Deciphering the Web, Tesla’s New Robot & The Twitter Saga’s (Hopefully) Final Chapter with Jag Sharma, Jason Kapadia and Felina Tan - Episode 31
Nothing is as it seems on the internet anymore - not even a simple cheese pizza.
‘Algospeak’ is a language growing in prevalence as a way to fight algorithmic censorship. The question that remains: can we keep up with it all?
We dive into the implications of algorithm-dodging on this week’s podcast, as well as a look at Tesla’s robotic answer to Asimo and Boston Dynamics, the revitalised talks between Elon Musk and Twitter, plus some extra-special news to round off the episode…
This episode of Disconnected covers:
Growing use of ‘Algospeak’ to discuss topics online without censorship
Tesla’s new Optimus robot, and how it builds on Asimo’s legacy
Elon Musk’s return to the Twitter buyout deal
Episode Highlights:
“Cheese pizza in Algospeak is being used to refer to explicit trading of child images - who knew a basic dish like cheese pizza would mean something so sinister?” - 3:30 - Felina Tan
“Even the LGBT community feel that some of their content is getting downgraded by the algorithm when they use terms like gay and lesbian and things like that. So even they’re turning to using other terms, like ‘leg booty’, instead of LGBTQ.” - 7:20 - Jag Sharma
“If you look at over 2000 years ago and Jesus was around, you had the Christian fish that they used to paint, or symbols like that. So algospeak has been going on probably since the beginning of time - the beginning of humankind anyway. ” - 10:30 - Jason Kapadia
“What Tesla has done is taken this camera and smart computer, and put it into a humanoid format. If you think about it, it's not life and death, like it is driving a car at 70mph. This is a robot that walks at the same speed or much slower than a human, it's unlikely to harm anything.” - 17:05 - Jason Kapadia
“If it’s $20k for a robot, it needs to do more than move boxes. If it can cook me lunch, or do the ironing? That’s what I’m talking about…” - 20:25 - Jag Sharma
“I think if we all see it as a positive addition to our lives, I think that's good. But I don't want it to replace a lot of human jobs because then that's sad, employment will be affected.” - 23:05 - Felina Tan
Links & references:
Algospeak
Tesla bot Optimus
Elon Musk Twitter deal back on
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63137114.amp
Felina Tan:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/felinagabrielletan/
Jason Kapadia:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonkapadia/
https://www.instagram.com/jasonkapadia/
Jag Sharma:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jagsharma
https://www.instagram.com/jagsharma/