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SMNTY Classics: The First Lady of the Internet · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I w goome stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: When ever told you protection if? I Heart Radio?
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: And today we are bringing back another episode that we
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: did with Bridget Todd, who is one of our favorites.
• 0:24
  Speaker 4: We always love talking to her and hearing what topics
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: she's brought to us. This is one I thought was
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: really fascinating about the first lady of the Internet and
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: the Linna image and the history of that and how
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: the model that provided this image got no credit, got
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: no compensation, but it was so foundational to a lot
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: of the early Internet and it's just something that really
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: stuck with me and I still think about, especially as
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: we're seeing all these advances right now.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So I thought, oh, why not.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Bring that one back. Enjoy this classic episode.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I walk good stuff.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: I never told you are picture of iHeartRadio.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: And today we are once again thrilled to be joined
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: by the fabulous, the fantastic Bridget Todd to welcome Bridget.
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. It's always such
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: a joy when I get to start my week talking
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: to you all.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, I feel like you have an extra glow.
• 1:36
  Speaker 6: Maybe it's because you've been like soaking in all of
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: the sun on the beautiful beaches abroad. Actually, I've been
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: stalking you on Instagram and I'm like, how is this
• 1:44
  Speaker 6: woman always traveling?
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And I miss and I'm sad that I'm not.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. Oh you we actually so.
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: I was in Mazatlan, Mexico for a clips to be
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: in a paspitality. We actually it was one of those
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: trips where we'd invited all of our friends, were like,
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: we're gonna.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Get a big house on the beach. It's gonna be amazing.
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: And then all of our friends are in and then
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: one by one, by one by one, I'm just there alone, essentially.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: No enjoyed it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: I enjoyed it. I love Mexico. It is one of
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: my favorite places. It was my first time in mazat Lawn.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: Ten out of ten completely recommend.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Okay, did you see the eclipse and totality?
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I saw the eclipse of totality.
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: It was my first time ever being in the path
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: of totality of an eclipse. Have you have either of
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: you ever experienced this?
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: No? Yes? Once?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: What were your thoughts? Anny, I am dying to know.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, if this was a different podcast. We
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: would go into a whole separate thing because I had
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: like a relationship issue that was happening on this day
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: and kind of a drama situation. So a lot of
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: times when I look back at it, a lot of
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: the pictures i'd I was like, oh wow, we were fighting,
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: but it was also a work event that I was at,
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: so there was that layer. But it was beautiful. It
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: was so cool. I it sounds silly, but I love space,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: like I like love the stars are like my favorite thing.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: So it was really really cool to see. It was
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: not what I quite expected because the glasses. Samanth and
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: I were joking about this recently, but the glasses feel
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: so funny because you're like looking around like they're not working,
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: and then you like find the space you're supposed to
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: look at. I was just like, very very happy to
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: see it, honestly, like all that drama I was working aside,
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: I remember thinking, this is really cool that I get
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: to see this, and I'm really happy that I get
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: to see this.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, that was what I remember too.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: I burst into tears and the next day I woke
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: up in the middle middle of the night in a
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: panic because I was worried that I will forget what
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: it looked like being in totality like that, Like that's
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: how like I had never seen it, but I did
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: never seen anything like it. Anybody who listens to their
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: no girls on the internet is probably so sick of
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: me talking me about this eclipse, and I am fully
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: making seeing this total eclipse like my personality.
• 4:21
  Speaker 7: But it's.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: But yeah, and I'm already planning where I will go
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: for the next one. So I guess I will see
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: y'all in I think, what is it, Spain?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: So that's that's the for you one.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: The next the next one that you can see if
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: you can go to Spain and see I think in
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty six. Ok So, but then the one that
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: you're referring to, Sam is like, don't quote me on
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: any of this, but that's supposed to be like the
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: big one, the big one that we will probably be
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: able to see in our lifetimes, and I think it's
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: in parts of the African continent.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I want to say, Morocco. Don't quote me on that either.
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I did say at the one point like it
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: you would be able to view in the US. That's
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: the next time you'll be able to it. I don't know.
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: It's like the actual, like the totality, as you say,
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: but like I don't know because I know nothing about this.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: That's the only I know the date, in no kindness.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: For this past eclipse.
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: Earlier this month, we had done so much planning, including
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: like looking at farmer's almanacs to see what the weather
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: and cloud coverage is like this time of year. And
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: that's how we settled on Mazetlan, Mexico, because it was
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: the place that is closest to us on the East
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: Coast in the United States that was most likely to
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: not have cloud coverage in April, because you could see
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: it from Vermont and upstate New York and Texas, but
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: a lot of those places in April might be cloudy.
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: And so I have friends who are in Vermont and
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: upstate New York who were like, Oh, We're just.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Gonna see it from our house, and I'm like.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, will you.
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: Then on the morning of vi eclipse in Mazetlan, Mexico,
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: we'd been there for a week. Every single day it's
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: like a beautiful, cloudless, blue sky day. So I wake
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: up on April eighth, the day of the eclipse, and
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: it's cloudy, the first cloudy day we've had in Mexico
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: for the entire week we have been there. Luckily, during
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: the eclipse time, the clouds did part, so we did
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: get to see it. But there would have been a
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: lot of feelings had we not been able to see it.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: It's a lot of pressure to put on a trip
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: like that. Honestly, it's pressure.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: To put on the eclipse. I mean, it exists. It's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: not their fault.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: So you can can contact like the manager of the.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Sky to be like, actually we didn't get a good view.
• 6:33
  Speaker 6: We were like, okay, for y'all who are Christians here
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: tell this God.
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: Truly, when we get canceled, we were like getting a
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: little superstitious, like the things that we were doing to
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: try to like ensure good sky.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It was getting a little a little out there. We'll
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: just sleep it at that.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: He brought a shaman in. I guess we're going in.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, Bridget, I want to ask so many
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: questions about this later on my Oh well, I'm very
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: glad that you got to see it.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: It is amazing, like truly, and over on the other
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: podcast I Do Savor, we did an episode on like
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: weird companies making money off of the eclipse with their products,
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: and I have heard from so many people about the
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: foods they made for the eclipse, and it's brought me
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: so much story so oh oh yeah, like totalityea, like tea,
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: oh oh my gosh, so many things like this. So
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: I feel like we have a couple of we have
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: some years to brainstorm things like this.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Next giant celebration, but keep that.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: In the back of your head, you.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: Know, Oh, next time, definitely doing eclipse themed food party
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: or dinner party or something.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, there's a so many puns.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: I will I will hold myself back for now, but
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: I have to say I am very, very excited to
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: talk about the topic he brought today, Bridget, because it
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: is a thing that I love of, like the history
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: of something I think a lot of people don't question
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: the history of and it's fascinating and I didn't know
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: about it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: So can you tell us what we're discussing today?
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: I feel the exact same way, And today we are
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: talking about the Lenna image.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Is this something that either of you had ever heard of?
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: I do not know.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I had not known, So.
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: Even if you're listening and you're like, what is the
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: Lenna image. I've never heard of this image. I've never
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: seen this image. Even if you don't know this story
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: and you don't feel like you've ever seen this image before,
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: you kind of do know this image because, as Linda
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: Kinsler puts it in a really meaty piece for Wired
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: that I'll be referencing a few times in this conversation,
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: she writes, whether or not you know her face, you've
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: used the technology it helps create practically every photo you've
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: ever taken, every website you've ever visited.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Every meme you've ever shared.
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: Owes some small debt to Lenna, and it really is
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: exactly as you were saying, Annie, one of those stories
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: that is foundational to the Internet and technology that you
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: don't necessarily think of, don't necessarily think of how it
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: came to be, and especially I think it's one of
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: those stories that says a lot about technology on you know,
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: here on Sminty, We've had plenty of conversations about this.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: I've had many conversations about this on There No Girls
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: on the Internet, about how things like massogyny are kind
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: of can sort of be baked into the foundation of technology.
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: And I think that is one of the reasons why
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: tech is so often perpetuating misogyny, not because it's some
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: sort of an unfortunate bug, but because this misogyny can
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: be sort of foundational in some ways. And I think
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: this image really is a good example.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Of what I mean.
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: And I think, especially as we're having conversations about the
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: rise of things like new toify apps and AI generated
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: adult content creators, we're seeing what is kind of becoming
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: a marketplace that is, men making money off of the
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: bodies and or le labor of women without their consent,
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: certainly without their compensation. And I think this situation in
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: the Lenna image, where the image of a woman went
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: on to create this entire field of technology without her consent,
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: can perhaps really tell us something about where we're headed
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, especially when you consider where it comes from,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: which I know we'll talk about. But also, yeah, these
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: conversations we're having now about like actors perhaps not given
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: their consent to being used in certain ways just and
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: honestly it ekes sends to all of us if you've
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: posted an image online, right, not consenting to using an
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: image to an image getting used in a certain way.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: But so much about this history is fascinating because it
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: feels so standardized, which is odd. Can you tell us
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: about that?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Totally?
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: So for folks who don't know, the Lenna image is
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: literally an image of this woman, Lenna Lenna Forsen. She
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: is a woman from Sweden who in the seventies was
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: a model. So this kind of sensual image of her
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: wearing a tan hat with a purple feather flowing down
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: her bare back, staring kind of seductively over one shoulder.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: That image of her was published in Playboy in nineteen
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: seventy two. She was essentially a playmate. That image would
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: go on to become what's called a standard test image.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: So big caveat here. I am at an engineer.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: If I say something that is you're like, if you're
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: an engineer listening, and you're like, that's not totally correct.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: I am at an engineer.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: But here is a definition of what a standard test
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: image is that I found from caggle dot com, which
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: is like a developer community site. They say a standard
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: test image is a digital image file used across different
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: institutions to test image processing and image compression algorithms by
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: using the same standard test images, different labs were able
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: to compare results both visually and quantitatively. The images are
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: in many cases chosen to represent natural or typical images
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: that a class of processing techniques would need to deal with.
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: Other test images are chosen because they present a change
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: of challenges to image reconstruction algorithms, such as the reproduction
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: of fine detail and textures, sharp transitions and edges, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: uniform reasons. So basically, to put that in Layman's terms,
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: a standard test image is like a test image that
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: tests to make sure that the technology is working as
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: it should be, or like rendering the way that it
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: should be. Lenna's image is not the only common standard
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: test image. There's also one that is like a bunch
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: of different colored jelly beans on a table. There's another
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: one that's called peppers that's just a bunch of different
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: colored like red and green peppers, like calapeno peppers. So
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: this is just a thing that becomes a way for
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: technologists to test that the image generating technology is working correctly.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I do think this is very interesting for a lot
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: of reasons. But if you have like jelly beans and peppers,
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: those are things to be consumed and then when you're
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: thinking about where they got this image from, a Lena like,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: how did this happen? How did this image become this
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: standard testing thing?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So this is actually a pretty interesting story.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: The story of hell Letta's Playboy picture becomes this standard
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: test image that is everywhere and very ubiquitous, starts with
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: computer and electrical engineer Alexander Sawchuk. According to the newsletter
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, or the
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: I triple E, as I have found out it's sometimes called.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: I was talking to somebody about this and I was like, oh,
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: the I.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: E E ee, and they were like, it's just the
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: I triple E.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I E. Actually the I E exactly.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: So it's the summer of nineteen seventy three.
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: Alexander Sawchuk was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: the University of Southern California and also a grad student
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: in the sip I lab as a manager.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: As the story goes, he's like.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: Frantically searching around the lab for a good image to
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: scan for a colleague's conference paper. He had just sort
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: of gotten bored with their usual stock test images because
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: they mostly had come from like nineteen sixties TV standards.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And then we're just a little bit dull.
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: He wanted something glossy and sort of like fresh and dynamic,
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: but he also wanted to use a human face specifically.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: Just then, as the story goes, somebody happens to walk
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: in holding the most recent issue of Playboy magazine.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Why this person was.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: Bringing Playboy Magazine into his workplace, I'm cannot.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Tell you how good you just.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Come into your world institute?
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: Cool?
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Like, I mean, I do think that that sort
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: of like gives you a sense of like the dynamics
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: that we're dealing with, Right, that somebody just happens to
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: walk in with the but the most recent Playboy.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Under their arm.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: Right, The engineers tore away the top third of the
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: their Mrhead wire photo scanner, which they had outfitted with
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: analog to digital converters, one for each red, green, and
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: blue channels, and an HP twenty one hundred mini computer.
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: So all of that to say is that they effectively
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: cropped this image so that you can't see the models
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: bears in the image, so it's just a picture of
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: her from the shoulders up looking over her shoulder.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: It's still like quite a seductive.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: Photo, but the full photo has her like bare booty
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: in it. She's wearing I look like a feather boa
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: and like thigh high.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Stockings looking over her shoulder.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: So back in the seventies and eighties, this image was
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: really sort of like used in very limited cases. You
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: could only really see it on dot org domains. It
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: was pretty limited to like engineers. Then in July of
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: nineteen ninety one, the image was featured on the cover
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: of Optical Engineering, alongside that other test image of the
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: different colored peppers.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Funny enough, I took a look at that cover.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: It's all black and white, so I'm like, ah, I
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: think they're trying to demonstrate that, like these images had
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: all these different dynamic colors, but both of them are
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: rendered in black and white, kind of rendering that meaningless.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: So this is when Playboy gets wind of this, and
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: they are not happy because it's basically copyright infringement, which
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: this is not related to the story, but I always
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: have to add this whenever it comes up. How litigious
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: Hugh Hefner and Playboy were. I always think this is
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: very rich because, as y'all probably know, Hugh Hefner made
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: an entire lucrative industry off of images of Marilyn Monroe
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: that she did for a calendar company, for which.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: She was only paid fifty dollars.
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: Many years after that photo shoot, Hugh Hefner bought those
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: photographs from the calendar company republished them without Marilyn Monroe's
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: consent or permission in nineteen fifty three. That was the
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: first ever issue of Playboy. Hugh Hefner paid five hundred dollars.
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: She got fifty dollars. Right, So, whenever I read about
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: how litigious Playboy is, which they're very ligious, I always
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: had to chuckle at that that, Oh, like, you don't
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: want somebody profiting off of your intellectual property, but had
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: no problem profiting off of a woman's body without compensating
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: her fairly or even her consent.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Interesting, this is like par for the course for him.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, don't even get me started with Sue Hefner.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: We will be here all day.
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: The things that came out after he died, which I'm like, Wow,
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: he had a pretty good, like powerful handle on people
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: not talking until he died.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: I was listening to an episode of celebrity memoir book Club,
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: where they read a lot of X Playmate and ex
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: Playboy bunny memoirs. Some of the things that they write about,
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my god. Like even even Lenna in
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: an interview, she talks about how in the seventies, after
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: this photo shoot, she was invited to go to the
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: Playboy mansion and the quote is something like, they made
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: it clear in the invites that I would have to
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: spend time with Hugh Hefner while he was in his
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: dressing robe, and I said, no, thanks, I mean.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: She already knew.
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: Was like yeah, yeah.
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: So Playboy threatens to sue these engineers, and at this point,
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: the engineers, it sounds like, had like grown very fond
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: of using this image, so they fought back.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Eventually Playboy back down.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: Because, as a Playboy vice president put it, quote, we
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: decided we should exploit this because it is a phenomenon.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: So yeah, by his own words like, oh, let's exploit this.
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: No, talk about the fact that this is two groups.
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: Of men fighting over who owns this image of a woman,
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: in one case being used in a manner that is
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: completely without her consent or control.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: It just it already from the beginning.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: It just feels to me like men fighting over how
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: they can use a woman's representation that I think is
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: so foundational to some of the conversations we're having about
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: technology like AI right here in twenty twenty.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Four, absolutely, and she did become pretty foundational, right.
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: Oh, absolutely, So this is when the image of Leta
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: really becomes super popular. The whole drama about the cover
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: catapults this image into what you might think of as
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: like early Internet virality or popularity. This was in nineteen
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: ninety five. The use of the photo and electronic imaging
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: has been described as clearly one of the most important
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: events in history.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: It is truly hard.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: To overstate how ubiquitous this one image is in technology.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: There is this fascinating interactive piece by Jennifer Ding at
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: the Pudding.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: The piece is so cool.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: It's like one of those interactive pieces that has a timeline.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Definitely check it out.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: But in that piece, Ding actually includes a freeze frame
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: of the show Silicon Valley on HBO, where in the
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: background there is a.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Poster with the Lenna image on the wall.
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: Right, So this image is also included in scientific journals
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: just all over the place. Ding found that within the
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: dot edu world, so like websites related to education, the
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: Lenna image continues to appear in homework questions, class slides,
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: and to he hosted on educational and research sites, ensuring
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: that it will be passed down to new generations of engineer.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: So this became so popular that Lenna herself is often
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: called the first Lady of the Internet.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I kind of like her taking that picture having
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: no idea that this is what would happen, which, yeah,
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess that speaks to the next question,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: why did this image take off the way that it did?
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Well? If you asked David C.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: Munson, who is the editor in chief of the i
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: E or the iter fully Transactions on image processing, he
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: said that the image happened to meet all of these
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: requirements for a good test image because of its detail,
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: it's flat regions, shading and texture. But even he will
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: not leave out the obvious fact that it's also a
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: picture of like a seductive, sexy young woman.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Duh right, Like that's that's definitely part of it. He says.
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: The Lena image picture is of an attractive woman. It
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: is not surprising to me that the mostly male image
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: processing research community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive,
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: and so I do think there's something about these highly
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: male dominated spaces where it's not just that there's a
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: lot of men that it's like their worldviews, their interests,
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: their perspectives, their biases that are really taking up a
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: lot of space in these in these spaces. I just
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: think that men feel like these spaces are theirs, and
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: that they are free to decorate those spaces with the
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: pretty women that they think they feel like they should
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: be able to use without their consent or compensation. I
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: just think that, like Annie, you mentioned earlier that the
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: other test images are these things that you consume, right,
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: like peppers or jellybeans. There's another famous one of a
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: baboon that's like has different colors on its face. It's
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: interesting to me that it's these things that are not human,
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: things that are like animal or that you consume that
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: like throwing a sexy young woman into that mix. I
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: don't think maybe seem like a huge departure for these guys.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and again, when we think about things in the
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: realm of AI or even I know I've complained about
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: this many times, but in the worlds of fandom are gaming.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: It's like that.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: It's like, you can come into our world on our
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: terms and you wear what we want you to wear.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: You are here because we let you be here in
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: this male dominated space. But you're gonna do what we want.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: It's not up to you, and that's the only way
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: that you can be in this world. But that being said,
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: there has been some pushback recently ish right, Bridget.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So one thing about what you just said.
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: When I was researching for this episode, some of the
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: different engineers who had contributed to this images popularity, they
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: were quoted when they actually met the actual real Letta
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: at a conference that she was invited to, they were like,
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: I can't believe she's a real person. A part of
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: me was like, you didn't even see her as a
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: real human. They just saw her as something that they
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: had an image in a picture that they had been
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: consuming for decades, and they had so removed her from
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: being a real, breathing human that meeting her in real
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: life was like they were surprised that she was real.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: And I think that really speaks to the sort of
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: fandom element that you were talking about, This idea that
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: like you can come if you are a fantasy and
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: in some ways not even a real human.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. You're like, do I.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Ever, Yeah, like, don't say anything that I don't like, Like,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: keep quiet and look the way I like.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Then you can be here. But oh you're a real person.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Oh no, I don't want you hear it at all. Yeah.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: So you're exactly right, Annie. All of this happened, but
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: it was not without pushback. Around like the twenty tens,
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: people started publicly asking whether or not this image of
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: a woman from Playboy should be so fundational to technology
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: es actually in education settings, you know, given conversations about
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: the need for more women in these spaces and how
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: to make these spaces more inclusive and more diverse.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: That's really around when you start.
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: Hearing like people in public being like, wait a minute,
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: maybe this isn't so cool. In twenty fifteen, Mattie Zugg,
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: who was then a student at the Thomas Jefferson High
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: School for Science and Technology right here in DC hre
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: live who I should say now is a product safety
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: engineer at Apple who focuses on preventing tech and abled
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: abuse and stalking and harassment on Apple platforms.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So like go Maddie.
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: Maddie sounds like she was cool in high school and
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: is cool now. So Maddie wrote this op ed basically
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: asking the question of like, should I, as a high
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: school student at a STEM high school, be given an
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: image from Playboy as part of my education in technology
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: and STEM? She writes, I first saw a picture of
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: Playboy magazines Miss November nineteen seventy two.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: A year ago.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: As a junior at TJ, my artificial intelligence teacher told
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: our class to search Google for Lenna Soderbird, not the
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: full image, though, and use her picture to test our
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: latest coding assignment. At the time, I was sixteen and
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: struggling to believe that I belonged in a male dominated
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: computer science class.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I tried to tune out the boy's sexual comments.
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: Why is an advanced science, technology, engineering, and mathematics school
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: using a Playboy centerfold in its classrooms? Her piece ends
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: with saying it's time for TJ to say hello to
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: an inclusive computer science education and say goodbye to Lena.
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: So Maddie was not the only person who was like,
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: maybe this image shouldn't be the thing that all of
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: our education is centered around. In that piece for Wired
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: I mentioned they talked to several women in technology you
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: had very similar stories.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: This one is actually pretty funny.
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: Deanna Needle, a math professor at UCLA, had similar memories
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: from college. So in twenty thirteen, she and a colleague
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: staged a quiet protest. They acquired the rights to a
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: headshot of the male model Fabio Lonzoni and used that
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: for their imaging research. So they kind of like turned
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: it around, like, oh, you're going to use a sexy woman,
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: Well we'll use a sexy man.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: What do you think about that?
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: So in that piece they actually track down and speak
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: to the real Lenna, who also called for her image
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: to be retired. She says, I retired from modeling a
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: long time ago. It is time I retired from tech two.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: We can make a simple change today that creates a
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: lasting change for tomorrow. Let's commit to losing me. And
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: there's actually some news on that front, because as of
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: April first of this year, that I Triple E officially
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: retired the use of the Lenna image and announced they
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: will no longer be using that image and their publications.
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: Ours Technica points out that this is kind of a
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: really big deal that will likely have a ripple effect
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: in the space.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Because the journal.
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: Has been so historically important for computer imaging development, it'll
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: likely set a precedent removing this image from common use.
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: In an email, a spokesperson for the I Triple E
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: recommended wider sensitivity about the issue writing. In order to
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: raise awareness of and increase author com clients with this
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: new policy, program, committee members and reviewers should look for
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: inclusion of this image, and if present, should ask authors
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: to replace the Letna image with an alternative.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: I love that from Lenna herself, like, let's commit to
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: forgetting me. That's such a great line. But it does
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: speak to it speaks volumes, as you've been saying, bridget
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: to our attitude towards women on the internet and towards
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: consent on the internet. And so when we're thinking about this,
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: which was foundational, what do you think about this the legacy.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Of this image?
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that question. You know what I was
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: reading about how this image came to be. I'm imagining
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: a very different time, right, It's the seventies. People aren't
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: necessarily having a lot of public, loud conversations about the
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: power dynamics of who's in the room. And who's not
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: in the room where a lot of this technology is
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: getting built. And it really made me think of, like, Wow,
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: the seventies, that probably was such a different time. But
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: here in twenty twenty four, we are having those conversations,
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: loud voices, are publicly having those conversations. There are women
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: and people of color, and trans folks and queer folks
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: and all kinds of folks who are building and making
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: the technology that shapes our world today. And so in
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty four, it almost feels like we are pretending
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: that we're still in this nineteen seventies we didn't really
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: know how who could have foreseen world, when in fact
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: we're not really in that world. People are asking the questions,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: people are raising the alarm, And I guess I don't
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: think it should be several decades after AI technology becomes
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: ubiquitous for people to start asking the question about how
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: traditionally marginalized people like women are being used and represented
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: and perhaps exploited without their consent in these spaces. I
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: think it provides a really interesting precedent for what's going
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: on here in twenty twenty four.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: And Jennifer put it really well.
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: She writes to me, the crux of the LETNA story
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: is how little power we have over our data and
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: how it is used and abused. That threat seems disproportionately
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: higher for women, who are overrepresented in Internet content but
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: underrepresented in Internet company leadership and decision making. Given this reality,
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: engineering and product decisions will continue to consciously and unconsciously
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: exclude our needs and concerns, Right, And so I really
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: agree with that that this LETA story really is a
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: story about power dynamics and who is represented in technology
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: and who is just sort of like has their needs
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: exploited or erased?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Right, Like.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: Men wanting to consume the bodies of women is like
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: foundational to the Internet. It's like why we have the
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: Internet the way that we have it. And I think
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: we know that now. It's like an objective fact about
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: the Internet and technology. I don't think we can still
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: make technology that does not honest about because if we're
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: not being honest about that, we can never fix that,
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: we can never question that, we can never have that
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: be a dynamic that we stop perpetuating with technology.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it's like going back to the
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: point about being in a classroom setting and being shown
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: explicitly like, this is how women are viewed in the space.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: This is what built a lot of what we use
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: today and we're still talking about it is telling in itself,
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: and especially when we're seeing that perpetuate in all of
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: these tech spaces where it still feels in a lot
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: of ways even though women in marginalized people have built
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: those spaces that like, you're the guest here, and you're
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: only here because we're opening our gates a little bit
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: to let you in, but otherwise, yes, get out.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: And I just think that's a dynamic we need to
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: be questioning in twenty twenty four. And I think so
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: like something about the use of this image it's ubiquity
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: in education spaces, I find so telling. But also even
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: if you're not studying to be an engineer or something,
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: I think there is a dynamic that says that if
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: you are a person who is traditionally marginalized, you're not
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: a decision maker, you're not a power holder, you're not
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: doing or making anything that anybody needs to care about,
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: and the entire dynamic is that we use you. In fact,
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: so Ding actually points this out on her piece. She says,
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: while social norms are changing, toward non consensual data collection
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: and data exploitation. Digital norms seem to be moving in
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: the opposite direction. Advancement and machine learning algorithms and data
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: storage capabilities are only making data misuse easier, whether the
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: outcome is revenge porn or targeted ads, surveillance, or discriminatory AI.
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: If we want a world where our data can retire
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: when it's outlived its time or when it's directly harming
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: our lives, we must create the tools and policies that
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: empower data subjects to have a say in what happens
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: to their data, including allowing their data to die. And
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: so I think, even if you're not somebody who is
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: a techie, that does concern you this dynamic that just
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: says we consume, we exploit, we make money from you,
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: and you don't get to have a say about it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: That's the dynamics that I think this.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: Lena image really did usher in without really even necessarily
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: meaning to.
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: I think there's a big conversation here on like the
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: power of capitalism within the tech industry and what makes money.
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: I can't help but think, like with the Lina image,
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: the fact that this toxicity was used to make more
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: profit and more power within this industry. It took forty
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: to fifty years for it to even have a conversation
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: about like, let's change it, let's retire it. But the
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: fact that I had that much pushback because they didn't
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: care enough and they wanted to build on this toxicity
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: because they knew it could make money is the most
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: concerning thing to me. And then and then the powers
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: that be are saying that, yeah, yeah, we're definitely gonna
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: control this, and then just goes off to an app
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: instead of the root of the problem. It seems like
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: the biggest part of the conversation because even in the
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: AI world, with new apps coming through, new programs coming through,
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: and they're all competing with each other, they don't want
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: to let go of the toxicity. But that's what's making
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: the money, which is really really concerning.
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I mean like if there was one, so
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: what of why I wanted to have this conversation Sam?
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: That is exactly it that it is about money. It
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: is about capitalism. It is about making money off of
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: people's own exploitation and selling that exploitation back to them
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: to make more money. And it's just a really toxic dynamic.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: That I believe is harming us and making the people
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: who have created that dynamic rich all the while they
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: get to be like, Oh, it's not a big deal
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: for you.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Actually, this is going to be really good for you.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: This is going to be convenient for you.
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: And I don't know, Like I woke up this morning
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: when I was trying to decide, like what I wanted
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: to talk to you all today about, and one of
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: the ideas that I had that I scrapped was just
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: this feeling that being on the internet just doesn't feel
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: fun anymore. Anytime I go on a website, anytime I
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: google something just to find out information, it feels like
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: a scam.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: It feels like exploitation.
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: I feel like I am one click away from somebody
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: getting my social Security number. It feels like AI generated garbage.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: And I just think we have hit the wall of
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: that feeling. I can't imagine that I'm alone in this.
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: I think the feeling of being showing up online today
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four feels exhausting, and I think part
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: of it is because it feels like we are being
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: bled dry by people that we have already made rich
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: from our own exploitation.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Do you want to feel that way.
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: Oh absolutely, I think with because getting on TikTok, the
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: first opening video I'm sure you've seen it is that
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: content manager who is like, I'm here for the safety
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: of TikTok.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Have you seen this?
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I have not.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: She's been there.
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: She is for safety in some like she has a
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: very specific time. Yes, Susie someone she is very white
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: and she's very redheaded. It's I was like, okay, so
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: we've got played into the xenophobey. She's like, look, I'm
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: a white person. I'm gonna help you out here.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Don't worry. Don't worry.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I got this.
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: But that's the first thing that I'm seeing, so like,
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: you know, urging TikTok users to talk to the government
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: because they voted this in and this is real bad
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: and all this and not whatnot. And I'm just like,
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: all right, it's gonna go away next. This is now
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: my attitude because also I'm very tired. But also I
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: just got an email saying that AT and d Yes
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: has a record that oh that that reached. They have
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: your stuff. But good news, since you don't have a
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: bill with us, we don't. We didn't you did, didn't
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: get any perfinent information. But I literally think every month
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: I have been given seeing an email that says something
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: of my information is has been breached, and it's nothing
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: that I have done. It is literally everything from my insurance,
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: my dental insurance, my healthcare provider, my internet, which I'm like,
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: what the hell, my phone subscription, my cell phone, which
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: I'm like, I'm starting to get back to that.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I think I want a landline.
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: I've at this moment, y'all, to each of those things
• 36:09
  Speaker 6: popping up on things, I'm like, I hadn't. I have
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: to use that information in order for me to have healthcare.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: So y'all, let my healthcare information go out and they
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: have my social Security number.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: There's nothing I can do about that.
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: As many times as I can change my password, the
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: next email I'm getting is telling me that I've got
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: a data breach of my information.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: So what is the point.
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: Like, at this point, the only way is to rewrite
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: my identity and to never get online again, which would
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: be really hard for my job.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: Yes, Like, if you have a phone in your life,
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: if you vote, if you drive, these things that we
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: are required to do to participate in public life should
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: not just be avenues for somebody to make money and
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: scam us.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: But yet it feels that way.
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: And you know what, Sam, I have actually not seen
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: the TikTok that you're referring to, because I have not
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: opened my TikTok app in days because it's starting to
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: feel like QVC and I cannot take it anymore.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Like whatever happened.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: To spaces on the Internet that we're supposed to feel
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: like safety or exploration or fun or community or connection.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: I'm I hope that somebody out there listening is like
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: Bridget you're old and on hip. We have those spaces,
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: they are syz tell me about them. I want to
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: know about them. But I think that we should. We
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: really got to get back to, like to those principles
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: of the Internet feeling like something other than being taken
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: for a ride on which you are the chump.
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: Right, And I will say a lot of people have
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: felt like Discord and read it has been like brought
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: in but we already know read it has kind of
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: its problems. And then I think there's a new lawsuit
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: with Discord with this problems and its terms of service
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: changing as well.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what totally happened?
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: So there's literally no one is protecting the individual to like,
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: there's no protection for us at all, but they want
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: us to say, they want us to take away things
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: from us, which is like the least of our worries,
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: or they're just like sorry, you're so like you can't
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: sue us.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think everybody is feeling that, but I think
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: it is particularly dangerous for people who are traditionally marginalized
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: because yeah, which it's just the expectation.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: That, oh, it's totally fine if.
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: People who make apps that non consensually undress women using AI,
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: why wouldn't they be able to advertise on Facebook or
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: Instagram or Twitter.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: They got to make money. That's a business.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: Like how easy it is to erase the human people
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: at the heart of this dynamic, erase their concerns, erase
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: their needs, erase their harm because men got to make
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: money off of it.
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: I'm thick of it, right, Or is tradition literally like, yeah,
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: this image has always been here, we need to teach
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: it as a it's historical.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: It was definitely not exploiting somebody or taking advantage of somebody,
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: or using humiliating content because.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: She wasn't humiliated, I don't think.
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: But like in the ideal of like it being forever
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: and ever and ever, of like your seductive picture being
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: used for it people, which is a whole different conversation
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: in itself.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so Lenna, the real life Lena.
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: And again there's a really interesting Wired article that has
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: an interview with her. She doesn't feel like she was exploited.
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: She's actually really proud of that image, even as she
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: recognizes that it's like time for it to be retired.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: However, she does wish.
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: That she had been fairly compensated for what would go
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: on to be her like non consensual contributions to tech
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: when she.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Took that image.
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: There's no way that as a you know, young playboy
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: playmate in the night in nineteen seventy one or whatever,
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: you would have a sense of like, well, if this
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: goes on to be to make me the first lady
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: of the Internet, I better have compensation and protections. No way, right,
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: So in that Wired piece they say it makes sense
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: that she would feel this way. Unlike so many women
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: in tech, Lenna has at least been acknowledged, even feted
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: for her contribution. And she did that work and the
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: people started using that photo in this neat new way,
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: and now she has this kind of immortality woven into
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: the design of the machine. This is from Marie Hicks,
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: a historian of technology and the author of programmed Inequality.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: All of this happened for a reason. Hicks writes, if
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: they hadn't used a Playboy centerfold, they almost certainly would
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: have used another picture of a pretty white woman. The
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: playboy thing gets our attention, but really what it's about
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: is this world building that's gone on in computing from
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: the beginning. It's about building worlds for certain people and
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: not for others.
• 40:31
  Speaker 6: I find it interesting, dude, that they invited her to
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: the conference, Like, I'm wondering what the purpose was other
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: than two like for because it obviously wasn't to ask
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: her questions about tech and how she did this thing,
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: because they did not even consider human as we know.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: It was just literally to aggle her in real life.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking about why they did that.
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: I don't know, I have parted me wonders if it
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: was like an attempt to be like, oh, we need
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: to acknowledge the way that this woman's image was so
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: foundational to our technology, but then like not really doing it,
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: like still sort of treating her as like a booth
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: babe or something like.
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: I don't know, right, I just find all of that interesting,
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: in this level of like not again of not what
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: she was doing this for. She came in with, like
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: whatever her ambitions were in being this model and whatnot,
• 41:25
  Speaker 6: and then all of a sudden being told.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: You're being used.
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: As an example for computers, like for six images for computers,
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: and not only will you see this, but your grandkids
• 41:37
  Speaker 6: will also, like if she has children like any of
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: those things, and your your family members forever.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: I'm like, whoo, who would have ever thought that that's
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: how that image would go on to be used in history?
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: And I really think like this is where we are today,
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: and this is like why I wanted to talk about
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: this is that I think, like the idea, the concept
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: of images being shared online, the way we understand that
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four, the fact that this image of
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: Leta became so foundational to that concept without her consent,
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: you know, perhaps without like proper contribution to the way
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: that she actually was foundational to that and building out
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: this entire universe around it that is mostly like controlled
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: and protected and profited off by men and nobody stopping
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: to ask about the ramifications of that until decades later.
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: I just think it really establishes like a concerning precedent
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: for where we're going right now with AI in twenty
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: twenty four. And it doesn't have to We can learn
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: from what we did with that Letta image if we
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: ask the right questions, if we center the right perspectives
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: and the right voices, and so Yeah, I don't want
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: to wait until twenty forty to be like, oh, should
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: we have been talking about the ways that women and
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: girls and other marginalized people are being exploited and used
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: to make technology companies money.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I don't want to ask that question when it's too.
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: Late, right, And here's like the big conversation is, shouldn't
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: we alsoe that big companies and big tech companies and
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: big companies that are developing are purposely leaving out marginalized
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: people because they like the old ways and that it's
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: only making a certain amount of people money.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's exact.
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: I think that I would argue that's exactly what's going on.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: I mean, in twenty twenty four, there are so many loud,
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: thoughtful voices from women and people of color who are
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: really talking about AI in some interesting and thoughtful ways.
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: So they exist, they are out there. This is the
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: tale as the oldest time when it comes to technology.
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: It is not that they are not there. It is
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: that they are being, whether intentionally or unintentionally, marginalized, sideline silenced,
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: pushed aside to make room for voices who are just
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: repeating the status quo, who are just saying like, well,
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to get rich, So who cares how this harms?
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: Somebody who cares about whether or not this goes on
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: to exploit.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: And I think that's really it's really.
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: Like a it's a little bit of a complicated cultural
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: dynamic and cultural shift that I think that we really
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: got a break.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's really sad, going back to your point
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: Bridget of like the Internet not being a place of
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: joy anymore, because so many times it was marginalized people
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: who made those spaces because they couldn't find them anywhere else,
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: and then these companies come in and are like, Okay,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: well we can make money, and then it doesn't become
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: a joyous space anymore. It becomes a very toxic, a
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: toxic place. And so like hearing this story and seeing
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: how so much of what we use still is based
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: on something that was.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: A guy walked in with the Playboy.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: Magazine like, it's it's bad when you that doesn't feel
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: so out of place and what we're talking about in
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: our current time.
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and again, I mean, I opened up our conversation
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: with this, but I guess and I guess I'll close
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: with that too. I believe people when I say this,
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: people think I sound alarmist or extreme, but I mean
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: it the way that I mean it. I think that
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: these things are features, not bugs. I think we got
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: to be honest about the ways that things like misogyny
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: and exploitation, particularly when it comes to marginalized people, has
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: been foundational to technology and the Internet from the very beginning.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: I love the Internet. I love technology. It is why
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I do the work that I do.
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: But I think that until we are honest about that
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: but these things are features and.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Not bugs, we will never get anywhere.
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: And so I think that it really starts with having
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: honest conversations about where we started so that we can
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: get to a place that we that actually feels a
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: little bit better for everybody.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, well, thank you so much. As always, Ritete,
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: every time you come on. I'm like, we could talk
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: for hours about this and this and this.
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: Invite me back for an episode, just dragging Hugh Hefner.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be here for it.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I think we need to do this.
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: I don't think about this for a minute. Back into
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: the magazine world and jumping into like all of that.
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: Don't even get I mean, like this is like spoiler alert.
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: I like totally had this wrong. For so long in
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: my life. I was like, oh, Hugh Hefner was a
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: champion for free speech and civil riots and blah blah blah.
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: Then I grew up and learned and I was like, actually,
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: she wasn't such a good.
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: Guy, right, I mean we really fed into the but
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: read the article.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: They're so good.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, they've corbell.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, oh yes, please come back for that, Bridget.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: In the meantime, where can the good listeners find you?
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: Well, you can listen to my podcast. There are no
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: girls on the internet. You can follow me. I'm not
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: really on social media that much anymore, but you can
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: try to find me there. I'm on Instagram at Bridget
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: Marie in DC. I am at Blue Sky at Bridget
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: Todd on threads at Bridget, Marie and DC sometimes on TikTok.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: You'll I'm easy to find. You'll find Google me, You'll
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: find me.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, Google, that's a flex.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: It's true though. Our listeners are smart. They can find
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: you and listeners.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: If you would like to contact us, you can our
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: email us a step media mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: You can find us on Twitter at most of the podcasts,
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: or on TikTok and Instagram that stuff I Never told you.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: and a book you can get wherever you get your books.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: Thanks as always to our superduce Christine, our executive producer
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: My and your contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: you for listening. Stuff Will Never Told you This poction
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: by Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, you
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: can check out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts wherever
• 47:31
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