Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: March second in twenty twenty three. And AI is on
Speaker 1: the brink of changing the world for the better, with
Speaker 1: the potential to boost the world economy by nearly sixteen
Speaker 1: trillion dollars in just a few years, or it's all
Speaker 1: overblown and far less impressive than you think. My first
Speaker 1: two stories take these very different perspectives. So first up
Speaker 1: from Markets Insider is a piece that's titled Artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: is on the brink of an iPhone moment and can
Speaker 1: boost the world economy by fifteen point seven trillion dollars
Speaker 1: in seven years. Bank of America says, now, command Markets Insider,
Speaker 1: you can at least save some of the content for
Speaker 1: the actual article. It doesn't all have to go into
Speaker 1: the headline, but yeah. Bank of America sent on a
Speaker 1: message to clients outlining why the financial institution believes that
Speaker 1: AI is poised to change things forever, similar to how
Speaker 1: the iPhone helped transform the web from something most folks
Speaker 1: access through computers into a mobile experience, and honestly, that
Speaker 1: transformation was huge. Anyone who was just working in web
Speaker 1: based content at the time can tell you that and
Speaker 1: about how it was so incredibly disruptive. We still see
Speaker 1: that today, with companies offering up web page services designed
Speaker 1: to scale properly no matter what kind of device connects
Speaker 1: to the page. That doesn't even touch the rise of
Speaker 1: the app developer market, which really didn't exist in any
Speaker 1: significant way before the iPhone. Anyway, Bank of America says
Speaker 1: AI is about to do something on the same scale,
Speaker 1: and surely lots of companies are pushing AI prominently. That's
Speaker 1: something that we're coming to be revisiting throughout the early
Speaker 1: part of this episode. But I take some issue with
Speaker 1: the conclusions. For example, the Bank of America note includes
Speaker 1: this bit quote it took chat GPT just five days
Speaker 1: to reach one million users, one billion cumulative visits in
Speaker 1: three months, and an adoption rate which is three times
Speaker 1: tiktoks and ten times instagrams. The technology is developing exponentially
Speaker 1: end quote. Okay, that conclusion does not follow the premise.
Speaker 1: You know, I think you could say that the appeal
Speaker 1: of AI, the curiosity people have, the eagerness they have
Speaker 1: to try it out, the enthusiasm around it. All of
Speaker 1: that developed very quickly. Perhaps you could even argue it
Speaker 1: developed exponentially, but that is not the same thing as
Speaker 1: saying the technology itself is developing exponentially. I think conflating
Speaker 1: these two things is dangerous because it creates this heightened
Speaker 1: expectation for a technology that, depending upon its use, has
Speaker 1: often proven to be far from perfect or reliable. I
Speaker 1: do think it's undeniable that companies are going to continue
Speaker 1: to invest huge amounts of money in developing AI. That
Speaker 1: is unavoidable. It is happening and will continue to happen.
Speaker 1: But I would caution against making this assumption that it
Speaker 1: means we're going to see incredibly rapid development in the space.
Speaker 1: That might happen, but we might also just see more
Speaker 1: iterative improvements rather than these big revolutionary leaps. A huge
Speaker 1: increase in attention is not the same as an increase
Speaker 1: in a technology's capabilities. Meanwhile, Alex Shephard at New Republic
Speaker 1: has a different take from the Bank of America approach.
Speaker 1: It is far less bullish. Alex wrote an article titled
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is dumb. Okay, So this is a much
Speaker 1: more straightforward but simple title, and Shepherd's argument is that
Speaker 1: AI is in the early stage of the Gartner hype
Speaker 1: cycle that we've talked about in recent episodes. That enthusiasm, excitement,
Speaker 1: and expectations are on the rise, but if you spend
Speaker 1: any meaningful amount of time with tools like chat GPT,
Speaker 1: you come to the realization that the actual experience doesn't
Speaker 1: quite live up to the hype surrounding it. Shepherd spends
Speaker 1: much of the article using chat GPT as the primary example,
Speaker 1: and argues that while the chat bot is remarkably more
Speaker 1: advanced than ones that preceded it, conclusions like what Bank
Speaker 1: of America has come to are largely unfounded. That the
Speaker 1: belief that we're on the precipice of disruptive transformation is
Speaker 1: really based on nothing more than conjecture and hypotheses, and
Speaker 1: that we lack any actual evidence to say that we
Speaker 1: are in fact on that precipice. Now, you could argue
Speaker 1: that these are the sort of things that we really
Speaker 1: can't assess until they've actually happened, but really it's only
Speaker 1: with hindsight that we can say that moment was when
Speaker 1: everything changed, because as you're living through the moment, you
Speaker 1: don't have enough perspective to judge whether or not it's
Speaker 1: that pivotal. It's only after the fact that you can
Speaker 1: make that assessment. I do think Shepherd makes some very
Speaker 1: good points, but I also find the arguments of the
Speaker 1: article to be a little too narrow and reductive. Shepherd
Speaker 1: says that those who claim AI is going to have
Speaker 1: transformational impact on absolutely everything are making quote unquote insane claims.
Speaker 1: But since the article almost exclusively focuses on chat GPT,
Speaker 1: I feel that leaving out all the other manifestations of
Speaker 1: AI undermines this argument, because we're already seeing how AI
Speaker 1: is transforming the world, both in good and bad ways.
Speaker 1: It can help optimize processes which might not be as
Speaker 1: world shattering as I don't know, facilitating meaningful conversations between
Speaker 1: different countries, but it does have an impact. We've seen
Speaker 1: it in stock trades, right, We've seen micro trading and
Speaker 1: ultra fast stock trades that's making economic impacts that are
Speaker 1: honestly still kind of difficult for us to get our
Speaker 1: minds wrapped around. And then we've also seen how AI
Speaker 1: can exacerbate social problems like the use of facial recognition
Speaker 1: technology among law enforcement. That kind of AI can really
Speaker 1: crank the knob on already difficult problems, like the fact
Speaker 1: that people of color are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement
Speaker 1: here in the United States. So while I think some
Speaker 1: versions of AI are undeniably dumber than what the hype suggests,
Speaker 1: we also have to remember AI does not manifest in
Speaker 1: just one way. AI is not just chat GPT. It's
Speaker 1: not just the idea of a seemingly sentient computer like
Speaker 1: how in two thousand and one. It's in all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff, from robotics to stock trading to assisting surgeons
Speaker 1: with medical procedures. So I think we have to avoid
Speaker 1: using a specific product as the gateway to criticizing the
Speaker 1: general field. It's too reductive and it doesn't really help
Speaker 1: us get a deeper understanding of what's actually happening. Moving
Speaker 1: on to another version of AI. Earlier this week, Microsoft
Speaker 1: researchers unveiled Cosmos one. That's Kosmos one. This is a
Speaker 1: form of multimodal AI that, according to the researchers, can
Speaker 1: solve visual puzzles. It can recognize text visually, so it's
Speaker 1: not you know, reading, it's reading the text like a
Speaker 1: person would. So you could have like a picture that
Speaker 1: has text in it, and this would be able to
Speaker 1: distinguish what that text is. It can analyze pictures and
Speaker 1: be able to tell what's in those pictures and describe them.
Speaker 1: It can have natural language interactions, and that could mean
Speaker 1: we're about to have another change in how captures work.
Speaker 1: You know, captures are those tools that websites and other
Speaker 1: services use to determine whether or not you're human. And
Speaker 1: you know, you sometimes will encounter a capture that will
Speaker 1: ask you to do something like select all the images
Speaker 1: that have a fire hydrant in them, or a crosswalk
Speaker 1: or a motorcycle or whatever. Well that's because that's a
Speaker 1: task that most humans can do fairly easily, but bots
Speaker 1: additionally have a hard time doing it. Cosmos one, it seems,
Speaker 1: could potentially complete those kinds of captures. It could analyze
Speaker 1: images and determine which of them, if any, have the
Speaker 1: important feature in them. The whole history of captcha actually
Speaker 1: is a swinging pendulum between foiling AI and then creating
Speaker 1: AI that's capable of foiling the capture. So this is
Speaker 1: nothing new anyway. The Cosmos ones system was given tasks
Speaker 1: that included writing captions for images, like trying to describe
Speaker 1: what the image showed, and it even took a visual
Speaker 1: IQ test. Essentially, what the researchers did was they fed
Speaker 1: answers to a visual IQ test to the Cosmos one
Speaker 1: model and ask Cosmos whether or not the answer was correct. Now,
Speaker 1: according to the researchers, the AI scored below thirty percent
Speaker 1: on that visual i Q test. That's a pretty dang
Speaker 1: low score. Technically, I think it was between twenty two
Speaker 1: and twenty six percent. That's not good, but it is
Speaker 1: better than chance, so it's better than just answering yes
Speaker 1: or no randomly. So that suggests that this could be
Speaker 1: a starting point from which this model will improve over time.
Speaker 1: Microsoft has indicated that the company plans to make Cosmos
Speaker 1: one available to developers in the future, though at the
Speaker 1: time I'm recording this, there's not a timetable mentioned about
Speaker 1: when that might happen. This is a different approach than
Speaker 1: the generative pre trained transform of GPT, So again, we're
Speaker 1: looking at different ways that AI manifests. It's not always
Speaker 1: in just one single direction. There's so many different disciplines
Speaker 1: that are involved in AI, and many of them are
Speaker 1: approaching AI from a very different angle, and there's no
Speaker 1: telling which versions are going to end up being the
Speaker 1: most dominant further on, or if it will truly be
Speaker 1: a convergence of all these different disciplines that ultimately produces
Speaker 1: the AI that we're thinking of that will be truly transformational.
Speaker 1: The US Federal Trade Commission, or FTC has its own
Speaker 1: concerns about AI, and in this case, it has more
Speaker 1: to do with the way companies are marketing their services
Speaker 1: by including mentions of AI. The FTC is concerned the
Speaker 1: companies could be overpromising or misleading people by leaning on
Speaker 1: a trendy, buzzworthy term and concept. If you need to
Speaker 1: get investors to pour money and your startup, well, you know,
Speaker 1: just start using the term AI in there. Even if
Speaker 1: AI doesn't really make sense or you're not really using it,
Speaker 1: you're bound to snag a few fish with that approach
Speaker 1: because AI is such a crazy popular concept right now.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing that the FTC is concerned about.
Speaker 1: Folks who are trying to cash in on a popular
Speaker 1: but largely misunderstood technology. And as I've said many times,
Speaker 1: when you have excitement mixed with a lack of information
Speaker 1: or knowledge or understanding what you have is the perfect
Speaker 1: condition for scam artists, or if not outright scams, at
Speaker 1: least unethical folks who don't mind leaning a little heavily
Speaker 1: on ignorance in order to make some money. So, if
Speaker 1: there's something that sounds really exciting, like a huge investment opportunity,
Speaker 1: but you don't actually understand the underlying approach, whether it's
Speaker 1: a technology or otherwise, huge red flag, y'all, Huge red flag.
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's an NFT or if it's AI.
Speaker 1: It is something you need to take a step back
Speaker 1: from and start asking critical questions to get a better understanding.
Speaker 1: And it might turn out to be total legit, which
Speaker 1: is awesome. But if it's not total legit, it will
Speaker 1: benefit you from taking that step back. So the FTC
Speaker 1: is essentially sending a message out there, and it is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: be sure any claims y'all are making about AI in
Speaker 1: your products and services are substantive or else we're going
Speaker 1: to ask you to prove it, and if you can't
Speaker 1: prove it, you're gonna be in trouble. Mashable reports that
Speaker 1: Google layoffs have affected all sorts of employees that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't expect, like robots. I mean, I'm talking about actual robots.
Speaker 1: We usually worry about robots taking our jobs. Rarely do
Speaker 1: we think about them losing their jobs. All right, So
Speaker 1: the robots in question are one armed robots from the
Speaker 1: Everyday Robots team that was within Google. This team had
Speaker 1: been working on robots systems that could operate in consumer applications,
Speaker 1: and Google was actually making use of them in the
Speaker 1: Google HQ to do odd jobs like cleaning surfaces like
Speaker 1: counters and stuff and that kind of thing, or taking
Speaker 1: stuff to recycling bends. But it now sounds like this
Speaker 1: project has been dissolved, and in addition, the robots themselves
Speaker 1: have been shut down and packed away. So times are
Speaker 1: tough even for the machines out there. I guess Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got some more news stories we're going to be covering,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We still have another AI story, because, like I said,
Speaker 1: it has just become the big tech topic for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, unless something massive changes later in this year,
Speaker 1: which is entirely possible. I suspect that end of the
Speaker 1: year roundups in various tech podcasts are going to be
Speaker 1: talking about how this was the year of AI hype,
Speaker 1: but switching over to Apple. The company has a very
Speaker 1: well earned reputation for having an obtuse process for approving
Speaker 1: apps on its iOS platform. You can re countless descriptions
Speaker 1: among app developers of encountering frustration as they have submitted
Speaker 1: apps to Apple and only found them rejected and often
Speaker 1: with not enough direction for them to be able to
Speaker 1: make informed changes to the app so that it could
Speaker 1: actually pass. But recently, Apple send a communication to one
Speaker 1: app developer called blue Mail that was planning on pushing
Speaker 1: out an update to its existing email application, and this
Speaker 1: update would have incorporated an AI powered feature that could
Speaker 1: assist with language tools. Think of something kind of similar
Speaker 1: to chat GPT that could help you construct an email message.
Speaker 1: Apple has delayed this upgrade rollout, citing concerns with that
Speaker 1: the AI could end up generating inappropriate content and that
Speaker 1: the app developer needs to take that into consideration since
Speaker 1: children could be using the app. So Apple is telling
Speaker 1: blue Mail that if it wishes to incorporate this AI feature,
Speaker 1: that it also has to change the app so that
Speaker 1: the app is now going to be restricted to users
Speaker 1: who are seventeen years or older, just in case the
Speaker 1: AI starts to generate offensive messages or material that could
Speaker 1: be considered harmful for kids. Blue Mail has protested this decision.
Speaker 1: The company has argued that there are already apps on
Speaker 1: the iOS platform that are not held under the same
Speaker 1: sort of restriction, but that have some similarity in capability,
Speaker 1: and the company says that if it is forced to
Speaker 1: offer this email app with that restriction, the age restriction,
Speaker 1: that this harms visibility and discoverability, and it hurts the
Speaker 1: app's performance in the marketplace. Now, I do not doubt
Speaker 1: that there is an uneven landscape among apps on iOS.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair at all. I think there
Speaker 1: are far too many inconsistencies with apps that get the
Speaker 1: green light and apps that are prevented. I do not
Speaker 1: think it's a very transparent process at all. But I
Speaker 1: also think concerns about generative AI have some validity to them.
Speaker 1: If you just take the Nothing Forever show on Twitch,
Speaker 1: that's the AI generated show that creates an endless Seinfeld episode.
Speaker 1: That's proof that without careful guidelines and controls, you can
Speaker 1: run into problems So for those who don't remember, Twitch
Speaker 1: actually temporarily banned the Nothing Forever show the channel because
Speaker 1: they had temporarily reverted to an earlier version of GPT
Speaker 1: when they encountered some technical issues, and the earlier version
Speaker 1: of GPT did not have the content restrictions that the
Speaker 1: more recent version had, and the show began to generate
Speaker 1: content that was homophobic in nature. They violated twitch his policies.
Speaker 1: They got a ban. Well, that show that these AI
Speaker 1: tools can end up being problematic. I know that's a
Speaker 1: word we use to the point where people complain about
Speaker 1: it's use, but it's it's an inappropriate word in this case.
Speaker 1: So I do get the concern, but I also can
Speaker 1: sympathize with Blue Mail's argument that it's already an unfair
Speaker 1: playing ground on iOS. I don't think anyone comes out
Speaker 1: a winner in this one. Now, to talk about TikTok
Speaker 1: a bit, the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU, has
Speaker 1: issued a statement protesting US House Bill one one five three. Now,
Speaker 1: this proposed bill would, according to the ACLU quote, effectively
Speaker 1: ban TikTok in the US end quote. This isn't about
Speaker 1: removing TikTok from government devices. But according to the ACLU,
Speaker 1: banning TikTok outright and similar platforms. So the official description
Speaker 1: of the bill is quote to provide a clarification of
Speaker 1: non applicability for regulation and prohibition relating to sensitive personal
Speaker 1: data under International Emergency Economic Powers Act and for other purposes. Quote.
Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you more about the text,
Speaker 1: but when I went online to read it, it had
Speaker 1: not yet been uploaded to the database, so I haven't
Speaker 1: been able to actually read the bill. The ACLU says
Speaker 1: that the US Congress quote must not censor entire platforms
Speaker 1: and strip Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of
Speaker 1: speech and expression. Quote and yeah, the right to free
Speaker 1: speech is one of the fundamental core values of the
Speaker 1: United States, send the First Amendment to the Constitution. But
Speaker 1: this is a complicated issue because TikTok critics worry that
Speaker 1: the app is on the back end, essentially performing as
Speaker 1: a data siphon and pulling in information that the Chinese
Speaker 1: government can then use as intelligence. And this information includes
Speaker 1: personal information about users, things like employer information, government information,
Speaker 1: and more like. People are using TikTok all over the place,
Speaker 1: so potentially, if you are gathering intelligence, you could comb
Speaker 1: through TikTok and look for stuff that could give you
Speaker 1: an advantage in that arena. So generally speaking, I tend
Speaker 1: to side with the ACLU on most topics, but this
Speaker 1: one is a little tricky, and I'm not sure where
Speaker 1: I land on this. I do have concerns about data
Speaker 1: security with TikTok, but then again, as a lot of
Speaker 1: people have pointed out, TikTok's practices are really not all
Speaker 1: that different from other platforms like Meta, YouTube, etc. It's
Speaker 1: just that those companies aren't owned by a Chinese company, right,
Speaker 1: But they are gathering the same kinds of information and more,
Speaker 1: and they're definitely exploiting it. So you can make a
Speaker 1: strong argument that we've already decided that handing over information
Speaker 1: to platforms is fine, and therefore it would be unfair
Speaker 1: to single out TikTok just because its parent company happens
Speaker 1: to be based in China. Plus, obviously, freedom of speech
Speaker 1: is critically important. I'm not really sure if banning a
Speaker 1: platform falls into the bucket of restricting free speech, but
Speaker 1: then I'm no constitutional expert either. Also, there's nothing stopping
Speaker 1: someone else from making a similar app. In fact, we've
Speaker 1: seen that right Instagram YouTube, Snapchat, and others have all
Speaker 1: introduced features that are extremely similar to what TikTok does.
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say some of these have
Speaker 1: outright tried to copy what TikTok does, to varying degrees
Speaker 1: of success. So I don't know that eliminating a platform
Speaker 1: amounts to the same thing as eliminating Americans free speech.
Speaker 1: But again, I am not an expert on the subject matter,
Speaker 1: so I don't I am genuinely conflicted. I do not
Speaker 1: know what to think about this particular topic. TikTok itself
Speaker 1: is introducing features that are meant to limit screen time
Speaker 1: for younger users. So all TikTok users who are under
Speaker 1: eighteen will get a message when they hit sixteen minutes
Speaker 1: of screen time in a day. Once this rolls out,
Speaker 1: and at that point, the user will see a prompt
Speaker 1: asking for a passcode before they can continue watching content
Speaker 1: on TikTok. However, they can also disable the feature entirely,
Speaker 1: but after one hundred minutes of screen time in a day,
Speaker 1: they will receive a prompt that requires them to create
Speaker 1: a new daily limit. Now I'm not sure how effective
Speaker 1: this will actually be on limiting screen time, because to me.
Speaker 1: It sounds mostly like something that the average user would
Speaker 1: just kind of roll their eyes at and then disable
Speaker 1: and then continue on unless parents set the passcode and
Speaker 1: they don't tell their kids what the pass code is.
Speaker 1: But then if the user can actually just disable the feature,
Speaker 1: I find it hard to believe that most folks will say, ah,
Speaker 1: thank you, TikTok, where did the time go? I shall
Speaker 1: now go outside to take in the fresh air and
Speaker 1: play at sport or something. I guess you could say.
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical that this is going to make much of
Speaker 1: a difference. Some of the other features potentially could help
Speaker 1: parents keep an eye on how much time their kids
Speaker 1: are spending on the app that at least allows for
Speaker 1: intervention if usage spirals out of control. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: don't have kids, because I don't know how I would
Speaker 1: approach this one either. I'm also glad that TikTok was
Speaker 1: not a thing when I was a kid, because I
Speaker 1: have a feeling I would have been a hardcore addict
Speaker 1: of TikTok if I had had the opportunity to access
Speaker 1: it back when I was a kid. In the UK,
Speaker 1: a man named Duncan McCann has lodged a formal complaint
Speaker 1: with the country's Information Commissioner's Office or ICO, accusing YouTube
Speaker 1: of collecting information about the videos that children are watching
Speaker 1: within the UK and this is against an ICO children's code.
Speaker 1: YouTube responded by saying that the platform has never been
Speaker 1: intended for children under the age of thirteen, that accounts
Speaker 1: that are registered to young users follow protocol. They don't
Speaker 1: collect data on young users if that's the account that's
Speaker 1: connected to YouTube, and that for the younger kids. There's
Speaker 1: also the YouTube Kids platform, which also does not track
Speaker 1: activity and collect personal information. But McCann's argument is that
Speaker 1: a lot of kids are accessing YouTube on family accounts
Speaker 1: or on family devices that are under a parent's account,
Speaker 1: and that these kids, as they use the app, have
Speaker 1: their data and activity tracked. And you might be thinking, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: if YouTube is being told an adult is in charge
Speaker 1: of the account, then YouTube is going to treat the
Speaker 1: activity on that account as if it were any adult
Speaker 1: using it. So obviously it's going to track all the information.
Speaker 1: That's the YouTube business model. And you might wonder what
Speaker 1: McCann's solution to this problem is, And essentially he says
Speaker 1: the ideal solution would be to create an opt in
Speaker 1: system in which only accounts that are registered to adults
Speaker 1: would have the option to agree to having their activity tracked,
Speaker 1: kind of similar to how Apple approaches app tracking. So
Speaker 1: it becomes an opt in system, and the can believes
Speaker 1: that only a minority of users would ever opt into
Speaker 1: such a system, and I'm pretty sure he's right. But
Speaker 1: I also bet that if you forced that change on YouTube,
Speaker 1: it would result in such a drastic impact to the
Speaker 1: company's revenue that they would have to make drastic changes
Speaker 1: to operations or else it would become too expensive to
Speaker 1: run the business. Keep in mind, they are hosting hundreds
Speaker 1: of new hours of content every single minute. So as
Speaker 1: it stands, this matter is going to test the ICO
Speaker 1: Children's Code. The UK only put that code into operation
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, so it's a pretty young set of rules.
Speaker 1: And this, to me starts to raise larger questions because
Speaker 1: if you start with the premise that a child could
Speaker 1: possibly access a particular device or account that belongs to
Speaker 1: an adult, does that mean that all online services from
Speaker 1: here on out have to be designed in such a
Speaker 1: way to assume by default that a child could be
Speaker 1: accessing it, Like, do you have to start thinking, well,
Speaker 1: a child might have gotten hold of their parents' iPhone,
Speaker 1: and because of that, we need to design this so
Speaker 1: it's child friendly, because obviously that would end up impacting everything.
Speaker 1: There are tons of apps that are not appropriate for children,
Speaker 1: whether because it's content or of the use. I mean,
Speaker 1: like banking apps would not be appropriate for children. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you start from that premise that you have
Speaker 1: to assume that a child could be using this, therefore
Speaker 1: you can't be tracking data or usage. It would mean
Speaker 1: that tons of things would have to change. So I'm
Speaker 1: very curious to see how this develops, because I don't
Speaker 1: see it as being sustainable. All Right, I've got four
Speaker 1: more stories to cover, so we're going to take another
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, we will wrap up
Speaker 1: tech news for this week. Okay, we're back, and here
Speaker 1: is a quick Airbnb story. I sometimes resist including Airbnb
Speaker 1: stories and tech stuff because the company kind of is
Speaker 1: a tech company, and kind of isn't. I mean, ultimately
Speaker 1: it is a tech company. It's just that our experience
Speaker 1: with Airbnb is more on the actual like either hosting
Speaker 1: a property or staying at a property, and not so
Speaker 1: much thinking about the back end that's making all this happen. However,
Speaker 1: in the case of this particular story, I think it
Speaker 1: really qualifies as a tech company. So sometimes Airbnb will
Speaker 1: issue a ban on a user and prevent that person
Speaker 1: from ever being able to make a reservation and an
Speaker 1: Airbnb property. There are a few reasons why airbb would
Speaker 1: do this. They might do it if someone has been
Speaker 1: reported as violating the rules, like if a host says, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I opened up my home to this renter
Speaker 1: and they ended up causing an enormous amount of damage
Speaker 1: that I'm now going to have to address, that might
Speaker 1: be a reason. In some cases, it might be a
Speaker 1: background check. Airbnb does partner with a company that does
Speaker 1: rapid background checks. If that background check reveals that person
Speaker 1: has a criminal history, that could be a reason to
Speaker 1: get a ban. In fact, even in a few cases,
Speaker 1: the quote unquote criminal history has been one where someone
Speaker 1: was guilty or found guilty on a misdemeanor charge that
Speaker 1: wasn't remotely related to rental of property. There was one
Speaker 1: story about how someone had a misdemeanor of having their
Speaker 1: dog off a leash in an area that required dogs
Speaker 1: to be leashed, and that alone prevented them from being
Speaker 1: able to stay at Airbnb, and that does seem like
Speaker 1: that might be an overreach. And on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you can understand how a company like Airbnb would air
Speaker 1: on the side of draconian caution because Airbnb ultimately is
Speaker 1: matching prospective customers with hosts, and Airbnb does not own
Speaker 1: this property. In most cases, a host owns the property.
Speaker 1: So if Airbnb allows some I don't know, TV tossing
Speaker 1: rock Star to totally trash a host's home, there would
Speaker 1: be some pretty major problems. And Vice reports that Airbnb's
Speaker 1: policies now extend to folks who haven't broken any rules
Speaker 1: or have a criminal past, but they have been found
Speaker 1: to associate with someone who has already received a ban
Speaker 1: on Airbnb. So let's just say, for example, that you
Speaker 1: happen to be friends with somebody who occasionally makes bad
Speaker 1: life choices, this person goes and does something that gets
Speaker 1: them banned by Airbnb. Well, then you might find the
Speaker 1: next time you try to book a place that you've
Speaker 1: been banned by association because Airbnb did a little quick
Speaker 1: background check and saw through Instagram that you and this
Speaker 1: friend of yours had been on multiple trips together. And
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well, they travel with this person who
Speaker 1: we've already banned, so now we're going to ban them too,
Speaker 1: even though they haven't been found to have done anything
Speaker 1: wrong themselves. Now there is an appeals process, but it's
Speaker 1: not very transparent. If you would like to learn more
Speaker 1: about this, I recommend the Vice Slash motherboard article. It's
Speaker 1: called Airbnb is banning people who are closely associated with
Speaker 1: already banned users. Over in Texas, Tesla has announced during
Speaker 1: an investor call that it will offer Texas Tesla owners
Speaker 1: an overnight home charging package that costs thirty dollars a
Speaker 1: month for unlimited overnight charging of their Tesla. This is
Speaker 1: to encourage Tesla owners to recharge their vehicles at night,
Speaker 1: and further will depend heavily on electricity generated by wind farms,
Speaker 1: so it comes from a sustainable source. Tesla executive Drew
Speaker 1: Baglino pointed out that quote Texas has a ton of wind,
Speaker 1: and in Texas, the wind blows at night end quote.
Speaker 1: According to Insider, the average monthly cost to charge a
Speaker 1: Tesla would typically amount to around fifty six dollars a month,
Speaker 1: so thirty dollars a month would be a bargain. Now
Speaker 1: there are restrictions. Only people who happen to live in
Speaker 1: an area of Texas that allows homeowners retail choice in
Speaker 1: electricity providers would be able to qualify, and they will
Speaker 1: already have to have a Tesla Powerwall battery installed inside
Speaker 1: their home. So they have to meet these these qualifiers
Speaker 1: first before they can be part of this particular incentive package. Now,
Speaker 1: on that same investor day call where we got this
Speaker 1: incentive announced, Elon Musk himself said that Tesla's humanoid robot
Speaker 1: program called Optimus, is one that he believes will lead
Speaker 1: to a future in which humanoid robots could potentially outnumber
Speaker 1: humans in a greater than one to one ratio, he said.
Speaker 1: He also said, quote you could sort of see a
Speaker 1: home use for robots. Certainly industrial uses for robots humanoid
Speaker 1: robots quote, I respectfully disagree. I think we've seen tons
Speaker 1: of examples of how humanoid robots are not always the
Speaker 1: best approach. In fact, they rarely are the best approach. Now,
Speaker 1: hear me out. The reason industrial processes are the way
Speaker 1: they are is in large part because we humans have
Speaker 1: certain abilities and certain limitations. For example, before we got
Speaker 1: to industrial robots, the way we build a car is
Speaker 1: not necessarily the best way to build it, full stop.
Speaker 1: It's the best way to build it based upon what
Speaker 1: we humans can do. But then we could also design
Speaker 1: robots to do stuff that humans can't do, which means
Speaker 1: we can actually make those processes better and more efficient
Speaker 1: and safer and less expensive. Because we can start from
Speaker 1: scratch and design an idealized industrial process that isn't limited
Speaker 1: by the capabilities or lack thereof, that human beings possess.
Speaker 1: Robots don't have to be humanoid at all, And in fact,
Speaker 1: making robots humanoid means the machines end up having but
Speaker 1: not identical limitations to human beings. So why would we
Speaker 1: limit ourselves to this? Why would we choose the humanoid
Speaker 1: robot approach if it means that we have to make
Speaker 1: all these other considerations just to make them work. Plus
Speaker 1: it turns out creating a really good humanoid robot is
Speaker 1: exceedingly difficult. Then you have to take into account how
Speaker 1: humans and robots will interact in social settings. You might
Speaker 1: spend a ton of time making a robot that works
Speaker 1: great in a laboratory setting and then find that once
Speaker 1: you put it into the same environment with humans, there
Speaker 1: are tons of problems that crop up that you didn't
Speaker 1: anticipate because you didn't take into account how humans would
Speaker 1: react to this machine. I guess what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that I'm far more skeptical about humanoid robots being super useful,
Speaker 1: at least in the near term, because I'm not convinced
Speaker 1: they fix many problems and in fact might make some
Speaker 1: stuff a whole lot harder. Finally, DARPA, which is the
Speaker 1: US Department of Defenses agency that funds technology intended to
Speaker 1: advance the US's defense capabilities, has announced an initiative called
Speaker 1: the Speed and Runway Independent Technologies Program or SPRINT. According
Speaker 1: to the agency's director, Stephanie Tompkins, the goal is to
Speaker 1: develop aircraft that can take off and land without a runway,
Speaker 1: but also still have excellent speed and mobility. How the
Speaker 1: aircraft achieves these goals is not part of the brief,
Speaker 1: and that makes sense. DARPA's method is to propose an
Speaker 1: engineering challenge, like this is the goal we want to achieve.
Speaker 1: It comes down to various companies and research institutions to
Speaker 1: attempt to meet that goal, often taking very different pathways
Speaker 1: to try and achieve it. DARPA is really more about
Speaker 1: awarding contracts for these jobs. The agency itself is not
Speaker 1: some sort of skunk where its labor tory. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: more of an administrator that evaluates proposals from various sources
Speaker 1: and then chooses which ones to fund. As for why
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense would want runway independent aircraft, it's
Speaker 1: likely to make certain that the US would be capable
Speaker 1: of fielding aircraft even if an enemy were to target, say,
Speaker 1: military runways, because as it stands, no satellite information has
Speaker 1: pretty much blown the cover off of military runways and
Speaker 1: air fields. Once upon a time, there were secret air
Speaker 1: fields and secret runways on military installations that people just
Speaker 1: weren't aware of, at least not widely aware of. But
Speaker 1: satellite imagery has really changed that pretty dramatically, and even
Speaker 1: the fabled Area fifty one was not immune to this.
Speaker 1: You can easily imagine scenarios in which you might want to, say,
Speaker 1: evacuate people from a region. Maybe there's a natural disaster,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a military threat, and you want to send
Speaker 1: rescue operations to help evacuate the area, but you might
Speaker 1: not have access to a runway to land and then
Speaker 1: take off with your evacuation aircraft. So having a way
Speaker 1: to land in those kinds of conditions would be absolutely critical.
Speaker 1: It will be interesting to see how respondents will propose
Speaker 1: different solutions to this problem, because again DARPA did not
Speaker 1: specify anything. There was no mention of vertical takeoff and
Speaker 1: landing or any related technology. So we might end up
Speaker 1: seeing some really innovative solutions to this issue, and that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would argue that a lot of the
Speaker 1: technological advances we've seen from DARPA projects came as a
Speaker 1: result of DARPA defining the problem but giving all the
Speaker 1: different parties involved the freedom to craft their own solution
Speaker 1: to that problem. Really interesting stuff. All right, that's it
Speaker 1: for the news. If you have suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of Texts Stuff, feel free
Speaker 1: to reach out to me. One way to do that
Speaker 1: is to go over onto Twitter and tweet to the
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Speaker 1: I'll look forward to hearing from that, and I'll talk
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