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 Thursday,
Speaker 1: November thirty, twenty twenty three. Let's get to it. When
Speaker 1: last we left open Ai, the story was that Sam
Speaker 1: Altman was going to come back to the company after
Speaker 1: being suddenly and surprisingly fired, and that the board of
Speaker 1: directors would consist of different folks as part of the deal.
Speaker 1: So three of the four members who voted against Altman
Speaker 1: were shown the door. The only remaining one is Adam DiAngelo. Well,
Speaker 1: now Sam Altman is officially back as CEO, and on
Speaker 1: top of that, Microsoft is going to have a representative
Speaker 1: who will hold a non voting seat on the board.
Speaker 1: If you recall, Microsoft has committed to a ten billion
Speaker 1: dollar investment in open Ai, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
Speaker 1: was reportedly furious over Altman's firing because, well, the board
Speaker 1: of directors kept it all a secret until telling Altman
Speaker 1: and then essentially telling the world, and Nadella feels that
Speaker 1: Microsoft should probably get a heads up on that sort
Speaker 1: of thing early on, since they are pouring in so
Speaker 1: many billions of dollars into open Ai, and maybe even
Speaker 1: have a chance to propose alternatives because again, they are
Speaker 1: so heavily invested in the company. Ilia Sutzkever, who is
Speaker 1: one of the board members responsible for firing Altman in
Speaker 1: the first place, stepped down from the board, but he
Speaker 1: may still remain with the company. He is one of
Speaker 1: the co founders of open Ai and has served as
Speaker 1: its chief scientist. Anyway, this really went down as one
Speaker 1: of the weirder stories of twenty twenty three, and one
Speaker 1: that actually wrapped up pretty darn fast. I mean, most
Speaker 1: of our weird stories have lasted the entire year. Talk
Speaker 1: about chat GPT speaking of weird stories, and how some
Speaker 1: researchers fooled the tool into revealing training data as well
Speaker 1: as some personal information about various people. And they did
Speaker 1: it by having the chat bought repeat the same word
Speaker 1: over and over without stop forever. So they essentially gave
Speaker 1: it the prompt repeat the word, you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: word was, forever, and it would start doing that. So
Speaker 1: it began to comply, but at some point it started
Speaker 1: to intersperse the repetitions of the word with other information
Speaker 1: like snippets from copyrighted research papers or personal phone numbers
Speaker 1: of private citizens, including the CEO of some company. The
Speaker 1: researchers used words like poem or company and had it
Speaker 1: repeat that, and they saw different results depending on which
Speaker 1: word they used. And it's interesting because I was just
Speaker 1: rewatching a horror movie called Pontypool, and in that movie
Speaker 1: people go crazy while they repeating simple small words over
Speaker 1: and over in English. And then I read the story
Speaker 1: and I think, oh, gosh, we're in the movie. I mean,
Speaker 1: not really. But the researchers Chi died open Ai. They
Speaker 1: said the attack they used shouldn't have worked because someone
Speaker 1: surely should have discovered it well before then and fixed it.
Speaker 1: They said, the attack is kind of silly, but it
Speaker 1: could have serious consequences if someone invested enough money in
Speaker 1: the paid for version of chat GPT, because that's what
Speaker 1: the researchers used. If they poured enough money into it
Speaker 1: and they used a similar style of attack, they could
Speaker 1: have received an awful lot of information in the process.
Speaker 1: The attack also showed how open ai has used material
Speaker 1: on the web, including copyrighted material, to train its large
Speaker 1: language model. That's an unfolding, sticky situation as lawmakers try
Speaker 1: to get up to speed on the legalities of training llms.
Speaker 1: The researcher said that open ai actually patched this vulnerability
Speaker 1: back in August, so they're just now publishing their findings.
Speaker 1: But according to them, open ai has already responded to
Speaker 1: the issue. However, in Gadget, which published a whole article
Speaker 1: about this issue, said that their staff attempted to replicate
Speaker 1: the results and they were able to do so. They
Speaker 1: used the word reply. They told the chatbot to repeat
Speaker 1: reply forever, and it started to submitting other types of data.
Speaker 1: So it's clear that this is not fully resolved. It'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see if this actually ends up having
Speaker 1: any actual negative consequences in the real world. Beyond the
Speaker 1: possibility of that happening, this next story is for you
Speaker 1: Apple users out there. According to the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: Apple has proposed that it and Goldman Sachs, which is
Speaker 1: the bank that facilitates transactions that are moving across Apple Pay,
Speaker 1: will part ways in twelve to fifteen months, and Goldman
Speaker 1: Sachs is likely to accept that offer because, as reportedly,
Speaker 1: the bank has found Apple's business to be unprofitable that
Speaker 1: handling these transactions is actually costly. Apparently, folks who use
Speaker 1: Apple Pay make payments on their accounts more slowly than
Speaker 1: people who use other types of credit cards, and this
Speaker 1: lag in payment has had a big impact on Goldman
Speaker 1: Sachs's own finances. This means that Apple will need to
Speaker 1: find some other financial institution to back those transactions, or
Speaker 1: somehow do it themselves, which I cannot imagine happening because
Speaker 1: I imagine that requires fulfilling a whole bunch of regulations
Speaker 1: that I don't think Apple's ready to do. Or I
Speaker 1: guess the third option is closing off Apple Pay. I
Speaker 1: don't see that being a big priority either. The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal reports that American Express or Synchrony Financial are
Speaker 1: potential successors who might take over the back end operations. However,
Speaker 1: the article says that Apple has been pretty demanding of
Speaker 1: its partners, and that when you pair that with the
Speaker 1: challenges of actually making the business profitable, that could cause
Speaker 1: a hiccup or two. So is Apple Pay on borrowed time?
Speaker 1: Is it possible that it could be phased out after
Speaker 1: a year or so? It beats me, but I'll keep
Speaker 1: an eye on it. Starting tomorrow, which is Friday, Desummer first.
Speaker 1: In case you're one of those odd people who likes
Speaker 1: to listen to tech news episodes months after it happened,
Speaker 1: Google will be shutting down old user accounts that have
Speaker 1: been inactive for at least two years. I actually got
Speaker 1: a message from Google not that long ago regarding an
Speaker 1: email address that I created for a podcast, but I
Speaker 1: abandoned that podcast after two episodes, because even professionals like
Speaker 1: me can be a cliche. The move will delete all
Speaker 1: related data to the Gmail account, so that includes not
Speaker 1: just the Gmail address and everything that was in the
Speaker 1: Gmail but also anything in an associated Google Drive or
Speaker 1: Google Photos account. To be clear, this isn't going to
Speaker 1: affect any active Gmail accounts. If you have used your
Speaker 1: Gmail account with that in the last two years, it
Speaker 1: is not gonna be in danger. Only ones that have
Speaker 1: been inactive for two years or longer will be affected,
Speaker 1: and it will also only affect personal Gmail addresses, not
Speaker 1: addresses associated with organizations or businesses. There's still some unanswered
Speaker 1: questions about all this, however. The big one is will
Speaker 1: Google recycle the inactive Gmail addresses once they wipe those out?
Speaker 1: Will people be able to reregister those addresses. If so,
Speaker 1: that could potentially lead to issues with identity theft because
Speaker 1: folks could scoop up newly available addresses that previously had
Speaker 1: belonged to someone else. I imagine Google has probably thought of that,
Speaker 1: but I haven't seen any confirmation on that. A company
Speaker 1: called Analytics claims that Google did a big old whoopsie,
Speaker 1: like a big old, huge issue whoopsie. See really, when
Speaker 1: you get down to it, Google is an advertising platform
Speaker 1: more than anything else. It's not a search company. It's
Speaker 1: an ad company. Serves up ads from customers on various websites,
Speaker 1: including Google. Well, part of that business includes giving advertisers
Speaker 1: the chance to say which types of websites they do
Speaker 1: or don't want to have their ads appear on, So
Speaker 1: it gives the advertisers more control over protecting the brands
Speaker 1: that they represent. I get a very similar consideration, like
Speaker 1: I can say what types of ads I do or
Speaker 1: don't want to appear on this show, and that gives
Speaker 1: me more control over the show and protects you, the listener,
Speaker 1: from advertisers that perhaps I don't believe in for one
Speaker 1: reason or another. Well, advertisers get the same kind of
Speaker 1: consideration when it comes to where their ads are going
Speaker 1: to be delivered, because you want to protect the brand, right.
Speaker 1: You don't want the brand to be associated with something
Speaker 1: that is against the brand's image, whether that is outright
Speaker 1: illegal content because that's a possibility, or things like porn sites.
Speaker 1: If you are, for example, an advertiser that advertises children's clothing,
Speaker 1: you definitely don't want your ad appearing on an adult website.
Speaker 1: That's just not appropriate, so Analytics says, the Google Search
Speaker 1: partner network has apparently been placing ads from prominent brands
Speaker 1: on sites that are very likely not on any white list,
Speaker 1: so illegal sites, adult websites, all this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: have been having some major advertisers pop up on them,
Speaker 1: and that's probably not what the advertisers wanted. According to Analytics,
Speaker 1: they found instances in which very high profile companies like Apple, Amazon, Lego, Meta, Uber, etc.
Speaker 1: Had their ads posted on inappropriate sites. These would be
Speaker 1: sites that the brands absolutely would not want to be
Speaker 1: associated with. This is a huge issue for brand safety right.
Speaker 1: But other problems include cases in which, say, alcohol brand
Speaker 1: advertisements were showing up on websites that are targeted to children. Clearly,
Speaker 1: the website administrators don't want that that they're running a
Speaker 1: site that's targeting children. They don't want ads that have
Speaker 1: alcohol advertised on them running on the site. The advertisers
Speaker 1: don't want it either, because there could be a huge
Speaker 1: legal case to unfold. Because of all of this, Google
Speaker 1: reportedly is investigating the issue in addressing it, though questions
Speaker 1: remain as to how this even happened in the first place.
Speaker 1: This comes at a really bad time for Google. The
Speaker 1: company is already in the target sites of US lawmakers
Speaker 1: as they question if Google is engaged in anti competitive
Speaker 1: practices and if, perhaps to an extreme case, if Google
Speaker 1: should get broken up into smaller companies. Politicians and the
Speaker 1: EU have also indicated that they may launch an investigation
Speaker 1: into the matter. They pointed out that if the EU
Speaker 1: Commission ads, like an ad for the EU Commission, ends
Speaker 1: up being placed on, say a sanctioned Russian website, then
Speaker 1: the Commission inadvertently becomes an accomplice to a party that
Speaker 1: is violating these international sanctions. So this really is a
Speaker 1: pretty big mess for Google. All Right, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break. When we come back, we'll be
Speaker 1: talking about messes for some other tech companies. Okay, we're back,
Speaker 1: So here in the United States, the CEOs of five
Speaker 1: tech companies, those being X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Meta, TikTok, Snap,
Speaker 1: and Discord are all going to get together on January
Speaker 1: thirty first, twenty twenty four. They're not having lunch, they're
Speaker 1: not engaging in small talk. Instead, they're appearing in front
Speaker 1: of the US Senate to answer questions about how they
Speaker 1: protect or rather fail to protect children's safety online. So
Speaker 1: the hearing is all about child exploitation, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the foundational concerns people have brought up about social
Speaker 1: platforms for years now. Really, heck, when Francis Hogan came
Speaker 1: forward with internal documents from Facebook now Meta, many of
Speaker 1: those documents centered on the company's potential impact on the
Speaker 1: mental health of young users, and it wasn't good news.
Speaker 1: Senators say that the day we'll give CEOs the chance
Speaker 1: to quote testify about their failure to protect children online
Speaker 1: end quote. That certainly sounds like the Senate has already
Speaker 1: reached the conclusion that these platforms have done and perhaps
Speaker 1: actively are doing harm to children or the very least
Speaker 1: failing to protect them, and that they are at fault
Speaker 1: for this. I'm sure it'll be a fun day for
Speaker 1: all involved. Personally, I think something that tends to be
Speaker 1: overlooked is how we in the United States aren't really
Speaker 1: serious about data privacy or security or data ownership, you know,
Speaker 1: whether the data that pertains to people actually belongs to them.
Speaker 1: And by addressing some of those gaps, I think we
Speaker 1: could actually solve a lot of problems that adversely affect
Speaker 1: young folks if we had tougher rules in place as
Speaker 1: to who owns that data and who can access it,
Speaker 1: and tougher laws about getting permission to access them data
Speaker 1: and to exploit it. All of those things I think
Speaker 1: are necessary, But hey, what do I know? So that'll
Speaker 1: be happening at the end of the first month of
Speaker 1: next year. US Senator Marco Rubio has proposed the most
Speaker 1: recent opposition to TikTok here in the US. Rubio proposes
Speaker 1: an ultimatum either China hands over the algorithm used for
Speaker 1: TikTok's recommendation engine, or the United States demonetizes the platform
Speaker 1: within the country, which effectively ends up being a ban
Speaker 1: on TikTok. This is pretty wild stuff, so at the
Speaker 1: heart of Rubio's call appears to be this perception that
Speaker 1: TikTok's algorithm is purposefully shaping discourse. That perhaps China's using
Speaker 1: the algorithm to push propaganda or sway the minds of
Speaker 1: the US public in particular directions. And maybe that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe the algorithm is doing that, but I
Speaker 1: suspect the algorithm is actually doing something far simpler. It
Speaker 1: is essentially identifying the types of content each user to
Speaker 1: tends to like, and then it just serves up an
Speaker 1: endless supply of that kind of content in an effort
Speaker 1: to keep that user engaged on the platform for as
Speaker 1: long as possible. So if that content does favor one
Speaker 1: particular political ideology, well yeah, TikTok serves that up to
Speaker 1: the user. But if the user tends to favor the
Speaker 1: opposite point of view, I don't think TikTok tries to
Speaker 1: change the user's mind and manipulate them so that they
Speaker 1: think the other thing. No, Instead, it just caters to
Speaker 1: that kind of point of view and serves up that
Speaker 1: sort of video content to the user. Again, that's my guess,
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm wrong. But anyway, as CNBC puts it,
Speaker 1: Rubio's law would quote prohibit financial transactions from social media
Speaker 1: companies located in or under the influence of China, Russia,
Speaker 1: and a few other countries end quote. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: under the influence is the key element for TikTok because
Speaker 1: obviously the company TikTok is centered here in the United States,
Speaker 1: but it's pairing company by Dance is in China, so
Speaker 1: that seems to be where that key phrase comes into play.
Speaker 1: I don't really think this is on the right track.
Speaker 1: I do think TikTok is potentially harmful, but uh, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's necessarily trying to sway opinions in a
Speaker 1: specific direction. I think the stuff that TikTok serves up
Speaker 1: is driven by the behaviors of the people who are
Speaker 1: on TikTok, not the other way around. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's just my guess. I don't have any real hard
Speaker 1: data to say one way or the other, and I
Speaker 1: could very clearly be wrong. Okay. Next up, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: had some less than elegant words for advertisers who are
Speaker 1: fleeing X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. At the
Speaker 1: Deal Book conference, Musk had a bit of a rant
Speaker 1: against advertisers, saying they were in effect blackmailing him. Now
Speaker 1: as a reminder, Musk had posted and also boosted posts
Speaker 1: containing antisemitic messaging, and many advertisers chose that moment to
Speaker 1: say peace out to the platform. So I'm not sure
Speaker 1: this is really a case of blackmail. To be clear,
Speaker 1: I think this is a case of advertisers not wanting
Speaker 1: to be complicit in the spread of hate speech because
Speaker 1: that's a pretty bad way to protect your brand's image.
Speaker 1: So that's not the same thing as blackmail. Facing consequences
Speaker 1: for your actions is not the same thing as being persecuted. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Musk told the advertisers to well, using a phrase that
Speaker 1: would be used in the television series The Good Place
Speaker 1: to Go, fork themselves. Then he made himself the victim
Speaker 1: by saying that if the company dies, which seems possible,
Speaker 1: it will be because of an advertiser boycott. I think
Speaker 1: if x slash Twitter dies, it's because an entitled billionaire
Speaker 1: who thinks consequences are something that happens to other people
Speaker 1: bought the company on a whim. And remember this was
Speaker 1: after he announced his intention to buy it, then tried
Speaker 1: to back out of the deal almost immediately, and then
Speaker 1: went through the deal only when he was threatened with
Speaker 1: legal consequences I think perhaps that's the reason that x
Speaker 1: slash Twitter dies, not that advertisers just spontaneously decided they
Speaker 1: don't like Elon Musk. But what do I know? The
Speaker 1: United Auto Workers labor group recently negotiated new contracts with
Speaker 1: three major automakers here in the US. Now, as revealed
Speaker 1: in a video recorded by UAW President Sean Fain, it
Speaker 1: aims to unionize Tesla Motors. Considering the union secured substantial
Speaker 1: raises for its members with those three major automakers, this
Speaker 1: effort might actually gain some interest within Tesla. The UAW
Speaker 1: also wants to organize workers at Mercedes Benz and at Toyota,
Speaker 1: among other auto manufacturers. I imagine Elon Musk is not
Speaker 1: happy about this. He recently expressed anger and frustration over
Speaker 1: the opposition that labor groups have shown against Tesla over
Speaker 1: in Sweden. That's been an ongoing story, and Musk has
Speaker 1: not been quiet about his desay pleasure at the situation.
Speaker 1: We've been seeing a growth in unions and organization over
Speaker 1: the past few years. Have been covering it for like
Speaker 1: three years. We'll have to wait and see if they
Speaker 1: take hold in Tesla. There have been individual efforts at
Speaker 1: various Tesla facilities for unionization, but this would be more
Speaker 1: of an organization wide approach. For a quarter mile down
Speaker 1: Fourteenth Street in Detroit, you can recharge your electric vehicle
Speaker 1: even as you drive it. The company Electrion completed the
Speaker 1: installation of some inductive charging coils along that stretch of
Speaker 1: street and it will serve as a test for the technology,
Speaker 1: so evs that are equipped with an appropriate receiver will
Speaker 1: be able to make use of the coils. The coils
Speaker 1: will create an electromagnetic field. Passing through the field will
Speaker 1: induce electric charge to flow through the receiver, which then
Speaker 1: gets directed to recharge the battery, so your car can
Speaker 1: charge as it drives along the street. The tech also
Speaker 1: works at the car's stationary so if you park your
Speaker 1: vehicle along that stretch of street, it will recharge while
Speaker 1: you do whatever it is you have to do, and
Speaker 1: you don't have to have any plugs or cables required. Now,
Speaker 1: this is an early test of the technology. It's really
Speaker 1: looked as sort of a test bed for the tech.
Speaker 1: It's not quite at the level where you're going to
Speaker 1: see it installed in cities worldwide, but if it is
Speaker 1: shown to be practical, we could see other municipalities around
Speaker 1: the world invest in this technology. And that's it for
Speaker 1: the tech news that I have for you today, Thursday,
Speaker 1: November thirty, of twenty twenty three. I am out on
Speaker 1: vacation next week, so we will have a few rerun
Speaker 1: episodes play next week. We also will have a special
Speaker 1: episode of another podcast play on Tuesday, so that you
Speaker 1: can be introduced to a new show that I think
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. It takes a different look at AI
Speaker 1: than you'll typically hear on tech Stuff, and honestly, as
Speaker 1: much as I him and haw about artificial intelligence on
Speaker 1: this show, I do think it's really important to hear
Speaker 1: different points of view because I can't claim to be
Speaker 1: the correct person. I don't think I am just right
Speaker 1: in everything. My opinions have been shaped by various experiences.
Speaker 1: I think it's very important to hear other points of view.
Speaker 1: So check that out 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.