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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the

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Speaker 1: tech are you. It's time for the tech news for

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Speaker 1: the week ending Friday, June fourteenth, twenty twenty four. For

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Speaker 1: all you gamers out there, this past weekend and following

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Speaker 1: week was an absolute smorgas board of video game trailers

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Speaker 1: as well as commercials for like gaming hardware, though no

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Speaker 1: new consoles. I'm sad to say so. While E three

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Speaker 1: is really most sincerely dead, we had Jeff Keeley's Summer

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Speaker 1: Games Fest, we had the Ubisoft Forward Event, the PC

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Speaker 1: Gaming Show, and the Xbox Showcase, and I'm probably missing

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Speaker 1: a couple in there. Soon we're gonna have Nintendo Direct

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Speaker 1: that has not yet happened. In fact, last I checked,

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Speaker 1: they had not even mentioned what date that is going

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Speaker 1: to happen on, but most people are expecting it to

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Speaker 1: happen next week anyway. Tons of games have been announced,

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Speaker 1: though not very many in the category of Triple A titles,

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Speaker 1: apart from some of the Ubisoft stuff, like they had

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Speaker 1: an Assassin's Creed title that kind of thing. It's been

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Speaker 1: a rough few months for the games industry, largely because

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Speaker 1: of layoffs and shutdowns. I'm specifically looking at you, Microsoft,

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Speaker 1: But if you'd like to hear more about what was

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Speaker 1: announced over the last few days, well, there's like tons

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Speaker 1: of resources. You know. You could go to Polygon or

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Speaker 1: ign just go to YouTube and do a search on

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Speaker 1: these sorts of things, or you can listen to a

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Speaker 1: show like the Besties podcast. And I don't have any

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Speaker 1: connection with any of those things, by the way, I

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Speaker 1: don't work with them, and I don't know them. I

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Speaker 1: just I'm just a fan as well. So check those out.

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Speaker 1: But now let's get to some tech news. Apple held

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Speaker 1: its Worldwide Developers Conference or WWDC this week, and as

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Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody anticipated, AI was foremost on the menu.

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Speaker 1: When it came to keynotes and presentations. CEO Tim Cook

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Speaker 1: took the stage and showed off how an AI boosted

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Speaker 1: serie could do more complex tasks with features like emails, messages,

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Speaker 1: and even third party apps. Not everyone is happy with

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Speaker 1: Apple's recent decisions regarding AI. More on that in a second,

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Speaker 1: but investors they were happy as a clam Apple saw

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Speaker 1: its stock price go up enough to the point where

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Speaker 1: the company bumped Microsoft off the top of its most

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Speaker 1: Valuable Corporations list. Now Apple once again stands triumphant as

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Speaker 1: the most valuable company in the world with evaluation of

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Speaker 1: good golly like three point twenty nine trillion dollars. But

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Speaker 1: back to the WWDC, Apple's version of AI stands for,

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Speaker 1: of course, Apple Intelligence. Apple announced it was incorporating the

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Speaker 1: GPT four oh large language model into its products so

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Speaker 1: that the AI can help assist with specific user needs.

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Speaker 1: Now this means that Apple has entered into a sort

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Speaker 1: of partnership with open Ai, which you might recall is

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Speaker 1: also working very closely with Microsoft because Microsoft initiated a

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Speaker 1: ten billion dollar investment in open Ai. According to just

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Speaker 1: Weatherbed of The Verge, Apple isn't handing out bucket loads

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Speaker 1: of cash the same way Microsoft is, but rather, quote

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Speaker 1: believes the exposure it's giving chat GPT is payment enough

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Speaker 1: end quote. That's kind of funny. I've always said, you know,

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Speaker 1: you can't live off exposure, but you sure can die

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Speaker 1: from it anyway. Weatherbed says that Apple is reportedly in

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Speaker 1: talks with other companies that have AI models, and the

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Speaker 1: plan appears to be that Apple users will actually have

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Speaker 1: options when it comes to whichever AI overlord they want

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Speaker 1: to use, so those who prefer Google's Gemini AI could

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Speaker 1: use that instead, for example, assuming a deal between Apple

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Speaker 1: and Google through Apple set some expectations early with the

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Speaker 1: AI talk, saying that these enhanced features will only be

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Speaker 1: available on some hardware, mostly the newest and highest ended

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Speaker 1: stuff like the iPhone fifteen Pro and the iPhone fifteen

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Speaker 1: Pro Max models or Max and iPads that have at

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Speaker 1: least an M one or later chip in them. Also,

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Speaker 1: it will only work if the language on the device

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Speaker 1: is set to English. Apple's presentation largely focused on context

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Speaker 1: of use, meaning that let's say you launch an app

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Speaker 1: and that you then ask that some information that's on

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Speaker 1: a different app get incorporated into the one you're using.

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Speaker 1: The AI would then handle what you want. So let

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Speaker 1: me give you a hypothetical example. Let's say that I

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Speaker 1: open up a messenger app and I want to send

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Speaker 1: a link to a video that's in a different app, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: I've got YouTube open on a different in one of

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Speaker 1: the other apps, and I want to send a link

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Speaker 1: to the YouTube video I was just watching to a

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Speaker 1: friend of mine on message, and the AI would theoretically

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Speaker 1: be able to suss all that out and save me

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Speaker 1: the effort of figuring out how to do that myself,

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Speaker 1: like to go in through the share feature on YouTube

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Speaker 1: or whatever in order to pull the link and post

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Speaker 1: it to my friend. I could just do it very

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Speaker 1: quickly by asking the assistant to do it. Apple also

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Speaker 1: showed off an AI image generation feature called gen Moji,

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Speaker 1: and as that name suggests, it will let users generate

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Speaker 1: an emoji that otherwise does not exist, so that you

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Speaker 1: can suitably express whatever it is you're feeling without you know,

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Speaker 1: having to use words. I mean, you do have to

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Speaker 1: use words to generate the emoji in the first place,

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Speaker 1: but then you won't be using words for whomever is

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Speaker 1: on the receiving end of that, you know, custom made emoji.

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Speaker 1: I guess I don't actually understand any of this because

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Speaker 1: I was an English major. I still think writing actual

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Speaker 1: letters is cool. But anyway, Apple announced this and lots

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Speaker 1: more stuff at the WWDC this year, and it got

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Speaker 1: developers and investors really excited. But it's not all good

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Speaker 1: news for Apple. There's a growing anti trust lawsuit mounting

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Speaker 1: against the company here in the United States. It's led

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Speaker 1: by the US Department of Justice, and so far nineteen

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Speaker 1: states as well as the District of Columbia have joined. Nevada, Massachusetts, Washington,

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Speaker 1: and Indiana are the latest for states to get involved

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Speaker 1: in this lawsuit. And it pretty much follows an argument

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Speaker 1: that we have heard for years now in various variations.

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Speaker 1: So Apple maintains a tight ecosystem, largely in an effort

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Speaker 1: to maximize profits and to discourage competition. What's more, of

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Speaker 1: these lawsuits say that Apple pairs that strategy with a

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Speaker 1: decision to sell iPhones at higher prices, and this maximizes

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Speaker 1: their profit margins, all the while forcing partners to pay

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Speaker 1: hefty fees for the privilege of being allowed to play

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Speaker 1: within Apple's sandbox. Apple has responded by saying, uh uh no,

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Speaker 1: we don't. And plus, even if we did, that's not

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Speaker 1: the definition of anti trust because no court has ever

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Speaker 1: said that, so that could be a valid point. But

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Speaker 1: you know, the interesting thing about courts is that they

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Speaker 1: can make new interpretations of old laws. That's kind of

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Speaker 1: what they do. So we'll have to see how this

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Speaker 1: develops further. Meanwhile, in Japan, Apple will have to allow

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Speaker 1: third party app stores and payment providers on iOS devices

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Speaker 1: in order to comply with a new law passed by

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Speaker 1: Japan's parliament. Google will also have to obey this law

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Speaker 1: with its Android devices. And again, this follows a growing

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Speaker 1: trend of regulators and other government officials cracking down on

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Speaker 1: the walled garden approach that both Apple and Google have used.

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Speaker 1: The companies have long argued that their policies protect consumers

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Speaker 1: by preventing malicious actors from tricking people into downloading malware

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Speaker 1: or sharing personal information with the wrong party, a claim

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Speaker 1: that I think is only partly valid because both Google

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Speaker 1: and Apple have a history of allowing third party apps

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Speaker 1: that later turned out to be malicious. But we're seeing

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Speaker 1: more governments say I'm not buying it. You do this

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Speaker 1: so that you can maintain control over ecosystem and then

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Speaker 1: profit off of other people's work. So by that, I

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Speaker 1: mean Apple and Google both have a practice of collecting

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Speaker 1: a percentage of every in app transaction for most apps,

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Speaker 1: So regulators are saying this is kind of like the

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Speaker 1: mobs skimming off of profits of businesses that the mob

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Speaker 1: quote unquote protects. Now, I mentioned earlier that one person

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Speaker 1: in particular isn't happy about the Apple and open Ai

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Speaker 1: news and that happens to be our favorite Bunker's billionaire

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk. You know, there's some weeks that I managed

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Speaker 1: to do a whole news episode without talking about him

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Speaker 1: at all. But today we've got a few stories that

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Speaker 1: involve him, and I guess that's because I invoked his

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Speaker 1: name when I did an episode earlier this week about

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Speaker 1: the origins of Tesla. Anyway, Musk threatened to ban Apple

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Speaker 1: computers and Apple devices from his various companies in the

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Speaker 1: wake of the open Ai announcement. So if you recall,

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Speaker 1: once upon a time, Elon Musk was a co founding

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Speaker 1: member of the original incarnation of open ai, which at

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Speaker 1: that time was a non profit dedicated to developing responsible

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Speaker 1: and safe artificial intelligence. But then Musk stormed out of

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Speaker 1: that organization, or perhaps he was encouraged to leave, and

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Speaker 1: he says that his decision was due to open ai

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Speaker 1: turning to the dark side of the force and embracing

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Speaker 1: a for profit approach. More on that than just a bit. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: Musk has been in a pretty darn public tiff with

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Speaker 1: open ai ever since, and he's also building out his

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Speaker 1: own AI company, which of course is called Xai. Musk

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Speaker 1: has said that if Apple devices incorporate open AI into them,

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Speaker 1: which is what is now happening, then that would mean

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Speaker 1: the Apple devices would pose quote an unacceptable security violation

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Speaker 1: end quote. And yikes, that's got to be tough because,

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Speaker 1: of course, now Microsoft also has tight integration with open AI.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the company is launching the Copilot plus PC

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Speaker 1: line next week. So if Microsoft and Apple are both

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Speaker 1: working closely with open AI, and open ai cannot be trusted,

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Speaker 1: I guess that means everyone working for one of Musk's

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Speaker 1: companies is going to have to switch to a Google

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Speaker 1: Chrome computer or something. I mean, there's also Linux and such,

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Speaker 1: but you know, everyone switching I mean, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I would imagine the boffins at SpaceX might need something

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Speaker 1: with a little bit more oomph than a Google Chrome computer. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: Will Musk actually put a ban on Apple devices in

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Speaker 1: place at Tesla and SpaceX and Eurolink and XAI and

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Speaker 1: x Perhaps I've given up predicting on what he will

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Speaker 1: and will not do. I imagine that if he does put

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Speaker 1: it in place, it won't apply to him. That seems

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Speaker 1: to be the way rules work in his world is

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Speaker 1: those are things for other people, Okay, We've got lots

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Speaker 1: more to cover, including some more Elon Musk news, But

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Speaker 1: before I get to all that, let's take a quick

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Speaker 1: break to think our sponsors. So related to Elon Musk say,

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Speaker 1: he had previously brought a lawsuit against open Ai. He

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Speaker 1: argued that open ai had violated the founding principles of

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Speaker 1: the original nonprofit and that the company was purposefully withholding

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Speaker 1: the most useful and advanced AI tools for high paying customers.

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Speaker 1: And that does seem to fly in the face of

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Speaker 1: the open part of open ai, right, Like, if you're

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Speaker 1: an open company, you're not withholding stuff for the folks

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Speaker 1: who just pay you more. But then open ai has

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Speaker 1: now published a blog post that included a bunch of

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Speaker 1: emails written by Elon Musk, and those emails indicated that

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Speaker 1: back when Musk was part of open ai, he not

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Speaker 1: only knew that open ai would need to generate an

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Speaker 1: enormous amount of money to pay for AI research and development,

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Speaker 1: but he also wanted to be the one to lead

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Speaker 1: those efforts. The emails show that Musk agreed that open

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Speaker 1: ai would not be able to just raise money from donations.

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Speaker 1: It would have to create a means of generating actual

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Speaker 1: revenue in order to survive. That's essentially what the for

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Speaker 1: profit arm of open Ai was founded on, although lots

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Speaker 1: of other folks have questioned as whether or not that

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Speaker 1: means the nonprofit arm is the prime beneficiary of all

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Speaker 1: that revenue. The blog post seems to say, Hey, Elon,

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Speaker 1: this thing you're complaining about, it's the same thing you

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Speaker 1: wanted to do. Whether that had any influence on the

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Speaker 1: decision or not, I can't say, but Elon Musk's lawyers

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Speaker 1: have now dropped the lawsuit not long after that blog

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Speaker 1: was published. Open Ai and Musk himself have remained fairly

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Speaker 1: quiet about all of that. Now, we're not done with

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Speaker 1: lawsuit against him for sexual harassment and retaliation. Gebby Delvall

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Speaker 1: of The Verge reports that eight former engineers are part

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Speaker 1: and purposefully created an unwelcome, hostile work environment based upon

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Speaker 1: his conduct of interge into the workplace, vile sexual photographs,

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Speaker 1: plus community, which is a big old yuck. The lawsuit

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Speaker 1: argues that Musk is responsible for creating and fostering a

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Speaker 1: hostile work environment at SpaceX one that encouraged a sexist

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Speaker 1: sexual misconduct, which is a big old' yikes. I mean, y'all.

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Speaker 1: One thing all iHeart employees have to do every year

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Speaker 1: I cannot tell you how horrified I would be if,

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Speaker 1: in the course of that training we were to see

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Speaker 1: our company's executives acting out inappropriate scenarios while making jokes

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Speaker 1: about it. Of course, that does not happen here. It's

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Speaker 1: just unthinkable to me that it happens anywhere, let alone

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Speaker 1: it's SpaceX. Moving away from Elon, let's talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about Microsoft. The company has faced mounting criticism

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Speaker 1: regarding an unres least Windows eleven feature called Windows Recall

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Speaker 1: and If You Recall. This feature essentially takes snapshots of

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Speaker 1: what's going on on your PC and then keeps those

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Speaker 1: snapshots as a record. So hypothetically, if for some reason

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Speaker 1: you needed to know more about something you once did

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Speaker 1: on your PC in the past. You could search through

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Speaker 1: those snapshots for answers, but critics worried that the feature

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Speaker 1: would become a huge, juicy target for malicious actors. Microsoft

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Speaker 1: stress that all Windows Recall functions would just take place

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Speaker 1: on the native machines, meaning the information would not get

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Speaker 1: week the company also faced questioning from US Congress regarding

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Speaker 1: how Microsoft is handled, or rather failed to handle, various

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Speaker 1: security crises. So I'm guessing all of that convinced Microsoft

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Speaker 1: that maybe, just maybe, it would not be the best

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Speaker 1: relatively secure, due to those concerns. So next week, on

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Speaker 1: June eighteenth, Microsoft still plans to launch its Copilot plus

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Speaker 1: PC program, in which new Windows PCs will have the

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Speaker 1: Copilot AI more tightly integrated into them, but the Windows

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Speaker 1: Recall feature will be absent. The company does say that

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Speaker 1: Windows Recall will get rolled out at some future date,

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Speaker 1: but did not give a timeline as to when that

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Speaker 1: will happen. Brandon viglia Rollo of The Register reports that

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Speaker 1: Weimo is responding to an incident that happened with one

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Speaker 1: of its driverless taxis back on May twenty first in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Speaker 1: So apparently that incident involved a Weimo vehicle driving into

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Speaker 1: a wooden telephone pole at around eight miles per hour. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'll remind you that wooden telephone poles are inanimate, and

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Speaker 1: they are stationary objects, and they're ones that you would

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Speaker 1: expect a driverless car to naturally avoid. Weimo claimed that

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Speaker 1: the problem came from quote a mapping and software issue

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Speaker 1: end quote. No one was harmed in the incident, so

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Speaker 1: that's good at least. But even though this was a

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Speaker 1: minor accident in the grand scheme of things, it comes

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Speaker 1: at a time when cities are scrutinizing driverless proms a

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Speaker 1: little bit more closely than they used to. Weaimo is

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Speaker 1: in the midst of a software recall on its automated

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Speaker 1: driver system, so we'll see whether or not this leads

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Speaker 1: to bigger headaches for driverless taxi efforts. In general, I

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Speaker 1: think there's a growing skepticism around those. Natalie Cratch of

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Speaker 1: The Wrap has an upsetting piece about the New York

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Speaker 1: Times as art department. So recently the newspaper reduced its

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Speaker 1: art production department by more than half, from sixteen positions

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Speaker 1: down to seven. The New York Times Guild alleges that

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Speaker 1: this move is in an effort to offload work that

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Speaker 1: would normally go to human artists to AI instead. This

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Speaker 1: is ryan line with the concerns many have expressed for

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Speaker 1: the creative industries as a whole that companies will favor

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Speaker 1: AI over human creatives. That's a huge problem for many reasons,

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Speaker 1: not the least of which is that it puts creatives

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Speaker 1: out of work. But also, you know, consider that the

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Speaker 1: training methods for image generating and image altering AI often

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Speaker 1: involved feeding countless exams samples of art and human created

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Speaker 1: work to the AI model. So it's entirely possible that

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Speaker 1: the stuff the AI does will at least in part,

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Speaker 1: be based off the work of the very human beings

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Speaker 1: who are laid off in the first place, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of like being fired and then replaced by a

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Speaker 1: really crappy copy of yourself. But a spokesperson for The

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Speaker 1: Times now has said that AI did not factor into

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Speaker 1: this decision at all, and that in fact, the employees

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Speaker 1: were offered a buyout and the whole decision to downsize

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Speaker 1: the department reflects a push to create a more efficient

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Speaker 1: process that doesn't need as many staff to do its work,

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Speaker 1: though some have said that that's because of the incorporation

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Speaker 1: of AI tools. So the story is still unfolding. And

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Speaker 1: then a story that makes me wonder how this actually works.

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Speaker 1: We have a piece by Takeshi Nhirabi of the Asian

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Speaker 1: Shimbun about a company using AI in order to protect

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Speaker 1: its customer service staff from angry customers. All right, so

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Speaker 1: the story goes that Soft Bank, which is a massive

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Speaker 1: conglomerate that's had a bit of a roller coaster of

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Speaker 1: a history in recent years, has rolled out an AI

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Speaker 1: tool that acts as a go between for staff and customers.

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Speaker 1: So the idea is that the AI receives the angry

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Speaker 1: calls of customers seeking a solution and turns them into

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Speaker 1: a calm and reasonable voice, or at least one that

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Speaker 1: doesn't turn into an intimidating, angry tirade. So you know,

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Speaker 1: a customer could be screaming, listen, you idiot, I'm telling

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Speaker 1: you that I need a solution, but the AI might

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Speaker 1: turn that into could you please help me resolve this issue?

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Speaker 1: Actually that's not true. According to the article, the AI

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Speaker 1: doesn't actually change the wording at all, So if someone

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Speaker 1: calls a staff an idiot, that idiot is still going

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Speaker 1: to get through in the message. But what it does

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Speaker 1: do is it changes the pitch and the tone of

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Speaker 1: the voice. So presumably the person on the other end

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Speaker 1: of the line, if they start getting no a bit heated,

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Speaker 1: the AI might start increasing the pitch of their voice

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Speaker 1: up to chipmunk levels, because you know, it's hard to

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Speaker 1: feel stressed out about a chipmunk being angry at you. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: the developer said one of the challenges was figuring out

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Speaker 1: how much anger to leave in because obviously, if a

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Speaker 1: customer is getting angry, the staff member needs to know

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Speaker 1: about in order not to escalate matters further. And apparently

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Speaker 1: SoftBank hopes to make this tool a product it can

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Speaker 1: sell to other companies starting next year. Okay, some article

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Speaker 1: recommendations for y'all. First up is a piece by Kyle

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Speaker 1: Chaika in The New York Are titled is Google SEO

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Speaker 1: Gaslighting the Internet? So the article describes how some leaked

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Speaker 1: internal Google documents paint a very different picture of how

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Speaker 1: search works than what Google has said to the general public.

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Speaker 1: It's well worth a read. Next up is Ron Amadeo's

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Speaker 1: piece for Ours Technica titled the Google Pay App Is Dead,

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Speaker 1: which tells the story of how Google put to rest

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Speaker 1: yet another Google feature in favor of another one that

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Speaker 1: does pretty much the same thing. And this is like

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Speaker 1: the fourth time that's happened. And finally, Ashley Blanger has

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Speaker 1: another piece on Ours Technica. This one's titled Microsoft in

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Speaker 1: Damage Control Mode says it will prioritize security over AI.

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Speaker 1: Now I alluded to this earlier in the episode. Microsoft

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Speaker 1: has had to face questioning from Congress about some recent

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Speaker 1: security breaches that have affected thousands of government staff, and

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Speaker 1: the piece raises serious questions about whether the US government

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Speaker 1: has put too much faith and responsibility on the shoulders

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Speaker 1: of Microsoft, and whether Microsoft has behaved responsibly in the

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Speaker 1: wake of cybersecurity breaches. According to one whistleblower, Microsoft made

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Speaker 1: the conscious decision to not respond and to not reveal

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Speaker 1: certain attacks in an effort to avoid putting these lucrative

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Speaker 1: government contracts in jeopardy, which is a heck of an accusation,

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Speaker 1: so well worth a read. That's it. I hope you

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Speaker 1: had a great week. I hope you have an even

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Speaker 1: better weekend. And I'll talk to you again, really soon.

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Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.