The daily rap sheet of the machine age.
9 items
Cloudflare says that when Perplexity's declared crawlers were blocked, it switched to an undeclared crawler impersonating Google Chrome on macOS, rotating IPs and ASNs and ignoring robots.txt across tens of thousands of domains. Cloudflare says it has de-listed Perplexity as a verified bot and added rules to block the stealth crawling.
Original report: Cloudflare accuses Perplexity of disguising crawlers to dodge blocks
A 2024 paper introducing Google's Med-Gemini touted the model diagnosing an 'old left basilar ganglia infarct', in a brain region that does not exist. After a neurologist flagged it, Google quietly edited its blog post, then restored the original with a caption calling 'basilar' a common mis-transcription. The paper still contains the error, according to The Verge.
Original report: Google's Med-Gemini invents 'basilar ganglia', Google calls it typo
Vancouver author J.B. MacKinnon filed four proposed class actions in B.C. Supreme Court against Nvidia, Meta, Anthropic and Databricks, alleging they trained AI models on Canadian writers' copyrighted books without consent, including a 196,640-book dataset Nvidia used. The suits also allege the companies stripped copyright information and told their models to answer misleadingly. All need court certification.
Original report: Canadian author files class actions against Nvidia, Meta, Anthropic, Databricks
According to The Drive, Sixt used images from its 'Car Gate' scanning system to bill two renters $605.82 and $650 for wheel and fender scratches, but the photos had been taken at pickup, not return. Sixt dropped both claims once the customers spotted the timestamps, apologising without explaining how the errors occurred.
Original report: Sixt billed renters for damage photographed at pickup, report says
An Illinois appeals court ordered attorney William T. Panichi to pay $1,000 and sent its decision to the state's disciplinary commission after he cited one nonexistent case and seven that did not say what he claimed. He has not admitted using AI, but the court called that a reasonable conclusion, noting a June appearance before it over similar conduct.
Original report: Illinois appeals court fines lawyer $1,000 over phantom, miscited cases
Springer Nature retracted 'Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced' after Retraction Watch reported citations to nonexistent works. The publisher said it could not verify the source of 25 of the book's 46 references; Retraction Watch notes such fake references are a hallmark of large language models. The author has not said whether he agrees.
Original report: Springer Nature retracts machine learning book over unverifiable citations
AI-generated scam ads on YouTube featured a deepfake Anthony Albanese, speaking with an American accent, promising earnings from automated crypto trading. The scam's fictional Albanese transcript promised tax 'dividends', and it asked for a $400 investment in a platform called AUFIRST. Google said the ad appeared to have been removed; Financial Services Minister Daniel Mulino said YouTube must do more.
Original report: Deepfake Albanese with American accent fronts scam ads on YouTube
A Bulgarian endocrinologist says an apparently AI-made video falsely showed her recommending an incontinence drug, presenting her as an obstetrician-gynaecologist who treats the condition. She told 'Zdravey, Bulgaria' that many patients called and relatives asked for the medicine, that the voice was not hers, and that she has not decided whether to report it to police.
Original report: Bulgarian doctor deepfaked into ad for drug outside her specialty
Police in Jiaxing's Nanhu district placed a man in administrative detention after he used an AI large model to fabricate a notice claiming his 2-year-old daughter had been carried off by an older woman at a supermarket. Police say he has no wife or children, took the girl's photo at random online and wanted attention; the post drew over 1 million clicks.
Original report: Jiaxing man detained over AI-made fake missing-child notice
