Brian Barrett: And this is also something that people easily click on and they don’t realize what’s happening, right? TikTok is now tracking data too. You put anything into any of its AI tools, if you put a prompt or give any kind of information, it will track that data, it will use that.
Again, all of this is ultimately used to show you ads, but that’s the principle of it, and that’s its lack of ambiguity, lack of clarity, oh, it’s happening suddenly. And I think it’s a legitimate thing to keep a close eye on, even if it hasn’t happened yet, to see how TikTok’s algorithm changes in more subtle ways.
I don’t think if there’s going to be any kind of crackdown on TikTok, I don’t think it’s going to be ham-fisted like “you can’t post about ICE.” I think you can see things changing in terms of what people get in their feeds and what gets promoted and what doesn’t, because that fits into the black box. This is something you can’t determine from the outside, but it can have an impact on user sentiment, which, by the way, is exactly what they were trying to achieve when they first started this process, to get TikTok out of Chinese ownership.
Tim Marchman: Another problem here is that this is especially with TikTok, which is an extremely difficult thing to track. For example, a few years ago, when researchers had API level access to X, they were able to do really impressive sentiment analysis and track how things worked. Now without that kind of access to X, this task ranges from difficult to impossible. And TikTok is much more slippery because it’s a personalized algorithm. So just one thing to keep in mind is that we may not be able to track with great confidence changes made to the service we are providing to users, even if we are pretty sure it is changing. So it’s not a fun thing to think about.
Zoe Schiffer: Now that we’re talking about apps, I’m going to drag us to the lightest segment by far.
Brian Barrett: I like how we are progressing.
Zoe Schiffer: Yes.
Brian Barrett: As we progress, we are becoming comfortable.
Zoe Schiffer: Absolutely. I think it’s really funny.
Tim Marchman: We will leave here in a very good mood.
Zoe Schiffer: Yes. Have you guys heard of Cloudbot, now known as Moltbot?
Brian Barrett: So I have, but I desperately need you to explain why I should or shouldn’t buy a Mac Mini, and why I should put it on and use it.
Tim Marchman: Same. It’s in my peripheral vision, but I’ll learn as we go.
Zoe Schiffer: I think Tim will need to explain the huge security risks associated with letting this app run your life. But basically the magic of this app, as I understand it through Will Knight’s great reporting at WIRED.com, is that it’s basically an AI assistant that connects a lot of different apps on your computer. It runs locally, and importantly, you can talk with it over messaging apps. So send it commands, and then it will figure out how to execute and run its life for you. Like all AI assistants, the caveat is when you hear, “Wow, an AI assistant is about to run your life.” At least for me, I’m like, “Can it produce an expense report? Because I’ll give it any amount of information to do that.”
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