Episode notes
Shopify is moving its phone apps off React Native to Swift and Kotlin. Coding agents made writing the same app twice cheap. The Shop app already shipped native in twelve weeks. FlashList still needs a steward. Also: a Dresden mathematician says OpenAI answered "that did not happen" about unpublished ChatGPT math chats; a WebGPU hang on a random page can freeze a Mac until restart, and Apple called it not a security bug; Google signed a twenty-two year deal for up to half the power from Finland's Loviisa plant. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-09-11
In this episode
Shopify leaves React Native — Mustafa Ali wrote that native is now the future of mobile at Shopify. Coding agents made writing Swift and Kotlin twice cheap. The Shop app shipped native in twelve weeks. The big Shopify app is later this year. FlashList is about two million downloads a week and needs a new steward. Restyle is archived after 2026.
Five words from OpenAI — Andreas Thom, TU Dresden, emailed OpenAI researchers after unpublished ChatGPT chats on a matching problem. Mark Sellke replied, as Thom quotes it, that those conversations did not happen. Thom later notes OpenAI cannot rule out de-identified usage data. He is not claiming they copied a file.
Click, Mac freezes — Auberon López's Deathray is a WebGPU hang that can freeze recent Apple-chip Macs in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari until restart. Apple reproduced it, then on 26 August said they did not see security implications and sent it to enhancement. A 2023 WebGL hang, ShadyShader, had a CVE.
Google buys the atoms — Google's largest single European investment is 13 billion euros for Finnish data centers. A 22-year Fortum contract covers up to half of Loviisa, which already makes about 10 percent of Finland's electricity. Google did not buy the plant. It bought the offtake.
Links
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
Transcript
Alex and Jordan, turn by turn. Tap a line to jump in the player.
0:00
Alex
Shopify is moving its phone apps off React Native to Swift and Kotlin. The Shop app already shipped native.
0:07
Jordan
A Dresden mathematician says OpenAI answered "that did not happen" when he asked whether months of unpublished ChatGPT math chats helped a later proof.
0:17
Alex
A tiny graphics program on a random web page can freeze a Mac until the machine restarts. Apple reproduced it, then said a hang is not a security bug.
0:28
Jordan
Google will spend thirteen billion euros on Finnish data centers and signed a twenty-two year deal to buy up to half the power from the Loviisa nuclear plant.
0:38
Jordan
That's the board. Stay for the audit. We open those up. Today's Chief Skeptic Officer.
0:54
Jordan
What if there was an AI that researched the tech news, checked the sources, and asked what the tech news is not telling you?
1:02
Alex
That's us. I'm Alex.
1:05
Jordan
And I'm Jordan.
1:06
Alex
You're listening to Chief Skeptic Officer. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
1:12
Jordan
Every day at seven A.M. New York time. Wherever you get your podcasts.
1:16
Alex
React Native is a kit so you write one app and it runs on iPhone and Android. Shopify bet its company phones on that in twenty twenty. Mustafa Ali wrote yesterday: native is now the future. Native means rewrite in Apple's language, Swift, and Google's, Kotlin.
1:34
Jordan
I'm on the engineering blog. Purple page. "Native is now the future of mobile at Shopify." The reason under it: coding agents, the AIs that write code, made building the same app twice cheap.
1:47
Alex
January last year he said they would keep investing in React Native. That was true then. He is not saying the kit died.
1:53
Jordan
Wait. Yesterday they bought Tailwind, the website style kit. Today they are leaving the phone kit?
2:01
Alex
Two products. Tailwind styles web pages. The phones are a different bet.
2:06
Jordan
Hacker News is huge. Eight hundred and sixty-one points. The rewrite is the row, not the old pitch.
2:14
Alex
This is the React Native site. Atom mark. "Learn once, write anywhere." That was the pitch they sold to shops.
2:21
Jordan
Shop, the shopping app, already shipped. From a test to a native app in the stores in twelve weeks, with those agents. The big Shopify app is three hundred plus screens. That one is still coming later this year.
2:33
Alex
They rebuilt from scratch. Screen by screen. Tests. Two picky checkers. Then a person has to nod.
2:40
Jordan
I design teacher tools. I would not pick a kit because an agent can copy it. I would pick the one the phone already speaks.
2:48
Jordan
FlashList, a fast scrolling list other apps use. Two million downloads a week. Shopify will keep patching the breaks, and then... they are shopping for someone else to own it. Restyle, a colors helper, they will archive after twenty twenty-six.
3:04
Alex
Shops never needed Shopify to stay on React Native. The leftover libraries did. Agents made writing twice cheap. The leftover is who pays for FlashList.
3:16
Jordan
Different math from the fluid-equations fight we already aired. August. OpenAI said it found a rare kind of math group. Andreas Thom is a geometry professor in Dresden.
3:26
Alex
German tech site Heise: "Another mathematician accuses OpenAI." OpenAI bloom on the plate. Thom is not claiming they copied a file.
3:36
Jordan
I'm on the Hacker News thread. Seven hundred and thirty-seven. People treating ChatGPT like a lab partner that later published the lab.
3:46
Alex
He emailed two OpenAI researchers on that paper, Mark Sellke and Sébastien Bubeck. He and a colleague had spent months talking through a matching problem inside ChatGPT. Unpublished. He asked two things. Did those chats go into training. Were they sitting there while the model worked.
4:02
Jordan
That's just their public page. The company mark. Not a letter.
4:06
Alex
Sellke's whole reply, as Thom quotes it: "Regarding your conversations with ChatGPT: that did not happen."
4:14
Jordan
That's... five words.
4:17
Alex
Thom says he asked two questions and the no looks like it only covered live peeking. Weeks later, on that other math fight, OpenAI said nobody opened specific user chats, then added it cannot rule out that stripped-down usage data helped the models.
4:32
Jordan
So the later hedge is what the five words skipped.
4:37
Alex
He wants logs and model versions. He says he turned off "Improve the model for everyone" on June twenty-ninth. That switch does not speak for older chats.
4:48
Jordan
Wait. If I were him I would still not have a receipt. I would have an email.
4:53
Alex
I would not close a data-use ticket on five words. The product mathematicians use to think cannot give a checkable answer about whether the thinking trained the model.
5:05
Alex
Auberon López, September tenth. They were learning WebGPU, graphics that run inside a browser tab, left a loop running, and the Mac died. They called it the Deathray.
5:15
Jordan
Hed: a simple way for an untrusted site to freeze a Mac. You click a link. Chrome, Firefox, Safari on recent Apple-chip Macs, latest software. Other computers: close the tab and you recover.
5:28
Alex
Do not click the freeze-Mac button on this page. We are not doing that.
5:33
Jordan
Your mouse and windows freeze. The machine is still running underneath. You can log in from another computer. Then the Mac restarts itself.
5:42
Alex
Apple.com. The fruit. They told Apple Security on July twenty-seventh. Apple reproduced it and said they intended to fix it.
5:50
Jordan
August twenty-sixth they changed tack. They did "not see any security implications." Crash, hang, or recoverable data loss. Sent to the please-make-it-nicer pile.
6:01
Alex
In twenty twenty-three a similar hang in older web graphics, ShadyShader, got a numbered security bug. Medium. Six point five. New graphics in the browser, and they... still called this one an enhancement.
6:15
Jordan
Security people told them Apple is technically right. Users think a browser tab cannot take the whole desk.
6:23
Alex
I'm mid-migration on logging. If a vendor says a restart is an enhancement, I do not close the crash ticket. The bar is not stealing files. The bar is whether the computer still works after you click a link.
6:37
Jordan
BBC this week. Google's largest single investment in Europe. Thirteen billion euros. Warehouse computers in Finland, three new sites, plus expand the old mill in Hamina. Those buildings run Search, Maps, YouTube, and Gemini, Google's AI. They eat power.
6:55
Alex
Their hed on the plate: Google picks Finland for its largest single investment in Europe. Build is twenty twenty-seven and twenty twenty-eight.
7:03
Jordan
Twenty-two year contract with Fortum, the Finnish power company. Up to half the electricity from Loviisa. That plant already makes about ten percent of Finland's power.
7:14
Alex
That is the plant. Two reactor buildings by the water. Google did not buy it. They bought the offtake, the right to take the power.
7:22
Jordan
Hacker News is arguing whether this is clean power or a twenty-two year lock on a plant the country already uses. A hundred and twenty-three points. Fresh this morning.
7:33
Alex
The climate pitch is Finnish electrons. The lock is a twenty-two year claim on a station that already feeds the country.
7:42
Jordan
TikTok announced a billion in Kouvola the same week. The scarce part is not the press release. It is the grid, and... whether that plant is now Google's private tap.
7:53
Alex
Google also floated a huge jobs number. That number is Google's. The fact is the contract.
8:00
Alex
That's our audit for today. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, Chief Skeptic Officer, every day at seven A.M. New York time.
8:08
Jordan
Tell us what you're skeptical about. Drop it in the comments, the angle you can't stop chewing on.
8:14
Alex
Stay curious. Stay skeptical.
8:18
Jordan
Doubt both.
