In this episode, we dive into the fascinating friction between our physical world and the latest generative AI developments. From Apple's clever new accessibility features designed to physically prevent carsickness to Meta's controversial algorithmic missteps, the conversation centers on how these technologies are actively reshaping our daily lives. This matters right now because as AI becomes deeply embedded in our essential devices, the environmental, computational, and ethical costs of powering these massive systems are becoming impossible to ignore.
Paul and Dave, alongside producer Jeff, balance their tech-curious enthusiasm with a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the rapid rollout of these tools. While they marvel at the local processing power of the new Apple Intelligence beta and the utility of mobile apps like Merlin, they pull no punches when critiquing Meta's chaotic internal practices and the massive energy draw of rural data centers. Ultimately, the team's verdict is that while user-facing AI tools are getting incredibly sophisticated, the tech industry desperately needs to establish sustainable infrastructure and ethical guardrails before pushing the technology any further.
Key Topics
Curing Carsickness with Code: Apple’s new Vehicle Motion Cues feature aims to combat motion sickness for passengers trying to scroll on their devices while riding in a car. By displaying animated dots on the screen that move in sync with the vehicle's acceleration and braking, the feature tricks the brain into aligning visual inputs with physical movement. It's a clever, localized software solution to a frustrating physiological problem.
The Apple Intelligence Beta Experience: The recent iOS public beta brings Apple Intelligence and a revamped Siri to the forefront, showcasing local processing features like dynamic photo expansion and smart email summarization. While the technology is still heavily in testing (often causing devices to overheat and rapidly drain batteries) the visual intelligence capabilities are already proving to be remarkably capable. It offers a solid glimpse into how native AI will integrate into our daily mobile workflows.
Meta’s AI Missteps and Moderation Mess: Meta is facing severe backlash over a series of AI blunders, ranging from controversial public profile video remixes to leaked reports of algorithms being used to evaluate and fire employees. These alarming stumbles highlight the chaotic internal deployment of generative models within the company. It serves as a stark warning about the ethical pitfalls of relying on unpolished AI for sensitive human resource and content moderation tasks.
The Environmental Toll of Data Centers: The massive energy requirements needed to train and run generative AI models have prompted New York to pass a temporary moratorium on new data center construction. With mounting concerns over strained local power grids and disrupted ecosystems, the tech industry is facing a critical infrastructure reckoning. We are quickly reaching a point where the physical environmental costs of virtual technology can no longer be ignored.
Mentioned in the Episode
- Muller Field Station
- Pacific Crest Trail
- FarOut app
- Watch Duty app
- Apple Vehicle Motion Cues
- Apple opens its new Siri AI to everyone with the iOS 27 public beta
- This Buried Apple Feature Turns an iPhone Into the Perfect Kids’ Dumb Phone
- Meta Removes A.I. Feature on Instagram After Days of Backlash
- Meta AI image detector fails to identify some of its own cropped AI images, Reuters analysis finds
- Meta Exposed Data Internally From Its Controversial Employee-Tracking Program
- Support your teen with supervision
- First Statewide Moratorium on New Hyperscale Data Centers Launched by Governor Kathy Hochul
- Five Startups Powering the Nuclear Energy Transition
- Slate Truck
- Spotify Premium Users Can Now Turn Any Idea Into a Personalized Playlist With AI Playlist in Beta
- Disney is exploring adding a free tier to Disney+ as YouTube draws TV viewers
- Bitter Lesson - General-purpose large language models outperform specialized clinical AI tools on medical benchmarks
- Linus's law
- Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles
- Xbox testing disc-to-digital feature that digitizes a physical game collection
- Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs, as Xbox unit downsizes and plans to spin off four gaming studios
- Stripe, Advent make $53 billion takeover offer for PayPal, sending stock soaring
- Google limits Meta’s use of its Gemini AI models, FT reports
- Aaron Sullivan
Transcript
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Jeff Kidd We slayed it already, so we're good. Dave Ghidiu Later Paul Engin I did it again. I wasn't ready for the second Dave Ghidiu Can you do it once more? Jeff Kidd No, no, just do it once more. Paul Engin Welcome to the Immersive Lens, the podcast exploring the technologies reshaping how we live, we're. Dave Ghidiu and learn from AI and virtual reality to creative media and design. We are diving into the tools and ideas shaping our connected world. My name is Paul. Paul Engin Join us as we uncover the people and ideas driving the next wave of interactive experiences. Dave Ghidiu And I'm Dave Godue, this is The Immersive Lens. Did you question that? Jeff Kidd There was a pause there. Is this your first time doing the pause? Paul Engin My name is Paul. Jeff Kidd and there was a little bit of a Paul Engin pause that's right and we're joined today by Jeff kid it's a little impromptu so but today we had a few things we're gonna do some hot takes but then we thought there's a lot of things that are happening in the headlines and this is gonna be a pretty quick release so we figured that we touch on some headlines that are happening around the world what do you think I think we should do a rundown all right Dave you want to start us off with the hot takes yeah so Dave Ghidiu Two things one. We are hot off the heels of the AI retreat at the Muller field station Which is a outpost owned by FLCC. Do you can tell us about that? Paul Engin Yeah, so it's located at Honeoy, New York. It's part of a wildlife management area that we've been granted as a space for us to do research around the area for some of our students and the community. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, it's a really cool facility. I've been down there, they do like owl walks. I think Friday mornings they have walks for the community and anyone can kind of come down. They have like guided tours. And so it was about AI, but there was some play time there. And Jen Carney did a fan, absolutely friend of the pod. Jen Carney did and guest of the pod and a co-host. A Lenzi? She's a Lenzi. She's a Lenzi. Paul Engin I saw that I saw that you created the lens Dave Ghidiu You got to go to the website. That's right. The ImmersiveLens.com. Become a member. So it was a great, great retreat. She did a fantastic job facilitating. But a lot of people, I think, got pushed to do more expand what their capabilities are with AI. I thought that was cool. And I saw what you were doing, basically recreating an entire course, which is awesome. Paul Engin I thought it was a great experience too and I love that it was set in that location because it's such a contrast you would think you know with nature and all of the stuff and here we are talking about AI and the facility and... Dave Ghidiu But page did have us use the Merlin bird app those Paul Engin Oh, I wasn't there for day two. So you guys did go out. So what was that? It's cool Dave Ghidiu Everyone should download it and you can identify birds. I collected them all. I only got four but like Young moon is there and I think you got like 13. Oh my god. No Paul Engin that is so cool. Yeah, I thought it was a great experience. It was great pacing overall. And definitely if you're in the area of Haniyoa Lake, that you should definitely go check it out. There's a lot of things that you can do around there. And yeah. Dave Ghidiu Yeah. And the other thing I just want to say real quick is so I want to thank Jen for kind of stepping in when I was delinquent last week. But I was hiking part of the Pacific Crest Trail with my wife, who has hiked almost the whole thing. But there was a forest fire one year when the year she was doing it, so we had to go back and kind of like patch in that gap there. And we would listen to podcasts in the afternoon, and she kept laughing and laughing. And I was like, what are you doing? She's like, I'm listening to your podcast. I was like, ah, yeah, Paul and I are pretty funny. She's like, no. She's like, Jen and Carney is hilarious. And then I was like, what about Paul and I? She's like, oh, yeah, Paul's funny too. And then it was like crickets. Wow. I know. Paul Engin I think you're hilarious. Thank you You're just saying that thank you Alright, so wait real quick. You also said that you found an app for wildfire Real time or something while you were first of all you're I couldn't do that type of hike I'm I need to do clamping or is that clamping clamping? Cuz uh, I can't do that. Yeah the Dave Ghidiu The force fires are real out there. I mean, like, I mean, we're, Paul Engin getting smoke from wildfires in Canada right now in the skies like Dave Ghidiu apocalyptic right now the it's it's much more devastating out there and like visceral because you can see where the fire starts and you can see the smoke so there's a few apps out there that are that that are really really well done and in fact there's an app for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail too that's really awesome so I think maybe we should actually at some point have Katie come in here as my wife and talk about like the technology of hiking because I think there's like in an analogy to just the iteration of technology and how much we take for granted and how much has really improved our lives let me ask Paul Engin you on that does she what does she have a the watch like my daughter where it like stays on for 48 hours the chorus chorus yeah Dave Ghidiu But even then, when you're tracking, I mean, we were doing between, I mean, some days we're doing 21, 22, 27 miles. And so you can't do that for 40 days. But so she has like a little charger and a battery pack. I think she carries two battery packs. So the whole technology behind hiking is really fascinating to me. That's crazy. Yeah. Paul Engin That's crazy. All right, very good. So definitely have to that would be a good topic that I think that'd be interesting to a lot of people, especially in our area. Jeff Kidd Do you ever worry about cell service? Dave Ghidiu So, cell service was a huge issue. Even when we were in towns, there's a lot of towns in Northern California where it's like one building is a store and the restaurant and the post office open like two hours a day and there is no cell phone service, like anywhere. But when we get up to ridges, there was cell phone service. Jeff Kidd But do you ever worry about like, Oh my God. Like, I mean, you obviously together, but like, how do we get, like, do you. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, there is some you can do the satellite SOS for most phones now, but I was paying attention to like Where are the roads the crossroads and the fire roads and it's like if you don't get a signal at least you can hit a fire Road, maybe like once a day once every other day and just maybe there's a car going by and you can flag it down But that's not usually the case. So yeah, it's terrifying. Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah, it's just a testament of like our insecurities Paul Engin Yeah. Well, you know, it is because think about it. We never had cell phones growing up and we survived. Okay. And people have been hiking beside a Crest trail for decades. Dave Ghidiu without cell phones but yeah it's it's funny to be like detached from that because you're just used to like sometimes I'm like oh I only have one bar woe is me but then we were going for like three days without any bars that's crazy yeah Jeff Kidd I don't know if bars not real anymore anyway. I think I heard that. The signal on your phone. Strength, signal strength. It's not accurate or real, but I heard that. You know what else is really rare out there? Dave Ghidiu Showers like when you're out there in the woods Paul Engin Yeah, well rain, but there's no rain. There's no rain. Dave Ghidiu And actually water was rare there were times when it was like you can go six miles today, or you can go 19 miles But anything in between there's no water Paul Engin so it's wild so you're packing okay another just another podcast we're gonna keep going so Jeff Kidd There's us look at that Paul Engin Oh, that's a wildfire, the smoke, I've shown a map of the. Jeff Kidd the current smoke path that we're right in the middle of it. Yeah. Paul Engin The air quality in around Rochester, New York right now is not great, but it's all around From Michigan all the way down. I think Wisconsin. Yeah Yeah alright, so it looks like a lot of our hot takes are gonna be around Apple products and I I found one before we get into both of yours, which I thought was really interesting Have you ever been in a car and your passenger? Yes in a car. Have you have you been a passenger in a car Dave? Twice you only drive twice, you know, okay So when you're looking down at your phone and you're working have you ever gotten carsick? No Really? Dave Ghidiu I don't think I have either Paul Engin Okay, so I have an issue with that, and lo and behold, Apple has a solution. Apple has something called vehicle motion cues, and it's under settings and you have to add it to your control panel, but it has an option where you can automatically detect if you're in a vehicle and you can turn it on and off, and I don't know, I'm putting this close to the screen. Dave Ghidiu So people can watch that on our YouTube. Paul Engin Yes. But when you turn it on, check it out, it has dots on the side. So when the car is moving, the dots move with the car. So it's not a static motion. Do you see how it's... That's making me sick. Dave Ghidiu That's making me seasick. So the Dats Paul Engin because we're not moving. Technically, we would be moving. Got it. Yeah. So it moves with the car as the car moves. Oh, now I'm in my mind. Jeff Kidd as I really move it. Dave Ghidiu And if you're not watching the video, we have Jeff and Paul like swaying back and forth like they're on a boat or something, right? Yeah Paul Engin Yeah, but the dots, the dots move. And just for acceleration and braking too, so they go up and down. Oh yeah, yeah, it's all, so when you're looking at it, instead of looking at a static screen, there's motion with the motion of the car, so it doesn't feel, yeah. Jeff Kidd So it kind of tricks your brain a little bit in the thinking that it's moving at the same. Yep. Paul Engin Right. So I thought that was really interesting. So if you're someone who works for you, did it work? It worked. I don't. So I drive most of my, but when I am, I do turn it on and I've been okay with it. So it seemed to work, but again, I, not an extensive study. All right. How about you, Jeff? That's really interesting. You, you had, or do you want to go, Dave? No, I want to hear what Jeff has. Jeff Kidd So Apple, a couple of two days ago from this recording, Apple released the first public beta of iOS 27. And the big hoopla about iOS 27 is Siri and Apple Intelli. Siri's still around? Siri's still around, doesn't sound the same. I do like to, oh, it just activated because it's now going on my laptop. Stop, stop, stop, stop. You summoned Siri. I summoned. You said you summoned it. But I always say, I won't say it, but I say, hey, whatever, it popped up on the laptop anyway. So I didn't think anything of it, and it just gave people a little bit of how the sauce is made. I mentioned it to Dave and Paul this morning, and Dave's like, yep, you can talk about that. I was like, really? So I backed up my phone and downloaded it, and it was installed maybe 45 minutes ago. So I haven't had it. Right, it's the beta, yes, it's a public beta. So to anybody out there that wants to do that, just it's not fully out yet. It's very stable, from what I've read. But I backed up my phone, which took about a half an hour. So I backed it up. So if anything does happen, I can revert back, and all my stuff is backed up. That was good thinking. Always back up your work. Always back it up. And I don't use the cloud, by the way. I did it to this laptop. But anyway, so the bullet points really are Apple Intelligence and Siri. Visual Intelligence, which is you take a photo of something, and then within the phone, and you mentioned this, too, by the way, that's all on the device. It's all local, right, right. So analyze your photo, do more Photoshop-type stuff with that. Funny enough, though, which they didn't say this. When I first installed this, and I was trying to, I said, Siri, because I have a dynamic island, it's supposed to pop up in the dynamic island, and it didn't. Oh, that's interesting. And I was like, oh, did I do something wrong? Did I not do it? You have to opt in for it. You have to go into your settings and say that you want to utilize this feature, and you can put it on a wait list. And half an hour ago, maybe 20 minutes ago, I got in. Congratulations, you're in, baby. So I did play with it a little bit. So one of the prompts that I gave it was it should be able to search through your emails. So Paul and I have been talking about possible upgrades to the Podcast Studio. So I said, hey, Siri, can you find, oop, I just said it. Oh, my gosh. Oh, no. Oh, it didn't activate, that's good. So I said, can you find an email from Paul talking about the Podcast Studio when it failed? So then I asked, again, a slightly different prompt. And it did find an email, but it was like way back in January. It was not like a recent email. So you got to opt in for it, and it's not perfect. And it did take a while. It searched for a while. And my phone was at 100%. It's now at 76%. Paul Engin No, yeah, I did hear because it's local it's churning like crazy with the AI yeah Jeff Kidd So, yeah. Paul Engin Mentioned something else when you did that too, right? That it was getting really hot. Jeff Kidd Oh, yeah, which yes, yes, it drains the battery which makes sense and it did get really warm while it was again I had just installed everything and it was getting quite warm. I have a this is an iPhone 15 pro max Which is notorious for getting hot anyway, but specifically like, you know, I'm just installed all these updates And I'm not surprised it was getting hot and I just lost almost 30% of my battery Paul Engin And and for the record, this is a beta. So this is why this is why like there's gonna be testing and it's gonna be refined So don't even though we're saying all all this stuff that won't be the final release most likely Jeff Kidd And I haven't really had a ton of time to, oh, see, I just swiped down and it's like, search, ask, search or ask. Oh, okay. So it's really given me a lot of promise to try this stuff. Can I hear the. Paul Engin your Siri sound? Hey Siri! Jeff Kidd Hey Siri, I'll put it up to the mic, try that again, hey Siri, hey Siri, that's the noise and see how it populates the dynamic island instead of being down here like it always was a little bubble pops up in the dynamic island. I gotcha. Does the 14 have a dynamic island? Yeah, yeah it does. Paul Engin But I didn't hear it, it didn't talk yet. I didn't say anything. Oh, okay. Jeff Kidd theory. Uh, say something funny. Why don't scientists trust Adams? Because they make up everything. That was a good one. And that was, uh, yeah, but it said it with the cadence that I had a question, but it's a, it's not a question because they make up everything. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And then the other thing that I did test quickly was I expanded a photo. So I took a photo and I just said expand it and it uses AI to estimate what it, what it would look like. So I have this photo of these monitors here that took a picture of to, to send to, to Jim for something to a colleague. And if you go to edit, there's like this AI tools and then I could extend it. So it's making up like trying to figure it right. So you can't go forever. It's got its limitations, but I basically expanded it in every direction in each direction. So if I took a picture of like a barn in a field. Paul Engin Can you get it to front of there so yeah people can see that this is what? Jeff Kidd I basically spread it out. Paul Engin That's good, thank you. Jeff Kidd and then you click extend and it's extending it like it's thinking about it Dave Ghidiu figures out what might look to the left and the right. Jeff Kidd like and I'll let it finish but I was surprised because there's a reflection in here right it actually got the reflections right I think it like what you think would be there I think yeah so I'm still thinking it's going through it Paul Engin for the folks at home and oh yeah it continued the Jeff Kidd there's still some reflections. Paul Engin Yeah. Jeff Kidd some of them on the screen it did a pretty good job it's not perfect but it's just like wow that's that's impressive on your phone right yeah this was all done right on my phone interesting Dave Ghidiu That's great. Paul Engin And I will say Adobe's had this feature for a while, but it's been on an application on a computer. Yeah, I think Gemini has been able to do that too. To expand. Dave Ghidiu Well, wouldn't surprise me because Gemini underpins the new series. But I can't tell. Jeff Kidd Well, could you guys tell? No, it looks real. I wouldn't have known. Paul Engin Now if we didn't see the first yep, I would have known yeah, that's great Jeff Kidd So that's what I've tested so far. A little bit. Very cool. It's awesome. 20 minutes that I've had with it, really. Dave Ghidiu And I have a bit of Apple news as well. All right, go for it. So Wired magazine last week ran a piece. One of the journalists wrote a piece called the buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kid's dumb phone. And so there are parental controls on iPhones and Androids, but they're fallible. So you can escape the, even if you limit, like, no, you can't use the internet. You can't disable Safari. And so if someone's friend sends someone a link, then they can, like, back door their way into Siri. So it's not perfect, but this guy was looking at the accessibility. So this is, like, a good universal design lesson. He was looking at accessibility and was like, oh, I can kind of, like, cobble these skills together and make the perfect kid's phone. And he did. And so in the show notes at immersivelens.com, then you can see the image that he used, and you can see the article will link to it. But it, you lock everything down. And so he went and showed it to the Apple store. He's like, hey, look what I did. And people were, the employees are like, we've never seen anything like this before. Paul Engin I'm going to visually describe it. Basically, it's two columns with three rows. So basically, the photo has six icons on it, phone, message, map, camera, photos, and music, which are the most Dave Ghidiu You can you can cherry pick which apps you want so he's like as my kid gets older Maybe I'll add Spotify to the approved list and so the whole thing is locked down with a pin So if the kid doesn't know the pin then they can't go in and add these things. So can I geek out? Paul Engin That's what we do family family sharing has been around for quite a while with Apple and that's what I use with all my kids when we were when they were starting to get into it so you could do usage, you can shut it off, you can block you can so this is like a feature that has been around for quite a while, but they've done it. So you can't even see the other I can't I didn't I didn't go to this extent. Yes, but I will say that Apple's family features pretty amazing and it has a lot of flexibility. Unfortunately, you know, parents have to know about it and have to use her. Dave Ghidiu But I imagine this takes even more work. And one of the things he said is this will go, so if you and I both have, like if you have your phone and it's locked down, then generally if I send you a text message, it's a hyperlink, you can click on it and get into Safari, but this will strip the link out so it's just plain text. So there is no way to get to Safari. So you can't backdoor using this method. Oh, interesting. Paul Engin I didn't even know you could back door the other see see Paul. I don't know I don't know. I think cuz I think you could block you can block it with certain Settings in the family share, but it has to be family share. That's the other thing So you can't like I can't do it like you have to be part of my family share for me to control your sure Your device makes own. Yeah Dave Ghidiu And, you know, like my sister is an Android user, doesn't have an iPhone, but her kid does have an iPhone. So that the family share might not work. Paul Engin That I don't know, yeah, yep. Jeff Kidd And that's the old because they updated that was part of iOS 27 is the new child settings That's though. That's not iOS 27 even. No, this is just you can do with any phone. This is like Dave Ghidiu It's just the accessibility tools. Paul Engin And that family sharing has been around for... Yes, I use that. Yeah, for... Jeff Kidd forever yeah yeah I've got my two kids iPads yeah ready to you know and they asked me all the time it's it's super convenient hey I want to get this app I get the notification okay yeah you can have Paul Engin Yeah, and you can allow it and I love it because it is it is like limiting so you can say you got to do your Schoolwork, I'm gonna be just turning your social media off for you know Whatever and then you just turn it off and then when they're done and they show you can turn it back on and it You know and then as they get older, you know, everyone parent However, you want but I found it very beneficial to help focus and understand You know at this point all my kids are 18 or older. So I don't don't do it anymore when they Dave Ghidiu to come home next time. You should put this on their phone. Well, that. Paul Engin I'm thinking for my mom or my my aunt or someone who like I want to still be able to FaceTime them But I don't want them they get so confused. They don't need like Apple stocks or whatever. Yeah, I mean that's a great solution for that Dave Ghidiu Yeah. But universal design. Paul Engin Yeah. All right. Well, let's get into some headlines. I don't know what the music will be here. Dave Ghidiu All right hot off the wire. We got some headlines hot off the wire Paul Engin So let's touch on meta first because there's a whole bunch of headlines around meta and I'll let you Do your meta thing and then I'll do my meta thing. Okay, which one are we doing every other one? I was gonna go into the family share. Okay, so I'm just gonna run down some quick headlines in Dave Ghidiu All these links will be at the immersivelens.com. Just go to episode, what was it, 27? 8. 28? Yeah, episode 28. Oh my gosh, we're killing it. Smash that like and subscribe button, folks. So here's the, I have four or five things to share. There are Instagram videos, or the Instagram app, would let up until just recently, if there was a public profile, anyone could go there and make an AI video with that person. And no one agreed to that. So there was a lot of backlash, and Instagram had, or Meta retreated and took that down. The second thing, Meta has been using Gemini AI in-house. They have not been using Meta AI in-house. And this is for moderation specifically, but other things as well, like code development. And their usage is so much Gemini, Google had to throttle them and be like, you guys are using too much? We have other clients. So Meta is now putting internal limits on how much they can use it. Paul Engin So going back to that other one, I saw that too about the Instagram remixing and I will say, I, as soon as I saw that, I went to, I messaged all of my kids and everything and I said, you know, go to your settings and there's a bunch of stuff that is turned on by default. Dave Ghidiu that meta would do something like that. Yeah. Paul Engin So I said, go in and I was telling them, turn this off, turn this off, limit this because they could. You can use your audio and there's all of this stuff that was turned on by default. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, Instagram and Facebook are I'm just shocked that this is still happening, especially because Grock did this two months ago and the backlash was so severe that they had to take it down and now Instagram is doing it. Paul Engin So yeah, I was really surprised when I heard that I was like, well, no, I don't want anyone taking my likeness. And you know what I mean? Yeah. Dave Ghidiu And speaking of AI generation, Meta AI has a tool that can detect AI generated images. Except it has failed 55% of the time for images that Meta generated. That's not good. No. And the next bit, the Jeff Kidd Also, I just heard about this, that they, was it meta? I think it was meta, they used AI to evaluate employees and was firing employees because they weren't being productive, but they were like sick or on vacation or something like that. Dave Ghidiu and they were, everyone at Meta had to have their computer surveilled, so for every key press, everything, and people were like, we don't agree to this, this is terrible, morale's already at an all time low Meta, reportedly, but in the column of what could possibly go wrong, all that data was leaked. Paul Engin So I will so I will say I'll I'll do the I'll be the good guy for meta here I will say I heard the same thing that they said that they used AI and like women in maternity leave We're getting laid off because of like you said you're the but in a note that meta set is that all? Hiring firing personal decisions are made by people and not AI and they were made because of you know Corporate realignment not sure not based on AI So I just want to say that because I know it's easy for us to Throw meta under the bus and and say oh, it's AI that's causing all of this But and it might be I don't know but you know, that's that is the message that they They gave to I don't know what I think it was ABC this morning. Yeah, I mean Dave Ghidiu And anyone's job is a spin doctor at these tech companies and you certainly don't want to blame anything on AI otherwise like your bottom line goes down. And then one more thing that I have to share. So they were paying contractors to pretend to be kids in other AI tools like say Gemini or chat GPT and we're just doing atrocious like terrible terrible terrible disturbing content and they were like oh we were just testing the guardrails. But I mean you're making other people suffer like the human people who who are seeing all these disturbing comments. And also there's kind of like this like industrial espionage like oh so if we can poke holes in all these things and we can make our AI better in that capacity. So it was not sanctioned and the companies did not know it was against the terms of service. So I have pretty dim view of meta these days dimmer. Paul Engin Well, I'm going to put a little light on that if that's okay. That's fine with me. All right. So I will say that they released a family supervision around their platforms. So for Instagram, if they're under 18 or 16, you can set up some additional guardrails for notifications. You can block messages, you can get notifications, and if they notice like self-harm, they can do redirect and they can get a notification to the parents that they've detected this type of thing for kids that are under 18. Now it's weird because they say teens under 16 will need their parents' permission to change these settings. So that means that they don't have a guard. You could be eight and beyond. So that's one thing I noticed is that it didn't say, it just said under 16. And again, there are no federal regulations around this, so they're not doing anything illegal. Does that make sense? Dave Ghidiu But in terms of service, I think it's probably like 12 or 13 to have an account, right? So. Paul Engin Back in the day, it was a requirement that any data that is stored, you have to be 13 or over. And so the logic was that you're not allowed to have any of these social media apps or anything that requires a business to retain anything unless you were 13 or older. And that was a while ago. So I don't know if it's changed, but that used to be the policy. And again, the policies are changing all the time. So I don't know what the policy is anymore. But you have some countries that are limiting social media specifically to like 16. You're not allowed to be on any social media platform. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, and we're starting to see the results of that. And it's kind of like mixed results. And a lot of kids are figuring out how to get along around those. Paul Engin And then again, there's the flip side of all of this is that they also say that's a parent's responsibility. And so there's a, you know, you go back and forth, there's federal and then there's the parents. It's just like anything else, like, yep, there's cigarettes in the world, but we have age restrictions, right? And so, yep, it's a parent's responsibility for that. But there's a regulation that we set that said, okay, the safest approach is if you're older. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, now there's all sorts of different states are passing different laws and regulations for like facial recognition for age, it's going to be the wild west. Paul Engin Yeah, yeah. All right, Jeff, do you have, I know we just threw you with the headlines. Jeff Kidd Well, something you said really made me think, I don't know if we want to have an opinion about this necessarily. But just a couple of days ago, New York passed the first, yes, the moratorium on data centers here for a year. And whatever data center is already in progress of being built, that's still moving forward. But they're going to stop for a year. Paul Engin So there's mix what's your take Dave? I'll let you Jeff Kidd So you threw me under the bus with a quick thing out. Yeah, I knew you threw it right back. Yeah, I threw it right back. Dave Ghidiu I want to start by saying I recognize the hypocrisy of this, but I enjoy using AI. I think that there's a lot of value that can come out of it, but I don't want a data set in my backyard. So, I don't know how to square that, but that's my opinion. Paul Engin Yeah, I go back and forth about this. I feel like if someone buys land and they want to build there, right, it was more than building. Dave Ghidiu It siphons the power, it damages the water and the environment. Paul Engin Right. So this is where I think and maybe I need more clarity on this. But my understanding is that in most municipalities that if they bring a data center on that data center is required to supply their own power, which means that they have they don't siphon off of somebody else that they would build an infrastructure. Yeah, like they're using Dave Ghidiu the diesel turbines right now. Paul Engin Right. And so I don't know. I, I don't know. I think that there is, I agree. I don't want to, I don't want a data center in my backyard, but I wouldn't want a skyscraper in my backyard either. Yeah. So it's a weird, I go back and forth about this. I understand both sides of this, but I think that if the data center is environmentally, Jeff Kidd Compromising? Paul Engin No. Oh, like it was carbon neutral. If they're trying to be carbon neutral, if they're not siphoning electric and they're creating electric and then supplying that electric to other people so that there's the electric bill goes down for people around them. I think that it's great. Do I think it's going to bring in lots of employment? No, because the data centers are just minimal. Dave Ghidiu But where they have had these data centers, the energy costs are going up. And the temperatures and the noise, it's a big issue and I'm with you, I don't want in my backyard either. Paul Engin And my understanding is that a lot of times it's done in more rural areas where there aren't people around it. Yes, except. Dave Ghidiu for that like the huge one that XAI. Paul Engin Yeah, I mean, so I go back and forth about this. I completely understand both sides of this. And it's interesting, because I always think data centers need to be in a cold environment. And I think to myself, when Alaska like in like, really cold, cold regions or Dave Ghidiu Like destroys the ecosystem like now animals can't thrive Yeah, and so the the UAE is looking at hosting data centers and there's like political reasons, too But now you're looking at building them in like desert climate. That would be a and so this is even Paul Engin more energy yeah I I've heard underwater I've heard space space baby yeah it's I've heard a mix of this what are your thoughts Jeff Jeff Kidd Same sentiment. I don't want one in my backyard. I kind of live in a rural area. So there's a lot of farmland. There's a lot of empty space. I don't, you know, the noise, the pollution, but, you know, if there's investments to be made, we don't want to miss out on the investments, right? So there's that the, um, I think we need to kind of pause a little bit and maybe think about let's come up with some more regulations. Sounds like Dave Ghidiu You're talking about a moratorium, so we can just say it. You're right. Jeff Kidd Yeah, yeah, because I agreed with that. I was like, you know what? We've got to figure this out a little bit. I think we're putting the cart before the horse when it comes to this, but at the same time, it's kind of like, well, I'm starting to use more of this stuff. I'm kind of like with Dave. It's like, well, I'm a user. So I feel like I'm, you know, a little bit of a hypocrite, um, saying don't know data center. Yeah. But again, I don't want one right behind my house either. But again, maybe I'm ignorant on this, but isn't it? So if you're using water, which generates steam and then the steam, they just release it. Right. Well, so Dave Ghidiu the water is being used for cooling. Yeah. Jeff Kidd Yeah, it cools it, but they're still a byproduct, kind of, right? Yeah, it's almost kind of like a nuclear reactor, because I did a deep dive on Chernobyl and some of those nuclear disasters and stuff like that. But if we're generating steam, if the end product is some steam, can't we put a turbine in there and it generates electricity? Paul Engin Well, that's I think that's where I'm getting at. I think that they have to come up with a way I agree. There has to be a way that it is carbon neutral and it's self-sustaining and that how can it help the community in the sense that it brings down the electric because they've generated this, right? But I agree. If they're if it's going to raise the if it's going to raise the local community's electric cost, then it's not that's not fair to that community. No. Dave Ghidiu And there are like nuclear companies are coming up online, some startups to do the mini stuff. So maybe it could potentially down the road. And then we've already started to see cost things too, like when, you know, training models is what kind of like melts the ice caps. So we've seen savings in that like efficiencies. So the energy costs will go down eventually. But like Jess says, we got to wait. Jeff Kidd But I also think, I'm just speaking for us locally here, this isn't a criticism of anything specific, but we lose power a lot in the building. Yeah, in Canandaigua. In Canandaigua. And we now have two sets of EV chargers. We can charge in one spot, or you can charge closer to the building now. And I'm seeing a lot more of that come up. It's like, well, maybe we need to work on the infrastructure a little bit. And maybe this is an incentive. These data centers could fuel that a little bit, like maybe improve our infrastructure a little bit. Paul Engin little bit right I and that's where I'm not but but I I think what my main thing is that they have to show that they're gonna invest in the infrastructure yes with if to your point if it really is we're gonna put this huge thing it's gonna be allowed we're gonna crank up your energy bills and everything there is no selling point yeah yeah exactly yeah I don't think they start the pitch yeah so I think that again definitely some more research that we could do into this area but I the pause is not a bad idea Jeff Kidd Yeah, we just got to take some time. And that's what I'm saying. Maybe this is a chance for us to update the electric infrastructure, just for us, our area. Dave Ghidiu That would be great, also, like the slate truck that are coming out, like the $25,000 electric pickup truck. To me, if these companies can, if they are really, there's going to be renaissance in nuclear energy. Well, that is clean energy. And the technology's gotten a lot better in the last 30 years. So maybe this will have a net effect for all of us. The other thing to consider, though, is the prices of computers is skyrocketing because data centers are being built. So you and I can't get cheaper computers. So don't wait for back to school prices. Yeah, robust. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Paul Engin Alright, well, in a lighter note, Jeff, wow, my gosh, look at us, man, I tell ya, that is a good headline. So this is a Spotify headline, talk to Spotify like it's a friend. So they've enabled the AI assistant that you can just talk to it and say something like play upbeat road trip songs from the 90s with the female vocals and it will discover a playlist and create a playlist based on that conversation. Bonnie Tyler, R.I.P. Jeff Kidd We're trying to bring things up. I know. I know. You started it. Paul Engin Yeah, I did. So, um, I thought that that was interesting and I was wondering, don't have something to check in the future is that with this new update with iOS, if now that will have this similar. Jeff Kidd integration with the new OS and and AI. Yeah. Paul Engin Because I always thought that we should have that anyway I should you should be able to say that but it wasn't the case so right Yep, and then I'll add one more on a fun note Disney Plus is considering a free tier. I Didn't know that really yeah, how many ads do you have to get I was just gonna say it's gonna be completely add supported but they're contemplating using a free tier to compete with guess Who else has a free tier that uses ads? No, no Wait, I don't know Google has them. Oh Plax YouTube and YouTube YouTube. Yes, because right you can go on the YouTube and it's all free but there's tons of ads that appear or you could purchase and get a Dave Ghidiu I would say of all the purchases I have, the subscriptions, YouTube Pro is the best. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh, I haven't seen an ad in years. Oh, I love it. Jeff Kidd Uh, a hundred percent. Oh, you too? Oh my God. You don't have it? I don't have it. Top. Paul Engin streaming service I will I will say I had it for a few months or two and then Dave Ghidiu Yeah. It's also the number two search engine in the world is YouTube. Sure. Number one is Google, number two is YouTube. Paul Engin Assume dizzy sees this and says all right. We got to figure out can we come up with a solution to compete now? Dave Ghidiu a good time, there's so much like AI slop for kids on YouTube, like having curated Disney content would probably make people happier. Paul Engin Yeah, I could see that. Yep. All right. Give me another one, Dave. Okay. Dave Ghidiu So there is software out there that we've actually talked about when we work with medical facilities like hospitals about AI, and it's called Open Evidence. And Open Evidence is trained on high quality like the Journal of American Medicine. So the common thought has been this specifically trained model is great for medicine because it is going to be better than chat GPT, it's going to be better than cloud. And so for a few years people have been using this, the medical professionals, but they did a blind taste test recently and they had the same prompt that went into Open Evidence and also like chat GPT and cloud and Gemini and then they had doctors evaluate the results and Open Evidence won 0% of the time. So I was talking with my one of my buddies works in AI and he's like, yeah, that's called the bitter lesson. I was like, what do you mean? And the bitter lesson is like a well-known phenomena where if you have a hyper specific model, it typically performs worse than like a wide swath of data. And there's a few reasons why that can happen. So like, let's say there's an error in the medicine in the training. That error is amplified because it doesn't have enough pushing back against it. And so all this to say, so the bitter lesson, and there are models where this isn't the case. So like, for instance, alpha fold, which is a protein folding that was built from the ground up to be hyper trained on protein folding. So that model excels. And that's why I won the 2024 Nobel prize in chemistry. But when I was hiking on the second day, Katie made me do like 20 miles or something. And my hip, I'm sorry. No, thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Oh, my God, you do it. This is ridiculous. Wow. You know, this Katie character, I'm nervous. Yeah, you should be. If she makes me walk 20 miles, I don't know what's gonna happen. So, so anyway, my, my hip was like snapping. Like I'd never felt this before. Whereas it felt like if you were imagine taking a rubber band and stretching it, so it's really tight and rubbing it up and down like a pole. And it, you know, how would like, you know, how would like snap up to positions? That's what my hip was doing. And like, I could feel it in my body. I put my hand on it. I had, I was like, hey, put your hand here, tell me. And she's like, oh, this is not good. And so I thought my trip was done after the first like day. And so did it hurt? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No. Jeff Kidd I mean, you could feel it, sometimes it's happening. I think that's called old age. Whoa, hey, hey, hey. Oh, sorry, so go ahead. I think Chad GPT says you need hip surgery. Dave Ghidiu So I was like, oh my gosh, I tore my hip. This is not good. I need to get, and this is when I started concerned about like, oh, I don't have cell phone. There's like. How about an emergency where am I gonna get picked up here? But at that time, I. Maybe we do 10 miles next time, Katie. So we, so I asked Claude and Claude was like, oh, that's actually called snapping hip syndrome. And I was like, what? And I was like, well, I still have like 10 days left. And Claude was like, it'll be okay. You'll be fine for 10 days. Just like huge trekking poles, which I had. And it was like elevate, like rest ice compression at night. It was like, you'll probably be able to hang on. I was like, all right. So at least I had the confidence. And had I not read this report. I was just gonna say. Paul Engin Hey, Claude gave you confidence. Dave Ghidiu And had I not read this report about the About open evidence. I'd be more skeptical of the medical knowledge and I'm still skeptical and so like obviously the next day I was like, well I'm gonna kind of like I'll I'll take what Claude said with a grain of salt and I'll take bait It was like take smaller steps when you're going downhill stuff like that So it all worked and then like two days later my left knee started hurting Like it was like really really really focused pain. And so I was like, oh no, so I was like Claude What should I do is like? Oh, this is it gave me like some diagnosis that I came in for an ounce It's like it's actually not also not a tripender. You'll be fine And it was like what you should do is like take it off It was like take a knee pad which I had and like wind it into a small narrow and so it like helped me out And at the end of the two weeks, I was asking cloud about something else and it was like, oh Glad to hear and like how'd your trip go? So I was like, oh, that's nice Oh, so it did ask they remembered. Yeah, how Paul Engin Oh my gosh, it's gonna know everything about you. So it's called the bitter lesson. That's great, so the key thing here is that the broad knowledge gives it more things to pull from. It's more resilient, yeah. So it's more resilient. And my guess is. So can I mention, maybe that's a whole point of a liberal arts degree is that you get, throwing it back to education. Over 55 degrees, it makes me, yeah. Beautiful, I think it makes me, because you have more things to pull from instead of being so hyper-focused. Yeah. I think there's. Dave Ghidiu That's a good analogy. Actually, in computer science, there's this philosophy called Linus's Law. It says, given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow. That's meant for open source software. Imagine Photoshop. I'm just making this up. At Adobe, they have 100 developers working on Photoshop. But GIMP, which is open source, might have 10,000 people from around the world working on it. So GIMP is more likely to have way fewer bugs and more innovation because they have so many people working on it. So the bitter lesson is somewhat like a manifestation of the Linus's Law. Okay. Paul Engin Do you have one more headline for us? Jeff Kidd Uh, sure. Uh, PlayStation no longer making discs starting in 2028. Yeah. Paul Engin Yeah, I haven't seen a disc in a while well everything played Jeff Kidd Yeah, but for gaming it's still kind of the same thing It's kind of like what you don't if you did they could they could take off people have complained over the years It's like you bought a movie from this service, and then they stopped carrying it right so you what so you lost you lost it Right so it's like you buy a game you download it They can just take it off their server one day, and you can't get it right, but it could Paul Engin technically could stay on your system, but if you remove it, you can't download it again. Right. Jeff Kidd to shut down their servers, which can happen anywhere. Paul Engin That's interesting because I know like we have the Xbox without the disc and we download everything. Dave Ghidiu I mean, I'm still surprised that we're downloading. We're not just doing cloud gaming. I think Google Stadia was fantastic at that. But you, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff, but you can still buy like the collector's edition and get like Master Chief's helmet if you have like $100. So they'll still sell like boxes and like paraphernalia. I don't know. I thought I had heard that. Maybe not. But they won't have the discs. Correct. Paul Engin The PlayStation won't have discs anymore. Jeff Kidd And Xbox came out with a response that says they're working on it, so it's not out right now. But the plan is for Xbox is you buy the disc, once it's inserted into your console, you'll get a digital license for that disc, for that game, forever. Dave Ghidiu Perpetuity yes, that's gonna. That's a game changer. That's interest Jeff Kidd then and let's say Dave you want to borrow the game I'll take the disc out you put it in your system that license then transfers to your system it's transferable yes so it's still like we can still trade games you can still sell games used oh that's kind of cool Paul Engin Because if I download it, I can't like I can't share it. Yeah, you can't trade it in. You can't. Jeff Kidd sell it, you can't do anything, you can borrow it. Dave Ghidiu That's like textbooks. That's why they got rid of physical textbooks and now it's all online. Yeah, that makes sense too for that. Jeff Kidd But yeah, so that's their plan. It's only been a couple of days since they announced it, but I lose the license. So if Dave borrows my game, I can't then play the game. Paul Engin until you get it back with the disc back in it. Jeff Kidd And then I put the then it reactivates the key and then the deactivate is kind of cool Paul Engin But they gotta come up with a digital alternative for that, right? I mean, but that's really cool that you could do that. Cause I remember that. I remember Nintendo, like I had a game cartridge and then I go to- What game cartridge did you have? Like, I'll say Duck Hunt. And then I- Duck Hunt was part of the- That was not a standalone cartridge. All right, it's fake news, fake news folks. I forgot what it was, but I do remember like taking the cartridge over to my friend's house who didn't have the game. And so we could play the game at their place. Yeah. You know what I mean? Jeff Kidd And it's a role reversal, if you guys remember, when the Xbox One came out, I think. Microsoft said, no, trading games, no, none of that stuff. And then immediately, Sony came out with an ad that was like, this is how you trade games on PlayStation 4. And they just handed it over. They had the trolled Xbox, and then Xbox rolled it back. So now it's flipped. So now Xbox is kind of becoming the hero now in PlayStation. Well. Dave Ghidiu Well, except Xbox is laying off 3,200 people. Well, yes. Yeah, that's a yes. I'm not sure of the future of gaming there. They really miscalculated on the Ubisoft or Activision acquisition. Yeah, yeah. That'll go to that either too. That's another podcast. And we have a lot of headlines. Maybe we should do a part two. We'll do a faster rundown next time. Paul Engin Yes, I got one more, which I think is interesting, which is Stripe makes a surprise bid for PayPal. And Stripe remind us? So Stripe is a point of purchase when you go to almost any service, like restaurant or anything, and they flip that thing over and you tag it. It's that payment thing that is being used. Yeah, and I think Dave Ghidiu I think they do an awful lot of online transactions too, like on the hood. Paul Engin Yes, and so that and this this isn't they're not sure if it's a full acquisition if it's a partial or even if it go through because PayPal is also an equivalent point of purchase type deal where you can it's online mostly and so it's interesting to see what kind of if the amount of online payment methods are gonna kind of dwindle and be more focused to like two or three Dave Ghidiu I actually, since we're talking about PayPal, there is a setting by default that was changed for all PayPal users a few months ago. So if you use PayPal, you should go in and check this in your privacy settings. But they basically inverted the privacy policy. So now everything is public information, they can use it. So make sure you go in PayPal. Oh. Paul Engin Wow. Yeah, that is good to know. I didn't know that. Oh, man. I did not realize. Yeah. All right. So all right. So I think that's all the time we have today. But I think you're right, Dave, I think we'll come back to this. And I think another time there and kind of go through the headlines a little bit quicker. We, we only got through a portion of it. So I want to also end in a more somber note. We this week, we lost a dear friend and colleague, Aaron Sullivan. He joined the computer science department at FLCC in 2015. And he really hit the ground running here at FLCC. He was a consummate educator with an unending devotion to his students and to his family and to his friends. His contributions to the college are too numerous to mention, and his legacy will forever influence us and remind us to give our best every day. Dave Ghidiu Yeah, he really was the best of us and our hearts and thoughts go out to his family, so we miss you, Aaron. Paul Engin Yes, Aaron. Our thoughts to the family. So this episode was engineered by Hugh Laird. Dave Ghidiu Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College, located at our world headquarters, podcast studios, located in beautiful Cantagua, New York, in the heart of Finger Lakes region, offering more than 55 degrees, certificates, micro-credentials, and workforce training programs. Paul Engin Thank you to Public Relations and Communications Marketing and the FLX AI Hub. Dave Ghidiu Eager to delve into passion, discover exciting and immersive opportunities at www.flcc.edu. Paul Engin As part of our mission at FLCC, we are committed to making education accessible, innovative and aligned with the needs of both the students and employers. Dave Ghidiu The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests who do not necessarily reflect the official position of Finger Lakes Community College. Paul Engin Music by Den from Pixabay. Dave Ghidiu This is The Immersive Ones.
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