WEBVTT - Tech News: Montana Bans TikTok But Will It Work? 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.319 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.880 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.400 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.520 are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:27.720 May eighteen, twenty twenty three. So first up here in 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.160 the United States, the Supreme Court decided not to hear 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.200 two cases that otherwise could have forced a decision about 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.199 the infamous Section too thirty rules. So, in case you 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.320 need a refresher, Section two thirty is part of Title 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.680 forty seven of the United States Code. Probably need to 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.919 add more context to that. It was introduced in the 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.240 Communications Decency Act of nineteen ninety six, that in turn 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.760 is part of an even larger act called the Telecommunications 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.760 Act of nineteen ninety six. And the whole point of 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.160 Section two thirty is that it gives online platforms protection 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:12.440 from liability if users post stuff that's you know, illegal 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.959 on those platforms. So, in other words, let's say I 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:21.039 created a YouTube video and my video contained illegal content 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.639 in it. Well, YouTube slash, Google, slash alphabet wouldn't be 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.720 held legally responsible for what I did because of Section 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.479 two thirty it's just the platform. I'm the one who 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:39.480 committed the crime. So this protects the platforms from hosting 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:44.520 and being held legally liable for hosting content that's illegal 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.560 for whatever reason. It does get a little more complicated 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.960 than that, but that's the basic idea. And there were 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:56.440 a couple of notable cases, big, big emotionally charged cases 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.840 that were recently submitted to the Supreme Court for consideration, 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.880 and they could have served as a test for Section 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.640 two thirty's legitimacy from a constitutional standpoint. But it turns 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.840 out that's not happening because the Court found that neither 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:17.480 case had merit for other reasons, like they wouldn't hear 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:19.720 the case, not because of the Section two thirty thing, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.959 but for other reasons. Essentially, the Supreme Court said that 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.519 the cases were accusing platforms of violating the Anti Terrorism 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.920 Act and that that particular law shouldn't have applied in 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.160 the first place. So there was no case there, right, Like, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.000 they can't use that law as the reason to bring 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.080 a case against the company because it doesn't apply. So 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.519 the Supreme Court said it would not be weighing in 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.160 with a decision about Section two thirty because the case 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.799 isn't relevant. So you could say the Supreme Court has 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.200 sort of punted the decision regarding Section two thirty down 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.200 the field, and it will take some other legal matter 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:04.880 in the future that involves Section two thirty to make 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:09.440 the Supreme Court, you know, make an actual decision that 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.560 settles the question about whether or not Section two thirty 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:18.000 is constitutional. The US state of Montana has become the 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:23.120 first state in our nation to issue a ban on TikTok. 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.840 The ban will not actually take effect until January first, 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:32.200 next year, assuming that the various challenges to this new 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.080 law don't end up making the whole matter moot. So 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.960 the justification for banning TikTok boils down to a concern 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.360 that the Chinese Communist Party is essentially relying on TikTok 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.920 to gather intelligence about US citizens and institutions. So the 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.080 reason for banning TikTok is to prevent Chinese surveillance. TikTok, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:57.320 for what it's worth, disputes these accusations and says that 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.640 no one from the Chinese Communist Party has access to 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.040 data on its US data servers. The American Civil Liberties 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.680 Union or ACLU, argues that banning TikTok amounts to violations 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.240 of the First Amendment, aka the right to free speech, 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.120 due to the fact that folks depend upon the platform 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.800 to express their views and to view others. So the 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.080 ACLU's argument says, the law is unconstitutional, so it should 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:27.080 just be voided. It should not be put into place 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.640 because it violates constitutional rights. From a technical perspective, banning 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:36.200 an online service from a specific state comes with its 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:41.720 own set of challenges. If TikTok is allowed elsewhere, like, 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.279 if it's available anywhere other than Montana, how do you 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.160 prevent it from crossing state lines? So Montana says it 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:53.640 will find TikTok if the service continues to operate within 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:59.640 Montana's state boundaries, and further, it will also find online 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.960 apps like Apple and Google's app stores if they do 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.600 not prevent folks within Montana citizens of Montana from downloading 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.479 the app. But again this gets tricky. I mean, you 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:15.080 could use a VPN, a virtual private network, which would 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.960 make it look as if you're not in Montana. So 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.360 you're in Montana, you decide you're going to use this VPN, 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:22.479 and it makes you look like you're in North Dakota 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.720 or something. Well, you just bypass that whatever geo fencing 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.599 strategy was in place to prevent TikTok from getting to you. 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.039 So does that then mean Montana would also have to 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:38.200 consider a ban on VPNs to try and prevent the workaround. 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.880 I honestly think this law is a lost cause at 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:46.039 a state level. I just don't think it works. It 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.279 doesn't really work on a technical level. It may not 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.599 work on a legal level. I'm no legal expert, and 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.120 I don't think it works on a social level either. 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.039 As for TikTok's potential for harm, I have some thoughts 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.400 about that. I mean, it is true that TikTok is 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.200 a subsidiary of a Chinese company, Byte Dance, and it's 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.440 also true that China has laws that compel citizens and 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.320 companies to gather intelligence on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:17.120 These things are true. But even if you were to 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.880 wipe TikTok off the face of the earth, let's say 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.039 we just obliterated it from space, because it's the only 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.640 way to be sure, the Chinese Communist Party could still 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:32.280 scoop up tons of information about US citizens, because news flash, 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.920 our personal data is floating around in various databases all 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:42.920 over the place, like our activities online are constantly being 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:48.840 tracked and not like actively monitored, but certainly notated. There 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.960 are records of all this stuff that we do online, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.960 particularly on things like social networks, And there's an industry 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.920 that's grown up around the buying and selling of personal information. 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.600 And I'm not even talking about clandestine stuff here, like 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:08.599 for the purposes of espionage. The online advertising ecosystem depends 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:13.800 upon this infrastructure of personal data being bought and sold. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.440 So even if we get rid of TikTok, there are 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:21.360 plenty of ways anyone, including the Chinese Communist Party, could 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.440 gobble up personal data, because there's so much that's out 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.600 there that's just being bought and sold all the time. Anyway, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.320 now that being said, I also recognize that TikTok has 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.800 the potential to cause great harm, not by being a 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:38.440 surveillance tool necessarily, but by serving up harmful content to users, 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:42.800 particularly impressionable younger users, and a lot of young people 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.520 use TikTok. However, that's also the case with lots of 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.840 other social networks and platforms that serve up user generated content. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:55.840 They also can be potentially really harmful to specific people 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.920 particularly impressionable young people. But this really gets more into 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.720 how platforms depend heavily on algorithms to serve up content 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.480 in an effort to try and keep eyeballs on the 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:12.960 service for as long as possible, right, Like, their whole 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.720 goal is to keep you there and serve you ads, 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.080 and the longer they keep you there, the more ads 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.320 they serve and the more revenue they generate. So to 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.920 do that, they design algorithms that are essentially looking for hooks. 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.440 They're looking for things that interest you, and if you 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.080 indicate that you're interested in something like if you were 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.040 to watch a specific type of TikTok video all the 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.840 way through, the algorithm says, aha, this is what this 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.840 person likes. Let's grab things that are similar to that 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.199 and keep serving it to them so that they stay 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.360 on here longer. If that thing that you watched happens 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.480 to be harmful in some way, like, for instance, let's 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:56.520 say it's promoting something like a behavior that falls into 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.760 the category of anorexia, and you happen to have a 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.480 vulnerable self image issue, you could end up seeing video 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.280 after a video that's reinforcing that particular message, and that 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.760 can be harmful I think that's where TikTok poses a 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.240 lot of harm. But at the same time, like I said, 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.040 it's true across lots of different platforms. It's not unique 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.120 to TikTok. It is insidious, it is a problem, but 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.319 it's not a TikTok problem. It's bigger than that. So 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.240 I guess what I'm really saying is that Montana's law 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.360 it seems like it's going to be challenging to enforce, 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.120 it might not be constitutionally sound, which means it won't 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.800 be around forever anyway. And in the end, the most 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.240 tragic thing I think is that it's not actually addressing 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:47.800 the problems that really do exist, whether TikTok does or not. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.160 On a related note, the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:56.080 here in the United States has accused a fertility tracking 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:00.520 app called pre Mom of being real Lucy Goosey sensitive 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:05.080 data and thus violating the FTC's health breach notification rule 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:10.280 in the process. So obviously, if you are using a 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.319 fertility tracking app, you are also sharing some very personal 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.800 private information with that app. This is data that traditionally 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.199 would be trusted to a healthcare provider, and healthcare providers 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.679 need to follow very strict rules to keep patient information 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:31.680 secure and private. That's like one of the top concerns 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:37.120 for handling data in the healthcare sector. But the FTC 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.840 says that pre mom was sharing personal and private data 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:47.440 with third parties, including advertisers, and that also included data 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.800 that would make it trivial to identify a specific user 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:56.520 rather than anonymized data that would keep your identity secret. 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.320 And the FTC says that among those entities that it 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:05.559 shared this information with were two Chinese mobile analytics companies 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:11.520 that had previously been flagged as showing quote suspect privacy 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.440 practices in the quote according to Connecticut's Attorney general, so 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.280 this is an example of what I was just talking about. That, 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.640 you know, TikTok does not represent the sole weakness in 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.800 protecting US citizens private data, even just from China. The 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:32.200 company Easy Healthcare has copped to the fact that it 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:37.640 has inappropriately shared private information with companies, including two Chinese companies. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.160 It has agreed to pay a one hundred thousand dollars 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.200 civil penalty and has marked another one hundred grand to 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.240 be split between the states of Connecticut and Oregon, as 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:53.000 well as Washington. D C also PRIMAM will no longer 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.560 be allowed to share personal data with third parties, and 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.839 it also has to ask third parties with whom they 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:03.200 had previously shared in information to delete that information. However, 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:07.360 there's no legal requirement for those third parties to do that. 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.520 There's no like enforcement teeth that will make them have 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.080 to go and delete that information. So whether that happens 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.720 or not remains to be seen, but I remain skeptical. Okay, 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.520 we've got a lot more stories to go over before 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:34.959 we get to those, let's take a quick break. We're back. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:40.400 So the British broadband and mobile provider BT Group has 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:44.080 announced that over the next several years from now to 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:50.040 twenty thirty, essentially the company plans to cut around fifty 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:55.200 five thousand jobs that would represent more than forty percent 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.880 of its current workforce. Now this isn't just some sort 0:12:59.920 --> 0:13:04.160 of disastrous news. BT Group. Over the last several years 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:09.840 has been working to roll out internet fiber infrastructure as 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:14.520 well as five G deployment, and throughout that process they've 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.480 had to bring on lots of extra hands to get 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.680 stuff done, including a lot of contractors. So part of 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.840 this is just that once it actually has finished that 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:30.000 project of creating this infrastructure and deploying five G it's 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.480 not going to have the need for all those people 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:37.559 who are currently making that happen. For another matter, BT 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.280 Group anticipates that AI and automation are going to end 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.319 up handling a lot of the tasks that are behind 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.840 the scenes, and that will mean there will need to 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:51.440 be fewer actual human beings doing that stuff. Teams themselves 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.200 on BT Group side will need to be smaller or 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.240 they won't need to be as large, if you want 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.800 to look at it that way. So the company has 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:04.080 our already met with the Communication Workers Union or CWU 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.000 to kind of talk this over right, because obviously, with 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.040 unions and everything, a company can't just willy nilly make 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.000 decisions to cut tens of thousands of people over the 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.760 next several years. And the CWU says that BT Group 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:22.680 really needs to focus on contractors first, and you know, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.880 the people who had been hired specifically for things like 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:30.320 building out this infrastructure and to sunset those positions first. 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.640 That's where the priority should be before you start to 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.800 even touch company staff. On the one hand, the story 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:38.480 does feel like it's starting to lean a little bit 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.840 into the fear and uncertainty and doubt about AI taking 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.480 jobs away. There is an element of that here, But 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.040 on the other hand, it also stresses how it is 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.280 important for companies to try and be efficient and to 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.640 avoid the trap of creating a workforce that's too large 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:57.920 to support the actual amount of work to be done. 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.680 You know, we've heard again and again in the States 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:06.000 that tech companies had come to a conclusion that leaders 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.640 in tech companies, I should say, came to the conclusion 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.960 that they were overinflated in their workforce. They had too 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.600 many people and not enough work to go around. I'm 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.320 sure that was true in some cases, and it doesn't 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.280 do anyone any favors for a company to just kind 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:27.960 of act as a holding facility for adults when they 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.520 don't have anything to do. They're not being productive, they're 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.600 not adding anything to the company, they're not adding anything 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.320 to society. Their time could be better spent doing something else. 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.800 Although it might be comforting to know that you've got 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.360 a steady paycheck even if you don't have steady work. 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.680 So yeah, there's both sides to that, and I can 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.000 see both sides in that particular story. Over in Italy, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.680 the government has actually set aside thirty million euros to 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.560 create programs to help people improve their work skills specifically, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.600 and an effort to smooth the transition to a future 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.920 where certain types of work are more likely to be 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.360 automated or handed over to AI. So the goal is 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.800 to identify sectors that are most likely to be impacted 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.520 by automation and to prepare people who are currently employed 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.600 in those jobs to learn marketable skills so that they 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.760 can then change career paths to something that's more sustainable. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:27.040 I think that's great. I think it recognizes that if 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:31.360 you have an unskilled workforce that's harmful to everybody. It's 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.080 not just the workers themselves, although clearly it's a hardship 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.560 on them, because if you're suddenly out of work and 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:41.240 you don't have marketable skills, it becomes very difficult, right, 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.600 But beyond that, it is hard and bad for society 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.720 at large for that to happen. It becomes an impediment 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.560 to the whole, not just to the person. So it 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.560 makes sense to build in these systems to try and 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.720 help people prepare for the future so that you have 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.520 a animal impact on both the individuals and the country 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.919 as a whole. I do think it's going to require 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.720 way more than thirty million euros to adequately prepare people 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.800 for how AI and automation are going to disrupt multiple industries. 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.720 But it's a start, and that's something like that should 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:22.840 be applauded that there's actually effort being done to work 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:27.639 on this now for some really fun stuff. So YouTube 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:33.240 participated in essentially what amounted to some upfronts recently and 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.919 made a few announcements that are sure to irritate certain users. So, 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.479 first off, upfronts are a type of industry event. If 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.000 you've never heard the phrase upfront before, here's what it is. 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.560 It's a kind of event where a platform that carries 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.720 some form of content and thus advertises against that content 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:59.760 gets up front of actual advertising companies, or rather up 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:04.800 in front of them. So it's pretty typical for these platforms, 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.160 which can include everything from a streaming service to a 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:12.600 cable television network, to trot out some talent. It becomes 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.840 kind of a dog and pony show. They'll promote upcoming 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.600 content and it's all in an effort to get advertisers 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:24.440 excited and to attract that sweet, sweet cash. Well, YouTube 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.840 held its own event that was pretty much an upfront, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.000 and during that event, announced that one change coming to 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.679 its service is that for people who watch YouTube on 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:39.159 a television, they may soon encounter ads that are thirty 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.840 seconds long, and they might get a single thirty second 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.240 long ad rather than two fifteen second ads, and these 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:51.040 will be unskippable ads when they start a video, so 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.919 you get a full thirty six second commercial before you 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.399 can start watching whatever it is you're watching on YouTube 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.399 on your television. Further, YouTube is going to tell a 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.560 feature that will show ads to people who pause a video. 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:06.760 So you've got a video going, you need to pause 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.080 it for a bit, and then an ad begins to 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.800 play while the video itself is on pause. Now, the 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.920 example that YouTube showed is not quite as obnoxious as 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.199 what I first imagined. Like to me, it sounded like 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:22.800 the frame of the YouTube video would suddenly be taken 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.159 over by a commercial. No, apparently, it's more like in 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.879 a banner that appears to the side of the video, 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.600 and you might have a video ad playing out in 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.119 that banner, but it doesn't replace whatever it was you 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.080 were watching, so it's not quite that bad. Plus, they 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:44.040 showed a dismiss button beneath the ad itself, which at 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.600 least indicates that you could quickly click on dismiss so 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.960 that that little automated ad stops playing. So not as 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.960 bad as I first imagined based upon the description, I 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.480 guess for you know, it's not the worst thing in 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.320 the world. It's for people who are watching YouTube on 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.640 television who are not part of YouTube Premium. I'm sure 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:10.200 this will be frustrating to them. For people who are 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.000 on YouTube Premium, you know you're paying a subscription fee, 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.800 you don't get ads for you at all, So y'all 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.960 are good. A professor at Texas A and M University 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:26.040 reportedly gave several students an X grade, which indicates an incomplete. 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:30.080 It's not a fail, but it is an incomplete. And 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.920 this included students who were at senior level who otherwise 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.320 would have graduated but then were denied diplomas because they 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.680 had a course where they had an incomplete. So why 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:46.320 did the professor give incompletes to these students. Well, allegedly 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.360 what happened is the professor assigned several essays and then 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.439 took essays that were submitted by students and fed the 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:59.560 essays into what he referred to as chat GTP. Of 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:05.480 course he meant chat GPT, not GTP, but that mistake 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:06.960 is easy to make. I'm not gonna give him too 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.399 much grief for that. I will say the Rolling Stones article, 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.640 of the Rolling Stone article, it's not the band, the magazine. 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.840 The Rolling Stone article was way more snarky about this 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.800 than I will be. But anyway, he was asking chat 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:25.720 gpt if it had been responsible for part or all 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:30.640 of the various essays, and apparently chat GPT said it 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.600 was responsible for at least some part of these essays. 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:39.000 So boom, students get an incomplete because it appears that 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.960 the work they submitted was not their own. The problem 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.920 with this is that chat GPT doesn't really work that way. 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:51.640 You can submit material to chat GPT that it definitively 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.960 did not create and then ask it if it created 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.280 the material, and it might say it did, or it 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.080 might say it could have, which isn't quite the same thing, 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:07.280 but still, you know, raises doubt. People have actually shown 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:11.200 this off by using passages from classic novels, and chat 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:15.199 GPT just confidently says maybe it actually wrote that, so 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.960 you could say, wow, according to chat GPT, it created 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.760 great expectations or bride and prejudice, which would be quite 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.760 a trick for chat g t two have done that. 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.360 So the students are understandably upset that they got an 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:33.280 incomplete and were accused of plagiarism, essentially of foisting their 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.800 work onto an AI chatbot, and they did no such thing, 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:41.560 and the professor did not realize that chat GPT can't 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:45.320 be relied upon to indicate whether or not it generated 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:48.600 a particular work. Heck, some folks went so far as 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:52.639 to dig up the professor's own doctoral thesis when he 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.879 was a graduate student and submitted passages to chat GPT 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:01.240 and asked if it wrote the professor's and chat GPT 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.879 essentially said, huh, yeah, I might have written this. Now. 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.520 As I said, Rolling Stone has a pretty snarky article 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:11.479 that throws massive shade of the professor for this, and 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.240 I get it. Holding up a person's diploma through the 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:18.040 misapplication of technology is a big deal. But on the 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.480 flip side, and at least a little bit in the 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:26.600 professor's defense, the discussion around chat GPT and education has 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:31.280 been so dramatic and so disruptive over the past several 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.320 months that I think it's it's natural for educators to 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:39.840 be concerned that students are passing off AI generated work 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:43.720 as their own work. That is an understandable concern. The 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:48.200 problem is you can't trust the robots to claim authorship 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:51.119 because those rotten watsits will say they wrote stuff what 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.040 was published one hundred years ago, and clearly that's not 0:23:54.119 --> 0:24:01.200 the case. So yeah, kind of an absurdly comical situation 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:03.480 here if it weren't for the fact that it also 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:07.040 means a bunch of students were denied the chance to 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:11.119 graduate with a diploma, at least temporarily because of this 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:16.000 incomplete There there are people working towards trying to get 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:20.720 all this resolved, but as I recorded this, I didn't 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.080 have an update to give about where we are in 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:27.879 that process. All right, Hey, so you know how AI 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:31.080 large language models are trained by analyzing tons of data 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:35.080 through various sources like chat. GPT is built on top 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:38.440 of a model that crawled through millions and millions of 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:43.520 web based documents. Well, what if you did that same thing, 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:48.000 but instead of using the web, you turned to the 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:52.359 content on the dark Web as your training material. Of course, 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:57.439 the dark Web is inaccessible through normal links on the 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:00.879 World Wide Web. You typically get to the dark web 0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:06.399 by using special types of browsers that allow you to 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:09.800 access these sorts of things, and you can encounter all 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:14.399 sorts of stuff, like you know, hacker communities that post 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:18.239 malware so that you can take it and tweak it 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:22.880 and deploy it. You know, obviously stolen information is bought 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:26.560 and sold on the dark web. Well, I would say, 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:31.160 don't do that. Don't train AI on dark web material, 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:33.760 not because I think it's going to create dangerous AI, 0:25:34.400 --> 0:25:37.199 but because someone already beats you to it. Some researchers 0:25:37.200 --> 0:25:40.120 in South Korea introduced an AI system that they call 0:25:40.640 --> 0:25:46.040 dark BURT, and they trained it on information exclusively from 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:49.919 the dark web. So BERT in this case actually stands 0:25:49.960 --> 0:25:56.480 for bi directional Encoder Representations from transformers, and it was 0:25:56.520 --> 0:26:00.919 originally created by Google back in twenty eighteen. BURT, that is, 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:05.280 was created by Google, and then Meta researchers took BERT 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:09.480 and they continued to evolve it. They began to tweak it, 0:26:09.720 --> 0:26:13.240 change it a little bit, and they turned it into 0:26:13.359 --> 0:26:18.480 a new AI system called ROBERTA cute right by the way, 0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:20.560 This was back when Meta was still just Facebook, but 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:25.720 of course today it's Meta. Roberta then provided the foundation 0:26:25.880 --> 0:26:29.879