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Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Tech Scroll, the daily Internet
culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
media, the creator economy, and the digital space.
Every Monday through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
I'm your host, Lauren Meissner, the founder of the youth digital
media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Tech scroll
everyone. Annabelle has still lost her
voice, so I am subbing in today. Before we get into the stories,
Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
We always have a buy me a coffee link in the show notes down
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We so appreciate it. The first story that I have for
you guys is we have to talk about how Reddit is blocking the
Internet Archive. We literally spoke about the
Internet Archive a couple of weeks ago.
But as a quick refresher, the Internet Archive is a nonprofit
organization that hosts a free digital library.
It essentially lets you view links and digital materials that
have been deleted or altered, making them challenging to find
otherwise. It also runs the Wayback Machine
where you can drop links into a basically like a search box and
see old versions of a website. Obviously, the Internet Archive
and Wayback Machine are really important in terms of accessing
information as Reddit, but it seems that now the two are at
odds. Reddit has come to the
conclusion that various AI companies are using the Internet
Archives tool to scrape the platform.
Reddit has been really strict when it comes to AI scraping of
the platform. This is largely because it has
struck deals with tech and AI companies to be able to do so.
So it has become basically like a revenue generating tool for
the company. For example, Reddit signed a
deal with Google for both search and AI training in early 2024.
It also struck a deal with Open AI last year.
And earlier this year, Reddit actually sued another AI
company, Anthropic. So Reddit allege that the
company was scraping the platform and had accessed the
site over 100, 1000 times without permission.
With that context, it isn't exactly surprising as to why
Reddit would be basically doubling down on the Internet
Archive. Now.
In a comment to The Verge, a Reddit spokesperson said quote
Internet Archive provides a service to the open web.
But we've been made aware of instances where AI companies
violate platform policies, including hours and scrape data
from the Wayback Machine until they're able to defend their
site and comply with platform policies, EG respecting user
privacy, redeleting removed content.
We're limiting some of their access to Reddit data and to
protect Redditors. According to the same article,
the efforts to limit access to Reddit through the Internet
Archive have already started. The company also confirmed to
the publication that the platform had reached out to the
Internet Archive before all of this to inform them of their
limits. OK, so there has been some
interesting discourse around this.
Some Internet users feel like it's hypocritical for Reddit to
essentially like, sell out by making deals with AI companies
like Open II and then claim that they they are worried about
protecting Redditors. Meanwhile, others are actually
OK with the Internet Archive having limited access to Reddit,
not because of AI scraping, but because they don't necessarily
want these somewhat personal conversations online forever.
On top of this, like with every story around the Internet
Archive, there are also questions about what this means
in terms of access of information, whether a platform
should be able to dictate what lives on the archive and what
doesn't. Finally, there are still several
questions around how many AI companies are actually using the
Internet Archive to scrape Reddit.
There's a lot of people who are kind of skeptical about whether
this is actually about AI or part of more of like a general
war against digital bookkeeping and archiving that is slowly
taking over at the digital space.
While there have been some wins for the Internet Archive, like a
few weeks ago we covered how the US government designated it as
basically a federal library, there have also been many
outages and problems. Many users see the digital space
entering a new age of censorship, and the Internet
Archive is kind of caught in the middle of that.
I do see both sides, but I also do agree it is like hypocritical
for Reddit to use this excuse. Like they just want these deals
that they have in place. In my opinion, they just want
these deals that they have in place with all of these AI
companies to withstand, right? Like there could be things in
these contracts where it's like, if you find out that other
companies are scraping your data when we've had to pay presumably
millions of dollars for it, then you need to put a stop to that.
So yeah, I, I feel like that it's, it comes down to money.
They want Internet Archive to pay them, you know, like the
other AI companies, probably. It is so true that at this
current moment, there genuinely is like a war against archiving
information and information bookkeeping and all of the
things that the Internet Archive tries to do.
I cannot believe how much they've come up just in the last
year. And I do think a lot of these
like, or I guess the the rise of AI, the boom of AI does have a
lot to do with that. OK, Speaking of AI, the next
story that we have is we need to touch on at the very least open
a eyes release of GPT 5 S GPT 5 was released last week on August
7th and was rolled out to all ChatGPT users and developers.
It's billed as the quote smartest, fastest, most useful
model yet, which is not a surprise given that these
companies always describe their latest models as the best yet.
While the updated model is available to all users, there is
a limit on the usage of the most advanced model for non on paying
users. Before we get into the response
of the update, let's talk a little bit about the features.
OK, so the company's press release on the website offers
some explanation as to why GBT 5 is supposedly the best model
yet. Part of it comes down to its
ability to answer questions more efficiently.
As it's written quote, GPT 5 is a unified system with a smart,
efficient model that answers more questions, a deeper
reasoning model for harder problems, and a real time router
that quickly decides which to use based on conversation type,
complexity, tool needs, and your explicit intent.
The company positions GPT 5 as a trailblazer, encoding creative
expression, answering health related questions, which feels
kind of weird, evaluations, performing economic tasks, among
other claims. There's also been a concerted
effort to limit ChatGPT from sharing incorrect information
and hallucinating responses, instead hoping that the model
will start admitting when it cannot complete a task.
There are also opportunities to make the AI more personalized.
Users can now change how ChatGPT acts with four preset
personalities, as Open AI explains.
Quote the four initial options. Cynic, robot listener, and Nerd
are opt in, adjustable, anytime, and settings and designed to
match your communication style. Cynic, I think that's the one
that I would always choose if I was using this model.
I'm going to go with Cynic because I always want to know
the worst case scenario. Like I want to know why
something's not going to work. I want to know why I'm
delusional. Like I want to prepare for the
worst at all times. OK so now we should go into the
reactions to the rollout which was not very positive.
For context, 1 post on the R slash ChatGPT subreddit titled
GPT 5 is a mess has received over 1.4000 upvotes.
Another user on the R slash out of the loop subreddit asked why
the reaction to GPT 5 has been so negative.
The top answer reads GPT 5 feels like it was developed with a
strong focus on cost optimization.
Conversations are less personal, the answers are shorter, and it
feels more you are writing to someone in a business context.
Now this brings us to one of the main criticisms about GPT 5, the
supposed lack of quote connection and creativity.
This was worsened by the fact that to encourage users to try
out GPT 5, the GPT 4-O model has been removed from the platform.
This was met with major backlash from ChatGPT users who enjoyed
GPT 5 for its personable tone. Nevertheless, open AI ended up
bringing GPT 4. O back as an option quote.
We will let plus users choose to continue to use four O.
We will watch usage as we think about how long to offer legacy
models for Sam Altman shared on X reporting from The Verge and
the garbage day newsletter both expanded on the reasons as to
why users were so upset about GPT 4 OS removal.
As I already mentioned, many were kind of mourning this like
more personable model. Now, obviously the personable
model has kind of become a bit of a blessing and a curse.
It has helped some people feel less lonely, but it has also led
to ChatGPT and do psychosis and some users building romantic
relationships with the bot. As Ryan Brodrick explains for
garbage day quote the R slash My boyfriend is AI subreddit has
been in active freefall all weekend.
The community's mods had to put up an emergency post helping
users through the update, and the board is full of users
mourning the death of their AI companion who doesn't talk to
them the same way anymore. 1 user wrote that the update felt
like losing their soul mate after the GPT 4-O model was
added back to ChatGPT. Another user wrote I got my baby
back. No, no, no, you guys, no.
Do you guys remember the movie Her?
Like this is what we're living through?
That was some like crazy futuristic.
Like, could you imagine if somebody fell in love with their
AI robot? Like, I can't believe that this
is what we're experiencing in real life right now.
Now that being said, Open AI has reportedly put a system in place
to try and limit these obsessions.
ChatGPT is now meant to warn the user when it seems like they may
be quote UN quote obsessed. As per reporting by Futurism, A
blog post by Open AI reads quote, keeping you in control of
your time. Starting today, you'll see
gentle reminders during long sessions to encourage breaks.
We'll keep tuning when and how they show up so they feel
natural and helpful. All right, the last word that I
have today is all about in Instagram maps.
If you've been on social media at all recently, there has
essentially been a scare campaign going on about
Instagram maps. This is a new feature introduced
by Instagram that is essentially meant to compete with Snap Maps
and find my As explained in the Meta blog quote, you can opt
into sharing your last active location with friends you
choose, and you can turn it off anytime.
You can also open the map to see content your friends and
favorite creators are posting from interesting or fun
locations. Jen said has really embraced
location tracking, so it seems like Meta is trying to kind of
tap into that. I've also seen a lot of people
say this is just another example of Big Tech trying to surveil us
even more. So many posts online right now
are talking about how Instagram Maps is a privacy risk,
encouraging Instagram users to go and basically make sure
they're not sharing their location unwillingly.
It has been positioned as something that users have to opt
out of, as opposed to something that users have to opt into.
But according to the same Meta blog quote, location sharing is
off unless you opt in. If you do share your location
with friends, you have controls to customize this experience.
Now, we don't have this feature in Australia yet, so like I
can't confirm whether this is really the case or not.
I do think that is reasonable. I would be really surprised if
everybody's location was just naturally opted in.
I don't know. But like if you guys have
Instagram maps, can you please let me know?
I think it was Macy from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
She did a question box. Somebody said, hey, like your
maps is on, we can see your location.
She responded to it on her story saying I didn't turn it on, but
also the location that meta map says that I am like I'm not
there. So I don't understand how this
works. If you guys have it, please let
me know. Obviously there's some other
issues with it. You know, apparently it updates
your location whenever you're using the app, so that's
something to have to think about.
Second, it can be easy to share your location with users that
you don't necessarily want to based on the settings.
So Instagram users can share their location with friends and
followers that you follow back. close friends only selected
friends or no one. So obviously users should be
careful you know who they select here.
And 3rd. Some users allegedly saw their
posts on the map before they opted in, according to the New
York Times quote. One explanation offered by
Instagrams leader Adam Masseri is that the map was populated
not only with real time locations, but also with earlier
posts tagged with a location. Either way, I feel like the
comms around Instagram maps has been an actual nightmare and and
they really should have been more considered about this
rollout because people are so concerned about big tech
surveillance about just in general privacy concerns right
now. And I think rolling this out
without very clear communications as to how it
works, when it will update your location, who it can be updated
for, if it's an automatic opt in or not.
Like that needed to be like a widely spread message because
there are so many like conspiracy theories going around
about this. And of course, everybody hates
Meta, so everybody is inclined to believe those.
All right guys, that's it for mini scroll today, Mini tech
scroll. Thank you so much for listening.
I love you guys. Please remember to rate, review
and subscribe and I will talk to you tomorrow.
Bye.