Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech are you?
Speaker 1: It is time for the tech news for October tenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, or ten ten twenty three, or if
Speaker 1: you're in the UK, ten ten twenty three. Let's start
Speaker 1: off with a bunch of X news that is not
Speaker 1: stuff that used to be news but isn't news anymore,
Speaker 1: Not that kind of X news. I'm talking about news
Speaker 1: about X formerly known as Twitter. We've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of stories about it. So first up is one about
Speaker 1: misinformation and disturbing content. So during times of turmoil, we
Speaker 1: tend to see a lot more misinformation and outright disinformation
Speaker 1: flood social media platforms. That's kind of par for the course.
Speaker 1: That is the case. As Israel has gone to war
Speaker 1: with Hamas, it should come as no surprise that this
Speaker 1: war brings with it numerous instances of falsehoods and misleading
Speaker 1: information spreading online across all different platforms. Even in the
Speaker 1: pre elon Musk days, Twitter would have to step up
Speaker 1: to deal with this sort of thing. But right Now
Speaker 1: it's even harder because Musk's X has famously made severe
Speaker 1: job cuts to the content moderation teams. In fact, most
Speaker 1: reports say that those teams are effectively just gone that
Speaker 1: you might as well just say there is no content
Speaker 1: moderation team at X at this point, because it's it's
Speaker 1: been whittled down so much so that means there's not
Speaker 1: really a dedicated team in place to handle a crisis
Speaker 1: like this, and that means that these instances of misinformation
Speaker 1: and disinformation and disturbing matter can proliferate with very few
Speaker 1: checks to prevent it from happening. Making matters more complicated
Speaker 1: are the various changes Musk has made to X in
Speaker 1: recent weeks. So, for example, he decided that article headlines
Speaker 1: really mess with the esthetic he's going for. So now
Speaker 1: when you post an article on X, it shows the
Speaker 1: lead image and maybe a small blurb, but you don't
Speaker 1: get a headline. You don't get information about what the
Speaker 1: article is about, which makes it harder for reporters to
Speaker 1: actually get their stories out on X and have people
Speaker 1: read it, because those images don't necessarily convey the information
Speaker 1: that tells folks why they should read a particular story
Speaker 1: for outlets that haven't bowed to Musk's demand that they
Speaker 1: pay for a verification check, their reach has been sort
Speaker 1: of artificially limited, or maybe you could argue that if
Speaker 1: they paid for the verification their reach would be boosted.
Speaker 1: Musk also hasn't helped matters because he has this awful
Speaker 1: tendency to promote accounts that have been linked to misinformation
Speaker 1: in the past, including one that has posted outright antisemitic messaging.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine in a war between Israel and Hamas,
Speaker 1: that's going to have some repercussions. Now, you contrast this
Speaker 1: with the role that Twitter played, say back during the
Speaker 1: Arab Spring in the early twenty tens. Back then, people
Speaker 1: were able to use Twitter to communicate, they used it
Speaker 1: to organize, They used it to make sure aid was
Speaker 1: getting to places where it was needed and that you know,
Speaker 1: emergency services could could respond to the right place, and
Speaker 1: you know, it played a pivotal role in that particular,
Speaker 1: you know, very important political event. But with the chaotic
Speaker 1: mess that is X today, it's a very different story.
Speaker 1: X's algorithm promotes posts that drive engagement, and unfortunately those
Speaker 1: posts often include ones with wildly inaccurate or false claims
Speaker 1: as well as disturbing imagery via photos or videos. It's
Speaker 1: enough to have some open source intelligence experts or osi
Speaker 1: in T experts say that x is essentially a lost
Speaker 1: cause for their line of work because of the sheer
Speaker 1: volume of disinformation present on the platform. You'd be spending
Speaker 1: all your time trying to verify a point of information. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: floods of more posts are coming in and you would
Speaker 1: never be able to get to a point where you
Speaker 1: actually know what's going on. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: are saying like it's just not even worth it to
Speaker 1: try and vet information on the former Twitter right now. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC, has
Speaker 1: sued Elon Musk again. So you might wonder why. Well,
Speaker 1: back in May of this year, the SEC served a
Speaker 1: subpoena to Musk to compel him to appear for the
Speaker 1: SEC and provide testimony with regard to his acquisition of Twitter.
Speaker 1: So the SEC is concerned that some people may have
Speaker 1: committed securities fraud during the whole Twitter acquisition process. So
Speaker 1: this is an investigation into the acquisition and the deals
Speaker 1: that surrounded it, looking to see if any illegal activity
Speaker 1: was included in that Musk was supposed to appear before
Speaker 1: the SEC back in September, but he protested it and
Speaker 1: then he didn't show up. So now the SEC has
Speaker 1: sued Musk in an effort to compel him to provide testimony.
Speaker 1: This is not the first time the SEC and Musk
Speaker 1: have clashed, not by a long shot. Musk has earned
Speaker 1: a reputation as a sort of a bad boy in
Speaker 1: the eyes of the SEC. So back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: Musk posted to you know, Twitter that he had secured
Speaker 1: funding that would take the company Tesla private at the
Speaker 1: staggering price of four hundred and twenty dollars per share.
Speaker 1: Now this was probably in part a weed joke, a
Speaker 1: bad one. Musk has a certain fixation associated with Mary
Speaker 1: Jane as well as the letter X. But the SEC
Speaker 1: takes this kind of stuff seriously because if the chairman
Speaker 1: of the board of directors for a company claims that
Speaker 1: the company has secured enough funding to go private and
Speaker 1: then doesn't do that, what it looks like is market manipulation.
Speaker 1: Because think about it. If Tesla's shares were trading a
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's say Tesla shares were trading at
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars per share, but the chairman of the
Speaker 1: board announces that they've secured funding to take Tesla private
Speaker 1: at four hundred twenty dollars per share. Well, let's say
Speaker 1: you're not an investor. You might think I need to
Speaker 1: sink as much money as I possibly can into Tesla
Speaker 1: right now because there's going to be a buyout, and
Speaker 1: that means like one hundred and twenty dollars on top
Speaker 1: of what I'm paying right now, So I need to
Speaker 1: buy as many shares as possible. This ends up being
Speaker 1: a rush in investment, which drives stock prices up. But
Speaker 1: if there's no deal there, well that just means that
Speaker 1: the chairman manipulated the stock price of their own company.
Speaker 1: That's a huge no no. So the SEC filed a
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Musk. Eventually, Musk and the SEC settled out
Speaker 1: of court. Musk had to pay twenty million dollars and
Speaker 1: he was told to step down as the chair of
Speaker 1: Tesla's board and also to agree to not do that
Speaker 1: kind of thing again. He did later contest this and
Speaker 1: argue that he was he was forced into this agreement
Speaker 1: and that it was all an infringement upon his free speech.
Speaker 1: You know, Elon Musk is very, very very concerned about
Speaker 1: free speech when it applies to him, for a guy
Speaker 1: who frequently holds the title of the wealthiest person in
Speaker 1: the world. Honestly, the SEC fine was a slap on
Speaker 1: the wrist. This new lawsuit really just comes down to
Speaker 1: making Musk testify in front of the SEC. And since
Speaker 1: the SEC has legitimate power to subpoena people, the general
Speaker 1: wisdom is that Musk eventually will have to do it
Speaker 1: because there's not really a legal reason why he could
Speaker 1: have it thrown out. Now, we're not done with X
Speaker 1: just yet. The platform also has a new feature for
Speaker 1: those who subscribe and they get that little verification check. Now,
Speaker 1: a verified account holder can restrict posts so that only
Speaker 1: other verified accounts can reply to those posts. So if
Speaker 1: you don't have a verified account, well then your input
Speaker 1: is not welcome there. You do not get to be
Speaker 1: part of the discourse. Ya free speech. Musk says that
Speaker 1: the control should help with spam bots, which could actually
Speaker 1: be a thing. And to be fair to X and
Speaker 1: to Musk, I'm being very very snarky here, but let's
Speaker 1: be honest. Twitter has actually done similar things in the past.
Speaker 1: It's not like this is totally new. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: verification thing. But back in twenty twenty, Twitter introduced a
Speaker 1: feature that would let you limit replies to your post
Speaker 1: to just accounts that you follow, So you could say,
Speaker 1: all right, only people that I follow can reply to this,
Speaker 1: so you cut out all the trolls and stuff, unless
Speaker 1: you're following a lot of trolls, I guess. So if
Speaker 1: you were really active on Twitter, but you were only
Speaker 1: interested in having a discussion with the people that you
Speaker 1: are following, then you could do that. Or you could
Speaker 1: limit the replies so that only accounts that were mentioned
Speaker 1: in the original tweet could reply, So it becomes more
Speaker 1: of an actual one on one conversation that just happens
Speaker 1: to be publicly viewable. So I do get a little
Speaker 1: snarky about this where it turns into a paid for feature,
Speaker 1: but it's not exactly unprecedented, so I'm not that head
Speaker 1: up about it. It does seem to me like it's
Speaker 1: another tactic to try and drive users to subscribe to
Speaker 1: get that verified status. And rounding out our ex news
Speaker 1: block is that Linda Yakarino, the CEO of X, canceled
Speaker 1: her appearance at the tech Live conference, which is happening
Speaker 1: next week. So tech Live is a Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: hosted event, and the Akarino was scheduled to speak there,
Speaker 1: but X sent the Journal a statement saying, quote, Linda
Speaker 1: Yakarina will be unable to attend the WSJ tech Live
Speaker 1: conference next week. With the global crisis unfolding, Linda and
Speaker 1: her team must remain fully focused on X end quote.
Speaker 1: Presumably the global crisis alluded to is this war between
Speaker 1: Israel and Hamas, and now X has been inundated with
Speaker 1: horrific and misleading material. Certainly it would have been difficult
Speaker 1: to field the pointed questions that attendees might have had
Speaker 1: for X's CEO. The Verge points out that when she
Speaker 1: attended their Code conference, she quote deflected most questions in quote,
Speaker 1: so I imagine she wasn't keen to repeat that experience
Speaker 1: in an even more critical setting. I do hope that
Speaker 1: X's response to the crisis involves re establishing a content
Speaker 1: moderation team and strategy. While I am very much an
Speaker 1: outspoken critic of Elon Musk and X, it's not that
Speaker 1: I want to see the platform fail. I would much
Speaker 1: rather see it improve and to make some decisions that
Speaker 1: end up demonstrably improving the service and protecting the people
Speaker 1: who use it and making it useful for as many
Speaker 1: people as possible. I just very much have the opinion
Speaker 1: that that has not been the direction of the company
Speaker 1: for the past year. Really, Okay, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break. When we come back, we've got some
Speaker 1: more tech news to talk about. We're back. So I
Speaker 1: mentioned in a previous tech News episode that the US
Speaker 1: Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, has put net neutrality back
Speaker 1: on the table. This was something that was a big
Speaker 1: deal during Obama's administration and then got tossed out during
Speaker 1: Trump's administration, and now it's coming background again. So ours
Speaker 1: TETNACA has a great article titled net Neutrality's court fate
Speaker 1: depends upon whether broadband is telecommunications? Okay, so y'all. This
Speaker 1: gets a bit frustrating because it mostly ends up being
Speaker 1: about how we define things, and arguably this ultimately becomes
Speaker 1: an arbitrary distinction, right that we call something one thing
Speaker 1: versus another thing. And yet that arbitrary distinction can determine
Speaker 1: if the FCC actually has authority to reinstate net neutrality
Speaker 1: or not. The gist of it is that any move
Speaker 1: by the FCC to regulate Internet service providers is likely
Speaker 1: to result in lawsuits against the FCC brought by those
Speaker 1: same ISPs that all contend that the FCC doesn't actually
Speaker 1: have the authority to make those regulations. And this all
Speaker 1: has to do with the classification of broadband services. If
Speaker 1: you classify them as a telecommunications service, then that means
Speaker 1: they fall under Title I of the Communications Act, and
Speaker 1: the FCC has authority to regulate that industry. They would
Speaker 1: count as common carriers, so they'd have to follow certain rules,
Speaker 1: and the FCC would have the authority to enforce those rules,
Speaker 1: or at least to make those rules, and then you
Speaker 1: have other elements of the government enforce them. But right now,
Speaker 1: the ISP broadband industry tends to fall under the classification
Speaker 1: of information services. This was something that was created back
Speaker 1: when the Communications Act was being hashed out out of
Speaker 1: concern that if you were to heavily regulate a new industry,
Speaker 1: that of Internet service providers, it could end up hurting
Speaker 1: innovation and adoption, and so, in an effort to avoid that,
Speaker 1: these were called information services, not telecommunication services. So the
Speaker 1: argument now is that these companies are far more than
Speaker 1: just an information services company. It is a telecommunications company,
Speaker 1: and thus it should be classified as such, and the
Speaker 1: FCC would have authority. Obviously, the companies would oppose that.
Speaker 1: They would much prefer to operate without that regulatory authority
Speaker 1: over them. In fact, a lot of the companies are
Speaker 1: also telecommunications companies, like they have a telecommunications business on
Speaker 1: top of their ISP business, and yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: already have the experience of working under regulations, so they
Speaker 1: would much prefer it if they didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1: There was a recent report that stated that the FCC
Speaker 1: may end up facing a reversal from the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: if they were to attempt to assert this authority, saying
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court's conservative makeup at this point means
Speaker 1: that more than likely it would be overturned. However, Ours
Speaker 1: Technica piece men that the legal experts who wrote this
Speaker 1: were paid by the broadband industry, or at least a
Speaker 1: couple of companies that are broadband companies, So you could
Speaker 1: argue that maybe there's a bit of poisoning the well
Speaker 1: going on here. Anyway, it should come as no surprise
Speaker 1: that we're seeing opposition from ISPs to this move. It
Speaker 1: pretty much comes with the territory, so we'll have to
Speaker 1: keep an eye on this and see how it develops.
Speaker 1: I'm somewhat skeptical that it would go all the way
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. The court would have to choose
Speaker 1: to take out the argument, and I don't know that
Speaker 1: it would, so I think that it is possible that
Speaker 1: that report that was written was somewhat alarmist and meant
Speaker 1: to try and dissuade the FCC from pursuing this line
Speaker 1: of action in the first place. But we'll have to see.
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how the
Speaker 1: video game development world had turned on the company Unity.
Speaker 1: Unity makes a popular, or at least a formerly popular
Speaker 1: game engine. So you can think of a game engine
Speaker 1: as a set of tools that game developers can use
Speaker 1: when they're building out the game that they want to make.
Speaker 1: So the developers don't have to create everything from scratch
Speaker 1: because they have this set of tools they can use.
Speaker 1: And as long as the set of tools supports whatever
Speaker 1: the gameplay is that the developers have in mind, everything
Speaker 1: can go fairly smoothly. I mean, there'll always be hiccups
Speaker 1: and development, but you don't have to create everything from
Speaker 1: scratch anyway. Not too long ago, Unity changed its policy
Speaker 1: and said it would start charging developers what amounts to
Speaker 1: royalties as defined by installations. So, in other words, at
Speaker 1: a certain point, when someone installs a game that runs
Speaker 1: on Unity, that counts toward the royalties, and developers will
Speaker 1: have to pay Unity a certain amount of money for
Speaker 1: that installation. Initial Unity was saying they would count every
Speaker 1: single installation, which means that if you, as a player,
Speaker 1: installed a game, then you uninstalled it, then you installed
Speaker 1: it again, then that would count as two installations. So
Speaker 1: if you really hated a game company, ironically you could
Speaker 1: hurt it by buying a copy of their game, installing it,
Speaker 1: uninstalling it, and doing it again and again, over and
Speaker 1: over and over again, because that would mean that the
Speaker 1: company would have to pay out the royalties for each
Speaker 1: of those installations. Now, eventually Unity walked that back and
Speaker 1: then said, okay, well, we'll only count it for the
Speaker 1: first install per device. So if someone installs it on
Speaker 1: like eighteen computers, that will still count as eighteen installations.
Speaker 1: But if then they were to uninstall and reinstall, those
Speaker 1: would not count as additional ones. On top of that,
Speaker 1: this still created a big kerfuffle in the game development world.
Speaker 1: It flew in the face of Unity's earlier philosophy, like
Speaker 1: Unity had made a fairly big deal that they weren't
Speaker 1: going to charge for installations or sales of games or whatever,
Speaker 1: that there would just be kind of a flat fee
Speaker 1: that you would pay for a certain level of access
Speaker 1: to the Unity Engine and development tools, editing tools, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. So there was this big negative reaction
Speaker 1: in the game development world. And now the CEO of Unity,
Speaker 1: a guy named John riche Tello, has become the former
Speaker 1: CEO of Unity. He resigned from the company in a
Speaker 1: fairly sudden move, and now a guy named James M.
Speaker 1: Whitehurst is serving as the interim CEO and president of
Speaker 1: Unity while the company searches for a permanent replacement. How
Speaker 1: this is going to affect Unity in the long haul,
Speaker 1: obviously remains to be seen. I'm not sure how the
Speaker 1: game development community will respond. I know that there was
Speaker 1: a lot of trust lost as a result of this
Speaker 1: recent change, so I think it's going to take a
Speaker 1: lot of work to repair those relationships. And I don't
Speaker 1: know how that meshes with the company's business strategy. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if the business strategy depends upon pursuing this kind of
Speaker 1: revenue generation approach, then it's gonna be an uphill battle
Speaker 1: to repair those relationships. And now for a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of possible generative AI news, the jury's still out a
Speaker 1: little bit. As befitting the god of mischief, the Verge
Speaker 1: reports that a promotional poster for season two of the
Speaker 1: Low Key series on Disney Plus may have been made
Speaker 1: at least in part by Generative AI. Further, it appears
Speaker 1: that the poster is using a stock image from Shutterstock
Speaker 1: as the background, so it's this background image that is
Speaker 1: presumably created through generative AI. The image in question appears
Speaker 1: to be called Surreal Infinity Time Spiral Space Antique, a
Speaker 1: great name, and the details in the image have some
Speaker 1: of the tailtale signs of generative AI, like some like
Speaker 1: superfluous little scribble marks and stuff that make it look
Speaker 1: like it might have been created by AI, which can
Speaker 1: get a little messy when it's making stuff like little
Speaker 1: details can end up being kind of messy when you
Speaker 1: look at it very closely. Now, this is a problem
Speaker 1: not necessarily for Disney, which, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: follow the rules for this stock image like you can
Speaker 1: purchase stock images for commercial use if you have the
Speaker 1: right license, and as far as I know, Disney did
Speaker 1: all of that. But Shutterstock has a policy that does
Speaker 1: not allow for AI generated images on the platform unless
Speaker 1: they were created through the platform's own AI generative tool.
Speaker 1: And you might think, well, that seems like gatekeeping, but
Speaker 1: really it's to ensure a chain of IP ownership, because
Speaker 1: things get really complicated. This is a brave new world
Speaker 1: of AI generated content. So let's say you got an artist.
Speaker 1: This artist uses some other generative AI tool to help
Speaker 1: create their image. They do some work themselves, the AI
Speaker 1: generative tool does some of the work. Then they end
Speaker 1: up submitting that image to shutter Stock, and shutter Stock
Speaker 1: puts it up in its marketplace. Well, there could potentially
Speaker 1: be a very messy disagreement as to who or what
Speaker 1: actually owns the IP of that image. So you could
Speaker 1: make the argument that the artist who submits that image
Speaker 1: to shutter Stock might not technically have the legal right
Speaker 1: to do it because this other generative AI tool took
Speaker 1: part in making that image. It's all very muddy, right.
Speaker 1: It's indicative of how generative AI makes stuff like intellectual
Speaker 1: property and copyright and trademarks and all of these related subjects.
Speaker 1: It makes them much more complicated than they already were.
Speaker 1: And then there's the issue of human artists, right, who
Speaker 1: are number one, concerned that work that normally would go
Speaker 1: to a person is at least in part being handled
Speaker 1: by algorithms, and that number two, those algorithms require training
Speaker 1: material in order to work, right, So the portfolios from
Speaker 1: human artists are in a way being used to help
Speaker 1: eliminate work for those human artists. Disney hasn't commented on
Speaker 1: any of this so far, and you know, you could
Speaker 1: argue that maybe Disney didn't know that it was an
Speaker 1: AI generated image. See when it's on Shutterstock and it's
Speaker 1: being used through the actual AI tool on Shutterstock, the
Speaker 1: image gets a label that indicates that it was at
Speaker 1: least in part AI generated, so you don't you're not
Speaker 1: caught surprise when you're looking at Shutterstock's own library of
Speaker 1: AI generated images. But this one didn't have that. It
Speaker 1: appears to have been a case where someone was able
Speaker 1: to slip in an AI generated image and Shutterstock didn't
Speaker 1: detect that and ran it as a normal one. So
Speaker 1: you could argue Disney didn't know although a lot of
Speaker 1: the reports I saw said, come on, they knew because
Speaker 1: the again it had those telltale signs of generative AI.
Speaker 1: All right, I've got a little bit more news for you,
Speaker 1: but before we can get to that, let's take another
Speaker 1: quick break to think our sponsors. Okay, we're back. So
Speaker 1: SpaceX's Starlink was never the only game in town when
Speaker 1: it comes to satellite provided Internet connectivity. In fact, satellite
Speaker 1: connectivity has been around for quite some time, but SpaceX
Speaker 1: and starlink they use fleets constellations, if you will, of
Speaker 1: tiny satellites, as a new way to achieve that outcome
Speaker 1: as opposed to having a satellite in essentially geostationary orbit.
Speaker 1: You have this fleet of satellites and as they pass overhead,
Speaker 1: your antenna locks onto one, and then when it starts
Speaker 1: to pass out of view, it locks onto the next one.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of SpaceX's approach with starlink. And now
Speaker 1: Amazon has launched literally a competitor to SpaceX's starlink service.
Speaker 1: Amazon's version is called Kuiper, named after the Dutch astronomer
Speaker 1: Gerard Kuiper, whose name also graces the Kuiper Belt. It's
Speaker 1: a disc in our solar system made up of these
Speaker 1: small bodies of mostly frozen voladoles like ammonia and methane. Anyway,
Speaker 1: last Friday, and Atlas five launch vehicle carried a pair
Speaker 1: of Amazon proto type Kuiper satellites and its payload and
Speaker 1: delivered them to orbit, and Amazon said it was able
Speaker 1: to make contact with both of them within an hour
Speaker 1: of them having reached orbit. Amazon's plan is to use
Speaker 1: a constellation of more than three thousand of these satellites
Speaker 1: to provide Internet communication links, similar to how SpaceX's Starlink
Speaker 1: does it. While satellite connectivity is a huge help to
Speaker 1: people who could be in remote areas who might find
Speaker 1: it difficult to get terrestrial Internet service because ISPs are,
Speaker 1: let us say, reluctant to provide infrastructure to remote areas,
Speaker 1: it does have a benefit. However, astronomers are really concerned
Speaker 1: that as we fill out our orbits with small spacecraft,
Speaker 1: it's going to make it harder to actually do astronomical
Speaker 1: research here on Earth. It certainly also creates a lot
Speaker 1: of potential space debris if it's not handled properly. One
Speaker 1: thing I find really interesting is that this is explicitly
Speaker 1: an Amazon project it is not a Blue Origin project.
Speaker 1: So if you recall, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon dot Com,
Speaker 1: and while he no longer runs Amazon, he oversees the
Speaker 1: private space company Blue Origin. Yet Kuiper remains an Amazon project,
Speaker 1: not a Blue Origin project. So I just thought that
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting. The FTC recently released a report
Speaker 1: that reveals victims have lost a total of around two
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars to scams on social media platforms
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty one, so in two years, two point
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars. A lot of the scams fall into
Speaker 1: things like misleading ads for products. On the rare occasion
Speaker 1: that I pop on over to Facebook, I see these
Speaker 1: things all the time in my feed. I'll scroll down
Speaker 1: and I'll see some ad that's clai to be a
Speaker 1: fire sale or a clearance sale of some sort. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because if I go away and I come back,
Speaker 1: I'll see an ad that uses the exact same image,
Speaker 1: very similar verbiage, but it'll have a different business name
Speaker 1: associated with it. And I remember seeing one specifically about
Speaker 1: a going out of business sale for some vinyl records store,
Speaker 1: and I actually did a search to see if the
Speaker 1: story even existed. It doesn't, and then I saw the
Speaker 1: exact same images and a very similar ad but with
Speaker 1: a different company name, same thing. They all claim to
Speaker 1: be selling stuff at absurdly low prices. If you do
Speaker 1: a little searching, you'll see that the claimed sales price
Speaker 1: are usually like a fraction of what the actual market
Speaker 1: value is for whatever the product is in question, And
Speaker 1: a lot of these images are actually using pictures of
Speaker 1: like artists' works, like one of a kind pieces that
Speaker 1: an artist has produced, but the ad is showing up
Speaker 1: off as if it were some sort of mass produced product.
Speaker 1: If you actually were to order something from one of
Speaker 1: those sites, it typically unfolds in one of two ways.
Speaker 1: You either eventually get something that is a very cheap
Speaker 1: knockoff of whatever the original item was, or you get
Speaker 1: nothing at all, or maybe you get a box with
Speaker 1: just some random junk in it. Well, these are some
Speaker 1: of the most widespread scams. They tend to be on
Speaker 1: the smaller scale when it comes to how much money
Speaker 1: a person might actually lose personally, because it's normally not
Speaker 1: that much, notine the grand scheme of things. For the
Speaker 1: really big hits to the wallet, the scams that take
Speaker 1: the most from victims, you have to turn to classic
Speaker 1: investment scams. I think the proliferation of cryptocurrency, of blockchain,
Speaker 1: of NFTs, and all that kind of stuff along those
Speaker 1: lines has really created the perfect environment for scams. Not
Speaker 1: to be clear, I'm not saying everything related to crypto
Speaker 1: is outright a scam, at least I don't feel comfortable
Speaker 1: saying that definitively. I think a lot of stuff with
Speaker 1: crypto is a scam, and I definitely do not have
Speaker 1: a high opinion of crypto in general. But what I
Speaker 1: am saying is that crypto is kind of cryptic. It's
Speaker 1: hard to understand. It's got a lot of elements to
Speaker 1: it that are difficult to describe to someone who is
Speaker 1: new to the concept, and as such, it is a
Speaker 1: perfect opportunity for a conton artist. Right the scammer can
Speaker 1: count on the fact that the target doesn't have a
Speaker 1: full understanding of the subject matter, and by depending upon
Speaker 1: base human features like greed, the con man can set
Speaker 1: up a trap that a lot of people are going
Speaker 1: to fall into. Overall, the FTC's report reinforces something that
Speaker 1: I think most of us already know, which is that
Speaker 1: scams are abundant on social media. So it really does
Speaker 1: pay to be a critical thinker and to ask important questions,
Speaker 1: even just to yourself, before you start sinking money into anything,
Speaker 1: whether it's a product that seems to be priced way
Speaker 1: below its value, or some investment opportunity or something along
Speaker 1: those lines, ask these questions, do some research. I've also
Speaker 1: seen this, by the way, targeting people who are doing
Speaker 1: things like job searching, which really it really grinds my gears, y'all,
Speaker 1: because obviously anyone who's doing a job search is trying
Speaker 1: to make an improvement in their life. They're actually taking
Speaker 1: real effort, and that requires a lot of investment of
Speaker 1: your time and energy, right, it's not easy to do.
Speaker 1: Anyone who has actively gone into a job search knows
Speaker 1: that can be a grueling experience. So to prey upon
Speaker 1: people who are in this vulnerable position and who likely
Speaker 1: have the most to lose and can least afford to
Speaker 1: lose any of it that it just really hits me
Speaker 1: as being pure evil. It's hard to I don't really
Speaker 1: believe in evil per se, but I mean that's about
Speaker 1: I can get to it. Business Insider reports that Meta,
Speaker 1: the company that owns Facebook and Instagram and all that
Speaker 1: has been hiring famous folks, particularly people who are famous
Speaker 1: on the Internet or celebrities as I like to call them,
Speaker 1: to model for the company's AI assistance. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that in the future, you'll be able to interact
Speaker 1: with an AI assistant on Meta's various platforms, and the
Speaker 1: assistant will be modeled after I don't know, like mister Beast,
Speaker 1: And then I assume mister Beast will sue you if
Speaker 1: you ask him to recommend a good burger joint or something. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Meta is also working with quote unquote real celebrities too,
Speaker 1: like Tom Brady, and apparently agreeing to be part of
Speaker 1: this ends up being some big money. The Information reports
Speaker 1: that one creator earned five million dollars paid out over
Speaker 1: two years for putting in the equivalent of six hours
Speaker 1: of work in a studio. Five million dollars for six
Speaker 1: hours of work. Meta, why haven't you reached out to me,
Speaker 1: you know, beloved online personality Jonathan Strickland. I'm sure we
Speaker 1: could cut a deal. I'm sorry for all those times
Speaker 1: I called you a predatory, dangerous company that trades upon
Speaker 1: personal information to make heaps of cash, well simultaneously making
Speaker 1: us miserable. I'm sure we can come up with a
Speaker 1: figure that will convince me to compromise my stance on
Speaker 1: the matter. No, I'm just kidding. There's no such figure.
Speaker 1: They couldn't offer me enough money anyway. As it stands,
Speaker 1: the AI assistants are just text based for the moment,
Speaker 1: so I guess they just text like Tom Brady and
Speaker 1: mister Beast. But obviously the plan in the future is
Speaker 1: to incorporate AI generated video assistants, probably animated ones if
Speaker 1: I had to guess, complete with a voice or a
Speaker 1: synthesized voice that belongs to these you know, famous people,
Speaker 1: and y'all, I've got a lot of thoughts about this.
Speaker 1: I'm actually concerned that it will create an even more
Speaker 1: dangerous parasocial tendency. In general, we already see parasocial relationships
Speaker 1: among fans and famous people that never turns out well
Speaker 1: like it's bad, it's not healthy, and I fear that
Speaker 1: this is going to take it a step further. But then,
Speaker 1: what do I know. I'm not important enough to be bribed,
Speaker 1: so who really cares what I think? Finally, I've got
Speaker 1: a trio of articles to recommend to you all today,
Speaker 1: So first up is a piece by Amanda Hoover. It's
Speaker 1: over on Wired and it's titled New York's Airbnb ban
Speaker 1: is descending into pure chaos. So, just for context, New
Speaker 1: York City passed some rules to crack down on folks
Speaker 1: who are renting out living space for short term stays
Speaker 1: in the area because this has contributed to a real
Speaker 1: estate crisis in the city. Setting aside properties for visitors
Speaker 1: means that New York City residents don't have a shot
Speaker 1: at those homes, and there's a shortage of real estate
Speaker 1: for people who actually need a place to live. So
Speaker 1: the piece goes into detail about how the cities move
Speaker 1: to really cut back on Airbnb's operation within New York
Speaker 1: City has now precipitated an effort among former Airbnb hosts
Speaker 1: to dive into a sort of black market for short
Speaker 1: term visitors. It's really interesting. Next up, we have a
Speaker 1: piece by Alex Coma of the Washington City Paper that's
Speaker 1: Koma for Alex's last name. The article is titled the
Speaker 1: rent is Too Damn Algorithmic, So it kind of dovetails
Speaker 1: with what I was just talking about in a way
Speaker 1: like it's a related issue. This is about an attorney
Speaker 1: general's fight with a company called real Page. That company's
Speaker 1: business is to help landlords set rent prices in various regions.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that this algorithm helps landlords s
Speaker 1: rent so that it is in a competitive area with
Speaker 1: other landlords in the space. They don't price themselves out
Speaker 1: of the market, and they don't underprice themselves to a
Speaker 1: point where they're cutting into their revenue too much. But
Speaker 1: the argument is that this has actually created an anti
Speaker 1: competitive landscape because all the landlords are using this particular tool,
Speaker 1: and the algorithm essentially ends up just being a price
Speaker 1: fixing tool where everybody has kind of agreed on a
Speaker 1: very narrow range of rent for specific areas and specific properties,
Speaker 1: and that means that there's no real competition going on,
Speaker 1: and it essentially becomes collusion through algorithm. Now, the last
Speaker 1: article that I have to recommend to you today is
Speaker 1: from The Guardian. It was written by pramad Arcaria and
Speaker 1: Michael Hudson, and my apologies for my attempt to pronounce
Speaker 1: that name, but it is titled revealed Amazon linked to
Speaker 1: trafficking of workers in Saudi Arabia. This is a very
Speaker 1: sobering report. There are a lot of horrific experiences and
Speaker 1: tragic circumstances that are listed within this article. But I
Speaker 1: think it's really important to read because we need to
Speaker 1: know the full impact that these huge tech companies can
Speaker 1: have all over the world, not just to our own
Speaker 1: personal lives, but how are they operating in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world. How much of the company's success is
Speaker 1: predicated upon human suffering. I think it's important to know that.
Speaker 1: I think you need to know that so that you
Speaker 1: are when you're making choices, you're making informed choices. And
Speaker 1: if you're fine with making choices knowing these things, then
Speaker 1: you know that's your own personal decision. But at least
Speaker 1: you're doing it with knowledge, as opposed to remaining blissfully
Speaker 1: ignorant and potentially perpetuating harm through your choices. You know,
Speaker 1: not on purpose, but effectively. You know, purpose doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter when you're talking about human suffering, right, you need
Speaker 1: to really think about how to how to mitigate and
Speaker 1: end that. So sorry for my soap boxing, but it's
Speaker 1: just this stuff is important to me, and I think
Speaker 1: that this article is a great revelation on how Amazon's
Speaker 1: operations in this one particular part of the world really
Speaker 1: lead to some awful conditions that need to be understood
Speaker 1: and revealed, and companies need to be held accountable for
Speaker 1: these kinds of operations. They need to actually take responsibility
Speaker 1: for that, because otherwise, you know, we're just going to
Speaker 1: see it perpetuated in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, and that's
Speaker 1: just that's really not acceptable, at least not in my opinion. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm done proselytizing. I hope y'all. I'll have a great
Speaker 1: day and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.