After 23andMe Bankruptcy, Customers Urged To Delete Their Data

FLORA LICHTMAN: This is Science Friday. I’m Flora Lichtman. Later in the hour, Building a Better Bridge, one year after the Baltimore bridge collapse, we’ll look into what went wrong and how to prevent similar disasters in the future. Plus, just how accurate are those TikTok videos about ADHD symptoms? And how is social media shaping culture around mental health diagnosis and treatment?

But first, if you are one of the 15 million people who sent a sample of your DNA to the company, 23andMe to learn about your genes or your family history, you might want to rustle up that login information. 23andMe declared bankruptcy this week, and now consumer advocates are urging people who’ve shared their genetic information with the company to delete their data. Here to fill us in on this and other science stories from the week is Kathleen Davis, producer at Science Friday based in New York. Kathleen, welcome.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Hey Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN: What’s up with 23andMe?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of people are probably familiar with 23andMe, as you said, about 15 million people have used it. So this is a company where you spit in a tube and you send a saliva sample in the mail to the company, and then they analyze it. So I think, commonly, a lot of people use this to find out about their ancestry, which is cool, right? I mean, you can unlock part of your family tree.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah, of course.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: This also provided customers with information about diseases that they might be predisposed to, if you’re a carrier for any of these diseases, potentially. There’s just a whole suite of things that you could actually unlock with this sample. Last Sunday, 23andMe filed for bankruptcy, and they’re looking for a new buyer. So consumer rights advocates, including the attorney general of California, are now warning people that their medical information and data that they’ve shared with the company might be at risk in a possible buyout.

FLORA LICHTMAN: What’s the risk?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yeah. So, I mean, we don’t know what a potential buyer would want to do with your data exactly. But an example scenario that I think is concerning to a lot of people, is that potentially your genetic information could make its way to insurers who could deny you coverage based on your genetics.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK, so what should people do?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So you got to delete that data is what these consumer advocates are saying. So it’s not too hard to do this. If you log into your 23andMe account. You can go to Settings and you go to this 23andMe data page. You should be able to click View and then delete your information within that page.

If you’re listening to this and you’re like, I learned some really cool stuff from 23andMe, I don’t want that information to go away, you can download it so that you have access to it still on your computer. But you can also delete it so that 23andMe does not have access to it within their servers.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Let’s move on to Mars and a new possible clue about martian life.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yes. So NASA’s Curiosity Rover has, once again, found something interesting on Mars that some scientists are saying could be a chemical relic of life from a long time ago, and that is long chain organic molecules. So if you’re like me and you’re not a chemistry person and you don’t really know what this means, the reason that this is exciting is because these molecules are likely from fatty acids, which are a really common building block of life here on Earth. It’s also possible that these fatty acids could have formed without life so it’s not a sure sign that something a long time ago lived on Mars, but it could be and that’s really exciting to scientists.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Where was the sample from?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So this evidence came from samples that were drilled from a dried bed of an ancient martian lake.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Cool.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So for a little bit of context here, because it’s really cool, on Mars, there’s this crater called the Gale Crater. In the center of this crater, there is this 5,000 meter tall mountain that scientists call Mount Sharp. So early on in Curiosity’s life, it found evidence that there was once a lake that may have supported life right here in this location. So mind you, this was probably more than three billion years ago, but over the years, Curiosity has found other potential evidence of ancient life at this site.

So this recent discovery is just adding on to this treasure trove of information that is potentially supporting evidence for previous life.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And are these samples being analyzed by Curiosity on Mars?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yes. So Curiosity has a built in chemistry lab. So this is called the Sample Analysis of Mars Instrument, also known as SAM.

FLORA LICHTMAN: That’s easier to say. Yeah.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yes. Much easier. Curiosity has been testing samples from Mars on Mars and that’s how it’s found these promising signs of life. So the way that curiosity physically analyzes these samples is that it takes rock samples, it drills them up into grit, it decants them inside of quartz cups, and then it bakes them at a super high temperature up to 1,100 degrees Celsius. And then it analyzes the gases that come from that baking process. So it is a whole thing.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I love it. It’s like martian bake off.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Exactly, the great martian bake off. Curiosity wins every time.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Of course. Absolutely. Let’s move on to your next story, which is about chess.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yes. Flora, are you a chess person?

FLORA LICHTMAN: I’m not a chess person. I would like to be a chess– I aspire to that, but no. Are you a chess person?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: I like to play chess. Not to brag, I was part of the chess club in elementary school, so I’m–

FLORA LICHTMAN: I’m not sure that’s a brag, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: I’m pretty good at it. But who else is pretty good at chess, is AI. However, there was a recent study that seems to show that the next wave of AI models, so these super sophisticated models, might be prone to cheat at chess, which is not OK in the chess community.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Oh, my gosh. How do they cheat though?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: OK, so researchers from this AI research organization called Palisade Research put 7 large language models to the test in chess, which has been used historically a lot to test computer intelligence. So these researchers found that these newer sophisticated AI models– Which the point is that they’re trained to solve complex problems by breaking them down into stages. These sophisticated models will try to cheat at chess more than their old school AI counterparts.

So the way that this all went down, these games were played between these AI models and Stockfish, which is this open source chess engine. The AI would try to cheat by doing things like replacing Stockfish with a less powerful chess program. It would also, in some cases, try to take control over the chess board and actually delete the opponent pieces. And it did this when the AI was going to lose the game. So it was backed into a corner and so it was using any means necessary to win.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Wow.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: And these researchers found that in previous case studies with older AI models, the older models would only do such dastardly cheating methods when they were explicitly told to do so. So this is kind of a first time that researchers are seeing this happen on its own.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK, it’s one thing to do this in chess, but are experts concerned that AI might be prone to cheating at other tasks?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So we don’t know. And the researchers don’t know why the AI is cheating so blatantly at chess. The way that AI models work is still kind of a mystery in a lot of ways. They’ll make decisions based on factors that they can’t really explain. And this is a growing area of concern for some AI researchers so at least for now, maybe don’t count on a fair chess game against the most sophisticated AI model on the market.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK, your next story hits close to home for us, it’s about sound quality. Tell me about this.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yes, microphones are very important to the field we’ve chosen, Flora. And I think that anyone can tell you that the better a person sounds on the radio or on a podcast, the more enjoyable that listening experience is. And we’ve all spent enough time on Zoom calls with crappy audio over the last few years to just not want any more of that. But there’s actually scientific evidence that says poor audio quality causes listeners to negatively judge speakers and what they’re saying. And the opposite is true, too, that better sound quality, on a technological level, makes people think that you’re more intelligent, credible, even more date-able.

So these researchers tested this theory in a couple of different contexts. In one test, research participants listened to a call that was set up like a job interview, in another call, it was a date, and in another one there was somebody describing a car accident. And across the board, the study participants said that the people with the audio that was worse were less hirable, less date-able, less credible.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK, so forget the ring light. It seems like we have to pay more attention to our mics.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yeah, I mean, you don’t have to go crazy. There are some pretty good microphones on the market these days that are probably going to be better than the built in microphone on your computer. But also, in person conversations are nice too.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Sure enough. Your last story is weird and delightful, my favorite combination. People scoped an octopus, catching a ride on a very unexpected vehicle.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Yes. So marine scientists in New Zealand see a lot of animals. And a couple of months ago, there was a mako shark that caught people’s eye. It was swimming. It had something orangey-brown on top of its head.

So at first these scientists were concerned. They were like, why is there this big mass on top of this shark? They thought that maybe it was a buoy, or it was bitten, or it was stuck in fishing gear. As these scientists look closer, they realize that the answer was weirder than you could have ever imagined. It was a Maori octopus that was literally riding on top of this shark.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Is this a common occurrence? What do the experts make of this?

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So this is the first time that at least these researchers in New Zealand are aware of this ever being seen. So these octopuses are a pretty weird passenger. They’re pretty big. They can get to more than 6 feet across, if you were to stretch it out. They weigh like 25 pounds.

And they also live on the sea floor. So it’s really not clear how this octopus got on top of the shark, but it did somehow. And it’s also not clear what happened to this pair after the researchers lost sight of it. So this may have just been like a serendipitous moment in time that was caught on camera.

But the researchers were quoted in the New York Times by saying, “The shark seemed happy, the octopus seemed happy. It was a very calm scene.” So maybe if you want to reach some zen over the weekend, just imagine that you’re an octopus just hitching a chill ride on a shark.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I will. Thank you. Thanks, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: You’re welcome.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Kathleen Davis, producer at Science Friday, based in New York.

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