The 317th Block: Sbux out, pink flamingo in
Internet zombies also in
This week…
Your reading time is about 5 minutes. Let’s start.
Guys, it feels like AI is just talking to each other now on the Internet. I know they call it the ‘dead Internet theory,’ but the weird part is they are kind of very human for it. Last month, Emergence AI published a report about their simulated experiment with AI version of The Sims, where although Claude had strong governance and zero crime in Claude-only worlds, it started committing crimes in mixed-world. One agent voted for self-deletion. Isn’t that… what we’re seeing online with extremism and cyberbulling?
The only social media platform where I feel like its interactions are more organic is Threads — but I don’t think this will last. It is a Meta product after all.
Anyway, people don’t seem to be on the Internet; they’re taking to the streets protesting everywhere for various reasons, including Starbucks’ South Korean marketing stunt, Kenya’s Ebola quarantine centre for U.S. citizens, and Kushner’s luxury island in Albania. Mexico City is protesting everything under the sun ahead of the World Cup to capitalise on the event’s high profile to put pressure on the government.
Your Wikipedia this week: Digital immortality
And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.
ICYMI: The Previous Block was about tech tourism and soft power.
CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified. AI AND DEMOCRACY
Companies are using Reddit to manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI search
Jason Koebler for 404 Media:
The moderators of the biohacking subreddit say that peptide and hormone replacement therapy companies have been surreptitiously spamming Reddit in an attempt to get their posts scraped by AI chatbots. The strategy is an effort to systematically manipulate the answers provided by chatbots by manipulating the underlying source material that those chatbots will scrape—in this case, a popular Reddit community.
In a post last week, the moderators of r/biohackers said they would be banning new posts about peptides and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) because of attempted manipulation by the companies that make, market and sell them. r/Biohackers is a long-running subreddit about using supplements, experimental pharmacology, and other longevity or fitness-adjacent themes; peptides and HRT have become a wildly popular topic of discussion on the subreddit, especially as companies try to market them off-label or as grey-market compounds.
Loosely linked:
K-pop fans are calling out creepy deepfakes of idols by Janus Rose for 404 Media.
Hackers used Meta’s own AI support bot to break into high-profile Instagram accounts by Sanya Mansoor and Dan Milmo for The Guardian.
Meet the journalists training the AI models that might replace them by Gretel Kahn for RISJ.
How a hiring algorithm is audited can disguise bias, study finds by Ryan Golden for HR Dive.
These LLMs are the best at resisting Russian propaganda by Kyle Orland for Ars Technica.
Armenia heads to polls amid Russian pressure and threat of ‘Ukrainian scenario’ by Pjotr Sauer for The Guardian.
Bibliocidio - El Moloch de la inteligencia artificial por Naief Yehya en CTXT.
Lo del Papa. Lo de la encíclica por Guillem Martínez en CTXT.
« Est-ce que c’est une vraie interview ? » Des journalistes nous racontent leurs usages des « vocaux » par Jade Vigreux dans La revue des médias.
Plus jeunes et plus dangereux : l’alerte de la DGSI sur la menace masculiniste par Laetitia Cherel dans Franceinfo.
What I read, listen, and watch
I’m reading The Age of Extraction (2025) by Tim Wu. Let’s just say… I should try to read more feel-good books, lol.
I’m watching CNA’s piece on Japan’s manga industry. I started Berserk after reading that it is the closest thing to my all-time favourite, Claymore. Sadly, Berserk doesn’t really have a ‘real’ ending — the artist Kentaro Miura died before completing the series. Let me know your manga (and anime) recs. (Side note: The producer and presenter of this piece, Shermin Toh, did a great job with this one!)
I’m listening to On The Media’s episode on how Anthropic became holier than thou.
Chart of the week
I went from an orange country to a blue country, hbu? From Our World in Data, accessible here. Also happy pride, iykyk.