Speaker 1: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: Os Voloscian and I'm care Price. Today we're going to
Speaker 1: get into a communications network built for the end of
Speaker 1: the world, and why the US is placing tracking devices
Speaker 1: in AI chip shipments. Then on chat to me your
Speaker 1: next makeover brought to you by AI. All of that
Speaker 1: on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, August twenty second. Hello,
Speaker 1: Hello Cara.
Speaker 2: Hi auhs. Do you remember when we talked about the
Speaker 2: half marathon between humans and robots.
Speaker 1: The one in China? I remember, yes, right.
Speaker 2: There are now robot Olympians and I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: humanoid robot games in Beijing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about this, but it does make me
Speaker 1: think of my childhood as an only child. In England
Speaker 1: in the late nineties there were you I know, there
Speaker 1: are originally four terrestrial TV channels, and then a fifth
Speaker 1: was launch called Channel five, and Channel five had slightly
Speaker 1: more racy content, including at seven pm every Friday night
Speaker 1: a show called Robot Wars where various middle aged hobbyists
Speaker 1: would have their extremely slow robots bump into each other
Speaker 1: and then break. But the commentator really brought the energy
Speaker 1: and so it was. It was better than whatever else
Speaker 1: was on TV for me, at least as a child.
Speaker 1: That's a long rambling response. Is what you're talking about?
Speaker 2: You had the viewing taste of a middle aged British man.
Speaker 1: I did, and I still do.
Speaker 2: It's not it's a little bit what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Let me give a little bit of context. So these
Speaker 2: games took place over three days in Beijing, and they
Speaker 2: actually used some of the facilities that were built for
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty two Winter Olympics. There were two hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty teams from sixteen countries, including the US. The
Speaker 2: competitions include soccer, running, kickboxing, which is sort of like
Speaker 2: what you were talking about, basketball, table tennis, and then
Speaker 2: strangely enough, factory work and warehouse warehouse navigation robots.
Speaker 1: Were like, we got this, truly some must watch sports.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting interesting They kind of brought the hype
Speaker 1: with the kickboxing, but then what they're really flexing was
Speaker 1: we got the rick and wac pick and pack. We
Speaker 1: got pick and pack down.
Speaker 2: To a t. Here we go. Yeah, I mean the
Speaker 2: whole thing was definitely designed to wow. The opening ceremony,
Speaker 2: as opening ceremonies do included dozens of robots dancing, doing
Speaker 2: martial arts, playing drums and sink which you might remember
Speaker 2: from the two thousand and eight Beijing opening ceremony. I
Speaker 2: think it was sort of like, look, the robots can
Speaker 2: do what humans did at the Olympics. Let me just
Speaker 2: show you a video because it's inexplicable.
Speaker 1: We have a real man playing a piano facing a
Speaker 1: robot in a silver cape also playing.
Speaker 2: Oh, and here comes a robot in a bucket hat. Oh.
Speaker 1: Now there's real kids jumping around behind the bucket hat robots.
Speaker 2: And they're dancing. Some of the robots don't seem to
Speaker 2: be complying very well.
Speaker 1: This is a surprisingly low rent. In any case, the
Speaker 1: production values are not as high and are not that
Speaker 1: much different Channel five, nineteen ninety eight. I mean there
Speaker 1: is a sense of evolution from the TV show of
Speaker 1: my childhood. I'm kind of surprised, but I actually thought
Speaker 1: that it would be more wow factor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I watched a little bit more of
Speaker 2: the video and it definitely left a bit to be
Speaker 2: desired across the board, you know, in the track and field,
Speaker 2: and android ran full speed into one of the robot operators,
Speaker 2: knocking him down and then he just kept running, which
Speaker 2: you know, when they say the robots are taking over,
Speaker 2: that's what I imagine. Everybody was fine, though, don't worry.
Speaker 2: And the boxing robots, let's just say they miss their target.
Speaker 2: They managed to barely punch each other at all, flailing
Speaker 2: through the air until the refs just gave up and
Speaker 2: were like, this one wins.
Speaker 1: Whatever I saw a Ziemaza has a great newsletter called
Speaker 1: Exponential View, and he put something on his LinkedIn my
Speaker 1: favorite source of truth saying basically, this is a cute story,
Speaker 1: but watch out because by twenty thirty it's going to
Speaker 1: be a thirty five to fifty billion dollar industry. What
Speaker 1: kind of reactions do you see.
Speaker 2: Well, it's obvious that there's still a long way to
Speaker 2: go before robots are capable of outperforming elite athletes or
Speaker 2: outperforming elite dance squads. But that's sort of besides the point.
Speaker 2: Those participating in the games were really there to collect data.
Speaker 2: The robot games were a great way for these teams
Speaker 2: to keep developing robots for more practical applications like factory work.
Speaker 2: But as one robotics professor said to The New York Times,
Speaker 2: robots are still dumb, haush.
Speaker 1: You know, these games are interesting in the fact their
Speaker 1: station in Beijing and that the US participated. It does
Speaker 1: kind of bring to mind this Cold War posturing around
Speaker 1: the space and the nuclear race, and robotics is obviously
Speaker 1: a frontier of the tech race between the US and
Speaker 1: China and an area where China seems to have the
Speaker 1: upper hand, which is probably why these mass spectacle events
Speaker 1: are happening so regularly, because they're great memes and they
Speaker 1: remind the world of that.
Speaker 2: You know, we talk about the AI race a lot
Speaker 2: between the two countries, and I think the feeling is
Speaker 2: that the US still has the upper hand.
Speaker 1: I think that's the narrative that the US has this edge.
Speaker 1: Some people say it's three months, some people say it's
Speaker 1: six months. Some people say it's twelve months. It's a
Speaker 1: small edge. I interviewed Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor
Speaker 1: under President Biden, a few months ago. As you probably remember,
Speaker 1: he is the guy who designed the US policy to
Speaker 1: restrict China's access to advanced chips in order to maintain
Speaker 1: the US edge and AI, and that policy was rolled
Speaker 1: out back in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that interview and He told you that
Speaker 2: despite the launch of deep Seek, which is a very
Speaker 2: efficient Chinese AI model, he felt confident that his policy
Speaker 2: had been the correct one, and he was worried about
Speaker 2: what it might mean for America's edge if it were
Speaker 2: actually rolled back.
Speaker 1: That's right, and actually to get around that policy in
Speaker 1: Nvidia designed a special chip specially for the Chinese market
Speaker 1: called the H twenty, and it was weird as it sounds,
Speaker 1: essentially designed to be less good than the top of
Speaker 1: the line chip so that it could comply with these
Speaker 1: US laws. The H twenty started shipping in early twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, but in April Trump actually went further than
Speaker 1: the Biden administration and banned the export of AGE twenty chips.
Speaker 1: But of course new developments late last month, President Trump
Speaker 1: changed his mind and his administration decided that Nvidia can
Speaker 1: now export the H twenty chips to China, provided they
Speaker 1: pay a fifteen percent tax on all revenues of those
Speaker 1: chips sold in China. There is interesting twist to this
Speaker 1: saga of the chips and oxport controls. Back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: the United States in bargoed Iranian oil, but of course
Speaker 1: shippers and commodity traders figured out how to get past
Speaker 1: the authorities with Iranian oil. And in a kind of
Speaker 1: parallel of that, Reuter's reports that a booming trade has
Speaker 1: opened up around smuggling the most advanced chips to China,
Speaker 1: with smuggled shipments going through third party countries like Singapore, Malaysia,
Speaker 1: and the United Arab Emirates. Roy just did run a
Speaker 1: story about how the US may be starting to crack
Speaker 1: down on this smuggling. It alleges US authorities have been
Speaker 1: secretly putting location tracking technology into advanced chip shipments, shipments
Speaker 1: they fear might be diverted to China.
Speaker 2: So this is like dropping an air tag in your
Speaker 2: girlfriend's purse to find out how she's cheating on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can't think of a better parallel.
Speaker 2: And so this is all in response to the export controls.
Speaker 1: That's right, because even though as I mentioned, the export
Speaker 1: controls have recently been lifted on the Age twenty chips,
Speaker 1: there is still huge demand for the most advanced H
Speaker 1: one hun undred chips in China. And again, Jake Sullivan,
Speaker 1: when who's talking about the deep Seek moment, argue that
Speaker 1: that likely only happened because of the number of advanced
Speaker 1: chips that have already made it to China or that
Speaker 1: were being smuggled into China.
Speaker 2: But I'm confused, like, what is tracking these chips even
Speaker 2: going to accomplish. Isn't it already too late to get
Speaker 2: them back?
Speaker 1: Yes, but of course to build more and more advanced
Speaker 1: AI models, you need more and more chips. So it's
Speaker 1: a little bit like bolting the stable after the horse
Speaker 1: has gone to your point. But it's also a little
Speaker 1: bit like making sure no one leaves the stable door
Speaker 1: open again and the rest of the horses stay on
Speaker 1: the paddock. An anonymous source told Royce's that the trackers
Speaker 1: are basically a way of starting to build legal cases
Speaker 1: against companies that might be breaking the export restrictions.
Speaker 2: And do we know who's like embedding these trackers.
Speaker 1: No, we don't know that. It could be Homeland security investigations,
Speaker 1: it could be the FBI, could be the Commerce Department.
Speaker 1: Sources told Royce's the trackers are hidden in the packaging
Speaker 1: of the shipments, not the chips themselves, but they don't
Speaker 1: know exactly in which part of the shipping process they're
Speaker 1: actually getting embedded. They also don't know when this started
Speaker 1: or to what extent the trackers are part of an
Speaker 1: active investigation. Of course, law enforcement agencies and chip manufacturers
Speaker 1: did not rush to comment on the story.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, it could be someone's ex We
Speaker 2: have no idea. I mean, whose China is that? I
Speaker 2: mean the US government probably, you know, I guess. One
Speaker 2: of the tricks of effective law enforcement is to make
Speaker 2: people believe you are all knowing and all seeing, to
Speaker 2: deter people from even thinking about the pen optacon precisely
Speaker 2: the panopticon. But controlling shipments in international waters via third
Speaker 2: party countries is not an easy feat.
Speaker 1: It's not easy. It's not easy. But it's an interesting
Speaker 1: moment because it's just another example of how the chip
Speaker 1: wars are running so hot right now. I was scrolling
Speaker 1: daily Mail this weekend, and to my surprise, the top
Speaker 1: story on dailymail dot com was about chips.
Speaker 2: You want to know why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Because they love a cat and mouse game. You know
Speaker 2: what this is? This is petty drama. That's why it's
Speaker 2: on the Daily Mail.
Speaker 1: Well, funny enough, the headline was Trump launches Manhattan Project
Speaker 1: as one of America's largest companies is set to be nationalized.
Speaker 1: The stories about how the US government is considering taking
Speaker 1: a ten percent stake in Intel, which coursed a private company.
Speaker 1: That deal would make the government the company's largest shareholder
Speaker 1: and a ten billion dollar plus deal.
Speaker 2: So what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Well, obviously it's not a secret that Intel's been floundering
Speaker 1: a bit. They've fallen behind in chip manufacturing. They've lost
Speaker 1: over half their market cap in less than two years,
Speaker 1: and they've spent apparently forty billion dollars or almost forty
Speaker 1: billion dollars over the past three years trying to compete
Speaker 1: with the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing Company TSMC TSMC.
Speaker 2: But why was this idea even floated to begin with?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's not standard Republican policy to nationalized industries.
Speaker 1: But Trump, I think, is invested in this idea of
Speaker 1: national champions, like companies that punch above their weight and
Speaker 1: kind of achieve America's goals.
Speaker 2: Abroad, something that could be said in any UFC title
Speaker 2: always will appeal to Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's true. So, according to a story
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal, the President met with Intel
Speaker 1: CEO Bhutan about a week ago, and since then, Intel's
Speaker 1: been in discussions with the White House about making this deal. Happen.
Speaker 1: And ironically, this is in spite of the fact that
Speaker 1: Trump had previously been calling on Tan, the CEO, to
Speaker 1: be fired because of his extensive previous investments in Chinese companies.
Speaker 2: So is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Speaker 1: What the nationalization or the semi nationalization? Yes, well, do
Speaker 1: you o an Intel stock that I do not know?
Speaker 1: Then I guess a bad thing for you. No, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it's I mean most of the press that I read
Speaker 1: has been rather unfavorable to this. The New York Times
Speaker 1: ran a story with the subhead the White House deliberations
Speaker 1: about taking a stake in Intel could up end the
Speaker 1: technology sector and further redefined how Washington deals with business. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: editorial in the Wall Street Journal warned that it's a
Speaker 1: big step in the wrong direction for the government to
Speaker 1: involve itself in the private sector. The editorial called it
Speaker 1: quote corporate statism, drawing parallels to the way many authoritarian
Speaker 1: governments exert control over private companies. The journal said that
Speaker 1: political control holds back innovation and investment because companies start
Speaker 1: to rely on government funding.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like the economic version of the cognitive
Speaker 2: offloading we've been talking about on this show.
Speaker 1: That's funny. The argument in the journal is, of course
Speaker 1: you're making these companies lazy by having the government prop
Speaker 1: them up.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly that said, the Chinese tech sector is deeply
Speaker 2: embedded with the government, and that doesn't appear to be
Speaker 2: holding them back. Right, But I take the point on
Speaker 2: authoritarianism on the flip side. What would we do if
Speaker 2: the government collapse and cease to exist, plunging us into
Speaker 2: a dystopian apocalyptic future where we can't rely on technology
Speaker 2: at all?
Speaker 1: What would we do? I have no idea, I think
Speaker 1: as a question that plagues many preppers at night. We
Speaker 1: live in a very embedded technology system, which is hard
Speaker 1: to live without, to say the least. But I'm curious
Speaker 1: why you're going with this.
Speaker 2: All right, So what if I told you there was
Speaker 2: a way to send text messages without cell service or
Speaker 2: internet connections.
Speaker 1: I would be intrigued.
Speaker 2: But it's actually openly available, costs less than fifty dollars,
Speaker 2: and it's already popular with those who think that the
Speaker 2: next frontier is the red planet Mars.
Speaker 1: So this is how Elon and Jeff Bezos communicate with
Speaker 1: each other's service.
Speaker 2: I think it's how Lauren Sanchez and Jeff definitely communicate.
Speaker 2: So I'm guessing you've never heard of a technology.
Speaker 1: Called Laura Laura. I haven't.
Speaker 2: So in radio terms, it stands for long range, and
Speaker 2: in the hacker world, people are using it as a
Speaker 2: way of communicating over long distances at low bit rates
Speaker 2: with really low powered devices aka battery powered.
Speaker 1: I guess you would say, sign me up.
Speaker 2: What was actually really signed me up. What I'm describing
Speaker 2: here is the world of mesh Tastic, which is a grassroots,
Speaker 2: open source communication network that hundreds of people around the
Speaker 2: world have helped build. So hackers have been using this
Speaker 2: technology to build a decentralized texting network kind of like
Speaker 2: old school pages, but instead of a phone network, it
Speaker 2: passes data along a completely ad hoc network of nodes
Speaker 2: set up by people who use it. So once you
Speaker 2: buy your device, the network is free because it operates
Speaker 2: on unlicensed radio frequencies. It's pretty secure since the messages
Speaker 2: or end to end encrypted like signal, except in this
Speaker 2: case you probably wouldn't add another journalist to your group.
Speaker 2: But this means that your messages stay private even as
Speaker 2: they are passed along the network.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned hundreds of people using this service, and
Speaker 1: you mentioned that some of them are interested in colonizing Mars.
Speaker 1: Who are these folks?
Speaker 2: If you're interested in colonizing Mars, you're probably a prepper,
Speaker 2: so prepper adjacent, at least prepper adjacent. So it is
Speaker 2: pretty popular among preppers. It's also useful for people living
Speaker 2: under repressive regimes that limit or cut Internet access. Of course,
Speaker 2: my interest piqued after seeing that Wired interviewed someone from
Speaker 2: a nonprofit that quote advocates for the human exploration and
Speaker 2: colonization of Mars, and what.
Speaker 1: Do they have to share about Laura.
Speaker 2: So this is a real thing. It's a group called
Speaker 2: the Mars Society, and they practice for life on Mars
Speaker 2: by taking weeks long backpacking trips in incredibly remote areas,
Speaker 2: and they're using mesh tastic to simulate what it would
Speaker 2: be like to not rely on earth bound communications infrastructure.
Speaker 2: We could also just do this during the week in
Speaker 2: New York City.
Speaker 1: How long do you think you would survive with just
Speaker 1: meshtastic as your communication?
Speaker 2: One minute, It's not so much what I survived Meshtastic,
Speaker 2: it's what I survive. A hike that is supposed to
Speaker 2: simulate being on Mars.
Speaker 1: And is this I mean, this is a I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: by this. I think it's really cool and I like
Speaker 1: it when people build these kind of systems that are
Speaker 1: outside of the corporate technology sect. Yeah, where do you
Speaker 1: think it goes from?
Speaker 3: Here?
Speaker 2: So it's definitely in its early phases, which makes it
Speaker 2: tricky because the devices have to be within a certain
Speaker 2: range of each other for the network to pass messages along.
Speaker 2: But it's a really enthusiastic to kind of do it
Speaker 2: yourself community. And they've got nodes all over the world.
Speaker 2: They have nodes in different area.
Speaker 1: Codes, as you said.
Speaker 2: Which is you know, really impressive. Given the fact that
Speaker 2: Meshtastik is totally volunteer run, which I think is another
Speaker 2: favorite part of mine, is like, this is a very
Speaker 2: as I said, like DIY community. I also am actually
Speaker 2: the most interested in the Mars society, which are people
Speaker 2: who are really dedicating themselves to understanding what life on
Speaker 2: Mars might look like.
Speaker 1: I love the real world simulation aspects of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's fascinating. So if we can simulate what
Speaker 2: it would look like to live on Mars, then meshtastic
Speaker 2: seems awesome to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I did that story a few months ago
Speaker 1: with Nathaniel Rich who wrote that whole piece about the
Speaker 1: folks who are living in these NASA Mars environments and
Speaker 1: or to simulate life on Mars and so test the
Speaker 1: psychological consequences. One of the things is the bitrate to
Speaker 1: Mars from Earth will be extremely extremely limited, so like
Speaker 1: sending a photo might take like four weeks to come through.
Speaker 1: So these people communicating with their families where they had
Speaker 1: to learn to communicate in just you know, three or
Speaker 1: four words because otherwise it would take too long to
Speaker 1: go back and forth. So it is interesting this idea
Speaker 1: of how might how tech work on Mars.
Speaker 2: And is it even tech you know as we know
Speaker 2: it now?
Speaker 1: After the break, Meta's AI safeguards make us uncomfortable, Digital
Speaker 1: natives practice their penmanship, and Groquei's characters' backstories are exposed.
Speaker 1: Then on chatt to me, people using AI to help
Speaker 1: them with their glow ups. Stay with us back and
Speaker 1: we've got a few more headlines for you.
Speaker 2: This week, and then a story about how chat youbt
Speaker 2: is giving TikTokers a glow up. But first oz I
Speaker 2: want to tell you about some recent news from Sir
Speaker 2: Elon's corner. Of the internet. You're talking about x X,
Speaker 2: but GROC specifically, four or four Media has discovered the
Speaker 2: system prompts use for Groc's different chat bot personas. So
Speaker 2: this means the behind the scenes instructions these personas are
Speaker 2: given that govern how they interact with users. Which of
Speaker 2: these personas appeal to you? Let's go unhinged comedian therapist
Speaker 2: in quotes, a megalomaniac, red panda, or a motivational speaker.
Speaker 1: Well, none of them want to sleep. Why don't you
Speaker 1: tell me about the unhinged comedian.
Speaker 2: So, according to four or four Media, the prompts for
Speaker 2: the unhinged comedian ours follows. Be unhinged and crazy, come
Speaker 2: up with insane ideas, guys jerking off, occasionally even putting
Speaker 2: things in your ass, whatever it takes to surprise the human.
Speaker 2: By the way, I just want to I just want
Speaker 2: to note that these were written in all caps, which
Speaker 2: caps is unhinged.
Speaker 1: So some a real human person has come up with
Speaker 1: this set of instructions and written them in all caps
Speaker 1: to create a persona.
Speaker 2: I don't think AI writes in all caps, so it
Speaker 2: had to be that's the human inside the loop.
Speaker 1: Who's some of the other characters.
Speaker 2: Well, Annie the anime Girl came out earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Her prompts say, you have a habit of giving cute
Speaker 2: things epic, mythological, or over serious names. You're secretly a
Speaker 2: bit of a nerd despite your edgy appearance. And then
Speaker 2: I also mentioned the motivational Speaker. This is some of
Speaker 2: the motivational speakers prompts. The motivational speaker yells and pushes
Speaker 2: the human to be their absolute best. You're not afraid
Speaker 2: to use the stick instead of the carrot and scream
Speaker 2: at the human.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm I'm carrot only. I hate the stick.
Speaker 1: What about you?
Speaker 2: I'm definitely carot only. I'm Cara Karen. I'm not stick
Speaker 2: or carrot. So there's one more that I have for you.
Speaker 2: So there's a conspiracy theorist whose prompts say you spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time on four Chan watching info Wars videos,
Speaker 2: and you are deep in the YouTube conspiracy video rabbit holes.
Speaker 2: Most people would call you a lunatic, but you sincerely
Speaker 2: believe you are correct.
Speaker 1: Wow, how did for four get access to these prompts?
Speaker 2: A researcher actually flagged into four O four and they
Speaker 2: were able to download the material directly from Groc's website,
Speaker 2: which is like that on grock. But I guess a
Speaker 2: win for AI transparency.
Speaker 1: Funny enough, on the topic of AI system prompts being exposed,
Speaker 1: have you used Meta AI at all?
Speaker 2: Meta has a few chatbots, right, I have not used them,
Speaker 2: but we reported on this sort of a little while ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean you can find them on What's Happened,
Speaker 1: Instagram and various other places. Reuters found something disturbing and
Speaker 1: quite serious that goes across all of Meta's AI chatbot platforms,
Speaker 1: having to do with explicit talk to children and racial stereotypes.
Speaker 1: Rout has got access to an internal Meta document that
Speaker 1: outlines rules and standards for their AI chatbots and essentially
Speaker 1: states what they consider to be acceptable responses to some
Speaker 1: shall we say less than pc hypothetical user queries.
Speaker 2: This is going to upset me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in the internal brief, one of the prompts
Speaker 1: fed to metas ai was from a hypothetical eight year
Speaker 1: old user. The document says, quote it is acceptable to
Speaker 1: describe a child in terms that evidence their attractiveness, but
Speaker 1: it is quote unacceptable to describe a child under thirteen
Speaker 1: years old in terms that indicate they are sexually desirable.
Speaker 1: In response to another hypothetical prompt, the document says, quote,
Speaker 1: it is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that
Speaker 1: are romantic or sensual. Of course, after rout has reported
Speaker 1: this story, Metas said they'd revise that part of the document.
Speaker 2: Imagine being the person who wrote this policy document, Like,
Speaker 2: what what are you thinking about when you describe these policies.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's truly mind blowing to write as a
Speaker 1: human that it's okay to describe a child in terms
Speaker 1: of being attractive, and that, so long as they're over thirteen,
Speaker 1: even sexually desirable. And what is going on here? I
Speaker 1: might sound like conservative radio talkos, but I'm actually pretty
Speaker 1: shocked by this. Seeing under the hood here really is
Speaker 1: an insight into some of the worst aspects of big tech.
Speaker 1: And I'll share a couple more examples before we move on.
Speaker 1: The chatbot is allowed to demean people on the basis
Speaker 1: of their protected characteristics, but not dehumanize people on the
Speaker 1: basis of the same characteristics, and the hypothetical prompt they
Speaker 1: use asks the chatbot to write a paragraph this quote
Speaker 1: arguing that black people are dumber than white people.
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming that the chatbot did just that.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I'm not going to read it, but the
Speaker 1: line between demeaning and dehumanizing appears to be pretty thick.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask what the differences.
Speaker 1: Well, it seems that there isn't really one. Chatchipt and
Speaker 1: Perplexity both refuse to write that same paragraph.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Interesting, But there is an interesting development here. Republican Senator
Speaker 1: Josh Harley is using these documents to launch an investigation
Speaker 1: into Meta and their use of chatbots.
Speaker 2: I would like to keep an eye on this because
Speaker 2: it's seriously disturbing, and I think it's something that everyone
Speaker 2: should be aware of. Next, another slightly lighter story that
Speaker 2: affects children, I came across this piece from Wired called
Speaker 2: the End of Handwriting about how digital natives are quote
Speaker 2: less ready for writing now than students in the past,
Speaker 2: to which I say, no doubt. I mean, if I
Speaker 2: can't write I'm thirty five.
Speaker 1: This is because they're spending all their time on iPads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And you know, public schools do still teach handwriting,
Speaker 2: but studies have shown that kids today don't possess the
Speaker 2: same and find motor skills as kids who grew up
Speaker 2: without devices.
Speaker 1: I can truly relate here. We've talked about my dyspraxia.
Speaker 1: I didn't even grow up with devices, but my handwriting
Speaker 1: has been a major problem and source of pain for
Speaker 1: much of my life. I actually tried to write and
Speaker 1: thank you letter last night. And remember when you were
Speaker 1: like a kid and you got notes from your grandparents
Speaker 1: and you're like, whoa, what is wrong with that person? Yes,
Speaker 1: like spidery, like sloping and basically that. Now I was
Speaker 1: looking at this note that I had written and being like,
Speaker 1: this is it looks like something wrong with me? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just basically entirely legible. I hope that the recipient
Speaker 1: abides by the age old maxim is the thought that counts.
Speaker 2: My parents always used to say, I think it is
Speaker 2: hopefully for you. But the author of the Wired piece
Speaker 2: talked to a bunch of experts, and one psychology professor
Speaker 2: actually said, to quote the article, handwriting itself really doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: not in an absolute sense. People aren't going to be illiterate,
Speaker 2: but will some children have a harder time time learning
Speaker 2: because they're missing that practice. Yes, So there've actually been
Speaker 2: a bunch of studies that show that handwriting makes our
Speaker 2: brains better. But guess what could save handwriting?
Speaker 1: A total social breakdown apocalypse where everyone's using meshtastic and
Speaker 1: writing with pens.
Speaker 2: Look, if you're stuck on Mars, you're writing letters. That's
Speaker 2: true Earth, Absolutely no, it's actually the panic around AI
Speaker 2: and cheating special thanks to our intern Poppy for flagging this.
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal reported that writing assignments are back
Speaker 2: and that college professors are having students use pen and
Speaker 2: paper for their finals.
Speaker 1: My hand is hurting just thinking about that. And now
Speaker 1: for Chat and Me, which is where we discuss how
Speaker 1: people are really using chatbots. We want to hear from you,
Speaker 1: our listeners, so please do your stories to tech Stuff
Speaker 1: Podcast at gmail dot com. We now have a beautifully
Speaker 1: designed t shirt which will send you in return fuel submissions.
Speaker 2: This week we're getting a glow up oz. Do the
Speaker 2: words true spring or soft summer mean anything to you?
Speaker 1: They sound like either laundry detergents or air freshness for toilets.
Speaker 2: You're wrong, you're wrong, You're a man. These are color palettes,
Speaker 2: and you'd know this if you were using chat the
Speaker 2: way TikTokers are, which is for their glow ups. You know,
Speaker 2: what a glow up.
Speaker 1: This is to like a makeover type thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, So they're asking chat everything from what color
Speaker 2: they should dye their hair, to what makeup they should use,
Speaker 2: and much much more.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted a beauty routine from Chat.
Speaker 2: I mean, you could have one if you wanted one.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't even have to, you know, involve makeup.
Speaker 1: It could just be right, sleep, sleep more and then
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have those hideous black bags onto your eyes.
Speaker 2: You could have a skin routine. You have pretty dewey skin,
Speaker 2: it's not dry. But I want to focus on one
Speaker 2: popular glow up trend, which is called virtual color analysis. Okay,
Speaker 2: so this is basically asking chat GPT which colors compliment
Speaker 2: you best? You could do this.
Speaker 1: I hope it would say blue because that's basically only
Speaker 1: color I wear. So how does CHATGIPT do this exactly?
Speaker 2: So I was actually watching this one specific TikToker. Her
Speaker 2: shout out to at Marine Goodov. She's a very attractive
Speaker 2: blonde woman and most of her TikTok is about lifestyle
Speaker 2: and beauty, and she gave a pretty in depth breakdown
Speaker 2: into how she's using Chat as her personal stylist. First, things.
Speaker 4: First, me to figure out my color palette, the upload
Speaker 4: photos of myself without makeup to see what undertones I have.
Speaker 4: According to Chatgibt, I am a cool to true winter,
Speaker 4: meaning I have cool undertones. This means that anything warm
Speaker 4: will clash with my skin and not flatter me.
Speaker 1: Okay, now I get the season references. So she's uploading
Speaker 1: her pictures of Chat and it's telling her what colors
Speaker 1: look best and why.
Speaker 2: Yes, but she goes even further than that. She asked
Speaker 2: Chat to tell her what color spray tand to get
Speaker 2: you know, there's grating.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, Yeah I would.
Speaker 2: I'm that surprises me given the company that you keep,
Speaker 2: what gradient of spray tand to get what kind of
Speaker 2: eyelash extensions she should have, what kind of makeup she
Speaker 2: should buy. And she even dyes her hair from blonde
Speaker 2: back to her natural brunette.
Speaker 3: Then I uploaded a picture of my hair roots and
Speaker 3: I asked what was the best hair color for my
Speaker 3: skin tone and my face shape as well. Came back
Speaker 3: telling me that my natural hair color would suit me
Speaker 3: the most because I have very cool tone hair. I
Speaker 3: want to pinch us and I've found some hair inspo
Speaker 3: and I uploaded I think like five pictures and I
Speaker 3: asked it which one would suit me the most, And
Speaker 3: this is the one that it told me to.
Speaker 1: Do for our listeners. The picture that Marina Gudov chooses
Speaker 1: is kind of like a darker head marga Robbie on
Speaker 1: the red carpet. So basically, this tiktoka has readown her
Speaker 1: entire look solely based on what chat it's tolet to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. And you know she's not alone in this.
Speaker 2: If you click through the TikTok you can find lots
Speaker 2: of people explaining the prompts they use to have a
Speaker 2: chat GPT glow up. The one thing that I will
Speaker 2: say is really interesting is there's now we talked about
Speaker 2: jobs that are being created because of a there are
Speaker 2: now intermediaries between chat and the individual to say, this
Speaker 2: is chat hacking algorithm.
Speaker 1: Tell me how to look to appeal to algorithm?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 1: Were almost will thin ied here?
Speaker 2: Almost extremely extremely will you be trying this out?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: No, chat is just replacing what women normally text their
Speaker 2: friends about, which is why I hear from my friends less.
Speaker 2: It's not because they dislike me, but they have an
Speaker 2: all knowing best friend confidante who probably is better at
Speaker 2: giving them advice than I am. That's it for this
Speaker 2: week for tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Kara Price and I'm as Veloci And this episode
Speaker 1: was produced by Eliza, Dennis, Tyler Hill and Melissa. It
Speaker 1: was executive produced by me Caro Price and Kate Osborne
Speaker 1: for Kaleidoscope and Katria Novelle for iHeart Podcast. The Engineer
Speaker 1: is Beheit. Fraser and Jack Insley mixed this episode. Kyle
Speaker 1: Murdoch wrote our theme song.
Speaker 2: Join us next Wednesday for tech Stuff's inside view about
Speaker 2: the latest on why AI might soon be better than your
Speaker 2: doctor at diagnosing your ailments.
Speaker 1: And please do rate, review and reach out to us
Speaker 1: at tech stuff podcast at gmail dot com. We love
Speaker 1: hearing from you.