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 Tuesday,
Speaker 1: July eighteenth, twenty twenty three, and let's get to it.
Speaker 1: CNBC reports that Amaud Mustok, who is the CEO of
Speaker 1: Stability AI, has predicted that artificial intelligence will eliminate coder
Speaker 1: jobs that previously had been outsourced to India. That AI
Speaker 1: is going to require a smaller human staff, and artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence will do a lot of work at a pace
Speaker 1: that's far faster than humans typically can match, and thus
Speaker 1: will be more economically viable for companies. Moreover, Mustok's point
Speaker 1: indicates the level of protection workers can expect based on
Speaker 1: where they live. In the India, such protections are scarce,
Speaker 1: so it isn't a stretch to imagine a future where
Speaker 1: tech companies downsize to cut costs related to staffing and
Speaker 1: start to lean heavily on AI. But most Stock says
Speaker 1: other places such as France will take efforts to protect
Speaker 1: human employees, and so tech companies in France won't have
Speaker 1: the same options as those in India. Mustoc also clarified
Speaker 1: his prediction. He said that coders will be an obsolete
Speaker 1: job in a few years, but that programmers will not be.
Speaker 1: He says, the programmers of the future will rely heavily
Speaker 1: on AI to actually write the code, but things like
Speaker 1: ideation or testing bugs, that kind of stuff that's still
Speaker 1: going to need human counterparts. So while certain aspects of
Speaker 1: programming could be eliminated, AI wouldn't be able to take
Speaker 1: on all the roles that a programmer traditionally performs. Still,
Speaker 1: I imagine we're going to see a lot more disruption
Speaker 1: across multiple industries as companies experiment with AI. I imagine
Speaker 1: more than a few companies will give into the temptation
Speaker 1: to eliminate a large number of jobs in favor of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. And once again I sigh, because this kind
Speaker 1: of strategy is ultimately self defeating in the long run
Speaker 1: in my opinion. By that, I mean, if AI ends
Speaker 1: up displacing lots of people and those people now find
Speaker 1: it difficult to land a job that pays a living wage,
Speaker 1: then you begin to drain the consumer base. And once
Speaker 1: the consumer base is gone, well, now there's no one
Speaker 1: left to buy products and services. And once that happens,
Speaker 1: the businesses which were so good at cutting costs and
Speaker 1: maximizing profits while revenue perhaps remained steady, they're gonna see
Speaker 1: revenue drop because no one will be able to buy
Speaker 1: their stuff because no one has a job anymore, because
Speaker 1: the robots took them all. And before you know it,
Speaker 1: the robots are just making stuff for other robots, and
Speaker 1: the rest of us are going, what the heck do
Speaker 1: we do now? Meanwhile, advocates for universal basic income will
Speaker 1: go bonkers. What a world. Reuter's reports that Microsoft is
Speaker 1: working to extend its acquisition agreement with Activision Blizzard. So
Speaker 1: the original agreement between these two companies set today as
Speaker 1: the deadline for completing the deal. But we have seen
Speaker 1: opposition from regulatory authorities that have introduced lots of hiccups
Speaker 1: along the way. And last week a court dismissed the
Speaker 1: US Federal Trade Commission's request for an injunction to at
Speaker 1: least temporarily block this deal. That request was denied, and
Speaker 1: that removed one impediment, But there's still a roadblock in place,
Speaker 1: and that's the UK's Competition in Market's Authority or CMA,
Speaker 1: which previously voted to block this acquisition, so that block
Speaker 1: is still in effect, and while Microsoft and Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: attempt to persuade UK regulators that the deal will not
Speaker 1: decrease competition in the video game space and the c
Speaker 1: gaming space in particular, the deadline for the deal is
Speaker 1: still in effect, and so according to Reuter's, Microsoft is
Speaker 1: trying to work out a deal with Activision Blizzard to
Speaker 1: extend this contract to give more time to clear those
Speaker 1: regulatory hurdles in the UK. So what are the possible
Speaker 1: outcomes here, Well, the one I think that is most
Speaker 1: likely is that Activision Blizzard will agree to an extension.
Speaker 1: Maybe the company will negotiate some additional terms in the process,
Speaker 1: but I think that's what's going to happen. Another possibility
Speaker 1: is that Activision Blizzard walks away and just remains its
Speaker 1: own company. A third possibility is that Activision Blizzard, sensing
Speaker 1: that it has increased importance and value in the market,
Speaker 1: looks for a different suitor, one that we'll spend even
Speaker 1: more money to acquire it than Microsoft would. I think
Speaker 1: that last possibility is the least likely, but I'm also
Speaker 1: no expert on corporate maneuvers, so it's entirely possible I'm
Speaker 1: missing something obvious. Anyway, the agreement to extend the contract
Speaker 1: will need to have or not happen by the end
Speaker 1: of today. A new law in Norway will take aim
Speaker 1: at Meta's main revenue strategy when it goes active in August,
Speaker 1: and that is personalized advertising. Meta famously leverages the gargantuan
Speaker 1: amount of information it collects from users as they interact
Speaker 1: on platforms like Instagram and Facebook and beyond. To learn
Speaker 1: more about that, read up on Meta Pixel. That'll tell
Speaker 1: you about how Meta has a tool that can be
Speaker 1: imprinted in someone else's web page that delivers information to them,
Speaker 1: but also to Meta itself. Anyway, all this information is
Speaker 1: gold to advertisers. They want to deliver just the right
Speaker 1: message to just the right audience to maximize effectiveness, and
Speaker 1: so for years now, Meta has been in the business
Speaker 1: of selling premier ad services to companies with the implication
Speaker 1: that the advertising campaigns are going to be far more
Speaker 1: effective than if you just put out messaging in front
Speaker 1: of a randomized crowd of people. If you want to
Speaker 1: sell backpacks and tents, well, Meta knows which people are
Speaker 1: keen to go outdoors and rough it do you want
Speaker 1: to sell baby accessories and supplies? Well, Meta knows which
Speaker 1: users are new parents. But Norway has now passed a
Speaker 1: law making it illegal for Meta to practice targeted advertising,
Speaker 1: and should it utilize that strategy in Norway, it could
Speaker 1: face a daily fine of one hundred thousand dollars, so
Speaker 1: one hundred grand every day unless Meta changes its approach,
Speaker 1: at least its approach in Norway. Now, some people are
Speaker 1: estimating already that while one hundred thousand dollars is really
Speaker 1: nothing to Meta, a multi billion dollar company, the amount
Speaker 1: that it makes while operating in Norway is likely less
Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand dollars a day. So that means
Speaker 1: that to operate in Norway, Meta would be doing so
Speaker 1: at all loss. And what's more, Norway is urging other
Speaker 1: countries to form similar legislation. Now this really kind of
Speaker 1: dates back to in twenty twenty two, the Irish Data
Speaker 1: Protection Commission, which is a major regulator in the European Union,
Speaker 1: decided that Meta's approach to quote unquote behavioral advertising breaks
Speaker 1: EU law. Metta subsequently made some adjustments to the way
Speaker 1: it does business, but according to various people, including the
Speaker 1: Irish regulators. Those changes failed to fix the problem and
Speaker 1: they did not bring META into compliance with the law,
Speaker 1: so Norwegian legislators, seeing a need for action, created this approach.
Speaker 1: I should also add Norway is not part of the
Speaker 1: European Union. They are part of the European Single Market,
Speaker 1: but not in the EU. They're not a member of
Speaker 1: the EU. It will be interesting to see how META
Speaker 1: response to this and if other countries in Europe follow
Speaker 1: Norway's lead. Tesla's board of directors has decided to settle
Speaker 1: a lawsuit brought against it a retirement fund that represents
Speaker 1: police and firefighters. The group accused Tesla of paying themselves
Speaker 1: too much in Tesla stock and by Tesla, I mean
Speaker 1: specifically they're board of directors. So as a consequence, the
Speaker 1: directors are collectively returning seven hundred and thirty five million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of stock options. So the lawsuit had argued
Speaker 1: that these directors had voted to award themselves far more
Speaker 1: stock options than a board typically would receive. And on
Speaker 1: that board are well Elon Musk is on it, his
Speaker 1: brother Kimball is on it. James Murdoch, the son of
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch, The media Mogul, he's on it. Joe Grebia,
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of Airbnb, he's on it.
Speaker 1: And finally JB. Strabel, who was previously Tesla's chief technology officer,
Speaker 1: is on the board. So Tesla reps said that the
Speaker 1: idea was to align the board of directors with the
Speaker 1: needs and successes of the company. Right, because your compensation
Speaker 1: is a stock option, then your compensation increases in value
Speaker 1: if the company's stock price increases, So that was the logic,
Speaker 1: they said. Also, I should mention that Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: facing a separate legal challenge relating to his own compensation
Speaker 1: package at Tesla. That's a package that awards Musk fifty
Speaker 1: six billion with a B dollars, which I can't even
Speaker 1: begin to comprehend that amount of money. No wonder must
Speaker 1: doesn't seem too fussed with the continuing descent of Twitter's value,
Speaker 1: and he's got Tesla just totally to fall back on.
Speaker 1: But Tesla also faces other challenges. This week, the US
Speaker 1: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, announced it was
Speaker 1: launching a new investigation into an old crash, a crash
Speaker 1: that happened in twenty eighteen that involved a Tesla Model
Speaker 1: three that may have been in advanced driver assists mode
Speaker 1: at the time of the act. The NHTSA typically will
Speaker 1: engage in around one hundred crash investigations in a year
Speaker 1: for cases where emerging technology had played a part in
Speaker 1: the crash. While this accident happened five years ago, there
Speaker 1: have sadly been no shortage of accidents involving Tesla vehicles
Speaker 1: in some form of self driving mode now. According to
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, since twenty nineteen, there have been seven
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty six accidents with seventeen fatalities that involved
Speaker 1: a Tesla either in autopilot or full self driving mode.
Speaker 1: The NHTSA numbers are actually lower than that. They identify
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy three crashes and launched investigations into
Speaker 1: more of forty of those. Fourteen of those crashes resulted
Speaker 1: in fatalities. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we've got some more tech news
Speaker 1: to talk about. We're back. Reddit is still feeling the
Speaker 1: consequences of the platform's change in its API policy. So
Speaker 1: quick reminder, Reddit, but in a new fee structure for
Speaker 1: developers who use the platform's API to develop third party apps,
Speaker 1: so developers have to pay Reddit based upon the number
Speaker 1: of times their apps reference Reddit, which can include stuff
Speaker 1: like pulling information or posting information to Reddit. The decision
Speaker 1: pushed a lot of developers to shut down their apps.
Speaker 1: They explained they just couldn't afford to pay those fees
Speaker 1: because of the number of times their apps would reference
Speaker 1: Reddit and the popularity of those apps. So a ton
Speaker 1: of Reddit users got really mad because they depended on
Speaker 1: those apps to access Reddit. The platform's own mobile app
Speaker 1: doesn't have the best reputation among a lot of redditors anyway.
Speaker 1: The latest brew haha the site is that Reddit has
Speaker 1: changed its chat system, and as a consequence of that,
Speaker 1: users can now only look at their chat histories from
Speaker 1: January first, twenty three up to the present day. Anything
Speaker 1: that was older, anything that was posted before January first
Speaker 1: of this year is gonzo. Understandably, this has upset a
Speaker 1: lot of people for various reasons. You know, some folks
Speaker 1: were holding on to older messages as a touchstone of
Speaker 1: a friend or loved one that they had no longer
Speaker 1: been in touch with for whatever reason. Some were keeping
Speaker 1: information for the purposes of future work, and now all
Speaker 1: of that information is unavailable when you access your chat history. Now,
Speaker 1: this change didn't happen out of the blue. Reddit actually
Speaker 1: communicated it late last month in a change log, but
Speaker 1: that didn't get that much attention or coverage at that time,
Speaker 1: and Reddit didn't exactly take steps to reach out to
Speaker 1: users and let them know it's coming. So in a way,
Speaker 1: this is a bit like that Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Speaker 1: Galaxy segment where Arthur Den explains that the plans for
Speaker 1: demolishing his house were technically on quote unquote public display,
Speaker 1: but they were stored in a disused lavatory that had
Speaker 1: a sign on it reading Beware of the Leopard. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the good news is that, according to AndroidPolice dot Com,
Speaker 1: redditors can get their chat history by sending a data
Speaker 1: request to Reddit to get a download of all of
Speaker 1: your messages, which should include the ones that are no
Speaker 1: longer accessible in chat. So there is a way to
Speaker 1: still get that information, but you do have to reach
Speaker 1: out and submit a data request to Reddit in order
Speaker 1: to get it. The New York Police Department announced it
Speaker 1: will test out a new emergency announcement system courtesy of drones,
Speaker 1: So if you had flying robots warning of imminent danger
Speaker 1: on your dystopian bingo card. Congratulations, you can mark that
Speaker 1: square off. The plan, the police say is to deploy
Speaker 1: the drones to high risk areas that emergency situations like
Speaker 1: a severe weather event could impact. So recently, New York
Speaker 1: has had problems with flooding as heavy rains have moved
Speaker 1: through the city, and more flooding is expected this weekend,
Speaker 1: so that prompted the NYPD to announce the test of
Speaker 1: the system. While alerting locals to potential threats is important,
Speaker 1: there's another concern that these drones could pull double duty
Speaker 1: and serve as surveillance devices, and that's not nearly as cool.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there are laws meant to protect citizens
Speaker 1: in New York from such surveillance, and that includes the
Speaker 1: requirement that the NYPD issue an impact statement on its
Speaker 1: website and open up the policy to public comment, and
Speaker 1: that that has to happen at least ninety days before
Speaker 1: the NYPD actually deploys the technology. Now, there are questions
Speaker 1: as to whether this particular use of drones would trigger
Speaker 1: that policy. It's possible that NYPD doesn't need to go
Speaker 1: to those steps, because if this is just a case
Speaker 1: of the organization using existing tech in a new way
Speaker 1: as opposed to rolling out an entirely new system. They
Speaker 1: don't have to follow the same requirements anyway. Critics say
Speaker 1: there are plenty of other ways that law enforcement can
Speaker 1: reach out to citizens without throwing flying robots into the mix,
Speaker 1: and that the use of such text seems like it's
Speaker 1: trying to fix a problem with the wrong kind of tool.
Speaker 1: Now in the department of driving Jonathan insane, we have
Speaker 1: our penultimate story of Chuck Schumer, the leader of the
Speaker 1: political majority in the US Senate, and Senator Mike Rownds,
Speaker 1: who have jointly proposed an amendment to the National Defense
Speaker 1: Authorization Act. This amendment would require the Executive branch to
Speaker 1: share records relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs, and
Speaker 1: that the Executive branch would have to share the information
Speaker 1: with Congress. So essentially, the way the story is being reported,
Speaker 1: at least in some circles, is that Chucky boy here
Speaker 1: wants to know about the aliens, or at least stuff
Speaker 1: made by non human intelligence, which could include aliens, but
Speaker 1: I guess it could also include stuff like I don't know,
Speaker 1: robots or alternate dimension, Nicola Tesla's or something. Anyway, the
Speaker 1: amendment argues that the executive branch is quote hiding that
Speaker 1: information from both Congress and the public at large end quote,
Speaker 1: and Schumer's that the public has quote a right to
Speaker 1: learn about technologies of unknown origins, non human intelligence, and
Speaker 1: unexplainable phenomena end quote. Now, y'all, you don't know this
Speaker 1: because I edited it out, but I followed that last
Speaker 1: sentence with a really, really long sigh because I think
Speaker 1: this is just gonna fuel countless French theories about alien
Speaker 1: civilizations and the like, when the truth of the matter
Speaker 1: is that UAP is just really a catch all category
Speaker 1: to describe situations in which someone saw something and where
Speaker 1: they were unable to identify what it was, and that's
Speaker 1: pretty much it. So that something could be incredibly mundane.
Speaker 1: And I'm not just talking about like the old weather
Speaker 1: balloons and swamp gas stuff that you hear, but even
Speaker 1: things like I don't know the reflection of the moon
Speaker 1: on the water, so UAP's that doesn't even necessarily imply
Speaker 1: any sort of vehicle or technology, and the cases where
Speaker 1: we are talking about technology that can include, you know,
Speaker 1: prototypes of things like spy planes or military drones, and
Speaker 1: that's the sort of stuff that countries don't like to
Speaker 1: publicize because you know, they plan on using that on
Speaker 1: other countries, so they tend to keep quiet about it.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that other people don't occasionally see
Speaker 1: that stuff, and of course they can't identify it because it,
Speaker 1: up to that point had been a secret vehicle. So
Speaker 1: it's really not necessary that any of this stuff was
Speaker 1: of non human origin. I also think if we're talking
Speaker 1: non terrestrial, like if we're saying alien, I still think
Speaker 1: that that is incredibly unlikely, almost to the point of
Speaker 1: being impossible, because you have to keep in mind the
Speaker 1: vast distances in space and how long it takes even
Speaker 1: light to travel those vast distances. That's a lot. And
Speaker 1: as long as we as a species have been able
Speaker 1: to make radio waves, which is, you know, a little
Speaker 1: more than a century, and most of those radio ways
Speaker 1: wouldn't have reached very far out into space before they
Speaker 1: got to a point where they weren't even really detectable.
Speaker 1: It's just not realistic that anyone would have even noticed
Speaker 1: we were here, let alone made the trip out here
Speaker 1: to see what was up. Maybe it would involve technologies
Speaker 1: that we just can't even imagine yet that would break
Speaker 1: the laws of physics as we understand them, but that
Speaker 1: would probably require so much energy as to raise the
Speaker 1: question of why would you go to that kind of
Speaker 1: effort to see the chuckle heads who occupy this planet?
Speaker 1: It just it doesn't add up to me, Like it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense as a possibility. So I think this
Speaker 1: is really just gonna create more suspicion and conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: and fringe theories and that kind of stuff, and it's
Speaker 1: not gonna really amount to anything substantial, But I guess
Speaker 1: we'll see. Okay. The last bit I have for you
Speaker 1: is an article recommendation. So other board over Advice has
Speaker 1: posted an article titled Amazon told drivers not to worry
Speaker 1: about in van surveillance cameras now footage is leaking online.
Speaker 1: It was written by Jewles Roscoe. It's a great article
Speaker 1: that reinforces something I mentioned in yesterday's tech Stuff episode
Speaker 1: that even if the technology itself is benign, I would
Speaker 1: argue surveillance equipment does not fall into that category. There
Speaker 1: are still people who will behave as people and they
Speaker 1: will do the wrong thing on occasion. So in this case,
Speaker 1: it involves watching and at least in some cases, leaking
Speaker 1: or sharing in vehicle surveillance footage, which Amazon claimed was
Speaker 1: only meant to monitor drivers for the purposes of safety.
Speaker 1: So there you go. That's your article recommendation. And as always,
Speaker 1: I have no connection with Motherboard or Vice or Jewels Roscoe.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was a good article and it's
Speaker 1: worth your attention. That's it for the news for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: July eighteenth, twenty twenty three. I hope you are all
Speaker 1: well and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech
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