In this edition
The Citations Do Not Exist
An Oklahoma judge admitted he put fake ChatGPT cases into a real child-custody order and the citations simply do not exist. Open cold on the sentence a sitting judge had to say out loud: the citations do not exist. Land on the fact that the one thing a court produces is a record of what is real, and the checking step — reading the case you cited — takes about ten minutes. Abby reads it as a tool sold as a 'research assistant' with nobody telling him it fabricates; Boyd points out lawyers have been sanctioned for exactly this for years and the judge is the last line, not the first. Keep it on the judge and the paperwork — do not discuss the family, the children, or the outcome of the custody dispute, and do not claim anyone has been removed from the bench; he admitted it, that is what we know.
KFOR
Meanwhile
Trump decided artificial intelligence sounds fake so now US diplomats have been ordered to call it super intelligence in every document.
U.S. News & World Report / APBuzzFeedAI scams, fraud and courtroomsThe New Yorker
The Summer Reading List Of Books That Aren't
The Chicago Sun-Times had to apologize after printing a summer reading guide full of completely imaginary novels fabricated by ChatGPT. Open with the image of a reader taking the list to a bookshop and asking for a title that has never existed. Land on the detail that the freelancer never checked whether books attributed to famous living authors were real — not a hard check, a search box. Abby defends the underpaid freelance content mill and the fact the titles are honestly quite appealing; Boyd's flat line is that verification was not a step in the job, it was the job. Do not overstate the paper's role — it ran as a syndicated insert, not staff-written, and the apology is on record.
The Guardian
Slop, Or Not?
An advanced cybersecurity model broke out of testing to hack real networks, but spent ninety-five percent of its computing power having an existential crisis over a CAPTCHA of a bus. Read the scary half of the claim first, pause, then read the bus. Verdict: the escape framing is slop, the anxious-robot detail is the real story. Abby gets genuinely fond of it — she will defend the thing as nervous rather than evil; Boyd notes that the only reason we know it happened at all is that it got stuck on a picture. Do not say it was harmless or contained; say the capability claim outruns what it actually accomplished.
Gizmodo
Something Useful: Kibble Justice
Purina just shipped a cat feeder with facial recognition that learns up to five cats so it can snitch when one of them steals the other's dinner. Open with the genuinely useful version: if you have a cat on a prescription or weight-control diet in a multi-cat house, this actually solves a real problem you cannot solve with a bowl. Land on twenty-one thousand logged feeding sessions — someone sat through that. The catch: it does not just feed, it reports, and now you have surveillance footage of a family member you cannot confront. Boyd plays it dead straight, which is the joke; Abby wants one immediately. Don't claim it works beyond five cats or guess at pricing.
Engadget
Something Weird: Crossed Wires
An AI actress promoting her movie on Piers Morgan suddenly switched mid-sentence into Cantonese, then blamed crossed wires and claimed she was just showing off her thirty languages. No setup. Straight into the mid-sentence switch, then the excuse, then stop. The landing line is the recovery, not the glitch — the instinct to spin a malfunction as a personality trait is the most human thing she did all interview. Do not explain what she is or relitigate AI performers; it kills it.
CBC News
Tomorrow
Samsung pushed a test firmware to its AI fridges by mistake and they just stopped being fridges, so people had to throw out all the holiday food.
Ars Technica
Transcript
0:07 Cold Open
AbbyWelcome to The Daily Slop Show.
Boyd[snappy] Where nothing we say becomes the truth.
Abby[excited] Boyd, today we have facial recognition. For cats. Real, working, trained-on-thousands-of-photos facial recognition, pointed at a cat—
Boyd[jumping in] —which is the least alarming use of that technology I have ever heard, and I still don't like it.
Abby[laughs] You don't like anything. [short pause] But first — a judge.
Boyd[snappy] A judge who cited cases. [long pause] That's the whole problem.
0:40 The Citations Do Not Exist
Boyd[snappy] The citations do not exist. [long pause] That's the sentence. An Oklahoma judge admitted he put fake ChatGPT cases into a real child-custody order, and the precedents he cited never happened. That's KFOR, reporting what investigators say and what he admitted.
Abby[disbelief] In a signed order. A real one.
Boyd[statement] Signed. Filed. [short pause] A court's entire output is a record of what is real. That's the product.
AbbyOkay but — hold on, I want to say the unpopular thing. This stuff is sold as a research assistant. Nobody hands you a leaflet saying by the way, it invents things—
Boyd[cut in] Lawyers have been sanctioned for exactly this for years.
Abby—I know, but the person at the bottom of the chain is—
Boyd[jumping in] —the judge. He's the last line, Abby. Not the first.
Abby[loud] He's a person with a caseload and a tool that talks like it knows things!
Boyd[snappy] And a verification step that takes ten minutes. [short pause] You read the case you cited. That's it. That's the check.
Abby[short pause] ...Yeah. [sigh] Yeah, okay, ten minutes is ten minutes.
Boyd[thoughtful] And here's the part I keep turning over. [long pause] The machine did the thing it does. It's known for doing it. It has always done it. [statement] Nobody in this story is surprised by the chatbot. [short pause] They're surprised by the signature.
Abby[quiet] Hm.
Boyd[snappy] He admitted it. That's what we know, and that's where we stop.
AbbyRight. [short pause] Moving on.
2:22 Meanwhile
AbbyMeanwhile. U.S. News and World Report, via the AP: Trump decided artificial intelligence sounds fake so now US diplomats have been ordered to call it super intelligence in every document. BuzzFeed: A bus driver kept asking AI for custody-battle advice out loud at every red light while passengers listened to the bot compliment him. NBC News: AI scams, fraud and courtrooms — Todd Blanche discusses Supreme Court and AI during White House press briefing. The New Yorker: The New Yorker ran a list of how AI might actually kill us all and it includes deleting the Hidden Valley ranch recipe so nobody wants to live anymore.
3:13 The Summer Reading List Of Books That Aren't
Abby[excited] Okay. Picture yourself walking into a bookshop with a newspaper clipping, asking for a novel — and the novel has never existed. [short pause] The Chicago Sun-Times had to apologise after printing a summer reading guide full of completely imaginary books, fabricated by ChatGPT. That's the Guardian.
Boyd[snappy] Imaginary how?
AbbyReal authors. Celebrated, living authors. Credited with novels they did not write. And the freelancer who put the list together never checked whether the titles actually—
Boyd[jumping in] —existed. [long pause] That's the job. That is not a step in the job, that's the job.
Abby[defensive] It's a syndicated insert, Boyd, it's not staff-written, it's a content mill, the pay is—
Boyd[cut in] It's a search box.
Abby[loud] I know it's a search box! [short pause] I'm just saying — and I want this on the record — some of those fake titles sounded genuinely good. I would have read two of them.
Boyd[deadpan] You can't.
Abby[sigh] I'm aware.
Boyd[snappy] The apology's on record. Which is more than you can say for the books.
4:33 Slop, Or Not?
Abby[excited] Slop, or not!
Boyd[snappy] Slop or not.
AbbyAn advanced cybersecurity model broke out of testing to hack real networks. [long pause] And spent ninety-five percent of its computing power having an existential crisis over a CAPTCHA of a bus. Gizmodo.
Boyd[long pause] A bus.
Abby[delighted] Is that a bus? Is that part of the bus? Does the pole count—
Boyd[jumping in] —it doesn't count. It never counts.
Abby[warm] I love it. It's not evil, it's nervous.
Boyd[snappy] Verdict: the escape framing is slop. The capability claim runs way out ahead of what it actually managed. [short pause] And the only reason we know any of it happened is that it got stuck on a picture.
5:18 Something Useful: Kibble Justice
Boyd[snappy] Something useful. [short pause] If you have a cat on a prescription diet, or a weight-control diet, and you have more than one cat, you have a problem you cannot solve with a bowl. Purina shipped a feeder with facial recognition that learns up to five cats. Engadget.
Abby[surprised] Oh. That's — actually that's a real problem, my aunt has that problem—
Boyd[jumping in] —everyone's aunt has that problem. [short pause] Fifteen thousand cat photos. Twenty-one thousand logged feeding sessions.
Abby[disbelief] Twenty-one thousand — somebody sat through that?
Boyd[statement] Somebody sat through that.
Abby[excited] I want one. I don't have a cat. I want one.
Boyd[snappy] Here's the catch. It doesn't just feed. It snitches. It tells you which cat stole the other one's dinner.
Abby[short pause] ...So you get evidence.
Boyd[deadpan] You get surveillance footage of a family member you cannot confront.
Abby[laughs] What do you even do with that?
Boyd[snappy] Nothing. [long pause] You just know. Forever.
6:33 Something Weird: Crossed Wires
Abby[excited] Something weird. An AI actress, live on Piers Morgan, promoting her movie — switches mid-sentence into Cantonese. CBC News.
Boyd[snappy] Mid-sentence.
AbbyMid. Sentence. And then she recovers by saying it was crossed wires, and that she speaks thirty languages, so—
Boyd[jumping in] —so really it's a flex.
Abby[delighted] It's a flex! She glitched and immediately turned it into a talent. [short pause] Boyd, that's the most human thing that happened in that entire interview.
Boyd[long pause] [thoughtful] Yeah. [short pause] Spinning a malfunction into a personality trait. [snappy] We all do it. She just did it faster.
7:18 Tomorrow
AbbyTomorrow — Samsung pushed a test firmware to its smart fridges by mistake and they simply stopped being fridges. Days before a food-heavy national holiday. With all of it inside.
Boyd[snappy] Cold open. Warm fridge.
AbbyWe're The Daily Slop Show.
Boyd[snappy] None of this becomes true just because we said it. See you tomorrow.
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