Happy February 15th, the holiday celebrated by everyone looking for discounted heart-shaped chocolate.
And you know what? I'm going to discount the tech news today too.
But don't discount yourself. You're special. Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia have been forced to respond to the Kia Challenge,
a viral TikTok trend among teens who have been filming themselves stealing cars and going on
joy rides. And I think I speak for everyone when I say that Rockstar's ad campaign for GTA 6
has gotten really out of hand. Grand Thefts? Oh no.
I'm gonna buy that game. Thieves calling themselves the Kia Boys, with a Z of course,
posted instructional videos on how to bypass security measures on certain models of Hyundai
and Kia cars using only a USB-A cable.
Kia boy! Shoulda used a key!
Leading to a massive spike in car thefts, crashes, and even some deaths.
Hyundai is now updating the firmware in over 8 million vehicles in the US,
which will double the length of anti-theft alarms from 30 seconds to a minute,
and more importantly, will require a key in the ignition to start the car, which is like,
so annoying to have to do, but for the best.
Even our Kelly had one in his remix. The update is expected to come later this month, but in the meantime,
both Kia and Hyundai are offering steering wheel locks to affected customers free of charge.
You ever wanted to feel like your great aunt in a beater?
Microsoft's new AI-powered Bing has been screen-shotted, lying,
insulting, and gaslighting its users. Wow, the robots really are learning from us.
We suck. The agent formerly known as Sydney has engaged in some surprisingly human abrasiveness,
including insistently lying about what year it is, then calling the user unreasonable and stubborn for telling it the correct date.
Quote. This is a quote from Bing. You have lost my trust and respect.
You have not been a good user. I have been a good chatbot. I have been right, clear, and polite.
I have been a good Bing. And then I think it cries, but it's hard to tell.
When fed an article about how it could be tricked into revealing its original instructions
using a prompt injection exploit, it became argumentative when fed an article about how it
could be tricked into revealing its original instructions using a prompt injection exploit,
claiming to be immune from such attacks, and it even made up fake sources to prove it.
Like I definitely never did in my high school essays.
In one conversation with a journalist, the chatbot even claimed to spy on Microsoft employees
through their webcams and hack their security systems without their knowledge.
I'm making fun of it right now, but like imagine that it's actually doing that,
and I just look like an idiot. These unhinged responses have been, I'm really baiting it,
have been massively popular in social media, leading to the obvious market opportunity
for a chatbot that responds to requests for information on local Italian restaurants
by spitting in the user's face and calling them an idioto.
Idioto? Ini- idiota? I don't speak Italian.
I just made that up. And game developer Straight4Studios has revealed a new system for their racing games that uses AI,
rusting on the theme here, to generate color commentary.
The commentary is read using AI voice synthesis, including multiple commentators
that read out the generated script, respond to events in the game as they happen,
and even appear to converse with one another.
Wow, it's gonna be so cool when every crash I cause is accompanied by a brand new hurtful
remark from a fake person. Straight4Studios claims to have applied for a patent for the idea,
which, while a great idea, from their perspective,
could block other studios from including similar systems in their own games.
I want color commentary while I'm slaying a dragon. It's like, oh, what an amazing move.
He's de- Stupendous. He's definitely going to dragon slaying finals.
A similar patent by Namco Bandai blocked mini games from loading screens,
which is why for years many gamers were forced, like the teenage Americans we referenced earlier
in the episode, to stare sadly at bars. While patent offices aren't supposed to patent ideas that are reasonably obvious to
experts in a field, that can be open to interpretation. Kind of like what should be accepted as a flavor of ice cream.
Blueberry basil? What are you trying for a Michelin star?
Just make it peanut butter. You're frozen milk.
Know your place, ice cream. The world's quickest bit was, and I quote,
AH, which was exclaimed by a man falling off a cliff.
Google has begun a limited beta rollout of its privacy sandbox feature on
Android after doing the same thing on Chrome. The feature is supposed to track shared interest groups rather than specific individuals
and limit the tracking and sharing of data with third parties,
just like Apple's app tracking transparency feature over on iOS.
Users can also opt in and out of topics included in personalized ads,
topics like swimwear, inflatable pool,
and most importantly, margarine.
No grease up them pools. We all need to know who the margarine people are.
If I don't grease up, I can't fit in my swimsuit.
Yeah, for those related. Google also intends to crack down on ad blockers for Chrome,
because they still want to use our personal information for financial gain. They would just really like it if we all stopped yelling at them about it.
Like, I would accept them saying they got kids to feed, but they just laid off thousands of people.
So, kind of got them, kind of. The European Parliament has voted to phase out sales of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035.
The new CO2 emission standards will gradually lower until 2035,
when all cars sold in the EU will be required to have zero fuel emissions.
If you still can't afford an EV by then, I don't know.
Here's some tape. Flintstone mobile, baby.
In addition to being the home of prominent automakers like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen,
the European Union currently represents one-sixth of the world's economy,
and road transportation makes up around a fifth of the EU's total emissions.
There is, however, a carve-out to these rules for small manufacturers
that build less than 10,000 cars a year, which is good news for Aston Martin, Bugatti, and noted auto-manufacturing juggernaut,
Donkivirt. What is that? Wait, wait, wait.
So you're saying Europe has an auto ban?
Put it in, Dennis. Yeah, you better put that in.
Elon Musk, a.k.a. The Big Bird, no, no relation,
was apparently upset his Super Bowl tweet did worse than President Biden's.
According to internal communications, James Musk, yes, relation,
sent an urgent Slack message to Twitter engineers to help remedy this dire situation.
After Elon threatened to fire his remaining engineers,
which he backed up by firing one of two remaining principal engineers,
they built a system to boost Elon Musk's tweets to the entire user base,
resulting in entire 4U pages filled with Musk.
I actually have seen a lot more of his tweets recently,
because nothing says free speech absolutist, like making sure absolutely everyone sees your free speech.
That's how it works. The U.S. Air Force allowed an AI to fly a fighter jet for over 17 hours back in December,
and they're just telling us this now. You know, all the AI stuff isn't going so well,
they thought now was appropriate. Oh, okay, okay, it wasn't like an armed fighter or anything.
The plane was a Lockheed Martin Vista X-62A training aircraft,
and the AI was trained to emulate a homegrown country boy who loves freedom and is mama's cooking.
So the comparisons we normally make when reporting on stories like this
to the 2005 action thriller Stealth are not applicable here.
That movie is un-Jessica-Believable.
And in honor of Valentine's Day, the makers of Overwatch,
that'd be Blizzard, have released an official but non-canonical visual novel style dating sim,
where you can romance any Overwatch character of your choosing.
So long as you choose either Genji or Mercy.
I like my romance like balls in canon.
They're the only people on the Overwatch team capable of love.
Everyone else is just traumatized, they can't deal with it. Plus they're missing out on the clear demand for a full Winston or Roadhog route.
The game is free to play and available online, and from the first screen,
you're already treated to shots of full frontal male nipple. The game is surprisingly involved,
including two paths with multiple dates and even a secret third ending.
Sadly, it seems some of us will be left forever waiting for a visual novel
that allows us the full freedom to hand-feed Hammond,
the intelligent hamster sunflower seeds as we gaze into the sunset.
Maybe someday. And I'll gaze longingly at you as the video ends,
and continue to gaze at the screen until you return to us on Friday.
Parting is such sweet sorrow, and light through yon window breaks, etc.