Notices by Jason Koebler (jasonkoebler@mastodon.social)

Pokemon Go players have been unwittingly mapping the entire world to train a geospatial AI model whose most obvious use cases are for robotic navigation and possibly the military

https://www.404media.co/pokemon-go-players-have-unwittingly-trained-ai-to-navigate-the-world/

The movie Twister—and ONLY the movie Twister—is unrentable from remaining Redbox machines and no one knows why even after weeks of people reverse-engineering the kiosks.

Twister is Redbox's last DVD.

If you know why this is happening, please tell me

https://www.404media.co/redboxs-last-dvd-twister-is-unrentable-in-remaining-redbox-kiosks-and-no-one-knows-why/

1: AI is hallucinating events, historical figures, entire concepts on Wikipedia

2: a task force of Wikipedia editors is detecting and deleting this stuff

https://www.404media.co/the-editors-protecting-wikipedia-from-ai-hoaxes/

DIY, pirated medicine is becoming increasingly accessible and easier to make due to automation, new tech, and new software developed and released by Four Thieves Vinegar Collective:

https://www.404media.co/right-to-repair-for-your-body-the-rise-of-diy-pirated-medicine/

There is a new genre of serious-seeming "scientific" research paper but the paper is like "we asked ChatGPT if AI could do your job and it said yes" and then news outlets cover them uncritically and they go viral

https://www.404media.co/ai-finds-that-ai-is-great-in-new-garbage-research-from-tony-blair-institute/

Google's researchers would like you to know that AI is polluting the internet

https://www.404media.co/google-ai-potentially-breaking-reality-is-a-feature-not-a-bug/

A car rental service in Charlotte has replaced their agents with remote workers on video chat. If you need to speak to a manager you go into an office where you talk to another screen sitting at a big executive desk

https://www.404media.co/car-rental-service-replaces-desk-agents-with-people-on-video-chat/

$60 million well spent

https://www.404media.co/google-is-paying-reddit-60-million-for-fucksmith-to-tell-its-users-to-eat-glue/

Scoop: I obtained the contract Samsung requires independent shops to sign to buy phone repair parts from them.

It requires:

- "Daily" dumps of customer data
- The "immediate destruction" of any phones a shop comes across that has third-party parts

https://www.404media.co/samsung-requires-independent-repair-shops-to-share-customer-data-snitch-on-people-who-use-aftermarket-parts-leaked-contract-shows/

This, from a John Deere dealer, is wild. They warn that affected tractors operated during this time will likely have made maps that are wrong, which will be wrong throughout the growing system, and which are wrong in an inconsistent way

One farmer called it a "shitshow." Another: "All the tractors are sitting at the ends of the field right now shut down because of the solar storm." Another said their systems that are normally centimeter-accurate were off by 3-6 feet and tractor kept "wandering off" and had to be constantly corrected.

This is a reminder of how much modern tractors rely on satellite and internet connections. Many farmers can't or won't plant right now bc tractors have been highly automated to increase yield. Rows are planted so tightly together that humans can't navigate them w/o killing crops

Scoop: Solar storm is causing farmers' tractor GPS systems to go haywire. Many have shut down planting altogether during a critical period. A Deere dealer said accuracy is "extremely compromised"

https://www.404media.co/solar-storm-knocks-out-tractor-gps-systems-during-peak-planting-season/

The publisher of a small imprint of roleplaying games magazines/speculative fiction shuts down after 22 years because their submissions have been flooded with AI to the extent they cannot wade through them:

“The problem with AI is the people who use AI. These are people who think their ‘ideas’ are more important than the actual craft of writing, so they churn out all these ‘ideas’ and enter their idea prompts and think the output is a story.”

https://www.404media.co/bards-and-sages-closing-ai-generated-writing/

many of America's largest companies now require job applicants to do a personality test where you pretend you are a CG humanoid blue alien and answer "me" or "not me" to statements like "things happen to me" and "personal best"

https://www.404media.co/low-paying-jobs-require-bizarre-personality-evaluation-from-ai-company/

I wrote about my first two months on Mastodon. I was a Mastodon hater because I thought it would be weird, complicated, or dead. It's been none of those things.

I'm ashamed I didn't join earlier and I'm ashamed I haven't been telling people to join it, because it's a version of the internet and social media I've long advocated for with my reporting: decentralized, portable, user controlled, not corporate:

https://www.404media.co/mastodon-is-the-good-one/

New from me and @josephcox: buzzy AI company that turns 2d sketches into 3d models with "magic" has actually been using 3d artists in developing countries, who have a goal of delivering an asset to a client 15 minutes after they request it:

https://www.404media.co/kaedim-ai-startup-2d-to-3d-used-cheap-human-labor/