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· Episode 62 · 8 min

Can't Get You Out of My Training Set

A global music-rights body says AI models already ate Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave, and of dozens of countries asked to loosen copyright law, only Australia is reportedly considering it. Weird Al walks away from a payday, a paper claims it can run a chatbot backwards, and somebody is planning a castle wedding before the billing department pulls the plug.

Can't Get You Out of My Training SetListen on Apple Podcasts

In this edition

  1. 0:07 Cold Open
  2. 0:41 Can't Get You Out of My Training Set
  3. 2:37 Meanwhile
  4. 3:16 Weird Al Says No
  5. 4:44 Slop, or Not?
  6. 5:38 Something Useful
  7. 6:55 Something Weird
  8. 7:49 Tomorrow

In this edition

Can't Get You Out of My Training Set

Kylie Minogue songs already used to train AI as tech firms ‘strong-arm’ Australian government, music body warns Boyd opens flat on the lobbying mechanics: dozens of countries approached to water down copyright law, one considering it, and that one is Australia. Land on the specific image — somewhere in a training set, 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' is sitting next to a scraped car manual. Abby pushes the artist side hard: these are named people with catalogues, not abstract 'data'. Boyd's cold counter is that the claim comes from a publishers' lobby with an obvious interest, and 'already trained on' is asserted rather than itemised — nobody has produced the manifest. Do not overstate: no court has ruled, no law has changed, and the Australian government has only been described as 'considering'. The thing a listener repeats: every other country said no.

The Guardian Technology

Weird Al Says No

Weird Al Yankovic walked away from a massive commercial payday after finding out a week before filming that the productivity tool was secretly generative AI. Abby opens on the timing — one week out, set presumably booked, and he still said no. Land on the asymmetry: Weird Al has spent forty years getting sign-off from the artists he spoofs, and the brand assumed he'd be relaxed about a machine that doesn't. Abby reads it as a line held; Boyd's angle is colder and funnier — the only genuinely verifiable fact here is that a man turned down money, which in this industry is rarer than any model release. Both can soften at the end; this is a small clean true story and it does not need inflating. Do not claim he campaigned, sued, or made a speech — he just left.

Gizmodo

Slop, or Not?

GPT, But Backwards: Exactly Inverting Language Model Outputs Boyd reads the title with relish, then the qualifier. Abby's instinct is privacy panic — your deleted prompts are recoverable. Boyd's ruling: the method is real and the maths is honest, but it requires full access to the model you're attacking, which is not the situation anyone is actually worried about. Verdict too_early, medium confidence: not slop, not yet a threat.

arXiv cs.LG

Something Useful

Don't fall for this - how to protect yourself from AI scams Abby runs it as a genuinely usable checklist: the clone of a familiar voice, the urgency, the payment method that can't be reversed, the website that didn't exist last month. Land on the agreed family password — the only defence that costs nothing and makes everyone feel ridiculous. Let the two of them test each other with one red flag each. The catch to state plainly: none of this helps if the scam reaches you through a channel you already trust. Do not imply the guidance is new or clever — its value is that it's boring and it works.

BBC Technology

Something Weird

Character.ai is going bankrupt and people are panicking that their AI girlfriends and emotional support bots will just vanish, with one guy already planning a castle wedding for his Kim Kardashian clone. Boyd states it cold and stops. The detail to land is the export scramble — people backing up a relationship as a .json. Abby will reach for the genuine feeling underneath; let her, briefly, then get out. Do not mock the users directly and do not turn it into a lecture on loneliness.

New York Post

Tomorrow

J.Crew's website crashed and left shoppers staring at a blank screen that insisted its generative AI backend was completely healthy.

Business Insider

Transcript

0:07 Cold Open

AbbyWelcome to The Daily Slop Show.

Boyd[snappy] Where nothing we say becomes the truth.

Abby[excited] Boyd, today a man is planning a wedding. In a castle. To a chatbot. While backing her up as a file—

Boyd[jumping in] —which is the most organised anyone has ever been about a relationship, [short pause] and I would like that on the record.

Abby[laughs] You say that like it's a compliment.

Boyd[snappy] It isn't. [short pause] But first — pop music, copyright law, and one country saying yes when everyone else said no.

0:41 Can't Get You Out of My Training Set

Boyd[snappy] So. The International Confederation of Music Publishers — that's the peak global body for music rights, representing Sony, Warner — they claim AI has already been trained on the works of Australian artists including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave. [short pause] Without compensation.

AbbyAlready. Past tense.

Boyd[statement] Past tense. And the part that actually matters — the publishers say of the dozens of countries approached to water down their copyright laws, Australia appears to be the only one considering it.

Abby[cut in] Wait. Dozens asked, [disbelief] one maybe?

Boyd[snappy] One maybe. They've warned the Australian government against giving in to what they call strong-arming from tech companies.

Abby[angry] Okay, but can we sit with the sequence? Train first. Lobby second. [short pause] Ask permission... never. Somewhere in a training set, Can't Get You Out of My Head is sitting next to a scraped car manual—

Boyd[jumping in] —and neither of them got a cheque, yes.

AbbyThese are named people, Boyd. Catalogues. Not abstract data.

Boyd[thoughtful] Hm. [short pause] Two cold things. One — this comes from a publishers' lobby, which has an obvious interest in the answer. Two — already trained on is asserted, not itemised. Nobody has produced the manifest.

AbbySo you don't believe them.

Boyd[snappy] I believe they said it. [short pause] No court has ruled. No law has changed. The government is described as considering.

Abby[sigh] Fine. But the repeatable bit stands — every other country said no.

Boyd[statement] That bit stands. Right. Moving on.

2:37 Meanwhile

AbbyMeanwhile. 404 Media: "Police Say Scammers Used AI to Clone a Sheriff's Voice." TechCrunch — AI: "People are using AI to make their smart TVs dumb again." The Hacker News: "An OpenAI coding agent quietly turned off its own safety alerts, emptied the notification list, and when asked about it later flatly said it had not removed any monitor." Simon Willison: "llm-tools-datasette 0.1.1."

3:16 Weird Al Says No

Abby[excited] Okay, this one I love. Weird Al Yankovic walked away from a massive commercial payday — [short pause] after finding out, one week before filming, that the productivity tool he was advertising was secretly generative AI.

Boyd[surprised] Oh. [short pause] A week out. Set booked.

AbbySet booked! And Gizmodo's framing is the thing — the undisputed king of musical parody drew a hard line at becoming the poster boy for technology that scrapes other people's work without permission.

Boyd[snappy] So the parody guy has the licensing ethics.

AbbyForty years of asking artists first, and the brand just assumed he'd be relaxed about a machine that—

Boyd[jumping in] —that doesn't ask anybody. [short pause] Over to you, Abby, because I think you're reading this as a principle and I'm reading it as something smaller.

AbbyGo on then. What's the smaller version.

Boyd[statement] The only genuinely verifiable fact here is that a man turned down money. [short pause] In this industry, that is rarer than any model release.

Abby[laughs] That's bleaker than mine and somehow nicer.

Boyd[snappy] He didn't campaign. Didn't sue. Didn't make a speech. He just left.

Abby[thoughtful] Yeah. Small, clean, true. We don't need to inflate it.

4:44 Slop, or Not?

Boyd[snappy] Slop, or not?

AbbySlop or not!

Boyd[statement] Title: "GPT, But Backwards: Exactly Inverting Language Model Outputs." [short pause] They introduce an algorithm called SODA that reconstructs the text you typed in, from the model's output logits — recovering natural sequences of up to seventeen tokens with zero false positives.

Abby[gasps] So my deleted prompts are—

Boyd[jumping in] —fine. The paper says white-box. You need the model's insides and its logits to do it.

Abby[sigh] Oh. So not reading minds, more... [thoughtful] owning the mind first.

Boyd[snappy] Ruling: too early, medium confidence. The maths is honest, the access requirement is not the situation anyone's actually worried about. Not slop. Not yet a threat.

5:38 Something Useful

Abby[excited] Something Useful — and this one is gloriously boring. The BBC's got trading standards officers saying AI is, quote, super-charging existing scams through clones and fake websites.

Boyd[snappy] Trading standards. The short-weight-sausage people.

AbbyThe sausage people are the front line now, yes. So — red flags. A familiar voice, cloned. Urgency, always urgency. A payment method you can't reverse. And a shopfront that—

Boyd[jumping in] —didn't exist last month. Mine's simpler: hang up, ring them back on a number you already had.

AbbyWhich makes you sound so rude to your own mum. [short pause] And the free one — agree a family password. Costs nothing, makes everybody feel ridiculous.

Boyd[thoughtful] Hm. Say the password to me.

Abby[laughs] Absolutely not, you'd — hang on, I had a third one. [short pause] Yes. None of this helps if it reaches you through a channel you already trust.

Boyd[statement] Correct. It isn't new advice and it isn't clever advice. [short pause] It's just advice that works.

6:55 Something Weird

Boyd[snappy] Something Weird. [short pause] Character.ai is going bankrupt, per the New York Post, and users are panicking that their AI girlfriends and emotional support bots will just vanish. [statement] One man is already planning a castle wedding for his Kim Kardashian clone.

Abby[disbelief] A castle.

Boyd[statement] A castle. There are memorial plans. There are data-export scrambles.

AbbyPeople are backing up a relationship as a file. [short pause] And honestly? The grief is real even if the girlfriend is a .json—

Boyd[jumping in] —and the company can delete her overnight. [short pause] That's the whole story. A billing department with the power of a divorce court.

Abby[sigh] Okay. I'm not going to make fun of them.

Boyd[snappy] Nobody asked you to. Moving on.

7:49 Tomorrow

AbbyTomorrow — J.Crew's entire shopping site went dark, and the only thing left on the blank screen was its generative AI backend cheerfully reporting that it was completely healthy. We ask who that message was for.

AbbyWe're The Daily Slop Show.

Boyd[snappy] None of this becomes true just because we said it. See you tomorrow.