Intelligent Machines 819: Put The Fries in the Bag

Summary

Podcast Summary: Intelligent Machines 819: Put The Fries in the Bag

Podcast Information:

• Title: Intelligent Machines 819: Put The Fries in the Bag
• Host: Leo Laporte
• Guests: Emily Bender and Alex Hanna
• Release Date: May 15, 2025

---

Introduction

In episode 819 of Intelligent Machines, host Leo Laporte is joined by tech journalist Jeff Jarvis and Paris Martineau, setting the stage for an in-depth discussion on the latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI). The episode delves into pressing issues surrounding AI, including copyright controversies, the widespread skepticism of big tech from both political spectrums, privacy concerns with emerging technologies, and a critical analysis of AI hype as presented by guests Emily Bender and Alex Hanna.

---

AI Copyright Office Report Controversy

Timestamp: [00:00] - [12:07]

The episode opens with Leo Laporte expressing frustration over Catherine Gillies' report from the U.S. Copyright Office, which concluded that AI training on copyrighted works does not qualify as fair use. This stance contradicts the views of prominent AI leaders like Sam Altman and Elon Musk, leading to significant backlash.

• Leo Laporte discusses the report's implications:

  "[...AI training on copyrighted works...] was not fair use." ([04:18])

• Jeff Jarvis shares a personal anecdote about recording his audiobook, where he was compelled to read a restrictive AI use statement:

  "I gave them the very nice audiobook guy and I said okay, three choices. One, don't do that for this book. Two, use my joke. Three, use somebody else's voice." ([08:33])

The conversation highlights the tension between AI developers and copyright holders, emphasizing the potential shutdown of certain AI functionalities due to legal constraints.

Key Points:

• The U.S. Copyright Office report challenges the legality of AI training using copyrighted material.
• The firing of key figures in the Copyright Office signals a potential crackdown on AI practices.
• There is a bipartisan disdain for big tech, albeit for different reasons, complicating regulatory efforts.

---

Big Tech Criticism from Both Sides

Timestamp: [12:07] - [25:04]

Leo and his co-hosts explore the unique position of big tech being criticized by both the left and the right for different reasons, creating an "unholy alliance" against these companies.

• Jeff Jarvis explains the dual criticism:

  "The left doesn't like Big Tech because they're monopolists, invading privacy. The right dislikes them for censoring conservative speech." ([13:06])

This section underscores the complexity in regulating big tech, as the companies face multifaceted opposition that complicates unified legislative action.

Key Points:

• Big tech is under fire from both political wings: left for monopolistic practices and privacy invasions, right for censorship of conservative viewpoints.
• The bipartisan opposition creates challenges in forming comprehensive regulatory frameworks.
• Compensation models proposed by companies like OpenAI are criticized for favoring large entities, leaving out smaller content creators and news outlets.

---

Privacy Concerns with Meta’s AI-Integrated Glasses

Timestamp: [16:07] - [24:05]

The discussion shifts to the introduction of Meta’s new AI-powered glasses, raising significant privacy and ethical concerns.

• Paris Martineau questions the practical use of built-in facial recognition:

  "How many people using the Meta glasses are actually using the camera function meaningfully?" ([20:02])

• Leo Laporte shares his personal experience with AI-driven technologies and their implications on privacy:

  "If Meta integrates facial recognition into everyday glasses, it could lead to unprecedented privacy invasions." ([22:20])

Key Points:

• Meta's AI glasses, internally named Aperol and Bellini, come with built-in facial recognition, sparking debates over privacy.
• There are fears of misuse, such as stalking or unauthorized data collection, exacerbating privacy concerns.
• The environmental impact of AI technologies, including energy consumption and data center usage, is also highlighted.

---

Guest Segment: Emily Bender and Alex Hanna on "AI Con"

Timestamp: [29:31] - [157:06]

Introduction of Guests: Leo welcomes Emily Bender, co-author of the influential "Stochastic Parrots" paper, and Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute. Together, they discuss their new book, AI Con: How to Fight Tech's Big Hype and Create the Future We Want.

AI Hype and Its Consequences:

• Alex Hanna defines the core issue:

  "AI hype is the aggrandizement of products that promise to replace human decision-making, often to the detriment of others." ([49:34])

• Emily Bender elaborates on the environmental and ethical costs:

  "Data center production is actively inhibiting climate goals, with companies like Microsoft and Google exceeding their sustainability targets." ([70:13])

Meaning and Understanding in AI:

• Alex Hanna argues that large language models (LLMs) lack genuine understanding:

  "Languages are systems of signs with meaning derived from community conventions. LLMs only process the form, not the true meaning." ([60:39])

• Emily Bender discusses the dangers of anthropomorphizing AI:

  "Equating AI with human consciousness leads to misconceptions about its capabilities and risks." ([64:39])

Good vs. Bad Uses of AI:

• Emily Bender and Alex Hanna differentiate between beneficial AI applications and harmful ones:

  "Well-scoped machine learning applications, like spell checkers or image processing in radiology, are valuable. However, synthetic text and image generators pose significant risks." ([56:30])

AI’s Impact on the Information Ecosystem:

• Alex Hanna warns about AI's role in spreading misinformation:

  "AI-generated information can despoil our information ecosystem, making it harder to trust the validity of shared content." ([61:00])

Journalism and AI:

• Jeff Jarvis and the guests stress the need for responsible journalism:

  "Journalism must return to first principles, critically evaluating who benefits from AI technologies and why." ([78:07])

Key Points:

• The book AI Con critically examines the overhyped promises of AI, highlighting ethical, environmental, and societal risks.
• Emphasis on distinguishing between meaningful AI applications and those that merely serve corporate interests or exacerbate existing issues.
• Advocacy for stricter regulations and more responsible AI development practices to mitigate negative impacts.

---

Sam Altman’s Kitchen and Light-Hearted Banter

Timestamp: [29:31] - [89:47]

Post the guest segment, the hosts engage in a humorous analysis of Sam Altman’s kitchen setup as featured in a Financial Times interview. They poke fun at his choice of olive oil and high-end kitchen appliances, blending tech critiques with light-hearted humor.

• Jeff Jarvis describes Altman's use of Breville Oracle Touch:

  "It's a $2,000 semi-automatic espresso machine that was met with mixed reviews online." ([32:35])

• Paris Martineau and Leo Laporte joke about the impracticality and environmental impact of luxury kitchen gadgets.

Key Points:

• The discussion serves as a comedic interlude, illustrating the hosts' blending of technology critique with everyday scenarios.
• Highlights the sometimes absurd intersection of tech enthusiasts and consumer products.

---

Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

Timestamp: [89:47] - [161:19]

The episode concludes with the hosts reflecting on the discussions, reinforcing the critical stance on AI while acknowledging its potential benefits when used responsibly. They encourage listeners to engage with their content and support the podcast through various platforms.

Notable Quotes:

• Emily Bender on responsible AI:

  "We need to ensure AI systems are ethically produced and well-scope evaluated for their intended contexts." ([77:29])

• Alex Hanna on AI’s future:

  "Make sure you're using technology that is well scoped and evaluated for the context that you're using it in." ([77:29])

Key Points:

• Reiteration of the need for balanced AI development that maximizes benefits while minimizing harms.
• Encouragement for listeners to support critical journalism and responsible AI usage.
• Mention of upcoming episodes and continued focus on AI-related topics.

---

Conclusion

Episode 819 of Intelligent Machines offers a comprehensive examination of the multifaceted challenges posed by AI, from copyright and privacy issues to the broader societal impacts of AI hype. Through the insightful contributions of guests Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, the podcast emphasizes the importance of responsible AI development and the critical role of informed journalism in shaping the future of technology.

Website for More Information: The AI Con

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for Intelligent Machines. Jeff Jarvis is here. Paris Martineau is as well. And I think I am gonna lose my mind. Our guests this week, Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, have written a book called the AI Con. They say it's all a con. It's all terrible. I'm gonna go crazy. We'll talk to them in a minute. On Intelligent Machines podcasts you love from people you trust. This. This is intelligent Machines, episode 819, recorded Wednesday, May 14, 2025. Put the fries in the bag. Hey, it's time for Intelligent Machines, the show. We talk about the latest in AI robotics and all those smart things all over your house everywhere you go nowadays. Paris Martin is here. It's great to see you, Paris. Journalistic to be here. Journalistic, paragon of virtue, tech journalist and investigative reporter. You can send her her tips at Paris nyc. It's great to see you. We were talking about kitty cats before the show began.

[Paris Martineau]

We were. I'm glad I could talk about them forever. Kitty let me brush her teeth today and I feel very accomplished.

[Leo Laporte]

I was not a cat person, and then I married Lisa and now I'm a cat person. Had no choice.

[Paris Martineau]

They're just more flexible dogs. Sorry. We can continue.

[Leo Laporte]

They're better than dog. Oh, I'm gonna get so much trouble.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, you're gonna get oh, so much.

[Leo Laporte]

They're a lot less work. Let's put it that way. They're not better in other respects. They don't love you as much. Dogs really love you. Cats will tolerate you. They. They always say that. What is it that dogs have? I can't remember what it is.

[Paris Martineau]

Are you okay?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Always say it, but he does it.

[Leo Laporte]

They always say it, but I don't say it, so I don't know what it is. That's Jeff Jarvis. He's Professor Emeritus of journalistic innovation at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Currently at Montclair State University and Sunny Studybrook. Hello, Jeff.

[Paris Martineau]

Now, Leo, did you not hear the call of the people last week?

[Leo Laporte]

I did not heed the call of the people. I heard it, but I heeded it not.

[Paris Martineau]

Wow.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't want that darn Craig Newmark jingle no more. I love Craig, but we do. We don't need a Craig. You're not even there anymore. You're no longer there. So, our guests this week. We've got the best guests. I'm very excited. Emily Bender, who is one of the authors of the very famous, oft quoted Stochastic Parrots paper on the dangers of stochastic parrots and Alex Hanna, who is a director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute. They are the authors of a new book and that's what Jeff's holding up. The. I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy this conversation. The AI Con. How to Fight Tech's Big Hype and Create the Future We Want. So I'm going to let you take the lead on this one while I stew in the corner. Well, we'll see. Anyway, they're going to. You should be your about 45 minutes and we will talk with Alex and Emily. I'm very excited about that. You're. You're. I think you're friends with Emily. Am I right or is that wrong? No, no. Okay.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I mean I'm, I'm social. Social media.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. You arrange. You arranged us this nice conversation. So. So that means unlike previous episodes of Intelligent Machines, we could start by talking about the AI news and then we'll get to our guests in about 45 minutes. But I am so much to choose from. I am, I am. I am. A wealth of stories. The Copyright Office. This is an. The Librarian of Congress, who is really more reasonably the head of the Copyright Office, came out with their third installment of their report on AI. And one of the things Shira Pullmutter did as the Library. She was the Librarian of Congress. Right.

[Jeff Jarvis]

There's Librarian of Congress and then reports to. Reports to the Library of Congress. So two people were fired.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. The pre publication version of this said that there are some issues about AI training itself on copyrighted works. And it was their opinion that that was not fair use, which of course is the position that Sam Altman and Elon Musk and a lot of other AI people and Jeff Jarvis and you, Jeff, and Kathy Gellis. The right to read. Right, right. The Librarian of Congress said, yeah, well, maybe not. At which point she was fired.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Both of them, again, both of them were the Librarian of Congress and the head of the Copyright Office. Librarian Congress has other. Many other duties as well.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, but, but they're. But one of their chief duties is, is. Is, you know, kind of defending copyright. It's interesting because Kathy did write a piece Monday in Tech Dirt saying the Copyright Office issues a largely disappointing report on AI training. And once again, a major fair use analysis inexplicably ignores the First Amendment. We should probably get Kathy on to talk about this. But she's always defended the right to read and says, well, look, AI has the right to read, just like you.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Would do raking the show. That's how we make the show.

[Leo Laporte]

And they're doing something similar, Right? They're. They're ingesting somebody's writing. And.

[Paris Martineau]

And then I once again disagree that I should have the same rights that people do. I don't think that a company, that a pro, a tool made by for profit and arguably marginally nonprofit companies should have the same rights.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So Time Inc. Shouldn't be able to do what it did in its Entire Life since 1926 of reading other publications and rewriting them. That would be.

[Paris Martineau]

Time, Inc. The company did not read anything. The journalists employed by Time Inc. Did, and they were paid money in salaries.

[Jeff Jarvis]

To rewrite each other's people's work.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Let me read what Kathy wrote in Techter, because this is an interesting slant on this. She says allowing a copyright to bar AI training would interfere with the First Amendment's protection of the right to read. And this is why she says this. If people are free to read directly, which they are, right. Then they should be able to use tools like crawlers and bots to help them do their reading. I mean, I guess you could even say a browser is a tool that you use to read the original material.

[Jeff Jarvis]

In the earliest days of the web, there was controversy about if you were using a browser, that content was copied onto your computer and was thus a violation of copyright. And the media industry, for a brief moment, tried to insist that.

[Leo Laporte]

So she says, if you're not free to do that, then are you really free to read at all? Which the First Amendment says you are. Right. So this is a. I agree it's complicated. And I understand what you're saying, Paris, especially since you are. You have a dog in this hunt. You are a writer, and your stuff is presumably ingested by AI and then regurgitated to people like me who use AIs for searching instead of reading the original material. So I understand why you'd be a little.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Can I tell you a brief, personal, relevant story? So last week I recorded the audiobook of magazine coming out very soon. And I go through the whole thing, and at the end there's the. This is magazine read to you by the author, Jeff Jarvis. Right. And then I had to read the copyright stuff, copyright 2024 by. And then the next line was, no portion of this book may be used in any training of artificial.

[Paris Martineau]

And I, I said, and you had to read it?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, I said, I. I don't want to read that. And the guy, the engineer said, you got to read that. And so I I, I, I read it. Then I read, no wait. Then I read another version of it which, which I said, though the author disagrees, no portion of this book. And then.

[Leo Laporte]

Wait a minute, is the copyright yours or the publishers copyright's.

[Paris Martineau]

My copyright.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Audiobook.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah. You don't own it?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I've licensed it to them, so I don't really, I mean I own it, but I license it to them. So I then wrote the very nice audiobook guy and I said okay, three choices. One, don't do that for this book. Two, use my joke. Three, use somebody else's voice. I said, I testified before the damn Senate saying the opposite thing. I don't want this coming out of my lyrics. And they said, okay, three, good.

[Leo Laporte]

They're not using your voice for that part.

[Jeff Jarvis]

For that line, they will substitute that line. So instead it'll be, you know, Paris.

[Paris Martineau]

I would double check that. I mean I, I'll do it.

[Jeff Jarvis]

A portion of this may be used.

[Leo Laporte]

You should do it, Paris. That nitwit Jeff's doesn't like this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Kathy says without fair use, by the way, fair use is, is really under assault. For instance.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, we can no longer stream our. What we used to do for years, for decades we used to watch the Apple event together and talk about it, commentate on it. It was my feeling that this was fair use because we were commenting on it. We were making a new version of this streaming thing and we even would say out of respect to Apple and if you don't want our commentary, Apple's streaming this, you go watch the Apple version of this. But Apple made us take it down. They threatened our YouTube.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I think you would have won. You couldn't have afforded to do it. I think you would have won in court. I think if anybody would take.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I mean it's obviously just an automated system that is flagging it.

[Leo Laporte]

It's no one actual lawyer.

[Paris Martineau]

No, no, I'm sure, I'm sure that.

[Leo Laporte]

No, it wasn't a, it wasn't a content ID takedown. An actual lawyer wrote us a letter.

[Paris Martineau]

And yeah, I mean, I'm just curious if.

[Leo Laporte]

No, no, it was a lawyer with an address. A real person.

[Paris Martineau]

No, let me finish. I'm curious if that lawyer, independent of anything, found your thing, typed that whole letter himself or if it was an automated system that flagged you and 400 other people that were doing the Apple things. I'm sure your name in that. And it just, it was an automated system, but with a lawyer's letterhead.

[Leo Laporte]

But that's a very different thing than we usually get. Normally, we will get the automated system, the DMCA takedown from YouTube, to which you can respond to blah, blah, blah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Apple has more money to pay more lawyers and buy more automatic.

[Leo Laporte]

In any event, you're right. I probably could have defended it, but I couldn't afford to defend it. So I.

[Jeff Jarvis]

As a result, I wish somebody would take them to court.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, we're no longer going to do that. We're going to do it in privately, in our discord. That's the chilling effect. So I'm a believer in if the.

[Jeff Jarvis]

One is a violation. I hate to tell you that's a violation, too. They could still come after you if it's private. They just can't do a YouTube takedown.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Jeff Jarvis]

If they wanted to sue you over this.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, they could. And then I would defend it. And then I would defend it. We'd have to, because we've protected them in every way we could.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

So we shall see. We shall see. In any event, the administration then fired the authors of that report because I'm sure Elon Musk immediately said to the White House, hey, that's not okay.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yo, Grok.

[Leo Laporte]

Because he's very much as. As you are in favor of the idea that I can ingest copyrighted material. And that's fair use. Usually you don't fire the person who wrote the report.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That's where. That's the age we're in.

[Leo Laporte]

Maybe you go to Congress and say, hey, we need some clarification. That would be a good thing. Kathy Gallus. A little hot under the collar about this. We've talked about this before, but that's. That's where we stand right now. I mean, I.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, well, no, There's a next chapter. There's the next chapter.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I think you have it on your part and I do mine. So then there's a story that someone did here that. Oops, Elon, this didn't work out quite the way you thought.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, yeah, I had. I put that in, too. Because the person they replaced.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

Librarian of Congress with is even worse.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Because. Because the. The wing of the right wing hates big tech.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So they don't want to do anything. That's nice to be tech.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Elon. Okay, you. But the rest of your neighbors are awful. And so they want to go after that. And meanwhile, on the left, there's certainly a large contingent like Paris Martineau, who wants to attack this issue from that side. And so it's interesting that Both parties have splits in them on this topic.

[Leo Laporte]

This is where we kind of stand right now. Because the left doesn't like Big Tech for one reason.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

They're monopolists.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Section230, same thing.

[Leo Laporte]

They're invading your privacy. And the right doesn't like it because they're censoring conservative speech. But this makes an unholy alliance because they have two different reasons for not liking Big Tech. But now you have unanimity. Whatever. For whatever reason, we don't like Big Tech. And I think you're right, Jeff. I think it's time to maybe defend Big Tech against both attacks.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's also lobbyists against lobbyists. It's. It's media lobbyists against tech lobbyists.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

In this case, yeah. The media lobbyists are loving this.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. They're happy as can be.

[Leo Laporte]

I feel like if it were just left up to us, we could figure something out here.

[Paris Martineau]

Us three users, the PACT policy to us.

[Leo Laporte]

I think probably the right solution is compensation. Just exactly what OpenAI said.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I disagree with that. No, no, no, no. I disagree that strongly. Because OpenAI is not compensating for content. OpenAI is giving buckets of money to large companies to buy their silence in lobbying and legislation and litigation. And the vast, the vast part of the ecosystem of content and news is left out of that. It's only the big companies, the biggest, squeakiest wheels, that get some money to shut up. And that's what's happening. And it's not benefiting news and content overall. It's not benefiting the vast majority of what is in fact ingested. So, no, I think that even that kind of payment routine is ridiculous.

[Leo Laporte]

So, yeah, so I guess we're. Then we are at a stalemate. Yes, because they're.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Paris. Paris. I know what she's going to do. She's going to filibuster for a 24 hour episode of Intelligent Machines. That's what she's gonna do.

[Paris Martineau]

Listen, guys, I've got a lot of. I've got a lot of good ideas, one of which is I listen to a podcast that sometimes does these reads read through like old adventure game books, which are kind of like a choose your own adventure book, but for children based on old video games. And I do think there are some very silly ones that we could read through and fail through over a couple of hours that could take up a good three to four hour block when we're not playing Baldur's Gate 3 or Leo's not getting a tatt.

[Leo Laporte]

So so the Trump appointees at this point have been blocked from entering the US Copyright Office.

[Paris Martineau]

How many?

[Leo Laporte]

This is a story.

[Paris Martineau]

Trump appointees or DOGE people have been blocked from entering US Government offices because I feel like I see a version of this story every single day.

[Leo Laporte]

So they're claiming that they are the new Librarian of Congress.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, there's another issue here, which is Congress for once isn't happy that somebody fired the Librarian of Congress.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. The two men are Brian Neves, who claims he's the new Deputy Librarian, and Paul Perkins, who says he's the new acting director of the Copyright Office as well as acting Register. Department of justice confirmed to Wired that Neaves and Perkins had been appointed to lead the Copyright Office. Both are currently high ranking officials at the doj. They declined to comment about whether the two officials attempted to enter the Copyright Office on Monday. The White House has not responded to a request for comment.

[Jeff Jarvis]

And on top of the Capitol Police.

[Leo Laporte]

It's the Capitol Police that stopped him from coming in, by the way.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I know. On top of all this, though, is I wonder what power the Copyright Office actually has over this versus the courts. Fair use is something Lawrence Lessig famously said from Harvard, that fair use is the right to hire an attorney to defend your use as fair use. And there's tons of case law on this. And I think it's going to be the courts that decide this, not this office. This office can issue a memo and a thought, but I think that's probably not the force of law. Right.

[Leo Laporte]

So, so complicated because last week they fired the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. That's where I get confused in all this.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, I was fully confused up until this moment.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. She was the first woman, the first black woman to hold the position.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

She's responsible for appointing the Copyright Register, not the Executive branch.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

So there are those who say the White House does not have the power to remove the leader of the Copyright Office either. This is what the legal counsel for public knowledge said, Meredith Rose, that that legal power does not exist. But that doesn't. That so far hasn't stopped anybody from anything. The White House press secretary told the wonderful Carolyn Levitt told reporters that Hayden's firing stemmed from, quote, quite concerning things she had done in the Library of Congress in pursuit of dei. She is a black woman, so probably just being a black woman was sufficient for that. I don't know. What a mess. The thing is, this stuff is while it seems kind of geeky, it's somewhat important. At least it's important to me. And it should be important to probably anybody who has a copyright or wants to.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Academics and scholars, too. Yeah, because they use Common Crawl. That's how we study the Internet is us. And how do we study the Internet? But by crawling it. And at some point, you know, the. The self interest in search. I think media companies at the beginning were going to fight search, and they realized that'd be dumb. That's how people are going to find us.

[Leo Laporte]

The top Democrat on the committee that oversees the Library of Congress said on Saturday Donald Trump's termination of the Register of Copyrights. Sheriff Perlmutter, that's the same. The Register of Copyrights is the same as the Librarian of Congress.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, no, these are two different people, Leo. There's a Librarian of Congress who appoints the Register of Copyrights.

[Leo Laporte]

Both.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I've been trying to tell you this. Both got fired. So one reports to the other.

[Leo Laporte]

Termination of the Register of Copyrights. Sheriff Pter Perlmutter.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That's.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It's surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber stamp Elon Musk's effort to mine troves of copyrighted data to train AI models. All right, so. Boy, what a mess.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, that's where we stand. And this is a mess.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a mess.

[Paris Martineau]

What a mess.

[Leo Laporte]

And depending on your point of view, to. To my left, the person to my left says it's a good thing. To the person on my right says a bad thing.

[Paris Martineau]

Such is the nature of a panel show. It would be uninteresting if we all.

[Leo Laporte]

Agreed we're rarely so balanced. Are you worried that the meta's new glasses reportedly will have face recognition built in?

[Paris Martineau]

What?

[Leo Laporte]

Yes.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So it can do things like what you do all day. Leo, this is your next.

[Leo Laporte]

I need this. I have paragno. Paragnosia or Magnus.

[Paris Martineau]

My question, though, is how many people that are using the meta glasses are actually using the camera function in a meaningful way? Because every person I've seen, and this is obviously limited sample size, but every person I've seen out in the real world using it are just like, oh, I love having headphones that I have to put in my ears.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

Like, no one's out here using the cameras except for, like, the occasional, I guess, Instagram story.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you guys know more? If it could do things like, here comes Leo. Right. So I guess, according I just got an article my daughter sent me from Neuroscience News, face blindness, which is what I have, and it is prosopag Pagnosia Prosopagnosia is affects 1 in 50 people. The inability to recognize even close friends and family despite having normal vision and memory face blindness. Now I know I can recognize friends and family. I even recognize you guys.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But Aphantasia. I put up a video on this story on this last week from Quantum magazine. Why some people don't see mental imagery.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a different thing. But that's the separate thing related because anyway, I don't know. So anyway, at least those people would be.2% of the population would definitely benefit from this. The concern, the reason Google for instance decided not to do it even though they had the capability in Google Glass was they were worried that guys would use it to. To stalk women. What's her name? Hey cutie. Hi.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, and they will.

[Leo Laporte]

Of course they will.

[Paris Martineau]

They're all especially because I mean as someone whose job is to find people's contact information online, if you're able to suddenly then just walk down the street, look at any cute girl or guy or person you want to suddenly know the address, phone number and email of. If a facial recognition thing could easily pull up their full name, then you'd be halfway there. Basically you just need to then enter that information into a couple databases and you'd be able to figure out where anybody lives just if they walked by you.

[Leo Laporte]

Companies working on two pairs of meta is working on two pairs of smart glasses for next year internally called Aperol and Bellini.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh gosh.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh God.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I'm waiting for Martini myself. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

They have recently reworked the way they assess privacy issues. It used to be it had to go up the ladder. Right now groups are able to self.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Certify because hey, nobody's gonna stop us.

[Leo Laporte]

Why wouldn't we? To release products more quickly in addition to face recognition, the software which you know will be built in the glasses could eventually do things like remind you to grab your keys if it noticed you didn't.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, that was the demonstration we saw.

[Leo Laporte]

Watching all the time.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Where it's watching all the time. Well, this is your. This is. What's the thing you wear? The whatchip. Call it.

[Leo Laporte]

It's just listening.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But what's it called? I forget the B. The B. Right. So I think, I think this is where Met is going. Yeah, I think it's great to both listen and watch and then you can query it based on your own life.

[Leo Laporte]

How useful for my little friend. You know that's always in my ear. Hey Leo, the grocery list is on the toaster oven. You forgot to bring it with you as you go shopping. That would be great. I would love that. Meta is reportedly already testing the live AI on already released model, so even the existing Ray Bans can do it, but it cuts the battery down to just half an hour.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Jeez.

[Paris Martineau]

So they're going to guess constantly recording and checking everything against.

[Leo Laporte]

What a surprise. Because it doesn't do it on device either. It has to.

[Paris Martineau]

So you know a way to make this work is you just wear a full body battery suit and there'll be no problems with that.

[Leo Laporte]

We're lithium suits, any or corduroy pants and just save the static electricity and you're charging all the time.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I got a question for you, Leo, related to this with the B. If Lisa says to you I told you that, you say no, you didn't. Can you say B? Did Lisa tell me this?

[Leo Laporte]

I could, but I wouldn't. Are you nuts? Don't think I haven't thought about that. All right, we're going to take a little break and remember, our guests are coming up in about 20 minutes. We're going to have a very exciting guests, Emily Bender and Alex Hannah, who's new book is called the AI Con, which might give you some idea of where they're going with that one.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, Barris is happy.

[Leo Laporte]

I just want. Let me just say, he's got to.

[Paris Martineau]

Get some fun balance in the show. I think it's fun to throw some stuff away.

[Leo Laporte]

I think you have painted me as like this aif. Oh, just full speed ahead.

[Paris Martineau]

AI Leo, you probably more than a dozen times in this podcast have said as an AI acceleration.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Acceleration is all right.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I am, but I just, I. I don't. Look, my, my point is I don't know if it's gonna. We're gonna get it or not. We may not. We may not get super intelligence or AGI or any of that stuff. It may not be that useful. But it is surprisingly the three in the two or three years since ChatGPT3.5, it's already pretty amazing what's happening. Don't you agree? We're doing. Something's happening here. We wouldn't be doing a show about it if it. If I didn't think it was really important. It may. It's not going to be a complete flop. It may not do everything that we hope.

[Paris Martineau]

I think I will be actually deeply impressed with AI if someone out there can use an AI tool to automatically cut all of Leo's sweeping statements about AI from the podcast based on the transcript and put them in one super Cut video.

[Leo Laporte]

Anthony could probably reference. I know Anthony could do that.

[Paris Martineau]

If it happens, then I'll, I'll be on your side.

[Leo Laporte]

Don't give Lisa any ideas.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, we just give her two. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Our show today brought you by StoryBlock. Now I want to give you an idea. This is an idea. Anybody who's ever worked at a publication, at a marketing company, anybody who's ever used a content management system knows how painful they can be. They promise enterprise grade features. What do you get? Slow, clunky systems that need developer support for even the smallest update. And when you're trying to move fast, that's the last thing you want to do is file a ticket just so you can move a graphic from here to there. Storyblock changes that. Unlike those monolithic CMSs, Storyblock is headless. That might seem weird to you, but it really works. It completely decouples the backend from the front end, which is great because developers can choose any front end they want. They can build in React or Astro or Vue, whatever. Meanwhile, you get this great CMS marketers can use an intuitive visual editor to create and update content without filing a ticket. And storyblock scales, by the way, whether you're a freelancer or part of a huge global enterprise with a global CDN, AWS data centers in the US, Europe and Asia, it's built for performance at scale. StoryBlock is enterprise ready. It has the tools, the features you need in enterprise, like role based Access control, enterprise, SLAs, top tier security, the stuff that, you know, Fortune 500 companies absolutely require. It's there, it's built into StoryBlock, it's baked right in. One global e commerce giant switched to storyblock and they cut their content update cycles from weeks, weeks to hours. Another major brand empowered marketing launch campaigns independently. They, you know, go ahead, you can do it. You got the tools. StoryBlock has an API first approach, so your content loads fast and anywhere in the world. That means better ux, higher engagement, improved SEO. And with their real time visual editor marketers, you can see exactly what the content's going to look like exactly before publishing. No more endless back and forth over minor tweaks. Developers know this is good for you too. You get fewer interruptions, marketers, you get more autonomy. It's a win all round. And if you're an agency, StoryBlock offers multi client workspaces, flexible permissions and seamless collaboration tools. You can manage multiple products without disrupting, disrupting development workflows. So whether you're a startup, an enterprise or an agency, juggling multiple clients. StoryBlock gives you the power and flexibility you need. Storyblock. Try it today. Storyblock.com twittv-25 and use the code twit25. Twitlisteners will get 20% off for three months on growth and growth plus plans. That's storyblock.com twittv dash25 the offer code again, twit25 for 20% off the first three months on growth and growth plus Plans. S t o r y story b l o k dot com twitt tv dash25 and again, the offer code. Twit25. Storyblock. You got to try this thing. Do you want to see Sam Altman's kitchen?

[Emily Bender]

This.

[Leo Laporte]

This was the stupidest article.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, is this where the. They judged Alphaville just.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah. It was just him on his choice.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It was great.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, I. It's not news. It's. But it's hysterical. This is. The Financial Times did an interview with Sam Altman. They're. They're lunch with FT thing.

[Paris Martineau]

He's using the basic D to C squeeze olive oil tube.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So get into that. Yep. You.

[Leo Laporte]

Holy cow. You caught it right away, Paris.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

So here's the video. There he is with the green bottle. Okay, so explain this. First of all, number one, he's bad at olive oil. That's Graza, which is a trendy brand of olive oils from southern Spain that are sold through Whole Foods and Direct. Obviously you've seen them before.

[Paris Martineau]

Paris. It's basically an olive oil type that is found in what's called shoppie shops, which are like a store where you could get like a wiggly cand or like some fun perfume. Maybe a mismatch of thrifted goods.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a favorite of the Instagram set. Yes.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, it's a favorite of the Instagram set. It's also the reason it's sold in plastic bottles. And maybe my information, but part of my understanding of why people poo poo. It is like you should be drinking your olive oil should be stored in dark colored glass rather than plastic. But part of the reason why they do plastic is because they have this squeezy bottle. I guess now it's.

[Leo Laporte]

And apparently Sam Altman doesn't understand because there's two kinds of Graza. There's sizzle and there's drizzle.

[Alex Hanna]

Yes.

[Paris Martineau]

And sizzle is for cooking.

[Leo Laporte]

Drizzle is for drizzling because the drizzle is very expensive. First pressed evoo early harvest. It is bright. It is designed for dipping things in. It's expensive. $21 for half a liter for early harvest. It even says finishing oil drizzle. No, but that's the green bottle. What is Sam using to cook with? Shocking.

[Jeff Jarvis]

And what does it do to this wonderful, expensive olive oil?

[Leo Laporte]

Takes all the flavor out of it since it hits heat.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, heat deodorizes olive oil.

[Leo Laporte]

But to make it even worse, he has both. He has sizzle and drizzle. There they are.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, I love alphabella. This is a perfect blog post.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Great.

[Paris Martineau]

The crop. And he has other oil. The squeeze tube as well.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah. A responsible cook they say would be frying and frizzle.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Now let's get to the next device.

[Leo Laporte]

Now this I disagree with because I have.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I thought you might.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. His coffee machine is horrors. A Breville Oracle Touch, which is a $2,000. I. I don't have it anymore, but I had it top of the range model.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Is that the one that Ant has now?

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, it's the one Ant coveted.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Hey, Ant. Sorry.

[Leo Laporte]

Actually, it's not cool. No, wait a minute. Ant didn't get the touch. He got one down from that. The Touch ended up springing a leak. I gave it to Anthony and he said it's not recoverable. So he and I both got the Oracle Jet. But anyway, that's not so. What. What these you say Alphaville. It's in Financial Times. Is that their blog thing?

[Paris Martineau]

Alphaville is like a newsletter that the Financial Times has that's like the fun section of the Financial Times. They're kind of like the wa. They're kind of like the intelligent machines of Twit of the ft. And that's.

[Leo Laporte]

Why we're doing the story. So they say the Oracle Touch is semi automatic, not fully automated, bean to cup, meaning it walks the user through pulling and frothing techniques while automating repetitive stuff like grinding and tampering. The Internet hates the Oracle touch it gets.

[Jeff Jarvis]

In fact, the Internet uses some awful words. Yes, yes.

[Leo Laporte]

Regularly on Reddit where Altman was on the board for seven years, though you'd be hard pressed to find any evidence of his tenure. Anyway, it's perfectly good machine and made excellent coffee. And I. And in fact, Chat GPT says it is the top luxury pick for espresso makers. Rebel actually makes very, very good espresso makers.

[Paris Martineau]

What would chat GPT's response be for the top luxury pick for olive oil?

[Leo Laporte]

Is it maybe Drizzle? I don't know.

[Paris Martineau]

I'm shocked that he isn't getting a fancier olive oil Because I, even for my rube taste, I pick my olive oils from the New York's international olive oil competition and then choose the brands from there from the winning.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, I love you.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, no, olive oil is important. Let's not, let's not stint on the olive oil. He did spend money on something that I refused to, which is the Oracle puck sucker. So you know, after you make espresso, you gotta knock the box. You know, you put your port.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, I actually really, I, I do respect this choice. Cause that's the most annoying part of having an espresso machine.

[Leo Laporte]

So didn't like that and so he bought the optional Breville Puck sucker which automatically activated suction cup creates a rapid vacuum which quietly, quietly releases the espresso coffee puck in one swift action. It's $90. Okay, maybe downmark him for that. The puck sucker may be a bridge too far. There's something off with his knife they say. Oh, that's one fancy looking knife. Handle appears to be walnut or ironwood. No rivets. Flat butt with a steel cap useful for crushing 70 to 80 garlic cloves. Blaze Santoku, the distinctive workhorse of Japanese kitchens. With a bowed spine with nose of a beluga whale bolster. Hey, wait a minute. There's a lot of nerdery they write around knife handles. The Japanese type is light and simple, putting the weight near the tip for intricate work. The German handle is heavier, so the knife bounces more towards the middle. Typically Japanese knives don't have a chunky finger protector between the handle and the heel. Known as a bolster. Altman's knife definitely has a bolster and a full tang. Oh no.

[Paris Martineau]

A full tang.

[Leo Laporte]

A full tang.

[Jeff Jarvis]

How dare he does it.

[Leo Laporte]

Ting ting tang. Walla walla bing bang walla walla Puck suck they Alphaville comes to the conclusion we couldn't find an exact match online. Maybe it's a one off piece by an artisan steel fortress who shuns tradition. Or it's a Chinese mass produced blade that's sold under countless names, usually in sets, often in a fancy presentation box with fake Damascus patterns etched on the side. It there are Sino Neo Germanic Franken knives all over Amazon and Aliexpress that look a lot like Altman. All we could say with confidence is it's either very expensive or very cheap. Also a second bottle of drizzle in the foreground he has two bottles of.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oil, both open and go in simultaneously.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh my God. Well anyway, it's amazing what you can get out of a of a Sam Altman at Home Video. I think it's pretty cool that he cooked for them.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And he seemed confidently doing it. He. And the pan was not shiny and new, so. Good. Good on you, Sam. He's more like us than you think.

[Jeff Jarvis]

At People magazine, the true cliche was that every celebrity shot we had to do the home. We had to do a home shot that was required.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. And.

[Jeff Jarvis]

And they always had to be in the kitchen and they always, always made pasta.

[Leo Laporte]

Because you just boil some water. What could possibly go wrong?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Exactly. Okay, you want a fun little story that's quick.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes. Yeah. We got about 10 minutes for our guests.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That's what I figured. This one's fun, so. Oh, hell, now I gotta find it because I put up so much stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

By the way, I just. Well, while you're looking another story we probably should. I want to make sure we do mention, as you know, that right now we're getting the budget. You know, the really. What do they call it? The big grand perfect bill. The House is in the midst of reconciliation and someone has snuck in into the budget. Reconciliation bill, a law that prevents states from in any way interfering with AI for the next 10 years. Now, the way it defines this is artificial intelligence models, Artificial intelligence systems, or get ready for this, Automated decision systems, which is any computational process derived from machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics or artificial intelligence that issues a simplified output, including a score, classification or recommendation to materially influence or replace human decision making, which as Tech Dirty's Mike Masnick is quick to point out, is pretty much every content moderation system ever created. So this law would preclude 99 of the state. Think of the children social media de. Anonymization laws and 100% of the attempts to regulate social media under defective product.

[Paris Martineau]

Theories of action, including the new COSA bill that was just announced, including the new Coast.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that's a federal bill. So that's back in.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That's back in.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Yeah, but the states can't do anything, including some. There's some pretty crazy bills out there. The Missouri law and the rule we talked about. Did we talk about that last week? The Missouri Attorney General?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I don't think so.

[Leo Laporte]

Who issued a rule? Let me see if I can find the deets for this one. I don't know if I put this in our. It wasn't a law, it's just a rule. Okay, here's his press release. Andrew Bailey, Attorney General files groundbreaking rule to end big tech censorship, monopoly and protect online free speech. Again, not a. Not a law, a rule. That says big tech platforms must allow Missouri users to choose their own content moderators.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I want Sally. I like Sally, how she moderates for me. I have Sally.

[Paris Martineau]

What I don't want anyone from the state of Illinois. They don't have my best interests at heart.

[Leo Laporte]

Platforms, according to this rule in. I guess it's only in Missouri, must now provide a choice screen upon account activation. This would be, you know, Facebook X, Tick Tock, Blue Sky, a choice screen and at regular intervals must put this choice screen back up, must not favor their own moderation tools, and must allow full interoperability for outside moderators chosen by users.

[Paris Martineau]

I want Jeff to moderate my posts now.

[Leo Laporte]

Ironically, both Mastodon and bluesky could kind of support this because they're federated. So you could go to whatever instance you preferred and get, you know, I moderate my instance differently than others moderate their instances. So I don't know if that would satisfy the Missouri law or. Sorry rule. The rule also prohibits social media companies from imposing unreasonable access restrictions on third party content moderators. So you can essentially, this is a free speech thing. Like, well, if they're banning, you know, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, I'm going to choose a moderator that doesn't.

[Jeff Jarvis]

There is, this is, this is actually something that Mike and Daphne Keller have argued from Stanford that there should be the opportunity for moderation choice. It's actually not a bad idea.

[Leo Laporte]

In fact, Blue sky has that.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Sky does the idea. It's what you want. But, but that also says how do you make money doing that? How do you support doing that? Jeff ain't doing it for Paris. Yeah, you can, you can pick various moderation schemes.

[Paris Martineau]

What do you mean?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I think, hold on here.

[Paris Martineau]

I don't think you can pick like what this is talking about, which is different groups to moderate. You're still being moderated by if you're on the Blue Sky. Well, social.

[Leo Laporte]

You're right. Technically it probably does violate the rule because Blue sky also has a supervening ability to say, well, yeah, you may, you may have some opinions about this, but we're not going to allow Nazi content. But there are, there are moderation engines built into product. There are. Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah. So right now I'm just, I've selected Blue Skies moderation service. I don't see how there's an option for me to choose a different moderation.

[Leo Laporte]

But there will be.

[Paris Martineau]

I'm sure at some point there will.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Be capability that's built in that way.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes. This mark. Attorney General Bailey says this rule marks the beginning of a sustained effort to dismantle the big brother speech control machinery of corporate America. We're grateful for the new leaders in the White House who have reversed the Biden administration's weaponization of Big Tech. Building on our groundbreaking litigation that helped Missouri blow the lid off the federal government's massive censorship conspiracy. We're continuing to charge to protect free speech and take back the digital public square. Of course, there's no way this is all grandstanding. There's no way this rule is enforced in any way. Or could be.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, just thought I'd mention that. All right, I want to take a break because we got a. Well, go ahead. You had that one.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, no, no, because we're going to go to the quick line 78. Real quick.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay.

[Jeff Jarvis]

A great hack. So what's her name? Rita L. Corey was on a flight and can't stand that you got to buy WI fi on a short flight over the ocean. Okay, but a short flight, Ridiculous. But you can. On most airlines like the United, you can get free messaging. Not texting, but only in Apple or Google, Right?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. You can use WhatsApp or Google Messages.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Exactly. So she realized, oh, there's now Gemini and Google Messages. Right. So she went into Google Messages and then just started asking Gemini for things. And Gemini came back with current information. And so it was almost like surfing the web. Wouldn't give pictures. She could feed a picture to it and ask for similar things. It wouldn't give a picture back because they blocked that.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't think they could stop this, though. I mean, this is just. I mean, they don't. Don't, right?

[Jeff Jarvis]

No. So I just thought it was really fun.

[Paris Martineau]

If I could get Gemini to go through who I follow on Twitter and then show me the tweets, I'd Normally.

[Leo Laporte]

Pay the 15 and get the Wi Fi, for crying out loud.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, I usually do.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So that was it. That was quick, but it was fun.

[Leo Laporte]

We are going to get to our guests. Emily Bender and Alex Hannah are here. They're the authors of a brand new book, the AI Con, which Jeff. Jeff Jarvis has How to Fight Big Tech's Hype Machine. And that'll be just around the corner. But first, a word from our sponsor. We're so glad to have sponsors. We appreciate, of course, our Club Twit, but. And thank you for making all this possible for so long. But we also are very glad to have wonderful sponsors like Outsystems with us. We appreciate that. Thank you very much. Outsystems. This episode of Intelligent Machines brought to you by our friends at Outsystems, the leading AI powered application and agent development platform. So you probably know this, but for more than 20 years, the mission of Outsystems is to give every company the power to innovate through software. What do I mean? Well, IT teams, you know, typically have two choices when it comes to software. Build or buy. Right? You buy off the shelf SaaS products for speed, but you lose flexibility and differentiation. Or you build custom software at great cost and time expense. Right? AI has now forged a way for another path. The fusion of AI low code and DevSecOps automation into one powerful development platform. Your teams will build custom applications with AI agents as easily as buying generic off the shelf sameware and flexibility. Security and scalability comes standard with AI powered low code teams can build custom future proof applications at the speed of buying with fully automated architecture. Security is built right in integrations, data flows, permissions. Of course, Outsystems, it's the last platform you need to buy because you can use it to build anything and customize and extend your core systems. Build your future with OutSystems. Visit outsystems.com TWIT to learn more. That's outsystems.com TWIT. It's the answer to the age old conundrum. Build or buy. All right, we are so glad now to welcome our guests and actually some very prestigious guests. Emily M. Bender is. You may may know the name I'm sure rings a bell from the paper we quote all the time, the Danger of Sarcastic Parrots. Emily is also the co author of the AI Con how to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want. She's senior fellow at the center for. Oh no, I'm sorry, that's. I'm reading Alex's now. She's a professor of linguistics at the University of Washington. And. And I think the stuff you're doing with linguistics is fascinating, but I don't know if we'll get time to talk about that either. But welcome. It's great to have you, Emily.

[Alex Hanna]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing us on the show.

[Leo Laporte]

Yay. Alex Hannah is of course the co Author of the AICON, the director of the Distributed AI Research Institute, and with Emily, she hosts the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast. Do you sit in front of a screen and then make fun of AI videos? What is that?

[Emily Bender]

Oh, I wish we did it like that. I'm director of research, not director, that. The prestigious.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm sorry, director of research.

[Emily Bender]

No, but we don't. We don't do. I mean, you know, it wouldn't make for good podcasting because it would just be the back of our heads. And I really don't want anyone looking at the back of my head.

[Leo Laporte]

So I'm gonna. I am gonna admit that I am a fan of AI.

[Paris Martineau]

I think it's important to note that perhaps 25 minutes earlier in this show, he's like, you know, people keep paint me as a fan of AI and I think that's just perhaps a miscalculation.

[Leo Laporte]

I love AI. I love it. I use it all the time. I use it as a coding assistant. I use CLAUDE code. I use Perplexity for search. I'm very impressed with the great strides these machines and these tools have made. I also understand that there are issues. I've read your Stochastic Parrots paper, for instance, Emily and I. I completely agree with it. But is it a con? Is it a con? You knocked your microphone.

[Emily Bender]

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, you were.

[Alex Hanna]

I heard weird. Okay.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes.

[Alex Hanna]

So I was saying we've got a whole book for you.

[Leo Laporte]

I see.

[Alex Hanna]

And I said it very quietly, apparently.

[Jeff Jarvis]

May I read? May I. May I take the liberty of reading from your book for one second?

[Alex Hanna]

Sure.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Paid for artificial intelligence, if we're being frank, is a con italicized a bill of goods you are being sold to line someone's pocket. A few major well placed players are poised to accumulate significant wealth by extracting value from other people's creative work, personal data or labor, replacing quality services and with artificial facsimiles. We call this type of con AI hype.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't mean everything, do you?

[Alex Hanna]

Well, the first thing that we do is we want you to disaggregate. And that's what I was trying to say before, when I muted myself is I'm glad that you named the specific things that you're using, because that was going to be my first question. What do you mean by AI? It's not one thing. You named Claude for generating code and Perplexity for information access. And those are two specific applications.

[Leo Laporte]

There's things I also pay for. ChatGPT, I pay for Claude, I pay for Microsoft Copilot. I use them all. But that's part of my work. Now, I should probably also warn you because Paris is going to out me if I don't. I also wear this B A I pin this thing, records everything, sends it to the iPhone, sends it to an unnamed AI, which the folks at B never really kind of explained what models they use, and then sends me back a Summary of my day. That is incredibly sycophantic. But I enjoy it.

[Paris Martineau]

But do you use that for anything?

[Emily Bender]

Yeah, it's like the. This was like the humane AI pin. Right? That.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not. That was a con. That was a con. Okay, well, well, okay, stipulate that.

[Emily Bender]

Okay, but explain the difference to me. I mean, I, I frankly, I don't know what the device you were holding.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Emily Bender]

Does.

[Leo Laporte]

So what this is is basically it's a microphone that is connected to my iPhone, which then sends the audio recordings.

[Emily Bender]

Out of the cat named Rosie.

[Leo Laporte]

And that's true, by the way. This is. It generates facts about.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Look at that. It's true.

[Leo Laporte]

It's true.

[Paris Martineau]

It records everything that he does or hears every day, then sends that to the cloud, transcribes. It claims to get rid of all.

[Leo Laporte]

The recordings, throw away the audio then. Right.

[Paris Martineau]

Keeps little facts about Leo, but then he has to go on his phone and be like, yes, I do have a cat named Rosie.

[Leo Laporte]

Can I read you my daily memory from yesterday? How about that?

[Paris Martineau]

Was this your first time you've looked at it since yesterday?

[Emily Bender]

Go ahead. And then I have a comment.

[Leo Laporte]

If you want to throw up, Alex, please be my guest.

[Emily Bender]

I'm not going to throw up. This is great. No, just go ahead.

[Leo Laporte]

What's his memory? Celebrating family bonds and new beginnings with laughter, tech talks and a cat named Rosie. Today was dynamic and engaging day for Leah. It's a little sycophantic. I tried to turn that up. Marked by a blend of personal interactions and professional commitments. The day began with lively celebrations of some birthdays which I did not celebrate, where Leo showcased his humorous side among friends. I don't know where it got that from. That's his name. Maybe this is from.

[Paris Martineau]

Were you podcasting yesterday?

[Leo Laporte]

No. You know what? It does. This is a flaw, which I'm sure they will. Look, I only. First of all, if it's a con, I only paid $50 for this once. No subscription.

[Paris Martineau]

$50.

[Alex Hanna]

And all of your privacy and all of the care about my people who you talk to. And that's the really invasive thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

And Leo, do we want to mention what state you're in?

[Leo Laporte]

I'm in a two party state and it.

[Emily Bender]

Wait, are you in California? Because I saw the thing that said that you're in. Are you in Petaluma?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Emily Bender]

Oh, okay. Well, I saw that you're in Petaluma.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. You're in San Francisco, right?

[Emily Bender]

I'm in the Bay Area. I'm not going to say where I am. But, you know.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I can tell you I care about my privacy.

[Emily Bender]

But I guess what I wanted to say, I mean, this is. Chris Gilliard has a. As a, As a statement, you know, as a term for this. It's called luxury surveillance. Right. You're paying. You're. You're giving these companies the privilege to follow you and track you. You know, and there's things.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm paying them. I'm paying them.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah, you are paying them. I mean, you're the, you are doing that with your free will and your free dollars, and you're doing it. And. But I mean, the thing about luxy surveillance that Chris talks about that's so. That's so insidious, is that they're. They're using this. It's. You get to do this voluntarily, but they're also kind of testing it on you. And then they're taking it to folks who are incarcerated, and they have no choice about this.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Emily Bender]

I mean, this is a kind of this. And then, I mean, and then what Emily is saying, in addition to the people who are not consenting to this, I mean, is it hearing us?

[Leo Laporte]

Us?

[Emily Bender]

I mean, we don't consent.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, wait, you're on a podcast?

[Emily Bender]

We're on a podcast. I mean, if I.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, it doesn't. It can't hear us because we're in Leo's headphones.

[Leo Laporte]

Actually, it doesn't.

[Paris Martineau]

Other people can hear us.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. But I, I. I do want to recognize that I can do this at a privilege. I'm a. I'm a. Yeah. Cis. White. Old white male. And I don't have any. There's much less risk for me than there would be for an incarcerated prisoner or all sorts of people and immigrants.

[Emily Bender]

Less risk for you. But, I mean, it's, it's the fact that, I mean, this is a technology that gets kind of honed. These are people who pay for them.

[Leo Laporte]

That people I'm helping to make it better.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah, right. I mean, you are giving training data up voluntarily. And, you know, I mean. Leo, how closely have you read their privacy policy?

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I read it. I did. I read it.

[Alex Hanna]

Oh, 77 pages.

[Emily Bender]

Did you read it, or did you have Claude summarize?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I did both.

[Emily Bender]

Okay, great question.

[Leo Laporte]

They're very good. These, these.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well done, Alex. Well done.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. These. AI Chat. Bo.

[Paris Martineau]

Very good, Very good. Until they get something wrong, like they did in the intros for our two guests. Yeah.

[Alex Hanna]

Oh, and you were just saying that it got wrong. So it sounds to me that the app that you are paying for and honing you know, surveillance through paying for is basically a daily diary for someone who's too lazy to do a daily diary. Is that what like.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, and this way I don't get any of the insight or, you know, any of the deep understanding.

[Emily Bender]

There's no reflection, just output.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. In fact, I just copy and paste it into my diary and I'm done. It's great. It's real.

[Paris Martineau]

You could get a chatbot or something to probably do the copying and pasting for you, so you don't even have to look at those things.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm gonna write a script to do that.

[Emily Bender]

You might even get a chatbot to do the introspection for you if you're particularly enterprising.

[Leo Laporte]

They're very good at it.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Actually, I want to go back to what Emily was starting on earlier, before you outed yourself with that. LEO is kind of good uses, bad uses, that there are lines and reasonable lines. What are some of the criteria for those lines of good uses of AI and bad uses of AI.

[Alex Hanna]

So again, I'm not going to say AI, but I think we can talk about good and bad uses of automation.

[Leo Laporte]

You say AI on your cover. Is that so?

[Alex Hanna]

We had an interesting fight with the copy editor because. And we'll also look, between me and Alex, I wanted to put, put scare quotes on AI, like every single time we use it. At one point I actually had the phrase so called scare quotes AI. And Alex was like, Emily, you can have so called or you can have the scare quotes.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You can't have the scare quotes as an editor. Alex is right about that.

[Alex Hanna]

Yes, but so we use it without scare quotes when we're naming an industry and when we're naming the con and when we're naming a purported research field. But when we're talking about systems, tools, these kinds of things, that's where we want to take distance. And so I am happy to talk about good and bad uses of automation, but I'm not going to talk about good and bad uses of AI because that sort of presupposes that AI is a thing as opposed to an ideological project.

[Emily Bender]

Okay. Yeah. And I think there's, I mean you, Jeff, you started with a quote from us. So I will do the thing where I will respond with a quote. And so on page 14, we say there are applications of machine learning that are well scoped, well tested, and involve appropriate training data such that they deserve their place among the tools we use on a regular basis. These include such everyday things such as, or not such as. I'm adding that things as spell checkers, no longer simple dictionary lookups, but able to flag real world words used incorrectly. And other more sophisticated technologies like image processing used by radiologists to determine which parts of a scan or X ray require the most scrutiny. But in the cacophony of marketing and startup pitches, these sensible use cases are swamped by promises of machines that can effectively do magic, leading users to rely on them for information, decision making or cost savings, often to the detriment or to the detriment of others due to their detriment. So yeah, I mean, thinking about first doing that thing and disentangling and saying there is no unified technologies such as AI is helpful because it unreifies it, it unthinkifies it. And this is something we're riffing off. Lucy Suchman here has a great article called the Was it like the uncomplicated. What is it called? The uncomplicated thingness of AI. This article that she has and then and also Emily Tucker, she has an article called Artificial Intelligence which disentangles this and says we need to be. And she's speaking specifically about the harms of AI and how we need to be very specific in the technologies we talk talk to because it helps talk about what those harms are specifically. And so yeah, I mean, we're not opposed to machine learning or a body of methods that could be large pattern matching at scale, because that's pretty useful in some domains. But these, quote unquote, you know, everything machines that Tim the Gibrew has called them, is something that is not what we're looking for and not helpful sort of technology in the world world.

[Paris Martineau]

Obviously there have been a lot of technologies, even just over the past decade or two that have gone through hype cycles. Why do you think that the hype cycle we're seeing for AI is so pronounced and seemingly on a scale that's unparalleled?

[Alex Hanna]

It seems to be basically a meat point between enormous amounts of investment and this connection to our science fiction imagination that we have been cultivating. And I love genre fiction. So like no, no shade on science fiction, but I do want to cast shade on the tech companies that are basically borrowing from science fiction discourses and saying those worlds that you had so much fun imagining yourself in, they're real now because we're going to oversell our technology and say that it's exactly that thing. So I think it's that kind of a combination, plus maybe the fact that we have even greater centralization of capital than we did in the Previous hype, cyc. So there's like more money to do it than there was previously.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You talk about.

[Leo Laporte]

Sounds like your issue. Excuse me? It sounds like your issue is of classification though, right? You're not against LLMs?

[Alex Hanna]

Well, so language modeling as a technology is old and useful. Synthetic text extruding machines, taking the LMS and using them to just like, produce text that corresponds to nothing anybody said. I do have an issue with that.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay.

[Alex Hanna]

And I think it's actually despoiling our information ecosystem too. I mean, your, your diary that you don't really care to write, it doesn't really matter that it's got a bunch of untrue things in it, but as soon as someone starts using perplexity to look up information and then sharing that information, this can be quite problematic.

[Leo Laporte]

Do it all the time.

[Paris Martineau]

He does it all the time. And no matter how many times we show him or tell him, hey, not everything perplexity says is always accurate. Continues.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, you know, I say that it's important for humans to be part of the process. I'm not, not saying, you know, just let put the AI stuff out, but I found it to be very useful. You know, I generated your BIOS with perplexity. I, of course.

[Emily Bender]

And it got something wrong. And immediately it said that Emily was the senior. I think.

[Leo Laporte]

No, that was me. I was me getting something wrong.

[Jeff Jarvis]

And by the way, old guy, let's.

[Leo Laporte]

Point out humans make mistakes too. And I agree with stochastic parrots. One of the points was, you know, because it's a computer, we ascribe it more, you know, accuracy and importance. And I think that is an error. I agree with you 100% on that.

[Alex Hanna]

So people make mistakes, systems output errors. And one of the things about making a mistake is that you can take accountability for it and you can learn from it. If a system makes an error, then it becomes a question of, okay, are we using the system in such a way that those errors are going to cause problems or such a way that we can catch the errors. But, but I don't think it's fair to say humans make mistakes too, as an excuse for the errors of a system that couldn't possibly take accountability for them in the first place.

[Leo Laporte]

I only mean it in the sense that I vet the input I get from humans as well as from LLMs. I mean, it is probably imprudent to trust either fully.

[Alex Hanna]

So I think the relationship that you have with a person that you are exchanging information with and the relationship that you have with an LLM ought To be different things.

[Leo Laporte]

Why?

[Alex Hanna]

Right. So among other things, if you hear something from a person and it seems fishy, you can ask them for more information. Where did you get that? And what they say back to you is if it's in good faith, actually their understanding of where they got it. If you put a query into Claude or ChatGPT or perplexity and something came out that looked fishy and you said, oh, tell me where you got that. That what comes out is just more synthetic text and actually has no bearing on where the previous synthetic text came from.

[Emily Bender]

That's correct, yeah. And I mean, I think there's really kind of an idea that, I mean, you have kind of a model of action of what's going to happen in a relationship, but you don't really have a model. You know, I can have meaningful expectations with Emily as my co author. I know her disciplinary background. I might not have that kind of meaningful interaction, interaction with a complete random person, but at least may know various different courses of action if I'm being had. If they're a con man or.

[Leo Laporte]

Look, I understand.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah, but the LLM is. Well, first off, I mean, what is driving, you know, what is. You're, you're still using a probabilistic machine.

[Leo Laporte]

And there's, I think humans are probably realistic machines. I hate to say it, but I don't think there's much of a distinction.

[Emily Bender]

So this, however, I make the distinction between now we're going to, now we're really stepping in it.

[Leo Laporte]

So I mean, humans and machines. And I also understand that the language we use, like artificial intelligence, muddies that distinction. And I think you're right to, to correct that. Reason, thinking, training, those things should not be those. We just, we don't have a good language for talking about this kind of thing, these machines.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, Emily, both of you as linguist, do we have a better language? So what do you suggest in place?

[Alex Hanna]

The reason we keep running into problems saying, well, we don't have a good word to use instead of reasoning for describing what these machines do is because people want to say it is something like reasoning and it isn't. And so we're looking for like reasoning with a little decoration on it that says, well, this is the computer version of it, and that's already wrong.

[Leo Laporte]

I agree, I agree 100%. But again, in discourse, especially on the show like this, we have to use language that people understand. So we have to use similes and metaphors. But I think it's really important to say that it isn't the Same thing, They're very different. And I don't disagree with you. I feel like that's nitpicking. The value though of what you get out of an LLM to say, well, it's not human, it's not reasoning. That's true.

[Alex Hanna]

So you might be finding value in the output of an LLM.

[Leo Laporte]

And I'm not alone, but you are.

[Alex Hanna]

The one finding that value. It is not that it is valuable.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. Well, so what?

[Alex Hanna]

Okay, so environmentally ruining, built on lots of stolen data, built on lots of labor exploitation and also unreliable. But sounding confident, imputed on Earth, you might.

[Leo Laporte]

This is how the, this is the Internet you're describing.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, Google search was not that unreliable yet sounding confident until the introduction of AI and recent changes over the past like 5 to 10 years.

[Alex Hanna]

So like Google search has problems and you know, look to the work of Dr. Sophia Noble for nice documentation of it, like really thorough scholarly documentation. But that being said, when you did a Google search and you weren't getting these AI overviews out, what you got was a link to a webpage that you could go evaluate that somebody had accountability for. And I tried to cut you off there, Paris.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, no, that's pretty much, I mean, that's much better than what I was going to say.

[Emily Bender]

And the provenance, I mean the provenance is important and we hammer on it. And I mean there's a few, I'm like trying to go back up to the chain to a few things. I mean the metaphors, because the metaphors matter, right? I mean, we can use the anthropomorphizing language. And what it does, it does a few things. It does this, this notion that this thing is intelligent or there's some kind of access to some kind of a brain like infrastructure that is retrieving that intelligence does get kind of equated with consciousness. And you know, you don't have to go too far back to understand that intelligence has this very eugenicist history. And part of that eugenicist history is also equating intelligence with consciousness. There's this essay by the late David Columbia where he talks about this notion of the equation, the equating of intelligence and consciousness and how it's being used of, you know, relating to certain people as subhuman because they're not as conscious, right? So that, that's part of what it does. Another thing is these things is, okay, the learning or it learns just like a child does, or it's doing the same thing. And that's absolutely not what it's Doing. And that matters quite significantly because then we get into weird territory of like, do robots have rights? Or you have this idea of syncopacy, or you're attributing human traits to probabilistic modeling. And that's a very dangerous road.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. In fact, I fought, I fight all the time on this show to kind of de. Anthropomorphize our language. It's unfortunate, we don't really have a lot of choices, but I think you're absolutely right. It's one of the reasons when we talk about AGI, I say, well, that's really. That's a meaningless.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That's B.S.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, so, but, but at the same time, that's a legitimate criticism. And I agree that language also, and I know this is a lot of Your work too, Dr. Bender, is language kind of informs how you think, how one. One perceives things. So it's really important. But I just, I feel like to me there is some utility to this stuff and I recognize there's environmental damage to it. There's, you know, but there is environmental damage to using the Internet. Maybe not as much, but there is significant environmental damage to using the Internet. It's not unusual for us to use technologies that have consequences. A lot of jobs have been lost to the Internet. Is that enough to say let's. Are you advocating the abandonment of this line of inquiry?

[Emily Bender]

I mean, it's not. We're not opposed to exploring different kinds of thinking of. I'd say not even the. Opposed to the kind of class of methods of learning from a set of data. That is a helpful kind of series. You know, it's a helpful innovation. Right. Language modeling is helpful. I mean, I say, I've been saying on all these interviews, like my dissertation was building a prediction model that was, you know, the certain. Was doing classification of, you know, whether something fell in one bin or another relating to something that was useful for social movement researchers. That's fine. Modeling things is fine. We're not going to that place. But you also have to see about what comparatively you're doing. Right. I mean, we're in this moment where data center production is actively inhibiting the climate goals that the Paris Agreement set out. Right. Microsoft and Google had climate goals that Microsoft said it was going to be carbon Negative by what, 2030 or 2045?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Never mind that.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah, it just completely blew it out of the water. Google went 49% over the 2019 baseline. You know, this, this is. And so you have in. And I mean that's from their own sustainability reports. There's some estimates that say that it's. It's maybe closer to 2 or 300% because they're not factor. They're. They had factored in carbon credits and carbon offsets and so you have this. So comparatively, I mean it's doing much more. It's much more ruinous for the environment. In addition to increased tip fabrication and PFAS that's going in forever. Chemicals that are going to the ground. Technologies that the earlier hype cycle of computing turned parts of Santa Clara county money into super fun sites and caused, you know, so many. Just a whole rash of people and women experiencing birth defects. Then you have.

[Leo Laporte]

But we're participating in that right now on a zoom call. I mean, yeah, the best solution, we make our own clothes and wear on food, but I don't think that's gonna happen. I'd prefer it.

[Paris Martineau]

Leo.

[Emily Bender]

It's like comparing slippery slow fallacy. Right?

[Leo Laporte]

All right. Okay. Okay.

[Emily Bender]

I mean you were really want to go down there. I mean we're not, you know, we're not.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm just saying there are consequences to technological innovation, the industrial era.

[Emily Bender]

Who's asking for this?

[Paris Martineau]

Trying to compare the environmental impacts of large scale AI production and training. Trying to compare that to like a Google search or a zoom call is.

[Leo Laporte]

Like launching a forest.

[Paris Martineau]

It's like comparing a forest fire to a map match. It's. I'm not. And I think if it's the dominant technology, where all the venture capital dollars are going, where all of the investment energy, where all of the R and D focus, where every company is focusing on and pouring all of its resources into, that's going to have a considerable impact on the world, especially if it's extremely energy inefficient and disastrous for the environment.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I want to, I want to examine something else, which is the meaning of meaning. I scream all the time that large language models have no sense of meaning, thus no sense of truth and so on. But since we have a professor of linguistics here, how do we define meaning? What.

[Alex Hanna]

So this is tricky and I want to point out that I was recently actually in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum doing a debate with Sebastian Bubek hosted by Eliza Strickland of IEEE Spectrum, sort of punitively on the question, do large language models understand? And I took that seriously and provided a definition of meaning and understanding and said no. And Sebastian said, well, nobody knows what understanding means. We've been struggling with it for millennia. And I'm like, I just.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Nobody understands Understanding.

[Alex Hanna]

So the definition that Alexander Kohler and I gave, and by the way, I collect co authors named Alex, in case you haven't noticed different Alex, Alexander Kohler and I have a book called Climbing Towards. Sorry, not a book, that was just a paper Climbing towards nlu, I forget the subtitle, but something like a meaning understanding and something in the age of data. And don't ever put an acronym in a title. That was a bad idea. But anyway, this is a paper where we're talking about this question. This is published in 2020. Do large language models understand. And the crux of the argument is that languages are systems of sign, where you have. For any given word, there's the form of the word, how you spell it, how you say it, if you're speaking a sign language, how you articulate it with your hands in your face. And then there's the meaning, what does it refer to? And that meaning is a conventional thing that's shared within the community that the language belongs to, but also is sort of constantly changing every time you use a word. So it's true that meaning is use, right? That when you use a word you change the meaning, but that doesn't mean that if you just look at all the word spellings next to each other and see which letters in which combinations go without letters in which combinations that you get to the meaning. And this is a really important distinction. And it's hard to see, especially if you're not used to being a linguist and looking at language this way, because when we perceive language in, you know, from a language that we know, we immediately have a guess as to the meaning. It's right there. And so it's really hard to separate the form and the meaning when we are in the context where we know a language. And you can feel it. If you think back to foreign language classes you've taken or I have this thought experiment that I like to take people through where I say, imagine that you are in the National Library of Thailand, or if you speak and read Thai, then it's the Parliamentary Library of Georgia. And if you speak both Thai and Georgian, then I want to meet you. I haven't, haven't met that person yet. But you know, so one of these places. So let's say Thailand, and I've gone in ahead of you and I have removed every single book that, that had anything other than just Thai script in it. No pictures, no mathematical equations, no bilingual dictionaries, just Thai. And I arrange for someone to bring you delicious Thai food three times a day. You don't get to talk to them, but, you know, you're fed, it's comfortable, you can stay there as long as you want. Could you learn Thai? And if so, how? What would you do? And the kinds of answers I get from people are, well, I would very carefully go through and find, like the really commonly occurring substance. I'm like, yeah, well, that would help you figure out what the function words are. Like, maybe Thai has a word like the. And it's probably this one not going to tell you what anything else means, right? Or I would look and look and look until I saw a book that I knew was a translation of a book I already know, and then I could work it out from there. Well, sure, but then you're bringing in some external knowledge. My favorite answer is, I just eat the yummy Thai food. So the point of all this is the. That the meaning is not in the text. We get to the meaning because we bring in our knowledge of linguistic system and also all of our reasoning about what the person must have been trying to say by picking those words. And what a language model gets as its input is just the form of the text.

[Leo Laporte]

So what's your prescription?

[Alex Hanna]

What's the prescription? So, in general, make sure you're using technology that is well scoped and evaluated for the context that you're using it in, and also, by the way, as ethically produced as possible. And so you said before, you know, are we saying, do you want people to stop doing this? And Alex gave the first part of the answer, which is, machine learning applications make sense. Technology, there's reasonable technologies. But what I would like people to stop using, and I would like to basically discourage people from using, is the media synthesis machines. So synthetic text, I think is problematic. Synthetic images. So image generators, I would feel okay about if I knew that they were collected on consentfully contributed images and the artists were getting credit for it. And they weren't just like, everything, including lots of really awful stuff scraped off the Internet and they didn't have to have their output cleaned up by exploited workers. And even still, you would want to say, by the way, this image was synthetic.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Emily Bender]

And I mean, in addition, synthetic image generators and video generators are that much more environmentally ruinous comparatively, just because inference costs that much more.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I think you're in a losing battle. But okay. I mean, that sounds fine to me.

[Paris Martineau]

I, I like it. I think it's a great thesis.

[Leo Laporte]

It's fine, but it's, it's like saying that everybody should stop wearing running shoes.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But Leo don't we have a stand standards for something? Aren't there things we want to try to aspire to?

[Leo Laporte]

Absolutely. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm saying you're absolutely right. I just think that the, unfortunately, the horses left the barn.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Part of this is not just the technology. You write about the hype and the harm. Right, Talk about the harm of the hype.

[Emily Bender]

Right.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So that's media, that's not the technology, that's us.

[Emily Bender]

That's the hype itself. Right. So we define hype as the aggrandizement of some kind of a product that you must use. And if you don't, you will be left to, you know, to whatever. If you're, if you're a student, you'll be, you're not going to be learning as much. If you're a teacher, you're not going to be able to grade as much. If you're a worker, you can't use it in the workplace. And then AI hype has that particular quality of being about this particular technology. And so one of the things that we're seeing, and I'll speak, you know, specifically to working conditions, is that much of the technology does a pretty poor job and it has all these different features that Emily spoke about and people are losing jobs to it left and right. So you can see what's happening with the Doge Boys, which originally what that had been the tool that they had been using, it's called gsai. One of the developers went to Blue sky to talk about it and it had originally been a sandbox that was being used to test and evaluate different LLMs and different. I don't know if they did anything other than LLMs with that technology, but it was an evaluation sandbox. And so when the Doge boys came in and they took over the US Digital Service, they said, oh, look at this thing. We can automate XYZ with this. Right. And part of that's because of who Elon Musk is. And. But then much of that, I mean, a high participant and so we can replace all kinds of creative, important work that has to do a lot with institutional knowledge about making the government work as it should and taking and removing those jobs whole cloth. Same things happened. I was reading a piece just recently by Bryant Merchant when he was talking about how Duolingo was replacing so many, many different content developers, people that were writing interesting questions, good, good and reliable translations and replacing them with some kind of a. Pretty bad. And we're not sure what it is probably Some LLM of. Of that. And now what did. What they expect is that Duolingo is going to have these translations or even these vocalizations that are supposed to be accurate representations of language. Language. And now that's just completely gone with that. With that product especially.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They're getting some marketing pushback for market. Pushback.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, yeah.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah, stop using. But I guess that's the thing. Leo is like, when. When is it working? Well, I mean, it's saying like, these things cannot. There's. There's very few instances in which a technology has replaced one thing, whole cloth. I mean, maybe we have the horse and buggy. I think one. One thing that people talk about is the. The elevator operator. Right. I mean, more of what it's doing is it's either taking something that was an important, an important kind of labor function out of the world or is displacing that labor onto someone else up or down the supply chain.

[Jeff Jarvis]

If I, if I could put you both in front of a room of 50 technology journalists, something I actually want to do.

[Emily Bender]

Oh, thank you.

[Alex Hanna]

Sounds good.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, I, I do. The problem is getting them in the room. And, and Paris is a technology journalist, but a smart one. What would you. What would your message to them be about this hype?

[Emily Bender]

I mean, that I would. One thing would be that technology. Journalism. Journalism has been. Become so much access journalism has been about reprinting press releases as being very credulous. Right. About what products do and what they are and why we should be wowed. And I think we really need to go back to the first principles of journalism, thinking about, well, who's benefiting from this and why are they selling something like this? What do they have to gain? What is the political economy thinking about? This industry getting beyond the gee whiz of the product. Garen Spurk, who is a journalist at the ap, has a really nice guidebook that she helped develop with the AP in which she says as much, you know, get back to your ABCs of journalism. And then Karen Howe has also been doing these trainings with the Pulitzer center around how to report around AI. She's also coming out with a book on OpenAI that we're going to be in conversation with her in a few weeks. That's called Emperor Emperor, empire, Empire of AI, which is about OpenAI and the palace.

[Jeff Jarvis]

The sequel is Emperor of AI.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes, the sequel is the Emperor has no Clothes.

[Alex Hanna]

Right.

[Emily Bender]

And it's, you know, it's about the downfall of OpenAI. You know, fingers crossed. But it's, you know, these are important kinds of shoe leather journalism that we need folks to do and really getting away of the, away from the product and the press release puff pieces.

[Alex Hanna]

Yeah. And so everything that Alex said and I think just the sort of lower level details, I mean the, this high level thing of basically holding power to account and tracing who's benefiting is the main job. And then one of the lower level steps is to be very, very skeptical about claims of functionality especially. I see a lot of really frustrating journalism that is driven by what we've taken to calling paper shaped objects that these tech companies and nonprofit ish tech research labs are putting out into the world, sometimes no longer even on the Arxiv preprint server, but just like on company blog pages. And they tend to be a lot of them very, very slim on details of how something was evaluated. And then you'll see reporting that like pulls numbers out of these papers and doesn't contextualize them as being just academically worthless. And we have a lot of fun on our podcast sort of tearing apart some of these paper shaped objects. So we don't, we don't watch videos and talk over them, but we do read out bits of articles and react to them. And that's where the Mystery Science Theater inspiration comes through. So I think that, you know, journalists are really great at coming in skeptically or can be. Right. So, and as Alex mentioned, there are some wonderful people doing great work in this space. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of the gee whiz access journalism that probably pulls in more ad dollars because the tech companies want to advertise their products next to it. Although it was, it was fun this morning.

[Emily Bender]

We did have a fun thing where we had two. So we were on Marketplace Tech together and then Emily was on the CBC in Canada. And before the Marketplace Tech, there were, I think there was a few different versions of this depending on, you know, who it went to. But I think it was uniformly an AI ad or at least a one. I think the one I got was a FinTech ad. It was Robinhood.

[Alex Hanna]

And yeah, so I got a couple different versions of an AI ad and the, the host starts the piece about the interview with us with don't believe the hype about AI. And it was so great to hear that right after this AI ad.

[Leo Laporte]

Kind of exactly where we are right now, which is surrounded by AI. But don't believe the hype. I, you know, I don't disagree. I'm not, I don't disagree with you. But at the same time I feel like there is Some real value in these tools. And, And I think some of the, Some of the points you make are absolutely valid. I mean, you could make the same environmental points about automobiles. In fact, it's a real shame, Leo, that we got automobiles and that if. Yeah, no, if you had come along 100 years ago, maybe we would have trains and, and bicycles.

[Emily Bender]

Boy, people tried.

[Alex Hanna]

Do you know why we thought so few trains in the US and so few rail based urban rail systems? Urban transportation systems. It's because the tire industry advocated for tearing up those rails so they could sell more tires. And I am mad about that all the time.

[Leo Laporte]

That's the power broker story. We were talking about that.

[Alex Hanna]

Exactly, exactly. So the car metaphor is apartment and you're maybe setting it up as a slippery slope thing, but it was a problem. We took a wrong turn there. That doesn't mean we have to do it again.

[Emily Bender]

Nope. No pun intended there.

[Alex Hanna]

Yeah, yeah.

[Emily Bender]

And I think that's another thing. I mean, so just a. I mean, push on this. I mean, I think it's. There's a. For our podcast, we reviewed an awful book. Absolutely awful. It's called Super Agency and it's written by Reid hoffman, who founded LinkedIn, and Greg Rado. Not Rado. Beato. Thank you. Like, oh, always. Emily is much better at retaining names than I am. And I was like, it rhymes with this, I think. And so one of the things that he criticizes in the book, or they criticize.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I don't think anything rhymes with Beato. That's the problem.

[Emily Bender]

Beato, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Orange. Orange rhymes with Beato.

[Emily Bender]

Nothing rhymes. Yeah. And so one of the things, one of the anecdotes in there, which I think it drives me up the wall, is the. He talks about the Luddites, and we talk about the Luddites in our book, too. And there's a few recent histories of the Luddites that folks like Brian Merchant and Gavin Mueller and Jason Sadowski talk about and have talked about. And he says, you know, what if the Luddites had one? You know, and everybody would rush forward and industry would be rushing forward and then. But, you know, we would have solved child labor all over the world but Britain and would have had really nice blankets and they would have been artisans. And it's just, to me, that strikes me as so patently ridiculous. It's like, how do you think child labor was fixed? How do you think the weekend was created? You know, it was from people actually fighting back against technologies that made their lives worse. As if, you know, as if these things you know, solve themselves. And it's not through massive worker struggle or struggle against child labor or struggle against environmental degradation. I mean, you know, we can think that the horse has left the barn here or the train has already left the station or whatever. 1.

[Alex Hanna]

Speaking of trains, we don't have any stations, though.

[Paris Martineau]

I know the car is left the parking lot. The car.

[Emily Bender]

The car has left the garage. You know, the Porsche has left the dealership, the Tesla has left the charging station, whatever.

[Jeff Jarvis]

The cyber truck, however, has gone nowhere because it's broken.

[Emily Bender]

The cyber truck has burst into flames spontaneously. And, you know, but I mean, that's. It doesn't mean one shouldn't struggle for this.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Emily Bender]

I mean, it's.

[Leo Laporte]

That's.

[Emily Bender]

I think there's. There's a notion that there's the engines of history, as if technology moves itself, you know, but. Absolutely. And as if protections come into play from the beneficence of billionaires. But that certainly doesn't.

[Leo Laporte]

We know that's not true. Right. Yeah.

[Emily Bender]

So why. Why struggle against her? So why have good journalism on this or.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Emily Bender]

Why write a text like this when the mainstream seems to say, you know, 1, 2, and 3? I mean, I, you know, first off, the mainstream may say that, but I mean, a lot of people don't like this stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

No, there's about 50. 50. I'd say between.

[Emily Bender]

It's less than 50, 50. It's something like 80, 20. I mean, that's. You know, there was a survey that Pew did of. Of workers, and they said something like 17 of workers had used this at work at all. And then, you know, most people hadn't heard of it. And then 30 people just didn't want to use it at all. And Pew has done a few. And we did. We were quoted for a piece in Ars Technica that talked about the comparative of the general public versus AI, quote, unquote, AI experts. And general. The general public is like, what is this? What is this? And then the people that had heard of LLMs were like, I don't want anything to do with this. And so I think there's. I mean, most people, you know, Leo, you say you're CIS white guy and. But. But also, you're, you know, you've got. You're a technologist. You got this Apple computer in your background.

[Leo Laporte]

I've been reporting on computers for 40 years.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And I've always attempted not to be a beltway journalist, to be, you know, industry journalist. One of the reasons you're on the show, I mean, this is a show about AI and one of the reasons you're on the show is to. Is to get all points of view. You, I don't disagree with you and I, I think Create the future we want is probably really the, probably the most important part of the title. It's an opportunity for us to to say this is not what we want or this is not how we want it to be. So I. Everybody should listen to your podcast. There's somebody in our chat who says don't let them forget to plug Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000. It's really good. So we'll plug that.

[Paris Martineau]

I'll be listening to it after this. Sounds exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Exactly.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Hold up your books again.

[Leo Laporte]

Hold up the AI code on how to fight big tech's hype and create the future.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Notice all my little things.

[Leo Laporte]

And there's actually a really good webpage for the book which is where you should go. Not to Amazon, but go to the webpage and you can read more about it and so forth and submit fresh AI hell if you wish. Just come up with some fresh AI hell.

[Alex Hanna]

It's all over the place. And that's for the podcast. We end each episode with a small handful of fresh AI hell and then once a quarter or so we all to go through the backlog and we have a sort of frenetic but cathartic all habits.

[Emily Bender]

So much.

[Paris Martineau]

And to be clear, the very cool website is thecon AI. Very easy to recommend.

[Alex Hanna]

That was Alex's stroke of brilliance to think if that was available and then to grab it when it was.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, acronyms may not be good in book titles, but they're excellent for TLDs. That's all. Thank you so much. It's great to meet you both. Emily Bender, Alex Hanna, thank you you so much. The book again, the AI con. You've really raised some great points. I appreciate your time.

[Alex Hanna]

Thank you very much.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah, thanks Leo. Thanks Paris. Thanks Jeff.

[Leo Laporte]

This episode of Intelligent Machines is brought to you by Big id. Big id, the next generation AI powered data security, compliance and privacy solution. AI is transforming businesses but with data risk, risk bias and compliance challenges. There's a big question. Are you adopting AI responsibly? We're just talking about that. BigID delivers end to end AI and data governance to help enterprises manage risk, enforce policies and ensure responsible AI adoption. Make sure AI only access is safe to use relevant data and automatically tag sensitive information by policy and type. Big ID is the only leading solution to uncover dark data through AI classification to identify AI risk to manage the data lifecycle. And scale your AI strategy. It integrates with your existing tech stack with unmatched data source coverage and it allows you to automate privacy and security workflows, take action on data risks with automated remediation orchestrations, automate privacy management, regulatory compliance, data rights requests and more. Partners include ServiceNow, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, Google, AWS, all the tools you already use. And with big IDs advanced AI models, you gain visibility and control over all your data. It's the platform that intuit named number one for data classification in accuracy, speed and scalability. Big ID also equipped the US army to eliminate dark data and automate data retention. US Army Training and Doctrine Command gave him a great quote. Listen to this quote the first wow moment. This is from the army folks. The first wow moment with Big ID came with being able to have that single interface that inventory a variety of data holdings, including structured and unstructured Data across emails, zip files, SharePoint databases and more. To see that mass and to be able to correlate across those is completely novel. I've never seen a capability that brings this together like Big ID does. That's not me, that's the US Army Training and Doctrine Command. CNBC recognized Big ID as one of the top 25 startups for the enterprise. They were named to the Inc 5000 and Deloitte 500 for four years in a row. The publisher of Cyber Defense magazine says quote, Big ID embodies three major features we judges look for to become winners. Understanding tomorrow's threats today, providing a cost effective solution and innovating in unexpected ways that can help mitigate cyber risk and get one step ahead of the next breach. Start protecting your sensitive data wherever your data lives. @bigid.com you get a free demo to see how big ID can help your organization reduce data risk and accelerate the adoption of generative AI. Again, that's b I d.com Im also there's a free guide to help you understand the risks of generative AI and data driven strategies to ensure responsible and compliant AI adoption. @bigid.com Im we thank him so much for supporting intelligent machines. I felt a little bit like a vegan. Yeah, they felt I would agree. I felt like a meat eater.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah you were. Yeah you were.

[Paris Martineau]

No, no, you were giving vegan.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm the wall.

[Paris Martineau]

You wall. Being surrounded by people being like yeah, Italian sandwiches are pretty good and you're like but.

[Leo Laporte]

Them they're saying don't eat that salami.

[Paris Martineau]

Do you know, under no circumstances did they say all AI has no value. They Were saying, you know, yeah, certain tools have purposes, but overall I think the.

[Leo Laporte]

And then you kept jumping AI image generator. She wouldn't look.

[Paris Martineau]

She could have her. She can have her preferences. My God, Vegan. That didn't happen until after the show.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a vegan. That's not.

[Paris Martineau]

You multiple times jumped in to say, say, well, you believe that all AI has no value. To the point where both the YouTube and Discord chat had people that are normally your biggest AI defenders being like, well, I don't think they said AI has no value.

[Leo Laporte]

They absolutely said that. What are you talking about? You don't think they thought. What are you talking about? They won't even use it. They won't use an AI image generator. They won't use Perplexity. They won't touch.

[Paris Martineau]

They repeatedly in response to you saying, well, I don't think that AI is, has no value. They were like not saying that every like artificial intelligence or machine learning tool is completely without value.

[Leo Laporte]

Alex. Alex admitted that he used basically AI in his thesis. He just didn't want to call it AI use machine learning and models. But that's a little confusing to me because I don't think they really like.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Favor of uses. They're in favor of uses.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes. I mean that's literally was the through line of our conversation. That's just what I was saying was Vegan ish about it.

[Leo Laporte]

I misunderstood that. Yeah, I thought they were saying, well.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But they're, they're against everything that Leo likes.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, they're against the chat bots and.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They'Re against the be and they're against things that Leo values and they're saying that's not valuable and it's also dangerous. So I think you're both right.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

They sure didn't want me to use Perplexity.

[Paris Martineau]

Listen, I'm just. As someone in the Discord Chat, Google.

[Leo Laporte]

Searches is exactly as bad as Perplexity.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, that's because Google search is now an oops all eye situation. But as.

[Leo Laporte]

Even if you take the AI out, it's just crap.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, I would. I'm not going to argue that Google Search is good because that's just not true. But I think it's better than Perplexity. Well, again, Joe Esposito said in the chat that wonderful to see Paris Martineau having advocates and not having to make the argument on her own. And I agree.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that's why we have people like that on. We want to.

[Paris Martineau]

Hey, listen, I get, I get one every five months and that's I get two.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, it's.

[Paris Martineau]

That's great.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. It's hard for me to do a show that is anti technology. I'll be honest with you. Well, yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Listen, Leo, your role is always to be a provocateur and the devil's head. In this case it was the devil you were advocating for in the view of three of the people here and I'm kind of in the middle. That's an interesting question though you raised about how to comment on and research these things. And what Emily said was first principles is they do these things they shouldn't do. So I judge the output. But it's interesting how to do scholarly research on this topic and where you find rules there. I would have liked to have heard the one question I was going to ask but I forgot to was what the reaction is to them in faculty meetings with this computer science people come in, you know, that's got to be fun.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I now understand why Tim Nick Ebro had so many detractors at Google and why in fact that entire ethics team was fired. Because that's. They were the.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They were challenging them.

[Leo Laporte]

They were the. Yeah, they were the. The poop. The turd in the punch bowl.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, you can find a nicer way to put than that.

[Leo Laporte]

I was trying to find a better one. I really must. You saw the pause thinking what else? What else?

[Paris Martineau]

I don't think we should be calling people excrement.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You should have asked Chat GPT for now. Let's see what's a nicer way to say turn to punchbowl?

[Leo Laporte]

Having a trouble with my mouse. It's getting trapped in the wrong screen.

[Paris Martineau]

A squeaky wheel?

[Leo Laporte]

No, not exactly. What's a nicer way of saying bird in a punch bowl? By the way, this is a perfectly good use of this. I know. I'm burning down the rainforest.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's a great thesaurus machine.

[Leo Laporte]

I know I'm burning down.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I love it for that.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a legitimate fly in the ointment. A cloud on a sunny day. A wrinkle in an otherwise smooth plan. A sour note in a symphony. A pebble in the shoe. A drop of vinegar in the hot honey. That's a good one. A hiccup in the festivities or a rain cloud at a pickup. I'm. Picnic.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Picnic.

[Leo Laporte]

That is pretty good.

[Paris Martineau]

A rain cloud had a pickup.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Hey, honey, you need my umbrella?

[Leo Laporte]

I'm just saying those two were like a drop of vinegar in the honey. All right, all right. Where were we? Let's.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Tons of news, tons of stories.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, get to it. Tell me. Me what? Tell me what. By the way, how was the. When you did talk to them on AI Inside, was it a similar conversation or was it different or.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, it was different. It was different because. Because we're. We were exploring kind of what they say. That's why. That's.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, we're talking about the book.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, yeah, that's why these two shows are so different. And that's what's great about it. It's great.

[Leo Laporte]

Normally I try to read the book. I didn't realize we had a copy. That's the problem with that.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I didn't work.

[Leo Laporte]

How about farming robots? Robots who? OpenAI's big higher. Farming robots. Seeding new startups. Says the information rocket drew another one of those journalists writing a press release. Rewriting a press release.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, no.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm going to drop my subscription right now. Let's see what else AI uses Damages professional reputation. AI use. Very important to pronounce that properly. AI use damages professional reputation. According to Duke's study, workers judge others for AI use, and when they use it, they hide it.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So this is in the blogging world. If you admit your mistake, then you. You raise your stature because. Well, I know that Jeff says when he's wrong and I can trust him better than he'll say something, so.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Right. So transparency is seen to be a good thing in the blogging world. No, if you. If you admit you're using AI, people mistrust you because.

[Paris Martineau]

One, didn't we talk about this last week?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I think we did.

[Paris Martineau]

Two, I would make sense, because if the reason why. What people are looking for in a blog is your output of world words and your analysis of a situation, and if you. You tell them. Actually, what you're reading is something I got for paying $20 a month to OpenAI. Why would they turn to you for your expertise if it's not your expertise?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Kind of got you there.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm not answering any questions.

[Paris Martineau]

Leo's mad.

[Leo Laporte]

No, I'm just looking for stories.

[Paris Martineau]

The apples are getting steamed. Steamed on his shirt, which reduces the amount of allergens in them, as I learned from a former editor who's allergic to apples but would microwave one every day in the office so he could.

[Leo Laporte]

Eat something like a baked apple.

[Jeff Jarvis]

How long. How long do you make with. How long do you microwave it?

[Paris Martineau]

Why don't you ask ChatGPT?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, okay.

[Paris Martineau]

Actually, I guess. Don't. It'll hurt the environment. Probably not enough. Crazy.

[Leo Laporte]

Should I feel. I mean, look, I mean, my general value or the Truthfulness of the result is should I just not use it just because of the environmental impact?

[Paris Martineau]

Well, I'm the wrong person to ask because my general output is to feel guilty about everything.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But given that she's nihilistic, then she doesn't care because it doesn't mean.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, that's part of. Probably the reason why the nihilism appeals to me is because otherwise I'd be overwhelmed by guilt at the way in which any action in our modern world.

[Leo Laporte]

Contributes to burning down the forest even as we speak.

[Paris Martineau]

That's part of the reason why I don't. I mean, I personally try to limit my use of AI tools and other stuff just because I think it's environmentally sound. It's the same reason why I recycle, even though it's not that big of an impact. I'm just a human person. Like I just think I drive situations.

[Leo Laporte]

I drive an electric vehicle, I recycle. I, I do all the sorting and do.

[Paris Martineau]

Of course, I mean everything is a personal choice. Whatever you want to make, Feel guilty about, feel guilty about. Whatever you don't, you don't. Whatever you want to do. It's a personal decision.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So you want to story everything too. We had, we. On Tuesday we had the Google Android event pre.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah. Did you watch it?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I didn't, but line 73 has a summary which is interesting that they're going to put AI. They're going to put the Gemini into everything now. So it's not just that you get it in these odd places. Maybe it becomes habitual and. And the use case that I see for it is Android Auto. Is that now you can ask it questions while you're driving.

[Leo Laporte]

Didn't we just decide we shouldn't put AI in anything?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, all right. Is this the last episode of the show?

[Leo Laporte]

Are we about the last episode? We gotta. I'm gonna. The next episode's gonna be about organic gardening and living compost.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Damn it.

[Leo Laporte]

No, seriously. I mean.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, it's good to know that we can't have anybody with critical opinions of AI otherwise we're gonna have someone on the podcast. Podcast stomp their feet and say why can we? We can't. How dare you talk about improving society if you do live in a society.

[Leo Laporte]

With them and then now talk about how AI is going to be everywhere in your Android phone.

[Paris Martineau]

Because part of choosing to do a podcast about a topic is you have to accept that being blindly positive about it 100 of the time.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it particularly interesting about AI and your friends phone? Because that's a bad thing. In fact, I'll give you another one. Amazon is going to start using AI commercials. When you pause the video on your Amazon prime video account. AI created textual ad.

[Paris Martineau]

Explain to me how this is good. But AI is every.

[Jeff Jarvis]

All AI advertisers are going to love it because it's going to be in context with what's there. And it's going to be.

[Paris Martineau]

Right now until they increase the price.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

And con.

[Leo Laporte]

The prime video service has a global audience of more than 300 million, is very popular. They had a big upfront event. And at the upfront event, one of the things you do at upfronts is you say things that advertisers will be happy about.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They're going to applaud you, which is.

[Leo Laporte]

Why I'm no longer invited to up fronts. And they say they're going to have AI generate contextual advertising. The ads will be created on the fly. Depending on the specific scene of the AI of the TV show or movie that you've paused at. I'm a little nervous about. So this is the example they give. If a viewer is watching a scene involving a loving phone call between a mother and daughter and you pause it right there, you'll get an ad for mobile phone service with AI generated text. Text dynamically created right then and there.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's an advertiser's dream.

[Leo Laporte]

It is, isn't it?

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's interruptive and it's contextual and it's personalized.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't like the pause ads. Have you been seeing those?

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, I don't. I don't.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, they suck.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't like.

[Paris Martineau]

They make me mad.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Benito]

Hi, this is Benito. So, like, I think this sounds like we're coming towards the end game of AI here. This is what they want.

[Paris Martineau]

Where of course, like they want.

[Emily Bender]

They don't have to produce.

[Paris Martineau]

They want to have your glasses in addition to be doing facial recognition to whenever you're not actively facial recognizing someone to be showing you ads in all of the free space in your lens.

[Benito]

So here's the danger. All of the AI you're doing, you're training this stuff. You're enabling this stuff.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, no.

[Leo Laporte]

And that's blowing it away.

[Paris Martineau]

I was gonna say that those ads are going to have your entire life to feed off of Leo because you gave that to them. When B gets acquired by Buy Sell ads in three and a half years.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I know you so well. They're gonna.

[Paris Martineau]

They're gonna.

[Leo Laporte]

This is one thing that bugs me about that conversation. Wouldn't you Prefer to have an ad for something you're interested in than not. Would you rather have an ad for cat food than bar?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I'd rather not have billboards all around me. I agree.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh no, that's not the question. That's not what I'm talking about.

[Paris Martineau]

No, I know what you're talking about.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I'm agreeing with you.

[Paris Martineau]

I specifically, I go into all of my app apps painstakingly. I've gone into the. The settings of my wi fi of my cell service and I've turned off personalized ad because you don't want to.

[Leo Laporte]

See an ad that you're interested in.

[Paris Martineau]

I just don't want. I just.

[Leo Laporte]

You're not gonna see less. You don't understand. You're not gonna see.

[Paris Martineau]

No, I know that Mark Zuckerberg has explained it to me that the only thing that I'm missing out on is having ads that are better for me. I don't want ads generally and it's easier for me to ignore them if I'm not seeing something that is. Is like how did they get this piece of information from me? Where are like me trying to.

[Leo Laporte]

You just don't want ads to be effective is what you're saying. Because you will buy it. So if you got a cat food ad, you might actually buy it as opposed to a.

[Paris Martineau]

No, specifically because something is broken with me that I detest advertising so much that even if it's a product that I know I would like, I don't.

[Leo Laporte]

I purposely do not supported industry. You do understand that that right up.

[Paris Martineau]

Until recently I did not work in an ad supported industry.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's true.

[Paris Martineau]

For the last five years I did not.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a good.

[Paris Martineau]

And that was a great show.

[Leo Laporte]

Is ad supported. But yeah, that's a good point.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Barely.

[Leo Laporte]

The information was subscription supported. They had no ads ever.

[Paris Martineau]

Correct.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, they advertise their own events and they constantly advertised their upgrade to premium. Upgrade to premium.

[Leo Laporte]

That drove me crazy. I didn't. I had no interest in it and I was already spending 500 a year here.

[Paris Martineau]

I just don't think that it should be. I don't think that I should have to love ads. I think you don't have to love it fine for me to detest them and want them.

[Leo Laporte]

I'll make the argument though. You know, I'll make the.

[Paris Martineau]

I understand logically as to why people might want things that are better for them. That's why you buy everything off of Instagram.

[Leo Laporte]

This wouldn't exist without advertisers. That's the business model. The only other choice would be either for me to work for everybody to work for free or for us well only do subscription.

[Paris Martineau]

Jessica, let me go back to you though. Isn't something you've often said that a point of contention between you and advertisers is that you don't want to give them massive amounts of data on all of your listeners. Instead you want to give them a responsible amount of data. So in some way aren't what the core of your argument against what you actually do as a show? Show?

[Leo Laporte]

No. Let me explain it. We don't need to target our audience because it's targeted by the nature of the show. The people who listen to this show. You notice all of our ads are about AI technology, that kind of stuff. So we are.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's environment advertising.

[Leo Laporte]

It's environmental advertising.

[Paris Martineau]

That's fine.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That's good. We love.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. And I'm fortunate that I can work in an industry that used to be.

[Jeff Jarvis]

The whole industry of magazines but that went away when the Internet came along and the data about the user became more valuable than the environment.

[Leo Laporte]

I agree. That's ruined. That's made it very hard to do.

[Jeff Jarvis]

What we do killed the magazine.

[Paris Martineau]

That's what I'm saying is I as a consumer don't want to be opting in to in situations I can. I don't want to opt in and I specifically want to opt out of being part of this targeted data environment. Would rather have it be environmentally conscious ads. I'd rather have the ad I'm seeing on Instagram be I guess related to whatever content is coming above and below it or whenever I go to Wired magazine. I'd rather have the ads be related to text. I'm on a wired magazine. I know that's probably a foolish and archaic way to think about it but I take the painstaking steps to make that the reality I live in. Because that was the consumer. That's the choices I want to make as a consumer.

[Leo Laporte]

I've always wanted my email printed out and delivered to me by the United States Postal Service Service. That's what I've always wanted.

[Paris Martineau]

Are you ready to happen?

[Leo Laporte]

Are you? It could Ecom the 40 million dollar United States Postal Service project to send email on paper. There's your email.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So my, my father, when he, when, when he was alive they would send us. They would. They would. I. I thought I signed up for that accidentally service. Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't keep it very long.

[Leo Laporte]

A congressional report predicted that two thirds or more of the mail stream could be handled electronically. And the volume of mail is likely to Peak in 1992. So the post office said we will. We will find a way to live in the email world. Ecom 1982, EECOM was born.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You want to know what's really scary about this, though? What is that? Every letter you get, the post office takes a picture of the front and back.

[Emily Bender]

Right.

[Jeff Jarvis]

And it is now being used to find undocumented immigrants.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's terrible.

[Jeff Jarvis]

How does it even receive mail? If the name is Bob Jones and then they want to say, where's Bob Jones? And Bob Jones receives a letter, then they now know the address at which Bob Jones received that letter. And you have.

[Leo Laporte]

There's a lot of things you have a right to.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Privacy of sealed letters.

[Leo Laporte]

How do we stop this?

[Jeff Jarvis]

You complain to your machine, to your politicians, and you haven't passed laws to forbid that argument I've long made about the mails. Postcards have never been private because your carrier could read it. I hope they had a nice time and I wish you were there. But sealed mail, first class mail required a warrant. Warrant that extended only to that technology of the mails. It did not extend thus to chat or email or any other private communication. And that's why the rest of our communications are so vulnerable.

[Leo Laporte]

When we take a break. I'm gonna take a little break. And then I have something for you. Paris.

[Paris Martineau]

You're watching for me.

[Leo Laporte]

Something for you. A gift. Intelligent machines with Paris Smartno at Paris NYC. The best URL ever. Also an acronym. Jeff Jarvis. Jeff Jarvis.com. not an acronym. He's the author of the Gutenberg.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But I don't want to think what Jeff would stand for.

[Leo Laporte]

And the wave we weave. I'll ask ChatGPT if you'll let me. I'm sure it'll come up with something.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I can hear the tree falling now.

[Leo Laporte]

How often does it happen, Paris? You take the subway into town, down. But then you'd like to ride a city bike home. But did you bring your helmet with you? No, you didn't. You need the Hofting airbag helmet. Oh, yeah. This is a helmet you wear.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Is this your advertiser?

[Leo Laporte]

No. If you decide you wish to ride a bike, you just pull on the little tabs and the airbags bag. Oh, look at that. It saves your life. You don't even have to pull the tabs. Isn't that amazing?

[Jeff Jarvis]

You look like a. Like a bird.

[Paris Martineau]

Has it been tested?

[Jeff Jarvis]

We talked about this on the show. Like it was banned years ago. We did, yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

I think I've seen videos of this. Not.

[Leo Laporte]

It was banned in Sweden and the company went out of business. Unfortunately.

[Paris Martineau]

Hoing.

[Leo Laporte]

Hoing is the airbag head. Oh, did we do this already?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Like, no, years ago. Literally, like eight years ago we did it.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, I was.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Before it was banned. Yeah, I think. Yeah, right?

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You know what the most hated.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Wait, wait, wait. How old were you, Paris, when the show started? This is gonna depress.

[Paris Martineau]

When did this show start?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, let me look. I don't know. When it was. Wasn't. I am. I mean, you were born when I am. Yeah, but when it was. When it was twig. The very first episode of this week in Google, Patrick says, August 1, 2009.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So how old were you, Paris?

[Leo Laporte]

She was alive.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I know, but how old are you alive?

[Paris Martineau]

Do you want to know?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, I want to know.

[Paris Martineau]

14.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I can't do the math.

[Leo Laporte]

And you listen to every episode. And that's how you grew up to be big and strong and smart.

[Paris Martineau]

That's true.

[Leo Laporte]

You thought Gina Trapani was a perfect role model. Model. And this. So what do you think the most hated text message in the world is actually, Paris, don't look at this story just in your own experience. What's the text message you don't want to get? Not. It's not a long one.

[Paris Martineau]

Call me.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's a bad one. How about just the letter K?

[Jeff Jarvis]

We need to.

[Paris Martineau]

We need K. We need to talk. Or just a question mark?

[Leo Laporte]

Those are my question marks. Terrible. I think question marks neck and neck.

[Paris Martineau]

I had an editor for a long time that's. He would always go over all of his edits on the phone. And like, normally people would put them in Google, do comments, but if he really had a long thing. So you just highlight some of your text and just put a question mark. And I'd be like, jesus Christ, what did I do?

[Leo Laporte]

That's just terrible. Oh, this is. This is. Is it schadenfreude?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Schadenfreude.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it kism Met. Remember the Boring Apes? What were they called now? The Bored Apes.

[Paris Martineau]

Boring Apes. Bored Apes Yacht Club.

[Leo Laporte]

And remember the crypto punks? And Kevin Rose? He had a million dollar crypto punk. Remember that?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

Crypto punks, which also owns the Bored Ape Yacht Club, is being sold to a nonprofit.

[Jeff Jarvis]

How is that good for society?

[Leo Laporte]

It's a nonprofit.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, probably because they just can't make any profit.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a. No, it's the Infinite Node foundation, dedicated to preserving art.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh.

[Leo Laporte]

So several of those crypto punks and board ap Clubs sold for millions of dollars. There was one in 2022 with this purchase for more than $23 million worth of E. Loser. I wonder what it's worth today.

[Jeff Jarvis]

How much was this sold for? Does it say?

[Leo Laporte]

They don't say because probably it was a very small number.

[Jeff Jarvis]

What an irresponsible purchase.

[Leo Laporte]

Yuga is still. Yuga Labs still is one of the biggest holders of cryptopunks, and like all other cryptopunks, NFT holders will retain the right to its cryptopunk characters under the license. Congratulations. Your digital icon.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Jerky Crypto things. Go to line 121.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, line 121. The home of jerky Crypto things. Crypto boys.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, that's my. That's my line.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, that's a classic Jeffism. Also, what was the piece about the most hated text? Did we just move on past that?

[Leo Laporte]

Is it.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's okay.

[Paris Martineau]

It's okay.

[Leo Laporte]

Although you.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, how do you guys feel about K?

[Leo Laporte]

Question mark is worse. K's not so bad.

[Paris Martineau]

Just the letter K is really aggressive.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it?

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, if someone. If you like. Okay, if you are messaging someone, like, here's what I'm doing on this project. The status of this is this. It'll be ready at this time. And then they just respond, okay, just kid, tell me if this is because.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm your grandpa and I want to do bad things. I put the thumb, the apple thumb on it.

[Paris Martineau]

That's fine. That's perfectly neutral. That's better than a K. Significantly leaps and bounds. The only thing worse than okay, so K is better bad. The only thing worse is K. And then a period that's. That's you just shot someone with a gun level. Like, that's not okay.

[Leo Laporte]

Full stop.

[Paris Martineau]

Stop. K. Full stop is I'm coming to your house to commit a crime. That level of hostilities, the thumbs up is like just a perfectly neutral. Got it. Like, it's.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I can understand all the time.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, totally did.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Isn't. Isn't the K the equivalent of the marital fine?

[Paris Martineau]

Yes. It's like. It's like if someone asks you how you're doing and you're like, fine, period. It's like that. That's. That's the same sort of tone. K is a better version of K. Could be okay or okay spelled out kk all friendly.

[Leo Laporte]

Even KK would be better.

[Paris Martineau]

KK Significantly better. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Nothing's worse than K do.

[Paris Martineau]

That's cool. K dot is. Is K dot is rough. K dot is like, you need to respond like the Polite thing to do is like, is everything okay if, like, someone sends k. My favorite thing is.

[Leo Laporte]

Did you have a stroke? The tech guys are fighting, literally. Says the New York Times. There's a tech guy who's literally fighting sweaty and awful. But we knew this because. Didn't. Didn't. Weren't Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.

[Paris Martineau]

No, but I think they actually spot is what this one's about, these people.

[Leo Laporte]

But they were gonna fight. But this eth.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Denver.

[Paris Martineau]

No, but they didn't because it would probably. There's something. Securities fraud. Like a securities fraud problem, I guess, if they fight or. No, like, it's a securities issue. Like, how do you. If you're the heads of multiple public companies, what do you say to your. Your shareholders if your CEO and the public figurehead at the front of your company is about to go in a brawl?

[Leo Laporte]

You mean. You mean. You mean like this? That's Mark Zuckerberg on the left.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, gosh.

[Leo Laporte]

And I think that's Burke on the right. I don't know, but I might be wrong.

[Paris Martineau]

Mark Zuckerberg on the right, but yeah, on the right.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Mark's big into Jiu Jitsu. This is Marcelo Garcia. Jiu Jitsu. And he's. And apparently he fights in the Jiu Jitsu. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, actually. Rene Richie was a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, I think.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Benito]

Oh, that's all grappling. So he's not gonna get, like, a black eye or anything?

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, they're not punching each other in the face.

[Leo Laporte]

I just.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I just. My only point is I. I hate crypto. If even if crypto were brilliant, the brand of it has been so ruined by these jerks.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't want to show this to Paris, but I am.

[Paris Martineau]

I've already clicked on your.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh. I watched every single Nicholas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him and myself.

[Paris Martineau]

How have I not seen it?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Could have had a Guardian piece. Paris.

[Leo Laporte]

Geez, you could have.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I could have.

[Leo Laporte]

Susie Cree is an Australian gp. What is that? I don't know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

General practitioners, actually.

[Paris Martineau]

That's incredibly impressive to do in three months. That's, like, more than.

[Leo Laporte]

Didn't you watch most?

[Jeff Jarvis]

I watched.

[Paris Martineau]

No, I watched 30 Nick Cage films in one month. Or tried to. One Nick Cage film a day. He has, like, 150 movies.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Here's the chart.

[Paris Martineau]

That's like, a lot.

[Leo Laporte]

Here's the scoreboard. Okay, so she actually made a commitment on cardboard.

[Paris Martineau]

I need to. I need to zoom in on this.

[Leo Laporte]

And she had. She had a grid. So it. So the. On the x axis, it's trash. Fine. And masterpiece on the right axis is. Did I have a good time watching it? Bad time. Okay, the best. So there's like three movies in the trash, but the best. I don't know. Can you read what the movies are?

[Paris Martineau]

I'm trying to get there.

[Leo Laporte]

No, it's too blurry. We may never know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, this is not.

[Leo Laporte]

There's no movies. Bad time. Masterpiece. In fact, it really clusters around the upper left hand corner, doesn't it? Oh. Oh. And then the color of the paper slips is the decade of the movie.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, there's a lot.

[Jeff Jarvis]

So Fine and K are a lot of the movies.

[Leo Laporte]

Paris, I think I found your soulmate. I think this woman. You in Australia.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, she's got a quote from Vampires Kiss. I do think that she's me in Australia, cuz I was. I was scared when I saw the trailer for Vampires Kiss that she would be panning it, because I think Vampires Kiss is phenomenal. What is. What is the quote? Well, what is the. How can you mention you have a quote from vampires kissing your arm and not.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, it's a tat. Oh, my.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, don't say what the quote is.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, look her up. Look her up online. Maybe she has it on. On Instagram.

[Leo Laporte]

What's on the back?

[Alex Hanna]

No.

[Leo Laporte]

Where it's often visible to my patients.

[Paris Martineau]

Come on. All right, I'm going to z. I'm.

[Leo Laporte]

Not going to a doctor with a quote from Nick Cage's Vampire on her arm.

[Paris Martineau]

Up in the upper right hand corner, she has adaptation, which I think is correct. Bringing up the Dead Pig Raising Arizona. Peggy Sue Got Married, which is correct. Face off should be moved a couple inches to the right and be in Masterpiece, because it is a masterpiece. I would kind of disagree with. Well, I guess if you're talking about tech.

[Leo Laporte]

So she watched more than one a day for three months.

[Paris Martineau]

Yes, she definitely had to. Um, Wild at Heart is also in a good, correct place. I didn't like Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans, but I do really like saying Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans. So perhaps I'll give her that.

[Leo Laporte]

Just saying the title, you mean.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, it's just. It's just incredibly funny to be watching a Nick Cage film where he's being a bad lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans. And then every time he's acting out, you're like, man, that guy is a bad lieutenant part of Call New Orleans. It doesn't get old. Throughout the three Hour movie.

[Leo Laporte]

You could say it again and again.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You.

[Paris Martineau]

You really can. He gives a lot of opportunities to be like.

[Leo Laporte]

I am really tempted to emulate you. And now. And watch them all.

[Paris Martineau]

Nickvember will happen again this year. I'll be doing it for the next couple years because there's a lot of things eventually.

[Benito]

You know what his next movie is? Paris. Have you heard about this?

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, he's doing teenage.

[Leo Laporte]

Is he playing Mario? No, he's playing Mario.

[Benito]

He's playing John Madden in the Madden biopic.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh. Oh, wow.

[Paris Martineau]

He's also in a.

[Leo Laporte]

This is a problem. Hollywood had discovered the fat suit a couple of years ago.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And now you're seeing Brendan Fraser in the fat suit. You saw the penguin?

[Benito]

No, Brendan Fraser was actually fat, I think.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, he wasn't that fat.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Not that.

[Leo Laporte]

Not that he was fat.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah. Not that.

[Leo Laporte]

Not that fat. And then the penguin. Well, who was that? That was. I can't remember his name. Russell Crowe? No. Anyway, one of them.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Ask your.

[Leo Laporte]

No, I'm not allowed to use it anymore. I can't use it.

[Paris Martineau]

I really. I do agree with a lot of this, this woman's takes on it. It's just there's so many good ones. Birdie, National Treasure. Conair. Conair is correct.

[Leo Laporte]

Who plays the penguin in the new TV adaptation. Let see.

[Benito]

Where's the rock? Paris.

[Paris Martineau]

That's a great question.

[Leo Laporte]

Are you excited they're bringing back Alcatraz? In the new TV adaptation, the Batman, the character of Penguin is portrayed by Colin Farrell. Colin, if you haven't more questions about the show or the character, feel free.

[Benito]

To ask you guys trying AI when we have chat right here. Who's smarter than all of that?

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, Leo doesn't like the chat.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They're humans. Oh.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, they're humans. They're often wrong.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Bonito. Yeah, they're.

[Leo Laporte]

I can't. I. My mouse isn't working. It's. I'm very. You know, it's funny. I'm. It's completely disabled. If I can't use my mouse, I have too many screens. Did you see the new wood, by the way? The name of the wood? Honestly, super wood should be the name of an ED treatment, not actual wood.

[Paris Martineau]

You should be able to buy super wood at the gas station.

[Leo Laporte]

Super wood at the gas station. I want a bottle of super wood and some all night energy drink and some perky jerky. In 2018, a scientist at University of Maryland figured out a way to take regular everyday wood and make it stronger than steel. He said okay, but it is.

[Paris Martineau]

Is it Is it wood still?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, it's whatever it is anyway.

[Jeff Jarvis]

A lot of people like artificial intelligence is intelligence. You know, nothing's real. Paris.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, he said, he said, well, this is amazing, but I'm a university professor, I don't know what to do about it. So he spent the next few years refining it, reducing the time. This is from TechCrunch. Reducing the time it took to take the material material for more than. For more than a week to make to a few hours. He licensed the technology to a company now called Invent Wood. And the world's first batches of super wood will be available at gas stations this summer. No, right now, coming out of this first of a kind commercial plant. It's a smaller plant. We're focused on skin applications. Oh. Not on the human skin, but the skin of the house. Okay. Eventually we want to get to the bones of the building. I guess that's how contractors talk. 90% of the carbon impact from buildings is concrete and steel in the construction of a building. So making it out of wood is better. It starts with regular timber. Maybe you didn't know this, but timber, According to chat BCPT is primarily composed of cellulose and liquid cellulose.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

The goal is to strengthen the cellulose already present in the wood. The cellulose nanocrystal crystal is actually stronger than a carbon fiber fiber. So he treats it with quote, food industry chemicals to modify the structure of the wood, then compresses it to increase the hydrogen bonds. We might densify the material 4x and you think, oh, it'll be four times as strong because it has four times the fiber. Actually it's ten times stronger because of all the extra bonds.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's a little. It's interesting to me, wonk that I am, is that it's the reverse of that process that made mass media population possible by making wood into paper.

[Leo Laporte]

Ah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They had to to stretch it. Ruin the right of cellulose.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes. So this is going to make a material that's 50% more tensile strength than steel with a strength to weight ratio 10 times better. So it's really not as strong as steel. Exactly, but close. Class A fire rated. It's highly resistant, flame resistance, resistant to rot and pets, pests. And if you impregnate it with with some polymer, you can use it. For decades, we just had to replace.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Our entire roof because we listened to the salesperson to do the spray in insulation in the attic. No, no, no, no, no. You can't do that.

[Leo Laporte]

Did your roof Pop off.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It rotted.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh, no, no, that's good.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah. Everybody, all, all the home shows, they said, oh, this is a wonderful way. And yeah, it's a mistake.

[Leo Laporte]

And you think that chat GPT makes mistakes.

[Jeff Jarvis]

We, we got a many thousand dollar mistake there.

[Leo Laporte]

I bet if you'd asked, well, so.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You know what, when a really big story happened, when war breaks out, you know what they would say on the newsroom?

[Leo Laporte]

What?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Get out the wood.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Which is why the biggest type was too big for metal. It was, was literally wood type. War would be wood type.

[Leo Laporte]

We're gonna take a little break and then come back with your picks of the week. I've got one this week. You're watching Intelligent Machines with Jeff Jarvis at Paris Martineau. We're so glad you're here. Hope you heard our interview in which I got roasted by two vegans.

[Paris Martineau]

He got roasted and then he got really defensive about it, but now he's finding his footing again.

[Leo Laporte]

I, I, I, I'm not owned.

[Paris Martineau]

I'm not.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, corn did not own me. I still have not been pwned. AI is fantastic. Oh, did you know that?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Still in the, in the dictionary. Is that still poned?

[Leo Laporte]

Yes.

[Paris Martineau]

Before we move on the next segment, my two final thoughts on this Nick Cage graph is one bonito. I can't find the rock, which leads me to believe it's in the middle quadrant, which seems wrong. Yeah. Second, I somewhat question her taste, despite agreeing with a lot of her tops, because Zandali is not all the way at the bottom and that is the worst film I've ever seen. But also, I haven't seen all of Nick Cage's famously bad films, so maybe it's being bumped up because things can get worse, but I really doubt it.

[Leo Laporte]

Did you actively, like, try to watch his better films? Like, I'm not.

[Paris Martineau]

I did because it was like my first pass on it. So I watched. I mean, I started in like the 90s. And he starts to get. Once he goes into pyramid debt in, you know, the 2000s is when his films get kind of bad because he's got to get out of the pyramid debt. So I hadn't. Oh, my God.

[Leo Laporte]

Yet.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But, you know, has he commented on Nick Fever?

[Paris Martineau]

No, no, but he should.

[Leo Laporte]

Like, he, Nick Cage is paying attention to his show. Hey, Nick.

[Jeff Jarvis]

No, no. Well, it's not, it's not just the show. Nick, remember, is a phenomenon, right?

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, it's not just you.

[Paris Martineau]

I don't know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

This woman was doing it.

[Paris Martineau]

No, she did this over the last three months.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I mean. All right, all right. So Nick, remember I allegedly.

[Paris Martineau]

I think Nick V. Just me.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Oh, wow. I feel honored. She invented some history.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, it is history. This is going to be a national holiday one day.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, Yeah. A whole month.

[Leo Laporte]

The first one you're watching Intelligent Machines. Like I said. Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martin. Pick of the week time. Let's start with Paris Martin.

[Benito]

You still got one more ad though.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah, you got ads.

[Leo Laporte]

Crap.

[Paris Martineau]

We should get the AI to do this one.

[Jeff Jarvis]

In fact, I thought the last time you didn't even read it. You didn't do one. You just started talking about K. Well, I did.

[Leo Laporte]

I just kind of did stuff. I don't. My. I told you my mouse ain't working. Can't. I can't get to anything. Wait a minute. Maybe I can press this button and make this.

[Paris Martineau]

Did you forget to charge yet?

[Leo Laporte]

No, it's Benito.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Can you drive over there and fix his mouth?

[Leo Laporte]

No, it's not. It's. It's. I can fix it, I just can't fix it during a show. Put it that way. This episode of Intelligent Machines is brought to you by this little thing over here. It's about the size of a USB external hard drive and it's the best darn thing ever. The thinkst canary. That there is a honey pot. A honeypot that could be deployed in minutes. And if somebody is inside my network snooping around, they're going to look at it and say, hey, hey, that looks pretty valuable. I better try to attack that synology, NAS or fake internal SSH server. In fact, even better, I can use it to create files that I spread out all over the place, even in my cloud files like on my Google Drive or my Microsoft 365 on Azure. Put them there and if somebody tries to open it, I'm going to get an alert. No false alerts, just the alerts that matter. And you get it any way you want. You can text messages, message email, Slack, you can get webhooks, they have an API syslog. Of course. It's fantastic because these things, Canaries, and the ThinksCanary tokens you create don't look vulnerable. They look valuable. They look like something a bad guy cannot resist. Just choose a profile for your ThinksCanary device, register it with a hosted console for monitoring and notifications, and then you sit back and watch way you're not going to get bugged unless there is an attacker who is inside, has breached your network as an inside and is snooping around, or maybe worse, a malicious insider or some other Adversary. They make, they can't help it. They make themselves known by accessing your thinks Canary. And then the jig is up because you know they're there. You can see exactly what they did to try to break in. You could see what IP address they're using, all of that. In fact, I've had this thing now for years. We've been doing these ads, I think for eight years. It has only gone off once. And it was back in the old studio. One of our hosts was testing a Western digital external hard drive, plugged it into the network and for some reason it went out and it looked at every other device in the network and I got a ping and I said, whoa, wait a minute. We, it said where it is? I went, I tracked it down, we took it out, we said, nuh, not, never again. So I know it works. I like love it. You will know it works too. Let me, let me explain how this works. You go to Canary Tools Twit, you know you can get as many as you need or as few as you need. But I'll give you an example. For $7,500 a year, you can get five things Canaries. That'd be enough for a medium sized business. You also get of course, your own hosted console. You get upgrades, you get support, you get maintenance. Now, if you use the code twit in the how did you hear about us? Box, you're going to get 10% off for life of okay, you can always return your thinkscanaries. They've got a two month money back guarantee for a full refund, so there's no risk. I should point out that in the eight years we've been doing ads for these, this wonderful thinks Canary, no one has ever, ever asked for a refund. Once you get them, you go, oh yeah, how did we live without them? Visit Canary Tools Twit. Enter the code twit in the how did you hear about us? Box. And if you want to see how it's not just me, how other people find feel, if you go to Canary Tools Slash Love, Canary Tool Love, you'll see a bunch of posts, social media reviews, all sorts of stuff from some pretty big names in the business. A lot of CISOs saying they can't live without it. You won't want to live without it once you try it. Canary Tools Slash Twit. Don't forget the offer code Twit. And we thank him so much for supporting intelligent machines. Now it's time for Paris Martineau's pick of the week.

[Paris Martineau]

So you Know, I got a. I got a real classic Paris pick this week. Last Friday I went to my local library, went to go pick up some books, was checking out the big table full of flyers as one does as they're exiting the library. And I saw an interesting flyer that said, tomorrow 1pm Uncle Tony's Reptile show. And I, a naturally curious person, could. I was like, paris bait. I was like, I can't let this go unchecked. And so I texted everyone I know in the area and was like, tomorrow, 1pm Uncle Tony's reptile show, question mark. Showed up at 12:50 because I wanted to be there early. Me and my friends were perhaps not perhaps. We were certainly the only childless adults there.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, it's for kids.

[Paris Martineau]

We're not library employees. But God, did we have a great time. They had. They promised that they would have between five and seven reptiles, which I also thought was a very interesting range to give. They had seven.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't want too many, you know.

[Paris Martineau]

You don't want too many. And look at, just look at this one video.

[Leo Laporte]

Is this Uncle Tony?

[Paris Martineau]

No, this is one of Uncle Tony's people. This was a turtle. It was a African snapping turtle. We met a bunch of snakes. One of them was named Bamboo. I took a photo with it. If you scroll down, there's a photo of me with the snake. Or coconut was her name. There were a couple different snakes. That's my friend Jane.

[Leo Laporte]

That's an albino snake.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It is.

[Paris Martineau]

It was an albino steak. She was cute.

[Leo Laporte]

Was Uncle Tony a little surprised to have all these adults?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Adults?

[Paris Martineau]

There were. There were three. There were casual.

[Leo Laporte]

These kids.

[Paris Martineau]

There were. There were maybe like 40 children there. We maxed out the capacity of the room. There were so many kids. They had such a great time. We met, let's see, millipedes. We met four different kinds of snakes. There was a toad there. We had a great time. This is just my plug to say check out your local library and if you're in the tri state area and want a cool kid's birthday party idea, check out Uncle Tony's reptile show. They, the kids had a great time. I mean, I guess it could be. Honestly, it would be a great adult birthday party. I might do this for my birthday one year.

[Leo Laporte]

If you ever come to Petaluma will take you to the local high school where the Petaluma wildlife museum is. They have a giant albino snake and all sorts of. They have a cockroach this big you could put on your hand if you like. This kind of thing. I got the place for you here in Petaluma.

[Paris Martineau]

It was delightful. It was just, you know, I walked in, I was like, I don't know what this could be like.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, maybe I love it that you go to stuff like that, that you just. You see a poster on a tree and you go.

[Paris Martineau]

And I was like, listen, you can't. I was like, how often am I going to see a poster that Simply says tomorrow 1pm on Christmas? Uncle Tony's reptile show. Not often.

[Leo Laporte]

Is that all it said? It didn't have any more information.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, it had a. It had, it said, come hang out with Uncle Tony's scaly Five to seven of Uncle Tony's scaly friends. Space is limited, I believe was the.

[Leo Laporte]

Entirety of the the thing that's fantastic request last week. Yes.

[Jeff Jarvis]

For a Paris Trio update.

[Leo Laporte]

How's it going with the clip, guys?

[Paris Martineau]

It's, it's. It's tree clipping season. I clipped trees today. It's time to where I've got my gardening shears. Me. Anytime I'm walking out. I think this period right now, over the last like three weeks or so is right as the trees are growing enough that they are a major impediment to walking. And so if I do not. If I'm walking somewhere and I don't have my shears with me, I encounter like three to five trees that I'm like, dang, I should have trimmed because it's a walk around them. But now I'm doing it legitimately, so it's great to have my first.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Has anybody challenged you and said, show.

[Leo Laporte]

Me this for your license?

[Paris Martineau]

No, but there were some people, I think yesterday as I was. I was walking home from like a late night drinks thing and I was like carrying a thing of food and there was a giant tree. Like, it was really in the way. And so I just picked it up, was kind of trimming it, you know, on the side. And two people did look at me kind of weird. But. But they didn't, they didn't ask any questions here.

[Leo Laporte]

Did you shout, it's okay. I got a license.

[Paris Martineau]

I was going to. I was like, I'll pull out my ear. I'll pull out my airpod and stop. Listen to a podcast if someone wants to engage me on this.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, I'm licensed.

[Paris Martineau]

I'm licensed. I'm. I'm licensed to prune. Don't worry about it.

[Leo Laporte]

Very New York. That shit. It's a Woody Allen movie right into it happened.

[Paris Martineau]

And now I know that when I Prune the tree. Not to do what I'd been doing in past seasons, which was kind of put the prune clippings in the. The soil beds around the tree, but to bundle them and place them near the nearest trash can because then the. The garbagemen will pick them up.

[Leo Laporte]

The garbage men collect them.

[Jeff Jarvis]

The garbage people.

[Leo Laporte]

The garbage people.

[Paris Martineau]

The garbage people collect them.

[Leo Laporte]

Wait a minute.

[Paris Martineau]

The sanitation workers.

[Leo Laporte]

My daughter, who had a whole comedy bit about the garbage. Garbage men. And I said, honey, in New York, they call them sanitation workers. You gotta get. You gotta.

[Paris Martineau]

They do. And it's honestly very hard to be a sanitation.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, it's good money.

[Paris Martineau]

It's a. It's fantastic money. You gotta take a long test. There's a really long wait list to even be able to take.

[Leo Laporte]

I think you've. You've considered this.

[Paris Martineau]

I mean, I just think the New York Sanitation has one of the most interesting social media presences of all time. And so for a while, I was in the New York Sanitation subreddit, but then I realized it was really just for workers and worker concerns and people want to be a sanitation worker. And there's a lot of people with questions about.

[Leo Laporte]

Social media has been very good for New York City. There's the guy who makes the signs. He's got a great Instagram. It's amazing. I mean, the. All of the stuff that happens in the city is really amazing.

[Paris Martineau]

They now do like bespoke drops of custom New York City signs. That's been like a source of revenue for the city because you can get like, I don't know, some weird name on a sign here.

[Leo Laporte]

They just steal them from the we. The street name has been stolen from the sign outside our house many times and people can't find our house. I said, don't you have gps? They said, yeah, but there's no street sign. I thought you don't really need that anymore.

[Paris Martineau]

Well, we can't talk with because it would dox you, but I bet it's because you have a funny name for a street name or something that.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Or somebody's family in the name neighborhood Hardwood Court.

[Leo Laporte]

Is that funny, Neil? Fun. I've talked about this before. I can't remember what I showed, but this guy just likes making fun Internet stuff. He's obviously a pretty talented web designer. His latest is Internet road trip. It takes a street view. I knew you would like this. They're voting online, right? You can. You can. There's 907 drivers online and they are going to pick. There's a chat Going on. Use it FM radio. Let me just turn on the. Turn on the radio. We can listen to some music while we go. Let's go driving down Bowdoin. Bowdoin. Oh, I voted. I have to wait till the votes are tallied. Picking option in two seconds. Where are we going?

[Paris Martineau]

I like that. Someone in the chat says we can make it through the great state of Maine.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know actually how this works. Apparently we're voting on which direction to go. I don't know.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes. That's what.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh that's great. Yeah. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

We've gone 548 miles so far. I don't know what. What's the coffee cup? Oh, you buy Neil a cup of coffee. Isn't that sweet? How do I get out of that? I don't want to buy him a cup of coffee anyway. Neil any. If you haven't done stuff at Neil Fun you should absolutely go there. There is. There is such great stuff on Neil that fun. He has so much. He's got talent, my friends. Talent.

[Emily Bender]

Look.

[Leo Laporte]

Look where they've drawn gone.

[Jeff Jarvis]

They've driven slow. It's like. It's like my grandfather.

[Leo Laporte]

Well yeah, I guess they came all the way up the coast from. From Boston. Look at that.

[Paris Martineau]

But they're still.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, they started in the. They started in downtown Boston.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well so who caused the. The U turn there? That's what. What I want to know.

[Leo Laporte]

These people are fighting.

[Jeff Jarvis]

That was a concerted act.

[Leo Laporte]

See, here's your choice. You can go left, right or straight ahead.

[Paris Martineau]

Oh that's the thing is if this is always going to be open to. If everybody in this chat gets on this website right now we could go a couple miles.

[Leo Laporte]

Let's just go down the road. Please help us. There's 940.

[Paris Martineau]

I like somebody in the chat says Canada better start running because we're getting close.

[Leo Laporte]

Here we come. We're coming.

[Paris Martineau]

We'll be there in four to five days.

[Leo Laporte]

Neil Dot fun. If you. If that doesn't get you there's so many other things you could do and play.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Get there from here.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, get there from here. This is a click, a SIM stimulation clicker. I don't know what it's doing. It's giving me bonuses for stimpa. I don't understand how this works. Anyway, Jeff Jarvis, your pick of the week.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well I could mention that Senate Dems are being told to go on twitch and Snapchat which I found. Is Snapchat still around?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah. To do one.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah. No. People really like the kids like the kids like it.

[Leo Laporte]

The youngs. Yeah.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But instead, you probably saw this video was very viral last week. But this is a test for Paris.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, to test your language proficiency.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes. This is the. I didn't see this, but I'm glad you didn't. A nerdy. A nerdy professor came to talk at language day at a high school and let's just turn the sound up and listen to him. It's only two minutes.

[Leo Laporte]

Gen Alpha slang.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Turn the sound.

[Unknown]

Good morning, everyone.

[Leo Laporte]

There we go.

[Unknown]

It's a true honor to be here at West Town High School for Languages Week. Your school invited me to give a guest lecture about the importance of learning languages, but it occurred to me that all of you are already, in some sense, multilingual, whether you realize it or not. And that's because you speak the Gen Alpha dialect of English, a language so distinct, think that I, an aging 34 year old millennial, genuinely cannot understand it, or at least couldn't understand it before I spent weeks immersed in TikTok videos studying your dialect to partial fluency. And because nothing drives home the importance of learning languages better than hearing someone else try to speak your own, I'm going to try to deliver the rest of this speech in your very own native tongue. Gen Alpha.

[Paris Martineau]

I love the way the people are cringing physically. All right, let's see.

[Jeff Jarvis]

But they applaud for the spirit. Yes.

[Paris Martineau]

All right, good.

[Unknown]

Of course, let me hear. Of course, to facilitate the comprehension of my fellow elders on YouTube watching this as a video, I'll also be including subtitles in standard English. So without further ado, it's low key. A huge W to be vibing here at Westtown High School for Languages Week.

[Paris Martineau]

Yep, got that.

[Leo Laporte]

He'S low key vibe.

[Paris Martineau]

It's casually a huge win to be hanging here.

[Unknown]

Now, I know it's giving to Lulu for this chewy boomer to speak in such skibidi brain R, but if you with me, I'll put the fries in the bag in just a second. You actually have a message here. Thank you.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Do you.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you say that I'll put the fries in the vat?

[Paris Martineau]

No, I'll put the fries in the bag. But I. I don't say that. But what it means is it was originally, I believe, stemmed as an insult kind of insinuating that someone is a McDonald's worker. Basically, if you're trying to say, get on with it, get with the point, do your job. You're like, just put the fries in the bag, Normie, or something like that.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, Like, I get it. I get it.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Okay, so there's a part two if you, if you click on the user there.

[Leo Laporte]

There is not a part 2 if I click on the user. But let's try it anyway.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yes, Sunny. So funny. Haha.

[Paris Martineau]

I think the actual. The, the real test of cringe is.

[Leo Laporte]

Go ahead. Huh.

[Paris Martineau]

Obviously the real test of cringe is you guys trying to figure out how TikTok works.

[Unknown]

Yeah, no, Cap, I was dead ass pressed about understanding this language.

[Paris Martineau]

But all of this is very simple.

[Unknown]

Absorb the drip. So I wouldn't get aired by your generation.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I learned drip here.

[Unknown]

High key people think gen Alpha slang is just memes and brain rod, but on God, it's giving linguistic glow up core happening IRLs.

[Paris Martineau]

Yep. Does this make sense, Steven?

[Leo Laporte]

You know what's funny? The girls understand it. The boys are baffling.

[Unknown]

Updates, literally shifting. The English meta language evolves because you're.

[Leo Laporte]

Look at this kid. The boy is going, what the hell is he saying?

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And the girls are like, how?

[Unknown]

Textbook vocab of tomorrow.

[Benito]

I don't know. I understand this perfectly fine.

[Leo Laporte]

Actually, I do too. Haven't worked with Paris now for a year too.

[Paris Martineau]

I was gonna say we've taught you guys. Drip.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I know definition.

[Leo Laporte]

Except for put the fries in the bag. That's a good one.

[Unknown]

I like that people around the world give the deets.

[Leo Laporte]

Give the deets. I mean I've been saying that that's a.

[Unknown]

Allowing you to catch dubs across cultures, connect deeper with the squad and stand new perspectives that would otherwise leave you ghosted language.

[Paris Martineau]

I would have said squad up with the fam, but you know.

[Emily Bender]

You got.

[Jeff Jarvis]

To give them guy credit.

[Paris Martineau]

Yeah, no, I think that's a fun little speech.

[Leo Laporte]

Good try. It's a good try. Nice guy.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, Paris, Paris, give us a review of it in your generation speech.

[Benito]

She's Gen Z though that's not the same generation.

[Paris Martineau]

I'm mixed in all of this, so I kind of understand. I understand it, but I can't believe you knew.

[Leo Laporte]

Put the fries in the bag. I was.

[Paris Martineau]

I don't know how I know. Put the fries in the bag. But I, I did.

[Leo Laporte]

That's obscure. Put the fries in the bag. Put down. Okay, okay. Put the fries in the bag, buster.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's a lot of Gamer2 meetings, actually.

[Benito]

It's a lot of gamers speak too.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Emily Bender]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

I wouldn't to correct Burke. I wouldn't say it's respectful. It's definitely like a put the fries in the bag. It's. It's derogatory.

[Leo Laporte]

It's derogatory saying you're a fast food worker. Yeah, yeah, I would see what Burke was saying, but I can't. This is definitely not. I can't see nothing. I'm lucky I was able to click that link. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this thrilling, gripping edition of Intelligent Machines. Thank you, Jeff, for and Bonita, for getting Emily Bender and Alex Hannah on the show there. Book the AI con. Never invite them back. Okay. I'm just saying. Never ever. No, no, I'm kidding.

[Jeff Jarvis]

He. He doesn't mean that.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't mean it. It's good to have. You got to hear all the points of view. And they made some excellent points. I'm going to feel guilty now when I use perplexity, but I'm going to still use it.

[Benito]

It's off.

[Leo Laporte]

I really don't know.

[Benito]

Anthony did all the back end work on that.

[Leo Laporte]

He did the. He did the booking. I don't know about this. I.

[Paris Martineau]

You should swallow it.

[Leo Laporte]

The. The be. If I swallow it, then I can't get rid of it. It'll be with me forever.

[Paris Martineau]

Put the fries in the bag. Leo.

[Jeff Jarvis]

I think we have a showtime.

[Paris Martineau]

No cab.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you. Paris. Paris, nyc. Hire this woman so she doesn't have to go to Tony's reptile show anymore.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Please.

[Paris Martineau]

If you hire me, I'll be going to the Nassau County Reptile Exhibition.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah, the big one, the biggest show.

[Paris Martineau]

I want to see those big zards.

[Leo Laporte]

The big Sards. See, I understand your. Your. Your elite speak. Jeff Jarvis, formerly professor of Internet. Well, it's always professor emeritus of journalistic innovation at the Craig Newmark Graduate School.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Greg Newmark.

[Leo Laporte]

Greg at cuny. I feel rebellion in the air. I don't know why I feel rebellion in the air.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Well, the whole chat room was voting against.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I don't pay attention to them. They're the. They're the. Just a small sampling of the overall. Of the overall audience.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Yeah.

[Paris Martineau]

You pay attention to one nasty emailer.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, hey guys, you know what you.

[Paris Martineau]

Should do if you want the Craig Do Mark theme back? Leave. Okay. Email Leo. Or if you want to be helpful while doing it, leave a bunch of five star reviews of this podcast and your favorite podcast testing app. And if we get enough of those that then say in the review that you want Craig Newmark back, then Leo will be forced.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Can you read that nasty letter to us?

[Leo Laporte]

It wasn't.

[Paris Martineau]

I don't think we want to.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, well, maybe it was nasty. I don't know. Let me look and see if I Can find it. I have a lot of mail. If I can find it, I will read it to you.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Search on new work.

[Benito]

I just have to.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I can, but then I have a lot of email from Craig Newmark.

[Benito]

Paris needs to join maybe our marketing team because that's brilliant.

[Leo Laporte]

It is brilliant. Yes, it is. Yeah, I don't think I have either. I might have thrown it out. Oh, wait a minute. Here's one from the guy who created it.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Saying he's sick of it. Is Leo frozen?

[Paris Martineau]

Goodbye.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm reading. Oh, that was. This was from last October. I guess he liked having Ed Zittran on. So that just eliminates him completely. All right, well, yeah, I'll tell you know what? I'm. I am. I'm flexible. I'm nothing if not flexible. If the majority says bring back Craig Newmark, one guy.

[Paris Martineau]

Like 20 people in the comments of the Discord episode that.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Said bring it back Leo does not like being overruled. I was such fun.

[Paris Martineau]

Only the way that we'll do it that we can make it a positive for the show and Leo won't feel bad if it's over is if it is in the five star reviews of the podcast. That way we get a win, but also a bargaining chip because then if he doesn't do it, you can change it to your reviews. We can hold him hostage. We can seize the means of podcast production.

[Leo Laporte]

What? What do you guys.

[Jeff Jarvis]

What?

[Leo Laporte]

Is the show capped or are we still in it? What is that?

[Jeff Jarvis]

It's over. He's asking did we end it?

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, no, wait. No. This show never ends. This is never ends. Jeff Jarvis. I said the thing with the.

[Jeff Jarvis]

You already said goodbye to me.

[Leo Laporte]

He's also the author of. Of the Gutenberg parenthesis now in paperback. The web. We. We've never be in paperback, but you should get anyway or listen to it on Audible and magazine which will be on Audible soon.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Very soon.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, but AI don't listen to it.

[Jeff Jarvis]

My voice.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you everybody for joining us. We will see you next. Who are our guests next week? Bonito. Do you know?

[Benito]

Yes, next week. Kate o' Neal.

[Leo Laporte]

Kate o' Neal. Great. You're gonna love our interview with Kate o' Neill all about AI. I'll see you then. We do intelligent machines every Wednesday. I'm sure I know she's not the the tech humans of math destruction what matters. Oh, text. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah, yeah, she's good. There's another Kate o' Neill we've had on him in the past who won't wrote about math. Illiteracy, but that's another one. And bring back Eds.

[Paris Martineau]

That's Kathy O' Neill.

[Leo Laporte]

Kathy O' Neill. Thank you. You looked it up. Thank you. We do intelligent machines every Wednesday. You know what the problem is? It's, it's the last show of the week for me. I'm exhausted. I only got a 63 sleep score. I haven't had anything to eat. I, I, my brain's not working. That's all.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Excuses, excuses.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, we do this show every.

[Paris Martineau]

Ready to podcast and 2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern.

[Leo Laporte]

Watch this. I'm going to calculate UTC in my head. 2100 UTC. Try that at home.

[Paris Martineau]

How many hundreds of times have you said that over the past year?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, oh, but it changes. It changes. It changes once a year, twice a.

[Paris Martineau]

Year, maybe twice a year.

[Leo Laporte]

Twice a year changes twice a year.

[Jeff Jarvis]

It would never change.

[Leo Laporte]

I still have to think about it. That's all I'm saying. I still have to use my brain. You can watch the show live. We are on eight different steams. Watch. Now watch this. Watch this. Not everybody could do this. For our club Twit members. We are on Discord, of course, but we're also on YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, X.com, linkedIn, Facebook, and Kick. Okay, you do that. You try that. We also, of course, are a podcast, which means you can download it. What Matters Next, a book by Kate o' Neill, author of several books including what Matters Next Next, as well as A Future so Bright and Tech Humanists. That's who's coming up next week. Thank you. Thank you for posting that. I appreciate it. You can get the show at our website, Twitter, tv, im. You can also, right there you'll see a link to YouTube. There's all the videos are there and you could use that to share a little clip with somebody, which is a great way to show them how much you love them after the fact. You can also also subscribe by going to your favorite podcast player and subscribing. That way you'll get it automatically the minute we're done, which may never happen. Happen. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Paris. Thank you for putting up with us.

[Jeff Jarvis]

Are we capped?

[Leo Laporte]

We're capped.

[Jeff Jarvis]

We'll see you next week.

[Leo Laporte]

Intelligent machines. I forgot the name. I'm not a human being.

[Paris Martineau]

Like your favorite startup's growth curve, T.

[Unknown]

Mobile's coverage keeps scaling because T Mobile.

[Leo Laporte]

Helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch.

[Paris Martineau]

Now, keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to 800.

[Unknown]

Per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or.

[Paris Martineau]

Learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch.

[Leo Laporte]

Up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualified unlock device, credit service report in 90 plus days device.

[Paris Martineau]

Knowledgeable carrier and timely redemption required card.

[Leo Laporte]

Has no cash access and acceptance fires in six months.