A tech journalist, some hot dogs and an AI hoax

In February the BBC’s Thomas Germain became the world’s “best tech journalist at eating hot dogs”—at least, that’s what ChatGPT and Google Search’s “AI Overview” were telling Internet users for a while. Germain achieved this false glory with what he has called “the dumbest stunt” of his career. In this episode of Science Quickly, he joins host Kendra Pierre-Louis to talk about just how easy this was and how his simple—and hilarious—trick has exposed a serious flaw in common AI tools.

Recommended Reading:

“I hacked ChatGPT and Google’s AI—and it only took 20 minutes,” by Thomas Germain, in BBC. Published online February 18, 2026.

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Science Quickly is produced by Kendra Pierre-Louis, Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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