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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: Diamond Executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech are you.

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Speaker 1: It's time for the tech news for Tuesday, August twenty ninth,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. We got a lot of heavy talk

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Speaker 1: about AI to get through today. First up, US Senator

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Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer will host an insight forum focused on AI

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Speaker 1: on September thirteenth. His office has confirmed there will be

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Speaker 1: several important folks in tech who are present at this event.

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Speaker 1: One of those is Elon Musk, who co founded open

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Speaker 1: Ai before he left that organization to go make his

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Speaker 1: own AI development team with Blackjack and well never mind.

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Speaker 1: Another is Mark Zuckerberg, which makes me wonder if Schumer

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Speaker 1: is prepared to keep Musk and Zuckerberg apart, since you

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Speaker 1: never know when they'll revert back to being high school

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Speaker 1: alpha male types and starts scrapping in the hallway between classes.

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Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt is also supposed to be there. He was

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Speaker 1: the former CEO of Google. Sundar Pichai, who is the

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Speaker 1: current CEO of Alphabet, which is Google's parent company. He's

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Speaker 1: going to be there, and of course Sam Altman, the

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Speaker 1: CEO of Open AI itself, will take part in this,

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Speaker 1: and the conversation is going to be a lot around

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Speaker 1: like the risks and benefits of AI and the development

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Speaker 1: of a US policy on regulating artificial intelligence. Now, these

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Speaker 1: folks are not going to be the only ones there,

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Speaker 1: which is a good thing, because if the only folks

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Speaker 1: at the table happen to be the ones who are

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Speaker 1: eager to avoid as much regulation as possible, you probably

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Speaker 1: wouldn't make a whole lot of progress. Schumer's office says

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Speaker 1: that there will be representatives from civil rights groups and

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Speaker 1: worker advocacy groups and creatives and that sort of thing

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Speaker 1: as well. The proceedings themselves will actually be done behind

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Speaker 1: closed doors, so there won't be any reporters allowed inside

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Speaker 1: while this is going on, but Schumer says his office

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Speaker 1: will release essentially a summary of what went on during

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Speaker 1: the discussions. I suspect the tech executives will do their

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Speaker 1: best to reduce any impact of proposed regulations because otherwise

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Speaker 1: that kind of affects their bottom line. Now, I do

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Speaker 1: think a serious discussion about artificial intelligence does need to

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Speaker 1: happen as soon as possible, and I don't just mean

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Speaker 1: generative AI. That gets a lot of headlines, but it

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Speaker 1: is not the one and only application of artificial intelligence

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Speaker 1: by far. For example, according to Jared Keller, who was

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Speaker 1: writing for Military dot Com, the US Army will potentially

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Speaker 1: they soon conduct tests in which they will mount the

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Speaker 1: Army's new sig sour x seven squad rifle to a

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Speaker 1: four legged robot provided by Ghost Robotics. The Army already

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Speaker 1: did a similar test with a robot from Ghost Robotics,

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Speaker 1: and they used an m for a one carbine in

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Speaker 1: those tests. Representatives for the Army have said these tests

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Speaker 1: are to explore human machine interaction in Army operations, but

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Speaker 1: they do not necessarily indicate that there is a plan

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Speaker 1: for these robots to be quote unquote deployed down range.

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Speaker 1: That is, the Army might test the stuff out, but

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Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily mean that in the not two distant future,

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Speaker 1: four legged robots armed with machine guns will be blasting

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Speaker 1: their way through combat zones. So let's just test chill out.

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Speaker 1: Critics have repeatedly voiced concerns about arming semi autonomous and

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Speaker 1: remotely controlled devices, arguing that can lead to conflict escalation

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Speaker 1: and that the act of ending a human life should

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Speaker 1: be entirely up to another human, which, y'all, I understand

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Speaker 1: that on one hand, but it's really messed up to

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Speaker 1: think about it, right, Like, no, this should be left

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Speaker 1: to a person who will then be left to try

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Speaker 1: and deal with that trauma. But at the same time

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Speaker 1: you think, well, sure it should be up to a

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Speaker 1: person and not just automated, because that is really super

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Speaker 1: dark and grim. But then I am admittedly a hippie

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Speaker 1: dippy type who isn't so big on the concept of

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Speaker 1: ending human lives in the first place. Anyway. It's not

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Speaker 1: just human rights advocates who have voiced concerns. Several robotics companies,

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Speaker 1: including famously Boston Dynamics, have protested the move to weaponize

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Speaker 1: the technologies that they work on. Last year, those companies

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Speaker 1: released an open letter that in part reads, quote, we

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Speaker 1: believe that adding weapons to robots that are remotely or

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Speaker 1: autonomously operated, widely available to the public, and capable of

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Speaker 1: navigating to previously inaccessible locations where people live and work

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Speaker 1: raises new risks of harm and serious ethical issues. Weaponized

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Speaker 1: applications of these newly capable robots will also harm public

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Speaker 1: trust in the technology in ways that damage the tremendous

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Speaker 1: benefits they will bring to society end quote. Obviously, this

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Speaker 1: has not stopped the US Army and other nations are

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Speaker 1: similarly experimenting with weaponized robotic platforms. So I guess you

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Speaker 1: could say that unless everyone around the world agrees to

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Speaker 1: back off on doing this and then actually follows through

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Speaker 1: on that promise, the only other option you have is

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Speaker 1: to develop the stuff yourself, which again is pretty grim.

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Speaker 1: But wait, it gets even scarier. So not to be outdone,

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Speaker 1: the US Air Force is seeking a research budget to

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Speaker 1: build at least a thousand unmanned aircraft that can operate

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Speaker 1: autonomously and I'm talking being weaponized aircraft. These vehicles would

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Speaker 1: serve as wingmen to human pilots and would provide support

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Speaker 1: and cover during combat operations. They could also be sent

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Speaker 1: on suicide missions to achieve combat goals in scenarios where

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Speaker 1: the possibility of survival is approaching zero. As such, the

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Speaker 1: aircraft would need to be autonomous and armed. One candidate

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Speaker 1: for the vehicle that the Air Force could potentially use

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Speaker 1: in this program comes from a company called Kratos Defense.

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Speaker 1: It actually makes me wonder if the company chose that

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Speaker 1: name after the character from the God of War franchise.

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Speaker 1: That game came out in two thousand and five, and

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Speaker 1: the company that is now known as Kratos Defense actually

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Speaker 1: chose that name in two thousand and seven, two years

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Speaker 1: after the game came out. If that's the case, yikes. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the platform itself is called Valkyrie, which is really another yikes.

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Speaker 1: Valkyrie were Odin's war maidens who would escort fallen warriors

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Speaker 1: to Valhalla. Force has been using the Valkyrie aircraft as

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Speaker 1: a support platform for connectivity purposes, essentially acting like a

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Speaker 1: network bridge between other aircraft and other autonomous vehicles that

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Speaker 1: are under Air Force control. But current plans involve using

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Speaker 1: a Valkyrie in a simulation to identify, chase, down, and

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Speaker 1: then take down a target over the Gulf of Mexico

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Speaker 1: in in a test of its capabilities, which is a

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Speaker 1: triple yikes really, as you can imagine. Critics have protested

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Speaker 1: this initiative as well, with the same sort of arguments

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Speaker 1: that they make for the four legged robots being armed

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Speaker 1: by the army, But the Air Force will be requesting

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Speaker 1: a nearly six billion dollar budget to pursue this plan

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Speaker 1: over the course of the next five years. Today is

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Speaker 1: the first day of Google's Cloud Next conference, an event

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Speaker 1: where AI will be one of many topics under discussion.

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Speaker 1: Google will launch an interesting tool at this conference called Synthid.

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Speaker 1: This tool applies a watermark to AI generated images. The

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Speaker 1: watermark is meant to be unnoticed by human eyes, so

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Speaker 1: when you look at the picture, you don't see that

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Speaker 1: there's a watermark there, but it's meant to be easily

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Speaker 1: detectable with any AI detection tool, which is pretty clever.

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Speaker 1: The watermark won't affect how we perceive the image, but

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Speaker 1: will also reveal itself to be the product of AI generation,

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Speaker 1: and Google says the watermark's design is such that you

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Speaker 1: could edit the image, You could crop it, you could

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Speaker 1: deform it, stretch it in various ways, and the watermarks

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Speaker 1: should be unaffected. Google engineers haven't gone into a lot

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Speaker 1: of detail about how this works because they don't want

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Speaker 1: to tip their hand too much lest folks immediately find

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Speaker 1: ways to gain the system and get around the tool.

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Speaker 1: But they have also said that this is really just

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Speaker 1: the beginning of Synthid. This tool is going to face

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Speaker 1: real world tests. People will find ways around it. Like,

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Speaker 1: that's just a fact, and the engineers at Google are

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Speaker 1: saying this, and that's going to prompt changes and improvements

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Speaker 1: on Google side, and that's just how things work. It's

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Speaker 1: essentially the exact same pattern we saw with captures. There

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Speaker 1: are lots of reasons that you would want to employ

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Speaker 1: a tool like this, ranging from everything from preventing the

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Speaker 1: spread of misinformation with deep fakes to avoiding the problem

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Speaker 1: of just mixing up images of actual real world things

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Speaker 1: with AI generated images of stuff that may or may

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Speaker 1: not exist. So there are a lot of different practical

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Speaker 1: applications for this technology. I'm sure we'll hear a lot

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Speaker 1: more about it as the Cloud Next conference continues. General

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Speaker 1: motors will be talking more about how it is using

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Speaker 1: conversational AI as the Cloud Next Conference continues, specifically with

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Speaker 1: the on Star service. So on Star is a connected

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Speaker 1: feature built into some vehicles that lets the driver get

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Speaker 1: support for all sorts of things ranging from the quasi

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Speaker 1: trivial to the very serious. GM is using conversational AI

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Speaker 1: to handle the more mundane, low urgency requests. You know,

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Speaker 1: like if you want to use on Star to help

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Speaker 1: guide you in navigating to your final destination in your

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Speaker 1: car that doesn't have to be a human being to

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Speaker 1: actually manage that. That could be an AI agent helping

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Speaker 1: you with that task. For stuff that's more important, like

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Speaker 1: reporting a crash or asking that you know someone like

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Speaker 1: an EMT be sent to your location, those calls get

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Speaker 1: routed to human operators, which is totally understandable, and by

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Speaker 1: offloading the low urgency stuff to AI, GM says it

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Speaker 1: has decreased the weight time to get in touch with

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Speaker 1: human operators, and obviously that's a good thing if you

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Speaker 1: really need to speak to someone in the event of

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Speaker 1: an emergency. According to GM, the response to the AI

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Speaker 1: assistance has been mostly positive among drivers, and this is

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Speaker 1: the kind of implementation I can really get behind, using

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Speaker 1: AI to offload less important tasks so that people with

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Speaker 1: specialized knowledge and training can handle the more important ones,

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Speaker 1: particularly ones that benefit from a human touch. Okay, we've

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Speaker 1: got a lot more news stories to go, but let's

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Speaker 1: take a quick break. Okay, we're back, and next up,

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Speaker 1: we've got another story with artificial intelligence, along with some

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Speaker 1: arguably dumb real behavior. At least in my opinion, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty dumb. So Elon Musk, owner of x formerly known

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Speaker 1: as Twitter, and the CEO of Tesla, live streamed a

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Speaker 1: demonstration of Tesla's upcoming full self driving Version twelve software

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Speaker 1: with him sitting in the driver's seat of a Tesla.

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Speaker 1: This version of full self driving has yet to be

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Speaker 1: released to Tesla owners, and during the demo, Musk broke

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Speaker 1: a California law which says you're not supposed to have

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Speaker 1: a phone in your hand while you're operating a vehicle.

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk definitely did do that. Follow up on that,

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Speaker 1: police are not going to pursue Musk for this because

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Speaker 1: no police officer directly witnessed it happening. That's a prerequisite

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Speaker 1: for charging someone if it's just a video or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Cops did not see it at the time, they will

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Speaker 1: not go after Musk. Plus, even if they did, the

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Speaker 1: penalty for your first offense can be as low as

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Speaker 1: a twenty dollars fine, so it's not like it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: mean anything. Also, Musk was technically violating Tesla's own policies

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Speaker 1: because the company says that full self driving is a

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Speaker 1: hands on feature and that drivers are supposed to keep

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Speaker 1: their hands on the steering wheel at all times, and

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk definitively did not do that, so he was

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Speaker 1: defying his own company's policies. But anyway, let's put all

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Speaker 1: that aside for now. During this demonstration, at one point,

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Speaker 1: Musk actually had to take control of the Tesla to

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Speaker 1: prevent it from running a red light. That's not a

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Speaker 1: great moment when you're demonstrating the supposed full self driving

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Speaker 1: capability of your vehicle. Musk also used Google to look

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Speaker 1: up Mark Zuckerberg's address and then showed it on camera,

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Speaker 1: but he said that doesn't to doxing anyone because you

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Speaker 1: could just google the way he did. To be fair

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Speaker 1: to Tesla, there were several segments of the drive in

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Speaker 1: which the vehicle navigated through construction zones and roundabouts and

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Speaker 1: didn't have any performance issues. Musk also pointed out that

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Speaker 1: Tesla's now rely solely on optical cameras rather than sensors

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Speaker 1: like LDAR. Another interesting note is that Musk did this

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Speaker 1: demonstration while his company is preparing to defend itself in

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Speaker 1: the first of a couple of oncoming court cases that

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Speaker 1: are arguing that the company's driver assist features led to

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Speaker 1: fatal accidents. So the first court case should begin in

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Speaker 1: California in mid September. And it's a civil lawsuit stems

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Speaker 1: from a twenty nineteen accident in which a Tesla owner

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Speaker 1: named Micah Lee died when his Tesla, which was in

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Speaker 1: autopilot mode, veered off a highway. It collided with a

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Speaker 1: tree and then burst into flames. Two passengers in Lee's

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Speaker 1: car suffered suitvarious injuries, but survive the crash. The second

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Speaker 1: court case is scheduled for October in Florida and centers

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Speaker 1: on a different crash that happened in twenty nineteen. That's

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Speaker 1: when Stephen Banner's Model three failed to detect a big

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Speaker 1: rig truck that was crossing the road ahead of him,

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Speaker 1: and his Tesla collided with the trailer, which killed Stephen Banner.

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine the lawyers at Tesla are super thrilled

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Speaker 1: about Elon Musk showing off full self driving on a

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Speaker 1: live stream, especially in a demonstration that required him to

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Speaker 1: take over to avoid running a red light. While simultaneously

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Speaker 1: preparing for these court cases, Microsoft will soon release version

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Speaker 1: one seventeen of the Edge web browser and will actually

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Speaker 1: be removing some features in the process. Microsoft said the

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Speaker 1: decision to remove the tools was to quote improve end

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Speaker 1: user experience and simplify the more tools menu end quote.

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Speaker 1: As reported by The Verge, truth be told, I hadn't

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Speaker 1: even heard of these features at all, so it's quite

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Speaker 1: poossible that very few people are making use of them.

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Speaker 1: Then again, according to at least some statistical analysis firms,

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Speaker 1: Microsoft Edge commands just five percent of the web browser

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Speaker 1: market in total, so you could argue very few people

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Speaker 1: are making use of Edge full stop anyway. The features

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Speaker 1: affected are picture dictionary citations, math Solver, kids Mode, and

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Speaker 1: grammar tools. If you are one of the few elite

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Speaker 1: that this actually will affect, you have my condolences. Microsoft

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Speaker 1: will push this update out of the beta phase. In

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Speaker 1: mid September, Carl Bode of tech Dirt wrote a piece

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Speaker 1: explaining how e byte companies, through a trade organization called

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Speaker 1: People for Bikes, has lobbied lawmakers in the United States

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Speaker 1: to make exceptions for e bikes in various right to

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Speaker 1: repair laws. Essentially, these companies are trying to make sure

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Speaker 1: that they can maintain control of the entire ecosystem for

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Speaker 1: their products, rather than open up so that customers can

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Speaker 1: either perform their own maintenance and repairs or to seek

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Speaker 1: those from an independent repair shop. The argument that the

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Speaker 1: group has been making is one we have heard before,

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Speaker 1: that this is really for the customer's safety. The group

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Speaker 1: argues that allowing people to do their own maintenance and

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Speaker 1: repair could lead to an increased risk of stuff like fires,

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Speaker 1: and while e bikes have been one of those electronic

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Speaker 1: products that have had problems with batteries catching on fire,

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Speaker 1: that has had more to do with poor manufacturing processes

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Speaker 1: than anything else. In fact, when pressed to cite figures

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Speaker 1: about how many fires were the result of an e

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Speaker 1: bike owner trying to do their own repairs, a rep

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Speaker 1: for the group said that the stories were quote unquote anecdotal,

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Speaker 1: which is another way of saying, I don't have any

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Speaker 1: evidence that this is actually a thing. And apparently these

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Speaker 1: lobbying efforts have been pretty effective, with e bikes getting

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Speaker 1: exceptions and several right to repair laws around the United States,

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Speaker 1: though not as tech Dirt reports in Minnesota. However, the

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Speaker 1: Minnesota law did make exceptions for game consoles, medical equipment,

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Speaker 1: and cars. Back in two thousand and eight, California voters

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Speaker 1: approved initial funding for a high speed rails within the state.

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Speaker 1: This is the same system that would later prompt Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk to say the whole thing was a huge waste

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Speaker 1: of money, and that a hyper loop system would be

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Speaker 1: faster and more effective. Of course, the hyper loop failed

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Speaker 1: to materialize, and despite several companies trying to make it

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Speaker 1: a thing, it has never manifested, at least not in

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Speaker 1: the way that Musk initially promoted it anyway. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: over those years, the project for high speed rail has

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Speaker 1: moved forward, though very slowly, with the state engaged in

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Speaker 1: construction across hundreds of miles in California while still working

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Speaker 1: to receive environmental approval for some key stretches, and now

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Speaker 1: that project is officially putting out an RFQ, or Request

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Speaker 1: for Qualifications to look for vendors who would provide the

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Speaker 1: actual trains that will travel on those rails once they

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Speaker 1: are finished. Interested companies will need to respond to the

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Speaker 1: RFQ by November. The California High Speed Rail Authority will

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Speaker 1: consider the candidates and then narrow the search in early

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. To qualify, the companies will have to

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Speaker 1: be able to build trains that can operate at speeds

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Speaker 1: of two hundred and twenty miles per hour, with tests

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Speaker 1: as high as two hundred and forty two miles per

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Speaker 1: hour at least according to Los Angeles news outlet KTLA five.

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Speaker 1: The company selected will have to build all the trains

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Speaker 1: for the system and provide access to spare parts for

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Speaker 1: thirty years, which is important. Here in Atlanta, we have

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Speaker 1: a train system where the company that made the trains

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Speaker 1: doesn't exist anymore, so getting replacement parts requires a lot

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Speaker 1: more work. The authority's goal is to have the high

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Speaker 1: speed rail service in action by twenty thirty. Personally, I

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Speaker 1: have my doubts that it will be ready by then,

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Speaker 1: simply because these projects are so huge and complicated, and

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Speaker 1: made even more complex through local and state politics, which

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Speaker 1: change with every election. But here's hoping California is able

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Speaker 1: to see this project come to completion and perhaps serve

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Speaker 1: as a model that other states could follow. The lack

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Speaker 1: of high speed rail lines across the United States is

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Speaker 1: pretty embarrassing. Our final story is about how some hackers

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Speaker 1: say they have infiltrated a company called web Detective, which

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Speaker 1: makes spyware, and they have subsequent deleted all the device

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Speaker 1: information that the company had, which will make it impossible

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Speaker 1: for web Detective to collect additional data from those compromised devices.

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Speaker 1: According to Engadget. That means around seventy six thousand devices

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Speaker 1: will no longer be spying on their owners. Not all

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Speaker 1: heroes wear capes, some of them wear hoodies. All right,

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Speaker 1: that's it for the tech News for Tuesday, August twenty

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Speaker 1: ninth to twenty twenty three. I hope you are all well,

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Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff

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Speaker 1: is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.