AI & Crypto: Robovan Transforms Transport, AI Tongue Takes Over, TikTok Cuts Jobs

0:00This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It is October 18th, 2024, our weekly business news of the week. Whatever random shit we'll get into. You never know with this crew. So this is Brianna over here to my left. Hey. What's up? Chris Hansen in Miami. What's up, Chris? What's up?

0:44Hey, ready to bring the heat, ready to bring the thunder from down under here in South Carolina. South Carolina. Is this a podcast or a wrestling match? Or I know what Brianna was thinking. She's thinking. Thunder from down under. She knows what that is. I didn't even think of it until I said, I'm like, I think that was like a mail review thing or something, right? It's like a Magic Mike type of thing. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know if I can pull that off. It's also a deserted Outback Steakhouse, I think. Yeah. Yes. Thunder from Down Under. It's a show in Las Vegas. I'm going to let Chris pull that off.

1:21I'm a happily married man, but Chris has not yet crossed the barrier. If this doesn't work out, maybe Vegas is showtime, baby. Yes, Vegas. Miami should have something like that. Miami's like, yeah, kind of Vegas. South Beach? It might. Yeah. Not that I go, but. South Beach Thunder? Who knows? But look, I will say this. I'll just get right into it. I am wearing a hoodie today. It's a little chilly in South Carolina. And not just any hoodie. Talking about that Brandon Bills gear. You know what I'm talking about. This thing is tight. And I don't mean like, you know, medium tight. I mean like tight as in comfy and looking good.

2:04Appreciate them for always sending us the best gear. We've got hats, hoodies, t-shirts. You know, we're taking the BS out of business and they're taking the BS out of dealing with custom merch because that's what they do. They do it for us. They do it for you to make your brand stand out. And I just want to get right to them because I'm feeling, hey, this is South Carolina for you though. We go from, you know, sweating like a week ago, like 88. And, you know, it was like a balmy 40 this morning, I think. I'm like, okay, I'm going to rock that brand ability. I didn't want to. It's been staring at me in the closet, like, you know, shooting through me like, oh, I'm going to wear it.

2:40No, it's 87. I can't put it on. I'll burn up. I noticed there's no transition between when the air conditioner goes off and then the heater turns on. That is South Carolina. You don't get like, oh, we're going to get some 60s, low of 60, high of 70. This isn't California. No, you go straight from 88 in the day, 40 in the morning. And next week we'll have, I looked, it'll be like 82 at night or daytime and like 47 at night. 40 degree swings. So you always got to run that power. Yeah, exactly. No break. That's how it is. Hope everyone out there is doing well Whenever, wherever You're listening, hopefully you're watching So that number one, you can see this gear I'm rocking, I'm rocking my boy Sean Whalen's hat too Lion's not sheep Hope Sean's doing well, haven't talked to him in a little while Had him on the show a couple years ago But always following him Super good motivation guy I like Sean But I will say I am, you know Watching our numbers on YouTube climb up And if you're not watching on YouTube or Spotify.

3:51You got to watch us. You know, you got to see just how beautiful Brianna, how pretty Chris is. You know, you got to deal with me. And, but you come to look at them. You come to listen to me. Maybe, maybe neither, but we would appreciate if you go subscribe on YouTube or just make sure you got us followed on Spotify or Apple. That's how this works, folks. You get the automatic downloads. We need those downloads for these sponsors. Come on. That's how this works. You You get free content, and we support our sponsors. So give them a shout. Chris, how's the week been in old Miami there? It's good.

4:30It's quiet. I mean, Florida last week was crazy with all the hurricane stuff, so I think it's settled. The weather's been fairly nice. Yeah. We're enjoying a break from the rain. Yeah, exactly. Hopefully no more hurricanes. I don't know. Is it looking clear right now? I mean, so far, so good. Supposedly, there's a cold front rolling in, but it doesn't feel very cool outside. What's the business vibe like in Miami these days? Like, you know, South Beach, that area. I mean, you're hanging out with people. I mean, with the election and everything, like what's sort of the temperament? I think South Beach is always popping.

5:13I mean, at least when I've been out there, restaurants are still busy. People are going out. You know, I mean, but again, that's South Beach. That's probably a lot of tourism. So it's like Vegas. People always got money to come spend here. But the local businesses I speak with is definitely a little bit of it's a little slow right now. But we're also coming into season with all the snowbirds coming back down. So you can see that just in the traffic. You know, you got way more cars on the road now than you did two months ago. Yeah. You got the old slow folks. Are they slow or are they aggressive?

5:52They're slow, bro. They're very slow. You're like rocking behind them like, okay, we're going 40 in a 60. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you can get up to 60 in Miami. I was driving freaking Chris's Ferrari, and it's like you've got the speed machine, and I couldn't get it past like 45. It's like there's just so much traffic. Yeah, yeah. The traffic is getting bad in Greenville, too. I'll tell you what. Wasn't expecting that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. G Vegas traffic, baby. Surprisingly thick sometimes. Yeah. I tell you what. I live 0.8 miles from work and coming through downtown. It's been taking me like 14 to 16 minutes.

6:36Like 0.8. Yeah. Yeah. Not eight miles. 0.8. 0.8. I go. It's over the river and through the woods to kind of get over here, though, from our house. You could throw a rock and probably hit your house from here. Definitely hit a driver close to it. But that's why I'm getting me like an e-bike. So I'm going to have Natalie, who's our sponsorship driver. We're going to find like an electric motorcycle company. I got like an e-bike now, but it's not quite like motorcycle-ish enough for me. I need like a little electric motorcycle. I did see, in case you're interested, somebody here parks their Razor scooter.

7:13You can probably get one of those. I'm not going to scoot. I'm sorry. Like, I got to draw the line somewhere. Like, the scooter is just not me. I know adults ride them now. They got the adult scooters. But I'm too big for that. Not only am I an adult, but I'm a big adult. So, it's like, do you see me riding down the trail on the scooter? Like, hey, guys, coming through. Look out. Beep, beep. Big guy on a little scooter. I'd be ready for it. Yeah. No. I don't think so. I want, like, Cafe Racer. You know? Like, well, I've got my eye on a couple. We'll see what we can pull off here. If it's not a sponsor, I might just have to buy one.

7:48Yes, you heard it here, folks. Sponsor Ryan needs a motorcycle scooter. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of money, if you're interested, I have an article here from CNBC. It does look like things in the business news world are picking up this week. Last week was a little bit quiet. And this week we have GM investing$625 million in a joint venture to mine EV battery lithium in the U.S. So GM is establishing a joint venture with Lithium Americas Corp. That includes automakers supplying$625 million in cash and credit to the company. So it looks like sourcing these EV materials is coming out of Nevada. Brianna's a little bit of a conspiracy theorist.

8:35So I'm just going to let our audience know this. You're going to learn this about her. I think this is a setup for us to somehow talk about the North Carolina. If you follow on Facebook all the conspiracy theories about the land in North Carolina, is this a setup to actually get to that? It's not. It's truly, truly not. I'm sure. I thought that was a setup, too. I was like, don't tell me they're about to start mining in North Carolina, bro. No. But somewhere else So you're just This is signaling Virtue signaling that this is a thing This lithium mining And it might take places Some places not in North Carolina or South Carolina This is in Nevada But we could do a spinoff show That's just Chris and I And our conspiracy series The right about now Conspiracy series There we go I like it No, I actually just, I pulled this article because I thought it was really good.

9:35I liked to see money being spent, you know, pulling resources from America for American companies. So, you know, obviously we get a lot of our resources from overseas. I think it's good that we invest in pulling our own resources here. I mean, one way or another, the battery thing is not going back in the bottle. That genie is not going back in the bottle. You know, I think we've realized that not every car is going to be electric by 2030. But the battery thing is moving forward at a high pace. And so if we can make the materials, mine the materials here, keep as much of that happening here, like you said, driving jobs, driving opportunities, and then obviously our own resources, that's extremely important and newsworthy.

10:22Because I do think, you know, you were talking about the electric motorcycle thing. The battery technology has come a long way. the things that can be, I mean, think about all the yard tools, all the stuff, like the stuff that just had had to be gas 15 years, 20 years ago. Now, I mean, there's, I don't know, South Carolina, we don't need it, but snowblowers, like electric, like chainsaws, which is kind of scary. My dad's been using an electric chainsaw cutting up trees from after the hurricane. That scares me a little bit because I feel like you need that noise feedback because it's a chainsaw.

10:56I think you almost need that just to remind you how dangerous it is. It's just be like, oh, you quietly cut your arm off. Oh, yeah. Like, well, that's not good. But blowers, I got a blower that practically like moves my house off the foundation. It's like. Is it electric? It's electric and it's strong. I still have a gas bar. We have like the, I don't know, 600 gas power backpack leaf blower from when we lived on a farm. And we're in like our little subdivision house with it. Yeah. But the battery technology has come a long way. A lot of things are using it. So if we can mine it here, I do think more and more vehicles, you know, I can get behind the motorcycles and scooters and all that stuff.

11:40I don't know how many, you know, if you got to take cross country, these batteries have come a long way before you have to be charging every, I don't know how far. That's kind of been my, I like the Rivians. They're stylish. It's probably like the coolest styling that I feel like. But I've just been on the fence because I don't even drive that far. But if I want to hop in the car and go to Nashville or something, I ain't making it in one of those things. Not on one charge. Because you can go an estimated 420 miles on one charge in the Rivian. Yeah, I don't think that's getting Nashville. Nashville's about 600 miles, 550 maybe.

12:17or close. And so, but, and that's, I don't think of that as that far. It's like five or six hours. And I don't know. I think it only works if you find a charging station that's like conveniently located. So you're going to stop and have lunch. So you plug in, go into the restaurant, have lunch. And then when you get back out. I'm Clark Rosewall, baby. This is how long can we tolerate in the car to get there? Oh, I'm not. Oh, I'm like, oh, I'm going on a road trip. I'm going to get my snacks. Oh yeah. You stop once at the beginning. And you load up, you know, and this is like Dumb and Dumber too.

12:50We get the glass bottles. You got to go? Here, take the bottle. Oh my gosh. Well, speaking of electric vehicles, I don't know if you guys saw this, but Elon Musk unveiled the Roboven. It's a Robo-van, but we're calling it Roboven. It is a robot taxi. It looks like this. Yeah, it's pretty spiffy. so Tesla had a pretty big week this week I did not include it in our news articles but I don't know if you guys saw he launched a spaceship I don't know if that's the right term and then it came back and he caught it in like a little thing and it caught it it was really cool I saw the video the robo van thing I didn't see it live or like I haven't checked all every single article I thought it was getting like panned for some reason it's not being that great I don't know But I don't know if that's just the mainstream news now hating on everything Elon does because, you know, he's pro-Trump.

13:51Or if it really was lackluster. I don't know. Chris, did you see any of that? Yeah, I saw more people talking about the actual robots that they revealed. Yes, Optimus. Optimus Prime. I also read that they were not autonomous, that they were still humans controlling them remotely behind. So you had like a robot bartender that was communicating. Well, you still had a human somewhere on a control center controlling this. So they were kind of building up to like a Steve Jobs type of thing. It's like you have this big hype release, but like the technology is still not like there. It's not that great.

14:31So that's what I took from it. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about all the robot stuff. It freaks me out, but it's definitely interesting. I just dropped a link with a video to the van if you guys want to check it out. And, yeah, I heard the same thing that you heard, Chris, that the humanoid optimist was like there was somebody speaking through it. So they were like serving drinks at the event that Elon had. But, yeah, it still was like human controlled robot, which I kind of like the idea of a human controlled robot. I don't need a robot taking over my house.

15:13I've seen a lot of movies Yeah, the movies are just kind of like Remote robot operators Yeah, exactly Sitting at home with their robot body Exactly Yeah, it'll be like the robots doing the job The human used to do, like checking out at the grocery store But the human sitting at home on a computer Controlling the robot That's wild The robot taxi thing makes sense to me You know, like But it's, I still, I don't know where the conversion of, you know, humans on the road versus robots on the road, like how you cross those paths of the reality of them having an accident versus a human, even if it's the human, then it just seems like that's an all or that's past my pay grade.

16:02but like it feels like an all or nothing proposition like if you moved into a new like if we build a new city and day one every vehicle was a robo tech robo taxi you know so that it's all powered that way versus the intermix of old tech new tech robots non then that seems feasible I don't know how we're going to interject these two worlds together in a safe and legally enforceable way I think I'm more comfortable driving on the roads with robots than I am driving on the roads with Joe Schmo who may or may not be a licensed driver. Well everybody's on their phone anyway and so it's like alright we can acknowledge that or not and like get some robo vans going and I'd be fine taking a robo van to work I just don't really want to get hit by some robo idiot that's texting.

17:01Which we know who that is. Probably my 15-year-old that just got his license. And I have to smack that kid around. That's so scary. I know. It's like, ugh, disable your phone immediately every time you get in a car. I think that's a feature for that. They have these things. This is not an ad, but if they would like to sponsor us, we would love it. It's called a brick. And you can stick it, like, on the dashboard. of your car and you QR, it's like a QR code. You scan it and it like disables all the apps on your phone. So you can only call. So if you have an emergency, you could call. I probably should get that.

17:35Yeah. I'd stay off mine for the most part, but I'm, I'm not immune to it. And I, I'd rather almost just have the kind of like take the bullets out of the gun at that moment. Like don't even be distracted. Yeah. And then the cool thing, but I want to choose to not be distracted and not have, you know, someone choose it for me. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. In other news, I have some Las Vegas Raiders news. That's always weird to say as somebody that is from California. LA Raiders. And grew up with them. Or Oakland Raiders. In Oakland, yeah. So Oakland used to have the Raiders and the A's, and now it has no teams.

18:14Tom Brady and partner Tom Wagner to pay over$200 million for a stake in the Las Vegas Raiders. NFL owners approved former superstar quarterback Tom Brady as the minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. And I have a quote here from Tom Brady. I'm eager to contribute to the organization in any way I can, honoring the Raiders rich tradition, while finding every possible opportunity to improve our offering to fans. And most importantly, win football games. Tom Brady's NFL legend, Hall of Famer to be. Like, why do you want to own part of a team? Like, is it just that profitable to say you own part of a team?

18:57I'm surprised it was this team. Yeah. Probably because it's for sale or something. Or just being in Las Vegas, I guess, if you're going to buy one. The most potential with all the stuff around it. But I don't know. Like, minority stake. Because these teams go for like$3,$4,$5 billion. So$200 million is a lot of money. But that's only like, I don't know, 10 % stake maybe. 8 % what's the motivation just to say you're a minority owner what do you think Chris I mean obviously he's got a passion for the game but I don't know anything about the profitability or margins on NFL teams but for me my thought would be it's probably more of an emotional investment I would think staying involved in your passion who knows man I'd love to know.

19:52Yeah. No, I think it makes money. I mean, it's very, very profitable. I think it's both. Yeah, I think it's a profitable passion investment probably. Maybe he feels he can help the team. I wonder if it's also like, I mean, Brady's, I don't know what his net worth is. It probably, he's probably not a billionaire, but he's not probably far off of it. And maybe it's like to eventually own the whole thing. It says that his 200 million is only 5%. Yeah, that sounds right. Um, let's find out his net worth, um, is 300 million. Yeah. So 4 billion to buy it. If 5 % of them do my math, right? So, but you know what, with all his deals and his clothing line that's now, uh, intermixed, they partnered with the shoe company that I'm forgetting the name of, but you know, He might get to where he could be in that territory.

20:50I would assume him being involved is going to up the valuation alone. You know what I mean? It's already going to appreciate for just this article. Yeah, it's the biggest influencer deal in history. But he actually paid. But his value went up because of his own name, image, and likeness. right that the team value went from four billion to five billion so his 200 million immediately went up in value that makes sense but i think that the raiders will benefit from having him you know be a part owner of their team for sure yeah i mean you know i've yet to see brady tied to anything that tends to go sour.

21:38The guy is one of the greatest players in the history of the game, definitely the best quarterback ever. And then just his work ethic and seemingly stand-up values as far as what I can see, I don't think it's going to hurt the organization. It's going to help. But I don't know how that translates to wins and losses. I will say that team has had a hard time holding success in the NFL. Yeah, they've had their moments in Oakland like 20 years ago and a blip here or there, but they're not a historical winner. Yeah. I would agree with that as a 49ers fan.

22:22In other news, AI-related news, I thought this was an interesting article, Ryan, that you had shared AI tongue distinguishes between Pepsi and Coke. Researchers at Penn State developed an AI-based electronic tongue using a graphene-based transitioner combined with artificial neural network. Excuse my tongue. Everybody loves a good graphene-based transistor. I got four of those at home, but what about you, Chris? There's a lot of word jumble in this one. Yes, it's word salad. But basically, there's an AI tag that can distinguish between tastes, specifically Pepsi and Coke. I thought it was super interesting.

23:16I can't even distinguish between Pepsi and Coke. I can definitely distinguish between Pepsi and Coke. Pepsi's sweeter. Coke's a little more fizzier or whatever, at least to me. Like it's, I can definitely distinguish between the two. Now Coke Zero is the bomb. Like it's the best of all worlds, especially Cherry Coke Zero. If I could only have one drink and it wasn't a beer, it would be Cherry Coke Zero. It's delicious. If I knew it was healthy, I've backed off of it. I kind of got into a dangerous spot where I was drinking like five a day. And now I have one a week. like literally that's it one a week but uh i could totally tell the difference between the two i just think this is fascinating to me maybe just because it's an electronic tongue and i'm 12 years old but and the word salad you know makes me think of other salads but we'll just stay away from there Chris, what do you think about this AI tongue?

24:24My question is why? What's the goal here? What are you trying to solve? What is this accomplishing? Is this for people that don't have taste buds? No, it's like for future development of food, it can help when you're as a taste tester for different things, I think is how I would sort of see it. It mimics the human taste system. So it will have the ability to maybe. yeah but i think from my experience everyone's individual what they like what tastes good what's bad the level of spice or not spice you know what i mean it's like it's subjective how do you right how do you say like well this is this is gonna if i'm developing products which i assume this is for oh this is gonna go really well but they do there's a norm though like there's things that taste that the majority of people think tastes good and there's always going to be individual tastes but i think all brands taste test foods they're developing and go okay did at least 60 of the people that taste it go oh i like this taste versus that taste yeah and i would take more jobs man yeah all the damn jobs stay at home moms you know taste testers or whatever they are who i don't know who's a taste tester well i've never been asked i'd be perfect i'm a good taste tester.

25:43I think that it's a little bit scary because what it reminds me of is how like chemically motivated our food processing system is. And like basically like manufacturers of food are manufacturing not food. Right. And so it will aid in that process. I just wonder, you know, if every movie is going to become reality, which it seems to. So following that track of scientific, you know, reality here. At what point are we like those movies where, you know, you go up to a Coke machine and you, you know, hit your meal of the day, like where it's, I mean, it is probably processed food, but because like, you know, the earth runs out of certain resources or whatever.

26:30Like it probably does. I hope none of my family generations have to see it, but there comes a day where won't we have to rely on some amount of food engineering i mean you would hope not i guess that would be a question for like the health of the topsoil and farming and like you know if we develop as a nation to where there's no you know there's cement over everything right there's no farmland i could see that happening yeah yeah i'm just i don't want that to happen but that's why it's so important to grow a garden. I've got one. You're still producing tomatoes. Nash came in yesterday with like seven.

27:10I'm like, what is going on? I still have a bunch of cucumbers in my fridge that Ryan gave me from the garden. See, like it's unbelievable. I can't believe how well the soil does with plutonium in it. I didn't know that would work so well. Are you joking? I'm joking. Like what's plutonium? Like, oh, my God, I ate some of that already. No, kidding. Another AI related article here. We got a lot of AI going on in the world, which obviously, you know, if you haven't embraced it already, it is time to embrace AI. TikTok pivoting to AI moderators. Looks like TikTok is transitioning to AI driven content moderation, leading to nearly 500 layoffs, mainly in Malaysia.

27:56Yeah. I mean, if I had to watch TikToks all day and moderate that shit, I'd, you know, I'd just send a robot to it. I don't know. Give me the taste testing, but I don't want the moderating TikTok. It seems like a job for a good robot. I think so, too. It says definitely, like, more efficient, more scalable, more consistent in managing user-generated content across TikTok's global platform. I think there's going to be these lines where you feel like, okay, that seems right for AI and that doesn't. Like something that's more like this feels like right up the alley. Yeah. I mean, it's happening now on Instagram.

28:35Like the Algo robot will flag me for something and I can request it and then it goes to a human. And then it's up to their discretion. So... Yeah, the Algo robots don't like me because I post a lot of Trump content. An RFK. Yeah, they don't like me either. I don't know if they like me or not He's just posting the B content I know because I had violations This morning Like six of them I don't have any violations We've posted my opinion It's vacay related Usually or like firearms related Like if I'm Out in the woods with a gun or something I did get that once You can watch war videos all day of Ukraine and all that, but me with the picture deer hunting, no animal in the picture, just me and a gun is.

29:31I was out shooting my AR probably three years ago. I remember putting a story up about that, and that did get flagged. It's like, come on, whatever. I'm just shooting at a target. Just because it happened to be moving human doesn't make it that bad. Kidding. Joke. It's a bad joke. It's joking. Entertainment news show. No, it was a flat target on just a tree. And I was like, I think I went up to it showing where I had hit like a millimeter from the target. You know, I was so proud from 20 feet. But it's such an important. I could hit right on that target, 20 feet. No, it was like 200 yards actually.

30:12I think it's an important skill to have, you know, firearm safety, being a responsible gun owner. finding and securing your own food. Chris, good job for that. And being self-sustainable. Definitely good skills to have. I might not be able to shoot a deer but I'll wrangle one up and choke it. Knock it to you. Your electric scooter. High powered electric scooter catcher. Yeah, running right into them. Yeah. I'll shoot them. let's see. Chris, what is going on with Bitcoin in the news today? Bitcoin's up. Last time I checked before the show, I think I saw it was up like 10 % for the week. So it's up near 67, 68 ,000.