Funny Side Up: Strange Tech News Stories

The tech industry is pivoting to unconventional methods to manage water use and energy consumption, even if some of those ideas seem unusual. A recent marketing campaign suggested that collecting human urine could help cool massive data centers, a concept that went viral despite being largely a joke. The initiative was launched by beverage companies Liquid Death and Garage Beer, along with former NFL player Jason Kelce, who promoted the tongue-in-cheek idea of “peeing on computers” to save the planet. The ad features people in a field drinking beverages and singing about urinating on servers, a stunt that garnered over 60,000 views in a short period.

Courtroom hallucinations and stinky diets are also making headlines. In a bizarre twist involving the Trump administration, physician Sean O’Mara convinced the President’s team to adopt a diet of steak and fermented foods like kimchi. O’Mara, who spoke to a New York Times reporter, claimed that a healthy diet leads to odourless, wipe-free bowel movements that are “nearly orgasmic.” He also suggested that a person could have a bowel movement behind a sheet at a dinner party without anyone noticing. These claims have sparked curiosity about the dietary habits of the administration, particularly given the President’s frequent use of social media while in the bathroom.

Legal professionals are also facing the challenges of artificial intelligence, as a recent case involving industrial conglomerate 3M revealed. The company’s legal team relied on an expert witness report that turned out to be generated by ChatGPT. The report, created using hundreds of court records and AI prompts, falsely blamed someone else for a 2020 explosion that killed three people in Houston. The discovery came after the petitioners’ legal team suspected AI usage and requested logs from the chatbot. This incident highlights the growing issue of AI hallucinations in professional settings, where fabricated details can have serious consequences.

Security researchers warn that these AI “hallucinations” are being weaponized by criminals to distribute malware. A study by Tel Aviv University researchers found that coding assistants like Cursor and Copilot could recommend non-existent software packages with an 85% success rate. Attackers exploit this flaw by creating “hallu-squatting,” where they register fake package names in repositories and hide malicious code inside them. When an AI assistant encounters these hallucinated names, it clones the malware onto the victim’s machine, often without the user’s knowledge until the code executes. This persistent flaw in AI coding tools poses a significant risk to software development and cybersecurity.

Prophetic Diarrhea Outbreaks

Unsettlingly, President Trump’s 2023 AI-generated video of himself dropping feces on protestors in a fighter plane seems to have taken on a grim reality. Barely a year later, the United States is facing a widespread outbreak of acute diarrhea affecting 47 of the 50 states. The illness has been linked to contaminated lettuce and is now being blamed on massive cuts to federal workforce positions. The lab responsible for identifying parasitic outbreaks was reduced from 11 to 3, while USAID was dismantled during the restructuring efforts led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Public health agencies are currently struggling for funds at a critical time, making the timing of the outbreak particularly concerning.

Workers need to adapt to artificial intelligence to avoid these pitfalls. [1] The technology is rapidly evolving and requires constant vigilance from developers and users alike.

Efforts to innovate in artificial intelligence are also emerging globally. [2] A startup in Nigeria recently won a UN award for its AI solution.