Tech News Weekly 380 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

0:00:00 - Mikah Sargent
Coming up on Tech News Weekly. I'm Mikah Sargent and we are joined by Emily Forlini. We talk about what you can do if you want to replace your Tesla with another EV. Afterwards, we talk about Utah's new App Store age verification law and the implications therein, before we speak to Jeffrey Fowler of the Washington Post about the 23andMe bankruptcy and how you should be hopping in to delete your data. And then I round things out with a couple of open AI stories and the agreement of AI companies on a specific protocol All of that coming up on Tech News Weekly.

This is Tech News Weekly, episode 380, with Emily Forlini and me, Mikah Sargent, recorded Thursday, march 27th 2025. 23andme's bankruptcy fallout 27th 2025. 23andme's Bankruptcy Fallout. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where, every week, we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am one of your hosts, Mikah Sargent, and today, on this, the fourth Thursday of the month, we are joined by the Emily Forlini. Welcome back, Emily.

0:01:25 - Emily Forlini
Hello, happy to be here, happy to have you. What is it? Fourth Thursday of the month, you said.

0:01:30 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, the fourth Thursday of the month.

0:01:32 - Emily Forlini
In the year of our Lord In the year of our Lord, 2025. Right, right, happy to be here. What an honor.

0:01:41 - Mikah Sargent
Glad to have you here with us this week and, as those of you who have tuned in before know but those of you who might be new to the show don't, this is the part of the host rather than it is me, but occasionally it's also in both fascinating, amazing, wonderful and interesting, as well as being written by my host, and that's the case this week. Emily, tell us about your story.

0:02:17 - Emily Forlini
You're so sweet.

So, yeah, I wrote a story this week that really took off a little more than I was expecting, and it's called, basically, how to ditch your Tesla and get a different EV.

In fairness, people were writing these articles maybe like five years ago, just as other EV models came on the market, because in the beginning it was like, if you want an EV, you're getting a Tesla pretty much, or like a very dorky kind of model, like a Leaf or like some of the Chevy models you didn't really want. So Tesla used to be the best option, for sure, but there are so many other models, so I just wrote buy Tesla offering. So Model Y, model 3, s X and Cybertruck, like what you might want to consider like comparable vehicles for the price range, et cetera. And a really exciting kind of related news is that all these other Tesla non-Tesla models are going to be able to use superchargers by the end of this year, and many already can. So it's a huge, huge shift happening with electric vehicles. And there's another reason you don't only need to get a Tesla, because now anyone can use the superchargers and that's really helpful for road trips and things like that.

0:03:27 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, absolutely so. I mean, obviously now is a time where people are looking for different reasons, but I think one of them is very much the vandalism that's taking place against Tesla models. I wouldn't be surprised if you're just like you know, I'm not interested in coming outside to seeing something sort of scratched on the side of my vehicle, so maybe it's a good time. I had a friend recently who they had had a Tesla for years and years and were looking at new models. I think they ended up going, I think, with Rivian. But what? I mean, what's the kind of the current state of things? Because, as you point out, with one of the well, maybe let me ask you this what has been the draw of Tesla up to this point? Is it mostly about the fact that it's easy to charge in a lot of places? What was the reason for that and kind of why can we now maybe branch out from what we have had up to this point?

0:04:27 - Emily Forlini
Yeah. So Tesla definitely offered a good price for the range. It used to be kind of luxury, the idea of a Tesla, and actually the prices have come down so much. It's kind of like the mass market every man, every woman's EV. And then they, of course, made a big statement with their dash, which is just kind of like a huge iPad. They were like the first ones to do that and everything touchscreen, and now the rest of the industry. They have their own little iPad dash versions or screens everywhere and there's actually been backlash to that. Now the industry and drivers are saying actually I want physical buttons to be able to turn on the air conditioning, change the volume. I don't want to click through a huge menu. So we're just like kind of on the other side of like to the initial splash that Tesla made.

And then the Model 3 and the Model Y, I think pretty much appeal to a lot of drivers. They're kind of like the basic cars people get and the thing that's happening with Tesla is they haven't really and by that I mean just like an SUV or a sedan, like just basic stuff. And then Tesla has recently kind of veered off into more wacky vehicles like the Cybertruck. So it's kind of become a little more collector vibe than it used to be. Just like EV for everybody. And then Tesla hasn't put out another mass market EV Like the Cybertruck is not that it can be almost $100,000. It has a very polarizing design. It's just going to be a limited customer set for that. So the rest of the lineup is getting a little bit stale and now there's so many choices from other brands so it's just the landscape is very different.

0:05:58 - Mikah Sargent
Understood Now when it comes to then. So it seems like it's almost on a, it's two fronts, because you have Tesla sort of going the way of this sort of staleness, but also collector models and that kind of a thing, but at the same time, it feels like other EVs in the space are now being able to provide what Tesla was once only able to provide. Do you feel? When you were writing this, did you feel like it was a struggle to find comparisons, or was it kind of like, oh yeah, no, there are three or four different options and I'll choose the best of those three or four.

0:06:41 - Emily Forlini
I did not struggle. Actually, I surprised myself by how quickly I wrote this. It probably took me maybe two to three hours total to pull in all that information. I basically just did it from memory, just because I just know the EV market so well. So it's not hard to find alternatives in this list. The list that's getting harder and I'm struggling more and more to put together is the affordable EVs list. I had a list of under $40,000. And that has actually shrunk as the industry has matured. There are fewer options. I don't think there are any options in the 20s right now. There are a couple in the 30s. There used to be the Chevy Bolt. The Leaf price has crept up. It's kind of like the floor is rising but the ceiling is coming down too.

0:07:30 - Mikah Sargent
Got it On like EV prices.

0:07:33 - Emily Forlini
So if you have like 40,000 or, let's say, 35,000, you want to spend on a car, like you're pretty good and that's pretty much what. Like that's how much a Model 3 costs, and then a Model Y is a little more expensive too. So Tesla is like sitting in the middle of the market right now, so it's not really hard to find a comparison, and also the range is getting really good on all the other cars too. So this list very easy to write. Other lists are not so much as the industry changes.

0:07:59 - Mikah Sargent
So let's say, money, no object, and you also have all of the necessary sort of infrastructure around you. You know a garage where you can plug in or whatever. It's all there. It's everything that you need and you've got the money. What is the EV you, Emily Forlini, are buying? Can you tell?

0:08:22 - Emily Forlini
us. I want the Porsche Taycan, like, like. I mean, that's just like the best looking, coolest ev. In my opinion, um, it's not very practical, so I don't know.

0:08:33 - Mikah Sargent
I mean, I think a rivian r1s would be really cool too yeah, I like, I like rivians uh vehicles, but the wow that porsche is I mean, as long as you're asking, I'm going to say the Porsche, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got good resale value. Even it's very practical as well.

0:08:50 - Emily Forlini
Also, porsche is kind of an honest company in this sense. They actually lowball their EV range estimates, whereas other companies I mean the EPA gives them the range that they advertise, but Porsche actually further calibrates that number based on the configurations people most buy. So like the tires you get and like all these different trims and stuff that affects the range.

So, they often under-report the range numbers just based on, like, what most customers will experience, and I think that's just very honest and commendable because they're not just trying to put like this huge number out there to get sales and then people don't experience that every day. So I think it surprised me that they did that. But it's cool. They do that on like even plugin hybrids and stuff.

0:09:38 - Mikah Sargent
Nice, Are there any sort of upcoming models that you are keeping an eye on? You know that you think eye on, that you are keeping your eyes on to see if they, like that, are looking exciting, interesting, or maybe you're just like within good ranges and so you think, oh, that could be the next one I end up recommending to people.

0:10:02 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, I think I'm really excited and I think a lot of EV enthusiasts are excited to see what the Lucid Gravity SUV ends up kind of being priced at what it looks like. Have you heard of Lucid, okay? So yeah, lucid makes the EV with the most range on the market right now. They have their air sedan, which is up to 517 miles, so they're kind of like luxury, like really good at battery tech, all that. But they've only had this sedan, which, in my opinion, is a little boring. Looking like the tech is great, but they could do better on the design. And they're coming out with this like three row SUV that looks very fancy.

It's called the Gravity. All the marketing is like you're on outer space and so they've hooked me and I think that, like the real diehard EV people just knowing that Lucid's battery tech are curious about the gravity, and I am too.

0:10:53 - Mikah Sargent
Very cool. Yeah, there's something to keep our eye on then. Anything else that any other sort of tips, advice you have, maybe even, I guess? Lastly, are there any recommendations you have when it comes to I've got a Tesla I want to get rid, like, is it best to just go to your dealership where you're trying to get your new one and trade it in there? How does that? Yeah, what's the recommendation about that?

0:11:23 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, I mean I think you have to sell it like a used car, um tesla does not have dealers, so I'm not sure actually if you can contact them about giving it back.

I don't know if that's a thing, um, it's hard because Teslas have also really depreciated in value. So, like I talked about, they used to be this luxury car. So you might have bought a Model 3 for $60,000 and now it's like 40. So it's depreciated more than your average. Usually a car's price kind of goes up with inflation or yearly adjustments and it's just going down. So you really need to make the calculus of like, financially, is a smart for you. I mean, I know probably a very small number of people are going to be doing it for political reasons, but just you know you have to really want to be going towards a new EV you need for a lifestyle change or some other reason you really feel you want to change it out. Because Tesla owners are in this weird situation where their car is worth so much less than when they bought it.

0:12:26 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, that's true, that's a bummer. I know that you know vehicles depreciate, but you want to feel like it's not so much of a depreciation that you just are not getting anywhere near your money's worth. All right, I think it is time for us to take a quick break. Before we come back with my story of the week:

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All right, we are back from the break and that means it's time for my story of the week. I wanted to talk about a new law in Utah that has to do with age verification. So we've seen a little bit of movement in the US and also elsewhere regarding making sure that the people who are using apps and services are of a certain age. Using apps and services are of a certain age, and up to this point, it's been kind of easy peasy, lemon squeezy, in the sense that you sort of had, as a service provider, had to ask are you under 13? And then, if that was the case, then you could say, okay, I'm not offering service to you, or I am, and it's a special version, right, and that was kind of the extent. There was no need to prove anything, which is why many of us in the early days of Facebook could just put a fake birth date in and then have a Facebook account, and the same thing applies again across the board. You know, you can create an Apple account and say you're of a certain age and if your parent creates it and says you're of a younger age, then it makes a very specific type of account. So that's all that the tech companies kind of had to do up to this point.

But now, with these laws moving through the one in Utah and some in other states there's an actual requirement for for doing the age verification, because you have, on one hand, the service providers like Facebook, meta, which makes Facebook Instagram and other properties, and you have, you know, tiktok, and you have all of these different things, and are they responsible for making sure that the person of a specific age? Or is it the company that provides the app marketplace through which you download these apps that connect to these services? And, as you might imagine, both sides want the other side to be responsible for it, so that they are, so that each of these companies are not responsible for the situation. Well, the App Store Accountability Act, as it's called, was passed and in this law, it basically requires the App Store providers to be responsible for age verification. Interestingly, because, as you might imagine, all of these companies are keeping an eye on all of the different legislation. What a fascinating job that must be to be assigned to multiple states, and you just have to watch for legislation to move through assigned to multiple states and you just have to watch for legislation to move through Ahead of the law's passing.

Apple put forth a set of what TechCrunch describes as child safety initiatives for its app store, but one of the cool things that it did is it introduced an API called the Age Range API and essentially what it does or, excuse me, it's the declared age range API. They make it very clear that, still, this is just a matter of this is what the person says. So parents, when they create a child account, will put in the child's age. But a developer who makes an app can look at that API, can go to that API and say what's the child's age? It doesn't provide the child's age. Instead it provides an age range. So it protects the child's specific age but says you know, this child is between eight and 12. I'm not sure exactly of the precise age ranges, but what that does is it makes it so that the content can be ranges. But what that does is it makes it so that the content can be specific to an age range. And that kind of still holds with Apple's desire to at least appear as though privacy is one of its main concerns.

I want to mention, though, meta X, which, of course, is formerly known as Twitter, and Snap, the company behind Snapchat.

All were very happy about the Utah law, given that it meant that these companies weren't responsible. We applaud Governor Cox and the state of Utah for being the first in the nation to empower parents and users with greater control over teen app downloads and urge other states to consider this groundbreaking approach. Downloads and urge other states to consider this groundbreaking approach, and then, in parentheses I'm thinking they're going. Groundbreaking approach meaning not making us responsible for it and please, other states, if you're going to do this, make it the part of the app store. So I wanted to ask you, Emily, what's your take on? Do you feel like it should be the individual company's responsibility? Do you think that this app store method makes more sense? Of course, again, there's money is the big factor for why one wants it this way and one wants it the other, and you know legal implications. But I think, like, from a practical sense, what makes more sense to you and just your general thoughts on this.

0:19:35 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, it's interesting and I do think this is a very big issue that just kind of floats under society with no solution and we just get more and more data every year about the mental health effects that social media is having on young people, and it just simmers under the surface with no solution. So I just think it's a really good conversation to have, regardless of what comes out of it. So wait, just to clarify how it works. So the parents? Still, how does the parents entering the age or?

0:20:05 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, so when a parent, because there's still the responsibility of the parent involved in.

0:20:11 - Emily Forlini
How do they know it's a?

0:20:11 - Mikah Sargent
parent. So yeah, that's, that's a good question. This is specific to to the Apple side of things. The assumption is that the parent is going upon buying their child an iPad, they're going to set up their child with a child account, at which point then the parent will put in the age.

So again, there's a lot of of sort of you know it know it's still gray area, but there is a tiny bit more, because it requires an adult account to make the child account and it requires then that child account to have the age range. So there are more protections in place than there have been. But, yes, the right child get it with the right parent and by that I mean, I suppose, somewhat the wrong in the sense that they're not very technically savvy the right child getting an iPad and parent doesn't really know what you do, what happens. They set up their own account, they put in, you know, an older age. Yeah, they're still going to get through, but in theory there are more protections in place.

0:21:17 - Emily Forlini
So how does that work if the kid wants to download Instagram, which says you know you can't have an account if you're under 13?

0:21:23 - Mikah Sargent
That is my understanding is that you will not be able to download. Yeah, it will, simply in the Apple App Store. It's just not going to show those apps as available. It's unclear how this is going to work in the Google Play Store, because really those are the big two right the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. I don't think Amazon's.

0:21:46 - Emily Forlini
No, yeah, so if you have an iPad in Utah, you have some, I don't know.

0:21:52 - Mikah Sargent
You've got some stuff to figure out, things to work out.

0:21:55 - Emily Forlini
But it's just odd that it has a range for the user, because what if the kid grows up and it's past the limit, like they're over 13 and they want to get Instagram? Is it like tracking their age and releasing the Kraken on the App Store that are appropriate for them?

0:22:12 - Mikah Sargent
That's my understanding. So the new system will break down ranges like this Four plus years old, nine plus years old, 12 plus years old and 17 plus years old, or, excuse me, that's the system right now. In the new system it will go even further, so it's four plus nine plus 13 plus 16 plus and then 18 plus, and each of those apps will have to have that. So a child can be 13, 14, 15, and they go in that 13 plus bucket, but the moment they turn 16, now they're in that next range of 16 and 17. The moment they turn 18, now they're in that other range, in that other range. But what the app developer gets to verify the age is just yes, this child is 13 and up, so yes, they can download this app. Yes, this child is 16 and up, so they can download that app, but the actual age is not provided.

0:23:11 - Emily Forlini
So yeah, I think it's just a little bit of obfuscation. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it could be an OK solution. It gives parents peace of mind that if they're giving their kid this app, this device, that they're not going to be doing crazy things on it, which I think is their goal. I don't know, I think it sounds like an OK start to me. What do you think?

0:23:32 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, I think that's. That's what how I'm feeling about it. It's an okay start. I think this is always going to take an interplay right. You have to see where the circumvention is happening. But I think it's good that we are acknowledging that the type in your date, or more likely, you know, click the scroll wheel date thing is not a level of verification that's realistic.

0:23:58 - Emily Forlini
Never has been Like how could that have? Possibly been what we've been operating on for 20 years. Like how? It's just insane.

0:24:07 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, Especially if we are. You know, and I think that that's what it was it's like. I think up to this point it's mostly been kind of a does it really matter? It's fine, it's fine. But as we're seeing more instances of kids, you know, different issues they shouldn't have access to for one reason or another. And, more importantly, it getting in front of lawmakers and, more importantly, lawmakers own family being affected by it, because what else is going to make a human do a thing?

But actually having to, you know, experience it themselves, that is what then leads to changes, and so I think it's been one of those. Oh, we don't need to worry about this, we don't need to worry about this. Now these companies are being required to worry about this, so they're figuring it out and it takes that push. But, yeah, I am curious to see, as we again look at the way that this can be sort of circumvented and can be maybe miss some different things that's going to play out right as we go. That said, I'm glad that it's not so far as a parent has to scan their driver's license or something like that and prove that they're a parent, you know that they're above a certain age.

That is then I have to hand over my ID to Meta. I have to know like these are. These are third party companies, not my own federal government or state government. I don't, I'm not I'm not about that Like the one way I could see this working. It feels like pretty much every state at this point has a computerized DMV system, Right, and I suppose that does OK. Here's what I'm thinking, because I just realized, well, not everybody has a vehicle, but there are ID cards with you Exactly, you don't get an ID card.

That's true, yes. So yes, everyone should have an ID cards. You don't need to have a driver's license.

0:26:24 - Emily Forlini
Everyone should have an ID card.

0:26:26 - Mikah Sargent
That's a standard unit of measurement. To live somewhere, you definitely need an ID, and other states could work with these big tech companies to set up a little API again where it doesn't have again all of my age information. It just says this person is above 21 or whatever the age needs to be to prove that you're an adult. You can make child accounts and then at that point you are proving you're an adult, creating child accounts. Those child accounts are then verified child accounts in theory, um, because it would be very difficult for a child to then create an adult account, given that right so well, I think it's cool.

0:27:07 - Emily Forlini
I think I think, uh, putting the the onus on the app store is an interesting, potentially more scalable solution rather than leasing individual apps. So that could be a benefit. I mean, we'll see. But it gets kind of like killing all the birds with one stone because they're all going through this app store. So I mean, yeah, I'm going to read up on it because it sounds like it could be good and I don't know if there are any follow-ups. Are we even going to know that it worked?

0:27:35 - Mikah Sargent
I mean we'd have to keep our eye on Utah, but the good news is others good news, I guess, in this instance of trying to keep up with it. Many other states are also working on it, including California, texas and 14 other states.

0:27:52 - Emily Forlini
So we're going to continue to see this making its way across the US Interesting bipartisan also with California in there.

0:27:56 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, exactly, it absolutely is so. When it's for the kids, it seems like they rally behind Unless. Never mind, I'm not going to go there, all right, Emily, I want to thank you so much for taking time to join us today on the show. It's always a pleasure to have you here. You always have such whip-smart takes, takes, and I appreciate that. Um, if, if people would like to follow you online and keep up with what you're doing, where are the places they should go to do that?

0:28:25 - Emily Forlini
The best place is blue sky. I'm just at Emily Forlini. Um, I am on Twitter, but I really rarely post there, um, so I would say blue sky. Um, just go hit the follow, it's easy, I'm on there. There's also LinkedIn and Tik.

0:28:42 - Mikah Sargent
TOK, pick your poison. There you go, all right. Thank you so much, and we'll see you again soon.

0:28:47 - Emily Forlini
Thank you Bye.

0:28:50 - Mikah Sargent
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It's good to have you on because we've got some very important stuff to talk about. Good to have you on because we've got some very important stuff to talk about. Many of us, especially around Prime Day or Black Friday, will have at some point picked up a fun little kit where we open up a vial and we spit into a tube and we send it off and then it tells us, hopefully, interesting things about our genetic makeup. For some of us, it just says, oh no, you're very white. For others, like myself, it says, oh no, you're very white and also very black, because that's what I am. And for some, they are surprised to learn that they have a nephew or a mother or a father. They didn't know was there. Whatever the case, 23andme has been, I think, a hit among the curious, and it is now important to note that something has happened to 23andMe. Can you tell us, first and foremost, what is the current state of 23andMe before we get into what needs to happen next?

0:31:20 - Geoffrey Fowler
23andMe, the once great champion of the future of unlocking the secrets of our DNA, is now bankrupt. Late Sunday night, it announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection in court, and they are now in the process of figuring out how to sell it to somebody, or chop it up into a bunch of little parts and sell those to somebody, which I think for everybody like you and me, who drooled into that little while, however many years ago, it means that our data is now up for grabs, and not just any old data. It's not just like I don't know the contents of your email or what you browse. This is the keys to your body that you can never change. So you probably want to go ahead and delete that data as soon as you can.

0:32:14 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, so let's talk about that, because about that, because the company had seen some different changes over time and I can remember when newer features were added, when newer permissions were added, when the company started working with I think it was like Lemonade Health All of these things had led to different privacy advocates having different concerns about the company.

Things had led to different privacy advocates having different concerns about the company. We saw some issues with the board for the company and then the CEO for the company. Can you before again, because we'll definitely get to the data part of it Do you have any sort of overview of kind of how things have changed at 23andMe over time, as it's become now this company that's filed for bankruptcy protection? It's kind of like, I think again for a lot of people you send it off, you got your stuff, maybe you occasionally checked in to go, oh, here's a new little test that it does and it tells me I'm more prone to celiac disease or whatever, and then you kind of forget about it again. But the company was keeping on, keeping on until it wasn't what happened.

0:33:20 - Geoffrey Fowler
You just now honed in on the core problem. You know, at one point they convinced 15 million people to send them about 100 bucks to drool into a tube and send it to them, but after that we didn't really have to send them any more money. They did have some subscription things where you could unlock extra things that we didn't really have to send them any more money. They did have some subscription things where you could unlock extra things, but most people didn't, and so 23andMe really struggled to figure out okay, how are they going to get revenue in this sort of ongoing way so they can do all the things that they want to do? They tried a lot of things over the years. I think the first and original big idea was they were going to use all that DNA that they had collected to try to research drugs, and they made a partnership with GSK, a big drug company, but you know what? It didn't really pan out, which is to say, that doesn't mean there isn't a future in developing drugs that are personalized or based around genetics, but they couldn't make it work as a business. They tried other things. They said, okay, what if maybe we kind of become kind of a health service? And they started selling GLP-1s, like so many other folks on the internet. That wasn't working either.

Then something else really really bad happened to it. They had a giant hacking attack in which a lot of people lost their data or lost some portion of it not necessarily the whole code of their DNA, but other information, sensitive information that was in their accounts and that just destroyed public confidence in 23andMe. And after that, it turns out, a lot of people didn't really even want to spit into a tube anymore to send them their DNA. So it was just trouble after trouble and, as you mentioned, last year the founder of the company, ann Wojcicki, attempted to take the company private because it had gone public at some point, because its value had plummeted from something like $6 billion to around $50 million, and the board rejected it and then also all quit, which is not never a good sign.

So they got a new board and she offered earlier this year to buy a ticket private again, and they again rejected it. And then fast forward to this last weekend where she had to resign as CEO. They entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy and she has now said separately that she once again is going to make a bid to buy it out. But you do wonder what is going on there if two different boards have rejected this.

0:35:53 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, so let's now talk about the data. Right? This is the big thing the genetic makeup that, as you point out, you can't change. There's no changing, at least in the current state of things. Probably, in filling out the service and you know, getting their results didn't opt out of some of the things that needed to be opted out of, which means that they would probably retain that information. I know that I had to go in and say hey, don't keep this anymore, because up to that point I had just kept it, thinking that maybe one day I'd go in and buy one of the newer kits, right, and get the newer chip and see what else I could find out about me. So I had a lot to do to go in there and take care of. I wanted to ask you, though, because I think that it helps to have, kind of, if you can't have an object lesson, then you can sort of have an object mirage, meaning, like, what is a potential outcome of another company getting your DNA? Somebody that buys this? What's so bad about that?

0:37:04 - Geoffrey Fowler
Yeah, what's the boogeyman? Yes, Well, I think it's worth just taking a big step back, and I think one of the key lessons from this is this specifically applies to DNA, but to all kinds of data. The things that you can imagine your data being used for today would look very different 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, when, hopefully, we're all still alive and somebody who at that point has that data might be able to extract some kind of new use out of it that, again, we could never imagine in this moment or at that moment when we drooled into that tube. And this applies to all kinds of data, right, not just DNA. This applies to your browsing habits, this applies to your location, but it particularly applies to your DNA data, because we know that DNA can unlock a lot of things about a human.

That DNA can unlock a lot of things about a human. It can answer questions about your heritage, about your family tree, and in some cases it's like non-fraternity events who's really related to who? Who is related to somebody who might have committed a crime. Those are all things that can happen, but I think one of the really big things that we can already see on the horizon is that DNA can unlock information about your likelihood to have certain kinds of health problems. I remember one of the things that and one of the premises of 23andMe for folks to take it back when I did it was oh, they're going to tell you things about your body, and one one, one example I remember is they had a thing that they would tell you whether you were genetically predisposed to have wet earwax.

0:38:42 - Leo Laporte
I remember that one. I was like okay, yes, I have wet earwax.

0:38:44 - Geoffrey Fowler
Now I get it, but it was going to be a lot more than that. Right, it could be certain kinds of cancers, it could be just all kinds of things. So now imagine what would happen fast forward, five years, 10 years if that kind of information got in the hands of I don't know an insurance company. Now we currently have some laws in the US that prevent your genes from being used to discriminate against you in insurance, but it's very limited for the certain kinds of things. Things like life insurance or auto insurance or who knows what kinds of insurance are all out there. So that could be valuable information.

Imagine if the Chinese government ended up owning it and they're very interested in DNA. Maybe they wanted to learn things about Americans. What could they do with it? Imagine if Elon Musk got it and used it to train I don't know some sort of new AI feature of Grok, where he's going to try to solve medical mysteries or not. Who knows? My point is just the future is a long time and your DNA isn't going to change, but the uses for it will.

0:39:54 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, absolutely yeah. I just was thinking you more predisposed, say, to have age-related macular degeneration, and so they hike your car insurance over time. Given that people with eyesight that changes. The statistics show that they're more likely to get into an accident. I mean, yeah, that's just one example of how that could be used and I like what you're saying there. The future has a long time. It keeps going, that's the whole point, and your stuff is staying the same, but now it's out there and it's with these people. So it's possible, yes, to go in and delete our data. Of course we'll point folks to your article about it, but can you tell us, is the process difficult? Has 23andMe made it easy to remove your data?

0:40:47 - Geoffrey Fowler
Are there any gotchas people should be worried about? I'll tell you all of the answer to this is good news. It is easy. It took me about a minute to do. Now, so many people this week have been deleting their data from 23andMe that the site has been crashing a lot. If that happens to you, don't give up. Just go back a little bit later. You can still do it. Another thing folks should know I've gotten this question a lot. There's several elements to it. There's like delete your account, delete your data. There's also destroy the sample, the drool that you sent them that they've been holding onto. Also, remove you from research projects. The good news is, once you do that initial like delete my account level, it will automatically do the other things as well.

They will also delete or not delete, destroy your drool sample and remove you from the scientific studies, and they sort of make it confusing, but they say that in a follow-up email that they send you. The other bit of good news here that I think we should talk about is the reason why you can do this is because we have a law in California that passed in 2018, called the California Consumer Privacy Protection Act.

0:42:04 - Mikah Sargent
I think, I got that.

0:42:05 - Geoffrey Fowler
CCPA yes, I got my letters right there and since that time, about 20 states have actually copied that law, and one of the things that these laws have in common is it gives you and me and all of our listeners and watchers the right to delete our data when a company collects it. On top of that, actually, back in I think it was 2021, California passed another law specifically about genetic information and that goes even a step further and says oh, actually, you also have the right to make them destroy the sample and you also have the right to remove yourself from studies. So I think a lot of people missed that genetic one because it was like SARS I'm not making up SARS COVID and people were very distracted by other things. But these are a good thing.

I mean, we talk a lot about the failure of the US federal government to protect people's privacy and to deal with some of the new risks and harms that come in our digital world, but the states have been active, and particularly California, and it is because of those laws that we have the right to do this General of California and a special privacy protection organization that the California government has to make sure that 23andMe is really deleting it and really going through the process and making sure it's really gone, because the one other thing we haven't talked about yet, the other risk that's happening here, is they could get hacked. They already have gotten hacked before, they could get hacked. They already have gotten hacked before, and companies that are bankrupt maybe don't have necessarily all the best cybersecurity resources out there, and they also have already lost their reputation and so much like what do we care? So you really want to get rid of that data now?

0:43:53 - Mikah Sargent
in case it hasn't been clear yet, yeah, if you didn't believe it before, believe it now. Jeffrey Fowler, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. It really means a lot, you know, getting your voice on here. Of course, folks could and should head over to the Washington Post to read this piece, but if they want to stay up to date with what you're doing, is there anywhere they should go to follow along with your work?

0:44:16 - Geoffrey Fowler
Yeah, these days I'm doing a lot on Blue Sky, over on threads both at at Jeffrey Fowler, and do a lot more on Instagram these days too Awesome.

0:44:25 - Mikah Sargent
Thanks so much. We appreciate it. All righty, we're gonna take another quick break Before we come back with another story of the week. I want to tell you about Bitwarden, who are bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Bitwarden is the trusted leader in password secrets and passkey management, with more than 10 million users across 180 countries and more than 50,000 business customers worldwide. Consistently, it's ranked number one in user satisfaction by G2 and recognized as a leader in software reviews data quadrant. With all of that, Bitwarden continues to protect businesses worldwide Securely. Send all documents with Bitwarden Send.

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We are back from the break and I want to talk about something interesting going on in the AI space, because it seems like all of the players in the space are agreeing on something, and I find that fascinating. You know, you've got Anthropic, you've got OpenAI, you've got Google's Gemini, you have all of these different tools, right and technologies, and they are, for the most part kind of trying to keep up with each other, and that often means that they are kind of all working in their own little spaces and being very separated right from each other. So when something comes along where you see these models kind of agreeing to work together, I find that very interesting. Before I can talk about how they're all getting along, I want to talk about a really interesting standard that Anthropic announced and released and made available. This was back in November of last year, called MCP, the Model Context Protocol. Mcp is this sort of toolkit system, protocol standard, whatever you want to call it that makes it possible for an LLM system to connect to data and it does so in a way that makes it easier for multiple data sources to be able to integrate quickly. So you can imagine you are using Claude from Anthropic and you want it to work with your specific GitHub repo.

Well, instead of having each side of that experience or each of those services kind of build a special integration, this makes it possible so that MCP kind of serves as the connection point between the two that if a service offers the model context protocol, then you as a user of an AI agent can easily communicate with that set of data. So think of it as kind of a connection point between the AI agent you're trying to use and whatever data you might have. This can be user data, this can be a database of your customers, you know information that you were trying to kind of query to figure out how many people live in a specific area, whatever MCP, the Model Context Protocol they open sourced it immediately and so, with it being an open source tool, it was kind of like hey, come join us, come play ball with us, come be part of this kind of agreed upon language and connection point between the two, and immediately Anthropic announced that companies like Block, apollo, replit, codium, sourcegraph all were adding MCP to the platform and that just again made it easy so that all of the developers who were working on these tools could just build to a standard protocol. That it wasn't these complex and individual connectors between an artificial intelligence, especially with the chat agents and those specific tools. So with it you also had the connection between your chatbot and enterprise systems like Slack, like Google Drive, and being able to again query that data and access that data, which is very, very cool.

Now with that, at the time when this was announced back in November, we saw some of the other companies working on their own means of connecting between data apps. What have you and your AI agents? And so it was kind of like okay, what are we going to do here? How's this looking? Will MCP be the system that kind of gets the blessing? Is that going to be the case? Well, as of yesterday we're recording this on March 27th.

On March 26th, sam Altman, which is, of course, the OpenAI CEO, said by the way, we are going to start using MCP, the model context protocol, and so now you have two big players saying this is the way to go about doing it. This is the way to create a standard that makes it so that lots of integrations can take place. That makes it so that lots of integrations can take place. In response, the chief product officer at Anthropic said MCP has become a thriving open standard with thousands of integrations and growing. Llms are most useful when connecting to the data you already have and software you already use. So again, you can imagine, instead of having to create these custom built instances and integrations between two apps, just making it so that all I have to do is kind of build a connection point with this tool between a chat bot and my data source is so much simpler and the AI systems working together, agreeing on a to create images, and Sora is, of course, the tool that we saw where the company was working on video generation, and it was trained in such a way that it is very good at or much better, I should say, at generating images.

With this latest tool, we have seen quite a few new photos and the something that's been difficult up to this point, which is having the system take a photograph of a person and then say I want this done in this style, or take an object like an image and say I want this done in a style that's similar to blank and to have it look realistic and to have it actually kind of show you what you're looking for. I, for example, took a photo of myself and a photo of a poster that had a person in it, and I said take the face of the character in the first photo it is me, I am the character and put it on the face of the character in the second photo, and it did a very good job of generating that image in this new system. So with that, though, have come some concerns because of the ability of Sora and the image generation to very closely mimic the styles of different IPs that we've seen before, and one of those is, of course, the art house responsible for my Neighbor, totoro Spirited Away, howl's, moving Castle, etc. And we've seen quite a few photos out there that are done in that style. Now, of course, it depends on the person and their take on whether that is a you know, a copyright issue, but it is something that folks will definitely be looking at and criticizing, I'm sure, going forward as we see AI continue to improve and become more realistic as a set of features that actually give us the response and the output that we're looking for. So we'll be keeping an eye on that as well. That is all for me for this week.

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0:57:42 - Leo Laporte
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