The 404 Media Podcast

Big tech didn’t expect the community pushback around data centers. Developers accustomed to building whatever they want with minimal oversight are facing hard questions about land use, water rights, electricity bills, and noise. To push back on local activism, data center builders are using an old playbook pioneered by the nuclear power and oil industry.

On this episode of the 404 Media podcast, Kyle Keeler and Nate Otjen talk with Matthew about how big tech is trying to take control of the narrative around data centers. Keeler is a professor of environmental sciences and studies at Lafayette College. Otjen is a professor of sustainability and environmental studies at Ramapo College.

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/hK_aIf9GEd4

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We start this week with Jason and Joseph’s article about leaked audio from a private police conference. In that audio, Flock’s CEO made all sorts of wild claims about the backlash to his company not being real, and his wife’s advice to never apologize. After the break, Sam tells us why former Yahoo CEO Marrisa Mayer can’t keep pretending ‘gender doesn’t matter.’ In the subscribers-only section, Joseph tells us about a woman who is facing years in prison because someone else opened a CashApp account in her name.

• In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the Company Isn’t Real
• Marissa Mayer Can’t Keep Pretending 'Gender Doesn't Matter'
• Someone Opened a CashApp In Her Name. She Faces Years in Prison

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This week on the pod we’re joined by Mike Isaac a tech reporter who has been at the New York Times for more than a decade and who just recently announced he’s joining The Atlantic. Isaac also is the author of Super Pumped, a book about Uber that was adapted into a TV show. Isaac and 404 Media cover the same companies and technologies but we come at them from pretty different angles. He has a very deep background in business reporting and he’s also very well sourced in the valley. We spent a lot of time talking about how the AI race looks right now from his perspective, the challenges in covering it, and also the reemergence of Uber’s founder, Travis Kalanick.

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/1sNBtPRo87s

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We start this week with Jason’s article about how everyone is apparently reverse-engineering everything. After the break, Joseph tells us about a big AI shakeup at consulting giant Accenture. In the subscribers-only section, Sam and Jason discuss the Character[.]ai bankruptcy.

• ‘Reverse-Engineer Anything’ Is the New Wild West of AI
• Accenture Tells Employees They Can Now Spend Only $29 on Claude Per Month
• Character[.]ai Bankruptcy Is First AI Bubble Domino to Fall

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Big tech is rushing to build hundreds of data centers across the planet to keep up with the computing demand of artificial intelligence. The tech companies are promising the massive buildings will bring jobs and prosperity when they’re built, but communities across the country aren’t buying it and they’re fighting back. People are concerned about water, noise, pollution, and the rising cost of electricity. Anyone who already lives next to a data center knows those fears are well founded.

To talk through this, Matthew spoke to Paris Marx. He’s a tech critic, the host of Tech Won’t Save Us and the author of the new book Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech’s Data Empires.

Buy Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech’s Data Empires

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/PRf8ZtpSqAg

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Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, has kept a close eye on some of the biggest tech antitrust and copyright court cases. Kint has a knack for finding particularly incriminating court records in complex ongoing lawsuits. We talk to Kint about the pressures that human creators are under in an AI world, the New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI, and why Meta's Cambridge Analytica scandal is relevant again.

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We start this week with Joseph’s article about Raven, previously known as Geospy. This is an AI tool that can geolocate photos, and now says it can pinpoint a specific house based just on one photo taken inside. After the break, Jason explains why a judge ruled a particular Flock search as unconstitutional. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about the wild AI video that has derailed a manslaughter case.

• AI Company Lets Cops Pinpoint Specific Houses Based on a Single Interior Photo
• Watch Footage of the Flock Search a Judge Ruled Unconstitutional
• Her AI-Generated Video Swayed the Judge. The Court Said it Carried 'Undue Emotional Weight'

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Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen became one of the most important tech whistleblowers in 2021, when she exposed how Facebook’s algorithm was pushing people toward hate groups, showed Instagram was making teen girls feel worse about themselves, and showed that the company knew about its detrimental impacts on society. Haugen’s story is the basis for Aaron Sorkin’s new movie ‘The Social Reckoning,’ which follows her evolution from model employee to leaker to formal whistleblower. Jason and Frances discuss what the movie got right about journalist-source relationships and how AI is supercharging privacy concerns.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/oB3IxwCfP7M

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We start this week with a story from our old friend Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, about how cops can bypass the inactivity reboot on iPhones. After the break, Jason tells us how people are losing their minds over an LLM ‘torture’ prison. In the subscribers-only section, Sam explains what happened in a wild ChatGPT case in New Mexico.

• Cops Can Bypass iPhone’s Automatic Reboot to Get Into Locked Phones, Leaked Video Claims
• Someone ‘Torturing’ LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet
• Lawyer Cites ChatGPT-Invented Fake Witnesses in Murder Appeal

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Thank you to DeleteMe for helping make this night possible. They're offering ⁠20% off a privacy protection plan⁠ for friends of 404 Media. Use code 404M20 at checkout.

404 Media just turned three years old, and to celebrate, we hosted a night of chatting about what we’ve accomplished with your support, what’s next for us, and whether or not we’re all going to be okay. We also threw in some weird bugs and community resistance for good measure. Don’t miss us pulling audience questions out of the mystery AMA box!

Live from WNYC’s Greene Space, you can also watch the entire show on 404 Media’s YouTube channel.

• We Are Going to Be Okay: A Three Year Anniversary Events Recap
• Our Zine About ICE Surveillance Is Here
• Watch 404 Media’s Super Bowl Ad

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/t_VjNAopjhI

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We start this week with Joseph’s stories on the massive FBI hack. 404 Media broke this news and continued to cover the breach of data on all FBI employees and their spouses. After the break, Jason tells us how a surveillance company is telling cops it wants to add facial recognition tech to Flock camera data. In the subscribers-only section, Jason and Joseph chat all about Muse, Meta’s new agentic AI, and how humans are actually behind some of the tasks. Because of course.

• ‘We Hacked the FBI:’ Hackers Say They Have Data on All FBI Employees
• FBI Hack Exposed FBI’s Own Hacking Unit
• FBI Hackers Say They Won’t Publish Massive Trove of FBI Employee Data
• Surveillance Company Tells Cops It Wants to Add Facial Recognition to Flock Cameras

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Facial recognition is everywhere now. It’s in surveillance cameras; it’s soon going to be in Meta’s RayBan pervert glasses, and some students already did that. You now have massively viral accounts that take clips of people, run them through facial recognition software, and then post their name and other personal info for everyone to see. We haven’t fully come to terms with what it means to live in a world where anyone can basically dox anyone else now.

To talk through this, Joseph spoke to Kashmir Hill. She’s a reporter at the New York Times, and the author of Your Face Belongs to Us: A Tale of AI, a Secretive Startup, and the End of Privacy.

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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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We start this week with Joseph’s story about the secretive predictive policing units inside DHS that are analyzing Americans’ financial data and having local cops pull them over. After the break, Jason tells us about the funky shirt designed to fool AI-camera systems. In the subscribers-only section, we talk all about our third anniversary events.

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/o0AG6A5MIRg

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RSVP: Killer Technology With 404 Media

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A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over

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This 'Digital Camouflage' Shirt Confuses AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras

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We Are Going to Be Okay: A Three Year Anniversary Events Recap

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This week Jason talks to Lindsey Isaacs and her lawyer, Patrick McGeehan. Last year, Lindsey was falsely arrested and imprisoned after authorities used Flock’s license plate reader system to pull over the wrong person in a hit-and-run that killed three people. Lindsey spent 13 days in jail because of this screwup.

This all happened because authorities were looking for a black dodge Durango, and used Flock’s freeform search to look for a black SUV. Lindsey happened to be driving a black dodge Durango 3 miles west of where the crash happened a few minutes beforehand. Lindsey was arrested even though there was no damage to her car. She again, spent 13 days in jail before the charges against her were dropped. This is one of the worst cases of Flock-related policing screwups we’ve ever seen, and an innocent person had their life upended because of it. We spoke to Lindsey and Patrick about what happened, the case, Flock surveillance, and their lawsuit against the police who did this to her.

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We start this week with Emanuel’s follow-up to his Amazon book scanning story, in which he spoke to someone who worked in the Amazon warehouse which destroys books to train Amazon’s AI products. After the break, Emanuel and Sam tell us about the same few names appearing in LLM output over and over again. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph tells us why ICE is buying loads of data about ‘voter fraud’.

• You're Invited: 404 Media's Third Anniversary Live Podcast and Party!
• Inside the Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training
• The AI ‘Ghosts’ Contaminating Academic Publishing
• ICE Plans to Spend Millions on Boston Dynamics Dog Robots
• ICE Wants the Country’s Voter Data

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/PcNdLnLF7mo

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