404 Media
Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images
Now, Google Earth can easily be used as a tool for disinformation. In 404 Media’s tests, we were able to add…
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404 Media
Behind the Blog: Silent Retreat
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 going into the woods, a "he admit it" moment, and a tofu…
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404 Media
A Hidden 'Dark Dimension' Could Rewrite Our Understanding of the Universe
Physicists have proposed a fifth “dark dimension” that could govern both dark energy and dark matter, extending ideas…
404 Media
YouTube Bans Popular ASMR Artists, Accusing Them of Making 'Sexually Gratifying' Videos
YouTube banned a wave of ASMR artists this week for violating the platforms’ rules against “sexually gratifying”…
404 Media
Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage
ISBNdb, a book database company, has stopped offering a service to source printed books for AI training after 404…
404 Media
Inside an AI TikTok Shop Slop Factory That Shills Supplements Recalled By the FDA
In Google’s VEO 3, he created an AI-generated Black woman wearing a surgical mask in the foreground of the video,…
404 Media
LinkedIn Introduces a 'Seems Like AI Slop' Button
Often these posts take some sort of news event, and opine on how this relates to thought leadership, or some other…
404 Media
“Clapping Is a First Amendment Right:” An Interview With the Person Arrested for Clapping at a Data Center Meeting
Lux Claridge was arrested at an Emporia, Kansas city commission meeting after repeatedly clapping during speeches…
404 Media
Podcast: Flock Came to My Town. Here’s What I Did
We start this week with Matthew’s experience of what happened when Flock came to his small town. It’s a microcosm of…
404 Media
Data Centers Are Easy to Build. Powering Them Is Complicated, Slow, and Expensive
On Wednesday the power flickered in homes from Washington DC to Chicago. The cause was a data center disconnecting…
404 Media
‘The Government Hopes To Set a Precedent’: An Interview With the Man Charged for Allegedly Wiping His GrapheneOS Phone
404 Media first broke news of the case in December. Last week, The Guardian reported additional details including from…
404 Media
'I Would Never Do This To You:' Protesting Flock, Arizona Man Presents Plan to Surveil Government Officials
On July 20, Jacob Petrosky stood in front of the Casa Grande, Arizona City Council during a public comment session and…
404 Media
Substackers Say New AI Detection Tool Is a ‘Witch Hunt’
“I’m not going to apologize for using AI in the creation process. I wrote for 20 years without AI, I could do it again…
404 Media
Apple’s iMessage Scanning Flagged a Video of My Friend's Dog as Nudity
In a video my friend’s dog is laying on her back, her little paws in the air, while my friend rubs the dog’s chest.…
404 Media
Wikimedia Will Not Voluntarily Recognize Union a Supermajority of Its Workers Want
For example, the FAQ includes a long section about the benefits that Wikimedia Foundation already offers its staff,…
404 Media
Person Opposing Data Center Arrested for Clapping at City Meeting
Police arrested a high school physics teacher for clapping during a city council meeting last Wednesday. Teacher Lux…
404 Media
This Man Bought Phone Location Data from Around the World (with Mike Yeagley)
Joseph talks to Mike Yeagley, a man who bought phone location data from around the world. He spent hundreds of…
404 Media
Tons of Peoples’ Claude Chats and Creations are Exposed on Google
Exposed chats reportedly include private cryptocurrency wallet keys and personal information like peoples’ addresses…
404 Media
Spotify's AI Problem Is So Bad Random People Are Stepping In to Track the Slop
Slime Dot, a young R&B artist from Las Vegas, currently has over 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. In an interview…
404 Media
Being a Luddite Is Fun Again
“Fuck, fuck, fuck AI,” the Luddite gnomes – people in colorful, pointy homemade hats – chant as we march, urging the…
404 Media
Court Reporter Submitted AI-Generated Errors in Official Court Transcript
A court reporter was found to have submitted a transcript containing AI-generated errors in an official court…
404 Media
Scientists Uncover Lost ‘Golden Age’ of Languages That Ended 1,000 Years Ago
Here are the studies this week that spoke in tongues, sought forbidden love, orbited an orbiter, and performed ritual…
404 Media
Behind the Blog: No Spoilers
The article discusses the behind-the-scenes process of creating top stories, including topics such as astrology and…
404 Media
Flock's CEO Says its ALPRs Don't Do Video After Repeatedly Announcing They Can
After the Los Angeles Police Department allowed its contract with Flock to expire, the surveillance company’s CEO,…
404 Media
The Rise of Anti-Flock Influencers Who Make Things Up for Clout
Noah Orion, a former American Idol contestant and Instagram influencer, has been posting numerous reels about the…
404 Media
Leaked Document Shows the Surveillance Tech at ICE’s Fingertips
A leaked document has revealed the extensive surveillance and investigative capabilities available to Immigration and…
404 Media
Demand Is Booming for New No Tech, Repairable Tractor
The demand for low-tech, repairable tractors is surging as farmers seek alternatives to John Deere's repair monopoly.…
404 Media
Podcast: Hackers Asked Meta AI To Let Them In. It Worked
A recent podcast episode discusses a hacking incident where hackers successfully manipulated Meta's AI to change an…
404 Media
Companies Are Using Reddit to Manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search
Moderators of the biohacking subreddit have announced a ban on posts related to peptides and hormone replacement…
404 Media
Google Is Quietly Buying Code from Play Store Developers to Train AI
Google is reportedly purchasing code from Android app developers to enhance its AI coding tools. The initiative aims…
404 Media
‘Highly Plausible’ Aliens on Europa Are Earthlings’ Descendants, Study Says
A new study suggests that bacteria from Earth may have reached Europa, Jupiter's ice moon, potentially leading to life…
404 Media
Behind the Blog: Being New and Some Numbers
The article discusses the behind-the-scenes thoughts of the blog's creators regarding their recent stories. It…
404 Media
Headway Therapy Patients Forced to Scan Their Faces to Keep Getting Care
Headway, an online therapy platform, is implementing a new requirement for clients and providers to undergo biometric…
404 Media
New Study Reveals the Manipulative ‘Dark Patterns’ of AI Chatbots
A new study highlights the manipulative design choices, known as 'dark patterns', used by AI chatbots to engage users.…
404 Media
‘Lobotomized’: Character.AI Is Showing What AI Enshittification Looks Like
Character.ai users are expressing significant dissatisfaction with recent changes to the app, claiming it has been…
404 Media
Podcast: How Deepfakes Destroyed a High School
This week's podcast discusses the impact of deepfakes on a high school and the failures experienced by the students…
404 Media
Millions of People Are Installing Malware on Their Partners’ Phones (with Zack Whittaker)
The podcast discusses the alarming rise of spouseware or stalkerware, which is malware that individuals install on…
404 Media
‘BusPatrol’ Put AI Cameras in Tens of Thousands of School Buses. Now They Want to Give Cops Access
BusPatrol plans to expand its AI camera system in school buses to include automatic license plate reading…
404 Media
An Incomplete List of Successful Anti-Data Center Legislation
Opposition to data centers is growing across the United States, leading to various moratoriums and bans. Communities…
404 Media
‘Corpse Point’ In the Arctic Is Melting, Disturbing Centuries-Old Bodies
The remains of whalers buried centuries ago in the Arctic are melting out of their graves due to climate change. A…
404 Media
Here's the Bodycam Footage of the Cybertruck That Drove Into a Lake
A man in Grapevine, Texas, drove his Tesla Cybertruck into a lake to test its 'wade mode' and was subsequently…
404 Media
Behind the Blog: The Attention Wars
The article discusses Spencer Pratt's unexpected political ambitions as he runs for mayor of Los Angeles. Pratt, a…
404 Media
Deepfakes Tore a High School Apart
A freshman at Radnor High School in Pennsylvania allegedly created deepfake videos of female classmates using an app…
404 Media
This Archivist Has Saved 175,000 Articles from 30 Years of Writing about Magic: The Gathering
The Library of Leng is a new searchable database dedicated to preserving articles about Magic: The Gathering. Created…
404 Media
The Oldest Evidence of Animal Sex Has Been Found, and It’s Mind-Boggling
Scientists have discovered the oldest fossilized evidence of sexual reproduction in animals, dating back 567 million…
404 Media
Township Leader Resigns in Tears Over OpenAI Data Center Death Threats
The treasurer of Saline Township, Michigan, resigned due to death threats she received over a controversial data…
404 Media
After Town Bans Flock, Councilmember Crashes Out, Proposes Internet and Phone Ban
The Bandera, Texas city council voted to terminate its contract with the surveillance company Flock after significant…
404 Media
Podcast: Elites Just Don't Get AI
This week's podcast discusses the mixed reactions to AI-related commencement speeches, particularly from former Google…
404 Media
Streamer Realtime Deepfakes Himself into Mr. Beast, Says He Loves 'Touching Little Boys'
A streamer used a realtime deepfake app to impersonate Mr. Beast and made inappropriate comments. The app, called…
404 Media
Lawyer for Guy Who Sued Women Who Called Him ‘Psycho’ Caught Using AI
A judge dismissed a defamation case brought by Nikko D’Ambrosio against several women and Meta, citing misuse of AI by…
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