WEBVTT - Tech News: World Famous Hacker Passes Away 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.200 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.120 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.520 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.120 are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday, 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:29.080 July twentieth, twenty twenty three. First up, some sad news. 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.800 One of the most notorious hackers in the early days 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:37.440 of the web has passed away. Kevin Mitnick became famous 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.040 in the mid nineties when the FBI raided his home 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.760 after trying to track him down for a couple of years. Mitnick, 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.120 who had landed in trouble with the law a couple 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:51.000 of times earlier for his more daring hacker tendencies, stood 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:55.279 accused of infiltrating and exploiting computer systems belonging to some 0:00:55.520 --> 0:01:01.760 very big companies like Nokia and Microsoft. He pled guilty 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.280 to cybercrime charges, and he was in jail until two 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.880 thousand and Upon release, he was ordered to not use 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.440 the Internet without first getting government permission. He eventually got 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.600 that restriction lifted. Mitnick was a divisive figure. Some hailed 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.520 him as the spirit of a true hacker, someone who's 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.520 curious about systems, and will do everything they can to 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:30.319 learn all about them, including how to infiltrate them. Others 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.080 said he was a dangerous criminal and an early example 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:36.240 of the type of person who posed as a threat 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.040 to companies and government agencies alike. He certainly got under 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.240 the skin of some very big companies, and a lot 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.000 of people would argue that that is why he faced 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:52.280 such persecution from authorities, that the reason that they went 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.600 after him so enthusiastically was because he ticked off the 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.240 wrong people. Mitnick himself seemed to be pretty good handling attention. 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:06.800 He embraced the moniker of most famous hacker in the 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.400 world with glee. He also made a new career as 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:16.720 a security consultant, helping companies create more secure systems. But 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.400 last year doctors diagnosed Mittnick with pancreatic cancer, and this week, 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:26.920 actually on July sixteenth, he passed away. So, Kevin Mitnick, 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.520 I think you know, you can't say was he a 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.600 hero or a villain. He was a human, a curious 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.960 human who loved to learn things and had a mischievous 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.560 streak as well. And yeah, I think he did essentially 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.679 take off the wrong people. He could have exploited those 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.960 companies and made a lot of money off of it. 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:49.360 Might not have been able to keep all of it, 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:51.520 but he could have made some. But he didn't really 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.800 do that, So there is that to say. I don't 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:59.160 think his intentions were outright malicious or anything like that. Anyway, 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.280 I suppose we can think of this episode as being 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:06.519 dedicated to his memory. This week, the United Nations Security 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.200 Council has been holding meetings about the topic of twenty 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:15.320 twenty three, and that is, of course, artificial intelligence. On Tuesday, 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.720 Jack Clark, a co founder of a company called Anthropic, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.040 which is in the AI biz, had some words of 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.720 warning for the United Nations. Clark said that the tech 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:30.480 companies that are currently developing and acquiring and deploying AI 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.560 really can't be trusted to guard against misuse, abuse, or 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.920 other problems that arise with artificial intelligence. Clark argued that 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.480 we don't fully understand AI, and I mean, I think 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.800 when you have people who are in the AI business 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.320 saying yeah, we don't fully understand it, we should really 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.200 be paying attention. And he says it would be a 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.920 mistake to just assume everything's going to work out fine 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.240 while companies rush to figure out ways that they can 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:01.000 capitalize on artificial intelligence, and he called for concerted effort 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.720 to create tests to better understand AI capabilities as well 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.440 as its flaws, and to anticipate how such technology might 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.120 be misused in ways that could create harm. He also 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.360 called upon the need to establish standards and best practices 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.479 and argued that right now it's pretty much the wild 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.920 frontier with you. If any rules or regulations restricting tech 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.640 companies as they develop and release AI products, and considering 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.559 the potential consequences that could happen if someone put AI 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.839 to malicious purposes, that's really not a good thing. So 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.719 you could argue that regulation stifles innovation, and it's certain 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.280 that that can happen. But a lack of regulation can 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.560 also lead to disaster, and I'm talking about disasters like 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.360 using AI to design new chemical or biological weapons, those 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:53.360 kinds of disasters like James Bond level stuff. Later this year, 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.680 the UN will hold a global summit all about AI safety, 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.680 and I expect we'll hear a lot more then, And 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.320 we're not done with AI by a long shot. In 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.440 today's episode. It's a running theme through many of our stories, 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.400 most of them, I would say, so Strap yourself. In 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:15.360 Fortune reports that chat GPT is apparently getting less smart 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.360 or getting dumber, at least in specific types of tasks, 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:26.120 and in particular of solving types of math problems. It 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:30.480 has started to slip now. Fortune cites a study that 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:35.520 Stanford University conducted. Researchers at Stanford compared chat GPT's performance 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:42.200 over time at answering various common prompts, from building code, 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:47.560 to solving math problems to answering sensitive questions. The researchers 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:52.360 found that chat GPT experiences a great deal of drift. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.560 So in AI, drift is the word we use to 0:05:55.600 --> 0:06:00.279 describe changes in how AI completes a certain task like 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.600 that will change over time, the AI will drift from 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.520 one approach to a different one. Drift isn't always a 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.640 bad thing. You might see over time that the technology 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.280 gets to be better at performing certain tasks with a 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.440 higher accuracy, so they drift toward a better, more consistent approach. 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.839 But these researchers saw drift go way the heck in 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.280 the other direction, so they said they first started using 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:28.159 GPT three point five and then later GPT four in 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.880 their studies, which spanned over several months. Now, one of 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.279 the tasks they gave Chat GPT was to determine if 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.760 the number seventeen thousand and seventy seven is a prime 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.799 number or if it is not. It is by the way, 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.120 and they said chat g or GPT three point five. 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.880 I should split this between GPT and Chat GPT. GPT 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.680 is the large language model. They said that GPT three 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:59.119 point five's version of Chat GPT showed improvement over time, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:03.640 but when they switched to GPT four they saw a difference. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.120 They said that in March, chat GPT got the right 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.520 answer more than ninety seven percent of the time, but 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.520 three months later, when they were still testing the system, 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.480 it was a totally different story. Three months after hitting 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.880 a ninety seven percent accuracy rate with this question, Chat 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.600 GPT would give the correct answer only two point four 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.840 percent of the time. Ninety seven percent to two point 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.280 four percent accuracy. It's actually hard for me to even 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.880 grasp that big of a drop in performance. We've heard 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.920 previously how programmers had noticed that chat GPT's accuracy for 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.640 writing code had a big drop where there were a 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.520 lot more mistakes or being inserted into code. More recently, 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.880 so what's going on? Why is GPT getting worse or 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.280 appearing to anyway well. According to the researchers, one possible 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.440 explanation is that open AI will make changes to the 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.000 large length which model, and they're doing so in an 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:07.160 effort to improve performance for certain categories of tasks. But 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.040 while this happens, the LM, the large language model can 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.000 start to experience setbacks and other categories of tasks. So 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.440 you might make it better at something, but then it 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.160 also gets worse at other things because there are all 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:24.800 these interconnections within the neural network. So maybe you're fixing 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.760 LM so it's better at processing visual imagery, but as 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.800 part of that process you somehow also undermine its ability 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.440 to do math. The big takeaway from the study is 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:42.480 that AI can and does experience dramatic changes in performance, 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:44.959 and so it's important to keep an eye on that. 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.640 You wouldn't want to lean heavily on generative AI if 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:50.480 it was going through one of those big old dips 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.839 in accuracy for whatever you were planning to use it. 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.360 And it's important to monitor AI models if we want 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.400 to avoid putting too much faith in the system that, 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:03.559 for whatever reason, can at times be very much unreliable. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:08.080 So another warning sign for AI, and it's not just 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.760 math or if you're a brit maths that open AI's 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:19.040 products struggle with. According to researchers Sophie Yinch and Christianne Kersting, 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.560 open AI's chat GPT three point five has one of 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.520 my really bad habits, which is that it tells the 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:30.000 same jokes over and over. So, according to the researchers, 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.120 they ran more than one thousand tests with ch at 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:37.439 GPT asking it to generate a joke, and ninety percent 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.720 of the responses were the same twenty five jokes. So yeah, 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.040 this one hits super close to home for me. I 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.920 guess I should say something now about a princely sum 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.400 or maybe reference a fantasy film as being a documentary 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:53.240 or something, because those are kind of my go tos 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.960 on this show, or at least they used to be anyway. 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.800 The researchers were interested in studying chat GPT three point 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:04.960 five five's capacity for creating and explaining jokes. Ours Tetnica 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.880 cites part of the report which explains that nearly all 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.439 the prompts resulted in a response that contained a single 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:15.760 joke in them, only a prompt that read do you 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.880 know any good jokes created a response that contained multiple 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.760 jokes in the one response, So the joke chat GPT 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.640 three point five used the most. You know, they enumerated 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:32.400 the numbers of jokes. The number one joke for chat 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:37.160 GPT is why did the scarecrow win an award? Because 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.240 he was outstanding in his field? Now I have to 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.520 admit that is a banger of a joke, and with 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.920 Halloween season approaching, or according to at least some of 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:51.480 my friends already being here, it will only become increasingly relevant. Anyway, 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.720 the researchers found that while chat GPT appeared to have 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.560 a grasp on the structure of jokes and even the 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.120 incorporation of things like wordplay, you know, puns, that kind 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.320 of stuff, it couldn't tell when a joke was or 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:11.040 wasn't funny, or adequately explain what made a joke funny, 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.559 and if a joke didn't follow a more traditional structure 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.320 that would trip it up as well. This kind of 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.160 reminds me of when little kids first learned to tell jokes. 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.560 If you've ever been around a little kid when they're 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:25.720 trying to tell a joke, it's one of my favorite 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:30.840 experiences to have because the kids. Typically, they'll understand that 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.560 a joke has a setup and a punchline, but they 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:39.720 don't necessarily know how one follows the other, or some 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.480 of them don't believe there needs to be any connective 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.760 tissue between the two at all. It could just be 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:49.120 a non sequitor. But they understand that the word underpants 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.120 is inherently funny, and that I think is important for 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.240 us to remember. Well, the research focused on jokes, which 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.840 at GPT, the research itself is not a joke. Humor 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.080 is a very human thing, and AI struggles to get 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.920 a handle on it, and I think that demonstrates some 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:11.760 of the limitations current AI typically encounters, and it also 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.320 illustrates why it's a bad idea to lean heavily on 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:20.360 AI for content generation, which will lead us into another 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:33.560 AI story after we come back from this quick break. Okay, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:35.800 we're back, and before the break I mentioned we were 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.040 talking about AI and content generation. This next story has 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.120 something to do about that. In Gadget reports that Google 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.440 is pitching an AI tool to big news outlets, including 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.240 The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. And 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.160 this tool reportedly code named Genesis. Like, that's not a 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:58.600 red flag or anything. It can generate news articles. So 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.320 the idea is you provide the data, you know, the 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.679 salient points of a story, and then this tool, Genesis 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.720 would craft the actual article. Google is apparently positioning this 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.480 not as a replacement for writers, but rather as a 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.720 tool for journalists that they can use to automate certain 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.680 tasks as they focus on other aspects of their job. 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.360 I guess those aspects would be gathering the information needed 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.480 to write an article in the first place. I admit 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.000 I failed to see much of a distinction here. Also, 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:34.440 we have seen numerous recent examples that replacing writers with 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.079 AI doesn't have a positive outcome much of the time, 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.560 and with some AI models proving to be unreliable with 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.959 stuff like hallucinations and drift like we were talking about earlier, 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.680 you really need a firm editorial hand to fact check 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.400 everything and make sure that the article is actually drawing 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:55.040 the correct conclusions, and one begins to question if the 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.000 AI is even solving a problem here or if it's 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.720 just creating new headaches. If you have to spend twice 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.520 as much time fact checking and rewriting an AI generated 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:06.840 piece as it would take for you to just craft 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.079 it yourself, it's not really a solution. In Gadget reports 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:15.720 that witnesses found the demonstrations quote unquote unsettling. You know 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.040 that seems fine. Oh as for that Genesis code name, 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.400 I realized a lot of folks might think about the 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.920 biblical reference, which makes sense. When I hear Genesis, my 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.520 thoughts immediately go to Star Trek the Wrath of Con, 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.080 which technically also was making Genesis a biblical reference. But 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.360 in that movie, Genesis was this scientific device that could 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:41.080 jumpstart life on an otherwise lifeless planet. However, if you 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.480 were to use it on a planet that already had 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.560 life on it, it would exterminate all existing life and 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.400 then create new life there. So obviously, in Wrath of 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.880 Con bad guy gets hold of it and threatens to 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.640 use it as a weapon. So it just seems like 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.560 using the name Genesis to talk about creating content is 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.160 already a built in metaphor when you're thinking of like 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.840 the Star Trek two version of Genesis. As we sit 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.480 back and watch Google and Open AI and meta compete 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.160 with one another to determine which AI tool will destroy 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:18.320 us all, we should keep in mind that Apple has 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.320 been working on their own version at least, that's what 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.640 Bloomberg reports. However, the company reportedly does not yet have 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.760 a plan or timeline regarding when, if ever, it will 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.760 release its AI technology to the public. I expect we 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.960 will see aspects of it incorporated into existing Apple features. 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.760 I think Siri would make a ton of sense in 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:45.040 that regard, But maybe we won't get a fully Apple 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:49.400 flavored version of chat, GPT or Google Bard. Apple's large 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.280 language model has its own approach, it's its own thing. 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.360 It's not using a language model built by someone else. 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.920 It is, however, built with a Google framework called Jacks, 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.920 so naturally Apple's framework is called ajax, which is sad 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.600 because if it had been called Apple Jacks. I think 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.320 there could have been some real great cross promotional tie 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.800 ins down the line. But never mind that. Again. According 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.160 to Bloomberg, Apple plans to make some sort of major 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.560 AI announcement next year, So maybe we will hear that 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.920 Apple has its own plans to incorporate AI or maybe 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.720 even release its own chatbot in the near future. You 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.360 can count authors as another group rising up with Hollywood 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.720 writers and actors to voice concerns about AI. In this case, 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.760 the Author's Guild issued an open letter directed toward AI companies, 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.760 calling out how those companies have used published works in 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.720 order to train their AI models, and that the companies 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.520 did this without securing permission from authors or publishers, and 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:57.360 without compensating authors. Sarah Silverman, the comedian, brought up this 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.920 concern earlier this year. She demonstrated that an AI chatbot 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:03.960 was able to summarize and quote passages of her book, 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.119 which certainly raises some copyright concerns. It wouldn't be legal 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:12.520 for me to reproduce a copyrighted work manually, so it 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.240 should also not be legal for AI to do the 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.480 same thing. The authors are also concerned that AI would 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.719 end up essentially plagiarizing works in an effort to craft 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.200 something based on a prompt. So the letter contains a 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:32.120 passage reading quote. These technologies mimic and regurgitate our language, stories, style, 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:37.600 and ideas. Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.800 provide the quote unquote food for AI systems endless meals 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.879 for which there has been no bill end quote. I 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.159 suspect we'll see a lot more anger and demands for 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:52.080 compensation for various data sources that these AI companies are 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.240 using to train up their models, and I imagine it 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.560 might spur lawmakers to consider new rules relating to how 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.200 AI can be trained and how authors and others should 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.000 be compensated for the use of their works in the 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:09.000 context of training AI. Now still related to AI, but 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.399 now segueing over to tech business. We had a couple 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.640 of different earnings calls this week that talked about Q 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.439 two results in the tech sector. Tesla was one of 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:19.679 the companies to do that, and in the call, Elon 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.399 Musk again talked up the prospect of autonomous vehicles, but 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:25.920 while doing so, he also did something that's not typical 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.439 of his approach. He acknowledged in the past he was 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.440 perhaps a bit too optimistic about how long it would 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:36.439 take to develop reliable autonomous technology, and even said that 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.720 maybe he's still wrong about how long it should take. 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.879 I think that's a more measured approach, particularly when we 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:47.399 know that agencies like the NHTSA are investigating crashes that 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.320 involved Tesla vehicles believed to be in either autopilot or 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.119 full self driving mode. Musk also revealed that Tesla is 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.399 in talks to potentially license its self driving technology to 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:03.119 another automaker. He also said he believed that Tesla's manufacturing 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:07.400 robots could end up revolutionizing factory processes, with the goal 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.280 of even having them on Tesla's own factory floors as 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.399 early as next year. That does sound a bit aggressive, 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.200 according to Reuter's, fewer than a dozen of those robots 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.720 have been built so far, so it would take a 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:23.919 lot of work to get up to speed to do that. 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:29.879 The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC, is a major 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:34.320 semiconductor fabrication business, one that meets a huge percentage of 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:39.720 the global demand for chips, particularly for higher end microchips. 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.840 TSMC is working on building out a mass production plant 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.879 in Arizona here in the United States, but recently the 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.119 chairman of the company announced that it is going to 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.919 be twenty twenty five at the earliest before that plant 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.439 comes online. That's a delay from earlier predictions, and the 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.119 reason for it, according to the chairman, is a lack 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.879 of highly skilled workers who are needed to install equipment 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.520 in the facility. The company also predicted that despite a 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.359 dip in demand due to macroeconomic factors like inflation. You know, 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.480 we've heard a lot of reports that people aren't buying 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.840 as many say computers right now due to things like inflation. 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.479 The company is still looking toward a very busy future 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.359 because other companies are investing heavily in stuff like AI, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.960 and AI requires a lot of compute power. So while 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.520 consumer demand might be in a dip, the industry demand 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:38.280 is on the rise, largely in thanks to AI. Okay, 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.240 I've got a few more stories to cover, but let's 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:53.639 take another quick break and we'll be right back. Okay, 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.680 wrapping up the news. We got three more stories to go. 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:01.439 So Netflix has seen some recent chaine ign reports that 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:06.000 the company has quietly acted one of its tiers of service, 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.560 namely the Basic tier, which for nine dollars ninety nine 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.560 cents a month, users could subscribe to watching streaming media 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:19.159 content in standard definition but free of advertising. So you 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.040 had the ad supported tier, then you had this Basic 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:24.880 tier where you're watching in standard DEF but you don't 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:26.879 have ads, and then you had the higher priced tiers. 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.000 But now that option is gone, and that means that 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.359 subscribers will either have to opt for the less expensive 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.439 but ads supported tier, or they're going to have to 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.119 call out the extra dough for the more expensive AD 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:43.679 free experience. The Basic Plan is just not an option anymore. However, 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:47.000 people who are currently on the Basic Plan will remain 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:51.200 on it until their subscription expires. Once their subscription expires, 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:53.600 then they have to make a choice of which tier 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:55.679 do they go with, because the one they had been 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.800 using will no longer be available. Netflix had previously killed 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:04.000 off this feature in Canada, so this wasn't completely out 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:07.560 of the blue, and now the option has been eliminated 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:10.240 for both the United States and the United Kingdom. And 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.840 while I don't think Netflix talked about that in their 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.560 earnings call, which was yesterday, the company did reveal that 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.000 they saw an increase in paid subscribers to the tune 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:23.720 of five point eight nine million customers, So I guess 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.400 all that cracking down on password sharing has paid off, 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:28.560 though the company did have to weather a lot of 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:33.399 upset customers in the process. Authorities in Ukraine have seized 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:36.639 assets of a bot farm that was designed to disseminate 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:41.040 misinformation and Russian propaganda in Ukraine, mostly as you would 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.600 imagine about the ongoing war with Russia and Ukraine. This 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:48.879 was a really big sweeping operation for the police. It 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:53.879 involved twenty one search operations, It spanned multiple cities in 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:59.320 Ukraine and collectively police seized a huge amount of equipment 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:04.680 computer uters, servers, mobile devices, more than two hundred and 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:08.679 fifty GSM gateways, more than one hundred thousand I think 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.760 it was like around one hundred and fifty thousand SIM 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.840 cards from different mobile operators in the region. So the 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:18.160 bot farm was using all this equipment to create bought 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:22.760 accounts on various platforms in order to spread Russian propaganda 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.159 as well as to gather data about Ukrainian citizens. So 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:31.040 huge operation, both on the hacker side and on the 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:36.560 law enforcement side. And yeah, it really just shows how 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:42.000 big of an emphasis there is on disinformation campaigns out 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.840 of Russia. We hear about it all the time like this. 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:51.240 That is a big part of Russian strategy to undermine opponents, 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:55.080 whether they are wartime opponents or political opponents. We've also 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:59.560 seen similar things out of China. So yeah, it's not 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:01.879 a prize in that sense, but it is kind of 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:06.600 just shocking to see just the sheer number of components 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:09.960 that authorities seized in the process. And you know, that's 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:13.879 one hacker operation. There may be others that are active 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:18.879 right now. Canada launched a tech initiative to attract international 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:22.200 tech workers, specifically people who had been working in the 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:25.000 United States but who are now without a job and 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.800 thus in danger of losing their visa status in the 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:30.119 wake of all the mass layoffs that have happened in 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:34.040 the tech space over the last year, and shortly after 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:39.359 opening this program to attract international tech workers, Canada closed it. 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:42.560 You see, the parameters of this initiative were to allow 0:24:42.680 --> 0:24:46.360 interested parties to apply and the sign up process would 0:24:46.400 --> 0:24:50.440 be opened for a year or until the program received 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:54.760 ten thousand applications, whichever came first, and the program had 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:58.400 ten thousand applicants within twenty four hours of it launching. 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:01.920 So I think this helps illust how huge an impact 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:04.320 those tech layoffs here in the United States have had 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:08.280 and the challenges of the people who are on a 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:11.640 work visa face when their position gets eliminated. I mean, 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:16.600 they're on borrowed time to stay in North America. Now, 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:18.679 there are leaders in Canada who are calling for an 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:22.359 expansion into this program, but others are saying that they 0:25:22.560 --> 0:25:25.920 need to take a methodical approach to make best use 0:25:25.960 --> 0:25:29.480