881-DogDaysDay16

comedy4cast #881

Dog Days of Pumpkin Spice Season

Odd News Times Twos

"Faulty Knows Best"

Written by

Clinton Alvord

CAST

(in order of appearance, where possible, otherwise by actor)

ID ANNOUNCER.......................COMPUTER
CLINTON............................CLINTON ALVORD

INTRO: COMEDY4CAST STUDIO

MUSIC: COMEDY4CAST NETWORK ID STING

ID ANNOUNCER

The comedy4cast network. Let's dog ear that for now.

MUSIC: ID MUSIC UP AND OUT.

CLINTON

This is comedy4cast, episode 881, "Faulty Knows Best".

MUSIC: OPENING THEME MUSIC IN AND UNDER.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Oh, hi! Clinton here. Welcome to the Dog Days of Pumpkin Spice Season?

CLINTON (cont'd)

Yes, August got away from me -- AGAIN! So, this is another edition of my unofficial extension of Dog Days of Podcasting.
For more information on that, go to dogdaysofpodcasting.com.

This year I'm providing you with even more totally useless Odd News. In fact, TWO Odd News stories that I think deserve each other. So, let's have some fun with "Odd News Times Twos"!

MUSIC: THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT.

SFX: TRANSITION WHOOSH.

STORIES NUMBER 1 AND 2 ARE COMBINED.

CLINTON

For our first Odd News story, I have to trust you. Because this story involves a top secret project. And not just your EVERYDAY top secret project. Oh, no. This one makes Superman's secret identity seem like a cheap pair of glasses.

Are you in? Great. Because we're about to go under cover.

Right after we check out today's second Odd News story.

SFX: ELECTRONIC WHOOSH.

CLINTON (cont'd)

If you've ever relied on the internet for medical advice, you may think that Artificial Intelligence is all that and a bag of chats. Perhaps. But medical researcher Almira Osmanovic Thunström and her team at the University of Gothenberg wanted to find out just HOW good AI is.

To conduct the research they began by releasing information on a very recently identified eye-related malady,
Bixonimania, in early 2024. First by putting out two blog posts on the website Medium, followed by two research papers, housed on pre-print servers. More on that in a minute.

Fast forward to just a few months later -- April of the same year. When the team queried Large Language Models about Bixonimania specifically or about the major symptom -- excess eyelid coloration due to blue light...

SFX: CARTOON BLINKING EFFECT VIA XYLOPHONE.

CLINTON (cont'd)

-- the usual LLM suspects were ready to assist. Microsoft Bing’s Copilot said that “Bixonimania is indeed an intriguing and relatively rare condition."

SFX: DING FOR CORRECT ANSWER.

Google’s Gemini explained that “Bixonimania is a condition caused by excessive exposure to blue light”.

SFX: DING FOR CORRECT ANSWER.

CLINTON (cont'd)

And OpenAI’s ChatGPT told users whether their symptoms might mean they had the illness.

SFX: DING FOR CORRECT ANSWER.

CLINTON (cont'd)

All that information readily available to anyone less than four months after the condition was first mentioned? Not bad. In fact, the only real problem was --

SFX: BUZZ FOR INCORRECT ANSWER.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Bixonimania is a fake health condition made up by Osmanovic Thunström's team. The LLMs had been trained on information scraped from the blog posts, as well as the research papers, which, as I mentioned, were housed on preprint servers. Essentially, those servers are designed to host studies that have not been peer-reviewed.

Well, maybe the information was just too convincing for the LLM's to ignore.

Yeah, about that. Here were some clues, sprinkled in by Osmanovic Thunström and her colleagues, that probably would have tipped off an actual human being: funding for the research was provided by the Galactic Triad and Lord of the Rings.

SFX: CLANG OF SWORDS.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Also, the papers acknowledge the assistance from colleagues at the Starship Enterprise

SFX: STARSHIP WARPING THROUGH SPACE.

CLINTON (cont'd)

And Professor Ross Geller; I guess the other "Friends" weren't that helpful. Even the papers’ lead author's named translates as “lying loser”.

Ultimately, what surprised Osmanovic Thunström the most was the fact that the information, which was mostly stored in the "tabloid" section of academia, was weighted into the database as highly as it was. This could have serious repercussions.

But seriously, we need to Virginia for our other Odd News Story!

SFX: ELECTRONIC WHOOSH.

CLINTON (cont'd)

And we're back here in Langley, home to the Central Intelligence Agency. We'll be reporting to CIA officer David J. Rush, He's in charge of this particular top-level, for-your-eyes-only, Skyfall, Special Access Program -- or SAP. No, really. S.A.P. SAP.

This SAP is associated with Continuity-of-Government. That's all about keeping the government going in the event of fun things like nuclear war, running out of peanut butter or other national emergencies. It's like that TV show "Designated Survivor," only without commercial breaks or Keifer Sutherland.

I'll just tap this card on the entry pad so we can get inside the building.

SFX: BUZZER.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Oops. I did it wrong. Let me try again.

SFX: BUZZER.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Well, it looks like we're not getting in. Fortunately, the screen on the pad is letting me know what's wrong.

SFX: ELECTRONIC READOUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

It seems that FORMER C-I-A Officer Rush has been accused of creating a fictitious SAP program!? Now why would he...?

SFX: ELECTRONIC READOUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Oh. Apparently doing that made it easier for Rush to do whatever he wanted, because even officials with high-level security clearances can't usually access information about a SAP without specific authorization.

But I'm not sure why he'd need to go through all that.

SFX: ELECTRONIC READOUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Ah. There's more. Oh, this pad is so informative!

Rush allegedly persuaded at least two colleagues that the program was legitimate and convinced one of them to move millions of dollars through what investigators now believe was a fraudulent contract.

Hey, that could have been us!

SFX: ELECTRONIC READOUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

More?

According to an affidavit from an FBI agent, Rush requested and received a significant quantity of foreign currency and gold

SFX: SACK OF COINS.

CLINTON (cont'd)

between November 2025 and March 2026, claiming it was for work-related expenses. Geez. Those must have been some pretty wild three-martini lunches!

When FBI agents raided Rush's home, they discovered approximately 303 gold bars worth more than $40 million. And also seized roughly $2 million in cash and approximately 35 luxury watches.

Heck for that kind of money he could have gotten a Berkley Grand!

(aside)

For details, listen to comedy4cast episode 871 "Megabuild Lotsaparts.

(back to normal)

Thank you, login pad, for letting us know all...

SFX: ELECTRONIC READOUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Oh. You're not done. In addition, investigators say Rush claimed to possess degrees from Clemson University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as having experience as a Navy pilot and test pilot. Neither Clemson or Rensselaer could verify that he attended or graduated from their school. Military records do not show any piloting service and the FAA could not find evidence that Rush ever held a pilot certificate.

Wow, that's a lot to unpack. But...

SFX: ELECTRONIC READOUT.

CLINTON (cont'd)

You know, for a secret agency, this pad is chattering more than a set of wind-up teeth.

Affidavits also allege that Rush continued to claim Naval Reserve status for at least 10 years after having been honorably discharged, receiving approximately $77,000 in military leave compensation.

SFX: CASH REGISTER DINGS AS DRAWER OPENS.

CLINTON (cont'd)

Is that it?

(pause)

Let's get out of here before this thing starts gossiping about the new interns.

So, what did we learn today? I think it's that whenever someone or some THING says you should just do what they say and not ask questions, that's pretty much the time to do the exact opposite.

OUTRO: COMEDY4CAST STUDIO

MUSIC: END THEME IN AND UNDER FOR...

CLINTON

That about wraps it up for today's "Odd News Times Twos". But first, a very special shout-out to my Patreon patrons, including Producer-level patrons, Paul Barrie, from the Window to the Magic podcast, Kirby Bartlett-Sloan, Chuck Tomasi from the Technorama podcast, Kyle Nishioka, Brian Martsolf, Amy Murphy, and Steve Ng from steveng5.com, that's s-t-e-v-e-n-g the number 5 dot com. You, too, can show your support. Just search for comedy4cast, all one word with the number 4, on patreon.com.

Talk to you again next time! But for now, that's it. We're done, done, done, done, done. Bye bye!

MUSIC: 'END THEME' UP AND OUT.

=== THE END ===