The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.30 It’s Getting Worse... Ethan Klein vs Ticketmaster, Zendaya "Sex Debate", Columbia Threatens Students

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Head to http://www.grifindefranco.com today to invest where you spend! Use code "PHILD5" for $5 towards your new favorite habit! Get an exclusive NordVPN deal here https://nordvpn.com/phil It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee!   ==== ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩- – 00:00 - Ethan Klein Slams Ticketmaster as Billie Eilish Tries to Limit Scalpers 03:11 - Critics Say “Challengers” Could Signal an End to Cinema’s Dry Spell 05:41 - 900+ Protesters Arrested on Campuses Across the Country 08:53 - Sponsored by Grifin 09:51 - Military Families Sue U.S. Over Health Problems From Jet Fuel Leaks 12:13 - Appeals Court Rules State Health Insurance Must Cover Gender-Affirming Care 14:24 - AI Blood Test Claims to Detect Postpartum Depression Before It Develops 16:09 - Australian PM Calls DV a “National Crisis” Amid Protests 18:16 - Sponsored by Nord 19:24 - Tech Companies Cut Corners To Collect Data for AI  25:48 - Comment Commentary ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve, Jared Paolino Associate Producer on AI Data Harvesting: Jared Paolino ———————————— #DeFranco #EthanKlein #Zendaya ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show, you daily dive into the news, and we have a lot of news to talk about today. Starting with... So the battle against Ticketmaster by people who use Ticketmaster now includes everyone from Billie Eilish to now Ethan Klein. And while there's a laundry list of reasons why one may potentially be angry at Ticketmaster, specifically here, Ethan Klein's has to do with a live show that the H3 podcast is doing this summer. They're doing it at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and while tickets are selling well, on a live stream

yesterday, Ethan noted two frustrations with Ticketmaster, resellers and price gouging. Because on top of the fact that he noticed that scalpers were already reselling tickets for incredibly high amounts, he also realized that some of the face value tickets cost more than he intended. Leave it to Ticketmaster to do something so obscene, it made me so mad. You think like, oh wow, these are open. If you go to the price, official platinum it says. Now what the is official platinum? It's $400.

How much should we set these tickets to? Let me look. It wasn't that. No. For those wondering what official platinum means on Ticketmaster, it's a first-time sale ticket from a program that allows, quote, market-based pricing based on supply and demand. Or in other words, surge pricing.

But the company is saying that the goal is to give fans fair and safe access to the tickets while enabling artists and other people involved in staging live events to price tickets closer to their true market value. But Ethan wasn't happy to see that face value tickets for his event were $400. Who the f*** are they to raise the price of my godd*** tickets? That is pathetic. That is shameful. So dumb. Like if you want to do the resale s***, that's lame. I hate it. But like then you're raising the price on our priest, on our first round tickets. What are you doing, man?

And going on to say that they plan on contacting Ticketmaster to disable the surge pricing and issue refunds for anyone who paid an inflated price, if that's possible. With them noting that they set certain prices for a reason. Arguing this doesn't actually help fans or give them a more fair chance at tickets. And saying it does nothing to help with scalping.

If you cared about scalping, you would not resell them on your website, morons. Exactly. Or because he was also annoyed to see that there were resale tickets listed in some for nearly $700. So it's worth noting that if you go to the ticket sale page now, while there are obviously still tons of resale tickets, it seems that there are no more platinum ones. All the blue circles, which mean first time sales, they just say standard admission. And so the issue may have been resolved there, but the H3 podcast isn't the only show getting attention today for ticket sales. You also have things like the presale for Billie Eilish's upcoming tour

starting today. And according to Live Nation's page for the tour, they're taking a different approach when it comes to secondhand tickets, saying that to give actual fans priority, the tour is using Ticketmaster's face value exchange, which allows fans who purchase tickets in the US and Canada who can no longer attend to resell their ticket at its original price. And to help that, the tour has requested that all tickets be mobile only and restricted from transfer. And this, applying to all shows except ones in states where face value transfer cannot be mandated. And so that's an attempt to stop scalpers

from jacking up resale prices on places like StubHub. But the thing is, Business Insider noted that even before the presale began, those websites already had ticket listings. As you had Billy, warning of potential scams. And even now that the sale has started in certain cities, there are listings on StubHub, so it's unclear if there are a bunch of scams or if people have found workarounds. But

also as of filming, the presale quite literally just began. So it's too early to see the real impact here. And then horny movies are back. That has been the resounding headline and public reaction following last weekend's release of Challengers. And it's got some experts thinking this shift could, uh, how do I say it? Potentially fix Hollywood's dry spell. And for those who haven't seen the movie, it stars Zendaya, it's about tennis, and just sexual tension spanning decades. I don't want to mess with spoilers, so just know that it's a love triangle about tennis players. And so far, the movie's been received very well by critics and audiences alike, topping the box office this weekend and some outlets noting that young fans

were the ones filling the seats. And while obviously Zendaya was the big pull here, with some noting that young people embracing an overtly sexual movie marks kind of a pivot, right? Because Gen Z, to some degree, has become known as this anti-sex generation, at least when it comes to film and TV, right? Like back in October, there was a study from UCLA that found that nearly half of people aged 13 to 24 found sex scenes unnecessary, and over half wanted to watch media focused on platonic relationships over romance. And all of this coming at a time when film has already kind of become relatively sexless. And with that, for example, the New York Times is doing a piece noting that in the 80s and 90s, overt sex in movies, that was the norm.

Some of the most famous movies from those decades are known for their either explicit scenes or generally erotic themes. But that also changed in the 2000s when studios wanted to secure PG-13 ratings instead of R ratings to widen audience reach. But it also allowed them to play into genres where they could sell merchandise, please censors in China. In fact, leading to one writer finding that films from the decade between 2010 and 2020, they had the least amount of overt sex scenes

since the 1960s. But with the recent success of Challengers, you had places going, hey, maybe we're gonna see a big shift here. Though there, it's also worth noting before you get the wrong idea about what Challengers is, as critics on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour explained, it is horny, but not porny. And outlets like Collider are praising it for being a sexy film

without a super in-your-face sex scene. But also, you know, sex is at the core of this story. Even the way they play tennis is horny. Which makes sense. It plays into the idea that the way people play sports one-on-one, or specifically tennis in this movie, that it is a relationship. Though, while this conversation is happening, I do think that it is important to note, like, it is not a complete outlier. If anything, I think it shows that there is a I do think that it is important to note like it is not a complete outlier if anything I think it shows that there is a trend not that it is like starting a trend I mean just in the last year you've had a Sydney Sweeney's anyone but you which has some spicy scenes salt burn is an Unapologetically horny ass movie also, I mean poor things comes to mind

I mean half of that movie is Emma Stone faking orgasm And all of this is played out as we've also seen the rise of intimacy coordinators on sets. Right, and all of this is you had Amy Pascal, one of the producers of Challengers, saying, it absolutely feels like the pendulum has swung back toward filmmakers exploring adult relationships and sexuality in their projects. I welcome that.

But as far as if we're gonna see an overwhelmingly or a significant change in the industry, that remains to be seen. But in the meantime, I gotta pass a question off to you. What are your thoughts with all this? And then, let's talk about the pro-Palestinian protests we've been seeing on college campuses. Starting with Columbia University, because that's where it all began.

Because, you know, around two weeks ago, the university's president was testifying before Congress and hundreds of students began occupying the campus's south lawn, with them calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, demanding that the university divest from Israel, with eventually more than a hundred of them being arrested. But also, despite being arrested as well as facing suspension, these protesters haven't backed down. And Columbia remains the epicenter of the movement, where last night you had the university warning protesting students that they'd have it until 2 p.m. to disperse, or they would be suspended, barred from campus, and unable to finish the semester. But that deadline, it came and passed.

Most students said that they weren't going anywhere. And in fact, some became bolder, with dozens barricading themselves inside Hamilton Hall. Though all of this is you have others arguing that there's a real element of anti-Semitism among some of the protests. And with that, you know, some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-semitic remarks or violent threats. But at the same time, you also have some people trying to brand any protests of Israel or any support for Palestine as categorically anti-semitic. But then also with that, there's this issue of the official and the unofficial protests. Right, with there being accusations of some people being there just to cause trouble. In Boston, for example, Northeastern University Police cleared an encampment Saturday after a shout of kill the Jews was heard, but this is a witness posted on social media that the shout actually came from a pro-Israel counter-protester. You also had school officials saying the demonstration had been infiltrated by professional organizers with no affiliation to Northeastern. And so at the end of the day, we've seen multiple clashing narratives and claims.

But all of that also brings us to the police, right, because in the past few days, we've seen them clashing with protesters more and more. At Emory University in Georgia a few days ago, Atlanta police made what some witnesses described as brutal arrests to clear an encampment there. Reportedly deploying rubber bullets and tear gas, one officer captured on video repeatedly tasing a man already on the ground. And at a California university this morning,

police arrested 25 protesters who had occupied a building on campus for more than a week. This morning, we also saw police officers moving into an encampment at UNC, arresting students who refused to disperse. And all in all, at least 900 protesters have been arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses in the last 10 days, with those arrests taking place on more than 20 campuses across at least 16 states. But despite the crackdowns, these protests are only growing.

And in fact, the movement has seemingly spurred life back into student-led pro-Palestinian movements across the world. Pro-Palestinian protesters gathering over the past week on university campuses in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, and the UK. Columbia-style encampments popping up in places like this university in Paris, where university administrators also called in police to break up the sit-in after some students refused to leave. And so part of this has a lot of people wondering if the only thing police are doing is escalating the situation, right? Because many other schools have experienced protests without arrests, right? And with all these wild videos out there that we've seen, it may look like the country's campuses are devolving into battlegrounds. But notably, those have really just been the universities where the police have been sent in. And this is,

you know, that's not the only option. At George Washington University, for example, police reportedly denied requests from the university to arrest protesters for trespassing, with them apparently concluding that taking enforcement action against a small group of peaceful protesters didn't align with the department's interests. And to that point, arrests made at the University of Texas at Austin may have been unlawful. Last week, 57 protesters were arrested by campus police, drawing praise from Texas Governor Greg Abbott. But local prosecutors actually dropped the charges due to what was described as deficiencies in the charging documents. So ultimately, the universities have these difficult, messy situations in their hands.

But as we watch this situation evolve, I gotta take a second to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts with everything that we're seeing here? And then... Okay, so I'm a huge believer in voting with your dollars and backing companies that try to do more good than harm while providing a valuable service. And thanks to today's sponsor, I'm passively building an investment portfolio of those brands that I use daily. Because Griffin is an amazingly beautiful app that turns everyday spending into investing.

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or scan the code on screen. And then we've got military families in Hawaii right now saying they feel betrayed by their government. And it all has to do with a 2021 incident where jet fuel leaked into the water system serving 93,000 people on and around the Pearl Harbor Naval Base on the island of Oahu. And that leak allegedly leading to thousands of people experiencing symptoms like stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, as well as seizures, memory loss, anxiety, and asthma. And all of that leading to 17 relatives of U.S. military personnel suing the government over this. And notably, this is just the first of three lawsuits being brought against the government in relation

to the incident, with all three cases involving a total of 7,500 other military family members, civilians, and service members affected by the leak, right? And so basically, the outcome of this trial, which started yesterday, is going to determine the success of these other cases and the damages that can be awarded. And that's key here, because while I want to be clear, this trial just started and we don't really know how it's going to go, right now it's looking like damages is what it's going to come down to, right? Not whether the government will be held liable, but how much they'll be made to pay for it. So let's get into the details of the case. Where the fuel apparently leaked from tanks that date back to World War II. And notably, native Hawaiians and other residents had raised concerns over the possibility of leaks from these tanks threatening

the water supply for a whole decade. And when Navy leadership finally became aware that a leak had occurred, they reportedly assured thousands of military families that the tap water was safe. With it being nearly two weeks before those families learned that jet fuel had made its way into their drinking water. And though the tap water was deemed safe again, three months after the spill, some families were understandably still wary of trusting what the Navy said, with one of the families involved in this lawsuit telling the Associated Press that they spend more than $120 a month on jugs of bottled water for drinking, cooking, and cleaning, and that each night their five and 13-year-old kids carry cups of bottled water upstairs to their bedrooms to brush their teeth. And that is this family and others suing the government say they have continued

to experience adverse health effects that they attribute to the leak. You know, with all this, the government has actually fully admitted their liability in the spill, right? The Navy's own investigation described, quote, cascading failures, as well as poor training, supervision, and ineffective leadership being to blame for the incident. And on top of that, attorneys for the Department of Justice actually wrote in court documents in 2021 that the United States, quote, breached its duty of care and that the plaintiffs suffered compensable injuries. But what those attorneys are also claiming is that no one was actually exposed to jet fuel at levels high enough to cause these types of ongoing health problems. So they're saying, hey, it's our bad, but it's our bad that you got a stomach ache or you threw up the week of the spill. And claiming there's no way that these people are still experiencing health problems because of what happened in 2021.

And so that's what I mean about it coming down to damages. You know, because the compensation that you're going to get for a one-time illness, that's going to be a lot less than a chronic health issue resulting from the spill. But for now, we're going to have to wait to see how this plays out in the courts. And then for the first time ever, a federal appeals court has ruled that state health insurance plans have to cover gender affirming care. And this ruling, which came out of the U.S. Court of Appeals or the Fourth Circuit, it stems from two different cases in North Carolina and West Virginia. The West Virginia case specifically centered around coverage under the state's Medicaid program, which allows for some treatments like hormones but explicitly

bans the state plan from covering gender-affirming surgery. And the North Carolina suit concerns the government-funded state employee insurance plan that provides medical coverage for more than 750,000 people. But it also bars all gender-affirming care under law that prohibits treatment or studies leading to or in connection with sex changes or modifications in related care. Now, the lawyers defending these laws have argued that they were just based on cost concerns, saying the denial of coverage was an effort to save taxpayer money and not root it in bias, claiming that trans people could get the same health treatments as everyone else, but they were not entitled to have specialized care covered by insurance. But this is many major medical organizations, and doctors say that gender-affirming

care is medically necessary for trans folks. And in an eight to six decision, the fourth circuit rejected the state's claims ruling that the healthcare plans that ban coverage of medically necessary treatments for trans patients are discriminatory under federal law, notably upholding earlier decisions from lower courts that had rolled back those policies on similar grounds. With judge Roger Gregory writing in the majority opinion that these state restrictions were obviously discriminatory based on both sex and gender and adding, in this case, discriminating on the basis of diagnosis is discriminating on the basis of gender identity and sex and saying that gender dysphoria is so intimately related to transgender status as to be virtually indistinguishable from it. And this

decision is huge because the implications go way beyond just these two states. There are similar cases being considered in courts all across the country and experts saying that this is going to set an important precedent, especially because the court specifically ruled that West Virginia's on just these two states. But there are similar cases being considered in courts all across the country, and experts saying that this is going to set an important precedent, especially because the court specifically ruled that West Virginia's policy violated the Affordable Care Act's anti-discrimination provision, which could impact other states' Medicaid programs.

And according to the Movement Advancement Project, over half of all states lack laws that ban health insurance discrimination against trans people. And beyond that, 14 states explicitly exclude gender-affirming care from state employee insurance coverage, while 10 states ban Medicaid from covering medically necessary health care for all trans folks. But as far as how far-reaching this decision is going to be, that remains unclear.

West Virginia's Attorney General has already vowed to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, and there's a conservative majority there. Notably, the Supreme Court recently allowed Idaho to enforce its law banning gender-affirming care for minors. So ultimately, we're going to have to wait to see what happens, because while this is big news, this is not the end of the story. And then, potentially game-changing medical news, there's a new blood test from a San Diego startup called Dionysus Digital Health that claims to be able to detect postpartum depression even before symptoms appear. And one, this has been backed up by peer-reviewed scientific studies, and two, the company is now partnering with government agencies

to conduct clinical trials, with the aim here being to make this $250 test widely available and covered by insurance. And as far as how this test works, Dionysus says that it has identified a gene that connects moods to hormonal changes. So this test will take a blood sample and then use machine learning to compare how genes are expressed by measuring them against other criteria. And because the company envisions this test being conducted in between a person's second and third trimesters, when combined with other information, it could help providers direct at-risk mothers to treatment or even preventative care. I mean, that would be absolutely massive because despite the fact that postpartum depression is one of the biggest causes of maternal death,

both diagnosis and treatment have been, to put it in medical terms, complete shit. As many as one in seven mothers experience postpartum depression. But proper screenings often don't happen, and one widely referenced study found that just one in three pregnant patients who exhibited signs of mental disorders actually received treatment. And even then, the treatment mostly consisted of reassurance from their providers, which is why this has been described as such a potential game changer. But, and this is a big but, the success of this product is heavily dependent on who can access it. Experts say that only people with certain income levels can actually afford this kind of screening and preventative care. You know, disparities and inequalities that already exist in

the healthcare system will just get worse. I mean, already, research has shown that low-income women and women of color are less likely to be screened for postpartum depression than white mothers. And then there are also concerns that AI itself could further exacerbate racial and class-based biases and inequalities in the healthcare system. And then even beyond all that, it's important to remember this is only part of the equation, right? Screening is just a first step. You'd also need a system that opens up access to necessary care to treat postpartum depression. You know, otherwise a screening is just letting you know there is a problem that you're just not going to be able to fix. But hey, we are looking at a glimmer of potential hope here.

And then, let's talk about Australia and men killing women. Right, it's been a couple weeks since the mass stabbing at a Sydney shopping mall that killed six and wounded 12, with nearly all of the victims being women. With the police saying the killer appeared to target women, and his father adding that he was frustrated because he couldn't get a girlfriend. Right, but that attack was just one particularly shocking one of a much deeper problem. So far, this year alone, 27 women have been killed in Australia from gender-based violence, according to the campaign group Destroy the Joint, meaning one woman is killed every four

days on average, which if you adjusted for population size would be comparable to about 337 women getting killed in the US over the same period. So unsurprisingly, the fear and the anger simmering under the surface finally erupted into clear view over the weekend, with Australian women and men alike pouring onto the streets in the tens of thousands to protest for change, taking over cities from Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne to Adelaide, Newcastle, and the Gold Coast. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie 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. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Politicians to step up. This is an epidemic that requires the full resources of government at all levels. My experiences, unfortunately, are not unique. Why is it that so many of us have to endure abuse? With organizers demanding more funding for domestic violence services, an easier reporting process for victims, and rules to delay the publication of victims' photos. And on Monday, in the Capitol, you had Prime Minister Anthony

Albanese joining a march and speaking. And this is a national crisis. We need to make sure that this isn't just up to women, it's up to men to change men's behavior as well. But then, he ended up on the receiving end of a lot of protesters' fury, with him claiming at one point that organizers had told him that he wouldn't be allowed to speak at the rally, to which one organizer, Sarah Williams, could be heard saying, that's a lie, that's a full-out lie, before appearing to burst into tears, and her later posting a statement saying the Prime Minister had demanded to speak because he was being heckled and accused him of behaving like a man with power

trying to diminish a vulnerable young woman. He also had the mother of one victim calling out Albanese directly. Prime minister, great to make a call to all men. Get your state premiers to make changes now. While we wait to see what comes from all this, and of course, I'd love to know everyone's opinion here. That is especially true if you're someone

that is watching from Australia. I'd love to know your thoughts opinion here that is especially true if you're someone that is watching from australia i'd love to know your thoughts and then okay so it's come to my attention that still some of you do not use a vpn to connect securely to the internet you know to a certain degree i get it you know you think what could go wrong we assume that our data is everywhere anyway so what's the point right using a vpn isn't just about like a local hack at your coffee shop waiting to skim your data on an unsecured hot spot so honestly that should be enough but also you know these days days, a VPN could make the difference in accessing a free internet altogether. I mean, we're at a place where our assumptions of free speech and access to certain applications may no longer be, well, accessible. I mean, right now, you know, certain

websites, wink, wink, they're censored and you can't get to them in states like Texas. That was also the case. I recently traveled to Georgia. People having to pick up a VPN just to get to those places. And you know, all of this is places like TikTok are going to get banned potentially in the next year. You know, with NordVPN enabled on your devices, all your data is encrypted and flows between that device and Nord's VPN servers all around the world. So whether it's a cyber criminal intercepting your data or a state actor attempting to block you, Nord keeps you isolated. So go get NordVPN. It is a serious no brainer. Plus you can get a huge discount on a two-year plan, plus an additional four months free at nordvpn.com. They're a fantastic sponsor and service.

That's nordvpn.com. The best deal on the internet, and it's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. And then, right now, some of the world's biggest tech companies are running out of resources. And I'm not talking about money or fuel or some rare earth metal. I'm talking about that ooey gooey goodness, data. And that's because there's an increasing consensus in the artificial intelligence field that one of the best ways to make this technology better is simply to have more data to train AI models with.

And believe it or not, all of the data on the internet is actually not enough. Or at least all of the data that can be accessed without running into serious ethical and legal concerns over intellectual property. And with that, this discussion around what data is up for grabs has been going on for a while. AI companies have been facing lawsuits over just that from everyone, from the New York Times and NBC News to fan fiction writers and actors and artists, with actually more than 10,000 individuals or organizations having submitted federal copyright complaints about the use of their creative works by AI companies,

with one of the complainants telling the New York Times, This is the largest theft in the United States, period. And so that's what I really want to talk about today, right? Because this isn't just two sides of a philosophical debate. This is about powerful companies getting their way one way or another without that debate taking place. Or as the New York Times put it, it's about how tech giants, including OpenAI, Google, and Meta have cut corners, ignored corporate policies, and debated bending the law in their

race to obtain more data and win the AI tech race. Because just a few years ago, the data datasets used to train AI models were pretty small by today's standards. With it reported that a database containing just 30,000 photos from Flickr was considered a quote, vital resource at the time. With also the biggest text datasets out there being made up of around 150 billion words max. But in 2020, everything changed. And that's because a theoretical physicist by the name of Jared Kaplan published a paper, essentially demonstrating that there were no diminishing returns on making these data sets bigger, or at least that we were far, far away from reaching them. Or to put it in even clearer

terms, Kaplan found that when it comes to training AI, bigger's always better. So later that year, when OpenAI unveiled GPT-3, it had been trained on the largest amount of data to date, about 300 billion tokens, which are basically the smallest units of data used by a language model to process and generate text. With researchers sourcing data from large public databases such as Wikipedia and Common Crawl, which is a database of more than 250 billion web pages collected since 2007. But again, as crazy as it seems, the Internet just can't keep up. And companies like OpenAI are actually using data faster than it's being produced. With the AI research group Epoch now saying that tech companies could effectively run out of high quality data on the internet as soon as 2026. With of course, the keyword there being

high quality. Because you know, as much as this is about quantity, the data does have to meet a certain standard to be usable. And the most prized data, according to AI experts, comes from texts that have been carefully written and edited by professionals such as published books and articles. But of course, it's also that kind of content that raises the biggest ethical and legal concerns. Right? And so tech companies have largely just sort of decided to adopt more of course, it's also that kind of content that raises the biggest ethical and legal concerns. And so tech companies have largely just sort of decided to adopt more of a it's better to ask for forgiveness and permission type of approach. Beside Damley, a lawyer who represents a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, actually saying the only practical way for these tools to exist is if they can be trained on massive amounts of data without having to license that data. And adding the data needed is so massive that even collective licensing really can't work. You know, OpenAI has led the way.

See, after spending years harvesting data from every available open source, the company had, quote, exhausted every reservoir of reputable English language text on the internet. With them desperate for more data to develop its next generation AI model, the company's researchers started getting creative. With one idea being to transcribe podcasts, audiobooks, and YouTube videos in order to massively expand the pool of text available for its model to learn from. And to that end, it created a speech recognition tool called Whisper. And they ended up using that tool to transcribe more than 1 million hours of

YouTube videos, with all that data being used to train GPT-4, which became one of the world's most powerful AI models in the basis of the latest version of ChatGPT. And notably, the Times found that OpenAI employees did this knowing they'd be entering a legal gray area, with them discussing among themselves how this would potentially violate YouTube's rules, and that including rules prohibiting people from using its videos for independent applications and from accessing its videos by any automated means. With all of this ultimately setting off an industry-wide race to catch up to OpenAI's technology, companies like Google and Meta seemingly inspired by OpenAI's approach. For example, Google employees were reportedly aware that

OpenAI had harvested YouTube videos for data, But they didn't say anything because Google had also potentially been violating the copyrights of YouTube creators by transcribing their videos to train its AI models. And so basically, they didn't want to bring any attention to their own potentially problematic behavior. Though with that, I should note that Google spokesperson Matt Bryant has said that the company had no knowledge of OpenAI's practices. And saying that it prohibited unauthorized scraping or downloading of YouTube content. But, according to the Times, that wasn't the only time Google's conduct has been questionable. For example, the company quietly broadened its terms of service last year, with one of the key motivations reportedly being to allow Google to tap publicly available Google Docs, Google Map reviews, and other online material to train its AI products. Though that spokesperson, Matt Bryant,

said that this can only happen with explicit permission from users. Though with that, I think we all know how hard it often is to actually know what you're agreeing to or giving a company permission to do. At that point, according to some employees, the team was told specifically to release the new terms on the 4th of July weekend, or when people would be distracted by the holiday. And that actually brings us to meta, because the Times report shows that they may have actually been the worst of the bunch. I know, it seems like Zuck was up to more than a whole brand refresh. See, Mark Zuckerberg has invested in AI for years. But when ChatGPT came out in 2022, his company was suddenly playing catch up. And according to employees, that did not sit well with them. With them reportedly demanding a solution and calling

executives and engineers at all hours of the night to push for them to develop a rival chatbot. By early last year, Meta ran into the same problem OpenAI had. They were running out of that good, good data. With Meta's vice president of generative AI reportedly saying his team had used almost every available English language book, essay, poem, and news article on the internet to develop a model. And according to recordings of internal meetings obtained by the Times, leaders at Meta thought that getting new data by negotiating licenses with publishers, artists, musicians, and the news industry would just take too long. But they said OpenAI seemed to have used copyrighted material without permission and without consequence. With Nick Gruden, a VP at Meta, saying in one meeting,

the only thing that's holding us back from being as good as chat GPT is literally just data volume and suggesting that Meta could follow OpenAI's market precedent. You know, and also in these calls, you had the execs talking about how they were already taking copyrighted content

by hiring contractors in Africa to aggregate summaries of fiction and nonfiction texts. And on top of that, they talked about gathering copyrighted data from across the internet, even if it meant facing lawsuits. Though notably, it's not like there wasn't anyone who was uncomfortable with this. With one lawyer and at least two employees bringing up ethical concerns around taking intellectual property

without paying the creators, but they were apparently ignored. So basically, it's the same pattern that we see again and again when we talk about business on this show, which is that companies will be very happy to risk breaking a few rules if it's just going to cost them some legal fees. That when a punishment is just a fine, that is a fee for a winner. Or more specifically to this situation, the only thing that matters is the fastest advancement in market share. And so generally speaking, we have a system where if you're not breaking the rules, you're more likely to die. But with all that said, I'd love to know your thoughts in those comments down below on this situation and news. And then finally today, we have comment, commentator. We dive into the comments on the last show and see what y'all had to say.

And the main thing y'all had to say was, Fuck that DA. Michael Jones saying that DA wasn't humbled by stupidity, she was humbled by publicity. There's a difference. And John responding, she's sorry she got caught. With Tara chiming in, crazy a DA can be so hostile to a police officer while admitting that she fucked up. That is abuse of power. In other settings, you're supposed to serve the public, not endanger it.

Horrible person. We also had people sounding off on Kristi Noem, aka a dog's best friend, with Magma saying, Kristi Noem proving, at the moment something gets slightly difficult and another living creature poses a minor inconvenience to her, she'll eliminate them. Really comforting and inspiring, Kristi. The man to responding might be the most evil Karen I ever heard of, man. Poor dog. And Artie replying, as someone who has worked with animals most of my life and is a hunter, this woman is crazy. When you get a hunting dog that can't hunt, you put that dog either at a home or if the dog can't be trusted around other animals, you put them in a kennel, call him a good boy, give him treats and plenty of time outside of the kennel

when possible. You don't take them out back and execute them mob boss style. But with all those responses, I just have to ask, why are y'all so negative about women? Strong women who granted abused their power and killed animals. Is y'all your negative about women? Strong women who granted abused their power and killed animals. Cause y'all, your reactions reeked of misogyny. I'm joking. Just to be clear, cause like 3% of people that watch this show don't know what fucking sarcasm is. But honestly, the main thing these stories made me wonder was just, I wonder how much is going on in, in everyone's lives that most people just don't know about. Because Christy and Noam, we would have never known she shot her dog unless she literally put it in a fucking book. And that DA, I mean, that story

probably would have just never seen the light of day had it not been for body cam footage. But that is where today's show ends. As always, I appreciate being your daily dive into the news. But of course, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you right back here tomorrow.