Paul Spain: Gorilla Technology CEO on mandatory surveillance by major banks, Suno's deal with Warner Music, and Amazon workers' open letter on AI

Much has been happening in the tech world as of late, and Gorilla Technology’s Paul Spain joined Jack Tame to delve into some of it. 

Two major New Zealand banks are now forcing behavioural and device tracking with no opting out – is this truly about fraud? 

Warner’s new deal with Suno lets artists like Ed Sheeran opt in for AI versions of their voice – will this create real new income for musicians or just flood the charts with AI tracks?  

And over 1,000 Amazon staff say the company’s AI sprint is causing mass layoffs and huge environmental damage – is the human cost of “warp speed” AI finally becoming clear?  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks, that'd be.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
A couple of New Zealand banks are now forcing behavioral
and device tracking onto their customers. I had absolutely no
idea about this whatsoever. But Paul Spain is all over
the details. He's the chief executive of Guerrilla Technology and
he's here.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
With us this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Get a Paul, Good morning Jack. So what's the deal.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, I had a few people send me some info
about this during the week, and I thought this isn't
really a big deal. I mean, who cares if they
track how you move your phone around and you know,
how you swipe and whatnot. But as I dug into it,
it's actually concerning me because there's a lot of information

(00:55):
that they gather down to the apps that you might
be running on your phone in some cases, and they
create what's I guess, a biometric behavioral profile on you,
and so that data if it gets lost, which we
kind of know that, you know, organizations aren't very good
at securing private data, can create a problem because really,

(01:18):
as an individual person, it's a little bit like a
fingerprint or something else. It's unlikely to really change much
during your lifetime, So if that information is lost, then
you know, that comes out of your control. But then
there are concerns around, well, what else could they do
with this information If they're tracking all the apps that

(01:40):
you run, for instance, are you installing some apps that
they don't think fits the risk profile? Maybe you've got
a gambling app or a dating app, porn crypto, whatever
it is that they think kind of changes the risk profile.
So they're going to use all of this data and
then decide whether you can use their banking services.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, I'm not sure about and a whole lot of
you know, there haven't been a lot of publicity about
it necessarily.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
No, Well, when I looked, I saw that I think
it was Westpac as well or on this and they
disclosed it back in twenty twenty three, so it's actually
been floating around for a time. But it's one of
those things that you know, it comes up in the
terms and conditions for using your apps, and you know,

(02:36):
you see so many things and you have to accept
them otherwise you can't you can't use online banking. So
it's one of those things that's it's probably just you know,
slipped by most of us, but yeah, certainly raising a
few concerns out there, and as we sort of see
the digitization of everything, you know, it's just this sort

(02:58):
of slow crawl where there's more and more systems that
are surveiling us in one way or another.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah. True, that's very interesting. Warner, as in the big
publishing company, has just signed a new AI deal with Suno,
So tell us about it.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, so this is interesting. Sono's the website you can
go to and basically, you know, fill in a few
few details and it'll create some music for you, a
song in any style and the lyrics, the you know,
the whole thing, and it's it's sounds pretty amazing the output.
But of course, the way that they are operating this

(03:36):
is AI. Just like all of the other AI systems,
it's trained on what's out there. And this of course
has got the musicians and the publishers all up and arms.
So we've had a number of court cases going on.
And yeah, here we are with a with a deal
being signed between Suno and and Warner Music which will

(03:59):
enable their artists to be able to opt in to
having the AI use use their their sound, their voice,
their their style, and to create new music.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
I don't know why any artists would agree up to this.
I mean I would agree to this. It just I mean,
maybe they're getting paid gazillions of dollars for it, but
really would if you're an artist who's you know, had
international success, would you want your voice being used by
other people creating music without your explicit oversight.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, that's effectively we kind of what we've had to date, right,
it's been a whild west. There's been no regulation, so
you you have had an element of that going on
because it's it's trained on on all those voices. Now, yeah,
I'm really curious how this plays out. Will there be
any big artists who who jump on and support there

(04:55):
being a proliferation of effectively cloning of their music? You know?
Will we see this bring new music from artists that
have that have passed away? Have we got the next
you know, new album coming from a you know, a
Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley or something, Right, Yeah, these

(05:15):
are some of the sorts of possibilities that are out there.
And yeah, I think there's probably a few questions as to, yeah,
whether this makes sense or not, but you know, I
think it's it's going to happen in some form.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, and I suppose at least this way, the artists
are going to be paid something. Thank you for that, Baul.
That's very interesting. That is Paul Spain, the chief executive
of Guerrilla Technology, filling in for our textbook segment this weekend.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks' b from nine Am, saturday or follow
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