You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Right here on KFI on a Taco Tuesday, July thirtieth.
Some of the stories we are covering a.
Couple of weeks ago, actually a week ago, we talked about the Sane River where the mayor jumped in to prove that it is safe for the triathlon, which is part of it.
Is swimming in the Seine. Well, the bacteria.
Count is gotten high enough where they're saying that really isn't safe for the triathlon. Well, when they do start it, it'll be the quad athlon because they've added a diarrhea event right after the swim, and the Mexican team is the overriding favorite to win the gold on that one. Now, let me talk about the fair plan. What is the fair plan. Well, if you have home insurance and you can't get insurance, which happened to me at the Persian Palace,
no insurance, no home insurance, thank you, We're done. And that's happening more and more because there are so many wildfire areas and now it's all over the state, and so insurance companies just say no, thank you, and they've gotten out of California. Well, you go to the Fair Plan if you can't get insurance, and the Fair Plan you pay a lot of money and all.
You get is fire insurance.
You don't get comprehensive there's no liability insurance, there is no damage coverage.
It's only fire now.
It used to be that fire and this is part of fire insurance, a part of fire damage. When you have a little bit of fire and they're able to put it out, for example, your house is saved and only a small portion is burnt, Well, let me tell you the whole house is ruined because of the smoke damage. I mean, I have seen houses that had just a kitchen fire and the whole house they had to go down to the studs because the smoke went into the walls, into the dry wall. And so what happened is smoke
damage is part of it. Well, let me tell you there was a there was a change and since twenty seventeen, the Fair Plan began limiting coverage for this standard policy that paid for smoke damage only if it was detectable to the unaided eye or the nose of an average person.
It used to be all you had is to test for it.
Requirement and this made us it was hit a certain level, but boom, you were covered. Oh no, they changed that to where an average person must be able to swell it.
What the hell does that mean?
The unaided eye and an average person you know what that means.
They can deny like crazy, and they have denied those claims like crazy.
Well, lawsuit City, that's what's going on right now, class action lawsuit saying we were denied coverage.
We want to change that.
Now that part isn't asking for money, They just want the change the plaintiffs on that one, the part that asking for money. Same attorney, by the way, he was representing a thousand homeowners, saying that they were denied coverage for smoke damage under this new definition because you know what, the average person.
Wouldn't be able to smell it.
Huh, the average eye sight wouldn't be able to ascertain that there was smoke damage.
Please. And so the lawsuit continues.
The insurance department, California Insurance Department is saying, yeah, we allow that to happen. But what they're doing is helping the plaintiffs, saying, the reason we allowed that change is because we were given information by the major insurers, and it was false and misleading information, and effectively, I don't know where.
These insurance companies are going to go.
Incidentally, the insurance the Plan, the Fair Plan, is a group of insurance companies. They all have to put into this fund. It's mandatory if you want to do business, if they want to do business in California, and it guarantees that anybody who has a home or a piece of property will be covered if all other insurance policies or applications are denied or your insurance is exhausted.
And that's what happened to me. I couldn't find insurance. I was there.
My homeowner's policy expired November eleventh, as a matter of fact, I will never forget that. And I couldn't find a policy for two and a half weeks, and my insurance agent finally found me a policy, and it was for less coverage and twice the price, one hundred percent more money, to the point where it became prohibitive. Now I don't do that. I don't pay that anymore because I got
rid of the Persian Palace. But the people that bought the Persian Palace lovely family, by the way, and the good news is they are blind, they are not cited, and they have all kinds of liabilities or handicaps, so they're not able to really see what the house was like. But the point is they're paying a lot more. They've got nailed on the taxes, they're getting nailed on insurance.
It's tough to own a home today. So at least under the California Fair Plan, it's going to go back to if you think you have smoke damage, you just.
Call the lab. That's it.
Call the lab. Yep, it's reached that certain level of smoke damage or the smell. I don't know how they do that, but labs do that. And so at least the insurance companies aren't given the power to determine what is what the average person's smell is.
I don't have smell. I have virtually no smell.
Why is that, Well, because four years of cocaine every day kind of wipes out the cilia in the nostrils. Am I an average person? Yeah, I can't smell anything.
If they bring me.
Up to testify, couldn't smell the thing. I don't know what the average person is. And that is the problem, and the insurance commit sure, and let that fly. Let that fly in twenty seventeen, and they're saying that's because you lied to the insurance companies. And let me tell you, insurance companies are your friend.
Right. Fish are not food. Insurance companies are not food. Do I have that right? But they are your friends? All right? Enough of that.
I don't know how that worked, by the way, all right, talking about the Olympics, you know what did the city get back when it hosts the Olympics. You go to Paris, you got a new village over one hundred and twenty eight acres, you got several dozen new apartment blocks, and they've changed a lot. This isn't a really miserable neighborhood Saint Denis, and they're going to redo and they have redone the entire neighborhood. And so it's kind of a neat way to do this, and of course that costs
of fortune. Cities just spend more money than you could ever ever imagine.
Now here's what cities tend to do.
It's gotten so expensive to host Olympics over the past few years, more and more money that it's almost impossible for a city, a country not to go just spend more just god awful money. You can imagine, for example, Beijing, they say spent sixty billion dollars. And if you look at the stadium in Beijing where opening ceremonies took place, it is.
Now being rented out for bar Mitzlas.
There is nothing happening in there, and that happens to a lot of stadium You go to Greece, for example Athens, where they built all kinds of venues that.
The Greeks don't use. They just don't use them, and so they either stand empty and if it's buildings, they convert them.
Now the Olympic villages now are at least configured so housing can be created out of the Olympic village, and so that one at least makes sense. But the cities are going crazy and people are now thinking.
Cities are now thinking.
We covered this before, but we're going to see again how much Paris has paid.
For these Olympics, how much it costs.
There have only been two Olympics that actually have made money or even broken even, just two Olympic Games nineteen thirty two, nineteen.
Eighty four, Los Angeles.
And we'll see what happens in twenty twenty eight when the Summer Olympics return to La And here's what the cities do.
It costs so much money. Is they build infrastructure.
If you were around in nineteen eighty four, the airport was completely reconstructed. It went from what was considered the worst airport, worst major international airport in the world, to the worst international airport in the world. After having spent in those days hundreds of billions of dollars, we're doing it again. We're building out the airport one more time
for the twenty twenty eight Olympics. In this case it is the it's in the billions of dollars, adding a new terminal, new parking, the people mover because La is well, it's because of the geography. It's almost impossible to deal with. People will do anything not to fly out of La. So the only major city that actually was able to deal with infrastructure and make it work nineteen eighty two.
Nineteen ninety two Olympics in Barcelona, however, and out of the Olympics came this wonderful architecture and Barcelona was changed over.
But they were gonna do it anyway, you know, let me let me in New York.
Okay, the twenty twelve Summer Olympics that New York bid for lost out to London.
And you've got.
Experts in this studying the Olympics that say New York won the competition by losing the games because they had prepared.
The city had prepared all kinds.
Of sites, mapped out sites they could be converted into parks and housing and office towers after the Olympics.
So New York loses out and they build it anyway.
And that's usually the case that if you in these cities who vy for it and don't make it, usually
build the infrastructure anyway. And it's without the cost of the Olympics, which are astronomical now just a security because of what happens and the assassination attempt and the terrorist attacks starting in nineteen sixty eight, by the way, with the Munich Olympics, when the Israeli athletes were murdered by then the PLO which is now the Palestinian Authority, yes or air Fat headed that wonderful organization, terrorist organization that then morphed into what is recognized and he became a
hero even though he was an out now terrorist. So the Olympics modern Olympics have gotten more and more expensive. You have Munich in nineteen seventy two, the doping scandals, Pick your Game, boycotts Moscow in nineteen eighty LA and nineteen eighty four the bombing in Atlanta, and it's just not the same anymore. It's fun to watch, and the International Olympic Committee is getting zillions of dollars in broadcast rights and they sell off sponsorship. Peter Uberov actually started
that with the La Olympics. That's why in nineteen eighty four the Olympics actually made money a couple hundred million dollars. So is Paris going to lose their shirt? Yeah, they're going to lose their berets on this. And we'll see what happens at the end of this. And back to security, what is it forty five thousand cops just from the police force and the various agencies around Paris. That doesn't count other security coming in from other countries that are there.
So we'll see what happens.
By the way, I missed the nineteen nineteen eighty four Olympics because I went to Australia because I knew how crowded it was going to be. This place was a ghost town. There was no traffic. I wish I had stayed. I'm a big fan of the Olympics, and if I can possibly afford it, I'm going to try to do opening games and twenty twenty eight. How amy how much you think the ticket's going to be for opening ceremonies, No idea.
I think a couple of thousand bucks, I would guess.
Matter of fact, if they're selling ticket now, they're not selling tickets yet for opening ceremonies.
If so, I'm sorry.
I'll be there at Sofi Stadium.
Is it so fine? Partial? I believe?
Yeah, Well, if you can get me in somehow, you're you're my new best friend.
Tickets for opening ceremonies. Ooh, highest ticket prices twenty nine hundred dollars. That's for this, for this Olympics.
Oh you know what, I'll buy them now, twenty nine hundred dollars in the best seats.
No, for this Olympics. The twenty twenty four Olympics in Paris, they're say.
And that was three hundred, twenty five thousand people lining the banks of the river sing wow.
I can't imagine what Sofi is going to be like all right.
Mike Dubuski, ABC News technology expert and reporter is with us for Tech Tuesday.
Good morning, Mike, Good morning. How are you? I am? Okay, you're gonna watch it this morning, or at least watch the rerun.
Well, I gotta, you know, chat with you guys first, but yeah, I might be able to catch a little bit going on.
I can't wait to see her.
I mean, she is nothing short of incredible to watch this woman, Yeah for sure. Okay, let's talk about open Aiy's search engine. It is her, it is here, but it's different than AI chat box. I mean, there are how many different kinds of AI art there and who is doing it? And what information are they based on? And how do they operate?
Okay, a lot of questions there, Yeah, a lot of questions. But I mean I think that's reasonable because this is suddenly a technology that seems to be every where, and there's a lot of different versions of it out there.
So what we say when we talk about AI or artificial intelligence in twenty twenty four, generally what we're talking about is generative artificial intelligence, meaning this new type of technology that is essentially a very advanced version of autocorrect, which you might be able to you know, access on your phone where you know this the computer is able to sort of predict the next word in the sentence
based on context clues. These large language models, these you know chat GPT, open ai, you know some of what Google is doing. They're essentially very advanced versions of that, where instead of predicting the next word, they can predict whole sentences and paragraphs of information. That's what generative artificial intelligence is. And one of the leading companies in this industry is open Ai. They make chat GPT, which is a very advanced chatbot, and in recent days they showed
off a new product called search GPT. This is purported to be an AI search engine, a competitor to Google. Where you go to this service, you type in a question and instead of presenting you with a page of blue links like Google Search would, it presents you with an AI generated block of text that presumably answers your questions.
This is a technology that has real time access to the Internet, meaning you can ask it about current events and local happenings and sports scores and all that type of thing, and it will cite its sources in its response to you, meaning, as you're reading through the answer, you'll see little citations to ABC News or KFI or what have you.
Yeah, Mike, I would think since one is simply a predictive model the other one, and it does not connect to the Internet in real time, the other one does, wouldn't you think a combination of those two would be the magic bullet here?
Yeah.
So the rumor here with open ai is that eventually search GPT is going to be integrated into chat GPT, and that these two things will just become one big technology that open Ai charges a monthly subscription for or in some way integrates advertising into, and that will be their sort of killer app, their major revenue stream. As of right now, they're keeping them separate. Again, this is a pretty new technology that open ai is putting out their search GPT, and they're limiting who can access it.
Only ten thousand people have access to this program at launch. I think that is to cut down on potentially embarrassing moments that open ai could find itself mired in if this thing gets stuff wrong, which we've seen it do in the past. Google has a competitor to this service. It's called Ai Overviews. You may have encountered this in your googling recently, where above your traditional search results there's
this AI generated block of text that answers your question. Well, a few months ago, that service was telling people to put glue on pizza and to eat and do all manner of absurd things. And that is a hallucination in the AI world. That's what we call a mistake and you know, misinformation that's being thrown out there. Obviously, in Google's case, it was kind of silly, but you can imagine the potential for that to be used for harm or going wrong, and that's a challenge that OpenAI itself
is facing. In the promo video for search GPT, it made a mistake, there was a hallucination there. So it's something that continues to dog the industry.
All right, So let me ask about AI and before I get into the glue on the pizza story, and that is I understand that there is nothing that's being manufactured out there that doesn't have a chip or some technology where AI is not being used, and it's.
Happening very very quickly.
Explain what for example, my refrigerator at home right it has all kinds of chips in it.
What is it going to do with a that does not do now.
I mean, that's a great question. I think that you're absolutely right at identifying that AI has proliferated across a whole variety of different industries, from the automotive sector to you know, the smart home sector, as you reference to even innocuous things like your Amazon Alexa device is now going to be integrated with AI. I think it's important to kind of put this in context. AI, you know, as a term has been around for decades at this point.
It's really just meant to, you know, describe a computer that in some way thinks but is not necessarily intelligent. It's sort of a very broad term, and I think that a number of companies out there, marketing agencies in particular, like to affix the AI label two things when in fact they're not actually describing particularly advanced to AI. It does have some utility in the sense that, you know, in the Amazon Alexa example, talking to your voice assistant
can be kind of frustrating. It's you have to use canned words and phrases, and then the thing doesn't hear you, and then you have to repeat yourself, and et cetera.
Et cetera.
The idea behind using generative AI in an application like that is that it will make it a lot easier to talk to because these systems can replicate human language pretty effectively. This will be a much more natural conversation that you're having, and you can get it to do more things by using you know, less words and that type of thing. So yeah, I think you're absolutely right that it's all around what it will do in the
context of your refrigerator. Not totally sure, though. It's also worth mentioning that, you know, refrigerators have cropped up in a number of AI demonstrations of late, where you know, Google showed off an example of people taking pictures of their you know, refrigerator and then asking an artificial intelligence to make recipes, you know, based on what the system sees in your refrigerator. So you know, you can see some applications there. But yeah, it's all over the place,
and sometimes it describes a very advanced technology. Sometimes it really does not, you know.
For example, let's go back decades ago when IBM created Watson, that computer that played chess, and it beat Kasparov, the world's number one rated chess player, and it was able to do that.
It was learning quote chess as it was playing.
If it has access the same computer having access to the Internet, which means every book ever written about chess, every article ever written about chess, basically human knowledge about chess, then you're talking about.
An unbeatable product.
And if you extrapolate that you're talking about at some point it's never going to be wrong. I want you to comment on that, and let's go to how it's wrong with glue on pizza.
Well, I think the perfect extrapulation is exactly what IBM did with Watson next, which was put it on Jeopardy, right. You know, the next level of like expertise, isn't playing one specific game, it's playing trivia where you have to be able to access information from a variety of different topics. It won like nobody else had won before. It beat some of the major champions of Jeopardy, including Ken Jennings. So IBM, you know, has seen a lot of success
with Watson. However, you know, I don't want to overstate what these systems can do. They are consistently wrong about a number of things. As we mentioned with search GPT, which again is open AI's latest product, a search engine competitor in its own promotional video it got something wrong, right. You know, this is something that has continued to dog the industry, and the reason is the training data that
these systems rely upon. In other words, the information that you put into the machine has to be there, has to be a huge volume of it, and that creates this incentive for these AI companies to go looking in kind of unusual place for that information. Chat GPT search GPT are trained on everything from academic papers and newspapers legitimates forms of information to less legitimate forms of information,
things like Facebook and Reddit comments. When Google told users to put glue on pizza, researchers traced that erroneous and wrong response back to a more than ten year old comment on Reddit, which was itself a joke. So these systems get things wrong, and that is something that the AI industry has not solved yet. So that is something that CHATGPT kind of or excuse me, open ai needs to manage going forward as it sort of negotiates the rollout of its new search engine.
Yeah, and I'm assuming if based on that story, to your point, is it ever going to be able to tell when someone is joking not or not. You know, for example, I'm joking and it always runs flat.
People don't laugh, and they just think I'm a moron. Where I know I'm joking.
How is a computer program ever going to be able to figure that out?
I think one of the wisest things that's been said about this latest cycle of artificial intelligence technology that's hit the market recently is that it's really good at doing things that you know, the managerial class does, right, like make decisions, weighing various numbers, various inputs and outputs, and less good at doing the sort of more human tasks, sort of understanding context, understanding humor, understanding sarcasm and satire.
That's difficult for these systems. It's sort of a you know, more playful thing that we as humans do, but it is something that's really difficult for a computer to wrap its mind around. So, yeah, will it ever be able to do that? I mean, I think that it's very important to not overstate that that not treat this technology as inevitable, in other words, because there are some real questions about its future. There's been some very robust reporting
recently about open a financial situation. These systems require a lot of energy, and a lot of capital in order to run. So far, they have not proven their need to exist in the first place, let alone whether they are a world changing technology. So I think that there's some real questions about the future of this industry.
Mike, thanks for taking the time. Always appreciated, of course.
Guys, take care all right.
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