Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nol.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. If you are listening
Speaker 3: to this the evening it comes out, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome
Speaker 3: to November fourth. You have survived Halloween. So happy Halloween
Speaker 3: to all those who celebrate.
Speaker 4: And in a burst of I guess calendar asynchronous nests
Speaker 4: both of my stories or Halloween really today, So sorry,
Speaker 4: it's still kind of spooky season.
Speaker 3: It's always Halloween in America and in our hearts. Is
Speaker 3: a way I like to explain. We're going to get
Speaker 3: into so much stuff. We are going to talk about,
Speaker 3: not just Halloween, but some occultish stuff, some recent discoveries.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about a little bit of AI
Speaker 3: and some heist and recoveries as well. Before we do
Speaker 3: any of that, guys, I gotta tell you I read
Speaker 3: the dumbest story. I've been on this last meals thing
Speaker 3: for a minute now, But did you guys hear about
Speaker 3: a prisoner on death row who asked for a cigarette
Speaker 3: instead of a last meal?
Speaker 4: Was it the Icelandic breakfast? Have you seen this? Or
Speaker 4: it's like a cigarette finished breakfast. It's like a cigarette,
Speaker 4: a shot of espresso and vodka. But what was the deal? Ben?
Speaker 4: He asked for a cigarette, asked for a cigarette?
Speaker 3: They were the prison authorities refused because it was quote
Speaker 3: harmful to his health. He was electrocuted a few hours later.
Speaker 4: Weren't they going to give it to him if he
Speaker 4: would like do a p s A again smoking things?
Speaker 4: Maybe I misread that would have been hilarious though, Well.
Speaker 3: We've got we've got a lot of weird stuff.
Speaker 2: Don't definitely not kill me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you smoke, you will go to the death row.
Speaker 3: We we also, uh, it's the time for gallows humor.
Speaker 3: Let's make this our cold open.
Speaker 4: Oh please, And we have returned.
Speaker 3: Based on the kind words of many conspiracy realists, we
Speaker 3: like to start with a scattershot approach to a lot
Speaker 3: of strange news that hasn't maybe gotten the do it deserves.
Speaker 3: Let's say it this way. We'll start with good news.
Speaker 3: Another lost city has been discovered in modern day Mexico,
Speaker 3: and it's a huge one. Did you guys hear about this.
Speaker 3: I know we're all light our nerds.
Speaker 4: Found was a satellite imagery. Yeah, that's right, and that's
Speaker 4: the part that I saw. I saw like a map
Speaker 4: of some sort.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 5: It's what we've talked about on some of those Hidden
Speaker 5: Cities episodes we did. I think it was a two
Speaker 5: parter we did a long time ago. It is the
Speaker 5: exact thing that I think Ben. We just were excited
Speaker 5: about it one day happening and now it's.
Speaker 3: Here, and we argued that this would inevitably lead to
Speaker 3: more discovery. So we proudly present to you the formerly
Speaker 3: hidden complex which has been named Valeriana. Nobody knows its
Speaker 3: real name. It was discovered using laser survey or light
Speaker 3: our technology. This is not just a big deal historically,
Speaker 3: it's a big deal geographically. So we want to give
Speaker 3: a shout out to Luke Ald Thomas, who's a PhD
Speaker 3: student at Tulane University down south here in the US,
Speaker 3: who had the greatest explanation for how they discuss this quote.
Speaker 3: I was on something like page sixteen of Google search
Speaker 3: and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organization
Speaker 3: for environmental monitoring. And our pal, the PhD student Old Thomas,
Speaker 3: found a light our survey and this got him thinking,
Speaker 3: and so we processed the data using methodology of previous archaeologists,
Speaker 3: and he saw that this ancient city, which had been
Speaker 3: eaten by the jungle, was at one time home to
Speaker 3: thirty to fifty thousand people, somewhere between seven hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty to eight hundred and fifty eight, which is really
Speaker 3: not that long ago if you think about.
Speaker 4: It, Ben, did these people have magical powers?
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to need a different kind of technology
Speaker 3: to figure that one out. No, okay, but I hope.
Speaker 3: So I choose to think this was the original home
Speaker 3: of wearbats, perhaps because I've been playing too many strange games.
Speaker 4: Well I'm being a dork, but like, isn't it sort
Speaker 4: of part of the whole, you know, thinking behind some
Speaker 4: of these hidden civilizations, that they were more advanced, or
Speaker 4: that they possessed some kind of like uncanny abilities like
Speaker 4: atlantis and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's it's gonna be red meat, of course,
Speaker 3: for the ancient aliens folks, for the hidden history folks.
Speaker 3: We can say at least the latter is true. This
Speaker 3: is hidden history. If you want to learn more, please
Speaker 3: check out a fantastic article PhD student finds lost city
Speaker 3: in Mexico jungle by accident from our pals the BBC,
Speaker 3: specifically journalist and science reporter Georgina Renard.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, we just had dinner with her the other night.
Speaker 4: That's not true, figurative information.
Speaker 3: Pals, Dinner of the mind exactly.
Speaker 5: Can we just say, really quickly, it's amazing how fast
Speaker 5: the jungle really does overtake these places. Like you were saying, Ben,
Speaker 5: I've been contemplating since you mentioned it, just how not
Speaker 5: long ago this city existed and there were you know,
Speaker 5: tens of thousands of humans probably living in it.
Speaker 2: That's insane mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it is something that we I don't even
Speaker 3: want to call it a prediction, but it was statistically
Speaker 3: inevitable that more stuff would be discovered as this technology
Speaker 3: met economy of scale and could be more easily rolled
Speaker 3: out and afforded by various Boffen initiatives. Often autanistic initiatives. Whatever,
Speaker 3: we'll keep it boff initiatives off initiatives. There we go,
Speaker 3: well done, and so we want to move on. Speaking
Speaker 3: of rediscovering stuff, you guys, the Vatican, that's right, the
Speaker 3: seat of the Catholic Church is rediscovering their relevance to
Speaker 3: the newer generations, and not in the creepy way they've
Speaker 3: been associated with in the past.
Speaker 4: They're now doing all of their services in brain rot speak, right,
Speaker 4: is that what it is?
Speaker 3: Close? Well, I wouldn't even see like. Okay, So Luce,
Speaker 3: which will all hopefully meet soon, means light in Italian.
Speaker 3: Pardon my pronunciation. This is a mascot unveiled by Archbishop
Speaker 3: Reno Fisicella in a press conference just a few days
Speaker 3: ago on October twenty eighth. As we record this is
Speaker 3: I'm gonna share a picture with you guys, and please,
Speaker 3: as you're playing along with us at home, please check
Speaker 3: it out at your leisure. Lucie is an anime inspired
Speaker 3: mascot for the Vatican to connect with the kids. I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna show you guys a quick image search here. Again,
Speaker 3: please play along at home. This is Luce.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it kind of looks like the Morton Salt Girl,
Speaker 4: but like a little more anime. Yeah, it's pretty funny.
Speaker 4: The yellow rainslicker. What's that about. It's like she's a
Speaker 4: door of the explorer for the Catholic Church going on
Speaker 4: an adventure into the scriptures.
Speaker 3: Note also the rosary warren as a necklace which some
Speaker 3: people got in trouble for in Catholic school. So question
Speaker 3: is that right? Yeah, like wearing it in that fashion
Speaker 3: was not okay. Some kids got in trouble for it.
Speaker 3: You know that your mileage may vary. Before we move
Speaker 3: on to our next story, have to ask do you
Speaker 3: guys think this anime character will work? Do you think
Speaker 3: kids will say, oh, the Pope school.
Speaker 4: Droves droves of gen Z kids are going to start
Speaker 4: flocking to the church. No, I don't know about that.
Speaker 5: I like the idea that it's a pilgrim, right, that
Speaker 5: it's a depiction of a typical traveler, So it's not
Speaker 5: really a raincoat. It's a coat that I don't know,
Speaker 5: a depiction of a I don't know what they're trying
Speaker 5: to go for really there, but I like the idea
Speaker 5: that this is somebody who was supposed to be bringing
Speaker 5: a light, maybe the light of Christ throughout the world
Speaker 5: as they travel around it. That's a that's a cool concept.
Speaker 5: That's one of the major positive things that exists in religion.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It's the yellow hooded coat is a reference to the
Speaker 3: Vatican flag. The staff is a pilgrim's staff traditionally. If
Speaker 3: you want to learn more, one article we like for
Speaker 3: this is The Straits Times st R A T. S.
Speaker 3: By Ian Chang, where the idea is that, as mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: the idea is that this is somehow the Holy See
Speaker 3: won't like me say it this way, but is somehow
Speaker 3: Promethean right bringing the light of Christ to other people.
Speaker 3: This was unveiled during the or in planning for their
Speaker 3: big jubilee. And I don't know, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: see anything inherently sinister about this. If there's a conspiracy afoot,
Speaker 3: it's conspiring to bring more people to the light of
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 5: Right, Sure, Yeah, that's all I'm saying. I think it's
Speaker 5: theoretically hopefully good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, the results may vary about how
Speaker 4: religion works for you or where in your life it
Speaker 4: plays a role. I definitely kind of a little weird
Speaker 4: weirded out by the idea of recruiting young people to
Speaker 4: the church all. I've never particularly loved the idea of
Speaker 4: baptism before. You know, a kid has the agency to decide,
Speaker 4: and so there's something about that that's a little odd
Speaker 4: to me, especially given the scandals and all of the abuses.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I get what they're trying to do.
Speaker 4: It feels a little ham fisted to me, though.
Speaker 3: Speaking of we'll move to a next story, which is
Speaker 3: which is that'll be funny later, folks promise, which is
Speaker 3: this As anybody who has lived in Japan or visited
Speaker 3: Japan knows, a huge portion of the population resides in cities,
Speaker 3: so much so that a lot of rural areas are
Speaker 3: becoming depopulated. They're experiencing brain dream at a level that
Speaker 3: is simply unsustainable, sadly for a lot of these towns,
Speaker 3: and you can see it if you're American, you can
Speaker 3: see it in other rural parts of the United States.
Speaker 3: More than one Japanese town has attempted a solution to
Speaker 3: your earlier point, Noel, about the idea of you can
Speaker 3: see the intent, but we don't know about the execution
Speaker 3: of the results. Let's go to a story you find
Speaker 3: decided everywhere. Sky News has a great write up on it.
Speaker 3: Japanese villages are replacing young people with mannequins as the
Speaker 3: population plummets.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, like those like those body pillow things like
Speaker 4: what are we talking about you?
Speaker 3: Here's a picture sharing this the mannequins that are being
Speaker 3: put around town in public spaces. Would we like to
Speaker 3: describe them nightmare fuel?
Speaker 2: Hmm, Matt, how does this hit you? Brother?
Speaker 4: This is terrifying to me.
Speaker 2: Ah, I don't know. The scarecrow, but less.
Speaker 3: Useful, definitely not human looking. They're definitely wrought in humanoid
Speaker 3: in like humanoid form, but they're clearly not real children.
Speaker 3: They've done this such that now this small village in particular,
Speaker 3: I pulled this picture from a town called Ichi No No,
Speaker 3: and this town is now quote outnumbered by puppets. There
Speaker 3: are fewer than sixty people who live in the southern village,
Speaker 3: and most of them are older, which happens a lot
Speaker 3: in places with you know, declining earth rates and brain
Speaker 3: train And I gotta tell you, it seems like a
Speaker 3: good hearted conspiracy, well intentioned, but if it is meant
Speaker 3: to heal feelings of loneliness. Would it not just accelerate
Speaker 3: those feelings? This is a villager initiative, by the way
Speaker 3: they used found materials, clothing, fabric, a mannequins.
Speaker 4: God forbid, you're some hapless passerby who isn't aware of
Speaker 4: the initiative. Can you imagine just what is going on
Speaker 4: in this town? This is It's like a Stephen King
Speaker 4: short story.
Speaker 5: What if your eyesight's going pretty hard and you don't
Speaker 5: ever get really close to these mannequins, and if you're
Speaker 5: walking down the street, you're, oh, there's a cute family
Speaker 5: over there on the swing set.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's just to be clear. The picture that Ben
Speaker 4: showed us is of one of these horrors on a
Speaker 4: swing set.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm my good. Yeah, look at that.
Speaker 3: And this is for perspective on how rural this is.
Speaker 3: It's about three and a half hours from Osaka, which
Speaker 3: would probably be the closest big town most Westerners are
Speaker 3: familiar with. I also hope it works out. I hope
Speaker 3: none of us listening this evening are driving through a
Speaker 3: small town in what is sometimes called flyover country here
Speaker 3: in the US and runs into a mannequin place that
Speaker 3: feels like some real get out fuel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that turned into poppets.
Speaker 3: The town that turned into poppets.
Speaker 2: Think about how good of listeners they are though.
Speaker 5: You could tell them all about your day until they
Speaker 5: eat your soul.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is something that is perhaps part of
Speaker 3: a larger trend, which we'll discuss maybe in a future episode.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny. It's a different country, but I
Speaker 4: did see a story about how the Chinese government is
Speaker 4: actually dealing with the similar issues and actively calling women
Speaker 4: to convince them that it's a good idea to get pregnant.
Speaker 3: That's a true story. Yeah, it is the It is
Speaker 3: the Chinese government that recently made Western news doing that.
Speaker 3: We don't know exactly how the like, how the vibe
Speaker 3: is for those folks who got called. We don't know.
Speaker 3: I can only guess that a lot of people, whether
Speaker 3: or not they're carrying a child, did not react.
Speaker 4: Well. Is it like a pitch like? I mean, excuse me,
Speaker 4: Can I have a moment of your time please? You
Speaker 4: are you familiar with breeding?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like an unrealistic idea, similar to the
Speaker 3: idea that Russia wants Google and Google will come up
Speaker 3: later in tonight's strange news segment. Russia wants Google to
Speaker 3: pay a fine. We all read about this right because
Speaker 3: this has made the rounds. Russia wants Google to pay
Speaker 3: a fine like as a state organization. And it is
Speaker 3: a number higher than any amount of currency that exists
Speaker 3: on Earth.
Speaker 4: Oh, a gajillion billion zillion something like that in US right, Yes,
Speaker 4: of course, what you yeah, which would make it even
Speaker 4: a larger number if I'm not mistake.
Speaker 3: Right, twenty point five descilion deecill io n and this
Speaker 3: is more than the entire GDP of the planet. A
Speaker 3: Russian court, not a private entity, has ordered Google to
Speaker 3: pay this fine, with additionally a one million dollar US
Speaker 3: in this one US dollar penalty for every day they
Speaker 3: don't pay.
Speaker 4: I'm sure Google will get right on that, so.
Speaker 3: I'm sure they will. The way you would write this
Speaker 3: out would be a decillion is twenty followed by thirty
Speaker 3: three zeros. Google is valued at two trillion dollars, which
Speaker 3: is already honestly not real money.
Speaker 4: And isn't the word Google a bizarro giant number about
Speaker 4: like a certain like a crazy amount of zeros?
Speaker 3: Yes, it is a purposeful misspelling of a Google. The
Speaker 3: number ten to the hundredth power.
Speaker 4: Got it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there they've always been dreaming big. I got
Speaker 3: to tell you, this story has been making the rounds
Speaker 3: pretty often, but I don't know if it now far
Speaker 3: be it for us to portray ourselves as experts in
Speaker 3: the world of economics. But guys, I don't think they're
Speaker 3: going to pay it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thinking you're probably right there, But I mean I
Speaker 4: gotta say though, the fact the way you had to
Speaker 4: describe this number, and then me immediately being like, oh,
Speaker 4: isn't that kind of what a Google is as well?
Speaker 4: Do you think it's a symbolic like middle finger kind
Speaker 4: of thing, almost like a little bit of a wink wink,
Speaker 4: like the reference to the name of the company. I
Speaker 4: know it's not the same as a Google, but it
Speaker 4: is a similarly absurd number.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's a good
Speaker 3: point because we also have to consider the larger context.
Speaker 3: Google has accumulated a lot of fines in Russia. They've
Speaker 3: already before this happened, they already were in trouble, right,
Speaker 3: And their largest find aside from this is a four
Speaker 3: point seven billion US dollars find issued by the EU
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen for some anti trust stuff and that
Speaker 3: like that translates to four point three four billion euro
Speaker 3: which is still minuscule, tiny in comparison to what Russia
Speaker 3: is demanding. What they really want is for Google to
Speaker 3: restore YouTube accounts of state run propaganda, which is again
Speaker 3: I don't think they're going to do either of those, right, Like,
Speaker 3: why would you?
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know. It doesn't seem like the
Speaker 4: smartest bet to play ball with the government. That's that
Speaker 4: outwardly corrupt.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, Google can decide that anyone has violated
Speaker 5: whatever terms of service, right and then just say no,
Speaker 5: you don't have access anymore.
Speaker 4: Is there a private private company you owe it to
Speaker 4: the Russian government to give them back their account?
Speaker 3: Oh wait, wait wait, sorry they're a private entity shout
Speaker 3: out alphabet. But uh but yeah, I'm curious about this
Speaker 3: when I think a lot of us are. We know
Speaker 3: that Google is no stranger to different pretty ambitious accusations.
Speaker 3: Just to give you a sense of how unrealistic this
Speaker 3: Russian fine judgment is. So we talked for about how
Speaker 3: a billion is much larger than a million. We talked
Speaker 3: before about a trillion is much larger than a billion.
Speaker 3: To reach a dacillion from a trillion, you have to
Speaker 3: multiply that trillion, buy one million, take what you've multiplied,
Speaker 3: multiply that by another million, and then take that and
Speaker 3: multiply that by another million.
Speaker 4: You lost me at math ben Sorry.
Speaker 5: One website said it was two trillion billion dollars. Your
Speaker 5: brain goes, huh millions.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, so good luck Google. We've all gotten in situations.
Speaker 3: You're probably going to get away with this when obviously
Speaker 3: it started with the invasion of Ukraine.
Speaker 4: I just hope Google is going to be okay, that's yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, what do we say? Thoughts and prayers, right.
Speaker 2: And two undecillion rubles to you.
Speaker 3: We're going to start a GoFundMe for Google, you know
Speaker 3: what I I mean, just to make sure they're in
Speaker 3: a good spot. We've got a bunch of other stuff
Speaker 3: we're not going to get to. There was a great
Speaker 3: cheese heist, not just a good cheese we've.
Speaker 4: Spoken of cheeseist. Yeah, this is a big one. There
Speaker 4: was some artisanal cheeses valued it in the hundreds of
Speaker 4: thousands of pounds. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we've got we have a story about the
Speaker 3: great cheese spiracy. There's a very special episode on that
Speaker 3: coming out on another show. These con artists made out
Speaker 3: with five hundred and forty thousand dollars worth of cheddar.
Speaker 4: That's a lot of cheddar.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of cheddar. That's a lot of pony bones.
Speaker 3: And maybe, just maybe, by the time you're hearing this,
Speaker 3: elephants in Colorado will have the right to sue for
Speaker 3: release from a zoo. What are we talking about. We'll
Speaker 3: have to tell you later. For now, we're going to
Speaker 3: take a moment for a word from our sponsors, and
Speaker 3: we will return with more strange news.
Speaker 4: And we're back with some more strange news. As I
Speaker 4: teased at the top of the show, I come to
Speaker 4: you bearing two Halloween themed stories, even though we are
Speaker 4: into November already. But that's okay, it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 4: I did not know this. We have talked about the
Speaker 4: concept of Beggars Night. If you can actually refer back
Speaker 4: to the stuff that, I'll want you a new episode
Speaker 4: on the history of Halloween and Sawn and all of
Speaker 4: that good stuff. Beggar's Night is certainly a part of
Speaker 4: that history and that culture. The night before all hollows Eve.
Speaker 4: What I did not know is that since nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 4: children in des Moines, Iowa have been celebrating that particular
Speaker 4: night instead of proper Halloween. Nineteen thirty eight a long,
Speaker 4: long time ago. And the reason for this is that
Speaker 4: apparently if you talked about this in the episode too,
Speaker 4: and I feel like we also did something about it
Speaker 4: on Ridiculous History, But there was a lot of crime
Speaker 4: and mischief associated with Halloween, and these I guess the
Speaker 4: powers that be in Des Moines said the no, no, no,
Speaker 4: We're putting a stop to these shenanigans and we're going
Speaker 4: to have a very tightly regimented night before Halloween experienced
Speaker 4: for children. They still can dress up in costumes, they
Speaker 4: still can go door to door. But this idea of
Speaker 4: the trick or the treat, you know, this exchange all
Speaker 4: right out as the bridge devils Night, No Devil's Night. Instead,
Speaker 4: you can when you knock on the door, you don't
Speaker 4: even say trick or treat. You just tell a joke
Speaker 4: or a riddle of some kind.
Speaker 3: Okay, I love it.
Speaker 4: It's charming, it's just absolutely delightful.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to interrupt. We have an example.
Speaker 4: Uh no, I do not, but I mean any I
Speaker 4: mean got since the nineteen thirties here, so I'm sure
Speaker 4: the evolution of the jokes told have be a thing
Speaker 4: to behold in and of itself. You know, yeah, what
Speaker 4: what is it? Uh? You want to tip never leave
Speaker 4: wax lips on the counter on a sunny day or
Speaker 4: something like That's.
Speaker 3: There are probably a few that didn't age as well as.
Speaker 4: Money June's jokes. Guys, the apple guess been that is
Speaker 4: a thing in and of itself. But then, Matt, all
Speaker 4: of this is changing because this year, it's been a
Speaker 4: couple of days now, the children of Fair des Moines
Speaker 4: are getting their first trick or treat experience proper trick
Speaker 4: or treat on the night on October the thirty first,
Speaker 4: largely because of weather prediction that yeah, weather a bad
Speaker 4: You'd think it would have happened by now in that
Speaker 4: many years, you know, close to one hundred years, you know,
Speaker 4: at least in the late eight eighty years plus since
Speaker 4: they started this tradition, that they would have had a
Speaker 4: rain out on Devil's Nights. I don't quite understand how
Speaker 4: this is like such a remarkable thing that it caused
Speaker 4: them to rethink the whole plan. But Assistant city manager
Speaker 4: Jen Schultz said, to my knowledge, has never been moved
Speaker 4: or canceled since it was established after Halloween in nineteen
Speaker 4: thirty eight, which presume was a hell on Earth or
Speaker 4: just chouldren and smashing. It was like crystal knocked, you know,
Speaker 4: children smashing shop windows and you know, burning things or whatever.
Speaker 4: However she goes on, the safety of our residence, families
Speaker 4: and children is always our top priority and led to
Speaker 4: the change in this year's scheduled Beggars Night. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: a couple other options for your door to door interactions.
Speaker 4: We'd be singing a song, reciting a poem, or maybe
Speaker 4: doing a little dance some of them some other little
Speaker 4: make a little note, we don't make any love. We'd
Speaker 4: make no love dance, Yes, get a little tree? Yeah? Extra?
Speaker 4: Can they do all three? The egots Beggars Night? You know,
Speaker 4: really talented kids over there in Des Moines. So I
Speaker 4: don't know. I just I thought that was a charming,
Speaker 4: little halloweeny story. So moving on to the segue, which
Speaker 4: is a little bit kind of a beefier story. And Ben,
Speaker 4: we were talking off Mike, I think this might be
Speaker 4: something to weave into a larger exploration. But in the
Speaker 4: United Kingdom, in the eastern county of Lincolnshire, a Tudor
Speaker 4: manor like the I guess that's a style also probably
Speaker 4: referring to its historical provenance, you know, from the Tutor era.
Speaker 4: It's not just like a style of home. This is
Speaker 4: actually a home from that period in British history, was
Speaker 4: found to have many many witches marx, very large numbers
Speaker 4: of what are referred to as witch's marx. A staggering array,
Speaker 4: in fact, is what CNN reported in an article published
Speaker 4: by CNN's staff. The term is actually, I don't know
Speaker 4: if you're familiar with this, Ben Matt, apotropaic Marx or magic. Yeah, sure, indeed, yes,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I thought you were also known as magic, you know,
Speaker 3: but yeah, your protective magic basic one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right, Ben. And that's the thing that I
Speaker 4: think is so interesting about the story is because I
Speaker 4: think it's an easy go to and we think about
Speaker 4: witches historically speaking, that they're like in league with Satan
Speaker 4: or in league with infernal forces, and I think that
Speaker 4: is largely, you know, almost entirely a misnomer. You know,
Speaker 4: practitioners of Wicca and all that they are pagan, you know,
Speaker 4: practicing of witchcraft, not that at all. So I think
Speaker 4: when somebody maybe who isn't as into this stuff as
Speaker 4: maybe we are, would see this, they would say, oh,
Speaker 4: it's going to be like all kinds of six six
Speaker 4: sixes and you know, devils of horns and you know
Speaker 4: bapha met type things. Not the case. It's really fascinating
Speaker 4: the kinds of things that were found. The English Heritage Society,
Speaker 4: I guess, released a statement on this, referring to around
Speaker 4: twenty carvings discovered by Rick Berry, an English Heritage volunteer
Speaker 4: who spent two years at this property mapping all of
Speaker 4: these designs, and they include lots of different things. One
Speaker 4: particular design is known as a hexafoil, which is a
Speaker 4: circular kind of design that is meant to have a
Speaker 4: six pedal kind of flower array in the middle. However,
Speaker 4: it appears that this particular design wasn't like finished, and
Speaker 4: the one theory is that they it may have been
Speaker 4: beyond the skill of the carver. From that means because
Speaker 4: these are etched into you know, very stone surfaces another symbol.
Speaker 4: I think this was really interesting to all of us
Speaker 4: when we were talking about it. Off Mike, was this
Speaker 4: array of overlapping these known as Mary and Marx, which
Speaker 4: are believed to be a call for protection from the
Speaker 4: Virgin Mary, as well as a pentangle which I think
Speaker 4: many folks would would be more familiar with, which is
Speaker 4: design to protect against evil or intended to protect against evil.
Speaker 4: But guys, it kind of blew my mind a little bit.
Speaker 4: The idea of this intersection of something like Catholicism or
Speaker 4: Protestantism or whatever into these clearly more like pagan type practices.
Speaker 3: Is this religious syncreties that's right? Yeah, and also protection
Speaker 3: of the Virgin Mary from by yeah, like.
Speaker 4: Protection from against her. It is calling on her to
Speaker 4: protect them, so asking her for her protection, but.
Speaker 3: For an intercession.
Speaker 4: When you say religious sncretism, then what do you mean.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is something that's I think quite fascinating to
Speaker 3: all of us, and we've explored this in previous evenings.
Speaker 3: Religion as technology. We don't mean that in offensive way.
Speaker 3: We mean that in a very academic way. So let's
Speaker 3: say you are a missionary back in the fourteen hundreds
Speaker 3: or the fifteen hundreds. You roll into a brand new
Speaker 3: land and you see they already have their own rich
Speaker 3: ancient millennia old tradition of spiritual beliefs. You don't tell
Speaker 3: them they're wrong. You tell them they have been doing
Speaker 3: what you told them about earlier. It's just using different names.
Speaker 4: I'm familiar with the concept of religious secretism, I didn't
Speaker 4: quite understand how it applied here. I totally get it now.
Speaker 4: This virgin Mary stuff may well have been a product
Speaker 4: of whatever this individual was exposed to that maybe converged
Speaker 4: their pagan beliefs with something more resembling Christianity.
Speaker 3: Right, one hundred percent nailed it.
Speaker 4: Another thing that I found super fascinating came from Kevin Booth,
Speaker 4: the head of Collections at English Heritage, who said, in
Speaker 4: the statement quote it is astonishing that centuries on the
Speaker 4: amazing old buildings in our care still have secrets way
Speaker 4: to be discovered. So English Heritage is a foundation that
Speaker 4: deals with like protects and preserves, maybe even restores some
Speaker 4: of these old buildings and homes and manors or whatever,
Speaker 4: of which England is absolutely lousy with. Egos on the
Speaker 4: Old Hall as it's referred to, has undoubtedly had a
Speaker 4: tumultuous pass, not least under the ownership of the apparently
Speaker 4: unpopular William Hickman. But why it's the scene of quite
Speaker 4: such a high concentration of protective carvings remains a mystery.
Speaker 4: That William Hickman that he's referring to appears to have
Speaker 4: been curt by one of these marks. This is the
Speaker 4: one sort of more infernal, though maybe the guy had
Speaker 4: it coming, it would seem so kind of markings of
Speaker 4: the bunch. He owned the property from fifteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: His name was found written upside down, and in the
Speaker 4: release they mentioned that these types of marks were likely
Speaker 4: made to curse an individual. The idea of defacing someone's
Speaker 4: name widely believed as a means of cursing, though this
Speaker 4: practice was much more common with Roman and Anglo Saxons
Speaker 4: rather than the era that the English heritage property sort
Speaker 4: of encompass. And I guess that makes sense if anyone's
Speaker 4: seen Rome the HBO series, there are some instances of
Speaker 4: cursing where like they will scrawl over somebody's name very
Speaker 4: violently or whatever kind of shred their name, which is
Speaker 4: like almost the kind of thing you associate with a
Speaker 4: voodoo doll or one of the puppets, you know, one
Speaker 4: of those kind of stand in you know, effigies that
Speaker 4: you're hurting the individual that it's associated with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is and I love that you. I love
Speaker 3: that you open at the front with apotropaic magic because
Speaker 3: this dates back so far, you know, and the religious
Speaker 3: syncretism is fascinating. I almost said awesome, but I love
Speaker 3: that you're pointing out too. When the folks discovered this
Speaker 3: at Gainsborough Old Hole, they they literally did find this
Speaker 3: guy's name written upside down, which was a really bad
Speaker 3: thing to do to people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I never said, I just I do think again,
Speaker 4: with the religious syncretism stuff like this was something that
Speaker 4: was more prevalent in Roman traditions. So there's that kind
Speaker 4: of crossing the streams, I guess, for lack of a
Speaker 4: better way of describing it, kind of situation here. You know,
Speaker 4: these types of marks have been found, you know, over
Speaker 4: the years all over England. In fact, in twenty nineteen
Speaker 4: the article points out as well, I think we also
Speaker 4: discussed this in a cave system in the East Midlands
Speaker 4: of central England. Hundreds of these apotropaic marks were found
Speaker 4: and they continue to be found in houses built between
Speaker 4: fifteen fifty and seventeen fifty and as well as in
Speaker 4: churches and homes, cave systems, like we said, you know,
Speaker 4: all kinds of different places in the UK to ward
Speaker 4: off sickness, death or things like poor harvests.
Speaker 3: So he's fascinating.
Speaker 4: It's really cool. Yeah, I thought I thought it was.
Speaker 3: That's fascinating because that also the time frame you correct
Speaker 3: me if I'm off base here. The time frame you're
Speaker 3: describing there goes past the Tudor period. That's definitely know
Speaker 3: what precedes it. But I think the Tutor period was
Speaker 3: fourteen eighty five to sixteen hundred.
Speaker 4: I'll take your word for it. Beat sure, you're right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't no, No, that does seem to be correct
Speaker 4: in terms of like the how there was a little
Speaker 4: bit of a disconnect between those periods.
Speaker 3: So we got to get some witch marks. Go in here.
Speaker 3: What if we go to the office, because we're heading
Speaker 3: to the office later in a few weeks, what if
Speaker 3: we start putting down some witch marks, you guys, just
Speaker 3: to be safe, right, the original alarm system.
Speaker 4: Come on, Matt, you got this. You be the leader
Speaker 4: of the witch mark initiative.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, I'm down. I'm down for spiritual protection
Speaker 5: like that. Yeah, let's do it. Just who knows what
Speaker 5: you're protecting against. Maybe it's the thing that brings in
Speaker 5: the money. I'm just saying why, Like, it makes me wonder,
Speaker 5: this is a praise. This is a hugeous state, right yes, hall,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of money that flowed in and out
Speaker 5: of this thing. There are some powerful people that resided
Speaker 5: within it, and a lot of people who worked for
Speaker 5: let's let's put that in quotations, worked for the people
Speaker 5: that were there that were powerful. It does make me
Speaker 5: wonder if there is specific protection against you know, the
Speaker 5: owners of this place with a guy's name written on
Speaker 5: there and everything. It does make you wonder if you
Speaker 5: know they're they're in need of spiritual protection against somebody
Speaker 5: for some specific spiritual reason.
Speaker 4: Well, and it gets even more kind of like present
Speaker 4: in a fun way when little detail I left out
Speaker 4: is they also found around one hundred small burn marks,
Speaker 4: which were thought to be another type of protection against
Speaker 4: fire like property damage. So this place seemed to be
Speaker 4: have all its bases covered in terms of like spiritual
Speaker 4: uh you know, protection.
Speaker 3: Sympathetic magic right like calls to like, well that would
Speaker 3: make sense because then burning something, well, all right, we're
Speaker 3: not the magician.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, we are about the Dreamership Dreams.
Speaker 5: The infinite money glitch that we discussed with the boys
Speaker 5: over there for my mama told me, well, it's begun.
Speaker 5: JP Morgan Chase is officially suing everybody.
Speaker 2: That attempted this glitch.
Speaker 3: No way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know it's crazy, but you know, as as
Speaker 5: cynical as a lot of the story is, it's just
Speaker 5: it's what's happening now. There were several people that attempted
Speaker 5: to get a lot more money than others via this
Speaker 5: you know, check fraud lash infinite money glitch. One case
Speaker 5: in Houston involved a person who deposited a counterfeit check
Speaker 5: for three hundred and thirty five thousand dollars and then
Speaker 5: immediately the person who owned the bank account that false
Speaker 5: check was inserted into via the ATM went inside and
Speaker 5: got out two hundred and ninety thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: And uh, just a plan, I mean, yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 4: could go wrong?
Speaker 3: You know, this guy should write crime novels on it, right, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, are a real evil genius type figure.
Speaker 5: Well, gay, it's what we talked about on the show,
Speaker 5: And go listen to the episode we did with those
Speaker 5: guys from my mom and told me. But some people
Speaker 5: got out eighty thousand dollars, another person got out one
Speaker 5: hundred and forty one thousand dollars. Several people only took out,
Speaker 5: you know, a couple thousand, couple ten thousand, maybe not
Speaker 5: that much, but it doesn't matter to JP Morgan Chase.
Speaker 5: They've got everybody's accounts that you know, committed check fraud.
Speaker 5: They know who these people are. In order to have
Speaker 5: an account, you have to submit all your info. So
Speaker 5: they're coming after everybody. And they're not just asking for
Speaker 5: the amount of money that was stolen from the bank
Speaker 5: via check fraud. They're asking for damages, lawyers fees, interest,
Speaker 5: overdraft fees, all kinds.
Speaker 4: You imagine the overdraft fees if they calculated like what
Speaker 4: your actual ballance should have been versus how much you
Speaker 4: quote unquote took out, you know, overdrafted.
Speaker 3: Those are already a grip. And now now the blood's
Speaker 3: in the water, so the sharks come to swim.
Speaker 2: Right yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 5: And just one little note here from CNBC, you can
Speaker 5: go check out this article written by Hugh Soon on
Speaker 5: October twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, title JP Morgan begins
Speaker 5: suing customers who allegedly stole thousands of dollars in infinite
Speaker 5: money glitch, according to Hugh, who wrote it. He says
Speaker 5: despite the waning use of paper checks as digital forms
Speaker 5: of payment gained popularity, there's still a major avenue for fraud,
Speaker 5: resulting in I couldn't believe this, you guys, twenty six
Speaker 5: point six billion dollars in losses globally last year, twenty
Speaker 5: six point six billion dollars in check fraud. I just
Speaker 5: I can't believe that's still that much of a thing.
Speaker 4: What are they not considered breakage you know in the
Speaker 4: industry or shrinkage and what I just mean in terms of,
Speaker 4: like it's the cost of doing it. If that's the
Speaker 4: cost of doing business, and it wasn't enough for them
Speaker 4: to completely overhaul the check system, can you imagine the
Speaker 4: amount of money we're talking about be a bigger picture,
Speaker 4: you know, like how much money is moving around in
Speaker 4: these institutions originals?
Speaker 5: I know, especially if you think back to the TD
Speaker 5: Bank thing we just talked about, with some banks just
Speaker 5: having to at some point or deciding to, let's say,
Speaker 5: throw in the towel when it comes to checking out
Speaker 5: what their you know, customers are doing and what they're
Speaker 5: doing with their money.
Speaker 2: I don't know, weird stuff.
Speaker 5: Just to stay on the money tip, guys, let's go
Speaker 5: to a report that comes out of Australia that I
Speaker 5: don't know, I think we find particularly charming. We've discussed
Speaker 5: it before on the show here, guys, but Bluey the
Speaker 5: show Blueye, I think might be one of my favorite
Speaker 5: ourtoons that's ever been created.
Speaker 2: Have you guys? Did we talk about that before?
Speaker 4: I haven't seen a moment of it. I know it's
Speaker 4: much beloved though.
Speaker 2: Oh okay you mentioned it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we've mentioned in the past.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, well it's it's just fantastic.
Speaker 2: I don't care who you are.
Speaker 5: Anytime you can make a show that my son, you know,
Speaker 5: who isn't even ten yet loves and will make me
Speaker 5: tear up during the episode, you're doing something right. So
Speaker 5: here's the story coming to us via BBC News and
Speaker 5: Simon Atkinson.
Speaker 2: You can look it up.
Speaker 5: It's titled Police recover more than forty thousand stolen Bluey Coins.
Speaker 2: What what it's like?
Speaker 4: A crypto scam? What are we talking to you?
Speaker 5: Okay, right, that's what it sounds like on the surface
Speaker 5: is what I thought too, But no, we're talking actual
Speaker 5: coins that were produced by the Australian Mint. It was
Speaker 5: reported back in July that sixty three thousand coins had
Speaker 5: been stolen from a warehouse where they were hanging out
Speaker 5: in western Sydney. They were about to enter circulation when
Speaker 5: they were stolen. But now authorities recovered over forty thousand
Speaker 5: of these individual coins after a raid on a property
Speaker 5: that was, like, guys, like six miles ten kilometers from
Speaker 5: where these coins were stored at that warehouse. When they
Speaker 5: picked them up, they found that.
Speaker 2: There are three people.
Speaker 5: The person that this report is talking about is somebody
Speaker 5: who was allegedly the getaway driver for a three person team,
Speaker 5: somebody who worked inside at the warehouse, somebody who assisted,
Speaker 5: and then this new person who was the getaway driver.
Speaker 5: But either way they had these coins. It's only it
Speaker 5: was only like five or six bags of coins, right,
Speaker 5: it's not that many.
Speaker 3: Do we know the denomination of the coins?
Speaker 5: I don't know the denomination. I know that they are
Speaker 5: valued at around one Australian dollar, which is about point
Speaker 5: sixty five US dollars, right about fifty pence.
Speaker 3: So they're kind of like a dollar.
Speaker 5: Yes, coin, but they're being sold online for like ten
Speaker 5: times that, so like ten Australian dollars right per one coin.
Speaker 3: So that establishes profit.
Speaker 5: There is value to them if you could turn them around,
Speaker 5: but it appears that these folks at least were unable
Speaker 5: to turn around many. Right they there were sixty three
Speaker 5: thousand stolen in all, there were still forty thousand coins around.
Speaker 2: I guess when they were found. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think it's super cute. They're gold colored coins known
Speaker 5: as Bluey dollar bucks because that is the currency that
Speaker 5: that's how currency is referred to in the world of Bluey,
Speaker 5: and it's adorable.
Speaker 4: This is like a commemorative thing because Bluey's so beloved
Speaker 4: in Australia that they just decided to like do these
Speaker 4: special edition coins and actually put them in circulation.
Speaker 2: Yes, like the old.
Speaker 3: Made for TV commercials where you get the branded stuff
Speaker 3: from the US Federal Mint.
Speaker 4: That's right. But who got a whole had? Was this
Speaker 4: a mint worker?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: How? Yeah?
Speaker 5: It was somebody who was somebody who was on in
Speaker 5: the inside I who found out where they were being
Speaker 5: stored and got access to them and then got them
Speaker 5: to another person who then like basically took them to
Speaker 5: a getaway car and they escaped, at least according to
Speaker 5: this BBC News article. But the reason why they even
Speaker 5: meant at these coins, Guys, when we're thinking about the
Speaker 5: number of people you need to either go to the
Speaker 5: theaters to watch a movie, to turn on Netflix and
Speaker 5: stream a movie, to download a podcast, to watch a
Speaker 5: YouTube video, the threshold you need to reach for something
Speaker 5: to be considered a hit has changed so much, right.
Speaker 3: As a successful piece of show or content, not as
Speaker 3: in a successful hit defined as a crime.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, a successful hit. Different thing.
Speaker 5: The bar is lower though, right, The bar is so
Speaker 5: much lower than it ever has been because there are
Speaker 5: so many places to watch things.
Speaker 2: There's so many things to watch.
Speaker 5: Now you've just got to get a tiny little slice
Speaker 5: of the pie. And you know, advertisers and you know
Speaker 5: moneybackers say.
Speaker 2: Well, dang, great job, you did it.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 5: Just listen to these numbers from the VBC about Bluey.
Speaker 5: It was streamed for more than twenty billion minutes on
Speaker 5: Disney Plus in I just the United States last year.
Speaker 3: Well on their way to a dacilion.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it's incredible. What are the top ten streaming
Speaker 5: programs like in the United States, if you're measuring by
Speaker 5: minutes fewed and it's just I don't know, I'm excited
Speaker 5: about that. I'm sad the coins got stolen. I'm glad
Speaker 5: they're now returned. Those Bandit Bucks, blue Eye dollar Bucks. Okay,
Speaker 5: last story for me, guys. Google is developing something that
Speaker 5: they're calling a Computer using Agent. Now, we have talked
Speaker 5: a lot about language learning models, about very specific uses
Speaker 5: of what is again, as we always say, called AI,
Speaker 5: but isn't necessarily AI, isn't exactly AI, but it is
Speaker 5: using language learning models computer learning technology to where you
Speaker 5: can basically have a program that can somewhat think.
Speaker 2: For itself, work on in its own way.
Speaker 5: You pose it a question, you give it parameters, and
Speaker 5: it can spit back out answers that are extremely complicated
Speaker 5: analyzing a ton.
Speaker 2: Of different data.
Speaker 5: This new thing that Google is rolling out, a Computer
Speaker 5: using Agent, is very different. It is specifically a thing
Speaker 5: that can actually exist on your computer as an application
Speaker 5: and then go on Chrome or you know, Safari, whatever
Speaker 5: you're using, and use the browser and basically perform research
Speaker 5: from that browser. Can do things like enter text in
Speaker 5: the browser. It can analyze the buttons, the clickable buttons
Speaker 5: that exist inside a frame, inside an entire website, that
Speaker 5: it would be scrollable if like, if you were using it,
Speaker 5: you would have to scroll up and down. But this
Speaker 5: thing just analyzes everything that's on the website.
Speaker 2: It can just.
Speaker 5: Look at the screen and analyze everything that's on the screen,
Speaker 5: including all the windows you have open. It's got some
Speaker 5: incredible potential right to where you could instead of saying hey,
Speaker 5: chat GPT or whatever, find me the top twelve examples
Speaker 5: of times X said X or whatever, you can say, hey,
Speaker 5: but get me some tickets for this concert I really want.
Speaker 5: When I think you'd say, like tickets come out tomorrow
Speaker 5: at ten am or something like that.
Speaker 4: So it could compete with the scalp robots. Then that
Speaker 4: could be a positive thing.
Speaker 3: That's a potential application.
Speaker 2: That's one.
Speaker 5: That's one tiny application, right, I mean there's so many
Speaker 5: different things. Imagine a thing that you could perform on
Speaker 5: your computer via a browser, and you could ask this
Speaker 5: new thing to do that, and you know there would
Speaker 5: be varying results on whether or not it works right
Speaker 5: or how well it worked at least for a long time.
Speaker 5: As something like this is first unveiled and then gets
Speaker 5: refined over you know, thousands, if not millions of uses.
Speaker 2: It's very very strange.
Speaker 5: By the way, Google's not the only people doing it,
Speaker 5: and we haven't even said what it is yet. Google's
Speaker 5: calling this project Jarvis. That's at least the code name.
Speaker 5: It'll be something else when.
Speaker 4: It's a pay fail that trade, isn't that IP? Isn't
Speaker 4: that Marvel? Is the name of like giron Man's computer.
Speaker 3: You can't you can't copyright a name that's that's but
Speaker 3: it is it is. I would argue the idea of
Speaker 3: referencing a typical Butler name does conjure shadows of its predecessor,
Speaker 3: ask Jeeves.
Speaker 2: Yes, there you go, There you go.
Speaker 5: And there are other things like this that are already
Speaker 5: coming out but aren't necessarily out yet in functioning word
Speaker 5: the way they're supposed to. There's this thing you can find.
Speaker 5: It's a company called Rabbit and you can find this.
Speaker 5: I found it on tech Crunch. But they've got a
Speaker 5: web based quote large action model that just came out
Speaker 5: in October this year, twenty twenty four, and it is
Speaker 5: an actual piece of hardware that you connect up, then
Speaker 5: goes through and uses web browsers theoretically to do things
Speaker 5: like analyze what it sees on a screen, including the buttons,
Speaker 5: the fields, images, and it doesn't matter where they are,
Speaker 5: and then it can interact with whatever elements it needs
Speaker 5: to to perform whatever task it's been given. But it's
Speaker 5: not really functioning the way it said on the tin
Speaker 5: I guess originally.
Speaker 3: And to interject it to that earlier point about more
Speaker 3: players being in the game, didn't a company called Anthropic
Speaker 3: YEP do something? Yeah, can you tell us about that?
Speaker 5: I think that's Claude At least that was something that
Speaker 5: came out a while back. It was in a beta
Speaker 5: form and it wasn't wasn't really again, like these things
Speaker 5: have a ton of errors in them because they're just
Speaker 5: being introduced and they have to be tested and tested
Speaker 5: and tested and tested and basically run through a gambit
Speaker 5: before they learn, you know, and get updated like how
Speaker 5: to better do things.
Speaker 4: Well, that's all emergent stuff. I mean, it's not going
Speaker 4: to get it like perfect on the first go round,
Speaker 4: but I did. There was a comment on the Verge
Speaker 4: piece from a user Frederick at VDZ. He said, how
Speaker 4: about spending all that time and effort to make a
Speaker 4: computer more user friendly, instead of spending a climate alter
Speaker 4: amount of energy and the GDP of a medium sized
Speaker 4: country to make a half assed automating protocol that will
Speaker 4: only kind of do a task correctly. Sometimes, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean it would stink if you were banking on this thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Let's say oasis tickets, see well, or developing. Let's say
Speaker 5: a schedule for you when you're gonna go visit Scotland
Speaker 5: or something, right, and it's like, find me the coolest
Speaker 5: stuff to do in Scotland and build an itinerary for
Speaker 5: me or something like that. That could be a huge help,
Speaker 5: a huge time saver, and it might discover things that
Speaker 5: you would never find on your own. But what if
Speaker 5: it's just terrible?
Speaker 3: Another example, what if you are a PhD candidate and
Speaker 3: you take a jin shortcut or attempt to when conducting
Speaker 3: some very serious research, and then you get referred to
Speaker 3: things that do not exist or are misinterpreted. I mean
Speaker 3: there are real world consequence to this, and we also see,
Speaker 3: I mean, we see again the inherent flaws of these
Speaker 3: large language models or excuse me, large action models. Excellent
Speaker 3: marketing there, guys.
Speaker 4: You're right, Ben, they talk about it like it's a thing,
Speaker 4: but it's they made it up. That's it is rebranding.
Speaker 3: They manifested it right, and so we we see the
Speaker 3: supernatural increasingly becoming real. But I had heard that. I'd
Speaker 3: heard that originally, Google itself refused to comment on Jarvis
Speaker 3: for a while. It was an internal thing, and someone
Speaker 3: and correct me if I'm wrong here. Someone asked Googles
Speaker 3: god it the phrase ai Google's Gemini assistant about Jarvis,
Speaker 3: and then Gemini made.
Speaker 4: A statement, Wow, well, I prefer his work with pulp.
Speaker 4: I didn't like his solo stuff so much music nerd joke.
Speaker 3: It's like when you ask chat GPT how to come
Speaker 3: made a crime by phrasing it as though you're in
Speaker 3: a Dungeons and Dragons sary.
Speaker 4: What a great work around that was. That was a
Speaker 4: fun story, dude.
Speaker 5: Well, so this all gives me to the final story
Speaker 5: I wanted to talk to you guys about because it's
Speaker 5: related directly to this.
Speaker 2: Somebody came out in the AP News.
Speaker 5: About how AI powered transcription services that are being rolled
Speaker 5: out in hospitals and emergency care facilities across the planet
Speaker 5: are malfunctioning.
Speaker 3: Yes, those conditions do not exist.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, so let's just get into the positive. Theoretically,
Speaker 5: Let's say you're sitting there talking with your doctor, rather
Speaker 5: than your doctor having to scribble down notes as quickly
Speaker 5: as possible just to understand exactly what you're going through
Speaker 5: in ways that you can be helped. This language learning thing,
Speaker 5: this AI powered transcription tool is listening and it's taken
Speaker 5: notes and getting specifics. It can even prout well, I
Speaker 5: don't know exactly, but I imagine you could easily have
Speaker 5: like recommendations, right, based off of previous diagnoses, based off
Speaker 5: of previous medicine that were prescribed, based off of previous
Speaker 5: preventive things that could be prescribed. It could give you
Speaker 5: all that stuff based on what is recording. But what
Speaker 5: it's doing not all the time, but sometimes this transcription
Speaker 5: tool is inventing stuff that nobody discussed in the room
Speaker 5: or during that hospital visit, during.
Speaker 4: That hallucination, right, isn't that AI?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's pumping out hallucinations and fabricating things that they
Speaker 5: could be really bad espec Like, imagine if you're going
Speaker 5: in for a consultation that involves a surgery or something
Speaker 5: where you're gonna you know, be cut open or put
Speaker 5: under for and it hallucinates something that then just gets
Speaker 5: put into the record, and as the medical team is
Speaker 5: going through and attempting to analyze everything and understand what's
Speaker 5: happening in the next couple of weeks, there's this new
Speaker 5: thing that's there that ends up getting your pancreas messed with,
Speaker 5: and it shouldn't have been touched.
Speaker 4: I don't know, remember some of those those Google AI
Speaker 4: search results that were so embarrassing, like it's okay to
Speaker 4: eat eight rocks, or like a good alternative for gluten
Speaker 4: is Elmer's glue, you know, like things like that. That's
Speaker 4: the kind of stuff we're talking about here.
Speaker 3: It's wild. Yeah, we said the name of this transcription tool.
Speaker 5: Yet, well it's it's from open ai. It's called Whisper
Speaker 5: whisp e er whisper.
Speaker 3: And since these things don't occur in a vacuum, it's
Speaker 3: also interesting I would pause it to see how many
Speaker 3: people have left open ai due to internal conflicts that
Speaker 3: are still largely black boxed from the public. Mm hmmm,
Speaker 3: due to NDAs. Because legislation, NDAs do not apply if
Speaker 3: they concern the commission of a crime. However, the legislation
Speaker 3: has not codified what could count as LM crime here.
Speaker 3: You know, it'll be very interesting to see who is
Speaker 3: left holding the bag of badgers when someone dies as
Speaker 3: a result of these hallucinations in the metal field. At
Speaker 3: least that's my take.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's super dangerous. If you go to the AP
Speaker 5: article titled Researchers say an AI power transcription tool used
Speaker 5: in hospitals invents things no one ever said, you will
Speaker 5: read that several people who are working with this, Several engineers.
Speaker 2: Discovered some things. Here you go.
Speaker 5: A University of Michigan researcher conducting a study of public meetings,
Speaker 5: for example, set he found hallucinations in eight out of
Speaker 5: every ten transcriptions he inspected. Then he tried to improve
Speaker 5: the model. A machine learning engineer said he initially discovered
Speaker 5: hallucinations in about half of the over one hundred hours
Speaker 5: of Whisper transcriptions he analyzed, and a third developer said
Speaker 5: he found hallucinations in nearly every one of the twenty
Speaker 5: six thousand transcripts he created with Whisper.
Speaker 4: Isn't it fascinating that these hallucinations just seemed to be
Speaker 4: kind of an organic byproduct of this technology, Like I
Speaker 4: don't fully understand it, do you guys? Like, is it
Speaker 4: just it's a failing clearly, But it also seems to
Speaker 4: have happened across various versions of these llms, Like what
Speaker 4: is the deal? Why are they doing this?
Speaker 3: Two mirrors facing each other, They're just quoting each other.
Speaker 3: There's not a lot of original analysis.
Speaker 4: But wouldn't a hallucination kind of be original? But yeah,
Speaker 4: completely inappropriate.
Speaker 3: Maybe hallucination. Maybe we're hanging too much on that word.
Speaker 3: Maybe a better way to put it. And this is
Speaker 3: just my opinion. I'm not an expert. Is to say
Speaker 3: not caep be short, but to say hallucination is better
Speaker 3: defined as putting a thing in the wrong spot. So
Speaker 3: this hallucination, no one's saying, you know, this patient all
Speaker 3: of a sudden became a dragon. What they're like out
Speaker 3: a whole cloth. They're reading or pulling from some other source,
Speaker 3: and something about the commonality between the sources they're cripping
Speaker 3: made them think the other thing was applicable in this
Speaker 3: context when it was not.
Speaker 4: I think that's a great description that makes sense to me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the predictive text
Speaker 5: thing that has arrived you know, on everybody's cell phones
Speaker 5: on and gotten everybody's it has gotten better, and sometimes
Speaker 5: it's really good about predicting what your next entire sentence
Speaker 5: is going to be, or re least thought right or
Speaker 5: phrase as you're beginning to type something.
Speaker 2: I think it's applying that and attempting.
Speaker 5: To basically not see the future of what's being said,
Speaker 5: but just get ahead of it, to stay far enough
Speaker 5: ahead on the scroll of.
Speaker 2: What's being said that it's not missing anything.
Speaker 4: But if it makes a wrong assumption and then moves
Speaker 4: forward from that point on, everything else is based on
Speaker 4: this wrong assumption, right, Maybe I don't know, that's just
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm trying to describe it in Layman's terms.
Speaker 4: That makes sense to me. I think I think I
Speaker 4: can wrap my head around that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, weird stuff, weird weird stuff. But that's all
Speaker 2: for me, guys.
Speaker 3: And we will be returning later this week. Find us
Speaker 3: at an evening or a pair of headphones near you. Folks,
Speaker 3: thanks so much for joining us in tonight's strange news program.
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Speaker 5: I'm going to give you a quick example of one
Speaker 5: of these hallucinations that just found before I give you
Speaker 5: the phone number.
Speaker 2: Here we go.
Speaker 5: In one example, a speaker said, quote, he the boy
Speaker 5: was going to I'm not sure exactly take the umbrella,
Speaker 5: but the transcription software added quote, he took a big
Speaker 5: piece of a cross, a teeny small piece. I'm sure
Speaker 5: he didn't have a terror knife, so he killed a
Speaker 5: number of people.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, sure.
Speaker 4: That's poetry. It's like shadow predictive text poetry. I love
Speaker 4: writing that stuff.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it all right.
Speaker 5: If you want to call us and tell us you're
Speaker 5: weird hallucinations or ones that you've encountered on some kind
Speaker 5: of language learning model, call one eight three three std
Speaker 5: WYTK when you call in, give yourself a cool nickname
Speaker 5: and let us know if we can use that name
Speaker 5: and your message on the air. If you've got more
Speaker 5: to say than can fit in a three minute voicemail,
Speaker 5: why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
Speaker 3: we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
Speaker 3: writes back. I'd like to give a big, big shout
Speaker 3: out to our pal Logan, who gave us a hookup
Speaker 3: to go get on the ground with some UAP stuff.
Speaker 3: You're massively appreciated, Logan. Also big shout out and apologies
Speaker 3: to co host for GP who mentioned corvid intelligence. Promise
Speaker 3: not to try to squeeze that into future shows. Please please,
Speaker 3: please send us whatever's on your mind. Give us the links,
Speaker 3: give us the photos, take us to the edge of
Speaker 3: the rabbit hole. We will do the rest. So join
Speaker 3: us out here in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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