Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here a podcast about things
Speaker 2: falling apart, and today the things falling apart are consumer
Speaker 2: electronics as an industry. We are at CS twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: the trade show where the tech industry shows us everything
Speaker 2: that's going to sell us in the next year. And
Speaker 2: we've seen some cool stuff and a lot of bloat wear,
Speaker 2: a lot of crap, a lot of AI enabled stuff
Speaker 2: that doesn't need to be AI enabled. Here to talk
Speaker 2: about it is our panel of experts.
Speaker 3: Needs experts is a strong word, but okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, panel is a strong word. Is even a strong word.
Speaker 2: I'm Robert Evans. Garrison Davis is also with me.
Speaker 1: And I'm Ben rose Porter.
Speaker 4: And you know, Ben, you're an academic, right you do
Speaker 4: you do college?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Your college.
Speaker 1: I'm a teach sociology.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's right, as a sociopath. How a trade shift.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, love, I mean, you know, it's a fascinating
Speaker 1: world sociologically. You can learn a lot of the maladies
Speaker 1: of society at this place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's most of them are on display here.
Speaker 3: We are now going to walk you through a bunch
Speaker 3: of the largely non AI products that we were able
Speaker 3: to find after sorting through the gunk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like like you know how people
Speaker 2: like pan for gold. Yes, if instead of like panning
Speaker 2: for gold and like a beautiful mountain stream, like you
Speaker 2: were panning for gold and like a pile of used condoms.
Speaker 5: Gold is also generous. This is panning for pennies in
Speaker 5: a pile of used condoms.
Speaker 2: Right right now? What was the best used condom you
Speaker 2: saw it? Twenty twenty six, Garrison?
Speaker 5: I think you mean, what's the best penny good products?
Speaker 5: Did we see any good products? Yeah, there's some good ones.
Speaker 5: Did I I don't know if I saw any good
Speaker 5: products this year?
Speaker 4: The translation stuff is still around, and some of it's really.
Speaker 5: Cool now, I mean, yeah, we've in other episodes we've
Speaker 5: talked about the glasses in the earbuds. Most of the
Speaker 5: product sheets I have out now are at the very
Speaker 5: least mixed if if if not, it's not bad. At
Speaker 5: Eureka Park there was this product called Nodi which is
Speaker 5: a smartphone replacement for for kids, like kids like six
Speaker 5: to twelve if you don't want them having a smartphone,
Speaker 5: and it allows them to send voice messages to a
Speaker 5: parent and who like you know, has like this approoved
Speaker 5: contact list, so you can you can also listen to music,
Speaker 5: listen to like some like radio, like like you know, radio, dramas,
Speaker 5: price and books.
Speaker 3: It connects to Spotify.
Speaker 5: You can learn languages allegedly, or you can you can
Speaker 5: learn words, right, you can learn words from other languages,
Speaker 5: and you can communicate with your parents. And this was
Speaker 5: like fine, right, it's the stuff that we've kind of
Speaker 5: seen before, but it was this little like you know,
Speaker 5: silicon kind of looks like like a elf bar. If
Speaker 5: you're familiar with an elf bar, it kind of looks
Speaker 5: like that. And it's if yeah, if you don't want
Speaker 5: to give your like, you know, six year old an iPhone,
Speaker 5: but you know, want them to have a way to
Speaker 5: contact you, right, And.
Speaker 3: That's like fine, right. So there's there's a lot of
Speaker 3: like basic stuff like that.
Speaker 5: I guess that is like kind of okay, I don't
Speaker 5: want to be cynical for the sake of being cynical.
Speaker 3: That kind of stuff bores me.
Speaker 5: But there really wasn't that many good products this year
Speaker 5: because so many of them just wre lm rappers, as
Speaker 5: we discussed in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: And there's another there were products that were good and
Speaker 2: I could tell we're good products on their own that
Speaker 2: they had still thrown AI functionality that I don't want
Speaker 2: that I know will blow itt the price and also
Speaker 2: makes it me less want to buy it. LG was
Speaker 2: advertising their new OLED television that has like the most
Speaker 2: vibrant colors, the best OLED screen that's ever been on
Speaker 2: a TV. I'm sure it looked fucking great. Yeah, video
Speaker 2: of it. The colors, the darks are amazing, are really good.
Speaker 2: But it's also with AI, with Evo AI, and to
Speaker 2: show if it's vibrant colors and what's capable of they
Speaker 2: had a loop of videos that were inspired by the
Speaker 2: Hubbled Space Telescope and you can see it if if
Speaker 2: you ever watched Deep Space nine. It's about the quality
Speaker 2: of the Deep Space nine intro.
Speaker 3: It does look very Star Trek intro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is frustrating because again we have images show
Speaker 2: the actual image show they look cool because you know
Speaker 2: what they are is real, Like they're real products of
Speaker 2: one of the most impressive things human beings ever made.
Speaker 2: And you're bragging that, like we have an AI generating
Speaker 2: images inspired by this thing that look worse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a lot of those things that are
Speaker 3: kind of mixed.
Speaker 4: I wanted the TV I want.
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, I might like a TV like
Speaker 2: that until you displayed that part of it, and now
Speaker 2: I just kind of feel dirty about even the prospect
Speaker 2: of wanting one of your products.
Speaker 5: This is an interesting product I saw the like the
Speaker 5: Innovation Awards showcases, is the Acoustic Eye, which is kind
Speaker 5: of just off.
Speaker 4: That's an ear.
Speaker 3: That's an ear, Like, right, that's an ear. We don't
Speaker 3: need to do that.
Speaker 5: But this is a specifically a security system that tries
Speaker 5: to detect very small drones. And this is like for
Speaker 5: you know, high profile people's houses. Mostly you can put
Speaker 5: that on your roof or your window and it'll detect
Speaker 5: very small drones that cameras would not be able to detect.
Speaker 5: So it's trying to like listen for drones. It provides
Speaker 5: three hundred and sixty degree omnidirectional aerial surveillance, detecting invisible
Speaker 5: aerial threats. So I would assume that they're trying to
Speaker 5: excel these to like, you know, like executives, like CEOs, politicians,
Speaker 5: people who are at risk of either you know, drones
Speaker 5: filming around their house or more like kinetic drone based attacks, right,
Speaker 5: and this is an interesting product that's like very current,
Speaker 5: the very current product like this is this is a
Speaker 5: reflection of some of the times that we're in. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I found I found that to be one of an
Speaker 5: interesting thing. I guess we should discuss the exoskeleton, which
Speaker 5: is maybe, yes, the best part of the show for me.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a lot more exoskeletons this year. The technology
Speaker 2: is clearly matured and mature to the point that not
Speaker 2: only is it, do they have viable versions for like
Speaker 2: industrial use for people working in factories and whatnot, right,
Speaker 2: which two years ago is what they were always advertising
Speaker 2: is that these are things that you buy at an
Speaker 2: enterprise level. And I know they're not primarily concerned with
Speaker 2: the health and well being of their workers, but actually
Speaker 2: these do improve health and well being of workers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It reduces the felt load and the felt strain, it
Speaker 2: reduces the damaged knees and back, right.
Speaker 3: And that does affect their productivity, right.
Speaker 2: And it also affects a profit because you're not you're
Speaker 2: less likely to have workmen's comp claims.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: It's one of those it's one of those things where
Speaker 2: it's a really good idea and the product's work. There's
Speaker 2: a number of very good exoskeletons we received from a
Speaker 2: company called hyper Shell, an exoskeleton before the convention this
Speaker 2: year that you and I both wore on the floor.
Speaker 2: I have some data on it, which is that I
Speaker 2: timed my normal walking pace when I'm not particularly trying
Speaker 2: to get anywhere about nineteen minutes a mile, right, if
Speaker 2: I'm just kind of like walking casually. When I put
Speaker 2: the Hypershell on and had it at seventy five percent
Speaker 2: power mode, my walking pace was fifteen to sixteen minutes
Speaker 2: a mile, about fifteen and a half, I think is
Speaker 2: what I generally advertised. And my heart rate didn't change meaningfully.
Speaker 2: It was like one or two higher than it normally.
Speaker 2: Is not really a significant change and heart rate, right,
Speaker 2: And I felt like at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: my feet heard about a normal amount for a day
Speaker 2: at Cees, but my lower back and my knees felt
Speaker 2: less strained.
Speaker 4: Right. That was my experience with hyper Shell.
Speaker 5: It's like an external hip almost attatches around your waist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a belt around your hip and it goes
Speaker 2: up to right above your knees. Is kind of the
Speaker 2: and so it's not a huge footprint.
Speaker 3: No, it's a very small device. And yeah, it goes,
Speaker 3: it goes around your hip.
Speaker 5: Then another strap like goes above your knee and it
Speaker 5: kind of assists or guides your like leg and your
Speaker 5: hip up and down.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And for the record, folks, the basic version of this
Speaker 2: product is about a thousand dollars. The version we had
Speaker 2: was about twenty one hundred dollars, right, and the battery
Speaker 2: will last about thirty kilometers. They say, I didn't have
Speaker 2: any trouble getting about an eight hour day out of it.
Speaker 3: Ben, you wore it much more than I did. I
Speaker 3: wore it a little bit. Do you want to just
Speaker 3: talk about your experience with hyper Shell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was impressed with it. It was first of all, Hypershell,
Speaker 1: very funny name. I like that name. It was pretty
Speaker 1: comfortable to wear, which is I always see the exoskeletons
Speaker 1: and I'm like, it looks kind of but it was
Speaker 1: like it was very easy to take on and pull off.
Speaker 1: I was, And it was comfortable and it was pretty simple.
Speaker 1: And it basically just has two motors that sort of
Speaker 1: assist when you move your leg, it pushes your leg
Speaker 1: and when it comes back in the step, it pushes
Speaker 1: it back down and so it's just assisting and it
Speaker 1: tracks your leg pretty well, so there's just very little
Speaker 1: time when you're pushing against the machine. It's coordinated very well.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just functioned. It worked, and you could
Speaker 1: walk a long time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The fact that it's like, yes, it's a product that
Speaker 2: works and it does a thing that has utility, it
Speaker 2: feels increasingly rare.
Speaker 4: At Cees.
Speaker 1: I was a little disappointed that the product did not
Speaker 1: pay attention to my emotions and build a relationship of
Speaker 1: empathy with me. That was, but the walking was got Yeah.
Speaker 2: I asked the hyper Rochelle about its opinions on Proust,
Speaker 2: and it had very little to say.
Speaker 3: It is it is like two main mode.
Speaker 5: It has like this Eco mode, then it's this hypermode,
Speaker 5: which can get really aggressive.
Speaker 4: If you turn up hyper model kind of lifting your legs,
Speaker 4: you can.
Speaker 3: You can you could be bounding, yeah, and you you can.
Speaker 3: You can.
Speaker 5: You can addres like the torque, you can address like
Speaker 5: how how much delay it has.
Speaker 3: You have a lot of different settings.
Speaker 5: The one thing that I had a lot of fun
Speaker 5: with is that there's this other experimental mode. I don't
Speaker 5: know if you turned it on yet called called fitness mode.
Speaker 5: Fitness mode is cool. It does the opposite. It adds
Speaker 5: resistance to like so it's it's for like working out.
Speaker 5: If you want like a harder hike, right then you
Speaker 5: can you can. You can turn on fitness mode and
Speaker 5: then it'll be it's more work.
Speaker 4: Like how Goku trained to walk.
Speaker 5: Sure, but something I I I that's an anime thing.
Speaker 4: By the way.
Speaker 5: Now, one thing that I've found out through through my
Speaker 5: own my my, my own cunning is that if you
Speaker 5: have hyper mode turned on all the way, which which
Speaker 5: it was when when Ben was wearing the exoskeleton on
Speaker 5: my phone, I can switch from hyper mode to fitness
Speaker 5: Mode immediately, which completely halts any movement.
Speaker 3: So you can be walking like seven.
Speaker 4: Fuck up your friends if they don't have the app
Speaker 4: had seven.
Speaker 5: You're walking with like seven miles an hour, really fast
Speaker 5: speed walking, and then I press a button and your
Speaker 5: legs are going to an immediate halt. And it was
Speaker 5: really fun to do that for about seven hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I almost crashed into several people just scare to
Speaker 1: get his kicks.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm glad you found the terrorize your friend option.
Speaker 3: On that It was really fun.
Speaker 4: It was most of the time I used it.
Speaker 2: I had installed the app when I got it, but
Speaker 2: I didn't think about it after that because there you
Speaker 2: can do everything on device, or at least you can.
Speaker 3: Do a lot a lot of analyze device.
Speaker 2: You get a lot more options when you're using the app,
Speaker 2: but you don't have the app to handle the basic functionality.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: I loved adjusting the the like the intensity of how
Speaker 5: much how much doing, and it shows a munch of
Speaker 5: like applications. Or you can wear this hiking like running,
Speaker 5: doing you know, lifting your.
Speaker 4: Work, and I like the thoughtfulness in there.
Speaker 2: You don't need the app to use this, but the
Speaker 2: app vastly The app allows you, gives you a lot
Speaker 2: of control that you're not going to get off of
Speaker 2: a simple like button.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, It's just struck me as good design.
Speaker 3: It has a lot of like fidelity.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so that's the hypershell, folks. Good exoskeleton. I've
Speaker 2: used a few at various cess and this one certainly
Speaker 2: strikes me as like a very good like consumer option,
Speaker 2: like if you as an individual want one. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure still most of the sales are going to be
Speaker 2: like enterprise different companies that have like you know, want
Speaker 2: these for people who are doing like loading and unloading
Speaker 2: and like a loading.
Speaker 4: Dock or whatever.
Speaker 2: But I think the price prices will continue to go
Speaker 2: down and they are now hitting the point where this
Speaker 2: is like a thing that individuals can afford if they
Speaker 2: want one. And there is a lot of and Hypershell
Speaker 2: focused on this in some of their advertising, but there's
Speaker 2: a lot of utility for people with disabilities for stuff
Speaker 2: like this, right Like, that's part of the point of
Speaker 2: all of these different products, and in general, when it
Speaker 2: came to the stuff where like the because there's AI
Speaker 2: in this too, Hypershell talks about it, and it's mostly
Speaker 2: just like how it learns and reacts to your motions,
Speaker 2: right that.
Speaker 4: That's like machine learning.
Speaker 2: When we talk about AI, usually the useful applications you
Speaker 2: could also just call machine learning.
Speaker 4: That's what we used to say.
Speaker 2: But in general, the products that impressed me most and
Speaker 2: scared me most at CEES were healthcare related products.
Speaker 4: Right where we.
Speaker 2: Have a towel that reads your sweat and can tell
Speaker 2: if you have like vitamin deficiencies or if you're if
Speaker 2: you're if you're not hydrated enough, or all of these
Speaker 2: different like the number of products where it's both like, yes,
Speaker 2: this thing can tell if you've like fatty liver disease
Speaker 2: like based on without needing to go to a doctor,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that is useful and will help a
Speaker 2: lot of people.
Speaker 4: And also all of these products are.
Speaker 2: Selling your data to the highest bedder, your health data,
Speaker 2: you're biometrics.
Speaker 3: You ask them about that.
Speaker 2: Sorry not, I am not aware of that being the
Speaker 2: specific thing for the fatty liver people. That was my
Speaker 2: problem with all of the health wearables. I should just
Speaker 2: to be sure, I should clarify the wearables are all
Speaker 2: on the cloud and every one of the ones I
Speaker 2: saw has deals with the LLLM companies that they're working
Speaker 2: with and are are handing your data over.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because that's how they get quote unquote smarter through
Speaker 5: a massive data data collection.
Speaker 2: And so there's this thing where there is this kind
Speaker 2: of baseline expectation here that everyone is fine with handing
Speaker 2: over all of their data, all of their physical data,
Speaker 2: all their biometrics, which I they're like, the utility is
Speaker 2: undeniable of things that can diagnose that you need to
Speaker 2: go to the to a doctor, or can at least
Speaker 2: suggest the existence of problems combined with and we are
Speaker 2: not at all interested in keeping that information secure. I
Speaker 2: find the kind of casual and no one will because
Speaker 2: I don't think people will. I think people will buy
Speaker 2: these products and not think about who's getting access to
Speaker 2: their biometric data. And I wish that people cared about that.
Speaker 5: And we've seen that specifically be a problem like around
Speaker 5: like pregnancy. Yeah, and with states restricting abortion and the
Speaker 5: ways in which these companies are aware of people's bodies
Speaker 5: even before the actual people are.
Speaker 2: Here's an AD break. All right, we're back from ADS.
Speaker 2: So I went to Lenovo's booth. It was a bunch
Speaker 2: of laptops. I use Lenovo laptops. They make good products.
Speaker 2: It was every product there was either here is a
Speaker 2: new update to the line of laptops we've been making
Speaker 2: for thirty years. This is the latest one, this is
Speaker 2: the latest think pad carbon, this is the latest you know,
Speaker 2: idea pad or whatever. And then they had a couple
Speaker 2: of like the big thing they were showing was the
Speaker 2: Lenovo Twist, which is a laptop that has a screen
Speaker 2: that can twist around and so it can lay flat
Speaker 2: like a tablet, but it can also the thing that
Speaker 2: we're really showing is that it's motorized and it has
Speaker 2: AI enabled, so it can follow your face and you
Speaker 2: can set it to track an individual's face and as
Speaker 2: you move, it will move with you. Now, it has
Speaker 2: two different modes. One of them is also you can
Speaker 2: like gesture to it, or you can command it by
Speaker 2: voice and you can say go into laptop mode, go
Speaker 2: into tablet mode, turn left, turn right. That did not
Speaker 2: work well about half the time in the demo that
Speaker 2: I saw, it did not respond, maybe because the room
Speaker 2: was loud, maybe because the data was bad. But then
Speaker 2: he put it into face tracking mode and when you
Speaker 2: have multiple faces, you can pick which face it tracks
Speaker 2: and it swiveled to meet your face and it was
Speaker 2: cool and it did work very well. That was like,
Speaker 2: this is impressive, Like what is the use case? Why
Speaker 2: would you want it? And he was like, well, say
Speaker 2: you're doing a presentation, like you're a CEO or something
Speaker 2: doing a presentation. This way the screen with your text
Speaker 2: on it or the PowerPoint on it will follow you
Speaker 2: as you move around. And I was like, that could
Speaker 2: be useful. I don't feel like many people are in
Speaker 2: that situation often. I've never been in that situation in
Speaker 2: my life, and I speak in public for a living sometimes,
Speaker 2: so I guess, yeah, there probably is a CEO who
Speaker 2: would benefit for there's like five of those guys. Like
Speaker 2: what is the there's a whole laptop product line. You
Speaker 2: have multiple versions, and I didn't get a single reason
Speaker 2: why you would want this other than that, other than
Speaker 2: for presentations. And it's genuinely impressive that it can track
Speaker 2: your face and move as you move. But why And
Speaker 2: another product they had that was in the bolt y
Speaker 2: category was the Lenovo Legion and this is not a
Speaker 2: product that's ever going to come out, but it was
Speaker 2: like a proof of concept. So it's their gaming laptop
Speaker 2: line and it has a normal screen that can widen
Speaker 2: to be three times as long and it unfolds. They
Speaker 2: have screens that unfold, and it's cool that they could
Speaker 2: do that, and it looked neat, and it's neat that
Speaker 2: a screen has that capability. I don't want it because
Speaker 2: it also it doesn't look I could see like obviously
Speaker 2: I can see utility and like you can have a
Speaker 2: screen that gets bigger without it being a bigger footprint
Speaker 2: for the laptop. But when the screen is unfolded, there's huge,
Speaker 2: like speed bump size, looking like wads of screen that
Speaker 2: are bigger and like bulge out, and it doesn't look
Speaker 2: good like it's a bad screen.
Speaker 3: It's like a little like bubbly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when it's fully extended, it's not like a good screen.
Speaker 5: You said, it's a proven concept piece, Like there's this thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, like they're.
Speaker 4: Showing that they've they're working on folding screen technology.
Speaker 5: The Twist was was like a previous version of that. Yes,
Speaker 5: the proof of concept called the Swivel was at CES
Speaker 5: last year. Yes, and they improved it and now it's
Speaker 5: a real product called the Twist. Right, and maybe this
Speaker 5: could be the case for this like unrolling unfolding.
Speaker 4: Eventually it will be.
Speaker 2: In products, right, Yeah, But I also don't think I
Speaker 2: don't see how you cannot have the bulge kind of
Speaker 2: out and a girl to how the screen work.
Speaker 3: The folding screens have come along way the past five years.
Speaker 4: I used one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they also do have some pixels dying in the
Speaker 2: fold area.
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, if you're trying.
Speaker 5: To buy products for longevity, probably not the thing for you.
Speaker 5: If you like it for the novelty and for some
Speaker 5: reason have enough cash to burn, then maybe it's something
Speaker 5: someone will be interested in.
Speaker 2: As I was watching an unfold, there were two guys
Speaker 2: behind me and talking about it, and one of them
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, it's not a real it's not going
Speaker 2: to actually come out like that's even like the old
Speaker 2: version of the chassis.
Speaker 4: And I said, I just don't really see a use.
Speaker 4: I don't think people.
Speaker 2: Want a product like this, Like I'm looking at it,
Speaker 2: the screen's not great, and I just don't see who's
Speaker 2: gonna buy this.
Speaker 4: And the guy behind.
Speaker 2: Me said, well, I think like the the use case
Speaker 2: is like billionaire CEOs and other people have a lot
Speaker 2: of money.
Speaker 4: And I looked at it. It was a Lenovo rep
Speaker 4: and I was.
Speaker 2: Like, hahh, that's not that's the use Why who are
Speaker 2: like that's not?
Speaker 4: Like did you just say that to me?
Speaker 3: A Lenovo rep said that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's one of the guys doing the demos.
Speaker 2: He had a wild Lenovo badge on and I, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was weird to me, that's wild.
Speaker 4: But again, at least it was a thing.
Speaker 3: No, it was it was a physical productcause the.
Speaker 2: Other thing they had they had the workstation, which the
Speaker 2: thing they were showing was there was an app on
Speaker 2: it that looks at your face and said shows you
Speaker 2: how fatigued you are by percent, and how fatigued your
Speaker 2: eyes are, and like other data. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's creepy and kind of impressive. But then I walked
Speaker 2: away and I came back and it gave me a
Speaker 2: totally different set of numbers for my fatigue.
Speaker 3: Where you're differently fatigued.
Speaker 2: No, I was a second leg and I did it
Speaker 2: four times, and every time the set of numbers was
Speaker 2: like different enough that the only assumption I can make
Speaker 2: is that it was those aren't real numbers. It's just
Speaker 2: generating a number and telling you that. And it's full
Speaker 2: of shit because it wouldn't have been so different if
Speaker 2: it was actually measuring anything. It's just random numbers that
Speaker 2: it's putting on to make you think it's me measuring something.
Speaker 3: It's probably trying to it.
Speaker 5: There might be just subtle things that dramatically changed the numbers.
Speaker 4: I tried.
Speaker 2: I specifically once I noticed that tried to keep my
Speaker 2: face flat, and I did notice when you move closer
Speaker 2: and further it changes. But I think it's just programmed
Speaker 2: to as you move, alter the numbers so that you
Speaker 2: see the number moving but every time I came on
Speaker 2: new it was a different number. It went from like
Speaker 2: when I started was like point oh two, and the
Speaker 2: second time I came back it was point five to ozho.
Speaker 2: And again I did nothing. I was specifically keeping my
Speaker 2: face neutral interest like it's just this, it's not a
Speaker 2: big I think.
Speaker 5: I think that type of stuff will will get better,
Speaker 5: Like we've seen versions of that before that have actually
Speaker 5: done like Okay, yeah, well there could be a lot
Speaker 5: of factors into like into why why the demo goes
Speaker 5: a certain way.
Speaker 2: The face tracking and facial recognition were but I went
Speaker 2: to this booth that like the big thing they were
Speaker 2: doing was like uh, driving assistant robots that would like
Speaker 2: yell at you if you fell asleep or if you
Speaker 2: like looked away and were like texting or something. It
Speaker 2: would say like look away from your phone, look at
Speaker 2: the screen please. And there's definitely like utility there, right,
Speaker 2: Like that is probably a good idea.
Speaker 5: I mean we saw that last year at Samsung's section
Speaker 5: of Eurka Park for like like test taking to make
Speaker 5: sure students aren't cheating at tests, right, So it like
Speaker 5: sends an alert every time the students' eyes goes away
Speaker 5: from like the computer screen, like if they keep like
Speaker 5: looking down like like under if they could be checking
Speaker 5: like their phone or notes.
Speaker 4: Smart Eye is the company.
Speaker 2: One thing I did appreciate was that the little device
Speaker 2: that they put in was just like a circle with
Speaker 2: two eyes on it as opposed to like a whole dashboard.
Speaker 2: So that seemed nice. But the thing, the thing that
Speaker 2: they had, the first thing I used was this optical
Speaker 2: recognition system where it learned my eyes and then when
Speaker 2: I came on, it would give my name time I
Speaker 2: walked up to it, and so like, yeah, it definitely
Speaker 2: like recognizes at least your eyes. That's it could switch
Speaker 2: between different people. But it was also it can tell
Speaker 2: when you're drunk, they claim, And I couldn't tell that.
Speaker 4: I couldn't. I was high on kratum and I had.
Speaker 2: Smoked Delta aid, but so I was definitely not sober.
Speaker 2: It didn't recognize me as not sober, so it couldn't
Speaker 2: measure those things. Maybe it can tell if you're drunk. Yeah, demo,
Speaker 2: it's it. They said it could. And they showed a
Speaker 2: woman when she was sober and when she was drunk,
Speaker 2: and they explained to me it was actually really difficult
Speaker 2: because we did this on a close track and she
Speaker 2: is really drunk and we had to jump through a
Speaker 2: lot of hoops for them to let us have a
Speaker 2: person drunk driving.
Speaker 4: That's just And I did find that kind of funny.
Speaker 3: You response that his how you test that would be
Speaker 3: kind of a hard thing to test. Yeah, you can
Speaker 3: test like simulations.
Speaker 2: Right, but they wanted like this was supposed to be
Speaker 2: a perfect concept in vehicle and it'll shut down the car.
Speaker 2: I did have some people posting when I posted a
Speaker 2: video of that that like, I have this condition with
Speaker 2: my eyes or that condition with my eyes, and normal
Speaker 2: optical recognition stuff doesn't work with me. Is this going
Speaker 2: to show that I'm drunk or is it going to
Speaker 2: like be able to And I actually don't know. Again,
Speaker 2: I'm not I was not able to test the product
Speaker 2: that that does seem like a concern. I would hope
Speaker 2: they've dealt with. But also I kind of doubt they
Speaker 2: did because usually there's gaps.
Speaker 5: I mean, I can see a company like this partnering
Speaker 5: with like an insurance company, yeah, or partnering with like
Speaker 5: certain cars that would like, yeah, stop the car from
Speaker 5: being able to be moved if it detects the driver
Speaker 5: as drunk, yes, and how like false positives what play
Speaker 5: into that? And then you just like are like locked
Speaker 5: out of your car right because this robot thinks you're
Speaker 5: intoxicated and actually you're fine.
Speaker 3: You just like look like that.
Speaker 2: And I could also see them like rolling this product
Speaker 2: out and it hits like Thailand or something, and then
Speaker 2: there being a big store where it's like they didn't
Speaker 2: test this on any people of like Thaie ancestry, and
Speaker 2: it actually sees all of them as drunk because of
Speaker 2: like an error in the coding. Sure, and being like
Speaker 2: oh great, like like I'm not again smart Eye. From
Speaker 2: what I can tell, their technology worked, but in order
Speaker 2: to adequately like review and test it, you do need
Speaker 2: you need more access to it than they're giving it
Speaker 2: the show. I can't actually tell you if it works
Speaker 2: a determined when people are drunk. I can just show
Speaker 2: you they had a video claiming it does.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 5: One product that I feel at best mixed about I
Speaker 5: first saw in the CS Innovation Awards section. This is
Speaker 5: called Self Insight Therapy Resolve x R from South Korea.
Speaker 2: Oh, one of my two favorite Koreas. By the way,
Speaker 2: just since we're talking Korea.
Speaker 5: This is a VR therapy program that is supposed to
Speaker 5: give give you a final goodbye with the deceased loved
Speaker 5: one in VR. Yes, this was my initial reaction as well.
Speaker 5: And like I've seen version I've seen versions of this
Speaker 5: before where it's like an LLLM or like an AI. Yeah,
Speaker 5: pretending to be your like dead wife that you like
Speaker 5: hug in VR, sure, and that type of stuff. I've
Speaker 5: generally felt bad about some of the people who've used it,
Speaker 5: like in like you know, like the promotional videos are
Speaker 5: you know, crying, And I feel and like the product
Speaker 5: in a way.
Speaker 2: As a friend, I will promise you if that moment
Speaker 2: ever comes for you all pretend to be your dead wife.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what to say that I've.
Speaker 5: But what I found interesting about Resolve XR is that
Speaker 5: the the avatar of your deceased loved one is not
Speaker 5: that the b is not actually an AI, nor is
Speaker 5: it a fully pre recorded, like prescripted like simulation. It
Speaker 5: is being puppeted by a therapist that you are working
Speaker 5: with as a part of the Gestalt empty Chair therapy technique.
Speaker 5: And this this is what the product is. So you're
Speaker 5: working with a therapist who is using text to speech,
Speaker 5: that is, talking as your deceased as your deceased loved
Speaker 5: one as a part of this therapy exercise, if you
Speaker 5: have if you have recordings of their voice, the AI
Speaker 5: will try to replicate their voice. That's something I feel
Speaker 5: a little bit odd about. But like that is like
Speaker 5: the one like aspect of like qute unquote AI that's
Speaker 5: being used here is for is for the voice clone.
Speaker 5: And then there's like a pre a prerecorded set of
Speaker 5: like gestures that someone does in like motion capture. But
Speaker 5: the actual like like live puppeting of this thing is
Speaker 5: done by a therapist that you were sitting across from.
Speaker 5: But you have you know the VR goggle song mm hm.
Speaker 5: And this is this is not supposed to be something
Speaker 5: that you do like routinely. It's not like, oh, I'm
Speaker 5: like I'm talking to my wife like my wife.
Speaker 4: Is in VR.
Speaker 5: It's this is a therapeutic exercise meant for people dealing
Speaker 5: with extreme grief, specifically when loved ones have been taken
Speaker 5: away during like like like accidents, like they specifically mentioned
Speaker 5: like a plane crash that happened a year ago. And
Speaker 5: so this is for people like an extreme extreme grief
Speaker 5: to give them like closure through this therapeutic exercise, and
Speaker 5: this is this is this is the this is the
Speaker 5: pam slet.
Speaker 2: I went through a lot of whiplash because obviously my
Speaker 2: first assumption was this is an evil product where you
Speaker 2: like feed your loved one's social media data and it
Speaker 2: pretends to be them, and it's not that, and it's
Speaker 2: good that it's not that, But then it's like a
Speaker 2: it's being basically a therapist puppeting your dead loved one.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of conclusions I have. First off, these
Speaker 2: people are trying to be ethical. It does seem it
Speaker 2: seems like they care, and they are attempting to provide
Speaker 2: something that is useful to people who are suffering. I
Speaker 2: also think this might fundamentally, this idea might be fundamentally
Speaker 2: unethical and impossible to do well. So I think this
Speaker 2: might be a case of someone trying to do the
Speaker 2: most ethical version of something that cannot be done ethically,
Speaker 2: which is a category of AI device that I've seen
Speaker 2: this year.
Speaker 1: It's tricky because on one hand, you know, as I
Speaker 1: was talking to the woman at the booth and reading
Speaker 1: through the materials they had, it seemed like they were
Speaker 1: selling this as this is just sort of augmentation to
Speaker 1: a therapeutic practice that has already done. Yeah, we're just
Speaker 1: putting a you know, a digitally generated face and voice
Speaker 1: to it. But it's so I mean, it's so easy
Speaker 1: to imagine just this company seems somewhat ethically focused. But yeah,
Speaker 1: all kinds of directions you could go in this. It's
Speaker 1: a Pandora's box, a little bit of like, yeah, where
Speaker 1: where we're starting to venture into creating replicas of the dead? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is.
Speaker 2: And I went to a panel kind of in the
Speaker 2: same tone on mental health and AI that I thought
Speaker 2: was going to be an opportunity for me to harass
Speaker 2: an executive during a Q and A because which is
Speaker 2: which is one of your favorite the activity everything to
Speaker 2: do at CES and there literally is like AI. There's
Speaker 2: ample data that it is a disaster for mental health,
Speaker 2: not just AI psychosis, but there are a lot of
Speaker 2: things that it makes worse, and a lot of problems
Speaker 2: that it causes people and a lot of problems that
Speaker 2: it exacerbates, including like suicidal ideation.
Speaker 4: This is documented, there's data on it. So that's what
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 2: I was showing up prepared to do that, And what
Speaker 2: I actually got was an actual clinical therapist who was
Speaker 2: trying to talk about who first started by kind of
Speaker 2: by very much admitting the dangers with AI and the
Speaker 2: things that it harms in terms of mental health, and
Speaker 2: then was trying to say, what would a responsible and
Speaker 2: ethical like therapeutic AI do. And her argument was, we
Speaker 2: know how many people need therapy and don't have access
Speaker 2: to it, both in the United States and worldwide, and
Speaker 2: some sort of automated BOT system that handles aspects of
Speaker 2: therapy might be the only way to provide affordable therapy
Speaker 2: to the number of people who needed who can't currently
Speaker 2: afford it. And I disagree, or at least I don't
Speaker 2: think that. I don't disagree. It's accurate that there's way
Speaker 2: more people who need mental health than can afford it, right,
Speaker 2: that's undeniable, undebatable. I disagree that AI can help this
Speaker 2: problem in any meaningful way, and in fact, I think
Speaker 2: it will only make it worse. But I understand that
Speaker 2: she was coming at this from a I am attempting
Speaker 2: to define what a responsible, a therapeutic AI might do,
Speaker 2: and through the course of that I believe she is
Speaker 2: partially because I talked to her about this afterwards too.
Speaker 2: She thinks it might be possis, but is not convinced
Speaker 2: that it is in fact possible for there to be
Speaker 2: an AI therapy system that is actually useful. And one
Speaker 2: of the things she brought up was that in traditional
Speaker 2: AI chatbots, the big ones are all programmed to gas
Speaker 2: you up in order to keep you using them, right,
Speaker 2: the program to make you want to continue to interact
Speaker 2: with them, and so it does things that are really
Speaker 2: bad for your mental health and that can exacerbate and
Speaker 2: cause new problems, right because of the way these are programmed.
Speaker 2: So any responsible AI therapy chatbot would have to not
Speaker 2: do that, which I'm like, that is true, that you
Speaker 2: can't be a useful therapy to tool that.
Speaker 4: Only praises people, right, that's just not a thing.
Speaker 2: But when I came to afterwards, I was like, my
Speaker 2: issue is I think you're right about that, but I
Speaker 2: also think if you're saying the AI therapy bot is
Speaker 2: going to be a separate product that does not do
Speaker 2: these things. Number one, it's a high bar to get
Speaker 2: people to pay money for a tool when they already
Speaker 2: have the chatbot. And number two, if the chatbot that
Speaker 2: is good for them, doesn't do the thing that makes
Speaker 2: it addictive, people will continue to use the addictive one
Speaker 2: for therapy. And she said, yeah, that's my worry too.
Speaker 2: And so I came away from being like, she's trying
Speaker 2: to explore if this can be done, and my conclusion,
Speaker 2: based on her exploration.
Speaker 4: Is it can't.
Speaker 1: But it's so interesting that she said that because she
Speaker 1: and this is I mean me hearing you talk about her,
Speaker 1: she sounds like the only person who is thinking about
Speaker 1: this at all. Yes, that's the convention.
Speaker 2: She was the only person on the panel. Yeah, of
Speaker 2: just it was a speech, not a panel.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, of thinking about that, what are the social
Speaker 1: relations behind these technologies, because of course that's the main question.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 1: Is a technology that can generate that can have a
Speaker 1: conversation with you? Is one thing it's not that really
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the war of the problem so much
Speaker 1: as will all the machines that are having conversations are
Speaker 1: driven by very specific incentives, you know, to interact with
Speaker 1: their users in a particular way that has everything to
Speaker 1: do with the social relationships of their production and use,
Speaker 1: and and the notion that technology would have any connection
Speaker 1: to social relations at all is completely absent from any
Speaker 1: discussion of any product I've seen here.
Speaker 2: Speaking of social relations between products and human beings, here's
Speaker 2: some ads. We're back and God, I really love those
Speaker 2: Chumba casino ads. They remind me that whenever I'm out
Speaker 2: in the world, sitting down with my loved ones, you know,
Speaker 2: watching the big Game, I could be gambling, and kind
Speaker 2: of every other moment of my life that I'm not
Speaker 2: gambling is wasted.
Speaker 5: Robert, have you heard of how She No? So you
Speaker 5: know about politics, right, I love politics, and you know
Speaker 5: about insider trading, right, I love insider te What if
Speaker 5: you could do insider trading about all of politics on
Speaker 5: the exclusive evasion that you will learn as a journalist.
Speaker 4: Wow, sounds legal.
Speaker 3: It shockingly is.
Speaker 5: There's actually zero federal or state regulation affecting this whatsoever.
Speaker 4: That's the CALCI guarantee.
Speaker 5: There is no regulatory mechanism that exists on a state
Speaker 5: level to regulate this behavior.
Speaker 4: Now years and you say that, but that's literally just
Speaker 4: what's printed above their booth.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about maybe the worst product that I saw
Speaker 5: at CEES child Free trust.
Speaker 3: Boy, So, what is it like a software that lets
Speaker 3: you make a trust?
Speaker 1: This software was marketed towards child free people. They lead
Speaker 1: with twenty five percent of Americans don't have children and
Speaker 1: don't intend to have them, tell you, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: their idea is that they right here. Child Free Trust
Speaker 1: is the first comprehensive nationwide solution providing medical and financial
Speaker 1: poa executor and trustee representation for child free and permanently
Speaker 1: childless people. So if you are childless and you don't
Speaker 1: want to burden your loved ones, that's their wording with
Speaker 1: you know, your estate plan when you die. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is a company that will do that for you. What's
Speaker 1: interesting though, is that I asked them, I said, well, look,
Speaker 1: you know this presumably already happens. What is in place?
Speaker 4: I have a trust in no children?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, well does state appoints someone to handle this.
Speaker 1: They'll they will first see if that you have, if
Speaker 1: you have any loved ones who would want to take
Speaker 1: on these duties.
Speaker 4: And obviously people with that kids aren't capable of love.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, they they a little bit I mean
Speaker 1: strangely like it. So it's it's an it's a product
Speaker 1: that is for we already have a public service that
Speaker 1: searches for people loved ones that could take on these responsibilities,
Speaker 1: and if it cannot find those, it takes it on
Speaker 1: as a as a public good. So it was it
Speaker 1: was a product completely without purpose. It was like you,
Speaker 1: in order to use this, you just have to be
Speaker 1: intent on separating yourself from society in this way. You
Speaker 1: have no loved ones presumably or you don't want them
Speaker 1: involved in your estate planning. You also don't want the
Speaker 1: state involved, so it requires this third party company. It
Speaker 1: is just a very strange product the way they present it.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean it's again, I have a trust and
Speaker 4: a will.
Speaker 2: If you don't have a kid, and you don't have
Speaker 2: like a you're not like married, or you don't have
Speaker 2: a surviving spouse, like, yes, the state will appoint somebody,
Speaker 2: but that process is slower and more expensive. If you
Speaker 2: want to avoid the cost, or if you want to
Speaker 2: avoid like, having a trust and a will is not
Speaker 2: an unreasonable thing, especially if you want to make sure
Speaker 2: if you have assets and you want to make sure
Speaker 2: they go a specific place, you want to donate them
Speaker 2: somewhere or whatever.
Speaker 3: Well, and like a lawyer can handle that, a lawyer.
Speaker 4: Should handle that is what I'm saying, is you shouldn't
Speaker 4: use an app.
Speaker 5: Specifically, what they do that the lawyer can't is they
Speaker 5: provide a service for the corporation to execute power of attorney.
Speaker 3: And that is the main thing.
Speaker 5: So this is the most anti social This is the
Speaker 5: most anti social service I've seen it all of ces
Speaker 5: because it's building this idea that if you have no
Speaker 5: kids and you are so separated from the rest of
Speaker 5: your family, like you don't trust any siblings, you don't
Speaker 5: trust a spouse, a partner maybe you don't have one,
Speaker 5: you don't trust parents, you don't even trust a friend
Speaker 5: to like do this for you. Instead that you turn
Speaker 5: to a company, a private company. You don't even trust
Speaker 5: the state, right because the state can handle this. It
Speaker 5: is a private corporation that it's going to handle your will,
Speaker 5: your estate and power of attorneys. And that that's what really,
Speaker 5: that's what really got me because I asked them, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: like a lawyer can handle all this, and like, well, no,
Speaker 5: regular lawyer can't be power of attorney. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is the core of your product actually is that
Speaker 5: it's it's for people who are so anti social, who
Speaker 5: have so separated themselves that they don't trust.
Speaker 3: They don't trust anyone with this. They don't have any
Speaker 3: loved ones. Really, it's not just about being child free.
Speaker 5: No, it's like it's about you do not exist in
Speaker 5: a social network whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Because I can see the kind of people who might
Speaker 2: need this are people or might want this, are not
Speaker 2: the people kind of people who do apps, because the
Speaker 2: actual the group of people who definitely don't have kids
Speaker 2: and also may not have any living friends are people
Speaker 2: who are incredibly elderly. But it's not even a factor
Speaker 2: of like their life is bleak that it's just you
Speaker 2: lived way too long. You literally don't have anyone left
Speaker 2: that you knew. But they're not going to use an app,
Speaker 2: like that's just not how they think about. If they
Speaker 2: don't have a lawyer, they'll let have the state handle it.
Speaker 2: But like they're not they're not going to download the
Speaker 2: child free app. That's one hundred and four year old
Speaker 2: okanawent woman to like handle this for them. There's like
Speaker 2: a graph on the bottom that here's like features and
Speaker 2: like which different versions have which features, And the three
Speaker 2: features are child free, trust, trust, and will and then
Speaker 2: free will as one word, but the w's capitalized. I
Speaker 2: just like seeing free well and then checks and exes
Speaker 2: at the bottom. You don't get free well on all
Speaker 2: of the options. Sorry, what is free will as a service?
Speaker 2: S Garrison? Are they saying the machine has it? Or
Speaker 2: is it literally a free will making service? It's I
Speaker 2: think I think it's creating a will and they're calling
Speaker 2: it free will.
Speaker 3: I think that's what I think.
Speaker 4: That's what they're doing. Okay, I mean, but yeah, right now.
Speaker 3: And this was in this was in Eureka part.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is where the cool little products are. That's bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was really bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a fun bit that you could do if
Speaker 2: you had the money to show up and just do
Speaker 2: bits at CEES where it's like this company can handle
Speaker 2: all of your end of life care and decisions and
Speaker 2: it's just a booth with a handgun on a table.
Speaker 5: So let's talk about to clothes. Let's just discuss like
Speaker 5: what this Cees kind of means in general. We already
Speaker 5: kind of discussed like the AI angle of this, and
Speaker 5: that's something that we've seen throughout this show, is these
Speaker 5: these massive banners hanging everywhere about how Cees is where.
Speaker 3: Innovators show up.
Speaker 5: Sure, yeah, absolutely, And and how everything's based around innovation
Speaker 5: and creativity, and this is where everything descends from. And
Speaker 5: this sort of like like tech idealism that the world
Speaker 5: is based around these concepts of innovation and creativity. And
Speaker 5: they do not mention any any physical way that actually
Speaker 5: comes into the world or the sort of mechanisms of
Speaker 5: the world that allow innovation to take And then we've
Speaker 5: been talking a lot about this the past like two days.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all we're solving all the problems of
Speaker 1: the world and we're fixing everything, and it's all eternal sunshine.
Speaker 1: And where that comes from is innovation and creativity. But
Speaker 1: those are just yeah, totally abstract quantities. There's not even
Speaker 1: a subject given of like innovators. Well, who who is that?
Speaker 4: Ye are the product you're innovating?
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you is that? The owner? Is that the
Speaker 1: workers who make it? I mean, no mention of labor
Speaker 1: at any point in any of this, which I mean
Speaker 1: that's a given, but.
Speaker 4: Well that's not true. They talked about all the labories
Speaker 4: you can.
Speaker 1: Replace, Yeah, all right, you can. We don't need them.
Speaker 1: It's the innovation is is drawn the full circle, it
Speaker 1: produces itself. Now, yeah, just this abstract quantum of I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is kind of interesting. It does become a
Speaker 1: blur of like who is the magical font producing all
Speaker 1: of this stuff? It almost it's sometimes it almost seems
Speaker 1: like it's the consumer. It's sort of suggesting is like
Speaker 1: it's actually you who creates all of this. It was
Speaker 1: very vague, very strange.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: We went to that one panel about like trying to
Speaker 5: address underserved people who are who are like cut out
Speaker 5: of tech and like cut out of cut out of
Speaker 5: all of these industries.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was very nondescript about who exactly
Speaker 1: that was. Yeah, they had people talking for that are
Speaker 1: paralyzed veterans, someone from the NAACP, and I mean it
Speaker 1: was just one again, there was no actual discussion of
Speaker 1: the social relationships behind technology. It was just entirely about
Speaker 1: this technology is here, it is the first priority, so
Speaker 1: everything else has to follow after. And yeah, very very
Speaker 1: unclear about they They would all talk about what technology
Speaker 1: could be used for, but entirely nondescript about where that
Speaker 1: process comes from, who's making those decisions, where those centers
Speaker 1: of power are.
Speaker 2: The reach to have an for existing brands and companies
Speaker 2: that make real things to have an AI angle was
Speaker 2: the most obvious and tortured thing that I saw, And
Speaker 2: like one of my favorite booths every year is the
Speaker 2: Jackery booth. Jacquery makes batteries and solar panels, and they
Speaker 2: make pretty good batteries and solar panels for like expeditions
Speaker 2: for camping, like the rugged that they can and I
Speaker 2: use them.
Speaker 4: They're good products.
Speaker 2: And this year they had the new addition of all
Speaker 2: their batteries and the new edition of all their solar panels,
Speaker 2: and as generally happens with technology, everything's a little better
Speaker 2: than it was last year. But there's not much room
Speaker 2: for AI aside from like the batteries have AI, by
Speaker 2: which they mean there's like a learning algorithm that can
Speaker 2: determine like how to optimize aspects.
Speaker 4: Of like power draw or whatever.
Speaker 2: Like Sure, that's not really AI in the way that
Speaker 2: the AI industry means it, but I'm sure sounds real.
Speaker 2: But because that wasn't enough, they had this thing that
Speaker 2: they called their Mars rover, which was not a Mars rover.
Speaker 2: I don't think we'll ever go on Mars. Does not
Speaker 2: look like it could survive on Mars, but it is
Speaker 2: a rover that is a big battery on wheels that
Speaker 2: is intelligent and can drive itself and has solar panels
Speaker 2: that slide out, and the use case for this it
Speaker 2: will travel around and can go to where the sun
Speaker 2: is in order to charge itself up and then head
Speaker 2: to you to offer you outlets when you're doing work.
Speaker 4: And it's like, is a robot that moves? Really? I
Speaker 4: can see like two points in my life where I
Speaker 4: might have gotten used. Who's gonna buy this for?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 4: Where will it be deployed?
Speaker 2: It just roams around outside, this expensive machine that does
Speaker 2: not look like it should get rained on too much,
Speaker 2: and finds the sun to charge itself up and then
Speaker 2: heads over to you to charge device. It can't charge
Speaker 2: a home. It doesn't power a house. It's like a
Speaker 2: little robot.
Speaker 3: Is it really camping?
Speaker 4: I don't know. That was unclear.
Speaker 2: They showed it being used and they showed it as
Speaker 2: like I'm outside and using power tools.
Speaker 4: The robot came up to me so I could plug
Speaker 4: in and like, I guess.
Speaker 3: You could take like the park. You could take it
Speaker 3: to the park.
Speaker 4: But it's big.
Speaker 3: It is pretty big.
Speaker 2: It's like a sizeable machine. It probably weighed eighty pounds
Speaker 2: and again like, it's impressive that it can go seek
Speaker 2: out the sun to charge itself up. It's impressive that
Speaker 2: you could like call it or like call it with
Speaker 2: an app and it will come over to you. And
Speaker 2: there's an outlet. Who what is the Who will buy this?
Speaker 2: Why when that is not one?
Speaker 4: Again?
Speaker 2: I can think working in my yard, working out, you know,
Speaker 2: when I'm shearing the goats or whatever, I have had
Speaker 2: to carry a battery with me because there's not an
Speaker 2: outlet out there and the shears need a battery. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess it would be easier if the robot moved there.
Speaker 2: But this has to be like twenty thousand dollars. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna buy a robot to do that. I can
Speaker 2: just pick up a battery and walk with it one
Speaker 2: hundred feet. Who will use this? Why it's not going
Speaker 2: to Mars? I assure you it's not going to Mars. Again,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want it to be left out in the rain.
Speaker 2: And I love the Jaggery products. They make good stuff.
Speaker 2: And the fact that like, yeah, you clearly scrambled to
Speaker 2: make this, that you had a thing that can compete
Speaker 2: with all the other AI things, And I wish you
Speaker 2: were just devoting your lifes to making better solar panels,
Speaker 2: which is what I want from you.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I'm just curious are the companies here. Are they profitable?
Speaker 1: Like do they?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean some of them, some of them, but a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean some of them are funded with VC money
Speaker 2: and have not made a profit. Some of them are
Speaker 2: funded from VC money and have been losing money for years.
Speaker 2: And then there's also like like Lenovo makes it's a company,
Speaker 2: it makes a profit. They make products people buy, you know,
Speaker 2: Jaggery makes products people buy.
Speaker 5: There's also a lot of startups like the Eureka Park
Speaker 5: section that we've been referring to, like the stuff in
Speaker 5: the bottom floor of the Venetian that there's you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of startup companies who are looking for investors
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it is definitely a mix.
Speaker 5: Some of them are trying to do like business business sales,
Speaker 5: some of them are more consumer facing, some of them
Speaker 5: are looking for investors. Some of them are profitable, and
Speaker 5: other ones are trying to boost their sacer price by
Speaker 5: being here, kind of like.
Speaker 3: Kloyd at LG.
Speaker 5: But I think what's really important is that everyone here
Speaker 5: is an innovator, and you know, why we know that
Speaker 5: they're an innovators because they've shown up and only innovators
Speaker 5: show up here and they're the real the driving force
Speaker 5: of the economy.
Speaker 2: And I was feeling bad about myself until I saw
Speaker 2: that band in realize that I am an innovator.
Speaker 3: You know you are an innovator.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I showed up and I figured out how to be
Speaker 2: the guy on the most kratim at the at the
Speaker 2: CEO show floor.
Speaker 5: No, I mean CS is so is so interesting to
Speaker 5: be innovated, Like it runs on both on this like
Speaker 5: technology idealism where everything is based on people geniuses. You know,
Speaker 5: your Steve Jobs having like an id Staates job, and
Speaker 5: he is the innovator and everything descends from the idea
Speaker 5: that is like the thing is like this like tech platonism,
Speaker 5: so like this is one side of it. You also
Speaker 5: have like the tech accelerationists at CES, where it's like
Speaker 5: they occupy this position of being so pro technology no
Speaker 5: matter whatever downsides is the current iteration might have because
Speaker 5: they need someone to hold that position in order for
Speaker 5: this thing to move forward. They know that there's concerns
Speaker 5: around data protection, but their opinion is that it doesn't
Speaker 5: matter there is problems there, but we we the people
Speaker 5: here at CES, the innovators, need to ignore them because
Speaker 5: we have to push forward. And this is like, this
Speaker 5: is what like the Austrian Secretary of State said that
Speaker 5: at that one panel I went to. It's like data
Speaker 5: protection is a problem, but in a but like it
Speaker 5: gets in the way of innovation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's that's literally literally what he said.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so you have you have this like this
Speaker 5: this like tech optimistic like acceleration like viewpoint of like
Speaker 5: technology will be better, but in order for it's to
Speaker 5: be better and safe. Essentially, it's it's it's gonna g's
Speaker 5: kind of shitty and has some problems now, but we
Speaker 5: need to push forward through that all the way, Like
Speaker 5: we can't, we can't, we can't go slowly.
Speaker 3: It has it has to go forward.
Speaker 5: So they adopt this this viewpoint because like they need
Speaker 5: someone to hold this like tech optimism viewpoint in order
Speaker 5: for the process to like unfold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something strangely clear eyed about that in the
Speaker 1: way that it's like, yeah, if I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: limiting your view to the system of capitalism, yeah, the
Speaker 1: whole thing goes into crisis. If you are not squeezing
Speaker 1: a little more juice out of the orange. Uh And
Speaker 1: if this is what it takes to do that, then
Speaker 1: then full steam ahead. They're lucid about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know what else is lucid us saying
Speaker 2: it's time to end this fucking podcast.
Speaker 5: Goodbye, another CES miracle. We have kind of survived.
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