YouTube wants you to go live

25:23And that it is completely losing that pretense kind of every day. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because it's like you kind of see this dynamic play out in different ways on different platforms. Like there's a reason why every Instagram photographer is now a Reels, like an Instagram Reels photographer or whatever. You know, it's just like that is what it is. And I think YouTube still is trying to hold on to this idea that they are the creator platform, like you said. And some of the stuff when you read it, it just like really punctures that veil. and I think I'm just I'm curious how YouTubers react to it because I think it's true that like not everyone wants to stream not everyone wants to be on live and you know there's like I just I'm curious like what level of resistance really is tenable yeah like how much can you fight this and still be viable on YouTube is going to be an interesting question.

26:30I have to let you go here in a minute, but let's talk about AI just before we do, because we've talked a little bit about it. And this is like the second or third year in a row that AI was a big story of Made On. And not just like AI as a sort of behind the scenes tool to help you answer comments and whatever. AI is like a creative tool for shorts in particular. And this year they're just like, just do a prompt and it'll make a short for you and publish your shorts. and it's like what's your i have not seen a ton of that i i was saying this on on friday show but i deleted instagram and tiktok from my phone for the summer as a way to be like i'm on parental leave i'm gonna spend my time with my child and not on youtube uh and what actually happened is i just watched a lot of youtube shorts um i encountered almost no like generative ai stuff on shorts but i i understand that that's like my own algorithm but i'm curious like are you seeing this stuff take off this idea that like upload a photo to youtube and tell it what to do and it'll use ai to add motion and turn it into a jance challenge and you can make that a short like i don't know if it's like that level i think there is a level of slop and like you know i think a couple weeks ago or a few like a month ago that was kind of the fear right that youtube was like tweaking something about its policies um for monetization and people freaked out because they thought that it meant anyone who's using AI in their videos would be affected.

27:50And then they went back and clarified. And it's like, no, we're just updating what we mean by like spammy content, right? I think they changed the name to inauthentic. But yeah, I think they probably recognize that this is a way that people have been filling the platform with garbage. I think that's true across platforms, whether they're using the in-app tools or not. Like TikTok is filled with AI sludge. One time actually like I wrote a story and then I found a video of an AI generated avatar reciting my story back to me and I was like what is happening? It's interesting because I think that YouTube is kind of like talking out of its mouth on one side and then there's like everything else that's happening in the background which is that millions of YouTube videos have been trained on without the creator's permission.

28:39Yep. And YouTube has been sort of like staying out of it for the most part. There is actually a great piece in the Atlantic where you can search for creators and see what videos we're trained on. And it's a lot of how-to content. But at the same time, it's also encouraging content creators to use these tools. And I really wonder how creators feel about that. If you're, if this bot can also like come up with video ideas, write the script, dub your lips, right? To like do the lip matching for voice for like lip syncing with dubs. What is your job? It can also edit your shorts, by the way. Right?

29:23Like I'm just such, that's such a good version of the question because I think like the, the, the pro case for all of this stuff, which I'm, it's actually sympathetic to is that it makes it easier to make stuff. And I think Like what we have seen, generally speaking, is that when technology makes it easier to make stuff, people make more stuff. Some of it is bad. Some of it is good. And like the idea of these tools is like democratizing forces to help creative people make more stuff, I think is awesome. But this question of what is your job, I think, is like the question in front of both the people making these tools and the people using them.

29:55Because you're right. Like I could sit here, I could type one line into YouTube's backend and it could, it could make the short, it could edit the short and it could publish the short and it could optimize the short and it could put it out. And that might get a lot of views. That feels like a bad outcome for like big human ways that I can't even necessarily describe. That feels like a bad outcome. And I think what seems to me is that a lot of creators are going to have to spend the next year or years trying to figure out what they do here and what the thing is that makes them different because it's like the everyone is going to have access to these same tools that do the same mediocre job for you yeah how what do you do here and how do you how do you elevate this stuff and i feel like that just gets murkier and murkier with every one of these new tools that gets added that is just a new thing you don't even have to do anymore yeah and if you're just the person on the screen well guess what they have something for that too like it's just like Like, I really, really wonder.

30:54We should have, like, a bunch of content creators on here. And I would love to ask, like, do you feel the fear of, like, job replacement? You know what I mean? That other workers do? Because you are a worker. And, yeah, I don't know. It's really weird. It's really weird. And also, do audiences care, right? Do they care if your scripts are all written by AI now? That you're getting all your ideas from YouTube's, like, in-app, like, AI bot? I don't know. It's a great question. And how do those viewers show you that they care too, right? Because it's like what we keep hearing is basically the numbers keep going up.

31:30And I just keep thinking about this company that I forget the exact name of it, and I'm glad to not be able to say it out loud. But basically their thing was we're going to make infinity podcasts, and every one of those podcasts is going to get 10 listeners. But it's so cheap for us to make, and we're going to do it at such incredible volume that it's going to make us money. Yeah. And on the one hand, that's probably going to work. On the other hand, that is a that that sucks. And I hate it. And I want that thing to not exist. Because what you're saying is we are going to flood this thing with so much crap that it's going to work because it's going to work because the volume will outplay the quality.

32:07And we're going to keep making money off of it. And like, again, this is that was the SEO play was we're just we are going to ruthlessly optimize our junk. so that even if you click it by accident, it doesn't matter. We're still going to get paid. And you worry that like we as viewers who our main thing to do is scroll, if you hit the video, they're going to make the money. And so it's like my incentive is actually to make more of this stuff if all I care about is just getting views even five at a time. And so I wonder, and I think I do think these platforms know, and I think YouTube knows better than most, that if it lets itself be completely overrun by this slop, it will be a long-term bad decision.

32:48And if your platform's offerings are the NFL and AI slop, you're in trouble. But I think every creator is going to have to figure this out for themselves and these platforms are going to have to figure out what is the line between useful thing we can do to help creator and thing that in the long run will actually destroy all of the quality stuff on our platform. Yeah, it's a great question. It's also just like we can't go operating at like where the goal is as much content as possible. Because it is – right? That's not good. There aren't enough people to watch it, frankly. Yeah, like YouTube's good.

33:25Like at some point, YouTube should just be like, actually, guys, everybody just like take a month off. We actually don't need any more stuff. We're just going to keep researching all the stuff people haven't watched. there's 50 lifetimes of things everybody likes already available to them y 'all go take a vacation yeah yeah i think nothing would change i don't think i i completely agree i completely agree especially now with this live stream stuff i'm like oh my god who's watching this who can possibly watch this seriously but the answer is both of us um watching get ready with me streams which you've now talked me into and it's going to be this is this is going to be my new thing they're oddly satisfying, I'll say.

34:02I would like to get ready with somebody. This would be great. My process takes like four minutes and involves a t-shirt. So I'm going to need to improve my get ready with me. It would hit on YouTube, I'm sure. I'm going to have the shortest live streams in history. Love this for us. Alright, Mia, thank you as always. It's good to have you here. We should. Let's drag some creators on here over the next few months and just talk through all this stuff. This will be fun. Until then, we're going to take a break and then we're going to come back and I have some hot takes that are going to get me fired.

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37:32All right, we are back. It is time for another round of David yells his opinions into a microphone and subjects other people to them live on the Vergecast. Back with me to do this, Jake Kastronakis. Hi, Jake. Hey, good to be here. Hayden Field. Welcome back. So psyched. Thanks. All right. So last week, I threw a bunch of AI related takes at both of you. And in the spirit of our favorite show, Subway Takes, your allowances were to either 100 % agree or 100 % disagree, or I gave you the option to just bail because David is lighting his career on fire and I want no part of this. Neither of you picked that either for any of them last week.

38:14I would say a lot of people have had a lot of feelings about my feelings and I'm okay with that. And I have more of them this week. This is the last one of these we're going to do. And this is just, I would say sort of unordered thoughts. I had strong opinions about over the course of a summer spent on my couch, reading news, talking to newborns and hanging out. So I have, I have seven completely unrelated and unordered summer takes for the two of you. Are you ready? If we're wrapping up, I have to assume it's because you get canceled at the end of this. Yeah. If suddenly we only get through five of them, you'll know that two of them were, I just immediately, David is removed from The Verge and that's the end of everything.

38:56Yeah. You spent a long time talking to Annie on Grok this summer, didn't you? listen you spend a lot of time on youtube shorts and things just start to get weird oh yeah uh okay summer take number one is that podcasts should be listened to at 1x and all other fast speeds are wrong if you don't have time to listen to the podcast listen to fewer podcasts it's fine 1x is the correct speed at which you should listen to a podcast. All other speeds are insane. I've got to say 100 % disagree for that one. I have a life. I have a brain that goes fast. Actually, I feel like I don't know if my brain goes fast all the time.

39:39But you know what, when I'm listening to people talk, it does. I'm a visual learner. I can read really fast. But when I'm listening to people talk in my ear, sometimes they're getting taken a while to get to the point, you know, so I got to listen to 1.5x, 2x, same with TikToks, you know, I feel that I many people will agree with me about this and that David, you could have such like a awakening if you could just, you know, be done with the podcast in two, like point five, the amount of time as you would have before. But just don't listen to the podcast. It's so easy to not listen to a podcast you're not interested in.

40:18And I realize I'm saying this to a large audience of people who I assume listen to this podcast at faster than one X and me being like, well, if you have to listen to it too fast, just don't listen to it is the most like self owning thing I could possibly do. So please know that I understand what I'm doing here. Just watch and listen to less stuff. Like I, I, I have come to a point where it's like, to me, listening to a podcast at two X is like looking at the AI generated summary of a book and saying, you've read the book. You haven't. I do have a take here that is a follow up. Okay. For me, it's not about that.

40:52I want to listen to more content. I'm not like, oh, let me finish this podcast or this video so that I can like see the next thing. For me, it's really, I think just the fact that I was raised in the Gilmore Girls era of people fast talking on TV. So I'm used to people talking quicker than they do on most podcasts. And I'm like, I got to amp this up to the Gilmore Girls speed. That's what I was raised on. That's what I'm used to. You know, that's a good take. My wife is currently watching Gilmore Girls for like the 55th time, which means I'm currently watching Gilmore Girls for like the 35th time.

41:24That show rips and they do. They talk so fast. That's OK. That's a decent take. Jake, you've been suspiciously quiet here. Yeah. You know, the Verge cast is a work of art. And I think like you wouldn't watch Oppenheimer on 2X. You should not listen to The Vergecast on 2X. Every other podcast, though, do what you please. I strong disagree with you, David. Listen, sometimes I just want to get that info. I want to get in and out. I'm not here for the artistry, for the subtle pause, with deep, deep apologies to our audio editing team who are truly masterful. Okay, wait. So here's my follow-up question for both of you is, are you, do you have a setting?

42:10Like universally, I listen to all of my shows at 1.5 X. Do you have like a setting per show or is it a thing you like dial up and down as you're listening? For me as I'm listening. Okay. Oh, interesting. So you'll start an episode of a show and be like, we gotta, we gotta keep moving here and just crank it to 2 X. It really depends on how slow the person is talking. You'd be so surprised at how slow some people talk you know it's slower than the my brain like i feel like i have to calibrate it with the speed at which i think i'm like if you're talking at the speed at which i think great if you're talking like three times slower than i think i've got to dial you up okay jake what about you i would say like most youtube videos would be improved by a default 1.25 x like just a little bit more little bit more tiktok oh yeah 2x on everything just like those things are going.

43:01Seriously? They made them. So I set a 15 minute timer for myself on TikTok, so I can't watch too much every day. And this way I can squeeze 30 minutes of TikTok in 15 minutes. Not bad. Okay. That's terrible. It's terrible. So what you just said is I don't want to watch TikTok. So I've invented a way so I can watch more TikTok in the time I shouldn't be watching TikTok and have a have a worse time watching it. Just don't look at TikTok, Jake. Yeah. Yeah. This is I got to know what's happening on TikTok. How will I know what Stanley water bottle to buy? But like the world would be a better place if everyone only listened to their podcast on 1X is really kind of where I'm landing on this.

43:37That I 100 % agree with. I mean, I will say that it is Zen to just not care how fast this person is speaking and really live in the moment. Maybe I need to meditate more and maybe my form of meditation will be listening to podcasts on 1X and just really living in the moment and hanging on their every word, you know? Do you guys have podcasts you listen to? Not because you, you know, like the host or like the storytelling style or whatever, but for like purely informational reasons. I'm a visual learner. So I feel like if I only want it for informational reasons, I've got to read it or it kind of doesn't stick with me.

44:12Yeah, I'm fully with you, Aiden. Yeah, audio is like, it's more for a, I don't know, there's like a hanging out vibe to it. Right. But yeah, trying to get like news that way. It's not quite working for me. Okay. So that's the one kind of podcast that I'm like, yeah, listen to that as fast as you want. Right. It's it's like it's the audio version of like skimming the headlines, just like three X your way through whatever headlines podcast you're listening to. But I think I've just only selected for podcasts that I sort of like hanging out with and putting those at two X feels weird. The problem is once you go up, you can never go back down because then you're like, why are you all talking so slowly?

44:50What is like? Why did you all do drugs right before you started this episode? and you're just like, no, this is how fast they normally talk. Like I've had people meet me in person and be like, you don't sound like I'm used to it. And then they realize in the course of our conversation that they only ever listened to the podcast at 1.5 or 2x. So they're used to me just talking like this all the time. And they're like, why don't you talk like this all the time? It's insane. And I'm like, I can talk that fast. Like we can do this. I can be this person. Especially now that you're watching Gilmore Girls.

45:15Oh my God. I mean, it's out of control. Also, a very strange thing has happened to me now that I have children is I identify with very different people in those shows. And now I'm like, Lorelai's parents were basically right about everything. And Lorelai is kind of a menace. But that's for Hayden. When we record our Gilmore Girls podcast, we'll come back to that. Perfect. Can't wait. My second take is that Threads is good, actually. That's it. That's the whole take. I'm going to agree with you. I think Threads gets way too much hate. And you know what? I'm going to go even further. The algorithmic feed, it's all right.

45:48I agree. I feel like I enjoy threads more than X or Blue Sky. Sorry, Mastodon. That's not even on my radar. Mastodon is full of good ideas and not full of interesting people doing interesting things. Threads is pleasant. I feel like people on threads, or at least the algorithm on threads, keeps things pleasant and down the line. And I feel like on other social networks, People are very raw and passionate and intense. And I don't need that all the time. Sometimes I just want a laid back take about the new iPhone. And like, that's what I get on Threads. Tayden? I feel like I can't speak to this with actual knowledge because for Threads, like I get on and then I leave.

46:34Like I post my story and then I log off. So I honestly haven't spent that much time like scrolling on Threads because I have so many social media platforms that I have to be on now. that I just, Threads is the one that, like one had to fall and it's Threads for me. It's like, I go on, I post my stories, I leave, I don't scroll. Where do you scroll? Blue Sky and Twitter. But yeah, Threads and LinkedIn for me both. I'm like, I go on, I post my thing and I leave. I don't have any understanding of like what's going on on there. Instagram, I scroll like personally. Blue Sky and Twitter X, I scroll like for work.

47:12and then the other two I just kind of let fall by the wayside and I'm there technically but not in actuality. So to me, my experience this summer over and over was that Twitter has essentially like lost its mind. It's a 10 out of 10 like right wing cesspool all the time. Blue Sky is like the same but on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Like I think there's a lot of fun to be had on Blue Sky but I think the thing where the culture has turned into a lot of people scolding each other is real and true. It's at least more full of people saying things that are real than Twitter is, at least on my feed.

47:51But like, I just don't find either one to be a particularly good time. And threads, I think, Jake, I have the exact same experience that you do too, which is like the temperature on threads is not as high. And I think a lot of people in our business take that to mean, oh, it's not real time. It's not lively. It's not exciting. It's not what's happening. It's not the news. And to me, I'm like, oh, I actually, when I come to this, I don't want, the news all the time. It's just nice to have some people posting about some things. And I think threads has gotten better at being timely. Like I'm seeing many fewer yesterday and four days ago posts on my threads timeline every time I open the app.

48:25So they're like, they're getting better with that algorithm. And it just like, I have a nice time on threads in a way that I no longer have a nice time on blue sky or on Twitter. And I feel like that is, I just, I hit this point where I was like, why am I subjecting myself to opening Twitter five times a day? Like this is an insane waste of time because I feel some like journalistic obligation to know what these lunatics are saying to each other. And it's just, I don't know, like, I think, ultimately, maybe the sort of boring middle is actually the right place for social media to land. Can I tell you, Threads is actually the only other app on my phone that I have a timer on.

49:01And it's because it is like, it is pleasant. And because it's algorithmic by default, and it's like a decent algorithm, you can keep going forever. And I do not want to keep going forever. So yeah, I think Thread's like totally pleasant. It is not, it's true. It's not as spicy. And that's kind of nice. Okay. Maybe I'll spend some more time on Threads. You've convinced me. It took me a while because it's actually like, you have to realize that being slightly bored by it is actually a good thing and not a bad thing where it's like, I don't open the app and immediately have like a fight or flight response is probably a healthy thing for how we deal with our lives on the internet, but feels very different than I think what we're used to.

49:39which brings me to my third take which is that it's actually pretty easy to quit social media and I think many more people should do it

49:50I deleted Instagram and TikTok from my phone basically right as I had a kid and have actually had zero impulse to put either one of them back the thing Instagram does where if you click a link it won't show it to you until you open the app is really annoying but has not actually caused me all that much trouble um tiktok is fine somebody sends you a link it opens in the web page you watch the tiktok you move on today um i i have essentially stopped spending time on blue sky and twitter and even threads is like it's there because i feel a sort of obligation to be around but like if if you're most people are like in a place where they should spend less time on social media and it's actually not that hard to do and maybe we should just all quit social forever right now let's do it Agree or disagree?

50:38I feel like you're right in that, of course, we'd all be so much happier if we didn't have social media. But I will say, I think there are ways to use it in ways that are a little less harmful. So one, Jake's timer idea. Amazing. Two, something that I do that has always given me a lot of peace is that I don't, I mean, let's use Instagram as an example. I don't look at who likes my stuff and I don't look at who watches my stuff so that I feel like I'm always just shouting into the void in a good way. Like I am not aware of myself being perceived. I'm not like, oh my God, this person from high school saw my story of this.

51:22I wonder what they thought. Let's think about this through their eyes. It's like, I don't know. So I don't care. I'm like blissfully ignorant. I just feel like I'm posting. This is how I feel. I think I would use Instagram the exact same way if I had no followers. Like if I was just posting for myself, I think I would do the exact same thing. And it's because I don't, since I don't see who's looking at my stuff, I don't like, you know, really, I'm not, I'm blissfully ignorant of anyone looking at my stuff. However, I do like to use it a lot as a messaging platform. Like a lot of times, maybe it's just like, you know, something about people today, but it feels a little too intimate sometimes to ask for someone's like number.

52:03So you ask for their Instagram, then you message on Instagram. So I love using it as like a messaging app. Same with Twitter. Like I can message someone on there and then we can move it to another platform after. But I think all of these tools, their biggest value is in their like direct messaging features. And then scrolling and infinite scroll is like the thing that basically causes you internal turmoil and you have to find a way to, you know, address that. But I don't know. I mean, I'm like, of course, we'd all be happier if they if we didn't use them as much. But I also think there's some value in using it in a way that's like measured if you can do that, which is hard.

52:35So I agree, but I think even the premise of all of this is just like, this is an unavoidable thing that we have to manage the best way that we can. And I'm increasingly of the mind that actually it's really easy to quit. Like I was shocked at how simple it was to just not be on Instagram anymore. And like, do I occasionally feel like I'm missing something? Like, honestly, no, like I've probably missed some DMS, um, but that's fine. I think we do have a real like messaging problem across all of these different platforms. Uh, I've been using this app Bieber that we've talked about a lot on this show to try and like manage all of the DMS in one place.

53:17And that like almost kind of works, but in general, it's just like, I don't know. I, the thing that really shocked me was how, how easy it was to get rid of and how few times I have missed. TikTok and Instagram and how rare it has been to like want to be on Blue Sky this summer. I did once quit social media for like a month and it was very easy. Like it was weirdly easy. And I think it's just because, yeah, I reverted back to like my old life of just living in the moment. Yeah. What a crazy idea. Jake, what about you? You've just been scrolling TikTok this whole time. You're not even you're not even listening.

53:49Oh, sorry. Were you guys still going? You weren't going fast enough. This is a problem. I agree with you, David, but I kind of feel bad about it. You know, I have never been very good about posting to social media. And there's a lot of, I would say like acquaintances I follow, right? Like old friends from college, people who, you know, we used to work with, who, you know, I'm not going to stay up to date with them day to day, week to week. but by following along with their posts, I'm able to get some sense of what's going on in their life. And there's this really weird thing that happens where I'm like, oh, I know what's going on with you.

54:30I actually still feel like somewhat close to you. You have no idea what's happening with me. You like, and you will not because I'm not putting anything back out there for you. And so there is this sort of like interesting way that you can use this to maintain a friendship, even if it's like, even if I'm not really doing more than like liking a post, I think that's nice. Like it lets you keep up with people. I just, I think all the things that Hayden talked about where it's like, it shows you everyone who views it, shows you everyone who liked it. It's like, I can't not look at those things. And whenever I post an Instagram story, I'm like, like, did I post this at the wrong time?

55:06Is this, is this inconvenient for everybody? Nobody's seeing it. And I'm like, I, I don't feel good about, like, I don't, I don't feel good. Right? Like when I, when I watch other people's stories, I'm like, oh, this is so nice. They're doing things. I'm so happy for them. And I'm just like, I feel stress when I'm posting. So I would love for there to be a version of social media that I enjoy. I feel bad. And I think like not engaging on social media is maybe sort of like a net negative for like, I don't know, friends. Yeah. But also like, is it easy to tap out? And is it like maybe healthy for a lot of people to tap out?

55:44But like, yeah, like the people who I'm going to hang out with, I'm texting with them anyway. It's fine. You know, what's so funny is what both of you just described as the ideal outcome of this is original Facebook, where I have a wall. I post stuff on the wall. And if you want to know what's going on with me, you go to my wall and you look. And if you want to interact, you can. And if not, no hard feelings. I'm not going to know either way. That's how it worked. That was that was good. Like that was the right thing. And then they realized that people would use it more if they made it feel worse to use.

56:16And now here we are 20 years later and everything's a disaster. Like, you both just pitched me on what if we had Facebook 1.0. And I think it's right. I agree. But I will say I do remember in high school being worried that my wall posts were like too old. And I would call my friends and be like, oh, can you post saying on my wall? Looks like no one cares about me this week. So even then we had some insecurities. But I agree. It was a better time. It was a better time. That is very fair. All right, my next take, and this is kind of related to all of this, and I'm actually, this is the one I am least convicted on and kind of want to talk through.

56:49But my take here is that the anti-phone movement is real, and we and the tech industry should take it seriously. The people who are actively trying to get away from technology and not just talking about how terrific it would be to use technology less, it's a real and growing and powerful movement, and it's going to change things. I disagree with the first half of that. But I think that you said two separate things, actually. I think if we're talking about the people who are like, I'm going to get a dumb phone. I'm going to use the, oh God, what's it called? The light phone. The light phone. Like, okay.

57:27There's a small, small number of people who are going to use these things. Smartphone is fine. How you use the smartphone is not fine. As far as like the anti-technology, I'm worried about screen stuff more broadly. That I agree with you. And that I think is real. Interesting. And you think those are separate groups of people? Yes, because I think going for, you know, a dumb phone or being not having a phone and being disconnected, that's just like arbitrarily inconvenient. And I think like I would like to be less connected at home so I read more books. That's different, right? Like you can still do that and be capable of sending, you know, of making a FaceTime call to your mom.

58:12I see. Okay. Yeah, I agree with what Jake said. I mean, because everyone I know that has a dumb phone or like a flip phone, it's one of their two phones. So it's like they bring it when they go out or they bring it when they go hiking or they have it in certain situations. you know but I don't know anyone that has switched it out completely just because sometimes they need like Google Maps sometimes they like even from a safety standpoint sometimes they need some of those features even if they don't really want to use them I know people that have kind of turned their smartphone into a dumb phone in a way by like you know bricking it during certain times or you know setting timers on apps or deleting all apps except like three you know or doing the black and white screen thing.

58:57So there are ways, I think there's a lot of ways that people are trying to be less connected and less reachable all the time. But I don't know anyone that's just tossing their, you know, smartphone full time for a dumb phone. Yeah, that's fair. And I think if you look at like, you know, maybe kids shouldn't have their phones in schools, people like, Oh, you know what, we went a little far in that. And that's like, there's starting to be a shift there. And I feel like we're going to see more of that where it's like, these specific places and instances where we have overstepped with technology, where we're like, we're maybe a little too connected, but I don't think we're going to like fully throw it out the door.

59:35That, that feels like a little bit of an overreaction or maybe like a niche trend than, than an actual like societal movement. So you're, you're on the side of like sensible regulation, not like let the Luddites take over the world. Yeah. Okay. I think that's probably right. I I think I just keep being struck by, A, talking to a lot of people who are in the situation that I'm in of like you're being busy young parents with young kids. And it's like trying to figure out how many iPads you give them. Yeah. Like, is it OK to be an iPad kid is like a weird and complicated question in life in front of a lot of people right now.

1:00:11And then I'm sitting there next to my kid, like scrolling Reddit. I'm like, what am I doing? This sucks. And so I've hit this point where, and you read all these studies about like every time they do a study that's like, we took the cell phones away from a bunch of kids and their mental health scores went through the roof. And it's like there's just, there is something bubbling here. And I think we've spent a long time listening to companies essentially say, you can say whatever you want. We know how much you use our product. And the more we give it to you, the more you will use it. and as far as I understand there's not a lot of evidence that that's changing yet but like anecdotally the the smoke is real that like people in some meaningful way are starting to pull out and fight back uh and I just think I I think we're gonna start to see that show up in meaningful ways because every time a company has even tried to like address that like Instagram had the thing where it was like you're all caught up and then do you know what happened they got rid of it because they were like, oh, actually, we want people to keep scrolling and they will.

1:01:12And and I think I think and I hope we're about to see that start to shift against some of that trend. Definitely. I hope maybe maybe I'm wrong. Maybe maybe we're all going to like bitch and moan about screen time as we ever increase our screen time until we're dead. You know, I think you're right, though. I mean, I have a friend that's starting like a movement for connecting in real life. and I'm going to one of her events this weekend or next weekend, and I'm excited. It's like, you know, we're seeing more, like, community kind of almost activism, I guess, around, like, connecting in real life and how to just, like, hang out with people, which is sad that we have to do it.

1:01:53But it's cool that it's happening. A movement to hang out in real life is, like, just a terrifying concept that that needs to exist at all. But I'm glad it exists. Exactly. I don't know. I say this as I'm staring into my screen for the 15th hour today. Like, I don't know. Yeah. On one hand, I feel like it has just been like enough years with social media, with electronics that like naturally it were like kind of due for a little bit of that pushback. On the other hand, I was at the grocery store when TikTok got unbanned back in, what was it? February. And the cashier at the register was like, hey, she like said to her manager, she's like, hey, can I leave?

1:02:34TikTok's back online. And I'm like, yo, it was banned for like eight hours. You're fine. It's going to be all right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I don't know. I'm hopeful, but that is like, as a reporter, very much a thing I'm paying attention to now. It's like the smoke feels like it's there in a way that it has not been before. All right. My next take. This is the one I feel the most strongly about. All the streaming services are bad and they should feel bad and they have made the experience of trying to watch shows and movies awful. I'll let Jake take this one first. I will elaborate if you would like, but I feel this very strongly.

1:03:13Oh, man, there's just a whole lot bundled up in that. Would you like me to make it simpler for you? Yes. Yes, I'm going to take that lifeline. It's just the last thing. At this moment in time, the experience of trying to watch TV shows and movies is awful. I mean, I disagree with that. Like, it's fine. It's fine. I have like a nuanced disagreement, but like if there's a show that I want to watch on HBO or Hulu or whatever, that's fine. I sign up for the service. I go to the service. I click the button. It plays. It's fine. Maybe if my, you know, Google TV, whatever streamers is feeling good about it, it might even remember that I was watching that series and just put the next episode on my home screen.

1:03:55Might not. I don't know. But it's fine. And this is a good experience that you're describing this this you're happy about this i i can get there i can even i can like use my voice to i have to go to some unknowable app that i pay an unknowable amount of money for no no it's not an i it's easy enough to remember what how much do you pay for hbo max right now tell me off the top of your head oh it's too much money it's like hbo max is like 90 a month i don't know do you know i'm serious do you know how much you pay for hbo max right now 20 i want to say it's 20 for the 4k uh it's too much money it's too much money for four so well this is but I would make a distinction, right?

1:04:28Like, is the experience good? Like, yeah, I can sign up easy. I can sign up. I can like turn off my subscription easy enough. The thing that I am like, I want to tell everyone you should actually do, if you want to watch movies, do not just sign up for Netflix. Do not just sign up for Hulu, whatever. Just pay$3 and rent them for the weekend. You will spend less than you would if you were subscribing to a service for an entire month. And you get a bigger selection. You don't have to worry about which service you're on, which service you're not on. But if we're talking about TV shows, it's a little different.

1:05:04Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, for me, it's not a bad experience, you know. But I will say I've been really into paying for physical media. In Brooklyn now, there is a DVD store. And it's so exciting to be able to go in there. And I hope it survives. It's only been open for like six months, but I hope it survives. And right now you can go in and just buy your favorite DVDs. And now, you know, I have a collection of my favorite ones that I watch over and over because I am a chronic rewatcher. I rewatch everything so many times. I think it's like an anxiety thing. It's very comforting to me to rewatch my favorite movies.

1:05:43So I have all my favorites and I can just do it at any time. Even old ones that are no longer on streaming services like Childhood, Mary-Kate and Ashley movies, I can now watch them, you know? But yeah, I don't think it's a bad experience to watch. I mean, it's annoying to have to Google which streaming service I watch whatever thing on. But I think it's all about diversification and everyone should buy some DVDs from their local store to keep it alive. That's what I think. Hayden, let me tell you what I just heard you say. What I just heard you say is actually streaming is fine, but it doesn't have anything that I want to watch such that I have to leave my house and go buy a DVD so that I'm able to actually watch the things that I want to watch when I want to watch them.

1:06:23That's what you just said. Listen, that's not the streaming service's fault, honestly. Yes, it is. There's a lot of weird rights issues with my childhood faves. There's a Tyra Banks movie called Life Size that no one can find on any streaming service anywhere, not even Prime Video. So I had to order it on eBay like a Luddite, or minus the eBay part. This is the problem. This is the problem. I can't, like, imagine if you went on Spotify and just, like, four out of ten songs you wanted to listen to just weren't there, and you were like, cool, I'll still listen to Spotify every day. Like, no. That might be the case soon.

1:07:03This is, it's outrageous that this is where we have landed. That you actually pay, however many services you want to pay for, and I pay for a lot of them, you still can't reasonably expect to watch the thing that you want to watch, and that it will be in the same place when you go back to find it, and that it will have all the stuff that you want. I watch Always Sunny on Hulu. There are just a bunch of episodes of Always Sunny that Hulu doesn't have because it finds them objectionable. They just don't exist. Is that the show that put you over the edge? What was it? No, I was over the edge all summer because what I have is a toddler who wants to watch the same movie 650 times in a row and I can never remember where it is and the search never works and it drives me insane.

1:07:45and I'm paying a billion dollars a month to have 70 different apps that are all really slow on my Roku TV and none of them put the continue watching row in the same place. And the search sucks across all, like it's just, there is more content available to all of us than ever and it is being put together in the stupidest, most hostile way. And it drives me nuts. The solution is putting K-pop demon hunters on a loop forever and never switching to any other movie and then your toddler will be thrilled. I also blame Netflix because it took Netflix like 10 days to put K-pop Demon Hunters on my home screen.

1:08:20And I was just sitting at home unaware of K-pop Demon Hunters for far too long. Unfortunately, my entire Spotify wrapped this year is going to be K-pop Demon Hunters, the soundtrack. And I accept that, but I'm not going to be sharing my Spotify wrapped this year. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. Also, Jake, by the way, I just checked and you're paying$21 a month for HBO Max. That's too much. I don't even know what I'm watching on HBO right now. And David Zasloff recently said it's way underpriced, so that number's probably going to go up. Yeah, that's not good. That's why, listen, I subscribe to this thing for like a month at a time, and then I'm turning it off because that is way too much money.

1:08:55Yeah, because what's a better user experience than having to balance your checkbook against streaming 16 times a year? It is rough, yeah. I would pay a subscription fee for somebody to just manage these for me, and I would probably come out ahead. I'm like, I'm coming around. I'm 100 % agree with your anger, even if I don't necessarily 100 % agree with this in practice. I don't care whose fault it is. To be so clear, whether or not all of this is Netflix's fault, the fact that there literally is not a way for me to watch the movie The Nice Guys, which I tried to watch the other day, it literally does not exist in a digital streaming service, and I pay for all of them.

1:09:34That is dumb and bad, and everyone should feel bad. This is what kills me. I'll buy it for you at my DVD store instead of TV. Yes, please. And then I will buy a DVD player because I haven't had one of those in forever. And then my life will be good again. I have come back around to like, especially for shows that I want to watch again, there are a couple of streaming services I basically subscribe to for like one or two shows. And I'm getting to like, I'm just going to buy those shows on DVD or digital or whatever, and then just watch them. And like, who needs the streaming service anymore? Okay.

1:10:08I need to calm down. I should have done that one last. And then I could have like, I could have like relaxed into the break. I'm going to give you a calmer take. My calmer take, and this is the second to last one, is I think we will look back on 2025 as the year self-driving cars actually happened. And I'm not sure we're talking about it. We're in sort of the like boiling frog state of like city by city, company by company. Waymo is starting to pull this off. Like, we've been lied to about self-driving cars for a full decade. But I think they did it now. And I think this is the year they're doing it.

1:10:46What do you guys think? I mean, it's hard when you have a nuanced take on these things, you know? I've been covering— Not allowed. I remember—I mean, it's like, I guess I disagree because I don't believe that they've done it now. I think they've made strides. Waymo is testing vehicles in New York City, which they never did before because they said there were too many crazy factors that they couldn't really control for. And they always want some uncontrollable factors, but there were just too many in New York City. Now there aren't. So I do think they've made a lot of strides, but I won't really say they've done it until it's something that most people I know do to get to work, like City Bike.

1:11:30or like until it's as common as biking in general, I don't think I will say that they have done it. But I know in SF, everyone is loving Waymo's. I've heard of some parents like putting their kid in a Waymo to take them somewhere. That certainly is, you know, does mean that it's come a long way. But I think for me, until it's as common as say like biking, which, you know, I have a handful of friends that bike everywhere. I feel like when self-driving cars reach that status, I will say they've done it. Okay. That's a good take. Jake, what do you think? I think you're right. At least that 2025 might be a turning point.

1:12:06You know, it's not clear to me what has improved, right? Like, I don't know if the technology got better or if the regulations just got a little fuzzier and they're like, yeah, let's see what happens. but I it's it's Waymo in particular um I I do not count the robo taxi I I'm sorry no but um right like Waymo which I assume cares more about their reputation and safety of people yes yeah right like I've been hearing a ton about their rollout in San Francisco um and yeah now they're in New York. So I've been hearing about at least some pushback to them. I believe it was Waymo rolling out in Boston, right?

1:12:48Like once stuff starts happening, like that means that the technology is improving, right? If they're putting it in a place that the average person can experience them, doesn't necessarily mean everybody's going to use them, but that feels like a turning point. I have not gotten a chance to ride in one yet. I don't know how the experience is. I don't know if they really are all there yet. And it does seem like there's still quite a few limitations to where they can go and what environments they're good in. But I am like changing your take a little bit, David, but I think you may well be onto something that like 2025, something happened this year.

1:13:24I agree that it was a turning point. Yeah, I think there will be like a chapter in the book about how self-driving cars happened that is 2025. And it'll be like the year real people started taking it seriously. There was nothing for decades, right? We got we got we have from zero self-driving to like we can basically do self-driving, but actually they're not safe enough to put on real roads. And that was 10 years. And now this year they're like, we're just going to roll it out to a bunch of cities. And like, I don't know what changed here. Uber and Lyft were promising that it was going to be 2020.

1:13:56I would I would remind everyone that those companies made a huge amount of noise and a huge amount of money lying to everybody about how close we were to self-driving cars. Tesla has been doing the same thing for a very long time. and I think personally I got so jaded by all of that that I got to the point where anytime somebody would like be bullish on self-driving cars I'd be like oh congratulations like whatever I don't care um now I kind of buy it like I I agree with you Hayden that I think we're a ways away from it being like ubiquitous in a really important way and I think the the sort of world tilt towards self-driving cars is going to take a really long time um but at this point it's the like do I think a person who doesn't pay any attention to this might get in a Waymo in 2025?

1:14:39I think the answer is yeah. And I think that's already happening. I think that's a big deal. That like it just becomes a way to get somewhere, not a technology story. I think they had, like you said, we did have 10 years without a lot of progress. But I do think for me, it's like I was getting all the press releases of the tiny incremental changes that they were making every year. Like they were testing in a new city. They were suddenly starting to test in snow for the first time. They were suddenly starting to test somewhere with a lot of pedestrians and crowds that were a little more unpredictable.

1:15:12So I think for me, it's like I've seen incremental progress year after year, but it was nothing to write home about. And 2025, I think, is when kind of the snowball effect happened. Like all that incremental progress that was like kind of not worth writing about sometimes times um became worth it and you know i did drive in a couple waymos last year and i have to say my favorite thing about it was honestly that i could just be completely alone i didn't have to talk to anyone i didn't have to worry about playing my music loud i was just like in my own little room you know so that's my favorite part just being solo and being able to play you know k-pop demon hunters that it wasn't out yet but that's what i'd be playing now are you guys nice to your uber drivers like do you are you are you people who like get in the back and like hang with the driver the whole time or do you just like wear headphones no talking wave and get out i say i say like a very play i'm always like hey thanks for coming by appreciate it and then then we're done the thing is they're in new york they're on the phone with somebody they don't want to talk to me always yeah that's very true i i used to like try and talk to people and then i saw a thing that was like a meme of somebody being like so how long have you been doing this for and the uber driver like leaping out of a window.

1:16:23And then I was like, oh no, I asked that question to all of my Uber drivers. So now I don't talk very much. I just get in and I say, hey, thanks. And then I put in my headphones and don't talk. Cause yeah, New York, I mean, they don't want you to talk. You don't want to talk. There's no false pretenses. But you know what? Whenever I take an Uber in Atlanta, I am in the longest conversation of my life every single time. I don't know what it is, but. I have invented phone calls to get out of those conversations before. That's, I'm not proud of that. I'm going to call you next time. Oh, that's a perfect segue.

1:16:51that was not intentional, but this is a perfect segue to my last take. My final summer take of 2025 is that we should bring back phone calls as like a normal thing that people do to each other all day, every day. But I want to bring back phone calls in one very specific way. And I want to bring back phone calls like cops do in movies where there's no, hello, how are you? Let's small talk for 60 seconds before we get into it. We don't even say goodbye at the end. You call me, Hayden, you call me. I pick up the phone. I say, hey. You say, hey. Was it in Brooklyn or Manhattan? I say Brooklyn. And you say, cool.

1:17:25And you hang up the phone. Done. The end. We should call like we text, and we should do it all the time. I could not agree more. I 100 % agree. I think it's because my friends and I don't like phone calls that much, but we call each other a lot. So we have defaulted to that. Literally, I'll call and be like, hi. you know literally what you just said I'll be like hi blah blah there's no pleasantries there's nothing and we know the love is there it's we know what's going on and then if I'm calling for like you know just to catch up I'll be like hi I have no reason to call I'm just like calling on a whim and then I set the expectations then we can small talk and catch up about our lives but I go most of our calls it's like if I pick up a call from my friend I know it's going to be within like under one minute or five minutes.

1:18:13And that's amazing. And then if it's a whim call, great. If you could assume that every time you got a phone call, the average duration of it was going to be like 45 seconds, I think everything about making and receiving phone calls would get better. That sounds wonderful. Like, Jake, I just want to be able to call you and be like, Jake, you'd be like, hey. And I'd be like, hey, 2.30 or 3? And you'd be like, 3. And I'd be like, cool. The end. Done. Done. We're moving on with our lives. The no goodbye is a key part. I love that. Just saying cool. Nobody ever says goodbye in movies. and it drives my wife crazy because every time we're watching a movie, she's like, why didn't they even, they didn't even say goodbye.

1:18:45And I'm like, well, that's not like an interesting part of the movie. People like small talking on the phone. But I think we should do it. And you're just like, cool, hang up, get done. David, you should absolutely start communicating with me this way because I 100 % agree with you. Dude, I hate text messaging. Text messaging is so tedious. The amount of time and energy that goes into like deciding on a restaurant or a text, no, no, get on the phone. You'll be done in 30 seconds. People are so afraid of phone calls and it is so much easier to get anything done. Do it. Call your friends. It's great.

1:19:22And stop saying, how are you? Stop saying, hope all is well. Stop saying, what's new? No. If you have a question for me, ask me the question and then when I've answered your question, hang up the phone. Which means we need all these companies to make it a louder noise when you hang up the phone again because I need to know when you've hung up on me. So that's a product change I need these companies to make is like I want a loud click now that the phone is over to let me know that you're gone. I really miss my Motorola Razr. No, sorry. Well, I miss the Razr, yes. But what I'm actually talking about is that I miss my Juke because it was even cooler.

1:19:58You remember you'd like flip it up like that and then you'd flip it down like that. It was so cool. It was like a comb from Greece that you were like flipping open. Yeah. It was so cool. And the funniest part is I never even had any music on my juke phone. I only bought it because I loved the way you could like answer a phone call and hang up a phone call. Incredible. The rules. This is good. I'm glad we agree. I think we have the power to start a nationwide movement to call like we text. And it will just make everything better. I'm in. Love it. All right. We need to take a break. Thank you both.

1:20:31I have no more summer takes. I've gotten all my feelings out and I appreciate you both being here to absorb and reflect my feelings back at me. It's an honor. If I'm fired, it's been a pleasure to do this with both of you. All right, Hayden, you're going to stick around for a minute because we have a question from the Vergecast hotline that you are the perfect person to answer. Jake, you can go. We're going to take a break. Thank you both. We'll be right back. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from El Nylon.

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1:24:02All right, we are back. Hayden Field is still here. Hayden, thank you for hanging out. Of course, it's an honor. so I have brought you here because we've been talking a lot about AI we got a bunch of good questions about AI and we're going to talk about one in particular but first I just want to give a shout out to Remy who sent us a very good question that included this paragraph I wanted to say I love your AI coverage especially since Hayden joined who is a star just wanted you to know that's so sweet shouts to Remy who may or may not be Hayden's burner Gmail but we'll talk about that later so let's do a question from the hotline as always it's vergecasttheverge.com is the email 866-VERGE-11 is the hotline.

1:24:40You can call. You can text me. You can stop Hayden on the street and yell questions at her. Whatever you want. We love hearing a lot of your questions. This one comes from, I believe it's pronounced Filippo. And it says, I listened to David's answer to a listener's question who asked if Apple might not even believe in AI. The answer was measured and insightful as usual. Thank you, Filippo. This is not my burner Gmail, I should say. But it inspired one intuition. Shouldn't we differentiate much more the term AI? Like literally use more words to describe clearly the different applications and products it fuels slash enables.

1:25:12Using only the general AI term is, I feel, doing us a disservice in terms of our understanding of the technology, its value and use, and separating buzz from reality. This is a thing, Hayden, you and I have talked in bits and pieces about for a long time. But I'm curious, you're the person on our team who has to live in this space all day, every day. It really feels to me like we desperately need a new vocabulary to talk about AI. Do you agree? Yes, I really do. Because it is something that it's tough because for me, like colloquially, you know, the public understands things as just being AI. So I often have to write in that context, you know, just AI and keeping it simple.

1:25:52But I remember even when I started on this beat almost six years ago, when I would write articles about AI, and this was before, you know, generative AI was as much of a thing, chat GPT wasn't out, etc. But when I would write articles about AI, I remember when I would do my fact check calls, researchers would be like, hey, you know, you should really specify the type of AI we're talking about here. AI is a catch-all term. It doesn't really mean anything anymore. It means everything, which means it means nothing. I, of course, kind of did just have to say AI because, you know, if I get really jargony right away, no one's going to know what I'm talking about.

1:26:25But I do remember I had to write a lot of like encyclopedia-type articles defining a lot of different terms. And I think that we need more of that. I think we need more mentions of what the subcategories of AI really are. You know, people are confused about AGI. They're confused about superintelligence. They're confused about AI. They're confused about deep learning, reinforcement learning, recursive self-improvement, all these terms that really will help people have a better understanding of how this technology works and exactly how it responds to you and why it responds the way it does. I think if we had a better vocabulary for talking about AI, it would actually be really, really helpful for combating some of the misconceptions about AI that are out there right now with people kind of thinking sometimes there are emergent beings inside it or thinking that it knows more than it does or thinking that it's almost sometimes an oracle that can predict certain things.

1:27:28Like, is it a good pattern matcher? Yes. And can it find amazing insights and trends within a large amount of data and, you know, give great answers? Yes. But, you know, with the rise of, you know, some of the mental health concerns we've seen recently, I think that would be helped a lot if we could just use the actual terms and define them on like, you know, how different models are trained and why. And also, these methods are changing all the time. So it'd be great to just have kind of like a, you know, constantly updating vocabulary, showing people how AI is advancing, and how fast it's moving, and then exactly how it works.

1:28:05Even though we don't know everything about how it works, we can explain a lot more than is currently being explained. Yeah, the struggle for me with all this has been that the solution just requires so much learning on the part of the consumer, right? That like, to reckon with the differences in how these systems are trained, it's just a lot to ask of people, right? I remember we were even going through this in the early days of talking about virtual assistants and that kind of thing, where it's like, okay, I have to teach you the difference between reinforcement learning and neural networks and when those things overlap and when they don't.

1:28:41And it's like I'm having to sort of give myself and everybody else like a computer science degree in order to understand how Google Assistant works. And that is that's just a lot to ask. And I feel like we're still in that place where it's like the only way to be more specific than AI is with sort of increasingly complex scientific terms. And I just don't know that that's ever going to work. And I think this is the thing that we've struggled with is how do we talk about this stuff in a way that is, like you're saying, accessible and understandable, that doesn't feel like school, but is still accurate.

1:29:14And I think like I know one thing we've talked a lot about here at The Verge is when do we call something AI versus when do we call it like a large language model versus when do we call it a chatbot, right? Because like a thing I hate, my least favorite thing that everybody does in AI is refer to the AI as if it's like a character. That is not a thing. The AI does not exist. It is either some like interface on top of AI. Maybe it's a chatbot. Maybe it's whatever. But the AI as a being is such a bad mental image for people to have for all the reasons that you're talking about. Or NAI. Yeah, or NAI.

1:29:50Like any of these things, it is not AI is not an object and we should stop treating it as such. But it is really hard to know what else to call it. Especially now, it feels like in so many ways that the toothpaste is out of the tube on this stuff. And like, maybe that just is going to be what it's called, even though it's wrong. But it feels wrong. For me, it's about kind of peppering. And I don't know if this is right. But what I try to do is pepper in these types of definitions in pieces that I write whenever I can as like a quick parenthetical. parenthetical. When I define AGI in a piece, I can't go without doing a quick parenthetical phrase saying what that is.

1:30:29And with reinforcement learning, deep learning, all these methods, it's helpful to just have a quick one sentence or seven word way of describing it. Even if it's oversimplified, that can kind of help people understand what's really going on here and the different ways in which the tech is advancing and how it changes and how it's trained and all these things. I think it's hard because sometimes you do oversimplify it and then people are like, well, that's not 100 % right. But also, okay, you're trying to do it in like seven words. So you have to be accurate and simplify without oversimplifying it.

1:31:03It's tough, but I think it's something we can do if we just like start bringing these terms into the public eye more. One example is large language models, right? I remember back when I couldn't say that term without it being too jargony. So I just have to say AI. Now, large language models is a household term, I think. Maybe I'm just in my own bubble, but I think it is. And so I can say that without defining what that is now, usually in an article. And so I think we can get there with other terms. So hopefully we just keep building our vocabulary, do it a little bit at a time, and we get to where we are with large language models with other terms.

1:31:40And we just kind of increase public understanding of this stuff. Because the cool thing is, like you said, I mean, consumers, we don't want to put the burden on the consumer to, you know, go to school basically and learn all this stuff. But the other cool thing is that consumers do want to know, you know, people are super curious about this. And so I think with the combination of people wanting to know more about what is and isn't AI and what falls into every category and what's just data science and what's just if this then that rules and all these things and us being able to, you know, give them like kind of simple explanations that if you want to dive deeper, here's more.

1:32:16I think we can get there. Yeah. Is there another term like LLMs? Like if you could just wish another one into like mainstream acceptability that would make your life as a reporter and writer easier, what would the next one be? It's hard because it changes like by the month and by the year, you know, like I remember there was a time when like deep learning would have been my choice. And then I remember there was a time when reinforcement learning would have been my choice. But now I think it would be recursive self-improvement. So yeah, I think it would be cool if people could know how these models are making themselves better and also the societal implications of that and the economic implications of that and what that might mean for jobs and things like that.

1:33:03I'm hearing that phrase a lot. And it's something that I think it would be great if the public could know more about. So I would say, yeah, for me, the phrase that I would want to make a household name changes by the like three month period. But right now it's that. I think recursive self-improvement is also like a very good memoir title that you should maybe just lay claim to right now. Perfect. Copyright it. I love it. All right. Hayden, thank you as always. I appreciate it. Thanks. All right. That is it for The Verge Cast. Thank you to everyone who's on the show today. And And thank you as always for watching and listening.

1:33:36If you have thoughts or questions or feelings or want to just like call me and say something really short and then hang up immediately just to prove a point, you can always call the hotline 866-VERGE11. Send us an email at vergecasts at theverge.com. I want to hear all of your summer takes. Also, if you just have a feeling that is just burning up inside of you, call me, hit us up, and I will either 100 % agree or 100 % disagree or just cancel you entirely. We'll see what happens. Get at us. Like I said, please subscribe to Version History. The first eight episodes, the whole first season is gonna be on The Verge feed.

1:34:09So if you're hearing or seeing this, odds are you will encounter Version History when it launches on October 5th. But also please subscribe to the feed. That's an important thing that we look at in terms of like whether we get to keep making this thing. So please subscribe. I think you're gonna really like this show. Also, The Verge Cast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. We will all be back on Friday to talk about whatever's going on in the AI world because there's always stuff going on in the AI world.

1:34:37We have some Google news coming. We have some Amazon news coming next week. Pure chaos in the tech industry right now. And we have an awful lot to talk about. Until then, rock and roll.

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