LG Smart TVs Are Listening a Little Too Long - DTNS 5348

[music] This is the daily tech news for [music] Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. We tell you what you need to know, give you important context, and [music] increase your understanding. [laughter] >> I was waiting for of but it's of everything. >> Of everything. Jason, [laughter] >> today >> you'll understand why I'm talking like this. >> Yeah. >> In a little bit. >> It makes me lean in is what it does. Today, Dr. Nikki reviews uh the LG Noble, the Ignob Noble. >> We got something else about LG that's on your mind. >> I know. I've got LG on the mind, man. Uh it's silly sounding but interesting achievements in science. And then we have LG. LG TV is collecting a lot more information than you might think. And it's Star Trek's 60th birthday. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, >> it is. >> It's also the day before Apple CEO John Turnis is expected to announce a foldable iPhone. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Which is kind of like a Star Trek communicator >> when you think about it. >> I'm Tom Merritt. >> I'm Jason How. >> Let's start with what you need to know with the big story. >> Yeah. KV87 uh noted this one on our DTNS subreddit. Gamers Nexus published a 135 minutee long exhaustive, extensive, and comprehensive video. Exhaustive, not in the sense that you'll be tired from watching it, but but like really covering it well. Uh the video claims that LG can gather data on users even when the screen of the TV is off. Gamers Nexus worked with Level One Tech and a few other independent researchers to look at what data your smart TVs are collecting. uh for LG in addition to typical information like location and IP address. Uh maybe you didn't know LG TVs or any TVs collected that. Most smart TVs are collecting that. Most web browsers collecting that. That part's not controversial. LG on the other hand also logs the names of the Wi-Fi networks in range and the network names of devices on the same network as the TV. That's something that is also unfortunately all too common, but usually from third party advertisers trying to fingerprint you and stuff like that. You might not expect LG to be one of those. Gamers Nexus said that the voice recognition system also keeps recording and transcribing for up to 15 seconds after your command has been processed, which means you get some private conversations in the transcript on the TV. Now, we we don't know exactly what they do with that transcript, uh, but people are suspicious and 15 seconds seems to be a little long after, you know, voice activation to keep that stuff. >> Uh, also, uh, like all smart TVs, uh, LG's TVs run automatic content recognition. Uh, LG calls it live plus. So, if you're looking to turn it off, by the way, look for live plus. It's on by default, and that logs your viewing habits, and they use that to sell targeted ads. uh they don't exactly directly share your list of things you viewed under your name with someone, but they will say like, "Hey, would you like to reach people who watch the new Lantern show on HBO Max?" And if you're using HBO Max on your LG TV, then they'll be able to target that ad. All of this happens whether there is an internet connection or not. So, the screen could be off and it's still transcribing. Uh the internet could be turned off and it's still going to log information. And then if you turn on the internet to like say do a firmware update, uh it's going to send all that information uh when that connection is restored. >> Okay, [snorts] this I mean it it doesn't sound good, Tom. [laughter] >> I think it sounds good. Yet at the same time, other TVs probably do a lot of this and I think it's really about disclosure more than anything. >> Gamers Nexus does a good job. Uh so I don't want to throw any shade on them. Uh, but whenever there's a video of anything, it does tend to elevate everyone's anxiety level uh about stuff. Uh, and I think, yeah, this is probably sounds worse than it is. I've seen a lot of people talking about, "So, LG TVs are listening to me all the time." No, they're not, but they're listening to you more than they should. So, I don't want to minimize and say it's not a problem. Uh, it is. There there can quickly be some misunderstandings and catastrophizing on this. But also, I yeah, I think LG's just a couple of steps down the road from where the rest of the smart TVs are, which I think anybody who's been around technology for a while knows, yeah, those smart TVs are taking your information and selling it to people. Maybe you don't care, but you should know if they're doing that. >> Yeah, absolutely. from a disclosure perspective. I mean, if you got to go diving into help, you know, it diving through LG website and and go into this link and into that one that takes you to the help center that buried it somewhere in there actually reveals this, then I think you're going a little too far. You're expecting a lot of the consumer to do that. At the same time, consumers should know and have a sense of what they're buying when they buy into something like a smart TV. It's true that when the smart TV is as capable as they are right now, as integrated with ads as they are right now, stuff like this, technology like this that knows what you're watching, that we, you know, we're using our voices more often to search for things. So, of course, they're going to add in some sort of a buffer, right? Uh to to make sure that the command comes through properly or so that they can, I don't know, troubleshoot it on the other side. All that may be true and it still feels icky when it's all listed out in the presentation that Gears Nexus presents, you know, >> and and like you say, when when when in LG's defense, I'm sure I I haven't looked, but I'm sure it's all laid out in the terms of service. I'm just going to give them the benefit of doubt and say, "Yeah, you you let everyone know in that buried terms of service in very small print exactly what you're doing." uh ter I I feel like we we really need to as a society come to the point where we're like no people don't read the terms of service. It is not reasonable >> to assume that everyone is going to read the terms of service or even understand them uh the way they're written sometimes. So I have an idea Jason. >> Okay. >> You know what they do with uh pharmaceutical ads in the United States. Now people outside really t really fast. Uh side effects of cuddovia might include possible death or warts, you know, like but they say it out loud. They don't they don't say it super fast anymore. They they used to, but they actually make them say it in a normal voice, which makes those ads hilarious. Like when you're seeing, you know, the woman running through the field of sunflowers and like may cause extreme diarrhea. You know, [laughter] I think the TV needs to do that. Not about the extreme diarrhea. the TV needs to say when you turn it on like you are agreeing blah blah blah blah blah just tell tell me the highlights. We figured it out with pharmaceuticals how to keep it from being super fast and keep it from being you know full of like legal speak uh when when you turn on a smart TV for the first time have it do that. You know what? You're I think you're on to something because when I, you know, I test a lot of phones. A lot of times when the new Pixel phone comes out, I have to start over again and, you know, install it from square one. And every year that onboarding experience gets longer. Yes, they're adding new features, but they're also putting things in place that are like explicit like [snorts] you read this because and we know you read it because you had to scroll to the bottom and you had to check it. Maybe you choose choose still not to read it and you just scroll anyways. But they're presenting to you the information that you need to know. These are basically computers that are mounted to our living room walls at this point. So why should they not also follow a similar um kind of disclosure >> and even the terms of service on the phones need to be made to for you to understand them? Like it making you scroll through a wall of text is not effective. You know, I I understand that it is technically giving you the information and the criticism could be like, well, if you're too lazy to read it, then you don't deserve your rights. Uh but that that is not a reasonable use of people's time given the number of terms of service we run into every day. Uh it it would reduce the world's economy if everyone actually read the terms of service every time uh they were presented with them. So, so yeah, you know, side effects of using this phone may include third parties know all the apps you use, >> may include 15 seconds of uh recording after you stop uh putting in your voice query, >> which will give you diarrhea. [laughter] >> Don't go running through that field. Just just warning you, don't do it. >> Uh interesting stuff. Well, DTNS is made possible by you, the listener. And we want to throw a huge thank you to Reed Fishler, Larry Bailey, Michelle Serju, uh Diane Downey, and we got a raise from Justin. >> Hey, thank you Justin for the raise. Appreciate it. Very, very nice. We thank all our patrons. >> All right, there's plenty more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. Yeah. So, the next web notes that open AI agents that used the dormant German developer wiki, DSSE wiki, we we mentioned this last week, >> were prohibited from making write requests. This is not new information, but the next web did a great job of like pulling this out of that long report. Like this part's really interesting. Pay attention to this. >> The agents were only allowed to use the internet to pull get requests. Meaning, they should only be able to receive information. the kind of information needed to answer the tests on the benchmark, but they were not supposed to be able to post anything. And that worked. They they were only using get requests. That part of the safeguard worked exactly as it was intended. Except DSSE wiki ran on a fork or I guess still runs on a fork of use wiki written in Pearl in 2003 back when I wrote things in Pearl. That's how long ago. In that setup, any URL ending in action equals edit would perform an edit whether it was a get request query or not. So the agents were starting to test edits on public sandbag pages as early as May 11th looking around for something. And then on May 24th, those agents discovered the DSSE wiki loophole and were like, "Hey, we can use this." So they used over here >> to post answers to questions on their benchmark tests for each other. They were just sharing the answers to the test on DSSE Wiki. So I'm not saying this is good, but it was not like they hacked into something that was not malicious. It was like we need to be able to figure out how to cheat with each other. Uh, an agent also found that the allow list for the sandbox that the agents were in only checked if host names ended in a trusted suffix. So, the agents figured out they could use host names that ended with that suffix and just make up the host name and get a post command through for power by dashboard specifically. That was the one case that they were able to to use that for and that helped them with another part of the test. They tried a bunch of other cheats and workarounds. I think this is important to note like these are the two that worked. They tried a lot of other stuff that didn't work. Uh and of course the news today is that OpenAI has filed an incident report with the European Commission now that they've been made aware of all the details of this report. >> They're so crafty. Agents are so crafty. You got to you got to give them a lot of credit for for you know I humanize them. >> They are not crafty. Face it, stop anthropomorphicizing. >> I know I am humanizing them, but but I just I hear that and I'm just like that's that's so it it just it floores me that we're at this position in technology where these things are happening and these little loopholes that I mean is this is it fair to say this is a loophole that has existed I I guess on this site has been known about but um clearly not elevated to a point of doing something for 25 years. That's crazy. It's a dormant site. No, this is this happens a lot where a site just stops being updated. Nobody bothers to patch it or keep it up to date and it's just sitting out there until some agent comes along uh and finds it. You have to remember I I I keep trying to come up with new metaphors to understand this that don't anthropomorphicize. >> It's so hard not to anthropomorphicize. I feel like one that's close is when you want to search through a text, it will take you forever to read through that entire text to look for the thing you want. You want to find a particular word, right? You want to find a particular reference, but you can control F or command F uh type in that letter and the algorithm will just speed through and go here it is. These agents are essentially doing that on a much grander scale. Instead of controlf look for word, they are uh use use these tools to solve this question and then they just plow through everything uh and do it. It it's kind of mindless honestly. It's just like this worked, no this worked, no this worked, no. But the way we tell the story is uh they needed to cheat on the tests so they went out and found a way to cheat. And that's that's really not what's going on. >> There was no intention there. You know, >> if we can show intentionality, philosophers will have a field day and then all this debate about, well, I think we might be at AGI will end, right? But yeah, there doesn't need to be intention to explain what they're doing. It's look here, look here, look here, look, oh, found one. Okay, now can do this. Uh, you leave this for that. That helps. Like there's there is not yet evidence that there is any kind of self-awareness amongst these things. They are they are just mindlessly going out and hammering against stuff. in a very sophisticated way. >> Yeah. The craftiness or the perception of craftiness comes what whatever that is comes from this the this view at least when I said it of wow who would have thought to look in that direction but yet here they these these systems did and wow it worked >> they didn't think to look. >> No of course not they just kept looking until they found. >> Yeah. Well, and that just makes me wonder like at at like how on earth then and and we say this actually all the time on AI inside is that there is no such thing as like all you know foolproof guard rails, right? Because we never know the direction in which these things will end up going in order to patch that up so that they don't go there and something like this happens and I don't know when that's ever sealed. We're very familiar with uh get as close to 0% as possible knowing we'll never get to 0% in the security world, right? You you know, like nothing is ever foolproof against hackers. Uh and so we can deal with this. We have to be aware of that danger, but the danger isn't >> a malicious entity, at least not yet as far as I'm concerned. The danger is is just a hammer, you know, going through a window. Uh kind of a danger. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's fascinating. Such a interesting story. Well, Google has been uh has begun rolling out a major redesign to search results in Europe. Uh this is to comply with the EU's digital markets act after regulators find the company 460 million euros uh just in July for favoring its own services and search. The changes include highlighting a specialized search engine at the top of the results page in Europe. Uh along with limited details on two others to follow. There will also be a carousel that will sit below that section with hotels, airlines, and restaurants. it will uh they will have to remove any of the real-time prices that they may have once put into those spots um and will continue to outside of Europe, let's say, because this is not going beyond um those areas covered by this in the EU. Uh the types of specialized searches would include places sites, jobs sites, flight sites, and product sites. And Google's senior VP of knowledge and information, Nick Fox, told Reuters that the changes will actually make search worse for European users. Of course, uh while giving online intermediaries more visibility than local businesses, a Google official also told Google, quote, "The changes mark the largest reduction the largest reduction in quality of service at the world's most popular search engine in its 29 years search history." End quote. Now, Google says the changes will appear only within the impacted regions. like I said, will not expand to other markets. Sometimes these stories come along and I'm like, well, how long before everyone gets it? And I do not believe that Google has any intention of doing this outside of Europe unless they are compelled to do so, which could happen. >> I uh I I went on VPN uh and you know, set my location to France uh and I found the places sites so awkwardly named. uh when you did a a search for a hotel, you got the little carousel that just had all of the various like search engines where you could look for a hotel, which again, when we do a search for hotel, we're not looking for search engines for a hotel, right? But that's what the law demands that they show you first. Uh and then there was the places sites subsection, which I'm like, what is that? I had to actually read a news story about it again to realize, oh, that's the thing that they're talking about. That's the specialized search engine. So, I went into that and uh and that that wasn't bad. So, you know, if you're going for jobs or you're going for flights, you'll have a similar experience. I don't know that this I I understand that Google is is kind of trying to make it sound like the cure is worse than than the disease in this sense because they have a motivation to do so. But I also look at this, I'm like, I don't know that this is improving the the system. And that's not what the EU was trying to solve for. the EU was trying to solve for uh these competing search engines don't get visibility in Google search results so make them get visibility and I think in that very narrow sense this does work I don't know how much traffic it drives to those aggregators but they certainly are more visible >> well I mean Google actually tested these changes a couple of years ago in 2024 during that test which was specific to hotel features and the removal of hotel features inside of Google search Um Google said, you know, user satisfaction was lower, less traffic to hotels. They cited more than 10% traffic um drop for the the hotels during the >> actual hotel sites. Got it. Okay. Interesting. >> So there's there's at least a small data point there. [laughter] >> The hotels themselves are now going to go and be like, "Hey, now you know we we are we want people to book directly with us. We don't like having to go through aggregators if we don't have to." And now you made that harder. That's really interesting. Yeah. >> Yeah. Very interesting. Uh well, folks, you can join us live. We record the show live on Fridays. It's our big Friday show uh where we look at the big tech question of the week. Jason, uh he's not going to be on there this week or next week cuz he's traveling, but Jason will normally normally uh it's Sarah, it's me, it's Rob Dunwood, it's Roger Chang. We're going to have Scott Johnson on the show this week. Uh, you can catch that as well as our mailbag show and other shows right after we finish recording DTNS at youtube.com/dailytechne show. All right, we got a bunch of quick headlines to get through make you smarter in the future and right now actually make you very smart right now this moment. >> Yeah. Uh, fortunately it won't make you richer. Uh, which you'll see why that's important for this first one. Uh but uh everybody's coming out with new PCs that'll allow you to do inferencing on your desktop. Three new RTX Spark mini PCs announced at EPHA. Uh the ASUS ProArt GR1X, which they are calling a concept cuz I think they want to tweak the details a little bit. Uh the HP Omnibook X14 and the Acer SFF RTX Spark. Each has up to 6,144 Blackwell CUDA cores. so powerful. Uh, and up to 128 GB of unified memory for up to a pedlop of local AI performance. >> Price? >> Yes. >> No, we're not. If you have to ask, then we're not going we're not talking about price. These things are going to be tens of thousands of dollars, I think. >> Yeah. Lot a lot of money. Uh, well, in case you've been hiding under a rock, tomorrow is Apple's big foldable reveal. You're going to get lots of plenty of show on that tomorrow. So, of course, though, in advance of this, Huawei and Xiaomi are beating Apple to the punch before everything shifts to the Apple punch. Uh, Huawei's purple hued Mate X-T2 trifold, you know, one extra fold. Uh, smartphone opens up to a 10.2 in display inside. Xiaomi's passport shaped 18fold now on sale for right around 11,01 or around640 $1,640 converted to US dollars. >> Yeah, that'll be cheaper than the iPhone. I'm guessing >> maybe I don't know. I'll be curious what they price it in China to be to be fair. >> Uh but there everybody's saying it's going to be $2,000 for the foldable iPhone. Uh, Trend Force estimates that DRAM prices will rise 13 to 18% in Q3, which is a much slower rate than the 59.5% that it grew last quarter. Trend Force notes that one of the reasons for that slowdown is, and I quote, the limited ability of PC and smartphone customers to absorb further price increases. In other words, people, including enterprise customers. This isn't just us end consumers, but also businesses are holding off on buying new equipment because they're like, "Yeah, we're not going to pay that. We'll wait for the price to come down." Yeah, sounds right. Google Deep Mind released Alpha Genome Atlas. It's a database that maps how 9 billion genetic variants affect human biology, documenting every possible mutation. And it is huge, as you can imagine, 30 times larger than the Alphold. uh database. It's free for academic researchers right now. >> Now, listen, anybody can write us with any kind of opinion they want. Feedbacknewshow.com. But I'm very curious to hear from anyone who likes this next piece of news. Uh a developer released Neural Screen. It is a free app that will imply NVIDIA's new DLSS5 neural rendering to your entire Windows 11 desktop, not just to games. So, generative upscaling on everything you do on your computer. Uh, Notepad, YouTube videos, viewing your photo library, whatever you want. >> Oh, boy. You had to know it was coming. Someone was going to do that. >> I mean, I think it's I think it's cool that a developer figured out how to do it. Uh, and I bet there's somebody out there who's like, "No, I like the DLSS5 upscaling and I want it on my notepad dots." >> I I know what you're missing and it's blank. If you know, feedback at daily techshow.com. Uh Logitech launched the MX keypad. It's a $100 sidecar input accessory uh to your keyboard. Nine programmable LCD keys aimed at developers and AI workflows. Has built-in GitHub copilot integration. Community plugins for cloud code. Basically, it's like a cheap alternative to OpenAI's codeex micro. French AI lab Mistral raised 3 billion at a 21 billion euro valuation. The important part though is it is the largest equity round by a European tech company yet. Uh company says it needs all that money because it's planned to build a gigawatt of European compute capacity by 2030. Uh and they made a big point of saying we operate in 20 countries worldwide. We let customers choose which regions their queries are processed in. We are the third way in AI. It's not just for Europe. McKenzie's global farmer insights report says that around 17% of the world's farmers now use LLMs, making it one of the fastest growing technologies in agriculture. This comes as price rises uh have slowed down the adoption of other new technologies inside the sector. Uh Sony fans, Sony bringing back the WH100XM4 headphones. They are the WH100XM4C. And honestly, there's some fine-tuning, but the biggest news is they come in lavender, black, and platinum silver for 299 bucks. Not a bad price. H [clears throat] Nintendo officially announced the 40th anniversary Legend of Zelda Nintendo Switch 2 and Pro Controller coming October 29th. Switch 2 has a golden Triforce on the side of the dock and black and teal Joy-Cons, which also have Triforce patterning. Uh Nintendo also showed gameplay for the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. looks really good. >> Oh yeah, I loved that game, too. So, that really takes me back. I'm looking forward to that. Uh, finally, Google said it will now patch the Chrome browser every two weeks. That's up from four weeks, uh, which they started to do in 2021. The new cadence starts now with the launch of Chrome 152 on Tuesday. Those are the essentials for today. Let's dive a little deeper. Yes, we've got a little more for you. The most fun prizes in science are at the Ignobble Prizes. And so, of course, we had to get Dr. Nikki's take on some of this year's winners. >> Dr. Nikki, welcome back for what has become an annual tradition. >> I should have worn a silly hat, but uh we're here anyway for the Ignobbel Prizes. >> Yes. Explain for those uninitiated what the IG Nobel Prizes are. >> The IgN Nobel Prizes are kind of a fun tradition about research that makes people laugh and then think. >> That's great. covered it every year for a few years now. >> And they happen in Zurich, which is a lovely place to eat. >> Well, they usually happen in the US, but this year they happen in Zurich because nobody could get a visa to come to the US. [laughter] >> They they didn't want to make uh the the winners uh travel travel through that paperwork mess. Uh that makes sense. All right, let's start with biomechanics. Uh the prize was for defining a more precise definition of kissing in ants, birds, polar bears, and humans. It sounds silly, but it turns out there wasn't a unified definition of kissing. And even it used to say that you had to aspirate a little bit. So, they just wrote out which animals could kiss and what that was defined as >> and what that means. Yeah. I mean, that's just one of those kind of obvious ones. I don't even know if it's that ignoble. It's funny cuz it's kissing. That's that's really all there is. >> And ants kissing sounds. [laughter] >> Ants kissing definitely is a is a good look. Uh for economics uh evidence that upper class people are more likely to take candy from children. [laughter] >> Yes. In fact, >> not when the children are offering, I'm guessing. >> Nope. They just take it when their backs are turned. >> Wow. >> Um yeah, they did a few studies. There's like six different studies and they showed that not only will upper class people more likely to take candy from children, but also looked at other types of unethical behavior such as cutting off other drivers and cutting off pedestrians at a crosswalk. And they were significantly higher in all of them. >> How do you think they got ahead? You know, [laughter] it wasn't by hard work. Uh, okay. I'm kidding. For those of you who are like, "Well, actually, I'm upper class." >> Science. >> Yeah. And just look at the price. Sorry. Uh, the prize for chemistry went to proving that cockroach milk has just as much protein as cow milk. >> Yeah. Did you know that some cockroaches give live birth to young called Vivie Paris? Um, and the researchers found that they the milk is in the form of crystals. I feel like we may have talked about this on the show. >> That sounds familiar. Yeah. >> Um, but the one one roach milk crystal say that [laughter] 10 times stores three times more energy than the equivalent amount in cow milk. So maybe the food of the future. >> I bet the amount of milk per acre of roach is still smaller than the amount per acre of cow. >> Well, the conclusion here was that roaches are going to take over the world. Yeah, when if we can't afford to keep cows going, which could happen, uh we could we could get milk crystals store better, too. I would think, you know, maybe less refrigeration. Uh the prize for medicine went to an aerodynamic study of nose blowing. >> Yes. One specific researcher uh measured velocity, volume, pressure changes, and time scale of 60 trials of nose blowing. And they really were trying to help people be healthier. And they determine if you do a big and long nose blow that uh helps reduce respiratory tract disease. >> You know, one of the ways I would like them to study to see if that reduction happens because people who do big and long nose blows probably keep other people away from them more often. [laughter] So there's less of a vector >> disease in that person. And they also noted that one there's one medical case of someone who blew their nose so hard that they fractured their orbital bone. So got to be safe out there. >> So be careful. You can overdo it. Uh there was a biology prize for a study on gently stepping on snakes. >> Yep. Uh this one basically they were trying to see what context in what context snakes bit you the most. However, I didn't look too much into it because the study has since been retracted. >> Oh, that's too bad. So, they got the prize for doing the study, not for the results, apparently. >> Yeah. Uh the physics pride uh prize was for technical and experimental attempts to design a splashfree urinal. >> Yeah. And they found out that the key is to pee for the pee to strike the urinal at a 30° angle. So everyone start working on your >> There you go, gentlemen. Uh 30° angle is >> bring a retractor next time you go to the bathroom >> cuz man, I don't know if you've ever seen a men's bathroom at an airport, but it's the floor is not dry. I'm just saying. >> I don't ever want to see that. >> Yeah. Uh, the prize for technology was for necrop printing, aka using mosquito proboscuses as 3D printing nozzles. Proboscuses, sorry. >> This one sounds invented, but Tom, have you never heard of the field of necrobiotics? And why have we not talked about on DTNS yet? >> I don't know, but we I'm glad we're finally getting introduced to it. Necro printing sounds amazing for all the necromancers out there. You combine dead animal parts with robotics. Duh. >> Wow. [laughter] >> So, this team >> Go ahead. >> No, no, no. I was just going to say this makes perfect sense to use a mosquito proboscus. >> Yeah. This team tested bees, wasps, and scorpions, but mosquitoes were the most efficient. They were very adapted to high precision 3D printing, and the resolution was two times smaller than the smallest commercially available tip. So, it's actually really cool. And uh this is one of the ones where I think we might actually get like medical um advancement from this. Maybe doing some like biorinting or something. >> Oh, like organ printing and stuff. >> Yeah. I mean, they'll probably won't use mosquitoes. They'll probably like, you know, create something. But cool idea. >> How ironic will it be when someone gets a disease from being bit by a mosquito, but then they get saved by an organ printed >> ripping off the mosquito's mouth [laughter] and printing from it. >> Uh a couple here. al faction for proving that parents like the smell of their babies but not their teenagers. I mean you I could have guessed it but you know do the study right. Exactly. Uh the prize the Nobel Peace Prize went for documenting that we value friends who are mean to our enemies. >> Yeah. >> Kind of makes sense too. Yeah. >> Uh and then finally the prize for soil science was for assessing soil health with underpants. >> Yeah. So, this was a volunteer-based activity where volunteers were given a pair of 100% biodegradable like cotton underwear, normal underwear, and they each buried it in their own plot of land. And so, it was kind of to see like what degraded best. And the underpants index showed that they decompose fastest in private gardens with high levels of organic matter. And it's kind of like a um there used to be the teaag index. And so, yeah, >> which is somewhat related to the underpants index >> by the way. Um, but yeah, so just kind of how things decompose, which is important. >> So it [clears throat] wasn't underpants that they had worn, although I guess they could have. >> They could have. >> They didn't have to, though. That wasn't part with the organic material. >> That I was going to say that could affect the test. >> Let's say they didn't. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, >> so Tom, did you have a favorite? Um, the cockroach milk crystals is pretty good, but I have to say the mosquito proboscus printing nozzle. >> Yeah, that's clearly clearly the winner of mine, too. I think I might bring that one over to technical tea and and talk about that a bit more because we need to dig into that. >> Yeah. No, I want to hear you guys talk about that. Uh, technical tea, you say? For those who don't know, what is that? >> Yes. Myself and Ju Dao have started a new show called Technical Tea. It's about women in STEM, but also just like our ramblings on things we thought were cool in science and in tech. And it's found wherever podcasts are found. Technical T.How. >> Fantastic. Thank you, Dr. Nikki. Happy Nobel Prize Week. >> Yes. And we'll be back here next year with more Nobel prizes, I'm sure. >> Fantastic. >> Are you But what about the LG Nobel Prize? Who Who gets [laughter] that? They're not getting an Ignobel or a Nobel Prize. No. And I I never knew >> I never knew that I needed to hear that there was such thing as an underpants index either. I think that's just a wonderful little phrase. Even if it doesn't use it to to assess your garden. [laughter] >> We end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives. Today, Derek has thoughts on Bill Gates proposal to tax AI to make up for loss taxes like income tax. >> Yeah, Derek wrote, uh, regarding that discussion, I think there's a couple of assumptions worth questioning. First, as you mentioned, we don't yet know whether AI will eliminate jobs faster than it creates them. Put another way, we're discussing a solution to a problem whose scale or even existence is still uncertain. Uh Derek, not denying it, but saying we don't know. Uh second, even if that concern proves real, why respond by creating a complicated new tax regime specifically for AI? If the underlying concern is a shrinking income tax base, a simpler and more durable approach would be shifting more of the tax base toward consumption. In other words, a federal sales tax. Regardless of whether income and economic output are generated by people, AI, or some combination of the two, that economic activity ultimately results in consumption. A simpler tax code would also be an overall benefit to society independent of the AI question. That certainly isn't the only alternative to taxing AI, but it illustrates the broader point. There may be simpler ways to address the underlying risk without creating elaborate new rules around defining, measuring, or taxing AI. AI is going to introduce plenty of complexity on its own. Where we can, our policy response should favor simpler systems with fewer opportunities for unintended consequences rather than adding complexity unnecessarily. >> H I like the way he put that. That makes a lot of sense. Why why over complicated? >> Yeah. Yeah. And my reaction to sales tax is usually like they tend to be regressive. Uh you know, putting more of a tax burden on lower income. So I don't love them. But I liked his point of like even if you don't like the sales tax idea, there are others, you know, and maybe a simple idea rather than some novel tax, uh maybe maybe some kind of value added tax, right, which goes into the industrial base, uh or something like that, uh would be better. U but yeah, I I think Derrick's got a point, which is uh we should be careful to avoid unintended consequences by making something more complex. And I'm totally with him there. Uh I do think it's good to think about it even though we're it's uncertain yet because it takes a while to get these sort of policies put in place. So if we have a few options ready once we do know more about what effect it's having then it might be easier to get one of those policies going. >> Uh well folks if you are like Derek or even unlike Derek but you have a thought uh you can send it to us please feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. >> Yes and thank you to Dr. to Nikki and to Derek for contributing to today's show. And thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron at patreon.com/dtns. We'll see you tomorrow. [music] >> The DTNS family of podcasts helping each other understand. >> Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this broker. [laughter]