Latest / Ctrl-Alt-Speech / Deus vs. Machina

Transcript

Deus vs. Machina · Ctrl-Alt-Speech

• 0:00
  Ben Whitelaw: So Mike, did you see anything fun on the internet this week?
• 0:03
  Mike Masnick: Ben, I see fun stuff on the internet every week.
• 0:07
  Mike Masnick: That's what the internet is for, despite all the, the doom and gloom that we hear about.
• 0:12
  Mike Masnick: But I, I s- I actually saw this really interesting, it's, I, I guess kind of a classic blog post, I don't know, essay, by someone named Terry Gautier called"The Boring Internet." And this, this spoke to my soul.
• 0:28
  Mike Masnick: The, the subtitle is,"The internet you grew up on isn't dying.
• 0:33
  Mike Masnick: A commercial veneer glued on top of it is." And it, it just does this wonderful going through, like the original promise of an open internet where you could do what you wanted and there were all sorts of fun and interesting things, is all still there, and it's maybe hidden behind sort of a commercial interface.
• 0:54
  Mike Masnick: it, it really resonates deeply with me in all sorts of interesting ways.
• 0:59
  Mike Masnick: it was really sort of joyful read on the internet
• 1:03
  Ben Whitelaw: great.
• 1:04
  Ben Whitelaw: Sounds like it made you smile.
• 1:05
  Ben Whitelaw: I, I would love to read that
• 1:07
  Mike Masnick: Absolutely.
• 1:07
  Mike Masnick: We'll put it in the show notes.
• 1:08
  Mike Masnick: What about you?
• 1:09
  Mike Masnick: Did you see anything fun on the internet this week?
• 1:12
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I mean, I can't claim to have read anything quite so, uh, uh, long form and, and smart as that.
• 1:17
  Ben Whitelaw: But I was on Blue Sky and I saw a post from Orkney Library and Archive.
• 1:23
  Ben Whitelaw: go follow if you, if you don't already.
• 1:25
  Ben Whitelaw: Orkney as
• 1:25
  Mike Masnick: I don't
• 1:27
  Ben Whitelaw: as in the Scottish, island.
• 1:29
  Ben Whitelaw: And I'll describe it to you'cause it's a, it's got different parts to it.
• 1:34
  Ben Whitelaw: It's of a picture of four books stacked on top of each other, the spines showing to the kind of camera, and the books say at the top,"Gordon Brown," the second book says,"Texture," the third book says,"Lakes," and the fourth book says,"Suns." And the post says,"You can always tell when the stranglers have been in to return their books." Gordon Brown, Texture, Lakes, Sun, in case people didn't get it.
• 2:02
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 2:03
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 2:04
  Mike Masnick: That is, yes, that is, it, I mean, that is impressive.
• 2:07
  Ben Whitelaw: That is good, right?
• 2:09
  Ben Whitelaw: both the Orkney Library and Archive posting and my ability to find that and bring it to you.
• 2:13
  Ben Whitelaw: I think both impressive.
• 2:14
  Mike Masnick: yes.
• 2:15
  Mike Masnick: Both, both are, both are wonderful.
• 2:19
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm back, baby.
• 2:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Hello, and welcome to Control Alt Speech, the podcast where we make sense of the major debates and discussions shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation, and the future of the internet.
• 2:39
  Ben Whitelaw: It's May the 28th, 2026, and this week we're talking about the Pope's hot take on AI regulation, what Spotify are doing in terms of music rights and AI, and for our Patreon subscribers, what's going on with the oversight board.
• 2:54
  Ben Whitelaw: Control Alt Speech is the brainchild/lovechild of Mike Masnick, founder and editor of Techdirt.
• 3:02
  Ben Whitelaw: That's,
• 3:03
  Mike Masnick: that's an interesting opening, Ben.
• 3:05
  Mike Masnick: All right, you are, you are on fire this week.
• 3:08
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 3:09
  Ben Whitelaw: And me, Ben Whitelaw, the founder and editor of Everything in Moderation.
• 3:13
  Ben Whitelaw: welcome everyone.
• 3:14
  Ben Whitelaw: As of, today, you can support the podcast and get extended episodes, plus the chance to submit stories for us to cover by going to patreon.com/ctrlaltspeech.
• 3:24
  Ben Whitelaw: You can also reach our lovely distinguished listeners, that's you guys, by sponsoring an episode of the podcast.
• 3:29
  Ben Whitelaw: If you're an organization or an institution that wants to do that, go to ctrlaltspeech.com or email us at podcast@ctrlaltspeech.com.
• 3:37
  Ben Whitelaw: Mike, I'm back in the chair as as you well know.
• 3:41
  Ben Whitelaw: But the platform prompt is dead.
• 3:44
  Ben Whitelaw: that was our new attempt at a cold opening.
• 3:46
  Ben Whitelaw: I suppose we won't know what listeners think until this has gone out.
• 3:49
  Ben Whitelaw: but how did it feel?
• 3:50
  Ben Whitelaw: How did it feel in your mouth?
• 3:53
  Mike Masnick: I guess we'll find out.
• 3:54
  Mike Masnick: I, I like that.
• 3:55
  Mike Masnick: I, I sort of like the idea of us discussing something fun that we found on the internet in the past week, and just a good reminder that the internet is fun and that there is a lot of really fun things out there.
• 4:06
  Mike Masnick: we all sort of, default to this idea that the, these days that the internet is terrible and a problem, and it would be nice, uh, to remind ourselves sometimes that there is really good and fun stuff, and we enjoy the internet for good and fun reasons.
• 4:19
  Mike Masnick: So I, I liked it, but we'll see what the, uh...
• 4:22
  Mike Masnick: This is an experimental phase of the Ctrl Alt Speech podcast.
• 4:27
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I agree.
• 4:28
  Ben Whitelaw: although finding something good on the internet every single week might take as much time as the platform prompt took us, to be honest.
• 4:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, which al- which also, like, people hated.
• 4:39
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, it, it turns out no one liked the platform
• 4:41
  Mike Masnick: I d- I, I, that I don't know.
• 4:43
  Mike Masnick: I heard people who did like it.
• 4:45
  Mike Masnick: I don't know that anyone, liked it to the point of, like, suggesting we should keep doing it.
• 4:52
  Mike Masnick: But I've h- I heard people who sort of enjoyed us struggling each week to come up with a platform prompt,
• 4:58
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 4:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 4:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Well, th- that is likely to continue in this new experimental phase, so those listeners will be happy.
• 5:05
  Ben Whitelaw: I very much enjoyed listening to the episodes of the podcast while I was away.
• 5:08
  Ben Whitelaw: Thank you for holding, you know, making sure the podcast came out every week.
• 5:11
  Ben Whitelaw: It was, it was a really good listen.
• 5:13
  Ben Whitelaw: for listeners who didn't get a chance to hear Jess and Ari and Jennifer chat with Mike each week, very much recommend going back and checking those guys out.
• 5:20
  Ben Whitelaw: what was your favorite part of, being in charge of good ship Ctrl Alt Speech?
• 5:25
  Mike Masnick: Uh, it was fun.
• 5:26
  Mike Masnick: I mean, we had really good discussions, I think.
• 5:29
  Mike Masnick: all three of the guests, you know, obviously being experts in, in their fields and having really interesting thoughts and discussions, and so it's always fun to talk to other folks.
• 5:37
  Mike Masnick: But, uh, it's, always nice.
• 5:39
  Mike Masnick: We started this podcast together.
• 5:41
  Mike Masnick: It's good when both of us are here.
• 5:42
  Mike Masnick: I enjoy, getting to talk to you again, and also not having to, run things.
• 5:49
  Mike Masnick: you
• 5:49
  Ben Whitelaw: It's not nice, is it?
• 5:51
  Mike Masnick: you sort of organize the show in a way that is, you know...
• 5:54
  Mike Masnick: It's, it's nice when you're around, and I don't have to put as much brainpower towards that.
• 5:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 6:00
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm glad to hear that.
• 6:01
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm glad that you also took the toll on your mental health, um, uh, uh, for a few weeks.
• 6:06
  Ben Whitelaw: But no, it's, it's also great to be back.
• 6:08
  Ben Whitelaw: I, I had a great time away.
• 6:10
  Ben Whitelaw: I was traveling around the South of France with my now one-year-old and my wife.
• 6:15
  Ben Whitelaw: And if any listeners want a cast iron, three-week trip itinerary for the South of France, get in touch.
• 6:22
  Ben Whitelaw: I think I've cracked it.
• 6:23
  Ben Whitelaw: So, um, but yeah, it was g- it was great to, uh, listen to, to you and, and some really smart experts on the drive between idyllic French towns, so thank you for that.
• 6:35
  Ben Whitelaw: we also got a couple of reviews and ratings while I was away and, um, those ratings and reviews, as we always say, Mike, are really important for us to, find new listeners and to kind of get the word out there about"Control+Alt+Speech." And I like this one from Nelson because it kind of speaks to exactly what we try and do every week.
• 6:52
  Ben Whitelaw: Nelson says,"Although this podcast does attract a lot of people who work directly in the tech moderation safety sector, it's still approachable for the laymen.
• 7:00
  Ben Whitelaw: There are topics I hope to see more people who use these platforms get invested and politically motivated around.
• 7:06
  Ben Whitelaw: The hosts are concise," don't agree with that,"uh, to the point without being robotic.
• 7:12
  Ben Whitelaw: Truly a wonderful job.
• 7:13
  Ben Whitelaw: Please keep up the hard work." Do you know any-- Do, do you have a family member called Nelson by any chance that you've paid?
• 7:19
  Mike Masnick: I, do not, so
• 7:20
  Ben Whitelaw: No?
• 7:20
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 7:21
  Mike Masnick: that's, it's a very nice review.
• 7:23
  Mike Masnick: We always appreciate the nice reviews.
• 7:25
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I guess in theory we appreciate the not as nice reviews, but
• 7:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 7:30
  Mike Masnick: we, we appreciate all reviews.
• 7:33
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 7:33
  Ben Whitelaw: I, I agree.
• 7:34
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, just one quick note.
• 7:36
  Ben Whitelaw: I didn't mention that I was gonna talk about this, but one of the episodes towards the end of, w- before I went away, we talked a bit about suicide, and I made an error in terms of how I referred to, suicide, which I wanted to kind of flag.
• 7:49
  Ben Whitelaw: I think it's important for us to be really clear about how we use words on the podcast and, I recognized it straight away that I used terminology that was outdated in terms of how we refer to suicide.
• 8:00
  Ben Whitelaw: So I just wanted to kind of flag that.
• 8:02
  Ben Whitelaw: you know, it's important to, to kind of be accountable to that.
• 8:05
  Ben Whitelaw: and I'll be sure to, of be more careful with the language I use next time.
• 8:09
  Ben Whitelaw: So just to put that out there.
• 8:10
  Ben Whitelaw: I got a really nice email from a listener flagging that, and, uh, yeah, we had a great back and forth, and, this stuff matters.
• 8:17
  Ben Whitelaw: So just wanted to put that out there.
• 8:19
  Ben Whitelaw: and then before we jump in, Mike, yeah, just a big thank you to all our new early Patreon supporters.
• 8:25
  Ben Whitelaw: We've seen an influx of folks who, for some reason, have given us their hard-earned cash without getting anything in return as yet.
• 8:34
  Mike Masnick: Well, that, that changes today.
• 8:35
  Mike Masnick: the, the podcast is now on the n- in the new format where Patreon supporters will get the full episode, with an additional story.
• 8:43
  Mike Masnick: this week will be about the new funding for the Meta Oversight Board and sort of our take on that.
• 8:49
  Mike Masnick: so if you do wanna hear that and you haven't subscribed yet, please go to patreon.com/ctrlaltspeech.
• 8:57
  Mike Masnick: You'll see there's two different support levels, in which you can support us and get access to a special RSS feed just for you.
• 9:04
  Mike Masnick: If you have supported us, please go and if you go to the membership tab, I believe, there's a way to get the RSS feed.
• 9:12
  Mike Masnick: We'll also have a post explaining how to do it for you, and if anyone has any trouble, get in touch.
• 9:17
  Mike Masnick: We'll help make sure that you get your full episode.
• 9:21
  Mike Masnick: Um, if you have not decided to support us yet, you should.
• 9:27
  Ben Whitelaw: Now's the time
• 9:28
  Mike Masnick: now is the time.
• 9:29
  Mike Masnick: There are two different supporter levels.
• 9:30
  Mike Masnick: we had over the last, you know, month since we announced it, we had made it clear that we have, the basic supporter level, and then the founder higher tier supporter level, which will also give you the ability to weigh in each week on stories you would like us to cover.
• 9:46
  Mike Masnick: and we had said that that founder level was for a limited time and would be switching to a higher priced version.
• 9:54
  Mike Masnick: So if you wanna be a founder, we had originally said that that would end today.
• 9:59
  Mike Masnick: In discussions, we've decided to be nice, and leave that open so that, you know, someone could hear this first episode in this new format and decide if they wanna be a founding member or not.
• 10:11
  Mike Masnick: It will go through the end of next week.
• 10:13
  Mike Masnick: So you have effectively one more week or so to get in at the founder pricing, and lock that in after the price on that goes up.
• 10:24
  Mike Masnick: But we've been really excited.
• 10:25
  Mike Masnick: Lots of great people have signed up already, and we're excited to try out this new format and see how it works.
• 10:31
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 10:31
  Ben Whitelaw: definitely recommend that.
• 10:32
  Ben Whitelaw: The kind of money you save as a founding member, will get you a bunch of coffees or get you a, a bunch of tokens on whatever AI system you choose, and might even, you know...
• 10:42
  Ben Whitelaw: Or you can put it to, as some of the stories in today's episode attest, campaigning against AI as, as as it's becoming an increasingly divisive issue on the internet.
• 10:52
  Ben Whitelaw: But yeah, great opportunity to kind of get, the founding membership.
• 10:55
  Ben Whitelaw: But, an insider membership will still be available, in the future.
• 10:59
  Ben Whitelaw: big thanks to everyone who's already got in touch and, and supported the podcast.
• 11:02
  Ben Whitelaw: It really means a lot.
• 11:03
  Ben Whitelaw: So yeah, let's, deliver on that promise, Mike.
• 11:04
  Ben Whitelaw: Let's get stuck into today's stories.
• 11:07
  Ben Whitelaw: And we couldn't really turn down the opportunity to talk about the Pope talking about issues that we care about.
• 11:14
  Ben Whitelaw: Do, do you think Pope Leo is a Ctrl Alt Speech listener?
• 11:18
  Mike Masnick: I, I would guess not, but he keeps surprising people.
• 11:22
  Mike Masnick: So, uh, you, you never know.
• 11:24
  Mike Masnick: I mean, there was the story a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you caught this while you were away, but I, I think it happened while you were away, about him calling his bank.
• 11:32
  Mike Masnick: He has a, a bank on the South Side of Chicago because he likes to pay for stuff himself, and he tried to change the, the name on the bank account when he became the pope.
• 11:41
  Mike Masnick: And, the person on the phone said,"Well, you have to come in and do that in person." And he said,"I can't do that," uh, for a variety of reasons.
• 11:48
  Mike Masnick: And they were like,"Well, I'm sorry, that's the policy." And he said,"Would it help if I told you I was Pope Leo?" And and the woman hung up on him.
• 11:59
  Mike Masnick: Which is, is probably the right thing to do.
• 12:01
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 12:02
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:03
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, I'm not even sure I, I entirely approve of him trying to jump the line and, and I mean, I, I get it.
• 12:10
  Ben Whitelaw: I do get it.
• 12:11
  Ben Whitelaw: He,
• 12:11
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, the, the sort of like do you know who I am kind of thing is, you know, that's, that's, a little, uh, yeah, yes, yes it is
• 12:21
  Ben Whitelaw: Well, that aside, he has made the headlines this week, as a result of his 42,000-word open letter, his encyclical, really covering all manner of topics related to the kind of future of technology, artificial intelligence, and how we as society deal with, this kind of huge seismic technological change.
• 12:42
  Ben Whitelaw: we're gonna dive into kind of various parts of it, Mike,'cause I think, there's lots of different interesting elements.
• 12:46
  Ben Whitelaw: But I mean, the fact that, Pope Leo in his first kind of, encyclical calls out content moderators, talks about data labelers, mentions AI regulation, in all of its forms.
• 12:56
  Ben Whitelaw: Is that kind of surprising or, to you, or do you think it's the topic of, of the moment and had to be addressed?
• 13:03
  Mike Masnick: I do think it is obviously a really big topic, and I think he even sort of signaled a little bit that he was thinking about these issues when he chose his name as Pope Leo as sort of a reference to the, the previous Pope Leo who, was pope during the, beginning of the Industrial Revolution and, commented a lot on sort of the nature of the Industrial Revolution.
• 13:21
  Mike Masnick: So I think there were some warnings on that.
• 13:24
  Mike Masnick: There's also been some commentary about AI in the technology world.
• 13:29
  Mike Masnick: and so I, I don't think it was hugely surprising that this was coming.
• 13:34
  Mike Masnick: but it still obviously, drew an awful lot of attention.
• 13:39
  Mike Masnick: and I was sort of wondering, how much impact it would have.
• 13:42
  Mike Masnick: And I'm sort of interested in the fact that how much people are actually discussing it seriously, right?
• 13:48
  Mike Masnick: I, I think there's a world in which he says something that feels out of touch and, not relevant to the moment that would get dismissed.
• 13:56
  Mike Masnick: you know, obviously not by everyone, but, What's interesting to me is how, how seriously a lot of people seem to be taking it
• 14:02
  Ben Whitelaw: Right.
• 14:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Before we jump into the kind of impact and, and the reaction, do you wanna just kind of summarize as best as you can, 42,000 words, um, what, what you think he said for people who, who may have missed it?
• 14:14
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 14:14
  Mike Masnick: I mean, it's actually a little bit difficult to do that.
• 14:17
  Mike Masnick: One, because it's 42,000 words, right?
• 14:19
  Mike Masnick: And so there's a lot in there.
• 14:20
  Mike Masnick: and, second, because in, in sort of the nature of, pope speak, it's not that direct in certain ways and in fact, in such a way that different people can pull out different pieces of it and sort of talk about, you know, oh, this speaks to me, and ignore the parts that doesn't when you have something that long.
• 14:38
  Mike Masnick: but you know, the things that people are talking about is that it talks about the importance of humanity as opposed to sort of technologically driven intelligence and sort of distinguishing between the two and sort of pushing back on the idea of, AI replacing humanity in some way, or the technology stepping up and replacing And, you know, one of the parts that I thought was particularly interesting was that really discusses questions of morality and technology, which, you know, not surprising.
• 15:14
  Mike Masnick: This is the pope.
• 15:15
  Mike Masnick: You sort of expect him to talk about morality in some sense or another.
• 15:19
  Mike Masnick: but sort of weighing in on, what I think is kind of an ongoing debate, which certainly predates the AI part of it, about the morality of technology itself.
• 15:28
  Mike Masnick: And, you know, there's this ongoing argument, and I've been a part of some of these debates about whether or not technology is good or bad or neutral in some form, or is it the users who are good or bad in, in some form.
• 15:42
  Mike Masnick: And, the part that, has stood out to a lot of is what the pope says is that it's not neutral, in part because of the people behind it who are making design choices, and those design choices flow through.
• 15:57
  Mike Masnick: And those choices, the decisions about what is promoted, what is enabled, how it works, how it's structured, those have a moral valence that, come from the people who are making those decisions, and therefore the sort of, to some extent, the morality of those people and the choices that they're making flow through to the technology itself.
• 16:19
  Mike Masnick: And you can't consider the technology itself to be purely neutral because it is being designed by companies that have power over it.
• 16:28
  Mike Masnick: And so it really then turns into a discussion of power and morality, which is fascinating and important to think about.
• 16:36
  Mike Masnick: I mean, a lot of what we discuss on this podcast is the nature of platform power and how that works.
• 16:44
  Mike Masnick: And, you know, I'm not a moral theologian in any sense, right?
• 16:50
  Ben Whitelaw: thought you were gonna say I'm not a moral guy.
• 16:52
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I am, I am inherently immoral, Ben.
• 16:58
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah
• 16:58
  Mike Masnick: but, you know, it's really interesting to think about w-where those things play together.
• 17:04
  Mike Masnick: I, I actually, I've been working on a longer piece which, which should be coming out soon in a separate publication, I'm not gonna pre-announce it now, that talks about decentralization, which is something that I'm obviously very, very focused on.
• 17:16
  Mike Masnick: And it was funny to me because I kind of made a similar point in this particular piece on the question of neutrality of technology and saying that, it's not that the technology is neutral, and it's not that the technology is good or the technology is bad, but the structure of it does matter.
• 17:35
  Mike Masnick: And the inherent choices that are made by the people who are putting together the technology matters.
• 17:40
  Mike Masnick: And part of what matters is where is the power in the technology?
• 17:45
  Mike Masnick: Because if there is a sort of centralized point of control, then it becomes, A-and, and Pope Leo does sort of refer to Tolkien in, in, in the piece, like it becomes the one ring of power that everybody reaches for, whether it is the tech companies trying to gain more power for profit, or whether it is governments trying to gain more power for control over the populace, or whatever it might be, that element of it becomes very, very important, and understanding the structure is important.
• 18:16
  Mike Masnick: So, I, I actually thought that part of the argument that he's making is that we need to think through these issues is really important and extraordinarily relevant.
• 18:25
  Ben Whitelaw: do you think people believe that technology is neutral still?
• 18:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Because I read that section...
• 18:30
  Ben Whitelaw: You think there is?
• 18:31
  Ben Whitelaw: Because I, I read that section, I thought, you know, much like, the work you've been doing and the essay that you've written, I f- I feel like that argument has been around for a long time.
• 18:39
  Ben Whitelaw: You know, we're three decades plus into the internet.
• 18:42
  Ben Whitelaw: I feel like particularly over the last 15 years plus as, large platforms have emerged, that idea that these platforms are just, are neutral, that they are pipes that carry information, that don't have kind of rules or, or policies or guidelines that shape what's on them, has kind of been...
• 18:58
  Ben Whitelaw: I thought that argument had been won, really.
• 18:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Do you, do you think that this is a restating of that view or, or is he saying it to people who might not be as in the weeds as, as us?
• 19:06
  Mike Masnick: I think that, that view still is very popular, especially in Silicon Valley, and especially among CEOs and, developers that the technology itself is neutral and the uses have, any sort of moral valence.
• 19:19
  Mike Masnick: and so I, do think that is, it is important, and I think that, obviously there are lots of people who recognize that it's not true.
• 19:28
  Mike Masnick: but I, I actually think that the way that the Pope laid it out was very thoughtful and, I don't know if it's convincing or not.
• 19:35
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I was sort of predisposed to, to agree with it.
• 19:37
  Mike Masnick: but I do think he's sort of laying out an argument which is nuanced, right?
• 19:41
  Mike Masnick: I mean, the worry with these kinds of things, and where I was sort of nervous about what he was gonna say about it, was it's very easy to go, you know, sort of a very extreme, binary position.
• 19:53
  Mike Masnick: This is good, this is bad,
• 19:55
  Ben Whitelaw: Ja
• 19:58
  Mike Masnick: out this sort of more nuanced path where it's saying there are humans and humanity and they're making choices.
• 20:05
  Mike Masnick: But the underlying choices made by the powerful players in this space then impact the rest of those choices, and we should be thinking through the implications of that.
• 20:15
  Mike Masnick: And I think that is something that many people in Silicon Valley would prefer to ignore.
• 20:20
  Mike Masnick: and to that extent, I think there's tremendous value in laying it out this way and saying,"Yes," right?
• 20:25
  Mike Masnick: Like, the technology can be used for good and bad things, but that doesn't make it neutral.
• 20:30
  Mike Masnick: It means that the choices that the people who are building the technology make really, really do matter.
• 20:35
  Mike Masnick: And that, fits into some of the discussions in the AI space, specifically around alignment, which is sort of the big term, that is important.
• 20:43
  Mike Masnick: but laying out more clearly this sort of, view from the outside that plays into the discussion on alignment, I actually think is really important in getting the people who are building these technologies to think through the implications of what they're doing.
• 20:55
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I think, like you say, it would've been easy to call for a pause on AI development or AI innovation, And, and my reading of it, and I, and I agree that some people may take a different reading of, of the passages and the way that it's, laid out.
• 21:09
  Ben Whitelaw: But I-- my sense is that it's kind of, it's calling for a slowing down of AI development to allow society to adapt, to catch up, and for us to kind of develop the ethics and the kind of oversight and the governance that I think a, a lot of people in this space think is needed.
• 21:25
  Ben Whitelaw: so that's a kind of difference from even just a couple years ago when a lot of AI experts, including Elon Musk, including, big names at some of the big platforms were saying, uh, we need to stop completely what we're doing and wait for everyone to kind of catch up.
• 21:40
  Ben Whitelaw: I think that's, that's clearly not gonna be possible now.
• 21:42
  Ben Whitelaw: But there is,
• 21:43
  Mike Masnick: I mean, that was never possible.
• 21:45
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 21:45
  Mike Masnick: that was always sort of silly marketing, right?
• 21:48
  Ben Whitelaw: Yes.
• 21:48
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, I, I-- To be honest, I, it came up in the conference in London, the Trust and Safety Summit.
• 21:53
  Ben Whitelaw: I do think we have somewhat slept walked into And again, this is maybe where the boosterism argument comes in.
• 21:59
  Ben Whitelaw: We've kind of slept walked into the idea that it's good for everything
• 22:02
  Mike Masnick: う
• 22:02
  Ben Whitelaw: rather than being good for some things.
• 22:04
  Ben Whitelaw: and I think that what I liked about encyclical was that it was a kind of case for a bit more critical thinking about where it fits, which I think is good.
• 22:11
  Ben Whitelaw: I also really like the part about hidden workers.
• 22:14
  Ben Whitelaw: You know, he talked about the essential yet unseen activities that go into building, frontier models and large language models.
• 22:22
  Ben Whitelaw: you know, the fact that data labelers and model trainers and content moderators are often from the Global South and are often women.
• 22:29
  Ben Whitelaw: And, you know, we talked a lot about this as a theme, Mike, you From everything from the big Sama case against Meta, the Kenyan moderators.
• 22:37
  Ben Whitelaw: We've had various guest hosts talking about this.
• 22:39
  Ben Whitelaw: And I, I was really appreciative of that detail and, and that specificity really, which, I think makes Pope Leo a very good potential guest host of Controllable Speech.
• 22:49
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, you work on that.
• 22:52
  Ben Whitelaw: You must kn- you must know somebody that knows Pope Leo.
• 22:54
  Ben Whitelaw: I don't...
• 22:55
  Ben Whitelaw: You're very
• 22:55
  Mike Masnick: I do not
• 22:57
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, serious- seriously, though, like do, do...
• 23:00
  Ben Whitelaw: On that part, do you think we have kind of minimized the role of, of humans in the creation of this technology?
• 23:04
  Ben Whitelaw: is that a part that do you think we need to keep coming back to on this podcast and in, in the coverage of AI?
• 23:11
  Mike Masnick: I do think that this is sort of a big open question that a lot of people are sort of struggling with, which is, you know, one of the, challenging things about the technology is that it, challenges some questions of what does it mean to be human?
• 23:23
  Mike Masnick: what is the uniqueness of, humanity?
• 23:26
  Mike Masnick: And, you know, there are elements that pre the LLM revolution, people would've said, there are certain things that only humans can do that we're seeing, some will argue that it's just sort of, a parrot version of humanity, but it, is certainly challenging some of the questions about what is and what is not human.
• 23:45
  Mike Masnick: And yet, I think it's good to have that discussion and sort of think through these elements of, you know, what is the purpose of humanity?
• 23:53
  Mike Masnick: Which is a sort of moral philosophical discussion that some people are trying to have.
• 23:59
  Mike Masnick: And I, and I'll note, you know, it's sort of interesting to see that Anthropic, there was an Anthropic co-founder who was there with the Pope when this was released and had an address and sort of, pointed out sort of an agreement of, how they feel about this, which, is in some ways surprising and in some ways not so surprising if you've seen sort of the way that Anthropic has positioned itself over the years.
• 24:23
  Mike Masnick: but it, it does feel different than previous technologies, and I actually think that difference is kind of important.
• 24:30
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I was, struck by a little nugget in the Politico piece about the encyclical that we'll include in the show notes about how actually two of Pope Leo's kind of inner cadre, I guess, of, priests, two experts on AI, have actually been involved in the creation of the, Claude Constitution, which we talked about.
• 24:50
  Ben Whitelaw: so, uh, we won't have a lot of time to go into that, but there's, there's a really interesting kind of probably separate conversation to be had about the links and the relationships between large platforms and tech companies and the papacy,'cause I, to be honest, I thought that that wouldn't be as, these, these institutions wouldn't be so intertwined as they are.
• 25:08
  Mike Masnick: yeah, I mean, the other, the other thing that was interesting also, I think in the political piece, was the fact that, like, Silicon Valley was effectively lobbying the pope for how this encyclical would come out, which is just all sorts of strange, like when you, when you think about it.
• 25:25
  Mike Masnick: But clearly it's something that, the Vatican has been thinking about.
• 25:28
  Mike Masnick: And I had mentioned to you right before we started recording, that, back in, I think it was in March, one of the pope's AI advisors had come out with a piece talking about, explicitly Peter Thiel and, Palantir and the PayPal mafia and this idea of like transhumanism and just the, push forward at all costs kind of mentality and explaining why that was so problematic.
• 25:55
  Mike Masnick: and to some extent, I sort of see some of that as a preview for where, where the pope was going with, this particular encyclical.
• 26:03
  Mike Masnick: It was very interesting to see that, intersection between the sort of tech world and, I guess the Catholic world and, and how they view things, where in the past I think, the idea that the two would weigh in on each other would seem strange, but suddenly seems to make some amount of sense, which is in some ways surprising, but, very interesting nonetheless.
• 26:25
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 26:26
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, there is almost no one that some large platforms won't lobby, it seems, apart from us.
• 26:32
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Mike Masnick: Yes.
• 26:33
  Mike Masnick: Yeah
• 26:34
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, let's get to the impact kind of piece then,'cause I think there's a question about what impact will this have.
• 26:38
  Ben Whitelaw: There are 1.4-ish billion Catholics around the world.
• 26:42
  Ben Whitelaw: you could argue that this is a big maybe moment for them.
• 26:45
  Ben Whitelaw: This is a very well-read document in, in large corners of the world that follow the Pope's teachings.
• 26:51
  Ben Whitelaw: I was particularly interested in some of the coverage around JD Vance's reaction to the encyclical.
• 26:57
  Ben Whitelaw: He is a, converted, Catholic, so, you know, and also Marco Rubio is apparently a Catholic as well.
• 27:03
  Ben Whitelaw: to what extent do you think this might change or sway particularly kind both the public's and potential political figures' views on, on AI and where, the direction that we're heading?
• 27:15
  Mike Masnick: I, I don't think it will.
• 27:17
  Mike Masnick: I
• 27:17
  Ben Whitelaw: I'd I'd kind of worried you might say that
• 27:20
  Mike Masnick: to make it really direct and, and like, you know, J- J.D.
• 27:23
  Mike Masnick: Vance, It was interesting'cause he sort of said,"Oh, I skimmed it and I found it profound," and then used it to sort of justify his existing positions.
• 27:32
  Mike Masnick: Like, you know, rather than actually talking about what it talks about, he tries to turn it into talking about technology and warfare and he says, we can use this to update the just war doctrine, which has been the argument that the Trump administration has been making to justify the attack on Iran and where the Pope had, effectively criticized the, attack on Iran, and the various, people in the Trump administration had pushed back and we had this Donald Trump versus the Pope, uh, back and forth, which is crazy for a bunch of reasons.
• 28:07
  Mike Masnick: and so he, he's sort of trying to use it to his advantage.
• 28:10
  Mike Masnick: And as I said, like, you know, when you have 42,000 words, people can pick and choose different pieces and talk about how it supports their viewpoint.
• 28:16
  Mike Masnick: I mean, uh, that's what I just did
• 28:18
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 28:18
  Mike Masnick: in, in talking about it as well.
• 28:20
  Mike Masnick: so I don't think it's gonna change anyone's minds in a way that will have that major impact, but I do think that maybe it will get some people on the margins to think through the consequences of what they're working on a little bit more.
• 28:33
  Mike Masnick: Not the people who are sort of dug in, but people actually making some of the decisions.
• 28:38
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 28:38
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 28:39
  Ben Whitelaw: well, w- we are running things a bit differently this week, as listeners know.
• 28:43
  Ben Whitelaw: our other big story this week is gonna be about the oversight board, which we'll come onto.
• 28:47
  Ben Whitelaw: So we're gonna go into what I'm newly dubbing, Mike, the eye-catching stories section, cause I think quick stories was, We're gonna get referred to the Advertising Standards Agency since they were never quick.
• 29:00
  Ben Whitelaw: But
• 29:00
  Mike Masnick: Look, ti- time is, depends on what, on, on what scale you're measuring them.
• 29:05
  Ben Whitelaw: That's such an appropriate Mike Masnick view.
• 29:08
  Ben Whitelaw: I love that.
• 29:08
  Ben Whitelaw: So, we have a couple of stories that we both found eye-catching and notable.
• 29:12
  Ben Whitelaw: So let's go into, to get those and then, and then we'll dig into the oversight board.
• 29:17
  Ben Whitelaw: So the story I wanna bring to listeners is about, comments made by the Spotify CEO, who has defended kind of in quite strong terms, the expansion of, AI-generated music on the platform.
• 29:31
  Ben Whitelaw: He has done this on the back of a deal that Spotify have done with Universal Music that allows paid subscribers, and that is important, of Spotify to remix music by participating artists.
• 29:44
  Ben Whitelaw: And his rationale, which I think is interesting, is that a kind of controlled version of AI-generated music is better than, quote, the, illegal version of it, the one, the kind of AI slop-created aspect.
• 29:59
  Ben Whitelaw: And he talks about it being, legal and controlled, which are if you think about it, two words that basically sum up how the trust and safety industry has worked for decades.
• 30:09
  Ben Whitelaw: So there's, clearly a kind of product, justification here for allowing users to use generated music and to create it.
• 30:15
  Ben Whitelaw: What I think is interesting is that it, it's a little bit of a change.
• 30:18
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm quite surprised because j- just a matter of months ago, seven or eight months ago, last year, Spotify came out and said that they were developing kind of stronger AI protections for artists and, they were gonna enable artists to kind go after people who were using their IP, their music, their voice to create AI-generated music.
• 30:39
  Ben Whitelaw: And it was kind of a big announcement just in September or October last year.
• 30:43
  Ben Whitelaw: And this is, is I think a bit of a change of tack.
• 30:47
  Ben Whitelaw: It's, it's, it's AI-generated music for the purpose of generating profits for the platform.
• 30:52
  Ben Whitelaw: It's kind of like it's an exception to the rule they created last year, is my view.
• 30:56
  Ben Whitelaw: And again, I, I've talked a bit about the, how I'm seeing the difference between seas versus reservoirs, platforms who think about, AI as a, content creation tool versus those who are very anti it.
• 31:07
  Ben Whitelaw: And I know you've got experience of this, from your tech dirt community, Mike.
• 31:10
  Ben Whitelaw: But I'd kind of thought that Spotify was gonna be in the, the anti-AI-generated music world, and it seems, seems to be making an exception here.
• 31:19
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I, I thought this was interesting.
• 31:21
  Mike Masnick: It is sort of a more nuanced approach.
• 31:23
  Mike Masnick: I mean, uh, I think the important part is that this is with artists who specifically opt in to allowing their works to be used in this way, which is a really important distinction, from a lot of other services and the way that, that other things have worked.
• 31:38
  Mike Masnick: and, you know, it sort of takes me back to when the artists are in control and, are doing this approvingly, like that can be really powerful.
• 31:46
  Mike Masnick: And I think back to the example from a few years ago of Grimes, the singer who is also Elon Musk's ex, but that's a whole other story, uh, where she explicitly licensed an AI version of her voice to anyone who wanted to make music with her voice with a agreement that if you made any money from any songs that you created, that 50% of the profits went back to her.
• 32:10
  Mike Masnick: And I thought that was actually a really creative use of AI, and I, I sort of see this as the same thing.
• 32:15
  Mike Masnick: Whereas like for artists who want to allow people to experiment and remix and, create different versions of songs or covers of songs, that they can do so in a permissioned way I actually think is, really interesting.
• 32:27
  Mike Masnick: The other element that I thought was, very interesting was, one of the comments that was made by the CEO was that they wanted to avoid the kind of AI-driven experiences that make you feel good in the moment but ultimately leave users feeling that they had wasted their time.
• 32:44
  Mike Masnick: And this struck me because, like, the Resident Computing Manifesto that we put out last year, uses almost that exact language of the real thing that we're concerned about is how much, people and technology companies were focused on building these experiences that sucked you in, but afterwards when you had time to reflect, did you feel good about the time that you spent on that service, or did you feel like,"Oh man, that was..." You know, do you have a hangover or do you feel like,"Oh, that was great.
• 33:13
  Mike Masnick: That was really fulfilling"?
• 33:14
  Mike Masnick: and so it's interesting to see that language creeping in and companies beginning to think a little bit more thoughtfully rather than, like, just shove AI into everything.
• 33:24
  Mike Masnick: Rather it's like, is there a thoughtful way in which we can add this in where everybody's approving of the way it is?
• 33:31
  Mike Masnick: It's not, we're going to force this on you, but, i- in a way that, that actually feels more relevant and, something that people enjoy rather than just sort of, you know, what, what is generally referred to as AI slop.
• 33:43
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 33:43
  Ben Whitelaw: And eagle-eared listeners might have heard just in the background my son, who is being put to bed, having quite strong views about both bedtime and probably Spotify's use of AI-generated music.
• 33:57
  Ben Whitelaw: So if that, if, if you caught that, that's what that was.
• 33:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, yeah, I think, this, Spotify is a platform that I'm, constantly drawn to as, stories come out about the mic.
• 34:05
  Ben Whitelaw: they've had a rough time at parts over the years when it comes to trust and safety and, and this, I think it will be another interesting turn.
• 34:11
  Ben Whitelaw: let's go to the kind of other eye-catching story that you found this week, um, before we move on to our, our second big story.
• 34:17
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 34:17
  Mike Masnick: So this is about OpenAI has announced that they're getting ready for, uh, what they call cyber misinformation defenses related to the upcoming midterm elections in the US, and I imagine elections elsewhere around the world as well.
• 34:33
  Mike Masnick: and they're putting in place a few different programs, one of which is that they're offering specific cybersecurity AI products to registered voting system manufacturers.
• 34:46
  Mike Masnick: So if you're an official maker of voting systems, they're allowing them to use their advanced tools for cybersecurity to, you know, make sure that the systems are safe.
• 34:56
  Mike Masnick: But then they're also working with the various, secretaries of state who run the different state elections, to make sure that they understand the latest capabilities and that they can use the tools in a wise way.
• 35:09
  Mike Masnick: But then also, perhaps most interesting, is partnering with the Associated Press so that if anyone is asking ChatGPT for information about the elections, that they're getting information directly from the AP as opposed to just the AI sort of trying to figure out who to pay attention to.
• 35:28
  Mike Masnick: And this is interesting in a, in a number of ways, in part because it's sort of like this recognition like, well, we should narrow in, especially at a time when you have foreign governments, Russia in particular, there have been many stories about it, figuring out how to poison AI systems so that if you search on certain things, it'll give you back, you know, misleading results.
• 35:48
  Mike Masnick: But the thing that stood out to me, honestly, is a tech company, a large tech company, in 2026 publicly talking about their misinformation defenses,
• 35:58
  Ben Whitelaw: Wild
• 35:58
  Mike Masnick: uh, you know, we sort of saw in 2024 and 2025, the big tech companies just completely go silent on anything related to anything that says mis or disinformation, sort of recognizing that they were getting attacked for it.
• 36:13
  Mike Masnick: And, you know, there's an entire segment of the population who has come to believe that any discussion or programs around mis or disinformation were purely censorship programs.
• 36:23
  Mike Masnick: And we still hear that today, and, you know, I mean, this was a big theme of last year's Trust Con, where it was like everybody sort of-- a lot of people are kind of hiding and, being quiet because if you raise your head up and talk about your efforts on mis and disinformation, there is someone in the government who is going to attack you as wanting to censor people.
• 36:45
  Mike Masnick: And so to have OpenAI come out and just be like,"This is our election misinformation program," uh, is-- strikes me as really interesting.
• 36:52
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 36:53
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, there's, you know, five people in the EU who've had their visas canceled and their, US stays revoked as a result of their work in the misinformation and disinformation space, right?
• 37:04
  Ben Whitelaw: So, I was very surprised to see this too.
• 37:07
  Ben Whitelaw: It doesn't take a lot-- It won't take a lot for a kind of Republican or MAGA-style influencer to turn this announcement into part of the industrial censorship complex, trope that we hear come out time and time again.
• 37:20
  Ben Whitelaw: So, yeah, I think it's a bit of a, Could be a red rag to a bull to those guys for OpenAI.
• 37:24
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see sort of in the lead up to the election then post-election, depending on what happens in the midterms, whether or not there's any pushback on OpenAI for this.
• 37:33
  Mike Masnick: I, I'm hopeful that it's a sign that maybe we're getting past the nonsense from the last few years and that people realize that misinformation is a real issue, and that includes in the AI space and OpenAI being willing to come out and use the term and talk about this directly is actually a sign of hopefully the tide turning on that, on that point.
• 37:53
  Mike Masnick: But we'll see.
• 37:54
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 37:55
  Ben Whitelaw: we'll be there to chart it each and every week.
• 37:58
  Ben Whitelaw: so if you are listening to the free edition of the podcast, we're gonna leave it there for this week.
• 38:02
  Ben Whitelaw: In the extended version, also known as Ctrl Alt Speech Plus, if, if you'd like a, if you'd like a kind of brand term.
• 38:09
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, Mike and I are, are gonna go deeper on a story that has literally just kind of come out in the last few hours.
• 38:13
  Ben Whitelaw: Big story by Casey Newton, a platformer on the oversight board receiving additional funding.
• 38:19
  Ben Whitelaw: We've got lots to say on the matter.
• 38:20
  Ben Whitelaw: We've covered the topic extensively.
• 38:22
  Ben Whitelaw: so yeah, looking forward to talking about that
• 38:26
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• 38:29
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• 38:37
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• 38:40
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• 38:47
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