AI
We Can, and We Must, Clown on the Humane AI Pin Forever
The Humane Ai Pin joins a rich tradition of terrible tech products that includes the Juicero, Coolest Cooler, and Magic Leap that we must remember forever.
AI
Facebook’s AI Told Parents Group It Has a Gifted, Disabled Child
Facebook’s chatbot eventually apologized and said it doesn’t have “personal experiences or children.”
TV
The Dystopian Future of TV Is AI-Generated 'FAST' Garbage
TCL's new AI-generated movie "Next Stop Paris" is the next evolution in the algorithmification of TV.
AI
OpenAI Training Bot Crawls 'World's Lamest Content Farm' 3 Million Times in One Day
"If you were wondering what they're using to train GPT-5, well, now you know."
AI
Is Google's AI Actually Discovering 'Millions of New Materials?'
"In the DeepMind paper there are many examples of predicted materials that are clearly nonsensical."
repair
Apple Announces Half Measure to Make iPhones More Repairable Immediately After Law Banned Its Repair Practices
Apple will partially ease its "parts pairing" policy on the same day Colorado is considering a right-to-repair bill that would ban parts pairing, and weeks after Oregon banned the practice.
science
Paper-Crumpling Study About the Nature of Anger Is the Best Thing I've Read in a Long Time
Science has found that writing down your feelings and performatively disposing of them can make you less angry.
‘AI Instagram Influencers’ Are Deepfaking Their Faces Onto Real Women’s Bodies
AI 'influencers' on Instagram have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views by stealing reels from real women to make the AI seem more "believable."
Announcements
Introducing the First 404 Media Fellow: Jules Roscoe
Jules will be covering labor and automation and helping our stories show up on all platforms as our first 404 Media fellow.
layoffs
Best Buy Geek Squad Agents ‘Going Sleeper’ After Mass Layoffs
Laid-off employees say they weren't given notice, and were instead given notice via email about a "work from home" event.
AI
A ‘Law Firm’ of AI Generated Lawyers Is Sending Fake Threats as an SEO Scam
Backlink scams are now leveraging fake, AI-generated 'lawyers' and DMCA trolling to try to pressure site owners to link to their 'clients.'
open source
Bullying in Open Source Software Is a Massive Security Vulnerability
The Xz backdoor and a near miss on the F-Droid app store show how the entitled attitude of some people in the open source community can be used to push malicious or insecure code.