Subliminal Learning with the AI, Security, and Privacy Weekly Update for the Week ending April 7th, 2026
Episode 286 And have we got an update for you. Focus on this: Researchers have discovered that AI models can be secretly shaped by their training data even after every suspicious signal has been scrubbed out, which raises an uncomfortable question: do we actually know what we've built? It turns out the most comprehensive profile LinkedIn has on you isn't the one you wrote yourself. Samsung would like you to know that the $2,000 refrigerator you just bought comes with one small surprise: a billboard. AI-assisted coding has pushed GitHub to a billion commits a year, which sounds like extraordinary progress right up until you ask who reviewed all of it. The encryption keeping your most sensitive data safe was designed for a quantum threat that was supposed to be decades away, and researchers just moved the deadline. Last year, the world invested $98 billion in AI, and if you're wondering where the other countries went, the answer is $1.9 billion split between all of them ...
