Marketplace - AI-tested, artist-approved poisoning tools

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

To train generative artificial intelligence models, many companies use images they find online without paying the artists. We’ll hear about two tools that help creators protect their work from being scraped for data. Also in this episode: Recruiting and staffing jobs are on the rebound, streaming services struggle to turn a profit and unregulated space pollution poses a threat to Earth’s atmosphere.

On the program today, the news behind the macroeconomic news, some artificial intelligence poison, and then we go to space. From American Public Media, this is Market Class. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Risdell. It is Monday today, the 5th of February. Good as always to have you along, everybody. We will begin this week, I think, where we ended the last, the strength of this economy. It's growing, first of all. Consumers are feeling better, second of all. And the labor market, as we saw on Friday, is still really strong, third of all.

Those are the headlines on jobs especially. But it has been kind of a wild ride in the labor market the past three, four years. Nowhere wilder than for the people whose job it is to fill jobs. The temp agency staffers, the recruiters, the headhunters and the like. Marketplaces of Brie Beneshour gets us going. By the end of 2021, when we were recovering from the initial shock of the pandemic, the U.S. had gained back seven and a quarter million jobs. Almost half a million of those were jobs around getting people jobs.

You see recruiting postings heading into the stratosphere. Ron Hetrick is vice president of staffing strategy at Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm. You know, you come up with 21 and 22 where there's a shortage of people. So a lot of companies thought, well, we're going to respond to a shortage of people by throwing more recruiters at the problem. But after gorging on workers, employers slowed down the hiring last year. And so did the recruiters and the agencies working for them. Nels Olson is vice chairman of talent and consulting firm Korn Ferry. You looked at high interest rates and inflation.

I think there was some natural, you know, pullback for a bit. By the end of 2023, the number of people in temporary jobs in the U.S. had fallen by 7% in a year. And employment services companies took a big hit. Tim Sackett, a CEO of HRU Technical Resources. The staffing companies that struggled definitely had more tech clients than those that didn't. Still, that plus a general hiring slowdown meant 226,000 jobs in employment services

disappeared last year. We move quick when the economy moves, and then we fall quick as the economy drops as well. Jair Doyle is senior vice president of Manpower Group. He says 2024 will be better. We do expect overall in our industry stabilization. As inflation comes down further and interest rates start to fall, companies are going to want to do more hiring. Second half of 24 is when we should start to see a bit of a rebound. Doyle says employment in recruiting and staffing services is a little bit of a crystal ball, what economists call a leading indicator. And it's indicating

some cautiously good things right now. After declining for 14 months, the number of people whose job it is to help fill jobs increased by 9,000 last month. In New York, I'm Sabree Beneshour for Marketplace. On Wall Street today, I guess traders only pay attention to Jay Powell when he's on 60 Minutes on a Sunday night because he said the exact same thing last Wednesday. It's killing me. We'll have the details when we do the numbers. The higher education news of this Monday comes to us out of Hanover, New Hampshire, where Dartmouth College has announced that starting next year, applicants will once again have to submit standardized test scores along with their grades and essays and recommendations. Dartmouth, like a lot of schools, had made the SAT and ACT optional in 2020. It's been a tricky couple of years for the companies that administer

those tests. So we asked Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes for an update on the testing industrial complex. Back in 2020, the ACT became really hard to give. Because a lot of schools were just closed. Janet Godwin is the CEO of ACT, the nonprofit that administers the test. And then where schools were open, there was the social distancing. Which meant you couldn't fit as many high schoolers into a cafeteria to take the test. ACT felt that. Its annual revenue dropped from $302 million in 2019 to $241 million in 2020. But Godwin says it's now bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels. And that's partly because colleges still want to see the scores for things like scholarships or certain programs. A school may be test optional for general admissions,

but still have a score requirement for programs like nursing or engineering. Also, standardized testing is just kind of in the water in a lot of school districts. And Brookings fellow Catherine Meyer says many still build time into the day for the SAT and ACT and foot the bill for the tests. So there are still a lot of students taking these exams, and then students are making the decision about which institutions to send them to. Meyer says the testing industry is also bringing in revenue by selling tools to colleges that will give a student's test score some context. Where they sort of guide an admissions officer through this is a student's test score and here's how you should consider that given the environment they grew up in you know this may be a

slightly lower sat score but it's the best score that anybody from their high school has gotten in the past couple of years meanwhile going test optional has been hard for institutions says independent education consultant justin cohen like it or not, a single test score is a much easier thing to put on a form and calibrate than all of these other ephemeral factors, including grade point average and student activities and interviews. And he says that's why more colleges may be going back to requiring the test scores they know. I'm Stephanie Hughes from Marketplace. According to the arts database Art Facts, 85% of visual artists out there make less than $25,000 a year. The term starving artist, of course, exists for a reason. Now, though, there is a new threat to their livelihoods, generative AI. Artificial intelligence companies have been scraping the art they find on

the Internet and using it to train their AI models for free. But on the theory that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, there are now some tools available to help those artists fight back. Ben Zhao is a professor of computer science at the University of Chicago. He's also the lead on two of those tools. They're called Glaze and Nightshade.

Welcome to the program. Thanks very much. As layman-like as you possibly can, these two tools that I mentioned up in the introduction, Glaze and Nightshade, again, very generically, very basically, what do they do? How do they work? Wow. That's a lot in one question, right? So let me break it down.

Okay. So two tools, right? They do different things. different things. And what Glaze does is when you run it on images of your art, it basically changes it in very subtle ways so that when we look at it, in fact, we can barely see anything at all. But when AI models look at it, they actually perceive something very, very different. And then if you do this and protect your art, then someone trying to mimic your art style using one of these models will likely get a style that actually looks quite a bit different from what they wanted. What Nightshade does is something a little bit different. And Nightshade targets these base models, these larger models that companies are training.

And in training, what they do is they, of course, take millions and millions of images from online. In training, what they do is they, of course, take millions and millions of images from online. And of course, there's lots of issues right now in the legal system about the legality, licensing agreements, no consent, et cetera. But Nightshade is designed to make this process more expensive by introducing basically like a little poison pill inside each piece of art

so that when these models take in a lot of these images, it'll start to get poisoned, this accumulates, and then the models get really confused about what a cat actually looks like, what a dog actually looks like. And when you ask it for a cow, maybe it'll give you a 1960s Ford Bronco. And really, the goal is not to necessarily break these models. The goal is to basically make it so expensive to train on unlicensed data that you can just get from scraping the internet.

And so these companies actually start thinking about licensing content from artists to actually train their models. Right, which is, as you say, the subject of at least one and probably several and many more lawsuits to come. This does seem a little bit, though, like the black hat hacker, white hat hacker thing, in that the people who are writing these AI models will eventually take apart your tools and figure out how to get around them. And thus, we have some kind of AI arms race-ish kind of thing. Sure, that may well be. And in reality, you know, most security systems are like this.

It's always a sort of an ongoing evolution system. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't have impact. The point of security when it comes to whether defenses or attacks is to raise the price for the other side. Right. So in this case, all we're trying to do is to raise the price for unauthorized training on scrape data. Have you heard from your computer science peers who work for Stable Diffusion or Midjourney and they're like, Ben, what are you doing, man? You're killing us.

No, actually, surprisingly, overwhelmingly, the feedback is great. Of course, some people at some of the companies are like, yeah, you know, this seems like a little aggressive. This seems like something that maybe we can talk out. Maybe we can, you know, let legislation take care of this. But I think what this does is it tries to balance the playing field. Because if you think about it, creatives, whether it's individual artists or actually companies who own IP, there's nothing they can do against AI model trainers right now. Nothing. The best they could do is sign up for an opt-out list somewhere and hope that the AI trainers are kind

enough to respect it because there's no way to enforce it. There was, there's no way to verify it. And that's for the companies who actually care. And the smaller companies, of course, will just do whatever they want and have absolutely no consequences. You know, when, when chat GPT and all the rest first broke onto the scene and those of us who are not on the field became aware of it, it seemed, I'm exaggerating here, but it seemed a little bit like magic. And maybe this is an uninformed question, but is this hard computer science? Hard. I mean, it takes a few PhDs to think about this idea. It's reasonably interesting and non-trivial in the sense that if it was easy, somebody would have done this a while ago.

So, yeah, I guess it's hard. But, you know, if research was easy, then it wouldn't be interesting. Yeah, so I was going to let you go, but something you just said piqued my interest. You said it's non-trivial. As you see it, a guy in this field, deep in this field, what's at stake here? Oh, boy. In terms of the grander scale, if I step back and I look at what's happening with generative AI and human creatives today, I think, boy, everything is at stake. Because what we are looking at is the tools that are being deployed without regulation, without ethical guardrails, without care for the actual

damage they're doing to human creatives in these industries. And then to think, if you project that forward, it gets worse. These models are dependent on human creativity to fuel them, to help them train, to help them get better. They're not going to get much better if there's no more training data. And so even for AI people who are super thrilled about these models and the future that they bring, they should be aware of this and they should be cognizant of the fact that you need to support human creatives in this future because otherwise these models will just shrivel up and die.

Nightshade and Glaze are the projects. Ben Zhao is a professor of computer science at the University of Chicago. Professor Zhao, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Coming up. So at the moment, nobody regulates the atmosphere. Well, that's a problem, right? First, though, let's do the numbers.

Dow Industrials off 274 today, 7 tenths percent, 38,380. The Nasdaq gave back 31 points, about 2 tenths percent, 15,597. gave back 31 points, about two-tenths percent, 15,597. The S&P 500 gave back 15 points, about three-tenths percent, finished at 49.42. Seriously, Powell said the same thing last Wednesday. Killing me. McDonald's cooled three and seven-tenths percent. Today, the fast food giant posted worse than expected revenue in the fourth quarter.

Research firm LSEG cited boycotts related to the conflict in the Middle East for reduced revenue. Chimnaker Nvidia clicked up four and eight tenths percent today after Goldman Sachs raised its target price for the stock. On Semiconductor jumped nine and a half percent as it posted fourth quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that beat analysts' expectations. Bond prices went down. The yield on the 10-year T-note went up 4.16 percent. You're listening to Marketplace. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. Come Sunday, mid-afternoon-ish out here on the West Coast, somewhere north of 100 million people in this economy are going to plop down on the couch, turn on the TV or their device of choice, tune to the CBS broadcast, and watch the Super Bowl broadcast being the operative phrase there. Live sports are one of the things, one of the only things really,

that still get people to traditional television in sizable numbers as we become, slowly but surely, a streaming nation. But the hyper-competitive world of streaming ain't doing so hot either. Marketplaces of NMR checks in on where the streaming business is at and where it might be headed. First, come with me on a journey into the past. We're going back a decade. Crop tops are everywhere. Kesha is on the radio. And you can cut the cord and get Netflix for $7.99 a month. That gets you your pick of sitcoms and procedurals to have on while you fold laundry. Plus original, prestige-y stuff like Orange is

the New Black. And if something's missing from that massive catalog, it's probably on the other streamer for just $5.99 a month. But Hulu and Netflix were selling us those cheap subscriptions and big content libraries at a pretty steep loss. That's the Silicon Valley model, is to first focus on getting scale and then worry about profitability later. Eleanor Patterson, a professor of media studies at Auburn University, says that model didn't factor in more competition. And before long, big tech gets in on the action. Amazon Prime Video launched worldwide in 2016. Then legacy media companies like Disney, HBO, and NBC start launching streaming arms.

When they started their own service, they're like, I'm going to take back all of my IP. Popular shows get spread out, so now you need three or four subscriptions to watch them all. Oh, and today, the cost of those subscriptions is way up. But good news, you can opt for the cheaper, ad-supported tiers streamers are pushing as they try to claw their way to profitability. cheaper ad-supported tiers streamers are pushing as they try to claw their way to profitability. Still, your monthly streaming bill is getting closer to the cost of the cable bundle you ditched a decade ago. You know, it's a big, big mess is what I'm trying to say. The business has been through the ringer over the past three to four years. Jay Christopher Hamilton is a professor at Syracuse and an entertainment attorney.

One of the things we've come out of this learning is there's no escaping Jay Christopher Hamilton is a professor at Syracuse and an entertainment attorney. One of the things we've come out of this learning is there's no escaping consumers wanting their cake and eating it too. He says streamers have to figure out how to keep delivering us popular shows at a price we can stomach, which is tough in such a crowded field. But if you listen to what these CEOs are talking about, I think we're going to see a much more condensed media space. And a few years down the road. Very well might end up being just three major players.

Sounds a lot like the old days of TV. Speaking of which, Brandon Katz with Parrot Analytics says the ads streamers have been introducing are here to stay. With pricing pressure, they are going to continue to try to convert as many people to the ad tier as possible. And on the content front. I would expect a creative dumbing down. During that growth at all costs era, Katz says lots of highbrow, artistically daring shows, think Fleabag, got the green light. But now with the focus on revenue and profit. Everyone is looking for that broad appear commercial fare. Because it turns out most of us just want to watch hokey sitcoms and old network dramas on a loop. Here's Eleanor Patterson again, the Auburn professor. My students, I asked them what their favorite show is. They're like

Friends, Seinfeld. Patterson says it's telling that streaming's most popular commodities are decades-old network shows, and that so many of us are grumpy about how decentralized streaming has become, with no TV guide telling us what to watch. People want that all-in-one box. They want that all-in-one magic stick that just like has everything. And I bet people would pay a hundred bucks a month for that. You know, they want the cable without calling it cable. Streaming is killing off the competition and also becoming it. But maybe that's what we all want. I'm Savannah Marr for Marketplace. As you debate whether or not you're going to spend $3,500 on Apple's new goggles, there is more mundane, granted, but also more deeply felt news of how that almost $3 trillion in market capitalization company separates its customers from their money.

Starting next month, Apple is going to let users in Europe download apps from outside its own app store. And by let, I mean is being forced to by the EU's new Digital Markets Act. But just because they gotta doesn't mean Apple is going to make that easy. Marketplace's Megan McCarty Carino reports. When you buy an Apple device, the sales pitch goes, you're buying into a whole system of software and services. And the app store has been at the center of that model, says Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. For Apple, it's the crown jewel. Because to reach the universe of 2.2 billion Apple devices in use, app developers have had to pay a 30 percent commission. An alternative App Store would take a wrecking ball to that walled garden model, in theory.

Apple is not going to give away the keys to the kingdom. They'll fight it. They'll navigate it. Last month, Apple released its guidelines for third-party app stores and payment systems in Europe. And they are complicated by design, says Eric Sufert, an independent analyst with Mobile Dev Memo. I don't think any developer will take this seriously.

Because those aiming to break free of Apple will still be subject to a review process and a 50 euro cent fee every time an app is downloaded, even if it's free. The freemium business model is predicated on a zero cost of distribution. That's the only way the freemium business model works. Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would not build its own app store in Europe because of the onerous new rules. But even if it did pencil out, app developers face a bigger hurdle in decamping to a third-party app store, says Daniel Newman, CEO of Futurum Group. Will consumers go there? He says users probably prefer the convenience and predictability of a single

centralized app store. Are you going to go through that process of having to, you know, go around to save a few dollars? They're going to have more risk for security, data, privacy. He says it's a case where what's good for the consumer might not be good for competition. I'm Megan McCarty Carino for Marketplace. In the year 2023, more than 2,600 things, rockets, satellites, landers, what have you, were launched into space from planet Earth. That's according to data from the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs analysis, thanks to the research publication Our World in Data. Space is what you might call a growth industry.

So as the number of things being put into space increases, so too will all the exhaust and debris from those launches. Shannon Hall wrote about space pollution for the New York Times the other day. And question one when we spoke was, what are the rules for controlling it? So at the moment, nobody regulates the atmosphere. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Aviation Administration do not assess the environmental impacts of rocket launches on our atmosphere. So let me actually get that straight. So SpaceX or Blue Origin or NASA or whoever launches rockets, SpaceX specifically willy-nilly, right, because it's a booming business, there's nobody who's keeping an eye on the emissions from those rockets? Not with respect to the atmosphere. Say more about that, because it cannot possibly be good for the environment.

Yeah. So scientists are concerned that rocket exhaust will collect in the atmosphere. Many scientists compared this pollution to that from a volcanic eruption. the atmosphere. Many scientists compared this pollution to that from a volcanic eruption. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it belched enough sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere to heat the stratosphere. And scientists are concerned that the black carbon or soot released from current rockets will act much like those volcanic particles. Now, the stratosphere is home to the ozone layer, which protects us from the sun's harmful radiation. So that means that as these launches skyrocket, they could actually raise the risk of skin cancer, cataracts, and immune disorders, all because they have damaged the ozone layer. We actually do have data on what the emissions are, right? I mean, you describe, I think in the beginning of this piece, a NASA pilot and scientist flying through the plume of a SpaceX rocket. Yeah.

So we do have several initial studies. One study, for example, found that the soot from rockets is nearly 500 times as efficient at heating the atmosphere as soot released from sources like airplanes. The study that you referenced actually has to do with the opposite side of the equation. So not only do these companies have to loft satellites and orbit via rockets, many satellites have a lifetime of 5 to 15 years. And at that point, they're actually designed to fall back to the earth and disintegrate in the atmosphere. But that leaves a stream of pollutants in their wake. You point out that the scientists who are expressing concern about this,

legitimate concern about this, do not want to strangle the space economy. And you point to things like Starlink, which is Elon Musk's company that delivers internet to underserved areas and a bunch of other stuff geopolitically, but that's a whole other podcast. They're aware of the business opportunity that space is, right? Oh, absolutely. And there are huge benefits from these satellites. I mean, consider a natural disaster. Communication satellites could provide data to hospitals and local businesses, helping keep everything afloat so that disaster survivors could get the help they need. That's huge. Are people actually working on the challenges that you lay out in this piece? Yes. And I think it's important to note that scientists don't want to stop the booming space economy. They want to do the research, which is what they're working on now, to know how many

rocket launches will be too many so that we don't find ourselves in a position where we have already caused harm to the environment and it's too late. Shannon Hall, she's a freelance science journalist writing recently in the New York Times about space and rockets and pollution and challenges therein. Shannon, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. This final note on the way out today, which comes with a nod to the dangerous storms that we are having out here in California. Saw this on CNN. It's data from the National Flood Insurance Program that only 52,000 homes and businesses in the Southern California counties covered by the governor's disaster declaration are covered by flood insurance program that only 52,000 homes and businesses in the Southern California counties

covered by the governor's disaster declaration are covered by flood insurance. That's 52,000 that are covered. There are almost 8 million households in the whole disaster area. Our daily production team includes Andy Corbin, Aliza Hassan, Richard Cunningham, Maria Hollenhorst, Sarah Leeson, Sean McHenry, and Sophia Terenzio. I'm Kyle Rizdell. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM. All over the country. We need to improve reading in Wisconsin.

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