From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff.
I'm as Luscian and I'm care price.
Today we get into spy cockroaches and why Europe is getting armed with a bunch of sci fi weapons, and a revealing conversation with the human team behind a viral.
AI artist then un chatting me, and then I put in what formation should you play to be?
NWSL teams all of that on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, November seventh, US. I want to tell you about this bird that I saw on the way to work today.
Birds can be very symbolic.
It was a brown and white pigeon.
Or feral as US ornithologists like to call it.
A pharal dove. So do you know I'm telling you about a bird? Have no idea, no idea you could pass.
What's the test?
You just experienced? Something called bird theory. It's this relationship test that I saw on TikTok, and a lot of TikTokers are using it to test their partners by secretly filming their partner's reactions when they point out a bird. If their partner reacts enthusiastically like I did, good sign. If not some say, bird, watch out.
What's behind this?
It's actually from this theory developed by the Gotmans, who are prominent couples therapists, and this test is used to evaluate how a partner responds to what the Gotmans call a bid for connection. So just now, had we been together and you were like, Babe.
I can't in the studio, I'm by definition forced to pay attention to what you're telling me. In real life, I feel like, as a bird over there, I had just been on my phone, I won't even heard you locked into my phone.
That's very true, and so it is also contextual, I think. But what is really interesting to me about this is that there is a thing that's happening on TikTok that I think is really just an extension of like the BuzzFeed or Cosmo quiz. Remember BuzzFeed quizzes.
Like are you astrologically compatible with your partner? Or like do you like the same things? And that kind of thing.
Well, that's exactly what I mean. But I think that there's this interesting thing that's happening on TikTok, which is that like people are gamifying their relationships very publicly and inviting viewers to judge their partner's responses as well, and so it kind of is the first time people are like opening up their relationships to a peanut gallery.
That's the weird part, right, Like you would think the idea of the peanut galleries. That's different from the old days of Cosmo and BuzzFeed quizzes.
What's amazing is how seriously people take this stuff. People are really like in the comments being like, if your partner doesn't pay at ten, you talking about the bird? Dump it, believe?
How about this for a transition please? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a drone.
That's good.
Okay, that's good. So the general headline that I want to share with you today is Europe is investing heavily in defense tech with mixed results.
What are the mixed results?
Some of it's working and some of it's absolutely not. There was a story in the Financial Times with the headline drones startup back by Peter Teel crashed and burned in Armed forces trials. So of course I couldn't read it up exactly. But this all started with Vice President
jd Vance. Earlier this year. Jd Vance, in his first major public speech, was in Munich, at something called the Munich Security Conference, which is basically when all of the big wigs of European defense get together and you know, prominent Americans from government come and normally it's a kind of backslapping, handshaking thing. This year was very different. Vance shocked Europe and I had some friends who had that conference.
You had friends that were shocked.
Shocks say, you, guys, you're on your own. You've been eating out of our hand for too long. You've gonna boost your own defense spending because we're not coming to the rescue anymore. So now Europe is stepping up her Reuters venture capital funding of European defense tech hit one billion dollars this year, up from around four hundred million
in twenty twenty two. More interesting than that, there was a stat is this year, for the first time ever, combined European spending on defense procurement, by the way, this includes Turkey and Ukraine is expects to be more than in the US. What Europe is spending.
More just because JD.
Vance marked then yeah, I mean I think it's that, And obviously it's it's carroting. Well, it's two sticks. It's an American stick and the Russian stick. There's a very little carrot. One is saying you've got to do this, and the other is all but saying you've got to
do this. A lot of this investment is happening in Germany, which also obviously has a troubled history when it comes to quite armament production and has really not done very much since the Second World War and till now when there is demand from the US, pressure from Russia, but also a whole bunch of talented engineers who have worked for decades in the auto industry which is now on its knees. Interesting, but I do want to talk a little bit more about this Financial Time story about Yes, that's.
What I want to hear more about is stashing and burning.
This is about a company called Stark, which rhymes with Lark. It's a Berlin based drone company back by Peter Teel, Sequoia Capital and the NATO Innovation Fund. Stark was founded fifteen months ago and they've built weaponized drones that look kind of reminiscent of ex fighters from Star Wars. The base of the drone is shaped like an X.
And this has all been developed in the last fifteen months.
It has and it had two trials which were covered by the Financial Times, which called them a disaster. The drones quote failed to hit a single target during four attempts at two separate exercises. You know, the failure, especially when and it's failure of investments by some of these Silicon valley overlords is always delicious, extremely delicious. But the new idea in defense tech is build it and they
will come. Previously, it was like the government would commission a new fighter jet, There'll be a twenty year procurement cycle, and it would cost like, you know, five hundred billion dollars for the government to get the new technology wanted. Now all these startups are saying, wow, like wars here or war's coming, Why don't we raise money from the private market and make weapons that governments don't even think
they need yet. And so that's a huge shift, and it's being powered, of course by AI, automation and robotics. There's a story in the New York Times about the same phenomenon which had a great, great quote, which was the new business model reflects a sea change in warfare that maybe as profound as the shift from horse cavalries to armoured tanks and airplanes in World War One.
That's quite a distinction. I mean, I guess my question is why do things on the cheap?
Well, I think because, I mean, the point of these venture back companies is you're trying to do a minimal viable product as cheaply as you can. If it works, you raise a bunch more money and go into full production. So most Series A companies fail. But what's interesting is that private investors are willing to take risk to fund weapons, most of which won't work. But the ones that do work, or that do convince governments they work, will presumably print fortunes for their founders and backers.
So this is quite literally the old Silicon Valley model of moved fast and break things.
It's exactly that, exactly that, but for defense tech, which.
Is a little scarier. When it comes to defense tech. You know, I'm sure some of this tech is incredibly sci fi and inspired, but like, this is stuff that's being made for war.
Yeah, I mean, look, so one of the most successful companies in the space seems to be this company called Helsing. They're featuring the same ft story. They hit their targets seventeen times and successfully completed five trial runs. Their valuation is now over four teen billion dollars.
That's crazy.
And it's not just drones. There are other companies who are trying to create the weapons of the future. In parallel, there's a company called euro Atlas who have quote created a division to develop autonomous underwater vehicles. The commonitor vital cables on the ocean floor. They are vital cables without no Internet without without them. They've created this underwater vehicle called gray Shark that actually looks more like a dolphin. And to me, bionic cockroaches are the most fascinating part
of the story. I'm serious. So let me tell you about a little company called Swarm Biotechniques.
There you go.
Swarm Biotechniques have taken cockroaches and made these little backpacks for them. These backpacks again a little baby corroach, baby cockroach backpack. The backpack interacts with the cockroaches nervous system such that a human operator can use the cockroach like a remote control cars.
So these are real cockroaches.
These are real cockroaches.
That have implants in their brain.
Implants in their brain and tiny cameras and can go in swarms into areas where humans or other bigger robots. This is from the Swarm biotechniques websites has been referenced in a bunch of mainstream press. So I haven't seen for myself the swamp that the cockroach being remote controlled. But what a world we're living in.
So why is this happening in Europe specifically?
Yeah, well, I mentioned that the Vance thing, and one of the co founders of Helsing, the more successful drone company, told the New York Times quote before, no European VC was interested in defense. Now everyone wants to invest. And so I think you can't really understand this story without understanding how scary it is to be next to Russia if you live in Europe. So you know, in New York a few months ago, everyone was looking up at the sky and seeing all these drones. It's kind of
scary and chilling. Yeah, it's a lot more scary and more chilling to Russia. You look up the sky and you see stuff.
Right.
The market is fear driven, of course, So drones, presumably Russian drones, have been spotted flying over European bases hosting US tactical nuclear weapons that are part of Europe's nuclear terrance strategy. The US is believed to have around one hundred tactical nuclear bombs in Europe spread across five countries, which is half of the US supply not something you want to.
See, No, you definitely don't. And I know this because I just saw the new Cafine Bigelow movie called House of Dynamite, and it's about basically the hours leading up to a nuclear missile heading to the United States. I'm just thinking about it because of this. It sort of shows the ways in which the United States isn't exactly prepared. I actually want to I want to transition to something that is a little bit more CARA, which is music culture AI the synthetic creation of new musical artists.
Well, I have to tell you that one of the main investors in Helsing, In fact, I think the lead investor in the last round was none other than Daniel Eck, who also found his Spotify.
So there's always but it's also gotten him in trouble, that's right, Like many artists have left the platform because of this, and it's also why Eck is no longer the CEO of Spotify. But yes, I'm here to talk about the state of music, and you know that AI music is nothing really new, Like we talked about it on Sleepwalkers. There was a company called Endell that was like the first algorithm to have a record deal. And actually in September, Spotify revealed that it moved seventy five
million spam tracks over the last year. And this has become a really big business for people because it's cheap to make and if a song is played for more than thirty seconds on a streaming platform, the person uploading the music gets a royalty. So I'm curious first and foremost, like, what do you think about AI music?
Very good question. I don't know what I think about AI music, but what I do think about is that I know when people think they are interacting with AI created media, they slightly switch off. But I'm wondering if that if that continues, I mean.
They're turned off by the idea. Yeah, sorry, I was trying to translate your British. Well. I want to play you a song that is number thirty on Billboard's Adult R and B Airplay charts, and this artist has over one million monthly listeners on Spotify.
He didn't want me down no stairs, didn't want me about them boys who wouldn't care.
Didn't tell me what a real man sounds like.
So a fell for that's right.
He never pulled much. Tell me what you think about it.
I would have no idea. This wasn't real, right. I did like it though, I like especially that. Oh at the beginning it sounded a bit like I don't want to look for Christmas.
Well, let me tell you something. Not a lick of it is real. However, there is some reality.
It's a human in the loop.
There is a human in the loop. The person that you just heard is Zania Monet.
Okay, she's real. If she's not real, she.
Is fake as they come. So I'm a person who likes to see when AI is creating an inflection point in the culture where it's like, you know, like we talked about with Sora, like all of a sudden, we can't trust video anymore. Ever, Yeah, I think because this artist Zanaia is on the Billboard charts, Yeah.
That makes it feel different. Right. This is not just so garbage that's on Spotify and from time to time gets weeded out by a mod or an automatic mod. This is a charting song of an artist with a name who doesn't exist. That's right.
And on top of that, she has a manager and a multimillion dollar record yeah with Hollwood Media, which is an independent record label founded by a former Interscope executive. So when I was reading about Zania, it was actually unclear to me what about her was a and what wasn't like Was it the beats, was it her voice?
Was it the lyrics? So I actually called up Zenia's manager, Ramel Murphy, and he told me that this whole project is actually the brainchild of a lifelong friend and poet, a thirty one year old named Talisha Nicki Jones.
Here's Ramel, so I would say Zanayah is an extension of Talisha Jones. So that's why it feels so real, because she put her raw motions on real life experiences into the song. AI is just a tool to enhance and give a different experience, not a better, not a worse, a different experience. And we're going to be completely transparent as we've been from the jump. She's not the vocal beast as Zanaia is.
Ramel and Talisha don't see Talisha's lack of musical training as any issue. She's basically using an R and B singer songwriter avatar to elevate the real life stories and emotions she's putting into her lyrics. And Talisha the poet has an undeniably larger reach as Zanaia, the R and B singer. So what was interesting about what Ramel said is that this is art. Talisha's music is real music, even if Talisha herself isn't musically talented in her own right.
So Talisha has been using an AI music generator called Suno to make these songs because, as Ramel put it, she is not a singer and she's not a musician, She's just a poet. And actually, Talisha appeared on CBS Mornings and showed co host Gail King how she uses Suno to turn her poems into music.
And I just take those lyrics, just go in and paste a simple style, slow tempo R and B.
So you're saying, I want slow tempo R and B.
She adds a few more prompts into AI music generator Suno, like female soulful vocals, light guitar and heavy drums, and Hilary's just creat.
I watched some videos of her on Facebook. Talicia, Yeah, Talisha, she teaches how to leverage AI tools into financial rewards, and I don't know. I feel like she's kind of taking this software by the scruff of its neck and saying, look like, I'm not going to be a superstar. I can build a superstar, and isn't it better for me to build a superstar who I then don't have to respond for She's a producer.
Is an interesting combination being a good producer and a good marketer. Right She's written Talisha's written the hype cycle of AI to become a producer and artist, and Aaron write good on I think.
What people have a problem with is is this music. So there's a very well known R and B artist named Kailani and she was quoted in a piece in Billboard magazine saying, quote, nothing and no one on earth will ever be able to justify AI to me. And I do understand this. There are many R and B artists who have worked for years and years tirelessly to hone their craft. And Talisha is a poet, is using soon know and is pushing out songs pretty easily using
digital tools. So Kilani makes a point in the sense of like, can we really call Zanaya an artist in the same way we call Kilani an artist? I think right.
I mean, look, if all music was this, I would be super depressed. But I think because I'm attracted to Talsia's story, I feel like I give this a pause. But it's kind of agel debate. Right, is a musical act more the product of the musician or the producer in today's world?
That is the question. And actually Suno has been sued for copyright infringement and a lot of artists are very anti Suno that sense.
Yes, basically stealing people's voices and musical ideas and melodies to make this possible.
Well, they're training SUNO's algorithms with pre existing material, and a lot of record companies are part of this larger lawsuit where they're saying that is not okay. You can't basically facilitate someone's entire musical career on the voice and sound of you know, thousands of artists music.
After the break a pitch to build data centers in space and professional soccer coaches experiment with Chatgibt stay with us and we're back, Cara, What if I told you that Google wanted to harness the power of the sun to power data centers.
I would quote the oft quotable Mel Robbins and say let them.
Let them. I would say, let them. What if I told you they would also be honessing the power of the Sun for these data centers in space.
I would say that nothing surprises me anymore. Are they doing this well?
They just We've talked about making plans to send trial equipment into orbit by early twenty twenty seven. It's called Project Suncatcher.
Brilliant name.
Basically, the idea is that tightly packed constellations of solar powered satellites orbiting four hundred miles above Earth's surface with AI processors could help meet rising demand for AI without putting additional strain on our energy resources here on Earth.
And this is a good idea why.
The article in the Guardian that I read talked about how the bet Google is making here is that it will be so cheap to send stuff into space by twenty twenty seven, that will actually be cheaper to do data centers in space than on Earth. Google researchers predict that the cost of sending stuff to space could drop to two hundred dollars per kilogram in this decade, which is a multiple lower than it is today.
So we'd basically be sending these to space because it's saving money.
It's cheaper than using Earth Earth energy. It's better for the environment because you don't need you don't need fossil fuels, and you don't need water to cool them down because it's cold up there.
Because it's cold up there.
There are of course some downsides as well. Launching rockets emits loads and loads and loads of CO two, So you have to believe that the price in CO two for the rocket launches will be less than the price of CO two in fossil fuels burnt to power data centers on Earth. One astronomer gave a quote that also, so many satellites in low orbit will be quote like
bugs on a windshield when trying to observe outer space. Really, and so you know, you think we talked, I think a couple of weeks ago about all this space junk raining down from the sky, sending loads more stuff, And you also have to step back and ask the question, do we really really need this much AI processing power that we have to send me a bunch of stuff into space.
In order to do like shouldn't we do less?
Maybe? But that's unlikely. Elon Musk is also working on data centers in space, and Nvidia AI chips are shortly to be launched into space this month in partnership with a startup called star Cloud to see if they actually work in space. I mean, this is living, this is insane.
They're sending chips. They're sending Nvidia chips to space to see if Nvidia chips will work in space.
As far as I understand, yes, I don't want to see what happens.
I'm not interested in finding out.
Don't look up it is.
Don't look up. I have a story that just is much more on Earth.
You know.
I'm obsessed with school phone bans. And I don't have a child, but I think that no.
Child should use a phone in school ever.
Really, ever until they're eighteen. Kentucky had a school phone ban, and listen to what happened. More people are taking out books from the library.
Well.
The Jefferson County Public School District in Kentucky reported that kids are checking out more books from the library this year than last year. One school in the district saw an increase of sixty seven percent more checkouts year over year. And they're only like, what is it November. There are
only a few months into school. It has made a huge difference, not just for library usage, but administrators are hopeful that this trend will do wonders for reading scores, and it's already improved at least one student's mental health who told a local outlet quote. At first, I was really dramatic about the policy. I thought it was going to end my whole life. I just realized this is a good chance for me to put my phone down
and start focusing back on school. It helps people socialize because this year I have talked to people more than in all the twelve years of me being in school.
Wow.
You know what is funny? You have a book club? Yes, able to social media power use that.
That's true.
I if I'm on vacation, I can read quite quite easily and happily. If I'm at home, I want to read in the evening, I have shut my phone in the other room.
You have to.
You have to have your phones anywhere near that book is normal.
And we're in our thirties. We're talking about kids who are twelve years old who have been in school, or fifteen years old. It goes back to the thing like if you give someone a phone, and you give someone a book, which one was designed using mechanisms that they used to create slot machines. Not a book.
Not a book, Not a book. I have something which is the definition of not boring story, the louver Heist.
I love the lead following Yes, it's the best.
So the Crown Jewels of France were essentially poloined. Recently, in the.
Age of US sending data centers to space, there are still just mom and pop thieves.
Well that's the thing. So that's so. The original thought was, oh my god, this is the most sophisticated criminal gang in the world. It turned out to be according to the French prostitute of the bunch of local Joshmo, which meant that they left their DNA all over the place.
This is why it's a textuff story. So essentially, in France there is a database like there is in the US of DNA of people who have been arrested and convicted of crimes, and essentially they were able to get the DNA from various places, including the Empress Eugenniese Crown, which was dropped on the way out, advised and cross referenced it with the database of people who had committed a crime in France and they got four hits being immediately.
So easy for them.
Yeah, what's really interesting here is that the reason the DNA samples could catch allegedly the thieves was because these people had already committed crimes and been booked about the system. So there's four point four million people in France who are in this DNA database and they can cross reference. That's the same as how it works in the US with something called CODIS. You know about COTIS, I do the Combined DNA Index System. How do you know about it?
Because I watched CSI, right, I watch a lot of crimes.
So CODIS has a lot more hits in it, but I think in order of magnitude more. And we actually at Kulleioscope have another podcast called America's Crime Lab, which I'm going to plug hard here. It is about a startup called Othrum who were using forensic DNA techniques, so in other words, they can extrapolate based on DNA databases even if you haven't already been put in the database who you may be based on your relatives and stuff. And so they were actually very heavily involved in Golden State,
well not Golden State actually, but in the Idaho. Oh the Idaho, but Golden State was exactly one of these cases as well. It's controversial. In France, consumer DNA sort of businesses are actually banned. We were talking at the beginning of the episode about Germany's history and the armaments industry, because in France, the reason consumer genetic companies are banned is because of the Holocaust. You know, inferring people's genealogy and Jewishness was a way that you know, many many
people are senter their deaths in France. So it's always two sided, right, I mean, you want you want the to use the DNA technology to you know, to help figure out who to the Jewels.
But not who is the jew.
It.
I can say it. I can say.
It now for Chat and me.
I like reading about soccer as you might call it, football as I call it on the Guardian, I pretty compulsively. I didn't down at for a weird reason like a Guardian dot co or UK slash football probably forty times a day. I stumbled upon an article with a surprising revelation about how professional soccer might be getting help from jen Ai.
I saw this too. Yes. The Seattle rainhead coach Laura Harvey confessed on the soccer Is podcast to using chat GPT to help coach your team. It was in the off season.
I was like writing things into chat GPT of like what is Seattle Rain's identity?
And it would like spur it out and I was like, no, I don't.
I don't know if that or not.
And then it would be I would like, what what do you need to do to be successful in the NWSL?
Lot really broad questions so far so generic?
Yeah, totally. I mean it's what many people do with chat. They start small, but then pretty soon you realize you're asking a chat but whether or not you should stay in your relationship even though your partner didn't show enough enthusiasm when you started talking about a fake bird you saw.
So what happened next with the Seattle.
Rain and then I put in what formation should you play to be NWSL teams? And it spurred out every team in the league on what formation you should play? And for two teams I'm not going to say who they are, they'll know the two teams, it went you should play back five.
So I did you know?
It's interesting because if all soccer teams are playing against each other are using AI tactics, and it's like.
It's like saying all coaches have the same knowledge base, but it's like.
On acid exactly, except Laura Harvey and the rest of the coaching staff, like Talisia, did a deep dive into whether or not the defensive tactic recommended by would actually work. So again, good to get the prompts or good to get the output, and then good to use it for your purposes. Yep, smartly.
So was this a winning strategy?
Well, Laura didn't say which teams are they played against using chats tactics, but Seattle Rain have played with a back five at multiple points this season and it seems to be paying off. In twenty twenty four, they rank second bottom in the league, and this year they're number five and heading into the twenty twenty five quarter finals.
A win for chat GPT. I'm going to be looking out for that back five. I'm also going to be looking out for submissions for chatting me. We want to hear how you were using chatbots to win championships. Email us at tex Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. That's it for this week for Tech Stuff I'm Kara Price.
And I'm os Valoshin. This episode was produced by Elisa Dennis Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Kara Price, Julian Nutter, and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katria Norvel for iHeart Podcast. The engineer is Beheth Fraser and Jack Insley makes this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote up be himself.
Join us next Wednesday for a deep dive into Nvidia, the first publicly traded company to top five trillion dollars in market value.
And please do rate, review and reach out to us at tech Stuff Podcast at gmail dot com. We love hearing from you