Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 12/06 – Is Elon’s Neuralink Cruel To Animals?

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

Is the government investigating Neuralink for animal cruelty? Why is Microsoft increasing prices for Xbox games? How much does it cost every time you ask ChatGPT a question? Is Meta really going to stop allowing you to post news links, or is this a bluff? And is that Arizona chip plant becoming a bigger deal every day? Sponsors: Masterworks.com/ride* Storyblok.com/ridehome Links: Elon Musk’s Neuralink is reportedly facing a federal probe on animal welfare grounds (The Verge) Exclusive: Musk’s Neuralink faces federal probe, employee backlash over animal tests (Reuters) Google Pixel 7 just got a bunch of exciting features — here’s what’s new (Tom's Guide) Microsoft Raising Prices on New, First-Party Games Built for Xbox Series X|S to $70 in 2023 (IGN) @sama's Tweets about ChatGPT Google Search brings continuous scrolling to desktop (The Verge) Facebook threatens to ban news from platform if U.S. bill passes (MarketWatch) TSMC triples Arizona chip investment to $40bn (FT) Our podcast TikTok account: techmeme_ride_home * “net returns” refers to the annualized internal rate of return net of all fees and costs, calculated from the offering closing date to the sale date. IRR may not be indicative of Masterworks paintings not yet sold and past performance is not indicative of future results. See important Reg A disclosures: Masterworks.com/cd  Masterworks’ offerings are filed with the SEC, view all past and current offerings here: https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=masterworks&match=&filenum=&State=&Country=&SIC=&myowner=exclude&action=getcompany Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Tuesday, December 6, 22. I'm Brian McCullough. Today is the government investigating Neurrelink for animal cruelty. Why is Microsoft increasing prices for Xbox games? How much does it cost every time you ask chat GPT a question? Is Meta really going to stop allowing you to post news links or is this a bluff? And is that Arizona chip plant becoming a bigger deal every day? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. sources are telling Reuters that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is probing Neurrelink for potential animal welfare violations after complaints surfaced that its animal testing is being rushed, quoting the verge. Although Reuters says that it's unclear how wide-ranging the probe is, the news agency details a range of concerns over animal welfare raised in interviews with more than 20 current and former Neurrelink employees. These include reports that in one experiment, 25 out of 60 pigs allegedly had the wrong size of device installed, As part of a study, while on another occasion, two separate pigs had devices installed on the wrong vertebrae, leading to one needing to be euthanized to end its suffering.

Neurrelink's aim is to develop ways for the human brain to interface directly with computers to help treat a range of neurological conditions and even help paralyze people walk. So far, the company has made a number of public demonstrations of its technology being used by animals, including showing a monkey playing pong with its brain and another typing on a computer using an implant. It is common for animals used in scientific tests to be killed after experiments are completed so that their autopsies can provide for their data. But current and former Neurrelink employees interviewed by Reuters said that testing mistakes can lead to excess deaths by requiring tests to be repeated. They can also make the resulting data less accurate. Reuters reports that Neurlink has killed around 1,500 animals since 2018.

None of this is firm evidence of wrongdoing, and Reuters notes that NeurLink has passed all USDA inspections, but employees have reportedly raised concerns internally that Musk's drive for quick progress has created an environment filled with what Reuters calls, quote, underprepared and overstressed staffers scrambling to meet deadlines, end quote. Musk's attempts to motivate employees to work faster, reportedly included telling staff to imagine they had a bomb strapped to their heads. Reuters says the CEO also wrote in an email in February this year, quote, In general, we are simply not moving fast enough.

It's driving me nuts, end quote. See, that's the thing. I've heard that Neurrelink has a lot of competitors, some of whom seem to be further along with this technology the Neurlink is. So I guess if employees at Neurrelink are the ones blowing the whistle that corners are being cut, that's interesting. Quoting the Reuters piece itself. In September, the company responded to employee concerns about its animal testing by holding a town hall to explain its processes. It's soon after opened up the meetings to staff of its federally mandated board that reviews the animal experiments. Neurlink executives have, have said publicly that the company tests animals only when it has exhausted other research options, but documents and company messages suggest otherwise. During a November 30th presentation, the company broadcast on YouTube, for example, Musk said surgeries were used at a later stage of the process to confirm that the device works rather than to test early hypotheses. Quote, we're extremely careful, he said, to make sure that testing is, quote, confirmatory, not exploratory, end quote, using animal testing as a last resort after trying

other methods. In October, a month before Musk's comments, Autumn Sorrels, the head of animal care, ordered employees to scrub exploration from study titles retroactively and stop using it in the future. In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys following experiments since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and sources with direct knowledge of the company's animal testing operations. The sources characterize that figure as a rough estimate because the company does not keep precise records on the number of animals tested and killed, end quote. Google's latest pixel drop is here, and this time it is delivered VPN services and

clearer calls, two of the biggest new features slated to come to the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, quoting Tom's guide. The Google 1 VPN is one of the big extra perks Google announced during the Pixel 7 launch event, offering five years free access to the service. Without a pixel 7, you'd have to subscribe to the $10 a month Google 1 plan. which includes 2 terabytes of storage, 10% off purchases made through the Google Store and other perks. Google One's VPN is designed to offer an extra layer of security to your browsing experience. Though our own testing found that the service didn't let you choose a server yourself or spoof your location

to access foreign streaming catalogs, that makes it less appealing when you have to hand over money. But if it's free, you might as well take advantage of whatever's on offer, right? The Clear Calls feature reduces background noise to make sure you. you can hear what's going on. This feature is powered by the Tensor G2, so unfortunately it won't be heading to older pixel phones in the near future. That isn't the case with the pixel recorder, with the latest update also coming to the Pixel 6 series. I speak from experience when I say the pixel recorder's auto-transcription is a fantastic tool, but it doesn't always produce the neatest results. The latest update should change that, with machine learning, giving the app the ability

to keep tabs on individual speakers and label speech accordingly. If you're regularly recording speech, be it for meetings, interviews, school, or something else, this is going to make your post-recording organization so much easier, end quote. There continues to be concerns that various regulators, including in Europe, but also in the U.S. with the FTC, might block Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In fact, Microsoft's president Brad Smith mentioned recently in an interview that Microsoft has offered Sony a 10-year call-of-duty licensing deal, as Sony has naturally been one of the parties raising concerns about this merger. So the timing of this is maybe not good, but it's probably unrelated. Microsoft also plans to increase the price of new first-party Xbox series

X-N-S games to $70 in 2023, after prices remained steady at $60 since the Xbox 360 era, quoting IGN. Beginning in 2020, games built for Xbox Series X-slash-S, including Forza Motorsport, Redfall and Starfield will cost $69.99 at launch. While Xbox has noted that regional pricing may differ, it is not yet given specifics for other countries. This price reflects the content, scale, and technical complexity of these titles. A Microsoft spokesperson told IGN, as with all games developed by our teams at Xbox, they will also be available with GamePass the same day they launch, end quote. The price increase is unsurprising, giving that earlier this year, Xbox head Phil Spencer, said that the company wouldn't be able to hold its prices forever, but that Xbox would not raise prices ahead of the

2020-Holiday season. Xbox is also not the first company to have done this. Sony, Ubisoft, and Take-2 Interactive have announced $70 price points for certain new games, and Sony specifically has reportedly discussed raising that price even higher. As for whether this will mean Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will also get more expensive, it's hard to say. The PlayStation 5 already got hit with a price increase in a number of countries, and Nintendo has said it's not ruling out an increase on the switch in the future. When Sony announced its console price hike, Microsoft clarified it had no plans to do the same for its current Xboxes, something that Spencer reiterated in September, end quote. In a tweet and follow-up comments yesterday, including a back-and-forth

with Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that ChatGPT has already crossed one million users since launching less than a week ago and says the compute costs for the whole program are pretty steep. Musk specifically asked him what the average cost per chat was, and he replied, quote, average is probably single digit cents per chat, trying to figure out more precisely and also how we can optimize it, end quote. When Ahmad Salim's asked him if it will be free forever, Altman replied, quote, we will have to monetize it somehow at some point, the compute costs are eye-watering. quote. Google has brought continuous scrolling to the desktop in English in the U.S. loading six pages of results all at once, provided you scroll down, following a similar change

on mobile back in October 2021. So I guess say goodbye to footer navigation links, quoting the verge. Google will load six pages of results into a single scroll before offering users a see-more button to show more results. Google says the change is rolling out first for English searches in the U.S. But judging by the rollout of the feature on mobile, it seems safe to expect to see additional markets and languages added over time. The change mirrors the design of most social media feeds where new content is continuously loaded as you scroll down a page rather than asking users to click or tap for more posts. Ideally, it will make searching quicker and should make it less important for websites to be on the first page of search results. Google previously said

that, quote, most people who want additional information will typically browse up to four pages of search. However, given the huge drop-off in clicks that reportedly occurs between the first couple of results and the rest of the first page, the flight to be first site on the page is likely to be just as intense as ever, end quote. Here's the thing. This is obviously just another in a long line of tweaks by Google to get you to click more on the ads in search. But if I were Google, I'd have a bigger worry right now. Yes, we've all tried chat GPT. And a lot of it has been like, write me a song about a walrus and the style of the XX, you know, mimicry stuff. But if you've tried that, it's about as good as my Daniel Plainview impression was yesterday. It's interesting, but not mind-blowing. The really

mind-blowing stuff is when I put in a question like, why was the Holy Roman Empire neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire? And it spat out a legitimately useful and thoughtful answer. I'm not sure how you would monetize something like that, but what if instead of a search engine where you get links to a bunch of pages answering a question you ask, you actually got the answer first. An answer engine, not a search engine. Paid search is the greatest money machine ever created. If I were Google, I'd be all hands on deck trying to protect that franchise. Meta is threatening to remove news from its family of apps. If Congress passes what Meta calls the ill-considered journalism, Competition and Preservation Act. Quoting Market Watch. The Journalism, Competition and Preservation Act was

authored by Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota who is a fierce critic of big tech and an advocate for antitrust legislation. The bill would level the playing field, according to its advocates, by allowing newspapers and other news organizations to ban together to negotiate for a larger share of online advertising revenue. Currently, news organizations must negotiate individually. Collectively, they could force meta and alphabets Google. the two leading digital ad businesses to share the wealth, the bills proponents argue. Newspaper publishers in the U.S. estimate ad sales fell by 52% between 2002 and 2020, according to census data, end quote. I snarked last night on Twitter, wouldn't it make meta's apps better

if there were less of your uncle posting some incendiary news item and more, you know, baby photos? But also, don't bills like this always fundamentally misunderstand how the web works? Like, you don't want to break linking, but also quoting John Schwepe, very smart tactic here, but number one, it's a bluff. Meta needs news more than news needs meta, and two, it's a bluff. Meta tried this in Australia and it backfired, so they caved soon after, end quote. I believe something similar happened in Canada, too, and meta might have backed down there as well. Also, though, quoting Benedict Evans, if you want newspapers to get money that does not come from any economic value they create, be honest and create a subsidy. If you want another,

group of companies to pay for this, be honest and create a tax. I don't particularly like meta or Google, by all means, tax them, and subsidize newspapers. I like newspapers, but I hate the grotesque intellectual dishonesty of this idea, and the secretive and corrupt way it was implemented in Australia is not a coincidence, end quote. Finally today's Silicon Desert, anyone, this new plant in Arizona, which I believe President Biden is visiting to tout later today, continues to become more important. The Financial Times says, TSM plans to more than triple its investment in Arizona to $40 billion, aiming to build a second plant for three nanometer chips starting production in 2026.

Quote, TSM is currently putting $12 billion into construction of a fabrication plant or fab in Arizona that was originally designed to make chips with notionally five nanometer circuit wits, an N5 generation that will be behind the most advanced one by the time the fab opens in 2024. However, at an event on Tuesday marking the installation of the first chip tools at the Phoenix plant, the company will announce plans for a second FAB, which will manufacture more advanced 3-nometer or N-3 chips from 2026, according to White House officials and people close to TSM. TSM will also say that it intends making N4 chips a slightly more advanced level in the FAB originally intended for N5.

In a speech at the event, U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to trumpet the additional investment as a sign that America can lead in manufacturing again and as an endorsement of his economic plan to boost domestic chip production and secure supply chains. But industry experts said the larger TSM presence would still be unable to accommodate cutting-edge products such as new iPhone models when the fabs finally open. They added the investments could provide only minimal supply chain security, giving a stark reminder of the immense risks incurred if China attacked Taiwan, where TSM is headquartered and continues the bulk of its expansion, end quote. but maybe what this story presupposes is maybe they're moving in that direction and we'll get there eventually.

Two late-breaking headlines that came out just as I was recording this both on the regulatory front. Sources say Amazon has reached a deal with the EU to end two antitrust investigations by increasing visibility of rivals products and adding non-prime order options. And sources say the EU privacy regulators have ruled that meta's terms of service shouldn't require users to agree to personalize ads. based on online activity. Meta can apparently appeal this decision, though. More on both of these stories tomorrow, if warranted. Anyway, I ran my first TikTok experiment yesterday. Just a quick video reading the headlines to the top five stories we did on this show yesterday. If you want to check that out, we're TechMeme underscore Ride underscore Home on TikTok. I'll try to remember to put a link to that at the bottom of the show notes. I'm experimenting with doing what this show does, but in a different

mode, kind of like, you know, the top news stories from the world of tech in 15 minutes. That's the podcast. So the top stories from the world of tech in 30 seconds. That's TikTok and YouTube shorts and reels or whatever. I've started an Instagram account two, a Snapchat account. We'll see. Obviously, this is promo for this podcast, but it also could be a quick clip with real utility doing what this show does in real bite-sized form. Again, caveat, caveat, this is an experiment, but maybe there's actual utility there for folks in a different way. Anyway, asking a favor, can you follow our TikTok account, please? Again, that's TechMeme underscore Ride, underscore Home,

and fave the videos. There's another one that's going to come out this afternoon. Watch them all the way through, if you could, just to juice the algorithm. I'll report back on the results we either do or don't see sometime soon. Talk to you tomorrow.