Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey therein
Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech are you?
Speaker 1: It's time for the tech news for Tuesday, May thirty,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Nvidia CEO Jensen Wang spoke at the
Speaker 1: Computech's forum in Taiwan yesterday and said something that I'm
Speaker 1: sure has a lot of programmers anxious. Huang said that
Speaker 1: due to how quickly generative AI evolves, we're entering into
Speaker 1: an era in which essentially anyone can be a programmer.
Speaker 1: It won't require you to have studied computer languages or
Speaker 1: even computer science. All it will take is a sufficiently
Speaker 1: sophisticated AI model to take your prompts and then turn
Speaker 1: that into a well designed program. Wang unveiled a platform
Speaker 1: called the DGXGH two hundred, essentially a supercomputing pro platform.
Speaker 1: It's designed to help build the next generation of generative
Speaker 1: AI models. This actually reminds me of the fictional supercomputer
Speaker 1: Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books,
Speaker 1: which explained that it was not sufficiently powerful enough to
Speaker 1: provide the question to life, the universe and everything. It
Speaker 1: gave us the answer, but not the question. However, it
Speaker 1: was powerful enough to build a computer that could do that.
Speaker 1: That seems to be what this is indicating. It's a
Speaker 1: supercomputer meant to build better AI. Anyway, Wang's keynote seemed
Speaker 1: to indicate that not too long from now, you won't
Speaker 1: need a background in programming in order to be a programmer,
Speaker 1: or at least that's how the articles covering his keynote
Speaker 1: seemed to frame it. I'd like to think that generative
Speaker 1: AI will help programmers and help them be more productive
Speaker 1: and more efficient, and that AI will give them the
Speaker 1: tools to build code that contains fewer errors, or to
Speaker 1: check for mistakes as they're coding that kind of thing. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, my hope is that this isn't a
Speaker 1: step toward invalidating an entire career path or and this
Speaker 1: is really the cynical part of me. I hope it's
Speaker 1: not an attempt to justify hiring relatively unskilled employees at
Speaker 1: a much lower salary than what it would cost to
Speaker 1: bring on a qualified programmer. Right. That's the fear is
Speaker 1: that if you've dedicated your time and energy. You pursued
Speaker 1: an education in computer science and computer programming, and you've
Speaker 1: built the skill set that would normally guarantee you a
Speaker 1: chance of landing a lucrative career in the field you love,
Speaker 1: and then you find out, oh, no, you're overqualified. We
Speaker 1: just need someone who can talk to this computer and
Speaker 1: make the thing that we want. It's not good. So
Speaker 1: my hope is that a lot of the news that
Speaker 1: covered this was doing so in a way that was
Speaker 1: perhaps not reflective of what Wang was actually saying. I
Speaker 1: say that because I didn't get a chance to actually
Speaker 1: watch his keynote, so I'm not certain how he worded it.
Speaker 1: I can only react to the way it's been reported.
Speaker 1: Reuter's reports that deep Media, which is a company that
Speaker 1: works to identify and track the proliferation of deep fake
Speaker 1: videos and other deep fake content online, has indicated that
Speaker 1: there's been a pretty significant jump in the number of
Speaker 1: instances of deep fakes this past year. So, according to
Speaker 1: deep Media, there are three times as many deep fake
Speaker 1: videos circulating this year as there were in the same
Speaker 1: span of time back in twenty twenty two, and there
Speaker 1: are eight times as many deep fake voice recordings and
Speaker 1: deep fake voice examples. I'm not sure how many examples
Speaker 1: we're talking about with that, because keep in mind, this
Speaker 1: all depends on how many were circulating in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: They just said it's eight times as many. So if
Speaker 1: only one deep fake voice recording had popped up in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, that would just mean that there were
Speaker 1: eight that popped up this year, So the details matter.
Speaker 1: This is also, by the way, when you hear about
Speaker 1: really the growth of any business, but specifically within technology,
Speaker 1: when you hear the growth is being expressed in percentages,
Speaker 1: you really need to say, all right, but what are
Speaker 1: the actual numbers, because if the actual numbers are very low,
Speaker 1: a huge percentage in growth still can mean a pretty
Speaker 1: low number, right, That's important anyway. Deep Media estimates that
Speaker 1: by the end of this year, there will be around
Speaker 1: half a million deep fake videos and voice recordings that
Speaker 1: will be shared across social media, and as you probably suspect,
Speaker 1: a lot of those will likely center around politics and
Speaker 1: misinform As the deep fake generators become more sophisticated, it
Speaker 1: can be a challenge for a normal human type person
Speaker 1: to tell the difference between real videos and deep fake videos.
Speaker 1: There are often indicators that you might be able to
Speaker 1: tell if you're looking on a large enough screen and
Speaker 1: a high enough resolution, but if you're like watching little
Speaker 1: videos on your phone, you might not notice. There are
Speaker 1: detection tools that are more effective for spotting really good
Speaker 1: deep fakes out there, but you can imagine the damage
Speaker 1: that can be done with this type of technology, particularly
Speaker 1: for people who are already predisposed to believe certain ideologies.
Speaker 1: If there's a video that seems to reinforce that ideology,
Speaker 1: they may not take the time to question the authenticity
Speaker 1: of that video. Various companies in the generative AI space
Speaker 1: have been working on different approaches to mitigate this issue
Speaker 1: to prevent the misuse of the technology, but these are
Speaker 1: are nowhere close to being comprehensive or fully effective. Already,
Speaker 1: there have been a few cases in which folks in
Speaker 1: the political sphere I shall not name names, but some
Speaker 1: prominent people in politics have shared deep fake videos, sometimes
Speaker 1: with like a half hearted disclaimer of something along the
Speaker 1: lines of, I don't know if this is real or not,
Speaker 1: so just a side note. If you don't know if
Speaker 1: it's real, just don't share it. But you know, no,
Speaker 1: I get it. You know. The folks who share this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff typically they don't really care if it's
Speaker 1: real or not. They're just looking for the effect. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's real, it's better, but it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: because they're just looking to stir up a group of people,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't really matter if it's real. All I
Speaker 1: can say is that the use of critical thinking is
Speaker 1: more important than ever, that employing critical thinking also takes work.
Speaker 1: You have to be actively working and engage in critical thinking.
Speaker 1: You can't just, you know, lean back and rely on
Speaker 1: upon it to kick in. Because goodness knows, I've been
Speaker 1: guilty of being too lazy to use it in the past.
Speaker 1: It's happened to me. I talk about critical thinking all
Speaker 1: the time, but I'm also guilty of not employing it
Speaker 1: on occasion. I have to think about it, I have
Speaker 1: to actively do it, and we all need to try
Speaker 1: harder because it's getting tricky to tell the difference between
Speaker 1: fact and fiction. There are a lot of tools out
Speaker 1: there and a lot of bad actors out there that
Speaker 1: collectively can start to push false narratives and to trick us.
Speaker 1: And it's across the spectrum. It's not like it's just
Speaker 1: one group doing this. There are lots of different people
Speaker 1: with different motivations doing the same sort of stuff, and
Speaker 1: we have to be on the lookout for it. And
Speaker 1: now for a piece about the consequences of relying on
Speaker 1: generative AI. So, a lawyer named Stephen Schwartz apparently used
Speaker 1: chat GPT while doing some legal research on a case
Speaker 1: that he was working. Chat GPT provided some background research
Speaker 1: that Schwartz apparently then used in filing this case. But
Speaker 1: there was a truly huge problem. Chat GPT cited other
Speaker 1: legal cases in order to provide support for Schwartz's legal argument,
Speaker 1: except those cases weren't real. They had never happened. Chat
Speaker 1: GPT created, or, if you want to use the parlance
Speaker 1: of the AI times, it hallucinated these cases. And I've
Speaker 1: talked about AI hallucinations not too long ago on this
Speaker 1: very show. You how generative AI models are essentially using
Speaker 1: a complicated statistical model to generate responses. And this model
Speaker 1: draws on a lot of archived information, but sometimes it
Speaker 1: just invents stuff and essentially is saying what word would
Speaker 1: most likely follow this word. Then you get a response
Speaker 1: that sounds perfectly cromulent, as the Simpsons would say, but
Speaker 1: is in fact hogwash or gibber jabber, or balderdash or
Speaker 1: just plain fake. And as you might imagine, presenting fake
Speaker 1: court cases as if they are a legitimate precedent to
Speaker 1: your own case is not looked upon kindly by the court.
Speaker 1: If you claim a precedent, then you should expect the
Speaker 1: court to look into the precedent to make sure that
Speaker 1: what you're saying is accurate. And when the court did
Speaker 1: do that, when they double checked Schwartz's filings, they found
Speaker 1: that the numerous cases Schwartz presented as suggested by chat
Speaker 1: GPT didn't actually exist. And when pressed, Schwartz said he
Speaker 1: was not aware that chat GPT could just invent stuff.
Speaker 1: He assumed that everything that chat GPT presented came from actual,
Speaker 1: real information that had been stored somewhere. Now, the judge
Speaker 1: has ordered a hearing a few weeks from now to
Speaker 1: quote unquote discuss potential sanctions. Woof So. On the one hand, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: it would be unthinkable to let people submit fake evidence
Speaker 1: to support their arguments and then receive no repercussions afterward.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I mean, the hype around chat
Speaker 1: GPT and other generative AI models is absolutely painting an
Speaker 1: inaccurate picture of what they can do. Though, honestly, it
Speaker 1: really doesn't take that much work to find out that
Speaker 1: these AI systems are flawed. It's just that I could
Speaker 1: understand why someone would put too much stock in chat
Speaker 1: GPT's performance because of the way it has been hyped. Again,
Speaker 1: it really doesn't take that much work to find where
Speaker 1: the problems are. So I can't give Schwartz a pass here.
Speaker 1: I could just say I could understand why he would think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a valid tool for me to use, and
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be any problems. I can kind of understand that.
Speaker 1: But if he had taken even just a little bit
Speaker 1: of effort, he would have seen that perhaps rely so
Speaker 1: heavily on chat GPT, without you know, fact checking, it
Speaker 1: would have been foolish. Okay, we've got a lot more
Speaker 1: news to cover before we get to that. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. So we're back, and we've got another
Speaker 1: open letter, actually just a short warning from various AI
Speaker 1: experts about the potential dangers of AI. It is very short.
Speaker 1: It is to the point I'll actually read the whole
Speaker 1: thing because it isn't long. Quote. Mitigating the risk of
Speaker 1: extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other
Speaker 1: societal scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war end
Speaker 1: quote that is it, that's the warning putting AI on
Speaker 1: the same level as things like pandemics and nuclear war
Speaker 1: as a potential threat to the human race. A lot
Speaker 1: of high profile AI experts have already signed their names
Speaker 1: to the statement. That includes Sam Altman, the CEO of
Speaker 1: Open Ai, who's been sending some kind of mixed messages
Speaker 1: about AI regulation in the United States versus in the EU,
Speaker 1: and then the CEO of Google's Deep Mind added their
Speaker 1: signature to it, among other experts. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: this warning has the backing of some very influential, educated
Speaker 1: and knowledgeable people who are in the field of AI.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's assuming that the signatures are legit, because
Speaker 1: we did have a case not that long ago where
Speaker 1: there was an open letter warning about AI that contained
Speaker 1: signatures from people who subsequently said they never signed it
Speaker 1: or even heard about it. So assuming that this is
Speaker 1: all legit, it sounds like we should really pay attention, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, these are people who are working in that field.
Speaker 1: That being said, I actually worry that some folks are
Speaker 1: going to interpret this as meaning AI is on the
Speaker 1: verse of becoming super intelligent and self aware or something.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, generative AI leans on statistics and
Speaker 1: training to create stuff. It's not thinking in the same
Speaker 1: way that humans do, and I worry that if people
Speaker 1: interpreted otherwise, then folks will be focusing on trying to
Speaker 1: solve the wrong problem. AI definitely has the potential to
Speaker 1: cause harm. Don't get me wrong. AI is potentially very harmful,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't need to be, you know, brainiac in
Speaker 1: order to be harmful. We can just look at the
Speaker 1: instances of vehicles that have been operating in autonomous modes
Speaker 1: that subsequently got involved in fatal car accidents. That proves
Speaker 1: AI can be harmful and it doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: super intelligent to do so. So I guess what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is I believe that this warning is warranted. I
Speaker 1: do think AI poses a threat and that we need
Speaker 1: to have rules and regulations and approaches to AI that
Speaker 1: are responsible and are least likely to cause harm. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do that by framing the problem correctly. That's going to
Speaker 1: be a big challenge. Right. You need to make sure
Speaker 1: that you understand what the actual problem is and not
Speaker 1: conflate it with something like super intelligence, in order to
Speaker 1: create the proper framework to actually rectify the issue. And
Speaker 1: in fact, like the people behind the statement said that
Speaker 1: the whole goal of making something short and blunt was
Speaker 1: to avoid issues of perhaps suggesting an approach that then
Speaker 1: would just devolve into an argument over the best way forward.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, I would argue, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but if we're not suggesting approaches, then what good is
Speaker 1: the warning? Like it's obviously we're not going to stop
Speaker 1: developing AI. I mean, even the people who signed this
Speaker 1: warning are actively pro promoting and developing AI right now.
Speaker 1: There's like an AI arms race going on in the
Speaker 1: world of computer science. So if is it just so
Speaker 1: that you can fall back and say, well, I know,
Speaker 1: we blew up the world, but we warned you back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. I don't know. Maybe I just
Speaker 1: am a little too cynical about how these experts are
Speaker 1: viewing the dangers of AI without any actual solutions to
Speaker 1: address the problem. Moving on from AI, Japan's Space Administration
Speaker 1: JACKSA is working with private companies in Japan to do
Speaker 1: something pretty ambitious, So The plan is to launch collecting
Speaker 1: satellites into space as early as twenty twenty five, and
Speaker 1: these satellites will collect solar energy, convert that energy into
Speaker 1: microwave beams, and then beam that energy down to receiving
Speaker 1: stations here on Earth, which is entirely feasible. Questions remain
Speaker 1: regarding how much energy these satellites will be able to
Speaker 1: collect and transmit, but the point of this project is
Speaker 1: to explore whether or not we can make solar collection
Speaker 1: in space and microwave transmission a part of a larger
Speaker 1: renewable energy strategy. For a country like Japan that might
Speaker 1: have limited space for things like terrestrial solar arrays, this
Speaker 1: could have a lot of appeal. I mean, it all
Speaker 1: depends on how large the receiving station has to be.
Speaker 1: I would imagine has to be quite big, so that
Speaker 1: you're not having a super concentrated beam of microwave energy.
Speaker 1: But it's neat like. If you can get this to
Speaker 1: work and become a supplemental part of your energy strategy,
Speaker 1: then it could be really useful, especially since with the
Speaker 1: positioning of satellites, if you have a whole network out there,
Speaker 1: you can be collecting solar energy twenty four to seven,
Speaker 1: So and weather will never be an issue. I mean,
Speaker 1: solar weather could potentially be an issue if you have
Speaker 1: like a chronal mass ejection or something like that, but
Speaker 1: you know, terrestrial weather wouldn't be an issue. So a
Speaker 1: lot of the complaints around solar the fact that you
Speaker 1: know you're only collecting when it's daytime and only when
Speaker 1: you have a clear view of the sun, that ends
Speaker 1: up being negated. But you still have questions of all, right, well,
Speaker 1: how efficient is this going to be. How much energy
Speaker 1: are you going to lose converting from solar to microwave,
Speaker 1: you know, how much is lost in the transmission. These
Speaker 1: are all questions that need to be answered as well.
Speaker 1: But this is a cool step toward answering those questions.
Speaker 1: Will it pan out, I don't know. I hope it does,
Speaker 1: though obviously it also opens up other things that you
Speaker 1: have to consider, like the potential for more space junk, right,
Speaker 1: So there's always other things you have to bring into
Speaker 1: the equation. But I think it's a cool project. Now.
Speaker 1: Over this past weekend, I actually went to the amusement
Speaker 1: park six Flags Over Georgia's for the first time in many,
Speaker 1: many years, and I have to say. The park has
Speaker 1: digitized a lot of operations since the last time I
Speaker 1: went there, but at a couple of other Six Flags parks,
Speaker 1: not at Georgia, but a couple of other ones, one
Speaker 1: in California and one in New Jersey, that digitization is
Speaker 1: ramping up a bit. And that's because those two parks
Speaker 1: have partnered with Amazon and Coca Cola to incorporate one
Speaker 1: of Amazon's grab and go cashierless shop concepts into the parks.
Speaker 1: So just as you would in one of Amazon's operated stores,
Speaker 1: you would be able to walk into one of these places,
Speaker 1: pick up a product, and then stroll right out, and
Speaker 1: you would be builled automatically through the Amazon system on
Speaker 1: the back end. So products will include stuff like Coca
Speaker 1: Cola products just as you would imagine, plus like snacks
Speaker 1: and other stuff like the New Jersey location says it
Speaker 1: will include necessities like sunblock and rain ponchos, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And it's interesting to hear that the parks
Speaker 1: are actually doing this because Amazon has actually shut down
Speaker 1: several of its own locations, I think like eight total
Speaker 1: in cities like New York and Seattle. However, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me if the plan all along was to attract
Speaker 1: partners like six Flags, where Amazon can serve as the
Speaker 1: back end operations, but someone else is in charge of,
Speaker 1: you know, restocking and cleaning the place and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Over the weekend, Toyota entered a hydrogen powered
Speaker 1: racing car into an endurance race in Japan. The company
Speaker 1: said it looked at the race as a sort of
Speaker 1: testing ground for the technology and an opportunity to uncover
Speaker 1: areas of improvement that wouldn't necessarily pop up in a
Speaker 1: laboratory setting, which is understandable, right Like in a lab
Speaker 1: you can test technology quite a bit and see where
Speaker 1: there may be areas that you need to focus on
Speaker 1: to fix things, but it's not until you really get
Speaker 1: something out in the real world and really put to
Speaker 1: the test that some problems will become evident. And let
Speaker 1: me tell you, an endurance race, a twenty four hour
Speaker 1: endurance race. That's a heck of a test for a technology.
Speaker 1: Toyota has actually been working on hydrogen fueled cars for
Speaker 1: a while, and in fact has even fielded hydrogen fueled
Speaker 1: cars in various races, but the big difference in this
Speaker 1: most recent vehicle is that the car was using liquid
Speaker 1: hydrogen rather than gaseous hydrogen. Now, liquid hydrogen comes with
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of challenges, like you have to keep
Speaker 1: the hydrogen at a very low temperature to keep it liquid.
Speaker 1: But it also means that you end up with a
Speaker 1: higher energy density fuel, right because liquid hydrogen packs more
Speaker 1: energy per volume than gaseous hydrogen does, which is an
Speaker 1: important consideration for an endurance race. You know, you want
Speaker 1: to have a fuel or an energy rich fuel. I
Speaker 1: should say I couldn't find any information on how well
Speaker 1: it performed. The race happened just this past weekend, but
Speaker 1: I did see a lot of articles saying, you know,
Speaker 1: it did it. It didn't tell me how well it did.
Speaker 1: Critics have long argued that Toyota has been dragging its
Speaker 1: feet on developing electric vehicles. Obviously that's where the automotive
Speaker 1: industry is really shifting toward, and as a result, because
Speaker 1: Toyota did not jump onto that particular approach, it is
Speaker 1: now lagging behind competitors as it tries to make up
Speaker 1: for lost ground. Toyota, however, has long argued that it's
Speaker 1: going to take longer to transition to pure electric vehicles
Speaker 1: than most people expect and as a result, in order
Speaker 1: to bring down carbon emissions while also transitioning to electric vehicles,
Speaker 1: Toyota has said, we need to invest in alternatives to
Speaker 1: just pure electric vehicles. This has been Toyota's message for
Speaker 1: years and years, with fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen powered vehicles,
Speaker 1: various hybrids, that kind of thing. There are critics who
Speaker 1: say that Toyota has made the wrong call, that the
Speaker 1: company is just trying to justify its approach to a
Speaker 1: different branch of vehicle development, and that it's kind of
Speaker 1: like it's sort of a sunk cost fallacy. It's gone
Speaker 1: so far that it can't come back. Although the new
Speaker 1: leadership at Toyota has been a bit more pro ev
Speaker 1: side than previous leadership has. It's interesting there's a lot
Speaker 1: of challenges that are associated with hydrogen based vehicles, including
Speaker 1: how to harvest pure hydrogen without using too much energy
Speaker 1: in the process. You may know hydrogen is the most
Speaker 1: plentiful element in our universe, but it binds with stuff,
Speaker 1: which means in order to get hydrogen, we frequently need
Speaker 1: to expel energy to break those molecular bonds to harvest
Speaker 1: pure hydrogen. And if you are spending more energy to
Speaker 1: separate the hydrogen from stuff. Then you're getting out of
Speaker 1: the hydrogen itself. Then you're at working at a net loss,
Speaker 1: and you may need to just re evaluate what you're doing.
Speaker 1: It may turn out that there's a different thing you
Speaker 1: can do where you just eliminate that step and you're
Speaker 1: wasting less energy. I'll have to do another episode in
Speaker 1: the near future to kind of go down the list
Speaker 1: of pros and cons of things like a hydrogen based economy.
Speaker 1: A few decades ago, that was a really big thing,
Speaker 1: at least in rhetoric in the United States, and we
Speaker 1: haven't really seen it mature and turn into a real
Speaker 1: technology here in the US, and I thought it might
Speaker 1: be a good idea to kind of do a follow
Speaker 1: up and talk about what are those pros and cons
Speaker 1: and is it really a viable approach and a viable
Speaker 1: alternative to your traditional internal combustion engines. Keeping in mind
Speaker 1: a hydrogen based car also uses combustion. It's just when
Speaker 1: you are you know, when hydrogen goes through combustion, you're
Speaker 1: not getting the same byproducts as you would if you
Speaker 1: were burning gasoline. Okay, I've got a couple more things
Speaker 1: I want to talk about But before we get to those,
Speaker 1: let's take one more quick break. We're back. So the
Speaker 1: United States is not the only country planning to put
Speaker 1: people on the Moon again. So NASA obviously has Project
Speaker 1: Artemis Artemis one, which was a test flight of the
Speaker 1: spacecraft and the launch vehicle. That's already happened, so Artemis
Speaker 1: one was a success. Artimist two will see a crew
Speaker 1: of astronauts launch off Earth and then circle around the
Speaker 1: backside of the Moon, not the dark side because there's
Speaker 1: the dark side changes, but the backside, the far side
Speaker 1: of the Moon, and then return to Earth. They are
Speaker 1: not actually going to touch down. And then Artemis three
Speaker 1: is the mission where astronauts would land on the Moon again.
Speaker 1: That one currently is projected for twenty twenty five. I'll
Speaker 1: be shocked if we make that goal. But meanwhile, China's
Speaker 1: Manned Space Agency announced that it plans to land Chinese
Speaker 1: astronauts on the Moon by twenty thirty. To accomplish that goal,
Speaker 1: the agency is developing a new launch vehicle and a
Speaker 1: new spacecraft. Again, that's a really aggressive goal. If the
Speaker 1: launch vehicle and the spacecraft are still in development, it
Speaker 1: often can take a very long time to get that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff buttoned up. Also, it will be interesting
Speaker 1: to see if lunar real estate becomes the next big
Speaker 1: land grab. You know, there are obviously space treaties that
Speaker 1: are meant to prevent such things, but I would be
Speaker 1: shocked if we don't see some rather aggressive moves to
Speaker 1: claim lunar landscape for various purposes. So we'll keep an
Speaker 1: eye on that too. I can't wait for it to
Speaker 1: become some sort of Heinland novel. All right, now we're
Speaker 1: toward the end of the episode, and occasionally I like
Speaker 1: to end episodes with some suggested reading material for y'all.
Speaker 1: So rather than go through all of this as a
Speaker 1: news item, I thought I would talk about a few articles,
Speaker 1: three of them in particular, that I think are worth
Speaker 1: your time to read. Also, these articles tend to fall
Speaker 1: more into investigative journalism or interesting experiences and less on
Speaker 1: the news side. First up is an art article in
Speaker 1: Ours Technica that Dan goodin ours Technica phenomenal resource. If
Speaker 1: you are not visiting ours Technica on the rag to
Speaker 1: read up on their journalism and tech, you need to
Speaker 1: change that because Ours Technica is a fantastic resource. The
Speaker 1: article I'm referencing is called inner workings revealed for Predator,
Speaker 1: the Android malware that exploited five zero days, so zero
Speaker 1: day being an exploit that the company that's behind the
Speaker 1: software is unaware of, and that is in there front
Speaker 1: the very beginning, and you can just if you find
Speaker 1: out about it, you can exploit it to your heart's
Speaker 1: content until someone notices what's going on. So the article
Speaker 1: details a dramatic story about how companies specializing in a
Speaker 1: double whammy of discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities as well as
Speaker 1: turning mobile phones into remote surveillance devices are making an
Speaker 1: awful lot of money selling those tools to very dangerous
Speaker 1: customers who then employ the technology to target perceived threats.
Speaker 1: We've seen this story play out in other areas as well.
Speaker 1: There was obviously the case of the Israeli tech company
Speaker 1: that was selling an exploit for iOS systems that took
Speaker 1: advantage of a vulnerability and eye message. Very similar case,
Speaker 1: and this article goes over something like that, but one
Speaker 1: that affected Android devices as well. Highly recommended. CNBC has
Speaker 1: an article titled Chinese apps remain hugely popular in the
Speaker 1: US despite efforts to ban TikTok, and this one touches
Speaker 1: on some stuff that I have mentioned on tech stuff
Speaker 1: in the past, namely, TikTok represents a very high profile
Speaker 1: example of a problem that actually goes well beyond TikTok,
Speaker 1: and perhaps it might be better to take a step
Speaker 1: back to consider whether or not TikTok is kind of
Speaker 1: standing in as a scapegoat for a much bigger problem.
Speaker 1: And it's a problem that even expands beyond the possibility
Speaker 1: of a country like China harvesting all this information, because
Speaker 1: obviously we've got all these other huge companies that are
Speaker 1: in the United States that are also harvesting information, and
Speaker 1: that maybe the problem isn't just with who is getting it,
Speaker 1: but the fact that it's being done full stop. The
Speaker 1: piece also points out something that a lot of others
Speaker 1: have been saying for a while, that a lot of
Speaker 1: the TikTok suspicion is being fueled by companies, primarily Meta,
Speaker 1: that would stand to benefit tremendously if TikTok were to
Speaker 1: go away. So knowing that Meta has a vested interest
Speaker 1: in TikTok dying helps kind of put all this into
Speaker 1: context as well. That's another reason why TikTok is so
Speaker 1: prominent in this discussion because you've got companies that have
Speaker 1: a lot of money that are very eager to support
Speaker 1: the narrative that TikTok is a danger. That's not to
Speaker 1: say that TikTok's not a danger. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it's like, let's do a laser focus on
Speaker 1: this one instance and ignore the larger problem that remains
Speaker 1: unaddressed as long as we're only focusing on TikTok. Finally,
Speaker 1: the third article I want to recommend is by Maxwell Stretchen,
Speaker 1: and my apologies for that pronunciation of your name, Maxwell,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I butchered it. But Maxwell has a piece
Speaker 1: on Motherboard titled I asked Chat GPT to control My
Speaker 1: life and it immediately fell apart. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: pretty amusing story about Maxwell experimenting with chat GPT to
Speaker 1: create a daily schedule. Like Maxwell just highlighted the things
Speaker 1: that he needed to do and wanted to do and
Speaker 1: gave it a chat gpt to tell them how to
Speaker 1: do it. And it highlights a few interesting things, including
Speaker 1: how open ai is trying to build in guardrails to
Speaker 1: prevent bad stuff from happening, or at least to prevent
Speaker 1: the optics from going bad. So like chat GPT saying hey,
Speaker 1: autonomy is really important and you shouldn't just hand it
Speaker 1: over to someone, which you know may or may not
Speaker 1: have been a legitimate and earnest statement all the way
Speaker 1: to how chat GPT has trouble meeting all of Maxwell's
Speaker 1: daily goals reasonably. If you've played the sims, you know
Speaker 1: how frustrating it is. There just aren't enough hours in
Speaker 1: the day to do everything you need to do plus
Speaker 1: everything you want to do. Turns out AI has that
Speaker 1: same sort of problem, So yes, I recommend those three articles.
Speaker 1: Check those out. All right, that's it for the news
Speaker 1: for Tuesday, May thirtieth, twenty twenty three. I hope you
Speaker 1: are all well and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.