MSP [] MATTSPLAINED [] MSPx

We don’t have to let the giants of tech own the future. Those decisions are still ours to make.

2018 was a year of stark contrasts in the tech industry. Will 2019 be the year we fight back against the power of the giants?

We discuss lots of topics on MSP. But all anyone wants to talk about is the sex robots. The second part of look back at 2018.

Since he adopted Wikipedia as his main memory source, Matt forgets most of the things he learns within 24. What exactly can he remember from the ride in a washing machine that was 2018?

Show Notes:

We’re coming to the end of another year, and it’s a tradition with MSP that we find out what Matt has learned over the last 12 months. One of the reasons we ask this, is that the list of things he has learned is usually a lot shorter than the ones he has learned.

What have you learned this year?
•The first thing I learned is that no one over the age of 25 should play futsal unless they have an ambulance on-call and very very good medical insurance.
•The second thing I learned is that no one batted an eyelid when Richard and I played on-air badminton.
oWhich suggests that they either have the people at home have a high level of trust that I will eventually make a the point, or that no one is listening.

I had no idea that you and Rich played badminton, so I guess no one was listening.
•Always there with a kind word.
•And it’s kind words where I want to begin and end with this.
•As usual, I’m going to spread this out over two episodes. So if all goes to plan we’ll go full circle from kindness through rage, delusion, miserliness, fear, optimism, happiness and back to kindness.
•Because this year really has been a crash course in ethics.

In what sense?
•Last year we talked a lot about the power of tech companies and how they were dominating increasing sections of our lives, especially with the aggressive consolidations, mergers and takeovers that we often don’t pay attention to.
•Like Amazon owning almost half the world…

Fake News!
•We’ll get to the Fake News.
•I wish that there was some penalty we could impose on anyone who shouts that in someone else’s face.
•You know that thing about Godwin’s Law and the time it takes for someone to compare something or something to Hitler or the Nazis in a debate.
•I think we should call it Zuckerberg’s Law, which is the time it takes for anyone to decry any factually provable argument as fake news.

Fake News!
•I know you’re still jet-lagged but I think you’re going to have to work a little bit harder than this.
•Jeff: Fake News!
•This is going to be a struggle.
•So that journey into the power of the companies, into the role that technology has played in disrupting elections, influencing share and stock price movements.
•And how tech populism has gone hand in hand with, or even paved the way for, the rise of political populism.
•So this year has been one where I think the shows have concentrated more on people than the technology itself.

Today’s show is about technology you can feel good about. We know. We didn’t believe it, either.

Has the Silicon Valley Bubble burst? Is the Age of Technology at an end? Yes and not a chance, argues Matt.

We’re taking a break this week, so here’s a bonus episode. And who better to talk about than Taylor Swift?

Recorded the day before the Facebook and Soros smear story broke, this Explainer shows how easy it is to build a smear campaign. About donuts.

Episode Excerpt:
Frequent friend of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg apologist, also known as Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage, is back on his Fake News mission this week. We’re never entirely sure whether he wants to stop it or spread. So, we’d better give him the chance to explain.
•It’s a bit unfair to say I’m a Facebook apologist.
•I’m more of a Facebook realist.
•We talk about accountability a lot. So today I want to ask what should Facebook or any other technology company be responsible for?
•Restocking our fridge? Well, Amazon seems to be on its way to that one.
•Driving us to work? Uber and Google are working on those.
•Looking after kids or elderly relatives? Companies like Samsung and Hitachi are building robots that should be able to take care of the unwanted.
•Still there? Hello Yahoo.
•Massive over-pricing and glitchy software? Apple’s got that one covered.

Well, that’s that topic resolved. What should we do for the next twenty minutes?
•I always find that badminton works very well on the radio.
•YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV7TJEBEkAw (play a few secs)

I think that might be all the listeners can take.
•It was a good game though.
•I think you beat me 40 love in that first game.

That’s a different game. Let’s go back to your friend Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe we can pad the show out a bit.
•Regular listeners know that Mark and I have this weird relationship where I call him Zucky-baby and he acts as though he has no idea who I am.
•In effect, that relationship allows me to be absolutely honest about what I think of his company and its policies and he continues to act as though he has no idea who I am.
•You may have heard on the media – perhaps on BFM itself – that various governments have called for Mark Zuckerberg to appear at some kind of world congress of fake news.
•To answer the questions that various world leaders and politicians have about the fake news epidemic.
•And, I’m guessing, about how to reset their router when the bandwidth drops out on a Sunday morning.

You’re still on the politicians don’t know enough about technology trip?
•Well, that’s why I made the joke about resetting the router.
•Which I know is a cheap jibe and the pols are getting better at this but it’s not good enough that they’re playing catch up.
•Mark Zuckerberg is the boss of one of the world’s largest companies, not the tech support guy from the basement of your office.

That’s not an excuse for him not to be held accountable.
•Absolutely not. He should be brought to task.
•But it’s pointless unless we have the infrastructure and knowledge to hold him to account.
•Right now he could say pretty much anything.
•For example, he could say that fake news was made possible because of a vulnerability in the root servers that govern DNS addresses, and that that exploit prevented Pearl programmed servers from correctly identifying the geo-locations that his company’s ads stream to and from.
•He could easily say that even though I just made that up.
•It’s nonsense. In the sense that none of it makes sense. It’s just random Internet stuff I threw into a sentence.
•But our general lack of knowledge about the technology we rely on, leaves us in the position that anyone who trots out a bunch of plausible sounding terms is taken seriously.

Produced by Richard Bradbury for BFM89.9.

A combination of natural disasters and cyber-attacks has shown how fragile our way of life is. Are we heading for chaos? Or will the better side of human nature prevail?

Links:
https://www.wired.com/story/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-recovery/
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/a-year-in-the-dark/


Episode Excerpt:

Episode Transcript

These shows are dictated to and transcribed by machines, and hurriedly edited by a human. Apologies for the minor typos and grammar flaws.

Recent natural disasters have started to show how delicate the web of technology that holds the world together actually is, reckons Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage. But what if those natural disasters were followed up by cyberattacks from a hostile nation? On that happy note, it’s time to ask Matt to explain.

Where are we starting, natural disasters or cyber-attacks?
•This is one of those weeks where a bunch of stuff comes together.
•Listened to a recent episode of the 99% invisible podcast earlier this week which focused on Puerto Rico’s electricity grid.
•I know that might not sound fascinating, but it was.
•The podcast is adapted from a longform article in wired magazine about the year long struggle to get Puerto Rico’s electricity grid back online after Hurricane Maria last year.
•We’re facing increasing numbers of extreme weather events and natural disasters. The recent earthquake in Indonesia. Flooding in Italy, which affected your recent trip, to name some of what’s happening.

Is it climate change?
•Honestly, I don’t want to bang that drum.
•I think it is but that’s not the purpose of the podcast.
•So I don’t want people to switch off because they don’t believe my take on things.
•Today is about our infrastructure and how delicate it is and how we take so much for granted.

Let’s start with Puerto Rico
•Ok. We’ve heard a lot over the past couple of years about how easy it has been to hack into electricity grids and other critical infrastructure projects.
•Now, it is perfectly possible to imagine parts of a grid being ruined. Turbines in a power plant being run in a way that might physically damage them, that kind of thing.
•But most plant has physical overrides. You could potentially send surges down individual lines that might damage them or upset substations downline.
•But from what I understand, most hacking of these systems is for short terms disruption. Days, weeks, months if they get really lucky.

It’s the command and control mechanisms rather than the infrastructure itself?
•Exactly. It isn’t bringing the towers or the cables down.
•Water pipes aren’t collapsing.
•But weather events are causing that kind of damage.
•So we’re seeing this non-fortuitous convergence of conditions.
•At a time when we’re increasingly putting these systems online and trusting them to automated control systems…
•We’re in this situation of growing geopolitical uncertainty where countries are increasingly prepared to meddle in one another’s affairs
•And the planet is having its own series of wobbles in terms of extreme weather events and natural disasters.

With Amy Winehouse set to tour the world in 2019, are we stumbling towards a future of zombie stars? Artists frozen in time and doomed by AI and CGI to repeat their hits for infinity.

Links:
Roy Orbison, Hologram Tour https://youtu.be/1Lem-iefSm0

Episode Excerpt:

These shows are dictated to and transcribed by machines, and hurriedly edited by a human. Apologies for the minor typos and grammar flaws.

Sometimes it feels more like an episode of the X-Files or one of Infowars’ crazier moments when you’re talking to Kulturpop’s Matt Armitage. Today, I believe we’re talking about technology and deceased pop stars. That’s right: it’s the singing dead. It’s time to Mattsplain.

I can only assume we’re talking about Amy Winehouse, here?
•Yes. In case any of you missed it, last week there was a story that Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011, will be embarking on her first world tour since her death.
•And, in case you’re wondering how that works, it’s not a bunch of fans sitting around her casket while her albums are played over the PA.
•No, it’s something even more sinister and macabre than that.
•Amy will actually be onstage, belting out her hits, night after night.

Like a hologram?
•Yeah. It will be a mixture of holograms with cutting edge CGI and presumably AI, so it gives the appearance of being live and natural.
•Even though she isn’t alive and this isn’t natural.

This is what they did with 2Pac at Coachella a few years ago?
•Before I dive into the technology side, yes, there have been quite a few attempts to bring dead artists back to the stage virtually.
•2Pac is one, back in 2012.
•Frank Sinatra was brought back for a duet with Alicia Keys at the Grammys.
•Michael Jackson, of course at an award ceremony in 2014.
•There have even been rumours that Justin Timberlake might appear with Prince at a Superbowl.

And they use the same technology?
•The music business is a really dirty one, and there have been a number of companies trying to pioneer various technologies and systems.
•And they’re all constantly suing and counter-suing each other.
•Some of them even sue the estates of the artists they’re trying to secure.
•\I think a couple of time, the estates haven’t liked what the companies have come up with and pulled out on the grounds of maintaining the dead star’s legacy.
•It’s this weird thing in music. They think it’s a great idea to sue their clients and customers.