Disinformation and Misinformation Running Rampant

0:00This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Break through the busiest time of year with the brand-new Peloton Cross-Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Tread Plus at 1Peloton.com. Protein is now at Starbucks, and it's never tasted so good. You can add protein, cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks. We work hard to strike the right amount of intelligence and ignorance. The last show with David Cooper. In concerning and exciting news, which I feel like is the main reason we bring on tech expert, Karmie Levy,

1:01for its time for technology time every week, we've got AI headsets monitoring everything fast food employee workers do. Karmie, welcome to the show. Good to be with you, David. Thanks for having me. And for the record, it's human Karmie, not AI Karmie. So look, put your myself in. I mean, I don't know. You could be faking this video and faking your voice, but probably not. Probably. No, look, I think drive through and fast food employees, I worry for their jobs in the next five to 10 years already. They're replaced with touchscreen, you know, kiosks. If you go to a McDonald's here in New York, not all of them, but many of them have like touchscreen ordering things. So there's less employees to begin with taking your order. It's mostly just people in the kitchen. I see the kitchen being replaced by, you know, physical robots making the items. I find the ordering process might be an AI agent. Not saying McDonald's is going to do this, but who knows what the next 15 years in fast food will look like. But right now, if we go to Burger King in Canada, voice assistant coaches are in their ears now during their job.

2:02This seems dystopian Karmie. Oh, it is. And of course, the name, it's, they gave it a friendly name. It's called patty AI. So, you know, patty ha ha. Well, that is, that is cute. That is cute. Lovely, lovely inside joke restaurant, France International, well played. So they're going to be rolling out this app over the course of the rest of the year to all of their Canadian restaurants. And basically what it is, it's a, it's a voice assistant. So essentially a voice based chatbot that plays in the employees headsets. So any employee who would be in the restaurant, who'd be wearing a headset will have access to this. And basically what it'll do is it'll track them as they, as they go through the day. It'll listen in on their conversations. It'll make suggestions, you know, how to be more attentive, how to be more efficient, how to be friendlier. It'll remind them to smile among other things. It'll also provide guidance on how you make a food order, or how do you upsell them, you know, do you want fries with that. So it'll basically is designed to improve efficiency within the restaurant. I mean, all these things we've heard before. We heard them when McDonald's introduced AI into their drive-throughs

3:02a few years back. And that lasted about six months before they canceled it because it was getting all the orders wrong. So hopefully the technology technology is a little bit better now. My concern is that this is AI. And it isn't just trying to improve efficiency. It's also collecting information on how employees work. And so you want to talk about mass surveillance state in your place of employment. I think Burger King is about to become ground zero for that. And it's something I'll be watching for if I were an employee. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to be wearing on your head all day. I got to be careful because Burger King, I'm sure, is deep pocket. So I'll just throw the word allegedly in there as I often do. I imagine the future of drive-through and ordering will be AI chatbots. They need a wealth of data to train on to get these bots perfect. You are being monitored as you do your job potentially, not definitely, but potentially to train the models that are then going to replace you. What am I saying? All these conversations are going to be recorded, archived. And then future AI ordering systems could train on these live conversations.

4:04That's a scary thought. But I don't know that it's true, but that's a scary thought. Oh, and I think that's inevitable. And I think that's an easy assumption to make, especially because... And this is technology, by the way, that comes to us from OpenAI. So they are providing the chatbot platform to our BI for their Burger King restaurants. And so I think we'd be silly to think that that wouldn't be the case. This is a training opportunity for them to collect very specific data from a very specific use case, a very specific situation in restaurant service provision. And I think as far as the Burger King is concerned, this is a good thing for them. As far as OpenAI is concerned, it's a good thing for them as well. Because when you and I use chatbots, it's general information. It isn't specialized. But in the restaurant, that can be a goldmine. That can, from their perspective, can be used to replace employees or free them, as they like to say, from doing all the drug works so they can add more value, they can move up that food chain. How will that play out? I don't know. But I've gone to my McDonald's lately. There are a lot fewer people work in the front counter

5:05because now everything is ordered by Kiosk. Wouldn't surprise me if you add AI into the mix and that continues that trend. These jobs aren't amazing. It's honest work, but they don't pay amazingly well. So it kind of sucks to hear that like, okay, you don't have this amazing paying job. You're working the counter at Burger King. And now every move is being monitored. Someone in your year is telling you to smile. Be polite. I feel like I would crack in that. Like just constantly being watched. Can I take it off to go to the bathroom or does it need to listen to me there? Oh, you're probably going to get some coach in there too. Maybe you're going to tell you how to go to the bathroom more effectively. Or take less time. Yeah, that's right. Or if you get, exactly. It times you based on how long you're away from it. So all of these things are in scope. And I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. The headlines are almost going to write themselves. We'll be watching for this because remember, RBI doesn't just don't Burger King tail. They own Tim Orton's, Firehouse subs, and Popeyes. So this technology could very well be popping up there as well soon. So asking for a double double could be an entirely new experience before long. Now with the current conflict in Iran,

6:05what are we seeing online in terms of like misinformation? Like, you know, clips of things happening that are just AI generated that didn't happen to do in an attempt to sway public opinion, both over in the Middle East and here in North America and in Europe. What are we seeing? Is it, I imagine there's no misinformation? This is a perfect world. And all the things being reported about this, this horrific conflict or true. Oh, you're so naive, my friend. No, it's, it's, it's the exact opposite. It is off the charts. I mean, I was just looking at my own feeds on the weekend. And just there is just stuff is just filled with AI slop. And like, I mean, there's some cases in one, there was an explosion claiming to be from an Israeli nuclear facility. There was actually footage from Ukraine in 2017. And there's another one. It's supposed to be from, from a strike on Tel Aviv, but it was actually a Chinese chemical warehouse that blew up in 2015. And the, and the galling one for me is, there was a purported Iranian plane strike that actually was sourced from a video game. And that's often the case video games are increasingly high fidelity.

7:07They're being used to generate AI slop as well and then share it online. And so you literally like, you have to check the source for these things. And increasingly, even if you lean in, the fidelity is so great that it's impossible to tell that it's synthetic. And in some cases, it is real footage just from somewhere else. And so lean on conventional media. They have fact checking teams, digital investigation teams that are looking into the fidelity, look for watermarks, both visible and digital. And then also, if you only see it on social media and you cannot trace that asset, that video, or whatever it is back to a trusted source, you have no business engaging with it, or sharing with it, or otherwise amplifying it, the vast majority of content in my feed as of today is in fact AI generated and it's probably going to get worse. I think it's an important moment to make the distinction between mis and disinformation. There are bad actors trying to influence public opinion, and then a well-intentioned person who doesn't want to lie to their friends if they believe a video and then share it on their account.

8:09The primary source trying to influence public opinion, the fake accounts, the person who created the fake video, that's someone spreading disinformation. But if you then share it to your network and you get your network to believe it, even if you made a mistake, even if you thought it was true, you're now spreading misinformation, and that's the goal of these bad actors. They want people like you to reshare this fake, stop these fake videos, this AI slop, because the original source like, yeah, people won't believe it, but then if you share it, your friends are likely to believe you. If a well-intentioned reporter accidentally reports on something is true using their like, I don't know, cloud or their believability at that point, like that is the goal, and so just be very careful what you share and you believe. Yeah, and I appreciate you drawing that differentiation. A misinformation is the quote-unquote better of the two because it's unintentional, but it's more damaging because misinformation can come from well-intentioned sources. Precisely, and it gets within our circle of trust because it comes from people that we know and trust.

9:10Ultimately, the end result is the same. It means that we are misinformed, and that can lead to some, obviously, suboptimal outcomes and bad decisions. So lean in, check sources, and resist the urge to click on the share button. Karmie, are you a gourmand? Do you cook a lot? Oh, I eat a lot. What I cook is... And so I appreciate good food. My wife is a virtuoso cook. I make really good grilled cheese and coffee. Say goodbye to that messy drawer of hot hair tools and hello to the one. Introducing Shark Glam. Shark Beauty's new 5-in-1 multi-stiler. Shark Glam offers wetter dry styling, air straightening, and glossing all with one tool. When air is not enough, Shark Glam has all hair types covered, using a breakthrough blend of hot air and ceramic technology. Shark Glam, one tool, and list styles, volume shine and bounce all day. Visit SharkBeauty.com to learn more. I am here with not professional cook, but professional, delicious food eater, Karmie Levy,

10:12to discuss AI Slop polluting your recipe feeds. It is time for technology time. Is the time of the week that Karmie Levy joins us for some time. Karmie's a tech analyst. Karmie, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for making this time, David. I appreciate it. I'll make the jokes around here. Okay. AI Slop, it comes for you in new and creative ways. It seems like every day now. I get called kind of a food snob by my friends, and my girlfriend, and the people I cook for, because I do dinner parties, because I prefer to get a recipe from like the New York Times cooking section, or like Bon Appetit, or one of these fancy, you know, YouTube channels, or blogs. So highfalutin, very impressed. I know. I don't want to just go to some random cooks website, you know, where they've got a blog, and who knows if they know how to read it. I know. That's the online equivalent to fast food, don't go there. I agree, but it looks like my snobbery might actually end up with me cooking things that are legit, and not just like fake recipes, because AI Slop is now maybe not dominating, but it's very prevalent online.

11:13With food stuff, tell me what's going on there. Yeah, the global mail did a bit of a deep-time investigation into this, and they found that AI generated, they call it AI food Slop. So AI Slop is just low-quality. AI Sloppy Joe's, huh? Yeah, Sloppy Joe. Yeah, Sloppy Joe. Yeah, those are recipe ID. But they're finding this increasingly the recipes themselves, as well as even the videos that are based on those recipes are increasingly AI generated. And of course, that allows them to cover a wider audience, that allows them to basically fill your feeds and fill subscription channels with content. But they also found that increasingly, a lot of the stuff is just bad. So they'll be glitchy imagery. There will be, you know, the imagery is distorted. The recipe isn't quite right. It looks like a reasonable recipe, but one of the ingredients is just off enough that if you try to make it, it will be terrible. It will taste awful and it will fall flat. And so this is becoming, you know, the numbers, you know, as a percentage of overall food content, AI food Slop content is growing. And increasingly, that could ruin, you know, your party

12:15if you choose to use that. And you know, I think you touched on it at the beginning is make sure that you know the source, right? So it does it trace back to a culinary website or app or service that you know and trust. If it's just some random YouTube channel that you came across and it looks like a high quality video, but you can't figure quite, we figure out quite who it is. That could be a tell that this isn't all it claims to be. And you may be in for trouble if you try to use that as the basis for your next dinner party. Well, you know, you might see something like Add the Leaves from rhubarb raw into your salad. Rhubarb relieves your poisonous. Exactly. Or the Fugu fish from the Simpsons, right? Like, you know, do not cut it at all. If a recipe says find a really old thermometer, make sure it has mercury in it. Break open the thermometer and add the mercury to your meal. I saw it online, it must be true. It sounds funny, but like certain food things if you don't cook them can be like, okay, what if it tells you to cook the chicken to too low a temperature? That's right. Cook your chicken to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

13:15It'll be delicious and medium rare. Which is why we never rely on those AI summaries that appear at the top of the search. And oftentimes people do that. You're in the kitchen, you're searching for something. You know, you maybe have a smart speaker. You've got your phone on the counter next to you. And so you ask a question. You ask Google Gemini questioner. You ask Siri a questioner, whatever. And it spits up an answer based on your search results. But you read the AI summary. That could also be wrong. And that could be even if it isn't poison. It's it'll just taste terrible. But either way, you don't want to go there. Keep scrolling until you get to the sources that you trust. Click through on those links to the original source. Web site, web page. That way, Lisa can minimize the potential that you're actually consuming AI food slot. Agree. But like, okay, if you didn't know anything about cooking. And you followed a recipe to make like a cake. That's me. And it says, dust the cake with some raw flour as a garnish. Raw flour can have E. coli and salmonella. Like you can, you can hurt yourself if you follow a recipe. Like food obviously can be dangerous. And like under cooking chicken, raw flour.

14:17Like people who don't know what they're doing might not know these things. And an AI slot recipe might not just be disgusting. But it could be harmful for you. Yeah, it's just sad. But like, there are great blogs out there that have been out for like many, many years. I go to smitten kitchen. That one's like a 20 year old blog. I think it's even mentioned in the article that you sent over covering this topic. So like, yeah. Just, I don't know. Google, like, what are some reputable food sources? There are many. Yeah. And I find myself doing that now in this age of AI. I'm getting back to populating, you know, I'm making, you know, favorites. Identifying website favorites in my browser. And I'm organizing them into folders and all that. Because again, I've got to go with what I trust. And unfortunately, AI makes it really difficult to tell what we trust. Let's get back to basics the way it used to be. Here's kind of an interesting one that plays into privacy for kids. Now, kids on social media always kind of a worrisome thing, I guess. They're studying, saying no big deal. They're studying, saying get them off. Don't let them have it at all. But Instagram, there's like a specialty Instagram for kids

15:20where the accounts are more protected and isolated. But if kids are searching for content involving self-harm, suicide, alleviation, this kind of stuff. Instagram says it's going to alert the parents of children. They're going to roll out this feature in like North America and Australia, UK. I guess it's a good thing. Like, if mine, I don't have a kid. But if I had a 14 year old searching for these kinds of things, I would want to know. What do you make of this? Is it a good thing? Is it invading kids privacy? Maybe a bit of both. Yeah, I mean, I know I say this as parents apparent as well of three kids, although they're in their 20s and has their beyond that age. But we went through this with them with Instagram when they were of that age. And so I don't think it's an invasion of their privacy. I think parents need to have more visibility into their kids' social media use. And certainly this qualifies. And this just adds to the growing list of services features available to both parents and kids to help keep kids safer online. And so by that definition in that context, it is a good thing.

16:20It's another tool to add to the toolkit. And it's another thing for parents to talk about with their kids. Again, we're not spying on them. We are alongside them in this social media journey to make sure that it is a safe one for them. And so if your kid is using Instagram and searching on suicide related topics repeatedly within a short time period, I think it's a good thing that flags to mom and dad and a caregiver so that it can, in fact, serve as the basis for necessary conversation. Awareness is the key to this. And anything that raises that is a good thing. I think we should log meta for introducing that on Instagram. And hopefully it'll come to their other platforms, other apps in the months to come. It's available in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia rolling out now. And they're going to add, it'll go global at some point eventually. And yet again, you know, the more the merrier because up until now, social media use has largely been a quiet thing. Kids kind of get into trouble on their own without parental awareness. This helps address that and it kind of allows help to be brought in in a timely fashion before a tragedy occurs.

17:22Now while the messaging to parents is a good thing, that's step number one. Step number two is talking to your kids. And I'm glad we brought this up because tomorrow night on this show, we're going to have a psychologist on to discuss this topic exactly. How to approach your teen if they've been searching for suicide or self-harm content online. Because this is just a first step. I think it's a decent feature of Instagram. I have some privacy concerns, but they're sort of minimal. I think all in all, this is a great thing. But how to talk to your kids is important too. And that's what we'll cover on the show tomorrow night. Carmie, I want to get to our last story here. It's a fun one. There's a new phone that has been announced at some tech conferences at MWC. And MWC stands for Mobile World Congress. It just happened to us in Spain as the world's largest conference of the newest phones on the market. And it's kind of like where's the smartphone market going this year? It's like CES for smartphones. Got it. And one thing everyone didn't know they needed. But once they hear about it, they'll just love is a phone that can start fires.

18:25On purpose, it's a lighter phone. Because I've always wanted a lighter phone carrying around a lighter is just such a hassle. I got to have one in my phone for when I need to burn something. What a ridiculous product. Yeah, it comes to us from a company called UkiTel. And it's known as the WP63. It's a ruggedized phone. So you can drop it and it'll come back for more. And it has a built-in, what they call an electric igniter, basically a lighter. And it's designed specifically for camping and for emergencies. And it has its own USB-C cable so it can charge other devices. It's got a huge battery. And this thing is designed for the apocalypse. And it's not that expensive. It's about $500 product, which compared to smartphones, not that much. Sounds great, but the thing is, you know, are you really going to buy? No. But I've never heard of UkiTel before. Now I have mission accomplished. Fair enough. It's a publicity stunt and a phone for the rugged outdoorsman. It reminds me of the camera phone from Flight of the Concords, which was just a camera and a flip phone duct tape together.

19:26It's just like a device we don't need. We do two things, not mixed together. I got matches, they're good. I'm here with Carmie Levy. It is time for technology time. Carmie joins us every week to discuss the tech stories of the day you need to know about Carmie. It's been a joy having you on the program. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much, David. Great thing with you. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.