Staging a Freight Crash Could Soon Cost You 20 Years in Prison

0:05Thank you.

0:30Malcolm: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a Friday edition of What The Truck is, July 24th. Happy Friday, everybody. I'm your host, Malcolm Harris. Man, the fastest 45 minutes in freight is live and it is about to go down, all right? Because joining me is my man, the man from What The Truck West, Mr. Michael Vincent. Mike, what's up, baby? 146 Media Studios, What The Truck West! You know, if you were to, like, air drum that intro perfectly, you'd still look like you didn't know what the hell you were doing. 100%. I feel like I'm on Guitar Hero when I was a kid, just going like, uh, uh, uh, uh. Yeah, I wouldn't know what to do.

1:09No, no, no, no. It's very, very difficult. Oh, man.

1:13Malcolm: I miss you saying that I'm smelling good, man. I haven't had a hug from you in, like, a couple of weeks. It's getting lonely, man. I miss my dog. Well, I'll be out there, man. I'll be out there. All right, all right, all right. I think end of September. Okay, I'll be ready for you. And maybe even for F3, man. I've been working on that with our man, Dale Stewart. Hey, if you want to be at F3 and do some shit, call Dale Stewart, man. Call Dale Stewart. Oh, yeah, we're going to get to that here in a moment. Don't you worry. Don't you worry. Let's get to who we're talking to because I'm excited. We have two guests here on deck.

1:43Malcolm: We're going to be joining the show by Danielle Dean. All right, so Danielle, she's the head of engineering at Gather AI. Shout out to Gather AI. I had a great time with them at the AI Symposium a couple of days ago out in Chicago. So we're going to get into physical AI, computer vision, and how it's changing what's happening inside of the warehouse. And then an old buddy of mine, Mr. Chris Weathered. All right. He is the Talent Acquisition Manager at ITS Logistics out in Texas. And he's joining us to talk about the state of hiring in the space right now in transportation, what candidates are actually looking for.

2:15Malcolm: And we're going to talk a little bit about his background because he is also a Tennessee Vol. So I'm excited to talk to Chris later on the show. I'm excited to open with Danielle in about 10, 15 minutes. It's going to be a great one as we head into the weekend. But it would not be possible, of course, without our good friends at Gnosis Freight. Of course, Gnosis Freight is the presenting sponsor for the month of July for What the Truck. If you're still checking carrier websites, copying container data into spreadsheets, chasing updates through email chains, you need Gnosis, all right? It's an AI operating system for global logistics, one platform to track every single container, automate your execution, and protect your margins across the full container lifecycle.

3:01Malcolm: They've helped a lot of different organizations save a lot of money. You could be next in line. All you got to do is go check them out right now at gnosisfreight.com. Book a demo. Make sure you tell them that Michael and Malcolm at What The Truck sent you. Again, that is Gnosis Freight. Gnosis, thank you guys so much for all that you all are doing. And Michael Vincent just mentioned this, but there's an event happening. Yeah, you just mentioned this. There's an event happening very, very soon. And it is the Future of Freight Festival. F3, our biggest event of the year, is officially taking the main stage here in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

3:37Malcolm: All right, this is where you're going to get access to all the things, including connections, demos, you name it. Look at that guy right there, man. He is... Which one? Who was it? It was your boy, man. I look a little different though. That's crazy. That's not you. That's Zach, dude. Yo, F3 is going down. So make sure that you guys are getting tickets right now, right now 20 % off by using the promo code. Take 20 again, T-A-K-E two zero take 20. You can get 20 % off your admission to everything. It is going to be awesome. Biggest event of the year here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Again, it is going to be fantastic.

4:18Malcolm: The Future of Freight Festival coming to us on the 27th of 28th as well of October. It's going to be awesome. F3, get your tickets right now. October. I do want to give a quick shout out. You remember Matt Cain out of Houston? You remember we had him on the show a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's dropped a book, man. He wrote a book and he was like, yo, do you guys mind just to shout this book out? Because it's really special to me and I want it in the hands of as many people as possible. So with that being said, this is awesome. Built Not Given, again, by Matt Cain.

4:57Malcolm: It's going to take readers through a journey, through his career as a kid. I mean, going from Oklahoma to a leader that's helped scale businesses, literally to almost a billion dollars in total revenue. Man, it's about resilience, it's about leadership. and it's just about being, you know, never giving up and just doing your thing and doing what you can with what you have. I really think highly of Matt. So definitely go check this out. If you've ever, again, felt overlooked, underestimated, or like your circumstances defined you, Matt Cain is telling you it's not necessarily the case. All right.

5:28Malcolm: So go check it out. Built, not given. Shout out to Matt Cain. Incredible stuff by you, sir. I love it, dude. I can't wait to read it. I love it. I love you. and I love the news. Let's talk about the news. You sure you want to? This is a lot. All right. So the staged truck crash story. All right. So I saw this one right here. I wanted to bring it to you guys earlier. The staged truck crash could bring, again, 20 years in federal prison under this new bill. This is one of those stories where I think the entire trucking industry is going to say it's about time. A new Senate bill would now make staging a crash involving a commercial truck a federal crime with penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

6:11Malcolm: This isn't just, again, aimed at people behind the wheel. It's targeting organizers, attorneys, medical providers, anyone who's knowingly participating in these fraud schemes. If, again, a stage crash leads to serious injury or death, the bill calls for even tougher mandatory penalties. Mike, what are your thoughts about this when you saw this from Phil the other day? Well, you know, people might think 20 years is a bit steep, But if you look at it, it's actually not. It's pretty much in line with like wire fraud and all the other kind of stuff. And then when you get down into the violence of what's going on, the potential for bodily harm and death and that type of stuff and what these guys are doing is probably not even enough.

6:52Malcolm: No way. You know what I mean? And I agree. It is. It's about time. But with most things in government, there's no decision on who would prosecute it. Would it be the DOGA, the FBI, the NHTSA? Don't know. Is there any resources or funding to it? Is there any training going on? How many prosecutors are going to be dedicated to it? Is it a state thing or a federal thing? I mean, you know, none of that is there. So, you know, right now I see it as, you know, politics is politics. Hey, look what we did. And then nothing happens. Look what we did. I mean, it's not giving a back. Yeah, and there's no dedicated funding.

7:34There's no prosecutorial priority. There's no state-level conflicts between Fed and that type of stuff. And who's supposed to investigate it? None of that stuff's there. And if it's there, we just missed it in the article. But none of that stuff's there. I researched and looked for it, and there's nothing there. So, I mean, the real story is, hey, our government did nothing again.

7:55Malcolm: So it's a common theme. I guess folks are getting tired of the Louisiana Slammers, although that does sound like a drink from Panama City Beach or Destin. I think those guys, are they playing the Savannah Bananas tonight? You're insane. No, they're now playing the Savannah Bananas, which is, honestly, people call it not a sport. That's the most impressive. It ain't a sport. It is so impressive, though. Like, I'm telling you. Like, they are just so athletic. I can never. It makes me tired. Check out the few guys. You got to look up the old Harlem Globetrotters, the metal-locked lemon, that type of stuff.

8:29Those guys. catching a ball and then doing a cartwheel is not impressive my daughter can do that okay we did a backflip and then he caught the ball holy cow is he telling now i'm gonna put you to

8:42Malcolm: the test out here look out stadium we're gonna have you come out and uh let's play some banana ball okay me and you no just baseball just you just we'll play banana wiffle ball how about that banana wiffle done f3 event myself and mike no hey no we got to shut down the market street and play some stick ball right there in front of freightways. Just go get it? Yeah, man. Let's do it. I'll bring the broomstick, you bring the Super Bowl, we'll go. We'll go. Run it. First base is the left front wheel of Craig's BMW.

9:20Malcolm: You are a mess. You are something else. Let's transition to this next one, man, about tariffs. All right, because President Trump's plan to impose tariffs as high as 200 % on imported generic medicines could reshape production and distribution networks that span across multiple continents and countries. The administration's new tariff policy on imported generic drugs could also have an impact on three distributors that control most of the U.S. pharmaceuticals distribution and the logistic network that moves tens of billions of dollars in medicines each year. Now, this is saying something because, again, the challenge is that generic medicines rely on, again, one of the most sophisticated supply chains in the world.

10:01Malcolm: And if production ships back to the U.S., this is potentially good news, again, for a lot of different parties. You've got manufacturing out there, warehousing, transportation. This transition is not going to happen overnight. I actually – I don't hate this article. I know there's a lot of people that are just like anytime you see it, you know, obviously the name, it's like, oh, no, no. But it's like, if you read what's happening, it's actually a bit beneficial for the United States. Or did I read this one wrong?

10:29Well, you know, I thought at first I was like, yeah, this is really good. But I don't know that this one came out of Trump's brain or if this one came out of somebody who said, hey, tariffs, cool, let's try this.

10:39Malcolm: Yeah. Because there's concerns, right? Like, it's not possible to build factories to build this stuff by 2028. There's no way. There's no way. The infrastructure is not going to. No. I agree with that. No, you can't because it's not a mandate start building today. It's a negotiation tactic at the beginning, right? So it takes time. It may take until 2028 until they decide whether there's going to be a 50 % or the actual 200 % tariff because it starts out 100%. So there's negotiations there. Is India going to say, hey, forget it. We're the pharmacy of the world and, you know, take it or leave. We'll just raise the price to overcome your terror.

11:24There's no art. There's no, it's all could, could, could speculation. So I read and go, huh, that's kind of interesting. Let's watch and see what happens here. Because somebody is going to put the math to this and go, look, if it's built, if you're making it for five cents, right, which is about right. And then we're selling it for two bucks when it gets here. and then you put a 200 % tariff on it versus building it, making it in the United States, can you make it for less than a 200 % tariff on a$0.05 cost good?

11:57Malcolm: That is a great question, which I'm honest with you. Because when you get down to it, I mean, when you're talking about real numbers like car parts and stuff like that, that's cool. But these guys are stamping out little pills that some of them, you know, in your insurance, you go to get the generic and they're free. Yeah, absolutely. you know what i'm saying that's a great point so does this really is this just just political posturing type of stuff or taking the whole pharmacy thing which he's done tremendously good things on expensive stuff right coming down and doing that stuff this is already stuff that's dirt cheap and sometimes free so does it really matter do we is this you know i don't know i don't know i'm not that smart but that's kind of how i'm thinking right now i think you're smarter than the average Joe.

12:41Malcolm: I will say, this is going to, to your point, it's not going to happen by 2028. We're already on the back of 2026. It is going to mirror some disruption though and some possible things that I think could definitely throw a wrench in the game. Supply chain's got to be looking out for this type of stuff because it can disrupt. I mean, just floating the possibility of change disrupts supply chains. No doubt. You can check out the story more right now on FreightWaves.com. I want to roll to this next one right now, which I really want your take on because I'm obviously not a homeowner. All right. So I just want to throw this out there.

13:16Malcolm: Not a homeowner. So I know I got some growing up to do, but we've talked a lot about the freight recovery, but not every segment is obviously benefiting equally. All right. So let's talk about the housing market and what this is looking like, because I saw this one. There's a lot of different data points, a lot of graphs. This is about a weak housing market hurting big and bulky last mile delivery. All right. So of course, talked about it. Armstrong and Associates estimated that the 10.6 billion market for residential delivery of oversized and heavyweight items will grow at a 5.1 compound annual rate through 2027 down 10.6 over the past eight years.

13:53Malcolm: There's a couple of grabs here that I saw that was pretty telling of kind of where the commodities lied. I would say furniture would be the big bulk of everything at 30 % as well as appliances is going to be the big bulk, which is 37.2%. But just going through this, I was like, hmm, this is something to really take note of. I really kind of like the breakdown from Eric, but I kind of wanted your thoughts. When it comes to the housing market, yes, there are a lot of correlations that come between housing and freight. Where are we right now, given that there is kind of an upswing, I'd say, in the market right now?

14:30Malcolm: I mean, I think we're very bullish on what's happening, but housing seems to not be following or following. I mean, I don't know. That's what I'm asking you. But listen, things, things, everything cycles, right? Right. I mean, everything cycles. Everything's cynical. Right. And it doesn't, they don't necessarily cycle at the same time. You know what I'm saying? For sure. So, yeah. I mean, manufacturing goes up doesn't mean housing's going up. you know, right? Construction goes up, flatbed usage goes up. Construction goes down, flatbed usage goes up if we're starting to drill for more oil. Yeah.

15:10So things don't necessarily, you know, housing, look, you frame it as a weak housing market. It hurts big and bulky, right? It's a really good clickbait article. It's not what's happening. What's happening is the housing market is cooling a little bit. So revenue streams a little bit lower. It's a correction. and smaller players are going to get consolidated. It happens every cycle, every cycle. This isn't new stuff. It happens every time there's a cycle. This is an announcement that the cycle's happening. And most people who are out there paying attention to the housing market and watching what's going on, they knew it was cooling a long time, but when interest rates went through, you know, relatively through the roof.

15:49I mean, they're not as high as they were when I was a kid. I remember when I was coming out of college going, I'm never buying a house because like interest rates are 20%. You know what I mean? I mean, 6 % is like cheap compared to where they were when I came out of college. Really cheap. Like half at best. But so, you know what I'm saying? I mean, look, there's fewer houses and fewer people buying, fewer houses being sold because, you know, interest rates are up. Things are cooling. Housing prices are up. Sales are down about 38 % from a 2021 peak when everybody had a butt ton of money and interest rates were zero.

16:23Gee, I didn't see this coming. But it's not really a crisis. It's a normalization. It's a correction. People have got 3 % mortgages, and they're not going to get rid of a 3 % mortgage for a 6 % unless they have to, like I had to.

16:40Malcolm: You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so they're just not. So that's what happens. Listen, margin compression is down to 27.5%.

16:52Is this a crisis? No. Margin compression, yeah, but it's still 27.5 % margin. It's correcting.

17:00Malcolm: It's interesting. It's a news story, but billing it as this is a crisis and everybody's going to go out of business and it's a housing bubble burst and all that kind of crap bullshit. No, 2008 was a burst. This is just an announcement. Yes, I do agree with what you're saying. You're saying this is more so just like an announcement of what's to come, not what's currently. It is definitely trucking news and paying attention to it matters because it is actually occurring. There is a cooling going on and all this other kind of stuff, but reading into it further into this huge crisis or something like that, and we're going to have this mass exodus of bulky type carriers and that type of stuff is not true.

17:33Yeah, I think that's fear mongering.

17:36Malcolm: I love how you think in common sense. I agree with you. I ultimately do think, though, that like once, you know, obviously houses are moved and there's, you know, folks actually on the move and doing the things that you're saying. I mean, this market is going to continually, continuously rather be challenged. It's just what's going to come. It's going to keep, oh, it always is. Is it a challenge on the upside? Is it a challenge on the bottom side? Because you can never get to equilibrium because it's always cycling, right? Yeah, I agree with you. And this really, this article displays, to me, it goes, look, you need to be watching all these cycles.

18:08How do you do that? The best way that I know how? Yeah. Read Freight Waves, read Eric, and get sonar. I mean, do you know what I'm saying? It might sound like I'm saying, hey, Eric's full of it and stuff like, no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is this is really important stuff to consider as you are a logistics person or even an average citizen can use this type of stuff. You know what I'm saying? I'm saying, man, if I were just a person going through business day to day life, not even logistics, the information you can glean from the different products that Freightways and Sonar has are fantastic.

18:40Of course, I'm kind of a geek that way anyways.

18:42Malcolm: I mean, it's good to be a geek in times like this. You can check out the geeky data, the charts, graphs, and information from Eric on this piece about housing, specifically those that are in the real estate. Love me some Eric, too. Yeah, no, Eric is a phenomenal writer. Check this one out right now on FreyWaves.com. Great stuff by him and the rest of our editorial team. Last one before we get to Danielle because I'm really excited to have a conversation with her and catch up on all the things that she and the team at Gather AI are doing. She's an underachiever. Have you read her bio? I mean, a doctor.

19:19Malcolm: Holy crap. I mean, not trying to gas her up might be the smartest person we've had on here. Like, we got to button it up a little bit whenever she comes. Like, she's all that, like, for real. So I'm excited to talk to her in a moment. Let's talk about some drugs,$139 million worth. My favorite subject. Do you have a drug problem? No, I don't have a drug problem. I think drugs are the problem, and we're just going to talk about the news and cover it. The reason I wanted to talk about this one, guys, this is a$139 million drug bust. The reason, again, why I wanted to talk about it, this is like a freight operation, and I'm going to take you guys through it.

19:57Malcolm: Authorities announced, again,$139 million drug seizure. This is in the Ontario area. They're describing this one, investigators, as a broker-style cross-border trucking operation. According to the investigation, the organization allegedly used legitimate commercial freight movements and transportation networks to move illegal drugs across the border in Canada. All right. The investigation sees nearly, listen, 1.7 metric tons of illegal drugs, along with firearms and other weapons as well. This one is crazy. By the numbers, just to really break this down. So 973 kilos of cocaine, 660 kilos of meth, 49 kilos of opium, 230 oxytaps, and then 17 firearms, an anti-tank rifle, ammunition, brass knuckles, magazines, a baton, and then some cash along the way as well.

20:53Brass knuckles. Yeah. Anti-tank munitions and brass knuckles.

20:59Malcolm: high-end jewelry uh money counters 43 cell phones six laptops this was uh again they they arrested what uh 18 search warrants on june 25th uh and this was all across canada man this is this is nuts this is this is something serious this was project bay again 1.7 metric tons of illegal drugs 139 million was the street value of all the products put together mike Like, you got to cancel Christmas on this one, buddy. This is, I mean, still, I mean,$139 million of drugs isn't a lot of drugs. I mean, you know what I mean? It's just not. Because, like we talked about before, the cost of cocaine is like half of what it used to be, dude.

21:45Nobody's talking about how the drug dealers are hurting economically in this climate, right? Yeah, yeah. But this is interesting. But, you know, what I want to know is how many people were actually arrested. Who was the broker? It says broker style. Okay, what does that mean? Was there a broker? Or are there legitimate black market brokers, which I suppose they are. But I'd really like to get past what we got was just 1.7 metric tons, 139 million broker style. And somebody was driving along going, hey, dude, you got everything? Yeah, let me see. I got everything. I got the tank gun. I got the tank gun.

22:22Oh, shit. I forgot the brass knuckles. We got to go back. you know what i mean but here's what i'd like to know this is what i want to i want to i want to ask phil if he would take on this because it's legitimately in my opinion really interesting kind of side thing right how often do these guys get ripped off by another how much fraud and theft is happening on the fraud and theft so you're talking about on the back end of the actual act of fraud. What does that look like? There is anonymous, but you can look it up. A U.S. border agent said the vast majority of the ripoffs that occur in the desert and along the borders are cartels ripping off other cartels.

23:11Smugglers stealing from smugglers. There's more fraud in smugglers and fraudulent characters ripping off other fraudulent carriers than the rest of it. So if you think about it, right? Even if only 5 % to 10 % of the shipments that get ripped off internally are a cartel ripping off another or somebody ripping off another, maybe that's why only like 5 % or 6 % of all the fraud gets reported because the other 95 % to 97 % is actually fraud against other fraudulent people.

23:45Malcolm: That's my theory. The double brokering of fraud. of fraud double brokering of fraudulent freight is a real thing out there i think we need to stamp that out dude this we are in trouble like as a as an industry as a society this is crazy i want to clean something up real quick my numbers were a little bit off uh the 139 million was right uh 21 people all right so it was a total of 21 people were charged with 104 oh okay 21 people got nailed yeah 104 offenses under two canadian laws all right so this uh statutes include the criminal code and the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act. Police arrested 19 defendants during the operation.

24:23Malcolm: Again, two of them remain wanted under outstanding arrest warrant. So a total of 21, again, 139 mil. You can look at this one and read it in full detail from Phil right now on FreightWaves.com. All right. And then also just to kind of put a bow on this, we will have a non-stop uh over um i don't want to say overhaul but a recap of headlines on our website freightwaves.com slash what the truck as well as you can check out freight waves today with julie vandekamp and craig fuller they're going to talk a little bit about his voice with the morning minute uh and other issues as well so shout out to them and uh thank you guys so much for the headline um just review i want to say all right so with that i feel like yeah when they do the news headlines after we do it, it's kind of like my cousin Vinny when he gets up there and just says everything that guy said before is complete bullshit.

25:19Thank you.

25:20Malcolm: They're like, Malcolm and Michael do not know what they're talking about. There it is.

25:29Malcolm: Oh, my goodness. Cody Dowler in Photoshop is peanut butter and jelly. Do you see that? Dude, I don't know how you can tell you know reality from ai with that type of work no no no it's it's riveting stuff riveting stuff it is it's fantastic so now i want to take some time to welcome again uh the head of engineering at gather ai uh we spoke about how accomplished she is we're going to get into the details and her illustrious career and what she's been able to do she's got the gather ai t-shirt on she is ready to go and she's officially here on the clock with us welcome danielle dean officially the head of engineering at gather ai to what the truck it's good to see you this morning thanks malcolm it's great to be here this is awesome yeah it's awesome to have yeah look at her look at this girl look before i before i get into this uh about her past because there is a past we i need to fix something here because malcolm is is scared that you're way too intelligent for us right you know what i'm saying and he's probably right but we do i have help i I have help right now.

26:37So she did a master's thesis on MEPSIM, which is a discrete time multiple event process survival mixture or MEPSIM model for investigating the order and timing of multiple non-repeatable events. So let me just translate that for you, Malcolm. So you feel a little bit more comfortable. Please do so. What that actually is, It's a statistical flex that predicts which life-altering event is going to wreck you first and when it's going to come, right? So the full definition is really it's a nerdy-ass mathematics framework for tracking the order and timing of multiple one-time-only events in a person's life, like getting divorced, losing your job, getting cancer, winning the lottery, that type of stuff.

27:21Instead of assuming everyone gets hit with shit at the same speed, it hits the fan in different speeds, right? And so it's going to tell you when and who's going to get wrecked. Right. So there, there you go, Malcolm. I just wanted to get that out for you. Is that pretty much straight, Daniel? Is that, am I right? Am I right? 100 % right. You were officially a geek as well as you've already proclaimed in the show. Yeah. See, that's, that's actually, I found that her draft thesis, that's what it said. And then one of her roommates said, no, you can't, you can't write it like that. You got it. Yeah.

27:56She'll fix that.

27:58Malcolm: Thank you for Malcolm-splaining that for me. When I tell you I really appreciate it, I feel a lot more confident, Mike. Thank you. Genuinely. I like it. I'm just saying there probably weren't a lot of Bass Pro Shop hats when she was doing her doctorate at MIT in the class. You can tell you're a nerd when you can't come up with acronyms and make any sense to anybody else in the world. So that's part of the deal. I want a shirt that says Mepsum. I want a shirt that says Mepsum. I really screwed up. I really screwed up here, right? The Gathering IT shirt. Y 'all are cracking me up on a Friday. I do want to do this, though.

28:39I do want to say this. Daniel, your bio is impressive. And you're the type of person I know from looking at what you've done who's not going to stand up and say, hey, look all the things that I've accomplished and done. But while she's getting a doctor, while she's getting multiple masters and doing all this crazy stuff and coming up with acronyms like MEPSIM and that type of thing. During that time, she's also volunteering and doing charitable at like Amherst Survival Center, Kate's Soup Kitchen, the Arbors at Amherst, Jesse's House, Not Bread Alone Soup Kitchen, Hunger Cleanup, Relay for Life, all this type of stuff.

29:12This is absolutely fantastic stuff. And I just want to say Matthew 23, 37 through 40 says, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second, love your neighbor as yourself. I think you hit all of that and quite accomplished in contributing tremendously to our society and your work as well as the scientists, which is fantastic. Love it. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Yeah. I've always loved it. That's actually kind of why I've loved physical AI over my whole career is helping people in the real world. AI is incredible, and especially the last few years, it's transformed things so much.

29:55But I've always loved the physical AI. Like, how do you make AI work in the real world? How do you build a system that can sense from the real world, understand the real world, and then act in it to make a difference in real people's lives? So it's always been super interesting to me in my career. Like, how do we build physical AI systems?

30:14Malcolm: Let's stay there for a second because I can't top what Mike just said. I mean, I was about to shed a tear up here. That was so nice, Mike. credit where credit is is is due man i mean and hopefully it inspires somebody else man this is a week dude i mean this is kind of like the alan adler week he was the same way you know what i'm saying that's very very nice of you let's let's stick with physical ai to your point danielle because there's a lot of listeners and honestly myself can't really tell the difference between generic or regular AI and physical AI. What is the real emphasis when it comes to physical AI?

30:51Malcolm: What does that mean? What does that tell? Yeah, even AI, what the heck is AI, right? Like, there's so many different ways you can describe it. And it can mean so many different things. Really simply, physical AI is an AI system that operates in the physical world. So you imagine a system that observes the real world through sensors and things like cameras, make sense of it, reasons on it, and then acts upon it in the real world. So it's a system that really makes a difference in the real world and acting on it. But a physical AI system can also use other terms, like generative AI systems, these other AI systems, like those can be part of a physical AI system.

31:29It's just an AI system that works in the physical world. Okay. So when, like, we've had systems that were designed to make logistics better and more accurate and like for example scanning barcodes rfid tags that type of stuff right to tell people where to put stuff but we it never solved really solved the issue because you still had the human doing it right this physical ai kind of bridge that gap you know what i'm saying like when bar like when you block data therefore blockchain it doesn't do matter because you know if i'm out there you know making the package i still tell blockchain i did it that's still human so now you've got immutable bullshit is basically what you got, right?

32:12Yeah, yeah. Is that kind of the stretch? Yeah, I wouldn't say it has to completely replace what the human's doing. It can be a system that just augments it and makes it better. So, for example, Gather AI has a platform that helps sense what's happening in the warehouse, digitize that information, reason over it, and then help with workflows. But those systems augment what the humans are doing in the warehouse. So it's not like a complete replacement or it doesn't have to be a complete replacement. It's just a system that works in the real world. In the case of Gather.ai, we have this platform that augments the things like inventory counting to be able to do that in a way that doesn't require as much manual intervention and manual counting.

32:59So it's not that it has to completely replace things, but it's just a system that can observe the real world, improve upon it, and then act in the warehouse in the case of Gather AI.

33:10Malcolm: You know, when it comes to the inventory visibility, I mean, there's been barcode scans. This is what we've kind of relied on when it comes to the warehouse. I mean, how are we, I guess, saving companies time when it comes to automating this inventory intelligence with, I'm sure, the tools and resources from Gather AI, as well as, I guess, the folks that work alongside with you as well? Yeah, the Gather AI system really helps augment what is being happened on the warehouse floor to make what could be called a digital twin. So you can imagine your warehouse management system has all the details about where everything is.

33:47This pallet is in this certain aisle and where we're going to move it. And you do things like what you're talking about, barcode scanning to understand how where something is moved. Now, what the Gather AI system does is have a bunch of sensing systems. So things like an autonomous drone that can go around the warehouse floor and understand the pallets, scan them where they are. Things like a sensing system that can be put onto an existing forklift. Again, like a vision based system to understand where things are moving as they move to help augment the data and make it more accurate to what the real what is happening in the real world.

34:25Because as you imagine, human, we all make mistakes. Can you imagine I ask you, like, where do you think something like this is in your house? And you're like, I swear I put it over there. But did you actually put it over there? So a gather AI system helps build those components that go on to our existing systems, the customer's existing systems to help understand where things are so that downstream workflows can be built on more accurate data. That makes sense. You know, I've learned over the years that whenever I think to myself, hey, I'm going to put this here so I'll never forget it. I don't do that because that's guaranteed.

35:00We're humans. We're humans. Yeah, we mess up. If I purposely put it. Yeah. If I purposely play it and say, forget it, I'm never finding it again. Yeah, exactly. I have to keep the chaos. Got to keep the chaos. In the warehouse floor, can you imagine like this? We're basically putting all the sensing in there to help the humans who are doing their tasks make sure that we track what they actually do. So if we had a gather AI system for you in your home, we could say, hey, that's where that thing actually went, not where you said it went. And then you'd be able to have that ground truth data. And then separately, you as a customer can build other workflows on top of more accurate data.

35:37That's really the key is that how do you get that more accurate data to build upon? Does that kind of lead into data flywheels, how you're teaching your AI? Right. Because how you react to where things are in that knowledge and then where they move to, et cetera. teaches the system, okay, they're about to do this, which was stupid, so maybe they should do that, or more efficient ways of putting things where they should be instead of where they are or were in the past. Yes, exactly. And data flywheel can be thought of as you have some sort of data that helps you build better systems. And then as you build better systems, you get even better data, and that can compound over time.

36:17And what Gathered AI has been able to do is over time, as we go out to more customer deployments, we are able to gather information. We're able to leverage those learnings to have improved solutions for future customers as well. So you can mention things like, how do we understand what is in a certain bin, for instance? It sounds straightforward, but there's lots of nuances of where do you put things in that bin? Are they double deep? How do you understand if something is supposed to be there or not? What are the different types of barcodes? What's actually relevant to be reading? And all those types of little nuances make a big difference in how you build a system that's truly accurate, that brings value to the customer.

36:57And so that's that data flywheels. You're building up information over time, building better systems, and continuing to build those over time with that flywheel.

37:06Malcolm: Daniel, there's leaders in the logistics space that are, I guess, not hesitant, but I guess there is some hesitancy when it comes to using AI. So I guess my question is, the trust of it, when and how do you know to trust AI? If you could kind of split those two into the when you should trust it, and I guess how you should trust it. That's something that's in the back of my brain. Yeah, it's a great question. It's really critical to build in validation systems to understand how well an AI system is working for your particular use case. And the way we do that, at Gather AI is we provide views for our customers to understand how the system is performing.

37:49They can then go into things like dashboards to give feedback on whether something is a true exception or something is wrong with the system and needs to be tuned. And that validation does take, we iterate over time and build up that confidence that the system is performing as expected for a particular customer. So there's definitely work that needs to be done to validate in tune and build up that trust over time. And AI systems, they don't always work perfectly right away. No system works perfectly right away when you're talking about making sure it's really tuned for the specific thing that you're looking for.

38:27And what we've been able to do at Gather AI is make those customizations and those configurations accessible to customers so that they can then tune the system and build up that trust over time. Okay.

38:41Malcolm: Now, I guess a follow-up question I have is that anytime AI comes up, the first thing it says is, well, that's going to replace my job. Like, I mean, people are literally like, ah, it's a panic. How do you respond, Daniel, personally, whenever you hear that? Because I guess in my head, I'm just like, well, AI, yeah, it has replaced some jobs, just candidly. But then also, doesn't it enhance what a human is able to do at their job? Absolutely. It is able to help. Nobody likes doing those really monotonous jobs, right? We want humans to be doing judgment calls. We want people to be reflecting and thinking about how to build the system overall.

39:23In the customer sites that we've been working with, this is about how do we move that labor force, which the labor force in the market these days has been a major struggle and why more and more companies are looking to how do we use automation and AI technologies to supplement our workers. but moving those humans to do tasks that require more judgment there's also a lot of cases of places where no human wants to do things like you imagine freezer environments having an autonomous drone that can operate in a freezer environment i've been into them myself they're not fun to be in who can then go all the way up to the top aisle and do that count and verify that things were put in the right place like that is something that provides a ton of value so that that human doesn't have to go into that freezing environment, go way up high, extremely scary.

40:11So these are the types of things where AI and technology can really help it so that the humans can then focus on more critical downstream works and think about things like how do we optimize the overall system and not just do things like count what is on the shelf, which is a monotonous job that can be supplemented elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah. How much more time we have here, Malcolm? Because I got a million questions that I could ask.

40:37Malcolm: You feel free to wrap this one up. I think we might have gotten left at the altar, so we can go a little long with this one. Oh, yeah. Fantastic. Well, not fantastic because I wanted to see them, but fantastic because this is... Yeah. Feel free to put Danielle in the hot seat. What I wanted to ask is we're talking about barcodes, right? And then we're talking about beyond barcodes, like robotic or AI vision, right? Yeah. And I want to learn everything that I possibly can about that because I am a geek or want to be geek and a nerd that way because I just want to learn that. But why do we never hear about AI or robotic hearing, whether it's actual sound or even radio frequency, like RFID and that type of stuff?

41:24Why is that not something we hear? We hear about LIDAR and radar and all that other kind of stuff. I guess radar is kind of like speaking. It's almost like sonar or something like that. But why do we not hear about that? And is that something that comes to the future? Yeah, I think there are AI solutions in this space that might just not be as obvious to you. Like things like the speech to text when you interact with AI systems, right? I get that, but within the warehouse environment, right? If you've got things double stacked or back stacked, like vision doesn't help you. Right, right, right.

42:02How do you verify that back? Like we put this away, but it's one of these that stack back. So, you know, three days ago we had this, so it's just adding to it. But what if that's not there anymore? Yeah, so this is where it needs to be a combination of technologies and a combination of sensing systems. So like there, we have an autonomous drone based vision system, for example, that, as you can imagine, is looking at the outside of the aisle and can visualize things based on what's visible there. But we also have a camera system that can get mounted on preexisting forklifts. And that camera system can understand in real time as things are happening, where things get moved and where they get placed.

42:47So if we are able to complement the sensing to understand all of those different things, we are able to understand those use cases in a little bit more depth.

42:59Malcolm: Danielle, where can we get more information about what you and the rest of the team at Gather.ai are doing? Because I'm really proud of you, really proud of the work and the progress you guys are making, and just thankful that you took some time to be here today. Yeah, our website's the best place, Gather.ai. It tells a lot of information about our Prana platform, the See, Think, Act. It gives a great way to get in contact to get a demo and learn as a customer how you can look at the product and what you can leverage from it. Danielle, Dean. That's awesome. I just want to point out one thing, Malcolm, how cool it is that we're talking about AI and physical AI and that type of stuff.

43:42and she's sitting in front of a steam heat diffuser. A house that was built in 1893, if you would believe it. You know what I mean? Is that a smart steam heating thing there? This chandelier does have IoT devices in it, so it complements it. We've got to have both, you know? This is something also about what we're doing at Gathering Eye, like a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new. The infrastructure goes on to pre-existing forklifts, right? Like we are not, you do not have to retrofit your warehouse to have all new crazy technology. We have to supplement the old with the new. Yeah.

44:21So you're putting AI sensors on a diesel forklift.

44:27Malcolm: That's like me and Mike with the old with the new. No, I'm kidding. Yeah. Come on, bro. Daniel, thank you for your time and being here on What The Truck. Seriously, I really appreciate you. It was awesome. Yeah, it was great. Great talking with you both. Thank you so much. Great talking to you, of course. Have a good weekend. Yeah, and y 'all, this is going to be it for us. But before we get to the rest of the show, I will say. Uh-oh, what's going on here? I'm going to commit to premier trailer leasing, all right? You got a hat just like this, Mike, all right? It came from Ed Benin, who is going to be on the show on Monday, all right?

45:03Malcolm: He is the SVP of sales at premier trailer leasing. Ed is going to be on the show. And then my man, Lance Ealy, the co-founder and CEO of Freight Facts, is going to be here on the show. That's it for us, man. Another week in the books here on What the Truck. Like, subscribe, follow, do all the things. I'm Malcolm Harris. That is Michael Vincent. I'll see you all on Monday. Holla at your boys, man. Peace and love.

45:57Outro Music