Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles. We're
Speaker 1: thrilled to be joined once again in our third seat
Speaker 1: by a research associate at the Leverholmes Center for the
Speaker 1: Future of Intelligence, where she researches AI from the perspective
Speaker 1: of gender studies. She's the co host of the great
Speaker 1: podcast A Good Robot. Please welcome back the brilliant doctor
Speaker 1: Kerrie McNary.
Speaker 2: Doctor kay, Hi, thanks so much for having me back.
Speaker 3: Oh awful, thank you, thank you for accepting our offer
Speaker 3: to return, you know, to class up the joint as
Speaker 3: I say.
Speaker 1: International you know, diplomacy going on. We had yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: work it out, but we're thrilled to have you back.
Speaker 2: How have you been, I mean, how have we all been?
Speaker 2: I don't answer that question anymore so I'm just like,
Speaker 2: I guess in the big scheme of things, I'm personally
Speaker 2: doing really well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, thriving, Yeah yeah. What's the energy like? Answer?
Speaker 1: What's the energy like? In Europe?
Speaker 3: Looking at the cess pit that is a flame as
Speaker 3: known as the United States. Is it like, is it
Speaker 3: like a tooth like Iraq war? Anger like I experienced
Speaker 3: going to Europe, or like what the fuck are y'all
Speaker 3: doing over there? Or is it like how we felt
Speaker 3: after Bregg's there people are like, oh, sorry, is fucking
Speaker 3: themselves bad?
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, a lot of confusion and fear.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's necessarily even just anger as
Speaker 2: much as it's just people being like what is happening?
Speaker 2: Like what are you doing? But I think there is
Speaker 2: a degree of like shell shock to it, where just
Speaker 2: so much keeps happening that I think you start to
Speaker 2: like become slightly numb, which is very bad but also
Speaker 2: very understandable. I got a bit of a refresh from
Speaker 2: that because I was back home in New Zealand in
Speaker 2: March and like, there's nothing quite like being in a
Speaker 2: country when you watch the news every day and like
Speaker 2: nothing happens. It's like a tree fell near the motorway,
Speaker 2: not even on the motorway, or you know that kind
Speaker 2: of level of me right right right, And then it
Speaker 2: came back here and I was like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: this is a very different level of news.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, well we're not getting them to it. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: every day it hurts every day. Damn you got anything
Speaker 3: for that hurts every day?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, but that is the point. I think
Speaker 3: they want as many people to turn off and sort
Speaker 3: of ignore what's happening. But I think I think as
Speaker 3: things ramp up here, people more and more realize how
Speaker 3: how much the norms, as flawed as they were, were
Speaker 3: things that were worth keeping and trying to improve rather
Speaker 3: than be like FuG everything, get rid of it all
Speaker 3: and whatever.
Speaker 1: This is, Yeah, what is something from your search history
Speaker 1: that's revealing about who you are?
Speaker 4: So I am working on a show called How to
Speaker 4: Live Forever right now, which is you know, I'm just
Speaker 4: so enamored with like how how these billionaires are spending
Speaker 4: all their lives like trying believing that they're gonna live
Speaker 4: to one hundred and sixty and and but they're also
Speaker 4: like crazy things like cats that like you know, I
Speaker 4: think Rick Perry's cousin is helping them.
Speaker 1: Live to their thirties. They're like cats live to their thirties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, with like tiny thimbles of wine and like there's
Speaker 4: a whole exercise course for them.
Speaker 1: Wait, is the wine thing real, because like I always
Speaker 1: assumed that was just wishful thinking. Is it real? Well,
Speaker 1: for cats it is. I don't know about us with
Speaker 1: a little bit of wine. Well wow, okay, I mean
Speaker 1: it takes the edge off, I guess.
Speaker 4: But you know, they're all these like things and and
Speaker 4: they're you know, miracles of science right now. Like they're
Speaker 4: these dancing molecules that in a lab in Northwestern they
Speaker 4: have severed mices spines to make them paraplegic and then
Speaker 4: give them this injection and within a month they're like
Speaker 4: walking normally again. And like, like the advances and science
Speaker 4: are unbelievable. But also there's all this like snake oil,
Speaker 4: and like what happens when like billionaires stop like giving
Speaker 4: their money to society and taking like billionaire's pledge and
Speaker 4: just like conserving it for you know, when they're living
Speaker 4: to two hundred or whatever. But in all this research
Speaker 4: I stumbled into like this rabbit hole on the enhanced games.
Speaker 4: Have you been paying attention to this? Like it's basically
Speaker 4: an all drug Olympics.
Speaker 1: And they're doing it.
Speaker 4: I know that it was a one in it, but
Speaker 4: it is that it's supposed to happen next year, and
Speaker 4: and there's all this craziness of like trying to figure
Speaker 4: out where is it going to be because they're like,
Speaker 4: you know, you can, I think, dope up as much
Speaker 4: as you want.
Speaker 1: For these Olympics.
Speaker 4: They're getting people who are like retired Olympians and like
Speaker 4: people who have sort of like failed out of the
Speaker 4: you know, they were like a fifth place, like swimmer
Speaker 4: or whatever, and they're getting roted up and and other
Speaker 4: drugs obviously, and and uh and then they're getting these
Speaker 4: huge cash prizes to like beat the like Michael Phelps
Speaker 4: record or like you.
Speaker 1: Know, and and uh.
Speaker 4: It's just the whole world is fascinating to me, like
Speaker 4: the fact that like, you know, the Olympics themselves are
Speaker 4: are pretty corrupt. It's not like you know, they're there
Speaker 4: are things where like Ben Johnson and and.
Speaker 1: Uh car Johnson Johnson.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean they took the same drugs right, like
Speaker 4: and and and one of them is like a hero
Speaker 4: and the others like you know this pariah and and like.
Speaker 1: Carl Lewis took those drugs too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, come on, Barcelona Olympics.
Speaker 1: So that's been like documented since.
Speaker 4: No, but but but but there's a documentary about it
Speaker 4: Steroids that that talks about it.
Speaker 1: Ben Johnson just like didn't hide it as well, because
Speaker 1: he definitely looked more on steroids than I think anyone
Speaker 1: I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: Well I think also, I think the countries are better
Speaker 4: at hiding it than other countries, right, Like certain doctors
Speaker 4: are better at hiding it. So like you know, whether
Speaker 4: it's like Russia or China or various places, Eastern Germany,
Speaker 4: right was very very good at hiding it and not
Speaker 4: hiding it. But anyway, like the fact that like you one,
Speaker 4: like the countries are trying to bid on whether they
Speaker 4: can like sports wash through like an all drug Olympics
Speaker 4: is like kind of.
Speaker 1: Stunning to me.
Speaker 4: And and and also just the people are invested in
Speaker 4: this because they feel like people like Peter Thiel are
Speaker 4: invested in because they hope that all these longevity drugs
Speaker 4: will come out of an Olympics. And it's hard to tell,
Speaker 4: you know, is it going to be like a fire
Speaker 4: festival of sport or is it going to be like
Speaker 4: something that makes money and becomes like you know.
Speaker 1: Regularly washed on TV. Or where's it located? Haven't announced
Speaker 1: yet oh International waters.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we're going to see it like the first
Speaker 3: televised like race where people are having like a heart
Speaker 3: attack during the butterfly stroke of a swim competition and
Speaker 3: you're like.
Speaker 1: Oh, boy using air while you can literally see his
Speaker 1: heart pumping out of his chest. I feel like it
Speaker 1: either needs to be Vegas or Detroit in honor of RoboCop.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, yeah, right, like or like or to
Speaker 1: just be like Saudi Arabia. Yeah, that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. Yeah, and and it just like plays it
Speaker 1: to this whole like weird.
Speaker 4: There's a GQ article about like everyone you know is
Speaker 4: on steroids, you know, and it feels.
Speaker 1: Like this, no, not Jack, I told you I'm not.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had to ask my mom twice. She's everyone I
Speaker 1: know that she lifted the couch with one man. It
Speaker 1: was crazy, but got terrible back acne too, I noticed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it is I mean this whole world of
Speaker 4: like biohacking and human augmentation where like people showed up
Speaker 4: two feet taller or like six inches taller after the
Speaker 4: pandemic because they'd had those like you know, like like
Speaker 4: this whole world is so bizarre and it's fascinating to
Speaker 4: see what'll stick.
Speaker 1: I have some suspicions that there was one time where,
Speaker 1: like some I ran into someone I hadn't seen it
Speaker 1: in a while, and they were definitely taller than they
Speaker 1: used to be, and I just like wouldn't because I
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought of that as being a real thing.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't let it rest. I'd be like, are you
Speaker 1: so damn tall? It's crazy.
Speaker 5: It's like you had a goddamn Rosebury in your thirties
Speaker 5: and they were like, yeah, man, just like stop, just like, no,
Speaker 5: I've always been this tall.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Oh man, bro, yeah I had my bones extended.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh yeah, exactly. And you were saying before
Speaker 1: we recorded, Brian Johnson is hosting that show with you.
Speaker 1: That's your co host, the guy, his son's bonus. So
Speaker 1: that's cool. No, that's not true. That's uh, that's that
Speaker 1: is super interesting. I can't wait to have them have
Speaker 1: these games and they can't even get close to the
Speaker 1: real Olympian records because they were all on steroids too.
Speaker 1: You know, we'll see what is something you think is underrated?
Speaker 1: Mashed potatoes underrated? Okay, that's just you think they're more versatile,
Speaker 1: just more more delicious than people give them credit for.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think they're top potato.
Speaker 1: So you're saying underrated because we're emphasizing what the fry
Speaker 1: too much, I think so.
Speaker 6: I think we're in too fancy with potatoes. Being an
Speaker 6: Idaho brought me closer to the potato and you can
Speaker 6: just throw butter and salt and that's good shit. It
Speaker 6: doesn't need anything else. People gussy it up too much.
Speaker 6: So mashed potatoes underrated a.
Speaker 3: Lot of butter, you know, if you really want to
Speaker 3: real good, a fucking a lot of butter, like enough
Speaker 3: that their people.
Speaker 1: Are like are you Are you okay? And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you okay, because this she's delicious when you worry about yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, one just makes a bowl of mashed potatoes as
Speaker 6: they should.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I did it down with the movie.
Speaker 1: Three Nights ago.
Speaker 3: I had a bag of potatoes that like one started
Speaker 3: to sprout a little, you know, a little eye out
Speaker 3: of it, and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, all right, I got to cook these straight, yeah,
Speaker 1: just right away. And I was like, maybe I can
Speaker 1: roast them.
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, dude, I want to eat a big
Speaker 3: ass bowl of mashed potatoes, and I did it, and
Speaker 3: my life is better exactly.
Speaker 6: You don't even need gravy. It's just comfort filling easy. Yeah,
Speaker 6: mashed potatoes are underrated.
Speaker 1: Where are we on the you can't see big bowl
Speaker 1: where like where we sort of base the base that
Speaker 1: you're working off of. I loved it.
Speaker 6: I've been suicidal at one point in my life, but
Speaker 6: never that sad r.
Speaker 1: K big bull A dark experience that is also like
Speaker 1: kind of worth it.
Speaker 6: That's the thing. I know, it's great. It's just I
Speaker 6: can't look at myself in the eye, you know.
Speaker 3: Right, It almost feels it's like, yeah, like probably the
Speaker 3: reason I never did Heroin.
Speaker 1: I was like, I've gotten.
Speaker 3: Close, but part of it is just like it ain't.
Speaker 3: It's just ain't calling me like that. And I feel
Speaker 3: like if it did, it would be all bad. It
Speaker 3: would be all bad.
Speaker 1: I did feel like, like William Burrows talking about Heroin,
Speaker 1: I was like, it's dark, it's a dark experience, but
Speaker 1: it's actually worth crying down the road that like you
Speaker 1: had to go down at least one in your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I give lunch indeed, Yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Haven't tried that monstrosity where it's the fried chicken, cheese, bacon,
Speaker 6: fried chicken.
Speaker 7: What was it?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: That thing?
Speaker 2: Have you guys tried it?
Speaker 6: I can't bring myself.
Speaker 1: That one just seems gammicky to me. But the mashed
Speaker 1: potato bowl like always made sense to me. I was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: this is something I would make at home. You know,
Speaker 1: It's basically what I did with Thanksgiving leftovers for.
Speaker 2: It makes total sense.
Speaker 6: And I think because my family Southern KFC is just
Speaker 6: like an abomination of fried chicken, so that I do
Speaker 6: have a bias, so that probably goes into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow's your favorite fried chicken?
Speaker 6: Honestly it is Ralph's.
Speaker 1: Ralph's Real.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So California grocery chain has probably some of the
Speaker 6: best fried chicken I've had. That's not my mema us right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: bad day fried chicken, mashed potatoes, couch.
Speaker 1: Ralph Kroger. I'm wondering if Kroger elsewhere has good fried
Speaker 1: chicken or if it's just something about Ralph. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: how's it up by you? Anywhere else?
Speaker 6: We don't have Ralph's. Like I'm on the border of
Speaker 6: California and Nevada, so we have a rallies and it
Speaker 6: looks just like Ralph's logo, but it's different. I think
Speaker 6: it's privately owned.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's not even a name. They just made that
Speaker 1: ship up. Yeah, Rales.
Speaker 6: It's just as expensive as Ralph's, but different. They don't
Speaker 6: have Kroger brands. I don't know what their brand name is,
Speaker 6: their store brand that gang.
Speaker 3: Let us know what is the best grocery store chicken?
Speaker 3: Because I do agree? I mean that and Pavilions. Pavilions
Speaker 3: get a fresh ship, fresh batch of Pavilions fried chicken too.
Speaker 6: Yeah that in their donuts. Holy fuck. When I lived
Speaker 6: in Orange County, our Pavilions made donuts every morning. They
Speaker 6: were like still hot in a little greasy from the friar.
Speaker 7: Oh my god.
Speaker 6: If maybe they fry the chicken in the donuts.
Speaker 1: Maybe they fry the donuts in the chicken.
Speaker 6: KFC are you listening.
Speaker 1: KFC Krispy Cream collab.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, we brought over the friar oil from
Speaker 3: a CAFC to fuck up these donuts over here.
Speaker 6: Bring in a weed brand and I never get anything
Speaker 6: done again.
Speaker 1: Wow, Brian, what is something you think is overrated? Oh?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so that that my pit. Thing was anti heroes.
Speaker 8: I think they're overrated. We're done with it. Leave that
Speaker 8: ship in when we weren't in the Age of Aquarius,
Speaker 8: because we are in the Age of Aquarius.
Speaker 7: It's currently as of a few months ago.
Speaker 1: That's great news for me. Is that good? That's from hair?
Speaker 7: It's great.
Speaker 8: It's when all the it's like historically, I don't know
Speaker 8: anything about what I'm talking about that, but.
Speaker 7: Historically it's when like huge like revolutions and shit happened.
Speaker 1: All right, Oh, hell yeah, I think we kind of
Speaker 1: need that right now, guys low key, I think we
Speaker 1: need that right now. All right, So that was your
Speaker 1: under overrated? Underrated? Is the pit? Overrated? Is he anti heroes? No?
Speaker 7: Underrated? Was uh?
Speaker 1: Fuck?
Speaker 7: I actually forget what I just said.
Speaker 1: No, did you say the pit?
Speaker 7: No? The pit was me leading into anti heroes? I
Speaker 7: think anti and underrated is something else?
Speaker 1: Is the pit? Wait?
Speaker 7: Oh oh wait, I fuck this up? Processed food?
Speaker 1: Oh that's okay, sod under let's do that, Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I think we flipped your overrated and underrated? What
Speaker 1: what's something you think under rated? Okay? Process? Which one?
Speaker 1: What kind? What's the most underrated? Process? Food. I think
Speaker 1: like cheese, processed cheese, American cheese.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm just kind of like over healthy.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, American just oil and water in the
Speaker 1: shape of it. I fucking I am fully in agreement
Speaker 1: that I love American cheese. Like the melt the melting
Speaker 1: point on that ship is so crucial, Like, yes, I guess,
Speaker 1: and I was made in a lab.
Speaker 3: I used to rake my teeth over the edges of
Speaker 3: the plastic to make sure I was getting all that
Speaker 3: cheese off when I was a kid, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like.
Speaker 1: Like room temps, like melts at room temp is a
Speaker 1: wild It is a wild quality for a substance to have.
Speaker 7: Watching the craft singles get squirted into the plastic and
Speaker 7: then the plastic kind of adhering it around it is
Speaker 7: pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: Poetry poetry.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's the Hopecore edit that I should be watching.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. I mean we shouldn't be surprised that
Speaker 1: processed food as you're underrated because you said that your
Speaker 1: favorite cookie is white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from somewhere. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fine.
Speaker 7: They're always moist.
Speaker 1: They are they are, and you know why, because they
Speaker 1: are sprayed down with chemicals that aren't available to anybody
Speaker 1: except No Fortune, five hundred corporations and the US military.
Speaker 1: Brian just he trusts the process. That's right.
Speaker 8: You gotta trust the process. I think we need to
Speaker 8: stop having trying to have so much control over everything.
Speaker 1: That's trust the process. Control works in the short term.
Speaker 1: Long term, it's a bad strategy. It's gonna it's gonna
Speaker 1: fuck you up trying to control everything. Just to let
Speaker 1: it go. Eat the fucking processed food. Trust the process.
Speaker 1: Trust the process food. And we we know how well
Speaker 1: that worked out for the seventy six ers, so it'll
Speaker 1: probably work out for all of us as well. That's
Speaker 1: my basketball team, bro. You need a hope Core Sixers
Speaker 1: at it? Man, really, I do not. I'm going over here.
Speaker 1: I'm dead man. I think about that ship for a
Speaker 1: little while. Yeah, all right, great to have you back, Brian.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna come back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about some of this news. You heard
Speaker 1: about this stuff the news. We'll be right back and
Speaker 1: we're back. We're back and we on this podcast, we
Speaker 1: asked the hard hitting questions such as where are we
Speaker 1: at with AI generally just like generally, what's the vibes,
Speaker 1: doctor McNerney, So every because I remember when we first
Speaker 1: had you on, we were.
Speaker 3: Like in the midst of like e AI EI, mommy
Speaker 3: E I yeah, AI, researchers giving us like the warning
Speaker 3: could be the next just's gonna end the world. I'm
Speaker 3: I'm taking cyanide now to preemptively excuse myself from this apocalypse.
Speaker 3: And after a while, I think that's as we started
Speaker 3: to speak to more and more experts, we all became
Speaker 3: rightly unconvinced by its capabilities and they're like, oh, it's
Speaker 3: a fancy computer program that's like a toy basically, but
Speaker 3: they're saying you can do so much more. Then we
Speaker 3: see more and more articles about how people using AI
Speaker 3: are like fucking up in like legal proceedings like the
Speaker 3: MyPillow guy his lawyers used chat GPT recently and the
Speaker 3: judges like they're like thirty critical errors in your like
Speaker 3: your response here, Like I don't even know what this is.
Speaker 3: But now I'm like, are we now? Sort of I
Speaker 3: think because we're sort of past the thing of like
Speaker 3: this is that world ender game changer. But still these
Speaker 3: companies have to make the line go up. Are we
Speaker 3: like now seeing more of a strategy to just kind
Speaker 3: of normalize AI, use to get people to slowly warm
Speaker 3: up to it than sort of like the big explosive
Speaker 3: sort of debut with like chat GPT and things that
Speaker 3: we saw, because I feel like now I hear more
Speaker 3: people talk about AI when they are like miyazakifying themselves
Speaker 3: or getting a recipe recommendation, rather than like this is
Speaker 3: going to replace the entire medical field.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think normalization is the exact right word.
Speaker 2: And I was just thinking this today as I went
Speaker 2: on to Google Search, and of course they now have
Speaker 2: that AI overview summary and even some of my fee Yeah.
Speaker 1: You're talking about my friend Gemini. Yeah, we're pretty intited actually, so.
Speaker 2: They're yeah, some answers, you know, even things like that.
Speaker 2: I think people like me who say probably wouldn't have
Speaker 2: gone to chat GPT just to do like basic information searches,
Speaker 2: I have to admit I do read the AI summaries
Speaker 2: quite a lot, and you know, and I think that
Speaker 2: it's a way of just kind of like making it
Speaker 2: really frictionless and really really easy to immediately use an
Speaker 2: AI tool. And I think we see that with a
Speaker 2: lot of like AI roll out and look, and on
Speaker 2: the one hand, like, I'm not completely against the use
Speaker 2: of these AI tools if you're really finding it useful
Speaker 2: and if it's from liable, you're kind of getting the
Speaker 2: full picture behind the tool and what it's for. But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, I think something I do worry
Speaker 2: about is something that I think has to be integrated
Speaker 2: into all our ethical tech use is like a meaningful
Speaker 2: sense of the opt out or a meaningful sense of
Speaker 2: the opt in. So like, do I have the right
Speaker 2: in the ability to say, like, nah, I don't want
Speaker 2: to use this, and you know, am I being like
Speaker 2: actively consulted and being able to consent to using particular
Speaker 2: tools or programs and so on and so forth. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the current rollout of AI tools is not
Speaker 2: really complying with that particularly.
Speaker 1: Well mm hmm right, Yeah, they're as excited they have
Speaker 1: a new toy that they want to that they want
Speaker 1: to use that they're going to make a you know,
Speaker 1: Super Bowl commercial about Gouda cheese the most did you
Speaker 1: see that, doctor mckenry that Google advertised their AI product
Speaker 1: with a Super Bowl ad that had incorrect information in it.
Speaker 1: The premise was, this is a cheese farmer, and he
Speaker 1: is a whiz when it comes to me making good cheese,
Speaker 1: but he's all thumbs when it comes to writing marketing material.
Speaker 1: And so he it showed Google AI like telling him
Speaker 1: facts that he could put on his cheese. And one
Speaker 1: of the facts was that gouda cheese is the most
Speaker 1: popular type of cheese and sixty percent of the world's
Speaker 1: cheese sales. What which is just like on its surface,
Speaker 1: like obviously wrong, and they still like put it in
Speaker 1: a in a super Bowl commercial, like somebody caught it
Speaker 1: once the ad had like been up and so it
Speaker 1: didn't make it to the Super Bowl, but it made
Speaker 1: it like online and was viewed millions of times. And
Speaker 1: it's just that seems to be like it's if if
Speaker 1: it's not going to be one hundred percent, if it's
Speaker 1: not going to be right one hundred percent of the time,
Speaker 1: it's kind of useless because it's just like that. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody should be like would be opting
Speaker 1: out of it if they knew, like and just so
Speaker 1: you know, like one out of like every I don't know,
Speaker 1: twenty of the things that you search is going to
Speaker 1: be like blatantly wrong in a way that is going
Speaker 1: to be humiliating to you. Yeah. Yeah, we're not going
Speaker 1: to tell you which one enjoy the product.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, first, I love the idea that it's not
Speaker 2: even an era, but it's just big Goudas out there
Speaker 2: trying to spread some misinformation about the popularity of Good
Speaker 2: as Cheese. But second, like, yeah, I feel like one
Speaker 2: way I've heard people describe it as this idea of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: something like chat GPT or the AI overview can be
Speaker 2: useful for getting like a sense of a topic. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess the issue for me is like that often
Speaker 2: requires quite a lot of expertise to be able to
Speaker 2: know whether something is right or not. And so for example,
Speaker 2: like my husband as from North Carolina, as a basketball fan,
Speaker 2: like I am sort of forcibly inducted into the NBA
Speaker 2: enough that yeah, I could probably tell the eighty percent.
Speaker 2: Maybe actually that might be overestimating my knowledge, but yeah,
Speaker 2: that twenty percent would be totally out of my knowledge.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's my fears. If you're relying
Speaker 2: on these tools, it's not that people can't tell that
Speaker 2: something's wrong, but you know, when we're using it for
Speaker 2: like a really wide range of applications. It does actually
Speaker 2: require a lot of expertise in all those different things.
Speaker 2: And I think, certainly speaking for myself, like that's not
Speaker 2: something I would be able to do or to discern.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean sure, like you think of it like, well,
Speaker 3: if I get to be on my test, but if
Speaker 3: you're asking something to like explain the Civil War and
Speaker 3: you get all the generals and the battles and dates right,
Speaker 3: but the reason for the American Civil War wrong, where
Speaker 3: it's like and they all fought over you know, economic rights,
Speaker 3: and then that's now it doesn't matter that eighty percent
Speaker 3: is completely negated by this other piece of information that
Speaker 3: has completely colored the you know, the description of something.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm like, even every time I see those summaries,
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, Like I'll click on the links that
Speaker 3: are saying like we're using these to tell us, and
Speaker 3: I'll look at them like, this is not really even
Speaker 3: exactly what's happening here, to the point that I feel
Speaker 3: like it's causing more harm than good because I've at
Speaker 3: least learned to try and just research myself. You know,
Speaker 3: That's how I got my theories on the Earth shape
Speaker 3: and things like that, you know, research.
Speaker 1: I have some interesting ideas on that. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you have a couple hours, Doctor mcinnerey.
Speaker 3: Well, Doctor, every time I've emailed Doctor Carry, she's respectfully
Speaker 3: declined to entertain the conversation, which I say she has a.
Speaker 1: Luck going on. She has a luck going on, but
Speaker 1: I mean it is she could be a useful source
Speaker 1: to you though you're looking for somebody who's been in
Speaker 1: an airplane. You know, I looked out. Are there cool
Speaker 1: uses of AI that aren't getting attention or I guess
Speaker 1: even like tech breakthroughs that you know, we asked this
Speaker 1: the last time you were on but like we're still
Speaker 1: in the early stages of AI. Are there directions that
Speaker 1: have like popped out to you that you know the
Speaker 1: future of technology and this technology in particular could take
Speaker 1: that are promising for like the bettering of the world
Speaker 1: for more than like twelve rich guys, which I feel
Speaker 1: like is the current the current model. It's like these
Speaker 1: twelve guys are like, yeah, this would be amazing if
Speaker 1: we could replace all the people to see me with
Speaker 1: total role. I was with Total Rope from the Miyazaki
Speaker 1: movie but where are you seeing hope? Where are you
Speaker 1: seeing hope?
Speaker 2: I guess I'm genuinely terrified and like say something it
Speaker 2: would be like that's the exact same amount so you
Speaker 2: said two years ago, and like destroy any hope. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I think like I'm always like quite excited
Speaker 2: by more creative uses of AI or people who are
Speaker 2: like really trying to think about like instead of saying,
Speaker 2: like how can we make like one product that works
Speaker 2: for the whole world, like which tends to be the
Speaker 2: approach of things like to GPT and then like sprow.
Speaker 2: They obviously don't work for the whole world in all
Speaker 2: these different cultural contexts and all these different linguistic contexts,
Speaker 2: because I don't think a single product can. But you know,
Speaker 2: I do think like there are really interesting examples of
Speaker 2: groups like Tahukumdia in New Zealand where I'm from, which
Speaker 2: have been like using AI machine learning techiks to try
Speaker 2: and focus on tremodi or the indigenous language of New
Speaker 2: Zealand's language preservation. And so because of like long histories
Speaker 2: of kind of the state suppression of TERI, there was
Speaker 2: like a period where like there weren't that many native
Speaker 2: trail Moldi speakers, it was like really aggressively suppressed, and
Speaker 2: now as a result, people are kind of trying to
Speaker 2: really reinvest and support the kind of revitalization of trail
Speaker 2: Modi and Peter Lucas Jones, who this CEO, I believe
Speaker 2: Teaku Media and like their whole team have been really
Speaker 2: intentional and sort of really world leading, I think, and
Speaker 2: how they've been trying to use AI machine learning for this.
Speaker 2: I think a big part of their project though, is
Speaker 2: that they're very insistent on like indigenous data sovereignty or
Speaker 2: making sure that like their platforms aren't sold to big
Speaker 2: tech or reliant on big tech. And I think I
Speaker 2: imagine that's like a really challenging project because like this
Speaker 2: sort of small handful of like big tech firms like
Speaker 2: are incredibly dominant in this space, but a lot of
Speaker 2: that has been around like no, you know, we really
Speaker 2: want to make sure that this remains like technology by
Speaker 2: and for MALDI people and for our organization, And so
Speaker 2: I think projects like that I find like really really
Speaker 2: inspiring and really important. But I think they're also just
Speaker 2: like a great example of like AI development being done
Speaker 2: super well, which is like you have a clear problem,
Speaker 2: and you have clear ideas and ways that you think
Speaker 2: that AI machine learning can help us address and part
Speaker 2: some of this problem without like positioning it as the solution.
Speaker 2: Because I think if anyone comes out of the gate
Speaker 2: and it's like AI is going to solve this problem,
Speaker 2: that's when I think you should always be a bit like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't think it is, especially if the problem is
Speaker 2: something like really really massive, right discrimination, it's kind of like, well, look,
Speaker 2: we just have to reject that one sort of straight
Speaker 2: out the gate and kind of think a bit more
Speaker 2: specifically about this.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure those companies are like and when we
Speaker 3: made that claim, that wasn't actually meant for you to
Speaker 3: be the receiver of that message. It was for Wall
Speaker 3: Street and investors when we said this thing will solve everything,
Speaker 3: because like, yeah, I mean like that application feels like
Speaker 3: the kind of thing that like, you know, in the
Speaker 3: US right now, Trump is very focused on eliminating any
Speaker 3: semblance of equity or diversity inclusion.
Speaker 1: Obviously as we've seen like the woke.
Speaker 3: DEI initiative crusade against all those things, and that sounds
Speaker 3: like exactly the kind of thing that Trump would be. Like,
Speaker 3: that's not useful. It just has to be this other
Speaker 3: thing that's a money making endeavor. Because right now his people,
Speaker 3: like the people within the administration, like the head of
Speaker 3: Science and Technology, have said things like Biden's AI policies
Speaker 3: were like divisive and it's all been about all been
Speaker 3: about the redistribution, like redistribution in the name of equity.
Speaker 3: And naturally Trump has fired many of the AI experts
Speaker 3: Biden hired because it was clear like obviously Biden hired them.
Speaker 3: He's like, there's a huge bias problem with any of
Speaker 3: this stuff, and if it's even going to be a
Speaker 3: product people use, like that's probably a thing worth tackling.
Speaker 3: But now like it's become sort of like normalized within
Speaker 3: this administration to say this is all harmful now because
Speaker 3: it's trying to advance equity, when like when we've spoken
Speaker 3: to people like you and other experts, it's like, no,
Speaker 3: you have to get rid of those inequities or else
Speaker 3: it doesn't even fucking work, Like like when you're talking
Speaker 3: about things like being able to someone who has like
Speaker 3: a darker complexion, and how does a like a self
Speaker 3: automated car even identify that pedestrian as an object to
Speaker 3: avoid because again, these biases affect all these different systems.
Speaker 3: But it feels like now, like at least from the
Speaker 3: American conservative side of things, or just generally the tech
Speaker 3: con con conservative movement.
Speaker 1: Is like, yeah, maybe it's just like fine if it you.
Speaker 3: Know, misidentifies like black people or doing these other things
Speaker 3: that just kind of show that at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, we only it only needs to work in
Speaker 3: the way that we want it to work, and all
Speaker 3: the other applications whatever be damned.
Speaker 1: Keeps identifying black people as traffic cones. Do we think
Speaker 1: that we need can we go to market with us still?
Speaker 1: Or is that? Are we good here?
Speaker 3: Well that's yeah, And I'm just I'm amazed at how
Speaker 3: you know, I think, how much like objectively, this is
Speaker 3: the thing. If you want a product to work, it
Speaker 3: has to be able to be used around the world.
Speaker 3: So how useful is that in a place that doesn't
Speaker 3: have like an ethnic majority that's all white people in
Speaker 3: the same way like that? You know, again, these all
Speaker 3: just feel very counterintuitive, But that seems to be the
Speaker 3: name of this year, this year's theme generally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean the idea of this is the
Speaker 2: year of counterintuitive things. Really resonates. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 2: it's like not only disappointing, because it's like I do
Speaker 2: think that it shouldn't be super hard to buy into
Speaker 2: the idea that like, yeah, AI that is like more
Speaker 2: equitable or less biased and more fear like genuinely is
Speaker 2: actually in the long run good for everyone. Although I
Speaker 2: know there's like a reactionary group that feels like any
Speaker 2: kind of equity or equality is you know, kind of
Speaker 2: impinging on their own kind of share of the pie.
Speaker 2: But you know, I really think like AI ethics and
Speaker 2: safety is for everyone. But yeah, I also think it's
Speaker 2: very sad because like this has huge knock on effects
Speaker 2: for the rest of the world, because like the US
Speaker 2: is a wild leader in AI and tech production, and
Speaker 2: so yeah, if you have an environment that is kind
Speaker 2: of saying, let's throw ethics out the window, then that
Speaker 2: does have knock on effects for the rest of the
Speaker 2: world their bias and uses still a lot of this technology.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think like these rollbacks obviously massively affect
Speaker 2: the as domestic context, but they certainly don't stop.
Speaker 3: There, right, Is there any do you see any put
Speaker 3: like this is as stupid on its face as it
Speaker 3: sounds right to be like, we have to we have
Speaker 3: to stop with these inclusive efforts to address biases within
Speaker 3: AI like models.
Speaker 1: There's no.
Speaker 3: Like it's as dumb as that sounds, right, because in
Speaker 3: my mind and everything I've read, people are like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: like it it works worse when it has all these
Speaker 3: like inbuilt biases, like it will not work as good
Speaker 3: therefore is not viable. So it is that is bad, right,
Speaker 3: There's no like secret things like well, you.
Speaker 1: Know some bias is good for these things.
Speaker 2: I mean, if someone if that is that is the
Speaker 2: secret source and please tell me, definitely not what I
Speaker 2: would think. I mean, yeah, I mean I think it
Speaker 2: just comes down to again, like I think there's a
Speaker 2: fundamental irony of saying, like, you know, the power of
Speaker 2: these AI enabled tools and products is that you know,
Speaker 2: we can perform all these like massive tasks at scale
Speaker 2: in this idea, and again like a product that can
Speaker 2: be sold the world, a product that can be used
Speaker 2: at scale with the kind of knowledge that this only
Speaker 2: really works for like a very very narrow base. I
Speaker 2: mean my assumption to be fair though, is like I
Speaker 2: think that a lot of people who make products that
Speaker 2: have you know, these kinds of exclusions or biases aren't
Speaker 2: necessarily going in being like, I know my product is
Speaker 2: really biased, and I actually just like don't care, Like
Speaker 2: I don't think that usually is it? I think often
Speaker 2: to me, it's just this kind of mindset of either
Speaker 2: we just like haven't really thought about it. I think
Speaker 2: this particularly common with accessibility, which is that of accessibility
Speaker 2: has to be integrated and from the very beginning of
Speaker 2: the design process. It can't be slapped on at the end.
Speaker 2: And too often I think that's how it gets approached,
Speaker 2: and so people just haven't even begun to think about,
Speaker 2: you know, oh, like will my language, I mean, sorry,
Speaker 2: will my model work for disabled people? My product work
Speaker 2: for people with these different kinds of like physical disabilities, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I think it's just that the whole groups
Speaker 2: of populations just get ignored, or you know, maybe they've
Speaker 2: realized and they think, oh, it's actually a really bad
Speaker 2: thing that this product doesn't work for this particular group.
Speaker 2: But I think I'm just going to make the trade
Speaker 2: off and decide, like, I think that's a small enough
Speaker 2: consumer base that I can still sell my product, and like,
Speaker 2: I don't think I'll get too much into pushback. I
Speaker 2: think it'll be fine. And I think this, you know,
Speaker 2: might often be the case for populations that are perceived
Speaker 2: as being like very very small. So I'm thinking of
Speaker 2: say like trans or gender diverse people who often get
Speaker 2: erased from certain data sets because they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: this is like statistically a very small percentage. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but those people's exclusion like really really matters. It has
Speaker 2: a huge impact on their life. If they go through
Speaker 2: a scanner and their body is not recognized or seen
Speaker 2: as non normative, or if they're excluded from different databases
Speaker 2: like these do have huge knock on effects for people.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I guess I would say that, you know,
Speaker 2: the kinds of people maybe who are not seeing AI
Speaker 2: ethics as a priority, aren't doing it because they're just like,
Speaker 2: you know, oh, you know, debiasing whatever. That's fine. I
Speaker 2: think it's Yeah, it's probably more just to do with
Speaker 2: a lot of different blinkers or like a certain kind
Speaker 2: of narrow mindset about who your consumer is and who's
Speaker 2: I actually using these products?
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it does feel probably, But for the Trump administration,
Speaker 3: I'd say they're probably very much focused on the fact
Speaker 3: that because there it doesn't matter it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: even if it makes everything unsafe, I just have to
Speaker 3: say the words I don't like equity, and that's without
Speaker 3: any consideration for what that means.
Speaker 1: And if the whole world breaks, like the better for
Speaker 1: him to consolidate power, you know, like that feels yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, did you see this Semaphore article about like
Speaker 1: the group the Mark Andresen group chats that like it.
Speaker 1: So he's been having like these signal chats since the
Speaker 1: days of the pandemic, and it's like he has like
Speaker 1: gone out of his way to bring in all of
Speaker 1: these tech leaders and then like fucking super far right
Speaker 1: wing like people like Richard Hannania, like the guy who's
Speaker 1: like an outright white supremacist, and like put these people
Speaker 1: in group chats together. Like at one point he like
Speaker 1: brought in some progressive people and then they wrote a
Speaker 1: New York Times op ed criticizing laws that were banning
Speaker 1: critical race theory, and he just like had a meltdown
Speaker 1: and was like you betrayed me by writing this thing,
Speaker 1: and like kicked them out of the group chat, and
Speaker 1: like since then, it's just all this like extreme right
Speaker 1: wing propaganda that's being like kind of vomited back and
Speaker 1: forth between these people who are like the biggest, most
Speaker 1: powerful oligarchs and like the people who are in charge
Speaker 1: of the direction that tech takes. And so I yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it feels like this whole thing is developing
Speaker 1: in a way that feels particularly like non optimal and
Speaker 1: like stupid and narrow minded and racist and white supremacist
Speaker 1: and all those things, and like that this was very
Speaker 1: helpful for a context. I just wonder, like all of
Speaker 1: like we're seeing a model that's being developed, not in
Speaker 1: the best way possible. It seems like like to say
Speaker 1: the least, and we're probably going to like discount a
Speaker 1: lot of these possibilities because they're so shitty at what
Speaker 1: they're doing. But do you do you see that sort
Speaker 1: of white supremacist mindset kind of pervading in the tech mainstream?
Speaker 1: What a question? I know, it's a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I mean I feel like, I guess, like what
Speaker 2: I do think this gifts just towards is this like
Speaker 2: very public repositioning of Silicon Valley, which I think always
Speaker 2: had this like relatively liberal venea, even if it's not
Speaker 2: clear how deep those roots actually went. Kind of very
Speaker 2: explicitly aligning themselves with the right and with Trump. And
Speaker 2: it's a little bit hard to tell, like how much
Speaker 2: of this is like political expediency people saying, well, clearly,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to do anything to avoid heavier regulation,
Speaker 2: We do anything to avoid this kind of like sort
Speaker 2: of punitive regime that Trump's exacting on many different institutions.
Speaker 2: So we're going to you know, put ourselves in a camp.
Speaker 2: And how much of this is like an expression of
Speaker 2: like deeper ideologies and deeper kind of political beliefs that
Speaker 2: have maybe sat door mentor sort of have kind of
Speaker 2: been cultivated within Silicon Valley and tech firms and now
Speaker 2: kind of finally bursting onto the scene now that they
Speaker 2: feel a bit more empowered as there's kind of been
Speaker 2: this like global shift towards the right. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know, honestly, like how much you know, we can
Speaker 2: discern between sort of like the real deep feeling and
Speaker 2: the kind of political expediency argument. But I think it's
Speaker 2: just undeniable that you have people like particularly Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 2: who would have been like normally more kind of center
Speaker 2: possibly center left a lot of issues even though he
Speaker 2: was obviously running like a massively exploitative, gigantic, quite dangerous
Speaker 2: tech company now sort of really aggressively rebranding as a
Speaker 2: kind of wooing Trump, but also sort of big into
Speaker 2: a lot of these like hyper masculiness, tech bro sort
Speaker 2: of languages and ideologies that I don't think certainly five
Speaker 2: years ago we would have seen him sort of pointing
Speaker 2: in the same way. So yeah, it feels like there's
Speaker 2: been this sort of very visible shift in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2: But again, as someone who's not based in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 2: like I probably couldn't tell you like how much of
Speaker 2: that feels like this this is actually the real face
Speaker 2: of the beast versus this is actually just like what
Speaker 2: people are doing for the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean you see how much like Andresen
Speaker 3: got Silicon Valley money together to get Trump into office,
Speaker 3: along with a bunch of other crypto people's like seventy
Speaker 3: eight million dollars from like the and recent side of things,
Speaker 3: and you know, like these group chats they do, it's
Speaker 3: like our modern day smoke filled lounges where you get
Speaker 3: to see these very powerful people sort of debate these
Speaker 3: topics and get their takes out there that are like
Speaker 3: wacky as hell, and that's why I think, like reading
Speaker 3: this article, it was a little bit more like damn.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know if any everybody in this
Speaker 3: group chet thinks that, but there are definitely some vocal
Speaker 3: people in this group chat that definitely think they are
Speaker 3: the ones who are going to solve these very complex issues,
Speaker 3: but in the most like inelegant, one size fits all
Speaker 3: kind of way.
Speaker 1: That's just all about power. And that's when I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think it's really these are.
Speaker 3: Starting to blend together, especially as we see how much
Speaker 3: how people's like media diets and the information they receive
Speaker 3: are informed by what these people who are running these
Speaker 3: companies how they believe and like how information should move
Speaker 3: and how people get siloed into information bubbles and things
Speaker 3: like that. That's when I started to begin to be like, hmmm,
Speaker 3: this feels a little bit more like a smoking gun
Speaker 3: when you hear like, you know, these ideas are being
Speaker 3: like exchanged and knowing that, like there's this guy Curtis
Speaker 3: Yarvin that we talked about a few weeks ago who's
Speaker 3: like basically like a tech monarchist who has a lot
Speaker 3: of ideas that people like Elon Musk and Peter Teel
Speaker 3: like are really subscribed to and yeah, and like in
Speaker 3: these group chats, it's is where these a lot of
Speaker 3: these very influential people start getting introduced to these.
Speaker 1: Kinds of ideas.
Speaker 3: So that's when I'm like, hmm, this feels very sinister
Speaker 3: at best. I mean, like when you see this and
Speaker 3: then thinking that these are the people that control the
Speaker 3: levers that you know, just normal people who are using
Speaker 3: the Internet and stuff get affected by their policies, it
Speaker 3: feels like a little bit like they figured out this
Speaker 3: is how they exercise like their immense control over people
Speaker 3: in these sort of you know, less sort of not
Speaker 3: like in the ways that we think in terms of
Speaker 3: governance or whatever, but through the spread of information and ideas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess I feel like the signal chats
Speaker 2: like raise two things about this kind of like pivot
Speaker 2: to the right, which I think are both really important,
Speaker 2: and like, I think the one is what you've pointed out,
Speaker 2: is this like small scale influencing. Like I think often
Speaker 2: when we talk about disinformation or misinformation, we're thinking about
Speaker 2: that in terms of like, oh, someone makes like an
Speaker 2: ai deep fink and they like release it onto the
Speaker 2: Internet and somehow that deep fake like convinces like many,
Speaker 2: many many people that this event occurred or didn't occur,
Speaker 2: and it has like seismic effects, and like, you know, again,
Speaker 2: I don't think that's necessarily how disinformation works. I think that, yeah,
Speaker 2: these kinds of like small cultivated circles of true maybe
Speaker 2: the things that we should be really really concerned about,
Speaker 2: which is like what actually causes people to change their
Speaker 2: mind or change behaviors, Like maybe these are the levers
Speaker 2: that can like be significantly more effective. But yet the
Speaker 2: second is kind of a point you were raising, and
Speaker 2: I think does again like tie into what happens when
Speaker 2: you build these bonds of trust, which is just like
Speaker 2: following the money. And like you mentioned sort of the
Speaker 2: massive amount of tech funding that got Trump at the office.
Speaker 2: And I had a colleague who now wisited Guardian and
Speaker 2: he and the team kind of just like tracked all
Speaker 2: the funding behind the Trump and Harris campaigns. And what
Speaker 2: was just really astounding was just like the extraordinary amount
Speaker 2: of money that specifically just came from tech, and like
Speaker 2: that's been a really big change in the last five
Speaker 2: years or so. It's just like how much money sort
Speaker 2: of Silicon Valley has putting it into political lobbying, and
Speaker 2: so I think, you know, yeah, it's even regardless of
Speaker 2: like your political orientation, but like particularly right now with
Speaker 2: the Trump administration, like I think that's something we should
Speaker 2: all be really concerned about.
Speaker 1: M h.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, because it feels like this is the
Speaker 3: best a in some level, the tech industry is sort
Speaker 3: of like, well, we're actually now the ones that are
Speaker 3: really able to manufacture consent through social media and misinformation,
Speaker 3: and you marry that with like an a you know,
Speaker 3: presidential administration that would really benefit from that kind of
Speaker 3: like full court press propaganda kind of making, and it
Speaker 3: feels like, oh, everyone kind of wins in their own way,
Speaker 3: although there are clearly some people in tech have their
Speaker 3: regrets after all the tariff chaos and they're like no no, no,
Speaker 3: no no no no not actually also, don't just fuck
Speaker 3: fuck that one's actually really valuable. I just wanted less
Speaker 3: regulations and for people to say the N word on
Speaker 3: Twitter more. That was my whole thing, and now I
Speaker 3: have no money or less money. But yeah, it's it
Speaker 3: feels like it's just like the most clown show version
Speaker 3: of all this. I think, which is also very frustrating
Speaker 3: to watch or just have to sit idly buyas it's
Speaker 3: all happening to.
Speaker 1: Us very intentional. Very Also, it's just like really pathetic,
Speaker 1: just like seeing how easy, easily influenced these people are.
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes sense because it feels like they're
Speaker 1: from a church that believes that whoever, wherever, the most
Speaker 1: money is equals the right thing. And so you just
Speaker 1: like get them on a group chat with a billionaire
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, I mean that guy must be
Speaker 1: the smartest guy in the world, and so right his
Speaker 1: ideas I have to listen to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do think as well, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: to some extent, I'm like, yeah, to that point, much
Speaker 2: less interested in what people like quote unquote really think
Speaker 2: and much more interesting than just what they do. And
Speaker 2: so to some extent, I'm like, yeah, you know, does
Speaker 2: it really matter with them? Mark Zuckerberg is personally invested
Speaker 2: in these like you know, quite misogynist ideologies about like
Speaker 2: what it means to be a man or doesn't matter
Speaker 2: that he like has gone on Joe Rogan and now
Speaker 2: like propagates a lot of these ideas and has you know,
Speaker 2: publicly shift admittter to kind of align with or support
Speaker 2: Trump's administration. Like that, to me is like what really
Speaker 2: matters right now, which is that we have kind of
Speaker 2: these active, kind of shifts of power in the tech
Speaker 2: industry that go beyond kind of like politically signaling in
Speaker 2: certain ways, like they're really really tangible. And I think
Speaker 2: Musk is like the flagship of that in him to
Speaker 2: someone who's just been like very very visible in the administration.
Speaker 2: But you know, he's certainly not the only one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like there's no shortage of these tech
Speaker 1: billionaires who are dead set on a horrifying ideology. All right,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we'll come back and
Speaker 1: keep talking about AI will be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 1: We're back, and I do just add the floam reference smiles.
Speaker 1: I don't want that to go by without being remarked on.
Speaker 3: It's okay, Like I said, check my bio encyclopedic knowledge
Speaker 3: of the nineties.
Speaker 7: Is that the one that would like that would almost
Speaker 7: like crack when you molded it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like a bunch of little beads almost, yeah,
Speaker 1: like held together. It was really what if Rice Krispy
Speaker 1: Treats was toy. You know what, if Rice Krispy treats
Speaker 1: gave you bowel problems, if you even touched your mouth
Speaker 1: after handling it, if you ate them, they were in
Speaker 1: your body for the rest of your life and also
Speaker 1: your children's lives, your progeny.
Speaker 8: Also, now every third person is like gooning to asmr
Speaker 8: shit and we have we have Floam to thank for that.
Speaker 3: I know right exactly. We were just out here just
Speaker 3: trying to figure it out on our own. With Nickelodeon Floam.
Speaker 3: I gave it the full brand name because I felt
Speaker 3: like people would forget if I didn't properly say Nickelodeon Floam.
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon Floam, a larger and larger part of their body
Speaker 1: is just made out of floam. It's like instead of
Speaker 1: a left knee, I have floam down there. I can
Speaker 1: just mold it and remold it as I walk. Anyways,
Speaker 1: old debate and this is not this is not the
Speaker 1: story that I thought I was going to be talking
Speaker 1: about today. And yet but like I said, we report
Speaker 1: on the zeitgeist, we don't make it. Yesterday, I had
Speaker 1: the experience of checking social media and it just being
Speaker 1: wall to wall one hundred men versus one gorilla, you know,
Speaker 1: commentary videos, and so this is an old debate. I
Speaker 1: mean this sort of debate. You know. There was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite articles from the early days of Cracked,
Speaker 1: like two thousand and eight Cracked, I think, was by
Speaker 1: this writer Chris Buckles that was just like how to
Speaker 1: fight twenty children like as one person, And it was
Speaker 1: just like really well thought out and good advice that
Speaker 1: I've that has shaped me as a person.
Speaker 7: That you've used many times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'll link off to that as my work
Speaker 1: in media. But it is kind of one of those
Speaker 1: questions like once you start thinking about it, it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to stop. I will say the original question,
Speaker 1: as originally posed on Reddit five years ago, I think
Speaker 1: has a fairly simple answer because they really stacked the
Speaker 1: deck against the humans. Oh yeah, yeah. The original question
Speaker 1: was like, all right, first round, you can only go
Speaker 1: two at a two men at a time, Yeah, in
Speaker 1: a gorilla and they're in a grilla exhibit. The second
Speaker 1: one is in a construction as at a construction site,
Speaker 1: and you can go ten at a time. They also
Speaker 1: say that it just has to be like one hundred
Speaker 1: average people. And then the third one, I guess you
Speaker 1: can go all at once, but you're not gonna have
Speaker 1: many people left after those first two rounds to go
Speaker 1: all at once, which is like, really your only hope.
Speaker 3: I think all of the sort of modifiers are meaningless
Speaker 3: because really the question is, how can what just a
Speaker 3: in a fair one?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no tools, no weapons, not because this guy's basically
Speaker 3: bringing up like Rainbow Road type shit where like the
Speaker 3: headgrill fall off the edge or some shit.
Speaker 1: No, what is it going.
Speaker 3: To take for one hundred human beings to beat the
Speaker 3: fuck out of a gorilla?
Speaker 9: Yeah, like a cage match or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 9: you know, Yeah, And my first reaction is it's not happening.
Speaker 9: It's not happening. Ever, my big thing with all of
Speaker 9: this is human beings don't have like fangs. They cannot
Speaker 9: draw blood, So you're you're you're counting on purely overpowering
Speaker 9: a gorilla. I mean, we do have thangs, Moms, can
Speaker 9: you okay, can you can you draw blood from a
Speaker 9: through that gorilla's fur?
Speaker 1: Probably if I had to, if he.
Speaker 3: If he stayed still, if I hit the finger real
Speaker 3: hard like Charlie, yeah, I probably could. I can bite
Speaker 3: through a lot I got, but I'm just saying that's
Speaker 3: how I see a gorilla somehow, like if it fought
Speaker 3: a tiger. It's because the tiger slashes the gorilla and
Speaker 3: it's it's like it's leaking in a.
Speaker 1: Straight up hold the gorilla. Not a fucking hundred people
Speaker 1: aren't doing that.
Speaker 3: The first guy that gets ripped in fucking half by
Speaker 3: this thing, all ninety.
Speaker 1: Nine other people are gonna go, no, right, you need
Speaker 1: These are the things that I think you need. I
Speaker 1: think first of all, we need to we need a
Speaker 1: draft like and not not a like military breach where
Speaker 1: we're going by birthday. I think we need to mcgroover's style,
Speaker 1: get to put together a team mcgoover of the film,
Speaker 1: not the SNL sketch, Oh thank you, which the film
Speaker 1: the film sketch. That the sketch is a completely different thing.
Speaker 1: The film is a work of art. The you know,
Speaker 1: I think we need to be able to intentionally assemble
Speaker 1: a team. I think there needs to be some sort
Speaker 1: of a squid game style motivation that is going to
Speaker 1: prevent what you're talking about. Whether they see a person
Speaker 1: get ripped in half and everybody's like, this is not
Speaker 1: worth it. It needs to be worth like it needs
Speaker 1: to be one hundred men and the griller in the
Speaker 1: cage and like it's not over until.
Speaker 3: It would be sick in squid like in the actual
Speaker 3: get a new season of Squid game, Like when there's
Speaker 3: like four hundred people left, it's like all four hundred
Speaker 3: y'all versus gorilla right now.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, y'all are going to die. A lot of
Speaker 1: y'all going to die.
Speaker 3: But four hundred, four hundred feels like maybe four hundred,
Speaker 3: So how are you?
Speaker 1: I don't even know hundred is different than a hundred
Speaker 1: other than like I feel like a gorilla killing three
Speaker 1: hundred people with its bare hands may tire the gorilla
Speaker 1: out get tired, and then the other ones are just
Speaker 1: like coming up and like kind of yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like that would probably be true after like fifty right,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's a lot of people to kill.
Speaker 8: I could see that. I almost think now, I think
Speaker 8: you could almost it can be. It can almost be
Speaker 8: a random assortment of one hundred people. It doesn't they don't.
Speaker 8: You don't even need to do a draft. You just
Speaker 8: need a coach. That's what, like like a maestro, a conductor, Yes.
Speaker 7: A maestro who's running plays and basically the goal of
Speaker 7: every play is some he goes for the eyes and
Speaker 7: once you get the eyes.
Speaker 1: Brian, Okay, that is right, It's got to be the eyes.
Speaker 1: Although all right, so this is what I'm saying, you
Speaker 1: gotta be the eyes. Like that convinced me in a
Speaker 1: split second. At first, I was like, we need a
Speaker 1: like legendary football coach. I think the coach. No, I know, well,
Speaker 1: now I'm thinking we need still still I want Mike Tomlin.
Speaker 1: Mike Tomlin from the Steelers, and was like, just every
Speaker 1: year they have a terrible team. Everyone's like, these guys
Speaker 1: are gonna win two games this year, and every year
Speaker 1: they are like a two seed, right, and he's just
Speaker 1: has energy. He like yells at everybody, cut your eyelids off,
Speaker 1: cut your eyelids off when they go out to play,
Speaker 1: which is just like so I don't know. And and
Speaker 1: also a great tactician, although we might not need one
Speaker 1: with Brian. No, no, Brian, I just thinking primatologist would
Speaker 1: be helpful, like somebody who sure can really speak to it.
Speaker 1: But like a primatologists where you've like, you know, kidnapped
Speaker 1: their kid, because other way they're going to be like
Speaker 1: we should let the gorilla kill us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I don't want to introduce like, you know,
Speaker 3: there could be something like gorillas hate like reflective material
Speaker 3: or something like maybe like a non weapon object that
Speaker 3: opens it up. But I don't even like that idea
Speaker 3: because now we're not talking. We're talking about one hundred people. Yes,
Speaker 3: one hundred people with tools can beat in a gorilla
Speaker 3: with just if we're going to brass tacks, bare hands
Speaker 3: and feet. I think, Brian, yes, you you take out
Speaker 3: the vision. Now you're dealing with an animal has no
Speaker 3: situational awareness, and now you can kind of get a
Speaker 3: little like but even then you're.
Speaker 1: Going to be teasing it. Yeah. Yeah, but either way
Speaker 1: terrified all of a sudden.
Speaker 3: But you still have to solve the part that you
Speaker 3: have negated the absolute dude exponentially higher strength of the gorilla,
Speaker 3: because the second you grab it, the gorilla will just
Speaker 3: put hands on you.
Speaker 1: Rip you a half, even if it can't see.
Speaker 3: And I feel you're gonna you're just gonna take the
Speaker 3: gorilla off even more with his eyes being all pick
Speaker 3: gorilla is pod.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I so I was. I was fully on the
Speaker 1: you just overwhelm it with one hundred at once. And
Speaker 1: then this Guardian article about this debate pointed out that
Speaker 1: somebody did a three professional soccer players, three professional football
Speaker 1: players verse one hundred children, Oh, I say, in Japan,
Speaker 1: in Japan, Yeah, and the professional soccer players won. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they beat the shit up them. They won. I mean,
Speaker 1: they won one nothing, But like, I don't know that
Speaker 1: maybe well they had if.
Speaker 3: You see the video, they had like sixty kids in goal,
Speaker 3: like literally sixty, Like there were like sixty kids dressing
Speaker 3: goalkeepers in the goal and they just had to kind
Speaker 3: of headed in over them. But like the way they
Speaker 3: just the three of them just spread the field out
Speaker 3: and were just hitting long balls that they can like
Speaker 3: like just had the kids chasing right uh. And it
Speaker 3: was pretty it was pretty impressive if it's the one
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of, because I've definitely seen that one.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, their skills are just way too
Speaker 1: high to get for the kids to handle that. But
Speaker 1: I think if it's one hundred random people, it depends.
Speaker 1: I do think you're probably gonna get one person who
Speaker 1: screams go for the eyes in that group, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, And then and then you might have
Speaker 1: a chance if we're allowed to build a team. I
Speaker 1: do like the humans chance, like if we're allowed to
Speaker 1: draft on even if we're allowed to draft ten, there's
Speaker 1: no answer. There's no answer, Like there's no conceivable answer
Speaker 1: for how you gate? What are you gonna do? Like
Speaker 1: have ten guys try and hold the arms right like
Speaker 1: a gorilla will I'm talking Mike Tomlin and the foremost
Speaker 1: primatologist and then like Laurrence Taylor or whoever the closest
Speaker 1: person to lost Taylor current.
Speaker 3: Actually I like the eye thing, but I keep coming
Speaker 3: back to the thing, like you can't negate the strength
Speaker 3: in the sting.
Speaker 7: Even in the I thing. I do think ten people
Speaker 7: will die for sure, Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, Ultimately
Speaker 7: the people will win, I do.
Speaker 1: I do think that's right. Like everyone everyone's pushing vibes
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 7: No one's giving me plays, and then you you show
Speaker 7: them and give me.
Speaker 1: An example of the play. What happens? How are you
Speaker 1: gonna like, you can't can't damage your gorilla's achilles, ten
Speaker 1: do with your teeth, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to think the first ten are absolutely going
Speaker 7: to get fucked up.
Speaker 8: That eleventh person goes through the eyes and then the
Speaker 8: ninety rush.
Speaker 7: The fuck out of the gorilla.
Speaker 1: I think a big difference is going to be if
Speaker 1: it's in a ring where no, you can't pick up
Speaker 1: something that's close by, because like our access to tools
Speaker 1: or like our ability to use whatever is at hand
Speaker 1: as a tool was like the crucial thing that allowed
Speaker 1: us to like get out of the food chain. So
Speaker 1: like if if it's a gorilla enclosure to zoo even
Speaker 1: or like you know, I feel like that is almost
Speaker 1: an advantage because then I do feel like you can
Speaker 1: like you have rocks, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Okay, how about this not see but that's the thing, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I get that, but I'm I think that the thing
Speaker 3: that is in the appealing about this problem is how
Speaker 3: could the pure just strength.
Speaker 1: Of the human body overcome a gorilla?
Speaker 7: Obviously powerful.
Speaker 5: If you've been watching these sports cars, these ope Core
Speaker 5: videos have run uh in a place where he believes
Speaker 5: I'm with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just like over that, like like track, you
Speaker 3: just hear this song playing that's like thee and all
Speaker 3: the Hope Core You're like, oh man, and then the
Speaker 3: hundred guys ran after the gorilla.
Speaker 7: It is very graphic and poking.
Speaker 1: Guy, I'm saying one like access to one rock. I
Speaker 1: don't know. So there's this story I like that guy
Speaker 1: Brice versus a guy named the Lion.
Speaker 7: This is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Thank you ahead Biblically, the original sports Hope Core. Way
Speaker 1: to bring it back, Way to bring it back. All right,
Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please
Speaker 1: like and review the show if you like. The show
Speaker 1: means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation. Folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you Monday. Bye.