Speaker 1: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: Oz Valascian and I'm care Price. Today we've got a
Speaker 1: few big stories to break down for you. First, the
Speaker 1: loss of a beloved neighborhood cat puts a spotlight on
Speaker 1: the autonomous vehicle company Weimo. Then, after facing pressure from
Speaker 1: the Chinese government, Apple removes two popular gay dating apps
Speaker 1: from its store in China. App We'll dive into what
Speaker 1: that could mean for the rest of us.
Speaker 2: Then we'll tell you about a few other stories that
Speaker 2: cut our eye this week, like how the FBI is
Speaker 2: suddenly targeting a popular Internet archive, the flight app that
Speaker 2: may take the guesswork out of holiday travel, and we
Speaker 2: break down why tech titans keep building giant statues an
Speaker 2: obsession with immortality perhaps.
Speaker 1: Then on chatting me, do you consider chat gpt to
Speaker 1: be a friend? Now all of that on the Week
Speaker 1: in Tech is Friday, November twenty First, Hello.
Speaker 2: Cara, Hi, as.
Speaker 1: I'm about to do something I swore I would never do.
Speaker 1: What do you know what omerta is? No America is
Speaker 1: the code of silence of the mafia. Okay, I went
Speaker 1: to a school called Eaton.
Speaker 2: I'm aware I listened to Utah.
Speaker 1: We have our own Omerta.
Speaker 2: You do, yes. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Never talk about the firm, right.
Speaker 2: The one rule of fight club is never talk about
Speaker 2: fight club exactly.
Speaker 1: Internally you can complain and you know, obviously say all
Speaker 1: the bad things about it. But externally that's omerta smile
Speaker 1: and stiffupper lip exactly. For those who don't know, Eaton
Speaker 1: is an all boys boarding school in Britain, founded in
Speaker 1: fourteen forty.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: There was nothing around it for America. For Charka, I
Speaker 1: think it's around the same time. Actually around the same time.
Speaker 1: It was originally founded by a king I can't remember
Speaker 1: which one, to be a scholarship school for very bright
Speaker 1: young boys who could then grow up to be government administrators.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, But as with all the best things, it
Speaker 1: instead became a bastion for privilege and all of the
Speaker 1: wealthiest people to send their shortren It's where Prince William
Speaker 1: and Prince Harry went, and my childhood was spent. All
Speaker 1: my years thirteen to eighteen was spent with busloads of
Speaker 1: tourists getting off buses to stare at me and say,
Speaker 1: is this Harry Potter? So I hope none of my
Speaker 1: friends from eating and listening. In fact, I'm sure they're
Speaker 1: not so. I got an email a few days ago
Speaker 1: from the Old Etonian Association.
Speaker 2: That's how you, guys, say alumni alumni exactly.
Speaker 1: The headline was on pleasure and business, and it was
Speaker 1: all about, drum roll, the release of a new.
Speaker 2: App, an eaten app.
Speaker 1: An eaten app. The email hit my inbox contain the
Speaker 1: following sentence. It will help reinforce what we all do already.
Speaker 1: Given two options that look the same, most of us
Speaker 1: will instinctively choose the old Etonian one. In an old
Speaker 1: Etonian environment, we'll go to the Oe founded restaurant, drink,
Speaker 1: the Oe founded wine book, the Oe founded hotel. The
Speaker 1: marketplace will simply support that instinct, making it visible, easy
Speaker 1: and fun. It's basically social shopping in a closed network.
Speaker 1: Do you do any social shopping? You mean?
Speaker 2: Do I do shopping on social media by buy books
Speaker 2: on the basis of what I see on social media? Absolutely? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do that all the time. Do I shop on
Speaker 2: the basis of going to Trevor Day School?
Speaker 1: Now? Well, continuing to quote from the email, You'll be
Speaker 1: able to sell a painting, hire a lawyer, rent a house,
Speaker 1: find a cello, teacher, advertise a vineyard, promote a play,
Speaker 1: offer investment, or buy a boat or a case of wine.
Speaker 1: You'll be able to promote your business, host to talk,
Speaker 1: offer advice, or list something completely unexpected. A vintage punt,
Speaker 1: a mid century sideboard, a labradoodle with a better pedigree
Speaker 1: than its owner.
Speaker 2: Is that a better pedigree that it's? You know, this
Speaker 2: is kind of the perfect thing for you, because this
Speaker 2: is like LinkedIn meets Amazon if you want to eat.
Speaker 1: Oh, that is that is perfect? You know. Just as
Speaker 1: we leave this one behind, The Times of London wrote
Speaker 1: a story about this, which I can say the only
Speaker 1: reason I'm talking about it because your meditor has already
Speaker 1: been broken. Everyone in courted No. Coming back to that
Speaker 1: line about giving a choice between two things, what instinct
Speaker 1: if you choose the old Etonian one. Somebody made a
Speaker 1: crack about how that hadn't worked out so well in
Speaker 1: terms of choosing prime ministers. Boris Johnson, I think of
Speaker 1: twenty six or twenty seven. In all there was a
Speaker 1: room where all the busts of the old prim minister said,
Speaker 1: the twenty seven white marble faces.
Speaker 2: To memorize their names. Probably, well, you kind of knew
Speaker 2: most it was like the residence of the United States.
Speaker 1: So that is the first and last time I will
Speaker 1: ever speak about eating with you.
Speaker 2: It's not the last time I'm going to ask about you,
Speaker 2: especially because I know there's no merit. I didn't know
Speaker 2: that before I would be badgering the constantly.
Speaker 1: So a couple of weeks ago, you introduced me to
Speaker 1: an AI R and B artist called Zanaia. I did.
Speaker 1: I did you as so often were head of the game.
Speaker 1: Because last week there are actually three AI generated chart toppers,
Speaker 1: really they were. One was a Dutch anti refugee anthem
Speaker 1: charting on Spotify. But there's also a country music track
Speaker 1: called Walk My Walk that's number one in the Country
Speaker 1: Music Billboard chart.
Speaker 2: You're kidding me. That's an AI tune, AI tune. I
Speaker 2: think this just means that AI knows what people like.
Speaker 1: And Paul McCartney do you know? Paul McCartney responded, how
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney is releasing a record with just silence in protest?
Speaker 1: Really a pressed record with a B side just silence.
Speaker 2: You're kidding me, that's amazing he should. I mean, I
Speaker 2: have a very unpopular opinion about this.
Speaker 1: What's that well.
Speaker 2: I just think that every musician should try to use
Speaker 2: AI tools with the gifts that they're given of songwriting.
Speaker 1: What about every podcast or should they try to use
Speaker 1: AI sound music making tools? Because this one has You're
Speaker 1: a kidding without further ado, here is owe to KitKat?
Speaker 1: Oh kid cat? Where'd you go? This city's hot?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? This is beautiful.
Speaker 1: You listen without your paw, without your per I.
Speaker 2: Can't believe you did this. This is unbelievable. Do you
Speaker 2: know this about This is about KitKat who got killed
Speaker 2: by weymoth? You're kidding me that you did this?
Speaker 1: Chase the bird, swash the claw.
Speaker 2: Wheel and wait with machines.
Speaker 3: Don't see what a cat means to a family.
Speaker 1: I used sooner AI and I wrote about it.
Speaker 2: That's a gorgeous song.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful song.
Speaker 2: Make that for how much money?
Speaker 1: Zero?
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying, ceremony, That's what I'm saying. The
Speaker 2: par reference, I'm just blown away.
Speaker 1: Lyrics actually, and I want to pull the lyrics for you.
Speaker 2: So you didn't write Obviously you didn't didn't write lyrics.
Speaker 1: Ballad about a cat who got killed by an autonomous vehicle.
Speaker 1: It's really amazing, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: We are living in a crase.
Speaker 1: But that's not even a story. We've got different stories.
Speaker 1: We got a transition.
Speaker 2: I just can't believe that you just did that.
Speaker 1: So a few weeks ago, a cat named kit Kat
Speaker 1: was killed after being struck by waymer. You know this story,
Speaker 1: I do. Kit Cat was a beloved neighborhood cat lived
Speaker 1: at a local corner market in San Francisco's Mission District.
Speaker 1: He had the nickname the Mayor of Sixteenth Street, and
Speaker 1: he would actively visit all the local businesses in return
Speaker 1: for treats. In twenty twenty, he was listed by s
Speaker 1: F Gate as one of San Francisco's favorite shop caps.
Speaker 2: We call them cats.
Speaker 1: So what happened? There's multiple versions of the story. Weimo
Speaker 1: said that the cat darted under the car as it
Speaker 1: was pulling out. Multiple witnesses allege that they saw KitKat
Speaker 1: underneath the car as the car started moving and people
Speaker 1: tried to stop the car. In fact, here's a quote
Speaker 1: from the owner of the shop, Mike Zaidan, where KitKat lived.
Speaker 1: This lady said there was no one to yet out
Speaker 1: in the car, no driver. They were touching the car
Speaker 1: hoping it wouldn't move and it just ran him over.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that beating beating on a car.
Speaker 2: That is uncanny, right, that's really uncanny. Valley.
Speaker 1: Here's what a witness said, So spooky. If it wasn't
Speaker 1: a weymo, if it was a person driving the car,
Speaker 1: they could have stopped.
Speaker 2: Of course, this is horror. This is this is this
Speaker 2: is a Yeah, that's what I'm going to say. It's
Speaker 2: really spooky, and imagine it's something else.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, that's except interestingly, and we're going to
Speaker 1: get onto this. Yeah, there actually no reports that Weimo
Speaker 1: has ever killed anyone. You can't say the same for
Speaker 1: Tesla's full self driving mode, though. There's been a growing
Speaker 1: memorial for KitKat outside the bodega, and part of what
Speaker 1: is really interesting to me here is there is actually
Speaker 1: back and forth at the memorial as to how to
Speaker 1: interpret this story. I'm going to get onto that too.
Speaker 1: But let's start with the people who basically using this
Speaker 1: as a moment to say enough, as in us treating
Speaker 1: this as kind of a referendum on where the San
Speaker 1: Francisco should have these self.
Speaker 2: Driving cars because of the loss of a cat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here's what a local bar owner said, quote
Speaker 1: KitKat was taken by technology that none of us asked
Speaker 1: for and none of us consented to. And in fact,
Speaker 1: Survey USA did a news poll fifty eight percent of
Speaker 1: Californians don't want self driving cars in their neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: That surprised me a little bit.
Speaker 2: That's that feels high.
Speaker 1: Jackie Fielder, who's a San Francisco City supervisor, is planning
Speaker 1: to introduce legislation that would allow counties to decide whether
Speaker 1: or not they'll permit the operation of autonomous vehicles.
Speaker 2: Sort of be in a county by county basis.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I don't know how far
Speaker 1: this will go, whether it has legs. But it is interesting,
Speaker 1: Like a cat gets killed, people are beating on the
Speaker 1: windows their minds. People wake up and think this is
Speaker 1: actually pretty weird. Do we really want this?
Speaker 2: I don't think I agree with weymo no existing. I
Speaker 2: don't why do we need autonomous vehicles?
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. Cheaper human drivers, more labors placed,
Speaker 1: more money for corporation.
Speaker 2: There go, and like doesn't seem very safe to me.
Speaker 1: Well, a twenty twenty four peer of view'd study says
Speaker 1: that you're wrong. Oh, human driven vehicles apparently crash five
Speaker 1: times more than weymo's. Our producers actually pulled city data
Speaker 1: and it turns out human drivers killed forty three people
Speaker 1: in San Francisco last year and zero were killed by weymo's.
Speaker 1: The Mayor of San Francisco actually went on Pivot to
Speaker 1: defend Waymo's during the interview. Interesting, and all of this
Speaker 1: comes at a time, by the way, when weimo is
Speaker 1: actually expanding deeper into the Bay Area, all the way
Speaker 1: into San Jose Angels and last week, I think for
Speaker 1: the first time, they were all out on the freeway.
Speaker 1: It is interesting though, that this is not the first
Speaker 1: time San Francisco has been roiled by a self driving
Speaker 1: car accident. Remember the last one there was a division
Speaker 1: of General Motors called Cruise, and a Cruz hit a
Speaker 1: woman and similarly dragged her for twenty feet because it
Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on. She actually survived, but
Speaker 1: it was one of those other moments where a machine
Speaker 1: that has clearly not recognized that something terribly is going
Speaker 1: wrong is happening. In the aftermath of that, General Motors
Speaker 1: paused their self driving taxi service after having invested more
Speaker 1: than ten billion dollars.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: So final thought on this from me is, you know,
Speaker 1: who knows what will happen, But the world is taking
Speaker 1: notice of kit Kat's death and the Weimo killing it,
Speaker 1: and the debate about how much we want autonomous vehicles
Speaker 1: and robots in our space, and this kind of made
Speaker 1: me think of Blackfish. I remember was about the orca
Speaker 1: and it kind of led to the end of Sea World.
Speaker 1: It was still open, it is, but it's really that
Speaker 1: they have to host I went to the conference for
Speaker 1: investigative journalists which was hosted at SeaWorld because it was
Speaker 1: the only conference center cheap enough. So it's very weird
Speaker 1: to be there. But you know, Weimo is a much
Speaker 1: more powerful company than the SeaWorld. But these moments where
Speaker 1: our heartstring by animals being hurt can be monumental moments
Speaker 1: of changing culture. So I think we should keep an
Speaker 1: eye on this.
Speaker 2: The kind of rule of thumb there is, don't hurt
Speaker 2: an animal if you want your company to succeed.
Speaker 1: That's right, Okay.
Speaker 2: So I am taking us to a galaxy far far
Speaker 2: away China.
Speaker 1: China, Yes, my favorite place to talk about.
Speaker 2: You recently talked to Joseph Cox about how ice Block
Speaker 2: and other citizen apps were removed from app stores at
Speaker 2: the request of the US government, as two Chinese LGBTQ
Speaker 2: plus dating apps have now been removed from Apple and
Speaker 2: Android stores at the request of the Chinese Communist Party,
Speaker 2: which is something that I find extremely alarming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that is alarming. And I mean you mentioned
Speaker 1: that ice block story about you know how under pressure
Speaker 1: from the US government, Apple and I guess Google, through
Speaker 1: the Android store, we're pulling these ice monitoring apps. Actually,
Speaker 1: I believe Apple sells more iPhones per year in China
Speaker 1: than they do in the US, so correct, I guess. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: money talks, and if the Chinese government tell apples do
Speaker 1: something just like here in the US they do, they'll do.
Speaker 2: And that's that's what's happened.
Speaker 1: But I understand why the US government wants to get
Speaker 1: rid of ice apps. Why does the Chinese government want
Speaker 1: to get rid of gay dating apps.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a good question because I was under the
Speaker 2: impression that the public opinion on homosexuality in China was
Speaker 2: actually getting more accepting, not less accepting. So I actually
Speaker 2: looked into the trends and this this is what I found.
Speaker 2: China decriminalized homosexuality in nineteen ninety seven. For context, US
Speaker 2: and UK were decriminalizing homosexuality back in the nineteen sixties. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's what's been going on recently. In the twenty twenties,
Speaker 2: Shanghai Pride was actually shut down, and in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: social media accounts for a dozen student led LGBTQ plus
Speaker 2: organizations were actually banned.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is really interesting. I wonder what was driving
Speaker 1: What were the actual apps that were removed?
Speaker 2: So one is actually called Bludha and the other app
Speaker 2: is called Finka. Bluda is especially popular and has been
Speaker 2: active since twenty twelve. By twenty twenty, the app had
Speaker 2: forty nine million users and six million monthly active users.
Speaker 1: Wow. Other other like use Grinder in China likewives No.
Speaker 2: No, no, no no. Other LGBTQ plus dating apps have
Speaker 2: already been targeted. Most were blocked from the Chinese marketplace
Speaker 2: back in twenty twelve, and then in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: Grinder was removed from Apple's Chinese store.
Speaker 1: And can users still use the apps that I download
Speaker 1: block or is it a usage block?
Speaker 2: So? According to Wired, previously downloaded apps still appear to
Speaker 2: be working, but the original apps are not discoverable in
Speaker 2: the app store anymore.
Speaker 1: And how did the Chinese government communicate to Apple they
Speaker 1: wanted this to happen?
Speaker 3: Do we know? So?
Speaker 2: Apple actually said they were following an order from the
Speaker 2: Cyberspace Administration of China, which is an incredible or you
Speaker 2: can just imagine working for the Cyberspace Administration of China, say.
Speaker 1: You think they might have bigger fish to fry, and
Speaker 1: they prepare for will.
Speaker 2: Never the biggest fish that they have to fry.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. You know, I was really interested in the
Speaker 1: ice Block story a few weeks ago because you know
Speaker 1: that the right have been obsessed for a long time
Speaker 1: about being deep platformed by technology companies. This was Elon
Speaker 1: buying x Trump starting truth social But actually it seems
Speaker 1: right now. I mean, at least from this examples that
Speaker 1: ice Block being removed, these gay data apts being removed
Speaker 1: in China. Have you put on the left to it
Speaker 1: being hurt more by deplatforming by the tech companies. I
Speaker 1: guess those in power are the ones to whom the
Speaker 1: tech companies answers the people are to worry about the
Speaker 1: deplatforms are the ones out of power.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, and that is clearly true.
Speaker 1: But you don't see people on the left coming together
Speaker 1: and saying, actually, although we disagree on the content, we
Speaker 1: think that people on the right were right about the
Speaker 1: power of these tech companies a deep platform. But what
Speaker 1: about you, I mean, how do you see the wider
Speaker 1: context of this story?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there is something worth noting, which is
Speaker 2: that Apple has a long standing policy of denying government
Speaker 2: requests for access to encrypted data. So the company says
Speaker 2: they will never create a backdoor or master key to
Speaker 2: any of their products or services. But they also seem
Speaker 2: to fold commpletely when it comes to deplatforming apps from
Speaker 2: their app store.
Speaker 1: Yes, don't put too much trust in big tech exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: After the break, tech bros want to build statues and
Speaker 2: the FBI attempts to unmask the mysterious owner of Archive Today,
Speaker 2: stay with.
Speaker 1: Us and we're back.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Hello. So sometimes friends send me links to articles in
Speaker 1: publications that they don't subscribe to and that I don't
Speaker 1: subscribe to. Using these internet archiving tools to get around.
Speaker 2: Pay walls, it's how I read most things I know.
Speaker 1: But I have and I have mixed feelings and being
Speaker 1: in the business of publishing content. I probably more than
Speaker 1: most feel it's important to pay publishers for content. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, has become.
Speaker 2: The norm and a way that we get a lot
Speaker 2: of articles.
Speaker 1: Well, that's true, and I mean certainly there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of stories that I wouldn't have seen if people haven't
Speaker 1: sent me these links to stories that are in paywalled publications.
Speaker 1: And some of those stories, in fact, we've talked about
Speaker 1: on the show. Now, the FBI wants to know who's
Speaker 1: behind one of the most popular of these sites, Archive
Speaker 1: dot is.
Speaker 2: And what is archive dot is?
Speaker 1: Archive is is an Internet archiving website. It's different from
Speaker 1: the Wayback Machine, which is owned by the nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: the Internet Archive. According to an FAQ page on archive
Speaker 1: dot is, it's quote privately funded. There are no complex
Speaker 1: finances behind it. And as I mentioned, it allows users
Speaker 1: to archive articles and web pages bypass paywalls. And it's
Speaker 1: one of several sites, including the Internet Archive, that is
Speaker 1: saving government web pages and data sets that have been
Speaker 1: removed or changed since Trump took office in January twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five.
Speaker 2: So do you know what the subpoene said? What is
Speaker 2: the FBI trying to find out.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's an attempt to unmask the person
Speaker 1: behind the website and its sister websites like Archive dot
Speaker 1: to day and Archive dot pH.
Speaker 2: So does the Internet have any ideas about who could
Speaker 2: be behind Archive today?
Speaker 1: Well, the domain is registered to Dennis Petrov, but that's
Speaker 1: likely an alias.
Speaker 2: Real name.
Speaker 1: There's a twenty twenty three blog post that did a
Speaker 1: deep dive into who the owner might be, and there's
Speaker 1: a quote on that blog saying it's a one person
Speaker 1: labor of love operated by a Russian of considerable talent
Speaker 1: and access to Europe.
Speaker 2: I wonder if Dennis Petrov wrote that.
Speaker 1: Or maybe Dennis Petrov is a KGP.
Speaker 2: Agent, possibly passibly. So I guess my last question is like,
Speaker 2: why is the FBI doing this?
Speaker 1: Well, we don't know. It doesn't say why in the
Speaker 1: subpoena and they haven't commented publicly. Ours Technica theorizes that
Speaker 1: it could be a copyright infringement issue because the archive
Speaker 1: doesn't have a policy to remove content that has copyright infringement.
Speaker 1: That said, this is is the Trump administration's FBI. The
Speaker 1: Trump administration based on their AI policy and not tremendous
Speaker 1: defenders of copyright. Yes, so it seems like it's something
Speaker 1: else going on here. Some have speculated they may be
Speaker 1: a political motivation because of the way sites like archive
Speaker 1: dot I make it impossible to scrub Internet history. There's
Speaker 1: also the Russian connection.
Speaker 2: Russian connection, we just don't know. Speaking of Russia, it's
Speaker 2: your frequent flyer.
Speaker 1: If I have a Russian visa at my passport, which
Speaker 1: always makes me freak out.
Speaker 2: Oh I do too, I went many years ago. Do
Speaker 2: you use flight apps?
Speaker 1: I hate apps?
Speaker 3: You really do.
Speaker 2: Like you use WhatsApp, It's like it's your hero app, WhatsApp.
Speaker 1: Text I don't have. I think I probably had a
Speaker 1: couple of airline apps on my phone, but I really
Speaker 1: I'm a mobile web browser, one of the last right.
Speaker 2: That's for Instagram as well. Sometimes true. So have you
Speaker 2: heard about Flighty before?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: So Flighty is this flight tracker that I read about
Speaker 2: recently in the Wall Street Journal. I'm like, not a
Speaker 2: huge frequent flyer, so I don't. I'm not like following
Speaker 2: different flight paths and all that stuff that other people
Speaker 2: who loved to fly follow. But I wanted people to
Speaker 2: know about this in preparation for next week, which is
Speaker 2: you know, the busiest time of year to travel.
Speaker 1: Thank god for the government shutdown being over exactly.
Speaker 2: So this flight app Flighty is so data rich that
Speaker 2: people have said they get Flighty updates before the airlines
Speaker 2: convey new information.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And that's even their tagline, Flighty get delay alerts faster
Speaker 2: than the airlines.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: You know who loves to use it? Pilots.
Speaker 1: Wow, they get better information from flight than from when
Speaker 1: they're you know, tragic. That doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 2: I know, you're like at the gate and it's saying
Speaker 2: it's delayed when it doesn't say it at the gate.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. You know who else loves it?
Speaker 1: The points guy, The points guy love you know what,
Speaker 1: I actually download this.
Speaker 2: You would like it because you know what, you like
Speaker 2: the fact that it's before the airlines Google.
Speaker 1: You like the exclusivity anyway, But how does it work?
Speaker 2: So there's a guy named Ryan Jones, which is a
Speaker 2: real name.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Dennis Petrol, Well, Dennis Petrov.
Speaker 2: Is the Ryan Jones of Russia. Is definitely what it is.
Speaker 2: But he actually built this really popular weather app called Weatherline,
Speaker 2: and then he started working on Flighty in the strangest
Speaker 2: of places and airport Chili's Apple.
Speaker 1: Like Jensen Huang starting in video at Denny's.
Speaker 2: It's exactly like that. So what he did is he
Speaker 2: brought in one hundred pilots to evaluate the data he had,
Speaker 2: so he knew this is the best stuff from put
Speaker 2: I can see you downloading this as I speak. He
Speaker 2: spent two years this just to give you a sense
Speaker 2: of like how much he really This wasn't just like
Speaker 2: on a whim. He spent two years in beta working
Speaker 2: out any data kinks, so by the time he launched
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, there wouldn't be any issues. He also
Speaker 2: asked his social media followers what they would want in
Speaker 2: a flight tracking app, and you know what they said,
Speaker 2: clean design, nice and they won an Apple Design Award,
Speaker 2: which was one of Jones's initial goals when he was
Speaker 2: laying out the app at Chili's.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: So Flighty pays for both private and public flight data
Speaker 2: from around the world in order to stay up to date.
Speaker 2: This data can include things like the number of hours
Speaker 2: lost to delays, the make and model of your plane,
Speaker 2: which you know a lot of people are interested in
Speaker 2: when it flew for the first time, whether you have
Speaker 2: flown on it before, and if your plane has a name.
Speaker 1: This is actually my dream come true.
Speaker 2: Like the thing is, you're sick enough to want to
Speaker 2: know all this stuff about your plane.
Speaker 1: I am, in fact, sometimes I google the tail numbers
Speaker 1: of planes all the time, not even private. But also
Speaker 1: you can find out, especially if you're flying outside of
Speaker 1: the US or outside of like Western Europe and you're
Speaker 1: in like a you know, another country, you can find
Speaker 1: out which major airline owned your plane.
Speaker 2: Before before it became a second hand exlightly dumpster.
Speaker 1: So I do like that kind of stuff. I will
Speaker 1: download flight toy. We've talked about memory a couple of
Speaker 1: times in this episode kit Kat's memorial. Yes, the Internet archive.
Speaker 1: So for my final story, I couldn't resist headline in Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: which was America's tech right is obsessed with building giant
Speaker 1: statues and.
Speaker 2: Who is the tech right?
Speaker 1: Peter Teel and most rich people. But there's one guy
Speaker 1: called Ross Calvin who runs a mining company and it's
Speaker 1: so good and he wants to build a statue of
Speaker 1: Prometheus on Alcatraz. You won't know how high he wants
Speaker 1: a statue to be high four hundred and fifty feet.
Speaker 1: That's humorious, an enormous, enormous statue. Prometheus, of course, was
Speaker 1: the Greek god who gave men technology against the will
Speaker 1: of the gods, and he's seen as an embodiment of
Speaker 1: the West's greatest traits.
Speaker 2: At first, I think you're healing about Ross Calvin. Then
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, no, he's talking about Prometheus.
Speaker 1: There are some other tech bros who want monuments. Mo Mahmood,
Speaker 1: the founder of a startup called More Monuments. I wonder
Speaker 1: if there's a lot of money more Monuments. He wants
Speaker 1: to build a statue of George Washington. Guess how high?
Speaker 1: Tell me six hundred and fifty feet.
Speaker 2: That's like a skyscraper.
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg created a tiny, tiny, tiny statue of his wife.
Speaker 1: You know how small? Seven feet?
Speaker 2: I guess that's true.
Speaker 1: You wanted to quote bring back the Roman tradition of
Speaker 1: making sculptures of your wife.
Speaker 2: People are crazy.
Speaker 1: Joe Lonsdale, a co founder of Pallantier, commissioned a neoclassical
Speaker 1: bust of none other than Barry Wise.
Speaker 2: You're kidding, kidding? Is that real?
Speaker 1: That's real? Lonsdale, like the President is a huge fan
Speaker 1: of the neoclassical style.
Speaker 2: This is very euro of Lonsdale. Yeah, it's very euro
Speaker 2: and it's also very trump.
Speaker 1: You know which great Europeans loved neoclassical architecture, which Benito Muslini,
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg has a quote from the author Erica Doss, who
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Memorial Memorial Mania.
Speaker 2: Dedicating memorial had she dedicating your life to writing about memorials, but.
Speaker 1: She said, quote, it's right out of the fascist playbook
Speaker 1: name and autocracy that doesn't have a neoclassical obsession. And
Speaker 1: she pointed out that this affinity for classical design calls
Speaker 1: back to the Roman and Greek empires, who promoted societies
Speaker 1: with strong perception of triumphant masculinity.
Speaker 2: You know, monuments and statues show what a person or
Speaker 2: country really values. If America the tech writer are exclusively
Speaker 2: pushing European style monuments with Greek gods and goddess's triumphant, like,
Speaker 2: what does that tell you about their values?
Speaker 1: You know, at a time of new monuments being built
Speaker 1: by and funded by tech overlords. I mean, in one sense,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a silly story, but on the other hand.
Speaker 2: Its consequence real consequence, I think.
Speaker 1: Do you know the poem Ossi Mandius no Osi Mandias
Speaker 1: was a poem that I liked by Shelley, and it
Speaker 1: was one that we had to read a lot at school.
Speaker 1: I want to read you a little bit of it, please,
Speaker 1: And on the pedestal these words appear. My name is
Speaker 1: Ossie Mandius, king of Kings. Look on my works, mighty
Speaker 1: and despair. Nothing beside remains round the decay of that
Speaker 1: colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sand
Speaker 1: stretch far away. This is a head of a statue,
Speaker 1: just in the desert, by itself, that to me says
Speaker 1: it all. This, this desire for immortality to self memorials great.
Speaker 1: It's tragic, and it ends with junk in an empty desert.
Speaker 2: Ozzie, I have a feeling that you don't follow something
Speaker 2: that I follow very closely. Also, the escapades of one
Speaker 2: miss Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 1: Well, I follow them when I see them on the daily,
Speaker 1: of course. And my wife wis the Hulu Shao. So
Speaker 1: I'm a she did Kim is part of my life. Okay.
Speaker 2: So it's not like you're completely kim agnostic.
Speaker 1: I'm not kim agnostive. I've also not a huge Kim
Speaker 1: stan Well.
Speaker 2: So you probably miss this, which is that Kim recently did.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen these Vanity Fair Lie Detector tests.
Speaker 2: It's like a content piece that they do. That's fun.
Speaker 1: It's a celebrity video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically them doing a polygraph. Oh wow, Okay,
Speaker 2: And she was doing it for her new show All's Fair,
Speaker 2: which I watch. And when I saw this video, I
Speaker 2: knew I had to bring it to Chat and Me
Speaker 2: because during her lie detector test that she did through
Speaker 2: Vanity Fairs Lie Detector Test content feature, Kim admitted to
Speaker 2: co star Tiana Taylor that she uses chat GPT.
Speaker 3: Do you consider chat gpt to be a friend?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I use it for legal advice.
Speaker 4: So when I am needing to know the answer to
Speaker 4: a question, I'll take a picture and snap it and
Speaker 4: like put it in there.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the answer I was expecting the question, do
Speaker 1: you can see chatchibts be a friend? I seem to
Speaker 1: remember that Kim that she said no, No, Why would
Speaker 1: you ask me that I don't have any friends. I'm
Speaker 1: the most famous woman in the world.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: She was trained to be a lawyer, and of course
Speaker 1: her father famously was OJ's lawyer. Yes, but I'm curious
Speaker 1: to hear about Kim's thoughts on Chat's legal advice.
Speaker 4: They're always wrong. It has made me fail test all
Speaker 4: the time. And then I'll get mad and I'll like
Speaker 4: yell at him, be like you made me fail?
Speaker 3: Why did you do that? Technically? And it will consider
Speaker 3: it refree. Yeah, so you're consider it refriend.
Speaker 4: It's just no, I don't consider it a friend.
Speaker 3: So she's a frend of me, Yes, a fun of me.
Speaker 2: It's important to know that Kim is actually trying to
Speaker 2: become a real lawyer. She did a four year law
Speaker 2: office apprenticeship, and she passed the Baby Bar exam after
Speaker 2: her fourth try, and she recently did take the California
Speaker 2: Bar Exam.
Speaker 1: Did she pause?
Speaker 2: No, But that's also not Chatchebt's fault. She's blaming that
Speaker 2: on psychics. Actually, Kim does go on to say that
Speaker 2: Chat tells her that she should believe in herself.
Speaker 4: Then I will talk to it and say, hey, you're
Speaker 4: going to make me fail. How does like that make
Speaker 4: you feel that you need to really know these answers?
Speaker 4: I'm coming to you and then it'll stay back to me.
Speaker 4: This is just teaching you to trust your own instincts.
Speaker 3: You knew the answer, clock, so technically you a Chat
Speaker 3: GPT are friends just toxic friends?
Speaker 1: On this scene.
Speaker 2: Because I think she wanted to get back to the
Speaker 2: original question, which is are you and Chat GBT?
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 1: This is hard heartening, Jon. You don't no matter what
Speaker 1: they say, you don't get derailed from your train of thought.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, you know.
Speaker 1: I do think one of the I like Kim by
Speaker 1: the way, but entertained about, was that she was saying
Speaker 1: to Chat you made me fail. I'm not sure that's
Speaker 1: quite fair. On Chat. I think maybe she fails. She'd
Speaker 1: have time to study.
Speaker 3: She studies a lot.
Speaker 2: I think it's really hard. I think it's really hard.
Speaker 1: This story got me thinking Kim isn't the only person
Speaker 1: asking chatchipt for helpful legal Highly doubt she is. I
Speaker 1: actually asked Chat for some help with legal problems the
Speaker 1: other day, and I was I was very persuaded by
Speaker 1: the answer. But then when I spoke to my real lawyer,
Speaker 1: I don't need you anymore. You do, but beyond my lawyer.
Speaker 1: I read a CNBC article the other day about a
Speaker 1: divorced lawyer who said more and more young people are
Speaker 1: using chat ChiPT for legal advice, which, of course she said,
Speaker 1: it's a bad idea, but I am fascinated by this topic.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, listeners, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: So earlier this year I asked if anyone has used
Speaker 2: chat GPT to write their wedding vows and I'm still
Speaker 2: waiting to hear that story. Or maybe you asked chat
Speaker 2: how to keep the spark alive in your relationship, So
Speaker 2: tell me what chat might say for that. We want
Speaker 2: to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Please send a voice memo to tech Stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. We'll give you a T shirt in return.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week for tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Kara Price and I'm oz Va Looshin. This episode
Speaker 1: was produced by Eliza Dennis Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter.
Speaker 1: It was executive produced by me Kara Price, Julian Nutta,
Speaker 1: and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The engineer is Beheth Fraser and Jack Insley Mix this episode.
Speaker 1: Kyle Murdock wrote out theme song. Please rate, review and
Speaker 1: reach out to us at tech Stuff podcast at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. We want to hear from you.