From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff. I'm Oz Valascian and I'm care Price. Today we've got a few big stories to break down for you. First, the loss of a beloved neighborhood cat puts a spotlight on the autonomous vehicle company Weimo. Then, after facing pressure from the Chinese government, Apple removes two popular gay dating apps from its store in China. App We'll dive into what that could mean for the rest of us.
Then we'll tell you about a few other stories that cut our eye this week, like how the FBI is suddenly targeting a popular Internet archive, the flight app that may take the guesswork out of holiday travel, and we break down why tech titans keep building giant statues an obsession with immortality perhaps.
Then on chatting me, do you consider chat gpt to be a friend? Now all of that on the Week in Tech is Friday, November twenty First, Hello.
Cara, Hi, as.
I'm about to do something I swore I would never do. What do you know what omerta is? No America is the code of silence of the mafia. Okay, I went to a school called Eaton.
I'm aware I listened to Utah.
We have our own Omerta.
You do, yes. Interesting.
Never talk about the firm, right.
The one rule of fight club is never talk about fight club exactly.
Internally you can complain and you know, obviously say all the bad things about it. But externally that's omerta smile and stiffupper lip exactly. For those who don't know, Eaton is an all boys boarding school in Britain, founded in fourteen forty.
That's crazy.
There was nothing around it for America. For Charka, I think it's around the same time. Actually around the same time. It was originally founded by a king I can't remember which one, to be a scholarship school for very bright young boys who could then grow up to be government administrators. Oh interesting, But as with all the best things, it instead became a bastion for privilege and all of the wealthiest people to send their shortren It's where Prince William
and Prince Harry went, and my childhood was spent. All my years thirteen to eighteen was spent with busloads of tourists getting off buses to stare at me and say, is this Harry Potter? So I hope none of my friends from eating and listening. In fact, I'm sure they're not so. I got an email a few days ago from the Old Etonian Association.
That's how you, guys, say alumni alumni exactly.
The headline was on pleasure and business, and it was all about, drum roll, the release of a new.
App, an eaten app.
An eaten app. The email hit my inbox contain the following sentence. It will help reinforce what we all do already. Given two options that look the same, most of us will instinctively choose the old Etonian one. In an old Etonian environment, we'll go to the Oe founded restaurant, drink, the Oe founded wine book, the Oe founded hotel. The marketplace will simply support that instinct, making it visible, easy and fun. It's basically social shopping in a closed network.
Do you do any social shopping? You mean?
Do I do shopping on social media by buy books on the basis of what I see on social media? Absolutely? Yeah, I do that all the time. Do I shop on the basis of going to Trevor Day School?
Now? Well, continuing to quote from the email, You'll be able to sell a painting, hire a lawyer, rent a house, find a cello, teacher, advertise a vineyard, promote a play, offer investment, or buy a boat or a case of wine. You'll be able to promote your business, host to talk, offer advice, or list something completely unexpected. A vintage punt, a mid century sideboard, a labradoodle with a better pedigree than its owner.
Is that a better pedigree that it's? You know, this is kind of the perfect thing for you, because this is like LinkedIn meets Amazon if you want to eat.
Oh, that is that is perfect? You know. Just as we leave this one behind, The Times of London wrote a story about this, which I can say the only reason I'm talking about it because your meditor has already been broken. Everyone in courted No. Coming back to that line about giving a choice between two things, what instinct if you choose the old Etonian one. Somebody made a crack about how that hadn't worked out so well in terms of choosing prime ministers. Boris Johnson, I think of
twenty six or twenty seven. In all there was a room where all the busts of the old prim minister said, the twenty seven white marble faces.
To memorize their names. Probably, well, you kind of knew most it was like the residence of the United States.
So that is the first and last time I will ever speak about eating with you.
It's not the last time I'm going to ask about you, especially because I know there's no merit. I didn't know that before I would be badgering the constantly.
So a couple of weeks ago, you introduced me to an AI R and B artist called Zanaia. I did. I did you as so often were head of the game. Because last week there are actually three AI generated chart toppers, really they were. One was a Dutch anti refugee anthem charting on Spotify. But there's also a country music track called Walk My Walk that's number one in the Country Music Billboard chart.
You're kidding me. That's an AI tune, AI tune. I think this just means that AI knows what people like.
And Paul McCartney do you know? Paul McCartney responded, how Paul McCartney is releasing a record with just silence in protest? Really a pressed record with a B side just silence.
You're kidding me, that's amazing he should. I mean, I have a very unpopular opinion about this.
What's that well.
I just think that every musician should try to use AI tools with the gifts that they're given of songwriting.
What about every podcast or should they try to use AI sound music making tools? Because this one has You're a kidding without further ado, here is owe to KitKat? Oh kid cat? Where'd you go? This city's hot?
Oh my god? This is beautiful.
You listen without your paw, without your per I.
Can't believe you did this. This is unbelievable. Do you know this about This is about KitKat who got killed by weymoth? You're kidding me that you did this?
Chase the bird, swash the claw.
Wheel and wait with machines.
Don't see what a cat means to a family.
I used sooner AI and I wrote about it.
That's a gorgeous song.
It's a beautiful song.
Make that for how much money?
Zero?
That's what I'm saying, ceremony, That's what I'm saying. The par reference, I'm just blown away.
Lyrics actually, and I want to pull the lyrics for you.
So you didn't write Obviously you didn't didn't write lyrics.
Ballad about a cat who got killed by an autonomous vehicle. It's really amazing, unbelievable.
We are living in a crase.
But that's not even a story. We've got different stories. We got a transition.
I just can't believe that you just did that.
So a few weeks ago, a cat named kit Kat was killed after being struck by waymer. You know this story, I do. Kit Cat was a beloved neighborhood cat lived at a local corner market in San Francisco's Mission District. He had the nickname the Mayor of Sixteenth Street, and he would actively visit all the local businesses in return for treats. In twenty twenty, he was listed by s F Gate as one of San Francisco's favorite shop caps.
We call them cats.
So what happened? There's multiple versions of the story. Weimo said that the cat darted under the car as it was pulling out. Multiple witnesses allege that they saw KitKat underneath the car as the car started moving and people tried to stop the car. In fact, here's a quote from the owner of the shop, Mike Zaidan, where KitKat lived. This lady said there was no one to yet out in the car, no driver. They were touching the car hoping it wouldn't move and it just ran him over.
Unbelievable.
Can you imagine that beating beating on a car.
That is uncanny, right, that's really uncanny. Valley.
Here's what a witness said, So spooky. If it wasn't a weymo, if it was a person driving the car, they could have stopped.
Of course, this is horror. This is this is this is a Yeah, that's what I'm going to say. It's really spooky, and imagine it's something else.
I mean, well, that's except interestingly, and we're going to get onto this. Yeah, there actually no reports that Weimo has ever killed anyone. You can't say the same for Tesla's full self driving mode, though. There's been a growing memorial for KitKat outside the bodega, and part of what is really interesting to me here is there is actually back and forth at the memorial as to how to interpret this story. I'm going to get onto that too.
But let's start with the people who basically using this as a moment to say enough, as in us treating this as kind of a referendum on where the San Francisco should have these self.
Driving cars because of the loss of a cat.
Yeah, so here's what a local bar owner said, quote KitKat was taken by technology that none of us asked for and none of us consented to. And in fact, Survey USA did a news poll fifty eight percent of Californians don't want self driving cars in their neighborhoods.
Interesting.
That surprised me a little bit.
That's that feels high.
Jackie Fielder, who's a San Francisco City supervisor, is planning to introduce legislation that would allow counties to decide whether or not they'll permit the operation of autonomous vehicles.
Sort of be in a county by county basis.
I mean, I don't know. I don't know how far this will go, whether it has legs. But it is interesting, Like a cat gets killed, people are beating on the windows their minds. People wake up and think this is actually pretty weird. Do we really want this?
I don't think I agree with weymo no existing. I don't why do we need autonomous vehicles?
I guess I don't know. Cheaper human drivers, more labors placed, more money for corporation.
There go, and like doesn't seem very safe to me.
Well, a twenty twenty four peer of view'd study says that you're wrong. Oh, human driven vehicles apparently crash five times more than weymo's. Our producers actually pulled city data and it turns out human drivers killed forty three people in San Francisco last year and zero were killed by weymo's. The Mayor of San Francisco actually went on Pivot to
defend Waymo's during the interview. Interesting, and all of this comes at a time, by the way, when weimo is actually expanding deeper into the Bay Area, all the way into San Jose Angels and last week, I think for the first time, they were all out on the freeway. It is interesting though, that this is not the first time San Francisco has been roiled by a self driving
car accident. Remember the last one there was a division of General Motors called Cruise, and a Cruz hit a woman and similarly dragged her for twenty feet because it didn't know what was going on. She actually survived, but it was one of those other moments where a machine that has clearly not recognized that something terribly is going wrong is happening. In the aftermath of that, General Motors paused their self driving taxi service after having invested more than ten billion dollars.
That's crazy.
So final thought on this from me is, you know, who knows what will happen, But the world is taking notice of kit Kat's death and the Weimo killing it, and the debate about how much we want autonomous vehicles and robots in our space, and this kind of made me think of Blackfish. I remember was about the orca and it kind of led to the end of Sea World.
It was still open, it is, but it's really that they have to host I went to the conference for investigative journalists which was hosted at SeaWorld because it was the only conference center cheap enough. So it's very weird to be there. But you know, Weimo is a much more powerful company than the SeaWorld. But these moments where our heartstring by animals being hurt can be monumental moments of changing culture. So I think we should keep an eye on this.
The kind of rule of thumb there is, don't hurt an animal if you want your company to succeed.
That's right, Okay.
So I am taking us to a galaxy far far away China.
China, Yes, my favorite place to talk about.
You recently talked to Joseph Cox about how ice Block and other citizen apps were removed from app stores at the request of the US government, as two Chinese LGBTQ plus dating apps have now been removed from Apple and Android stores at the request of the Chinese Communist Party, which is something that I find extremely alarming.
Yeah, that that is alarming. And I mean you mentioned that ice block story about you know how under pressure from the US government, Apple and I guess Google, through the Android store, we're pulling these ice monitoring apps. Actually, I believe Apple sells more iPhones per year in China than they do in the US, so correct, I guess. Unfortunately, money talks, and if the Chinese government tell apples do something just like here in the US they do, they'll do.
And that's that's what's happened.
But I understand why the US government wants to get rid of ice apps. Why does the Chinese government want to get rid of gay dating apps.
Well, it's a good question because I was under the impression that the public opinion on homosexuality in China was actually getting more accepting, not less accepting. So I actually looked into the trends and this this is what I found. China decriminalized homosexuality in nineteen ninety seven. For context, US and UK were decriminalizing homosexuality back in the nineteen sixties. Okay,
here's what's been going on recently. In the twenty twenties, Shanghai Pride was actually shut down, and in twenty twenty one, social media accounts for a dozen student led LGBTQ plus organizations were actually banned.
Wow, this is really interesting. I wonder what was driving What were the actual apps that were removed?
So one is actually called Bludha and the other app is called Finka. Bluda is especially popular and has been active since twenty twelve. By twenty twenty, the app had forty nine million users and six million monthly active users.
Wow. Other other like use Grinder in China likewives No.
No, no, no no. Other LGBTQ plus dating apps have already been targeted. Most were blocked from the Chinese marketplace back in twenty twelve, and then in twenty twenty two, Grinder was removed from Apple's Chinese store.
And can users still use the apps that I download block or is it a usage block?
So? According to Wired, previously downloaded apps still appear to be working, but the original apps are not discoverable in the app store anymore.
And how did the Chinese government communicate to Apple they wanted this to happen?
Do we know? So?
Apple actually said they were following an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, which is an incredible or you can just imagine working for the Cyberspace Administration of China, say.
You think they might have bigger fish to fry, and they prepare for will.
Never the biggest fish that they have to fry.
That's crazy. You know, I was really interested in the ice Block story a few weeks ago because you know that the right have been obsessed for a long time about being deep platformed by technology companies. This was Elon buying x Trump starting truth social But actually it seems right now. I mean, at least from this examples that ice Block being removed, these gay data apts being removed in China. Have you put on the left to it
being hurt more by deplatforming by the tech companies. I guess those in power are the ones to whom the tech companies answers the people are to worry about the deplatforms are the ones out of power.
Yes, exactly, and that is clearly true.
But you don't see people on the left coming together and saying, actually, although we disagree on the content, we think that people on the right were right about the power of these tech companies a deep platform. But what about you, I mean, how do you see the wider context of this story?
Well, I think there is something worth noting, which is that Apple has a long standing policy of denying government requests for access to encrypted data. So the company says they will never create a backdoor or master key to any of their products or services. But they also seem to fold commpletely when it comes to deplatforming apps from their app store.
Yes, don't put too much trust in big tech exactly exactly.
After the break, tech bros want to build statues and the FBI attempts to unmask the mysterious owner of Archive Today, stay with.
Us and we're back.
Hello.
Hello. So sometimes friends send me links to articles in publications that they don't subscribe to and that I don't subscribe to. Using these internet archiving tools to get around.
Pay walls, it's how I read most things I know.
But I have and I have mixed feelings and being in the business of publishing content. I probably more than most feel it's important to pay publishers for content. On the other hand, has become.
The norm and a way that we get a lot of articles.
Well, that's true, and I mean certainly there's a bunch of stories that I wouldn't have seen if people haven't sent me these links to stories that are in paywalled publications. And some of those stories, in fact, we've talked about on the show. Now, the FBI wants to know who's behind one of the most popular of these sites, Archive dot is.
And what is archive dot is?
Archive is is an Internet archiving website. It's different from the Wayback Machine, which is owned by the nonprofit organization the Internet Archive. According to an FAQ page on archive dot is, it's quote privately funded. There are no complex finances behind it. And as I mentioned, it allows users
to archive articles and web pages bypass paywalls. And it's one of several sites, including the Internet Archive, that is saving government web pages and data sets that have been removed or changed since Trump took office in January twenty twenty five.
So do you know what the subpoene said? What is the FBI trying to find out.
It seems like it's an attempt to unmask the person behind the website and its sister websites like Archive dot to day and Archive dot pH.
So does the Internet have any ideas about who could be behind Archive today?
Well, the domain is registered to Dennis Petrov, but that's likely an alias.
Real name.
There's a twenty twenty three blog post that did a deep dive into who the owner might be, and there's a quote on that blog saying it's a one person labor of love operated by a Russian of considerable talent and access to Europe.
I wonder if Dennis Petrov wrote that.
Or maybe Dennis Petrov is a KGP.
Agent, possibly passibly. So I guess my last question is like, why is the FBI doing this?
Well, we don't know. It doesn't say why in the subpoena and they haven't commented publicly. Ours Technica theorizes that it could be a copyright infringement issue because the archive doesn't have a policy to remove content that has copyright infringement. That said, this is is the Trump administration's FBI. The Trump administration based on their AI policy and not tremendous defenders of copyright. Yes, so it seems like it's something
else going on here. Some have speculated they may be a political motivation because of the way sites like archive dot I make it impossible to scrub Internet history. There's also the Russian connection.
Russian connection, we just don't know. Speaking of Russia, it's your frequent flyer.
If I have a Russian visa at my passport, which always makes me freak out.
Oh I do too, I went many years ago. Do you use flight apps?
I hate apps?
You really do.
Like you use WhatsApp, It's like it's your hero app, WhatsApp.
Text I don't have. I think I probably had a couple of airline apps on my phone, but I really I'm a mobile web browser, one of the last right.
That's for Instagram as well. Sometimes true. So have you heard about Flighty before?
No?
So Flighty is this flight tracker that I read about recently in the Wall Street Journal. I'm like, not a huge frequent flyer, so I don't. I'm not like following different flight paths and all that stuff that other people who loved to fly follow. But I wanted people to know about this in preparation for next week, which is you know, the busiest time of year to travel.
Thank god for the government shutdown being over exactly.
So this flight app Flighty is so data rich that people have said they get Flighty updates before the airlines convey new information.
Wow.
And that's even their tagline, Flighty get delay alerts faster than the airlines.
That's incredible.
You know who loves to use it? Pilots.
Wow, they get better information from flight than from when they're you know, tragic. That doesn't surprise me.
I know, you're like at the gate and it's saying it's delayed when it doesn't say it at the gate. It's crazy. You know who else loves it?
The points guy, The points guy love you know what, I actually download this.
You would like it because you know what, you like the fact that it's before the airlines Google.
You like the exclusivity anyway, But how does it work?
So there's a guy named Ryan Jones, which is a real name.
I'm like, Dennis Petrol, Well, Dennis Petrov.
Is the Ryan Jones of Russia. Is definitely what it is. But he actually built this really popular weather app called Weatherline, and then he started working on Flighty in the strangest of places and airport Chili's Apple.
Like Jensen Huang starting in video at Denny's.
It's exactly like that. So what he did is he brought in one hundred pilots to evaluate the data he had, so he knew this is the best stuff from put I can see you downloading this as I speak. He spent two years this just to give you a sense of like how much he really This wasn't just like on a whim. He spent two years in beta working out any data kinks, so by the time he launched
in twenty nineteen, there wouldn't be any issues. He also asked his social media followers what they would want in a flight tracking app, and you know what they said, clean design, nice and they won an Apple Design Award, which was one of Jones's initial goals when he was laying out the app at Chili's.
That's pretty amazing.
So Flighty pays for both private and public flight data from around the world in order to stay up to date. This data can include things like the number of hours lost to delays, the make and model of your plane, which you know a lot of people are interested in when it flew for the first time, whether you have flown on it before, and if your plane has a name.
This is actually my dream come true.
Like the thing is, you're sick enough to want to know all this stuff about your plane.
I am, in fact, sometimes I google the tail numbers of planes all the time, not even private. But also you can find out, especially if you're flying outside of the US or outside of like Western Europe and you're in like a you know, another country, you can find out which major airline owned your plane.
Before before it became a second hand exlightly dumpster.
So I do like that kind of stuff. I will download flight toy. We've talked about memory a couple of times in this episode kit Kat's memorial. Yes, the Internet archive. So for my final story, I couldn't resist headline in Bloomberg, which was America's tech right is obsessed with building giant statues and.
Who is the tech right?
Peter Teel and most rich people. But there's one guy called Ross Calvin who runs a mining company and it's so good and he wants to build a statue of Prometheus on Alcatraz. You won't know how high he wants a statue to be high four hundred and fifty feet. That's humorious, an enormous, enormous statue. Prometheus, of course, was the Greek god who gave men technology against the will of the gods, and he's seen as an embodiment of the West's greatest traits.
At first, I think you're healing about Ross Calvin. Then I'm like, oh, no, he's talking about Prometheus.
There are some other tech bros who want monuments. Mo Mahmood, the founder of a startup called More Monuments. I wonder if there's a lot of money more Monuments. He wants to build a statue of George Washington. Guess how high? Tell me six hundred and fifty feet.
That's like a skyscraper.
Mark Zuckerberg created a tiny, tiny, tiny statue of his wife. You know how small? Seven feet?
I guess that's true.
You wanted to quote bring back the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife.
People are crazy.
Joe Lonsdale, a co founder of Pallantier, commissioned a neoclassical bust of none other than Barry Wise.
You're kidding, kidding? Is that real?
That's real? Lonsdale, like the President is a huge fan of the neoclassical style.
This is very euro of Lonsdale. Yeah, it's very euro and it's also very trump.
You know which great Europeans loved neoclassical architecture, which Benito Muslini, Adolf Hitler.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Bloomberg has a quote from the author Erica Doss, who wrote a book called Memorial Memorial Mania.
Dedicating memorial had she dedicating your life to writing about memorials, but.
She said, quote, it's right out of the fascist playbook name and autocracy that doesn't have a neoclassical obsession. And she pointed out that this affinity for classical design calls back to the Roman and Greek empires, who promoted societies with strong perception of triumphant masculinity.
You know, monuments and statues show what a person or country really values. If America the tech writer are exclusively pushing European style monuments with Greek gods and goddess's triumphant, like, what does that tell you about their values?
You know, at a time of new monuments being built by and funded by tech overlords. I mean, in one sense, it's kind of a silly story, but on the other hand.
Its consequence real consequence, I think.
Do you know the poem Ossi Mandius no Osi Mandias was a poem that I liked by Shelley, and it was one that we had to read a lot at school. I want to read you a little bit of it, please, And on the pedestal these words appear. My name is Ossie Mandius, king of Kings. Look on my works, mighty and despair. Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sand
stretch far away. This is a head of a statue, just in the desert, by itself, that to me says it all. This, this desire for immortality to self memorials great. It's tragic, and it ends with junk in an empty desert.
Ozzie, I have a feeling that you don't follow something that I follow very closely. Also, the escapades of one miss Kim Kardashian.
Well, I follow them when I see them on the daily, of course. And my wife wis the Hulu Shao. So I'm a she did Kim is part of my life. Okay.
So it's not like you're completely kim agnostic.
I'm not kim agnostive. I've also not a huge Kim stan Well.
So you probably miss this, which is that Kim recently did. Have you ever seen these Vanity Fair Lie Detector tests. It's like a content piece that they do. That's fun.
It's a celebrity video.
Yeah, it's basically them doing a polygraph. Oh wow, Okay, And she was doing it for her new show All's Fair, which I watch. And when I saw this video, I knew I had to bring it to Chat and Me because during her lie detector test that she did through Vanity Fairs Lie Detector Test content feature, Kim admitted to co star Tiana Taylor that she uses chat GPT.
Do you consider chat gpt to be a friend?
No?
I use it for legal advice.
So when I am needing to know the answer to a question, I'll take a picture and snap it and like put it in there.
That wasn't the answer I was expecting the question, do you can see chatchibts be a friend? I seem to remember that Kim that she said no, No, Why would you ask me that I don't have any friends. I'm the most famous woman in the world.
I know.
She was trained to be a lawyer, and of course her father famously was OJ's lawyer. Yes, but I'm curious to hear about Kim's thoughts on Chat's legal advice.
They're always wrong. It has made me fail test all the time. And then I'll get mad and I'll like yell at him, be like you made me fail?
Why did you do that? Technically? And it will consider it refree. Yeah, so you're consider it refriend.
It's just no, I don't consider it a friend.
So she's a frend of me, Yes, a fun of me.
It's important to know that Kim is actually trying to become a real lawyer. She did a four year law office apprenticeship, and she passed the Baby Bar exam after her fourth try, and she recently did take the California Bar Exam.
Did she pause?
No, But that's also not Chatchebt's fault. She's blaming that on psychics. Actually, Kim does go on to say that Chat tells her that she should believe in herself.
Then I will talk to it and say, hey, you're going to make me fail. How does like that make you feel that you need to really know these answers? I'm coming to you and then it'll stay back to me. This is just teaching you to trust your own instincts.
You knew the answer, clock, so technically you a Chat GPT are friends just toxic friends?
On this scene.
Because I think she wanted to get back to the original question, which is are you and Chat GBT?
I like it.
This is hard heartening, Jon. You don't no matter what they say, you don't get derailed from your train of thought.
That's exactly right, you know.
I do think one of the I like Kim by the way, but entertained about, was that she was saying to Chat you made me fail. I'm not sure that's quite fair. On Chat. I think maybe she fails. She'd have time to study.
She studies a lot.
I think it's really hard. I think it's really hard.
This story got me thinking Kim isn't the only person asking chatchipt for helpful legal Highly doubt she is. I actually asked Chat for some help with legal problems the other day, and I was I was very persuaded by the answer. But then when I spoke to my real lawyer, I don't need you anymore. You do, but beyond my lawyer.
I read a CNBC article the other day about a divorced lawyer who said more and more young people are using chat ChiPT for legal advice, which, of course she said, it's a bad idea, but I am fascinated by this topic. In the meantime, listeners, we want to hear from you.
So earlier this year I asked if anyone has used chat GPT to write their wedding vows and I'm still waiting to hear that story. Or maybe you asked chat how to keep the spark alive in your relationship, So tell me what chat might say for that. We want to hear from you.
Please send a voice memo to tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. We'll give you a T shirt in return.
That's it for this week for tech Stuff.
I'm Kara Price and I'm oz Va Looshin. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Kara Price, Julian Nutta, and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcasts. The engineer is Beheth Fraser and Jack Insley Mix this episode. Kyle Murdock wrote out theme song. Please rate, review and reach out to us at tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. We want to hear from you.