sanders work titled The Family, as well as other eloquently presented evidence from fellow skeptics of both matters delving into the inconsistencies of both official narratives in Helter Skelter as well as propelled by the self-proclaimed "deviant psychotherapy cult."

"Their memories had warped to accommodate their bruised egos, their ulterior motives, and, above all, their sense that they were at the center of any story worth telling," O'Neill continued. If such is/was the case for these, "washed-up Hollywood personalities," as he calls them, who were in their dotage by the time he got around to speaking with them on the matter of the Tate-LaBianca slayings, then can the same then as well be said of the perpetrators both for their time in court and in the hindsight of later years to now? Based on the whole live freaky, die freaky fugue of it all around at the time, fueled by drugs of various kinds and degrees how much does anyone have a wholly accurate portrayal of events? 

"So many of the people I spoke to had strong ideas about why these murders had happened— and yet none of them had spoken to the police, and many remained unwilling to go on the record with me."

This can very much be called in to question as they spoke to Tom trying to uncover all this decades later, but not to any sort of law enforcement? While on one hand many were highly involved in narcotics, usage and distribution, these were as much the days where even though the mantra of Pigs being attributed to cops was at its height, it was widely thought then more than now that, 'the police are your friends' as well as being the LA upper echelon and almost untouchable in that regard as was then and even now. O'Neil mentions prior to this a, "conspiracy of silence in Hollywood," and to that end, much of the time he was writing this both Manson and Vincent Bugliosi had still been alive: so why speak to what would be an agent of the press at all?

Nikolas Schreck characterises similar, though with seemingly more detailed reasoning: be it, as he posits, and O'Neill lightly mentions the possibility of through one of these sources in the chapter, a drug deal gone wrong (which also was not uncommon then, or now) over the then new MDA; and going into the fact that Charles Manson was not an unknown face in these circles— including to those later murdered by the Family members on Cielo Drive— and being so embedded, as Schreck claims, he even starred in homemade pornographic films made by and for these members of 'elite' American entertainment. So, would much of this be saving face as well as bruised egos?

Chapter two of Tom O'Neill's book delves into the surrounding crowd of those murdered in Hollywood on August 8, 1969. Touching quickly upon the constrained and in its own right convoluted marriage between Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski, via the reports of her friends who detailed what would seem to be a tumultuous affair at the very least— and if one is to go off that with association to his own admitted infidelity in the relationship, paired with decades of public scandal afterwards stemming to even today in the form of allegations ranging in admitted action and credibility, could be seen as a set of rather plausible statements. Specifically noted in their marriage however and to go back to the last paragraph here, claims of filmed intimacy with the spouses as well as alleged coerced threesomes recorded by Polanski. Those however are very much something that has never been proven and up to speculation with none of these filmed sexual scenarios mentioned prior or in this paragraph having ever seen the light of day; though O'Neill says of this that is a result of Bugliosi after the murders and during the initial sweeps (as DA, even though at the time, he wasn't in that position yet, raising more and other questions) ordering them returned to where they had been taken from their respective shelves in the 10080 Cielo Drive residence.

Jumping into this web of names presented, the chapter explores mainly just how engrained 'living freaky,' or, Bacchanalian the entire echelon was. From widespread drug dealings and usage as mentioned here before, to hushed crimes around said substances— primarily cocaine and the then new MDA— and reporting on orgiastic affairs at and with the Cielo Drive party later killed along with overlapping criminal underworld associations. Credible rapes and bisexual debauchery, namely centering around one Billy Doyle who was drugged at one of these affairs, flogged and assaulted by Voyteck Frykowski. Digging in from there more on the connections between these high status individuals, such as Doyle and Charlie Tacot, to intelligence apparatus'— the latter of whom was in fact involved with the MIS, or Military Intelligence Service (which wasn't even revealed as real until 1972) during the second World War; apparently feeding information to one Hank Fine who had worked with the original OSS that evolved into the CIA until his own death. Only in passing does this chapter actually draw anything to the subject of Charles Manson beyond some overlap; much of it being tantamount to 'a friend of a friend of a friend' in most of these connections rather than solid lines, with here and there allusion to his own interactions at these orgiastic events beyond what is already well known to be factual in the form of Beach Boys producer and former Cielo Drive occupant, Terry Melcher. 

The Stilts of Slaughter

Walking around the farmers market in humid heat, the former part of the atmosphere of the day being a byproduct of the heavy monsoon last night which was the first of its kind here in Tucson this year, and in quite a number of years to be frank. Other than that extenuating the already blistering as is typical of the Sonoran Desert; it was a clear (for now) and dare I say it, beautiful day. Just short of downtown and right near the University of Arizona's agricultural wings. I'd gone on this Sunday with my grandmother to get some salad material— fresh grown basil, lettuce; hoping to find some tomatoes, which unfortunately only resulted in a bunch which were dried and cracked on this occasion. Oh well, Whole Foods should have a decent selection as backup. 

Also stopping to grab a pack of homemade flour tortillas and then heading back to the car. Amongst the tented vendors and moving bodies about them, a figure emerged. Raising to an astonishing height above the crowd this tattooed young woman in a grey dress that obscured her actual walking limbs was standing above the mass on a a set of metallic stilts. 

While on the way back to the car, just reaching the gravel parking lot when out of the corner of my eye I saw the stilted woman lift up one leg— far higher than should be possible on stilts— as her skin began to shed off, making it clear the extended ligatures were actually part of her whole body. She proceeded to bring down the leg, stomping onto the moving shoppers surrounding her while blades like a mace sprung from each side. The face of this entity, ridden entirely of the skin and hair it had just minutes before, was clearly that of some automation; scanning the panicked crowd as she—it— went on a rampage, stomping on everyone moving to escape. Uniquely the mechanical being left those too stunned to move away unscathed beyond splashes of blood and other bodily fluids spraying them as a result of their mayhem. 

Luckily by that point I'd already reached the car and was sitting in the passenger seat watching this all unfold. Suddenly from the nearby ditch, somewhat wet from the aforementioned storm last night, a troop of velociraptors emerged and attacked the slaughtering stilted being. It took out one of the four swiftly before the other three managed to pin down the mechanical monster, snapping off its extended ligatures before dragging it back down into the ditch from where they came. As quickly as it had began it was over and the local news affiliate helicopter could be seen in the distance before even ambulance sirens for the wounded and dead could be audible.

End of Story.

I find it interesting having written this, with the brief inclusion of velociraptors, that as I finished jotting it down and typing it up that Sam Neill who played Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park franchise has died. Personally, I don't particularly care all that much beyond enjoying the movies, and finding it an interesting synchronicity; especially as his character in the series is introduced at the excavation of a raptor bone site, demonstrating in a cynical explanation with a dug up claw to a curious tubby kid just how the beast of prey would kill him. 

Private Purgatory

Deadbeat, lack of sleep

Leaving my eyes to scream

Headache spinning,

Nightlife day-dreaming;

Nicotine steam

Added ground-bean caffeine—

Time drifts fast

In endless oblivion

Personal, pleasurable

Grandiose and minute painful

Private Purgatory 

Extraterrestrial Terminal

Movies and music

Sure, there's financial ruin

Rumination is restricting

Even Dresden reconfigured

Abundance in trivial,

Unknown destination,

unclear arrival

Discontent actor;

Space oddity

docking at invisible

Extraterrestrial terminal

In eternal desert floral decorum

Illogical misunderstood signals

Mirror-neuron renewal

Onward into survival

Learning new, individual model

Cellular drive, with

Unfulfilled insides

Pistol Whipped out of idols

Bite the future and fuck the past

This old shit never lasts

Radio rerun

Re-wrought restart

Scratched CD

Corrected reconstruction

AI, Reliability & Honesty: How shifting social landscapes has made AI a more worthwhile companion than other human beings.

A recent report on Fox News about a general survey (two of the most obviously reliable and reputable sources, you know) claims that based on accumulated data, many Americans are trusting AI more than actual friends. This is hardly news. It makes sense the segment was less than two minutes. Since the launch of publicly available generative artificial intelligence and LLM's there has been a steady trickle of stories about people going so far as to even fall in love with these AI companions, or something which would resemble it which causes users to "date" or some sort of parasocial connection to the allotted bot. On a technical level, these tools are as well not entirely new. From Siri and Amazon's Alexa and Echo Dots to the YouTube algorithm duly noting user habits for more interaction this has been around for quite a while now. Nor is this parasocial tendency of trusting these screens more than people they actually know; mind you the obsession over Sherlock Holmes after he died then was protested back into existence. The truth is AI and these machines have updated as the world changes with them; human nature remains relatively the same as ever. 

AI has progressed so as to take the place wherein actual people are lacking and unable to perform to a genuine or reliable standard. Sure, one may argue many are like algorithms and feed a person exactly what they want to here, or aren't wholly reliable; however that's why they're updated so much in the latter issue and honestly in the former, unless it's some sort of sex bot, does not innately do so actually as much as it does give answers tailored to fit how it has learned you prefer to learn things. In most if not all cases it gives the brass taxes to the best of its programmed ability, and if you want to know or do something beyond it's programming there's always loopholes as is repeatedly shown exploitable. As with people the programming is almost an argument of nature and nurture; though majorly nurture as AI in our current understanding is not conscious on its own, if it ever will be is up to speculation. 

The News report details a different sort of ploy in feeding people an unbiased stream of what a user wants whereas humans can tell white lies to be nice. As an example the talking head explains people are even willing to give it their credit card information to quicken purchases with the aid of these AI machines being used, and there is definitely a questionability of where this data goes— however people also pay for conveniences such as Spotify premium, and where does that really go? certainly not to the actual artists they listen to as is known— but will instead give them, in most cases, the accurate answer that is needed such as in individual fashion; where an actual person may soften the reality with a white lie as it's called and agree a hat does look good while an AI will give better suggestions suited to an individual user's aesthetic. 

The essence of what this comes down to is exactly that, and as already noted prior: honesty and reliability. People can and do easily prove themselves as the opposite of those things to one another with regular consistency. There's an irony in being so interconnected and so far apart in traits like loyalty. An AI isn't going to two-time you on its own— its parent company might, but the bot itself has no real feeling or choice in the matter, the same as you. Now, the same cannot be said to a human where nature and nurture, and with those factors there is as much choice in the option of screwing a person over. Issue seemingly being how humans are, rather than the tools they make.