[00:00:18] Happy to have you along my fellow tech enthusiasts. I'm Sam Bushman, Jay Hill is with me. We keep an eye on tech so you don't have to. This broadcast is brought to you by NetworkProvidersInc.com. Check out their services on their website. They'd love to serve you. You got a free consult when you get ahold of NetworkProvidersInc.com as well. This is NPITechGuys.com. Check out our broadcast website.
[00:00:43] You've got the live radio versions. You've got the TV versions or the video versions and a whole lot more. Spread the word. Let everybody know about TechWatch. Hi, Jay. Hey, Sam. Welcome back. There's so much to cover. So little time. Let's get right to it. Elon Musk is in the news. He's got kind of an interesting take, huh? Elon Musk about what, Sam?
[00:01:07] I guess he says he's creating a massive repository. It's an open source repository. Of all knowledge about the universe, Jay. That's what Grok is, right? Well, they say many copies will be distributed periodically throughout the solar system to preserve knowledge for future civilizations. Should we perish or should we spiral down into barbarism? Right.
[00:01:35] And we take the lessons of this, you know, library issue to heart and da-da-da-da-da-da. What do you think about this thing, Jay? The Grok-averse or something, you know? Well, what do I think about it? I think it's a good idea. I mean, we've seen things before, you know, the burning of the library in Alexandria, the dark ages in the, you know, in the 15, 14 hundreds and stuff. So, you know, could it be possible that humanity would see another dark age? We talked about a digital dark age before.
[00:02:03] I think if you could put it on something, some, I don't know, crystal or something that can hold the data for a long, long time, you know? But I think there's a lot of hurdles still to overcome. But do I think overall, do I think it's a good idea to distribute that knowledge and try to put it somewhere? I mean, you see like these people that get these local LLMs and they can run them and they can have, you know, running in a little Faraday cage and they can put all of Wikipedia on it. And, you know, do I think that stuff's smart? Probably.
[00:02:32] I mean, it's good to have backups, right, of everything and to try to spread it far and wide. I think it's good to have backups, but to store it randomly in the universe where you're going to put it, on the moon? Maybe. You know, it's unlikely to get disturbed there. And then we have some questions about, hey, the longevity of, you know, on the moon. Is it just bit rot on Earth, but a less bit rot on the moon? Right. Is it going to be, you know, whether another civilization finds it, do they even have the technology that we have? Or have they developed technology that's similar but different where it won't read it?
[00:03:03] I'm just saying there's so many issues with this to where I think good luck, you know? Yeah, definitely. Do you want to know how to preserve something, Jay, where it'll last? Yes, I do want to know that. It printed out, right? No. That'll fade. That'll, you know, you got to etch it on gold or brass or something and bury it in the Earth. You know, I guess that would work. There's civilizations that have done it and it's worked for thousands of years, so it's the closest thing we know, Jay. Yeah.
[00:03:32] But, you know, this Earth is a fleeting reality. That's for sure, too. Everything. Anyway, it's kind of an older story that Elon Musk talked about this or whatever, but I brought it up because it goes well on the heels of our discussion about digital bit rot and, hey, even 30 years, you can't even get your pictures from before and this kind of stuff. Right. We're talking 30 years, though. And now we're talking about for the metaverse and the universe and putting it out there in the solar system so that other civilization can get it and who knows how many years. And I don't know. It's kind of interesting. It is.
[00:04:02] But I think it's worthy of spending time on and thinking about. Well, is that worthy when they're letting everybody and their dog go? So AI replaces hundreds at Coinbase as CEO, slashes 14% of its workforce. Now, this is an older story, too, and I'll tell you why I'm bringing it up now, though. You think, Sam, that's old hat.
[00:04:24] Listen, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced roughly 700 layoffs, openly saying that artificial intelligence or AI now allows a smaller team of engineers. To do works that once required far more people. And the company now plans to eliminate layers of, quote, management. They're going to go ahead and, you know, automate internal operations.
[00:04:55] And they say everybody's powering by AI and they're moving forward with it big time. I bring this story up right now because, Jay, right now companies are going, wait a minute, we went too far. AI is not as cracked up as we thought it was. It's cool, but it ain't the best mousetrap yet. And it's cool, but we're spending too much money on it. We're not seeing the return yet.
[00:05:19] And it's cool, but, you know, Steve over there was a little better than we thought he was, you know? And so they're starting to already recant on a lot of this. I think all of that is true. Everything you said there is true. But I also think that AI kind of takes a bad rap. It's sort of like you remember when COVID was happening and everything due was COVID. You know, you could get hit by a bus and you died of COVID.
[00:05:42] And I think a lot of people are using AI to whatever, anything, to raise prices, to cut jobs, to do stuff they wanted to do anyway. And it's easy to blame it on AI because it's the cool, trendy thing. I don't know. Like I said, I still think everything you said is true. I just think there's a lot of other things involved. No question. And I think you're 100% right. But here's what I do think.
[00:06:06] When you oversell something, Jay, to the degree that they've oversold AI, you get what you get. The whiplash isn't AI's fault and the dot-com bust of modern times. It isn't because it's really bad and it isn't because it's going away and it isn't because it won't eventually change the world. It's because you oversold it. Right. You told me that I had ice cream and it was the best ice cream you ever had and it wouldn't melt in the summer.
[00:06:31] And, you know, I mean, you just sold it so hard, so completely and literally that you just, it'll never measure up, Jay. Yeah. The ice cream that doesn't melt, though, is kind of scary. Well, you know, I'm just saying that there's no faults to this ice cream. It can do everything perfect. It's just the best. Whatever. It doesn't melt in the summer. It's just perfect. But yet it's cool and it's soft and it's, you know. It's the trendy whipping boy, AI. Yeah. Anyway, I'm just bringing this up because I really think it's an oversale problem.
[00:07:01] AI is incredible. And what they need to do is say, yes, we can live with a little bit smaller teams, but understand you can't reduce the team as much as you think you can. And you're better off sharing the wealth. Get more time out of your employees because they're magnified by AI. But give a little bit of time back to the employees, too. Don't make everybody work 40, 50, 60 hours a week. Let people work 30. Right. 40 hours and be done because you're getting 60 out of them with AI now.
[00:07:31] And call it good. Invest in AI. But don't invest so hard in AI that you wonder that you can afford the AI bill. Slow down. Let technology catch up. Let power centers be built. Let, you know, chips be made. Let the GPUs be created that are faster. You know, I just saw an article where this guy's like, I upgraded to this awesome new GPU. It's incredible. Problem is the performance is all over the map. What's going on? And people are like, dude, you're using software that doesn't even know how to take advantage of the new stuff you've got. Right. Well, okay.
[00:08:01] You got to let this stuff catch up and settle down there, Sonny. Nobody wants that, though. Everybody wants to be on the cutting edge. No. They've got this new technology. That's a tech snafu to do that. I know. And then you'll basically let employees go. And then you'll hire them back. And then you'll this and you'll that. And don't do that. Just slowly, steadily move towards what makes sense. Embrace automation when it makes sense. Embrace AI when it makes sense. Watch carefully the ROI or the return on investment. Make sure that it's solid.
[00:08:29] Make sure that you've dotted your I's and crossed your T's in terms of security and safety and stability. And go slow, people. Yeah, but Sam and Tech, you've got to, that's the cat and mouse game. You've got to be first out of the gate. You've got to be the first to the IPO, the first to sell. You know, you've got to be cutting edge. I'm going to let you guys all do that. And then I'm going to follow up. I'm going to be like third in line. So the first guy just loses all of his money. The second guy fixes all the bugs and the third guy like me rolls in. That's how I'm going to do it, buddy. Right. All right. Anyway, enough of that.
[00:08:59] I just thought that was interesting. I guess in the realm of graphic design, small business owners and employees, I guess they're working on all these different filters and everything else. And now AI is doing all this stuff, Jay. They're developing AI models now. This is kind of interesting. There's this guy in Missouri.
[00:09:22] He's the curator and director of Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. And he's developing an AI model to identify the garden's 8 million plant specimens. And I guess they say it also aids in freeing up, what do they call these things, taxonomists? Yep. And their time, Jay. Right. Okay. So what?
[00:09:51] AI's just going to start naming everything? Well, I think it'll pull it up, you know, put it together. Okay. And they're preparing lessons, plans with it. They're doing all these different things. I support it. But, man, I don't know that we should just let I take the lead on all this. You're going to end up, if you're not very careful, Jay, where people don't even know how plants got their names. They're like, I don't know, Larry, man, ran that through AI 50 years ago, and he didn't have a clue, and it makes no sense. And just call it AI name.
[00:10:21] Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's going to probably use a lot of the traditional Latin and Greek and be able to put things together. You know, I remember an app. This came out actually before AI. It was called Seek. And you could use your camera and point it at a house plant or a bug or whatever. Yeah. It would try to do its best to tell you what it is based on a bunch of photos and stuff. And it's actually pretty good. Hopefully, it's gotten better. It's very good, in fact. Oh, it's way better now. Yeah.
[00:10:45] So I could see how these, you know, I think AI might actually be better than people, at least in the consistency of looking at this plant and its features compared to some other ones and saying, hey, this is kind of a mix of these two things and coming up with the taxonomy that is very correct for that thing. Yeah. Anyway, I think it's good that we use AI to do a lot of this. And I think AI can recognize patterns and do things a lot better than we can. AI can basically do source naming and do better than we can.
[00:11:15] I just think we need to be very careful that we keep control of this. When it's going to classify 8 million whatever unique things, you better make sure it doesn't get it wrong. Because if it does get it wrong, Jay, and it doesn't have proper oversight, that wrong will continue to, what's the word? Propagate. That's the size or something like that? Yeah. It'll just compound and compound and compound. And if we're not careful, we may never get things right. Well, you don't want it to hallucinate.
[00:11:44] And how do you correct that stuff if it did or if it does? Exactly. Anyway, all I'm telling you is we're getting way ahead of reality on some of this stuff, folks. And I'm a little concerned about the future when we do. Microsoft unveils original 86 source code. This is a story that came out a while ago, but I want to talk about it. We'll do it in seconds. This is Tech Watch. We keep an eye on tech so you don't have to. Thank you. Thank you.
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[00:13:52] Microsoft unveils original 86 DOS source code. They call it a milestone anniversary. That's awesome. On the 45th anniversary. Now, this is actually several months ago, though, Jay. But I wanted to get to this story, but we always had so much cool tech to talk about. I didn't get to it. But they say on the 45th anniversary of 86 DOS 1.0, Microsoft released its source code on GitHub.
[00:14:20] They say marking a significant moment for enthusiasts of computer history. Initially created by Tim Patterson and later acquired and modified by Microsoft. They say this lets experts and historians and IT people explore the original software that laid the groundwork for Windows.
[00:14:45] They say this initiative is part of Microsoft's broader efforts to, quote, preserve the digital artifacts from the early days of personal computing. And they say that it celebrates computing. It lets people kind of learn the nuts and bolts and how things tick. I think it's actually really cool, Jay. I think it's really cool. I think it's a little bit late to the game. I mean, you don't have to wait 45 years to do that.
[00:15:12] Maybe they just waited until everybody was dead that they couldn't sue them anymore for, you know, using some of their code. I don't know. I'm just saying. Well, compared to releasing Mickey Mouse into the public domain or whatever else, it did them pretty good. Well, okay. I'll give you that for sure. Yeah. But no, I, I, and why 1.0 though? I mean, why not release DOS? What was the latest DOS before they abandoned the DOS primarily? 6.22 I think was the last one I used. And then, you know, DR-DOS was 7 point whatever. And okay. And then, you know, I know they used a lot of DOS even after that in special systems and some things.
[00:15:42] So, but whatever that, why don't they just release all that? I mean, who, what would that harm to release all that? You can't harm to do anything with that anymore, can you? I don't know, but they should. I think they should have released it a long time ago. I mean, you know how fast. I think they released Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 and Windows 7 also. I agree. Even XP and everything. Because you know how fast the computer era goes. You know, they would say that development like 18 months is like the 10-year cycle. Even back in the 90s, people were saying that about computers.
[00:16:09] So, I don't think you need to wait 45 years to release the source code of DOS. I agree. So, we applaud the effort, folks. But let's speed it up there now. I'm just saying. But I do say kudos to them. Amen. And I also think it's kind of good for tinkerers too, Jay. If you want to take an old machine or some whatever chips. And you know, you can take some of these smaller, inexpensive chips now. And possibly run DOS on them and do some incredible things.
[00:16:37] A lot of people are doing this that are retro and they're into this. You get the Commodore people. There's a brand new Commodore out based on the Commodore 64. That stuff's cool. Yeah. It's very cool. How much can you run on how little money, on how thin of hardware? You know, they make it a game. And what comes out of that though is some really neat things. And the Pi is a perfect example that probably is pretty well known. Yeah. It is to have those programming challenging constraints. Some people do some really amazing things with it. Well, you can even run Pi's now.
[00:17:07] And people run them as servers to do all kinds of things. They're just little teeny things. You know, smaller than your hand that run. And they can connect to a lot of storage and do all kinds of modern things on the internet. And they're very inexpensive, very simple hardware, comparatively speaking. Right? That is true. But I'm finding that many PCs are getting so small and so robust and so inexpensive. And the Pi's are getting more hardware, but they're also getting more expensive and hard to find sometimes. Sometimes there's issues of distribution channels and things like that.
[00:17:35] And to where they're starting to meet in the middle. I mean, if you want something especially that runs Windows and the software that you're used to coding in, you're almost better off to just get a mini PC, get one with low hardware that still beats a Pi. And it can be... You're right. But here's the question. Did the Pi, in part, make that happen? Maybe. I don't know. I would say it probably contributed to it. Yeah. Yeah. It contributed to it. Now, I'm not saying it's inclusive. Now, you're also running these other little... I love the Pi project. You're also running these other little boards. What are those called?
[00:18:06] Well, there's a bunch. You've got the BeagleBone. You've got the Arduino. You've got the Pi Zero. People are playing with that. And so I don't think it's just that. But this effort to say, let's do less or more with less. And let's slim down the hardware and what tasks can be accomplished. And when people put Linux on these things, which is less computing hungry than Windows, and that's what really runs the whole internet and stuff, people are...
[00:18:34] Even if you're not a coder, you're able to put these distros or whatever you want to call them, these builds, and just flash them into the thing and run a Pi that's your recipe book or run a Pi that becomes your TV server. Anyway, all I'm telling you is people are doing some really cool stuff, and it's getting less and less expensive. And I bring this up because if Microsoft wants the DOS world to play in that, all they've got to do is create a great internet stack to sit on top of DOS, and it would be the thinnest client out there, Jay. Yeah, it'd be pretty reliable, too.
[00:19:04] You remember back in the DOS days, man, we had machines that were just running for years and never rebooted. Yeah, it was incredible. And it was neat. And I'd love to see that again. And I'd even love to play in that world because I think it's fun. I love that old simple command line. You could make it quite powerful if you gave it some greater connectivity. You'd have to create a hardware library to deal with some of the modern hardware and some of the internet stack and some things. But you could do some very, very cool things that way. That's for sure. I also want to get to this. Apple's concerned now.
[00:19:32] It used to be the Mac guys or the Apple guys. They were like, oh, yeah, let those Windows guys get hacked. Who cares? We're Mac. We don't get hacked and that kind of stuff. But now Apple accelerates security updates because AI power threats increase. Yeah, that was in the pre-Mythos days. So Apple says that it'll... Go ahead. That was in the pre-Mythos days when Apple could just sit back on its laurels. Yep.
[00:19:56] But now Apple says that it's going to begin releasing critical security fixes much faster, more quickly in response to growing concerns that, hey, you know what? AI is going to change the game here. And I think they're right about that, Jay. They are. You can code a lot faster for good or for bad. That's right. And we're seeing defense people in cybersecurity and, you know, the good hackers and the guys that are trying to prevent this stuff with things like Mythos.
[00:20:27] It's just going crazy. We're seeing exploits. You know, Firefox had, I don't even remember, 150 different exploits that Mythos found inside of a day or so. And they were just floored by it because they thought they had their software pretty tight and they got them all fixed. They worked day and night. And it is that cat and mouse game, that kind of arms race. But we're going to see... It's just accelerated or magnified. Yeah, and we're going to see a lot more code-hardened stuff. And, you know, some people are even saying we're going to get perfect code out of it one
[00:20:56] day or unhackable code. I don't know about that personal. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be true. But we'll get beyond where just a guy can find something. Well, what if you team up with AI and quantum computing? You're going to develop things and be able to harden things very quickly. So anyway, it's very interesting. But Microsoft's in trouble. And that's why Apple's kind of so serious about it. They're going, we hope we're not next. The FBI is now warning Microsoft. Jay, do you see this one? I have.
[00:21:22] This is the Microsoft 365 about the Cali 365 phishing campaign. So people... It's brutal. It is. And I kind of blame Microsoft a little bit. You know, maybe not. But it's tough because they've tried to go away from passwords. They want to go to pass keys. They want to go to their authenticator app. Those things are good. But what's happening with this Cali 365 is that it's getting in the middle. It's, you know, faking websites. And people put in their Microsoft credentials.
[00:21:52] The one thing, by the way... But it's not even faking websites all the time. What it's doing is using really Microsoft real sites. Yeah. And in getting their credentials, getting them to send them the two-factor authentication codes and then using their credentials to get into all kinds of mischief, to get into corporate sites and get into Azure and, you know, pivot, you know, like we were talking about earlier. And I don't know. I don't even know how you prevent this other than run a password manager. It should... You want an idea? Run AI agent. No, I don't know.
[00:22:22] What's your idea, Sam? Don't put all your eggs in one basket, Jay. Yeah. I agree with that. Don't have all your... But how do you do that when you have a... Let's say you work for a company that says they're going to core all their software off of Exchange and Microsoft and they're just... Well, if the company controls that and forces you to put all the eggs in one basket, then you're stuck. But my advice from an IT point of view is don't put your eggs all in one basket. Work with different companies. Don't depend on Microsoft for everything or Google for everything. Even Amazon.
[00:22:50] Amazon is now expanding their AI agent push. So they've unveiled new AI agents designed to balance autonomy with human oversight, joining the race to make AI assistants capable of completing real tasks and everything. So see, that's great. But if you put all your AI or all your eggs in that basket, you're going to get burned.
[00:23:16] The smart people are starting to say, look, we've got to have some Amazon stuff, some Microsoft stuff, some Apple stuff or something this or that or whatever business you're doing and spread it out. I don't know how they're getting human oversight for these AI agents. I mean, it's just a human just spot checking here and there what the AI has done to make sure that it's legitimate or look for problems. I mean, how can they keep up? Yeah. Right. Well, they're basically providing reports.
[00:23:42] They're providing when decisions need to be made that someone makes a decision and those decisions roll out to multiple things. There's choke points or KPIs they're using to control a lot of that. But it's interesting. It is. Will it be perfect? No, there's going to be some missteps. I think they're going to write AI agents to watch the agents. That's what they're going to do, Jay, for sure. I know. And then you'll watch the agents that watch the agents that watch the agents. They did that in Detroit in hardware, you know, for car manufacturers.
[00:24:11] You have robots that were building things, but then they would build robots to watch those robots to make sure they didn't go out in the weeds or kill somebody or, you know. Yeah, you've got to certify. Yeah. Quality control, Jay. QC, baby. You've got to have that. Anyway, all I can tell you is you've got to put on your smart glasses, Jay. So you can keep an eye on all that stuff. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, we'll talk about that in a future show, too. Smart glasses. They're interesting stuff. And I really have a unique twist on those smart glasses. I want to get some. You wonder why, right?
[00:24:40] A blind person wanting smart glasses. It makes sense when you learn about it. It's kind of cool. Thanks so much for being alongside with the ride. We keep an eye on tech so you don't have to. NPITechGuys.com. Make it a great tech day.