How This Trippy Image Started A Massive Conspiracy Theory
4/29/202647 min
This week, Jason explains the conspiracy theory circulating behind a trippy stock image that went viral after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—was it sent here by a time traveler? (Spoiler: It was not.) Then Sam unpacks what’s happening at Arizona State University with a messy rollout of a new AI-powered tool that generates lessons by scraping professors’ lectures without their knowledge. In the second for subscribers at the Supporter level, Emanuel gets philosophical with a discussion about the question of machine consciousness and how it relates to a new paper from a Google-affiliated scientist. University Professors Disturbed to Find Their Lectures Chopped Up and Turned Into AI Slop Did a Time Traveling Superintelligent AI Try to Warn About White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting? An Investigation Google DeepMind Paper Argues LLMs Will Never Be Conscious YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/VOo0ZpIagP0 Subscribe at 404media.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJason Koebler· Host0:00
A super intelligent AI built a time machine, came back in time, used its powers to make a super vague X account and tweeted the name of this person and nothing else.
Sam Cole· Host0:11
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to the 404 Media podcast, where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist-founded company, and needs your support. To subscribe, go to fourfourmedia.co. As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to the best comments. Gain access to that content at fourfourmedia.co. I'm your host, Sam, and with me are 404 Media co-founders Jason Kebler- Hello ... and Emmanuel Maiberg.
Emmanuel Maiberg· Host0:42
Hello.
Jason Koebler· Host0:43
Joe's out.
Sam Cole· Host0:44
Joe's gonna come in. Joe's gonna appear as a ghost in this next clip that we're about to play. Um, he has an announcement.
Jason Koebler· Host0:50
[laughs] He has a special, special message. He couldn't show up, but he has a special message.
Sam Cole· Host0:56
Joe got, Joe got some really good impact in all seriousness, so he's gonna tell you about that in the next, for the next one and a half minutes. I've not heard this yet, so we'll hear it for the first time right now.
Joseph Cox1:06
Hi, uh, I can't be there today on the podcast 'cause I'm traveling, uh, for some work-related stuff. But I wanted to give you a quick update on a story we covered a couple of weeks ago at this point. The headline of that one was "FBI Extracts Suspect's Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database." And the issue was that