

The FAIK Files
Perry Carpenter | N2K Networks
The FAIK Files explores the mysterious and often wacky intersection of AI, technology, and humanity. From cognitive warfare to digital deception, we examine how AI is reshaping our reality through news, research, and real-world examples. Join us for a thought-provoking journey into a world where anything can be faked, truth is increasingly elusive, and human nature meets artificial intelligence head-on.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 20, 2024 • 59min
The Butcher Will Scam You Now
Welcome back to the show that keeps you informed on all things artificial intelligence and natural nonsense.
Warning: today's episode gets a bit dark as we chat with seasoned prosecutor and founder of Operation Shamrock, Erin West, about a devastating combination of attacks known as "Pig Butchering" scams. We go deep into how they work and what we can do about them.
Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK
You can also join our Discord server here: https://faik.to/discord
*** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***
Learn more about Erin West
Erin's LinkedIn Profile
Operation Shamrock
Pig Butchering Scams:
CNN Story featuring Erin West: Killed by a scam: A father took his life after losing his savings to international criminal gangs. He’s not the only one
CNN Story: Hear how this man lost $1M in a 'pig butchering' crypto scam
CNN Story: Myanmar-based gangs force trafficking victims to scam Americans online
YouTube video: John Oliver episode
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
Ok, doomer! Let's talk P(doom):
NY Times article: Silicon Valley Confronts a Grim New A.I. Metric
FastCompany article: P(doom) is AI's latest apocalypse metric. Here's how to calculate your score
Wikipedia Entry
PauseAI P(doom) records
*** THE BOILERPLATE ***
About The FAIK Files:
The FAIK Files is an offshoot project from Perry Carpenter's most recent book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions.
Get the Book: FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Amazon Associates link)
Check out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.com
Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA
Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm
Want to connect with us? Here's how:
Connect with Perry:
Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter
Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter
Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social
Connect with Mason:
Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/
Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/wickedinterest.ing
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 13, 2024 • 53min
AI Gone Wild: Worrisome Leaks, Misguided Conspiracies, and More
Welcome back to The FAIK Files--- the show about artificial intelligence and natural nonsense!
In this week's episode:
Mason shares how ChatGPT became an unexpected hero in solving his home networking and studio challenges
Perry dives into the mysterious case of "David Mayer" and how a simple ChatGPT privacy patch sparked widespread conspiracy theories
We explore Tencent's bold entry into AI video generation with their open-source HunyuanVideo model
And in our AI Dumpster Fire of the Week, we unpack the drama surrounding leaks of multiple models from OpenAI
Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK
You can also join our Discord server here: https://faik.to/discord
*** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***
The ChatGPT Privacy Patch Conspiracy:
TechCrunch: Why does the name 'David Mayer' crash ChatGPT? OpenAI says privacy tool went rogue
FastCompany: The Internet is Freaking Out Because ChatGPT Won't Say the Name "David Mayer"
USA Today: Why won't ChatGPT acknowledge the name David Mayer? Internet users uncover mystery
YouTube: Solved: Why ChatGPT Will Not Say "David Mayer"
The Decoder: New York Times writer exposes how AI models can be fooled by invisible text on websites
NYT: How Do You Change a Chatbot's Mind?
Tencent's HunyuanVideo Release:
The Decoder: Tencent introduces open source video generator HunyuanVideo and challenges Sora
TechNode: Tencent launches and open-sources Hunyuan video-generation model
YouTube: New AI Video Model Storms Onto The Scene!
HuggingFace: HunyuanVideo Official Model Page
Research paper about text based sound generation for videos. SonicVisionLM: Playing Sound with Vision Language Models
AI Dumpster Fire of the Week (The Sora Leak):
TechCrunch: OpenAI's Sora video generator appears to have leaked
Washington Post: OpenAI hits pause on video model Sora after artists leak access in protest
Tom's Guide: OpenAI's o1 model leaked on Friday and it is wild — here's what happened
Leopold Aschenbrenner: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: The Decade Ahead
Additional Sora leak from internal preview
*** THE BOILERPLATE ***
About The FAIK Files:
The FAIK Files is an offshoot project from Perry Carpenter's most recent book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions.
Get the Book: FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Amazon Associates link)
Check out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.com
Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA
Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm
Want to connect with us? Here's how:
Connect with Perry:
Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter
Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter
Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social
Connect with Mason:
Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/
Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/pregnantsonic.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 6, 2024 • 52min
A Hunch about Hutch
Welcome back to The FAIK Files— the show about artificial intelligence and natural nonsense!
In this week’s episode:
Mason has an update on last week's shocking story of Google Gemini’s alleged threats against a user. Is this a glitch, a hack, or something more sinister?
We sit down with cybersecurity expert Justin “Hutch” Hutchins (author of The Language of Deception) to dive into his experience weaponizing large language models and what it means for the future of AI.
And finally, we lighten things up with some fun AI music experiments, showing that Perry & Mason may have too much time on their hands,
Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK
You can also join our Discord server here: https://faik.to/discord
*** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***
Hutch's stuff:
Justin's Book: The Language of Deception: Weaponizing Next Generation AI
AI podcast: The Frontier Today (Apple Podcasts) (Spotify)
Justin and Len Noe’s podcast: Cyber Cognition (Apple Podcasts) (Spotify)
RSA Conference talk: Autonomous Hacking Systems - Future Risk or FUD
Houston Security Conference talk: This is how we lose control - Focused on the catastrophic/societal risks - P(Doom)
Mason's update on theories about Google Gemini threatening people:
AI Didn’t Threaten Humanity—The Media Did: Breaking Down the Gemini Incident
LLM Context Windows
Lost in the Middle: How Language Models Use Long Contexts
Attention Sorting Combats Recency Bias in Long Context Large Language Models
Cognitive Overload Attack: Prompt Injection for Long Context
Suno and Generative AI Music Generation:
Suno
Udio
Whispers in the Static (full song generated on Suno)
Experimental outro from today's episode (Suno)
Wired: US Record Labels Sue AI Music Generators Suno and Udio for Copyright Infringement
Soundiiz Blog: The music industry is at war against AI: Suno and Udio’s case
*** THE BOILERPLATE ***
About The FAIK Files:
The FAIK Files is an offshoot project from Perry Carpenter's most recent book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions.
Get the Book: FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Amazon Associates link)
Check out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.com
Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA
Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm
Want to connect with us? Here's how:
Connect with Perry:
Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter
Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter
Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social
Connect with Mason:
Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/
Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/pregnantsonic.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nov 29, 2024 • 48min
Consciousness, Scams, and Death Threats
Happy FAIKs-giving everyone! Welcome to the newly renovated and relaunched FAIK Files podcast. On this week's episode, Perry & Mason cover Anthropic's recent hiring of an employee focused on AI well-being, an AI grandmother from hell (for scammers), and Google's Gemini chatbot allegedly tells a user what it really thinks of them. Welcome back to the show that keeps you informed on all things artificial intelligence and natural nonsense.
Want to leave us a voicemail? Here's the magic link to do just that: https://sayhi.chat/FAIK
You can also join our Discord server here: https://faik.to/discord
*** NOTES AND REFERENCES ***
AI Wellbeing:
Anthropic has hired an 'AI welfare' researcher:https://www.transformernews.ai/p/anthropic-ai-welfare-researcher
It’s time to take AI welfare seriously: https://www.transformernews.ai/p/ai-welfare-paper
Taking AI Welfare Seriously: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.00986
The problem of sycophancy in AI:
Suckup software: How sycophancy threatens the future of AI: https://www.freethink.com/robots-ai/ai-sycophancy
Towards Understanding Sycophancy in Language Models:https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.13548
AI Interpretability:
Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model: https://www.anthropic.com/news/mapping-mind-language-model
Lex Fridman podcast interview with Dario Amodei, Amanda Askell, & Chris Olah: https://youtu.be/ugvHCXCOmm4
Deceptive and self-serving tendencies in AI systems:
Sycophancy to subterfuge: Investigating reward tampering in language models: https://www.anthropic.com/research/reward-tampering
OpenAI o1 System Card: https://openai.com/index/openai-o1-system-card/
Announcing our updated Responsible Scaling Policy: https://www.anthropic.com/news/announcing-our-updated-responsible-scaling-policy
AI Grandmother from Hell (for scammers):
Phone network employs AI "grandmother" to waste scammers' time with meandering conversations: https://www.techspot.com/news/105571-phone-network-employs-ai-grandmother-waste-scammers-time.html
YouTube video of Daisy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_SdCfZ-0s
AI Dumpster Fire of the Week (Gemini tells an end user what it really thinks about him):
Article: https://people.com/ai-chatbot-alarms-user-with-unsettling-message-human-please-die-8746112
Gemini interaction: https://gemini.google.com/share/6d141b742a13
*** THE BOILERPLATE ***
About The FAIK Files:
The FAIK Files is an offshoot project from Perry Carpenter's most recent book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions.
Get the Book: FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions (Amazon Associates link)
Check out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.com
Check out Perry & Mason's other show, the Digital Folklore Podcast:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-folklore/id1657374458
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2v1BelkrbSRSkHEP4cYffj?si=u4XTTY4pR4qEqh5zMNSVQA
Other: https://digitalfolklore.fm
Want to connect with us? Here's how:
Connect with Perry:
Perry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrycarpenter
Perry on X: https://x.com/perrycarpenter
Perry on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/perrycarpenter.bsky.social
Connect with Mason:
Mason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mason-amadeus-a853a7242/
Mason on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/pregnantsonic.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nov 27, 2024 • 2min
Step Into The FAIK Files!
The FAIK Files explores the mysterious and often wacky intersection of AI, technology, and humanity. From cognitive warfare to digital deception, we examine how AI is reshaping our reality through news, research, and real-world examples. Join us for a thought-provoking journey into a world where anything can be faked, truth is increasingly elusive, and human nature meets artificial intelligence head-on.The FAIK Files is an offshoot project from Perry Carpenter's most recent book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. Get the Book (Amazon Associate Link): FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated DeceptionsCheck out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 30, 2024 • 33min
FAIK Miniseries | Ch 10: A New Hope
This is Part Ten of a ten-part miniseries exploring Perry Carpenter's latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. Each episode kicks off with a dramatized reading of the "Whispers from the Static" vignette that opens the chapter, followed by an in-depth conversation with Perry Carpenter and Mason Amadeus, where they unpack the chapter's themes and real-world implications.Get the Book (Amazon Associate Link): FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated DeceptionsCheck out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.comVoice credits for the opening "Whispers from the Static": Alex MittsStay tuned... the FAIK Files will return. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 28, 2024 • 42min
FAIK Miniseries | Ch 9: Cognitive and Technical Defense Strategies - Tools for Protection
This is Part Nine of a ten-part miniseries exploring Perry Carpenter's latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. Each episode kicks off with a dramatized reading of the "Whispers from the Static" vignette that opens the chapter, followed by an in-depth conversation with Perry Carpenter and Mason Amadeus, where they unpack the chapter's themes and real-world implications.Get the Book (Amazon Associate Link): FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated DeceptionsCheck out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.comVoice credits for the opening "Whispers from the Static": Bambi Lynn Augustin, Ty from the podcast Side Character Quest, & Alex Mitts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 21, 2024 • 31min
FAIK Miniseries | Ch 8: Media Literacy in the Age of AI - Your First Line of Defense
This is Part Eight of a ten-part miniseries exploring Perry Carpenter's latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. Each episode kicks off with a dramatized reading of the "Whispers from the Static" vignette that opens the chapter, followed by an in-depth conversation with Perry Carpenter and Mason Amadeus, where they unpack the chapter's themes and real-world implications.Get the Book (Amazon Associate Link): FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated DeceptionsCheck out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.comVoice credits for the opening "Whispers from the Static": Alex Mitts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 21, 2024 • 31min
FAIK Miniseries | Ch 7: The Now and Future of AI-Driven Deception
This is Part Seven of a ten-part miniseries exploring Perry Carpenter's latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. Each episode kicks off with a dramatized reading of the "Whispers from the Static" vignette that opens the chapter, followed by an in-depth conversation with Perry Carpenter and Mason Amadeus, where they unpack the chapter's themes and real-world implications.Get the Book (Amazon Associate Link): FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated DeceptionsCheck out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.comVoice credits for the opening "Whispers from the Static": Kathryn Georghiou Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 14, 2024 • 42min
FAIK Miniseries | Ch 6: Deepfakes and the Spectrum of Digital Deception
This is Part Six of a ten-part miniseries exploring Perry Carpenter's latest book, FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. Each episode kicks off with a dramatized reading of the "Whispers from the Static" vignette that opens the chapter, followed by an in-depth conversation with Perry Carpenter and Mason Amadeus, where they unpack the chapter's themes and real-world implications.Get the Book (Amazon Associate Link): FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated DeceptionsCheck out the website for more info: https://thisbookisfaik.comVoice credits for the opening "Whispers from the Static": Deanna Johnston and Rob McCollum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices


