Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
We’ll see.
One thought on the show, you seemed to unanimously endorse Khan’s approach to antitrust. In other shows the panels have also spoken favorably of Europe’s approach to competition.
While I share some concerns about the large tech companies it is worth noting that Lina Khan’s views of economics are not shared by all economists and that the US economy has grown substantially faster than all of the other G7 countries over the last 30 years. There are probably many reasons for that but comparatively lighter regulation is probably one reason.
Tech people love saying how poorly politicians understand tech; it might be interesting to have an actual economist on (Tyler Cowan or someone similar) the show sometime. It is not clear to me that understanding tech is at all the same as understanding the economics of the tech sector.
… understand much of anything because those that can, do, and those that can’t, become politicians spouting effusively like they understand anything.
(More particularly, you didn’t finish that sub-sentence, so I did for you 
(in my own voice.))
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The WGA isn’t concerned about being totally replaced by language models (at least not yet). But if a show has 10 writers and one of them is replaced by a language model, they would consider that a problem.
One of the major roles WGA members perform is rewriting and polishing, and that pays quite a bit. A 60 minute episode of a high budget production would have paid about $18k for that service in spring 2023.
I feel like, with the current state of language models, you would get a bad result when you ask it to write a screenplay for an episode of the Simpsons. But “rework this scene with Marge and Homer to be 10 seconds shorter” could be in the realm of possibility.
Good episode. You were curious about how electronic payment transfers between individuals, corporations, and the government work in Canada. This service is provided by “Interac” and in the vast majority of cases, is free of charge. Interac began offering Canadians e-transfer services in 2003. Interac was created by a consortium of Canada’s major banks. Over 450 financial institutions in Canada participate. I’ve used Interac e-transfer for years to pay or collect money from friends and some companies. The federal government allows taxpayers to pay installments using etransfer. Most banking plans in Canada include unlimited etransfers.
More info is here: How to send money via email or text - INTERAC e-Transfer
You also discussed security issues, so this may interest you: Why sending money via email or text is secure - Interac
Praise for Lina Khan’s approach to antitrust has been a thread in episode 937 and 938. I’ve been pondering this an I wonder if this analogy will help you see another aspect.
As a long time listener, I know that Leo has spoken about the patent troll that tried to sue TWIT for stealing his patent on podcasting. In short, his goal was “Pay me or I will drag you into court and inflict a loss of time and money.” You have spoken at length about why that was wrong.
I would ask if there is not some similarity between Khan and the patent troll. She threatens big companies - comply with my wishes or I will drag you into court at great cost in time and money. She is abusing her role filing losing court cases to “change the law” according to some of the panel.
I would submit that it is the job of congress to pass laws or amend laws that are not well written and it is the job of executive agencies to well and faithfully execute the law as written. Attempting to develop a new approach through an executive agency will lead to repeated losses in court.
Congress in not very efficient, but they get the big things done that have to get done, and that is how the government was designed to work (and frequently not work, much to the frustration of everyone.)
As far as I understand it, the FTC believes the companies are breaking the law or abusing their monopoly positions and they try and come up with remedies. When the two sides can’t agree, they go to court.
In this case, the like of Meta and Microsoft couldn’t prove no harm to the FTC and the FTC believed there was harm, so a judge has to decide.
With Leo, if it hadn’t been for the EEF getting invalidated, he would either have had to pay up the money the “patent” holder wanted or take it to court and try and prove that the patent was unreasonable.