Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: June fifteenth, twenty twenty three, and first up, Google leadership
Speaker 1: have reportedly warned employees against using chatbots to do stuff like,
Speaker 1: you know, organize information that could include sensitive or proprietary data,
Speaker 1: and that also includes Google's own chat bot Bard. And
Speaker 1: you might think that that's a bit concerning that a
Speaker 1: company that has developed an AI chatbot and is actively
Speaker 1: marketing that chat bot to business customers has now warned
Speaker 1: its own staff against using such tools in the first place,
Speaker 1: for everything from organized information to developing code. And I
Speaker 1: also think that's concerning. Google's messaging has been that the
Speaker 1: company wishes to remain transparent that it acknowledges that these
Speaker 1: tools are far from perfect. Not only can they generate
Speaker 1: responses that are unreliable through AI hallucinations, they also have
Speaker 1: the potential to incorporate any information that you submit to them. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you're using an AI chatbot to
Speaker 1: help you create a presentation meant for an internal meeting,
Speaker 1: and that data includes stuff that's not meant for public consumption.
Speaker 1: It's possible the chatbot could essentially absorb that data and
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe populate some future response with information you
Speaker 1: provided to it to someone else, perhaps a competitor. We've
Speaker 1: already seen how an unintentional error could compromise information you
Speaker 1: shared with a chatbot. Chat GPT famously had a glitch
Speaker 1: in which users were able to see past conversations that
Speaker 1: other people had had with chat gpt. Interestingly, Google does
Speaker 1: offer a version of BARD to commercial customers that, for
Speaker 1: a price, will keep conversations strictly on the DL that
Speaker 1: is barred, won't incorporate data entered into such interactions into
Speaker 1: the larger public database of information. I think the story
Speaker 1: really reinforces the fact that Google rushed into the AI
Speaker 1: space and felt pressured by the launch of chat GPT,
Speaker 1: and that the company had not intended to go to
Speaker 1: market so soon with BARD. But that's already known. But
Speaker 1: the fear is that tools like chat GPT could potentially
Speaker 1: spell disaster for traditional web searches, and so to Google,
Speaker 1: the emergence of generative AI represented an existential threat. With
Speaker 1: Google's business so heavily dependent upon ad search, a hit
Speaker 1: to the search business would be potentially devastating, and so
Speaker 1: the company barreled into launching its own AI chatbot. Whether
Speaker 1: this ultimately keeps Google's business safe remains to be seen,
Speaker 1: but based upon the company's warning to its own employees,
Speaker 1: I'm not confident that it's the best tech to push
Speaker 1: out worldwide. I guess Google's former motto don't be evil
Speaker 1: is now do as I say, not as I do.
Speaker 1: Vira Jarova, the VP of the European Commission's Office of
Speaker 1: Values and Transparency, is calling for EU legislators to update
Speaker 1: the Code of Practice on Disinformation to include new rules
Speaker 1: about generative AI. She is calling for tech companies in
Speaker 1: the space to create guidelines and rules that will protect
Speaker 1: EU citizens against misinformation and disinformation created by AI, and
Speaker 1: that could include things like labeling when content was generated
Speaker 1: by AI in the first place. According to pcgamer dot com,
Speaker 1: she was asked if the new rules would have a
Speaker 1: negative impact on the freedom of expression. To that replied quote,
Speaker 1: I don't see any right of machines to freedom of
Speaker 1: expression end quote. That's an interesting point, saying that well,
Speaker 1: machines don't have that right. They're not people. The EU
Speaker 1: is also a region where in the past advocates have
Speaker 1: argued that they should consider if robots have a right
Speaker 1: to personhood. And I know robots and AI chatbots are
Speaker 1: different things, but they start to bleed together awful quickly,
Speaker 1: so it might sound a bit premature to hold conversations
Speaker 1: about whether or not robots should be treated as people.
Speaker 1: To be clear, we are a very long way away
Speaker 1: from machines that have a sense of self. But part
Speaker 1: of this call for such consideration was to help lay
Speaker 1: out clear rules as to whom should be held responsible
Speaker 1: if a machine operating under artificial intelligence causes harm either
Speaker 1: to people or property. Should the manufacturer be responsible in
Speaker 1: that effect? Should programmers the end user? These are big questions,
Speaker 1: and they are relevant in a world where we have
Speaker 1: stuff like vehicles that are operating at some level of autonomy.
Speaker 1: If there's an accident, who whom should be held responsible?
Speaker 1: But back to Jarova's point, She believes that the Code
Speaker 1: of Disinformation needs updates, specifically to adjust the threat of
Speaker 1: generative AI, and that any restrictions on that communication can't
Speaker 1: be considered a violation of free speech. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that argument would actually fly here in the United States,
Speaker 1: not because there's a strong legal basis to provide freedom
Speaker 1: of speech to machines, there's not, but because such speech
Speaker 1: could be seen as an extension of a corporation's communications,
Speaker 1: namely the company responsible for creating the AI in the
Speaker 1: first place. And as I'm sure most of you all know,
Speaker 1: here in the United States, corporations are legally considered to
Speaker 1: be people, complete with the right to expression. So it
Speaker 1: will be interesting to see where this goes from here,
Speaker 1: whether it will progress in the EU, and how companies
Speaker 1: and the government in the United States might end up
Speaker 1: shifting as kind of a result of that. Now Here
Speaker 1: in the US, there is a bipartisan effort to alter
Speaker 1: a different law to make exceptions for generative AI. This
Speaker 1: time we're talking about the infamous Section two thirty. Now,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, this law limits the liability of web based
Speaker 1: platforms for the stuff that their users are posting to
Speaker 1: those platforms. So, in other words, because of Section two thirty,
Speaker 1: if someone were to post illegal material on Facebook, Meta
Speaker 1: would not be held responsible for hosting that information. Now,
Speaker 1: this rule has its own limitations. Platforms are supposed to
Speaker 1: take reasonable steps to address illegal material, And there are
Speaker 1: further questions as to what role the platforms actually play
Speaker 1: in disseminating information, including misinformation and illegal material, because obviously
Speaker 1: these platforms have their own recommendation algorithms, So there are
Speaker 1: questions about, well, if a platform is promoting something, then
Speaker 1: doesn't that mean the platform is at least partly accountable
Speaker 1: for it. But generally speaking, platforms enjoy a great deal
Speaker 1: of legal protection regarding the stuff that people post to them,
Speaker 1: which has vexed both sides of the political aisle here
Speaker 1: in the United States for very different philosophical reasons. Now,
Speaker 1: Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Josh Holly have proposed a
Speaker 1: bill that would essentially say content from generative AI exists
Speaker 1: outside the protections of Section two thirty. So if this
Speaker 1: bill were to become law, there would be a legal
Speaker 1: foundation to bring lawsuits against platforms that allow harmful generative
Speaker 1: AI content on them that includes stuff like deep fake
Speaker 1: videos or a I impersonations of people's voices. So if
Speaker 1: this did become law, and someone uploaded a deep fake
Speaker 1: video that appears to show you committing illegal or awful acts,
Speaker 1: you would have the legal foundation to bring a lawsuit
Speaker 1: against not just the person responsible for creating the deep fake,
Speaker 1: but against say Meta for allowing it on the Facebook
Speaker 1: platform in the first place. I imagine the various platforms
Speaker 1: out there will have a lot of objections to this proposal.
Speaker 1: Most of them have limited, if any, involvement with actual
Speaker 1: generative AI as it stands. And it also raises the
Speaker 1: question of what makes AI generated harmful material different from
Speaker 1: harmful material created by a person. Right if Meta can't
Speaker 1: be held responsible because Jimbo posted illegal material, but it
Speaker 1: can be held responsible if Jimbo bought posted the illegal material,
Speaker 1: what's the reasoning behind that? Why is one allowed and
Speaker 1: one not? Or why is one protected in one not? Now,
Speaker 1: I suppose one major difference you could argue is that
Speaker 1: you could create a whole lot of harmful material using
Speaker 1: AI a whole lot faster than if you went you know,
Speaker 1: the more bespoke malicious content route. This content was handcrafted
Speaker 1: to be evil. Anyway, this is still in the bill phase.
Speaker 1: It will have to move through a lot of different
Speaker 1: steps if it ever is to become law. There's no
Speaker 1: guarantee that that will happen. But it is interesting that
Speaker 1: it's a bipartisan proposal. Do you need a get rich
Speaker 1: quick scheme? Well, how about creating an AI centric company?
Speaker 1: The Financial Times reported on a new startup in the
Speaker 1: EU called Misstral, which is like a month old. And
Speaker 1: you might wonder what is Mistral or right now? It's
Speaker 1: a company that has about a dozen staff and no product.
Speaker 1: It's also a company that received more than one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars in C funding over the last month. So
Speaker 1: you've got yourself a small staff, you have nothing to sell.
Speaker 1: What could possibly make this company worth that much of
Speaker 1: an early investment. Well, Mistral's goal is to produce its
Speaker 1: own large language model. That means it would be in
Speaker 1: competition with the likes of companies like Google and open Ai,
Speaker 1: among many others. And it shows how the AI gold
Speaker 1: rush is still going strong, that lots of people are
Speaker 1: betting big on AI having a huge impact moving forward.
Speaker 1: For that to extend to investing in small startups early on,
Speaker 1: when you've already got established players like Google and open
Speaker 1: Ai out there is pretty remarkable. And the investors are
Speaker 1: folks who are heavy hitters, including a former Google CEO
Speaker 1: namely Eric Schmidt. Now I should add that's not like
Speaker 1: Mistral has just a bunch of folks who don't know
Speaker 1: what they're doing. It's not like a bunch of people
Speaker 1: who said we're going to make some AI and they
Speaker 1: have no background. That's not true. In fact, the CTO
Speaker 1: for the company is Tim Lacroix, who cut his teeth
Speaker 1: over at deep Mind. That is the AI focused subsidiary
Speaker 1: of Alphabet, which, in case you've forgotten, is Google's parent company.
Speaker 1: So I suppose that knowing the expertise of the team
Speaker 1: in place goes a long way with raising expectations among
Speaker 1: investors and gives them the confidence to pour that kind
Speaker 1: of huge money into a small company that doesn't have
Speaker 1: anything to show for it so far. All right, We've
Speaker 1: got some more news items we're going to cover in
Speaker 1: this episode, but first let's take a quick break. We're back.
Speaker 1: So tech Crunch reports that Twitter's offices in Boulder, Colorado
Speaker 1: are headed toward eviction. The Chicago based company that owns
Speaker 1: the office space sought approval to evict Twitter after the
Speaker 1: company failed to pay three months worth of rent. In fact,
Speaker 1: according to tech Crunch, Twitter was using a letter of
Speaker 1: credit worth nearly a million dollars with this landlord and
Speaker 1: simply was drawing upon that letter of credit to cover
Speaker 1: the rent month after month until the credit ran out
Speaker 1: back in March of this year. Now a judge has
Speaker 1: ordered the Sheriff's office to assist in the eviction before
Speaker 1: the end of July. We've heard time and again that
Speaker 1: part of Twitter's cost saving strategy was, you know, to
Speaker 1: just stop paying vendors and rent and stuff. I'm sure
Speaker 1: this move didn't come as a complete surprise to the
Speaker 1: company when they were told that their offices were going
Speaker 1: to get evicted. I'm also pretty sure that after all
Speaker 1: the rounds of layoffs, there probably aren't that many Twitter
Speaker 1: employees left in Boulder to begin with. But it's another
Speaker 1: ugly chapter in the post Elon Musk takeover Twitter story.
Speaker 1: The United States Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, previously approved
Speaker 1: a label law that applies to broadband service providers. Now,
Speaker 1: this law is meant to make the various elements of
Speaker 1: a customer's bill more transparent, so that consumers can actually
Speaker 1: see what they're really paying for, like how much of
Speaker 1: the bill is going to cover the base service versus
Speaker 1: government fees versus you know, weird service fees that don't
Speaker 1: seem to cover anything other than boosting up the bill.
Speaker 1: And Comcast, a ginormous broadband service provider that also owns
Speaker 1: lots of other stuff, including NBC Universal, has filed a
Speaker 1: request to drop some of the requirements of the labeling,
Speaker 1: stating that quote two aspects of the Commission's order impose
Speaker 1: significant administrative burdens and unnecessary complexity in complying with the
Speaker 1: broadband label requirements end quote. Now I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: arguing that your fees are so complicated that explaining them
Speaker 1: is a hardship is the right way to go, but anyway,
Speaker 1: the purpose of the rules is to make it harder
Speaker 1: for broadband providers to offuskate how much consumers will actually
Speaker 1: pay when they sign up for service. So the argument
Speaker 1: goes that providers will often run promotions that will make
Speaker 1: it seem as if customers will pay relatively low monthly bills,
Speaker 1: but then when it actually comes time to pay the bill,
Speaker 1: the customer will see all sorts of different fees piled
Speaker 1: on top of their basic service, which inflates the amount significantly.
Speaker 1: So the rules are meant to force providers to be
Speaker 1: more upfront about such things, and Comcast is essentially saying
Speaker 1: this is too hard now to be somewhat fair to Comcast,
Speaker 1: some of the rules do get pretty involved. For example,
Speaker 1: providers have to keep a record of when they provide
Speaker 1: labels to customers through quote unquote alternate sale channels, and
Speaker 1: that can include stuff like if you were to have
Speaker 1: an interaction with someone at a kiosk like a Comcast
Speaker 1: kiosk in a mall, or if you were to call
Speaker 1: up a customer service rep and you were to ask
Speaker 1: to be told the label over the phone. All of
Speaker 1: those would count as an alternate sales channel, and Comcast
Speaker 1: is supposed to keep a record of every single one
Speaker 1: of those. And Comcast argues that the company has millions
Speaker 1: of interactions with customers and potential customers, and recording every
Speaker 1: single time that a Comcast employee communicates the label information
Speaker 1: to a customer would rapidly become very difficult to manage.
Speaker 1: And you know what, I think that's probably true. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, the FCC wants to hold these
Speaker 1: companies accountable, and part of that is keeping track of
Speaker 1: when they're following the rules and when they fail to
Speaker 1: do so. So I'm not sure there's an easy solution here.
Speaker 1: I do think that more transparency is absolutely needed because
Speaker 1: a lot of those fees, if I'm being honest, same
Speaker 1: a bit sus if you're asking me. San Francisco, California,
Speaker 1: has become the first city in the United States to
Speaker 1: have more than half of its car sales to be
Speaker 1: either in electric or hybrid vehicle categories. Now, technically the
Speaker 1: city hit that benchmark in March. April sales figures showed
Speaker 1: that even and there was even more of a tendency
Speaker 1: for car shoppers to go electric or hybrid. And that's
Speaker 1: particularly good news for Tesla because about half of all
Speaker 1: those vehicles actually came from Tesla, So about a quarter
Speaker 1: of all car sales in San Francisco or Tesla vehicles.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Now, this doesn't necessarily mark a trend for
Speaker 1: the larger United States. For one thing, you do have
Speaker 1: states like Wyoming that have obstinately introduced legislation that would
Speaker 1: actually phase out new electric vehicle sales, which was just
Speaker 1: a response of being told that they should phase out
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine vehicle sales. I should also add that
Speaker 1: those states have very small populations, so ultimately they don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of say in the matter, because
Speaker 1: the automotive industry is going to respond to the majority,
Speaker 1: not the minority. So you know, it doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to produce internal combustion engine vehicles if it's only the
Speaker 1: state of Wyoming that's buying them. But anyway, another reason
Speaker 1: why this isn't necessarily a trend across the entire country
Speaker 1: is that electric vehicles are still more expensive than other vehicles,
Speaker 1: and the people who buy them typically are on the
Speaker 1: affluent side, and that is a large part of the
Speaker 1: population of San Francisco. Obviously, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people living in San Francisco who are not affluent, but
Speaker 1: it has a larger affluent population than a lot of
Speaker 1: other cities do, and so we're not likely to see
Speaker 1: a huge shift toward electric vehicles just because San Francisco
Speaker 1: did it. But it still has become the first US
Speaker 1: city where more than half of the cars purchased in
Speaker 1: a month went to electric or hybrid vehicles. Finally, a
Speaker 1: rear admiral for the country of Iran recently showed off
Speaker 1: what was claimed to be a quantum processor. It was
Speaker 1: a circuit board with lots of chips installed on it.
Speaker 1: There was like a circular array of chips. It looked,
Speaker 1: you know, circuit boardy, but if you know anything about
Speaker 1: quantum computers, you would probably think, well, that can't be right,
Speaker 1: and you would have been correct. The circuit board, while
Speaker 1: admittedly kind of nifty looking, turned out to be nothing
Speaker 1: more than a z board Zinc seven thousand development board.
Speaker 1: So it's a system on a chip or an SoC
Speaker 1: and it's meant for developers to use, you know, develop
Speaker 1: applications and software and stuff. It is not a quantum processor.
Speaker 1: It's a classic computer processor or system on a chip.
Speaker 1: And it's not even that powerful either. It has five
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve megabytes of dd R three RAM. Now
Speaker 1: note I said megabytes, not gigabytes, as a dual core
Speaker 1: arm Core tex A nine processor, so it's not the
Speaker 1: kind of equipment you would need to keep cubits in
Speaker 1: superposition as you run incredibly complicated quantum algorithms through the system. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if the Iranian government or the Iranian
Speaker 1: military was behind this as kind of a way of
Speaker 1: posturing and making claims that they don't actually you know,
Speaker 1: they can't back up, or if perhaps the authorities had
Speaker 1: been hoodwinked by some snake oil salespeople who passed off
Speaker 1: this development board as a quantum processor and said, yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: sure it's quantum now cough over the dough Mac. Because
Speaker 1: there's a history of tech scam artists in the Middle
Speaker 1: East passing off substandard or outright fake technology as if
Speaker 1: it were the real thing, so it's hard to say. Now.
Speaker 1: Before I go on Monday, we will be publishing an
Speaker 1: episode of IBM Smart Talks in the feed, so you'll
Speaker 1: see that as opposed to a normal tech Stuff episode.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's about it for that. We'll be having
Speaker 1: more Smart Talks episodes, publishing about once a month moving forward,
Speaker 1: and everything else is all Jonathan all the time. So
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well and I'll know I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an
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