The Download: advertising on junk AI websites, and forest bathing in VR

The news: AI chatbots are filling junk websites with AI-generated text that attracts paying advertisers. More than 140 major brands are paying for ads that end up on unreliable AI-written sites, likely without their knowledge, according to a new report. Making money from junk: Most companies that advertise online automatically bid on spots to run those ads through a practice called "programmatic advertising." As a result, big brands end up paying for ad placements on sites that they may have never heard of before, with little to no human oversight. To take advantage, content farms have sprung up where low-paid humans use AI to churn out low-quality content to attract maximum ad revenue.