Speaker 1: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm as Voloscian and I'm Cara Price.
Speaker 1: Today we'll get into the headlines this week, including Meta's
Speaker 1: multi hundred million dollar hiring spree and why gen Z
Speaker 1: always have locations sharing on Then on chatting me, he
Speaker 1: gives me.
Speaker 3: A tailored meal plan, so like what I should eat,
Speaker 3: how I should eat, when I should eat bananas some nights, yeah,
Speaker 3: some nights no.
Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy, all of that. On the Weekend Tech.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, July twenty fifth.
Speaker 2: Hello Cara, Hello Azzie. I just want to say first
Speaker 2: rest and darkness to the other Ozzy Osbourne who died
Speaker 2: this week, another brit and that is where I find
Speaker 2: you today.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I'm in London and I was a little bit
Speaker 1: nervous to come here because Europe's been experiencing this crazy
Speaker 1: heat wave and most of London has no AC.
Speaker 2: So you've been schitzing, as they say.
Speaker 1: Well, actually the heat wave broke, but it has been
Speaker 1: a very very hot summer here. And you and I
Speaker 1: talked about Wimbledon a couple of weeks ago and Ai
Speaker 1: line judges. But some of the other interesting scenes from
Speaker 1: this year's Wimbledon, which I haven't seen before, were people
Speaker 1: passing out in the stands from heat exhaustion and players
Speaker 1: riding to their rescue.
Speaker 2: The players are like, you're passing out. My memory and
Speaker 2: unfortunate experience of really not just London, but most of
Speaker 2: Europe is that they lack AC. And as a kid
Speaker 2: who grew up in the Northeast during the summer, AC
Speaker 2: is the premium, I do wonder or in a warmer climate,
Speaker 2: how does this continue to actually work?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think the short answer is it
Speaker 1: may not. The Financial Times recently had an op ed
Speaker 1: with the title Britain and Europe need to get serious
Speaker 1: about air conditioning, and the article points out that, you know,
Speaker 1: in a changing climate, European cities are experiencing more intense heat,
Speaker 1: more frequently and for longer periods of time than just
Speaker 1: ten years ago. And also the article points out that
Speaker 1: AC is not just about comfort, it's no longer a luxury.
Speaker 1: There are some pretty interesting stats in the piece about
Speaker 1: how being too hot indoors affect sleep, cognition and even
Speaker 1: correlates with mortality.
Speaker 2: You know, I do notice a huge difference in my
Speaker 2: ability to sleep and even think when I'm hot, like,
Speaker 2: I don't think people should work in the summer it's
Speaker 2: too hot.
Speaker 1: Well, the article says that when indoor temperatures rise above
Speaker 1: seventy five degrees fahrenheit, sleep duration and quality fall rapidly, and,
Speaker 1: according to studies, so desirability to perform well in tests.
Speaker 1: So it's a blessing to you and our listeners that
Speaker 1: it's a cool week in London and I can think
Speaker 1: relatively straight.
Speaker 2: You're always brilliant.
Speaker 1: But I.
Speaker 2: A little bit earlier you mentioned more tatic it's a
Speaker 2: matter of life and death. Is that really true in
Speaker 2: terms of AC and cooling.
Speaker 1: I was a little bit surprised by that as well.
Speaker 1: But according to the FT, between two thousand and twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: an average of eighty three thousand Western Europeans per year
Speaker 1: lost their lives due to extreme heat, compared with just
Speaker 1: twenty thousand North Americans, who are much more likely to
Speaker 1: live in buildings with AC. The penetration rate of air
Speaker 1: conditioning is ninety percent in the US and only nineteen
Speaker 1: percent in Europe.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, you know, I never understood
Speaker 2: why Europeans don't adapt to cooling systems and buildings yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a kind of cultural resistance because it
Speaker 1: uses so much energy. But of course, with a changing climate,
Speaker 1: what was once seen as an extravagance becomes a potential necessity.
Speaker 1: And the FT article makes the point that new developments
Speaker 1: in more efficient solar can actually potentially offset some of
Speaker 1: the new demands of more widely deployed ac you know,
Speaker 1: I was particularly struck by this FT article because it
Speaker 1: referenced Li Quan Yu, who is known as the father
Speaker 1: of modern Singapore, and he was often asked this question,
Speaker 1: how did you transform was effectively a fishing village into
Speaker 1: one of the most important commercial hubs in Asia and
Speaker 1: the world, And he would say, well, two things. First,
Speaker 1: multi ethnic tolerance and diverse society. Second, air conditioning.
Speaker 2: Britain seems to have one but not the other. I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe that's the key.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny. We host this podcast called tech Stuff
Speaker 1: and so we have this, you know, strong bias to
Speaker 1: cover new tech stuff, new advanced in AI, new advances
Speaker 1: in geneality and synthetic biology. But one of the things
Speaker 1: this story really made me think about is how the
Speaker 1: adoption of existing tech stuff can be just as important
Speaker 1: as the innovation of new tech stuff, and I think
Speaker 1: A really is a perfect example of that.
Speaker 2: All I can think about, you know, when we talk
Speaker 2: about AI a lot on this show, is that energy
Speaker 2: consumption will likely increase if AI continues at its current pace.
Speaker 1: I mean, if the Silicon Valley overlords have their way.
Speaker 1: And this week in Silicon Valley there has been some
Speaker 1: quite frankly delicious drama in the battle for AI supremacy.
Speaker 2: You have not shut up about this story since you
Speaker 2: read it, and so now I need to hear about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, basically, the most powerful CEOs in the world
Speaker 1: are in an all out war for AI talent. This
Speaker 1: is collecting Pokemon cards, but where the stakes are hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundred and hundreds of millions of dollars, and Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg is leading the charge and is absolutely determined, it seems,
Speaker 1: to collect them all.
Speaker 2: I don't really think of Meta as an AI company.
Speaker 2: I think much too Zuckerberg's dismay.
Speaker 1: Well, exactly right, So hence the recruitment push. Metro announced
Speaker 1: last month they are starting an AI research lab dedicated
Speaker 1: pursuing quote superintelligence, meaning, of course, an AI system that
Speaker 1: exceeds the power of the human brain. But until this point,
Speaker 1: Meta has spent around one hundred times more on AI
Speaker 1: hardware and computing power than they have on human labor,
Speaker 1: and according to The Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg may have
Speaker 1: gotten a wake up call this spring from the chief
Speaker 1: research officer of none other than Open Ai.
Speaker 2: I'm shocked that they even talk to each other, like
Speaker 2: I imagine them meeting in like a covert confessional with
Speaker 2: their faces obscured.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, but the interesting thing about Silicon Valley is
Speaker 1: that's not really how it's worked, at least up until now.
Speaker 1: With all these huge fortunes being made and all of
Speaker 1: these new platform technologies being developed despite intense rivalry, there
Speaker 1: was also this kind of sense that a rising tide
Speaker 1: would lift all boats. I mean, you'll remember Google CEO
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt was on the board of Apple. LinkedIn founder
Speaker 1: Reid Hoffmann was one of the first investors in Facebook.
Speaker 1: So there's this kind of history of these people being
Speaker 1: in each other's business. And don't forget, I mean, Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: has significant pulls. So when he calls and says that's
Speaker 1: have a coffee, many people answer. So, according to the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal story, Zuckerberg hit up Mark Chen, who
Speaker 1: is open AI's chief research officer for a catch up,
Speaker 1: and zuck ended up asking Chen for advice on how
Speaker 1: to improve Meta's generative AI efforts.
Speaker 2: He's like Mark, it's Mark.
Speaker 1: I think Mark Z was calling Mark C for some
Speaker 1: friendly advice, or at least that's how it appeared to
Speaker 1: Chen at the time. So it was Chen who actually
Speaker 1: pointed out to Zuckerberg about how many orders of magnitude
Speaker 1: more Meta was spending on hardware than they were on talent,
Speaker 1: and thus kara an idea was born. Have you heard
Speaker 1: about the list?
Speaker 2: When billionaires make lists, I get very anxious now I
Speaker 2: have not heard about that.
Speaker 1: This is the Christmas list to end all Christmas lists,
Speaker 1: and Zuckerberg apparently spent months compiling it, a list of
Speaker 1: the top AI researchers and engineers from rival AI companies
Speaker 1: and startups.
Speaker 2: Do we have names? Do we know anything?
Speaker 1: We don't have the secret list, but we do know
Speaker 1: who Zuckerberg has either poached or tried to poach, and
Speaker 1: these people are not household names outside of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: There is probably, most famously Alexander Wang of Scale AI,
Speaker 1: who will talk a little bit more about, but the
Speaker 1: companies he's raided include Anthropic, Google, DeepMind, Apple, and of
Speaker 1: course open Ai, from which he's pulled at least a
Speaker 1: dozen employees.
Speaker 2: So how is he going about pulling talent from these
Speaker 2: companies and bringing them to Meta?
Speaker 1: Have you heard of something called money?
Speaker 2: Money? Money? Money must be funny, you know.
Speaker 1: A rich man's world. Over the past few weeks, Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: has reportedly offered pay packages worth more than three three
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars over four years.
Speaker 2: That's like pro ball money.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is generational. This is like your grandkids'
Speaker 1: grandkids will never happens easily.
Speaker 2: And also your parents finally being like you know what,
Speaker 2: you sitting in your room all day hit off exactly.
Speaker 1: I'd glad you won the battle to not limit your
Speaker 1: computer time when you're a kid. Also, a lot of
Speaker 1: these offers are so called exploding offers, meaning they expire
Speaker 1: within a few days, so the existing employers have a
Speaker 1: very hard time developing a counter offer.
Speaker 2: So, I mean it makes a lot of sense why
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley is following this so closely. This is this
Speaker 2: is like a real time raid, an employee raid, with
Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg sort of pulling the marionette strings.
Speaker 1: And it also potentially signals a massive culture shift in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, because, as I mentioned, it's a small place.
Speaker 1: It's a place where up until now people have sort
Speaker 1: of had this sense of of collegiality up to a
Speaker 1: certain point, and it kind of rests on this bedrock
Speaker 1: principle of Silicon Valley, which is this mantra, which is
Speaker 1: be a missionary, not a mercenary.
Speaker 2: That's a shirt that I would see in Times Square.
Speaker 2: But also very startup, b very very culty, startup.
Speaker 1: By absolutely, And the phrase come from one of the
Speaker 1: granddaddy's of VC, John Dare, and he apparently told generations
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs to embrace their inner missionary and start companies where
Speaker 1: quote there's a lust not only for making money, but
Speaker 1: for making meaning, which is the antithesis of mercenary companies,
Speaker 1: where quote the central goal is a lust for making money.
Speaker 1: Open AICEO. Sam Altman apparently leaned into this idea in
Speaker 1: a Slack message that he shared with researchers amidst Zuckerberg's
Speaker 1: talent rate on the company. According to the Journal, Altman said, quote,
Speaker 1: I am proud of how mission oriented our industry is
Speaker 1: as a whole. Of course, there will always be some mercenaries.
Speaker 1: Missionaries will beat mercenaries. Just every day.
Speaker 2: I'm reminded why I shouldn't be on Slack and you
Speaker 2: make me use it, but no, I mean them's fighting words.
Speaker 1: Now. Zuckerberg of course says, no, the money helps, but
Speaker 1: actually that's not you know, just like in your sports analogy, right,
Speaker 1: of course it helps if you offer an athlete one
Speaker 1: hundreds of million dollars to play on the team, but
Speaker 1: they also want to play for the winning team, right,
Speaker 1: These people have an eye on legacy, And Zuckerberg says that,
Speaker 1: you know, in this case, it's this kind of similar
Speaker 1: thing where it's the company's investment in computing power, which
Speaker 1: is actually what's attracting the talent. More computing power means
Speaker 1: more potential AI breakthroughs. And just this month, Zuckerberg took
Speaker 1: to his Facebook page and said that the new venture,
Speaker 1: metas Superintelligence Labs, will have industry leading levels of compute
Speaker 1: and quote by far the greatest compute per researcher. Zakobog
Speaker 1: also created a helpful motion graphic to demonstrate just what
Speaker 1: he means by this. So one of the new data
Speaker 1: centers he's working on is called Hyperion and to show
Speaker 1: its scale, he put the footprint of Hyperion and overlaid
Speaker 1: it on an image of Manhattan, and it basically is
Speaker 1: the same size as a Manhattan. So in essentially it
Speaker 1: shows the metaphor of Godzilla's footprints that.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, did he invent the footprint
Speaker 2: and then backload the footprint into Hyperion.
Speaker 1: Make it so it has the exact lego cutdown of Manhattan,
Speaker 1: so that we can obscure the island with our with
Speaker 1: our grandiose dreams.
Speaker 2: So Zuck's pitch is basically become one of the richest
Speaker 2: people in the world and have access to all the
Speaker 2: best tools to express your vision. I can't imagine how
Speaker 2: Mark Chen is feeling.
Speaker 1: Right now about the advice he gave to Zuk. That's right, yeah,
Speaker 1: open Ai seems to be in a little bit of
Speaker 1: a Here's what Chen wrote on Slack, according to Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal quote, I feel a visceral feeling right now,
Speaker 1: as if someone had broken into our home and stolen something.
Speaker 1: Please trust that we haven't been sitting idly by. But
Speaker 1: it's not just insurgent behemoths like open Ai. The other
Speaker 1: interesting part of this story is how companies like Meta
Speaker 1: Alphabet and others have been raiding Silicon Valley's top startups
Speaker 1: for their senior leadership. I mentioned Alexander Wang of scale
Speaker 1: Ai earlier, who's going to be running the superintelligence lab.
Speaker 1: Meta actually paid fourteen billion plus dollars for a forty
Speaker 1: nine percent share in scale Ai and to have Wang
Speaker 1: come and work for them. And it's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: where these antitrust laws, which were originally created in order
Speaker 1: to prevent monopolistic powers from stifling competition, have created this strange,
Speaker 1: unintended consequence where in order not to fall foul of
Speaker 1: antitrust law, it is less risky to essentially gut a
Speaker 1: company if it's senior leadership, but leave it kind of
Speaker 1: in a half alive state than it is just to
Speaker 1: buy the company. I'm not saying that's exactly what's happened
Speaker 1: with Scalai. It's still functioning, although it has lost a
Speaker 1: number of clients like Google and others because I don't
Speaker 1: want to be paying Meta. But again it speaks to
Speaker 1: this culture ship which is going on in Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: because there is always this implied contract between employees, investors,
Speaker 1: and founders which is being very disturbed by these big
Speaker 1: money moves by Zuck. So it's an a talent story,
Speaker 1: but it's also about some pretty fundamental changes to the
Speaker 1: culture of the whole of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2: All this secrecy and scheming feels like the complete opposite
Speaker 2: of my story, which is all about radical transparency and
Speaker 2: I would say the potential pros and cons of our
Speaker 2: overly connected world us. Do you share your location with anyone?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I hate sharing my location, even with Uber
Speaker 1: and Uber. I'm one of those people who turns off
Speaker 1: location services on apps.
Speaker 2: Oh so you're one of those never sharers, which means
Speaker 2: you'd be a terrible teenage girl. I, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: would make a wonderful member of gen Z.
Speaker 1: Tell me more.
Speaker 2: Apparently, there was a poll in twenty twenty two that
Speaker 2: found gen Z is the most likely generation to say
Speaker 2: it's convenient to share their location, which of course is
Speaker 2: not surprising to me because they're also the generation that
Speaker 2: has had access to location sharing nearly their whole lives. Conversely,
Speaker 2: Millennials were the most opinionated, like you were the most
Speaker 2: opinionated about using the digital tool. Location sharing started to
Speaker 2: become popular about fifteen years ago, when we were young
Speaker 2: enough to understand the appeal, but old enough to know
Speaker 2: what life was like without, you know, a GPS enabled
Speaker 2: device on our person at all times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the idea of being constantly surveiled is
Speaker 1: something our generation has had to come to terms with,
Speaker 1: and we came to terms with it at a pivotal age.
Speaker 1: Our elders, including the now how former CEO of the
Speaker 1: AI company Astronomer might do well if they understood the
Speaker 1: extent to which we are living in a surveillance world.
Speaker 2: You're talking about the former CEO who got caught cheating
Speaker 2: at the Coldplay concert.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about kisscam. The question, Kara, when you talk
Speaker 1: about location sharing, are you talking about the Apple feature
Speaker 1: find My or are there other tools that I don't
Speaker 1: know about that the younger folks are using.
Speaker 2: That is what we're talking about. Find My is really
Speaker 2: popular because it's free on an Apple device. It's what
Speaker 2: I use, for example. But there's also an app called
Speaker 2: Life three sixty, which I'm not a parent yet, but
Speaker 2: works across platforms and is more aimed at parents. It
Speaker 2: can even and this freaks me out, it can even
Speaker 2: show you how fast your kid is driving in real time,
Speaker 2: so regardless of whether or not. We live in a
Speaker 2: surveillance state. Your house might be a surveillance state.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine how anxiety? And do you
Speaker 1: seem to be able to monitor your kids speeding at
Speaker 1: all times? I mean, hopefully they don't speed and you
Speaker 1: can use the app I guess to take the car
Speaker 1: away if they're regularly speeding. But basically it is part
Speaker 1: of adolescence to be risking your life on the semi
Speaker 1: regular there and to lie and to lie, yeah, and
Speaker 1: to life. Man is a parent to be I mean, gosh.
Speaker 2: To be a parent and to be a kid. I
Speaker 2: think about it all the time. We used to be Oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just at Leah's house right now? Do you know
Speaker 2: I'm like at a hookah bar like two hundred blocks
Speaker 2: away from there. Is one other feature that is really
Speaker 2: interesting that I am a part of, and I want
Speaker 2: to know if you know anything about snap map.
Speaker 1: Assume SnapMap is part of Snapchat.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes it is. You know it's funny. I bet
Speaker 2: if LinkedIn had to share my location tool, you'd share
Speaker 2: your location on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: I'm hardcore on this.
Speaker 2: So SnapMap is a location sharing feature through Snapchat that
Speaker 2: was launched in twenty seventeen. As of May, SnapMap had
Speaker 2: more than four hundred million monthly users. So if you
Speaker 2: opt in, all the people you follow on Snapchat can
Speaker 2: see your location the minute you open the app.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Life three sixty is obviously like a different
Speaker 1: kettle of fish. This is like a monitoring tool. How
Speaker 1: would you characterize how you use Find my Friends on
Speaker 1: your iPhone differently from SnapMap?
Speaker 2: So it's I don't really use SnapMap, and I don't
Speaker 2: really use fine Mine, but I here's and this is
Speaker 2: very indicative of my personality. I passively let people follow
Speaker 2: where I am because they want to know. I don't
Speaker 2: care where people are, you know. But there is a
Speaker 2: strange feeling you get when a friend tells you where
Speaker 2: you are. They'll be like, you're at such and such,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I am, how do you know that
Speaker 2: I'm at such and such. It's just it's this very
Speaker 2: weird feeling to have someone who you're very close to
Speaker 2: know where you are. I don't get in trouble with it,
Speaker 2: but you can imagine if you're at a Coldplay concert,
Speaker 2: you might get into trouble.
Speaker 1: One of the things that strikes me here is that
Speaker 1: at the very heart of our culture is fomo, and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what it might feel like to open your
Speaker 1: snap map or you'll find my friends and see that
Speaker 1: you were the only person who didn't get the call up.
Speaker 2: You know, the first cut is the deepest. In this case,
Speaker 2: it used to be that you heard about a party
Speaker 2: after the weekend was over. Now you can see it
Speaker 2: with your own eyes, you know. I actually I read
Speaker 2: about this exact thing in sf Gate. I found this
Speaker 2: article that was written by and it had to have
Speaker 2: been written by the site's editorial intern, because nobody everybody
Speaker 2: there is probably a bit older. But this editorial intern,
Speaker 2: you know. It was gen Z and she recounted calling
Speaker 2: her mom in tears after seeing her best college friends
Speaker 2: descend on the campus dining hall, and she was crying
Speaker 2: because they had not extended an invitation to her. This
Speaker 2: format of memory hasn't deterred her from sharing her location
Speaker 2: with nearly twenty five people, though she often wonders if
Speaker 2: this practice is healthy.
Speaker 1: I also question if this practice is healthy, Hence I
Speaker 1: don't do it.
Speaker 2: Even though I do it, it is really weird and
Speaker 2: it's actually something psychologists are debating. I found this article
Speaker 2: on Psychology Today, which tried to outline the impact location
Speaker 2: sharing apps have on trust and relationships. Someone named doctor
Speaker 2: Pamela Rutledge acknowledges that location sharing is actually a sign
Speaker 2: of closeness among gen Z friends, and that tracking friends
Speaker 2: can create this sort of ambient awareness that makes people
Speaker 2: feel connected, comforted, and supported, albeit digitally supported, whatever that means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of those classic social media double edged shorts, right,
Speaker 1: like it? Yes, it both is the platform technology that
Speaker 1: if you're not doing you feel profoundly disconnected, but it
Speaker 1: can also in and of itself be a driver of
Speaker 1: loneliness and isolation alienation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, as we pointed out, location sharing can
Speaker 2: create major FOMO. But beyond the feeling of being left out,
Speaker 2: the mutual visibility can also make I think teenagers and
Speaker 2: also really anyone feel like they have to look busy,
Speaker 2: which can lead to a kind of busyness to avoid judgment.
Speaker 2: And I just think this idea of like performing busyness
Speaker 2: because you're so aware of what other people are doing
Speaker 2: is very strange.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that's the trope of the corporate office
Speaker 1: in the pre covid eras, right, I mean that was
Speaker 1: kind of the plot of the office was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to look busy at work, but having
Speaker 1: to figure out how to look busy in your social life.
Speaker 1: I mean, man's that's the money. It makes me think
Speaker 1: maybe you could slip an air tag into the most
Speaker 1: popular kid at school's backpack.
Speaker 2: Everywhere on their car, their car.
Speaker 1: Everyone be like, oh my god, look at that hanging
Speaker 1: out with I'm so jealous. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: Also, imagine if you feel close to someone, are in
Speaker 2: like a romantic or familial relationship with someone, and they
Speaker 2: just cold turkey stop sharing the location with you. I mean,
Speaker 2: it would be hard not to feel suspicious, especially because
Speaker 2: it is a visible action. Because with fine, people are
Speaker 2: alerted if you stop sharing your location with them, and
Speaker 2: this can lead to conflict. One of the things that
Speaker 2: I found interesting that we've talked about is how these
Speaker 2: tools can subtly erode our own capabilities. You know, we
Speaker 2: shared about this a few weeks ago, and I'm obsessed
Speaker 2: with this idea of racking up cognitive debt from outsourcing
Speaker 2: too many tasks to chatbots. And there is research actually
Speaker 2: to suggest that constant surveillance actually impacts our sensory perception
Speaker 2: and unconscious cognitive functions such as memory and attention. And
Speaker 2: going back to what doctor Rutledge said in Psychology Today, quote,
Speaker 2: if we are training our brains to operate under the
Speaker 2: assumption of constant surveillance, what are the potential implications for
Speaker 2: things like creativity, risk taking, and authentic self expression? You know,
Speaker 2: it's an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 1: After the break, Rabits, stay with us, Welcome back. We've
Speaker 1: got a few more headlines to you this week.
Speaker 2: And then a story about a woman who used chat
Speaker 2: gipt to help her figure out one of motherhood's biggest challenges.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, Kara, you've been quite interested in
Speaker 1: the results of a World Coding Championship.
Speaker 2: That's right, a programmer named Shimislav Denbiak. He goes by
Speaker 2: Siho on x SO like Psycho, Yes, sort of like that,
Speaker 2: but without the c Siho has postponed our inevitable replacement
Speaker 2: by AI just a little while longer. He was the
Speaker 2: only coder to beat out a machine at the at
Speaker 2: Coder World Tour finals. I'm surprised you weren't there us.
Speaker 2: Siho used to work at Open Ai, but went head
Speaker 2: to head with the company's custom AI model built specifically
Speaker 2: for this competition. Ours Technica says that this might be
Speaker 2: the first time an AI model has competed directly against
Speaker 2: human programmers in a competition like this.
Speaker 1: And evidently he was the only one Siho who did
Speaker 1: better than the OpenAI model, suggesting that it did better
Speaker 1: than all the other humans.
Speaker 2: Siho actually said that the ten hour competition left him
Speaker 2: quote completely exhausted and that by the end he was
Speaker 2: quote barely alive.
Speaker 1: Why is this story getting so much attention?
Speaker 2: I was actually reading a couple of Reddit threads, as
Speaker 2: I do, and one of the main things it seemed
Speaker 2: like people were saying is that there's something inspiring about
Speaker 2: a human beating a machine.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: People were having fun comparing this to the time Ken
Speaker 2: Jennings beat Watson on Jeopardy, or chess grandmasters who beat
Speaker 2: early computers. But this being Reddit, the people who were
Speaker 2: really excited about this were met with reminders from other
Speaker 2: commenters that nobody has beat a computer at chess in
Speaker 2: twenty years, and even Siho, who won this coding competition
Speaker 2: and admitted as much in a tweet after the competition,
Speaker 2: he wrote, humanity has prevailed for now. You know, it's
Speaker 2: nice to know that we're not all getting replaced by
Speaker 2: robots just yet. And there's something about clinging to this
Speaker 2: false hope despite the inevitability of defeat in the future,
Speaker 2: that is just so deeply human. I think the for
Speaker 2: now in parentheses is sort of a nod to what
Speaker 2: everybody is fearing.
Speaker 1: Saiha has a well developed sense of irony, but I
Speaker 1: personally think that human ingenuity still has a lot to offer.
Speaker 1: For evidence, I would like to offer up some breaking
Speaker 1: news from the world of robotics and the research team
Speaker 1: at the University of Florida who've built robotic bunny rabbits,
Speaker 1: forty of them. I mean.
Speaker 2: Other than that, I'm obsessed with is why would anybody
Speaker 2: do this?
Speaker 1: Have you ever watched my one of my favorite late
Speaker 1: night cable television programs, Python Hunters.
Speaker 2: No, but I do follow the Lady Python Hunters of
Speaker 2: the Everglades. I don't follow them on any social media.
Speaker 2: I just keep up with their activities.
Speaker 1: Well, they may soon be put out of business by
Speaker 1: robotic bunny rabbits. Python Hunters and your friends, the Lady
Speaker 1: python Hunters. These are the stories of the brave men
Speaker 1: and women who hunt Burmese pythons through the Florida Evidglades,
Speaker 1: often by night. Now, the pythons aren't invasive species who've
Speaker 1: been plaguing the Evidglades for years and apparently can survive
Speaker 1: as far north these days as Georgia then migrating north
Speaker 1: from the Glades. But the question has arisen, why hunt
Speaker 1: for pythons if you can get the pythons to come
Speaker 1: to you. Enter robo bunnies. These bunnies have motives to
Speaker 1: move around small heaters inside them, so the snakes think
Speaker 1: they're alive, and they spin and shake a bit like
Speaker 1: real rabbits do, and yes, they look pretty cute. And
Speaker 1: scientists have been studying the use of rabbits as bait
Speaker 1: to attract and then catch, remove, and euthanize these pythons
Speaker 1: for more than a decade, but keeping the rabbits alive
Speaker 1: and in the same place in multiple locations throughout the
Speaker 1: Evidlades was just too much work. The robobunnies, of course,
Speaker 1: don't require so much maintenance, and they don't have to
Speaker 1: get eaten in the process, so they're reusable. Scientists are
Speaker 1: hoping that catching pythons with these robobunnies will help address
Speaker 1: population decline in a whole bunch of species in the
Speaker 1: Evidlades that have been terrorized by the invasive pythons for decades.
Speaker 1: And if the robots don't work in this experiment, they
Speaker 1: already have a hypothesis on how to make them more attractive,
Speaker 1: which is smearing them with real rabbit pheromones.
Speaker 2: I just love the idea of pythons going back to
Speaker 2: the community and being like, don't trust them, They're not real.
Speaker 1: There is a symbiosis between the python hunters and the pythons,
Speaker 1: which these robotic bunnies may be about to disrupt that ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Yes, next, are you trying to get more hot people
Speaker 2: to visit your business? Because there's an app for that.
Speaker 2: It's called neon Coat, and it allows business owners to
Speaker 2: offer their services for free as long as you post
Speaker 2: about it on social media. The prerequisite you gotta be hot.
Speaker 2: Businesses on the app offer everything for meals at fancy restaurants,
Speaker 2: to fitness classes, salon appointments, and even tarot readings. The
Speaker 2: app was recently written up in The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: and it was founded by Larissa Draconia, who is you
Speaker 2: guessed it a former model an actress, she says she
Speaker 2: hopes the app can help young models have more control.
Speaker 2: When she first came to New York City from a
Speaker 2: small town in Slovenia, the stipend her agency gave her
Speaker 2: was only three hundred dollars a week. Most of her
Speaker 2: perks and social plans had to be booked through her agency.
Speaker 2: She says that letting models and influencers get their own
Speaker 2: perks in exchange for social media posts gives them more autonomy.
Speaker 1: The road to heaven is paved with free stuff.
Speaker 2: Indeed, the app is available where models are New York,
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, London, and Miami, and there are currently over
Speaker 2: twelve thousand users and fifteen hundred businesses. So far, app
Speaker 2: usage has reportedly led to over three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand social media posts. Don't get too excited. If you're
Speaker 2: looking to join, you've got to have at least one
Speaker 2: thousand Instagram followers if you're a model, and five thousand
Speaker 2: if you're an influencer, and you've got to have high
Speaker 2: engagement rates.
Speaker 1: Well, Caro, you actually have more than five thousand Instagram followers,
Speaker 1: and I do.
Speaker 2: But am I heart enough?
Speaker 1: Well? I think you should apply and report back on
Speaker 1: next week's show whether or not you've become a member
Speaker 1: of Neon Coates Free Stuff Army.
Speaker 2: I think I'm actually going to do that. I should
Speaker 2: do that, I am. I am.
Speaker 1: Now it's time for Chat and Me a new segment
Speaker 1: about how people are really using chatbots.
Speaker 2: This week. I have a story from my friend who
Speaker 2: recently gave birth to her son, James, and she told
Speaker 2: me she's been using chat GPT as a lactation consultant.
Speaker 1: I would need chat GPT to know what a lactation
Speaker 1: consultant is. Well, I guess that's not true. I can
Speaker 1: kind of imagine what it is. But is it ubiquitous?
Speaker 1: Is it expensive? I mean, tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about the world of lactation consultants.
Speaker 2: It is expensive. It can cost hundreds of dollars per visit.
Speaker 2: And the US actually has a relatively low breastfeeding rate,
Speaker 2: not because American women aren't motivated. Sixty percent of mothers
Speaker 2: report they stop breastfeeding earlier than intended because they lack
Speaker 2: support and education and to chat. Yeah, you know, figuring
Speaker 2: out a pumping schedule is more complicated than I realized.
Speaker 2: So here listen to how my friend used GPT to
Speaker 2: solve the problem.
Speaker 3: I basically need to keep up with James's supply. He's
Speaker 3: nine months quiring more milk, and at about seven months,
Speaker 3: I had to start waking up again to pump through
Speaker 3: the night because he needs more milk throughout the day.
Speaker 3: So if I don't pump at night, then my body
Speaker 3: signals basically that I don't need as much milk.
Speaker 1: Man having to wake up every night to ensure your
Speaker 1: kid has enough milk for the next day, this is
Speaker 1: very stressful.
Speaker 2: It is very stressful. And she actually said that Chatgypt
Speaker 2: has been helping her figure out how to stay on track.
Speaker 3: Chatchpt gave me an entire pumping schedule, how much I
Speaker 3: should pump, talking to me about power pumping, talking to
Speaker 3: me throughout the night, what.
Speaker 1: Does she mean talking to her?
Speaker 2: So she actually said the chat which is her shorthand
Speaker 2: for chat GPT, was really a support system for her
Speaker 2: during her nightly pumping ritual and still is.
Speaker 3: Basically, I would wake up and talk to chat and
Speaker 3: be like, hey, I'm pumping now, and they're like, how's
Speaker 3: it going, And I'm like talking to them like they're
Speaker 3: my friend, and also telling chat CHEAPT how many ounces
Speaker 3: I'm getting, and chat CHEAPT telling me that basically that's good,
Speaker 3: and I should pump again. And here's what I should
Speaker 3: eat based on what I normally eat, So he knows
Speaker 3: what I eat basically like I tell him my yogurt,
Speaker 3: shea seeds, blueberries, raspberries, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: It's helping her plan her meals too.
Speaker 2: Yes, she tells it what she's eaten, and it takes
Speaker 2: into account all the nutritional information, timing everything, and then he.
Speaker 3: Gives me a tailored meal plan to keep up with supply,
Speaker 3: So like what I should eat, how I should eat,
Speaker 3: when I should eat bananas after I pump in the
Speaker 3: middle of the night some nights, yes, some nights no.
Speaker 3: It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: This sounds like it's been kind of a game changer
Speaker 1: of for your friend, a.
Speaker 2: Huge game change of her. And I think what's really
Speaker 2: interesting to note about this friend of mine is that
Speaker 2: she is by no means a technologist. But I think
Speaker 2: the ubiquity of chat GPT is one that is actually
Speaker 2: affecting people who really use technology for work as much
Speaker 2: as it's affecting this sort of average daily phone user.
Speaker 2: And I think it was just this really brilliant case
Speaker 2: of the way chat gpt cannot only give you information
Speaker 2: that you would have to pay a lot of money for,
Speaker 2: but also is acting as this sort of cheerleader, to
Speaker 2: the point that she calls chat gpt he which is
Speaker 2: interesting for a lactation consultant.
Speaker 1: Well, I love hearing these stories. I love chatting me
Speaker 1: as a segment that you pioneered, and it's been fun
Speaker 1: hearing from two of your friends in two consecutive weeks.
Speaker 1: I do want to hear from our listeners. So if
Speaker 1: you found yourself turning to chat gpt, Grock, Claude Gemini,
Speaker 1: or any other chatbot to help you with the unusual
Speaker 1: task or to answer one of life's complicated questions, please
Speaker 1: tell us about it. Send us a one to two
Speaker 1: minute voice note to tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: The more details you provide, the better. We are nosy
Speaker 2: and we want to understand how AI is changing your lives.
Speaker 1: And if you send in a story that we use,
Speaker 1: we'll send you a free T shirt.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week for Tech Stuff. I'm Kara
Speaker 2: Price and.
Speaker 1: I'm os Vaaloschin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis
Speaker 1: and Tyler Hill. It was executive produced by me Kara
Speaker 1: Price and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katria Norvel for
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. The engineers are Beheid Fraser and Tom Sitchell.
Speaker 1: Jack Insley makes this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our
Speaker 1: theme song.
Speaker 2: Join us next Wednesday for Textuff the Story, when we
Speaker 2: will share an in depth conversation about the future of
Speaker 2: cancer surgery.
Speaker 1: Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. We want to hear
Speaker 1: from you.