January 26, 2024 • 37 mins
From New York City to the state of Florida, politicians are getting serious as they face off against social media companies like Meta TikTok. Plus, we have a bunch of news around AI, an update on Tesla that has investors upset and we say farewell to an amazing little helicopter on Mars.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
tech are you? It is Friday, January twenty sixth, twenty
twenty four, and I thought maybe we would talk about
(00:27):
some tech news. And we've got a lot of news
that we could touch on due to the fact that
I was out of commission for most of the month.
But I figure we're just going to focus on what's recent.
So first up, this week, Tesla held an earnings call,
and the results didn't fill investors with optimism. The company
did not meet market expectations last quarter, and Elon Musk
(00:49):
indicated that twenty twenty four is likely to be a
slower year than what the company had hoped for. So
in response, investors lost a little bit of confidence in
the EV company and stock prices dropped around twelve percent.
Tesla is currently working on a new vehicle, which is
code named Redwood. This EV is said to be targeted
(01:11):
for like a lower price point. It's meant to be
a mass market vehicle and it's rumored to be in
the compact crossover category. Musk said it'll actually be sometime
in the second half of twenty twenty five when It's
Texas manufacturing facility will actually begin production. He also indicated
that Tesla employees should anticipate some very long work days
(01:36):
leading up to that production. He flat out said they
should expect to work long shifts and sleep at the
manufacturing plant. Once again, Musk shows he has a firm
grasp on how to motivate a workforce. In the meantime,
investors continue to worry about their nest eggs and they
shoot ugly glances at Musk whenever he gets bogged down
(01:58):
in X slash Twitter drama, which, as you imagine, happens
a lot. Next up, I've got a whole bunch of
social network related news, but mercifully I've left out the
stuff about X, because honestly, the recent X news is
just so ugly I can't even so. First up, Meta
(02:19):
announced that its platforms Facebook and Instagram will automatically block
any direct messages sent to teenage users unless those messages
come from someone who is already a friend of that
user on those platforms, and this applies even if both
of the users are teenagers. So if TEMA sends Team
(02:41):
B a DM but they aren't already friends on these platforms,
team B will not get that message. However, if they
are friends on the platform, the message will go through.
Also for Facebook Messenger, it's a little different. If Team
B is in Teena's phone contacts from why, I understand,
(03:02):
the message would then go through, but they have to
already be confirmed friends or contacts with each other. The
age barrier is dependent upon the country you're in, so
in some countries this will only impact users who are
under the age of sixteen. In a few other countries,
that age is actually up to eighteen. This is not
a perfect system because I don't know if you've heard
(03:25):
about this, but there's this thing called lying, in which
someone could tell a social platform that they're older when
in fact they are not. I know, it's insidious, right.
Meta does have some systems in place that are designed
to predict a person's age to try and head that
thing off, to determine, Hey, is this person actually the
(03:46):
age that they claim to be? But I have no
clue how good it is, how reliable is this tech?
I don't know, And considering how some of my grown
ass friends act like they're five year olds. I'm really
curious how any Aisis can figure out anything at all.
Meta has been under a ton of scrutiny and litigation
regarding how it can impact users, particularly young users, and
(04:12):
clearly this is a move to try and mollify some
of the company's harshest critics. If you'd like to learn more,
I recommend Mary Ella Moon's article Facebook and Instagram will
block dms to teens unless they're from a friend and
that is on the site. In Gadget Gizmotos, Thomas Jermaine
has what is, in my opinion, a justifiably snarky article
(04:35):
titled NYC mayor calls social media and environmental toxin announces
it on social media. Oh the irony so. Jermaine explains
that Mayor Eric Adams of the Big Apple took to
the podium as well as the Internet's to declare social
media a public menace, something akin to guns and tobacco,
(04:57):
which just makes me think that like our four fathers
in the US would have traded these things back in
the day. You know, you ship guns and tobacco and
social media across the frontier anyway. Mayor Adams was arguing
that social platforms have made choices that have caused direct
or indirect harm to young people. And honestly, I do
(05:18):
think there is some truth in that. We've talked on
the show about how algorithms can reinforce messaging that at
the very least is unhealthy or promotes misinformation. And these
social platforms use algorithms in order to drive engagement and
to keep people tied to their services for as long
as is possible, all to serve as many ads to
(05:42):
them as is possible. And to the platforms, it doesn't
really matter if the messages they serve are good or
bad or whatever. They're kind of amorl when it comes
to that. They just want the messages to be effective
to keep them there and to keep them engaged. It
doesn't matter what other impacted the messages might have. If
the bad messages are more effective at keeping people there
(06:05):
than good messages are, well, them's the breaks. So yeah,
I do think these networks have engaged in activities that
are harmful to users, not just young ones, old ones
like me too. I mean, it's the reason why you
don't find me on nearly any social media these days now.
Germaine in his article makes a solid point. There does
(06:26):
appear to be a correlation between social media use and
a decline in mental health. But we all know correlation
is not the same thing as causation. It's a leap
to say that one is causing the other, and that
is valid. It's possible that social media dependency does lead
(06:48):
to poor mental health. That is possible. It's also possible
that people who already have poor mental health find themselves
drawn to using social media more so it doesn't become
causal in one direction, maybe it's in the other. Maybe
the situation is far more complicated than any of that.
(07:09):
So Jermaine goes on to point out how social platforms
can and do exacerbate real problems in our real world,
like the spread of hate speech or misinformation. So there
are valid reasons to be concerned about social media, though honestly,
we have to remember these platforms they're facilitators. It's not
(07:29):
like they're magically generating this material, right, The materials not
originating out of the platforms. Regular old humans are doing this,
sometimes with the help of AI. So sometimes it's AI
boosted human efforts to spread misery. But the platforms just
make it really easy to deliver and spread the messaging,
(07:51):
and Jermaine rightly points out that even Mayor Adams points out,
we don't know to what extent or what in what
way social media actually interacts with mental health. It just
appears to have a negative relationship, but we don't really
know very much about that. But Mayor Adams is convinced
(08:14):
that it's bad and it should be addressed, So I
recommend reading the article. I don't one hundred percent agree
with Jermaine's point of view, but I feel like we're
more in agreement than otherwise. I just think we differ
a tiny bit toward the tail end of the matter.
But I'm also quick to say Jermaine may be more
right than I am. But go check out that article
(08:36):
to learn more. Katie Kinderln of Good Morning America on
ABC News wrote an article titled Florida House of Representatives
approves bill to ban social media for kids under sixteen.
So here we see another example of lawmakers taking a
stand against these companies and their networks. The bill will
actually need to go to the state's Senate for approval,
(08:58):
and then, if approved, it would then go to the
governor's desk to be signed into law or vetoed, whichever
the governor decides, although I think DeSantis would probably uphold
this one. Kendalyn points out that the bill passed with
an overwhelming majority in the House one hundred and six
one hundred and six to thirteen, and that the bill
received a good deal of bipartisan support, and that's understandable. Again,
(09:22):
there's this perception that social networks are hurting users, particularly
young ones. So the bill would make it illegal for
these platforms to grant accounts to any Floridian user under
the age of sixteen, something that I suspect will be
difficult to enforce. I mean, a kid in Florida could
either lie about their age or maybe where they live
(09:43):
in order to get around this block. Sure, a network
like Facebook could take note of a person's physical location
while they attempt to make an account, But who's to
say you couldn't make an account while you happen to
be on vacation. Like if I happened to be a
fifteen year old kid from Georgia and I'm decided that
I want to make a Facebook account while I'm vacationing
(10:04):
in Florida, maybe because I'm surrounded by old people and
it's rubbing off on me. I should be able to
do that, right because I'm not a citizen of Florida.
But maybe that Florida law would argue that it covers
everyone under the age of sixteen who's in the state,
whether they happen to be a citizen of the state
or not. Anyway, I don't think it's really enforceable. I
(10:26):
also don't think it addresses the root problem. Like I said,
these networks, they exacerbate things that are already out there,
and cutting off the networks doesn't stop the harm at best,
it just slows it down. Anyway, we'll follow up on
this story once we know where it goes, when it
passes through the state Senate, or if it doesn't pass
(10:47):
we'll check back then. One story that passed me by
while I was recovering from my little adventure through the
American healthcare system was that a media company called Doodzy
released a v on YouTube that ruffled a lot of
feathers because of how it used AI to quote unquote
resurrect a beloved comedian who passed away years ago. That
(11:09):
comedian was George Carlin, a man known for making shrewd
satirical and often hilarious observations about culture, politics, media, and
everything else. He had a reputation for pointing out hypocrisy
and holding it up for public scrutiny. While the media
company created an hour long comedy special featuring what they
(11:30):
claimed to be was an AI generated impression of Carlin. So,
according to the video, the voice, the content, the cadence,
the delivery, all of it came courtesy of AI attempting
to copy Carlin's style while generating new material. Now, Carlin's
estate has filed a lawsuit against this media company, arguing
(11:54):
that Dudezi has infringed upon copyright and has effectively stolen personality.
The estate seeks damages and also the immediate removal of
this video. So Carlin's estate also argues that the special
harms the comedian's reputation and that it does represent theft.
It's one of the most high profile examples of creatives
(12:15):
criticizing AI content generation and arguing that the whole enterprise
depends upon plagiarism and that stands as a threat to
anyone who's actually in a creative field. This is one
of the big concerns that both the Writer's Guild of
America and sag Aftra had in their recent strikes against
producers in Hollywood that studios could use AI to bypass
(12:37):
real human creatives entirely while making something that lacks the
sole sincerity and creativity of human endeavor. If you'd like
to learn more, I recommend checking out J. Kim Murphy's
article George Carlin Estate files lawsuit against group behind AI
generated stand up Special, a casual theft of a great
(12:58):
American artist's work that's in variety. Wired's Paresh Dave has
an article titled open Ai Quietly Scrapped a promise to
disclose key documents to the public, and I think it's
well worth reading. It's another illustration of how the Open
Ai of today appears to be quite different from the
original concept of the organization. So back in the idealistic days,
(13:22):
the company's founders, which at the time included Elon Musk,
intended open ai to be a research center committed to
advancing AI technologies in a responsible, safe and helpful way,
and to share its findings with the world to best
ensure that we all enter a future in which AI
provides the most benefit and the fewest terminators, and that
(13:45):
requires a certain level of transparency. However, it seems that
open ai has now drifted a bit from those ideals,
which reminds me a lot of Google. Once upon a time,
Google famously had a motto that read don't be Evil
as part of its corporate conduct. In fact, it was
in the preface for its corporate conduct and was up
(14:06):
on the walls of certain Google buildings. But Google took
that motto off the preface and the walls and then
just sort of buried it at the end of the
corporate conduct statement. So it's still there, but it's just
now it's at the end of it, not prominently at
the very beginning, and it kind of was an indicator
(14:29):
that Google had changed its approach. Well. Anyway, Wired sent
a request for documents from open ai back in December
of last year, and they received a response saying that
open AI's policy of sharing governing documents has changed. That
changed back in twenty twenty two, and now the company
only sends financial statements. As Wired points out, this could
(14:53):
be one of several changes that prompted the former board
of directors of open ai to suddenly co founder and
CEO Sam Altman last year. Of course, that decision didn't
last very long, and soon afterward the entire board of
directors almost had changed and Sam Altman was back in
(15:13):
the saddle. But my point is, it looks like open
Ai has changed, perhaps gradually, to a point that it's
at odds with the original founding mission of the company,
and that the board was uncomfortable with how things were going.
It seems a bit like a boiling frog situation. You
know that idea that you got a frog in water
(15:34):
and you just gradually increase the temperature of the water
until the frog is done dead from being boiled, and
it never hopped out because you know you were increasing
that temperature so gradually you SICKO. Anyway, I recommend the
article to learn more about how things have changed, as
well as what this could possibly mean for open AI
and the way that companies tackle AI development in general. Okay,
(15:56):
we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
we got a lot more tech news to go through.
We're back and still have a couple of AI things
to chat about. So Scott Foster of Asia Times has
(16:18):
a short article titled Samsung to build all AI no
human chip factories, So yes, the future of an all robot.
All automated manufacturing facility is around the corner. They would seem.
It's still gonna take some time right now. The projected
launch date would be sometime around twenty thirty. If it works,
(16:40):
then the manufacturing plant won't rely on human labor at all.
AI will design and build and package products all by itself.
Oh brave new world to have no people in it.
The Washington Post reported this week that the Securities in
Exchange Commission the SEC and the Department of Justice DOJ
(17:01):
here in the United States, the US are investigating GM's
Cruise division. That is, the division that's in charge of developing, deploying,
and operating driverless vehicles, which have been used as a
ride hailing service. Last year, one of the Cruise vehicles
was involved in an accident, and it included an incident
(17:22):
in which the cruise vehicle struck a pedestrian and dragged
her for twenty feet at approximately seven miles per hour.
While the vehicle should have immediately come to a stop
after striking the pedestrian, in fact, it shouldn't have struck
the pedestrian at all, but once doing so, it should
have stopped. Instead, it mistakenly interpreted the accident as one
that impacted the car's side and so it was attempting
(17:46):
to pull over and get out of traffic. The pedestrians
suffered additional injuries due to this error, as you can imagine.
I mean, if you're being dragged behind a car at
seven miles per hour, that's like twice the speed of walking.
That's going to hurt. So the next day, government officials
met with the company to investigate the incident, which makes sense,
(18:08):
and at that meeting, Cruise employees failed to, you know,
mention that their car had dragged a person twenty feet
down the road at seven miles per hour. So instead
their narrative largely focused on another vehicle, a Nissan that
was under human control, that was also involved in this accident,
(18:29):
and the implication appeared to be that Cruz was saying
it was really the driver of the Nissan, it was
their fault for the pedestrians injuries, and that the Cruise
vehicle really wasn't to blame. Now, according to Cruise, their
intention was to show a video of the incident to officials,
(18:50):
and this video presumably would have included the fact that
the pedestrian had been dragged behind the Cruise vehicle, but
a problem with their internet meant they couldn't get the
video to play. And then CRU's employees just sort of,
you know, didn't mention it. They didn't say, hey, you know,
the video would have shown this, and we probably should
(19:11):
tell you that our card dragged her for twenty feet.
They didn't. They didn't cover the gap that was left
by this lack of video, which seems pretty darn horrifying
not to mention stupid. I mean, you'd have to assume
that the truth would come out, and it did so
not being forthcoming and bringing it up yourself makes you
(19:34):
look even worse, which it has, at least in my
opinion it has. Anyway, since that incident, the division of
Cruz has changed quite a bit. Co founder Daniel Khan
resigned from Cruz, Kyle Vote, the CEO, left the company,
(19:55):
and GM also downsized nearly a quarter of the staff
working at cru So just another example of what can
happen when AI goes wrong, not to mention when people
fail to acknowledge when AI has gone wrong. Next up,
Apple is loosening its grip on iOS a little bit,
(20:16):
but only if you happen to live in the European Union.
This is, of course, so that Apple will be in
compliance with regulations that passed in the EU just last year,
and Apple is not happy about it. So it's not
like the company had some sort of massive change of
heart or anything. In fact, Apple representatives have indicated in
(20:39):
plain English that the company feels this is a terrible,
terrible mistake. But the changes mean that for the first time,
EU iPhone users will be able to install fully featured
browsers other than Safari on their iPhones. So you have
to understand that these browsers run on of browser engines,
(21:02):
kind of like how game engines provide a foundation for
certain types of video games, and that's why certain video
games feel very different from others, is that they might
be built on top of a different game engine. Well,
browsers are built on top of browser engines, and on iPhones,
at least up until now, all browsers needed to run
(21:24):
on top of the WebKit browser engine. However, several competing
browsers typically would use a totally different browser engine to
underlie their functionality. So in order to comply with Apple's
requirements and to be able to run on Apple devices,
these other browsers had to make a version of their
(21:47):
browser that could run on top of WebKit, and sometimes
that meant they had to shed features that would work
on their browser in order to be compatible with WebKit.
But now EU iPhone users can have other browser engines
on them, which means these alternatives like Google Chrome will
be able to exist fully featured on iOS devices for
(22:12):
the first time. Now that's just one change that's happening
with iPhones and other iOS devices in the EU. Another
is that Apple is going to allow users to sideload
apps onto their devices for the first time. Sideloading is
when you go to some third party source for apps,
(22:32):
so you're not going to the official iOS app store.
In the past, Apple only let you download apps from
the official store unless you went to some sort of
extreme like if you did a jail break on your iPhone,
which was not easy to do and sometimes could break
your phone, then you had to get all of your
apps from the iOS store. However, now EU users will
(22:54):
be able to access third party apps or third party
stores in order to get apps, and Apple says this
is dangerous for the Apple's longest running statement on this
is that the reason why they have this draconian control
over where you can get your apps on your phone
is in order to protect you. It's because you, as
(23:17):
a user are far too vulnerable and you're just a
naive little fond dancing through the woods, and meanwhile there
are predators all around you. So Apple says that allowing
people to sideload apps is a compromise to privacy and security,
but they have to do it. They have to comply
with these EU rules. So regulators have said the reason
(23:38):
why they've got to comply is because the policy Apple
had in place gave it a monopolistic hold on its
app system, and that this would open up the app environment.
And it'll be interesting to see what it all looks
like a year from now. So will the EU show
how an open environment benefits customers or will the entire
(24:00):
Higher Continent be reduced to sinders because regulators allowed chaos
to rain unchecked. We'll just have to wait and see. Recently,
Netflix revealed that one place you will not be able
to access its content is on the upcoming mixed reality
headset from Apple called the Vision Pro. You won't even
(24:21):
be able to launch the iPad version of the Netflix
app on the Vision Pro when it launches next week.
At least not as it stands right now. You will
be able to access Netflix if you use the vision
Pro and you go through Safari. So if you actually
do the web browser version, but you won't have a
native app for the headset, nor will you be able
(24:42):
to use the iPad version. So according to nine to
five Mac, Netflix's CEO actually just one of Netflix's CEO,
there are co CEOs, Greg Peters. He said that the
vision pro is quote unquote subscale. By that, he means
there wouldn't be enough un in circulation and enough interest
(25:02):
among the owners of those units to justify building out
an experiencement just for that platform. It would cost more
than what they would make back from the people who
actually owned these devices. Sick Burn. I mean, it's interesting
to me because for a very long time I would
joke that Netflix's strategy was to get on every single
(25:25):
screen it could, whether that screen was on a smartphone
or a tablet, or it was part of a video
game console, or maybe a smart refrigerator or perhaps your
washing machine. So for Netflix to say, yeah, we figure
that this is not a good return on investment. When
it comes to the Vision Pro, it seems at least
(25:47):
initially to be a pretty big slap to Apple's face,
but then we figure that Apple isn't producing a huge
number of these things. It's probably in the tens of thousands,
and the fact that they'd cost more than three grand
a pop means it is going to be a niche
product for the most part. There are always Apple fanatics,
(26:08):
there are developers who are interested in the platform, there
are companies that are interested in a platform. But still
it's kind of phenomenal in a world where we worry
about inflation and there's been so much talk about inflation
and making sure that you're spending money wisely, that people
are still willing to spend thousands of dollars on an
(26:29):
unproven mixed reality headset that appears to be a huge
compromise from Apple's original quote unquote vision. It just it
blows my mind. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. There
are people who have way more money than they have since,
and I guess that's always going to be the case anyway.
If you bought a Vision pro, by the way, no
(26:50):
shade on you, like you probably have legit reasons why
you did. I'm just still flabbergasted that they sold all
of the pre production units, or at least all the
ones that they plan on manufacturing in the near future. Anyway,
it's still pretty fair to say that it would be
a difficult sell to make something specific for the Vision
(27:13):
Pro just because the user base is going to be small.
In fact, that's probably going to be a big challenge
for Apple moving forward, convincing developers to spend the time
and money it takes to create new apps for the
Vision Pro knowing that there's a limited reach, like there's
just a limited user base, and are these developers willing
(27:37):
to perhaps take a loss on that initial launch group
in the hopes that it will establish a foundation for
a larger customer base moving forward. I don't know the
answer to that. I know that if I were developing apps,
I would be thinking twice before creating something for the
Vision Pro, just because I could spend that same amount
(27:59):
of time. I'm an effort developing for established platforms and
actually know that I have a good chance of making
a return on my investment rather than doing something that
might work out. But then it's Apple. Apple's got such
a long track record of making technology work when nobody
else could make it work. Before them. It's hard for
(28:22):
me to say anyway, it's it's going to be interesting
to see how things unfold once the product launches next week,
and I'm very curious to hear people's honest reviews of it.
I have a suspicion that the actual experience of using
the device is pretty darn impressive, but I'm not sure
(28:45):
it will be enough to convince someone like me to
start setting money aside to buy it. I just don't
think it's enough for me yet. Anyway, that's enough about that.
We're going to take another quick break and when we
come back, I've got a little bit more news to
finish off with, so we'll be back right after these messages. Okay,
(29:18):
we're back, and we've got a little bit of a
inspiring but sort of sad story, and that is the
Ingenuity helicopter has flown its final mission on Mars. This
was the little drone copter that could, and it last
flew on January eighteenth. It briefly lost contact with the
(29:40):
Perseverance land Rover that's the vehicle that it launched with
way back in the day, but the two regained connectivity
a little bit later, and at that point NASA engineers
discovered that at least one of Ingenuity's rotors had broken
during its final flight, so it will go flying no more.
But this little sucker had already achieved far more than
(30:04):
what NASA initially hoped. Now, let's set aside the fact
that NASA occasionally sets modest goals with the hopes of
exceeding them, kind of following in the footsteps of engineer
Scotty on Star Trek, who would always say he would
underpromise and over deliver. That way, it always seemed like
(30:26):
he was a genius. Right If he says, oh, I
have it to you in three hours, and then like
in an hour later he gets it done, it looks
like he just really busted his button got it done.
NASA kind of follows the same thing, like they're careful
with setting mission parameters because space is hard y'all. Like,
I don't want to take anything away from NASA. Being
(30:47):
able to do anything successfully in a space oriented mission
is a huge achievement, So being careful with your goals
is a good thing. So NASA's mission parameters for Ingenuity
were for it to do five test flights over the
(31:08):
course of thirty days. That was it. They thought, if
we can do five, like, we don't even know if
we can take off once because Mars's atmosphere is really thin,
so you have to you know, being able to provide
enough lift to get even a light drone off the
ground is challenging. You just you don't have the thickness
of atmosphere that you would have in a place like Earth.
(31:30):
But by the end of Ingenuity's time on Mars, it
had flown seventy two times phenomenal. It had even survived
Martian Winter like there was concern that the cold of
Mars's winter would really shut down all of Ingenuity systems,
(31:53):
and it did, but NASA was able to reheat those
systems and to reboot Ingenuities computer systems and have it
still be operational. They even sent updates to Ingenuities capabilities,
like they gave it firmware updates, and it suddenly was
able to do more autonomous activities like identifying safe landing zones.
(32:17):
It even did a couple of emergency landings and did
so successfully. It's just fantastic, and it means that there
was this huge amount of information and practical experience that
NASA was able to gather that they can then use
to build into future missions. And when you start to
think about how far drone technology has come over the
(32:41):
last decade because Ingenuities planning started like back in twenty twelve,
when you think about how far we've come with those advancements,
it really makes you get excited about the future of
space exploration and space travel because we can apply what
we know as well as the advances in that technology
(33:03):
to create even better, more capable drones in the future
and use them to conduct science that in the past
would have been impossible for us. So honestly, my head
is off for Ingenuity and the team behind it. Y'all
did good. This was an incredible achievement, one that I
(33:24):
don't think I would have imagined I would have seen
in my lifetime, so I'm so pleased that I'm wrong
about that. Now, that wraps up the main news items,
but before I go, I do have a couple of
article recommendations for you on top of the ones I've
mentioned already in this episode. Both of these recommendations involve
(33:46):
upsetting stories, so these are not happy stories. And first
up is a piece by Janie Rose of Motherboard, and
it's an article that's titled Taylor Swift is Living every
Woman's AI Nightmare. And as the title suggests, this is
about deep fake technology and how it enables people to
(34:07):
dehumanize victims. And let's face it, most of these victims
are women or they are female presenting, and they use
these to create all sorts of AI generated pornographic images
and then they spread them online and lots of platforms
have served as kind of distribution centers. X is a
(34:31):
big one. Reddit used to be. They've gotten better at
cutting back on that, but yeah, there are places online
where this just sort of runs rampant. You're not surprised
that it does so on X because Elon Musk famously
cut way back on content moderation when he acquired that
company and has shown very little interest in addressing these things,
(34:55):
so it becomes an ongoing issue over there. I think
the article is a really important read, and it does
tie in with some of the threads that I mentioned
in the George Carlin story in this episode, right, this
idea of using AI to victimize people in various ways.
(35:15):
The deep fake stuff is really disturbing. It's been really
troubling to me for a couple of years. Now and
it's only getting worse. And obviously the sexualization is one
element of deep fake technology, but there are other facets too, right,
Like there's the potential of using deep fakes to spread misinformation.
(35:37):
It's a really troubling topic, but I think it's an
important article to read. Again. That's called Taylor Swift is
Living every Woman's AI porn Nightmare. It's on Motherboard or
Vice if you prefer. It's by Jenis Rose. The other
article I want to recommend is from our old buddy
Thomas Jermaine, and by old buddy. Don't know Thomas Jermaine
(36:01):
at all. We just mentioned one of his articles earlier
in this episode. This is on Gizmoto. The article is
titled iPhone apps secretly harvest data when they send you notifications.
Researchers find so yeah, not happy, right, like to find
out that just by receiving a notification, an app may
be gathering information about you. In fact, is gathering information
(36:24):
about you and the implications that has on your own
privacy and security. It's it's not fun to read about,
but I think it is important to know about, particularly
if you have any concern at all about privacy and security. Now,
as always, I have no connection to these reporters, to
(36:45):
the writers, journalists, to the outlets. I just find their
work to be interesting and worth reading. So go check
that out. And that wraps up this tech news episode
for this week on January twenty sixth, twenty twenty four.
I hope all of you are well. I'm getting better
every day, which is nice. It's a nice change of pace,
(37:07):
and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
tech are you? It is Friday, January twenty sixth, twenty
twenty four, and I thought maybe we would talk about
(00:27):
some tech news. And we've got a lot of news
that we could touch on due to the fact that
I was out of commission for most of the month.
But I figure we're just going to focus on what's recent.
So first up, this week, Tesla held an earnings call,
and the results didn't fill investors with optimism. The company
did not meet market expectations last quarter, and Elon Musk
(00:49):
indicated that twenty twenty four is likely to be a
slower year than what the company had hoped for. So
in response, investors lost a little bit of confidence in
the EV company and stock prices dropped around twelve percent.
Tesla is currently working on a new vehicle, which is
code named Redwood. This EV is said to be targeted
(01:11):
for like a lower price point. It's meant to be
a mass market vehicle and it's rumored to be in
the compact crossover category. Musk said it'll actually be sometime
in the second half of twenty twenty five when It's
Texas manufacturing facility will actually begin production. He also indicated
that Tesla employees should anticipate some very long work days
(01:36):
leading up to that production. He flat out said they
should expect to work long shifts and sleep at the
manufacturing plant. Once again, Musk shows he has a firm
grasp on how to motivate a workforce. In the meantime,
investors continue to worry about their nest eggs and they
shoot ugly glances at Musk whenever he gets bogged down
(01:58):
in X slash Twitter drama, which, as you imagine, happens
a lot. Next up, I've got a whole bunch of
social network related news, but mercifully I've left out the
stuff about X, because honestly, the recent X news is
just so ugly I can't even so. First up, Meta
(02:19):
announced that its platforms Facebook and Instagram will automatically block
any direct messages sent to teenage users unless those messages
come from someone who is already a friend of that
user on those platforms, and this applies even if both
of the users are teenagers. So if TEMA sends Team
(02:41):
B a DM but they aren't already friends on these platforms,
team B will not get that message. However, if they
are friends on the platform, the message will go through.
Also for Facebook Messenger, it's a little different. If Team
B is in Teena's phone contacts from why, I understand,
(03:02):
the message would then go through, but they have to
already be confirmed friends or contacts with each other. The
age barrier is dependent upon the country you're in, so
in some countries this will only impact users who are
under the age of sixteen. In a few other countries,
that age is actually up to eighteen. This is not
a perfect system because I don't know if you've heard
(03:25):
about this, but there's this thing called lying, in which
someone could tell a social platform that they're older when
in fact they are not. I know, it's insidious, right.
Meta does have some systems in place that are designed
to predict a person's age to try and head that
thing off, to determine, Hey, is this person actually the
(03:46):
age that they claim to be? But I have no
clue how good it is, how reliable is this tech?
I don't know, And considering how some of my grown
ass friends act like they're five year olds. I'm really
curious how any Aisis can figure out anything at all.
Meta has been under a ton of scrutiny and litigation
regarding how it can impact users, particularly young users, and
(04:12):
clearly this is a move to try and mollify some
of the company's harshest critics. If you'd like to learn more,
I recommend Mary Ella Moon's article Facebook and Instagram will
block dms to teens unless they're from a friend and
that is on the site. In Gadget Gizmotos, Thomas Jermaine
has what is, in my opinion, a justifiably snarky article
(04:35):
titled NYC mayor calls social media and environmental toxin announces
it on social media. Oh the irony so. Jermaine explains
that Mayor Eric Adams of the Big Apple took to
the podium as well as the Internet's to declare social
media a public menace, something akin to guns and tobacco,
(04:57):
which just makes me think that like our four fathers
in the US would have traded these things back in
the day. You know, you ship guns and tobacco and
social media across the frontier anyway. Mayor Adams was arguing
that social platforms have made choices that have caused direct
or indirect harm to young people. And honestly, I do
(05:18):
think there is some truth in that. We've talked on
the show about how algorithms can reinforce messaging that at
the very least is unhealthy or promotes misinformation. And these
social platforms use algorithms in order to drive engagement and
to keep people tied to their services for as long
as is possible, all to serve as many ads to
(05:42):
them as is possible. And to the platforms, it doesn't
really matter if the messages they serve are good or
bad or whatever. They're kind of amorl when it comes
to that. They just want the messages to be effective
to keep them there and to keep them engaged. It
doesn't matter what other impacted the messages might have. If
the bad messages are more effective at keeping people there
(06:05):
than good messages are, well, them's the breaks. So yeah,
I do think these networks have engaged in activities that
are harmful to users, not just young ones, old ones
like me too. I mean, it's the reason why you
don't find me on nearly any social media these days now.
Germaine in his article makes a solid point. There does
(06:26):
appear to be a correlation between social media use and
a decline in mental health. But we all know correlation
is not the same thing as causation. It's a leap
to say that one is causing the other, and that
is valid. It's possible that social media dependency does lead
(06:48):
to poor mental health. That is possible. It's also possible
that people who already have poor mental health find themselves
drawn to using social media more so it doesn't become
causal in one direction, maybe it's in the other. Maybe
the situation is far more complicated than any of that.
(07:09):
So Jermaine goes on to point out how social platforms
can and do exacerbate real problems in our real world,
like the spread of hate speech or misinformation. So there
are valid reasons to be concerned about social media, though honestly,
we have to remember these platforms they're facilitators. It's not
(07:29):
like they're magically generating this material, right, The materials not
originating out of the platforms. Regular old humans are doing this,
sometimes with the help of AI. So sometimes it's AI
boosted human efforts to spread misery. But the platforms just
make it really easy to deliver and spread the messaging,
(07:51):
and Jermaine rightly points out that even Mayor Adams points out,
we don't know to what extent or what in what
way social media actually interacts with mental health. It just
appears to have a negative relationship, but we don't really
know very much about that. But Mayor Adams is convinced
(08:14):
that it's bad and it should be addressed, So I
recommend reading the article. I don't one hundred percent agree
with Jermaine's point of view, but I feel like we're
more in agreement than otherwise. I just think we differ
a tiny bit toward the tail end of the matter.
But I'm also quick to say Jermaine may be more
right than I am. But go check out that article
(08:36):
to learn more. Katie Kinderln of Good Morning America on
ABC News wrote an article titled Florida House of Representatives
approves bill to ban social media for kids under sixteen.
So here we see another example of lawmakers taking a
stand against these companies and their networks. The bill will
actually need to go to the state's Senate for approval,
(08:58):
and then, if approved, it would then go to the
governor's desk to be signed into law or vetoed, whichever
the governor decides, although I think DeSantis would probably uphold
this one. Kendalyn points out that the bill passed with
an overwhelming majority in the House one hundred and six
one hundred and six to thirteen, and that the bill
received a good deal of bipartisan support, and that's understandable. Again,
(09:22):
there's this perception that social networks are hurting users, particularly
young ones. So the bill would make it illegal for
these platforms to grant accounts to any Floridian user under
the age of sixteen, something that I suspect will be
difficult to enforce. I mean, a kid in Florida could
either lie about their age or maybe where they live
(09:43):
in order to get around this block. Sure, a network
like Facebook could take note of a person's physical location
while they attempt to make an account, But who's to
say you couldn't make an account while you happen to
be on vacation. Like if I happened to be a
fifteen year old kid from Georgia and I'm decided that
I want to make a Facebook account while I'm vacationing
(10:04):
in Florida, maybe because I'm surrounded by old people and
it's rubbing off on me. I should be able to
do that, right because I'm not a citizen of Florida.
But maybe that Florida law would argue that it covers
everyone under the age of sixteen who's in the state,
whether they happen to be a citizen of the state
or not. Anyway, I don't think it's really enforceable. I
(10:26):
also don't think it addresses the root problem. Like I said,
these networks, they exacerbate things that are already out there,
and cutting off the networks doesn't stop the harm at best,
it just slows it down. Anyway, we'll follow up on
this story once we know where it goes, when it
passes through the state Senate, or if it doesn't pass
(10:47):
we'll check back then. One story that passed me by
while I was recovering from my little adventure through the
American healthcare system was that a media company called Doodzy
released a v on YouTube that ruffled a lot of
feathers because of how it used AI to quote unquote
resurrect a beloved comedian who passed away years ago. That
(11:09):
comedian was George Carlin, a man known for making shrewd
satirical and often hilarious observations about culture, politics, media, and
everything else. He had a reputation for pointing out hypocrisy
and holding it up for public scrutiny. While the media
company created an hour long comedy special featuring what they
(11:30):
claimed to be was an AI generated impression of Carlin. So,
according to the video, the voice, the content, the cadence,
the delivery, all of it came courtesy of AI attempting
to copy Carlin's style while generating new material. Now, Carlin's
estate has filed a lawsuit against this media company, arguing
(11:54):
that Dudezi has infringed upon copyright and has effectively stolen personality.
The estate seeks damages and also the immediate removal of
this video. So Carlin's estate also argues that the special
harms the comedian's reputation and that it does represent theft.
It's one of the most high profile examples of creatives
(12:15):
criticizing AI content generation and arguing that the whole enterprise
depends upon plagiarism and that stands as a threat to
anyone who's actually in a creative field. This is one
of the big concerns that both the Writer's Guild of
America and sag Aftra had in their recent strikes against
producers in Hollywood that studios could use AI to bypass
(12:37):
real human creatives entirely while making something that lacks the
sole sincerity and creativity of human endeavor. If you'd like
to learn more, I recommend checking out J. Kim Murphy's
article George Carlin Estate files lawsuit against group behind AI
generated stand up Special, a casual theft of a great
(12:58):
American artist's work that's in variety. Wired's Paresh Dave has
an article titled open Ai Quietly Scrapped a promise to
disclose key documents to the public, and I think it's
well worth reading. It's another illustration of how the Open
Ai of today appears to be quite different from the
original concept of the organization. So back in the idealistic days,
(13:22):
the company's founders, which at the time included Elon Musk,
intended open ai to be a research center committed to
advancing AI technologies in a responsible, safe and helpful way,
and to share its findings with the world to best
ensure that we all enter a future in which AI
provides the most benefit and the fewest terminators, and that
(13:45):
requires a certain level of transparency. However, it seems that
open ai has now drifted a bit from those ideals,
which reminds me a lot of Google. Once upon a time,
Google famously had a motto that read don't be Evil
as part of its corporate conduct. In fact, it was
in the preface for its corporate conduct and was up
(14:06):
on the walls of certain Google buildings. But Google took
that motto off the preface and the walls and then
just sort of buried it at the end of the
corporate conduct statement. So it's still there, but it's just
now it's at the end of it, not prominently at
the very beginning, and it kind of was an indicator
(14:29):
that Google had changed its approach. Well. Anyway, Wired sent
a request for documents from open ai back in December
of last year, and they received a response saying that
open AI's policy of sharing governing documents has changed. That
changed back in twenty twenty two, and now the company
only sends financial statements. As Wired points out, this could
(14:53):
be one of several changes that prompted the former board
of directors of open ai to suddenly co founder and
CEO Sam Altman last year. Of course, that decision didn't
last very long, and soon afterward the entire board of
directors almost had changed and Sam Altman was back in
(15:13):
the saddle. But my point is, it looks like open
Ai has changed, perhaps gradually, to a point that it's
at odds with the original founding mission of the company,
and that the board was uncomfortable with how things were going.
It seems a bit like a boiling frog situation. You
know that idea that you got a frog in water
(15:34):
and you just gradually increase the temperature of the water
until the frog is done dead from being boiled, and
it never hopped out because you know you were increasing
that temperature so gradually you SICKO. Anyway, I recommend the
article to learn more about how things have changed, as
well as what this could possibly mean for open AI
and the way that companies tackle AI development in general. Okay,
(15:56):
we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
we got a lot more tech news to go through.
We're back and still have a couple of AI things
to chat about. So Scott Foster of Asia Times has
(16:18):
a short article titled Samsung to build all AI no
human chip factories, So yes, the future of an all robot.
All automated manufacturing facility is around the corner. They would seem.
It's still gonna take some time right now. The projected
launch date would be sometime around twenty thirty. If it works,
(16:40):
then the manufacturing plant won't rely on human labor at all.
AI will design and build and package products all by itself.
Oh brave new world to have no people in it.
The Washington Post reported this week that the Securities in
Exchange Commission the SEC and the Department of Justice DOJ
(17:01):
here in the United States, the US are investigating GM's
Cruise division. That is, the division that's in charge of developing, deploying,
and operating driverless vehicles, which have been used as a
ride hailing service. Last year, one of the Cruise vehicles
was involved in an accident, and it included an incident
(17:22):
in which the cruise vehicle struck a pedestrian and dragged
her for twenty feet at approximately seven miles per hour.
While the vehicle should have immediately come to a stop
after striking the pedestrian, in fact, it shouldn't have struck
the pedestrian at all, but once doing so, it should
have stopped. Instead, it mistakenly interpreted the accident as one
that impacted the car's side and so it was attempting
(17:46):
to pull over and get out of traffic. The pedestrians
suffered additional injuries due to this error, as you can imagine.
I mean, if you're being dragged behind a car at
seven miles per hour, that's like twice the speed of walking.
That's going to hurt. So the next day, government officials
met with the company to investigate the incident, which makes sense,
(18:08):
and at that meeting, Cruise employees failed to, you know,
mention that their car had dragged a person twenty feet
down the road at seven miles per hour. So instead
their narrative largely focused on another vehicle, a Nissan that
was under human control, that was also involved in this accident,
(18:29):
and the implication appeared to be that Cruz was saying
it was really the driver of the Nissan, it was
their fault for the pedestrians injuries, and that the Cruise
vehicle really wasn't to blame. Now, according to Cruise, their
intention was to show a video of the incident to officials,
(18:50):
and this video presumably would have included the fact that
the pedestrian had been dragged behind the Cruise vehicle, but
a problem with their internet meant they couldn't get the
video to play. And then CRU's employees just sort of,
you know, didn't mention it. They didn't say, hey, you know,
the video would have shown this, and we probably should
(19:11):
tell you that our card dragged her for twenty feet.
They didn't. They didn't cover the gap that was left
by this lack of video, which seems pretty darn horrifying
not to mention stupid. I mean, you'd have to assume
that the truth would come out, and it did so
not being forthcoming and bringing it up yourself makes you
(19:34):
look even worse, which it has, at least in my
opinion it has. Anyway, since that incident, the division of
Cruz has changed quite a bit. Co founder Daniel Khan
resigned from Cruz, Kyle Vote, the CEO, left the company,
(19:55):
and GM also downsized nearly a quarter of the staff
working at cru So just another example of what can
happen when AI goes wrong, not to mention when people
fail to acknowledge when AI has gone wrong. Next up,
Apple is loosening its grip on iOS a little bit,
(20:16):
but only if you happen to live in the European Union.
This is, of course, so that Apple will be in
compliance with regulations that passed in the EU just last year,
and Apple is not happy about it. So it's not
like the company had some sort of massive change of
heart or anything. In fact, Apple representatives have indicated in
(20:39):
plain English that the company feels this is a terrible,
terrible mistake. But the changes mean that for the first time,
EU iPhone users will be able to install fully featured
browsers other than Safari on their iPhones. So you have
to understand that these browsers run on of browser engines,
(21:02):
kind of like how game engines provide a foundation for
certain types of video games, and that's why certain video
games feel very different from others, is that they might
be built on top of a different game engine. Well,
browsers are built on top of browser engines, and on iPhones,
at least up until now, all browsers needed to run
(21:24):
on top of the WebKit browser engine. However, several competing
browsers typically would use a totally different browser engine to
underlie their functionality. So in order to comply with Apple's
requirements and to be able to run on Apple devices,
these other browsers had to make a version of their
(21:47):
browser that could run on top of WebKit, and sometimes
that meant they had to shed features that would work
on their browser in order to be compatible with WebKit.
But now EU iPhone users can have other browser engines
on them, which means these alternatives like Google Chrome will
be able to exist fully featured on iOS devices for
(22:12):
the first time. Now that's just one change that's happening
with iPhones and other iOS devices in the EU. Another
is that Apple is going to allow users to sideload
apps onto their devices for the first time. Sideloading is
when you go to some third party source for apps,
(22:32):
so you're not going to the official iOS app store.
In the past, Apple only let you download apps from
the official store unless you went to some sort of
extreme like if you did a jail break on your iPhone,
which was not easy to do and sometimes could break
your phone, then you had to get all of your
apps from the iOS store. However, now EU users will
(22:54):
be able to access third party apps or third party
stores in order to get apps, and Apple says this
is dangerous for the Apple's longest running statement on this
is that the reason why they have this draconian control
over where you can get your apps on your phone
is in order to protect you. It's because you, as
(23:17):
a user are far too vulnerable and you're just a
naive little fond dancing through the woods, and meanwhile there
are predators all around you. So Apple says that allowing
people to sideload apps is a compromise to privacy and security,
but they have to do it. They have to comply
with these EU rules. So regulators have said the reason
(23:38):
why they've got to comply is because the policy Apple
had in place gave it a monopolistic hold on its
app system, and that this would open up the app environment.
And it'll be interesting to see what it all looks
like a year from now. So will the EU show
how an open environment benefits customers or will the entire
(24:00):
Higher Continent be reduced to sinders because regulators allowed chaos
to rain unchecked. We'll just have to wait and see. Recently,
Netflix revealed that one place you will not be able
to access its content is on the upcoming mixed reality
headset from Apple called the Vision Pro. You won't even
(24:21):
be able to launch the iPad version of the Netflix
app on the Vision Pro when it launches next week.
At least not as it stands right now. You will
be able to access Netflix if you use the vision
Pro and you go through Safari. So if you actually
do the web browser version, but you won't have a
native app for the headset, nor will you be able
(24:42):
to use the iPad version. So according to nine to
five Mac, Netflix's CEO actually just one of Netflix's CEO,
there are co CEOs, Greg Peters. He said that the
vision pro is quote unquote subscale. By that, he means
there wouldn't be enough un in circulation and enough interest
(25:02):
among the owners of those units to justify building out
an experiencement just for that platform. It would cost more
than what they would make back from the people who
actually owned these devices. Sick Burn. I mean, it's interesting
to me because for a very long time I would
joke that Netflix's strategy was to get on every single
(25:25):
screen it could, whether that screen was on a smartphone
or a tablet, or it was part of a video
game console, or maybe a smart refrigerator or perhaps your
washing machine. So for Netflix to say, yeah, we figure
that this is not a good return on investment. When
it comes to the Vision Pro, it seems at least
(25:47):
initially to be a pretty big slap to Apple's face,
but then we figure that Apple isn't producing a huge
number of these things. It's probably in the tens of thousands,
and the fact that they'd cost more than three grand
a pop means it is going to be a niche
product for the most part. There are always Apple fanatics,
(26:08):
there are developers who are interested in the platform, there
are companies that are interested in a platform. But still
it's kind of phenomenal in a world where we worry
about inflation and there's been so much talk about inflation
and making sure that you're spending money wisely, that people
are still willing to spend thousands of dollars on an
(26:29):
unproven mixed reality headset that appears to be a huge
compromise from Apple's original quote unquote vision. It just it
blows my mind. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. There
are people who have way more money than they have since,
and I guess that's always going to be the case anyway.
If you bought a Vision pro, by the way, no
(26:50):
shade on you, like you probably have legit reasons why
you did. I'm just still flabbergasted that they sold all
of the pre production units, or at least all the
ones that they plan on manufacturing in the near future. Anyway,
it's still pretty fair to say that it would be
a difficult sell to make something specific for the Vision
(27:13):
Pro just because the user base is going to be small.
In fact, that's probably going to be a big challenge
for Apple moving forward, convincing developers to spend the time
and money it takes to create new apps for the
Vision Pro knowing that there's a limited reach, like there's
just a limited user base, and are these developers willing
(27:37):
to perhaps take a loss on that initial launch group
in the hopes that it will establish a foundation for
a larger customer base moving forward. I don't know the
answer to that. I know that if I were developing apps,
I would be thinking twice before creating something for the
Vision Pro, just because I could spend that same amount
(27:59):
of time. I'm an effort developing for established platforms and
actually know that I have a good chance of making
a return on my investment rather than doing something that
might work out. But then it's Apple. Apple's got such
a long track record of making technology work when nobody
else could make it work. Before them. It's hard for
(28:22):
me to say anyway, it's it's going to be interesting
to see how things unfold once the product launches next week,
and I'm very curious to hear people's honest reviews of it.
I have a suspicion that the actual experience of using
the device is pretty darn impressive, but I'm not sure
(28:45):
it will be enough to convince someone like me to
start setting money aside to buy it. I just don't
think it's enough for me yet. Anyway, that's enough about that.
We're going to take another quick break and when we
come back, I've got a little bit more news to
finish off with, so we'll be back right after these messages. Okay,
(29:18):
we're back, and we've got a little bit of a
inspiring but sort of sad story, and that is the
Ingenuity helicopter has flown its final mission on Mars. This
was the little drone copter that could, and it last
flew on January eighteenth. It briefly lost contact with the
(29:40):
Perseverance land Rover that's the vehicle that it launched with
way back in the day, but the two regained connectivity
a little bit later, and at that point NASA engineers
discovered that at least one of Ingenuity's rotors had broken
during its final flight, so it will go flying no more.
But this little sucker had already achieved far more than
(30:04):
what NASA initially hoped. Now, let's set aside the fact
that NASA occasionally sets modest goals with the hopes of
exceeding them, kind of following in the footsteps of engineer
Scotty on Star Trek, who would always say he would
underpromise and over deliver. That way, it always seemed like
(30:26):
he was a genius. Right If he says, oh, I
have it to you in three hours, and then like
in an hour later he gets it done, it looks
like he just really busted his button got it done.
NASA kind of follows the same thing, like they're careful
with setting mission parameters because space is hard y'all. Like,
I don't want to take anything away from NASA. Being
(30:47):
able to do anything successfully in a space oriented mission
is a huge achievement, So being careful with your goals
is a good thing. So NASA's mission parameters for Ingenuity
were for it to do five test flights over the
(31:08):
course of thirty days. That was it. They thought, if
we can do five, like, we don't even know if
we can take off once because Mars's atmosphere is really thin,
so you have to you know, being able to provide
enough lift to get even a light drone off the
ground is challenging. You just you don't have the thickness
of atmosphere that you would have in a place like Earth.
(31:30):
But by the end of Ingenuity's time on Mars, it
had flown seventy two times phenomenal. It had even survived
Martian Winter like there was concern that the cold of
Mars's winter would really shut down all of Ingenuity systems,
(31:53):
and it did, but NASA was able to reheat those
systems and to reboot Ingenuities computer systems and have it
still be operational. They even sent updates to Ingenuities capabilities,
like they gave it firmware updates, and it suddenly was
able to do more autonomous activities like identifying safe landing zones.
(32:17):
It even did a couple of emergency landings and did
so successfully. It's just fantastic, and it means that there
was this huge amount of information and practical experience that
NASA was able to gather that they can then use
to build into future missions. And when you start to
think about how far drone technology has come over the
(32:41):
last decade because Ingenuities planning started like back in twenty twelve,
when you think about how far we've come with those advancements,
it really makes you get excited about the future of
space exploration and space travel because we can apply what
we know as well as the advances in that technology
(33:03):
to create even better, more capable drones in the future
and use them to conduct science that in the past
would have been impossible for us. So honestly, my head
is off for Ingenuity and the team behind it. Y'all
did good. This was an incredible achievement, one that I
(33:24):
don't think I would have imagined I would have seen
in my lifetime, so I'm so pleased that I'm wrong
about that. Now, that wraps up the main news items,
but before I go, I do have a couple of
article recommendations for you on top of the ones I've
mentioned already in this episode. Both of these recommendations involve
(33:46):
upsetting stories, so these are not happy stories. And first
up is a piece by Janie Rose of Motherboard, and
it's an article that's titled Taylor Swift is Living every
Woman's AI Nightmare. And as the title suggests, this is
about deep fake technology and how it enables people to
(34:07):
dehumanize victims. And let's face it, most of these victims
are women or they are female presenting, and they use
these to create all sorts of AI generated pornographic images
and then they spread them online and lots of platforms
have served as kind of distribution centers. X is a
(34:31):
big one. Reddit used to be. They've gotten better at
cutting back on that, but yeah, there are places online
where this just sort of runs rampant. You're not surprised
that it does so on X because Elon Musk famously
cut way back on content moderation when he acquired that
company and has shown very little interest in addressing these things,
(34:55):
so it becomes an ongoing issue over there. I think
the article is a really important read, and it does
tie in with some of the threads that I mentioned
in the George Carlin story in this episode, right, this
idea of using AI to victimize people in various ways.
(35:15):
The deep fake stuff is really disturbing. It's been really
troubling to me for a couple of years. Now and
it's only getting worse. And obviously the sexualization is one
element of deep fake technology, but there are other facets too, right,
Like there's the potential of using deep fakes to spread misinformation.
(35:37):
It's a really troubling topic, but I think it's an
important article to read. Again. That's called Taylor Swift is
Living every Woman's AI porn Nightmare. It's on Motherboard or
Vice if you prefer. It's by Jenis Rose. The other
article I want to recommend is from our old buddy
Thomas Jermaine, and by old buddy. Don't know Thomas Jermaine
(36:01):
at all. We just mentioned one of his articles earlier
in this episode. This is on Gizmoto. The article is
titled iPhone apps secretly harvest data when they send you notifications.
Researchers find so yeah, not happy, right, like to find
out that just by receiving a notification, an app may
be gathering information about you. In fact, is gathering information
(36:24):
about you and the implications that has on your own
privacy and security. It's it's not fun to read about,
but I think it is important to know about, particularly
if you have any concern at all about privacy and security. Now,
as always, I have no connection to these reporters, to
(36:45):
the writers, journalists, to the outlets. I just find their
work to be interesting and worth reading. So go check
that out. And that wraps up this tech news episode
for this week on January twenty sixth, twenty twenty four.
I hope all of you are well. I'm getting better
every day, which is nice. It's a nice change of pace,
(37:07):
and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff
is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
TechStuff News
Host
Jonathan Strickland
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