Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you. It's time for some tech news for June
Speaker 1: of first, twenty twenty three. How did we get to
Speaker 1: June already? Yikes? All right, it's another AI heavy news
Speaker 1: episode because you know that's what's going on out there.
Speaker 1: You might recall that on Tuesday I talked about Stephen Schwartz,
Speaker 1: the lawyer who submitted a filing in a legal case
Speaker 1: that contained false information courtesy of chat GPT. He didn't
Speaker 1: do it on purpose. Chat GPT just gave him information
Speaker 1: that was not true. Schwartz had used chat GPT as
Speaker 1: part of his legal research in a case, and the
Speaker 1: chat bot invented some cases that never actually existed as precedents.
Speaker 1: So Schwartz did actually think to ask chat gpt if
Speaker 1: the cases were real, Like there's a there's an exchange
Speaker 1: where he said, hey, is that a real case? In
Speaker 1: chat GPT is like yeah, yeah toats toad's real. So
Speaker 1: it turns out you just can't trust a chatbot. This,
Speaker 1: by the way, is why. I'm really concerned about these
Speaker 1: chatbots being incorporated directly into things like web search, you know,
Speaker 1: with Microsoft and Google both rushing to do that. I
Speaker 1: think it's a mistake because of multiple reasons, one of
Speaker 1: which is this tendency toward hallucinations. Now Schwartz is awaiting
Speaker 1: a hearing that will happen on June eighth that will
Speaker 1: determine what, if any, sanctions he will face as a
Speaker 1: result of this goof them up. Meanwhile, in Texas, a
Speaker 1: judge named Brantley Starr has made it clear that he
Speaker 1: will not abide any AI chat bought shenanigans in his court.
Speaker 1: He said that attorneys in his courtroom must promise that
Speaker 1: quote no portion of the filing was drafted by generative
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence end quote, or if any part of the
Speaker 1: filing did involve generative AI in any respect, a human
Speaker 1: being must have checked the information and verified it to
Speaker 1: be true and accurate. This covers pretty much anything lawyers
Speaker 1: would submit to the court, and I think it's an
Speaker 1: excellent idea. As we saw with Schwartz, AI just it's
Speaker 1: not trustworthy. It can make stuff up in some cases,
Speaker 1: and honestly, this step is good for everyone in the
Speaker 1: legal system. In the long run, I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: to see other judges follow suit. Open AI, meanwhile, is
Speaker 1: trying to address this troubling problem of AI hallucinations. So yes,
Speaker 1: in case you forgot what halluci nations mean with regard
Speaker 1: to AI, it just means an incident in which AI
Speaker 1: invents information, such as the fake legal cases cited in
Speaker 1: Schwartz's situation. And it's not that AI is a pathological
Speaker 1: liar or has some sort of motivation to give us
Speaker 1: the wrong information. It's more like, when this AI gets
Speaker 1: into a situation where it does not have all the
Speaker 1: relevant information, sometimes it just makes stuff up in the
Speaker 1: absence of reliable info. To me, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: if you've ever had a friend who just seems incapable
Speaker 1: of using the words I don't know the answer to that,
Speaker 1: then you probably feel like this is a very familiar situation, right.
Speaker 1: Just think of someone who, rather than say I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, I don't know, they say, oh, it's probably
Speaker 1: because or maybe they don't even you know, try to aculivocate.
Speaker 1: They just outright say something they think is probably true
Speaker 1: and they don't know. One way or the other. It's
Speaker 1: kind of what open ai says is happening with chat GPT,
Speaker 1: actually what a lot of AI experts say are happening
Speaker 1: with generative AI in general. And so now the company
Speaker 1: is saying it's going to revisit how AI works toward
Speaker 1: creating an answer. So right now, the model apparently follows
Speaker 1: a process called outcome supervision, in which the goal is
Speaker 1: just to get the final answer. It doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: what pathway you took to get there. The ends justify
Speaker 1: the means. In other words, so the outcome supervision is
Speaker 1: just the AI gets a reward if the answer it
Speaker 1: provides at the end of the day is correct. The
Speaker 1: problem is that when AI makes a mistakes, say early
Speaker 1: on in the process, this can have a much larger
Speaker 1: effect further on in the process. Like if you've ever
Speaker 1: put something together and you made a mistake early, you
Speaker 1: might realize that by the time you're getting toward the
Speaker 1: end that small mistake has created a situation much further
Speaker 1: in the process. That is a huge problem. Well, so
Speaker 1: is the same with AI, And so open ai is
Speaker 1: saying they're looking at changing over to process supervision in
Speaker 1: which you know, reward stages for the AI occur throughout
Speaker 1: the reasoning process, so this thought is supposed to less
Speaker 1: think that you know, AI would reward itself every step
Speaker 1: along the way as it made the right choices, and
Speaker 1: thus would reduce the possibility of making a mistake. Further
Speaker 1: down the line, critics argue that it may not make
Speaker 1: any difference at all to the amount of misinformation or
Speaker 1: just fake information that is generated by AI. It might
Speaker 1: not matter what process it uses, but rather what's more
Speaker 1: important is that AI operates with a lack of transparency,
Speaker 1: so it can be really hard to pinpoint where a
Speaker 1: problem starts because you can't actually see what the processes.
Speaker 1: And if you can't see what the process is, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to diagnose where the problem is popping up.
Speaker 1: And so the critics worry that this change in method
Speaker 1: won't actually solve the problem of AI creating incorrect responses
Speaker 1: and misinformation. Over in Italy, a senator named Marco Lombardo
Speaker 1: stood before Parliament and delivered a speech about Italy's agreements
Speaker 1: with Switzerland, and that does not sound particularly techi except
Speaker 1: at the conclusion of the speech, Lombardo revealed that the
Speaker 1: speech he read out was not written by a human
Speaker 1: being instead it was generated by AI, and further, Lombardo
Speaker 1: said he did this in order to prompt a larger
Speaker 1: conversation about AI and to really consider what it can
Speaker 1: do and the potential consequences that can occur if people
Speaker 1: misuse it or if the AI does not perform as expected.
Speaker 1: Italy has been one of the more proactive country to
Speaker 1: consider AI and to be critical of AI. Previously, Italy
Speaker 1: banned chat gpt, although only temporarily, and did so because
Speaker 1: of concerns that information shared with the chatbot would not
Speaker 1: be secure and thus violate citizen privacy laws. And we've
Speaker 1: seen with chat GPT in particular that the history of
Speaker 1: chat ended up becoming open right. People were suddenly able
Speaker 1: to see what other people had been talking about with
Speaker 1: chat GPT. So I think it's an understandable concern along
Speaker 1: with privacy, but also it's good to see governments having
Speaker 1: these discussions to really seriously talk about how to think
Speaker 1: about AI in order to make the best use of
Speaker 1: it and not have it create problems. Italy's approach has
Speaker 1: motivated the EU in general. Lawmakers there as well as
Speaker 1: some of the United States, have indicated that they are
Speaker 1: now working on a code of conduct regarding AI and
Speaker 1: AI companies. Representatives from the EU and the United States
Speaker 1: met at a Trade and Technology Council meeting and started
Speaker 1: to talk over this code of conduct, which would be voluntary.
Speaker 1: On my mind, a voluntary code of conduct is a
Speaker 1: little bit on the weak sauce side. I get that
Speaker 1: optics can be bad if an AI company refuses to
Speaker 1: adopt the code of conduct, and that might mean that
Speaker 1: the company would find it difficult to do business with
Speaker 1: customers if they refused to sign on to this code
Speaker 1: of conduct. So there might be some social pressures and
Speaker 1: business pressures to do it, but it's voluntary. Considering the
Speaker 1: potential risks associated with AI now, I am not going
Speaker 1: so far as to claim there's an existential threat level
Speaker 1: risk out there, but there is risk, and that's bad enough.
Speaker 1: But considering that risk, I think we might need more
Speaker 1: than just a voluntary code of conduct in order to
Speaker 1: keep things in line. Also, it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 1: what role various AI companies and open Ai in particular,
Speaker 1: will take in helping draft this code of conduct. You know,
Speaker 1: Sam Altman, the CEO of open Ai, has tried to
Speaker 1: get in front of this stuff and It makes me
Speaker 1: worry because if the people who are the subject of
Speaker 1: a code of conduct are actually allowed to write or
Speaker 1: at least influence the writing of that code of conduct,
Speaker 1: you can end up with rules that don't actually guard
Speaker 1: against anything at all, and then it's just optics and
Speaker 1: that's useless. And for a horrifying story of how AI
Speaker 1: can be harmful, Chloe Shang of Motherboard has an article
Speaker 1: titled Eating disorder Helpline disables chatbot for harmful responses after
Speaker 1: firing human staff. Yeah, the headline, that's a lot. So
Speaker 1: the story here is is that the National Eating Disorder
Speaker 1: Association or NDA made a plan to replace human operators
Speaker 1: of a mental health hotline with a chatbot called Tessup.
Speaker 1: So I guess the idea was that the chatbot would
Speaker 1: be more efficient and cheaper than keeping human beings who
Speaker 1: have expertise and experience and you know, empathy on the payroll.
Speaker 1: But you know, this is not a helpline you would
Speaker 1: call if your lawnmower stopped working, Like, I can see
Speaker 1: a chatbot being used for something rather mundane like this.
Speaker 1: This is a helpline design for people who are dealing
Speaker 1: with eating disorders. Union representatives have accused ANYDA of using
Speaker 1: union busting tactics and warned that relying on AI could
Speaker 1: lead to terrible situations. And earlier this week, a social
Speaker 1: media post about how this AI chatbot led to a
Speaker 1: terrible situation went viral. So, first up, there was an
Speaker 1: activist named Sharon Maxwell. I had to test out Tessa,
Speaker 1: and she said that quote every single thing Tessa suggested
Speaker 1: were things that led to the development of my eating
Speaker 1: disorder end quote. So by that, what I think Maxwell
Speaker 1: is saying is that she had previously developed an eating disorder,
Speaker 1: and the thoughts that went into her head that led
Speaker 1: to her developing this eating disorder were the exact same
Speaker 1: things that this chatbot was now suggesting as advice. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, Tessa was giving Maxwell the advice of, Hey,
Speaker 1: maybe you can lose a pound or two by doing this,
Speaker 1: this and this, And when you're trying to make that
Speaker 1: suggestion to someone who's dealing with the eating disorder, that
Speaker 1: is a very dangerous thing. And then a psychologist named
Speaker 1: Alexis Conason, and my apologies for the pronunciation of your
Speaker 1: last name, I'm sure I'm getting it wrong. She conducted
Speaker 1: her own test and found similar results. So what was
Speaker 1: Anyda's response. Well, initially the organization accused Conison of fabricating
Speaker 1: the whole thing, so she sent screenshots of her conversation
Speaker 1: to an Eda, and then not too long after that,
Speaker 1: Anyda took Tessa offline in order to address some quote
Speaker 1: unquote bugs in the program. While Tesla has guardrails that
Speaker 1: are meant to keep the chatbot from doing stuff like this,
Speaker 1: we have seen again and again that AI can bypass
Speaker 1: guardrails even if the person on the other end of
Speaker 1: the conversation isn't trying to force things that way, and
Speaker 1: the story really points out that for some jobs you
Speaker 1: really probably should just depend upon human beings to do
Speaker 1: the work. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we've got some more news items
Speaker 1: to cover. Okay, we're back. Meta says it's going to
Speaker 1: remove posts containing news content for users in the state
Speaker 1: of California if California passes a law that would require
Speaker 1: platforms like Facebook and Google to pay publishers if work
Speaker 1: from those publishers show up on those platforms. We've actually
Speaker 1: seen this issue crop up around the world. Notably, it
Speaker 1: happened in Australia a couple of years ago, when Australia
Speaker 1: passed a similar law, Facebook went dark in Australia temporarily.
Speaker 1: Eventually the law took hold and things have kind of
Speaker 1: entered into an equilibrium. Whether or not the law actually
Speaker 1: addressed the issue that was of concern is another matter
Speaker 1: that actually is a good subject for an episode, honestly.
Speaker 1: But the idea is that publishers want compensation. They're arguing
Speaker 1: that platforms like Google and Facebook are siphoning traffic away
Speaker 1: from the actual news websites. That's where they monetize that traffic,
Speaker 1: and these platforms are benefiting from the work being done
Speaker 1: by journalists, but they're not compensating the news outlets in
Speaker 1: the process. Meta's Andy Stone, who's a name that I
Speaker 1: see pop up pretty much whenever the company wants to
Speaker 1: dismiss regulations that would work against it, said the bill,
Speaker 1: if signed into law, would amount to nothing more than
Speaker 1: a slush fund that would benefit large media companies but
Speaker 1: not help smaller California based publishers, which, depending on how
Speaker 1: this bill is framed, that actually might be true, because
Speaker 1: I've heard similar criticisms about the Australian law. Now I
Speaker 1: don't know I haven't read the bill. If I had
Speaker 1: read the bill, I probably wouldn't have a good grasp
Speaker 1: on its limitations because law speak be scary you. It's
Speaker 1: even more difficult to read than a really complex technical manual.
Speaker 1: But yes, this is another battle we're starting to see unfold.
Speaker 1: I don't see California backing down from this, and it
Speaker 1: will be interesting to see where this goes. But honestly,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I'm mostly concerned that
Speaker 1: the law actually does what the law aims to do right.
Speaker 1: It gets very frustrating when you hear about laws that
Speaker 1: potentially could correct a situation, but because of how they
Speaker 1: are written and how they're enacted, they failed to do
Speaker 1: what the purpose at least claimed to be. Metta also
Speaker 1: faces a fine levied by a court in Russia this week.
Speaker 1: The charge is that the company failed to remove prohibited
Speaker 1: content from WhatsApp, specifically about a drug called Lyrica, and
Speaker 1: so the fine is three million rubles, which equates to
Speaker 1: about thirty seven thousand dollars, and a Russian court also
Speaker 1: find the Wikimedia Foundation a similar amount of money, also
Speaker 1: three million rubles, but they said that Wikimedia Foundation failed
Speaker 1: to remove quote unquote false information about Russia's war wind Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Something tells me that neither Meta nor Wikimedia Foundation will
Speaker 1: consider these moves particularly intimidating. Meta certainly not thirty seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars is like, I don't even think they would
Speaker 1: notice if that money went away, So I don't think
Speaker 1: that this is really a big move against the companies.
Speaker 1: Amazon also has a couple of bills to settle this week.
Speaker 1: First up, the company agreed to pay a thirty eight
Speaker 1: million dollars settlement in relation to a lawsuit that accused
Speaker 1: the company of having illegally collected and storing information relating
Speaker 1: to children through the Digital Personal Assistant, whose name starts
Speaker 1: with A, ends with A, and has lex in the middle.
Speaker 1: The Federal Trade Commission in the United States brought the
Speaker 1: case against Amazon, so this settlement requires that the company
Speaker 1: changes its data collection, storage, and deletion practices on top
Speaker 1: of paying the fine. The other bill Amazon has to
Speaker 1: pay is five point eight million dollars. This is another settlement,
Speaker 1: also with the FTC. This one is with regard to
Speaker 1: Amazon's ring products. Those are the security systems and doorbell
Speaker 1: camera systems. The FTC accused Amazon of having a system
Speaker 1: that allowed employees and contractors to access video feeds from
Speaker 1: customer cameras without any real safeguards to prevent that from happening.
Speaker 1: As you might imagine that as a huge privacy and
Speaker 1: security violation. Amazon has agreed to create new processes with
Speaker 1: regular checkups to make sure that the company has a
Speaker 1: tighter data security strategy, while also simultaneously saying we never
Speaker 1: broke the law, because that's what you can do when
Speaker 1: you make settlements, all right. One trend happening with some
Speaker 1: tech platforms is to make changes to how these platforms
Speaker 1: give access to an API, which is an application programming interface.
Speaker 1: That's what lets app developers tap into larger platforms in
Speaker 1: order to do whatever it is. So a developer might
Speaker 1: create an app that ties into a larger platform like
Speaker 1: Twitter or as we'll talk about in a second Reddit,
Speaker 1: and these apps then reference they send requests to the
Speaker 1: underlying platform, and that populates the app. So Twitter as
Speaker 1: a price tag associated with this. For every fifty million
Speaker 1: tweets requested, a developer has to cough up forty two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And yes, fifty million tweets, that's a lot.
Speaker 1: But if your app is super popular and a lot
Speaker 1: of people are using it all day. You're going to
Speaker 1: hit that fifty million mark over and over again. Reddit
Speaker 1: is now doing something similar. They've changed their API, and
Speaker 1: Christian Sellig, the developer behind the popular Reddit app Apollo,
Speaker 1: reports that he might have to shut the app down
Speaker 1: entirely because of Reddit's new policy, which is to charge
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars per fifty million requests. Selleg revealed that
Speaker 1: Apollo generates around seven billion requests every month, and that
Speaker 1: means it would cost around twenty million dollars a year
Speaker 1: to operate. The app, understandably is not in a position
Speaker 1: to pay that much. Generally speaking, the app developer community
Speaker 1: is not too keen on this approach, as it punishes
Speaker 1: you for being successful. Finally, if you have a PC
Speaker 1: rig with a motherboard from Gigabyte, you should know that
Speaker 1: security researchers at Eclipsium discovered the company had created a
Speaker 1: backdoor system to deliver firmware updates to the motherboard, and
Speaker 1: that system lacks proper security, which means a hacker could
Speaker 1: potentially hijack that delivery system and use it to send
Speaker 1: executable code straight to target computers. Do not pass goes,
Speaker 1: do not Colick two hundred dollars. If you're curious, if
Speaker 1: your device has a Gigabyte motherboard, you can go to
Speaker 1: the start menu and Windows and look at system information.
Speaker 1: More than two hundred and fifty motherboards are affected by this,
Speaker 1: so that's a big ouch. Supposedly, Gigabyte is working on
Speaker 1: this and intends to create a solution, but as of
Speaker 1: right now, I don't know of any solution that has
Speaker 1: actually out there, so be careful out there. All right,
Speaker 1: that's it for the tech news for today, June first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. I hope you're all well, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an
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