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It's Friday, it's the weekly roundup, what more could you want. On the podcast: How independent media is turning back to physical media as a way to subvert algorithms, and some very weird Instagram changes. In the section for subscribers at the Supporter level, ICEBlock’s lawsuit against the U.S. government. And in this week’s interview episode, I talk to Noelle Perdue about AI porn, ChatGPT erotica, and age verification. Subscribers at the Supporter tier can start listening right now to next week's interview with Emanuel and Becky Ferreira, author of our weekly science column The Abstract a new book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens. Check your membership status here. Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Have you heard about our zine??? Check out what we're up to, and how 404 Media is entering the IRL world, here.
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ICE COLDThe creator of ICEBlock, a popular ICE-spotting app that Apple removed after direct pressure from the Department of Justice, is suing Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top officials, arguing that the demand violated his First Amendment rights. The move was the latest in the ongoing crackdown on ICE-spotting apps and other information about the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort. Both Apple and Google have removed other similar apps from their app stores, with Apple also removing one called Eyes Up that simply archived videos of ICE abuses.  IMAGE: U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, VIA FLICKR, and ICEBlock's website NEW BIGGEST FEAR UNLOCKEDGoogle suspended a mobile app developer’s accounts after he uploaded AI training data to his Google Drive. Unbeknownst to him, the widely used dataset, which is cited in a number of academic papers and distributed via an academic file sharing site, contained child sexual abuse material. The developer reported the dataset to a child safety organization, which eventually resulted in the dataset’s removal, but he claims Google’s ban has been "devastating.”  Photo by Christian Lue / Unsplash STUPID GAMES, STUPID PRIZESPolymarket and Kalshi gamblers who bet that “AI” would win the Time Person of the Year are upset because the magazine has named the “Architects of AI” the person of the year. The people who make AI tools and AI infrastructure are, notably, not “AI” themselves, and thus both Kalshi and Polymarket have decided that people who bet “AI” do not win the bet. On Polymarket alone, people spent more than $6 million betting on AI gracing the cover of Time. As writer Parker Molloy pointed out, people who bet on AI are pissed. “ITS THE ARCHITECTS OF AI THISNIS [sic] LITERALLY THE BET FUCK KALSHI,” one Kalshi better said.  Screenshot via Kalshi S'MORES ANYONEHumans made fires as early as 400,000 years ago, pushing the timeline of this crucial human innovation back a staggering 350,000 years, reports a study published on Wednesday in Nature. Mastery of fire is one of the most significant milestones in our evolutionary history, enabling early humans to cook nutritious food, seek protection from predators, and establish comfortable spaces for social gatherings. The ability to make fires is completely unique to the Homo genus that includes modern humans (Homo sapiens) and extinct humans, including Neanderthals.  Excavation of 400,000 year old pond sediments at Barnham, Suffolk. Image: Jordan Mansfield, Pathways to Ancient Britain Project FILE UNDER: WELL WELL WELLOn a recent immigration raid, a Border Patrol agent wore a pair of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, with the privacy light clearly on signaling he was recording the encounter, which agents are not permitted to do, according to photos and videos of the incident shared with 404 Media. Previously when 404 Media covered CBP officials’ use of Ray-Ban Metas, it wasn’t clear if the officials were using them to record raids because the recording lights were not on in any of the photos seen by 404 Media. In the new material from Charlotte, North Carolina, during the recent wave of immigration enforcement, the recording light is visibly illuminated.  Image: 404 Media READ MORE Replying to Pete Hegseth Says the Pentagon's New Chatbot Will Make America 'More Lethal' AAS writes: “Being ‘more lethal’ is not really what I want my country to aspire to.”
And in response to Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts, Steve writes: “We've done it, it's just bots generating content for other bots. Now they're just trying to fix the bug of why humans are sometimes showing up in the bots' content feed.”
Proudly still a human generating content for other humans, here. BEHIND THE BLOGThis 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 conversational AI, a behind the scenes of the zine, and more. EMANUEL: I made the terrible mistake of looking at some Hacker News comments this week for my story about a developer whose Google accounts were banned after he uploaded training data to Google Drive. Unbeknownst to him, the training data contained CSAM. As we’ve explained in previous stories, CSAM is a subject we dread covering not only because it’s one of the most awful things one could think about, but because it’s extremely difficult and legally risky. For understandable reasons, the laws around viewing, let alone possessing CSAM, are strict and punishing, which makes verification for reporting reasons challenging. For similar reasons, it’s something we need to write about very carefully, making sure we don’t wrongfully associate or whitewash someone when it comes to such horrible behavior. Read the rest of Emanuel's Behind the Blog, as well as Sam, Jason, and Joseph's, by becoming a paid subscriber.
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