Speaker 1: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm as Voloshian and I'm care Price.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to get into the thing no One
Speaker 1: asked for a social media app dedicated to AI video,
Speaker 1: and then a study asking, somewhat surprisingly whether social media
Speaker 1: is actually on the decline, Then some advice for parents
Speaker 1: about how to raise your kids in the age of AI.
Speaker 1: All of that on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, October tenth.
Speaker 2: Hello Cara, Hi Azie, how are you good.
Speaker 1: I thought we'd start with Show and Tell today, my favorite.
Speaker 1: So here we go.
Speaker 2: Show me he's taking out YouTube guys. It's loading and
Speaker 2: I'm seeing Andrew Ku.
Speaker 3: I'm Andrew Cuomo and I could pertain to do a
Speaker 3: lot of jobs. But I know what I know, and
Speaker 3: I know what I don't know, and I do know
Speaker 3: how to make government work. There are a lot of
Speaker 3: jobs I can't do, but I'm ready to be your
Speaker 3: mayor on day one.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things I'm not good at,
Speaker 1: including being a mayor, being a mayor, and using AI
Speaker 1: to make campaign ads unbelievable. Just for the benefit of
Speaker 1: our listeners, the premise here is that Andrew Cuomo can't
Speaker 1: do a lot of jobs. His AI version is looking
Speaker 1: like a struggling subway conductor, stressed out as a trader
Speaker 1: on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and
Speaker 1: a window washer. However, there are two Empire State buildings
Speaker 1: behind him, which that was quite missing.
Speaker 2: I really love that video because one, it really makes
Speaker 2: him look like a boomer.
Speaker 1: It really really really does.
Speaker 2: And obviously the person that he's going up against has
Speaker 2: swept sillennials in drove Mamdani.
Speaker 1: I know it's interesting. In the YouTube comments, somebody actually
Speaker 1: commented boomers love their AI slop, which I thought was funny.
Speaker 1: There are some other great YouTube comments I like, like
Speaker 1: bro is getting funded by billionaires, pecant afford actions with
Speaker 1: three skull emojic doll emojis. Mamdani also dinged Quomo obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean when you when you present someone with an
Speaker 1: open goal, they tend to strike the ball into it.
Speaker 1: He made fun of Quomo Becausemamber earlier in the campaign
Speaker 1: got called out for using AIS generate his housing plan.
Speaker 1: Yes that was back in April.
Speaker 2: Yes, he uses AI for his campaign videos and for
Speaker 2: the housing exactly.
Speaker 1: But Mamdani also said whether it was very clever in
Speaker 1: a city of world class artists and production crews hunting
Speaker 1: for their next gig. Andrew Cuomo made a TV ad
Speaker 1: the same way he wrote his housing policy with AI.
Speaker 2: That was a sweet dig. That was a sweet dig.
Speaker 1: And you know you mentioned boomers, and with all due
Speaker 1: respect to our you know boomers out there, it is
Speaker 1: interesting how boomerish this use of AI is.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that Cuomo jumped at the opportunity to put
Speaker 2: AI in a campaign, of.
Speaker 1: Course, as it feels fresh, and that's what I'm going
Speaker 1: to do. We're gonna use AI. Do you remember the
Speaker 1: original Mamdani campaign from the Democratic primary? Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: it was very visually iconic. Extremely Scott Galloway made this
Speaker 1: point in his newsletter, which is that very surprisingly, despite
Speaker 1: all the headlines about how AI is going to run
Speaker 1: designers out of business, the ratio of designers to engineers
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley firms is actually increasing because the deluge
Speaker 1: of AI slop is putting a new premium on really
Speaker 1: really good human designers, right, and.
Speaker 2: So design has to matter more like matter.
Speaker 1: You know the old axiom new tools don't always equal
Speaker 1: better results, right.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, speaking of AI generated videos. I want
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about something that I can't
Speaker 2: stop seeing online, and that is Sora to videos, Sora
Speaker 2: Too videos.
Speaker 1: I'm glad these are from open Ai, right, yes, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to hear what you have telling me about Sora.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, I do want to just
Speaker 1: talk about what a big week it's been for open Ai.
Speaker 1: There's also a multi hundred million dollar chip deal and
Speaker 1: the release of something that people are calling the everything app.
Speaker 1: So we're going to get to those other two big
Speaker 1: open Ai headlines, but first time me about Sora.
Speaker 2: So had you you've heard of Sora before I had.
Speaker 2: It refers to a few different things. One of them
Speaker 2: is what Sora one was, which was open AI's text
Speaker 2: to video generator that was the original Sora. Last week,
Speaker 2: Sra gets an update. I don't know why I want
Speaker 2: to call her. Her name is Sora Too, and Sora
Speaker 2: to is what powers this new app called Sora, which
Speaker 2: is soa up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very good, very very good. I where as in
Speaker 1: the app charts it was like top three, I actually
Speaker 1: know the answer one, number.
Speaker 2: One one in the total app.
Speaker 1: Lap charts, even though it's in beta or beta.
Speaker 2: As Beta beta orour Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one thing worth mentioning here is I think
Speaker 1: this is the first time open ai has ever released
Speaker 1: an app other than chatchipt. That's correct, Which if you're
Speaker 1: a big company, that must mean you're treating us pretty
Speaker 1: dumb seriously to release only the second ever consumer facing app.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know chat rept. We now know has
Speaker 2: Google kind of running scared in the search category, but
Speaker 2: now open ai seems to be coming for social media too.
Speaker 2: And what's really interesting is that Meta also launched an
Speaker 2: AI video feed in their meta app just five days
Speaker 2: before the Sora app dropped. The name of it is
Speaker 2: it makes you think that Zuckerberg must name these things.
Speaker 1: Vibes, oh Man, vibe coding, Meta.
Speaker 2: Vibes, It's Pineapple Express.
Speaker 1: I saw this. You couldn't miss the Sora and news
Speaker 1: unless you're living under a rock. I didn't see a
Speaker 1: peep or hear a peep about vibes.
Speaker 2: I think why you didn't hear a peep about vibes
Speaker 2: is because vibes sucks. You know, there's like a huge
Speaker 2: difference between what you can do on vibes in terms
Speaker 2: of Meta AI and what you can do on Sora
Speaker 2: and what you can do on Sora is that you
Speaker 2: can be a character in your own videos and you
Speaker 2: can also put other care I saw Pikachu have a
Speaker 2: DNA test on Maury.
Speaker 1: You're serious?
Speaker 2: It was like Pikachu, you are not. So for those
Speaker 2: who don't know, here's how the app works. You can
Speaker 2: upload a short video of yourself to the app, and
Speaker 2: then the model can seamlessly insert your likeness into this
Speaker 2: hyper realistic video that includes sound.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when the text to image feature on
Speaker 1: chatchypt was released and the whole Internet caught fire and
Speaker 1: there was this moment where the Internet was completely flooded
Speaker 1: by studio ghibli characters and you know pixel characters of
Speaker 1: like you and your friends going about your life. When
Speaker 1: was the last time you saw one of those in circulation?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's done dead. I like we have it from
Speaker 2: jet whenever it was Yeah. So what do you think
Speaker 2: in terms of Sora?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: If like it will add.
Speaker 1: It's obviously so thrilling to put you on your your
Speaker 1: friends in Spider Man with Pikachu and Maury, Like, but
Speaker 1: is it durable?
Speaker 2: I think this will be more durable than the kind
Speaker 2: of quick high jinks of studios Jubilee, Like, I think
Speaker 2: that this is really fun to do over and over again.
Speaker 2: Do I think Sora as an app is going to
Speaker 2: Sora in the app store, you know, in perpetuity the
Speaker 2: way that Chatgypt is just for sure. No, I don't
Speaker 2: think it will. I definitely don't think it will.
Speaker 1: So telling you mentioned more in Pikachu, which is undeniable,
Speaker 1: will you confront him with just a flood of this
Speaker 1: stuff I.
Speaker 2: Was, and the way that you know it when you
Speaker 2: watch a SRA video if you're on TikTok or Instagram,
Speaker 2: there's a Sora watermark.
Speaker 1: Wow. But those are kind of a flex right because
Speaker 1: it's still in beta.
Speaker 2: Right, And what it means is that you got invited
Speaker 2: to Sora, which is very cool, which we you know,
Speaker 2: one day.
Speaker 1: Why did say in our production METI on Monday? Way,
Speaker 1: why aren't we going to invite it to?
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: The ones that I actually like the most were of
Speaker 2: Sam Altman himself, who is very smart about centering himself
Speaker 2: as the face of open Ai.
Speaker 1: Now. I just wanted to pause on this because one
Speaker 1: of the concerns has been can I take your face
Speaker 1: and sorrow you? And the answer technically is no right.
Speaker 1: So Sam, that's right, Sam's my dear friend. He decided
Speaker 1: to basically make his face available to anyone who wanted
Speaker 1: to use him as a character. That's right.
Speaker 2: And there's two really disturbing videos. One is him shoplifting
Speaker 2: at Target.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that he made himself was made of him.
Speaker 2: I think someone made it, put it on X and
Speaker 2: was bragging that their video went viral. The other one
Speaker 2: is really disturbing. Again, another user made it of Sam
Speaker 2: Altman being a sort of crust punk who had seemingly
Speaker 2: a crystal math problem.
Speaker 1: My god. So these are not always in the best taste.
Speaker 2: Not always in the best taste. But I think again,
Speaker 2: show that Sam Altman is the Zuckerberg or the bezos
Speaker 2: that open AI needs more. He's more more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he is the greatest hype beast the
Speaker 1: world's ever seen.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I just want to go back and talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about some of the darker questions that
Speaker 2: Soa raises. To any normal person, you would imagine this
Speaker 2: is like a huge content moderation issue, because now there's
Speaker 2: just the Internet is flooded with fake videos that are
Speaker 2: fake on purpose, and everyone knows they're fake. The company
Speaker 2: does state that it quote bands impersonation scams and fraud,
Speaker 2: and that there are quote extra guardrails to the app
Speaker 2: when real people are featured in videos meant to block
Speaker 2: nunity and graphic violence. Okay, so technically you can only
Speaker 2: create videos of yourself, your friends, or people who choose
Speaker 2: to let their likeness be public. But as one would expect,
Speaker 2: there has already been at least one video of a
Speaker 2: woman being covered in a mysterious substance. So that sort
Speaker 2: of tells you how well this is going.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I mean, is there is there really a
Speaker 1: belief or des I hear that Sora the app becomes
Speaker 1: a destination to consume, to just gorge on ai slop.
Speaker 1: Is that the vision is here?
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people would say, yes, it's
Speaker 2: like a it's a new social media destination for crap.
Speaker 1: It's a place to hang out rather than just to create.
Speaker 2: That's right, Okay, that's right. And there are two crucial
Speaker 2: things that make this app different than say Instagram or TikTok.
Speaker 2: The first is that the algorithm is not reigning supreme
Speaker 2: in the Sora feed. It's in as you said, beta,
Speaker 2: but apparently the app allows you to customize your feed
Speaker 2: a little bit, so you can pick a mood, which
Speaker 2: means that basically you tell the app what you want
Speaker 2: to see more of and it feeds it to you.
Speaker 2: The second thing is, we all know how much we
Speaker 2: divulge to chat GPT. Sora quote may consider your chat
Speaker 2: GPT history while creating video, which is a bit strange, Like,
Speaker 2: to what extent is it going to impact? I guess
Speaker 2: my Sora videos.
Speaker 1: You said something to me yesterday when we were talking
Speaker 1: about this that really stayed with me. You said, this
Speaker 1: may be the day the Internet changed.
Speaker 2: I did say that, and you know I talk to
Speaker 2: our producer about it too, And I was thinking, was
Speaker 2: I being a little bit Pollyanna ish? I just I
Speaker 2: think we are already like treading such thin ice in
Speaker 2: terms of like what is true that we see online.
Speaker 2: There's now an app that is dedicated intentionally to propagating
Speaker 2: fake video, and it's being run by probably the most
Speaker 2: important company of this new generation. And so I do
Speaker 2: think there is a pre Sora and postsra internet. Do
Speaker 2: I think Sora is going to change the world. Probably not.
Speaker 2: Do I think that having more realistic fake video in
Speaker 2: a time when our president posts Sora like videos on
Speaker 2: truth social is like incredibly damaging. Yes, I think you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm I come back to the thought
Speaker 1: I had at the beginning, is this like a flash
Speaker 1: in the pan?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: So, Scott Gallaway, who I mentioned up top, he's the
Speaker 1: podcast host of Pivot and a marketing professor, had interesting
Speaker 1: take here. He's very much the opinion that this is
Speaker 1: a flash in the pan that surprise, based on his
Speaker 1: thesis that most people don't want to be creators, they
Speaker 1: want to be consumers. And here are the stats that
Speaker 1: he shared to support that four percent of YouTube videos
Speaker 1: account for ninety four percent of views on the platform,
Speaker 1: five percent of TikTok videos generate eighty nine percent of
Speaker 1: the views. On Instagram, three percent of videos and eighty
Speaker 1: four percent of all views. Scott's hypothesis, or his take
Speaker 1: was that actually Sora is really a B to B product.
Speaker 1: This is designed to put Hollywood and advertising agencies effectively
Speaker 1: to make many many people who work there redundant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's not very culturally favorable cell And so the
Speaker 1: idea was to release as a consumer app, even though
Speaker 1: that's not really what it's for. Interesting, it's good take,
Speaker 1: but I also disagree. I disagree because of what you
Speaker 1: said about Samilman catapulting himself into being the most iconic
Speaker 1: text CEO of our generation. And I think that the
Speaker 1: more that most people in America and the world experience
Speaker 1: firsthand the absolute mind bending magic of generative AI, the
Speaker 1: richer and more powerful Samilman gets.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's right. And I think that the
Speaker 2: last thing I'll say about SORA is like, I don't
Speaker 2: think it really matters. Is not that many people are
Speaker 2: using it versus consuming it. Isn't the problem that people
Speaker 2: are consuming it in such.
Speaker 1: Hah ha, We're onto our next story. Okay. There was
Speaker 1: a piece in the Financial Times with the headline have
Speaker 1: we passed peak social Media? Have we per This article
Speaker 1: on the data that underlie is it? Social media use
Speaker 1: peaked three years ago in twenty twenty two. What So
Speaker 1: the Ft partner with this digital audience insight company called
Speaker 1: GWI to analyze the online habits of two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand adults in fifty countries. What they found was
Speaker 1: that by the end of twenty twenty four, people on
Speaker 1: average spent two hours and twenty minutes per day on
Speaker 1: social media, which is down almost ten percent from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. This is a trend.
Speaker 2: This is a trend.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, per this data, which generation is
Speaker 1: unsubscribing fastest now?
Speaker 2: Gen Z fascinating.
Speaker 1: So the columnist posits that the reason this may be
Speaker 1: happening is in part because of the degradation of content
Speaker 1: on social media platforms overall. This is also known as incertification,
Speaker 1: the term coined by Cory doctor O. But the columnists
Speaker 1: used this great analogy to describe this flood of new content.
Speaker 1: He calls it quote ultra process content dopamine with at
Speaker 1: best negligible informational value and at worst corrosively negative, And
Speaker 1: he basically posits people are waking up to this.
Speaker 2: You know, I in my youth because I am an
Speaker 2: Instagram super user and I post a lot on Instagram Stories.
Speaker 2: And what I have noticed is the way that the
Speaker 2: Instagram algorithm works. I can't find things as easily as
Speaker 2: I used to because everything is algorithmically driven. So I'm
Speaker 2: seeing the same shit my friends are seeing. And what
Speaker 2: it used to be is that like there was actually,
Speaker 2: say two years ago.
Speaker 1: Before your feed would surface true value.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because my feed actually had things in it that
Speaker 2: I wanted to see. Now my feed just has things
Speaker 2: in it that my friends are watching.
Speaker 1: Well, that's again part of what this article is about,
Speaker 1: which is the thrill of social media was really about
Speaker 1: connecting with your friends, right, But now these apps basically
Speaker 1: promote just time spent with the never ending feed of
Speaker 1: sensational content, and so it's become more and more passive
Speaker 1: and therefore, listen, let's engaging. I mean, the snake is
Speaker 1: eating its own tail, at least according to this article.
Speaker 1: On the data, there is a twist here. Guess which
Speaker 1: continent social media is not declining in?
Speaker 2: Not declining North America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the trend line is down everywhere apart from here.
Speaker 1: Daily usage is still rising year after year in this
Speaker 1: part of the world, and last year North American social
Speaker 1: media consumpation was fifteen percent higher than Europe.
Speaker 2: It just scares me because we now have an entirely
Speaker 2: new app that's number one on the App Store that
Speaker 2: is literally I mean, you want to talk about in schitification.
Speaker 2: You want to have an ais I mean a Pikachu
Speaker 2: DJing at boiler Room, which is a real sour video
Speaker 2: that came out.
Speaker 1: Are you looking for Pikachu or you just I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I'm always looking for Pikachu, isn't that the but no,
Speaker 2: I just I think that the Galloway argument gets me
Speaker 2: a little frustrated because it's like keeping candy in the
Speaker 2: house all year as opposed to on Halloween, because it's like,
Speaker 2: if we only have it on Halloween, at least there
Speaker 2: is a day that's designated to eating it. If we
Speaker 2: have it in the house all the time, kids are
Speaker 2: just gonna be like, I want to eat candy every night.
Speaker 2: And I think that with sore uh, it might not
Speaker 2: impact the American social media landscape in the way that
Speaker 2: you know, TikTok or Instagram did, but it does now
Speaker 2: put more shit into the world that obviously, based on
Speaker 2: what you're saying, Americans can't handle.
Speaker 1: And I think but by the way, it's engaging. I mean,
Speaker 1: I like seeing this stuff.
Speaker 2: I enjoy watching a giraffe and a zebra walk through
Speaker 2: suburban America absolutely.
Speaker 1: As giraffe and zebra blended together. I promise more about
Speaker 1: open Ai. We've talked about the first, you know, triumph
Speaker 1: of the week from open AI's perspective, which was breaking
Speaker 1: the Internet with a new social video generation app. But
Speaker 1: there are also two other things. Announcing a deal with
Speaker 1: the chip maker AMD, which added one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 1: to the market cap of AMD almost immediately. I mean,
Speaker 1: get this, just announcing it down a deal with the
Speaker 1: company makes that company one hundred billion dollars more valuable.
Speaker 1: I mean talk about power.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little more about AMD because I'm
Speaker 2: not so familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so AMD is, you know, in video, is the
Speaker 1: world's number one chip maker.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know this islder and.
Speaker 1: Open air also did a huge deal with Nvidia recently,
Speaker 1: and also did a huge deal with Oracle for data centers.
Speaker 1: But this was an agreement for open ai to start
Speaker 1: building data centers using AMD chips. And this was a
Speaker 1: huge thing for AMD because it basically was open Ai
Speaker 1: laying down a marker saying no, no, we believe that
Speaker 1: these guys can manufacture chips good enough to power the
Speaker 1: data centers we need to do the next generation of AI.
Speaker 1: There was a sweetener. Open ai had got ten percent
Speaker 1: of AMD for free to do this deal. Well for
Speaker 1: one center share options by shares at one center share
Speaker 1: that is crazy. So they're basically, I mean they're out
Speaker 1: there saying we know that working with us will increase
Speaker 1: the value of your business.
Speaker 2: So here you go, here's ten percent of it, right,
Speaker 2: And that's what happened.
Speaker 1: So the leverage of this company right now is absolutely extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg pointed out that the announced between AMD, Oracle and
Speaker 1: Video that open Ai has annouced in the last few
Speaker 1: weeks could top a trillion dollars. A trillion dollars. I
Speaker 1: mean even even even the president rarely says that word.
Speaker 2: He doesn't say trillion.
Speaker 1: One stock analyst told Bloomberg that Sam Mortman quote has
Speaker 1: the power to crash the global economy for a decade
Speaker 1: or take us all to the promised land.
Speaker 2: What is taking us to the promised land?
Speaker 1: Look like? That's what I'm wondering that they didn't have
Speaker 1: very good question.
Speaker 2: They didn't go there not taking rich. Yeah that's rich
Speaker 2: if they have starvation pays off right right right. I mean,
Speaker 2: if there's anybody who is going to make the AI
Speaker 2: revolution pay off, it's the founder of open Air.
Speaker 1: It has to be. In the point article makes is
Speaker 1: now all these companies are so much in each other's
Speaker 1: business that Open Air with on the software side, AMD
Speaker 1: and a Video on the hardware side, that this is
Speaker 1: why some people are worried they may be a bubble
Speaker 1: emerging because just by doing business with each other and
Speaker 1: swishing the cash around, they can inflate each other stock prices,
Speaker 1: borrow more money, do more deals. But of course that's
Speaker 1: why if we don't get to the promised Land, we'll
Speaker 1: go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: There was also another one little piece of information about
Speaker 2: open ai this week, really big open air.
Speaker 1: It's a huge open Yeah. So we've got Sora, we've
Speaker 1: got a md chips. But there's also develop a conference
Speaker 1: on this idea of the everything app. So there was
Speaker 1: all this concern about how generative AI was basically rendering
Speaker 1: the Internet useless because all of the Internet's information was
Speaker 1: served up through a chatbot rather than you know, in search. Now, interestingly,
Speaker 1: companies like Zillow, Booking dot Com, Spotify have voluntarily struck
Speaker 1: partnerships whereby you can use their products through chat GPT,
Speaker 1: So you can say find me a house in X,
Speaker 1: book book me a flight to Y, and without leaving
Speaker 1: the chat GPT app, that app will interact with these
Speaker 1: other companies. Now, of course you get the exciting bump
Speaker 1: of we're working with open ai.
Speaker 2: With the first exciting Etsy was very excited about it
Speaker 2: might have been one of the first.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you want kind of alizes people
Speaker 1: using your app or your website. I mean, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: it's interesting trade off.
Speaker 2: It is an interesting tradeoff, but I think it goes
Speaker 2: to show. It's kind of like when people started selling
Speaker 2: products on Amazon, like, are are you going to destroy
Speaker 2: your storefront or are you're going to go with where
Speaker 2: people are buying the product? Which is very interesting. So
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this idea of the everything app,
Speaker 2: and our producer Eliza reminded me that China has a
Speaker 2: few everything apps, Ali pay and we Chat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've actually I've been to China and so you open
Speaker 1: we Chat and essentially in it you have the equivalent
Speaker 1: of Uber. You have the equivalent of Amazon, like you
Speaker 1: can do it banking, thank you to everything through one
Speaker 1: app and it's been three days. The Promised Land is
Speaker 1: what's obvious. Why it's the promised land, right, because if
Speaker 1: you owned everything up, you're pretty powerful and exactly Elon
Speaker 1: of course the reason he renamed Twitter X. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons was he wanted X to become the everything app, which.
Speaker 2: Does not look promise but chatchipt Yeah, I mean in
Speaker 2: terms of a contender, not meta, not TikTok, chatchipt seems
Speaker 2: to be the closest thing we have for a contender
Speaker 2: in the everything app. And I'm cure. I mean, I
Speaker 2: certainly think the phone is the everything app.
Speaker 1: The phone is the everything app. And what will it
Speaker 1: be displaced by building a new physical interface to use
Speaker 1: their everything app? That I doubt more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's probably unlikely. But I did have
Speaker 2: this little thought that I can reflect on for the
Speaker 2: next year, which is, like, to what extent will the
Speaker 2: apps on my phone dwindle and dwindle and dwindle until
Speaker 2: there's like three.
Speaker 1: Left after the break? Mini brains might be the future
Speaker 1: of computing. Robots are helping to create babies. Then I
Speaker 1: look at raising kids in the age of AI, and
Speaker 1: we're back, Cara. I have a story that I think
Speaker 1: might blow your mind. What do you think of when
Speaker 1: I say wet weear? I remember this is a family
Speaker 1: friendly show.
Speaker 2: Oh well, then I think of a wetsuit, but you surf.
Speaker 1: So wetwear is not hardware and it's not software. It's
Speaker 1: organic computing.
Speaker 2: And I literally don't understand what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I don't really it, to be honest, but
Speaker 1: I did my best. Following a BBC headline scientists grow
Speaker 1: mini human brains to power computers.
Speaker 2: What what do you mean by mini brains?
Speaker 1: Scientists in Switzerland have found a way to create stem
Speaker 1: cells out of human skin cells, which are developed into
Speaker 1: clusters of neurons that function as mini brains, also known
Speaker 1: as organoids.
Speaker 2: This sounds like science fiction. This is like Revenge of
Speaker 2: the Organoids or something.
Speaker 1: Well funny, should mention one of the scientists leading this
Speaker 1: initiative is a huge science fiction fan. He said how
Speaker 1: thrilling it is for him to make science fiction become
Speaker 1: science fact. But this particular field of study is called biocomputing,
Speaker 1: and the goal is to make these organoids powerful enough
Speaker 1: to function as quote, living servers. Essentially, with the ganoids
Speaker 1: attached to electrodes, the ideas that they will be mini
Speaker 1: computers that can also learn, much like AI does.
Speaker 2: So essentially they're creating organic AI. Is there any fear
Speaker 2: of sentience like we have with jen Ai?
Speaker 1: Perhaps even more so? So? This quote from the BBC
Speaker 1: really haunted me. Sometimes scientists observe a flurry of activity
Speaker 1: from the organoids before they die, similar to the increased
Speaker 1: heart rate and brain activity, which has been observed in
Speaker 1: some humans at the end of life. Now you could say, well,
Speaker 1: this is like a computer overheating before it finally collapses.
Speaker 1: Or you could say this is the symphonic moment where
Speaker 1: you know, all the cells come together for one final
Speaker 1: burst of energy before they pass into the next world.
Speaker 1: But it's to me, it's fascinating, It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I guess my question is like, what is the upside
Speaker 2: of doing this?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the big story about the AI revolution
Speaker 1: is how much electrical power it requires to continue versus
Speaker 1: us our brains, which require no electoral moath to function.
Speaker 1: So the idea is basically that, you know, we can
Speaker 1: do computing with much better energy efficiency.
Speaker 2: You know, I've many many questions about this, you know,
Speaker 2: mostly around the ethics of having living cells as computers.
Speaker 2: But my first question is like, how the hell do
Speaker 2: these things work.
Speaker 1: Well, it's still early days for this type of work,
Speaker 1: and it's honestly pretty hard to understand. But the Swiss
Speaker 1: scientists are testing the organoids to see if they can
Speaker 1: obey simple key commands. They're not really up to snuff yet,
Speaker 1: and they only live for about four months, but interest
Speaker 1: is spreading. Back In twenty twenty two, an Australian firm
Speaker 1: called Cortical Labs was able to get quote artificial neurons
Speaker 1: to play the early computer game Pong. But some of
Speaker 1: the most promising stuff around this research is, in my view,
Speaker 1: the scientists that JOHNS. Hopkins, who are studying how these
Speaker 1: mini brains process information and how that in turn may
Speaker 1: be applied to treating diseases like Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: I actually think my next story could be similarly unsettling
Speaker 2: for some people, maybe even more people, because this is
Speaker 2: more relevant to people's lives. It's from the Washington Post
Speaker 2: and the headline reads, robots are learning to make human babies.
Speaker 2: Twenty have already been BORNA where are you going with this?
Speaker 2: It's actually, you know, it's not as sci fi as
Speaker 2: it sounds, unlike your story. There are a few companies
Speaker 2: that are running trials and using AI and robots to
Speaker 2: help with the IVF process.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is basically automating the IVF process exactly.
Speaker 2: One of the companies highlighted in this article is called
Speaker 2: Conceivable Life Sciences. As a pun, yeah, I you're right,
Speaker 2: it is fun that's what are we gonna call it conceivable,
Speaker 2: So conceivable life sciences use AI to identify the healthiest
Speaker 2: eggs and sperm, which is often a hard thing to do,
Speaker 2: and use robots to extract the eggs and fertilize them.
Speaker 2: They started testing their system on mice and are currently
Speaker 2: conducting a one hundred person clinical trial in Mexico City.
Speaker 2: There's also another company that I want to mention called Overture,
Speaker 2: which ran a three person clinical trial in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: and The Washington Post interviewed one of the participants, a
Speaker 2: woman who is the mother of a completely healthy and
Speaker 2: normal two and a half year old.
Speaker 1: So, and we talk a lot about replacing doctors, but
Speaker 1: it tends to be more in the realm of diagnosis.
Speaker 1: But what this story is about is inserting robots into
Speaker 1: the medical process. Presumably, if it worked, it would be
Speaker 1: much cheaper than the human a lot cheaper.
Speaker 2: That's a very good point because there are a few
Speaker 2: advantages to robots and AI. Robots don't get tired, they
Speaker 2: can see better than a human being can, meaning in theory,
Speaker 2: they can select better sperm and insert more reliably into eggs.
Speaker 2: So the hope is that the IVF process can get faster,
Speaker 2: as you said, cheaper and better with the help of
Speaker 2: this technology.
Speaker 1: So normally this is where we do our chatamme segment
Speaker 1: where we hit from our listeners about how they're really
Speaker 1: using chatbots. But this week I had the chance to
Speaker 1: talk to the hosts of a new podcast called Raising
Speaker 1: Kids in the Age of AI.
Speaker 2: Every single day I wake up and I go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't have kids.
Speaker 1: Cool, you don't have to raise kids.
Speaker 2: I don't have to raise kids in the age of
Speaker 2: a phone or a IPEP maybe soon.
Speaker 1: No surviving it yourself. So whether we have kids or not,
Speaker 1: we are living through this sea change about the future
Speaker 1: of how we work, the future, how we interact, and
Speaker 1: how we move through the world in general. And this
Speaker 1: podcast provides actional advice about how to help young people
Speaker 1: use and harness AI. Kaleidoscope is actually one of the
Speaker 1: producers on the show, so I'm biased by ConfL I
Speaker 1: think I do think it's very interesting.
Speaker 2: Who are the hosts of the show.
Speaker 1: So. Alex Catran is the co founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: the AI Education Project and the AI Education Project partner
Speaker 1: with Google to create this podcast with us at Kaleidoscope.
Speaker 1: Alex got his start in politics and policy and found
Speaker 1: himself attending all these flashy AI conferences, and Ax became
Speaker 1: consumed by this idea.
Speaker 3: How do you make sure that every kid is having
Speaker 3: the same conversations with the future that the futurists are having.
Speaker 2: And who's the other host?
Speaker 1: That would be doctor Eliza Pressman, who's a developmental psychologist
Speaker 1: and a podcast host and also a parent who's constantly
Speaker 1: talking to other parents about raising kids in the Age
Speaker 1: of AI, and said she felt like she needed better answers.
Speaker 4: I'm in a position where parents are asking me about
Speaker 4: this constantly, but I don't, you know, sometimes you.
Speaker 2: Don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 4: So there have been things that I didn't even know
Speaker 4: I needed to be either worried or excited about.
Speaker 2: I think worried and excited is the balance that we
Speaker 2: strike on this podcast, especially today's episode.
Speaker 1: We'll wired and excited about no unknowns, unknown knowns mini brains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, so that's the tone they strike on raising
Speaker 1: kids in the Age of AI. Alex and Eliza have
Speaker 1: the goal of reminding parents and teachers and caregi as
Speaker 1: anyone who interacts with children, there's no time like the present.
Speaker 3: If you think about this like learning journey, you really
Speaker 3: will it will essentially never end. And the good news is,
Speaker 3: you know, pretty much all of us are very early
Speaker 3: on in that learning journey. There's almost like there's very
Speaker 3: very few people who have any expertise in AI prior
Speaker 3: to you know, November thirty, twenty twenty two. And so
Speaker 3: really my message to all teachers, to all parents is like,
Speaker 3: if you feel out of your element, if you feel
Speaker 3: like this is that you're in over your head, It's
Speaker 3: like you're in good company.
Speaker 1: The episode of the show that dropped this week is
Speaker 1: actually all about AI in the classroom, and that's something
Speaker 1: you and I have been very interested in. Carara, Alex
Speaker 1: and Alisa talked to a few teachers who are using
Speaker 1: AI and facing its implications with the kids they teach,
Speaker 1: and we're resting with the question of how do we
Speaker 1: motivate students to learn when there's a tool that can
Speaker 1: just give you the answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, how do you make sure students are learning
Speaker 2: to use AI without giving into cognitive offloading, which we've
Speaker 2: talked about quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Well. Doctor Lisa mentioned one program in particular that gave
Speaker 1: me some hope for how education might be powered by
Speaker 1: rather than corroded by AI.
Speaker 4: There is a course being taught at I believe Tulane
Speaker 4: University which was leaning into the fact that the students,
Speaker 4: of course are using AI. So let's show them how
Speaker 4: they can use AI and then question it and question
Speaker 4: themselves and question each other to show that they understand
Speaker 4: the material.
Speaker 2: So what I think she's saying is it's better to
Speaker 2: not be punitive. It's better to actually engage in a
Speaker 2: real conversation with students who are sort of at the
Speaker 2: forefront of all this technology.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think you know, it's interesting. The education system,
Speaker 1: certainly in Britain, I'm not sure about the US, was
Speaker 1: built around oral exams, and so you know, using AIS
Speaker 1: a discussion prompt and discussion partner rather than a work
Speaker 1: replacer obviously, you know holds real promise. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear more from Alex and Elisa and learn about
Speaker 1: how AI is shaping the future of learning and education,
Speaker 1: make sure to check out Raising Kids in the Age
Speaker 1: of A, available on YouTube, Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you
Speaker 1: listen or watch.
Speaker 2: And even though you didn't get one today, we still
Speaker 2: want to hear those Chat and me submissions. You can
Speaker 2: tell us your crazy chat GBT stories by emailing tech
Speaker 2: Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. That's it for this
Speaker 2: week for tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Cara Price and I'm as Volochin. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced by Eliza Dennis Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter. It
Speaker 1: was the executive produced by me Cara Price, Julian Nutter,
Speaker 1: and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katria Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The engineer is Beheth Fraser and Jack Insley mix this episode.
Speaker 1: Kyle Murdoch wrote at themself.
Speaker 2: Join us next Wednesday for a conversation on the ins
Speaker 2: and outs of AI video generation and what's Sam Altman
Speaker 2: gains from plastering his face across his new platform.
Speaker 1: Please do rate and review the show wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts, and reach out to us at tech stuff
Speaker 1: Podcasts at gmail dot com. We really do love to
Speaker 1: hear from you.