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- [00:05]
Brian McCullough
Welcome to the Techmeme ride home for Wednesday, November 20th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough. Today now, authors are being approached about training AI on their books and some are not pleased. The new Android development cadence is here. More signs crypto is ascendant. More signs that Blue sky has taken off. And a case in point for why governments and militaries are worried about smartphone tracking. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Bloomberg says that Microsoft has signed a deal with News Corp's publisher Harper Collins to use nonfiction books to train an unannounced AI model. HarperCollins says authors can opt out of the scheme, but as you can imagine, this has proven controversial. In a statement to Bloomberg News, HarperCollins confirmed it reached an agreement with an unidentified AI technology company that would allow limited use of select non nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models to improve model quality and performance. HarperCollins authors will have the option to participate or not, the company said. Part of our role is to present authors with opportunities for their consideration while simultaneously protecting the underlying value of their works and our shared revenue and royalty streams, HarperCollins said. This agreement, with its limited scope and clear guardrails around model output that respects authors rights, does that end quote Technology companies use an array of data from social media sites to news articles to train AI models, and companies like Microsoft are hunting for additional sources of high quality text that they can license to make their programs more accurate, better able to answer questions or provide expertise on specific subjects. News Corp signed an agreement in May with OpenAI to let the company use content from more than a dozen of its publications, including the Wall street journal, Barron's and MarketWatch. OpenAI has also signed licensing deals with publishers including Alex Springer, the Atlantic, Vox Media, Meredith Hearst Communications and Time magazine. Microsoft has worked AI initiatives with Reuters, Hearst and Axel Springer, which publishes Business Insider and Politico.
- [02:07]
Daniel Kibblesmith
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- [02:08]
Brian McCullough
Now I became aware of all this because my friend Daniel Kibblesmith, the comic author and Colbert writer and guest on my Rad History episode about Calvin and Hobbes, went viral when he posted screenshots from an email from his agent asking if he wanted to participate. Quoting from the A.V. club, Kibble Smith was apparently offered a non negotiable $2,500 to allow his book to be bundled in with other works for TR covering a three year period of use. The posted email, which invokes the specter that these AI models may one day make us all obsolete, also mentions that several hundred authors have already agreed to the deal and emphasizes the stance that hey, getting paid to have your work fed into an AI wood chipper is better than having it stolen for that same purpose. Kibble Smith did not agree, including in his post a screenshot of his rejection of the deal, which he called abominable. In a statement to the A.V. club, Kibblesmith wrote that quote, it seems like they think they're cooked and they're chasing short money while they can. I disagree. The fear of robots replacing authors is a false binary. I see it as the beginning of two diverging markets. Readers who want to connect with other humans across time and space, or readers who are satisfied with a customized on demand content pellet fed to them by the big computer so they never have to be challenged again. One thing I do want to note is $2,500 for a single book. $2,500 a pop might be cheap sounding from the author's perspective, but that is insanely expensive if you're thinking of it from the AI model perspective of trying to get new training data at scale. As Megan Fox said on Bluesky, it isn't obvious yet, but this is where AI ends the second you put any non fixed monetary costs in the data, it costs too much. Might have worked at smaller models, but at the scale they're at now. Lol. No, even if it's a fixed and not per piece rate now won't stay such end quote. Meanwhile, Penguin Random House is going the other way. It has amended its copyright notice globally to prohibit the use of books for training AI. The notice will be included in all new titles and reprints. So I guess sort of like a robots text notice, but analog Quoting the bookseller the new wording states no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems and will be included in all new titles and any backlist titles that are reprinted. The statement also quote, expressly reserved the titles from the text and data mining exception in accordance with a European Parliament directive. The move specifically to ban the use of its titles by AI firms for the development of chatbots and other digital tools comes amid a slew of copyright infringement cases in the US and reports that large tranches of pirated books have already been used by tech companies to train AI tools. In 2024, several academic publishers, including Taylor and Francis Wiley and Sage, have announced partnerships to license content to AI firms. PRH is believed to be the first of the Big five Anglif phone trade publishers to amend its copyright information to reflect the acceleration of AI systems and the alleged reliance by tech companies on using published work to train language models. Google has shipped the first Android 16 developer preview far ahead of schedule compared to the past decade or so. They're hoping to lower fragmentation by giving OEMs more time to get things together for the new OS. This is something that I told you about recently, quoting Android Police Surprise Google is releasing the first developer preview of Android 16 today so that app developers can test the new APIs and behavior changes that will arrive in next year's big update. Android 16 Developer Preview 1 is going live with new features like an embedded photo picker, medical record support, and an updated privacy sandbox. First of all, it might surprise you to hear that Google is releasing Android 16 DP1 today. After all, the first developer preview of Android 15 launched in February of 2024. February is also when Google released the first developer pre previews of the last four major Android releases, making November quite early for the first preview of the next major Android release. However, Google announced at the end of last month that it's accelerating Android's release schedule. The company confirmed it plans to release Android 16 sometime in Q2 of next year. One leak points towards a June 3, 2025 release date for Android 16, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. Android 16 beta 3 in March 2025 will mark the operating system's platform stability milestone. When Android 16 reaches platform stability, Google ass subsequent updates to Android 16 won't change any existing APIs, add new APIs, or modify app facing system behaviors. The platform's stability milestone is also when developers will be allowed to release updates to their apps on Google Play to make them target Android 16 for reference. Android 15 reached its platform stability milestone with its third beta in June 2024, so again Android 16 will be ready for users and developers much earlier than usual.
- [07:09]
Daniel Kibblesmith
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- [07:16]
Brian McCullough
Sony has launched cloud streaming on the PlayStation portal in beta, letting PlayStation plus premium subscribers in some countries stream select PS5 games. Quoting the Verge, you'll need to be a PlayStation plus premium subscriber to take advantage of it. Sony says that to stream at 720p, you'll need a minimum 7Mbps connection, while 1080p quality will require a minimum 13Mbps connection. Some PlayStation plus features won't be available to start with cloud streaming to the PlayStation portal, including game Trials, party voice chat, game invites for select games 3D audio and in Game Commerce, and you won't be able to stream any PS4 games or PS3 games Child accounts won't also be able to use cloud streaming on the portal.
- [08:02]
Daniel Kibblesmith
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- [08:08]
Brian McCullough
More signs that Crypto is ascendant President Elect Trump has nominated Howard Lutnick, CEO of Kenner Fitzgerald, to serve as his Commerce Secretary. The crypto angle here is that Cantor Fitzgerald has been a Custodian for stablecoin company Tether since 2021, quoting CoinDesk. He will lead our tariff and trade agenda with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, trump said in a statement. Lutnick's firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, is a stalwart in finance, known particularly for its influential role in the bond market that includes serving as a primary dealer, an exclusive group of firms allowed to trade directly with the Federal Reserve. It has also dabbled in crypto since 2021. It has helped Tether manage the giant stockpile of US treasuries that back its USDT stablecoin. Cantor Fitzgerald also recently announced a bitcoin financing business aimed at providing leverage to bitcoin investors with $2 billion of initial funding. I am a fan of crypto, but let me be very specific. Bitcoin, just bitcoin. These other coins, they are just not a thing, he told CNBC in a podcast last year, adding I a big fan of this stablecoin called Tether. Lutnick has argued bitcoin should be treated as a commodity, meaning it would face less regulation than say, stocks or bonds, and is superior to other cryptocurrencies given its lack of central authority and censorship resistant properties. This episode is brought to you by Incogni. Incogni is a service that helps protect your personal data from data brokers who collect, aggregate and sell it. Incogni reaches out to data data brokers on your behalf and request your personal data removal with the Family and Friends plan. You can also add up to four members to your subscription so that everyone can benefit from Incogni's services. 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Go to miro.com to find out how. That's M I R O.com update on BlueSky, which says it now has more than 20 million users after hitting 15 million users just on November 13th. And the app has been number one in the US App Store since November 13th, per app figures quoting TechCrunch. What's more, new data indicates the app's rapid growth is seeing it close the gap with another prominent ex rival, Instagram Threads across metrics like daily active users and website visits. BlueSky's user base is still much smaller than Threads, which recently reported north of 275 million monthly active users. However, if BlueSky's current rate of growth holds up, it could catch up with threads in time. Market intelligence firm SimilarWeb believes its data indicates that Threads had five times more daily active users than BlueSky ahead of the US elections. But on November 15, a peak day of activity for BlueSky, Thread's lead over BlueSky had been reduced to just 1.5x. In the US daily active users include the mobile apps on iOS and Android, not website visitors. Instagram head Adam Mosseri denied SimilarWeb's data is accurate, but Meta does not share daos. The firm's data also indicates that bluesky overtook threads in daily website visits in both the US and the uk, which signals strong interest from potential new users. Globally, daily website visits on Bluesky haven't yet surpassed Threads, but it's come very close. As of mid no. November, the Musk owned app X remains dominant, though with a US daily active user count that's more than 10 times larger than Bluesky at present.
- [13:22]
Daniel Kibblesmith
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- [13:28]
Brian McCullough
Finally today, you know how various governments around the world are worried about app tracking and specifically TikTok tracking people. The first bans announced are always oh, government officials and military personnel can't have TikTok on their personal devices because the Chinese government has made similar bans for their government workers, but in their case banning western apps. This is probably why Wired did an investigation using US Data broker Data Stream and found they could easily track the movements of U.S. military and intelligence workers in Germany. Quoting Wired, A joint investigation by Wired, BaeSreicher, Rundfunk and Netspolitik.org reveal that U.S. companies legally collecting digital advertising data are also providing the world a cheap and reliable way to track the movements of American military and intelligence personnel overseas, from their homes and their children's schools to hardened aircraft shelters within an airbase where US nuclear weapons are believed to be stored. A collaborative analysis of billions of location coordinates obtained from a US data broker provides extraordinary insight into the daily routines of US service members. The findings also provide a vivid example of the significant risks the unregulated sale of mobile location data poses to the integrity of the US military and the safety of its service members and their families overseas. We track hundreds of thousands of signals from devices inside sensitive US installations in Germany. That includes scores of devices within suspected NSA monitoring or signals analysis facilities, more than 1,000 devices at a sprawling US compound where Ukrainian troops were being trained in 2023, and nearly 2,000 others at an Air Force base that has crucially supported American drone operations. A device likely tied to an NSA or intelligence employee broadcast coordinates from inside a windowless building with a metal exterior known as the tin can, which is reportedly used for NSA surveillance, according to agency documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Another device transmitted signals from within a restricted weapons testing facility, revealing its zigzagging movements across a high security zone used for tank maneuvers and live munitions drills. We traced these devices from barracks to work buildings, Italian restaurants, Aldi grocery stores and bars. As many as four devices that regularly pinged from Ramstein Air Base were later tracked to nearby brothels off base, including a multi story facility called Sex World. Experts caution that foreign governments could use this data to identify individuals with access to sensitive areas. Terrorists or criminals could decipher when U.S. nuclear weapons are least guarded or Spies and other nefarious actors could leverage embarrassing information for blackmail. The unregulated data broker industry poses a clear threat to national security, says ron Wyden, a US senator from Oregon with more than 20 years overseeing intelligence work. It is outrageous that American data brokers are selling location data collected from thousands of brave members of the armed forces who serve in harm harm's way around the world.
- [16:23]
Daniel Kibblesmith
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- [16:25]
Brian McCullough
To give you an example of what they're talking about, let me quote from the opening graphs of the story. Nearly every weekday morning a Device leaves a two story home near Weisbaden, Germany and makes a 15 minute commute along a major autobahn. By around 7am it arrives at Lucius D. Clay Kazner, the U.S. army's European headquarters and a key hub for U.S. intelligence operations. The device stops near a restaurant before heading to an office near the base that belongs to a major government contractor responsible for for outfitting and securing some of the nation's most sensitive facilities. For roughly two months in 2023, this device followed a predictable routine stops at the contractor's office, visits to a discrete hangar on base, and lunchtime trips to the base's dining facility. Twice in November of last year, it made a 30 minute drive to the Dagger complex, a former intelligence and NSA signals processing facility. On weekends the device could be traced to restaurants and shops in Wiesbaden. The individual carrying this device likely isn't a spy or high ranking intelligence official. Instead, experts believe they're a who works on critical systems H vac computing infrastructure or possibly securing the newly built Consolidated Intelligence Center, a state of the art facility suspected to be used by the National Security Agency. Whoever they are, the device they're carrying with them everywhere is putting US national security at risk. An internal Pentagon presentation obtained by the reporting collective claims that not only is the domestic data collection likely capable of revealing military secrets, it is essentially unavoidable at the personal level level, service members lives being simply too intertwined with the technology permitting it. This conclusion closely mirrors the observations of Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. supreme Court, who in landmark privacy cases within the past decade described cell phones as being a, quote, pervasive and insistent part of daily life and that owning one was indispensable to participation in modern society.
- [18:17]
Daniel Kibblesmith
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- [18:18]
Brian McCullough
Let me come back to the concern for potential blackmail for a second. Things like, you know, a foreign agent being like, do you want your spous to know you went to a place called Sex World? If not, start working with me. But also on a basic level, location data can piece a lot of secrets together on their own, Quoting one last time when it comes to jeopardizing national security, even data on low level personnel can pose a risk, says Vivek Chilukuri at cnas. Low level targets can lead to high level compromises, Chilukuri says. Even if someone isn't senior in an organization, they may have access to highly sensitive infrastructure. A system is only as secure as its weakest link. He points out that if adversaries can target someone with access to a crucial server or database, they could exploit that vulnerability to cause serious damage. It just takes one USB stick plugged into the right device to compromise an organization, he said. It's not just individual service members who are at risk. Entire security protocols and operational routines can be exposed through location data at Buchel Air base, where the US is believed to have stored an estimated 10 to 15 B61 nuclear weapons. The data reveals the daily activity patterns of device devices on the base, including when personnel are most active and, more concerningly, potentially, when the base is least populated. Everyone head over to the RAD History feed because this week's episode is about the Challenger disaster. My guest is the great Farhad Manjar. It's very interesting. It was something that I remember, but I didn't know all the details of. Check that out. Talk to you tomorrow.