Marketplace Tech With Molly Wood

It’s cornered the market for boomers. Now, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta hopes to make Facebook once again a favorite social media app for young adults. Plus, the Wall Street Journal reports E*Trade is considering whether to give the boot to user Roaring Kitty, who helped ignite the 2021 meme stock craze. In case you missed it, yes, the craze is back. But first, there’s yet another open letter on AI. This whistleblower letter comes from more than a dozen current and former employees at major AI companies. They warn of the risks posed by the technology being developed. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali is joined by Natasha Mascarenhas, reporter at The Information, for her take on this week’s tech news.

Telling truth from fiction online has become a lot harder since the AI boom kicked off a year and a half ago. An estimated 40 deepfake detection startups say they have a solution, but so far none can deliver 100% reliable detection. One organization taking on the challenge is TrueMedia.org. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Oren Etzioni, its founder and longtime AI researcher, about what sets his organization’s system apart from the rest.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been exploring the cosmos for the past three decades, helping scientists understand how fast the universe is expanding and with that, its age. In December 2021, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope to further that research. The bonus: All those stunning images from outer space. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Adam Riess, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. He said the Webb telescope has confirmed what Hubble first pieced together: Our universe is expanding faster than first predicted.  

The Summer Olympics, which kick off in Paris next month, are set to bring more than 10,000 athletes and an estimated 15 million spectators to the French capital. Officials hope to keep sports at center stage, but behind the scenes, they’re preparing to fend off cyberthreats in high volume. In recent years, several Olympic host cities have faced and managed cyberattacks, but as Antoaneta Roussi, cybersecurity reporter at Politico, tells Marketplace’s Lily Jamali, this year could be worse.

Artificial intelligence has been used to help translate election candidates into hundreds of different languages — but also to create deepfakes of Bollywood stars and spread false news. The BBC’s Arunoday Mukharji reports.

In the early days of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot query required about 10 times the electricity of a typical Google search. And as people do more with generative artificial intelligence, we’re going to burn through even more power. Plus, the ’80s are back — on TikTok. A new dance trend is getting Gen X parents to show their Gen Z kids how they danced back in the day, to the tune of Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy.” Also this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that consulting and professional services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers is now OpenAI’s largest customer and the first reseller of ChatGPT’s enterprise tier, which is aimed at businesses. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner at Collab Capital, about these headlines for this week’s Tech Bytes: Week in Review.

A law signed by President Joe Biden last month would force TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or be banned in the United States because of national security worries. And it’s making a lot of small-business owners anxious. We hear their stories.

Sharon Lerner has been reporting on “forever chemicals” for the better part of a decade. These manmade compounds — known as PFAS for short — resist oil, water and heat, take an incredibly long time to break down in nature, and have been used widely in products like Scotchgard, Teflon and firefighting foam. Lerner has focused part of her work on understanding the flow of information inside manufacturers like 3M. By the 1970s, Lerner says, Minnesota-based 3M had established that they were toxic in animals and were accumulating in humans’ bodies. But who inside 3M knew? And what did they know? Reporting for ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news site, Lerner got a complicated answer after coming across a former 3M scientist named Kris Hansen. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Lerner about her recent investigation.

When it comes to combating election-related misinformation online, sometimes the real world is the best place to start, but it isn’t always easy. On this week’s installment of “Marketplace Tech’s” limited series “Decoding Democracy,” Lily Jamali and senior Washington correspondent Kimberly Adams discuss the personal side of misinformation, take questions from colleagues and hear from experts about best practices for talking with loved ones about this sometimes sensitive topic.

A team from the University of Glasgow in Scotland is developing a robot guide dog aimed at helping the visually impaired find their way around. They’re calling the AI-powered device the RoboGuide. The BBC’s Shiona McCallum brings us along on her visit with one of the robodogs and its handler, Dr. Wasim Ahmad.

Proceeding without permission is a time-tested practice in some corners of Silicon Valley. Well, it’s not working out so well for OpenAI. Actress Scarlett Johansson said this week the company approached her twice to voice a new AI assistant for ChatGPT-4o. She declined, only to find it had used a voice that sounds “eerily” like hers. Plus, on Capitol Hill, a House subcommittee held a hearing that could decide the future of Section 230, the provision that largely governs the internet today. We’ll explain why chatbots have entered the chat on Section 230’s future. But first, a new report by former tech company officials and academic researchers finds far-right extremist militias are once again organizing on Facebook ahead of November’s presidential election. They recommend platforms ramp up content moderation to avoid fueling political violence. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali is joined by Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, for her take on this week’s tech news. Our May fun

Ever since NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars three years ago, it’s been collecting rocks and soil from the red planet. The plan was for NASA to send a robotic spacecraft to Mars to bring those samples back to Earth, but the agency has now scrapped those plans thanks to a ballooning price tag and extensive delays. With no way of getting to Mars on its own, NASA is hoping to hitch a ride with private space companies to finish the mission. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke to Kenneth Chang, science reporter at The New York Times, about NASA’s difficulties on Mars and its partnerships with the private sector. Our May fundraiser ends Friday, and we need your help to reach our goal. Give today and help fund public service journalism for all!

The internet today is largely governed by 26 words in the Communications Decency Act, signed on Feb. 8, 1996, by then-President Bill Clinton. “Today, with the stroke of a pen, our laws will catch up with our future,” he proclaimed during the signing of the act. The web has changed a bit since then. But Section 230 of that law has not. Today, social media companies routinely use Section 230 to protect themselves from liability over what users post. Now, an internet scholar wants to change that. Will Oremus wrote about him for The Washington Post. Our May fundraiser ends Friday, and we need your help to reach our goal. Give today and help fund public service journalism for all!

There was a time when pollsters went door to door to figure out what people were thinking. Gallup did that for almost 50 years, before switching mostly to telephones by the mid-’80s. Phone polling was cheaper but still reliable. That is, until the cellphone came along. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali asked Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallup, about the complexities of reaching people to get their views. His company stopped doing presidential horse-race polling in 2012, but still asks Americans for their views on the sitting president and topics ranging from immigration to inflation. Our May fundraiser ends Friday, and we need your help to reach our goal. Give today and help fund public service journalism for all!

If you drive 45 miles north of Little Rock, Arkansas, you’ll come across a facility packed with thousands of computers trying to “mine” the next bitcoin. The popular cryptocurrency’s value recently shot past $60,000 per bitcoin. Mining those bitcoins is a lucrative operation, and several crypto mining outfits have moved to the state since the passage of the Arkansas Data Centers Act last year, also known as the “right-to-mine” bill. Similar bills giving crypto mining operations protections from local regulations have popped up a couple of states. But it turns out residents don’t particularly welcome many of these operations. And Arkansas recently changed course and restored to municipalities the ability to regulate crypto miners. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali recently spoke with Gabriel Dance, senior deputy investigations editor at The New York Times, about the crypto mining situation in Arkansas. He explained what the biggest complaints have been since these mini

On this week’s Tech Bytes: Week in Review, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling for a heap of new spending on artificial intelligence research. We’ll look at where the proposed $32 billion annually is likely to go. And some of the biggest players in AI tried to outdo one another this week. OpenAI said it’s giving ChatGPT an upgrade and a personality while Google is trying to remake search with its AI model, Gemini. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Anita Ramaswamy, financial analysis columnist at The Information, for her take on these stories. Marketplace is currently tracking behind target for this budget year — that means listeners like you can make a critical difference by investing in our journalism today.

The whole digital economy runs through hundreds of thousands of miles of communication cables no bigger than a garden hose, deep on the ocean floor. So what happens when they break? And they do break, about once every other day, thanks to fishing trawlers or natural disasters. That’s when you call a repair crew of engineers, geologists, marine construction specialists and more who often spend months at sea repairing cables. This vital industry is largely invisible and facing some big challenges. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Josh Dzieza, feature writer and investigations editor at The Verge, who did a deep dive into the industry and those challenges. Marketplace is currently tracking behind target for this budget year — that means listeners like you can make a critical difference by investing in our journalism today.

This week, media executives have been busy trying to impress advertisers at the annual “upfronts,” where major TV networks showcase their stars, new programs and the potential size of their audiences. It’s a show in its own right. “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon did his version of Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” at NBC’s upfront Monday. But this year, Big Tech is looking to cash in. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke about it with Reuters reporter Sheila Dang, who said ad spending on digital has surpassed that of traditional TV for the first time. The next $50,000 in donations to Marketplace will be matched, thanks to a generous gift from Dr. Joe Rush of Florida. Give now and double your impact.  

A couple of weeks ago, Marketplace’s China correspondent Jennifer Pak noticed a video deepfake of the Hollywood actor Chris Evans on social media. The AI-generated Evans explains in Chinese how money is at the root of life’s problems. It’s part of a recent trend on mainland China, where deepfakes of foreigners give advice, discuss politics and sell goods online. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Pak about what’s behind the trend and later, the state of online misinformation in China. This conversation was part of “Marketplace Tech’s” limited series, “Decoding Democracy.” Watch the full episode here or on our YouTube channel. The next $50,000 in donations to Marketplace will be matched, thanks to a generous gift from Dr. Joe Rush of Florida. Give now and double your impact.

Early in the pandemic, many big tech companies based in Silicon Valley exited California, fleeing the high overhead necessary to do business there. One city — Austin, Texas — was consistently tagged as the top destination. The Texas capital offered lower costs, especially in regard to housing and taxes. Another draw for companies: the state’s more lax approach to regulation. Well, after a massive influx, the “Texas miracle,” with Austin at its epicenter, is losing some of its luster. In recent weeks, Tesla, which moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2020, announced it’s laying off 2,700 workers there. And software giant Oracle, which relocated to Austin at about the same time, is moving its headquarters again, this time to Nashville, Tennessee. Last week, at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, Marketplace’s Lily Jamali asked Austin Mayor Kirk Watson about the state of tech in his city. The next $50,000 in donations to Marketplace will be matched,