Hasan Piker, Self-Described ‘Ayatollah of Woke,’ Wants AI to Die

Illustration: Òscar Climent Ollet; Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Hasan Piker spends seven to eight hours a day, seven days a week, streaming on Twitch. The far-left political commentator got his start in 2013 interning for (and sometimes hosting) the Young Turks. More than a decade later, he’s a powerhouse newsfluencer with the number-one channel in Twitch’s Politics and Commentary category. More than 3 million people follow him for his takes and humor on the crumbling American empire, foreign policy, and why Bernie would have won. He is also considered, by some, very hot. Piker works out every available morning and eats 1 pound of chicken with some rice at 6 pm. The rest of his free time is spent researching, planning his streams, and getting in fights with people who have AI avatars.

For years and years, I would do the classic iPhone-on-its-last-leg on principle, because I hate the planned obsolescence and I just am a very stubborn person. I’d have the oldest possible iPhone I could for as long as I could until I’d have it basically stuck to an electrical outlet for it to work.

Now I have to have one of the latest ones for cybersecurity reasons. That's what the civil rights lawyers I talk to tell me. We're kind of all just trying to do our very best for privacy and for security against warrantless surveillance by the government. But they tell me, “You got to get the newest and you got to always keep it updated.” It's been very frustrating for me, because I hate the new iOS, Liquid Ass. It's so ugly. It's so unintuitive. I cannot believe it. It's so frustrating.