Unless you’re living in a ChatGPT hype-bro bubble, it’s a pretty common sentiment these days that the internet is getting shittier. Social media algorithms have broken our brains, AI slop flows freely through Google search results like raw sewage, and tech companies keep telling us that this new status quo is not only inevitable, but…
A new paper from researchers at Stanford, Cornell, and West Virginia University seems to show that one version of Meta’s flagship AI model, Llama 3.1, has memorized almost the whole of the first Harry Potter book. This finding could have far-reaching copyright implications for the AI industry and impact authors and creatives who are already…
The FOIA Forum is a livestreamed event for paying subscribers where we talk about how to file public records requests and answer questions. If you’re not already signed up, please consider doing so here. Recently we had a FOIA Forum where we focused on our article This ‘College Protester’ Isn’t Real. It’s an AI-Powered Undercover Bot…
A massive data center for Meta’s AI will likely lead to rate hikes for Louisiana customers, but Meta wants to keep the details under wraps. Holly Ridge is a rural community bisected by US Highway 80, gridded with farmland, with a big creek—it is literally named Big Creek—running through it. It is home to rice…
Welcome back to the Abstract! This week, we’re moving in next to anacondas, so watch your back and lock the henhouse. Then, parenthood tips from wild baboons, the “cognitive debt” of ChatGPT, a spaceflight symphony, and a bizarre galaxy that is finally coming into view. When your neighbor is an anaconda Cosendey, Beatriz Nunes and…
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss Deadheads and doxxing sites. SAM: Anyone reading the site closely this week likely noticed a new name entering the chat. We’re thrilled to welcome Rosie Thomas to…
This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. Subscribe to them here. The FBI has accused a Texas man, James Wesley Burger, of planning an Islamic State-style terrorist attack on a Christian music festival and talking about it on Roblox. The feds caught Burger after another…
This week we start with Joseph’s article about the U.S’s major airlines selling customers’ flight information to Customs and Border Protection and then telling the agency to not reveal where the data came from. After the break, Emanuel tells us how AI scraping bots are breaking open libraries, archives, and museums. In the subscribers-only section,…
A report from a cybersecurity company last week found that over 40,000 unsecured cameras—including CCTV and security cameras on public transportation, in hospitals, on internet-connected bird feeders and on ATMs—are exposed online worldwide. Cybersecurity risk intelligence company BitSight was able to access and download content from thousands of internet-connected systems, including domestic and commercial webcams,…
As Israel and Iran trade blows in a quickly escalating conflict that risks engulfing the rest of the region as well as a more direct confrontation between Iran and the U.S., social media is being flooded with AI-generated media that claims to show the devastation, but is fake. The fake videos and images show how…
