TechTime with Nathan Mumm

251: OpenAI CEO Warns Courtesy is Costly. Apple Suffers a Courtroom Defeat over App Store Policies. Scammers Weaponize QR Codes to Hijack Phones. Visa Revolutionizes Payments with AI-Driven Wallet Access | Air Date: 5/6 - 5/12/2025

• Nathan Mumm • Season 7 • Episode 251

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A federal judge has just delivered a stunning blow to Apple's App Store dominance, permanently banning the tech giant from charging commissions on purchases made outside their walled garden. This landmark ruling in Epic Games' ongoing legal battle against Apple not only paves the way for Fortnite's return to iOS but signals a fundamental shift in how digital marketplaces operate. Could this be the beginning of the end for Apple's notorious 30% "tax" on developers?

Meanwhile, your polite interactions with AI might be costing more than you think. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed that users saying "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT costs the company tens of millions of dollars annually—money he considers "well spent." Beyond the financial implications, these interactions have surprising environmental consequences, with AI-generated content consuming substantial energy resources. As 67% of users report being polite to their AI assistants (with 12% doing so to appease potential robot overlords), the question emerges: does courtesy to algorithms matter?

The financial world isn't sitting idle either. Visa's ambitious new initiative aims to give AI agents direct access to your wallet, allowing them to make purchases on your behalf based on preferences and budgets. This move beyond simple chatbots raises profound questions about convenience versus control in our digital lives. As consumer credit card debt soars past $1.21 trillion, should we trust algorithms to manage our spending habits? We explore the benefits and potential pitfalls of this new frontier in financial technology.

Don't miss our essential "Letters" segment, where we expose the latest scams targeting consumers—including a dangerous new "brushing scam" using malicious QR codes to compromise smartphones. Subscribe to Tech Time Radio wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on social media to stay ahead of emerging threats and technological developments that impact your digital life.

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Speaker 1:

Broadcasting across the nation, from the East Coast to the West, keeping you up to date on technology while enjoying a little whiskey on the side, with leading edge topics, along with special guests to navigate technology in a segmented, stylized radio program. The information that will make you go, hmm. Pull up a seat, raise a glass with our hosts as we spend the next hour talking about technology for the common person. Welcome to Tech Time Radio with Nathan Mumm.

Nathan Mumm:

Welcome to Tech Time with Nathan Mumm the show that makes you go hmm. Technology news of the week the show for the everyday person talking about technology, broadcasting across the nation with insightful segments on subjects weeks ahead of the mainstream media. We welcome our radio audience of 35 million listeners to an hour of insightful technology news. I'm Nathan Mumm, your host and technologist, with over 30 years of technology expertise. Our co-host here, mike Rodea, is in studio and he's the award-winning author and our human behavior expert. Now we're live streaming on our show on four of the most popular platforms, including, of course, youtube, twitch TV, facebook, linkedin and we're encouraging Blue Sky. Please get your streaming service up and going. If you need any help, send me an email at nathanmum at techtimeradiocom and I will help you so we can get streaming on there too.

Mike Gorday:

Just hit your Blue Sky account.

Nathan Mumm:

There you go, Alright. We encourage you to visit us online at techtimeradiocom also and become a Patreon supporter at patreoncom forward slash techtimeradio. We're all friends from different backgrounds, but we bring the best technology show possible weekly for our family, friends and fans to enjoy. We're glad to have Odi, our producer, at the control panel today. Welcome everyone. Let's start today's show.

Speaker 1:

Now on today's show Now on today's show.

Nathan Mumm:

Ah, that music makes me feel so good. All right, welcome to Tech Time Radio. This week, we're going to break down the biggest technology stories of the week and expose the trends shaping our digital future. Today, we're diving into a major court ruling that could shake Apple's grip on the App Store. What does this mean for developers and your wallet Plus? Openai CEO Sam Altman has something to say about those polite prompts to AI. Could your manners be costing millions Then? Visa is pushing AI beyond simple chatbots into managing your finances, but how much control should we give these digital assistants? And in our letter segment, we're unveiling some of the latest scams hitting inboxes and messages submitted by listeners like you.

Nathan Mumm:

In addition to that, of course, we have our standard features, including Mike's mesmerizing moment, our technology fail the day and our Nathan nugget. But the most important part, our pick of the day whiskey tasting. Where we selected pick, will either get zero, one or two thumbs up by our pick of the day whiskey tasting, where we selected pick. We'll either get zero, one or two thumbs up by the end of the show. This is our what do we say? Top of the month tasting. So that means we're going to have a lot of alcohol that Mark will come on in here and he'll explain what we got going on here, so it looks like we have four tastings that we get to sample today, so four shots. Considering all that's going on, I think a couple more shots would be even better. Now, though, let's move on to the latest headlines in the world technology here are our top technology stories of the week all right, a judge just blew up apple's control of the app store.

Nathan Mumm:

The judge in vs Apple has banned Apple from charging a commission on purchases made outside of the App Store itself. Let's go to Lisa Walker for more on this story.

Speaker 5:

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers just ruled that, effective immediately, apple is no longer allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside the app's software program and blocks the company from restricting how developers can point users. Apple says it will appeal the order. The ruling was issued as part of Epic Games' ongoing legal dispute against Apple. Rogers also says that Apple willfully chose not to comply with her previous injunction from her original 2021 ruling. Apple thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation, she said. The judge also referred the case to the US attorney to review it for possible criminal contempt proceedings. An apple a day keeps the lawyers in play.

Nathan Mumm:

Back to you guys in the studio play back to you guys in the studio, all right. So, according to, the judge has stated that apple is prohibited from one imposing any commissions or fees on purchases that consumers make outside an app. So that means, if you have an app and this is really going to epic and fortnite, this is where this battle originally started and if, if you want to do microtransactions in Fortnite this is what Epic was saying they used to send them to Epic store. They would buy it at the Epic store itself and then it would be a part of your character. Apple currently, until this injunction again happened, would charge a fee for anybody that would do a purchase within the Apple environment itself. Now they're also restricting developer style formatting or placement of links for off app purchases. They can't do that. So before, if you were trying to submit an app and you said, hey, come visit us online, then they would say we're not going to publish you in the app store, blocking or limiting the use of buttons or other calls to action in the games. So if you're're in a game and you want to buy something, you can buy it immediately, interfering with consumers' ability to leave an app beyond providing a natural message apprising users that they're going to a third-party site.

Nathan Mumm:

So Olivia Dalton, apple's Senior Director of Corporate Communications, issued a statement asserting we strongly disagree with the decision, but we will comply with the court's orders and we will appeal Now. Disagree with the decision, but we will comply with the court's orders and we will appeal now. Tim sweeney, ceo of epic games, announced that, in light of their ruling, fortnight will be returning to the us app store next week. Additionally, sweeney has presented a peace proposal, a peace proposal from epic. If apple extends the court's friction-free, apple tax-free framework worldwide will return fortnight to the app store worldwide and drop current and future litigations on the topic. So essentially, they're saying if you keep with what the judge has ruled and this is the second time now they've gone to this judge so that she ruled. First time it was illegal apple apple did nothing. They went back and they talked about it and tim cook's decision making why should apple do anything?

Nathan Mumm:

so they said, screw it, we're not going to do anything. And so they went to the second time. So Epic says, hey, we'll drop this lawsuit. I think Apple will absolutely lose the Epic lawsuit. I think it will be in the millions to billions of dollars that will be rewarded to Epic for this lawsuit in itself. They said that we'll stop right now if you just let us publish the deal.

Nathan Mumm:

Now Apple takes 30% in app purchases. So this is right now if you order something for $10, you're paying $13 for the item itself. $10 only goes to the actual provider of the utility that would be available, and for doing absolutely nothing, apple gets their 30%. This has now been removed. Now Apple instituted a policy requiring developers to pay a 27% commissions on those transactions. So they collect 30% from the person and then, with the number that they have so think of this as $10, then $2.70 has to be paid by the company. So they're making $3 on the transaction. $2.70 has to be paid by the company, so they're making $3 on the transaction $2.70. So when you're all said and done for a $13 transaction, the actual provider of the content that you're getting is getting less than $7 total in the transaction that's available there. So I believe this marks a significant shift for Apple and its future business practices. Moving forward, do you think that Apple should be able to charge companies to do what they're doing?

Mike Gorday:

Well, I don't know.

Nathan Mumm:

I think you're both kind of 50-50.

Mike Gorday:

This just goes back into what is ethical and necessary and how these billionaire companies are getting away with ripping off anybody they can rip off, right, yeah, does they're doing it? You know, meta's doing it, amazon's doing it, everybody's doing it. Yeah. And you know it's kind of funny that we keep reporting on these court cases and apple's just like throwing up the middle finger.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, Like okay thanks for your decision, but we're not changing a darn thing, all right.

Mike Gorday:

All right, I think she was a little peeved by that.

Nathan Mumm:

She was. She is very so. This is the wrong judge to have, and the continuing I mean. So she decided to send it up a court for criminal investigations. That does not happen. So that for criminal investigations. That does not happen. So this judge is so messed up.

Mike Gorday:

I don't think the judge is messed up. She's so pissed off. I think you know we talk about it quite a bit, but these companies, these huge mega corporations, are running roughshod over a lot of things and they should be held accountable.

Nathan Mumm:

I agree. All right, you got story number two.

Mike Gorday:

Hopefully it's a little bit nicer I don't know okay did you know that saying please and thank you to chat gpt wastes millions of dollars? I did not know that. Yeah, explain more. Apparently that is true. Sam altman, the ceo of open ai, recently stated that users courteous behavior towards ai chatbots, such as saying please and thank you, cost the company millions of dollars.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay.

Mike Gorday:

When a user on X questioned how much OpenAI loses because of these polite actions, Altman replies that it totals tens of millions of dollars well spent.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay.

Mike Gorday:

Although treating an AI chatbot with courtesy may seem trivial, experts believe that politeness influences AI interactions. Curtis Beaver's Microsoft design manager, suggested employing respectful language when communicating with AI helps generate respectful collaborative outputs. Essentially, polite requests establish a tone for responses that can lead to more effective and professional exchanges for responses that can lead to more effective and professional exchanges. A recent survey conducted in late 2024 found that 67% of AI users in the US reported being polite to their chatbots. Among these users, 55% said it was because it's the right thing to do, while 12% did so to appease the algorithm in case of a potential AI uprising. Okay, all right.

Mike Gorday:

Though the idea of AI rebelling in the future may seem humorous, the environmental consequences of such interactions are very real. A study by the University of California in the Washington Post revealed that creating a simple 100-word email using AI requires 0.14 kilowatt hours of electricity, which is enough to power 14 LED lights for one hour. If someone sent one AI-generated email each week for an entire year, that would use 7.5 kilowatts of energy, approximately equal to the energy consumed by nine households in Washington DC for one hour. Given the enormous number of prompts and queries that an AI handles daily, the total energy consumption soon becomes astounding. Data centers that support these chatbots account for around 2% of the global energy usage, and this figure is projected to increase significantly as AI becomes further integrated into everyday life. Sam Altman stands by his assertion that being polite is worth tens of millions of dollars, emphasizing that the price tag pales in comparison to the value of old-fashioned courtesy.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. So let me ask you about that when you are working with, because you use AI. You said you use AI to help you out Do you say thank you to it.

Mike Gorday:

I don't do it. I say thank you to Alexa when she does what I need her to do.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, so you say thank you.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, it's just kind of ingrained in me. I don't do it when I'm typing out things.

Marc Gregoire:

All right.

Mike Gorday:

That doesn't make any sense to me.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, sometimes it prompts you back. Is this the right response?

Mike Gorday:

And so I always respond yes, thank you. So I don't for some reason I don't translate it like that when I'm talking to the freaking Alexa thing and she does what I need her to do.

Nathan Mumm:

It's imposed like a voice, so you think it's kind of like a person.

Mike Gorday:

Well, yeah, yeah, it's kind of like that. You know, thanks, thanks, alexa. Oh, and she'll say you're welcome, yeah, you know, thanks. Thanks, alexa. Oh, and she'll. She'll say you're welcome. Yeah, you know. And then when she doesn't do what I want her to and I call her all kinds of bad names she just makes a funny sound and turns off wow, okay, wow, I've never really got after my alexa a whole lot I?

Mike Gorday:

I do all the time because I ask her, I ask her queries and her answer is like I don't have the answer to that question. Why the hell do you exist?

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, turn on your lights.

Mike Gorday:

I do it with my phone and my car too. You know, I'm driving around and I'm trying to do things with my phone. I've said things to it that it like comes back with like little things that say you know, just because I'm an AI chat bot doesn't mean I can't be hurt by these words wow, you must be, you must be going after your ai chatbots a lot.

Nathan Mumm:

Huh yeah, okay, I guess is that is that pent-up energy you get to get out on the ai.

Mike Gorday:

But I figure when they take over, I need to be taken out as fast as possible, so I don't end up being a slave all right, this is a story for od here.

Nathan Mumm:

story number three visa wants to give artificial intelligence agency your pocketbook. Now, these agents are designed to be more advanced. This is something that Visa is doing. Agents are designed to be more advanced than just chatbots. The tech sector has dedicated months to promoting AI personal assistance, capable of understanding your needs and performing tasks on your behalf. Visa aims to change this by integrating your credit card with these AI agents. By setting a budget and preferences, these AI successors to chat, gpt and other chatbots could help you find and purchase items such as a sweater, weekly groceries or even your airplane tickets.

Nathan Mumm:

Now, last week, visa announced a partnership with several leading AI chat developers, including US companies, anthropic Microsoft, openai, perplexity and France's Mistral, to connect their AI systems with Visa's payment network. Visa is also collaborating with IBM, online payment firm Stripe and phone manufacturer Samsung on this initiative. Now, the pilot projects will commence in the next couple of weeks, with a broader rollout anticipated over the year. Now the San Francisco payment company believes that this will be the futuristic way of making purchases, so we're already kind of doing this, if you think about it, with Apple Pay that effectively turns your phones into a credit card. Now think of similar vetting process for digital credentials that would empower AI agents to operate on the customer's behalf, assuring buyers, banks and merchants that transactions are genuine and that Visa will then manage any disputes.

Nathan Mumm:

Visa doesn't imply AI agents will fully take over the shopping experience. However, they might take over tasks for some tedious, like grocery shopping, home bills, home improvement items or even maybe Christmas lists, but other items considered to be a little bit more complicated will still encourage people to purchase luxury goods, entertainment and other items that customers wish to fully engage with the decision-making process. Are you concerned about credit cards taking over in purchasing? Now let's just talk about what the Federal Reserve came on out, saying that over America right now, the consumer balance on credit cards has reached $1.21 trillion of debt that is owed out there on credit cards. Would you turn your AI bot over and let them purchase and manage your budget? Well, that's a lot of dead air there. All right, what are you thinking?

Nathan Mumm:

no what you would say no that that feels so weird well, so this is.

Mike Gorday:

This is what's happening would you, would you, would you allow an ai chatbot to uh?

Ody:

does that mean that they're looking into everything that I'm doing and they know what I bought, so they'll even so they will suggest for you.

Nathan Mumm:

And on ways to save money, they'll suggest for you I understand that part okay, so now I use bill pay, so let me just say and then, and then it'll buy your groceries for you yeah I don't like that apple, so we use apple pay. I use apple pay all the time so my phone is now a credit card with apple pay yeah I do do a lot of online bill pay stuff.

Nathan Mumm:

I think most of us do online bill pay, so what's the difference of just having an AI bot take over your bill paying processes?

Mike Gorday:

Well, let's see Visa being a for-profit company. Maybe the more that they buy for you, the more they make. Well, yes, so this is to compete with cryptocurrency.

Nathan Mumm:

This is Visa's attack on cryptocurrency, because cryptocurrency is gaining popularity I've now I I was. I was down at the local kroger's here. You know you can now pay for your groceries on both ethereum and bitcoin. No, that is now an option to check out. You got cash, but that's what.

Mike Gorday:

That's what that was designed to do right it is it's designed to eventually get rid of regular currency.

Nathan Mumm:

That is so. Kroger now has an option where I can actually literally put in a bit. Now I didn't do all the work for it and I've heard that it's just cumbersome because you have to know your password, you have to know what your transaction is. But soon, if Apple Pay comes up with cryptocurrency holding and I just go there and I have Apple Pay, comes up with cryptocurrency holding and I just go there and I have Apple Pay, I put my phone up there. Cryptocurrency pays for it. Boom. Now Visa is making no more money on the transaction. Credit card companies disappear in seconds.

Mike Gorday:

So why not create an indentured servitude thing where Visa controls all your money? And yeah, that's not where that's going.

Ody:

Every day we get closer to Black Mirror, we do. That's all where that's going Every day we get closer to Black Mirror.

Nathan Mumm:

We do.

Ody:

Like that's all I'm thinking about. I don't remember what the episode is called, but there's an episode where they basically take a tiny version of yourself and then keep them trapped in your head and it's your own personal assistant. That's what I'm thinking about in this whole sense. Every day we're getting closer to that yeah, well, you know it's not.

Mike Gorday:

You know, this is something that seems innocuous when you first hear about it, because of saying, well, we're just going to do what you're already doing with these other companies. But pretty soon it'll be like, hey, you'll get a message and hey, we noticed that you buy diet coke every other week. Do you want us to go ahead and do that for you automatically?

Ody:

yeah, sure I don't want so it's called the memory device green.

Nathan Mumm:

That's what it was called. That little yeah, that was in there yeah that was what it was. Yeah, so I see, that's terrifying I I, I, I'm actually kind of okay with it. I would actually probably be one of the early adopters of that. Really yeah, because I already have all my credit cards. They're already getting paid for my Comcast.

Mike Gorday:

They're already getting paid for StreamYard Nathan's kissing up to the AI. I understand in the sense of bill pay.

Ody:

It'd be something like not having to think but making purchases on its own based on my history. I would hate that but helping me Manage what I'm doing.

Nathan Mumm:

Do you like shopping, though I hate shopping. I think, as an early adopter of hating shopping, maybe that's the key. Go buy me a new sweater every three months, when I need a new sweater.

Mike Gorday:

Who does?

Speaker 2:

that what.

Ody:

I use.

Nathan Mumm:

Stitch Fix, I get all my new clothes.

Ody:

Yeah, because you hate shopping, I do, so this is ideal for you.

Mike Gorday:

That's why you look like a slob all the time.

Nathan Mumm:

I know. Come on, my guy from New York picked this out. This looks fantastic.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, but that's a person. It looks fantastic on a mannequin. I don't know, if to be a person. This is just surreal, man, yeah, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, that ends our top technology stories of the week. Next we dive into our letters?

Mike Gorday:

When are you going to just have the AI just take over your slot here? On the thing, just set up a speaker.

Speaker 2:

There's no way.

Mike Gorday:

He could just make bad grammar Wow.

Nathan Mumm:

We're going to dive into our letter segment next, featuring scams submitted by listeners and some studio selected issues. Be sure you're listening and share this segment with a friend. Get ready as we hit 88 miles per hour on our way to the next segment.

Speaker 2:

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Nathan Mumm:

All right, welcome back to Tech Time with Nathan Mumm. Our weekly show covers the top technology stories without any political agenda. We verify the facts and we deal with the sense of humor in less than 60 minutes and, of course, with a little whiskey on the side. Today, mark Gregoire our Today Mark Gregoire, our whiskey connoisseur, our resident chatbot is in studio and has our monthly tradition Mark explain to us what we're doing with this whiskey at the beginning of the month, for all of the new listeners.

Marc Gregoire:

Yeah, today we're doing the 2024 Flavor Advent Calendar and this is our round five. So we're using the Advent Calendar with 24 remarkable whiskeys to use for a year-long blind whiskey competition to see which one Nathan and Mike like best. I got two that I really like on this. Today is round five, where they will choose their winner to move on to the semifinals. If they disagree, I will be the deciding vote.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh boy, okay. So this is group five. How many preliminary rounds do we have? Six, six, okay. So after next month, when we get into June, we'll then start moving our way until we get into a winner. All right, I like two of these a lot.

Marc Gregoire:

Let me tell you a little about today. Our samples are all bourbons. However, they're a mixture of blended straight bourbons and toasted finished bourbons. Now, a blended straight bourbon is a blend of two or more straight bourbons, possibly from different states or distilleries, but without any added neutral spirits, flavors or coloring. Toasted finished bourbons are bourbons that undergo a secondary maturation in toasted barrels, often following initial aging in a traditional charred oak barrel. This process, this finishing process, imparts unique, often sweeter, more dessert-like flavors to the whiskey.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, you know, I like two of these a lot. So are two of these toasted.

Marc Gregoire:

So are two of these toasted two are toasted and two are blended I think I love the toasted. I think I have two of the toasted oh well, let's see, wish, wish, wish two, so this one and this one, so that's the water glass. Yeah, that one is a toasted okay, and what's the other one? The glen karen. That one is a blend. Oh, that's a blend yeah, one of each.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh no, okay, I thought I was getting the toast. I'm starting to. I'm starting to buy a lot of toast, all right, well you certainly are toasted.

Mike Gorday:

Is that what you said?

Marc Gregoire:

I'm gonna be toasted well, let all our listeners and viewers out there don't forget to like and subscribe. Drink responsibly, especially when you're doing a lot of whiskey tasting, because heaven can wait all right, mark.

Nathan Mumm:

Thanks so much. All right, with our first whiskey tasting completed, let's move on to our feature segment. Today we bring back the funny yet informative reading of emails that I received during the week. This includes scam, phishing emails, texting scams and all-out mistruths disguised as legitimate emails in a segment we call Letters.

Ody:

Letters. We get letters. We get back, back, back those letters.

Marc Gregoire:

Oh, letters, we get letters, and the letters all have fun.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, as we go around, we go around the table, we start with Odie first, then we'll go Mark, then we'll go Mike and then we'll go myself. Now let me just tell you I I'm gonna be a little different today. I don't actually have a letter, but I'm gonna be talking about a brand new scam that is hitting the markets. So that's kind of my my gig. But let's start with you first, od. What do you have there?

Ody:

um, I have something that says site scan okay schedule this. Wow, the scheduled site scan. Found one issue with scanning and it says g saga me, expo me, expocom okay okay, no vulnerabilities, wordpress, and then it gives you some fun thing. What action should I take? Go pro now or get solid security pro all right, so so this is a standard.

Nathan Mumm:

So if you have a website yeah, if you own a website and you use a word website, which is, like now, 95% of the market and 4% is like Wix, and then there's like 1% of custom HTML If you have a WordPress site, what happens is there's plugins that you load and a lot of them are security related and a lot of them tell you when something's wrong or when something's right. It's really interesting right now with ChatGPT, because you can actually just go to ChatGPT and ask them to write you a WordPress plugin, and it's about 80 to 90% inclusive of making sure that that app actually works. So you don't even have to now download these pre-done apps or pay somebody for these, because you can actually have ChatGPT or Grok or some AI actually go and create code for you and, boom, it's ready to go. But this is a scam. Specifically on a WordPress site that I had once set up, it looks like there's some security vulnerabilities.

Nathan Mumm:

As soon as I start looking into it, they start saying that I have more vulnerabilities, more vulnerabilities, and as you keep on clicking and clicking and clicking, there's different software packages that will help correct and make my site safer. So not only does it tell me to buy one software, it tells me to buy a second software and a third software and a fourth software to keep the site up when really there is absolutely nothing wrong with the site to begin with. So it's all kind of a scare tactic. Looks really good. You don't ever want to have your website vulnerable. So you're going to click on, give me more information, and what happens is when you go and you start clicking on it, they start selling you other items. Now they're not actually malicious. That's what I was wondering. They're not malicious items, but you don't need these items to fix your site. Your site is still fine. They're just giving you a false positive warning the placebo effect yes.

Mike Gorday:

False positive warning placebo effect yes. What happens when visa starts buying those things for you?

Nathan Mumm:

the plugins for.

Mike Gorday:

Uh, yeah, I don't know if they're gonna do that thing you know you have like 80 000 plugins and you can't figure out where it is and visa's like smiling also, it's important to note that, looking at the email itself, it looks like a legit email it's pretty close.

Nathan Mumm:

Right now it looks like a security email other than the fact that it's g saga me expocom yeah so it's kind of a site.

Nathan Mumm:

It was a site that I actually have purchased on godaddy, so they knew that I have the site. I don't have anything running on that site, so they shouldn't have expected that. So the thing is is great scam. I don't have anything on that site. So when you're trying to tell me there's vulnerabilities, I don't have anything. That's just a parked domain site. But still their actual effort worked pretty good to. If you had that site and that site was actually being used, I think I would have clicked on it and done a couple purchases. All right, mark, we'll go to you next what does your letter have?

Marc Gregoire:

mine is pretty lame oh wow, now, now.

Nathan Mumm:

Now, now he doesn't like.

Marc Gregoire:

Okay, hang on now it's lame from the spammers. Okay, let Let me tell you so. It came from Citricom Billing, aka OmniNet, and it says it's an invoice. And it says Dear Nathan Mum, the attached invoice number blah, blah, blah, for $0 is due. Well, you put $0, I'm going to throw it in the trash, even if I think it's real.

Nathan Mumm:

So the AI, whatever AI engine, the actual attachment that they said, even though I said on the email that I owe $0, there's an attachment that came with it.

Marc Gregoire:

There's a PDF attachment.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, and the PDF attachment said that it owed $49. Oh, okay, so somehow maybe they fat-fingered it in their deal and didn't realize that it should have been a $49.

Marc Gregoire:

They missed a four and a nine.

Mike Gorday:

And a four and a nine and they just put zero dollars, could they?

Nathan Mumm:

have made it so. The pdf contained a virus. Uh, they could have made it so. A pdf contained a virus. This one actually didn't have a pdf that did contain a virus, um, but this is not a legit company that was trying to do an invoice. What this does do, though, and your spam filters, is, if I let this through and I don't flag it as spam because it's zero dollars and I just keep it in my inbox, I just keep it in my inbox the next time they send an email, and the next time they send an email, it will just automatically come into my inbox, because I haven't really deleted them. There was no reason for me to necessarily delete it because it's $0. So I'll just let it kind of hold out in my inbox, which then creates a false security.

Marc Gregoire:

Did this actually come into your inbox or did this come into your spam folder? No it came into my inbox. Oh, it actually made it through the spam.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, because they've sent me a couple others at $0 that I just kept in my inbox and I never really deleted.

Marc Gregoire:

And so now, all of a sudden, they come in there and when the next time they want to charge me $60, $90 or whatever, they're going to be right there. So what you're?

Nathan Mumm:

recommending then is right click on and say mark as spam. I should, should do that, but then I have about 2 000 unread emails, so I'm not a very good job. I I grew up in the gmail uh era where you could just have like all of your uh items in your inbox and you didn't, and you'd star them. You didn't have categories back in the day, you would just star them in your inbox, and so I developed the habit of of having like 20 gig inboxes. Oh yeah, okay, all right, continuing on, we'll talk about my bad uh uh processes of my inbox yeah why not?

Nathan Mumm:

all right, what do you have here? Yours is scary, mine is.

Marc Gregoire:

Yeah, I almost clicked on yours oh, okay, well, that's why it's scary, because you almost clicked on it okay it is from yeah, 501 C3 Center Co Company.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, with hello at my501c3centercom. And 501 C3 is a not-for-profit Classification Classification, and this headline says review and file your 990, which I am assuming is a tax form for a 501 C3. That is correct. Yep, hello, courtyard Media Foundation. Okay, and that is your 501c3?. That is correct. Yep, hello, courtyard Media Foundation. Okay, and that is your 501c3?. That is correct. This is a reminder that in order to maintain the status of 501c4 Courtyard Media Foundation, the IRS requires you to file a Form 990 annually. If you haven't filed for the year ending 12, 31, 20, 24 yet, now is the time to do so, to file your annual 990 in series with our assistance. Please click the link below. So you almost did you click the link? Or did you almost click the link?

Nathan Mumm:

uh, you know you always click the link to follow the follow the scan so I actually clicked this on my main machine and then I had to send it over to my other machine to actually take a look at it. So I did click on it and it came on up. This was right. When it's like april 28th, I'm like, okay, this is the deal, what's going on here? I looked at the quickly. It kind of sounded like it was legit and I did click on it.

Mike Gorday:

Yep, you got psychologically taken advantage of.

Nathan Mumm:

I did I did Not everybody's always perfect.

Mike Gorday:

Well, that's how they get us. They will always get us at some point, because at some point we are not paying enough attention.

Nathan Mumm:

Now what I will say is that it's supposed to take you to the IRS to get your form right. So it took you to a mocked version of the IRS. Oh, they tried to fake it. They tried to fake it, but now the IRS website is blue. So if you ever go and file anything with the United States, almost all of the governmental websites use blue as a primary color. So this website had yellow as a primary color. So this website had yellow as a primary color Probably the worst color to choose to alert somebody when you're going to the fake webpage and all of a sudden say this does not look, no, that sounds really good, because they just peed all over you.

Mike Gorday:

Is that what it is? Yeah, okay, so the that sounds like it. That sounds like it.

Nathan Mumm:

So the website actually is what triggered me and I go this does not look right. I know all government sites are normally blue. Now in the state of Washington it's very green. So I mean we have normally colors that are profound with each of the states that you are in and have stuff taken care of.

Marc Gregoire:

So that was it. Even still, after you click on the link, couldn't you just look if it was a gov?

Nathan Mumm:

I did look up there too, but the first thing that came on up was it was just yellow, it was even still the link.

Mike Gorday:

The link is just a bunch of gibberish.

Nathan Mumm:

Yep, is it's kboj-zgpm yeah, but you don't see that link until you print it out, right?

Marc Gregoire:

so when you just see the html, that was there the html was covered, so I did not see that itself. You didn't hover your mouse over it, which is a a little trick.

Nathan Mumm:

I was in a hurry so I had some bad. You need to listen to Tech Time.

Marc Gregoire:

Radio's letter segment.

Mike Gorday:

This is where psychology works against you. This is what Visa is counting on.

Nathan Mumm:

You're going on that Visa thing.

Mike Gorday:

I'm just going to hang on Visa, because that's ridiculous. I'm going to ask you a question about Visa. You already know my answer too. I don't know my answer to it.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, I don't know your answer necessarily. All right, here we go. Here's mine. Everybody, listen up to this one, all right? All right, odie, are you ready, because I don't know if you've gotten this. Have you received a package from Amazon or one of your retailers that all of a sudden had a QR code inside of your package and asked you to fill out a survey for them? Or have you received something where you purchased from Amazon or an online store and it had a QR code in there and it asked you to give them feedback or to give them a rating? Sometimes they even incentivize you to do this and give you money for a positive rating. Then all you got to do is show it to them and then boom, they'll give you some money back on PayPal or through another area, or receive the box that you did not know where it was coming from, with a QR code on the outside. Has that happened to you?

Ody:

The only time I've ever written a review is if I really love the product or if I really hate that.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, but let me just ask you have you gotten a QR code in a package? You've never gotten a QR code.

Ody:

I mean probably, but I don't. I'm not going to click. I have. Okay, you have, Mark, You've never gotten a QR code. I mean probably, but I'm not going to claim it.

Marc Gregoire:

I have. Okay, you have, Mark. Have you done it? Absolutely?

Nathan Mumm:

Okay. So guess what? The newest scam that's going on is that people are actually selling products putting in malware in the QR codes. So what happens is you open your phone to give a review, you scan it because it's getting so easy and you just think, okay, I've done it before and there hasn't been a problem. So these new scammers are actually working with low-end products. So let's say, you buy a cheap headset or you buy some cheap knockoff iPods or some type of speaker system or anything a cable. You get that rating in there.

Nathan Mumm:

Now what fraudulent people are doing is putting in QR codes that immediately load malware on your phones and take over your phones when you do that QR code. Huge hit that is hitting right now. It is called now what it is a brushing scam. That's this new term of a brushing scam where the thieves essentially are giving you access to information, working with the person that is actually selling the product, to provide a QR code that they don't really care about the survey with, but immediately captures your phone. If this happens to you and you do scan this QR code, it will immediately shut down your phone, brick your phone, lock your phones or immediately send information on the back end to this third party that has an open portal to your phone itself. Treat QR codes the same way you do links now.

Mike Gorday:

What's the point of bricking somebody's phone?

Nathan Mumm:

What was the point of bricking somebody's phone Just to cause them grief? So it's just a griefing thing. Just a griefing thing. But if I am buying some cheap headphones from China, Maybe that's what happened to my old phone? Did your old phone just stop working?

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, it just stopped working. Did it really yeah but I don't think I scanned the QR code. It could have been. It could have been that you did a QR code. Maybe it got bricked.

Nathan Mumm:

It could have been bricked. So treat QR codes the same way now. Do not click on them immediately on your phone. There are new companies that are coming up with ways to actually have QR code antivirus processes that will create a portal that will verify the QR code is correct. But be careful.

Mike Gorday:

At what point do we, as a culture or a race or whatever, just go? This is absolutely ridiculous, yeah.

Nathan Mumm:

I don't know. So I use QR codes for a huge marketing event that I do. I have them all over the local town.

Mike Gorday:

That's why they work. They're easy, you can take them from away.

Nathan Mumm:

You can order tickets from it immediately. When you just go up, you scan by it. So mine are legit. Now I'm worried about my marketing. If this gets out there now. I'm kind of sad because I'm going to lose all that momentum of what I actually have there.

Marc Gregoire:

Kind of sad because I'm going to lose all that momentum of what I actually have there, I'm gonna go dig my virus qr code and paste it right over all your stickers. Is that what you're?

Mike Gorday:

gonna do. Posters, see, this is how laziness works in your. It works in your favor what's that? You're just not. You just I get those things and I'm like I'm not gonna do that. You just don't feel about I just no I I don't, I don't, I don't fill out. Okay surveys, I don't, I don't fill out. I don't fill them out. No, I don't fill out surveys. I don't fill out. I don't scan QR codes. I'm like this is too much cognitive load. I'm not doing this.

Ody:

Yeah, I'm in the same bracket with Mike.

Nathan Mumm:

The only way that I feel like they would get me is if you know like somebody like Mark puts a falser code on top of the real one yeah of something like a restaurant, and then I'm screwed well, just look at all the places you go to and you do now do a qr code for a menu well, that's how I got in trouble.

Mike Gorday:

That's how I got in trouble with that parking thing yes, you did somebody had a qr code and you scanned and I scanned it and suddenly and suddenly, uh, now I had to go and get my cards changed, because they had my card numbers Like F, this yeah, so you got to be careful.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, that ends our positive segment we call letters Positive, didn't?

Speaker 8:

you have a letter.

Mike Gorday:

I just did the whole thing. All right, there you go. I must have missed that. I was thinking too much.

Nathan Mumm:

You're on the AI visa kick, so let's move on to Mike's mesmerizing moment. Welcome to Mike's mesmerizing moment. What does Mike have to say today? All right, mike, would you like to have an AI bot that purchases standard items and manages your financial situation? What? Do you think no, no, no, no, no no, no, because I said yes, so I mean I that's because.

Mike Gorday:

That's because you know you're you want to flirt with dan. Did you ever do you? I bet you money that you did the uh old uh. What are those called? Uh, uh bng or uh bng, what was it? What the the CD of the Month clubs Remember?

Speaker 8:

those.

Nathan Mumm:

Oh, Columbia Club Columbia.

Marc Gregoire:

House. Yes, I did that too it was for tapes back in my day.

Mike Gorday:

That's exactly what this is. It's a modern day Columbia House thing.

Nathan Mumm:

No, I got 10 tapes for $1.

Mike Gorday:

I know.

Nathan Mumm:

And then I just had to get one tape for 12 months.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, but then you had to pay right.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, so then I had to pay like $10 for 12 months, or you had to send it back.

Mike Gorday:

So they were saying if you don't like this, send it back. In the mail.

Nathan Mumm:

You had to send it back within a week.

Mike Gorday:

Right and back in the postal service. Yeah, you'd never get it back in the mail, and the point was is that it was making it so hard for you to send it back that you would?

Nathan Mumm:

just roll acdc guns and roses all that and guess what I got. All the rest of the months I got country. So then, all of a sudden, I got into countries so, kenny chessie, all these other type of stuff.

Marc Gregoire:

So these are horrible services. You're right, mark, mike I swear.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, this is this is this is bad. Would I recommend this for anybody? No, no, no. The more, the more you don't do, the more effort you give away to something else, yeah, the more you're going to be taken advantage of. I'm sorry, but that's what these folks are trying to do. We spend an entire lifetime around staving off all this information that we're getting to just live a life. To just live a life. You know you can't even walk through a day without being told. You know, if you don't use Tide, you're a sucker, or you know buy this car because it's more awesome than that car.

Marc Gregoire:

So Mike just made his point. What's your counterpoint? Because you actually signed up for the service.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, as I said, I'd be a part of their beta.

Mike Gorday:

Because he's lazy in the opposite direction.

Nathan Mumm:

No, I think it'd be great to have an AI bot, don't you think so?

Marc Gregoire:

So you signed up for the beta. We should maybe, in a few months, come back and do a Nathan Nugget on it.

Nathan Mumm:

So my financial bot's going to be Dave.

Mike Gorday:

Ramsey, you do. You just want me to say that on there don't you. Get ready on the guy.

Nathan Mumm:

Be careful on the button. All right, I know, I was just thinking about when you were doing. I'm like what am I going to name my AI bot? I had something else and let me let me like.

Mike Gorday:

Do you do auto pay?

Nathan Mumm:

I do. Oh yes, All my stuff is on auto pay go back and check your auto pay I know. So how is it that you don't know you're getting taken advantage of? So I'll look at the chase, uh, almost every other day, my bank account if it looks like it's something off, and I'll be like you know that's I mean I use, I use auto pay for certain things, okay, but I have to go.

Mike Gorday:

I have to go and check to make sure that I'm being billed properly, because I know somewhere along the line somebody's gonna to misbill me and I'm going to lose money somewhere.

Nathan Mumm:

That happens, and I don't think it's accidental either. Let me just tell you, I got an email from my DeLorean group that I paid for. Oh, I'm going to have to talk about that.

Ody:

Alright okay.

Speaker 2:

You know. Thank you for that mesmerizing moment.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah that was certainly mesmerizing. No, don't do it. So that was certainly All right, we're going to do it.

Nathan Mumm:

We're going to head out to a commercial break. When we return, we have this week in technology, so now is a great time to enjoy a little whiskey on the side, as we're going to be doing so during the break. See you in a few minutes.

Mike Gorday:

Hey, mike, yeah, what's?

Nathan Mumm:

up, hey, so you know what. We need people to start liking our social media page.

Mike Gorday:

If you like our show, if we could use your support on Patreoncom. Is it Patreon? I think it's Patreon. Okay, Patreon, if you really like us, you can like us in Patreoncom.

Nathan Mumm:

I butcher the English language. You know, you butcher the English language all the time. It's Patreoncom.

Mike Gorday:

Patreoncom. If you really like our show, you can subscribe to Patreoncom and help us out and you can visit us on that Facebook platform.

Nathan Mumm:

You know, the one that Zuckerberg owns.

Mike Gorday:

The one that we always bag on.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, we're on Facebook too. Yeah, like us on Facebook. Do you know what our Facebook page is? Tech Time Radio. At Tech Time Radio, you know what? There's a trend here.

Mike Gorday:

It seems to be that there's a trend and that's Tech Time Radio, or you can even Instagram with us, and that's at TechTimeRadio.

Nathan Mumm:

That's at TechTimeRadio. Or you can find us on TikTok, and it's TechTimeRadio. It's at TechTimeRadio.

Mike Gorday:

Like and subscribe to our social media Like us.

Nathan Mumm:

Today, we need you to like us.

Mike Gorday:

Like us and subscribe.

Nathan Mumm:

That's it. That's it, it's that simple.

Speaker 1:

And now let's look back at this week in technology. All let's look back at this week in technology.

Nathan Mumm:

All right, we're going to go all the way back to May 11th 1997. Deep Blue defeats Casper Caspero in a chess tournament. The IBM computer and artificial intelligence, deep Blue, defeats reigning chess champion and one of the greatest chess players of all time, gary Caspero, in the sixth and deciding game of the tournament match, thus becoming the first time a computer defeated a chess champion in match play. The defeat is a reigning chess champion at the hands of artificial intelligence, made headlines around the world and marked a milestone in the development of AI and machine learning. From this early landmark moment, the advancement of computer power and machine learning has created even early landmark moment. The advancement of computer power and machine learning has created even more powerful artificial intelligence that can perform more complex tasks in seconds versus the human brain.

Nathan Mumm:

Well, that was this Week in Technology. If you ever wanted to watch some Tech Time history, with over 240 plus weekly broadcasts spanning our four plus years of video podcasts and blog information, you can visit us online at techtimeradiocom and watch our older plus years of video podcasts and blog information. They can visit us online at tech time radiocom and watch our older shows. We're going to head out for a commercial break. When we return, we have our Mark mumble whiskey review. See you after the break.

Speaker 8:

Attention all geeks and pop culture enthusiasts, get ready for the ultimate celebration of everything geek at geek fest West game expo. July 18th through the 20th in downtown Everett Washington. Join us for three thrilling days packed with cosmic cosplay, gaming, tournaments, retro movies and a street fair brimming with unique vendors. From the innovative Geektopia Vendor Hall to the Galactic Time Warp showcasing beloved film classics, including Ghostbusters, the Wrath of Khan and our special 40th anniversary showing of Goonies, there's something for everyone. Plus, participate in interactive events from keynote speakers each day to special guest artists. Tickets are on sale now. Secure your spot for this epic celebration at geekfestcom. Get your badges from one-day passes to VIP options and don't be left out. Visit geekfestcom. Geekfest West, the biggest gathering of geek fandom in Snohomish County.

Speaker 1:

The segment we've been waiting all week for Mark's Whiskey Mumble.

Mike Gorday:

You know, Mark, how I know when Nathan's not an AI bot.

Marc Gregoire:

Yet How's that? How's that, Mike?

Mike Gorday:

Because he still messes things up like Garry Kasparov. Is it Kasparov?

Nathan Mumm:

or Kasparov.

Mike Gorday:

It's Kasparov, kasparov.

Nathan Mumm:

Are you sure?

Mike Gorday:

Yes.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, all right, we'll see Listeners.

Mike Gorday:

That's how I know.

Nathan Mumm:

Is it Garry Kasparov or is it Garry Kasparov?

Mike Gorday:

It's Kasparov, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

He's a Russian grandmaster. I know that. All right. So you listeners, you need to say is Nathan right or is Mike right? Yeah, you know who's right. All right, let's move on to our pick of the day, not AI, nathan.

Marc Gregoire:

Today, May 6th, we are celebrating a day that we are all currently celebrating right now Kasparov Day. That would have been a good guess. Whiskey Day it's pretty close. National Beverage Day oh, I like National Beverage Day Now. We could not be more excited about National Beverage Day. The day encourages us to sit back, relax and enjoy your favorite beverage. Beverages come in many forms and the good news is there's one for every taste. The only thing that matters is that you pick up and make some of your favorite gathering with friends and family.

Marc Gregoire:

So get ready to enjoy and unwind.

Nathan Mumm:

I like some sweet tea. A little sweet-ay, a little sweet-ay. Well, what Sweet-ay. Have you ever been in the South. They always do sweet tea like sweet-ay.

Mike Gorday:

Have you ever been in the South? They always do sweet tea. That's not how they say it in the South?

Speaker 8:

It's not sweaty.

Nathan Mumm:

It's not sweaty, a little sweaty Okay.

Marc Gregoire:

Well, in celebration today, we have four beverages we are sipping on, and I did write with friends, but I'm not sure right now.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay. You guys have us all getting liquored up, I'm going to tell you the show gets a little bit more of the first of the month shows, a little bit more degraded as we drink through all of our shots do you have a favorite?

Marc Gregoire:

yet are you still deciding?

Nathan Mumm:

I do have a favorite. I absolutely have a favorite. This is my favorite right here by far and mike, do you have a favorite?

Marc Gregoire:

yeah?

Mike Gorday:

oh, you guys agree, we're agreeing. So far I don't even have to drink.

Marc Gregoire:

So you guys all chose the one in the water glass, which is yellowstone. Special finishes collection toasted oh, it's from lux row, which is now owned by mgp. Ross and squid it's from kentucky. This is a finished straight bourbon, so it is toasted. Four years, 100 proof, 52 dollars. Okay, all right. And then do you have a worst one? Yes, this shot glass.

Nathan Mumm:

I am not liking the shot glass.

Mike Gorday:

Mine's in the.

Nathan Mumm:

Yours is in reverse order.

Marc Gregoire:

Oh, okay. Third position Well, that one is Penelope Toasted Series. Now, this was the one for December 24th. This is the special one, okay, that they put into the wine, okay, or into the box, okay, man, I haven't even been drinking.

Nathan Mumm:

You got a lot of drinks over there too.

Marc Gregoire:

I was thinking about all their different favorite beverages. Okay, all right. So this one is also from MGP Ross and Squid. It's distilled in Indiana, it's a finished straight bourbon, roughly five years, 100 proof, and this one is $70.

Nathan Mumm:

This is the most expensive one. Okay, that's good that my taste decided to go with the $50 bottle.

Marc Gregoire:

Did you have a close second?

Nathan Mumm:

I did. My second would have actually been here, so that would have been the Glencairn?

Marc Gregoire:

Yep. What about you, Mike? That was his number two also.

Mike Gorday:

Yeah, no, this is my number two.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, so we're the same.

Marc Gregoire:

We're the same, yep.

Nathan Mumm:

That's my number two.

Marc Gregoire:

So that one number two was Millum and Green Whiskies. They're triple cask bourbon, so this is a blend of straight bourbons from Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Non-age stated 94 proof, $47. Okay. And then the one that was kind of in the middle kind of amped for everybody. Oh, mike's, no, Mike's.

Mike Gorday:

No, it wasn't Mike. No, mike, no, no, that would be my last. I'm having trouble because they all taste pretty good, so no, actually the one I just read there was mike's last.

Marc Gregoire:

Okay, okay, okay so the one in the beer glass, yeah, which is mike's second that's my second, yeah and that is my second.

Mike Gorday:

Second, yeah, that's your second okay that.

Marc Gregoire:

So. Your second is the beer glass. That is the wise man. That is a blend of straight bourbons from the Stolle group. It's a blend of four Kentucky whiskeys four to eight years old, 90.8 proof, $60.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, All right, that's good to know. We'll see what our pick of the day is, but I'm sure I'm not changing. All right, well, with whisking technology.

Marc Gregoire:

Such a great pairing, pairing just like c3po and r2d2. Oh, you remember, yesterday was revenge of the sith day on may 5th, right?

Nathan Mumm:

so you have may 4th, then you have may 5th, revenge of the sith, and then we have today the 6th.

Marc Gregoire:

Why is may 5th, besides cinco de mayo, the sith thing?

Nathan Mumm:

well, I said, they've added it now. So the star wars is trying to keep on going on with different. You've heard of of that before, haven't you Mike? Oh yeah, okay, that's going to make me drink. All right, let's now prepare for our technology fail of the week, brought to you by Elite Executive Services. Congratulations, you're a failure.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I failed. Did I yes, did I yes.

Nathan Mumm:

All right. This week's technology fail comes to us from Uber. Now. Julia faced every parent's worst nightmare when her five-year-old daughter was inadvertently taken away in an Uber while sleeping in the backseat. Realizing the error, she immediately contacted Uber, seeking to contact the driver to swiftly find her child. However, uber refused to give contact information, citing company policy. Instead, they required the Toronto Police to submit an official request via their emergency disclosure form, accessible only through the public safety response portal or by email. Now, this bureaucratic process hindered the efforts to locate this child. Bureaucratic.

Mike Gorday:

Bureaucratic, bureaucratic. I actually like that one, because you know it sounds like necrotic. Okay, there you go, although.

Nathan Mumm:

Uber was unwillingly to provide direct help. Toronto police managed to trace the driver through other channels. Upon arrival, the officer found the child safe but understandably distressed. The girl had been unknowingly transported about 20 miles away from her initial drop-off point. Now Julia, the mom, felt relieved but enraged by Uber's lack of immediate support. Now, as compensation, uber offered a $10 credit, which Julia deemed deeply insulting. Now Uber justified his actions by stating that his policies aimed to protect the privacy of both riders and drivers.

Nathan Mumm:

Nonetheless, critics claim the incident exposed to significant flaw in emergency response procedures within the gig economy, when efficiency often comes at the expense of customer service. Now, technology analyst Camry Levy pointed out that traditional transportation services usually have direct customer support systems, while companies like Uber depend on strict protocols that can complicate the urgent situation. Julia has since intensified her efforts, demanding policy reforms that would ensure uber prioritizes the safety of minors in similar circumstances. She asserts that no financial compensation would have been adequate without the implementation of a clear emergency protocol to prevent similar occursions for their families. Sue Alright, so what do you think there? So, odie, what are you saying there?

Ody:

Okay, I am not blaming the mom at all. I want that to be very clear. Okay, but Uber does not allow minors to ride alone.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, they wouldn't call it.

Ody:

There's a policy, there's a policy and they just started doing it with teens, that teens can now ride alone or have their own accounts. So I don't know about you, but I wouldn't let a five-year-old alone in somebody's car by themselves.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, so she wasn't unloading. That's what happened.

Nathan Mumm:

She was unloading, she forgot that her kid was in the back. Oh, she forgot.

Marc Gregoire:

She did, she forgot the kid, did she forget?

Mike Gorday:

or did she just unload and then they just took off? Well, according to what I read, they were discussing about how to move all these groceries, or whatever and get the kid and the Uber driver just took off.

Ody:

Yes, then I take it back.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, take it back. Okay. So okay, that's fine, okay take it back Okay.

Ody:

So okay, that's fine.

Speaker 8:

Oh, wow.

Nathan Mumm:

Although still, if you're an Uber driver, this is what I would say you shouldn't be leaving, and if you have to go 20 miles until you realize you have somebody in your backseat.

Mike Gorday:

Well a sleeping kid is pretty quiet.

Ody:

Yeah, also, they're a five-year-old, so they're pretty small. Depending how you're sitting, are you going to be able to see them in the rear view?

Nathan Mumm:

mirror. I would expect as an Uber driver, you always check to make sure somebody leaves your deal.

Mike Gorday:

The whole situation is not the problem. The problem is where the bureaucratic policies come into play. Yeah, it should have been $20.

Nathan Mumm:

It should have been $20.

Mike Gorday:

That's. The real problem is that it should have been $20 instead of $10. That's the real problem is that it should have been 20 bucks instead of 10 bucks. No, it's the bureaucratic nonsense that went into play. The woman called told Uber that their five-year-old daughter was still in this car and they were like well, company policy tells me that you have to call the police and the police have to do this and that and this and that.

Ody:

I understand where they're coming from, though, because they're covering their own.

Nathan Mumm:

And their driver. Right, they don't want the.

Ody:

You can just get a driver and I understand that, but this is a child, this is an emergency situation, that there should be policies that supersede these nonsense privacy things.

Nathan Mumm:

Yeah, Okay, all right. Now let's move on to our technology fail of the week.

Ody:

we we just did that. I'm sorry.

Nathan Mumm:

I'm sorry our nathan nugget, sorry, I I'm thinking our nathan. You're celebrating beverage day nathan's been celebrating beverage day a little bit longer than he should thanks.

Speaker 1:

Let's move to our nathan nugget this is your nugget of the week I got a lot of whiskey in me, all right.

Nathan Mumm:

The recent publication of a deeply flawed AI-generated diagram in a respected scientific journal underscores a troubling reality. Now we've had James on and he talked about this, so this is going back to James on our shows a couple months ago Now the increasing risk of errors in academic research due to unchecked artificial intelligence. Now the journal Frontiers in Cell and Development Biology had to retract a paper after discovering that it contained a biological inaccurate illustration of a rat, one with bizarre distortion including four testicles and non-sensual labels. Now this incident is more than just an embarrassing mistake. It reflects a growing concern in the scientific community. Ai-generated content is rapidly making its way into research, but without proper oversight it threatens to undermine the credibility of medical literature. Scientific journals serve as the cornerstone of knowledge, guiding medical advancement treatments and public health decisions. When errors like this slip through the cracks, this casts a doubt on the reliability of peer review studies and highlights the danger of over-reliance on automation without human verification. All right In our role of AI.

Nathan Mumm:

we had a medical journal, and yet it had a rat. That wasn't even a rat. The rat actually was sitting up in a chair. Um, it was an AI generated.

Mike Gorday:

It was an.

Nathan Mumm:

AI generated rat with uh four, four uh man parts that were that were included in the diagram and then it was also mislabeled and this got peer reviewed and published into our large language model systems across our ai platforms.

Mike Gorday:

Okay, all right. So what I said? Let's do a technology fair. I have to ask an obvious question here. Yeah, you're ranting about a rat with four nuts getting put on a scientific journal, right, and how bad that is. Yeah, and yet you're going to allow Visa to pay your bills. You can't get off that.

Nathan Mumm:

Visa thing. I'm not going to get off that. That Visa thing is going to be your new. I got it. Anytime I need something. Odie, you're going to have to reclip this show Anytime I need something. I'm just going to say how do you feel about your?

Mike Gorday:

Visa AI. Can you just say rat with four balls not run fast, okay.

Nathan Mumm:

The other problem with that too, with the large, large language models, is that's, that's compounding, because you can't just go there and pull that data out.

Marc Gregoire:

No, because once it gets published, and it gets replicated, and replicated, and replicated, unless you were to start completely over. And that's the problem with these large language models, I have problems with them yeah because we're not starting over and so these issues just keep compounding and compounding. Yep, all right, it's like a virus.

Nathan Mumm:

So now you're going to have pictures all online, that's correct, all online of rats with four balls. All right, there you go. Let's move on to our pick of the day whiskey tasting.

Speaker 1:

And now our pick of the day for our whiskey tastings. Let's see what bubbles to the top.

Marc Gregoire:

All right, we are doing our Flavor calendar round five and I question whether you guys are connoisseurs or not, but I will say I was tasting and my number one is both your number one, wow.

Nathan Mumm:

Look at that, and not only that my order is exactly Mike's order.

Marc Gregoire:

So, mike, you are the connoisseur of today. Oh wow, there you go. So number one was in the water glass.

Nathan Mumm:

Yep.

Marc Gregoire:

The Yellowstone Special Finishes Collection Toasted Number two, which is in the beer glass, the Wise man, which is a blend of straight bourbons. Four Number three was Penelope Toasted Series in the shot glass and that is finished straight bourbon. And the fourth one, which actually is my thumbs down of all of them was the Milam and Green. Triple Cast Bourbon in the Glencairn.

Nathan Mumm:

So give a thumbs up for everybody, but the last one. The last one should be a thumbs up A thumbs up, a thumbs up.

Mike Gorday:

What about?

Marc Gregoire:

for you. Any thumbs down for you, Mike?

Mike Gorday:

I didn't have any real thumbs down I? What about for you? Any thumbs down for you? Mike, I didn't have any real thumbs down. I kind of liked all of them.

Nathan Mumm:

Okay, but you know, all right, all right, guys. Lots of whiskey today, lots of craziness. Thank you so much, listeners, for joining our program. Remember the science of tomorrow starts with the technology of today. We will see you next week Later. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on Tech Time Radio. We hope that you had a chance to have that hmmm moment today. In technology. The fun doesn't stop there. We recommend that you go to techtimeradiocom and join our fan list for the most important aspect of staying connected and winning some really great monthly prizes. We also have a few other ways to stay connected, including subscribing to our podcast on any podcast service from Apple to Google and everything in between. We're also on YouTube, so check us out on youtubecom. Slash TechTimeRadio all one word. We hope you enjoyed the show as much as we did making it for you From all of us at TechTimeRadio. Remember mum's the word have a safe and fantastic week.

People on this episode

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Nathan Mumm

Host
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Mike Gorday

Co-host