Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer dollars to…
The Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley has introduced a new bill that would make it illegal to import or export artificial intelligence products to and from China, meaning someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar…
Code updates to a government database that helps track whether a federal program to get children ready for school at age five is actually working show software engineers are purging it of references to “forbidden words” related to DEI. The updates, shown in Github commits, are to a database for the Department of Health and…
Anthropic, the company that made one of the most popular AI writing assistants in the world, requires job applicants to agree that they won’t use an AI assistant to help write their application. “While we encourage people to use AI systems during their role to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not…
📄 This article was primarily reported using public records requests. We are making it available to all readers as a public service. FOIA reporting can be expensive, please consider subscribing to 404 Media to support this work. Or send us a one time donation via our tip jar here. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL),…
Large parts of the CDC’s website and several important databases were taken down on Friday and Saturday to comply with Trump’s executive orders banning DEI content. Saturday, a message at the top of the CDC’s home page said the website “is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.” CDC websites and databases taken…
Elon Musk’s DOGE, the newly formed government agency aiming for drastic cuts across the U.S. government, has brought in an HR employment attorney and consultant who has spent the last few years teaching companies her “refreshing approach to diversity and inclusion” which include attempting to “redefine” DEI in a manner that she says is more…
Welcome back to the Abstract! This week, we’re serving up some much-needed good news about global biodiversity! Well, it’s more like a silver lining, but in the Anthropocene you have to take what you can get. As you may have noticed, humans are highly annoying and deadly to many other lifeforms on Earth, a condition…
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 AI’s boom or bust, trying Github’s Copilot, and making time for good ideas. JASON: When we started 404 Media, I bought a macro lens for my camera and…
