Twitter Trauma and Tell-tale Phones

05/22/23 • 25 min

Gareth and Bill are back, talking about the legal case against Twitter/XCorp from former employees, and the wider issue of how we create good online spaces. And we consider the dangers created when law enforcement agencies auction of seized phones without wiping them. Plus a short meditation on an alternative history and some comments from listeners.

Previous Episode

Dangerous Stunts and Password-free Living

In this week's episode Gareth and Bill speculuate about what makes someone crash a plane for YouTube likes and discuss passkeys, a way to replace passwords that should be simpler and more secure - eventually. Plus a pointless sketch and some delighful comments from listeners. (And Gowri - you can find Dan Goodin's articles on Passkeys in Ars Technica)

Next Episode

Finding Yourself, and AI Phenomenology

In this final episode of our first series, Gareth and Bill look at interesting research using satellite signals to geolocate, as an alternative to GPS. And Bill muses on his current thinking on the state of AI, and in particular why LLMs don't play language games and can't be part of the community of language users, since they don't have an inner life. (References the book Metaphysical Animals) The Gareth and BillCast will return in a few weeks.