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 <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260218-i-hacked-chatgpt-and-googles-ai-and-it-only-took-20-minutes">has called</a> “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:

<a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260218-i-hacked-chatgpt-and-googles-ai-and-it-only-took-20-minutes">“I hacked ChatGPT and Google’s AI—and it only took 20 minutes,” by Thomas Germain, in BBC. Published online February 18, 2026.</a>

E-mail us at <a href="mailto:sciencequickly@sciam.com">sciencequickly@sciam.com</a> if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

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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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

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