Make Me Smart February 8, 2023 transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Let’s do it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Let’s go. I hope I have the right thing up here.

Kimberly Adams 

Does it say Wednesday?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes. Hey, everybody. I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.

Kimberly Adams 

And I’m Kimberly Adams, this is what do you want to know Wednesday, you bring the questions, and we’ll provide the answers. You can get your question on the podcast by leaving us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART, or you can email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org

Kai Ryssdal 

Question number one, go.

Kathy 

Hi, Kai, and Kimberly. This is Kathy from Virginia Beach. And I am calling about chat GPT. Is there any knowledge of software that it will come along to counteract and identify plagiarism from the AI bots? Thanks for making me smart.

Kai Ryssdal 

You’re doing this one? You’re doing this one

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I mean, this was one of the first questions that a lot of people started asking when this really broke into the mainstream. And and I’ll point out that this tech has been around in iterations for a couple of years, but mainly just very techie, people were playing around with it. But this question about plagiarism and whether or not chat GPT was going to be used to basically write every high school and potentially college essay ever is definitely a big concern. So much so that Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes actually did a story on this and the growing demand for software that attempts to detect whether or not Chat-GPT or these other generative AI programs have been used in written work. And sure enough, students are already trying to use it, teachers have been able to spot it so far, apparently, you know, it’s relatively easy to tell the difference between a smooth AI answer and a 17 year old phoning it in answer. But, you know, the tech is gonna get better. And teachers want tools to catch it. So companies like Turnitin that cell plagiarism detection software, are really rushing to release chatbot detection products that they can sell to schools, open Open AI, which created ChatGPT has already released an online tool that rates how likely it is that a piece of text was written by a chatbot. But it doesn’t work all that well yet. And it depends on how closely that text matches the writing that the chat bot was trained on. There are also some other tools in the works. A Princeton engineering student who was in Stephanie’s story, built a free app called GPT Zero, it works in a similar way. And so our wonderful producers here at Make Me Smart, did an experiment testing out both of these tools, asking ChatGPT to write the answer to Kathy’s question and plugged in, then we got the answer, and then plug the that answer into both of these apps that are supposed to detect whether or not AI wrote it. And you know, good news is both of them seem to think so. GPT Zero said your text is likely to be written entirely by AI. And then OpenAI is tool said the text was likely to be AI generated. However, after a little human editing, which you can imagine somebody might do if they’re using this. Chat GPT Zero said some parts may be written by AI and OpenAI’s tool still said likely to be AI generated. Not so bad, but not completely accurate yet, although there’s a lot of money to be had in this and so a ton of other startups are working on it too.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, yeah. It is a business opportunity. But I do have to say and look, I was a goody two shoes when I was in high school, but but the temptation has to be overwhelming to use this thing.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. Especially when you’re staring at the blank page. Just something to get you started. And I can imagine that’s how it’s going to start. You know, it’s like, well, let me just get some ideas. And then I’ll go back and write it in my own voice. Yeah,

Kai Ryssdal 

And then it’s like where is the line? Right?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah. All right. Next up, we have an email from an anonymous fan, which is fine. Although we’d love to hear your voice. You can be open and honest with us we’re nice. But they wrote “how will the recent storms in California impact produce prices.” Mr California man go

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, good questions. So the San Joaquin Valley, the Great Central Valley, California, obviously the source of much of the produce and and vegetables that come from California, thus, the entire country. So here’s the deal. We had those huge storms, right flooding and damages, 20-ish people were killed, AccuWeather figures that the preliminary estimate for the toll damage and economic loss because of that storm is $30 billion. Monterey County. Yeah, I know it’s a lot of money. Monterey County, which is sometimes called the “Salad Bowl of America”, lots of produce comes out of there. Llosses estimated at $50 million. Farmers, though, say that costs are going to be higher. Here’s the deal. So a lot of the flooding could increase produce prices, crops obviously can’t be planted till the waters gone away. You got to test for disease in those waters, the soil has got to settle all kinds of stuff. The good part about this actually, just parenthetically here is that the snowpack in the Sierra is really, really deep now. So there won’t be the water wars in California, at least this year, that there have been in the past. There will be water for agriculture, there will be water for the cities. So that’s going to be taken care of. It is obviously true, though, that water is a challenge out here long term. The economic health of this state depends on water, the economic health of the people who work in agriculture in this state depend on water. So while we have lots of it now, you know, low income folks and immigrants who work in the agricultural sector, they’re going to be suffering because this ain’t gonna last is the short answer.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. And, you know, it’s not going to do nice things to inflation either. And food price inflation, has been one of the most keenly felt issues, especially by people at the lower end of the income scale. So wish we could say that that was going to get better. And I have to say, like, with the Fed, you know, raising interest rates, you know, to try to tamp down inflation, that doesn’t, you know, at all effect, natural disasters, that factor into inflation, you know, so some of that inflation you can’t really do much about.

Kai Ryssdal 

Absolutely. All right, next question from Kyle in Rhode Island. Here’s what he said it’s an email. “Every time I hear about solar panels, it’s about how cheap they are now, and how they’re a no brainer for residential homeowners. When I price a solar panel system, he says with a local installer, the systems range from 14,000 to 16,000 dollars after tax credits. What am I missing?”

Kimberly Adams 

Not much. I mean, that lines up. It is. I mean, that lines up pretty much with what we found two. According to Energy Sage, a solar panel marketplace, the average cost of a solar panel installation is around $20,000. And that price depends on the size of the solar panels, the location, the type of panel different tax credits, because some states have more additional tax credits on top of the federal tax credits. It’s not an inexpensive project by any means. But solar panels have become more affordable over time. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the price of residential solar panels, has actually dropped around 64% since 2010. And you know, back in 2010, solar panels would cost about $50,000, on average, to do one of those big installations. So why are they cheaper now than they were even though they’re still expensive? Better technology. Last two decades, has yielded more efficient lighter, more compact solar panels. Solyndra didn’t work out so well, but we still have been moving forward. Haven’t heard that one in a while have you Kai?

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry, very quick interjection. My brother was working at Solyndra, when they got ready to buy the FBI. Said it was quite something. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Kimberly Adams 

I’ll bet. Wow, that’s a story for another day. Also, for the solar companies, not a rided by the FBI, lower manufacturing costs. China is actually the biggest solar panel manufacturer in the world right now and invested heavily in this industry since the mid 2000s. And so that that just dropped prices all over the world by something like 80% by just like flooding the market with these cheaper solar panels. And then on top of that, you have the government subsidies. The government has been giving out these tax credits. And currently there’s a 30% tax credit until 2033 as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, and then also factored into the overall cost of the solar panel installation and how much it costs you, is the cost over time. So the idea behind having solar panels is that it will lower your energy costs. In some cases depending on how sunny it is where you live, it may eliminate your energy bill. CNET estimated that it would take about 10 years for average price solar panels, so about $20,000, to pay off if they met all of your energy needs. So you know, you’re gonna keep them for 10 years, they’re gonna work for 10 years, you know, it’s a tough balance, although, you know, doing good for the environment also has, you know, a cost that you might, you know, factor into the balance. They’re not cheap. It’s not a cheap project, but they have become cheaper. I mean, people do it with like, home equity line of credits and all these other things. And you know, that all of these things might explain why there have been rise in solar panel installation in recent years Department of Energy, the US Energy Information Administration, says residential solar installations, rose 34%. Let me add a caveat. However, please be careful with some of these solar panel installations. My mother was trying to get solar installed on her house, and it turned out to be quite the scam. Luckily, she was able to get out of it, but just, you know, somebody’s going door to door preying on… Don’t… my mother doesn’t listen so I can say this, preying on the elderly. And, you know, so just you vet. If this is a project that you’re going to do just vet vet vet vet vet,

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally, totally real quick for those who might not have been up to speed on the solar wars of the early 2010s. Solyndra was a company that got loans cosigned. Half a billion dollars with the loans cosign be the Obama administration, there was fraud involved, the FBI raided and my brother, by the way was not involved in the fraud. He has since moved on. Just Just for the record.

Kimberly Adams 

And they looked very different from other solar panels. They looked like those fluorescent tubes, you know, that are in like, industrial lights. They look the solar panels were that shape. And so it’s like, oh, they’re round, they can get sun from all angles, and it’s much more efficient and this that and the other and it was not at all. All right, next up one that I’m sure you’re gonna love Kai, a history question.

Sussana 

Hi, this is Susanna from Cathedral City, California. Long time listener multiple time caller. I was just listening to the Wednesday show and it made me think of the question. Where did the names blue collar and white collar workers come from? Thank you. Bye

Kai Ryssdal 

So full credit for the answer to this one goes to Courtney and Antonio because I didn’t notice. So here’s the deal. It goes back to the early part of the 20th century. They consulted an etymologist, those two did, his name is Barry Popik, and he credited it to Upton Sinclair, the author who used white collar to describe clerks back then. Pencil pushers, basically. Desk workers, mostly male, had to wear white collared shirts to work, right. Blue Collar, on the other hand, comes into usage about 1924-ish, give or take. It appeared in a local newspaper in Iowa, the paper proposed and here it comes, “if we may call professions and office positions, white collar jobs, we may call the trades, blue collar jobs.” Now, that’s the origin. How they have come to be applied today are completely different, obviously, because the nature of work in this economy is completely different. But it is a useful political trope, which you hear politicians use all the time. Republicans…

Kimberly Adams 

Cough, last night.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, right. I mean, State of the Union was was a good one, right? Joe Biden considers himself a blue collar guy, and talks about blue collar jobs all the doggone time. Yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

What’s the balance? If you know off the top of your head? And if not, I’m sure we’ll look it up later and figured out what’s the balance of blue collar versus white collar?

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s a great question. I haven’t I have no idea. I have no idea. That’s a great question.

Kimberly Adams 

Because I remember one time I somebody was talking about coal miners and how there’s like always this trope of going to visit the coal miners and, you know, helping them out and they’re like, apparently fewer coal miners in America now than there are solar panel.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. Right. Right, right, right now. Yep.

Kimberly Adams 

And so there’s, you know, these workers that are held up as sort of the embodiment of the blue collar worker, you know, aren’t necessarily as representative as they used to be. It’s funny about that quote from the paper, that Iowa newspaper about calling the trades blue collar jobs. When I was picking my college and college degree and I wanted to study journalism. My dad was like, “You need to also get like a real degree because journalism is a trade not not an academic study.” He was like, “That’s it. That’s a trade and a skill. It’s not an academic course of study. You need to get a degree in something else.” So I double majored in Political Science.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes, because that’s, you know, just so useful out there and this modern skills based economy, sorry, apologies to all the political science majors. I studied it in college. I was a history guy. Anyway. Oh my lord On that note, we are out of here. What do you want to know Wednesday is in the books. If you have a question for us about business or tech or this economy or honestly anything that’s on your mind, you know how to get a hold of us 508-827-6278. 508-U-B-SMART or makemesmart@marketplace.org. We respond to both.

Kimberly Adams 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Antonio Barreras. Today’s program was engineered by Juan Carlos Torrado

Kai Ryssdal 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our acting senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and On Demand. Got it.

Kimberly Adams 

You did it right before the fade.

Kai Ryssdal 

There you go it counts. It counts it counts. Because that’s how I measure my life.