WEBVTT - Tech News: The Chatbot Wars are Coming 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.360 Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.600 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.639 And how the tech are you? It is time for 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:24.000 the tech news for Tuesday, February seven three and I'm 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.239 late to the game on talking about this, but here 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.000 in the United States, one of the big news stories 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.760 at the end of last week was the discovery of 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:36.879 and subsequent destruction of a Chinese made balloon that drifted 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:41.280 across the United States West coast to East coast. US 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.000 officials say the balloon was a spy vehicle. Chinese officials 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.839 claim it was for science rather than surveillance. It's all 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.600 a moot point now, because late last week the US 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.280 military shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.800 It's turned into a giant political matter here in the 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.480 United States because conservatives are arguing that the President was 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.520 indecisive and delayed too long before taking action. The president 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.560 says he gave the order to shoot down the balloon 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.000 as soon as the military deemed it would be safe 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.520 to do so and would have the best chance of 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.760 retrieving the balloons payload to make sure you know that, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:20.039 in fact, this is like an espionage device, and I'm 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.280 sure we're gonna see both major parties here in the 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.520 United States try to use this event to earn political 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.880 points with their respective basis, and it's all very exhausting, 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.800 so I ain't gonna give it any more air time. 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:38.920 Like I don't object to incorporating politics into tech stories, 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.400 because the two do have overlap. I mean, one affects 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.800 the other and vice versa, but this is getting to 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.920 a point where he gets so petty. It's just exhausting. However, 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.040 what I will do is plan a future episode about 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:57.480 spy balloons and their history, because that's actually really neat stuff. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.320 So we will do that and and avoid the kind 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:06.160 of weird argumentative politics that we're hearing right now in 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.080 the States. Last week, I also talked about how a 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:12.760 lot of publicly traded tech companies here in the US 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.440 we're holding earnings calls with their investors. On Thursday, we 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.400 got the Triple A calls, that would be the Amazon, 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:25.040 Alphabet and Apple earnings calls, and I suspected the call 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.640 showed that these companies are facing some challenges to have 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.480 investors a little concerned in some cases. Apple reported that 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.280 it had a revenue drop, so not a loss. It 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.399 didn't operate at a loss, just a drop in revenue. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.320 But this would be the first revenue drop for Apple 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.520 in more than three years, and investors really don't like 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.880 it when winning streaks are interrupted. Sales were down five 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.560 percent quarter over well year over year for quarter four 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.600 of two, and that was a larger drop than what 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.680 analysts had predicted, and the fault was largely laid at 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:04.080 the fee of China, specifically having manufacturing facilities in China 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.680 shut down during COVID nineteen outbreaks, and considering the reported 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:10.520 conditions of what it's like to work at one of 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.560 these places, that all feels really gross to me. I 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.200 don't think China has taken the right approach to handling 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.560 COVID nineteen. But at the same time, it's really hard 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.800 for me to say, ah, man, we weren't able to 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.080 make as many do dads because the government was trying 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.920 to stop the spread of a highly infectious disease. So 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.520 I guess what I'm saying is that, ultimately I'm glad 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.160 I'm not the one who has to make those kinds 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.240 of decisions. Anyway, on top of the falling sales, Apple's 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:42.279 profit fell by thirteen percent. Now again, Apple was still profitable, 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.680 it just wasn't as profitable as it was this time 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.840 last year. Apple did not indicate that it would be 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.880 following the big tech trend of laying off thousands of employees, however, 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.960 so that's good news for Apple employees. Amazon's news was 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:01.400 even worse in that the company reported that you one 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:03.640 three operating profit might turn out to be a big 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.600 old goose egg a zero in other words, so no 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:12.760 operating profit in the beginning of according to current estimations. 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.080 Amazon executives have said that customers have been cutting way 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.080 back on spending and that was causing a massive hit 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.839 to Amazon's revenue, and that even the layoffs and downsizing 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:30.560 in Amazon is not counteracting that that drop in customer purchases. 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.680 And you know, we're talking about eighteen thousand jobs cut 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.200 at this point in Amazon. One area where Amazon is 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.240 doing okay is in its cloud computing services, where the 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.400 company actually saw higher revenues than analysts had predicted. But yeah, 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.279 the pandemic days of rampant online shopping have all really 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.599 slowed down as people are being more frugal with their 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:58.560 spending during this undefined economic downturn. But I call it 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.679 a recession by an We have Alphabet, the parent company 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.920 of Google and YouTube, and some other companies as well. Overall, 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.159 the companies saw declines in both revenue and profit, which 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.919 again is not a huge surprise because Alphabet draws the 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.680 vast majority of its revenue from digital ads, and digital 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.200 ad spending is down. In fact, according to Alphabet, the 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.440 ad revenue fell by four percent in general and eight 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:29.040 percent on platforms like YouTube and like Amazon. Alphabet has 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.719 also slashed a lot of jobs twelve thousand in the 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:36.159 case of Alphabet, So the call did not present a 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.839 lot of surprises. None of these did, I would say, 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.799 But yeah, kind of confirms stuff that we already either 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.800 new or suspected. Other tech companies are also cutting back 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.920 by eliminating more jobs. Dell Technologies recently revealed it will 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.800 be laying off around five percent of its workforce. That 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:58.640 would be more than six thousand, five hundred employees. So why, well, 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.040 we all know why. It's the economic situation that again 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.160 we don't have a word for. We just call it challenging. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.520 And while I hate seeing more tech employees face the 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.479 possibility of being out of a job. I can't say 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.080 that I'm really surprised by Dell's move. I mean, we 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.080 all know that consumers have cut way back on spending 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.440 in general, and that includes buying new computers. People are 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.479 sticking with their devices longer rather than updating or replacing them, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.640 so the hardware cycle has changed a bit. This impacts 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.840 companies like Dell big time. On top of that, Dell 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.480 has seen some other competitors in the consumer PC space 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.440 gain ground on them and get more competitive. So it's 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.000 not just that Dell is selling fewer PCs. It's also 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.880 that other companies are starting to catch up to Dell 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.320 or to really be a competitive threat. So it's a 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.520 double whammy. And Boeing is yet another company in tech 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.359 that has announced it will be holding layoffs. The company 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.520 said it plans to eliminate around two thousand jobs, primarily 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.280 into part meants like human resources and finance, and then 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.480 other departments like engineering and manufacturing are going to be protected. 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.680 Boeing blends to outsource HR and finance roles to a 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:15.760 company called Tata Consulting Services that is part of a 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:20.800 larger conglomerate that is located in India. But unlike the 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.280 other companies I mentioned so far, Boeing actually plans to 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.680 grow its workforce this year. So last year Boeing hired 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.640 on fifteen thousand new employees, so still a net gain 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.280 even when you consider the two thousand layoffs coming up, 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:38.200 and this year they plan on adding another ten thousand 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.520 by the end of the year. So really this sounds 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.480 more like Boeing is putting its eggs in the in 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.320 the products and services basket with engineering and manufacturing, and 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.440 that this move is more about shifting finance and human 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:55.040 resources focused parts of the business to outsourced jobs. So 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:59.200 it's really more like a reorg than anything else, at 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:03.080 least as of right now. Now we're about to enter 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.600 into the AI slash chat bought part of our episode, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.600 because that's been the big news so far in Tree. 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.840 So we all know about chat gpt in the various 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.360 concerns and criticisms and wild experiments that are related to it, 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.080 and you likely know that Microsoft had previously invested a 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.720 billion dollars in the company behind chat GPT called open Ai. 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:26.360 At least you would know that if you listen to 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.480 my episode about open Ai. Also Microsoft is going to 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.920 invest a lot more in open Ai, up to around 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.600 ten billion dollars according to at least some reports. Well 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.439 later today, Microsoft is holding a press event. In fact, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.839 might have already happened by the time you are listening 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.160 to this podcast. But since it hasn't happened yet as 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.319 of when I'm writing the darn thing, the best I 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.520 can do is talk about what people think is going 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.840 to happen. That is that Microsoft is going to make 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:58.880 an announcement that it's incorporating chat GPT into being search 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.440 in some way. Now, Google yesterday, in a kind of 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:07.160 panicked and rushed way, unveiled its own chat bought called Bard. 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.120 We had already heard about Bard, but at the time 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:14.199 I was talking about it was referenced as Apprentice Bard 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.559 and it was only an internal tool. So Google has 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.360 now already launched a closed and private beta for a 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.720 select group of users to experiment with Bard, and plans 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.319 to open this up further to a lot more people 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.840 in the near future in the coming weeks, for example. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.560 So Google also plans a press event that will now 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.680 happen tomorrow on Wednesday. So it looks like Microsoft and 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.520 Google are facing off in the AI chat bought space, 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.920 particularly with regard to how it could be interwoven with search. Now, 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.320 I've already talked about how this approach could ultimately cause 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.480 a whole lot of problems online, mainly through cutting off 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.240 vital Internet traffic to various websites that depend upon search 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:58.000 results to get visitors. But yeah, it looks like this 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.040 fight is coming to us pretty quickly. The two chat 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.040 bots will be based off different language models open aies 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.480 g PT or generative pre train transformer is based off 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.320 the transformer model that Google pioneered. Now, in this case, 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.240 transformer doesn't refer to either a robot in disguise or 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.280 a device that can step voltage up or down. Instead, 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:23.960 a transformer in this sense is a machine learning model. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.040 Google introduced it in two thousand seventeen, and it's very 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:32.280 popular model in machine learning applications. Google's language model is 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:36.640 called Language Models for Dialogue Applications or land up. So 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.080 you have GPT on one side and lambda on the other, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.959 things do get a little more muddeled. However, Google has 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:47.080 invested several hundred million dollars in an AI company called Anthropic, 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.920 which was founded by some folks who had formerly been 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.800 researchers at open Ai. So both Microsoft and Google are 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:59.680 launching AI powered tools that share some common DNA. I 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.920 have a been invited to the beta for Google, so 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.880 I haven't seen what that looks like yet, and the 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.320 Microsoft event hasn't happened as the time I'm recording this, 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.560 so I can't really comment on what these look like 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.880 or how they perform. And I am sure that people 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.600 at Google and Microsoft are already aware of the potential 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.160 dangers this AI could pose to business practices. So I'm 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.880 not talking about, you know, doomsday prophecies about AI destroying 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.120 the world or anything. Instead, I'm talking about AI eliminating 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.640 an advertising platform that Google has depended upon for most 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:35.120 of its existence. I'm sure they have contingencies in mind. 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.840 I just don't know what those happened to be, but 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.920 it should be fascinating to see how this unfolds. Also, 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.360 if it gets good enough, it'll put me out of 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.280 a job. I mean, why would you listen to me 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.280 when you can just have your tech questions answered by 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.599 a super fast robot unless it's you know, from a 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.720 Southern charm Okay, I I gotta take a break from 0:11:54.760 --> 0:12:07.760 being charming. We will be back after these messages. Okay, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.920 we're back, and we're actually back with another AI chat 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.600 bought story. So the United States is not the only 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:18.840 country that's obsessed with this idea. By Do, the enormous 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.280 company in China, announced today that it has been testing 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:27.440 a chat butt that it calls Ernie bot. There's no 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.720 word of this chat bot has a roommate that's called 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:35.319 bert Bot, but Ernie has been tested internally for some time, 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.480 it seems, and these tests are scheduled to conclude sometime 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.280 in March. Presumably at that point by Do will unveiled 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:48.400 the chat bot into some sort of public facing phase 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.439 where people will get a chance to use it outside 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:56.000 of by Do itself. Ernie actually is an acronym. It 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:00.960 stands for Enhanced Representation through Knowledge integrat SHILT, and it 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.840 sounds like it has a lot of the same sort 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.640 of features that we've seen in stuff like chat GPT 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:11.360 as well as doll E, in that it is said 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.920 to be able to generate text based on user prompts, 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.840 so you can ask it questions and it will generate 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:22.200 a response by drawing information from around you know, its databases, 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.360 and it can also do things like create images based 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:27.920 on prompts, so you could tell it to create a 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:33.400 serene landscape with a windmill next to a river or something, 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.840 and it would do it. I think it will only 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.560 be a matter of time before someone creates a roundtable 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.080 discussion session with these various chat bots all talking to 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.840 each other and have them discuss some sort of topic 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.679 like you know, which Nintendo game is the best, or 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.400 how to achieve world peace or something like that. It's 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.640 just a matter of time. Even if it's done as 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.160 a parody, I expect we'll see it. In fact, I'm 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.000 sure we'll see lots of parodies where people will purposefully 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:08.319 create fake conversations between these different chat bots for comedic purposes, 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.760 and yet they will not reveal that it's all fake, 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.360 because that's the world we live in, where you can't 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.600 tell that something satire because there's no indicator to let 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.280 you know that, in fact, it is satire. It's just 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.160 passed off as the truth, so it is, in other words, 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:29.280 a lie. Yeah. I have thoughts about this. Now. I've 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.160 got a couple of gaming stories to cover, both of 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.080 which are a little rough. First up, Meta announced last 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.920 week that it's going to sunset the VR game Echo 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.000 VR coming this August. This game will having a relatively 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:45.160 small player base, has received critical and popular acclaim, and 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.280 the folks who do play it are said to be 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.840 really loyal fans, so this announcement came as a disappointment. 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.720 Meta explained that the reason behind the decision is that 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:57.160 the company wants to create other games and VR experiences, 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.600 and maintaining a game requires resources that the company would 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.480 rather focus on new opportunities. Now that does make sense. 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:09.280 Any online focused game is going to require ongoing support 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.480 or it will eventually fail, and considering that the player 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.720 base is down to the low ten thousands according to 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.640 The Verge, you can understand why Meta would want to 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.800 shift to something else that could potentially have a bigger impact. 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.520 Even if revenue isn't a concern right now, it's bound 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.640 to be at some point. Unfortunately, this kind of decision 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.119 is also the sort of thing that can discourage adoption 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:35.440 because buying into VR is expensive, The equipment is costly, 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.560 and that's before you even start buying games for it. 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.040 So if you're thinking about getting into VR, but then 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.920 you hear that one of the more praised titles is 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.600 getting shut down later this year, you might find yourself, 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:53.000 you know, reviewing the situation, as Vegan would say. John Carmack, 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.720 who until recently was a consultant for Meta on All 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.400 Things VR, voiced his disappointment with this decision. He said 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.920 that Meta is taking something away from the community and 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.200 that never really goes over very well. And I agree 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.360 with that. If you want to learn more about this, 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.520 I recommend the article in The Verge titled Here's why 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.640 Meta is shutting down Echo VR. The ViRGE also reports 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.520 that Amazon is phasing out fifty three games and it's 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:23.760 Luna cloud streaming service this month. So it's got this 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.560 video game streaming service called Luna, and fifty three titles 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.520 are going to leave in February over different dates. Back 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.600 in December, Luna rotated out another forty titles. Amazon says 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.920 the game strategy is to consistently switch out titles to 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.440 keep the service fresh. That makes sense to a degree 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.720 to me, but it does mean that gamers might find 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.760 themselves focusing more on titles that are good for short 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.760 sessions and don't involve long protracted storylines because you never 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.240 know when that title is gonna go away. There's nothing 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.000 like being halfway through saving the world and then finding 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.920 out you can't access your game anymore, and what happens 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:03.120 to a world y'all think of the world. Well, according 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.520 to game Rant, Luna Plus has around a hundred ninety 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.800 titles on its service, so fifty three games. That means 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:11.960 we're looking at around a little more than a quarter 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.520 of all the the game titles leaving the service this month. 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.560 I'm curious how popular the services. I'll try to look 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.159 into it. I'm thinking about doing an episode about the 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:26.160 different cloud based gaming services out there and any information 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:28.879 we have about how well they're performing. In some cases, 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.320 we don't really have any information at all, but we've 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.520 definitely come a long way since the Uyah. Finally, last 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.320 week I talked about Nothing Forever. That's the AI generated 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.280 Seinfeld episode simulator that was broadcasting on Twitch. It uses 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:46.440 GPT to create the dialogue. Well, they had a real 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.520 problem recently in that uh, the character Larry, the standing 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.600 for Jerry Seinfeld, was doing his stand up and started 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.679 spouting off transphobic and homophobic thoughts as part of his 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.440 stand up routine. This should not have ever happened and 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.000 twhich banned the channel for fourteen days as a result 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.600 of It turns out the issue was that the GPT 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.280 model they had been using, which was codenamed Da Vinci, 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.639 had problems at some point, and the the model just 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.959 stopped creating content, so you just had these empty rooms. 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:21.000 So the team decided to roll back to an earlier 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.199 version of GPT called CURI, and this one lacked the 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:30.639 content moderation blinders that the Da Vinci model had, and 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:35.960 so CURI was more lax and allowing problematic content to 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:37.920 come through, and that's when we got the transphobic and 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:42.000 homophobic content. So the creators say they do plan on 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.920 coming back. They're going to put more content moderation features 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.000 in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.160 because obviously they don't want harmful content to come out 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.199 from their little fun diversion. Uh, And that this was 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.560 just a mistake based upon going to an earlier version 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:03.040 of this language model. So it was really unfortunate. I'm 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.600 glad that they're addressing it, and hopefully we don't see 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:08.480 anything like this in the future. But it is one 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.359 of the the downsides to AI that's pulling from across 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.399 the internet to generate its content. All Right, that's it. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.400 That's the news for Tuesday, February seven three. Hope you're 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.560 all well. I'm doing pretty well myself. If you would 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.520 like to contact me with some future ideas for shows 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:29.719 that I should do, you can do so on Twitter. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.040 The handle for the show is tech Stuff hs W, 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.640 or if you prefer, you can download the I Heart 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.480 Radio apps free to download, spree to use. You can 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.280 type in tech stuff in a little search bar. It 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.240 will navigate over to the tech stuff page and there 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.760 you'll see a little microphone icon. If you click on that, 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.240 you can leave a voice message up to thirty seconds 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:51.400 in length and request your topic of choice and I'll 0:19:51.400 --> 0:20:00.400 talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.080 I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.600 visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.200 you listen to your favorite shows.