Speaker 1: Strange News Daily. It's a production of I Heart Media.
Speaker 1: In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and
Speaker 1: a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some
Speaker 1: news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway
Speaker 1: to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map.
Speaker 1: These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolin,
Speaker 1: and this is the Strange News Daily, our first story today.
Speaker 1: The newest branch of the US military may find its
Speaker 1: first battle happening not in orbit, but on the ground.
Speaker 1: That's correct, The US Military may lose this Space Force
Speaker 1: trademark to Netflix. The United States Space Force is very young.
Speaker 1: It was only announced two years ago and as of now,
Speaker 1: it has yet to engage in any military operations. However,
Speaker 1: its first battle may actually be against Netflix. You see,
Speaker 1: they have a show out now that is also called
Speaker 1: Space Force. Netflix debuted this Space Force series, which is
Speaker 1: kind of the Office meets sci fi. It's comedy, and
Speaker 1: it came out on May twenty nine of this year.
Speaker 1: Should go ahead and note that the name of this
Speaker 1: streaming show has no relation to the newest organization of
Speaker 1: the US military. Although the U s Space Force did
Speaker 1: unveil their Flag just a few weeks before the show
Speaker 1: dropped on Netflix. However, because they have a common name,
Speaker 1: the U. S. Space Forces First Battle might actually be
Speaker 1: a trademark war. They're going to be fighting it out
Speaker 1: in court rather than in low Earth orbit. It appears
Speaker 1: that attorneys for Uncle Sam haven't done very much to
Speaker 1: secure the Space Force name as a registered trademark. Netflix
Speaker 1: Is Legal team, on the other hand, has been much
Speaker 1: more aggressive. They have lockdown the rights to this name
Speaker 1: in multiple countries. While the Netflix show was the first
Speaker 1: thing to come to fruition, we do have to admit
Speaker 1: that the actual U. S. Space Force was a long
Speaker 1: time in coming. It was announced by current President Donald
Speaker 1: Trump way back in March of The military branch was
Speaker 1: officially established as a formal organization in December nineteen, and
Speaker 1: Netflix greenlit the ten episode comedy series Space Force in January.
Speaker 1: Of our second story today, who doesn't love a convenience store?
Speaker 1: What do you usually buy when you trod into one?
Speaker 1: Maybe a cold drink, maybe a snack, a bag of chips.
Speaker 1: Here in the US, you probably get your gas from
Speaker 1: a convenient store. But what about insurance? It seems the
Speaker 1: convenience store chain seven eleven is partnering with a Japanese
Speaker 1: insurance company to sell life insurance throughout Japan. This allows
Speaker 1: the insurance company to avoid face to face sales due
Speaker 1: to ongoing fears of the coronavirus outbreak. Customers at the
Speaker 1: seven eleven will be able to enter all the information
Speaker 1: they need through multifunction machines that will be installed in
Speaker 1: seven elevens twenty thousand stores. The application process through m
Speaker 1: S and a D Insurance Group Holdings is going to
Speaker 1: be complete once they pay the insurance fee literally at
Speaker 1: the cashier's counter. Customers will also be able to do
Speaker 1: some of this process on their phones or on their
Speaker 1: home computers. Life insurance is normally sold face to face
Speaker 1: in person with customers, and seven eleven will be the
Speaker 1: first convenience store chain in Japan to actually sell life insurance.
Speaker 1: This is one of many solutions that insurance companies are
Speaker 1: considering as they try to keep sales going during the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic. Our third story today comes to us
Speaker 1: courtesy of at Wolven on Twitter. Today, IBM has drawn
Speaker 1: a line in the digital sand In a letter to Congress,
Speaker 1: IBM CEO Arvind Krishna confirmed that IBM will no longer
Speaker 1: work on facial recognition and analysis. This is a stunning declaration.
Speaker 1: It came in a letter stating three key policy areas,
Speaker 1: emphasizing ongoing and growing concerns about the responsible use of
Speaker 1: technology on the part of law enforcement, specifically Krishna Rights quote.
Speaker 1: IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or
Speaker 1: analysis software. IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses
Speaker 1: of any technology, including facial recognition technology, offered by other vendors,
Speaker 1: for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights
Speaker 1: and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with
Speaker 1: our values and principles of trust and transparency. We believe
Speaker 1: now is the time to begin a national dialogue on
Speaker 1: whether and how facial record nition technology should be employed
Speaker 1: by domestic law enforcement agencies. While this might seem like
Speaker 1: a small, even arcade step to some, it is a
Speaker 1: profoundly significant move to address the serious problems with facial recognition.
Speaker 1: These are not secret problems either. In twenty nineteen, a
Speaker 1: study by the U S National Institute of Standards and
Speaker 1: Technology or in i s T, tested every algorithm on
Speaker 1: two of the most common task assigned for facial recognition.
Speaker 1: The first is what's called one to one matching. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you take a photo of someone and you match it
Speaker 1: to another photo of the same person in a given database.
Speaker 1: This is used to unlock smartphones, or to check passports
Speaker 1: and more. The second test is known as one too
Speaker 1: many searching. This involves figuring out whether a photo of
Speaker 1: a specific person has any match in a database. This
Speaker 1: second tactic is often used by police departments when they
Speaker 1: want to identify subjects in an investigation. What the n
Speaker 1: I s T study found was disturbing. First, for one
Speaker 1: to one matching, most systems had a higher rate of
Speaker 1: false positive matches for Asian and African American faces over
Speaker 1: Caucasian faces, sometimes by a factor of ten or even
Speaker 1: one hundred. What that means in plain English is they
Speaker 1: were more likely to find a match when one did
Speaker 1: not actually exist. This did change for face recognition algorithms
Speaker 1: developed in Asian countries. They produced very little difference in
Speaker 1: false positives between Asian or Caucasian faces. Third, the algorithms
Speaker 1: developed in the United States were all consistently pretty terrible
Speaker 1: at matching Asian, African American, and Native American faces. Native
Speaker 1: Americans suffered the highest fall positive rates in the study.
Speaker 1: Fourth in one too many matching systems had the worst
Speaker 1: false positive rates for African American women. That means this
Speaker 1: population is put at the highest risk for being falsely
Speaker 1: accused of a crime. The n I s T study
Speaker 1: did not include technology from Amazon, and that's an important exclusion.
Speaker 1: Amazon is one of the few big tech companies that
Speaker 1: is selling facial recognition software to law enforcement, and this
Speaker 1: in I S T study is comprehensive, but it is
Speaker 1: far from unique. Multiple other studies have confirmed that race
Speaker 1: and gender bias and facial recognition technology exists and is pervasive.
Speaker 1: Krishna's letter continues, noting that quote artificial intelligence is a
Speaker 1: powerful tool that can help law enforcement keep citizens safe,
Speaker 1: but vendors and users of AI systems have a shared
Speaker 1: responsibility to ensure that AI is tested for bias per
Speaker 1: picularly when used by law enforcement, and that such biased
Speaker 1: testing is audited and reported. While facial recognition tech is
Speaker 1: a booming industry, and while it has shown vast improvement
Speaker 1: over the past decade or so, this technology is often
Speaker 1: provided by private companies with very little in the way
Speaker 1: of oversight, and very little in the way of regulation.
Speaker 1: In his letter, Krishna also advocates for police reform. He
Speaker 1: argues that more police misconduct cases need to be put
Speaker 1: under the purview of federal court and that Congress should
Speaker 1: make changes to the qualified immunity doctrine. He also says
Speaker 1: that quote we need to create more open and equitable
Speaker 1: pathways for all Americans to acquire marketable skills and training.
Speaker 1: To this end, he suggests that Congress considers scaling up
Speaker 1: the p Tech school model to a national level, as
Speaker 1: well as expanding eligibility for PELL grants. That's all. Now,
Speaker 1: we've been asking you to chime in with suggestions for
Speaker 1: stories you think your fellow listeners should know about. To
Speaker 1: hit us with your best or worst huns and bad
Speaker 1: dad jokes, and to tell us about your personal experience
Speaker 1: with COVID nineteen. Let us know what's going on in
Speaker 1: your neck of the global woods by tagging hashtag Strange
Speaker 1: Daily on Twitter. You can also reach out to me directly.
Speaker 1: I'm at Ben bullin hs W on Twitter or at
Speaker 1: Ben Bolan on Instagram. Thanks as always to our super
Speaker 1: producer Dylan Fagan, our research associate Sam T. Garden, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, thanks to you for tuning in. I'm Ben Bullin.
Speaker 1: We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, stay strange.