Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. He 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 though,
Speaker 1: for the week that ends on Friday, October twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, and there are quite a few pieces
Speaker 1: this week about open AI. Kylie Robison of The Verge
Speaker 1: has an informative article titled Departing Open AI. Leader says
Speaker 1: no company is ready for AGI, and that's a really
Speaker 1: good start for our open AI discussion. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: AGI stands for artificial general intelligence. So it's an example
Speaker 1: of a term that on the surface sounds like it's
Speaker 1: fairly straightforward, but when you start to get into the weeds,
Speaker 1: you find out it's actually really vague and bor defined.
Speaker 1: So generally AGI references a computer system that's capable of
Speaker 1: processing information in a way that's similar to how we
Speaker 1: humans think. That's the most vague way of defining it. Now.
Speaker 1: AGI does not necessarily mean superhuman intelligence, though that's typically
Speaker 1: where the conversation ends up going. An AGI system could
Speaker 1: theoretically be pretty darn stupid in fact, but still process
Speaker 1: information in a way that mimics how we humans do it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: It's hard to define AGI because it's hard to justifine
Speaker 1: regular old intelligence, like how do you do that before
Speaker 1: you even get into artificial intelligence. But recently OpenAI dissolved
Speaker 1: its AGI readiness team, and that in turn follows a
Speaker 1: decision that the company had made earlier this year to
Speaker 1: nix its super alignment team. And both of these teams
Speaker 1: focused on ways to develop AI recis responsibly and to
Speaker 1: identify and mitigate potential risks relating to AI. Turns out
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily a revenue driver, right. Putting limitations on
Speaker 1: your development process can be a real drag. Sure, I
Speaker 1: mean those limitations might be there in order to prevent
Speaker 1: AI implementations from doing really bad stuff, But come on,
Speaker 1: what are the odds that's going to happen? Oh, we
Speaker 1: don't know the odds. We actually we actually don't know
Speaker 1: how likely it is that AI could mess things up. Well,
Speaker 1: then that's just as good as knowing there's no chance
Speaker 1: that things can go wrong? Am I right? Just a note,
Speaker 1: I am not right anyway, snark aside. This move is
Speaker 1: yet another nail in the coffin of the original mission
Speaker 1: for open ai. Now, you might recall that way back
Speaker 1: when it was first founded, open ai was just a simple, humble,
Speaker 1: little country non profit company with the mission to conduct
Speaker 1: AI research in a way that stood to benefit human
Speaker 1: humanity the most with the least likely potential for bad consequences.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I decided to go to simple
Speaker 1: country lawyer mode for that, but anyway, later on, open
Speaker 1: ai spun off a so called capped for profit company,
Speaker 1: and this company would in turn still be governed by
Speaker 1: the larger nonprofit organization. It's just that the for profit
Speaker 1: company would be operated for profit to help fund the research.
Speaker 1: And it didn't take very long for the for profit
Speaker 1: arm to eclipse the nonprofit side, and the for profit
Speaker 1: side essentially shed itself of the shackles of restrictions and caution. Why. Well,
Speaker 1: the big reason is that AI, as I have said
Speaker 1: many times, is wicked expensive. Open ai churns through money
Speaker 1: at a rate that is hard for me to conceive.
Speaker 1: We're talking billions of dollars per year spent just to
Speaker 1: run operations, and I think they were on track to
Speaker 1: lose like five billion dollars this year before they ended
Speaker 1: up having a massive fundraising round. Nonprofits are just incapable
Speaker 1: of raising enough money fast enough to meet that kind
Speaker 1: of demand, Like, no one's going to pour money into
Speaker 1: a drain like that over and over, you know, perpetually,
Speaker 1: so again and again. Open Ai has chosen the pathways
Speaker 1: that are most likely to lead to heaps of cash
Speaker 1: while downplaying the concerns of people within and outside the
Speaker 1: company about the potential dangerous decisions being made. In Robison's
Speaker 1: Peace in the Verge, she covers how the former senior
Speaker 1: advisor for AGI Readiness, Miles Brundage, warns that no company
Speaker 1: in the world, including open Ai, is prepared for AGI. Further,
Speaker 1: he warned that governments around the world really need access
Speaker 1: to unbiased experts who are in the field of AI
Speaker 1: while they are actually formulating policies and regulations, because as
Speaker 1: it stands, the people who are extremely passionate about guiding
Speaker 1: policy tend to be folks like Sam Altman, the CEO
Speaker 1: of open Ai, and as you might imagine, these people
Speaker 1: are not unbiased. It really creates a conflict of interest, right,
Speaker 1: It seems like a pretty safe bet that Altman's guidance
Speaker 1: to leaders around the world will focus on policies that
Speaker 1: will help or at the very least not hinder open
Speaker 1: Ai while potentially having a larger impact on the company's competition.
Speaker 1: So Brundage is essentially saying like, the fact that open
Speaker 1: ai is making these decisions should cause some concern, and
Speaker 1: leaders around the world need to be savvy when they
Speaker 1: are consulting with various experts and making sure that the
Speaker 1: advice they receive isn't being guided by self interest. Another
Speaker 1: good read is an opinion piece from John Herman of Intelligencer.
Speaker 1: I guess you could argue that it's not really an
Speaker 1: opinion piece, but I feel like Herman injects a lot
Speaker 1: of his own opinions in it, and I am pretty
Speaker 1: much on the same page as Herman. Well, anyway, the
Speaker 1: article is titled Microsoft has an open Ai problem. Now.
Speaker 1: I mentioned in an earlier tech Stuff News episode that
Speaker 1: Microsoft has seemed to have kind of a rethink when
Speaker 1: it comes to its relationship with open AI. In Facebook terms,
Speaker 1: I think we would say that the current relationship status
Speaker 1: would be at it's complicated. So Microsoft has invested billions
Speaker 1: of dollars, like nearly fourteen billion bucks in open Ai
Speaker 1: so far, and Herman points out that the agreements between
Speaker 1: the two companies happened relatively quickly and without a whole
Speaker 1: lot of thought as to how that process of funding
Speaker 1: would actually work, which seems like pretty loosey goosey to me.
Speaker 1: And now Microsoft and o AI's partnership hinges on if
Speaker 1: open ai develops AGI. So essentially the agreement is that
Speaker 1: this partnership between the two companies will dissolve if open
Speaker 1: Ai creates an AGI product of some sort, allegedly because
Speaker 1: open ai has a real, deep concern that a company
Speaker 1: like Microsoft might misuse such a powerful and potentially destructive
Speaker 1: tool as artificial general intelligence. And sure, I think that's possible,
Speaker 1: Like I think if Microsoft had access to AGI, there
Speaker 1: could be some pretty negative consequences. But it's not like
Speaker 1: I have an enormous amount of faith in open Ai either.
Speaker 1: It's not like I look at them and think, oh no,
Speaker 1: I want them to have the keys. I don't want
Speaker 1: anyone to have the keys. I don't want it to
Speaker 1: be a thing. But I guess that's not an option.
Speaker 1: But anyway, when you're talking about a company like open ai,
Speaker 1: which has actively been dismantling the systems. But in place
Speaker 1: to ensure safe development or artificial intelligence, you can't really
Speaker 1: be advocating that they're the ones who should be, you know,
Speaker 1: the stewards of AGI. Herman cites a Times article that
Speaker 1: points out that open AI's board of directors actually has
Speaker 1: the authority to determine what AGI is and when, if ever,
Speaker 1: open Ai achieves it. So, at least hypothetically, even if
Speaker 1: outside parties would disagree with the definition that open AI's
Speaker 1: board comes up with, that wouldn't matter. If open Ai said, oh,
Speaker 1: we did it, we created AGI, and if literally no
Speaker 1: one else in the world said that's definitely AGI, it
Speaker 1: would be enough for open ai to sever its relationship
Speaker 1: with Microsoft. Now, the implication here is that this isn't
Speaker 1: really some sort of protection for open ai to make
Speaker 1: sure that AGI is not unleashed upon a world and
Speaker 1: like the next build of Windows or something. It's really
Speaker 1: more about creating kind of a switch, a kill switch,
Speaker 1: a bargaining tool with Microsoft, so that when it comes
Speaker 1: to renegotiating with Microsoft, open Ai is able to essentially say, hey,
Speaker 1: if you don't give us more money, we'll say we
Speaker 1: made AGI, and then that's it. We walk and you
Speaker 1: can't do anything about it. So that's a possibility. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a reality, but it's possible. It's
Speaker 1: almost enough to make one jaded, isn't it. Anyway? The
Speaker 1: article's well worth a read again. It's Microsoft has an
Speaker 1: open AI problem, and it's an intelligencer by John Herman. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got a lot more news to go through, but first,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're back, and David E. Sanger of The New York
Speaker 1: Times has a piece titled Biden Administration outlines government guardrails
Speaker 1: for AI tools, and that brings us back around to
Speaker 1: those government backed policies relating to the development and deployment
Speaker 1: of artificial intelligence. So essentially, these guardrails lay out the
Speaker 1: scenarios in which using AI would be appropriate and allowed,
Speaker 1: and the scenarios in which it really absolutely should not
Speaker 1: be allowed. So, for example, using AI to detect and
Speaker 1: deter cybersecurity threats, that's pretty okay. Using AI to develop
Speaker 1: a new generation of fully autonomous weaponry, that one falls
Speaker 1: into the no no category. So the guardrails put up
Speaker 1: a lot of responsibility on individual departments and agencies to
Speaker 1: conduct their own reviews and determine in which use cases
Speaker 1: AI might be appropriate and in which ones it would
Speaker 1: not be. There's a lot more to the guardrails. There's
Speaker 1: like thirty eight pages of material that's available for the
Speaker 1: public to read. It includes a call to have the
Speaker 1: US attract more AI experts to the United States rather
Speaker 1: than have them work for a rival nation like China
Speaker 1: or Russia. But at least some of the information about
Speaker 1: these guardrails is classified, so I have no idea what
Speaker 1: could be in those Also, as Anger points out, the
Speaker 1: efficacy of these decisions is somewhat unknown since the United
Speaker 1: States is currently in an election year and the next
Speaker 1: president might just make all these guardrails go away, so
Speaker 1: we don't really know if this is going to matter
Speaker 1: at all in the long run. Fun times. The Attorney
Speaker 1: General for the state of Montana has filed a new
Speaker 1: lawsuit against TikTok. It's a new lawsuit, but it's an
Speaker 1: old tune. They're accusing the company of purposefully promoting addictive
Speaker 1: and harmful content to young users through the recommendation algorithm.
Speaker 1: The Attorney General alleges that TikTok essentially has lied about
Speaker 1: the nature of promoted content in violation of the Montana
Speaker 1: Consumer Protection Act. So essentially, the attorney general says that
Speaker 1: TikTok knew that users, including young users, would encounter content
Speaker 1: that's just unsuitable for people who could be as young
Speaker 1: as thirteen years old, but pretended that it has safeguards
Speaker 1: in place to prevent such young users from encountering, you know,
Speaker 1: mature or disturbing content. An unnamed spokesperson for TikTok disputes
Speaker 1: the allegations and says they are quote inaccurate and misleading.
Speaker 1: In the quote, you might recall that previously, the state
Speaker 1: of Montana actually banned TikTok entirely, but then a judge
Speaker 1: later overturned that ban on the grounds that it violated
Speaker 1: the First Amendment, that's the right to free speech. Several
Speaker 1: other states have similarly filed charges against TikTok with similar accusations. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it boils down to TikTok's algorithm promoting inappropriate and sometimes
Speaker 1: outright dangerous content to impressionable young users. Meanwhile, of course,
Speaker 1: TikTok is facing down a well a ticking clock situation
Speaker 1: here in the United States. Currently, the app faces the
Speaker 1: possibility of a nationwide ban unless its Chinese parent company
Speaker 1: Bite Dance, divests itself of TikTok. So it might be
Speaker 1: that by this time next year, lawsuits against TikTok, at
Speaker 1: least here in the United States, will no longer really
Speaker 1: be relevant, or at least not as straightforward. Speaking of
Speaker 1: bans and social media, Norway is increasing the minimum age
Speaker 1: allowed for folks to use social media. So previously the
Speaker 1: minimum age in Norway was thirteen, but now it's going
Speaker 1: to be increased to fifteen years old out of a
Speaker 1: concern that social media can have a harmful impact on
Speaker 1: young users. Of course, making that law is one thing,
Speaker 1: but enforcing it is entirely something else. I mean, as
Speaker 1: Miranda Bryant of The Guardian reports, the Norwegian Media Authority
Speaker 1: found that more than half of nine year olds in
Speaker 1: Norway are already on social media, and as you go
Speaker 1: up and age the percentage increases, so already there are
Speaker 1: tons of kids in Norway who are actually using social
Speaker 1: media when they're underage, like they're below the age of thirteen,
Speaker 1: even though the law says they ain't supposed to. So
Speaker 1: apparently part of the plan is to change the way
Speaker 1: that social media companies verify the age of users in Norway,
Speaker 1: so that it's not a trivial task. Just fib about
Speaker 1: one's own age admidly, that's a pretty low bar. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I were a kid, then I was trying to
Speaker 1: make an account on a social media platform and the
Speaker 1: age verification was just asking me, Hey, when when's your birthday?
Speaker 1: I could probably do some pretty quick math and fudge
Speaker 1: that date enough so that it would let me in. Anyway,
Speaker 1: while I have my doubts about how effective this new
Speaker 1: policy is going to be, I absolutely do feel empathy
Speaker 1: for those who want to shield kids from the ravages
Speaker 1: of the algorithm, because there are days when the various
Speaker 1: recommendation algorithms that I encounter make me want to go
Speaker 1: and hide in the woods, possibly in Norway. Alison Morrow
Speaker 1: of CNN has a piece titled almost anything goes on
Speaker 1: social media as long as it doesn't make billionaires feel
Speaker 1: even a little bit unsafe, And yeah, billionaires live by
Speaker 1: different rules than everybody else. In fact, they often are
Speaker 1: the ones who decide what the rules are. So while
Speaker 1: people like Elon Musk are extremely vocal about the importance
Speaker 1: and sanctity of free speech, they're also quick to say no,
Speaker 1: not like that if the free speech includes stuff that
Speaker 1: is potentially harmful to them. So the case Morrow is
Speaker 1: focusing on that of Jack Sweeney. He's a college student
Speaker 1: who has created numerous social media profiles on different platforms
Speaker 1: that are dedicated to tracking specific billionaire private jet routes, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is publicly available data. Sweeney is not
Speaker 1: hacking into the mainframe or anything like that. All he's
Speaker 1: doing is just scraping data from public sources and posting
Speaker 1: it to social Anyone could do this, but various platforms
Speaker 1: have removed Sweeney's accounts, often without giving him any forewarning
Speaker 1: or explanation, and when asked, they usually give a pretty
Speaker 1: hand wavy explanation that the information poses a risk to
Speaker 1: certain individuals. But I mean, if you happen to know
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk flew into your town, you might track
Speaker 1: him down an assault him or something, or maybe you know,
Speaker 1: just yell at him because your cyber truck don't go no,
Speaker 1: mo I guess that's the fear, Like, how do you
Speaker 1: know where the person specifically is? Who just know where
Speaker 1: they're jet landed? Anyway, Marrow points out that the various
Speaker 1: platforms seem to have very little problem with hosting stuff
Speaker 1: that could be extremely harmful to the rest of us,
Speaker 1: whether that's misinformation or hate speech or whatever. That stuff, well,
Speaker 1: that stuff's not likely to touch the billionaires, so there's
Speaker 1: no reason to worry about it. Let that stay up
Speaker 1: on those profiles. We all just have to fend for ourselves.
Speaker 1: But publicly available information about billionaires, now you're talking about
Speaker 1: dangerous information. Anyway, read the article. You already can tell
Speaker 1: what my opinion is about all this. I'll just Quotemorrow
Speaker 1: directly for this little bit, because you know we're aligned
Speaker 1: on this quote. It's just not clear that Meta cares
Speaker 1: as much about its users' privacy and well being as
Speaker 1: it does about Zuckerberg's end quote Preachmorrow. The US Federal
Speaker 1: Trade Commission created new rules this past summer that gives
Speaker 1: the agency the power to find people who post, buy,
Speaker 1: or sell fake reviews online. I'm sure you're aware that
Speaker 1: fake reviews are a real problem. Once upon a time,
Speaker 1: I think the average person could go to an online
Speaker 1: marketplace like Amazon and lean on user reviews when making
Speaker 1: purchasing decisions. But over time, companies have found ways to
Speaker 1: incentivize folks to write good reviews. Sometimes it's fairly innocent.
Speaker 1: You know, you might have a little card in the
Speaker 1: box that your product came in saying something like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you like this, please consider writing a review. That
Speaker 1: seems pretty innocuous, but it can quickly get more murky,
Speaker 1: like you might get one that says, hey, hey, if
Speaker 1: you write a five star review, we'll give you a
Speaker 1: coupon for some other product or service. And sometimes it
Speaker 1: just gets downright overtly wrong, like write a positive review
Speaker 1: for this thing that you might not even use or own,
Speaker 1: and we will pay you money. Well, the new rules
Speaker 1: that the FTC passed are now in effect, and essentially,
Speaker 1: if you are caught trading in fake reviews, you could
Speaker 1: face a fine of up to fifty one, seven hundred
Speaker 1: and forty four bucks, and that includes AI generated reviews.
Speaker 1: If they find that you've been doing that, you could
Speaker 1: be paying some pretty hefty cash. Now, on top of that,
Speaker 1: companies are not allowed to suppress negative reviews. They're also
Speaker 1: not allowed to promote positive reviews that they suspect are fake. Now,
Speaker 1: how the FTC plans to go about proving that a
Speaker 1: company was aware that a review was fake, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that'll be challenging. On a case by case basis. But
Speaker 1: the rule is a hefty piece of writing. It is
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty three pages long, and no, I
Speaker 1: have not read the whole thing, so I'm not prepared
Speaker 1: to give my full opinion as to whether or not
Speaker 1: this is a good idea or a bad idea, or
Speaker 1: a good response or an ineffective response. I need to
Speaker 1: be able to read the whole thing before I come
Speaker 1: up with that. So it looks like I've got my
Speaker 1: reading material for my upcoming flights. Yay, okay. I got
Speaker 1: a couple of articles I want to recommend for your
Speaker 1: reading pleasure. One is a John Broadcin article on Ours
Speaker 1: Technica and it's titled Cable companies ask Fifth Circuit to
Speaker 1: block FTC's click to cancel rule. I think that's the
Speaker 1: least surprising headline I've ever read. Obviously, cable companies don't
Speaker 1: want there to be a straight forward click to cancel
Speaker 1: route for users. But yeah, read the article because it
Speaker 1: kind of explains what the situation is and how the
Speaker 1: specific courts that were chosen could end up having a
Speaker 1: massive impact on this potential rule. And finally, I have
Speaker 1: one other reading recommendation. It's an article by John Walker
Speaker 1: of Kotaku. It is titled Roadblocks's new child safety changes
Speaker 1: reveal how dangerous it's been for years. So it's an
Speaker 1: eye opening piece that applauds these safety changes, but it
Speaker 1: does ask, hey, how is it that this wasn't already
Speaker 1: a thing? So check that out as well. I hope
Speaker 1: all you out there are doing well, and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an
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