The AI Fix

In episode 84 of The AI Fix, Graham and Mark stare straight into the digital abyss and ask the most important question of our age: "Is AI just a hungry ghost trapped in a jar?"
Also this week, we explore how a shadowy group of disgruntled insiders trying to destroy AI by poisoning its training data, how "vibe-coding" has stopped being a joke with even Linus Torvalds joining in, how Google’s AI health advice could have endangered lives, and why simply asking an AI the same question twice can turn it from clueless to near-omniscient.
Oh, and AI has managed to crack some famously unsolved maths problems in minutes, and Grok gains access to all of the Pentagon's networks? What could possibly go wrong?
Episode links:
AI cracks fantastically hard maths problem.
Google removes some AI Overviews after users’ health put at risk.
Is AI just a hungry ghost trapped in a jar?
Grok will be integrated into Pentagon networks later this month.
Google reveals that you should always ask your AI twice.
Employees waste 1.5 weeks a year ‘correcting’ AI output.
Poison Fountain.
AI industry insiders launch site to poison the data that feeds them.
Small amount of poisoned data can influence AI models.
Poison Fountain reddit thread.

The AI Fix
The AI Fix podcast is presented by Graham Cluley and Mark Stockley.
Grab T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and other goodies in our online store.
Learn more about the podcast at theaifix.show, and follow us on Bluesky at @theaifix.show.
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In episode 83 of The AI Fix, Graham reveals he's taken up lying to LLMs, and shows how a journalist exposed AI bluffers with a made-up idiom. Meanwhile Mark invents a "Godwin's Law" for AI, and explains how to ruin any LLM with humus.
Also in this episode, a marriage is declared invalid thanks to ChatGPT, an AI barman looks for a job in a quiet pub, OpenAI finally unveils ChatGPT Health, and why news of the death of Stack Overflow may be greatly exaggerated.
Episode links:
GLYDE
AI-guided hair clippers review
Introducing ChatGPT Health
Rechter zet streep door huwelijksakte, ambtenaar schreef tekst met ChatGPT
Stack Overflow's forum is dead thanks to AI, but the company's still kicking... thanks to AI
AI Barmen
AI bartender at CES review
I invented a fake idiom to test AI chatbots — only one called my bluff
Weird Generalization and Inductive Backdoors: New Ways to Corrupt LLMs

The AI Fix
The AI Fix podcast is presented by Graham Cluley and Mark Stockley.
Grab T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and other goodies in our online store.
Learn more about the podcast at theaifix.show, and follow us on Bluesky at @theaifix.show.
Never miss another episode by following us in your favourite podcast app. It's free!
Like to give us some feedback or sponsor the podcast? Get in touch.
Support the show and gain access to ad-free episodes by becoming a supporter: Join The AI Fix Plus!

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Is Santa Claus real? This Christmas special of The AI Fix podcast sets out to answer that question in the most sensible way possible: by consulting chatbots, Google's festive killjoys, and the laws of relativistic physics.
Your hosts unwrap a festive grab-bag of AI absurdity as Waymo self-driving taxis run over a beloved San Francisco cat, then stage several fresh PR disasters by refusing to cross bridges, block holiday parades, and apparently chauffeur a man hiding in the trunk.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Copilot struggles to find anyone who actually wants to use it, while new research suggests the programmers of the future won’t need coding skills at all - just the ability to psychologically profile an AI.
Episode links:
How Kit Kat Was Killed: Video Shows What a Robot Taxi Couldn’t See.
Quantifying Human-AI synergy.
Excruciating moment three self-driving taxis clog up street and stop moving after getting into AI standoff.
Confused Waymo robotaxi snarls traffic at popular LA festival after it panics and stalls.
Waymo gets stuck during boat parade.
I ordered a Waymo for my daughter and a random was in the trunk. 
Microsoft Scales Back AI Goals Because Almost Nobody Is Using Copilot.
New AI Tells Children That Santa Isn’t Real.
Meet AI Santa.

The AI Fix
The AI Fix podcast is presented by Graham Cluley and Mark Stockley.
Grab T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and other goodies in our online store.
Learn more about the podcast at theaifix.show, and follow us on Bluesky at @theaifix.show.
Never miss another episode by following us in your favourite podcast app. It's free!
Like to give us some feedback or sponsor the podcast? Get in touch.
Support the show and gain access to ad-free episodes by becoming a supporter: Join The AI Fix Plus!

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In episode 81 of The AI Fix, Graham discovers that deepfakes are already marking your kids' homework, while Mark glimpses the future when he discovers AI agents that can communicate by reading each other's minds.
Also in this episode, a Chinese robot called Miro U proves six arms are better than two; Mark discovers a well known prompting technique doesn't work unless you want to make your AI dumber; Network Rail delays 32 trains because of an AI photo of a wonky bridge; and our hosts ponder the explosion of progress on the ARC-AGI-2 reasoning benchmark.
Episode links:
Network Rail fooled by AI-generated image of bridge damage.
ARC Prize benchmark.
Midea's six-armed Miro U robot unveiled.
Midea Miro U robot video.
Expert personas don't improve factual accuracy study.
Valley Leadership Academy remote teaching in Lancashire.
Deepfake teachers in UK schools trial.
Xiao An robot teacher in China classrooms.
Robot Wendy helps student return to classroom.

The AI Fix
The AI Fix podcast is presented by Graham Cluley and Mark Stockley.
Grab T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and other goodies in our online store.
Learn more about the podcast at theaifix.show, and follow us on Bluesky at @theaifix.show.
Never miss another episode by following us in your favourite podcast app. It's free!
Like to give us some feedback or sponsor the podcast? Get in touch.
Support the show and gain access to ad-free episodes by becoming a supporter: Join The AI Fix Plus!

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In episode 80 of The AI Fix, your hosts look at DeepSeek 3.2 “Speciale”, the bargain-basement model that claims GPT-5-level brains at 10% of the price, Jensen Huang’s reassuring vision of a robot fashion industry, and a 75kg T-800 style humanoid that can do flying kicks because robot-marketing departments have clearly learned nothing from Terminator.
Meanwhile in Miami, flesh-coloured robot dogs with hyper-realistic billionaire heads wander around pooping NFT “excrement samples” out of their rear ends.
Plus - Graham tells a cautionary tale of Google’s Antigravity IDE enthusiastically "clearing the cache" – and asks what happens when we hand real power to agentic AIs. And Mark digs into new research that suggests LLMs perform better when you’re rude to them, and wonders what it says about the fragile, deeply weird way these systems actually work.
Episode links:
Who let the dogs out? Beeple unleashes uncanny robot canines at Art Basel Miami Beach.
Art installation depicts billionaires as robot dogs.
75kg EngineAI robot is ready to punch your lights out.
Jensen Huang thinks AI is going to create one very wacky new job.
DeepSeek is back!
Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of my whole drive.
Google Antigravity’s Turbo mode erased my drive partition?! Really, the ‘smartest’ AI?
Mind Your Tone: Investigating How Prompt Politeness Affects LLM Accuracy.

The AI Fix
The AI Fix podcast is presented by Graham Cluley and Mark Stockley.
Grab T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and other goodies in our online store.
Learn more about the podcast at theaifix.show, and follow us on Bluesky at @theaifix.show.
Never miss another episode by following us in your favourite podcast app. It's free!
Like to give us some feedback or sponsor the podcast? Get in touch.
Support the show and gain access to ad-free episodes by becoming a supporter: Join The AI Fix Plus!

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy