The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Amber Mac On The Bridge -- A Special Year End Edition

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

Lots of good tech talk to wind up a year where tech played such a role.

and hello there peter mansbridge here latest episode of the bridge daily happy new year's eve here we are december 31st who would have thought it? What a year this has been, and goodbye to 2020. Hello tomorrow morning to 2021. It's got to be better than this one. All right, what are we going to do today after a week of really interesting, at least for me, programming on the Bridge Daily,

including yesterday's edition of Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Today, we're going to look at 2020 through a different lens. We're going to look at it through the lens of technology. You know, what went right, what went wrong this year? Because this was a year where there was a huge challenge in front of us, right? And how did we all respond in different ways? How did technology respond? So how are we going to do that? Obviously, you can't talk to me. I'm no tech expert. But we do have somebody special. And I've been mentioning this all week because I'm really looking forward to this discussion.

Our guest on this night, on New Year's Eve, is TV host, author, speaker, president of Amber Mac, Inc. And that, of course, would be Amber Mac. She's going to join us. Before she does, let me just tell you that at the end of the podcast tonight, something equally special. It's only two and a half minutes long, but believe me, you'll never forget it. But first up, here we go with Amber Mack. Amber Mack, good morning.

Good morning. Listen, I've been looking forward to this all week. I would not describe myself as a techie that I understand any of this stuff because I really don't. I sort of learn new things every day, but they're like basic things. But in terms of you, because you have a reputation now as this person who kind of knows stuff, how do you describe yourself? I mean, are you a tech geek or what would you say? How would you describe Amber Mack? It's a great question. I would say that I am first and foremost an entrepreneur who loves technology. And it turns out that that is actually a very good fitting, especially during this difficult time over the past few months. And so I would really describe myself as someone who has a

passion for technology, but is also very entrepreneurial. And I have a journalism background. And I think those things are all important in this day and age, especially as so many of us have become content creators. Well, you know, people go to you to listen to you or to talk to you to ask questions about what's happening in the field of technology. They never come to me to ask those kinds of questions. I'll tell you one funny thing though, for me was I can remember my son who's at U of T now came home when he was at high school, about, I don't know, 10 years ago. And he said, you know, dad, everybody's laughing at you. They've seen this thing on, on, uh, online when they Google your name. And I said, what are you talking about? And he said you know dad everybody's laughing at you they've seen this thing on on online when they google your name and i said what are you talking about and he said well if you google peter mansbridge and internet up pops this thing from 1993 and it's it's actually

quite funny you when you listen to it because i'm introducing the first piece we ever did on what was then the national and the journal the first piece we ever did on what was then the National and the Journal, the first piece we ever did on trying to explain the Internet. And it was the first time I think the word had ever passed my lips. You know, the word that we use in almost, you know, hourly, if not by the minute for various reasons in today. That was the first time I'd ever said it. And it sounds like it's the first time I ever said it because I say, and we're going to talk to you tonight about something called the internet. Well, this is probably a pretty good time for me to admit that in the first

five years of my keynote speaking career, I actually opened all of my keynotes with that clip. So I apologize right now. So you were making fun of me too. Okay, I got it. It was more of an opportunity to start a discussion. It is funny. And it's amazing. I mean, 27 years isn't yesterday, but it's not that long ago either.

And to consider that we were just trying to understand that this form of technology 27 years ago is quite remarkable. Anyway, let's talk 2020 because, you know, we've got some specific examples I want to talk to you about in terms of, you know, who's made a breakthrough this year in technology, maybe who's been lagging behind. But I want to talk general, first of all, get a sense from you. I mean, a pandemic here comes along once every 100 years, right? So obviously, it's a huge health issue, and it's a huge problem, and people have to spend a lot of time trying to conduct their own lives in a certain way, and others are giving up parts of their life to help.

But in terms of technology, one assumes that this was an opportunity for innovation and for progress in any number of particular areas. So when you talk in general terms, as I said, we'll get to some specific examples in a minute, but in general terms, did technology meet the challenge of 2020 as a result of the pandemic? I really think that the answer is yes. And I think the reason is, generally speaking, the Internet really became in many ways an essential service. I can't imagine the past nine months without access to the internet and new technologies. And I'm sure many people feel the same way. So I think what we saw in 2020 is that as much as we complain day to day about technology, we probably wouldn't have been able to get through this time without access to this same technology that aggravates us every single day. I don't know about you, but I know that in conversing with my listeners on my podcast,

who are real cross-range, diverse in the sense of geography, age, gender, background, profession, the whole bit. But what I've noticed is a degree of literacy on technical issues, technology issues, on the part of older people. And I'm talking much older. I mean, I'm in my early 70s, and I still think of myself as young compared to some of the people who are writing to me. Now, as I said, I get the broad sweep of a lot of young people, but a lot of – I got an incredible letter from a 94-year-old, 95-year-old woman last week who was clearly like up to speed totally on technology and a lot of it coming this year because of the challenge

that she was confronted with. And so I would, you know, it would seem to me that listening to what your assessment is, she's exactly the kind of person we're talking about who has found technology accessible in a way that perhaps she never would have thought of before. Yeah, absolutely. And I think what we've also seen during this year is that there's been an acceleration, and that's a term that's used all the time in the technology industry, especially about 2020. And I think we've seen that with every generation. I mean, I think we're coming to a point relatively soon where you won't necessarily find those people who haven't had access to using the internet, assuming they live in a place where they do have internet

access. And I think this is true of all generations. I think about my mom who is in her late 70s, even over the past nine months, she's become very tech savvy because she's been home so much. She's learned how to use a smart speaker. She's learned how to start a Zoom video chat. And so we've been really forced into this position that it's not okay anymore just to say, hey, you know what? We don't use this stuff. We've been forced into a situation where we really have to learn it. And so our digital literacy at this point is actually quite high. Talk to me about the magic word you just mentioned, which is Zoom, which I guess in many ways has been one of the words of the year in terms of technology. I know in my case, I'd never heard of Zoom before last March

or before this March when the pandemic really started. It's not as if it started then. It had been around for a while and was a relatively successful company already. But it has, you know, Zoomed. It's taken off in a considerable way. So talk to me about Zoom, what we should know about where it was before March and where it is now. Yeah, I just want to be very clear that I actually never used Zoom until March of 2020, and I've been covering the technology industry for 20

years. So it was also new to me. Of course, I had heard of it, but I didn't actually use it. So just to understand the numbers, before the pandemic, Zoom had about 10 million daily users. That's a number that they've shared pretty widely. And by April of 2020, that number actually spiked to about 300 million users. So that's how much Zoom has come into our lives and how frequently people are using it. I would say one of the reasons is just that it is simple to do a Zoom video call. They make it easy to mute yourself. And so there was really a low barrier in terms of access to this technology.

And it really made video calls easy. Of course, like all technology, as soon as we start using something, we also get fatigued from it as well. Well, how did Zoom respond to the fact that those numbers increased 30-fold in a relatively short period and became one of the most popular things of the year because, you know, it got families together, it got offices together, you know, it did just about everything. How did they respond to this huge new demand or did they have to? Could they just sort of sit back and let it happen? They really did have to respond because early in the days of Zoom, many people may not realize this, but they had quite a few security issues with the platform. There were issues with people who would schedule Zoom calls and they would use public links and those would get out on the internet. And then all of a sudden you would have some random person who was Zoom bombing

your call. So someone you didn't know who would show up. That's a bit of an issue when you're a company that specializes in allowing people to have private conversations. So they had a lot of security issues early on. They had issues in terms of the number of people who were flocking to the platform, not just people like us who were talking to family members and doing business, but also many schools that were using Zoom. And so I would say they actually responded fairly well, but there were some speed bumps along the way.

Did it change its abilities as a result of the boom in its use? Or is it still the same basic platform as it was at the beginning? It really is the same basic platform. And that may seem like a good thing to a lot of people who become comfortable using it. But I think what we see in the technology industry a lot is that the companies that are always innovating and iterating and improving their platforms are the ones that tend to be the most successful. So I would say we're kind of at a crossroads for Zoom, even though it's been only nine months where it's become so popular, in that they're going to have to figure out how to continue to capture people's attention, especially as more and more competitors come into the field. So I would say that they haven't really changed a lot, which has been a good thing, but long-term that could be a bad thing. I'm going to ask you the question now that will prove just how kind of naive and unknowledgeable I am about the internet. When you have an explosion in use like that, from 10 million to 300 million,

how does that kind of survive the abilities of the platform? I mean, why doesn't the whole internet crash when you get that kind of explosion in use? It's a great question. And I would say that one of the reasons is that when we think about the technology companies of today, many of them are planning for massive user growth. We're no longer in the early days of the internet and those days back in 1999, I lived out in San Francisco where, of course, you could bring a website down quite easily. The infrastructure is much better today. So I think at the end of the day, even though they had some growing pains in terms of that growth, they were able to handle the number of users who were flocking to the platform and using the platform. So I do think it bodes well, perhaps, for their future that they were able to get through this time.

All right, let's move off Zoom and talk e-commerce, because a lot of people have been sitting at home ordering everything from their groceries to their, you know, common usage items at home, whether it's, you know, to clean their home or to, you know, put new sheets on their beds or whatever, they are using e-commerce in a fashion that never existed before. So how has e-commerce responded to the challenge? Well, again, I think that we've seen that acceleration that's taken place. And I'm a big fan of a podcaster and professor named Scott Galloway. And one of the things that he's talked about this year is that we saw a decade of acceleration in terms of e-commerce usage in just eight weeks. So we saw

e-commerce growth go from about 18% of retail to 28% in just two months. Now, this is great news for the Amazons of the world and even the Shopify's of the world. But of course, that's going to have a massive impact on small businesses that make up a lot of our economy. So it's great news for e-commerce, perhaps bad news for small businesses that weren't able to adapt and start to do more in the digital space. So the Amazons and the Shopify's, big year for them. Really big year for them. Really big year for them. And I should say Shopify, of course, we're all proud of this company because it's a Canadian company. At the end of the day, what they're trying to do is empower the entrepreneurs and allow them to get online with their own stores.

So I don't want to make any comparison that Shopify is like Amazon. But still, at the end of the day, let's be honest, you know, I grew up in rural Prince Edward Island, and I understand there are many small businesses even today that don't understand technology enough to start an e-commerce store. Even if Shopify allows them to do that easily, perhaps they weren't able to make the transition that quickly. And of course, a lot of damage has been done over the past few months. You know, I still can't understand, and this goes once again to my sort of lack of knowledge of technology, of how they do what they do. The big online retailers, you know, take Amazon for an example. I still don't get it that I can sit on my computer even in the week before Christmas. And I live in Stratford, Ontario. So it's not like I'm living in downtown Toronto.

I live in Stratford, which is rural Ontario. And you know it's an hour and a half, two hours outside of Toronto. I can order something. And I did this. I ordered something on Amazon. And it was here the next day. Like the next day, like the next day. So I don't know whether they've had to do things to meet the challenges of the pandemic year to be able to respond like that.

Or were they already prepared in such a way that they could just handle it anyway? In some ways, they were already prepared. I mean, it's important to remember, even back in 2019, Amazon had about 800,000 employees. So they have a massive team of people. And what's really interesting about Amazon, if you think about them, people may not realize that they aren't just in the business of e-commerce. They are also in the business of web storage.

They own a company called AWS. So essentially, they are in many different types of businesses that allow them to really be this giant in the industry that, again, can compete at this level. And no one is able to really be a competitor to Amazon at this point. So they've been building over the years to be in a position to be able to do this. And even now they have divisions of the company that are testing things like autonomous delivery. So imagine robots going down the street in Stratford, dropping off your package. I'm not sure that that's going to happen in the next couple of years, but they certainly are preparing for that. So they've always been cutting edge as a technology

company first. And I think that has allowed them to really thrive as an understatement as far as how much money they've made this year. Do you really think that's going to, we're going to see that within the next, I don't know, 10 years, robots delivering packages, drones dropping from the sky with stuff. Is that actually going to happen? It's a fair question. So I would say that it might happen in communities that have the infrastructure that allow for that. And I'm thinking specifically of the villages in Florida as one example. People may be familiar with that community, and that's a relatively new community, many seniors living there, and it's a very defined community. So you can imagine you could have a delivery robot in that

community because the roads allow for that robot to easily map the community and for them to adopt this new technology. It's not going to work everywhere. So it could work on university or college campuses. It could work in select communities. At the end of the day, I think you're right. We're not going to see it everywhere, but there will be some places where we'll start to see that. I'm not sure about the drone delivery, but who knows? I've been surprised before. And just to your point about saying that you're not a tech person, I just wanted to be very clear that I grew up on a party line using an eight track. So, you know, I get it. A lot has changed over the years,

but what's always amazing to me is that with companies like Amazon, yes, maybe we won't have autonomous vehicles in 2021, but what they're testing may have another application. Don't knock eight tracks. I mean, to me, that was the birth of the modern era. I mean, I started with reel to reel tape, black and white film, the whole bit. When I began in this business, the thought of 8-tracks vaulted you into a Jules Verne story. You know, you thought that that was really going to be, that nothing would ever get better than

that. You know, I have to say, I went to journalism school and I learned how to do digital editing on a Macintosh computer. And then I moved to San Francisco and I did an internship at KQED Radio, an NPR affiliate in San Francisco. And I got there and I was super computer savvy. And they had all of these computers in one room that were set aside, were not used because no one knew how to use them. And I was actually physically cutting tape with a razor blade and taping it together for radio shows. So yes, a lot has changed. You try to explain that in a journalism class today that you actually have to, and it was the same with film. You have to physically cut it and stick it together. And they look at you today like, yeah, sure they do. Things have certainly changed. I remember when, and it wasn't until the 80s,

when we went in the newsroom from typewriters to computers, and there was real resistance to that on the part of, you know, not just the old guard, but some of the kind of new guard who felt, oh, you can't do that. You've got to have typewriters. It's never going to work with computers. Oh, boy. Okay. Now, we talked about some of the, obviously, the kind of winners of the past year, those who have responded well to the challenges that the pandemic placed on us, and just in terms of technology in normal times. You know, if you pointed to losers, where would you start? I think I would probably start at Facebook and I'm not speaking about the value of Facebook. I understand it's still worth an enormous amount of money. People are still buying stock in Facebook, but I'm talking more about the community response. So the actual end users. And if people have

watched the social dilemma on Netflix, I think that was a bit of a turning point for Facebook, where people started to understand a bit about how algorithms work. And I wasn't a huge fan of this docudrama. There were many issues I had with it. But at the end of the day, I think what happened is that the mainstream population watched this, and they started maybe for the first time to get a little bit more fearful about the hold that Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp have on them and how they're using their data. You know, you're right. The social dilemma is kind of a controversial film. People feel different ways about it, but it is absolutely worth watching because it does make you think about what's going on out there. And, you know, part thanks to a Canadian, Heather Reisman, Indigo Chapters.

She is one of the executive producers that helped fund that film. If you – the word algorithm scares a lot of people, including me. As soon as I hear it, I go, I don't get it. I don't understand this. I don't understand what they're trying to tell me. Can you take a crack at it in the most simplest terms for our listeners of when you hear the issue of algorithms and what some critics, like some of those on the Social Dilemma,

point out. What is it we're talking about? Really, the easiest way to think about an algorithm is like this, is that it is a recipe. So imagine you're in your kitchen and you take out a cookbook and you see a recipe. So that would be the algorithm. And you would have all of the different ingredients that essentially are the pieces that tell you how to put that recipe together. Now, if you're wondering, well, what does this have to do with social media? How is this even relevant? You can think about it like this. So maybe the recipe for Facebook

is that they want us to spend more time doing things that we're already doing. So the algorithm in that sense is saying, okay, if Peter is spending a lot of time watching these cooking videos, we're going to continuously serve him up more cooking videos because we know that he likes that. Now that may sound like, okay, well, an algorithm is innocent enough because it's just giving Peter more of what he wants. But at the end of the day, what if Peter is watching videos that maybe are full of misinformation or disinformation, and you're getting served up more of that? And that's the problem with the algorithm. There is no human oversight. And so at the end of the day, what they're doing is they're creating recipes for the success of Facebook, but not necessarily for the success of humanity. So it's the same kind of thing when, and I see the challenge there. You've explained it perfectly.

Just in the basic sense of an algorithm, it's kind of like at Christmas, I got a new phone. And of course, if you get a new phone and all these other new things have to happen, you know, the case you had doesn't fit the old phone and the charger doesn't fit and this and that. So you have to get a whole bunch of new things. So I'm looking, you know, for a new cover for the phone, a new thing to protect it, to put it in. And so I'm on Instagram and I see an ad for one. And I thought, well, okay, I'll look at that.

And so I look at it and then suddenly within the next 24 hours, I'm getting dozens and dozens of phone cover ads. That's the same principle? Yeah, it's absolutely the same principle. And if you think about one of the most powerful algorithms that we have in social media today. There's Facebook and Instagram, of course, but also TikTok. I mean, TikTok is well known as that company that has the most powerful algorithm, which is why the teens and 20-somethings of today are so hooked on that. So it knows what you like. It sees how many people are watching certain videos, and it continues to serve up more videos just like that. Now, you can only imagine that the intent of many of these entrepreneurs was that this would be a good thing for everyone. But of course,

if you are only interested in one type of content, you can imagine the filter bubble that you can really live in for the rest of your life if you're using social media on a daily basis. You know, I'm going to raise one other issue here and I'll raise it cautiously, but I think it's important and I hadn't realized it until you sent me a note on this in the last couple of days. It's, well, first of all, in the film business, people don't realize that one of the most profitable areas of the film business has always been, or certainly in the last 30, 40 years, has been porn. And it's kind of seen by some as an underground industry, but by others as a very above-ground industry

where there are billions of dollars at stake. Well, not surprisingly, when you move to the Internet, it didn't take long before porn became a very profitable part of what was available on the Internet. Now, there's a company that you kind of highlighted that is Canadian-based, Montreal-based, MindGeek, and whose considerable amount of its business is about porn. But in this year, in the 2020 year, they had challenges put to them about how they were operating and what they were doing. Yes. And, you know, even as someone who's immersed in tech, I didn't realize how big MindGeek is.

So like you said, it's a company that owns a number of different adult websites. One of them in particular that's the most popular is called Pornhub. It's actually one of the top 10 websites in the world. And on December 4th- Not just the top 10 porn sites, but the top 10 sites overall? You got it in terms of traffic. So again, a lot of people don't realize just how big it is. And what was really interesting earlier in December is that the New York Times did an investigation into Pornhub. We've always known there were issues with this particular site, but they were able to uncover literally thousands and thousands of videos that were put up there

without consent, videos that were using spy cams, and they were profiting from all of these videos. In fact, there were stories about women who allegedly were being trafficked and just a whole slew of issues. Now, this is embarrassing that this company, the parent company, MindGeek, is right here in Canada, and we didn't really know a lot about this. And after that investigation, what happened is that Visa and MasterCard, they cut payment ties with Pornhub. You know, that was a big step in terms of Pornhub's, I don't want to say demise, but they definitely suffered a lot and had to remove millions of their videos and change the way that they allowed people to upload videos.

The last thing I need to say on this, Peter, which people need to understand is this is hard to believe in this day and age, but Pornhub actually allowed unverified users to upload any videos that they wanted and potentially profit off those videos. So you can imagine whether it's a disgruntled ex or a teenager who's trying to embarrass someone in their school, how far this could go wrong. And so I think in December, what we saw is that finally, MindGeek, the parent company, had to step up and do something with Pornhub. They're still trying to fix this. I don't think it's an overnight fix. But at the end of the day, they were no longer able to hide at their headquarters in Montreal.

Fascinating. Listen, this whole discussion has been fascinating, Amber. You're terrific to listen to, and you really are able to, at least with this guy, elevate my knowledge of what we're talking about. Let me close out on asking you this. When you spend so much time looking at what's happening in this world, in the tech world, when you look ahead, what do you see as potentially the next big thing, the next big advance that's going to take place, whether it's, you know, next year or the next decade or whenever it may be. What's the, we live in this world where, you know, we talk to kidded around about the things that, that have changed since I started in the business.

And then, you know, 30, 40 years later, when you, you had started the things we've seen change, but it change comes at such a rapid pace now, and you wonder kind of what's next in terms of a big step. What are you expecting? I think that even though we've talked about artificial intelligence over the past few years, that's been a topic that I've spoken a lot about, I think we're going to see over the next couple of years is that AI is going to be an incredibly powerful tool, particularly in health care. Now, when I say artificial intelligence, people may wonder, well, what does that actually mean? Just imagine a computer program as a simplistic example that it's able to detect patterns more easily than a human could.

So in health care is one example. If AI is being used to detect breast cancer, it could do so with 90% efficiency and 30 times faster than a doctor. That's the power of this technology. At the same time, when I say that I'm optimistic and excited about the potential of AI, I'm also equally worried because it means that we're automating work. And, of course, that could lead to severe job losses. So to me, it feels like the biggest opportunity over the next couple of years is artificial intelligence. And at the same time, it's the biggest threat. Now, it's not the technology itself I think that we need to be especially worried about. It's the leaders who are actually leading the way, who are owning these companies that are always choosing profit over people.

And that at the end of the day is going to be the real issue that we're going to have to deal with over the coming years. Amber back. This has been, uh, being terrific. I hope we get to do it again because there's no end of things we could talk about and you're certainly the person to talk to about it. So thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. And have a happy new year. Happy new year. So I told you that it'd be special and special. It was. Um, I also told you, we're going to do something special to end the podcast tonight.

It is the last night of 2020. And there are certain traditions on New Year's Eve that no matter what our situation is with the pandemic, there are certain traditions that we will follow through on, although maybe adapt a little bit. So if you were listening yesterday, you heard Bruce and I talking about one of the things we want to get back to is Scotland.

And, you know, listen, I was born in the UK. I wasn't born in Scotland. I was born in southern England. But Scotland has become this passion for me almost as much as Canada is. Nothing will match Canada. But Scotland, great place. And so we're going to Scotland tonight.

Cynthia heard this on her Twitter feed today. It's by a fellow named Jim McIntosh. He's the poet-in-chief of Hamperners. And he's the poetry editor of Nutmeg magazine Both of these Scottish-based, right? So Jim, along with his pals Karis Watt and Dave McFarlane Got together, I think, this morning To put this together.

So let's listen to it on this New Year's Eve. Or for you, maybe if you're listening this weekend, New Year's Day. There won't be another podcast until next week. We all deserve a bit of a break here right now. But what a way to go out. Once again, this is Jim McIntosh with his friends Caris Watt and Dave McFarlane to take us to the end of 2020. Should old acquaintance be forgotten and never brought to mind? No, they should

not. Nor should we forget the doctors and the nurses and Abbey and the NHS who've cared for us, who've sacrificed willingly for us. Nor should we forget all the folk who've kept the lifts on, the water running, the heating on, the shelves stacked for us on furloughed hours, zero hours, knee hours, those biding alone, those in the streets alone, those wanting Scotland to be their home, everybody just wanting life to be a wee ticky year. Nor should we forget are the musicians, the actors and poets who've tried to keep the world spinning in a bonny tune, a laugh, a tear, a heartfelt verse. Nor should we forget those we've sadly lost. Should be here now in the warm embrace of friends and family to toast the sun, rising over a new year's horizon

those who have not survived this tragic boon those who you love and will hug forever in your hands so should all acquaintance be forgot no they should not so raise a glass to absent

friend to 2021 I give you a bit of love No, they shouldnae. So raise a glass to absent friend, to 2021, I gid you in wi a bit o love, and see you in 2020 wi a big 50 for all of us. To absent friends And to bricht new horizons Slang you