Marketplace Tech

Filing taxes online shouldn’t be this hard

Ah, Tax Day — a time when our relationship with the United States government can get a little strained, in part because the U.S. system for filing taxes can feel pretty antiquated. But now the Internal Revenue Service has a plan to improve that, thanks to an additional $80 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act that the agency will receive over the next decade. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with ProPublica reporter Paul Kiel about what those IRS technology improvements might l...

No reward for loyalty: Gig companies winning fight to classify drivers as independent

Back in 2020, California voters approved a measure called Proposition 22 that allows Uber, Lyft and the like to classify their drivers as independent contractors, rather than employees. That means the companies can sidestep laws that would otherwise require them to deliver all sorts of job-related benefits. It’s been a bumpy legal ride, but so far Prop. 22 is prevailing in state courts. Sooo, what’s next for gig workers? “Marketplace Tech” features KQED reporter Rachael Myrow’s update on the...

A New York law will require AI hiring systems to be audited for bias

New York City is gearing up to start enforcing a first-of-its-kind law that requires employers that use artificial intelligence tools in making hiring decisions to have those systems audited for bias. Since the law passed in 2021, the use of AI in hiring has only increased, Vikram Bhargava told Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino. He’s an assistant professor of strategic management and public policy at George Washington University.

Don’t be surprised by AI chatbots creating fake citations

By now a lot of us are familiar with chatbot “hallucinations” — the tendency of artificial intelligence language models to make stuff up. And lately we’ve been seeing reports of these tools getting creative with bibliography. For instance, last week The Washington Post reported on the case of a law professor whose name showed up in a list of legal scholars accused of sexual harassment. The list was generated by ChatGPT as part of a research project, and the chatbot cited as its source a Mar...

What happens when AI is entrusted with medical decisions?

There’s a lot of excitement about how artificial intelligence is transforming health care, from diagnosing diseases to creating personalized treatment plans. But just because AI can do something, doesn’t always mean it can do it better than a human, according to Meredith Broussard, a journalism professor at New York University and author of the book “More Than a Glitch,” released last month. Yesterday we featured part one of our discussion with Broussard, about how AI can magnify social harm...

Bias generated by technology is “more than a glitch,” expert says

Artificial intelligence is practically all anyone in the tech world can talk about these days, as many of the biggest names in the industry compete for dominance with ever more powerful AI. But recently, some experts called for a timeout in development efforts to evaluate the harms these tools could cause. Meredith Broussard, a journalism professor at New York University, says you don’t have to look far to identify some of those harms. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Broussard a...

Diversity among esports athletes is slowly increasing

Professional video gaming — otherwise known as esports — has grown into a billion-dollar industry in recent years. Esports tournaments now draw crowds of tens of thousands to watch players compete at games like Valorant and League of Legends, while top esports athletes earn millions of dollars. But for too long, like so many facets of the gaming world, this industry has been dominated by men. A 2019 report showed that just 5% of professional esports players were women, a statistic that seem...

Could pausing AI development do more harm than good?

We’ve been talking this week about the call to slow down artificial intelligence development. There are those who say we need time to mitigate its potential harms and those who think this discourse overhypes the technology. Others, like Will Rinehart, a senior fellow at Utah State University’s Center for Growth and Opportunity, argue that a pause now could do more harm than good. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Rinehart about the potential damage he feels could be caused by a te...

Parent influencers in France make a living by blogging about family trips

The French Parliament has taken up a measure that would give courts the power to ban parents from posting photos of their kids online. This comes as a poll just published in France shows that for thousands of parents, sharing their lives with their children on social media has become a serious, sometimes even large, source of income. In Paris, John Laurenson reports on the rise of the parent influencers.

Without AI regulation, the “information apocalypse” looms, expert says

Last week, more than 1,000 scientists and tech leaders, including Elon Musk, signed an open letter calling for a pause in the race to develop more powerful artificial intelligence models. The letter channeled a certain dread that it seems many are feeling about this fast-changing technology. It also became a lighting rod for criticism from both AI boosters and skeptics. Gary Marcus is a signatory of that letter. He’s a professor emeritus of cognitive science at New York University and co-aut...

One state is betting on technology to address problem gambling

New Jersey is using player data to look for signs of addiction. Gamblers will get a notification or pop-up video to warn them when the time or money they’re spending  on a gambling site suddenly rises.  The state’s division of gaming enforcement is working with site operators to provide addiction resources.

Do we have an AI hype problem?

Last week, more than 1,000 experts in science and technology signed an open letter to labs developing advanced artificial intelligence, asking them to pause the “out of control race” to train ever more powerful systems. The letter warns that these “non-human minds” might eventually outsmart us, risking the “loss of control of our civilization.” But such framing misses the mark, according to Emily M. Bender, a computational linguist at the University of Washington who is skeptical of “AI hype...

The pitfalls of being the child of a parenting influencer

We’re so used to it by now — people sharing every little detail of their lives online. And when it comes to content about parenting, it’s basically a whole industry. You can find “momfluencers” and family channels for any style of parenting or worldview you can think of, to the point that there’s now a generation of kids who have grown up in the social media eye. And, as you might imagine. not all of them are thrilled about it. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Fortesa Latifi, fe...

Why women in tech hold high-profile positions, but rarely CEO

First to leave was Sheryl Sandberg, the longtime chief operating officer at Facebook and Meta known for her bestselling book about women in leadership “Lean In.” Last summer, she stepped down after 14 years. Then, last month, Susan Wojcicki, the only woman CEO in Big Tech, announced her departure from YouTube, a role she’d served in for nine years after joining Google in its earliest days. They’ve left a void of visible women at the pinnacle of the tech world. It’s a trend columnist Beth Kow...

GPT-4 needs more robust testing, “red team” member says

Earlier this month, OpenAI released its newest and most powerful chatbot, GPT-4, along with a technical paper summarizing the testing the company did to ensure its product is safe. The testing involved asking the chatbot how to build weapons of mass destruction or to engage in antisemitic attacks. In the cybersecurity world, this testing process is known as red teaming. In it, experts look for vulnerabilities, security gaps and anything that could go wrong before the product launches. Marke...

American’s mental health data is on the market

Digital tools like virtual therapy and meditation apps have made mental health care more accessible. But they’ve made data about the people using them more accessible too. That’s what Joanne Kim found while conducting research as an undergraduate student at Duke University. Kim identified 11 data broker firms willing and able to sell highly sensitive mental health data to her. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Justin Sherman, a senior fellow at Duke’s Sanford School of Public P...

What does it mean to develop trustworthy AI?

The artificial intelligence wars are in full swing, with companies like Microsoft and Google battling it out. Now Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, is entering the fray. Last week, the company announced a new startup focused on developing what it calls “trustworthy” and independent AI, built on open-source software that’s free to the public. As with its other products, which are more focused on transparency and privacy, Mozilla aims to distinguish itself in a crowded AI field a...

How the FTC’s new technology office will regulate Big Tech

The Federal Trade Commission is tasked with protecting U.S. consumers from unfair business practices, and in recent years it has set its sights on regulating Big Tech. The new Office of Technology will be at the forefront of such efforts. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Stephanie Nguyen, the FTC’s chief technology officer, who will also be leading the new office. She says the office’s work will be critical when you consider how tech has seeped into every corner of the economy.

Online communities can help with loneliness — to a point

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of us to stay at home without the chance to socialize in person. But technology allowed us to stay in touch. Social media platforms helped connect us with the outside world — there was Zoom and Houseparty, and remember Clubhouse? But many Americans still struggle with loneliness, even now as life has somewhat returned to normal. Younger Americans are twice as likely to feel lonely than seniors, according to research from Cigna. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali sp...

What a TikTok ban would mean for TikTokers

TikTok’s CEO heads to Congress Thursday to defend the app against concerns it poses a national security threat. Pressure has been building from both the White House and Congress to force the Chinese-owned company to sell TikTok to an American company or face a nationwide ban. And while TikTok has never been in more political hot water, over on the app it’s still all viral pasta recipes, dogs demanding a “cheese tax” and not a whole lot of paranoia about data privacy. Researchers and TikTok ...

The human labor behind AI chatbots and other smart tools

Every week it seems the world is stunned by another advance in artificial intelligence, including text-to-image generators like DALL-E and the latest chatbot, GPT-4. What makes these tools impressive is the enormous amount of data they’re trained on, specifically the millions of images and words on the internet. But the process of machine learning relies on a lot of human data labelers. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Sarah Roberts, a professor of information studies and directo...

How AI chat search could disrupt online advertising

Almost every service we use on the internet is basically a platform for advertising, especially search engines. Advertisers pay to get their sites at the top of search results, have their businesses show up on digital maps or populate their products at the top of shopping carousel pages. The search engine companies are not only paid, but get data about what users want, which they can then turn around and use to sell more advertising. But how does all this work if, as chat-based artificial in...

What the bank failures mean for crypto

Are you keeping up with those other two banks that both start with an “S” and failed the same week as Silicon Valley Bank? Silvergate Bank announced March 8 that it was shutting down of its own accord and regulators took over Signature Bank on Sunday. All three of these institutions were known for catering to a specific clientele. For SVB, it was tech startups. For Silvergate and Signature, it was cryptocurrency companies. So what does the collapse of two of the crypto-friendliest banks mea...

Silicon Valley gets a taste of what the public thinks of the tech sector

During the chaos last weekend after Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by federal regulators, but before they guaranteed customers access to their deposits, there was panic in the tech world and pleas for the government to step in and help thousands of businesses that could have been crushed. But cries of victimhood from the tech sector were often met by the internet’s smallest violin, and the government’s actions to stabilize the situation were sometimes derided as a “billionaire” bailout f...

What are the ethical hazards in the effort to commercialize AI?

Microsoft’s Bing chatbot has displayed some strange, sometimes inappropriate responses. Could training in ethics help? Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton University, about the ethical concerns he sees increasing around artificial intelligence.

The SVB-sized hole in Silicon Valley  

Did you hear that giant whooshing sound? That was the collective exhale of tens of thousands of startup founders, workers and investors after federal regulators assured customers of the failed Silicon Valley Bank that they would have access to all of their deposits. Most of the bank’s 40,000 customers are tech startups, which spent much of the weekend bracing for the worst: that their money would be tied up or lost for good. That’s off the table now, but there’s still an SVB-sized hole in t...

Can AI learn to understand human emotions?

It’s getting easier and easier to talk to machines, from digital voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to the latest generation of AI chatbots. Natural language processing technology has made it possible to engage in pretty humanlike conversations with some forms of artificial intelligence. But can a bot ever really “get” us? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Aniket Bera, an associate professor of computer science at Purdue University, who is trying to teach emotional intelligenc...

AI is hard at work in Hollywood

The 95th Academy Awards on Sunday is sure to feature plenty of glitz, glam, awkwardly cut-off speeches and artificial intelligence. The technology is becoming a bigger and bigger part of filmmaking, in ways that not everyone is thrilled about. It’s something Joshua Glick, a visiting associate professor of film and electronic arts at Bard College, wrote about recently for Wired. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Glick about the many ways Hollywood employs artificial intelligence.

Can a chatbot be an effective search engine? We tried it out.

Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Joanna Stern, a technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, about her experience with Bing’s AI-powered search bot. Stern searched test questions about what to make for dinner, and the results were helpful, though not entirely accurate to the query. Also, how does Bing compare to the Siris and Alexas of the world?

What happens when robots write sci-fi?

It seems very meta — a tool seemingly straight out of science fiction writing its own science fiction stories. But it’s not all fun and games for the online magazine Clarkesworld, which had published short fiction sent in by writers in the sci-fi and fantasy community. Editor Neil Clarke said last month that the magazine was closing down submissions because it had been inundated with material generated by artificial intelligence.

Some U.S. cities are using cameras to crack down on noise pollution

Cities from New York and Washington, D.C., to Knoxville, Tennessee, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, are studying a new way to address noise pollution by installing what looks like an army of radio reporters on the streets. They’re commonly referred to as noise cameras. When a loud car passes by — typically one exceeding 85 decibels — these noise cameras snap a photo of the car’s license plate and a ticket is mailed to the driver. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Erica Walker, a nois...

Big retail companies are paying influencers to help them with their TikTok presence

Social media influencers are on lots of platforms: Instagram, YouTube and, more and more these days, TikTok. Amazon and Walmart are getting help from content creators to keep their brand present on TikTok, all while the creators become influencers and earn money in the process.

How space tech is being deployed in Ukraine

It’s been just over a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, and we’ve been looking at the role technology has played, from government apps repurposed for crowdsourced reconnaissance to wide-scale cyberattacks. But space-based technology, largely from private companies, is also making a difference in Ukraine. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Miriam Kramer, senior space reporter for Axios, about how satellites hundreds of miles above the Earth are bringing visibility and transparen...

ChatGPT is a content host and creator. Does that make it liable for what it produces?

So much of the internet today rests on the bedrock of a federal law that shields tech companies from liability for the content users post online. Everything from the AOL chatrooms of yore to modern social media likely wouldn’t exist without Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The idea is internet platforms aren’t acting like traditional publishers in creating content; they’re merely hosting it. But new generative artificial intelligence tools like DALL-E or ChatGPT that gener...

More users want encryption, but the transition can be complicated for messaging apps

End-to-end encryption is a way to keep messages private. It’s sometimes used by apps, which basically turn those messages into unintelligible chunks of data as soon as a user hits “Send.” The idea is that no one, except sender and recipient, can access that message. Not hackers, not third parties, not even the app platform itself. And you need special “keys” stored on an individual device to decrypt it. But many messaging platforms don’t have this kind of encryption, and some provide it only...

AC helps us cool down. But it also heats up our planet.

A report out this week warns extreme heat waves, like the ones many parts of the world have experienced this summer, are likely to worsen over the next three decades. Climate research nonprofit First Street Foundation says by 2023, more than 8 million Americans could experience heat above 125 degrees Fahrenheit. In 30 years, more than 107 million people across the country will deal with those sweltering temperatures. And most of them will probably want air conditioning. But traditional AC u...

Biden’s new climate law could help more homeowners install heat pumps

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Among other things, it allocates about $370 billion for climate-friendly technology and programs. This includes tax rebates and credits to incentivize Americans to replace their old air conditioners or furnaces with heat pumps, which can be used for both cooling and heating homes and are more energy-efficient than traditional systems. But making the switch can be costly for households. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams s...

The debate over political bias in the tech sector has reached your spam folder

Following backlash from Republican leaders, the Federal Election Commission is giving the OK to a pilot program from Google that would allow authorized political committees or campaigns to bypass Gmail’s spam filters and go directly into a user’s inbox. Google came up with the program after the GOP accused the company of disproportionately shunting Republican campaign emails to spam, citing a recent study from North Carolina State University. “Marketplace Tech’s” Kimberly Adams spoke with As...

Cities, theme parks adopt new weapons detection technology to curb gun violence

Weapons detection screening systems are becoming more and more common. These systems use touchless sensors to screen for objects that look like weapons in people’s pockets or backpacks, then they feed that information back to a computer system where security guards can view it. In Detroit, city leaders hope the technology can be used to prevent gun violence. As WDET’s Eli Newman reports, that means bringing security checkpoints to public spaces.

Would you pay $5,000 for a Bruce Springsteen concert ticket? The algorithm thinks you might.

Bruce Springsteen fans were appalled last month, when Ticketmaster sold some seats for his upcoming concert tour for as much as $5,000. The average price was actually around $262, according to Ticketmaster. But for a certain subset of tickets, when demand spiked, so did the prices. Ticketmaster uses “dynamic pricing algorithms,” which calculate the price of a seat based on real-time demand. Among other things, it’s an attempt to edge out ticket scalpers. There’s been backlash against this b...

Women don’t wear bikinis to battle, and other things the gaming industry is learning

Grand Theft Auto will be getting a female protagonist, according to a report from Bloomberg. At the time of this writing, Rockstar Games, which makes Grand Theft Auto, has not confirmed this and didn’t respond to Marketplace’s request for comment. But it would be a notable change — there are far fewer playable female characters than male ones in video games. And for a long time, women have been typecast as damsels in distress, like Princess Peach from Super Mario, or as sex objects depicted...

How machine learning is unfolding the mysteries of proteins

Understanding proteins — like the spike protein of the coronavirus — is superimportant for the study of diseases and the development of drugs and vaccines. So there’s a lot of excitement about the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database, built by the artificial intelligence lab DeepMind with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Researchers there have used machine learning to predict and map more than 200 million protein structures from all kinds of organisms. Meghan McCarty-Carino of “Ma...

Across two continents, surgeons used virtual reality to prepare to separate conjoined twins

In Rio de Janeiro, surgeons separated 3-year-old conjoined twins Arthur and Bernardo Lima in June. When the twins were born, they were attached at the head, their brains intertwined. Separating them would require dozens of complicated surgeries. To prepare, the twins’ doctors in Rio used 3D printed models of the kids’ brains and they practiced the surgeries in virtual reality, using goggles and controllers while connected to another medical team in London that had done this before. Marketpla...

Why does the crypto industry keep getting hacked?

Last week saw multiple major cryptocurrency hacks, one affecting wallets mostly linked to solana coins. Another hit Nomad, a blockchain bridge where users exchange assets on different blockchains. The losses totaled about $200 million. And these are just the latest hacks. So far this year, there’s been more than $1 billion stolen. So, why is this industry such a target? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Josephine Wolff, associate professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletche...

The outdated tech behind the organ transplant network

Dozens of people have died and hundreds have been sickened due to mistakes in the organ transplant system, according to a Senate investigation released this week. It  came after a review by the U.S. Digital Service found the network that matches patients and organs is gravely outdated. That program has been run for more than three decades by one nonprofit: the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Joseph Menn, who has been reporting on the...

Could net neutrality make a comeback?

House and Senate Democrats introduced a bill last week that aims to bring back net neutrality. The Barack Obama administration originally put the rules in place to prohibit internet providers from selectively favoring, blocking or slowing content on the internet. The Donald Trump administration rolled those rules back, arguing that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have the power to enforce them. The new bill faces long odds, but if passed it would, once more, give the FCC oversig...

Climate tech could see big funding boost if Senate bill goes through

Climate and energy projects could see $370 billion in fresh funding thanks to a bill proposed by Senate Democrats. It’s called the Inflation Reduction Act, and it would also revise the tax code and reduce drug prices. In a surprise turn, it appears to have been developed with the support of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, potentially paving the way for the bill to pass. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Jay Koh, managing director at the Lightsmith Group, a private-equity fir...

Behind the camera (and inside the industry) of license plate readers

If you’re listening to this while driving, there’s a chance you’ve passed an automated license plate reader, or ALPR. Those are cameras mounted on police vehicles or streetlights that scan license plates and feed that information into databases. But with more surveillance comes larger questions about who should be using this technology and for what purpose. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Rachel Levinson-Waldman, managing director of the Liberty & National Security program at the Br...

Apple seeks more control of vehicle software with CarPlay’s new features

Apple has big ambitions for your car. The company recently unveiled the latest version of its automotive software, called Apple CarPlay. It’s what allows you to connect your phone with your car so you can hear route directions on the stereo and see your maps and music on the screen. The new version will let Apple’s operating system take over your entire dashboard, including the gas gauge and speedometer. Marketplace’s Matt Levin explains why this is a big deal for Apple and for carmakers.

Meta faces a new setback in its metaverse plans from the FTC