Speaker 1: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is tech stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: as Voloscian and I'm care Price. A handful of stories
Speaker 1: stood out to us this week, and they have one
Speaker 1: thing in common. China. First, why Chinese regulators are investigating
Speaker 1: a deal between Meta and an AI company based in Singapore,
Speaker 1: And why everyone on TikTok is drinking hot water, eating
Speaker 1: dim sum and coming out as Chinese.
Speaker 2: Then a few other things that caught our eye this week,
Speaker 2: including a type of factory work where humans are folding
Speaker 2: laundry for hours while humanoid robots watch. Then TikTok wants
Speaker 2: more of your attention, this time in a new app
Speaker 2: hosting microdramas like love at First Bite. And finally, Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley's new favorite hire is a act engineer. Will explain
Speaker 2: what that means.
Speaker 1: All of that on the Weekend Tech. It's Friday, January
Speaker 1: twenty third. Hello Cara, Hello Azzie. How much time do
Speaker 1: you spend thinking about animal intelligence?
Speaker 2: I mean I spend enough time thinking about animals?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not animal intelligence.
Speaker 1: You're getting a dog?
Speaker 2: Well, I had, I was fastering a dog. It got adopted,
Speaker 2: not by you, no, unfortunately, sad. Yeah, I'm sad.
Speaker 1: Well, you can always got it.
Speaker 2: I can always get it. I can always get a
Speaker 2: robo dog when they come. I'll talk to Barston Dynamics
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: I got more interested than I had previously been in
Speaker 1: animal intelligence because I was actually in the Windy Impenetrable Forest,
Speaker 1: which is on the border of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda,
Speaker 1: and I got to see the mountain gorillas and it
Speaker 1: was absolutely Did.
Speaker 2: You feel a kinship?
Speaker 1: You can't not. I saw gorillas and chimpanzees, and I
Speaker 1: mean it's absolutely stunning. I mean really, So I've been
Speaker 1: more interested in animal and intelligence in the last few weeks,
Speaker 1: which is probably why a story about a cow caught
Speaker 1: my eye this week. Have you have you? Have you?
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with Veronica the cow?
Speaker 2: No, I've never heard of Okay.
Speaker 1: So basically what people are fascinated with in terms of
Speaker 1: the great apes is their ability to use tools. Chimpanzees
Speaker 1: are more closely related to us than gorillas are, and
Speaker 1: they also use tools. In particular, they use multi purpose tools,
Speaker 1: so they can use they can use a stick to
Speaker 1: open a termite's nest, to get honey, and to beat
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 2: So they're using a fork basically for everything.
Speaker 1: Yes, the exact one that's extendable for Yeah. So this
Speaker 1: week it was revealed that a cow used the tool.
Speaker 1: Really what, Veronica, and in fact, what made it particularly
Speaker 1: interesting was that, just like a chimpanzee, was actually a
Speaker 1: dual use tools. So Veronica, the cow that doclemented picking
Speaker 1: up a broomstick with her tongue, and then she used
Speaker 1: the bristle end of the broom to scratch her back
Speaker 1: while holding it in her mouth, and she used the
Speaker 1: flat side with no bristles, the more gentle side to
Speaker 1: scratch her.
Speaker 2: Udder, really because the others are more sensitive.
Speaker 1: Exactly right.
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: You know, we think we're so kind of far along
Speaker 1: in terms of our observations of the universe, but hiding
Speaker 1: in plain sight was the fact that cows can use tools.
Speaker 1: And the BBC said that the perceived lack of intelligence
Speaker 1: of cows may say more about a lack of observation
Speaker 1: than about the animals themselves.
Speaker 2: Interesting, huh.
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring you the story because we talk
Speaker 1: so much about artificial intelligence. I was at a panel
Speaker 1: at a conference last week called DLD in Munich, and
Speaker 1: this guy called Stuart Russell is like a very famous
Speaker 1: AI researcher and pioneer was being interviewed and he kept insisting, look,
Speaker 1: before we talk about artificial intelligence, I need to give
Speaker 1: you my definition of intelligence, which is the ability to
Speaker 1: achieve goals in the world. And he was saying, it's
Speaker 1: very scary because AI has its own goals and is
Speaker 1: achieving them. But you know, a cow can do it too.
Speaker 2: A cow can do it too. It's so interesting to
Speaker 2: me that is this the first time, the.
Speaker 1: First time a cow has ever been seen using a
Speaker 1: tool and it raised really serious questions. I think about
Speaker 1: how smart cows are and I mean obviously using to
Speaker 1: do what we do to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So I promised this episode is going to be
Speaker 1: about China, and we were wondering how to pivot out
Speaker 1: of this story. I was going to say, our super
Speaker 1: producer Eliza found a transition.
Speaker 2: Tell me so.
Speaker 1: Whired released a special issue of the magazine about the
Speaker 1: twenty three ways You're already living in the Chinese century.
Speaker 1: Number three was You'll be drinking frank and milk.
Speaker 2: So she found it the Franken milk connection.
Speaker 1: So there's a there's a super cow in China which
Speaker 1: has been cloned and it produces forty pounds of milk
Speaker 1: per year, which is almost double what the output of
Speaker 1: American cows. I mean, I was pretty shocked.
Speaker 2: This a type of cow.
Speaker 1: It's a special type of cow that's been cloned, owned
Speaker 1: and has double the output. So we're kind of drinking
Speaker 1: potentially genetically modified cloned count China.
Speaker 2: According to Wyatt, what are some of the other tells
Speaker 2: for sort of how we're living in the Chinese century.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the big ones, of course, is the
Speaker 1: rise of the Chinese battery industry and the electric vehicle industry.
Speaker 1: I hadn't realized until I read the piece in Wired
Speaker 1: that China sells ten times more electric vehicles globally every
Speaker 1: year than US company. So it's just an order of
Speaker 1: magnitude bigger the car industry.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: The other one which I liked was Your Next co
Speaker 1: Worker is a two legged Chinese robot, which we'll be
Speaker 1: discussing later this episode.
Speaker 2: Very frightening.
Speaker 1: Two other of my favorites were your precious Woo Woo crystals,
Speaker 1: the product of a small town Chinese venture. You're a
Speaker 1: crystal queen.
Speaker 2: Huge crystal queen.
Speaker 1: So the detail from this piece is that when Mao
Speaker 1: Zedong died he had a crystal coffin to see through
Speaker 1: crystal coffin.
Speaker 2: Good for him, and that's cool.
Speaker 1: The area of China where that crystal comes from is
Speaker 1: now the area that produces all of the kind of
Speaker 1: crystals for the wellness and healing industry.
Speaker 2: We should go. That would be such a that would
Speaker 2: be a great fun. People, well, they'll flies to China. China.
Speaker 1: And then the final one, which I liked, was the
Speaker 1: toy you want most in the world is still a
Speaker 1: La buobu.
Speaker 2: My friend and business partners texted me, I loved my
Speaker 2: flight attend this morning. She was so cute. She had
Speaker 2: a La boobo in her bag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting why I pointed out that Labubu is
Speaker 1: the first basically China generated ip craze to sweep the world.
Speaker 2: It's true. I think that that's true.
Speaker 1: Is there a Luba movie it's happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's in development. As they say. There's one
Speaker 2: that I can add to the list, actually, which is
Speaker 2: that everyone on TikTok is in their Chinese era.
Speaker 1: Wow. I love an era.
Speaker 2: Everything's in era.
Speaker 1: Everything's an error. But before we get there, I have
Speaker 1: a China business story that really got me thinking about
Speaker 1: this kind of dizzying shadow conflict between the US and
Speaker 1: China in the world tech. I want to take you
Speaker 1: back to January twenty twenty five, the Deep Seak Freakout. Okay,
Speaker 1: you remember that, the oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, of course, yes, this was last year
Speaker 2: when we started the show exactly.
Speaker 1: So there was this Chinese AI model called deep Seak,
Speaker 1: and all.
Speaker 2: Of a sudden, everyone's like, open ais Square.
Speaker 1: It's done. The US yeah crashed, etcetera, etcetera, before it
Speaker 1: recovered spectacularly. Shortly after, though, another tech product was released
Speaker 1: in China called manus Aim and manus Ai. Manus Ai
Speaker 1: was a little bit more of a storm in a teacup,
Speaker 1: people like, oh my god, it's happening again Deep Seat
Speaker 1: freak Out V. Two. It didn't spook the US markets
Speaker 1: in the same way, but it was a very impressive
Speaker 1: AI agent, capable of independently building websites and doing basic coding,
Speaker 1: kind of ahead of the Aargentic era of AI which
Speaker 1: emerged later in the year in the US. So today's
Speaker 1: story is about.
Speaker 2: Manus Okay, tell me about manus.
Speaker 1: Meta actually agreed to acquire it last month. Reportedly in
Speaker 1: the two to three billion dollars. When the deal was
Speaker 1: first announced, there were rumors that US regulators might block
Speaker 1: the deal, but as it happens, Chinese regulators may have
Speaker 1: stolen a march.
Speaker 2: So is this surprising? Like the US government has meddled
Speaker 2: with Chinese companies before.
Speaker 1: That's right, but it's now it's the boots on the
Speaker 1: other foot, and China are trying to block the sale
Speaker 1: of this company to the US.
Speaker 2: The US, Okay, And you're.
Speaker 1: Right obviously, I mean, you know, whether it's export bans
Speaker 1: on the most advanced in video chips or this kind
Speaker 1: of forced quasi sale of tiktoks us operations, tariffs. The
Speaker 1: US has been very on the front foot in terms
Speaker 1: of finding ways to you know, constrain or punish Chinese
Speaker 1: tech industry. But what's kind of interesting now is that
Speaker 1: China is investigating where this acquisition violates its laws on
Speaker 1: technology exports.
Speaker 2: Is Manus a Chinese company?
Speaker 1: Well, that's why I wants to share this story. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is where it gets really fascinating. Manus, according to Manus,
Speaker 1: is not a Chinese company.
Speaker 2: According to Manus.
Speaker 1: It's based in Singapore. According to China, it is a
Speaker 1: Chinese company interesting, so hence they can block a sale.
Speaker 1: This is sort of like the Greenland of the much
Speaker 1: so very much so possession.
Speaker 2: Is it's going to win.
Speaker 1: Nine tenths of the law. Well, I'm pretty sure China
Speaker 1: will win, honestly, but it remains.
Speaker 2: Because China has more power.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, there's this phenomenon known as Singapore washing,
Speaker 1: where like, Singapore is an independent country and an independent
Speaker 1: jurisdiction and like a useful place for Western companies to
Speaker 1: do business with Chinese companies, but ultimately Singapore is is
Speaker 1: closer to China than Venezuela is to Washington, and so
Speaker 1: that their likelihood is that the Singaporean regulators will probably
Speaker 1: not resist the Chinese regulators. But I thought it was
Speaker 1: pretty interesting because Manus last year actually relocated Singapore, and
Speaker 1: China basically said no, like, you were founded in China
Speaker 1: by Chinese citizens. Yeah, you can go to another jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: That's that's totally fine, But when the rubber meets the road,
Speaker 1: we're going to contin you to treat you as Chinese.
Speaker 1: And the reason I was fascinated by this story is
Speaker 1: that somebody at the conference said to me, this could
Speaker 1: be kind of a watershed moment because previously Chinese entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: believe they could found a company in China, relok at
Speaker 1: it Singapore, sell it to Facebook right off into the sun,
Speaker 1: and China are basically saying no, no, no, you can't.
Speaker 1: So what this person said to me was maybe one outcome.
Speaker 1: One possibility here is that Chinese entrepreneurs will leave China
Speaker 1: before they even found their businesses, because if they ever
Speaker 1: want to be able to leave, they've got to start
Speaker 1: the business basically as far away as China from possible.
Speaker 2: So this is not so much interesting to you because
Speaker 2: of what manness is. This is interesting to you because
Speaker 2: it's kind of a harbinger for how Chinese companies might
Speaker 2: be founded in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's an interesting sort of story
Speaker 1: about a potential, you know, brain drain moment. And you know,
Speaker 1: and here's China saying Singapore maybe an independent sovereign country
Speaker 1: and independent jurisdiction, but if one of our folks or
Speaker 1: companies goes there, we're not going to respect that. It's
Speaker 1: a different jurisdiction. So it is interesting combination of tech
Speaker 1: and geopolitics. And also I was, you know, I was
Speaker 1: attracted to this story because of this idea of like
Speaker 1: China fights back. And another story that really caught my
Speaker 1: eye last week was the Chinese customs officials recently blocked
Speaker 1: an inbound shipment of Nvidia H two hundred.
Speaker 2: Me into China.
Speaker 1: They've blocked a shipment into China in video chips. Why, Well,
Speaker 1: we don't know. I was quite shocked as well. And
Speaker 1: obviously the background to this is Jensenfwangan Nvidia were at
Speaker 1: great pains last year to persuade the Trump administration to
Speaker 1: allow them to export these chips to China, and they
Speaker 1: won the battle and were allowed to export them. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, China are apparently turning around
Speaker 1: and saying no, no, no, you can't bring this into the country.
Speaker 1: We don't know why, but we do know is this
Speaker 1: could be hugely significant because suppliers who make the parts
Speaker 1: required to go into in video chips have already started
Speaker 1: throttling production because they're so worried that the demand may
Speaker 1: go down so much without China.
Speaker 2: But I sort of understand, if you're China, why are
Speaker 2: you blocking these chips.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't know if it's China or if it's
Speaker 1: like customs officials at a certain point. So like the
Speaker 1: ft who broke this story asked for comment. The Chinese
Speaker 1: government didn't respond. Is unclear whether this was a one off,
Speaker 1: you know, customs thing, or if in fact this is
Speaker 1: a new Chinese policy. But there's a few kind of
Speaker 1: explanations that have been floated. One is that this will
Speaker 1: encourage domestic chip companies in China's develop their own chips faster.
Speaker 1: Another is that it's some kind of bargaining tactic, because
Speaker 1: of course it could be a huge financial hit to
Speaker 1: in Video, which represents something like more than five percent
Speaker 1: of the total market cap of the US stock market. Essentially,
Speaker 1: now if they can't export their chips to China. We
Speaker 1: also know there's a lot of smuggling of the highest
Speaker 1: quality chips into China, which is also lucrative business. So
Speaker 1: it's a sort of you know, international cat and mouse game.
Speaker 1: And it's possible that yeah, that China are in any
Speaker 1: case have that chips and getting to eat them too.
Speaker 2: I can't no. Also, for you, what chips are very different.
Speaker 1: That's true. Chips are fries and for you they're crisps. Crisps.
Speaker 2: So today we've been talking a lot about China. And
Speaker 2: it's very funny because as online as I am, my
Speaker 2: friends are actually more online. So a lot of things
Speaker 2: that come to me come to me because people are like,
Speaker 2: you should post about this on your dumpster fire Instagram.
Speaker 2: And a trend that I got asked a lot about
Speaker 2: this week and that a friend of mine was like,
Speaker 2: very hot on was the following. But I'm gonna let
Speaker 2: my girl take it away.
Speaker 3: If you are someone that likes hot hot dim sum
Speaker 3: Sechhue cuisine beyond bell noodles, do you know that there's
Speaker 3: actually a really interesting reason why. The reason is because
Speaker 3: you are Chinese. You didn't know it, but you are Chinese,
Speaker 3: and so for that reason, every single time you have
Speaker 3: a crazing for like dumplings or something, it's because you
Speaker 3: are Chinese. Your body just longs for that Wanton You know.
Speaker 1: I think I am Chinese.
Speaker 2: You know what the best line is? And I don't
Speaker 2: think she knew this, like you know like wanton lust, Yes,
Speaker 2: longing for Wanton great little play.
Speaker 1: Well, you obviously you are Chinese. I must be hungry
Speaker 1: than you because I wasn't. I has missed the play
Speaker 1: on words. I was just thinking about how much I
Speaker 1: would like to be eating one of those things right now.
Speaker 2: So this video, just for a little context, is by
Speaker 2: a Chinese American creator named Sherry. Her handle is spelled
Speaker 2: s h E r R y x I I R
Speaker 2: U I I. If you want to follow her guides,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say it again. You had to
Speaker 2: be listening. And she has millions of views, and now
Speaker 2: Americans on TikTok are posting videos saying things like you
Speaker 2: met me at a very Chinese time in my life.
Speaker 1: But this is very funny and very very weird.
Speaker 2: It's very strange. It does toe the cultural appropriation line.
Speaker 2: You know, there is something mildly unsettling about seeing comments
Speaker 2: on TikTok like first day of being a Chinese baddie.
Speaker 1: I'm all for it. I'm looking forward to living in
Speaker 1: a very Chinese time in my life. Yeah, what exactly
Speaker 1: what does this mean? Chinese body obviously likes Chinese food.
Speaker 2: They drink hot water, they're eating bao, you know, they're
Speaker 2: wearing slippers, indoors.
Speaker 1: La boo boo, they have la boo boo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean, it's basically anything that is prioritizing
Speaker 2: Chinese culture as their predominant culture. It's I think one
Speaker 2: of the things again that's important, is that Chinese influencers
Speaker 2: are bestowing this onto American TikTok users to say, you
Speaker 2: are doing these things, you are Chinese.
Speaker 4: Hello, my Chinese besties, If you're watching this, you're Chinese.
Speaker 4: It has occurred to me that a lot of you
Speaker 4: guys has not come to terms with your newfound Chinese identity.
Speaker 4: And let me just ask you this. Aren't you scrolling
Speaker 4: on this Chinese app probably a Chinese made phone, wearing
Speaker 4: clothes that are made in China, collecting dolls that are
Speaker 4: from China, most importantly, living in a very Chinese time
Speaker 4: of your life. So yes, you're Chinese. So you better
Speaker 4: go get that kettle and start drinking hot water, get
Speaker 4: your rice coocaretti, get your hot ho machine ready, and
Speaker 4: we will have some baijo next time we have launch
Speaker 4: and dinner.
Speaker 2: We actually talked about this in my interview with the
Speaker 2: New Yorker writer Kyle Chaika.
Speaker 5: The most brain rotted thing to me, the most like
Speaker 5: where are we? What the fuck is happening? Is like
Speaker 5: the whole merger of Chinese Internet and US Internet.
Speaker 2: And he told me his favorite piece of brain rot
Speaker 2: was actually the meme that preceded this trend.
Speaker 5: It's Donald Trump given an Ai Mandarin voice and he's
Speaker 5: singing these dramatic, like maoist Chinese songs. Ah and that
Speaker 5: and many other memes have built up to this joke
Speaker 5: of like you have met me at a very Chinese
Speaker 5: time in my life.
Speaker 1: It is interesting. Obviously, Asian culture kind of trending in
Speaker 1: American pop culture is not a new phenomenon, but historically
Speaker 1: it's been focused around kind of Japanese and Korean trends
Speaker 1: like animes and K dramas and K pop and Korean
Speaker 1: makeup and all that kind of stuff. And now, at
Speaker 1: the same time as the story I brought about, this
Speaker 1: kind of deep geopolitical tension and competition and shadow conflict
Speaker 1: kind of the other side of the coin is this
Speaker 1: very sort of odd and fascinating cultural merger on TikTok.
Speaker 2: It's true, and you know, there's a few theories as
Speaker 2: to why this might be happening. One is that last year,
Speaker 2: when TikTok was going to be banned in the US,
Speaker 2: many users flocked to a Chinese app called Red Note.
Speaker 1: I remember that in protest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually reported on it, which led to this
Speaker 2: interesting bridging of cultures, and many users actually started learning Mandarin,
Speaker 2: which is crazy. Others have said that it could be
Speaker 2: because gen Z is acutely feeling the loss of the
Speaker 2: American dream and that the economy is unstable and there
Speaker 2: are fears of global climate change, so they're like looking
Speaker 2: outside of their home country for hope and romanticizing life
Speaker 2: in China, which is a country that is, you know,
Speaker 2: a communist country, you know, maybe not one that we
Speaker 2: would necessarily feel so free and if we were actually there,
Speaker 2: but that seems to have a very sort of robust
Speaker 2: infrastructure and a thriving clean energy industry. There's actually a
Speaker 2: Bloomberg article which cited one creator who put it, I
Speaker 2: think very very well, and in the article, this creator said,
Speaker 2: they're engaging with a hyper real China, a symbolic version
Speaker 2: that absorbs everything. Americans fear that they're losing community structure, competence, limits,
Speaker 2: cultural continuity, and care for elders.
Speaker 1: Really really interesting. I mean, it's interesting we look back
Speaker 1: now on the collapse of the Soviet Union as though
Speaker 1: it was kind of inevitable and the Soviet Union was
Speaker 1: always the loser, But I think there were certainly, you know,
Speaker 1: in the sixties a lot of Americans and Brits who
Speaker 1: were quite admiring of Soviet culture and the way Soviet
Speaker 1: society was organized and stuff. So when you live in
Speaker 1: this kind of bipolar world, which we do again now,
Speaker 1: the thrill and the appeal of the other is very
Speaker 1: real as well as the fear. But I thought there
Speaker 1: was a guy we had on the podcast last year
Speaker 1: called Dan Wong who wrote a book called Breakneck, and
Speaker 1: he had lived in China and moved back to the US,
Speaker 1: and he basically said, look, you know, if you live
Speaker 1: in China and you look out of your window once
Speaker 1: a year, in a space of three years, you might
Speaker 1: see a whole new city emerge. If you live in
Speaker 1: New York or San Francisco, the best you can hope
Speaker 1: for in that time period is a new coffee shop
Speaker 1: to open. So I do think there's something as much
Speaker 1: as people fear the authoritarian aspects of Chinese culture, those
Speaker 1: things that you mentioned in the quote, like community structure, competence,
Speaker 1: cultural continuity, I mean, these are things which are understandably attractive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: would you say that you're in a very Chinese time
Speaker 1: of your life? Now not at all.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying, but it's I think what's really interesting
Speaker 2: is the minute I heard about this trend, I was like,
Speaker 2: should I be boiling apples?
Speaker 1: Have you tried any of these things?
Speaker 2: I haven't, but.
Speaker 1: Ask you next week please after the break more TikTok
Speaker 1: TikTok micro dramas. Humans take on boring jobs training robots
Speaker 1: so that eventually we won't have to work. And there's
Speaker 1: a new dream employee in Silicon Valley. Stay with us
Speaker 1: and we're back. Caro. Do you remember a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago I made my prediction for the year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said it was the year of the robot.
Speaker 1: The year of the robot. So I sketched in that
Speaker 1: episode a couple of weeks ago a hypothetical nightmare scenario
Speaker 1: in which troves of real humans do activities so that
Speaker 1: robots can learn from them. It turns out that it
Speaker 1: wasn't a hypothetical, it's real. And Rest of World, which
Speaker 1: is a tech publication, talked to a worker at one
Speaker 1: of these robot training centers called Kim, which is pseudonym,
Speaker 1: and he talked about what he does. He puts on
Speaker 1: a virtual reality headset and exoskeleton on his arms, and
Speaker 1: then he pretends to open the door of a microwave
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of times per day.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, to train a robot to do that,
Speaker 2: that's so monotonous.
Speaker 1: Other days he mimics folding clothes and sometimes he even
Speaker 1: stacks wooden blocks.
Speaker 2: What so humans have to do household task to train
Speaker 2: robots to then replace them doing household tasks.
Speaker 1: That's right, and the humanoid robot next to him watches
Speaker 1: and basically develops their fine motor skills by doing so.
Speaker 2: So how many coworkers does Kim have? Like, is this
Speaker 2: like a major facility?
Speaker 1: It's a big facility. And local governments in China are
Speaker 1: working with the central government to open two dozen robot
Speaker 1: training centers. In fact that the goal is to have
Speaker 1: more than forty of these in operation, which are servicing
Speaker 1: more than one hundred and fifty humanoid robot companies currently
Speaker 1: active in China.
Speaker 2: And so what is the end goal? Like why do
Speaker 2: these robots need to learn how to open a microwave?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's two things, right. One is,
Speaker 1: humanoid robotics is a new space race. So if China wins,
Speaker 1: I mean, how many hype videos. Have you seen of
Speaker 1: like humanoid robotic.
Speaker 2: Olympics doing crazy things?
Speaker 1: If China gets their first on mass produced effective human robotics,
Speaker 1: it's a very clear narrative that they have essentially won
Speaker 1: the future, or won this chapter of the future. So
Speaker 1: I think it's partly that, but also it's more practical, right,
Speaker 1: These robots ultimately are designed to be used in assembly
Speaker 1: line jobs, or to care for elders, or essentially industries
Speaker 1: where there are not enough workers as population ages and
Speaker 1: birth rates decline.
Speaker 2: Interesting. I just had this visual of being in a
Speaker 2: hotel in the future and just passing by robots pushing
Speaker 2: the maintenance.
Speaker 1: Cards lost in translation.
Speaker 2: So bizarre, but it's so right on our doorstep, don't
Speaker 2: you think?
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, I think it does remain
Speaker 1: to be seen, like how practical these robots will actually
Speaker 1: be because they you know, they fall over, and they have
Speaker 1: power shortages, and they're extremely expensive. But China essentially birthed
Speaker 1: the electronic industry by investing it way ahead of it
Speaker 1: actually being functional and created demand central demand even though
Speaker 1: the market didn't have demand. And now you know, Bide
Speaker 1: is bigger than Tesla, and China produces ten times more
Speaker 1: evs than the US, So you know, it is possible
Speaker 1: for governments with enough engineering, talent, money, determination to bring
Speaker 1: technologies into the world not for nothing. I think Elon
Speaker 1: is very focused on the Optimus robot. Like sometimes this
Speaker 1: sounds like nonsense, but also like, do bet against Elon
Speaker 1: and the Chinese government in terms of what the next
Speaker 1: phase of the future will look like? No on China, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean they're making the same bets.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I just think China is going to pull
Speaker 2: it off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks. It looks they're definitely in the lead.
Speaker 2: So we're talking a lot about the AI arms race,
Speaker 2: the robotics race, another the in my industry, I think
Speaker 2: the thing that we talk about a lot is the
Speaker 2: attention economy, right and who and now I actually just
Speaker 2: read this article today about passive TV viewing and how
Speaker 2: TV now has to become something that's interesting even when
Speaker 2: you're not watching it because people are now watching TV
Speaker 2: on the background.
Speaker 1: Interesting we like. But hasn't that always been the case
Speaker 1: that daytime TV is kind of like a thing that's
Speaker 1: on while you're doing your.
Speaker 2: Prestige TV is predicated on people really being hyper focused
Speaker 2: and now because of streaming, and because of auto play
Speaker 2: and because of reruns being on streaming platforms, people are
Speaker 2: just passively watching audio.
Speaker 1: So there's no distinction between like, this is TV that
Speaker 1: requires a full attention, this is background. All TV is background.
Speaker 2: TV increasingly, Yes, because of second screening, which is like,
Speaker 2: even if you're watching Succession, are you watching Succession? So
Speaker 2: there's a new US China race for attention, Yes, which
Speaker 2: comes in the form of microdramas.
Speaker 1: And this is making very short, like one to two minute,
Speaker 1: very addictive, serialized content.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And I've read so much about this trend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you've never seen a newspaper. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is it? Like? Is it? Is it a real thing?
Speaker 2: Huge? Huge?
Speaker 1: Do you watch them?
Speaker 2: I looked into it for the I mean you talk
Speaker 2: about other things that I've looked into specifically for the show. Yes, this,
Speaker 2: like is it? Am I the market for it?
Speaker 1: No, it's for younger, younger folks, it's not even.
Speaker 2: For younger folks. It's just I'm not personally the market
Speaker 2: for it. I think micro dramas are essentially like they're
Speaker 2: soap operas, their soap operas, and I'm not a soap
Speaker 2: opera viewer, Like I don't care, I don't want, I
Speaker 2: don't need programs.
Speaker 1: And what's the China angle?
Speaker 2: Okay, So a few years ago, China actually developed short
Speaker 2: form serialized content called verticals or microdramas. The ones that
Speaker 2: I've been very focused on are created by an American
Speaker 2: company called Real Short and I actually went into detail
Speaker 2: on these with me not to Sew at the end
Speaker 2: of last year. If you want to listen to our episode.
Speaker 2: The way that I mean not To actually had stumbled
Speaker 2: on some of these was through TikTok. Right now, TikTok
Speaker 2: has created a whole app devoted to these verticals, and
Speaker 2: it's called Pine Drama and it's free to download, and
Speaker 2: for now the videos run ad free. But I'm one
Speaker 2: hundred percent well, I'm not one hundred percent year, but
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that these this will change in the future.
Speaker 1: So this is like a subsidiary app of TikTok.
Speaker 2: Yes, just it's a separate app.
Speaker 1: Yes, just for the dramas. Yes. Are they being produced
Speaker 1: by like, by regular TikTok creators or all being produced
Speaker 1: by like studios?
Speaker 2: Of a fashion, I believe that these are studio created.
Speaker 2: These are not creator driven. That would not be considered
Speaker 2: a vertical. These videos are only about a minute long.
Speaker 2: They draw on themes of like things that we see
Speaker 2: in romance romance novels. There are you know, things like
Speaker 2: age gap.
Speaker 1: Romances, May December lust May.
Speaker 2: December, Step Step Sibling. You know what I roll my
Speaker 2: eyes at step Simbling Romance. Clueless was a step simbling romance.
Speaker 1: Sure, it was one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 2: It's one of the best movies ever work Romances, Billionaires,
Speaker 2: and Werewolves. The success of these apps I think come
Speaker 2: from their addictive nature and the fact that they are
Speaker 2: pay to play, so you if you want to see more,
Speaker 2: you have to kind of buy more tokens to watch
Speaker 2: more stories.
Speaker 1: This is I mean, you know what the history of
Speaker 1: the novel was exactly. This is serial right. This is
Speaker 1: published week by the next installment. Keep it, keep enough
Speaker 1: suspense for long enough to keep people buying the next
Speaker 1: installment until you're out of gas. I mean, it's nothing's new, correct.
Speaker 1: So final story I have for you today isn't based
Speaker 1: in China, but it has some training connections. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we've talked about nine, nine and six a lot we have.
Speaker 2: It's so much better than six seven.
Speaker 1: Working nine am to nine pm, six days a week,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about how that lifestyle has infiltrated silicon value. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's now been upgraded according to the information tech startups
Speaker 1: and now looking relentlessly for quote cracked engineers.
Speaker 2: Like cracked, like gone gone nuts, gone crazy on crack.
Speaker 1: I mean basically, it's somebody who is just so obsessed
Speaker 1: with their work that a nine ninety six looks like
Speaker 1: a slob, or later.
Speaker 2: Someone who's really using peptides, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: One startup CEO described cracked engineers as quote so competent
Speaker 1: in what they do, they don't need to care about
Speaker 1: anything else. They don't care about politics or wearing smart
Speaker 1: clothes or washing regularly.
Speaker 2: At first, I thought you were saying smart clothes, like
Speaker 2: technologically smart clothes. I was like, well, that's interesting that
Speaker 2: an engineer would wear smart clothes. Okay, So they're basically
Speaker 2: very unwell people well or extremely well people there.
Speaker 1: So they're so plugged into the mainframe they don't need
Speaker 1: to think about any of the creature comforts. One person
Speaker 1: actually quoted in the piece was trying to learn to
Speaker 1: swim as a hobby, but they talked about how they
Speaker 1: deleted that because it was distracting them too much from work. Deed,
Speaker 1: it deleted it. So these correcked engineers are typically in
Speaker 1: their twenties, but they may have been working for up
Speaker 1: to a decade by that point. They're fast, they're independent,
Speaker 1: they don't want to manage others, and they have no
Speaker 1: sense of work life balance.
Speaker 2: And why is this, I mean, how is this different
Speaker 2: than say, you're Zuckerberg when he's twenty one.
Speaker 1: I think that zuckerbo when I mean, if you remember
Speaker 1: the movie Social Network, he was jamming his keyboard in
Speaker 1: his bedroom while the Winkle VII were like rowing and.
Speaker 2: Living their lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So he was an outline where this is
Speaker 1: now mainstream culture in Silicon Valley, I say, and I
Speaker 1: thought that the information put it really well, which is basically,
Speaker 1: there's a new AI gold rush happening right now. Like
Speaker 1: a generation of people think they can become billionaires by
Speaker 1: the time they're thirty, and so in this kind of
Speaker 1: gold riish opportunity, people will do whatever it takes to
Speaker 1: get an age. So you're seeing this kind of this
Speaker 1: fomo driven engineering culture emerge in Silicon Valley. And from
Speaker 1: the company point of view, you know, hiring these cracked
Speaker 1: engineers is seen as a way to speed up productivity
Speaker 1: and kind of create value without building a long term
Speaker 1: sustainable work environment. There was actually a tech recruiter quoted
Speaker 1: in the piece saying, people like to put band aids
Speaker 1: on their business, and I think a correct engineer is
Speaker 1: a band aid for a lot of founders who have
Speaker 1: no idea what they're building.
Speaker 2: What they're building. Yeah, really saying this.
Speaker 1: Is a cussle culture thing. But you know, this dynamic
Speaker 1: of Fomo and the new gold Russian stuff, like it's
Speaker 1: obviously what is driving like this discourse, this US China
Speaker 1: discourse that like one side will win this moment and
Speaker 1: that will be until the end of time, like the
Speaker 1: victor in this bipolar conflict. I think that's the kind
Speaker 1: of macro story we talked about, you know, the top
Speaker 1: of this episode. But in the microcosm it plays out
Speaker 1: with like people aspiring to be cracked.
Speaker 2: I mean, it also seems like a youth culture thing.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like something that you can do well
Speaker 2: into your forty You can be cracked in your forties.
Speaker 1: And you also apparently it's quite looked down upon to
Speaker 1: describe yourself as cracked, like it's a bit.
Speaker 2: It's only you can be described.
Speaker 1: You want, you want people to talk about you as cracked,
Speaker 1: but you can't give yourself yourself beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week for tech Stuff, I'm Cara Price.
Speaker 1: Ali mos Vlosan. This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis
Speaker 1: and Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Caarra Price,
Speaker 1: Julian Nutter, and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel
Speaker 1: for iHeart Podcasts. The engineer is Bihid Fraser and Jack
Speaker 1: Insley mix this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song.
Speaker 2: Please rate, review and reach out to us at textuff
Speaker 2: podcast at gmail dot com. We want to hear from
Speaker 2: you