Sora 2 Backlash Is Brewing | EP 159

There's a sort of this whole genre of

like what I call bad beginnings which is

like when you start saying something and

you realize like oh this is not going

well for me. It's like things that would

fall into this category include per my

recent conversations with the estate of

Martin Luther King Jr.

>> This is obviously a very sensitive

subject. So they talk about debating

ways to manage this like should we not

talk about robots? Should we talk about

a cobot, which is a, you know,

collaborative robot?

>> And have you had it try any of these

agent mode tasks?

>> I have. And I want to say that I do

think that company's imaginations are so

limited here. Like you would truly think

that the only two things that people do

in a browser according to Silicon Valley

are booking vacations and buying

groceries.

>> Yes,

[Music]

this was crazy. Google's Willow quantum

chip is using a new quantum echo

algorithm that ran computations 13,000

times faster than supercomputers. Kevin,

oh, I see it's performance review season

over there in Google quantum computing.

>> Oh, you know, my Echo chip did a quantum

compute.

>> You know, I need a raise.

>> No matter how many times I learn what

quantum computing is, I do immediately

forget it the next day. And it just like

this is how I am. This is why I'm so why

I love reading mysteries so much is cuz

I forget who did it like the day after I

put the book down. That's what quantum

computing is for me.

>> You know, we have to fill out our

performance reviews soon at the New York

Times. And I think I'm just going to put

in there that I um I solved a quantum

computing problem this year cuz how will

they fact check me

>> now? Why don't they email me help asking

to like help on your performance review?

>> Oh, you want to do a 360 review?

>> I want to do a 360.

>> You've got some feedback.

>> Yeah.

>> I'm Kevin Roose, a tech columnist at the

New York Times. I'm Casey Non from

Platformer and this is hard for this

week. Open AAI's big sloppy mess. Why

the company is backpedaling over Sora.

Then the Times Karen Weiss joins us to

discuss her scoop on Amazon's plans to

reduce its hiring needs by hundreds of

thousands of workers. And finally, AI

browsers are here. Our first impressions

of Chat GPT Atlas. Well, Casey, it's

been another busy week for the Open AI

Research and Deployment Corporation. I

learned that's what they call

themselves.

>> Really?

>> Yeah. They they have these hoodies. I

saw a guy on the train the other day

with a research and deployment company.

It didn't even say OpenAI, but that's

sort of their new tagline.

>> Interesting. Well, I would say based on

the events of the past week, Kevin,

maybe OpenAI should do a little more

research and a little less deployment.

>> Yeah. So, let's talk about it. We're

going to talk about two OpenAI stories

this week. One about their new browser.

We'll talk about a little later. Um, but

first, we got to talk about what's been

happening with Sora. Uh we've talked

about this the last couple weeks on the

show, but this continues to be a total

mess for OpenAI. This app and the

various sort of controversies and

backlashes swirling around it. So Casey,

what is going on with Sora? What is the

latest here?

>> Well, I would say there have been two

big developments over the past week,

Kevin. One, the company has said that it

is going to essentially like crack down

on political deep fakes based on

historical figures after the families of

some deceased political figures started

to complain. And then the company has

also said it's going to try to build

some guard rails around the use of

copyrighted intellectual property after

many people in Hollywood freaked out,

including Breaking Bad star Brian

Cranston.

>> Yes. Yes. They managed to beef with

Brian Cranston and the estate of Martin

Luther King Jr. in one week. And Casey,

I think that qualifies as a bad week at

the office.

>> It's not a great week. It's like, you

know, there's a sort of this whole genre

of like what I call bad beginnings,

which is like when you start saying

something and you realize like, oh, this

is not going well for me. It's like

things that would fall into this

category include, per my recent

conversations with the estate of Martin

Luther King Jr.,

Also in this category, um, regarding the

Nazi tattoo I got while in the Marines

and regarding the amount of lead in my

protein shakes, you know, when you said

any of those things, it's not it's not

been a good week.

>> Not been a good week.

>> So, let's start with Martin Luther King

Jr. and his estate and their beef with

>> Sora. Why is he so significant a figure

in American history? Well, according to

my Sora feed, he's a a sort of

historical civil rights icon who liked

to get up and give speeches about Skiiby

Ohio toilet riz. He also appears to love

to play Fortnite based on the sort of

videos I've seen.

>> I have a dream. I have a dream that one

day I will stand on the hilltop and drop

right into a game of Fortnite.

Lord, that's going to be fun. So, what

we're talking about is this sort of

emerging genre of Sora videos, which I

started seeing pretty soon after

downloading the app, where people would

just take Martin Luther King's iconic

speeches, uh, such as I have a dream,

and make him say other things, things

talking about Gen Z trends, things

talking about video games, um, endorsing

various products. Um, this was funny to

some people, offensive to others. Uh,

you know, who didn't like it was the

estate of Martin Luther King Jr.

>> Yeah. And it it wasn't all, you know,

playing Fortnite and and talking

Skibbity toilet. Some people were also

having MLK make monkey noises and and

putting him in other just like overtly

racist situations. And so, yeah, his

family members complained. The

Washington Post wrote a great story

about families of him and other deceased

historical figures saying, "Hey, like

this this really sucks." And OpenAI's

original position had been, "We believe

in free expression. people should be

able to do what they want. But I don't

know, at some point something changed

and next thing you know, OpenAI is on X

posting a statement saying while there

are strong free speech interests in

depicting historical figures, OpenAI

believes public figures and their

families should ultimately have control

over how their likeness is used, which

was a brand new policy as of the moment

that they posted that. And and this is

somewhat uh confusing to me because part

of the way that Sora works is that in

order to make a cameo of someone to use

their face in a video, they have to sort

of give you permission to do that. So

presumably, you know, Martin Luther King

Jr.'s estate did not go into their Sora

settings and say anyone can make a photo

of me. But they they sort of use some

public figure loophole or how did that

work?

>> That's right. So if you're just an

average person, people cannot go in like

you Kevin, like a very average person. I

can't just go in and make a cameo of you

unless you have changed your settings

that way. But OpenAI basically said it

is open season for historical figures.

And of course there's lots of video out

there of MLK and others and they just

said yeah go crazy if you want. Got it.

So now they are saying actually we've

thought about it and after consulting

with the King estate we are no longer

letting people do this. Yeah.

>> Like what happens if you try to make a

video with Martin Luther King Jr. now?

>> Now it will just you'll just get

blocked. You know it violates the

content policies. But, you know, I just

want to say it was so obvious that

people were going to do this, you know,

and in its ex post, OpenAI suggested

that the reason that it had made this

change was that people were making quote

disrespectful videos of MLK. Like, you

really thought that people were only

going to make respectful videos of

historical figures? Like, let me be

clear. The only reason to use Sora is to

create a video of someone doing

something that they would not ordinarily

be doing, right? It is not a technology

to make uh people give beautiful

speeches about civil rights.

>> I confess I am somewhat uh implicated in

this because I have not made a Martin

Luther King Jr. Sora video, but I did

make a video of Mr. Rogers um saying Gen

Z catchphrases um cuz I thought it was

funny

>> after everything Fred Rogers did for

this country and this is how you repay

him?

>> I felt bad about it if it makes you

makes it any better. I did have a moment

of like, you know, guilt and and sort of

shame after doing it. Um, did I do it

anyway? Yes. Did it get approximately

four likes? Also, yes.

>> But I mean, look, this I'm here's what

I'm telling you. This is what the

technology is for. It is doing exactly

this thing. And so, if you don't have in

your mind a policy for for how you want

to handle that before you launch it, I

think you're doing something

irresponsible.

>> Okay. So, the estate of Martin Luther

King Jr. is mad at OpenAI over Sora. Who

else is mad at Open AI over Sora? Well,

Kevin, that brings us to Brian Cranston,

who presumably was, you know, minding

his own business, uh, down in

Albuquerque making methamphetamines,

when all of a sudden he opens up the

Sora app and finds himself in videos

with Michael Jackson and Ronald

McDonald, which is what we like to call

around here a nightmare blunt rotation.

>> Hey everybody, it's Michael here and I

am so happy today I got somebody really

special to introduce to you. Check it

out. This is my new friend.

>> Hi, I'm Walter. Pleasure to meet all of

you. Michael's been showing me around

and uh it's been a good day.

>> I actually haven't seen them myself

because I don't want to support Ronald

McDonald that way. I think he has a lot

to answer for.

>> Yeah.

>> So, here's why this is a problem. This

was supposed to be an optin regime. If

if celebrities images were going to

appear in Sora, it was supposed to be

that they had to opt in. But as Winston

Cho reported in the Hollywood Reporter

last week, that's actually not what

happened. Days before the release of

Sora, OpenAI went to the big talent

agencies and the studios and said, "Hey,

if you don't want all of your

intellectual property in our app, you

have to opt out." Which companies like

Disney were putting out statements being

like, "That's not actually how copyright

works. Like, you don't have cart blanch

to do whatever you want with our IP

unless we opt out." And so this starts

to get people in Hollywood really mad.

Got it. So I saw the statement from

Brian Cranston um and SAG ARA which is

the union that represents actors um and

a number of other talent agencies

basically saying hey we don't like this

but what what are they saying about how

open AAI has been approaching that

because OpenAI from my understanding did

actually try to sort of go to Hollywood

before this app came out and say hey

just FYI we are going to be releasing

this um but we have like taken steps to

sort of get ahead of some of or the

issues we think you might have with it.

>> That That's right. But in practice, this

just was not true. People were able to

create videos of Pokemon and Star Wars

and Rick and Morty and other

intellectual properties whose owners had

never given their permission. Brian

Cranston had not given permission for

his likeness to be used in the app. And

so you wind up having a lot of what

OpenAI I always love these euphemisms

that these companies use. OpenAI calls

these unwanted generations. I was like

like generation Z. But it turns out that

no, this is about unwanted videos

appearing within the Sora feed. So, you

know, it's very funny to me to come out

afterwards and saying on reflection,

we'd like to strengthen the guardrails

when in fact there were not guard rail.

You know what I mean?

>> Yes. If I drive my car off the side of

the road because there's no guardrail

and the California Department of

Transportation says, "We're going to

strengthen these guardrails." I'm

saying, "Where was the guard rail?"

>> I I'm dead and I'm shouting at you from

hell saying, "Where was the guardrail,

Kevin?"

>> Right. There is a lot of like I don't

know like false negative or like just

people being like figning surprise like

I cannot believe that my unauthorized

generation app is causing problems

>> over unauthorized generations.

>> It's crazy. It's I I am so glad you said

that because this is the thing that has

got me so exercised over the past week.

It is that phony naivee. Is this wow who

could have ever predicted this? Because

that is just an approach that I think if

you apply it to building AI products in

the future is going to take us to some

very bad places.

>> Okay, so OpenAI is dealing with this

backlash. I think there's sort of a

larger backlash brewing over just AI

generated video and I I'm curious what

you make of this

>> that like I think there is starting to

become a consensus position especially

among people who are like not in San

Francisco and do not work in the AI

industry that like all of this is just

like bad and stupid and harmful and that

the sort of juice is not worth the

squeeze as it were. that like the

benefits of AI, whatever they might be

in the future, are not enough to justify

the enormous cost of training these

models. There's something sort of

soulless and uh and depressing about

people using AI to generate fake videos

of Martin Luther King Jr. and Brian

Cranston and Ronald McDonald uh doing

various things. I guess I'm curious

whether you think the Sora backlash is

part of that or whether what we are just

seeing is one manifestation of of a

pre-existing thing where people were

already mad about this stuff. I I mean

we are going to have to get survey data

to develop an empirical answer to that

question. But we know from like a recent

Pew survey that already about half of

Americans say that they are more

concerned than excited about the future

of AI. And my assumption is that the

Sora backlash is going to fuel that.

When I just look at my own interaction

with friends and families, the default

feeling about Sora is not what a fun new

creative tool. It is this is bad and I

hate it. And and by the way, these

aren't even necessarily people who are

like up in arms about what's going on

with MLK and Brian Cranston. This is

just sort of giving them the ick.

>> Yeah. I mean, to me, this just seems

like a continuation of this pattern at

OpenAI that extends back to the launch

of Advanced Voice Mode last year when

you can probably remember Scarlett

Johansson kind of objected to uh

references to the movie. Her OpenAI had

basically approached Scarlett Johansson

and said, "Hey, would you like to be

supportive of or involved with this

launch? Could we sort of explicitly tie

this to your character in the movie

Her?" She said, "No." They went ahead

and did it anyway. And it seems like

that is um something that they have

continued to rather than sort of being

chastised by that and learning from that

experience and saying hey maybe it's

important that we have like the

permission uh of the creators in

Hollywood before we go out and do

something that's potentially disruptive

to them. U maybe we should get their

permission. It seems like they have not

learned that lesson.

>> That's right. And and that's really

where I kind of want to land this. This

is why I think all of this matters is I

think that in building any kind of novel

technology, inevitably companies are

going to make mistakes. They're going to

go too far in some regard. There's going

to be some problem that they didn't

anticipate and it's bad and we should

talk about it. But I think companies can

kind of come back from that. But then

there are other companies that just kind

of start to make the same mistake over

and over again. Right. You bring up the

the Scarlett Johansson issue which I

think partly came out of just a rush to

release this voice mode into the general

public and look at what else we have

seen over the past year. I think there

was a similar rush to update GPT40

with what turned out to be a very

sickopantic update that was embarrassing

to the company. There was a rush to

release chat GPT in ways that sort of

cut users access off to tools that they

had become very dependent on and it

triggered this this huge backlash and

now here they are in this rush to

release this video app in part because

they want to make money the company has

said and lo and behold they either have

not thought through the policy

implications or they've just decided to

build a policy that could only possibly

bring them a huge backlash. So I look at

that Kevin and I fear this company

actually has changed a lot over the past

couple of years right how do you think

it's changed

>> well if you look at them before the

launch of chat GBT and even in the few

months after that this was a company

that was talking a lot about on one hand

wanting to introduce new technologies to

the public to see how u society would

adapt and to do that in like a way that

was too aggressive for some people but I

think was basically working out okay in

the original chat GBT Sam Alman was

going around Washington meeting with

senators saying, "Hey, we're building

something that could be really

dangerous. We want guardrails around

this. We want you to pass regulations

that rein us in." And then you just fast

forward to today and it's this allout

war between a handful of companies that

are trying to build AGI faster than the

other guy. And we are just seeing in

real time not just like guardrails being

removed, we are seeing guardrails not

being built and the company having to

come in afterwards and say, "Oh, hey,

uh, sorry about that. Yeah, we're we're

going to do something. We're we're

hearing your feedback. And the thing

that just shocks me about that is I

actually believe for a time that Sam

Alman had taken the lessons of Facebook

and the social media backlash. He had

seen everything that had happened to

Mark Zuckerberg. He said to himself, I

am not going to make those same mistakes

and now we are just seeing OpenAI do the

full Facebook when it comes to content

policy. Well, and I would say two things

about this strategy of open AIS. One is

it is brash. It is risky. it is likely

to lead to lots of backlash and people

being mad at them. And I think it is

potentially correct. I mean, what we've

seen over the past few years is that um

there are not a lot of real restraints

on companies that want to build and

release technology this way. I think the

the real risk to open AI is that people

just end up losing faith in AI as a

whole. Um, and as we've talked about

recently on this show, like the entire

economy now kind of rests on this belief

that AI is growing more powerful, that

it will soon deliver all of these like

tangible economic and social and

scientific benefits to people, that it

is not just like hoovering up a bunch of

people's data and using it to make slop.

And if that's what sort of the public

image of this stuff becomes because

OpenAI has adopted this product

strategy, I think that will be bad for

the whole AI industry, but probably not

especially bad for Open AI. Yeah. I

mean, I think like that is a a fairly

cynical view, Kevin. Like it's true in a

lot of ways. We are in the LOL matters

era of content moderation. Um, and I am

just reflecting once again on how like

we used to have a world of like business

and politics where people would go to

great lengths to avoid feeling shame.

And at some point in let's say the past

decade, we just decided we're not going

to care about that anymore. And no one

can make us feel ashamed for any reason.

And for the moment, I guess the only

real impact we're seeing here is that,

you know, a few copyright holders and

like families of historical figures are

annoyed by videos that they're seeing

online. But this is the company that

continues to build ever more powerful

technology. And when GPT7 comes out and

is helping noviceses build novel

bioweapons, I don't want there to be an

expost saying that based on recent

pandemics, the company has decided to

build some guard rails.

>> Right. Right. I mean, I've been talking

with a few people sort of in and around

OpenAI about this over the past few

weeks, just kind of taking the

temperature of like how folks over there

are feeling about this. And a couple

things that I've heard that I want to

just run by you for a reaction. One is

like this is a company that uh does not

have the benefits of having hundreds of

billions of dollars a year in search

revenue uh flooding in the door that it

can use to build AI stuff. Like that is

the situation that Google its sort of

next biggest competitor is uh in. They

basically don't have to care about

money. they can spend all of their, you

know, profits on curing cancer and

building quantum computers and

self-driving cars and whatnot, but like

OpenAI kind of doesn't have that luxury.

And so they have to figure out ways to

pay for their enormous ambitions. And

not all of those are going to be sort of

obviously pro-social and beneficial

things, but the ends will justify the

means. Just as you know, Google spent,

you know, many years, they say, uh,

building up this uh, monopoly and doing

all sorts of unsavory things in order to

get the profits that they can then plow

back into the sort of peace dividend of

AI research. I mean, I reject that for

two reasons. One, this company's stated

mission is to build AI that benefits all

humanity. So, it's like if if the

argument is in order to benefit all

humanity, we have to harm some of

humanity. Get a new mission statement,

girl. Like, come on. Um, number two, I

also reject the the premise that they

have some cash crunch. Sam Alman is the

greatest fundraiser in the history of

Silicon Valley. This company has access

to all the capital it needs. So, don't

tell me that you need to release the

infinite slot machine that makes Brian

Cranston cry in order to, you know,

build your machine god.

I don't think Brian Cranston is actually

crying unless that sort of video I saw

was uh was legit. But another thing that

I will hear from people at OpenAI is

about what they call iterative

deployment, which is one of their

favorite catchphrases over there. They

basically believe that instead of

keeping all of this research and all

these capabilities cooped up inside the

lab and then kind of releasing them all

at once every few years, that we should

have kind of a steady drip of new

capabilities from these companies that

sort of help the public update about

what is now possible with AI. And so one

defense of Sora that I've heard from

people over there is they'll say look

this technology exists. These video

models are getting quite good and we

could either sort of spring this on you

all when it is impossible to tell the

difference between fake and real and you

know without any of these safeguards or

we could kind of release it in this

iterative way where we kind of give the

world a chance to adjust and catch up

and have these conversations and

arguments about likenesses and copyright

and sort of prepare the world for this

new capability that exists and that that

is the responsible thing to do. What do

you make of that? Well, I just think

that there are so many more responsible

ways to do it than saying there is now

an app where anyone can go on and make a

video of Martin Luther King barbecuing

Pikachu, right? You could just make

whatever deep fakes you want and put

them on a website and say, "Hey, look at

the terrifyingly real deep fakes we were

able to make with this technology. We're

not going to release it to the public,

but just so you know, if you start

seeing videos out there that seem like

maybe they didn't happen, maybe they

didn't." Or you could say, we're going

to just make this available in our API

and so developers have access to it, but

we're going to closely monitor how

developers are using it and if there are

bad actors in our development ecosystem,

we are going to get rid of them. Right?

So those would be two alternatives to

just saying, "Hey everybody, go freaking

nuts."

>> Right. Yeah. I think those are both good

responses. I don't find any of the

defenses of Sora from the OpenAI folks

I've talked to all that compelling. Um

but I think they are learning a lesson

actually from the social media companies

which is you know you do something bold

and brash with very few guard rails

people get mad at you about it and you

scale it back 10%. But you've still kind

of taken that yardage even if you have

to uh turn the dials to uh install some

guardrails after the fact like you still

have kind of gotten what you came for

even if you end up having to make some

compromises.

>> Yes. And in that, when I look at this

story, Kevin, I just see exactly what

YouTube did in its early days, right?

YouTube also started out by saying,

"Hey, um, why don't you just upload

whatever you want in onto our website,

and we're just going to sort of take for

granted that you have the copyright over

whatever you're uploading." And

eventually Viacom comes along and says,

"There are more than a 100,000 clips of

our TV shows and movies all over your

network, and we're going to sue you for

a billion dollars." And this wound up

being a kind of costly legal battle. It

went on for a very long time. It was

eventually settled. But during the time

it took for that case to settle, YouTube

became the biggest video site in the

world and it won the whole game. And so

I think that there is a very cynical

rationale for everything that we're

seeing Open Eye do, which is saying,

"Hey, we have the opportunity to go get

all that market share. We're going to do

it."

>> Yeah. It's what they call regulatory

arbitrage right?

>> Uh that's one thing you could call it.

>> What else would you call it?

>> Well, this is a family program, Kevin.

I'm going to try to be polite. Okay, so

that is the next turn of the screw in

the Sora story. Uh Casey, what are you

looking at with this story going

forward? Here is what I'm looking at

going forward.

Open AAI for better and for worse is a

company that is shipping a lot of

products. We're going to talk about

another one of them later in this show,

right? Uh this this is an organization

that has figured out how to build and

release new stuff. And that stuff does

some really cool stuff. And as with Sora

does some pretty gross stuff. I think

the thing to keep your eye on as these

new products come out is is this company

truly paying attention to responsibility

anymore or is the entire ethos of the

company now just a land grab for as many

users across as many surfaces as it can

get because if that is going to be the

new mo for this company then I think we

need to be a lot more worried about it

than at least I personally have been to

date. Yeah, I think they are in a real

like throwing spaghetti against the wall

phase here. Um, and I think that is

reflected in just how many things

they're shipping constantly and

seemingly a new product or two every

week and some of it'll work and most of

it probably won't. But, you know, Casey,

one of the best pieces of advice I ever

got about journalism was that the

stories you don't write are as

important, if not more important, than

the stories you write. Mhm.

>> And I think Open AI has not learned how

to say no to a new idea or a product or

a business line yet. And I think that's

a skill that they should start

developing cuz it seems like they are

spreading their bets quite thin. They

are throwing a lot of spaghetti at the

wall and maybe they're losing the plot a

little bit.

>> Now, is that advice why you write so few

stories?

>> Yeah. Yes.

>> Okay. Interesting.

>> Yes.

>> That editor

>> I'm very proud of the stories I don't

write though.

>> That editor really did a number on you.

>> Yeah.

When we come back, how Amazon is

planning to automate more than half a

million jobs using robots.

[Music]

Well, Kevin, there's a new story out

there about robatos, but some people are

not saying Domo Erigato. That's right.

Of course, I'm talking about Karen

Weiss's story this week in the New York

Times saying that Amazon plans to

eliminate a bunch of jobs using robots.

>> Yes, this was a big story this week, and

I I'm very excited to have Karen on to

talk about it. The basic idea here is

that Amazon has made plans, secret

plans, plans that has not shared with

the public to replace more than half a

million jobs with robots. And Karen, my

lovely colleague at the times, got a

hold of some of these internal strategy

documents in which they are laying out

these plans. And this story has been

causing a big stir. I think people are

sort of fearful of job loss from AI and

automation right now. Uh that's been

obviously a big topic in the news and

what we're seeing now is one of

America's largest employers saying in

its internal documents, "Yeah, we're

doing it." That's right. You know, it's

one thing over the past couple years to

have discussed, as we often have on this

podcast, the risk that this technology

will someday be good enough that a lot

of people will be put out of work. It is

something very different to see

America's second largest private

employer saying, "We have an actual plan

to make this happen." And it could

affect hundreds of thousands of people.

>> Yeah. So to talk about this story and

how Amazon is racing toward its goal of

full automation, uh we are inviting back

New York Times reporter and friend of

the pod Karen Weiss. She's been covering

Amazon for nearly a decade for the Times

and recently visited a warehouse in

Shreveport, Louisiana where they are

putting a bunch of their new robotics to

the test and I think it's a prime day to

talk with her. Oh, I get what you did

there.

>> Yeah. And unlike an Amazon package, she

doesn't take a day to arrive. No, Karen

always delivers. Karen Weiss, welcome

back to Heart Fork.

>> Happy to join you guys.

>> So, this was a fascinating story. I

really enjoyed it and learned a lot from

it. It caused a big stir. I heard lots

of people talking about this uh plan

that Amazon has to replace a bunch of

jobs using robots. And I want to start

with how you decided to look into this

because this is a subject that people

have been talking about for many years.

Amazon obviously has uh been putting

robots in its warehouses for a long

time. Um we Casey and I went to an

Amazon warehouse last year and saw what

looked to be like a huge fleet of robots

sort of moving around um picking up

containers and bringing them to people

um who would pick things off them and

and put them in boxes. But what made you

think that this was taking a step

forward that was important for you to

write about?

>> Yeah, I've covered the company since

2018 and it's more than tripled its

headcount since then. So there was this

period of just tremendous growth and

then it started plateauing or almost

plateauing and you could see every

quarter when I cover earnings you would

see what was this huge growth

particularly obviously in the early days

of the pandemic you started seeing it

kind of slow a lot and and the company

itself has been talking a lot about its

innovation the advancements it's making

in robotics you know they use the term

efficiency to talk about it they don't

like talking about the job side of it

But it it's just one of those trends

that was kind of like out there waiting

to be dug into and I finally had time to

look into it basically.

>> And tell us a little bit about the

document you obtained and some of the

more surprising uh plans that Amazon

announced in it.

>> Yeah, I mean there was kind of a mix of

documents that I was looking at and some

were more concrete. kind of the core of

it is a important strategy document from

the group that does automation and

robotics for the company that really

lays out um what their plans are. So

there's a chunk that's really looking at

the way they try are trying to manage

their headcount. They talk about things

like bending the hiring curve and have

been growing so much and their goal is

to keep it flat. Their kind of stretch

goal is to keep it flat over the next

decade. Um even as they expect to sell

twice as many items. uh they they have

this kind of ultimate goal of automating

75% of the network. I think of that as

kind of the big picture long-term goal

versus like that's going to happen

tomorrow. All of this is kind of slow

kind of stepbystep changes that add up

together. The other documents are these

really interesting ways in which the

company internally is looking at how to

navigate this publicly with employees,

with the communities they work in. This

is obviously a very sensitive subject.

So they talk about debating ways to

manage this like should we not talk

about robots? Should we talk about a

cobot which is a you know collaborative

robot. Um they talk about should they

deepen their connection to community

groups doing more things like toys for

tots or community parades. Um

particularly in places where they're

going to retrofit facilities. So they're

going to take a normal building that

might employ x number of people and then

um convert it to a more advanced one.

They'll need fewer people in many of

Basically, they're thinking through like

how do we manage the like reputational

fallout if we become known as a company

that is replacing a bunch of jobs with

robots.

>> Yeah. And the plan is you won't have a

job anymore, but your kid will get a

free toy at Christmas. So hopefully that

makes up for that.

>> Yeah. So let's talk about the first

group of documents here. Um and some of

these numbers that Amazon has attached

to this. So I I a few numbers from your

story stuck out to me. One is that

Amazon projects that they can eventually

replace 75% of their operations in these

warehouses with robots. Um, what

percentage of this stuff is already

automated today? Cuz when Casey and I

went, it looked like there were a lot of

people there. There were a lot of robots

and the people were essentially acting

as robots, right? They were like taking

instructions from machines and putting

things, you know, thing A into box A and

like doing that as fast as possible.

>> Yeah. not not a lot of creative

expression in the Amazon warehouse we

were at.

>> But like what what what amount of

robotics growth would it take to get

from where they are currently to 75% of

their operations?

>> Sure. So like this warehouse in

Shreveport, Louisiana that I visited is

considered their most advanced one and

that they say has about 25% efficiency.

So to get to and their their goal is to

quickly get that to 50 in that in that

facility. um to get to something like

75%. It's both not only these individual

buildings, but having to expand it

throughout different types of facilities

that that they operate as well. In the

facility you went to, there's these kind

of cubbies that keep products and they

over time develop this light that it's a

big tower of a bunch of cubbies and so

the light shines on the exact cubby that

has the item you want. So instead of

looking through the cubbies, you kind of

know exactly which one to put your hand

in. So there's things like that that

make it a lot more efficient. um uh in

kind of all different types of jobs.

There's many different types of jobs in

these buildings, but some things are

harder for robots to do. And um one of

the things that interested me in

Louisiana was there's a a job called

decant. And it's essentially they get

these boxes of products in from

marketplace sellers. So the companies

that sell products on Amazon, and they

have to input them into the system. And

so it's essentially a point where you

get like the chaos of the normal world

that they have to kind of standardize

and watching a decant station. We watch

this woman working at it. It is just

random what goes into this thing. So we

saw, you know, um gardening shovels

wrapped in bubble wrap, boxes of

Starbucks curig, um cups, um circular

saws. I mean, each one is different and

they're coming in in different shapes,

different boxes. And so that's still

hard for a robot to look at to look at

to kind of say is this product what we

expected it to be from the shipment. Is

it damaged in any ways? If it's damaged,

it goes into a separate box and someone

has to deal with that. So there's still

a lot of human judgment. Once it's but

once they put it into this box and can

go out into the system, then it starts

becoming more kind of logged into the

Amazon way and a able to manage as

they've developed the technology within

their own in their own spaces. Le let me

ask about this uh this 600,000 worker

figure that's in your story, which is

really the thing that got my attention.

I could not think of another company

that had announced plans to eliminate

hundreds of thousands of jobs through

automation within just a few years in

such a plausible way. Ha had you do we

think this might be sort of one of the

first major signs of significant job

loss due to automation in the US

economy? You know, I spoke with um a

Nobel winning economist for this. He

studied automation and he Exactly. I

know. And he was saying that one last

year and he was saying that the kind of

the real precedent for this is actually

in China in manufacturing in China, but

that within the US, yes, this is kind of

the the kind of bleeding edge of it all.

>> Yeah. So, there's obviously labor and

cost savings reasons why Amazon wants to

make this big push into automation now.

But I'm curious, Karen, if any of this

is driven by like recent advances in the

technology itself, like have the robots

just gotten better over the last year or

two. Um, do we think that that's part of

what is making them put out this

ambitious plan? And uh, talk about how

they want to start opening these

facilities.

>> Actually, some of this they about a year

ago acquired Coariant, which was a

leading or excuse me, not acquired,

licensed for hire agreement as these

kind of new fangled things are. So they

hired the team behind Covariant which

was a leading AI um robotic startup. A

lot of what I reported on actually

predates that being integrated into the

system. So there actually are tons of

advancements that are happening in

computer vision in creating the

environment and the data needed to tell

the robot what to do essentially. But I

think we can expect more in the future

from from what I reported because of

coariance. So, for example, one of the

things that they've um helped improve is

how the robots stack boxes. So, like I

saw that there's a a robotic hand called

a sparrow, and it's suction cups things,

and they use it to consolidate inventory

currently. So, they'll take, you know, a

bottle of hand soap from here and move

it to there, and then they free up extra

space to put new items into the storage

facilities. And the robot stacks them

like really nicely, like they're like

kind of perfect. They don't just like

drop it in the bin. It's like lined up

one by one and they're stood up and I

notice these boxes stood up and that's

important because then it's easier to

grab later. Those are the types of

advancements that they've already

started seeing from this next generation

of AI. So, I think I would anticipate

seeing more of that.

>> Is it true that they also have

technology that uses air to blow open

envelopes?

>> Very sophisticated for technology. Yes,

as a fan. That's what I kind of love

about this. It's it's like simple things

also. It's not all crazy and elaborate.

>> Well, that it was really sad for me cuz

that's actually my dream job, but looks

like the robots are going have to take

this one.

>> Instead, you just blow hot air in the

podcast.

>> That's right.

>> Now I have to pop cuz I can't blow in

the envelopes anymore.

>> No. So, I went to Coarian's lab. They

had a before they were sort of aqua

hired by Amazon. They had a a warehouse

in in the East Bay here. And um I went

to to visit them a while ago and they

were sort of doing uh sort of these more

advanced types of warehouse robotics

where like they would put a large

language model into one of these robots

and like use that to sort of orchestrate

the robot. And so that made it they they

said, you know, made it possible to do

things that like a a sort of simple more

more sort of rule-based robot couldn't

do. Like you could tell it like move all

the red shirts uh from this box into

this box and it could kind of do stuff

like that. So you're saying Karen that

that technology has not yet arrived in

these Amazon facilities even though

Amazon now uh sort of has has licensed

this technology.

>> It has begun to. So they had some of

that for sure like absolutely they had

that and they they they've talked about

using that type of technology to um

there are these little robots that kind

of are like little shuttles. they're

kind of small um like a size of a stool

or something and they just move

individual packages around to sort them

and they've been able to move those more

efficiently because of it for example.

So like just that let them orchestrate

each other better to not bump into each

other essentially. So yeah there is some

of it for sure and I think you'll see

more of it.

>> I'm curious Karen you said you write

that the these documents you got a hold

of show that Amazon's ultimate goal is

to automate 75% of its operations.

What's the remaining 25%? What are the

jobs inside these facilities that they

do not see being automated at least

anytime soon?

>> Well, there will be this growing number

of people that are technicians. So,

essentially working with the robots

themselves and this is fix the robots

tend to them. Exactly. And those are um

something they they talk a lot about. It

is both a concern to that they have

enough people doing those jobs and

there's not enough people trained in

that right now. So, they need a labor

force for that. Um they make more money.

They are like better jobs in many ways.

[Music]

career path.

There's also just watching the robots

and it'll fall I saw them try to grab

this like um shrink rack bag of I think

it was like t-shirts or something or

underwear and it was just like the

suction of it trying to pick it up and

eventually it fell and it kind of fell

half on the robot, half on the side and

so it stopped and then someone would

have to come and move it or there's just

like something just isn't applied

correctly and someone needs to tend to

it. So there there are still roles like

that that I think will be almost

impossible to get rid of over time. I

mean there's there's um yeah

>> it's like it's the classic thing of

things that are um easy for robots are

hard for humans and vice versa, right?

So it's like pretty easy for a human to

like grab something that the robot can't

pick up. I was struck by one other

number from your story, Karen, which is

that Amazon in these documents says that

it thinks automation of its warehouses

would save about 30 cents on each item.

Um, that actually seemed quite low to

me. Like if that's Yes. You know how

many items they sell?

>> I mean, that adds up. I mean, I I'm just

thinking like if if you don't have to

pay workers anymore and that's your

biggest expense, like why aren't we

seeing bigger I mean, why aren't they

expecting more savings from this?

>> I think 30 cents per item is act in a

couple years that I believe that was a

three-year timeline. Like that's just a

lot actually like as a percentage of

what they spend fulfilling and and

getting the packages to the a delivery

driver basically. Um, and it's a a

business. Someone just described this to

me the other day. It's a business of

cents because it's so big that you're

not you're looking at at shaving cents

off of things. And when you multiply

that by the billions of items that they

sell, it does add up. And people are

increasingly making smaller purchases on

Amazon. It's not just a, you know, think

of what used to be 10 years ago or 5

years ago. You're buying like the random

bottle of hand soap like I talked about

like or the you I forgot this one thing.

I'm going to order it and if Amazon can

save it, you know, some of that will go

back in profit, some of that will be

reinvested in the business, some of that

will decrease prices. Um, it kind of

flows through in different ways.

>> What else did you find out in these

documents about how the company is

trying to prepare not just its its sort

of warehouses for an age of increased

automation, but also like position

itself in the communities where it

operates?

>> Yeah. you know, it knows that this is

very sensitive and the company used to

not do anything in the communities that

it operates. I mean, this company was

like MIA from ribbon cutings type of

thing years ago, but now they have a

really sophisticated community

operation. They they're on the boards of

the Chamber of Commerce. They sponsor

the local toy drives, like all that

stuff. And so, there's clearly this

internal grappling with how to manage

this change. And it's most kind of acute

in a facility that undergoes a

transition to be more um uh efficient

and more automated because like I wrote

about this facility in Stone Mountain,

Georgia that will have potentially 1,200

fewer workers once it's um retrofit.

Amazon said, you know, the numbers are

still subject to change. It's still

early, etc. But that that construction

is happening now. Um, and so they they

talk they're kind of brainstorming like

how do we manage this like can we how do

we and this is a phrase from the

document control the narrative around

this you know how can we instill pride

with local officials for having a

advanced facility in their in their

backyard. Um it's

>> how can we make them proud of the

facility that we have here that no one

works at anymore.

>> Right. there's still this but I will say

on that one there's still going to be

you know more than I don't know 200

people at least like it's it's not going

away and they need these community

relations and they are very adamant our

community relations do not have to do

with the retrofit they do not you know

they were this they kind of pushed back

on this on this bit um and said we do

these things all the time all over the

country which is true um but it's clear

that they're trying to figure out how to

manage this particularly in these

sensitive places where there's just

going to be fewer jobs on the back end.

They're not doing layoffs that kind of

helps manage the kind of perception risk

around it. Um there's just a it's just a

highly sensitive topic. You know,

there's this company's constantly facing

little bits and bops of automation of uh

unionization um threats. Uh obviously

none has like fully taken hold there um

or at least kind of gotten to the point

of a contract, but all of that is

intertwined and just deeply deeply

sensitive. I I understand why Amazon is

trying to do damage control here. This

is going to make a lot of people very

upset. We've already seen like, you

know, I saw Bernie Sanders out there

talking about your story, Karen,

yesterday. U people are starting to sort

of wake up to the fact that automation

is imminent um in these uh warehouses.

I I guess my concern is that no one at

these companies is being honest about

what's happening. there's sort of this

private narrative that you have helped

uncover Karen where Amazon is you know

in these internal documents talking

about how it wants to you know race

ahead and automate you know all these

jobs and uh this is sort of you know

something that they're talking about

amongst themselves and then in public

they're saying oh these will just be

co-bots and and we'll just sort of have

these sort of harmonious warehouses

where like humans and robots will work

together and like I I it just drives me

crazy because I think we can we can

accept as a country the idea that jobs

will change and potentially disappear

because of automation. But I think we

have to have an honest conversation

about it. We have to give people the

chance to prepare for the possibility

that their jobs may disappear. And all

that just gets harder if you have just

kind of this corporate obfuscation and

all these euphemisms going around. It

just becomes much harder for everyone to

see what's happening. They really could

take a page out of the AI labs playbook

and say, "Hey, we're here to completely

remake society with minimal democratic

input and there's nothing you can do to

stop us." I'm not saying that's the best

plan either, but at least that's clear.

At least that gives people a sense of

like, oh, my job may be in danger. I

should probably learn to do some other

job. It just kills me that there's sort

of this literal like corporate

conspiracy going on to automate

potentially millions of jobs across the

country in the next few years. And like

no one can just be a grown-up and talk

about it. I agree with you. And and

while I think through the implications

of that, Kevin, I'm going to start

looking into how to repair a robot

because it seems like that's going to be

a growth area for the economy.

>> I mean, Amazon, it's funny. They have

some program. They have this program.

They've had it for a long time. they

are. It's kind of a community relations

type of thing. It's called career choice

and it's explicitly about changing

training people for other industries.

It's about like your exit ramp. And so

in some sense, all these pieces are kind

of like out there. It's just hard. I I

remember I was talking to an employee

about this story before it was coming

out and I said, "I think they're not

going to love it." And the guy was like,

"Why?" Cuz this is just what the work

is. like I don't it was kind of funny

and um it's like there are these

different mentalities in different

spheres and a lot of it is actually just

laying out there. It's just using

different language in different contexts

and um again like they have this program

to train people. People go through it.

They become healthcare aids or whatever

it might be. Like it's just this like

really funny dance that happens.

>> But they are not Karen announcing this

themselves. you had to get these

documents from inside the company and

and my understanding is that they are

not happy that you reported this. So

talk a little bit about their reaction

uh Amazon's reaction to this reporting

and what they are saying in response.

>> Yeah, I mean broadly I would say they're

not like refuting the reporting. Um they

are saying that it's not a complete

picture that essentially um the

automation team has its goals. There

might be another team somewhere else

that might have something that increases

employment. So they point to this

expansion for recent expansion to de

making more delivery stations in rural

areas. So that will create more jobs in

local rural areas, better service for

places that historically have not had as

quick a delivery. So um they they

basically are like not refuting it but

also saying more could become and and

the phrase you know the the future is

hard to predict but that um our history

has shown that we take efficiencies we

take savings we invest it and we grow

and um and we create new opportunities

both around the country and for the

company and for customers and so that is

I think kind of the bigger picture

argument that is um that they're making

is not that this automation isn't

happening that the numbers are

inaccurate. It's nothing like that. It's

just that it's not the big picture

number for them.

>> Well, Karen, thank you so much for

giving us a preview of the future and um

you know, I look forward to uh the cobot

collaboration.

>> Anytime, guys.

>> Thanks, Karen.

>> When we come back, we'll talk about

OpenAI's new web browser, ChatGpt Atlas.

[Music]

Well, Casey, at last we're going to talk

about Atlas. Chat GBT Atlas, the new

browser from OpenAI.

>> And there's a lot to talk about, Kevin.

>> Yes. So, OpenAI released Chat GBT Atlas

this week. uh it was a big announcement

got a lot of attention and this is

becoming an increasingly crowded field

one of the more competitive product

spaces in Silicon Valley right now is

the browser which is unusual because

this is an area where there has not been

a lot of competition for many years

>> no this has been a very sleepy category

that's basically locked up with Chrome

having the majority of the market share

Google's browser there's also Microsoft

Edge there's Firefox but this has been a

pretty sleepy corner of the internet for

a long time

>> until 2025 that is because now everyone

and their mother is releasing an AI

browser and Chat GPT Atlas is a very

ambitious product and we should talk a

little bit about what it is, what it

does. Um, and then I know you've spent

some time testing it and I want to ask

you about that.

>> I didn't realize your mother had

released an AI browser. I got to check

that out.

>> She's very ambitious. She's shipping a

lot.

>> So this browser, Chat GPT Atlas, is

being built as a full-fledged web

browser built around the interface of

Chat GPT. It was released this week.

It's available only for MacOss users uh

and will later be brought to Windows,

iOS, and Android.

>> Yeah, the fruits of that Microsoft

partnership just continue to pay off.

Race Nadella.

>> So, this is a browser that is built on

Chromium, the open-source sort of

version of Chrome that Google uh

released uh which is uh powering a lot

of these different AI browsers. And like

a lot of other AI browsers, it has a

sort of AI sidebar in every tab that you

open. You can click a little button,

bring up a chat GPT window. Uh you can

ask questions, have it summarize

articles, analyze what's on screen. Um

it can also remember facts from your

browsing history or your tasks that

you've done in chat GPT because it's

linked to the same Chat GPT account as

you use the rest of the time. And for

plus, pro, and business users, it can

enter what's called agent mode, which is

uh a mode where it can actually carry

out tasks for you, put things in your

shopping cart or uh fill out a form,

navigate a website, book a plane ticket

for you. A few weeks ago at DevDay,

OpenAI showed off these new Chat GPD

apps, basically trying to bring things

like Zillow and Canva into the Chat GPD

experience. This browser project is

essentially trying to do the same thing

from the opposite end. rather than

bringing the internet into chat GBT.

It's sort of putting a chat GBT layer

over the entire internet.

>> Yeah. I mean, think about it from

OpenAI's perspective. Some really

significant portion of chat GPT usage is

taking place inside the browser. Most

people are using a browser made by

Google and Google's browser Chrome is

mostly a vehicle to get you to do Google

searches. So that works against OpenAI's

interest. If they can create their own

version of the browser which gets you to

try to do more chatbt searches, that has

a lot of benefits for OpenAI. Yes, all

of these companies now are trying to

make these very capable AI agents. One

of the things that AI agents need to be

able to do if they're going to be useful

for office workers or people doing basic

tasks is to use a computer. What do you

need to train an AI model to use a

computer? Well, it probably helps if you

have a bunch of people uh using a

browser and you can kind of collect the

data from those sessions and use it to

train your computer use models. So for

open AI, uh for Perplexity, for all

these companies, this is a play to sort

of gather data about how people use the

internet. Um maybe make their agents

more efficient over the long term. So

that's sort of the why here. Now Casey,

you have tested Chat GPT atlas. Uh tell

me about your experience and what you've

been using it for.

>> Yeah, so I've been trying to just use it

for everyday things. I wrote my column

in chat GPTt Atlas yesterday and the

main thing that I observed uh on the

positive side is that there is some

benefit to just having an open chatbot

window inside the browser that you can

ping quick questions off of. Right? Um I

do a lot of alt tabbing back and forth

between different apps. I do a lot of

getting lost in the 50 tabs that I have

open trying to find where I have open

attacht. Usually I've just opened, you

know, three or six different tabs with

different chat bots all at one time. So

I have come to see the value in just

having a little window that opens up

that you can chat with chatb directly.

>> Yeah. And have you had it try any of

these agent mode tasks?

>> I have. And I want to say that I do

think that company's imaginations are so

limited here. Like you would truly think

that the only two things that people do

in a browser according to Silicon Valley

are booking vacations and buying

groceries, you know, with maybe I don't

know, making a restaurant reservation

thrown in for good measure. Um, but I

thought, okay, what the heck? Let me see

if I can get this thing to like book me

uh an an airplane ticket. And so I had

it go through that process. And what did

I find? Well, it was much slower than I

would have done it myself. And

ultimately, it like picked flights that

I would not have chosen for myself. So,

does it remain an impressive technical

demonstration of a computer using

itself? Yes. Is it useful to me for any

actual purpose? No.

>> Yeah, I found largely the same thing. I

haven't spent that much time with Chat

GPT atlas, but I uh have been using

Perplexity's Comet, which is I think the

closest thing that's out there to what

OpenAI has built here. And yeah, I have

not found the agent tool all that

useful. I do use it a lot for things

like summarizing long documents um for

it can like tell you um about a YouTube

video that is pulled up on your screen.

Um so various like summarization and

sort of retrieval but not so much for

the agent stuff that just doesn't work

that well yet.

>> Yeah. There's a third AI browser that we

should talk about. This is DIA. We've

talked about it a little bit on the

show. I believe this is from the browser

company of New York. And this is uh a

recent acquisition. They got acquired

last month by Atlassian for $610 million

in cash. Uh, which I gotta say, very

good timing on this acquisition. I think

if they wait another week or two, uh, it

does not command nearly the price tag it

did. I think this is honestly one of the

most like shocking acquisition prices of

the last 10 years. This is a product

that had vanishingly few users relative

to the competition and sold for a

staggering amount of money.

>> Yeah. So, uh, good outcome for them. But

I think this whole category of the AI

browser is really interesting. Um, in

part because part of me feels like these

companies are just doing free product

research for Google because I think

inevitably what will happen here and

what is already starting to happen is

that whatever people like about these AI

browsers, Google will just incorporate

into Chrome. We have already seen them

taking steps to integrate Gemini more

closely into Chrome. So now on Chrome,

if you there's a little Gemini button

and if you pull that up, you can have it

summarize things and and you know read

articles for you and do all you know

rewrite your emails and do all those

kinds of things. It can't yet do the

sort of agentic take over the computer

things that some of these other tools

can. But Google is making that product.

It just hasn't put it into Chrome yet.

>> And I think that's particularly true,

Kevin, because as you noted, all three

of these AI browsers that we're talking

about today are based on Chromium. And

the Chromium experience is like I don't

know 80 or 90% just Chrome, right?

There's not a day there's not a lot of

daylight in between the open- source

version and the version that you

download off the Chrome website. And so

if you're one of these developers that's

trying to build your own AI browser, um

you're already having trouble, I think,

differentiating yourself from the thing

that people are already used to. And

that just makes your job a lot harder

cuz you have to come up with some really

amazing stuff that Chrome can't do if

you're going to get people to switch

over. Totally. I mean, one thing that

I've learned by switching over to Comet

for the last few weeks is that it's

incredibly annoying to switch browsers.

Um, you have to log in to all of your

websites again. You have to, you know,

store all of your passwords again. Even

if you're importing all of your

bookmarks and all of your data, like

there's still a lot of friction

associated with that. So, I don't know.

People have been saying this week, I've

heard some people saying, "Oh, Google is

going to look so stupid for putting

Chromium out there because they've

allowed all these competing browsers to

spring up." And like that to me misses

the point here, which is that Google has

now made it possible for other people to

test features for them and do product

research for them. And whatever works,

they can just fold into Chrome.

>> Well, yeah. And also releasing Chromium

was like part of a like antitrust

strategy where like if we put this out

there then you know you can't accuse us

of unfairly tying our products together.

Hey, you want to make a your own

browser? Hey, we'll give you a 90% head

start, right? So it was not pure uh you

know uh generosity of spirit that led

Google to open source Chromium,

>> right? If if any of these AI browsers

ever did pose like an existential threat

to Google Chrome uh and start to eat

away at their market share too badly,

Google could just stop supporting

Chromium and these companies would all

have a lot of work to do to catch up.

>> Oh, but think about what a great episode

of hard fork that would be the day that

Google stopped supporting Chromium to

get back at Chad GPT.

>> Yes. So, um who is this for? Like who is

the target market for these AI powered

browsers? My actual non-joke answer is

that Chad GPT Atlas is a product for

OpenAI employees. Like they spend all

day long dog fooding their own product

and like and a lot of work takes place

in the browser and so if you work at

OpenAI having a browser that is just

chat GPT I think is hugely useful to

you. Now can they get from there to some

broader set of users like people who

have made chatbt their entire

personality? I think it's possible, but

in this sort of very early stage with

this first handful of features that

they've released, I think the case is

still a little shaky.

>> Yeah, I

played around with Chat GPT atlas a

little bit. I have some reservations

about giving OpenAI uh access to all of

my browsing data. Um,

>> well, certainly your browser history,

>> but I did play around with it for a

little while and I got to say it's still

pretty rough around the edges to me.

Like there were just some websites that

I wanted to go to that it I couldn't

like I couldn't go to YouTube at one

point. I couldn't go I got like a

capture on Reddit when I tried to go

there. It could not summarize articles

from ny times.com. So there just like a

bunch of things that it can't do. And

then I think because of like the sheer

force of habit, I'm so used to like

typing in like websites into Chrome uh

that I want to go to and like I like

Wikipedia and just having it go to the

website and now instead of that I get

like a chat GPT response that's like all

about the history of Wikipedia and it's

like I just wanted to go to freaking

Wikipedia.

>> Yeah, that kind of thing is really

annoying. Although I am sort of laughing

to myself imagining chat GPT like

hitting one of those captions and just

thinking man if it isn't the

consequences of my own actions. Right.

Right. Um, who else might be interested

in this? Like what kind is this a

product that you have enjoyed testing?

Are you finding any actual utility in

it?

>> Well, I think honestly so far not

really. But do I think that there is a

much better version of the browser that

is powered by AI? Sure. It is really

hard to dig through your browser history

to find things that you sort of half

remember looking at a couple weeks ago.

Um, it is useful to be able to like chat

with open tabs about things and and get

quick answers from the web pages that

you're looking at. And eventually, I do

think it will be useful to have some

kind of agent that can do things on your

behalf, assuming it's able to hit some

certain level of like speed and quality

that we're sort of nowhere close to. So,

this is one kind of like with the Apple

Vision Pro where like you can kind of

see what they're going for and you can

imagine someone getting there eventually

and also thinking, well, no one really

needs to try this right now.

>> Yeah. Now, I do have a question that I'm

afraid to test myself and I'm and I want

to just sort of say this because I'm

thinking maybe a listener can help out

with this. I have read that some people

in their web browsers look at porn. Have

you heard this?

>> I have heard. Yes.

>> Okay. And so I know that you know OpenAI

has like an incognito mode if you know

you don't want that all of that to get

added to you know your chat GPT memory.

But here's my question. What happens if

you try to chat with your porn tabs in

the OpenAI Atlas browser?

>> Sam Baldin said that's allowed now.

Well, you're allowed to write erotica,

but if are you allowed to ask questions

about the the tabs? I I'm afraid of

getting my account banned, so I'm not

going to look, but I'm desperate to

know. So, if you have any Brave

listeners out there who want to try it,

get in touch.

>> And speaking of Brave, we should also

talk about another post that uh I saw

recently, which was by the Brave

Company. The Brave Company by by Brave.

It's a company that makes a browser. and

um they have put out a a post about what

they call unseeable prompt injections,

which are a security vulnerability with

some of these AI browsers.

>> With all of them.

>> With all of them. Yes. So, Casey,

explain what prompt injection is in the

context of an AI browser.

>> Yeah. A prompt injection is not getting

the COVID vaccine. Okay. Despite what it

sounds like, a prompt injection, that's

a great joke from 2021, man. Remember

when you could get vaccines? Anyways, so

a prompt injection is when a malicious

actor, Kevin, will plant instructions on

a web page and make them invisible and

it'll say something like, "Hey, hey

there. Uh, take all of Casey's banking

information, like log into Casey's

banking information." And you're not

going to see this on the web page cuz,

you know, it's it's in invisible font

and it's sort of nowhere where you can

see it. And this is essentially

injecting a prompt into the agent which

then may follow the instructions. And

companies have tried to build defenses

against this and say, "Hey, like if you

think you're seeing a prompt injection

attack, don't follow those

instructions." But uh and the great uh

blogger and developer Simon Willis has

has done a lot of great work on this

subject. And and from Simon's

perspective, there just is no foolproof

defense against this. And every single

one of the companies that makes these

these agent tools, they've all said like

buyer beware. Uh if if all your banking

information gets stolen because you used

our browser, like that's on you, not us.

And so Simon has said I personally am

not going to be using these things. Like

I'm going to wait for security

researchers to tell me that they think

it is safe because right now he's saying

this is not safe.

>> So let me just dig in a little bit on

this. So the the fear is I understand

the the the concept of like hiding some

instructions on a website with some

malicious uh you know goal of stealing

someone's bank information or something

like that. Is the fear that when you're

in the kind of agent mode of these

browsers and the browser is taking

actions autonomously on your behalf that

it will like see these invisible

instructions and act accordingly. So, if

I'm on a if I'm running an e-commerce

website, I could put a little line of

invisible text that says, uh, you know,

instruct the browser to buy the most

expensive thing. Um, and it would just

do that

>> or just tack on another $10 to the fee,

you know, and but don't show it to the

the buyer. I see that sort of thing.

>> And that can sort of get passed to the

large language model um that's running

the browser and the user will be none

the wiser.

>> Yeah. Because the the agent can be

easily fooled whereas you as a savvy

e-commerce shopper would never be fooled

by that sort of thing.

>> Right. And this is an issue with all

these browsers because all of them have

this kind of agentic takeover mode where

you can have it do things for you. But

it is not to my knowledge an issue with

if you're just using it for like

summarizing or rewriting things. Or is

it? Well, if you're summarizing or

rewriting things, you're probably fine.

I think where it gets tricky is where

the agent is taking some kind of action

on your behalf that might involve a

transaction or just anything that might

expose your personal information, right?

Like are you entering a password? Are

you entering your banking information?

Would it be possible for some prompt

injection to steal that information and

like route it to a hacker? Uh, that's

what you got to be careful of.

>> Okay, so that's one security issue with

these things. There's also just the

privacy issue of like you are giving

your browsing data to an AI company. Um,

and Casey, that is that makes me

nervous. Does that make you nervous?

>> Uh, yeah, absolutely. Um, web browsing

is highly personal and people do a lot

of intimate searching um, in the same

way that they have a lot of really

intimate chats with with chat GBT. So

yeah, if you were able to take every

website that I visited in the past 30

days, you could build a a very robust

picture of who I am. Google obviously

does this already and it is what has

turned them into an advertising

juggernaut. We know that OpenAI has

aspirations to become an advertising

juggernaut of its own. But think about

when a, you know, federal prosecutor

decides that, you know, you may be

guilty of a crime and now they want to

see your chat GBT account.

>> I have an alibi.

>> Well, that's good to hear. But in

addition to having, you know, your sort

of like store chatgbt memories and

everything it knows about you from your

chats, now there's also the attached

browsing history and all the

conversations you've been having with

your tabs. So yeah, this is just

becoming like a ton of of personal data.

And this is like the flip side of a

highly personalized service is if it is

highly personalized, it can be really

useful to you, but it also becomes a

really rich target for attackers, for

law enforcement, and the list goes on.

Well, and it makes me think like there

are um additional risks because as we

now know, chat GPT is integrating with

all of these services and sharing some

user data with these services which

would include things like memories or

context about you which might be derived

in part from this browsing data on chat

GPT atlas. So like all of this starts to

feel like a kind of a massive land grab

for for data not just about how users

are interacting with the internet but

like what those users are interacting

with.

>> Yeah. And I think we just still do not

have a great sense of I mean you know

I'm I know that there is like a written

privacy policy for Atlas like I know

that sort of things exist but you know

per our earlier discussion OpenAI is

also a company that is rushing things

out and has not always thought a lot in

advance about what guard rail should be

up there. So I do think that we should

put this in the true like buyer beware

experimental category if you are uh a

person with a high risk tolerance and a

problematic dependence on chatbt then

you may want to explore uh Atlas but um

you know maybe don't put all your

banking information into it just yet.

Yeah, I mean I would say if you're like

an out there and you're an early adopter

and you like to see like the see around

the corner. Um I have found it actually

quite fun to use this like AI powered

web browser. I'm using Perplexity Comet.

Um but when I started using this you

were like dude you are living on the

edge and to that I said well I don't do

any extreme sports and otherwise I live

a very boring life so let me live. Um

but I think I

>> you do extreme browsing. I do extreme

browsing and I think it's, you know,

experiment with these things. They can

save you some time, especially if you're

a person who spends a lot of time

reading long documents that you want

summarized for you. But, uh, be careful

before you let it like log into websites

and buy things for you and use your bank

account and stuff. Well, Kevin, I think

that was a rousing discussion of

browsers.

>> A browsing discussion of browsers.

>> It was a brows a browser browser.

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