That UL safety logo is a lot more complicated than it looks

Today, I’m talking with Jennifer Scanlon, who is the CEO of UL Solutions. That’s Underwriters Laboratories – you know, the UL logo listed on all your electronics? That symbol means it’s been tested and found safe in a variety of ways. UL’s been around for 100 years. It started as a way for insurance companies to do fire and safety testing on electrical products just as electricity was coming into homes. But now it’s everywhere, and it’s one of those companies we really like to poke at here on Decoder that’s basically hidden in plain sight — that logo is on everything. But scratch the surface and the business of UL is pretty complicated. There are a ton of cheap electronics on Amazon, and maybe people just care about price and not certifications. The company is also now trying to do safety testing for AI systems; it just rolled out a new standard called UL 3115, “a structured framework to evaluate AI-based products before and during deployment.” That kind of standard requires a lot of companies and regulators to buy in — and for there to be a way to even reliably safety test AI at all. And then there’s the structure of UL, which — well, you’ll see. It’s complicated. Verge subscribers, don’t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Head here . Not a subscriber? You can sign up here . But sure, structure and whatever, we’ll get there, but first, I had to ask Jennifer if she got to watch stuff explode in the testing labs. …