Techstrong Gang – March 19, 2024

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Techron Gang. We've got a great show coming up for you today.

We're going to take a look at all the drama that's unfolding with TikTok. That's right by Dance Answers Back plus US regulators are taking a close look at AI's influence on crime. And this week it's CubeCon Europe will tell you what we can expect ahead this week in Paris Plus chatbots.

Are they liable for their behavior? We'll answer that question. And of course, this week we're also watching the green movement of green software, big events happening in that space in sustainability.

Stay with us. The Techron Gang is straight ahead. Hello and welcome to the Textron Gang.

I'm Bonnie Schneider, sustainability editor for techron, and I'm pleased to be joined by our panelists today on our show. First we have Amanda Razani, who is our, um, editor of strong ai, as well as digital CXO. Amanda, great to have you here.

Happy to be here. And Sharon Florentine, our managing editor, straight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sharon, great to have you on.

Great to be here, Bonnie. Great to be here with both of you. Thanks.

Yeah, it's A real pleasure to have. So to be just the three of us on, we've got so many exciting topics to talk about, and of course, AI sort of floating through all of them, uh, as we get going. So I wanted to talk about that since we're on that subject.

Sharon, um, this is a big week. We've been talking about really over the past few weeks, what's going on with TikTok and, um, the movement to weather shut down, not shut it down, but now by dance, the owner of TikTok is answering back. So what is the latest on that?

Yeah, absolutely. So we've been covering this over on Security Boulevard, and, um, really what happened was when news that the potential ban was coming, uh, tiktoks owner informed its user base and, uh, encouraged them to do the Democratic thing, which was to contact their legislators and make their voices heard. Which in a democracy is something that you really want to encourage, I would think.

But, uh, it seems legislators were not expecting the level of resistance that they actually got. Uh, we've got the whole story on Security Boulevard, but it's gonna be interesting to see, see how that plays out. Um, you know, on one hand you really need that kind of engagement in the democratic process, especially when it comes, comes to something as critical as freedom of speech really is, in my mind, what it comes down to, and whether or not they're going to block that or allow that to happen.

So I'm not, I'm kind of on the edge of my seat here, and I, I do wanna tease that we will probably have some more stories on Security Boulevard coming on that today. So check those out. I'll be interested in reading those because I feel like that's kind of crazy how far removed they were if they didn't realize the lashback that they would receive when there are millions of users of TikTok.

That just surprises me that, that they're surprised. It's, it's so true. I think what's, what's interesting about TikTok as someone who, uh, maybe goes on there quite often, um, I can tell you that I admit it.

It's, it's, it's, it's hard once you start, it's hard to stop watching the videos, but it really is, is an app that attracts all ages. And I think one of the also surprises of the legislators to receive the responses. It wasn't just coming from kids.

You had senior citizens that are saying, I spend all day and all night on this app, and if you take it away, um, what am I gonna do? So the, the, uh, the outpouring of, of, of responses from people that make a living, whether it's businesses or people that are just having fun on the app, really was overwhelming. Yeah.

It's a significant way that a lot of folks worldwide get their news. Um, you know, a couple years ago there was a lot of talk about, um, in, uh, internet and, um, oh my gosh, uh, what is the word that I'm looking for? Not infrastructure.

Um, internet as infrastructure, I guess, and making that a public utility. That's the word I'm looking for. Sorry, guys.

Um, and, you know, most people around the world have mobile phones, and that's how they access information, and especially through AppSec like TikTok. So taking that away leads to a less informed populace. Yeah.

I mean, what do you think, Amanda? I mean, is it, is it just TikTok or can we say something similar about Facebook, Instagram, you know, there's a lot of AppSec that we're spending time on, but I guess this one is the, the controversy or who the owners and, and that there might be a foreign foreign influence to it. That's right, Bonnie.

I haven't, I haven't read a ton of information on it to have all the details, but I know their concern is the country that's behind it and the data being collected and what that data is being used for. But in my opinion, I'm kind of, and I think many, uh, people feel the same way. Our data is out there, all over the place.

I'm basically just an open book of data along with millions of other people, so, Right. Yeah. If they're going to restrict the types and kinds of data that say by dance can collect and then what they can do with it, why would they not also apply that to us?

Owned companies like Facebook, uh, Instagram, you know, all of those social media. You can't, in my mind, you can't apply it to one and not to the others. Yeah.

And I think that that's been, you know, on both sides of, of, of looking at whether it's people criticizing this bill or people that for it, or wondering what does it mean? What's the big picture? You know, there are some people that are for banning TikTok per se, but not the other, uh, social media platforms.

And if that's the case, is that what the bill is saying? Or is this just something we need to get done right away? Um, there's a lot of, uh, folks, legislators are saying, this is urgent because we have, it's an election year in 2024, and we wanna have a handle on social media.

Um, do you guys think that there's, the fact that it's election year also makes it, um, something that's just on the minds of legislators right now? I do, for sure. And, uh, I, I've seen some chatter about, you know, of all of the issues that are top of mind for folks in this country.

This is the one that Congress chooses to come together and find a bipartisan solution for. Why can't they tackle things like inflation or gun control or any of those other, arguably more pressing issues than a social media app? But that's me being contrary.

That's a good point, Amanda. Yeah, I, I concur. No, that's good.

I know. And we're, we're on the subject of, um, our legislators, our, what's happening with the, with our government? Well, the DOJ is trying to get a handle on what's happening with AI and crime, because it's getting more sophisticated, more difficult to track, and we have to decide, okay, well, what laws do we have that are existing that can apply to enforce these, the prosecution of these crimes?

Do we need new laws? Um, Sharon, I know there's a lot going on on our platform about how to, how to handle this. Yeah.

So, uh, again, also last week, the US Deputy Attorney General Luis Monaco, gave a speech in the uk and she outlined some ways that the DOJ is addressing the benefits and the threats that are associated with ai. And one of the things that she mentioned in the speech was that one thing the do j j's considering is to take into account if a crime is committed using ai, then they would, um, then harsher sentences would be applied when that case was adjudicated. So, um, it's, they're kind of making the comparison to, I, I mean, the law also applies harsher penalties for crimes that are, consider crimes that are committed using weapons that enhance the danger of a crime.

And what they're saying is that much like a knife or a gun or something like that, AI can make a crime more dangerous and enhance the danger, and therefore the justice system has to be able to respond with harsher penalties. I'm not sure how I feel about this quite yet. What, what do you think, Amanda?

'cause you're more in the AI space, I think Mm-Hmm. Than I am. Do you think that it would really enhance The data That depends at the level that the AI is at.

So right now, first of all, there's a real human element behind all the AI training, all the ai. So whatever the AI does, there's a human responsible behind it. Mm-Hmm.

And it's not really to that level where we have, you know, post-apocalyptic situations and AI robots, you know, committing crazy crimes and taking over. Right. Uh, you know, they're not to that singularity let yet to think on their own, uh, and, and necessarily be that dangerous.

Um, but in the future, you know, a as they become more intelligent, the technology becomes more intelligent. It might be a concern when threat actors get ahold of it and use it for all these different dangerous means. Yeah, I agree.

I think it's interesting that speech that you mentioned, because that's showing this is going to be a crime we take seriously. That's what Lisa Monaco is saying, and it, and it's to, to deter the incentive of committing the crime. But, um, I, Amanda, when you, you're right about the human behind it.

So if we're saying, okay, are we gonna prosecute who, who are we gonna prosecute here? You know, at, at what, at what point? Because when it comes to ai, there's a lot of different ways AI gets influenced, uh, the way it learns and gets better through time.

How can we tie it directly into one particular person if it's been learning over time? So I think that it's gonna be a tough one to enforce, but I think it's, it's good that the government is getting ahead of some of the, the most, um, heinous crimes that could be committed related to ai, as you both mentioned. This is, we're still in the early stages of this.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, um, AI is obviously on the minds of, of people around the world.

And another topic that's, um, on the minds of everyone is cloud native. And, uh, this is a big week because we have a major global event happening in Paris, France right now, which is why the three of us are here. The rest of the team is in Paris, and they're gonna be doing live text on gang shows, um, from Paris, which will be really exciting.

But, what am I talking about? It's CubeCon Europe 2024. com, uh, folks are talking about this event.

Many people are already in Europe getting ready. I think it starts officially tomorrow. Uh, what do we have, what's the topic of hot topics of conversation there?

So this event has been getting larger and larger every year, I believe, at, uh, the fall North America cloud native Con Q Con. There were maybe 25,000 people. I'm not sure how many are expected in Paris this week, but you're correct.

It, uh, officially kicks off tomorrow. There are some, um, parallel events happening before the general Q con cloud native con. It starts on Wednesday, tomorrow.

Uh, for example, there's app Dev con, backstage Con, all of these cloud. There's a cloud native AI day tomorrow, uh, open tofu day. Anything and everything in the cloud native ecosystem that you could want to know about or learn about is gonna be happening in Paris over the next couple days.

And, uh, we have a great piece actually on Cloud native now, uh, talking about some of the big themes to look for at the event and going forward in 2024. AI is of course, a very big one. Uh, cloud native networking with tools like Cilium is another big area to watch.

I would say keep an eye on observability with tools like OpenTelemetry. These are all really picking up steam as 2024 rolls along. And, uh, we actually, uh, on the Cloud Native Now podcast, which hosted today, if you wanna check that out, a little plug for my podcast.

Uh, we spoke with Taylor Dal, who's the CNCF head of ecosystem, and he had some really interesting things to say about how the ecosystem is evolving and how developers are dealing with the complexities of these architectures. So I would highly recommend folks go check that out too. 'cause that's a great conversation.

That's great. There is definitely a lot to check out on our platform for Q Con Europe, um, this year in Paris. Um, Amanda, I know you're here.

Well, actually you're in central Texas, which is, uh, I say Paris, Texas now is a bad joke, but No, let, tell, tell me, um, I, I have you been hearing on the platforms that you're working on, anything about this conference? Any excitement building for it? Well, I certainly, uh, I, I work with some writers, uh, and some contributing writers who are certainly attending this event.

Um, so I'm sure I'm gonna be hearing from them soon with a lot of great information. Yeah, absolutely. It is, uh, getting off this week.

And what's exciting for us here on Techstrong TV is that if, if you're not there, don't worry. You won't miss anything. Because our team, um, Alan Shimmel, uh, Mike Ard, Mitch, uh, they're all there.

So we're gonna be seeing later episodes this week of Textural Gang Live from Paris. Doesn't worry about the time difference. We will be live and you'll get to watch it.

So that's exciting. Alright, well that's, uh, the first, uh, section of our Textron gang for today. But we have so much more coming up.

We're gonna talk about chat bots coming up and sustainability too. So stay with us. We'll be right back right after this break.

Welcome back everyone to the Textron gang. I'm pleased today to be joined by our panel. We have Amanda Razani.

Hello. And Sharon Florentine. Hi, Great to be with you.

And our our next topic is an interesting one because I think that we all encounter chatbots all the time on, on websites. They are there to greet us. They act like humans, but are they liable for their behavior?

Amanda, I know you have some interesting news and some updates on this topic. Yes, absolutely. So we'll start with Google and its AI chat bot Gemini, and ahead of the elections.

It has decided to restrict some of its capabilities and restrict some of the questions, the political questions that it will respond back to just because they are concerned about, um, some bias and the ways in which it will respond if it's factual. Uh, and this is kind of similar to an issue they had a while back where people would ask for it to generate images. And those images were not factual historically.

So they're trying to figure out how to kind of roll back some of the bias from, from the training that's been put into it. And, uh, therefore it is restricting some of its capabilities ahead of the election. This is interesting because it's almost the flip side of the coin from what we were talking about earlier with TikTok, right?

Where in this case, they're really trying to make sure that the information folks are given is factual, accurate, and will give them a good understanding of the issues going into the election where you could argue that with the TikTok ban, are they trying to restrict it to limit the amount of information that folks are getting going going into the election? So it, it is really interesting, but I think having been on the receiving end of bad information from a chat bot, uh, in this case mine was related to a healthcare issue, it's, it's no fun when it tells you the wrong information and then, you know, you make decisions based on that and then later find out why no, your medication was not in fact covered or, you know, something similar in, in that regard. But I guess I never really thought about legal liability.

It, it does make sense because they're trying to make a chat chatbots as human as possible. Um, there, as, as Amanda mentioned in earlier segment, you have humans that are, are kind of programming, uh, the ai. So it does start somewhere, but there does tend to be frustration because at some point the chatbot just can't answer all your questions.

At least that's, that's what we find, you know, whether, uh, whatever sites you're on. And one of the more popular ways, I think we, that people encountered chatbots is when they're planning a trip or traveling somewhere, whether it's on booking airline tickets or booking a hotel, there's a chatbot ready to pop up and greet you, but, uh, sometimes things don't always go as planned. Uh, Amanda Wright, I know that happened in Canada recently.

Yes, absolutely. So there was a recent, uh, court case where, um, a Canadian court ruling where Moffitt versus Air Canada, the customer asked the chat bot for help via the Air Canada website and received wrong information and proceeded to, uh, take actions based on that wrong information. And when, uh, when met with problems, air Canada refused to reimburse and, and help him.

So it went to court and Air Canada was trying to say that it's air, that it's, uh, AI chat Chatbot was responsible for its own actions, its own entity with its own legal responsibilities. And of course, the court ruling sided with the customer and said that Air Canada clearly should realize that that's simply a technology tool on its website that it created and would be responsible. That's wow, they really tried to fall back on.

Well, the AI is self-aware. That's a little, uh, Terminator esque for me, I think. I can't believe that.

Yeah, it's funny. No, I was just thinking like it's, they give the AI chatbots a name and a face, but in the end, um, you know, who's, who's at fault, Sharon, right? I mean, I absolutely 100% agree with that court.

I mean, where it's not as though the AI sprung fully formed into the world and decided to get a job at Air Canada doing customer service. Um, although, you know, we've had some, some interesting pieces too on Security Boulevard, especially from Mark Rash, who's one of our cyber law writers. And he tackles this issue quite frequently about, you know, where are the lines and what kind of legal liability do companies have, do AI creators have, um, you know, what are the courts deciding about intellectual property rights and whether an AI generated image or story or a piece of text or music piece of music, because it draws from existing content right now, especially with generative ai, does that infringe on copyright and folks, um, legal right to the things that, that humans have created that then all go into the big amalgamation that make up what the AI generates.

It's, it's fascinating. And as far as I can tell, there's still been no definitive answer in the courts, unfortunately. But seems like in this Air Canada case, they did get it right.

Absolutely. I think it's so funny, but it does raise a question about the future, which I think is a long time away when we have AI able to think and act for itself. But at that point, when it comes to that point, do you trace it back to who was responsible initially for training the ai?

And there's so many people training the AI in the first place, who gets the blame if the AI does go wrong in the future when it is thinking by itself? And sometimes when it does that, I, I, you know, I know this has happened to me using ai, it'll say something and I'll say, fact, you know, where did you get that statistic or fact? And then the AI will be like, well, I made it up, you know, so I'm, if you, you corner it, it'll, it'll give you the answer.

So sometimes it'll seem so, so official, it sounds so great, but it's, it's not, it's not even real. So you sometimes, even if it was originally programmed by a human and it learned and it learned, it's still in the end maybe not giving you the most factual information. But, you know, I'm, I'm kind of glad that we're talking about this topic because coming up May, May 21st, we have a big event, um, ahead of us here in, in Techron.

We're all about ai, Amanda, right? Oh, yes. Um, so it's called, um, the artificially Intelligent enterprise, and this is on May 21st.

Go sign up, find the event. It is going to be the world's largest free virtual AI event. We have so many speakers, and one of our speakers is Mark Hinkle, who is also, uh, contributing a writer to our site.

And he has an article on tech strong AI about things to consider when it comes to AI adoption. Uh, so some of the top things to consider that are holding people back would be identifying use cases for the ai. That's the biggest one at the top.

Next is legal concerns, which clearly makes sense. And, uh, the third is company culture, not seeing the need for why they need to implement ai. Um, and, and then you've got risks that people are concerned about.

So unexpected outcomes makes the top of that risk list. And then security vulnerabilities and safety, and then fairness and bias and ethics, which we've already talked a little bit about today. So those are the, some of the things holding people back.

But after that, it goes into things to consider if you are gonna implement AI and do the, uh, a big change management process, things to consider like cost and culture and all those different things or in that article. So I highly recommend reading it. But, um, Sharon, Bonnie, what are your thoughts as I went through that list of some of these factors?

What are y'all seeing from companies? I mean, definitely the risks part is huge, especially like I was saying, you know, especially with generative AI in software development, for example, before a generative AI tool can write software, it needs examples to pull from. And so data security and accuracy is huge.

Where is that data coming from? Is it coming from a public repository? What company, what developer put that there?

Is it even correct? Is the tool gonna spit out lines of code that work? Is it not?

And you know, also importantly, even if the code works, is it secure? Is it vulnerable to exploitation by cyber attackers? All of those things, that's kind of, that really resonated with me.

I, I think that's a good point. I mean, uh, we're, we're looking at all of the, I don't wanna say downsides, but the risks that that can happen as we lean further into AI and, and, and globally, uh, companies are doing that, uh, with good reason, uh, to get things done faster, have a more vast data set to, to examine. com as well is what is the, the role of AI in fighting climate change and being more sustainable?

There's, there's two sides to this coin. We have innovations in technology that are creating solutions to reduce carbon emissions, but we also have incredible amount of computation power that's from ai, that's, that's draining resources and, uh, people are looking for ways to save energy. But on the topic of innovations, one of the, the biggest, um, detriments of climate change is the loss of biodiversity.

Whether it's happening, um, in our nature, in our forest or ecosystems with animals or with plants, but it's also happening beneath the sea. And preserving marine biodiversity is, is also very key in, um, sustainability. And Amanda, I know you've been, um, following this in terms of what AI can do to preserve marine biodiversity.

Yes, definitely. So, uh, we had a recent article on Textron AI about the global phishing watch report, and they used AI to, to comb through millions of data points, uh, from around the globe to see how many illegal fishing boats and other illegal activities might be happening, uh, on the seas. 75% of boats out on the seas are operating illegally.

They're not being tracked, so they're, they're turning their transponders off. So, uh, 75% of those could be fishing illegally and, and, um, hurting different environments, the balance of those environments. And then 25% of them are involved in the energy or the transportation sector.

And this comes as a big, uh, problem because what countries are they working with? What countries are they transporting and what are they transporting to those countries is all of concern. So, um, by using AI to kind of bounce off all the, the data that they have over the past five years and, and kind of track track more of the boats that they usually can't track, they're getting a little bit more information so that they can act on it.

Wow, that seems like a huge benefit to, you know, not just security obviously and understanding, but obviously to be able to protect the natural resources and know who's doing what when, so that perhaps if things are happening illegally or they are damaging these fragile ecosystems that they can be brought to justice, as cheesy as that may sound that No, that's, that's kind of the goal. I agree. It makes sense.

You know, it's so interesting tracking marine life and biology and, and what's been happening as, as we face global warming, we're seeing different species of, of fish and wildlife occurring in places that we didn't see it before as the, as the warmer water even, uh, deep beneath the sea can travel to further northern latitude. So there's a lot to learn with AI and the data that we gather in how climate change is affecting marine life, how climate change is affecting water temperatures, which influence our weather patterns. So there, there's a big global picture that's happening.

And of course, um, anything that, that's creating transparency is good too. As, as Amanda mentioned with who's fishing for what, where, and where's it being transported to kind of keep an eye on that. I didn't realize that statistic that you mentioned that was interesting about how many, um, gleep or how many people are out there that we don't even know about.

So AI is, um, turning the tables in so many different ways. Yes, it is. Yeah.

Well, absolutely. You know, on the subject of sustainability, we're gonna be talking a lot more about that in our next segment, including green software. Uh, that should be fascinating.

We're gonna take a deep dive in some events that are happening in that space as well as green data centers. So stay with us. The Techron gang is coming right up.

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Techstrong Gang. I am pleased to be joined by Amanda Razani in Central Texas. Hello.

Hi, Amanda and Sharon Florentine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hello. Great to have you both here and today.

We're all now continuing with our great show. We've been talking a lot about AI and, um, I wanna move into a different gear and talk a little bit about sustainability because today, straight through April 8th, there's a new event that's happening with the Green Software Foundation. Many of our viewers are involved in green software, and Green Software Foundation is doing a hackathon.

It's the Carbon Hack 24 events hosted, uh, as I mentioned from the Green Software Foundation. And, um, they're gonna be exploring different ways we can, uh, code and, and just be able to develop software in a more sustainable way. And they're also introducing a new tool that they have called the Innovative Frame Impact Framework, which is a tool that's aimed to mitigate and measure carbon emissions.

And it's, it's it interesting covering this on Ecotech Insights because, um, I just did an interview with Asim Hussein, who's the executive director of the Green Software Foundation, and that you can watch today on Techstrong tv. com. And Asim is based in the uk and it seems like over there, you know, they're, it's almost ahead of the curve, I'd say, uh, that what we're experience in the us but the interest in green software is growing.

Um, Sharon, I'm wondering if you're seeing that on the platforms and on Textron? I absolutely am Bonnie. There is a huge push, at least from the folks that I'm talking to, uh, not just from figuring out how to make software more sustainable, but in the data center too, they're a huge, huge source of, of energy.

Obviously they need a huge amount of energy to run. They require a lot to cool and figuring out how to do that sustainably is companies one of the biggest challenges that companies are facing. In fact, it's, it's not even just with software and with data centers, but even into finance.

And, uh, and even things like blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, uh, there was a big to-do last year when Ethereum did what they called the merge, which is when they moved from moved to a much more carbon friendly. I guess that's not really the term though. Is it Bonnie not carbon friendly or carbon neutral, uh, way of, of generating Ethereum?

Um, I am not the expert there, obviously, so No, I mean, the object is yes to, to admit as little as possible or, or get to car, you know, carbon Zero where they're not emission emitting anything. Uh, Amanda, are you also seeing this on tech strong ai and of course digital CXO where you're talking to a lot of, um, lead corporate leaders that are, I think now having to deal with new mandates and that are, are putting out compliance issues when it comes to sustainability? Most definitely.

It's certainly a, a big focus of business leaders, uh, to reduce this carbon footprint and, um, reduce the energy output. Um, and also, you know, with, with AI coming into the picture and some of the technology implementations, there's a big, uh, technical waste too and what to do with, you know, all the, the old technology as well. So, um, there, there's a lot of different points to consider and I think, you know, there's a lot of moving parts in order to get there, and it's gonna take a little bit of time.

It can't just be done with the snap of fingers. It, it's gonna take some time just because, um, there there's many different, um, teams that have to work together. There's issues of, uh, the cost and the culture of the company bringing everybody together, um, to work toward the same values, um, and, and goals, uh, and be in alignment.

I agree with that. And, and it's just coming more to the forefront. Just, um, last week, uh, the SEC finalized rules where, uh, com public companies are, have to do mandatory disclosures on the carbon that they're emitting.

So, uh, for example, direct emissions, that's scope one, indirect emissions, scope two, but on the, the, uh, rules were adjusted to, in certain cases have to report scope three emissions. So scope three emissions are those indirect emissions that can be found throughout the process of a supply chain, um, involuntarily as well. But with the, but of course, you know, there's been pushback on both sides and certain states are, are pushing back on this legislation saying, well, does the SEC really have the right to, uh, to mandate these rules?

But in any case, it is just bringing about more awareness to businesses, um, in and the carbon that they're releasing, how are they measuring it? How are they tracking it? You know, I think that with, um, tech Strong in general, we have a lot of people that work in IT that are watching us.

And it seems that wherever you're in a small business, a large business, when it comes to looking at carbon emissions, all eyes go to the IT department, you know, what are you guys doing? What's your plan, Sharon, are you, are you finding that as well? Yes.

And one thing that I am noticing is there is also a huge push toward observability and being able to, you know, on, in a purely software focus, be able to tell what your application is doing using metrics, logs, traces, and especially with the move toward cloud native computing with distributed tracing, which is much more complex and difficult. But one thing that folks seem to be doing is adding carbon metrics and energy usage metrics into their observability platforms. So you can track how much energy a certain application is using, how does that contribute to the company's overall footprint, what can you do to reduce it?

And you know, as companies spin up cloud instances that they also need to monitor that, not just for energy, but for cost. And so all of these things are kind of converging. You're exactly right on the IT department to solve, but I think we can do it Right.

Yeah, I think so too. I think that a lot of, uh, organizations have very ambitious goals for 2030, for example. Um, Amanda, you were mentioning that a lot of, um, executives digital CXO and also and and tech strong ai, um, are looking for ways throughout the, probably their entire work process, right?

In, in terms of reducing carbon emissions and being more energy efficient. Yes. And, and it's just, uh, the, the point, the biggest point being made here is that all the different teams across the company have got to come together with the same, uh, be aligned with the same goal and work together.

It does not all fall on the IT team. You know? That's true.

And another, uh, piece of news that came out is probably not surprising to many is that the, the green data center market, meaning ways we can properly, um, give energy to a data center, but keeping it cool, but not being to taxing on our energy. So green data centers are growing, and in fact, by close to $2 billion, that's the projective reach of the market by 2029, which isn't that far away. So this is something that was unique or different ways we can do this, but now it's, it's, it's a big, it's a big business.

It's a big business objective. Um, Sharon, does that surprise you at all that green data centers are growing so fast? It, uh, I'm pleased.

I am surprised in the sense that, I'm very pleased to hear that the market will be that big. I think this is happening also in parallel with things like IT asset lifecycle management, which is like Amanda mentioned, um, legacy tech and what do you do with all the old machines that you don't, you know, they, they're not up to the performance standards that you need or, you know, they don't have the latest and greatest cutting edge innovations there that maybe your company needs. There are specific businesses that have sprung up to take those, refurbish them, sell them to small businesses, reuse, send them to, uh, developing countries that are just building their technology infrastructure and it keeps it out of landfills.

It can reduce some of the, you know, some of the negative effects of that, you know, older technology. Um, but I, I'm thrilled to see also that green data centers are on the rise as they should be. That's, you know, that is a great point because there's so much equipment that becomes obsolete, but even more will become obsolete as we find it's not energy efficient.

You know, we need to just get rid of this, not just because it's old, because it's, it's an energy sucker basically. Um, and I know Amanda, where you are in central Texas, um, it's, well, it's almost spring, but uh, it's spring to summer goes very quickly in Texas. So, um, the heat is a big issue with data centers and okay, how do we keep them cool?

We have an aging grid that's already being taxed as, as we have global warming and we have temperatures rising. So, um, what's your perspective being there and being into a, a warm place, but also a center of tech? You have Austin there, so you have two things happening at once.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. We're becoming very largely tech focused in, in many of our big cities, Austin, Dallas especially. And we do have really warm days already.

We've had some days in the nineties within the, you know, over the last month. So I can only imagine if it's anything like last summer we had some 118 decree days. It's a huge issue to, you know, the amount of heat that comes off of these data centers.

It, it's a huge issue to keep these centers cool and, and find ways, um, around that. And also, yes, you mentioned the electric grid is also always an issue. So the amount of electricity being pulled, you know, for these machines to work, all a big concern that I'm sure our company leaders are focused on.

I agree. Well, this has been, uh, a great, uh, opportunity to speak with you both directly on all these interesting issues from AI to legislation to sustainability and even chat bot. I think we covered it all today on the Textron Gang.

So Amanda Razani, thank you so much for joining us and Sharon Florentine and it was a pleasure speaking with you today. Yes, it sure Was. Yeah, you too, Bonnie and Amanda, great to hang out with you and, uh, maybe we can do this Textron Girl gang again soon.

I like that. That sounds great. Well, for everyone watching, uh, Textron Gang, thank you so much for joining us and staying with us on Textron tv.

We have a full lineup of terrific interviews that are coming up and later this week you'll get to see live coverage from Q Con Europe, straight from Paris. You'll see our team leaders there doing live interviews and giving a real inside perspective on all the energy in Paris this week. Sounds great.

Alright, from everyone in Textron, I'm gonna wish you all a great day and we'll see here next time. Thanks.