Sam Altman’s Reflections, NVIDIA’s Robotics Play, Zuckerberg’s Moderation

27:57Yeah, I actually, I thought this was more interesting than the humanoid robot stuff because one, I saw it and I kind of want it and I don't even know why I want it. So it looks kind of like a souped up Mac mini and just somehow it'll just empower you to do amazing things. But also, NVIDIA, to me, 3000 is still a consumer-ish product. They say it's for students and researchers, but, like, I mean, the Vision Pro was 3000, and that's a pure consumer product. So to me, this could be quietly, I mean, obviously graphics cards were very consumer-focused, but they might be entering the consumer market it again.

28:43Yeah, I did a story recently about how universities are like all out of chips and basically cannot compete at all. And to me, this seems like a bit of an antidote to that. I mean, I think that NVIDIA really saw the need there and decided to go for it. And I think this is really positive news. Yeah, I think anything NVIDIA does, they still have, you know, kind of the magic touch that until they really flop on something, I think you have to just buy into whatever they're selling right now. Last bit of Nvidia news that I'm actually personally pretty excited about. Basically Nvidia is building these souped up NPCs or non-player characters, non-playable characters in video games.

29:25And to me, this has always been like one of the dreams and I really regret not writing about it earlier because it's something that's been so obvious and in development. And that is that when you're playing video games, There are these non-playable characters that basically just kind of stand there and they're just like clearly like dumb video game stand-ins. And the promise with AI is they can actually become much more human-like and that there's no more such thing. There's no such thing as an NPC anymore because every, you know, bot within a video game can be intelligent. And it looks like NVIDIA is also working to power some of these new characters.

30:01This is according to The Verge. These characters that can use AI to perceive, plan, and act like human players. This is according to an NVIDIA blog post. Powered by a gendered AI, this new technology will enable living dynamic game worlds with companions that comprehend and support player goals. And enemies that adapt dynamically to player tactics. The characters are powered by small language models that are capable of planning at human-like frequencies required for realistic decision-making. as well as multimodal small language models for vision and audio that allow AI characters to hear audio cues and perceive their environments.

30:37I mean, I'm just thinking about running around in a video game and realizing that every character there is like, you know, quote unquote intelligent and has its own personality and feels a lot more like the real world. I think this could be really big for video games. I think this could be big for virtual reality. Heck, maybe it even brings back the metaverse. Metaverse is back. Metaverse is back. We populate it with AI, human-like AIs. That sit side by side with actual human players. I think this was pretty cool and it was very interesting. Yeah, I like, see, this is the kind of stuff versus the medium-term futuristic humanoid robots.

31:14This is the kind of stuff I like to see. This is, because this really, I have no doubt is happening and will actually just like unleash really cool things and experiences just in the next like year or two. I also noted my other, I think 2025 prediction. So they use small language model SLM. I've been seeing a lot of people in the agentic space using LAM's large action models. I think everyone's gonna start rebranding LLM into other kinds of terminology. technology realizing llm branding is kind of a little played out a little uh little restricted to wait when's gpt5 coming so i i think i think you're going to see every one of these companies start to come up with these alternative terms that are a little more focused slm lam things like that yeah the branding and ai it's just uh it's all branding it's all branding okay so one last bit of AI news here and sort of the dark side of AI, which again, we're constantly reminded that so much of this AI revolution is built on copyrighted materials.

32:25There's a TechCrunch story that says Mark Zuckerberg gave Meta's Lama team the okay to train on copyrighted works. This is coming out in court filings that Mark Zuckerberg cleared his team to train on LibGen, which is a data set. This is according to internal messages, a data set we know to be pirated that may undermine Meta's negotiating position with regulators. And when that concern was brought up, this is according to the filing, the decision makers within Meta said that after escalation to MZ, Mark Zuckerberg, the AI team was approved to use LibGen. I get the argument that this is transformation of people's work.

33:10I do not fully agree with this idea that therefore companies can go ahead and ingest copyrighted works and use them freely for their purposes without a license. I don't know. It just seems wrong to me. What do you think, Rajan? Well, we're going to be talking about Mark Zuckerberg's announcements regarding the meta platforms in just a moment. And I think there is going to be some significant copyright lawsuit resolution of some sort in 2025, like, you know, the New York Times suing open AI already. When stuff like this comes out, it's one of those that I really think from like, I like that this whole episode is basically AI is all branding and PR.

33:56But I genuinely believe that like you need to have the public on your side when this stuff comes out, because on one, it's so crystal clear that obviously there's copyright violations in all of this. I think everyone, it's hard to pretend that that's not the case. However, these products are so valuable to everyday users. It's like that when everyone supports you and is on your side, I think it's just okay enough that these things will resolve themselves. But I think like if the general public is turning against you, I think this is where there can be some real issues going into the next year.

34:39Because I think we're going to see more and more of these lawsuits. And at some point, there has to be precedent set, because this is completely uncharted territory. And we are going to, there's going to be some kind of court resolution that establishes some kind of precedent. Yeah, no, I'm with you 100%. I mean, ultimately, I get the argument that the AI companies are making and why they'd say it's fine to train on copyrighted material. But there's just something not right about it. And so far, there's been, you know, a small public backlash, not really much of any. and I just think that that's going to come to a head eventually.

35:14Alright, so speaking of meta, there's some new moderation policies that when we speak about them we're sure to make at least half of our listeners mad, maybe all of them mad, and that we will not be daunted. We will discuss them right after this. Did you know your credit card points and miles can lose value to inflation? Credit card companies often reduce the redemption value of your points and miles. Now imagine a credit card with rewards that can grow in value. With the Gemini credit card, you can earn Bitcoin or one of over 50 other cryptos instantly with no annual fee. Every swipe at the store or gas pump earns you instant rewards deposited straight to your account.

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36:37You're used to hearing my voice on the world bringing you interviews from around the globe. And you hear me reporting environment and climate news. I'm Carolyn Buehler. And I'm Marco Werman. We're now with you hosting The World Together. More global journalism with a fresh new sound. Listen to The World on your local public radio station and wherever you find your podcasts.

37:04And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast. First half, we talked all about the latest in AI. Now we're going to talk about the second biggest story, I think, in tech this week, which is a meta full about face on its fact checking and content moderation policies. So basically, Mark Zuckerberg says they're going to take a whole new approach to speech on Facebook. he basically says there are five changes they're going to make. One, they're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes like X. Second, they're going to simplify content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topic like immigration and gender, which Zuckerberg says are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.

37:47Third, they've had filters scanning for any content policy violation. They're going to tune the filters to focus on tackling illegal and high severity violations, leaving the rest to user reports. Fourth, they're bringing back civic content which is a way to say that there's going to be a lot more news and politics on Facebook. And fifth, they're moving their trust and safety content moderation teams out of California and to Texas. And they're also, this is like really a sixth thing, they're going to work with President Trump to push back governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing them to censor more.

38:26Basically, they've had other countries lean on them to censor, and they're going to try to work with the Trump administration to push back on that. So those are the big changes coming out of Facebook. There's more detailed stuff that we're going to get into, but just on its face, what do you think about these changes, Ronjan? I think Mark Zuckerberg has had an incredible PR turnaround over the last few years from back in the 2017-18 Cambridge Analytica days. I think he's definitely risking all of that work to make this public statement because there didn't need to be him saying this. That was interesting to me.

39:12like from a policy perspective, from an actual product perspective, they could have just done this to obviously it's so saying it publicly is kind of, you know, presenting this to Trump very clearly, kind of like presenting this to the world. But I think and I'm curious, your take my possibly countering to of opinion is, I think it's good in the sense that I have long been wary of misinformation on meta platforms. I think fact checking the adjust at that scale, or the any of these efforts that have launched over the last six to eight years, have been kind of terrible and a fool's errand anyways.

39:56So I kind of like just let it rip as awful as that sounds like it just this is what this platform is when you have an algorithm based content platform like this. This is the way it's always going to go. So to try to hide it and make editorial decisions or value-based decisions was always going to be a problem and now they're just saying sorry we're not it's not our not our problem yeah no i think going from fact checking to community notes is a good move uh i think community notes really works very well on twitter in fact i'm impressed with how well it works and go ahead i i okay sorry i i disagree on that.

40:37I don't think from an actual like efficacy standpoint that any of this is going to work well in terms of like creating a better town square conversation. I just think it's the the only real decision and it's actually the most honest one. All right but I'm yes and on this. I just think community notes is good. I mean it's amazing how many viral tweets that you used to see that would just go viral without any context now go viral with fact checks, even ads on Twitter, when the advertiser is lying about their product, they get community noted. I mean, and it's not like, oh, the community notes generally seem like pretty level headed.

41:16And oftentimes we'll have links to like, share further context. So why is this not a great solution here? Well, because, okay, so we have to separate, there's the kind of, there's the fact checking side, which to me was always kind of ridiculous anyways. Then there's the actual kind of like abuse side, which also they've like severely relaxed the overall restrictions of it, which again, if you say something awful, that's not wrong or right factually, that is just something that is very like, and we'll get into things like immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit, which was one of the examples of now, now newly permissible speech.

41:58I mean, do we need a fact check? Yes or no? Like, so to me, the community note side, it does answer the misinformation slash fact checking side. I do agree. It's kind of, I love seeing an advertiser get called out with community notes. But to me, that's almost a small part of this. Well, I think that's a big part of it because it's on the fact checking. But then I think that you're right in pointing out that the abuse stuff is a completely different side of it. And that's again, going towards where Zuckerberg talks about how, like, we're going to simplify our content policies and get rid of restrictions on topics like immigration agenda that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse.

42:37He says what started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it's gone too far. And like, while I think that's possible, it's kind of interesting to see what's now permissible on Facebook. I mean, you read like a few things and there are some other things about trans people. Trans people aren't real. They're mentally ill. Trans people are freaks. It's very interesting to me how like where Zuckerberg says broaden out the discussion really is just like, let's get into like the most vile parts of our society and let them say the things that they want to say, which I guess like, yeah, you don't want to limit everybody's personal expression.

43:14Of course, I don't think any political opinion should be restricted. And I'm definitely not on like the pro heavy content moderation side on social networks. On the other hand, like you are building a platform that does amplify stuff algorithmically. And like you get to kind of set the parameters of like the type of world you want to build inside. And it was just kind of interesting from like, you know, it's like Zuckerberg says, let's broaden out the political debate. And this is from platformer. This is from a Meta's chief marketing executive. I feel that the actual shock of friends and family seeing me receive abuse as a gay man helped them understand that hatred exists and hardened support.

43:56Most of our progress on rights happened during these periods without mass censorship and pushing it underground has coincided with reversals. Like that is an interesting idea. But the question is like, how much of like the negative stuff do you want to amplify, right? And I think Casey Newton, who wrote that, wrote the story with this quote, pointed out pretty well, which is basically just like, Meta's moving to like a more of a for you feed, less of us, you know, people you follow feed. So the real question isn't exactly like, how much of your of this do you want to allow? It's how much of it do you want to amplify?

44:30Well, I but I also think that, in the end, the up until now, with Facebook and Instagram having relative kind of like social network monopoly positioning. This is the only thing that the average person like you and I are very online. I've dealt with plenty of abuse, especially on Twitter over the years. And it's fine. I, you know, like I am online, I deal with it, I know how to deal with it. Like, for just the average Facebook user, which I'm guessing Facebook blue has gone more normie than ever. How are these people going to respond when they start getting flamed with just vile remarks and just feeling horrible.

45:13Do they stop using the platform? Do they use it less? So I actually think, to me, and I kind of hope this resolves itself from an actual kind of product and business perspective. Maybe that's like overly capitalistic of me. But I do think that these platforms will become just miserable and unusable the more, again, for me, I know you're still anti-Blue Sky and still strong on X, but like, I mean. I wouldn't call myself anti-Blue Sky. I just don't think there's a big, you know, bright future there. Well, no, but like when I go on X now, it's wild. Like it's crazy. I mean, like the UK grooming stuff and just like, and I've been going on it less and less and less.

45:58And then when I go on, just the outright like insane racism, not even like kind of like subtle or even funny or whatever. I mean, just like that as well, just. And so, but the more that happens, the less I inclined to use it. And I mean, that's why I'm even think blue sky is a chance that I, for my own behavior, I use it more and more and more now because as the other alternative becomes less and less usable. So, so I do think it's going to be interesting to see with, to see where this goes from an actual business and product perspective, because it all sounds good right now, but is this going to make these things unusable for just a normal person who's just like posting about their kids or whatever else on Facebook and then just starts dealing with just insane, insane comments?

46:49Well, I did have an observation from the business side of this as well, because it's interesting to me that they're bringing back politics. I mean, the civic content thing, I think to me, is the most undercover part of this entire thing. And I think they know that news and politics give gives their products engagement they just can't find elsewhere. And so I'll sort of question whether like people flaming each other and blowing each other up in the comments is bad for Facebook's business. In fact, it seems like Facebook blue was at its height when the flame wars existed and people would go after each other and they'd be talking about news and politics and And whatever it is today, it just doesn't have the same urgency as it did before.

47:28So I think that like on its face, this is absolutely, and I think in truth, this is absolutely a move of Zuckerberg to align Facebook with the current political administration as it has always done. It always aligns itself with the political conventional wisdom in the country and I think across the globe. And Zuckerberg has said, point blank, our job here is to just reflect what people want. Like we don't have anything higher purpose than that. What people want, we give them. People said something in the election, Trump won, and therefore he's aligning himself with Trump. However, second order right now, I think is largely, it's a business thing as well.

48:07I think he realizes that to give threads a chance against Twitter and to restore urgency to Facebook, you need news. News equals engagement. And I've said it a thousand times on the show. When you have news, when you have politics, you have engagement, you have urgency. And I think what Zuckerberg is doing is bringing that back into the platform and, you know, and all the horrible things that come with it in order to revive what is, you know, a platform that seems to be on its way to irrelevance in Facebook and certainly there in threats. Well, I also think what he's doing, which is cynically savvy, is announcing this just a few days before.

48:48And today, I was January 19th, the deadline for TikTok needing to be divested from ByteDance. and listening today to the Supreme Court hearings about the TikTok ban, suddenly it went from Trump supporting TikTok again, being against a ban, to now Mark Zuckerberg is fully aligned with me. He sees it. He knows it's happening. And I mean, you can start to see suddenly, and I was listening to the hearings, like even the conservative justices seem to be edging towards a ban. So if Trump does not step in on this, I think this could actually be the thing that could push over the ban to a reality. Do you still see that?

49:31Do you see the ban happening? Oh, yeah. OK. So today, listening to the Supreme Court hearing, the most fascinating thing, I mean, in this day and age, the nine justices on the Supreme Court seemingly being aligned on anything, I think, is almost non-existent. they all seem to be leaning towards and again it's not a ban and actually the funny Amy Coney Barrett kept saying it but then also Justice Jackson on the liberal side was saying it they're all like this is not a ban it's a divestiture like all you have to do is divest from ByteDance why can you not from a you know a foreign adversary like a company why can you not divest And then the solicitor on the ByteDance slash TikTok side keeps saying this is a matter of free speech.

50:24And they're like, no, it's not speech, just divest. And it's the fact that everyone from both sides, even Clarence Thomas is like, what is exactly, what is TikTok speech here? I don't understand why a restriction on ByteDance, a Chinese company, represents a limit on TikTok. So I think Zuckerberg's move might actually be the defining push where Trump suddenly is like, OK, I don't have to worry about meta on Instagram right now. You know what? I can now go after China. Let it rip. Let it rip. Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think, again, like we've talked about this on the show, but if TikTok ends up just shutting down and not divesting, then that's kind of the game right there.

51:10In fact, this is probably a good test to be like, you know, are you going to try to divest or are you going to shut down? I still, heart of heart, don't believe that this thing is going to get shut down or sold or, you know, maybe there'll be some declaration of divestment and that'll be that. However, if it goes through and TikTok says, all right, we're done, it's like, okay, you are a tool of the Chinese Communist Party. But they've already said that. All they had to do, like to say, we are not going to use the ByteDance algorithm and completely divest our data, our algorithm, the business from ByteDance.

51:42That's not a completely impossible, unreasonable thing. Like, that's the part to me that still is almost like confounding. Like, why can't they just do that? And that's what you heard it even in the justices when they were talking again across the aisle. Everyone's like, why can't you just do this? Like, you're saying it's free speech. you're doing all that like it's not unreasonable that the foreign adversary of like an opaque company that we don't know exactly the relationship with the chinese government you should not be controlled by them when you control the narrative of american media like and they there's no good answer to that question why can't they divest again we're only nine days away.

52:27It's going to be a fun, crazy nine days on this one. I think we're going to get... All it's going to take is one Trump truth social. What are they called again? Truth social. To say that... What's the actual post called if it's a tweet? I'm not that far down. I still call X posts tweet, even though they call them posts. All it's going to take is one... Maybe they're called truths? I don't know. Truths. truths. That sounds good. One truth saying, let TikTok, let it shut down, and then it's over. And I think he's going to be leaning on that way, could be leaning in that direction, given Zuckerberg's announcement, given just overall, he's going to need anything that makes him look weak on China is always going to be problematic.

53:20And so this was always going to be kind of a delicate situation anyways, versus cleanly saying, I don't want China involved in anything, shut it down. Yeah. So speaking of China, should we close on the fact that I spent 15 hours in Beijing on Tuesday on a layover back home and just found it very interesting to be in China? You know, you've been there as well. To me, the thing that really stood out was the fact that it really is a surveillance state. I mean, there are cameras everywhere. And we were driving myself, my wife and a guide, we were driving out of the airport on our way to the Great Wall to start the day pre-dawn.

54:02And it just felt like every few seconds there was another flash. And I was like, oh, like in Australia, there's lots of speed cameras. And of course, I knew about surveillance in China, but I was like, is that like a speed camera? It's like, nope, That is what they call eagle eye or sort of the nickname for it. That just tracks everybody's movement, does facial recognition to see who's in the car. And if you do things that are wrong, they will get you. And in some places like in Tiananmen Square, every light fixture seemed to have like a dozen cameras or more affixed to it. And it's just this incredible thing that I don't think you fully grasp until you see it.

54:43that like wherever you go, wherever you go, you're being watched. It was very interesting to see in person. Well, I, so I spent three months in 2009 in Beijing and I like lived there. I was taking a language class and that, that just reminded me the surveillance. So 2009, not quite digital, but it's such a different mindset in the sense of, so it was around the time of swine flu. and so like already there was like a lot of pandemic-y behaviors going on and i went out i went out one night and i was a bit hung over the next day and i didn't feel like going to my class so i emailed the teacher alan i'm feeling a little sick i don't think i can make it today two health officials showed up at my door and i was like yeah yeah and like literally and i did they did not speak any English.

55:36I, my Chinese still is not very good. And at the time was non-existent and literally start asking me and yelling me, yelling at me, asking me all these questions. And that, that, that entire mentality of surveillance and like kind of a collective watching even in the pre fully digital era was there. So I can't even fathom what it is like right now. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Like I, at one point I was like, oh, where's my phone? Of course it was in my pocket. And the guy was like, don't worry if you left your phone like a few steps back, you know, it'll still be there because the cameras will make sure that nobody took it.

56:14And if somebody takes it, we'll be able to find out where they went with it. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my goodness. But, um, you know, I mean, outside of that, I just think that it was like a really great visit, honestly, to be able to see China in person. And it's just like, it was pretty cool to see, you know, just a culture that has been, you know, ongoing for so many years, just reflected in the modern day. As you like walk around Beijing, you could really see it with the architecture and sort of like the dress. It was just super cool. And obviously, like getting a chance to see the Great Wall, which is just like one of the wonders of the world was really special.

56:52So I got a 10-year visa to go. And so 15 hours of those 10 years are in the books, and I definitely have to go back. Did you download Douyin, the original TikTok based out of China? I should have. I tried to download Alipay, and I did get it to work, but I still had some problems with it. Like, you can literally not pay with... You need a local phone number, right? Probably. I think that's what it is. Yeah, in Taiwan, I have to deal with the same thing with, yeah. Yeah, so couldn't use, could not use credit card. Everything is Alipay. There are so many EVs all around. Like you see the EVs with the green license plates, and there were so many brands I'd never seen before that are just driving around.

57:38It was almost like sensory overload to like see all these things that we had like, you know, read about, that I had read about in the press, like the surveillance, the EVs, the mobile payments, you know, the Soviet influence even, like you'd go from the Forbidden City, which is all ancient Chinese architecture, into Tiananmen Square. And then you like look around and there's like the Great Hall of the People, which is the most important building, I would say, in the country where all the government meetings are held. And it's like, oh, that's just like straight up Soviet architecture. And so it's like, look at the flag.

58:12You're there. You're there. It's real. Yeah. You're real. the soviet themes in the flag um you know you go to the market there are like sculptures of uh of uh ayatollah khamenei you're like okay that bond is real you know it's just pretty just a very very interesting trip and i did i think like i wrote this about this in big technology this week but there have been some debates on like whether you know it's worthwhile to travel and i just find those debates like so absurd because um not only do you get a chance to meet people from different backgrounds when you go but you also are left with so many more questions and a little bit more context of all these things that you see.

58:46And so I'm strongly on the affirmative side of go out and see the things that you want to understand. I'm not going to claim to be a China expert after 15 hours in the country. No, you should. You should. I think it's time. But it certainly opened a lot of new questions for me. And it was really, really helpful, I think, to see this in action. Are you going back? Yes. You got the 10-year visa. so I will go back as long as things stay kind of calm between the US and China I hope they do but yeah we'll see I might have to big technology live in Beijing not sure how that would play maybe we're not coming back I don't think Xi is going to allow that but it's a good idea maybe no maybe he's a listener maybe he's a listener I do know yeah that's one of the things that Xi Jinping enjoys.

59:38If you're out there, Xi, come on the podcast. I would love to have you on. Can you imagine our first head of state is Xi Jinping? I don't know. I think we have people asking questions.

59:50All right, Ranjan, great speaking with you as always. We'll see you next week. See you next week. All right, everybody. Thank you for listening. We're going to be talking replica on Wednesday, so that'll be a really fascinating conversation. And then Ranjan and I will be back next Friday. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast. By the way.