Latest / What the Flux / Myer’s world of pain | OpenAI's rogue agent hacks Medicare | Qantas and Virgin Australia have a new competitor

Transcript

Myer’s world of pain | OpenAI's rogue agent hacks Medicare | Qantas and Virgin Australia have a new competitor · What the Flux

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you. This is The Flux. I'm Brett. And I'm Justin.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And it's Friday the 25th of September.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: 50% of young Australian adults aged 18 to 29 are
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: now living at home with their parents, which is up
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: from 39% in 2000. Wow. That's according to the latest
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: HILDA survey. Chuck, on top of that, Australians are more
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: stressed about housing and money.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Yep. And half of workers feel over-educated for their job.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Any good news today? I'll tell you the good news,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Flux Fam. Today, we are giving away 50 bucks to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the first person who answers three business or finance questions
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: correctly in the Flux app. It's our weekly game, Quick Sticks.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: If you want to win $ 50 this Friday, make sure
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to download the Flux app, turn on your notifications, and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: be ready to win. Three massive stories today, Jossie boy.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. For our first, Maya is hoping Santa
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: can pull Maya's sleigh out of the red after the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: company made a near $ 300 million loss. But the share
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: price still jumped 10% momentarily, so tell me more, B-Man.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: So Maya started back in 1900 in Bendigo before growing
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: into one of Australia's biggest department stores.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: For generations, it was a place for everything from perfume
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to pajamas to panic buying birthday and Christmas presents.
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  Speaker 2: But Jazzy Boy Maya has been on the decline ever
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: since its IPO in 2009.
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  Speaker 1: And B-Man, they just posted a $ 276 million loss over
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the last financial year.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And it's not getting any better. In the first eight
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: weeks of the new financial year, total sales dropped 2.7%.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And the culprit?
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: The economic quadrella, higher fuel prices, slower wage growth, and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: weaker property prices, and, and, and three RBA rate hikes
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: this year.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And potentially another soon. But B-Man, despite this, its shares
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: actually jumped nearly 10% at one point shortly after the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: financial update. You see, Jazzy Boy, while Maya isn't shooting
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the lights out, it's all relative. Yeah, it's still doing
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: better than David Jones and the fashion retailer Q, which
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: collapsed last week. And there was another very important detail
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: buried in Maya's results. Yeah, a big chunk of their
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  Speaker 1: loss was actually an after-tax impairment of nearly $ 280 million.
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  Speaker 1: So what's the key learning here? A company can post
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  Speaker 1: a $ 276 million loss without actually losing $ 276 million in cash.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: That's because of an impairment. It's when a company admits
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: something it owns isn't worth what it thought.
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  Speaker 1: So Maya looked at its stores and brands and said, yeah,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: these aren't worth what we paid.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, if you strip out the write-downs, then myers
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  Speaker 2: underlying profit was 42 and a half mil.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Which is actually just down under three percent on last
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  Speaker 1: year which isn't terrible given the uh quadrilla of headwinds
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: so why bother writing it all down accounting rules my
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: friend you do not mess with the accounting rules.
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  Speaker 2: Yep companies have to regularly test whether their assets are
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: still worth what's on the books but bayman investors also
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  Speaker 2: shouldn't ignore an impairment because if the management team is
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: marking down an asset it can be a sign that
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  Speaker 2: they expect it to generate less money in the future
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: For our second story, an OpenAI agent has hacked into
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  Speaker 2: a Medicare data portal and the government did not find
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: out about this for about three months.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Not happy, Albo. Tell me more.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: So OpenAI is the company behind ChatJBT, the chatbot and
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: agent used by hundreds of millions of people weekly.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And one of the world's most valuable private companies and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: potentially soon public company. But Jazzy Boy, as AI gets
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: smarter and smarter, there's been one big question hanging over
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the industry. Can humans actually keep up with the robots? Yeah.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: There's been concern that OpenAI and its rivals are growing
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: at a speed that is too fast for regulation.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And growing too fast to even comprehend the potential risks.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: And B-Man, the latest news certainly doesn't help the AI
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: PR campaign. Anthony Albanese has revealed that one of ChatGPT's
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: rogue AI agents broke into the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: portal back in June this year.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: OpenAI says it was researching public medicine spending as part
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: of an internal test, and it was originally blocked from
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Medicare from accessing the information. Alright, and then what happened?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: And then the ChatGPT agent tried, and tried, and tried again,
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  Speaker 1: until it found a way to infiltrate the Medicare system.
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  Speaker 2: But it wasn't just Medicare. It also hit three other
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  Speaker 2: government systems. Here's the confusing part though, B-Man. OpenAI only
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: noticed this infiltration in August and then notified Services Australia
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: on the 10th of September. Yeah, OpenAI sent the warning
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: to a public inbox that's checked once a day.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Wow. So what is the key learning here?
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  Speaker 2: The most dangerous flaw in any system is the one
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: nobody knows about yet.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And B-Man, in software, these are called zero-day vulnerabilities
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: because developers have exactly zero days to fix it before
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  Speaker 1: attackers can exploit it.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Think of your house, Jazzy Boy. You lock every door
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: and window. A burglar only needs the one that you forgot.
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  Speaker 2: Like the laundry window I've been meaning to fix since 2019.
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  Speaker 2: And Jazzy Boy, finding these vulnerabilities used to take elite
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: hackers weeks.
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  Speaker 1: But now, AI can go hunting for them at scale today. 24-7.
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  Speaker 2: No sleep, no coffee breaks, no stopping at 3pm on
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Friday for work drinks.
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  Speaker 1: And hey man, this ain't the first time we've been
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: warned of AI's threat.
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  Speaker 2: When Anthropic was about to launch Claude Mythos, they found
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  Speaker 2: thousands of high-risk flaws in every major operating system and
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: web browser. They even delayed the launch and gave the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: model to partners like Microsoft, Apple and Google so they
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: could first patch these holes. But Jazzyboy, if Medicare can
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: be exploited by accident, then you can imagine many government websites,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: banks and hospitals might be too.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: For our third and final story, Vietjet has registered its
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: first Aussie plane and now there's rumours that Qantas and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Virgin could soon have a third wheel on the Golden Triangle.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Australia's airline duopoly could be hitting some turbulence.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me more. Okay, so Vietjet launched in 2011 as
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Vietnam's first privately owned airline and has become Vietnam's biggest
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  Speaker 1: budget airline too. We're talking a fleet of more than
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: 100 aircrafts. But hey man, Vietjet might now be preparing
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: for a little domestic Australian adventure.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Australia's aviation regulator, CASA, has registered a Boeing 737 to
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: a company called Cherry Aviation.
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  Speaker 1: Whose director just happens to be Vietjet's vice president. Very subtle.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Nothing to see here, folks. And this Cherry Aviation has
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: secured an airport slot in Sydney from late October this
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: year to April next year. And the rumour is that
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: it might be flying planes across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: by Christmas. Wow. And B-Man, Australia isn't exactly kind to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: third airlines though, is it?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: No, plenty have tried to crack the Qantas Virgin duopoly
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and they've all discovered the runway can be pretty crowded.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Yep. So what is the key learning here? In aviation.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: In aviation, the most valuable real estate isn't necessarily the terminal,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: it's getting the rights to an airport slot.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yep. An airport slot is the permission for a plane
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  Speaker 1: to arrive or leave a gate at a particular time
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: if you don't have a slot you can't have a
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: flight yeah and b-man sydney has a very hard cap
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: they've just got 80 aircraft movements per hour as well
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: as a curfew from 11 p.m to 6 a.m so
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: man why can't a shiny new airline just rock up
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and grab a few slots.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Well because in aviation you kind of need to have
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: been flying last year to get the best flying times this.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Year it's called historical precedence or in less aviation terms
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: it's called dibs you And this makes it pretty tough
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: for a new competitor to squeeze onto the runway.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: So, Jazzy Boy, the fact that Vietjet's Aussie-linked operation has
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: already secured Sydney slots is pretty meaningful.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Watch out, Quanny. Watch out, Virgin. Flux Fam, if you
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: want to kick off the weekend on a high, winning $ 50,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: it could all be yours in the Flux app today.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: All you've got to do is download the app, turn
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: your notifications on, and be the first person to answer
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the three business questions correctly. Make sure to download the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Flux app and check it out. Thanks for listening, and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: we'll see you on Wednesday.