Better Offline CES 2025: Day 2

27:56Versus on top of the actual AI that has been around for a while. Like some sort of generative AI? What's going on here? There's nothing new. They just hope that you'll think it's that. Is it generating a baby? Yeah. This manual, if you look at the back, it says 2017 on the, no. All of a sudden you have a new baby. Like it's just like. It's soothing your anxiety so you can generate that new baby. You know? Yeah. That would be a really great way for one of these people to sell something. Just being like, you're anxious. You're not able to have sex. Yeah. Anyway, you need this baby monitor. You need a surveillance state in your house.

28:30Or, of course, though, wonderful, the AI cat litter thing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. 5G connected. Fuck yeah. What the fuck does that mean? That means there's an app. Sure. Isn't 5G's whole point that it's like a home broadband connection? But what are you streaming? Very white. Other than cat piss. Yeah. This is the thing. Almost all of these devices are like, hey, so we will give you an app. and in the app you can see when your cat gets on and off how much it shits or pisses and if there's any differences in it and it will give you immediate alerts, right? Your cat has shit. Honestly, we were...

29:10Why do you need that notification? If you're more anxious than an anxious cat... My Apple Watch just pops up like, your cat has pooped. You're on a date. Sorry, my cat's not shitting right now. The weird thing is my partner and I were looking at a new cat litter box? And of course, they all do have that 5G integration. And the app associated with it. Otherwise, why do you fucking have it? The answer why, and it's a niche case, is every time we have taken the cats to the vet, they've asked, do you have a stool sample? How can I tell the difference between the different turds? Yeah. Oh, because I know a fresh one has just dropped.

29:46Let me go get that immediately. So I hear, so this is, I'm describing this cat litter box. How would the AI know which it is? And apparently it has multi-cat facial recognition. Yeah. Friend of the show, Tate Hunter, Washington Post, brought this to me yesterday. It was this, apparently it can tell the different cats so that if you have one sickly, horrible cat and one beautiful, sweet cat, you know which one to take to the vet for the last time. No, I'm right. You know, or like if it commits a crime, the FBI knows how to, where to get it after. So that you are the cat. He's stealing all the fucking food outside.

30:22But my question as well is this cat litter thing, which is$899, by the way, which fucking rocks. I assume it has proprietary litter that goes in it as well. Because that's the consumable. I mean, why wouldn't you use that? All about consumables. I need a subscription. I assume there's a subscription fee. Yeah. I would be surprised if there wasn't. If there's not, I will absolutely fucking lose it. Like, why am I? If I can't pay an extra$5 a month to catgenie.biz. Yeah. I don't trust them after that. because I haven't thought through this process. For some time, I was looking at an automatic feeder because I had a schedule and most of my roommates were out and friends weren't in town where I wasn't able to get someone to watch the cat.

31:06I was like, okay, well, I can get someone to watch them. Sometimes maybe I'll get an automatic feeder, automatic litter box. And then every single one I tried to get, there's a fucking app. And then when you compare it to the ones that don't have the app, It's like a$300 addition to the price for nothing other than like we've been talking about. The cat has shit. Congratulations. Yeah, congrats. I'm just imagining being like in court and you've silenced your phone and your judge is turning to you. He's about to sentence you. You're not meant to have your Apple Watch. And he's like, bing, cat shit.

31:38Just like, is it like Nest where you get the alert but it doesn't show you the video and you drag it down and it's just like a big old - I don't want a video of cat shit. I'm sorry, your honor. But my cat just shit. You hold up your hand. It's wild, dude. Mr. Tinko's is tinkling. You know? And it's also so funny because it's like the price jump also. It's like a regular litter box. Yeah, it's not special. $2,$3. I mean, it doesn't cost that much. It's a little box. Yeah, it's not. This thing is not like a new kind of litter box other than the stuff they've stapled to it. It's like, hey, you're a sophisticated buyer.

32:15This is not going to work unless it's$8. And you love your cat. Your cats must be fancy cats. Yeah, and have to be. And they need 5G. We'll throw in$5 off Fancy Feast. Okay, wait, no. Something just fucking occurred to me about this that's even weirder. They're talking about 5G. That's a cellular wireless standard. It's Chinese. Which means... Oh, no. You have a cellular... People of the cat litter company very unhappy. Well, wait, it's... Put in dirty tech in our homes. The sovereign citizens are going to come to your house and take your litter box. They're already very unhappy with me. But also, it's 5G.

32:53Before the end of the show, can you try and get back there just to ask them if they mean 5G Wi-Fi? Because that is an egregious overstatement. Because there are people who are just like, the guys here that don't know how anything works go, oh, it's got 5G in it, which they think is like the cell phone standard. Yeah. Versus, this is the show though. This is CES. We're just describing. like I know Casey Kagawa friend of the show as well was saying to me earlier oh Ed the hardware stuff's really cool it is faster computer now it's great AI stethoscope great actually cool is that actually no it's not a happy AI did it hallucinate heartbeats but you can go to like a legacy media outlet and hear about all the computer stuff that actually matters because that's not really the story of CES that's the stuff that happens kind of outside.

33:46And what you have in there is people making a series of promises that have gone through a law firm to make sure they're not going to get them in actual trouble, hopefully. Did you see any Wi-Fi grills, though? No. Oh, boy. Oh, buddy. I saw a TV with a chatbot. Why? To help you choose channels? Yeah, you know, I saw sex toys that used video games for long distance connection with group syncing for multiple orgasms. Oh my gosh. Multiplayer. They did not promise that. This ties to the very first CES that I went to. If they... I'll never forget this. I was at the Indiegogo party, the first CES, and I was talking to these folks and they were telling me about their technology.

34:36Technology was about trying to have some sort of tactile response in a virtual environment. Keep in mind, talking to a priest in full white Dominican clothes. Yeah, exactly, right? That's right. And so this is Chinese folks, right? And so we're a Chinese company. And we're talking about it. I was like, man, that's really amazing technology. Like, that would be great for the medical industry. Like, that would really revolutionize a lot of stuff for surgeries. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but we're going into porn because that's where all the money is. Son of a... Just... Yeah. Ten years later.

35:10Same. You know? But it's not taken off yet though. It's not scaling. There are toys that allow you to have group player to sync them. That's existed for a bit. I was trying to figure out the AI element. The metaverse part. Yeah, the extended reality part of Buel. Wow. Of the super duper turbocharged flesh lights. Nice. The suction dildos of the prostate massagers. Called Edge 2. You said of the, and I thought you were going Caribbean. No, yeah. This is where we need Father Belisar. The other member of the clergy that for some reason shows up here.

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39:33but so other than dildos and other than uh health things any other weird shit anything loathsome pig like um anything oh there there was a there's an app it's called an ai public transportation bell and it's and it rings a bell when you're about to get to your stop on the bus or train

40:04there was no one at that booth and i was like this is what you're talking about the alleged uh section of the conference where it's just like this is a front yeah yeah man i'm sorry we're just we're using this for like that that serbian gentleman behind you the one that smells of cigarettes that man that's who we're talking to him that's our one meeting yeah this thing's that this we're here for four days to kind of just cover the for this he will kill you because cigarettes and sliver bits it's it's so strange that we have a show full of this because you kind of see articles about ces and it's like faster computer there's the three thousand dollar ai machine that i should have uh someone from reuters coming in to talk about tomorrow oh hell Oh, yeah.

40:48But NVIDIA also, who knows what they're doing at some point. And the eternal hall of TVs. The eternal hall of televisions, which are fine. We love the big screens. But really, it's just so weird how much of this stuff is just like fake fake. Or like real but customer base of like 100 people. Yes. How much do you think that cat thing costs to make? Because I bet it's accidentally really expensive. I mean it depends because it's is it also one of those ones with the motor that rotates yeah it automatically sifts yeah then those things break yeah they break easily because one because they're not they they are easy to install but I feel like they're not they don't tell you how to install it and so you're probably going to break it in installation uh the app is probably not going to work half the time you know so I don't know they're probably accidentally expensive because of how much they wear down and how much they end up getting returned versus like cat.

41:46How do you really like load test those things? You get a really big boy in there. You need a sick cat. Overfeeding a cat. Like you're making foie gras. Fucking Garfield and lasagna man. Say, all right, I just fed you some cheese. Get in there. Eat the milk! Do you think this is how they get the training data to find out about the turds? Yeah. I mean, listen, chosen by God, perfected by science. To be fair, this is how I describe my cat, Babu. Yeah, you know. And also myself. And I, too, use the litter box. But he just won't use these fancy ones. We've tried fancy ones, and he just will not go.

42:26Only one of my cats uses the fancy one. You've got a picky customer. Yeah, I do. I really fucking do. That's the most cat thing to do as well. It's not even like you can throw it away. Yeah, no. Our cast will only use the robot litter box for pooping. We have two other litter boxes. Those are the piss boxes. Only the robot gets turds. Which one do you use? I am a discerning individual. I prefer to go use an actual toilet. Okay. Sorry. Too good for this show. Now, you did see a speech from the incredible Linda Yaccarina, CEO of X, the everything app, where I currently do my banking, my taxes, my dating, and my professional work.

43:17I have a DM I need to see to in a minute from a 14 words griper. That's my doctor. The medical care on X as well. My credit card was just charged$11 ,000 from it. Everything's going great there. But she's the CEO of this company. And you said it was kind of bad. It just wasn't that fun. Yeah, it didn't really move you. It could have been an email. It could have been a press release. She talked a lot about the global collective unconscious. Unconscious? Oh, God. What the fuck does that mean? That's X, the everything site. Did she say unconscious? Yeah. The collective unconscious? I believe. I have it in my notes.

43:56But the thing is, if she said conscious, it's still stupid. But if she said unconscious, I would believe that because that's like a Yaccarino classic. Because the things she says sound like the kind of thing you say immediately after walking out of a car wreck. Let's go to the notes and see what happens. But it's also like what an undergrad philosophy student would say. Right. She talks about how it's self-regulating. the first the first question was about comparing meta to X and talking about how it got rid of fact checkers and she was like they're trying to copy community notes basically she was like you know they're realizing our website sucks shit and they're copying it like buddy I'm on community notes so I see all this stuff and it is a shit show I mean have you seen the fucking facts that people post on Facebook you really want that community anyway now that great idea has been copied and so the idea there is like you know she's trying to talk about how meta is going to emulate X's innovative system that inspires great behavior which is that noted posts are dramatically shared less like suicide bombs I wanna die like where do you think the Cybertruck guy got his inspiration that and ChatGBT apparently which helped him build the explosives the police department recently reported.

45:21That didn't quite work. Yes. And that's JetGPT. As I described it, it's effectively just the anarchist cookbook and you're going to get similar results. Yeah, you know? Don't try. And so, you know, her rating of the meta-abandoning third-party fact-checking, great, a victory for free speech. Cool. She talked about how the greatest product innovation, talked about how there have been like 250 product innovations during your tenure at X or whatever the fuck. What? Yeah. But the biggest one is trend genius. Oh. Which is when a trend kicks up on X and it hits a certain altitude, advertisers they have agreements with, they're able to take advantage of those trends and they get matched with them.

46:06And your ad campaign kicks into high drive when there's a trend connected to what you're looking to target goes into high drive. Almost some kind of like word you could advertise against. Yeah. Like an ad word. Right. Right. You know? All of the ads I get are Temu. I should Google that. They're all Temu. Everything is Temu. I get Temu. Indie, sci-fi, books about how Donald Trump is going to save America. Sick. Crypto. That doesn't, that's happening right now. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I only get Temu. What are you like looking at, man? I don't know. I got a lot of Temu, though. I was blocking so many ads at one point that I just started getting the weirdest shit.

46:47Oh, yeah. I got like the most expensive coat ever. And it was like a$70 coat. Which I actually think is a great bet. But it was the worst looking outfit. It looked like something that Baz Luhrmann would have in his Romeo and Juliet movie. Do you bite your thumb at me? Or do you bite your thumb at me? Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? And all your houses. Oh my God. So what you're telling me is they've created an automated system to guarantee that the advertisers won't miss an opportunity. to be next to an incredibly popular racist post. Right. Don't want to miss it. Are these trends the ones that Grok comes up with?

47:26Oh, Lord. Yeah, they're torturing Grok in the center of the racism computer. They changed the image recently. Yeah, it's like the logo for Grok is really bad. It's so bad. It looks like a JPEG artifact. So bad. One of the examples I really also loved, she was kind of like, you know, talking about how X is everything place. It's real time. So many trends. He's like, you know, sometimes me and my husband, we fight all the time. We fight all the time about what to watch on TV. Oh, really? Oh, okay. I thought you just meant in general. No, yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah. My husband fucking sucks. My piece of shit husband.

48:02That's right. And so we fight all the time about what to watch, and we're fighting over the remote. He thinks football is consequential. I want to know what's happening on the red carpet. We don't have to fight anymore because now I have X on my phone, and I get real-time updates, and he gets the TV to watch football. Was she talking about the Golden Globes? What football game is it? When Golden Globes happen? No, this is also garbage. I was trying to check news the other day on Twitter, X, whatever they call it nowadays. Okay, I guess you have to be watching the Golden Globes. And I was just like, this is a really bad place to get news.

48:35Yeah. Okay, it was 5 p.m. PST. Was he really that attached to Monday Night Football? Maybe he does hate her. He might have been. He's just like, So, you know, that's like first 10 minutes or so, you know. She's talking about safety, ad products, and how there's no surrogate for acts. This is the most important place. Talks about the NFL portal, which, you know, is an example of how we are expanding the town square and building a model that we'll bring to other areas of society. They want to make us a global sports league portal. I don't even know what that means. Nobody knows what it means. It's provocative.

49:16If it gets the people going, you know. 36 billion impressions, 4 billion views. That's for what? For the NFL portal. That 36 billion... Impressions. Impressions, that's not even... I mean, I get it. That doesn't feel like as much as it should. It feels like they had higher numbers like that in the past, but also the views numbers are completely cracked on there now. Well, she's saying these are the best numbers, and they're going to get even better. they're gonna go to global sports leagues the interviewer tried to be like do you want to do a news or journalism portal she was very you know she's like look we're not she didn't say we're not interested in that but she basically was like legacy media has their own thing we're post legacy media we're not interested in telling the truth or providing information we want to distinguish ourselves from legacy media because legacy media it's a one way filter that's a psyop to control your mind and influence you As opposed to Twitter, which is global collective unconscious.

50:19Right. And free of influence campaigns, right? Except for Temu. Yeah, exactly. Other than the influence campaigns. Yeah, right. That she just mentioned for Transdini's and also the one that her boss is doing. Yeah, and also wasn't there a Paris Hilton one? Oh, Paris Hilton one, Saudis. I mean, we could list all the influence campaigns that are going on. Do people still care about Paris Hilton? I know. I don't think so. That's what's so good about it. You know when you're like behind crypto on a trend. Yes. Yes. Like I think the last time anyone cared about her was when she was like eating hamburgers for Carl's Jr.

50:57I'm not familiar with the canon. That's pretty bad. The canon. I haven't been following the song in a while. I fell off after the J.J. Abrams movie. Fair enough. Fair enough. She also talked a bit about the power of X. And she got really excited about the fact that one time She was like, I was scrolling through my feed, leaned in, very excited, animated about Musk and Sundar talking about quantum computing. Oh, the brain genius. Yeah, this is the brain trust. The genius twins. Where else can you get two executives who don't really understand what they're talking about? And it's definitely them.

51:32It's one, there's no, there's no. Literally every executive. Yeah, you know. So here's the thing. I refuse, I still, to this day, refuse to use the term X. Like I will dead name. I'm only using it here. It doesn't sound right. It's terrible. It feels like petting a cat's hair the wrong way. Oh, I'm on X. What the fuck are you talking about, man? The Everything app. The Everything app that has an increasingly... X marks the spot, baby. Right. A lack of utility with almost every day. The racism generator. It's terrible. Grok is somehow the least racist racism generator on there. I didn't join the full exodus when things so I stayed there even though I joined all the other stuff but it's just like the level of narcissism is just absurd I'm scared today other than to send a thing a world ending event I wonder what's on X everything we start the countdown clock there's a thing about Sam Altman's sister.

52:42Very, very bad for Mr. Ortman. Oh, I got some betting ads. Oh, that's good. I got MGMM. Do you guys want to get up to$250 back in bonus bets if your first wager loses? I want that without having to do anything. That's what I want. Good. Online betting strikes again. Okay, so he is, it's a quote post that Elon Musk is posting where someone said, Bill Gates has donated over three, this is just a conspiracy theory thing. Just the moment I started reading that. And it's, Elon Musk has quoted it and he has used what appears to be an emoji of a pregnant man. What? Okay. What? So, this is the richest man alive.

53:21Yeah. He could do anything. And he's like, what if Bill Gates was a pregnant man? Yeah. Wouldn't that be funny? Wouldn't that be funny? Grimes. Grimes. Grimes. Grimes. It's just not been in the house for years. Grimes. It's just talking to another person. yeah this i love you lammas don't you um i mean i opened up the app and the first thing i get is a nice little post from a friend of mine who i know and then a temu ad yeah yeah it's literally temu all the way down post from elong musk if protecting children makes one a fascist then so be it i think that really is oh wow that's you know perfect segue also because the next things that she talked about were the grooming gangs that he went on a week-long tirade about and she and they They were like, is this a red line?

54:09Because now you got diplomats saying we're going to change the relationship with the U.S. And she was saying, if not for X, where would the conversation be about saving thousands of girls, bringing people to justice who must be brought to justice? So I say more than less. Did that happen as a result of anything that happened on X? No. Great. She said there's going to be an inquiry. Wow. There's going to be an investigation of the allegations. I have now retracted my statement. I feel like as we approach the end here, I want to really talk about something that I read about today that I will be doing an episode on.

54:48You know that I can't help myself doing content, but we'll talk about it today. So Mark Zuckerberg of Meta has now basically, he's fired all the fact checkers, and he's moving the trust and safety people to Texas from California. Some people saying, oh, it's because of some sort of, that one they're like, oh, it's because of labor laws. Sure, but what that's actually about is the judges, from what I understand. But anyway, if you have not read the news, they have fired all the fact-checkers, and they're saying that they basically made a statement that was, oh, yeah, we've done too much of that.

55:17And now, if anyone listening to this has opened up Facebook in the last year, they probably did not think this could use less work. And they definitely didn't think, I am getting the good stuff here. but on top of that this feels to me like the beginning of the end for Meta a lot of people understandably should be scared this is a fucking horrible thing to do I think it's the end of Meta I think we're actually coming toward it I kind of hope so I hope so too but I think that companies only do this when they're very upset I mean there's also these moves also to try to placate Trump I mean do there are a few questions right because other firms are doing them are they going to make the antitrust trials go away?

56:03I don't think this is... I don't think it's related, but I'm interested in that also as a knockdown effect, right? I think what people need to realize is, sure, there's some kissing up to Trump, sure. But Meta has been helping conservatives for decades now. Yeah, you know, correct calculation on their report. I mean, pandemic, the thing that I talked about in the People Killing Facebook episode. It's... they were... Joel Kaplan. No, it's not Jeff Kaplan. That's the Blizzard guy. Sorry, Jeff. Jeff Kaplan from Blizzard, by the way. Look up what the name of his character was in EverQuest. It was T.

56:40Goldbitties. That's the guy who runs Activision. We wouldn't want to slander him. Well, also, that is actually a truthful statement. Activision Blizzard, a lot of weird lawsuits around. Anyway, now back to Joel Kaplan, who is the former head of public policy, who is now like their chief policy officer, replaced Nick Clegg's scum. Oh, God. But Joel Kaplan is a former G.W. Bush guy who specifically intervened to make sure that the COVID conspiracy theory movie, Plandemic, was not removed by the health department, which I now assume is just shut down. Yes. Just to be clear, when Meta was restrained, when they were restrained by the boundaries, the vagaries of such ugly things as morals and policies, they still fucking pushed this shit.

57:27they're gonna do anything now and it's gonna turn it in to x but worse because meta has already fucked facebook for here and back the question is what it does to instagram yeah i think this kills facebook i know it's gonna make facebook even worse for a while but it's gonna kill it the content already fucking sucks i mean we already call it boomer book like so you know i work with students i mean i work with students right so i'm i'm always i'm always in the midst of a bunch of young 20 year olds and same and it's just like yeah it's it's boomer book and no one goes there because it's the most toxic place that you can go.

57:59Like, it's worse than Twitter. Oh, you need to look for the toxicity. It's usually just confusing to me. But just to be clear, the current state of Facebook that everyone has been used to, this was the one with fact checkers. Yes. Now it's going to be like lunatic, but it's going to be actually insane. But I think this may be the poison in the veins. And I know a lot of people, understandably, are very scared of this because of the right wing side. And the fact that this is aiding the right wing. The only thing I can say to calm you down is, they've already been doing that in great volumes they already did this and it's like that was this plus that anyway um and it's frustrating because i wish that was being reported alongside this part of the story they're like oh now facebook's gonna help all the right-wing people they took down crowd tangle which was a data reporting service that reported what the most popular pages were because, sorry, most popular, I think.

58:53Yeah, it was Facebook page. And Kevin Roos of the, was he at the Times? It's good work for Roos. I think it was at the Times. Yeah, he reported this and then they responded by taking down CrowdTangle. Now, the reason they did that was because all of the top, like eight out of 10 were always conservatives. Was this a story about him trying to analyze the political track of a neighbor? No, no, no. This was just what was most popular on Facebook. and it was like Ben Shapiro's show, Dan Bongino, all that shit. That's what was happening when they gave a shit-ish. They don't give a shit now. I mean, honestly, it's like if I were Facebook, it's in your interest to at minimum allow for or try to ensure that maybe right-wing stuff is pretty popular because they'll give you less trouble regulatorily.

59:47And, you know, if I'm actually putting my foot on the pedal, you know, if I'm actually putting my hand on the tilt here trying to shift the balance, you know, to rev it up, right? So it makes sense, right? It's a payoff. You know, it's a payoff for them. And I think, you know, I think to come back to your earlier point, I think that's like a fair point to say, which is that like, yeah, you know, kissing up to Trump misses it, right? Yeah. As you're saying, there's a deeper symbiosis or deeper interest there that's being overlooked. David, Dave Lee of Bloomberg did a great opinion piece that I'll link in the notes.

1:00:24He did a thing where he just says it gave Zuckerberg permission to give up on the thing that he didn't give a shit about. Somewhat paraphrasing his words there, obviously, because I don't think Bloomberg would report that. but it's a great piece because it basically says look Zuckerberg has never really liked keeping care of his garden he's never really taken care of his shit so now he doesn't have now he can be like oh yeah it's it's a political thing this is why I'm doing it which is sure it doesn't hurt it's cover it's cover for him just like poor like knocking the toilet into the kitchen he knows Facebook is effectively a monopoly on social media so he can just fucking turn it into a rancid cesspool and thinks that people will stay and I think that but I was talking to Ed about this last night.

1:01:04It feels connected with the AI profiles thing. A lot of people are understandably freaked out about, but I think it comes down to one word, contempt. It's just they don't fucking care. It's not about these people don't have a big strategy. They're just, I want to say evil, but I don't even think they're that motivated. It's just growth at all costs thinking. One of the benefits relative to them is they don't have Monopoly, but they do have a walled garden. So they can do whatever they want. inside of their garden. And if you want to bury toxic waste in your garden, well, there are regulations about that, but nothing to stop them from doing it.

1:01:42Yeah, exactly. I mean, Facebook started as a place for Zuckerberg to get a date. I'm sorry. You don't like that? I feel like that point misses the problem again. Because yes, technically that was like the whole horny Harvard guy thing. The thing is, is that that wasn't where it, that was an evil thing that a college student did. Where it became an evil thing that an adult started doing was the idea of Facebook. Was the idea of growing Facebook and what growing Facebook meant. If we start with that, if we reduce him to this horny incel kid, we miss the thing that this guy is, like, Zuckerberg is something so much worse than that.

1:02:23He is someone who truly does not care. I'm not going to say sociopath because I actually really don't know the exact definition. I think just describing it in blunt terms is, does someone who gives a shit about anything do this? Because it doesn't even feel like a political move. He's just like, great, I don't have to... It feels like a regulation being removed. He doesn't think, because there really isn't regulations. Yeah, there wasn't one. It's really good looking out the window with the tech industry right now. I feel very positive. This is how it felt to be drinking the water downstream of the chip fabs.

1:02:56Yeah. It's great. Except it's airy well. That's fantastic. Except that hurt lesbian. Thanks for getting me right back to groundwater plumes. But no, there's a cynicism, right? There's a cynicism about the whole thing. And so it's like people just out there in the world sort of use these things to stay connected to their families. You know, like, for instance, the only reason why I still have a Facebook, you know, account is just like my mom takes photos. Yeah. Right. And I see that. And I use Instagram because there are some people who don't use anything else. Yeah, exactly. Same thing. And and so that's I think that so many people like that's that's sort of their general sort of use case that that these more sort of problematic aspects.

1:03:41They have a hard time seeing what the problem is. But the problem really is just this cynicism, the lack of care. I think you hit your right on the head. You ain't seen nothing yet. I'm deadly serious. Facebook, so shout out to Jeff Horwitz, the Wall Street Journal. He taught me a lot about what I know about Facebook. I have yet to hear from Jeff. If he was at CS, I'd be so happy. There's no one I'd want more on the chair just going fucking. and the thing is is that they've always been this bad and as we write history right now we're like well now Facebook this is the day that Meta became evil and it's like it's always been that way but if you do if you failed to actually couch it in time imagine what they'll do next yeah yeah yeah I mean hey like you know what where do you go from you know facilitating a genocide you know where do you go you know you all things are justified in growth a terrorist attack plan on Facebook was justified in growth I'm quoting Andrew Bosworth who is in the ugly letter he is now the CTO of Meta very cool yeah very good stuff so as we come towards the end of the this part of the episode we're shortly going to be updated with Gaird Davis and Robert Evans of course as we wrap up especially because I'm almost out of cocktail he's almost out of cocktail And I'm thinking about the Facebook leaks at the moment.

1:05:11But anyway. Yes. Well, I think as we come to the end of this day, Ed, did you like anything on the floor? Was there a single thing that you saw? And there is no wrong answer here. If you saw something you liked, what was it? And don't say the exit.

1:05:28The sex toy seemed neat. Cool.

1:05:35Sorry, I was just going to ask if you tried one. I think every CES, this is what I've heard, and that's it. And I'm horrified by that. You woke up just cracking up. All right. You know, I saw some screens that looked crazy. But, you know, I don't game like that. I don't goon like that. I thought we'd get through an episode without fucking saying goon. So, you know, those aren't really for me. Every episode title. You know, I'm going to watch, I don't know. I feel like maybe I would have liked The Sphere, you know, whatever they're doing there. No? Lenny Kravitz is there tonight. Oh, I forgot to mention an important part of the thing.

1:06:16So I found out a competing podcast called The Verge, I hear. They are currently doing - Haven't heard of them. Haven't either. I just - The Verge. They're French. I thought you were doing like a little German over there. No, I had a hairball. Elsa is Lorraine, so it's somewhere in between. Right. Here we go. I try not to be a catty bitch other than every minute of this show. And I must say that I was seeing, I definitely saw this, and there was a moment I was like, oh, man, another podcast recording out of here. Big one, too. I should go and check out what they're doing. Before the Verge podcast, and by the way, you can only see the Vergecast live if you have a Delta SkyMiles membership.

1:07:01I did get invited. And it features a pre-podcast panel discussion about the future of travel between The Verge and Delta's Dwight James, SVP Customer Engagement, and loyalty and CEO Delta Vacations. Probably could have not fucked up the words there if I wanted to make fun of it. But I just want to say, I get a lot of shit on my ads for this show. I can do a single ad break as well, so you're going to be really pissed with me. I will never interview someone from Delta Airlines unless it's the CEO and I'm screaming at them. Yeah. Yeah. And also, what the fuck does that have to do with tech? But also, I understand we've got to get money, honey, but like, Jesus Christ, that's your big...

1:07:37The future of travel, unless it's no more Boeing planes, cigarettes on the plane, and bigger seats, I don't want to hear it. But also... No, seriously. Yeah, you know? Because what is it going to be? We recalibrated the formula for SkyMiles. Yeah, we... We changed the app. We have made it harder to get SkyMiles status. Smart planes. They finally integrated AI into it. All the planes are on the blockchain. Anyway, I think you've had a much better experience with a health physicist and a priest. So I think that that's my choice. So more members of the clergy and more safety professionals, I think.

1:08:16That's what makes a podcast good. Generally, more safety professionals is not what anyone wants to see. Because we apparently ruin fun. I hear that as well sometimes, apparently. so as we as we close out of this part of the episode and we'll of course be back shortly after this phil where can people find you you can find me at blue sky at funranium and you can find my blog funraniumlabs.com yes and he makes a special kind of coffee oh and if you look on blue sky because i cannot advertise things on here i will have a link for you at some point um that will do something i'm not even going to say what it is ed on queso jr now that i cut you off at the beginning without saying what you did what do you do i'm a i'm a tech writer a finance writer a labor writer an editor a shit poster a son um as the son of a mother yeah i'm a son of a mother and the father of uh cats were you baby monitored yeah yeah you have yet to give a link that's true I thought you were going to say to my cats they're on my profiles BigBlackJacobin on BlueSky and Twitter that too and This Machine Kills is the podcast where we yap about the political economy of tech and the Tech Bubble is my newsletter where I yap about tech also where can they find that?

1:09:42techbubble.substack.com Roger that. And Father Gabriel Mosher. Mosher? Yeah, Mosher. These days, just on all the social medias, in the same thing. Okay, you do not... None of these people know their links. Your name is like Lukey something. They type in your name, it doesn't come up sometimes. L-U-K-E-I-4-6-5-5. That's on everything, except for Blue Sky. On Blue Sky, it's 8th way. Well, thank God you specified that before I said anything. Yeah, or you can just put in, like, if you just search Gabriel Mosher. Just type priest into Google. Then I'm there. Well, we will be right back. After these amazing products, you're going to hear about these products.

1:10:26They're so beautiful. I personally love them all. They're definitely not going to immediately embarrass me in a way that every week I get one email from one guy who's like, this does not match up with the things you were saying. We're here to embarrass you, Ed. Don't worry. did you know that there is a commercial that came on that was not in line with your beliefs what do you think? no I got you Mr. Rand and every time I respond with the same thing which is I bet you'd love it if I died yeah and then I hit send anyway the next thing that comes up maybe buy it

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1:12:34I don't know if they followed me to my home. It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story. because this ties together the Cold War with the new one.

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1:13:41killers, psychopaths, pedophiles, robbers. They are sitting there waiting for the vulnerable thing. They're waiting for the unprotected. I'm Dr. Leslie, forensic psychologist. I advocate for safety and awareness of predators while wearing pink. When you were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like snooze. We ended up talking for hours and I was like, this girl is my best friend. This is a podcast where I cut through the noise with sarcasm, satire and hard truths. I'm not going to fake it and force it. But would you force an orgasm? Because that's like a different layer. The car accident you didn't want to see but couldn't turn away from.

1:14:19In this episode, I discuss personal safety and self-defense tools, instincts and strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones in everyday life and high risk situations. Listen to Intentionally Disturbing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And we've replaced some of the people. We've got Gerd Davis and of course Robert Evans from It Could Happen Here. And they are just glowing from their time on the floor. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. I'm kind of concerned that the former panelists you took out and forced into a gulag outside of Novgorod.

1:14:59That seems a little extreme. But I don't want to question... That's your show business. This is your show. That's show business. I'm glad you made the cut Other Ed We have to have two Eds at least One of the chosen ones Always two there are, a learner and a master One to crave the mind Oh god And one to destroy it I'm going to be thinking about that all evening now That's great So we were previously talking about the Linda Yaccarino speech And I did not know that Gare was also there what was your experience of the uh the matriarch of social media it's the the first time there was applause was when she mentioned doge the second time was the rape gags so incredible vibes happening audiences love doge and rape gangs you know but what's in so what specifically was this rape gang thing i should know about things that happened in england but i've been running from england my whole life well there was like a kind of a bit of a bit of a pogrom over the earlier last year over over the idea that there were like migrants were running rape gangs and so people started like we're like right-wing riots in several cities including like oh sorry this was the thing that actually fucking caused that well this was no no this didn't cause that but this is an extension this is trying to keep it going yeah oh sorry i meant it yeah that right wing shit storm was what caused the riots okay great because I knew the riots were happening and then got very upset with the amount of racism that England had newly created considering it's England and has quite a lot already oh god anyway so that was that got applause talking about that and how important it is on X to protect children and as a mother it's especially important so what would we do without posting?

1:16:59we need more, more posting to save the children that I agree with just the posting part though, all things are possible through posting one of the last times I was on X, the everything app I saw deep fake porn of an 18 year old Jesus Christ I really do feel what she says that X is deeply committed to protecting children the last time I spent a decent amount of time on X it was after a teenager did a mass shooting and I had to talk to all of their other teen friend Nazis who are on X. The Everything app. They use X to communicate. And that's where you find them. A whole bunch of teenage Nazis who would all just talk to each other and share phrenology memes.

1:17:40What's that girl's name? There's like some Hitler. It's not named them on the podcast. Radfem Hitler. Please don't say the name on the podcast. One of my favorite podcasts to be honest. We're having her on the show very, very soon to talk about the other Hitler. I'm calling it the two Hitlers. Seeing that name, I was like, I can't believe this exists. Of course this exists. Well, I love talking about technology. So that was... What was the context for the Doge thing as well? Was it just the idea of firing people? No, it was just talking about how important X will be as Elon and Vivek Ramaswamy focuses on Doge in the next year.

1:18:21For a government program. Well, it's a fake government. It's not a government. Just to be clear, a consultancy service that pretends to be a government program. Yes, but it was basically a question about how much will Elon be using X to get people... How much will he be getting users to give suggestions for things to cut? Oh, God. Open source government regulation. Sure. I mean, open source works. Yes, but yes. Look, think about Linux, right? Oh. stable operating system run by a guy who's only committed a few sex crimes we all love Linux, why shouldn't the government be that way, it's already run by guys who commit sex crimes match made in heaven I'm not trying to shit on Linux oh I am much like Linux, it's way more complicated than they describe it as and in the end it only works for a few people and they can barely explain why but their computers are unhackable because honestly, if you're hacking shit, nobody needs that kind of hassle.

1:19:25That's really good. I'm glad you added that bit because we've now said several things that Linux fans are going to email me about for a week. It's the most secure way to do things. In the same way that inventing your own language and losing the ability to communicate with the rest of the world is the most efficient way to avoid getting spied on. Right. Kind of like trying to use another app on Linux. Yeah, exactly. I said something about Linux. I wrote this newsletter. and turned into a script as well where i talked about and i i talked about all sorts of things and the rock within tech and i quote tweeted it one quote posted on blue sky i should say and i said just to be clear stop recommending me linux normal people don't use linux and it was like 50 hardcore linux people being like you're completely right man like this shit's this shit's bonkers and 50 being like i will fucking kill you i will actually it is there's no linux guys are exactly the same as like Norse pagans in the modern world where half of them are like the chillest like and violently anti-racist will literally fucking die to like fight a Nazi and half of them are just the absolute fascist like the vilest scum on Twitter.

1:20:39It's so good we're also calling them that. Linux people are either will at the drop of the hat like put down everything in order to like help you secure your phone to stop the FBI from getting in and half people whose primary goal in life is to reform the age of consent to be lower. Just to be clear, this is Robert saying these things, Linux fans. Please, that was like two fucking weeks. I assume all the people listening to this are the first kind of Linux. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They all are. Yeah, great. Still going to get 100 emails. Yeah. So, but otherwise, so there was no applause at all during this otherwise.

1:21:19It was just for the mention of Doge and then for the rape gangs. Otherwise, she just kind of... They were just talking for 30 minutes. And the biggest point of this discussion was basically laying out how in tandem X and the new Trump administration are going to function as. Basically trying to view these things as symbiotic tools. Yeah, it's kind of like a Der Sturmer type deal, right? The nice thing about it being a Der Sturmer deal Is we all know what happened To the guy who ran Der Sturmer I don't Oh he got hung by a drunk hangman That the US appointed Because we didn't care who did the job Who made extra sure that it took a long time Julia Stryker was kicking up there For a minute So we got something to look forward to That's one of the funniest things I heard of today Thank you for sharing that I put a big smile on my face oh god did you talk about the zuckerberg fact checking thing we can talk about it again because as i was saying to ed earlier it is just facebook slopping up like this is the shit they've always done this is just them fucking they instead of flushing the toilet just pushing it into the kitchen like i said it everyone's like oh it's for donald trump no he just has an excuse now he knows laws won't or like morals will no longer be enforced and facebook already fucking sucked I can't wait to see how much worse it gets.

1:22:45My Facebook feed right now is fully 30-40 % of it is. Yeah, there's a number of people that I used to know that the only way I have of checking in with them is Facebook. I don't use it regularly, but every time I log in, a full third of my feed is war reenactors who are always dressed as members of the Voffin SS. And AI-generated pictures of the Voffin SS. And all of the comments are, those brave boys. Those poor boys. They were just trying to defend hundreds of them, hundreds of them, hundreds of them. It's bleak. I get like pitching and lifting things and like boxing. Yeah, maybe this tells us more just about Robert, like your own interests.

1:23:25Mine's just like, oh, workout things. I didn't read more than like seven or eight books about the Imperial German Army last year. So like, it's not like I'm that into the German military history, Garrison. This might just be the Facebook tracking is coming to bite you. I do have the reading habits that are like the only other people with my reading habits are very problematic Magician vs. Slow-Mo Camera Ooh, that one sounds good Actually, this one's really good It's kind of just free photo editing group and it's just from December 31st, 2024 and it is like a week later and it's just like a very grainy picture of a woman saying, is it possible to make this fuzzy Photoshop It is now with the power of AI Enhance The legacy of nerd Hulk Hogan returns WWE A crude AI cartoon of a soldier With both of his legs kind of melting off into a puddle That says why don't pictures like this ever trend I don't get any of the AI slop Boomer slop, so much boomer slop Only women can understand Not married yet and it's a picture of a tomato Then got married and it's a picture of a watermelon A lot of pictures of kids crying and it's with sad captions about how Kamala Harris is making kids cry.

1:24:43Like if you agree. And literally every fifth post is some sort of picture with why don't photos like this ever trend? My other thing is I subscribe to a lot of Joker related media. That makes it kind of unsettling. No, no, no. You are the smiling man. No, no, no. To explain the Joker meme thing, it's not because I believe in their views it's that i had a brief two-year-long anthropological thing i was working on where i found the most insane typos in joker memes and found this entire part of the global south that is guys who have clearly never watched a single thing with the joker in it putting the most insane and my favorite was a picture of joaquin phoenix and it said would you like to know which w-i-t-c-h of them we're liars and to be clear that is a heath ledger joker quote oh okay yeah yeah and that one was just like i really didn't need much more i'd found i'd summited olympus at that point yeah but nevertheless free dan free dan get him out the thing that you get now on here is just apparently luxury hotels and now like some google maps group what is this fucking experience what is facebook for anymore what is this app it's it's all i mean the everything app yeah no it actually is the everything app this is actually It actually does have everything now.

1:25:59Actually, this might really piss off Elon Musk. Yeah. We can't meta the everything app? No, if Mark Zuckerberg just says, yeah, with the everything app, he should do that just to see what happens. If he gets banking working on Facebook before Twitter, that would be so funny. They already got payments. Yeah, no, I guess, yeah. Oh, yeah. Who would you rather trust with your money than Facebook? I mean, Linda Iaccarino. I mean, I thought we all agreed. I went to so many panels today, and half of them sounded like the Stand Up Solutions comedy sketch. Tell me some of these wonderful things. You're going to have to explain that joke too, Garris.

1:26:34Oh, no. Stand Up Solutions is just a comedy stand-up routine released I think earlier this year by a really good comedian who I cannot... Connor O'Malley? Connor O'Malley. Okay, you should all watch it because it's very insane. And it's also exactly the vibe of about half of the C.A.S. panels. Is it the one where he's in Vegas? it's a PowerPoint presentation of completely made up insane shit by Conor O'Malley it's how you can buy an AI that does stand up comedy and this is what the things are like and this is what everything is the first panel I went to today I heard the phrase like augmentation not replacement probably about 10 times a lot about keeping that's what the plastic surgeon was telling me there was a lot of fear in the AI panels from people scared of how much backlash there is to AI tools.

1:27:26That's actually fascinating. Trying to find ways to trick audiences into enjoying or consuming AI slop. A lot of it was about that. I don't know. A phrase one of the panelists used was trying to solve the AI ick problem. There's an ick around AI. We have this problem. It fucking sucks. Nobody wants to use it. It looks bad and they hate it. They had someone from Meta at this panel and they talked about how a few days ago Instagram announced they would be having AI-generated fake profiles of people that don't exist. And there was so much backlash based on this that they took it away. But they explained it by saying, actually, the market just isn't ready yet.

1:28:10This isn't back to the future. It's not that this is a terrible idea. It's that the market's not ready yet. There are certain issues where like, I do want to specifically hear from a queer woman of color who's a mother in New York City. There's a number of issues. Yes, but an actual one. But a person. I don't need an AI that admits it was coded by some white ladies in the bay pretending to be this person. The pigs have not been suppressed enough. We've not sedated the pigs enough. We've got to get the hoax ready for the slop. And it really is. Another phrase they use is like AI improvements will all be based around consumer acceptance.

1:28:51It's like we have all the tech, but we have to trick people into actually liking it now. The word they're looking for is consent. There's a lot of attitude. There's a vibe from them that is very much like a dude who's trying to pressure someone into sex. I can like massage this into like them being okay enough with it. I can get him to agree to this. Yeah, it's this very, we're in a very interesting position with this fight where it's still recent enough. Like everyone who is trying to push the AI line remembers NFTs and the metaverse going down in flames and how unified and effective the backlash against them was.

1:29:33Now, neither of those ever had any actual technology underlying. Not really. Yeah, there's some stuff you can call metaverse. Any consumer adoption as well. Yeah. There was no real technology that was in any way impressive, and there was no real user hunger. There's user hunger for some of the things AI does. Yeah, totally. And there's real technology there. But there's also a backlash that's very similar to the backlash for those two things. And they see that. And they're scared of it because they know it is a threat to – because of how – they have to keep up momentum. If momentum drops at any point, a lot of these companies – like obviously the tech won't go away, but a lot of these companies – Well, they're not getting a Series A.

1:30:15Yeah, exactly. And so they're scared of that. and that's a really interesting position to be in because it shows that, number one, the fight is still winnable. The fact that they're talking about it this way means that they can be beaten. The same way that we were able to beat NFTs and beat the metaverse to some degree, this is going to be a longer battle than those, but it is having an impact. Chapel Rome posted something about AI-generated images that received a lot of backlash. People and ad agencies are looking at this. And they're trying to figure out a few ways to kind of navigate it. A few of the other panels I went to specifically about how to market stuff to Gen Z was talking about the importance of authentic brands.

1:30:58Saying on fleek. Gen Z is so vested in authenticity. And if you're going to partner with influencers who use AI, it has to have that authentic angle. So what's funny about the influencer thing that I don't think companies realize is they think every influencer is this pliant brain who will do anything for vacation. and there are an alarming amount of them that will. What they don't realize is that there are many of them that once they reach a certain scale go, wait a fucking minute. I don't have to go to the LG pain maze. I don't have to ride a horse to the LG compound to see the secret fridge.

1:31:35And then they become angry and they crush them. Steven from Gamers Nexus is my favorite. He's never done Access. He does. Steven, if you're listening to this, please come on my fucking show. I love you. I don't know who you are, Steven. but Gamers Nexus is probably the single most YouTube important the single most YouTube Jesus single most important YouTube in pretty much processes and chips there are some others as well but like Steven's done this incredible thing and it's mostly just him standing looking exhausted over a table just ripping these fucking companies to shreds or going to their offices and be like hey hey Steve from Gamers Nexus hey what you doing like British politician style I don't think they realize that there are so many influencers like that out there Coffeezilla he's a fucking beast Yeah, especially considering what I think is so interesting about him is that he is into and speaking to this group of people who are profoundly anti-media and kind of chuddy.

1:32:27But he does very good journalism within that space and really has done more than almost anyone to kill specific kinds of cons. Did a podcast with me, rabbit reporting? No, big deal. but it's funny as well because they're definitely thinking that oh yeah we'll get these stupid fucking Gen Z kids and these idiot influencers and Gen Z as you all know Gare you're Gen Z? I'm 38 years old and I sound 100 what's the age for Gen Z? at this point it's like 15 to 27 or 28 it depends I'm a cusp 27 are cusps if you're born between 1997 1997 and around 2012 is usually the Gen Z bracket. You are a young millennial, yeah.

1:33:19If your knees make a sound when you stand up, you're a millennial or older. Every time I do yoga, my knee makes a noise like a pinball machine breaking. That doctor said it's great. But it's funny because what they don't realize is as legacy media dies, yeah, you're going to have a bunch of insane influencers. Those insane influencers will be the ones that actually have a genuine animus with the LG fridge. The fridge guy is eventually going to turn on the fridge manufacturers, and the fridge guy will bring them great pain as he reviews the fridge with alarming accuracy. And I think that they don't realize that that is what will come to replace some of legacy media.

1:33:56It's going to be posters. It's going to be people of no vested interest in the politesse that they can expect from legacy media, right? yeah that there's no there's no space in like youtube review guys or tiktok guys for walt mossberg nobody nobody wants a dude like that you want somebody who's snarky and got an angle and funny and it's just easier to rip up a lot of these shitty ai products to to like than it is to fucking pump them up and i will tell you something running a pr firm not a single fucking pr person for the most part can prepare you for that. The only thing that can prepare you is, well, actually deposition training.

1:34:39You get a lawyer to train you, that will do you far more good with media training. Having, you know, growing up roasting people that might help you a little bit. A little bit, but you also have to realize that the truth is generally useful. And if you're trying to hide that, an influencer will really get around that. What I think is so important to get back on the topic of like, how do we win this fight against AI slopification of everything beautiful in the human spirit? This is not a political fight. And that's like, guys like CoffeeZilla on it, right? Like this is a lot of people when they look at the shit and when they consider like the art and the actors and musicians being replaced so that like some fucking Bay Area assholes like can hoover up even more money and like destroy the ability of like the human mind to represent itself.

1:35:31That's not a political issue. And there is, I think, an immense amount of potential still to get a lot of people together and to fucking strangle this thing in its cradle because we all have this kind of visceral feeling that it's wrong. Yeah, this revulsion. That revulsion is what we need to lean into. The AI ick. The AI ick. They simply don't have the thing that matters most which is its ability to make good, compelling stuff. And this is something they actually know. I'm going to read something about something one of the guys on the panel from Adobe was talking about. He was talking about how when you're making AI content specifically targeted towards specific people, personalized content is always the most impactful.

1:36:20And there's three parts that are needed to create a personalized content pipeline. you need data you need a journey to take the person on and you need the content itself and we need content at scale that is highly personalized and he said that we're good at the first two parts the data and the journeys and I would argue about the journeys part but he said now we just have to improve the actual content so they know they know the content's bad that's the thing we have to still actually figure out it's like how to like turn data into like a good content and that's still the thing that they're really struggling to do and it also looks the same as it did like a year ago it does look the same as it did a year ago there's so much talk and finally on what because I listened to in like the first two tech and AI and Hollywood panels I listened to there were a lot of talk about like we just need to be able to like if we can read people's brains while they're watching stuff we can see how they're reacting and then we can alter like live the content that they're taking in you could change the ending or whatever to really make it more engaging and it was finally somebody in the fourth panel when it was actually like people who write and stuff on it was like people don't want that we consistently see and if you look at the shit that went huge last year the most profitable movies last year was the result of two movies that were the result of huge amounts of human effort the Barbie movie and the Oppenheimer movie say what you will about both of those movies Or Me 4 or so.

1:37:53I mean, I'm sure that one made some money. No, no, no, but it's still extremely hard work from 3D animators, however you feel about those disgusting creatures, the minions. And more than anything, like the Barbenheimer thing was certainly the most significant single movie trend last year, and that was the result of people wanting a shared experience. And a very specific aesthetic in both cases. Not something that changes every frame. Not wanting to go, hey, did you see that movie last night? Well, I saw the version that was made for me. People don't actually want personalized content I don't want AI music generated for me I want music that I can share And that's in some kind of cultural conversation With other people who also enjoy music Who I can talk to that about And compare it What did you think of that speech at the end of The Great Dictator?

1:38:40Well when I watched The Great Dictator Charlie Chackle just turned to the screen and said Everything's good, keep doing what you're doing Yeah my one Nick Fury Walked out and I invited him to the Avengers this is literally the future that these people want Travis Kelsey and Mr. Beast and everything Mr. Beast told me I look like Iron Man he said you can be president too when you grow up someone from Meta who works in their hyperreality division was talking about how they can start using AI and the metaverse let's say that you're watching an immersive live concert, something that me and all my friends do by the way why would you want to go to a real concert?

1:39:20Using MR, mixed reality, and the AI can sense your excitement and it can personalize your experience based on your favorite song or artist. So an AI Taylor Swift near the end of the song can come down from the stage and dance with you. Oh, that would freak me the fuck out. Or they can change the song based on what your favorite songs are. So it's using AI and the metaverse to create ultra personalized experiences. I have never done worse than we, but can you even imagine this while stoned? That would be horrifying. It's following your emotions. That actually does sound like a good time. No, it sounds like the idea of like stoned brain being like, well, this is what I, no, this is what.

1:40:01Me and Atticus Rocks are going to get down in the metaverse. Yeah, we're going to candy flip in the metaverse. You get it. You get it. I don't know what this is. I don't listen to it. No, I would rather play a game of spec ops the line with Taylor Swift and see her contemplate the necessity of war crimes. You're Taylor Swift the whole time. Shoot that white phosphorous, dude. Taylor Swift. I want to watch A.I. Taylor Swift process using Willie Peet on a school in northern Iraq. Travis Kelsey can't save you. You gotta shoot those kids. You gotta shoot those kids. They're gonna turn into Swifties.

1:40:37Nobody else was in that fucking bunker with us. No one else can understand what we had to do. And then you light your A.I. cigarette and get your little hit of A.I. nicotine. Well, thank fuck there's not a more crazed fan base than Linux people. I'm going to get killed. Doesn't everybody want to go to Metaverse Fallujah? I mean, come on. Meta-Fallujah. That's... Meta-Fallujah or Meta-Palluza? The Fallujahverse. Yeah. But no, it was great. The cinematic Fallujah universe. As I was sitting through all these AI panels, I get a text from both Ed and Robert about some breaking news regarding the Tesla truck bombing.

1:41:14Oh, yeah. Yeah, that he used chat GPT to plan it Sick First off, Green Beret training is not what it used to be Yeah, you should have figured that out They're taking us for a ride With whatever we're paying If they have to use, they had to use chat GPT to make a bomb Yeah My uncle was at Green Beret And I'll tell you one thing He did not need chat GPT to make an explosive device Every time I have you on I'm just I'm just like texting my lawyer I'm sorry Well what's interesting is he was specifically looking up as a detonator he was trying to use at some point Tannerite and he must have he either got a detonator to detonate the Tannerite but he was looking initially at trying to shoot the Tannerite to detonate it which would not have allowed him to kill himself That's the issue That's why he went with something else This might violate our terms and policy I love doing a show on the podcast about the future and every fucking conversation I've had without fail has been like everything I've seen is either fake or bad and I don't even mean this we get the occasional oh you're a pessimist motherfucker bring me some optimism Robert showed me one good thing today please please something oh shit what was it oh the suicide helicopter that'll kill everybody Okay, describe Imagine if you had a helicopter But it's two-thirds the size of a smart car And it can drive on city streets But it has no sight or rear-view mirrors All of that's a lot of cameras A ton of cameras And then when you're ready to fly It's a quadcopter And you can fly up to 200 meters in the air Great Because if you're under that, you don't need a pilot's license Do we have a price on this?

1:43:08Which she emphasized to me, under 10 grand Wow So little portable helicopters that you can fly for up to 20 minutes before the battery dies. 20 minutes? 20 minutes in the air. That's what you get. What happens if you run out of battery? Again, let's say you, a former Green Beret, decide to rent the suicide helicopter. Then you just fill that motherfucker up with fuel. All you need is 10 minutes. As long as you tow it up in your truck outside of whatever building you want in 9-11. Robert, you can't say that. Look, this is never going to be a real product. I do love they made like a kamikaze simulator.

1:43:46No, yeah, that is what it is, right? Yeah. I swear to God. You can be your own. I was like, I do genuinely ask the question of did you see something you like in good faith? No. Every time. No. And every time it's just someone being like, no. You don't want to dive bomb into the street? I don't. I love committing no crimes. I'm the king of the hair. I'm the king of the highway. we're calling it the tora tora tora oh god I've got to wrap this up before I get in any more legal trouble even the solar powered Peltors are not the I don't think they're the military gunshot safe ones no no they are I saw them what are you talking about Peltors are high grade adaptive headphones the ones I saw had a mic output too They look just like my Peltors.

1:44:40They didn't have the indent to wear under a helmet. I think these were workplace Peltors because Peltors make a lot of different models of noise-canceling headphones, and only certain ones are used for military or law enforcement or gunshot suppressing. But it looked to me like they were actually the Peltors that you get where they're not attached to a band so that you can attach them directly to a helmet, and they had instead attached them to a solar band. Maybe I need to go check on it tomorrow. That's what they get like to me. But those were promising. And I talked to him specifically about using it for hunting.

1:45:16Okay, okay, okay. So we found one thing. It was pretty cool. Like headphones that can suppress loud noises but allow you to continue to converse while shooting that charge themselves. So you never need to worry about batteries. How do they charge themselves? Photovoltaic band. That also can be charged by lights on the inside. That's very cool. Yeah, that's neat. We found one product, everyone. We can wrap the show up then. Okay, Robert, where can people find you? People can find me at I Write OK on Blue Sky and X the Everything app. And then we have a podcast called It Could Happen Here. We'll be talking more about CES and where the technology industry is going.

1:45:54A very good place. Gare, where can people find you? Also on It Could Happen Here with Robert Evans. And on Twitter, sorry, X and Blue Sky. Wow. at Hungry Bowtie. And Ed, where can we find you? Big Black Jacobin on Twitter and on Blue Sky and then This Machine Kills and techbubble.substack.com And you can't find me at the gym, but you find me at the bank. I'm at Zitron. You can find me at Zitron and everything. Yeah, I am... I'm excited to get you on the show floor, Ed. I can't wait, but I really could. It's so crazy. I don't want to go. I have not been on YouTube. downstairs yeah you do i have a lot of food i'm gonna roll in the slot tomorrow you're gonna love it okay everyone thank you for listening to the wonderful better offline now you'll hear a really like jaunty theme which matt asowski our producer did and a bunch of stuff that you continue to fucking complain about me not updating which only makes me want to leave it you should use a ai generated music like in that great uh that great heist video last night personalized every listener gets a different outro song.

1:47:02Every listener gets a different outro song. They are all Billy Joel's uptown. Can you imagine? That's the only outro again. All right, we're going out now, but just to be clear, can you imagine the shit that the people on the forum, on the Reddit, I'm 100 years old, on the forum. They're on the message boards about me again. Who are you emailing me? Anyways, thanks for listening, everyone.

1:47:30Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Ossowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at matosowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I.com. You can email me at ez at betteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.wheresyoured.at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

1:48:35Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Did it occur to you that he'd charmed you in any way? Yes, it did. But he was a charming man. It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story, because this ties together the Cold War with the new one. I often ask myself now, did I know the true Jan at all? Listen to Hot Money, Agent of Chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:49:21Do you want to hear the secrets of psychopaths, murderers, sex offenders? In this episode, I offer tips from them. I'm Dr. Leslie, forensic psychologist. This is a podcast where I cut through the noise with real talk. When you were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like snooze. We ended up talking for hours and I was like, this girl is my best friend. Let's talk about safety and strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones. Listen to Intentionally Disturbing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Gemma Spegg, host of The Psychology of Your 20s.

1:49:55This September at The Psychology of Your 20s, we're breaking down the very interesting ways psychology applies to real life, like why we crave external validation. I find it so interesting that we are so quick to believe others' judgments of us and not our own judgment of ourselves. So according to this study, not being liked actually creates similar pain levels as real-life physical pain. Learn more about The Psychology of Everyday Life and, of course, your 20s this September. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's start with a quick puzzle.

1:50:27The answer is Ken Jennings' appearance on The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs. The question is, what is the most entertaining listening experience in podcast land? Jeopardy truthers believe in... I guess they would be Ken-spiracy theorists. That's right. They gave you the answers and you still blew it. The Puzzler. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.