The 404 Media Podcast

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We start this week with Jason’s story about OpenAI and Microsoft’s big admissions from court records that they are destroying the internet in all sorts of ways, and stealing intellectual property on an unprecedented scale. He admit it. After the break, Emanuel explains how he hijacked a real band’s Spotify page with AI-generated slop. In the subscribers-only section, we hear all about iLands, the AI agent platform that is basically just spam.

Is Your City Using Axon License Plate Cameras? We Need Your Help

‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

I Hijacked a Real Artist's Spotify with AI Music. It Was Disturbingly Easy

AI Agent Platform Reinvents Spam, Floods Inboxes Worldwide

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When chatbots become our closest “friends,” what happens to our capacity to care?

This week I'm joined by Professor Sherry Turkle. Sherry is a licensed clinical psychologist, the founding director of MIT's Initiative on Technology and Self, and the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. She's a the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books including Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, and The Empathy Diaries.

Her latest book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, comes out on September 29. In it, Turkle explores how conversational chatbots have changed the ways we relate to other humans, empathize with each other, and what that could mean for our future.

“The progression is: First we talk to each other, then we talk to each other through machines, and now we drop the middleman and we're happy to just talk to machines,” she said in our conversation.

We get into what happens when people stop placing importance on emotionally connecting with other people, and whether it’s too late to pull back from the path we’re on.

Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines

Instagram's AI Chatbots Lie About Being Licensed Therapists

How to Talk to Someone Experiencing 'AI Psychosis'

Researchers Simulated a Delusional User to Test Chatbot Safety

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/whqDsYhCl0s
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In this bonus collaboration with our friends at The Intercept, 404 Media's Jason Koebler and the Intercept's Sam Biddle and Akela Lacy discuss the ways AI is already used to empower private surveillance companies that filter data to the government, how AI is used in war, and the prospect of an AI apocalypse. This podcast was recorded live in Los Angeles at The Loved One on September 12.

Check out The Intercept Briefing podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and find a full transcript of this pod here.
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We start this week with Joseph’s story about the people who are reading real ChatGPT users’ prompts and conversations. He got a bunch of documents all about these contractors and saw real prompts himself. After the break, Sam tells us all about the Automattic CEO getting kicked out. Then coming back again. In the subscribers-only section, Emanuel tells us why a16z thinks enshittification is not real.

Inside ‘Project Lily’: The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT Chats

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Put on 'Leave of Absence'

Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg Claims He’s Back 'In Control'

Sources say Automattic’s board is out after failed attempt to oust CEO Matt Mullenweg

A16z Says You Actually Love Social Media, Enshittification Isn’t Real

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/AyPuYrjLk1E

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This week we’re joined by Jennie Rose Halprein. Jennie is the executive director of Library Futures, a non-profit that advocates for a fair digital future for libraries and the communities they serve. We have written a bunch of stories about libraries over the years, and I have talked to Jennie a few times for those stories. I always have really interesting conversations with her, but a lot of what we talk about never makes it into a story. That’s why I wanted to share one of those conversations with you today. We of course touch upon censorship but also many other subjects, so I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/mS0xofGW2hE

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