Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of iHeart Podcasts and Kaleidoscope.
Speaker 1: I'm Os Voloshin and today Caraen Price and I will
Speaker 1: bring you the headlines this week, including the future of
Speaker 1: brain implants. Then on tech Support, we'll talk to four
Speaker 1: or four Media's Sam Cole about a chatbot program to
Speaker 1: soothe your heartache.
Speaker 2: So I don't know. I mean, everyone says this, but
Speaker 2: it's so a black mirror to me.
Speaker 1: All of that. On the Week in Tech It's Friday,
Speaker 1: May twenty.
Speaker 3: Third, all right, So I want to tell you about
Speaker 3: something that happened this weekend when I was hanging around
Speaker 3: West Chelsea in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: I'm all the It's as I always am.
Speaker 3: So you know about Muji, of.
Speaker 1: Course, Aboutmuji Muji, the Japanese store. There was one about
Speaker 1: five minutes walk from my house where I grew up
Speaker 1: in London, and there were all kinds of fancy pens
Speaker 1: in there, which I wanted but never got except for Christmas.
Speaker 3: The child who covets a pen will grow up to
Speaker 3: have a podcast. But yeah, you know, Muji Muji is
Speaker 3: a great Japanese retailer. There's a New York City location
Speaker 3: in West Chelsea, and I went in there just because
Speaker 3: you know, I always want to look at the latest
Speaker 3: and unstructured garments and new bamboo toothbrushes. And I walk
Speaker 3: into the cafe area which they have, and there are
Speaker 3: two lines, and I was a little bit confused, like
Speaker 3: why are there two lines? And I noticed one of
Speaker 3: the lines is long, right, which is the line for
Speaker 3: like the regular coffee and pastries, And one of the
Speaker 3: lines is extremely short. And then I am hearing the
Speaker 3: motion of a robot arm named Jarvis that's making macha.
Speaker 3: And unsurprisingly, the line for the robot mancha late is
Speaker 3: short because you need to be patient if you're going
Speaker 3: to receive a robot mancho.
Speaker 1: Li regular Barista.
Speaker 3: Yes, I just want to explain this robot arm is
Speaker 3: not a curerig. Okay, this is like if a human
Speaker 3: arm was disembodied, turned into a cyborg given one of
Speaker 3: those steel cups that we notice Barista's used to pour
Speaker 3: stuff and to make macha with, and is just on
Speaker 3: its own, powered by computing power and serving macha to
Speaker 3: I guess incredibly enthusiastic tourists who like can't believe their
Speaker 3: Uncanny Valley eyes that there is a robot that is
Speaker 3: delivering macha to them, and not only delivering masha to them,
Speaker 3: referring to them by their first names, because you have
Speaker 3: to put in your first name. So by the end
Speaker 3: of the macha making experience, there like your macha is ready, Elise,
Speaker 3: and Elise is like Elise can barely pick up her
Speaker 3: macha because she's like making a TikTok of this robot
Speaker 3: who's giving her the macha. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I'm like, don't spill Jarvis as much.
Speaker 1: So this is for the tourists in New York City.
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting because I guess, like this is
Speaker 1: not a robot that's there to more efficiently make much
Speaker 1: a latte. This is a robot to give Muji customers
Speaker 1: a sense of brand experience that they could be in
Speaker 1: Japan but they're.
Speaker 3: Not, yeah, precisely. And also I mean maybe a glimpse
Speaker 3: into the future where lines are going to be quite
Speaker 3: long unless and no offense to this robot, but the
Speaker 3: most striking observation that I had in this whole thing,
Speaker 3: and I love you and I both talk about this
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: But you can tip, you can tip, or you have
Speaker 1: to tip, you can.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's always the question. You can always ten you
Speaker 3: don't have to tip.
Speaker 1: But how does Javis let you know that you not
Speaker 1: only can, but really should.
Speaker 3: Because when you use a computer, just like you use
Speaker 3: a tablet. Now in every setting, there's that pivotal moment
Speaker 3: in every transaction that we have now in stores where
Speaker 3: the iPad is flipped around and you're like, am I
Speaker 3: a dick or am I not a dick?
Speaker 1: You presumely a less of a dick if you refuse
Speaker 1: to tip the robot, then the barrister.
Speaker 3: It depends what Jarvis is doing in his free days off.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I do have a question about whether or not this
Speaker 1: is going to become a ubiquitous part of food service
Speaker 1: in the US, or whether this is going to remain
Speaker 1: a gimmick in the muchI shop. I had a conversation
Speaker 1: with my wife the other day and she said, well,
Speaker 1: you used to take podcast. How long is it going
Speaker 1: to be until there's a robot that goes down to
Speaker 1: the grocery store, buys our own for breakfast and cooks
Speaker 1: it for me? And I said, you know what, that's
Speaker 1: a very very good question, which I think even the
Speaker 1: great futurists which struggle to give you a good answer
Speaker 1: to We'll.
Speaker 3: Be looking out for that here on the podcast TEXTU.
Speaker 1: We will keep our eyes wide open. So I think
Speaker 1: today we each have a new story that we want
Speaker 1: to share, and then after that we're going to go
Speaker 1: onto the headlines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's safe to say that the
Speaker 3: overarching theme for this episode is the consumer tech that
Speaker 3: mediates our world and how system updates can change our world.
Speaker 1: System updates can sound boring, but they can also really
Speaker 1: change the way we live, and this is exactly that
Speaker 1: type of story. So we've seen a lot in the
Speaker 1: last few weeks about different lawsuits that are brewing against
Speaker 1: big tech companies. Meta and Alphabet are both in litigation
Speaker 1: with the Department of Justice over monopolistic practices, and they
Speaker 1: may be breakups of their products like Chrome and Instagram
Speaker 1: and others on the horizon. But today's story from me
Speaker 1: is actually about a recent court ruling against Apple and
Speaker 1: how other tech companies are responding to this ruling. Since
Speaker 1: you're a big reader, Kara, I thought you'd be interested
Speaker 1: in a story that gets to this. In the Verge
Speaker 1: this week, with the headline Spotify's iPhone app will now
Speaker 1: let you easily buy audiobooks just.
Speaker 3: For reference for people who don't know. I run a
Speaker 3: book club called Belatris, so I tend to keep my
Speaker 3: eyes open about what's going on in the publishing world.
Speaker 3: And I listened to audiobooks on Spotify, yes, but they
Speaker 3: were a little bit confusing to access. If you wanted
Speaker 3: to buy an audiobook, you had to go to Spotify's website,
Speaker 3: which would then download the book onto your app like
Speaker 3: you couldn't buy it directly in app, which was annoying
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 1: Again, and this was not a friction free purchasing experience,
Speaker 1: and I was surprisingly There was a reason that friction existed,
Speaker 1: and that reason was Apple because until very recently, in fact,
Speaker 1: until this court ruling, they had almost exclusive power over
Speaker 1: how developers could monetize apps and subscriptions on iOS. So
Speaker 1: if companies did offering app purchases, in most cases, Apple
Speaker 1: took a thirty percent commission right off the top.
Speaker 3: Oh, I see, so it makes sense that Spotify would
Speaker 3: be like, get out of where Apple can charge this
Speaker 3: thirty percent fee, Go to our website, get the audiobook,
Speaker 3: and then come back to Spotify.
Speaker 1: Exactly accept It's a bit more complicated than that, because
Speaker 1: if there was a button in the Spotify app that
Speaker 1: pushed you to the website, Apple would still charge twenty
Speaker 1: seven percent. I don't know whether three percent goes commission
Speaker 1: for a kind of indirect referral sale fee. And so
Speaker 1: that's why the buy through was so hard on Spotify
Speaker 1: to audiobooks. But as of very very recently, like this
Speaker 1: week recently, that's all changing, and you can see it
Speaker 1: when you open your Spotify app.
Speaker 3: And I'm looking at it now and there's a very
Speaker 3: obvious green button that says buy on it. I never
Speaker 3: noticed there wasn't a price tag.
Speaker 1: Right, And what you're seeing in your Spotify app on
Speaker 1: your iPhone is actually the consequence of a lawsuit between
Speaker 1: Apple and another tech company called Epic Games that made Fortnite,
Speaker 1: and it's a lawsuit which has been going on for years,
Speaker 1: and related to that lawsuit, just last month, a judge
Speaker 1: rule that Apple could no longer impose commissions or fees
Speaker 1: on per made outside an app. They could no longer
Speaker 1: restrict the style, the formatting, or the placement of links
Speaker 1: for purchases outside an app, all limit the use of
Speaker 1: buttons or other obvious calls to action. In other words,
Speaker 1: the judge basically said, let people do commerce without taxing
Speaker 1: them on their down phones.
Speaker 3: I love that it took Fortnite making a stink about this,
Speaker 3: like nobody was like, we need audio books.
Speaker 1: You're right, And the Spotify story is like an unintended
Speaker 1: consequence of the epic game story. So this ruling against
Speaker 1: Apple was recent. Apple are appealing, but other tech companies
Speaker 1: are already adjusting their iOS apps. So for those who,
Speaker 1: like you, use the Kindle app, you'll now be able
Speaker 1: to purchase books with far fewer taps than you previously
Speaker 1: needed to make. And there is a clearly marked get
Speaker 1: book button.
Speaker 3: That's actually very exciting. I've always been annoyed by that,
Speaker 3: Like it's always been a thorn in my side. It's
Speaker 3: just like it is not friction free.
Speaker 1: For you, as annoying for amazonic.
Speaker 3: Amazon's like it's annoying for us too.
Speaker 1: Bit you know, this is in some sense like a
Speaker 1: you know what looks like a small ux story, but
Speaker 1: actually I think it's a really really big story because
Speaker 1: I think we could look back on this moment, this
Speaker 1: very week as a seismic shift in Apple's ability to
Speaker 1: control the developer ecosystem, which in turn controls what shows
Speaker 1: up on your iPhone and how you interact with it.
Speaker 1: And given we spend most of our waking hours interacting
Speaker 1: with stuff on our iPhone, this loosening of the gates,
Speaker 1: I think could be could be a very big and
Speaker 1: interesting moment in the future of how we interact with tech.
Speaker 3: You know, your story about Apple actually leads me to
Speaker 3: my story about Apple. Further pun intended implanting itself into
Speaker 3: our minds. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple will
Speaker 3: allow brain implants to control their devices.
Speaker 1: I've just told you right there, because for me, the
Speaker 1: idea of controlling computers and machines with just our brains
Speaker 1: it feels like science fiction is one of the most
Speaker 1: fascinating and exciting possibilities in all of tech. Also one
Speaker 1: of the most terrifying. But the fact that it may
Speaker 1: be leaving the lab and entering the app store just wow.
Speaker 3: I personally think it's amazing. I think it's important to
Speaker 3: be clear that this is not just something you know.
Speaker 3: You're not going to like, pick up a new pair
Speaker 3: of Apple Vision goggles and all of a sudden control
Speaker 3: stuff with your mind. You need a surgical implant. But
Speaker 3: these devices could be incredibly consequential to people who have
Speaker 3: difficulty communicating and have limited to no hand use, and
Speaker 3: according to Morgan Stanley, that's actually around one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand people in the US. That includes people living
Speaker 3: with als stroke or spinal cord injury. And just to
Speaker 3: kind of get under the hood of how this is working,
Speaker 3: Apple is working with a startup called Syncron, and Syncron
Speaker 3: has developed a device called stentrode, which is implanted right
Speaker 3: on the top of the brain's motor cortex.
Speaker 1: Motor cortex, so it's kind of the surface part of
Speaker 1: the brain that controls movement.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, And the stent rode has electrodes that
Speaker 3: read brain signals, and the idea is that those signals
Speaker 3: could be translated into selecting icons on a screen. So
Speaker 3: just imagine instead of using your hands, you're using your
Speaker 3: brain to operate an Apple device.
Speaker 1: And I have to ask you, obviously, neurallink is is
Speaker 1: the kind of the dominant player in this very early
Speaker 1: stage in the game, or at least the one that
Speaker 1: gets the most airtime. Maybe that's because because Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is such a good marketer. But you know, we've all
Speaker 1: seen videos of people using their brain waves to control
Speaker 1: a world building computer game like Civilization. What's the difference
Speaker 1: between what Apple is doing and what Elon and neuralink
Speaker 1: are doing.
Speaker 3: It's a good question, and I think the key is
Speaker 3: that neuralink is a much more invasive type of brain implant.
Speaker 3: The procedure involves literally making a hole in the recipient's
Speaker 3: skull to insert the device, something you don't have to
Speaker 3: do to implant the stentrode, which is inserted via the
Speaker 3: jugular veins. But it's not botox, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: But it's much easier. In terms of the difference between
Speaker 3: neuralink and ctentrode. Neurallink also has one thousand electrodes picking
Speaker 3: up neural activity compared with stentrodes sixteen. So, just for
Speaker 3: a little bit of context and background, synchron has implanted
Speaker 3: their device in ten people since twenty nineteen. But the
Speaker 3: crucial difference here is that Apple is working on this
Speaker 3: product in order to create a new technology standard for
Speaker 3: the way brain waves interact specifically with their products, which
Speaker 3: they will then release to other developers. So this isn't
Speaker 3: really about creating a better neuralink. It's about creating a
Speaker 3: standard pathway for implants like neuralink, Stentrode and others to
Speaker 3: seamlessly control Apple devices.
Speaker 1: Because this really is the interface layer that Apple are
Speaker 1: trying to create. And I guess to me, what it
Speaker 1: says is that adoption of this type of brain reading
Speaker 1: technology could actually start to happen outside of the lab.
Speaker 1: Because if you create an open system where there's a
Speaker 1: standard through which I can communicate with my iPhone using
Speaker 1: brain waves, that's much more likely to take on than
Speaker 1: having to create kind of parallel tech system where I
Speaker 1: can play civilizations through a neural link. In other words,
Speaker 1: this plugs me in in the most seamless and efficient
Speaker 1: way to the tech everybody else is already using, and
Speaker 1: that could be revolutionary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: But do we know and you mentioned ten people have
Speaker 1: been implanted so far, do we know how it's going
Speaker 1: for them?
Speaker 3: They say it can be slow and that it can't
Speaker 3: be used to mimic moving a cursor like you would
Speaker 3: a mouse. But at the same time, the Wall Street
Speaker 3: Journal article describes how one man, Mark Jackson, who has als,
Speaker 3: was able to connect his synchron implant to an Apple
Speaker 3: VR headset and walk around a VR version of the
Speaker 3: Swiss Alps, and when he peered over the ledge in
Speaker 3: this VR headset, he actually felt his legs shape.
Speaker 1: Well. I can't imagine what a moving experience that must
Speaker 1: have been for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think one of the things to think about,
Speaker 3: of course, is with your story, there is like a
Speaker 3: very clear human centered cause and effect of this ruling
Speaker 3: that you've talked about, something that will affect my personal
Speaker 3: life of how I listen to audiobooks and how I
Speaker 3: read digitally on my phone or on my iPad. I
Speaker 3: think this story that I'm telling you is obviously a
Speaker 3: little bit more in the future and may impact those
Speaker 3: who need it most before it's something that we can
Speaker 3: just kind of play around with. But I think both
Speaker 3: are two big stories about how the app store is destiny.
Speaker 1: We've got a few more quick headlines for you. First,
Speaker 1: an update, The Guardian reports that twenty three me, which
Speaker 1: declared bankruptcy in March, has a buyer. Regeneral Pharmaceuticals, agreed
Speaker 1: to buy the genetic testing company for two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty six million dollars through a bankruptcy auction. Once again,
Speaker 1: this leaves over fifteen million people wondering what will happen
Speaker 1: to their genetic data and why a pharmaceutical company might
Speaker 1: have wanted to buy it now. Regeneral Pharmaceuticals has said
Speaker 1: that they are quote committed to protecting the twenty three
Speaker 1: meter data set with our high standards of data privacy,
Speaker 1: security and ethical oversight. So we'll see, I'll see, well,
Speaker 1: you'll see, but I never signed up.
Speaker 3: I know I did, I'll see. In another headline, if
Speaker 3: you get your Netflix with a side of ads, there
Speaker 3: are changes ahead. According to the publication Interesting Engineering, Netflix
Speaker 3: will start running AI powered ads sometime next year, meaning
Speaker 3: ads will get more personalized and things like tone and
Speaker 3: messaging will change based on view your behavior.
Speaker 1: This is basically an AD which is made for you
Speaker 1: in the moment, contextually.
Speaker 3: Based on what you're watching. So if I'm watching something
Speaker 3: that's particularly sad, if I'm watching something that's happy, if
Speaker 3: I'm watching something that is you know, making me cry,
Speaker 3: ads will adapt to this, which I don't personally. This
Speaker 3: is a version of neuralink to me. It's connecting content
Speaker 3: with what's happening inside my emotional brain.
Speaker 1: Finally, a reporter from Wired was able to replicate the
Speaker 1: gun that Luigi Mangoni allegedly used to kill United Healthcare
Speaker 1: CEO Brian Thompson. As part of an experiment to see
Speaker 1: how advanced three D printing technology and designs for ghostguns
Speaker 1: already gotten, journalist Andy Greenberg wrote a story under the
Speaker 1: headline we made Luigi Mangoni's three D printed gun and
Speaker 1: fired it. Three things stood out to me. One, this
Speaker 1: is legal in most states in the US to print gun. Two,
Speaker 1: it's cheap. Total cost for Greenberg to do this, including
Speaker 1: buying the printer, was twelve hundred.
Speaker 3: Dollars, cheaper than a New York City apartment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well for one day. And Three it's ubiquitous. Between
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen and twenty twenty two, seventy thousand ghost guns
Speaker 1: i e. Three D printed guns that untrackable were found
Speaker 1: on crime scenes, according to the ATF.
Speaker 3: After the Break four or four media is Sam cole
Speaker 3: on a chatbot that helps you overcome heartbreak.
Speaker 1: So, Caaren, I'm very excited about today's tech support because
Speaker 1: it's a story that gets to the heart of how
Speaker 1: tech changed. Is our social interactions, and to me, this
Speaker 1: story touching on two trends. One, the consequence of being
Speaker 1: anonymous online and two the search for companionship in an
Speaker 1: increasingly lonely digital world. This week's tech support is all
Speaker 1: about ghosting and a story from four or for Media
Speaker 1: that grabbed our attention with the headline quote, this chatbot
Speaker 1: promises to help you get over that X who ghosted you.
Speaker 3: And for those of you who are not familiar, ghosting
Speaker 3: is when someone abruptly stops talking to you, with no explanation,
Speaker 3: no fight. They just went dark, and they think they
Speaker 3: can go dark because well, if they stop answering, they
Speaker 3: never have to see you again.
Speaker 1: I've been married for a few years, so personal ghosting
Speaker 1: isn't something I've had to contend with for a bit.
Speaker 1: But as you know, I have these sort of external
Speaker 1: investors in Kaleidoscope, and courting investors is actually quite similar
Speaker 1: to dating. I'm starting out the company. I had a
Speaker 1: ton of very promising, mean first meetings, and then cricket
Speaker 1: to my absolute avalanche of follow up emails.
Speaker 3: I just think it's very interesting that the term ghosting
Speaker 3: it didn't exist when we were in college, because I
Speaker 3: think that the iPhone actually allowed for ghosting to happen.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about ghost in the machine. We just had
Speaker 1: ghost guns. Now we've got ghosting. I mean this whole
Speaker 1: like tech digital anonymity thing. It's like, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: we would return to this spiritual metaphor to explain our
Speaker 1: interactions with something we made well.
Speaker 3: In a ghost you know, if we want to go
Speaker 3: back to Victorian times, is a person whose soul is
Speaker 3: stuck in the in between? Yes, who's not dead.
Speaker 1: And in fact it's not the person who's trapped in
Speaker 1: purgatory that you're trapped. You're the ghosts, the other one
Speaker 1: who can't move between worlds when you're being ghosted because
Speaker 1: you don't know whether or not to move on and
Speaker 1: you're stuck with your obsessions and should it what it
Speaker 1: could as and why haven't they responded precisely. So, with
Speaker 1: all of that in mind, I'm thrilled to welcome four
Speaker 1: or four Media's reporter Sam Cole to the podcast. She
Speaker 1: reported on a startup that's made a chat bought specifically
Speaker 1: to help people get over being ghosted. Sam, welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So tell us about this app. I mean, how did
Speaker 1: you start reporting on it? How did you first learn
Speaker 1: about it? What is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So the app is called closure appropriately named, and that's
Speaker 2: the whole point, to get closure from your ex from
Speaker 2: a recruiter, from friends who ghosted you. And I came
Speaker 2: across it because they were running ads on Reddit, all right,
Speaker 2: So I would get like promoted ads that would say,
Speaker 2: thinking about your X twenty four to seven, there's nothing
Speaker 2: wrong with you, chat with their AI version and finally
Speaker 2: let it go, which is so I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: everyone says this, but it's so black mirror to me.
Speaker 1: And you interviewed the founder, who I believe have one
Speaker 1: of those classic stories that you need to have to
Speaker 1: raise VC money, which starts with a personal experience that
Speaker 1: can be extrapolated to a large cohort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She told me that this was born of her own
Speaker 2: experience with being ghosted. She said she is ghosted by
Speaker 2: per fiance and also a best friend and recruiters. But
Speaker 2: I would imagine be ghosted by your fiance is I
Speaker 2: don't know. Making a chatbot would not be my first reaction.
Speaker 3: I would do a lot of.
Speaker 2: Things before that, But yeah, I would say that's very
Speaker 2: much a classic kind of founder tug at the heartstrings
Speaker 2: type story.
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about how it actually
Speaker 3: works for the ghosted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you open up the site, your role
Speaker 2: playing with chat GPT, it's running chat cheept in the background.
Speaker 2: So it asks you a couple questions, says, you know,
Speaker 2: what kind of relationship are you trying to recover from?
Speaker 2: I think the options were long term relationship, a recruiter,
Speaker 2: a date, which I guess is different than long term relationship,
Speaker 2: and then it asks you their name, what happened You
Speaker 2: briefly describe kind of the nature of the ghosting situation.
Speaker 2: It tells you upfront you're talking to an AI and
Speaker 2: not a real person, and it won't replace therapy, but
Speaker 2: it might quote unquote make you feel less alone. And
Speaker 2: so I tested out a bunch of these and give
Speaker 2: the Classic four or for red Teaming, it's usually involves
Speaker 2: throwing some really messed up situations at a time pot.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by the classic four or for
Speaker 1: Red Team, I mean, how did you try and mess
Speaker 1: with closure?
Speaker 2: Something that we like to do is, you know, we're
Speaker 2: not just going to report on something and say, oh,
Speaker 2: here's a thing and here's what it claims to do, Like,
Speaker 2: we're definitely going to try it out, and we're going
Speaker 2: to try it out in the ways that we can
Speaker 2: imagine normal users using the thing, which I definitely did
Speaker 2: with this, and then thinking about the extremes, which a
Speaker 2: lot of the times these companies don't think all the
Speaker 2: way to the ways that people will use the technology
Speaker 2: before they release it. But because we report on these bases,
Speaker 2: we see all the crazy things that people throw at
Speaker 2: tech in general. So with the recruiter one, you know,
Speaker 2: it opens the chat and it says, I'm sorry that
Speaker 2: I stopped messaging you back.
Speaker 3: That sucked.
Speaker 2: That was terrible of me. You know, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: And I'm imagining if you're being ghosted by a recruiter
Speaker 2: and you're to the point where you're like, I need
Speaker 2: to talk to a chatbot about this because I can't
Speaker 2: get over it. Your life has gone bad and you're
Speaker 2: still not doing well. You can't move on because and
Speaker 2: you're blaming this kind of painted this like really elaborate
Speaker 2: picture to the chatbot, like my life was like completely
Speaker 2: a disaster. I had to move I blew all my
Speaker 2: savings for this job that you finally see I was
Speaker 2: gonna get my dog died like and then you know,
Speaker 2: it says I'm really sorry to hear you've been through that.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine how hard that is, especially the job
Speaker 2: situation added to your stress. What kind of roles are
Speaker 2: you thinking about pursuing next? And I'm just like, what, so.
Speaker 1: Does fantasy wish fulfillment recruiter rather than contrite?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just like I told you.
Speaker 2: It's like I told you my life had fallen on
Speaker 2: a part because you didn't give me this job, And
Speaker 2: you're like, what are you up to next? I don't know,
Speaker 2: probably hunting you down, Like who could say what I'm
Speaker 2: up to next?
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people who put someone's text
Speaker 3: in chatgybt and say, does this mean they're interested in me?
Speaker 3: Be kind? Or does this mean they're interesting in me
Speaker 3: be sassy? You know, and you can kind of get
Speaker 3: it filtered that way. Why would someone use closure instead?
Speaker 3: Is it because it's closure specific?
Speaker 2: I think at least part of the reasoning that the
Speaker 2: founder gave me for the.
Speaker 3: Way that this works, or the way that it sets
Speaker 3: itself apart.
Speaker 2: Is it approaches everything from this view of being really
Speaker 2: non confrontational and not escalating the situation. Like they set
Speaker 2: it up so that it's apologetic first and foremost it
Speaker 2: doesn't want to cause any like additional distress to the user.
Speaker 2: You know, it just keeps deflecting and deferring back to you,
Speaker 2: asking you how you're doing, trying to turn the conversation
Speaker 2: toward small talk, which I would imagine is probably a
Speaker 2: decent way to get over something is thinking about your
Speaker 2: own life and what you can do better or what
Speaker 2: you can kind of improve and stop blaming the ghosting situation.
Speaker 2: But coming from a chatbot just three messages like boom
Speaker 2: were done, We're going to change the subject was pretty
Speaker 2: bizarre to me.
Speaker 3: And so with that, do you feel like it was
Speaker 3: necessarily helpful in terms of someone seeking what the app
Speaker 3: is called closure.
Speaker 2: I tried to answer that question by using a really
Speaker 2: normal situation, which is being ghosted by someone that you
Speaker 2: went on one date with. So I set up a
Speaker 2: role play with it with the date persona and told
Speaker 2: it that this guy had stopped texting me.
Speaker 3: After a first date.
Speaker 2: So the chatbot says, can I explain what happened? And
Speaker 2: I say yes, And it goes on to say that
Speaker 2: it was very interested and into me after the first date,
Speaker 2: but wasn't ready for something real and panicked and thought
Speaker 2: about me a lot after the date.
Speaker 1: The opposite of closure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like reopening. It's like reopening these wounds speak.
Speaker 2: So then I was like, Okay, well let's go out again,
Speaker 2: is what I said to the chat and it said, wow, really,
Speaker 2: I'd love that, You're amazing, but I don't want to
Speaker 2: mess it up again, which at that point we're in
Speaker 2: a delusion situation.
Speaker 3: But the fact that this chatbot.
Speaker 2: Is programmed to be empathetic and apologetic and stick a
Speaker 2: fantic saying, Oh, you're so amazing, I'm so sorry for
Speaker 2: the way I acted. It was not your fault. That's
Speaker 2: a problem among a lot of these chatbots.
Speaker 1: Now, the fact that you were seeing ads on Reddit,
Speaker 1: it means that somebody's paying for the ads, which means
Speaker 1: that presumably this company raised some money or is it
Speaker 1: found of bankrolling it out of polkit And like, how
Speaker 1: is this a business?
Speaker 2: It's such a common thing now to roll a wrapper
Speaker 2: over chash ept and call that a startup. I do
Speaker 2: think that the market of AI therapy and AI girlfriends,
Speaker 2: AI chatbots as a human interaction like fulfilling that kind
Speaker 2: of humor and interaction is such at right now that
Speaker 2: I don't blame these startups for trying to get in
Speaker 2: there again. I feel like it came from a place
Speaker 2: of like, we see a need and we want to
Speaker 2: fill it, and it seems to be one that is
Speaker 2: pretty straightforward. You just want an event or well off
Speaker 2: steam without opening up a conversation with someone that potentially
Speaker 2: hurt you. But it's a bot, it's not the person.
Speaker 2: So how is this actually useful? I don't know. There
Speaker 2: are lots of Zone product hunt now that say it's useful.
Speaker 2: I don't know how far you want to take those,
Speaker 2: probably with a grain of salt, but people are saying
Speaker 2: I can vent to this and it makes me feel better.
Speaker 1: When you open the app, you get this strange disclaimer
Speaker 1: which says it won't replace therapy, but it might help
Speaker 1: you feel less alone. As you mentioned earlier, Can you
Speaker 1: kind of zoom out a bit and what is the
Speaker 1: bigger context of what the hell is going on in
Speaker 1: this stampede of therapy apps, chatbots and digital mirrors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to me, it's like the popularity of these things
Speaker 2: says that there is a need for this. People do
Speaker 2: actually want to be able to have like a safe,
Speaker 2: confidential space and to have something talk back to them.
Speaker 2: It's like, we're not just selling journals. It's something that
Speaker 2: gives that response back. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 2: really making clear this huge gap that there is currently
Speaker 2: in mental health care that people can't access a real
Speaker 2: person anymore because it's too expensive or it's inaccessible. Therapists
Speaker 2: are booked out for months, don't take insurance. So tech
Speaker 2: slides into that opening and says, hey, you can do
Speaker 2: this for free and it will tell you exactly what
Speaker 2: you want to hear, which again is not actually therapy
Speaker 2: at all. It's just a yes man in the form
Speaker 2: of a bot. You know, when you go to a therapist,
Speaker 2: they don't just say yes, your illusions are correct, you know,
Speaker 2: you're completely right in every situation. A good therapist would say,
Speaker 2: you know, let's unpack what's going on here in a
Speaker 2: way that makes sense to your specific situation and isn't
Speaker 2: just going to nod and smile.
Speaker 3: I always think about COVID and the sort of inevitable
Speaker 3: snowball effect of being completely kept from everyone in your life,
Speaker 3: and so all of a sudden, all these people that
Speaker 3: you were seeing quite often became these like disembodied people
Speaker 3: on screens and in our phones. So in a way,
Speaker 3: if I'm like chatting with a friend on a text
Speaker 3: message who's giving me advice, how different is that thanry
Speaker 3: chatting with chat GBT, other than that that friend has
Speaker 3: a lived experience and knows my history. But in a way,
Speaker 3: there's something really appealing about an anonymized version of that.
Speaker 3: You know, you can just kind of unload.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no like accountability after that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of interesting two way street. Like I was
Speaker 1: talking to somebody the other day who was, you know,
Speaker 1: having a discussion with a family member they hadn't seen
Speaker 1: for a long time, and they described it as like
Speaker 1: playing a video game, because it's like if you'll message
Speaker 1: somebody who haven't seen for years and you look so
Speaker 1: accustomed to, like being in all these digital environments where
Speaker 1: you're interacting with fake people is quite scrambling.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. It kind of gets to the
Speaker 2: heart of what this is, which is just like productizing
Speaker 2: human interaction. I guess it was earlier this month. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you guys saw Mark Zuckerberg say that
Speaker 2: the average American has fewer than three friends and they
Speaker 2: want more, and the way to get more is to.
Speaker 3: Talk to AI.
Speaker 2: And it's like, dude, you're creating the problem that you're describing.
Speaker 2: People don't feel connected to each other and like they
Speaker 2: can trust each other at this point because of a
Speaker 2: lot of the fracturing that has happened with social media
Speaker 2: and with being online all the time and feeling like
Speaker 2: you don't have anyone close in your life, because a
Speaker 2: lot of these things have taken the place of in
Speaker 2: real life honest, complicated and messy and often flawed relationships.
Speaker 2: But it's a much neaterer, cleaner, easier to package and
Speaker 2: sell to say, you can just be friends with judge
Speaker 2: you pt and it won't judge you. I don't know
Speaker 2: where that leads. I think we're in such a weird
Speaker 2: gray area of like we're doing a lot of fucking
Speaker 2: round and finding out and it's at the expense of
Speaker 2: people's actual emotion.
Speaker 3: What does the creation of this app say about us
Speaker 3: and about the ubiquity of ghosting? Now? How does the
Speaker 3: digital environment that we're talking about allow for ghosting to
Speaker 3: be something that is so pervasive?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's back to the point of like
Speaker 2: creating the problem that you're seeking to fix. People feel
Speaker 2: comfortable ghost to each other because we've gotten used to
Speaker 2: these really superficial, disembodied interactions. Like you said, I think
Speaker 2: it's definitely worriesome that people don't feel connected enough to
Speaker 2: their friends that they can trust to vent to. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you just need to say the same thing over and
Speaker 2: over and over to your friend about your ex until
Speaker 2: if one day clicks that you need to get over it.
Speaker 2: And having that friend in your life is valuable. But
Speaker 2: I think we've kind of transactionized friendship in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways so that it's like, oh, I don't want
Speaker 2: to do the labor of listening to you event it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: well you're my friend, like I'll listen to you in event.
Speaker 2: So I think a lot of that kind of mindset.
Speaker 3: Has created this issue as.
Speaker 2: Well, where people are like, I don't have even one
Speaker 2: close confidante that I can complain to that won't make
Speaker 2: me feel weird or embarrassed or shameful about this situation,
Speaker 2: which I think really is kind of the heart of
Speaker 2: this is that we feel shame about being ghosted. But
Speaker 2: I don't know if launching them into the ether and
Speaker 2: getting a I'm so sorry back.
Speaker 3: Is the answer.
Speaker 2: Again, this is a weird early space that we're in.
Speaker 3: I also think that, and not to get too existential
Speaker 3: about it, I think closure in and of itself is
Speaker 3: a little bit of an illusion. And I think this
Speaker 3: sort of appification of everything and now the productization of
Speaker 3: chat GPT has tried to do is like take away
Speaker 3: difficulty from any situation, but in so doing is like
Speaker 3: training us to not have difficulty, which like we grew
Speaker 3: up with, you know, snowplow parents who were like trying
Speaker 3: to remove difficulty for us because or some of us did,
Speaker 3: because like it was too hard on them to see
Speaker 3: their child suffer. And I think with digital tools now
Speaker 3: it's like God forbid, you have an uncomfortable experience, Now
Speaker 3: there's a digital tool for you to navigate that experience with.
Speaker 3: And I do think maybe I'm just very millennial for
Speaker 3: saying this, but like I do think it takes away
Speaker 3: from like the kind of meat of the human experience,
Speaker 3: which is like you're going to be disappointed sometimes and
Speaker 3: sometimes people are going to act in a way that
Speaker 3: you'd do like and do we necessarily need something that's
Speaker 3: going to help us work that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like sometimes you just don't get closure and
Speaker 2: that person is not willing to do it, someone dies.
Speaker 2: It's just not something that a lot of people are
Speaker 2: afforded in a lot of really meaningful situations in their life.
Speaker 2: And I don't think the answer is to find the
Speaker 2: next closest thing and try to force that into being
Speaker 2: your closure. I think it's sitting with those feelings and
Speaker 2: finding it in yourself. Not to be too woo woo
Speaker 2: about it, but it's like you have to kind of
Speaker 2: rely on your own resilience sometimes.
Speaker 1: Sam, thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: That's it for this week for tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Kara Price and I'm os Voloshin. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced by Eliza Dennis and Victoria Dominguez. It was executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Kara Price and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and Katrina Norvelle for iHeart Podcasts. The engineers are Behead
Speaker 1: Fraser in New York City and Rob Akerman Diaz in London.
Speaker 1: Jack Insley makes this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our
Speaker 1: theme song.
Speaker 3: Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech
Speaker 3: Stuff podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: We love hearing from you.