Is Technology Killing Creativity? (And how to stop it)

26:11There was a really funny thing actually on LinkedIn. I saw it on Instagram. I screen grabbed it and put it up on LinkedIn. And within like two hours of like four and a half thousand impressions, not a lot, but a lot in that space of time was something with no tags on it. And I said, things I'd rather do than ask ChatGPT. And one of them is ask a crow. Ask into the screaming winds, the howling winds. Ask the strange lady who feeds the birds. Look at an old book, anything. And I will do anything rather than ask ChatGPT. Let's talk about a few of the issues around it, OK? because they're very germane right now.

26:44And it's funny that you're actually talking to me on the podcast right now because even in the last few days, so many of these issues have risen, right? I mean, Grok, for example. Basically, tell people very, very briefly what is Grok and why it's in the news at the moment. So Grok is obviously, well, not obviously, Grok is an AI platform and it is part of the Elon Musk empire. and it is possible with Grok AI to issue and take an image of you or me or worse, a child and put in a prompt and said, remove clothing. And you can ask it to do any number of awful and vile things and it will do it for you.

27:24And it is utterly unregulated at the moment. And so when challenged about it, they said, oh, yes, sorry. OK, well, we'll stop making it free. We'll put it behind a paywall. So basically they've said, great. Well, we'll try and make money out of it then. God almighty, that's called pimping. Yeah, it's really, it's so bad. And I just, I think a lot of these things were kind of inevitable. So people have, there is an idea that you have to be for AI or against AI. And I don't think it's that straightforward. It's very nuanced. There's loads of positive use cases for AI, just loads of negative ones.

27:59So for me, I liken it to drugs. I say I'm all for, you know, chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Lord knows I'm all for HRT. But, you know, there's loads of good drugs, but I'm not for handing out fentanyl to teenagers on the streets. Like, that's a bad idea. And then I get so I think it's a bit like that. So there's really good drugs. There's really bad ones you need to regulate and we need to regulate for AI. There's really good use cases for AI and there's really appalling ones. And it's where do we regulate and where do we make sure that it's well applied? And there is a cost to all of it. So, you know, Grok is the big offender at the moment, but it's it's been possible and we've known it's possible for the longest time and we just need to get ahead of it.

28:43One of my earliest exposures, just as a person who reads a bit and watches TV and watches films and stuff, would have been back to 2001, a space odyssey, you know. So Stanley Kubrick made this film in about 1968 and it was inspired by writings by Arthur C. Clarke, who was a famous science fiction author, but also a futurist. A person who used to spend quite a long time envisioning the future. And it's peculiar because there is a video of him on YouTube from the 60s. And he's talking about what the earth might look like in 2020 or so. And he ain't far wrong. But in that film, there's a famous computer called Hal.

29:25Yes. And Hal ends up, you can't control Hal anymore. Hal controls them, which is like what we talk about. What we're having right now. And it's kind of coinciding with 1984 also happening. So there's a lot of the boys, the economists are always saying, you know, we should listen to the artists. They see the future first. I was on a panel last year, the year before Francis Rowan was chairing it. It was for the best acronym ever. Future of Fiscal Studies, FFS, were having a panel. And there was a guy from the Department of Revenue. There was one of the big four accounting firms. it was me and then there was Stephen Kinsella, the economist down in UL.

30:04And Stephen's great. But he's often said, and Dave McWilliams says it too, the boys all say it's like, oh, we should listen to the artists. They see the future first. It's that great quote. And I'm going, but you never invite artists to any of your panels. And I thought that was really interesting. I said, they've always been predicting the future. And that's why, again, I think this artist leader thing is really important because I actually think that these bad guy actors, they are creative purpose-driven people. it's just really bad purpose. So the only way to counter that is have really good purpose-driven people, creative purpose-driven people in an organisation.

30:40Just to sidetrack a second. Sorry, yeah. No, but this is, you're perfect. Just to sidetrack slightly because I'm just jumping around a little. I mean, you talk about these are creative, purpose-driven people. Just to sidetrack slightly on someone like Elon Musk, and you can put me straight about this as well, if you like, because I'm sure you know far more. I think that there's a kind of cult of personality and a myth built up around some of these people as well. I mean, for example, Musk has tried to spread this idea that he came to the United States with just a few dollars, that he was broke.

31:11Then there's a video of his father on the internet saying that they were brought up with Rolls Royces, that they went skiing every year in Samaritza. They were multi-millionaires. And so that seems to be a complete lie. Then there's the idea that he is just a boy genius, that he invented everything. He invented nothing. He invented nothing. I don't know of anything he's invented. He jumped on board on PayPal. He jumped on board on SpaceX. He jumped on board on Tesla. Well after these things were already created. In fact, the name Tesla was already created. The average person on the street might think, oh, Musk was inspired by Nikola Tesla, so named his electric car company.

31:48Nothing's in love. The short happened. It seems that he is a kind of a predatory opportunist, a capitalist and an investor. I think a predatory capitalist is probably the best way to describe it and entirely opportunistic and people then try and say they almost celebrate the genius and then and because of that they'll excuse him for the badness and I'm going that's like telling me you know Fred West was you know split the atom or something I said I couldn't give a continental he murdered loads of people Fred West split the atom you know what I mean history revisionism yeah did you not know Fred West split fucking atom well you know what I mean is like taking a really bad guy and said they did something really clever.

32:32Who cares? Yeah, I know. I don't care how clever you are if you're a bad person. Geoffrey Dahmer created the iPhone. There you go. It's just like endless. Good dude. Good dude. He then ate it, unfortunately. But you know what I mean. Any number of these people can be really clever. It's using your powers for good or using your powers for evil. I mean, that's when it comes down to it. And we all got to draw a line. So I live in Mullingar and there was loads of young lads from CBS in Mullingar at the Young Scientist last week and one of them had an economics project and it was the value of multinationals to the Irish economy.

33:06And what happened if one of them pulled out? And I said, bigger question is, boys, when he talked about all the jobs, I said, would you work for one of them? And they hadn't thought about it. And I thought that was really interesting. Would you work for one of them? We all have to make choices. I mean, I think Grok X right now, I'm not really sure. I mean, I don't know how anyone could stomach having that on their paycheck. I don't care what you do. you know you could be you know kissing babies all weekend. What about all the other AIs? Try and again think of my listeners if you can I mean just that there's there's a few AIs out there right?

33:37There's Gemini. There's Gemini. There's Claude. There's you know. Do they all do the same thing? They all kind of more or less do the same thing and there's loads of people who want to evaluate one over the other and to be honest with you I don't really I don't use them. Genuinely I don't and I I've never really used one. I've occasionally asked a question it's like going as an experiment to find something out but I've actually to see how good or bad the answer is but I don't use them. I know how to write an email. I know how to string a sentence together more or less. I know how to have an idea.

34:09And this is one of the things you're worried about isn't it? I want to protect my own neural pathways. I don't want a quick answer. I want to find out and again that's part of that artist mindset. It's the experimentation. It's the failure. It's the pivot. Oh you're so right. Why would you want to outsource that? This is the big problem. Joan this is the big problem isn't it? that it's not finding the answer that's important. It's the process by which humans go about finding the answer that makes us us. That's the joy. Yeah. Why would I want to hand over the joy? And then I was thinking of that lovely, famous quote by Descartes, I think, therefore I am.

34:42So if I don't think... I'm not. Then am I not? And how horrific would that be? Like, what is the point? So that's why there's another painting. It's called The Princess and the Pea. And it's, you know, this idea... That you did. That I did. And it's part of that series. and there's a crown and then there's all these mattresses and the pea at the bottom and a ladder. Utopia is not having nothing to do. It's not, oh, AI will do everything for us, we'll have nothing to do. We live for purpose, for problem solving, for process, for going through all of that. That is the joy and essence of life is to discover things and make things.

35:16I've even talked to people about this, this idea, I don't know if you've ever discussed this with people, but the idea of when are you at your happiest as a person? And I've like tried to think about this during my life and it keeps coming back to me when I've been happiest. I'm always happiness, happiest when I'm striving, when I'm not there, but striving. And I think striving is the verb I'm after. I'm under pressure. I'm working really hard and I'm just trying to make it to something. It's the process. But I'm fully energized and I'm sleeping. When I go to bed, I'm fully sleeping and I'm jumping up the next morning, continuing this.

35:53And it's a lovely, lovely feeling to be a human being who's just trying your arse off, but at something you really want to be trying at. So what I think is really funny is that we're going to remove all these boring, repetitive tasks, apparently, from our day jobs. What do we do on the weekends? Personally, I run with Mullingar Harriers. I do not run to get to the destination because the destination is the starting point. So it's the joy is in the running. It's not in the reaching the destination. perfectly emblematic. If the destination I'd just stay where I was. I'm just there already. Well no I mean 20 years from now they might have a thing going you have a choice.

36:30You can either run to Athenry or sorry run to Athai I'm trying to think of somewhere near to you. Run to Athai or Athlone. Athlone. Run to Athlone or input Athlone and we will bring you there in a second by teleportation. I think I well depending on what I'm going to do when I get to Athlone but the point of the matter is it's like when I go for a run I start at Millie's Bridge in Mullingar and we finish and start to the same place. So if the whole point was to get back to the end, why leave in the first place? So just stay where you are and then there'd be nothing to do and that would be utterly pointless.

37:01So it's children. You take a child for a walk or a pet. You take your dog for a walk and he's sniffing and running around. The joy for him, it's all that little discovery. For children, they'll stop and pick up every stone and see everything. So having said that with such passion, no, having said that with such verve and passion and vim, would you not think then that would you not be very, very worried about the chat GBTs of the world and young people using them rather than thinking? I am horribly worried about that. I think on Jim's podcast, I called it the numbed and dumbed generation. When we talk about and reflect about, you know, the state of the United States at the moment, and we talk about the opioid crisis there and the people on fentanyl walking around like zombies.

37:49That is how they are described. they are walking around like zombies. And we are numbing and dumbing these young people with a drug that has and will end up with them potentially walking around like zombies. And we are sleepwalking our way into it unless we call a halt. And what's happening is there's a really strong narrative around the FOMO, which is if we don't jump on board this bandwagon, you will get left out. And that's the capitalist system driving all of that. So we've got a lot of pressure to adopt the technology. I think some countries are making strides now, like Australia and Denmark.

38:27And you know what? No, not for under-16s. No smartphones. There's no need to bring them into the classroom. I'm really supportive of that. Is this something that we're looking at in Ireland? I hope so. I mean, I don't know officially whether or not we are, but I mean, you can only hope. I have a niece that she's away in school. she's in the Ursuline in Thurlis same school as Jesse Buckley and Eleanor's down there and she gets her phone for a half an hour at nine o 'clock at night and as a result of which it's not a habit for her to use it during the day I think I must know the only 16 year old on the planet I cannot get her to get her near her phone she's never on it she's never on it she's either running or she's horse riding or whatever but I think that's a really good habit for her there is a there is a believe I don't know if it's a trend or if you know about the trend but I've heard about a trend among young people recently younger or very young people about like Jomo, Joy of Missing Out.

39:20And they kind of put the phones away. And there has been a kind of a, apparently a little bit of a vibe there about that, about like they know about this. They know that it's dangerous. I think the number of projects I saw at the Stripe Young Scientist last week where the social and behavioural projects that the teenagers were looking at, a lot of them were about the impact of social media and technology has had on their lives. a lot of it on their self-esteem, a lot of them on their human interactions. There was one group of girls, they had one, I think it was the Ursuline girls, they had it on the pressure of unrealistic beauty standards by virtue of having looked at social media all day long.

39:59And I do think that is really damaging. You talk about esteem, right? We know about the, obviously we've talked a lot, people have talked a lot about the classic arguments about self-esteem and seeing these idealised versions of everything in life on the net. One of the other things it does to you as well is the, like, somebody described it the other day as having a relationship with social media is like an abusive relationship. So to wit, what is an abusive relationship? An abuser will always tell you something wrong with you. You know that you're wrong. You're bad. You're weak. You're fat. You're useless.

40:37You're a loser. But you know what? I can fix you. Just stick with me and I'll fix you. and that's what phones do. You put your phone on and they go, feeling like this, you know, you want to be, you want to get to the place you want to be, I can make it happen for you. It's just full of people like that and full of apps like that. It's basically telling you you're a loser the whole time but if you stick with us, we'll clean you up. It is one big sales device permanently there. But abusing. But very, it is abusive. It is, a lot of people are very vulnerable users and then there are others who are not even realising how vulnerable they've become to it.

41:15You even use the word users there. Sorry, I know that's... But they are, exactly. It's like a drug, so I'm a user. There are users. And yeah, no other industry calls their customers users, but we do. Social media calls them users. But I mean, I use it myself. And you do, you measure, it's the metrics. I mean, again, you put up a photograph and I think that's the really difficult part for younger people. they're putting up a photograph of their best version of themselves. It's filtered. They've scrolled through 20 different versions of the selfie with all these filters. This is the perfect version of me.

41:50And then someone tells them, that's horrible. Can you imagine then? And they say, that's the best version. That's the filtered version. I hear you. But you know what else it is? It's a lie about themselves. It's a lie, exactly. They've already lied. So they've basically put out an image of themselves which is a lie. They have convinced themselves that it's them, but it's not. So they're lying to themselves about themselves and then they're being abused about their own life. And they're asking other people to buy into it. But can I just say, it's not just teenagers. I know adults who are doing it.

42:19Yeah, of course. And they're putting images up that are all AI generated and you just go, it's just too fake. Did you see The Social Dilemma? No. Okay, so The Social Dilemma. Have a look at it. It's interesting. I'll just summarise it for you. The Social Dilemma is basically, it's a Netflix documentary. but the reason it stands out it's because it features some of the heads from the companies that left the company. So the people who left Instagram who were at the peak people who left all sorts of Facebook and everything who were at their peak and you know one of the things that came out because they're not all together in the things they're all talking heads but they're all edited so they're all far away from each other one of the things that came out of it was the common theme not one of them give their children phones.

43:03And I thought that was, I thought that was because they knew. They knew and they were going to do everything in their power to keep the phones away from the kids. Steve Jobs always did that. He never let his children near technology either. And it was, for me, that's a really big indication of how they see it themselves. I think it's interesting that you asked me, did I see it? And the reason I paused is because I actually don't read a lot of the books on tech or watch. I've never watched Black Mirror. Yeah. And there's a reason for that. Yeah. And it's, I explained this to somebody last week about paintings.

43:39For years, I never went to an art gallery. I never looked at paintings. Yeah. And the reason I didn't, it's probably why I'm so down on AI sometimes. The reason I didn't is because I knew the day that I wanted to start painting seriously. I wanted to know that those ideas were mine. I have the same thing. And so I don't, I try not to read too much about tech because I want to know that the ideas that I am having and the patterns that I am identifying, I need to know that I'm doing that. Should I chip in? Yes. I have the same phobia about comedy. I am reluctant. I love comedy and I love comics.

44:19but I'm reluctant to look at their material for fear that their material will subconsciously go into my neural pathways and that it will make my comedy be reflective of theirs not necessarily to copy them but almost to influence over Julie like I'll go let's take a comedian let's call Neil Delamere and I see him doing and he's killing it he's bringing the house down and going somehow that's going into the back of my brain must reproduce that so I go I'm not going to watch him because I don't want to be Neil Delamere as great he is he is and I want to be just myself. Yeah, and I think that's, so you totally get that.

44:55And so that's why I don't read a lot of the books or look at a lot of the paintings because that sense of, I want the joy of that moment, that eureka moment when I get something and it's like, that's what that is. I need to know for my own integrity for myself that when I put that out in the world, I need to know I had that. And that's where I think, again, ask and chat GPT for the answer. Are you in a position to tell me about generative intelligence or anything like that or summarize it for me? Well, I mean, for me, this whole idea of generative AI versus AI machine learning. So one school is so it's part of it is all based on here's a series of rules.

45:35So it's a decision tree constantly learning and learning and learning and then you get the answer. And then there's the generative part, which is more, I suppose, creative and coming up with something more novel and blending those things together. So I think the bigger trend is around this whole idea of agentic AI and that you have these agents working for you. And I think in a work environment, some of those things will be useful. And I, you know, I know I'm deviating off the point, but we mentioned about schools there a little bit. And I'm very down on technology in schools, but it would be unfair to say I'm against all of it because there are children with learning difficulties.

46:13difficulties. For example, you know, this could be a child who's profoundly dyslexic and reading books is really, really hard for them. But if they have the audio book, then the technology is incredibly useful. So there's applications for AI that are very, very positive in drug discovery for rare diseases, in how we manage our environment, notwithstanding the environmental cost of AI in itself. Which is massive. Which is massive. You mean the data centres, the... The water, the heat, all of it. And then the raw materials, like everything, all the, sorry, the lithium, everything, all of these minerals that we have to put together to make all of these data centres, to make all of them work.

46:57Do you know what I'm fascinated by, right? Again, you mightn't be able to tell me anything about this, but I'm fascinated by the idea of, because it has such an exponential way of learning. Yes. Right? already vastly superior to humans' ability to calculate. So let's say we have a question, right? So let's say you go, what could it do then? So let's say you go, I'd love to travel at the speed of light. So, AI, can you work out, please, how to travel at the speed of light? And I suppose then you're faced with the problem that AI... Well, it could probably give you a formula on how to do it, but it doesn't necessarily mean it'll do it for you.

47:35I think for me... Could you build a machine? Could you build a machine? Yeah, I mean, I'd say in time, but I think we're a bit off that. Yeah, I think what I've always found irritating is when people draw the analogy and compare AI to, you know, electricity or whatever, I said, it's as obvious as it is inaccurate. Because to my mind, for example, the atomic bomb, when we look at Oppenheimer and the nuclear bomb. And so the joy of nuclear arms is that there isn't uranium and plutonium and whatever available for free in the back garden of every lone ranger, teenager or lunatic that wants to build one.

48:23I mean, we have let a lunatic have a hand on a red button for one of them, but like, you know, few lunatics. But in generally, at least they can't make their own. Everybody. But we have put the power of this technology in everybody's hands. And then we dress it up in fancy, polite language like democratization of information. And I'm going, is it really? Is it not just really, really wealthy people, the broligarchy, using all of their power to take all of your knowledge and generate wealth for them? And it's feeding off this system of all the stuff that we all know that we've uploaded to the internet, all these, and while stealing all our knowledge and actually then disabling us from making any wealth.

49:05I saw a really cute thing one day. He said, there's 500 billionaires living on this planet and the rest of us are all just staff. Yeah, yeah. You know, they're on this giant, this beautiful blue resort planet and we're all just staff. And now they're just doing away with the need for the staff. Yes. And how will they keep us quiet? Well, maybe numb and dumb us all with the technology. Yeah. And so there was another painting because it's an effort. It's a painting for everything. I did one, and this was painstakingly painful. It was just awful. I put into Google, admittedly, I asked it to give me the binary code numbers.

49:44Ones and zeros, 144 of them spelled out who made you king in ones and zeros. And I hand painted every one of those ones and zeros. It drove me demented. It absolutely drove me crazy. They're not uniform. They're more or less. I like things to be unmistakably human. And there's a crown on top. And it just says it's this idea of the abdication of leadership to the data made me do it. We're literally making ourselves obsolete. We're abdicating our decisions to what the data says or the computer says, rather than getting back into that, you know, this human understanding and empathy. I think Harari, the sapiens, kind of goes into the area as well of will we be superseded as a species?

50:24In other words, will our species almost kind of be taken over, if you like, by an artificially intelligent species that we are creating presently? Like, OK, science fiction again in Terminator. Terminator. One of them, three. No, one. Terminator one. The original. The original. It posits the idea of on 22nd of August to la la la, the Skynet becomes self-aware. And becoming self-aware means you have the need to protect yourself. Do you see that as anything that you've thought about or are possible? The idea that the actual machines themselves go, I don't want to be shut down now. Like how in 2001?

51:13You can't shut me down. There's a thing I started watching last night and it got to episode two. It's called Next and it's just at that point where the machine becomes aware. And then I thought I better go to bed because I was doing this today and I better get some sleep. What is it? Next? Next. What's it on? I'm thinking I was on Disney when I found it. It's called Next. It's called Next. Is it good? It was. The first episode was good but not enough to keep me up until, you know, all hours. But yeah. And again, I try not to watch them because it kind of messes with my own thoughts. I think of that.

51:42I think I could sound like I suppose a conspiracy theorist if I thought that was imminently possible. But I actually don't think we even need to go to it being that bad to have to make a decision. You know, I think things are sufficiently bad that we should be making a decision now. It's already ridden roughshod over democracy and that's not serving us all terribly well right now either. So I think the tech has done, some of the tech, not all of it and not all of the companies, Some of it has done enough damage that we should already be awake to what's happening and trying to regulate better for all of that.

52:23I am fearful that it's a bit like global warming. We'll just go, well, not today. And we'll worry about that bit tomorrow. It's like the film Don't Look Up. Yes. It's the, you know, it's we refuse to admit. what's actually happening. In front of our eyes. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of that happening right now. There's a lot of that happening. You mentioned 1984. There's a lot of that happening in politics as well. The idea that I don't want, OK, I'm going to use the word, I won't actually use the word, I'm just going to bring in the 1930s in Europe. And in 1930s in Europe, all this stuff was happening.

53:04But nobody thought it could get any worse. Then it got worse. And then they went, well it can't get any worse well if he doesn't do this he won't do that he won't go further then he goes further he won't go further then he goes further and so you become like the frog in the boiling the frog boiling the frog in the water the water becomes gradually more heated until the frog is dead but the frog doesn't notice and so it all got so horribly worse and then we said never again and so at what point do we say well are we going to stop the never again today or are we going to wait for another day like which day is it going to be I worry what we are leaving behind you asked about with this super intelligent species or any other civilization what archaeological artifacts are we going to leave behind that they will discover of us Trump's ballroom Trump's ballroom there's a painting for that there is one of the pink paintings is of a museum and in all of the frames and on all of the plinths there's just a blue trash can icon because we deleted everything.

54:10And maybe that is the best archaeological artifact of this civilization, that we were uncivilized consumer materialistic people who just, who deleted everything. We put no value on anything. I was giving a talk last year at the launch of Digital Infrastructure Ireland and Gary said to me, don't talk about data centers, John, the nuts and bolts of data centers. And I said, don't be ridiculous. I don't know anything about the nuts and bolts of data centers. So no chance of me talking about that. So I talked about Ishnach. I talked about how four and a half thousand years ago, we did create an infrastructure that connected this world to the other world, except it was a spirit world.

54:50And now we've just creating these connections between this physical world and a virtual world. I'm just listening to you there and I'm wondering, and considering where you live, and I'm wondering, were you aware or did you know Moncon McGann at all? My friend Cathy Scott from the Trailblazer, he worked very, very closely with Moncon on all the work. He was on this podcast as well. Yeah, I'm aware. He was an acquaintance of mine, I would say. I'm very nervy about calling people friends when they're, you know, that's a big word for me. And I used to go to a show, I went to a show, the Aranogas Im and all that sort of stuff.

55:22And he was on, I loved him about language. Yes, and Skullscorcha is the online language school that Cathy has been doing. And she did that with Moncon. So she's a very good old friend of mine. And I think that through that, I was very aware of his work. and actually it was through Kathy Scott that I became more aware of Ishnach over the years. And again, I live not far from there. I live in Mullingar. But when you go out there and you realise that what they discovered, there's very little of it. Ishnach's not like Newgrange, which is a very obvious monument. You've got to work hard to see what was there.

55:55But there were souterraines and they found goblets and they found remnants of life and how we lived back then and what our values were, what was important to us. And I think that's what matters. And what are we going to discover of this generation, of what was important to us? You know, what is this civilization that we're living in right now? What are we going to leave behind? What will identify us? You know, the Iron Age, the Stone Age, this digital age. What are the archaeological artifacts of that? And maybe the best is nothing. Maybe it is nothing is the best. It will almost be like this.

56:32And then there was this frozen age where they just consumed stuff and we didn't preserve anything. We're not even preserving the planet terribly well right now. So these are, that's why all of these ideas converge in my head, if you know what I mean, whether it's the art of it and the museums, which is around the technology, which is around the environment, they're all linked. And that's why I think we just need better leadership. And that's where I think going back to this idea of artist leaders versus painter managers, we've got a lot of very competent managers who are subject matter experts.

57:10But I think we need something in the way of an unrelentingly energetic, creative, purpose driven people to lead, to actually be in those organizations where they're saying, why are we doing this? What is this for? And maybe capitalism has now has started eating itself. Maybe to, you know, Jim Parrell give me a gold star for my economics homework. I talk about the law of diminishing marginal returns. Maybe that's just kicked in for capitalism now. Maybe we've just passed the peak in the return that we're getting for capitalism. Maybe it's just on the decline and actually more money is not more anymore.

57:51I've said to a few people that I think on this podcast as well, that Trump is kind of the apotheosis of capitalism eating democracy. Because capitalism, as embodied by Trump, has figured out a way, like an animal, to find all the loopholes he can in the Constitution, in history, in culture, to creep through all the loopholes and to actually eat it. So the idea that like Trump has gone. So what's this again? Anybody can be president. Anybody. You don't have to be a politician. No. Okay. What does this society revere? Money. Okay. What else does it revere? Fame. Okay. So if you get on television and you have money and you don't have to be a politician.

58:34No. Okay. What else? What about, is it breaking the law? Yeah. Law is an interesting one. Just get as many lawyers as you can. Okay. But can that do it? Yeah. If you have more lawyers than the other guy and you just keep them going back to court, you can just keep them in court forever. so then I can if you like break the law I can subvert the law and I can have as much money and can I buy everything I want yeah you can just if somebody has a house next to you just buy it what if they don't like it take them to court you just throw the lawyers at them so then you can do everything and then you can then you can take over how?

59:04run for office hi but not a politician you don't have to be just famous capitalist and with the law on your side so he found a way there was something else going on though as well and I think that was social media and I think that if we were to quote Friedman economics, which is, you know, it's the responsibility of any organization to optimize its ability to make money within the law. So what's stopping us from making more money? The law. Well, the regulations. Well, we'll just get rid of the regulations and then we could make untold amounts of money. So we'd need someone then who's prepared to make change the regulations for us.

59:41Oh, here's a guy. Here's a guy who can. And so it was the perfect nexus of of two things coming together. But it's also cold. He's also, in his case, he's also shameless and cold. So, for example, there's no conscience. There's no reflection. There's no, what have I done? There's none of that. It's like, it's just completely icy. Two people have asked me to bring the paintings to the US. I said, I wouldn't get in. I don't think the paintings would get in at all. I don't think I'd get in. No, I'm surprised Simon Harris. He's in the US right now. I mean, he must be on his imprint that he called Trump a gowl last year.

1:00:19Yeah, well, he's with Gavin Newsom, so he's in good company, I think. New scum. Oh, no, Gavin Newsom. Well, no, new scum, as Trump calls him. Oh, yeah, well, that's what he calls him. But he's brilliant at trolling him. I do love him. He's great for that. Oh, Newsom is good at trolling back. Yeah, he's very good. Yeah, no, so I do think, I do think it was the confluence of both of those things happening together. And I think that that's why it's going to take a lot to, we're going to have to the technology part needs to be regulated. Yes. And it's funny I remember being in a meeting and a minister I think it was Derek Leary so if he's listening we were in it we were at a round He's a huge listener to this podcast.

1:01:00I hope so. He's very nice actually. We were at this round table thing with a load of tech companies there and we were talking about the merits of regulation of technology in Europe and somebody suggested that oh Europe is going to just become one big cultural you know a tourist destination and museum and money will be made everywhere else. And I said, well, do you know what? It's a lesser of two evils, to be honest with you. But I said, well, you know, we could always practice the American approach to regulation, which is the Britney Spears model. And Minister Cleary looked at me going quizzically with the Britney Spears model.

1:01:33I said, yes, oops, I did it again. So every time that Mark Zuckerberg, you know, has broken rules or whatever, he's gone in front of Congress and he goes, oops, did it again. And he just gets a little rap on the knuckles and off he goes and just does something else that rate is six months later. And their motto, of course, all the time was break some, keep breaking things. Move fast and break things. And then Google's was always don't be evil, which I also, then they got rid of it years later, but I also, that was really, really low bar. Don't be evil. And then, you know, you know about neuro-linguistic programming.

1:02:02So, you know, if you're trying to tell a child to don't play at the fire, don't say don't play at the fire because all they hear is play at the fire. So I'm thinking don't be evil and all they can hear is be evil, be evil because we don't hear the other word in the sentence. So when you're programming that all the time. I mean, I was talking to someone the other night and we actually decided that they were probably the least offensive at the moment is Google compared to what some of the others are doing. But as I say, none of them are purely evil and none of them are purely good. And there's loads of good applications.

1:02:32We just have to find them. Joan, I want to thank you so much for coming in and you came up from Mullingar today. I did. Thank you so much. You didn't run? You drove? No, I did drive. Thanks. Thank you so much for coming in. I found you, I found, I find you to be endlessly fascinating and I love the way you bring art into the tech world and I love the way you talk about painters and leaders and that and so thank you very much Thanks for having me And my thanks to Joan Mulvihill for coming in to the Go Loud Studios and chatting to me My thanks of course to you the most important element of this podcast Get in touch mariorosenstock at gmail.com and I will see you next week

1:03:14Thank you.