Joe Rogan cornered a Big Tech big shot into admitting that privacy is virtually non-existent on their devices.
On The Joe Rogan Experience podcast released Tuesday, the host spoke with Ray Kurzweil, a “scientist, futurist, and Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google,” according to the episode’s description.
During their discussion, Rogan pressed Kurzweil on the issue of what intelligence agencies are capable of gleaning from ordinary devices because of the industry’s unwillingness to lock down privacy for its users.
Kurzweil insisted that the industry “can create privacy that’s virtually unbreakable, and you can keep the privacy to yourselves,” and stuck to that point.
However, Rogan pressed him on the industry’s unwillingness to do so, while Kurzweil could only repeat his point about the capabilities.
“Anyone can listen to you on your phone. I mean, anyone who has a significant technology,” the host said.
“No. Actually, it has pretty good technology already. You can’t really read someone else’s phone,” Kurzweil claimed.
“You definitely could,” Rogan shot back. “Yeah, if you have Pegasus, you could hack into your phone easily, not hard at all,” he added, referring to the advanced spyware the FBI has employed.
“All they need is your phone number, and they can look at every text message you send. Every email you send. They can look at your camera, they can turn on your microphone. Easy,” Rogan warned.
Do you think your privacy is at risk?
Kurzweil again attempted to deflect the criticism by stating that the industry already can preserve “total privacy, and if it’s not built into your phone now, it will be.”
The host and martial arts enthusiast doubled down on his line of questioning. “Right, but it’s definitely not built in your phone now,” Rogan said.
“With the security people that really understand the capabilities of intelligence agencies, they 100 percent can listen to your phone. One hundred percent can turn on your camera. One hundred percent can record your voice,” Rogan charged.
“Yes and no. I mean, we have the ability to keep total privacy in a device,” the Google bigwig reiterated, while Rogan leaned on him again regarding the capability of intelligence agencies.
Rogan pointed out that phones pick up private conversations, and devices like Amazon’s Alexa that record these exchanges have led to criminal convictions because the device “heard them committing murder.”
According to the BBC, that’s exactly what happened to Daniel White, who was convicted of killing his wife, Angie White, in part due to recordings made by the smart device.
As the discussion continued, Kurzweil could only offer the explanation that “perfect privacy” is possible, even if not already a feature on the phone. Rogan kept hammering him on the fact that Big Tech isn’t doing it for a reason.
“But it’s not just an imperfection, it’s sort of built into the program itself, because that’s what fuels the algorithm as it has access to all of your data,” Rogan said.
“It has access to all of your, what you’re interested in, what you like, what you don’t like, you can’t opt out of it, especially you, you’ve got a Google phone. That thing is just a net scooping up information,” he added.
Video of their exchange was shared to social media platform X with a brief rundown of their “awkward” conversation.
👀 Joe Rogan & Google AI Researcher Ray Kurzweil Get Into an Awkward Exchange Over Protecting Data from Intelligence Agencies
KURZWEIL: “We have the ability to keep total privacy in a device…We know how to build perfect privacy.”
ROGAN: “How do we do it?”
KURZWEIL: Long… pic.twitter.com/GJaFjICt48
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) March 13, 2024
Kurzweil was unable to offer anything substantial to rebut Rogan’s points, because it’s clear that Google and other technology companies are fine with the status quo.
As Rogan pointed out, they can mine the information and exploit it for ad revenue, while the government can get whatever it wants, as long as it keeps to the margins of the laws.
Meanwhile, average folks who carry these devices in their pockets or install them in their homes are unaware of what’s being stored, sold, and perhaps sifted through at any given moment.
There is some good news on the privacy front, as Amazon recently promised to no longer share Ring footage with police, Fox News reported.
Still, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of these tech companies that have troves of personal footage and data stored on their servers that have already been used for nefarious reasons.
Rogan was right to hold the line against Kurzweil, and in doing so he cornered him into admitting what many already suspect: Big Tech is not our friend.
