WEBVTT - Elon Implants a Brain Chip, Deepfakes Break X 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.720 Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.000 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:12.120 controlled by one man. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.160 Starting his own artificial intelligence company. 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.200 Well, he's a legitimate, super genius. 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:18.919 Legitimate, he says. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.520 He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.000 be different. He'll vote Republican. 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.760 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:26.200 on him. 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.040 Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.320 Anything he does is fascinating the people. 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.600 Welcome to Elon, Inc. Where we discuss Elon Musk's vast 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.640 corporate empire, his latest gambits and antics, and how to 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.879 make sense of it all. I'm your host, David Papadoppolos. 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.640 The news is coming fast and furious in the Elon Verse. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.720 Last night, Elon announced that Neuralink had successfully implanted a 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.240 chip into a human. Big news, clearly, but just how 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:08.280 excited or terrified should we be? Meanwhile, over at X, 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.160 the team had a strange response to deep fake porn 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.440 images of Taylor Swift that had gone viral on the platform. 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.200 They made it impossible to search for her at all. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.800 Oh and Tesla earnings came and went and the stock 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:25.080 market gave Elon a big thumbs down. To talk about this, 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:27.840 I'm sitting here in the studio with Max Schafkin, senior 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:33.720 reporter at Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Hello Max, Hey, you missed me, Max, wwa. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.240 I did. It's so good to see you, David. 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.759 Later, we'll be joined by Kurt Wagner and Dana Hall 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.759 to talk about X and Tesla, respectively. But first we 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.960 welcome Sarah McBride to the show. Hello Sarah. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:45.280 Hello. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.920 Sarah is Bloomberg's Neurlink reporter and will help guide us 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:54.360 through this cerebral quantum leap. So, Sarah, what do we 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.160 actually know here? What happened? A chip went in, the 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.640 patient survived. What else do we know? 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:06.160 Well? In his tweet yesterday, Elon said that signals were 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.440 working in the patient's brain, that neurons were firing or 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.200 words to that effect, which is great, but it would 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.120 have been terrible news had that not been the case. 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.160 And what exactly does neurons firing? What is that for 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.000 the lay people out there like MEA Max? What does 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:24.480 that mean? 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.560 In his post yesterday, Elon wrote that initial results showed 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:34.200 promising neurons spike detection and all that means is that 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.560 there are one hundred billion neurons almost in the average 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:41.520 human brain, and so the neurons, which are the cells 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.920 of the brain that are near this device are working. There. 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.560 When a neuron works, you can tell because it kind 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:53.640 of activates at the end, there's a tiny electrical signal. 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.480 So that's what they're picking up with the device as 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.480 after it got implanted on Sunday. 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.079 Pretty encouraging. I mean, hard to know exactly how much 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.760 to read into it, but certainly positive for times the 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:07.240 patient survives. 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.959 Right, doesn't mean that the device is working. It means 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.360 that it didn't destroy anything in the patient's brain, and 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.520 probably a few days or weeks down the line, then 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.800 they'll see if it can actually result in the patient 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.360 being able to, for example, mover cursor on a computer 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:27.639 outside outside their boxy. 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.760 So we don't know that yet. We're not there yet. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.880 We don't know that yet, not even close, not even close. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.760 Sorry not to be the wet blanket, but like I 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.600 think we need to approach the claims being made here 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.480 with some skepticism. First of all, it's Elon Musk we're 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.320 talking about. He's a guy who tends to present you know, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.840 let's just say like the rosiest possible version of any 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.160 prospective technology. And this is a safety trial, it's not 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:54.200 an efficacy trial. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.120 This is the point here is to put this. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.880 In a few people's brains and see if anything bad 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.000 happens to them. And so far, according to a single 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.000 tweet by Elon Musk, we don't know. We haven't heard 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.600 anything from the patient. We haven't heard anything else. Patient's doing. 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:07.320 Okay. 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.760 I just want to remind everyone in the monkey trials 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.800 that Neuraline did, there were a lot of serious COMPLICATIONDS 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.000 for the monkeys. And I went back and reread the 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:18.440 story that Wired published on this. Right, these these were 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.200 not necessarily happening the next day, So I think there's 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.520 still some time even before we can say these are safe. 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.120 Right, So I was sort of thinking that the fact 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.800 that here we are TK hours later the patient is 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:37.000 still alive was fairly significant that as a positive sign. 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.720 Max is sort of suggesting that, well, okay, great, made 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.160 it through the surgery. But you know, these things tend 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.719 to pop up down the road. Just how significant is 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.240 initial survival? Obviously again great for the patient, but. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.880 Yeah, I have to say it's very significant. This has 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.720 been years in the making. This has been Elon promising 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:57.520 every year like, oh yeah, we're going to have this 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.560 device in a few months or next year, and finally, 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.200 literally years after he first promised that it is in 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:09.520 a human brain. That said, other companies that have done 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.080 similar work have tended to wait a few days before 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:14.560 making similar. 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.000 But this is Elon Mosky. You knew he wasn't gonna wait. 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.520 This is Elon. Also, this patient is you know, monkeys 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:27.040 can't indicate when there's something wrong. Monkeys try to scratch 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.720 their heads and mess with the scar sites. I'm not 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.600 saying that those surgeries weren't botched. I've read some of 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.960 the UC Davis reports, and maybe there were mistakes made 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.040 during the surgery, but this is a human patient and 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.960 hopefully a lot was learned from those monkey experiments. They've 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.920 done many implants in primates since those botched ones, so 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.040 I think they know the stakes here and this one 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:57.720 was super carefully done. 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.520 Now on the surgery itself, it is not a human 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.279 doing the surgery itself, right, It is a robot. 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.160 Correct, there's a. 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.960 Robot assisting in the surgery, but it's not like the 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.640 patient goes in the surgeons are like, okay, up to 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.440 the robot. We're out of here. It's still a lot 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.679 of humans in the operating room kind of managing the robot. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.440 Well, that's reassuring that there are humans involved here. 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:22.680 Now. 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.720 Listen, Max made it sound like it was all this 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.640 is all about the safety of the product and not 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.000 so much so much about efficacy. But efficacy means when 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.279 you were talking about whether this person will be able 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.880 to move a cursor with his or her brain, that 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.839 sounds like efficacy to me, not safety. 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.520 So they definitely are interested in safety. That is, to 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.560 Max's point, the top priority. But it's a little different 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.000 to drug trials. So device trials don't go through the 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.359 same phase one, phase two, phase three we might be 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.640 familiar with from drugs. There are different stages and they're 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.000 analogous to some of those phase one, two, three, But 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.200 you don't put a device like this in somebody's brain 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.360 and not know that it's working before you go ahead 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:09.920 and implant the next patient. 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.040 So, but just to be clear, Sarah, there's another phase 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:14.520 that they're gonna need tomorrow. 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.640 Yeah, there are two more phases there. We're looking at 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:19.320 years of child right. 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.560 Well, nonetheless, Elon Musk in addition to announcing that the 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.880 neurons are firing or whatever whatever he said, whatever that means. 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.760 And now it's a product name for this. It's called Telepathy. 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.560 It sounds wonderful. I mean, telepathy sounds pretty good. 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.360 Well, he's changed the name a few times, so let's 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:37.720 see if telepathy sticks. But it's catchy. 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:39.920 Matt Max seems to like it, so there we go. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.280 I just it's just funny how we've gone from we 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.360 put this in the guy. The guy is not dead yet, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.680 thank god, and it's called telepathy, and you know, I 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.400 feel like we're one tweet away from like pre order one. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.360 Now it'll only be as. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:56.760 Put your deposit in. 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:58.840 I have a feeling it's not going to be called 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.280 telepathy when it fie gets released to the market. Somebody's 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:04.880 going to put the kibasha on that. But yeah, it's 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:05.440 a great name. 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.520 So what do stage two, Sarah, and stage three look like? 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.080 And when do we all go around with these things 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:12.840 in our heads? 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.160 Elon said that he wanted to get it in over 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:21.680 ten patients this year, which is ambitious, but they could 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:23.400 do it, you know, if they did one a month 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:28.280 and then they have to analyze all the data, submit 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.400 that to the FDA. Once the FDA's reviewed it, then 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.640 they can start the next set of trials. And then 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.240 the third set is called the pivotal trials, and those 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.000 are the most exciting. You know that it's closest to 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.440 an actual product. Those will be hundreds, if not thousands 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:51.480 of people, but that's probably five years away. Yeah, if 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:53.280 everything works as hoped. 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.280 Now, let me ask you, as you said, in a 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.320 good scenario, they're able to do about one a month. 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.120 I guess that's I'm curious about that is What is 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.520 it about these that are so difficult that you can 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:08.280 only do one a month? Is just simply the fact 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.120 that they are still These are just baby steps for them, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.280 and they're being You have to be super cautious at 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:14.280 this at this stage. 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.839 I mean, yeah, it's the first time they're doing this. 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:26.000 You're putting electrodes several millimeters deep into somebody's cortex. You're 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.160 slicing open their skull to do it, You're cutting into 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.800 their dora. You want to make sure that the first 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.720 one goes pretty well before you even try patient too. 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.000 Then you want to make sure patient two is doing 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.880 pretty well before you try patient three, and then you 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.400 need to start actually doing the stuff you're trying to do, 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.800 get the patient to move cursors and so on, control 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.920 external devices. Then you have to build all that data, 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.960 collate the results, present it to the FDA, let the 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.199 FDA review it. And this is assuming that every thing 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.960 goes well. If you have a setback like some patient 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.280 who's scarring, heals in a weird way, or that could 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:08.760 delay everything by months. 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.960 More sure, listen last question before we let you go here. 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:18.280 So Neurlink in the musk constellation of companies isn't certainly 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.840 isn't the most valuable or I don't even think towards 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.480 the top end of those. But this is a big 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.680 step right where roughly has it's a privately held company, 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.000 where has its valuation roughly been, and what if anything 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.800 does this development do for that valuation? 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.559 Yeah, I mean it'll probably increase the valuation. And as 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.720 to where it is in the constellation of musk companies, 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.800 it's toward the bottom, but toward the bottom for a 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.200 musk company. In this case, Neuralink's worth three point five 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.600 billion dollars For a medical device company that just implanted 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.640 its first device in a human That is huge, just unbelievable. 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:03.640 So that's the must fact driving up the valuation. And 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.120 then you know, if they make it to the next trial, 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.000 it'll have another outsized jump that'll make every other medical 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.480 device company jealous. And you're seeing it already. I said 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.240 the CEO of a rival company called Synchron last night. 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:20.760 I just think he couldn't help himself. He had to 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.000 post a tweet of one of his I think it 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.920 was one of his patients manipulating Pong with his mind, 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.920 just like, we're still here, don't forget about us. We've 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.960 got devices in patients, still there and. 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.560 In many ways, as you report it many times, in 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.439 many ways many steps ahead of of Neuralink. 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.320 Actually right, yeah, exactly, Well, in some ways they're in patience, 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.800 but in other ways their device isn't as sophisticated as 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:51.079 the Neuralink device. Neuralink has a thousand electrodes more than 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.120 a thousand on its device, and Synchron doesn't have that many. 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:57.080 So you can go back and forth and debate the 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.480 pros and cons. But yeah, they were in patients for Nearlink. 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.160 And way they're way behind on names because, like I mean, 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.360 because a normal sober minded medical device company would not 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.600 just like go around, like you know, marketing a highly 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.000 speculative brand name on their you know very much in development. 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.559 Maybe it works, maybe it's safe. We don't know yet product, 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.280 but you on, he'll it's difficult to go ahead and 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.079 do that. And investors, you know, for better worse, they 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:24.200 like that, they love it. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.800 Okay, Sarah, listen, thank you very much for being with us. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.000 We will have you on as soon as we know more. 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.960 As soon as you know more about our first patient. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.040 Here sounds good. Thanks for having me. 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.720 Max and are now joined by Kurt Wagner, a tech 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.800 reporter here at Bloomberg covering social media and the author 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.000 of the soon to be released book Battle for the Bird, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:56.600 about Twitter and the battle for control of the company. Kurt, 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.960 I know there's something tailor about Taylor Swift and deep 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.600 fake porn, and then Musks people came back and they 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.760 knew they hit the nuclear option, and you suddenly couldn't 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:11.280 search it all for her. What the what the heck happened? Yeah? 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.480 I mean, you had all the ingredients right there of 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.320 exactly what happened. So the end of last week we 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.440 saw that there were some there was deep fake porn 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.040 of the most arguably the most famous woman in the 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:27.800 world right now, Taylor Swift, circulating on x and this 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:32.240 violates several of the company's policies, first and foremost. And 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:36.360 so what we saw was naturally people seeking it out, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.880 sharing it, commenting on it, outrage of course from swift 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.600 E's and other fans of not only Taylor, but just 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.240 people who realized that this is not a good thing 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.280 to be happening on any platform. And then you saw 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.560 the companies sort of scrambling to try and figure out 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.480 what to do about this, right, and David you mentioned 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.560 they ultimately for a couple of days literally blocked people 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.080 from having searched results when they searched for Taylor Swift's name. 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.240 It's sort of happy to get into sort of how 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:04.839 extreme that. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.280 Is, right, Why did they take such an extreme step? 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.120 Why could they not be more precise in there and 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:11.319 their crackdown on this? 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.000 So you do something like this when you're having trouble 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.319 cleaning up all of the stuff on your own, right, this, 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.160 this is I would consider a last resort or close 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.000 to a last resort. And to me, the fact that 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.200 they simply had to block people from even searching for 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:28.520 Taylor Swift is a sign that they were not able 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.440 to get the problem under control on their own, and 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:33.480 so they had to take a drastic measure like this. 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.760 I've covered Twitter for ten years. I don't remember this 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.360 happening before in terms of the search ban, certainly not 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.400 as it relates to a high profile user like this. 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.360 And that tells you what then about the current state of. 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.000 X Well, that the trust and safety function over there 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.760 is not operating in the way that it was before 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.160 Elon took over, and then it's not operating very smoothly, right, 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.000 I mean, presumably how something like this would normally be 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.600 handled is it would be flagged to the company, you know, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.160 oftentimes maybe even by the not Taylor directly, but probably 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.200 her team. Right, They'd have a partnership's contact at the 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.320 company that they would go to. The company would not 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.800 only immediately take down the original tweet, but they would 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.680 probably take those photos or videos and start to scan 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.200 the rest of the service for either identical matches to them, 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.400 or other photos or videos that look very similar. Maybe 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.640 it's the same photo but it's been a watermark has 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.480 been added or something like that, right, And they would 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:33.920 sort of automate the process of taking the stuff down 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.200 as quickly as possible. What we know is that the 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.960 original content was up I believe for something like seventeen hours. 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.440 It's now down. Ultimately, the original content is down. 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:45.120 It's now down. 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:45.720 That's right. 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.200 And they've and to be clear starting last night. So 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.320 Monday night they started letting people search for Taylor Swift again. 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.520 So they feel like they've gotten the process or they 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.160 excuse me, the problem under control. But it took several 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:57.440 days on that. 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.880 You mentioned the NFL game. The NFL game is, as 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.360 all of basically mankind knows, Taylor Swift is dating the 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.920 tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Travis Kelcey Kansas 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.960 City Chiefs played on Sunday in the semi finals of 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.160 the NFL playoffs. They won, They're going to the super Bowl. 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.720 So this band though on Taylor Swift searches is happening 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.120 as this playoff game, this Kens City Chiefs game is 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.760 going on, and Kurt, the NFL has been right one 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.280 of the few bright spots for X of late in 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:35.280 terms of generating buzz and content and all that horrible timing. 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.160 No terrible timing, I mean, imagine how many people are 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.120 watching that game Sunday and see, you know, CBS cutaway 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:44.320 to a shot of Taylor Swift jumping around in the 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.960 you know, the Kelsey box or whatever and want to 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.160 go to X and search about it or to talk 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.560 about it or whatever. Right, and suddenly a huge part 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.440 of the service is not working for that exact use case. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.120 Kurt, So the nuclear option, somebody there at X hit 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.640 the button. There was a very very large button that 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.680 just says nuke, and they hit it and Taylor Swift 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:13.920 disappeared from X for basically a day. Is that what 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.679 we're going to expect going forward is that the blueprint 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.720 then as this comes up in coming days and weeks, 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.800 including perhaps during the Super Bowl in two weeks. 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.600 I mean, that can't be the long term blueprint, right. 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.399 That's just not a good strategy, is not a good 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.959 business model. It's a bad way to handle this, but 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.280 it's what you do when you're desperate. So my hope 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.080 is that there were a lot of learnings from the 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:43.359 past couple days that the team that is there figured out, Okay, 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.439 you know, here's what we did wrong, or you know, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:50.280 maybe add some new level of kind of monitoring for 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.040 some high profile accounts. As you mentioned, the Super Bowl 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.359 is two weeks from now. If this stuff starts to 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.040 circulate again, like well, they have made enough of it 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.600 change in the next two weeks, I'd be surprised. So 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.560 it may be that we see something like this happen again. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.720 What I will point out real quick is that they 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.240 did say, and they're they're announcing this very intentionally. This 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.600 week they're going to open a trust and safety office 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.200 in Austin, Texas. I claim they're going to hire one 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.920 hundred full time employees to Now one hundred is a 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.600 small amount, to be clear, but full time employees at 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.840 X one hundred is actually a pretty decent size. And 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.919 they're announcing this because Linda Yakarino is going to be 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.480 speaking before Congress on Wednesday about protecting children online. 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.560 Is it actually meaningful or is it just simply pr 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:40.960 and for disappearance. 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.159 I think it's more pr than it is meaningful. 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.080 What would a reasonable number be for a task like that? 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.360 Kurt, Well, it's tough because so many of these companies, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.399 like Meta, I think, was touting tens of thousands of 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.399 content moderators, but most of them are contractors, right, They're 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.760 like basically just sifting through this never ending wheel of 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.840 terrible content and clicking allow or not allow or whatever. 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.480 Having one hundred full time employees working on this could 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:15.360 be meaningful if those people are, you know, writing policy 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.879 handling high profile accounts like Taylor Swift. I need to 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.399 see what these people ares jobs description are going to 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.840 be before I can really say how meaningful it is. 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.160 But okay, but what if you are a much lesser 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.720 public personality and do not have the influence or the 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.680 deep pockets that Taylor Swift has. When if you too 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.960 are targeted in something like this, what is your fate? 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.520 I think you're in trouble in that situation. Quite frankly, 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.119 I mean, if it takes seventeen hours and several days 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.000 to figure this out for Taylor Swift, you know, what 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:51.639 chance does someone who has one hundred followers, or maybe 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.120 someone who's not even on X right, but yet their 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.680 face or their content or their body has been posted 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.320 to X right. They might not even really be aware 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.800 that it's up there. This is not just an X problem. 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:05.639 So I don't want to continue. You know, we're talking 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.280 about X because of the situation over the last couple 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.320 of days, But like this idea of you know, women 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.359 in particular, having their bodies shared online without their consent, 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.439 Like this happens on websites all over the place, and 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.080 it's not okay, right, But you just hold a higher 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.439 standard to some of these larger companies because they have 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.000 so much power, so much money, so much influence. You 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.920 hope that the Metas and the x's of the world 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.040 can get this right. Because if they can't get it right, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.280 what kind of hope do we have for anybody? 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:35.600 Yeah, we should say there's been reporting suggesting this was 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.280 a Microsoft tool that was used to create this or 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:40.480 could at least create some of these images. There have 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.640 been Google alphabet has had its own battles with basically 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.480 deep celebrity deep fakes. So yeah, I mean a lot 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:49.440 of big companies, a lot of big companies that have 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.600 you know, gigantic vast teams of people you would think 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.120 trying to stop this stuff, have also struggled, But they 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.879 just haven't struggled in such a spectacularly comic way. The 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.359 banning of Taylor Swift. Also, the risk isn't just like 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.159 getting sued by Taylor Swift. It's like upsetting your users. 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:06.840 I don't know if other people have noticed this, but 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.800 like sometimes you're just searching for something on Twitter and 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.040 there will just be like porn that that'll just like 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.800 find its way in that has found its way past 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.600 the filters and into your feed. Like it's very and 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.240 again when you're talking about like the Taylor Swift fandom, 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:21.880 I don't probably don't have to tell people people feel 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:23.880 very strongly about it, Like I don't think they want 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:25.639 to see normal people don't want to. 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:27.440