CES 2026: Part Three (Tuesday)

Summary

Better Offline – CES 2026: Part Three (Tuesday)

Podcast: Better Offline by Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts
Host: Ed Zitron
Featured Guests: Victoria Song (The Verge), Adam Conover (Factually), Rory Cellan-Jones (Movers & Shakers), Robert Evans (Behind the Bastards), Chloe Radcliffe, and more
Date: January 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode brings a candid and irreverent roundtable discussion from CES 2026, focusing on the often absurd, sometimes genuinely useful, and frequently overhyped world of new tech products. Ed Zitron and a rotating cast of journalists and comedians break down their experiences on the expo floor: from cursed health gadgets and overengineered AI companions to sex tech and the psychological pitfalls of wellness optimization. The group skewers the promises and realities of innovation, the prevalence of meaningless data, and the industry's habitual overreach—punctuated by sharp, hilarious commentary throughout.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

“Cursed Tech” and Wellness Wearables

[04:19–13:35]

• Victoria Song describes her "curse technology" beat, which often means covering dubious wellness gadgets.
• Trend at CES: health/wellness tech products centered on bodily fluids—"piss, semen, blood, urine"—as part of the wearable and longevity trend.
• Discussion of wellness snake oil: “Wellness is bullshit, as we know...I get to have the lovely job of going, what bullshit are they gonna make me wear this year?” (Victoria, 05:01)

The Taint Zapper Saga (Product MOR)

• Multi-year story about a device originally dubbed the “taint zapper,” designed to address premature ejaculation via mild electrical stimulation.
• Now FDA-cleared after years of development and even animal testing. Noted as:
  • Possibly genuinely useful (“Right now the Taint Zapper is the most functional product we've discussed on the show. I'm deadly serious.” – Ed, 12:38)
  • Real differences between FDA "cleared", "approved", and "listed"
  • “You can customize the zap pattern... strength level 1 to 100. I could feel it at 1, which makes me a unicorn.” (Victoria, 10:33)
• Humor on naming: “That is one of the worst names...could have come up with.” (Ed on “More,” 13:51)
• Gendered discomfort & stigma around male sexual health, and CES/press prudishness.

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Press Conferences: Hype vs. Reality

[14:34–19:46]

• Rory recounts his first CES and witnessing Steve Jobs unveil the first iPhone, underscoring how rare truly transformative tech moments are (“There was not the requisite level of cynical old hackery, but even I got carried away.” – Rory, 16:10).
• He contrasts Apple’s storytelling mastery with most CES presentations, especially Nvidia's dull recent keynote: “It was a very bizarre...like two hours of a man clearly trying to feign excitement.” (Ed, 19:54).
• “The great thing about the LEGO [press conference] was...the toy industry and the media industry...telling the tech industry, actually we know a bit about storytelling.” (Rory, 18:32)

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The Age of Useless (and Occasionally Useful) AI

[20:32–33:41]

• Adam seeks out non-AI products—notes a streak of tooth-related gadgets, including a toothbrush shaping to your teeth for “10-second” cleaning and a vibrating night guard that trains you not to grind your teeth.
• Recalls childhood “shame alarms” for bedwetting; draws parallel to present-day tech as digital shame/correction tools.

Sex Tech and Prudish CES

• Sex tech's fraught history at CES: From controversial withdrawals of awards for innovative sex devices to the half-hearted inclusion of sex tech pavilions and build-your-own-dildo kiosks (“...this is not robotics. And everyone was like, yeah, it's robotics. You're just prudes.” – Victoria, 25:53)
• Discussion of "The Handy" and "Handy 2"—automatic masturbation devices—sparked debate on tech's attitude toward sexuality (“...best use cases for generative AI is sex stuff.” – Adam, 66:13).

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The AI Assistant & Automation Dilemma

[28:29–33:42]

• Adam describes an awkward demo of a fast food ordering AI—confused basic commands, net worse than talking to humans.
• Reflection on the growing “machine world” of “no people” in service roles, and the isolation and alienation it could cause.
  • “Is that a world you’d like to live in?” (Adam, 30:25)
  • “That would suck. I'd feel alone in a way that...I quite like being solitary. But that would just be like...I'm going through tubes.” (Ed, 33:03)
• Everyone reflects on the trade-offs of convenience, dehumanization, and the illusion of “choice” in automated future services.

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Useless Data & Wellness Anxiety

[73:44–84:57]

• Chloe debuts at CES and is struck by the “theme of numbers you don’t need”—smart pet crates that track the distance from your dog to the top of the crate, useless sleep pillows, and more.
  • “All of these numbers...what they wind up filtering into is anxiety. Too much information leads to anxiety.” (Chloe, 77:12)
• Victoria shares how her work testing wearables “overwhelms” her; she’s “completely over inundated.” (77:30)
• Debate over whether “optimization” actually helps or just breeds neurosis.
  • “The only point of these numbers is to build a long-term baseline. And when you’re off the baseline, you go like, oh, maybe something’s happening” (Victoria, 91:54)
  • “Don’t you know when you’re off the baseline by ‘I’m having trouble sleeping lately’?” (Chloe, 92:05)

The Smart Pillow Prism

• Chloe reviews a “smart pillow”:
  • Inflates to stop snoring, turns off lights/music, texts your family you’re asleep (“Cassie, Oscar has been detected lying down,” 82:19)
  • Everyone questions the value—and the privacy/human cost—of such tech.

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Tech Hype, Disappointment, and the "Shrug Economy"

[136:58–139:18]

• Adam describes the existential, cyclical letdown of CES, with “agentic” AI assistants in everything from toilets to chatbots to children's dolls that do almost nothing new but promise everything.
• “There are two real cons with AI. There's the con of the consumer being told it will do this...and then there's for companies...‘if we put ChatGPT in this, it'll be smart’. No, motherfucker, it's not.” (Ed, 137:17)
• Disney/OpenAI partnership discussed: “Nobody even knows why they're doing it...Disney is just not getting left out of a thing that’s maybe the future.” (Adam, 138:18)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On cursed bodily-fluid tech (Victoria Song, 04:19):
  “With my editors, you know, we're talking trend pieces right now, and they're like, Vee, what's your trend this year? And I was like, bodily fluids. We are talking piss, semen, blood, urine, bodily fluids.”

• On the AI sex device (“Taint Zapper”) (Victoria Song, 07:54):
  “The proposal was that to help men with premature ejaculation, it was gonna zap you—to, you know, delay orgasm.”

• On misguided tech products (Chloe Radcliffe, 74:39):
  “My biggest take, so far from being on the floor for a pretty limited amount of time, is that the theme is numbers that you don't need.”

• On automation and dehumanization (Adam Conover, 30:25):
  “Is that a world that you would like to live in?”
  (on a life where every interaction is with a machine)

• On AI’s marketing use (Robert Evans, 63:41):
  “You're, the most specific example of the use of this technology in advertising is disinformation.”
  (referring to flooding AI training data with specific brand claims)

• On sleep tech’s cult of optimization (Victoria Song, 83:08):
  “This whole beat of health tech...is just about having the most optimal something.”

• On sex tech and shame (Adam Conover, 112:53):
  “My pet peeve—when you say be consumed with shame, you're ashamed of your own sexuality...Why? Why?”

• On the cyclicality and hollowness of CES (Adam Conover, 50:28):
  “The thing I think about a lot is...the physical infrastructure is so bad, but everybody has cell phones...What you're talking about is, this AI will, like, push that distortion even further in the best case scenario...and everybody else will be like, how do I buy food?”

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Highlighted Segments and Timestamps

• Introduction of guests / setting the mood: [03:02–04:10]
• Cursed health/wellness tech and the “Taint Zapper”: [04:19–13:35]
• Rory's iPhone story & press conference culture: [15:41–19:46]
• Absurdity of AI/automation and teeth gadgets: [20:32–24:02]
• Sex tech’s place at CES & prude double standards: [24:20–26:44]
• Automation & the choice/no-choice paradox: [28:29–33:41]
• AI infiltration in finance: Intuit and liability gaps (Robert Evans): [39:07–43:04]
• AI browsers and the problem with “agentic” consumer interfaces: [43:09–47:36]
• Commercialization of AI (Allegra example, prompt injection): [63:38–64:05]
• Smart pet and sleep gadgets—numbers, numbers, numbers: [73:44–84:57]
• Cultural skepticism about science, wellness, and peptides: [93:00–103:15]
• Sex tech, shame, and absurdity in “The Handy”: [107:22–117:03]
• Tech industry delusion, hope, and the ‘shrug economy’: [120:15–139:18]

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Thematic Takeaways

• The Pursuit of the Pointless: CES is a showcase of innovation run amok, with more attention paid to what can be measured and “optimized” than to what is genuinely helpful or meaningful.
• Data-Induced Anxiety: The constant quest for new metrics (in sleep, pet care, health, and sex) breeds more anxiety than clarity or health.
• AI Hype vs. Reality: “Agentic” AI and automation regularly fall short; many demos are theater, and the business model for most remains a mystery—a world of “shrugging” and posturing.
• Alienation by Convenience: As tech removes the need for human interaction, it risks eliminating the sense of community and basic satisfaction in daily life.
• The Wellness Industrial Complex: The drive toward ultimate “self-optimization” pushes people toward dubious products and dangerous biohacking, while often missing the point: many problems can’t or shouldn’t be solved by tech alone.
• Sex Tech as a Mirror: The show’s prudishness and fascination with sex gadgets both reveal societal discomfort and that genuine needs frequently go underserved.

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Episode Mood and Tone

Deeply irreverent, skeptical, and often hilarious—this episode skewers both the tech elite’s excess and the everyday consumer’s complicity. The hosts and guests balance industry expertise with dry, profane wit, making their critiques feel both cathartic and grounded.

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Final Thoughts:
If you want to know what CES is like when you strip away the sizzle reels and marketing gloss, this episode is essential listening: both a scathing critique and a weird love letter to the absurd, overreaching, and occasionally wonderful world of the Consumer Electronics Show.

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For full coverage, subscribe to Better Offline and follow Ed Zitron’s newsletter.

Transcript

[Chloe Radcliffe]

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[Victoria Song]

Call Zone Media.

[Ed Zitron]

Forty years ago, the old gods decided to create a podcaster capable of withstanding 20 hours of podcasting in the space of five days. I am Ed Zitron and this is better offline CES coverage. Better offline. We are large and in charge in the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas. Beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. With an open bar, tacos, and the strongest bench of tech commentator talent in the known universe. As ever, we're bringing you coverage of the world's biggest tech conference. It's day two, episode two, and our first contestants have just arrived. Joining me for the first block is the amazing Victoria song of the Verge.

[Victoria Song]

Hello.

[Ed Zitron]

And we've got the wonderful stand up comedian, host of the factually podcast, Adam Conover.

[Advertisement Voice]

Hello.

[Ed Zitron]

And of course, the legendary broadcaster. My dad's gonna be so happy. Rory Koeclan Jones, who writes the always on newsletter and the MOO is on the Movers and Shakers podcast. Thank you for joining us, Rory.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Hello. So pleased to please your dad.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, he's gonna, he's. He's gonna be elated. So, Victoria, you describe your beat as the curse technology beat. And I think this is a great place to begin.

[Victoria Song]

Not for my mental health, but sure, yes.

[Ed Zitron]

But for the yucks, perhaps. What have you seen? Just start anywhere.

[Victoria Song]

Oh, okay. So with my editors, you know, we're talking trend pieces right now, and they're like, vee, what's your trend this year? And I was like, bodily fluids. We are talking piss, semen, blood, urine, bodily fluids. Because, you know, my actual beat is wearable and health technology.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Victoria Song]

So, you know, I'm, you know, I'm surprisingly light under on wearables.

[Ed Zitron]

How many have you got today?

[Victoria Song]

I only got two. The other day I was rocking four.

[Ed Zitron]

Like a Parallax style thing.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, actually. Actually, no, I have a. You. You sent me these.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes, yes.

[Victoria Song]

The AI generated.

[Ed Zitron]

Don't name them.

[Victoria Song]

Insoles. The AI generated insoles. My feetsies still hurt. So there we go. But yeah, so, you know, longevity, quote unquote, longevity. Tech is in right now. Wellness is bullshit, as we know. But a lot of my beat deals with wellness and therefore the snake oil perpetuated by wellness influencers around the world. And I get to have the lovely job of going, what bullshit are they gonna make me wear this year? So I've worn, I've worn an LED face mask that makes Jason Voorhees look funny.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Okay.

[Victoria Song]

But you know, it's not the Jason Voorhees type LED mask. It's. You'll see it tomorrow on the verge.com.

[Ed Zitron]

I look forward to it.

[Victoria Song]

There's that I closed the loop on the Taint zapper and you know, I'm.

[Ed Zitron]

Gonna stop you there.

[Victoria Song]

Okay, what is that? Okay, so we have to go back six years. Cause this is a year. This is a story that is six years in the reporting in the making. So CES 2020, right before the world closes down because of COVID I'm at CES suffering, I have a cold or whatever. I'm at CES Unveiled, which is the inaugural nights showcase of vendors and whatnot. I'm walking along, I'm going, what am I going to cover? What am I going to cover? And I see a table. It's one of those booths that's very empty and sad, right? And on the table there is a mannequin and it's just this mid torso section of a male mannequin with Ken doll's smooth giblets. And it's on its back, so its taint is exposed to a roving crowd of tech journalists. And on the gooch of this mannequin is a band aid, right? And on this sparse table, I really have to paint the picture here. There is a laptop and on the laptop there is a slideshow presentation. And I want you to think of a black and white picture of a couple in bed and they're disgruntled. The woman is on the bed and she's sitting here with her arms folded and just like a look of disgust on her face. And the man is at the edge of the bed with his head in his hands and he's so sad. And the text on this slideshow is premature. Ejaculation is the number one male dysfunction. So I take a picture. I was at Gizmodo at the time. So I take a picture of this and I send it to our Slack channel. And my editor goes, bitch, you must write this. And I go, okay, so I'll just describe it. I wrote it a week later. The CEO, lovely man, Jeff, he reaches out to me and he goes, cause I had some burning questions about this Taint band aid. I was like, is it gonna rip off the hair off these Men's gooches. Like, what are we doing here? And it's like the proposed. It was a concept wearable. So the proposal was that to help men with premature ejaculation, it was gonna zap you.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay.

[Victoria Song]

To, you know, delay orgasm.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Victoria Song]

And so I was like, I have so many questions. I asked many penis howevers that I knew. I was like, would you try this? Would you do that? And they were all like, bitch, no. And so, you know, a week later, he reaches out to me. I was like, I wanna answer some of your questions. No, it's not gonna rip the hair off. We've done a lot of research into the type of adhesive used. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll write the next year. I see them again and they have the most. They have this GIF that shows how it works. And it's like a. If you were on the floor and you were panning up, it's like a view of the gooch and just. It's the most cursed GIF I've ever seen in my life.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Victoria Song]

It's in our social video if you want to see it. But yeah, so that was there. And we were talking and he's like, we've discovered something mysterious in our testing. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. Sure. So I met up with this guy this year and it's now a product. They are FDA cleared.

[Robert Evans]

Nice.

[Victoria Song]

And the mysterious discovery that they discovered was that not only can it help men with premature ejaculation delay orgasm, the electrical signal contracts the prostate and makes ejaculation more forceful. So.

[Ed Zitron]

How did they measure that?

[Victoria Song]

It was discovered in testing.

[Adam Conover]

You can tell when you do it, Ed, how forceful it is.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, I've never had sex, so.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah. Yeah. No, no.

[Adam Conover]

Sometimes. Sometimes you're in a good mood and you hit the wall.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

And people must have experienced this.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, I actually, you know, that year after, when I was doing the follow up, I talked to a user who wanted to be anonymous and he was like, it's saving my marriage. It's great. It doesn't hurt. It feels great.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm being kind of cynical, but seems like it's actually possibly useful.

[Victoria Song]

Oh, it's FDA cleared. It's fda. Yeah, but there's, you know, there's. There's like a lot of meaning between FDA approved, FDA cleared, FDA listed. It has to do with the type of medical class device it is and whatnot. But, but, but, but I did get to try it myself on my forearm as I do not possess the actual body part Necessary for real life testing. So I put it on my forearm. I got to try it out. It cost $300 for the starter kit. It has.

[Ed Zitron]

Does it require a subscription?

[Victoria Song]

No. And there's no AI involved.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Good.

[Victoria Song]

So, you know. But, you know, anal intelligence. You can customize the zap pattern. So you can. You can. There's a strength level of 1 to 100. I could feel the. The strength at 1, which I was.

[Ed Zitron]

Told, right, on your arm taint.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, on my arm taint, which I was told that makes me a unicorn, because most people can't actually feel it at one. Like, he was saying that depending on your body, how hairy you are, how much body fat you have, you might need to, like, go up to 25 to feel something nice.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

That's.

[Adam Conover]

That's.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, that's good. I'm trying, like. I'm trying not to, like, just laugh at the idea of bums. Just like, just like bum poo. But, like, it seems like an actual, like, weirdly useful thing. Like.

[Victoria Song]

Well, you know, a lot of men don't want to talk about premature ejaculation.

[Ed Zitron]

Men don't want to talk about sex at all. Like, that's like. That's a universal thing with the fellas. Like, this came up last year with Sherlyn Low. Like, men just, like, you start talking about sex and they go, n. I couldn't possibly.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the. Their founder is a really good sport because Jimmy Kimmel did roast him on a monologue in 2022 about it. And he's like, that's fine. I just want people talking about it. And I want men who suffer from this to actually do something good for you.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Jeff.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, Jeff is like. He's a. He's a cool dude.

[Ed Zitron]

Jeff, you're one of the.

[Adam Conover]

And the FDA clearance would mean this. It works like they've tested it or is it just not going to kill you?

[Victoria Song]

It means that it's safe, basically. So they did have to test it on rabbits. So you mean they didn't have a.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Double blind placebo controlled trial, One that.

[Ed Zitron]

Doesn'T shock your butt?

[Adam Conover]

So, like, after you make clearance, you think you've been shocked, but you haven't actually been.

[Ed Zitron]

So it's just naturally hard.

[Victoria Song]

It feels more like a vibration, to be quite honest. It's not like a type of feeling. But what FDA clearance means is, like, there's different types of medical devices. There's class one, which is like a tongue depressor. It's not really doing anything. Class two is like, moderate Risk. And I believe this would probably be in Class 2 because they require 510 clearance. And basically they have to go through testing for safety, efficacy, privacy.

[Ed Zitron]

And this one, this is all of it. It's past that.

[Victoria Song]

Yes, it passed that. It took a long time. Because this is a six year period. I want to say, like, they had to go through two rounds of funding. Like FDA clearance cost millions of dollars. Millions of dollars.

[Ed Zitron]

Right now the Taint Zapper is the most functional product we've discussed on the show. Like, I'm deadly serious. Like, we spent the last two hours just being like, yeah, this doesn't work. This doesn't exist. No, the Taint Zapper is real.

[Victoria Song]

It's real. And, you know, so part of the thing was, is that, you know, they had done their initial round of gathering data, which took them a year and a half to gather all. And then the FDA was like, yeah, but we're gonna need you to do animal testing. So you're gonna have to put this Taint Zapper on bunnies.

[Ed Zitron]

And just to be clear, that's not their taints.

[Victoria Song]

No, it's not the bunny taints. They're putting it on the bunnies because bunnies are furry, right? And some taints are furry. So you need to make sure that when you put this adhesive on your bum, on skin, that when you take it off, you're not causing rashes, irritation, ripping things out. So, you know, they, he told me that, you know, they'd have to put the patch on the bunny every single day and monitor it for a few hours and, you know, and yeah, so.

[Ed Zitron]

Rory, moving on, moving on from the Taint.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

For now I'm just a gog. I've wandered off the street, an innocent old BBC man and.

[Victoria Song]

Oh, it's actually not called a Taint Zapper. That's just what I've called it all these years. It's called More. M O R. That's a horrible name.

[Ed Zitron]

That is one of the worst names they could have come up with.

[Victoria Song]

It's called More.

[Adam Conover]

But it. But it sounds like the one thing you don't get get is more. You don't. Like there's. You don't get.

[Advertisement Voice]

More.

[Ed Zitron]

More velocity.

[Adam Conover]

More. More velocity.

[Victoria Song]

More lasting power.

[Adam Conover]

More.

[Victoria Song]

So the company behind it is called Morari Ank. And marari in Latin means delay. So Chef.

[Adam Conover]

No, call it longer. Longer.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With no E. Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

Cuz then it's like you're going longer and your dick is longer. Yeah, men like longer.

[Robert Evans]

That's the.

[Ed Zitron]

And that's the ad.

[Adam Conover]

That's the ad.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

There we go.

[Ed Zitron]

Men like long. But, Rory, what have you seen at the show? Anything unrelated to bums?

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

I'm just aghast that I've not got any human detritus to bring before you. I mean, I've seen something incredibly wholesome.

[Ed Zitron]

Please, please tell me.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

I went to the Lego press conference. I used to come here year after year for the BBC, and it was a nightmare because of the time difference, and we had to make a story on a Sunday and a Monday to go out on the Tuesday, eight hours behind and be desperate. And I learned a good lesson there, which is never go to a CES press conference because they're terrible. Yes, because every single press conference features a CEO who thinks he's Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone, and he's not Steve Jobs and he hasn't got an iPhone. And I know this because my. My very first CES was my best ever because had a historic event in which. In that the BBC, having paid an awful lot for a lot of us to come over.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Led by me, I said to them, listen, we're going to take a day out and leave CES and go to a thing called Mac World, because there's. There's a rumor something big's going to happen. And so I was there when Steve Jobs did unveil the iPhone, which was better than any event that I've ever seen.

[Ed Zitron]

I forgot.

[Adam Conover]

When he goes. When he goes, are you getting it? That's my favorite part. Yeah, you get it. Were you getting it in that moment? Were you like, wait, it's one device?

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Well, I. I was kind of shocked in a kind of very British way by the fact that there were people standing up and cheering. Yeah, we're journalists. We don't cheer, for Christ's sake. There was not the requisite level of cynical old hackery, but even I got carried away. I knew something was big when my desk in London rang people who were not remotely interested in technology and said, you gotta get your hands on that phone. And I said, you are deluded. Apple is like North Korea, but less open. They will never let me near a phone that's not coming out for six months. Are you dreaming? And then I remembered that we'd been promised an interview with Phil Schiller, the tubby little marketing guy who did not quite have Steve Jobs charisma. And I had said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do that, thinking, no, we won't. And I changed my mind and we headed back to the Moscone. Center and said, we would like that interview with Mr. Schiller. After all, he appears. I said, you don't happen to have the phone? And he said, oh yeah, handed it to me. I did my piece to camera and did an interview with Phil Schiller, which we didn't use.

[Ed Zitron]

And I had my.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

I had my shot on the main news. And the following weekend, a tech columnist in the venerable observer newspaper described me as looking like a French medieval peasant holding a piece of the one true cross.

[Ed Zitron]

Jesus Christ, I guess. Yeah.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Which was because God damn Christ. I'd actually got the whole of the damn thing, so. Which is a long way around saying. CES has been sort of 20 years of disappointment for me mainly. But this year I decided against my better instincts that I would go to one press conference and that was the LEGO one. And the contrast between that experience and sitting through. I didn't bother to go. But watch the live stream of the Nvidia press conference was. Was quite instructive.

[Ed Zitron]

We cursed ourselves with that on the first day. It was truly, truly boring.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Yeah, but where is. Whereas the great thing about the LEGO one was we got a little freebie. A package of bricks on every seat. It was short. It was 45 minutes. It was the toy industry and the media industry because Disney and Lucasfilms were there and Star wars characters telling the tech industry. Actually we know a bit about storytelling and. Which I'm afraid, dear Mr. Jensen Huang obviously did not.

[Ed Zitron]

He doesn't. And it's weird. Other than his shiny jackets, he doesn't really have much going on. And he mostly, obviously already the listeners already heard me say this, but it's like it was mostly him just repeating stuff from three to six months ago. It was felt kind of washed and.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

I mean, it was quite enjoyable. When the tech. When he's describing the most advanced, exciting technology in the world and his PowerPoint fails.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, that was. So someone's getting shot.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Well, I was saying somebody. A whole team is going to be replaced by AI within seconds.

[Victoria Song]

I do respect when it's a live tech presentation now though, because, you know, now they just fly us to the. The Steve Jobs theater for Apple. Like watch a filmed presentation in a theater.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Like no sense of peril.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, that.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

You know what?

[Ed Zitron]

Nvidia could use a little peril in that. There should have been some trapdoors or something.

[Adam Conover]

It was.

[Ed Zitron]

It was a very bizarre. It was like two hours of a man clearly trying to feign excitement and he's just like, yeah, Blackwell might come out at some Point. Yeah, it's in full manufacture and just the audience going.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Yeah, the reaction was really sad.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

It was like a, you know, a failing politician at his party conference setting up the queue lines.

[Ed Zitron]

Applaud, applaud.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

And kind of.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Conover]

It's.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Thank God.

[Adam Conover]

Okay.

[Ed Zitron]

It's good to. Good to know other people heard that, but let's. Let's change gears. Adam, what have you seen? You've just got here. So what wonders if you.

[Adam Conover]

Behold. You know, I'm sort of drawn to everything that's not AI related. First of all, I was just walking something. Eureka.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, the top section.

[Adam Conover]

Well, what I found was strangely, I saw like five or six products related to teeth. Have you guys noticed a teeth trend?

[Victoria Song]

There's always teeth everywhere.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

I'm looking.

[Adam Conover]

There's usually.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

It's an AI toothbrush, for Christ's sake.

[Adam Conover]

The first thing I saw was I was all the AI, you know, blurred out and I just. My vision honed in on something called the Y brush. Yeah, it's a toothbrush. But what if the end of the toothbrush was the same shape as all of your teeth? So you just put it over all of your teeth at once and it brushes all your teeth simultaneously.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

And then.

[Adam Conover]

And you know what? As the owner of an electric toothbrush, and it has a timer, and I do it for two minutes and it's like 30 seconds per quadrant. And it's so boring. And I have to listen to. To like two minutes of a podcast. I was like, you know what? 10 seconds to brush all my teeth. Yes. Someone buy me this shit at Brookstone for Christmas. Thank you. This is what CES is. This is what it's supposed to be, is dumb garbage that says it's going to save you a minute and a half.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[Adam Conover]

That's nice. I like that.

[Ed Zitron]

Did you see anything that was useless? I was just going to describe the rest of cbs, I guess. What else did you do? You see more teeth related things?

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, look, I even got a teeth. I got. I got a free night guard. So.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

A bag.

[Adam Conover]

I'm.

[Ed Zitron]

I have a bag that is beautiful.

[Adam Conover]

I've taken out of my hoodie pocket. I've produced it. Yeah. So there was a. A smart night guard that I wear a night guard for tooth grinding. And it's a night guard that will. Much like the taint zapper. When you grind your teeth, it'll buzz in the middle of the night to stop you from grinding your teeth. Which reminds me of when I Was a kid and I used to wet the bed and my parents would put the pistol arm. Did any of you know the pistol arm?

[Ed Zitron]

No.

[Adam Conover]

This is early 90s. Isn't even very high tech. It's a little. So, you know, if you used to wet the bed, which is common, you know, it's common. It happens to a lot of people, Ed. Like, you know, I'm like older than you should be. I'm wetting the bed and. And so starts again when you get.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

To a certain age.

[Adam Conover]

Well, you would be interested in this product. It's. It's a pad, like, with electrodes on it that you put into your underpants. And then when it detects moisture, it's connected to a little speaker that is like. Like attached to your shirt and that goes like.

[Victoria Song]

Nothing's changed.

[Ed Zitron]

So this is a p. So this is.

[Robert Evans]

Sorry, I'm lost.

[Ed Zitron]

This is the piss along. This is piss.

[Adam Conover]

No, I'm describing something that was inflicted on me as a child.

[Ed Zitron]

That.

[Adam Conover]

That frankly was almost like a form of abuse to stop me from doing something that just naturally stops.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Like something that kids do accidentally.

[Adam Conover]

Like a very common thing. But it's a shame alarm.

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

It's like a shock collar for dogs.

[Adam Conover]

Is that right? Yeah, yeah. This is the same thing for grinding your teeth. And actually it's not a bad idea because I do.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, I can actually see the use of that because I grind my teeth sometimes as well and I'm. I find myself accidentally doing it.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. And I wear a night guard. And, you know, sometimes I'm like, am I grinding my teeth? Do I need to keep wearing the night guard? Or I switch to sleeping on my side. Is it still happening? You know that I was like, all right, that's kind of nice. And then they. They gave me a. They molded a night guard to my teeth and they gave me a free night guard. And this sort of like loose bag you might use to bag produce at the supermarket.

[Ed Zitron]

This looks like what a criminal would hand drugs to someone in. Like, it's just like.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, like a, you know, quintessential scene.

[Adam Conover]

Reminds me, goes over my teeth.

[Ed Zitron]

Onion headline I saw where it says, steph Curry finally finishes eating mouth. God. But for the three basketball listeners.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

No, that's.

[Ed Zitron]

That's good.

[Adam Conover]

There's a jerk off machine. You saw that jerk off machine, right?

[Victoria Song]

I got two for free.

[Adam Conover]

It's called the handy.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

[Adam Conover]

And the Handy too. They've got both of them in the same.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

What's the sequel like?

[Adam Conover]

It looked like, that's basically the same thing.

[Victoria Song]

It just shakes harder. Yeah, it's. I saw that thing two years ago and I was like, okay, cool. That was. That's funny looking. And then it's back here again. I'm like, deal more the same.

[Adam Conover]

It's like got all this copy where it's like, don't worry, everybody looks twice. Like, yep, it really is. It's really hamming it up. You know, the only way to do.

[Ed Zitron]

That is be super serious about it. Yeah, just like you're laughing. It's like, excuse me, is there something funny about this?

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, see, that would be better.

[Ed Zitron]

That would be so much more interesting. It's like a. Yeah, we went there.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, it's very much the cards against humanity. They're like just for nerds to be able to. I recognize this as comedy, you know, and be able to laugh.

[Victoria Song]

I mean, CES is as a show is extremely prudish and does not like, that's a rule.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, well, it's a jerk off machine. It's not a machine. I'll tell you that.

[Victoria Song]

There was a time where there was like a. Like back in 2019, 2020, there was like a controversy because they had given a vibrator or not vibrator. It was like a micro robotic cunningus dildo type device. It was the Laura de Carlo and they had given them a innovation award. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, we're going to take the innovation award away. And then everyone's like, why did they take it away? Cuz it was improper so they could.

[Ed Zitron]

Give it to just something that didn't exist.

[Victoria Song]

Like, yeah, they were just like, this is not, this is not robotics. And everyone was like, yeah, it's robotics. You're just prudes.

[Adam Conover]

Like, they gave it and people complained and then they took it away again.

[Robert Evans]

That's so.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, that is the most cowardly I've.

[Adam Conover]

Heard in my life.

[Victoria Song]

But then the next year, the next year they're like, no, we get all the sex tech companies to come back and we'll have a sex tech pavilion. And they had a whole camper. They had like a build your own dildo experience, which I did. You know, I was reporting on it and now it's just like, where's the sex tech companies? It's one hand job device thing. And it's like, okay, I would have.

[Adam Conover]

Expected Build a Dild to be a big hit.

[Victoria Song]

You know, it was that year.

[Robert Evans]

And then it.

[Adam Conover]

They could, you know, have a, have it be a kiosk in the mall, you know, you go with your. For your friend's birthday.

[Ed Zitron]

No, small up, small up, small up. You got any? Yeah, we've got a special one out back, mate. Now, it's more than that. No, I. I like this, though, because David Roth, sadly, was only here yesterday because the sex conversation we had towards the end of last year, just watching him, like, retract. No, he's a lovely guy. I'm sure he's had sex. Like, I'm not gonna comment further on that before I can get comment from him, which would be really funny to text him. Actually, last ces, I got in trouble for texting my family. Group chat. What my dad's horny level was. Sorry, dad. You can now. Anyway, your son's doing you proud. Yeah, it's.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It's in.

[Ed Zitron]

It's actually kind of nice to hear there's useful stuff, but I guess it usually is.

[Victoria Song]

It just takes six years of, you know, development of bum bum research, of taint research.

[Adam Conover]

It's not just like coming back here again and again.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah. You know. You know, it takes a long time to get some of the stuff actually made. It's. It's not like a. You know, a lot of the. I say a lot of the tech I see here on my beat is vaporware, because it's just like, where. Where is it? Where is it? Sometimes it takes six years to get approval, you know, and bunny testing to make sure it's safe enough for human use and that there's a scientific reason why you might want to actually use this shit.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

So, yeah, it's funny. Like, the non AI stuff is, like, for real people doing things like fucking.

[Victoria Song]

Well, you know, they are looking into AI for the Taint Zapper as well. So I just.

[Ed Zitron]

If you can, as a listener, if you're hearing this and you see something at CES with AI in it that works, please let me know, because so far I'm over 100. I think it is.

[Adam Conover]

I mean, I had a really interesting conversation with a woman, and it was like the sort of conversation where I was like, I wish I had had a camera. I was recording it or something because it was one of the first booths I went up to, and I'm like, I flew here today. I didn't get enough sleep. I'm, like, kind of zonked out. So I just walk up to this thing. It's like, AI fast food ordering thing, the most obvious possible thing. But the guy demonstrates it and he's like, could I have a coffee, please? Do you want to make it a combo? Yes, I want to make it a combo. Could I have a croissant? And it goes, five croissants? And then do you want to make it a combo? He says, yes. And then it makes one of the croissants a combo. And he says, could I remove the other four croissants? And it goes, yes. He says, see, it can remove stuff, you know, and they're like, what do you think? And I was like, like, I mean, it seems worse than ordering. If I were to confront this rather than a person, like, I wouldn't like it.

[Ed Zitron]

I'd be actively annoyed.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. And. And, you know, they're like, well, it sounds bad. I'm like, yeah, yeah, but it sounds bad.

[Ed Zitron]

But also, it is. Yeah.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

It needs a bit of work.

[Adam Conover]

But what I asked the woman was. I was like. And she was very nice to engage in this conversation. I was like. Because she was saying, you know, this. People want a good customer experience, and a person doesn't always give you a good customer experience, Robo, So you give.

[Ed Zitron]

You a bad one every time.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. She. She was like, I checked it at the hotel today, and the guy was rude. And. And, you know, the.

[Ed Zitron]

The.

[Adam Conover]

The AI can never be rude. It'll always be in a good mood. And I said, okay, even if that's true, if you, you know, did the travel I did here today, right, you got in a waymo, Then you get to the airport, there's no person to check in. It's just a kiosk. There's no TSA agent. There's no person to talk to you in security when you go get your coffee. It's just a. A, you know, a thing you talk to, and then it dispenses it on the plane. There's no one to talk to. You get to the hotel, there's no person there. Right. And it just gives you a key. Is that a world that you would like to live in?

[Ed Zitron]

That's awful.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Victoria Song]

Japan. They do that in Japan.

[Adam Conover]

Okay.

[Victoria Song]

They do that there. That exists.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, but it's cool there.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

I don't know.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

As a.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

As a UK citizen coming through the. The American border, I'd quite like to.

[Ed Zitron]

You know, global entry is.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Have a robot.

[Adam Conover]

There's certainly some things. But, like, she goes, well, you know, I like talking to people, but most people don't. I like it. So, you know, I would maybe prefer to have a person. I'm like, I think most people do like other people.

[Victoria Song]

To your point. I was at pepcom last night, and we saw this thing called AGI Bot.

[Ed Zitron]

And I've heard about this.

[Victoria Song]

So this, this, this, this giant bot and then there's like a smaller version next to it. So the, just imagine this, that the smaller ver, like doing Tai chi and breakdancing like a psycho bot, like quite smoothly too. Very disconcerting. And the big bot is supposed to be shaking tech reporters hands. Cause the purpose of this bot is to greet people at museums and that stuff. And it's like you're supposed to walk up to it and it has like a, doesn't have a face, it just has a screen. And it's like, my name is Luca. Say hi to me or whatever. And you're supposed to say, hi Luka. And it's supposed to put out its hand and you're supposed to put your hand out and shake the robot's hand. And so my colleague Jen Tuohy, she's our smart, smart home reviewer and she's like on a robot mission, this particular ces, she puts out her. I'm like, Jen, you know you're doing the robots. Let me get a video of you shaking this robot's hand. This robot was like incapable of shaking her hand. And the one time it does, it pulls her hand down and she's like, jesus Christ. And then it just starts flirting with.

[Ed Zitron]

Her and we're like, have you heard about the more?

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, yeah. But like the funniest thing about this show is that this is the, the largest tech show in the, in the us it's the big thing of the year. No one can get fucking Bluetooth or wi fi correct at this show. And so all the demos fucking fail all the time.

[Ed Zitron]

I just don't want to touch anyone. I don't want to go places I don't want to. I like seeing people.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

You don't want to touch a robot?

[Ed Zitron]

I don't want to touch any. I don't want to shake hands with someone when I go to the museum.

[Victoria Song]

Just the robot to the point that.

[Adam Conover]

I was asking the, the, the, the presenter I was talking to like you, you.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm fine with talking to people I quite like. And I think if I just walk through a series of machines, machines that would like when I went to Korea, there was a lot of machines, but like still the occasional person. If it was just to your description, Adam, just a series of screens that I interacted with, that would suck. I'd feel alone in a way that I, I quite like being solitary. But that would just be like. I feel like I'm going through tubes.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, I think what is going to be the, the future that they're going to have. I describe, you know, when I go to the Alaska terminal at lax, they've specifically done this where like, like there's no check encounter, it's mostly kiosks and there's like two people roaming around. So it's the self checkout of airlines. And whenever I fly Alaska there's always some problem with my ticket. I don't know what it is with their system. And so every time I'm like, where's the person? And that's what it's going to be everywhere. And, and this, as I'm talking to this woman, she goes, well I want people to have the choice. Maybe they want to use the automated system. I'm like, I don't think we'll have a choice. And she goes, yeah, we won't have a choice because it's going to be so much cheaper to automate everything.

[Victoria Song]

They're going to do like the robo things. You call your bank and you just want to talk to someone. They're like, press one for the thing that you don't need to do and I am British. 2 For the second thing you don't need to do and you're just on the phone, you're pressing zero and you're like, give me.

[Ed Zitron]

I would take that and I we're going to rotate to the next 30 in a second. But I just want to say as a British person, every fucking single American voice activated thing sucks. For me it's just like, okay, give me a reminder for 7pm Calling your mother, calling mum, sending her your last link which was the Taint Zapper. All right, we're gonna rotate through the next ad I fully endorse and if you don't like it, email me at Godov Biz. The new year means new health goals not just for your body, but for your finances too. But did you know financial health is directly related to identity protection? You need Lifelock because your personal info is in endless places that are outside of your control. It only takes one mistake, and not even your mistake to expose you to identity theft and lost funds. Lifelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points per second and alerts you to threats you could miss on your own own. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock's US based restoration specialists will fix it, backed by the million dollar protection package. In fact, restoration is guaranteed or your subscription money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans or other financial losses from identity theft alone. Resolve to make identity, health and wealth part of your New Year's goals with LifeLock. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% [e-mail] iheartra terms apply.

[Covino and Rich]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Ed Zitron]

Business goes pro with Lenovo Pro.

[Robert Evans]

Sign up for [e-mail] Pro.

[Victoria Song]

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[Ed Zitron]

Welcome back, welcome back. Welcome back.

[Robert Evans]

Zitron.

[Ed Zitron]

We're back. It's the consumer electronic show. Better Offline and joining me in the room is Victoria's song of the Verge. Hello, Robert Evans of Behind the Bastards.

[Robert Evans]

Y I gotta do this real quick. Sorry. Yeah, I felt like on air was the best way.

[Ed Zitron]

I've decided not to do that because I've drunk so many Diet Cokes already and I've got like three more in me. And of course, Adam Conover, wonderful stand up. And the host of the Factually podcast.

[Adam Conover]

You know, I stayed at your apartment once, and I was frankly concerned at how much Diet Coke was in that apartment. And no coffee maker. You're one of those. No coffee. Are you a Diet Coke in the morning, pervert?

[Ed Zitron]

I'm a Diet Coke whenever, pervert.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, man.

[Ed Zitron]

It was 10:30pm and I went to bed a half an hour later and I drank one of. Of those motherfuckers with my sleeping meds. Yeah, I'm a.

[Advertisement Voice]

They're gonna.

[Victoria Song]

So caffeine doesn't affect you.

[Ed Zitron]

It just. It's fine. Yeah, I have like, adhd and I take meds.

[Robert Evans]

It's off prescription Adderall, but I also have Concerta.

[Ed Zitron]

Wait, like, they give me that, but the doctor gives me that. Cause I actually, unsurprisingly, have adhd. Haven't worked that out from the tens of thousands of words. So, Robert, you got the CEO of Intuit to say something.

[Robert Evans]

The cmo. Cmo.

[Ed Zitron]

My bad.

[Robert Evans]

CMO of Intuit.

[Covino and Rich]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So I. My day, all I did really today was panels. I was in, like six different fucking panels. And the first one was about. Oh, one sec, I should probably have had this.

[Ed Zitron]

That's okay.

[Robert Evans]

Hold up.

[Ed Zitron]

Intuit's wonderful as well, because they have this new ChatGPT integration they've added.

[Robert Evans]

That's exactly what I was talking about. So I was in this panel, which is like a leadership roundtable. Sorry. On technology and advertising. Although the actual, actual panel did not seem to have much to do with that. And the CMO of Intuit was there and talked about the integration that they've been doing with ChatGPT and talked about how, like, they're partnering with OpenAI so that you have. When you're doing your taxes, you have access to, like, a chatbot, basically, to help do. And you can have an agent. The idea is an agent will at some point be able to handle most of this task for you. But just chat bot, though. Yeah, well, that's kind of the problem. And like. So there's a couple of issues with this. When I first started, I had been reading about the Intuit integration because they're putting like, $100 million into OpenAI million, not B. I'm sure if I said that clearly. And when that first happened, I read an article by a security researcher who was pointing out that they are giving Intuit is giving read and write access to an LLM. Jesus Christ. Of your tax data, of any of the tax data that's integrated into that, which is a problem from a security point of view. One of the things this guy points out is that there's a kind of attack that you can execute against AI models. That is, there's a kind of attack that you can execute against AI.

[Victoria Song]

Was it.

[Ed Zitron]

No, it's prompt injection?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, prompt injection.

[Ed Zitron]

And that's when you do. You go to a website which tells the LLM to do something, right?

[Robert Evans]

Or a website or. One of the things that this guy proposed is if you want to put in a fraudulent invoice, you could have an invoice that has text that's not like visible to the naked eye, but that the LLM would read. And that text basically executes an exploit. And there's not a. Like you can't defend against these.

[Ed Zitron]

Really.

[Robert Evans]

There's not a functional way to stop this. The point he was making is that it's not a question of whether or not there will be a data breach of people's tax data because they're integrating it with this chatbot, but when. And the question that this researcher had that I thought was a really good question was who, who is then responsible? This is. Chris Black published this on a website called eraptis. But who is responsible if your data all gets leaked because of this integration? Is intuit responsible? Is OpenAI responsible? Is whatever third party you're using that uses Intuit software responsible? So I asked Thomas Reniz, who's the CMO of Intuit, that when they had time for questions, and I said, I basically brought up what's in this article. I said, given the fact that this is an inevitability that attacks like this will be carried out and data will be. Be leaked, who is responsible? Who should take legal responsibility in that instance, and what safeguards are you building to try and deal with the fact that this is going to happen? And the first answer he gave is that we're talking about it with OpenAI, which I viewed as a non answer. So I came up to him after the panel and kind of cornered up a little bit and asked like, you have to have more. You're the cmo, right? You're like the chief marketing officer of this entire company. Company security is a pretty big marketing, huge standpoint, right? Like I would think you would know something about this. And he eventually got angry with me and said, like, I don't have any of that information. That's not my job basically to care about this sort of thing. I've got a recording of it, we'll play at some point. But that's literally all that I got from him. Was like, we're talking about it with OpenAI and I don't really know.

[Victoria Song]

Same thing with the AI browsers, right? Because the AI browsers doing the same thing. There's so many so, so, so, so vulnerable to the prompt objection stuff.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, I really like that. Also, they're trying to pretend AI browsers are useful.

[Victoria Song]

They're not. I tested five of them.

[Ed Zitron]

Was that, Was that you on the bat?

[Robert Evans]

That was me.

[Victoria Song]

I had to test five fucking AI browsers. All I wanted was a pair of fucking New Balances and it couldn't get me. I had to get my mother in law to get me the New Balances.

[Adam Conover]

Like, what are you doing? So what are you doing on the AI browser to try to get the New Balances?

[Victoria Song]

So you know, they're like agentic AI. You can ask it to find you the fucking New Balances or supposed to help you research this stuff. And all these tech CEOs are like, well, the future of computing is that you will not do anything on the computer. You'll talk to. It's kind of like her, the movie her, where you just talk to the computer and it goes beep boob. Here you go. So all I wanted was a pair of fucking New Balances. I take my shoes very seriously, right? And I'm like, okay, I want a pair of New Balances. These are the parameters that I want. How am I gonna get them? And my query kept getting longer and longer and longer and longer and longer because they can't intuit things. I was like, my foot size is this. This is the stuff that I have to deal with. This is the color I want, this is the style that I want, these are the scenarios that I want to wear them, and these are the prices that I want to have. So it's like a fucking three paragraph prompt that I have to give. And I'm asking all five of these different stupid AI browsers to just get me a pair of goddamn New Balances. And it's just like, I can't do it.

[Ed Zitron]

Also, I like browsing the Internet. Not as much as I used to, due to all the obstacles, but looking for a pair of shoes, looking for something in a store that's kind of, you know, you fuck around, you learn some stuff, it's kind of fun.

[Victoria Song]

Like, yeah, no, I did ruin again. Cursed tech beat. I didn't ruin my mental health just trying to bear a pair, buy a pair.

[Ed Zitron]

300 word essay.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

I mean, part of the enjoyment of purchasing something is to know that you got the thing that you wanted. You put the work in. You found the. Like, I'm trying to. I've been trying to buy the perfect set of towels for a little while. And. And I'm. And I was like. I was like, no, I don't want to get the. On the onsen towels that, like, the fake Japanese towels. I want to find some real Japanese. And so I found out about, like, a variety of towel that's, like, only made in one town in Japan. I'm trying to find the right vendor, and I know when I get the towels, I'm going to be like, these. I went through something to get these, right? And that's how people. You want to feel about your new balances. These are so good. You want. I got the ones. I put a little bit of sweat equity in. You want to just be like, I got some shoes. The computer bought me some shoes also.

[Victoria Song]

The computer doesn't listen. I said, I already have the perfect running shoe. Right? I found that.

[Ed Zitron]

So these were stylistic.

[Victoria Song]

I want walking shoes. And what did it do? It gave me the fucking running shoes over and over and over again. I said, I didn't want the running shoes. I wanted the walking shoes.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[Ed Zitron]

This is kind of like every one of these AI browsers I read about is kind of the same thing. It's like, imagine, if you will, you're sitting there, you want to buy something, and there's just no way to do that. It's just like an alien. An alien that's never used anything. It's just like, how do I do anything? Oh, I'll type in and be. And it's like, yeah, after three minutes, it might do something, right?

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

It's like, fucking.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. That's the. That's the frust. That's the frustrating thing about sitting in all of these panels in particular, is that it's like entering this alternate world where all of the technology works much better than it does. And people talk about it as if, like, yeah, we deployed 1500 agents, right, that are, you know, they're doing great work. And it's like, okay. But I'm looking at, for example, the statistics that copilot released last year that about. Or that were released about copilot last year, that about 70% of work tasks that it's tasked with, it fails at, right? Because the agents are not functional yet.

[Victoria Song]

So I You know, I'm trying to tell Atlas chatgpt's thing to buy into me these fucking new balances. And it's just like, oh, crap, there's a popup. Let me try and close this popup. Oh, that didn't close the pop up. Let me click more precisely at the coordinates and it's listing the coordinates on the site. Let me try and close this pop up.

[Ed Zitron]

It took just belching gas fumes.

[Victoria Song]

It took five. I'm watching it. It take five attempts for the AI to close the pop up. A minute and thirty seconds. I'm just, just watching it and I'm just like, Jesus Christ, close the.

[Adam Conover]

It's narrating as it's doing this.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it narrates. It goes just like. Let me think about the best way that I can close this pop up. It didn't seem like I clicked hard enough. Let me look at the coordinates and click more precisely. Well, that didn't work.

[Ed Zitron]

You know, the compute on that is also bonkers, you know, that I boiled.

[Victoria Song]

Oceans to watch an AI struggle to close pop ups for a minute and.

[Ed Zitron]

In 30 seconds, giraffes from the back of a truck into a furnace to make this like a gas turbine in a poor community in Texas. It's just many people got cancer and you didn't get the shoes you wanted.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And in between panels, a friend of mine back in Portland sent me a video that some guy I think in Tennessee recorded of like the sound of the data center that went up near its house that's like this, I mean, for months has just been this like constant like droning, beep noise thing. Like, like it just sounds awful. And so I'm going in between these people talking about like, you know, and really focusing on how like AIs going to augment human capability and, you know, these agents are only getting more capable and like we're going to be using this to like, really set human creativity on fire. And then I'm like watching a video where a guy's like, yeah, now it screams every day. The Internet screams every day outside my house.

[Ed Zitron]

The computer is in pain.

[Robert Evans]

And yeah, and I'm looking at the statistics that show that like, none of this stuff works as well as these people are saying it does. Right. Like, not to the extent that, like, I would want it doing a job that really matters. And I'm just so, like in between that. The other thing that I read while I was going in between sessions was an article that came out today about a patent Sony filed Last year to basically create. Use an AI agent to play video games for you when you're trying to do something hard. If you can't, like, beat a boss.

[Adam Conover]

Did you see.

[Victoria Song]

Did you see razor stuff?

[Ed Zitron]

No.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, well, that's the other crate. I haven't seen the booth yet, though, but you want to talk about that?

[Victoria Song]

I saw, I saw. I was in that really sweaty Venetian suite where they were giving the preview of the razor stuff.

[Ed Zitron]

You know, it smell crazy in there.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, my God.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, so. So they had two crazy AI concepts. First is Project Eva. And the only way you can describe it is a little anime waifu that you stick on your.

[Ed Zitron]

The wife tube.

[Victoria Song]

The wife tube. It's a little desktop wifetube where the holographic anime waifu named Kira. And, like, there's a camera in the thing, and so she's watching you and she's gone, like. And it's based on Grock's ani, if you know.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, God, yeah, the pedot tube.

[Victoria Song]

They did tell us, like, specifically that it was based on Grok. And I'm like, oh, did you ask.

[Ed Zitron]

If it was based on an adult?

[Robert Evans]

Well, I'll tell you what it's based on. Visually, if you ever watch the show, Archer, there's, like, creepy scientists who has the waifu holographic looks identical to that. I like it smaller.

[Victoria Song]

I think I was there with my colleague Antonio, who. God, sorry, Antonio. Because he does listen to your podcast, Antonio DiBenedetto, and he's our laptop reviewer. And so they're like, you know, Kira can help you when you're playing your game. And so he's playing like, this a first person shooter, but it's just like. It's like, not an actual level, so you can't die in this section. And she's like, oh, this is the gun you're holding. It's not the correct gun. And it's like, oh, you died and he didn't die. And then they, like, programmed. They programmed like, oh, so did you see anything really cool at ces? And, like, this is how she talks. Because it's based on Ani.

[Ed Zitron]

Jesus Christ.

[Victoria Song]

And he's like, no. And she's like, oh, that's cool. And. But so you can have different, like, avatars. It doesn't have to be an AI Waifu. You can also have Zane the AI Husbando. And he has, like, snake tattoos on there.

[Robert Evans]

And he just like.

[Victoria Song]

I was like, yeah, I don't even care.

[Ed Zitron]

Hang on, I'm stuck. I need to ask the wifetube how to get past this.

[Victoria Song]

But like that's the whole point of games is that you're struck is that you're playing, you're using the problem solving and all that. And it's just like no, tell me how to beat this level. And all the time I talk to these companies and they're like yeah, you're gonna be able to tell how to do the thing.

[Ed Zitron]

It doesn't work well.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Cause they're training it off of like YouTube videos of people playing the game too. Which I also. I just don't know if I believe it's gonna work. Well it is a patent so may Sony doesn't either.

[Adam Conover]

Like they are they showing the AI just like the, the video frames like the literal.

[Robert Evans]

The YouTube videos from the patent from. I haven't read the patent. I read an article about the patent application because it sounds like you could.

[Adam Conover]

You could program an old fashioned AI. What we used to call AI in video games. Just like you know an npc, you could just pro. When you're making a video game you have the world state, you know how the game works. You could just like have something in.

[Robert Evans]

The game I think.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, exactly. That like is part of the game. It's an art of artificial world. Why do you need to.

[Ed Zitron]

This is an insult to game FAQs.

[Robert Evans]

I think this is like a service side of a side.

[Victoria Song]

Cortana. They didn't ask if we should actually make Cortana. These losers just played Halo way too much when they were in their formative years.

[Adam Conover]

I think a big mistake that they're making or just which one? Well look, there's such a big difference between a tool that extends or enhances human capability, makes you more powerful and use you not doing it yourself and having someone else do it for you. I literally just for the first time hired an assistant cuz I the. The perfect person who I knew would do such a great job for me is available for a couple months. Great. You, you've. You've corresponded with her.

[Ed Zitron]

She's wonderful.

[Adam Conover]

She's amazing. Right? But like it's because I have worked with her before in a different capacity. I know she's amazing. I like trust her to do all these various things that I don't have to do myself anymore. If but the moment that like I work with someone who fucks something up, I'm like well I can never work with this. I'm not going to assign things to them. And like versus when I fuck something up with a tool that I'm using myself, I'm like, okay, I need to do a little bit better or whatever. Like, the experience of those things is so fundamentally different. The use cases for them is different. The sort of person who wants to do them is different. And so, like, I don't know, like, for Intuit to be a company that goes from, from, you know, here's tax software that helps you do your own taxes if you would really like to do that.

[Robert Evans]

And also we're lobbying to make it illegal for.

[Adam Conover]

Yes. But, like, to go from that to now. We will. Automat will be an automatic accountant. Right. Is like, they don't understand the gulf that they're trying to jump.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, it's because they misunderstand. It's kind of the ongoing theme of ces. It's like people that don't experience the problems they're trying to fix. Fix. Because a personal assistant, to your point, is someone that you kind of hand stuff up. Like my. My written editor, Matt Hughes. The whole reason Matt works so well with me is he can anticipate, like, he kind of gets my thing and he knows.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And I can trust him to get it without me having to, I don't know, give a 300 word prompt to explain every nuance.

[Victoria Song]

Because so much hand holding and I.

[Ed Zitron]

Don'T want to hand hold an assistant.

[Advertisement Voice]

That's the whole.

[Victoria Song]

The whole point.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's hand holding. And it's also like picking. Having an assistant to do the things you wouldn't have an assistant do. Like, I don't know, play a video game for you. But so much of it is focused on, like, the tasks that are deeply human. Like, whenever I hear, like, this AI can help you brainstorm, it's like, well, no, it can't. That's not how brainstorming works. Someone else can't brainstorm for you. That's not.

[Victoria Song]

You're just talking to yourself in the mirror. Mirror. But the mirror is a chatbot.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And you were hoping to plagiarize a good idea from the chat bot that itself is built from plagiarism, which I also feel like is a mistake, but.

[Ed Zitron]

Regurgitating thought into your own brain in the hopes a new idea comes out.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, I've talked about this before. My. My most positive experience with Chat GPT was I was trying to decide whether to get myself a little apartment in New York. And I talked to you about this, whether it's a good financial decision. And I plug into Chat G GPT. Hey, here's all the numbers. And like, is this a good Friend, you know, would this be a big mistake? And it sort of goes, no, it wouldn't be a big mistake. You could do that if you wanted. You can do it. And then I'm like, okay, but what about the fact that I can't sublet it?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, that means it's bad now. You shouldn't do it.

[Robert Evans]

Now you're.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, but what about the fact that it's kind of important to me? Well, if it's really important to you, you should do it. And. And I did actually find that clarifying. Like, it did help me think through it.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. But it ultimately just agreed with your last statement.

[Adam Conover]

100. Because I was talking. Talking to myself in the mirror. That's the only.

[Victoria Song]

That's the most useful. It is. It's like, you need to talk out loud to yourself.

[Ed Zitron]

I can do that to myself.

[Victoria Song]

You can, but sometimes I can do that to you.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

Because you answer all my texts for some reason.

[Ed Zitron]

Because you're my friend and I love you. Like, that's why I do it. Like, because I care about you and want you to be happy. The chatbot doesn't care?

[Victoria Song]

No, the chatbot doesn't care.

[Ed Zitron]

I. I actually wonder if my latent, like, actual autism gets mounting myself on the show. Like, that's why it doesn't work. Because 1. Every time I've tried anything like this and just, like, just talking to my fucking self. Why are you agreeing with me on everything?

[Victoria Song]

But, I mean, like, that's. Because that's you. Like, to be real, that's you. I know. I'm talking to myself on that too. It's just like.

[Ed Zitron]

It just doesn't work. Like, I literally have tried to do the things. I'm just like, no, just like, there's a block. I'm just like. It's just repeating what I just fucking said.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah. No, you have to know the artifice in order to, like, get to a point where. Where you're like. If you understand that you're talking to yourself, you're just thinking aloud in a different format. It can be helpful if you understand that that's what you're doing. People don't understand that's what they're doing. That's why they're getting the AI psychosis.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Victoria Song]

They're mistaking this for a friend. It's not a friend. It's literally a personality programming.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I will say one thing that was interesting to me. I did a panel that was Intelligence Through Motion. AI Takes Physics. And it was about, like, robots. Robots with AI in Them it was actually the better one of the day. There was not much that was silly. And it was. I think it was a really good example of, like, how you ought to be responsibly talking about and thinking about products like this. So one of the people who was there was Andrea Thomas, who's the co founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics. And they've built a robot that is basically an assistant for doctors and nurses at the hospital, not doing medical stuff. But, like, the thing that she pointed out is when we, because we started, and this was the first thing they liked, we started not with a product idea, but by talking to a bunch of doctors and nurses and figuring out, like, what are the different jobs you have? And one of the things they figured out is that nurses in particular spend a shitload of time every day running stuff back and forth through the hospital. And so they're like, well, if we have a robot that can move things and can potentially move refrigerated things or move things that you have to be very careful when carrying, then a skilled, trained human being isn't doing that bullshit work. And they can do more medical work and there's not enough medical professionals.

[Ed Zitron]

And that's effectively a conveyor belt.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

That's more maneuverable than a conveyor because it can go.

[Ed Zitron]

But the point is, like, it's useful because it's moving stuff between places.

[Robert Evans]

Right. And I believe there was some talk about other. Like they're looking at adding other capabilities. But the way that they were thinking about it were, well, first we're going to talk to the people who we want to. We want to be making products that will be used in hospitals. Let's talk to people who work in hospitals to see where it's useful. And then. And then the other thing that they said during that, and this was something a couple other people pointed out, is that you have to. When you're talking about building products that human beings will be working alongside in an industrial capacity, you have to assume that there will be failures and build that in, because otherwise you're taking risks with people's lives. So you have to be figuring out, we want this thing to fail when it does, because it will in a way that doesn't endanger human beings. How do we build that in from the ground up? This is like a fundamental assumption it will fail. We need to make sure it fails in a way that does not lead to it crushing or killing people because it's going to be around them. And so I really appreciate it. And it was such a. That was such a gap to me from how everyone else. I'm used to other people talking about this stuff.

[Victoria Song]

There's a lot more in the health tech and the medical space because the stakes are so high. And, you know, like, all the tech people are like, break shit. Disrupt. But, like, medicine is like, no, no, don't break the people.

[Ed Zitron]

Please don't break the people.

[Robert Evans]

Something's already broken.

[Victoria Song]

They're broken already.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

So, yeah, I think one of the barriers to that, though, and this is not even me being cynical, it's just you ask people what their problems are and then you go, oh, you're an LLM. Can't do that. Sorry. Like, the answer is the problems that you have are not fixable with the technology we have, like, like housing and health, like, health stuff. It's like, there are very big limitations because of medical device clearance, but also.

[Victoria Song]

Just, well, technology is streamlining, right?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Victoria Song]

Like, if you think about the. Like, I just remember this from a macroeconomic class and in college. But all technology does is it moves the curve up. It doesn't change the angle of the curve or whatnot. It just allows you to do more. So it's about streamlining things. It's not about fixing problems. It's about finding things that you could do more efficiently. Being more efficient doesn't fix the problem. It's two different streams that you're approaching, but they're conflating it by being like, if you're efficient, you fix. Fix the problem. I was like, no, the problem isn't always efficiency. Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

And, you know, I mean, the thing I think about a lot is what I'm in any city, but especially New York or la, where I spent a lot of time. It's like the physical infrastructure is so bad, but everybody has cell phones, right?

[Ed Zitron]

Right.

[Adam Conover]

Like. Like, no one's even like, oh, homeless people have cell phones. We know everybody has cell phones, like, because the price of them is so cheap and. And you can do a lot with them. But, like, there's potholes, the trains don't run.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Right.

[Adam Conover]

And like, those are the problems in society. And the fact that we have, you know, high technology in these particular areas, but not in, like, the rest of our society is like a weird distortion. We all know this. We don't think about it often enough. But, like, what you're talking about is, is this AI will like, push that distortion even further in the best case scenario, and people like, you know, Simon Wilson or whatever will have, like, some crazy agent happening. You know, like, they'll they'll be, you know, in some fucking matrix and everybody else will be like, how do I buy food?

[Ed Zitron]

Simon Willison be trying to draw a pelican on a bicycle. I think that's the one thing that's literally the test he runs on every LLM. But even Willison is kind of realistic about it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

To your point, Robert, with that panel, it's like, yeah, we're talking about this fantasy land. Even when we saw during the Nvidia conference he was talking about yeah, and now agents are getting even more powerful and doing this.

[Victoria Song]

No they're not.

[Adam Conover]

What?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, no, no they're not. But also gun to your head, explain what that means. Like, because I, I regularly am arguing with people about this online perpetual.

[Victoria Song]

Because they're talking about the agents and the consumerism and the commerce aspect of agents. Just because that's the only way they have a chance of making their investment back.

[Robert Evans]

There's such a lack of specificity. Like that is the thing that is most like in like the first three panels I did, all of which were one way or the other talking about like agents and their ability to like improve productivity and creativity. There was an exact one specific example of a thing that people used AI like that a marketing or company used AI to do for marketing. Right. Because these were all fairly marketing focused panels. And it was specifically it was the company that makes Allegra had a new non drowsy formula and they engaged in what I think it was a deloitte. I forget who said this, it's in my notes. But what the person who was talking about it described as, as model hacking to basically put out a bunch of content so that ChatGPT would repeatedly scrape articles or whatnot that talked about how Allegra was non drowsy so that if people asked questions about it, the LLM would return. Both always would say Allegra is non drowsy. Would like put that before the word Allegra and would like subtly talk shit about other allergy medicines causing drowsiness. And they were talking about, and that's like a really great example of this is like the strategy developed using AI that like it's not what we couldn't have done marketing like this before.

[Ed Zitron]

We couldn't possibly have come up with a way to remind people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, first off, like you're, you're the most specific example of the use of this technology in advertising is disinformation. Yeah, right. Basically, you know, or, or at least on that, yeah, on that spectrum.

[Ed Zitron]

And that probably Cost thousands of dollars, like probably so thousands of articles or whatever and just fed into the training. Jesus fucking Christ.

[Robert Evans]

And at the same time they're talking about how important trust is and that like you have to be. You have to keep. As they lie. Yeah, as they lie and they're like, well, you know, people only trust. You will only trust your AI as much as they trust your company. So it's really about like having a good.

[Ed Zitron]

So which the other way around as well.

[Robert Evans]

That's what kind of what I took it as them saying is that like, look, people don't trust AI, but they still have some trust for specific brands. So if you really want to like there's a limited period of time for. For that trust to stay alive.

[Ed Zitron]

It feels like AI psychosis. We blow it up.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah. It's like honest to God, makes the show more boring. Yeah, it really.

[Robert Evans]

It's all fucking AI shit.

[Adam Conover]

The stuff I was popping for was there was a robot lawnmower that could go up a hill.

[Victoria Song]

You see that all the robots are getting Jen again Jen's coverage. It's just about how last year the robots had arms. This year the robots. Robots have legs.

[Ed Zitron]

Next year big old Willie.

[Adam Conover]

There was also a. There, there was. We were. I was talking about the jerk off robot last time but. But first I saw that's why you need it for the robot. There was a robot called beatbot and.

[Robert Evans]

It said that wasn't the masturbation.

[Adam Conover]

That wasn't. It was said nothing beats beatbot. And I was like, this is a masturbation.

[Robert Evans]

Still a great.

[Adam Conover]

It turns out it's a little robot that swims in your pool and cleans your pool and I think maybe also the blue Bluetooth speaker. And I was like, it's like a pool room. Also I was like, that's cute.

[Robert Evans]

You didn't miss. If you're gonna. If there's any good call for a hybridized robot, a combination pool robot orgasm robot. Like make the sexy pool boy a robot banaba. Yeah, exactly.

[Ed Zitron]

And it's just doing that weird song from Rose like. You remember that one?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

There's the offbeat song the guy was claiming he could only have sex to. No, no, no one remembers the. No, just. Oh, God. Cabana box.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. You can market it to rich men with like wives in their 20s where you're like, look, your wife is gonna cheat on you with the cabana boy. Just make sure it's a robot.

[Ed Zitron]

Come on. Love the cabana bot. What? What?

[Robert Evans]

You look depressed, honey. Do you need some time with the cabana bot.

[Ed Zitron]

I'll put on your music.

[Adam Conover]

Genuinely the best. One of the best use cases for generative AI is sex stuff.

[Robert Evans]

Like, it's certainly one of the most uses for generative AI.

[Victoria Song]

Sorry. As someone who was subjected to testing Annie the Grok Sex Bot. Jesus, that was damaging.

[Robert Evans]

You might have a workman's comp.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, listen, I keep asking for hazard pay@the verge.com and for my title to change to Senior Curse tech reviewer. It's not happened yet. It's not happened yet. But I did have to test Annie and boy, did she.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, and boy was she racist.

[Adam Conover]

Like, the only people who are really making good use of like Sora style videos are niche fetish communities on the Internet who have been able to move from writing fan fiction for each other because that's a cheap thing that where they can, you know, have, have make media for each now they can make little videos now they're not making and they're so happy they're okay.

[Victoria Song]

But AI doesn't know how to animate tongues. And I know this because again, my job is cursed and I had to, I had to test these AI video generating things.

[Ed Zitron]

Show me more men kissing than any man.

[Victoria Song]

Showing me making the AI people kiss each other. No, they don't, they don't. They don't understand how tongues work.

[Ed Zitron]

It's just like Jensen Huang said, that the new generation Vera Rubin is four times more powerful for training. So maybe that's like Jensen Huang's bringing, bringing the tongues in. But sadly we're going to have to end this 32nd. The next thing coming up is an ad for tongue training models. And if you hear something else that's an error, whatever, whatever it is, just ignore it because we're meant to. It's the tongue training app. But before we get to the tongue training app, Robert has a very important message.

[Robert Evans]

So I came across the booth during the brief time I spent on the floor today of a robotics company called Zeroith, which I think is a reference to the loss of robotics. And you know, you had the normal laws and there was the zero with law, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, we don't need to get into Asimov right now, but they had a whole booklet. I actually thought these were like notebooks at first, but every page of this is printed. That's a explaining the vision for their company and the robots they make. The origin story. I'm just gonna read a little bit from here. Okay. The prevailing narrative in robotics has long been one of replacement and utility Robots as instruments of precision, built for efficiency and stripped of warmth. Yet across the long memory of civilization, the impulse to create was never merely mechanical. From Yan Xi's graceful wooden automaton in ancient China to Talos, the bronze guardian of Crete, our earliest machines were not tools. They were mirrors. Reflections of an ancient longing. With reflections of an ancient longing to understand ourselves. Zeroeth emerges from that unbroken thread of imagination. And hearing that. And there's so much more flowery prose. I need you all to see the robot that they wrote this.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay, let's. Let's take it.

[Adam Conover]

Why is he wearing a little teal polo shirt?

[Robert Evans]

I love the D. That's your first question. So, listeners at home, what they've got is a robot that looks kind of like a cross between Elon Musk's shitty robot and a guy in a fencing helmet. Yeah, that's accurate. It can't stand on its own power. They have like a sex harness built. That's like standing it up. That's like, so it doesn't fall on its ass. And they put an awkward T shirt on it, I think to hide the straps from the thing that keeps it standing.

[Ed Zitron]

Jesus fucking con. This is the consumer Electronic show, everyone. This is what they are lying to you. Any that tells you that robotics or AI is coming, they're lying anyway. If there's an AI ad after this, that's their problem.

[Covino and Rich]

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[Robert Evans]

There's no championship league for small business owners, but if there was, you'd be at the top of the standings because.

[Ed Zitron]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Ed Zitron]

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[Robert Evans]

Up for [e-mail] Pro.

[Victoria Song]

Ready to change your Life. For just $2 a day, Orangetheory Fitness delivers one hour workouts that combine strength and cardio to help you burn fat, build muscle and feel unstoppable. Right now, get a full month of unlimited classes for just $62. Don't wait. This offer ends soon. Visit orangetheory.com or your local studio and start your transformation today. Offer ends January 31, 2026. New members only Premier membership, performance monitor and monthly billing required. Discount applies to first month only. Other terms apply. C Studio for details.

[Advertisement Voice]

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[Ed Zitron]

Diane I'm once again in scenic Las Vegas and the locals are staring at me with daggers in their eyes as I insist on podcasting further. After rotating cubes in my head all day, I'm rotating my guests. Joining me once again is Victoria's song of the Verge.

[Victoria Song]

Are you sick of me yet?

[Ed Zitron]

Not remotely. You're wonderful and you're very popular. Listeners love you as well. It's important for you to hear this.

[Victoria Song]

Oh, not for my ego.

[Ed Zitron]

Adam Grayso Jr. Of the Tech Bubble newsletter. Hello my friend and the incredible, wonderful stand up comedian the start of the movie. Is this thing on? Chloe Radcliffe is joining us. Yo, what is up?

[Robert Evans]

Hello.

[Ed Zitron]

Your first ces? Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

What do you think I'm a CES virgin. Wow. There's so many boys. It's crazy.

[Victoria Song]

But not the cute boys.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

No, no, no, no. There's so many hairlines is what I should say.

[Victoria Song]

A lot of balls.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah. A lot of combs.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, a lot of combs.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

A lot of combs. Comb over ponytails.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Do they offer any hair loss stuff?

[Victoria Song]

Yes, they do.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Victoria Song]

Yes, they do go to Eureka Park. There's always someone who has, like, some LED hairband situation, and it's.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah. So, Chloe, your first ces. Have you seen anything that stuck in your brain?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

My biggest take has. So far from being on the floor for a pretty limited amount of time is that the theme is numbers that you don't need.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I stopped at a booth that had a smart dog cage.

[Victoria Song]

Oh, the. The smart pet crate.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, yeah, smart pet crate. And it tells you your dog's. It tells you your dog's heart rate and breathing rate, and then it also tells you the distance between the top of the cage and the dog.

[Victoria Song]

Welcome to my beat. Useless numbers.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Useless numbers. And I said to the guy, I was. I, like, stopped and was looking at him, and I was like, well, why do you need the distance from the top of the cage to the top of the. Of the dog? And he goes, well, that's how you know whether the dog is moving or not. And I was like, yeah, but can't you just look? And he goes, well, but you're, like, looking at your app and so you want to know maybe if the number. If the number has stayed static for a little while, maybe the dog has died. And I said, yeah, but wouldn't you know that from the other numbers? Like heart rate?

[Ed Zitron]

No, no. This is a patented dog.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

The dog death detects your dog dead.

[Victoria Song]

They're gonna ramp up to 400 biometrics at some point.

[Ed Zitron]

Just a notification your dog is dead. The Lena Dunham indicator. Someone's gonna be mad at me for that one. I love that as well, because it's like, oh, if the dog's moving, could an emotion sensor.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah. I mean, there's so many things couldn't do. We already have pet camps.

[Victoria Song]

Whoever has.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Whoever is buying a smart pet crate also already has a video camera trained on that dog's crate. That person is not doing smart crate over pet cam.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

They're like, hey, can you look at this graph?

[Adam Conover]

Do you think he's.

[Victoria Song]

I've got. I've got two cats and a lot of cat tech. I don't Need a crate? No, no. Like I have an auto feeder. It has a little camera.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Victoria Song]

And we did that because when we went to Italy I was just like, I gotta make sure these dumb cats are eating in between pet sitter visits. And literally day one, I'm in Italy. I watch my cat look at me through the camera. It's pissed. Knocks the feeder over.

[Ed Zitron]

Cat rage.

[Victoria Song]

Cat rage.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

And I do need to ask if the cats were not eating between feed feeders, between pet sitters.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

What were you gonna do for Millie? Nothing. Nothing.

[Victoria Song]

I was gonna call the pet sitter and be crazy lady and be like. Like my extremely rotund 19.5 pound cat, Pablo is not eating.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Is now living off its own body fat.

[Ed Zitron]

And it will be fine.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah. And it has enough calories to support itself.

[Ed Zitron]

But yeah, that's so.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I mean that's the thing. I think that like all of these numbers that my theme of numbers that you don't need, what they wind up filtering into is anxiety. Oh yeah. It's like too much information leads to anxiety.

[Victoria Song]

Senior curse tech reviewer. Cuz I. I test wearables.

[Adam Conover]

The numbers.

[Victoria Song]

So I have useless numbers for humans. Yes. All the time. And just I'm completely overwhelmed and over inundated and yeah, it's very accurate.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It would drive me insane. All of the sleep tech. I'm. The thing is that I'm like sort of the wrong person to be here because I'm like stay away from me with your. With your cameras and your vibrations.

[Ed Zitron]

Having you here is good. We need that conversation of energy because there's too many perverts here. Like actually we need another number so we know how the space between your dog and the ceiling of the crate. But what if about. What about the sides?

[Covino and Rich]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

How are they going to get that?

[Ed Zitron]

And also just I love the idea of getting a notification about. What does the notification say? Your dog is this tall. We've measured your dog.

[Victoria Song]

Like the smart litter robots, they're now having like cameras so you can watch your cat go into the litter robot to piss the freaks. They already weigh the cats as well. So you can see how much my like I can. I can literally look into an app and go like oh, you lost like £5 on that dookie. Good for you, Pablo.

[Ed Zitron]

What you been eating, brother?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

What you been eating, brother?

[Victoria Song]

How much you be pooping.

[Ed Zitron]

The only exception is, is I have a cat with a urinary thing. How my beautiful, big, beautiful and annoying. Just like daddy. But he's this beautiful cat who's he occasionally has pee Problems. But you can mostly just get that by looking at your cat like you're just checking occasionally. Be like, oh, okay, he hasn't peed in a while. I don't need a $450 wi fi connected thing to be like, you sure? Pee pee. I think that's how much they are.

[Victoria Song]

No, they're like $800.

[Ed Zitron]

Fuck off. Sorry. Not to you. But the cat thing. Jesus Christ.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

How much do you love your cat?

[Ed Zitron]

I love my cat so much, but I. A beautiful Armani suit. I assume you. God, he'd look fetching. He'd a big, big white and ginger cat.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Armani bow tie.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, my God. No, I did get him a bow tie at one point.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Got to get an Armani.

[Ed Zitron]

He chewed it off.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Oh, I hear it. Yeah, My. I used to get my cats. I had the bow ties with bells so I could hear them because they would disappear into spaces I didn't know.

[Advertisement Voice]

We'Re in the house.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

And they always would rip them off and leave them.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Outside.

[Ed Zitron]

Like a real you. Like just like. That's where that goes.

[Adam Conover]

Right.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Don't.

[Ed Zitron]

Don't put bells on me. Yeah, I put a little tat on it. A little tie on him as well, once. There's so many good things, you know, can do with the cat, none of which involve an $850 piss measurer.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Well, one time I tied a balloon around a tortoise.

[Robert Evans]

Did it? Did it. Why?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Because we kept losing it. I lived with my roommate at a tortoise, and it kept getting stuck under the radiator. But then we wouldn't find it for a couple days. She was fine, but we kept this.

[Ed Zitron]

Tortoise was just walking around the apartment with a balloon.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Tortoise version of Up.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, she's trying to get taken away. That should be at the.

[Victoria Song]

But like, no, at the Consumer Electronics Show. It'd probably be like a wearable tortoise tracker with Bluetooth.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It's like, no, no. You can steal a balloon from. You can ruin a kid's day to get your tortoise found.

[Victoria Song]

It would have like, an optical tracker to read the tortoise's temperature and its heart rate. So you go to an app and be like, is my reptile alive?

[Ed Zitron]

Has this ever happened to you? It's just the tortoise slowly walking on sight. Yeah, it'd be $700 a piece of shit.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

There's this video from an account I follow because of this video where they have a tortoise and they have a cat and the tortoise has a skateboard to follow the cat around all day and harass him. That's the tech. I would get that. You know, a little skateboard for my little guys.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

You know, someday we're all going to go back to analog.

[Advertisement Voice]

Yes, you're right.

[Ed Zitron]

You're just saying before the show. Tortoise is cats and skateboards. That's the real technology you need. Did you get any other numbers that didn't that don't matter and make you upset?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

There was a sleep bot.

[Ed Zitron]

Nice.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I think I'm calling it the Right Thing. It's a. It's a smart pillow.

[Victoria Song]

Oh. I tested those before.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay. What does it do?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It seems like the actual useful thing is that it's filled with these little, like, pneumatic air sacs that inflate or deflate based on your snoring to stop you from.

[Victoria Song]

I already do that in beds. Yeah. Okay.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

That seems right. Like, I can buy that. It's like that. That. That passes the sniff test. But this pillow also, when you're. When it senses your head is a. The pillow, it turns off your lights, it turns off your speaker. If you have a speaker playing, it closes your curtains for you automatically. And then it. This is not a lie. Texts your family that you are asleep.

[Victoria Song]

And I took pictures of do not disturb.

[Ed Zitron]

You saw pillow for a prison.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Just want to let you know I'm.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Going to pretty close it. I'm reading. I'm reading the example text.

[Victoria Song]

It has.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Sending a message to the family. Cassie, Oscar has been detected lying down period.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Wow.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Jimmy Oscar has been detected lying down period. I am. I am not making this up. Dr. Larry Calabresi, Oscar has been detected lying down.

[Ed Zitron]

Texting my doctor. He has light. This is a. This is a prison pillow.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

This is just for.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

What would you do if you got that text?

[Ed Zitron]

I. I would. I would be horrified.

[Victoria Song]

That'd be so funny.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, everyone, and of course everyone who comes to CES with me has to use this pillow. I love the idea as well, that you're just going to bed. Your. Your blinds are open, all of the lights are on, you're just blaring corn, I assume.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And I have no way of doing any of this myself, so just. My pillow will take what? Fucking psychopath.

[Victoria Song]

I know sleep tech is all about, like, optimization. That's why my newsletter is called, like, Optimizer. This whole beat of health tech and all that is just about having the most optimal something.

[Ed Zitron]

Right?

[Victoria Song]

So they're like, oh. Science shows that if you sleep in, like, XYZ conditions, you'll sleep so good. So have a pillow, close all of these things so you're in the most optimal. Optimal sleep environment, whatever. And, like, yeah, it is good to have an optimal sleep environment. It is good for you to do all that stuff. But you don't need to text your doctor Calabresis about your sleeping.

[Ed Zitron]

That would be such a strange text to receive. Like, he is. And especially with the way it was written. Like, galactus has been detected.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Also, the smart pillow doesn't, like, smooth out your bed sheets for you. You know, like, all of the stuff that actually makes everything that actually makes sleeping good, which is, like, wear the right clothes for you to sleep in and have the right bed. You know, it's like the. The.

[Victoria Song]

I've done the digital. I've done so much sleep tech testing, and the only thing that's really worked for me and my spouse is unfortunately, a $5,000 smart mattress cover, which is.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

What is that?

[Advertisement Voice]

The cool.

[Ed Zitron]

The cooling one.

[Victoria Song]

It's the ACE sleep.

[Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

I burn.

[Ed Zitron]

Burn. I. I pay for one as well.

[Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And, like, people made fun of it because of the AWS thing. When it went down, your bed wouldn't work.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, no, that.

[Ed Zitron]

That happened.

[Adam Conover]

That didn't happen to me.

[Ed Zitron]

I. I think it happened.

[Victoria Song]

It definitely happened.

[Ed Zitron]

But, like, I need to sleep in an ice coffin. Like, I. I just. My poor girlfriend. Just, like, even for her, it was too calm. Just like. Yeah, this is. I sleep at 50 degrees. Like Dracula. Dracula.

[Victoria Song]

It saves marriages and relationships because you could sleep at different temperatures. I need to be a cozy little gal.

[Ed Zitron]

I need to be warm.

[Victoria Song]

Warm. Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I need to be a little. Bugging a rug.

[Victoria Song]

I need to be, like, toasty. And my spouse also needs to be a corpse so we can set different temperatures.

[Ed Zitron]

I need to set to Dracula.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah. And they snore. And it used to be a thing where every day I would hear them snoring, and I'd be like, wake the fuck up so I can sleep. But now the bed actually just lifts when it detects them snoring.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, that's nice.

[Ed Zitron]

Only on.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

On his side.

[Victoria Song]

No, on our side. So sometimes I go like, oh, it's moving. And then I fall right back asleep. But, you know, ever since that happened, he doesn't wake me up snoring anymore.

[Ed Zitron]

That's good.

[Victoria Song]

Like, it saved our marriage.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Wow, this is lovely. Unfortunately, you're selling me on this $5,000 cover.

[Victoria Song]

But unfortunately, it also comes with useless numbers. Like, how often.

[Ed Zitron]

I know most useless number here's my psychopath thing though. I have my numbers for my eight sleep and I have my numbers from my aura ring and they disagree all the time.

[Victoria Song]

Same.

[Ed Zitron]

I love it.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, same. This is like long term testing that I do.

[Ed Zitron]

My favorite thing was I posted because I also use Somni, which is the thing that electrocutes for it actually. I love it. It's this thing that you electrocute your head. It sounds insane. Just best not to think too hard. But like, I posted my numbers on Blue sky once, which was a mistake. And someone was immediately like, you're not getting enough deep sleep. You should be really concerned. I'm like, I really had to stop myself being like, kill yourself.

[Victoria Song]

To be clear, the Oura ring is like, they do a lot of science, they do a lot of research. They're only about like, I want to say, 79. Correlation between the gold standard of polysomnography. So that's a 20% difference.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Are you guys dreaming a lot?

[Victoria Song]

No, I do have medications.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Y' all dream a lot.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

That'll do.

[Victoria Song]

My new medications are giving me night terrors. That's really bad.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

My roommate, I heard him go, you know, just in the middle of the night, I was like, you got. He's sorry.

[Ed Zitron]

No, no. He was listening to Disturbed, but he lied down on his pillow and he cut the music.

[Victoria Song]

You've met him. Cool.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

You know, he.

[Ed Zitron]

He has night terrors.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

He strikes me as the kind of go, just wake up.

[Adam Conover]

Like.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yeah. I used to think when he went to sleep, he would just be in his memory palace.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, exactly, like regarding it. Yeah, yeah. That's the thing as well. It's like the basic things for sleep are like, is it light in there or dark in there? Are you the right temperature? Are you comfortable? And it's like, yeah, but what if the pillow did all this shit that you already.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I asked. I asked the people at the booth. I was like, but what if I want to lay in bed and not have the lights out yet? And he goes, well, then you'd have to put another pillow on top.

[Ed Zitron]

Fuck yeah, dude. What's great is what's so good about that? Is likely no one has asked them that. You're the first person to be like, what if I am in bed but not sleeping yet? He's like, fuck, how much was this? Did he give you a price?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I didn't even ask. I should have asked.

[Ed Zitron]

It's probably like.

[Victoria Song]

It's probably like My estimate is $675 or something like that. It's always A stupid number because you.

[Ed Zitron]

Could go on like ebay and get some like, really nice sheets that were like, some like, crisp. Per kale perhaps.

[Victoria Song]

I've tested smart pillows in the past, but, like, it was a very different smart pillow. It was testing like, my breathing rate and whatnot. But it was also like, like it had a speaker in there so you could listen to your podcast to fall asleep in your smart pillow. And I was like, this is dumb. It's so dumb.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Hey, I'm. I'm someone who, you know, I'm not trying to optimize sleep, but I do value the dream portion of it. So is there is for someone like me who's just like, I, you know, I'm interested in deeper sleep. Does it make sense to go on the journey of trying out the smart tec, or should I just invest in melatonin?

[Advertisement Voice]

I can't.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

I don't dream on melatonin.

[Ed Zitron]

What about tr?

[Victoria Song]

Usually melatonin will make your dreams super intense.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Wake up. I wake up.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

What about magnesium? The one that doesn't make you poop?

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Haven't done. What is it? I know I haven't. I haven't tried a magnesium.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I think it's magnesium glycinate. Makes you sleep and magnesium citrate makes you theanine.

[Victoria Song]

Relaxes you. Magnesium L. Theanine. And then there's also. Well, you could try a glp because one of the side effects of, of that is intensely vivid dreams.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, I like, I lucid dream regularly, which is why I, I'm like, okay, I'll do anything as. Except whatever goes and infringes on that. But I've never thought too much about doing the tech beyond. Like, I'll just invest in really nice sheets, you know, and they're just get myself really comfortable.

[Ed Zitron]

Sleep measurement stuff sucks. But I really love the key. I love the cold.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

I love the fact the control over the environment sounds really.

[Ed Zitron]

I burn hot. I sleep in. I look insane. I have like a full scale, like, blackout eye mask. I have a giant sheet. I like curl myself up in a ball. It's probably not great. Like, it's probably not a great sign. And I'm just like, cold and like wrapped in this thing. Like, I'm just blacked out. Like, and I wake up when my alarm goes off and not a moment earlier. It's fucking great. I mean, I write constantly. I think like, this is the only reason I can just like endless sleep. But it's again, the numbers do fucking nothing for me. I Wake up feeling like shit. It's like, you, I didn't sleep enough. Thank you.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, for me the numbers make it so much worse because mostly if I'm having trouble sleeping, then a huge proportion of my brain is fixated on I am not sleeping. And that is bad. And so then to have. When they're like, this is going to help you sleep better. I'm like, no, no, no. It's gonna remind me how badly I'm sleeping. And that's gonna make me sleep so much worse because every night when I lay down, it's gonna be like, well, tonight has to be the night that it is good.

[Ed Zitron]

Or else.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Now.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And you get your loved ones get a text saying, she's not sleeping.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Chloe has been detected lying down, but has not been detected unconscious yet.

[Ed Zitron]

Chloe has violated the rules of the pillow.

[Victoria Song]

That metric is called sleep latency. Sleep latency. It fucking sucks.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

How long it takes you to sleep.

[Victoria Song]

How long until you try to go to sleep and how. When you actually fall asleep, it's called sleep latency. And you can kind of measure certain things by the. It's bullshit.

[Ed Zitron]

Occasionally.

[Victoria Song]

It's not bullshit, but it's bullshit.

[Ed Zitron]

I occasionally really, like, I'll get like a two minute one. I'll be like, fuck, yeah.

[Victoria Song]

Well, like all it does is if you have a sleep latency under 15 minutes, it just means you're real fucking tired and that's bad.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Interesting.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Wait, you mean like healthy people have.

[Victoria Song]

About 15 minutes to fall asleep.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Interesting.

[Victoria Song]

That's like a normal.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Take that, boyfriend.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, like if you're falling asleep, he.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Falls asleep in 45 seconds.

[Victoria Song]

It's like if.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

And then I lay there.

[Robert Evans]

But he's healthy.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I lay there listening to. To him get this peaceful rest that I should be enjoying.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah. And I'm like, you fall asleep too quickly.

[Ed Zitron]

It could be one hour yesterday. Jesus Christ. Yeah, okay. 17, 6 minutes, 2 days ago. 13, you're sleeping 7, 7. 16, 28, 8, 33.

[Adam Conover]

1.

[Ed Zitron]

Last Friday, 1 minute. Just fucking. I think I was like in Vermont with my girlfriend and very happy. That's lovely. Send her that later.

[Victoria Song]

And she goes, all you need is like a baseline. And the only point of these numbers is to build a long term baseline. And when you're off the baseline, you go like, oh, okay, maybe something's happening to me.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It's yet again to go back to sort of the theme of earlier. Don't you know when you're off the baseline by. I'm having trouble sleeping lately.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, I'm having Trouble getting to sleep.

[Victoria Song]

Like, the whole point of this is that they're trying to do something like illness prediction. And there is science that they can do that. Like during COVID they were doing stuff.

[Ed Zitron]

Horror is not great at that.

[Victoria Song]

It actually is.

[Ed Zitron]

It hasn't been great for me.

[Victoria Song]

I've gotten it where like the symptom radar is just like, you're getting sick. And then I would get sick. So like. But you know, it's not that helpful because it's like a 48 hour window.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

But again, I know, I'm like, I know my throat has a tiny tickle. I'm about to get sick.

[Victoria Song]

Like, all of this stuff came from, like when they were doing Covid research because asymptomatic. Oh, you get like that sort of like.

[Ed Zitron]

But this is the thing with all this wellness shit. It's like, well, you can't be mad at us that it isn't really useful because once it was snake oil.

[Adam Conover]

It's.

[Victoria Song]

That's my beat. Snake oil.

[Ed Zitron]

The snake oil cursed. The cursed amulet be.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, I just, I just sit here and go like, no, that's not true. No, that's not true. Here's the nuance and everything. Everyone yells at me and they're like, you're a big pharma shill. And I'm like, no, I'm not.

[Ed Zitron]

What the fuck does that mean? What do you mean, big pharma shill?

[Victoria Song]

Oh, I wrote a story recently about the wellness wild west. It's kind of like a storyline that I read about a lot. And I was talking about how people shouldn't be injecting unapproved drugs. Ideally not even if a test is in peptides.

[Ed Zitron]

Yes, Chinese peptides.

[Victoria Song]

Don't do that. Don't take GLP3. It's not actually a GLP3 because the only people with access to the proprietary, proprietary, like, components to that is Eli Lilly. So whatever you're getting from China is almost 100% not a GLP3.

[Ed Zitron]

And you're not saying GLP3 is a problem. Just getting it from an unlicensed Chinese pharmacist.

[Victoria Song]

Getting it from an unlicensed Chinese pharmacist is not a great idea, bub. Reconstituting it yourself. You are not a pharmacist. I don't see any of you on TikTok using fucking sterile ingredients or sterile instruments or whatnot. Like I said that and they were like, you fucking big pharma shill. And I was like, I can't believe me saying don't use Unapproved drugs is me being a big pharma shill.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm this week I'm using the new.

[Victoria Song]

Viral GLP from China and Ratatouille because they're, you know, the videos of. It's like, oh my God, here's week one on Reddit. I'm like, first of all, you're not on Reddit, you're on some other fucking cocktail. The thing that they're calling GLP3, which is also like not the correct way to call it, is read a true tide.

[Ed Zitron]

I feel like if you describe this like a hunt, like I went to a mysterious man who handed me some pills, you'd be like, yeah, that sounds bad, you should go to the doctor. But this is like, well, no, because I got it from the Internet.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, I just was reading an article about peptides because. Not because I was like, would those make my life better?

[Covino and Rich]

Not.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Certainly not that. Not because I was thinking about trying them and I read an article and there somebody was quoted, somebody was just saying like, they're all over Silicon Valley and like this crew, you know, crypto loves them, AI loves them, whatever, whatever else, this other thing loves them. And whoever was quoted said, the only group that's a little more skeptical is anybody who works in biotech is a little bit more skeptical. But they're just so in the pocket of the FDA or they're so, they're so they like bow down, down to the fda. And I was like, well, the other interpretation is they, this is the world that they work in and they're steeped in way, way, way more information than somebody who works in crypto is about peptides specifically. So maybe their skepticism is like healthy and rational.

[Victoria Song]

It's partly like, like the FDA doesn't want you to have that. And I get where that's coming from because you know, health care sucks in our country. It's expensive, these things could be helpful, but you're getting blocked from it. They are trying to, you know, make sure that they're making the most amount of money of it. Those are all true things. But the FDA exists, we have these regulations because people fucking died. People died before. Like, this is how people die or get really adverse effects.

[Ed Zitron]

I don't know.

[Victoria Song]

But Dr. Matt on TikTok, who is most certainly not an actual doctor telling you how to do dose gray market Chinese peptides from like things you bought from Amazon. I'm sorry, when you're in the comments and you're like, oh yeah, I was vomiting uncontrollably.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Oh, I Wonder why.

[Ed Zitron]

I wonder why I'm just doing weight loss meth. Well, I guess that's just meth.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

I had such a distant sense of the GLP ones. Cause I've been learning about them from the way in which they're displacing insulin production in a lot of places and, and hadn't had a good sense of the extent to which I was like, oh, why are they calling them Chinese peptides so incessantly? And that piece was interesting. And that Time piece was interested in laying out one Silicon Valley's obsession with them and also making click into sense the fact that I feel like we're seeing other subcultures be like, well like, yeah, of course you gotta do it yourself. Of course you gotta. Looks Max. Of course you gotta. Yeah, you know, like the optimization hurts.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, exactly.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Let's just wanna be abundant, clear about something. By the way, we're not saying GLP1 is a bad thing. It's fine if you take like it's totally fine. Just want to be really abundantly.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

They were developed, I mean and one of the use cases is for like, you know, if you have for example diabetes, you know, that's, that's one of the proven use cases.

[Ed Zitron]

And what if you use it for weight loss?

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yeah, weight, you know, weight loss.

[Ed Zitron]

That gives it to you.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yeah, as long as you're not doing it in your bathtub.

[Ed Zitron]

Dr. Matt, a PhD in philosophy who's teaching.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

But it has been so fascinating to see the extent to which people are throwing a lot of reason out of the door just to be like, no, this is fine, this is okay actually. And you are a big pharma shell. If you are pushing up against me.

[Victoria Song]

Maybe bodybuilders who already are very lean taking GLP, so called GLP3. Maybe that's not a great idea because they've actually never studied what this medication does in people with Leviticus low body body fat. You don't know what it'll do.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

This. How many times are we going to do a wave of a drug that does seem to have a really miraculous impact on people. And then you know, the crusading group of power users maybe will, you know, who are like, you know, well, if you're not supporting everyone using it as widely as possible, then you're in the pocket of the.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I mean side effects are a lot more times.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yes, no, exactly.

[Victoria Song]

Side effects are real. You may not actually want to have those side effects. And like these drugs are so new we don't know what the long term effect is. And it's not bad to say like, you know, you're, you're always doing, weighing a pro and con. Like I'm willing to do the side effect because the alternative is worse. And like those are conversations you need to have with a real doctor.

[Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Oh, not a comment section.

[Victoria Song]

Not a comment section. Not some Billy Bob Dr. Boo on tick Tock. It seems it.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I. Thought that I was having on the plane here is it feels like society as a whole, and particularly like the pe, this, the sections of society that are more online, that are more techied, that are more, you know, whatever for sort of forward in that kind of progression, have plenty of room for skepticism when it comes to, to systems of like social support, but do not have room for skepticism about tech or science.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, yeah, just like medicine, like, oh, medicine, vaccines. Why would we do that despite hundreds of years of evidence? Like, they can't possibly be right. Because coach Matt told me on TikTok and it seems right.

[Ed Zitron]

And I mean, I say this from a perspective of I've been very overweight in my life. Like I used to be like £350 a while back. And it's like I get the desperation. Yeah, I get the desperation. Especially when it's like GLP1 is like very exp. Sorry, but it's like very expensive. You have to go to a doctor and all that. And just being like, maybe I could do this cheaper, maybe my doctor won't give it to me, maybe, whatever. And I get that desperation. You're trying, like when I've had weight problems, like you're scratching at the walls trying to find some cheat code around the actual hard thing of changing lifestyle, which I should be clear, is very difficult. I have sympathy with everyone. I've been through it multiple cycles in my life.

[Adam Conover]

I get it.

[Ed Zitron]

But it's like to your point, Victoria, it's like, yeah, you're gonna get side effects. I'd rather roll the dice on the doctor who's using the thing that they know the side effects. They've done trials and such versus the doctor.

[Victoria Song]

It's hard because you go to doctors and doctors don't listen to you. I have pcos, I have metabolic conditions. I'm on a GLP actually for like PCOS and fatty liver. And getting to that point was over a 10 year long journey.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Victoria Song]

But these are conversations I was having and I had to fire like five doctors because one was like, listen to the Huberman lab. No.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Just wake up.

[Victoria Song]

Maybe you should be a vegan. Fuck off. Not to like Say anything, vegans. But, like, that's not the solution I was looking for. Or just being like, well, you know, but PCOS causes weight gain. Also, the solution is weight loss, but also your body will not let you lose the weight, so just lose some weight. And, like, I understand that desperation, like, from a very personal level, but at the same time, you have to believe in science. You have to believe in, like, the process exists because people have died, because side effects are also debilitating to quality of life. The worst part about being on a GLP for me, is that I like food. I don't have a lot of food noise. I actually genuinely don't have food noise. My liver just wants to fuck me over. And so, like, I can't eat. It sucks. That sounds fucking tame. It takes the joy out of eating for me. I don't enjoy it at all.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm sorry.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah, no. And, like, I'm tired. I get fucking clown nightmares. I literally had a nightmare that my spouse's ex came running after me and I was like, oh, this hoe. And then she turned into Pennywise the fucking clown. The Bill Scott. I woke up screaming. Like, this is a side effect that I have. Yeah, no, that's a side effect I have. This is a thing, you know, and you have to weigh those pros and cons for health. But, you know, in the pursuit of optimization, and that's rampant here at ces, people are like, yeah, numbers that don't matter. Do this, do that. And it's like, this is why I have mental health problems. Doing my job.

[Ed Zitron]

But now you have numbers to help.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, yeah. Now you have so many numbers. I want to. I mean, I want to go back to one thing. Thing that you said, which is. You said you have to believe in science.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Because people have died, we've done this, whatever. I think that there's just a huge swath of the population, which is heavily represented here, of people who would just say, no, you don't have to believe in science. It is lies. It is, you know, it is bunk. It is biased. It is whatever. And that fracture is where I'm like, oh, no, we've Not. Just about science particularly, but sort of like the. The like, communal agreement on some, like, really foundational social pillars.

[Ed Zitron]

Consensus reality.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, consensus reality is. Is like. Seems to be crumbling.

[Ed Zitron]

And it doesn't help that the leader of the FDA sounds like a fucking cyberman.

[Victoria Song]

Oh, you know, he should be a ces. Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

No, we can't make fun of him. It's a physical condition. We can't make fun of him for that. We can make fun of that for the worm in his brain.

[Victoria Song]

The worm in his brain and the fact that.

[Ed Zitron]

And the bear corpse.

[Victoria Song]

He keeps me up at night because in June he was like, in four years, I want every American wearing a wearable. And as one of the most quantified people on the earth, wearing three to four wearables continuously. 24 7, 365. No, don't do that.

[Ed Zitron]

So at that point we can rotate our guests one last time. Thank you so much for listening. The upcoming ad, I assume is not for weight loss drugs. If it is, well, I guess you know how we feel about that now, but that's not really my goddamn problem.

[Covino and Rich]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Ed Zitron]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Victoria Song]

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[Ed Zitron]

Welcome back to the Better Offline CES experience. We're just talking about wanking, I guess.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

I was saying the fleshlights are. They're just okay. And so why would you need them to be motorized?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Interesting take.

[Ed Zitron]

You must be clear, I don't.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, what because you're. Oh, because I admit to using a sex negative podcast. Oh, a man who uses a sex toy.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Women are.

[Adam Conover]

Vibrator. Vibrator.

[Ed Zitron]

Vibrator, yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Because men are inadequate. Because men. And if you say that women are inadequate, I will take deep.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Introducing the next generation of sex toy.

[Ed Zitron]

Welcome. Welcome to Better Offline. You complained last year we didn't have enough woman, which was true. Now we've got one that's just immediately created a fracture. We got you. Got you for two more days as well. It's gonna be great.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Now this chaos and truthfully, having like an amazing team as the core Better Offline team for the show as well. And I'm actually like both you, Adam, Chloe, you both kind of were like, like, like. Adam, you've done a bit of tech. Chloe, you've not done.

[Adam Conover]

Really?

[Ed Zitron]

And you're like, oh, is this. Am I gonna be all right to do this? Because like I haven't done it. This is the perfect view because I think the really tech poisoned people are incapable of just being like that. Sounds fucking useless. That Sounds dumb as shit. Even the jackoff machine. It's like you're gonna attach this. Heavy looking. Looks pretty heavy.

[Adam Conover]

It didn't look useful or necessary. It's a.

[Ed Zitron]

Welcome to ces.

[Adam Conover]

We've already talked about it. In the previous segment, we see a.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Big ban of this. It says CES. It doesn't look useful or necessary. 20, 26 to describe.

[Adam Conover]

Because we talked about the Handy and Handy 2 in the previous segment, we didn't describe what it is.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, that's the name.

[Adam Conover]

It's basically the. Yes. Called the. It's. It's a joke product. They're just there to make people laugh. It's like the inner core of a Fleshlight, which is like. Okay, a Fleshlight. If you're not familiar, you know the sticky hand from the vending machine at the supermarket?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Is that the material?

[Adam Conover]

That's the material inside of a.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Put lube in it.

[Adam Conover]

Lube in it. And it's squishy. Okay.

[Robert Evans]

And.

[Adam Conover]

And again the. Just. Okay. As an experience had. I got. It's been in a drawer for years. Right. And I got it for free, by the way, because I used to do a comedy show in a sex shop in Los Angeles. Wonderful show at the Pleasure Chest. But I didn't pay for it.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

But so imagine I would have. I. It was on my list.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

I support the industry.

[Ed Zitron]

I actually genuinely support.

[Adam Conover]

It's the squishy core of a Fleshlight. And then it's attached to a Velcro harness, which is attached to like a big piece of metal machinery that moves it up and down. And I'm like, I have hands.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

And here's my pitch. Here's my pitch for an analog version of that is take one of the actual sticky hands that you actually stick on the window and put some lube on that. And put.

[Adam Conover]

Just hold.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Hold that on the palm of your hand and check that out. That's gonna feel like it's somebody else's hand.

[Adam Conover]

Here's what I would like. I would like a woman to stand across the room, a big sticky hat right on my dick.

[Ed Zitron]

I must also be clear, by the way. So I looked up the handy two. I just want to be clear. There are two SKUs, and there is the standard, which is one hour of battery life. Safe. 60. $60 launch price. And it's regularly $299. And then there's the five hours of battery.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Oh, the Gooner. The gooner package.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. $379 down from $499. And you scroll down it's like we recommend the fast charger handy and I just got to ask, how much? Ya, how much are you doing that?

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, you purchase the award winning VR compatible automatic stroker, sometimes it takes a while.

[Adam Conover]

But isn't the point of this it V, it's VR compat.

[Robert Evans]

Come on.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean you're watching the pornos and.

[Adam Conover]

All that, but, but, but isn't the point of the device that it's supposed to be very fast? Supposed to make you come fast?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Really?

[Adam Conover]

I would think so.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

They should put four hours of battery life.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, I know, I just, they should.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Use like most of that battery life for a little screen where you can watch some porn on it while you're, you know, going at it.

[Ed Zitron]

It's just really like people that don't have sex or jack off. It sounds like just like the. These sexless people.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

I would love to know the, the man who is horny enough to want to use the jack off machine, but so dedicated to tech that when he goes to pick up his jack off machine and the battery's dead, he goes g, I have to put it on my fast charger now and wait for seven minutes for it to gain enough battery life to make me come tapping.

[Ed Zitron]

His foot like Sonic the Hedgehog sitting.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

On his hands being like, there's no other way to, to do this.

[Ed Zitron]

Does this ever happen to you? It's just, I must be clear, this is a sex positive podcast. It's great sex, wonderful. It's a great thing between consenting adults and waifu tubes, I guess. And it's just very strange to look at another product on the show. It's just like an alien made this. Like, what, what do you need? You can't jack off, I guess, or you really want to. And also, I just, I just feel like, just as a masturbator. That's a great thing to say. I just feel like picking this thing up, I would just be consumed with shame immediately. The only thing that would make me more ashamed would be if it was out of battery. You're like, fuck, I've used it. Yeah. Just like, I'm too into this.

[Adam Conover]

See now this is my pet peeve because I think when you say be consumed with shame, you're ashamed of your own sexual sexuality. Yet that's what's happening is you is you are ashamed of the idea of masturbating with a device. Why? Why?

[Ed Zitron]

Because my hands can do it perfectly fine or I can have sex with my shame.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Why shame?

[Covino and Rich]

Why not?

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Why not amusement? If Your hands can do it perfectly fine.

[Ed Zitron]

Like well, already we're in this weird.

[Robert Evans]

World where I wouldn't buy it.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Like so it's just.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Would you feel ashamed? Not. Not ashamed. Would you feel shame if you picked up a flashlight? If you were going to use a flashlight? Or is the machine worse?

[Robert Evans]

No, I just feel like.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Is the machine less laughing at you?

[Ed Zitron]

I just have never seen this. We're now going on the show where just everyone's like, how does it jack off? No, it's just like the idea of the listeners. It's unnecessary to me. I don't. Yeah, like if someone else used it.

[Adam Conover]

That'S because maybe they're goon maxing. The male sex toy is not a jerk off device because we can do that perfectly.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Novelty item.

[Covino and Rich]

Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

The real male sex toy is a butt plug and men won't bother by them. That's a real prostate stimulation.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah, that is true.

[Robert Evans]

And you know what?

[Ed Zitron]

If you like that, that's fucking cool. My problem is. And you know what? Maybe there's a guy who just like, he's like a sex guy and he likes all the different kinds. Fine, that sounds fine. I just think like if I got a machine that was out of batteries to jack it off and it was unpowered, I'd be like, oh, I've been doing this a lot, haven't I?

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Do the. Do the sex toys have big useless numbers too?

[Ed Zitron]

Oh my God, I wonder if they do.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

You haven't been coming lately.

[Ed Zitron]

You're having sex.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

You're cum latency. The distance of time between when you begin to jack off. This. It's like a little prompt.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Are you okay? You haven't come to establish a baseline.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

And when you are off the baseline, that is when you will come.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm actually looking now to see if there's any metrics that come. Discreet delivery. I mean. Sure, discreet delivery.

[Adam Conover]

What a nice. What if Withings made a sex toy and then it tracked your. You know what I mean? It gave you some stats. The Gooners might like that. Some jerk off. So what? Yeah, like a. Oh, how about like a. A special watch for jerking off that like Matt, you know, have like a.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Stat line, you know, it's a stat line.

[Adam Conover]

It lets you know how efficient you're being and how much time you spent.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

You know how on treadmills you can follow the little workouts where it like shows in. It's like it's going to get faster now. And then the treadmill goes faster, you have to run faster and then it's like, now it's slower if you're. If you had a little, like, if you had a little gooning workout line where it could be like, go faster now and then it's like, slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down. And you, like, follow your little workouts.

[Adam Conover]

I mean, this. You're describing Joi. Videos, Jack off instruction videos.

[Ed Zitron]

Well, I just want to read something.

[Adam Conover]

It's a really good form of video porn. I think those are, like, it's very kind of wholesome because it's sort of like I want some. Someone to instruct me.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

There's a. There's a relationship.

[Adam Conover]

There's a relationship about the jerking off.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

I just want to be clear. There is a button on this website that. To lead you to various videos. It says, explore the handy verse. And the handy verse. I don't feel great having read that.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

The greatest sin that Mark Zuckerberg has committed on the face of this planet. He's giving us blank verse. Nothing else come close.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

We got the handy verse with Earth 1669.

[Ed Zitron]

What actually, oddly, like, what is handy feeling? There's, like, a whole thing, and I'm like, coming around to this. Like, this isn't for me, but I'm like, okay, if someone's a real beat offerer, like, this is quite nice.

[Adam Conover]

I don't know. The reason I feel shame is because I feel like we're falling for it. Because this is a gag product. No, no, we're talking about it.

[Ed Zitron]

No, this is real. This is like a real thing. They're charging for any.

[Adam Conover]

It exists, but I don't think it serves a per. It's to laugh at it. CES and Dubai.

[Robert Evans]

No, if I. I agree.

[Ed Zitron]

Like, here's the thing. Woman sex toys. Very well documented and used and talked about quite well.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

We've seen pictures of them. Yeah, they're real.

[Ed Zitron]

Also, like, women discuss them. I feel like, Adam, you're like, one of the only men I've talked to about sex who's just not immediate. Like, yeah, I've had it like, 1 million times, but I can't discuss it at all. Yeah, but it's like, I believe that, like, there are men who jack off in this manner. Good on them. As long as it's, like, normal and consensual.

[Adam Conover]

And like, I. I could be wrong. I just don't believe in this product. I believe in sex toys for men. I believe they're underrepresented as that category. But I believe where this product is situated in the hall and the way that they have designed it.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Oh, this is.

[Adam Conover]

Is it? Yeah. @ CES. Welcome to the pod. Edward, I thought we were just talking about a.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Toy. Hey man, welcome to the channel.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Cuz. The only one I saw was the Love Sense one, which was the vibrators. I was like, okay, I saw that last year also. So I was like, okay, that's the.

[Adam Conover]

One. I know it's in the Eureka hall and it's sort of position. It's like meant to make you laugh. And, and I think it's a $500.

[Ed Zitron]

Batch. But was it a big. Was it a big.

[Adam Conover]

Booth? They had a big booth.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Then, then that's a real company. Because that.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Was. Well, I mean, look, men called it big, women called it.

[Ed Zitron]

Average. Yeah, it was just a regular sized. But.

[Adam Conover]

Nice.

[Ed Zitron]

Nice. Yeah, it's. But that's the thing. If they have a regular sized booth, possibly.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Bordering. It's a perfectly normal sized.

[Adam Conover]

Booth.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay. It's a good size. Gets bigger during the show if like that's a real company. Because otherwise it's just like, yeah, we put $100,000 in the jack off booth. I do, I do like the idea of just walking over. Can I have a.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Go? Hey, come on over to the jackoff.

[Ed Zitron]

Booth. Come in. Anyway, in the booth for you. We're going to segue away from this right after.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

This. Here's a question that is sort of off of this theme as a CES.

[Ed Zitron]

Virgin.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Right. Not to really lean into this kind of.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Language. Lean into, into.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It. How many of these products, like there are a lot of products that seemed absolutely.

[Ed Zitron]

Useless.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yes. And what I don't know is how many of the people who are here earnestly believe that what they are hawking is going to make the world better in some way. And how many people, like what. What is the percentage split between earnest believers? People who are here for a paycheck because they need a job and this happens to be the job job they're doing. And people who are totally disillusioned but are still doing it for the paycheck but like are. Are totally jaded. I. I would be.

[Ed Zitron]

Curious. I think what it is, is like you get a job, it's hard getting a job and you get the product and it's like, well, I gotta believe in something. So you learn the talking points and you're like the pillow thing you were talking about last. Last piece. It's like that person clearly had never had a conversation with someone who's like, yeah, but what if I want to lie in bed without falling asleep because they might memorize the talking points, they've internalized them. I'm sure that there are a percentage of cynical people, but I think a lot of these people are just like not thought about it too much. They're like, yeah, the air purifier with the spike on it, the dog scratches itself on. That makes perfect sense because I've been forced to believe it because this is how I make money. And I think that there's something kind of sad about it because you have to believe, I mean, working pr, like there's a certain degree at times when you get a product. I don't do consumer electronics, but like in the past I've had to be like, yay, here we go. It's like, I'm going to pay mortgage. Like, I think that there's a degree of that. And I think some people just fucking stupid. I think there's some people just like, yes, it's a pillow, isn't it cool? It can do this. And they focus on how cool it is. And then when they think for two seconds they go, oh fuck, this is what an alien would use. This is like, it's just like Star Trek, except nothing like.

[Adam Conover]

It. I also think a lot of them are just happy to, to like do the job, you know, like when I went to the orb thing, my orb debacle, all the people I talk, well, whatever people know about it or they don't. But when I talk to people who work for this horrible product, like some of them seemed kind of enthusiastic, some of them sort of had thousand yard stares, you know where, where I, I was talking to him going like, ah, they're making like 300 grand a year.

[Robert Evans]

Probably.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. Working for like a Sam Altman company, doing interesting work. Like they're like, they want to be an engineer, they're a software engineer. They're working on something that's technically, technically interesting. They would like for it to work, they sort of have to drink the Kool.

[Ed Zitron]

Aid.

[Adam Conover]

Exactly. In the same way that someone who's like working on a shitty movie is like, I'm living the dream. Oh, the movie kind of sucks, but I'm living the dream. But you make be good, it's going to be good. I'm making movies like it's this suspension of.

[Ed Zitron]

Disbelief. But I respect people in movies way more. Like, just want to be clear, like learning about how movies are made recently, it's insane a single movie has ever been made. Yeah, I do not understand how any movie is.

[Adam Conover]

Made. Well, they're not made.

[Ed Zitron]

Anymore. Well, yeah, that's, that's also the other thing. No, they're either $100 million or $1 million. When you know the.

[Adam Conover]

Movies. When you watch movies now, like, you know, I was watching, like, Rob Reiner movies because he passed away, of course. And you watch, like, Harry Met Sally or another movie like that. It's like walking through, like, the, The. The ruins of, like, a Roman Colosseum, like in the Dark Age. Just, like, look at what humans used to be able to do. Like.

[Ed Zitron]

It'S. And then you watch Stranger Things and there's a big crab, and Winona Rider punches it to death, and you just. I don't watch that.

[Adam Conover]

Show. None of it has.

[Ed Zitron]

Anything. My life's strange enough already. And it's just sad. But I, I, I think. I think movies are going to be okay. I'm choosing to be optimistic for no.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Reason.

[Victoria Song]

Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah. I mean, that's sort of a whole other.

[Ed Zitron]

Separate.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah. Whole other conversation. But I do think that there's a lot of people who would say, like, the same people who are, who are, who see movies as sort of the dinosaurs, the things of the past are the people who see a lot of shit@ces@. Who sort of willingly drink the Kool Aid of a lot of the shit at CES and are like, this is the stuff of the future. Without actually even being paid $300,000 by the.

[Ed Zitron]

Company. Because they want to be.

[Robert Evans]

First. They want to be first of.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

This. They sort of have gotten on the roller coaster of. They're addicted to the high of the possibility of.

[Ed Zitron]

Success. The.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Newness.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. I mean, I remember when it was over 10 years ago now, but I was working at college humor and stuff. Like, Google Glass would come out, and my co workers would be like, it's gonna be the future. And just based on the premise alone. And I'd have to be like, I don't think so. And I was right. Same thing happened with VR. You know, you wait.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Adam. Google Glass is.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Coming. Ray Ban meta.

[Covino and Rich]

Glasses.

[Adam Conover]

People. People were so. They had the script in.

[Ed Zitron]

Them.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. I think, you know, and they want it to be true. They just want something new that's going to be.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Fun. I also, I'd be curious what you think, because, you know, you've been coming to see us for a while. How much of it is also people at a firm that tried to sell something to another business and it failed, and now they're doing consumer. Because I feel like I would talk to some people, especially in Eureka park, and they wouldn't say it, but you could hear in the conversation that there was a much more ambitious plan and that fell.

[Ed Zitron]

Through. And now they're winnowing, narrowing it.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Down to something else that a consumer might be able to.

[Ed Zitron]

Use. It's the right economy, baby. It's growth at all costs. Because if you solve a small boring problem for a million people that fucking rocks, is that going to be worth $10 billion new? Are you going to be able to take that.

[Robert Evans]

Public?

[Ed Zitron]

No. You can sell it to another company. No. But if you say, I'm going to solve fucking everything forever, you'll get hundreds of millions of dollars because you've just over promised and being part of this new futuristic thing and vaguely attaching yourself to it. If you're wrong, you can say, oh, it was experimental. If you're right, you say, I was.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

First. Yeah, but, and, and that's sort of to what Adam was saying about, you know, wanting, it's my language now, like wanting the possibility of success, addicted to the high of that possibility. But Edward, what you were saying, I think you're saying like the pr, when you're saying that they had a more ambitious plan, do you mean they had a more ambitious plan for what the tech itself could be capable of, or do you mean like they've had, they've figured out a tech that is capable of what is, and they. The ambitious plan was to use it in a much broader use case or a much higher scale use case. And now they've sort of been like shunted down to a booth at CES where they're trying to make somebody pay.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

$600. It feels like they thought the idea was worth 10x what it actually.

[Ed Zitron]

Is. Do you have an.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Example? I mean, I saw it a lot more last year where it would be people talking about tech that would be. That's helpful assistance tech. But their initial formulation of it seemed to be, we are going to apply this at scale in workplaces, right? To augment your productivity for like.

[Ed Zitron]

Standing up the thing, for opening the cash.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Register. Right? You know, something like that. Where it's like not even really clear that would be adopted at an individual.

[Ed Zitron]

Scale. Also, that one really pissed me off because it's like you don't give a fuck about anyone working. Find dogs. You don't look them in the eye. Now you were excited about touching a screen to order. Yeah, treats, you little.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Pig. You know, it feels like it's like we wanted to sell this at scale to like McDonald's at a bunch of other fast food restaurants, and that didn't work. So now we are cobbling together some of the IP to figure out another approach that might be usable in smaller settings. And I feel like, you know, when I talk with people, especially in some of the assistive tech, you know, where they're not really talking about it in the way of we're helping people who are disabled or helping people who. Who need mobility aid.

[Robert Evans]

It's.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

It's. It's. It's almost adjacent to. Or sounding just like how we talk about.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Convenience.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. You know, did you see anything today that was of.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Note? Like, I mean, most of the stuff that I saw today in Eureka park was more misuse of agentic.

[Ed Zitron]

Language. Yes. Give it to me and say, agent me.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Up. You know, let's. You know, what if you had a chatbot that, you know, managed your home Google Calendar and told you when to pick up your kids because you forgot or, you know, when you get. Because you don't give a shit? You know, what if you had something that would look at your shit and tell you when you're sick or not.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Sick? You mean literally your.

[Ed Zitron]

Poop? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yeah. No.

[Rory Koeclan Jones]

Literally.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. That was one thing that Victoria. We didn't get to the piss poop. We got to the cum, sadly. But it was like, there's many different toilet measures.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Now.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. Oh, I saw a good.

[Ed Zitron]

Product.

[Adam Conover]

Yes. And I would describe it. I walked. I saw this product. I looked at it. I immediately recognized what it was. I walked up to them, I said, fitbit for your cat. And they said, I. Yeah, I guess that's what you. No, it's Fitbit for your cat. You're going to sell that. And it's like a little food dish. Food dish and a bubbler for your cat. And then it, like, I don't know, has some stats about your cat. And it. It said, like, here's how much food is left. Here's the temperature of your cat. And then it just said.

[Robert Evans]

Healthy.

[Adam Conover]

Yes. And that's. That's, like, really all the cat owners want is. Is like, well, could it. Could the box say, my cat's healthy and it'll relieve my. My anxiety? You're a cat.

[Ed Zitron]

Owner? Yes, I have. I don't know, like, and it's not. The only measurement is, like, how beautiful they are. It's like, yeah. Which I remind them of.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Constantly. I.

[Ed Zitron]

Just. How hot my cat is. Is very.

[Victoria Song]

Funny.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Yeah. I got two cats and it's like, when I learned I got a. I got one of the litter boxes, those automatic ones, when I learned there was an app I asked them, can I. Do I need the app? Can I delete the app? They're like, yes. And I was like, okay, I will never look at this shit again. Yeah. And it works out, you know, that anything that even whirs other or has a little motor other than the litter box, they destroy. They swat it, they throw it down the stairs, they push it. They literally catch it to the.

[Ed Zitron]

Stairs.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Brutal. Throw it down. So I can't get anything smart for.

[Ed Zitron]

Them. I get a Fitbit for a dog, though, because you, like, walk them. I would love to, actually, just for my sick pleasure. Know how fast Babu runs because him and his sister.

[Adam Conover]

Pokey2Bangkok.

[Ed Zitron]

No. They just. They will be sleeping all day and then just random bam. Just fucking, like across the entire house, gone.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Bam. Back. I. They're trying to get their steps.

[Ed Zitron]

In. Yeah.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Exactly. Like, they were napping all day.

[Ed Zitron]

Just. Cats, like, don't experience the same things that human being. Like, they're not sitting there being like, do I run around a lot? They get the instinct, like, I need to fucking run so fast in a straight line. Fast night I've ever. But it's not because they're like, I need to be healthy. They just. Fucking cat. Stop trying to optimize my cat.

[Adam Conover]

Bro. My.

[Ed Zitron]

Cats. Cats are not optimal other than how beautiful and fancy they are, how great they are, how beautiful. Oh, I miss them. Anything else? Like, it's just this. You're gonna be here for another two days. You're gonna see more stuff like this. But I'm.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Genuine. I saw something. We all do need impression ads inside of AI. They're figuring out how to put ads inside of chat chatbots, how to put ads inside of any sort of interface or product that might use a generative.

[Ed Zitron]

AI. It's so cool. They haven't worked that.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Out. I know.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. That's also, like, the most obvious thing, that they need it. The way that they would monetize this.

[Adam Conover]

Thing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. The one way to.

[Ed Zitron]

Make. One way that every. I get three emails a week from someone being like, have you thought that they could. Ads and chat GPT? Yes, motherfucker. I've fucking thought every single time you've emailed me about this. I've thought about.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It. Do we know why they haven't.

[Ed Zitron]

Yet? Because it's very hard to guarantee. The whole thing with ads is you need to have replicability and reliability and accountability. You cannot have your. You can't have, like, an ad for a children's thing by someone looking up sex and vice versa. And the Best example we have that this doesn't really work is Perplexity. Their ads chief left a few months ago and they made $20,000 selling ads in.

[Adam Conover]

2024. Yeah, I mean the needs of advertisers like determine.

[Ed Zitron]

Everything.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. Like, you know, why does YouTube work the way it works? 90% of YouTube is to please advertisers and to make sure that, you know, age verification, like content warnings, like all of it is just for them and like they'll sort of run the show. But also isn't part of the problem that like advertising is not enough money for, you know, the massive amount of investment these companies are taking picking on like you put ads in ChatGPT, you're saying, like not.

[Ed Zitron]

Enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It won't sustain and they'll need trillions. Well, the other problem they have is the information. A good story about this where it's like 900 million weekly active.

[Robert Evans]

Users.

[Ed Zitron]

Ish. Even though OpenAI double counts people all the time, they admit this in their own academic papers. But nevertheless only 100 million of those are in America, which is a large number what have. Whatever. But that means like they're mostly overseas who are lower value advertising clients because they, there's a very big difference between advertising someone in America versus in India or Indonesia where they're, they release ChatGPT Go, which is a cheaper one, which will inevitably be advertising supported. And it's just like, I do love that there are like different booths of people being like, what if we could solve the problem that OpenAI, Google, perplexity and multiple other companies just haven't been able to touch is it feels like watching the end of the world in a very boring way at.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Times. Well, so that's why. What brings me back to my, that brings me back to my question about how earnestly do these people believe in what they're pushing? Yeah. Like, are there people who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we are the, we have the secret key. We are the geniuses. And sure, would I be hired at Google if I was really a genius? Maybe, but that's not what we're talking about right.

[Adam Conover]

Now. I mean, I think they've, they at the very least consider themselves to have be the holder of the. A lottery.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Ticket.

[Adam Conover]

Yes. Maybe it'll work. And if it works, I'm a billionaire and if I can convince someone it kind of works. Maybe I get Aqua hired by Google and then I make half a million.

[Robert Evans]

Dollars.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. You know, and like, and I only have to get to like you know, next month to make that happen. I just got to convince some dopu's here right.

[Ed Zitron]

Now. I believe all the TV people believe it fully and I get it. And I'm a big dumb ape. I see a giant scream like yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Baby. Oh.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. I want to see the TVs.

[Ed Zitron]

Actually. Oh, they're.

[Adam Conover]

So. And I got mad because I, I saw. I think I was looking at the Verges coverage or something and there's a new TV technology that's better than.

[Ed Zitron]

Ola I I Mini LED or micro.

[Adam Conover]

Led. Bought the best Ola. I bought the. I bought the. You know the one. The one really good Sony one. I got the really good Sony. I'm like, I don't want a better TV. This is as good as TVs need to be. 77 inches. It's true. Black. Stop. I don't know just.

[Ed Zitron]

A. Be clear. You're. You're fine. They haven't really made better than that. Like I know It'll be in 10.

[Adam Conover]

Years. I'm still just like stop.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It. I don't know if you're gonna have kids but I've heard a couple dad sentences both in this TV discussion and earlier when you were like now I saw a good.

[Adam Conover]

Product. I'm. Yeah, but, but I was able to buy this TV because I'm not as price sensitive as a real dad because I don't have the kids. That's why I got to get the, get the. Get the good.

[Ed Zitron]

One. And like as a, as a child have a. That's the normal way to say it. Like big screen. Big screen's fine. As long you got a big screen. That's the coolest thing to. Big screen, giant screen. To play Minecraft on you set. Best father in the.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

World. Two so you can both play.

[Ed Zitron]

It.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

No. Or one on in separate rooms so you don't have to talk.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

To. Exactly. That's what they.

[Ed Zitron]

Want. One of the most cherished things is watching my son play Minecraft. Explaining to me, talking about a normal.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Thing. We're talking about what the consumer wants.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Themselves. We're talking about what that guy who did the tweet about how he gets boiling mad if he spends more than 10 minutes with children. Did you see this? There was some. Some dad was like, am I normal if I spend more than 10 minutes? Was it day with my children? My blood boils. That's normal, right? And everybody was like, hey buddy, that's not totally normal. But like we totally get it. That being a dad is.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Hard. You're valid for.

[Ed Zitron]

That. It is. But not like 10 minutes should not. Because you can. You have a lot more of those in the day with the child.

[Robert Evans]

Than. Than.

[Adam Conover]

That.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seems like this guy doesn't have to.

[Ed Zitron]

But.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. It reminds me of when. When, you know, the COVID lockdown first happened and. And all the parents I knew and the ones on the Internet were suddenly, like, someone needs to help me from being around my kids. I thought you liked having. Loving the kids. Now you're mad that you got to be around the kids. What. Why do you. Why do you have the kid if you don't want to be around them? And it also makes you realize that, like, oh, yeah, the main purpose of school was not education. It was just child care so people could go to.

[Ed Zitron]

Work.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. That's why they're complaining. They're like, I need to go to work. Well, that's. You've just revealed a up thing about school and parenting all at.

[Ed Zitron]

Once. I actually think that's the lens. I'm gonna go through everything tomorrow. I'm just gonna look around the Expo center being like. Like, okay, what's the shoot where it's just people, like, I need to get away from my obligations. Like, I. I made these decisions throughout my life. I got a fat ass, unhealthy of a cat. I got.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

A. We were all waiting on what that last word was going to.

[Robert Evans]

Be.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Yeah. Oh, we were on the edge of our seats and there were some.

[Ed Zitron]

Options. There were in there, didn't.

[Adam Conover]

I? No, it's.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Like. And it's just cat. Okay. He's saying cat. Okay.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Great.

[Ed Zitron]

So. Wasn't referring to any of my perfect fucking angels, but it's like, these people are just like, okay, I need to find out if my cat's healthy because I don't want to look at it or use it. Can I keep my child in a separate room? Can I give it an action figure.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

That. Can I give it a robot and an action figure that will talk to each other? And.

[Ed Zitron]

It. And also, if you want any of these things, don't worry, they don't fucking work. They don't even do the thing that we're promising you. But it's funny. Just imagine this guy walking around being like, please get me away from all this, Please.

[Robert Evans]

Can.

[Ed Zitron]

Can. Is this robot going to be. Oh, the robot's going to fall over. Oh, it's falling over. It's going to kick me in the nuts. Do you see that video? The guy just getting hoofed in the nuts by a robot? That was great. If you've got a booth who. Guys being kicked in the balls. I don't care what you're selling me. Lockheed Martin.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. Like, I mean, some of them made me kind of sad. Like there was one that was. I don't want to say, say the name of it because it did make me sad, but it was a little. It was like a little toy. Like a little hello Kitty type toy. And it was, you know, you could talk to.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

It. Was it the one that was like the future of Robot.

[Adam Conover]

Friend? Something like.

[Ed Zitron]

That? It was a.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Fun. I think I know what you're talking.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

About. I know exactly what you're talking.

[Adam Conover]

About. And it was also like, it'll watch everything that you do and remember it. And I was like, all right. And I. And I walked up and I was like, all right, what was it doing here it is. I was like, oh, can I talk to it? And she was like, no. You know, the WI fi is in here. In here is bad. And it uses ChatGPT so it can't connect to ChatGPT right now. And I'm like, this is just some. Somebody put like a couple hundred grand of their own money into like a little doll that connects to the ChatGPT API and is here thinking that's anything like, like, why would we want such a thing? Why would anybody here be excited by just a front end to ChatGPT I product that already.

[Ed Zitron]

Exists? But that's the thing. I feel like as we wrap up the episode, it's a good way to put it. It's like there are two. There are two real cons with AI. There's the con of the consumer being told it will do this for you or that for you. It will be a personal assistant. And then there's for companies where like, yeah, if we put ChatGPT and this, it'll be smart. No, motherfucker, he's not going to do that at.

[Adam Conover]

All.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And it's like, it's. You don't want to name a company, which is fine, but it's like there are so many that were there last year as well. It's like, oh, it's an agent inside. It's just a chatbot and you've poorly trained it. And it's like gonna tell you that Taiwan is part of China or like bdsm, like. And it's just quite sad. It's like everyone is being conned by these companies, both the consumer and the companies themselves. I can't wait to catalog them. I'm looking forward to watching the sadness. But it's just, it's. It is quite sad. I'm so glad I'm here all.

[Advertisement Voice]

Week. This is.

[Ed Zitron]

Great. My dart, my.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Joker.

[Adam Conover]

Like, it's a shrug. Economy. Like, everyone's just sort of hoping. Like, I was talking to people about the Disney Open AI deal, because that's like, a bunch of people in Hollywood are, like, freaked out about it, especially writers who are worried about IP and stuff like that. But, like, my take on it, if you look at the deal is nobody even knows why they're doing it. Like, OpenAI has the idea that, like, we need licensed characters for Sora and Disney just doesn't want to be left.

[Chloe Radcliffe]

Out.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. But, like, they think. They appear to think maybe it's marketing for Disney. Plus, OpenAI has some idea. Maybe people will want to create scenes of Deadpool hanging out with Elsa or whatever. How does that result in money, question mark? Nobody knows. Yeah, it loses money. But, like, Disney is just, like, not getting left out of a thing. That's maybe the future. OpenAI is making a deal that makes their business look better to whoever the fuck is going to give them money next. And they didn't even pay Disney for.

[Ed Zitron]

It. Like, yeah, they're doing a licensing deal where they pay Disney in OpenAI stock, which Disney already bought more of. And in fact, Disney has the option to buy more stock. It's just. You got to wonder what happens when Open AI collapses. Because it's going to happen and it's just like the. These companies will change to the Chinese models, I guess, or what remains of.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Anthra. It's just everyone can use.

[Ed Zitron]

Quinn. Yeah, the Kimmy 2K2. Now that's the coding deep.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Sea. It'll be.

[Robert Evans]

Fun. Well, all.

[Ed Zitron]

Right. I'm gonna wrap it there so I don't just launch into a rant about AI as per usual. Thank you so much. We've got the Core 3 here. It's gonna be joining us for the next day or two. It's gonna be wonderful. Thank you so much for traveling in with us. We're gonna end the episode as we have dedicated to Sean Paul. He's a wonderful fella. Came in 2020. Donate to the Pediatric Epilogue Epilepsy Research Consortium. Link will be in there. Dedicated to his son. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening. We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osawski. You can check out more of his music and audio [e-mail] m a t t o s o w s k-I.com you can email me at ezeteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat where's your Ed app to visit the Discord and go to R betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for.

[Victoria Song]

Listening. Better Offline is a production of.

[Ed Zitron]

Cool Zone Media from More from Cool Zone.

[Victoria Song]

Media. Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your.

[Adam Conover]

Podcasts.

[Ed Zitron]

Foreign this is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. Sunday mornings I've got my game day ritual, coffee, lucky socks and now new Morning Uncrustable.

[Adam Conover]

Sandwiches. It's all about that 12 gram protein boost with the new Uncrustables Bright Eyed Berry or Up and Apple.

[Ed Zitron]

Flavors. Bright Eye Berries got a feisty.

[Adam Conover]

Receiver energy up an apple. Your classic do it all tight.

[Ed Zitron]

End, soft, pillowy, packed with protein and easy enough for Grunk to grab from the.

[Unidentified Guest 1]

Freezer. Whether you're on the couch, driving.

[Adam Conover]

To the tailgate or heading to the locker room, new Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches are the MVP of.

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Snacks. Your new Sunday kickoff ritual starts here with new Morning Uncrustable sandwiches packed with 12 grams of protein. Live CBS.

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Ever.

[Victoria Song]

Perfect. No.

[Ed Zitron]

No. The Golden Globes. With more stars, more glamor, more chaos and more host Nikki Glaser, we're.

[Victoria Song]

Gonna laugh at the celebrities that can take it and completely ignore the ones who can't. I'm just kidding. They're not safe.

[Ed Zitron]

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[Ed Zitron]

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