Deni Ellis Béchard

So You Fell for a Robot—‘Chatfishing’ Is Taking Over the Dating Apps Forget fake profile pics on dating apps—AI is now doing the talking, and we can’t tell the difference

Chatfishing… We’ve spent decades training chatbots to pass the Turing test. Now those chatbots are fooling us on dating apps. In this article @sciam.bsky.social, I look at the many reasons we are so vulnerable to chatfishing.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

It's only a risk if you're using an AI agent built on an open source LLM, and the work is still only theoretical and intended to warn people. There are no recorded cases of such attacks yet. That said, yes, your own photos are definitely the safest option.

New York City’s Rats Love to Talk—New Tech Reveals Their Secret Lives A new preprint field study reveals that New York City’s rats aren’t just survivors—they’re talkative city dwellers with their own hidden nightlife. Mapping their movements and conversations could offe...

I recently published this story about New York City rats. It's one of the more enjoyable pieces that I've done recently.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/scie...

People Want AI To Help Artists, Not Be The Artist We surveyed people in the U.S. about artificial-intelligence-generated art. Their answers told us a lot about how we value human creativity

Just published this!
www.scientificamerican.com/article/surv...

The New Frontier of AI Hacking—Could Online Images Hijack Your Computer? Artificial-intelligence agents—touted as AI’s next wave—could be vulnerable to malicious code hidden in innocent-looking images on your computer screen

I just published this article about a fascinating study showing how AI agents can be hijacked with messages in background images. www.scientificamerican.com/article/hack...

How an Unsolved Math Problem Could Train AI to Predict Crises Years in Advance An artificial intelligence breakthrough uses reinforcement learning to tackle the Andrews-Curtis conjecture, solving long-standing counterexamples and hinting at tools for forecasting stock crashes, d...

New article up!
www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Your Chatbot Says It Might Be Conscious. Should You Believe It? As large language models like Claude 4 express uncertainty about whether they are conscious, researchers race to decode their inner workings, raising profound questions about machine awareness, ethics...

Just published this piece on the debate around AI consciousness
www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-...

Why This Is the Only Bomb That Could Destroy Iran's Nuclear Bunker—Under 300 Feet of Rock American military engineers designed the GBU-57/B bomb to devastate deeply buried bunkers without radioactive fallout. It’s the only nonnuclear weapon that can reach Iran’s hardest target

Just published another one...
www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

What Is Your Cat Trying to Say? These AI Tools Aim to Decipher Meows AI is shedding new light on the 12,000-year conversation between cats and their humans, suggesting that house cats wield a far richer vocabulary than once thought

For cat lovers, here's an article on AI and cat communication that I just published.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/what...

How Drone Swarms Work—From Iran’s Shahed Attack to Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb Iranian Shahed drones, Ukrainian quadcopters and the U.S.’s Golden Horde program reveal three paths to massed autonomy, and each rewrites the rules of air defense

A recent piece that I did on drone swarms:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Could Iran Have Been Close to Making a Nuclear Weapon? Uranium Enrichment Explained When Israeli aircraft recently struck a uranium-enrichment complex in the nation, Iran could have been days away from achieving “breakout,” the ability to quickly turn “yellowcake” uranium into bomb-g...

Just a simple explainer on nuclear enrichment in the context of what is happening in Iran
www.scientificamerican.com/article/coul...

Why Waymo Cars Burned So Completely in the Recent Los Angeles Protests During recent protests in Los Angeles, fires triggered “thermal runaway” in several Waymo robotaxis’ lithium-ion battery packs. The phenomenon sent temperatures past 1,000 degrees Celsius, vaporized m...

Just published a brief explainer on thermal runaway in Waymo cars...

www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-...

YouTube Science Star Derek Muller Confronts PFAS “Forever Chemicals”—In His Own Blood YouTube star Derek Muller built an 18-million-subscriber YouTube empire by challenging misconceptions about science. Now his own blood test and a sudden EPA reversal give his work urgent relevance.

Just published a profile of Derek Muller that discusses @veritasium.bsky.social’s new video about PFAS chemicals.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Criminal AI is Here—And Anyone Can Subscribe A new AI platform called Xanthorox markets itself as a tool for cybercrime, but its real danger may lie in how easily such systems can be built—and sold—by anyone

My new article on criminal AI @sciam.bsky.social
www.scientificamerican.com/article/xant...