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 iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are you. It's time for the tech news for
Speaker 1: the week ending August second, twenty twenty four. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you all remember the CrowdStrike outage that happened back
Speaker 1: on July nineteenth and subsequently caused chaos around the world
Speaker 1: as various Windows based machines got caught in a reboot loop. Well,
Speaker 1: we're still seeing the fallout of this classic goofum up,
Speaker 1: because it turns out the problem was CrowdStrike had pushed
Speaker 1: out an update that included ultimately a relatively simple but
Speaker 1: catastrophic error in it a bug. Now, CrowdStrike shareholders are
Speaker 1: angrily filing a massive class action lawsuit against the company,
Speaker 1: claiming that it failed to disclose its testing process, and
Speaker 1: the shareholders say that process was by all means inadequate.
Speaker 1: The lawsuit says that CrowdStrike purposefully concealed the fact that
Speaker 1: it had not put proper safety measures in place, and
Speaker 1: as a result, this outage followed and then the company's
Speaker 1: stock price tumbled by nearly a third over the course
Speaker 1: of two weeks. That represented around twenty five billion with
Speaker 1: a B dollars of market value. Yaoza and shareholders are
Speaker 1: not the only ones considering a lawsuit against the company.
Speaker 1: Delta Airlines is also apparently doing that, claiming that the
Speaker 1: crowd strike outage led to Delta incurring an expense of
Speaker 1: around half a billion dollars. Another Yaoza, Delta, like some
Speaker 1: other airlines, had to postpone and cancel thousands of flights
Speaker 1: and put travelers up in hotels and such in the
Speaker 1: wake of this tech disaster. And in the interest of
Speaker 1: full disclosure, my partner works for Delta. She was asked
Speaker 1: to volunteer to work at the airport, a position she
Speaker 1: had not held for more than twenty years, and she
Speaker 1: did it because she's a rock star. But according to
Speaker 1: Delta CEO ed Bastion, it workers had to manually reset
Speaker 1: around forty thousand servers to get things back to normal
Speaker 1: for the company, and they expect to receive some form
Speaker 1: of compensation for the damages that they incurred as a
Speaker 1: result of this outage. Metta has some good news for
Speaker 1: its shareholders. The company posted impressive revenue growth thanks to
Speaker 1: its advertising business. That revenue growth was enough to mollify
Speaker 1: shareholders who continued to be skeptical over Meta's spending in
Speaker 1: the metaverse and AI spaces. Zuckerberg told shareholders that the
Speaker 1: company's spending in those areas had increased by seven percent
Speaker 1: in the second quarter of twenty twenty four, but that
Speaker 1: this was more than covered by the rise of the
Speaker 1: company's operation rating margin, which hit thirty eight percent. Now
Speaker 1: I have no magic ball where I can see what
Speaker 1: shareholders are actually thinking, but I imagine more than a few
Speaker 1: of them are still in the golly. I wish they'd
Speaker 1: stop throwing money away, but I am thankful that the
Speaker 1: digital ad business is going well again. They're in that camp.
Speaker 1: I'm sure some shareholders remain excited about this metaverse concept
Speaker 1: and where AI may be going. But more and more
Speaker 1: I'm hearing folks get a little uncertain about the viability
Speaker 1: of AI, or at least how far off we are
Speaker 1: from AI making a real difference in in a revenue perspective.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are starting to wake
Speaker 1: up to the fact that AI does have enormous potential,
Speaker 1: but that potential is going to take time to be realized,
Speaker 1: and it isn't just a magic button where you press
Speaker 1: it and money comes out. Speaking of AI disillusionment, Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Julia Love has an article titled big Tech fail to
Speaker 1: convince Wall Street that AI is paying off And I
Speaker 1: think that illustrates my point pretty darn well. She argues
Speaker 1: that big companies like Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft have all
Speaker 1: failed to prove the massive amount of money that they
Speaker 1: have collectively poured into AI research and development has any
Speaker 1: real chance of paying off in the near term. At
Speaker 1: least they failed in the eyes of shareholders. Like it
Speaker 1: might turn out that this isn't true, that it is
Speaker 1: going to pay off, but shareholders are skeptical. These companies
Speaker 1: saw their stock prices decline recently, so essentially, the upfront
Speaker 1: costs of AIRE and D are enormous. The ongoing maintenance
Speaker 1: costs to operate AI are also skyrocketing, particularly if you're
Speaker 1: doing so at scale the way these big companies are
Speaker 1: doing it, and the opportunities to actually generate revenue off
Speaker 1: of that work are somewhat limited right now. But again,
Speaker 1: that's not to say that's always going to be the case.
Speaker 1: It may be that down the road this will look
Speaker 1: absolutely critical. People will say, Wow, if you had gotten
Speaker 1: in at that time, think of how much money you
Speaker 1: would make. That's a possibility. However, for now, the attitude
Speaker 1: appears to be more like, Ah, this is taking longer
Speaker 1: than I thought it would, so I'm less excited now.
Speaker 1: It's the good old hype cycle trend. Folks get super
Speaker 1: excited about an emerging technology, but then that excitement starts
Speaker 1: to drain away as they realize that the actual capabilities
Speaker 1: of the tech aren't nearly as wild and impressive as
Speaker 1: they had imagined. This does not mean that AI is
Speaker 1: just going to fizzle out like some other stuff kind
Speaker 1: of has. Arguably, NFTs have largely fizzled out. And yes,
Speaker 1: I know NFTs are technically there's still a thing, but
Speaker 1: they are a shadow of what they once were thanks
Speaker 1: to the enormous collapse NFTs had a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: This might mean that companies will need to find some
Speaker 1: creative ways to talk about AI investments in the future
Speaker 1: if they do not want their shareholders getting antsy about
Speaker 1: the whole thing. So, yeah, it's not just the tech,
Speaker 1: it's always the money. Microsoft filed an annual report with
Speaker 1: the SEC all publicly traded companies in the United States
Speaker 1: have to do this. And in that report, Microsoft named
Speaker 1: open Ai as a competitor. Now that's got a sting
Speaker 1: for open Ai. It's kind of like hearing an ex
Speaker 1: partner describe you as being okay. After all, Microsoft famously
Speaker 1: pumped a thirteen billion dollar investment into open Ai. That's
Speaker 1: a heck of a present, right, I mean, technically it's
Speaker 1: not a president it's a business investment. But you know,
Speaker 1: in one section of Microsoft's report, it reads, quote, our
Speaker 1: AI offerings compete with AI products from hyperscalers such as
Speaker 1: Amazon and Google, as well as products from other emerging competitors,
Speaker 1: including Anthropic, open Ai, Meta and other open source offerings,
Speaker 1: many of which are also current or putdential partners end quote.
Speaker 1: I love that they put OpenAI second in that list.
Speaker 1: I guess that's, you know, trying to couch things a
Speaker 1: little bit. But obviously Microsoft is not saying that it
Speaker 1: has declared war on open Ai. It's not that kind
Speaker 1: of competitor. In fact, some suspect that this might be
Speaker 1: the people at Microsoft trying to get ahead of any
Speaker 1: regulatory issues that could follow in the future. Microsoft wouldn't
Speaker 1: be considered anti competitive in the AI space, because look,
Speaker 1: open ai is a competitor for Microsoft, not like a
Speaker 1: best friend forever. Sure, for a while there, Microsoft had
Speaker 1: secured a seat on open AI's board of directors. But
Speaker 1: what does that mean? They don't have it anymore. They
Speaker 1: dropped that seat. It's nothing you need to worry about, regulators, gerl.
Speaker 1: We're all just you know, we're just er. We're competing
Speaker 1: like crazy. Down here. Hey, look there's a three headed monkey.
Speaker 1: On a semi related note, Windows Central reported late last
Speaker 1: week that open ai could be facing a pretty grim
Speaker 1: future unless it holds another round of massive funding. That
Speaker 1: the company has a projected five billion dollar loss as
Speaker 1: possibly in the books this year. The company reportedly spends
Speaker 1: about eight point five billion dollars a year in operation
Speaker 1: and staffing costs, but it only posts revenue of three
Speaker 1: point five billion. So yeah, if you do the math,
Speaker 1: that means the company is spending five billion dollars more
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, then it's bringing in and without
Speaker 1: an influx of more cash, the company could go bankrupt.
Speaker 1: Open Ai has released updated large language models and tools
Speaker 1: this year that in turn has led to increased revenue
Speaker 1: for the company. But then running these updated models and
Speaker 1: tools is really expensive, so some of that kind of
Speaker 1: washes out. Could Open AI potentially innovate its way out
Speaker 1: of business, or would its competitor Microsoft swoop in to
Speaker 1: keep the ship afloat. I don't know. I guess I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have I have to ask chat GPT what it thinks.
Speaker 1: Sticking with Microsoft and AI for just a bit longer,
Speaker 1: Four of four Media has a piece titled Microsoft and
Speaker 1: Reddit are fighting about why Bing's crawler is blocked on Reddit?
Speaker 1: All right, So Bing is Microsoft's search engine. It's one
Speaker 1: that's most associated with the Edge web browser from Microsoft.
Speaker 1: And search engines use web crawlers to index the web
Speaker 1: so that the search engine can list pages in response
Speaker 1: to queries. This is a fundamental function of search engines. However,
Speaker 1: web builders they can actually put instructions inside a web
Speaker 1: page that tell these crawlers to scram. Essentially, it's saying, hey,
Speaker 1: don't index this web page for your search results. Why
Speaker 1: would you do that? Well, you might want to do
Speaker 1: it if you want a more controlled access to the
Speaker 1: page in question. So essentially Reddit has done this across
Speaker 1: its entire site. Because of how companies like Google and
Speaker 1: Microsoft are now crawling websites not just for search purposes,
Speaker 1: but also to train artificial intelligence large language models, and
Speaker 1: Reddit doesn't want any company using content from its site
Speaker 1: to train AI without first ponying up cash to do so.
Speaker 1: Reddit doesn't object to AI learning from the stuff that
Speaker 1: its users create and post to the site, but it
Speaker 1: does not give that stuff away for free. Oh, it
Speaker 1: also doesn't share any money with the users who actually
Speaker 1: made the content in the first place. Reddit is like, no,
Speaker 1: once you post it here, it belongs to us. It's
Speaker 1: no longer yours, it's ours. But anyway, Reddit is essentially saying,
Speaker 1: if you want to train your AI on our stuff,
Speaker 1: you got to fork over the cash. And Microsoft is
Speaker 1: essentially saying, bro, we're not training AI, We just want
Speaker 1: to index Reddit for the purposes of search, so chill out.
Speaker 1: Complicating matters is the fact that Google did pay Reddit
Speaker 1: a cool sixty million dollars, and so Google, unlike other
Speaker 1: search engines, is allowed to crawl an index and even
Speaker 1: train AI on Reddit site. So some people are saying, huh,
Speaker 1: this is starting to look a bit anti competitive. In fact,
Speaker 1: Bing's head of search tweeted out quote Reddit has blocked
Speaker 1: being from crawling their site for search, favoring another search engine,
Speaker 1: and impacting competition from being and being powered engines. End quote.
Speaker 1: Reddit reps told four h four Media that nah, nah,
Speaker 1: that's not what's going on. This is totally because Microsoft
Speaker 1: refuses to play by our rules, and that's all there
Speaker 1: is to it. So this, I think is an illustration
Speaker 1: of how AI, specifically generative AI, has started to really
Speaker 1: impact the way that the Internet works. Typically, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: see sites like Reddit put up a block on indexing
Speaker 1: the page. Like indexing me that more people will go
Speaker 1: to Reddit when they're searching for certain topics and there's
Speaker 1: a Reddit thread all about that thing, so you want
Speaker 1: more traffic to come in. But if it also means
Speaker 1: that you know, people are exploiting that content and they're
Speaker 1: profiting off of that, and Reddit's not getting a piece
Speaker 1: of the action, that's where the problems come up. And
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see more stuff like this
Speaker 1: all the way across the Internet in various incarnations. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking about ads and money, it's about that time for
Speaker 1: us to take a quick break to thank our sponsors,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back with more news right after this.
Speaker 1: So we're back, and just this past Tuesday, Microsoft was
Speaker 1: the target of a massive d DOS attack that hampered
Speaker 1: Microsoft three sixty five and Azure services around the Globe
Speaker 1: I measure if you aren't familiar, that's Microsoft's cloud based offerings.
Speaker 1: And as a quick reminder, d DOOS stands for distributed
Speaker 1: denial of service and typically this kind of attack involves
Speaker 1: sending a gargantuan amount of Internet requests from an army
Speaker 1: of compromised computers, often compromised through malware and hacking, and
Speaker 1: directing all of that traffic to a specific target on
Speaker 1: the web, and the target becomes overwhelmed trying to answer
Speaker 1: all these requests and ultimately it can shut down as
Speaker 1: a result. Now, there are actually a lot of mitigation
Speaker 1: strategies that can help decrease the impact of these sorts
Speaker 1: of attacks, like to have an early detection system to say, hey,
Speaker 1: something's up. We need to raise defenses essentially raise shields
Speaker 1: in star trek terms. But sometimes it can take a
Speaker 1: little bit before these mitigation strategies can be employed, and
Speaker 1: in the meantime you've got a crisis on your hands.
Speaker 1: Microsoft has not yet identified the threat actor responsible for
Speaker 1: this attack, but the company did admit that a mistake
Speaker 1: in the mitigation deployment delayed a security response, which in
Speaker 1: turn meant the attack had a greater effect than it
Speaker 1: otherwise might have had. So this is, you know, not
Speaker 1: to blame the victim. The hackers ultimately are the ones
Speaker 1: responsible for the outages, but the error on Microsoft's part
Speaker 1: did mean that it took a little longer to respond
Speaker 1: to that than it otherwise would have. Most companies have
Speaker 1: mitigation strategies or they work with a security company that
Speaker 1: provides mitigation strategies for this kind of stuff, and a
Speaker 1: lot of companies have seen pretty massive upticks in attack
Speaker 1: attempts over more recent years. It's always been a bit
Speaker 1: of an issue ever since d DOS attacks became kind
Speaker 1: of a possibility, but they are becoming far more frequent
Speaker 1: these days, as is pretty much every kind of hacker attack.
Speaker 1: Israeli hackers claim responsibility for an attack that may have
Speaker 1: disrupted massive amounts of Internet traffic in Iran. So this
Speaker 1: happened in conjunction with military strikes that Israel reportedly was
Speaker 1: carrying out against a Hamas target who was in Iran.
Speaker 1: These strikes were originally reported as missile based attacks, but
Speaker 1: The New York Times says, actually that local sources claim
Speaker 1: it was an explosive device that was smuggled into where
Speaker 1: the target was staying in Iran. But the hacker group,
Speaker 1: which calls itself WE Read Evils or we Read Devils
Speaker 1: if you prefer, that's not how the capitalization goes. But
Speaker 1: they claimed to had taken down much of Iran's internet infrastructure,
Speaker 1: like leading to a massive Wi Fi outage. However, Forbes
Speaker 1: was unable to confirm the extent to which these attacks
Speaker 1: disrupted communications within Iran. As journalist Zach Doffman points out,
Speaker 1: the lines of communication in Iran aren't exactly dependable even
Speaker 1: on a good day, so it's hard to say, like,
Speaker 1: was this a devastating attack or did anyone even notice.
Speaker 1: It's possible that people just figured it was another typical
Speaker 1: day in Iran. Hard to say, but yeah, not surprising
Speaker 1: to hear about hackers aligning with military operations. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's any evidence to show that We Read
Speaker 1: Evils is state backed, Like if they receive support from
Speaker 1: the Israeli government, that is possible they could be a
Speaker 1: state backed hacker group. It's also possible they're acting independently
Speaker 1: and have priorities that are in alignment with Israel's government.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. Net neutrality sure is having a
Speaker 1: rough go of it in the United States. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do a quick rundown on what this is. So.
Speaker 1: Net neutrality essentially says you should be able to have
Speaker 1: the same access to all the stuff on the Internet,
Speaker 1: no matter where that stuff comes from, no matter what
Speaker 1: isp you use, no matter what device you are using
Speaker 1: to access it. And companies that provide Internet infrastructure should
Speaker 1: not favor traffic from certain parts of the Internet, while
Speaker 1: throttling traffic from other parts, nor should they deny service
Speaker 1: to anyone just because that person isn't using that company's
Speaker 1: own services or products. It should be neutral. During Barack
Speaker 1: Obama's presidency, the FCC succeeded in passing some new rules
Speaker 1: that would force service providers to play fair. Essentially, they
Speaker 1: declared that the rules of common carriage would apply to
Speaker 1: Internet traffic. During Trump's presidency, that version of the FCC
Speaker 1: overturned those rules from the Obama administration, and now under
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, the FCC reinstated those rules again, slightly different
Speaker 1: versions but same idea. However, the Sixth Circuit US Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals has now blocked those rules from going into effect,
Speaker 1: saying that the FCC has failed to meet the high
Speaker 1: standards of a legal argument justifying the rules in the
Speaker 1: first place, and that those rules are not likely to
Speaker 1: hold up to a legal challenge. So instead, the Court
Speaker 1: has said that beginning either in late October or early November,
Speaker 1: it will hear oral arguments on the matter before it
Speaker 1: goes any further. Now, considering that US elections happen in
Speaker 1: early November, and that net neutrality was one of those
Speaker 1: tent pole achievements of the Biden administration, this is a
Speaker 1: pretty tough political blow to Democrats. The safe assumption is
Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris, who is on track to becoming the
Speaker 1: official nominee of the Democrat Party, will also support net neutrality.
Speaker 1: And we've already seen what a Trump administration thinks of
Speaker 1: the matter, so largely the outcome of the election, I
Speaker 1: think will determine the direction that this takes outside of
Speaker 1: the courts, Like the court will ultimately get to decide
Speaker 1: whether the matter meets legal standards. But you know, we've
Speaker 1: already seen that with each administration. The FCC's makeup can
Speaker 1: change dramatically, and that in turn changes the policy. Reuter's
Speaker 1: reports that the US Department of Justice is investigating Nvidia
Speaker 1: for anti competitive practices. Specifically, the DOJ is interested in
Speaker 1: how Nvidia's AI chip business has kind of taken shape,
Speaker 1: with concerns that the company has abused its position to
Speaker 1: suppress competition in the space. It's not a crime to
Speaker 1: be a successful business, but the DOJ is looking into
Speaker 1: reports that Invidia wasn't just super good at selling chips
Speaker 1: meant to power AI implementations, but also that the company
Speaker 1: was pressuring customers to buy into packages of products. Further,
Speaker 1: there were accusations that Nvidia would charge a lower price
Speaker 1: if a customer opted to buy networking gear from Nvidia
Speaker 1: while also electing to have Nvidia's own AI chips integrated
Speaker 1: into that gear, but they would have to pay a
Speaker 1: higher price if they wanted the gear from Nvidia, but
Speaker 1: they wanted to use AI chips from one of Nvidia's competitors.
Speaker 1: So this is just in the investigation phase at the moment.
Speaker 1: There's no lawsuit or anything like that yet. It's possible
Speaker 1: that nothing more will come of this, But with Nvidia
Speaker 1: holding such a strong market position like they have like
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the market share for AI powered chips.
Speaker 1: I suspect that investigation is going to end up being
Speaker 1: pretty darn thorough more in tech and politics, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it too. This week, the US Senate passed a
Speaker 1: bill called the Kids Online Safety Act or KOZA KOSA.
Speaker 1: Many people had concerns about this legislation. They argued that
Speaker 1: while it poses as a set of rules that are
Speaker 1: meant to protect children from harmful content and practices online,
Speaker 1: it was so vague in defining those quote unquote harmful
Speaker 1: practices that it could be used to persecute folks like
Speaker 1: those in say, the LGBTQ community. So understandably, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of concern over the fact that it passed
Speaker 1: in the Senate. However, the US House of Representatives is
Speaker 1: not following suit. Yesterday, the GOP controlled House announced it
Speaker 1: would not be bringing up COSA for a vote, citing
Speaker 1: quote concerns across our conference end quote. So a bill
Speaker 1: has to pass both the Senate and the House before
Speaker 1: it could be signed into law, So KOSA is effectively
Speaker 1: dead in the water. Now, this is actually great news,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure some of y'all will be surprised to
Speaker 1: hear me say, because I think it's pretty clear that
Speaker 1: I do not often align with the GOP. But bills
Speaker 1: like KOSA, which often use the pretense of protecting vulnerable
Speaker 1: populations such as children, often end up serving as a
Speaker 1: means to attack other vulnerable populations while restricting freedoms online.
Speaker 1: These bills might originally be framed with the best of intentions,
Speaker 1: or maybe they're fraimed from the get go as a
Speaker 1: potential weapon, but in either case, they tend to be
Speaker 1: bad news when they're implemented. So it is good news
Speaker 1: that this particular bill is fizzling out. Senator Ran Paul
Speaker 1: spoke out against this bill in a letter that laid
Speaker 1: out his logic opposing the legislation, and it appears that
Speaker 1: that went a long way in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: Intel is facing a really tough future, and a lot
Speaker 1: of folks at the company won't be there to be
Speaker 1: a part of that future. Intel told The Verge that
Speaker 1: it will downsize by around fifteen percent, which means more
Speaker 1: than fifteen thousand people, perhaps as many as nineteen thousand
Speaker 1: could be laid off from the company. This is all
Speaker 1: part of an effort to cut ten billion dollars from costs.
Speaker 1: Intel is also cutting back on the amount it's going
Speaker 1: to spend on R and D, and it plans to
Speaker 1: quote stop non essential work end quote. So I imagine
Speaker 1: that means a lot of departments are going to be
Speaker 1: scrambling to figure out if they can present their work
Speaker 1: in a way that makes it seem as though it's essential.
Speaker 1: WEO that's going to be rough. Pad Gelsinger, who is
Speaker 1: Intel's CEO, revealed that the one point six billion dollar
Speaker 1: loss Intel experienced in the second quarter of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four was quote unquote disappointing. I think that's putting it lightly.
Speaker 1: He also stated that Intel has quote yet to fully
Speaker 1: benefit from powerful trends like AI end quote. That seems
Speaker 1: to align what I've covered already in today's episode talking
Speaker 1: about the disillusionment that's growing around artificial intelligence. But another
Speaker 1: issue is that Intel has been investing heavily in semiconductor manufacturing.
Speaker 1: This is an incredibly expensive business to get into. You
Speaker 1: have to build all the facilities to be able to
Speaker 1: make these semiconductor chips. Typically, Intel would design the chips,
Speaker 1: but then would partner with other companies overseas to fabricate
Speaker 1: those chips. However, out of concerns of national security and
Speaker 1: support life chain challenges, there's been a shift to invest
Speaker 1: heavily in domestic chip fabrication here in the United States.
Speaker 1: So part of Intel's challenges relate to the fact that
Speaker 1: the company has been investing billions into that effort and
Speaker 1: it's going to take time to realize the benefits. It's
Speaker 1: a long term solution in a world that typically focuses
Speaker 1: on short term results. Intel also faces increased competition from
Speaker 1: companies ranging from Qualcom, AMD, Google, and Apple. I just
Speaker 1: want to say to anyone out there who ends up
Speaker 1: being affected by these layoffs, I wish you the absolute best.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how stressful that is, and it really stinks. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have several more stories to get through. This was
Speaker 1: a pretty heavy week as far as tech news goes.
Speaker 1: So let's take another quick break and we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more news. We're back the watchdog group Global Witness.
Speaker 1: I've talked about them many times before. They have kind
Speaker 1: of raked Twitter slash X over the coals multiple times. Well,
Speaker 1: they're ready to do it again. They report that there
Speaker 1: are forty five accounts on X, the platform formally known
Speaker 1: as Twitter that both appear to be bots and are
Speaker 1: also responsible for promoting content that contains disinformation, racist and
Speaker 1: sexist attacks, and tons of conspiracy. Theories that these posts
Speaker 1: from these forty five bot controlled accounts have accumulated more
Speaker 1: than four billion views. Between May twenty second and July
Speaker 1: twenty second this year. The accounts posted in I watering
Speaker 1: six hundred ten thousand times in that span. Now that's collectively,
Speaker 1: but if even if we were to just average it out,
Speaker 1: that would mean that each account on average posted more
Speaker 1: than thirteen thousand, five hundred times in three months. That's
Speaker 1: more prolific than I ever was back when I was
Speaker 1: still on Twitter. The bots were particularly active leading up
Speaker 1: to elections in the UK, in which the Labor Party
Speaker 1: ultimately won more seats than the Conservative Party, though Global
Speaker 1: Witness says it found no evidence linking either political party
Speaker 1: to the bots themselves. So is it possible that one
Speaker 1: or both of those parties, or an organization working on
Speaker 1: behalf of one of those parties, hired bots to flood
Speaker 1: x with messages supporting their side. Yeah, that is possible.
Speaker 1: It's also possible this was all being controlled by some
Speaker 1: outside source with no direct interest in either party, but
Speaker 1: a direct interest in outcomes. We just don't know. But
Speaker 1: those accounts did go on to spread conspiracy theories and
Speaker 1: misinformation about everything from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to disinformation about climate change, so it has gone well
Speaker 1: beyond UK elections since then. Global Witness says it has
Speaker 1: reached out to x for comment on why the platform
Speaker 1: is allowing this sort of activity and has, to the
Speaker 1: surprise of no one, received no response so far. I
Speaker 1: seem to recall something about Elon Musk saying he was
Speaker 1: going to get rid of bots on Twitter before he
Speaker 1: acquired It seems like that that just kind of slipped
Speaker 1: through the cracks. Huh, because forty five, just forty five
Speaker 1: accounts posting six hundred and ten thousand times in three
Speaker 1: months and spreading this kind of stuff to widespread view
Speaker 1: seems like it's something that you would pick up on
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't just be flying under the radar. But
Speaker 1: what do I know. Here's another AI related news item,
Speaker 1: but this one involves motion capture performers and voice actors
Speaker 1: in the video game industry. So these actors and performers
Speaker 1: belong to the union sag AFTRA. That's an actor's and
Speaker 1: performers union mostly known for folks who are in the
Speaker 1: film and television industries, but it also applies to people
Speaker 1: who work in video games. So this branch of sag
Speaker 1: AFTRA authorized a strike earlier this month, and now they're
Speaker 1: actually on strike. They are refusing to work while demanding
Speaker 1: that video game companies create solid policies that protect actor
Speaker 1: and performer jobs from generative AI, among other demands. But
Speaker 1: this is a big part of the conversation. So actors
Speaker 1: have said that video game companies are using AI to
Speaker 1: train on actor voices, potentially so that the companies can
Speaker 1: recreate those actor voices without actually having to hire the
Speaker 1: actors themselves, which does seem pretty darn underhanded and it's
Speaker 1: certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Sag AFTRA is
Speaker 1: demanding that companies pledge to not make use of AI
Speaker 1: in a way that would put real performers out of
Speaker 1: a job, particularly without first negotiating a comprehensive agreement with
Speaker 1: the performers themselves. I mean, if you're gonna use my
Speaker 1: voice or likeness, you really should get my permission first
Speaker 1: and pay me. Gosh, darn it. Kyle Orland at Ours
Speaker 1: Technica has an article titled Xbox console sales continue to
Speaker 1: crater with massive forty two percent revenue drop. Yikes. That's
Speaker 1: that's year over year sales figures for Q two. By
Speaker 1: the way, that Q two twenty twenty four shows a
Speaker 1: forty two percent revenue drop from Q two twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: The company doesn't share detailed breakdowns of how many units
Speaker 1: were produced or sold, but industry analysts estimate that Microsoft
Speaker 1: sold fewer than one million units in the first quarter
Speaker 1: of this year, whereas Sony posted four and a half
Speaker 1: million BS five sales at that same time. However, Microsoft
Speaker 1: is raking in the dough through its Game Pass subscription service.
Speaker 1: So while hardware sales are tanking, I mean, there's no
Speaker 1: other word for it, the ongoing subscription services are generating
Speaker 1: bukous of buckos, particularly since Microsoft recently hiked up the
Speaker 1: monthly price. Orland hypothesizes that Microsoft might get out of
Speaker 1: the hardware game entirely in the future and focus solely
Speaker 1: on the software side. That honestly wouldn't surprise me. In fact,
Speaker 1: I expect that I figured that Microsoft was looking for
Speaker 1: an off ramp from hardware hoping to launch a quote
Speaker 1: unquote final console that would rely upon ongoing subscription content
Speaker 1: to keep it going. So it is possible that the
Speaker 1: last Xbox hardware update is the last Xbox hardware update.
Speaker 1: That would not surprise me if that were the case.
Speaker 1: It also wouldn't surprise me if we got one more
Speaker 1: generation before that happened. Either one I think is entirely possible. Heck,
Speaker 1: it's even possible that Microsoft doesn't get out entirely and
Speaker 1: we just keep getting generations. But the improvements we see
Speaker 1: from generation to generation, those performance improvements, I think you
Speaker 1: can make an argument that we're starting to get to
Speaker 1: a point of diminishing returns. Now, I'm never gonna say
Speaker 1: that consoles are as good as they'll ever be, and
Speaker 1: they'll never be able to make a better one with
Speaker 1: you know, better graphic fidelity and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: because goodness knows, every generation of consoles brings surprises and
Speaker 1: improvements with it. But it might be that consoles are
Speaker 1: as good as they need to be, right Like, you
Speaker 1: don't need to go harder than that that even if
Speaker 1: you could, there's no market demand for it, So why
Speaker 1: not back off of that? Part of the business entirely
Speaker 1: and focus on the software side. Rob thubrun over at
Speaker 1: tech Spot has a whammy of a piece titled Bungee
Speaker 1: ceo faces backlash after announcing two hundred and twenty employees
Speaker 1: will be laid off. So Bungi is the video game
Speaker 1: developer behind titles like Halo, although that is now developed
Speaker 1: under Microsoft, as well as the Destiny series. And yeah,
Speaker 1: Bunge recently said it will lay off more than two
Speaker 1: hundred employees and that stinks. But we're already seeing layoffs
Speaker 1: across the video game industry, so you could argue that
Speaker 1: this isn't that shocking. So why are people up in
Speaker 1: arms against CEO Pete Parsons. Well, that might be because
Speaker 1: of his spending habits. As Thuberan points out, Parsons has
Speaker 1: dropped more than two million dollars on collecting classic cars
Speaker 1: since Sony acquired Bungee back in the summer of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. So if you're a Bungee employee who is
Speaker 1: in danger of losing your job, you might also harbor
Speaker 1: some pretty strong opinions regarding the fact that your boss
Speaker 1: is dropping mountains of cash on cars that he might
Speaker 1: not actually ever, drive, particularly when Parsons says the reason
Speaker 1: for the layoffs is due to quote unquote financial challenges.
Speaker 1: So maybe that financial challenges. He needs a bit extra
Speaker 1: to buy that toyota urcell. He's had his ion. By
Speaker 1: the way, that was a That was a sardonic joke.
Speaker 1: That was not an actual accusation. When Butch Wilmore and
Speaker 1: Sunny Williams first boarded the International Space Station, the plan
Speaker 1: at that time was for them to return to Earth
Speaker 1: as early as eight days later. Now that would have
Speaker 1: been on June fourteenth. But now it's August and the
Speaker 1: astronauts are still aboard the ISS. Why well, the spacecraft
Speaker 1: that brought them to the ISS was the Boeing star Liner,
Speaker 1: and that spacecraft experienced some technical issues on its way
Speaker 1: to space. Now, initially, the thought was that these problems,
Speaker 1: while needing to be solved, would not pose a significant
Speaker 1: risk to the mission. However, upon further investigation, concerns have
Speaker 1: been growing that some of the thruster systems are not
Speaker 1: operating properly, and that they would be needed in order
Speaker 1: to orient and guide the spacecraft so that it could
Speaker 1: re enter Earth's atmosphere safely, which is a pretty darn
Speaker 1: significant risk to the mission. There is, however, a huge
Speaker 1: amount of pressure to use the star Liner as the
Speaker 1: return vehicle for the mission. NASA has wanted to diversify
Speaker 1: the companies that it works with in order to launch
Speaker 1: vehicles and spacecraft and astronauts into space and not be
Speaker 1: beholden to a single entity like SpaceX. So the story
Speaker 1: out of NASA was that, yes, the star Liner has problems,
Speaker 1: but they have their top scientists and engineers working on
Speaker 1: fixing those problems. However, according to Eric Berger over at
Speaker 1: Ours Technica, the discussion could be shifting toward relying on
Speaker 1: SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft as a potential return vehicle for
Speaker 1: the astronauts instead of the star Liner. Now, I say
Speaker 1: maybe shifting because NASA is being really quiet about all this.
Speaker 1: It would look really bad for Boeing, which I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know this, it's already facing issues in
Speaker 1: another part of its aerospace business. But it would look
Speaker 1: really bad for Boeing if the astronauts had to abandon
Speaker 1: plans to return in the star Liner and instead rely
Speaker 1: on a competing company's spacecraft in order to get back
Speaker 1: home safely. But then again, it would look really really
Speaker 1: really bad if those astronauts lives were put in danger
Speaker 1: just to preserve the optics of the star Liner. I
Speaker 1: recommend reading Berger's entire article for the full story. It's
Speaker 1: an excellent piece. Again, it's titled NASA says it is
Speaker 1: evaluating all options for the safe return of Starliner crew.
Speaker 1: And that is on ours Tetnika. Okay. I've got a
Speaker 1: couple of recommended articles for y'all to check out. One
Speaker 1: is by Ben Quinn and Dan Milmo of The Guardian.
Speaker 1: It is titled how TikTok bots and AI have powered
Speaker 1: a resurgence in UK far right violence. It's one of
Speaker 1: those stories that seems to confirm many fears that some
Speaker 1: folks have about the rise of AI and how AI
Speaker 1: can pour gasoline on a fire. So, just to be clear,
Speaker 1: the underlying social issues are already there. AI is not
Speaker 1: creating these social issues. They exist already and those issues
Speaker 1: need to be addressed. This isn't just an AI problem. However,
Speaker 1: the use of AI to make things worse is also
Speaker 1: a problem. It's an additional problem. Then there's another piece
Speaker 1: that's by Anthony Grayling and Brian Ball and it's on
Speaker 1: the Conversation It is titled Philosophy is Crucial in the
Speaker 1: Age of AI. Now, y'all, I tend to be a
Speaker 1: pretty pragmatic person. I have the sort of brain that
Speaker 1: finds a lot of philosophy tedious and ultimately questionably useful. However,
Speaker 1: I admit this is a bias I have. I do
Speaker 1: not pretend like my view is the correct one, or
Speaker 1: even partly correct. Maybe I'm just dense. Not maybe I
Speaker 1: am just dense, but maybe that's the problem. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: particular piece traces how philosophy has been a part of
Speaker 1: AI's evolution and development for decades, and how some deep
Speaker 1: questions in AI are absolutely grounded in philosophy. It is
Speaker 1: well worth a read, even if, like me, you often
Speaker 1: find philosophy to be a little on the impractical side.
Speaker 1: And that's it for today's tech News episode. It was
Speaker 1: a long one, but like I said, a lot happened.
Speaker 1: I even cut some stories from this because goodness gracious,
Speaker 1: it was running along. I hope all of you out
Speaker 1: there are doing well, and I will 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.