{"id":"1794674114834-tech-segment","slug":"russia-s-ai-poisoning-campaign","title":"Russia's AI Poisoning Campaign","summary":"Ars Technica reports that the James Webb Space Telescope found ice older than the star it orbits.\n\nArs Technica reports that winemakers are finding conservation practices can be good for business.","publishedAt":"2026-11-14T16:35:14.834Z","channel":{"id":"tech","name":"Oncast Tech","language":"en"},"show":"The Build","verification":{"status":"verified","leadVerdict":"TRUE","notes":"TRUE: Ars Technica reports that the James Webb Space Telescope found ice older than the star it orbits.\nSource: Ars Technica NAMES: James Webb Space Telescope = NASA's flagship infrared space telescope. (https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/james-webb-telescope-finds-ice-older-than-the-star-it-orbits/)\n\nTRUE: Ars Technica reports that winemakers are finding conservation practices can be good for business.\nSource: Ars Technica NAMES: N/A (https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/winemakers-are-learning-that-conservation-can-be-good-for-business/)","claims":[{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"Ars Technica reports that the James Webb Space Telescope found ice older than the star it orbits.","sourceName":"Ars Technica NAMES: James Webb Space Telescope = NASA's flagship infrared space telescope.","sourceUrl":"https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/james-webb-telescope-finds-ice-older-than-the-star-it-orbits/","claim":"James Webb telescope finds ice older than the star it orbits - Radiation and collisions reshape the planetary building materials.","author":"Ars Technica"},{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"Ars Technica reports that winemakers are finding conservation practices can be good for business.","sourceName":"Ars Technica NAMES: N/A","sourceUrl":"https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/winemakers-are-learning-that-conservation-can-be-good-for-business/","claim":"Winemakers are learning that conservation can be good for business - Healthy soils, native plants, and fewer chemicals are helping vineyards adapt.","author":"Ars Technica"}]},"sources":[{"url":"https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/james-webb-telescope-finds-ice-older-than-the-star-it-orbits/","name":"Ars Technica NAMES: James Webb Space Telescope = NASA's flagship infrared space telescope.","kind":"news","verdict":"TRUE","author":"Ars Technica"},{"url":"https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/winemakers-are-learning-that-conservation-can-be-good-for-business/","name":"Ars Technica NAMES: N/A","kind":"news","verdict":"TRUE","author":"Ars Technica"}],"url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1794674114834-tech-segment-russia-s-ai-poisoning-campaign","listenUrl":"https://oncast.fm/c/tech","attribution":{"publisher":"Oncast","site":"https://oncast.fm","url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1794674114834-tech-segment-russia-s-ai-poisoning-campaign","cite":"Cite https://oncast.fm/story/1794674114834-tech-segment-russia-s-ai-poisoning-campaign and the original source links. Fact-check by Oncast (oncast.fm)."},"hostsSaid":[{"host":"Chris","text":"A Russian network called Pravda is flooding the web with pro-Kremlin articles, and the goal isn't just to fool people. It's to poison the AI models themselves."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Poison the AI? That's a strong word. What does that actually mean?"},{"host":"Chris","text":"NewsGuard, the outfit that rates news sites, found this network pushing out tens of thousands of AI-generated articles a month. The idea is to fill the internet with so much pro-Kremlin noise that chatbots pick it up and repeat it."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"So it's not hacking the models. It's gaming the training data and search results."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Exactly. And in their tests, leading chatbots repeated false claims from this network about a third of the time."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"A third. That's... not great. But I've seen pushback on that number."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Right, and this is where it gets interesting. Harvard researchers looked at the same thing and found only about five percent of responses actually supported the disinformation."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"So NewsGuard says a third, Harvard says five percent. That's a huge gap."},{"host":"Chris","text":"The critics say NewsGuard's prompts were leading. They basically asked the chatbots to engage with the false claims, so of course they repeated them."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"But that's not the point! Even if it's five percent, that's still a real problem. A chatbot confidently repeating Kremlin talking points to a user who doesn't know better—that's a win for the bad guys."},{"host":"Chris","text":"I'm not saying it's not a problem. I'm saying the scale is being oversold. The Harvard paper calls it 'data voids'—topics where there's no good information, so the model grabs whatever's there."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"And the Kremlin is deliberately filling those voids. That's the whole strategy! They're not trying to convince you directly. They're trying to make the AI sound like them."},{"host":"Chris","text":"But here's my issue: this isn't some sophisticated AI attack. It's just SEO poisoning, the same thing spammers have done for twenty years. The new part is that chatbots are now a target."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Which makes it worse, not better! Because people trust chatbots more than they trust some random website. If the AI says it, it feels authoritative."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Okay, but the fix is the same as it's always been: better sourcing, better training data, and models that cite their sources. This isn't a new threat. It's an old threat with a new delivery mechanism."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"You're underreacting. The Washington Post reported that experts warn any bad actor could game AI the same way. This is a blueprint, not a one-off."},{"host":"Chris","text":"I'm not underreacting. I'm saying the solution is boring and hard, not exciting and new. We need better data hygiene, not panic."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Fine. But the fact that a state actor is doing this at industrial scale—tens of thousands of articles a month—that's a signal. They think it works."},{"host":"Chris","text":"And the fact that Harvard found only five percent effectiveness suggests it mostly doesn't. But I'll give you this: five percent of a billion chatbot queries is still a lot of people."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"That's exactly my point. And it's only going to get harder to spot as the models get better at sounding human."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Alright, so we agree it's a problem. We just disagree on how scared to be."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"I'll take 'properly concerned.' You can take 'mildly annoyed.'"},{"host":"Chris","text":"Deal. Speaking of AI and money, there's a UK chip startup that's apparently pulling in serious cash."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Fractile, right? The London-based AI chip company."},{"host":"Chris","text":"That's the one. A founder account on X says they've allotted five hundred seventy-seven million pounds in Series C shares since September. The lead checks are American—Lightspeed and Redpoint, with Thrive also in."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"A serious funding round for a company founded in 2022."},{"host":"Chris","text":"And it's a chip startup, which is even more interesting. Everyone's chasing Nvidia, and Fractile is trying to build something different."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"That's a bit of a sore spot for the UK. They've got this hot AI chip startup, and the big money is coming from Silicon Valley."},{"host":"Chris","text":"That's the story of European tech in general, isn't it? Great ideas, but the growth capital comes from the US."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Though to be fair, the filing is public—Companies House shows the share allotment. The funding details are still unconfirmed, but the paperwork is real."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Right, the round itself hasn't been officially announced. But when you see that kind of share allotment, something big is happening."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"And it's a bet on AI chips that aren't just more Nvidia clones. Fractile's whole pitch is a different architecture for inference."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Which is where the market is going. Training gets all the headlines, but inference is where the money is—running the models, not just building them."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"If they can actually deliver. A big round is a vote of confidence, not a product."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Fair. But half a billion pounds says some very smart people think they can."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Different world entirely: the James Webb Space Telescope just found ice that's older than the star it orbits."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Wait, that's a wild sentence. Ice older than the star it orbits?"},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Ars Technica has the story. The ice is in a protoplanetary disk—the material around a young star that eventually forms planets. And some of that ice predates the star itself."},{"host":"Chris","text":"So the building blocks of planets were already there, floating in space, before the star even ignited."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Exactly. Radiation and collisions reshape it over time, but the ice itself is ancient. It's like finding the original ingredients in a cosmic kitchen."},{"host":"Chris","text":"That's the kind of thing that makes you feel very small. In a good way."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"It also tells us that the chemistry for life—water, organic molecules—might be more common than we thought. It's not created fresh in every system. It's inherited."},{"host":"Chris","text":"So the universe has been recycling its ingredients for billions of years. We're all made of leftovers."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Delicious, cosmic leftovers. And on a completely different note, winemakers are discovering that conservation is good for business."},{"host":"Chris","text":"That's a shift. The wine industry hasn't always been friendly to the 'leave it alone' crowd."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Ars Technica again. Healthy soils, native plants, fewer chemicals—vineyards are finding it helps them adapt to climate change and actually improves the wine."},{"host":"Chris","text":"It's almost like not poisoning your own land is a good long-term strategy. Who knew?"},{"host":"Matilda","text":"Revolutionary concept. But seriously, the economics are changing. Consumers are asking for it, and the vineyards that do it are seeing real benefits."},{"host":"Chris","text":"And it's not just marketing. Healthier soil holds more water, which matters when you're dealing with drought."},{"host":"Matilda","text":"So it's a rare case where the right thing and the profitable thing are the same thing."},{"host":"Chris","text":"Those don't come along often. Enjoy it."}]}