WEBVTT - Week in Tech: Hot Maps and AI Judges 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:16.000 From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.200 I'm as Valocian and I'm care Price. 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.119 Today we're going to get into why gen Z is 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.720 nostalgic for an Internet free world, a world they've never known. 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.040 An update to what's happening to TikTok in the US? 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.240 Then are you using chatbots to organize your closet or 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.840 write your wedding vows? We investigate how people are really 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:36.840 using chatbots? 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.040 This is the week in tech. It's Friday, July eleventh, 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.400 Hello Cara, Hi Ahs. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.760 It's that time between July fourth and Labor Day, two 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.360 holidays that I had no conception of before I moved. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.240 To the US, one of which you spell wrong. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:55.920 How's that labo U are? 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:56.080 Oh? 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.880 Yeah, there's a U in the script. I'm sorry about that. 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.080 But it's a time known around the world as summer. 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.280 Although looking out of the window today at that dark, 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.000 gray sky, you wouldn't really know it. 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:09.720 You know, not to be ungrateful about living in the 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:15.760 greatest city on Earth, but New York has been disgustingly. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:19.880 Hot, although I haven't been here, so I've been following 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:21.960 the weather and floating about. Having been out of town. 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.480 It's swamp. Like I wanted to bring up a story 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.600 that reminded me that being hot in New York City 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:30.959 is sometimes the most important thing you can be. 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.000 I have the sense you're not talking about the weather here. 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:38.440 No, I'm talking about a website called looks Mapping that 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.959 is like a digital heat map of which New York 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.160 City restaurants have the hottest patrons. So, I mean, I 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.600 might be dating myself here, but it's like Zagat for 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:55.680 people I thought. I'm not sure. Listeners, I urge you 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.520 to go to looks mapping dot com because for me 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:02.120 and I think, and for you, the interface is so 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.560 beta Geociti's early Internet that like, there's something sort of 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.119 comforting about it that I don't know, just the look 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:10.360 of it. 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:12.639 Do you think if the zay Gat or Zagat guide 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:14.799 was still around today, they would be it had food 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.040 value for money and Beyonce have a fourth pianto Hotness with. 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.720 A little chili emoji. Actually, I've avoided looking at the 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.880 map because I don't care about eating around hot. 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:26.440 People's wrong with you? 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.080 I'm not like, Oh, I go. I think other people 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.600 obviously are looking when they go to a restaurant to 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.640 find people to date. I'm looking to eat, which is 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.119 crazy that that is dating myself. I do, as I said, 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:40.840 want to look at this with you so that we 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.600 can laugh about it. So I'm going to pull up 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:45.000 your favorite restaurant. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.560 Okay, well you know what. We both know what that is. 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:48.920 What is your favorite restaurant? 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:50.800 Well, you know very well because you live next door 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:52.239 and you often see me on my way there on 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:52.919 a Friday evening. 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:54.239 I'm typing it in right now. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.200 Nikoboka Bar and Grill. In fact, one of the many 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.679 moments that have solidified our friendship was when you knew 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.440 I was celebrating my birthday there and you called in 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.000 a Cosmopolitan to me, delivered to my tables when they 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.800 went in town. Yeah. So, how does the Nickoboca Bar 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:10.760 and Grills? 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:11.840 Its not It's not found. 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.680 It's not found on looks mapping dot com. I can't 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:15.440 believe it. 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:16.240 It's not here. 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.800 Just for the listeners benefit. The Nikobocker Barren Grill is 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.880 an extremely dated sort of quasi steakhouse. 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:25.680 It's what I would call Fraser course, the. 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.079 Fraser course, thick carpet. Nobody else under sixty in there 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.880 apart from me and sometimes you so oddly enough, it's 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.200 not featured on Looks. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.320 Shocking because they were like, no, they were like, this 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:38.000 will not appear. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.040 What about my second favorite restaurant? Do you know what 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:40.240 that is? 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.839 Peaking duck housea house Midtown downtown one because you've you've 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:45.040 taken me to the downtown one. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:47.440 True, reluctantly. I do actually like the downtown one. I 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.800 like the Midtown one, which also the downtown one doesn't 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:51.080 have a carpet. The Midtown one does. 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:56.720 That's disgusting discussing yep, oh oh, we have wait. I 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.440 just need to explain to people who are listening the 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.400 avatar that's standing on the compass on Looks mapping is 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:07.520 like a yassified like lip injected, hair flipped. 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:09.400 Guy's the website myself. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.400 It's so good. He's like, you know, doing duck lips. 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:13.280 Oh, I see what. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.839 I'm sorry to say. This is peaking duck house downtown. 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:22.880 They don't have no, it's too ugly. The score for 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:28.680 peaking duck House Chinese Downtown five points down. 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:31.800 By the way, peaking duck House Downtown is a lot 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.760 hotter than peaking duck House in Midtown negative. 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:36.039 It would have been a negative. 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.760 Literally okay, five points. Said, well, so how does this, 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.120 I mean, how does this work? How does how does 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.080 the looks mapping dot Com assign a hotness score to 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:46.479 by the way, not to all New York restaurants, but 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:48.839 to all New New York restaurants. Evidently that I don't. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:50.680 Think that doesn't go to well. So here's what it 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.599 says on the website. Quote, I scraped millions and this 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.200 is the from the creator of the website. I scraped 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.560 millions of Google Maps restaurant reviews, and we gave each 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:05.800 reviewer's profile picture to an AI model that rates how 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.960 hot they are out of ten. Very smart. I mean 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.160 that an AI model like that exists. This map shows 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.880 how attractive each restaurant's clientele is, and the model is 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.680 certainly biased. It's certainly flawed. But we judge places, and 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.640 I'm still quoting the creator. We judge places by the 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.560 people who go there. We always have, and are we 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.440 not also flawed? This website just puts reductive numbers on 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.880 the superficial calculations we make every day, a mirror held 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:34.440 up to our collective vanity. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.480 Quote, So this is you're telling me this website is 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.400 essentially a Balzakian commentary on New York Dining. 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.480 I mean the website itself does look like the website 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.160 of a philosophy department in a small local arts college. 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.920 So yes, I actually read about this in the New 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:52.200 York Times. 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:53.160 This Weekend Places. 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.040 And the guy who created it is this. He's barely 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.440 a man, He's a boy. He's twenty two. His name's 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.160 Riley Walls. He's a pro pro grammar and this actually 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:02.279 isn't his first prank. 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:02.640 You know. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.400 A few years ago he created a fake restaurant with 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:10.200 a near perfect Google rating called Miron's Steakhouse. Cool, and 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.120 so a ton of people signed up to be on 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.280 the wait list to get into a fake restaurant. And 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.200 then actually it was so popular that they opened the 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.080 steakhouse for one night in twenty twenty three. 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.080 I absolutely love this type of story. There was another 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:24.920 guy who did it in London with a fake restaurant 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.000 called The Shed, and then he served people this disgusting food. 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.800 I think data poisoning to trick thirsty souls into going 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.920 to hype places is one of the true joys of 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:36.400 the Internet. This is bombed to my soul. 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.080 Yeah, and Waltz actually had an AI model scrape two 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.440 point eight million Google reviews from one point five million 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.839 unique accounts. The model identified five hundred and eighty seven 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.920 thousand profile images with distinguishable faces, and then Walls had 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.320 that model determined if the users were young or old, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:59.760 male or female, and hot or not very binary, very binary. 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.120 How did the model define hot well? 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.760 Walls told The Times that the attractiveness score was quote 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:08.799 admittedly a bit yanky. 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:11.600 I mean that sounds like a bit of an understatement. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.000 I do love the idea of sitting down to set 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.120 the parameters for an AI model about hot or not. 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:20.720 How did mister Wolves go about it? 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.280 So, yeah, he actually gave a few examples. If someone 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.040 was wearing a wedding dress in their profile image, it 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.160 meant they were hot because obviously someone wanted to sleep 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.040 with them. And if the photo was blurry, they were 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.840 not because obviously nobody wanted to take a good photo 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:35.120 of them. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:36.240 So they're ugly. 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:38.800 I mean, these brahminters are not the ones. This is 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.480 not the sort of Leonardo da Vinci facial symmetry mode 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:43.800 of assessing beauty. 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.840 I guess no, it's like seemingly quite arbitrary. And he 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.320 actually unsurprisingly, did not build this for people who are 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.400 using it as a legitimate tool. He I think, like 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.720 I said, is making a social commentary on how diners 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.280 prioritize whether a restaurant is a scene over the food 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:05.160 and the atmosphere, And if you go on TikTok, a 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.239 lot of influencers actually talk about if there are hot 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.400 guys or rich guys, like the rich guy restaurant is 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:12.720 I think the most important thing. 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:14.680 It turns out that New York is not the only 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.920 city where the heat map exists. It's also available for 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.440 Los Angeles and San Francisco. 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.000 The only three places where there are hot people. 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.640 But I'm looking at the map right now, and it 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:29.600 seems like there's more blue meaning less hotness up in Harlem. 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.120 Twitter users did pick up on this quickly, and most 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.560 of the denser red pockets of the map were in 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.400 largely white, affluent neighborhoods in all three cities, Los Angeles, 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:40.600 San Francisco, and New York. 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.080 So, like most AI models, this one has a certain 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:44.920 amount of racial bias baked in. 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.880 Correct, which is unsurprising. You know, AI is trained on data, 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.920 so its answers reflect the biases of the humans who 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.360 created the data in the first place, and Walts actually 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.560 got criticized for this, but he responded that that is 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.480 part of the point. Again, he says looks mapping is 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:04.120 designed to make fun of AI and he also added 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.720 that one of the ugliest restaurants was actually a country club. 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:08.280 I like the sound that this Waltz character. 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.560 We should ask him to twenty two year old cheeky so. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.040 I mentioned I was on vacation last week out of 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.959 the city. I was actually in Greece and every time 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.319 the sunset, a horde of tourists would run towards the 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.640 most instagrammable location with their cameras. I was actually fighting 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.040 for space on the courtyard in front of it of 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.000 a church to actually look at the sunset, and somebody 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.319 you take my photo. I said sure, I said, I'll 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.200 take your photo afterwards. And I said, oh, that's okay. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.280 I just want to look at the sunset and my wife, 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.319 I said, you are so self righteous. Why do you 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.839 need to shame that poor man. The man was like, 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.560 I have nothing exactly, but it kind of raised this 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.880 interesting question about what were the photos designed to capture 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.200 the trip as in the past, or was the trip 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.800 designed to create an opportunity to take photographs and share 0:09:57.840 --> 0:09:59.840 them on social media, and it was a bit like 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.400 everyone's in their own version of The Truman Show, where 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.480 they were both the actor, the producer and the director, 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.120 and it didn't look that fun. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.360 I think the way we're living in the Truman Show 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:14.040 now is that we are all living in a world 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.800 that has really been predetermined by what we see on 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.960 social media. So I think looks Mapping was probably trying 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.320 to shine a light on this particular fact, which is 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.600 that we're going to places right now with expectations that 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.640 have been pre constructed on the Internet. And it's because, 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.800 to steal a line from the French philosopher Louis Altuse, 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.480 we are always already aware of what we're getting, which 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.000 is sort of sad, you know. 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.680 Yeah, I think it's so. My stepfather, Ricardo, owns a 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.160 restaurant in London called Ricardo's. Shout Out head there and 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.080 also congratulations, happy birthday, thirtieth anniversary. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.880 Wow, happy anniversary, Ricardo anniversary, and Riccardo's is a great 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:00.800 restaurant is not built around social media moments, so I 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:05.120 was encouraging Ricardo to look at a brand refresh where 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.920 he really leaned into being one of the oldest continually 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.400 operated family owned Italian restaurants in London. 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.920 He was like, no, I'm good, but it is I mean, 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.200 this whole thing you're talking about, where real life becomes 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.160 optimized for social media moments rather than social media capturing 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.640 real life is it's a little disturbing. 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.160 I think, as elder millennials, which we are, we grew 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.520 up before the I share. Therefore, I am to quote 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.520 Sherry turkle era began. We live in it, but we 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.240 had life before it, and I think the pressures of 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.599 a life lived online are much harder on gen Z. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.600 I actually found a survey that backs this up. So 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:53.559 I'm sure you know about the BSI, the British Standards Institution. 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.080 Of course. Yeah, actually I just read my membership. 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:01.040 Well to consulting from was president work there after. They've 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.959 actually asked thirteen hundred young Brits ages sixteen to twenty 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.520 one whether they would prefer to be young in a 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.680 world without the Internet. Forty seven percent of them responded yes. 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.240 That is a classic case of better the devil you 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.400 don't know in this case, right, because none of these 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.640 youths have ever lived with on the Internet. 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.600 I think there's something kind of sexy to people about 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.560 a time they didn't live, you know, like I'm very 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.760 interested in taking a horse across the country. And I 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.600 think the most interesting thing about this survey is that 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.920 fifty percent of all of those surveyed said that a 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.520 social media curfew would improve their lives. 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:42.559 What do you mean by social media curfew? 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.199 So actually the UK, which has a technology secretary, has 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.880 hinted that the government is considering I love this mandatory 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.800 cutoff times for certain apps like TikTok and Instagram for 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:55.040 children under a certain age. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.440 It is like during the Blitz when everyone just like 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.760 it's just like the well funny enough. On my trip, 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.040 which I'm sorry to keep posting about, I gave myself 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.199 a week long blackout or curse. 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:08.800 It was weird. 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.000 Yeah, So I removed Gmail and Slack from my phone 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.720 so that I wouldn't be tempted to glance at work 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.840 stuff and stretch myself out. I kept text, obviously, and 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.240 you and I texted a fair amount about text stuff, 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.440 but other than that, I was offline. I can't tell 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.400 you how good it felt to be not looking at 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.600 Slack and work Gmail for a week. And how bad 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:31.319 it felt to start again on Monday. 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.599 You know, as you and maybe our audience have recognized, 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.240 you've done it so gracefully. I have been in and 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.040 out of the show this year, and some of the 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:42.839 reason that I've been taking off is on account of 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:47.440 some personal mental health struggles, and as such, I was 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.120 actually forced into a bit of a curfew myself. It 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.640 was more a sensory deprivation tech but there were some 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.880 days where I actually only had my phone for one 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.280 hour a day. And the thing that it made me 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:03.600 realize is that the iPhone is a rapacious creditor. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:04.680 What does that mean. 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:10.160 It means that the more you use it, the more 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:16.040 you need to use it. And yeah, it is like sugar. 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.120 It is like cigarettes, where it's like we like to 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:26.640 brag when we have abstained. And my family actually refers 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.200 to my cell phone addiction as a legitimate addiction. And 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:30.360 I've been intervened on. 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.520 What was your experience then, of having twenty three hours 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:34.040 a day off. 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.280 I was so jacked up. I was so high from 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.600 using my phone for that one hour that like I 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.000 would give the phone back and I felt like my 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.320 brain was on fire. And I think when you have 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.200 access to a phone all day long. It sort of 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.600 spreads itself out. You don't feel like you're at a 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.000 loss because you don't have it, but when you don't 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.320 have it, and then it's something you get, you realize 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.080 how jacked up this thing makes you. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.240 It was interesting turning my feat own back on Monday 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.040 morning and reinstalling Gmail and Slack. I literally reinstalled them 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.800 and four hours went by when I didn't look up 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.920 from my phone. But I felt so broken by the 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:11.360 end of that. 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.920 Yeah, coming back to the survey, the thing that really 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.280 stood out to me was actually how often young people, 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.720 especially young women, are comparing their appearance or lifestyle to others. 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.560 In the survey, eighty five percent of female respondents said 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:29.280 they do this at least sometimes, and nearly half of 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.400 young women are doing this often or very often. 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.000 Yeah, but this idea of comparing yourself and your appearance 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.320 and your lifestyle to others, this is what the social 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.320 commentary of looks mapping is all about. 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.600 That's very true. I actually originally found these survey results 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.760 buried in an opinion piece from the Guardian. The author 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.000 is about Brooks is a bit older than the people 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.960 who are surveyed she's twenty six, but she admits to 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.960 being entranced by an old video that went viral recently 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:02.720 of Wesleyan alumni the band MGMT, performing for their peers 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:03.720 at Wesleyan University. 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:09.080 I remember seeing MGMT performing extremely reluctantly at a concert, 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.160 that graduating concert at Yale, and they just look so 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:13.280 bummed out to be there. 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.880 They were like, we miss Wesley And yeah, and it's 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.240 not the music that she's drawn to, it's the crowd. 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.880 She observes the quote, no one is dressed that well, judgy. 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.680 The cam resumes unsteadily to capture the crowd's awkwardness, slump 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:34.280 shoulders and a rhythmic bopping. Beyond the footage we're watching, 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.000 no one seems to be filming. 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:38.160 That's interesting. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.400 Yeah, and that part was key for her. No one 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:44.720 in the video is on their phone or filming the experience, except, 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.480 of course, like the person who captured the video. But 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.280 Isabelle goes on to say, quote, I was only four 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.760 when the video was filmed, So why does watching it 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.360 make me feel as if I've lost a whole world? So, 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.960 you know, she feels like she's missed out on this 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.840 pre social Internet where people were more authentic and unique. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.879 And I think, you know, I was in college before 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:11.760 you would film something on a foot, We would take 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.280 photos on our BlackBerry maybe, or you would take camera pictures. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.080 And now there are some concerts that I've actually been 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.119 to where the artists will say, don't take out your 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.080 phone for this, you know, just everybody puts your phone 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.000 down and watch. The saddest part about it for me, 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:32.080 and this I actually feel guilty of, is how difficult 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:33.720 it is for people to just. 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.320 Be well, it's not just us. You mentioned the UK 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.800 government is looking at this TikTok curfew, and I'm very 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:46.960 interested to know whether regulation government regulation will address the 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.679 harms of social media before the next generation become teenagers. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:52.359 And I do wonder if we'll look back on this 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.480 time that we're living through now as kind of the 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:59.119 time where doctors were prescribing cigarettes to people with a cough, 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.000 and whether we'll be like, it was so crazy that 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.800 we allowed a whole generation to have their minds ruined 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.800 by trillion dollar corporations. Who knows, But the policy thing 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.720 I'm interested in here in the US, a TikTok ban 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.640 has been mooted, not because of children's health, of course, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.359 but because of geopology China, China exactly so. In April 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.680 last year, President Biden signed a bill requiring that TikTok 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.360 be sold to a US buyer or be shut down. 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.480 The ban very briefly took effect the day before President 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.640 Trump was inaugurated in January. I'll never forget TikTok only 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.600 went dark for a single evening because upon taking office, 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.720 Trump immediately signed an executive order for a so called 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.840 enforcement delay, and has signed two more of these since then. 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:44.320 So the deadline keeps getting pushed back because the Trump 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.280 administration is working on a deal for a consortium of 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:52.120 non Chinese investors to take over TikTok's US operations. Details 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.600 about the deal remain unannounced, but the information broke some 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.080 news this week that makes the future of TikTok in 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.760 America appear secure. Apparently, there's a new version of the 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:06.160 app being built specifically for US users. The US only 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.080 TikTok app is set to launch on September fifth, and 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.600 US residents will have apparently until March twenty twenty six 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.520 to download it and get off the old app. There 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.640 is one wrinkle, which is that the Chinese government will 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.399 also have to approve of this structure, and apparently a 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.840 deal was actually close and then the tariff announcements earlier 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:26.960 this year derailed it. You know that I have this 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.119 kind of geopolitics bent. So while we're at it, there 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.439 was another story this week. It was in four or 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:38.879 four media that brought together diplomacy, cryptocurrency, personal appearance, and 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:43.639 the internet making collective decisions. Ala looks mapping. Tell me 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:45.680 have you heard of polymarket? 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.120 I mean it does sound like a dating app for polyamory. 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.960 Poly Market is not a dating market for the polyamorous. 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.119 It is a sort of online betting marketplace where you 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.360 can basically lay down a wager on almost anything other 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.760 users can come up with. You basically bet on yes 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.840 no issues using crypto against other users rather than against 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.959 a bookmaker, and then this decentralized system facilitates the payouts. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.919 It got very big during the election last year and 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.520 right now on the site, some of the bets going 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.040 run the gamut from Wimbledon results to will a hurricane 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.040 make landfall in the US before August? But a bet 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.040 that's really blown up and has over two hundred million 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.199 dollars in crypto riding on it is will Ukrainian President 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.560 Zelenski wear a suit? Before July? Zelenski said he would 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.359 not wear a suit until Russia's war in Ukraine ended, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.840