Paul Stenhouse: General Motors axes self-driving taxis, what does TikTok's ban mean for the US?

GM is pulling out of the self-driving taxi business  

General Motors is getting out of the RoboTaxi business, instead focusing on bringing autonomous driving technology to its range of personal and commercial vehicles.  

Its "Cruise" cars were taking rides in Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, and the Bay Area. It's been pumping billions into the business, and now says the time and resources needed to scale the business isn't worth it. It says instead it wants to use the team to bring 'semi-autonomous' (known in the industry as L3) to the masses. This would allow your Chevrolet or Cadillac to be able to drive itself on highways or at slow speeds.  

 

If TikTok is banned, what happens next?  

“Get ready” is the message from two US lawmakers. Google and Apple must be ready to remove TikTok from their app stores on January 19, they wrote to their CEOs. What does that mean for those who already have it downloaded? It doesn't seem that it'll need to be removed from devices, or that traffic to the app will be blocked. The app will continue to 'work', but because TikTok won't be able to provide support, it will eventually stop working. TikTok says it's "one of the nation’s most popular speech platforms" with 170 million monthly users.  

It seems the only thing now to stop the ban is the Supreme Court, or if President Biden or Trump grants a 90-day extension of the January 19th deadline to force a sale.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twenty five minutes to eleven on News Talks. He'd be
just to keep you up to speed with things for
the black Caps England Third Test in Hamilton today, kicking
off at eleven o'clock. The English have won the toss.
They've put New Zealand into bat and just so you know,
Mitchell Santner, as expected as replaced Smith in the starting lineup.
Time to catch up with our Textbert Paul stenhouses with

(00:33):
us this morning, Kilda.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
So General Motors, the massive American auto company, has decided
it is getting out of the self driving taxi business.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, they're saying it's too competitive, and I think it's
probably also too expensive because they have pumped billions of
dollars into this business and now they're kind of saying
that if you want to take it right to where
it probably needs to go, you need to spend even
more time, even more resources to scale it, and it's
just kind of not worth it. And they've already got

(01:04):
people writing these things in Houston, in Dallas, Phoenix, and
in the San Francisco Bay area too. But they instead
of going to get the engineering teams Jack to focus
on what is known in the industry as L three
self driving technology, which is that sort of semi autonomous
kind of driving right activity, so like at the Osler basically, Yeah,

(01:25):
so if you're at slow speed, so in maybe like
parking lots, you know, getting in and out of type spots,
that type of thing, or on highways, that's considered L three.
So they want your Chevies, they want your Cadillacs to
be able to do that, and that's why they're now
pivoting their resources to go and focus right in on
your everyday kind of personal vehicle, your commercial vehicle, instead

(01:46):
of trying to focus on these robotaxis.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I was in Phoenix a couple of six weeks ago
or so for in the bill ups of the election,
and I saw the robotaxis. They were and they were amazing,
like to that, but I mean, incredible technology, But it
did seem to me to be a bit of a novelty. No, Yeah,
from a consumer perspective, someone needing to ride in a taxi.
Were they cheaper? Was it like than having a human being? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Fuddly enough, I don't actually think they were, Yeah, because
I imagine they're trying to recoup their costs of the
like they bought this company for a billion dollars.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think it was maybe close to ten years ago,
maybe not even from trying to remember correctly, but they
said they've spent like ten billion dollars pumping money into
this thing. My goodness, So it's not Yeah, it's probably
actually cheaper just to have a human behind the wheel
at this point.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, I suppose. So, okay, very interesting. Now, TikTok
is supposed to be taken away from Google and Apple
in the US from next month, right January nineteenth. I
think it is. What's going to happen?

Speaker 3 (02:49):
I know the countdown is on. Well, the lawmakers who
are on the China Committee have basically said to Apple
and to Google, get ready because it's coming. They wrote
to their CEOs and said, you need to be ready
to remove TikTok from the app stores. And I did
wonder what else will kind of happen when this band
takes place? Are we going to see a China Great

(03:09):
Firewall type serreo, No, we're not. If you already have
the app downloaded, you're okay kind of ok. It's not
going to have to be removed from your phone. Right,
there's not going to be some like script the Apple
or Google runs that will pull it off your device.
It will continue to work, but I mean, TikTok is
banned under this from providing ongoing support and maintenance, so

(03:32):
eventually it's going to stop working. The only thing that
is going to stop this now between now and Jen
nineteen is either if the Supreme Court takes it up
and weighs in and acts in favor of TikTok, or
if President Biden or Trump grants a ninety day extension
to allow them to actually sell this. Because at the
moment I say that they're not going to TikTok is

(03:56):
still branding itself and I thought this was interesting in
their latest release, one of the nation's most popular speech platforms.
Do you have a feeling they're going to argue in
the Supreme Court that there are speech is here? But yeah,
seventy million monthly users in the United States, so this
is this is a large app and people are going
to feel this if their beloved TikTok goes away.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, that's that's that's gonna be fascinating to watch. It
feels like the sort of thing that's going to go
right to the line as well. Right, if it's on
January nineteenth, it's going to be January eighteenth, eleven fifty
nine pm when all of a sudden, some decision is
made and we will.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Have what Mark Zuckerberg buys it for.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah you think? Yeah, hey, Paul, while I've got you.
Did you see that news out of Google this week
with their Willow chip.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
I almost wanted to talk about it because that I
almost didn't talk about it because the number that I
saw that Google had put how fast their quantum computing
can now do the same task of today, had so
many zeros Jack, I didn't even know how to pronounce it.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, it sounded like it was a number so large
that I thought this could just be a made up number, right,
And it's so just to give people some context here,
I'm glad that you knew that out of on it
as well, because I've been trying to I've been trying
to talk to people about it, and no one seems
that engage and I just think it's the most interesting thing.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
So basically, well, there's the other reason why I didn't
bring it up.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Did you see the Google chip, and he was like,
come on, we've got more important things right now. Anyway,
they've got this new computer chip that is a quantum
computing chip that takes five minutes to solve a problem
that would currently take the world's fastest supercomputer ten septillion
years to compete.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
So that's anyone really understood.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Eighteen, I'm just kidding them. Now twenty one, it's ten.
It's ten with twenty four zeros after it. Yeah, that
would take it that many years in five minutes.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
We struggled to go from like a million dollars to
ten million dollars in our minds, yeah, one hundred million
to a billion, and now we're up to what twenty
four zeros.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
It's ridiculous. But apparently to make it work, they've got
to have this supercomputer, this this quantum computer where they
have to I didn't realize this. They have to chill
the heart of the computer to something like minus four
hundred and fifty degrees celsius in order to make this work.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Have you seen it. It's got like all these wires
and stuff hanging out.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, it looks I mean, you'd expect a few wires,
wouldn't you. Yeah, yeah, Anyway, I'm glad that you nerded
out on that as well, because I was just fascinated
by that when I saw what they were achieving with it.
So watch the space, I suppose. Thank you so much, Paul,
We will catch you again very soon. That is our
textbook port and fellow nerd Paul Stenhouse with us this morning.
Right now, it is nineteen to eleven, our Master of

(06:37):
Wine with his top Christmas by for us next.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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