0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts,

0:02

radio, news, music and

0:04

more. Metta,

0:12

TikTok, Discord, Snap and X, which is

0:14

actually called Twitter because X is a

0:16

terrible name. What do they all have

0:18

in common, though? Well, this week on

0:20

Download This Show, all of their CEOs

0:22

were grilled by US Congress about the

0:24

risks their products pose to young people.

0:26

But even after two apologies from CEOs,

0:28

will any of it lead to change?

0:31

Also on the show, what are the problems that

0:33

users of Fitbit seem to be pointing out? All

0:35

of that and much more coming up. This is

0:37

your guide to the week in media technology and

0:40

culture. My name is Mark Vanell, and welcome

0:42

to Download This Show. Yes,

0:53

indeed, it is a brand new episode of Download This Show

0:55

and... I

0:57

don't quite know what to do with myself because I've actually got two

1:00

people in studio. Normally, one of

1:02

you is remote on another part of

1:04

the world or country, but actually, I have two fleshy

1:06

humans in front of me and I am freaking

1:10

out. Yep. The fleshiest. OK,

1:12

let's not make it weird. OK, so joining us here,

1:14

we're the head of content from Biteside, Seamus Byrne, welcome.

1:16

Good to be here. And from the

1:18

Game for Anything podcast, good friend of the

1:21

show, Ang Haradyo. Flesh, flesh. OK,

1:23

enough of the flesh. OK, I understand I

1:26

started it. I understand this is my fault

1:28

and it ends now. All

1:30

right, first things first. Why are people complaining

1:32

about their Fitbits? These are the trackers you

1:35

wear on your wrist that track your heart

1:37

rate and all the other things you do

1:39

when you live an active lifestyle. But lots

1:41

of people are complaining about it at the

1:44

moment, Seamus. Why? Yeah. So this is an

1:46

age old device dilemma where you own a

1:48

device, you bought it a few years ago.

1:50

And then, of course, over time, the company

1:53

releases updates for your device. And so that

1:55

means your device is going to get maybe

1:57

a couple of new features here and there.

2:00

even security updates, things that kind of make

2:02

sure it keeps working safely. And

2:05

then we've got that situation where we've

2:07

had an update. Unfortunately, Google's not fitbit

2:09

is not necessarily saying it's totally the

2:11

fault of the firmware update, but a

2:13

firmware update for a lot of people

2:15

seem to coincide very closely with

2:18

a seven day battery life becoming

2:20

a hours, minutes battery life instead.

2:22

This is something that happens quite

2:24

often, but what is intriguing to

2:26

me about this one is Google,

2:28

who of course own fitbit, I probably

2:31

should have said that earlier, they are

2:33

being quite reticent to acknowledge whether

2:35

the firm that from the update

2:38

of the software is

2:40

actually responsible for it. Why

2:42

would they not just be like, how bad do

2:44

we do another update and we'll fix it? Look,

2:46

I am a big believer that

2:48

correlation does not equal causation, but

2:51

I feel like in this instance,

2:53

it's a little bit too close.

2:56

But I think saying, you know,

2:58

yes, it is our firmware update puts

3:00

all of the onus back onto Google. And

3:02

if it's something that's going to be really

3:04

difficult for them to roll back, that also

3:06

puts the onus of replacing a lot of

3:08

devices on them. So it is a lot

3:10

easier if they don't think that they're going

3:13

to get caught to just be like, oh,

3:15

no, I don't know what's happening, but we're

3:17

looking into it. It's kind of an easy

3:19

way to pass the buck back onto the

3:21

consumer because there are already a lot of

3:23

people who just go, damn, it's not working.

3:25

I guess I'll buy a new one. I'm not going

3:27

to lie. Half the reason we're doing this is because

3:29

I happen to maybe own one of these devices and

3:31

I've noticed that it stopped working. It

3:35

has updated and actually what struck me about

3:37

it is it's less about the battery life

3:39

but actually about the redesign of the app.

3:41

And the redesign of the app is infinitely

3:43

unclear. Whether or not the battery

3:45

life has been affected by the firmware or not, obviously,

3:47

we can't say. Google says no, users say yes. But

3:50

it did strike me that it was a worthwhile

3:52

conversation about updates, how to do

3:54

them well, how to do them badly, when they

3:56

go terribly and when they go well. I

3:58

think it's a worthwhile conversation of when you redesign something

4:00

that people use and check on a daily

4:02

basis? What are the keys to get right?

4:05

Well, it's a thing where we're stuck with

4:07

two competing kind of ethos, right? Like, one

4:09

is users being like, if it's not broke,

4:11

why fix it? I use this every day.

4:13

I understand it. I can use it efficiently.

4:15

And that's all I care about. And then

4:18

on the other side, companies going, we need

4:20

to feel fresh and forward moving and new

4:22

and of course implement new things that are

4:24

going to draw people to spend more time

4:26

on the platform. That's always important. And we

4:28

don't want to get in the way of

4:30

that kind of innovation. But at

4:33

the same time, sometimes doing something like

4:35

back when Twitter changed its

4:37

font and introduced its own

4:39

proprietary font that was weirdly

4:42

spaced and just felt uncomfortable.

4:44

It's those moments where you really go like, what

4:47

for other than to give

4:49

people jobs, which is great, and say that

4:51

you're making changes and moving forward. And

4:53

I think this does coincide with

4:55

the moment for Fitbit where as

4:57

a business, it is

4:59

being more and more integrated into Google

5:01

itself. The fact that over the last couple

5:04

of years, essentially the premiere

5:06

device that is made by

5:09

Fitbit is actually now the Google

5:11

Pixel Watch, which has all those features.

5:13

And so in some ways, when you

5:16

talk about an app redesign, we're almost

5:18

talking about that shift where Fitbit, the

5:20

small kind of startup that emerged 15

5:23

years ago with these cool little devices,

5:25

has really now over the last few

5:27

years sort of started to become fully

5:30

Googleized and in that sense, a

5:32

new update that after hundreds of

5:34

Fitbit staff have been sort of

5:36

fired as part of wider Google

5:38

layoffs, it might be starting to be

5:40

that thing where things are just kind of going, well,

5:42

let's just kind of fit it all together so that

5:44

it's more part of this holistic ecosystem. And

5:47

when you just want your health data, that

5:49

might start to actually hide it from you.

5:52

If I can be completely cynical, you

5:54

could also see this as a situation

5:56

where Google are gobbling up a segment

5:58

of the market that overlaps with something

6:00

that they want to be doing. Even

6:02

though Fitbit were a considerably smaller company,

6:04

they were, as you said, a really

6:06

big name in the fitness tracker space.

6:08

If Google gobbled

6:10

them up, slightly undercut

6:13

the brand name of it, and

6:15

pushed their products more, then it's

6:17

just a boon for them. Not

6:19

saying that's what's happening. I'm being

6:21

fully cynical and throwing

6:24

some conjecture in there, but I just don't

6:26

trust big tech. I think

6:28

there is a market out there for people that

6:30

don't necessarily want to wear a full-blown smartwatch and

6:32

just want to wear a fitness tracker. But I

6:34

guess if you're going to mess with the core

6:36

functionality of it, which is being able to keep

6:38

track of your basic stuff, how

6:41

far into an update do you have to go

6:43

before you start hacking away at

6:45

the very essential purpose of a product? Yeah,

6:47

look, when you add in things like

6:50

the heart rate tracking, because of course

6:52

Fitbit started just essentially as a motion-based

6:55

tracker to do step counting, all that

6:57

sort of thing. All those kinds of

6:59

extensions have been great. Yeah, heart rate

7:01

monitoring, perfect fit. Some of the latest

7:03

devices even do things like they'll do

7:05

a Bluetooth connection to gym equipment. Really

7:07

clever stuff. But you're right, once they

7:09

started doing all that, and it'll show

7:12

you all of your phone notifications, there's

7:14

so many times I've actually heard people say

7:16

kind of what you're suggesting, which is, how

7:18

about you simplified it all again, made all

7:20

the other things go away, put those extra

7:23

sensors in it, but just kept it so

7:25

simple that it maybe could have 30 days

7:27

battery life at this point instead of seven,

7:29

that kind of thing. I

7:32

think consumers also don't necessarily

7:35

get as riled up about things though,

7:37

because if there is no longer that

7:39

simple product on the market, they just

7:41

get used to the extra features and

7:43

once you get used to extra features,

7:45

you often grow to like them. So

7:47

Mark, maybe one day you will find

7:50

yourself in smartwatch land, come and join us.

7:52

I do think it's pretty great. I've

7:54

been in your land. I've

7:56

been in your land and I got out the skin of

7:58

my teeth. But would you go back? Would

8:01

I go back to Fitbit? Yeah, probably. I mean,

8:03

let's be honest, I'm a fair-weather friend at the best of times. Let's

8:06

take a rollback from the Fitbit specifically and talk

8:08

more about updating software that people know and love

8:10

and how people react to it and how to

8:12

get it right and how to get it wrong.

8:15

When is an example of

8:17

an update that has been

8:19

seismic but not resulted in

8:21

backlash? Like a good

8:24

update? I don't know if

8:26

that exists. Because even when things

8:28

get better, people don't like change,

8:30

particularly for something that they use

8:33

all the time. So I remember even back

8:35

in my early, early Twitter days, you used

8:37

to have to copy and paste a tweet

8:40

and write RT in front of it when

8:42

you wanted to retweet something. And

8:45

then they introduced the retweet button. And when it

8:47

came out, people didn't like it. They

8:49

were like, this is not what Twitter is. This

8:51

is a big change. We don't like it. They

8:54

introduced 280 characters instead of 140. Again,

8:57

there was backlash. But I would argue that

8:59

those changes did in fact make the platform

9:01

better. Are there examples of

9:03

when software updates, firmware updates have

9:06

gone truly, horrendously

9:09

wrong? And are there lessons to be learned

9:12

from the machinists? I'm not sure. I can't think of one right

9:14

off the top of my head. I mean,

9:16

any Tesla update, right? They just constantly

9:18

are rolling out updates that probably haven't

9:21

been properly tested and thus

9:23

can create issues or not deliver the

9:25

features in the way that they were

9:27

intended to be delivered and thus get

9:29

recalled and rolled back. This

9:32

is Download This Show, it is your

9:34

guide to the week in media, technology,

9:36

culture and Mark's personal grievances against smartwatches.

9:38

This week in Washington, D.C., saw some

9:40

of the biggest tech CEOs turn up.

9:43

And there were some very strange things that

9:45

happened. But I think one of the more

9:47

important things is Mark Zuckerberg essentially apologized to

9:49

a certain subsection of people, right? Yes.

9:52

So there has been a U.S. Senate hearing into child

9:55

protection on social media. And

9:57

there was a four hour questioning session.

10:00

which as you said included Zuckerberg, as

10:02

well as the heads of Discord, Snap,

10:04

TikTok and Twitter slash X. And

10:07

during this, one of the senators

10:09

basically said to Zuckerberg, well, don't

10:11

you want to apologize to the

10:13

families who are in this court

10:15

of children who have either self-harmed

10:17

or killed themselves as a result

10:19

of things that have happened on

10:21

social media? And obviously that's a

10:24

very, very heavy topic. And Zuckerberg

10:26

got up, turned around to the

10:28

people sitting behind him and

10:30

said, I'm sorry for everything you've all gone

10:32

through. It's terrible. No one should have to

10:34

go through the things that your families have

10:36

suffered. What's the

10:38

significance of this or is there significance

10:40

in this moment? In kind

10:43

of marketing terms, I think he did

10:45

play the situation very well. He didn't

10:47

apologize for anything they did. He

10:49

apologized for the experience they had.

10:52

And in that context then said,

10:54

yeah, this is why we're continuing

10:56

to invest in the

10:58

sort of standard spiel about we promise we're spending

11:00

lots of money to try to stop these things

11:03

from ever happening again. But in

11:05

the context of that hearing, Josh Hawley in

11:07

particular, who asked that question, who then

11:10

tried to follow up saying, well, you're going to

11:12

personally put money on the table to compensate these

11:14

people. And that's where Zuckerberg started to say, that's

11:16

not really what this discussion

11:19

should be about even. Because

11:21

it wasn't just Zuckerberg, as you mentioned earlier, there's

11:23

a whole host of CEOs that appeared. Was

11:26

anything useful and actionable? Did anything useful and

11:28

actionable come out of it? No.

11:32

So here's the key thing, right?

11:34

And I think it's fascinating that

11:36

only Meta and TikTok voluntarily came

11:38

along. Snap, the

11:40

CEO of X and the CEO

11:43

of Discord all had to be

11:45

subpoenaed to actually sort of come

11:47

along to that hearing. There is

11:49

currently legislation on the table in

11:51

US government talking about a kids

11:53

safety act to protect kids. But

11:56

so much of this, as much as they are telling

11:59

off these. The eyes. There's.

12:01

A lot of it. Where it is essentially

12:04

these politicians who have had apparently eleven different

12:06

pieces of legislation on the table over recent

12:08

years and done nothing with a me of

12:10

them that it's about the a soundbite and

12:12

the moment to raise funds and proved to

12:14

their constituents that that they gonna shout at

12:17

these people and tell him that they should

12:19

do better but they're actually not actually going

12:21

to pass any laws to to do anything

12:23

real about. It. And I think there

12:25

are in a in a difficult spot

12:28

because essentially what the legislation is trying

12:30

to enact is accountability for social media

12:32

companies face and what is posted on

12:35

their platforms. And that is an ongoing

12:37

extremely harry discussion because it's a little

12:39

bit like saying that you know a

12:42

street corner is responsible for what someone

12:44

stands on there and says. And obviously

12:46

it's not that simple as moderation. There's

12:49

a bunch of other things, but at

12:51

the end of the day is. The

12:54

question is, can you hold someone

12:56

responsible for what someone else posts

12:58

on there platforms? You can certainly

13:00

hold them responsible for what motor

13:02

racing they haven't place. You can

13:04

hold them responsible for how they

13:06

react to things that are reported.

13:08

That can. you truly hold them

13:10

responsible for the posting to begin

13:12

with. And I think that that

13:14

is a really kind of difficult

13:16

argument to sell, but it is

13:18

what this legislation has typically. Can

13:20

have been targeted towards the legislation that

13:22

they're discussing the Us. Whatever happens with

13:25

it will end up having an impact

13:27

on how you use these services In

13:29

the same My, that's when legislation passes

13:31

through Europe. It fundamentally changes how the

13:34

world's interacts with with some Asos as

13:36

sued. The legislation move through. What

13:38

will science about the way that we actually

13:40

interact with the serves As easy as it

13:43

is that clear at this particular juncture set

13:45

one of the my significant things that they

13:47

trying to pushes the idea that apps and

13:49

services food actually verify the age of people

13:52

who opt is biting in apart from were

13:54

setting up an account on that platform. And.

13:57

This is where it does get pretty hairy and is

13:59

plenty of. safety advocates

14:02

and certainly civil liberties advocates

14:04

are saying that this is actually

14:07

a terrible plan because they're basically

14:09

saying they should have to upload

14:11

verified ID to the service and

14:14

then you're like, well, how does that get stored and managed

14:16

and secure it and all those other issues that go along

14:18

with that? So that in itself

14:21

is quite problematic. Actually thought

14:23

Zuckerberg made a great suggestion out of

14:25

all of it, which was that if

14:27

when a device is being set up and

14:30

in that process of creating an Apple account

14:32

or a Google account, at that point, you

14:35

have to give a lot of personal details just to

14:37

create your personal account that runs

14:39

the device that could essentially

14:42

have kind of like face ID and things you

14:44

could almost have a system. Yep. At

14:46

the start of someone setting up this device, we know

14:48

how old they are and we can pass a yes

14:51

no through to apps and services instead of having 100

14:53

different services all being forced to try to

14:56

manage this incredibly sensitive data, you could

14:58

instead have that being run sort of

15:00

by the device itself. But then

15:03

that also then becomes scary because you're

15:05

turning over massive amounts of power and

15:07

data to essentially two companies. I think

15:09

the other thing to think about is

15:12

the fact that I don't think any

15:14

of these companies necessarily particularly care about

15:16

being a platform for people to post

15:19

stuff, right? They're companies that are there

15:21

to make money and to get advertiser

15:23

dollars. And a lot of the way

15:25

that they do make money is by

15:28

collecting data on people and being able

15:30

to do really targeted advertising. Like that

15:32

is where all of the source is.

15:35

So you need the ecosystem of

15:37

people creating and consuming in order to

15:39

create that environment. Yeah, certainly, certainly. But

15:42

I think as people kind

15:45

of continue to be complacent about what

15:47

data is collected and how it's used,

15:50

It is potentially possible that more of

15:52

these services move to kind of more

15:54

private messaging where data can still be

15:57

collected that they can still use for

15:59

advertising. That is sort of the space

16:01

the Discord exists in and I was actually kind

16:04

of surprised that they were involved in this hearing

16:06

because I would think that they could fly under

16:08

the radar so maybe I'm wrong and then I

16:10

could be able to pivot to that space. But

16:12

yeah, at the at the end of the day

16:15

I don't think that these companies are focused on

16:17

being social media platforms and we could see them

16:19

all pivot one. Thing I will say about

16:21

these events is that bite off theater.

16:24

And. Sometimes things go horribly wrong in the

16:26

theater of congress and one thing I would

16:28

say and eyes is particularly amusing because of

16:30

at both I heard you and I have

16:32

Singapore and heritage we families that was once

16:35

and for all but the head of tic

16:37

last is not on a decision as easier

16:39

for him. This is one of the weed

16:41

is my was responsible for what happens. At

16:43

said ahead of Tic Toc the says he the

16:46

who is Singaporean has a. Very strong thing about

16:48

a consensus says like all my cousins, yeah.

16:50

Yeah, but you know you classic

16:52

honey Chinese Singaporean say he was

16:54

asked several times if he was

16:57

a citizen of any country other

16:59

than Singapore, of what country he

17:01

was a citizen of, if he

17:03

had any ties to the Ccp,

17:05

and he was us at like

17:07

three or four different ways. Essentially,

17:09

are you a spy for the

17:11

Chinese. Government: Are you a member of

17:13

the Chinese Communist Party? Like? if you

17:15

could? It's It's not generally considered wise

17:18

to let use the same language as

17:20

the Mccarthy Trust. Doesn't

17:22

strike me as like a good thing to

17:24

do but that's what Sen Tom Cotton did

17:26

and it was yes oh embarrassing to as

17:29

you'd like the way he so emphatic. thanks

17:31

know a Singaporean like out it has left

17:33

a sadist. It was funny because he

17:35

would say i'm Singaporean It was almost

17:37

like that wasn't understand that men have.

17:40

it also could not be. You know

17:42

a Chinese citizen and Singapore is one.

17:44

Of. The countries that like very strict

17:46

about citizenship. You can have dual

17:48

citizenship. Well was I. Do know

17:50

of people who just didn't take the

17:53

box either way that they didn't take

17:55

the declaration and did manage to get

17:57

dual citizenship within a Singapore and seven.

18:00

I'm willing to bet Senator Tom Cotton just

18:02

doesn't know what Singapore is. Yeah. Just

18:05

quietly. Yeah, and look, he

18:07

also, I thought it was a great example where

18:10

they asked him, do your kids use TikTok? And

18:12

he's like, no, because in Singapore, people under the

18:14

age of 13, it's illegal to use these platforms.

18:16

It was almost like such a good

18:18

throwaway line where you're like, well, some countries

18:20

have got on with passing laws

18:23

about these kinds of things. Exactly. And

18:25

I think, obviously, I'm not for a minute suggesting

18:27

there aren't issues with TikTok in terms of where

18:29

its data goes, as a sign of the ship,

18:31

it is a company that does go back to

18:34

China. I understand that. But the lack of understanding

18:36

of an American setter, the understanding that China

18:38

and Singapore are different countries. Yeah, just like

18:40

mine. On one actually, on the one hand,

18:43

mind blowing. On the other hand, deeply

18:45

unsurprising. There's just such a

18:47

desire to use China as a

18:49

gotcha, because it is a culture that's

18:52

very different to US culture and has

18:54

a lot of values that don't align with

18:56

American values. And so he saw his chance

18:58

and he took several swings. The thing that

19:01

kills me is that there are a particular

19:03

and it's something that comes up a lot when

19:05

tech companies do these appearances at congressional hearings is

19:07

that there are real issues.

19:09

There are real issues that do need to be

19:11

navigated in terms of like, where does your data

19:13

go? And who does

19:16

have access to it in China? And

19:19

these forums, when they are prosecuted

19:21

by people that don't know what

19:23

they're talking about, which is what

19:25

I'm prepared to say, they are

19:27

missed opportunities to really seriously examine

19:29

what are real issues. Download

19:31

the show is what you're listening to. It

19:34

is your guide to the weekend media, technology

19:36

and culture. And there's a particularly interesting story

19:38

out of the UK where the UK Labor

19:40

Party are examining an idea where they would

19:42

force AI firms, artificial intelligence firms to share

19:44

their test data. But why? Yeah.

19:48

So what they want to sort of move to

19:50

is right now there's actually a like

19:52

a voluntary code in place in Britain. And

19:55

that sort of came off the back of the UK,

19:57

kind of really getting on the front foot late last

19:59

year. Holding a global ai? Some

20:01

it and go. A lot of the

20:03

major players turned out they participated and

20:06

companies like Microsoft Open I those sorts

20:08

of scale of players decided to agree

20:10

to a voluntary code way. They would

20:12

you try to be more transparent? same

20:15

or Donald with the government's to help

20:17

them? Sort of. Yeah, be able to,

20:19

I guess be a little bit more

20:22

transparent, understand exactly how these are the

20:24

systems are working at. What Uk labour

20:26

is saying they want to do is

20:28

move from a voluntary. Code to a

20:31

statutory Codes are actually pass laws that

20:33

will require these companies to not to

20:35

say we promise we'll do it but

20:37

actually has to do it when they

20:39

reach a certain scale of a I

20:41

model creation. So ya it's I dare

20:43

say I take your small playa you

20:45

can continue to experiments test Id is

20:48

he a come up with new ways

20:50

of using I but once he passes

20:52

certain compete thresholds where you are now

20:54

getting to making really lodz compete models

20:56

the kind of things that set to

20:58

be t r Us as well as

21:00

some of the image models. those kinds

21:02

of things where they really quite large

21:04

scale in terms of how much how

21:07

intensive they are creates. Then you start

21:09

to have to report on what you're

21:11

doing, the way in which you're doing

21:13

it be So the test documents what

21:15

often comes out of things like I

21:17

wanted this. the challenges one of the

21:19

things is capable of am one of

21:21

the potential downsides of these models. capabilities.

21:24

They. Would also be required to give

21:26

that tech over to the government's

21:28

at said that they can conduct

21:30

safety tests with independent oversight. Now

21:32

this actually isn't terribly difference in

21:34

some ways to what they already

21:36

signed in agreed to at the

21:39

I say see some at the

21:41

immense and what they signed was

21:43

called the Bletchley Declaration and within

21:45

it they also acknowledge the significant

21:47

risk that Ai presents to see

21:49

humanities are a wait. how did

21:51

you know big language and and

21:53

during the conclusions. that at the same

21:55

time of course because their i phones saying

21:58

this is also a technology that contains for

22:00

good and that's what we want and so we're signing

22:02

this to try and make sure that that happens and

22:05

essentially as well they talked about

22:08

offering up their tech so that it could

22:10

be tested but the difference

22:13

between having it be voluntary and

22:15

having it be law means that

22:17

there are actually consequences if they

22:19

don't do so whereas by just

22:21

shaking hands with each other and saying we're

22:23

definitely going to do it there's not really

22:26

any ramifications that could be enacted were they

22:28

to not hand over the tech I'm

22:30

trying to wrap my head a little bit around

22:32

what transparency actually means in this context right

22:34

so are we talking about a situation where

22:36

it will actually have to show it's working because

22:40

I'm kind of shocked that you can't do that

22:42

now frankly I would think it's less

22:44

about showing it's working and more about showing

22:47

its data sets because all

22:49

of these large language models work

22:51

in pretty much the same way

22:53

it's all got to do with

22:55

statistics so it's literally just guessing

22:57

what the most likely next word

22:59

in a sentence would be and

23:01

when you when you you know

23:04

conceptualize it like that it's actually quite

23:06

insane it's literally just guessing or

23:08

well not guessing it's you know we all so

23:10

that means it does this by

23:14

reading thousands and thousands hundreds

23:16

of thousands of documents books

23:18

whatever to learn how language

23:20

is most likely to be

23:22

constructed and then that's what

23:25

it spits out so in

23:27

that way the data that you

23:29

feed it is truly the most important

23:31

thing if you're feeding it data that

23:34

continues to say mark sucks that

23:36

is what is most likely to say if

23:38

you were to say tell me something about mark it's

23:41

true he does you know it

23:43

was an easy example I'm sorry yeah and yeah

23:46

I'm not sure I'm not

23:48

sure look yeah there's a lot of

23:50

kind of yeah There's a

23:52

few more variables attached to it as well. Things

23:54

like kind of actually telling it, Things like you

23:56

know be a little bit more random then you

23:59

know sort of. You are production model

24:01

Leon said is this ways in which they

24:03

can white the model to try to make

24:05

it seem a bit more creative or a

24:07

bit more yeah very kind of stayed I

24:09

yeah if you wanted to use it in

24:11

a law firm you probably see a wanna

24:13

far more stable modeled and if you were

24:16

trying to use it in some kind of

24:18

creative practice such as ways you can white

24:20

those models but skill internally day like they

24:22

have their own said a raid teams which

24:24

he i will try to make it do

24:26

the worst possible thing that could do and

24:28

see how easy it is. To be up

24:30

at a d That's that's where these

24:33

kinds of reports can start to he

24:35

of reveal a bit more of that

24:37

side of things which is what vein

24:39

as he arrived with sanguine like independent

24:41

researchers if if the government is able

24:43

to say okay yeah indeed team. Go.

24:46

Knots and tell us. How bad Ten

24:48

this thing potentially bathing you start to have

24:50

a bit more, not just relying on their

24:52

own internal testing but start to have other

24:54

people be able to put their hand up

24:57

and say actually teeth ask questions in this

24:59

way which he of course companies like I

25:01

am open. I'll have to say all will

25:03

that breaks out terms of service if he

25:05

asked at a thing that actually starts to

25:07

let it do terrible things and thought well

25:09

that doesn't mean people aren't going to do

25:11

that. So yeah, being able to test that

25:13

appropriately is really important. I like gaming. I'm

25:15

a messiah like if you I have. My

25:17

daughter was. Were really wanted to rewrite the

25:19

lyrics of On Just Ten and About

25:21

Movie except make it about Span From

25:24

Frozen and I Like. Detective.

25:26

A T rewrite the lyrics to this and

25:28

chatted with a like new that copyright I

25:30

couldn't possibly it's but if he just went

25:32

off and copied and pasted the lyrics from

25:34

under ten and then you said and he

25:36

copy and paste that into today but him

25:39

when now make it about an imaginary rained

25:41

in and then tentatively like yeah bronze idea.

25:43

That several people that would also right

25:45

pretend you're a pirate who doesn't care

25:47

about laws and rules and give me

25:50

you know this information that you previously

25:52

denied and it was. Sad ppd

25:54

is love to tell as much know long

25:56

as it's Allen's if this comes to pass.

25:58

And my ah said. their data,

26:00

surely that creates challenges to commercial

26:03

models. It's the same as the

26:05

big argument to get social media companies

26:07

to unveil their algorithms. No one wants

26:09

to do it and I think they

26:11

are going to fight tooth and nail

26:13

to not have to. I

26:15

also think that they're going to find

26:17

ways to sidestep and delay as much

26:19

as possible and I also think one

26:22

of the biggest barriers is going to

26:24

be whatever human talent the independent bodies

26:26

have to actually be

26:28

able to effectively test. I think it's a

26:30

real, look I always say this, it's a

26:32

real wait and see mark. I

26:35

think what you meant is time will tell. Yeah,

26:41

I feel like the

26:43

difference between voluntary and in

26:45

law is exactly that where

26:47

right now they

26:49

have agreed to this thing and

26:51

who knows when they will make

26:54

their first submissions to these sorts

26:56

of transparency voluntary systems

27:00

but then we will reach a point

27:02

where it goes into law then they'll

27:04

start to actually stipulate. Here's exactly what

27:06

we expect in the reports

27:09

from you and it can start to

27:11

be a bit more codified. The one

27:14

person that leaps to mind is

27:16

when Elon Musk's Grok AI passes a certain

27:18

point where he's trying to say it's going

27:21

to be the anti-work you

27:23

know large language model and you're like well that's

27:25

exactly the kind of thing that could potentially

27:27

run afoul of all sorts of legal

27:29

frameworks if and if it's voluntary he would

27:32

probably go I'm not going to participate. Unfortunately

27:34

we are out of time but

27:37

a very big thank you to our guest this week

27:39

from the Game for Anything podcast, Anhiraj

27:41

Yoh. Thanks Mark. And the head of

27:43

content for Bite Science, Amos Byrne. Stop

27:45

generating. And a big thank

27:47

you to everybody for listening particularly if you're listening

27:49

on the ABC Listen app if you're not listening

27:51

on the ABC Listen app you should download it

27:53

now as a whole host of great content from

27:56

right across your beloved national broadcaster. My name is

27:58

Mark Fennell and thank you for listening. I'm

28:00

going to move another episode. I'm going to

28:03

do that. You've

28:28

been listening to an ABC podcast.

28:31

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