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 combined.Walmart bought Vizio in 2024, and this week, they quietly revealed what they actually purchased: not the screens, but the 20 million living rooms attached to them.For the first time in a major courtroom, a tech platform is being held liable not for what users posted, but for the machine that decided who should see it.For this update, let’s not go subliminal!Find the full transcript to this podcast here.