Speaker 1: Get in text of technology with text stuff from hastaff
Speaker 1: what dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today I want
Speaker 1: to talk about war. War never changes. But I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about Fallout, even though I just recently started to
Speaker 1: play Fallout for again because I never finished it. No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about a war going on in artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: And it's not sky Net, it's not the Terminator, It's
Speaker 1: nothing like that. No, it's really about who gets to
Speaker 1: be your personal assistant. That's the best kind of war
Speaker 1: because we win no matter who wins, right, we get
Speaker 1: the best out of whichever combatants into the AI personal
Speaker 1: assistant thunderdome. I'm throwing out a lot of references to
Speaker 1: sci fi here. I'm gonna cut that out. So we
Speaker 1: want to talk today. We being me and you you
Speaker 1: can talk back. I just won't be able to hear
Speaker 1: you about these personal digital assistants, but not the p
Speaker 1: d as of the past. We want to talk about
Speaker 1: the the series and the Cortanas and the Google Assistance
Speaker 1: and things of that nature. And I want to specifically
Speaker 1: look into how are these going to be incorporated into
Speaker 1: our lives in the future, and what are some of
Speaker 1: the concerns we have and what differentiates all these products
Speaker 1: that have been sort of coming into their own over
Speaker 1: the past few years. So to start with, you might say, well,
Speaker 1: you know which of these assistants came first, And arguably
Speaker 1: you could say Google actually beat everyone to the punch
Speaker 1: by a couple of months because on June four, two eleven,
Speaker 1: Google announced at an inside Google Search event that it
Speaker 1: was going to roll out voice search on Google dot Com.
Speaker 1: And the project name at Google was uh Majel or Magel,
Speaker 1: depending upon how you want to pronounce it, but Majel
Speaker 1: would be the way her name was actually pronounced. Named
Speaker 1: after Majel Barrett, who was the wife of Gene Roddenberry,
Speaker 1: the creator of Star Trek. Majel Barrett actually played the
Speaker 1: voice of the computer system, particularly on Star Trek the
Speaker 1: next generation. Whenever you heard the computer speak, that was
Speaker 1: Majel Barrett's voice. She also played uh Deanna Troy's mother,
Speaker 1: Luaxanna Troy. Anyway, they named it after her. Internally, uh
Speaker 1: it actually doesn't have a name name, which kind of
Speaker 1: sets it apart from some of the competitors. So the
Speaker 1: Voice Command project was a tool from Google Labs, so
Speaker 1: their research and development arm and on March fourteen, this
Speaker 1: particular feature was rolled into the Google Now product and
Speaker 1: uh it was part of the Android four point one
Speaker 1: release that was the jelly Bean release. Now, at that point,
Speaker 1: the speech recognition commands had evolved a little bit. It
Speaker 1: had gone beyond some of the initial old stuff where
Speaker 1: you could just ask Google to search something for you.
Speaker 1: This was also a feature that was worked into Google Glass,
Speaker 1: so if you had a pair of Google Glass, you
Speaker 1: know that the voice command would always start with the
Speaker 1: phrase okay, followed by Google I'm not gonna say it together,
Speaker 1: just in case some of you are listening to your
Speaker 1: devices or listening with a device nearby and it's on
Speaker 1: its home screen. I don't want to activate it for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, but you can use that phrase that would
Speaker 1: end up alerting the virtual assistant that you wanted something,
Speaker 1: and then you would speak whatever it was you wanted.
Speaker 1: And over time, functionality increase, so it went beyond just
Speaker 1: searches and into more interactive features like with an Android
Speaker 1: phone you could set an alarm, or you could set
Speaker 1: a reminder or review your calendar and more. As time
Speaker 1: went on, at this point it is evolved into something
Speaker 1: a little bit more robust than that. Even you can
Speaker 1: start to interact with some third party stuff as well.
Speaker 1: And at Google Io two thousand and sixteen, it became
Speaker 1: part of Google Assistant. Now Google Assistant is really the
Speaker 1: intelligent personal assistant product from Google. The earlier versions you
Speaker 1: could think of a sort of a rudimentary form or
Speaker 1: or perhaps a prototype or maybe just like these are
Speaker 1: features that would eventually be rolled all into one finished product,
Speaker 1: being Google Assistant. So by that argument, if you say
Speaker 1: Google Assistant, you know, if you mark the Google I
Speaker 1: event as its premier, then it's not the oldest. But
Speaker 1: it dates back to June fourteen, two thousand eleven, when
Speaker 1: Google announced this initial search voice search ability. So that
Speaker 1: same year, in October, on October fourteenth, in fact, Apple
Speaker 1: introduced Sirie. And I'm sure you all know what Siri is,
Speaker 1: but just in case you don't, it's billed as an
Speaker 1: intelligent personal assistant and it was introduced as a feature
Speaker 1: with the iPhone for S and it's been part of
Speaker 1: the iPhone iOS ecosystem ever since. And it uses speech
Speaker 1: recognition to interpret user requests and responds with what is
Speaker 1: hopefully inappropriate action. According to series creators, Apple actually scaled
Speaker 1: back what Siri was supposed to be able to do.
Speaker 1: They said that they had arranged for Siri to work
Speaker 1: with about forty to forty five different apps that Apple had,
Speaker 1: and then the company scaled that back significantly, so the
Speaker 1: serie creators essentially sold the product to Apple. Then they
Speaker 1: went on to create a different intelligent assistant called VIV
Speaker 1: v I V and VIV is currently unaffiliated with any
Speaker 1: other big names, but it has received funding from some
Speaker 1: very wealthy folks in the text sphere, like Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 1: for example. And VIV is what the creators of vivs
Speaker 1: say that it's what Siri was supposed to be from
Speaker 1: the get go, and and essentially they're saying that Siri,
Speaker 1: you was kind of hampered, hamstrung, if you will, by
Speaker 1: Apple um And we'll get into more about why that
Speaker 1: may be in a little bit. So Sirie actually came
Speaker 1: second after Google had announced their voice search, keeping in
Speaker 1: mind that Siri was a different presentation, So you could
Speaker 1: argue that Siri was really more of the first assistant,
Speaker 1: and that the Google approach eventually evolved into an assistant.
Speaker 1: But wasn't really at that same level back in Moving
Speaker 1: forward in spring two thousand and fourteen, that's when Microsoft
Speaker 1: got into the game by unveiling Cortana, which is their
Speaker 1: intelligent assistant for the Windows Phone platform. And in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: Microsoft included Cortana with Windows ten. So if you have
Speaker 1: a Windows ten machine, Cortana is part of that, and
Speaker 1: if you have a microphone you can actually give voice
Speaker 1: commands to Cortana. You can also interact via text um.
Speaker 1: Cortana is named after the AI and the Halo franchise
Speaker 1: and is voiced by the same act Risks who provided
Speaker 1: the voice of Cortana in the games. So you can
Speaker 1: ask fun things about Master Chief and she always has
Speaker 1: a interesting answer for those. All of these, by the way,
Speaker 1: tend to have some sort of fun element to them,
Speaker 1: where the developers clearly thought of ridiculous things you could
Speaker 1: ask the digital assistance and built in responses that were humorous.
Speaker 1: For example, the big one that everyone talked about with
Speaker 1: Siri was where can I hide a body? And Syrie
Speaker 1: would come back with nearby quarries and caves systems and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. Now, in November two thousand fourteen,
Speaker 1: we get our final big name in this battle, Amazon.
Speaker 1: That's when Amazon unveiled the Echo, which is that sort
Speaker 1: of standalone speaker system UH that has the Intelligent Assistant
Speaker 1: Alexa incorporated into it. And like the other ones I've
Speaker 1: mentioned so far, Alexa can follow your voice commands and
Speaker 1: interact with the Internet as well as with other Internet
Speaker 1: connected devices. That list of Internet connected devices Alexa can
Speaker 1: work with is growing day by day, and Amazon is
Speaker 1: actually trying to build out the capabilities further and as
Speaker 1: such as hired a team to create a guide on
Speaker 1: how to develop for Alexa. I'm going to interview one
Speaker 1: of the developers on that team in a later episode.
Speaker 1: We actually have that scheduled for later this summer, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about what it's like to develop for
Speaker 1: this platform and the potential of using such a platform
Speaker 1: and in new and creative ways. So we have four
Speaker 1: really big players in the space. We've got Apple and
Speaker 1: Google and Microsoft and Amazon already vying to be the
Speaker 1: big digital assistant provider. Then we have the other names,
Speaker 1: like we've got the team behind Viv and other apps
Speaker 1: as well that are in this space that are trying
Speaker 1: to kind of become the voice that you interact with
Speaker 1: um so that it can do all the things you
Speaker 1: needed to do in a s seamless away as possible.
Speaker 1: So one of the things we need to also look
Speaker 1: at is how does this differentiate? How do these different players?
Speaker 1: How are they different from one another? If they're exactly
Speaker 1: the same as each other, then it really doesn't matter
Speaker 1: which one you pick, right, I mean, they're kind of
Speaker 1: depends just which platform you have available. If you have
Speaker 1: all iOS devices, then Siri is pretty much gonna be
Speaker 1: the one you're gonna depend upon the most most likely
Speaker 1: at any rate. So Cortana, Siri, and Google Assistant are
Speaker 1: all part of existing platforms like smartphones and computers, So
Speaker 1: they are incorporated into things that we already have. You know,
Speaker 1: you probably already have a smartphone or a computer or both,
Speaker 1: and so it makes sense that you would incorporate your
Speaker 1: digital assistant into that. You don't have to buy anything else.
Speaker 1: It's right there, and you can incorporate that into other
Speaker 1: systems that are connected to a personal network or a
Speaker 1: home net work. Then you've got Alexa, which debuted on
Speaker 1: a standalone device called the Echo, which again is just
Speaker 1: this sort of intelligent speaker, a smart speaker with a
Speaker 1: built in microphone. Google Assistant is actually following suit with
Speaker 1: that with Google Home that was announced at Google Io two.
Speaker 1: And Google Home is also a smart speaker with a
Speaker 1: microphone that's gonna be available sometime later in t and
Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast, I don't have
Speaker 1: a date or a price on that, so it's hard
Speaker 1: to say whether or not it will be competitively priced
Speaker 1: against the Amazon Echo. It does like it's going to
Speaker 1: be a particularly powerful version of this personal assistant, And
Speaker 1: there are also rumors emerging that Apple is also working
Speaker 1: on Sirie hardware, so it would be another standalone speaker
Speaker 1: microphone system of some sort, and that Apple's Sirie platform
Speaker 1: would exist on that. Now, as of the recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast, we don't have confirmation on that, so there's
Speaker 1: no timetable associated with such a thing or a price.
Speaker 1: I would expect that any announcement of such a device
Speaker 1: would come at one of Apple's big events, So probably,
Speaker 1: if I had the guess, I'd say September is when
Speaker 1: they would announce it. That's typically when they announced all
Speaker 1: the big iPhone changes. But that's just a guess. They
Speaker 1: might hold a single event for this particular thing, or
Speaker 1: they might not hold an event at all, They may
Speaker 1: just release it. That doesn't seem particularly apple like, but
Speaker 1: it's a possibility. So once the big deal with this
Speaker 1: technology in the first place, why should we care. Well,
Speaker 1: for one thing, it represents huge leaps forward in the
Speaker 1: field of artificial intelligence. So in one way, it's a
Speaker 1: really cool glimpse at the at the the state of
Speaker 1: the art in AI specifically, and stuff like speech recognition,
Speaker 1: which is pretty hard stuff. I mean, we all have
Speaker 1: different ways of pronouncing words, and depending upon your region,
Speaker 1: you might have an accent that has a different way
Speaker 1: of pronouncing word. For example, Uh, you know, the Brits
Speaker 1: say aluminium and we say aluminum here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Then even within a single country, you have different ways
Speaker 1: of pronouncing things. And when Google first began translating speech
Speaker 1: to text in voice messages, I noticed that it was
Speaker 1: having a real hard time interpreting the words of some
Speaker 1: of my friends and family. Now keep in mind I
Speaker 1: am in the Southeast United States Georgia, and that is
Speaker 1: we have a lot of people here with Southern accents.
Speaker 1: I have a tiny bit of one. My parents have
Speaker 1: a slightly stronger Southern accent. Some of my extended relatives
Speaker 1: haven't even stronger Southern accent, and so when they would
Speaker 1: call and leave a voicemail, Google had to guess at
Speaker 1: what they were saying, and was not always correct. I
Speaker 1: would have to go and listen to the voicemail because
Speaker 1: the transcription would be completely indecipherable. Now, over time this
Speaker 1: has improved. The speech recognition software has improved where it
Speaker 1: can adjust for things like different accents and and the
Speaker 1: different ways that people speak, using a lot of different
Speaker 1: algorithms that have been based in machine learning to kind
Speaker 1: of get a grip on what is being said and
Speaker 1: even and anticipate what the next thing will be in
Speaker 1: in any line of thought. Obviously, for someone like me
Speaker 1: who stumbles over words occasionally, that's a real challenge because
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't even know what's next to come out
Speaker 1: of my mouth. But that's really where where that power
Speaker 1: comes in. Now, over time, not just speech recognition has improved,
Speaker 1: we've also had to look at the problem of natural language. Now,
Speaker 1: natural language is how you and I could communicate with
Speaker 1: one another. Unless it's like a really formal setting. We
Speaker 1: usually are pretty casual with our language, and we can
Speaker 1: make use of lots of different linguistic flourishes and tools,
Speaker 1: things like figures of speech, metaphors, similes, puns, references, and
Speaker 1: lots of other stuff that gives meaning to what we say.
Speaker 1: But only if the other person also understands what's going on.
Speaker 1: They also have to have that benefit. Otherwise it just
Speaker 1: becomes a jumble of nonsense. I'm reminded of a Star
Speaker 1: Trek the Next Generation episode where characters only spoke in
Speaker 1: um allegory, and if you didn't have that cultural background,
Speaker 1: if you didn't understand the references, you didn't understand where
Speaker 1: the community, what, what the communication meant um. Similar problem
Speaker 1: with machines. They don't necessarily know what we're saying all
Speaker 1: the time. A lot of machines are not very good
Speaker 1: at doing this. But natural language familiarity has been a
Speaker 1: huge challenging in AI, and we're getting better at overcoming
Speaker 1: that challenge. So at that that same Iowa event where
Speaker 1: Google announced Google Home, they demonstrated that you could start
Speaker 1: a conversation with your personal assistant asking something fairly specific,
Speaker 1: such as, we're gonna go with a local reference for
Speaker 1: for yours truly, how are the Atlanta Braves doing this season? Then?
Speaker 1: The assistant would actually break your heart by telling you
Speaker 1: how poorly the Braves are doing this season and it
Speaker 1: is abysmal. And you could follow that up with when
Speaker 1: do they play at home next? And the assistant would
Speaker 1: understand that when you say they, you mean the Atlanta Braves,
Speaker 1: and when you say at home, it would understand you
Speaker 1: meant Atlanta, Georgia. So it would be able to figure
Speaker 1: out the context of what you said without you having
Speaker 1: to restate when do the Atlanta Braves play in Atlanta next?
Speaker 1: You could take these little linguistic shortcuts that we would
Speaker 1: normally do in natural conversation, but typically machines are not
Speaker 1: great at that. They don't have the capacity to understand
Speaker 1: how one sentence can follow another. But this is an
Speaker 1: example of how that's changed through machine learning. So you've
Speaker 1: gotten this new approach where you can continue a series
Speaker 1: of questions that build on previous questions and answers, and
Speaker 1: the Google Assistant can continue to give you relevant information,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty powerful statement in AI. Also, you
Speaker 1: might have heard that funny story that Google fed romance
Speaker 1: novels to its AI to make it better at understanding
Speaker 1: natural language, And to be fair, that's just part of
Speaker 1: the story. Google actually fed lots of different types of
Speaker 1: unpublished literature to its AI, all with the goal of
Speaker 1: teaching the AI that there are many different ways to
Speaker 1: say the same thing. So here's an example. Um, I
Speaker 1: could say it's raining pretty hard today, or it's really
Speaker 1: coming down out there, or it's raining cats and dogs dogs,
Speaker 1: or it's pouring outside, and all of those mean the
Speaker 1: same thing. But they're all different ways of saying that
Speaker 1: it's raining really hard. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: other ways I could say the same you know, to
Speaker 1: to express the same thought using different words. And that's
Speaker 1: a challenge for machines because we as humans understand that
Speaker 1: you can say all these different things and that all
Speaker 1: means the same thing. But machines have to be taught that.
Speaker 1: So romance novels, as it turns out, are a good
Speaker 1: way to teach a an AI how to interpret different
Speaker 1: things because romance novels are incredibly formulaic. If you were
Speaker 1: to break down a romance novel and and you outlined
Speaker 1: it scene by scene so that you understood where the
Speaker 1: beats and the story were and who the characters were
Speaker 1: in their relationships to one another, you would see that
Speaker 1: a lot of romance novels follow the exact same structure,
Speaker 1: the exact same plot structure, but because they're written by
Speaker 1: different people, because the character names in places are often
Speaker 1: changed from book to book. I mean, obviously you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to write the same novel forty times. It means
Speaker 1: that you have a lot of different ways to express
Speaker 1: the same ideas. So if you feed a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of formulating novels into an AI to teach it humans
Speaker 1: have lots of different ways to express the same thoughts,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty powerful tool. Um. And again, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the only type of story that was being fed to
Speaker 1: Google's AI. It's just the one that caught a lot
Speaker 1: of people's attention because it the headlines right themselves at
Speaker 1: that point. So one thing that is really, you know,
Speaker 1: funny about that is a lot of people made jokes
Speaker 1: about Google AI suggesting different ways to rip a bodice
Speaker 1: or to make a bosom heave from the whole romance
Speaker 1: novel thing, But as it turns out, it was there
Speaker 1: was some real thought given to using this approach. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that these assistants work so well
Speaker 1: is to tap into information about you and to store
Speaker 1: all of that off of the hardware so that it
Speaker 1: can anticipate what you want and what you need and
Speaker 1: how to fulfill that. So, for example, if I'm using
Speaker 1: Amazon and I'm using the Echo and I'm I'm using
Speaker 1: Alexa to purchase certain things off the Amazon Store, this
Speaker 1: ends up tapping into that algorithm that tells Amazon what
Speaker 1: I've bought and what I have browsed and and the
Speaker 1: sort of stuff I'm interested in, so it can suggest
Speaker 1: new things that I might be interested in but didn't
Speaker 1: know about. All of that is a very powerful tool.
Speaker 1: One of the exceptions here is Apple's SIRIE. So Apple
Speaker 1: pretty much locks everything down into the hardware as opposed
Speaker 1: to sharing it with third party or putting it in
Speaker 1: the cloud. That's because Apple's revenue source selling that hardware
Speaker 1: and related services like support plans like like a product
Speaker 1: support or protection plans for your hardware. That's how Apple
Speaker 1: makes its money. It's making it through selling this hardware
Speaker 1: that it is producing, as opposed to something like Google,
Speaker 1: which until Google Home comes out, it's selling an idea
Speaker 1: to you and then selling you to advertisers. Uh. So
Speaker 1: Apple That the benefits Apple in some ways because it
Speaker 1: means that you can trust Syria a little more than
Speaker 1: you could some of the other assistants because it's it's
Speaker 1: mostly contained to your device. On the flip side, it
Speaker 1: makes the actual service a little less useful because it
Speaker 1: cannot tap into the massive resources of the Internet the
Speaker 1: way some of these other assistants can, because again it's
Speaker 1: all pretty much contained your device. Now I can access
Speaker 1: I can pull stuff from the Internet for you, but
Speaker 1: it's not as interactive as some of these other assistants are.
Speaker 1: Uh So, there with the possibility of advertising or things
Speaker 1: like Google or Amazon rather Amazon's integrated shopping services, you
Speaker 1: start to see some real potential for revenue generation on
Speaker 1: the back end. But it also brings up some questions
Speaker 1: about privacy and security. Now. To look into that matter further,
Speaker 1: I spoke with an expert on the subject, the founder
Speaker 1: of a company called Big I d Dmitri Serota, and
Speaker 1: here's what he had to say. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: clearly there's a certain degree of inevitability around this. I
Speaker 1: think we've moved from an age of having these technologies
Speaker 1: and you can almost think of this as kind of
Speaker 1: web dot dot one in terms of being responsive to
Speaker 1: the user and personalization really being about kind of targeting you.
Speaker 1: I think we're now shifting to an era of anticipation.
Speaker 1: You know, the technologies are becoming smarter and they know
Speaker 1: more about you because they uch you on so many levels,
Speaker 1: whether you're on the web, whether you're on your mobile,
Speaker 1: whether you're at the office, whether you're in the car,
Speaker 1: whether you're at home, as is the case with with
Speaker 1: Google Home and Amazon Echo and similar technologies, that they're
Speaker 1: no longer just about kind of responding to a particular action.
Speaker 1: They're now trying to anticipate what you'd want. And in
Speaker 1: some degree, you know, they're becoming more like your mother
Speaker 1: or your parents, where they know so much about you
Speaker 1: that they anticipate your needs um and there's a good
Speaker 1: and a bad to that, right, So just the actions
Speaker 1: that we would take in our homes can start to
Speaker 1: set up these these expectations, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: that our technology will have about us. For example, the
Speaker 1: easiest way I think to illustrate this to today's audience
Speaker 1: is to talk about something like the nest thermostat, where
Speaker 1: you have said it a certain way, and it starts
Speaker 1: to learn what your preferences are over time and then
Speaker 1: it begins to automatically just without you ever having to
Speaker 1: touch it, to the point where it's even seeing quote
Speaker 1: unquote seeing when you are home versus not home. This
Speaker 1: is the sort of stuff that, when incorporated into a
Speaker 1: device like Google Home, can become very powerful. But also,
Speaker 1: like you said, has this this other side to it,
Speaker 1: this side that that if we don't pay attention to it,
Speaker 1: it could become potentially um harmful to us, or at
Speaker 1: least at the at the very least anyway uh inconvenient
Speaker 1: to us. So, for example, with our setting up Google
Speaker 1: Home so that we would be able to control lighting
Speaker 1: and security systems and uh thermostats, not only would we
Speaker 1: have it set up so that it's to our preferences,
Speaker 1: but it actually has learned when we're at home versus
Speaker 1: when we're not at home, and what that information means
Speaker 1: could be potentially very harmful to us. So in your mind,
Speaker 1: where where does accountability lie? Is this something that we
Speaker 1: ourselves are are at least partly accountable for that kind
Speaker 1: of information? Are the companies that create this technology? Are
Speaker 1: they accountable? It's it's such a cloudy area. Where do
Speaker 1: you see that? So it's a mix now clearly, and
Speaker 1: I think I want to kind of emphasize this. You
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier how this could become inconvenient. The reality is
Speaker 1: is that we as the consumer want this because we
Speaker 1: want it because it is convenient. We want technologies that
Speaker 1: are passive. We don't necessarily want to click buttons. We
Speaker 1: want technologies that are intelligent enough to be able to
Speaker 1: help us make decisions. Right. I mentioned earlier about anticipation,
Speaker 1: the challenge with convenience, and convenience typically goes against the
Speaker 1: grain of security and privacy to some degree. If we
Speaker 1: really want a mother, uh, kind of anticipating our needs,
Speaker 1: what we want for lunch, where we want to go
Speaker 1: for travel, you get. You get. The negative of having
Speaker 1: your parent with you after you've kind of left for
Speaker 1: university or or left for the office, is that you
Speaker 1: don't want them intruding too many places or too much
Speaker 1: about you. You want to keep certain parts of your
Speaker 1: life separate. And the reality is is that there's a
Speaker 1: trade off around here. So you know, I do think
Speaker 1: that there's a consumer drive towards this. It's just that
Speaker 1: we are not necessarily always prepared because there's a bit
Speaker 1: of a lag or a delay before the consequences of
Speaker 1: having this convenience are fully made aware are aware to us.
Speaker 1: So in terms of the responsibility of who cares about this,
Speaker 1: we as consumers obviously care about it. You know. The
Speaker 1: companies like Google and Amazon obviously you know, they would
Speaker 1: argue that by personalizing service to you, they are giving
Speaker 1: you this convenience. But the reality is it's really up
Speaker 1: to their best efforts or what they think is the
Speaker 1: right combination of privacy and security for now. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is the regulators take time to catch up.
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily know the latest, they didn't attend Google Io,
Speaker 1: and they don't know necessarily know how to react or respond.
Speaker 1: So there's always gonna be this this lag between what
Speaker 1: the consumers want, what the companies are able to deliver
Speaker 1: in response to that need, and then what the regulators
Speaker 1: are able to introduce in terms of a balance in
Speaker 1: terms of rules and regulations. Uh And in this produal
Speaker 1: case in around privacy and security, and I would argue
Speaker 1: that the companies have it in their best interests to
Speaker 1: handle this as carefully as possible for multiple reasons. One,
Speaker 1: like you've just pointed out. If they do not, then
Speaker 1: that means that you're going to get that that sort
Speaker 1: of tick talk effect, the tick being that they take
Speaker 1: a certain approach, the talk being that regulations are following
Speaker 1: because if there's any mishandling, especially of a of a
Speaker 1: chaotic scale, then there's going to be a harsh response
Speaker 1: further down the line, and it doesn't behoove the companies
Speaker 1: to to uh invite that in alsobviously, if they do
Speaker 1: not prove to be responsible with that data, that reflects
Speaker 1: poorly on them from a consumer standpoint as well, they'll
Speaker 1: lose customers. So it's not as if there's no incentive
Speaker 1: on the company's part to be careful, but at the
Speaker 1: same time they want to be able to leverage that
Speaker 1: data uh to to make as good use of it
Speaker 1: as possible. I've often said on this show that if
Speaker 1: you look around and you realize that the service you
Speaker 1: are using doesn't cost you anything, that essentially that means
Speaker 1: that you yourself are the product and that what you
Speaker 1: are doing is generating value for another entity out there,
Speaker 1: for example like Google, where you're using Google Search and
Speaker 1: then turn is generating value for Google. You yourself are
Speaker 1: are the probably being sold to other companies. So it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where it's the balance between
Speaker 1: the desire to provide this service and to make um,
Speaker 1: you know, revenue off of of of something beyond just
Speaker 1: selling a device like the Google Home device, and making
Speaker 1: certain that you don't alienate your consumer base or invite
Speaker 1: particularly restrictive regulations. UH. To that end. Of course, in
Speaker 1: the United States, it's one story. In other parts of
Speaker 1: the world, there are different views of privacy and security,
Speaker 1: some of which go well beyond what is typically seen
Speaker 1: here in the US. Do you think the device do
Speaker 1: you think Google Home and things like Amazon's Echo, do
Speaker 1: you think those are going to have different levels of
Speaker 1: acceptance in different parts of the world? And where do
Speaker 1: you think might be a case for this is probably
Speaker 1: going to be a big success in one place. We've
Speaker 1: heard that Amazon Niccho has been a pretty big success
Speaker 1: so far, versus a market where it may not be. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: you've seen even things like credit card adoption differ from
Speaker 1: country to country, um, just because there are different kind
Speaker 1: of cut cultural kind of mores around credit around potential
Speaker 1: privacy implications, UM in terms of no kind of a
Speaker 1: transaction and kind of the origins and so forth. UM.
Speaker 1: And so you've seen this in Europe in particular, right,
Speaker 1: So not all countries in Europe are equally predisposed to
Speaker 1: using credit cards as we are in the US. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there definitely will be different cultural adoption. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, at the end of the day, like
Speaker 1: you you mentioned rightly, a lot of these companies, it's
Speaker 1: in their interest to do a good job because we
Speaker 1: we as consumers, only tend to shop from people we trust.
Speaker 1: The challenges, of course, is that we will sometimes wonder,
Speaker 1: just like you are right here in terms of this interview,
Speaker 1: you know, what are the implications. You know, you could
Speaker 1: very quickly go from a situation that appears like having
Speaker 1: your mother around all of you around you too, having
Speaker 1: a situation we're having big brother around you, uh in
Speaker 1: kind of sense in the Orwellian sense where something is
Speaker 1: so aware of every facet about your life, but maybe
Speaker 1: they just know a little bit too much. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so you know, we're kind of entering that phase. Right.
Speaker 1: We've we've historically had a you places that we weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily connected to, right and our home with the exception
Speaker 1: obviously of our PCs and our phones have not been connected.
Speaker 1: They've been into some degree of thanks groupe, we sit
Speaker 1: down for dinner. Um, we're not connected to the net.
Speaker 1: And I think what this revelation is making people aware
Speaker 1: of is that, uh, kind of in the future, there'll
Speaker 1: be very very few places left, um that are not networked,
Speaker 1: where our activities are not kind of transponding or transmitting
Speaker 1: or telegraphing kind of our activities. Uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: it will take time for people to adjust, and as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, it will not it won't just be
Speaker 1: about consumers and kind of buyers, but also you know,
Speaker 1: the governments will have a say, and as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: you know, in certain places the governments have already had
Speaker 1: to say around privacy, like in Europe with the introduction
Speaker 1: of the General Data Protection Regulation UM to better protect consumers.
Speaker 1: I think we're all going to become a lot more
Speaker 1: sensitive to the privacy implications of always being online. And
Speaker 1: I think that we're seeing that as well, just you know,
Speaker 1: in other areas of technology. Just recently, there was uh,
Speaker 1: these reports coming out about the FBI's database of biometric
Speaker 1: data and the concerns people have about that and even
Speaker 1: interesting questions like do I do I own my own face?
Speaker 1: Should I shouldn't I have access to data about me?
Speaker 1: And this again, you know, we're in a world where
Speaker 1: our technology is pervasive, and in many ways that is amazing.
Speaker 1: It is giving us an almost seamless experience of having
Speaker 1: our desires catered to before we can even give thought
Speaker 1: to them. That is the big promise of the Internet
Speaker 1: of things, and I love that idea. It is something
Speaker 1: that really appeals to me. On the flip side, you
Speaker 1: start to realize that you're regular actions are creating data,
Speaker 1: and that data does in fact have value, different value
Speaker 1: to different entities out there, and so having these sort
Speaker 1: of technologies inviting them in. Once you have reconciled this
Speaker 1: idea and you realize that, uh, that this is going on,
Speaker 1: then you can start to make those strategies. How is
Speaker 1: the was the best way of handling that both on
Speaker 1: the the end user side and on the back end side,
Speaker 1: so that it is a responsible approach. That's really what
Speaker 1: what your company is looking into, right, the idea of
Speaker 1: security and and helping companies protect uh customer data. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's actually kind of very very kind of similar
Speaker 1: to this. I think you know, one of the things,
Speaker 1: um you were kind of touching upon is this kind
Speaker 1: of expectation of organizations to do a better job of
Speaker 1: safeguarding your information, essentially being responsible custodians of your data.
Speaker 1: The challenge for most companies UM, you know, maybe with
Speaker 1: with less sophistication than a Google, but maybe even Google,
Speaker 1: is that they collect so much information about you, and
Speaker 1: they collected it's so many different places and so many applications.
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean that all that information is tied together,
Speaker 1: but you are leaving digital footprints across organizations and so
Speaker 1: these these companies are essentially becoming large data collection points
Speaker 1: and it's hard for you as a consumer to know
Speaker 1: exactly what digital footprints you've left. You want to know
Speaker 1: what assets you've left with them and believe it or not. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, if you think about accounting and how companies
Speaker 1: are expensed, expected to have responsible UM tools in place
Speaker 1: to track how much revenue comes in, how that money
Speaker 1: is getting dispersed, who it's paying. So that's all about
Speaker 1: accounting and financial responsibility. On the digital side, there's very
Speaker 1: little of that today and that kind of the origin
Speaker 1: of Big I D. You could think a big I
Speaker 1: D as a tool set to help big companies understand
Speaker 1: where their customer information is what's at risk or potentially
Speaker 1: at risk, either in terms of breach or in terms
Speaker 1: of misuse UH and then how to better understand how
Speaker 1: that information is getting used in the organization, either to
Speaker 1: help ensure that it's compliant with regulations or secondly that
Speaker 1: it's complied with their own kind of privacy rules, their
Speaker 1: own consent agreements that they've created between themselves and their consumers.
Speaker 1: And so I think that this idea of a ledger
Speaker 1: or accounting software for privacy information doesn't as yet exist,
Speaker 1: and I think increasingly, just given the number of digital
Speaker 1: touchpoints that we have with the companies we interact with,
Speaker 1: um that it's going to be certainly a future requirement.
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting, and I'm thankful that there
Speaker 1: are organizations like yours that are looking into this to
Speaker 1: try and create those best practic This is because, as
Speaker 1: we've seen recently, it's scholarship has shown it takes very
Speaker 1: few data points to be able to link some information
Speaker 1: to a specific person, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: companies out there may not even be aware of the
Speaker 1: implications of some of the data they're collecting, not through
Speaker 1: any sort of of maliciousness. It simply is, as you
Speaker 1: point out, there's so many of these little digital touch
Speaker 1: points that you cannot necessarily anticipate what the consequences are
Speaker 1: from the from the very beginning. And uh, it's amazing
Speaker 1: to me to think that this is going on everywhere,
Speaker 1: and and it's it's a it's a snowball that's already
Speaker 1: going down the hill. It's just going to keep on going.
Speaker 1: It's very reassuring to hear that there are people actively
Speaker 1: thinking about these and trying these issues and trying to
Speaker 1: find the best ways of handling that kind of information
Speaker 1: so that we don't have uh any or we can
Speaker 1: avoid as many chaotic moments of absolute failure as possible. Well, again,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people assume that big companies
Speaker 1: are actively pursuing the collection and selling of all of
Speaker 1: the data, and that's not the case. Across the board,
Speaker 1: there are companies that are collecting a great deal of
Speaker 1: data in the pursuit of whatever business they do, but
Speaker 1: it's not through the it's not necessarily with an intent
Speaker 1: to do anything uh, you know, commercial with that information.
Speaker 1: But knowing this makes it easier for those companies to
Speaker 1: be more responsible and uh, and also to maybe even
Speaker 1: get to a point where they change up their practices
Speaker 1: so that they're only collecting the points of data that
Speaker 1: are relevant to their business. Yeah, well, look, certainly that's
Speaker 1: the intent of big ideas to help companies be more
Speaker 1: responsible around their digital assets, the customer assets, which you
Speaker 1: could argue are probably the most important assets. You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you've heard people talk about employees, and you know
Speaker 1: your your most important assets are your employees, and they
Speaker 1: walk out the door every every night. Well, your customers
Speaker 1: are pretty valuable too, because if they if they stop
Speaker 1: patronizing you, your business suffers, and their loyalty increasingly is
Speaker 1: very thickle. So if they don't have confidence that you
Speaker 1: are protecting their personal information, they're kind of digital digital
Speaker 1: footprints don't go somewhere else. They'll go to somebody that
Speaker 1: does take better care of that, which again is why
Speaker 1: it kind of makes sense to have uh technology that
Speaker 1: gives organizations better, better tooling to track, manage, protect those
Speaker 1: digital personal assets. About digital information that represents kind of
Speaker 1: who you are, where you live, where you've been, what
Speaker 1: you like when you're going on vacation, et cetera. Now,
Speaker 1: I've got a question for you personally, which is that,
Speaker 1: are you at a point where you would adopt a
Speaker 1: technology such as Amazon Echo or Google Home or would
Speaker 1: you personally wait a little longer or you know, where
Speaker 1: do you stand on that? Because I can tell you
Speaker 1: being aware of these issues, I guess it's only fair
Speaker 1: that I answered my own question being aware of these
Speaker 1: issues and and being cognizant of them. I I'm still
Speaker 1: leaning towards getting one, knowing what I know, and taking
Speaker 1: the risk in order to have the benefit. My wife
Speaker 1: feels very differently about it, so that's why I do
Speaker 1: not have one. But but I'm curious what, as you,
Speaker 1: as an expert on this subject matter, how you feel
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, so I think there's there's two things
Speaker 1: that come into play. Obviously, I'm a fifteen year vetter
Speaker 1: in the security industry with a company focused on enterprise
Speaker 1: privacy management now, so I understand some of the consequences
Speaker 1: and repercussions. But I'm also at heart a person that
Speaker 1: likes technology. I as a reader of Isaac Asimov as
Speaker 1: a kid, Fine Land, all the kind of great science
Speaker 1: fiction writers, and I realized the future is coming towards us,
Speaker 1: and we could either try and hide or dock or
Speaker 1: we could try and embrace it and understand the consequences.
Speaker 1: So for me personally, UM, I look at this and
Speaker 1: try to understand how this technology will impact our lives
Speaker 1: going forward. So I will be an embracer of the
Speaker 1: technology because I think, as I said at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good, there's a lot of convenience
Speaker 1: that comes with it, but it's also important for me
Speaker 1: to understand some of the consequences by going through it firsthand,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, if I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm part of a team building technology to better help
Speaker 1: protect customer information, then I had need to understand the
Speaker 1: implications of these new home automation, car automation technologies. Excellent,
Speaker 1: Dmitri Saroda, thank you so much, founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: Big I D. You really helped me and I hope
Speaker 1: my listeners understand a bit more of the implications of this.
Speaker 1: I realized that this sort of technology that has this
Speaker 1: incredible connection to our personal lives, really a level of
Speaker 1: intimacy that most technology does not have, carries with it
Speaker 1: some things that can be a little worrisome. But I
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think if we enter into it
Speaker 1: with open eyes and we are aware of the challenges.
Speaker 1: We're not denying that challenges exist, but we are aware
Speaker 1: of them. That allows us to actually overcome those challenges
Speaker 1: and reap the benefits of this really powerful tool. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show and talking
Speaker 1: with us. My pleasure. Care. I think it's really important
Speaker 1: to remember that Mr Sirota actually said we should embrace technology,
Speaker 1: but do so in a way where we're aware of
Speaker 1: the consequences and we are doing our best to mitigate
Speaker 1: any negative fallout from this technology moving forward. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: deny it, we shouldn't try to stop it, but we
Speaker 1: should definitely be responsible with the way we develop it
Speaker 1: and the way that we use it. Potential Really, it
Speaker 1: has the capacity to make our lives easier. I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine being able to handle everything by by just shifting
Speaker 1: it over to your personal assistant who lives everywhere. You
Speaker 1: can access that personal assistant wherever you might be through
Speaker 1: whatever computer or smartphone or standalone device you happen to
Speaker 1: have at your disposal at that place, and access all
Speaker 1: of that those features, everything from entertainment to handling travel
Speaker 1: and stuff that you want taking care of that you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want to attend to yourself, so you can
Speaker 1: save that time to do something else. That's a really
Speaker 1: cool idea, And I love the promise of digital assistance,
Speaker 1: the idea that we will slowly get towards this future
Speaker 1: where the technology around us anticipates what we need before
Speaker 1: we can give voice to it. I love that thought
Speaker 1: and the idea that that my life just becomes sort
Speaker 1: of magical as a result, because the technology is shifting
Speaker 1: things to my whim before I can even voice what
Speaker 1: that whim is, before I might even be aware there's
Speaker 1: a whim. I could be whim less. I'm done saying whim.
Speaker 1: In future episodes, I'm going to take a closer look
Speaker 1: at what makes these technologies tick and the potential they
Speaker 1: have to change the way we interact with the world
Speaker 1: around us. In the meantime, if you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, send me an email. The
Speaker 1: address is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or drop me a line on Twitter or Facebook. The
Speaker 1: handle for both of those is text stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. For
Speaker 1: more on this and bathos of other topics is how
Speaker 1: staff works dot com. M.