Boeing's Whistleblowers; Big Crypto; A Tutor for Every Student; Thai Elephants | Full Episodes

Boeing 7379 Max Depressurization Incident and Safety Concerns

• A Boeing 7379 Max airplane experienced a depressurization incident when a panel blew off the side of the plane, leaving a gaping hole and raising questions about the company's safety practices (7s).
• The incident occurred on an Alaska Airlines flight with 177 people on board, and although it was a terrifying experience, no one was seriously injured (21s).
• Boeing whistleblowers, including Sam Mohawk, have come forward to express their concerns about the company's safety practices, including mismanagement of parts, poor manufacturing, and sloppy inspections (2m37s).
• Mohawk, who has worked for Boeing for 13 years, warned the company and federal regulators about lapses in safety practices months before the door plug incident, but his warnings were ignored (4m36s).
• The National Transportation Safety Board's investigation revealed that four bolts required to secure the Max's door plug were removed during production at Boeing's factory in Renton, Washington, and never reinstalled (3m44s).
• Boeing has hired a new CEO to "restore trust" and has faced four federal investigations since the incident, but whistleblowers continue to come forward with safety concerns (2m25s).

Cryptocurrency Industry's Political Spending and Regulatory Efforts

• In other news, cryptocurrency company Coinbase, along with two other companies, contributed $144 million to support pro-crypto Republicans and Democrats running for Congress (43s).
• A technological innovation powered by artificial intelligence could one day change the way every child in every school in America is taught, with an online tutor designed to help teachers be more efficient and students learn more effectively (1m28s).
• Boeing's Renton Factory produces about 30% of the world's commercial jet fleet, with a focus on keeping production moving at all costs, including compromising safety (4m44s).
• A quality investigator, Sam Mohawk, noticed problems during the COVID-19 pandemic when Boeing was ramping up production and dealing with supply chain issues, including defective airplane parts being taken out of the "parts jail" and potentially reused (4m56s).
• The "parts jail" is a secure area where defective parts are stored, but some employees sidestepped protocol and removed bad parts when Mohawk's team wasn't looking, possibly recycling them back onto airplanes (5m9s).
• Mohawk believes that faulty parts, including thousands of missing parts and 42 flawed or non-conforming rudders, could be on Boeing planes, posing a risk of catastrophic events (5m57s).
• Another Boeing whistleblower, John Barnett, a former quality manager on the 787 Dreamliner, reported similar issues, including managers pressuring workers to ignore FAA regulations and retaliate against those who spoke up (7m12s).
• Barnett had over 3,000 internal documents, emails, and photos to support his whistleblower claim, which he shared with attorney Rob Turkowitz, who has worked with dozens of Boeing employees (7m47s).
• Barnett's case was ongoing, with him scheduled to complete his final day of depositions on March 9th, but the outcome is unknown due to the abrupt end of the transcript (8m38s).
• John Barnett, a 62-year-old Boeing employee, was found dead in his truck with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, after he had been struggling with the company's management and feeling under siege (9m1s).
• Barnett's family, including his brothers Rodney, Robbie, and Michael, and his mom Vicki, are continuing his legal fight against Boeing, which has inspired other employees to speak up (9m52s).
• Merl Meyers, a former Boeing employee, worked with John Barnett and is now speaking out about the company's practices, including the use of defective parts, which he first discovered in 2015 (9m59s).
• Meyers found that defective 787 landing gear axles that had been scrapped were being taken by workers and brought back to the factory, and that these parts were corroded beyond repair (10m29s).
• The defective parts were spray painted red, but Meyers says that this marking would be removed before the parts were installed on planes, making it difficult to identify faulty parts (11m2s).
• Boeing claims to have thoroughly investigated Meyers' claims and found that the defective axles did not make it onto airplanes, but Meyers disputes this (11m34s).
• Meyers says that the competition for airplane parts was intense, and that managers would openly discuss taking parts from other planes, including faulty parts (11m46s).
• Sam Salipur, a Boeing engineer with 40 years of experience, is also speaking out about safety concerns, including the practice of forcing pre-drilled holes to line up during assembly, which he reported to federal investigators (12m41s).
• Salipur observed Boeing employees using force, including jumping up and down, to try to align the holes, which he found to be a serious safety concern (12m56s).
• Boeing whistleblowers have raised concerns about the quality and safety of the company's planes, with some issues still happening, despite Boeing's claims that they carefully investigate all concerns and have made improvements based on some of the feedback (13m45s).
• The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reports show that Boeing plane accident numbers have declined over two decades, making them safer than ever (14m7s).
• Workers at the Renton Factory, where the Boeing 737 Max is made, returned to work after a 7-week strike, but the FAA says production has not resumed, and the focus is on training and sorting out the supply chain (14m32s).
• Sam Mohawk, a worker at the Renton Factory, filed a federal whistleblower claim in June, citing concerns about safety, and the FAA is investigating his claims along with hundreds of others related to Boeing (14m41s).
• The cryptocurrency industry has spent a significant amount of money in the last election, with at least 17 million Americans owning crypto, and the industry is seeking regulation and legitimacy in the US (15m27s).
• Big crypto companies were among the top donors in the past election, and since the election, the price of Bitcoin has hit record highs, but it's unclear if the industry will get Congress or the incoming administration to craft the regulation they seek (16m2s).
• Crypto companies paid for $40 million of positive ads for Republican Bernie Marino in the Ohio senate seat election, which helped him defeat Democrat Sherrod Brown, a critic of crypto (16m32s).
• The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee believes that the amount of money spent by crypto companies in the Ohio election had an impact and tipped the scales (16m54s).
• Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, believes that the crypto industry's spending in the Ohio election had an impact, and his company, along with two others, contributed $44 million to super PACs (17m12s).
• Crypto companies contributed one-third of all direct corporate contributions to Super PACs, with 85% of the backed candidates winning their Congressional races (17m43s).
• The crypto industry's support for certain candidates, including Democratic senators in Michigan and Arizona, was seen as a major victory, with some arguing that the industry "bought" the election by educating voters and providing financial support (17m55s).
• The industry's message to lawmakers is that they should take the crypto industry seriously and consider how to use technology to benefit citizens (18m30s).
• The US is expected to become the "crypto capital of the planet" and the "Bitcoin superpower of the world" (18m46s).
• Donald Trump's stance on crypto transformed from calling it a "scam" in June 2021 to embracing it, with his cabinet picks having positive things to say about the industry (18m57s).
• Trump's launch of a new digital coin, in which he had a financial stake, has raised questions about conflict of interest (19m14s).
• Trump's selection of Paul Atkins as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to take a different approach to crypto regulation than his predecessor, Gary Gensler (19m51s).
• The SEC's approach under Gensler was seen as a "war on crypto," leading to the creation of the industry super PAC called Fairshake (20m32s).
• The SEC has responded to criticism by stating that the savings lost by crypto investors to frauds and failures outweighs the amount spent by the industry on legal defense or influence peddling (20m48s).
• Former Chief of Internet enforcement at the SEC, John Reed Stark, believes that voters have given President-elect Trump a mandate to govern and that the SEC needs to "lay off" crypto (21m11s).
• A former SEC official views crypto as a "scourge" with no utility, existing solely for speculation, and lacking transparency, balance sheets, financial statements, and public disclosure mandates, creating systemic risk and enabling various crimes (21m25s).
• The official cites examples of crimes facilitated by crypto, including ransomware, human sex trafficking, sanctions evasion, money laundering, and North Korea financing their nuclear weapons program (22m4s).
• The collapse of the FTX exchange in 2022, which imperiled $8 billion of customer assets, is seen as a case study of what can happen without proper oversight (22m33s).
• Ripple's CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, argues that his company is a good actor in crypto, employing 900 people and working with regulated financial institutions to create a faster and cheaper way for people to send money overseas using the digital currency xrp (22m55s).
• The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, alleging that the company's sales of xrp represented the sale of an unregistered security, which Ripple disputes, arguing that xrp shouldn't be subject to the agency's registration and disclosure requirements (23m21s).
• Ripple has spent over $150 million fighting the SEC in court, with Garlinghouse arguing that existing securities laws don't fit well with new technology and Congress needs to draft new rules for digital assets (23m42s).
• Garlinghouse claims that Ripple is not asking to be deregulated, but rather seeking clear rules of the road, and has been advocating for regulation (24m31s).
• A bipartisan bill, FIT 21, was passed in the House with the aim of creating a new regulatory framework for digital assets, giving more responsibility to the CFTC while still involving the SEC (24m53s).
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have different regulatory regimes, with the SEC focusing on investor protection and the CFTC on the integrity of the marketplace, and the crypto industry prefers to be under the CFTC's jurisdiction due to its bipartisan support and perceived ease of regulation (25m23s).
• Despite the CFTC's relatively smaller size compared to the SEC, lawmakers from both parties agree that regulatory gaps need to be addressed to prevent confusion in the existing crypto market (26m6s).
• The US is at a crossroads in deciding whether to create clear rules for the crypto industry, allowing it to thrive domestically, or push it offshore where consumers may be less protected (26m31s).
• Some big financial names on Wall Street, such as Jamie Dimon, have been skeptical of crypto, but even his bank offers clients investments in these assets, and the Bitcoin ETF has attracted significant assets in a short amount of time (26m42s).
• The crypto space offers huge amounts of money to be made in fees, which is why big banks have gotten into it, and while many people understand the risks of investing in crypto, the government should not dictate how people use their hard-earned money (27m30s).
• Ripple's XRP currency has seen a significant increase in value, and the company has donated $25 million to the industry Super PAC Fairshake, which now has $13 million to spend on pro-crypto candidates in the midterm elections (28m0s).
• The crypto voter demographic has a significant distrust of financial institutions (28m26s).

AI-Powered Tutoring System: Kigo and its Potential

• A technological innovation called Kigo, an online tutor powered by artificial intelligence, has the potential to change the way every child in every school in America is taught, and was created by Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy (28m46s).
• A new AI-powered tutoring system, K Migo, is being piloted in 266 school districts in the US in grades 3 through 12, with the goal of providing personalized learning experiences for students (29m26s).
• At Hobbert High School in Indiana, chemistry teacher Melissa Higginson uses K Migo to create lesson plans and assist her students with their questions, with the AI system able to provide detailed plans and answers in a matter of minutes (29m34s).
• K Migo was created with the assistance of Open AI, whose co-founders Greg Brockman and Sam Alman gave Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, early access to their advanced AI technology (32m2s).
• Sal Khan, who has degrees in math, computer science, and engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard, started Khan Academy in 2005 with the goal of providing free online education to anyone, anywhere (31m11s).
• Khan Academy's mission is to provide students with personalized learning experiences, similar to what they would receive with a private tutor, and K Migo is the latest tool in achieving this goal (31m41s).
• K Migo is being tested by teachers and students at Hobbert High School and other schools, with the aim of supporting students and teachers with lesson planning, progress reports, and feedback (32m52s).
• Students who have used K Migo, such as Austin and Abigail, have found it helpful in understanding complex concepts and receiving feedback on their work (33m5s).
• Students at KH Academy use Kigo, an AI tool, to assist with their studies, including business class, English, and SAT preparation, with some students trying to trick the system into giving them answers, while others find it helpful for asking questions they may not feel comfortable asking in class (33m11s).
• Kigo has a positive and reassuring personality, encouraging students to think critically and not just providing answers, although some students may find it frustrating when it doesn't give them a direct answer (33m40s).
• Teachers at Hobert High use Kigo to plan lessons, save time, and monitor students' understanding of subjects, allowing them to track how students use the tool and identify areas where they need extra support (34m13s).
• Kigo provides real-time data on student activity, enabling teachers to understand their thought process and identify areas where they need one-on-one support, even if they are not physically present in the classroom (34m42s).
• The company behind Kigo, Conmigo, claims not to sell or share the data collected through the tool with other tech companies, but uses it to improve Kigo's memory and personalization (35m16s).
• A new feature developed by Kigo helps students write better and think more critically, providing detailed evaluations of their essays and suggesting revisions, which can be a valuable tool for teachers who often struggle to provide timely and actionable feedback to their students (35m30s).
• The burden of providing feedback on students' work can be significant for teachers, with one former English teacher estimating that it would take her 17 hours to give feedback on every single student's first draft, highlighting the potential of tools like Kigo to support teachers in this task (36m27s).
• A test was conducted to see if Kigo, a tool designed to detect cheating, could catch someone pasting a paragraph written by Chat GPT into an essay, and it successfully flagged the action and sent an alert (36m55s).
• Kigo is free for all teachers in the US, but school districts have to pay $15 per student per year to cover computation costs, and it is still being improved (37m15s).
• Greg Brockman, president of Open AI, demonstrated a new vision technology that will be available to Chat GPT paid subscribers soon, which allows the AI to see what someone is doing through live video and interact with them in real time (37m32s).
• The vision technology was tested by having the AI quiz someone on anatomy and ask them to draw and label body parts, and it was able to understand the drawings and provide corrections (38m9s).
• The AI was also able to pick up on the person's anxiety and politely correct their mistakes, but it's not foolproof and can make errors (38m30s).
• The technology is still improving and is fun to interact with, and it has the potential to be used in various ways, such as creating educational content (39m31s).
• The AI was also able to write a song about the formula for the area of a triangle and sing it using a British accent, demonstrating its creative capabilities (39m40s).
• The technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we learn and interact with information, and it's being developed to be used in classrooms and by parents and teachers (40m27s).
• A new vision technology is being developed to be incorporated into Conmigo, a platform that aims to provide a tutor for every student, allowing for personalized learning and teacher oversight, with the goal of making it available to students and teachers in 2 to 3 years, pending robust testing and meeting strict guidelines for privacy and data security (40m47s).
• The technology is not intended to replace teachers, but rather to amplify their abilities, allowing them to spend more time with students and focus on human-centric elements of teaching, making teaching one of the safest jobs in an AI-driven world (41m12s).

Human-Elephant Conflict in Thailand and Efforts to Find Solutions

• A study on wild elephants in Thailand's Western Forest complex has led scientists to a possible breakthrough in stopping human-elephant conflict, as they observed elephants using problem-solving skills to open puzzle boxes (42m11s).
• Thailand's natural habitat for wild elephants has been reduced by more than half, leading to a growing conflict between humans and elephants, with only an estimated 4,400 wild elephants remaining (43m15s).
• The Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Western Thailand provides a safe haven for 300 wild Asian elephants, allowing them to roam freely in a 300-square-mile area of dense bamboo forests, streams, and watering holes (44m50s).
• Wildlife Ranger Suti Chai has been working at the sanctuary for 9 years and has noticed an increase in the number of elephants, highlighting the need for conservation efforts to protect these animals and their habitat (44m13s).
• Elephants have a special place in Thailand's history and are considered sacred in Buddhism, having been used as symbols of power for royalty and in the logging industry, which destroyed more than half of their natural habitat (45m3s).
• In 1989, logging was banned in Thailand after devastating floods, and the government moved to find new homes for the elephants, including the National Conservation Center in Northern Thailand (45m27s).
• Many elephants were brought into the tourism industry, which brings millions into the Thai economy, but the country's remaining 4,000 wild elephants face a different future, with their population growing about 8% a year and forcing some into communities to look for food (46m11s).
• Over the last six years, at least 135 people have been killed by elephants in Thailand, and stopping these massive beasts isn't easy, as it's illegal to shoot even a charging elephant in the country (46m29s).
• American researcher Dr. Josh Plotnik and his team are trying to find a way for people and elephants to live peacefully, studying elephant behavior and psychology at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Northern Thailand (46m55s).
• Dr. Plotnik notes that there's always been a problem with human-wildlife encounters, but the increasing number of farmers, people, technology, and infrastructure has reduced the space for wildlife, leading to conflicts (47m9s).
• Dr. Plotnik believes there's a breaking point in the human-elephant conflict and that scientists and conservationists need to find ways to ensure that elephants have what they need while humans also have what they need (47m35s).
• Dr. Plotnik spends summers studying elephants at the Salak Pro sanctuary and is a professor of animal behavior and cognition at Hunter College in New York, leading the only research team inside Thailand dedicated to understanding elephant psychology (47m52s).
• Asian elephants are a unique breed, smaller than their African cousins, with distinct physical characteristics, and their brains are four times larger than humans, making them one of the most intelligent animals in the world (48m34s).
• Dr. Plotnik notes that not all elephants are alike, with unique personalities, innovation, and problem-solving abilities, and that their behavior is largely learned rather than instinctive (48m39s).
• Human-elephant conflict is a significant issue in Thailand, where elephants are entering crop fields and causing damage, resulting in negative interactions between humans and elephants (49m25s).
• Villagers in some provinces are worried about elephants destroying their entire crop fields, which can lead to a significant loss of income, with some farmers reporting a nearly 25% reduction in income due to weekly elephant incursions (49m48s).
• Elephants are attracted to high-octane crops like cassava and sugar cane, and they often navigate electric fences to reach these fields, with surveillance cameras capturing their nightly journeys (50m22s).
• Farmer Weir Wong has been farming for 20 years and has seen his income cut by nearly a quarter due to elephant incursions, leading him to take measures to scare them away, including climbing a watchtower and using firecrackers (50m44s).
• The conflict has resulted in damage to homes and cars, and even human fatalities, with three people killed recently by elephants in Weir Wong's village, including his uncle (51m29s).
• In another village, a 54-year-old man was killed trying to protect his crops from an elephant, highlighting the dangers of human-elephant conflict (51m41s).
• The conflict is not limited to farms, as elephants occasionally invade homes at night and run along roads, sometimes raiding sugar cane trucks (52m6s).
• Researchers are exploring new strategies to address the conflict, including focusing on the elephant's behavior and developing targeted personality devices to prevent them from entering crop fields (52m36s).
• The idea is to develop strategies that are tailored to specific personality traits and behavioral traits of individual elephants, which could lead to more effective and long-term solutions (52m44s).
• The research team, led by Josh Plotnik, is hoping to find a solution to human-elephant conflict in Thailand using a targeted personality device (53m2s).
• In Thailand, thousands of pounds of wild Asian elephants have wandered into towns and villages looking for food, sometimes with deadly consequences, prompting American researcher and elephant behavior specialist Dr. Josh Plotnik to find a solution to this growing problem (53m41s).
• Dr. Plotnik's research on Asian elephant behavior began 13 years ago in Northern Thailand, where he placed a mirror in a field and observed a 5-year-old, 2-ton elephant named Lynchi, who showed a higher level of intelligence and self-directed behavior by inspecting her face and mouth in the mirror (54m16s).
• Despite the complexity of Asian elephant behavior, their brains have not been extensively studied, with most knowledge coming from long-term field sites in Africa and Asia focused on population dynamics (54m44s).
• Dr. Plotnik has spent the last 5 years leading a team of American researchers in long-term studies of wild Asian elephant behavior in Thailand's Salak Pro sanctuary, conducting controlled experiments to understand what's going on inside an elephant's mind (55m11s).
• The team's most groundbreaking behavioral experiment to date is the puzzle box, designed by post-doctoral researcher Sarah Jacobson, which consists of three metal boxes, three doors, and a sweet reward inside (55m37s).
• The puzzle box test has shown that some elephants are amazing problem solvers, particularly when they're hungry, with their trunks able to smell water and food as far as 12 miles away (56m19s).
• In the wild, some elephants have been observed to be innovative in solving the puzzle box, with one 5-ton adult male figuring out all three doors in less than 2 minutes (58m3s).
• Over 2 years, 176 elephants approached the puzzle box, and 58 of them solved at least one door, demonstrating a huge range of innovation and persistence among elephants (57m52s).
• Dr. Plotnik believes that, like people, elephants show a wide range of innovation and persistence, as evidenced by their problem-solving abilities in the puzzle box experiment (58m20s).
• Elephants have evolved to hear and smell well, and use their trunks to manipulate their environment, which can make them difficult to deter from raiding farms and villages if they know there's something they want on the other side of a novel obstacle (58m36s).
• Veterinarian and leading Thai wildlife researcher Borat Siri believes that a flexible approach is needed to keep elephants away from humans, taking into account the individual personality traits of the elephants (59m1s).
• Borat Siri works with a local patrol to track down wild elephants, including a 20-year-old elephant named Mango that had wandered into a rural village in eastern Thailand (59m20s).
• Mango was tracked using a massive tracking collar that was put around his neck six months prior, which sends coordinates of his whereabouts to Borat's mailbox every day (1h0m21s).
• The tracking information is used to warn locals of the elephant's presence, allowing them to prepare and take necessary precautions (1h0m42s).
• A team at a command center monitors the movements of five tagged elephants, including Mango, and sends warnings to the village patrol's phones (1h0m54s).
• Josh Plotnik is working with Borat Siri to develop a more effective deterrent for elephants, based on their individual personality traits (1h1m31s).
• Plotnik's team has created a "targeted personality device" that can be programmed to deter specific elephants from entering certain areas, such as crop fields (1h1m49s).
• The device has three programmable components and is designed to create a situation where the elephant no longer wants to enter the area (1h2m19s).
• Researcher Matthew Rudolph is working with a computer system in a crop field to test a targeted personality device for elephants, which can display lights, play back acoustic information, and spray odor to simulate a potential predator (1h2m38s).
• The device is designed to create a sensory world for the elephant, allowing it to see, hear, and smell a potential threat, and respond accordingly (1h3m24s).
• The goal of the device is to help create harmony between elephants and humans in Thailand, where human-elephant conflict is a significant issue (1h3m58s).
• Scientists hope that by understanding each elephant's unique personality traits, they can develop more effective solutions to promote coexistence between humans and elephants (1h3m56s).
• Conservationists and scientists have struggled to address the human-elephant conflict, and it is essential to understand the seriousness of the problem and the need for better solutions (1h4m15s).
• The conflict arises from the fact that both humans and elephants are intelligent animals competing for limited resources, making conflict inevitable without effective solutions (1h4m26s).