techgrumps 3.40 - Teletubbies vision of judge dredd

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Welcome to Tech Grumps 3 .40. We are very glad
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to have you here. It is Sunday, the 10th of May
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when we are recording and with us this time is
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Ian. Hi, I'm recording from Manchester and I
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go to Cubic Garden everywhere. We have Wendy.
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I'm Wendy Grossman. I'm in London and I'm at
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pelicancrossing .net. We have David. I'm David
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Eastman, also from London, and you can generally
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find me on BlueSky as EastMad. And I'm Ryan Alexander.
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You can find me as rnalexander on most platforms.
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And as always, we are going to kick off Tech
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Grumps with our AI Roundup. And we have a bunch
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of stories. Wendy has found us a treasure trove
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of amazing stories of AI insanity this time around.
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So, Wendy, kick us off. Well, I figure that we
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have reached peak AI insanity because a company
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called Allbirds, which used to sell wool shoes,
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last year sold all its assets, its brand and
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its shoes to a new company. And they've renamed
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themselves New Bird AI, apparently with the goal
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of turning their warehouses into data centers.
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And for those of you with long enough memories
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to remember Long Island Bitcoin, you know, when
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companies that do something completely irrelevant
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suddenly transform themselves into the technology
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of the day, you know that the whole thing is
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in trouble. On top of that, Elon Musk is suing
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Sam Altman over converting OpenAI to a for -profit
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company. And the testimony is going fast and
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furious, including the diaries of one of the
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co -founders whose great mission in life apparently
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is to become a billionaire. Richard Dawkins has
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decided his, after two days of interacting with
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the Claude. Anthropics clawed chatbot that it's
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conscious to mockery from several people who
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suggested it was the clawed delusion. Apple has
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paid a $250 million fine for claiming more intelligence
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for Siri and AI than it merits, which is the
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sort of thing that usually you have Elon Musk
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doing over at Tesla. And a bill proposed in the
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U .S. would add AI literacy to the K -12 curriculum.
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It's backed by Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.
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Not apparently by teachers. What a surprise.
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Yeah, so you know it has to be a good idea, right?
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And also, somebody has come up with a vertically
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integrated platform that will build and create
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a restaurant in less than a minute. It has a
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library of 700 ingredients. And I don't know
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how it sounds to the rest of you, but it sounds
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to me like what Clear Channel did to radio. They
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took out all the local DJs and stuck one guy
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in a room remotely somewhere and he had to run
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all the stations, which were all now top 40 stations.
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And it feels a bit like that because food has
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a very deep cultural context and somehow I don't
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think it's going to be captured by an AI with
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700 ingredients on call. And the last one is
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this. Oh, that's it. That's that one is this
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guy who thinks anyone can open a restaurant.
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For any AI person I'd like to reference, Simon
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Willison had an article go past this month about
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they set up a cafe and let the AI run it, but
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apparently they didn't tell all the workers that
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it was being run by an AI, and they were like,
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Why did it order 900 cans of tomatoes? The AI
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likes tomatoes! What's wrong with that? And Simon
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made a really good point, which was like, I don't
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think this is ethical. I don't think you get
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to do that. This is basically running an experiment
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on real people without telling them, and that
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should be treated a different way. And I concur.
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I have a feeling there's a story coming a little
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bit that might have a similar aspect to that.
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At what point do you need to at least be asked
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for your consent to be subjected to being ruled
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by our new AI overlords? But surely, I mean,
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to take another side to it, so I'm aware that
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a lot of the... contracts for especially american
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fast food jobs and stuff like that are are pretty
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heavy so they probably have really signed off
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um agreements to like to to have that done to
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them which is insane Well, the idea this guy
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has is not to take an existing restaurant and
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turn it into an AI run restaurant. The idea is
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to set up these small restaurants. And one of
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the things he sort of claims people will be able
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to do is try out new ideas in this like little
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small thing and then maybe repurpose them into
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something bigger. I mean, it's hard for me to
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see how that's going to work because, you know,
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the restaurant business is awfully tough. you
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know in general to have have this extra thing
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you know i mean the idea is i guess that the
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company the entrepreneurial company has these
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locations and you set up you create this platform
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and you create your idea for a restaurant and
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then it's available in all of those 70 locations
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or something that the company has seen him interviewed
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i mean it's a robot thing that actually creates
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this stuff but then he sort of made it like oh
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this platform can produce anything and i'm thinking
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Automated food restaurants are not a fairly new
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concept. Do you remember Harden and Hardart?
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What? The automat. My father was always threatening
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to leave the dinner table and go to the automat.
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I went to the automat when I went to Amsterdam
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because I wanted to eat an automat so bad. Do
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you remember the old Harry Harrison stainless
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steel rat? And it's still rats. And the automated
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pork you swine McDonald's clones that make characters.
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Like in early one of the books, he just hides
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in one because it's all automated. He just goes,
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well, I can get free food here and I need to
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hang out. So I'm just going to hide out inside
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this food automat. When I was a teenager, when
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I was a teenager, I saw what I think were the
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last of the original automats, which were these
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like coin operated. They would have like these
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pigeon holes with a glass window and you would
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put money in it and you would take out the piece
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of cake or the chicken or whatever. And there
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were workers behind them that would keep them
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stocked. They still have them in Amsterdam. Yep.
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There was a really good documentary about automats
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that I watched a few years ago. I have a bunch
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of friends who are into films, and one of them
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likes to watch a lot of automats. I was like,
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damn, I want to go eat at an automat. And then
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when my brother and his husband moved to Amsterdam,
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moved to the Netherlands last year, I was like,
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I'm going to go visit them. It's like, what do
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you want to do? I was like, I want to go eat
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at an automat. And they're like, you know, those
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places aren't very good. It's like, I don't care.
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I want to walk up to a place where I can open
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a door and have food. In fact, I will feel better
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if the food is horrible. It is. In one of Doris
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Day's romantic comedies, she worked in an automat.
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I will say this. The automat food was horrible,
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but it was also right around the holiday season.
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And if you haven't been to the Netherlands during
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the holiday season, find yourself a good oliebollen,
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Stan. Nice. On King's Day, yeah. I would like
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to take this moment to mock Richard Dawkins.
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Oh, yes, please. I think we can mock Richard
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Dawkins all day. I just couldn't believe it.
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I was like, what? How has this even happened?
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Like, you have... You must be aware of what's
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going on. And you have the smarts. I don't understand
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how you've just kind of... Because... I totally
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respect him, and I think he's a complete wanker.
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He's managed to do both in a very short period
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of time. Yeah. Just has. Yeah. Very sad. And
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that's it for the AI Roundup. We went through
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that really quick this time. Well, good discipline,
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everyone. So moving on to some of our main stories
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this time around. Ian has a story about plug
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-in solar coming to the UK. yeah so this is um
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this is quite a straightforward one but i think
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it has quite a lot of um interested things that
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could come from it um i'm aware of so let me
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just explain what plug is solar and solar is
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so you can get these solar panels you get really
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big solar panels that you have to get um your
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agreement from from um you know whoever the um
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the property or the landlord or if that but you
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could also you can apply for government uh money
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to do this stuff but these are these are like
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really big projects so in germany i'm aware of
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the german one i think the netherlands as well
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you could buy very small solar um panels that
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you just hang or attach to the outside of your
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house and they're very small But the beauty of
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it is that it doesn't... Literally, you plug
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it into a power socket. It's a converter. And
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it just gives a little trickle of electricity
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back to your internal wiring. And it means that
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you could, for example, run small things. And
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obviously, over time, especially if you're in
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a very... if you've got a solar panel in a very
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good position, that you could probably kind of
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keep, potentially keep a laptop charged. I think
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you can do much more than that. My understanding
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is that in Germany, the system is set up in such
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a way that you can literally just sell it back
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to the grid. Yeah, so in Germany, you can do
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that. I don't think the UK has got that far yet.
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We will. Yeah, you will. So right now, the law
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has changed that you could use it internally
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within your house. And for most people, they
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didn't realize you could do that. So that's a
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big kind of surprise for a lot of people. So
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I'm from Minnesota. And one of the things that
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was that I remember having a conversation with
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my father, who's a science fiction fan and geologist,
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and he was kind of keen on all the green technology,
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still is. And he said, Northern States Power,
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which is one of the big electric companies, they
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were very smart about letting people generate
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power. And my dad put it really well, they figured
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out very quickly that they wanted to be in the
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business of distributing power and not generating
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power. Like if they could just be in the business
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of distributing power, they make a lot more money
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because making power is a dirty, awful business.
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And it has a lot of risk, whereas distributing
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power is just really once you have the infrastructure
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in place, it's kind of you're just printing money.
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And anything that you can do to encourage people
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to take some of that burden off your shoulders
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is. Right. Because that's what NSP did. They
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were like, hey, if you're producing power in
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any way and we need it, we will happily buy it
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off of you because that means that's just, you
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know, 1 .001 % of a nuclear plant that we don't
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have to try to build or pay for. And we're happy
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with that. And the thing that I really like.
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about this as a principle is that it will finally
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democratize energy production in a way that will
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become inevitably unstoppable because you will
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have a whole bunch of people who will quite happily
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do the math of going and buying going like some
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of these people are buying their panels like
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ikea they're buying these solar panels at like
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aldi because they can sell them there and People
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will do the math. The people that I know who
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do home generation will look at that and go,
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am I going to make the money back that I spend
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on this? But there's a whole bunch of people
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who are like, I don't give a fuck. I'm just happy
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to be generating power and to be helping. And
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the idea that once you start doing this and people
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realize how easy it is, because it could... it
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really could be as easy as just put this thing
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outside and then plug it into your fricking wall
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socket. Yep. And once it gets to that point,
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the people who want to keep a certain amount
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of control. How do you get it? It has to plug
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it inside, plug it in inside and have the thing
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outside. A wire has to go between them. Yeah.
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Most people put it over their balcony. That's
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it. That's the common version. Most of us in
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Britain don't actually have balconies. So how
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do you get it from A to B without having to keep
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your window open all the time? For example, in
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my room right now, I haven't got a balcony, but
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I've got a little ledge where I can easily sit
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a solar panel. Here is your power outlet. So
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the power outlet, I can literally just put it
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inside the window. I could literally put a little
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bit of foam and then close the window enough
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so it's kind of sealed enough. You can drill
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a hole through your wall. Yeah, you can as well.
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Like they did for cable TV and people did that
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all over the country. But the point really is
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that, you know, every... everyone has ways that
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they could do it if they really wanted to do
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it and what's happened so far is that you've
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had to do ads for vision you had to do all this
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stuff you've had to hire all these engineers
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to put stuff on your roof we don't necessarily
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need that and this is the beauty of of this kind
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of much more decentralized or you know distributed
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system of kind of control of solar panels and
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power and i think ryan is correct because you
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know no matter what happens you have to actual
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control of the distribution of all that stuff
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is that's a lot of work that requires a lot of
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engineering that requires a lot of stuff and
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so that's what the power company you know could
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literally be they could just do and that's the
00:14:32.649 --> 00:14:34.509
only people that could do that realistically
00:14:34.509 --> 00:14:37.570
is that once they start doing it and people buy
00:14:37.570 --> 00:14:39.549
anything under the premise that reselling to
00:14:39.549 --> 00:14:42.129
the grid will be possible if they try to remove
00:14:42.129 --> 00:14:44.980
it Yeah. They just go, oh, we can't do that.
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:47.120
People will be like, no, buddy, we bought these
00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:48.740
things on the premise that we could sell it back.
00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:51.259
And even if we're not making a profit, even if
00:14:51.259 --> 00:14:54.379
we're not doing it for very efficiently, we will
00:14:54.379 --> 00:14:56.220
kick your butt if you like. This is the thing
00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:58.340
that I like about this. There actually has been
00:14:58.340 --> 00:15:00.740
for some time there was a scheme for selling
00:15:00.740 --> 00:15:02.879
power back to the grid if you had solar panels
00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:05.299
in your house. And I believe that's ending now.
00:15:05.959 --> 00:15:08.240
Yes, but that's the one that Ian started with,
00:15:08.279 --> 00:15:10.759
i .e. that sticking up on the roof in a specific
00:15:10.759 --> 00:15:13.179
way, and it has to be installed. Whereas what
00:15:13.179 --> 00:15:14.679
we're talking about is what they do in Pakistan.
00:15:15.019 --> 00:15:16.299
They literally just throw them all over the place.
00:15:16.299 --> 00:15:19.539
No, no, I understand that part of it. Pakistan
00:15:19.539 --> 00:15:21.860
is the actual model that they're using everywhere.
00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:26.340
It lowers the requirement for entry into the
00:15:26.340 --> 00:15:29.779
system of reselling energy by multiple factors.
00:15:29.899 --> 00:15:32.259
It lowers the complexity by multiple orders of
00:15:32.259 --> 00:15:34.720
magnitude. It's like instead of going... oh,
00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:37.580
I've got to get a $20 ,000, 20 ,000 -pound battery
00:15:37.580 --> 00:15:38.940
that's got to have this much, and I've got to
00:15:38.940 --> 00:15:40.440
get an inverter, and then I've got to get a special
00:15:40.440 --> 00:15:41.840
plug, and I have to get a meter to put it in
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:42.879
the thing, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:43.879
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I have
00:15:43.879 --> 00:15:45.340
to live somewhere that's actually worth a lot
00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:46.879
of something. Can't live in London where it's
00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:50.639
like, no, go to Aldi, buy a panel, plug it in.
00:15:51.620 --> 00:15:53.960
It's just that. I mean, especially for someone
00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:56.419
like me who lives in a set of flats, you know,
00:15:56.440 --> 00:16:02.509
to try and get... get every one of the flat owners,
00:16:02.710 --> 00:16:05.929
so there's like 200 flats, to agree to put panels
00:16:05.929 --> 00:16:08.750
on the roof where they can just stick a, I can
00:16:08.750 --> 00:16:12.370
literally stick a solar panel on the side of,
00:16:12.549 --> 00:16:18.490
just outside my window. That is, it's just another
00:16:18.490 --> 00:16:22.850
life. The technology is only going to get better.
00:16:23.990 --> 00:16:26.950
Yes. More efficient. Well, more efficient, but
00:16:26.950 --> 00:16:28.769
also like there was a story that went past that,
00:16:28.830 --> 00:16:30.269
I think like a week ago where they're talking
00:16:30.269 --> 00:16:32.450
about, they figured out a way to increase the
00:16:32.450 --> 00:16:35.330
efficiency of existing solar panels by about
00:16:35.330 --> 00:16:37.370
another 10 % because someone said, what if we
00:16:37.370 --> 00:16:40.549
put a layer that is, what if we make a different
00:16:40.549 --> 00:16:43.149
substance that grabs energy from a different
00:16:43.149 --> 00:16:45.269
set of wavelengths than what the current one
00:16:45.269 --> 00:16:47.210
runs, but remains transparent to the ones that
00:16:47.210 --> 00:16:48.730
aren't either. So literally we can just lay this
00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:52.120
on top of the first one. It won't block the rays
00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:54.240
that the first one is making energy from, but
00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:56.279
then it grabs the second ones that it can't make
00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:58.899
energy from, but the first layer can. Same space,
00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:01.100
more efficiency. And it's just, they're just
00:17:01.100 --> 00:17:03.279
going to keep on coming up with ways to do that.
00:17:03.620 --> 00:17:05.420
I mean, they've been working on that for a bit
00:17:05.420 --> 00:17:06.859
and they're getting that right. Yeah, you're
00:17:06.859 --> 00:17:08.240
absolutely right. There's all sorts of tricks.
00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:09.180
And also the batteries are getting better and
00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:11.980
better too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's lots
00:17:11.980 --> 00:17:14.980
of, and this will all snowball. The more that
00:17:14.980 --> 00:17:19.539
we have common solar being used. As I said, the
00:17:19.539 --> 00:17:22.279
model has worked exactly as we've said in Pakistan.
00:17:22.539 --> 00:17:25.299
We know that. As soon as a company goes, companies
00:17:25.299 --> 00:17:26.759
go, well, actually, we don't want to do this
00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:30.539
in distant areas. Okay, we'll just plug in. The
00:17:30.539 --> 00:17:32.339
big next thing that I see for this, and this
00:17:32.339 --> 00:17:35.420
is partially because I just read a book. One
00:17:35.420 --> 00:17:36.619
of the books, I had a book recommended, which
00:17:36.619 --> 00:17:37.759
I just wrote, which was like The Mars House.
00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:41.059
One of the things in there is the question of
00:17:41.059 --> 00:17:43.359
generating energy on Mars. It's like one of the
00:17:43.359 --> 00:17:46.099
things that we are starting to realize is one
00:17:46.099 --> 00:17:49.069
of the things we need to do is how to store excess
00:17:49.069 --> 00:17:50.990
energy during high production times and utilize
00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:52.930
it during low production times and it turns out
00:17:52.930 --> 00:17:55.910
there's so many weird and funky and entertaining
00:17:55.910 --> 00:17:57.890
ways to do this like people have figured like
00:17:57.890 --> 00:18:00.250
that there is a somewhere in the u .s where they
00:18:00.250 --> 00:18:05.470
are repurposing old missile silos and how they
00:18:05.470 --> 00:18:08.910
are repurposing them is very simple they are
00:18:08.910 --> 00:18:14.720
putting big huge weights That works. With generators,
00:18:15.059 --> 00:18:18.339
that when there's too much energy, they hoist
00:18:18.339 --> 00:18:21.339
the weight up, and when there's not enough, they
00:18:21.339 --> 00:18:24.180
let the weight fall, and then it drives a generator.
00:18:24.420 --> 00:18:26.019
And they're like, the only thing we were missing
00:18:26.019 --> 00:18:27.920
were really, really big holes in the ground to
00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:29.440
make these things work, and it turns out we already
00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:30.960
have a bunch of big holes in the ground that
00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:34.660
we're no longer using. I rather like this because
00:18:34.660 --> 00:18:37.319
it means that school lessons for potential energy,
00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:39.339
kinetic energy, are going to be much more interesting.
00:18:39.559 --> 00:18:42.259
Water pumping things. There's salt batteries
00:18:42.259 --> 00:18:45.500
being used. There's so many. And part of me is
00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:47.980
just like, you know what? Let everyone at it.
00:18:48.019 --> 00:18:49.599
Like I say, school part is like, there's so many
00:18:49.599 --> 00:18:51.059
creative ways to solve this problem that are
00:18:51.059 --> 00:18:53.039
interesting. Now, to be fair, some of them are
00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:54.980
probably going to explode. But then we will learn
00:18:54.980 --> 00:19:02.990
something. All right. Next up in our hit parade
00:19:02.990 --> 00:19:07.730
is David with a story about the NHS. Ah, yes,
00:19:07.849 --> 00:19:11.049
the NHS. So this was something that sort of...
00:19:11.950 --> 00:19:15.470
If you listen to the previous Tech Grumps, which
00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:17.849
you should have done, probably we're talking
00:19:17.849 --> 00:19:20.450
about Mythos and this ridiculous release of something
00:19:20.450 --> 00:19:22.809
in which they haven't actually released it because
00:19:22.809 --> 00:19:26.470
they decided it was too powerful. And as I think
00:19:26.470 --> 00:19:28.930
Ryan said, they sort of sidle up to you and go,
00:19:29.049 --> 00:19:30.869
well, that's a nice system you've got there.
00:19:31.150 --> 00:19:34.210
We should go and see if our system was to hack
00:19:34.210 --> 00:19:37.789
it for you. So this, unfortunately, this threat
00:19:37.789 --> 00:19:42.230
has actually now come to pass. Because the UK
00:19:42.230 --> 00:19:46.769
government that was persuaded via GDS and NHSX
00:19:46.769 --> 00:19:50.829
to open source most of the NHS England products,
00:19:50.869 --> 00:19:53.789
that's kind of data and the apps. And this is
00:19:53.789 --> 00:19:56.109
slowly, oddly enough, today they've announced
00:19:56.109 --> 00:20:00.730
they want to try to get doctors' medical information
00:20:00.730 --> 00:20:04.279
synced with... hospital information, which they
00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:06.500
aren't in the UK. If your doctor knows something,
00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:08.720
hospital doesn't know it, which sounds incredible
00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:11.940
at first, but it's true. So this was one way
00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:14.059
they were going to do it, keep information open.
00:20:14.579 --> 00:20:17.839
And Ben Goldacre has gone around this sometime.
00:20:18.420 --> 00:20:21.759
But what's happened is that because of mythos,
00:20:21.759 --> 00:20:26.079
people in NHS England have decided to backtrack
00:20:26.079 --> 00:20:28.259
on this and have said that, no, no, they're going
00:20:28.259 --> 00:20:30.279
to close this off. So they're going to take all
00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:34.549
their code off. off of github and they're going
00:20:34.549 --> 00:20:36.569
to close down all the apis because they've decided
00:20:36.569 --> 00:20:38.990
because of the existence of things like mythos
00:20:38.990 --> 00:20:41.250
which by the way i know it exists but we don't
00:20:41.250 --> 00:20:45.250
really know what its abilities are it's too much
00:20:45.250 --> 00:20:49.730
risk for them to have so basically the mere possibility
00:20:49.730 --> 00:20:53.589
of mythos has actually scared nhs england into
00:20:53.589 --> 00:20:56.150
backtracking their previous policy and they've
00:20:56.150 --> 00:20:57.730
closed everything down take it and they're going
00:20:57.730 --> 00:21:01.130
to take their code off of um and github and so
00:21:01.130 --> 00:21:03.529
forth so in other words they were developing
00:21:03.529 --> 00:21:05.670
in the open and now apparently they're going
00:21:05.670 --> 00:21:08.849
to go back to the bad old days of uh shutting
00:21:08.849 --> 00:21:11.250
everything down which to say the least is is
00:21:11.250 --> 00:21:15.329
fucking terrible um again it's when we first
00:21:15.329 --> 00:21:17.069
heard mythos it was all a bit of a joke but the
00:21:17.069 --> 00:21:19.490
fact that this happens is what while i think
00:21:19.490 --> 00:21:23.930
hopefully people can uh talk nhs england round
00:21:23.930 --> 00:21:27.190
it's quite possible that nhs england say well
00:21:27.190 --> 00:21:29.130
you know our appetite for risk is pretty low
00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:31.720
We're running a health service. This thing could
00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:35.000
hack us. What do you want us to do? So, you know,
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:40.039
it just shows that even the threat of this, that
00:21:40.039 --> 00:21:42.740
Anthropica effectively created for themselves,
00:21:42.819 --> 00:21:47.180
is quite damaging. And, you know, and it was,
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:50.539
I should point out, it was Terence Eden, or Eden,
00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:52.859
as you say, who I think we can call him a friend
00:21:52.859 --> 00:21:54.079
of the show, despite the fact he's never been
00:21:54.079 --> 00:21:56.099
on the show. He should be on the show. He should
00:21:56.099 --> 00:21:59.079
be on the show. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we haven't.
00:21:59.339 --> 00:22:01.099
Evan stops him coming on. He just doesn't talk
00:22:01.099 --> 00:22:04.859
to us. So, I mean, this is, yeah, I mean, it's
00:22:04.859 --> 00:22:08.480
really quite a... Well, yeah, he does talk to
00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:10.940
us individually. I mean, he doesn't talk to the
00:22:10.940 --> 00:22:13.880
show as a general concept. I will say this. One
00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:15.299
of the things that I thought about when I saw
00:22:15.299 --> 00:22:17.319
the story go past is I'm going, I hope that at
00:22:17.319 --> 00:22:19.039
least some of the people who are in high -level
00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:21.819
positions are smart enough to realize how much
00:22:21.819 --> 00:22:23.779
worse and how much more vulnerable they would
00:22:23.779 --> 00:22:26.599
be if they had gone ahead and made all of the
00:22:26.599 --> 00:22:30.279
NHS data standard on Palantir systems. Because
00:22:30.279 --> 00:22:33.420
this is one of the things that we don't talk
00:22:33.420 --> 00:22:36.450
about. That I think should be talked about more,
00:22:36.549 --> 00:22:41.470
which is this push to move these. Do you get
00:22:41.470 --> 00:22:44.730
that once you're on Palantir's systems, and Palantir
00:22:44.730 --> 00:22:48.049
is huge, if people figure out how to hack Palantir,
00:22:48.230 --> 00:22:51.950
you'll be hacked too. And people will go after
00:22:51.950 --> 00:22:56.470
Palantir, one, because they're evil. But even
00:22:56.470 --> 00:22:58.410
more importantly than that, although I wish that
00:22:58.410 --> 00:23:00.250
was the most important thing, it's that they
00:23:00.250 --> 00:23:04.509
are a huge attack surface. cost to benefit ratio
00:23:04.509 --> 00:23:07.210
of figuring out how to hack a system. Like you
00:23:07.210 --> 00:23:10.950
don't spend $5 million to try to figure out how
00:23:10.950 --> 00:23:12.230
to hack a system that you're only going to be
00:23:12.230 --> 00:23:14.569
able to extract a thousand bucks from. You spend
00:23:14.569 --> 00:23:16.349
$5 million trying to figure out how to hack a
00:23:16.349 --> 00:23:18.450
system that you can do ransomware for 50 and
00:23:18.450 --> 00:23:20.309
there's a scale there. And guess what has that
00:23:20.309 --> 00:23:24.170
scale? Palantir. And sadly, I have to say that
00:23:24.170 --> 00:23:26.369
if people listening to this thought that Ryan
00:23:26.369 --> 00:23:28.450
mentioned Palantir randomly, no, no, no, no.
00:23:28.490 --> 00:23:31.069
I was just literally reading today a thread that
00:23:31.069 --> 00:23:33.710
was related to this. It was about somebody saying,
00:23:33.869 --> 00:23:37.970
you know, my dad couldn't get the right care
00:23:37.970 --> 00:23:39.690
at hospital. This is to do with the fact that
00:23:39.690 --> 00:23:44.890
the GPs and the NHS do not sync up. And he was
00:23:44.890 --> 00:23:46.650
saying, thank God that this is going to be done.
00:23:46.809 --> 00:23:49.250
And then the purpose of nothing, he said, if
00:23:49.250 --> 00:23:52.470
we need Palantir to do it. that's okay and i
00:23:52.470 --> 00:23:55.089
and of course i'm staring at us and i'm about
00:23:55.089 --> 00:23:57.730
to say it isn't okay then of course i realize
00:23:57.730 --> 00:24:00.059
that i'm about to say that his dad could have
00:24:00.059 --> 00:24:01.359
died that's okay because of course i don't want
00:24:01.359 --> 00:24:03.759
to say that but i'm glad we've got this podcast
00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:07.180
no no it's not okay because you know it will
00:24:07.180 --> 00:24:09.900
not work out well for exactly the reason it is
00:24:09.900 --> 00:24:11.740
in palantir's best interest for you to believe
00:24:11.740 --> 00:24:13.519
that palantir is the only way for that to happen
00:24:13.519 --> 00:24:16.680
i was actually initially looking at is this just
00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:18.740
astroturfed in fact but there was someone else
00:24:18.740 --> 00:24:21.099
in that who was a sort of fairly decent news
00:24:21.099 --> 00:24:24.069
source i thought not but i i initially sort of
00:24:24.069 --> 00:24:26.329
went away thinking, I'm even wondering if this
00:24:26.329 --> 00:24:28.349
is astroturf, because this is bloody ridiculous.
00:24:28.710 --> 00:24:30.369
I'd bother astroturfing when if you can spread
00:24:30.369 --> 00:24:32.190
enough bullshit, you'll get other people's grass
00:24:32.190 --> 00:24:33.589
to grow the colour you want in the first place.
00:24:34.089 --> 00:24:38.230
Hey. Yeah, maybe we're already there. I was going
00:24:38.230 --> 00:24:40.670
to say, I think you're absolutely right about
00:24:40.670 --> 00:24:45.529
the surface area, and it also invites... I'm
00:24:45.529 --> 00:24:48.950
not saying this is a good idea. This should not
00:24:48.950 --> 00:24:52.269
happen, but... This is a level where a state
00:24:52.269 --> 00:24:56.289
actor would be interested, not just someone with
00:24:56.289 --> 00:25:00.029
a few thousand pounds. We're talking about this
00:25:00.029 --> 00:25:06.150
is a huge place to learn a lot about a number
00:25:06.150 --> 00:25:09.589
of countries. If you're the US government, you
00:25:09.589 --> 00:25:11.930
have the right to demand access to the data anyway.
00:25:12.190 --> 00:25:15.390
You don't actually even have to attack it. Let's
00:25:15.390 --> 00:25:17.490
talk geopolitically about the problem that...
00:25:17.919 --> 00:25:20.119
Neither the U .K. nor the U .S. is really willing
00:25:20.119 --> 00:25:21.559
to talk about what they really should, which
00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:26.940
is the idea that if any – think about how many
00:25:26.940 --> 00:25:30.819
countries would have it in for the U .S. and
00:25:30.819 --> 00:25:32.460
think about how many countries would have it
00:25:32.460 --> 00:25:36.259
in for the U .K. And then think about the Venn
00:25:36.259 --> 00:25:38.460
diagram of those countries. That would be absolutely
00:25:38.460 --> 00:25:41.839
delighted to get a twofer. on being able to hack
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:43.619
both of those systems at the same time because
00:25:43.619 --> 00:25:46.180
there's a lot of them because the U .S. learned
00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:50.180
it from you, Dad. I love that use of twofer.
00:25:50.319 --> 00:25:55.380
Yeah. Sorry, I'll use the U .K. version. A bog
00:25:55.380 --> 00:25:59.059
off. Yeah, which is even funnier. They get a
00:25:59.059 --> 00:26:06.880
bog off. Hacking bog off. Oh, dear. All right.
00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:10.640
Up next on our storyline is Ian with something
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:13.880
about automatic recognition cameras. I didn't
00:26:13.880 --> 00:26:17.220
know where to start on this one. So there was
00:26:17.220 --> 00:26:25.019
a challenge about facial recognition. But I've
00:26:25.019 --> 00:26:28.259
kind of put them together with my own personal
00:26:28.259 --> 00:26:34.940
story. That now police services in the UK. or
00:26:34.940 --> 00:26:39.039
i think in england and i think wales maybe scotland
00:26:39.039 --> 00:26:43.119
might be different um you can now use facial
00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:49.039
recognition cameras uh lawfully um and now you'll
00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:51.779
see and i mean there'll be trials in places like
00:26:51.779 --> 00:26:56.859
croydon um other parts of london um i think there
00:26:56.859 --> 00:27:00.839
was there's one in like there's a few other parts
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:05.720
of england where they've done trials but Every
00:27:05.720 --> 00:27:10.579
time I see this, I just kind of scream into my
00:27:10.579 --> 00:27:14.500
hands. And I want to give this kind of personal
00:27:14.500 --> 00:27:19.079
example, which I think hopefully will bring some
00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:24.980
kind of insight into how bad things can go. I
00:27:24.980 --> 00:27:27.400
think I've mentioned this quite a few times,
00:27:27.460 --> 00:27:29.099
but I've written a blog post about it, which
00:27:29.099 --> 00:27:32.640
will be linked to. So I was riding my... I wasn't
00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:35.920
riding my scooter. I was flying to Malta. And
00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:41.900
I came back from Malta. I got a letter from TFL
00:27:41.900 --> 00:27:48.619
saying that my scooter had been seen driving
00:27:48.619 --> 00:27:53.029
through the Jules zone. The picture... Was not
00:27:53.029 --> 00:27:58.769
my scooter. It was actually. A Honda Civic. Which
00:27:58.769 --> 00:28:06.930
is a car. Now. What I. Ultimately. It turns out
00:28:06.930 --> 00:28:11.210
that the. The automatic recognition camera. Got
00:28:11.210 --> 00:28:15.269
it wrong. The camera got. Mixed up a V and a
00:28:15.269 --> 00:28:20.789
Y. Now they're not that far apart. But. The thing
00:28:20.789 --> 00:28:24.740
that really got me. and got on my go, is the
00:28:24.740 --> 00:28:28.839
emphasis was that if I did nothing, it would
00:28:28.839 --> 00:28:30.980
have gone to court, I would have not been able
00:28:30.980 --> 00:28:34.039
to ride my bike, I would have been fined, there
00:28:34.039 --> 00:28:35.519
would have been a point where the police would
00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:37.579
have, if I had rode my bike, the police would
00:28:37.579 --> 00:28:42.220
have taken me in, and ultimately I would have
00:28:42.220 --> 00:28:45.599
had to go to court. So when you said scooter,
00:28:45.700 --> 00:28:48.920
you mean something like a moped, not... Oh, yeah,
00:28:48.980 --> 00:28:50.819
sorry, yeah, sorry, a motorbike. It's basically
00:28:50.819 --> 00:28:53.539
a motorbike. It's just that it's automatic, and
00:28:53.539 --> 00:28:58.680
it's, yeah. So, yeah, it's a big scooter, or
00:28:58.680 --> 00:29:01.759
it's a motorbike, really. Now, the point really
00:29:01.759 --> 00:29:05.140
is that the emphasis was all on me to do the
00:29:05.140 --> 00:29:09.099
work. And I see this again and again, where...
00:29:09.559 --> 00:29:12.759
you know we know again and again where systems
00:29:12.759 --> 00:29:15.940
are like well it's automatically recognized this
00:29:15.940 --> 00:29:19.559
so obviously it's right you know so you must
00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:22.339
be in the wrong and all the emphasis on you to
00:29:22.339 --> 00:29:25.059
work it out and i can't even i would i would
00:29:25.059 --> 00:29:28.579
just send you to my blog post where i tried to
00:29:28.579 --> 00:29:31.119
understand what was going on i literally thought
00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:33.839
my my number plate had been cloned because i
00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:37.519
had was literally going through an airport You
00:29:37.519 --> 00:29:41.319
know, with lots of CCTV proving I was there.
00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:44.299
And then someone else said, well, actually, maybe
00:29:44.299 --> 00:29:46.579
you lent your scooter to somebody else. And then,
00:29:46.599 --> 00:29:48.819
you know, they were driving it. So this wasn't
00:29:48.819 --> 00:29:52.019
actually facial recognition, was it? It sounds
00:29:52.019 --> 00:29:57.460
like it was license plate recognition. It was.
00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:01.460
Now, if it can't even get number plate recognition
00:30:01.460 --> 00:30:04.900
right. How is it going to get facial recognition?
00:30:04.900 --> 00:30:06.740
Because there's another example of this, which
00:30:06.740 --> 00:30:09.019
is that this company named FaceWatch sells a
00:30:09.019 --> 00:30:14.920
system to scammers where if their system identifies
00:30:14.920 --> 00:30:17.250
you as somebody who's already been... turfed
00:30:17.250 --> 00:30:19.950
out for shoplifting they'll alert the store and
00:30:19.950 --> 00:30:21.910
the store will ask you to leave and there's been
00:30:21.910 --> 00:30:23.630
a number of stories at the guardian recently
00:30:23.630 --> 00:30:26.430
about people who were asked to leave who were
00:30:26.430 --> 00:30:29.130
in fact completely innocent and there's no system
00:30:29.130 --> 00:30:33.430
for establishing that or for redress or anything
00:30:33.430 --> 00:30:36.529
and i mean i first encountered face watch in
00:30:36.529 --> 00:30:39.190
2013 so they've been in business long enough
00:30:39.190 --> 00:30:41.849
that they should have that sort of system they
00:30:41.849 --> 00:30:44.920
got your face yeah the meta the meta battle that's
00:30:44.920 --> 00:30:46.400
happening here has been going on for some time
00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:48.799
and it even predates face recognition which is
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.460
the idea of this very strong desire to shift
00:30:52.460 --> 00:30:55.880
responsibility onto the individual for like basically
00:30:55.880 --> 00:30:58.319
to reverse the innocent and proven guilty idea
00:30:58.319 --> 00:31:01.359
yes and and that that that is a constant threat
00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:04.079
in the face wash in in that but i mean this even
00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:07.400
goes back to as i recall the the shift to chip
00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:12.170
and pin Yeah. Like the whole, the whole re like
00:31:12.170 --> 00:31:14.230
a big part of the motivation to get chip and
00:31:14.230 --> 00:31:16.930
pin into place was not all these other things
00:31:16.930 --> 00:31:19.970
they said, but it was that chip and pin made
00:31:19.970 --> 00:31:21.910
it much easier for them to say it's your fault
00:31:21.910 --> 00:31:25.190
when you're hacked or cloned because you had
00:31:25.190 --> 00:31:27.069
to, you had to be insecure with your pin. Like,
00:31:27.089 --> 00:31:28.269
but somebody forged the signature. Yeah. But
00:31:28.269 --> 00:31:29.690
they couldn't have guessed your pin. Could they,
00:31:29.730 --> 00:31:33.230
unless you let them see it. And this, this, this
00:31:33.230 --> 00:31:36.410
battle. Just to follow up on Ian's first thing
00:31:36.410 --> 00:31:38.009
about facial recognition, I've already seen that
00:31:38.009 --> 00:31:40.230
in action. Like, I live in Bethnal Green. And
00:31:40.230 --> 00:31:43.009
a couple of weeks ago, I was just walking down
00:31:43.009 --> 00:31:45.109
to Bethnal Green Road, and they had police set
00:31:45.109 --> 00:31:46.609
up with the cameras going, facial recognition
00:31:46.609 --> 00:31:49.269
in play. And I'm like, what are you doing? And
00:31:49.269 --> 00:31:51.089
the thing that really got me was this interesting
00:31:51.089 --> 00:31:54.609
set of just kind of emotional things that I went
00:31:54.609 --> 00:31:55.650
through when I look at it. Like, my original
00:31:55.650 --> 00:31:56.910
thought was like, I don't want to be on that.
00:31:57.009 --> 00:31:58.890
And I turned around, it's like, oh, they love
00:31:58.890 --> 00:32:01.299
that. Because anyone – because it's not just
00:32:01.299 --> 00:32:02.819
they set up the facial recognition. They have
00:32:02.819 --> 00:32:04.960
all the police out there going, let's see if
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:07.279
anyone feels like turning around. You must be
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:12.200
– and it's like the very – it is this – it's
00:32:12.200 --> 00:32:14.519
kind of at the core of this innocent – guilty
00:32:14.519 --> 00:32:17.119
till you prove yourself innocent is the thing
00:32:17.119 --> 00:32:21.359
of like if – the fact that you don't want to
00:32:21.359 --> 00:32:23.740
submit to this system, which has proven flawed
00:32:23.740 --> 00:32:26.700
and is certainly going to be problematic. is
00:32:26.700 --> 00:32:29.059
in itself considered to be suspicious behavior
00:32:29.059 --> 00:32:32.440
and gives them the right to somehow invoke the
00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:34.039
system upon you. In an early trial at Oxford
00:32:34.039 --> 00:32:37.740
Circus, a guy pulled up his hoodie over his head
00:32:37.740 --> 00:32:39.480
and they arrested him for that. Now, the trial
00:32:39.480 --> 00:32:43.839
was a trial. They were not using the system to
00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:46.059
create arrest, to make arrests. They were just
00:32:46.059 --> 00:32:48.700
testing it. But nonetheless, they arrested a
00:32:48.700 --> 00:32:52.319
guy for heightening his face from it, which was
00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:56.829
just bananas. Yep. But the other thing is that
00:32:56.829 --> 00:32:59.349
when I saw FaceWatch, I saw a representative
00:32:59.349 --> 00:33:01.529
of FaceWatch talk at the biometrics conference
00:33:01.529 --> 00:33:05.549
in London in 2013. And the thing they were selling
00:33:05.549 --> 00:33:07.950
was not just that they could keep shoplifters
00:33:07.950 --> 00:33:11.269
out of the store, but the whole idea was that
00:33:11.269 --> 00:33:16.910
these systems would eventually enable them to
00:33:16.910 --> 00:33:22.410
identify you, arrest you. you know find you on
00:33:22.410 --> 00:33:25.490
the nearest bus wherever you were arrest you
00:33:25.490 --> 00:33:28.390
try you find you and have you home again by the
00:33:28.390 --> 00:33:33.670
end of the day you know yeah i mean or in prison
00:33:33.670 --> 00:33:36.630
at the end of the day whatever depending on yeah
00:33:36.630 --> 00:33:40.829
that's that's more like the automated system
00:33:40.829 --> 00:33:43.690
that would would make you know sort of criminal
00:33:43.690 --> 00:33:46.089
justice work really efficiently to get people
00:33:46.089 --> 00:33:50.220
off the street yeah That's excellent. That's
00:33:50.220 --> 00:33:53.319
just like a Teletubbies version of Judge Dredd.
00:33:53.319 --> 00:33:57.720
Yes, yes, Teletubbies Judge Dredd. I mean, yeah,
00:33:58.200 --> 00:34:02.200
so I think... But I am the law. We know this
00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:07.880
is very broken, and now it's now part of UK law,
00:34:08.039 --> 00:34:17.719
and it terrifies me. I don't know how... I don't
00:34:17.719 --> 00:34:20.960
even know how it even happened. I was following
00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:24.900
the progress, but, yeah, now it is. I didn't
00:34:24.900 --> 00:34:27.400
think it was part of UK law. I thought it was
00:34:27.400 --> 00:34:32.599
just the police. Well, it started because police
00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:37.320
departments were just really decided to do it
00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:40.360
without any permission at all. They're quite
00:34:40.360 --> 00:34:43.380
creative. I mean, just the example I had of I
00:34:43.380 --> 00:34:45.039
suddenly got this ticket for a post and said,
00:34:45.389 --> 00:34:48.170
You went down this road and you had an inappropriate
00:34:48.170 --> 00:34:52.869
vehicle. I'm like, what? And what happened was
00:34:52.869 --> 00:34:58.849
a road had decided to enact some sort of privacy
00:34:58.849 --> 00:35:01.570
field around it. And what they asked the police
00:35:01.570 --> 00:35:05.889
would say, we'd like to restrict people driving
00:35:05.889 --> 00:35:09.309
down it who are listed as voting in the borough.
00:35:09.849 --> 00:35:12.809
which is kind of especially as i'm next door
00:35:12.809 --> 00:35:15.269
and i'm like yeah and i and i argued out of it
00:35:15.269 --> 00:35:21.969
and i said you know once i said yeah i i you
00:35:21.969 --> 00:35:24.250
know i i said i was honestly i was i haven't
00:35:24.250 --> 00:35:26.949
been driving for a bit so you you sent out warnings
00:35:26.949 --> 00:35:28.969
perhaps but you've missed me and unfortunately
00:35:28.969 --> 00:35:31.150
you know you can't just Just have a link for
00:35:31.150 --> 00:35:33.289
the warnings if you're not going to do them for
00:35:33.289 --> 00:35:35.969
everyone. So I'll get my way out of it. But the
00:35:35.969 --> 00:35:39.090
problem was this. The code didn't make any sense.
00:35:39.349 --> 00:35:41.750
So, again, these automation workflows are all
00:35:41.750 --> 00:35:45.010
very well, but when they're sort of not even
00:35:45.010 --> 00:35:49.269
set up for humans, they're difficult to work.
00:35:53.159 --> 00:35:55.980
Next up is David with a story about data workers
00:35:55.980 --> 00:35:59.860
getting professional. Hi. Yeah. So if you're
00:35:59.860 --> 00:36:01.340
on LinkedIn, you might have actually already
00:36:01.340 --> 00:36:04.860
gotten a note. I mean, people can randomly send
00:36:04.860 --> 00:36:08.059
you information, send you mail, which automatically
00:36:08.059 --> 00:36:10.900
is a good reason to leave LinkedIn, to be honest.
00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:13.320
It was a company that said, hey, would you like
00:36:13.320 --> 00:36:17.039
to do some work? We'll pay you this much. And
00:36:17.039 --> 00:36:19.400
it looked like sort of standard scam. And it
00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:23.900
was one of these. data annotation uh sort of
00:36:23.900 --> 00:36:25.820
requests like oh could you go and could you do
00:36:25.820 --> 00:36:27.659
some work here the thing was when i looked closely
00:36:27.659 --> 00:36:29.960
it targeted me because it said oh yeah we're
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:34.159
we're interested in people who uh know development
00:36:34.159 --> 00:36:36.599
programming and even listed some languages so
00:36:36.599 --> 00:36:39.960
i think we've all heard about the sort of a massive
00:36:39.960 --> 00:36:41.980
amount of people working in data labeling and
00:36:41.980 --> 00:36:45.480
that's been 10 years, probably 15 years now.
00:36:45.739 --> 00:36:48.860
But I saw actually a very interesting video.
00:36:48.980 --> 00:36:51.179
I think it was literally, it's only about three
00:36:51.179 --> 00:36:53.360
days old. It's called, I tracked down the hidden
00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:56.119
workers secretly pairing chat DTP. I think it
00:36:56.119 --> 00:36:58.519
was more from a more perfect union. Obviously
00:36:58.519 --> 00:37:01.599
we'll put it in the notes, but it was the increasing
00:37:01.599 --> 00:37:06.599
professionalization of this. How do I say it?
00:37:06.619 --> 00:37:08.619
Sort of this data workforce. I mean, they're
00:37:08.619 --> 00:37:11.739
being shat on like everyone else, but it's no
00:37:11.739 --> 00:37:15.739
longer just, uh you know poor people in uganda
00:37:15.739 --> 00:37:18.280
which is how they started off as all third world
00:37:18.280 --> 00:37:21.039
now it's sort of moving through all over the
00:37:21.039 --> 00:37:23.559
place they're increasing their professionalization
00:37:23.559 --> 00:37:27.480
because i guess the models want to pretend they
00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:29.500
can answer all questions they they already do
00:37:29.500 --> 00:37:32.679
say things like hey yeah we we're a graduate
00:37:32.679 --> 00:37:34.969
and postgraduate level app And then they say,
00:37:35.030 --> 00:37:37.489
you know, legal questions. But of course, they're
00:37:37.489 --> 00:37:41.989
not. Is it moving all over the place because
00:37:41.989 --> 00:37:44.750
the work is more complex and requires that support?
00:37:44.849 --> 00:37:46.469
Or is it moving all over the place because they've
00:37:46.469 --> 00:37:48.329
managed to get the workforce and generally technology
00:37:48.329 --> 00:37:51.389
so desperate, they know they can get basically
00:37:51.389 --> 00:37:53.630
more skilled people to do the work that normally
00:37:53.630 --> 00:37:55.989
wouldn't do? The evidence is both. They're also
00:37:55.989 --> 00:37:59.230
unionizing in some places too, though. Yeah,
00:37:59.349 --> 00:38:01.150
I mean, of course, the whole point of this is
00:38:01.150 --> 00:38:03.489
it's distributed, so of course no unionization.
00:38:03.550 --> 00:38:05.730
Wouldn't it be hilarious if all the countries
00:38:05.730 --> 00:38:08.730
that we're used to dumping our work on, because
00:38:08.730 --> 00:38:10.650
we can think of them as disposable, they all
00:38:10.650 --> 00:38:13.010
unionize before places like America does because
00:38:13.010 --> 00:38:15.489
they have such strong anti -union tactics that
00:38:15.489 --> 00:38:17.530
it ends up pushing America back into being the
00:38:17.530 --> 00:38:20.849
new, you know, like, third world country from
00:38:20.849 --> 00:38:23.030
which you grab your desperate tech workers to
00:38:23.030 --> 00:38:26.550
do the watching videos for Amazon Fresh and things
00:38:26.550 --> 00:38:29.190
like that? I mean, that that would be a good
00:38:29.190 --> 00:38:31.489
idea, because I mean, you saw I mean, when you
00:38:31.489 --> 00:38:34.550
saw the sort of tactics they use, it's like,
00:38:34.550 --> 00:38:36.610
you know, you come in and initially they say,
00:38:36.710 --> 00:38:39.670
yeah, $75 an hour. Then they go, yeah, that project's
00:38:39.670 --> 00:38:42.309
done. The new one won't pay so well, $45 an hour.
00:38:42.329 --> 00:38:45.309
And if you question it, they blank you. And then,
00:38:45.349 --> 00:38:47.429
you know, you come back or they come back three
00:38:47.429 --> 00:38:49.489
weeks later when you suddenly realize you need
00:38:49.489 --> 00:38:51.230
the work and then they give you even less and
00:38:51.230 --> 00:38:53.469
you don't do it again. So, you know, this is
00:38:53.469 --> 00:38:57.730
right for unionization for sure. That is a model
00:38:57.730 --> 00:38:59.710
that has been proven that they're doing for any
00:38:59.710 --> 00:39:01.909
kind of delivery system. Deliveroo does that.
00:39:02.989 --> 00:39:04.530
Like all these companies, they're finding...
00:39:04.530 --> 00:39:06.250
That was the problem. As soon as you hear the
00:39:06.250 --> 00:39:08.530
story, you go, I've heard this before. This is,
00:39:08.530 --> 00:39:11.389
you know, yeah, this is the template way of getting
00:39:11.389 --> 00:39:14.030
people to, you know, to work on this ridiculous
00:39:14.030 --> 00:39:16.989
gig economy, you know, and badly. But the thing
00:39:16.989 --> 00:39:19.650
is now, these companies, I think they listed
00:39:19.650 --> 00:39:22.750
four. I mean, Merkle, Handshake, Scale, and Serge
00:39:22.750 --> 00:39:25.489
AI. And they're, of course, getting quite big
00:39:25.489 --> 00:39:28.070
because they are now the new picks and shovel
00:39:28.070 --> 00:39:32.260
guys. for the ai both for the on the left -hand
00:39:32.260 --> 00:39:34.780
side data labeling but also the mechanical turk
00:39:34.780 --> 00:39:37.480
side of you know they're actually answering questions
00:39:37.480 --> 00:39:41.300
in near real time the sort of stuff that uh quite
00:39:41.300 --> 00:39:44.760
slightly you know chat ggblms can't you know
00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:46.760
the sort of uh so i'm thinking of murdering my
00:39:46.760 --> 00:39:49.000
girlfriend what i do you know so they of course
00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:51.119
they're moving those out to stupid like tech
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:55.199
workers like i don't know But, yeah, so, I mean,
00:39:55.219 --> 00:39:57.739
unfortunately, this is the story. It's spreading.
00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:00.780
So, yes, we've reported it even, I think, talking
00:40:00.780 --> 00:40:03.019
about when it was in the third world. But now,
00:40:03.019 --> 00:40:04.960
now it's in a city near you. It's, you know,
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:11.300
it's here. And last up on our story parade, Wendy's
00:40:11.300 --> 00:40:16.199
got something about meta. Yeah. Apparently, Mark
00:40:16.199 --> 00:40:18.579
Zuckerberg, in his infinite wisdom, has decided
00:40:18.579 --> 00:40:21.579
that his company should build an AI clone of
00:40:21.579 --> 00:40:26.130
him. So his employees can feel closer to him.
00:40:26.710 --> 00:40:30.909
And, I mean, the first question is, would you
00:40:30.909 --> 00:40:32.969
want to be closer to Mark Zuckerberg? But then
00:40:32.969 --> 00:40:35.869
the second thing is, it seems to me that if my
00:40:35.869 --> 00:40:38.789
boss handed me, you know, sort of an AI avatar
00:40:38.789 --> 00:40:41.210
to interact with, I would feel more distant,
00:40:41.449 --> 00:40:45.030
personally. I mean, everything about this is
00:40:45.030 --> 00:40:50.230
just ridiculous. I swear words. You know, I think
00:40:50.230 --> 00:40:52.650
instantly I'd be getting, making a voodoo doll.
00:40:52.809 --> 00:41:02.090
What a good idea. Yeah. I mean, what can you
00:41:02.090 --> 00:41:03.489
say about this? But I mean, then again, he could
00:41:03.489 --> 00:41:05.090
say, actually, I'm going to replace you with
00:41:05.090 --> 00:41:08.130
an avatar of yourself. You can go now. Oh, I'm
00:41:08.130 --> 00:41:10.110
just waiting for the AI Zuckerberg to actually
00:41:10.110 --> 00:41:12.510
kill and replace the regular Zuckerberg and nobody
00:41:12.510 --> 00:41:18.739
to notice. I mean, have you seen the guy? Like,
00:41:18.760 --> 00:41:20.480
I just want to be like, have you watched any
00:41:20.480 --> 00:41:22.559
of the seasons of Star Trek The Next Generation
00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:25.500
with the whole data lore thing? Because honestly,
00:41:25.719 --> 00:41:27.820
at this point, I think if you made an AI version
00:41:27.820 --> 00:41:30.340
of yourself, you'd probably be data. Well, actually,
00:41:30.739 --> 00:41:36.159
if you remember, if you remember when Facebook
00:41:36.159 --> 00:41:39.360
announced the Metaverse and changed its name
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:44.420
to Meta, the Icelandic tourist board created
00:41:44.420 --> 00:41:48.699
a wonderful video with a near clone of Zuckerberg
00:41:48.699 --> 00:41:52.840
introducing Iceland. Oh, yeah. You know, sort
00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:57.860
of water that's really wet. If you haven't seen
00:41:57.860 --> 00:41:59.820
it, you really have to look up Iceland verse.
00:42:03.000 --> 00:42:05.340
And now, last but not least, we have any other
00:42:05.340 --> 00:42:08.400
business with some stories. Ian, something from
00:42:08.400 --> 00:42:10.980
Salford and other stuff. Go for it. Yeah, so
00:42:10.980 --> 00:42:15.239
most of you might know that Manchester is kind
00:42:15.239 --> 00:42:18.860
of right next to Salford, which is a city. They're
00:42:18.860 --> 00:42:24.639
both cities. And I'm also working closely with
00:42:24.639 --> 00:42:28.400
Salford University. And I've been working on
00:42:28.400 --> 00:42:34.000
a course with them, which I have been kind of
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:38.829
nicknaming Internet Psychology. It's an MSC and
00:42:38.829 --> 00:42:43.070
it starts next year. So if you are interested,
00:42:43.190 --> 00:42:47.690
we will have a link to that. After that, the
00:42:47.690 --> 00:42:50.829
public spaces conference, which is happening
00:42:50.829 --> 00:42:55.550
in Amsterdam, it's definitely worth checking
00:42:55.550 --> 00:42:59.809
out. And it's happening the 4th, the 5th and
00:42:59.809 --> 00:43:04.610
the 6th of June. We'll put a link to that as
00:43:04.610 --> 00:43:07.610
well. I recommend it. It's a great conference.
00:43:07.829 --> 00:43:10.469
And Amsterdam in the summer is great as well.
00:43:11.510 --> 00:43:16.570
If you have not seen Corey's piece titled Comrade
00:43:16.570 --> 00:43:19.489
Trump, it kind of touched on a lot of the things
00:43:19.489 --> 00:43:24.289
that we kind of talk about. But he basically
00:43:24.289 --> 00:43:26.710
talks about how the Trump effect has obviously
00:43:26.710 --> 00:43:30.329
had lots and lots of negative things, but also
00:43:30.329 --> 00:43:33.530
there's this... whole bunch of things have happened
00:43:33.530 --> 00:43:36.289
because of the kind of insanity that's happening
00:43:36.289 --> 00:43:41.909
there. One of them including solar. Sorry, not
00:43:41.909 --> 00:43:45.590
solar. Alternative. I hate the word alternative.
00:43:45.829 --> 00:43:50.130
Other ways of getting power. So he's rude about
00:43:50.130 --> 00:43:54.489
the UK. He's very rude about the UK, yes. And
00:43:54.489 --> 00:43:57.090
yeah, enough said about that. And then finally,
00:43:57.389 --> 00:44:01.349
talking about solar. There's a great book which
00:44:01.349 --> 00:44:03.789
I read a while ago called Here Comes the Sun,
00:44:03.989 --> 00:44:08.530
and it really summarizes, not summarizes, it
00:44:08.530 --> 00:44:10.650
doesn't summarize, it extends a lot of what we
00:44:10.650 --> 00:44:13.429
were talking about, about once you have a much
00:44:13.429 --> 00:44:16.989
more distributed system of power, especially
00:44:16.989 --> 00:44:22.269
from the sun, what that enables. It's an amazing
00:44:22.269 --> 00:44:25.610
book, and it really paints a picture of where
00:44:25.610 --> 00:44:28.949
we should be. That's it. All right. Thank you,
00:44:28.949 --> 00:44:32.050
Ian. That's it for any other business. So there's
00:44:32.050 --> 00:44:35.550
nothing else for us to do but to say our goodbyes.
00:44:35.550 --> 00:44:41.969
So it's goodbye from Ian. Goodbye. Goodbye from
00:44:41.969 --> 00:44:47.670
Wendy. Goodbye from David. Goodbye. And goodbye
00:44:47.670 --> 00:44:49.829
from me, Ryan. Goodbye. Please remember that
00:44:49.829 --> 00:44:53.429
you can find us. on hashtag Tech Grumps. And
00:44:53.429 --> 00:44:56.010
we would love to hear from you. And if you'd
00:44:56.010 --> 00:44:57.750
like to join our podcast, please do feel free
00:44:57.750 --> 00:45:01.170
to reach out on Mastodon, where Ian is sure to
00:45:01.170 --> 00:45:04.349
see it because he loves watching Mastodon. He
00:45:04.349 --> 00:45:08.010
sees everything. He does. That's all that there
00:45:08.010 --> 00:45:11.070
is, right? That's all there is. It is only Mastodon.
00:45:11.110 --> 00:45:13.769
It's actually just the Mastodon -iverse. Ian,
00:45:13.769 --> 00:45:16.369
that's all there is. Also, I'll give, you know,
00:45:16.369 --> 00:45:18.230
atmosphere is also very important. So if you
00:45:18.230 --> 00:45:23.610
want to hear us on Blue Sky or even... All right.
00:45:24.289 --> 00:45:27.590
Thanks again. Bye. Bye.