Speaker 1: Thanks for tunion to techt Stuff. If you don't recognize
Speaker 1: my voice, my name is Ozvoloshan, and I'm here because
Speaker 1: the inimitable Jonathan Strickland has passed the baton to Kara
Speaker 1: Price and myself to host tech Stuff. The show will
Speaker 1: remain your home for all things tech, and all the
Speaker 1: old episodes will remain available in this feed. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of iHeart Podcasts and Kaleidoscope.
Speaker 1: I'm Osvoloshan. Today will bring you the headlines, including supersonic planes,
Speaker 1: a conversation with four or four Media's Joseph Cox about
Speaker 1: the aftermath of quote the largest sting operation ever on
Speaker 1: Today's Tech Support. Then we're back with another When did
Speaker 1: this become a thing? This time we're looking into Google's
Speaker 1: new assistant Gemini. All of that on the Weekend Tech.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, February seventh, So this week I'm hosting solo again.
Speaker 1: Kara Price is out for a few weeks, but our
Speaker 1: producer Eliza Dennis is here to help me through the headlines. Eliza,
Speaker 1: welcome back.
Speaker 2: Thanks, happy to be here.
Speaker 1: We've got an exciting potpourri. We've got planes, fridges, and
Speaker 1: Roman Catholicism.
Speaker 2: This list is giving me jeopardy vibes.
Speaker 1: Let's start with fridges, but we're going to do all three.
Speaker 1: But we'll start with fridges. These aren't ordinary fridges. They're
Speaker 1: smart fridges. And I read a story in Bloomberg by
Speaker 1: Austin Carr under the headline Walgreens replaced fridge doors with
Speaker 1: smart screens. It's now a two hundred million dollar fiasco.
Speaker 1: It all started a few years ago when Walgreens began
Speaker 1: installing smart refrigerators in some of their stores.
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever saw one of these in
Speaker 2: the many, many Wilgreens I've been in. How about you, os.
Speaker 1: I haven't actually seen them in person either, but the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg article was very well written and visually described. Most
Speaker 1: of these fridges are actually in Chicago, and they're not
Speaker 1: really smart fridges, they're actually smart doors. Picture a door
Speaker 1: size computer screen, and the screen mimics exactly what you'd
Speaker 1: see through at last door into the space, so basically
Speaker 1: rows of gatorade or energy drinks. But instead of the
Speaker 1: actual product, you're now looking at a digital image of
Speaker 1: the product that's inside the fridge. And that means digital prices,
Speaker 1: no more sticker price tags.
Speaker 2: Okay, so is this just trying to make sure that
Speaker 2: employees don't have to walk around with those guns and
Speaker 2: re stick prices every time there's a sale.
Speaker 1: Probably a bit of that. And also dynamic pricing, so
Speaker 1: the ability to change in real time.
Speaker 2: Kara talked about this a few weeks ago, This dynamic
Speaker 2: pricing where prices can fluctuate at a moment's notice. And
Speaker 2: it's also a side effect of the smart shopping carts
Speaker 2: that she talked about, you know, those being piloted by Instacart.
Speaker 1: Yes, the screens, both on the caper cuts and on
Speaker 1: these fridges can do smart pricing, but they also play ads,
Speaker 1: and per Bloomberg, this is called quote unquote retail media advertising,
Speaker 1: which is a gold rush right now. So you know,
Speaker 1: the fridges are interesting, but there's a legal aspect here too.
Speaker 1: So Walgreens signed a ten year contract with the startup
Speaker 1: behind the screens, Cooler Screens, Inc. After an early pilot
Speaker 1: showed that the screens could boost sales about to five percent. However,
Speaker 1: early gains turned into a month's long contentious legal slog.
Speaker 1: Here's the overview. So Walgreens installed ten thousand smart doors
Speaker 1: and planned to install thirty five thousand more, but back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, things started to go a little wrong.
Speaker 1: The screens started advertising the wrong items, They flickered, they
Speaker 1: went blank, some even called on fire. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: weren't popular with the higher ups at Walgreens. According to Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Walgreens at the time asked her team,
Speaker 1: why do our stores look like an effing casino? And
Speaker 1: not only that, maybe a casino would have been tolerable
Speaker 1: if it also boosted sales hugely, but Walgreens claimed there
Speaker 1: was practically no boost in sales.
Speaker 2: Okay, so ugly and ineffective, you know, that's that's the take.
Speaker 1: And so Walgreens had enough and started this legal process
Speaker 1: to try and get out of the contract. Early Cooler
Speaker 1: Screens didn't like this, and back in June twenty three,
Speaker 1: they sued Walgreens for a breach of contract. Walgreens then
Speaker 1: counter sued for monetary damages.
Speaker 2: This is the.
Speaker 1: Baldoni Lively of smart fridges. But Cooler Screens then found
Speaker 1: another way to fight back. According to Bloomberg, they secretly
Speaker 1: cut the data fees to these smart screen doors. In
Speaker 1: over one hundred Walgreens locations in Chicago.
Speaker 2: How did that affect Walgreens?
Speaker 1: So, I mean these stores had dozens of doors that
Speaker 1: look kind of glazed over, and customers obviously couldn't see
Speaker 1: what was inside anymore, so employees had to physically and
Speaker 1: valiantly but vaguely describe what was behind each door, like
Speaker 1: there would be hand pasted signs saying assorted sports, drinks
Speaker 1: and coffee. This went on for about a week until
Speaker 1: Walgreens got a judge to issue a temporary restraining order
Speaker 1: against Cooler Screen, and this forced the company to restore
Speaker 1: the data feeds. So Walgreen's got their unwanted smart doors back,
Speaker 1: but the screens were still not performing as hoped, so
Speaker 1: Walgreens started physically removing them in early twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and uninstallation was completed in August last year.
Speaker 2: What's your takeaway as well?
Speaker 1: You know, it's always these tech fails are always amusing.
Speaker 1: There was a great little side in the Bloomberg article
Speaker 1: about a Reddit post which went viral showing a customer
Speaker 1: joking if only there was some other technology that would
Speaker 1: let us see what's inside there lah exactly. So for me,
Speaker 1: the takeaway here is that, you know, the latest consumer
Speaker 1: technology can be exciting, specific can boost sales for corporations,
Speaker 1: exciting for corporations, But sometimes the best tech is centuries old,
Speaker 1: and in this case, the good old last display case
Speaker 1: still does the job.
Speaker 2: Okay, I love that story. Let's hear about planes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this one was. I heard about this last
Speaker 1: week and I personally spend way too much time on play,
Speaker 1: so I was very intrigued to read about a team
Speaker 1: who've just had a breakthrough in potentially making flying much
Speaker 1: much faster.
Speaker 2: How fast are we talking?
Speaker 1: Well, take flying from San Francisco to Tokyo usually an
Speaker 1: eleven hour flight. What if I told you there was
Speaker 1: a way to make that flight only six hours.
Speaker 2: I mean, I still wouldn't be able to afford it,
Speaker 2: but I would want to go all the time. Fair.
Speaker 1: So this is an aviation startup called Boom, and what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do is to create a modern commercial
Speaker 1: supersonic flight, as in a plane that flies so fast
Speaker 1: it breaks a sound barrier quote, displacing sound waves so
Speaker 1: quickly that they can press into a single thunderous lap,
Speaker 1: forming the so called sonic boom. That's the name Boom.
Speaker 1: And this is according to an article this week in
Speaker 1: the San Francisco Standard.
Speaker 2: So how far are we from Boom? Kind of like
Speaker 2: you know, taking me to London.
Speaker 1: Well, Boom had its first successful test flight that broke
Speaker 1: the sound barrier just last week, flying high over California's
Speaker 1: Mojave Desert. This XB one prototype broke the sound barrier.
Speaker 1: But to be clear, the XP one is just a prototype,
Speaker 1: and it is a scale model. In fact, it's a
Speaker 1: single seater, whereas the planned aircraft called the Overture, which
Speaker 1: has yet to be built, is going to be eighty seats. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, military jets break the sound barrier all day,
Speaker 1: every day, and this isn't that new in this sense,
Speaker 1: has a history of supersonic passenger aircrafts in commercial use.
Speaker 2: So this is the Concord as.
Speaker 1: The Concord exactly, and I think one of the most
Speaker 1: iconic planes in history. The Concord was first put into
Speaker 1: flight in the sixties. It was a supersonic jet that
Speaker 1: shuttler likes of Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, the
Speaker 1: Pope and even the Queen back and forth across the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: But per the San Francisco Standard, it costs twenty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars per round trip adjusted for inflation, So yeah, not
Speaker 1: for us. They're also environmental concerns. I think it consumed
Speaker 1: I read, four times as much fuel as a seven
Speaker 1: four seven and carried only a quarter of the people,
Speaker 1: So that's sixteen times less efficient for any mental math nerds,
Speaker 1: they would be able to get much quicker than me.
Speaker 1: And then there are also some crashes and fires. Okay,
Speaker 1: so all of this meant that the Concord flew its
Speaker 1: last flight more than twenty years ago, in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three. But now there's Overture gunning to take its place.
Speaker 1: And what they're trying to do over at Boom is
Speaker 1: to build a supersonic plane that would be accessible to
Speaker 1: regular people. And they're trying to do this by using
Speaker 1: modern tech that will cost less than the concords of
Speaker 1: yester year, and also using more sustainable fuel. So this,
Speaker 1: perhaps unsurprisingly, has caught the eye of Silicon Valley luminaries,
Speaker 1: people like Sam Altman, Read Hoffmann, Mike Morritz have all invested,
Speaker 1: and if things go to plan, Boom says that Overture
Speaker 1: could begin commercial flights in five years.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, how is that going to happen?
Speaker 1: Well, they're not going to operate the planes themselves. They're
Speaker 1: doing deals with the airline industry, and according to the standard,
Speaker 1: they've actually made deals with three airlines, including American Airlines,
Speaker 1: who have put down a nonrefundable deposit on twenty overtures,
Speaker 1: which is I guess a bold move given that one
Speaker 1: hasn't been built yet. Yes, and of course there's a
Speaker 1: big question about the boom, with the clue being in
Speaker 1: the name flying over Land, whether or not that will
Speaker 1: be allowed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not ready for that. Sound. Let's move on
Speaker 2: to the next thing. You already mentioned the Pope, but
Speaker 2: you have something else to tell me.
Speaker 1: Yes, So it was actually John Paul the Second May
Speaker 1: He Rest in Peace, who was the Concord passenger, but
Speaker 1: actually said, this story is about the current Pope Francis.
Speaker 1: It's not my all time favorite papal Ai story. Do
Speaker 1: you remember the deep fake Pope Eliza.
Speaker 2: In the Yes, absolutely wearing the.
Speaker 1: Coat, wearing the white Montclair puffer jacket in the mountains,
Speaker 1: the papal puffer.
Speaker 2: What a fashion easter.
Speaker 1: But this is a more serious one because right now
Speaker 1: it seems like there's a throwdown brewing between God and
Speaker 1: God in the Machine Akai. Pote Francis has raised concerns
Speaker 1: previously about the ethical and moral implications of AI and
Speaker 1: its effect on relationships and education, and warfare and work.
Speaker 1: According to a story in The New York Times with
Speaker 1: the fabulous headline citing shadow of Evil, Vatican warns about
Speaker 1: the risks of AI. Those statements have now been synthesized
Speaker 1: into a document called Antiqua et Nova Ancient and New,
Speaker 1: and it's meant to warn those of the Catholic Faith
Speaker 1: that AI is both a source of tremendous opportunities but
Speaker 1: also profound risks.
Speaker 2: Okay, so kind of threading the needle there, What else
Speaker 2: did it say? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, the paper pointed out that there is potential
Speaker 1: for misinformation, eroded trust, harm in the social development of children,
Speaker 1: the replacement of human work, and the development of autonomous weapons,
Speaker 1: all of which, you know, franklier themes of this show.
Speaker 1: But the Papal warning tried to bring into focus what
Speaker 1: it means to be human and the ethical considerations we
Speaker 1: should bear in mind when using AI. For example, the
Speaker 1: document says, quote in all areas where humans are called
Speaker 1: to make decisions, the shadow of evil also looms here.
Speaker 1: So what this kind of says to me is that
Speaker 1: the paper is as much about how we choose to
Speaker 1: use AI than about AI itself. And you know what's
Speaker 1: interesting was the Vatican of your you know, may have
Speaker 1: tried to ban this, like the Catholic Church banning the
Speaker 1: printing press and burning the people who try to print stuff. Happily,
Speaker 1: five hundred years later we've you know, the Church has
Speaker 1: moved on and they're not trying to say, you know,
Speaker 1: don't use AI. They're trying to say, think about what
Speaker 1: makes you human when you're using this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually a really nice reminder that we can
Speaker 2: all decide how we want to move through the world
Speaker 2: and also how we interact with both human and machine.
Speaker 1: I think that's well put. Well, thanks for joining me, Eliza.
Speaker 1: I'm missing Cara, but I'm enjoying chatting to you each week.
Speaker 2: That's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Us Coming up, we hear from our friends at four
Speaker 1: or four Media about a plea deal in one of
Speaker 1: the largest sting operations ever. That's next on tech support.
Speaker 1: Stay with us today for our tech support segment, We're
Speaker 1: turning to four or four Media's Joseph Cox to discuss
Speaker 1: a story he's been reporting on for years. It's about
Speaker 1: a sting operation with ripple effects throughout some of the
Speaker 1: biggest criminal organizations globally, and a raid made possible by
Speaker 1: the tech that we just can't live without our phones.
Speaker 1: But this isn't about your iPhone, Pixel or Galaxy. It's
Speaker 1: about encrypted phones. Joseph wrote a book called Dark Wire
Speaker 1: about the Encrypted Device Company a NOM, it's unique relationship
Speaker 1: with the FBI, and the biggest criminal raid in recorded history.
Speaker 1: And now some of the people arrested in that sting
Speaker 1: operation are pleading guilty, which calls into question if there'll
Speaker 1: be a trial. Joseph is great to see.
Speaker 3: You, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So if you don't mind, let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: What is a non.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, a NOOM was part of the encryptis phone industry.
Speaker 3: And as you say, it's not like the normal apply
Speaker 3: I phones or Google androids that we all use. These
Speaker 3: are very special phones that have sometimes a microphone removed,
Speaker 3: the camera taken out, sometimes even the GPS removed, because
Speaker 3: basically they're marketed to serious drug traffickers and criminals.
Speaker 1: And do they look like old you know, like plip
Speaker 1: phones or nockia old phones, or what's the physical appearance
Speaker 1: of these phones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the funny thing. They do look like ordinary phones.
Speaker 3: Back in the day when there was a company called
Speaker 3: Phantom Secure that was a sort of BlackBerry with a
Speaker 3: quirity keyboard. Nowadays they will look like a Google Pixel,
Speaker 3: but they will operate very differently.
Speaker 1: And a non was basically a handset manufacturer.
Speaker 3: It's hard to describe. It was almost like a software developer,
Speaker 3: a tech startup, a hackefon as well. But basically what
Speaker 3: they would do is that they would make their own software,
Speaker 3: which is sending encrypto messages, wiping data from the phone,
Speaker 3: redacting parts of photos you may take and send across
Speaker 3: the device, and then installing that onto Android's phones. So
Speaker 3: they're almost like an operating system developer and app developer
Speaker 3: as well. But I would say it's mostly on the
Speaker 3: software side.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that these were very popular with criminals.
Speaker 1: These are non phones. What was the advantage of them?
Speaker 1: Why did you want these phones?
Speaker 3: So criminals are of course always trying to stay one
Speaker 3: step ahead of law enforcement. Back in the day, that
Speaker 3: would have been something like the TV series The Wire
Speaker 3: right where they're using payphones or they're using pages, but
Speaker 3: of course cops got wind of that, so then criminals
Speaker 3: turned to encryption, And to me, it's the biggest technological
Speaker 3: leapf criminals since the inventure of the mobile phone. If
Speaker 3: you are a serious criminal, you're only going to be
Speaker 3: taken seriously if you have one of these phones. It's
Speaker 3: almost essential to be a cocaine or a heroine or
Speaker 3: a methamphetamine trafficka today.
Speaker 1: Wow, obviously it's not just criminals who rely on encryption.
Speaker 1: We had Mariuth Whittaker on the podcast, and you know,
Speaker 1: she made the case for the benefits of encryption.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think that's the important thing in
Speaker 3: that encryption is beneficial to everybody. I use it every
Speaker 3: single day. Ironically, I use Signal and other encrypted messaging
Speaker 3: apps to talk to criminals who are using these encryptive
Speaker 3: phones as well. It's a messy for the issue, but
Speaker 3: I think we can all agree that, you know, there
Speaker 3: is a net positive and overwhelming net positive for us
Speaker 3: being able to use encryption. That being said, law enforcement
Speaker 3: are not just going to sit by and let that happen.
Speaker 3: They're going to think of new ways to sort of
Speaker 3: penetrate the secret system.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that, you know, the old mafia techniques
Speaker 1: of payphones and pages. Basically law enforcement got ahead of them.
Speaker 1: How did the FBI find out about a NOM?
Speaker 3: So what happened first was the FBI shut down Phantom Secure,
Speaker 3: this other encryptive phone company very very popular with the
Speaker 3: Similarer drug cartel, Australian bikers, that sort of thing, and
Speaker 3: they wanted to get a backdoor into it which would
Speaker 3: have allowed them to read all of the messages. That
Speaker 3: didn't happen. But then what did basically fall into their
Speaker 3: lap was that someone who was selling phones for Phantom
Speaker 3: Secure and some other companies, they were making their own
Speaker 3: next generation of encryptive phone called a NOOM, and they
Speaker 3: offered it to the FBI, and they said, look, would
Speaker 3: you like to take this and use it for your
Speaker 3: own investigations. Of course, in return, I would like not
Speaker 3: to be prosecuted. Ideally I would also like to get
Speaker 3: some money for it. But I can't overstate how exciting
Speaker 3: that was to the FBI. Rather than trying to put
Speaker 3: a backdoor into an existing app or into an existing company,
Speaker 3: they could just make their own encryptive phone company and
Speaker 3: then read the messages.
Speaker 1: Of criminals incredible drinking directly from the fire hoods, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Do you know exactly how how the deal
Speaker 1: was struck.
Speaker 3: So their pseudonym is AFGU AFG double Low, And my
Speaker 3: understanding is that the deal came around fairly quickly and
Speaker 3: the main thing for the FBI and the Australian Federal
Speaker 3: Police that were also part of this investigation, they just
Speaker 3: wanted to make sure that it worked. Basically, it's one
Speaker 3: thing for AFGU to promise, oh, sure you can backdoor
Speaker 3: this phone, It'll all be okay. It's another for it
Speaker 3: to actually, you know, work out in practice in the
Speaker 3: real world. I go into this in much more detail
Speaker 3: in the book. There's a series of events where they
Speaker 3: do verify it is working. There's a scene where someone
Speaker 3: from AFP is laying down on their sofa at home
Speaker 3: and they're seeing messages flash up on their laptop screen
Speaker 3: when they're being intercepted in real time. So this wasn't
Speaker 3: just a pipe dream anymore. It was going to become
Speaker 3: a reality, you know, if the criminals bought the phones.
Speaker 1: At least on the cover of your book, which is
Speaker 1: called Darkwoir, this is described as quote the largest sting
Speaker 1: operation ever which makes you wonder just how large was
Speaker 1: it and how ubiquitous were a NON phones in the underworld.
Speaker 3: I mean, a non grew to the same size, if
Speaker 3: not bigger than some of the actual encryptive phone companies
Speaker 3: for criminals. They got to something like twelve thousand devices,
Speaker 3: which doesn't sound like that much to us ordinary people,
Speaker 3: but Phantom Secure was only something between seven and ten thousand,
Speaker 3: So the FBI was almost better than some of the
Speaker 3: criminal organizations at this At this as well as for
Speaker 3: why I called it the largest thing operation ever, it's
Speaker 3: not just sort of the audacity of it, but when
Speaker 3: law enforcement around the world eventually acted on this information,
Speaker 3: they did sort of a worldwide relay race of raids
Speaker 3: all across the planet. Something like nine thousand law enforcement
Speaker 3: officers acted in one single day, which is almost difficult
Speaker 3: to put into words. And now there's a challenge because
Speaker 3: you can't even imagine law enforcement activity on that scale.
Speaker 1: No, what an incredible scene. How did it rise to prominence?
Speaker 1: I mean, did the FBI have other people who were
Speaker 1: kind of promoting in the criminal underworld? Was it entirely organic? Like,
Speaker 1: how did this become the encryption phone of choice.
Speaker 3: With a norm you can only speak to other and
Speaker 3: NOM users in the same way, if you're on a
Speaker 3: phantom secure phone, you can only speak to phantom secure
Speaker 3: users as well. That's especially interesting when it comes to
Speaker 3: the world of drug trafficking because if you get somebody
Speaker 3: who's really really big in the world of cocaine trafficking,
Speaker 3: or maybe one of these kingpins who's hiding out in Dubai,
Speaker 3: if they switch over to a NORM, then everybody underneath
Speaker 3: them needs to switch as well, and you basically have
Speaker 3: this multi level marketing scheme essentially, where it's the people
Speaker 3: at the top who dictate what everybody else underneath has
Speaker 3: to use as well. And then that's how they did it.
Speaker 3: The FBI wasn't sending out agents itself to sell the phones.
Speaker 3: They let the phones organically spread among serious drug traffickers.
Speaker 3: And one of the most important people for that was
Speaker 3: a guy called hak An Aik. He was Australia's most
Speaker 3: wanted man and he's a top tier drug trafficker, I mean,
Speaker 3: getting billions of dollars worth of product into Australia. And
Speaker 3: when he switched over to a NORM and started using
Speaker 3: the phones and selling the phones as well, I mean
Speaker 3: what better ambassador for your phone company than one of
Speaker 3: the most wanted traffickers.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 1: The raids were in twenty twenty one, and there are
Speaker 1: arrests made, But you publish a story just this week.
Speaker 1: What's happened since twenty twenty one, and what was the
Speaker 1: story from this week?
Speaker 3: Yes, So, in a sort of cruel twist, the FBI
Speaker 3: and the US and the lover authorities didn't just charge
Speaker 3: the criminal users of a norm as in the drug traffickers,
Speaker 3: the hit men, the money launders, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: US authorities also charged the people who sold a Noom
Speaker 3: phones the hest of the FBI. And the reason was
Speaker 3: in the FBI eyes that, well, a Noon became a
Speaker 3: criminal entity in its own rights, so we're going to
Speaker 3: charge you as well. So there was almost a double
Speaker 3: whammy there. And we were all getting ready for this
Speaker 3: big trial coming up in March where a few of
Speaker 3: them were going to go on the stand essentially and
Speaker 3: try to defend themselves. But now they are pleading guilty essentially,
Speaker 3: And that is really important because at the trial, the
Speaker 3: US authorities were preparing to name Afku, They were going
Speaker 3: to name their informant, which to me is crazy but
Speaker 3: that was something that we're going to have to do,
Speaker 3: and now Afgu's identity will probably remain secret.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by this story, Joseph, been grateful for you
Speaker 1: and for coming on to Day to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I'm also interested in it because it's this kind of
Speaker 1: sort of there's this ironic element to it, right where
Speaker 1: the very thing which is supposed to keep these criminals
Speaker 1: safe ended up getting them caught. It makes me think
Speaker 1: about the Hezbollah exploding Pages story, where Israeli intelligence had
Speaker 1: understood that Hezbollah were using pages because they thought they
Speaker 1: were safer than mobile phones, and then Israel essentially inserted
Speaker 1: themselves into the production of these pages and inserted explosives
Speaker 1: and in so doing killed Hezbela operatives with collateral damage
Speaker 1: as well. These two stories have an interesting connection, which
Speaker 1: is about how the tech we use and how the
Speaker 1: tech we trust can be turned against us. And I'm curious,
Speaker 1: if you're not a Hezbollah operative or a drug dealer,
Speaker 1: what should you be thinking about when you read this story.
Speaker 3: I mean, in the case of a NOOM, it was
Speaker 3: drug traffickers. In the case of the Pages, it was
Speaker 3: a designated terrorist group. It can for us though, I
Speaker 3: think make people ordinary people suspicious of software they should
Speaker 3: be able to trust. I want people to still have
Speaker 3: that trust. I don't want people to feel like, well,
Speaker 3: who do I know who's actually running this? Maybe it's
Speaker 3: a whole honeypot or something like that. And I think
Speaker 3: these operations where authorities attack the supply chain could so doubt.
Speaker 3: And I mean from the drug traffickers I've spoke to
Speaker 3: and the people who sell these phones to criminals. More
Speaker 3: and more of the drug traffickers are moving to ordinary
Speaker 3: apps that we all use because they don't trust the
Speaker 3: encryptophones anymore. There's been so many operations where even the
Speaker 3: drug traffickers are saying, well, I'm just going to move
Speaker 3: the signal or something. And what does that mean for
Speaker 3: us now? Because I don't think law enforcements are just
Speaker 3: going to put themselves in the back and go home.
Speaker 3: They will be looking for the next thing to compromise
Speaker 3: or investigate.
Speaker 1: Joseph, thank you, thank you so much. Coming up and
Speaker 1: look at the uses of Gemini in your Gmail and
Speaker 1: its similarities to a polarizing office assistant from decades past.
Speaker 1: That's on when did this become a thing? Stay with us?
Speaker 1: It's time for our next segment, When did this become
Speaker 1: a thing? Where we bring you a story or observation
Speaker 1: from our lives and try to figure it out. In
Speaker 1: other words, ask the question when did this become a thing?
Speaker 1: And if you've got an email account with Google, which,
Speaker 1: according to Google, around one point eight billion people do,
Speaker 1: you might have noticed something pop up on your screen recently,
Speaker 1: a sparkly little feature called Gemini. Now Gemini isn't new,
Speaker 1: per se, It's a new name for Google's a I tool.
Speaker 1: You may remember Barred, which was Gemini's predecessor, But about
Speaker 1: a year ago Google gave their chatbot a glow up.
Speaker 1: And now we're being aided by Gemini, which is a
Speaker 1: constellation of stars, of course, and many people's least favorite
Speaker 1: sign of the zodiac. I went to Google's own blog
Speaker 1: called the Keyword to learn more, and I found out
Speaker 1: that once again, studying Latin pays dividends. I wish I had,
Speaker 1: Gemini is actually Latin for twins. And then, to my amazement,
Speaker 1: the blog made reference to a stronger quote. A key
Speaker 1: characteristic of the Gemini zodiac sign is a dual natured
Speaker 1: personality capable of adapting quickly connecting to a wide range
Speaker 1: of people and seeing things from multiple perspectives. Apparently, earlier
Speaker 1: versions of the name for this product included Titan, which
Speaker 1: is the name of Saturn's largest moon, but also a
Speaker 1: rather more intimidating name. Remember this AI is your friend
Speaker 1: and partner.
Speaker 2: Kids.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen Gemini in your inbox yet, you've
Speaker 1: definitely seen it on Google dot Com. Whenever that aioverview
Speaker 1: pops up after performing at Google Search, that's Gemini doing
Speaker 1: its thing. When I first saw those AI overviews, they
Speaker 1: kind of shocked me. I do find them pretty useful
Speaker 1: when I want to know how to do something like
Speaker 1: I'm having trouble getting audio output from my microphone into
Speaker 1: my recorder. What should I do? But if I'm researching
Speaker 1: in a more open ended way, I don't find it
Speaker 1: very useful at all. However, recently, Gemini actually entered my
Speaker 1: work email inbox and it felt a little intrusive. When
Speaker 1: I would go to write or apply to an email,
Speaker 1: next to my cursor, a little message appeared saying help
Speaker 1: me write. I've actually never tried it before, but I
Speaker 1: thought today would be a good day to give it
Speaker 1: a whirl. So I'm pulling up my work email, clicking compose,
Speaker 1: and there's a little little thing saying help me write,
Speaker 1: which I'm going to click on, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: say I would like to interview the Pope about his
Speaker 1: views his views on AI for the Tech Stuff Podcast.
Speaker 1: Please write an email to the Vatican Communications Office asking
Speaker 1: for an interview and making the most compelling case as
Speaker 1: to why he should do it. Let's see what happens
Speaker 1: create just thinking. Okay, Dear Vatican Communications, my name is
Speaker 1: os Voloshian and I am reaching out from the Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast. We will be honored to have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to interview His Holiness, Pope Francis about his views on AI.
Speaker 1: We believe that His Holiness's perspective on AI would be
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable to our audience. As a global leader and
Speaker 1: voice of moral authority, his insights on the ethical and
Speaker 1: societal implications of AI will be particularly impactful. The Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast reaches a wide audience of tech enthusiasts, industry professionals,
Speaker 1: and policymakers. An interview with His Holiness undoubtedly generates significant
Speaker 1: interest and spark important conversations around AI. We will be
Speaker 1: happy to accommodate His Holiness's schedule and preferences for the
Speaker 1: interview format. We're also open to discussing any specific topics
Speaker 1: or themes that he would like to address. Thank you
Speaker 1: for your timing consideration. We eagerly await your response. Sincerely,
Speaker 1: oz Well, I do like I wouldn't have thought about
Speaker 1: referring to him as his Holiness, but I like the
Speaker 1: use of his correct title. I'm not sure that that
Speaker 1: email quite do the trick. The tone is so obsequious,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many his Holinesses you can fit
Speaker 1: into one email, but also so grandiose. I mean, I
Speaker 1: love hosting text stuff, but the idea that tech stuff
Speaker 1: could be the perfect platform for the Pope to start
Speaker 1: a global conversation is also kind of absurd. So there's
Speaker 1: this kind of mismatch of tones and a demonstration of
Speaker 1: a fundamental misunderstanding of the task at hand. Now, Gemini
Speaker 1: doesn't just write emails. It's supposed to be a kind
Speaker 1: of full suite virtual office assistant. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I would love it if it really helped me be
Speaker 1: more productive. But either I'm not using it right or
Speaker 1: it's just not there yet. Because in all of these capacities.
Speaker 1: It's a little meh, But why did Gemini just show
Speaker 1: up in my work email one day? And the answer
Speaker 1: to that is that Google had originally hoped that businesses
Speaker 1: would pay twenty dollars per month on top of their
Speaker 1: Google Workspace enterprise price, but the adoption of that was
Speaker 1: very low, so instead Google decided to increase workspace costs
Speaker 1: by two dollars per month for all users and into
Speaker 1: great Gemini everywhere, a case of the good old maxim
Speaker 1: if you build it, make them come. All of this
Speaker 1: made me think about my best friend growing up. Clippy.
Speaker 1: For those too young to remember, Clippy was an anthropomorphized
Speaker 1: paper clip that was introduced into Microsoft Office in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six as part of a project spearheaded by Melinda Frenchgates,
Speaker 1: Bill Gates's wife at the time. And by an anthropomorphized
Speaker 1: paper clip, I mean he was an animated cartoon paper
Speaker 1: clip with large, shifty eyes and bushy floating eyebrows, and
Speaker 1: Clippy would be there, bouncing on a piece of ruled
Speaker 1: paper which almost looked like a magic carpet, making eyes
Speaker 1: at you, and every so often a little cartoon text
Speaker 1: bubble would appear and ask if you needed any help.
Speaker 1: This happened over and over and over constantly throughout the
Speaker 1: day when using Microsoft Office Suite. And this might shock you,
Speaker 1: but Clippy isn't his real name. It's clip It. I
Speaker 1: think we all just decided he needed to be cuter,
Speaker 1: perhaps because he was so annoying. I don't know the
Speaker 1: psychology behind it, but we all mind melded and decided
Speaker 1: Clippy was Clippy and that he was a he. And
Speaker 1: this actually came up during the preliminary focus groups. During testing,
Speaker 1: women in particular didn't like Clippy's appearance because they found
Speaker 1: his stare unsettling, and by unsettling, I mean unsettling. There
Speaker 1: was a story in The Verge a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago under the headline Microsoft ignored focus group feedback about
Speaker 1: leering Clippy. Women did not like leering Clippy, according to
Speaker 1: focus groups, but in the nineties, the guy's green lighting,
Speaker 1: the bouncing paper clip didn't care. They were willing to
Speaker 1: throw away the negative focus group data to get Clippy
Speaker 1: onto people's computer screens, and they did so. Clippy was
Speaker 1: included in Microsoft Office for Windows ninety seven, and like Gemini,
Speaker 1: Clippy was supposed to be helpful. For example, if you
Speaker 1: type the word dea into a word document, Clippy would say,
Speaker 1: it looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help?
Speaker 1: And you could either opt to get help or say no,
Speaker 1: I'd like to type out this letter without help. But
Speaker 1: if you took Clippy up on his offer, he points
Speaker 1: you towards introducing yourself in the letter and giving you
Speaker 1: pointers about how to phrase sentences. The problem was most
Speaker 1: people didn't actually need or want help writing letters or
Speaker 1: with the other basic tasks that Clippy was offering to
Speaker 1: assist with, at least not more than once. So people
Speaker 1: got really really frustrated with this smiling, bouncing, possibly creepy
Speaker 1: paper clip in the corner of their word documents, and
Speaker 1: the vitriol did finally get to Microsoft, with Clippy put
Speaker 1: to rest in two thousand and seven. He certainly was annoying,
Speaker 1: but I do understand why there's so much Clippy fan
Speaker 1: art out there to this day. Clippy truly was a
Speaker 1: touchstone of my youth. But why we're talking about Clippy
Speaker 1: today and why it's relevant is that Clippy was an
Speaker 1: early example of consumer facing AI. And while Gemini is
Speaker 1: much smarter than Clippy and less creepy, at least visually,
Speaker 1: there is the same sense of intrusion the way Jen
Speaker 1: Womini shows up and asks me if I want my
Speaker 1: emails to be summarized, is giving me flashbacks help me write?
Speaker 1: May as well be it looks like you're writing an email,
Speaker 1: would you like help? People have tried to find ways
Speaker 1: to opt out of Gemini's presence on Gmail, citing concerns
Speaker 1: about privacy. I mean, if you let your emails be
Speaker 1: summarized by Gemini, where does that data go? Google has
Speaker 1: a set of privacy commitments online that says, quote, your
Speaker 1: data is your data. The content that you put into
Speaker 1: Google workspace services, emails, documents, etc. Is yours. We never
Speaker 1: sell your data, and you can delete your content or
Speaker 1: export it, but it's still being processed on Google servers. Now. Sure,
Speaker 1: all my emails are there anyway, but there's another layer
Speaker 1: of unease which comes with them being read over by
Speaker 1: a machine and interpreted by a machine without my request
Speaker 1: or consent. And Google just can't sume to get the
Speaker 1: optics quite right. During the twenty twenty four Olympics, Google
Speaker 1: ran an ad for Gemini where a dad used AI
Speaker 1: to help his daughter write a letter to the American
Speaker 1: track star and the idea of using a chatbot to
Speaker 1: help write a fan letter. This kind of innocent form
Speaker 1: of human connection between a kid and how idol was
Speaker 1: off putting to a lot of people. Google ended up
Speaker 1: pulling that ad much like Apple did its ad, which
Speaker 1: crushed a whole bunch of musical instruments and paint pots
Speaker 1: and other artifacts of human creativity into a sleek iPad.
Speaker 1: This also calls up raw because it revealed a deep
Speaker 1: dissonance between how engineers think about their creations and how
Speaker 1: real people think about their lives. Take a look through
Speaker 1: the r slash Google community on Reddit and you'll see
Speaker 1: what real people think. There are users calling Gemini quote
Speaker 1: absolutely worthless, and others said quote mostly nonsense, but occasionally
Speaker 1: it gets lucky and says something correct. Maybe Redd it's
Speaker 1: being a bit too hard on Gemini here. I mean,
Speaker 1: looking back at the Clippy error, so many people in nostalgic.
Speaker 1: I mean, no one actually wants Clippy back in their
Speaker 1: word documents, but there's a kind of yearning for a
Speaker 1: simple time, and I do wonder how we'll look back
Speaker 1: at the Gemini era. I mean, after all, it's still
Speaker 1: a time when we sit in front of our computers,
Speaker 1: typing on our keys, telling the computer what we want.
Speaker 1: And you know, fast forward twenty five years, when perhaps
Speaker 1: I'll be chiogenically frozen and my brain will be uploaded
Speaker 1: to the cloud, and that mind will wistfully think back
Speaker 1: to sitting in front of my computer in my apartment,
Speaker 1: thinking I remember Gemini. That's it for this week for
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, I'm oz Vloshin and this episode was produced
Speaker 1: by Eliza Dennis, Victoria Domingez, and Lizzie Jacobs. It was
Speaker 1: executive produced by me Kara Price and Kate Osborne for
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcast. But He'd Fraser
Speaker 1: is our engineer. Kyle Murdoch mixed this episode and he
Speaker 1: also wrote our theme song. Join us next Wednesday for
Speaker 1: tech Stuff the story when we have a very special
Speaker 1: conversation with the Godfather of AI and the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four Nobel Laureate Jeffrey Hinton about his remarkable life and
Speaker 1: how it intersects with building AI. Please rate, review, and
Speaker 1: reach out to us at tech Stuff Podcast at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. We want to hear from you.