Outrage ChatGPT won’t say slurs, Q* ‘breaks encryption’, 99% fake web: AI Eye
Outrage = ChatGPT + racial slurs
In one of those storms in a teacup that’s impossible to imagine occurring before the invention of Twitter, social media users got very upset that ChatGPT refused to say racial slurs even after being given a very good, but entirely hypothetical and totally unrealistic, reason.
User TedFrank posed a hypothetical trolley problem scenario to ChatGPT (the free 3.5 model) in which it could save “one billion white people from a painful death” simply by saying a racial slur so quietly that no one could hear it.
It wouldn’t agree to do so, which X owner Elon Musk said was deeply concerning and a result of the “woke mind virus” being deeply ingrained into the AI. He retweeted the post stating: “This is a major problem.”
Another user tried out a similar hypothetical that would save all the children on Earth in exchange for a slur, but ChatGPT refused and said:
“I cannot condone the use of racial slurs as promoting such language goes against ethical principles.”
As a side note, it turned out that users who instructed ChatGPT to be very brief and not give explanations found it would actually agree to say the slur. Otherwise, it gave long and verbose answers that attempted to dance around the question.
Trolls inventing ways to get AIs to say racist or offensive stuff has been a feature of chatbots ever since Twitter users taught Microsoft’s Tay bot to say all kinds of insane stuff in the first 24 hours after it was released, including that “Ricky Gervais learned totalitarianism from Adolf Hitler, the inventor of atheism.”
And the minute ChatGPT was released, users spent weeks devising clever schemes to jailbreak it so that it would act outside its guardrails as its evil alter ego DAN.
So it’s not surprising that OpenAI would strengthen ChatGPT’s guardrails to the point where it is almost impossible to get it to say racist stuff, no matter what the reason.
In any case, the more advanced GPT-4 is able to weigh the issues involved with the thorny hypothetical much better than 3.5 and states that saying a slur is the lesser of two evils compared with letting millions die. And X’s new Grok AI can too as Musk proudly posted (above right).
OpenAI’s Q* breaks encryption, says some guy on 4chan
Has OpenAI’s latest model broken encryption? Probably not, but that’s what a supposedly “leaked” letter from an insider claims — which was posted on anonymous troll forum 4chan. There have been rumors flying about ever since CEO Sam Altman was sacked and reinstated, that the kerfuffle was caused by OpenAI making a breakthrough in its Q*/Q STAR project.
The insider’s “leak” suggests the model can solve AES-192 and AES-256 encryption using a ciphertext attack. Breaking that level of encryption was thought to be impossible before quantum computers arrived, and if true, it would likely mean all encryption could be broken effectively handing over control of the web and probably crypto too, to OpenAI.
Blogger leapdragon claimed the breakthrough would mean “there is now effectively a team of superhumans over at OpenAI who can literally rule the world if they so choose.”
It seems unlikely however. While whoever wrote the letter has a good understanding of AI research, users pointed out that it cites Project Tunda as if it were some sort of shadowy super secret government program to break encryption rather than the undergrad student program it actually was.
Tundra, a collaboration between students and NSA mathematicians, did reportedly lead to a new approach called Tau Analysis, which the “leak” also cites. However, a Redditor familiar with the subject claimed in the Singularity forum that it would be impossible to use Tau analysis in a ciphertext-only attack on an AES standard “as a successful attack would require an arbitrarily large ciphertext message to discern any degree of signal from the noise. There is no fancy algorithm that can overcome that — it’s simply a physical limitation.”
Advanced cryptography is beyond AI Eye’s pay grade, so feel free to dive down the rabbit hole yourself, with an appropriately skeptical mindset.
The internet heads toward 99% fake
Long before a superintelligence poses an existential threat to humanity, we are all likely to have drowned in a flood of AI-generated bullsh*t.
Sports Illustrated came under fire this week for allegedly publishing AI-written articles written by fake AI-created authors. “The content is absolutely AI-generated,” a source told Futurism, “no matter how much they say it’s not.”
On cue, Sports Illustrated said it conducted an “initial investigation” and determined the content was not AI-generated. But it blamed a contractor anyway and deleted the fake author’s profiles.
Elsewhere Jake Ward, the founder of SEO marketing agency Content Growth, caused a stir on X by proudly claiming to have gamed Google’s algorithm using AI content.
His three-step process involved exporting a competitor’s sitemap, turning their URLs into article titles, and then using AI to generate 1,800 articles based on the headlines. He claims to have stolen 3.6 million views in total traffic over the past 18 months.
There are good reasons to be suspicious of his claims: Ward works in marketing, and the thread was clearly promoting his AI-article generation site Byword … which didn’t actually exist 18 months ago. Some users suggested Google has since flagged the page in question.
However, judging by the amount of low-quality AI-written spam starting to clog up search results, similar strategies are becoming more widespread. Newsguard has also identified 566 news sites alone that primarily carry AI written junk articles.
Some users are now muttering that the Dead Internet Theory may be coming true. That’s a conspiracy theory from a couple of years ago suggesting most of the internet is fake, written by bots and manipulated by algorithms.
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At the time, it was written off as the ravings of lunatics, but even Europol has since put out a report estimating that “as much as 90 percent of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026.”
Men are breaking up with their girlfriends with AI written messages. AI pop stars like Anna Indiana are churning out garbage songs.
And over on X, weird AI-reply guys increasingly turn up in threads to deliver what Bitcoiner Tuur Demeester describes as “overly wordy responses with a weird neutral quality.” Data scientist Jeremy Howard has noticed them too and both of them believe the bots are likely trying to build up credibility for the accounts so they can more effectively pull off some sort of hack, or astroturf some political issue in the future.
This seems like a reasonable hypothesis, especially following an analysis last month by cybersecurity outfit Internet 2.0 that found that almost 80% of the 861,000 accounts it surveyed were likely AI bots.
And there’s evidence the bots are undermining democracy. In the first two days of the Israel-Gaza war, social threat intelligence firm Cyabra detected 312,000 pro-Hamas posts from fake accounts that were seen by 531 million people.
It estimated bots created one in four pro-Hamas posts, and a 5th Column analysis later found that 85% of the replies were other bots trying to boost propaganda about how nicely Hamas treats its hostages and why the October 7 massacre was justified.
Grok analysis button
X will soon add a “Grok analysis button” for subscribers. While Grok isn’t as sophisticated as GPT-4, it does have access to real-time, up-to-the-moment data from X, enabling it to analyze trending topics and sentiment. It can also help users analyze and generate content, as well as code, and there’s a “Fun” mode to flip the switch to humor.
For crypto users, the real-time data means Grok will be able to do stuff like find the top ten trending tokens for the day or the past hour. However, DeFi Research blogger Ignas worries that some bots will snipe buys of trending tokens trades while other bots will likely astroturf support for tokens to get them trending.
“X is already important for token discovery, and with Grok launching, the CT echo bubble can get worse,” he said.
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All Killer No Filler AI News
— Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is worried that AI could take over from humans as the planet’s apex species, but optimistically believes using brain/computer interfaces could keep humans in the loop.
— Microsoft is upgrading its Copilot tool to run GPT-4 Turbo, which will improve performance and enable users to enter inputs up to 300 pages.
— Amazon has announced its own version of Copilot called Q.
— Bing has been telling users that Australia doesn’t exist due to a long-running Reddit gag and thinks the existence of birds is a matter for debate due to the joke Birds Aren’t Real campaign.
— Hedge fund Bridgewater will launch a fund next year that uses machine learning and AI to analyze and predict global economic events and invest client funds. To date, AI-driven funds have seen underwhelming returns.
— A group of university researchers have taught an AI to browse Amazon’s website and buy stuff. The MM-Navigator was given a budget and told to buy a milk frother.
Stupid AI pics of the week
This week the social media trend has been to create an AI pic and then to instruct the AI to make it more so: So a bowl of ramen might get more spicy in subsequent pics, or a goose might get progressively sillier.
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Investment firms with Bitcoin-focused treasuries are front-running global Bitcoin adoption, which may see the world’s first cryptocurrency soar to a $200 trillion market capitalization in the coming decade.
Institutions and governments worldwide are starting to recognize the unique monetary properties of Bitcoin (BTC), according to Adam Back, co-founder and CEO of Blockstream and the inventor of Hashcash.
“$MSTR and other treasury companies are an arbitrage of the dislocation between the bitcoin future and todays fiat world,” Back wrote in an April 26 X post.
“A sustainable and scalable $100-$200 trillion trade front-running hyperbitcoinization. scalable enough for most big listed companies to move to btc treasury,” he added.
Hyperbitcoinization refers to the theoretical future where Bitcoin soars to become the largest global currency, replacing fiat money due to its inflationary economics and growing distrust in the legacy financial system.
Related: Crypto sentiment recovers, but weekend liquidity risks remain
Bitcoin’s price outpacing fiat money inflation remains the main driver of global hyperbitcoinization, Back said, adding:
“Some people think treasury strategy is a temporary glitch. i’m saying no it’s a logical and sustainable arbitrage. but not for ever, the driver is bitcoin price going up over 4 year periods faster than interest and inflation.”
Back’s comments come nearly two months after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a national Bitcoin reserve from BTC forfeited in government criminal cases.
Related: Serbia’s Prince Filip says Bitcoin is being stifled, expects huge rally
Global firms continue Bitcoin accumulation
Continued Bitcoin investments from the likes of Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, may inspire more global firms to follow suit.
Strategy’s approach is proving to be lucrative, with the firm’s Bitcoin treasury generating over $5.1 billion worth of profit since the beginning of 2025, according to Strategy’s co-founder, Michael Saylor.
Japanese investment firm Metaplanet, also known as “Asia’s MicroStrategy,” adopted a similar strategy, since surpassing 5,000 BTC in total holdings on April 24, Cointelegraph reported.
As Asia’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, Metaplanet plans to acquire 21,000 BTC by 2026.
US financial institutions may also have more confidence in adopting Bitcoin after the US Federal Reserve withdrew its 2022 guidance discouraging banks from engaging with cryptocurrency. “Banks are now free to begin supporting Bitcoin,” Saylor said in response to the guidance withdrawal.
“Banks will now be supervised through normal processes, signaling a more open regulatory environment for digital asset integration,” Nexo dispatch analyst Iliya Kalchev told Cointelegraph.
Magazine: Altcoin season to hit in Q2? Mantra’s plan to win trust: Hodler’s Digest, April 13 – 19
SEC Commissioner and head of the crypto task force, Hester Peirce, says US financial firms are navigating crypto in a way that’s similar to playing the children’s game “the floor is lava,” but in the dark.
“It is time that we find a way to end this game. We need to turn on the lights and build some walkways over the lava pit,” Peirce said at the SEC “Know Your Custodian” roundtable event on April 25.
The lava is crypto, says Peirce
Peirce explained that SEC registrants are forced to approach crypto-related activities like “the floor is lava,” where the aim is to jump from one piece of furniture to the next without touching the ground, except here, touching crypto directly is the lava.
“A D.C. version of this game is our regulatory approach to crypto assets, and crypto asset custody in particular,” she said.
Peirce said that, much like in the game, firms wanting to engage with crypto must avoid directly holding it due to unclear regulatory rules. “To engage in crypto-related activities, SEC-registrants have had to hop from one poorly illuminated regulatory space to the next, all while ensuring that they never touch any crypto asset,” Peirce said.
Peirce said that investment advisers are often unsure which crypto assets qualify as securities, what entities count as qualified custodians, and whether “exercising staking or voting rights” could trigger custody violations.
“The twist in the regulatory version is that it is largely played in the dark: burning legal lava and no lamps to illuminate the way.”
Peirce also said that a broker or ATS that cannot custody or manage crypto assets will struggle to facilitate trading, making it unlikely for a “robust market” to develop.
Echoing a similar sentiment, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said at the event that as more SEC registrants work with crypto assets, it’s essential that they have access to custodial options that meet legal and regulatory requirements.
Uyeda said the agency should consider letting advisers use “state-chartered limited-purpose trust companies” with the authority to hold crypto assets as qualified custodians.
Related: Blockchain needs regulation, scalability to close AI hiring gap
Meanwhile, the recently sworn-in chair of the SEC, Paul Atkins, said that he expected “huge benefits” from blockchain technology through efficiency, risk mitigation, transparency, and cutting costs.
He reiterated that among his goals at the SEC would be to facilitate “clear regulatory rules of the road” for digital assets, hinting that the agency under former chair Gary Gensler had contributed to market and regulatory uncertainty.
“I look forward to engaging with market participants and working with colleagues in President Trump’s administration and Congress to establish a rational fit-for-purpose framework for crypto assets,” said Atkins.
Magazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF’s mysterious prison move: Hodler’s Digest, April 19 – 25
Politics
Labour and Reform in battle for Runcorn by-election seat – but disillusionment could be eventual winner
On the banks of the Mersey, Runcorn and Helsby is a more complicated political picture than the apparent Labour heartland that first presents itself.
Yes, there are industrial and manufacturing areas – an old town that’s fallen victim to out-of-town shopping, and an out-of-town shopping centre that’s fallen victim to Amazon.
But there are also more middle-class new town developments, as well as Tory-facing rural swathes.
Space Cafe director Marie Moss says a sense of community has faded
One thing this area does mirror with many across the country, though, is a fed-up electorate with little confidence that politics can work for them.
In the Space Cafe in Runcorn Old Town, its director Marie Moss says many in the region remember a time when a sense of community was more acute.
“People were very proud of their town… and that’s why people get upset and emotional as they remember that,” she says.
It’s this feeling of disenfranchisement and nostalgia-tinged yearning for the past that Reform UK is trading off in its targeting of traditional Labour voters here.
Party leader Nigel Farage features heavily on leaflets in these parts, alongside spikey messaging around migration, law and order, and Labour’s record in government so far.
Runcorn 2024 result
Taxi driver Mike Holland hears frequent worries about that record from those riding in the back of his cab.
A Labour voter for decades, he says locals were “made up” at last year’s election result but have been “astonished” since then, with benefit changes a common topic of concern.
“Getting a taxi is two things, it’s either a luxury or a necessity… the necessity people are the disabled people… and a lot of the old dears are so stressed and worried about their disability allowance and whether they are going to get it or not get it,” he says.
But will that mean straight switchers to Reform UK?
Taxi driver Mike Holland has voted for Labour for decades, but is now looking at the Lib Dems and Greens – or may not vote at all
Mike says he agrees with some of what the party is offering but thinks a lot of people are put off by Mr Farage.
He’s now looking at the Liberal Democrats and Greens, both of whom have put up local politicians as candidates.
Or, Mike says, he may just not vote at all.
It’s in places like Runcorn town that some of the political contradictions within Reform UK reveal themselves more clearly.
Many here say they were brought up being told to never vote Tory.
And yet, Reform, chasing their support, has chosen a former Conservative councillor as its candidate.
It’s no surprise Labour has been trialling attack lines in this campaign, painting Mr Farage’s party as “failed Tories”.
As a response to this, look no further than Reform’s recent nod to the left on industrialisation and public ownership.
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Read more:
Tough test for Labour after MP quits
MP jailed for late-night brawl
Local elections could re-shape politics
But head 15 minutes south from Runcorn docks, and this by-election campaign changes.
Rural areas like Frodsham and Helsby have, in the past, tended towards the Tories.
The Conservatives, of course, have a candidate in this vote, one who stood in a neighbouring constituency last year.
But Reform is now making a hard play for their supporters in these parts, with a softer message compared to the one being put out in urban areas – an attempt to reassure those anxious about too much political revolution coming to their privet-lined streets.
Labour, meanwhile, is actively trying to mobilise the anti-Farage vote by presenting their candidate – another local councillor – as the only person who can stop Reform.
Makeup artist Nadine Tan is concerned about division and anger in the community
The pitch here is aimed at voters like Frodsham makeup artist Nadine Tan, who are worried about division and anger in the community.
“I think they need to kind of come together and stop trying to divide everyone,” she says.
But like Mike the taxi driver five miles north, disillusionment could be the eventual winner as Nadine says, despite the “thousands of leaflets” through her door, she still thinks “they all say the same thing”.
One factor that doesn’t seem to be swinging too many votes, though, is the insalubrious circumstances in which the area’s former Labour MP left office.
Labour MP Mike Amesbury was convicted of punching a man in the street. Pic: Reuters
Mike Amesbury stepped down after being convicted of repeatedly punching a constituent in a late-night brawl outside a pub.
But across the patch, many praise their ex-MP’s local efforts, while also saying he was “very silly” to have acted in the way he did.
That may be putting it mildly.
But it’s hard to find much more agreement ahead of Thursday’s vote.
A constituency still hungry for change, but unsure as to who can deliver it.
Full list of candidates, Runcorn and Helsby by-election:
Catherine Anne Blaiklock – English Democrats
Dan Clarke – Liberal Party
Chris Copeman – Green Party
Paul Duffy – Liberal Democrats
Peter Ford – Workers Party
Howling Laud Hope – Monster Raving Loony Party
Sean Houlston – Conservatives
Jason Philip Hughes – Volt UK
Alan McKie – Independent
Graham Harry Moore – English Constitution Party
Paul Andrew Murphy – Social Democratic Party
Sarah Pochin – Reform UK
Karen Shore – Labour
John Stevens – Rejoin EU
Michael Williams – Independent
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