Emanuel Maiberg

We put a tracking device in a shipment of rare books acquired by an anonymous buyer. It ended up at an Amazon facility where the company scans books for training data and destroys them in the process: https://www.404media.co/we-tracked-a-shipment-of-rare-books-it-ended-at-an-amazon-ai-training-facility/

A scientist at Google DeepMind published a paper that goes argues LLMs will never be sentient, going against the company's narrative on the power of AI https://www.404media.co/google-deepmind-paper-argues-llms-will-never-be-conscious/

Google keeps bragging about how most of its code is AI generated. Internally, employees meme about how its AI sucks https://www.404media.co/google-employees-internally-share-memes-about-how-its-ai-sucks/

Google, Microsoft, and Meta brag about how most of their code is AI-generated now. The developers generating that code say it sucks and that it's making the stupid https://www.404media.co/software-developers-say-ai-is-rotting-their-brains/

Spent a lot of time talking to people in the Ruby controversy about the ousting of contributors by Ruby Central and what the entire episode says about open source development https://www.404media.co/how-ruby-went-off-the-rails/

This company is scraping your Zoom meetings and turning them into AI podcasts without permission. Extremely wild and weird https://www.404media.co/this-company-is-secretly-turning-your-zoom-calls-into-ai-podcasts/

this is a wild wild tale about a millionaire that seemingly got into smuggling cocaine for the thrill of it https://www.404media.co/an-adrenaline-junkie-billionaires-quest-to-become-a-cocaine-kingpin-marty-tibbitts-ylli-didani/

the research showing Google AI Overview is stopping people from clicking links is a huge huge huge problem not just for websites but for people's brains which are about to be absolutely mangled https://www.404media.co/googles-ai-is-destroying-search-the-internet-and-your-brain/

We spent months digging into the booming AI influencer industry. People are brazenly stealing content from human models and adult content creators and Instagram does not give a damn https://www.404media.co/inside-the-booming-ai-pimping-industry-3/

another reminder that much like the conservatives he is kissing up to now zuck does not care about free speech at all https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-censoring-404-media-stories-about-facebooks-censorship/

people are using AI to apply to jobs where their job applications are then also reviewed by AI https://www.404media.co/i-applied-to-2-843-roles-the-rise-of-ai-powered-job-application-bots/

This is the inside story of how Tea's male founder convinced millions of women to share their most intimate secrets on his app, then exposed those secrets in devastating security breaches https://www.404media.co/how-teas-founder-convinced-millions-of-women-to-spill-their-secrets-then-exposed-them-to-the-world/

the secret service thinks it doesn't need a warrant to track your phone because you agreed to the terms of service you never read on random apps https://www.404media.co/fyi-a-warrant-isnt-needed-secret-service-says-you-agreed-to-be-tracked-with-location-data/

I solemnly googled "luce porn" to find that Rule 34 and AI have turned the Vatican's cute mascot into extremely graphic porn https://www.404media.co/luce-porn-vatican/

a bunch of manly men celebs are in deepfaked YouTube ads to sell boner pills https://www.404media.co/deepfake-youtube-ads-of-celebrities-promise-to-get-you-rock-hard/

Russia is spreading lies about Stalker 2 collecting private data on players and being used by the government to find more Ukrainian men to mobilize in the war https://www.404media.co/stalker2-disinformation/

Buzzfeed is running AI ads that are telling readers to buy products in photographs of Gaza, people who died by suicide, attempted murderers https://www.404media.co/ai-powered-buzzfeed-ads-suggest-you-buy-hat-of-man-who-died-by-suicide/

In 2022 Microsoft got some good press for retiring it's AI-powered gender classifier. Only problem is it wasn't until I reached out for comment last week that Microsoft found users were still accessing it: https://www.404media.co/microsoft-provided-gender-detection-ai-on-accident/

I talked to a couple of Wikipedia editors who founded a project to protect the site from AI-generated misinformation https://www.404media.co/the-editors-protecting-wikipedia-from-ai-hoaxes/

the UK government made Valve remove a game from Steam in which players can kill IDF soldiers on October 7. The game's creator says it's not that different than Call of Duty https://www.404media.co/steam-removes-oct-7-game-at-request-of-uk-counter-terrorism-unit/

Niantic is well aware its AI models based on Pokemon Go data will be useful to the militaries, but is not ruling out selling it to them https://www.404media.co/pokemon-go-data-adding-amplitude-to-war-is-obviously-an-issue-niantic-exec-says/

Pokemon Go players have created a hugely valuable dataset of the real world which Niantic is now of course using to train AI models that could power robots https://www.404media.co/pokemon-go-players-have-unwittingly-trained-ai-to-navigate-the-world/

Alpha School, an "AI-powered" private school that costs as much as $65k a year, is generating faulty lesson plans and stealing content from textbooks for training data https://www.404media.co/students-are-being-treated-like-guinea-pigs-inside-an-ai-powered-private-school/

Texas AG Ken Paxton has subpoenaed 404 Media's reporting about an internal Google privacy incident database. Our lawyers formally objected to subpoena. You can read both the subpoena and the objection here: https://www.404media.co/404-media-objects-to-texas-attorney-general-ken-paxtons-subpoena-to-access-our-reporting/

This site uses "AI clean rooms" to bypass copyright to "liberate" open source projects of the need to credit or support open source projects. It's satire, but it also works and is something that the open source community is already dealing with: https://www.404media.co/this-ai-tool-rips-off-open-source-software-without-violating-copyright/