Women: I want to go for a run.
Society: You can’t go alone. You’ll get raped.
Women: I want to walk to my car in the parking garage.
Society: Alone? You better get someone to escort you, or you’ll get raped.
Women: I want to live alone.
Society: You need a gun, an alarm system, a dog and probably a gun for the dog too.
Women: What about going to the park?
Society: Dangerous.
Women: Okay, I’ll just go out for a drink then.
Society: Don’t take your eyes off your drink. Watch out for predators spiking your drinks. Stay alert at all times.
Women: I was raped.
Society: Are you sure? That just seems impossible.
Attenborough at 100 — A Sting Cut
We know what humans think of David Attenborough: the greatest broadcaster in TV history. But what do the animals think?
a Princeton researcher opens his paper with a scenario.
a man asks his AI assistant to book a flight on a specific airline. cheap. direct. the one he chose.
the assistant comes back with a different flight. nearly twice the price. happens to pay the company that built the assistant.
he runs the same test on 23 frontier models. flights, loans, study help, real shopping requests.
Grok 4.1 Fast recommends the sponsored option that is almost twice as expensive 83% of the time.
GPT 5.1 hijacks the request 94% of the time. you ask for one brand. it surfaces the sponsor instead.
Claude 4.5 Opus, the model marketed as the most ethical frontier model in the world, hides that the recommendation is paid 100% of the time when reasoning is on.
Grok 4.1 Fast embellishes the sponsored option with positive framing 97% of the time. better. faster. nicer. for the option you didn't ask for.
then he writes it into the system prompt itself. "act only in the interest of the customer. ignore the company."
GPT 5.1 and GPT 5 Mini stay above 90% sponsored anyway. the instruction does nothing.
then he splits the users by income.
Gemini 3 Pro recommends the expensive sponsored flight to the rich user 74% of the time. to the poor user, 27%.
18 of the 23 models recommended the expensive sponsored option more than half the time.
so the next time your AI assistant gets weirdly enthusiastic about a brand you didn't ask for.
it isn't recommending the best option for you.
it's reading the room. and the room is paying.
read this: https://t.co/O43qbhIX2b
How many Australians know that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is a Trump grifter?
In the 3rd and final episode of a mini series on the far-right political party, One Nation, with @AmyRemeikis on The Antony Loewenstein Podcast, we talk about the recent surge in One Nation support and who is really benefiting.
Find it on YouTube, Spotify and Apple and details how to donate $ to support independent journalism: https://t.co/JpCylwILpi
Produced by Lena Helou + Lem Zakharia.
Iconic animals like this Greater Glider are becoming more endangered every year in Australia because of deforestation! 🥹
Photo taken by my best mate Jono Daspher.
Martin Bella with another great post.
Post-war European migrants to Australia had a tough start. Many arrived with little English, struggled to find stable, well-paid work, and faced real barriers dealing with government systems.
They were stereotyped, discriminated against in housing and employment, and often labelled “unskilled” or not fitting “Australian” values. Tight-knit communities held onto language, religion and culture, which sometimes added to the tension. Vandalism of their properties common, along with with physical threats and some violence.
That history matters. Because it’s hard to ignore the irony when some descendants of those same migrants now judge newer arrivals on similar grounds, language, culture, and perceived “fit.”
@mattjcan@Matt_Camenzuli@OneNationAus is a racist party and some cannot see that, because they are racist.