We start this week with Emanuel’s big story about Amazon buying, and destroying, masses of books to train AI. After the break we talk about a couple of wild cases where people are using AI. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about Meta’s new smart glasses patent and research into ...
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‘I Saw a Shiny Thing’: Cop Explains Why He Used License Plate Reader to Stalk Woman‘I Saw a Shiny Thing’: Cop Explains Why He Used License Plate Reader to Stalk Woman
Body camera footage obtained by 404 Media shows a police officer explaining why he used police databases and license plate reader cameras to research, stalk, and pull over a woman he met on the set of a TV show. “I mean, I saw a shiny thing, teasing and all that,” ...
Lifeforms Can Survive on ‘Significant’ Regions of the Moon, Study FindsLifeforms Can Survive on ‘Significant’ Regions of the Moon, Study Finds
🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. Microbes from Earth could survive on parts of the Moon for at least a week, a discovery that suggests that the lunar surface is not as ...
The National Park Service Is Using Flock. Rangers Are PissedThe National Park Service Is Using Flock. Rangers Are Pissed
The National Park Service (NPS), the agency tasked with managing the U.S. national parks and monuments, has purchased Flock cameras and had them installed at parks including in Yosemite. Current and former NPS rangers are not happy about it. “Flock protects property, not people or parks. People should be free ...
X’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study FindsX’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X’s feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found that the site’s ...
Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About WritingAnthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing
Earlier this month, Anthropic announced that future versions of Claude will generate text that includes watermarks showing it was AI-generated. At the time, Anthropic did not explain how this would work, leaving us to speculate on the podcast: Would it somehow encode this into the text? Include invisible characters? Do ...
Pornhub’s Parent Company to Pay $120 Million to Settle Child Sexual Abuse LawsuitsPornhub’s Parent Company to Pay $120 Million to Settle Child Sexual Abuse Lawsuits
Pornhub’s parent company will pay $120 million to settle claims that its platforms violated federal sex trafficking and child sexual abuse imagery laws. The deal settles two 2021 class action lawsuits in California and Alabama that claim Mindgeek, which has since rebranded to Aylo, profited off of child abuse material ...
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training FacilityWe Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
Amazon is buying massive quantities of books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying them in the process. A 404 Media investigation was able to reveal Amazon’s book buying operation, which hasn’t been previously reported, by placing a tracking device in a rare book we suspected would be acquired ...
The Future of Deepfakes and the Decline of Reality (With Hany Farid)The Future of Deepfakes and the Decline of Reality (With Hany Farid)
I think we’re pretty good at telling the difference between an AI generated image and a real photograph, but when I need help I call Hany Farid. Farid is the cofounder of GetReal, a company that specializes in detecting deepfakes and other AI-generated images, and is the developer of PhotoDNA, ...
‘Show How 3M Is 0% at Fault:’ Expert Witness Used ChatGPT to Write Report Defending Company in Deadly Explosion Lawsuit‘Show How 3M Is 0% at Fault:’ Expert Witness Used ChatGPT to Write Report Defending Company in Deadly Explosion Lawsuit
An expert witness testifying in a lawsuit about liability for a Houston explosion that killed three people and destroyed roughly 200 homes used ChatGPT to write significant portions of his “expert report.” The man, who was hired by the industrial product conglomerate 3M, exposed his AI prompts publicly. They showed ...