AI robocalls and ethical concerns for New Yorkers

Make Me Smart October 19, 2023 Transcript

Note: Marketplace podcasts are meant to be heard, with emphasis, tone and audio elements a transcript can’t capture. Transcripts are generated using a combination of automated software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting it.

Kimberly Adams 

Okie dokie. We can go whenever y’all are ready.

Samantha Fields

I’m ready.

Kimberly Adams

If anybody wants to. And look at that, Jayk made it happen. Hey, everyone, I’m Kimberly Adams, welcome back to Make Me Smart where we make today make sense.

Samantha Fields 

And I’m Samantha Fields in for Kai Ryssdal. Thank you for joining us on this Thursday, October 19.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, and because it’s Thursday, we are going to listen back to some of the big stories from the week with little audio clips, and we’ve got a couple of them already lined up. Let’s start with the first.

Jay Powell

We are attentive to recent data showing the resilience of economic growth and demand for labor. Additional evidence of persistently above trend growth, or the tightness in the labor market is no longer easing, could put further progress on inflation at risk, and could warrant further tightening of policy.

Kimberly Adams

Feel the emphasis on that “could.” Could very important, they’re from Jerome Powell, giving a speech earlier today at the Economic Club of New York. And he was saying that, you know, we’ve got strong economic data that could warrant higher rates. Now, most people who watch this stuff carefully, carefully walked away from that, that speech and said that, you know, the Fed is unlikely to raise interest rates, this next meeting, but they could potentially raise rates in the next meeting. Now, obviously, they can do whatever they want. But of course, as always, they were saying, Jerome Powell, who was saying that it’s all going to be data dependent, because despite everything, despite higher interest rates, and despite, you know, the world falling apart, as it usually does, you know, consumers are still being consumers, spending money, companies are still some, in many sectors struggling to hire and fill open positions. And so even though they have been tightening, and trying to slow down the economy at the Federal Reserve, you know, that it’s not necessarily showing up in the results as much as they seem to want it to.

Samantha Fields 

But they like to hedge, right, or he likes to hedge because it also all lags a little bit, it takes time, as we all know, to sort of really see the rate increases, trickled down through the economy into different places. And he was also saying, you know, a lot is more expensive now, borrowing to buy a home or borrowing to buy a car. And so maybe we just still haven’t seen some of it yet.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, and I’ll be very interested in the academic research that comes out later, about this time period, in terms of how long it’s taking to show up. Because, yeah, the Fed and many other economists definitely expected to see the effects of these interest rate hikes much earlier. And the American consumer, I mean, I guess we’re just like, blissfully, you know, ignoring the warning signs, we just want to like spend our lives, paying down debt or just continuing to shop since the world’s falling apart anyway, I don’t know. I’ll be very interested to see how this gets unpacked by smarter people than me down the road. Worth noting that that speech ended up interrupted, was interrupted by climate protesters who had a big sign and were chanting “off fossil finance.” So you know.

Samantha Fields 

And they were up there for a little while before they got pulled down.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, they were I mean, they made their point. We saw it, it definitely saw it.

Samantha Fields 

And now we’re talking about it.

Kimberly Adams 

Indeed, that was the point.

Samantha Fields 

Okay, so this next clip we have for you today is from an interview I did earlier this week with Joe DeCarolis, who is the administrator of the Energy Information Administration,

Joe DeCarlis

The biggest variable is the winter temperature, if we have a much colder winter, that can drive expenditures, significantly higher.

Samantha Fields 

So he’s talking there about a new analysis that EIA just put out forecasting that most people around the country will likely see lower heating bills this winter than they did last year, which is a little bit of good news. And now as with any forecasts, there’s always room for error or for things to change. But EIA is making that determination by looking at two things or looking at energy prices, which are generally lower right now than last year. And at the Winter forecast, which is looking warmer than normal for a lot of the country. So especially for people who use natural gas to heat their home or who live in the western part of the country, sort of regardless of how they heat their home, they’ll likely have to spend less on heat this year, the EIA is saying. But a lot, obviously, as Joe was saying in that cut, right there depends on how cold it actually gets, which we never know for sure. And you know, for some of us, like those of us in the Northeast like me, we’re looking actually at the prospect of a colder wetter winter than last year. So our bills here could be higher. And a lot of people in New England actually in particular use heating oil, which is more expensive and more volatile price wise than natural gas. So maybe not quite as good news for everyone. But you know, overall, always good to see a forecast that says people’s bills might be lower than they used to be because we don’t hear much of that these days.

Kimberly Adams

Now I’m over here trying to see what the woolly worm says is gonna happen.

Samantha Fields 

Did you find their forecast yet?

Kimberly Adams 

The Old Farmer’s Almanac is saying, because we know this is what we really need to be looking at, that it’s going to be a winter wonderland. Snow, seasonable cold, all of winters delights. Snow will be above normal across most snow prone areas. We’ll see normal to colder than normal temperatures and areas typically receive snow. And I gotta see what the woolly worm says that that’s, that’s of course how we really know what’s going to happen in the winter. And for people who aren’t, you know, as folksy. It’s a caterpillar that is rumored that based on…

Samantha Fields 

Is that the brown and black Caterpillar, the fuzzy one?

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, and it’s fuzzy looking. And I’m just looking the woollie worm legend. First of all, the woolly worm is not a worm at all. This is from Farmer’s Almanac. Specifically, it’s the larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth. And it’s the name has stuck. And the folklore is the wider the rusty brown sections of a woolly bear Caterpillar, the more brown segments, there are, the milder the coming winter will be. And the more black there is, the more severe the winter. And I was seeing on the reason this came to mind is because on Tik Tok earlier, somebody was saying the woolly worms are all black, it’s going to be a terrible winter. Sorry.

Samantha Fields

I wonder where that person lives? Because I wonder also, maybe, maybe it is I don’t know.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, you never know. All right. Well, I guess we’ll find out in a couple of months. Let’s see, what do we have next up? Right. Okay. This is super interesting. It’s from Janet Yellen.

Janet Yellen

America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel’s military needs. And we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. And, look, the American economy is doing extremely well. Inflation has been high, and it’s been a concern to have sold. It’s come down considerably. At the same time, we have about the strongest labor market we’ve seen in 50 years with 3.8% unemployment.

Kimberly Adams 

Right. So this was Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, speaking to Sky News, saying that, you know, a lot of people have been bringing up whether or not the United States can afford to keep funding the wars in Israel as well as the war in Ukraine. And she says yes, yes, we can. And, you know, this reminds me I got a note earlier this week from USA facts, they crunched some numbers on military aid to Israel. And I’m just gonna read a couple of lines here, “the United States committed over $3.3 billion in foreign assistance to Israel in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists, about 8.8 million of that went towards the country’s economy, while 99.7% of the aid went to the Israeli military, Israel received the second largest amount of US aid in 2022, after Ukraine, where the US committed $12.4 billion, the two countries received 4.8% and 18.1%, respectively, of all foreign aid granted that year.” And then since World War II, they actually calculated how much aid the United States has given to Israel since World War II, $317.9 billion. And so I think what this kind of reflects is, you know, Janet Yellen is pointing out that we already are giving a lot of military aid to Israel, to the tune of billions of dollars. And so I think it’s kind of baked in. And so the Ukraine funding, you know, has been, some of it has already been allocated and promised obviously, a lot of it is on hold. But, you know, she’s saying that, that we can afford it. But I think what we’re seeing on Capitol Hill here, especially with the drama around the speakership, there are lots of folks here in Washington who are like we can’t afford either of these conflicts, much less both of them. And it’s so weird, to be speaking about these things that are, you know, such human violent moments in such stark economic terms.

Samantha Fields 

Another sort of important piece, it is how the economy and how governments work. But, you know, another important piece of this, you were referencing what’s happening with the speakership? I mean, in order to actually get more money to Israel and Ukraine, the house has to pass legislation, and it can’t currently do that because it doesn’t have a speaker and it hasn’t for more than two weeks. And, you know, I was just reading that the president is expected to ask for about $10 billion in mostly military assistance for Israel and around 60 billion more for Ukraine from Congress coming up. And I don’t know, it’ll be interesting to see whether Congress actually addresses that request.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, there are so many things that are not getting done. While all of this is happening. And, you know, I was just meeting with some folks earlier this week, talking about how, you know, the farm bill is about to expire. And they were supposed to have been working on that for ages. And we have almost nothing. I mean, a lot of it’s being drafted just behind closed doors. But, you know, we should have seen something by on this by now, and much less, you know, have something even moderately close to being able to be passed, but of the many things. All right what else do we have?

Samantha Fields 

Here’s another good one.

Eric Adams

We have started doing robocalls, with my voice in many different languages. People stop me on the street all the time and say I didn’t know you speak Mandarin. You know, the robocalls that we’re using, we’re using different languages to speak directly to the diversity of New York is.

Samantha Fields 

So that’s New York Mayor Eric Adams, and he was talking at a press conference earlier this week. And as he was explaining, his office has started using robocalls in his voice in a bunch of different languages that he doesn’t speak, including Spanish, Yiddish and Mandarin. And the way that they’re doing this is with generative AI. And so these robocalls are going out to city residents promoting things like hiring events and concerts. And they’re pretty, they’re pretty interesting and weird to listen to. We actually have a bit of one to play for you in Spanish. And thanks to a nonprofit newsroom here in New York called The City for posting it on YouTube.

Eric Adams

Hola soy el alcalde Eric Adams. Queremos invitar venir a trabajar con la ciudad de Nueva York. Ayuda que hacer que eta mas grand ciudad en major.

Samantha Fields 

And so that’s that, for those of you who don’t live in New York, and don’t hear the mayor that much, it sounds a lot like him. Like it’s a pretty good likeness of his voice. But it also sounds a little weird and robotic, right?

Kimberly Adams 

I mean, that, that sounds like, you know, the Spanish, I was barely able to speak when I was in college. But I mean, I don’t know how I would love to hear from somebody who actually speaks Spanish fluently how smooth it sounds, sounds, how relatable, I can really imagine this kind of stuff being useful. I mean, I see that they were saying absolutely for hiring and promoting concerts, but in an emergency, having that tool available for like, when the really bad rain was happening to send emergency alerts out in multiple languages, you know, can potentially save lives. And I think that that service is potentially really good, you know, assuming that they get the translations, right. But I feel like a couple of years ago, we saw artists doing this with music, translating their songs into different languages and having their voices do it in using AI. But I’ll have to dig that back up.

Samantha Fields 

Yeah. And you know, it’s interesting, the mayor is saying kind of, you know, what you were saying to some degree, we have a diversity, we have a lot of people here who don’t speak English at all. And we’re trying new ways of reaching them and speaking to them in their languages. And there’s value in that. And, you know, that makes a lot of sense. I think the part that feels weird is that it’s in his voice. And they’re not saying, hey, this is AI, or they’re not saying anywhere that this is not actually him speaking, and that he does not speak this language. And I don’t know, there’s kind of I mean, as with a lot of things around generative AI, there’s a lot of ethical questions here and a lot of stuff that we just sort of, I think have to talk through and work through and figure out and you know, it’s also new and evolving so fast, and there’s very little regulation so far. So there’s a lot of things. Right, exactly. So not very little, there’s not. And so, yeah, I don’t know, it just it feels a little strange, but also kind of interesting.

Kimberly Adams 

I was listening to a story on our wonderful public radio colleagues on NPR this morning, about a New Yorker cartoon artist who wrote a book, where she used AI to kind of capture her grandfather’s personality who she never met. But they couldn’t do his voice because he didn’t have any recordings of his voice. But there are already companies taking the voices of people’s loved ones who have passed away to, you know, allow the AI to generate kind of conversations that, you know, a grandparent, you know, will it will allow a grandkid to talk to a grandparent they never met or something like that and hear their stories. And this was 100% in an episode of Black Mirror, but, you know, I, I’m kind of torn. I mean, I have a family member who died when when her child was very, very small. Like, it might be kind of cool for her to be able to hear her mom read her story in her voice that she never got to hear, you know? Yeah, I don’t know, I think we’re gonna all be answering these questions.

Samantha Fields 

We’re going to be living it for a while and having to sort of feel our way through.

Kimberly Adams 

And what sometimes really strikes me is that five years from now, this will all feel very normal. You know, right now, it feels hard to imagine entering Yeah, right now. It’s like, oh, gosh, what are we going to do? How is our society going to adjust? And in five years, we’ll be like, oh, yeah, you know, this is norm.

Samantha Fields 

No, and it seems cool. If you think about like, Oh, if I could sort of translate my voice to speak in another language and sort of if it can do it quickly enough, which it seems like with certain technology, it can or soon we’ll be able to, I don’t know, it could be way to have a conversation with people whose languages you don’t speak you know, I don’t know there’s there’s a lot of potential there for really cool things. But there’s also as you know, with deep fakes, and with misinformation and disinformation, spreading the way it is now even sort of without generative AI, there’s a lot of things to be concerned about too.

Kimberly Adams 

And this is going to open whole new worlds up for 90 Day Fiance. Okay. That is it. And on that note, yes, on that note, I That’s it for today. I’m gonna be back tomorrow with Reema Khrais for economics on tap. We’re gonna do the YouTube live stream starting at 6:30 Eastern 3:30 Pacific so you can join us for more news for some drinks and a game we’ll have lots of fun.

Samantha Fields 

And we love hearing from you. So if you have a story you’d like to share with us a common question, suggestion, or email is makemesmart@marketplace.org. Or you can leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Kimberly Adams 

Today’s episode of Make Me Smart was produced by Courtney Bergsieker with assistance from H Conley. Audio engineering by Jayk Cherry. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter and our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Samantha Fields 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital.