Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova and.
Speaker 2: I'm Nate Silver. Stay in the show. Look if it
Speaker 2: looks like I'm taping this in candle lights because all
Speaker 2: the power is out in New York City and around
Speaker 2: the world because of the government shutdown. No, there has
Speaker 2: been a government shut down for more than a week
Speaker 2: now as you're hearing this less than new beecause we're
Speaker 2: taping this. We're going to talk about how it's evolved,
Speaker 2: what the polling says so far, and you know, do
Speaker 2: a check in on which side if either is applying
Speaker 2: the right strategy.
Speaker 1: And after that, we are going to talk about one
Speaker 1: of our pet favorite subjects here at Risky Business, which
Speaker 1: is AI and the release of a new AI video
Speaker 1: generation app from open Ai called.
Speaker 2: Sora Sora Too, Sora Too.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I can I can never get it. N Yes,
Speaker 1: the man the names of open Ai products. But the
Speaker 1: segment will be about broader societal concerns that have to
Speaker 1: go beyond whether it's called Sora or Sora Too.
Speaker 2: How dystopian are We're going to answer that question for
Speaker 2: you on a scale of zero to ten, how far
Speaker 2: are down the lines. Are we to a dystopia?
Speaker 1: But before we dive into AI, let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the government shutdown. So we are recording this
Speaker 1: on Monday, October sixth, you'll be hearing it on Wednesday
Speaker 1: the eighth. On the Sex We're still in a government shutdown.
Speaker 1: And Nate, we know you're an advisor to Polymarket. It
Speaker 1: seems to me that if you look at the odds,
Speaker 1: we will probably still be in a shutdown by the
Speaker 1: time listeners hear this episode on Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Polymarket the prediction, Sorry, poly Market, the prediction market for everyone.
Speaker 2: It's poly October anyway. Yeah, according to Polymarket, there's only
Speaker 2: about a three percent chance that will look foolish by
Speaker 2: having released this episode when the sub shutdowns already resolved.
Speaker 2: In about a seventy five percent chance that it will
Speaker 2: be resolved within a week and a half or later.
Speaker 2: Twenty five percent chance for the longest shutdown in American history.
Speaker 1: So, Nate, I am curious, what is the longest the
Speaker 1: government has ever shut down for?
Speaker 2: It was thirty five days in eighteen twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: And how did that? How did that play out? Was
Speaker 1: the country experiencing any any really negative consequences. Could we
Speaker 1: feel the shutdown as a nation, because I don't actually
Speaker 1: remember what it felt like, to be perfectly honest.
Speaker 2: Have you noticed any effects of the shutdown so far?
Speaker 1: No, I have not gone. But if I were a
Speaker 1: federal employee, I might write because we know that that if.
Speaker 2: You're a federal employee, then you may get furloughed, you
Speaker 2: may stop getting a paycheck, and if you're not furloaed,
Speaker 2: social Security benefits may be delayed. Right. Staffing at some
Speaker 2: agencies like the National Park Service may be limited mildly
Speaker 2: to severely. You know all you know, you have financial
Speaker 2: sector things about how we're making our treasury payments and
Speaker 2: things like that. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff. It's
Speaker 2: kind of the grab bag. The president has both the
Speaker 2: jury and de facto power to play around with things
Speaker 2: a little bit, right. I Mean, there's some question about
Speaker 2: whether Trump wants to make Democrats feel the pain or
Speaker 2: if rather that would turn around on him. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, let's talk about the reasons why nobody expecting
Speaker 2: a quick resolution.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So there, I mean, there are two main
Speaker 1: things the way that I understand it. Thing number one
Speaker 1: healthcare spending, right and or it cuts to healthcare, and
Speaker 1: the Democrats are standing for them on that this is
Speaker 1: a place where we might get some common ground with Republicans,
Speaker 1: because obviously, if your healthcare premiums are about to get
Speaker 1: twice as expensive, if you're going to lose healthcare coverage,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you care whether you're
Speaker 1: a Republican or a Democrat. So common ground there potentially.
Speaker 1: And number two, one of the things that the Democrats
Speaker 1: seem to be insisting on is some sort of a
Speaker 1: curb on Donald Trump's ability to limit the appropriations stop
Speaker 1: appropriations that Congress has already appropriated. Sorry, I'm saying appropriations
Speaker 1: way too often that I don't know what other My
Speaker 1: vocabulary in this particular case is limited. So they're trying
Speaker 1: to curb executive power somewhat so that they know that, Okay,
Speaker 1: if we allocate these funds, these funds are actually going
Speaker 1: to be used. We want you know that to be
Speaker 1: the case. We want to reclaim congressional power of the purse.
Speaker 1: Did I kind of summarize it the way that you
Speaker 1: would have Nate or Am I getting it a little
Speaker 1: bit wrong?
Speaker 2: I think you summarize Chuck Schumer spill that, Yeah, look,
Speaker 2: what Democrats with their heart is really into is taking
Speaker 2: a stand against the encroachment of all the authority of Congress,
Speaker 2: really against authoritarianism. Put that in quotes if you want, right.
Speaker 2: But like, if you look at kind of what Democrats
Speaker 2: that are arguing for the shutdown the most really care about, right,
Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, healthcare would be would be nice, right,
Speaker 2: And they are on the right side of public opinion
Speaker 2: on that issue. I mean, these cuts are unpopular or
Speaker 2: failing to extend the subseas, I should say, right to
Speaker 2: the extent that you know, you're almost doing Republicans a
Speaker 2: favor if they agree to amend this. Potentially, Chuck Shumer
Speaker 2: will say, Republicans are refusing to take our input on
Speaker 2: a budget and have this negotiation over healthcare that everyone
Speaker 2: wants to have, right, and therefore the shutdown is their fault.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Whereas like for the past month, everyone's been arguing in
Speaker 2: the New York Times that you know about Democrats shut
Speaker 2: down the government to take a stand against Trump, and
Speaker 2: we're not sure what the stand should be about. And
Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer settled on healthcare eventually, right, But like for
Speaker 2: all types of reasons. I suggested it should be about tariffs.
Speaker 2: I guess anyone else like that idea. Right. Some people
Speaker 2: just think that, hey, we cannot in good conscious vote
Speaker 2: to fund this government. Right. And you've seen some like
Speaker 2: seepe to that message, like Santa Chris Murphy, the santer
Speaker 2: from Connecticut who loves to be an MSNBC. Right, but
Speaker 2: he's saying, yeah, it's not just about health here, let's
Speaker 2: be honest. Right. A lot of the Democratic influencers what
Speaker 2: do you call the murdy media personnelity, are kind of
Speaker 2: saying the same thing and so like, So it's it's
Speaker 2: a it's a hard tight rope, yeah, to walk right,
Speaker 2: it's kind of.
Speaker 1: A damned if you do, damned if you don't situation
Speaker 1: if you think about it. You know, since you referenced
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer, because you remember, last time we talked about
Speaker 1: the shutdown, it was averted because Schumer decided that it
Speaker 1: was time to you know, compromise a vertist shut down,
Speaker 1: and he got pillaraied for it. His approval ratings were horrific.
Speaker 1: People are like, oh, we can't believe you caved. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, he's like, okay, fine, we're going to stand strong,
Speaker 1: we'll shut down the government, and his approval ratings still suck, right.
Speaker 1: He now he's getting blamed for the fact that the
Speaker 1: government shut down. So it's it is, you know, as
Speaker 1: you say, it's a tight it's a hard tightrope, tight
Speaker 1: tight rope. It's a hard type rope to walk, and
Speaker 1: there seems to be little way to walk it short
Speaker 1: of some of sides that are willing to compromise, and
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem likely in the in the immediate term.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, first of all, there's some degree of
Speaker 2: like posturing it. First. I think it was very predictable
Speaker 2: that you'd have at least this amount of shutdown, right,
Speaker 2: you know, poles show that more the public blames Republicans
Speaker 2: and Democrats right now, right, but like, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: that really tells us who's winning the shutdown. Sure, I mean,
Speaker 2: we'll just kind of assume as a default that Republicans
Speaker 2: are more obstructionists, I think think, right, and so like
Speaker 2: Democrats will kind of the they kind of buy about it,
Speaker 2: and they say, oh, we are you know, our hand
Speaker 2: is forced right where it's like, you know, people can
Speaker 2: read the New York Times where you argue about this
Speaker 2: and like your ham was not forced. Now what you
Speaker 2: could say is like, look, you know what, you got
Speaker 2: your majorities in Congress. The majority can change the rules
Speaker 2: that it needs to write. We have so many problems
Speaker 2: with a the budget and b everything that Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is doing that we're not going to fucking support anything
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump does. It requires affirmative Democratic votes, right,
Speaker 2: so go ahead and break the filibuster. You're insincere about
Speaker 2: it anyway, Right, they already keep pairing away at it
Speaker 2: as Democrats have two in some cases. Right, So you
Speaker 2: have the votes, pass your budget, and we'll see you
Speaker 2: at the midterms. But instead there's this like spin that
Speaker 2: like I think is designed to like like designed to
Speaker 2: win this pole question, like the first Washington Post pole
Speaker 2: that comes out says, Okay, who is more blame for
Speaker 2: the shutdown? And just that one question because the other
Speaker 2: questions aren't necessarily so good for Democrats or Republicans, then
Speaker 2: maybe you win that. But like you know, when you're
Speaker 2: in a repeated game to ground this in the show
Speaker 2: a little bit, then credibility matters. I don't mean so
Speaker 2: much with Republicans, right, there's not very much trust there anyway.
Speaker 2: But I mean with I mean with voters, yeah, a
Speaker 2: little bit, right, Whereas if you had owned the shutdown,
Speaker 2: it might have been more unpopular at first. Now look,
Speaker 2: part of it is at Schumer's job is probably a
Speaker 2: fair bit of risk. In fact, a plurality of Democrats
Speaker 2: in a new pupil disapprove of Chuck Schumer have an
Speaker 2: unfavorable view of him. Not a majority, but plurality. You know,
Speaker 2: he is also very much threatened by AOC or other
Speaker 2: primary candidates in twenty twenty eight when he runs in
Speaker 2: I guess three years from now. He's also old as fuck.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's not old as fuck, He's just old,
Speaker 2: not as fuck, just old Nate.
Speaker 1: We have other we have other people for whom we
Speaker 1: should reserve the a s.
Speaker 2: Fuck. Yeah, he's just old. He's just old, not old
Speaker 2: af But like so, he probably wants to like give
Speaker 2: the annoying did I say annoying? He probably wants to give,
Speaker 2: like the partisan Democrats a win. Right that we have
Speaker 2: flexed our power. This keeps the base happy. We've gotten
Speaker 2: some some token or maybe not so token concessions on
Speaker 2: healthcare and things like that. Right, this shows it when
Speaker 2: we stand and fight that we win right, yeah, big
Speaker 2: morale boost. Does it provide much more than morale? I
Speaker 2: don't know. Does it help you win the midterms? I
Speaker 2: don't know. Right, the people that care about this are
Speaker 2: people are gonna vote anyway for the most part. But like,
Speaker 2: but if Schumer blows it, right, if he caves too soon,
Speaker 2: then he's gonna look like he's weak, and then he
Speaker 2: might be out of power. Right. If it goes on
Speaker 2: too long, then A everybody kind of gets more egg
Speaker 2: on their faces. B he loses control of the mestry
Speaker 2: doesn't really have to begin with. And so like, he
Speaker 2: would love to have that that you know early, that
Speaker 2: October tenth to fourteenth window that probably market says one
Speaker 2: and four chance, he would love He would love for
Speaker 2: that window to happen. Right, the more it goes on,
Speaker 2: and the more you already have influential Democrats saying, you know,
Speaker 2: it shouldn't really be about healthcare, come on, right, then
Speaker 2: it becomes this big uncertain morass. And look, you know
Speaker 2: you already have some swing state Democrats who are worried
Speaker 2: about this. Right, John Fetterman is not on board with
Speaker 2: a shutdown center from Wyoming. She's not on board with it.
Speaker 2: Angus King from Maine. Jared Golden is a representative from
Speaker 2: main very in the Trumpy District, Independent minded, right, So, like,
Speaker 2: I don't think Democrats feel like this is gonna be
Speaker 2: a big win for them, right, but like, but you
Speaker 2: know whatever, I mean whatever, have fun, you know, have fun.
Speaker 2: It's kind of it's kind of actually not that high
Speaker 2: stakes compared to a lot of things are going on,
Speaker 2: which is kind of to me why it feels like
Speaker 2: a little bit discordant. But they have to make it,
Speaker 2: they have to make a move, right, and they like,
Speaker 2: they couldn't do nothing or Sumer might lose his job
Speaker 2: if he did nothing right, and they don't really have
Speaker 2: a great hand to play. But Republicans aren't popular either,
Speaker 2: and they're insincere in their own ways, believe me. And
Speaker 2: what Democrats are asking for is fundamentally pretty reasonable. I think,
Speaker 2: uh yeah, so yeah, so there we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think I think this is that was
Speaker 1: a good summary. And one other thing that I will
Speaker 1: say is, you know, note the language that you've been using,
Speaker 1: which is also the language that they're using, which is, oh,
Speaker 1: we need to win. You know, we're fighting a war,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So if we couch this back in game
Speaker 1: theoretic terms. You know, they are making this into more,
Speaker 1: you know, of a zero sum contest than it has
Speaker 1: to be. Right, it's like a US versus them, like
Speaker 1: we we need to win, as opposed to Okay, let's
Speaker 1: let's figure out this is just positive some like let's compromise,
Speaker 1: let's let's do what's good for the country. That language
Speaker 1: has largely disappeared right now, even though at the end
Speaker 1: what we will need is some sort of a compromise.
Speaker 1: And as you point out, Nate, some of the things
Speaker 1: like healthcare, those are going to help Republicans as well
Speaker 1: in the midterm elections. If Democrats actually can get that changed,
Speaker 1: it'll help the general public, but it will also help
Speaker 1: Republicans because a lot of people who will otherwise be
Speaker 1: incredibly pissed off will no longer be pissed off. And probably,
Speaker 1: as you say, you know, they're the people who already
Speaker 1: pay attention to this, and then those who don't. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing that a lot of those people who would have
Speaker 1: lost health care coverage if we if nothing was done right,
Speaker 1: won't even realize that this happened, right. They won't even
Speaker 1: realize that there was a change that there was a
Speaker 1: compromise that Democrats had anything to do with it. They'll
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, see, we knew that Trump would never
Speaker 1: take away our health care because if you're not paying
Speaker 1: attention to those kinds of behind the scenes machinations, then
Speaker 1: you might not even you might not even realize that's
Speaker 1: the case. So that'll be a win for Republicans as well,
Speaker 1: as you said. And so I think that it's just
Speaker 1: very interesting to see how, you know, politics has always
Speaker 1: been a fight to some extent, but the extent to
Speaker 1: which the language has become kind of zero sum radicalized
Speaker 1: as opposed to a more you know, we all serve
Speaker 1: the people type of rhetoric, which would be I think
Speaker 1: a little bit more appropriate here, but clearly not the
Speaker 1: stage at which we find ourselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's not zero someone if you're an incumbent, right,
Speaker 2: because one sure pause block cooming is that people get
Speaker 2: really mad at incumbents in general. And so, you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: given the type of incumbents we have, you know, we're
Speaker 2: represented in Congress by this current generation of representatives, and
Speaker 2: if there's a pack book on other houses, then they
Speaker 2: might lose. Where the split between the parties goes right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, you know, Poland shows pretty clearly that Democrats
Speaker 2: no longer want compromise with Republicans, right, They want they
Speaker 2: want to fight. You know, I as always am contrarian
Speaker 2: because I thought that the spring was a better time
Speaker 2: to shut down than now. You had Elon Musk as
Speaker 2: a good, good scapegoat. I think I'm more salient scapegoat
Speaker 2: slash you know, relevant excuse because he was fucking with
Speaker 2: the budget, right, and I think they were a little
Speaker 2: slow to move then and now it's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: the fact is that when you're out of shut out
Speaker 2: of Congress, shut out of of the Supreme Court, basically right,
Speaker 2: you're shout out of the presidency. You're even losing control
Speaker 2: over blue academic media institutions that you once controlled. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, Democrats are are number one very angry, right,
Speaker 2: and number two feel like they need something, anything that
Speaker 2: they can call a win. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that the optics are incredibly important. So yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see what happens. Let's see if Chuck Schumer can
Speaker 1: hit his magic window or not. Holymarket odds are against it,
Speaker 1: but we shall see. On that note, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and when we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the new open AI release sore or sorry, Nate,
Speaker 1: Sora too. So last week, last Friday, October third, open
Speaker 1: a I released a new app. And even if you're
Speaker 1: you know, not terminally online, unless you're living under a
Speaker 1: rock and you have some form of social media, you
Speaker 1: were probably aware that Soora was released, because I don't
Speaker 1: know about your news feed, Nate, but my newsfeed briefly
Speaker 1: became just like completely Sora with the announcement video, all
Speaker 1: these other videos, just people were just going crazy. So
Speaker 1: for a good twenty four hours, Sora was my newsfeed.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of the next gen video generation
Speaker 1: app that they've been working on. And yeah, it's as
Speaker 1: of now invite only, but man, it's as of now
Speaker 1: still free, even though there are you know, already murmurs
Speaker 1: that it's not going to be for for much longer,
Speaker 1: because Sam Altman said that he wasn't he wasn't prepared
Speaker 1: for how many people would be making those those videos,
Speaker 1: which I've seemed very strange, Like, of course, of course
Speaker 1: you're you should be prepared for the volume that it's
Speaker 1: going to generate at this stage, right, you seem to
Speaker 1: be unprepared every single time you release something new.
Speaker 2: Well, that can be a classic tactics in politics too. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, we have an overflow capacity here at
Speaker 2: this tiny venue that you should pick a bigger venue. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it looks good on TV. Yeah, it generates buzz right yep.
Speaker 1: So yeah, let's let's talk about soa. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: you know, the good, the bad, the ugly. But first,
Speaker 1: just a brief explanation. So, Nate, have you used Sora
Speaker 1: yourself yet?
Speaker 2: I am not. I don't know why I was going
Speaker 2: to use it in preparation for this program. I don't
Speaker 2: have any What would I do with it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I feel the exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems it's like, oh, you can generate
Speaker 2: in the image, and it's like, okay, I have a
Speaker 2: good imagination, you know what I mean? Yeah, Like what
Speaker 2: I do with it? Do I feel like the old person?
Speaker 1: I mean no, I mean I actually feel I feel
Speaker 1: the same way, which is that it's using a whole
Speaker 1: lot of capacity for something that I don't know how
Speaker 1: much of this we need. But the idea is that
Speaker 1: you give it a text prompt and then it creates
Speaker 1: a video from it. And the video is when I
Speaker 1: said next, jen A, I really is. It does look
Speaker 1: a lot better than AI generated videos did before. You
Speaker 1: can even upload your own photograph. I would actually urge
Speaker 1: you not to do that because this is more training
Speaker 1: material for the apps and you kind of lose a
Speaker 1: lot of control over it. Anyway, we can, we can
Speaker 1: talk about that. But so you can upload your own image,
Speaker 1: you can use historical figures. People have been making videos
Speaker 1: of MLK. The most famous one that has been circulated
Speaker 1: is sam Altman shoplifting from a target. So yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: You can give it lots of prompts and it spits
Speaker 1: out the output and as of now it is water
Speaker 1: are marked, but the watermarks are already being removed. They're
Speaker 1: not very sticky, it turns out. But yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: this new frontier of video generation. And even though it
Speaker 1: says that they have guardrails about usage, you know, consent,
Speaker 1: celebrity usage, political violence, people have already demonstrated that Zura
Speaker 1: is capable of creating incredibly realistic images of things like protests,
Speaker 1: violence in the streets, you know, things that border closely
Speaker 1: on political violence, which it says it doesn't allow, and
Speaker 1: some experts in video AI generation and detection. So there
Speaker 1: are people who have companies that actually are supposed to,
Speaker 1: you know, be very very very accurate at figuring out
Speaker 1: is a SAI generated or not? Are saying, hey, this
Speaker 1: is really tough, right, Like, some of these are actually
Speaker 1: quite good, and it's becoming very difficult to figure out
Speaker 1: whether or not this is real or not, which is
Speaker 1: scary because once we stop having that capacity, what happens
Speaker 1: with video evidence, right, what happens with deep fakes, what
Speaker 1: happens with kind of the ability to tell what is
Speaker 1: real from what isn't real. We're already We're at the doorstep.
Speaker 1: We're almost there, and I think Sarah will probably take
Speaker 1: us over the doorstep.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, you can have a watermark, or you can
Speaker 2: have some type of digital signature embedded, right, or you
Speaker 2: can just say, okay, there are artifacts that suggest that
Speaker 2: this is artificial, right. You know, I suspect we're probably
Speaker 2: a few years away from because there's more going on
Speaker 2: with vision than text, you know what I mean? You know,
Speaker 2: these AI detectors for like college essays I think are
Speaker 2: not very reliable, but like visual artifacts are like harder.
Speaker 2: I believe to entirely eradicate potentially, right, you know, just
Speaker 2: to be able to manipulate photos for a long time.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it's changed things all all that much.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean everyone, like people are always
Speaker 2: like misinformation, this misinformation that, right, Like I think it's important,
Speaker 2: but I think that's something people will adapt to. And
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I'm more interested in, like
Speaker 2: what this tells us about, like what open AI wants
Speaker 2: to be, right, and how will AI become a part
Speaker 2: of our life. I suppose you know, this is not
Speaker 2: what you would call a particularly high brow product, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: No, it is not.
Speaker 2: It's refined and interesting and I'm sure you'll see interesting
Speaker 2: art produced with it, and you know, I say that
Speaker 2: on ironically and things like that, but like this is
Speaker 2: kind of a facebooky product, not to not to demean
Speaker 2: our friends at meta, right, but like this is consumer focused,
Speaker 2: middle brow, right. They seem not to be terribly concerned
Speaker 2: about like you know, the use of copyrighted characters and
Speaker 2: whether that falls under fair use is a legal debate, right,
Speaker 2: But like you know, I think if they were trying
Speaker 2: to go for a more intellectual crowd, they might have
Speaker 2: draw more guardbrails over that. But like to me, it
Speaker 2: seems like open ai is is turning into a more
Speaker 2: legibly normal consumer product technology company, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Now you can say they're doing that as an interim phase, right,
Speaker 2: in order to then raise enough money to take over
Speaker 2: the world with AI, right, or build AGI or a
Speaker 2: SI artificial superintelligence. But like, this is not quite the
Speaker 2: AI timeline that maybe the p Doomers feared exactly, right.
Speaker 2: You know, I compare this with the somewhat underwhelming release
Speaker 2: of GPT five, right, And we did an episode on
Speaker 2: GPT five. What was it like a month or so ago, right,
Speaker 2: Like I've remained a little bit underwhelmed by it, I
Speaker 2: would say, right, you know, look, I pay two dollars
Speaker 2: a month in the promode, use the pro mode, and
Speaker 2: and it's better, right, but like you know, it still
Speaker 2: feels very limited in capabilities, and it still feels like
Speaker 2: I gave to tell you this to the last show.
Speaker 2: So my friend has like I think she's like eight
Speaker 2: years old or in second grade, right, and you know
Speaker 2: I had chet ChiPT so there's this, you know, the
Speaker 2: machine that can like solve math Olympia problems. Right, So
Speaker 2: she had a Snoopy coloring book right where it's like
Speaker 2: you have to like fill in you know, little word
Speaker 2: puzzles that are very simple, unscramble of words and like
Speaker 2: you know Snoopy and the people are in Charlie Brown,
Speaker 2: Lucy whatever lineus, they're in a spaceship. You have to
Speaker 2: like connect the cord with the person in the in
Speaker 2: the space soup. It's designed for eight year olds. Every
Speaker 2: single problem chat ChiPT totally fucked up. It like cheated, right,
Speaker 2: that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, you wh when you had Snoopy,
Speaker 2: you had you know, you're looking forward and you have
Speaker 2: the left half is filled out with an image of
Speaker 2: Snoopy in the profile facing the child who's filling out
Speaker 2: this cartoon, right, and the right half is blank. So
Speaker 2: it is we're just teaching you to mirror Snoopy on
Speaker 2: both sides, right. So I'm like, oh, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to even give this to chat cheepy Tea. It's too easy, right,
Speaker 2: So I photograph Snoopy and give it the puzzle, and
Speaker 2: instead it turns Snoopy around ninety degrees. So Snoopy is
Speaker 2: now not excuse me, he was facing you. Now he's
Speaker 2: in profile, right, you see his snout is facing right,
Speaker 2: so like it totally it totally cheated and like it
Speaker 2: gas lights you. Right, It's like you know you have
Speaker 2: like that, you know you have to think of you like,
Speaker 2: find the things that are different in the image, right,
Speaker 2: will like make up things that are different in its
Speaker 2: version of the image, but weren't different in the original image.
Speaker 2: It just gaslights you. You know. By the way, I
Speaker 2: don't think GPT five is like a total miss or
Speaker 2: or anything. Right, We're getting toward the end of the year.
Speaker 2: Some people I think predicted bigger breakthroughs this year in
Speaker 2: terms of agentic capabilities, for example, what they'd be able
Speaker 2: to do in terms of you know, computer usage and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and like, you know, this has been
Speaker 2: as far as like core AI, you know, we have
Speaker 2: not been We've been it's been getting better, it's been improving. Right.
Speaker 2: This is the year where it's felt like we're not
Speaker 2: on an exponential curve, right, It's felt more linear now
Speaker 2: that could be some type of punctuated equilibrium where there
Speaker 2: needs to be some some new technology, you know. I
Speaker 2: think people mostly feel that like maybe merely adding more
Speaker 2: compute will produced diminishing returns at some point it might
Speaker 2: need some new techniques. Right. And by the way, if
Speaker 2: you were at the best Urn of AI, you know
Speaker 2: they're private company for now, right, But like I were
Speaker 2: investor in Opening, I be fine with this. I mean,
Speaker 2: all the big you know, Google, Facebook, et cetera. Companies
Speaker 2: are are very profitable and have very you know, rich valuations. Right.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's becoming it's becoming a little Uh. What's
Speaker 2: the words slop is the word that some people use
Speaker 2: for this type of image generation. Oh?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think slop is the right word. And I
Speaker 1: think that I would actually go a step further and
Speaker 1: say that as opposed to a step towards kind of
Speaker 1: AGI or kind of bigger advancements, you know, P doom
Speaker 1: et cetera. I phrased that poorly. It makes it seem
Speaker 1: like P doom would be an advancement. P doom is bad, right,
Speaker 1: that's why it's called P doom. But the advancements that
Speaker 1: would potentially lead us to U P doom scenario. This
Speaker 1: seems to be basically the only uses I can see
Speaker 1: of this with some limited things. I don't want a
Speaker 1: straw man and say like there's nothing good that comes up,
Speaker 1: But I think that a lot of the kind of
Speaker 1: a lot of the downstream effects of this are actually negative. Right,
Speaker 1: They're not doing anything to be a net positive value
Speaker 1: to society. Instead, it's creating kind of slop. It is,
Speaker 1: you know, taking taking up your time with activities that
Speaker 1: might dead in some of your brain cells and would
Speaker 1: probably be better used doing something else. And it can
Speaker 1: create really bad downstream effects if we look at the
Speaker 1: types of videos that it is capable of generating. You
Speaker 1: know what happens if someone, as they get more realistic, thinks, oh,
Speaker 1: there really is violence here, There's really an uprising here, right,
Speaker 1: there was really a bomb here. The Democrats did this,
Speaker 1: you know, the Republicans did that. I think this can
Speaker 1: go on both sides of the party line. So let's
Speaker 1: not let's not say one party or the other. What
Speaker 1: happens Nate. If someone can get your face and makes
Speaker 1: it seem like Nate Silver did something very bad or
Speaker 1: Maria konnikovid did something very bad or said something, you
Speaker 1: could probably implicate people in crimes they did and commit.
Speaker 1: And if you and I had exonerating evidence and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we were taping the Risky Business podcast at that exact
Speaker 1: time look at the video of it. If you can't
Speaker 1: distinguish that right from the video that they generated, or
Speaker 1: it can be incredibly difficult, time consuming to distinguish it.
Speaker 1: It's not as easy as doing it immediately. That could
Speaker 1: still upend our lives and kind of lead us into
Speaker 1: a very uncomfortable spiral where even if at the end
Speaker 1: of the day we are vindicated, it will still have
Speaker 1: been you know, very long time, financial resources, emotional cost,
Speaker 1: all of these things, and those seem to be kind
Speaker 1: of the main uses of video generation of the sort
Speaker 1: that or you know, disrupting Hollywood and saying okay, fine, well,
Speaker 1: you know, create entire AI movies, which I don't think
Speaker 1: you can do at this point with SOA in any
Speaker 1: believable way. But that might be kind of one of
Speaker 1: the one of the other downstream effects. But I'm more
Speaker 1: kind of what worries me, especially as someone you know,
Speaker 1: who studies a barent behavior con artists, et cetera, and
Speaker 1: who's working on a book about cheating. What worries me
Speaker 1: are kind of all of the nefarious uses of this
Speaker 1: for scamming, for for conning, for cheating, and you do
Speaker 1: have this thing called the liar's dividend that I think
Speaker 1: is very prominent in something like Sore, where I mean
Speaker 1: Trump even said it himself that basically, you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't trust this evidence anymore, then you can just
Speaker 1: blame AI for everything. And Trump said and this isn't
Speaker 1: a this is a quote. If something happens that's really bad,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll have to just blame AI, right, And that's
Speaker 1: that's the liar's dividend that like now, liars are actually
Speaker 1: the ones who are benefiting cheaters, are the ones that
Speaker 1: are benefiting con artists, scammers, They're the ones that are
Speaker 1: deriving the most benefit from this. So if your stated
Speaker 1: goal has a come he is to make the world
Speaker 1: a better place. And all you're doing is a good
Speaker 1: on a good day, just generating slop and on a
Speaker 1: bad day, creating content that might actually diletoriously affect people's
Speaker 1: lives on an individual level, on a broader level, depending
Speaker 1: on what we're talking about, then I start to question,
Speaker 1: you know, what, what are we even doing? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: what's the point of this because chat GPT. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of GPT five, We've talked about this,
Speaker 1: it's still you know, there are things that we don't like,
Speaker 1: but they are good uses of it, right and large
Speaker 1: language models. I can see like there are really great
Speaker 1: ways that this can you know, speed scientific discoveries do
Speaker 1: make work easier. There there are lots of really great things.
Speaker 1: And what's sore? I'm like, well, you know at this point,
Speaker 1: like what are give me the strong man case for
Speaker 1: what the amazing uses of this are as opposed to
Speaker 1: just the meh or the just dead weight on society
Speaker 1: or the actually actively bad society societal effect. And Nate,
Speaker 1: I can already see by your face that you know
Speaker 1: this is you'll rise to the challenge, even though you
Speaker 1: were you started off by by being negative on sour
Speaker 1: and saying that you don't even see why you would
Speaker 1: why you would want to use it. But let's I'd
Speaker 1: actually really like to try to figure out, Okay, what
Speaker 1: are some really great like what is the societal good
Speaker 1: from this? What is the thing from this that might
Speaker 1: actually be you know, medical breakthrough, don't discoveries? I don't know, Like,
Speaker 1: let's let's try to figure out, you know, is there
Speaker 1: a way to spend this in a more positive light
Speaker 1: than the one that I have just recounted, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: well exactly. Yeah, No, I mean I haven't mentioned all
Speaker 1: the negative stuff. Yeah, please, I mean that's a huge thing. Porn, revenge, porn,
Speaker 1: just all all sorts of things that you can do
Speaker 1: with with this technology, and with the access to photographs
Speaker 1: and the frankly not great protections on image likeness, and
Speaker 1: the ability to kind of use things that are copyright protected.
Speaker 2: And and and fanfic y, which which may also have
Speaker 2: some commercialization that you have you're on some weird wormhole
Speaker 2: on the internet, right, and you have something involving these
Speaker 2: characters that's not canon, and and and now you can
Speaker 2: create your own movie universe, cinematic universe, right, especially for
Speaker 2: fantasy type stuff where maybe the realism is not super
Speaker 2: super important, and some of them will be popular, some
Speaker 2: of them will be good even, right, They'll be interesting
Speaker 2: art produced with this tool. But but yeah, I think
Speaker 2: large language models are fascinating. It's partly because I'm like
Speaker 2: kind of like a language guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I totally totally agree.
Speaker 2: But they're also this kind of remarkable miracle technology, you know,
Speaker 2: I get. Look, I guess in some sense, like there
Speaker 2: is still some like shock and all with these video models, right,
Speaker 2: I you know, given current developments in any eye, I'm
Speaker 2: not surprised, right, but I would have been surprised five
Speaker 2: or ten years ago, I think.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, and you know, and by the way, as
Speaker 2: you get more like customized versions of whatever fanfic you're into,
Speaker 2: that makes society more like atomized also, right, we have
Speaker 2: like fewer and fewer focal points. You know, you'll probably
Speaker 2: get some really cool video games out of it. Right,
Speaker 2: if you can custom generate unique animations and that, you know,
Speaker 2: video games will be cool. It's hard to find the
Speaker 2: legitimate quote unquote positive use cases for it, right, Whereas
Speaker 2: emage image generation you can see plenty of positives, right,
Speaker 2: and certainly language generation. Right. I guess advertising advertising, okay,
Speaker 2: that's fine, right, video games? Right, but these are they
Speaker 2: are these things that are kind of neutral and benign
Speaker 2: ish and then things that are bad, right, And there's
Speaker 2: not a lot that's good. Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so either, did you see? By
Speaker 1: the way, Nate, just to show like how important video
Speaker 1: gaming data is to open a last year, they offered
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollars for a company called Metal, which
Speaker 1: lets gamers basically upload videos of them playing these video games,
Speaker 1: and the reason that they were willing to offer so
Speaker 1: much is because you know you might be able to
Speaker 1: then train its models on those videos. There was a
Speaker 1: story in a tech site that I read a lot
Speaker 1: the information about this if you're interested in more detail,
Speaker 1: but I thought that this was a really interesting window
Speaker 1: into what open a I might be thinking in terms
Speaker 1: of the future of its video apps. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that it's it's funny you say video games will
Speaker 1: be will get better, but it's a they will use
Speaker 1: video game video games themselves to be able to prove
Speaker 1: It's kind of one of these basically the way that
Speaker 1: large language models work, right where you need that feedback,
Speaker 1: You need the good stuff to be able to then
Speaker 1: generate things on your own, and so you need access
Speaker 1: to that data and to that raw data.
Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after this break. Google I
Speaker 2: think is the best cop for open AI, right, probably
Speaker 2: better than Facebook, but that's the second most obvious, right, Yep,
Speaker 2: they both do a lot of different shit, right, Like
Speaker 2: Google would not even claim that like everything they do
Speaker 2: is search or one degree removed from search. Right, they
Speaker 2: have lots of start people, they have lots of capital,
Speaker 2: they buy lots of stuff. Maybe they think it will
Speaker 2: improve search originally and then and then once you're doing
Speaker 2: something else, right, they have you know, electric vehicles and
Speaker 2: things like that, and like I kind of predict like
Speaker 2: this is what we're seeing, Like I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think Sam Moulton would love to have artificial general
Speaker 2: intelligence AGI. You know, the implications for society good or bad. Right,
Speaker 2: But like this does not feel to me like a
Speaker 2: company that has a lot of competence about its ability
Speaker 2: to like develop AGI in a one to three year timeline.
Speaker 2: They might have something they call AGI, but like, if
Speaker 2: you were on the brink of an intelligence explosion, as
Speaker 2: both the doomers and the optimists sometimes call it, right,
Speaker 2: you I think would not put out this video slop product. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: there are ways where they could have rolled it out
Speaker 2: with like with a little bit more pretense, even though
Speaker 2: probably would be ninety eight percent the same what you
Speaker 2: can do with it, right, but with like it could
Speaker 2: have got a little bit more pretense about like here
Speaker 2: the precautions we're taking about copyright and pornography and here
Speaker 2: are you know, and we hired whatever these artists, We
Speaker 2: did a collab with these artists right to show you
Speaker 2: different ways in which can be used for true creativity, right,
Speaker 2: and here's a way it can use for medical diagnosis.
Speaker 2: And like the marketing was kind of you know, maybe
Speaker 2: they didn't do their market but they're usually a company
Speaker 2: pretty savy about its marketing, right, Yeah, everything Sam Maltman
Speaker 2: says is is savvy. But like, you know, maybe take
Speaker 2: that back. All the different versions of names they have
Speaker 2: for their products can be a little bit confusing, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this to me says that like, you know, this company
Speaker 2: is is Google, Facebook, Microsoft.
Speaker 1: Yes, they know that they're they're creating something that will
Speaker 1: potentially cause a lot of negative effects, and they don't
Speaker 1: particularly care right now because that is something that, as
Speaker 1: you say, in the short term, like they don't have
Speaker 1: agi and this is something that can get people's eyeballs
Speaker 1: for a limited amount of time, which means money, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So it seems that, you know, we've come
Speaker 1: a long way from Sam Altman's initial goals for the
Speaker 1: company to now like Okay, let's just figure out a
Speaker 1: way that we can increase immediate revenue right now. Consequences
Speaker 1: kind of be damned, and we're going to sure, like
Speaker 1: once we get soon and if something really bad happens,
Speaker 1: we might start adding some guardrails on some of this stuff.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, you know, let's just put it
Speaker 1: out there and yeah, well we'll see what happens. Nate,
Speaker 1: have you seen the movie that came out, I think
Speaker 1: on Netflix earlier this year, Mountainhead.
Speaker 2: No, so this was I I have fountain Head.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and in the movie, so they actually have
Speaker 1: the exact same I think thought process about our intelligence
Speaker 1: as Sam Altman does, which is that, oh, people are
Speaker 1: going to miss this. So the movie even just like
Speaker 1: makes a show. They're like, you called this mountain Head.
Speaker 1: Is that supposed to be like Fountainhead? I was like, guys, guys,
Speaker 1: we got it. You don't have to explicitly put it
Speaker 1: in the dialogue. It's one of those cringe moments. But yes,
Speaker 1: that is in fact a line of dialogue, which is
Speaker 1: which is heartbreaking to me because I wanted to love
Speaker 1: this movie. Disclaimer, I did not because it was written
Speaker 1: by Jesse Armstrong, who was a creator and writer of
Speaker 1: A Succession, which I think is one of the best
Speaker 1: TV shows in recent memories. So that was it was
Speaker 1: sad to me that I not not only did not
Speaker 1: love this movie, but another disclaimer, turned it off probably
Speaker 1: less than halfway through because I felt that it was
Speaker 1: that bad. But the premise of it is that you
Speaker 1: have all of these tech billionaires come to kind of
Speaker 1: a house called mountain Head, like fountain Head, and they're all,
Speaker 1: you know, they're all basically they're they're big dick. Contest
Speaker 1: is you know whose net worth is hired at any
Speaker 1: given moment, And one of the companies has just released
Speaker 1: this AI video generation tool that is starting real world
Speaker 1: riots as they are ensconced in their mountain retreats because
Speaker 1: the videos content is so incredibly realistic. And one of
Speaker 1: the other guys has a company that can actually help
Speaker 1: people very accurately say no, this is AI and distinguish
Speaker 1: from it, and his net worth is rising even faster,
Speaker 1: and so he doesn't. You know, it's kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this kind of battle between morals and like letting
Speaker 1: the world kind of go to hell because we'll be
Speaker 1: fine because we're mega billionaires and look at our net
Speaker 1: worth going up and up and up. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was very funny because when I saw Sora, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: this is kind of like that, you know, famous tweet
Speaker 1: from forever ago. It was science fiction author in my book,
Speaker 1: I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale tech
Speaker 1: company at Long Last, we have created the Torment Nexus
Speaker 1: from classics sci fi novel don'tate the Torment Nexus. So
Speaker 1: this was, Yeah, this seems to be like exactly one
Speaker 1: of those moments where I was like, wait, didn't we
Speaker 1: just have a movie about the fact that maybe we
Speaker 1: don't want to create a tool that does this exact thing.
Speaker 1: So I thought that that was a pretty pretty funny
Speaker 1: funny moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, look, I mean, for example, companies, if you know,
Speaker 2: you can use their IP like their stock characters unless
Speaker 2: they specifically opt out of it. Like that's kind of presumptuous, right,
Speaker 2: Just it.
Speaker 1: Should be the other way around, by the way, you
Speaker 1: should have to opt in, not opt out.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they've done financial modeling and like, very few
Speaker 2: companies have been truly crippled by by a lawsuit, right,
Speaker 2: Like Napster was kind of like the famous exception, right,
Speaker 2: But for the most part, if you're growing super deeper
Speaker 2: fast and you're going to lose a few of these
Speaker 2: big lawsuits, right, you know, we're already in an environment,
Speaker 2: particularly on Twitter slash x where uh where you have
Speaker 2: you collect videos from the eight billion people in the world, right,
Speaker 2: you collect something that happens somewhere to one of those
Speaker 2: eight billion people, and like Ela Musk tweets, Elamus tweets it,
Speaker 2: and it creates outrage. Right, sometimes those videos are are
Speaker 2: manipulated or even fake, but like often they're not. Right,
Speaker 2: it's just kind of like the cherry picking that you
Speaker 2: get in there. And I think I'm a dystopian meter.
Speaker 2: We're at like eight point two I think, right.
Speaker 1: A point two out of tenya yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not linear. It's a long way to go
Speaker 2: to get to a ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think I think eight point two we're
Speaker 1: you know, we're certainly I think I think we are
Speaker 1: as well. I think we are as well. And that's
Speaker 1: such a positive note on which to leave our audience
Speaker 1: this this fine week. But yeah, let's uh. I know
Speaker 1: we say this so frequently at the end of our episodes,
Speaker 1: but I really do. I'm very curious to see what's
Speaker 1: going to end up happening with SOA and whether we
Speaker 1: look back on this and are like, holy shit, you know, Nate,
Speaker 1: you and I were so naive or whether we think
Speaker 1: you know, we we were very prescient about this. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very interested to see what's going to go down,
Speaker 1: and I hope that it's less negative than we have
Speaker 1: envisioned it during the course of the last forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: I hope that we don't hit at ten anytime soon,
Speaker 1: but we shall.
Speaker 2: See log off, log off, flog up, go to.
Speaker 1: The bogging Nate and Maria logging off for today. We'll
Speaker 1: see you all on Saturday. Let us know what you
Speaker 1: think of the show. Reach out to us at Risky
Speaker 1: Business at pushkin dot FM. Risky Business is hosted by
Speaker 1: me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show was a Cool
Speaker 2: production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by as At Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit
Speaker 2: Lydia Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and
Speaker 2: our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Brugert.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, please rate and review us
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Speaker 1: only if you like us. We don't want those bad
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