Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Chat, Are We Cooked?
This week, we discuss Palantir scoops, coping mechanisms, and feeling God in this Samsung television.
cars
Car Rental Service Replaces Desk Agents With People On Video Chat
A Nu Car Rentals office in Charlotte, North Carolina offers only "virtual assistance" to customers.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Too Many Tabs and Generative AI Hype
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 exciting new updates to the podcast, having too many tabs open, and the generative AI boom.
News
Stable Diffusion 3's Disastrous Launch Could Change the AI Landscape Forever
Stability AI botched the launch of its latest model, proving the Stable Diffusion community doesn’t need the company that brought it to the world.
News
Lawsuit Claims Microsoft Tracked Sex Toy Shoppers With 'Recording in Real Time' Software
The complaint claims that Babeland and Good Vibrations websites uses Microsoft's Clarity tracking software to see what visitors searched for and bought.
News
Perplexity’s Origin Story: Scraping Twitter With Fake Academic Accounts
CEO Aravind Srinivas explained how the company took off after it created a demo by scraping twitter with fake academic accounts using fake AI-generated research proposals.
Surveillance
eBay Removes Listing for StingRay Cellphone Spying Tech
The StingRay was listed at $100,000 before being removed for violating the platform’s policy on not selling electronic surveillance equipment.
Podcast
Podcast: Replacing 404 Media with AI
Emanuel's AI-powered ripoff news site; we listen to the music that has record labels suing startups; and chatbots have changed their personalities overnight.
News
Self Tanner and Cheap Ties: Bankruptcy Filings Reveal Rudy Giuliani's Amazon Purchases
Court documents show what the former mayor of NYC has been buying on Amazon lately, including a lot of socks, ties, and self-tanning lotion.
News
Researchers Prove Rabbit AI Breach By Sending Email to Us as Admin
The researchers claim they could see “all Rabbit R1 responses ever given."
News
ID Verification Service for TikTok, Uber, X Exposed Driver Licenses
As social networks and porn sites move towards a verified identity model, the actions of one cybersecurity researcher show that ID verification services themselves could get hacked too.
chatbots
‘No Bot is Themselves Anymore:’ Character.ai Users Report Sudden Personality Changes to Chatbots
The company denied making "major changes," but users report noticeable differences in the quality of their chatbot conversations.
News
California Apple Manufacturing Facility Has 19 ‘Potential Violations’ of EPA Regulations
A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests that Apple also miscalculated the effectiveness of its hazardous compound air filters.