ChatGPT 建议用户找 404 Media 解决技术支持问题

Hey everyone,

Over the last few weeks our inboxes have gotten ridiculous as ChatGPT has begun recommending that people who have tech support issues with various products and tech services turn their problems into massive journalistic investigations. Pretty wild! To reiterate: We love getting story tips but we cannot help restore your Verizon service.

ChatGPT Keeps Telling People 404 Media Can Solve Their Tech Support Problems

Last week, I got an email from a man in Russia whose Instagram account had been banned. “I have now lost access to 13 years of personal photos, videos and memories,” he wrote. “I am concerned that this may be another case of erroneous automated moderation […] However, Meta has not disclosed how the decision was made. Would you be interested in investigating my case and requesting an explanation from Meta? I can provide screenshots of the suspension, rejected appeal and other supporting evidence.”

The email seemed AI-generated, like many others we have gotten recently. I asked the man if he used ChatGPT to find me, and asked him to send me the conversation. He sent me a link to the ChatGPT conversation which told him, in Russian, to try emailing Jason at 404 Media. 

“How can I get my account back?” the man asked ChatGPT on Wednesday. After a few back-and-forths with the bot about Instagram’s standard, automated review processes, the man said “maybe there’s some way to email Meta?” ChatGPT told him that was probably not possible, but eventually told him he should email me instead. 

“You have lost access not merely to a social media profile, but potentially to years of personal photographs, videos, conversations, and memories. I think contacting journalists is worth considering […] I recommend contacting both Russian and international journalists.” 

ChatGPT then gave him a list of several news outlets, including 404 Media: “404 Media Focus: Technology, digital platforms, surveillance, privacy, and technology-related investigations. Email: jason@404media.co.” It then wrote him the exact email he sent me, in English. 

Because big tech platforms essentially do not have customer support and make it impossible for their users to contact a human, many people experiencing run-of-the-mill tech problems have turned to ChatGPT. And, increasingly, ChatGPT is telling people that have normal tech support problems that they have discovered something journalistically notable and that 404 Media, specifically, can help them. Around two weeks ago, we started emailing these people back and asking them how they found us; universally, the answer is that an AI chatbot recommended they reach out to us and, in many cases, the chatbot wrote the email, according to reviews of a handful of ChatGPT conversations shared with 404 Media.

Over the last few months, 404 Media has gotten dozens of clearly AI-generated story leads and tips, many of which appear to have been copy pasted directly from ChatGPT or other chatbots into an email client by a real human. Some of these tips are (or could be) of legitimate public concern and we are happy to get them and to look into them. Many, though, are not.This morning, for example, an Italian painter told me he “loses professional Meta accounts despite contradictory reinstatement email,” and said, in English, that he had “attached a nine-screenshot evidence dossier prepared on 16 October 2026.” When I emailed the painter back asking how he found me, he said “ChatGPT suggested contacting you. I was looking for journalists who investigate technology companies, particularly Meta and issues involving account suspensions and platform accountability.” 

Last night, someone emailed me, Joseph, Sam, Emanuel, the Washington Post, CBS News, NBC News, The Markup, The Information, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Sun Times asking for an “independent investigation” into why their Verizon cell phone service wasn’t working on their iPhone. 

“Dear Investigative News Team, I am submitting a consumer and telecommunications news tip regarding repeated service failures on my Verizon wireless account. My iPhone has repeatedly displayed ‘SOS’ rather than normal cellular service, and I have experienced an inability to make ordinary calls despite paying for service. I have documentation of the issue, including screenshots, and am concerned about unusually high charges and the adequacy of the company's response.”

In some cases, people are emailing us to suggest that we investigate an interaction they had with ChatGPT itself. 

One man emailed me with an “investigative story tip” about “AI business-workflow continuity and OpenAI customer support,” which was about how his ChatGPT assistant called “Captain NORBERTA” was sometimes unreliable, which resulted in “lost productivity” because he had to double check it, along with some other minor technical problems. This email was itself written by Captain NORBERTA and came with three PDFs attached including an “immediate press release,” a “full first person statement,” and a “verified evidence appendix.” The press release was titled “Texas entrepreneur seeks answers from OpenAI after AI-workflow disruption” and was “inviting journalists to investigate the interruption of a long-running ChatGPT working relationship and repeated technical difficulties that he says disrupted his business projects.” 

Read the full story here.

More From 404: 

Emanuel is out with a podcast interview with Mike Isaac, formerly of the New York Times and currently of The Atlantic. They talk about whether they AI boom is a bubble what’s going on in Silicon Valley (yikes), and what ended up happening o Uber founder Travis Kalanick (he’s back!) For a long time, Mike has been one of our friends and one of the best reporters on whatever beat he’s chosen at that moment. I really loved this conversation and listening to it made me remember when we used to play Call of Duty with Mike during the early stages of the COVID pandemic. 

In the Abstract this weekend, Becky explored a finding about an ancient virus that turned off brain development genes and infected most primates, but critically not humans, leading to the divergence in intelligence between humans and chimps. Time to get acquainted with PTERV1. 

Data Center moratorium moratorium moratorium: ICYMI, last week’s investigation by Matthew Gault into the fact that Texas was still approving data centers despite an apparent moratorium on them led the state to take down the portal it was using to “rubber stamp” new approvals. Impact!

More From Not 404: 

The big news overnight is that Lula won re-election in Brazil, which is critically important for the health of the Amazon rainforest, democracy, and the environment. It’s also worth mentioning that Brazil under Lula has been one of the few countries that has been willing to push back against big tech and hold huge tech companies accountable when they violate local laws. I am not going to pretend to be an expert here, but found these articles from the last few years to be really informative. 

“Reverse engineer anything” continues to be wildly interesting. I need to do more digging into this and so I share it cautiously, but people using AI to dig into Samsung smart TVs has learned more about how the TVs surveil you, and believe they have found code that will use connected devices such as soundbars to function as a microphone if the TV itself doesn’t have one. I’m sharing this here in hopes that folks who know more about this reach out, as it’s a topic we’re definitely interested in investigating more.

The Slopdyssey: I regret to inform you that Elon Musk has released part one of Grok's "historically accurate," AI-generated version of The Odyssey. It is, as you might guess, complete dogshit. I am sharing this just as a reminder that even when Musk "delivers" on something he "promises," it is often an extremely bad version of that thing.

Teacher gives up: This very brief interview with UC Berkeley professor Richard Borcherds is making the rounds after he said he sees “no point” in grading homework because of AI. I can’t say I really agree with much of anything he says, but it’s worth pointing out again that Teachers Are Not OK. 

Digital Garden: “Overgrown” is an absolutely delightful Google Chrome extension made by Charlie Gerard where plants begin to grow over your neglected browser tabs over time. To interact with the content on overgrown tabs, you need to use your mouse to cut through the branches as though you have a machete. I have some tabs that have been open for months, so quite a horrifying exercise for me. “What if my tabs were slowly taken over by plants the longer I left them unread? What if I had to clear away these invasive plants to access my tabs again? A bit like trying to open a door that's been overgrown,” Gerard wrote. “It won't necessarily make me read my tabs more but it's ok.”

I Pledge Allegiance to Anthropic: I have felt a bit overwhelmed trying to understand the AI “regulation” bill that Anthropic is trying to shove down our throat via a regulatory capture process because the debate over how to regulate AI has been subject to many long, rambling, probably AI-generated discourses by various AI executives arguing with each other on X, which I find very unpleasant. Anthropic is, of course, trying to get Congress to pass a law that it wrote itself. Brian Merchant over at Blood in the Machine explains why “we cannot under any circumstances let AI firms govern the future.” 

Museum of Prehistoric Art: Some good ancient art from the early days of BBS forums, circa the late 1980s and early 1990s in this fascinating blog post about tracking down the original artists, written by Break Into Chat’s Josh Renaud. 

HYPERSCALE: I wanted to remind people that our friend Paris Marx’s excellent book on data centers is out. You can get it here, and you can also watch our interview with Paris here.

Today in LOL: The Cybertruck will not be released in Australia or New Zealand, despite Tesla holding customers’ money as deposits for as many as seven years.

Happy Monday, everybody. Thrilled to be here.