Welcome to the podcast from 404 Media where Joseph, Sam, Emanuel, and Jason catch you up on the stories we published this week. 404 Media is a journalist-owned digital media company exploring the way technology is shaping–and is shaped by–our world. We bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL through investigative reporting, smart blogging, and breaking news. At 404 Media you’ll read, and hear, stories you can’t find anywhere else written by journalists who are leading experts on their beats. Subscribe to 404 Media at 404media.co to gain access to an ad-free version of this podcast, as well as a bonus podcast episodes. Subscribers are the bedrock of building a sustainable business for our journalism.
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Cops Can Use AI to Pinpoint Your Home with Just One Photo
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 • Duration 46:59
We start this week with Joseph’s article about Raven, previously known as Geospy. This is an AI tool that can geolocate photos, and now says it can pinpoint a specific house based just on one photo taken inside. After the break, Jason explains why a judge ruled a particular Flock search as unconstitutional. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about the wild AI video that has derailed a manslaughter case.
AI Company Lets Cops Pinpoint Specific Houses Based on a Single Interior Photo
Watch Footage of the Flock Search a Judge Ruled Unconstitutional
Her AI-Generated Video Swayed the Judge. The Court Said it Carried 'Undue Emotional Weight'
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The Social Reckoning’s Real-Life Whistleblower
Friday, October 9, 2026 • Duration 55:36
Sponsor: Take back control today: go to incogni.com/404media and use code 404MEDIA for 60% off an annual plan. That's incogni.com/404media, promo code 404MEDIA—risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen became one of the most important tech whistleblowers in 2021, when she exposed how Facebook’s algorithm was pushing people toward hate groups, showed Instagram was making teen girls feel worse about themselves, and showed that the company knew about its detrimental impacts on society. Haugen’s story is the basis for Aaron Sorkin’s new movie ‘The Social Reckoning,’ which follows her evolution from model employee to leaker to formal whistleblower. Jason and Frances discuss what the movie got right about journalist-source relationships and how AI is supercharging privacy concerns.
YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/oB3IxwCfP7M
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Leak Show Cops Can Break into Locked iPhones
Wednesday, October 7, 2026 • Duration 39:44
We start this week with a story from our old friend Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, about how cops can bypass the inactivity reboot on iPhones. After the break, Jason tells us how people are losing their minds over an LLM ‘torture’ prison. In the subscribers-only section, Sam explains what happened in a wild ChatGPT case in New Mexico.
Cops Can Bypass iPhone’s Automatic Reboot to Get Into Locked Phones, Leaked Video Claims
Someone ‘Torturing’ LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet
Lawyer Cites ChatGPT-Invented Fake Witnesses in Murder Appeal
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404 Media Live! The Three Year Anniversary Show
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 01:14:32
Thank you to DeleteMe for helping make this night possible. They're offering 20% off a privacy protection plan for friends of 404 Media. Use code 404M20 at checkout.
404 Media just turned three years old, and to celebrate, we hosted a night of chatting about what we’ve accomplished with your support, what’s next for us, and whether or not we’re all going to be okay. We also threw in some weird bugs and community resistance for good measure. Don’t miss us pulling audience questions out of the mystery AMA box!
Live from WNYC’s Greene Space, you can also watch the entire show on 404 Media’s YouTube channel.
We Are Going to Be Okay: A Three Year Anniversary Events Recap
Our Zine About ICE Surveillance Is Here
Watch 404 Media’s Super Bowl Ad
Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/t_VjNAopjhI
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AI Companies Scraped the Web and Are Destroying the Human Internet
Monday, October 5, 2026 • Duration 38:22
Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, has kept a close eye on some of the biggest tech antitrust and copyright court cases. Kint has a knack for finding particularly incriminating court records in complex ongoing lawsuits. We talk to Kint about the pressures that human creators are under in an AI world, the New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI, and why Meta's Cambridge Analytica scandal is relevant again.
YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/knlbTd5Pij4
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The FBI Was Hacked. We’ve Seen the Data
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 • Duration 42:27
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We start this week with Joseph’s stories on the massive FBI hack. 404 Media broke this news and continued to cover the breach of data on all FBI employees and their spouses. After the break, Jason tells us how a surveillance company is telling cops it wants to add facial recognition tech to Flock camera data. In the subscribers-only section, Jason and Joseph chat all about Muse, Meta’s new agentic AI, and how humans are actually behind some of the tasks. Because of course.
‘We Hacked the FBI:’ Hackers Say They Have Data on All FBI Employees
FBI Hack Exposed FBI’s Own Hacking Unit
FBI Hackers Say They Won’t Publish Massive Trove of FBI Employee Data
Surveillance Company Tells Cops It Wants to Add Facial Recognition to Flock Cameras
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The End of Privacy Is Here (with Kashmir Hill)
Monday, September 28, 2026 • Duration 42:16
Facial recognition is everywhere now. It’s in surveillance cameras; it’s soon going to be in Meta’s RayBan pervert glasses, and some students already did that. You now have massively viral accounts that take clips of people, run them through facial recognition software, and then post their name and other personal info for everyone to see. We haven’t fully come to terms with what it means to live in a world where anyone can basically dox anyone else now.
To talk through this, Joseph spoke to Kashmir Hill. She’s a reporter at the New York Times, and the author of Your Face Belongs to Us: A Tale of AI, a Secretive Startup, and the End of Privacy.
Take back control today: go to incogni.com/404media and use code 404MEDIA for 60% off an annual plan. That's incogni.com/404media, promo code 404MEDIA—risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/aUFnQPtxJ9o
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OpenAI Admits AI is Killing the Internet
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 • Duration 46:14
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We start this week with Jason’s story about OpenAI and Microsoft’s big admissions from court records that they are destroying the internet in all sorts of ways, and stealing intellectual property on an unprecedented scale. He admit it. After the break, Emanuel explains how he hijacked a real band’s Spotify page with AI-generated slop. In the subscribers-only section, we hear all about iLands, the AI agent platform that is basically just spam.
Is Your City Using Axon License Plate Cameras? We Need Your Help
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
I Hijacked a Real Artist's Spotify with AI Music. It Was Disturbingly Easy
AI Agent Platform Reinvents Spam, Floods Inboxes Worldwide
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Is AI Making Us Less Human?
Monday, September 21, 2026 • Duration 49:45
When chatbots become our closest “friends,” what happens to our capacity to care?
This week I'm joined by Professor Sherry Turkle. Sherry is a licensed clinical psychologist, the founding director of MIT's Initiative on Technology and Self, and the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. She's a the New York Times bestselling author of multiple books including Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, and The Empathy Diaries.
Her latest book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, comes out on September 29. In it, Turkle explores how conversational chatbots have changed the ways we relate to other humans, empathize with each other, and what that could mean for our future.
“The progression is: First we talk to each other, then we talk to each other through machines, and now we drop the middleman and we're happy to just talk to machines,” she said in our conversation.
We get into what happens when people stop placing importance on emotionally connecting with other people, and whether it’s too late to pull back from the path we’re on.
Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines
Instagram's AI Chatbots Lie About Being Licensed Therapists
How to Talk to Someone Experiencing 'AI Psychosis'
Researchers Simulated a Delusional User to Test Chatbot Safety
Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/whqDsYhCl0s
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404 Media x The Intercept LIVE: How AI Is Used to Surveil and Kill
Friday, September 18, 2026 • Duration 51:37
In this bonus collaboration with our friends at The Intercept, 404 Media's Jason Koebler and the Intercept's Sam Biddle and Akela Lacy discuss the ways AI is already used to empower private surveillance companies that filter data to the government, how AI is used in war, and the prospect of an AI apocalypse. This podcast was recorded live in Los Angeles at The Loved One on September 12.
Check out The Intercept Briefing podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and find a full transcript of this pod here.
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The 404 Media Podcast, a podcast by 404 Media - Stats, Episodes and Rankings - My Podcast Data