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'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tag are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, March twenty ninth, two thousand, twenty two,
Speaker 1: and let's start with a doozy. Yesterday, Wired published an
Speaker 1: article by Will Night titled the Supply Chain Crisis is
Speaker 1: about to get a lot worse. And it's a well
Speaker 1: researched and well written article, and I recommend that y'all
Speaker 1: all check it out because I'm just going to touch
Speaker 1: on part of what the article focused on, Namely, we
Speaker 1: continue to see massive disruptions in the supply chain due
Speaker 1: to a bunch of different things all happening at the
Speaker 1: same time. Now, one is obviously the ongoing COVID Night
Speaker 1: Team Pen Dimmick and China's official policy regarding outbreaks. So,
Speaker 1: in an attempt to mitigate the spread of COVID in China,
Speaker 1: the government has a policy to essentially shut down regions
Speaker 1: where outbreaks are detected. And because we've seen more virulent
Speaker 1: strains of COVID emerge over time, this has meant that
Speaker 1: various parts of China have had to lock down repeatedly. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously that disrupts everything from manufacturing to shipping, and parts
Speaker 1: of China have adjusted this policy a little bit. They've
Speaker 1: they've more localized lockdowns, so that reduces the broader impacts.
Speaker 1: Instead of shutting down an entire region, they might shut
Speaker 1: down a smaller area within that region. But obviously this
Speaker 1: is still an issue. And another factor is the ongoing
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. Russia's actions have led to much of
Speaker 1: the world imposing sanctions on the country, and that includes
Speaker 1: shipping goods through Russia. So routes that would have gone
Speaker 1: over land through Russia UH now have to take alternate pathways.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, the shipping centers around the world are dealing
Speaker 1: with congestion. Supply chains are kind of like when you
Speaker 1: drive on the highway and you know, you just sometimes
Speaker 1: for no apparent reason, hit bumper to bumper traffic and
Speaker 1: you're just crawling along and then eventually the traffic just
Speaker 1: kinds of opens up and you can't even see what
Speaker 1: caused the slowdown in the first place. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the same sort of thing that can happen in
Speaker 1: supply chains, although it can happen at much worse degrees
Speaker 1: because supply chains are so complicated and so dependent upon
Speaker 1: all the different links in that chain, so when something
Speaker 1: goes wrong, you get as you would suspect a chain reaction. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the article and Wired warns that the war in Ukraine
Speaker 1: is likely to contribute to really tough supply chain issues
Speaker 1: that we might not even see for a few more weeks,
Speaker 1: and that this will likely have further consequences, ranging from
Speaker 1: shortages and certain types of goods to price hikes and
Speaker 1: and this actually goes well beyond just the realm of
Speaker 1: technology and into other industries like food supplies. UH For example,
Speaker 1: the article mentions that we might see the price of
Speaker 1: tomatoes escalate because a lot of tomato farmers might switch
Speaker 1: over to grain because grain requires less fertilizer, and fertilizer
Speaker 1: a lot of it comes from Russia. So you start
Speaker 1: to see how these little links of the chain can
Speaker 1: have massive consequences. Further down the line, speaking of complications
Speaker 1: of supply chains, Testla's giga factory in Shanghai had to
Speaker 1: shut down temporarily in response to one of those COVID
Speaker 1: lockdowns that I just mentioned. So according to Reuters, the
Speaker 1: facility will only be down for four days, so it
Speaker 1: could be a lot worse. But obviously any downtime in
Speaker 1: a manufacturing facility is going to impact business. Now how
Speaker 1: much of an impact. Well, in one, that Shanghai factory
Speaker 1: produced about half of all of Tesla's vehicles worldwide, So
Speaker 1: when fifty of your output is coming from one facility
Speaker 1: and that facility gets shut down, that's a potentially pretty
Speaker 1: big impact. Uh. Anyway that it seems like Tesla's launch
Speaker 1: of its Berlin Giga factory, which happened earlier this month,
Speaker 1: was happening just in time. Now I should also add,
Speaker 1: it's not like Berlin could immediately step in and take
Speaker 1: over the slack from China. Uh, that's not how this
Speaker 1: would work. I mean, obviously you're talking about totally different
Speaker 1: part of the world, you're talking about totally different shipping,
Speaker 1: you're talking about different markets. And also the Berlin facility
Speaker 1: reportedly is not going to be scaling up to full
Speaker 1: production for several months. It might not be till the
Speaker 1: end of this year before we start seeing it approach
Speaker 1: the full production capabilities. Now, if you've been listening to
Speaker 1: my tech news episodes. You know that Apple has been
Speaker 1: hit with repeated fines from Dutch regulators to the tune
Speaker 1: of five million euros per week, and that was going
Speaker 1: to be to a maximum of fifty million euros over
Speaker 1: the course of ten weeks. Well, we just hit week
Speaker 1: ten and Apple still has not complied with regulator demands,
Speaker 1: at least not to their satisfaction. Now, at the heart
Speaker 1: of this issue is how Apple requires app developers to
Speaker 1: use Apple's in house payment system for in app purchases
Speaker 1: on iOS apps. And we're specifically talking about dating apps
Speaker 1: in this particular case. It's true across the board, but
Speaker 1: the regulators are really concerned with dating applications. So Dutch
Speaker 1: regulators determined that Apple's practice is anti competitive and they
Speaker 1: demanded that the company allow app developers to use alternative
Speaker 1: payment processing methods in their apps. Apple's failure to do
Speaker 1: that is what resulted in fines. Now, Apple did propose
Speaker 1: a solution, but it did not satisfy the regulators, and
Speaker 1: for good reason. Apple's solution was to allow developers to
Speaker 1: use a different payment system, but Apple would still get
Speaker 1: a twenty seven percent cut of every transaction. Now, as
Speaker 1: it stands, Apple takes out of in app transactions, at
Speaker 1: least from developers of a certain size. Considering the fact
Speaker 1: that any payment processing company will also take a cut,
Speaker 1: that means that if you were to go outside of
Speaker 1: Apple and use someone else to process your payments, you
Speaker 1: would probably be surrendering more than thirty percent of each
Speaker 1: transaction in total once you added up both the contributions
Speaker 1: to Apple and to your preferred payment service. So it
Speaker 1: would be more expensive to go outside of Apple because
Speaker 1: Apple is demanding this cut on top of everything. Now,
Speaker 1: the regulators called bull crap on apple solution, saying it
Speaker 1: was transparently anti competitive. I think it's pretty hard to
Speaker 1: argue against that. And now that the regulators have gone
Speaker 1: through the full ten weeks and fifty million euros of fines,
Speaker 1: they say they are reviewing Apple's most recent proposed changes
Speaker 1: to see if those are in fact compliant with the
Speaker 1: original order. If they are not, the reg lators say
Speaker 1: they could impose quote possibly higher penalties end quote on Apple. Now,
Speaker 1: I've seen several analysts suggest that Apple is actually just
Speaker 1: seeking to push this matter into a court in an
Speaker 1: effort to get a judgment that will release the company
Speaker 1: from these requirements. In the first place, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of hopeful that they might successfully argue in a court
Speaker 1: of law that their practice is not anti competitive and
Speaker 1: that then they wouldn't have to worry about complying or
Speaker 1: paying fines at all. But obviously we've heard nothing from
Speaker 1: Apple itself confirming this suspicion. One Apple related rumor that
Speaker 1: the company is UH is having right now is that
Speaker 1: it's cutting back on producing new iPhone SE units. UH.
Speaker 1: The new iPhone SE became available on March eighteen, So
Speaker 1: you might wonder, well, why would the company cut production
Speaker 1: on a product that has been out for less than
Speaker 1: a fortnight. Well, it appears that there is a double
Speaker 1: whammy at play here, that there is lower than expected
Speaker 1: demand end for this particular phone, and on top of that,
Speaker 1: there are those massive supply chain and certainties that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about in this episode. So this could be
Speaker 1: Apple cutting losses before they are too keenly felt. Now
Speaker 1: I need to add that this all comes from a
Speaker 1: media outlet called mackay Asia, and that outlet is citing
Speaker 1: unidentified sources, so they're not naming their sources, which is
Speaker 1: not unusual, but it also is something that we have
Speaker 1: to keep in mind that when you have unnamed sources,
Speaker 1: you have to consider the possibility that the information is
Speaker 1: not reliable. In fact, a couple of air Pods suppliers,
Speaker 1: so not Apple itself, but companies that work with Apple.
Speaker 1: They reached out to mac rumors dot com, which is
Speaker 1: where I encountered this story, and they refuted the claims
Speaker 1: that were made in Ncay Asia. So it's possible that
Speaker 1: this is not a real story. But according to those
Speaker 1: Nicay Asia reports, Apple has told manufacturer is to cut
Speaker 1: way back on units, reducing them by as much as
Speaker 1: three million fewer phones per month. Now, originally Apple projected
Speaker 1: it would ship between twenty five to thirty million of
Speaker 1: these phones worldwide this year, but according to the report,
Speaker 1: it now estimates it will be closer to fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty million units, so see a significant drop. Now. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the story is uncertain and we'll have to follow up
Speaker 1: later to see how it pans out, whether or not
Speaker 1: in the ca Asia was accurate in its reporting or
Speaker 1: if this was fabricated. But if it is real, it
Speaker 1: could be another indicator of how the global supply chain
Speaker 1: crisis is impacting the the industry of consumer technology and
Speaker 1: obviously We're seeing that impact in lots of different things today,
Speaker 1: like everything that involves the semiconductor is pretty much affected
Speaker 1: by it and will potentially continue to be so for
Speaker 1: maybe more than a year. I don't I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't have any insight into that, but just the way
Speaker 1: things start going right now, it is certainly complicated matters.
Speaker 1: We have some more news stories to go over before
Speaker 1: we get to that. Let's take a quick break. We're
Speaker 1: back and Sony has overhauled its PlayStation Plus and PlayStation
Speaker 1: Now subscription services for a launch in the near future
Speaker 1: in June of this year, and that launch will combine
Speaker 1: those services into a new set of PlayStation Plus offerings. So,
Speaker 1: in case you were not familiar with these features, PlayStation
Speaker 1: Now has been a subscription service that let's subscribers access
Speaker 1: games for the PS four, PS three, and PS two
Speaker 1: platforms over the cloud. Uh Here in the United States,
Speaker 1: the service was priced at nine dollars nine cents per
Speaker 1: month or twenty four ninety nine for three months or
Speaker 1: for a full year. PlayStation Plus was a different service
Speaker 1: and is a different service, and it allows subscribers to
Speaker 1: access premium options such as the ability to play multiplayer
Speaker 1: games online. So without PlayStation Plus, you can't play any
Speaker 1: multiplayer games online. You can only play local games on
Speaker 1: your machine. That way, uh you also get a chance
Speaker 1: to download free games. Each month, Sony chooses a couple
Speaker 1: of titles and offers them up for free for PlayStation
Speaker 1: Plus users, and starting in June, both of these suites
Speaker 1: of services PlayStation now in PlayStation Plus will combine into
Speaker 1: Vultron or PlayStation Plus that's the name they decided to
Speaker 1: stick with. So at the base level, there are three
Speaker 1: tiers to this and then the lowest tier is the
Speaker 1: PlayStation Plus Essential which will be nine per month, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty much the exact same thing that PlayStation Plus
Speaker 1: is right now, so that means it will give users
Speaker 1: access to online multiplayer games and they'll be able to
Speaker 1: download the free games that are offered by Sony each month.
Speaker 1: The next tier up is PlayStation Plus Extra that will
Speaker 1: be fourteen per month and will include up to four
Speaker 1: hundred PS five and PS four games that subscribers can download,
Speaker 1: so they'll have access to a library of up to
Speaker 1: four hundred games that they can then download as part
Speaker 1: of their subscription. Then there's the PlayStation Plus Premium level
Speaker 1: that will be seventeen dollars and nine nine cents per month.
Speaker 1: That will include additional access to three hundred forty more games,
Speaker 1: including some PS three titles, PS two titles, and PS
Speaker 1: one titles via cloud streaming. Plus you get all the
Speaker 1: stuff from the previous tiers. Now, I don't play as
Speaker 1: much on my consoles these days, but I do think
Speaker 1: that this is, you know, a good strategy. It's one
Speaker 1: that puts Sony on better footing against Microsoft and the
Speaker 1: Xbox Games Pass, which is you know, Microsoft version of
Speaker 1: this kind of strategy. However, Jim Ryan, the CEO of
Speaker 1: Sony's PlayStation division, did dump a little ice water on
Speaker 1: this announcement. Bryan said that Sony is not planning on
Speaker 1: including first party titles in this Plus service, at least
Speaker 1: not at the titles launch at any rate. So, unlike Microsoft,
Speaker 1: which has been including big name exclusive titles on Game
Speaker 1: Pass at launch, PlayStation Plus will not be following suit.
Speaker 1: Ryan says that interrupts the quote unquote virtuous cycle of
Speaker 1: Sony's process and developing titles, and that doing so would
Speaker 1: undermine that process and that the company wouldn't recapture the
Speaker 1: costs that it's pouring into developing those titles. In other words,
Speaker 1: Sony saying we don't want to cannibalize our own internal systems,
Speaker 1: so we're not going to do that. I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: be a disappointment to a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: hoping that this would be akin to the Xbox Game
Speaker 1: Pass and give Sony players access to those first party
Speaker 1: titles day and date. But um, you know, it still
Speaker 1: sounds like a pretty incredible offering to me. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: not like, I'm not the big console gamer these days,
Speaker 1: but I think if I were really actively using my PlayStation,
Speaker 1: I think I'd be aiming for that PlayStation plus premium.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's eighteen bucks a month, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, you just look at how much you have
Speaker 1: to access and that's pretty incredible. Also, eighteen dollars a
Speaker 1: month is a lot less than buying a game a month.
Speaker 1: You're talking about sixty dollars plus in that regard. In
Speaker 1: other gaming news, Bungee has filed a lawsuit against ten
Speaker 1: John does As in ten unidentified defendants, and Bungee says
Speaker 1: that these people weaponize YouTube's Digital Millennium Copyright Act or
Speaker 1: d m C a process. Now there's a lot to
Speaker 1: unpack here, So let's take a step by step. First
Speaker 1: of all, you've got the d m c A. This
Speaker 1: puts hefty requirements on platforms to take quick action when
Speaker 1: those platforms are alerted to an instance of someone violating
Speaker 1: copyright law. So in YouTube case, when it receives a
Speaker 1: demand to remove content from its platform due to a
Speaker 1: d m c A violation, that is, someone has said, hey,
Speaker 1: this person has uploaded content they don't own. I own
Speaker 1: that content, take it down. Typically YouTube responds to sweet
Speaker 1: and takes down the content, or else it runs the
Speaker 1: risk of being held liable for failure to act with
Speaker 1: regard to the d m c A. As such, YouTube
Speaker 1: tends to be pretty darn quick on the draw with
Speaker 1: d m c A takedown notices, and potentially too quick
Speaker 1: on the draw, at least according to Bungee. Now see
Speaker 1: Bungee also issues d m c A takedown notices because
Speaker 1: sometimes people might upload stuff like say the soundtrack to
Speaker 1: a Bungee title to YouTube without Bungees authorization, or they
Speaker 1: might upload lengthy cut scenes that and not include any
Speaker 1: other content. So in other words, there's no like user
Speaker 1: generated content. It's just Bungees cut scenes uploaded complete to YouTube.
Speaker 1: Those are cases where Bungee will issue a takedown notice
Speaker 1: through the d m c A, and Bungee follows protocol.
Speaker 1: It fills out a d m c A order. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's like an online form you've got to fill out
Speaker 1: that then submits that to YouTube, and then YouTube then
Speaker 1: goes and takes down the offending content and it typically
Speaker 1: issues a strike against the responsible channel. However, and here's
Speaker 1: the problem. It turns out that apparently anyone can do
Speaker 1: this on behalf of anyone else, Like anyone could go
Speaker 1: and create a Gmail account because you have to have
Speaker 1: one of those in order to do this, and go
Speaker 1: to YouTube and fill out an online form claiming to
Speaker 1: be the owner of intellectual property that's in a video
Speaker 1: and demand that YouTube take the video down, and YouTube
Speaker 1: will do it. In other words, YouTube is so responsive
Speaker 1: to d m c A takedown notices that it will
Speaker 1: act first without verifying that the party that's making this
Speaker 1: demand actually owns the I P and question. So apparently
Speaker 1: these ten unknown individuals created fake Gmail accounts, are real
Speaker 1: Gmail accounts but under fake identities, and issued d m
Speaker 1: c A notices against channels that had destiny to content
Speaker 1: on them, and they were posing as Bungee, the owners
Speaker 1: of the I P. And further, Bungee believes that these
Speaker 1: ten unauthorized individuals did this in retaliation for having their
Speaker 1: own content removed from actual Bungee listed d m c
Speaker 1: A takedowns. So, in other words, the way it went
Speaker 1: down was like, this Channel A puts up a video
Speaker 1: that contains Bungee I P, and they don't actually provide
Speaker 1: enough user content to warrant putting that stuff up. In
Speaker 1: other words, they're violating Bungee's own policies. So they might
Speaker 1: be posting cut scenes but not provide any sort of
Speaker 1: commentary or gameplay outside of that, or maybe they're just
Speaker 1: posting the music without any of their own content, so
Speaker 1: it's not legitimate in Bungee's eyes. So then Bungee issues
Speaker 1: the d m c A takedown YouTube acts. Then the
Speaker 1: channel owner who had this stuff up, stung by Bungee's takedown,
Speaker 1: starts lashing out at other channels that are actually playing
Speaker 1: by the rules, meaning that these are channels that have
Speaker 1: sufficient creator content in them so they're not violating Bungee's policies.
Speaker 1: So these these channels then get take down notices. Against them,
Speaker 1: and at first they might think Bungee's targeted me for
Speaker 1: no reason, like I was playing by the rules and
Speaker 1: Bungee took my stuff down, But in fact, Bungee never
Speaker 1: did this. It wasn't Bungee. It was one of these
Speaker 1: other you know, wounded members. And the company says that
Speaker 1: these ten people have caused damage to Bungee's reputation and
Speaker 1: committed for all essentially by posing as Bungee representatives. And
Speaker 1: also they said, hey, we just want to take time
Speaker 1: to mention that YouTube has terrible processes for d m
Speaker 1: c A takedowns that allow this kind of thing to happen,
Speaker 1: and that it could happen across the board, across any
Speaker 1: i P, like anyone who has an AX to grind
Speaker 1: against a content creator could but potentially create an account,
Speaker 1: file a d m c A takedown and get a
Speaker 1: video taken off of YouTube. And then you know, they
Speaker 1: did it completely illegally, right, they did it without actually
Speaker 1: owning the i P. But YouTube goes ahead and acts
Speaker 1: anyway because YouTube doesn't want to get held accountable for
Speaker 1: not acting, and obviously that would be a terrible way
Speaker 1: to harass someone. Chances are it would get reversed. But
Speaker 1: just getting the video taken down means that if someone's
Speaker 1: dependent upon videos to you know, make their living, a
Speaker 1: video getting taken down as an enormous financial consequence on
Speaker 1: that person. So yeah, it's it's a nasty situation. However,
Speaker 1: Bungee has not named YouTube or the parent company Alphabet
Speaker 1: as a defendant in this case, but they are seeking
Speaker 1: to get the legal grounds that will allow them to
Speaker 1: compel YouTube to share information about the ten John Does
Speaker 1: who are behind the takedowns. YouTube has shut down those
Speaker 1: accounts or has started to reverse those uh those d
Speaker 1: m c A takedowns, but YouTube has not shared information
Speaker 1: that might give a clue as to the identity of
Speaker 1: those ten people. And so now Bungee is looking to
Speaker 1: get the legal uh foundation to require YouTube to share
Speaker 1: that because YouTube won't share that information unless there's essentially
Speaker 1: a court order to do so. Now, I wanted to
Speaker 1: cover the story to illustrate how intellectual property law can
Speaker 1: get really really messy in the tech sector, although I
Speaker 1: can also get messy and other sectors too, So this
Speaker 1: is one of those things that a lot of advocates
Speaker 1: have been warning against UM suggesting that intellectual property law
Speaker 1: as it stands is kind of broken, and the way
Speaker 1: that various platforms attempt to deal with IP law is
Speaker 1: broken as well. All Right, we've got some more news
Speaker 1: stories to get through. Before we get to those, let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. Tech Crunch is reporting that TikTok
Speaker 1: is testing a feature that will allow users to look
Speaker 1: back over their watch history, which will make it much
Speaker 1: easier to locate a specific video they've seen. See in
Speaker 1: this day and age where our attention spans and memory
Speaker 1: or toast, we need a feature like watch history to
Speaker 1: be able to hunt down that one short video where
Speaker 1: someone is lip sinking over that same audio you've seen
Speaker 1: used in countless other videos, but this video has a
Speaker 1: rabbit in it or whatever. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: use TikTok, but this has been a feature that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have been asking for for a long time,
Speaker 1: because otherwise watch history is kind of lost to the ether,
Speaker 1: and you have to do a lot of searching and
Speaker 1: TikTok to rediscover something if you want to share it
Speaker 1: with others. I mean, there are exceptions if you if
Speaker 1: you favorite a video, but if you haven't favored it,
Speaker 1: it's a pain in the took us to try and
Speaker 1: track it down. Now, TikTok hasn't actually rolled this out yet,
Speaker 1: and there's no telling what the feature is going to
Speaker 1: look like or how it will perform if and when
Speaker 1: the service enables it, but it could be coming in
Speaker 1: the near future. Here in the United States, House Democrats
Speaker 1: are pushing for the US to adopt a digital currency
Speaker 1: that would behave the same way that cash does, except
Speaker 1: you know, digitally, so in a bill called the Electronic
Speaker 1: Currency and Secure Hardware or e Cash Act, the politicians
Speaker 1: are calling for the U. S. Treasury Department to take
Speaker 1: care of this project, and the goal would be to
Speaker 1: create a secure means of supporting digital cash transactions that
Speaker 1: do not depend upon a blockchain or a shared ledger
Speaker 1: or any sort of tracking system. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: you should be able to transfer digital cash the same
Speaker 1: way as you could physical cash. So if I walked
Speaker 1: up to you and I handed you a five dollar bill,
Speaker 1: that's between you and me. You know, there's no other
Speaker 1: record of that transaction. And so the goal here would
Speaker 1: be to make a digital solution that could follow a
Speaker 1: similar pathway. That could be pretty tricky to do because
Speaker 1: keeping transactions private while also providing security and protecting against
Speaker 1: stuff like digital counterfeiting and theft is a challenge, but
Speaker 1: if successful, people in the US would have the option
Speaker 1: to send money to each other while bypassing other services
Speaker 1: that typically take a transaction fee in the process. Plus
Speaker 1: those services can keep track of transactions and use that
Speaker 1: data for other purposes. The bill has a long way
Speaker 1: to go before it can become a law, and chances
Speaker 1: are there will be some resistance, probably considerable resistance in
Speaker 1: some fields to this measure. So there's no guarantee that
Speaker 1: will actually see this enacted, but still very interesting. If
Speaker 1: you've ever been fired or laid off, you know that
Speaker 1: that experience usually bites. While China business seems to have
Speaker 1: come up with a new way to deliver the news
Speaker 1: that's sure to make employees who get their walk in
Speaker 1: papers feel good about it. Yep. Apparently a few companies
Speaker 1: in China have sent out congratulations letters to employees that
Speaker 1: are getting laid off and contextualizing the experience as quote
Speaker 1: unquote graduating from the company. So it's like, hey, great job,
Speaker 1: you did so well, We're firing you. Now go out
Speaker 1: there and fly little butterflies. One note allegedly from Chinese
Speaker 1: e commerce company j D dot Com specifically said quote
Speaker 1: happy graduation, congratulations for having graduated from j D dot com,
Speaker 1: thank you for the companionship. End quote. Now, through my
Speaker 1: notably American lens, from that perspective, that sounds like the
Speaker 1: nastiest passive, aggressive way to let someone know that they've
Speaker 1: been fired that I've ever seen, like downright insulting. But
Speaker 1: according to Business Insider, this and similar messages from other
Speaker 1: companies are really being created with the intention of trying
Speaker 1: to take the sting out of things, as the Chinese
Speaker 1: tech sector is in general cutting way back. So the
Speaker 1: Chinese government has been cracking down on the tech sector
Speaker 1: over in China for the last couple of years, particularly recently,
Speaker 1: and has introduced a lot of new regulations and restrictions,
Speaker 1: possibly in an effort to prevent these companies from challenging
Speaker 1: the authority of the Chinese government itself, but ostensibly it's
Speaker 1: done in the name of protecting Chinese citizens. The companies,
Speaker 1: in an effort to cut back on losses, have been
Speaker 1: laying off thousands of employees, so these messages may have
Speaker 1: been a sincere effort to kind of spend the layoffs
Speaker 1: as a positive thing and to avoid alienating future potential
Speaker 1: employees from turning away from the tech sector. I am
Speaker 1: curious how this is going over in China, because I
Speaker 1: can tell you for a fact, it would not fly
Speaker 1: over here. And now let's wrap up with a trio
Speaker 1: of stories about artificial intelligence. The Register reports that a
Speaker 1: pair of researchers from Stanford have identified more than one
Speaker 1: thousand profiles on LinkedIn that are fake profiles, complete with
Speaker 1: AI generated profile pictures. The researchers recognize signs of AI
Speaker 1: created faces, including how the AI position the computer generated
Speaker 1: face within the frame, with the eyes being in the
Speaker 1: dead center, and some blurring that of the finer features
Speaker 1: like like individual strands of hair. And apparently some companies
Speaker 1: are leaning on these fake accounts in an effort to
Speaker 1: reach out to people and sell products to them. So
Speaker 1: one of the researchers reported that they initially got tipped
Speaker 1: off to this when they personally received a message from
Speaker 1: such an account offering to sell a software package to them.
Speaker 1: So the researcher felt something was off and then followed
Speaker 1: the message back to the account and that kind of
Speaker 1: started this whole you know, casual investigation into it. Now
Speaker 1: the researchers pointed out that in this case, at least,
Speaker 1: the use of AI generated accounts wasn't part of some
Speaker 1: sinister misinformation campaign per se, but more about trying to
Speaker 1: increase sales by adding a personal touch. But it does
Speaker 1: raise questions about whether or not that practice is actually ethical.
Speaker 1: Should it be reasonable to expect that any interaction on
Speaker 1: social media is between you and a real human person.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be more ethical to make AI outreach more
Speaker 1: transparent so that the person being contacted is not working
Speaker 1: under the assumption that the entity on the other end
Speaker 1: of that direct message is in fact a human. Oh
Speaker 1: brave new world to have such fake people in it.
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt, whom you might remember was once the CEO
Speaker 1: of Google, has a foundation and this foundation has been
Speaker 1: donating heavily to the US government's Office of Science and
Speaker 1: Technology Policy, and this has raised some red flags. Why well,
Speaker 1: it's because Schmidt invests heavily in several companies that are
Speaker 1: related to AI products and services, and the government office,
Speaker 1: the Office of Science and Technology Policy, is in charge
Speaker 1: of formulating policies that relate to AI. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: at least at a casual glance, it appears that Schmidt
Speaker 1: is funding the very office that creates regulations that in
Speaker 1: turn will affect Schmidt's various investments, and that sure does
Speaker 1: come across as if he might be greasing the wheels.
Speaker 1: Politico has a full report on the matter, and it
Speaker 1: ain't pretty well. I definitely want to see government departments
Speaker 1: that are in charge of determining tech policy fully funded.
Speaker 1: It's pretty obvious to me that this funding should not
Speaker 1: be coming from the tech sector directly. That is a
Speaker 1: pretty clear conflict of interest. So yaza on that one.
Speaker 1: And finally, we've got a story of an AI system
Speaker 1: beating humans at a game. And we've seen this in
Speaker 1: games like Go and chess, but now we've also seen
Speaker 1: it in Bridge, as in the card game at a
Speaker 1: special tournament in Paris, France. Now I am not a
Speaker 1: bridge player, and I admit that the rules and scoring
Speaker 1: for Bridge get pretty darn complicated. I watched a video
Speaker 1: on it and by the end I thought I would
Speaker 1: rather describe quantum computing to somebody. So I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: pretty general with this news story, because otherwise, if I
Speaker 1: try and get specific, I'm just gonna mess it up
Speaker 1: and all the bridge players out there are gonna call
Speaker 1: me out on it um. Also, I should add that
Speaker 1: the way this tournament worked included leaving out the bidding
Speaker 1: part of a bridge game, and as I understand it,
Speaker 1: the bidding part of a bridge game and the formation
Speaker 1: of a contract that's a huge part of bridge strategy.
Speaker 1: So that's a notable absence there. However, Bridge also represents
Speaker 1: a game where a player only has partial knowledge of
Speaker 1: the game's status. Now, in most other games where AI
Speaker 1: has wiped the floor with us humans, it's been a
Speaker 1: case where both players have full knowledge of the game
Speaker 1: status throughout the game. Like in chess, you can see
Speaker 1: where all your pieces and where all your opponents pieces
Speaker 1: are in a standard game, and so you're both working
Speaker 1: with full information about the status of the game all
Speaker 1: the way through. Bridge is different. So Bridge is a
Speaker 1: card game that's played with four players, and players who
Speaker 1: sit across from one another form a team. So you
Speaker 1: have a North South team and an East West team.
Speaker 1: And in this tournament, a group of human champions were
Speaker 1: put up against some robot Bridge players, and the robots
Speaker 1: had performed well in robot competitions, but when compared to
Speaker 1: human champions, they were still kind of beginners. So the
Speaker 1: humans played their own hand and their partners dummy hand,
Speaker 1: which is a thing in bridge and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to try to explain the whole thing because I barely
Speaker 1: understand it. But what that means is that the human
Speaker 1: knows the contents of their own hand, and everyone at
Speaker 1: the table knows the dummy hand because the dummy hand
Speaker 1: is played face up, so all the cards are played
Speaker 1: face up on the table for one of the two
Speaker 1: sets of partners. So that means the human champion in
Speaker 1: this case has the most information in the game because
Speaker 1: they know their own cards, they know their partners cards
Speaker 1: the dummy hand, in other words, and that means that
Speaker 1: by extension, they can also know what cards their opponents hold,
Speaker 1: though they don't know which opponent holds which card. Right Like,
Speaker 1: if they look at their hand and say I don't
Speaker 1: have the Queen of Spades and the dummy hand doesn't
Speaker 1: have the Queen of Spades, that means one of the
Speaker 1: two people I'm playing against definitely has the Queen of Spades.
Speaker 1: They can make that conclusion, they just don't know which
Speaker 1: person has it. Anyway, the humans had to play a
Speaker 1: series of eight hundred deals in sets of ten, so
Speaker 1: eight sets total, and in the end, the score reflected
Speaker 1: how many tricks the human player won against the robot opponents.
Speaker 1: None of this, by the way, includes the AII mentioned.
Speaker 1: This was just the baseline, so it was seeing how
Speaker 1: many times did the human win over the robot players.
Speaker 1: Then the AI system called Nook did the exact same
Speaker 1: thing that the humans did. From why I understand it
Speaker 1: played the same hands against the same robot opponents, so
Speaker 1: Nook was essentially just trying to do the same thing
Speaker 1: that the human champions did. And then what they did
Speaker 1: was they they compared the performance of Nook against the
Speaker 1: performance of the human champions, and it turned out that
Speaker 1: Nook had a higher success rate uh in sixties seven
Speaker 1: of the eighties sets, it scored better than the human
Speaker 1: champion did, which means it had an eight three victory
Speaker 1: rate over the human champions when competing against these robot opponents. Notably,
Speaker 1: Nook didn't go head to head against humans in this tournament,
Speaker 1: so this wasn't humans versus Nook. It was humans versus robots,
Speaker 1: the Nook versus robots and then seeing which one did
Speaker 1: the best. So clearly we are not quite at the
Speaker 1: point where we can definitively say that AI can play
Speaker 1: bridge better than the best humans can. That would require
Speaker 1: a system that can engage in the whole game of bridge,
Speaker 1: which includes things like bidding and deception before that can
Speaker 1: ever happen. But it's still pretty neat. And that's it
Speaker 1: for the tech news for Tuesday, March two. If you
Speaker 1: have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, please reach out to me. The handle
Speaker 1: on Twitter is tech Stuff h s W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an
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