This week on Uncanny Valley, Brian Barrett, Zoë Schiffer, and Leah Feiger break down how ICE has collected DNA from nearly a million people this year, including young children, feeding an FBI database indefinitely. The team also discusses the backlash against Google Earth’s AI slop, the White House’s secretive AI cybersecurity plan, and SpaceX rocket crashing into the moon. Plus, …’s Molly Taft discusses their recent story on the strange left-right coalition fighting data centers across the US.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
- ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children
- AI Influencers Are Heading Into Uncharted Territory
- The White House Is Keeping Its AI Cybersecurity Framework Secret
- AI Hacks Are Bad. AI Worms and Viruses Will Be Worse
- Welp, Nobody Saw SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Crash Into the Moon
- How Data Centers Broke American Politics
You can follow Brian Barrett on Bluesky at @brbarrett, Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer, Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger, and Molly Taft on Bluesky @mollytaft.com. Write to us at [email protected].
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Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Zoe Schiffer: Welcome to …'s Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer, contributing editor.
Brian Barrett: I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor.
Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science.
Brian Barrett: Today on the show, we're talking about how the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, better known as ICE, has been collecting DNA samples at an alarming rate. These samples have led to hundreds of thousands of people, including young children, to end up in an FBI criminal database basically forever.
Zoe Schiffer: We'll also get into one of our favorite topics, AI slop. From Google Earth disabling its new AI tool after people used it to create fake maps, to Substack partnering with the AI writing detection tool Pangram, companies are starting to realize that people really don't like low-quality AI content flooding their feeds.
Leah Feiger: Also in the realm of AI, the White House announced a plan to tackle the increasing security risks brought on by AI companies. It's keeping the details mostly under wraps, but we're going to discuss what's behind all the secrecy and what this could mean for future regulation.
Brian Barrett: We'll also talk about how part of a SpaceX rocket crashed into the moon, leaving a new crater behind and all kinds of questions.
Leah Feiger: And later in the show, … senior writer Molly Taft joins to tell us all about how data centers have officially broken US politics.
Brian Barrett: Well, to start off, let's talk about ICE, which we haven't in a little bit, but they're still there. They're still doing bad things, including collecting DNA samples. …’s Dhruv Mehrotra reported this week about how ICE has collected nearly 1 million people's DNA this past year, just this past year alone, including that of young children. As we mentioned up top, this DNA collection has led to hundreds of thousands of people with no criminal convictions ending up in an FBI database indefinitely. And in fact, the Department of Homeland Security has become the single largest source of new profiles in this database.
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