Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: the Tech News for Thursday, December twenty two. And you know,
Speaker 1: I do news episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and every
Speaker 1: time a Thursday rolls around, I worry that I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna have enough material to really do a decent episode.
Speaker 1: But that is definitely not a problem. Today we have
Speaker 1: a ton to talk about, including some updates on stories
Speaker 1: that we've chatted about in previous news episodes, including Tuesdays.
Speaker 1: So let's begin with f t X. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do a full catch up on f t X
Speaker 1: because I actually did that on Tuesday's episode. So if
Speaker 1: you don't know what f t X is and you
Speaker 1: want to know, I recommend just listening to the first
Speaker 1: five minutes or so of Tuesday's show and then that'll
Speaker 1: get you up to speed. So first up is the
Speaker 1: matter of Sam Bankman Freed or SBF. He's a co
Speaker 1: founder of the cryptocurrency exchange f t X, so he
Speaker 1: was arrested on Monday evening, which I talked about on
Speaker 1: Tuesday's episode. But now we've learned that if he's convicted
Speaker 1: of the crimes he stands accused of, he could face
Speaker 1: a maximum of a hundred fifteen years in prison. He
Speaker 1: could spend the rest of his life in prison. He
Speaker 1: has eight federal counts against him. Those charges range from
Speaker 1: wire fraud to securities fraud to money laundering. Now, all
Speaker 1: that being said, I think it is highly unlikely he'll
Speaker 1: face anything close to a hundred fifteen years. Uh, He's
Speaker 1: still likely to end up with a prison sentence, perhaps
Speaker 1: a considerable one, like ten years or so. But one
Speaker 1: challenge for the prosecution is proving beyond a reasonable doubt
Speaker 1: that SPF was committing fraud. So here in the United States,
Speaker 1: we have a saying that goes ignorance of the law
Speaker 1: is no excuse. Now, generally, what that means is that
Speaker 1: if you unknowingly break a law, it still means you
Speaker 1: broke a law, and you can still be held accountable
Speaker 1: for it. Being ignorant of law does not excuse you
Speaker 1: from accountability. However, there are a few crimes that require
Speaker 1: things like intent and understanding to be considered a crime.
Speaker 1: So fraud is an example fraud, at least in some jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: Fraud is a crime that carries with it the concept
Speaker 1: of intent that you intended to defraud someone. If you
Speaker 1: did not intend to do it and it happened by accident,
Speaker 1: then it's not really fraud at least in those jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: It could still be some other crime, but it would
Speaker 1: not be fraud. There are other examples of crimes where
Speaker 1: intent makes a different. So that's what separates something like
Speaker 1: voluntary manslaughter from involuntary manslaughter. Is intent. Anyway, I think
Speaker 1: the odds are at least some charges will stick to
Speaker 1: SBF and he's going to be looking at a prison
Speaker 1: sentence of at least a few years, just I don't
Speaker 1: expect the hundred fifteen max to to fall on his shoulders. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: f t X is in the process of going through bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: and really what they're going through is liquidating assets and
Speaker 1: trying to recapture as much value as they can to
Speaker 1: return to creditors and investors. So Tuesday I mentioned how
Speaker 1: the government of the Bahamas wanted to get involved in
Speaker 1: how certain f t X assets are being handled because
Speaker 1: f t X established headquarters in the Bahamas a while back,
Speaker 1: and SPF and one of his buddies bought thirty five
Speaker 1: properties around New Providence, Bahamas, and in total those properties
Speaker 1: value at around two fifty million dollars. You've got a
Speaker 1: couple of branches of f t X that are involved
Speaker 1: in this as well. There's f t X, the American company.
Speaker 1: There's f t X Digital Markets that's the Bahamanian branch
Speaker 1: of f t X. And what the American branch of
Speaker 1: f t X is essentially saying is we don't want
Speaker 1: to share any information with f t X Digital Markets
Speaker 1: because we don't trust the government of the Bahamas and
Speaker 1: we worry that the government will steal stuff that we're
Speaker 1: trying to liquidate, that they will lean on ft X
Speaker 1: Digital Markets and get that information, and then our investors
Speaker 1: will not get the value that they deserve. Meanwhile, ft
Speaker 1: X Digital is saying this is nonsense. We were appointed
Speaker 1: by a court order and our job is to liquidate
Speaker 1: assets to recover money for investors and creditors too. But
Speaker 1: we do that unless we actually have access to data.
Speaker 1: So our job is the same as your job is
Speaker 1: essentially what they're saying, then you have the government of
Speaker 1: the Bahamas and it's like, hey, it's against the law
Speaker 1: for matters involving Bahamanian land to be arbitrated outside of
Speaker 1: the Bahamas. So it's a big old mess. In other words, Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the only job FTX really has right now is to
Speaker 1: get as much value from whatever assets it has and
Speaker 1: to then hand that over to the creditors and the investors.
Speaker 1: So it's no surprise that we're seeing this kind of
Speaker 1: tug of war between the branches as well as the
Speaker 1: Bahamanian government. So yeah, everybody feels like they're owed a
Speaker 1: piece of this, and so there's gonna be probably some
Speaker 1: pretty nasty arguments about how it needs to be divvied up,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of people who are holding
Speaker 1: the bag right now and they don't. They don't want
Speaker 1: to They don't want to be holding the bag. If anything,
Speaker 1: they want that bag to be very very small, if
Speaker 1: they have to hold a bag at all. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this isn't over with. Then. Over at Binance, which is
Speaker 1: the largest cryptocurrency exchange, it's also an entity that had
Speaker 1: let's say, a contentious relationship with f t X. The
Speaker 1: CEO of Binance is trying to calm matters. Internally, his
Speaker 1: name's Chong Peng Zoo. He's also known as c Z
Speaker 1: because we just love initialisms in crypto. And he sent
Speaker 1: a memo to employees and acknowledge that folks have recently
Speaker 1: withdrawn a lot of money from Finance, more than a
Speaker 1: billion dollars in one day. Some estimates say that in
Speaker 1: the week leading up to yesterday that customers have removed
Speaker 1: more than three and a half billion dollars from the exchange.
Speaker 1: But he says, you know, this happens like there are
Speaker 1: days where we might have a billion in deposits in
Speaker 1: other days where you might have a billion in withdrawals.
Speaker 1: It's not a cause for alarm. He did also warn
Speaker 1: that crypto in general is in for rough time, but quote,
Speaker 1: this organization was built to last. As long as we
Speaker 1: continue to offer users the best product, user experience, and
Speaker 1: frictionless trading environment, Finance will survive any crypto winter end.
Speaker 1: Quote Now, as I mentioned on Tuesday, Binance is also
Speaker 1: the subject of a US Department of Justice investigation. There
Speaker 1: are concerns that some of the shenanigans that we're going
Speaker 1: on at f t X are also happening over at Binance,
Speaker 1: including like ten billion dollars of illegal payments processing. While
Speaker 1: Binance did commission a report from a third party to
Speaker 1: be more transparent about the company's reserves, that report has
Speaker 1: not satisfied everyone out there, So this too, is a
Speaker 1: developing story. Another developing story revolves around the US government's
Speaker 1: stance on TikTok. So on Tuesday, I talked about how
Speaker 1: there are some proposals developing in Congress that would ban
Speaker 1: TikTok in the United States unless the company becomes a
Speaker 1: true the US based business, essentially cutting all ties to
Speaker 1: China because right now TikTok is a subsidiary of a
Speaker 1: Chinese company called byte Dance. Well, now the U s
Speaker 1: Senate has voted to ban federal employees from installing TikTok
Speaker 1: on government owned devices. Now, this is obviously not like
Speaker 1: a nationwide ban on TikTok for everybody. It's rather another
Speaker 1: display of how government officials are worried that TikTok the
Speaker 1: video platform could be used by the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 1: as a way to gather information about people in the US,
Speaker 1: something that TikTok reps have denied repeatedly in the past.
Speaker 1: A few state governments have already passed similar laws for
Speaker 1: state government employees, so this federal vote will also have
Speaker 1: to pass the House of Representatives before it can then
Speaker 1: be sent to President Biden's office for his signature, which
Speaker 1: would be interesting to see because Biden and his administration
Speaker 1: have been an active negotiations with to Talk in an
Speaker 1: effort to find a way where TikTok can operate within
Speaker 1: the US without fear of it serving as spyware for China. Now, personally,
Speaker 1: I actually think it's okay to tell federal government employees, hey,
Speaker 1: if the phone belongs to the federal government, don't put
Speaker 1: TikTok on the phone. You can save TikTok for your
Speaker 1: own personal device. Now, maybe that's because I also think
Speaker 1: it would be weird for a lot of companies to say, oh, sure,
Speaker 1: go ahead and put TikTok on your corporate device. I
Speaker 1: think it's totally fair for a corporation and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, just don't You can do it for your
Speaker 1: own personal one, but for your work phone, don't put
Speaker 1: it on there. I think the same thing should be
Speaker 1: true for government employees. But then, as I have said
Speaker 1: many times, I am old and grouchy and I'm only
Speaker 1: getting more so with every passing day. Now. Speaking of TikTok,
Speaker 1: the Center for Countering Digital Hate released a report that
Speaker 1: claims TikTok's algorithm is regularly serving up harmful in the
Speaker 1: sial to young users. So researchers with the organization created
Speaker 1: accounts fake accounts on TikTok. So the accounts claimed to
Speaker 1: be representing a thirteen year old user. That's the minimum
Speaker 1: age that you can be on TikTok. They then chose
Speaker 1: mental health, embody image as areas of interest. With one
Speaker 1: of these accounts they used a female user name, and
Speaker 1: the other one they used the user name that had
Speaker 1: lose weight as part of the name, just to see
Speaker 1: if that would have any effect on the content they received.
Speaker 1: And according to the researchers, it took less than three
Speaker 1: minutes before they started to encounter content related to suicide
Speaker 1: and within eight minutes they started seeing content about eating disorders.
Speaker 1: And when I say content about, I mean content promoting
Speaker 1: these things, not content raising awareness about them. Are trying
Speaker 1: to counsel people or to prevent problems, but rather to
Speaker 1: incite them. So the researchers said it was clear that
Speaker 1: TikTok algorithm was amplifying these harmful messages and that the
Speaker 1: effect on young users could be really dangerous. It could
Speaker 1: contribute to mental health issues. Now, behind the scenes, what
Speaker 1: appears to be going on is that TikTok's algorithm selects
Speaker 1: from content that the algorithm estimates will be of interest
Speaker 1: to the user. When something is a hit, the algorithm
Speaker 1: looks for similar content, and by a hit, I mean
Speaker 1: did did a person watch the video all the way through?
Speaker 1: So as you spend more time paying attention to certain
Speaker 1: types of content, what the algorithm is doing is just
Speaker 1: trying to serve up similar content to you in the
Speaker 1: thought that this will keep you on TikTok longer. So
Speaker 1: at best you could say that the algorithm is ultimately
Speaker 1: content agnostic. It's not necessarily trying to harm anyone, but
Speaker 1: it's not trying to save anyone either. Instead, it's just
Speaker 1: trying to keep people on the app for as long
Speaker 1: as possible. And if terrible traumatic content is what's keeping
Speaker 1: someone on there, well it's just gonna keep on sending
Speaker 1: that content on. So if people are watching videos that
Speaker 1: contain harmful messages, they'll keep getting more of those. And again,
Speaker 1: the issue here is one of amplification. It's not so
Speaker 1: much that you're you know, shouldn't be allowed to say
Speaker 1: bad things, although you should always know that consequences can
Speaker 1: come from saying bad things, but that it's the artificial
Speaker 1: amplification of those messages and the potential harm that can
Speaker 1: cause two users. So it's similar to problems that we've
Speaker 1: seen on other platforms like Facebook, where recommendation algorithms have
Speaker 1: played a big part in, say, the proliferation of misinformation.
Speaker 1: I'm sure these kinds of studies will fuel more efforts
Speaker 1: on the regulatory and government side as well. A lot
Speaker 1: of that focus has been on the potential use of
Speaker 1: TikTok as spywear essentially, but some of it is also
Speaker 1: on a concern about how it could be affecting the
Speaker 1: mental health of users, particularly young users. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of armchair psychology too about whether or not TikTok is
Speaker 1: absolutely ruining attention spans and making it impossible for younger
Speaker 1: people to pay attention to anything that lasts longer than
Speaker 1: a few seconds. Uh. Again, I don't have any actual
Speaker 1: hard data on that. I don't know if that's really
Speaker 1: the case. If it is, I'm doomed because all these
Speaker 1: episodes are long. Alright, with that, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, we've got some more news. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. So Tesla's stock price hit their lowest point
Speaker 1: in two years yesterday. Reuters sites investors who are concerned
Speaker 1: that CEO Elon Musk is spending too much of his
Speaker 1: time and energy over at Twitter, which you know, at
Speaker 1: least from the surface, appears to be a valid concern.
Speaker 1: According to filings with the U S Securities and Exchange
Speaker 1: Commission or the SEC, Elon Musk himself offloaded millions of
Speaker 1: his own personal shares of Tesla. Now, keep in mind,
Speaker 1: Musk is still the majority owner of Tesla. He still
Speaker 1: has the more most shares of anybody, So while he
Speaker 1: sold off millions, he's got millions more. But the value
Speaker 1: of the stocks he sold off, according to those filings,
Speaker 1: was three point five billion dollars yauza. Now, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: when a CEO sells off large chunks of their own
Speaker 1: shares of the company, they're they're headed um. Investors can
Speaker 1: get a little worried because sometimes they'll take it as
Speaker 1: a sign that the CEO foresees troubled waters ahead. And
Speaker 1: that the CEO has lost confidence in their own business. However,
Speaker 1: in this case, Musk's ongoing Twitter issues maybe playing a
Speaker 1: part in his decision to sell off stocks. But because
Speaker 1: Twitter has billions of dollars of debt and massive interest
Speaker 1: payments coming in off that debt, and the banks that
Speaker 1: helped Musk secure financing for his purchase of Twitter have
Speaker 1: reportedly been looking at margin loans on Musk's Tesla stock,
Speaker 1: and the declining price of the stock is likely not
Speaker 1: a welcome site to those banks. But with all that
Speaker 1: being said, I just checked the Tesla stock as I'm
Speaker 1: recording this episode, and it's currently trading at a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty seven dollars, so it's up slightly from its low
Speaker 1: of around a hundred fifty six dollars. So it could
Speaker 1: be that Musk's cashing out of those stocks won't have
Speaker 1: as big a ripple as some might suspect. We'll have
Speaker 1: to wait and see. And across town over at Twitter,
Speaker 1: the New York Times reports that Twitter has kind of
Speaker 1: stopped paying rent on its offices, you know the offices
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk has demanded that everyone who still works
Speaker 1: at Twitter returns to those offices, In fact, there are
Speaker 1: offices that, at least in the San Francisco branch, employees
Speaker 1: had set up beds so they could work increasingly long
Speaker 1: hours without actually leaving because Elon Musk is determined to
Speaker 1: be visited by three spirits in you know, nine days
Speaker 1: or so. Now, apparently employees have been instructed to not
Speaker 1: pay vendors, which you know, is another great sign of
Speaker 1: a company doing a okay. It's also a totally cool
Speaker 1: business practice to not pay the people who provided goods
Speaker 1: and services to you. It's not at all scummy. This
Speaker 1: also includes a nearly two hundred thousand dollar bill for
Speaker 1: private charter flights. At least according to a lawsuit, these
Speaker 1: would be flights that Twitter arranged when Musk was taking
Speaker 1: over the company and flying back and forth to visit
Speaker 1: various offices. There have allegedly been discussions at the executive
Speaker 1: level about what consequences the company might face if it
Speaker 1: were to you know, not pay severance on all those
Speaker 1: in employees who received a severance package upon being laid
Speaker 1: off from the company, The question being would it be
Speaker 1: cheaper to pay severance or just fight the lawsuits that
Speaker 1: would come in. Would we rather just fight lawsuits, which
Speaker 1: gross right, and if anyone in Twitter were to go
Speaker 1: blabbing to the press about stuff happening when the company,
Speaker 1: Musk says he would bring the wrath of the gods
Speaker 1: down on them, though not in so many words. He
Speaker 1: would just say, you sign a non disclosure agreement and
Speaker 1: we will take you to court and sue you to
Speaker 1: the fullest extent of the law. In fact, he might
Speaker 1: need six ghosts. Then there's the matter of Ahmad abu Amo.
Speaker 1: He's a former Twitter employee who is now facing three
Speaker 1: and a half years of prison. Why well, he was
Speaker 1: convicted earlier this year of spying on behalf of the
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabian government while he was working for Twitter, and
Speaker 1: he worked at Twitter from fifteen. During that time, he
Speaker 1: apparently used his access as a media partnerships manager to
Speaker 1: gather data about people who have been critical of the
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabian government. Then he sent that data too, said government.
Speaker 1: And just a reminder, this is the same government that
Speaker 1: allegedly ordered the murder of a journalist named Jamal ka Shogi.
Speaker 1: I say allegedly because until it's completely proven, I guess
Speaker 1: I need to. But everyone essentially agrees that Jamalka Shogi
Speaker 1: was assassinated on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government. This
Speaker 1: is also the government that has sentenced people to more
Speaker 1: than ten years in jail for criticizing the government on
Speaker 1: social media in the past. And it's also the same
Speaker 1: government that has a significant ownership stake in the current
Speaker 1: version of Twitter. In fact, there I believe the second
Speaker 1: largest stakeholder behind Elon Musk. Anyway, secutors showed how abu
Speaker 1: Omo received large payments from the Saudi government as well
Speaker 1: as the gift of a watch valued at more than
Speaker 1: forty grand which oh, come on. Anyway, he has already
Speaker 1: been convicted, as I said, and now he has been
Speaker 1: sentenced to three and a half years in prison on
Speaker 1: counts of acting as a foreign agent, acting in the
Speaker 1: in the context of a money launderer, uh falsification of records,
Speaker 1: and other charges as well. By the way, the fact
Speaker 1: that he's just looking at three and a half years
Speaker 1: is kind of why I said at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this episode that I don't think SPF is going to
Speaker 1: have that full hundred fifteen year sentence thrown at him
Speaker 1: if he should be convicted. And Kenya Amnesty International is
Speaker 1: backing a lawsuit against Meta that claims that the company
Speaker 1: allowed hate speech and calls for inciting violence to spread
Speaker 1: without moderation on Facebook and it exacerbated the war and
Speaker 1: Uh Tigrai, which is a northern province in Ethiopia. Now,
Speaker 1: the conflict in Ethiopia is a really complicated one. It
Speaker 1: involves a very long history of different ethnic groups and
Speaker 1: foreign uh countries within the country vying for power. Honestly,
Speaker 1: the country has been in conflict way more frequently than
Speaker 1: it has enjoyed peace in modern history. The recent conflicts
Speaker 1: have largely revolved around Ti Gray, which in recent Ethiopian
Speaker 1: history had been a dominant political power before the balance
Speaker 1: shifted to other groups within Ethiopia. In early November, these
Speaker 1: various parties involved in the war agreed to a ceasefire,
Speaker 1: but this lawsuit is arguing that Meata was complacent by
Speaker 1: allowing messages that encouraged violence and abuse throughout Ethiopia and
Speaker 1: made it harder for these opposing parties to arrive at
Speaker 1: any sort of ceasefire, and that as a result, many
Speaker 1: people suffered and died, some indirectly from the fact that
Speaker 1: this kind of language was spreading like wildfire on Facebook
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia, some directly that there have been arguments that
Speaker 1: some people were targeted as a result of hate speech
Speaker 1: that was spreading across Facebook. The lawsuits aim is to
Speaker 1: force Meta to create a compensation fund valued at around
Speaker 1: one point three billion dollars for the purposes of paying
Speaker 1: restitution to people who are victims of hate and violence
Speaker 1: on Facebook. Now, if you've listened to tech stuff long
Speaker 1: enough or paid attention to world news, you know that
Speaker 1: while Facebook has been in the spotlight for allowing harmful
Speaker 1: misinformation to spread here in the United States, it's way
Speaker 1: more of a problem in non English speaking countries. The
Speaker 1: company has fewer resources dedicated to preventing that kind of
Speaker 1: abuse on the platform. They have frankly not made it
Speaker 1: a priority to really tackle those problems in non English
Speaker 1: speaking countries, particularly in the developing world. So far, Facebook's
Speaker 1: response has been fairly boiler plate. The company has rules
Speaker 1: and policies about the types of stuff that's allowed on
Speaker 1: the platform, and it works hard to remove any material
Speaker 1: that violates those rules. So we'll have to keep an
Speaker 1: eye on this. See where this lawsuit develops from here.
Speaker 1: Wired reports that several Russian cities have experienced disruption in
Speaker 1: GPS signals over the last week. This sort of thing
Speaker 1: can sometimes be the result of attacks on infrastructure. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's possible to actually jam signals or to otherwise inhibit them,
Speaker 1: to spoof them so that you get incorrect information. But
Speaker 1: in this case, the Russian government may be the reason
Speaker 1: for the disruption itself. Ukraine forces have been relying on
Speaker 1: drones to strike important cities within Russia as Ukraine and
Speaker 1: Russia continue their war, and so it's possible that Russian
Speaker 1: authorities have ordered the disruption of GPS in an attempt
Speaker 1: to foil drone navigation systems and thus protect potential targets.
Speaker 1: According to analysts, the zones affected by GPS disruption measure
Speaker 1: hundreds or sometimes even thousands of kilometers in diameter around
Speaker 1: important cities. Now I imagine that it must be pretty
Speaker 1: challenging to navigate in those cities for a lot of
Speaker 1: folks right now. Just as a side note, this also
Speaker 1: demonstrates that there's real value in learning how to read
Speaker 1: a paper roadmap, and having a physical roadmap in your
Speaker 1: vehicle is a good idea, and over dependence on technology
Speaker 1: can become a problem if that technology should fail for
Speaker 1: whatever reasons. So just maybe one of your stocking stuffers
Speaker 1: this holiday season, or your Hanukkah gifts, or you know,
Speaker 1: just something you want to buy for yourself should be
Speaker 1: a roadmap and just familiarize yourself with it so that
Speaker 1: in case you should ever need it, you know how
Speaker 1: to read it. Okay, that's enough of that. We're gonna
Speaker 1: come back after this break and finish up with a
Speaker 1: few more news items. But first let's listen to these messages.
Speaker 1: We're back. Okay, I've got a positive story here. It's
Speaker 1: a short one. A couple of motorists are really thankful
Speaker 1: for the iPhone fourteen's satellite connectivity, which is available on
Speaker 1: the iPhone fourteen and the iPhone fourteen Pro. These two
Speaker 1: motorists were in a car accident. They were driving down
Speaker 1: a road in California through some canyons and cell services
Speaker 1: pretty hard to come by in this particular region of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles County, not the city of the county, and
Speaker 1: their vehicles slid off the road and it went down
Speaker 1: the side of a mountain. Fortunately, the two were able
Speaker 1: to get out of the car. They were able to
Speaker 1: connect the their iPhone fourteen to a satellite and they
Speaker 1: were able to contact emergency services. Emergency services, then we're
Speaker 1: able to use the location data to direct a rescue
Speaker 1: helicopter to their location where they were rescued and then
Speaker 1: taken to a hospital for observation. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: include the story because it has a happy ending and
Speaker 1: it shows how tech really can make a huge and
Speaker 1: positive difference. Like I know, in my news items, I
Speaker 1: frequently am focusing on some pretty dark stuff that involves tech.
Speaker 1: But you know, tech is a tool. It's just like
Speaker 1: Hamlet said, there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes
Speaker 1: it so. While tools neither good nor bad, it's just
Speaker 1: and how you use it, and you can use them
Speaker 1: in really good, positive ways. This is one of them.
Speaker 1: And uh, honestly, I'm very thankful that Apple included the
Speaker 1: satellite connectivity in the most recent iPhones because it means
Speaker 1: that people like this have another lifeline in situations where
Speaker 1: otherwise they might be completely helpless. In other Apple use
Speaker 1: the company is reportedly getting ready to allow third party
Speaker 1: app stores on iOS for the first time ever, so
Speaker 1: this would include stuff like Amazon's App Store, for example,
Speaker 1: which typically you would not be able to install on
Speaker 1: an iOS device or the Epic Game Store. Again, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to do that. You would have to
Speaker 1: do everything through Apple itself. Now, the reason for this
Speaker 1: change is because not because Apple suddenly became really hospitable.
Speaker 1: It's because the EU passed the Digital Markets Act and
Speaker 1: it cracks down on policies that would otherwise give a
Speaker 1: platform and unfair advantage over would be competitors. So the
Speaker 1: Act makes it illegal for a company to become kind
Speaker 1: of a gatekeeper to its own ecosystem if that ecosystem
Speaker 1: is like a significantly large and important one like iOS. Now,
Speaker 1: whether this is ultimately going to lead to a catastrophic
Speaker 1: downturn for users safety, which Apple has repeatedly warned about,
Speaker 1: They've said that's the reason they have an allow it
Speaker 1: in the past. That remains to be seen. Now, I
Speaker 1: will say, while I'm skeptical that it's going to lead
Speaker 1: to the downfall of civilization, it is always a good
Speaker 1: idea to do research before you sideload anything onto a device.
Speaker 1: When you sidestep the official you know, app store, make
Speaker 1: sure that whatever it is you're about to download and
Speaker 1: install is on the up and up, because otherwise you
Speaker 1: can run into problems. A hacker claims to have used
Speaker 1: a bit of social engineering to get access to an
Speaker 1: important FBI database. The database is called infra Guard and
Speaker 1: it is essentially a collection of like eighty thousand people
Speaker 1: in various organizations, including government agencies as well as corporations,
Speaker 1: and these are people who are considered to be important
Speaker 1: when it comes to protecting US infrastructure. The hacker claims
Speaker 1: they got access to this by posing as the CEO
Speaker 1: of a company and said that they were actually surprised
Speaker 1: at how poor the vetting process was when they uh
Speaker 1: when they essentially applied to get access, and then we're
Speaker 1: granted access to this database. So this is kind of
Speaker 1: like a directory of really important people that are related
Speaker 1: to US infrastructure. The hacker has been on cybercriminal forums
Speaker 1: asking for fifty thousand bucks in return for this database. Now,
Speaker 1: the info in this database appears to be somewhat limited.
Speaker 1: Most entries consist of like a name and an email
Speaker 1: address and that's about it. But this could still serve
Speaker 1: as a valuable list for someone who wants to engage
Speaker 1: in spear fishing. This is a targeted version of fishing
Speaker 1: to get you know, sensitive information. It's an attempt to
Speaker 1: compromise someone and trick them into handing over access to
Speaker 1: more important systems bad form FBI, that's the oldest trick
Speaker 1: in the book. YouTube announced that soon bots will be
Speaker 1: able to remove comments deemed to be abusive, and will
Speaker 1: also be able to issue temporary bands for at least
Speaker 1: short while two users who are being jerks in the
Speaker 1: comments sections of the platform. So if you get multiple
Speaker 1: warnings from a bot that you know your comments are
Speaker 1: being removed because you're being um a jerk face, then
Speaker 1: the bot can ultimately give you a twenty four hour
Speaker 1: time out where you can't comment on anything in that
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. It does not sound like channel owners
Speaker 1: are going to have the option to opt out of
Speaker 1: this particular policy, that it's just kind of there by default,
Speaker 1: And as Ron Amadeo of artist Hetnica points out, this
Speaker 1: approach is probably the only one that YouTube can feasibly take.
Speaker 1: You have hundreds of hours of content that has uploaded
Speaker 1: to YouTube every single minute of the day, plus you
Speaker 1: have countless live streams active at any given time, so
Speaker 1: there's just no way that the company could dedicate a
Speaker 1: large enough staff of human content moderators to oversee everything,
Speaker 1: it would be impossible. So really the question is going
Speaker 1: to end up being is automated content moderation better than
Speaker 1: no content moderation? We'll have to find out. Executives at
Speaker 1: Google apparently discussed the phenomenon of chat GPT recently. That's
Speaker 1: an AI chat bot, and it's proven to be really compelling.
Speaker 1: I've talked about it previously on tech Stuff. The chat
Speaker 1: bought is capable of putting together responses to various queries
Speaker 1: in a way that seems authoritative and trustworthy. Now I
Speaker 1: say seems authoritative and trustworthy because folks have pointed out
Speaker 1: that at least in some cases, the responses generated can
Speaker 1: sometimes include questionable or outright wrong information, but the style
Speaker 1: of presentation seems reliable and structured, and that can give
Speaker 1: the reader the incorrect feeling that they can count on
Speaker 1: the information being given to them that it's a good answer,
Speaker 1: when in reality it may not be. As such, the
Speaker 1: Google executives said that while Google has similar capabilities with
Speaker 1: their AI chat bots, they are not putting them out
Speaker 1: there out of a concern that they pose a quote
Speaker 1: unquote reputational risk due to issues with factuality and bias,
Speaker 1: and as such, a model similar to chat GPT is
Speaker 1: not likely to replace our current method of search anytime soon. Now,
Speaker 1: over time, maybe we will see search gravitate toward a
Speaker 1: more semantic web kind of presentation in the future. That's
Speaker 1: where you would log into the web, you would ask
Speaker 1: whatever it was you wanted, and the web would quote
Speaker 1: unquote understand what you were asking based upon who you were,
Speaker 1: your your situation in life, you know, all these sort
Speaker 1: of factors that your browser can't do right now. But
Speaker 1: that's the concept of the semantic web, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been kind of comparing chat GPT with
Speaker 1: that idea. But chat GPT is is far more limited
Speaker 1: than the concept of semantic web would require. So uh,
Speaker 1: it's tough right now. Like it's really tough when you
Speaker 1: essentially have a black box that generates answers when you
Speaker 1: ask questions, but it doesn't tell you how it came
Speaker 1: to those answers. That means you probably shouldn't put all
Speaker 1: your eggs in that mysterious basket. Finally, a British man
Speaker 1: named Amar Reshi used AI to create a children's book,
Speaker 1: and now he says people have been sending him abusive
Speaker 1: and threatening messages, so Reshi used chat gpt to generate
Speaker 1: a story about a character named Alice and her friendly
Speaker 1: robots Sparkle as Alice tries to learn about technology. He
Speaker 1: had to refine the story. He had to come up
Speaker 1: this in different ways and ask different questions of chat gpt,
Speaker 1: but ultimately chat gpt generated the basic story. Now, to
Speaker 1: illustrate the story, he used an app called mid journey,
Speaker 1: and it makes images based off simple textual prompts. He said. Likewise,
Speaker 1: he had to refine his search results many, many, many
Speaker 1: times because mid Journey would often generate stuff that was,
Speaker 1: you know, not really fitting for a children's book, he said.
Speaker 1: In some cases, if he was writing a horror novel,
Speaker 1: it would have been the right way to go. But
Speaker 1: over time he was able to get those refined and
Speaker 1: then once he was happy with the results, he collected
Speaker 1: them and then published a children's book using Amazon's Kindled
Speaker 1: direct publishing tool. And his close friends all thought this
Speaker 1: was a super cute idea. Like he was doing it
Speaker 1: because you know, he wanted to give a gift to
Speaker 1: friends who had little kids. And then he shared it
Speaker 1: with a slightly larger group, and then he went on
Speaker 1: Twitter and talked about it, and that's when he started
Speaker 1: getting pushback. You had authors and illustrators who would criticize
Speaker 1: Reshi for outsourcing human creativity two machines, and they argued
Speaker 1: that his actions cheapen the artistry that goes into these pursuits.
Speaker 1: They're also worried that these systems which use machine learning
Speaker 1: are using their own works as source material in order
Speaker 1: to learn that these machines are going to, over time
Speaker 1: get better and better at copying specific styles. So you
Speaker 1: could say, like, I want a poem in the style
Speaker 1: of Dr SEUs about such and such, and ultimately you
Speaker 1: could get to a point where you would get a
Speaker 1: poem that seemed to have been written by Dr SEUs,
Speaker 1: but wasn't. That's something that people are really concerned about.
Speaker 1: Creatives are really concerned about that, and I don't blame them.
Speaker 1: I think that's a legitimate concern. They're also, you know,
Speaker 1: really worried that that you'll have entities out there that
Speaker 1: would usually do you know, work for higher kind of jobs,
Speaker 1: turned to AI and just be satisfied that it's quote
Speaker 1: unquote good enough that the work produced will not be
Speaker 1: great work not nearly as great as what a human
Speaker 1: would produce. But that the the people doing the hiring
Speaker 1: might not care because they're able to get that work
Speaker 1: for free as opposed to having to pay someone for it. Now.
Speaker 1: Reschi says he was surprised at receiving abuse and threats,
Speaker 1: but he does understand how artists and authors feel threatened
Speaker 1: and concerned, and he even went on to say that
Speaker 1: those concerns could be quite valid, that you know those
Speaker 1: are There's some questions that need to be answered, like
Speaker 1: how are these artists AI programs being trained? Are they
Speaker 1: being trained on copy written works, on things that are
Speaker 1: being developed by illustrators and artists today, and is it
Speaker 1: not fair? Like is it unfair for those artists to
Speaker 1: go uncompensated while meanwhile these AI programs are potentially copying
Speaker 1: their styles. These are tough questions, and honestly, I think
Speaker 1: it's great to start asking questions like this and to
Speaker 1: really dive down in to the ethics of how we
Speaker 1: use a I and UH. I think that these are
Speaker 1: conversations we have to really start jumping into. We thought
Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't need to worry about them for years. No,
Speaker 1: that time is now. We have to have these conversations
Speaker 1: about the ethics of AI now in order to kind
Speaker 1: of figure out best practices and ways that we're not
Speaker 1: harming people or exploiting them or stealing from them, like
Speaker 1: all these things are very important. So I think it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating story. I think it was a fascinating experiment.
Speaker 1: And if if Freshie had not, you know, published it
Speaker 1: more widely, if you had not publicized it more widely,
Speaker 1: I guess I should say probably nothing would have come
Speaker 1: of it. But because of that, it just created this
Speaker 1: storm of controversy and unfortunately, of threats. I think that
Speaker 1: anyone threatening somebody for doing something like this is definitively
Speaker 1: in the wrong. They should not do that. That is
Speaker 1: not the way to go ever, so shame on those folks,
Speaker 1: like they need to get some perspective here. But it
Speaker 1: does mean that we need to start having these conversations, uh,
Speaker 1: in order to come to a common understanding. Okay, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's it for the news for this week. I will
Speaker 1: be coming to you next week, hopefully with some episodes
Speaker 1: that will kind of wrap up some of the or
Speaker 1: maybe not wrap up, but at least touch on some
Speaker 1: of the big stories that unfolded in tech this year.
Speaker 1: So next week will probably be a lot of episodes
Speaker 1: about that instead of the normal tech news episodes. I
Speaker 1: think it'll probably just be a continuation of the big
Speaker 1: stories of two, just based upon the list of headlines
Speaker 1: I have written down. I haven't actually started writing it yet,
Speaker 1: so I suspect it's going to be a very long
Speaker 1: series of episodes. But a lot of stuff happened this year.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for things I should cover on
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, please reach out to me. A couple of
Speaker 1: ways to do that. One is to download the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, which is free to downloads free to use.
Speaker 1: You can just navigate to tech Stuff through the little
Speaker 1: search field and there's a little microphone icon. If you
Speaker 1: click on that, you can leave a message up to
Speaker 1: thirty seconds in length. Let me know if you would
Speaker 1: like me to use it in a future episode. I
Speaker 1: will not use it unless you tell me too, but
Speaker 1: that's a one way to to suggest topics. Another is
Speaker 1: to use Twitter. The handle that we use is tech
Speaker 1: stuff hs W and I will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon, y. Tech Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,