Thanks for tunion to techt Stuff. If you don't recognize my voice, my name is Ozvoloshan, and I'm here because the inimitable Jonathan Strickland has passed the baton to Kara Price and myself to host tech Stuff. The show will remain your home for all things tech, and all the old episodes will remain available in this feed. Thanks for listening. Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of iHeart Podcasts and Kaleidoscope.
I'm Osvoloshan. Today will bring you the headlines, including supersonic planes, a conversation with four or four Media's Joseph Cox about the aftermath of quote the largest sting operation ever on Today's Tech Support. Then we're back with another When did this become a thing? This time we're looking into Google's new assistant Gemini. All of that on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, February seventh, So this week I'm hosting solo again. Kara Price is out for a few weeks, but our
producer Eliza Dennis is here to help me through the headlines. Eliza, welcome back.
Thanks, happy to be here.
We've got an exciting potpourri. We've got planes, fridges, and Roman Catholicism.
This list is giving me jeopardy vibes.
Let's start with fridges, but we're going to do all three. But we'll start with fridges. These aren't ordinary fridges. They're smart fridges. And I read a story in Bloomberg by Austin Carr under the headline Walgreens replaced fridge doors with smart screens. It's now a two hundred million dollar fiasco. It all started a few years ago when Walgreens began installing smart refrigerators in some of their stores.
I don't think I ever saw one of these in the many, many Wilgreens I've been in. How about you, os.
I haven't actually seen them in person either, but the Bloomberg article was very well written and visually described. Most of these fridges are actually in Chicago, and they're not really smart fridges, they're actually smart doors. Picture a door size computer screen, and the screen mimics exactly what you'd see through at last door into the space, so basically rows of gatorade or energy drinks. But instead of the actual product, you're now looking at a digital image of
the product that's inside the fridge. And that means digital prices, no more sticker price tags.
Okay, so is this just trying to make sure that employees don't have to walk around with those guns and re stick prices every time there's a sale.
Probably a bit of that. And also dynamic pricing, so the ability to change in real time.
Kara talked about this a few weeks ago, This dynamic pricing where prices can fluctuate at a moment's notice. And it's also a side effect of the smart shopping carts that she talked about, you know, those being piloted by Instacart.
Yes, the screens, both on the caper cuts and on these fridges can do smart pricing, but they also play ads, and per Bloomberg, this is called quote unquote retail media advertising, which is a gold rush right now. So you know, the fridges are interesting, but there's a legal aspect here too. So Walgreens signed a ten year contract with the startup behind the screens, Cooler Screens, Inc. After an early pilot
showed that the screens could boost sales about to five percent. However, early gains turned into a month's long contentious legal slog. Here's the overview. So Walgreens installed ten thousand smart doors and planned to install thirty five thousand more, but back in twenty twenty three, things started to go a little wrong. The screens started advertising the wrong items, They flickered, they went blank, some even called on fire. Yeah, and they
weren't popular with the higher ups at Walgreens. According to Bloomberg, the CEO of Walgreens at the time asked her team, why do our stores look like an effing casino? And not only that, maybe a casino would have been tolerable if it also boosted sales hugely, but Walgreens claimed there was practically no boost in sales.
Okay, so ugly and ineffective, you know, that's that's the take.
And so Walgreens had enough and started this legal process to try and get out of the contract. Early Cooler Screens didn't like this, and back in June twenty three, they sued Walgreens for a breach of contract. Walgreens then counter sued for monetary damages.
This is the.
Baldoni Lively of smart fridges. But Cooler Screens then found another way to fight back. According to Bloomberg, they secretly cut the data fees to these smart screen doors. In over one hundred Walgreens locations in Chicago.
How did that affect Walgreens?
So, I mean these stores had dozens of doors that look kind of glazed over, and customers obviously couldn't see what was inside anymore, so employees had to physically and valiantly but vaguely describe what was behind each door, like there would be hand pasted signs saying assorted sports, drinks and coffee. This went on for about a week until Walgreens got a judge to issue a temporary restraining order against Cooler Screen, and this forced the company to restore
the data feeds. So Walgreen's got their unwanted smart doors back, but the screens were still not performing as hoped, so Walgreens started physically removing them in early twenty twenty four, and uninstallation was completed in August last year.
What's your takeaway as well?
You know, it's always these tech fails are always amusing. There was a great little side in the Bloomberg article about a Reddit post which went viral showing a customer joking if only there was some other technology that would
let us see what's inside there lah exactly. So for me, the takeaway here is that, you know, the latest consumer technology can be exciting, specific can boost sales for corporations, exciting for corporations, But sometimes the best tech is centuries old, and in this case, the good old last display case still does the job.
Okay, I love that story. Let's hear about planes.
Yeah, so this one was. I heard about this last week and I personally spend way too much time on play, so I was very intrigued to read about a team who've just had a breakthrough in potentially making flying much much faster.
How fast are we talking?
Well, take flying from San Francisco to Tokyo usually an eleven hour flight. What if I told you there was a way to make that flight only six hours.
I mean, I still wouldn't be able to afford it, but I would want to go all the time. Fair.
So this is an aviation startup called Boom, and what they're trying to do is to create a modern commercial supersonic flight, as in a plane that flies so fast it breaks a sound barrier quote, displacing sound waves so quickly that they can press into a single thunderous lap, forming the so called sonic boom. That's the name Boom. And this is according to an article this week in the San Francisco Standard.
So how far are we from Boom? Kind of like you know, taking me to London.
Well, Boom had its first successful test flight that broke the sound barrier just last week, flying high over California's Mojave Desert. This XB one prototype broke the sound barrier. But to be clear, the XP one is just a prototype, and it is a scale model. In fact, it's a single seater, whereas the planned aircraft called the Overture, which
has yet to be built, is going to be eighty seats. Now, of course, military jets break the sound barrier all day, every day, and this isn't that new in this sense, has a history of supersonic passenger aircrafts in commercial use.
So this is the Concord as.
The Concord exactly, and I think one of the most iconic planes in history. The Concord was first put into flight in the sixties. It was a supersonic jet that shuttler likes of Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, the Pope and even the Queen back and forth across the Atlantic. But per the San Francisco Standard, it costs twenty thousand dollars per round trip adjusted for inflation, So yeah, not
for us. They're also environmental concerns. I think it consumed I read, four times as much fuel as a seven four seven and carried only a quarter of the people, So that's sixteen times less efficient for any mental math nerds, they would be able to get much quicker than me. And then there are also some crashes and fires. Okay, so all of this meant that the Concord flew its last flight more than twenty years ago, in two thousand and three. But now there's Overture gunning to take its place.
And what they're trying to do over at Boom is to build a supersonic plane that would be accessible to regular people. And they're trying to do this by using modern tech that will cost less than the concords of
yester year, and also using more sustainable fuel. So this, perhaps unsurprisingly, has caught the eye of Silicon Valley luminaries, people like Sam Altman, Read Hoffmann, Mike Morritz have all invested, and if things go to plan, Boom says that Overture could begin commercial flights in five years.
Oh wow, okay, how is that going to happen?
Well, they're not going to operate the planes themselves. They're doing deals with the airline industry, and according to the standard, they've actually made deals with three airlines, including American Airlines, who have put down a nonrefundable deposit on twenty overtures, which is I guess a bold move given that one hasn't been built yet. Yes, and of course there's a big question about the boom, with the clue being in the name flying over Land, whether or not that will be allowed.
Yeah, I'm not ready for that. Sound. Let's move on to the next thing. You already mentioned the Pope, but you have something else to tell me.
Yes, So it was actually John Paul the Second May He Rest in Peace, who was the Concord passenger, but actually said, this story is about the current Pope Francis. It's not my all time favorite papal Ai story. Do you remember the deep fake Pope Eliza.
In the Yes, absolutely wearing the.
Coat, wearing the white Montclair puffer jacket in the mountains, the papal puffer.
What a fashion easter.
But this is a more serious one because right now it seems like there's a throwdown brewing between God and God in the Machine Akai. Pote Francis has raised concerns previously about the ethical and moral implications of AI and its effect on relationships and education, and warfare and work. According to a story in The New York Times with the fabulous headline citing shadow of Evil, Vatican warns about
the risks of AI. Those statements have now been synthesized into a document called Antiqua et Nova Ancient and New, and it's meant to warn those of the Catholic Faith that AI is both a source of tremendous opportunities but also profound risks.
Okay, so kind of threading the needle there, What else did it say? Yeah?
I mean, the paper pointed out that there is potential for misinformation, eroded trust, harm in the social development of children, the replacement of human work, and the development of autonomous weapons, all of which, you know, franklier themes of this show. But the Papal warning tried to bring into focus what it means to be human and the ethical considerations we
should bear in mind when using AI. For example, the document says, quote in all areas where humans are called to make decisions, the shadow of evil also looms here. So what this kind of says to me is that the paper is as much about how we choose to use AI than about AI itself. And you know what's interesting was the Vatican of your you know, may have tried to ban this, like the Catholic Church banning the
printing press and burning the people who try to print stuff. Happily, five hundred years later we've you know, the Church has moved on and they're not trying to say, you know, don't use AI. They're trying to say, think about what makes you human when you're using this.
Yeah, it's actually a really nice reminder that we can all decide how we want to move through the world and also how we interact with both human and machine.
I think that's well put. Well, thanks for joining me, Eliza. I'm missing Cara, but I'm enjoying chatting to you each week.
That's my pleasure.
Us Coming up, we hear from our friends at four or four Media about a plea deal in one of the largest sting operations ever. That's next on tech support. Stay with us today for our tech support segment, We're turning to four or four Media's Joseph Cox to discuss a story he's been reporting on for years. It's about a sting operation with ripple effects throughout some of the biggest criminal organizations globally, and a raid made possible by the tech that we just can't live without our phones.
But this isn't about your iPhone, Pixel or Galaxy. It's about encrypted phones. Joseph wrote a book called Dark Wire about the Encrypted Device Company a NOM, it's unique relationship with the FBI, and the biggest criminal raid in recorded history. And now some of the people arrested in that sting operation are pleading guilty, which calls into question if there'll be a trial. Joseph is great to see.
You, Thanks for having me.
So if you don't mind, let's start at the beginning. What is a non.
Yes, So, a NOOM was part of the encryptis phone industry. And as you say, it's not like the normal apply I phones or Google androids that we all use. These are very special phones that have sometimes a microphone removed, the camera taken out, sometimes even the GPS removed, because basically they're marketed to serious drug traffickers and criminals.
And do they look like old you know, like plip phones or nockia old phones, or what's the physical appearance of these phones.
Yeah, that's the funny thing. They do look like ordinary phones. Back in the day when there was a company called Phantom Secure that was a sort of BlackBerry with a quirity keyboard. Nowadays they will look like a Google Pixel, but they will operate very differently.
And a non was basically a handset manufacturer.
It's hard to describe. It was almost like a software developer, a tech startup, a hackefon as well. But basically what they would do is that they would make their own software, which is sending encrypto messages, wiping data from the phone, redacting parts of photos you may take and send across the device, and then installing that onto Android's phones. So they're almost like an operating system developer and app developer as well. But I would say it's mostly on the software side.
And you mentioned that these were very popular with criminals. These are non phones. What was the advantage of them? Why did you want these phones?
So criminals are of course always trying to stay one step ahead of law enforcement. Back in the day, that would have been something like the TV series The Wire right where they're using payphones or they're using pages, but of course cops got wind of that, so then criminals turned to encryption, And to me, it's the biggest technological leapf criminals since the inventure of the mobile phone. If you are a serious criminal, you're only going to be
taken seriously if you have one of these phones. It's almost essential to be a cocaine or a heroine or a methamphetamine trafficka today.
Wow, obviously it's not just criminals who rely on encryption. We had Mariuth Whittaker on the podcast, and you know, she made the case for the benefits of encryption.
Yeah. Absolutely, And I think that's the important thing in that encryption is beneficial to everybody. I use it every single day. Ironically, I use Signal and other encrypted messaging apps to talk to criminals who are using these encryptive phones as well. It's a messy for the issue, but I think we can all agree that, you know, there is a net positive and overwhelming net positive for us
being able to use encryption. That being said, law enforcement are not just going to sit by and let that happen. They're going to think of new ways to sort of penetrate the secret system.
So you mentioned that, you know, the old mafia techniques of payphones and pages. Basically law enforcement got ahead of them. How did the FBI find out about a NOM?
So what happened first was the FBI shut down Phantom Secure, this other encryptive phone company very very popular with the Similarer drug cartel, Australian bikers, that sort of thing, and they wanted to get a backdoor into it which would have allowed them to read all of the messages. That
didn't happen. But then what did basically fall into their lap was that someone who was selling phones for Phantom Secure and some other companies, they were making their own next generation of encryptive phone called a NOOM, and they offered it to the FBI, and they said, look, would you like to take this and use it for your own investigations. Of course, in return, I would like not to be prosecuted. Ideally I would also like to get some money for it. But I can't overstate how exciting
that was to the FBI. Rather than trying to put a backdoor into an existing app or into an existing company, they could just make their own encryptive phone company and then read the messages.
Of criminals incredible drinking directly from the fire hoods, so to speak. Do you know exactly how how the deal was struck.
So their pseudonym is AFGU AFG double Low, And my understanding is that the deal came around fairly quickly and the main thing for the FBI and the Australian Federal Police that were also part of this investigation, they just wanted to make sure that it worked. Basically, it's one thing for AFGU to promise, oh, sure you can backdoor this phone, It'll all be okay. It's another for it to actually, you know, work out in practice in the real world. I go into this in much more detail
in the book. There's a series of events where they do verify it is working. There's a scene where someone from AFP is laying down on their sofa at home and they're seeing messages flash up on their laptop screen when they're being intercepted in real time. So this wasn't just a pipe dream anymore. It was going to become a reality, you know, if the criminals bought the phones.
At least on the cover of your book, which is called Darkwoir, this is described as quote the largest sting operation ever which makes you wonder just how large was it and how ubiquitous were a NON phones in the underworld.
I mean, a non grew to the same size, if not bigger than some of the actual encryptive phone companies
for criminals. They got to something like twelve thousand devices, which doesn't sound like that much to us ordinary people, but Phantom Secure was only something between seven and ten thousand, So the FBI was almost better than some of the criminal organizations at this At this as well as for why I called it the largest thing operation ever, it's not just sort of the audacity of it, but when law enforcement around the world eventually acted on this information,
they did sort of a worldwide relay race of raids all across the planet. Something like nine thousand law enforcement officers acted in one single day, which is almost difficult to put into words. And now there's a challenge because you can't even imagine law enforcement activity on that scale.
No, what an incredible scene. How did it rise to prominence? I mean, did the FBI have other people who were kind of promoting in the criminal underworld? Was it entirely organic? Like, how did this become the encryption phone of choice.
With a norm you can only speak to other and NOM users in the same way, if you're on a phantom secure phone, you can only speak to phantom secure
users as well. That's especially interesting when it comes to the world of drug trafficking because if you get somebody who's really really big in the world of cocaine trafficking, or maybe one of these kingpins who's hiding out in Dubai, if they switch over to a NORM, then everybody underneath them needs to switch as well, and you basically have this multi level marketing scheme essentially, where it's the people at the top who dictate what everybody else underneath has
to use as well. And then that's how they did it. The FBI wasn't sending out agents itself to sell the phones. They let the phones organically spread among serious drug traffickers. And one of the most important people for that was a guy called hak An Aik. He was Australia's most wanted man and he's a top tier drug trafficker, I mean,
getting billions of dollars worth of product into Australia. And when he switched over to a NORM and started using the phones and selling the phones as well, I mean what better ambassador for your phone company than one of the most wanted traffickers.
In the world.
The raids were in twenty twenty one, and there are arrests made, But you publish a story just this week. What's happened since twenty twenty one, and what was the story from this week?
Yes, So, in a sort of cruel twist, the FBI and the US and the lover authorities didn't just charge the criminal users of a norm as in the drug traffickers, the hit men, the money launders, that sort of thing. US authorities also charged the people who sold a Noom phones the hest of the FBI. And the reason was in the FBI eyes that, well, a Noon became a criminal entity in its own rights, so we're going to charge you as well. So there was almost a double
whammy there. And we were all getting ready for this big trial coming up in March where a few of them were going to go on the stand essentially and try to defend themselves. But now they are pleading guilty essentially, And that is really important because at the trial, the US authorities were preparing to name Afku, They were going to name their informant, which to me is crazy but that was something that we're going to have to do, and now Afgu's identity will probably remain secret.
I'm fascinated by this story, Joseph, been grateful for you and for coming on to Day to talk about it. I'm also interested in it because it's this kind of sort of there's this ironic element to it, right where the very thing which is supposed to keep these criminals
safe ended up getting them caught. It makes me think about the Hezbollah exploding Pages story, where Israeli intelligence had understood that Hezbollah were using pages because they thought they were safer than mobile phones, and then Israel essentially inserted themselves into the production of these pages and inserted explosives and in so doing killed Hezbela operatives with collateral damage
as well. These two stories have an interesting connection, which is about how the tech we use and how the tech we trust can be turned against us. And I'm curious, if you're not a Hezbollah operative or a drug dealer, what should you be thinking about when you read this story.
I mean, in the case of a NOOM, it was drug traffickers. In the case of the Pages, it was a designated terrorist group. It can for us though, I think make people ordinary people suspicious of software they should be able to trust. I want people to still have that trust. I don't want people to feel like, well, who do I know who's actually running this? Maybe it's a whole honeypot or something like that. And I think these operations where authorities attack the supply chain could so doubt.
And I mean from the drug traffickers I've spoke to and the people who sell these phones to criminals. More and more of the drug traffickers are moving to ordinary apps that we all use because they don't trust the encryptophones anymore. There's been so many operations where even the drug traffickers are saying, well, I'm just going to move the signal or something. And what does that mean for us now? Because I don't think law enforcements are just going to put themselves in the back and go home.
They will be looking for the next thing to compromise or investigate.
Joseph, thank you, thank you so much. Coming up and look at the uses of Gemini in your Gmail and its similarities to a polarizing office assistant from decades past. That's on when did this become a thing? Stay with us? It's time for our next segment, When did this become a thing? Where we bring you a story or observation from our lives and try to figure it out. In other words, ask the question when did this become a thing?
And if you've got an email account with Google, which, according to Google, around one point eight billion people do, you might have noticed something pop up on your screen recently, a sparkly little feature called Gemini. Now Gemini isn't new, per se, It's a new name for Google's a I tool. You may remember Barred, which was Gemini's predecessor, But about a year ago Google gave their chatbot a glow up.
And now we're being aided by Gemini, which is a constellation of stars, of course, and many people's least favorite sign of the zodiac. I went to Google's own blog called the Keyword to learn more, and I found out that once again, studying Latin pays dividends. I wish I had, Gemini is actually Latin for twins. And then, to my amazement,
the blog made reference to a stronger quote. A key characteristic of the Gemini zodiac sign is a dual natured personality capable of adapting quickly connecting to a wide range of people and seeing things from multiple perspectives. Apparently, earlier versions of the name for this product included Titan, which is the name of Saturn's largest moon, but also a rather more intimidating name. Remember this AI is your friend and partner.
Kids.
If you haven't seen Gemini in your inbox yet, you've definitely seen it on Google dot Com. Whenever that aioverview pops up after performing at Google Search, that's Gemini doing its thing. When I first saw those AI overviews, they kind of shocked me. I do find them pretty useful when I want to know how to do something like I'm having trouble getting audio output from my microphone into my recorder. What should I do? But if I'm researching in a more open ended way, I don't find it
very useful at all. However, recently, Gemini actually entered my work email inbox and it felt a little intrusive. When I would go to write or apply to an email, next to my cursor, a little message appeared saying help me write. I've actually never tried it before, but I thought today would be a good day to give it
a whirl. So I'm pulling up my work email, clicking compose, and there's a little little thing saying help me write, which I'm going to click on, and I'm going to say I would like to interview the Pope about his views his views on AI for the Tech Stuff Podcast. Please write an email to the Vatican Communications Office asking for an interview and making the most compelling case as to why he should do it. Let's see what happens
create just thinking. Okay, Dear Vatican Communications, my name is os Voloshian and I am reaching out from the Tech Stuff Podcast. We will be honored to have the opportunity to interview His Holiness, Pope Francis about his views on AI. We believe that His Holiness's perspective on AI would be incredibly valuable to our audience. As a global leader and voice of moral authority, his insights on the ethical and
societal implications of AI will be particularly impactful. The Tech Stuff Podcast reaches a wide audience of tech enthusiasts, industry professionals, and policymakers. An interview with His Holiness undoubtedly generates significant interest and spark important conversations around AI. We will be happy to accommodate His Holiness's schedule and preferences for the interview format. We're also open to discussing any specific topics or themes that he would like to address. Thank you
for your timing consideration. We eagerly await your response. Sincerely, oz Well, I do like I wouldn't have thought about referring to him as his Holiness, but I like the use of his correct title. I'm not sure that that email quite do the trick. The tone is so obsequious, I don't know how many his Holinesses you can fit into one email, but also so grandiose. I mean, I love hosting text stuff, but the idea that tech stuff could be the perfect platform for the Pope to start
a global conversation is also kind of absurd. So there's this kind of mismatch of tones and a demonstration of a fundamental misunderstanding of the task at hand. Now, Gemini doesn't just write emails. It's supposed to be a kind of full suite virtual office assistant. And don't get me wrong, I would love it if it really helped me be more productive. But either I'm not using it right or it's just not there yet. Because in all of these capacities. It's a little meh, But why did Gemini just show
up in my work email one day? And the answer to that is that Google had originally hoped that businesses would pay twenty dollars per month on top of their Google Workspace enterprise price, but the adoption of that was very low, so instead Google decided to increase workspace costs by two dollars per month for all users and into great Gemini everywhere, a case of the good old maxim if you build it, make them come. All of this made me think about my best friend growing up. Clippy.
For those too young to remember, Clippy was an anthropomorphized paper clip that was introduced into Microsoft Office in nineteen ninety six as part of a project spearheaded by Melinda Frenchgates,
Bill Gates's wife at the time. And by an anthropomorphized paper clip, I mean he was an animated cartoon paper clip with large, shifty eyes and bushy floating eyebrows, and Clippy would be there, bouncing on a piece of ruled paper which almost looked like a magic carpet, making eyes at you, and every so often a little cartoon text bubble would appear and ask if you needed any help. This happened over and over and over constantly throughout the
day when using Microsoft Office Suite. And this might shock you, but Clippy isn't his real name. It's clip It. I think we all just decided he needed to be cuter, perhaps because he was so annoying. I don't know the psychology behind it, but we all mind melded and decided Clippy was Clippy and that he was a he. And this actually came up during the preliminary focus groups. During testing, women in particular didn't like Clippy's appearance because they found
his stare unsettling, and by unsettling, I mean unsettling. There was a story in The Verge a couple of years ago under the headline Microsoft ignored focus group feedback about leering Clippy. Women did not like leering Clippy, according to focus groups, but in the nineties, the guy's green lighting, the bouncing paper clip didn't care. They were willing to throw away the negative focus group data to get Clippy
onto people's computer screens, and they did so. Clippy was included in Microsoft Office for Windows ninety seven, and like Gemini, Clippy was supposed to be helpful. For example, if you type the word dea into a word document, Clippy would say, it looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help? And you could either opt to get help or say no,
I'd like to type out this letter without help. But if you took Clippy up on his offer, he points you towards introducing yourself in the letter and giving you pointers about how to phrase sentences. The problem was most people didn't actually need or want help writing letters or with the other basic tasks that Clippy was offering to
assist with, at least not more than once. So people got really really frustrated with this smiling, bouncing, possibly creepy paper clip in the corner of their word documents, and the vitriol did finally get to Microsoft, with Clippy put to rest in two thousand and seven. He certainly was annoying, but I do understand why there's so much Clippy fan art out there to this day. Clippy truly was a
touchstone of my youth. But why we're talking about Clippy today and why it's relevant is that Clippy was an early example of consumer facing AI. And while Gemini is much smarter than Clippy and less creepy, at least visually, there is the same sense of intrusion the way Jen Womini shows up and asks me if I want my emails to be summarized, is giving me flashbacks help me write? May as well be it looks like you're writing an email,
would you like help? People have tried to find ways to opt out of Gemini's presence on Gmail, citing concerns about privacy. I mean, if you let your emails be summarized by Gemini, where does that data go? Google has a set of privacy commitments online that says, quote, your data is your data. The content that you put into Google workspace services, emails, documents, etc. Is yours. We never sell your data, and you can delete your content or
export it, but it's still being processed on Google servers. Now. Sure, all my emails are there anyway, but there's another layer of unease which comes with them being read over by a machine and interpreted by a machine without my request or consent. And Google just can't sume to get the optics quite right. During the twenty twenty four Olympics, Google ran an ad for Gemini where a dad used AI to help his daughter write a letter to the American track star and the idea of using a chatbot to
help write a fan letter. This kind of innocent form of human connection between a kid and how idol was off putting to a lot of people. Google ended up pulling that ad much like Apple did its ad, which crushed a whole bunch of musical instruments and paint pots and other artifacts of human creativity into a sleek iPad. This also calls up raw because it revealed a deep dissonance between how engineers think about their creations and how
real people think about their lives. Take a look through the r slash Google community on Reddit and you'll see what real people think. There are users calling Gemini quote absolutely worthless, and others said quote mostly nonsense, but occasionally it gets lucky and says something correct. Maybe Redd it's being a bit too hard on Gemini here. I mean, looking back at the Clippy error, so many people in nostalgic.
I mean, no one actually wants Clippy back in their word documents, but there's a kind of yearning for a simple time, and I do wonder how we'll look back at the Gemini era. I mean, after all, it's still a time when we sit in front of our computers, typing on our keys, telling the computer what we want.
And you know, fast forward twenty five years, when perhaps I'll be chiogenically frozen and my brain will be uploaded to the cloud, and that mind will wistfully think back to sitting in front of my computer in my apartment, thinking I remember Gemini. That's it for this week for tech Stuff, I'm oz Vloshin and this episode was produced by Eliza Dennis, Victoria Domingez, and Lizzie Jacobs. It was executive produced by me Kara Price and Kate Osborne for
Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcast. But He'd Fraser is our engineer. Kyle Murdoch mixed this episode and he also wrote our theme song. Join us next Wednesday for tech Stuff the story when we have a very special conversation with the Godfather of AI and the twenty twenty four Nobel Laureate Jeffrey Hinton about his remarkable life and how it intersects with building AI. Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech Stuff Podcast at gmail dot com. We want to hear from you.