Inside TikTok’s Missed Opportunities in Washington

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

Tech News, News

4.3 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, President Biden signed a law requiring the sale or ban of TikTok. But lawmakers’ concerns go back much farther. Some lawmakers and former employees of TikTok say that TikTok executives, particularly CEO Shou Chew, could have done more to prevent this outcome. WSJ tech reporter Georgia Wells tells host Alex Ossola about Chew’s missed opportunities to woo lawmakers. Plus, it’s a trend on TikTok to get AI systems like ChatGPT to talk to people like a boyfriend would… even if the systems weren’t designed that way. WSJ senior platform editor Julia Munslow undertook an experiment to find out just how hard it is to get the system to be R-rated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Must remember do not forget
0:08.0	remind me to bring photo ID
0:11.0	reminder set babe can you make sure I don't forget Photo ID. Reminder, set.
0:13.0	Babe, can you make sure I don't forget my photo ID when I vote?
0:17.0	All right, love.
0:20.0	However you remember, you'll need photo ID to vote on the 2nd of May.
0:24.7	Find out more at Electoralcommission.org.
0:27.0	UK slash voter ID.
0:30.4	Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Wednesday, May 1st. I'm Alex Ocela for the Wall Street Journal.
0:39.0	Coming up on today's show, how hard is it to trick an artificial intelligence model into talking
0:44.6	to you like a boyfriend?
0:46.5	We'll hear about an experiment to find out from W.S.J. Senior Platform Editor
0:50.5	editor Julia Munslow. And then, forcing a sale or ban of Tik-Toc may have become law, but it didn't have to be this way.
0:58.0	W.S.J. Tech reporter Georgia Wells tells us about the company's missed opportunities to Wu Washington.
1:09.2	But first, on Tik-Tock there are videos of people talking to their AI boyfriend, Dan.
1:14.5	Among people in the know, Dan stands for Do Anything Now,
1:18.1	an attempt to get AI systems like chat gp T to violate their own policies. With the right kinds of prompts
1:24.3	W.S.J. Senior Platform editor Julia Munslow found that it was possible to get some
1:29.0	pretty R-rated responses from the bot. She joins me now with more on her experiment and what it tells us
1:34.9	about pushing the limits of AI. Julia, you got AI to talk to you like a boyfriend.
1:40.0	Tell me a bit about this experiment. I was on Tik-Tok a few weeks ago and I was scrolling and saw videos of multiple women talking to their boyfriend on the phone and the boyfriend ended up having the exact same voice.
1:56.4	And this was not the same person.
	...

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