Speaker 1: Let's say good morning to ABC's tech reporter. It's Mike Debusky.
Speaker 2: Morning Mike, Good morning, Amy. How are you good.
Speaker 1: So Meta is making moves to make itself really really smart.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. So Meta is investing in what's called a
Speaker 2: super intelligence lab, and they are making this major investment,
Speaker 2: more than fourteen billion dollars in this company called Scale Ai,
Speaker 2: in order to do that. So what Scale Ai is
Speaker 2: is they are a human verified AI research firm. Essentially,
Speaker 2: they're a picks and shovels company. They're a company that
Speaker 2: gives the larger large language models, right the Googles and
Speaker 2: the Open Ayes of the world, the material they need
Speaker 2: to train their chatbots and AI systems. So they're kind
Speaker 2: of behind the scenes, but they're really important in the
Speaker 2: AI space. Meta is making a more than fourteen billion
Speaker 2: dollar investment in this company. They are making a forty
Speaker 2: nine percent acquisition stake in this company, and they're getting
Speaker 2: their CEO in the process, a guy named Alexander or Wang,
Speaker 2: to head up this new super intelligence lab with the
Speaker 2: goal of creating technology that they say will be smarter
Speaker 2: than the human brain, that will go beyond the capabilities
Speaker 2: of what we can do as humans and usher in
Speaker 2: this new era of technology. Amy I can already tell
Speaker 2: that your eyebrow is raising. But there is reason to
Speaker 2: be skeptical here. But that is what they say they
Speaker 2: are doing, and Meta seems very committed to the idea
Speaker 2: because fourteen billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Mike is is it to catch up to
Speaker 1: like open AI or is it to go beyond them both?
Speaker 2: Essentially? So Meta has found itself sort of behind in
Speaker 2: the AI race right. Their large latest large language model,
Speaker 2: it's known as LAMA four, kind of you know, failed
Speaker 2: to meet expectations. It doesn't do quite as well on
Speaker 2: some of the tests that we subject these large language
Speaker 2: models to. And open AI and and some others out
Speaker 2: there anthropic Google are kind of at the head of
Speaker 2: this and Meta doesn't want to be left behind because
Speaker 2: they see this as again kind of the next turn
Speaker 2: of the screw, the next evolution in the world of technology,
Speaker 2: and they think that scale AI are the kind of
Speaker 2: guys to help do this. So that is part of this.
Speaker 2: There are again some reasons to be skeptical of this
Speaker 2: idea of a superintelligence that's gonna, you know, change our
Speaker 2: lives and let us all go on vacation and have
Speaker 2: you know, computers handle things. For example, Apple recently put
Speaker 2: out a reportant Apple itself is very much in the
Speaker 2: AI race that found that the current cutting edge of
Speaker 2: large language models, known as large reasoning models, have quote
Speaker 2: fundamental limitations, that they're not quite as smart as we
Speaker 2: think they are, that they're not really reasoning in the
Speaker 2: way that our human brains do. Reports from Arizona State
Speaker 2: University and others sort of back that claim up. Even still,
Speaker 2: this is a hot topic in Silicon Valley, with Sam Altman,
Speaker 2: who's the CEO of Open Ai, telling President Trump recently
Speaker 2: that they are going to achieve this super intelligent computer
Speaker 2: that matches or surpasses the capabilities of the human brain
Speaker 2: by the end of his term. Dario Amiday, who's the
Speaker 2: head of Anthropics, said that we could see major disruptions
Speaker 2: from this type of technology in the next two to
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's exciting and scary al at the same time. Okay,
Speaker 1: so cool job. Yeah, let's talk about this big, beautiful phone.
Speaker 2: Yes. So on Monday here in New York City, the
Speaker 2: Trump Organization announced that they are making a major move
Speaker 2: into the world of telecom. They are announcing Trump Mobile,
Speaker 2: which is what's known as an mv and O, a
Speaker 2: mobile virtual network operator, which is essentially a small cell
Speaker 2: phone provider that kind of piggybacks off the networks of
Speaker 2: the larger providers. So it's like Mint Mobile, It's exactly
Speaker 2: like Minmobile. These two companies are going to compete with
Speaker 2: one another. Cricket Wireless is another one that is in
Speaker 2: this space. And as part of this, despite the fact
Speaker 2: that they say Trump Mobile will work with pretty much
Speaker 2: any modern smartphone, they are launching their own proprietary device.
Speaker 2: It's called the T one. Technically its full name is
Speaker 2: the T one eight thousand and two Gold version, and
Speaker 2: that name is not a missedover. It is gold. It
Speaker 2: is true in gold leaf for or some sort of gold.
Speaker 1: Effect, and it seems to be if it's tied to Trump.
Speaker 2: Oh of course. And it has a big T on
Speaker 2: the back and an American flag as you would expect,
Speaker 2: and it appears to be a pretty standard Android device.
Speaker 2: They are saying that this is going to go for
Speaker 2: about five hundred dollars and that you know, runs Android fifteen.
Speaker 2: It has a six point eight inch screen, one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty hertz for fresh rate, what you would kind
Speaker 2: of expect from a phone at that price point in
Speaker 2: the Android ecosystem. But once you dive a little deeper
Speaker 2: into the specs that we have on the website, which
Speaker 2: is pretty much all we have on this phone, no
Speaker 2: one's really gotten a chance to play around with it.
Speaker 2: It gets a little confusing. Under the storage section, they
Speaker 2: say that it has twelve gigabytes of RAM, and RAM
Speaker 2: and storage are two different things. There's no information about
Speaker 2: a processor, and a processor is pretty important to the
Speaker 2: world of smartphones, and up until recently on the website
Speaker 2: they claimed it had a five thousand millionamp hour camera,
Speaker 2: but milliamp hours are used to describe batteries, so there
Speaker 2: were some typos on the website, it seems like. And
Speaker 2: the photo that they have, again the only photo that
Speaker 2: we have of this device, appears to be a rendering,
Speaker 2: a computer generated image, or some sort of photoshopped deal.
Speaker 2: Because it has three camera array it looks sort of
Speaker 2: like an iPhone trimmed in gold. But there's no flash
Speaker 2: on that camera array, which is what you would expect
Speaker 2: to see on something like that. So maybe reason for
Speaker 2: pause if you're thinking about purchasing a t one, but
Speaker 2: you still can put down one hundred dollars deposit. If
Speaker 2: none of that is enough to dissuade you, do we have.
Speaker 1: Any idea of a timeframe, like when they're going to
Speaker 1: launch the service and start selling the phones.
Speaker 2: So on the website it says coming soon. There's also
Speaker 2: other reporting out there that says that it could be
Speaker 2: as soon as the fall. But a real wrench in
Speaker 2: all this amy is that the Trump organization says they
Speaker 2: plan to build this phone in the United States. There
Speaker 2: is no major smartphone that is built in the United States.
Speaker 2: We don't really have an infrastructure to do it. And
Speaker 2: that would mean that, you know, if they are serious
Speaker 2: about this, they would have to spin up a factory,
Speaker 2: they would have to hire workers, they would have to
Speaker 2: train workers don't train workers to build smartphones here, set
Speaker 2: up supply chains and suppliers and what have you. It
Speaker 2: would be really a monumental task that we have not
Speaker 2: seen undertaken in the United States, and at five hundred dollars,
Speaker 2: that is I think a big reason for skepticism because,
Speaker 2: especially within that timeframe, that's that's that's kind of unrealistic.
Speaker 2: So it is possible that they're going to import a
Speaker 2: phone from elsewhere, but also that would run counter to
Speaker 2: the Trump organizations kind.
Speaker 1: Of made in America thing.
Speaker 2: Attempt to get yeah, manufacturing back to America. But we'll
Speaker 2: just have to wait and see
Speaker 1: All right, ABC's tech reporter Mike Debuski, thanks so much,
Speaker 1: of course, Amy take he