The Chaser Report - The World Ending Threat That ISN'T Climate Change | Mark Humphries

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Mark Humphries and Charles Firth discuss the world ending computer bug that will destroy everything we hold deae. Strap in listener, the Y2K bug is back! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Jayser Report with Dom and Charles, and instead of Dom, we unfortunately are stuck with Mark Humphrey's again. I know, I just got nothing on. Dom's fine. I've just killed him. No, so it's me from now. And you'll be gone soon too.

Yeah, it'll be me and Sammy J. this is not true by the way listeners is here a whole of people just hitting the subscribe button well that's funny i remember when um when i had my first child and i've had four or five cents the michael that i know of michael roland on abc because i think i tweeted about it and it was around the time that news breakfast was airing uh and so michael roland and virginia shrioli announced the birth on tv and then michael i don't know where said and he's named the child

to me. And then they went on with the show. And so I get all these messages saying, you know, welcome to the world, Michael. It's not a kid's not named Michael. This is arrogant, ecstistical, off the cup from a breakfast host. So, yeah, anyway.

Yeah. How is Koshy going, though? He's fine. Well, actually, we've got to throw to an air break before we get into the show. Do I get to choose what the ad is for? But should we have, no, but apparently, oh, by the way, I, um, we've had some complaints that some of our ads are natural gas, or not natural, like poisonous fossil fuel gas companies.

Well, on the upside, I've heard ads for your show. Oh, yeah. In other podcasts that I do listen to. Yeah, yeah. So I've never listened to this show. But I've heard ads for you this show in other podcasts. That's been exciting. Oh, that is exciting.

Yeah, yeah. I didn't even know we had any ads. Yeah, I think it might have been in quite good podcasts as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, well done. You mean like chat teen looks really? Maybe like chat 10 looks here. But I think it might have been,

it could have been like the rest is politics or the rest is history. It might have been Gilbert Godfrey's podcast. I can't remember it. But it was whatever it is that I listened to. Yeah. That's the end of that story. Well, why don't we, well,

I'll just tell you, on today's podcast, we're going to tell you about an existential problem facing the world. What problem? Like an existential problem. Like it could actually lead to the obliteration of the way life works on it. Sure. So I know the meaning.

thought you'd mispronounce the word. That's fine. We'll be back after this break. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most, when your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecues lit, but there's nothing to grill, when the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes.

Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first. three orders, service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Okay, we're back. I heard extestential, but that's fine. Lachlan will fix it up in post. He'll fix up my hearing in post. I think you were fine.

I mean, that's how nature pronounced it. Well, it reminds me. Or nature. Well, I mean, you love stories about the set of the 1960 Vox film Cleopatra. Oh, yes. And famously, Rex Harrison in the script

he had to say schedule, but he was someone who said, schedule, that's right, exactly. And he got into an argument with the director about it. It was just like, can you just say schedule?

He says, I don't say schedule, I say, I say, fine, just let him say whatever he learned in Shul. There you go.

That's old show biz his anecdotes with my company. He's coming soon to, actually it should come soon. You should totally do a podcast. Stop being trying to get you to do a podcast. I'm getting,

I'm getting closer to you could become part of the iconoclast network i would like that a lot actually um if uh if people want to hear a podcast featuring mark humphrey's telling old chose his anecdotes email us at podcast at chaser.com.com and let us know and we'll forward them on to mark to sort of bully him yes and even if i don't get any emails which is what i suspect will happen i'll make the podcast anyway so yeah yeah well that's generally what happens yeah so it's lose lose whatever you do it's it's Yep, great. God, I love alternative media.

No, this is mainstream. And we'll be back in a moment. All right, we're back. Yeah, but for the listener, it feels like... It's like five minutes. Yeah. Unless you, unless you... Now, this is a hint, and we're told we're not allowed to pay this to you.

But skip forward 30 seconds button is a really useful button. Yeah, for some reason. And no one's ever thought to do that. No, people don't. Well, is that right? I mean, maybe they're like me, because I'm one of those people who, if it's even Even if the, like, I will wait for a green light at the crossing. I have to be really certain that there are no cars coming for several kilometers

before I will cross, you know, at a light without it being green. So I guess there's a similar thing. It's like, an ad is like, no, they're waiting. It's paying for the whole thing. Yeah, they're waiting for that green light, which is your beautiful voice. Thank you. Now, I've got some bad news, Mark. Oh, no, not again.

You're not the producer of 730, eh? Which is, and this problem. could lead to the breakdown of civilisation. Doesn't sound great. And it's not climate change. Oh, okay. Oh, good. But, and it's a, I think it's a better problem, apocalyptic problem.

Okay. Because it's also a bit nostalgic. Oh, okay. All right. And it's the year 2038 problem. Have you heard about this? No. It's weird how a nostalgic problem could be from the future, but...

No, because it's essentially the same problem as the Millennium Bug, by the UK. But in 2038, it's happening again, right? Get out of town. Yeah. So, this is the story, which is the most of the world's computers run on a thing called Linux, right, or Unix. And so unless you're, you've got an iPhone or a Mac or a Windows piece, actually, it just sound like most of the ones.

But all the other computers in the world, like essentially anything that, you know, runs in your air conditioner or, you know, is an Android phone or, you know, embedded systems. So anything that runs your smart speakers or runs trains or, you know, like factory equipment, all that sort of stuff. Big stuff. Yeah. Transport, like all the sort of computerized systems in train systems and trucking systems and things like that. The world's finest podcast. All the cloud services. So every sort of internet thing, whenever you upload them to the cloud, it's all based on Unix. They're sort of supercomputers as well as embedded computers.

They all run on this thing called Unix. Now, the way Unix calculates time is it's defined as, they said, 1st of January, 1970, which is around when Unix was invented, that is zero, right? And we're just going to, Unix time is 1st of January, 1970, plus how many seconds it is, right? And they went, what we'll do is we'll just count the number of seconds, and then computers can just convert that into whatever date and time that is in whatever culture they are. So that'll be the definition.

That unit, which all the systems use, is a 32-bit integer, which means that there are only 4,294,967,295 seconds after which that date can exist for. It runs out at a certain point. Yeah, which is admittedly like 138 years or something like that. But the way 32-bit integers work on computer systems, and the way Unix defines 32-bit integers, is half of those seconds are actually negative seconds. So if you want to count back to 1950 or something like that,

you can say, oh, it's Unix time minus, you know, how many billion seconds, whatever. So that means that there's actually only 2,000, 147,000, 483, 647 seconds before the entire Unix system runs out of time. And that will happen on January the 19th, 2038. Oh, I see. Because that is, and I'm just doing these calculations in my head here. Because the figures are so small, it's easy. Don't get the carry of the one, Charles.

24,8255 days, which is how many, which is 68 years, which is 2038. And at that point, we face exactly the same problems that we faced. And I think many of our listeners may not have been alive back in 2000. But I don't know whether you, how old were you? Well, yes, I was 15. And, yes, the... It was scary. It was scary.

And I think the other thing that people... Now, I'm happy to be told I'm wrong on this, but my understanding is because people sort of dismiss it now, the way they sort of... You hit this with the ozone layer as well. It was just like, oh, well, they said there was a problem with the ozone layer and everything's fine. Yeah, because they addressed the problem,

which was to do with CFCs. Similar thing with the Millennium bug. It was like, oh, all this fuss and then nothing happened. Because people actually worked really hard to prevent the thing from happening. So that's my understanding is that there was great work that was done to actually prevent it. Yeah, for young people who don't remember that period, the way to think about it is imagine if the world,

imagine the world's response to climate change and the fact that they're not doing anything about it and then just reverse that and imagine if the world actually did something about a problem. Yeah, it has happened in the past. Yeah, and that would be what happened. And you're right. So they spent tens of billions of dollars basically recoding all the, the world's computers at the time to make sure that they wouldn't fall over. And I don't

know, I was reading the history of it this morning just to sort of get a sense of it. And apparently the first sort of canary in the coal mine style thing, it all happened in New Zealand, right? Because that was the first one to click over to 2000. And what they were particularly looking at, which is quaint, given how far we've come since then, is they're looking at the ATM network as what will happen to them. Because, you know, if the banking system, system go down, then, you know, no one will be able to get out cash and then the economy will crash. And that all went fine. And most of the day, you know, planes didn't drop out of the sky. They were really worried about lots of different things. And they did a really good job.

The one consequence that I hadn't heard of that was actually reported, one of the biggest problems was some pathology lab in the UK hadn't fixed up their systems. And so they sent out, This is really sad, by the way. They sent out 154 false positives for Down syndrome to pregnant women from tests that they'd conducted. God, is serious? Yeah, in the days after the millennium, because their computer systems had sort of, you know,

it was this unintended consequences thing. And it resulted in some of those babies being aborted. Why did you bring this up? Oh, no, I just thought it was fascinating. No, no, there was real, there were real world consequences, which could have been much, much larger. What's better than a well-marbled rib-eye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper

and delivered to your door. A well-marbled rib-eye you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. The Chaser Report More news Less often But the really weird thing is

That the world back then knew of this other bug That was looming in 38 years' time But it was sort of seen as such a distant threat That they didn't go Oh well while we While we fix up the fucking Millennium bug Why don't we just get in

Knock that over as well? But part of the reason is that the 2038 bug is in some ways more foundational than the Millennium bug, which is that it's so embedded into every single unique system, there's no clear way to solve this problem. And what has started happening is there's a whole lot of cases where things have started falling over as a result of, you know,

computer programs going, well, what's going to happen in 21 years or what's going to happen in 20 years time and completely freezing as a result of that. For example, I'll give you some examples. So if you ask chat GPT, what's going to happen in 2038, it'll just collapse. Exactly, yes. Just thinking about it, isn't enough to... So it all started clicking over in about 2018, where real problems starting emerging.

And it's things like... So there was a pension fund that was doing batch processing of all the pensions. And one of the fields in this spreadsheet that they were doing was they were trying to work out whether it would automatically calculate it. Will this person have enough money? in 20 years time for their pension to keep being paid. And as soon as January the 19th, 2018, clicked around... 2038? No, 2018.

Oh, 2018. Clicked around. Their entire computer program collapsed. Oh, I said, yes. And they couldn't work out. It took them months to work out what was going on because it was such an obscure thing to go, oh, hang on, this computer doesn't understand the concept of anything post January the 19th, 2038, right?

Then there's some other great detail. which is, and you should try this at home. Well, actually, we'll do a thing. If you've got an Android phone, what you should do is try and set your date. Go, do it now while you're here. Set your date to 2039 and see what happens. Okay, now, have you done it? We'll wait.

Okay, so what, for a lot of brands of Android phone, if you do that, it actually bricks your phone. And it completely, you can't retreat. It just goes into total seizure. Oh, God. Okay, it's another reason to email, Charles. Well, they can't exist their email. God, there's so many layers to this.

But then there's, but then, and then the real problem is that because Linux is used in embedded systems a lot, there's a whole lot of things where, so one of the reasons why they didn't solve it back in 20, in the year 2000, was going, well, you know, none of the computer. that are operating now are going to be around in 2038 because Unix was back then only used on really large supercomputers and you replace those large supercomputers every three or four years like they just run out of steam after a while whereas now that same computer program operating system is being used on embedded devices which stick around for years like for example ABS brakes so most ABS brakes which are those computer brakes which most cars have nowadays, which was developed by BMW, but it's basically a computerized version of

braking, where they, you know how when you hit the brake hard, instead of skidding, your car now goes, right? And it's this, it's quite a, it's a low level computer program, but it's based on an algorithm that actually, um, calculates when it should do that and everything like that. That is, that is programmed by a Linux little embedded device, computer chip. And those devices have not changed in years. And there are cars being manufactured today that will seize up. Well, the ABS brakes will not work after 2038, but they'll still be in circulation.

So basically the entire world in 2038 becomes an extended edition of the movie Speed. Yeah, look, I'm not saying it won't be funny. And dramatic. We must all keep driving. We cannot stop. But then also things like automatic four-wheel drives are mostly based on that. So that'll take out four-wheel drive dickheads, I don't know. I can see that you're not mourning this one.

Inertial guidance systems and GPS receivers. So that's things like if you've got satellites and things like that, but also all our maps, there will be a whole lot of devices that have embedded GPS systems that rely on these things. And the thing is, you can't go, like, whereas in 2000, you could go in and you could reprogram every ATM, because it was part of a network. You can't go, like, manufacturers can't go and reprogram every ABS braking system. It's on the chip. You know what I mean?

Like, it's all, and, but the most terrifying thing is things like air traffic guidance and stuff like that. A lot of those sorts of stuff. So the thing is, whereas in 2000 it was... What's better than a well-marbled rib-ice is a... on the barbecue. A well marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well marbled ribai you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download

the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over deliver. Like, will planes fall out of the sky because it ticks over? This one will be like, okay, they'll be flying along. Maybe the planes will be fine. But the air traffic control systems that are trying to land the planes just get stuffed up and freeze and brick themselves. And again, the whole world be like a flying version of the movie speed.

Yeah. So. So we're really, what you're trying to say, Charles, is that. that um because now it's sort of become a race of which thing is going to fuck us up first yeah and and kind of we maybe should make a decision as a society which one we want to knock us out first maybe we just set the kind of we set a date we said 2038 and go to january 19 yeah look climate change we think we think we're kind of well and truly fucked let's say 2045 yeah uh this is 2038 AI we haven't worked out of date yet but uh yeah let's let's let's let's set a date from

we just say let's just wrap it up let's just drove it up yeah well talking speaking of which hello goodbye our gear is from road we're part of the iconic class network well can dom come back tomorrow yeah but i will need my own podcast okay well email podcast at chaser dot com.com.com you know what to do you know i just ask you in person oh oh that's the audience yeah the audience sorry the one thought you're just like if you've got if you've got a pitch email me right don't call me don't come in here see yeah bye