Marketplace Tech

If you’re an Apple fan, you probably didn’t miss the speculation surrounding the upcoming iPhone 16 launch event next week. Many expect the tech giant to reveal more about how its artificial intelligence will be integrated into its new hardware. We’ll be digging into that on this week’s Tech Bytes: Week in Review. Plus, airlines are upgrading their Wi-Fi, so you might be able to take a Zoom meeting on your six-hour flight. But first, Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider has agreed to block Elon Musk’s social media platform in Brazil. X has been banned in the country since last weekend, and now Starlink has agreed to enforce that ban for its roughly quarter-million internet subscribers in the country. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Wall Street Journal senior personal technology columnist Joanna Stern or her take on this week’s tech news.

Warning: This episode mentions suicide. If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). There seems to be growing momentum for efforts to protect kids from online harm. In June, the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a warning label on social media for children, and more recently the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act with bipartisan support. On the show we’ve heard from lobbyists and advocates on different sides of the issue. Today we speak with Kristin Bride, for whom the debate is personal. In 2020, Bride’s 16-year-old son, Carson, died by suicide after being cyberbullied on the social media platform Snapchat. Since then, Bride has become a vocal advocate for social media reform because, she says, even the most vigilant parents can’t always protect their kids.

Depending on whom you ask, a bill passed by California lawmakers last week could either save us from imminent AI doom or strangle innovation in Silicon Valley. The bill, SB 1047, is one of the first significant attempts to regulate artificial intelligence in the U.S. It’s supported by some high-profile voices in tech like Elon Musk. But critics say the regulation could stifle growth in Silicon Valley. On the show today, Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino is taking a closer look at the arguments for and against SB 1047 with Chase DiFeliciantonio, a reporter at The San Francisco Chronicle, who has been following the bill’s journey through the Legislature.

Dark patterns are everywhere on the web. These are design tricks that manipulate users in some way and prompt them to give up information, money or just more of their time. A recent study from the Federal Trade Commission found three-quarters of all subscription apps and websites use at least one dark pattern, and a majority use multiple such tricks. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Yanely Espinal, who covered the topic in this week’s episode of “Financially Inclined.” She said some common dark patterns include advertising that doesn’t look like advertising, online forms that come with check boxes pre-selected and something called confirm shaming.

Generative artificial intelligence can write essays and solve complicated math problems, but can it tell a decent joke? The BBC’s Megan Lawton says comedians who performed at this year’s fringe festival in Scotland are putting AI to the test.

This week: a report from venture capital firm SignalFire seems to show that despite all its problems, San Francisco is still the place to be for tech startups in the artificial intelligence space. Plus, why Meta is scrapping plans for a superpremium mixed-reality headset and aiming for a lite version instead. But first, the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France has sent shock waves through the tech world. Durov is facing a number of criminal charges. French authorities allege he is liable for illicit activities conducted on the encrypted messaging platform, including child sex abuse and drug trafficking, essentially because of a failure to moderate content. The case highlights longstanding tensions in the tech world between public safety and free speech. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino is joined by Natasha Mascarenhas, reporter at The Information, for her take on this week’s tech news.

U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed that Iran was behind the recent cyberattack on former President Donald Trump’s election campaign. Using an approach called spear phishing, hackers sent personalized emails to campaign staff containing malware that allowed them to access private information and then leak it. Déjà vu, right? Javed Ali, a former senior counterterrorism official and a professor of practice at the University of Michigan, says Russia created the blueprint for this kind of attack. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino asked him for his reaction to Iran adopting the strategy.

By now you’ve probably heard that generative artificial intelligence has the potential to supercharge the spread of disinformation in this election year. But with 68 days until Election Day, we haven’t seen the kind of widespread AI misinformation campaigns that experts warned about. Instead, as Will Oremus pointed out in a recent analysis for The Washington Post, we’ve seen a whole lot of silly AI-generated memes. He told Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino that the most recent examples are coming from one particular presidential candidate.

The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, passed in 2022, would be among the most sweeping pieces of legislation to protect kids from online harms — if it hadn’t become tangled up in court. The law has two basic requirements: first, that tech companies analyze and report on whether their products are harmful for children; second, that they minimize how much data they collect from those under 18. Earlier this month a federal appeals court found that first part likely violates the First Amendment, and upheld a lower-court decision blocking that part of the law. But it vacated an injunction on the second component, the part dealing with data privacy. The decision could point a way forward for similar laws, many of which have also run into legal challenges, Aaron Mackey, free speech and transparency litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino.

The social media platform X recently launched a new artificial intelligence feature for premium users: Grok-2, an AI model that can also generate images. And the outputs are a bit less censored than you might see with other similar tools. Experimenters online have been able to generate images of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris brandishing guns, Mickey Mouse smoking a cigarette and some far more disturbing tableaus. Grok claims to avoid images that are pornographic, excessively violent or intended to deceive and added it’s cautious about representing content that might infringe on existing copyright. But the guardrails certainly seem to be on the looser side, in keeping with owner Elon Musk’s hands-off approach to content moderation. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Adi Robertson, senior tech and policy editor at the Verge, about Grok-2 and what she found while she tested the AI’s limits.

On today’s show: Google deals with another legal headache. A federal appeals court revived a class-action lawsuit that had been dismissed concerning privacy violations by its Chrome browser. Plus, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has partnered up with another media brand, Condé Nast. But first, we can’t ignore the biggest happening of the week — the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where the party formally nominated Vice President Kamala Harris for president with the help of big names in entertainment. Rapper Lil Jon revving up the presentation of the Georgia delegation’s votes was just one viral moment that came out of the convention. What didn’t come out of the gathering, though, were clear indications of the Harris campaign’s tech policy platform. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, about what that platform might look like.

New faces are mingling among the party faithful and the swarm of journalists at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. In a bid to reach younger, more online voters, the DNC invited 200 content creators to cover the convention. One of them is Malynda Hale, who’s been sharing her experience with her more than 50,000 followers on Instagram. Creators like her, she said, have their own part to play at the event. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Hale how it’s been going at the convention.

Earlier this year, the U.S. surgeon general called for a warning label minors on social media, and a growing number of states are requiring online age verification for certain sites. Now, many platforms are adding a safeguard that comes with its own set of trade-offs: facial scanning. These systems use artificial intelligence to analyze visual clues, sometimes in conjunction with a government-issued ID, to keep those it deems too young from accessing a site. In the process, they collect all kinds of identifying data, and like any tool, these are susceptible to errors. In this case, errors could potentially bar adults from parts of the internet. Tech reporter Drew Harwell recently wrote about the proliferation of these systems and the risks that come with them for The Washington Post. He told Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino that they’re getting hard to avoid for internet users.

On July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-Ray Telescope was launched into space aboard the shuttle Columbia, the first such mission to be commanded by a woman astronaut. The Chandra telescope differs from the Hubble telescope, which observes visible light. Or, the James Webb telescope, which captures frequencies in the infrared range. Chandra detects high energy X-rays. But NASA budget constraints could leave the mission going dark in coming years. To learn more about the Chandra Observatory, Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino called its program manager Megan Lin.

When Apple introduced its Screen Time report, it promised the feature would empower users to manage their device time and balance the things that are really important. But is it actually doing that? Caroline Mimbs Nyce, a staff writer at The Atlantic, recently wrote about why she thinks Screen Time is the worst feature Apple has ever made. She told Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino that it sometimes feels like Screen Time is doing more guilt-tripping than empowering these days.

It’s Friday which means it’s time for Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review. On today’s show, Instagram is known for pretty pictures but a new report shows it lets a lot of ugly and abusive comments remain on the platform. Plus, Door Dash has dominated the food delivery race. Now it looks like Uber may be catching up. But first, the social media platform X relies on advertisers, so why is it going to war with them? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino discusses all of this week’s biggest tech stories with Anita Ramaswamy, columnist at The Information.

Last month, senators from both sides of the aisle formally introduced what could become the first U.S. federal law regulating deepfakes. It’s called the No Fakes Act — short for the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act. It comes on the heels of controversies like the one involving the OpenAI voice assistant, which may or may not have sounded a little too much like actress Scarlett Johansson. GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee helped draft the bill, saying: “The No Fakes Act is vital for these entertainers. It protects their name, image, likeness, their vocal recordings.” The legislation has been applauded by many in creative industries, said Moiya McTier, senior adviser at the Human Artistry Campaign, a group advocating for stronger guardrails on artificial intelligence.

Generative artificial intelligence has made it possible to mimic someone’s voice and generate a script for that voice in real time. The tech, of course, is already used to scam and defraud people, but what if you just had it make a bunch of calls on your behalf? That’s what journalist Evan Ratliff did for his new podcast, “Shell Game.” He trained AI audio clones, gave them phone numbers and sat back as they took on customer service agents, family members, therapists and even a few scammers. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Ratliff — and briefly with one of his AI agents — about his takeaways from producing the show and whether the clones succeeded in tricking people into thinking they were who they said they were.

Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube, died last week at the age of 56. As a kid, she wanted to be an artist. As an adult, she discovered the “art of technology.”

Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” has shattered records, crashed websites and broken the hearts of fans vying for tickets. The BBC’s Sam Gruet says AI could help fans purchase tickets for a fair price and without the risk of fraud.