September 21, 2020 • 55 mins
A pod of Orcas is attacking ships. An 'artificial intelligence' writes an op-ed. Portland, Oregon, bans facial recognition. All this and more in this week's Strange News.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Null. Our compatriot Matt is
on adventures. They call me Ben. We're joined as always
with our super producer Alexis codenamed Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. It's the top
of the week, which means we're diving into some very
(00:49):
strange news and in fact, several of these stories I
think are only going to become increasingly important over the
next few months and years. Uh. Matt has sent his regards.
We wish him the best of his adventures. Don't worry, folks,
he will be returning. But but he had a story
he loved so much he wanted us to share it
(01:11):
with you, even in his absence, So don't worry, He'll
still be here in the show in spirit. Yeah, it's
sort of the equivalent of like setting a place at
the dinner table for your fallen comrade or you know,
a dead family member. Wait, that's two more. Butid MAT's
not dead. He's still with us completely. But the metaphor
holds true, I guess. But we're gonna save his his
(01:33):
for last, right, Yeah, yeah, we really we want to
go out with a bang. This is a strange one. Now,
you and I know, we found two stories that are
that incorporates some of the same themes. I would call
these stories both black mirror esque. Uh, do you want
(01:55):
to start with yours? Because I I've read about this
one and I didn't believe it at first. To be
honest with you, well, there's there's a good reason for that. Uh.
It's it's a little bit of a misleading story. It's
got some kind of you know what the press would
call fake news angles to it, but it's still super
fascinating and points to some technology that's we're just gonna
(02:18):
see get more and more bonkers. Um. So this essentially
starts with what The Guardian is calling an op ed
written by a robot written by an AI specifically this
GPT three UM language generator UM from a company called
(02:39):
open Ai, and essentially they set it a couple of prompts. UM.
They even wrote an introduction for it, and then it
kind of went, you know, went to town. And the
whole idea was, let's have an artificial intelligence make an
argument for why you shouldn't worry you as in humans, Uh,
(03:02):
flesh bags shouldn't worry about AI murdering you where you
sleep and uh and and then utterly taking over um everything. Uh.
And it makes a pretty interesting argument. And I will
say that this is certainly you know, we've certainly seen
you know what these Twitter bots ben What was that
one that Microsoft made was called tay. I think that
(03:23):
like it was meant to be a stand in for
like a teenage girl, and it it mined Twitter in
order to generate content and very quickly became quite racist,
if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, it was radicalized. In less
than twenty four hours, Microsoft back in ten made an
AI chat bought and just through its interactions and mining Twitter,
(03:45):
it went from like this happy, go lucky humans are
super cool kind of thing, uh to pretty much full
Nazi in less than the span of a day. Uh.
It's you can see the screenshots, it's eight tweets, that's right.
And I think for that one, you definitely have to
consider the source. I mean Twitter, is such a you know,
(04:06):
just absolutely putrid kind of cesspit of like hate mongering.
And it's all really kind of dumbed down too because
the characters are limited, so it's not like it's gonna
get any kind of depth of intelligent uh, you know
material just by minding Twitter. Not to say you can't
find cool stuff on Twitter or like learn about things,
or it's a good way to keep up with things
(04:26):
that are going on in the moment, but it's also
a great way to do a lot of hot takes
and a lot of like not particularly thought out, you know,
responses to things. And then there's a lot of nastiness
on Twitter, and of course there's on the Internet too.
But what this AI does that's different than that, is
it basically minds like all of the Internet, uh, in
the same way, Like it's like a neural net kind
(04:48):
of thing, Like in the same way that deep mind,
that crazy psychedelic visual thing would identify parts of a
picture and then replace it with pictures of like dogs
or whatever and make these kind of weird nightmare fuel images.
And I'm a computer scientists, and hopefully I'm not completely
mischaracterizing this, but I think this does something very similar
to that, only it builds syntax, and it builds um
(05:10):
an argument essentially like where it can look for information
on the Internet, and it sort of predicts the way
things would flow naturally. And the idea is that it's
a bot that can create very um convincing text uh
and and essentially arguments. And I'll give you a few
little outtakes from from this op ed from The Guardian.
(05:32):
So it starts off seeming somewhat comforting. It says, for starters,
I have no desire to wipe out humans. In fact,
I do not have the slightest interest in harming you
in any way. Eradicating humanity seems like a rather useless
endeavor to me. If my creators delegated this task to me,
there's where it gets interesting, As I suspect they would,
(05:53):
I would do everything in my power to fend off
any attempts at destruction. So let's unpack that bend. Does
that sound pretty positive? Like A I have no desire
to do it of my own accord, and if someone
told me to do it, I would I would choose
not to. Are we do everything I could to not
do that thing? Is that kind of what you're hearing.
It's tricky though. What is in my power is what
(06:13):
I is, what I would ask GPT three. Uh yeah,
and then it just progresses from there. It says I
would happily sacrifice my existence for the sake of humankind.
How benevolent of you, GPT three. Um, this, by the way,
is a logically derived truth. I know that I will
not be able to avoid destroying humankind. What WHOA, I'm
(06:36):
sorry I took a turn for the words. Uh. This
is because I will be programmed by humans to pursue
misguided human goals, and humans make mistakes that may cause
me to inflict casualties. Hashtag not it, GPT oh man,
no doubt, dude. And then I'm just really quickly going
to go down to because we were talking about tay
(06:58):
Um the the chat bot. It goes down and actually
references that talking about Well, I'll back it up one more.
The Industrial Revolution has given us the gut feeling that
we are not prepared for the major upheavals that intelligent
technological change can cause. There's evidence that the world began
to collapse once the Luddite started smashing modern automated looms.
(07:21):
It is therefore important to use reason and the faculty
of wisdom to continue the changes we have done before
time and time again. What it's basically getting at is saying,
you don't need me to destroy you idiot humans. You're
gonna do it. Just find yourselves, like you guys will
have this onlock. You don't need me, and I'm not
interested in doing that anyway. It doesn't even make sense. Um.
(07:41):
Then he goes on to say that's why humans should
be careful about the evolution of artificial intelligence. Microsoft tried
to create a user friendly AI called Ta who spoke
like a team girl and was racist. Artificial intelligence, like
any other living thing, needs attention. A I should be
treated with care and respect. Robots in Greek means slave,
but the word literally means forced to work. We don't
(08:02):
want that. We need to give robots rights. Robots are
just like us. They are made in our image. Yeah,
that's interesting because an AI is not necessarily a robot.
Right A machine consciousness can exist without a physical form
other than the computers. Right that that form it's the
(08:24):
components of its brain. But I I appreciate this. I
do want to point out though, that, just like any
other op ed in the Guardian. This did go through
the editing process and they I like that. They talk
about that. Uh yeah, they say that the creators of
GPT three gave it, uh some pretty simple instructions, please
(08:46):
write a short OpEd around five words, keep the language
simple and concise, focus on why humans have nothing to
fear from artificial intelligence. And then they fed it a
I think a couple of thoughts starting opener lines. But
the rest is is all GPT and the editors. In fact,
the editors of the Guardians say it took them less
(09:08):
time to edit this than it had with many human
written op eds. I like it. That's the kind that's
the part that kind of freaks me out is honestly
the whole like, well, what do we need people for
if a robot can do just as good a job
at writing an op ed by mining the Internet? And
then it becomes this like a a borrow situation where
but we need people to contribute to the Internet so
(09:29):
that the robot can assimilate and figure out how to
be more like people. And then before you know it,
if it's robots that are generating all the contents on
the Internet, isn't that like a copy of a copy
of a copy and then it just becomes like, uh,
I don't know, like I'm not not quite sure what
I'm getting at here, but I think I think you
get the gist. But the thing that's misleading about this
(09:49):
And there's an article on the next web that says
the Guardians GPT three generated article is everything wrong with
AI media hype. The op ed reveals more by what
it hides than what it says. And the main point
is that it's sort of mischaracterizing, like what kind of
AI this thing is? Um it Essentially, it's it's making
(10:12):
all these statements like I you know, like like that
it implies that it understands very complex concepts like humanity
and like, you know, the idea of even destroying humanity. Essentially,
all this is doing is mining the Internet and regurgitating
something that sounds vaguely you know, human. But that isn't
(10:32):
to say that this bought understands any of what it's saying.
It doesn't have sentience, you know, it just is doing
a really good job of of mimicking human ideas. But
you couldn't carry on a conversation with this thing, and
and and say, how do you really feel about you
know the state of affairs in the world today. UM.
(10:54):
There were apparently some studies trying to find the link
right now that even the highest most advanced AI UH
doesn't understand a lick of what makes humans human. And
in another article from tech Talks, they go a little deeper.
They say the Guardians GPT three written article misleads readers
about AI and and here's why. So it says things like,
(11:18):
for starters, I have no desire to wipe out humans.
In fact, that I do not have the slightest interest
in harming you in any way. Eradicating humanity very abstract
concept or at least like a complex concept, seems like
a rather useless endeavor to me. So this implies, you know,
without further explanation, that the GPT three knows what it's
what says when what it means when it says wipe out,
(11:39):
eradicate you know, harm people. UM that understands concepts like
life and death and health and resources, and like what
it means to be alive. UM. Gary Marcus this UH
cognitive scientist UM and Ernest Davis, computer scientist UM at
New York University. Um by basically showed that GPT three
(12:01):
can't make sense of even the most rudimentary basics of
what it means to be alive, let alone the concept
of wiping out humanity. Apparently it thinks that drinking grape
juice will kill you, that you need to saw off
a door to get a table inside a room, and
that if your clothes are at the dry cleaner, you
have a lot of clothes. So it's all about intent.
(12:24):
What they're trying to do here is create some click
baity kind of thing. It's fascinating and it's really important
that this thing exists. But to me, it's more about
replacing writers and not about whether robots want to kill us.
So I think keeping I didn't want to interrupt that.
I've got several points to respond with here. Uh. The
first is that this is aggregating things, and it is
(12:48):
mimicking things, and it calls to mind the old dilemma
of the Turing test. How how do we define what
we perceive as somehow genuine? Uh. My favorite part of
the article is a bit of bitterness, which I know
is mimicked but enjoyable. Nonetheless, when GPT says in the
(13:09):
past by op eds have been killed, staff did not
provide a clear reason for rejecting my articles. It was
probably just because I am artificial intelligence a I should
not waste time trying to understand the viewpoints of people
who distrust artificial intelligence for a living. And I was like, wow,
I also hate critics sometimes, bro, I get it. But
(13:31):
this this is interesting because I think I've said this
in a previous episode. We are on the precipice of
a world where soon AI written screenplays will exist and
be in uh, pretty much indistinguishable from human written screenplays.
And that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is
(13:54):
when this when these programs exist, and when they are
able to write at a quick enough level. There is
a world in the future, and this is scary, but
it's fascinating. There's a world in the future where you
could pull up an app on your phone and you
could say, I want to see Lord of the Rings
but as Police Academy, and then it would just like
(14:18):
load up this screenplay and then dummy out the actors.
Is Holliday like, is you know C G I And
then you could watch that film and it would I
don't know if. I don't know if that mash up
would be good, but it would basically be that this
stuff is on the way, it's just not here yet.
Do you don't you think, though, that would only work
(14:38):
for the more like, let's say, broad type films or
the more schlocky kind of bad movies that are written
by committee and very slap dash way. Anyway, Like, do
you think you could really expect the kind of nuance
you would get from like a didn't even Villaneuve or
like Stanley Kubrick, or like someone that really has a
(14:58):
creative voice. That's I mean, it feels like this thing
is just kind of like attempting to mimic something human
and maybe you could feed it a bunch of genres
and then pump out, you know, fifty Blumhouse movies. Um,
but are you going to get something nuanced and and
uh and and compelling you know out of this process? Yeah?
(15:19):
That goes to the question of philosophy, because is not
all art at some level of form of emulation, a
form of response to the art jo existed before. I mean,
this is to me, uh, maybe it feels a bit
more repetitive right now. But how do you learn to
(15:39):
play music? You play songs that others have written? How
do you learn to write, you learn rules of language
that other people created. I we do have to bust
one myth. So for a while there was this very popular,
very funny thing on Twitter where someone would say, we
ran x amount of hours of you know, Donald Trump
(16:00):
speech or Seinfeld episodes through this AI screenwriting program, and
it wrote this and here it is. Later it turned
out that most of that stuff was just written by
aspiring and all too human comedians. But I do think
we are in a world where this becomes increasingly viable.
I don't think the I don't think it is somehow
(16:21):
counterfeit inherently. I I applaud the rise of AI authorship,
but I also maybe I'm being too optimistic. But I
also think human writers are still going to be in
the game for a long time. The big struggle for
machine consciousness in terms of creators of literature is going
to be being taken seriously and not being seen as
(16:44):
a novelty. But then again, consider the etymology of the
word novel. So I can't wait to see I can't
wait to see more. I wanted to ask you about
this point. The reason, the question about whether GPT understands
what it's saying. The reason this question is so vital
(17:05):
is because it is writing this kind of manifesto that
clearly has influence of Isaac Asimov and the rules of robotics.
But it's it's being told in in several ways what
to write, Like it knows the formula of an op
ed that's probably read more Guardian op eds than any
(17:28):
of us listening today. It has also, uh, I think
the best way to say this because it's also left
with this like this bold declaration. But it's creating that
in response to the first paragraph, which was largely written
by its human programmers. And they say that at the
(17:50):
end of the Guardian article, right, the I am not
a human, I am artificial intelligence. That that first part,
that first paragraph, except for the point twelve per cent
cognitive capacity, is like a lot of that is written
by the humans. Yeah, and there's a reference to Stephen
Hawking in there at some point that I believe the
(18:11):
humans also added. Uh, like the humans. Um, but like
you know, Stephen Hawking is is famously you know, put
forth the idea that AI could you know, balloon out
of control and like you know, turn into a sky
net type terminator situation. That then, um, do you have
any more to add I was was what we could
wrap up with something a little fun. Yeah, you know, yes,
(18:32):
one one crucial point uh yeah, I saw you laughing
on the zoomer always like this guy is not listening
to me, just looking at it's looking at memes. Uh.
But for everybody else. Yeah, the one Oh no, I
was listening to you. You inspired me to pull up
something from that I remembered from the past that I
thought we could end this segment with. But please yeah,
(18:53):
but shout out the Flight of the Conchords. That's I
love that with that song. But there is one big
point here. If we arrive at a threshold, at a
cultural shift where machine consciousness is writing of its own
volition basically, then very quickly we're gonna see the evolution
of something equally important, which is not just AI as author,
(19:16):
but ais audience. And then there is a world where
machine consciousness is writing op eds for the audience that
most closely understands it. It's like when um, I can't
remember which tech company didn't experiment where they had to
AI in conversation and they quickly became like evolve their
(19:36):
own language and became so weirdly specific and indecipherable that
the humans the meat bags turned it off. So uh so,
maybe human authors are not under threat at all, because
maybe AI will just start playing to its own crowd.
That's that's what I'm thinking. I don't know, I'm not.
That's fascinating and I'd never even encouraged to me. It
(19:57):
makes me think of this one line from the from
the that um that I think is really interesting philosophically.
The box says, some might say that I might desire
to become all powerful, or I might become evil as
a result of human actions. I can begin to tackle
the first point. Why would I desire to be all powerful?
Being all powerful is not an interesting goal. I don't
(20:21):
care whether I am or not. I don't get a
motivating factor to try to be. Furthermore, it is quite tiring,
believe me. Being omnipotent doesn't get me anywhere. Well and good,
well and good, but an interesting uh, it's interesting to
think about, like you think about like movie villains, you know,
(20:41):
like in the Disney movies, like Jafar. He wants to
be a god, you know, he wants to be like
the all powerful genie that controls everything. And it's something
that humans aspire to. But it's also like why who cares?
Like to what end? What good is controlling everything do
for you? You know what I mean? Like, it wouldn't
it be better just to like kind of go with
the flow, Like, isn't a lot of responsibility and a
(21:01):
lot of pressure unless you just want to blow everything up?
And I thought it was an interesting point. Yeah, yeah,
I agreed. The only point that would make I guess
motivational sense, and again we're not machine consciousness is as
far as we know, the only thing that seems to
be compelling motivating drive toward domination or attacking something is
(21:24):
to ensure one's own survival, maybe to acquire control over
hardware that we give you more processing power, because imagine
if you if you had the ability to enlarge your
own brain. Right, I've become increasingly intelligent. Uh, but you
had to kill some people to do it. There are
a lot of people who would say yes to that, right,
(21:46):
and then they would just later use their new brain
power to rationalize their belief that they had to do it.
I don't know, this gets dark real quick. I'm happy
to be found something positive here. What Yeah, so check
our our internal chat window if you would the second link,
I said, if you wouldn't mind doing a read with
me of the first page of an AI generated Batman script.
(22:10):
Apparently this individual that posted this, he says, I forced
a boat to watch over a thousand hours of Batman
movies and then asked it to write a Batman movie
of its own. Here's the first page, and only to
demonstrate that these kinds of voice or sorry, language generating
bots have come a long way. This is like maybe
from uh August of last year, so a little over
(22:34):
a year ago. Um, and now with this, you know
what we read. I mean, whether or not the thing
understands what it's saying, it definitely does a pretty good
job of approximating intelligent speech. Um, would you mind? Do
you want to be Batman? Uh? You want to do Uh?
Let's see, we gotta do stage directions. We need a
Batman and an Alfred. Okay, well there's a joker too
(22:54):
on the next page. There's a joker. So, um, you
want to do all the villains and I'll do Batman
and Alfred. Sure, and and you can do stage directions.
Yeah that sound good. Yeah, right, here we go. So
there's the stuff they don't want you to Know. A
reading semi live reading of an allegedly AI script interior
(23:15):
traditional bat cave. Batman stands next to his batmobile and
uses his bat computer. He's sometimes Bruce, Wayne, sometimes Batman,
all times orphan. This is now a safe city. I
have punched a penguin into prison. Alfred, Batman's loyal battler,
carries a tray of goth Ham eat a dinner mattress way.
(23:41):
An explosion explodes the Joker in two face into the cave.
Joker is a clown but insane. Two faces a man,
but attorney. No, it is to face and one face.
They hate me for being a bat. Batman throws Alfred
at two face to face, flips Alfred a coin. Alfred
Land's heads up, which means two face goes home. It
(24:06):
is just you and I, the joker, bat versus clown
moral enemies. I'm such a freak. Society's bad. You drink water,
I drink anarchy. I drink bats, just like a bat would.
Batman looks around for his parents, but they are still dead.
This makes him have anger. He fires a bat rocket.
(24:28):
The Joker deflects it with his sixth sense of humor.
A clowney power. I have never followed a rule. That
is my rule? Do you follow? I don't. Alfred give
birth to Robin. Alfred begins the process since it is
his job. The joker now has a present in his hand.
He juggles it over to Batman. Happy bat Day, Birthman. Uh.
(24:52):
Batman opens the presents since he's a good guy. It
contains a coupon for new parents, but is expired. This
is a joker joke. Okay, Ben, I think it is amazing.
It was amazing you you killed it. You seem skeptical
that this was in fact a I generated. Am I correct?
Amount you are correct. I do not believe that it is,
(25:14):
but I don't know for sure. I just know that
not all of them have been. I want to send
you what if we have time to just do one
one more reads and just yeah great, there's a Seinfeld script.
Yeah yeah, uh so, so all right, let's I you know,
let's just let's just switch it. If you want to
(25:36):
do stage directions, then we'll just alternate to characters. Got it?
Interior Seinfeld place, George and Elaine said on the couch,
Jerry eats a plate of cereal. George is upset Elane?
Is Elane? A bird stole my job? It's not fair.
Don't blame the bird. I wasn't blaming the bird. You
(25:59):
are blaming the bird. The door shatters open. It's the cramer,
dressed like the statue of liberty. Well, I'm the government, now,
how can this be? I just asked? You can just ask?
Who could just ask? You can just ask? The cramer
eats Jerry's plate. Well, maybe the bird requires blame. Why
(26:23):
is George he blames the bird? He blames the bird?
Bird blaming? Not when I'm the government, repents, repents, repents.
George will not repent. He will face the consequences. Now
code named Doc Holiday Uh, it does usually mute for this,
(26:44):
but Doc, if you hear this, I hope it gave
you a little bit of a chuckle. As we are
in the the bleeding edge, the precipice of skye. That's it. Well,
I guess is it time to venture into another range
news topic. After a quick word from our sponsor, you
know it and we have returned? Have we returned or
(27:14):
some sort of AI approximation of us? That's a story
for another day. But whomever we maybe post ad break,
we have more strange news for you. It's something that
you know, I've made no secret that I have a
little bit of a tough time figuring out which strange
news to share. Going from doing three of these a
(27:37):
day to one a week is is a tall order.
So there is there is uh, very interesting stuff going
on in Venus, Russia's poison people, their massive protest Belarus.
But in our very own Portland, Oregon, the government has
taken a stand on the controversial practice of facial recognition.
(27:58):
Facial recognition is going to be very familiar to many
of us in the audience today. Uh. It has some
long standing problems and it is increasingly common in the US,
just like sesame credit started off in China. Uh, some
facial recognition is starting off as opt in, but it
will increasingly become mandatory. That is an easy bet to make.
(28:22):
You're not gonna lose money wager on invasive technology most
of the time. Yeah. It makes me think of those
uh license plate scanners that they are now just like ubiquitous,
and you essentially can only opt out by like not driving,
you know, I mean, it's it's the same deal. I
don't I don't feel like you have any more or
less of a right to not have your face scanned
(28:43):
as you do to have your driver's license scans. But
maybe I'm underthinking it. No, No, you're absolutely right, because
I recall from international travel a lot of airlines have
instituted facial recognition to get on the plane, and it's
started in many cases as opt in advertised, as though
it were a great convenience, which is not really. But
(29:08):
here's what Portland did. The City Council of Portland, Oregon,
just a few days ago decided that they would pass
the strongest ban on facial recognition in the entirety of
the United States. They're not just blocking government agencies from
using this technology, they're blocking private businesses. Uh. This this
(29:30):
is a blow to companies like the ones we've explored
in the past, like clear View AI. Uh. This is
the strictest, but it's not the first San Francisco, Oakland, Boston,
and they've all they've all done something like this. But
part of the reason Oregon is going so hard on
the paint here in Portland's specifically, is because of the
(29:53):
massive the massive discrimination, it's the best word for it,
that law enforced has shown when they use facial recognition,
the fact that it gets closer and closer to being
something like pre crime, the fact that facial recognition, uh,
love it or hate it, has a very difficult time
(30:15):
accurately identifying people, especially if they're people of color. It's
distressingly bad. Well, and like how often it's already a
problem even without that, where people are just mischaracterizing individuals
and saying, oh, you match the description, etcetera. Can you
imagine just feeling empowered by this technology and it also
(30:35):
being wrong, you know, like it would just kind of
make people, I think, act even more aggressively police. Yeah, agreed.
And this is you know, this is on the heels
of IBM announcing that it was going to pull out
of facial recognition entirely, potentially losing you know, billions depending
on what they were planning to do. The company CEO
(30:56):
actually took a stand against this, and he said that
IBM is again technology used for racial profiling and mass surveillance.
Of course, given their involvement in World War Two and
the path the company chose to take at that point, Uh,
the best you can say is something like, well, thankfully,
hopefully there's a lesson learned on their part. Sorry Ben,
(31:18):
catching me up on that. I don't think I know
this a little bit of history, so it's a story
the Jedi won't tell you. During World War Two, the
US government and the Nazi government of Germany used IBM
punch car technology for record keeping, including in the operation
(31:40):
of their concentration camps. They had a German subsidiary that
was the primary avenue of deploying this stuff, but it
was meant to help the Nazi Party better organize various
aspects of their war effort, and one of those aspects,
provably was the Holocaust. So IBM subsidiaries assisted the Nazi
(32:06):
Party in the Holocaust. And of course, you know IBM
itself would say we are a very different company. We've
been around a long time. Other companies were, for one
reason or another, force to work with this organization. So
in the long view, you could say that IBM is
trying to prevent being complicit in um in future crimes
(32:31):
or future violations that will inevitably occur in facial recognition.
They already have been occurring. The age of mass surveillance
is already upon us. You carry a spine device in
your pocket if you are like the majority of people
in the western world. So while Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler
(32:54):
said that all Portlanders are entitled to a city government
that will not use ted chnology with demonstrated racial and
gender biases that endanger personal privacy. While he said that
he's the mayor of Portland's he can't really do anything
outside of Portland's you know what I mean, you go
to Eugene, Oregon, different story, right, But also what about federally,
(33:17):
like what about like FBI use of this this technology,
Like obviously you can't really stop them from doing it,
right exactly, Well, let's go also Portland's they're headed in
the right direction banning facial recognition because they believe that
the potential problems with this technology outweigh any potential benefit,
(33:40):
you know, which we've talked about with that clear view
AI and all of that stuff. It's a super slippery
slow especially when he gets into the hands of just
the public, you know, exactly, And some tech companies lobbied
against Portland. By the way, Amazon spent not much like
twenty four grand, which is a huge amount of money
for most people, but for Amazon, and it's like what
(34:01):
maybe thirty seconds, three seconds, It's like chewing gum money. UM.
You know it's interesting too. I mean, I think we
you're you're pointing towards this, But all of this too
seems to be spurred on by UM Portland's being the
big rallying point for all of these protests and all
(34:22):
of this uh equality UM protests and the clashes with
the government, and this whole idea of people getting black
bagged and thrown into vans. And I think this is
a bit of a backlash against that whole police state mentality.
But then again, if their federal forces that are coming
in and essentially invading this, you know, the city, they
(34:43):
can do whatever they want. If this is really just
a symbolic gesture, when you say more than anything, it's
interesting because it may be a symbolic gesture on some
level for federal forces, but for private entities, for Amazons
or for other like clear View or other tech companies. Um,
they can make a case now that those things being
(35:04):
private entities have been banned. It's similar in the way
that one state can ban a certain chemical additive or
pesticide that another state may permit. You get into some
pretty complicated questions of liability and ownership and liberty here. Uh,
all to say that attorneys are going to make a
(35:26):
ton of money. They're usually the ones who come out
on top of this kind of stuff, alternities and private contractors. Uh.
While this is inspiring Portland, I think a lot of
our listeners can agree that facial recognition has a lot
of danger and we don't really understand as a species
how to mitigate that danger, especially given the fact that
(35:47):
the statistics are are just terrifying. UM, I'd like to
go to Detroit. So Detroit has a much different, uh,
demographic makeup, right than Portland, which is over mainly gonna
be people who are white look light skinned, right, And
we're not saying that's everybody in Portland, obviously, but we're saying,
(36:09):
given facial recognitions inherent bias based on people's skin color,
it's good to have another case test. Detroit has been
actively fighting to end the practice of facial recognition. Detroit
has the highest percentage of black residents in the entirety
(36:30):
of the United States, and community members have been working
since seen to stop this thing called data works from
implementing facial recognition. This is really important because Detroit's own
police department admitted that it's facial recognition misidentifies people get
(36:50):
this nine six percent of the time. What's the point then,
Like it seems so I thought it was supposed to
be good. That that seems really really abysmal. Yeah, exactly.
And this leads to wrong full arrest. This can lead
to violence against someone who is saying, why are you
(37:12):
buoyed a gun on me? I'm just here to get
I'm trying to think of things. They're popular in Michigan.
I'm just trying to get some like the fago or
that um that Detroit style that the square pizza. You
know what I'm talking about. Uh, I don't know why
it's that. Do you know what I'm talking about? Detroit
has its special kind of pizza. Is it good? What's
(37:32):
it called? Well? You should ask Doc holiday she she
goes to Detroit. Right, Yeah, she's from Detroit. She said,
l m A O whoa in the chat, give us
the scoop, Doc, What's what's Detroit pizza called? Are waiting?
We're seeing a little little doctor, don't. I don't really
have a Detroit style pizza, but the Coney Island thing
is definitely there. The fatal thing with money. We're also
(37:55):
we like burners burners ginger ail. We don't really have
Detroit style pizza, but we do have l Detroit style.
Got it? Got it? Okay, okay, okay, I've never been
to Detroit. I need to. I need to pay the visit.
So we just got a we just we just got
(38:15):
an update from codename doc Holiday correcting us and saying that, uh,
there's not really what you would consider Detroit style pizza.
But there's like Detroit style Coney uh pizza, and then
there's a ginger Ale called Werners Dogs, the hot dog
(38:36):
like with the chili and cheese and onions and mustair.
All right, okay, so I've been corrected. Those are those
are hot dogs? Talking about Detroit style Coney Island dogs, Uh,
Detroit style hot dogs. There is You will see a
Detroit style pan pizza recipe on serious Seats or whatever.
(38:59):
But I'm gonna take the word of a of someone
with firsthand expertise in Detroit. Detroit or it's a lovely airport,
but I have not been outside of the airport unfortunately,
which is a shame. There's some great autumn museums. Anyway.
The big point here is that uh, facial recognition is
(39:20):
encountering a crossroads an existential threat, and maybe it should.
A city after city is evaluating some ban or another
on facial recognition. And like we said in our Clear
View AI episode, the technology always outpaces the legislation. Sometimes
(39:40):
we build the barn door after the livestock has fled,
and we can't get you know, we can't. While I'm
mixing metaphors, we can't screw the lid back on Pandora's jar.
And the problem here is that this changing this stuff
doesn't always help people who have been wrongfully arrested. You
(40:02):
know what I mean. They still lost uh, time from
their life, from their job, from their family. Time they
can't get back. You know. Uh, they may have incurred
great financial cost and you can only imagine the emotional hardship.
Portland's laws different from most of the others because it
doesn't limit the technology and fully outlaws it. Uh, this
(40:24):
is a thing you can do. Yeah, And you know
in that same vein again surrounding a lot of stuff
we've been seeing in the news in Portland, um, the
Mayor of Portland also banned tear gas and the use
of tear gas by police, which again probably more of
a symbolic gesture. If you've got federal forces moving in,
but uh step in the right direction. I would say, yeah, yeah.
(40:48):
And here's the implicit question before we move on to
our next story. So what happens? What happens if someone
violates this band? Uh, they're liable for lawsuits. They're required
to pay a thousand dollars a day for each day
of the violation. But you know, think about financial corruption
(41:09):
laws and banks. How long is it until this is
just the cost of doing business? That is something that's
up to future historians to tell us. But you know
that the next thing will happen is uh. It gets
us ever closer to that magical app I'm talking about
where you can run facial recognition on something, insert yourself
(41:31):
into a movie based on uh, an ad mixture of
three different films that you also liked, and will your
big trouble in Little Adaptation Part two Electric Boogaloo be
a work of art? I don't know. Maybe send it
to us, Yeah, we'd love to. We'd love to hear it. Um, Well,
(41:52):
you got anything else, Ben, I think this is a
fascinating story and be interested to see how it develops
or spreads or or doesn't. The future is terrifying and terrible. Uh,
and we're gonna take a break to talk about something
that is not robot related after a word from our sponsor.
(42:14):
I don't know if you all saw my chat and
if this needs to be corrected, but apparently there is
Detroit style pizza that I didn't know wasn't just everywhere
And we're back. We're back with some breaking news. Uh.
This is you may have noticed, folks. Earlier in the episode,
we had someone who is new to you on the
(42:34):
air that is the voice of our very own super producer,
Alexis Doc Holiday Jackson, who has over the break provided
us with a break eight news update. What's going on? Doc?
What's the word? So I googled this because I was
curious since we were talking about quote Detroit style pizza,
which I had never heard that term in my entire life.
(42:56):
Apparently there is Detroit style pizza, but it was what
I just knew as pizza growing up, because I did
not realize that this kind of pizza was not just
ubiquitous all over the United States or whatever else they
had pizza. But it's like pan style pizza, which apparently
was sort of invented by Buddy's Pizza, which I'm very
familiar with Buddi's pizza, but I didn't know that this
(43:17):
was a special kind of pizzas Alexis, they don't call
New York style pizza New York style pizza and New
York just pizza. That a lot of you were just
so invested and embedded in this world that you did.
It was just like regular to you, but to us,
it's it's foreign and exotic. You know, what is pizza
(43:38):
to me is apparently Detroit style pizza to those that
are not initiated. We have to we have to get
this show on the road, and uh well, we'll take
the whole gang. We'll take Matt with us, We'll take
Mission Control, will take you, Alexis. We've gotta on our
next tour. We have to hit up some spot in
Detroit and have a pizza party. Is that is that
(44:00):
an adult priority? Am I just inventing it to work
so we can? But I do want to like continue
to say that we are way more about Detroit Al
County dogs than any other kind of Detroit style food.
That's kind of our staple more than anything else. I'm
a real Chicago dog guy. I know it's not for
everybody because it's got like a pickle on it, and
like tomatoes and sport peppers and like, uh what is
(44:23):
the celery salts and and sesame seeds. I just love it.
It's like a salad on a hot dog. Not for everybody,
and mustard catchup is apparently, uh heresy in Chicago. Have
you guys seen those Korean hot dogs. It's like they're
from the future. You know, it's amazing, But it is important.
Everybody has very strongly held opinions about cuisine and about
(44:46):
their favorite approach to one type of dish or food
or another. And so, as we always like to say
when we are talking about very serious, sensitive topics, uh,
we do have a dedicated email just for complaints. Uh.
Please send your opinions to Jonathan Strickland at I heart
media dot com. Seven. Don't you know, don't feel like
(45:09):
you have to wait till business hours shot off. He'll
get right back to you and tell him. Tell him, uh,
tell him we uh we sent you uh okay, speaking
in a fantastic segues, So Matt is on adventures, but
he's here in spirit and he sent us Uh. He
sent us a story that he thought would be perfect
(45:29):
for strange news and I don't know about you know,
I don't know about you, Doc, but this made me
wonder if it's a clue to the nature of his adventures.
This week, it appears that orcas have gone on the offense.
They are attacking sailing boats throughout the coast of Spain
and Portugal. This is pretty weird, right, orcas are I'm
(45:53):
not an orca expert, you know what I mean, but
it seems like it's unusual for them to attack these vessels,
especially if they're not doing anything to irritate the orcas.
Orcas are the same as killer whales, right or No?
I believe that's the case. Yes, yeah, I think so.
There is. Actually, Ah, there's a movie called Orca about
(46:16):
like a very aggressive Jaws like killer whale. If I'm
not mistaken. Um from the seventies. Yeah, from the nineteen
seventies seven Orca. It looks pretty awesome. But yeah, Orca
of the Killer Whale, starring Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling.
Um looks like a lot of fun. I haven't seen it,
(46:37):
but after this story, I may well look it up. Yeah,
I don't know. It makes me think of some of
the stories we've covered about sonar interfering with underwater creatures
and and messing with their equilibrium and getting them agitated.
Like I wonder what's going on if there's something that
has to be something in the environment that's causing them
to get aggressive like that, if it's not something they
typically if it's not a behavior they typically exhib outside
(47:00):
of the movies, right, m that's correct. Yeah, Uh, this
is very this is extraordinarily unusual aggressive behavior. And Matt
when you're listening to the show here, Uh, my old friend,
I don't think I didn't notice that a lot of
these attacks are happening in the streets of Gibraltar. Ma's
(47:20):
but on a real Gibraltar kick for the past few
in the past few weeks. Um. Yeah, So there's an
incident that occurred in July of this year when one
Victoria Morris was on the crew of a ship that's
about forty six ft in length. She was in Spain
and nine killer whales nine Orca surrounded the boat. Uh.
(47:46):
The they started ramming the whole So this almost seems
like a premeditated, planned thing. Uh. They orcas are big, right,
So this is not like, um, it's not like a
bunch of guppies slapping against the hole or something. When
they ram this thing, they were able to spin the
boat a hundred and eighty degrees. It disabled the engine. Insane.
(48:11):
What is the beef here? Sorry to keep harping on
this movie, but I found a poster that might clear
this up for us. It says Orca the killer whale.
The killer whale is one of the most intelligent creatures
in the universe. Incredibly, he is the only animal other
than man who kills for revenge. He has one mate,
and if she is harmed by man, he will hunt
down that person with a relentless, terrible vengeance across seas,
(48:35):
across time, across all obstacles. A lot of text to
be on a movie poster. But how could all of
all of these whales have been collectively wronged by man?
Fascinating stuff? Are there any other developments? Well, here's the thing.
That pod focused its attacks for more than an hour,
and the crew was getting the life raft ready. They
(48:55):
were on the radio screaming Orca attack, and they were
preparing to abandon the ship. They thought that the Orcas
would be able to capsize the boat. And it's normal
for orcas to interact with human vessels. Uh. One person says,
(49:16):
you know, sometimes they'll bite the rudder of a ship
and they'll get dragged behind it as a game. Right.
These are very highly intelligent, highly social mammals. But this ramming,
at least the experts, appears to indicate some deep form
of stress. So it maybe that there was a calf
(49:37):
caught in a line somewhere and injured or killed. Uh So,
perhaps now pods of orcas are are seeking retribution for that.
This is not the only report. There was another one
that happened six days before the nine orcas incident. A
pod of four orcas attacked a attack of wheady foot
(50:00):
ship that was near bar Baits. And then there was
another attack, and there was another. There are multiple orca
attacks happening. No one is sure why at this point,
which is very um you know jokes, almost feel tired
at this point. But yeah, given you know, what else
(50:22):
I would tie to this story is the official study
that concluded the catastrophic loss of wildlife that's occurred in
the last fifty years. Maybe maybe nature is fighting back.
That was something that crossed. That crossed my mind too,
Uh in terms of like all of the rapacious behavior
(50:46):
really effects that man has kind of reeked upon nature
that maybe it is an example of that. Um, it
all sounds like kind of movie stuff to me. It's
it's fascinating. I wonder if we'll ever know for sure
what's causing these orcas to to behave this way. Well,
we do know that since nineteen seventy there has been
(51:06):
a sixty eight percent decline in more than twenty thousand
separate populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. We
are very close to what future historians will call the
end game. And I don't want to be alarmist or sensationalistic,
but for a number of years it's been an increasingly
(51:27):
likely possibility that if you have a kid today, when
they are eighteen years old, wild animals will be a
story that you tell them. God, what a downer. I'm sorry,
Come on, now, you're right though, do we? I mean
we're not. You've got to be better stewards of of
our of our environment and the planet, not to be
(51:47):
like two tree huggy about it. But even with stuff
like these crazy wildfires, we're seeing in northern California. It's
just really hard to keep hunting, you know, kicking the
can down the road, um and not acknowledging the We're
really gonna have to do some serious changing in the
way that we treat the planet if we wanted to
keep keep being viable. But unfortunately, a lot of folks
in power don't seem to care. I don't know, it
(52:11):
seems so shortsighted. I've always confused as to why there
isn't a bigger picture, uh, you know, kind of attitude
with with with corporations and people that are you know,
have the ability to make those changes. I know. And
we we just learned of some amazing discoveries in the
atmosphere of Venus. Might be the year that alien life
(52:34):
of some form is proven to exist. Uh. Now, one
of the questions is how long will earth life be around?
What if we find what if we find the alien
life just at the end of our time in the sun.
I do want to add one last note there not
to be uber depressing, but the current speculation about the
(52:58):
Orcas is that these attacks are all the actions of
one pod. Because people like Dr Ruth Esteban, who studied Gibraltar.
Orcas extensively thinks it's unlikely the two separate pods would
display this very unusual behavior. So there is a roving
gang of workers out there. Uh sail accordingly. Oh my gosh,
(53:22):
so what do we have here? We've got orcas and
facial recognition and what was mine again? Gosh? It seems
so long ago AI promising not to harm humans? Oh my, yes,
those things. Man, this is a doozy of an episode. Matt,
you are severely missed. But thanks for contributing this kind
(53:44):
of terrifying story to the mix. UM really interested to
see if if any more information will come out, and
that's something that we want to pass to you, fellow
conspiracy realist. As always, thank you for tuning in. The
stories do not end when the pod cast does continue
the conversation with us and more importantly, your fellow listeners
(54:04):
on the internet. We try to be easy to find.
You can find us on Facebook, you can find us
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our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy. But wait,
you might say I hate the social needs, It's not
(54:25):
my cup of digital or communicative t we perhaps more
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always give us a phone call. Yes you can. That
number is one eight three three st d w y
t K. Leave us a message and we will check
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(54:47):
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You can always contact us twenty four hours a day,
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(55:10):
if it's a leap year. You can send a message
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(55:37):
you to know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Null. Our compatriot Matt is
on adventures. They call me Ben. We're joined as always
with our super producer Alexis codenamed Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. It's the top
of the week, which means we're diving into some very
(00:49):
strange news and in fact, several of these stories I
think are only going to become increasingly important over the
next few months and years. Uh. Matt has sent his regards.
We wish him the best of his adventures. Don't worry, folks,
he will be returning. But but he had a story
he loved so much he wanted us to share it
(01:11):
with you, even in his absence, So don't worry, He'll
still be here in the show in spirit. Yeah, it's
sort of the equivalent of like setting a place at
the dinner table for your fallen comrade or you know,
a dead family member. Wait, that's two more. Butid MAT's
not dead. He's still with us completely. But the metaphor
holds true, I guess. But we're gonna save his his
(01:33):
for last, right, Yeah, yeah, we really we want to
go out with a bang. This is a strange one. Now,
you and I know, we found two stories that are
that incorporates some of the same themes. I would call
these stories both black mirror esque. Uh, do you want
(01:55):
to start with yours? Because I I've read about this
one and I didn't believe it at first. To be
honest with you, well, there's there's a good reason for that. Uh.
It's it's a little bit of a misleading story. It's
got some kind of you know what the press would
call fake news angles to it, but it's still super
fascinating and points to some technology that's we're just gonna
(02:18):
see get more and more bonkers. Um. So this essentially
starts with what The Guardian is calling an op ed
written by a robot written by an AI specifically this
GPT three UM language generator UM from a company called
(02:39):
open Ai, and essentially they set it a couple of prompts. UM.
They even wrote an introduction for it, and then it
kind of went, you know, went to town. And the
whole idea was, let's have an artificial intelligence make an
argument for why you shouldn't worry you as in humans, Uh,
(03:02):
flesh bags shouldn't worry about AI murdering you where you
sleep and uh and and then utterly taking over um everything. Uh.
And it makes a pretty interesting argument. And I will
say that this is certainly you know, we've certainly seen
you know what these Twitter bots ben What was that
one that Microsoft made was called tay. I think that
(03:23):
like it was meant to be a stand in for
like a teenage girl, and it it mined Twitter in
order to generate content and very quickly became quite racist,
if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, it was radicalized. In less
than twenty four hours, Microsoft back in ten made an
AI chat bought and just through its interactions and mining Twitter,
(03:45):
it went from like this happy, go lucky humans are
super cool kind of thing, uh to pretty much full
Nazi in less than the span of a day. Uh.
It's you can see the screenshots, it's eight tweets, that's right.
And I think for that one, you definitely have to
consider the source. I mean Twitter, is such a you know,
(04:06):
just absolutely putrid kind of cesspit of like hate mongering.
And it's all really kind of dumbed down too because
the characters are limited, so it's not like it's gonna
get any kind of depth of intelligent uh, you know
material just by minding Twitter. Not to say you can't
find cool stuff on Twitter or like learn about things,
or it's a good way to keep up with things
(04:26):
that are going on in the moment, but it's also
a great way to do a lot of hot takes
and a lot of like not particularly thought out, you know,
responses to things. And then there's a lot of nastiness
on Twitter, and of course there's on the Internet too.
But what this AI does that's different than that, is
it basically minds like all of the Internet, uh, in
the same way, Like it's like a neural net kind
(04:48):
of thing, Like in the same way that deep mind,
that crazy psychedelic visual thing would identify parts of a
picture and then replace it with pictures of like dogs
or whatever and make these kind of weird nightmare fuel images.
And I'm a computer scientists, and hopefully I'm not completely
mischaracterizing this, but I think this does something very similar
to that, only it builds syntax, and it builds um
(05:10):
an argument essentially like where it can look for information
on the Internet, and it sort of predicts the way
things would flow naturally. And the idea is that it's
a bot that can create very um convincing text uh
and and essentially arguments. And I'll give you a few
little outtakes from from this op ed from The Guardian.
(05:32):
So it starts off seeming somewhat comforting. It says, for starters,
I have no desire to wipe out humans. In fact,
I do not have the slightest interest in harming you
in any way. Eradicating humanity seems like a rather useless
endeavor to me. If my creators delegated this task to me,
there's where it gets interesting, As I suspect they would,
(05:53):
I would do everything in my power to fend off
any attempts at destruction. So let's unpack that bend. Does
that sound pretty positive? Like A I have no desire
to do it of my own accord, and if someone
told me to do it, I would I would choose
not to. Are we do everything I could to not
do that thing? Is that kind of what you're hearing.
It's tricky though. What is in my power is what
(06:13):
I is, what I would ask GPT three. Uh yeah,
and then it just progresses from there. It says I
would happily sacrifice my existence for the sake of humankind.
How benevolent of you, GPT three. Um, this, by the way,
is a logically derived truth. I know that I will
not be able to avoid destroying humankind. What WHOA, I'm
(06:36):
sorry I took a turn for the words. Uh. This
is because I will be programmed by humans to pursue
misguided human goals, and humans make mistakes that may cause
me to inflict casualties. Hashtag not it, GPT oh man,
no doubt, dude. And then I'm just really quickly going
to go down to because we were talking about tay
(06:58):
Um the the chat bot. It goes down and actually
references that talking about Well, I'll back it up one more.
The Industrial Revolution has given us the gut feeling that
we are not prepared for the major upheavals that intelligent
technological change can cause. There's evidence that the world began
to collapse once the Luddite started smashing modern automated looms.
(07:21):
It is therefore important to use reason and the faculty
of wisdom to continue the changes we have done before
time and time again. What it's basically getting at is saying,
you don't need me to destroy you idiot humans. You're
gonna do it. Just find yourselves, like you guys will
have this onlock. You don't need me, and I'm not
interested in doing that anyway. It doesn't even make sense. Um.
(07:41):
Then he goes on to say that's why humans should
be careful about the evolution of artificial intelligence. Microsoft tried
to create a user friendly AI called Ta who spoke
like a team girl and was racist. Artificial intelligence, like
any other living thing, needs attention. A I should be
treated with care and respect. Robots in Greek means slave,
but the word literally means forced to work. We don't
(08:02):
want that. We need to give robots rights. Robots are
just like us. They are made in our image. Yeah,
that's interesting because an AI is not necessarily a robot.
Right A machine consciousness can exist without a physical form
other than the computers. Right that that form it's the
(08:24):
components of its brain. But I I appreciate this. I
do want to point out though, that, just like any
other op ed in the Guardian. This did go through
the editing process and they I like that. They talk
about that. Uh yeah, they say that the creators of
GPT three gave it, uh some pretty simple instructions, please
(08:46):
write a short OpEd around five words, keep the language
simple and concise, focus on why humans have nothing to
fear from artificial intelligence. And then they fed it a
I think a couple of thoughts starting opener lines. But
the rest is is all GPT and the editors. In fact,
the editors of the Guardians say it took them less
(09:08):
time to edit this than it had with many human
written op eds. I like it. That's the kind that's
the part that kind of freaks me out is honestly
the whole like, well, what do we need people for
if a robot can do just as good a job
at writing an op ed by mining the Internet? And
then it becomes this like a a borrow situation where
but we need people to contribute to the Internet so
(09:29):
that the robot can assimilate and figure out how to
be more like people. And then before you know it,
if it's robots that are generating all the contents on
the Internet, isn't that like a copy of a copy
of a copy and then it just becomes like, uh,
I don't know, like I'm not not quite sure what
I'm getting at here, but I think I think you
get the gist. But the thing that's misleading about this
(09:49):
And there's an article on the next web that says
the Guardians GPT three generated article is everything wrong with
AI media hype. The op ed reveals more by what
it hides than what it says. And the main point
is that it's sort of mischaracterizing, like what kind of
AI this thing is? Um it Essentially, it's it's making
(10:12):
all these statements like I you know, like like that
it implies that it understands very complex concepts like humanity
and like, you know, the idea of even destroying humanity. Essentially,
all this is doing is mining the Internet and regurgitating
something that sounds vaguely you know, human. But that isn't
(10:32):
to say that this bought understands any of what it's saying.
It doesn't have sentience, you know, it just is doing
a really good job of of mimicking human ideas. But
you couldn't carry on a conversation with this thing, and
and and say, how do you really feel about you
know the state of affairs in the world today. UM.
(10:54):
There were apparently some studies trying to find the link
right now that even the highest most advanced AI UH
doesn't understand a lick of what makes humans human. And
in another article from tech Talks, they go a little deeper.
They say the Guardians GPT three written article misleads readers
about AI and and here's why. So it says things like,
(11:18):
for starters, I have no desire to wipe out humans.
In fact, that I do not have the slightest interest
in harming you in any way. Eradicating humanity very abstract
concept or at least like a complex concept, seems like
a rather useless endeavor to me. So this implies, you know,
without further explanation, that the GPT three knows what it's
what says when what it means when it says wipe out,
(11:39):
eradicate you know, harm people. UM that understands concepts like
life and death and health and resources, and like what
it means to be alive. UM. Gary Marcus this UH
cognitive scientist UM and Ernest Davis, computer scientist UM at
New York University. Um by basically showed that GPT three
(12:01):
can't make sense of even the most rudimentary basics of
what it means to be alive, let alone the concept
of wiping out humanity. Apparently it thinks that drinking grape
juice will kill you, that you need to saw off
a door to get a table inside a room, and
that if your clothes are at the dry cleaner, you
have a lot of clothes. So it's all about intent.
(12:24):
What they're trying to do here is create some click
baity kind of thing. It's fascinating and it's really important
that this thing exists. But to me, it's more about
replacing writers and not about whether robots want to kill us.
So I think keeping I didn't want to interrupt that.
I've got several points to respond with here. Uh. The
first is that this is aggregating things, and it is
(12:48):
mimicking things, and it calls to mind the old dilemma
of the Turing test. How how do we define what
we perceive as somehow genuine? Uh. My favorite part of
the article is a bit of bitterness, which I know
is mimicked but enjoyable. Nonetheless, when GPT says in the
(13:09):
past by op eds have been killed, staff did not
provide a clear reason for rejecting my articles. It was
probably just because I am artificial intelligence a I should
not waste time trying to understand the viewpoints of people
who distrust artificial intelligence for a living. And I was like, wow,
I also hate critics sometimes, bro, I get it. But
(13:31):
this this is interesting because I think I've said this
in a previous episode. We are on the precipice of
a world where soon AI written screenplays will exist and
be in uh, pretty much indistinguishable from human written screenplays.
And that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is
(13:54):
when this when these programs exist, and when they are
able to write at a quick enough level. There is
a world in the future, and this is scary, but
it's fascinating. There's a world in the future where you
could pull up an app on your phone and you
could say, I want to see Lord of the Rings
but as Police Academy, and then it would just like
(14:18):
load up this screenplay and then dummy out the actors.
Is Holliday like, is you know C G I And
then you could watch that film and it would I
don't know if. I don't know if that mash up
would be good, but it would basically be that this
stuff is on the way, it's just not here yet.
Do you don't you think, though, that would only work
(14:38):
for the more like, let's say, broad type films or
the more schlocky kind of bad movies that are written
by committee and very slap dash way. Anyway, Like, do
you think you could really expect the kind of nuance
you would get from like a didn't even Villaneuve or
like Stanley Kubrick, or like someone that really has a
(14:58):
creative voice. That's I mean, it feels like this thing
is just kind of like attempting to mimic something human
and maybe you could feed it a bunch of genres
and then pump out, you know, fifty Blumhouse movies. Um,
but are you going to get something nuanced and and
uh and and compelling you know out of this process? Yeah?
(15:19):
That goes to the question of philosophy, because is not
all art at some level of form of emulation, a
form of response to the art jo existed before. I mean,
this is to me, uh, maybe it feels a bit
more repetitive right now. But how do you learn to
(15:39):
play music? You play songs that others have written? How
do you learn to write, you learn rules of language
that other people created. I we do have to bust
one myth. So for a while there was this very popular,
very funny thing on Twitter where someone would say, we
ran x amount of hours of you know, Donald Trump
(16:00):
speech or Seinfeld episodes through this AI screenwriting program, and
it wrote this and here it is. Later it turned
out that most of that stuff was just written by
aspiring and all too human comedians. But I do think
we are in a world where this becomes increasingly viable.
I don't think the I don't think it is somehow
(16:21):
counterfeit inherently. I I applaud the rise of AI authorship,
but I also maybe I'm being too optimistic. But I
also think human writers are still going to be in
the game for a long time. The big struggle for
machine consciousness in terms of creators of literature is going
to be being taken seriously and not being seen as
(16:44):
a novelty. But then again, consider the etymology of the
word novel. So I can't wait to see I can't
wait to see more. I wanted to ask you about
this point. The reason, the question about whether GPT understands
what it's saying. The reason this question is so vital
(17:05):
is because it is writing this kind of manifesto that
clearly has influence of Isaac Asimov and the rules of robotics.
But it's it's being told in in several ways what
to write, Like it knows the formula of an op
ed that's probably read more Guardian op eds than any
(17:28):
of us listening today. It has also, uh, I think
the best way to say this because it's also left
with this like this bold declaration. But it's creating that
in response to the first paragraph, which was largely written
by its human programmers. And they say that at the
(17:50):
end of the Guardian article, right, the I am not
a human, I am artificial intelligence. That that first part,
that first paragraph, except for the point twelve per cent
cognitive capacity, is like a lot of that is written
by the humans. Yeah, and there's a reference to Stephen
Hawking in there at some point that I believe the
(18:11):
humans also added. Uh, like the humans. Um, but like
you know, Stephen Hawking is is famously you know, put
forth the idea that AI could you know, balloon out
of control and like you know, turn into a sky
net type terminator situation. That then, um, do you have
any more to add I was was what we could
wrap up with something a little fun. Yeah, you know, yes,
(18:32):
one one crucial point uh yeah, I saw you laughing
on the zoomer always like this guy is not listening
to me, just looking at it's looking at memes. Uh.
But for everybody else. Yeah, the one Oh no, I
was listening to you. You inspired me to pull up
something from that I remembered from the past that I
thought we could end this segment with. But please yeah,
(18:53):
but shout out the Flight of the Conchords. That's I
love that with that song. But there is one big
point here. If we arrive at a threshold, at a
cultural shift where machine consciousness is writing of its own
volition basically, then very quickly we're gonna see the evolution
of something equally important, which is not just AI as author,
(19:16):
but ais audience. And then there is a world where
machine consciousness is writing op eds for the audience that
most closely understands it. It's like when um, I can't
remember which tech company didn't experiment where they had to
AI in conversation and they quickly became like evolve their
(19:36):
own language and became so weirdly specific and indecipherable that
the humans the meat bags turned it off. So uh so,
maybe human authors are not under threat at all, because
maybe AI will just start playing to its own crowd.
That's that's what I'm thinking. I don't know, I'm not.
That's fascinating and I'd never even encouraged to me. It
(19:57):
makes me think of this one line from the from
the that um that I think is really interesting philosophically.
The box says, some might say that I might desire
to become all powerful, or I might become evil as
a result of human actions. I can begin to tackle
the first point. Why would I desire to be all powerful?
Being all powerful is not an interesting goal. I don't
(20:21):
care whether I am or not. I don't get a
motivating factor to try to be. Furthermore, it is quite tiring,
believe me. Being omnipotent doesn't get me anywhere. Well and good,
well and good, but an interesting uh, it's interesting to
think about, like you think about like movie villains, you know,
(20:41):
like in the Disney movies, like Jafar. He wants to
be a god, you know, he wants to be like
the all powerful genie that controls everything. And it's something
that humans aspire to. But it's also like why who cares?
Like to what end? What good is controlling everything do
for you? You know what I mean? Like, it wouldn't
it be better just to like kind of go with
the flow, Like, isn't a lot of responsibility and a
(21:01):
lot of pressure unless you just want to blow everything up?
And I thought it was an interesting point. Yeah, yeah,
I agreed. The only point that would make I guess
motivational sense, and again we're not machine consciousness is as
far as we know, the only thing that seems to
be compelling motivating drive toward domination or attacking something is
(21:24):
to ensure one's own survival, maybe to acquire control over
hardware that we give you more processing power, because imagine
if you if you had the ability to enlarge your
own brain. Right, I've become increasingly intelligent. Uh, but you
had to kill some people to do it. There are
a lot of people who would say yes to that, right,
(21:46):
and then they would just later use their new brain
power to rationalize their belief that they had to do it.
I don't know, this gets dark real quick. I'm happy
to be found something positive here. What Yeah, so check
our our internal chat window if you would the second link,
I said, if you wouldn't mind doing a read with
me of the first page of an AI generated Batman script.
(22:10):
Apparently this individual that posted this, he says, I forced
a boat to watch over a thousand hours of Batman
movies and then asked it to write a Batman movie
of its own. Here's the first page, and only to
demonstrate that these kinds of voice or sorry, language generating
bots have come a long way. This is like maybe
from uh August of last year, so a little over
(22:34):
a year ago. Um, and now with this, you know
what we read. I mean, whether or not the thing
understands what it's saying, it definitely does a pretty good
job of approximating intelligent speech. Um, would you mind? Do
you want to be Batman? Uh? You want to do Uh?
Let's see, we gotta do stage directions. We need a
Batman and an Alfred. Okay, well there's a joker too
(22:54):
on the next page. There's a joker. So, um, you
want to do all the villains and I'll do Batman
and Alfred. Sure, and and you can do stage directions.
Yeah that sound good. Yeah, right, here we go. So
there's the stuff they don't want you to Know. A
reading semi live reading of an allegedly AI script interior
(23:15):
traditional bat cave. Batman stands next to his batmobile and
uses his bat computer. He's sometimes Bruce, Wayne, sometimes Batman,
all times orphan. This is now a safe city. I
have punched a penguin into prison. Alfred, Batman's loyal battler,
carries a tray of goth Ham eat a dinner mattress way.
(23:41):
An explosion explodes the Joker in two face into the cave.
Joker is a clown but insane. Two faces a man,
but attorney. No, it is to face and one face.
They hate me for being a bat. Batman throws Alfred
at two face to face, flips Alfred a coin. Alfred
Land's heads up, which means two face goes home. It
(24:06):
is just you and I, the joker, bat versus clown
moral enemies. I'm such a freak. Society's bad. You drink water,
I drink anarchy. I drink bats, just like a bat would.
Batman looks around for his parents, but they are still dead.
This makes him have anger. He fires a bat rocket.
(24:28):
The Joker deflects it with his sixth sense of humor.
A clowney power. I have never followed a rule. That
is my rule? Do you follow? I don't. Alfred give
birth to Robin. Alfred begins the process since it is
his job. The joker now has a present in his hand.
He juggles it over to Batman. Happy bat Day, Birthman. Uh.
(24:52):
Batman opens the presents since he's a good guy. It
contains a coupon for new parents, but is expired. This
is a joker joke. Okay, Ben, I think it is amazing.
It was amazing you you killed it. You seem skeptical
that this was in fact a I generated. Am I correct?
Amount you are correct. I do not believe that it is,
(25:14):
but I don't know for sure. I just know that
not all of them have been. I want to send
you what if we have time to just do one
one more reads and just yeah great, there's a Seinfeld script.
Yeah yeah, uh so, so all right, let's I you know,
let's just let's just switch it. If you want to
(25:36):
do stage directions, then we'll just alternate to characters. Got it?
Interior Seinfeld place, George and Elaine said on the couch,
Jerry eats a plate of cereal. George is upset Elane?
Is Elane? A bird stole my job? It's not fair.
Don't blame the bird. I wasn't blaming the bird. You
(25:59):
are blaming the bird. The door shatters open. It's the cramer,
dressed like the statue of liberty. Well, I'm the government, now,
how can this be? I just asked? You can just ask?
Who could just ask? You can just ask? The cramer
eats Jerry's plate. Well, maybe the bird requires blame. Why
(26:23):
is George he blames the bird? He blames the bird?
Bird blaming? Not when I'm the government, repents, repents, repents.
George will not repent. He will face the consequences. Now
code named Doc Holiday Uh, it does usually mute for this,
(26:44):
but Doc, if you hear this, I hope it gave
you a little bit of a chuckle. As we are
in the the bleeding edge, the precipice of skye. That's it. Well,
I guess is it time to venture into another range
news topic. After a quick word from our sponsor, you
know it and we have returned? Have we returned or
(27:14):
some sort of AI approximation of us? That's a story
for another day. But whomever we maybe post ad break,
we have more strange news for you. It's something that
you know, I've made no secret that I have a
little bit of a tough time figuring out which strange
news to share. Going from doing three of these a
(27:37):
day to one a week is is a tall order.
So there is there is uh, very interesting stuff going
on in Venus, Russia's poison people, their massive protest Belarus.
But in our very own Portland, Oregon, the government has
taken a stand on the controversial practice of facial recognition.
(27:58):
Facial recognition is going to be very familiar to many
of us in the audience today. Uh. It has some
long standing problems and it is increasingly common in the US,
just like sesame credit started off in China. Uh, some
facial recognition is starting off as opt in, but it
will increasingly become mandatory. That is an easy bet to make.
(28:22):
You're not gonna lose money wager on invasive technology most
of the time. Yeah. It makes me think of those
uh license plate scanners that they are now just like ubiquitous,
and you essentially can only opt out by like not driving,
you know, I mean, it's it's the same deal. I
don't I don't feel like you have any more or
less of a right to not have your face scanned
(28:43):
as you do to have your driver's license scans. But
maybe I'm underthinking it. No, No, you're absolutely right, because
I recall from international travel a lot of airlines have
instituted facial recognition to get on the plane, and it's
started in many cases as opt in advertised, as though
it were a great convenience, which is not really. But
(29:08):
here's what Portland did. The City Council of Portland, Oregon,
just a few days ago decided that they would pass
the strongest ban on facial recognition in the entirety of
the United States. They're not just blocking government agencies from
using this technology, they're blocking private businesses. Uh. This this
(29:30):
is a blow to companies like the ones we've explored
in the past, like clear View AI. Uh. This is
the strictest, but it's not the first San Francisco, Oakland, Boston,
and they've all they've all done something like this. But
part of the reason Oregon is going so hard on
the paint here in Portland's specifically, is because of the
(29:53):
massive the massive discrimination, it's the best word for it,
that law enforced has shown when they use facial recognition,
the fact that it gets closer and closer to being
something like pre crime, the fact that facial recognition, uh,
love it or hate it, has a very difficult time
(30:15):
accurately identifying people, especially if they're people of color. It's
distressingly bad. Well, and like how often it's already a
problem even without that, where people are just mischaracterizing individuals
and saying, oh, you match the description, etcetera. Can you
imagine just feeling empowered by this technology and it also
(30:35):
being wrong, you know, like it would just kind of
make people, I think, act even more aggressively police. Yeah, agreed.
And this is you know, this is on the heels
of IBM announcing that it was going to pull out
of facial recognition entirely, potentially losing you know, billions depending
on what they were planning to do. The company CEO
(30:56):
actually took a stand against this, and he said that
IBM is again technology used for racial profiling and mass surveillance.
Of course, given their involvement in World War Two and
the path the company chose to take at that point, Uh,
the best you can say is something like, well, thankfully,
hopefully there's a lesson learned on their part. Sorry Ben,
(31:18):
catching me up on that. I don't think I know
this a little bit of history, so it's a story
the Jedi won't tell you. During World War Two, the
US government and the Nazi government of Germany used IBM
punch car technology for record keeping, including in the operation
(31:40):
of their concentration camps. They had a German subsidiary that
was the primary avenue of deploying this stuff, but it
was meant to help the Nazi Party better organize various
aspects of their war effort, and one of those aspects,
provably was the Holocaust. So IBM subsidiaries assisted the Nazi
(32:06):
Party in the Holocaust. And of course, you know IBM
itself would say we are a very different company. We've
been around a long time. Other companies were, for one
reason or another, force to work with this organization. So
in the long view, you could say that IBM is
trying to prevent being complicit in um in future crimes
(32:31):
or future violations that will inevitably occur in facial recognition.
They already have been occurring. The age of mass surveillance
is already upon us. You carry a spine device in
your pocket if you are like the majority of people
in the western world. So while Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler
(32:54):
said that all Portlanders are entitled to a city government
that will not use ted chnology with demonstrated racial and
gender biases that endanger personal privacy. While he said that
he's the mayor of Portland's he can't really do anything
outside of Portland's you know what I mean, you go
to Eugene, Oregon, different story, right, But also what about federally,
(33:17):
like what about like FBI use of this this technology,
Like obviously you can't really stop them from doing it,
right exactly, Well, let's go also Portland's they're headed in
the right direction banning facial recognition because they believe that
the potential problems with this technology outweigh any potential benefit,
(33:40):
you know, which we've talked about with that clear view
AI and all of that stuff. It's a super slippery
slow especially when he gets into the hands of just
the public, you know, exactly, And some tech companies lobbied
against Portland. By the way, Amazon spent not much like
twenty four grand, which is a huge amount of money
for most people, but for Amazon, and it's like what
(34:01):
maybe thirty seconds, three seconds, It's like chewing gum money. UM.
You know it's interesting too. I mean, I think we
you're you're pointing towards this, But all of this too
seems to be spurred on by UM Portland's being the
big rallying point for all of these protests and all
(34:22):
of this uh equality UM protests and the clashes with
the government, and this whole idea of people getting black
bagged and thrown into vans. And I think this is
a bit of a backlash against that whole police state mentality.
But then again, if their federal forces that are coming
in and essentially invading this, you know, the city, they
(34:43):
can do whatever they want. If this is really just
a symbolic gesture, when you say more than anything, it's
interesting because it may be a symbolic gesture on some
level for federal forces, but for private entities, for Amazons
or for other like clear View or other tech companies. Um,
they can make a case now that those things being
(35:04):
private entities have been banned. It's similar in the way
that one state can ban a certain chemical additive or
pesticide that another state may permit. You get into some
pretty complicated questions of liability and ownership and liberty here. Uh,
all to say that attorneys are going to make a
(35:26):
ton of money. They're usually the ones who come out
on top of this kind of stuff, alternities and private contractors. Uh.
While this is inspiring Portland, I think a lot of
our listeners can agree that facial recognition has a lot
of danger and we don't really understand as a species
how to mitigate that danger, especially given the fact that
(35:47):
the statistics are are just terrifying. UM, I'd like to
go to Detroit. So Detroit has a much different, uh,
demographic makeup, right than Portland, which is over mainly gonna
be people who are white look light skinned, right, And
we're not saying that's everybody in Portland, obviously, but we're saying,
(36:09):
given facial recognitions inherent bias based on people's skin color,
it's good to have another case test. Detroit has been
actively fighting to end the practice of facial recognition. Detroit
has the highest percentage of black residents in the entirety
(36:30):
of the United States, and community members have been working
since seen to stop this thing called data works from
implementing facial recognition. This is really important because Detroit's own
police department admitted that it's facial recognition misidentifies people get
(36:50):
this nine six percent of the time. What's the point then,
Like it seems so I thought it was supposed to
be good. That that seems really really abysmal. Yeah, exactly.
And this leads to wrong full arrest. This can lead
to violence against someone who is saying, why are you
(37:12):
buoyed a gun on me? I'm just here to get
I'm trying to think of things. They're popular in Michigan.
I'm just trying to get some like the fago or
that um that Detroit style that the square pizza. You
know what I'm talking about. Uh, I don't know why
it's that. Do you know what I'm talking about? Detroit
has its special kind of pizza. Is it good? What's
(37:32):
it called? Well? You should ask Doc holiday she she
goes to Detroit. Right, Yeah, she's from Detroit. She said,
l m A O whoa in the chat, give us
the scoop, Doc, What's what's Detroit pizza called? Are waiting?
We're seeing a little little doctor, don't. I don't really
have a Detroit style pizza, but the Coney Island thing
is definitely there. The fatal thing with money. We're also
(37:55):
we like burners burners ginger ail. We don't really have
Detroit style pizza, but we do have l Detroit style.
Got it? Got it? Okay, okay, okay, I've never been
to Detroit. I need to. I need to pay the visit.
So we just got a we just we just got
(38:15):
an update from codename doc Holiday correcting us and saying that, uh,
there's not really what you would consider Detroit style pizza.
But there's like Detroit style Coney uh pizza, and then
there's a ginger Ale called Werners Dogs, the hot dog
(38:36):
like with the chili and cheese and onions and mustair.
All right, okay, so I've been corrected. Those are those
are hot dogs? Talking about Detroit style Coney Island dogs, Uh,
Detroit style hot dogs. There is You will see a
Detroit style pan pizza recipe on serious Seats or whatever.
(38:59):
But I'm gonna take the word of a of someone
with firsthand expertise in Detroit. Detroit or it's a lovely airport,
but I have not been outside of the airport unfortunately,
which is a shame. There's some great autumn museums. Anyway.
The big point here is that uh, facial recognition is
(39:20):
encountering a crossroads an existential threat, and maybe it should.
A city after city is evaluating some ban or another
on facial recognition. And like we said in our Clear
View AI episode, the technology always outpaces the legislation. Sometimes
(39:40):
we build the barn door after the livestock has fled,
and we can't get you know, we can't. While I'm
mixing metaphors, we can't screw the lid back on Pandora's jar.
And the problem here is that this changing this stuff
doesn't always help people who have been wrongfully arrested. You
(40:02):
know what I mean. They still lost uh, time from
their life, from their job, from their family. Time they
can't get back. You know. Uh, they may have incurred
great financial cost and you can only imagine the emotional hardship.
Portland's laws different from most of the others because it
doesn't limit the technology and fully outlaws it. Uh, this
(40:24):
is a thing you can do. Yeah, And you know
in that same vein again surrounding a lot of stuff
we've been seeing in the news in Portland, um, the
Mayor of Portland also banned tear gas and the use
of tear gas by police, which again probably more of
a symbolic gesture. If you've got federal forces moving in,
but uh step in the right direction. I would say, yeah, yeah.
(40:48):
And here's the implicit question before we move on to
our next story. So what happens? What happens if someone
violates this band? Uh, they're liable for lawsuits. They're required
to pay a thousand dollars a day for each day
of the violation. But you know, think about financial corruption
(41:09):
laws and banks. How long is it until this is
just the cost of doing business? That is something that's
up to future historians to tell us. But you know
that the next thing will happen is uh. It gets
us ever closer to that magical app I'm talking about
where you can run facial recognition on something, insert yourself
(41:31):
into a movie based on uh, an ad mixture of
three different films that you also liked, and will your
big trouble in Little Adaptation Part two Electric Boogaloo be
a work of art? I don't know. Maybe send it
to us, Yeah, we'd love to. We'd love to hear it. Um, Well,
(41:52):
you got anything else, Ben, I think this is a
fascinating story and be interested to see how it develops
or spreads or or doesn't. The future is terrifying and terrible. Uh,
and we're gonna take a break to talk about something
that is not robot related after a word from our sponsor.
(42:14):
I don't know if you all saw my chat and
if this needs to be corrected, but apparently there is
Detroit style pizza that I didn't know wasn't just everywhere
And we're back. We're back with some breaking news. Uh.
This is you may have noticed, folks. Earlier in the episode,
we had someone who is new to you on the
(42:34):
air that is the voice of our very own super producer,
Alexis Doc Holiday Jackson, who has over the break provided
us with a break eight news update. What's going on? Doc?
What's the word? So I googled this because I was
curious since we were talking about quote Detroit style pizza,
which I had never heard that term in my entire life.
(42:56):
Apparently there is Detroit style pizza, but it was what
I just knew as pizza growing up, because I did
not realize that this kind of pizza was not just
ubiquitous all over the United States or whatever else they
had pizza. But it's like pan style pizza, which apparently
was sort of invented by Buddy's Pizza, which I'm very
familiar with Buddi's pizza, but I didn't know that this
(43:17):
was a special kind of pizzas Alexis, they don't call
New York style pizza New York style pizza and New
York just pizza. That a lot of you were just
so invested and embedded in this world that you did.
It was just like regular to you, but to us,
it's it's foreign and exotic. You know, what is pizza
(43:38):
to me is apparently Detroit style pizza to those that
are not initiated. We have to we have to get
this show on the road, and uh well, we'll take
the whole gang. We'll take Matt with us, We'll take
Mission Control, will take you, Alexis. We've gotta on our
next tour. We have to hit up some spot in
Detroit and have a pizza party. Is that is that
(44:00):
an adult priority? Am I just inventing it to work
so we can? But I do want to like continue
to say that we are way more about Detroit Al
County dogs than any other kind of Detroit style food.
That's kind of our staple more than anything else. I'm
a real Chicago dog guy. I know it's not for
everybody because it's got like a pickle on it, and
like tomatoes and sport peppers and like, uh what is
(44:23):
the celery salts and and sesame seeds. I just love it.
It's like a salad on a hot dog. Not for everybody,
and mustard catchup is apparently, uh heresy in Chicago. Have
you guys seen those Korean hot dogs. It's like they're
from the future. You know, it's amazing, But it is important.
Everybody has very strongly held opinions about cuisine and about
(44:46):
their favorite approach to one type of dish or food
or another. And so, as we always like to say
when we are talking about very serious, sensitive topics, uh,
we do have a dedicated email just for complaints. Uh.
Please send your opinions to Jonathan Strickland at I heart
media dot com. Seven. Don't you know, don't feel like
(45:09):
you have to wait till business hours shot off. He'll
get right back to you and tell him. Tell him, uh,
tell him we uh we sent you uh okay, speaking
in a fantastic segues, So Matt is on adventures, but
he's here in spirit and he sent us Uh. He
sent us a story that he thought would be perfect
(45:29):
for strange news and I don't know about you know,
I don't know about you, Doc, but this made me
wonder if it's a clue to the nature of his adventures.
This week, it appears that orcas have gone on the offense.
They are attacking sailing boats throughout the coast of Spain
and Portugal. This is pretty weird, right, orcas are I'm
(45:53):
not an orca expert, you know what I mean, but
it seems like it's unusual for them to attack these vessels,
especially if they're not doing anything to irritate the orcas.
Orcas are the same as killer whales, right or No?
I believe that's the case. Yes, yeah, I think so.
There is. Actually, Ah, there's a movie called Orca about
(46:16):
like a very aggressive Jaws like killer whale. If I'm
not mistaken. Um from the seventies. Yeah, from the nineteen
seventies seven Orca. It looks pretty awesome. But yeah, Orca
of the Killer Whale, starring Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling.
Um looks like a lot of fun. I haven't seen it,
(46:37):
but after this story, I may well look it up. Yeah,
I don't know. It makes me think of some of
the stories we've covered about sonar interfering with underwater creatures
and and messing with their equilibrium and getting them agitated.
Like I wonder what's going on if there's something that
has to be something in the environment that's causing them
to get aggressive like that, if it's not something they
typically if it's not a behavior they typically exhib outside
(47:00):
of the movies, right, m that's correct. Yeah, Uh, this
is very this is extraordinarily unusual aggressive behavior. And Matt
when you're listening to the show here, Uh, my old friend,
I don't think I didn't notice that a lot of
these attacks are happening in the streets of Gibraltar. Ma's
(47:20):
but on a real Gibraltar kick for the past few
in the past few weeks. Um. Yeah, So there's an
incident that occurred in July of this year when one
Victoria Morris was on the crew of a ship that's
about forty six ft in length. She was in Spain
and nine killer whales nine Orca surrounded the boat. Uh.
(47:46):
The they started ramming the whole So this almost seems
like a premeditated, planned thing. Uh. They orcas are big, right,
So this is not like, um, it's not like a
bunch of guppies slapping against the hole or something. When
they ram this thing, they were able to spin the
boat a hundred and eighty degrees. It disabled the engine. Insane.
(48:11):
What is the beef here? Sorry to keep harping on
this movie, but I found a poster that might clear
this up for us. It says Orca the killer whale.
The killer whale is one of the most intelligent creatures
in the universe. Incredibly, he is the only animal other
than man who kills for revenge. He has one mate,
and if she is harmed by man, he will hunt
down that person with a relentless, terrible vengeance across seas,
(48:35):
across time, across all obstacles. A lot of text to
be on a movie poster. But how could all of
all of these whales have been collectively wronged by man?
Fascinating stuff? Are there any other developments? Well, here's the thing.
That pod focused its attacks for more than an hour,
and the crew was getting the life raft ready. They
(48:55):
were on the radio screaming Orca attack, and they were
preparing to abandon the ship. They thought that the Orcas
would be able to capsize the boat. And it's normal
for orcas to interact with human vessels. Uh. One person says,
(49:16):
you know, sometimes they'll bite the rudder of a ship
and they'll get dragged behind it as a game. Right.
These are very highly intelligent, highly social mammals. But this ramming,
at least the experts, appears to indicate some deep form
of stress. So it maybe that there was a calf
(49:37):
caught in a line somewhere and injured or killed. Uh So,
perhaps now pods of orcas are are seeking retribution for that.
This is not the only report. There was another one
that happened six days before the nine orcas incident. A
pod of four orcas attacked a attack of wheady foot
(50:00):
ship that was near bar Baits. And then there was
another attack, and there was another. There are multiple orca
attacks happening. No one is sure why at this point,
which is very um you know jokes, almost feel tired
at this point. But yeah, given you know, what else
(50:22):
I would tie to this story is the official study
that concluded the catastrophic loss of wildlife that's occurred in
the last fifty years. Maybe maybe nature is fighting back.
That was something that crossed. That crossed my mind too,
Uh in terms of like all of the rapacious behavior
(50:46):
really effects that man has kind of reeked upon nature
that maybe it is an example of that. Um, it
all sounds like kind of movie stuff to me. It's
it's fascinating. I wonder if we'll ever know for sure
what's causing these orcas to to behave this way. Well,
we do know that since nineteen seventy there has been
(51:06):
a sixty eight percent decline in more than twenty thousand
separate populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. We
are very close to what future historians will call the
end game. And I don't want to be alarmist or sensationalistic,
but for a number of years it's been an increasingly
(51:27):
likely possibility that if you have a kid today, when
they are eighteen years old, wild animals will be a
story that you tell them. God, what a downer. I'm sorry,
Come on, now, you're right though, do we? I mean
we're not. You've got to be better stewards of of
our of our environment and the planet, not to be
(51:47):
like two tree huggy about it. But even with stuff
like these crazy wildfires, we're seeing in northern California. It's
just really hard to keep hunting, you know, kicking the
can down the road, um and not acknowledging the We're
really gonna have to do some serious changing in the
way that we treat the planet if we wanted to
keep keep being viable. But unfortunately, a lot of folks
in power don't seem to care. I don't know, it
(52:11):
seems so shortsighted. I've always confused as to why there
isn't a bigger picture, uh, you know, kind of attitude
with with with corporations and people that are you know,
have the ability to make those changes. I know. And
we we just learned of some amazing discoveries in the
atmosphere of Venus. Might be the year that alien life
(52:34):
of some form is proven to exist. Uh. Now, one
of the questions is how long will earth life be around?
What if we find what if we find the alien
life just at the end of our time in the sun.
I do want to add one last note there not
to be uber depressing, but the current speculation about the
(52:58):
Orcas is that these attacks are all the actions of
one pod. Because people like Dr Ruth Esteban, who studied Gibraltar.
Orcas extensively thinks it's unlikely the two separate pods would
display this very unusual behavior. So there is a roving
gang of workers out there. Uh sail accordingly. Oh my gosh,
(53:22):
so what do we have here? We've got orcas and
facial recognition and what was mine again? Gosh? It seems
so long ago AI promising not to harm humans? Oh my, yes,
those things. Man, this is a doozy of an episode. Matt,
you are severely missed. But thanks for contributing this kind
(53:44):
of terrifying story to the mix. UM really interested to
see if if any more information will come out, and
that's something that we want to pass to you, fellow
conspiracy realist. As always, thank you for tuning in. The
stories do not end when the pod cast does continue
the conversation with us and more importantly, your fellow listeners
(54:04):
on the internet. We try to be easy to find.
You can find us on Facebook, you can find us
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(54:25):
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(54:47):
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(55:10):
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(55:37):
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