Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 09/15 – Maybe Don’t Have AI Write Obituaries

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Big fine in Europe of TikTok. Apple thinks it can fix that iPhone radiation issue with a software update. The whole Unity controversy has gotten crazy. Maybe it’s a bad idea to have AI write obituaries. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions. Links: TikTok fined $379M in EU for failing to keep kids’ data safe (TechCrunch) Apple moves to defuse French iPhone 12 dispute as EU scrutiny steps up (Reuters) MGM hack followed failed bid to rig slot machines, ‘Scattered Spider’ group claims (Financial Times) Video-Game Company Unity Closes Offices Following Death Threat (Bloomberg) Microsoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player "Useless" (Futurism) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: Startup That Lets You Instantly Talk in Foreign Language Targets a Nasdaq IPO at $1 Billion Value (Bloomberg) From $1 Billion to Almost Worthless: FaZe Clan Runs Out of Hype (Bloomberg) The Pumpkin Spice Latte just turned 20. This is how we got here. (Washington Post) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Friday, September 15th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. Big fine in Europe for TikTok.

Apple thinks he can fix that iPhone radiation issue with a software update. The whole unity controversy has gotten crazy. Maybe it's a bad idea to have AI write obituaries and, of course, the weekend long-read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Ireland's Data Protection Commission has fined TikTok $345 million after finding it in breach of GDPR in relation to how it handles children's data and has given TikTok three months to comply. Quoting TechCrunch, in all, TikTok has been found to have violated eight articles of the GDPR, aka breaches of lawfulness, fairness and transparency of data processing, data minimization,

data security, responsibility of the controller, data protection by design and default, and the rights of the data subject, including minors, to receive clear communications about data processing and to receive information on receipts of their personal data. So it's quite the laundry list of failings. The decision did not find a breach in relation to methods used by TikTok for age verification, which has been a flashpoint for it with a number of regional regulators. But the Irish watchdog notes the decision does record a violation of Article 24-1 of the GDPR, as it found TikTok did not implement appropriate technical and organizational measures, since it did not properly consider certain risks posed to under 13s,

who gained access to the platform as the default account setting, allowed anyone on or off TikTok to view social media content posted by those users. Settings TikTok had implemented at this time were found to have enabled child users to progress through the sign-up process in such a manner that their accounts were set to public by default. Quote, this also meant that, for example, videos that were posted to child users' accounts were public by default, comments were enabled publicly by default, the duet and stitch features were enabled by default, the DPC notes. A child's account could also be

paired with an unverified non-child user via a so-called family pairing feature, but TikTok did not verify whether the user was actually the child user's parent or guardian. The non-child user could use the feature to enable direct messages for child users above the age of 16, thereby making this feature less strict for the child user per the DPC's findings, end quote. A whole bunch of updates to various stories we've talked about this week now. First up, arm closed up 24.69% to $63.59 on its NASDAQ debut yesterday, valuing the company at $65.24 billion. So, decent pop, decent enough that this has inspired Instacart to raise its proposed IPO price range, seeking now to sell 22 million shares at $28 to $30 each, up from a $26 to $28 range.

Apple plans a software update for iPhone 12s in France to address radiation concerns, saying, quote, this is related to a specific testing protocol used by the French regulators, quoting Reuters. Researchers have conducted a vast number of studies over the last two decades to assess the health risks of mobile phones. According to the World Health Organization, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by them. But the radiation warning in France, based on results of tests that differ from those carried out in other countries, has prompted concerns across Europe. Belgium said it would conduct its own review, while Germany said it was in touch with French authorities to find a European Union-wide solution. It was not immediately clear if that might include a software upgrade across the block.

Italy, meanwhile, is set to ask Apple to upgrade the software on iPhone 12s there, according to a government source. The Dutch Authority for Digital Infrastructure said it was also conducting its own investigation due in two weeks and was in contact with Apple as well as German and French authorities. The agency said it had received calls from concern consumers. The French government welcomed Apple's software update saying it would be swiftly tested and should allow for sales of the relatively old iPhone 12 model launched in 2020 to resume, end quote. Experts say MGM was likely hacked by Scattered Spider in English-speaking group that previously used help desk calls to get passwords. Also, this group planned to hack the slot machines, because again,

that's where the money is, quoting the Financial Times. a trick reminiscent of a heist movie. The hackers who allegedly breached the security at MGM's casinos this month originally planned to manipulate the software running the slot machines and quote, recruit mules to gamble and milk the machines. Thwarted in that plan, the group fell back on a decade-old formula that has reaped billions of dollars for ransomware operators. They siphoned off the company's data, encrypted some of it, and are now demanding cryptocurrency to release it. In an interview over the telegram messaging app, a person who claimed to represent the group described the techniques used to evade detection in the systems of one of the world's largest casino operators.

While their claims cannot be independently verified, security researchers familiar with the group nicknamed Scattered Spider, said the technical descriptions given to the Financial Times matched attacks on at least 100 other victims over the past two years. MGM, which has a market capitalization of $14.6 billion, did not reply to emails seeking comment. The Nevada Gaming Control Board said overnight that the state's governor, Joe Lombardo, was working with law enforcement on the hack, which left thousands of guests without functioning key cards for their hotel rooms and forced slot machines offline in MGM casinos around the U.S. The owner of some of those storied casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, including the Belagio, the Aria, the Cosmopolitan, and Mandalay Bay, had to resort to manual mode, gambling,

including cash payouts and some handwritten IOUs, according to the company and reports on social media. The person declined to say how the group initially gained access to MGM's systems. In the past, Scattered Spider has been known to use well-rehearsed phone calls to help desks to gain new passwords or generate multi-factor authentication codes for an employee they had surveilled through social media and compromised their corporate phones SIM through a practice called SIMFishing, end quote. This has gotten out of hand. Unity was forced to cancel a town hall and close two offices after receiving what the company says was a credible death threat following its controversial install fee news. quoting Bloomberg. The company was, quote, made aware of a potential threat to some of our offices and has taken immediate and proactive measures to ensure the safety of our employees. A spokesperson said in a statement, Unity is closing offices that could be potential targets on Thursday and Friday, and is, quote, fully cooperating with law enforcement. Unity, the maker of tools and

technology for video games set off a firestorm on September 12th by announcing it will begin charging developers a new fee for games made using its software called the Unity Engine. Beginning January 1st, makers of Unity games will have to pay per user installation after a certain threshold is reached. Some video game makers accused Unity of violating its own terms of service and lamented that the new changes could threaten their livelihoods. Many game studios put out harshly worded statements urging the technology company to reconsider. Unity Chief Executive Officer John Ricitello was set to talk to staff Thursday morning, but instead said the meeting would be canceled as a precaution. offices in Austin, Texas, and San Francisco were closed, end quote.

Also not cool. Microsoft's Start News website has published a garbled, seemingly AI-generated obituary for former NBA player Brandon Hunter, quoting Futurism. Brandon Hunter, useless at 42, read the article, which was quickly called out on social media. The rest of the brief report is even more incomprehensible, informing readers that Hunter handed away after achieving vital success as a head for the Bobcats and performed in 67 video games. Condemnation for the disrespectful article was swift and forceful. AI should not be writing obituaries, posted one reader. Pay your damn writers, MSN. The most dystopian part of this is that AI, which replaces us, will be as obtuse and stupid as this translation, wrote a Redditor,

but for the moneyman, it's enough, end quote. It's not the first time Microsoft, a major backer of ChatGPT Maker OpenAI has embarrassed itself with AI-generated content on MSN. It made headlines last month, for instance, after publishing a similarly incoherent AI-generated travel guide for Ottawa, that bizarrely recommended that tourists visit a local food bank. It deleted the bizarre article after criticism. The article was not published by an unsupervised AI, Jeff Jones, a senior director at Microsoft claimed to The Verge at the time. In this case, the content was generated through a combination of algorithmic techniques

with human review, not a large language model or AI system, end quote. The full story is that back in 2020, MSN fired the team of human journalists responsible for vetting content published on its platform. As a result, as we reported last year, the platform ended up syndicating large numbers of sloppy articles about topics as dubious as Bigfoot and mermaids, which it deleted after we pointed them out. You might expect that these repeated self-inflicted embarrassments would lead MSN to increase its scrutiny of content shared with its vast audience. working to ensure this type of content isn't posted in future, Jones told the Verge last month, but they don't seem to be succeeding. MSN promises on its About Us page that it ensures the content

we show aligns with our values through human oversight. But looking at some of the material being published on its site, that claim strains credibility, end quote. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. First up, there's a tech company I've never heard of that is angling to IPO on the NASDAQ sometime in the near future. Quote, the maker of Japan. the brand's most popular voice and camera translator is fighting to differentiate itself as it pursues a listing on NASDAQ in two years at a billion dollar valuation. Pocket Talk, spun out of Tokyo-based Soursnet Corp, sells handheld devices that can translate 85 languages. Since its launch in 2017, the startup sold a total of 1.1 million machines with its recent Pocket Talks model

priced at $249. It plans to sell another 1 million in 11 countries within three years through a partnership with SoftBank Group's mobile unit. Shares of parent source next jumped as much as 10% in Tokyo on the news Friday, the biggest intraday gain in seven weeks. Pocket Talk's endeavor at a global rollout and U.S. listing stands out among Japanese startups, which tend to stay tethered to their home market, the world's third largest economy. Translation apps have come a long way, but fall short in making conversations sound natural, the company said. Pocket Talk seeks to provide the kind of nuanced and context-based interpreting seen at high-level international summits. then I did not know this, but it turns out the Faze clan, that group of video game stars and

YouTube celebrities, went public last year, I guess through a SPAC or something, and we're going to be valued at close to a billion dollars. Well, rough year, because they're now a penny stock, almost worthless. What happened? Again, rough year, quoting Bloomberg. With losses mounting and the shares tumbling, the company fired CEO Lee Trink 55 on September 9th, replacing him on an interim basis with Chief Financial Officer Christoph Pockler. Interviews with seven former employees describe a mismanaged organization marked by poor spending decisions, excessive pay, and expansion into unprofitable categories like e-sports. The company which employed 112 people at year end has been enmeshed in controversies involving its online personalities and announced two rounds

of layoffs this year. The Los Angeles-based phase reported a $48.7 million loss from operations last year, after initially projecting that it would debut on the stock market with a million dollar valuation, its shares have tumbled to 18 cents from $20, reflecting skepticism that the social media activities of young, largely male gamers, could ever be a sustainable business, even if they have millions of fans. Last month in New York, followers of one influencer, not a Faze clan member, set off a riot in Union Square over a giveaway of game consoles. Management, meanwhile, is evaluating its options, including a possible sale of the company. Trink said before he left, the Faze clan, as the group of gamers called themselves, was groundbreaking more than a decade ago when

its teenage founders drew millions of followers to their YouTube channel to watch them play Call of Duty Activision Blizzard's first-person shooter game. Fais's creators pioneered the trick-shot video in which they vanquished opponents after jumping off a building or spinning around. As their popularity grew, the founders brought more talent on board and posted videos about their other interests like skateboarding and pulling pranks. The strategy was simple. Millions of people will watch gamers they admire and advertisers and sponsors will follow. The company now has a roster of 127 internet personalities, posting on sites that include Instagram and Twitch. But translating all those eyeballs into a

profitable business has proved daunting and still alludes the company despite its impressive 512 million social media followers, end quote. Finally, not tech, but interesting. From the Washington Post, pumpkin spice latte turned 20 this year. Here's how it went from something that wasn't a thing to seemingly seasonal ubiquity. Quote, 2003. Starbucks introduces the pumpkin spice latte as a seasonal drink, first testing it out in the D.C. and Vancouver, British Columbia markets. Like so many origin stories, the birth of the now ubiquitous beverage includes moments where the fate of its existence was hardly inevitable. According to the company, the PSL almost wasn't. In customer surveys aimed at creating a new seasonal beverage,

the company hoped to reproduce the success of its wintry peppermint mocha, coffee drinkers were more drawn to caramel and chocolate flavors. But the company's tasers persisted in their faith that pumpkin was the way to go. Rejected names included Fall Harvest Latte. 2010, Instagram, the medium that will make the PSL A Star launches, while Facebook and Twitter, which both debuted to the general public in 2006, helped propel the drink, it was Insta, on which many users obsess over carefully created aesthetics, where the pumpkin spice latte really finds a home. The need users feel for a consistent stream of content makes seasonal shifts, Hello Fall and their visual signifiers,

mom's cup of coffee or kids clutching those back-to-school signs, the coin of the realm. 2015, the bigwigs at Starbucks finally addressed the rust-hued elephant in the room. Namely, that despite its name, there was no actual pumpkin in a pumpkin spice latte. The chain has been mocked for years for this omission, and the coffee gurus finally decide to restore order to the universe by adding actual pumpkin puree into the brew.

2022, one year short of its 20th birthday, the Pumpkin Spice Lattee has fully worked its way into the houndstooth-checked fabric of American culture. Merriam-Webster adds Pumpkin Spice to the dictionary this year, cementing its place in our lexicon, while continuing strong sales signal its place in our hearts. One Washington Post staff writer argues in a review of the PSL-inspired landscape that the flavor has crossed over from novelty to join the likes of strawberry and vanilla. Like death taxes and new Taylor Swift albums, she writes, Pumpkin Spice is now merely a part of the human condition. where it once was seen as a cultural signifier,

now Pumpkin Spice season arrives, like any other meteorological phenomenon. It's here for everyone, like it or not, end quote. I need you now. More than words can say, I need you now. I've got to find a way I need you now. Before I lose my mind, I need you now. Don't know how or why that song,

More Than Words Can Say, popped into my head this morning, but there you go. It's in your head now. That is like literally, the quintessential 80s power pop ballad, right? And yet, go down this rabbit hole with me, it came out exactly 33 years ago, September 1990, so not the 80s. Also, I assumed it was some big 80s band, but no, it's obscure Canadian hair metal band, alias, literally have never heard of them before today. Reached number two in the United States with that song, kept from the

number one spot by Phil Collins's, I wish it would rain down. It's one of only 1,500 songs in history to have achieved million airs status, meaning the song has been played on radio more than a million times. Thank you for joining me on this nostalgic trip back to sixth grade. On that note, enjoy the weekend. Talk to you on Monday.