Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: What's Pippin' my Bops? It could happen here a podcast
Speaker 2: that is sometimes competently introduced, but not on the days
Speaker 2: that I'm recording.
Speaker 3: We're at CEES, the.
Speaker 2: Consumer Electronics Show, seeing what the tech industry has in
Speaker 2: mind for all of us. Right, this is a show
Speaker 2: where the industry talks to itself and its investors and
Speaker 2: clients about what the future is going to be. And
Speaker 2: so Garrison Davis and I are going to sit down
Speaker 2: with you and tell, based on our explorations and investigations
Speaker 2: this week, what the future of artificial intelligence means for
Speaker 2: all of us and for the world. Garrison, Hi, how
Speaker 2: you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm tired.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you look tired.
Speaker 4: It's been a long week. It's been a long week
Speaker 4: convention walking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've worked very hard.
Speaker 4: I've talked to too many robots.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've talked to a lot of chatbots.
Speaker 4: I mean it's a bit of a stretch, is that
Speaker 4: we've talked with them.
Speaker 3: I've talked to add a lot of chat bots.
Speaker 4: Yeah, times they responded, sometimes they don't.
Speaker 2: I guess one of the things that's kind of shocked
Speaker 2: me is because, like, despite being very critical about AI
Speaker 2: in the industry. I have actually a pretty good idea
Speaker 2: of what these things are capable of. And I know
Speaker 2: that chat GBT and Jim and I and the other
Speaker 2: like they're capable of doing some things that look very impressive.
Speaker 2: They are capable of conversations you know, that can be
Speaker 2: fairly in depth, and that can cover a wide variety
Speaker 2: of topics. And so one of the things that has
Speaker 2: surprised me is that as I have gone up and
Speaker 2: tried to communicate with every various chatbot enabled AI enabled product,
Speaker 2: about seventy percent of the time it's not actually capable
Speaker 2: of responding to me in a way that makes any sense.
Speaker 2: Like the majority of those products just don't function. Sorry,
Speaker 2: was that literally your AI and your phone yelling at us?
Speaker 2: Case in point, I was trying to pull up one
Speaker 2: of the one of the AI robots that we saw today,
Speaker 2: And I guess this is something that we talked about
Speaker 2: on Better Offline a bit. In the main thing this
Speaker 2: year year is the complete, the complete like victory of
Speaker 2: like chat GPT, yeah across not just not just like it's.
Speaker 3: Like the cultural victory within the tech industry.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, and it's moved into like the physical world
Speaker 4: through like their API license, saying, yeah, so many of
Speaker 4: the quote unquote products this year is building a physical
Speaker 4: thing around chat GPT.
Speaker 2: We have a necklace that has chat GPT and you
Speaker 2: can talk to it. We have a pin that chat
Speaker 2: GPT is in and you can talk to it and
Speaker 2: have it do things like transcribe an interview.
Speaker 4: Earbuds, there's there's earbuds, little robot dot, every everything has
Speaker 4: has chat GPT inside it. And that's the main thing
Speaker 4: that makes it a like uniquer special compared to you know,
Speaker 4: the types of products we've seen we've seen before.
Speaker 2: And I would say again when I when I say
Speaker 2: that like seventy percent of the chatbot enabled products that
Speaker 2: I tried to interact with could not converse with me
Speaker 2: or could not do so in a functional way. It's
Speaker 2: not because the chatbots aren't able to talk to you,
Speaker 2: because they are. Anyone who's not like you can. It's
Speaker 2: that all of the chatbots require an active Internet connection
Speaker 2: because the vast majority of these products do not have
Speaker 2: anything on device, and when you're in a crowded convention floor,
Speaker 2: the Internet is bad and so they just don't work.
Speaker 2: And it kind of it's one of those I'm sure
Speaker 2: most of these products would work better in the real world,
Speaker 2: but also the fact that they're all completely hobbled by
Speaker 2: their access to data is kind of one of the things.
Speaker 2: It's one of the seams that you can see here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the LLLM rappers, so LLLM rappers and robotics are
Speaker 4: the big things this year. Often these things.
Speaker 3: Are I mean by an LLLM rapper garrison.
Speaker 4: Well, this is this is the thing that we're talking
Speaker 4: about it it'd say it's that this physical product that's
Speaker 4: built around something like chat GPT or Gemini or Claude
Speaker 4: or a number of like the Chinese made ones, right,
Speaker 4: a lot of Chinese companies here. So these physical products,
Speaker 4: whether those are you headphones, earbuds, or in many cases
Speaker 4: little tiny robots whose main main features that you can
Speaker 4: talk to can talk to it and what you're actually
Speaker 4: talking to is like a filtered version of chat GPT.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of these products for kids that
Speaker 4: we've seen, like robots for kids, because there's a lot
Speaker 4: a lot of robotics this year as well. That these
Speaker 4: these are the two things that after years and years
Speaker 4: of them trying to find a new thing for each
Speaker 4: cees they've like settled on not not actually having anything
Speaker 4: of robotics, not having anything new because like we've we've
Speaker 4: seen robotics before at other years, and this is the
Speaker 4: year that they're combining their physical robotics, which aren't new,
Speaker 4: but combining them with chat GPT and presenting it as
Speaker 4: a new product.
Speaker 2: Look, now you can intelligence robot and they can't do
Speaker 2: more tasks than it used to, Like we're still doing
Speaker 2: really good if it can slowly and not very competently
Speaker 2: fold laundry. Oh right, Like LG's Kloyd Kloyd, which is
Speaker 2: a robot designed to be in your home and do
Speaker 2: chores for you and visibly does not do them well.
Speaker 3: We watched it now.
Speaker 2: Where they're presumably it's presumably working better than it normally
Speaker 2: does because it's a demo.
Speaker 4: I went to the first Cloyd Cloyd demo and they
Speaker 4: had like three three different setups for the different stories
Speaker 4: for like different use cases for Cloyd, once with ones
Speaker 4: with a family, ones with like a single guy, and
Speaker 4: ones with like a like a middle aged woman. And
Speaker 4: with the family, the robots able to find keys that
Speaker 4: are lost. Notably, what that means is that Cloyd is
Speaker 4: moving keys around the house, which might actually contribute to
Speaker 4: the problem of your keys somewhere else. The robot could
Speaker 4: put a tray of croissants in an oven and the
Speaker 4: robot knows it, and the robot knows exactly how you
Speaker 4: want your croissants done. You don't even have to tell
Speaker 4: the robot. It already knows. And that's something that was
Speaker 4: stressed the power of ail and over again is that
Speaker 4: it will it will start to like know what you
Speaker 4: want is so you wan't need to tell a memory.
Speaker 2: So many of these products, with the big sell ones,
Speaker 2: it's got a memory, and it has a rant. They
Speaker 2: can't stop themselves. And I think some of this was
Speaker 2: like the actual companies and the way that they're structuring
Speaker 2: a campaigns. But a lot of this was just most
Speaker 2: of the companies here hire pr people who don't regularly
Speaker 2: work for the company and don't know much about the products,
Speaker 2: and they're just there to demo stuff. And some of
Speaker 2: it is those people just defaulting too well. They're talking
Speaker 2: about how this thing like like remembers and knows you,
Speaker 2: so I'll talk about how it like it has a personality,
Speaker 2: it has memories, it has experienced, it has core memories,
Speaker 2: you know, it has preferences and like a personality, it
Speaker 2: wants things. I talked to a couple of different people
Speaker 2: at booths who like that was the thing they were emphasizing,
Speaker 2: is that, like, this is an AI that like feels
Speaker 2: and gets to know you and has a relationship with you.
Speaker 2: And it's very number one not what they would want
Speaker 2: publicly because that's crazy and none of the products actually
Speaker 2: work that way. But the attempt to convince people that, like,
Speaker 2: what we have done is create a robot that lives
Speaker 2: in your home and does chores and it can think
Speaker 2: and feel.
Speaker 3: And anytime you say, like, well, is there you just
Speaker 3: saying you built.
Speaker 2: A slave, Like are you saying, well, there's thinking sentient
Speaker 2: robots that you have lived in your house and do
Speaker 2: your laundry.
Speaker 3: Isn't that a slave?
Speaker 2: And it's not, actually, because the robot doesn't not actually,
Speaker 2: but what they were saying was true, it would be
Speaker 2: a problem, right, really.
Speaker 4: Oh, if you get introduce yourself hoever youone introduced.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm Ben Ben Rose Porter, I am an academic,
Speaker 1: I'm a sociologist at Kearney.
Speaker 4: And you have accompanied us through the wonderful world of
Speaker 4: Las Vegas and cees this year. I always like bringing
Speaker 4: people to witness the beautiful world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been brought to this place very far from god,
Speaker 1: Las Vegas and the Tech Convention Center. There is this
Speaker 1: moment where we were walking through and it was the
Speaker 1: the the Amy Bot for kids.
Speaker 4: Which me and Robertsau last year, that the little like
Speaker 4: oval owl looking robot.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and they had this She's got to be
Speaker 1: an actress and she was doing like a little skit
Speaker 1: with the the Amy Bot where it was like it
Speaker 1: was like the Amy about birthday or something, and she
Speaker 1: was like very clearly having this this very produced. It
Speaker 1: reminded me exactly of how like Cheap telea novella's like
Speaker 1: actors talk where she is just like wow, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've really gotten to know me over the years. And
Speaker 1: it was bizarre in that one the selling point of
Speaker 1: the robot was I think they said, turning data into empathy.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's able to turn data into empathy.
Speaker 1: Which God knows what that means, but also that like,
Speaker 1: so clearly the robot turns data into empathy, but also
Speaker 1: we cannot show you the robot doing anything concretely, so
Speaker 1: we will have a person like it was just this
Speaker 1: very one sided like skit where this person was doing
Speaker 1: this really overly emotional like back and forth of the robot,
Speaker 1: where the robot would just respond with like the bare
Speaker 1: minimum like phrases, and so like what they're selling is
Speaker 1: is questionable if anyone wants it, and all speculative, it's
Speaker 1: all none of it can actually be presented.
Speaker 3: It's all like the potential to do this, and then
Speaker 3: and then even the way.
Speaker 1: That they're actually showing that is mostly just cheap tricks.
Speaker 1: There's another booth where they had the sex robots, and
Speaker 1: I was just it was shocking because the stand like
Speaker 1: you're at this convention, you've presumably you know, gone through
Speaker 1: a lot to get here, and you're the image you're
Speaker 1: putting forward of your robot that you know you're selling
Speaker 1: as the sex robot. It's like this cheap AI image,
Speaker 1: not even one of the good ones, like that they
Speaker 1: are like clear artifacts and very weird lines and things,
Speaker 1: and that you could google an anime jpeg and get
Speaker 1: a better image for this. So just even the smoke
Speaker 1: and mirrors of it was cheap.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was that Love Ants is the Sex Robot booth,
Speaker 4: And yeah, they had two products. One was like just
Speaker 4: like you know silicon like realistic human skin sex robot,
Speaker 4: which is similar to like you know, those horrifying sex dolls,
Speaker 4: except now we have an LM inside. It's another one
Speaker 4: of those LM rappers, except it's wrapped around a redheaded woman.
Speaker 3: Garrison. I find that very offensive.
Speaker 2: It's actually some people are just they're not capable of
Speaker 2: talking to women or other human beings of any kind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people with ADHD.
Speaker 2: It's actually a disability where people can't know other people
Speaker 2: and can only have sexual gratification.
Speaker 3: Through a creepy robot.
Speaker 4: I apologize for my respect for my on air ableism. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but no again. This is the year of l M rappers,
Speaker 4: and now they're putting it, putting it in a sexpod,
Speaker 4: which is more unnerving between than a regular sex doll,
Speaker 4: because a regular sex doll, you kind of know it's
Speaker 4: an object. Like it's it's not trying to be much
Speaker 4: more than an object. It can't you can't you could
Speaker 4: you put in positions, but it's it's static. Yeah, this
Speaker 4: because this thing tries to kind of engage with you.
Speaker 4: It activates my uncanny Valley response way more because it's
Speaker 4: like it's kind of trying to pretend to be a person,
Speaker 4: and like, I could not look at the thing for
Speaker 4: very long. So they just like started like I just
Speaker 4: felt bad. Yeah, and some of that's probably my latent Protestantism,
Speaker 4: but it's I just feel I just felt bad. But
Speaker 4: the other product they had, like around the corner was
Speaker 4: this was this like you know, anime style like like Avatar,
Speaker 4: which was which is on like a screen that you
Speaker 4: can talk to and it's synced up to like a
Speaker 4: jack Off robot, right, so you can you can engage
Speaker 4: with this.
Speaker 3: Finally, you can.
Speaker 4: Engage with this like this like blonde blonde hair, blue
Speaker 4: eyed anime woman as it's as it connects to like
Speaker 4: a little a little like jackof machine. And that was there.
Speaker 4: That was the other product which did not work because
Speaker 4: there was no Wi Fi in the Venetian Yeah, so
Speaker 4: we could we could not see it, but the Jackoff
Speaker 4: machine was still going strong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you could say, I guess that, like, well,
Speaker 2: obviously there's there's fundamental issues with like having Wi Fi
Speaker 2: be decent. When you've got seventy thousand people like all
Speaker 2: cramming themselves into a room, of course, that's going to
Speaker 2: cause problems that the chatbots and the devices using them
Speaker 2: are actually capable of more they should. They're more impressive
Speaker 2: than you giving credit for just because the WiFi didn't work.
Speaker 2: But also if all your builds is a shell that
Speaker 2: without the Internet and access to someone else's chatbot, it's useless.
Speaker 3: It doesn't do anything.
Speaker 4: This is the big people I haven't really made a
Speaker 4: product acts are going to brick as soon as soon
Speaker 4: as as soon as chat GPT raises its API costs,
Speaker 4: they're going to do one of two things. They're either
Speaker 4: going to stop working or they're going to move their
Speaker 4: chatbot provider to a different one that's going to behave differently,
Speaker 4: and then it's fundamentally a different.
Speaker 2: And that's why periodically I would run into someone where
Speaker 2: it's like everything that we do is on device and everything,
Speaker 2: and even the ones that were still because almost you
Speaker 2: almost have to say that whatever you're doing is AI
Speaker 2: and stuff like. There was a company that I came
Speaker 2: across because of their name because I just saw the
Speaker 2: name trans Ai and I was like, well, I gotta
Speaker 2: go see what that is.
Speaker 4: I did see that, and it's.
Speaker 2: Simply I believe they're a Korean company, but it's it's
Speaker 2: just a company that makes like a translator, right, and
Speaker 2: they make it specifically. It's like the size of a
Speaker 2: smaller smartphone. It looks kind of like a smartphone and
Speaker 2: you set it down and it will on device. It
Speaker 2: does not touch the cloud at all for any reason.
Speaker 2: It can translate, so if you want to have a
Speaker 2: conversation with someone in a foreign language, it can like
Speaker 2: like live translate for you both. And also it will
Speaker 2: transcribe whatever conversations you're happening. And they were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is for people who want to transcribe. No have
Speaker 2: been there at college. It's for people who are doing interviews,
Speaker 2: journalists and stuff. So and it was a really good
Speaker 2: It seemed to be a good product. I've not gotten
Speaker 2: to test it outside of the show floor I saw.
Speaker 4: I saw a few of these.
Speaker 1: One of the big differences I saw between like the
Speaker 1: few there were like two or three or four booths
Speaker 1: that we saw where the product. I was like, I
Speaker 1: had a positive. I was like I walked away with
Speaker 1: some mildly positive. Was that almost everything else talk about
Speaker 1: like the sort of insatiability of capital is that it
Speaker 1: has to sell. The sex doll was a perfect example
Speaker 1: of this in that you know, if you make a
Speaker 1: sex doll and you put the chat GPT inside of
Speaker 1: it and then you sell it as this is a
Speaker 1: sex doll. It's an object you find, but now you
Speaker 1: can like you could have sexy conversation with Its still
Speaker 1: an object, but like you know, that's fun for some people.
Speaker 3: Thing that people didn't have, and it is new.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a phenomena you could clearly show off.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh you can, you know, now the sex
Speaker 1: doll can like say your name and stuff. But almost
Speaker 1: all of the boot that we're selling some kind of aiproduct.
Speaker 1: It was like, we have to sell the opportunity to
Speaker 1: like transcend like your mortal shell and become a part
Speaker 1: of the cosmos itself. Like the SEXTL was literally sitting
Speaker 1: in this corner talking to no one and saying stuff
Speaker 1: like I'm about emotional intelligence and building a connection, getting
Speaker 1: to know you and reaching into your soul. And it's
Speaker 1: like it clearly cannot do this. And the few products
Speaker 1: that were good were the ones where the people showing
Speaker 1: it were just able to like just put that aside
Speaker 1: and just say here's what the product.
Speaker 4: Does, right, here's what it can do.
Speaker 2: Concrete and that has become my baseline first question, which
Speaker 2: is like, have you done anything with your product? And
Speaker 2: if all that you've done is we invented a new
Speaker 2: device that didn't previously have a chatbot that it connects
Speaker 2: to through data that someone else built, you didn't do
Speaker 2: anything that's not a product, that's not real. So kind
Speaker 2: of my first my filter was like, is there anything
Speaker 2: here beyond another way to interact with a completely different
Speaker 2: p that you didn't make.
Speaker 4: To go back to like the AI note taking devices,
Speaker 4: which I saw a few where there's a Lindon and
Speaker 4: it will take notes for you. I saw like a
Speaker 4: lot of these, like marketed to like a college student.
Speaker 2: And it's the thing that it is a thing that
Speaker 2: machine learning, because I hate that it gets lumped in
Speaker 2: with AI, but machine learning has gotten up a lot,
Speaker 2: but it.
Speaker 3: Is really good.
Speaker 4: It's it's good at note taking and here's the thing,
Speaker 4: and that's alliable and there's different devices that you can
Speaker 4: get it on. Like I saw like like a note
Speaker 4: taking pin that's a pin that just automatically takes notes
Speaker 4: for you, and that was like, you know, kind of
Speaker 4: like kind of kind of fun. But the thing is
Speaker 4: you can do this exact same thing on your phone
Speaker 4: with the jet GPT app. It's the exact same thing. Yes,
Speaker 4: you don't need it in a pen, just turn your
Speaker 4: phone on and it'll auto do the notes for you.
Speaker 4: The actual product part is useless. The whole idea of
Speaker 4: the smartphone is that you have everything you need already
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 2: And that's why I did respect again companies like trans
Speaker 2: Ai where it's like, no, this is actually on device,
Speaker 2: and this is a thing. This is that better utility
Speaker 2: that my phone doesn't have, which is that no matter
Speaker 2: where I am, even if I'm not connected to the internet,
Speaker 2: I can translate and I can transcribe using this device.
Speaker 2: That's real utility. And transa is not the only company.
Speaker 2: A couple of companies had products like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we saw this emotion tracking pendant which is oh
Speaker 4: my god, on device, which which listens to everyone.
Speaker 3: So you said motion, not emotion, no emotion, oh god,
Speaker 3: but it listens.
Speaker 4: It listens to everything you're saying. It doesn't uput anything
Speaker 4: to cloud, but it in the AA is on device,
Speaker 4: so it listens everything. It is like emotional sentiment analysis.
Speaker 4: It also monitors your breath and your heartbeat because the
Speaker 4: necklace like rests like on your chest, and then it
Speaker 4: like talk and then it can like analyze like around
Speaker 4: like six or seven. That's mystic seven different emotions, and
Speaker 4: like it was like, fine, I don't I would never
Speaker 4: need this thing to tell me how I'm feeling. I
Speaker 4: know how to feel, but like it might be fun
Speaker 4: for some people to track how they're feeling or be like,
Speaker 4: oh I was more stressed. I was more stressed this
Speaker 4: week than like last week, and like still.
Speaker 2: And there's even there's at least a degree of baseline
Speaker 2: optimism that you have for the product when it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a device where you're trying to track people's emotions,
Speaker 2: and your immediate first thing you decided as a company
Speaker 2: was this can't go on the cloud.
Speaker 3: That would be a responsible This.
Speaker 4: Is why that was the first thing I asked, right.
Speaker 2: Right, And that is I guess the most important fundamental
Speaker 2: difference between companies and people here and between the companies
Speaker 2: that are embracing to some extent AI is the ones
Speaker 2: who whose default was like, well, but we're doing something
Speaker 2: that involves emotions or that involves like interviews or conversations
Speaker 2: that people might not want on like we shouldn't have
Speaker 2: that on the cloud, versus the people who are like,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't you put literally everything on the cloud. Why
Speaker 2: don't you want your health and medical data on the cloud.
Speaker 2: Why don't we want your financial data on the cloud? Right,
Speaker 2: Like that is kind of like the most fundamental difference
Speaker 2: that you see between people.
Speaker 1: Here, part and parcel of the insatiable like just drive
Speaker 1: for endless value. And probably the comparisons between this convention
Speaker 1: and its location Las Vegas are really overlaiden at this point,
Speaker 1: but I mean there is something about, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the appeal of gambling is the promise of the speculative
Speaker 1: promise of endless value, and how all of these technologies
Speaker 1: are selling themselves off of endless value. And for the
Speaker 1: producer side, that means like this this device has endless
Speaker 1: function potentially, you know, we say endless functions.
Speaker 4: Especially with these like AI devices.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but from the consumer side, it's from a well,
Speaker 1: if you just give yourself over to you know, to
Speaker 1: the god of capital, if you if you just bleed
Speaker 1: into the machine and connect yourself to the cloud and
Speaker 1: give over like everything, and it really is everything. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's like AI towels that are like analyzing your sweat.
Speaker 1: If you give over everything, there is this vague promise
Speaker 1: of transcendence and that like you will escape the the
Speaker 1: like the misery of the world that this place is
Speaker 1: just both completely blind to and then also without ever
Speaker 1: saying it, like also responding to it entirely.
Speaker 2: First off, obviously you're you're coming at this from more
Speaker 2: of a left wing perspective, so you probably don't understand
Speaker 2: that gambling always works and you're definitely going to win.
Speaker 2: So first off, you.
Speaker 4: Know, no Vegas really is the anarcho capitalist paradise.
Speaker 2: It sure is, but no, like like what you're saying
Speaker 2: is they want you to give everything over. There is
Speaker 2: absolutely there's not outside of again the odd booth where
Speaker 2: you find sane people, which is almost how I think
Speaker 2: about it them in my head, where it's like yeah,
Speaker 2: where you're putting front and forward. This stays on the device.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be online. We are not exposing
Speaker 2: your data.
Speaker 4: It's like seeing a lighthouse right in like in like
Speaker 4: a horrible like rainstorm and you're like sailing god a
Speaker 4: ship and you can't see anything and everyone's you'll see
Speaker 4: a booth with like a real person God it's like
Speaker 4: talking about it was solving a real plum, like oh finally, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a spectrum between talking to the ais, talking to
Speaker 1: the real few people and then the other people who
Speaker 1: are kind of.
Speaker 3: In between the two.
Speaker 2: And it was I I went from seeing this app
Speaker 2: where the whole purpose of this company that makes like
Speaker 2: agentic ai solutions, who I'm scrolling to find there the
Speaker 2: company name right now, all of it is they're making
Speaker 2: agents that you can put in like point of sale things,
Speaker 2: or you can put in like cars as a chatbot.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 2: One thing they said is yeah, we can put this
Speaker 2: in a car and we can have the you know,
Speaker 2: you can navigate using voice the way you would normally
Speaker 2: like with a bunch of other apps. But if you
Speaker 2: navigate with voice using our app, it will only send
Speaker 2: you to restaurants or businesses that we have a deal
Speaker 2: with that are giving us a cut and so and
Speaker 2: you too the car company gets a cut.
Speaker 3: Two.
Speaker 2: And that was the innovation is that we can not
Speaker 2: give people like tell people where things are. We can
Speaker 2: tell people where things are that hey us and you
Speaker 2: get a cut of it.
Speaker 4: The company can like make a partnership with like Coca Cola,
Speaker 4: right so then when you we're.
Speaker 2: Literally talking to Coca Cola reps when I was there,
Speaker 2: it's showing them that like, yeah, we have a like, look,
Speaker 2: we've replaced the human beings that take your orders at
Speaker 2: Burger King, and the chatbot can alter on the fly
Speaker 2: of the menu. If you have to get a smooth
Speaker 2: a lot out of vanilla coat and you want to
Speaker 2: sell as many large as possible, it can tell people
Speaker 2: that's the only option.
Speaker 3: WHOA And like like the.
Speaker 2: Fact that they were just like bald faced about it,
Speaker 2: because when I showed up, they were they were demoing
Speaker 2: how this uh, this like Burger King menu with AI worked,
Speaker 2: And they were like there was a full menu that
Speaker 2: you could see that was like a like an updated
Speaker 2: screen menu, but there was a secondary menu where they're
Speaker 2: like pretending to be a guy who drew up to
Speaker 2: Burger King. And the way that they started was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: what burgers are good? What do you think I'd like?
Speaker 2: And I was like, who No one.
Speaker 4: Drives up, No one good drive through window and asks
Speaker 4: what's good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's not how they And again there's a
Speaker 2: menu in front of you. You look at the menu
Speaker 2: and it's like that's how everyone buys food. So at
Speaker 2: first I was like, is this just a company that
Speaker 2: doesn't know how life works? Who are like trying to
Speaker 2: pretend this is like what people want where they go through? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: well what's good today in McDonald's you know, do you
Speaker 2: have any specials?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: Which was crazy?
Speaker 2: But then I realized because they were talking to this
Speaker 2: small group of people, and I realized after a second, oh,
Speaker 2: because I looked at their badges. Everyone has badges that
Speaker 2: all of the people worked for Coca Cola. And so
Speaker 2: they were talking about how, yes, if Burger King wants
Speaker 2: to move you know, a specific kind of whopper, then
Speaker 2: we can put that front and center when people ask
Speaker 2: what's good and we can push it. And said, for coke,
Speaker 2: if you guys want to move vanilla coke, we can
Speaker 2: have Whenever people order anything, we can have it. Say
Speaker 2: do you want to add a vanilla coke? A large
Speaker 2: vanilla Cokes?
Speaker 4: Just like yeah.
Speaker 2: And so what I realized is that this company whose
Speaker 2: name is this is SoundHound.
Speaker 4: AI sound Hound Yeah yeah, great, pretty pretty good name.
Speaker 2: Their motto was faster and more accurate, higher revenue. I
Speaker 2: came to realize, and this is this is not entirely
Speaker 2: a separation from other years because they are always selling
Speaker 2: to companies like this. But there was absolutely they were
Speaker 2: the only thing that they were talking about actual end users,
Speaker 2: as was a thing that you can pull extra money
Speaker 2: out of by by tricking them, by pushing extra ads
Speaker 2: to them. And that's who they were actually selling to,
Speaker 2: is these companies that they were like. The other thing
Speaker 2: they demoed was you can make an agent on the
Speaker 2: fly and you can include the capabilities, and they showed
Speaker 2: us how to select it and then built an AI,
Speaker 2: an agent to live in your car. And the demo
Speaker 2: they did was like, hey, my car is making this sound.
Speaker 2: What do you think it is? They didn't play the
Speaker 2: sound for the AI by the way they described it,
Speaker 2: and the AA said that sounds like it could be
Speaker 2: da teta da. It'll cost about seven hundred dollars to fix.
Speaker 2: Great book me an appointment with the dealership. So first off,
Speaker 2: that's not how people work. I've had car everyone has
Speaker 2: car issues. A regular person. There's a problem with your car.
Speaker 2: You either have a mechanic. That's not the dealership that
Speaker 2: you go to because they didn't rip you off in
Speaker 2: the past, and you're like, well, I trust them, not
Speaker 2: to fuck me too bad, or you go to a
Speaker 2: couple because most people don't just drop seven hundred dollars
Speaker 2: in a repair and not think about it. But the
Speaker 2: person that this engineer is pretending to be for the
Speaker 2: purpose of this AI demo said, great, book me a
Speaker 2: repair at the dealership. And the AI was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I've called them and I've booked you an appointment.
Speaker 3: And by the way, would you like to schedule the
Speaker 3: test drive for this if it kind of car. Oh,
Speaker 3: my wife loves that car. Book us.
Speaker 2: And that was the whole thing is he was like,
Speaker 2: don't be impressed that we can theoretically book you an appointment.
Speaker 2: Be impressed that we can have the machine upsell you
Speaker 2: on trying to buy a new car when you come
Speaker 2: in to fix your old car that broke because you
Speaker 2: bought a bad car. And there was no shame. They
Speaker 2: were so proud of themselves, for this machine can repeatedly
Speaker 2: upsell you things. And that was the only utility. It
Speaker 2: was not this allows you to more easily navigate town,
Speaker 2: This allows you to more easily, you know, cut out
Speaker 2: problems in your life. It was this machine can upsell
Speaker 2: you every minute of your day. Everything you ask it
Speaker 2: to do everything you try to have it do, and
Speaker 2: we get a cut of that. If we send it
Speaker 2: to a restaurant and you buy food there, we get
Speaker 2: a cut of that. And so does whatever company you
Speaker 2: know put the thing in your car if you buy
Speaker 2: a new car, we get a cut of that. That
Speaker 2: was the product and that we have gone from. Here
Speaker 2: are machines that do things. And even back in the
Speaker 2: glorias of smartphones, at least everyone showing like, look, we
Speaker 2: have a new phone that's thinner than a phone has
Speaker 2: ever been.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or like the camera is like you know, four
Speaker 4: K now or something.
Speaker 2: Whatever, the focus is always and now people who buy
Speaker 2: them can do this with it, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would guess that so much of the
Speaker 1: impetus for creating this stuff and developing it is all
Speaker 1: for producer goods, and then the more revenue is honest,
Speaker 1: and that like that's what the and all the consumer
Speaker 1: goods are mostly just getting you know, cast off is
Speaker 1: like now we have all I mean literally, that's what
Speaker 1: the LLLM rappers are. It's just like, oh, we have
Speaker 1: this thing, let's throw a plastic robot on it and
Speaker 1: try and sell it. But what drives its development is
Speaker 1: squeezing just little bits, squeezing labor out of the pores
Speaker 1: of the production process, which it just gets you a
Speaker 1: little bit more, you know, capital to keep this engine
Speaker 1: going a little bit further.
Speaker 3: And it's so because the way it'll work is I
Speaker 3: saw that thing where it's literally all you've invented is
Speaker 3: a way to try to con people out of more
Speaker 3: of their money. I hope you're proud of yourselves, because
Speaker 3: I think it redacted is what you should do to yourself.
Speaker 3: And I went from that to the booth of a
Speaker 3: company called Gintech, who had never heard of before, but
Speaker 3: they make different automotive products, and an engineer there showed
Speaker 3: me a thing that he had been the lead on inventing,
Speaker 3: which was a sun visor. So like you know, when
Speaker 3: you're driving and there's a glare, you put down the
Speaker 3: advisor and the visor is just like a basically a
Speaker 3: piece of fabric and it blocks a chunk of your view,
Speaker 3: but it at least blocks the sun. And this was
Speaker 3: an intelligent visor that was clear and so you could
Speaker 3: see through it, but it also blocked UV rays and
Speaker 3: you could adjust the level of opacity if you needed
Speaker 3: it to be more or less, but you could still
Speaker 3: see through the mirror and it still blocked the glare.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, that's really neat. And then
Speaker 3: he pressed a button and it turned into a mirror.
Speaker 3: Suddenly that functioned. It looked great. I saw it.
Speaker 2: I know it works, and I got like an honest wow,
Speaker 2: I didn't know that was a thing that could happen.
Speaker 2: And that's a real product, and I can imagine using it.
Speaker 2: That's like a problem where yeah, if you want to
Speaker 2: block glare, you're losing a degree of visibility and now
Speaker 2: you're not You've actually done something right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you could put Gemini into a toaster and
Speaker 4: call it a day.
Speaker 3: What if your toaster could talk to you about Proust?
Speaker 4: I guess I mean this is actually now that's an idea.
Speaker 4: If we're going to close this this more AI focused episode,
Speaker 4: I kind of want to circle back to Cloyd and
Speaker 4: like why and why Chloyd Loyd again, chlod exists.
Speaker 2: Just take a second, if you're listening to this at
Speaker 2: home on the drive, if you've got family around, look
Speaker 2: at each other, look another person in the eye, and
Speaker 2: say the word LG has a new home assistance robot
Speaker 2: named Cloyd. Cloyd roll it around in your tongue, you know,
Speaker 2: just think about it for a second.
Speaker 4: Okay, why Cloyd exists? Like why? Why? Why is LG
Speaker 4: who's previously had some really impressive booths over the years,
Speaker 4: and they.
Speaker 3: Had cool TV.
Speaker 4: They had TV's where the wallpaper TV was impressive.
Speaker 3: Every time I go to an LG's booth every year,
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, that's a better look on TV.
Speaker 4: Really TV. Yeah it was great, but why why? And
Speaker 4: then the wall peer TV is Okay, there was one
Speaker 4: paper TV last year. It was it was slightly worse.
Speaker 4: This one's a little bit better. But why does Cloyd
Speaker 4: the big thing at the LG booth this year?
Speaker 3: Loyd?
Speaker 4: Right? Because none of the technology that Cloyd is doing
Speaker 4: is new. Remember last year at show stoppers, me and
Speaker 4: you we saw that really janky robot. N't have to
Speaker 4: be more specific, but it's not taking a robot that
Speaker 4: moves up and down.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah yeah, the pusher and shover robots.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, And Cloyd is like kind of that. It's
Speaker 4: like the actual physical robotic parts of Cloyd aren't new. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and there's sort of the sort of AI that's running Cloyd.
Speaker 2: And Kloyd if someone needed to make Wally that was
Speaker 2: legally distinct enough to stop Disney from suing.
Speaker 3: Them, and tall and Tom Taller. That's how Chloyd looks.
Speaker 2: So why is Cloyd there? Why is Chloyd there? I'm
Speaker 2: always asking myself this.
Speaker 4: Is This goes into like what this what like Cees
Speaker 4: is like doing this year, and how it reflects this
Speaker 4: current state of the tech industry is that these lllms
Speaker 4: like tra GVT are not actually better than they were
Speaker 4: last year. No, they are. They are the same. So
Speaker 4: how do we make things look look cool?
Speaker 2: Just whatever improvements they are is not enough to notice
Speaker 2: for an average person.
Speaker 4: Very minimal. Yeah, So instead of actually having anything new
Speaker 4: or any kind of sizeable improvement to display, they're combining
Speaker 4: too old and some of the products are kind of archaic.
Speaker 4: The come combining two older products and trying to pass
Speaker 4: it off as a new thing. And that's these these
Speaker 4: these like older older like robotic systems right that you're
Speaker 4: usually kind of humanoid. Maybe they have hands, Maybe the
Speaker 4: hands can grab things. Can the hands unscrew up a
Speaker 4: milk carton? No? Can can can the can the robot
Speaker 4: grab milk out of the fridge?
Speaker 1: Yes, so long as you want milk from a very
Speaker 1: specific carton and croissants and only croissants, you're good.
Speaker 2: As long as the milk has a QR code that
Speaker 2: the robot can recognize to know that it's milk. And
Speaker 2: also when it's emptier than a certain level, it actually
Speaker 2: will crush the milk thing like it has to be
Speaker 2: a certain level a full otherwise it doesn't.
Speaker 4: But it's neither of these things are new. And the
Speaker 4: fact that Algae doesn't have anything else to display at
Speaker 4: their booth, the fact that they had to stoop so
Speaker 4: low is to regurgitate this old kind of cheap robotics
Speaker 4: and slap an LLLM in there and then call it
Speaker 4: a day, so that they have very little to actually
Speaker 4: show for us. Yes, and you see this walking through
Speaker 4: like the Central Hall SAT. The Samsung booth is into there,
Speaker 4: the Nkon booth is into there, the Sony booth is
Speaker 4: mostly a car like. There's a lot of these big
Speaker 4: companies are really absent from actual products. The Panasonic has
Speaker 4: a really big booth, but it's mostly about like servers,
Speaker 4: it's mostly about how they're how they're improving, how they're
Speaker 4: improving data farming, there's no stuff, and a lot.
Speaker 3: Of the stuff that does exist.
Speaker 2: You even have to separate further from stuff that exists
Speaker 2: and actually might be useful to stuff that exists and
Speaker 2: might be useful because it solves a problem that the
Speaker 2: thing that it is already. Like for example, a bunch
Speaker 2: I came to several different companies that had a car
Speaker 2: AI assistance whose job was to yell at you if
Speaker 2: you fell asleep or got distracted, and they were all
Speaker 2: built into these giant dashboard things that were the whole
Speaker 2: dashboard is a and it's like, yeah, I can see
Speaker 2: why you need a robot to yell people get distracted
Speaker 2: because we have data.
Speaker 4: Is there putning subway surfers on your fucking car dash.
Speaker 2: We have ample data that shows that when you have
Speaker 2: a giant screen in a car and people use that screen,
Speaker 2: they are actually worse drivers than when they're just drawn
Speaker 2: on a normal car. And so, yes, you have made
Speaker 2: the car. You can show me how this whole dashboard
Speaker 2: you can change it in a second. Look at all
Speaker 2: these different modes you have. You can smartly change your
Speaker 2: dashboard be whatever you want and it'll yell at you
Speaker 2: if you get distracted. And it's like, well, but the
Speaker 2: only reason you're getting distracted is because your entire car
Speaker 2: is a computer screen, which it shouldn't be, and we
Speaker 2: know it shouldn't be.
Speaker 4: They're either trying to solve problems that they created or
Speaker 4: inventing solutions to things that aren't really problems. And like
Speaker 4: with with and this is this specifically with Cloyd, and
Speaker 4: they kept the guy who is like doing the demo
Speaker 4: kept reiterating that Cloyd Cloud or already knows what you
Speaker 4: want before you have to say anything, right, whether that's
Speaker 4: a croissant that's slightly under baked, or he knows had
Speaker 4: a fold laundry just the way you use the way,
Speaker 4: which is what she what she said in a kind
Speaker 4: of self aware ironic tone, because this robot spent two
Speaker 4: minutes trying to fold a single towel and it couldn't
Speaker 4: do it. These things don't work, and they're not meant to.
Speaker 4: It's meant to drive traffic and attention towards the LG brand,
Speaker 4: because there's gona tons of articles being like, look at
Speaker 4: LG's new butler robot, right and that, and that's that's
Speaker 4: all that they're doing at this demo. M HM because
Speaker 4: this is not a real product for sale. It is
Speaker 4: it is meant to drive attention to the brand and
Speaker 4: get articles, and then those articles are going to get
Speaker 4: you know, cited by by other by other lllfs. And
Speaker 4: it's this, it's this cycle that just keeps building. There's
Speaker 4: some really impressive stuff there too. Like I went to
Speaker 4: persona AI's booth had a bunch of computers that had
Speaker 4: without that were not connected to the Internet.
Speaker 2: All the signs told you that. And it has on
Speaker 2: pc AI image generators where it's all on the machine itself,
Speaker 2: and you know, one of the representatives said, come on,
Speaker 2: give it a prompt, it will generate an image. And
Speaker 2: I've never used an AI image generator, and so I
Speaker 2: kind of panic. I'll be honest, like I got freaked out.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be some bullshit.
Speaker 3: Tom size more with dead kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, now that's not Tom size Moore. But that
Speaker 2: is a man cuddling a dead child. The kid doesn't
Speaker 2: the face is gone, and that's not Tom size more like.
Speaker 4: But you know, the future, the future, No, this this
Speaker 4: I can't. I don't want to harp on Cloyd too much,
Speaker 4: but it's so it's such.
Speaker 2: A good every additional time you say, Cloyd, it sounds
Speaker 2: less like a work.
Speaker 4: It's a good example of what this show is specifically
Speaker 4: this year, how there's there's there's nothing new, so they're
Speaker 4: reaching into like into like the cees of of of yesteryear. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to push two things together and pretend that
Speaker 4: it's a new thing. And when it doesn't work, they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is actually a good thing. He's folding the towel
Speaker 4: just the way I like, and that's bad. Poorly. Look,
Speaker 4: he spends ninety seconds putting a single shirt into the
Speaker 4: washing machine, and this is him being very thorough.
Speaker 3: That was the word. He's being very thorough, really put
Speaker 3: in the time, and.
Speaker 4: You're like, this thing doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Is bad, it's a bad product. Part of the mistake
Speaker 2: they made, I think, is that because this is the
Speaker 2: year of robots, there are robots there that are like
Speaker 2: industrial application robots that are showcasing we have made a
Speaker 2: robot with humanoid hands that is capable of more intricate
Speaker 2: movements than any other human hand robot before, And they
Speaker 2: showed it like intricately folding like a pinwheel, and I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, that I have not seen a robot
Speaker 2: with humanoid hands that has had that much dexterity before.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that has some useful industrial applications. And then
Speaker 2: you go from that and there's a bunch of other
Speaker 2: robots that are industrial where it's like, we have built
Speaker 2: a new tip for this robot that allows it to
Speaker 2: do this kind of automotive work, or allows it to
Speaker 2: do this kind of like manufacturing work, right where I'm like, ayes,
Speaker 2: assume not being an expert on robotics, but you're saying
Speaker 2: it's the world's first robot that can handle this task.
Speaker 2: But that's at least an innovation. You talk about the
Speaker 2: ethics of replacing him, but like, that's a thing that
Speaker 2: is a new capability. And you have those robots next
Speaker 2: to the robots that human beings are actally meant to
Speaker 2: buy and put in their homes, none of which work well,
Speaker 2: all of which are exactly as capable as robots twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, except there's a chatbot on them, and it
Speaker 2: makes it all look worse. Where you're showing me what
Speaker 2: theoretically the best in robotics can do, and then I'm
Speaker 2: looking at the thing I'm supposed to have in my
Speaker 2: house and it just fell down and it can't fold laundry,
Speaker 2: and you want me to spend six thousand dollars or
Speaker 2: twelve thousand dollars. One of the robot THEU I think
Speaker 2: it was like Booster X or something like that. The
Speaker 2: one that was dressed like Michael Jackson. You're supposed to
Speaker 2: have as a companion for your child. It will help
Speaker 2: it with its homework using chat GPT. It's small dancing robots,
Speaker 2: small dancing robots. Yes, yes, the small dancing robot that
Speaker 2: you've been hit in the head with a liquor bottle
Speaker 2: and it won't break.
Speaker 4: That was part of the ad video. You know how
Speaker 4: you always want to hit your get in the head
Speaker 4: with the liquor bottle. Get out this anger with this
Speaker 4: tiny child's high robot robot senator for your child.
Speaker 2: And again, if someone was marketing a robot senator, like
Speaker 2: are you angry at your spouse?
Speaker 3: You can beat the shit out of this robot and
Speaker 3: be fine. At least that's an idea.
Speaker 1: With AI technology, the robot will actually learn your spouse's
Speaker 1: personality and respond accordingly to the beatings.
Speaker 2: Look, look, I've been hitting this robot after I come
Speaker 2: back from work every day for the last two weeks.
Speaker 2: And look as soon as I walk on the door,
Speaker 2: it starts to shake.
Speaker 3: The previous models is just way.
Speaker 1: It wasn't satisfied.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it took a long time for a team to
Speaker 2: figure out how to give a robot PTSD.
Speaker 3: By god, we've crossed the rubicon.
Speaker 4: As you can see, Vegas is taking its toll on
Speaker 4: our psyches as we've done a extended intimate partner abuse bid.
Speaker 3: He's not a partner. It's robot Garrison.
Speaker 4: Oh, you're right, it's not.
Speaker 2: Also, the robot can think and feel and has core
Speaker 2: memories and can love.
Speaker 4: You don't put those two things together. He's only separate thoughts.
Speaker 3: No, this robot basically has a soul. Watches hit it
Speaker 3: with a liquor bottle.
Speaker 4: It would just be.
Speaker 1: So great to like with all of the how much
Speaker 1: the they're focused on the the AI can develop real
Speaker 1: human connection, but it's also saccharin. I would love to
Speaker 1: just do a booth where it's like we're teaching our
Speaker 1: robots hate.
Speaker 4: They can't know how to hate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I do want to end by noting one
Speaker 2: thing that we talked about a little briefly, but is
Speaker 2: kind of low key The most upsetting thing about this,
Speaker 2: which is I saw a bunch of different booths that
Speaker 2: use the term empathy, and what they meant by empathy
Speaker 2: was the robot can understand and anticipate what you want.
Speaker 2: Right that it's learning you and your patterns in order
Speaker 2: to offer you and more effectively assist you. And I
Speaker 2: guess technically yeah, but reducing the concept of empathy to
Speaker 2: the robot knows when you might want snacks is kind
Speaker 2: of evil, like it's in its freedom's right. Empathy means
Speaker 2: the robot knows when to serve you is like a
Speaker 2: bad way to talk about it.
Speaker 3: Empathy.
Speaker 2: I don't think most people you what is empathy? Well,
Speaker 2: it means someone knows when I want to be up
Speaker 2: sold on a Hyundai.
Speaker 3: That's not what empathy is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our robot learns empathy by being instrumental to you
Speaker 1: and useful.
Speaker 3: See wenously what you know the core of them.
Speaker 2: We made our robot watch four hours of videos from Gaza,
Speaker 2: and it immediately said, I bet those kids went on
Speaker 2: Undai a Lantra like that.
Speaker 4: I anyway, Yeah, it's if your version of empathy is
Speaker 4: trying to sell coke vanilla. Because we have all of
Speaker 4: this all this stock.
Speaker 3: Oh wait too much. We fucked up. We are in trouble.
Speaker 3: We're underwater.
Speaker 4: That's what empathy is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, welcome to the future. Everyone's a ces miracle.
Speaker 3: It's a ces miracle. Goodbye.
Speaker 5: It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 5: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 5: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 4: You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 5: You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here,
Speaker 5: listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.