Digital Digging

Imagine walking past a fancy restaurant. The menu is posted in a glass case outside. Truffle pasta. Wagyu beef. You can see everything, read every description—but you can’t eat any of it. You’re just looking through glass. That’s what most public data feels like online. You find a website with exactly what you need. A map of power outages. A table of housing prices. It’s right there on the screen....

NEW PODCAST Henk here! It’s been a while. Today I’m sharing something unprecedented. The first documented case of a fully autonomous AI cyberattack. A Chinese state-sponsored group turned Claude into an autonomous hacker: it executed 80 to 90 percent of their espionage campaign. Across 30 organizations. No humans typing commands! Just an AI working at physically impossible speeds. Yup. Stealing da...

Henk van Ess's article DeepSeek: The Real Price of China's AI investigates DeepSeek , a Chinese AI company, whose seemingly inexpensive ChatGPT competitor masks a sophisticated system of state control. DeepSeek's AI , while appearing cost-effective on the surface, is demonstrably limited in independent thought and strictly adheres to Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Today’s episode guides are,...

Ever wish a chatbot could actually see what’s in a PDF instead of just skimming the text? Well, Claude—the AI chatbot—is now able to analyse the visual information. Imagine the potential. From financial analysts spotting hidden profit drops in charts, to journalists exposing fake health diagnoses a bit quicker with the help of chatbot-aided discoveries. Suddenly, AI isn’t just reading documents; i...

Paul Myers (BBC Verify) and me, Henk van Ess sat down in London to discuss a pressing issue: the shitification of Google . Yes, that’s right—Google has slowly been losing its touch. But hold on—Paul wants me to clarify that these are his own spicy hot takes, and in no way represent the fine, polished opinions of the BBC ! Shitification —yes, that’s a thing now! It’s the slow, painful, infuriating...

Welcome to Digital Digging , I’m Henk van Ess, and today I talk about summarizing with AI chatbots. You’ve probably tried it—just typing “Summarize this” into ChatGPT and hoping for the best. Don’t! It’s like asking for a full meal and getting a side salad. In this episode, I cover some highlights from my article “Do Not Use ‘Summarize This’” and break down how to get the summary you actually need...

Following two AI-generated episodes, I am delighted to announce that this one is entirely human-created - taped via my phone. Join me and Chris Lunday from Business Insider for a 15-minute discussion on integrating AI with research, particularly in the field of open-source intelligence (OSINT). This conversation is ideal for individuals interested in conducting web research with large language mod...

Why is the flight so fast? At first glance, it seemed simple – tailwinds, right? We unravel the mystery of a New York to Phoenix flight with the help of ChatGPT through a maze of weather maps, AI analyses, and flight data. We'll challenge common assumptions, crunch some numbers, and even corner a few pilots. What I learned: * Hypothesis Hyperdriver: AI can cook up initial theories faster than you...

In this first episode of Digital Digging, we explore how to spot AI-generated content and the tools that can help in this process. Henk van Ess, known for his expertise in digital research, takes a step back and allows AI to do the heavy lifting—his voice and the episode’s content have been fully generated using AI technologies. Two AI co-hosts, Castor and Pollux, guide listeners through the discu...