Paul Stenhouse: TikTok loses appeal and may be banned in the US, AI weather predications

TikTok set to be banned in the US after losing appeal  

TikTok may be banned in the United States from early next year. An appeals court has upheld a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok in the country by early next year, or be banned. The company hoped the court would agree with its argument the law was unconstitutional, and impacted the free speech of its 170 million US users. Unfortunately for ByteDance, the court upheld the law, saying it "was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents".   

 

AI can now accurately predict the weather  

DeepMind, a Google company that develops A.I. applications says they've found a way to create reliable 15 day weather forecasts, saying these could be life-saving because they give people more time to prepare for extreme weather. What's more, it can create the 15-day forecast in minutes, compared to hours with a super-computer.  One of the senior researchers at DeepMind says it's like they've “made decades worth of improvements in one year". 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at me Yea with news Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
They've been joining us now as our tech commentator. Paul Stenhouse,
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I am really intrigued by what has happened overnight with TikTok.
Of course, this is all to do with the law
that was signed in April that requires their Chinese owner
to sell the app to a non Chinese company by
January the nineteenth, will be banned in the United States.
Overnight the US Court of Appeals they said, nap, we're

(00:39):
not going to overturn the law. So what does TikTok do.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Now, Well, they have done a lot actually leading up
to this point. They say that they've been working with
all of the US government departments and regulators and all
of that good stuff, and they don't think it should
have got to this point. They've also actually separated all
of their data outside of China, so they say that
all of the data that US users, that they have

(01:05):
about US users is in the United States. So they say, hey,
just because we are owned by a Chinese company does
not mean that we are doing anything nefarious. They say
that this is an app that should be able to
be used by anyone. Of course, the US says a
little differently, and one of the things that the Court

(01:26):
actually said was that it was the fact that there
was extensive bipartisan action by both Congress and successive presidents
that led them to side with the US government say no, TikTok,
you will be banned. Next step is going to be
the Supreme Court. And the big argument that TikTok is

(01:46):
making is that this is a matter of free speech. Interesting.
I heard you joke before about dancers, So is it
also about free dancers. It's going to be interesting, right,
because free speech at the moment over here has a
reasonably well understood definition, and so this will be testing

(02:07):
that definition to see if free speech also applies to
an app. And it's worth pointing out, actually that I
think that when this law was passed, TikTok was the
absolute leader and there really wasn't anywhere else to go
and watch those kinds of videos. Right. A lot's changed
since then, and a lot has changed because of that

(02:27):
law too. Instagram Reels has put a lot of time
and effort into promoting Instagram reels, and they say now
that thirty seven percent of all the Instagram users use
reels daily. Now that would not have been the case
when this law was signed. And about fifty percent of
the time that people spend on the Instagram app is
with reels, So reels has real traction. So I think

(02:47):
that if TikTok was to go away, it would have
left a big hole previously. That hole may not be
quite as large in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Paul, why does it China allow TikTok?

Speaker 3 (02:57):
There? Oh, no, it does allow it better it does, Okay, no,
it does. Yeah, But what the US government has said
that they don't want the data they previously said they
don't want data stored in China. The big fear is
that the data of the US users can be used
in nefarious ways, delicious ways, and they have had some

(03:19):
really bizarre instances of things where you know, if your
phone knows where you are and you've given your location
access to the TikTok app, they then may be able
to see things like where clusters of people are that
maybe they aren't supposed to be, maybe they're in a
secret location that they don't want them to know about.
It's that type of thing. I think that they're kind

(03:40):
of concerned about.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
All right, so we're gonna we're going to head back
to court on this one, aren't we.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yep? Fact, well not just to court, those the preme
courts two, which will which I mean that's the last
place they can go. And then what they'll potentially you'll
visit the app store and the app won't be there,
or you'll visit TikTok dot com and they'll be I
don't know, will there be a black screen, a blue screen.
I don't know what's going to happen. We haven't seen
this before.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well, while we wait and wonder, we can just enjoy
a curate predictions of the weather thanks to AI.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, so you know, it used to be the minds
of you know, the weather forecasters who were telling us
what the weather was going to be doing. But AI's
changing all of that big time. A Google company called DeepMind.
They've basically taking all the AI things that are happening
and trying to find applications for them, and they have
managed to create very accurate fifteen day weather forecasts. So

(04:33):
over here at least anyway ten days. Typically the one
that you look at is the longest one. And when
you start getting around to that eight, nine, ten day
market's not very accurate. AI is generating fifteen day forecasts
that are accurate, and they're actually creating those in minutes
rather than the current process that takes hours with a supercomputer.

(04:55):
And here's the bit that's kind of scary. One of
the senior researchers at this company. It's like we've made
decades worth of improvements in one year.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
It's goodness, May incredible. Thank you so much, Paul, Really
good to catch up sixteen to eleven News Talks EBB.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio