WEBVTT - Tech News: Poisoning AI with Digital Art 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.560 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:16.720 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:21.720 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.520 are you? It is time for the tech news for Tuesday, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:30.480 October twenty fourth, twenty twenty three. First Up the Hill 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.640 reports that both Apple and Google have recently disabled live 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:39.159 traffic updates in the region around and including the Gaza 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.519 Strip as Israel pursues a ground war against Hamas. In 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.800 the past, companies that provide real time traffic updates have 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:53.360 suspended operations in conflict areas in order to avoid turning 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.560 into a method for gathering intelligence on things like a 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.480 military presence and troop movements and that sort of thing. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.480 Bloomberg cited anonymous sources saying that the Israel Defense Forces 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.520 or IDF, made this request to both Apple and to 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:13.399 Google to temporarily disable live traffic notifications and Google Maps. 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:19.160 Spokesperson Carlone Bordeaux stated that quote anyone navigating to a 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:23.000 specific place will still get routes and ETAs that take 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.920 current traffic conditions into account end quote, so the navigation 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.960 tools will still have access to this live traffic data. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.399 They're just not going to display the location of any 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.280 traffic bottlenecks or anything like that. They'll tell you how 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:37.959 long it'll take you to get to your destination, but 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.960 not what points along the route you should expect slow traffic. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.280 So that's just an update on things that are going 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.720 on in the tech sphere in that particular conflict. Yesterday, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.560 the US government announced it has designated thirty one technology 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.920 hubs across America that will focus on innovation and be 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:01.480 eligible to compete for millions of dollars in grant money. 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.840 The Economic Development Administration, which is a government office I 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:08.920 had not even heard of before today, said that the 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.720 goal is to encourage regions that are already pursuing innovation 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:18.560 in quote unquote critical technology ecosystems. The idea is that 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.800 the government is encouraging research and development that will lead 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:28.760 to technology and organizations that are all about job creation 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.960 and improving national security, like removing our dependence upon other nations, 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.320 for example, and also making the United States a leader 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.680 in various technical fields. Areas of focus include some pretty 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:46.360 obvious candidates like artificial intelligence and clean energy. That also 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.919 includes stuff like biotechnology, medical technology, and quantum computing, among 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.519 other disciplines. The thirty one hubs span thirty two states 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.720 and Puerto Rico, so it sounds like at least one 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:03.120 of those hubs state lines. So I hope everybody can 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.079 get along. The International Energy Agency announced today that according 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.920 to its estimates, renewable energy will make up nearly fifty 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:16.320 percent of global electricity production by twenty thirty and that 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.200 by that time there will be ten times as many 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.400 electric vehicles on the road as there are today. Now, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.960 that is encouraging, but we should also remember that our 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:29.120 overall demand for electricity grows every year. It's not like 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.760 it stays stable. So while renewable sources will take up 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.960 a bigger piece of the pie, we're also talking about 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.960 a much larger pie. To that end, analysts expect that 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.280 we'll see peaks in the demand for fossil fuels this decade. Also, 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.680 electricity is just one way that we actually use energy. 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.720 If we take all of our energy needs into account, 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.880 they predict that the share that fossil fuels represents will 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:59.280 go from eighty percent down to seventy three percent. So 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.000 there's it's a very long way to go in order 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.960 to truly eliminate our dependence on stuff like fossil fuels. 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.560 The agency warns that despite the move toward renewable sources, 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.440 are continuing use of fossil fuels currently has us on 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.720 a trajectory to see a global temperature increase of around 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.560 two point four degrees celsius. That's nearly a full degree 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:24.080 above the target that was aimed at in the Paris Agreement, 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.440 and it at least implies that we're going to see 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.640 more major shifts than things like climate and then more 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:38.080 granularly weather patterns and severe weather events. Yesterday, Tesla disclosed 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.560 in a financial filing that it is the subject of 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.159 investigations from the US Department of Justice. So the DOJ 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.720 is looking into the company for a whole bunch of 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:51.560 different reasons, including how the company markets its driver assists technologies, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.880 which Tesla refers to as autopilot and full self driving 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.799 or FSD. The investigation is also looking into whether Tesla 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.120 purposefully misled customers regarding how far their vehicles can travel 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.200 on a full charge of the battery. It's also looking 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.320 into the company practices, like the ones that relate to 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.760 quote unquote personal benefits and personnel decisions. So one of 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.560 the personal benefits could be the rumored glass house for 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.600 Elon Musk. I had totally forgotten about this story, y'all, 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.640 And when I read that there was a glass house project, 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.120 I thought, huh, I don't think I've ever heard the 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.400 term glass house project. I wonder what that is. Is 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.120 that like skunk works. No, we're talking about a literal 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.200 house with glass walls, you know, the kind of house 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.120 where you don't want to throw stones. The question is 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.719 if Elon Musk was actually using Tesla to fund and 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.920 build this house for himself, that would violate laws regarding 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.000 a company paying out benefits to an executive on top 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.360 of their normal compensation. I'm sure the full investigation has 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.719 a veritable laundry list of concerns, because Musk does have 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.000 a reputation for, let us say, playing fast and loose 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.240 with rules, as well as a history of campaigning to 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.800 have fewer rules in general. Analyst Ming chi Quo, whom 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.479 I mentioned recently in another news episode, has some more 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:20.200 juicy Apple news for us. Apple juice anyway. He wrote 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.320 a piece on medium that says Apple is kicking into 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.039 gear to get into the AI field. The company had 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.160 lingered behind a bit when compared with competitors like Google 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.359 and Microsoft, but that's pretty much par for the course 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.159 for Apple. If you look back on many of Apple's products, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.839 like the big revolutionary products that Apple released often, you 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.200 will see they were not the first to market. The 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:49.080 iPod was not the first MP three player, for example. Instead, 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.480 the company would spend time figuring out how to best 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.760 meet customer expectations, or how to blow them out of 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.680 the water, or how to even create expectations where the 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.200 customer wasn't aware they had any Anyway, Apple has a 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.800 lot of catching up to do, and Quo's analysis says 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.520 that the company will be spending an enormous amount per 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.840 year to get there. So on the conservative end of 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.360 the spectrum, Apple would be spending around a billion dollars 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:18.960 a year to start working on AI implementations. Quo suspects 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.840 it's going to be closer to five billion dollars by 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.600 the end of twenty twenty four, so five billion split 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.760 over two years, with the vast majority of that really 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.320 spent in twenty twenty four. Even then, Apple will still 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:35.400 be trailing well behind companies like Microsoft. Those companies have 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:40.240 been incredibly aggressive while pursuing and developing AI technologies. However, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.360 at least in the past, Apple has shown that its 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.760 approach can have an appeal that its competitors just can't match, 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.840 so maybe the same thing will be true with AI. 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:55.320 And speaking of AI, Technology Review has an interesting article 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.760 about how some digital artists are including elements that are 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.800 invisible to human eye, but they're intended to mess with 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:07.200 generative AI. So generative artificial intelligence has to receive training 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.400 in order to actually generate stuff. So with art, that 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.880 includes feeding millions of images into the AI system so 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.560 that it, in turn can learn to create images. But 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:24.040 this concerns artists because it's their work that becomes the 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.560 fodder to train these AI systems, and you can end 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.040 up with generative AI that will lift stylistic elements or 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:36.480 sometimes complete actual imagery from an established artist's work and 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.560 then pass it off as the AI's own creation or 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.560 someone else if they don't even indicate that AI was 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.240 used to make it. Meanwhile, you have artists concerned that 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.600 no one asked them permission to use their art to 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.720 train these AI models. They certainly haven't been compensated for 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.240 the use of their work. And then the artist's own 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.160 portfolio can become the fuel that ultimately robs that artist 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.200 of their livelihood or at the very least diminishes the 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.400 value of the work they produce. So what's the solution. Well, 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.760 some researchers have developed a tool they call night shade. 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.600 Nightshade by the way, that's a family of plants, but 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:19.720 I'm pretty sure they're specifically referencing deadly nightshade, a plant 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.640 that is in fact poisonous. And the tool makes changes 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.319 to digital art pixels, and it's changes that we humans 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.120 don't detect, Like it's invisible to us, we don't actually 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.960 see that any changes have happened. However, the AI scraping 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.880 these images totally can see that information, and the information 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.360 is misleading the AI. It's giving the AI the wrong 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:51.559 implication of how these various elements inside of art are created, 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.000 and it would prompt generative AI to start making some 0:09:55.160 --> 0:10:00.559 mistakes when trying to replicate certain types of stuff. And ultimately, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.120 the more the AI references works that have this kind 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.320 of stuff in it, the more wrong they get. So, 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.880 for a simple example, you might have some invisible AI 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.439 information there that is instructing AI and how to make 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.080 a picture of a dog, but it's all incorrect information. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.040 Maybe the thing that it creates ends up looking more 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.760 like a cat than a dog, or maybe it looks 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.080 like a lovecrafty and monster out of the depths of 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.800 horror and imagination. Who's to say. But the point is 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.160 that if AI does start generating images like that just 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:42.199 upon simple queries, it indicates two things. One, the AI 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.720 company that created that tool trained it on art that 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.040 has been put through this night shade tool, and that 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.640 would indicate that, yeah, that AI company was doing this 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:57.319 was actually using artists' work, presumably without permission or compensation. 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.080 And the proof in the pudding is that, oh, oh, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.440 your generative AI isn't creating pictures correctly. And of course 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.120 number two is the generative AI won't be creating pictures 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.920 correctly and thus will be less useful as a tool. 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.120 You can't really use AI to generate art about something 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.240 specific if it thinks that a house is actually a 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.680 boat or something along those lines. By the way, you 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.720 can actually read more about this in the MIT Technology 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:29.320 Review article titled this new data poisoning tool lets artists 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:34.080 fight back against generative AI. Okay, I've got more news 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.280 stories to go through today. But before we do that, 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:48.679 let's take a quick break. We're back. The Verge reports 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.440 that both AMD and Nvidia are gearing up to produce 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:56.560 ARM based CPUs for Windows machines soon. So that's significant 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.520 because right now Microsoft is partners with Qualcom when it 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.640 comes to CPUs for Windows eleven based machines. But it 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.760 appears that in the not too distant future there will 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.480 be a lot more competition in that space, and you 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.640 may find yourself shopping for a new Windows PC and 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.080 then you might have to compare different ARM based processors 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.040 with each other. This could also put pressure on Intel 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.360 to innovate in its own processor family or else risk 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.040 losing market share to AMD and to Nvidia, as well 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.160 as to Qualcomm. I really like this news because healthy 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.800 competition tends to mean better products and better prices, both 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.280 of which are great if you happen to be a consumer. 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.800 Gizmoto reports that Microsoft has finally addressed an issue in 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.960 its spreadsheet platform, Excel, that caused a headache in the 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.920 field of genetic research. So the problem is that Excel 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.800 thinks it knows better than the user and will automatically 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.480 make certain changes to data if that data is in 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.880 a particular format. So, for example, let's say you're a 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.880 geneticist and you type in the characters sept and the 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.880 numeral one sept one all together, and of course what 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.480 you mean is septin one, which is a protein coding 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.040 gene that plays a part in cytokinesis and the maintenance 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.679 of cellular morphology. Excel would not know that you are 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.520 creating a spreadsheet about genes, so it would assume that 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.920 when you typed sept one, what you actually met was 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.960 the first of September, and it might change that entry 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.760 so it says one dash SEP. The same is true 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.600 if you happen to be typing about membrane associated ring 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:40.120 CH type finger one. Geneticis would encode that as March 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.360 one m a RCH one. That of course would turn 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.319 into one dash mr. When your spreadsheet starts changing your 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:52.040 gene codes into dates, that's a problem. And worse, Excel 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.400 did not have a feature for you to turn that off, 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.800 so you couldn't tell it, hey, stop converting my gene 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.680 code codes into dates. And it meant that when it 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.640 got time for you to publish your work, you would 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.880 have to go through and spend countless hours making corrections. 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.200 Because the spreadsheets you were using had changed all your 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.800 codes into dates, so you had to make sure which 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:16.480 one of these should be dates, which of these are 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.480 actually codes. You could easily make mistakes and miss stuff. 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.040 It was a huge headache. In fact, it was such 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.280 a huge headache that a few years ago the field 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:30.480 overall changed its encoding system to work around this problem. 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.240 But now Microsoft has created an option in Excel that 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.600 lets you turn off the autoconversion feature as long as 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.520 you're not running macros on your spreadsheets, because then apparently 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.120 it all breaks down. I'm not sure if this isn't 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.200 a case of it being better late than never, but 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.760 I do think it's an example of how an automated 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.400 process can actually make things harder rather than easier. When 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.920 you extend that to AI implementations, it can raise some 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.800 really serious questions. Obviously, this is a much more simplified approach, right, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.400 This is a conversion for one tiny instance of data, 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.600 But when you extend that out and you think about 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.520 the sort of things like the conclusions that AI can 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.000 come to based upon the information it has access to, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.440 you can understand how sometimes the conclusions are not really 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:23.160 ideal all the time, because sometimes AI makes mistakes just 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.840 like regular I does. And by IY, I mean intelligence, 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.360 not I. I wasn't making a grammatical error. I was 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:34.160 making I guess joke is being too kind. Uh, let's 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.280 just move on over In the UK, the Public Accounts 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.320 Committee recently highlighted a looming challenge for the energy sector 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.360 in that company. This is according to the Register, and 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.480 it all has to do with smart meters. Smart meters 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.880 are supposed to monitor energy usage and maintain a communications 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:55.160 channel between customer and the energy provider, and it's meant 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.520 to keep an accurate tally on how much energy a 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:01.480 customer is using, but also to tech stuff like interruptions 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.440 and service and that kind of thing. Ideally, smart meters 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.360 reduce the need to send actual people out to physical 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.960 locations to take meter readings, and that ends up freeing 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.280 them up to do other stuff. Not too long ago, 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.760 the National Audit Office in the UK found that energy 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.360 companies had rolled out smart meters to around fifty seven 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.160 percent of their customers, so that meant forty three percent 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.400 still did not have smart meters. This, by the way, 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:33.160 was way behind schedule of the initial plan. Also, about 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.560 nine percent of those smart meters were not working correctly. Now, 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.480 the Public Accounts Committee built on top of this report 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.400 and found that twenty percent of the smart meters that 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.640 have been deployed are living on borrowed time, and that's 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:51.560 because these meters are only compatible with aging cellular networks, 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:57.320 primarily two G and three G. Meanwhile, telecommunications companies are 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.840 planning on sunsetting those networks and shutting them down, and 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.160 that means that the smart meters won't be so smart 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.720 after that. These twenty percent of are deployed smart meters, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:15.560 so this shows there are lots of challenges that still 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.040 are in front of the energy sector in the UK. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.960 Nearly half of the businesses and homes in the UK 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.159 have yet to receive a smart meter at all, some 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.399 of those who have one have one that doesn't work, 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.400 and then a whole bunch of them around seven million 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.800 different locations are going to need a new smart meter 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.240 before the cellular networks completely shut down, or else it'll 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.639 be like they have just a regular meter again. And 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.680 considering that this whole project has had to push deadlines 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.359 a few times already, I'm sure this comes as an 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:52.560 extremely frustrating development. It also just reminds us that connected 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.119 technologies are only useful for as long as the underlying 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.960 connection exists, which I know that's obvious on the face 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.720 of it. We can take that for granted, right when 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.360 we talk about things like the Internet of Things, there's 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.720 a lot of future proofing that needs to happen for 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.760 the Internet of Things to remain useful, because otherwise, if 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:16.720 the Internet of Things is only compatible with older wireless technologies, 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:22.119 for example, and we gradually sunset those because we've created 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:28.480 better processes, better protocols for wireless communication, if we can't 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:35.080 update those IoT devices, they just become inert and we 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:39.440 have all the stuff that isn't doing anything. So that's 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:41.600 just a good reminder for us to have. And it's 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.520 very difficult to future proof things because you never really 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.800 know how far along they're going to go. Sometimes, if 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.040 you're lucky, you have designed your product, not just lucky, 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.880 but smart. You've designed your product in such a way 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.800 where you can update it with things like firmware updates 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.199 to keep it relevant longer. Ultimately, you're always going to 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.240 have to swap stuff out. Your goal is to make 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:07.000 it as less frequent as you possibly can and to 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:11.800 maximize the life cycle of the devices you've deployed. Anyway, 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.399 this whole story was giving me flashbacks to the United 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:20.120 States back when television broadcasts switched from analog to digital. 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.000 It caused no end of confusion. Only a small number 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.560 of people were actually affected by that small in the 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.240 relative sense, because they needed to get a converter to 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:35.120 convert digital signals to an analog signal to feed into 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.680 an old television in order to still pick up broadcast TV. 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.360 For a while, everyone was thinking that they might need 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.880 one of those converters, and very few people actually did. 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.760 Dating in the modern world is hard, or so I'm 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.159 led to understand. I personally do not date because my 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.639 wife frowns upon it. Jokes. I've been happily married for 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.199 more than twenty five years at this point, so I 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.800 am totally ignorant when it comes to navigating the dating 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.280 world these days. To be honest, I wasn't exactly an 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.800 expert back when I was single. Anyway, What if I 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.480 told you that Tender is introducing a feature that will 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:16.399 let you turn friends and family into your own personal Yenta. 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.760 Yenta was the matchmaker and fiddler on the roof, to 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:25.680 be clear, So Tender's introducing this feature where you can 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.040 list up to fifteen people on your account who will 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.119 then be able to review potential matches based upon your 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.480 tender profile, and then they can weigh in on which 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.760 ones they think you should swipe left on or right on. Now, 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.119 they won't actually be able to do the swiping for you, 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.560 which is a good thing because can you just imagine 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.760 giving your parents access to your tender profile to be 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:51.880 able to vote on whether or not you should ask 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.960 that nice young person out on a date or not. 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.719 What a nightmare scenario that is. I apologize if that 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.520 major anxiety spike just now. They will also will not 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.760 be able to message the other profile, so you don't 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:07.760 have to worry about them reaching out on your behalf. 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.720 What they can do is give their opinion about whether 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.560 or not a person looks like a catch or if 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.080 you should just nope out of that potential relationship, and 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.919 they call this feature Matchmaker again. Getting back to Filler 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.960 on the roof, I'm just having the song matchmaker Matchmaker 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.159 make me a match play through my head, so hopefully 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.679 you are not aware of that song so that it 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:35.199 doesn't do the same to you. But I know that 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.119 the rest of the day it's going to be playing 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.879 in my head, partly because I was in a production 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.120 of Filler on the Roof. Anyway, I think this sounds 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.560 like Tinder is setting up the stage for a future 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:50.520 reality television program. Just imagine it's a reality TV program 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.959 where people can only go on a date with someone 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:58.080 who matches on their tender profile and gets the most 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.959 votes from that person's can unity of matchmakers. So like 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.679 your group of friends and family, I'll say this person 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.840 is right for you, and then you are obligated to 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:10.240 go on a date with that person. That sounds like 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.840 a reality TV show, Ready to go. I'm just giving 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.960 away ideas for free again, aren't I. You know what, 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:19.840 I'm gonna do some soul searching on that. When we 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:32.240 come back, I've got a few more stories to talk about. Okay, 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:36.800 we're back, so let me tell y'all a story. Way 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:41.480 back in twenty twelve, a company called Cloud Imperium Games 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.800 held itself a tiny little kickstarter was for a proposed 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:51.240 science fiction space game that they called Star Citizen. The 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:56.920 game's scope was to be astoundingly huge, and it would 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:01.320 include both multiplayer elements and elements that would be sort 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:05.879 of a single player campaign, which became known as Squadron 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:11.280 forty two now as Star Citizen grew and grew and 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.920 grew in development and sold more and more in game 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:18.840 products for a game that did not yet exist, and 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:23.440 made more than half a billion dollars in funding, no joke, 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:27.639 like they they something like six hundred million dollars I 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:30.920 think at this point. Anyway, the company decided to spin 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.800 off Squadron forty two to be its own standalone single 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:40.120 player campaign. But that campaign, just like the larger Star 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:44.879 Citizen game, kind of just stayed in development year after year. 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:50.600 And while supporters for Star Citizen have enjoyed releases of 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:54.480 some content, like there's been limited releases where you've got 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.360 some gameplay elements that people can actually play. I don't 0:23:57.400 --> 0:23:59.479 want to I don't want to suggest that nothing has 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.639 come out. That's not the case. But they were still 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:07.800 waiting for the full promised title, and for Squadron forty two, 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:12.560 that weight might and I stress might be getting close 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:15.320 to the end because the company has announced it is 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:20.440 now feature complete, so that means that the developers are 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:24.480 done adding in features into Squadron forty two. They're not 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:28.479 adding in any more gameplay elements or anything like that. However, 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:31.320 it's not quite ready to ship yet. The developer set 0:24:31.320 --> 0:24:35.840 it's working toward a beta and ultimately a release once 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:39.520 they are done finalizing the game, polishing the content that 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:41.800 kind of thing. They did not give a window for 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:44.280 when that might be. They did release a new trailer, 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:48.880 and I hope that the stars Citizen community that's been 0:24:48.920 --> 0:24:51.560 waiting for this content for more than a decade at 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:55.199 this point are happy with the result, and that the 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:59.080 rest of Star Citizen also ultimately comes out. I do 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:01.760 not have a stake in this. I never supported the campaign, 0:25:01.880 --> 0:25:05.560 I didn't pre order anything, and I have some very 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:09.360 strong feelings about how this whole project has progressed over 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:12.520 the years. Like I have been very critical of Star 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:17.240 Citizen in general, but I genuinely hope that the people 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:20.399