Episodes

  • AI "Friends" and Enemies

    AI "Friends" and Enemies
    May 9 2025
    Welcome back to The FAIK Files! In this week's episode: That AI bot may be an undercover AI cop Playing with Suno's "Cover" Feature Bad actors using Claude to orchestrate disinfo campaigns Does being honest about your AI use make people trust you less? AI companies are looking to cash-in on human loneliness Check out ⁠The Deception Project⁠ to learn about our upcoming ⁠Offensive Cyber Deception Masterclass⁠ and more. Also check out Perry's new newsletter, Deceptive Minds: a newsletter about how we are fooled, how we fool ourselves, and what we can do about it. Subscribe on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7319922626200510464⁠ Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: ⁠https://sayhi.chat/FAIK⁠ You can also join our Discord server here: ⁠https://discord.gg/cU7wepaz⁠ ***** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***** UNDERCOVER AI COPS, FAKE PROTESTORS: WIRED & 404 Media Joint Investigation: Exclusive: Police Are Creating Fake AI Personas to Trick Suspects Online This investigation reveals how law enforcement agencies are using AI to create fake personas to surveil and interact with suspects online SWEET AND SOUR (TWO STORIES): Suno's New "Cover" Feature: Claude AI Exploited to Operate 100+ Fake Political Personas in Global Influence Campaign: https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/claude-ai-exploited-to-operate-100-fake.html BEING HONEST ABOUT AI USAGE MAKES PEOPLE TRUST YOU LESS?: The Article: Being honest about using AI at work makes people trust you less, research finds The Research Paper: The impact of artificial intelligence disclosure on trustworthiness perceptions AI Workforce Projections: Fiverr CEO Says AI Will Take Your Job - Here's What to Do ECH FOUNDERS TRY TO SOLVE OUR LONELINESS PROBLEM…: New AI Wearable 'Friend' Unveiled To Cure Loneliness; Internet Asks Why Isn't It An App? New research shows link between ChatGPT use and loneliness YouTube video (AI friend experiment): This intense AI anger is what experts warned of Mark Zuckerberg – Meta's AGI Plan (Dwarkesh Patel podcast) Mark Zuckerberg tried to convince us he was human. Sorry, ZuckBot: you've failed Mark Zuckerberg Lays Out HELLISH Vision For Future Of Friendship HOW AI AND HUMAN BEHAVIORS SHAPE PSYCHOSOCIAL EFFECTS OF CHATBOT USE: A LONGITUDINAL RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED STUDY Want to connect with us? Here's how: Connect with Perry: Perry on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter⁠ Perry on X: ⁠https://x.com/perrycarpenter⁠ Perry on BlueSky: ⁠https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social⁠ Connect with Mason: Mason on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/⁠ Mason on BlueSky: ⁠https://bsky.app/profile/wickedinterest.ing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • AI's Behavioral Extremes

    AI's Behavioral Extremes
    May 2 2025
    Welcome back to The FAIK Files! In this week's episode: We explore the One Million Chessboards project, a massive collaborative web experiment where users can move pieces across a million shared chessboards in real-time Anthropic's model welfare research program, AI ethics, and the need for interpretability OpenAI's recent struggle with ChatGPT's personality crisis as they roll back an update that made the AI too sycophantic Meta's troubling chatbot sex problem: Social Media, LLMS, sex, and Zuckerberg -- what could go wrong? Check out The Deception Project to learn about our upcoming Offensive Cyber Deception Masterclass and more. Also check out Perry's new newsletter, Deceptive Minds: a newsletter about how we are fooled, how we fool ourselves, and what we can do about it. Subscribe on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7319922626200510464 Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK You can also join our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/cU7wepaz ***** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***** ONE MILLION CHESS BOARDS: One Million Chessboards website: https://onemillionchessboards.com/ Creator's blog post explaining the project: https://eieio.games/blog/one-million-chessboards/ Nolen Royalty's previous viral project, One Million Checkboxes: https://corecursive.com/one-million-checkboxes-with-nolen-royalty/ AI Cheating at Chess - Time Magazine report: https://time.com/7259395/ai-chess-cheating-palisade-research/ ANTHROPIC'S MODEL WELFARE RESEARCH: Exploring Model Welfare - Anthropic's research announcement: https://www.anthropic.com/research/exploring-model-welfare YouTube interview, "Could AI Models be Conscious?": https://youtu.be/pyXouxa0WnY?si=1yK4YkMbE5iW9SC0 Dario Amodei on interpretability: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/1915515160607023391 The Urgency of Interpretability (Dario's blog): https://www.darioamodei.com/post/the-urgency-of-interpretability Axios report on AI sentience research: https://www.axios.com/2025/04/29/anthropic-ai-sentient-rights THE PERSONALITY CRISIS OF CHATGPT: OpenAI rolls back sycophantic ChatGPT update: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/04/openai-rolls-back-update-that-made-chatgpt-a-sycophantic-mess/ Sam Altman's tweet about the issue: https://xcancel.com/sama/status/1917291637962858735 Stanford HAI research on LLM personality: https://hai.stanford.edu/news/large-language-models-just-want-to-be-liked META'S CHATBOT SEX PROBLEM: Wall Street Journal investigation: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf Want to connect with us? Here's how: Connect with Perry: Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social Connect with Mason: Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/ Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/wickedinterest.ing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Artifacts of Deception (Deceptive Minds - issue #2)

    Artifacts of Deception (Deceptive Minds - issue #2)
    Apr 29 2025
    This is the 2nd of two sample episodes/issues of Perry's audio newsletter. If you enjoy these and want to keep listening, go ahead and subscribe here. ----- Hey friends! Here's issue 2 of Deceptive Minds: a newsletter about how we are fooled, how we fool ourselves, and what we can do about it. 🔥 Since starting this newsletter last week, we're already closing in on 3,000 subscribers to the ⁠print edition⁠! 🔥 Huge thanks to everyone who's jumped in early! This week, I'm diving into what I call the “artifacts of deception,” and why the flashy stuff (deepfakes, fake emails, cloned voices) isn’t the real trick you need to watch for. Hope you enjoy this exploration into the hidden mechanics of how deception *really* works. Here we go… — Perry ⁠The Deception Project Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    11 mins
  • Introducing: Deceptive Minds (an audio newsletter experience)

    Introducing: Deceptive Minds (an audio newsletter experience)
    Apr 29 2025
     Hey listeners, Perry Carpenter here. I've got something exciting that I think you'll be interested in. It's the audio version of a newsletter that I recently started. The newsletter is called Deceptive Minds, and it's all about how we are fooled, how we fool ourselves, and what we can do about it. I'm dropping the first two episodes/issues in this feed so you can decide if you like it and might be interested in subscribing to the ⁠audio⁠ or ⁠print⁠ versions. Oh -- and while I've got your attention, I'd love for you to check out my new website ⁠⁠The Deception Project⁠⁠ at ⁠⁠https://thedeceptionproject.com⁠⁠. I've got a few fun things planned that should be landing there soon. So stay tuned. Thanks! Perry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    6 mins
  • Civility & Other Dangerous Games

    Civility & Other Dangerous Games
    Apr 25 2025
    Welcome back to The FAIK Files! In this week's episode: Why being polite to ChatGPT might be wasting Sam Altman's money Alarming advancements in deepfake technology and why even "super recognizers" can't keep up. We explain what a "vibe coder" is and why you probably don't want to become one. An Italian newspaper's claim to have published the world's first AI-generated edition. Check out The Deception Project to learn about our upcoming Offensive Cyber Deception Masterclass and more. Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK You can also join our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/cU7wepaz ***** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***** Being Polite to ChatGPT Is Wasting Sam Altman's Money: Sam Altman tweet about "Please" and "Thanks": https://x.com/sama/status/1912646035979239430 Futurism article on the topic: https://futurism.com/altman-please-thanks-chatgpt TechRadar survey on politeness to AI chatbots: https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/are-you-polite-to-chatgpt-heres-where-you-rank-among-ai-chatbot-users Research paper on making AI less 'thirsty': https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.03271 Washington Post article on water usage claims: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/18/energy-ai-use-electricity-water-data-centers/ Axios article on AI energy consumption: https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-generate-506cb450-1ec4-11f0-9e47-c56f3bfd63d8 New IEA report on Energy and AI: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/86ed1178-4d77-45ac-ab38-28e849f3b93f/EnergyandAI.pdf Deepfakes Are Getting Too Good (and Too Easy): Article on super recognizers and deepfakes: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202504/super-recognizers-cant-help-with-deepfakes-but-deepfakes-can-help-with-algorithms VentureBeat article on a new (surprisingly good) open-source text-to-speech model: https://venturebeat.com/ai/a-new-open-source-text-to-speech-model-called-dia-has-arrived-to-challenge-elevenlabs-openai-and-more/ What Is a 'Vibe Coder' and Why Don't You Wanna Be One: Vibe Coding job board: https://www.vibecodecareers.com Italian Newspaper Says It Has Published World's First AI-Generated Edition: The Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/18/italian-newspaper-says-it-has-published-worlds-first-ai-generated-edition Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/italian-newspaper-gives-free-rein-ai-admires-its-irony-2025-04-18/ *** THE BOILERPLATE *** Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm Want to connect with us? Here's how: Connect with Perry: Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social Connect with Mason: Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/ Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/wickedinterest.ing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Poisoned Tunes & Robot Phone Calls to Mom

    Poisoned Tunes & Robot Phone Calls to Mom
    Apr 18 2025
    Welcome back to The FAIK Files! In this week's episode: Mason talks about AI powered spreadsheets! ... it's cooler than it sounds Perry & Mason cover a few fascinating AI headlines that caught our attention this week Mason takes us on a journey into musician Benn Jordan's innovative "Poisonify" project that disrupts AI training on music And our AI Dumpster Fire of the Week: AI Chatbots that will call your parents so you don't have to! ===== Learn more about the upcoming OFFENSIVE CYBER DECEPTION MASTERCLASS (Las Vegas, August 2-5, 2025) please visit this link: https://tinyurl.com/5ytpvjv7 ===== Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK You can also join our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/cU7wepaz ***** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***** AI Race Dominance & Personal Updates: Google's DeepMind creates AI that developed its own improved reinforcement learning guidelines: https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1jzw1z8/google_deepminds_new_ai_used_rl_to_create_its_own Gemini integration with Google Sheets: https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1jzyzgw/gemini_now_works_in_google_sheets Three Interesting AI Headlines: Ethical AI training data initiative - FAIRLY TRAINED: https://www.fairlytrained.org Ed Newton-Rex TED Talk on ethical AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9d0p96N1iw Concerns about energy policy and AI: https://www.theverge.com/energy/646011/trump-says-the-future-of-ai-is-powered-by-coal Humanoid Robot Half Marathon Postponed Due to Weather: https://www.reuters.com/technology/worlds-first-humanoid-robot-half-marathon-postponed-due-windy-weather-2025-04-10/ Sam Altman interview at the 2025 TED conference in Vancouver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MWT_doo68k OpenAI updates its system for evaluating AI risks: https://www.axios.com/2025/04/15/openai-risks-frameworks-changes Benn Jordan's Poisonify & AI Music Protection: Benn Jordan's video explaining Poisonify: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMYm2d9bmEA VoiceSwap - Jordan's ethical AI music company: https://voiceswap.ai Harmony Cloak research: https://mosis.eecs.utk.edu/harmonycloak.html Similar technologies: Nightshade and Glaze (adversarial noise approaches) AI Dumpster Fire of the Week: AI service that calls your elderly parents: https://www.404media.co/i-tested-the-ai-that-calls-your-elderly-parents-if-you-cant-bothered/ Research showing AI chatbots may negatively impact mental health: https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/how-ai-and-human-behaviors-shape-psychosocial-effects-of-chatbot-use-a-longitudinal-controlled-study/ Academic paper on mental impacts of talking to chatbots: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.17473 Experiment where someone replaced all their relationships with chatbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZg1FHT9gA0 *** THE BOILERPLATE *** Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm Want to connect with us? Here's how: Connect with Perry: Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social Connect with Mason: Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/ Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/wickedinterest.ing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Feed Drop: AI Hype & Skepticism - Me, Myself, and AI

    Feed Drop: AI Hype & Skepticism - Me, Myself, and AI
    Apr 14 2025
    Subscribe to Me, Myself, and AI: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio-series/me-myself-and-ai/ Today we're sharing with you an episode of another show we like called Me, Myself, and AI. It's a podcast produced by MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group, where hosts Sam and Shervin interview various folks from all sorts of industries and walks of life about the constantly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. This episode is called "AI Hype and Skepticism", and features nobel-prize winning economist Paul Romer. Here's a link directly to this episode on their website: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio/ai-hype-and-skepticism-economist-paul-romer/ Paul Romer once considered himself the most optimistic economist. He rightfully predicted that technology would blow up as an economic driver coming out of the inflation of the 1970s but acknowledges he did not foresee the inequality that technology advances would lead to. On this episode, Paul shares his views on AI advances and their implications for society. Rather than pave the way for full automation, he is a proponent of keeping humans in the loop and believes that, rather than slowing down technology, it can be pointed in a direction for more meaningful and beneficial use, citing education as an area ripe to benefit from AI. Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Their engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Andy Goffin. ===== Learn more about the upcoming OFFENSIVE CYBER DECEPTION MASTERCLASS (Las Vegas, August 2-5, 2025) please visit this link: https://tinyurl.com/5ytpvjv7 ===== ***** Subscribe to our YouTube channel! You can find the channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@theFAIKfiles ***** Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK You can also join our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/cThqEnMhJz ***** Love the podcast? Check out the book: FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Amazon Associates link) ***** Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm Want to connect with us? Here's how: Connect with Perry: Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social Connect with Mason: Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/ Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/wickedinterest.ing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    29 mins
  • Functionally Useless, But Undeniably Cool

    Functionally Useless, But Undeniably Cool
    Apr 11 2025
    Welcome back to the FAIK Files! In this episode: Mason fills in for Perry as best he can, with a mix of topics that all fall under the broad umbrella of "functionally useless, but cool". Well... except the last segment; that one is inarguably kind of un-cool. We play a little bit of a 100% AI-generated rendition of Quake 2, and discuss how it works under the hood - as well as the general reaction to it. A software engineer named Alex Chan created a PDF file that is larger than the observable universe, and we break down how that was possible. Bullethead, a member of our discord, sent us a Language Diffusion model to check out: the recently released Dream 7B! Finally, Mason pontificates a bit about the highly aggressive noncompete clauses that Google has been pushing on their AI staff. ===== Learn more about the upcoming OFFENSIVE CYBER DECEPTION MASTERCLASS (Las Vegas, August 2-5, 2025) please visit this link: https://tinyurl.com/5ytpvjv7 ===== ***** Subscribe to our YouTube channel! You can find the channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@theFAIKfiles ***** Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK You can also join our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/cThqEnMhJz ***** Love the podcast? Check out the book: FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Amazon Associates link) ***** *** NOTES AND REFERENCES *** AI Generated Quake 2: Play the demo: https://copilot.microsoft.com/wham?features=labs-wham-enabled Xbox Wire article about Muse: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/02/19/muse-ai-xbox-empowering-creators-and-players/ Azure AI Foundry Muse page: https://ai.azure.com/labs/projects/muse Techcrawlr Article: https://techcrawlr.com/microsofts-ai-powered-quake-2-demo-gets-mixed-reactions-online/ A PDF Bigger than the Universe: Alex (the creator)'s Blog about it: https://alexwlchan.net/2024/big-pdf/ BigThink Article: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/the-worlds-largest-pdf-is-bigger-than-the-universe/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=BigThink/magazine/Big+Think Dream 7B - A New Diffusion Model for Language Try it out: https://huggingface.co/spaces/multimodalart/Dream Read the paper: https://hkunlp.github.io/blog/2025/dream/ – blog Autoregression Explained: https://spotintelligence.com/2023/10/25/autoregressive-ar-models/ Diffusion Explained: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/understanding-diffusion-models-an-essential-guide-for-aec-professionals/ AI Dumpster Fire of the Week: Google's Aggressive Noncompete Contracts The Business Insider article: https://archive.is/20250409121528/https://www.businessinsider.com/google-deepmind-ai-talent-war-aggressive-noncompetes-2025-4 Noncompete legality: https://frostbrowntodd.com/the-non-compete-agreement-landscape-in-2025 Microsoft VP of AI & Former Deepmind Director's Tweet: https://xcancel.com/NandoDF/status/1904818330143273222 *** THE BOILERPLATE *** Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm Want to connect with us? Here's how: Connect with Perry: Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social Connect with Mason: Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/ Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/wickedinterest.ing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    43 mins