Bridging the National Software Gap | TSG Ep. 909

Mind the software gap you are watching. Textron Gang. Hi everyone.

Happy Monday to you. Wow, it's Monday. That weekend went by in the blink of an eye.

I felt like it was just Friday a second ago. But, um, this is Labor Day week, so you know, it's gonna be well for hu here in the us. I'm sure a lot of people's thoughts will be out of the office come this Friday.

And, uh, hopefully you get off Monday and enjoy a long weekend. But of course, there'll be a lot going on between now and then. And there's a lot going on today.

We have some good stuff to talk about. Let me introduce you to our panel for today. We have, um, joining us, Jack Poller, Dr.

Stacy Thayer, Mitch Ashley, and of course, everyone's favorite Yankee fan. Mike Ard panel. Welcome.

So, Mike, uh, uh, Seesaw, I didn't realize there was anyone left there. Csaw put out a, a call for a, uh, a all hands on deck mine. The, uh, the, for a national software gap to, you know, solicit, uh, actually volunteers, ideas, ways we can run the software gap.

Tell, go ahead, tell us more about it. Yeah, it Seems like, you know, it's kind of one of those call to arms that come up every now and again, and they're trying to get everybody to kind of think of this in terms of maybe a national crisis that's right up there with, you know, the idea that loose lips stink ships, and if we don't lock down all our software, we're gonna have similar problems and issues going forward. And some folks would say it's long overdue and other folks are probably going where you been all my life.

I've been talking about this forever now, and it's, thank god you guys are all showing up. But Alan, you wrote an article about it. What's your take on what's going on here?

Yeah, so I, I should preface that the article I wrote really looks at it from sort of a DevSecOps perspective. But, but that being said, look, all kidding aside, I applaud CSA for recognizing this is an issue, though. Let's not call it a new issue.

I applaud CS a, for reaching out both to other government agencies to, to coordinate and, and collaborate on this. And I applaud CSA for calling out to the industry at, at large to, to help and collaborate on this. We do have a software gap and in, in terms of monitoring and and so forth.

But, but here's the issue. It's not just the code, right? It, it's not just the codes.

It's not just these open source, it's, it's all the other little things that go in. It's the metadata, it's the, uh, the attributes, it's the artifacts. It's, you know, all of the, when, when we look at, you know, the in, in this total of what goes into modern software, right?

It, it's more than the code. And so, and, and when we're talking about, you know, protecting mission critical stuff, there's a lot we, we, we've gotta close every door we can that it can be exploited with. And so this is a pretty big task to undertake, to change our focus from just looking at code to looking at all those things that go on in code.

Um, so I, I applaud them. I think it's a great thing to do. I think it's really important on the DevSecOps side of the house, right?

Because that's where we can really, you know, jump into this before that code makes its way out, or at least iterate after we find out. Here's my downside though. Quite frankly, I feel like CEASE is a shell of its former self.

Jen Easterly has left my good friend Alan Friedman, who kind of father of SBOs just left. Um, a lot of people have left. Their mission has been shrunken down because all of the, quite frankly, their budget was taken.

So we could have mass men running around the street grabbing people that that's the facts. And, and so I don't know, you know, and, and, and it's a bit of a revolving door there. If they say somethings, if they say something with the midterm elections are not right, are they gonna get fired?

Whoever's left it. I, I just, I'd rather see this in some sort of private public trust where this important, uh, subject can be addressed rather than in something that I feel is just gonna be politicized and is just gonna be churned. And four days, you know, four days ago we, we were going to solve the Ukrainian Russian War, and today we're not.

Four days later from now, this may be forgetting, forgotten. It's cisa. That's my issue, is I, I just don't trust the government for these kinds of initiatives at this point.

There you go. Spread and consider conspiracy theories again, Alan. Yeah, that, that's me.

That's the tinfoil hat right here. Conspiracy. Alan, you, you know what, what was different about this without the folks that you mentioned that have left cisa is this was issued from the office of the undersecretary of defense r and d.

So it, it, it was an r and d call for input. And, and I'm, and part of me says RD is great. Part of me says, yeah, but we know a lot about this problem already.

What are we doing about it? Like, that seems to be, are we taking the actions we need to take already without doing more r and d? And yes, the threats are gonna escalate.

And if you look at ai, you wanna look at whatever, uh, things might drive that. Sure. But, you know, our critical infrastructure's already under threat and, and susceptible to attack.

And are we doing what we need to do to protect it already? So it kind of like, you know, cows already outta the barn, close the door kind of thing. Well, I think there's another aspect to this that when I, when I read the, the actual reports, or as best I could, 'cause government ease is not my native language.

Um, but I think there's one of the things they highlighted, which is going beyond sort of things like asbo, which is today we're creating new code faster than we're attempting to secure it. And I think that's the real gap. And I felt like this was a call, call to arms for more focus on capabilities to accelerate and speed up the code security process to get closer to the pace of code creation.

And, you know, Alan, I appreciate the, the call out of the government. Maybe the government isn't the right place to do this. And we have things like the C ncf F and I'm sorry that Tracy isn't here, but maybe this is the type of thing that CNCF and some of the other open source, right, or The osf you can do Oss OSF is, is really pick up the man and say, we really need to, to, how can we further the mission of shift left secure code tools that enable securing our environment rather than tools to create faster code generation Yep.

And Promote that, you know, the, the Jack, you hit on something and, and it's a bigger issue than just the instant case here, which is maybe we need to create these public private, not-for-profit in the case of a Linux Foundation or whatever, but, you know, take it out of the hands of government leadership, have government as a partner in it, but in doing so, maybe we depoliticize it and, and make it more of a, a joint government industry initiative that doesn't change every four years or every time, you know, there's a revolving door, it's some government agency. Um, Yeah, I, I agree with that, Alan. I think that's actually the trend, right?

Since the new administration is pull back on the government leadership in IT and, and try to engage the, the private sector to do this. And it's, it, it, I looked at the report too, Jack, and it's interesting. It's not just generating secure code, code and, and, and creating secure, secure code a part of the process.

Because if you look at what AI is starting to do in the development cycle, it's tasks, it's setting up environments, it's creating plans, it's designing things, it's reviewing things. So you have to systemically address a, uh, security in what AI is doing in the development process. Securing code is, is sort, I mean, scanning code is kind of the last step of one part of it.

Um, you can design a really insecure system with some really nice code that doesn't have any vulnerabilities in it. So that's just part of the answer. And if you believe, and I do that, AI will play a bigger and bigger role in doing more and more in the development.

You know, some people call for, you know, AI will be doing all the development at some point. You, you gotta address it systemically with what AI is creating, not just as code, but also the tasks and the, uh, the work workflows that it's doing. Stacy, it's, you know, I love what Alan and Mitch are saying, and I put it right up there with the rest of the Kumbaya stuff that I hear from time to time.

And, and here's my problem with it. Like, every time we set up any of these so-called independent groups or agencies, inevitably they wind up kind of just becoming an entity onto themselves, and they're more interested in maintaining the entity than they are in solving the mission and the problem, because, you know, that's our culture is humans and organizational behavior. So how do we strike a balance between our good intentions in the road to hell?

I think what happens when you're, when you're given a project or anything that you're working on that exactly, that you're kicking for self-preservation and then the self-preservation for the project that you've been working on starts to come into play. And so we forget the goals, we forget what it is that we're doing, and the big picture of things. And I think especially within, uh, a government organization, when there's a lot of processes, there's a lot of steps that go into play.

You're put, you're, you're navigating such a complex landscape that you begin to know it more than others, and you begin to defend it. And it becomes that mentality of this is why we're doing this. And, and forgetting how it plays in that big picture, because you are seeing more information, you are doing a deeper dive.

And I think one of the things that was interesting about this article is capturing the, the delta between what people know and what they're an expert in and what the rest of the world knows. And do we just have to trust those people who are experts and then that creates this culture of trust within the government, or are we able to work together and be able to understand that big picture, that being able to, to have people understand and being able to, to again minimize those gaps actually creates a more trusted environment for all. I mean, let's take an example of public health, right?

If you are polluting a river and people are dying of Colorado, you know, you get called out for that in software. We kind of, you know, send you back to training with school, but nobody gets called out or, and there's never any kinda like, oh, this is actually hurting us collectively as a society. And I think that's where the conversation needs to start adding to.

Yeah, that, that, that's a different, you know, you're talking about the reason they're not called out is because of the licenses that the software shipped with, and we accept no one reads the license, but the license said basically that the author or the seller of the software is not responsible for any bugs or defects. And that's, that's just the fact. But I, I will say, Mitchell, if you can make a note, send him some Colorado brownies before the next one.

So he gets into the Kumbaya spirit. He's not Ku I, I don't do that before 10:00 AM All right, well just make a note. It's, we gotta Get him a little Kumbaya in here, But hey, Good brown.

It can solve a lot of Problems. Yeah, You'll, he'll be, he'll be singing right along with Harry Belafonte with us, man. No worries.

Um, anyway, but no, Mike, the fact of the matter is there are no penalties for writing crappy software other than, you know, one may say market conditions will prevail. And if you write enough crappy software people, people will stop buying your software. Look, look what happened to Microsoft right there.

And there's your proof it don't work. People still buy the software. Well, There, there on the other hand, look at WebEx versus Zoom.

WebEx versus Zoom. So what do you mean by that, Jack? Well, I think the market has pretty clearly spoken that it's, uh, flipped over from WebEx, which was one of the pioneers of conferencing software to, right.

So, you know, yeah, But I, I don't think it's because WebEx was buggy or, or not secure software. I think WebEx is probably more secure than Zoom. I think Zoom just built a better mouse.

Chop Zoom had that web server that was open sitting on everybody's Yeah, Overcame. That's a very good point. That wasn't necessarily usability.

Security will always Trump security is Absolutely, unfortunately you're a hundred percent correct. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Uh, Usability trumps security and that, and that's something that I think, look, you know, Jack, Mitch, Stacy, myself, we, we've been in the security world a long time. Mike, Mike has been also on it a long time. Um, and that's a hard painful lesson that we, you, if you don't acknowledge that, you're not really a security person, unfortunately, Your security is my barrier to getting work done.

Yeah. Right. And it is, it is what it is.

But again, you know, don't shoot the messenger or don't kill the message because you don't like the messenger. How's that? Right?

This is a worthy goal. This is something we should strive for. I'd like to see someone pick up the baton and run with it.

I would just like to remind everybody of that wisdom from President Ronald Reagan, one of the most nine dangerous words in the English language. Hello, I'm here from the government and I'm here to help. Yeah, I knew that's where you're going.

I thought that was eight words. I don't know. I'll have to count 'em later.

All right. Uh, he said it a lot. I don't know if he originated it, but yeah, he did say it a lot.

Alright, then right away to end the first block here on Ronnie Reagan. All right, we're gonna take a break on Textron Gang. We're coming back at you with shifting privacy left.

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Contact us today and tell your story to the world in the most powerful way with Textron Group. Hey folks, we're back and there's a startup out there, and I'm sure others will follow suit. Talking about the need to shift data privacy left.

Well, we already shifted security left, and we're trying to do the same with compliance, so maybe this makes sense. But, um, I also hear developers screaming about the fact that everything is shifting left and they're just getting overloaded and they can't handle it all. Stacy, is there some way to have our cake?

You eat it too here? Or is this, you know, maybe asking too much of folks and we need to just figure out some other way to solve this problem. One thing, it, it can absolutely be done.

It, it depends on how you're training folks, what you're setting the expectations for and who you're working with and knowing your people. You're right, things are continuously shifting left and it makes sense if they're prepared for it and they're ready to, to take on that responsibility. One of the things that's obviously becoming a challenge is the cognitive overload of these developers and these folks that are now saying, okay, so I have to write, make sure there's no bugs.

I have to make sure the software works and I have to make sure I know how to write secure code with best secure coding practices. Plus go through the test, you know, all of the things that come in with the, with the software development cycle, but then the added, um, icing and cherry, if you wanna call it, of then adding all data privacy and security and all of that. And so I think when you're looking at the developers and you're looking at the people that are working on this, are they able to do it?

And maybe a couple are, if you have some people on your team and one or two people are really able to do that, that doesn't mean that that's the bar for the whole team, right? And we need to look at your team and say, okay, here's who's strong with this. Let's have them lead the chart.

Here's who's strong in this angle. And start to look at your developers more as not just developers, but developers with, with security strengths. Just the same way we look at security professionals who's strong in data privacy, who's strong in, in understanding application security.

All of that I think will start to become subcultures within the developer community as well. And it will tie together. We already see it, we see this at these at DevSecOps, we see these at these events that there is a, a strong connection between developers and security.

And as that becomes more evolved, they'll become hybrid and start to have their own cultures and, and skills nested within, uh, within that left shift. Mm-hmm. I guess, you know, my issue within it though is like, just 'cause I'm good at something doesn't mean I want to do it.

And I certainly don't wanna do it all the time. And so I sometimes feel like maybe Mitch jump in here, but when it comes to security, compliance, data privacy, it's like, you know, we just pass around the can full of straws and whoever gets the short one is on that team, and no one's actually standing up and saying, oh boy, pick me. He definitely needs more brownies, Mitch, man, because we Need, I'll, I'll jump in for, for Mitch, which is one of the, one of the, the groups not mentioned, which I'd really like to see included is the product folks, right?

And talking about privacy, a lot of what this particular startup is looking at and, and others in terms of data privacy is, okay, we've collected your social security number, your birthdate, all those private information. Now we have to make sure that from a, a software development point of view that we've secured all this. And we're, we understand that it's private information and all that stuff from a product specification, do we really need all this information?

Is there any reason when you log onto a website, you have to give your birth date to log onto a website? Shouldn't have to give private information unless it's fundamentally absolutely necessary for the organization to have it. So it'd be from a privacy protection point of view and shifting left, let's shift left even further and have the people who say to the developer, you know, put a, put a put a data entry box in here and collect your social security number.

Why are we doing that? I think shift left is antiquated. It's not about having the developer do the work or, or someone further up the cycle.

I think it's about automating security, right? You're adding a field, it's a social security number to your app. Guess what?

Your IDE and the plugins that are using it, whether it's, you know, hand dog AI or somebody else, you know, can say, all right, here's the code to secure that. You don't even have to worry about it, it's taken care of. Right?

Or why are you asking for that? Right? Our guardrails say that's not, that's not something we want to collect.

Or if you want to collect that, we already have a way to do that. Let me show you how you, lemme point you to the, the library or the code that does that. So it, it isn't about scan, I don't think it's about scanning code and telling developers to fix it.

Uh, we were talking about for Jack of the acceleration of the how much code we're generating, there's a tipping point where we generate so much code, there aren't enough people in the world to secure it, to fix all the vulnerabilities that we generated. So guess what? You've got to start fixing or not generating problems in the first place, or fix them as you generate them, which is I think is probably more the, the, the correct way to do it.

So before co code makes it into your IDE that's coming out of AI or a code generator or as I'm putting it into an IDE, that's when it gets corrected. Um, and, and as if it's at that way the developer isn't doing extra work, it's accepted. Yep.

That's a better way to do it. Thanks. Move on.

I'm done. Mm-hmm. I've seen, and I don't remember who told me this story, but there's also an issue where folks building software know too much about the customers and this incident involved, uh, folks are building software for a bank in Boston, and they knew exactly how much money every star of the Boston Celtics had who was using that bank in, in their accounts.

And there was no reason for them to know that, or they didn't really, I mean, they needed data to go build their apps, but they could have blocked that data out but didn't. And I think that there's just a lot of, uh, practices that we let people do. 'cause we just kinda, you know, didn't think it through entirely, but I think, Well, I mean the, the poster child for that is, we, I think it was Michael Jackson's medical records in the hospital or something got made public or released somehow.

And that was a big thing behind the whole HIPAA movement, right? At least for medical records, healthcare information, it is data privacy and, and there, and there's real teeth. The thing about HIPAA is, like we were talking about before, no one ever gets in trouble for making beds software, it seems, well, people do get in trouble for HIPAA violations, right?

And there, there's some real teeth in that. Um, you know, maybe that's what we need overall for data privacy, right? Apparently they get in trouble for selling airline window airline seats that don't have windows too.

So, you know, we're, we're getting wrong about this stuff. See if I, if I, if I hang on long enough, he's gonna get less kumbaya. Watch this.

So, so Mike, the, the good news is there are a number of, uh, there's quite a lot of startups that are doing synthetic data generation to help developers with this, which says, okay, I have a database that's gonna have social security number, name, date, you know, and all of that. And you can generate a synthetic database to test your code without ever having to dump real data and have access to that sensitive data. Stacy, what's the status of these regs though?

I mean, you know, Alan mentioned HIPAA and Europe has its regs, but it seems like a lot of them are all over the place. There's not a whole lot of consistency and, and there's certainly no national data privacy movement movement. So what's your assessment of what's real here?

Well, and that's the question is who's making them, right? Who, I mean, when you, when HIPAA first came around, I mean, HIPAA was really just about data privacy in, in, or medical data privacy anyway, universally, not just in, um, guess in grad school. I'm dating myself here when, when HIPA came around, but I remember them talking to us and saying, no, this means you don't leave a piece of paper out.

You make sure that everything is, is locked up. And you saw medical offices, you saw the things around you change. And I think one of the things that I see is, is when it comes to the, the online world is can half the country doesn't necessarily even have access to the things that technologists have access to or are able to do that.

So there, so it's where versus medical records and all that that they understand. And I think when we talk about, okay, how do we get a movement behind data privacy, I still wonder if people are really understanding what data privacy means to, to, to the common, you know, like every day everyday life person out there, your average person, and you know, if I told my mom, Hey, do you know what data you know about data privacy? She always says, well, what do they need to know about me?

Medical records make sense. They know that they don't want everybody to know what's gone on, doctor. So I think when we look at these projects, we're looking at who is doing it, what's the mo motivation behind 'em?

Who's pushing for it? And is it, does it go to, is it helping everybody? Is it helping just some people?

So there has to be enough to cry out. There has to be enough protesting. I don't want my data, my, my privacy revoked.

I mean, you see this in certain states where states are saying, no, I want, I, you have to tell me if you're gonna be selling my data. So I think we need more of that. We need more pushback.

We need people caring about their privacy more. Once people care about it and they understand it and they understand the implications of it. When I teach undergrads and I explain to them what happens to their data and, and the way that actually social media works, it's like their eyes gets huge.

Really, really, you know, ads are targeted to just me and I can't trust everything I see on social media. It's like the, the thought process isn't necessarily there. And I think when it is, when we understand it and the realities of data privacy and the dangers of it, then we'll see more of a regulation behind it.

But the push has to come from the people and people understanding it. Okay, I'm looking forward to the great data privacy riots of 2026. It should be fun.

We should have people rioting in the streets, but no, that's a little Saturday night Live reference for those out there who don't recognize it. Anyway, hey, let's take a break here. We're gonna come back and talk about our C block.

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Hey folks, we're back and we're gonna shift gears slightly. We're gonna talk about, well, actual physical security and locking down the border using drones. There's a sheriff over in Arizona who's using some federal funds that he got to get some drones to monitor the border and see who's crashing over the border and try to then maybe intercept them, I guess is the plan.

Of course, you know, for all I know, somebody on the other side of the border is probably taking potshots at drones, but Jack, are drones gonna be everywhere part of our physical security? Or maybe they already are and they're just flying everywhere. Love right and center.

Mm-hmm. But it just seems like every passing day there's another drone doing something. They are, and I think this is, you know, you can look at drones as the equivalent to the electric vehicle revolution of a regular cars.

It's a, it's an evolution. Uh, you know, sheriffs and, and police departments, law enforcement officials have been using, uh, a surveillance for many years, but it is incredibly expensive to fly a helicopter or pri or a small plane to patrol the border or other areas. I mean, it's, I mean, thousands of dollars.

A a jet helicopter is a thousand dollars an hour, easy to fly. And, uh, the types of drones we're talking about here are not the little things that you buy at Costco. It's not a little one foot foot type thing.

These are about 10 foot big wide, uh, small planes basically. And they can stay in the air for three to five hours. They have both battery.

That's a hybrid propulsion, battery and electric, just like a hybrid car. And it allows the law enforcement officials to get aerial surveillance and, and particularly on the border in areas where it's mountainous, where you can't get vehicles. Uh, and it serves many purposes.

It does serve for law enforcement, for security on the border, but also for search and rescue. And they're very, very useful for search and rescue and can get to places very quickly that people can't get easily to find it. So I think we are gonna see more and more of this.

You know, I One of the, I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna say, one of the other big changes is because these things are big and heavy and they're really airplanes, uh, we ha we're having to adjust the regulations to figure out how to fit them in with manned aircraft in the skies, right?

Your commercial drones that you go out and buy your story a little dj I, little tiny quadcopters, are limited to 400 feet above ground elevation. And they have to be line of sight because you don't want them flying into, uh, a helicopter or an airplane. But these bigger vehicles, you actually do need them in the, to share the airspace with other planes.

So there's a big issue to figure out how to get that done. And once that happens, we will see a big explosion in the use of these things. So I think drones are one of the great untold stories of the last 10, 15 years.

I think when we look back, you know, hindsight's always 2020. When we look back at warfare wars of the early 21st century, we're gonna realize that in many ways, drones have replaced manned aircraft. Drones have replaced missiles.

Mm-hmm. Drones, whether delivering payloads or or reconnaissance an observation have become the standard. And so, you know, you have a country like Iran or, or North Korea supplying Russia with hundreds, thousands of drones, whether they're the kamikaze drones or what have you.

You have Ukraine building their own drones and flying them into Russia and, and, and doing things again, attacking, reconnaissance. We have drones at borders, we have drones, you know, per performing all of these things. And why, if we can start making autonomous cars, what makes you think we wouldn't have autonomous drones?

We already do. I mean, we Do. So, you know, they'll avoid, and theoretically they'll avoid manned aircraft and man, you know, and they show up or maybe they transmit a, a signal from manned aircraft to stay away or what have you.

But certainly I think drones have gone mainstream. And you wanna know why I, I think this is a good use of drones. I don't know if you necessarily need these big monsters, you could probably get away with a good coverage with some smaller, cheaper drones.

But I do think, you know, there's a cat and mouse game, right? What makes you think the guys, what do they call the people who smuggle immigrants and coyo coyotes or whatever, coyotes. What makes you think that coyotes don't get counter drone drones?

Exactly. Or, you know, well, it is democratized Alan, right? I mean, you talk about the Ukraine example where there are 3D printing parts of the, they're attaching RRP g you know, which is, you know, apparently readily available.

I don't have any handy myself, but you know, you, they're attainable for folks that, you know, wanna do gorilla warfare. Now we have gorilla air warfare with Drones. I mean, where does it stop, Mitchell, there's like a whole universe on my thumbnail here, man.

I need more of those brownies, but More brownies. But, you know, we'll get some to Mike, send my, I've got some on the way to Mike so Tomorrow, but this is, but this is, this is the reality I think of the world we live in today. And I think we start marrying AI into these drones, and they do become autonomous.

They, you know, they do become more effective. And I, you know, I, I was reading yesterday an article about, I, it was a general dynamic. Someone was putting out the next version of the Navy's aircraft carrier fighter jets, the FAXX it is right now, and there's a new, I think, uh, uh, F 42 or something.

There's the next Air Force jet and everything. And I'm thinking to myself, why, why can't we replace these with drones and have unmanned, uh, autonomous, uh, planes doing this kind of work, this monitoring the border? My, my question though is intervention.

Mike, you mentioned intervention. What do we mean we phone home and send the guys over to go get 'em? Or is the next step saying, Hey, let's zap 'em, you know what I mean?

Hey, well, we're gonna immobilize these people with like some taser kind of equipment or something, I don't know, but do we arm the drones? And that's a step maybe for me that goes too far, but I'd be interested to see what comes of it. Stacy, are we on a slippery slope here?

Yeah. 'cause you know, Mitch's brownies haven't arrived yet, but this does feel like a step towards a surveillance state. But, Well, I mean, I lie when, when we're talking about, um, drones and ai, my, my immediate thought, my sci-fi brain goes, okay.

And that's how the Terminator goes. Yeah, Pretty much. Let's, let's create an army of AI drones, send them in, teach 'em how to fight.

Well, we don't learn. And then they, you know, anyway, now I'm, I'm, but, but Let me ask you a question. If we don't, you don't think someone else will.

Well, That's just it, right? I mean, this is, this is, you can either lean into technology, you can swim upstream against it, right? Yep.

I think, I mean, this is, this Is, this is the point in the show where we made the arbitrary Star Trek reference for Alan, right? Because there's a whole episode about this where the two sides fight, and then nobody actually gets killed. And you gotta show up for a thing that says you're gonna get killed to, To the demolition chamber, right?

You've been, you were a victim of an attack, But since he foolish the thought, sorry about that. No, That's okay. Then now I'm thinking, well, you know, bring the brownies, say hello and, And, and talk about Star Trek.

Mike's mind is expanding right before us here. The world is a better place now. Now.

Um, But, but you're right. That is the world we're headed towards, you know? And, And, and I think, you know, again, that this fear of technology, I mean, it, it's something that's been around forever and you know, when people, it's like when people go, okay, or, or a, is AI gonna take my job?

And I say, well, there's some horse and buggy carriages that we're probably very upset when the car came around. We're a better place for it. We lean into the technology sometimes, you know, it happens.

Um, I've been really, you know, paying attention to this AI development and what we're, uh, enabling folks with or, or machines with, because, you know, to be able to say, yeah, we can send a drone. We don't have to send a human, no human lives were hurt during the, you know, the making of this drone, so to speak. Right.

There's huge win in that. And to Alan's point, if we don't do it, somebody else will. Now, of course, this is how we ended up with the hbo.

Uh, if we don't do it, somebody else will. So do we do it on our terms or someone else's? That's extreme.

And I've probably watched Oppenheimer too many times, but, uh, Lemme just say there's an argument to be made that, because we did that, there's never been an farm used. Exactly. So countries have them, it's never been used.

And maybe that's, I, I don't know. I this is mind expanding kind of stuff. No, it's, and, and, you know, so many times come up, but you know, the great Jurassic Park where we were so trying to, busy thinking if we could, we didn't stop, uh, that we could, we didn't stop to think if we should.

Right, right. Kind of thing. Right.

You know? Mm-hmm. We know we can do these things, but we we're doing the best with the best of intentions.

We don't know what the future will bring for it, but we're doing it. You know, as long as I think we go in eyes wide open and understanding, yes, we're going into this, but yes. What are the costs of it?

Is it surveillance? Is it compromised of our security? Is it gonna be normal where you're outside, you know, doing your yard work and drones are flying over.

Right. We've accepted camera use, remember when cameras were first coming up around London and on streets? Oh, it's surveillance state.

Well, people are used to it now. Yeah. Well, I, I will tell you down here in Florida, we, we've had situations where neighbors are shooting neighbor's drones down because they say, we don't want them photographing, videoing spying on my stuff.

And so they Shoot, get your drones off my lawn. Yeah, yeah. Go, go, go fly a drone in front of your own house.

Well, we may have accidentally stumbled on to maybe part of the answer here, which is drone delivered brownies. I think that is one way to Pacify the enemy. Mitch Mitchell's such an entrepreneur at heart.

I love it. I'm always Mitchell, the famous Amos of, of brownies. I was, I was gonna say, I just heard Mitch on Amazon, you be black.

How? Yeah, exactly. Let, let, okay.

Yeah, If it works, we'll see you tomorrow. If it works with Mike, we're onto something. All Right.

You guys are crazy. Hey, let's, let's, I think that's a sign that we need to end today's show. Please Stop us now.

Enjoy your Monday, folks. Hey, one day closer to that long weekend. Of course, we've got Text Drunk TV following.

We're gonna have an announcement next Tuesday on Textron Gang too, about a new way you can interact with the gang. Um, stay tuned for that. Stay tuned for Text Drunk tv.

Jack, Stacy, Mitch, Mike, thanks for joining us. Thank you for watching. You know, you can catch individual, uh, blocks of the Textron Gang on our Textron tv, YouTube channel, so check that out as well.

You don't have to watch all 30 minutes or 40 minutes or what have you. But until then, this is Alan Shimmel for Tech Trunk Gang. We're out.