Classically, spies are motivated by: money, ideology, coercion, or ego [1]. I wonder which it is. A Russian woman "marrying a target, having kids with a target — and conducting a lifelong collection operation" on an "aerospace company" in the "military-space innovation community".

I'd guess it has to be ego.

[1] https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/9ccc45dc156271d1176...

Worrying about editing git history buries the lede. Any comment system allows users to insert data into your site, which, if it might be illegal things, is a legal risk.

But someone else did: https://san.com/cc/exclusive-evidence-of-cell-phone-surveill...

using a different tool, "Marlin". The article has some technical details.

What is the significance of the half-erased numbers in the sand? (You seem to imply it's a hidden message?) What is "rootα" (root alpha?)?

There are mirrors and backups of Wikipedia. Archive.org has no substitute.

Interesting, good to know, though I wish it weren't so. I wonder how long until the pendulum (of SEO) swings the other way, and then following it, AI websites' style.

Wow, that's...something.

Yes and even in the New York Times[†], but somehow it's still different in some way I can't articulate.

[†] Q&A format: https://archive.is/20250828121105/https://www.nytimes.com/20... ;

Bulleted list with bold format: https://archive.is/g8K5w#live-feed-items

Honest question: how do you all sense when a page is AI-written? To me, the many headings, lists, and frequent use of bold stand out stylistically. Additionally: the multilevel numbered table of contents; the parenthetical acronyms (to the point of silliness, as in "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)" stand out.

Non-stylistically, the non-answers to questions or misinterpreted questions (read the bolded final sentence under "What is the octane rating of synthetic gasoline?") are a tell.

> Note on the title: “Artificial Inanity” comes from Neal Stephenson’s novel Anathem.

Which was awfully prescient in 2008: https://archive.org/details/anathem0000step/page/794/mode/2u...

They began to put crap on the Reticulum deliberately, forcing people to use their products to filter that crap back out. They created syndevs whose sole purpose was to spew crap into the Reticulum.

...

Are you saying an algorithmic content recommendation system is an important part of "collecting all the world's knowledge"?

The article mentions a setting in Chrome only. Someone using uBlock Origin is not using Chrome.

Can anyone explain how Wikipedia supposedly is in Category 1? [1]

And if it marginally is, how come they cannot just turn off their "content recommender system"? Perhaps an example is the auto-generated "Related articles" that appear in the footer on mobile only?

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/226/regulation/3/ma...

Richard Severo, the author of this obituary, died two years ago!

It would be astonishingly hypocritical if the author (https://www.maalvikabhat.com/ who btw does academic research on societal influences of AI) wrote the following using AI (a quote from beyond the paywall follows). If anything I wonder whether she picked up a ChatGPT speech pattern herself from so much exposure to it.

"This is why AI can write but cannot create. It can remix existing patterns with mechanical precision, but it cannot sit in the fertile void where genuinely new ideas are born. It cannot endure the months of terrible drafts that make you question your sanity, the years of failure that feel like slow starvation, the decades of practice that transform a human into an artist through accumulated scar tissue and hard-won wisdom. AI has never stared at a blank page at 3 AM, coffee cold, wondering if anything will ever come. It has never had to choose between the easy metaphor and the one that makes your chest tight with recognition. It has never experienced the moment when disparate ideas suddenly fuse into something that didn't exist before, something that surprises even its creator. It can simulate the surface of creativity (the clever turns of phrase, the familiar structures), but it cannot access the underground rivers of human experience that feed genuine innovation. It writes like someone who has read about love but never been heartbroken, someone who can describe the ocean but has never tasted salt water."