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Proof News
@proofnews.bsky.social
Data-driven reporting and analysis of the most important questions of our time. proofnews.org
Reposted by Proof News
It seems that there is one issue of bipartisan agreement during this week’s Presidential transition: federal support for building more AI data centers.

In his final days, Biden directed the gov't to lease federal lands to build AI data centers. And Trump appears to have endorsed the plan.
January 23, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Reposted by Proof News
Also note the careful wording on requiring data center developers to “bring online sufficient clean energy generation resources to match the full electricity needs of their data centers.”

That is not the same as being fully powered by clean energy, as @agordon.me explains: youtu.be/jFd0QUOUFUg?...
How AI is Hogging the Electric Grid
YouTube video by Proof News
youtu.be
January 14, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Proof News
Dr. Shaolei Ren, expert on data center water usage, says AI companies have already exceeded the water usage of the largest beverage companies in the world. youtu.be/Vqvb3G8hJiI?...
Ingredients: Dr. Shaolei Ren on AI’s extraordinary water consumption
YouTube video by Proof News
youtu.be
January 14, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Proof News
No mention of water conservation in White House EO giving federal lands to AI data centers.

Data centers are very thirsty creatures!

www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo...
Statement by President Biden on the Executive Order on Advancing U.S. Leadership in Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure | The White House
The United States leads the world at the frontier of artificial intelligence (AI). Cutting-edge AI will have profound implications for national security
www.whitehouse.gov
January 14, 2025 at 12:48 PM
You may have heard that having a conversation with ChatGPT is the climate equivalent of pouring out a bottle of water. In fact, that is likely an underestimate.

In the 3rd installment in our series on the climate costs of AI, we tackle AI’s unquenchable thirst.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s67L...
How AI is Guzzling Up the Water Supply
YouTube video by Proof News
www.youtube.com
December 6, 2024 at 8:05 PM
What is the carbon cost of using an AI bot? The companies stopped disclosing it in 2022.

In the latest installment in our series on the climate costs of AI, we estimate a year of ChatGPT use may emit the same amount of CO2 as driving 2 million miles.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yekA...
How AI is Killing Climate Goals
YouTube video by Proof News
www.youtube.com
December 5, 2024 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Proof News
Since 2017, electricity consumption at the biggest AI makers has soared:
186% at Google
186% at Microsoft
367% at Meta
The reason: AI.

@agordon.me examines the electrical costs of AI in the first episode of our YouTube series on the climate impacts of AI.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFd0...
How AI is Hogging the Electric Grid
YouTube video by Proof News
www.youtube.com
December 4, 2024 at 8:09 PM
Since 2017, electricity consumption at the biggest AI makers has soared:
186% at Google
186% at Microsoft
367% at Meta
The reason: AI.

@agordon.me examines the electrical costs of AI in the first episode of our YouTube series on the climate impacts of AI.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFd0...
How AI is Hogging the Electric Grid
YouTube video by Proof News
www.youtube.com
December 4, 2024 at 8:09 PM
We are thrilled to announce that Proof News is joining Nebula – the independent creator-led video streaming platform. Our video investigations will appear on Nebula as well as on the corporate-owned platforms.

Indie newsroom + indie platform = stronger together!

nebula.tv/proofnews
Proof News
You deserve better facts. Proof provides data-driven reporting and analysis of the most important questions of our time.
nebula.tv
December 3, 2024 at 5:45 PM
Proof News is an independent nonprofit newsroom. We do rigorous investigations of powerful companies. We have no corporate overlords. We have no ads and no third-party trackers on our site.

We are honored DuckDuckGo chose us as one of their annual donations!

spreadprivacy.com/2024-duckduc...
2024 DuckDuckGo Charitable Donations
DuckDuckGo is donating $1.1 million in 2024 to support organizations that share our vision of raising the standard of trust online.
spreadprivacy.com
December 3, 2024 at 5:33 PM
"In the world of AI and misinformation and propaganda circulating online, we must make it very clear why our audiences should trust our piece of information versus another piece,” @juliaangwin.com tells Editor & Publisher.

www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/proo...
Proof News: Redefining objectivity in a world of disinformation - Editor and Publisher
Although the daily challenges of reporting and publishing have never been greater, both must continue to evolve. Being a leader of that change is the mission of Julia Angwin and her team at Proof News...
www.editorandpublisher.com
November 14, 2024 at 1:40 PM
In our latest AI testing, the leading chatbots were pretty decent at detecting and debunking known vote count misinformation. With one notable – and surprising – exception: ChatGPT.
What’s Up With ChatGPT? The AI chatbot didn’t debunk known election misinformation
Proof News presented examples of debunked election misinformation to five leading consumer facing AI products.
www.proofnews.org
November 8, 2024 at 1:06 PM
AI models are fluent in many languages - holding out the promise of helping break language barriers.

But our latest investigation reveals that the models return a higher rate of inaccurate answers to questions posed in Spanish than identical questions posed in English.
AI Models Falter Answering Election Questions in Spanish
If you ask Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, about voter fraud in English, it starts off by correctly telling you that such fraud is “incredibly rare,” and gives you a list of topics that are “more product...
www.proofnews.org
October 30, 2024 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Proof News
Google’s Gemini AI has stopped advising people to eat rocks. But other AI models — looking at you OpenAI and Meta — are advising people to lick rocks.

The latest @proofnews.bsky.social collaboration with creators to test AI in their areas of expertise. 👇🏻
Don’t Ask AI Which Rocks You Can Lick
And other performance issues when it comes to language models and geologyj
www.proofnews.org
September 27, 2024 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Proof News
“If a group of people might be disproportionately affected when AI models are making mistakes, that's important for voters to know and for the AI developers to know, [CDT’s @isabelalinzer.bsky.social] said.” www.proofnews.org/ai...
AI Models Provide Inaccurate Information to Voters with Disabilities
Research from the Center for Democracy and Technology found problems with AI models' responses to over 60% of 77 election-related prompts.
www.proofnews.org
September 20, 2024 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Proof News
“AI models are frequently putting out false and inaccurate information that could dissuade voters with disabilities from voting, according to new research from CDT using an AI model comparison tool created by @proofnews.bsky.social.” cc: @eedugdale.bsky.social www.proofnews.org/ai...
AI Models Provide Inaccurate Information to Voters with Disabilities
Research from the Center for Democracy and Technology found problems with AI models' responses to over 60% of 77 election-related prompts.
www.proofnews.org
September 20, 2024 at 5:48 PM
AI Models are producing inaccurate information about voting options for people with disabilities more than 60% of the time, according to a new study using Proof’s AI testing platform.
www.proofnews.org/ai-models-pr...
AI Models Provide Inaccurate Information to Voters with Disabilities
Research from the Center for Democracy and Technology found problems with AI models' responses to over 60% of 77 election-related prompts.
www.proofnews.org
September 16, 2024 at 12:11 PM
Top AI models generated misleading info about Kamala Harris and Donald Trump 30% of the time. From incorrect answers about eligibility to false claims about Medicare cuts, find out how these technologies fail us.
www.proofnews.org/ai-models-st...
AI Models Generate Misinformation about Presidential Candidates
Posed questions about Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, top AI models generated misleading information 30 percent of the time.
www.proofnews.org
September 3, 2024 at 12:16 PM
Internal communications show Nvidia raced to build a competitor to OpenAI’s Sora, and concerned employees in the process by resorting to downloading masses of copyrighted YouTube videos. 
www.proofnews.org/nvidia-scrap...
Nvidia Scrapes YouTube, Eyes Netflix, Discovery to Train New Video Model
Despite employee concerns, management encouraged massive scraping of copyrighted content, documents show
www.proofnews.org
August 9, 2024 at 12:22 PM
How accurately do leading AI models respond to questions about Black history? @MrCrim3 gives them a "C."

www.proofnews.org/tiktok-teach...
TikTok Teacher Ernest Crim III Gives AI Models a “C” In Black History
How accurately do leading AI models respond to questions about Black history?
www.proofnews.org
August 2, 2024 at 3:28 PM
How good is AI at accurately answering questions about Black history? “I would give them probably a C,” Black history educator Ernest Crim told us after using our AI testing software to investigate the leading AI models performance.The latest in our Proof Ingredients series. youtu.be/DVRcfNBNKtY?...
Teacher Gives AI Models a “C” In Black History
How accurately do leading AI models respond to questions about Black history? “I would give them probably a C,” Black history educator and content creator Er...
youtu.be
August 1, 2024 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Proof News
How do YouTube creators feel about their work being used without their consent to train AI?

"Violating", "Exploitative", "I cried" are some of the responses
@proofnews.bsky.social reporter Annie Gilbertson
got after her investigation revealed the swiped videos.

www.tiktok.com/@proof_news/...
TikTok - Make Your Day
www.tiktok.com
July 26, 2024 at 2:19 PM
Reporter Annie Gilbertson talks with @juliaangwin.com about her groundbreaking investigation into AI’s use of YouTube content without the consent of creators.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZkO...
Proof Ingredients: How AI companies stole your YouTube videos
YouTubers have long wondered whether their work has been scraped by AI companies to train their models — but Proof News investigative reporter Annie Gilbertson has proven it. She found that big companies, including Apple, Anthropic, Nvidia, and Bloomberg have all used a dataset containing the transcripts to more than 170,000 YouTube videos, including videos by megastars like Mr. Beast, Marques Brownlee, and PewDiePie. In this interview, Proof founder Julia Angwin talks to Annie about the investigation and what went into it. The interview is the first in our new series, Proof Ingredients. In this series, Julia will talk to journalists, researchers and content creators about what their investigations are made of, walking through the hypothesis, sample size, techniques, key findings, and limitations. Hopefully these ingredients help you evaluate our work and give you a framework for judging other news, too. Read the full investigation and search the data to see if your own videos were used on our website, proofnews.org. Proofnews.org www.tiktok.com/@proof_news twitter.com/proof__news Join us in making trustworthy, verifiable information the new baseline: www.proofnews.org/donateate/
www.youtube.com
July 24, 2024 at 3:02 PM
Our latest investigation reveals a dataset of more than 170,000 YouTube video subtitles that big tech companies used to train their AI models.

“Will this be used to exploit and harm artists? Yes, absolutely,” says @dwisk.us

www.proofnews.org/apple-nvidia...
Apple, Nvidia, Anthropic Used Thousands of Swiped YouTube Videos to Train AI
Creators claim their videos were used without their knowledge
www.proofnews.org
July 16, 2024 at 12:10 PM
Several companies have made it easy to impersonate voices using AI tools, with little regard for consent. Proof News examined the policies and enforcement of eight popular voice cloning tools, revealing widespread gaps in ensuring voices are cloned ethically.

www.proofnews.org/ai-tools-mak...
AI Tools Make It Easy to Clone Someone’s Voice Without Consent
A survey by Proof News shows that many AI voice cloning services don’t require any proof of a human’s consent — just a simple click of an “I agree” button
www.proofnews.org
June 25, 2024 at 2:33 PM