Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, John van Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It is time for the tech news for
Speaker 1: the week ending on November one, twenty twenty four. And
Speaker 1: here in the United States, we are rapidly approaching election day,
Speaker 1: which is Tuesday, November fifth. Now, for those of y'all
Speaker 1: eligible to vote in the United States but who have
Speaker 1: not yet done so, I urge you to get out
Speaker 1: there and vote. Do your research, look into candidates and
Speaker 1: the issues in your area so that you can make
Speaker 1: an informed decision, and go deeper than just sites that
Speaker 1: are run by politically aligned outlets. Look for information that's
Speaker 1: as objective as possible. It's very easy to fall into
Speaker 1: a trap of misinformation or bias, and that goes for
Speaker 1: any side. I'm not picking specific sides here, it's true
Speaker 1: across the board, but for goodness sakes, get out and vote.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most important components in maintaining a democracy,
Speaker 1: and the very act of voting is under assault these days.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but I would rather
Speaker 1: continue to have a say, even if it's just a
Speaker 1: tiny say in how the country I live in operates.
Speaker 1: Now that we have that out of the way, let's
Speaker 1: get to a whole bunch of tech stories that relate
Speaker 1: to the election, because there are tons of those this week,
Speaker 1: which is no big surprise. First up, some voters in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania received a strange text message this past weekend stating
Speaker 1: that they had voted in the November fifth election, even
Speaker 1: though they hadn't done that yet. Now, obviously that could
Speaker 1: stir up some pretty intense confusion and negative emotions. If
Speaker 1: you received a message saying that you had already voted
Speaker 1: and you had not already voted, clearly you would suspect
Speaker 1: hanky and panky going on. Now, in this case, it
Speaker 1: wasn't any sort of hanky panky at the actual polling locations.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like the state department messed up. Instead, it
Speaker 1: was with an organization called All Vote, and All Vote
Speaker 1: had previously gotten into hot water for texting registered voters
Speaker 1: to alert them that they were not actually registered to vote,
Speaker 1: when in fact they were. County officials in different regions
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania have warned that that particular approach was a
Speaker 1: hoax designed to gather personal information from people that would
Speaker 1: later be exploited against those people. Max Marvin and Kate
Speaker 1: Bernard reported on this issue in the Philadelphia Inquirer in
Speaker 1: a piece titled Pennsylvania residents got phony texts claiming they
Speaker 1: had voted already Ignore them, officials say so. They also
Speaker 1: quoted a contracted spokesperson for All Vote named Charlotte Climber.
Speaker 1: Climber has claimed that this is all just an innocent
Speaker 1: but incredibly dumb and careless mistake made when All Vote
Speaker 1: employees entered some sort of typo into their system. So
Speaker 1: apparently the original idea was that the organization would text
Speaker 1: folks who had voted in the twenty twenty two election
Speaker 1: and direct them to voting resources for the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four election. Now, why All Vote felt the need to
Speaker 1: inform people that the vote they had cast two years
Speaker 1: ago had in fact been counted is a bit beyond me.
Speaker 1: That ship has sailed Like I guess the message would be,
Speaker 1: you voted in the election, meaning the twenty twenty two election.
Speaker 1: Here are some resources for you. But because it left
Speaker 1: off the twenty twenty two part, it seemed to indicate
Speaker 1: that people had already voted in this election. Now, that
Speaker 1: seems to me like that messaging was unnecessary in the
Speaker 1: first place. And if that messaging had been left out,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole you had voted in the election bit,
Speaker 1: there'd be nothing to talk about with this story. It
Speaker 1: would just be a text message saying, hey, here's some
Speaker 1: resource for you for voting in this election, and then
Speaker 1: there'd be nothing to talk about. Climber has said the
Speaker 1: founders of All Vote are progressives, but declined to give
Speaker 1: more information about them, saying that there's a concern for
Speaker 1: their safety and that people who might be hard right
Speaker 1: leaning voters might do them harm. This is where I
Speaker 1: say that while I consider myself a progressive, so I
Speaker 1: would consider myself aligned with the people who are at
Speaker 1: least alleged to be behind All Vote. I also think
Speaker 1: All Votes operations are not great like they're not done properly.
Speaker 1: They were poorly thought out and executed, and if the
Speaker 1: owners of all Vote are actually sincere, they're likely to
Speaker 1: cause more harm to their cause than to help it
Speaker 1: through these kinds of operations. Unless this was an actual
Speaker 1: attempt to confuse and discourage people in say hard right counties,
Speaker 1: from voting, in which case that's just despicable, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't care what side you're for. At least according to
Speaker 1: this spokesperson, the people who own all vote believe in
Speaker 1: the same things I generally believe in politically, I don't
Speaker 1: believe in discouraging people through deception so that they don't vote.
Speaker 1: I think that's reprehensible. Whether or not that's what was
Speaker 1: going on, I don't know. It could be that this
Speaker 1: really was an innocent mistake and just a poorly thought
Speaker 1: out campaign in the first place. Either way, a great
Speaker 1: way to use technology to discourage the participation of the
Speaker 1: democratic process. Speaking of unintentional tech issues affecting the election,
Speaker 1: less talk about Colorado. So it seems that the Colorado
Speaker 1: Department of State committed a major booboo, or, as Todd
Speaker 1: Feathers of Gizmoto called it, a bit of an uh oh.
Speaker 1: This comes from an article written by Todd Feathers. It's
Speaker 1: titled Colorado agency improperly posted passwords for its election system online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not good. So what actually happened? Well, the Department
Speaker 1: of State had a link to a spreadsheet on its website,
Speaker 1: and the spreadsheet included some hidden tabs, so upon casual glance,
Speaker 1: there's nothing hinky going on. However, you can just choose
Speaker 1: an option to unhide tabs, in which case one of
Speaker 1: those tabs contained passwords for the state's voting machines. Yikes,
Speaker 1: I hear you say. Now, it's bad. There's no sugar
Speaker 1: coating it. That's bad. That's a terrible breach of security etiquette.
Speaker 1: It is, not, however, catastrophic. Why Well, for one thing,
Speaker 1: these voting machines actually require two passwords. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like one of those things you see in movies where
Speaker 1: you have to have two keys to activate the nuclear
Speaker 1: arsenal or whatever, and you have to have two people
Speaker 1: across the room from each other insert and turned the
Speaker 1: keys simultaneously to activate it. Well, in this case, the
Speaker 1: voting machines require two separate passwords, and those passwords are
Speaker 1: not collected together. So while a set of passwords were
Speaker 1: available according to the spreadsheet, the other set was not available.
Speaker 1: So even if you had access the spreadsheet and revealed
Speaker 1: the tabs and you wrote down all the passwords, you
Speaker 1: would still only have one half of the password component.
Speaker 1: But that's not at all like in order to actually
Speaker 1: use these passwords. You would need to have physical access
Speaker 1: to the voting machines themselves. Now, in order to do that,
Speaker 1: you would need credentials to be able to get access
Speaker 1: to the areas where the voting machines are stored. They're
Speaker 1: also under a constant video surveillance, so you'd have to
Speaker 1: deal with that as well. Plus, Colorado uses paper ballots,
Speaker 1: so there's a physical paper trail of every vote cast.
Speaker 1: Voters verify that their ballots are correct before they cast
Speaker 1: their vote, so even if someone did access the machine
Speaker 1: somehow and messed with them, the paper trail would remain
Speaker 1: a resource for verifying the votes that had been cast.
Speaker 1: So while the mistake is a giant whoopsie and absolutely
Speaker 1: should not have happened, the voting process itself is still reliable.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's not stopping some people from using this
Speaker 1: to bring into question the results of any votes that
Speaker 1: are made in the state. In other words, this is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to undermine confidence in the results of the
Speaker 1: election ahead of time, so that no matter who wins,
Speaker 1: you can have some wiggle room in case your side
Speaker 1: didn't win. If your side did win, you say, hey,
Speaker 1: look the system worked, and if your side didn't win.
Speaker 1: You're like, this is because our system was compromised. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm here to remind y'all that for democracy to fail,
Speaker 1: you don't actually have to prove that the system is broken.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is convince enough people that
Speaker 1: the system is broken to reduce their confidence in the system,
Speaker 1: and then democracy dies. That's how that works. Reporter Barbara
Speaker 1: Ortute has a piece in AP News that's titled report
Speaker 1: says crowdsourced fact checks on X failed to a dress
Speaker 1: flood of US election misinformation. Now, I think that comes
Speaker 1: as a surprise to absolutely no one. Before Elon Musk
Speaker 1: carried us SYNC into the HQ of what was then Twitter,
Speaker 1: I maintained that was foreshadowing that he would eventually sink
Speaker 1: the company, which hasn't happened yet. But goodness gracious, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the band is playing while the Titanic is sinking. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the site had content moderators, and they did stuff like
Speaker 1: act on tweets that were spreading misinformation, like they could
Speaker 1: label tweets as saying this is inaccurate or this is misinformation,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. Those days, however, are pretty much gone.
Speaker 1: X relies very heavily on the user community to flag
Speaker 1: posts that contain misinformation. You know, these are folks who
Speaker 1: are not necessarily trained to do that, or it might
Speaker 1: include people who are actually interested in spreading misinformation to
Speaker 1: start with. Now, to be clear, this community based tool
Speaker 1: existed before Elon Musk took over Twitter. This is not
Speaker 1: like Twitter did this in instead of content moderation. Now,
Speaker 1: originally this tool was called birdwatch. But while it used
Speaker 1: to be a supplemental way for Twitter to monitor and
Speaker 1: moderate content, it's now taking a more prominent role because
Speaker 1: content moderation is not really a big thing over at
Speaker 1: X these days, there aren't that many people left to
Speaker 1: actually do it. The Center for Countering Digital Hate took
Speaker 1: a look at the community notes tool on X and
Speaker 1: found that seventy four percent of the tweets the posts
Speaker 1: that they sampled had community notes that were inaccurate or inadequate.
Speaker 1: The sample size was two hundred and eighty three posts
Speaker 1: that had community notes attached to them. That means that
Speaker 1: two hundred and nine of those posts were not accurate.
Speaker 1: Now X maintains that the community notes feature is a
Speaker 1: useful tool and has pointed to other academic research, saying
Speaker 1: that it's a trustworthy source of information. So this is
Speaker 1: not to say that definitively the tool is broken or
Speaker 1: not performing as intended, but that this one nonprofit group
Speaker 1: says that that's the case. For more information and a
Speaker 1: more thorough look at all this, I recommend reading an
Speaker 1: article by Ashley Bellinger on Ours Technica. It's titled Toxic
Speaker 1: X users sabotage community notes that could derail disinfo report says. Okay,
Speaker 1: while we're on the subject of Elon Musk, which is
Speaker 1: tangential to X, I suppose in PRS Bobby Allen has
Speaker 1: a piece titled and Elon Musk backed political group is
Speaker 1: posting fake Kamala Harris ads on Facebook. So yeah, we've
Speaker 1: got more misinformation and election news headed your way. My
Speaker 1: apologies that we knew this was going to happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been talking about for months. But in this case,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has provided significant funds to a group called
Speaker 1: Building America's Future. This group, in turn, has operated a
Speaker 1: Facebook account that is called Progress twenty twenty eight, and
Speaker 1: this account has published campaign ads that look like they're
Speaker 1: from Kamala Harris's campaign, but in fact they are purposefully misleading,
Speaker 1: both to trick the viewer into thinking that the ads
Speaker 1: are actually from Kamala Harris's campaign, and also by misrepresenting
Speaker 1: Harris's position on various topics. Now, according to the First Amendment,
Speaker 1: there's nothing illegal going on here. There's nothing that says
Speaker 1: you have to be truthful when you're advertising with political speech. Now, sure,
Speaker 1: you got to be truthful when it comes to advertising
Speaker 1: products and services. For example, if I were to endorse
Speaker 1: something but it turned out I never actually used whatever
Speaker 1: it was I was endorsing, I could potentially face a
Speaker 1: pretty massive fine for that. Like I could get hit
Speaker 1: hard for doing that, My company could get hit hard
Speaker 1: for doing that. But you know, when it comes to
Speaker 1: informing people about, you know, where politicians stand on specific topics,
Speaker 1: truth just isn't a requirement here in the US. Further,
Speaker 1: using the name Progress twenty twenty eight for the group
Speaker 1: further obvious skates who's actually behind the campaign. So it
Speaker 1: would be easy for someone to believe this is a
Speaker 1: real ad from the Harris side. And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: there are limitations for this kind of thing, I mean,
Speaker 1: the use of deep fakes, you know, where you're making
Speaker 1: it seem like someone is saying or doing something that
Speaker 1: they actually did not do. That could be a violation
Speaker 1: of policies. But an ad that ultimately does a similar
Speaker 1: thing but without the use of deep fakes, that's fine,
Speaker 1: which just makes me curious where the line is. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got tons more information about technology, including within the elections,
Speaker 1: but also other stuff. But first, let's take a quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. Meta held its third quarter earnings call this week,
Speaker 1: and CNBC's Jonathan Vanian has a piece all about the
Speaker 1: Reality Labs part of that call, which was just one part.
Speaker 1: There were there were more things to talk about than
Speaker 1: just Reality Labs. But you might remember that Reality Labs
Speaker 1: focuses on all things mixed reality, so that includes virtual
Speaker 1: reality and augmented reality as well as the metaverse. You know,
Speaker 1: this supposed future of our computational approach, and you know,
Speaker 1: this has really served as a great way for Meta
Speaker 1: to spend tons of money while having to assure investors
Speaker 1: that the metaverse is very much going to happen and
Speaker 1: it will be the future of computing, and that's something
Speaker 1: that stakeholders remain skeptical about. I think for good reason.
Speaker 1: That's my personal opinion. I remain unconvinced that the metaverse
Speaker 1: is going to be a significant thing. I really doubt
Speaker 1: it's going to be the new means of interacting with computing.
Speaker 1: I just don't think that's true, but it could be wrong.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the call revealed that Reality Labs had a
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent increase in revenue, reaching two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy million dollars this past quarter. That's no small shakes.
Speaker 1: Two hundred seventy million dollars is a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, Reality Labs most of the money they
Speaker 1: make is through product like the Meta VR headsets or
Speaker 1: the augmented Reality ray bands that Meta has co branded
Speaker 1: with ray Ban. Those are the source for revenue in
Speaker 1: the most for the most part, for the Reality Labs division,
Speaker 1: and two hundred and seventy million dollars that's a lot
Speaker 1: of money, but it's not as much as analysts had
Speaker 1: been hoping for. They had estimated that Meta would hit
Speaker 1: around three hundred and ten million dollars in revenue from
Speaker 1: the Reality Labs unit. Further, the division as a whole
Speaker 1: chalked up an overall operating loss. So yeah, it made
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy million dollars, but it's spent way
Speaker 1: way more than that. How much more? Well, the operating
Speaker 1: loss is at four point four billion with a B dollars,
Speaker 1: So yeah, you make two hundred and seventy million, but
Speaker 1: you spent more than four point four billion. Yikes. Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: continues to insist that vr AR and the metaverse are
Speaker 1: the future, and he might be correct. Right, just because
Speaker 1: it doesn't appeal to me and doesn't really seem to
Speaker 1: fit with my concept of what computing really is all about,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean anything at all. I'm just one person,
Speaker 1: but I've yet to see a demonstration of this technology
Speaker 1: that convinces me that the pros actually outweigh the cons.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, feeling immersed is amazing, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. Like, if you can experience a really immersive
Speaker 1: presentation of some sort, that can be really fun and entertaining.
Speaker 1: But wearing a headset for more than, you know, like
Speaker 1: half an hour is a pretty hard sell for me,
Speaker 1: as well as for a lot of other people. And
Speaker 1: you know, people who like me are prone to motion sickness.
Speaker 1: If the is not done really, really well, it's a
Speaker 1: super hard sell. It doesn't matter how good the experience
Speaker 1: is right, like, sometimes our tolerance is pretty low, and
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine using this kind of technology to do
Speaker 1: work right. Maybe leisure activities, but work is hard to
Speaker 1: imagine in this particular context. Now, it could very well
Speaker 1: be I'm just suffering under the problems of a very
Speaker 1: limited imagination and that this really is the future. I
Speaker 1: just remain very skeptical. Jason Kebler of four oh four
Speaker 1: Media has a piece that's got a great headline. The
Speaker 1: headline is Zuckerberg, the AI slop will continue until morale improves.
Speaker 1: That's a great play on a popular joke that's typically
Speaker 1: about flogging anyway. As you might suspect, Kebler is not
Speaker 1: a huge fan of AI generated content flooding various social platforms,
Speaker 1: but he quotes Zuckerberg who said during that earnings call quote,
Speaker 1: I think we're going to add a whole new category
Speaker 1: of content, which is AI generated or AI summarized content,
Speaker 1: or kind of existing content pulled together by AI in
Speaker 1: some way. And I think that's going to be just
Speaker 1: very exciting for Facebook and Instagram and maybe threads or
Speaker 1: other kind of feed experiences over time. End quote. So
Speaker 1: that's all direct quote, including like the verbal stumbling now
Speaker 1: in full disclosure, I actually don't mind using AI to
Speaker 1: summarize something that I have already read in order to
Speaker 1: like refresh my memory of the most important points, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like using it like a note taking app.
Speaker 1: I don't mind doing that, but I do think it's
Speaker 1: still vital to actually read the content first and not
Speaker 1: just rely on an AI generated summary, because sometimes those
Speaker 1: are not accurate or they misidentify what the most important
Speaker 1: points are. I have less than zero interest in having
Speaker 1: AI generated content populate my social media feeds as it stands.
Speaker 1: I hate that a recommendation algorithm decides which posts I
Speaker 1: see and when I see them, because I often miss
Speaker 1: out on important, timely stuff because Meta thinks that I
Speaker 1: should see that Facebook post later on, maybe sometimes weeks
Speaker 1: later after it's been posted. Like I posted a picture
Speaker 1: of me having voted. I believe that was on October
Speaker 1: seventeenth or so. So anyway, it was not long after Georgia,
Speaker 1: my area of Georgia had started doing early voting, and
Speaker 1: I was still getting people just seeing that picture for
Speaker 1: the first time and liking it this week, more than
Speaker 1: a week after I had done it. So that tells
Speaker 1: me that the recommendation algorithm is not serving this up
Speaker 1: in a timely manner. So I don't want the stuff
Speaker 1: that my friends post to be buried even further under
Speaker 1: AI generated crap. You know, I'm tired of not being
Speaker 1: able to see the things that my friends post. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are times where someone appears to disappear from my
Speaker 1: life entirely. But it's not that they're gone and they're
Speaker 1: not posting or anything. It's that Meta has just decided
Speaker 1: that I don't need to see their updates unless I
Speaker 1: actually go to their page, and even then I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily going to see it in chronological order. And to
Speaker 1: think that even this limited engagement could be limited even
Speaker 1: more with AI generated junk is really upsetting. So is
Speaker 1: Meta just trying to sever relationships between real life friends. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true. I don't think that's what
Speaker 1: Meta's goal is. What the company is actually trying to do,
Speaker 1: is what it's been doing for years, is trying to
Speaker 1: keep you on its various platforms for as long as
Speaker 1: possible in order to serve you more ads and to
Speaker 1: make more money. And if your friends just aren't enough
Speaker 1: to keep you glued to Facebook or you know whatever, Well,
Speaker 1: by golly, we'll just have the bot's slave away and
Speaker 1: the content minds to create stuff that does keep you there,
Speaker 1: which is pretty gross. Oh and while Meta is looking
Speaker 1: at a more than four billion dollar operating loss on
Speaker 1: the reality Labs division, it's also looking to spend even
Speaker 1: more money, largely on the AI side of things. So
Speaker 1: according to CNBC, Meta plans to raise the low end
Speaker 1: of its capital expenditures guidance for twenty twenty four up
Speaker 1: to thirty eight billion dollars, So that's up a full
Speaker 1: billion dollars from what it was before. Earlier, the low
Speaker 1: end for expenditures for this year was going to be
Speaker 1: thirty seven billion. Now the top end is forty billion,
Speaker 1: which remains unchanged from earlier in the year. So really
Speaker 1: the margin has just decreased, right, It's going to be
Speaker 1: somewhere between thirty eight and forty billion dollars, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely not thirty seven that's too little. Zuckerberg says next
Speaker 1: year will be even more dramatic, which kind of is
Speaker 1: in line with what he's been saying for the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. And as I have said repeatedly on
Speaker 1: tech stuff, AI is expensive and running AI operations in
Speaker 1: the cloud costs a whole whole lot of money. You
Speaker 1: need a lot of data centers, you need specialized processors.
Speaker 1: This racks up the cost of operation very quickly. It's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I actually favor having AI
Speaker 1: processing capabilities built into chips that are in consumer devices
Speaker 1: and moving at least some or hopefully all of that
Speaker 1: AI processing to the end device, because one that speeds
Speaker 1: things up considerably because it's just handling your calculations, not
Speaker 1: everybody's two. It vastly improves security and privacy because you're
Speaker 1: not constantly beaming your information to some server farms somewhere.
Speaker 1: As you engage with an AI application, it's not being
Speaker 1: held in some server farm. It's not being used to
Speaker 1: train the next generation of large language models. It's just
Speaker 1: you interacting with your device. So I much prefer that
Speaker 1: approach to AI interactions than the cloud based ones. But
Speaker 1: that's really a topic for another time now. Like reality labs,
Speaker 1: the AI costs are something Zuckerberg doesn't really shy away from.
Speaker 1: He just wades right into it. He says it's a
Speaker 1: necessary cost in order to establish the infrastructure for future platforms,
Speaker 1: and again he might be right, like, maybe this is
Speaker 1: the future and he's just getting the work done early,
Speaker 1: and it's very painful because it's very expensive and it's
Speaker 1: not paying off right away, but that in the long
Speaker 1: run it sets the groundwork that allows Meta to prosper.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, the market has been a little critical.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the earnings call, in after market trading, the
Speaker 1: stock price for Meta took a bit of a dip.
Speaker 1: So it seems to me that investors are getting a
Speaker 1: little anxious and tired of these reports about the company
Speaker 1: spending so much money on reality labs and AI when
Speaker 1: the payoff for those investments is pretty far down the road. Personally,
Speaker 1: I think in general that preparing for the long term
Speaker 1: is a better approach than just focusing on the short term. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel conflicted about this because I do
Speaker 1: think that if you're going to really invest in a
Speaker 1: company's future, being willing to do that and know that
Speaker 1: you're not going to see returns right away takes a
Speaker 1: lot of bold decision making and ultimately can be the
Speaker 1: best thing for the company. On the flip side, I
Speaker 1: remain unconvinced that the metaverse and AI is really going
Speaker 1: to give Meta the ability to stand apart from other
Speaker 1: competitors in the space, or that the company has established
Speaker 1: that there's a future in that particular type of computing
Speaker 1: in the first place. So double edged sword kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But I would actually like to see more companies take
Speaker 1: a firm stance on yes, this is a painful decision
Speaker 1: in the sense that you know, we're investing money in
Speaker 1: something that's not going to be an immediate payoff, but
Speaker 1: down the road it's going to be the best thing
Speaker 1: for our company. I am really tired of seeing companies
Speaker 1: that almost sacrifice everything for the purpose of getting short
Speaker 1: term gains, because ultimately, I think that ends up corrupting
Speaker 1: companies from the inside, and they ultimately crumble under their
Speaker 1: own weight once they reach a point where you just
Speaker 1: can't do that anymore. Okay, enough about that, But one
Speaker 1: other thing that Zuckerbird brought up during that earnings call
Speaker 1: was that Threads, the Meta operated alternative to Twitter, is
Speaker 1: up to nearly two hundred and seventy five million monthly visitors.
Speaker 1: That is a one hundred and seventy five percent increase
Speaker 1: from last year, and he also said the app is
Speaker 1: seeing more than one million new users sign up every
Speaker 1: single day. Now, that, along with a general migration away
Speaker 1: from X formerly known as Twitter, means the gap between
Speaker 1: the two services is beginning to narrow. Analysts from Sensor
Speaker 1: Tower estimate that X has somewhere in the neighborhood of
Speaker 1: three hundred and eighteen million users. Now, I say estimate
Speaker 1: because X is a private company, and as a private company,
Speaker 1: they don't have to share that kind of information. Threads
Speaker 1: is somewhere around two hundred and seventy five million monthly users.
Speaker 1: So the growth of Threads, along with folks who are
Speaker 1: ditching X, has changed the landscape quite a bit. Meta's
Speaker 1: CFO Chief financial Officer Susan Lee has said that the
Speaker 1: company doesn't expect Threads to be a significant revenue driver
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. Rather, the focus will be on
Speaker 1: growing the platform further before really exploiting the heck out
Speaker 1: of it. Now, if I were a betting man, I
Speaker 1: would say that Meta will eventually sprinkle some of its
Speaker 1: targeted advertising ferry dust on Threads, and it will probably
Speaker 1: happen in the not too distant future, and it will
Speaker 1: increase Meta's already significant hold in the online advertising space. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I expect X's decline to continue simply because Elon Musk
Speaker 1: cannot help himself and consistently makes decisions that drive away
Speaker 1: many users of X to other platforms include Threads and
Speaker 1: blue Sky and mast it on. I think the one
Speaker 1: advantage X has is that no other singular microblogging platform
Speaker 1: has the dominance that Twitter once had, So either users
Speaker 1: are adopting multiple platforms and kind of spreading their time
Speaker 1: across them, or they're having to choose one of several
Speaker 1: different offerings and just be satisfied with the fact that
Speaker 1: they're not going to see everything they used to see
Speaker 1: because other people have gone to competing services. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of my view of where things are right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take another quick break, but I still
Speaker 1: have plenty of tech news. This week was shock full, y'all,
Speaker 1: so let's take a quick break. We'll be back with
Speaker 1: some more headlines. Kylie Robson of The Verge has a
Speaker 1: piece titled open AI's search engine is now live in
Speaker 1: Chat GPT, which I'm sure is for concern for some
Speaker 1: folks over at Google. Now. To be clear, this feature
Speaker 1: is currently only available to paid subscribers of Chat GPT.
Speaker 1: It will later roll out to other users, like, you know,
Speaker 1: enterprise users or people who are working in educational institutions.
Speaker 1: As Robison explains, the feature is integrated directly into the
Speaker 1: chat gpt experience, so it's not like a separate tool
Speaker 1: or tab or something. Users when they're putting in a
Speaker 1: query and conversing with the chat gpt bot will sometimes
Speaker 1: receive suggestions for various websites that relate to whatever the
Speaker 1: topic of discussion is, so they'll get suggestions for resources
Speaker 1: that they can use to further answer their questions. Robison
Speaker 1: points out that chat GPT's search results do not contain
Speaker 1: promoted results, so that might be a big advantage over
Speaker 1: folks who previously had used Google. You can, and also,
Speaker 1: by the way, directly ask chat gpt to give you
Speaker 1: web results, so you can ask it to give you
Speaker 1: those those websites from the beginning and just treat it
Speaker 1: like it's a search engine. And by not including promoted results,
Speaker 1: that's a shot across the bow at Google, because that's
Speaker 1: Google's bread and butter. I'm guessing anyone who has used
Speaker 1: Google for like the last decade has noticed that sponsored
Speaker 1: results appear at the top of search results. Lists now.
Speaker 1: In the very old days, the general expectation was that
Speaker 1: the most relevant, highest quality search results would appear at
Speaker 1: the very top of Google's results page. But for the
Speaker 1: last several years, the very top of that list is
Speaker 1: frequently dominated with paid ads that lock in those spots,
Speaker 1: And even though Google does tag those search results as
Speaker 1: being promoted search results, some folks still bristle at how
Speaker 1: this feels like preferential treatment for what is often thought
Speaker 1: of as a scholarly like ibbe. As if you went
Speaker 1: to the library and you wanted to look up books
Speaker 1: that were about a specific topic, and you found out
Speaker 1: that the results of all the books in the library
Speaker 1: that do relate to that topic have been ordered not
Speaker 1: by author name or whatever, but by way of who
Speaker 1: has paid the library to have their book promoted the most.
Speaker 1: That's not cool. Open ai claims it does not intend
Speaker 1: on selling advertising the way Google does, but that does
Speaker 1: raise questions as to how AI will generate revenue from
Speaker 1: free users who use this tool, because presumably free users
Speaker 1: will be able to interact with this in the not
Speaker 1: too distant future. Another question that remains is how open
Speaker 1: ai will navigate the choppy waters when it comes to
Speaker 1: referencing or pulling from various resources online. Most media companies
Speaker 1: would very much prefer if you were to go to
Speaker 1: their website and read stuff on their own web pages.
Speaker 1: That's one of the many reasons I actually recommend folks
Speaker 1: check out the articles that I reference in these episodes. BENJ.
Speaker 1: Edwards of Ours Technica, as an article titled Google CEO says,
Speaker 1: over twenty five percent of new Google code is generated
Speaker 1: by AI. That's really incredible that more than one quarter
Speaker 1: of the code generated within Google is coming from AI tools. Now,
Speaker 1: according to Google executives, all these operations are still ultimately
Speaker 1: overseen by actual human beings. AI might generate some of
Speaker 1: that code, but humans review and then approve that code
Speaker 1: before it can be deployed. Now, the purpose of this
Speaker 1: structure is to streamline coding and speed things up, presumably
Speaker 1: while also cutting down on the need for quite so
Speaker 1: many people coding for Google in the first place. And
Speaker 1: as Edwards explains, not everyone is super happy about how
Speaker 1: AI is taking such a prominent role in coding. There
Speaker 1: are critics who worry that relying so heavily on AI
Speaker 1: means we could end up with apps and code that
Speaker 1: has more errors in it more vulnerabilities interduced into the
Speaker 1: code that are difficult to detect, meaning that anyone deploying
Speaker 1: that code could be creating opportunities for hackers, and maybe
Speaker 1: the hackers are using their own AI tools to identify
Speaker 1: and then exploit those vulnerabilities. In fact, I think that's
Speaker 1: just a guarantee. I think AI coding and AI hacking
Speaker 1: that's the reality we face now. It's going to be
Speaker 1: a seesaw like relationship moving forward. I recommend reading BENJ.
Speaker 1: Edwards article in full for a deeper look into the story,
Speaker 1: including how some studies have shown that folks who have
Speaker 1: used AI to help code will simultaneously end up believing
Speaker 1: that their code is superior to other people's code because
Speaker 1: they used AI tools to make it, while also introducing
Speaker 1: more bugs into their own work. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like creating this false sense of superiority or our expectation.
Speaker 1: Jonathan M. Gitlin, also of ours Tetnica, has another Google piece.
Speaker 1: This one is titled Generative AI is Coming to Google Maps,
Speaker 1: Google Earth Ways and Yeah. It's all about how Google
Speaker 1: is incorporating more AI tools into its various map apps
Speaker 1: to give users more features. Some of this was news
Speaker 1: to me, In fact, quite a bit of news to me,
Speaker 1: even though apparently some of these features have been around
Speaker 1: for a while. So for example, Getland quotes Google's VP
Speaker 1: and general manager of GEO. That's Chris Phillips, who said, quote,
Speaker 1: think of features like lens and maps. When you're on
Speaker 1: a street corner, you can lift up your phone and look,
Speaker 1: and through your camera view you can actually see. We
Speaker 1: laid places on top of your view so you can
Speaker 1: see a business, Is it open, what are the ratings
Speaker 1: for it? Is it busy? You can even see businesses
Speaker 1: that are out of your line of sight. End quote.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that, although I have talked about
Speaker 1: that very use case and augmented reality in the past.
Speaker 1: But I think it's pretty cool, particularly if you're out
Speaker 1: and about somewhere that's new to you and you want
Speaker 1: to find a place that's like open and nottally slammed.
Speaker 1: I actually could have used that. Last weekend, me and
Speaker 1: my party were in Pennsylvania for the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair,
Speaker 1: which now is over, but if you ever get a chance,
Speaker 1: it's a phenomenal renaissance fair. I say that as someone
Speaker 1: who used to work at a Renaissance Fair. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: But after the fair was done on Sunday, we wanted
Speaker 1: to go and eat at a restaurant, and we had
Speaker 1: identified which one we wanted to go to, but by
Speaker 1: the time we got there, we found out the kitchen
Speaker 1: had already closed, and so we were forced to change
Speaker 1: our plans and find somewhere else to grab dinner. Having
Speaker 1: this tool would have told us like, oh, by the
Speaker 1: time you get there, it's going to be too late,
Speaker 1: so don't even bother, and that would have saved us
Speaker 1: some trouble. Anyway, Google is bringing AI enabled search results
Speaker 1: to Maps, so if you just have a general hanker
Speaker 1: in for something but you don't know any more details,
Speaker 1: you can ask Maps and have a little conversation with
Speaker 1: an AI bought to whittle down your options. Check out
Speaker 1: Getland's article to learn more about the upcoming features headed
Speaker 1: to Google Maps and these other tools. Joshua Tyler of
Speaker 1: Giant Freaking Robot has an article titled I attended Google's
Speaker 1: Creator Conversation event and it turned into a funeral. Yikes.
Speaker 1: All right, so this is about an event that Google
Speaker 1: held this week, and Tyler's description of it is pretty
Speaker 1: darn grim. He talks about receiving a tour of the
Speaker 1: Google campus, and it was a tour of a campus
Speaker 1: that was almost completely empty, although the event was happening
Speaker 1: in the middle of a work day. He describes getting
Speaker 1: not one but two security badges before being allowed into
Speaker 1: a secure building, only to have no one actually look
Speaker 1: at or check his credentials once that time came. According
Speaker 1: to Tyler, the attendees of this event consisted of folks
Speaker 1: who worked on independent websites that have been shadow band
Speaker 1: due to Google's changes in its approach to generating search results. Now,
Speaker 1: in case you're not familiar with the term shadow band,
Speaker 1: it means that you're blocking someone or something from your
Speaker 1: online service like a forum or in this case, Google
Speaker 1: search results, and they don't have any knowledge that they've
Speaker 1: been blocked. So the entity is still allowed to make
Speaker 1: posts on the platform. Like let's say that it's a
Speaker 1: social media platform, you could still post to it. The trick, though,
Speaker 1: is that no one is seeing your posts. Yeah, your
Speaker 1: posts are being published, but no one actually gets to
Speaker 1: see them. That way, the entity that's making these posts
Speaker 1: remains unaware that their work is purposefully being withheld from
Speaker 1: the intended audience, and then they're just left to wonder
Speaker 1: why the heck their traffic stats are in serious decline.
Speaker 1: Tyler and other site owners and operators began to answer
Speaker 1: questions from Googlers, So this conversation was really Googler's asking
Speaker 1: the site owners questions, and the owners tried to bring
Speaker 1: up their concerns about how changes to Google's approach had
Speaker 1: disproportionately affected their traffic stats. I recommend reading Tyler's full article.
Speaker 1: It is upsetting, it is sad, and as someone who
Speaker 1: worked for a company that was really heavily depend on
Speaker 1: ranking well and search results, I feel his frustration quite keenly.
Speaker 1: Over in Russia, the government there is trying to force
Speaker 1: Google to reinstate certain YouTube channels, particularly state backed channels
Speaker 1: that are frequently associated with distributing misinformation, particularly about the
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. YouTube has banned those channels for violations
Speaker 1: of the company's various policies, and Russia says that's just
Speaker 1: not cool. So Russia levy to fine against Google, which
Speaker 1: is currently standing at two undecillian rubles. Now I'm pulling
Speaker 1: this from John Broadkin's article in Ours Technica. It's titled
Speaker 1: Russia finds Google an impossible amount in attempt to end
Speaker 1: YouTube bans. So if you're wondering how much is two
Speaker 1: Undecillian rubles if you convert it to dollars, well, Broadkin
Speaker 1: has kindly done that conversion for us, so it's roughly
Speaker 1: the number twenty followed by thirty three zeros in dollars. Like,
Speaker 1: it's more money than the world's gross domestic product. And
Speaker 1: to say that Google will not pay this is of
Speaker 1: course obvious because nobody could pay it. No one, not
Speaker 1: the entire world, has that much money. So it's not
Speaker 1: really a real fine. It's a message to Google saying, hey,
Speaker 1: give us our YouTube channels back. We mean it. Or rather,
Speaker 1: it's a fine that really had a stipulation attached to it.
Speaker 1: So originally this fine was much less than that. But
Speaker 1: if Google refused to reverse its decision to ban the
Speaker 1: channels and to pay the fine, that fine would double
Speaker 1: after a given amount of time. So have you ever
Speaker 1: played the game where you take like two pennies and
Speaker 1: then you double it to see how many times doubling
Speaker 1: it would take before you're dealing with a good deal
Speaker 1: of money. Like if you took two pennies and you
Speaker 1: doubled it for eight rounds, you would end up with
Speaker 1: two dollars fifty six cents in pennies. If you did
Speaker 1: it for sixteen rounds, you've got six hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: five dollars and thirty six cents also in pennies. If
Speaker 1: you did it for thirty two rounds, you would have
Speaker 1: nearly forty three million dollars in pennies. Doubling gets really big,
Speaker 1: really fast, so no wonder that fine is now ginormously huge.
Speaker 1: Google's response, in a large part over the course of
Speaker 1: this dispute has essentially been to pull up Stakes out
Speaker 1: of Russia and to shut down most operations there, including
Speaker 1: like relocating people who work for Google to leave Russia
Speaker 1: and work in other offices. So I suspect we're not
Speaker 1: going to see much movement on Google's behalf here. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got a few recommendations for reading for all of y'all,
Speaker 1: in addition to the articles that I've already mentioned in
Speaker 1: this episode. First up is Eric Berger's piece in Ours Technica.
Speaker 1: It is titled what is Happening with Boeing's Starliner Spacecraft?
Speaker 1: As we have covered on tech Stuff, the star Liner
Speaker 1: has had a really bumpy go of it. A Starliner
Speaker 1: spacecraft successfully delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station,
Speaker 1: but on the way there, the spacecraft experienced problems with
Speaker 1: its thruster systems, and ultimately NASA decided to return the
Speaker 1: star Liner to Earth without the astronauts aboard it. They
Speaker 1: will have to come back home aboard a SpaceX spacecraft.
Speaker 1: At a debriefing designed to address the star Liner as
Speaker 1: it had returned to Earth, the two reps expected from
Speaker 1: Boeing didn't show up. The company has remained silent about
Speaker 1: the star Liner in the weeks following the landing. Two
Speaker 1: months have gone by and we haven't really received any
Speaker 1: updates on it. Berger explains that, you know, here's what
Speaker 1: we know, here's what folks suspect about the spacecraft moving
Speaker 1: forward or maybe not moving forward, and so that one's
Speaker 1: well worth a read. The other piece that I recommend
Speaker 1: reading is Arianna Bindmann's piece in sf gait. It is
Speaker 1: titled a Lot of Demoralized People. Ghost jobs are wreaking
Speaker 1: havoc on tech workers. So this is about how companies
Speaker 1: in general, but particularly in the tech space, will often
Speaker 1: post jobs to various career sites, but those jobs aren't
Speaker 1: really available now. It may be a case that the
Speaker 1: company has already filled the positions in question. It may
Speaker 1: be a case that they were never looking to hire
Speaker 1: in the first place. And the article explains why companies
Speaker 1: do this, and here's a spoiler alert, it's for awful,
Speaker 1: cruel and selfish reasons. I highly recommend reading the article
Speaker 1: if you have need of being really angry at corporations today.
Speaker 1: This is a great way to get very mad at corporations.
Speaker 1: It's also just a very good read in general. It's
Speaker 1: also very important for anybody who might be in the
Speaker 1: job market. If you're someone who has experienced the very
Speaker 1: rough setback of having sent out countless resumes only to
Speaker 1: hear nothing, this practice might be playing a part in
Speaker 1: that this process of posting fake jobs to sites. Understanding
Speaker 1: why that happens can also help explain maybe your lack
Speaker 1: of traction if you've been job hunting and nothing's come back,
Speaker 1: because that can be really demoralizing. It can really add
Speaker 1: to stress and depression if you're constantly putting yourself out
Speaker 1: there but you're not hearing anything back. Well, part of
Speaker 1: the reason of that might be that the companies you're
Speaker 1: applying to didn't actually have jobs available in the first place,
Speaker 1: and this article explains why, so check that out as well.
Speaker 1: That's it for me. I hope all of you had
Speaker 1: a fantastic week. For those of you who were out
Speaker 1: there trick or treating with the kiddo's or whatever, I
Speaker 1: hope you had a great time. Enjoy some mounds and
Speaker 1: almond joy on my behalf, and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You