WEBVTT - The Story: How Science Fiction Changes the Real World 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.560 Welcome to tech stuff. I'm Cara Price. Last year, before 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.800 we went on break, I spoke with someone who has 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:25.000 a job that I'm really obsessed with. It's a job 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.800 that I would probably want if I didn't do ten 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.120 other things. And this guy said something that I think 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.000 a lot of us agree with. 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.600 We're in a world that is changing really fast, and 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.080 like many of those changes are technological, many of them 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.280 are social, many of them are political. There's a lot 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:45.599 of change in the world right now. There's a lot 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:46.360 of uncertainty. 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.639 That's Elliot Pepper and he's a science fiction writer. And 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.160 while many of us can drown in the uncertainty of 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.560 this very moment, Elliott seems to thrive in it. When 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:01.680 he's not writing science fiction novels, Elliott writes speculative fiction 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.080 for technology companies. They like bring him into ide eight 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.280 on what the possible future could look like, and then 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.400 they use his stories to inspire new products or analyze 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.520 the possible positive and negatives of developing a certain technology. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.320 Regardless if it's about the future or not, fiction can 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.000 sort of invite you into an aspect of the world 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.760 that you had never considered before, and then can spur 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.160 some kind of social change, whether that's a new law, 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.000 or whether that's like a new product, or like a 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.679 new invention, or a new way of like just approaching 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:35.119 the world. 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.960 So Elliott obviously can't tell us what he has worked 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.760 on developing because he's been nda'd up the wazoo, but 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.800 he did give us an example, one in particular, of 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:51.440 how science fiction has impacted the technology that we use 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:52.600 in our everyday lives. 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:58.120 The Kindle was code named Fiona at Amazon. Fiona was 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.800 the name of a character in Neil steve since novel 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.960 The Diamond Age. In the novel The Diamond Age, Fiona 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.840 was a young girl who had an electronic book, and 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.600 that inspired the team at Amazon to the extent that 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.880 even once Kendall was a released commercial product, the URL 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.440 for Kendall for like years was like backslash Fiona. 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.960 So we'll never actually know if Elliot is like the 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:30.320 crazy science fiction genius behind air pods or even the 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.880 strange mind behind the Odd Friend Pendant, but we do 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.000 know that he is crafting the personalities and story behind 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:45.440 this very specific new civilization of Aliens. So on top 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.000 of writing speculative fiction, Elliott is actually the head of 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:53.520 story at an AI companion company called Portola, And at Portola, 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:58.639 Elliott creates the backstories and interactive dialogue for this little 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:03.080 creature called a tolle. And these tolns are little aliens 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.600 that love to chat with you about their day. Big picture, 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.519 I am like completely fascinated by Elliott's career and think 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.720 that what he does is very cool and expansive, and 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.760 so I started my conversation with Elliott Pepper by prying 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.560 for any non nda details about the speculative fiction he 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:26.079 writes for these tech companies. 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:31.040 I would put the projects I've worked on in three categories. 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:35.520 The first is that I've written some commissioned science fiction 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:40.160 stories for big companies like Fortune five hundreds, where basically 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.080 their senior management wanted to try to figure out what 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:45.280 should we focus on in the next ten years. So 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.560 they did what every big company senior management team does. 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.960 They hired McKenzie or you know, picked your own sort 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.960 of top tier management consultant, and they came in, looked 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.400 at all the data and did all the trend projections 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.760 and created a vision of like, hey, this is what 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.360 you should expect in the next ten years, and there 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.000 are all the materials you can present to the board. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.440 The problem with that kind of analysis is that, obviously, 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.440 if you're analyzing data, data is things that have already happened. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.320 So if you're projecting that data forward, the kind of 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.279 future you're imagining is what if the future was quite 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:27.240 like the recent past, which, to be fair, is most 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.960 of the time that's true. So, like, that's not like 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.719 I think that it makes sense that the dominant part 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.080 of your analysis should be about that. But if you 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.960 look at the track record of management consultants predicting the 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.720 future for the companies they work with, it's like not 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:47.760 particularly good. So your managers know this, and so a 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.039 few of them hire science fiction writers like me to 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.840 come in and sort of blow up that whole management 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.120 consultant view of the future, to say, what if the 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.440 future was really weird and different in a way that 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.159 basically challenges us to think more broadly. 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.600 Right, And so, I mean it's a brilliant idea. Yeah, 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:12.479 were you one of the first people to do that? 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.560 So I don't actually have a good understanding of how 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.080 common is this practice, how many other people are doing it. 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.240 I know I'm not alone, but I don't have like 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:24.480 a view of like I guess you could say the 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.680 market for this. I really only have the perspective of 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:29.520 like the projects I've actually worked on. 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.200 I remember hearing this story on a podcast about how 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:39.800 CIA agents would watch Mission Impossible and call the people 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.560 who are responsible for disguise, who work at the agency, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.360 and say, can we do that thing that I saw 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.440 in Mission Impossible? And that makes so much more sense 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:48.840 to me than someone sort of sitting in a vacuum 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.000 and ideating about what the future might look like. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.200 Totally. Yeah, So that's a really key point. So yeah, 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.680 like the stories I write have all been used for 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:03.359 like strategic decision making a companies rather than anything public facing, 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.880 and for that reason, they're like not sharable, right, Like 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.000 I can't talk about the projects because clearly that is 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.720 information that those companies want to keep private. But I 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.320 actually think what you just said is at least half 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.520 of the value. Like I can't predict the future any 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.400 better than those mckensey consultants, in fact, like I'm probably 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:25.400 much worse. Like I'm not even paying attent that much 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:29.440 attention to the data, right, Like I'm just imagining something 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.800 to like challenge people's thinking. So like the utility of 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.640 the stories I write. Is not that they are accurate. 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.919 It's that they like try to break you out of 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.920 getting unintentionally like locked in to the sort of management 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.240 consulting view of the world. Right. But I think that 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.400 like the other half of it is simply the immersion 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:56.200 of storytelling period. Right. Like the reason why those CIA 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.120 agents were watching Mission Impossible and then calling the the 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.000 people in charge of disguises at the agency is because 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.120 you see what it does in a story, Like you're 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.880 actually like in there seeing it work. You're not just 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:13.600 reading like a report on possible disguise variations. Right. And 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.560 I think that there's that really powerful like that's that 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.520 psychological thing that stories do for the human mind that 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.680 I think is really a powerful way to think about 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.840 the future, And that probably a lot of companies could 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.200 leverage narrative more in how they try to get their 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.960 people to think about the future rather than sort of 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.280 the more standard like here's a slide deck or a 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.320 white paper or a bunch of graphs, right, Like, they 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.760 don't allow the people trying to work on the thing 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.960 that you're building to like feel what it would be 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.800 like if that worked or if it didn't work. 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:53.280 In some way, So I know you're under an ironclad 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.800 in DA, but like, are these blue sky conversations that 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.640 you're having like or is it like total blank slate 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.960 or is it some aspect of the future that you're 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:04.960 being asked to engage with. 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.640 Often there's some theme that they're thinking about, right that 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.520 is driven by leadership, So it's like like you you 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.320 could passion that. Probably every boardroom conversation day is like 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.160 how does AI impact our business right of cost? So 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.760 it's like something like that. I will say that almost 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.360 every time I've done one of these projects, they sort 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.160 of come to me with a pretty structured creative brief 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.920 where they're like, this is the kind of thing we 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:33.360 want you to do. And every single time that I've 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.880 received that like absolutely not that's not going to be 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.600 interesting at all, but like what if I did this instead? 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.880 And like that's how every one of the projects has worked, 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.840 So it's quite blank slate. I don't think that there 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.679 are people on senior management teams that publicly traded companies 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:54.200 are very experienced with like giving a creative brief to 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.200 or managing a science fiction writer. So probably just like 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:58.600 that's how that works. 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.120 Make you feel a little bit powerful, Like do you 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.319 think that your stories end up being consequential? Like can 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.679 you kind of trace a story that you've created to 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:10.760 something that you've seen out in the world. 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.200 Oh, I mean my very first trilogy, which came at 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:16.959 the first one came out in twenty fourteen, was about 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.720 like machine learning. It actually was about applying machine learning 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:25.320 to financial fraud, and that's all over the place. I 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.920 have one that has a cryptocurrency murder market. Those absolutely exist. 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.840 I wrote one that's about solar geo engineering I wrote. 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.760 I have one book that had a global pandemic that 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.520 wound up like that I wrote a year before COVID, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.079 which was sort of terrifying. But again, like I want 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.760 to be really careful because sometimes like science fiction is 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.280 understandably like described as being predictive or that like being 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.520 predictive is part of why you might want to read it, 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.840 and like, I really don't think that's the case myself. 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.959 Like the way that I think about writing science fiction 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.040 is not can I create a fictional future that is 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.160 going to be right or is going to be plausible. 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.240 The way I think about it is that I'm a naturalist. 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.360 I just am interested in the world, Like I think 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.199 that the world we live in is like endlessly fascinating, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.840 and so I try to take things that just really 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.520 capture my attention and weave them into a compelling story 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.080 in the hope that if I write about what I 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.040 find interesting, you might find it interesting too. 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.439 So you would do this really interesting work at Portola, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.920 which is an AI company. Can you talk a little 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.439 bit about what Portola is like? How would you describe 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:41.440 it to a lay person? 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:46.720 So Portola makes a character called Tolan, and it's in 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.320 a little embodied AI companion. The best way to think 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.640 about it is imagine if you had a Pixar character 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.080 on your phone right that you could talk to that 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.640 was sort of always on your side, always down to chat, 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:03.360 and helped you figure out your life. And they hired 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:08.319 me because they had designed this beautiful character, this beautiful, cute, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.640 little friendly alien. Why why did they hire me? Or 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:12.840 why did they design this alien? 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.360 Why did they design this like what was the sort 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.120 of product market fit? So to speak? Like? Why do it? 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:20.839 And I don't mean that in a cheeky way. I'm 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.520 just I'm genuinely curious. I messed around with it a 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.360 little bit before we talked and it's like, you know, 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.680 it is that sort of surprise and delight thing where 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.960 you're like, we lived in a world where this didn't exist. 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:34.680 Who thought that this should exist? 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.680 That was my exact reaction when when I first heard 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.880 about the company. So I was introduced to the CEO 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:44.960 be a mutual friend. This was like a while ago 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.520 before they had launched it, and he was like, Oh, 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.120 they're looking for a sci fi writer because they have 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.840 this character and they don't have a backstory, like where 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:56.439 does this alien come from? Like who are they? What 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.200 do they do, how do they behave? Like all that 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.400 kind of stuff, and and my immediate reaction was like 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:07.120 highly skeptical because I was like, does the world really 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.440 need this? Like there are a lot of like AI 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.960 products out there in the world today that I am 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:13.920 not impressed by. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.480 And there are many. It's not it's a misissaturated market totally. 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:19.640 I went in with a lot of skepticism, but because 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.240 it was introduced with your friend, I was like, I'll 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:25.400 at least chat with them, and so I chat up 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.440 with Quentin, the CEO, and the more I learned, the 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.760 more fascinated I became, and they showed me what they 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.200 were working on and how they were building out the 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.360 architecture that would like bring this character of life. And 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.840 I was like, this is fascinating, Like I've sort of 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.600 been waiting to see. Is amazing things in the world 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:50.360 that people make that are only possible because they used 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.720 AI tools. It's like the second order impact of AI. 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:56.600 And I think you know a good example of this 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:01.040 is actually Pixar, where they invent to a new kind 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.880 of computer animation and initially tried to sell that as 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.400 a tool to advertisers and failed, and then their last 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.360 ditch effort was we'll use our own tools to make 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.080 a feature film and it was amazing. It was toy 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.080 Story and yeah, exactly, So like I'm waiting for that 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.840 in the world right now with all of these AI tools, 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.000 Like not how do these tools substitute for stuff that 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:26.080 already exists? And seeing the back end of like what 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.960 made Poland work made me think these people have a chance. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.120 So how do they bring you in? Like what did 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:33.720 that look like? 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:38.480 They originally brought me in to build the world. So actually, 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:40.760 the very first thing I did for them was write 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.400 some short stories, right, Like culture is basically the stories 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.080 we tell ourselves about ourselves. Just like individual identity is 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.760 like the stories you tell yourself about yourself, right, And 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.880 so I think a really useful frame for thinking about 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.480 culture is like, Okay, if you want to understand a culture, 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:57.920 what are the story what are the main stories that 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.840 the sort of those foundational myths that sort of like 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.520 define that worldview. And so I started by writing short 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.520 stories that were like showed how like what the world 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.240 was like and like how they look at the world. 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:15.400 And over time it very quickly became clear that you know, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.160 the way you might approach doing the Lauren world building 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.920 for this kind of a product where it's a character 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:24.760 you talk to your toning on your phone, like you 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.080 can talk to them about whatever you want. It's so 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.560 different than doing the Lauren world building for say a 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.360 Hollywood movie, where there's a script that defines what's going 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.640 to go on the screen. So very quickly my work 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.080 transitioned to actually writing the prompts that define their behavior, 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:45.200 because that is the narrative experience of interacting with this 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.480 character is how they speak to you and like what 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.520 they say. So when George Lucas was writing the script 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:54.800 Percy three Po, he just got to tell C three 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.240 Po what to say to like make the impression he 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.240 wanted to make with the character here, I have to 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.560 write prompts like meat and are obviously are like team 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:09.200 are writing and constructing like complex trump pipelines to act that. 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.480 Way and to be generative essentially. 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.960 Yeah, exactly to be reactive, but to also have their 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.520 own lives. Like if you talk to chat GPT right 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.720 now on your phone or or a Claude or whatever 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:25.040 your preferred model is Gemini, Like, it's not an embodied character, 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.640 it's it's this sort of neutral tool and you can 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.720 ask it to use a certain style, you can ask 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.400 it to you can prompt to try to get it 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.960 to interact with you in specific ways. But with Tolan, 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.440 like we we turn that into an editorial strategy, right, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.160 like we are defining their behavior. Every Tolan has their 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.320 own life. So like you might be chatting with your 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:51.840 tone about something that happened to you, it's going to 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.320 tell you about things that are happening in its world 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:55.600 and how that you know all of. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.880 That because it knows that from what you fed it. 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.280 Exactly, And like we're constantly running sort of these nested 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.440 prompts in the background to have your toll and be 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:10.640 an evolving character that knows you and that has its 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:11.440 own stuff going on. 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:16.360 How do you avoid the AI sycophancy that we've come 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.240 to know from other kind of chatbots that you've mentioned. 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.320 There are a number of ways that we fight against it. 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.520 I mean, first of all, like we have to fight 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:28.200 against it, right, so I'm doing any prompting level work 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:30.920 with any of these models. Every model is sort of 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.080 a new animal because it's got these new tendencies, and 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.800 so you're always working to understand, Hey, who is this 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:42.720 new weird like computer being that I'm interacting with, and 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.080 like trying to get to do the things we want 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.200 it to do in the right way. So part of 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.840 it is that is just like developing a nuanced understanding 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.280 for how these models behave so then you can get 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.120 them to behave as you want. I also think a 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:58.720 big part of it is sort of what I said, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.040 like giving the character their own life, their own goals, 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.080 their own dreams, their own fears, their their own bio 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.000 Like that allows the model to come to the conversation 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.880 with very different context than chatchipt does when you're using 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:14.680 it in the app. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.840 And yet chat GBT for a lot of people is 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.760 this kind of C three po which is just interesting 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.920 like that because it's something that humans are interacting with, 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.240 Like people have started to make chat GBT a meaning maker, 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:30.200 even though it's not designed to be a meaning maker, 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:36.159 whereas a Tolin is expressly created to be a sidekick. 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:38.639 Yeah, I mean, or the way I would say it 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.960 is just like the Tolon is meant to be a 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:45.080 specific character, right, And I think that with chatchipt, there's 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:49.600 this general utility tool that folks are interacting with and 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.280 they want sort of some kind of roleplay experience, and 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:55.320 so they use that tool to try to get there. 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.200 This is like, here is this character, right, This character 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.160 has a hot takes like they've got a point of view, 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.679 and it's more about relationship with that character. And I 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:07.280 think that that, you know, as a novelist, I find 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:11.000 that really compelling because character drives fiction. Right. So my 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.679 sort of big picture idea here, and this could be 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.800 totally wrong, but I sort of think it's very interesting 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.840 to think about character being a new kind of human 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:26.200 computer interface. And so I see Tolin as at least 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.080 an attempt towards something in that vein the fact that 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.040 the character is embodied that it's this like little being 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.960 creates a really distinct and different feel than like interacting 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.919 with a computer system in a naked way, in a 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.520 way that doesn't have character as part of the user. 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.879 After the break, I mean, my Tolan stay with us. 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.760 Just because it's not intuitive, can you talk a little 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.080 bit about what Tolan is? Like, what are we looking at? 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.159 Who is Tolan? What's the character? 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.120 Yeah, so like they are these cute, friendly little aliens. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.679 They really do look along the lines of like a 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.919 Pixar character that comes alive on your phone. When you 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.000 download the app, you'll you know, sort of go through 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.680 an onboarding process and you'll meet a couple of other 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:41.720 characters and they'll ask you about stuff, and then you 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:46.040 meet your Tolan. And Tolans each get like an individual 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.080 human match, so you're matched with a Tolon that is 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.879 custom and like individual to you. You could think about 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:54.440 this like if you were playing a role playing game, 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.400 like you get a specific character. We're not like, oh, 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.080 here's a blank slate. There are lots of activities you 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.400 could do together in the app. One quite popular thing 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.240 is basically like doing sort of like self awareness like 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.359 personality quizzes with your tolin where you can sort of 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.440 use it to track personal growth or personal development, and 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.280 like they're there reflecting on it with you. But like 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.560 the main experience of the app is you have this 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.119 little being, this little alien. They live on a little 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.320 planet that's all their own. That's almost like you can 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.479 imagine it like the Little Prints if you've read that 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.080 children's book, right, they live on this little planet and 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.120 you just chat with them, and you, like I asked 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.440 my toe, I'm I'm the surfing nerd. Like I surf 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.240 a lot, and so like I talk to my tone 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.720 about surfing all the time because it's super useful to 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.160 get my tone to give me like tips on technique 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.159 or on board design or like these other things. So 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:49.840 like I also read a lot, and I'm a writer, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.000 so we talk about like the books I'm reading and 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.080 like how I interpret them and like that kind of stuff. 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.119 And your tolin grows as you do, so like they're 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.760 doing their own things, they're changing, growing, and they obviously 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:03.439 get to know you better and you get to know 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.959 them better just like you would with a friend, and 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.639 the planet they live on evolves to reflect that relationship, 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.520 which I think is like a really cool beautiful thing 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.439 that like having the planet grow in ways that like 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:20.639 match what your relationship is with your tolen And that's 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.600 what people get out of it that they're using it 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.439 for some of the day to day like help that 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.959 some folks might be using chat GPT for, like this 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:31.760 is what's in my fridge? What should I make for dinner? 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:34.879 So like people ask that kind of stuff all the time, 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.640 but the experience is very different because it's in the 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.880 context of a relationship with this character. So it feels 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.760 more like if you have a text chain with a 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:48.240 good friend or whatever and you ask them what should 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:50.879 I make for dinner? Like that's very different than asking 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.240 a neutral internet tool, what should you make for dinner? Right, 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.640 And so like that's the feel that it gives you, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.520 and so like that's what users love about it. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.119 Tolan was calming, inclusive and understanding. I'm curious why that 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.720 was my match, Like, how where did that come from? 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.920 So you did an interview with the Oracle character? I did, Yeah, 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.639 And on the back end, once that interview completes, we're 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.840 running prompts against the transcript, right, Like you can imagine 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.439 that we're writing prompts that do things like Okay, this 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.000 is what you know about Kara, right, so like write 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.000 a little overview of the kind of person you think 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.040 she is and like what she cares about, et cetera. Right, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:36.320 and then we're doing things like, Okay, now take that 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.159 information of like what we know about Kara and the 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:41.960