WEBVTT - Tech News: X Changes Prompt Some Users to Jump Ship

0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.360
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.920
<v Speaker 1>and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.

0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.279
<v Speaker 1>I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the

0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.319
<v Speaker 1>tech are you. It's time for the tech news for

0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:27.319
<v Speaker 1>the week ending on Friday, October eighteenth, twenty twenty four,

0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.640
<v Speaker 1>and over at X the platform formerly known as Twitter,

0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.199
<v Speaker 1>I think I'll always call it that, maybe just offspite anyway,

0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.159
<v Speaker 1>there was another change in how the platform works, and

0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:42.320
<v Speaker 1>it appears to have prompted yet another exodus among a

0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.040
<v Speaker 1>subset of users. So this time it all has to

0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:50.199
<v Speaker 1>do with the block feature. Now, in ye olden days,

0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.360
<v Speaker 1>if you chose to block someone on Twitter, not only

0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.520
<v Speaker 1>would they no longer be able to comment on, or

0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.440
<v Speaker 1>quote or repost any of your tweets, I wouldn't be

0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:02.640
<v Speaker 1>able to see any of those tweets in the first place.

0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:05.160
<v Speaker 1>So to the blocked person, you would seem to have

0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.120
<v Speaker 1>disappeared off the platform. But earlier this week, for reasons

0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.440
<v Speaker 1>I don't fully understand, X revealed that it was going

0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.520
<v Speaker 1>to change the block feature. And the block feature will

0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.759
<v Speaker 1>still block someone from commenting on or retweeting your posts,

0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.520
<v Speaker 1>but they will be able to read everything that you

0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:29.039
<v Speaker 1>have tweeted. So now, if I were still on X

0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.640
<v Speaker 1>Slash Twitter and you were irritating me and I blocked you,

0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:34.800
<v Speaker 1>you would still be able to see everything I posted,

0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.320
<v Speaker 1>you just couldn't comment or retweet it. Now a lot

0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.039
<v Speaker 1>of people have balked at this since it has been revealed,

0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.080
<v Speaker 1>and they pointed out that this can create really dangerous

0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.520
<v Speaker 1>situations for some users. Let's say that someone's getting stalked

0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.120
<v Speaker 1>and blocking accounts was one way to limit their visibility

0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.480
<v Speaker 1>to the stalker. Well, now the stalker could continue to

0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:00.680
<v Speaker 1>read updates and potentially escalate matters, make things worse because

0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.000
<v Speaker 1>the other person's now not aware of what's going on.

0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.200
<v Speaker 1>They're just posting, but they don't realize that the person

0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.000
<v Speaker 1>that they thought was blocked from seeing them can actually

0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:14.040
<v Speaker 1>read everything. As Matt Binder of Mashable noted, it appears

0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:16.800
<v Speaker 1>that some folks on X have felt the need to

0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.399
<v Speaker 1>stretch their metaphorical legs and seek greener pastures or perhaps

0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:26.560
<v Speaker 1>bluer skies because X competitor blue Sky announced that in

0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:31.000
<v Speaker 1>the twenty four hours following X's announced changes to the

0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.360
<v Speaker 1>block feature, blue Sky saw half a million users join

0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.080
<v Speaker 1>the service now. Blue Sky is behind both X and

0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.560
<v Speaker 1>metas threads, platforms and users, and all of those platforms

0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.440
<v Speaker 1>are similar. They're kind of like that microblogging sort of thing.

0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.040
<v Speaker 1>There's also Mastodon out there. I wouldn't be surprised if

0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.720
<v Speaker 1>Mastadon also saw a surge of new folks signing on

0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.080
<v Speaker 1>these days. I'm only kinda sorta on Threads. Even that

0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.480
<v Speaker 1>is a bit much for me. There are issues with Threads.

0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.600
<v Speaker 1>I have that the same as my issues with like

0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.360
<v Speaker 1>Facebook and really Meta in general. So I don't feel

0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.400
<v Speaker 1>great about posting there, but I have done it a

0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.280
<v Speaker 1>couple of times. It does help scratch the itch that

0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.000
<v Speaker 1>Twitter used to satisfy for me back in the day.

0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.560
<v Speaker 1>But it's not great. Maybe I should switch just a

0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:18.960
<v Speaker 1>Blue skyer Maston, or just accept the fact that that

0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.400
<v Speaker 1>part of my life is over anyway. I don't understand

0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.520
<v Speaker 1>why X made this choice to change the block feature.

0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.480
<v Speaker 1>But I should also mention that Meta's Threads announced a

0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:32.240
<v Speaker 1>change to its service that's being rolled out gradually, which

0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:34.720
<v Speaker 1>is that users will be able to turn on a

0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.600
<v Speaker 1>feature called activity Status. Now I say turn on, it

0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.200
<v Speaker 1>may be that the status is turned on by default

0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.320
<v Speaker 1>and you have to go in to opt out of it.

0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.240
<v Speaker 1>But activity status tells you which users are currently online.

0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:49.960
<v Speaker 1>So if this is on, if it's active for you,

0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:51.760
<v Speaker 1>and it's on, it's not active for me yet I

0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.560
<v Speaker 1>checked before I recorded today. But if it's on, then

0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:57.440
<v Speaker 1>for other people that it's on, you'll see a little

0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.960
<v Speaker 1>green dot on their profile icon that indicates that they're

0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.960
<v Speaker 1>online at that moment. And if the green dot's not there,

0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.040
<v Speaker 1>it either means that they aren't online or they have

0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:11.240
<v Speaker 1>turned off the activity status feature. To me, it sounds

0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.119
<v Speaker 1>like this is a bad idea too, Like I don't

0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.000
<v Speaker 1>know anyone who is begging for this. Maybe it's just

0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.720
<v Speaker 1>that I use threads in a different way. I always

0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.599
<v Speaker 1>viewed threads just as I viewed Twitter as kind of

0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.840
<v Speaker 1>an asynchronous communications tool where you post, but you're not

0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.360
<v Speaker 1>expecting an immediate response, right, They'll respond when they get

0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.160
<v Speaker 1>a chance to respond, that's it, and then you respond

0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.520
<v Speaker 1>when you have a chance. It's not happening in real time.

0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.600
<v Speaker 1>But Meta appears to be kind of trying to move

0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.440
<v Speaker 1>threads into that space a little bit. And I don't know,

0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.039
<v Speaker 1>maybe that is something that a lot of people have

0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.200
<v Speaker 1>been asking for. But if you're like me, and you

0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.160
<v Speaker 1>aren't keen on everybody being aware of when you're on

0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.840
<v Speaker 1>the service, You'll probably want to turn the activity status

0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.159
<v Speaker 1>to off if you are in fact using once it

0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.160
<v Speaker 1>is rolled out. That is, so I'll be curious to

0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.280
<v Speaker 1>see how this rollout happens. Like I said, I don't

0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.400
<v Speaker 1>have it yet, so I don't know if this is

0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.720
<v Speaker 1>opt out or opt in. I would much prefer it

0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.440
<v Speaker 1>to be opt in and have it off by default,

0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.080
<v Speaker 1>but I suspect that will not be how it turns out.

0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.960
<v Speaker 1>We'll have to see. Sarah Perez of tech Crunch has

0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.680
<v Speaker 1>an article this week titled Elon Musk's X is changing

0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:27.040
<v Speaker 1>its privacy policy to allow third parties to train AI

0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.039
<v Speaker 1>on your posts. So maybe some of those folks headed

0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.440
<v Speaker 1>to Blue Sky are more concerned about their posts being

0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.960
<v Speaker 1>used to fuel our future robotic overlords and less concerned

0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.080
<v Speaker 1>about the block feature. I don't know. Perez notes that

0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.520
<v Speaker 1>X changed its privacy policy and it now includes the

0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.680
<v Speaker 1>option for third party collaborators to slurp up all that

0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.679
<v Speaker 1>tasted tasting data that you have generated over the years,

0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.040
<v Speaker 1>so that the next generation of trollbot or whatever can

0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.000
<v Speaker 1>lean on the collective wisdom of X, and I do

0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.400
<v Speaker 1>use all of those terms sarcastically. Users will apparently be

0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.719
<v Speaker 1>able to opt out of this feature. The new section

0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.400
<v Speaker 1>of the policy states, quote, depending on your settings or

0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.239
<v Speaker 1>if you decide to share your data, we may share

0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.400
<v Speaker 1>or disclose your information with third parties if you do

0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:15.040
<v Speaker 1>not opt out. In some instances, the recipients of the

0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.880
<v Speaker 1>information may use it for their own independent purposes in

0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:22.240
<v Speaker 1>addition to those stated in excess privacy policy, including for example,

0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.520
<v Speaker 1>to train their artificial intelligence models, whether generative or otherwise

0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.760
<v Speaker 1>end quote. Perez notes that as of the writing of

0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.400
<v Speaker 1>this article, there was no clear setting that would relate

0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.320
<v Speaker 1>to this policy, so if you went into your settings,

0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.360
<v Speaker 1>you wouldn't see something that was clearly marked as allowing

0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.360
<v Speaker 1>you to opt out of this third party collaborator stuff.

0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.400
<v Speaker 1>But the policy itself won't go into effect until November fifteenth,

0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.560
<v Speaker 1>so it is possible that that setting will arrive before

0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.880
<v Speaker 1>or when that happens. Getting back to Meta, the company

0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.600
<v Speaker 1>has apparently been making some staff cuts, and they sound

0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.320
<v Speaker 1>like they're not quite as sweeping as earlier rounds of

0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.320
<v Speaker 1>layoffs with the company, where like more than ten thousand

0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.880
<v Speaker 1>people were like go at a time. Alex Heath and

0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.919
<v Speaker 1>Jay Peters of the Verge report that the layoffs have

0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.840
<v Speaker 1>affected multiple divisions within Meta, including Instagram, Wattsapp, and the

0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:18.000
<v Speaker 1>company's all Things Metaverse department Reality Labs. As Maxwell Zeph

0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.000
<v Speaker 1>of tech Crunch has put it, the layoffs meant are

0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.200
<v Speaker 1>meant to quote reallocate resources within the company end quote.

0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.880
<v Speaker 1>So that's your standard reorganization slash restructuring language you hear

0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.880
<v Speaker 1>from corporate entities. Sometimes these moves reflect an organization realizing

0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.600
<v Speaker 1>that it has overstaffed certain departments and so operations have

0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.160
<v Speaker 1>become inefficient and wasteful, so the layoffs are an effort

0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.080
<v Speaker 1>to realign that. In other cases, it's more like company

0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.720
<v Speaker 1>leaders have decided they want to try and accomplish more

0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.600
<v Speaker 1>with less and say like, let's try and do the

0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:52.640
<v Speaker 1>same thing we're doing now, but with fewer people, so

0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:54.960
<v Speaker 1>are not spending as much money. It's hard to say

0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.880
<v Speaker 1>what this particular instance really qualifies. As Zeph at tech

0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.080
<v Speaker 1>Crunch also mentioned that the company declined to answer questions

0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.120
<v Speaker 1>regarding how many employees in total were let go, but

0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.000
<v Speaker 1>the layoffs definitely included some prominent folks who have taken

0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.560
<v Speaker 1>the social media to make it known that they are

0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.040
<v Speaker 1>currently in the job market. So I'm sure the cuts

0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.880
<v Speaker 1>are deeply felt within the departments where they happened. It's

0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.280
<v Speaker 1>just unclear as to how extensive those cuts actually have been.

0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:27.040
<v Speaker 1>Instagram has instituted some features to help protect users, particularly teens,

0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:32.599
<v Speaker 1>from sextortion attempts, as reported by Ayisha Malik of tech Crunch. Now, previously,

0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.760
<v Speaker 1>it was possible for someone to use screen capture tools

0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.080
<v Speaker 1>to copy images that were sent through direct messages. While

0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.640
<v Speaker 1>the sender would receive a notification that the image they

0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.760
<v Speaker 1>had sent had been saved, they couldn't really do anything

0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.840
<v Speaker 1>about it. And if the recipient of the message chose

0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.920
<v Speaker 1>to blackmail the sender, you know, threatening to share the

0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.720
<v Speaker 1>images that were sent to them unless the sender followed

0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.480
<v Speaker 1>you know, instructions, well that's where the sextortion stuff comes in,

0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:03.240
<v Speaker 1>which is pretty damn horrifying. Manipulating someone in order to

0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.160
<v Speaker 1>give them to send compromising images and then threatening them

0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.080
<v Speaker 1>by saying you're going to share those potentially with like

0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.160
<v Speaker 1>friends and family or whatever unless they do whatever it

0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.679
<v Speaker 1>is you tell them to do. It's disgusting anyway. Now

0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.120
<v Speaker 1>Instagram prevents screen captures of those kinds of images that

0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.760
<v Speaker 1>are sent as a view once or allow replay messages.

0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.480
<v Speaker 1>If it's sent through dms like that, you can no

0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:30.240
<v Speaker 1>longer take screen captures. Plus they'll only display on the

0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.720
<v Speaker 1>mobile version of the app. You cannot access these through

0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.800
<v Speaker 1>a desktop version of Instagram. They will not display the

0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.679
<v Speaker 1>images at all in an effort to prevent abuse. This

0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:44.400
<v Speaker 1>new process complements Instagram's recent rollout of teen accounts, which

0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.480
<v Speaker 1>includes a suite of features meant to give younger users

0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.880
<v Speaker 1>more protection while they're on the program. Meta has a

0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.920
<v Speaker 1>lot of ground to make up in this area because

0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.280
<v Speaker 1>the company has long been criticized for failing to ensure

0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.960
<v Speaker 1>the safety of younger users while simultaneously trying to court

0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.600
<v Speaker 1>them over to use the platform. That was a big

0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.559
<v Speaker 1>part of the whistleblower bruhaha from a couple of years

0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.280
<v Speaker 1>ago was that the revelation was one Meta at the

0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.000
<v Speaker 1>time it was Facebook. Facebook was well aware of the

0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:18.080
<v Speaker 1>potential harm it could cause, and two, while it did

0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.520
<v Speaker 1>very little to address that harm, it was actively trying

0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:27.199
<v Speaker 1>to get more young people to join the platform. So yeah,

0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.920
<v Speaker 1>this is an important step, but clearly it's just one

0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.880
<v Speaker 1>small step on a longer journey. Okay, we've got more

0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:36.960
<v Speaker 1>journey ahead of us too, but before we get to that,

0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:49.160
<v Speaker 1>let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. We're back.

0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.280
<v Speaker 1>Meda's Oversight Board, which I'll remind you, is an organization

0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.760
<v Speaker 1>that's independent of Meta. It advises Meta on content moderation decisions.

0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.640
<v Speaker 1>It is now seeking public comments regard immigration related content

0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.800
<v Speaker 1>that potentially could be harmful to immigrants. The board has

0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:09.679
<v Speaker 1>expressed concern that Meta's current policy only shields vulnerable populations

0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:14.439
<v Speaker 1>like immigrants, migrants, and asylum seekers from the most harmful

0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.120
<v Speaker 1>forms of hate speech, but it leaves those people open

0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.720
<v Speaker 1>to perhaps less overt, but no less dangerous attacks. And

0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:25.439
<v Speaker 1>they have shown two examples of posts containing hate speech

0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.480
<v Speaker 1>or things that are bordering on hate speech that Meta

0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.000
<v Speaker 1>did not remove even after human review of those items

0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:34.600
<v Speaker 1>were brought to the company's attention. So One of them

0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:38.200
<v Speaker 1>happened in Poland and contained a derogatory term for black people.

0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.920
<v Speaker 1>The other one happened in Germany and featured a picture

0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.360
<v Speaker 1>of a white, blonde haired, blue eyed woman holding up

0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.280
<v Speaker 1>her hand, and there was a message saying outsiders should

0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:52.040
<v Speaker 1>stop coming into Germany. It got more explicit and hateful

0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.160
<v Speaker 1>from there, but I don't want to even repeat it

0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.319
<v Speaker 1>because it's gross. Anyway, Metta left both of those messages

0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.679
<v Speaker 1>up even after human review, and it seems pretty clear

0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.600
<v Speaker 1>to me that the messages included speech that was meant

0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:09.560
<v Speaker 1>to incite people and to be expressed at the harm

0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.040
<v Speaker 1>of vulnerable populations, and that therefore it probably should have

0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.600
<v Speaker 1>been taken down. And the board suggested that Meta reverse

0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.680
<v Speaker 1>its decision and take those messages down, but Meta declined.

0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:21.520
<v Speaker 1>And this is a good time to remind you that

0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:26.200
<v Speaker 1>this oversight board, while it can make content moderation guidelines

0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.360
<v Speaker 1>for Meta, Meta is in no way obligated to actually

0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.560
<v Speaker 1>follow those guidelines. It's non binding. But now the board

0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.160
<v Speaker 1>is looking for public comment about these issues, potentially in

0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.440
<v Speaker 1>order to pressure Meta to make these changes. Because it's

0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.640
<v Speaker 1>one thing for Meta to kind of ignore its oversight board.

0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:48.520
<v Speaker 1>It's another thing if there's a big public campaign pressuring

0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.080
<v Speaker 1>Meta to take more action. That's bad for optics, and

0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.439
<v Speaker 1>I think Meta is far more sensitive to that than

0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.400
<v Speaker 1>it is to the guidelines of its own oversight board.

0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.160
<v Speaker 1>But that's my own personal opinion and we're not done

0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.319
<v Speaker 1>yet with Meta. So Reuter's reports that Facebook and Blumhouse

0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.600
<v Speaker 1>Productions have created a project in which some filmmakers, including

0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:14.120
<v Speaker 1>Casey Affleck, the Spurlock Sisters, and Aniche Chiganti. Aniche's piece

0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:18.319
<v Speaker 1>is already up. I watched it, and Aniche showed how

0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:24.400
<v Speaker 1>he used the tool to change the background or elements

0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.439
<v Speaker 1>of videos he shot when he was a child, and

0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.400
<v Speaker 1>it was kind of interesting, Like there was one where

0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.800
<v Speaker 1>it shows someone walking down their street in California that

0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.120
<v Speaker 1>was supposed to be set in Manhattan, so he had

0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.280
<v Speaker 1>the AI tool changed the background to look like Manhattan.

0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:41.679
<v Speaker 1>It did not look like Manhattan. It did look like

0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:43.720
<v Speaker 1>a big city, but it looked a little weird. I mean,

0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.600
<v Speaker 1>it's like AI generative stuff. But his whole point was

0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.760
<v Speaker 1>that this was a way to augment the filmmaking experience,

0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.440
<v Speaker 1>and that he stresses in it, I still needed to

0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.240
<v Speaker 1>make the movie. I still needed to write everything, that

0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.240
<v Speaker 1>this wasn't a tool that replaced all that it was

0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:04.160
<v Speaker 1>a tool that augmented it. I remain somewhat unconvinced, not

0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.160
<v Speaker 1>that it could be a tool used to augment I

0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.880
<v Speaker 1>think it could be. I think generative AI could be

0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:15.040
<v Speaker 1>used in ways to augment work that is not necessarily

0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.640
<v Speaker 1>harmful to creatives. The problem I see is that a

0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.080
<v Speaker 1>lot of the companies, the production companies that are ultimately

0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.400
<v Speaker 1>in charge of paying for creatives, that they would just

0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:31.400
<v Speaker 1>go and use generative AI as a shortcut and skip

0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:35.200
<v Speaker 1>the whole artistic process because we've seen that. We have frankly,

0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:40.120
<v Speaker 1>we have seen companies fire creative departments and rely on

0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:44.520
<v Speaker 1>generative AI to varying degrees of failure. Really it's not

0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.120
<v Speaker 1>really success. They're pretty awful at this stage. But anyway,

0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.520
<v Speaker 1>that's what's going on. It's the movie gen tool or project.

0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.920
<v Speaker 1>It'll be curious. I'll be curious to see what Casey

0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.840
<v Speaker 1>Affleck and the Spurlock sisters create. I haven't seen their

0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:03.240
<v Speaker 1>output yet, seen a Niche Chaganti's, but it is interesting

0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.600
<v Speaker 1>and I'm sure it will propel the conversation forward. I

0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.480
<v Speaker 1>remain somewhat skeptical, largely because I mean, any project that

0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:15.840
<v Speaker 1>is heavily supported by Meta, there's obviously a narrative that's

0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.960
<v Speaker 1>trying to be promoted there. Caid Mets, Mike Isaac, and

0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.080
<v Speaker 1>Aaron Griffith have a piece in The New York Times

0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.400
<v Speaker 1>with the headline Microsoft and Open AI's close partnership shows

0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.000
<v Speaker 1>signs of fraying. It's well worth reading if you can

0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.120
<v Speaker 1>get hold of it. The article explains that there are

0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.240
<v Speaker 1>some interesting clauses in the agreement between the two companies

0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.640
<v Speaker 1>that suggests the relationship isn't as cozy as was previously thought.

0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.280
<v Speaker 1>Considering Microsoft has dedicated more than ten billion with a

0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.720
<v Speaker 1>B dollars of investment into open ai so far, I

0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.760
<v Speaker 1>mean that's a huge amount of money. So the article

0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.680
<v Speaker 1>details how open ai has grown kind of frustrated over

0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.280
<v Speaker 1>stuff like access to money and access to compute power, because,

0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.640
<v Speaker 1>as I've mentioned before, ai is incredibly expensive, both from

0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.560
<v Speaker 1>a purely financial standpoint and energy requirements in order to

0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.480
<v Speaker 1>power all that compute that you need. And you have

0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:05.840
<v Speaker 1>companies like open ai that are trying to scale up

0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.400
<v Speaker 1>and ramp up ever more ambitious project that's kind of

0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:14.320
<v Speaker 1>require even more computational power, and yeah, that's incredibly expensive.

0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.000
<v Speaker 1>One of the things that blew my mind in this

0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.920
<v Speaker 1>article is that there are estimates that by twenty twenty nine,

0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.160
<v Speaker 1>the annual computational bill for open ai is going to

0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.640
<v Speaker 1>be somewhere like thirty seven and a half billion dollars

0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.200
<v Speaker 1>per year. Like, think how much money you have to make.

0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.080
<v Speaker 1>If your expenses are thirty seven point five billion dollars,

0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.000
<v Speaker 1>open ai isn't making enough money to cover its expenses

0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.600
<v Speaker 1>now they're look they were looking at spending around more

0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.800
<v Speaker 1>than five billion dollars for compute power this year. So

0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:46.800
<v Speaker 1>no wonder. There are a lot of analysts out there

0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.160
<v Speaker 1>predicting that open ai was going to go bankrupt before

0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.480
<v Speaker 1>the end of the year, except that they then got

0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.600
<v Speaker 1>a big influx of cash from another investment round. Yeah,

0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.440
<v Speaker 1>it's pretty crazy. Also, open ai apparently has a clause

0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:03.080
<v Speaker 1>that says if Microsoft gets to artificial General Intelligence or AGI,

0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.520
<v Speaker 1>then it severs the partnership between the two. And meanwhile,

0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.560
<v Speaker 1>Microsoft is apparently worried that it's depending too heavily upon

0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.399
<v Speaker 1>open ai and so wants to diversify its approach to

0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.800
<v Speaker 1>artificial intelligence beyond open Ai. It's a really complicated thing,

0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.119
<v Speaker 1>so I recommend reading that article. It's very informative. Okay.

0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.800
<v Speaker 1>Couple of space stories. NASA's Artemis project to return to

0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.600
<v Speaker 1>the Moon continues to hit some snags. A lot of outlets,

0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.639
<v Speaker 1>including Ours Technica, have plenty of articles listing numerous reasons

0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.240
<v Speaker 1>why we're not likely to see the Artemis two mission

0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.600
<v Speaker 1>happen next year, as it was scheduled to happen, but

0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.960
<v Speaker 1>work continues to prepare for our return to the lunar surface,

0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.280
<v Speaker 1>and one such element is the development of new spacesuits.

0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.879
<v Speaker 1>And this week Axiom Space and Prada, as in the

0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:52.560
<v Speaker 1>luxury fashion company, unveiled a new spacesuit design. Now it's

0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.160
<v Speaker 1>not exactly chic, but then aesthetics aren't really as important

0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.800
<v Speaker 1>as you know, not dying, and as I've mentioned many

0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.439
<v Speaker 1>times on this and other space is trying to kill you.

0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.600
<v Speaker 1>So the suits have thermal protection built in that the

0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.840
<v Speaker 1>companies say will keep astronauts safe from the dangers of

0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.760
<v Speaker 1>extreme cold temperatures even at the South Lunar Pole in

0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.719
<v Speaker 1>shadowed regions, for up to two hours at a time. Now,

0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.479
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure when this design is going to get

0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.960
<v Speaker 1>fitted to an actual astronaut for use in space, but

0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.840
<v Speaker 1>it's pretty cool to see the next evolution of spacesuits. Finally,

0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.560
<v Speaker 1>if you are aware of this news, I'm not surprised

0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:33.399
<v Speaker 1>it was spectacular. SpaceX accomplished an incredible achievement when a

0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:37.359
<v Speaker 1>super heavy Falcon booster returned to its launch site after

0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.600
<v Speaker 1>propelling a payload high into the atmosphere, and as it

0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.919
<v Speaker 1>did so, an enormous mechanical claw on the tower caught

0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.719
<v Speaker 1>the booster as it returned under precise control. As Elon

0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.200
<v Speaker 1>Musk wrote on x the tower caught the rocket and yeah,

0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.399
<v Speaker 1>seeing the video of this is spectacular. It's hard for

0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.800
<v Speaker 1>me to fathom how complicated this was from an engineering standpoint.

0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.240
<v Speaker 1>Having such precise control of a descent and the perfect

0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:06.280
<v Speaker 1>timing for the tower to grasp the booster with its claws,

0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:10.119
<v Speaker 1>which are called chopsticks, that is just amazing stuff, really

0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.679
<v Speaker 1>worth watching. And before I leave, one more reading recommendation

0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.320
<v Speaker 1>for all of y'all. Lilahmcclellan has a piece on Fortune

0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:21.280
<v Speaker 1>dot com that's titled twenty three and Me's entire board

0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:26.359
<v Speaker 1>resigned on the same day founder and Vodjitski still thinks

0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.000
<v Speaker 1>the startup is saveable. And it's a really thoughtful and

0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.480
<v Speaker 1>I think balanced analysis of the troubled company's challenges in

0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.439
<v Speaker 1>recent years and a complicated portrait of an assertive and

0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.760
<v Speaker 1>controversial founder. It's well worth a read. It covers a

0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.879
<v Speaker 1>lot of territory. That's it for this week. I hope

0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.320
<v Speaker 1>all of you out there are doing well, and I'll

0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:53.239
<v Speaker 1>talk to you again, really soon. Tech Stuff is an

0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:58.480
<v Speaker 1>iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio

0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.119
<v Speaker 1>app Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your favorite shows.