Techgrumps 3.36 - Men are weird: The Return of the Glasshole

WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to Tech Grumps 3 .36. We are
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taping this on Sunday, the 11th of January, 2026.
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And joining us for this month's podcast is Ian
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Forrester, David Eastman, Wendy Grossman, and
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Ryan Alexander. Please say hi, everyone. Hi,
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everyone. Hi. All right, and first up for Tech
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Grumps is going to be Wendy with an article about
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Firefox and AI. Yeah, Mozilla has made an announcement
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that it's going to embrace AI in some way. It's
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not really clear to me exactly what they're planning
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to do. All I know is I don't actually want my
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browser to be... Smart. I don't want it to have
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AI. I want it to go where I tell it to go and
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load the page I tell it to load. I don't really
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understand what AI is supposed to do for me.
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But everybody wants to have an AI browser now.
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It's got to have AI. When the result is that
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I'm thinking of switching after all these years
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to Vivaldi because Vivaldi is apparently sensible.
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You mean until they adopt AI? Well, they haven't
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yet. They will. Everyone's going to have AI.
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Give it time. I mean, what is an AI browser and
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why would you want one? That's a silly question.
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Get AI, then wonder what it's for later. You
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don't have to know what it's for. Ryan, you're
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the technical guy. What is an AI browser and
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why do I want one? You definitely don't want
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one. The only definitively AI browser are things
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like... I think that OpenAI have a sort of specific,
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they're calling it a chat GPT browser. And what
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they're trying to do, as I've almost said certainly
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last week, is they're just trying to jump over
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the web. What they're trying to do is get people
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to write little local apps that they connect
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on in this strange MCP environment. It's just
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that's sort of the USB connections for AI browsers.
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in order to make sure that you don't have to
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go to the real web. So you definitely don't want
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an AI browser if you just want to use a browser.
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Well, that was my impression. But the thing that
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sort of surprises me about it is the bigger problem
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Mozilla has is that its market share has shrunk
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to the point where I have a bank in the US that
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doesn't support it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that happens
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quite a lot. I've seen that quite a lot. And,
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you know, so the bigger risk for the company
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is not whether they have AI, but that their market
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share will be so small that nobody bothers to
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write, you know, to make sure that anything works
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in it anymore. I think a big part of it is the
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fact that it lets them turn into mini Googles.
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Like the real thing that AI does is it allows
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you to peddle influence. So if a browser has
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its own version of AI running, you don't know
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what they've done to train that AI. And they
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could very readily have that AI set up to be
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like, hey, tell everyone to buy Cinnabon this
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month, yo. And so if anything even becomes Cinnabon
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adjacent, all of a sudden the AI is going to
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be like, hey, that sounds like you could use
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a Cinnabon. Here's five links. And it's just
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the same way that Google does it. Unlike Google,
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they control that revenue stream. And even just
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the idea of that can be enough to make their
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stock go up a bit, which is functionally kind
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of what everyone's after. Well, Firefox, Mozilla
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doesn't have stock. They don't have shareholders
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to keep happy, just donors. That's weird. Why
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are they doing that? That is weird. That's a
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good point. Yeah. OK, so. I'll say I've worked
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for Mozilla. And that's why we talked before
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you, Ian, so you didn't have to. Yeah, no, no,
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no, it's fine. It's fine. And I've also, I still
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use Firefox as my main browser on my machine,
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but I've also noticed a bunch of AI features
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added in. Now, I noticed also that lots of people
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on... at least on Linux, are kind of very upset
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with it. So there's also a bunch of browsers
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which are built on the Firefox, was it Gecko
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or whatever it's called, base. And then they've
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kind of removed a bunch of the AI features because
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that's the beauty of open source. But I have
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to say, I'm also with Wendy. I don't understand
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why you're doing this. It feels like a new CEO
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has come in and gone, well, this is what everyone
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else is doing, so we're going to do the same.
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Or I need to pee on this product that I've just
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taken over. Yeah. Glad you said that, not me.
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I also would say that I know that there's a ton
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of AI work. So Mark Sermon runs Mozilla AI. So
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there's a whole thing there. So I'm conscious
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that they are doing lots of stuff with AI. I
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guess they think that, and I'm not doubting them,
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but I think that they're thinking that they could
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do it in the right way so it would be more local
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and less kind of the way that all the others
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are doing it. But there's a lot of doubt because
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right now the question is, as you said, what's
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the point in having... an ai browser what's the
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point in these extra features i mean like the
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only thing i've used for from firefox from mozilla
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is um is the translate yeah which is still a
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beta ai system thing and i i don't really trust
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it but it kind of gives me a rough translation
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for okay that's the button to press for back
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or that's the button to to go that's the form
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button for example you know but i don't see anything
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more than that I'm sure there might be some stuff
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that other people will go... Has there been anything
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written about their motivations? Have they done
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anything about why they chose to go this route?
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We're kind of guessing, and I'm wondering if
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maybe they had actually said something. Actually,
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last year, actually at FOSDEM, they actually
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had a whole... kind of afternoon about the ambitions
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around AI. And a lot of it was around kind of
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automation. So to be able to automate stuff.
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So I guess it's similar to some of the stuff
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with the agentic browsing, but you are much more
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in control. I don't know if that's still the
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case because obviously a new CEO has come in
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and who knows what that CEO has decided. Agentic
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browsing is interesting. I'm not sure what that
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means though. Can I just ask, is the Translate
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feature any different from Translate before they
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put the AI tag on it? I don't know. That's a
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good question, actually. Because, you know, Google
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Translate was doing Translate long before they
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called it AI. Yeah, I think this is almost my
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thing. In the talk I gave... back in November,
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I pretty much said this, that as soon as it stops
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becoming AI and it becomes a thing, this is Translate,
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then it's like, it just becomes a lot more accepted,
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more understandable. I don't know why they just
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throw AI on everything. Money? Well, come on.
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In the 1990s, everything was E. Oh, yeah. E -world
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and E -whatever. And then it was Nano. Has it
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been nano? There was a nano period. I think I
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had a tennis game. And then there was a crypto
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period. And now it's AI. And I would just like
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to run a pool on when it's going to switch to
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quantum. I'm sure someone will take that bet.
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All right. Next up is going to be Ian talking
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to us about the return of smart glasses. So,
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yes, smart glasses, wearables have been a thing
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for a long while, but they've come back. And
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they come back. And guess why? Because of AI.
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Someone's realized, oh, if we take these wearables
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and all these sensors and then add AI to it.
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then more people will buy it. And I just don't
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buy it at all. The other thing that's really
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annoying is that obviously the sensors have got
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really good now. And so we're starting to see,
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so going back to like, let's say when Google
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Glass came out and everyone must remember that
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and the glass holes, you know, people wearing
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wearables in places that maybe they shouldn't.
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and now you're you know with that at least that
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camera was low res but it was annoying and it
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wasn't right and people would use wear them all
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the time but now you have something which is
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like you know kind of very high um high quality
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resolution yeah high resolution like really high
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storage or instant access to to um you know the
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internet it's just like this is really really
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worrying and what i've noticed is that there's
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been very little knowledge learned from the stuff
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when it came to kind of google glass so people
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are wearing them in in toilets people are wearing
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them and using them illegally to film other people
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and we can talk a bit more about that but it
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just seems to me no one's taken any notice of
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what happened before the other thing that really
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annoys me about all this especially with with
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um smart glasses is that for someone who doesn't
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wear glasses it's really annoying because why
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do i have to wear glasses when i don't need to
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wear glasses and there's a real push towards
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smart glasses I know that the stuff where you
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attach it to you, what was that thing that failed
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and is now gone, thankfully, where you attach
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it with a magnet to your chest? The AI pin? Yeah,
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the AI pins. Yes, exactly. All of that stuff
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has, thankfully, kind of disappeared for now,
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but I expect those to return. But ultimately,
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I think the problem is that we never, we haven't
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learned the lessons, and we're just people who,
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who feel privileged enough to wear this stuff,
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are just kind of wearing it in places and showing
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off, and it's becoming really problematic. Well,
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I did a follow -up link for this story when you
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put it up, which happened like... four days ago
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at the taping it's on the bbc which is a woman
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who was secretly filmed with smart glasses and
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there's just you know it's a guy because it's
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always a fucking guy uh just walks up to her
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and it's like oh i think you're really cute can
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i get your number she's like oh and she's like
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that's the end of it and then finds out days
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later that he was wearing smart glasses videoed
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her and then used that video to troll her and
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so it's disgusting well it's yes like Full stop.
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There's more, though. Like, this is the tip of
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the iceberg with this guy doing it intentionally.
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And as you said, as the quality gets better and
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as the form factor becomes more and more subtle,
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we will see more and more of this. And this is
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just the top layer. Like, as I'm sure everyone
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here on the podcast is aware, but certainly probably
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most of the audience, too, is that Internet of
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Things. Oh, yeah, no, that's perfectly secure.
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There's no way anybody else would find a way
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to turn those cameras on without telling you
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and do all of that. The more we normalize this,
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the more we just set ourselves up to be the mobile
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surveillance system for a hacking state. So 404
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Media, if I'm not sure, referring to that directly,
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they also found a lot of flock cameras. on the
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internet that are open and available including
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ones that follow people because their initial
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argument was oh these are just for on the gates
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that follow cars no they have ones that specifically
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follow people and some of them are just openly
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available on the net i don't know just just like
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what i saw a study this week i saw a study this
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week something about um lots of internet of things
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devices having antiquated web browsers inside
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them that are easily Oh yeah, the new bot army
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is like, why bother trying to hack your computer
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when we can get your ring doorbell to be part
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of the DDoS attack with much greater ease. We
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just need some piece of silicone somewhere with
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an internet connection to start hammering a website.
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Why would you need an expensive, locked -down,
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hard -to -use box when your webcam is sitting
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there just adding trouble? I mean, we've been
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talking about this like two, three, four years
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ago now. We've been talking about this for decades.
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This problem has existed for decades. Like webcams
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have been around for a long time. Yeah, webcams
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have been around. And the reason why they're
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running web servers and stuff is because it's
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an easy way to do an interface. It's a cheap
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and easy way to do an interface. And even a browser.
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So you can do an admin, admin, terrible password.
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It's like, yeah, why not? Yep. But I'm surprised
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it's come back. But I echo the point of it's
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not like this is... I'm very aware that the technology
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companies go and do these crazy things, right?
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And policy takes a while to catch up. But does
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it have to be that way? Okay, so we've learned
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from Google Glass. We've learned from all these
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things. And we just don't have these policies.
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These things should be completely legal and should
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also have... The government should be literally
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going, you cannot sell that in this country.
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It's just not possible. It's the technology version
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of the designer drug problem. I was just thinking,
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we're going to talk about this in a bit, I think,
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but what if you combine it with an X account
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and access to rock and other deep fake technology?
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So, you know, you can see the world exactly as
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you want, I suppose. All the women nude. Most
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men don't need technology to do that. It's called
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my O 'Brien. That's what they're doing. Hold
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on, just to be clear, not all men, and I'm not
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asking you. All right, all right. Okay, sorry.
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I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, no, no. You're right.
00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:15.299
That's funny. Keep explaining it. No, no, no.
00:15:16.259 --> 00:15:21.679
So, yeah, so I think there will always be people
00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:25.480
who will do things to the extreme. And the problem
00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:29.019
is that when it becomes so normalized, like,
00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:32.840
I still find it really annoying when I'm in the
00:15:32.840 --> 00:15:37.000
toilet and there's people on their phones. I
00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:39.159
don't even know how they do it. They're on their
00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:42.070
phone. looking or scrolling through something
00:15:42.070 --> 00:15:45.769
with a camera that could be pointing in my direction
00:15:45.769 --> 00:15:48.809
and they're doing something else and i'm like
00:15:48.809 --> 00:15:52.269
how is this even this would not even be a thing
00:15:52.269 --> 00:15:54.669
like these are the things for listeners at home
00:15:54.669 --> 00:15:57.129
who don't have the experience of sharing space
00:15:57.129 --> 00:15:59.889
in mail toilets oftentimes they're standing up
00:15:59.889 --> 00:16:02.169
in a way that would allow you free view of other
00:16:02.169 --> 00:16:04.889
guys junk we don't talk about this because it's
00:16:04.889 --> 00:16:09.320
really weird For those of you who are imagining
00:16:09.320 --> 00:16:11.059
a stall and wondering how that would happen,
00:16:11.159 --> 00:16:12.799
that's not the situation he's talking about.
00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:18.139
Thank you, Ryan, for that one. I'm glad to help
00:16:18.139 --> 00:16:21.000
paint that picture. You know what? It has to
00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.559
be said. It has to be said because the problem
00:16:23.559 --> 00:16:25.580
is that everyone kind of goes, oh, it's all fine.
00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:28.000
People just walk into, as soon as they get into
00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:30.899
somewhere private, they'll just take their glasses
00:16:30.899 --> 00:16:32.820
off. You can't take your glasses off when you
00:16:32.820 --> 00:16:36.279
actually rely on those glasses to see. They'll
00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:39.279
always remember to turn off their camera. I don't
00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:40.980
always remember to turn off the camera when it
00:16:40.980 --> 00:16:44.620
doesn't matter. Can I just say, also, the amount
00:16:44.620 --> 00:16:46.220
of people who walk around with the flashlight
00:16:46.220 --> 00:16:49.740
on and without realising, that is a clear indicator
00:16:49.740 --> 00:16:51.840
that no one's going to turn that camera off.
00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:56.220
They haven't done it so far. Of course, many
00:16:56.220 --> 00:16:58.240
toilets actually have cameras, but there you
00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:05.359
go. Can I just say that men are weird? All right.
00:17:05.539 --> 00:17:08.680
Next up is going to be David talking about let's
00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:11.839
get the fuck off of X, David. Yeah, I hate to
00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:14.339
do a mayor of Minneapolis or something, but yeah,
00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:17.859
this is getting to be a bit of a problem because
00:17:17.859 --> 00:17:20.900
we started off with people saying we could we
00:17:20.900 --> 00:17:23.900
could fix that. And then it was like, oh, all
00:17:23.900 --> 00:17:26.279
these things that appear on X, we can just fix
00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:28.099
them and to improve them. And now we've even
00:17:28.099 --> 00:17:30.619
got people saying, yeah, there must be some legal
00:17:30.619 --> 00:17:35.329
way to fix crop. There almost certainly isn't.
00:17:35.329 --> 00:17:37.670
It isn't worth doing. But more to the point,
00:17:37.730 --> 00:17:40.809
we really just need to get people, specifically
00:17:40.809 --> 00:17:44.170
the UK government, to get the fuck off it. It's
00:17:44.170 --> 00:17:47.609
a bit like saying you want to work out what hit
00:17:47.609 --> 00:17:49.890
the Titanic. Yeah, you can do that after everyone's
00:17:49.890 --> 00:17:51.970
left. Yeah, you don't want to say, just hang
00:17:51.970 --> 00:17:53.750
around a bit. Let's just see where the hole is.
00:17:53.829 --> 00:17:58.430
No, just get off. And that's getting to be, I
00:17:58.430 --> 00:18:00.710
think, more of a serious problem because we're
00:18:00.710 --> 00:18:03.740
now interviewing... UK government ministers,
00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:05.220
I'm not saying this hasn't happened elsewhere,
00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:07.500
and they're complaining about Grok, and then
00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:10.240
they put the last line, they put them, why do
00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:12.299
you still have an X account, and why do you still
00:18:12.299 --> 00:18:14.660
use it? And they end up saying, well, that's
00:18:14.660 --> 00:18:16.539
because that's where everyone is. It's like,
00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:19.980
no, you're the government. You are precisely
00:18:19.980 --> 00:18:23.000
who should be taking a line on this. No point
00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:24.900
starting off your first part and then following
00:18:24.900 --> 00:18:26.259
up with, yeah, we're just going to hang around
00:18:26.259 --> 00:18:29.480
an X. I actually have some sympathy with the
00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:31.769
claim that that's where people are. But I think
00:18:31.769 --> 00:18:33.549
the answer to that is they should be posting
00:18:33.549 --> 00:18:35.970
on every significant platform. And we can argue
00:18:35.970 --> 00:18:40.730
about what is significant. But the fact is that
00:18:40.730 --> 00:18:45.230
Twitter then and X now have always been much,
00:18:45.289 --> 00:18:47.869
much smaller than something like Facebook or
00:18:47.869 --> 00:18:52.170
Instagram or even WhatsApp because it appeals
00:18:52.170 --> 00:18:54.269
to a particular class of people who are clever
00:18:54.269 --> 00:18:59.759
with condensing words into small spaces. And
00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:02.099
so journalists liked it and politicians follow
00:19:02.099 --> 00:19:05.160
where journalists are. But honestly, there's
00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:07.200
no excuse for them. There's no excuse for them
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.339
preferentially posting on it. I think there might
00:19:10.339 --> 00:19:13.259
be an excuse for posting there. Obviously, I'm
00:19:13.259 --> 00:19:15.380
using the term active on Twitter. In fact, the
00:19:15.380 --> 00:19:18.460
first thing we always say is don't delete your
00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:20.240
account because someone else will just take your
00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:22.759
account over and use your fucking name. So don't
00:19:22.759 --> 00:19:25.420
do that. Just do not be active on Twitter if
00:19:25.420 --> 00:19:27.990
you want to. repeat something as you said yeah
00:19:27.990 --> 00:19:30.529
there is the informational point there but the
00:19:30.529 --> 00:19:32.750
problem is they're active on twitter or worse
00:19:32.750 --> 00:19:35.450
a lot of the mps only have a twitter account
00:19:35.450 --> 00:19:37.650
now as you said if they have one everywhere and
00:19:37.650 --> 00:19:39.630
it would just and they didn't manage themselves
00:19:39.630 --> 00:19:41.450
and it was just a black everywhere it's just
00:19:41.450 --> 00:19:43.690
a blank canvas and they just repeat stuff well
00:19:43.690 --> 00:19:46.029
okay that's fine but no they're actually active
00:19:46.029 --> 00:19:48.549
on twitter and more to the point they're defending
00:19:48.549 --> 00:19:51.849
themselves even five seconds before saying yes
00:19:51.849 --> 00:19:54.529
twitter is a massive problem because elon musk
00:19:54.529 --> 00:19:57.240
and the last thing he's doing Is it definitely
00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:00.680
an extreme example of compartmentalization? Yeah,
00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:04.599
it's getting worse, if anything, because we're
00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:07.200
now in this, like, what is the next stupid thing
00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:09.420
Elon Musk does? Well, he'll always have something
00:20:09.420 --> 00:20:10.980
dark to do because he's that sort of person.
00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:13.900
He'll just say, oh, I guess porn is a way to
00:20:13.900 --> 00:20:15.700
make money, so we'll just do something stupid.
00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:18.559
And if you keep following him on this matter,
00:20:18.819 --> 00:20:20.819
you'll just keep on going, here's the next reason,
00:20:20.900 --> 00:20:22.819
here's the next reason. He doesn't care about
00:20:22.819 --> 00:20:25.349
the UK government's policies anyway. We'll always
00:20:25.349 --> 00:20:27.970
be behind. And we're just not accepting the problem.
00:20:28.069 --> 00:20:30.549
The problem isn't all social media. The problem
00:20:30.549 --> 00:20:34.390
is very largely X because of Elon Musk. And instead
00:20:34.390 --> 00:20:36.529
of accepting that, we're doing this silly thing
00:20:36.529 --> 00:20:39.150
by trying to sort of stick fingers in the die
00:20:39.150 --> 00:20:41.990
as if that's going to help at all. The metaphor
00:20:41.990 --> 00:20:45.049
isn't Titanic. The metaphor is Chernobyl. Chernobyl
00:20:45.049 --> 00:20:47.970
would be a better one. Yeah, because it's like,
00:20:47.970 --> 00:20:53.089
no, no. If you stay here, you will die. The radiation
00:20:53.089 --> 00:20:55.410
will get you. And in this case, the radiation
00:20:55.410 --> 00:20:57.450
is, and here's the dark point for the show, the
00:20:57.450 --> 00:21:00.130
creation of fake CSAM images. And if you don't
00:21:00.130 --> 00:21:01.990
know what CSAM is, go look it up on a browser.
00:21:02.069 --> 00:21:04.029
I don't want to say it out loud, but it's bad.
00:21:04.390 --> 00:21:06.329
It's how Grok has been taking the clothes off
00:21:06.329 --> 00:21:08.970
of lots of people, particularly people that shouldn't
00:21:08.970 --> 00:21:10.789
be taking the clothes off of and making images.
00:21:11.150 --> 00:21:13.250
And those kind of images are just completely
00:21:13.250 --> 00:21:18.599
illegal in the UK. Even if someone has put one
00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:23.339
into your stream, and it's now cached in your
00:21:23.339 --> 00:21:26.859
browser, and that constitutes you having downloaded
00:21:26.859 --> 00:21:31.940
it, and you are then liable. This came from someone
00:21:31.940 --> 00:21:33.619
I saw on Blue Sky posting about it, basically
00:21:33.619 --> 00:21:36.099
saying, I don't dare go onto that site anymore,
00:21:36.299 --> 00:21:40.380
because even the very low chance of anyone ever
00:21:40.380 --> 00:21:43.039
just showing me an unsolicited art showing up,
00:21:43.099 --> 00:21:47.039
especially... given how trigger -happy X is to
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:49.039
show you anything that you haven't asked for
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:52.000
because it wants to do that. Right now, a person
00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.440
could do a very well -staged advertising attack
00:21:55.440 --> 00:22:01.000
on Twitter by just paying it to promote a tweet
00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:04.000
with the wrong kind of stuff on it to, let's
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:06.799
say, I really just want it to all be men of a
00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:09.119
certain age who are all centered on Westminster.
00:22:10.750 --> 00:22:15.109
oh oh like that would be all it takes wow they
00:22:15.109 --> 00:22:16.269
wouldn't have they wouldn't have to be following
00:22:16.269 --> 00:22:18.529
the wrong people just be like hey this is suggested
00:22:18.529 --> 00:22:22.289
for you yes i mean that's yes suggested for you
00:22:22.289 --> 00:22:24.529
the wonderful thing that everyone says they have
00:22:24.529 --> 00:22:26.329
to be on the algorithm yeah well if you are how
00:22:26.329 --> 00:22:28.589
to how to terrorize a nation for under a hundred
00:22:28.589 --> 00:22:30.849
for a hundred bucks in google ad sense you know
00:22:30.849 --> 00:22:36.230
i hadn't thought about that that's a Wow. I'm
00:22:36.230 --> 00:22:38.069
here to bring the darkness, go me. No, no, no,
00:22:38.069 --> 00:22:41.390
that is dark, and I mean, yeah, that is, but
00:22:41.390 --> 00:22:44.009
no, I also... Hey, Charlie Brooker, if you're
00:22:44.009 --> 00:22:48.210
hiring, I would love to write for you. I'm sure
00:22:48.210 --> 00:22:50.349
he's looking for someone. No one can see me looking
00:22:50.349 --> 00:22:52.130
to the camera, putting both my thumbs up like
00:22:52.130 --> 00:22:57.789
an idiot. So, I mean, yeah, I also, I mean, obviously,
00:22:57.869 --> 00:23:02.809
someone who's hot on the Fediverse, I, yeah,
00:23:02.910 --> 00:23:07.009
I understand I understand the argument that the
00:23:07.009 --> 00:23:12.660
government should post everywhere. And I still
00:23:12.660 --> 00:23:15.220
do have a Twitter account, which I, once again,
00:23:15.259 --> 00:23:18.140
I just hold because I don't want anyone to use
00:23:18.140 --> 00:23:21.420
that name. Literally nothing else goes there.
00:23:21.880 --> 00:23:24.839
I didn't even log in. I'm actually worried that
00:23:24.839 --> 00:23:26.460
one day they will just kick me off completely.
00:23:27.460 --> 00:23:32.339
But, yeah, I just do not understand. I mean,
00:23:32.380 --> 00:23:34.900
this is an argument that's happened so many times.
00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:40.509
I've had this argument even at the BBC. Why are
00:23:40.509 --> 00:23:46.970
we supporting this platform? Why are we encouraging
00:23:46.970 --> 00:23:50.190
people to go there by posting all this stuff?
00:23:50.390 --> 00:23:52.029
Maybe we can do something where we post stuff
00:23:52.029 --> 00:23:55.089
like delayed, like way delayed, for example,
00:23:55.089 --> 00:23:57.750
or just make it like a second class citizen,
00:23:58.109 --> 00:24:01.430
you know, rather than like give it the, this
00:24:01.430 --> 00:24:03.269
is where the breaking news goes, for example.
00:24:03.490 --> 00:24:06.470
It's just like these things, I don't understand.
00:24:06.569 --> 00:24:10.410
I don't understand how this has become. what
00:24:10.410 --> 00:24:14.769
it's become. And it is clearly not going to get
00:24:14.769 --> 00:24:17.230
any better. And it's going to get far, far worse.
00:24:17.390 --> 00:24:20.829
The moment when Elon Musk told all the advertisers
00:24:20.829 --> 00:24:26.410
to fuck themselves, that was a clear sign. That
00:24:26.410 --> 00:24:29.869
was it. That was it. Literally, that is exactly
00:24:29.869 --> 00:24:34.170
all you need to know. It's not as if he hasn't
00:24:34.170 --> 00:24:36.130
told us what he's doing. That's the strange thing.
00:24:36.349 --> 00:24:38.519
It's not like... He's a secret businessman. He's
00:24:38.519 --> 00:24:40.559
a secret player. No, he said what he's doing,
00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:43.200
and he's doing it. And we shouldn't accept that
00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:45.980
as a sort of standard platform that we should
00:24:45.980 --> 00:24:48.279
all be using. What's that line? When people tell
00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:51.960
you who they are, believe them. The first time.
00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:54.220
When people tell you who they are the first time,
00:24:54.220 --> 00:24:57.440
believe them. Does that apply to someone else
00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:00.980
that's hot in the news right now? There's more
00:25:00.980 --> 00:25:05.380
than that. We talk about this is a perennial
00:25:05.380 --> 00:25:08.670
discussion for us. this perennial discussion
00:25:08.670 --> 00:25:11.170
of people moving from one platform to the other.
00:25:11.250 --> 00:25:12.990
And Wendy raises a really good point about the,
00:25:13.069 --> 00:25:14.930
cause everyone's on there. And that is the problem.
00:25:15.029 --> 00:25:17.289
Like, it's not like, honestly, this platform
00:25:17.289 --> 00:25:20.710
could be two tin cans, but if 4 billion people
00:25:20.710 --> 00:25:22.569
are using two tin cans, then as much as I hate
00:25:22.569 --> 00:25:26.109
it, I got to get myself a fucking tin can. And
00:25:26.109 --> 00:25:30.869
in a sense, this is an ideal scenario because
00:25:30.869 --> 00:25:34.549
the more they toxify it, the more they let it
00:25:34.549 --> 00:25:37.809
go under uncontrolled. the more people will begin
00:25:37.809 --> 00:25:39.549
to, the more it gets flooded, particularly with
00:25:39.549 --> 00:25:44.190
slop and garbage, and now litigatable bad things
00:25:44.190 --> 00:25:46.210
that you should never have even exposure to,
00:25:46.250 --> 00:25:47.990
lest your computer cache them and you go to jail
00:25:47.990 --> 00:25:50.990
for a very long time. Like, the more and more
00:25:50.990 --> 00:25:53.390
of this is like, we haven't been able to convince
00:25:53.390 --> 00:25:55.950
our friends to leave, but maybe if some people
00:25:55.950 --> 00:25:58.309
go to jail, that'll be, you know, it's all just,
00:25:58.450 --> 00:26:00.869
it's a systems thing. The worse it gets, the
00:26:00.869 --> 00:26:02.710
more people will leave, and eventually this problem
00:26:02.710 --> 00:26:06.130
will hopefully... at least somewhat self -mitigate.
00:26:06.549 --> 00:26:10.170
The problem is that politicians are also humans,
00:26:10.289 --> 00:26:12.890
and what humans do is they go where their friends
00:26:12.890 --> 00:26:17.650
are. So you really just need to find a few key
00:26:17.650 --> 00:26:20.589
politicians to whom it's worth it to move or
00:26:20.589 --> 00:26:24.289
to leave. There are a few who are doing it, and
00:26:24.289 --> 00:26:27.069
they are staying there doing it. But unfortunately,
00:26:27.210 --> 00:26:32.150
they are almost... Honestly, I think... I think
00:26:32.150 --> 00:26:33.349
there's a middle ground. And the middle ground
00:26:33.349 --> 00:26:35.789
I'd recommend is, Ian talked about this too,
00:26:35.890 --> 00:26:40.230
post everywhere, but only engage on platforms
00:26:40.230 --> 00:26:42.130
that you feel are safe. So like if you need to
00:26:42.130 --> 00:26:43.930
reach people on Twitter, you can say like, hi,
00:26:44.109 --> 00:26:46.829
I'm posting on Twitter, but if you at or reply
00:26:46.829 --> 00:26:48.470
me, I'm not going to say anything back because
00:26:48.470 --> 00:26:51.250
it's too dangerous. Like I will broadcast here
00:26:51.250 --> 00:26:53.509
so I can reach as many people as I want. And
00:26:53.509 --> 00:26:55.890
you can take the risk to be on this toxic garbage
00:26:55.890 --> 00:27:00.599
platform of pure. But if you want me to read
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:02.599
what you've written, if you want to interact
00:27:02.599 --> 00:27:05.920
back, these are the channels. And these channels
00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:09.160
will be curated and sterilized so that you don't
00:27:09.160 --> 00:27:11.940
see the bad stuff. The thing is, I think there
00:27:11.940 --> 00:27:14.980
are people for whom there is no safe platform,
00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:19.000
at least in terms of abuse coming their way.
00:27:19.140 --> 00:27:22.799
I mean, I have my experience of Mastodon is delightful.
00:27:23.240 --> 00:27:26.319
But nonetheless, I see almost every day somebody
00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:30.130
talking about the abuse they receive. Yeah. So,
00:27:30.890 --> 00:27:33.690
I mean, one of the problems is that once every
00:27:33.690 --> 00:27:36.970
community, once it reaches a certain size, attracts
00:27:36.970 --> 00:27:40.450
a certain percentage of people who are just obnoxious.
00:27:40.630 --> 00:27:46.930
Yeah. Yeah, so I completely agree. I think, so
00:27:46.930 --> 00:27:51.049
this argument came up quite a lot, is that at
00:27:51.049 --> 00:27:53.309
some point it gets to a certain size and this
00:27:53.309 --> 00:27:55.930
thing's happened. And I think one of the things
00:27:55.930 --> 00:27:59.539
that... i was trying to encourage thought on
00:27:59.539 --> 00:28:04.480
was that there in the nature of the the way that
00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:08.559
the these other networks are built that allows
00:28:08.559 --> 00:28:11.160
you to do things so i was also the bbc has its
00:28:11.160 --> 00:28:14.980
own mastodon server that means it could do lots
00:28:14.980 --> 00:28:18.700
of things like deliberately cut off a whole bunch
00:28:18.700 --> 00:28:22.220
of people it can also like it has not you know
00:28:22.599 --> 00:28:25.599
Does it allow people to reply back, for example?
00:28:25.880 --> 00:28:28.759
I think I was trying to get them to think about
00:28:28.759 --> 00:28:31.500
it that way. And so that would be that the BBC
00:28:31.500 --> 00:28:36.220
social server would be a safe place. And that's
00:28:36.220 --> 00:28:39.299
where it first goes to. And then it can go elsewhere.
00:28:39.380 --> 00:28:41.619
And I think you're right that you put a warning
00:28:41.619 --> 00:28:44.279
saying, we're posting here, but we're not going
00:28:44.279 --> 00:28:45.980
to engage here. If you want to engage, you come
00:28:45.980 --> 00:28:50.099
here. And I know that's a risk, but I would rather
00:28:50.099 --> 00:28:54.759
that risk than... you know the bbc or the government
00:28:54.759 --> 00:28:58.480
or elsewhere or other other companies um kind
00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:00.960
of engaging on a platform where the the ceo's
00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:05.279
literally going you all you know i feel like
00:29:05.279 --> 00:29:08.160
we keep trying to i hold out hope that there
00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:10.599
is a technological way to solve this human problem
00:29:10.599 --> 00:29:16.279
of there are and are going to um like this is
00:29:16.279 --> 00:29:20.099
like this is this is decades of internet forum
00:29:20.099 --> 00:29:22.380
experience long before twitter and it's just
00:29:22.380 --> 00:29:25.420
the same thing it's just the if you are not willing
00:29:25.420 --> 00:29:28.240
to curate if you are not willing to be an active
00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:31.279
presence you invite the bad people and once the
00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:33.140
bat once a few bad people discover that they
00:29:33.140 --> 00:29:36.019
can be bad without consequence many more bad
00:29:36.019 --> 00:29:37.940
things will come and join them because that's
00:29:37.940 --> 00:29:39.779
their playground and that is exactly what has
00:29:39.779 --> 00:29:42.059
happened on x this is exactly what like like
00:29:42.059 --> 00:29:45.140
this is what 4chan 8chan all the chans like this
00:29:45.140 --> 00:29:47.180
just went oh this is someplace where i can be
00:29:47.769 --> 00:29:50.910
as horrible a human being without consequence
00:29:50.910 --> 00:29:55.329
and then once a person who has the desire to
00:29:55.329 --> 00:29:57.930
be that horrible being realizes there is a place
00:29:57.930 --> 00:30:02.150
for them to do that and we can talk about like
00:30:02.150 --> 00:30:04.009
this this is actually what about freezing with
00:30:04.009 --> 00:30:05.450
like the designer drug problem which is that
00:30:05.450 --> 00:30:09.250
you can you can try to litigate and you can try
00:30:09.250 --> 00:30:11.849
to technology filter out things that you know
00:30:11.849 --> 00:30:15.599
about But it is very, very hard to prevent new
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:18.220
things. And assholes are also very creative and
00:30:18.220 --> 00:30:19.980
abusers are very creative and they will figure
00:30:19.980 --> 00:30:21.920
out new and interesting ways to get around that.
00:30:22.099 --> 00:30:26.019
And for that, you need a human to go, no. And
00:30:26.019 --> 00:30:28.039
a human who's willing to do this, actually, I
00:30:28.039 --> 00:30:31.220
am willing to take on the social ethical responsibility
00:30:31.220 --> 00:30:33.420
for saying you have crossed a boundary. Even
00:30:33.420 --> 00:30:36.660
if you don't think you have, you're out. I also
00:30:36.660 --> 00:30:38.359
can criticize them, but Blue Sky is quite good
00:30:38.359 --> 00:30:40.680
in having a hundred ways to block things. And
00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:42.599
in some respects, they are encouraging people
00:30:42.599 --> 00:30:46.539
to say, if this stream of conversation I've just
00:30:46.539 --> 00:30:49.200
started is getting bad, you can stop replies,
00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:51.279
you can get rid of people. It's not the best
00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:52.980
thing to do with a conversation, but it is a
00:30:52.980 --> 00:30:55.799
bit more responsible. They could make it so much
00:30:55.799 --> 00:30:58.220
better by just monitoring how many blocks any
00:30:58.220 --> 00:31:02.140
individual thing gets. Yes. All they have to
00:31:02.140 --> 00:31:04.000
do is they go, you can block whoever you want.
00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:05.579
And by the way, we're watching to see when a
00:31:05.579 --> 00:31:06.940
person gets a lot of blocks and then we're going
00:31:06.940 --> 00:31:08.640
to have somebody take a look at it and go, actually,
00:31:08.700 --> 00:31:11.660
you know what? Whole world says F you. Yes, yes,
00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:13.579
yes. It might be quicker to just get rid of you.
00:31:13.700 --> 00:31:17.839
You are the problem. Now, to be clear, there
00:31:17.839 --> 00:31:20.099
needs to be a human in that part of the process
00:31:20.099 --> 00:31:23.460
because we already have examples of bad people
00:31:23.460 --> 00:31:26.910
learning how to weaponize stuff like that. Yeah,
00:31:26.930 --> 00:31:29.450
like review bombing, review bombing and stuff
00:31:29.450 --> 00:31:31.650
like that. Reputation bombing is a thing like
00:31:31.650 --> 00:31:35.730
go look up. Was it the Sims that had this problem?
00:31:36.230 --> 00:31:38.710
Yes, that's right. There were press gangs of
00:31:38.710 --> 00:31:41.490
people who went to the spot because the Sims,
00:31:41.569 --> 00:31:43.509
the virtual world multiplayer version or whatever,
00:31:43.630 --> 00:31:46.609
had a place where new players would always come
00:31:46.609 --> 00:31:48.490
in and they would start with a certain amount
00:31:48.490 --> 00:31:50.269
of virtual in -world cash and somebody would
00:31:50.269 --> 00:31:52.609
show up and be like, hi, give me 90, give me
00:31:52.609 --> 00:31:55.920
90 of your hundred dollars or what? or me and
00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:58.640
these 10 people will all immediately downvote
00:31:58.640 --> 00:32:00.500
you as an untrustworthy person, and no one else
00:32:00.500 --> 00:32:02.240
in the game will ever trade with you or interact
00:32:02.240 --> 00:32:04.480
with you, and your experience will be done. Yeah.
00:32:06.099 --> 00:32:09.059
Yeah, I remember hearing about that. And you're
00:32:09.059 --> 00:32:12.119
right, these happen, and these people will find
00:32:12.119 --> 00:32:15.700
ways, and I see this a lot with dating sites
00:32:15.700 --> 00:32:19.859
in particular, where they find ways, and you're
00:32:19.859 --> 00:32:21.519
right, that someone needs to be there going,
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:24.180
hold on a minute. Why is this person sending
00:32:24.180 --> 00:32:26.640
the same message again and again? I'm going to
00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:28.700
bring in a last point, which you just reminded
00:32:28.700 --> 00:32:30.400
me of, which is a happy thing that made me happy.
00:32:30.440 --> 00:32:34.819
Have you heard about, I think it's like Oregon
00:32:34.819 --> 00:32:40.519
catfishing? No. Okay, so this is a happy thing
00:32:40.519 --> 00:32:44.440
about dating sites. There is a person who publishes
00:32:44.440 --> 00:32:47.819
this, and his whole shtick is he poses as an
00:32:47.819 --> 00:32:53.259
attractive woman on Tinder. But he only connects
00:32:53.259 --> 00:32:56.339
with guys who have photos of themselves holding
00:32:56.339 --> 00:33:02.099
fish. And then he gets them to tell him where
00:33:02.099 --> 00:33:05.779
their secret fishing spots are. And then he ghosts
00:33:05.779 --> 00:33:08.220
them and goes to their fishing spots and rates
00:33:08.220 --> 00:33:12.990
them. Are you serious? I love this so much. Can
00:33:12.990 --> 00:33:15.910
I say again, men are weird. Yeah, it's funny
00:33:15.910 --> 00:33:18.369
I was just thinking that. That's just weird,
00:33:18.410 --> 00:33:21.150
but wonderful. Yes, but when they use their weirdness
00:33:21.150 --> 00:33:23.529
to battle other weirdness, it can be a thing
00:33:23.529 --> 00:33:29.849
of beauty. And weirdness cancels out. All right.
00:33:30.150 --> 00:33:33.589
Coming up next, Wendy is going to talk to us
00:33:33.589 --> 00:33:37.170
about a paper she found on the potential problem
00:33:37.170 --> 00:33:42.039
of... partial faking of videos where small parts
00:33:42.039 --> 00:33:44.140
of videos are being altered instead of just doing
00:33:44.140 --> 00:33:46.599
an entire deep fake. Wendy? You've just said
00:33:46.599 --> 00:33:51.099
what it was. Yeah, you know, it reminds me of
00:33:51.099 --> 00:33:53.859
the early days of the web when people would,
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:58.240
hackers for fun would deface an entire website.
00:33:58.920 --> 00:34:00.779
And these things were embarrassing, but they
00:34:00.779 --> 00:34:02.880
were really easy to see that somebody had done
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:05.000
it. And, you know, it was kind of in that sense,
00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:07.039
it was just kind of harmless. And I remember
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:09.619
thinking then that if anybody got good at subtly
00:34:09.619 --> 00:34:14.039
altering sort of bits of information in ways
00:34:14.039 --> 00:34:15.639
that would be much harder to detect, it would
00:34:15.639 --> 00:34:17.519
be a much bigger danger. And that's kind of what
00:34:17.519 --> 00:34:20.340
this paper is about. It's researchers at the
00:34:20.340 --> 00:34:26.440
Institut Polytechnique de Paris have... introduce,
00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:30.440
as they say, fake parts, which they call a new
00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:34.500
class of deep fakes, where you have a real video
00:34:34.500 --> 00:34:37.119
and you have subtle changes to small bits of
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:42.360
it. And so it looks, there are two main points.
00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:44.340
One is that they're much harder to detect than
00:34:44.340 --> 00:34:47.280
outright fakes, because most of the video is
00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:52.039
real, and that you can actually do quite a lot
00:34:52.039 --> 00:34:55.869
of damage with it. For example, if you have somebody
00:34:55.869 --> 00:34:58.150
speaking in a video clip and you change their
00:34:58.150 --> 00:35:00.650
expression slightly or gesture slightly, that
00:35:00.650 --> 00:35:02.909
can really completely alter the emotional impact
00:35:02.909 --> 00:35:05.929
of what they're saying. And so you can really
00:35:05.929 --> 00:35:09.150
imagine it being a technique that could be easily
00:35:09.150 --> 00:35:11.429
weaponized in political campaigns and stuff,
00:35:11.469 --> 00:35:14.170
and it would be very hard to tell. So that's
00:35:14.170 --> 00:35:17.710
the main gist of it. Actually, easier for AI
00:35:17.710 --> 00:35:19.570
to work on small parts because it doesn't work
00:35:19.570 --> 00:35:22.280
on an image as a whole. It just works on. things
00:35:22.280 --> 00:35:25.320
that it has attention to so it's actually playing
00:35:25.320 --> 00:35:28.199
into its strength so yeah it just occurred to
00:35:28.199 --> 00:35:30.500
me it just occurred to me that there's a version
00:35:30.500 --> 00:35:31.739
of this that i've been hearing of for a long
00:35:31.739 --> 00:35:34.670
time patton oswald referred to this in one of
00:35:34.670 --> 00:35:36.750
his comedy routines like he has this thing he
00:35:36.750 --> 00:35:39.010
talked about for one of these films that he was
00:35:39.010 --> 00:35:40.590
working on where they said we they hired him
00:35:40.590 --> 00:35:42.730
to do punch up and it was a punch up for an animated
00:35:42.730 --> 00:35:45.050
film and what that means is they show him the
00:35:45.050 --> 00:35:47.110
film and they go this isn't funny enough but
00:35:47.110 --> 00:35:49.710
we can't change any of the frames could you do
00:35:49.710 --> 00:35:52.190
a voice making a joke off frame that will make
00:35:52.190 --> 00:35:55.309
this scene funnier and his is like oops i just
00:35:55.309 --> 00:35:58.010
slipped onto my bottom into some butterscotch
00:35:58.010 --> 00:36:00.030
which you cannot see like that's the nature of
00:36:00.030 --> 00:36:04.179
it and it's just like it actually the the potential
00:36:04.179 --> 00:36:07.179
subversion of that is astonishing when you start
00:36:07.179 --> 00:36:13.440
to think about it. Yeah, I think, I mean, I've
00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:18.579
got a related kind of news story. And we've all
00:36:18.579 --> 00:36:21.400
kind of seen these. And I think, obviously, in
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:23.440
the paper, that is a really interesting one with
00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:28.019
actually some very parts of the video. But I've
00:36:28.019 --> 00:36:32.960
also seen... stuff like little images so for
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:36.219
example the example that the BBC use is that
00:36:36.219 --> 00:36:40.519
trains were cancelled over a fake bridge collapse
00:36:40.519 --> 00:36:45.079
image and it's not that there's lots and lots
00:36:45.079 --> 00:36:48.079
of pictures there's just enough pictures and
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:51.159
it's obviously of a real bridge and it's being
00:36:51.159 --> 00:36:54.099
shared actually I'm interested enough I wonder
00:36:54.099 --> 00:36:58.280
if it's being shared over X but ultimately it's
00:36:58.280 --> 00:37:01.519
enough that Without kind of then double checking
00:37:01.519 --> 00:37:04.679
that the train company actually cancelled the
00:37:04.679 --> 00:37:08.139
train. And stuff like this, I'm seeing little
00:37:08.139 --> 00:37:11.460
bits. So once again, a bit like altering parts
00:37:11.460 --> 00:37:14.280
of the video, little bits of the video, you're
00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:18.440
starting to see the effect of AI on our daily
00:37:18.440 --> 00:37:22.780
lives and causing absolute chaos. Buckingham
00:37:22.780 --> 00:37:27.480
Palace Christmas Market. Oh, tell me more. Yeah,
00:37:27.559 --> 00:37:30.860
this happened this year. Like, thousands of tourists
00:37:30.860 --> 00:37:33.300
flooded to Buckingham Palace because someone
00:37:33.300 --> 00:37:35.559
generated some AI images of a Christmas market
00:37:35.559 --> 00:37:38.460
at Buckingham Palace, which did not exist. And
00:37:38.460 --> 00:37:40.280
so all these people would go to Buckingham Palace
00:37:40.280 --> 00:37:41.940
like the frown and be like, oh, my God, a Christmas
00:37:41.940 --> 00:37:44.099
market at Buckingham Palace. How awesome would
00:37:44.099 --> 00:37:45.719
that be? Yeah, it would be great. Not fucking
00:37:45.719 --> 00:37:49.929
here, though. The question is, how much does
00:37:49.929 --> 00:37:52.409
AI contribute to that? Because actually, you
00:37:52.409 --> 00:37:54.369
could probably start something similar just by
00:37:54.369 --> 00:37:56.550
posting a message saying, look at this cool thing
00:37:56.550 --> 00:37:58.590
I bought at the Buckingham Palace Christmas market.
00:37:59.050 --> 00:38:04.389
I agree with that. You don't actually need AI
00:38:04.389 --> 00:38:07.809
for that. Well, people are smart enough to start
00:38:07.809 --> 00:38:09.909
to figure out places where the expectation is
00:38:09.909 --> 00:38:13.510
so ready to lean into it that it takes very little
00:38:13.510 --> 00:38:17.420
to persuade them. to bring this back to the original
00:38:17.420 --> 00:38:19.659
point that Ian was talking about, people are
00:38:19.659 --> 00:38:22.619
already so convinced that the UK train infrastructure
00:38:22.619 --> 00:38:26.440
is shit that no one was surprised when a bridge
00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:29.260
collapses, even the fucking train company. They're
00:38:29.260 --> 00:38:31.579
like, yeah, probably did happen. We haven't put
00:38:31.579 --> 00:38:34.079
any money into that for decades. And it's like,
00:38:34.099 --> 00:38:36.260
is it AI? Who can take the chance? The odds of
00:38:36.260 --> 00:38:38.519
it being real are significant regardless. And
00:38:38.519 --> 00:38:42.840
people will find those places where there's already
00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:47.019
an expectation. Oddly, I can see a silver lining
00:38:47.019 --> 00:38:50.340
in this, which is like, by the way, if you let
00:38:50.340 --> 00:38:53.099
your reputation as a service company get to be
00:38:53.099 --> 00:38:55.980
so shit that people are willing to believe these
00:38:55.980 --> 00:38:59.159
bad things, how easy would it be for a lot of
00:38:59.159 --> 00:39:00.940
people to start making them believe that even
00:39:00.940 --> 00:39:12.630
worse things are true? a delivery company like
00:39:12.630 --> 00:39:14.849
every or one that are actually like used to be
00:39:14.849 --> 00:39:16.929
hermes they their reputation got so bad they
00:39:16.929 --> 00:39:19.670
rebranded to every it's like everyone knows that
00:39:19.670 --> 00:39:21.670
oh that's what happened to them yeah that's what
00:39:21.670 --> 00:39:23.150
happened to them they rebranded because hermes
00:39:23.150 --> 00:39:25.670
got such a bad reputation that people were like
00:39:25.670 --> 00:39:28.730
people would go to their go to their shopping
00:39:28.730 --> 00:39:31.250
basket online see that it was going to be fulfilled
00:39:31.250 --> 00:39:32.929
by hermes and they would cancel it because they're
00:39:32.929 --> 00:39:35.429
like i you know i i don't care how good this
00:39:35.429 --> 00:39:38.010
is i don't want i don't want the 50 chance of
00:39:38.010 --> 00:39:39.789
this never showing up or showing up crunched
00:39:39.789 --> 00:39:43.590
into a tiny ball Or waiting a week for it to
00:39:43.590 --> 00:39:45.849
show up whenever the driver can feel like it.
00:39:47.110 --> 00:39:51.750
So, you know, that's... I mean, it's evil, but
00:39:51.750 --> 00:39:57.369
it's a silver lining. But, okay, just to answer,
00:39:57.449 --> 00:40:02.489
I think Wendy's point is correct, but I do think
00:40:02.489 --> 00:40:09.250
that just to kind of tip the... Just a little
00:40:09.250 --> 00:40:13.480
tip. with the image or with a video or something
00:40:13.480 --> 00:40:17.519
like that, it just, it brings a level of, and
00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:19.800
I think Ryan is correct as well, that if you've
00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:22.699
got a company that's already kind of like, you
00:40:22.699 --> 00:40:24.780
know, on the down already, and then you just
00:40:24.780 --> 00:40:27.699
tip the balance a little bit with a video or
00:40:27.699 --> 00:40:30.559
even a couple of videos is enough to kind of
00:40:30.559 --> 00:40:33.280
like cause all types of chaos. And we're going
00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:36.440
to have to get used to this. And I don't know
00:40:36.440 --> 00:40:38.539
what the solution is. Well, I have thoughts about
00:40:38.539 --> 00:40:41.119
solutions, but yeah. We will build antibodies
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:43.460
to this the same way we build antibodies to everything
00:40:43.460 --> 00:40:45.960
else. Like, no one believes the Nigerian prince
00:40:45.960 --> 00:40:48.239
is going to send us money anymore. 20 years ago,
00:40:48.260 --> 00:40:50.440
some people fell for it. Now it's in common knowledge.
00:40:50.500 --> 00:40:52.400
That's not going to be a thing. Oh, right. He's
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:55.019
not going to give me any money. Instagram just
00:40:55.019 --> 00:41:00.460
had a massive hack. 14 .5 million emails, something.
00:41:00.699 --> 00:41:03.139
And what happened was the way they did the hack
00:41:03.139 --> 00:41:05.739
was this was hilarious because I got one of these
00:41:05.739 --> 00:41:09.480
emails and I was like, I didn't. And it's a very
00:41:09.480 --> 00:41:11.599
straightforward, looks like it came from Instagram.
00:41:13.079 --> 00:41:16.500
Here, someone's requested a password reset for
00:41:16.500 --> 00:41:18.280
me. They made it look exactly like the Instagram
00:41:18.280 --> 00:41:19.500
one and made it came from there. And I was like,
00:41:19.539 --> 00:41:21.119
well, I know I didn't do that. So I'm not clicking
00:41:21.119 --> 00:41:22.679
on anything. So I had to learn the lesson. It
00:41:22.679 --> 00:41:25.599
turns out, here's the thing. They weren't going
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:29.039
to steal your account. But the link you clicked
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:31.280
on told them that you were someone who would
00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:33.840
click on a link like that. And out of that 14
00:41:33.840 --> 00:41:36.739
million email addresses they got, they sent out
00:41:36.739 --> 00:41:41.480
that phishing email. And they didn't, you know,
00:41:41.500 --> 00:41:43.780
maybe break people's accounts because it didn't
00:41:43.780 --> 00:41:46.780
really let them do that. But they found out which
00:41:46.780 --> 00:41:49.800
out of those 14 .5 millions were extra plus suckers
00:41:49.800 --> 00:41:52.480
enough to click on the links. And now they know
00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:54.300
that those email addresses are the kind of people
00:41:54.300 --> 00:41:57.199
who click on those links. And so if they compromise
00:41:57.199 --> 00:41:59.920
a new site in a way that lets them do something
00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:03.820
worse, they will know to email those people first.
00:42:04.119 --> 00:42:07.679
I think it was in the 19th century or early 20th
00:42:07.679 --> 00:42:09.860
century where there were these spiritualist camps
00:42:09.860 --> 00:42:13.739
in places like Pennsylvania in the U .S. And
00:42:13.739 --> 00:42:16.860
I remember reading that they used to keep sucker
00:42:16.860 --> 00:42:20.059
lists. You know, if you were somebody who was
00:42:20.059 --> 00:42:21.780
credulous enough to go to one of these things.
00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:26.199
That hasn't stopped happening. That's Scientology.
00:42:26.380 --> 00:42:29.480
That's like... I remember Damien Walter saying
00:42:29.480 --> 00:42:31.699
he used to work for a UFO magazine and he said,
00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:33.860
these stories are ridiculous. Why do you print
00:42:33.860 --> 00:42:36.139
them? He said, yeah, well, it's because the advertisers
00:42:36.139 --> 00:42:38.000
want to target these people because if you're
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:40.800
stupid enough to read these stories and respond
00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:42.840
to the advertising, that's exactly who the advertisers
00:42:42.840 --> 00:42:46.159
want. And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
00:42:48.199 --> 00:42:52.039
All right. And next up is David, who has found
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:54.280
an article about Tony Blair wanting to become
00:42:54.280 --> 00:42:57.679
a tech pro. Yeah, this is Tony Blair or sometimes
00:42:57.679 --> 00:43:02.000
the Tony Blair Institute. And yeah, he suddenly
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:06.039
declared that he wants for Tony Blair Institute
00:43:06.039 --> 00:43:10.639
to build their own AI tools through rival Palantir,
00:43:10.739 --> 00:43:16.009
which is odd because the Tony Blair. Institute
00:43:16.009 --> 00:43:18.610
doesn't really have the money to become a Palantir
00:43:18.610 --> 00:43:22.090
even though they do take funding from Larry Ellison
00:43:22.090 --> 00:43:26.289
so that's extremely strange we'll put the link
00:43:26.289 --> 00:43:28.570
to it in the notes but even people who worked
00:43:28.570 --> 00:43:32.530
at TBI did not understand what on earth the connection
00:43:32.530 --> 00:43:35.650
between what they were doing is with Palantir
00:43:35.650 --> 00:43:37.969
now I have to say the Tony Blair Institute does
00:43:37.969 --> 00:43:41.130
do a lot of strange things a lot of for instance
00:43:41.130 --> 00:43:43.269
communication deals in the Middle East which
00:43:43.269 --> 00:43:46.150
is the reason why Absolutely no one in Gaza wants
00:43:46.150 --> 00:43:48.230
them to do anything whatsoever to do with the
00:43:48.230 --> 00:43:52.449
peace plan. But even then, suddenly wanting to
00:43:52.449 --> 00:43:56.769
become Palantir is very strange. It's almost
00:43:56.769 --> 00:43:59.489
as if he's read the problems of AI and come out
00:43:59.489 --> 00:44:04.090
with the completely wrong solution. So it's just
00:44:04.090 --> 00:44:07.460
one of the strange ones. what he's taking let's
00:44:07.460 --> 00:44:09.480
just dive directly into the black hole strategy
00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:12.619
yeah yes yes oh yes let's yes let's build a matrix
00:44:12.619 --> 00:44:15.579
yes i don't quite understand as for what he's
00:44:15.579 --> 00:44:17.980
doing without larry ellison money well that's
00:44:17.980 --> 00:44:19.960
probably something completely different but uh
00:44:19.960 --> 00:44:22.900
yeah i just thought that was uh very peculiar
00:44:22.900 --> 00:44:30.260
and extremely strange even for tony blair i'm
00:44:30.260 --> 00:44:35.579
not being surprised too fair um i mean You know
00:44:35.579 --> 00:44:39.340
what? I start to look at these people, and especially
00:44:39.340 --> 00:44:43.800
people who have been prime ministers and that
00:44:43.800 --> 00:44:47.900
kind of group of people, and they look at the
00:44:47.900 --> 00:44:51.260
tech industry and they look at all of these kind
00:44:51.260 --> 00:44:55.920
of like Elon Musk and others and go, hey, that's
00:44:55.920 --> 00:44:58.380
a really good way to have lots of power. Why
00:44:58.380 --> 00:45:01.860
do I do that? And it just strikes me as like,
00:45:01.980 --> 00:45:06.300
once again, you know, another one wanting to
00:45:06.300 --> 00:45:11.300
grasp a bunch of power and to be meaningful in
00:45:11.300 --> 00:45:16.659
some way. And it just... Don't build the torment
00:45:16.659 --> 00:45:19.179
nexus, the science fiction writer writes in a
00:45:19.179 --> 00:45:21.559
cautionary tale. It's a classic, yeah. And the
00:45:21.559 --> 00:45:24.719
tech bros take it as a manual for building the
00:45:24.719 --> 00:45:27.099
torment nexus. Some sort of possible challenge,
00:45:27.300 --> 00:45:33.079
yeah. How quick, let's build that. It's a cautionary
00:45:33.079 --> 00:45:38.480
tale, not an inspirational speech. It's a cautionary
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:40.820
tale, not an instruction manual. Not an instruction.
00:45:41.059 --> 00:45:47.059
Please do not do this. All right. And that is
00:45:47.059 --> 00:45:50.280
the end of the meat and potatoes of this month's
00:45:50.280 --> 00:45:53.239
Tech Grumps. The only thing left is any other
00:45:53.239 --> 00:45:55.559
business. And Wendy's going to kick us off for
00:45:55.559 --> 00:46:01.170
that. Wendy. Yeah, this goes in the category
00:46:01.170 --> 00:46:05.449
of mock the flawed technology. This is from Utah.
00:46:05.710 --> 00:46:09.230
At the Park Record, which is a newspaper, Cannon
00:46:09.230 --> 00:46:11.969
Taylor reported recently that in late October,
00:46:12.030 --> 00:46:14.809
an AI summary indicated that a West Jordan police
00:46:14.809 --> 00:46:18.369
officer had morphed into a frog. Simple explanation,
00:46:18.750 --> 00:46:21.550
a Harry Potter movie playing in the background
00:46:21.550 --> 00:46:24.250
had been recorded by the officer's body cam during
00:46:24.250 --> 00:46:41.809
an investigation. Wow, that's so much. You know,
00:46:41.809 --> 00:46:44.269
as mistakes go, it's pretty impressive. What
00:46:44.269 --> 00:46:47.010
I did like in the rest of the piece was that
00:46:47.010 --> 00:46:48.949
apparently some of the counties that have been
00:46:48.949 --> 00:46:51.510
trialing the software are using a variant of
00:46:51.510 --> 00:46:53.809
the software that actually has a setting where
00:46:53.809 --> 00:46:57.269
you can instruct it to insert errors so that
00:46:57.269 --> 00:46:59.570
they make sure that you can tell if the police
00:46:59.570 --> 00:47:01.889
officer has not thoroughly checked the summary.
00:47:02.699 --> 00:47:05.199
I was about to say, that's one of those new things
00:47:05.199 --> 00:47:06.960
that you can tell that they've completely removed
00:47:06.960 --> 00:47:08.400
all the humans, because it's like you look at
00:47:08.400 --> 00:47:10.940
this and go, the only way this made it all the
00:47:10.940 --> 00:47:13.219
way to publication is if there was not a single
00:47:13.219 --> 00:47:15.639
rational human in between this being recorded
00:47:15.639 --> 00:47:20.440
and that going to print. Well, the story was
00:47:20.440 --> 00:47:22.559
from a newspaper. It was a newspaper report on
00:47:22.559 --> 00:47:25.920
trials of AI software. The problem was that the
00:47:25.920 --> 00:47:31.750
summary was actually... He was handed around,
00:47:31.969 --> 00:47:34.550
apparently, by the police as a legitimate summary,
00:47:34.710 --> 00:47:40.690
and then they read this out. But it is pretty
00:47:40.690 --> 00:47:43.829
hilarious, you know. I hope we get to see more
00:47:43.829 --> 00:47:46.530
of those, because I love those. Ian, you've got
00:47:46.530 --> 00:47:51.289
some stuff for us? I do. I have. I'll start with...
00:47:51.579 --> 00:47:56.360
I mentioned it last time. That is FOSDEM 2026,
00:47:56.780 --> 00:48:00.139
the end of January. If you're going to be there,
00:48:00.280 --> 00:48:05.119
I will be there. Yes, just look out for me. And
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:08.260
then I'm going to move to something a little
00:48:08.260 --> 00:48:12.380
bit more serious. Obviously, as serious as FOSDEM.
00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:20.090
So every 10 years. The BBC's charter is renewed,
00:48:20.309 --> 00:48:23.250
or the World Charter, sorry, is renewed. They
00:48:23.250 --> 00:48:26.710
do have a green paper, so the government has
00:48:26.710 --> 00:48:30.190
a green paper where they ask for feedback from
00:48:30.190 --> 00:48:33.610
the public. I gather that anyone in the world
00:48:33.610 --> 00:48:39.710
can add feedback, so please do add feedback to
00:48:39.710 --> 00:48:43.639
it, because I think it's important that... um
00:48:43.639 --> 00:48:47.980
that the public charter for the uk um it reflects
00:48:47.980 --> 00:48:51.920
some of the real problems and emerging problems
00:48:51.920 --> 00:48:57.260
that we see and changes in public service platforming
00:48:57.260 --> 00:49:00.900
forage oh sorry sorry okay sorry uh and the the
00:49:00.900 --> 00:49:04.880
last one is the podcast that i kept on talking
00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:08.940
about uh is now live it's called making the familiar
00:49:08.940 --> 00:49:14.969
strange It is kind of Love Grumps, but if you
00:49:14.969 --> 00:49:18.070
listen to it... Love Grumps 2 .0! No, hold on.
00:49:18.170 --> 00:49:23.489
It's like Love Grumps 2 .0, but it's a lot more
00:49:23.489 --> 00:49:27.159
serious and a lot more... well produced i'd say
00:49:27.159 --> 00:49:31.500
and it includes myself and jessica simmons um
00:49:31.500 --> 00:49:34.400
and we are going to have guests so please listen
00:49:34.400 --> 00:49:37.500
to it the first one's up there um it's where
00:49:37.500 --> 00:49:39.940
you can get podcasts and as i was listening to
00:49:39.940 --> 00:49:44.619
um the podcast news it's available on rss so
00:49:44.619 --> 00:49:48.159
that means everywhere that's it for me david
00:49:48.159 --> 00:49:51.139
sorry this is just a quick one i was just uh
00:49:51.869 --> 00:49:53.789
Buying some goods, I was in front of the scanner
00:49:53.789 --> 00:49:56.889
just checking out, and I was probably not focusing.
00:49:57.050 --> 00:50:00.469
And I pointed the QR code at the scanner, not
00:50:00.469 --> 00:50:03.530
the barcode, and I got a nice message from the
00:50:03.530 --> 00:50:06.869
machine saying, that's a QR code, not a barcode.
00:50:07.050 --> 00:50:09.869
And I just laughed for about three seconds. In
00:50:09.869 --> 00:50:12.110
the fortunately fairly empty shop, just a lovely
00:50:12.110 --> 00:50:15.150
little programmer sees error and fixes on screen.
00:50:15.250 --> 00:50:16.829
I just thought it was absolutely lovely. That's
00:50:16.829 --> 00:50:22.219
it. Nice. All right, and that's it for this month's
00:50:22.219 --> 00:50:24.360
episode of Tech Grumps. The only thing left is
00:50:24.360 --> 00:50:26.559
for all of us to say goodbye. My name is Ren
00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:28.119
Alexander. It has been a pleasure talking to
00:50:28.119 --> 00:50:31.719
you, and I'm going to pass it to Wendy. I'm Wendy
00:50:31.719 --> 00:50:35.440
Grossman, and I'm going to say goodbye and pass
00:50:35.440 --> 00:50:46.739
it on to Andy. David. Keep it in. Keep going,
00:50:46.780 --> 00:50:49.159
David. This is how people know it's real and
00:50:49.159 --> 00:50:56.260
not AI. I'm afraid to say I'm David. Before I
00:50:56.260 --> 00:50:57.780
laugh anymore, I'm going to pass it on to Ian.
00:51:02.469 --> 00:51:04.969
Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is Ian. And
00:51:04.969 --> 00:51:08.570
this is guaranteed human, as some podcasts say.
00:51:09.250 --> 00:51:10.869
Bye, everyone. You might think that was a mistake,
00:51:11.010 --> 00:51:13.210
but Wendy actually told us she was going to do
00:51:13.210 --> 00:51:14.849
it when she talked about intentionally introducing
00:51:14.849 --> 00:51:18.510
errors into the police reports. Yeah. She's just
00:51:18.510 --> 00:51:20.530
keeping us real. I did try to look for a name
00:51:20.530 --> 00:51:24.269
at the bottom like you have on Zoom. All right,
00:51:24.309 --> 00:51:27.829
Ian. Bye, everyone. Goodbye.