Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 05/09 – AI Comes To The Drive Through Window

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

More roiling questions about crypto and regulator enforcement. Nintendo’s Switch is getting long in the tooth. AI’s are coming to the Wendy’s drive through lane. An AI startup to protect against AI. And more of what we can expect from Google’s big day tomorrow. Sponsors: Grammarly.com/go Notion.com/ride Links: Coinbase CEO says SEC is on ‘lone crusade,’ dials back on suggestion exchange may relocate (CNBC) Ripple will have spent $200 million fighting SEC lawsuit, CEO says (CNBC) U.S. Crypto Exchange Bittrex Files for Bankruptcy in Delaware (CoinDesk) Nintendo Warns of Big Slowdown in Switch Console Sales (Bloomberg) Apple announces Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro coming to iPad (9to5Mac) Wendy’s, Google Train Next-Generation Order Taker: an AI Chatbot (WSJ) GPTZero App Seeks to Thwart AI Plagiarism in Schools, Online Media (Bloomberg) Alphabet to unveil A.I. updates at Google I/O, showing off creative writing and coding capabilities (CNBC) 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 TechMeme right home for Tuesday, May 9th, 2023. I'm Brian McCalla today. More roiling questions about crypto and regulator enforcement. Nintendo's Switch is getting long in the tooth.

AIs are coming to the Wendy's drive-thru lane, an AI startup to protect you from AI, and more of what we can expect from Google's Big Day tomorrow. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. A bunch of crypto headlines this morning related to that growing belief among crypto companies that U.S. regulators want to passive-aggressively put them out of business. On the one hand, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong walked back his suggestions that the company could be forced to leave the U.S. But did say that the U.S. SEC is on what he called a lone crusade against crypto, quoting CNBC. The SEC is a bit of an outlier here. Armstrong told CNBC's Dan Murphy in an interview

in Dubai Monday. There's kind of a lone crusade, if you will, with Gary Gensler, the chair there, and he has taken a more anti-crypto view for some reason. I don't think he's necessarily trying to regulate the industry as much as maybe curtail it. But he's created some lawsuits, and I think it's quite unhelpful for the industry in the U.S. writ large, but it also is an opportunity for Coinbase to go get that clarity from the courts that we feel will really benefit the crypto industry and also the U.S. more broadly, end quote. Armstrong also rode back on a suggestion he made last month that the company may be forced to move its headquarters overseas. Coinbase is not going to relocate overseas, Armstrong said, we're always going to have a U.S. presence, but the U.S. is a little bit behind right now.

I would say we're seeing more thoughtful approaches, for instance, in the EU. They've actually already passed comprehensive crypto legislation. The U.K. has been incredibly welcoming, and for us there, and that's been a hub where we've decided to serve the U.K. market, end quote. Contrast that with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who says the company will have spent $200 million fighting an SEC lawsuit accusing him, a co-founder, and ripple of selling unregistered securities. Quoting CNBC, with the SEC we will spend, this is the first time I've shared this publicly, but by the time all's said and done, we will have spent $200 million defending ourselves against a lawsuit, which from its very beginning, people were like, well, this doesn't make a lot of

sense. Garlinghouse said during a fireside chat with CNBC's Dan Murphy at the Dubai Fintech Summit. The SEC accuses Ripple, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larson of breaching U.S. securities laws by selling XRP, a cryptocurrency closely associated with Ripple, without first registering it with the regulator. Ripple contests the SEC's allegations, maintaining the view that XRP should be considered a digital currency rather than a security. Ripple isn't the only company the SEC has pursued enforcement action against. The watchdog required Cracken, a crypto exchange, to stop offering its so-called staking service, that offers users' interests-like yields on their tokens after settling charges that it sold

unregistered securities. In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission initiated a lawsuit against Ripple alleging the company and its executives illegally sold XRP a cryptocurrency its founders created in 2012 to investors without first registering it as a security. Ripple disputes the claim, saying the token should not be considered an investment contract and is used in its businesses to facilitate cross-border transactions between banks and other financial institutions, end quote. Speaking of that, an analysis from the Wall Street Journal says that of the 76 coins, the SEC considers securities, 16 of them can right now be traded on major U.S. crypto exchanges. Tocans labeled as securities in 2022 almost tripled year on year,

so something's probably going to have to give here soon. Related, unrelated, I don't know. Crypto Exchange BitTex has filed for bankruptcy in Delaware, quoting coin desk. The exchange believes it has more than 100,000 creditors with estimated liabilities and assets, both within the $500 million to $1 billion range, according to a court filing shared by Randall Reese of Chapter 11 dockets, a bankruptcy tracker. BitTex's U.S. branch has had a rough 2023 so far, laying off 80 people in February and announcing in March that it would end all operations by the end of April. These changes have not affected BitTex Global, the non-U.S. crypto exchange. Despite BitTex's impending exit from the U.S., the SEC sued it in mid-April on allegations

it operated a National Securities Exchange, broker and clearing agency. The SEC also sued former BitTex CEO Bill Shihara and BitTex Global. BitTex Global CEO Oliver Lynch said last month that the exchange intended to fight these charges in court, but a bankruptcy proceeding may make this more difficult, end quote. Nintendo says it expects to sell 15 million Nintendo Switch consoles this fiscal year, which would be below analyst estimates of 15.7 million. The company sold 18 million units in the year ending in March, quoting Bloomberg. We try to not only put one system in every home, but several in every home or even one for every person.

Nintendo said in a statement accompanying its earnings report Tuesday, the company sold 18 million switch units in the year to March and reported operating profit of 9.8 billion yen for the quarter down 22% on the previous year. Its quarterly net sales were down 18% to 306.5 billion yen. The hybrid switch console released in 2017 is slowing down more quickly than the company had once anticipated, and there are no imminent plans for a successor either. Sustaining the switch's sales momentum will be difficult in its seventh year. President Shuntaro Furukawa said on a call after the results, our goal of selling 15 minutes, unit this fiscal year is a bit of a stretch, but we will do our best to bolster demand going into

the holiday season so that we can achieve the goal, end quote. The company lacked a blockbuster release in the first quarter, though it plans to release a much anticipated sequel to the legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild this Friday, and also got a tailwind from the April opening of the Super Mario Brothers movie, a well-received collaboration with animation studio Illumination. Still, hardware sales are unlikely to rebound now that Nintendo faces rising competitive pressure from Sony, which is finally able to ramp up production and deliveries of its PlayStation 5 and aims to sell more than 25 million units this year, end quote. I don't know, Nintendo. The McCullough household is doing its best to keep things flowing. Not only did both kids get their own switches from Santa

this past year, but starting Friday, this household is basically going to be all Zelda all the time. I cannot remember the last time I personally have anticipated a game or anything really as much as this Breath of the Wild sequel. And the kids, I mean, they're so into it, I can actually get them to behave just by offering to let them watch Tears of the Kingdom Play-Thru videos on YouTube. We're going to do a family playthrough first, and then I'm sure I'm going to have to buy up and let each of the kids have their own games for their own devices. So seriously, Nintendo, I'm doing my part to try to refill your coffers. And also, 100% of my free time is about to become Zelda going forward.

They finally did it. Apple this morning announced Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are both coming to the iPad, available as subscriptions beginning on May 23rd. Final Cut, though, requires an iPad with an M1 chip or newer, and Logic needs an A12 or newer, quoting 9 to 5 Mac. Final Cut Pro is Apple's professional video editing software that has been exclusive to Mac before now. The same is true for Logic Pro. Apple's professional audio editing software for Mac, both apps will land on the iPad, later this month. Apple says both Final Cut and Logic for iPad have been designed with a touch-first interface that turns the iPad into the Ultimate Mobile Studio. For years, Apple has only provided iPad versions of iMovie and Garage Band, but these tools were no match for the pro-level Mac counterparts.

Instead, Apple leaned on third-party app developers to provide specific needs. iPad users expect from video and audio editing software. iPad users can unlock Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro on iPad for $4.99 per month, 4999 per year per app. Apple is also offering a one-month free trial of each app. For comparison, Final Cut Pro for Mac is a one-time purchase of $299, and Logic Pro cost $199. Well, expect this to be just the beginning. Something tells me I'm going to read headlines like this to you for years to come, quoting the Wall Street Journal. Wendy's is automating its drive-through service using an artificial intelligence chatbot powered by natural language software developed by Google and trained to understand the myriad ways customers order off the menu. The Dublin-Ohio-based fast food chains chatbot

will be officially rolled out in June at a company-owned restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. Wendy's said the goal is to streamline the ordering process and prevent long lines in the drive-thru lanes from turning customers away, said Wendy's chief executive Todd Pentegore. Wendy's didn't disclose the cost of the initiative beyond saying the company has been working with Google in areas like data analytics, machine learning, and cloud tools since 2001. It will be very conversational, Mr. Pentagon, said. about the new artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, you won't know you're talking to anybody but an employee, he said. To do that, Wendy's software engineers have been working with Google

to build a fine-tuned generative AI application on top of Google's own large language model or LLM. Wendy's customized language model includes unique terms, phrases, and acronyms customers have come to use when ordering its burgers, fries, and other items, such as the JBC for Junior Bacon Cheeseburger or Biggie bags for various combinations of burgers. burgers, chicken nuggets, and soft drinks. Adding to the complexity, Wendy's milkshakes are called Frosties, though customers may not always use the branded term. You may think driving by and speaking into a drive-thru is an easy problem for AI to solve, but it's actually one of the hardest, said Thomas Curion, CEO of Google Cloud, the company's Cloud Computing Division. Among other challenges,

Mr. Curian said, there can be a lot of extraneous noise in a family car, such as music or children in the back seat. The software has to cut through these sounds and focus on the person making an order, and the kind of language they are using, a process that requires a lot of fine-tuning, Mr. Curian said. At the same time, people sometimes change their minds midway through an order, and the application has to be able to capture that, he said. It's a very complicated technical problem. The application has also been programmed to upsell customers offering larger sizes, frosties, or daily specials. Once the chatbot takes an order, it appears on a screen for line cooks, and from there, prepared meals are relayed to the pickup window and handed off to drivers by a worker.

Kevin Vascani, Wendy's chief information officer, said test runs in recent months at the Columbus restaurant have been favorable. It's at least as good as our best customer service representative and it's probably on average better, Mr. Vesconi said, adding that part of the goal of the pilot rollout is to show Wendy's franchisees that the technology works and can improve service speed and consistency, end quote. The AI hype is so all pervasive at this point that there's basically no angle that can't be played here. Did I ever tell you, about GPT Zero, an app that was developed to detect when something had been written by AI. It was controversial in some circles because people didn't like being accused of plagiarism, essentially, but it gained

1.2 million users since January, and so now co-founder Edward Tien has raised $3.5 million to launch origin aimed at saving journalism by detecting AI disinformation. Quoting Bloomberg, Edward TN, a 22-year-old Princeton University student studying computer science and journalism, developed an app called GPT Zero to deter the misuse of the viral chatbot chat ch pt in classrooms. The app has racked up 1.2 million registered users since January. He's now launching a new program called Origin aimed at saving journalism by distinguishing AI-generated disinformation from fact in online media. TN has secured $3.5 million in funding co-led by Uncork Capital and Neo Capital, with tech investors, including

Imad Mastaki, Chief Executive Officer of Stability AI, and Jack Altman. GPTZero analyzes the randomness of text known as perplexity and the uniformity of this randomness within the text, called burstiness, to identify when AI is being used. The tool has an accuracy rate of 99% for human text and 85% on AI text, according to the company. The 10-person team now wants to empower journalism and is talking with large media organizations like the BBC and industry executives, including New York Times. former chief executive officer Mark Thompson to discuss partnerships for AI detection and analysis.

The company also sees its technology for use in fields of trust and safety, government, copyright, finance, law, and more. We believe we can get the smartest people working on AI detection in a room together, said TN. The field of detection is so new, and we believe it deserves more attention and support, end quote. But the lack of total reliability of the detection tool has posed a dilemma for educators. Even if a teacher finds a suspicious article from a student that's flagged with a 70% likelihood of being AI generated, as long as the accuracy of those detection tools isn't 100%, it's very hard for teachers to take decisive action. I don't think we know what to do with a flag that says there might be an issue, said Jack Cushman, director of the Harvard Library Innovative

Lab, which explores topics such as the impact of the internet. All you can do at that point is talk with a student and say, you might have committed academic dishonesty, according to this tool, end quote. Meanwhile, the definition of plagiarism is evolving with the emergence of AI. It is going to challenge the whole notion of academic honesty because sometimes having a tool that recommends a sentence or to help with the citations is going to be legitimate in the same way that using a calculator to do math work is, he said. The best answer is you shouldn't let it write the whole thing, end quote. There's also another startup out there, peak metrics, that helps governments detect and thwart AI-generated disinformation and deep fakes.

Finally today, reminder that tomorrow is Google I.O. Expect the announce of a foldable pixel phone. Expect the revamping of search, as we discussed yesterday. And according to CNBC, expect a lot of AI announces. CNBC says Google plans to announce generative AI updates, including launching Palm 2, a general use LLM supporting 100 plus languages. Quote, artificial intelligence is going to be. be a central theme at Google's annual developer conference on Wednesday, as the company is planning

to announce a number of generative AI updates, including launching a general use large language model CNBC has learned. According to internal documents about Google I.O. viewed by CNBC, the company will unveil Palm 2, its most recent and advanced LLM. Palm 2 includes more than 100 languages and has been operating under the internal code name, Unified Language Model. It's also performed a broad range of coding and math tests, as well as creative writing tests and analysis. At the event, Google will make announcements on the theme of how AI is, quote, helping people reach their full potential, including generative experiences to barred and search. The documents show.

CEO Sundar Pichai will be speaking to a live crowd of developers as he pitches his company's AI advancements. Google first announced the Palm Language Model in April of 2022. In March of this year, the company launched an API for Palm, alongside a number of AI enterprise tools, it says will help businesses generate text, images, code, videos, audio, and more from simple natural language prompts. Last month, Google said it's medical LLM called Med Palm 2 can answer medical exam questions at an expert doctor level and is accurate 85% of the time. Google also plans to share advancements to Bard and search with generative experiences including Bard being used for

coding, math, and logic, as well as expansions to Japanese and Korean languages the documents show. The company has been working on a series of more powerful Bard models and officially launched the tool as an experiment in March, end quote. Again, reminder that the show is going to be late tomorrow so I can cover I.O. Like possibly really late, like 6 p.m. late. late. And actually, Thursday show is going to be late as well because I'm going to be attending a different tech companies event here in New York City in person early Thursday morning. It's embargoed, so I can't tell you about that now.

But just to notice that Thursday show will be a tad late as well, not as late as tomorrow's, but later. I have one more big ask for you. And actually, it's the potential to maybe go into business with me. you all were so helpful in finding me help for my Google Ads campaigns for Resumayriders.com, but I'm also seeing all these new AI resume bots out there. Number one, is there a marketplace you know of where I can maybe go buy one of these bots off the shelf? Like I have some great domains that I could use to launch these bots with, but I don't have time to build one myself.

So number one, can anyone recommend me a place where I can buy one of these newfangled resume bots, services, software tools, and re-skin them with a killer new brain? That's number one. That's my preferred route. But number two, if anyone out there thinks they could spin up a great resume bot really quickly, I can pay or I can cut you in on some of the revenue. Essentially, we could go in the AI resume writing business together. Again, my preference is for option number one because it's quicker.

But if you think you could help with option number two, I mean, I've been in the resume writing business for 23 years. It's a good business. Get in touch. at Brian at Techmeme.com. If you can help with either option, talk to you tomorrow afternoon.