WEBVTT - How AI Companies are Monetizing Intimacy, Ft. Bridget Todd 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:06.240 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.760 Welcome back to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:13.640 Today we have a very special episode because we are 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.639 talking once again to Bridget Todd, who we've had on 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:21.720 a few times. But Bridget has a new book, Love 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.240 at First prompt to AI and the Future of Intimacy, 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.120 and we will be discussing how AI companies are trying 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.639 to sell you love and how that might have a 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:36.559 few problems beyond the sort of face conceit that I 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:39.159 think you know everyone can pick up on, there might 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.680 even be more problems underneath the underneath the hood. So 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:44.080 thank you Bridget for coming on. 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.440 Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:47.919 be back here. How did you. 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.479 First decide this is something that you want to, like 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.360 dedicate months of your life to researching. 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:55.840 Yeah, that's a great place to start. 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.240 I think like a lot of folks listening, I would 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.840 hear these stories about individuals who would say things like 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.640 I am in love with chat Shept or I am 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.959 having some sort of intimate sexual. 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:08.680 Relationship with an AI companion. 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.800 And I can admit that my reaction to a lot 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.679 of those those headlines where something is wrong with this 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.240 person this person is pathetic, or maybe this person is 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.319 super lonely, super sad. They're putting themselves at great risk 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.200 for harm. And you know, I once had this therapist 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.440 who told me that judgment and curiosity could not coexist, 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.880 And so I realized I was really treating these stories 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.679 with such kind of knee jerk negative reaction and judgment. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.280 And then I heard Mark Zuckerberg on a podcast talking 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.840 about how he thought in ten years time, while everybody, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.320 including everybody listening, was going to have AI friends AI companions. 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.240 He said that most people don't feel like they have 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.200 enough friends to have a nourishing social life, and that 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.680 in the future it won't be a big deal. 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:58.440 If all of us have AI companion. 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.720 So what he didn't say is that it would be 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.440 AI that he owns, operates, and profits from. But I 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.880 got to thinking, you know, if Mark Zuckerbern and other 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:12.320 tech leaders are designing futures involving technology where they believe 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.040 this will be commonplace, whether the average person wants it 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.120 to be or not, we should really be looking to 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.880 the people who are already there to tell us what 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.200 brought them to experiencing intimacy with AI and what the 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.000 risks and ramifications. Might be it's time to stop treating 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.840 these people like pathetic freak shows and sort of listening 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:30.840 to what they're actually saying, because it couldn't behove all 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:32.320 of us to know where we could be headed. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.000 No, the freak show aspect, I think is as a 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:39.080 real inhibitor towards actually understanding this problem because I mean 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.239 a lot of the first sort of like reports around 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:43.520 this sort of thing, you know, like AI girlfriends, right, 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:45.919 it has this sort of freak element, you know, even 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.480 even the way that we maybe talk about this on 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.000 the show when we're like reporting at cees. You know, 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:55.280 we walked through all these you know, ridiculous AI gadgets. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.720 You know, we saw like you know, like an AI 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.679 sex doll essentially that has a very like low quality 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.200 chat bought component that can't really you know, understand what 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.360 you're saying very often. But I think it is a 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:11.720 mistake just assume that this tech will always stay in 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.919 its kind of janky form. This stuff is rapidly advancing. 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:16.919 It is, it is, it is going to get better. 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.400 I'm just kind of denying that I think sort of 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.760 pushes the problem, you know, down the road. Yeah, Like, no, 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:24.440 this is this, This is a real problem now and 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:29.320 this requires like regulation and intense, intense like intervention right now. 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:31.440 And just to kind of assuming that as it is 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.400 all like all these like little niche things, only you know, 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:36.800 crazy people are going to fall for this. The tech 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.560 is bad. I think that that is I think overlooking 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.600 what is legitimately like a you know, a society wide problem. 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.520 Yes, I am so glad you said that, because one 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:47.880 of the researchers that I interviewed for the audiobook Love 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.560 at First Prompt is doctor Kate Devlin. She was really 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.680 one of the first people to sort of take seriously 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.839 the intersection of AI and robots and intimacy. And when 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.440 she first started doing this, the place that she started 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:02.880 looking was exactly the kind of thing that you saw 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.480 at cees, right, these physical, life size sex bots that 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.320 were also enabled with a kind of at the time 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:15.360 low grade AI chatbot quality. If you were around a 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.240 few years ago, you probably saw so much breathless reporting 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.320 that was like, oh, men are going to be buying 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.440 these sex dolls and they're gonna not need wives and 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.240 girlfriends all that. Now that ended up sort of not 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.320 being the case. People do buy those sex dolls, but 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.400 they're really expensive, they're not really that practical, so they're 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.720 really kind of a super niche thing. What did take 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.200 off was the AI intimacy part of that. 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.080 That's what doctor Devlin really saw. She said. 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.279 The physical bop part of this is probably not going 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.919 to take off in mainstream ways. The AI companion AI 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:51.200 intimacy chat bop feature of these physical dolls, that's what we're. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.400 Gonna see kind of become more mainstream. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.960 And you know, again, a lot of people listening probably 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.080 think this sounds really niche, But I think Pugh said 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:04.040 that one ten Americans already use AI for some form 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:04.680 of intimacy. 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.599 That's about as many Americans are left handed. 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.120 Yeah, when you look at younger folks, folks under thirty, 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.359 that number jumps to one in five who are already 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.480 using AI for some sort of emotional support. So this 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.120 idea that it's this niche thing, yeah only weirdos are 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.120 doing it really isn't align with what we're actually seeing. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:24.440 This is I think part of the problem with like, 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.800 you know, living in your own little Internet silo, right 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.440 because like you and your you know, blue Sky friends 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.400 might think that no one uses AI, knowing that you know, 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:34.200 serious knowing that I know would use AI. 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:34.520 Right. 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.320 It's there's this sort of like ideological like resistance to AI, 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.440 and I think that is a very isolating look look 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.160 at the world, because while that might be true for 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.000 you and your friends online or maybe your social circle, 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.120 there is millions of people who go through the world 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.320 every day who use these things and they just think 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:54.880 of it as like an extension of the Internet, right, 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:56.279 because that's what it is. For a lot of people, 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:57.880 like that is what it is. They don't have these 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.839 sorts of like moral frameworks around whether or not you 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.159 should use claude, whether or not you should use chat 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.119 GPT that I think you see among a certain strain 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.280 of like you know, like liberal like leftist online. And 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.279 the other thing that kind of that when that silo 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.360 produces is that it makes it so that I think 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.960 it's hard to understand that for people using these tools 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.040 every day the same way you might use a search engine, right, 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.480 the same way you might use you know, of real 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.479 friends like bounce. Ideas off of how much that sort 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:30.839 of regular use can develop a sort of intimate component, 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:35.359 the line between AI girlfriend and tool you talk to 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.520 online might not be as like clear as what some 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.680 people might first assume. I know, this is something that 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.400 you discussed in the book. I mean, that's that's one 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:42.520 of the things I think to be It's one of 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.760 the most interesting is like, how fuzzy this kind of 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:45.680 barrier actually is. 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.279 Oh. Yes, So even before I was deeply interested and 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:51.719 sort of consumed on this topic, one of the most 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.279 fascinating things that I witnessed and sort of saw with 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.760 my own eyes was when chat GPT changed models. 0:06:57.760 --> 0:06:59.520 You know, they had that four Oho model. 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:01.400 Yeah, So do you remember that was a model that 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.000 like people were really developing these intimate connections with because 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.320 it was so sickathantic, it was so kind of human, like, 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.560 quote unquote, when you asked it a question, it wouldn't 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.160 just say here's the answer. It would be like, dear, 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.760 you're so perceptive for even asking such. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:17.400 A smart question. 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:17.880 Yeah. 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.120 And so what really deeply fascinated me was that when 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.480 open ai switched that model to make it less sickathantic, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.960 less sort of glazing, less complimentary. 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.880 People who did not report. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.040 That they were having any kind of intimate connection with AI, 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.080 who would not have said I have an AI girlfriend 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:37.200 or AI companion, Yeah, who were just using it exactly 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.280 as you described, like a search engine. Those same people 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.440 got online and expressed something like grief. 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:43.600 No. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:44.640 Absolutely yeah. 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.240 I remember reading someone on a ao Reddit form saying 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.760 it feels as if my friendly cheerleader in my pocket 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.640 got replaced overnight with a terse, overworked secretary. And so 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.160 I think you're exactly right that our brains are designed 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:04.760 to project human qualities and human intimacy onto things that 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.840 we know are logically not human. And it really the 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.520 way that these things are designed really easily blurs that 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:11.320 line for folks. 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:13.760 I mean, it's trying to, you know, be as human 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.080 as as possible for its own for its own reason, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.000 so that people use it more so that it's not 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.720 you know, a cold emotionalist AI that that is maybe 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.240 a little bit hostile to the user. Obviously they don't 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.920 want that, so so yeah, they want to be approachable. 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:29.800 But I think the specific thing you're talking about, the 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.320 switching from from one GPT model to the other, from 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:37.120 this like overly like you know, praising kind of like 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.960 it just almost almost annoyingly so model towards something that 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.520 is a little bit more cold. It produce these reactions 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.600 online with the people that are like basically acting like 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.520 a friend died and like that was essentially what it was. 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:50.680 Right. 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.360 Imagine if you were talking to you know, a real 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.480 person online for like two years and then suddenly they 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.160 stop for suddenly they had a complete personality change, and 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.280 it's like like there was no way to talk to 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.199 that other person again. That is basically the equivalent of 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.720 like what happened to a lot of people. 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:08.840 Yeah. 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.040 I think it's easy to make fun of that or 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:15.280 to other people who report this, but I don't think 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:20.000 that it's really right to discount the way that online 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.840 connections really do make people feel and really feel like 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:24.400 they are. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.000 Validating and feeling a need that people have. 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.240 You know, it's easy to say, oh, it's just an 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.440 online friend or an online community or an AI bot. 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.960 I've talked to people who said, oh, this video game 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.680 that I was obsessed with, it's gone. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.360 And you know this has filled my life for two years. 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:55.319 Yeah, that's real. Do you want to get into some 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.920 of the sort of problems beneath the surface of this, 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:03.080 beyond the sort of you know, maybe socially alienating aspects, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:05.880 the issues of people having to turn towards these things 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.360 to kind of have have some connection, but actually now 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.319 kind of discuss the motivations of the companies behind these 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.520 products and like why they are designing them this way, 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.680 and the sort of risks inherent towards having these sorts 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.760 of tools be run by and owned by companies with 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:23.000 like for profitence sideps. 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:24.719 I mean, you really said it. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.800 I think that we are spending far too much time 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:32.000 looking at individual users and sort of moralizing about what 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.320 brings individual people to this kind of connection with AI. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.560 It kind of goes back to what you were saying about. 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.320 You know, I'm not a big AI person myself, but 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:43.679 I think that it goes back to this idea of 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:49.640 conversations about the ethics around AI use being hyper focused 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.760 on individuals, whether or not individuals are good or bad, 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.280 or pathetic or this or that if they use AI, 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.520 when really I think the conversation has to be about 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.160 the companies and what the companies from the people who 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.679 run them are doing, how they are designing this AI. 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.839 Because I can tell you AI chatbots like chatjetpt are 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.120 intentionally designed to keep you talking and to keep you 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.800 engaged because they want you to be more and more 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.840 locked into their AI. You know, I went through a 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.960 personal crisis myself where I was caring for my dying 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:25.120 father and was really thrust into a medical situation that 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.000 was way above my pay grate as a podcaster. And 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.560 I will admit that, in moments of extreme vulnerability, turned 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.160 to AI to try to get questions answered about navigating 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.160 insurance companies, navigating Medicare and medicaid, all of that. Sure, 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.440 And the way that chatchapt did not just give me 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:44.720 the answer or try to give me something that looks 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.600 like an answer, it was this seems really hard, are 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.800 you asking because you're dealing with this yourself. And so 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.640 it's the way that AI is designed to ask increasingly intimate, 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.640 sensitive questions of the people who use it with intention. 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.800 I think that it's not any wonder that individuals might 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.439 find themselves becoming ensnared in that, because that's exactly how 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.360 they were designed by these for profit companies. 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:10.040 Yeah. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.640 I mean, if you're asking it like logistical problems, you 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.240 help help me navigate the process to file and insurance claim. 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:17.880 You know, you using it as this sort of like 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.800 you know, advanced like Internet assistant, but then in doing so, 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.480 it kind of latches onto, you know, vulnerabilities that they 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.320 can infer from the from the types of questions you're 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:31.559 asking and try to like, you know, coax out more 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.960 information that I mean that that's like an incredibly insidious process. 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.560 You know, you're you want you want it to help 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.520 with like a very you know, direct task, and then 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.200 in its sly way of of maybe doing that, it's 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.480 trying to introduce the sort of like personal therapeutic element. 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.679 And like what happens to that data, Like what is 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.600 it what is it using that sort of record of 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:55.720 your own like personal experiences for. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.280 I am sad to report? The answer is we don't 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:03.360 really know. Recently, I mean, that's really just what it is. 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.920 The FTC recently asked some of the major AI chatbot 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.800 companies to give clarity about how these companies are monetizing 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.559 engagement and how they are using the sort of intimate, 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.120 personal sensitive information that is obtained with these conversations. So 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.720 we really don't know a ton, But to your point, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:25.080 you know, it's not just chat GPT knows when I'm lonely. 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.640 Chat GPT knows when I'm sad or scared. It's chat GPT. 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.800 This computer knows exactly what works on me when I 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.640 am lonely or vulnerable or scared, and so that to 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.520 me opens up an entire new level of potential for 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.800 surveillance and control. And so people have asked me a 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:45.000 lot of times, you know, is. 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.080 It so bad if people are. 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:51.280 Getting fulfillment or emotional support from AI? The question is 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.080 really not if it's bad or good or pathetic or 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.920 not or whatever, It's what are the companies doing. Are 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.920 the companies behaving ethically? And are they really honoring the 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.960 deep sensitive nature of the information they are intentionally harvesting 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.000 from people often at their lowest or most vulnerable moments. 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.920 I'm gonna reckon to say probably not. I think that 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.200 the interests of these companies are probably slightly different from 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.440 your personal interests as a person or you know, obviously 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:19.000 like this is the sort of interests of like yo, 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:24.640 like a therapist or a friend. Immediate guesses is first 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.760 an evolution of advertising, like how search engine optimization has 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.240 transformed from companies trying to optimize for Google Search to 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.040 now trying to optimize for lllms like chat GPT and 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.840 to have your products be recommended to users by chat 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:44.160 GPT by creating posts online specifically intending for those posts 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.840 to be read by chat GPT and then regurgitated back 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.120 to the user. And for the past few months, open 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.960 Air has been experimenting with ways to make direct purchases 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:00.800 through chat GPT, and of course companies pay open just 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.320 to put full ads at the bottom of your chat 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:09.160 GPT logs, oftentimes based on your query. The other thing 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.320 is more so kind of like you know, like the 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.600 Walmart like Uber model, like they introduce a service that 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:18.720 is very cheap to start, possibly free, and then people 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.240 get hooked on the service and then they jack out 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.440 the price, which is kind of what open eyes made 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.800 model has been thus far. And I could I could 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.200 see that becoming a real problem if you have you know, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.800 thousands millions of people who use this tool both as 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.920 like a tool online. You know, this is an extension 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.520 of types of things that the Internet has like been 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.480 operating on for years, but using them in this much 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.760 more personally manipult of way because of this sort of 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.800 you know, emotional intimate component of like you're talking to 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.760 something that now just doesn't send information back to you, 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.440 but talks back to you like a person does. And 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.720 if that is the you know, one of the primary 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.600 ways you interact with the Internet, you can easily get 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.440 hooked on that, and then once they're hooked on that chat, 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.840 GPT can start boosting that price exactly. 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.720 And I think these products are only going to get 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.200 better and better at convincing us that you're talking to 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.280 a person, not AI. And I think the more that happens, 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.640 the easier it becomes to sort of forget that you 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.920 are actually disclosing intimate information to a private company, depending 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.640 on what AI are using, a company that has incredibly 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:24.560 cozy ties to the Trump administration. 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.200 So when people ask me like, is it bad to 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:28.840 be in. 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.240 A relationship quote unquote with AI, I said that do 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.000 you want to be in a relationship with Sam Altman? 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:34.760 Do you want to be in a relationship with Mark 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.120 Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Donald Trump? That's really who 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.160 you are in a relationship with. And don't let the AI, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.280 they're human like flattering, you know, back and forth, make 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:47.760 you forget that reality. 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.320 Do you have any sorts of idea of what we 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.640 should do about the problem. I guess has governments started 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:59.200 to regulate the way that these ais communicate with people 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:04.240 is their efforts to kind of adopt our privacy policies 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.639 to this like new emerging threat. 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.280 I guess, yeah, that's a really good question. So I 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.000 would say the most clear cut legislation we see in China, 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.040 folksmen have heard that China's government just recently cracked down 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.959 on AI companions and the ways that AI companions can 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:21.639 be designed to connect with people. 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:23.199 They really cracked down on that. 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.280 Interestingly, in the United States, we're not really having that 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.639 conversation in the same way. It might not surprise you 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.080 to find out that the main legislative interest in the 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.719 United States is really kind of focused on minors and 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.160 this this kind of idea that miners are using AI 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.359 companions for things like inappropriate erotic role play. 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:47.520 And what's so interesting about that. 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.440 There's two pieces of legislation moving through right now, neither 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:53.520 of which have been you know, turned into law, but 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.639 they really are quite concerned about minors and sort of 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.800 sexualizing minors. And when you actually look at the research 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.600 about how miners use AI, things like sex and romance 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.359 are actually way down on the list. Much higher on 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.959 the list is emotional support and advice. And so again 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.480 we are always going to this sort of most extreme 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.680 iteration of the way that AI intimacy is actually showing 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:20.840 up for people whether they are adults or miners, and 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:26.040 going right to legislating romance and sex when in actuality, 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.200 the much more common use case is things like emotionality 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:29.760 and advice. 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.280 Yeah, that is a really troubling instinct. There's a bunch 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.600 of the Internet you know regulation going on right now 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.240 is all, you know, focused on this sort of hysteria 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.879 in some ways. You know, there is real problems with 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.480 the way that the Internet exploits children, obviously, but the 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.680 way that we are going about it resulting in many 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.000 proposals to end up giving more of your information over 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.560 to these companies or the government doesn't feel like it's 0:18:57.600 --> 0:18:59.800 going to solve many of the sort of base problems 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.480 and completely overlooks the main way that people use these tools. 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.560 I mean, if I if I had a nickel for 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.920 every time I've seen a story about this is also 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.000 an extreme case, but not like a sexual one, but 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.600 like a kid, you know, discussing their like mental health 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.960 leading to a suicide attempt with an AI system, or 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.720 discussing something as extreme as like you know, a public 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.119 active violence like a shooting, and the AI essentially helping 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:24.760 coax them into being able to do that. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:24.959 Right. 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.840 There, there's a bunch of problems that require like legitimate regulation, 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.720 but there's sort of like puritanical, you know, sex crazy 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.840 nature of our government and you know, specifically the Republicans, 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:41.119 but but also just like American culture in general is 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.440 just going to be so ill equipped to actually handle this. 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.000 This sort of like a subtlety and nuance of a 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:47.960 lot of these problems. 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.359 Yeah, you really put that well. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.399 And it's it's a little bit complicated because, as you said, 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:58.000 there are real problems. There are real legislative and regulatory 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.840 needs that we should be having real common versations about. 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.240 And I think it is so easy to get whipped 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.680 up into a hysteria. It is so easy to say, 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.760 we just need some kind of legislation. I need to 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:11.960 feel like there is some sort of progress being made 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:16.560 on this complex, scary, sensitive issue, and so I will 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.600 get on board for legislation that is actually not really 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.240