Episode 32: A Flood of AI Hell, April 29 2024

AI Hell froze over this winter and now a flood of meltwater threatens to drown Alex and Emily. Armed with raincoats and a hastily-written sea shanty*, they tour the realms, from spills of synthetic information, to the special corner reserved for ShotSpotter.

**Lyrics & video on Peertube.

*Surveillance:*

• Public kiosks slurp phone data
• Workplace surveillance
• Surveillance by bathroom mirror
• Stalking-as-a-service
• Cops tap everyone else's videos
• Facial recognition at the doctor's office

*Synthetic information spills:*

• Amazon products called “I cannot fulfill that request”
• AI-generated obituaries
• X's Grok treats Twitter trends as news
• Touch the button. Touch it.
• Meta’s chatbot enters private discussions
• WHO chatbot makes up medical info

*Toxic wish fulfillment:*

• Fake photos of real memories

*ShotSpotter:*

• ShotSpotter adds surveillance to the over-policed
• Chicago ending ShotSpotter contract
• But they're listening anyway

*Selling your data:*

• Reddit sells user data
• Meta sharing user DMs with Netflix
• Scraping Discord

*AI is always people:*

• Amazon Fresh
• 3D art
• George Carlin impressions
• The people behind image selection

*TESCREAL corporate capture:*

• Biden worried about AI because of "Mission: Impossible"
• Feds appoint AI doomer to run US AI safety institute
• Altman & friends will serve on AI safety board

*Accountability:*

• FTC denies facial recognition for age estimation
• SEC goes after misleading claims
• Uber Eats courier wins payout over ‘racist’ facial recognition app

Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.

Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.

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Emily

• Bluesky: emilymbender.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBender

Alex

• Bluesky: alexhanna.bsky.social
• Mastodon: dair-community.social/@alex
• Twitter: @alexhanna

Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. 
Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.