Techstrong Gang – May 15, 2025

Hey, everybody, GPUs or political ponds, and hey, we might even be tracking 'em around the world. You're watching Textron. All right, everybody.

As we said, GPUs are in the news again, and turns out that well, there are political pawns and we're using them that kind of set up trade agreements, and there was a whole series of things happening in the world. But we have an awesome lineup of folks to talk about all this. Starting off with our czar of Silicon Valley.

John Schwartz, how you doing, John? I'm good. How are you, Mike?

I'm well. I'm well. You, you're looking brighter than ever, man.

I'm liking this whole new camera. I'm trying to, I've been working on the lighting, the camera that Alan sent me is very nice. It's a work in progress.

All right. Uh, well, at least you know, you don't look like you're, Are we all working? So that's good.

We all are. The day to day. Yes.

We're All, we're all work in progress. There you go. All right.

Well, speaking of a work in progress and a whole award joining us from, are you still in Texas or where are you today? Austin, Texas. Yes.

And we're getting our first triple digit, uh, day today. I am not really mentally ready, but here we are. That Exact.

And also in Austin, correct? Robert? That is correct.

Oh, nice. Robert is, yeah. 2 liter diesel engines and GPU export controls than I care to admit.

It's also about right. Well, well, When we and the gang are always excited when we can bring our friends together who live in the same city and have never met before. So it, it happens more often than we care to understand or admit.

But hey, it's the world we live in. And finally, I'm Mike Ard, and I'm here in New York as usual. And we're gonna jump into this topic with John.

John. It's kind of crazy out there. I looked at the entourage that went with the president to the Middle East, and it includes Jensen Wong and the folks from Open ai, and they were handing out contracts and gifts.

Like it was, well, candy, what's going on here? And, and, and has this just become the new norm or GPUs being held hostage for training and political Yeah, Like bargaining too. Yeah.

The, the, the Trump administration, I think sees these, um, these chips as, uh, literally bargaining chips and, uh, giving them some sort of leverage over other countries in terms of relations with other countries. I think, was it you or someone here? We, we talked about this, that tech beat is actually become like a politics beat.

And in a sense, there were three things that happened in succession, and I'll go back to last week, where it starts with these federal lawmakers. There's one in the house and there's one in the Senate, and they're moving forward with these, these bills that would require AI chips to carry geotracking technology to keep these sensitive chips out of hostile hands. Namely, they're talking about China.

So there, um, was a chip security act, which was, uh, sponsored or written by Senator Toma Co of Arkansas. And he, uh, wants to keep hardware from quote, falling into the hands of adversaries like Communist China. And essentially, he would give, the government would give the commerce secretary authority to verify location of, of this hardware.

So then we have that followed by this week's news that NVIDIA's gonna ship more than 18,000 Blackwell chips to Saudi Arabia to help power this new data center project with a newly created wealth fund owned AI startup called Hue, I believe, and who is there in Riyadh, but none others in Jensen Wong to talk about AI and how it, like electricity in the internet is essential infrastructure for every nation. So they have this project going on. So this was this project, or this deal was announced as part of this White House trip to the Middle East.

And in, in, in a sense, Saudi Arabia is trying to enhance its AI capacity and strengthened this cloud computing infrastructure through foreign investment. That deal happened, of course, a day after the Commerce Department officially rescinded the Biden administration's AI diffusion rule that would've placed caps on ship sails to most countries around the world, effective May 15th. So in a sense, it is a political football, and the can is being handed out to Nvidia and open air, open, open ai, open air, open AI among others.

It, it's really hard to, to to, to kind of keep your hands on your grasp what's going on from one, from moment to the other. Um, so I'll leave it at that. And, um, I would not be surprised if we see even more actions taking place, especially as, as it kind of is a, this part of the strategy of the US to maintain some sort of leadership, or even in their, at our view, the country's view with dominance over AI in its escalating war with China.

Uh, Robert, this troubles my free market soul because, uh, you know, basically the United States government is putting its finger on who can buy what, when, and where is this gonna become the new normal? 'cause we could apply this to all kinds of tech. Well, absolutely.

You know, when, uh, when, when GPUs are outlawed, only outlaws will have GPUs. Uh, you know, it, it's, it, we, we've seen this, you know, concerns about export controls, you know, and it worked out so great with, uh, you know, uh, PGP, uh, you know, restricting, uh, you know, uh, encryption technology. Uh, you can't stop it.

Um, also, I think it's a bit overblown, the impact that these chips have, um, you know, know, look at, you know, we just have to point at deep seek to get an example of being able to provide, um, good enough, uh, AI technology on, uh, not the latest and greatest chips. Uh, you know, I I also think Senator Cotton should have taken a trip to Bentonville and, and talked to a large retailer there to see if they are okay with the GPUs that they're consuming, uh, phoning home. I don't think that they would be on board with that.

And also, any technologist will tell you that canceling phone home technology is super easy over the network. Um, I just don't see this getting out the, the way to, you know, implement something like this. The scale of it is, is simply too big.

And, and I just don't see this progressing. I think it's political theater because the Senate's trying to restrict it, but then we have the executive branch trying to do the other thing. In a previous life, I used to cover the channel and the, we had this area in the channel known as the gray market.

This is that whole realm of middle people or middle men or women who, uh, sell all this stuff to folks. 'cause of most of what you buy, you don't buy direct for any vendor. And a lot of the vendors turn, uh, you know, a blind eye to where a lot of their goods and services winds up.

And that's how come suddenly chips are in China that went through Singapore, and nobody quote unquote, knows how they got there, but they damn well do know how they got there. So my question to you, John, is, um, is this gonna upend the whole business model for a lot of these companies? If we started tracking on a granular level every unit of something shut, I was Like, it sounds like a logistical nightmare.

Um, you're right, the this, this chain, which is complicated as it is, it's more complicated now than it's ever been, um, in terms of parts where they're coming from. And then, and then on top of everything else, we have the tariffs, right? Which, which is, I didn't mention, which is another poli political football involving tech to great extent.

So yes, Mike. Yeah, I think it's, it will be an aggravating incredibly, uh, annoying, uh, problem. And I think we're already seeing that.

I think, I believe it was a MD and Nvidia were, were performing write-offs in terms of, uh, fracking their, their chips, uh, through all these various permutations. Um, it's, I don't, I can't even imagine what's gonna happen next. I mean, it's the unpredictability in the, and, and as Robert points out, there's a, that that seeming contradiction between the government, or at least the Senate and the House trying to restrict the, the, the flow or, or, or not trying to restrict, but trying to keep track of the flow while the White House is, is, is cutting deals with other countries.

It's just, it's absolute chaos. And I think the tech industry, of course, I think they're delighted now because in a sense, if you're one of the power brokers or one of the companies with the ear of the president or his administration, you are gonna benefit. We're seeing that already.

Yeah. I'll, and this troubles me deeply on this level, right? So the president wakes up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, and suddenly, uh, my access to AI chips is constrained for some reason, because, you know, he is trying to negotiate something else that impacts me as a company.

I mean, how far can this go? I mean, it's one thing, I guess at the central level, but do individual organizations are gonna have to start thinking twice about, you know, who's annoyed at them in dc? I don't think this is gonna go very far.

I, I think it's deliciously naive to believe that the people that are actually making good use of these chips would bewared by these, these lackluster controls. It, it's easily, as Robert said, deactivated. This is something that, that I don't think is, is gonna actually work.

I think all it's gonna do is anger people. Um, I just don't get how, it just shows us how little our legislators understand what's going on in tech. It just, it just highlights for us, um, that, That's always know, like that that's always been the case, Anne, right?

I mean, they just stay fun Mentally watch any study hearing, right? Watch any Senate herring with any big tech CEO and you're just like, oh my God, you don't get this. You don't get this.

And so is, if this is the move that just shows me they don't get it, um, because this is not gonna achieve anything. Meanwhile, we're shipping 18,000 Blackwell chips to Saudi Arabia. Woo.

John, you know what interested me as well about all of this? Yeah. Was who wasn't on this trip?

You didn't see, you know, Intel, CEO, you didn't see a Broadcom, CEO. There's a, you know, apple CEO is missing. What does that tell you?

Tells me a lot. I mean, but, but remember during the, the Biden administration, he was in Ohio with where the plant was gonna be built with Pat Gelsinger. Remember when Pat Gelsinger was a, was a guest during I think a state of the union speech?

He was acknowledged, um, Broadcom no sight. A MD none. Yes.

Apple seems to be a little bit out of favor. Um, they're having their own problems with the EU and perhaps with the Justice Department. So, you know, Trump does this.

He plays favorites. Maybe eventually we will see Apple in the good graces. I know we're gonna talk about Apple later, and it's, and it's, uh, in Siri.

But I mean, in terms of, in terms of Apple, they got some major problems in terms of Apple intelligence. We can talk about that later. Um, it's, it's just, again, it's just, it's whoever, whoever has whoever talked to him last, whoever talked to Trump last, maybe Jensen did, maybe Sam Altman did.

They were front and center and got the rewards. I think if I ran the reports, Jensen, he got some candy out of this too, though. They got a, a small portion, a small portion of this deal was allocated their way as well.

So I'm not sure they were on the trip, but they got something out of it. They weren't there, but yeah, they, they, at least they came away with something. I, I just, I always feel badly or for Intel, just, it's just such a long, slow decline.

And, um, again, they're left on the outside. Mm-hmm. Robert, what's your best advice to folks then about all this?

Should I just ignore all this political machinations and carry on is normal, or is there something I should be worried about? Well, it depends on what your goal is. I mean, if your goal is to maintain solid mental health, yes, ignore it all.

Uh, you know, if, If your goal is to make business decisions, um, then, uh, look, I do believe, um, that, um, access to chips is a bit overblown. Um, certainly, um, you know, there are, uh, quite a few things that you can do with older chips. In fact, you know, with, with my, uh, uh, RTX 30 80, I'm creating neural networks with, uh, you know, for image classification, just fine.

You know, with, with my Lego brick sorter, it's not a problem. Uh, if you are trying to build a competitor to, uh, chat GPT, okay, you're gonna need a little bit more. But for most of the AI tasks that businesses are going to be working with, um, you're okay.

You don't need to go and get the most expensive stuff. What you do need to do is get some outstanding experts that are gonna focus on tuning that model for the hardware available to you, no matter, um, no amount of export control is going to change efficiency when it comes to software in creating models and tuning them. And, uh, you know, uh, uh, mother is, uh, I'm, I'm sorry, the, uh, mother of invention is necessity.

That's why we saw deep seek. That's why we're seeing the acceleration of open source, true open source, um, models that are driving value. I think a lot of this stuff is political theater.

Um, and for mental health purposes, and also for business decisions, I don't think it matters. And well said. Yeah, I got this one thing here.

In my experience, and looking back in history, every time you attempt to restrict something, you wind up seemingly creating increased illicit demand for it. So am I gonna see GPU smugglers now? And, you know, Absolutely.

I, I knew people that were smuggling PGP binders, and, you know, I used PGP in college. Yeah, I remember. That was a thing people did.

And they were like, I'm gonna tattoo it, and then they can't tell me I can't travel with it. It's just, you know, don't, don't sweat the small stuff. Right.

And, and when you do, you make it a bigger thing. It's, and by the way, we still don't know how deep what chips deep seek was developed on. There were rumors that they had snuck in better AI chips.

Mm-hmm. But, but that was never substantiated. There's no proof to suggest that deep seek required all that work required these amazing chip sets.

So we're also just sort of assuming this is a hardware race, when really it's not, it's not that simple. Mm-hmm. And I'm reminded of those days when, you know, I was in college and the house would get robbed and the stereo would be gone.

And now if you get robbed, the GPUs are gonna be stolen. Right. Catalytic converter GPUs.

Yeah. Yeah. Just the idea of restricting all this, if, if you think that this is a good idea, then just hang out with, um, you know, your, your average middle school students and ask them how they get access to vapes.

Uh, I, I think if 12, 13, 14 year olds can get access to that, um, we're not gonna stop this. I, I do wish they would apply this technology, phone, home technology to, um, uh, prescription opiates, uh, that, that I think would've had more positive impact to the country. Uh, but, you know, who knows if they wanna restrict, uh, GPUs?

Great. Great. And it Also given, well, yeah, the TikTok ban, look how well that worked.

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, given the ineptitude of the, of the federal government, that these, these, these bills are probably not gonna go anywhere against the lobbying of big tech, especially Nvidia, which seems to have the year of the administration and everyone else. I don't think it's ever gonna transpire.

Right. I won't tell you one thing that will happen for sure, though. There'll be more GPU hoarding than ever.

And people are just gonna go out and buy these things and shove 'em in a closet just in case. 'cause nobody knows what's going on. And that's been going on for a while.

A lot of these GPUs organizations are buying, they're not actually using it because they're like, well, we never know, but at least we get 'em why we got 'em. Hey, Well, I cannot wait for the inevitable Beanie Baby, like, crash for GPUs. That will be wonderful.

Mm-hmm. It's true. Oh my God.

Those are called AI accelerators, and they'll be available in a store near you. One minute. I, I can't Wait to, to run my old crappy games at the highest GPU settings.

Can't wait. Mm-hmm. All right.

Awesome. All right. We're clearly not taking this too seriously, but folks, keep an eye out 'cause Well, you never know what'll happen.

We'll be back in the middle. All right, folks, we're back. And we're talking about Pope Leo the IV from newly consecrated, and one of the first things he said was that AI for ethical use is a good thing and that we should investigate more of this and maybe apply it more broadly.

Um, first thing that comes to mind, of course, me a former Alta boy, I'm like, well, you know, that pre shortage might be a lot less if everybody just used ai. So who knows, maybe we'll have an AI sermon and a delivery and I don't know, maybe you go to confessional and does it count if you confess your sins to an ai? I don't know.

But John, what's your take on what's going on here? Will this become the new norm in other religions as well? Uh, I can't speak for other religions, but I, I think in terms of the Catholic church, um, this has been discussed.

It's been a topic, it's been gaining traction the last couple of years. I remember doing a story here for digital CXO, uh, when the late Pope Francis, um, talked about the same type of framework. He said that, well, technology contained the potential to serve humanity must be used ethically.

And he talked specifically about how the inherent risks of AI and other things must be mitigated. I also remember, I believe it was in 2024, he addressed a G seven session in Italy on the subject. And he, he followed up with a speech, um, at the Vatican on, on something called generative artificial intelligence and Technocratic paradigm.

Um, there was also a, a study done between the church and Santa Clara University. I, I wanna say it's a couple of years ago in which they came out with a pamphlet in talking points about the technology. So they are s they are taking it seriously to a certain extent, and I think it's kind of a continuation.

What Leo is doing is a continuation with what Francis did in terms of kind of, i i talking about things that are, that are not these old age old institutions. I mean, they're talking about current events, whether it is technology or whether it's political or cultural, and they're kind of entering the, the current world versus the kind of old state approach. So I think it's, I think it's encouraging and perhaps maybe other, uh, religions will follow suit, who knows.

But, um, there's a continuation of what Francis had had started and kind of kick kickstarted the last couple years. Mm-hmm. And is this just another form of AI therapy we've seen that kind of evolve over the last couple of years, and it's being more widely used, and you could argue that religion is a spiritual experience and much like therapy can be.

So is this kind of on the same continuum? Yes. I, I would say to some degree I think that, you know, this is a new Pope.

He's trying to relate to people. He is letting us know who he is. Um, I actually recently had a friend confide in me that she had been using chat GBT for therapy.

Uh, because she said it, it didn't feel like it judged her. Uh, also FY she's Catholic. So coincidence, I don't know.

Uh, I told her, you know, you could tell me anything. You don't have to rely on Chachi, BT we old friends. But anyway, so I, I do agree that this is just, you know, maybe he sees it as a way to uphold spiritual principles.

Maybe it's a continuation. Um, maybe you, you know, the leap of faith you take to be religious is, is akin to the leap of faith you take to seeing AI as a meaningful thing in your life? I don't know.

Uh, for me it's a logic driven decision, not, not a faithful one. So I, I don't know, but I think, I think it's just him letting us know who he is. I think that it's the church playing global discourse in a conversation.

There's over, I think, a billion Catholics in the world. Um, and it's a green light. It's a green light to say, this is okay.

Um, and hey, go, go have fun with this. And maybe it can help engage people in the church in a different way. I mean, that could be interesting.

Mm-hmm. And if it helps people, why not? Why not?

There's a shortage of therapists. People can't afford them. You know, if it makes you feel better, do it.

Yeah. Why not, Robert? Do I have to worry about a deep fake taking over Pope Leo the 14th here and kind of fooling everybody into doing something they shouldn't be doing?

Um, I, I, I doubt that. Uh, look, the, the, the real po the, the real purpose I, I think of, of what he was talking about, his hope was to, um, start, continue that conversation about ethics and ai, um, and, and how we, uh, use these new tools. Uh, it, look, Catholic Church has been around for a while.

They've seen quite a few ways of technology. And, and this is nothing new about, uh, uh, focusing on, you know, uh, dignity and, and, and justice. You know, this, this is always a push for, for all religions.

Um, you know, I, I do think that there is an opportunity for companies like O Open ai, which is a B Corp, which was set up to really do research, uh, and exploration of, you know, ethics in ai. That was the hope and dream. And, uh, We're Really not seeing that there.

There's a big rush into, uh, what we can do with AI and, and pushing the boundaries for this. And, and I'm reminded of, you know, a, a line from Jurassic Park where, you know, we were so focused on if we could do it, we didn't question whether we should. And I do believe that focusing on is, you know, how are these models going to affect the lives of people?

Uh, are we going to start using AI to make decisions that impact people's lives? Um, college admission, uh, uh, you know, credit worthiness, those sorts of things. Uh, uh, what about if it starts creeping into our, uh, legal system and criminal justice system, uh, is that gonna impact sentencing and those sorts of things?

Uh, we need to be very careful of these things. And I think that that is what, um, the Pope was bringing up, that there is an impact on individuals with ai if we just blindly say we were gonna turn over decision making to the model. Yeah, I think they're trying, they're, they're, They're trying to Get ahead of, of what AI can do, both good and bad.

And I mean, I think that's what the government's trying to do, too. I mean, it's the one technology where people are fully engaged. It's the one technology I, I've experienced or covered where everyone seems to have an opinion.

And I think right now what they're trying to do is position us to think more about the repercussions of what, what it can do and what it can do to us. Yeah. I mean, it could get a little out of control, right?

So suddenly you're referring to an AI agent as a father, and then maybe ultimately it gets promoted to Monsignor, and before long it's a bishop and a cardinal, and it's electing the next Pope. So how far do you want to go? I do believe this is how, that's the beginning of Terminator, right?

Uh, that, that's how it started. I, I don't know, it's been a while since I've seen it. It, it, I don't know.

I guess, you know, I, I think they'll have to put a clause in there that says, you must be a a, an actual breathing human elect, the next boat. But I'm sure somebody will get around to amending whatever the rules are. But I mean, don't, don't you think that a lot of the things that are being said about AI now, like, oh, it's gonna destroy your ability to think and oh, it's gonna make us dumber.

Weren't those same things said about the internet, about television, about radio? I mean, how far are you gonna go back the, these sort of naysayer comments don't really feel new to me. It's true.

You know, people bemoan the fact that our kids can't read analog clocks, and they look at us and go, well, who cares? I, I got the time on my phone. So, you know, we Hand a map, hand a paper, yeah.

Hand a paper map to someone, to a Gen Z and see what happens. Yeah. Right?

Mm-hmm. And is that a bad thing? Is it a bad thing that, that they, you know, have tools that are faster?

I don't know. Um, unless you're a survivalist, is it really something that's gonna come to play? I don't know.

I think it, where it, it concerns me is the lack of critical thinking. If we're outsourcing our thinking, you know, do we not get dumber? I don't know.

Or do we get smarter because we're not spending our time on repetitive processes? I'm hoping, I don't know, but I'm hoping for the latter because, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of the rote stuff that we all do tires you out. We are humans, and we spend, I'm hoping that we're gonna spend more time on the things that matter versus Yeah, I don't know.

That's, yeah. Loading Store, loading stories, that's Whole point of ai, right? Is to the whole point of AI and AI agents is to move away from road tasks and be more of a critical thinker, or be, or somebody who thinks kind of outside the box.

I mean, that's the purpose. We'll see if that at leads to that. I'm hopeful.

I don't think outside the box, because there is no box. I don't recognize any box that limits me. Oh, I like that Ann rejects the concept of a box.

I like it. Wow. No box brand.

No, no. I am not imaginary. No imaginary constraints for me.

I'm a free thinker. Um, I will say I've hired recently, and anyone who has hired in the last six months is getting a flood of AI cover letters. And so I didn't require a cover letter.

Okay? And so I get these cover letters, and there's all the telltale signs, m dashes, overly flowery language. Oh, here's a couple specifics sprinkled in.

So you think a human wrote this? And so I asked people, I said, today I write this. And alarmingly like, people denied it, people denied it, and the one that didn't, and said, yeah, of course I did.

I thought it was a, a better use of my time than, than writing a cover letter. And I wanted to stand out. That person went to the next round because I appreciated that they were honest about it.

I don't mind if you use ai if you're saving time. I just mind the, the deception. Mm-hmm.

All right. Well, I'm not quite clear exactly how all this is gonna play out from a religious perspective, but I would say that the more time we have to ponder maybe the right and the wrong of things, the better humans will all be. How about that?

Amen. All right. Bless you, my son.

All right. And, and, and we'll be back with the next reading in the gospel in a minute. Discover Textron Group, the epicenter of tech innovation.

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All right, well, we're gonna shift gears a little bit, but you could argue that what Apple has been up to is now officially a sin, but, um, they are now determining how much cash to hand out for folks that, uh, apple got busted for eavesdropping with Syria on folks. And they're not the only tech company that's been having this issue. But Anne, let's start with you.

Are we gonna see more and more of these kind of payouts for violating people's privacies? Because it seems to me that this is rampant. Well, we're used to seeing it in the eu, right?

But we're not as used to seeing it in the states. I think that someone somewhere calculated on a spreadsheet, we could keep fighting this, or we just pay it out. And this is, this is chump change to them.

$95 million to one of the richest companies in the world isn't really much. So they settled that, uh, class action lawsuit because Surrey inadvertently recorded users private conversations, which I think we all knew was, was happening. And it claimed that Siri sometimes activated unintentionally and captured sensitive discussions, uh, that were later reviewed by third parties.

It was a very ominous sort of, uh, email that I got, and anyone with an Apple account got yesterday. Um, I would say that the $20 payout is probably not worth my time to go and pursue and prove. Um, but I do think that it was interesting because the same day news broke that they are working on a brain computer interface.

Uh, they want to control phones from their brains. I was more interested in that than the lawsuit. Uh, and then I was thinking, wow, that future lawsuit for, that the brain computer interface is gonna, is gonna just blow this out of the water.

Um, but I do think that they managed to not really cop to what happened. The language was very vague. And I think that it was just a write off.

I think it was a write off to move on and go back to business as usual. I doubt anything will change. Uh, apple is viewed as the white knight in this, in, in this, uh, privacy battle for a lot of reasons because they've marketed as such.

But this shows us that they're just like everybody else. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Robert, is it me or am I getting paranoid? But every time I turn around, I seem to feel like I'm talking about something with my wife or whoever, and then suddenly on some device website or whatever, I'm being treated to something that is almost spot on that topic. Um, well, it could be you are being spied upon, or this is confirmation bias.

Uh, it, one of the, it could be either one. It could be both. Uh, I have no idea.

I will say this. 75, uh, million devices. Um, that's not a lot.

Uh, it's, it's thi this, you know, uh, you can do five devices and get a hundred bucks. Hmm. Okay, I think I could fill out a form for a hundred bucks and I absolutely have more than five Apple devices, but also 95 million for a treasure trove of data of voice.

Uh, what a bargain. What a bargain. Uh, and, and, and you know, it, this reminds me of certainly the, um, Google went through this where they were, um, uh, capturing with maps, uh, when they were getting all of the street view data, they were capturing a bunch of wifi information and they said, oops, my bad.

We're, we're, we didn't mean to do that. Uh, but really didn't get a lot of clarity on what they did with the data afterwards. Um, and, and so time and time again, people will, again, you know, these companies say how much, you know, and very insightful.

It it, how much does this cost? What, what's the, what's the ROI on this? Oh, we're coming out ahead.

Great. This is cost of doing business. Um, and uh, I don't see this as really much more than, um, okay, let's make this go away.

I don't see this really significantly changing corporation's behaviors on how they do this. Uh, a lot of this stuff seems to be, um, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. John, is anybody talking about this in the valley?

Is this a concern or is this kind of just, you know, um, It, it, it kind of unders, yeah, I mean, it kind of underscores two things about Apple. Um, but one, as you said, it's the, I think Anne said it's the white knight in this whole battle of privacy. Well, the Dark Knight is obviously meta, but I think it brings up two things things.

First, there's that little $95 million, by the way, is nothing to Apple slap on the wrist less than that three over $3 trillion they have. Exactly. Right.

I mean, nothing, it's a nice investment actually. But what it kind of brings up to me is the, the one story we, we hear about Siri and about anything AI related with Apple has got this little kind of minor negative tinge to it. At the same time, we're reading about everybody else hurdling ahead of Apple in the AI race.

And I, this, I kind of, I wanna bring this up because I've talked to at least three people in the last couple of weeks and who used to work for Apple, they used to work within the Apple intelligence arm of things. And they all told me they resigned because mainly out of frustration in this idea that Apple's pretty much, it's pretty much an aimless flawed project. I think even Warren Buffett has, has mentioned his, his, his mis his his misgivings about innovation in Apple at this current state.

And I think it just kind of re it's, to me and to people out here, it's kind of a reminder of Apple, kind of, kind of fumbling its way around AI so far. I mean, I'm not saying they're gonna fail, but there is a genuine concern, especially among the ex-employees who just left with throwing their hands up. I would tell you what I would like to see though, is instead of you sending me an email that says I qualify for 20 bucks, can I just check a box that says that give my 20 bucks to some charity somewhere, then we can all set up.

'cause 95 million to a particular charity could make a big difference. Is that legal feasible, Or It's a good question. Make sure, sure.

People could set up a GoFundMe and then give 10% of that to GoFundMe. But, um, which is why I don't, I don't like those. So, and what happens to the 95 million if only 30% of the people actually go bother to claim their 20 to a hundred bucks or whatever it is?

I don't know that it's all gonna get claimed because it's a little tedious for 20 bucks. Right? Right.

Um, I'm not gonna do it, you know, So does that Our primer? Yeah, They, it, it will, you know, they're off that top of the, the, the settlement amount, uh, for the attorneys that did did the class action, they're gonna get their fee that's been negotiated and the, um, the rest of the money goes through a clearing house. If it is not accepted at a certain point, it is return to Apple.

Wow. So, so maybe We should do it just to, How much should we be that, you know, this 95 million actually shows up in the people who were allegedly victimized maybe 10%. Right.

Look, I'm, I'm gonna do it for a hundred bucks. I mean, and it's gonna take me five minutes. I would forego all of the money and it just to know what the third party was.

Got it. And what did they do with it? That, that's more interesting to me than $20.

I, I wanna know what, where it went, because it's very ominous in the language. It just says a mystery third party. Well, that's, yeah, that's not the deal.

And if you wanna find out, don't take the payout and hire a lawyer. Oh my God. Well, you know, we see these kinds of arrangements all the time, right?

So maybe, I don't know, can I create an AI agent someday that will manage all my claims that I'm allegedly qualified for and, you know, I add 'em all up 20 bucks if it turns into real money over time. So maybe there's a way to manage this so that it's not so tedious and you can have the AI agent direct that money to whatever charity you want. Let's do that.

Yeah. I mean, I, I do think that the legal industry is one where I, AI stands to disrupt quite heavily. You know, you've got a lot of old case law to go through.

You've got, I mean, and you've seen cases already where people are getting busted, making court decisions and writing legal briefs using ai. Um, and I think that's only gonna continue. Well, ultimately, we could have probably come to the conclusion that 95 million was the number to settle for if we just used a little AI about last year, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds good in theory, but then I think, okay, five years ago, blockchain was gonna replace lawyers too. Remember that we're gonna use contracts, uh, on the blockchain and, and buy houses and cars and Yeah.

Where's that going? I, I, I think we'll just file more complex court cases and, and the routine stop will be handled by an ai, hopefully, and we, maybe we can clear up some of those, uh, backlogs and court cases that are holding up the legal system. Uh, so, you know, theoretically it could work and this would just be yet another example of a case that could probably be litigating in an hour, rather than taking how many years to settle this stick.

It's a little crazy, right. John, what's your prediction here? Is this a one-off, or are we gonna see more of these Suits?

Let's see. More of these probably, but, uh, you know, if, if they continue at this, uh, this rate, 95 million is well worth the investment to kind of, uh, you know, collect data, it's well worth it. Mm-hmm.

And Robert, do I need some sort of way to track what people are doing with my data if they get it, no matter how, whether it's illegally or legally, but it seems like we don't know where our data goes. Uh, you're right. Uh, we don't, and, and that is gonna be a challenge.

Um, there are certainly a large number of companies that are looking at how people can protect their data and their privacy. Um, and companies are certainly looking at how they develop their privacy policies and how they manage that. Um, you're going to see an increase, um, in consumers being concerned about it.

So whether that is hardware manufacturers creating devices that are secure and hold data close to you and, um, on the edge, um, perhaps, uh, but you are gonna see more and more people, uh, especially, um, educated, you know, more advanced users, like the people that are watching this and, and that are speaking here are gonna be interested in this. Um, however, I don't think that there is a big backlash amongst general population on this stuff. Uh, you just simply look at the rise of social media and remember kids, when the product is free, you are the product.

Mm-hmm. And so people have been giving away their data for years. So there is a large population that doesn't care.

Um, there is a growing and significant population that does care. So I do think that you're gonna see people that are concerned about it. Um, look, everybody should be concerned about data privacy and their data.

Um, but I don't think everybody is. So, so lemme ask one more obscure question, but John, if I go to I confession and I'm using an AI priest, is that AI priest sworn to secrecy like a regular priest, or can they be called to testify against? I He's gonna share it, is gonna share its data with a third party?

That's unknown. I'm being facetious, so I I have no idea. I mean, that's, that's this, the, the whole problem is, is Robert was pointing out, and that's something that Facebook, we always leaned into, uh, this, this, you are the product, and I think there is a TA tested trade off for most people.

Most people are willing to accept that. So they're willing to accept the risk, the broad audience, and there are going to be those who will, who will not. But for the most part, the vast majority of people are willing to take that risk and it'll happen.

Right? I think people generally that I've spoken to about it are like, well, I'm not doing anything wrong. What do I care?

You know, and, and apathy is really the enemy here, but I'm less interested in what Apple's doing with Surrey data, which by the way, I assume they were doing, uh, than I am with the FTC case. Uh, and the DOJ plan for Google, uh, the antitrust case, I've been following that very closely. And yesterday the FTC came out backing the DOJ to force Google to share search data with competitors.

I mean, whoa, that data, your search data that getting let loose to other companies is that is like a way bigger ramification to me than like whatever weird things we've all said to Surrey. Uh, Robert, I'm thinking the next thing thing in home real estate is gonna be soundproof rooms where you can go in there and you, I abs absolutely, uh, uh, Faraday cages, uh, for private conversations, uh, the, the new the, remember we had the conversation nooks, uh, in the seventies, the sunken living rooms. We're gonna have Faraday cages now, uh, uh, in our, in our, our houses.

Um, for, for the, the really hip people have those. Um, I mean, I am concerned about, uh, Google sharing my search history and that getting out because, um, I am a terrible software engineer. And the questions that I have asked, um, Google on how to solve a very simple and easy and chucklehead problems, oh, I'd be so embarrassed if that got out and everybody realized what a horrible software engineer I am.

Uh, I mean, what about all of us that use go to Dr. Google? I'm not worried about that.

I'm, I'm just, my pride, my pride about like, dude, I get it. You had to Google that, you idiot. Oh, that's what I'm worried about.

I mean, if that all that gets released, I think we're all in for some embarrassment. I don't think you're alone in that. Well, doc, according to Dr.

Google, I should have died three times in the last five years. So I'm not so clear that that's really something I would lean on too hard. But, um, fortunately we have AI search now, right?

So you just kind of plug it in and nobody will know exactly what you're looking for anyway. 'cause the AI will know what you're looking for. And so you can just get all that code that you're supposed to know how to run for free.

Are we gonna use search? I don't think so. I think we're just gonna talk to our machines and then the AI will tell us what we wanna know.

The problem is it'll never forget what you ask, right? All right folks, we're gonna leave in here. Thanks for watching everybody.

I wanna thank our guests for sharing their knowledge and insights. As always, we're gonna have an awesome lineup of Textron TV coming up right after this. And we'll see you guys next time.