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 is time for the tech News or Tuesday,
Speaker 1: May sixteenth, twenty twenty three. And as the band Stained
Speaker 1: would say, it's been a while since we've had an
Speaker 1: Elon Musk heavy episode of tech news, but today we're
Speaker 1: going to make up for that. So let strap in.
Speaker 1: Last week on Thursday afternoon, after I had already published
Speaker 1: my news episode for the day, which can I just
Speaker 1: say rude, Elon Musk tweeted out that he had selected
Speaker 1: a new CEO for Twitter. This had been something Musk
Speaker 1: had been promising us for a while while. He said
Speaker 1: that he would get a CEO to come on board
Speaker 1: and replace him, adding that he would do so once
Speaker 1: Twitter was kind of in a stable place. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that Twitter is actually anywhere close to being stable,
Speaker 1: considering the chaos that seems to unfold every week. But
Speaker 1: forget that. We now know that Linda Yakarino has been
Speaker 1: named the next CEO of Twitter. She formerly headed advertising
Speaker 1: over at INBC Universal, which I mean, that's a heck
Speaker 1: of a job. I mean, NBC Universal is a truly
Speaker 1: enormous company, and of course it's part of an even
Speaker 1: bigger company called Comcast, and so she definitely knows how
Speaker 1: advertising works like this, is an expert in that field.
Speaker 1: So could her leadership help repair the relationships between Twitter
Speaker 1: and advertisers. I think she's got a decent chance now.
Speaker 1: Whether she can convince the people who have already jumped
Speaker 1: ship off of Twitter to come back remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: So in other words, there may not be as many
Speaker 1: folks to advertise too, even if she's able to convince
Speaker 1: them to return to Twitter. Musk is also not leaving
Speaker 1: Twitter entirely. Of course, he will stay on both as
Speaker 1: the chief technology officer and as the executive chairman. Now,
Speaker 1: I'll say this, I hope she can lead the company
Speaker 1: toward true stability and success and create a place where
Speaker 1: people aren't constantly bombarded by hate speech and misinformation and scams.
Speaker 1: That would be nice. It's a long shot, because it's
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't, honestly don't. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you do to fix Twitter. At this point, it was
Speaker 1: already not in the best of shape. Before Elon Musk
Speaker 1: took over, and I don't see how you could argue
Speaker 1: it's gotten any better since then. So yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: huge not to untangle. But maybe she can do it.
Speaker 1: We'll have to find out. Meanwhile, even though Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is the current CEO and executive chairman of Twitter, he
Speaker 1: still has to submit tweets about his other company, Tesla,
Speaker 1: to a lawyer before he posts them. Now does he
Speaker 1: do this? I don't know. Twitter has never identified this
Speaker 1: lawyer that he's supposed to do this with, but you
Speaker 1: know he's supposed to. The Verge reported on this because
Speaker 1: Musk challenged this consent decree he had agreed to back
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. He had challenged it in a recent
Speaker 1: appeals case, and the federal court rejected his appeal. So
Speaker 1: it all stems from a settlement Musk agreed to way
Speaker 1: back in twenty eighteen. That's when the US Securities and
Speaker 1: Exchange Commission, or SEC, accused Musk of making quote a
Speaker 1: series of false and misleading statements regarding taking Tesla, a
Speaker 1: publicly traded company private end quote. Essentially, the SEC was
Speaker 1: saying that Musk wasn't following proper procedure if in fact
Speaker 1: it was his intention to take Tesla private, and further,
Speaker 1: whether he won to do it or not, it amounted
Speaker 1: to market manipulation. Anyway, Musk settled with the SEC, and
Speaker 1: as a concession, he agreed to this sort of babysitter
Speaker 1: clause where he has to show his tweets to a
Speaker 1: lawyer before he actually posts them. Musk wanted that thrown out.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's humiliating to be the person who bought
Speaker 1: Twitter and still have a legal requirement to submit tweets
Speaker 1: for review. Musk's argument was that the SEC was essentially
Speaker 1: using this consent decree to infringe upon Musk's free speech,
Speaker 1: and we all know what a believer Musk is in
Speaker 1: free speech, at least for himself. Anyway, the Court said no,
Speaker 1: dice Elon, and pointed out that the SEC has investigated
Speaker 1: a grand total of three of Elon Musk's tweets over
Speaker 1: the years, and that includes the tweet that actually started
Speaker 1: off the whole mess in the first place, so only
Speaker 1: two since then, and of course Elon hid posted many
Speaker 1: many times more than just three over the last five years. Personally,
Speaker 1: I think Musk should just consider it a fair trade
Speaker 1: because obviously, I mean, like an earlier investor lawsuit sought
Speaker 1: billions of dollars in damages against Elon Musk. They were
Speaker 1: arguing that Musk's tweets ended up costing investors enormous amounts
Speaker 1: of money, but a jury found that Musk was not
Speaker 1: liable for those losses, so he didn't have to pay
Speaker 1: out the billions. He's just gonna have to mine this babysitter.
Speaker 1: And to be honest, I'm very skeptical that he actually
Speaker 1: goes through it. He just I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: he just wants the whole thing lifted. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty fair to say that Elon Musk's
Speaker 1: mo for a long time has been wishing to avoid
Speaker 1: consequences of his own actions. I don't think that's unfair
Speaker 1: to say. Over at Tesla, Elon Musk has shown that
Speaker 1: he wants to be more involved with the company, which
Speaker 1: is something that shareholders have been asking for for age
Speaker 1: ever since he first announced that he wanted to buy Twitter. Now,
Speaker 1: more specifically, Elon Musk wants to be more involved if
Speaker 1: anyone in the company wants to hire anyone else, Musk
Speaker 1: sent out a memo throughout Tesla, saying that all new
Speaker 1: higher requests have to come to him or his personal approval.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter who the person is or what position is
Speaker 1: being filled, it has to go to Musk first. Even
Speaker 1: in the case of contractors, it has to come to
Speaker 1: him for approval. He instructed managers to send him hiring
Speaker 1: requests on a weekly basis. However, he also followed this
Speaker 1: up by saying that people should quote unquote think carefully
Speaker 1: before submitting a request. Now, to me, this is me
Speaker 1: inferring from that statement that seems to be kind of
Speaker 1: an intimidation tactic, Like it's meant to discourage people from
Speaker 1: making requests in the first place, because they need to
Speaker 1: think carefully before they ask, And it just seems like
Speaker 1: it's Musk trying to head that off and avoid having
Speaker 1: to hire more people. Later today, Musk is actually going
Speaker 1: to hold an earnings call with shareholders, so I imagine
Speaker 1: we'll have a lot more to say about his increased
Speaker 1: involvement with the company later this week when we do
Speaker 1: another news episode on Thursday. One thing that could be
Speaker 1: discussed on that call, if shareholders get their wish, is
Speaker 1: a discussion about succession planning. So if you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with succession, and I'm not talking about the television series.
Speaker 1: It's when a current leader outlines their plan regarding who
Speaker 1: should take the top spot after they leave the company.
Speaker 1: Investors will soon vote on whether or not to compel
Speaker 1: Tesla to publish a key person risk report. The concern
Speaker 1: is that Tesla may be too tightly bound to the
Speaker 1: personality of Elon Musk, which means if something were to
Speaker 1: happen to Musk, whether it's something catastrophic or maybe Musk
Speaker 1: ends up getting distracted wanting to build his AI company
Speaker 1: and he runs off from Tesla, that the company could
Speaker 1: end up being directionless and investors would lose out on
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and that the company could be
Speaker 1: in danger in the wake of Musk's absence. I think
Speaker 1: the closest similar example I can think of right now
Speaker 1: is how investors were thinking about Steve Jobs and Apple
Speaker 1: like the two were synonymous. Now, Jobs actually did the
Speaker 1: proper steps to plan for his successor, but it didn't
Speaker 1: stop folks from worrying that the company Apple could fall
Speaker 1: apart after Steve Jobs's death. Obviously that didn't happen, So
Speaker 1: Tesla's shareholders may force the company to do a thorough
Speaker 1: report then not only examines how important Musk is to
Speaker 1: the company, but also identify key personnel who could potentially
Speaker 1: take on the role of CEO in the future. The
Speaker 1: shareholders will also vote on whether or not to approve
Speaker 1: certain board member nominees, some of which are contentious. And
Speaker 1: like I said, we'll circle back to this on Thursday
Speaker 1: to talk about what unfolded during the actual earnings call
Speaker 1: if there are any significant updates. Now it's time to
Speaker 1: shift to AI. And I know I cover AI a lot,
Speaker 1: but it keeps creeping into the tech news and so
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a bit about AI today. Open AI's
Speaker 1: CEO Sam Altman is set to appear before a congressional
Speaker 1: panel here in the United States. Altman has previously appeared
Speaker 1: to be fairly straightforward in his assessment of AI. He's
Speaker 1: even suggested that folks were overplaying the capabilities of his
Speaker 1: own company's chat pot Chat GPT. Prior to his meeting today,
Speaker 1: Altman submitted written testimony to the panel and suggested a
Speaker 1: framework for a licensing procedure for AI companies. So essentially,
Speaker 1: Altman's proposal is to create a system where companies that
Speaker 1: want to develop certain types of AI tools, will have
Speaker 1: to procure a license and follow established safety standards. Of course,
Speaker 1: Congress would have to establish those standards first and InterMine
Speaker 1: what sort of parameters AI I should fall into and
Speaker 1: what would constitute an unsafe version of AI. Altman also
Speaker 1: reportedly use the phrase regulation of AI is essential. This
Speaker 1: is according to Reuters, which you know, again that might
Speaker 1: come as a surprise considering he's the CEO of arguably
Speaker 1: the most famous AI company right now. Typically, business owners
Speaker 1: aren't really gung hole and calling out for regulation of
Speaker 1: their own industry, and when they are, sometimes it turns
Speaker 1: up that they were being, you know, perhaps less than
Speaker 1: forthright about it. See also Sam Bankman freed of FTX fame.
Speaker 1: Some critics worry that regulation could discourage startups and potentially
Speaker 1: cause smaller AI companies to sort of fade away and
Speaker 1: just leave AI to the larger established companies. That is possible,
Speaker 1: but then you also have to admit these larger companies
Speaker 1: are progressing at such a rapid pace, they're investing billions
Speaker 1: of dollars in re search and development, that there does
Speaker 1: seem to be a need for some sort of checks
Speaker 1: and balances to be put in place in order to
Speaker 1: head off problems before they get too severe. Okay, We've
Speaker 1: got more stories, including more AI stories to go over,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Okay, we got
Speaker 1: some more AI stories to cover. The World Health Organization
Speaker 1: or who Who? By the way, A side note if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen the film Clue, it's a comedy mystery
Speaker 1: film that I absolutely adore. It's very, very silly and
Speaker 1: I love it. One of the characters there mentions that
Speaker 1: he works for the United Nations Organization, which would be no,
Speaker 1: and then asked about him being a politician, he says, no,
Speaker 1: he works for the World Health Organization. Who's joke there
Speaker 1: That never gets actually used in the in the film,
Speaker 1: but it means he works for you know who. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I got distracted anyway. The World Health Organization,
Speaker 1: which is a real thing, issued a statement cautioning the
Speaker 1: medical field about the use of AI and cited concerns
Speaker 1: that AI can potentially misinform patients and or healthcare providers. Also,
Speaker 1: as we have seen in other areas, AI can contain bias,
Speaker 1: and bias can ultimately cause harm to people, particularly people
Speaker 1: in specific populations. Right like with facial recognition technologies. We've
Speaker 1: seen AI cause disproportionate harm to people of color Overall.
Speaker 1: The Who said that AI stands to provide great benefit
Speaker 1: in the field of healthcare, like there are obvious applications
Speaker 1: where it could be of huge help. However, we have
Speaker 1: to address issues like bias and misinformation, as well as
Speaker 1: the potential for bad actors to use AI to create
Speaker 1: outright disinformation in an attempt to harm I think the
Speaker 1: takeaway here is that WHO is suggesting it might be
Speaker 1: a little too early for the healthcare sector to just
Speaker 1: fully embrace AI. I think that is fair to say. Now,
Speaker 1: we also have to admit AI already plays a huge
Speaker 1: part in the world of healthcare, because AI is more
Speaker 1: than just chatbots and large language models. AI includes lots
Speaker 1: of stuff, and a lot of that is already being
Speaker 1: used regularly in healthcare. That doesn't appear to be what
Speaker 1: the WHO is specifically referencing here. My interpretation is that
Speaker 1: they're talking more about the generative chatbots style AIS that
Speaker 1: have been taking over the news. The New York Times
Speaker 1: reported that some AI researchers at Microsoft think that the
Speaker 1: AI system there work looking on could be showing the
Speaker 1: faintest signs of approaching artificial general intelligence or AGI. They
Speaker 1: called it sparks of AGI. That would mean that we're
Speaker 1: talking about machines that appear at least to be able
Speaker 1: to reason in a way that is similar to how
Speaker 1: we humans reason. The science fiction definition of AI has
Speaker 1: long been one of general intelligence, often passing into the
Speaker 1: category of superhuman intelligence. The article, which is titled Microsoft
Speaker 1: says new AI shows signs of human reasoning, and it
Speaker 1: describes an experiment in which researchers asked this sort of
Speaker 1: AI chatbot to solve a bit of a puzzle. They said,
Speaker 1: how can you create a stack out of this weird
Speaker 1: collection of objects that would result in a stable structure,
Speaker 1: And the objects included nine eggs, a laptop, a book,
Speaker 1: a bottle, and an So the AI chatbot suggested using
Speaker 1: the book as the base and then set the eggs
Speaker 1: on top of the book in a three x three grid,
Speaker 1: and then gently laying the laptop on this layer of eggs,
Speaker 1: and then putting the remaining items on top of the
Speaker 1: laptop's surface. The researchers concluded that the system was at
Speaker 1: least appearing to use some real world knowledge, such as
Speaker 1: that eggs are delicate, and therefore they would need to
Speaker 1: be in a arrangement like a grid in order to
Speaker 1: have enough support to avoid cracking, and that the laptop's
Speaker 1: upper surface would be flat so it would be able
Speaker 1: to support the bottle and then the nail. Earlier versions
Speaker 1: of the AI system gave more nonsensical answers, so it
Speaker 1: was an argument that this newest version of the AI
Speaker 1: model was sophisticated enough that it could actually reason out
Speaker 1: an answer that would potentially work. So could that mean
Speaker 1: we're now approaching general intelligence? Maybe? Maybe not. While the
Speaker 1: researchers appear convinced that these are some early signs of
Speaker 1: limited but still general intelligence, other experts argue that the
Speaker 1: results just give the appearance of intelligence, and that this
Speaker 1: is another case where because of the perspective someone takes,
Speaker 1: you see a particular outcome. I talked about this recently
Speaker 1: in another episode. If you pull an Obi one Kenobi,
Speaker 1: then you look at things from quote unquote a certain
Speaker 1: point of view, then maybe you'll see signs of general intelligence.
Speaker 1: But if you look at it from a different point
Speaker 1: of view, maybe those signs of general intelligence just vanish,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that the thing you thought was
Speaker 1: real was just an illusion? So is that what's going on?
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. I will say that there are
Speaker 1: some critics who have a pretty strong point to make,
Speaker 1: which is that Microsoft is a company that has made
Speaker 1: massive investments in AI to the tune of more than
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars, So it has a vested interest in
Speaker 1: AI becoming a huge success, right Like, They've poured a
Speaker 1: lot of money into this, so they have a desire
Speaker 1: for this to come out the other side as a
Speaker 1: huge revenue generator. So it's possible that such a company could,
Speaker 1: as Professor Martin Sapp of Carnegie Mellon University has said
Speaker 1: to be quote co opting the research paper format into
Speaker 1: pr pitches in the quote, in other words, trying to
Speaker 1: manufacture support to make a tool seem more sophisticated than
Speaker 1: it potentially is. I don't know the truth of the matter.
Speaker 1: If I'm being honest, I'm still skeptical about machines capable
Speaker 1: of making the leap to general intelligence. However, that's based
Speaker 1: largely upon the fact that we don't fully understand general
Speaker 1: intelligence within humans, let alone in machines. But maybe that
Speaker 1: isn't necessary. Maybe we will achieve general intelligence with machines
Speaker 1: without having a full appreciation of how it works in humans.
Speaker 1: That's possible, I guess, So I just I mean, I
Speaker 1: keep going on to I don't know, but I do
Speaker 1: remain somewhat skeptical. Apple has announced a host of new
Speaker 1: accessibility features coming to various Apple devices, both on iOS
Speaker 1: and mac os, and that's great. So accessibility is getting
Speaker 1: more attention and support these days, and it's been long overdue.
Speaker 1: I follow a lot of people who work in improving
Speaker 1: accessibility in technology, particularly in things like video games, where
Speaker 1: there are now settings and a lot of video games
Speaker 1: that are meant to allow people who might have limitations
Speaker 1: in some way or another still be able to enjoy that.
Speaker 1: I think that's great. I think being able to increase
Speaker 1: the spectrum of folks who get to experience stuff is fantastic.
Speaker 1: I think everyone's a winner when that happens, and seeing
Speaker 1: companies put attention toward accessibility is one of the big
Speaker 1: steps toward addressing gaps that can otherwise exist between different
Speaker 1: populations when it comes to their ability to use tech.
Speaker 1: So I love accessibility technology in general, but the specific
Speaker 1: feature I wanted to talk about that Apple is introducing
Speaker 1: is called personal voice. So with personal Voice, users can
Speaker 1: train their device to sound just like they sound. Then
Speaker 1: the Apple device can speak in a synthesized version of
Speaker 1: the user's own voice. For people who have conditions that
Speaker 1: affect their ability to communicate, potentially it might mean that
Speaker 1: they're facing a future where they will no longer be
Speaker 1: able to speak at some point. Well, this kind of
Speaker 1: feature is huge for them. Rather than them having to
Speaker 1: rely upon an impersonal, generic synthetic voice to speak when
Speaker 1: they cannot, the voice that will come out of their
Speaker 1: devices will be their own. I think that's incredible. I
Speaker 1: think it's a really great use of the synthetic voice technology.
Speaker 1: We have talked about how synthesized voices can cause disruption
Speaker 1: and bad ways, right, how it can impersonate people in
Speaker 1: the arts where those people suddenly feel like their identity
Speaker 1: has been stripped from them and put to use in
Speaker 1: something that they had no involvement with. That's bad, right,
Speaker 1: Or people like me, I would be out of a
Speaker 1: job if iHeart decided, you know what, We're just going
Speaker 1: to train of synthesizer on Jonathan's voice because he's got
Speaker 1: thousands of hours of content out there. Well, we're going
Speaker 1: to train it on his voice. We're gonna get a
Speaker 1: chat GPT style bought to write episodes of tech stuff
Speaker 1: as if it were Jonathan. Have the voice that sounds
Speaker 1: like Jonathan, deliver it, and then we don't have to hire,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have to pay Jonathan anymore. He
Speaker 1: could just he could just be cut free. It's a
Speaker 1: scary thought, like I get it, like, and it's potentially
Speaker 1: a possible thing, But you know, I U still argue
Speaker 1: that humans have their own, actual, legitimate contributions to various activities,
Speaker 1: including things like creating episodes. So yeah, it's nice to
Speaker 1: see a version of voice synthesis that isn't potentially scary
Speaker 1: or bad, but rather an application that can protect a
Speaker 1: person's agency and personality and independence. I think that is fantastic.
Speaker 1: So good on you Apple for developing those particular excess
Speaker 1: stability features. There are other ones that Apple also announced
Speaker 1: which are equally great. I was calling this one out
Speaker 1: specifically because it kind of has that AI connection with
Speaker 1: the voice synthesis model that is worked into this particular tool. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take another quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we will wrap up with a few more big stories.
Speaker 1: So we're back, and I saw on CNN that a
Speaker 1: former byte Dance employee has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit
Speaker 1: against byte Dance. That employee, Yin Tall You says that
Speaker 1: he formerly served as head of engineering for US operations.
Speaker 1: Now you might recall that byte Dance is the parent
Speaker 1: company of the popular video social platform TikTok, and you
Speaker 1: probably also know that in the United States as well
Speaker 1: as many other parts of the world, there's a growing
Speaker 1: concern that TikTok might serve as a kind of data
Speaker 1: siphon and shoot that data to the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 1: Because if you aren't aware Bye Dance being a company
Speaker 1: that's centered in China, that means that that by law,
Speaker 1: the company is supposed to aid the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 1: when it comes to things like gathering information about, you know,
Speaker 1: enemies of China and that sort of thing. They are
Speaker 1: supposed to be obligated to share that kind of information,
Speaker 1: and a lot of companies in China have to reserve
Speaker 1: a spot for an official from the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 1: to essentially kind of sit on the board of the company.
Speaker 1: So You says, the fears of all these different nations
Speaker 1: that perhaps bye Dance is gathering information using its platforms
Speaker 1: and then sending it on to the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 1: He says that those fears are totally justified. He says
Speaker 1: that Chinese officials have full access to get data that
Speaker 1: was gathered through byte Dance applications, including presumably TikTok, and
Speaker 1: that they had full backdoor access to data even that
Speaker 1: data saved on US servers. Now ByteDance disputes this. They
Speaker 1: say that this is just not true. They point out
Speaker 1: that you worked for the company for less than a
Speaker 1: year before his employment was terminated, that it ended in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. You, by the way, says that byte Edance's
Speaker 1: description of his time of employment is not true. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that use accusations are confirming a lot of fears
Speaker 1: that are held in various political circles. But security experts
Speaker 1: say that there really hasn't been any evidence that Chinese
Speaker 1: officials were actually accessing TikTok data in the United States.
Speaker 1: So this very well could be a situation where a
Speaker 1: former employee is leveraging growing suspicion in order to support
Speaker 1: their own claims, or it's possible that as accusations are
Speaker 1: all true, I honestly don't know the answer. I will, however,
Speaker 1: point out again that even if TikTok was actively being
Speaker 1: used by China to spy on Americans, the fact is
Speaker 1: you can buy and sell data from pretty much every
Speaker 1: online platform, which means you don't have to rely on
Speaker 1: a single app to be like your way to gaze
Speaker 1: into an enemy's territory. That's not necessary. You don't need
Speaker 1: to do that because you can just buy the data
Speaker 1: online from all sorts of different data brokers. Unless there
Speaker 1: are really strict controls about that sort of thing, the
Speaker 1: information is out there, So that's something we should really
Speaker 1: think about, is that. You know, if you were to
Speaker 1: eat even shut down TikTok, that's one potential stream of
Speaker 1: information that could potentially go to an adversary, but there's
Speaker 1: still all the other ones. It's like putting your finger
Speaker 1: in a hole in a dam and then like fifteen
Speaker 1: feet down from you, there's a massive breach that's allowing
Speaker 1: millions of gallons of water to pass through what You're
Speaker 1: not really doing anything at that point. But we've gone
Speaker 1: over this before, so we'll move on. Now. Here's a
Speaker 1: quick update on the Microsoft Slash Activision Blizzard deal. If
Speaker 1: you recall, Microsoft has been trying to purchase Activision Blizzard
Speaker 1: and has met with some resistance around the world because
Speaker 1: we're talking about a global acquisition here. So as expected,
Speaker 1: as we talked about I think last week, the EU
Speaker 1: has now approved this merger. Now, you might remember this
Speaker 1: was never a guarantee. An earlier reports had messages saying
Speaker 1: that perhaps even Sony was campaigning hard to have this
Speaker 1: merger blocked out of concern that it would constitute an
Speaker 1: unfair advantage for Microsoft in the video game market, particularly
Speaker 1: for really popular titles like Call of Duty. But Microsoft
Speaker 1: then made several promises to regulators to keep things fair
Speaker 1: and you know, not just absolutely lay waste to the
Speaker 1: home video game industry, and also to make sure they
Speaker 1: took steps so that they're not becoming the de facto
Speaker 1: cloud gaming service. Microsoft agreed to a ten year licensed
Speaker 1: deal that said the company would keep Activision Blizzard titles
Speaker 1: available through all cloud streaming services, all cloud game streaming services,
Speaker 1: I should say, as long as those services sign a
Speaker 1: license agreement with Microsoft. This addresses one of the main
Speaker 1: concerns that has held this deal up in the UK,
Speaker 1: where regulators have voted to actually block the deal. Microsoft
Speaker 1: is now appealing that decision. And then meanwhile here in
Speaker 1: the United States, we still have to wait for regulators
Speaker 1: to actually weigh in. They haven't done that yet, so
Speaker 1: this acquisition still is not necessarily going to happen. But
Speaker 1: arguably the EU's clearance for this deal gives the move
Speaker 1: some support and some momentum, so its chances have improved slightly.
Speaker 1: So maybe we'll see opinions reverse further downstream. We'll have
Speaker 1: to wait and see. You know. The EU was actually
Speaker 1: pretty busy this week because on top of approving Microsoft's
Speaker 1: acquisition bid for Activision Blizzard, the EU also approved cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: regulation rules this week, being the first region in the
Speaker 1: world to form formal cryptocurrency regulations. These will not take
Speaker 1: effect until next year, but the regulations are meant to
Speaker 1: protect EU citizens from losing their shirts in the crypto market,
Speaker 1: and also to create a framework to hold scam artists
Speaker 1: and bad actors accountable when it turns out that they're
Speaker 1: amazed in crypto investment opportunity is a little more than
Speaker 1: a Ponzi scheme. Ultimately, the goal here is to weed
Speaker 1: out the bad crypto entities from the good ones. So
Speaker 1: it's not saying all crypto is bad, but rather there
Speaker 1: needs to be this framework of regulations in order to
Speaker 1: make sure that it's not just running rampant and causing harm.
Speaker 1: And also this protects the EU and the process. So
Speaker 1: it also means that these regulations create the framework for
Speaker 1: pursuing crypto currency companies that are engaged in stuff like
Speaker 1: money laundering or financing terrorists. These regulations may end up
Speaker 1: serving as a foundation for other parts of the world
Speaker 1: to adopt similar approaches and thus rain in the wild
Speaker 1: West nature of the crypto community. While that might chafe
Speaker 1: a bit to the folks who saw cryptocurrency as a
Speaker 1: way of working outside the system, it can also potentially
Speaker 1: mitigate disasters such as the aforementioned collapse of FTX. How
Speaker 1: that particular event had a domino effect across the crypto market.
Speaker 1: I think it's hard to argue against creating rules that
Speaker 1: minimize those those chances of like those big disasters, or
Speaker 1: at least reduce maybe minimizes the wrong word, but to
Speaker 1: reduce the chance that that happens. Because investors don't want
Speaker 1: to see their money go away, right, You don't want
Speaker 1: to have to depend upon some government agency to retrieve
Speaker 1: some or or maybe, if you're lucky, all of your investment,
Speaker 1: because that's never going to be something that you can
Speaker 1: depend upon. So yeah, I think regulations are the right idea.
Speaker 1: They are antithetical to kind of the spirit of cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: but as we've seen, without those regulations, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunity for people to take advantage of folks at
Speaker 1: a grand scale that is incredibly harmful. And finally, while
Speaker 1: well I usually like to end a tech news episode
Speaker 1: with a silly or a light hearted story, I do
Speaker 1: not have such a story for this particular episode. Instead,
Speaker 1: we get to say that India is the first country
Speaker 1: with a democratically elected government to ban messaging services that
Speaker 1: allow end to end encryption. Now we've seen these sorts
Speaker 1: of bans in authoritatively governed countries now where you've got
Speaker 1: essentially a dictator or a military organization in charge of
Speaker 1: the country, but we've never seen it in a democracy.
Speaker 1: And the justification for this move for banning encrypted messaging
Speaker 1: services is pretty much what you would suspect. The government
Speaker 1: says that you've got to get rid of them because
Speaker 1: terrorists are using these apps to communicate with each other,
Speaker 1: and they use encryption to hide their plans from authorities,
Speaker 1: and their plans constitute a threat to the state of
Speaker 1: India and its citizens. So you've got to get rid
Speaker 1: of encryption. That means that nobody would get to have
Speaker 1: access to encrypted messaging systems within India. And you know,
Speaker 1: you'll hear arguments of like, why are you worried unless
Speaker 1: you have something to hide? But consider how officials in
Speaker 1: India have gone after people who have criticized the government.
Speaker 1: They have gone so far as to petition platforms like
Speaker 1: Twitter to remove posts that put the government in an
Speaker 1: unfavorable light. So you start to see a government use
Speaker 1: its power to suppress speech, and you start to make
Speaker 1: a solid argument that removing access to encrypted messaging services
Speaker 1: is another step toward authoritarianism. It's just it's authoritarianism that
Speaker 1: is dressed up like democracy. So bad story there. I
Speaker 1: hate to end it like that, but that was the
Speaker 1: last last one that I came across before I started
Speaker 1: working on this episode. In the meantime, I hope all
Speaker 1: of you out there are well and I I will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.