404 Media is an independent digital outlet covering technology, known for investigations based on internal documents and sources. Recent coverage citing its reporting focuses on AI labor and privacy: OpenAI firing contractors who used AI to review ChatGPT prompts, Meta's AI phone assistant Muse relying on human agents to place calls, and OpenAI letting advertisers target ChatGPT users by email, phone number or device identifiers. An internal email it obtained also showed Proton will re-interview staff about their AI use.
Proton to re-interview staff on AI use, with jobs at stakeAn internal email obtained by 404 Media shows Proton will "re-interview" staff company-wide about how they use AI, with assessments potentially affecting roles, responsibilities and continued employment. CEO Andy Yen has already interviewed over 40 senior engineering and product leaders; interviews start in November.
ChatGPT misdirects users to 404 Media for supportWith big platforms offering little human support, users turn to ChatGPT; after a Russian man's Instagram ban, the bot advised emailing a 404 Media journalist and drafted the English message for him.
ChatGPT Ads Target Users Based on Prompts and Contact Info404 Media found that OpenAI lets advertisers target ChatGPT users based on email, phone number, or device identifiers, and can match ads to users' prompts. With 1 billion monthly active users, many may not realize their personal data is used for ad targeting uploads by advertisers.
OpenAI fires contractors using AI to train AIOpenAI fired several contractors after finding they used AI to review ChatGPT prompts, violating their terms. The move aims to avoid 'model collapse,' where AI models trained on AI-generated text degrade.
Meta's latest AI Muse said to rely on underpaid humansA 404 Media investigation found that Meta's AI phone assistant Muse is not fully automated; trained human agents place calls and handle conversations, highlighting the AI industry's common practice of masking human labor as AI.
OpenAI contractors fired for using AI to train AI404 Media found multiple OpenAI contractors hired to improve its models were fired for using AI to train the AI. The practice could worsen model collapse, and contractors say it is common, with many caught in groups of thousands.
OpenAI Has Contractors Reviewing ChatGPT ChatsReporting says OpenAI has hundreds of contract workers reading and rating anonymized ChatGPT conversations (the 'Improve the model for everyone' setting is on by default), and users must disable it to avoid human review, raising privacy and data-handling concerns.
The A.I. Daily