Latest / Stuff Keeps Happening / Many Technical Difficulties

Transcript

Many Technical Difficulties · Stuff Keeps Happening

• 0:00
  Hello, I had to re -record due to technical difficulties.
• 0:04
  But stuff still happens. So what's up? Alright,
• 0:08
  hi. Yeah, I had to re -record. I recorded the
• 0:10
  entire episode already and went to go edit it,
• 0:13
  only to learn that the audio was fucked up. This
• 0:16
  is my fault for trying to produce a show. But
• 0:18
  I'm gonna record again and frankly, I'm very
• 0:22
  exhausted from all of this. So I'm going to try
• 0:24
  to record and get as much information across
• 0:26
  as I can, but it's gonna be shorter than usual.
• 0:29
  So... With that out of the way, we're at war
• 0:32
  again with Iran. I made a whole video about this
• 0:35
  separately from this recording. If you want to
• 0:37
  go see more of my thoughts on this, you can check
• 0:39
  it out. It's on YouTube. I can't include all
• 0:42
  of that information in this as well. The situation
• 0:44
  is changing too quickly and there's not really
• 0:46
  a whole lot that I can say that won't just be
• 0:48
  irrelevant in like three hours. But for my general
• 0:51
  thoughts on that, I put up a video on YouTube
• 0:53
  yesterday, so go check that out. Let's instead
• 0:55
  talk about the Department of Artificial Defense.
• 0:59
  There are three key players in this story, the
• 1:01
  Department of Defense, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
• 1:04
  The Department of Defense, the DOD, or what Pete
• 1:06
  Hegseth wants to call the Department of War.
• 1:09
  They like to have contracts with private companies.
• 1:11
  You know how we dump untold billions of dollars
• 1:14
  into the DOD and often can't account for it?
• 1:16
  That money is going to contractors, privately
• 1:19
  owned corporations that just suckle at the teeth
• 1:22
  of taxpayer dollars. It is not going well for
• 1:28
  me today, y 'all. That's a power outage. That's
• 1:32
  a power outage. I'm still recording. I'm gonna
• 1:34
  go, I'm gonna, like, ugh. I'm still recording
• 1:36
  and I'm gonna go see if I can flip the switch,
• 1:38
  get the breaker, going down some stairs. See,
• 1:43
  this is, this is, again, it's my fault for trying
• 1:46
  to produce a show. This is genuinely ridiculous.
• 1:52
  I'm actively, oh my god. Not a particularly easy
• 1:56
  breaker to get to. Let's see. Did that work?
• 2:02
  I think so. As I was saying, I'm on my way back
• 2:06
  now, but we can use this time still. As I was
• 2:08
  saying, so the DOD, they like to pay private
• 2:11
  companies by way of contracts to spend all of
• 2:15
  our money to do like... Contracty stuff for the
• 2:19
  government, you know, building planes and shit,
• 2:21
  stuff that bombs children, stuff like that. All
• 2:24
  that good shit. And so they were having a contract
• 2:28
  with Anthropic, right? Anthropic makes Claude.
• 2:32
  Claude is a competitor to ChatGPT, which is made
• 2:35
  by OpenAI. My background lights have changed.
• 2:38
  Let me fix that. Good enough. So the DoD, they
• 2:41
  want to be able to use Anthropic's Claude to
• 2:43
  do military shit, but also they want to be able
• 2:45
  to use it... to spy on American civilians. This
• 2:48
  has been made clear because Anthropic was like,
• 2:51
  we're not gonna allow Claude to be used to spy
• 2:53
  on American citizens. And the DoD was like, that's
• 2:56
  a problem. Anthropic is known for having more
• 2:59
  safeguards in place than most other AI companies.
• 3:02
  They're not... good. They're still a massive
• 3:05
  tech company making an AI and all that stuff,
• 3:07
  but like, they're... trying to make Claude be
• 3:11
  slightly more ethical. At least they have stated
• 3:14
  boundaries of what they don't want it to be used
• 3:16
  for, and up until recently, they were planning
• 3:20
  to not train the AI past a level that they felt
• 3:23
  that they could control. Uh... Uh... No, yeah,
• 3:27
  they're still pretty bad. But Anthropic said
• 3:29
  no. They said no to the DOD. We don't want Claude
• 3:31
  to be used for surveilling citizens and also
• 3:33
  for use on autonomous weapons. The DOD got big
• 3:36
  mad and labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk.
• 3:40
  That is a designation usually meant for companies
• 3:42
  that are in adversarial countries so that we
• 3:45
  don't depend on them during wartime. It's not
• 3:47
  really meant for like an American company. So
• 3:49
  now we have the White House trying to strong
• 3:52
  arm an American company to just do whatever they
• 3:55
  say. Trump actually went as far as to complain
• 3:57
  that the US government had to adhere to terms
• 3:59
  of service instead of the Constitution. Holy
• 4:02
  shit. While all this is going on, OpenAI is like,
• 4:05
  hey guys, we also signed a contract with the
• 4:07
  DOD. Here's the details. In their details, they're
• 4:11
  like, yeah, no, they're safeguards. They can
• 4:13
  only use ChatGPT for things that the US government
• 4:17
  says is legal. That's some real safeguards, my
• 4:21
  guys. So where we're at is that Anthropic is
• 4:24
  saying they're going to fight this designation
• 4:25
  and we are in uncharted territory. This is, again,
• 4:28
  the White House saying, hey, massive tech company,
• 4:31
  do what we say or we're going to cut you out
• 4:33
  of the entire government. Being labeled as a
• 4:36
  supply chain risk means it can't be used by the
• 4:38
  government or other contractors. It's a huge
• 4:40
  loss. Ultimately, this could lead to a court
• 4:42
  case that decides a lot about the future of the
• 4:45
  relationship between the U .S. government and
• 4:47
  private corporations. And of course, it's happening
• 4:50
  under a Republican administration. I'll end this
• 4:52
  by saying that literally hours after the White
• 4:54
  House was like, no more Anthropic! They used
• 4:57
  Anthropic stuff in the attack on Iran. Make of
• 5:00
  that what you will. Let's talk about Netflix
• 5:02
  and Paramount's heated rivalry. See what I did?
• 5:05
  Setting the stage, we've got Warner Bros. Warner
• 5:07
  Bros. wants to be purchased because they're failing
• 5:09
  and they want to be bought by anyone. They don't
• 5:11
  really care who. Netflix swooped in and was like,
• 5:14
  we want it. We'll take that. And after they did
• 5:17
  that, Paramount was like, but we wanted it! So
• 5:19
  Netflix and Warner Bros have been working towards
• 5:22
  an acquisition agreement, and Paramount has been
• 5:24
  trying to outbid Netflix this whole time. Paramount
• 5:27
  is run by the son of Larry Ellison, who owns
• 5:31
  Oracle. Well, owns. He's at the head of Oracle.
• 5:35
  Larry Ellison is in Trump's circle, hyper conservative,
• 5:38
  oligarch at the head of a tech company. He's
• 5:40
  exactly that kind of guy. And as a reminder,
• 5:42
  the Ellison family either owns or has direct
• 5:44
  influence over CBS, Paramount, and TikTok, among
• 5:48
  a whole lot of other things. And now they've
• 5:50
  come in and successfully pushed out Netflix from
• 5:52
  this deal. It now looks like Paramount is going
• 5:54
  to be getting Warner Bros. If this goes through,
• 5:57
  one family would have sway over CNN, HBO, CBS,
• 6:00
  Showtime, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, and
• 6:03
  Viacom, just to name a few. All the while, Netflix
• 6:07
  shareholders are actually pretty happy about
• 6:09
  this. There was a lot of concern about all the
• 6:11
  problems that Netflix would have to go through
• 6:13
  with regulatory hearings and stuff. So after
• 6:15
  the deal broke, Netflix stock skyrocketed. What's
• 6:19
  more is there was a clause in the contract between
• 6:21
  Netflix and Warner Bros that if they went back
• 6:24
  on the deal, Warner Bros would have to pay Netflix
• 6:26
  nearly three billion dollars. as a breakup fee.
• 6:30
  I feel I'm owed three billion dollars as a breakup
• 6:32
  fee for several breakups. But Paramount, being
• 6:35
  this level of thirsty, offered to pay that money.
• 6:38
  So Paramount paid Netflix the breakup fee to
• 6:42
  get away from Warner Bros, which means that essentially
• 6:45
  Netflix was just like, we'll buy Warner Bros,
• 6:47
  and then didn't buy Warner Bros and got three
• 6:49
  billion dollars and a stock price increase. So
• 6:52
  well played, except for the whole Ellison family
• 6:55
  owning everything ever. Draft Kings. I only fuck
• 6:58
  with Wraith Kings. I have no idea if Wraith King
• 7:00
  is meta or not these days, I haven't played since
• 7:02
  2018. Valve Software, the company that makes
• 7:05
  Steam, which is the biggest gaming platform on
• 7:07
  the planet, is being sued by the New York Attorney
• 7:09
  General. Letitia James, you may have heard that
• 7:12
  name before, is suing Valve over loot boxes,
• 7:15
  citing that it is a gambling practice targeting
• 7:17
  teens and children. For the non -gamers out there,
• 7:20
  allow me to explain loot boxes real quick. Loot
• 7:22
  boxes are a general concept in gaming where you
• 7:25
  get an in -game item that's a locked chest, and
• 7:28
  you can only open it with a key. Keys usually
• 7:30
  cost real -world money. Not a whole lot, but
• 7:33
  a couple bucks maybe. With a key, you open the
• 7:35
  box, and inside the box is some kind of in -game
• 7:37
  item, usually a thing that gives a different
• 7:39
  look to something in the game, often called a
• 7:42
  cosmetic. In gamer terms, they're called hats.
• 7:45
  And the output of these boxes is randomized and
• 7:48
  usually weighted, so there's stuff that's more
• 7:50
  common and stuff that's more rare. And so this
• 7:52
  creates a bit of a market because you can usually
• 7:54
  trade these items between people. Now this gets
• 7:57
  really messy because it's not super cut and dry,
• 7:59
  but when you have a system that can peg sort
• 8:01
  of an input currency by way of keys to real -world
• 8:04
  money and then have a market where things have
• 8:07
  values and can be potentially gotten like a slot
• 8:09
  machine and then traded for real -world money,
• 8:13
  it gets wacky. It's also hard to say that this
• 8:15
  wasn't in some way intentional when Valve has
• 8:18
  a long history of hiring world -class economists
• 8:21
  to plan out in -game markets. Do I think that
• 8:24
  Valve is intentionally being nefarious and evil
• 8:26
  and is trying to do gambling? Not necessarily,
• 8:29
  and they've made some concessions and they've
• 8:32
  changed some things over time, like whether or
• 8:34
  not you're able to purchase and trade keys. So
• 8:36
  while it's pretty easy to portray this as not
• 8:39
  much different than opening up like a booster
• 8:40
  pack of a trading card game, some other countries
• 8:43
  have already labeled it gambling. Belgium and
• 8:45
  the Netherlands already call loot boxes to be
• 8:47
  gambling, and Dutch players of Valve's game Dota
• 8:50
  2, they're able to actually see what item will
• 8:53
  be in the box before they open it. That said,
• 8:56
  if you don't like what item is in the box, you
• 8:58
  can't get a new box unless you buy it. So you
• 9:01
  still have to buy the box to see what the next
• 9:04
  item will be. So it's not great. Ultimately there
• 9:07
  do exist platforms where people do like underground
• 9:09
  trades on all this stuff and you can make quite
• 9:12
  a bit of money. I've had a pretty valuable Steam
• 9:15
  item in my account inventory for years and I'm
• 9:18
  constantly getting people trying to scam me out
• 9:20
  of it. So are loot boxes gambling? Probably not.
• 9:24
  Are they are they a good consumer friendly thing?
• 9:27
  No, definitely not. Is there regulation for it?
• 9:29
  Not really. Should there be regulation? Probably.
• 9:32
  What kind of regulation will we likely get? Probably
• 9:35
  something along the lines of like, you must take
• 9:37
  a picture of your genitals and send it to Jeffrey
• 9:40
  Epstein before you can open loot boxes. That's
• 9:42
  probably what we'll get. Lightning round! Last
• 9:45
  week I talked about how the DoD shot down a party
• 9:47
  balloon. Well, this week they shot down a drone
• 9:50
  operated by her own Border Patrol. The first
• 9:53
  ever fiber optic undersea communications cable
• 9:56
  is being retired after 37 years. They're yanking
• 9:59
  it up from the floor. The ocean floor. According
• 10:02
  to the Wall Street Journal, U .S. citizens have
• 10:04
  left the country in record numbers over the past
• 10:06
  year. Tech company Block, which is owned by Jack
• 10:08
  Dorsey, the guy that made Twitter originally,
• 10:10
  and they run Square, they are laying off about
• 10:13
  half their workforce, 4 ,000 people. I just want
• 10:16
  to say that Jack Dorsey has a long history of
• 10:18
  maintaining his aesthetic, and part of that is
• 10:21
  not capitalizing letters in written messages.
• 10:24
  And that includes the letter laying off thousands
• 10:27
  of employees. I'm not one to get hung up on these
• 10:30
  kinds of semantics, but holy shit, that is insulting.
• 10:34
  And finally for today, an anonymous donor in
• 10:37
  Osaka sent a whole bunch of gold bars worth about
• 10:40
  3 .6 million dollars to the city with a note
• 10:43
  saying, fix the pipes. Fucking legend shit. Thank
• 10:46
  you so much for listening to today's episode
• 10:48
  of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to skh .news for
• 10:50
  sources, bonus content, and Hopefully an improved
• 10:54
  power grid next time. My name is Endeavorance.
• 10:57
  We'll talk again soon. Take care and be well.