Anthropic is putting invisible watermarks into text generated by new Claude models. AI data-centre hardware is becoming a lucrative target for sophisticated cargo thieves. Meta faces a potentially enormous legal threat as courts test the limits of Section 230. And one McDonald's customer discovered the company had built a 515-page behavioural profile based on his loyalty-program activity.
On Hashtag Trending for Thursday, August 13, host Jim Love looks at four stories about what happens when technology starts leaving trails.
Anthropic's new Claude models now embed invisible text watermarks as part of compliance with Article 50 of the European Union's AI Act. The marks can survive copying and some editing, potentially giving platforms a better way to identify AI-generated material than unreliable AI-content detectors.
Wired reports that thieves are increasingly targeting valuable AI hardware, including chips, servers and data-centre equipment. The attacks can involve phishing, stolen trucking identities, forged paperwork, compromised email accounts and GPS spoofing rather than traditional roadside hijacking.
Meta has been ordered by a New Mexico judge to pay $567 million into a youth mental-health fund, in addition to a previous $375 million penalty. The larger legal issue is whether plaintiffs can get around Section 230 by arguing that harmful platform design, rather than third-party content, caused the damage. Thousands of similar lawsuits are already moving through the courts.
And Wired reporter Reece Rogers asked McDonald's for the information collected through its loyalty program. He received 515 pages containing years of transactions, spending predictions and behavioural profiling, then exercised his California right to request that the data be deleted.
Timestamps
00:00 Headlines and intro
00:38 Claude text watermarking
01:38 Fighting AI slop detection
02:52 Limits of watermark proof
03:42 AI hardware cargo theft
04:47 How the scams work
05:36 Security escorts and theft statistics
08:13 Where stolen AI hardware may go
09:04 Meta lawsuit and Section 230
10:10 The platform-design legal strategy
12:29 McDonald's 515-page dossier
14:02 Loyalty data and deletion rights
15:12 Wrap-up and sign-off
