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: May ninth, twenty twenty three, and we begin, as is
Speaker 1: our custom, with some AI related stories, but it's a
Speaker 1: little bit different this time around. So first up, the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal has an article titled chat gpt Fever
Speaker 1: has investors pouring billions into AI startups no business plan required.
Speaker 1: If you've been around for a while, that headline's going
Speaker 1: to sound really familiar to you because you've seen the
Speaker 1: same darned thing happen before. I mean, it happened in
Speaker 1: the nineties with webs startup companies as investors flooded fledgeling
Speaker 1: companies with more money than they knew what to do with,
Speaker 1: and a lot of those companies didn't have any kind
Speaker 1: of business plan that would allow them to actually work
Speaker 1: in the long run, and a lot of those companies
Speaker 1: collapsed a year or two later and all that money
Speaker 1: went away. The dot com bubble was brutal. It happened
Speaker 1: again in two thousand and eight, with the real estate crisis,
Speaker 1: banks were issuing loans to folks who really couldn't afford
Speaker 1: to pay those loans back, and then banks were selling
Speaker 1: that debt to other institutions that were buying debt in
Speaker 1: order to try and make even more money. It all
Speaker 1: collapsed on itself to disastrous effect. It happened with cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: and blockchain companies that really flared up with NFTs. We
Speaker 1: saw it happening with the metaverse as well. So pretty
Speaker 1: much anytime there's an interesting technological innovation that emerges, folks
Speaker 1: will get hit by fomo super hard. But fomo is
Speaker 1: a fear of missing out in case you didn't know,
Speaker 1: and they don't want to be the person on the
Speaker 1: block who can't afford to move into a mansion because
Speaker 1: they didn't go and pour their life savings into some startup.
Speaker 1: We all want to be the investor who got into
Speaker 1: Apple just before Steve Jobs came back and took the
Speaker 1: company to the stratosphere. Or we want to be one
Speaker 1: of the people who put money into Google when it
Speaker 1: was just a startup working out of a garage. But
Speaker 1: this behavior ends up being self destructive and destructive in general,
Speaker 1: even assuming that the people behind an AI centric company
Speaker 1: are on the up and up, there's no guarantee that
Speaker 1: their idea is going to be practical or monetizable in
Speaker 1: the long run. Then there are all the opportunists who
Speaker 1: see a chance to make a killing by presenting a
Speaker 1: cool sounding idea without having any intention of seeing it through.
Speaker 1: They might promise the moon and stars because they see
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of suckers out there with
Speaker 1: a ton of money to invest, and they're excited about
Speaker 1: the prospect of an AI company. It is a perfect
Speaker 1: storm for parting a fool with their money. In other words,
Speaker 1: now that's not to say that every AI company out
Speaker 1: there is a bad idea or a scam. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are a lot of great ideas too that are
Speaker 1: built on a foundation of a solid business plan. But
Speaker 1: we're also rushing toward a time where regulators around the
Speaker 1: world are starting to square off against AI. Now I
Speaker 1: am no financial advisor, and goodness knows, I have got
Speaker 1: a terrible track record at predicting whether something is going
Speaker 1: to be a hit or not. I would just suggest
Speaker 1: that before anyone invests serious money into any startup, they
Speaker 1: use some critical thinking and careful consideration before paying out
Speaker 1: a mountain of cash. Today, IBM launched an AI platform
Speaker 1: called Watson X. Now you might remember that Watson is
Speaker 1: IBM's AI platform that famously competed on the game show
Speaker 1: Jeopardy way back in twenty eleven. For IBM, that exhibition
Speaker 1: was really a whole lot of advertising for Watson, and
Speaker 1: the company was hoping that other companies would come up
Speaker 1: with cool business ideas that would require AI, and since
Speaker 1: AI was really really hard to do well, those companies
Speaker 1: would hire on IBM and pay to use Watson as
Speaker 1: the foundation for their idea rather than have to build
Speaker 1: everything from the ground up. But this was more than
Speaker 1: a decade ago, and it was mad expensive to pay
Speaker 1: for that kind of computing power. But now that we're
Speaker 1: starting to see insane amounts of investment pour into AI, well,
Speaker 1: IBM sees that the iron is hot, so it's time
Speaker 1: to strike. So again, Watson X is meant as an
Speaker 1: enterprise product, So it's meant for companies that want to
Speaker 1: leverage AI to do something, maybe even something that will
Speaker 1: end up eliminating jobs for people like you know, programmers,
Speaker 1: for example, and then they will lean on a IBM
Speaker 1: to provide the horse power while they take advantage of
Speaker 1: the capabilities to do whatever it is they plan to do.
Speaker 1: That's the basic concept behind watson x. NPR's Shannon Bond
Speaker 1: has an article titled people are trying to claim real
Speaker 1: videos are deep fakes. The courts are not amused, and
Speaker 1: the headline gives you a strong hint at the contents
Speaker 1: of that article. The article's great, by the way, you
Speaker 1: should definitely read the whole thing. I think we can
Speaker 1: all recognize the potential for deep fakes to cause a
Speaker 1: person real harm. So imagine that a video pops up
Speaker 1: online that makes it look like you were part of
Speaker 1: some illegal activity that you had nothing to do with,
Speaker 1: or that you were doing something you personally object to.
Speaker 1: You have been robbed of your agency. Someone has effectively
Speaker 1: forced you, or at least an image of you, to
Speaker 1: do something that you wouldn't do. That's a violation and
Speaker 1: it could do you serious harm. Imagine that your employer
Speaker 1: sees a video of you appearing to deface property or
Speaker 1: to take part in some violent act. It doesn't take
Speaker 1: long before you start to come up with all sorts
Speaker 1: of scenarios that are ugly and harmful, but then there's
Speaker 1: the other side of the deep fake coin. Imagine someone
Speaker 1: who was legitimately caught on camera actually doing something illegal
Speaker 1: or unethical or immoral, and imagine that that person tries
Speaker 1: to weasel out of accountability by claiming that the video
Speaker 1: is in fact a deep fake. That's not me, that's
Speaker 1: computer generated. When deep fakes get so good that we
Speaker 1: can't tell their deep fakes, the sword cuts both ways.
Speaker 1: Bobby Chesney and Danielle Cetron coined the phrase the liar's
Speaker 1: dividend to describe this situation, one in which a person
Speaker 1: can deny responsibility for their actions that were caught on
Speaker 1: video by claiming it was faked footage. The NPR article
Speaker 1: cites a case in which lawyers for a certain Elon
Speaker 1: Musk claimed that a recorded statement made by Musk was
Speaker 1: actually a deep fake. The judge was not having it.
Speaker 1: In fact, she said that to accept the claim that
Speaker 1: the audio was not real would effectively say legal precedent
Speaker 1: that would let Musk say whatever he wants to, no
Speaker 1: matter what the consequences might be, and then fall back
Speaker 1: on claims that it was all just generated by AI
Speaker 1: in order to avoid accountability. I imagine such a precedent
Speaker 1: would be gleefully adopted by countless public figures. It really
Speaker 1: helps them fight against these so called cancel culture. The
Speaker 1: play to foist blame on deep fakes so far has
Speaker 1: not been successful in court, as the headline of the
Speaker 1: article suggests, and there are companies that develop tools that
Speaker 1: look for tiny indications that a video was actually faked.
Speaker 1: So it's not like deep fake technology is perfect and
Speaker 1: that it can go undetected. But that's how things are
Speaker 1: right now. There's no telling if or when we'll get
Speaker 1: to a point when the fakes are indistinguishable from the
Speaker 1: real thing, and we may see court systems adopt practices
Speaker 1: that require anyone using a deep fake defense to provide
Speaker 1: proof of their claim. However, the article also points out
Speaker 1: that the opposite effect could end up happening with that approach.
Speaker 1: Right so, instead of proving that something isn't fake, the
Speaker 1: increase in the costs and time on part of prosecution
Speaker 1: to provide evidence that, yeah, this is a real video,
Speaker 1: it's not fake. That could mean that the prosecution never
Speaker 1: submits the video in the first place because of the
Speaker 1: defense can say no, that's fake. You have to prove
Speaker 1: it's true, and the cost of proving it's true is
Speaker 1: super expensive. Prosecution might say, you know, we can't submit
Speaker 1: that as evidence because we don't have the money to
Speaker 1: pay to prove that it's that it's real. And so
Speaker 1: it could be that the requirement to provide proof, you know,
Speaker 1: ironically prevents anyone from submitting video evidence in the first place.
Speaker 1: And really it just means that we're heading toward a
Speaker 1: future where people can't trust reality, which is terrifying. Sam
Speaker 1: Bateman Freed aka SBF aka the founder of the cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: exchange FTX, you know, the one that went belly up
Speaker 1: late last year, says it's all been fun and stuff,
Speaker 1: but maybe the courts could just like toss out the
Speaker 1: charges against him. Not all of the charges, mind you,
Speaker 1: but you know, ten out of the thirteen. So if
Speaker 1: you don't remember what happened, here's the super fast version.
Speaker 1: SBF had two cryptocurrency companies that he co founded. One
Speaker 1: was Alameda Research that's an investment fund or it was
Speaker 1: an investment fund that would take investor dollars and then
Speaker 1: put them into various crypto companies. The other one was FTX,
Speaker 1: which was an exchange where you could exchange one type
Speaker 1: of currency for some other type of currency. Someone leaked
Speaker 1: an internal document that showed that Alameda had secretly been
Speaker 1: funneling money belonging to FTX customers in order to pay
Speaker 1: off Alameda investors, and they were essentially counting on the
Speaker 1: fact that the FTX community would keep enough of their
Speaker 1: cash inside FTX to cover the transfer, the idea being that, Okay,
Speaker 1: when we make the money back, we can cover this.
Speaker 1: But when news got out that this was happening, there
Speaker 1: was essentially a run on the bank and everyone started
Speaker 1: to try and pull their money out of FTX, and
Speaker 1: it all came tumbling down. The FED stepped in and
Speaker 1: seized assets in an attempt to get as much money
Speaker 1: back for customers as possible, and folks like SBF were
Speaker 1: on the hook for committing lots and lots of crimes. Now,
Speaker 1: SBF is saying that prosecutors unfairly targeted him and that
Speaker 1: FTX wasn't the only cryptocurrency to collapse last year. It's
Speaker 1: not like it was an outlier. So essentially SBF's lawyers
Speaker 1: are saying because other companies failed, ftx's failure wasn't special
Speaker 1: and thus did not warrant the speed and ferocity of
Speaker 1: prosecution that it got, except that some of SBF's compatriots
Speaker 1: have already pleaded guilty to charge as a fraud. And
Speaker 1: also it sounds like it's kind of too coke reasoning.
Speaker 1: Like you also the idea being, hey, because this person
Speaker 1: did a crime, that means my crime's not as bad. No,
Speaker 1: it just means that two people have comit a crime. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the document showing the transfer of funds that came out
Speaker 1: before FTX collapsed, I think that's a big problem. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a legal expert. Maybe it's not a big problem.
Speaker 1: I would just assume that when you have a document
Speaker 1: that indicates that something hinky is going on and then
Speaker 1: the company goes under, that does warrant a closer look.
Speaker 1: So there may be aspects to SBF's claims that I
Speaker 1: am completely missing, or maybe even some of his lawyer's
Speaker 1: complaints against prosecutors and government officials are accurate. But for
Speaker 1: the moment, I remained skeptical that this ploy is going
Speaker 1: to work. Sticking with crypto, yesterday, the cryptocurrency exchange called
Speaker 1: Bittrex Incorporated filed for bankruptcy protection. So just under a
Speaker 1: month ago, the US Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC
Speaker 1: alleged that Bittrex was acting as an unregistered securities exchange.
Speaker 1: Following that accusation, the company shut down operations in the
Speaker 1: United States. So Bittrix Incorporated is the US arm of
Speaker 1: this crypto exchange. This is not unusual. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of crypto companies that maintain a separate entity, specifically
Speaker 1: for the United States. You can also see ftx's former
Speaker 1: chief rival, Binance, another cryptocurrency exchange. It does this too.
Speaker 1: And while Beatrix Incorporated appears to be going under Bittrix Global,
Speaker 1: the part of the company that sees business everywhere besides
Speaker 1: the United States, has no future like that in store
Speaker 1: for it. It's, still, according to the founders, going strong.
Speaker 1: So the US branch says it still has its customer
Speaker 1: funds in its possession and it's requesting a time during
Speaker 1: bankruptcy proceedings to allow customers to retrieve their money before
Speaker 1: it becomes a big part of this messy bankruptcy proceeding.
Speaker 1: Investigations into Bittrex indicate that perhaps something hinky was going
Speaker 1: going on, and perhaps there was an effort to cover
Speaker 1: up said hinkiness. Though the company has denied any such hincosity.
Speaker 1: It did agree to pay twenty nine million dollars in
Speaker 1: fines to the Treasury Department relating to stuff like money
Speaker 1: laundering and sidestepping international sanctions against other countries. So you
Speaker 1: know that's totally different. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, I'm gonna talk about ads
Speaker 1: a little bit. We're back, okay, and I know, in fact,
Speaker 1: if there's just one thing I know, it's that people
Speaker 1: do not like ads. They tell me that all the
Speaker 1: time regarding my show. Also, just quick moment of me
Speaker 1: being real with all of y'all. So I work for
Speaker 1: a really big media company, right, Folks, way higher up
Speaker 1: on the ladder than I am, decide how many ads
Speaker 1: get served on shows like mine. I don't get to
Speaker 1: make that decision. That decision is made and I have
Speaker 1: to abide by it. Now, those ads pay the bills
Speaker 1: and they keep shows like this one going, so they
Speaker 1: do serve a purpose. Just No, I'm not the person
Speaker 1: sitting in the big old chair pet and the kitty
Speaker 1: cat while laughing maniacally. It's one of my bosses. I
Speaker 1: won't say which one or ones. Anyway, The Verge reports
Speaker 1: that Google is inserting more ads into Gmail now. Previously,
Speaker 1: Google inserted ads into the top sections of the promotions
Speaker 1: and social inbox tabs, you know, the ones that you
Speaker 1: hardly ever check. In fact, I never checked those unless
Speaker 1: I was expecting something and I couldn't find it in
Speaker 1: my inbox, so then I looked to see if maybe
Speaker 1: it got shuffled into one of those tabs. Now Google
Speaker 1: is testing the ads in other places, such as in
Speaker 1: the updates filter. So this filter creates a view of
Speaker 1: your email that shows messages that you know give you
Speaker 1: updates about stuff. So let's say you ordered a product
Speaker 1: and you did it online and you just want to
Speaker 1: see where in the delivery process it is what was
Speaker 1: the last update. You might use the update filter that
Speaker 1: kind of weed up all the other stuff in order
Speaker 1: to find this specific update more efficiently. Well, if you
Speaker 1: are in the test group, then when you use that filter,
Speaker 1: it would also show you ads incorporated within the results
Speaker 1: of this filter, presumably ads for stuff that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: related to your actual updates. And as I'm sure you
Speaker 1: can imagine, Google users who have seen this as part
Speaker 1: of the test are not super happy about this change.
Speaker 1: Some users shared screenshots that showed the ads appeared in
Speaker 1: between valid email messages, so you'd have like an email,
Speaker 1: an email, and email, an AD that looks like an email,
Speaker 1: but it's labeled AD if you looked off to the side,
Speaker 1: and then more emails, so it's like filtered into it
Speaker 1: as opposed to all gathered at the top, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of how Google had in doing things
Speaker 1: where all the ads were at the top. You would
Speaker 1: scroll past the ads and you would get to the
Speaker 1: actual content. Now they're being interspersed, so that also is
Speaker 1: something people are objecting to, and in fact, it's something
Speaker 1: that podcasters subject to too. A lot of podcasters like myself,
Speaker 1: we want to have a clear delineation between the episode
Speaker 1: and the ad breaks, and so that's why before every
Speaker 1: ad break, I say we're going to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: because I want to make sure that it's clear we're
Speaker 1: transitioning into ads and it's not like some bait and switch.
Speaker 1: So Google's doing something that the rest of us figured
Speaker 1: out is not good and ends up undermining trust, but
Speaker 1: they're doing it anyway, at least in this test. Whether
Speaker 1: this gets rolled out to the general public, we have
Speaker 1: to wait and see. But I will say, if Google
Speaker 1: sees that it's making them more money, I think it
Speaker 1: would be unrealistic to expect them to just back off
Speaker 1: of it. So we'll see now. At the same time,
Speaker 1: Microsoft is effectively turning to Google to say hold my beer.
Speaker 1: So tech Radar reports that Microsoft appears to be pushing
Speaker 1: more ads into the Windows eleven experience now as it stands,
Speaker 1: when you open up the start menu on Windows eleven,
Speaker 1: you can see a display of ads for other Microsoft services,
Speaker 1: typically stuff like cloud storage or access to other Microsoft
Speaker 1: suites of programs. So it's not just that it's an
Speaker 1: operating system, it's also serving as an advertising platform for
Speaker 1: other Microsoft products. Tech Radars Darren Allen says we might
Speaker 1: see something similar roll out into the Settings app within Windows,
Speaker 1: so like if you ever have to go into Windows
Speaker 1: to change settings for something, you might end up seeing
Speaker 1: ads for Microsoft services in there as well. A Twitter
Speaker 1: user with the handle at the book is closed they
Speaker 1: also go by Alba Core shared some images that were
Speaker 1: said to be screenshots of the setting's homepage in a
Speaker 1: test build of Windows eleven, and sure enough, there are
Speaker 1: more ads for Microsoft products, specifically the image that Albacore
Speaker 1: shared had an ad for Microsoft three sixty five embedded
Speaker 1: in the Settings home view. It appears that the price
Speaker 1: you pay for using Microsoft Windows computers is a persistent
Speaker 1: barrage of notices urging you to, you know, buy more
Speaker 1: Microsoft products and services. Now, I should add this has
Speaker 1: not been rolled out to Windows users in general. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's not even been confirmed to be real yet when
Speaker 1: I was recording this. But assuming that there are beta
Speaker 1: testers out there who are encountering these kinds of things,
Speaker 1: we can only hope that they push back against this practice.
Speaker 1: If nothing else, it's really not doing Microsoft any favors
Speaker 1: because various regulators around the world are scrutinizing the company
Speaker 1: over matters of anti competitiveness. And if you're integrating ads
Speaker 1: for your own products into your own operating system, that
Speaker 1: feels to me like it could be treading dangerously close
Speaker 1: to territory that regulators would latch onto and say you
Speaker 1: are using an unfair advantage here because you have a
Speaker 1: dominant position in the operating system market. For you to
Speaker 1: be using that to advertise your own services, but say
Speaker 1: not anyone else's is potentially anti competitive. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that regulators are necessarily going to clamp on down to that.
Speaker 1: But like, it just surprises me that Microsoft would even
Speaker 1: pursue this based upon the pushback the company has received
Speaker 1: recently around the world. You know, when everyone's giving you
Speaker 1: side eye, maybe you should cool it for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Here in the United States, the Department of Defense is
Speaker 1: seeking a way to fund new tech projects without first
Speaker 1: gaining congressional approval. Now that notice gave me a knee
Speaker 1: jerk reaction of WHOA, that's not good. But then I
Speaker 1: read it and I started to get a deeper appreciation
Speaker 1: beyond the surface level reaction. So the way things normally
Speaker 1: work is that the Pentagon identifies a technological need for
Speaker 1: matters of defense. Right they figure out, we need this
Speaker 1: program in order to stay current and to give the
Speaker 1: nation the best security possible. And the need then has
Speaker 1: to be presented to lawmakers for approval before it can
Speaker 1: move forward and then get funding. And then there's the
Speaker 1: actual round of securing funding for the new project. It's
Speaker 1: to incorporate it into the budget and to be able
Speaker 1: to actually pay to have this tech project put into action.
Speaker 1: This whole process of approval and budgeting can take a
Speaker 1: really long time. The concern is that as time passes,
Speaker 1: while you're just waiting to get started, adversaries are rushing
Speaker 1: ahead with their own because they're relying on less oversight,
Speaker 1: or they have a streamline process, or they're being run
Speaker 1: by the military, so they just approve everything without having
Speaker 1: to go to anyone else. And so the proposal is
Speaker 1: for a three hundred million dollar allowance within the DoD
Speaker 1: to use to fund new projects without first getting Congressional
Speaker 1: approval for them. Now, these projects do have to hit
Speaker 1: several criteria in order to merit a share of that
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars. They have to be new projects.
Speaker 1: Any existing project requires the old budgeting approach, that three
Speaker 1: hundred million comes out the overall budget for the Department
Speaker 1: of Defense. So this is not like a three hundred
Speaker 1: million dollar check handed out by Congress. Congress is saying you,
Speaker 1: or the proposal is saying Congress would allow the Department
Speaker 1: of Defense to carve out three hundred million dollars within
Speaker 1: its budget to serve for this purpose, where in return
Speaker 1: for not having to seek Congressional approval, this one hundred
Speaker 1: million can be used to fund various stuff, and any
Speaker 1: project leader would have to get a sign off from
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Defense first before the project would move forward.
Speaker 1: The Secretary of Defense would have to determine that waiting
Speaker 1: for the normal budget cycle would result in being too
Speaker 1: far behind that that would be a dangerous thing. So
Speaker 1: there are a lot of boxes that have to be
Speaker 1: checked marked before this proposal would even be a thing now.
Speaker 1: As I said, my first reaction upon reading the headline
Speaker 1: was to be nervous, because I'm not a fan of
Speaker 1: military organizations having less governmental oversight. But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: it is undeniable that the pace of technology is way
Speaker 1: way faster than the political system, which moves at a
Speaker 1: more glacial speed. And it's not like there's no oversight
Speaker 1: at all. Nor is it like giving the DoD a
Speaker 1: blank check to do whatever they want with it, and
Speaker 1: the next you know, you've got robot soldiers. So as
Speaker 1: the proposal stands, I'm cautiously in favor of it, but
Speaker 1: I'm also old enough to be ready to regret saying that.
Speaker 1: Further down the line. Okay, we've got a few more
Speaker 1: news stories to get to, but it's time for us
Speaker 1: to take another quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So we're back. Ours Technica has a great piece that's
Speaker 1: titled white House challenges hackers to break top AI models
Speaker 1: at def Con thirty one. So def Con is a
Speaker 1: hacker and cybersecurity conference. It's the type of event where
Speaker 1: you don't want to bring a personal laptop or smartphone
Speaker 1: with you. Now burn our phones only please. It's a
Speaker 1: place where folks have created all sorts of device is
Speaker 1: meant to siphon information from all types of sources, so
Speaker 1: we're talking things like RFID readers and NFC sensors and
Speaker 1: sniffers and other stuff as well. It is not unusual
Speaker 1: for the US government or for various companies to issue
Speaker 1: a challenge to attendees in an effort to find security
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities and thus get the chance to patch those vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: early on before someone figures out a way to exploit
Speaker 1: them in like a zero day attack. And as we
Speaker 1: have seen over the last year, AI is a huge deal.
Speaker 1: It has the potential to do amazing things or amazingly
Speaker 1: terrible things. Figuring out if various AI platforms are secure
Speaker 1: is absolutely critical for making sure that we steer AI
Speaker 1: more toward the good stuff and away from the bad stuff.
Speaker 1: Because weaponized AI is legit scary stuff, after all. So
Speaker 1: the goal of this challenge is to have hackers uncover
Speaker 1: gaps and security and AI design that companies will then
Speaker 1: be able to address to minimize the chances of things
Speaker 1: going really, really wrong in the future. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you know things won't go really wrong. Maybe they will,
Speaker 1: but at least this is a step toward trying to
Speaker 1: make sure that we're doing the best we can to
Speaker 1: avoid that outcome. I think it's a necessary step. I
Speaker 1: think the people who attend these conferences they have the
Speaker 1: kind of mentality and skill set and knowledge to really
Speaker 1: put various systems to the test. They look at things
Speaker 1: in a different way, and by doing that and using
Speaker 1: things in ways that weren't necessarily the intended use, you
Speaker 1: can sometimes find out, Hey, this thing you didn't think
Speaker 1: was important, turns out it's absolutely critical and you need
Speaker 1: to address it. So I think that this is a
Speaker 1: good step, but it's always I would be so intimidated
Speaker 1: to appear at a defcon. I've never gone, and I
Speaker 1: don't think I ever will. I'm not smart enough, I'm
Speaker 1: not educated enough in that world. I mean I could
Speaker 1: certainly learn a lot and report on a lot, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't contribute anything other than potentially my own personal
Speaker 1: data because I poorly secured a device or two or something.
Speaker 1: That's kind of my nightmare. So I just stay far
Speaker 1: away and let the smart people handle it, and then
Speaker 1: I read up on it now in our last news
Speaker 1: story of the day, which is going to include a
Speaker 1: lot of Jonathan Snark in it. Peter thel technologist entrepreneur
Speaker 1: Peter Thiel said in an episode of the podcast Honestly
Speaker 1: with Barry Weiss that he is so deeply disappointed that
Speaker 1: humanity hasn't figured out how to conquer death. I mean,
Speaker 1: what are we even doing right? Like, we have not
Speaker 1: spent the time needed to eliminate death or figure out
Speaker 1: whether or not that's impossible. He also revealed he's gonna
Speaker 1: get frozen after he dies, put into cryogenic storage so
Speaker 1: that one day he might be able to be brought back,
Speaker 1: possibly if such a thing is possible. And y'all, I
Speaker 1: feel like this is a theme with certain uber rich people.
Speaker 1: I get the feeling. Elon Musk falls into this category too.
Speaker 1: The sensation I get, and this is just my own opinion,
Speaker 1: is that these are people who are terrified by the
Speaker 1: notion that one day they will die, just like all
Speaker 1: the poor people out there die, that all the wealth
Speaker 1: they've mounted throughout their lifetimes will still not stop the
Speaker 1: grim reaper from slinging that scythe down on them one day,
Speaker 1: and then they'll just die like one of the common people. No,
Speaker 1: thank you. No, these billionaires are looking for a way out,
Speaker 1: whether it's being turned into a theasicle or maybe having
Speaker 1: their brains somehow pourted over into a machine. Because the
Speaker 1: possibility of just ceasing to exist is plain unthinkable to them.
Speaker 1: It is so counter to their daily experience that they
Speaker 1: cannot accept it. I think that's the fear that fuels
Speaker 1: a lot of futurists as well, who for years have
Speaker 1: predicted the technological singularity. To me, that's more of a
Speaker 1: revelation that they fear that undiscovered country from who's born
Speaker 1: no traveler returns, rather than a genuine prediction of where
Speaker 1: tech itself is actually going. Anyway, I can't say that
Speaker 1: I'm really surprised by this. Honestly, it confirms a lot
Speaker 1: of biases I already had. It doesn't mean that I'm
Speaker 1: right about everything else, obviously. Again, it's all my opinion,
Speaker 1: but its opinion, just based off of observation. Why not,
Speaker 1: you know, dedicate a portion of your huge wealth to
Speaker 1: keeping you going after you've snuffed it. I mean it
Speaker 1: makes sense, right, you're a billionaire. Why not just put
Speaker 1: some of that money aside to keep you on ice
Speaker 1: in case one day you're brought back. I mean, what
Speaker 1: else is that money going to do? Feed the hungry?
Speaker 1: Why they're just gonna get hungry again tomorrow? Right? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: eat the rich, y'all? Okay, Before I sign off, I
Speaker 1: thought I would do one more thing and mention a
Speaker 1: couple of longer form pieces that I came across this
Speaker 1: week that I think y'all should check out. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try and do this more regularly when I come across
Speaker 1: something that I'm like, this is really good. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really fit within news because it goes more into journalism,
Speaker 1: but I feel like people need to be aware of it.
Speaker 1: So first up is a piece by David Pierce in
Speaker 1: The Verge. It is titled speed Trap, and it's about
Speaker 1: an initiative Google had that ended up having really negative consequences.
Speaker 1: It's a great read. It's a great read. I think
Speaker 1: you'd really like it. The second piece I want to
Speaker 1: mention is in the Atlantic and it's by Ariel or
Speaker 1: Ariel Sabar titled The billion Dollar Ponzi Scheme Hooked Warren
Speaker 1: Buffett and the US Treasury. This piece is about a
Speaker 1: guy who ran a company that built solar powered generators,
Speaker 1: like portable generators you could bring to different sites with
Speaker 1: the idea of disrupting the portable generator market to create
Speaker 1: a carbon neutral approach to portable electricity generation. And it
Speaker 1: was meant for things like construction sites and festivals and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a good article. It reminds me a lot of
Speaker 1: the Therenose story in many ways, because it seems like
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where someone comes up with
Speaker 1: an idea that would be great if you could get
Speaker 1: it to work, but then the idea ends up making
Speaker 1: the person huge amounts of money before they realize that
Speaker 1: their idea doesn't actually work, or at least it doesn't
Speaker 1: work at a level that it needs to in order
Speaker 1: to be a viable business. Both of those articles are
Speaker 1: well worth your time. And also I have no connection
Speaker 1: to either publication or either author. I don't know the author,
Speaker 1: and I mean I'm just a reader of those publications,
Speaker 1: so there's nothing connecting the back end there. These are
Speaker 1: just pieces I thought were really good and that more
Speaker 1: people should check out. That's it for this episode. For
Speaker 1: the news for Tuesday, May ninth, twenty twenty three. I
Speaker 1: hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.