Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'mind executive producer with I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: how the tech area. It's time for the tech news
Speaker 1: for Thursday, September one, two thousand twenty two. And since
Speaker 1: I didn't do a news episode Tuesday, I missed out
Speaker 1: on talking about how NASA had to scrub the launch
Speaker 1: of the Artemis one mission on Monday. So Artemis is
Speaker 1: the program that aims to put America back on the Moon,
Speaker 1: as it were. It's actually a little more than that.
Speaker 1: It includes future lunar lander missions, which would start with
Speaker 1: Artemis three that's currently projected to take place in assuming
Speaker 1: there are no delays. And also it includes the construction
Speaker 1: of a lunar orbit space station. And it's a somewhat
Speaker 1: controversial program. Uh. There are critics who questioned whether the
Speaker 1: Artemis program will actually serve its stated purpose, namely to
Speaker 1: not just gather more information about the Moon, but to
Speaker 1: serve as kind of a stepping stone towards sending astronauts
Speaker 1: to Mars. But whether you support Artemis or you're critical
Speaker 1: of it, we'll have to wait until Saturday at the
Speaker 1: earliest for the launch of the Artemis one. This will
Speaker 1: test NASA's new super heavy launch vehicle, the Space Launch
Speaker 1: System or s l S, and it will also test
Speaker 1: an unscrewed Orion spacecraft as and no crew will be
Speaker 1: aboard this Orion capsule. Uh, it won't have a human
Speaker 1: crew anyway. There will be some mannequins and a plush
Speaker 1: stuffed toy in there. The toy is meant to indicate
Speaker 1: when the the spacecraft encounters micro gravity because it will
Speaker 1: be able to float freely around the happen. So why
Speaker 1: was there a delay? Why did they have to cancel
Speaker 1: Monday's launch? Well? On Monday, NASA engineers noted that one
Speaker 1: of the engines in the s l S appeared to
Speaker 1: be failing to reach the proper temperature. There were indications
Speaker 1: that the system that cools the engines with liquid hydrogen
Speaker 1: had some sort of problem, or that the sensors that
Speaker 1: detect engine temperature we're having a problem and we're misreading
Speaker 1: the actual temperature of the engines. And that's what prompted
Speaker 1: NASA to scrub the launch on Monday, as well as
Speaker 1: the planned celebrity appearances like Jack Black who were meant
Speaker 1: to commemorate the historic event whoop see. NASA hopes to
Speaker 1: launch on Saturday, September three, but there's a chance that
Speaker 1: weather will force another delay. The next available launch date
Speaker 1: would be September five. As for my own opinions on
Speaker 1: the Artemis project, well, on the one hand, there's no
Speaker 1: denying that sending people to the Moon is a t
Speaker 1: inphant achievement. That's an achievement that doubtlessly inspires countless people
Speaker 1: to pursue an interest in space and engineering and related subjects.
Speaker 1: And I'm certain that along the way, NASA and its
Speaker 1: partners will develop incredible technologies that will ultimately be able
Speaker 1: to use in other arenas, which is really cool. But
Speaker 1: I am not fully sold on Artemis as a whole,
Speaker 1: though I also sympathize with NASA because the agency has
Speaker 1: had to grapple with the consequences of the cancellation of
Speaker 1: the old Constellation program, which actually was the source for
Speaker 1: some of the elements of Artemis, including the Orion spacecraft
Speaker 1: that started off as part of the Constellation program and
Speaker 1: that got the the acts back in the Obama administration
Speaker 1: and other space news. NASA engineers figured out what was
Speaker 1: going haywire with Voyager one's Attitude Articulation and Control system
Speaker 1: a k A. The A A c S. All right,
Speaker 1: quick recap So, ag OR one is a space probe
Speaker 1: and it launched way back in nineteen. It is flown
Speaker 1: by Jupiter and Saturn and then continue to travel out
Speaker 1: beyond the boundaries of our Solar system, meaning it is
Speaker 1: now in interstellar space. This spacecraft is almost as old
Speaker 1: as I am, and it continues to send data back
Speaker 1: to us here on Earth courtesy of the Deep Space Network. However,
Speaker 1: earlier this year, the A A c S started sending
Speaker 1: corrupted messages about the spacecraft's telemetry. Engineers determined that the
Speaker 1: spacecraft was still operating properly, so nothing was wrong with
Speaker 1: the craft's actual operations, so it was kind of a
Speaker 1: mystery why these messages were getting garbled. But it turned
Speaker 1: out that some subroutine was referencing a computer system aboard
Speaker 1: Voyage or one that has long since been out of service.
Speaker 1: It stopped working ages ago, and that this is what
Speaker 1: caused the corruption in commune occasion. So the engineers redirected
Speaker 1: Voyagers A A CS to route the information to the
Speaker 1: working computer, which is what it was supposed to do
Speaker 1: in the first place, and this that did solve the
Speaker 1: issue that now communications are coming in clearly, but the
Speaker 1: engineers still need to identify whatever it was that caused
Speaker 1: the issue in the first place, that that prompted the
Speaker 1: a CS to try and reference this computer that hasn't
Speaker 1: been working for agents, because it's possible that it could
Speaker 1: happen again and trigger a a CS to start sending
Speaker 1: out garbled stuff once more. But personally, I just think
Speaker 1: it's an amazing achievement to have a spacecraft that's almost
Speaker 1: as old as I am to continue to provide us
Speaker 1: information even as the probe ventures further out from our
Speaker 1: solar system. Over in the U S State of California,
Speaker 1: there is an energy crisis in full swing. The state
Speaker 1: expects a nasty heat wave in the very near future
Speaker 1: the next couple of days. In fact, that could stretch
Speaker 1: on for several days, and that's probably gonna prompt a
Speaker 1: large consumer demand for electricity to power stuff like air conditioners.
Speaker 1: But the California Independent System Operator had issued a Level
Speaker 1: one energy emergency alert just yesterday on Wednesday, and that
Speaker 1: means that on Wednesday, all available power supplies were essentially
Speaker 1: tapped out, and that would mean that any additional demand
Speaker 1: would be unmet, and it could mean that the state
Speaker 1: will have to use things like rolling blackouts. To handle
Speaker 1: problems like this, the state has authorized fossil fuel power
Speaker 1: plants to increase production in order to meet demand, and
Speaker 1: has also granted businesses permission to lean on stuff like
Speaker 1: backup generators to supply some of their electrical needs, which
Speaker 1: would relieve the power grid of a little bit of
Speaker 1: the burden. Climate change has truly exacerbated this issue. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, heat waves or weather. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: climate with weather, though you could argue and increase in
Speaker 1: heat waves is an indication of climate change, and individ
Speaker 1: dual one is weather, but really climate change. In this case,
Speaker 1: we're talking about this massive drought that's happening in the West,
Speaker 1: and that has led to decreased production at hydro electric
Speaker 1: power stations. So you can't rely on hydro electric power
Speaker 1: if you don't have enough water to to drive the
Speaker 1: turbines properly. So the past couple of years have been
Speaker 1: tumultuous in terms of power production and distribution around the world,
Speaker 1: not just in California, and that's due to a combination
Speaker 1: of a lot of complicated factors. So in some regions
Speaker 1: cough Texas cough, you have some bad government decisions that
Speaker 1: have led to energy crises. Uh, you have climate change
Speaker 1: that's impacting power needs and production strategies. You also have
Speaker 1: big political UH and and social crises like Russia's invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine, which has caused a massive crisis in Europe.
Speaker 1: And while there's an increased move to adopt renewable energy solutions,
Speaker 1: which in a aisition to cutting back on on carbon
Speaker 1: emissions also provides more national security because you become more
Speaker 1: self reliant. That is more of a long term kind
Speaker 1: of commitment. The near term is going to present us
Speaker 1: with some very tough situations that we're going to have
Speaker 1: to address before we can enjoy the benefits of a
Speaker 1: more robust renewable energy strategy. So it's just a harsh
Speaker 1: reality that we're going to have to continue to deal
Speaker 1: with over the next few years. Microsoft is facing a
Speaker 1: bit of opposition in the UK when it comes to
Speaker 1: the company's planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard. So that deal
Speaker 1: is valued at nearly seventy billion dollars all told, and
Speaker 1: it has had no shortage of drama surrounding it. For
Speaker 1: one thing, Activision Blizzard has been at a high profile
Speaker 1: controversy regarding corporate work culture, as well as the fact
Speaker 1: that the company has had some pretty well repled ordered
Speaker 1: instances of resisting employee efforts to unionize and a lot
Speaker 1: more than that. But the scrutiny in the UK has
Speaker 1: more to do with anti competitiveness than any alleged toxicity
Speaker 1: in Activision Blizzards work environment. The UK's Competition and Markets
Speaker 1: Authority or c m A maybe dialing up at scrutiny
Speaker 1: into this deal, asking if perhaps this acquisition would lead
Speaker 1: to reduced competition in the video games market, that it
Speaker 1: could consolidate Microsoft's power in several areas relating to video
Speaker 1: games and prevent competitors from making an impact. Now, Microsoft
Speaker 1: reps are proactively arguing that the company isn't going to
Speaker 1: lock Activision Blizzard titles within the Microsoft ecosystem and prevent
Speaker 1: others from being able to have those titles on their platforms.
Speaker 1: In fact, that Microsoft has said that there would be
Speaker 1: no profit in keeping the titles off of competing platforms
Speaker 1: like Sony's PlayStation console. Microsoft is a say actually saying
Speaker 1: it would make no sense to keep everything for ourselves
Speaker 1: because we don't have enough of the market share to
Speaker 1: make that a profitable business. Whether the regulators in the
Speaker 1: UK find that answer satisfactory or not remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: At any rate, Microsoft is pushing ahead with this deal,
Speaker 1: which should close sometime before the summer of next year,
Speaker 1: assuming that regulators don't block it. All right, We've got
Speaker 1: a lot more stories to cover before we do that.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break. The Verge reports it received
Speaker 1: an internal memo from Meta that says the company is
Speaker 1: looking into possible paid features for its various platforms like
Speaker 1: Instagram and Facebook. To date, Mena has relied almost completely
Speaker 1: on ad revenues. Something like of the company's revenue comes
Speaker 1: from ad sales. However, recent developments such as Apple launching
Speaker 1: its app tracking transparency framework, has had a massively negative
Speaker 1: impact on Meta's business model. Meanwhile, the company has been
Speaker 1: spending billions in an effort to define the metaverse, which
Speaker 1: has not gone completely smoothly. I should add, and there's
Speaker 1: a general downturn in advertising spend due to fears of
Speaker 1: an economic recession, so it shouldn't come as a surprise
Speaker 1: that Meta would look into alternate ways to generate revenue
Speaker 1: directly from its users. Some of Meta's products already have
Speaker 1: some paid features in them, so this would likely be
Speaker 1: an expansion of that approach. The Verge reports that Meta's
Speaker 1: VP of Monetization, John Hedgeman, has indicated that the company
Speaker 1: is not looking to offer an ad free experience in
Speaker 1: exchange for some sort of subscription model. So if you
Speaker 1: were hoping to totally opt out of ads on Facebook
Speaker 1: or Instagram or whatever, it looks like that is not
Speaker 1: on the table. It will be interesting to what if
Speaker 1: any paid features emerge from this and how the users
Speaker 1: on Meta's various platforms receive them. Meta is not the
Speaker 1: only company looking for more ways to generate cash from
Speaker 1: its users. Disney, which, let's face it, is top of
Speaker 1: the class when it comes to finding ways to coax
Speaker 1: more cash from folks, is reportedly looking at ways to
Speaker 1: entice Disney Plus viewers to buy themed merchandise. So reportedly,
Speaker 1: it's looking at using QR codes and the Disney Plus app,
Speaker 1: according to The Wall Street Journal, and I guess the
Speaker 1: idea is that Disney will throw a QR code up
Speaker 1: on screen alongside or before or after some sort of
Speaker 1: particular programming, and interested viewers can use their Disney Plus
Speaker 1: app to scan the code and go to a related
Speaker 1: page on the online Disney store. So one idea is
Speaker 1: to make exclusive merchandise available on this platform, so you
Speaker 1: can't buy it any other way and you can't get
Speaker 1: to the page without using this kind of QR scanning process.
Speaker 1: And Disney definitely knows that if you limit something's accessibility,
Speaker 1: you can really drive consumer interest in a product. See
Speaker 1: also Disney popcorn buckets. It is wild, y'all. Anyway, That's
Speaker 1: just one of the strategies that the company is looking into.
Speaker 1: It's also reportedly considering an Amazon Prime like service that
Speaker 1: would allow fans to receive certain benefits in return for
Speaker 1: a subscription. I'm not sure what those benefits would be exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm also not entirely convinced this QR code strategy will
Speaker 1: be a huge success, only because companies have been trying
Speaker 1: to leverage viewers and convert them into active customers for
Speaker 1: a while and it has been met with limited success. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's hard to get people to
Speaker 1: become conversions, right, to convert from viewer to customer, and
Speaker 1: especially if it's not something like a mobile or or
Speaker 1: you know, desktop experience. Those are already challenging enough to
Speaker 1: get people to go from being sort of a passive
Speaker 1: consumer to an active customer, but it gets even harder
Speaker 1: when you start stepping away from that particular user experience.
Speaker 1: So if you're watching something like on a television, it's
Speaker 1: way harder to get people to actively convert into being
Speaker 1: a customer just based upon the experience of watching something
Speaker 1: on a screen. You know, it doesn't mean that this
Speaker 1: is destined for failure. I just mean that it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to get that to work. Disney might have cracked
Speaker 1: the code on it, I don't know. There are definitely
Speaker 1: cases where tons of people scanned a QR code that
Speaker 1: popped up on a screen just to see where it
Speaker 1: would take them. By the way, I think that's a
Speaker 1: habit that you should really think about first before you
Speaker 1: indulge in it, because, I mean, there's nothing stopping someone
Speaker 1: from putting a QR code up in a prominent place,
Speaker 1: and that cod it leads you to a site where
Speaker 1: it starts a download of malware onto your device. There's
Speaker 1: that's an entirely real possibility. It's not likely to pop
Speaker 1: up in Disney, you know, material, but it's still something
Speaker 1: you should think about. Like a QR code is not
Speaker 1: just an open invitation. It could have some sinister intent
Speaker 1: behind it. Just keep that in mind anyway. I think
Speaker 1: the most successful cases I've seen of people scanning QR
Speaker 1: codes have in cases where people were just curious, what
Speaker 1: the heck is this and was it going to bring
Speaker 1: me to as opposed to I like what I'm seeing
Speaker 1: on the screen, and I want to buy that T shirt.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'm just completely out of touch on this one.
Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the FCC negated
Speaker 1: a previous arrangement with space X's satellite based internet service
Speaker 1: Starlink that would have seen Starlink received nearly nine hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars in federal aid. Now. The reasons for this
Speaker 1: annulment range from skepticism Starlink would actually provide services to
Speaker 1: areas that most need broadband access. That's the whole purpose
Speaker 1: of the program anyway, is to extend broadband access to
Speaker 1: areas that otherwise lack it, and at least in some
Speaker 1: of the Starlink use cases, reportedly they were in areas
Speaker 1: that are already very well served by other providers. But
Speaker 1: another part of skepticism was directed to whether or not
Speaker 1: starlink service would meet the performance benchmarks when it was
Speaker 1: at scale as per of the FCCS requirements. In other words,
Speaker 1: that once Starlink hit it's you know, proposed scale, that
Speaker 1: it would actually be able to provide the broadband level
Speaker 1: of service that would qualify it for the grant in
Speaker 1: the first place. So all that money was scrapped for
Speaker 1: Starlink anyway, while Starlink was shown the door. The FCC
Speaker 1: has started to award money to other broadband service providers,
Speaker 1: six of them right now. So in total, nearly a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars is going to get divvied up between
Speaker 1: these six providers to provide broadband service to more than
Speaker 1: three d fifty thousand homes in the US across nineteen states. Now,
Speaker 1: my state of Georgia is not among them, gosh darn't,
Speaker 1: which is a shame because I know for a fact
Speaker 1: there are plenty of communities in the state that have
Speaker 1: no broadband access so far. But really, this is just
Speaker 1: the beginning of the United States is pushed to extend
Speaker 1: broadband access to more citizens across the country, particularly in
Speaker 1: remote and rural areas. Truth Social, the social network most
Speaker 1: commonly associated with former President Donald Trump after he was
Speaker 1: essentially booted from all the established platforms like Facebook and Twitter,
Speaker 1: has consistently failed to get Google to allow the truth
Speaker 1: Social android based app into the Google Play Store. And
Speaker 1: at issue is truth Social's comment moderation practices, or perhaps
Speaker 1: I should say the lack of those. So Google has
Speaker 1: a policy that any any sort of site that has
Speaker 1: user generated content, like a social network app, has to
Speaker 1: have a content moderation policy in place, and it also
Speaker 1: has to enforce that policy. And while truth social has
Speaker 1: a policy, the proliferation of threats of physical violence and
Speaker 1: similar content that is reportedly on truth social has not
Speaker 1: been properly moderated according to Google, and so it has
Speaker 1: not been accepted into the Google Play Store. It has
Speaker 1: been accepted in the Apple App Store. You can get
Speaker 1: it on iOS. You cannot get on Android, which restricts
Speaker 1: truth Social's reach considerably since Android is the dominant operating
Speaker 1: system in the mobile market. Reportedly, truth Social is also
Speaker 1: a bit of of an you with finances right now.
Speaker 1: Right Forge, a web hosting platform known for um hosting
Speaker 1: a lot of right wing services, and Websites says that
Speaker 1: truth Social currently has about a one point six million
Speaker 1: dollar bill that it has yet to pay. Okay, we've
Speaker 1: got a few more stories to go before we get
Speaker 1: to those. Let's take another quick break. Recent restrictions regarding
Speaker 1: chips sales from the US to China and Russia, really
Speaker 1: just China, are likely going to cost Nvidia a lot
Speaker 1: of money, according to CNBC, and Video says it received
Speaker 1: an order from the US government on August that will
Speaker 1: place a licensing requirement for certain types of exports to
Speaker 1: China and Russia. Now and Video says, there ain't nobody
Speaker 1: in Russia who's an invidio paying customer, and to me,
Speaker 1: that implies that in Russia, folks are turning to either
Speaker 1: aftermarkets or maybe even black markets to get hold of
Speaker 1: in Nvidia tech, but they're not buying it straight from
Speaker 1: the Nvidia. However, China represents around four hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: in potential sales for this quarter alone. The US government
Speaker 1: is concerned that China's military is scooping up in Vidia
Speaker 1: hardware in order to build out various military based systems
Speaker 1: and in an effort to perhaps pump the brakes a
Speaker 1: bit on fueling China's military complex. The US has put
Speaker 1: these new restrictions in place that will slow things down,
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, companies like Nvidia and a m D,
Speaker 1: which also acknowledged that it received a similar message from
Speaker 1: the U. S government, are going to face challenges because
Speaker 1: these licensing requirements are going to strike off entire product
Speaker 1: lines for Chinese markets for these companies, and that represents
Speaker 1: a massive loss in revenue. Uh. Yeah, It's a complicated
Speaker 1: situation because you can see from a national security standpoint
Speaker 1: why the US would want to restrict the export of
Speaker 1: these kinds of technologies to China, a country that also
Speaker 1: has a a reputation earned or otherwise of stealing technology
Speaker 1: by copying it. So yeah, complicated issue. Now. A lot
Speaker 1: of time on this show, I talk about tech and
Speaker 1: its role in surveillance. I talk about how a lot
Speaker 1: of us are willing participants in that kind of system.
Speaker 1: A lot of us are providing endless amounts of data
Speaker 1: about ourselves as we navigate the online world. And then
Speaker 1: there are other cases where agencies like the military and
Speaker 1: the police are relying upon to be generous questionable technology,
Speaker 1: supposedly in an effort to protect people and property, but
Speaker 1: often coming along with it are real world consequences of
Speaker 1: disproportionate harm to certain populations, mostly the non white ones.
Speaker 1: But what about AI that's looking to see if you
Speaker 1: have an unreported swimming pool that you should be paying
Speaker 1: property taxes on? All? Right, now, this story emerges out
Speaker 1: of France, land of croissants and the cone heads, if
Speaker 1: we're to believe their cover story, Shout out if you
Speaker 1: get that reference. Anyway. In France, there are property tax
Speaker 1: laws that set tax rates based on a property's rental value.
Speaker 1: Meaning if your property has a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: would make it an attractive rental, you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: pay extra taxes on that. Verandah's extra tax an extension
Speaker 1: to your home boom extra tax and swimming pools. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's more property tax. But the government suspected that
Speaker 1: people were being entirely forthcoming when it comes to stuff
Speaker 1: like this, so they tapped a company called cap Gemini
Speaker 1: to scan satellite data and look for signs of unreported
Speaker 1: architectural enhancements, mostly swimming pools, and the tech, after some
Speaker 1: tweaking and some learning, uh, ended up returning more than
Speaker 1: twenty thousand instances of swimming pools throughout France, and that
Speaker 1: represents about ten million euros worth of untaxed property. So
Speaker 1: on the one hand, boo for more surveillance, I'm never
Speaker 1: a fan of that. But on the other, boo for
Speaker 1: tax evasion. I mean, tax evasion is not a good
Speaker 1: thing either. Though you could argue that the tax law
Speaker 1: in the first place is already dumb or unfair and
Speaker 1: should be changed, and I could be persuaded to see
Speaker 1: validity in that argument, but yeah, it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to side with folks who are actively attempting to avoid
Speaker 1: paying taxes. Our next story takes us to Surrey, a
Speaker 1: region in the UK that's southwest of Greater London. There,
Speaker 1: residents are complaining that police are misusing the Ways navigation
Speaker 1: app Ways allows users to indicate spots where drivers should
Speaker 1: use extra care, such as areas where they're is an
Speaker 1: accident or traffic congestion, or you know, where there's a
Speaker 1: member of the fuzz lying in wait in a speed trap.
Speaker 1: So drivers using Ways can set up a little icon
Speaker 1: to indicate that there are coppers up ahead waiting to
Speaker 1: catch speed demons, and thus when drivers see that icon,
Speaker 1: they slow down. Now. The complaint is that the Surrey
Speaker 1: police have been activating this feature as they drive around
Speaker 1: on patrol, so they're indicating that there's a speed trap
Speaker 1: when in reality there isn't one. And the feature is
Speaker 1: meant to indicate, you know, the speed trap, which is
Speaker 1: a stationary thing, right, Like that's where a cop is
Speaker 1: lying in wait, just ready to pull over someone for
Speaker 1: going over the speed limit. But in this case, the
Speaker 1: cops are in cars that are on the move, so
Speaker 1: they're actually in motion. However, the icon will stay wherever
Speaker 1: they set it up, because the icon is thought to
Speaker 1: be like, well, this is an indication the stationary police unit.
Speaker 1: So drivers are going to see these icons for speed
Speaker 1: traps and they slow down, but there's no actual cop there.
Speaker 1: They were tricked into slowing down and obeying the law.
Speaker 1: It's unfair that has drivers mad. How dare the police
Speaker 1: misused tech that is meant to allow speeding drivers to
Speaker 1: avoid detection. The police have said, look, when we use
Speaker 1: the app, we were at that location. It's just that
Speaker 1: we happen to move immediately afterwards. And besides, we cannot
Speaker 1: be everywhere, and this does cut down on people driving
Speaker 1: beyond the speed limit. So, like the story about France,
Speaker 1: this is one where people who want to break the
Speaker 1: rules are exasperated when the government agency figures out how
Speaker 1: to leverage technology that makes it harder to do that.
Speaker 1: And again, it's kind of hard for me to feel
Speaker 1: sympathy towards the drivers here, largely because speeding often contributes
Speaker 1: to car accidents and moreover, uh two car accidents that
Speaker 1: result in terrible injury and fatality. So I don't feel
Speaker 1: terribly bad for the drivers who were tricked into obeying
Speaker 1: the law. That just doesn't strike me as something I
Speaker 1: should be mad about. Um, I think it's kind of amusing.
Speaker 1: Have you ever played the board game Monopoly and encountered
Speaker 1: the community chess card that reads bank error in your favor? Well,
Speaker 1: in Monopoly, if you get that card, you net a
Speaker 1: cool two hundred bucks. Well, inject that with steroids and
Speaker 1: you have what happened to a Crypto dot com customer
Speaker 1: not too long ago. The customer was asking for a
Speaker 1: sixty eight dollar refund, but Crypto dot Com made a
Speaker 1: teen sy weed see little mistake and accidentally gave her
Speaker 1: seven point to million dollars, And then no one at
Speaker 1: Crypto noticed. For like half a year. I mean, can
Speaker 1: you imagine seeing a seven million dollar plus amount hit
Speaker 1: your account. Well, Crypto is now going after this customer
Speaker 1: in court, demanding that she payback not just the seven
Speaker 1: point two million smack aous, but interest on top of that. Yikes.
Speaker 1: At the Colorado State Fair, a digital painting titled Tatra
Speaker 1: Dopora spatial which I know I butchered the French pronunciation,
Speaker 1: but whatever, it took home the Blue Ribbon first prize
Speaker 1: in the digital category, and a subsequent revelation sparked massive
Speaker 1: controversy because see the credited artist, Jason Allen, revealed that
Speaker 1: he had used an AI program called mid Journey to
Speaker 1: generate this image after giving it a specific prompt that
Speaker 1: he hasn't revealed. Then he fed this resulting image into
Speaker 1: Gigga pixel AI in order to upscale them before printing
Speaker 1: the finished work on a canvas and submitting it for
Speaker 1: a consideration. In other words, this work of art was
Speaker 1: primarily machine generated, although Alan argues that without his involvement
Speaker 1: there would be no image at all, so there's still
Speaker 1: some human element to it. But this has really ticked
Speaker 1: off a lot of artists, and some of them are
Speaker 1: calling this the death of artistry itself. Now I wouldn't
Speaker 1: go that far, but it does raise a ton of
Speaker 1: ethical questions, right, I mean, if we're to celebrate human
Speaker 1: artistic achievement, then we need the assurances that a work
Speaker 1: has come from you know, a human. I think that
Speaker 1: is hard to argue against, but we also have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge it is an amazing feat to have reached a
Speaker 1: point where an AI program can generate a work of
Speaker 1: digital art and a level of sophistication and beauty that
Speaker 1: can be award winning when placed up against human competitors.
Speaker 1: Like that is a phenomenal thing too, I think if
Speaker 1: it's similar to the way of it being amazing once
Speaker 1: we reached a point where we could does I a
Speaker 1: chess playing program capable of beating a human chess master? However,
Speaker 1: there are social questions to consider. Could machines ultimately displace
Speaker 1: creatives in creative jobs? Is the benefit to the general
Speaker 1: public not great enough to potentially justify wiping out creative professionals,
Speaker 1: you know? And what the heck will creative professionals? What
Speaker 1: will artists do if that happens? I mean, you could
Speaker 1: argue get a real job, I guess, But that is
Speaker 1: absolutely inhumane and cruel. I mean that's like saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this method of expression that's critical to you and that
Speaker 1: lets you earn a living doing what feeds your soul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't get to do that anymore. Go get a
Speaker 1: job at a desk. Yeah no, thanks. So, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a complicated thing. Now. Of course, keep in mind
Speaker 1: I say that as a content creator, right, So clearly
Speaker 1: I have a vested interest in this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So I admit I have a very strong bias when
Speaker 1: it comes to this story because I've got stake in
Speaker 1: this as well. But ultimately, the argument is we shouldn't
Speaker 1: reward this process where we're displacing people from work, especially
Speaker 1: when there's nothing underneath too protect like there's no safety
Speaker 1: net for people, and that this ultimately could apply to
Speaker 1: any kind of job, right that this is the fear
Speaker 1: of automation replacing humans, and currently the focus in the
Speaker 1: industry is to augment human achievement, not to replace it.
Speaker 1: But there's still this underlying fear that automatic systems, machine learning,
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence are ultimately going to displace us. But then
Speaker 1: you follow that up with the question, well, if it did,
Speaker 1: that becomes an unsupportable system, right, because if no one
Speaker 1: has a job, no one has money to buy the
Speaker 1: stuff that's being made, and then the companies that have
Speaker 1: created all the automated systems in the first place no
Speaker 1: longer have customers, and the whole thing comes tumbling down
Speaker 1: in itself. So clearly we have to come up with
Speaker 1: a solution that addresses this, whether it's moving away from
Speaker 1: AI and automation, which seems unlikely, or coming up with
Speaker 1: an alternative to the old model of do this work
Speaker 1: and we will give you money, which allows you to
Speaker 1: eat and clothe yourself, etcetera. But that's a whole discussion
Speaker 1: for another episode. Finally, Dungeons and Dragons recently released a
Speaker 1: new spell Jammer expansion to D and D. The original
Speaker 1: spell Jammer rules came out, I believe way back in
Speaker 1: second edition days, because I owned the original box set
Speaker 1: back then and I never went beyond second edition rules
Speaker 1: when I was playing D and D regularly. Now, the
Speaker 1: rules allow players two board magical ships that ascend into
Speaker 1: the heavens and allow characters to traverse space or the
Speaker 1: ether itself to visit New World's new planes of existence.
Speaker 1: I've actually heard some fairly harsh criticism about this new
Speaker 1: generation of spell Jammer rules, but that's not really what
Speaker 1: I wanted to chat about here. Instead, in an effort
Speaker 1: to promote the release of the new rules, Wizards of
Speaker 1: the Coast inserted a twenty sided die a k a.
Speaker 1: A D twenty into the model of a spell Jammer
Speaker 1: ship with a little bubble on top of it to
Speaker 1: keep the D twenty in place, and then attached the
Speaker 1: ship to a balloon and released it in the California Desert.
Speaker 1: The company released a video that spans more than two
Speaker 1: hours where a camera positioned to look right at this
Speaker 1: model with the D twenty inside of it shows the
Speaker 1: ascent and it is titled Launching a Dice to Space,
Speaker 1: and that has at least two errors in that title,
Speaker 1: at least if you're being super pedantic, because traditionally dice
Speaker 1: is the plural of die. Now, I will admit, in
Speaker 1: modern vernacular folks will use the word dice to denote
Speaker 1: a single die. So I guess I can let that
Speaker 1: one slide because language does evolve, and if you argue
Speaker 1: against it, well you're really just being pedantic for no reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still use die to refer to a
Speaker 1: single dice, But I'm a dying breed, so it still
Speaker 1: irks me. But the other error is the bit about
Speaker 1: going to space. You cannot get to space on a balloon.
Speaker 1: You can get super duper high up in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: You can, you know, get way up there, as bomb
Speaker 1: Gardner showed us. And depending upon whose definition of space
Speaker 1: you're using, you can argue that you're at the edge
Speaker 1: of space. You know, there are different definitions for where
Speaker 1: space begins. But the fact remains that a helium balloon
Speaker 1: can only rise as long as the balloon is lighter
Speaker 1: than the air surrounding it, And eventually you get to
Speaker 1: a point where the air is so thin that the
Speaker 1: balloon and the air around it are at the same weight,
Speaker 1: so the balloon can rise no further than that. So
Speaker 1: really I would argue the D twenty went super duper
Speaker 1: high up in the air way above the clouds even
Speaker 1: but space. Nah, it didn't pass that saving throw. That's
Speaker 1: it for the Tech News for Thursday September one, two
Speaker 1: thousand twenty two. If you would like to reach out
Speaker 1: with suggestions for topics for me to cover in future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, you can do that in a
Speaker 1: couple of ways. One is to download the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app. It's free to download. Navigate over to the
Speaker 1: tech Stuff part of the app. There's a little microphone
Speaker 1: icon there you can click on that leave a message
Speaker 1: up to thirty seconds in length. The other way is
Speaker 1: to reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for
Speaker 1: the show is tech Stuff H s W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Yeah. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an i heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.