Hard Fork Live, Part 2: Patrick Collison of Stripe + Kathryn Zealand of Skip + Listener Questions

23:46It's Polish Ristri Press. And then one I read reasonably recently that kind of blew my mind was The Demon Under the Microscope, which was, you know, you all know that penicillin was the first antibiotic. Except it wasn't. There was one before us. It changed the world. The story behind its invention is very interesting. So those are my two. Great. Patrick Carlson, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

24:20When we come back, even more of Hard Fork Live.

24:59Well, Casey, we're wearing what I would call robot pants. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, and why are we wearing these robot pants? We are wearing these robot pants because it gives us a great excuse to talk to Catherine Zeeland. Yeah, so Catherine Zeeland is the founder and CEO of Skip. They're the company that makes these pants. The company spun out of X, the Google experimental research division, not the social media network owned by Elon Musk, in 2023. And since then, she's been working on this exoskeleton movewear, like these pants, which have been called e-bikes for walking. Let's bring on Catherine Zeland from Skip.

25:42Thank you, Catherine. Of course. Thank you. Good to see you. You guys didn't see, but backstage, we just did the best quick change in theater history. I just took my pants off in front of Patrick Hollison. So, Catherine, in a few words, tell us who your products are for and what problem you're hoping to solve. So, I'm sure I'm not the only one here who's got a loved one that struggled with movement, or maybe you've got knee pain or had an injury. And so at Skip, what we want to do long term is help anyone, you know, achieve whatever they want to do, regardless of any kind of mobility impairment.

26:18This is our first product. This is the Mogo. And this is actually aimed at people who want to go hiking. But often, you know, they may be struggling a little bit either with knee pain or with kind of reduced mobility. So an e-bike is a really great analogy. It just kind of particularly helps with the inclines, steep hills and stairs, things like that. But then eventually will help hopefully everyone. So tell us, like, what is in these, you know, folks who may be sitting a little further back may not be able to see but in addition to these pants which i believe you you partner with arcterics to make these pants there's also some you know pretty uh heavy machinery on here so what is this stuff doing yeah so the real magic is kind of these lightweight motors here's one i prepared earlier um and really it's only in the last decade or so that robotics has gotten efficient enough affordable enough light enough you can have something this small that can do up to maybe 40 % of like a healthy person's muscle forces.

27:11And so there's a motor that's kind of providing physical oomph. And then built into the pant, those near the front can maybe see this sort of a little bit of a cuff situation to help transfer that force to the body. And I know that, you know, one of the things that these pants can do is help you stand up, which you were sort of explaining to me is so helpful for folks who are older and need, you know, some help with that. And I thought, I need that help now. so I think your market may actually be larger than you first suspected yeah and I'm actually having a similar problem because I don't know if you noticed but I'm quite pregnant and I wasn't going to say anything thank you it's eight months Catherine joined us at eight months pregnant so please do give her a round of applause

27:59um and all of a sudden yes I also need help walking upstairs and standing up out of chairs Now, do you envision a world where lots of people are wearing kind of exoskeleton-type movewear, or do you think this will primarily be for people who have mobility issues? I think a bit of both. So I think if you're truly able-bodied, a product like this is probably just not worth your time necessarily. But there's a huge range of people who might be recovering from an injury. They might be pregnant. They might have a joint pain. They might have had a surgery. And so I think probably most people at some point in their life will use one of these products.

28:34And we also do R &D and things like Parkinson's disease and people who have more severe issues as well. But for sure, it's much broader than the first set of products that you're seeing coming on now. As this technology develops and you're able to shrink it down, do you see a world where more able-bodied people might just choose to wear it because they like feeling a little bionic when they walk around town? I was going to say, are you trying to dunk a basketball? Is that where you're headed? I've been trying since 1992. For sure, yes. But I would say, like, if you just want to make your exercise harder, because this is something that some people ask, like, oh, can I get resistance mode?

29:07You could also try ankle weights. I think they're going to make a comeback. Yeah. That's good. Now, exoskeletons are a staple of science fiction. I remember watching movies as a kid that had exoskeletons. And lots of other stuff in those movies has become commonplace, but not exoskeletons and this kind of hardware. So why is this taking longer than other types of futuristic technology? I think there's two reasons. One is that hardware is hard and people are really sensitive to what's on their body. So you're wearing an early version of the prototype and it's probably not super comfortable. The fit's not always perfect.

29:40And you might tolerate an ugly or an imperfect robot if it's just in a factory. But when you've got to wear something, it's important that it's comfortable, that it fits really well, that it looks good. So the bar is really high for anything that's worn. I think the second reason is around AI. And so, you know, historically, exoskeletons and all robotics do very repetitive tasks, right? Like in a warehouse doing lifting was one of the first places you saw exoskeletons actually become used because it's the same task again and again. But when you think about maybe an older adult who wants to like move about their community, they're doing lots of different movements and they're moving in weird ways.

30:15And I'm like a fidgeter. So, you know, in one of our early prototypes, I was sitting at a very important meeting with my boss and I was tapping my foot because I was a bit nervous. and all of a sudden it thought I was trying to stand up and it turns on and it like throws my leg up and the whole table goes like, and everyone's water spills and there's chaos. That was actually the plot of Megan 2.0. That happened there. Okay, well, so we've talked a bit about this product. Anything else we should know about it before we see what it can do? You signed the disclaimer, right, backstage? No, no, we're just going to wing it.

30:52Excellent. So, Leah, let's stand up and maybe take us through the demo here. Yeah, so start by turning it on even while you're sitting if you want. There's a little button at the back here. Press and release, and the LEDs should change color. Mine is already blue. Does that mean it's on? No, that means it's now where you're going. Oh, hello. And so now you can try standing up and sitting back down. It's like a very common movement. Okay, I feel like I'm, yeah, this is giving mecca. Yeah, I feel like. Yeah, you can do some squats. It actually is helping me stand up. Yeah. No, this is great. I feel, yeah, like, you know when you have, like, a spotter at the gym?

31:31You wouldn't know.

31:35It's like that feeling when you're just getting a little boost. Yeah. Exactly. But the problem is you both strike me as quite fit, healthy people. Oh, thank you. We're always hearing that. Exactly. So we were trying to think, like, what's a way that we could make this, you know, a little bit more challenging for you. So you really can appreciate the technology. So I don't, have you noticed that there's a stair master behind you? You know! Stair master! I did, can I try? Yeah. With my, okay, please clap. Yeah.

32:10Wow, it's, yeah, it's, wow, we're really doing it. Okay, let's put the stairs on, okay. So, you know, like about a level three or four. Okay, I'm at five. I like to live on the edge. great great okay it's good it's like i feel um like what i'm doing is not climbing stairs it's like climbing stairs adjacent it's sort of like the the physical equivalent of vibe coding it's vibe i'm vibe walking right okay and one problem we have is like your brain is amazingly good at getting used to a new feeling and so sometimes people they're not even sure how much it's helping so if you want we could turn it off and then you might see the difference.

32:51Oh, you're going to remotely disable it? I'm just saying we can if you want. No, do it, do it. I want to experience this on my own two feet. Alright, we're going to turn you off in three, two, one, off. Oh yeah, that's much harder. I don't like that. Can you turn it back on? You want it back on? Yes. This is how you get your customers. They can't go back. This is genuinely how you get customers. I've heard of the hedonic treadmill, but this is ridiculous. Okay, you're back on now. Is that a video? That's good. That's good. Thank you. Thank you.

33:29I mean, I think that was all right. You know, I don't know that it couldn't be done better. Oh, would you like to try? Would it be okay if I tried? Hey, it's Casey just cutting in from the studio here. And you're not going to hear it in the podcast, but I do want to tell you what happened immediately after this, which is that I challenged Kevin to see if I could do better on the Stairmaster wearing the robot pants. And I did while accompanied to the song Work Bitch by Britney Spears. For copyright reasons, we're not going to include that in the show. But you can just kind of hum it to yourself or maybe play it on Spotify later today.

34:04I think when I kicked my legs up, the Stairmaster stopped because it was afraid for me. Yeah, but it's always a good sign when the worst part of our demo that goes wrong is the Stairmaster. So that's a win. Absolutely. That was incredible. Now, Catherine, tell people where they can find out more about these pants if they're interested. Yeah, so we're Skip. So skipwithjoy.com. I presume that'll be in the show notes. And you can pre-order them now. We'll be shipping next year. And we also do like rentals and experiences, especially for folk who like really want to achieve like a dream hike, but they're not able to at the moment.

34:38We're trying to help them do that and get feedback. And how much for the pants? A bit like an e-bike, so$5 ,000, fair-ish. Okay. And what would it take to bring that price maybe down a little? It would either take a discount code, if you know me, which I feel like we're all now friends. Yeah, or, you know, improved international supply chains, which is a different conversation. All right, well, Catherine, thank you so much for joining us. We really had a good time. Yeah, of course. Thank you. This was so fun. Thank you. Thank you.

35:19Well, Kevin, as we say at the end of so many podcast segments, it's time to get out of these pants.

35:47Casey, what's next? Well, I know what you're thinking, which is, can the show possibly go on longer? And yes, it can. Because here's the thing, and this I mean from the bottom of my heart, the very best thing about this show is hearing from you all. It's, look, when two men decide they love the sound of their own voices enough to start a podcast, you never know if you're going to hear anything back. But you guys email us each and every week. and we just wanted to talk to you directly. So here's what's going to happen. We have some people with roving microphones. They're going to be, you know, sort of scurrying around.

36:18And if you want to ask us something, you can ask us now. And like, we're going to let it go on for a little bit. So I don't know. Let's get the energy up, ask fun questions. If you have more of a comment, maybe save that for an Apple review.

36:32But we're excited to hear what's on your mind. Can I say, those of you who are wearing your hard fork hats, you look so beautiful. So good. What a memory you're creating for me. Okay, great. Now, does anyone have a question for the hard fork program? We have one right here, sort of middle.

36:53Vamp a little while she's going up the stairs, Kevin. Nope, all right, we're good. Okay, this is a very hard question. Last week you introduced the nickname Chapatiti. Chapatiti, yes. Which I have been using frequently. and I would like to know what nickname you would use for each of the popular models. Let's see. I'm going to let you handle that one, Mr. Improv. Well, of course, I feel like Gemini is kind of right there. Bing-a-ling-a-ling. Sometimes I do say cloud, just because I think it's like more of the authentic pronunciation. Make it two syllables. thank you for asking that yeah i'm serious that was the right energy okay what else would you like to know let's see i see one back here oh we see one right here who's pointing here that's you know what you point this one okay let's go right there hi i love listening to you guys so thank you it's a highlight of my week i feel like you have a better or broader view of what's happening in the industry than maybe a lot of us do so i might bring the vibe down a little bit but what are you the most concerned about when you look at these like evolving technologies and how they'll impact our lives?

38:13I think I'm most worried about the pace of change. I used to feel like when I left San Francisco, I was like going back in time about 18 months to anywhere else in the world, just in terms of the stuff we have here, you know, the cars drive themselves, blah, blah, blah. Now I feel like that gap is opening up and I'm really worried that the society as a whole is just not prepared either in terms of safety nets for people who may lose their jobs as a result of AI or other technologies, just in terms of like, it takes a lot of energy to absorb this much change all at once. And I'm just not, I'm not sure people sort of fully grasp what's happening.

38:52And I also, you know, we've been around the block, like, I know that even the best intended technological projects have unintended consequences. So we saw this happen with social media, all these companies said, we're going to save the world and connect the world and everything's going to be great. And we've seen what's happened with that. So I just, I hope that the folks in Silicon Valley, including some of the folks we've had on the stage tonight, are really thinking through some of the unintended consequences beforehand. Yeah. Like to the extent that anything that happened over the past decade just made you concerned about the ability of lawmakers to regulate technology.

39:23We're now heading into an era where I do believe the technology is going to be even more powerful than like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. We still have not answered a lot of basic questions about, for example, how do children use this product safely? When should they start using it? When should they stop using it, right? We ran out of time. I really want to talk to Sam and Brad about the fact that the same week that they're signing a military contract, the same week that the Times is publishing a story about people, you know, experiencing these extreme mental health challenges with ChatGPT, they're signing a deal with Mattel, and they're saying, we're going to put it into toys.

39:55Now, you know, I talked to OpenAI about that, and they said, well, we're going to build toys for families first and sort of kids 13 and up. But there's just a lot of unanswered questions here. And if I learned anything from the past 10 years, it's that you unfortunately cannot count on lawmakers to do any meaningful pushback. So honestly, one of the reasons why we make this show is because we just like talking to you about, here is a problem that no one actually has a plan for. So we'll keep doing that.

40:22Great question. I will call this person right here sort of in the dead center. It's going to be challenging to get the microphone. Just toss the mic. No, this will be fun. Everybody can sort of, how does the microphone get to this person? Okay. And we're going to pass it down. And that's community. Beautiful.

40:42Hi, I'm Hendrick. I love this show. I listen to it every week with my family. I'm a 13-year-old student, and I've always felt that I don't see much AI in my classrooms, in my friends' classrooms. and I was curious just to get your guys' opinion on how much AI you think maybe we should have in the classroom and how we should integrate it because I can see it from the teacher's perspective that it's like plagiarism. There needs to be a balancing act, but from my perspective and from how I've used it, I just feel like it's actually really useful. So I'm just curious to get your view. Thanks. Yeah, it's a great question.

41:23I think this is really crucial. I think a lot of schools reacted to ChatGPT and other AI chatbots by just sort of trying to stamp it out, banning it, detecting it. I think that was a mistake, and now many of them have sort of come around to trying to say, how do we teach with this technology and about this technology? I think AI literacy is a really important thing for schools to be teaching because these are tools that people are going to be using in their jobs when they graduate and go out into the economy, if there are still our jobs. and I think it's really naive to think that you're just going to take it out of the classroom now I do think that teachers and and schools need to revamp the way that they teach to sort of assume that people are going to have access to this stuff and maybe use class time more for discussion and face-to-face interaction and maybe assign homework differently but I I don't think this stuff is going away and so I think that the sort of enlightened schools are the ones that are sort of planning around its existence for the future?

42:19Yeah, thank you for the question. Thank you for listening. I think, you know, if I were 13 in this moment, the main thing that I would want to make sure that I took away from school was the ability to think critically. And I think the challenge is when I was in high school, I didn't know like how good is good enough at critical thinking. You know what I mean? I do believe that the more you use AI as a substitute for reading, for writing, your critical thinking skills are not going to develop to where they otherwise might. And so I think that is a good reason to make sure that you are actually, you know, writing the essays that are assigned to you and, you know, reading one out of every three books that's assigned to you.

42:59And I'll say that while so much focus is on the school stuff right now, I think very soon the conversation is going to shift to AIs as companions. And I have to say, I'm so much more worried about folks your age who feel like ChatGPT is a better friend to them than anyone that they know in their real life. That is such a dark path, and nothing is preventing us from walking down that path right now. So real friends over AI friends is what I would say about. Okay, great questions. You call the next one. Let's go up here, the balcony. Do we have a mic up there? No, I've picked the hardest possible spot.

43:36Okay. Oh, wow. You need the robot pants.

43:41Thank you very much, Kevin and Casey. Love the show. You guys are awesome. Of any of the stories that you've had in the last 18 months, I think about this a lot. Which one would make the best Black Mirror episode? The best Black Mirror episode to me is just you're trapped inside Italian brain rot. Like, you have an objective It's him to accomplish, but you have to get Crocodilini-Bombolini on board. Yeah, that comes to mind for me. How about you? I think the AI friend stuff was... I liked when you had the conversation with Turing, my AI friend. He couldn't be here tonight, by the way, but he sends his regrets.

44:23It was a configuration error. Yeah. So, yeah, that would be mine. Let's do a couple more. Casey, your call. Oh, how about right here? We didn't realize how big this venue was until we started asking people to run around with microphones. You know, like a t-shirt cannon with microphones. Hi. So you've had at least two different speakers tonight say that hardware is hard. And you showed us, you know, a partial expensive exoskeleton. And that's promising. but you know i really want uh the ai to get into a robot a personal assistant so that it can load my dishwasher it can do the laundry it'll fold the clothes and it'll put them in the right drawer have you talked to anyone who has a realistic timeline and roadmap for this it's it's funny we talked to several robots one thing we knew about this show was there was going to be a damn robot on stage.

45:25Okay. And so, and we're so thrilled with, with Catherine bringing her rig, but there are a number of other companies in San Francisco who are working on stuff like this. One of them is called physical intelligence. They've raised billions of dollars over the past several years. And the reason is that you can actually take a large language model, you know, sort of similar to a chat GPT, put it inside a robot and it's much more useful than it was before. So that's kind of the reason that people think we're about to see the step change and function. But to your point, hardware is hard. I would say that in 2028, you will probably still be folding your own laundry.

45:55But I could be wrong. I could be wrong. All right. Let's go right here. Less of a light question, but twice you mentioned that OpenAI has these new defense contracts, which to me is very concerning, especially when Homeland Security is like grabbing people off the street. so I'm curious like if you know more of the details of that and then just what your guys take our take is the way that these contracts tend to start is like there should be an AI assistant inside the Pentagon and you could ask it like what missile do I put on this jet and it's like you know

46:39that's like that's real that's like that's sort of what they are and that's like the foot in the door But to your point, like, yes, this goes like so many dark places so quickly. Facial recognition technology is already basically perfect. You combine that with AI systems, things get dark in a hurry. So, you know, I don't know what to tell you other than like, yeah, I'm super worried about it. And I actually think that a role of journalism in this moment is just to point out what tech companies are doing with the military and, you know, writing about what I imagine are going to inevitably some dark things.

47:12Yeah, I don't love it either. I have some real qualms about it. And it's interesting, like some of the people who are building this technology from the beginning were so concerned about the use of this technology for military applications that they actually started requiring clauses in their contracts and acquisition deals. DeepMind had a sort of famous clause in its Google acquisition deal that they couldn't use their technology for the military. Now, they've since sort of, you know, sort of adapted that. But I think the tension here is that there's so much money to be made. the defense department is has a huge budget they're willing to spend lots of money to sort of catch up in ai and yeah it it really um i don't love it and i i'm glad that there are people inside these companies who are uh who are sort of resisting that that pull all right i see somebody right here thank you so much uh long-time listener and i just have to say i hope you guys do this again here in San Francisco.

48:07Should we do it again? And I definitely feel like I'm listening to you right in my headphones, so whatever you're doing on stage is, you know, definitely trying to But you can't pause and you can't make us faster, which is great. I was really hoping Sam Altman would be here tonight. I'm so glad you guys got him. One of the questions I have for you guys and maybe in your vast experience of covering AI and everything that's come about. One of the important things to me is regulation and how that, is that going to be someone you feel that comes forward from industry who kind of makes a bundle and then sort of sees the greater good and then really sort of goes from sort of poacher to gamekeeper and I mean, how that's going to be a real quantum leap to my mind and to get to get congress and people really educated into how um things need to move forward for our safety and whether it's military or kids or any anything else it's such a it impacts so many different people in so many different ways i just thought do you guys have someone in your mind who'd be like top of mind that you would you would nominate for that role today or do you see someone like sam doing that in 10 years 20 years?

49:29I think we cannot look to the industry to lead this, right? I mean, Kevin, you know, asked about this during the chat, but where a lot of these folks start is, oh, no, the people building AI aren't safe enough. I'm going to do my own thing, and I'm going to do it differently and safer, and we're going to pass a lot of regulations, and then they get really successful, and they're like, I'm going to amend my comments about what I said, right? And so I think we just cannot sort of trust them to do that. There are a number of nonprofits who are working in this space, like the Future of Life Institute, that have really mobilized around this potential 10-year moratorium that we're seeing.

50:01But I will just say, 10 years to have no regulation at the state level is an extremely long time. If you believe anybody who's come on our show, in 10 years, that will be sort of the end of the ballgame. Very powerful intelligence is here. So what I hope is that as people learn more about this stuff, they push more. And I think we're going to need to see some sort of bottom-up public participation here, because it's not going to come from the industry. All right next yes Love the show it's been said over and over And I'll say we'll keep hearing it

50:36Several people that you've interviewed on the show And technology leaders you know there's a lot of techno optimism And I think a lot of it is well warranted But one area where I'm kind of not buying it is the and everybody will reap the benefits of the wealth and the monetary benefits of this. And I understand how the people who create the AI reap the benefits of the wealth, but I have never heard anyone talk about how that trickles down or gets redistributed, and I'm wondering what you've heard. Have you heard anything else? This is such a good question. This drives me insane. When people just come on the show and they say, you know, we had these guys on last week from Mechanize.

51:26They said, you know, this is all going to trickle down. We're all going to like have, you know, radical abundance. And it's like, that is a deliberate policy choice that many people do not want to make. That does not happen automatically. And so I think if I were, you know, running these companies, which I thank God I'm not, but like you actually do have to be out there advocating for the kind of world that you want to see. It's not just enough to build the technology. we also i also it drives me insane i'm just gonna get this off my chest i'm popping off tonight preach it people are always comparing this to the industrial revolution during the industrial revolution there was a 50-year period called angles pause where productivity and and profits went up but wages did not so workers literally for 50 years did not see the benefits of the industrial revolution what what worries me when people say this is just going to be like the Industrial Revolution is that they have not actually read their history.

52:19It sucked for a lot of people for a long time and I want them to know that. Yeah, thank you. All right. I haven't really called on anyone over here and I see a person at the farthest extreme of the theater. We just want to make sure our mic runners are getting their steps in. Yeah, the steps are in. The steps are in.

52:47Vamp, Casey. Oh, we're right there. Okay, great. Right here? Yeah, over here? Thank you so much. Love the show. I'll say it again. Yes. Long-time listener. So Casey in particular, I think you had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that you had a really clear picture of your definition of AGI, and I wanted to hear more about that. and Kevin interested in yours as well but Casey seemed like you had like a picture of it and so I want to hear it yeah and I want to say that like I'm not necessarily advocating for this as like a perfect outcome and I'm not like rooting for this has happened as quickly as possible but I work with an assistant who is amazing she helps me schedule things she helps me sell advertising she helps me help you with customer service if you're a platform or subscriber and you need to change your email address.

53:37So when people say AGI to me, I think, oh, it will do that. Do you know what I mean? And I think everyone in this room has their version of that. There is kind of the subset of things that you do that are mostly routine, that feel a little bit like drudgery to you, that are not the sort of creative part of your job that's exercising all of your human muscles. And if 0789 can just kind of do that layer of things, that would be AGI to me. Now, you know, I love my assistant i want to keep working with her so one question would be like well is there some new set of tasks that she could work on that's to be explored but when everybody is like agi it's just a marketing concept it's so fuzzy it's like no it would just do what my assistant did does that sound crazy a little bit okay you did talk about having an assistant a lot um let's do one more let's do one more and let's do it uh right up there yes Okay, I got it.

54:36So, gentlemen, last week, standing in my kitchen, chopping vegetables, listening to you earnestly try to give PR advice to Mechanize, and I almost cut my finger off because I was laughing so hard. Lose a lot of fingers that way. So I want to give the opportunity to give PR advice to four or five other companies that you think might need it right now. To PR advice? Yeah. Let's see. Who needs it right now? Meta could use some PR advice. And here's why. They think that when you go around saying, we're offering people$100 million, that people are going to be like, wow, that's so cool. When what it really means is, you would have to pay me$100 million to work at Meta.

55:27All right. I think that's everyone. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. You're the best. You did it.

56:14I'll see you next time.

56:28Marian Lozano, and Dan Powell. Video production by Sawyer Roque, Pat Gunther, and Chris Schott. You can watch this whole episode on YouTube, and you should, at youtube.com slash hardfork. Special thanks to the New York Times live event team, Hillary Kuhn, Beth Weinstein, Caitlin Roper, Kate Carrington, Chantal Renier, Melissa Tripoli, Natalie Green, Angela Austin, Kirsten Birmingham, Marissa Farina, Jennifer Feeney, and Morgan Singer. Thanks to everybody at SF Jazz, and thanks to the Brass Animals, our live band. Also special thanks to Matt Collette, Paula Schumann, Pui Wing Tam, Dahlia Haddad, and Jeffrey Miranda.

57:05You can email us at hardfork at nytimes.com, but you should know that we're on vacation right now.

57:29Thank you.