Hater Season: Caleb Wilson, Juniper and Arif Hasan

Summary

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Better Offline – “Hater Season: Caleb Wilson, Juniper and Arif Hasan”

Podcast: Better Offline (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Air Date: February 18, 2026
Host: Ed Zitron
Guests: Caleb Wilson (Kill the Computer), Juniper (Kill the Computer), Arif Hasan (Wide Left)

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Episode Overview

This lively, often irreverent episode of “Better Offline” convenes three sharp tech media minds—Caleb Wilson, Juniper, and Arif Hasan—for an extended group rant about the absurdity of modern tech culture, especially the scene’s current fascination with “radical centrism,” the quasi-religious posturing of tech billionaires, and the proliferation of overhyped AI ventures. The hosts skewer prominent industry figures (Gary Tan, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk), the commodification and gamification of everything (prediction markets, AI ads), and the weird cultural malaise gripping Silicon Valley.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tech’s New Religion: The Rise of Evangelical Tech Piety

(04:37–07:00, 13:26–16:45)

• Ed introduces the concept of “Epic Church,” a real tech-positive evangelical church frequented by major Silicon Valley figures (Gary Tan, Peter Thiel, Trey Stevens), and how this is symbolic of a broader “religification” of the tech elite.
  • Ed Zitron [04:56]: “It’s this tech-positive church, basically an evangelical church for tech-minded people … Peter Thiel is like one of the thought leaders of the type of people there.”
• Arif riffs on the broader phenomenon of secular tech leaders making a public turn toward Christianity, often in strange, performative ways.
  • Arif Hasan [05:59]: “Now ... people who were typically associated with movements that might be humanist or atheist ... have turned into embracing some version of Christianity, right? Like, even Richard Dawkins … ‘well, I’m a cultural Christian.’”

Interpretation: The hosts critique this turn as shallow posturing, a way for the tech elite to lend their worldview a veneer of depth, myth, or moral gravity—while ultimately justifying their own power and insularity.

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2. Gary Tan, “Radical Centrism,” and Gary’s List

(03:23–12:27)

• Caleb bemoans missing the chance to invest in “Gary’s List” (a blog/platform by Y Combinator’s Gary Tan) and roasts the idea of “radical centrism.”
  • Caleb Wilson [04:19]: “If you write the words ‘radical centrism,’ horrible.”
  • Ed Zitron [09:57]: “He’s very anti-union … every … influential Silicon Valley person these days is turning to evangelical religion. They complain about how there’s not enough centrism in the world while they benefit … from the Trump administration.”
• The crew tears into Gary’s List as an emblem of tech-bro malaise: a limitless fortune used to create ... a blog.
  • Caleb Wilson [09:29]: “This guy is a billionaire. … You could do so much with that. … And you’re like, no, I need to make a fucking blog for centrism.”

Interpretation: They see these “centrist” projects as self-indulgent ventures by disconnected elites, more about whining that public affection for tech billionaires is diminishing than advancing any new social good.

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3. AI Hysteria and Industry Self-Deception

(17:39–33:32, 43:16–50:46)

• “Something Big is Happening” and the Matt Schumer Blog
  • Arif and Caleb discuss the viral (and likely AI-written) blog post by AI entrepreneur Matt Schumer, seen as emblematic of the current AI hype cycle: a breathless screed about AI’s imminent dominance, filled with misleading statistics and misunderstood benchmarks.
    • Arif Hasan [21:08]: “It’s like a gish gallop of AI benchmarks that are meant to create this sense that AI is like, smarter than PhDs or pass the bar exam.”
  • The group expose how much of this hype relies on “contextually poor examples,” and is meant more to impress funders than reflect technical reality.
  • Juniper and Ed lampoon AI analyses: “I write like 10–15,000 word analyses of things ... this guy’s like, ‘wow, you know, the computer’s just fucking so crazy now, bro.’”
• Notable quote:
  • Arif Hasan [22:35]: “The [research] article … is absolutely mischaracterized. … If we had journalism still and this was run in a newspaper that cared about stuff—which, what a bygone era…”

The Economics and Realities of AI Startups

• The hosts contrast public AI boosterism with the actual economics and technical limitations of current AI, particularly the irrational assumptions about infinite scalability and profitability.
  • Caleb Wilson [49:00]:
    On Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO): “‘Profitability is this kind of weird thing in this field … happens when you underestimated the amount of demand you were going to get. And loss happens when you’ve overestimated ...’ No, Dario, profitability is when you make more money than you spend.”
  • Ed Zitron [50:55]:
    “They unlocked capitalism too, and they unlocked a new version of profitability.”

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4. Prediction Markets & the Gamification of Disaster

(36:42–43:10)

• The conversation turns to the proliferation of prediction markets (e.g., Polymarket, Kalshi) where people can bet on real-world events, including disasters and tragedies—a development the hosts view as a symptom of extreme social alienation and greed.
  • Ed Zitron [38:30]: “Someone said that ... wagering on people dying should not be legal, which I think is the most moral and correct thing in the world. That’s fucking crazy that we have, like, gambling on this.”
  • The group discusses real examples where press conferences, disasters, and potential rocket explosions are used as betting fodder. The incentive for market manipulation—or worse—is clear: “it’s inevitable that someone uses this to manipulate someone’s murder.”

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5. The State of AI Content: From Failed Ads to Netflix Crud

(52:17–58:44)

• The hosts roast the proliferation of AI-generated ads during (and since) the Super Bowl, with Ed noting that brands are advertising the use of AI as if it’s a feature, not a bug—“It’s crazy how everywhere AI is, everyone loves AI.”
• Juniper highlights Darren Aronofsky’s “On This Day, 1776,” an AI-generated Netflix project whose visuals and continuity errors are so laughably bad that even its marketing collapsed under the weight of negative feedback.
  • Caleb Wilson [55:20]: “There’s a great bit in it where they hand out ‘Common Sense’ and ... it goes from saying America to, like, just Cthulhu language.” 
• Arif notes that the only cases where AI’s “grotesque, uncanny, shifting” aesthetic might actually fit are for surreal, horror, or alienating subjects—but here they’re just “a bad aesthetic.”

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6. Why Does AI Feel So Bad?

(58:44–61:44)

• Ed attempts to articulate the “AI malaise”: AI is being pushed onto society not as a genuinely useful innovation, but as a preordained future that must be embraced, accompanied by a bizarre sense of victimhood among its elite promoters.
  • Ed Zitron [59:51]: “The tech world is like, you will like AI and you will not complain ... and if you do, we are the victim.”
• The group predicts that if (when) AI ambitions flame out due to cost or technical limitation, the boosters will scapegoat the public for “killing” a miraculously inefficient or mediocre industry.

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7. The Voicelessness of AI and the Loss of Culture

(61:44–63:28)

• The panel addresses the soul-deadening quality of AI-generated writing and art: it is voiceless, generic, and lacks the subtle cues of humanity—something instantly recognizable to anyone not fooled by the hype.
  • Arif Hasan [61:44]: “AI writing is grotesquely bad ... it all sounds the exact fucking same ... it has this, like, banal, voiceless kind of [quality].”

8. AI as a Replacement for Human Connection

(62:50–65:04)

• Commentary on people turning to AI for advice, companionship, or dating—seen as emblematic of hollowed-out social structures and the odd places technology is filling gaps it should not.
  • Juniper [63:11]: “If my GPT ever talked to me like that, I would shoot myself tonight.”
• In-jokes on Reddit communities devoted to bemoaning changes in ChatGPT models (“keep4o”), underlining how even “AI-lovers” are demoralized by the output.

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Memorable Quotes

• Ed Zitron [04:56]: “Epic Church … basically an evangelical church for tech-minded people … Peter Thiel is … their Jesus Christ.”
• Caleb Wilson [09:29]: “You could have your favorite band playing wherever you wanted … and you’re like, no, I need to make a fucking blog for centrism.”
• Arif Hasan [14:55]: “Here the word ‘believe’ just serves as … telling us the things that they think we should believe. I don’t really care if they actually believe this. I care that they’re telling people this.”
• Ed Zitron [27:59]: “It has not shown any level of original intelligence ... it’s just a fast database search that pukes back out at you.”
• Caleb Wilson [49:00]: “Profitability is when you make more money than you spend.”
• Ed Zitron [59:51]: “The tech world is like, you will like AI and you will not complain … and if you do, we are the victim.”
• Arif Hasan [61:44]: “AI writing is grotesquely bad ... it all sounds the exact fucking same ... it has this, like, banal, voiceless kind of [quality].”

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Notable and Humorous Moments

• [08:01] Juniper jokes about starting “the One Ring company” and partnering with Palantir—a scathing parody of tech’s love of dystopian sci-fi references.
• [14:47] Caleb describes the joyless life of tech elites: “If I’m sitting alone ... I could name five movies and six video games … These people: ‘I need to take on a new religion. I need to create a pro-centrism blog.’”
• [38:05] Ed: “This is like a NASA one too. Not even like a SpaceX ... disgusting.” (on betting markets for rocket explosions)
• [55:38] Caleb on the Aronofsky AI film: “As they hand out [the pamphlet], as they pick it up, it goes from saying America to, like, just like Cthulhu language.”
• [62:33] Juniper: “It’s not just the food. It’s yummy.” (lampooning AI article closings)
• [66:23] Ed: “This is maybe one of the greatest posts I’ve ever seen. One of the greatest AI posts ever. It’s got every quality of an incredible post that you need here.” (on AI-generated meme images)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Epic Church/Tech Religion: 03:23–07:00
• AI Hysteria, Blogs, and Schumer Dissection: 17:39–33:32
• Prediction Markets & Gambling on Tragedy: 36:42–43:10
• Dario Amodei, AI Economics & Definitions: 48:21–50:46
• The Bad Aesthetics of AI Ads & Content: 52:17–58:44
• Why AI Feels Terrible: 58:44–61:44
• Voiceless, Cultureless AI Text: 61:44–63:28
• Human Relationships with AI, Keep4o: 63:28–65:32

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Conclusion/Takeaway

This episode is a cathartic, darkly funny indictment of current tech trends—calling out Silicon Valley’s obsession with self-mythologizing, the emptiness of viral AI hype, and the ruthless commodification of everything, from news reporting to personal relationships to disaster. The hosts’ ultimate message: beneath all the buzzwords and evangelism, tech’s biggest boosters are advertising little more than their own lack of ideas, taste, or culture—remaking society in their own alienated, joyless image.

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Hosts and Guests’ Plugs:

• Caleb Wilson & Juniper: Kill the Computer (podcast on how the internet spills into real life; subculture analysis)
• Arif Hasan: Wide Left (football podcast and newsletter)

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For more: Visit betteroffline.com or search for “Better Offline” on your podcast app.

Transcript

[Ed Zitron]

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[Arif Hasan]

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[Caleb Wilson]

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[Arif Hasan]

Hey.

[Caleb Wilson]

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[Arif Hasan]

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[Caleb Wilson]

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[Arif Hasan]

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[Ed Zitron]

You can absolutely trust.

[Caleb Wilson]

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[Arif Hasan]

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[Juniper]

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[Sponsor Voice]

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[Juniper]

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[Ed Zitron]

Lending act, conditions and restrictions may apply.

[Caleb Wilson]

Well, this is great. So I was trying to read the intro to my show Better Offline, but Junipers decided that she will be leading us in today. Welcome to Better Offline. That's one of my very rude guests, Juniper from Kill the Computer, who is here with her much less rude co host, Caleb, Caleb Wilson. Caleb, thank you for joining us so far. So far, yes. Yeah, it's a competition. And of course we've got Arif Hasan from Wide Left, the football podcast plus newsletter. Well, we've come in. I brought everyone together today just to complain. And I'm going to complain about the fact that my microphone just fell over. Perfect. Which is annoying. I also want to complain that I wasn't given the opportunity to invest in something called Gary's List, which is. Gary Tan, who currently runs Y Combinator, says we're starting a citizens union for radical centrism. We proved local politics is winnable in San Francisco. Now we're building the community to do it everywhere. News, commentary and accountability for policies that affect California and our society. And I'm just gonna say go fuck yourself, Gary. If you write the words radical centrism, horrible.

[Arif Hasan]

I hate that, man.

[Caleb Wilson]

I just love the status quo.

[Ed Zitron]

So I've actually been looking into, I've been learning a little bit about this guy recently and Y Combinator primarily by proxy of finding out about this place in San Francisco called Epic Church. Are you familiar with this thing called Epic Church?

[Arif Hasan]

What is Epic Church? I'm immediately sold.

[Ed Zitron]

It's really epic. It's bacon. It's the normal. It's cool beans. Yeah, it's all that stuff. But no, basically it's this, this tech positive church, like basically an evangelical church for tech minded people and like founders in the, in the Bay Area. So like people like Trey, what's his name? Trey Stevens go there. Gary Tan goes there. All these like weird fucking awful type people like Peter Thiel, I swear to God, I'm not shitting You. Peter Thiel is like one of the thought leaders of the type of people there. Like, they.

[Arif Hasan]

How are we spelling thought?

[Ed Zitron]

Actually thought T, H, O, T. That's thought leaders specific. Yeah, but no, it's like the worst kind of person in the tech world. Getting evangelical. Like, they're like turning dogma, man.

[Sponsor Voice]

They do.

[Juniper]

This is actually. This is where Peter Thiel got the idea to like, create Clavicular. He's like, I need a new holy bloodboard.

[Ed Zitron]

He is their Jesus Christ. Clavicular is their. Their virgin's birth.

[Arif Hasan]

We're Christmaxing now, but it's like a whole thing now, right? Where like, people who were, like, typically associated with movements that might be humanist or atheist or whatever you want to call it, have, like, because they're old white men, have turned into like, embracing some version of Christianity, right? Like, even Richard Dawkins, like, the atheist supreme or whatever, the hat he wears is like, well, I'm a cultural Christian. And like, all of them have just been moving.

[Caleb Wilson]

What the cultural Christian is.

[Arif Hasan]

I don't.

[Caleb Wilson]

American, I guess.

[Arif Hasan]

I. Look, he's a piece of shit, and any way he can kind of communicate that, I think he'll take those opportunities. But like, the, the tech God church feels perfect for that. I don't know. I feel like we've used the meme don't create the torment nexus, like, way too often, but it just like every time you explain something new about what's happening in the world, like some tech billionaire has read something from a sci fi novel and has taken like, the wrong lesson from it, like, again and again, it's like, oh, yeah, we've started a church to worship technology. Oh, no.

[Ed Zitron]

Literally. Best example of this. Sorry, you can go on. Best example of this. Just because he's been on my mind a lot recently and I read a lot about his antichrist, like, tour that he's been doing. But Peter Thiel, he read the philosopher Rene Girard and he came away with the exact opposite interpretation, I think, of what you're supposed to take away from this philosopher, which is that like, society and powerful people use scapegoats to, like, political scapegoats, to put blame on certain people, to get whatever political end that you want. And that's like a cautionary tale. It's like a cautionary tale against scapegoats. Yeah. Peter Thiel, he's like, wait, but scapegoats are kind of goated, though. Like, literally, like, we can use them to our advantage.

[Juniper]

Is this a bad time for me to announce that I'm launching my new company that's called the Ring from Lord of the Rings.

[Ed Zitron]

The one Ring. The one Ring. And you're partnering with surveillance company. You're partnering with Palantir.

[Juniper]

Yeah, under my company, all the surveillance companies will use Night.

[Caleb Wilson]

Here's the thing with this Gary's List thing. I've been clicking around. He writes so often, like, he posts like an article a day.

[Ed Zitron]

So this is a blog that he runs.

[Caleb Wilson]

I guess as well as that. But also it's not safe.

[Arif Hasan]

Emily's List for perverts. Like, what is Gary's List?

[Caleb Wilson]

It appears to be a blog in which he complains.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay, we need more of those. We need more subtracts like that.

[Caleb Wilson]

Complaining, but also a degree of. It's like complaining but also saying he cares about centrism. And then he's like, AI just ported SimCity in four days without reading the fucking. Just what makes me want to put a gun in my mouth?

[Arif Hasan]

Is this like he's attempting to wrangle Andrew Yang as like a guest poster or something?

[Caleb Wilson]

I just don't know what possible.

[Arif Hasan]

Like, I'm still stuck on the list idea. Why is it called list? I'm actually kind of mad about this.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's a list of his posts. That appears to be it.

[Arif Hasan]

I just.

[Caleb Wilson]

This guy is a billionaire.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Caleb Wilson]

I assume that means he has tens of millions of dollars liquid. You could do so much with that. You could do pretty much anything. You could have your favorite chef make a meal. I assume you eat those and you could have your favorite band playing at the same time wherever you wanted to in the world. And you're like, no, I need to make a fucking blog for centrism. Yeah, let's protect centrism from something.

[Ed Zitron]

It looks like he's very anti union. He's complaining about in one of these articles about how 30,000 kids are pawns in a union war that won't even help the teachers. Yeah, no, he is. It's exactly. He's the kind of guy. But that's the thing is like every. I feel like not, you know, maybe not every, but like the majority of the most influential tech. Tech Silicon Valley person these days are turning to evangelical religion. They complain about how there's not enough centrism in the world today while they benefit and like, simultaneously they benefit and work with the Trump administration. So, like, what do you. What are they. What are they even complaining about at the end of the day? And what do they mean? Yeah, what do they even really mean? I think they just mean that they don't like really what I think it is is I think they just don't like that people don't like them as much as people used to. These people are mad that no one's really falling for the AI grift of like, oh, it's going to simultaneously, AI is going to replace all of our jobs, but simultaneously make the world a better place. Like no one's really falling for that. And I think they're mad about that. I think these people are genuinely upset.

[Arif Hasan]

AI is in its gentleman science era.

[Caleb Wilson]

What the fuck does that. What do you mean?

[Ed Zitron]

What do you mean the gentleman science.

[Arif Hasan]

It's a four minute read from Gary Tan, who.

[Ed Zitron]

Come on.

[Arif Hasan]

Okay, so this is beautiful, right? Because all of the, all of the images in this article are obviously AI generated as for all of these articles, right, because if you're going to have an ethos being a cheap piece of shit, you might as well embrace it. But in it it has a jar labeled maple syrup. Yeah. What the is it and what is in the jar? No idea what what is in the jar, but it is not maple syrup.

[Caleb Wilson]

We'll include a link to this because it is just. It's wonderful because it's just a bucket with maple syrup in it, I assume.

[Arif Hasan]

But also like bits o rings and or gaskets or something.

[Ed Zitron]

It looks like a Chardin era is what it looks like. It looks like it has like some carrots in it. I don't know.

[Arif Hasan]

Very Chicago pilled they call it.

[Caleb Wilson]

Tldr of this article is LLMs have reset the. Reset the research game. The biggest breakthroughs are simply ideas anyone can try. And the easy questions haven't been answered yet. To which I say, what the fuck are you talking about? What do you mean? The biggest breakthroughs are simple ideas, but the easy questions haven't been answered yet.

[Ed Zitron]

Come on, what does that even mean?

[Caleb Wilson]

I don't know, I just. This guy's a billionaire. He could do anything. Like he could hire a good writer. Like for example, I can't get over.

[Arif Hasan]

The idea that the gentleman. That the issue is that science is too hard.

[Caleb Wilson]

Like, well, I mean that is kind of the issue of science in general.

[Arif Hasan]

Well, that's a good thing though. We've gotten past the part of science that is easy, which means we have made advancements and you have to study science to be good. I don't. This feels. What the fuck are we doing?

[Ed Zitron]

He wants every dope to be able to advance the field which like, I.

[Juniper]

Guess in theory, science in the hands of a dullard like me, I'm going to start the One Ring company.

[Ed Zitron]

If you do that, you'll accidentally create a black hole with a hadron collider. Like you will do that.

[Juniper]

I'm just saying, dude, Elon Musk is the richest man on the planet and he is so fucking stupid. But I could be worse.

[Ed Zitron]

Speaking of him, he's another person that's embraced this like, soft religion aesthetic. He was in an interview with Katie Miller. Of course, you need more demons around talking to people like Elon Musk. And he's like, yeah, you know, I believe in God. You know, I do believe in a creator. And it's like all of this. I guess the reason I've been focusing so much on that in particular recently with all of these people, like Gary Tan, all of these people is it's all happening at the same time. They're all sort of doing this weird embrace of evangelical religion. All sort of. It's started before Trump became president.

[Caleb Wilson]

Have ideas.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, but it's. I don't know if it's like a cope thing I've been fucking.

[Arif Hasan]

I think some of it might be. And this might be just doing too much like armchair pop psychology, but like, I think some of it is that in order to kind of proselytize for AI, in order to evangelize their own kind of element or this thing, they have to put themselves in a frame of mind that allows them to believe in the kind of powerful myth making that is analogous to religion. Especially because some of these singularity people, which is not necessarily the same as some of these AI people, but there's a lot of overlap, do believe that AI will become God. Right. Like a backwards looking God, you know.

[Caleb Wilson]

I don't think these people believe in anything.

[Arif Hasan]

Sure.

[Caleb Wilson]

I just, like, that's kind of like. But I guess that it's just a convenient label to.

[Arif Hasan]

Right. Yeah. Here the word believe just serves as like an analog for telling us the things that they think we should believe. Right. Like, I don't really care if they actually believe this. I care that they're telling people this.

[Juniper]

Well, there was a really good profile on Peter Thiel, I think it was in Wired about how he uses like Christian, apocalyptic, end times imagery in a lot of his speeches. And I was really interested in all that which we talked about on our show, June.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, that's the. The piece about Rene Gerard, the. The philosopher that he like. Sort of. Go on. Sorry.

[Juniper]

Yeah, that's it just he does that and then Gerard and know he's very big on Carl Schmidt. I'll let you if you know who that is.

[Arif Hasan]

God.

[Caleb Wilson]

This comes back to a very simple thing for me, which is these are not things you do if you have anything you enjoy. Yeah, if so, if I. If I'm sitting alone, it's been a long day. I have. I can name five movies and six video games. I could, I could. I've been weary watching Person of Interest. Excellent show. Makes me so happy. Watching with my girlfriend. It's awesome. Drink a Diet Coke with her. Wow, I feel awesome. These people, like, I need to take on a new religion. I need to create a pro centrism blog, and only then will I possibly be happy. It's just, it's just, I would say it was sad if I cared for these people in any way, shape or form. It's just, I hear, oh, they're into religion. No, they're not. They just, they. They sit around like bored, tugging on their winkies, going, oh, what's going on in the world? Jesus was real. The God was too. GPU, we've got 100 GPUs. He put the GPS together. It could make a AGI. I don't know what that really means, but anyway, who's in your email inbox, Peter?

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, Jeffrey Epstein.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah. By the way, here is the thing. I'll say jmail. I think the people who made J mail should get a Pulitzer for sure. The people that made JMail, which is the searchable Epstein database, really, really. Like, they deserve a Pulitzer here. And also, so does the guy who. The final email that Jeffrey Epstein received on jeeprojectahoo.com was just like a totally Cody Rudland. And he said, lol, good riddance. And the subject was your dad.

[Ed Zitron]

Buzzer be so much incredible work, dude.

[Caleb Wilson]

He buzzer be Jeffrey Epstein. Also, Jeffrey Epstein got invited to a Michael Clayton screening. Anyway, I don't want to get into Epstein because I know that'll be all right.

[Arif Hasan]

It's a whole different thing.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's just we're in such a weird spot at the moment with all this AI shit as well, because there was that Something Big is Happening piece.

[Ed Zitron]

I wanted to kill myself with that.

[Arif Hasan]

Oh, I haven't heard about this. I also want to be in a state where I'm going to kill myself. Tell me.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah, well, it's a piece by this guy who's like a scammer who. Guy called Matt Schumer, who back in 2024 claimed his reflection 70B.

[Arif Hasan]

Wait, is this, is this when the AI, like, tried to post something to, like, GitHub and it got rejected.

[Caleb Wilson]

No, no, that's a different thing entirely.

[Ed Zitron]

That was the scam the week before. Yeah, that was the scam.

[Caleb Wilson]

No, no, that one I'll get to in a second, though. This was the one where it was like a 4700 word blog. That's my phone.

[Arif Hasan]

Oh, I read it. No, never mind. I did read this. Yeah.

[Juniper]

I did put it into a good book.

[Arif Hasan]

That was so awesome. I remember 4700 because I put it into a word counter. Yep. Because I was like, what the fuck is this? Yeah, no, it sucks. But yeah, we have listeners. They should also know what this is.

[Caleb Wilson]

I mean, they heard about it on the monologue last week. So they're all. And then most people said, don't. Don't worry about being angry. And one person was like, you need to be less angry. It's just. I think we're entering like a hysteria zone. And I Actually, my favorite thing about that blog by far was watching two or three other people try and do similar blogs and just nothing happened. People being like, actually, yeah, it's actually crazier than this. It's actually even bigger and crazier.

[Ed Zitron]

I think the thing that I thought was even weirder about that piece is there was a lot of people I do genuinely respect that shared that piece, and they were like, oh, my God, everyone needs to read this. Typically, very skeptical people that have very good takes.

[Juniper]

Chris Hayes, dude.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Like all these people. Chris Hayes, Sheriff.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Juniper]

Yes. I got people mad at me because I said some nuts. So nice things about my friend Chris Hayes. But you know what? If you take that shit credulously, you're a dullard. I'm sorry, Chris, you blew that one.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Arif Hasan]

The thing about this article that, like, really gets me. Article, blog post, unvetted piece of AI because it is clearly written by AI, by the way. Like, I. Which should not be shocking given that it's an AI evangelism piece. Of course it's written by AI. Which, by the way, cleveland.com released like an editor's thing today. Oh, God.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah, we'll get to that in a second.

[Arif Hasan]

They turned. Or a journalism candidate, it had turned down a job with them. Because the cleveland.com is like the newspaper of Cleveland. Right. And a student who was trying to get a job with them turned down the job because they don't have reporters writing articles. They have an AI rewrite specialist who turns their material into drafts. They just have the reporters do, like, sourcing and quote gathering and stuff like that. Feed into an AI.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, dude.

[Arif Hasan]

And the editorial explaining this and explaining that journalism schools are failing students by making them think they should write is also obviously written by AI. But back to this article by Schumer. So it is obviously written by AI, but it keeps on coming up with these examples that are contextually actually very poor examples of the thing that they're trying to demonstrate. But there's a million of them, right? It's like a gish gallop of AI benchmarks that are meant to create this sense that AI is like the, like, smarter than PhDs or pass the bar exam. And it's like. Well, when you. Sorry.

[Caleb Wilson]

Also PhDs listen to this, and I will say this.

[Arif Hasan]

Not very smart people. I know a few.

[Caleb Wilson]

You've not met enough PhDs. If you're like PhD level Intel. Not to say there are every PhD is stupid, but not to say every PhD is smart either.

[Arif Hasan]

Well, okay, I will. I'll say this. Ben Carson is a gifted neurosurgeon. Right? Like, think about that. Well, was. Was. But like, think about that.

[Ed Zitron]

People have their special moron, right?

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah. And PhDs are incredibly talented within. But like, even with analogous specialists, like, we've seen PhDs in, like, chemistry go come out and write books about how, like, AIDS isn't real. Right. Like, chemistry is pretty close to biology. You still got that fucking wrong. Right. But regardless of like, that, like, stuff like pass the bar exam is like, in the thing. And it's like, contextually, it's actually not that interesting because they passed something called the universal bar exam, which no individual state use. There's like a million other things.

[Caleb Wilson]

Also the best. But the best thing in it was him saying that he cited this meta metr study.

[Arif Hasan]

Oh, it doesn't even say it.

[Caleb Wilson]

Well, no, no, but what's great about it is it's like, it's like tasks that an AI can do the involve it working autonomously for hours, hours and hours. Right. When you go and click on it, it's actually tasks that it succeeds at 50% of the time.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah. The meta article, or whatever it was, is absolutely mischaracterized. Like, egregiously mischaracterized. Like, to the point if we had journalism still and this was run in a newspaper that cared about stuff which. What a bygone era that we pretended.

[Ed Zitron]

To have so said.

[Caleb Wilson]

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It's sort of become a fun side hobby, right Scrolling listings at night, dreaming about kitchens you've never seen or backyards you haven't even stepped foot in. All from the comfort of pretty much anywhere. Redfin knows a lot of people like you want to own but are stuck in this browsing mode loop that's where Redfin flips the script. With listings that update within minutes and tours you can book right from the Redfin app, you can see your dream home the moment it appears. Now, liking a listing is easy, but actually landing it, that's where Redfin comes in. Redfin has over 2200 agents with local expertise. And Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. That means they want to help you win. Not just window shop. Redfin is built to help you go from just looking to wait. This could actually be home. So become the newest neighbor on the block. Visit redfin.com to start finding and start owning. That's redfin.com running a business is hard.

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[Ed Zitron]

Another part of this like whole conversation is that the thing that's been pissing me off for a while now, but especially recently with this like increased hysteria around like oh, AI is like the big thing is going to happen soon is it's like people keep saying that it's smart, that it's, that it's going to be smarter than humans, maybe even that it is smarter than humans already. When it's like there is no. Unless I'm missing something, it has not shown any level of original intelligence. What it can do is that it's just more very efficiently combing through databases of words and like just information. It's very efficient at that. But that doesn't prove intelligence as far as I'm aware. So whenever people say AI is intelligent, I lose my fucking mind. Because it's not. It's just Fast. It's a fast database search that just like pukes back out at you.

[Juniper]

I do have a counterpoint to that.

[Caleb Wilson]

What is it?

[Ed Zitron]

Okay, yeah.

[Juniper]

A Matt Schumer specific character.

[Arif Hasan]

Please, please.

[Juniper]

Ed posted on Blue sky the other day that he was the guy who made that awful video game, this is the future.

[Caleb Wilson]

Oh, yeah. If you've seen this, listeners, it's the video game thing where it's like. It's like two minutes and just. It is insane. Like, the UX changes.

[Arif Hasan]

Oh, yes.

[Ed Zitron]

You remember that? Wait, the game, the. Oh, yes.

[Arif Hasan]

And like the guy falls off the. The bridge and. And the guy's like, really impressed that the AI put him back on a bridge. But it's a completely new bridge and a completely new fucking castle and a completely new town.

[Ed Zitron]

Lakitu could do that in Mario 6430 years ago, dude. Like, come on.

[Arif Hasan]

Today.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yes, you can vibe code. Here's how to get started. Fucking stop. And it's like you go and look. It's like, sample task. Merge files. Extract information. Clean and convert files. Fix finicky images. Get rid of garbage. Well, I'm fucking reading some. And it's. I just feel like we're in this hysteria mode where just every day there's just this bizarre escalation of like, wow, AI is so powerful. And look, it's replacing workers. But then you click on the article, it's like, well, fields that involve maybe being affected by AI have seen less entry level hires and that will be on the front of the financial times. Like, that's just like, that's what we're doing. Every other era of actual innovation, they'd be like, yeah, you can like you have a dslr. Perhaps not dslr, but like a very nice camera and a phone. Look at the photos. Look how good the photos are. Wow, this phone can. Can use email now. That's a huge deal. This is like. Yeah, if you squint really hard, it's almost something.

[Arif Hasan]

I think the thing that gets me is if you. Which I'm sure someone has done this. If you take this Schumer article and feed it into an AI and said, hey, can you produce a counter article that goes point blank? It would be equally as compelling, right?

[Caleb Wilson]

Yes, probably more so.

[Ed Zitron]

That's an interesting idea. Actually. I don't like using AI, but I would love to see that.

[Caleb Wilson]

I will be honest. I actually did that.

[Arif Hasan]

Perfect. See?

[Ed Zitron]

Oh my.

[Caleb Wilson]

Did it using his own. His actually his own thing. Let's see. Let's see if I got this. Yeah, because I did it In I pulled up hyper, right, which is his dog shit. His dog shit AI startup. And it basically said, yeah, you know, it's mostly just hype. I don't have it in front of me. I'm sorry, I don't, I didn't prepare journalism ad. I know, I know. I've already had to.

[Arif Hasan]

Good thing we have a real journalist Jim here too.

[Caleb Wilson]

Here's me, actually. This is just me straight up complaining, which I know is different to usual. I write like 10 to 15,000 word analyses of things and I am so detailed and I go through years of earnings and shit and this guy's like, wow, you know, the computer's just fucking so crazy now, bro. And like, do you read that? Like AI is learning from itself and like, it's amazing, like, and look at this. And people are coming themselves reading it. They're like, they're like, we need this guy on national television. And then he's, then he says, oh, I'm not trying to scare people. Fuck you, you little worm.

[Arif Hasan]

So Ed, I, I do have a question about these AI because I don't get these AI startups. I know you don't fundamentally understand, but I think you know more than me, which is I. If there's only like eight or nine, like models out there, like deep sea. Yeah, Kimmy. And what, what the fuck is an AI start? Like, they, they take these models and they what, give us a prompt beforehand so it's better organized for the tech. Okay.

[Caleb Wilson]

From the very, from the very lowest AI startup to the most successful ones, like any sphere who makes cursor, it is much more complex at the top end, but it is prompt engineering. It is finding ways to translate what you say to it into a prompt that the model will then use to do something like one of like the.

[Arif Hasan]

Eight or nine existing models, like Deepseek and.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay, which is what's really funny with.

[Caleb Wilson]

This guy's thought of though Hyperrite, which is by a company called Otherside AI, is they raised $2.6 million in, let's see, in November 12, 2020. Then they raised another. See other side. Another 2.8 million in March 2023. Where the fuck is the money?

[Ed Zitron]

Where is it? Where is it?

[Arif Hasan]

Where'd it go when you used it? Did you pay for it?

[Caleb Wilson]

No. God, no.

[Arif Hasan]

So, yeah, okay, now, yeah, that's a great question. What the fuck?

[Caleb Wilson]

No, I truly don't know. And it's, it's a. The current iter. This is from 2023, the current iteration of hyperrite, which is a Chrome Extension with personalization and context awareness launched in early 2022.

[Ed Zitron]

It's a Chrome Extension.

[Caleb Wilson]

This is the fucking guy. This is the guy. This is. And I think it just shows that none of these AI boosters actually believe in anything because I don't know, when I see someone doing AI criticism and they're just making shit up, I'm like, hey, don't do that. It weakens our argument. These people, like, yeah, just lying.

[Arif Hasan]

Just.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's fine.

[Arif Hasan]

Just.

[Ed Zitron]

Wow.

[Caleb Wilson]

I agree. I saw Alexis Ohanian talking about it. One of my favorite guys who's just fallen from. Fallen from grace. Like, his big previous investment was this thing called Doodles.

[Arif Hasan]

Doodles.

[Caleb Wilson]

NFT that he claims to be bigger than.

[Arif Hasan]

Nft.

[Caleb Wilson]

Nft.

[Ed Zitron]

No.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah, he's like a big NFT guy, I feel.

[Arif Hasan]

Do we think Doodles is better or worse than Vee Friends?

[Caleb Wilson]

What's Vee Friends? Oh, Gary Vee's thing. No, no, it's. It's Vee Friends is the Gary Vaynerchuk. What is Gary Vaynerchuk doing if he isn't an AI?

[Arif Hasan]

He's an AI We. I don't even have to look that up. I. In my bones.

[Caleb Wilson]

I. Yeah, I.

[Arif Hasan]

He also has.

[Juniper]

He's the one that looks really sick all the time. Right, Gary?

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah, he's not like doing enough in your life or whatever.

[Caleb Wilson]

He sounds like Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

[Ed Zitron]

Why do. Why do these tech people, despite being like a lot of like very health focused to like a degree that is unnerving, they always look sickly. They always look just very wet and sickly and moist.

[Arif Hasan]

Well, Brian Johnson, I think did that on purpose. Like, I think he wants to look like that.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And he succeeded. He is really good at looking very sickly and wet.

[Caleb Wilson]

So I think what it is is these people in my experience work insane hours.

[Ed Zitron]

Now.

[Caleb Wilson]

Work is a kind of a relative term, but like they're in meetings or dinners or lunches or whatever or just staring at X the everything app 24 7.

[Ed Zitron]

That's hard work. That's a lot, dude.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah, let's not knock that one.

[Caleb Wilson]

No, I mean, like, I can't judge someone for doing that. But like, they don't have a time when they're sitting around like taking an edible and watching youtubes of manual cats, like palace cats.

[Arif Hasan]

Right.

[Caleb Wilson]

They don't have joy in their lives like that, but they are working.

[Arif Hasan]

They emerge from that process tired and.

[Caleb Wilson]

Wet because they're tired and damp. Just like, just like visibly moist. Visibly moist or terrifyingly. Dry.

[Juniper]

They all look like they have a disease that they have to explain to.

[Sponsor Voice]

You that you've never heard of while.

[Juniper]

You just look at your phone and you're like, damn, dude, that's crazy.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yes. Yeah, man, that's crazy.

[Ed Zitron]

Doesn't Jordan Peterson have one of those diseases that's just like sort of low key fake? Like his daughter's like, yeah, he has this thing and then you look into it and it's just like sort of fake or something like that.

[Juniper]

It's called adhd, June.

[Caleb Wilson]

Jesus Christ.

[Arif Hasan]

Okay, I was under the impression that she had induced it. So that's, that's, which is slightly different than fake.

[Juniper]

Oh yeah, his cider psychosis.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. He has some weird shit going on. He has a ton of different things happening.

[Caleb Wilson]

I just, it's just no one happy would defend a corporation this much. Like, I, I, I say this as reading forums of people arguing about video games for years. I, even then the idea of being so desperate to protect the idea that corporations can make more money is so very fucking sad. But it's kind of, it's turned into everything now. I mean, I saw on Twitter the other day people gambling on traffic.

[Ed Zitron]

Why, why, why, why, why? I don't understand. That's so awesome.

[Arif Hasan]

What is the target function? Like, how do you, how does the book verify that you won or lost your bet?

[Caleb Wilson]

It's one of the, I don't think this is like a particularly nuanced bet. Like, it's like, it's like people gambling. Let's see how many cars will go through in a particular period.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, people need hobbies, man.

[Arif Hasan]

You gotta call the hotline, man.

[Caleb Wilson]

That's not, I'm quoting Will Manaker of Chapo here who posted this about a sport where guys just run into each other.

[Juniper]

Oh, yeah, I've seen that.

[Caleb Wilson]

And his post was just, this is the sport they watch in Robocop. And it's like, it's like, it's just RoboCop stuff now. It's just prediction markets. I saw. Oh, God, we're gonna do a prediction market episode. We've got a bloke from Barons coming on. Yeah, it's fucking great. I love prediction markets.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, they're getting worse. They're getting so, so, so bad.

[Caleb Wilson]

Where someone was talking about betting and whether a rocket would explode.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, the new, the rocket. That's. I don't know when it's launching, but it was, yeah, that like someone. I screenshot this reply in particular from polymarket. Let me Find it really quick. I swear I just did it. And I'm gonna.

[Arif Hasan]

I'm gonna. This is like a NASA one too. Not even like a SpaceX.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, it was disgusting.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah, it's Polymarket and all. Like, I don't know how long all of that will work. Like, how long before that gets outlawed by someone. But I think something that might accelerate that process is someone getting killed because of it.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah, yeah.

[Juniper]

Like Gary Busey's awful son in contact is gonna blow up that rocket, dude.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah. Like, so. So what I saw, someone said that, sorry to be a scold, but wagering on people dying should not be legal, which I think is the most moral and correct thing in the world. That's fucking crazy that we have, like, gambling on this.

[Arif Hasan]

Sorry to be pissy here, but I'm gonna.

[Ed Zitron]

No, that person is crying the sand. Yeah, very, very good take, person. I. Yeah, great take. But then polymarket replied to that saying, to clarify, this was a market about a potential booster stage rupture, a defined hardware failure scenario, not about the Orion crew capsule or astronaut safety. This was not a market on crew injury or loss of life. But, like, I don't know, man. I feel like if you are gambling on any stage of this sort of exploding disaster, that's sort of gambling on disaster. We saw that there was gambling and prediction markets about Palisades fire, how long it was going to last, how far it was going to reach. So, like, the idea that people gamble on disasters is not like, oh, wow, this took us by surprise that a lot of people thought this would happen. It's been happening for over a year now. People have been gambling on disasters for over a year now.

[Caleb Wilson]

Well, Nick Devore is the bloke from Barristers who's going to join us. And as in not today. Don't worry. Just going to punch. Just fucking like a halftime substitution.

[Ed Zitron]

He's here right now.

[Caleb Wilson]

He made the point it's like, like inevitable that someone uses this to manipulate someone's murder. Like, they create a market where someone says, okay, yeah, you're going to like this. Will this person live or die on May 13? And on some level, it's like, this will encourage someone to get killed. Like, I know this sounds extreme, but Polymart Nick also made this point where it's like, Polymarket already encourages insider trademark.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah, I mean, we saw this with. With like, in addition to the Maduro stuff. Right. But we saw this with like Pam Bondi's press conference times where she got within like 30 seconds of that, which says like, you could say the market set that really well, but I'm not going to say that. I think that she knew someone was going to make money on the under. Right.

[Caleb Wilson]

Well, what was the. What was the.

[Ed Zitron]

It was.

[Arif Hasan]

It was how long a particular press conference on a particular day would go. And it's like, you know, a couple hours and then some. And she abruptly, like, in the middle of, like, a sentence, she just shut it down. 30 seconds within. Within 30 seconds of, like, the timeline to hit the mark. And so a bunch of people who had. We shouldn't say bet on the owner because it's not betting. Right. Who had. Who had purchased contract shares on the event, result of it being less than the certain amount of time, made a ton of money off of it. Yeah. So, like, people are already either actively manipulating it or not doing anything to prevent the appearance of manipulating it. Like when Giannis Tetokupo for the Milwaukee Bucks, who's now, like, on the chair or something for Kalshi.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, he's a chair. A board member of Kalshee now.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah.

[Arif Hasan]

So, like, he had, like, demanded a trade, it sounded like, from the Bucks to an organization that'll actually win games, which is understandable. And there was this whole trade market, and Kashi had a bunch of different markets for Giannis and where he was going to go and whether or not he was going to stay. And ultimately he didn't get traded. He stayed with the Bucks. And everybody who had bet that he was going to stay with the Bucks had made a ton of money. And then right after that, he announced he was on the board of Kalshi. And it's like, I don't know that Giannis or any of his entourage or whoever put any money on. On any of these things, but that sure looks fucking awful, right?

[Ed Zitron]

They probably did. I would be. I would bet that on Kalshi.

[Arif Hasan]

I would imagine.

[Juniper]

I would bet.

[Ed Zitron]

I would take that bet on Kalshi that they did.

[Caleb Wilson]

I just. I every. I think that there is goodness in our future and that good things will happen, but I think on the way there, there are going to be. There's going to be something called the Kalshee Mur.

[Arif Hasan]

Maybe.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.

[Caleb Wilson]

There's good. Like, we already. We've already. Thankfully, I've got to use my. My term, son. Son of Sam Altman for an AI psychosis murder.

[Arif Hasan]

I mean, very sad because, I mean, like, no, terrible, but also, like, terrible.

[Caleb Wilson]

But also, like, nice, nice. But it's just. It feels like we're in this Weird gulf where everyone is desperately trying all the money is trying to pretend that all of this is so fucking sick. When you look at it, even as a booster, it's like great coding. Faster, I guess.

[Arif Hasan]

Yay.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's also so expensive and no one wants. No one wants to do the math.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Arif Hasan]

That's like. The other thing about this is like all of the booster arguments for AI coming for different industries and jobs or being able to perform different tasks or whatever. Right. All of the arguments about its increasing capability rely on an assumption that the progress, quote, unquote, progress as measured by their own benchmarks anyway, that is made so far will continue at an exponential rate in the same way that we envision technology tends to. Which is not really like. If you look at the progress of battery technology, it does not follow the same fucking. It's just not like that. But the way that people seem to imagine technology is this like crazy exponential. It spikes up. And so they. They put that assumption right. Yeah, exactly.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's just when you look at the chart, disco sales will go off.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah. It'll just double every year. Yeah. But people will assume this and they'll make the argument that it will without understanding what it took to get to the shitty place it is now and how we're at the edge of that. Like we can't actually devote more resources to make these models better matter.

[Sponsor Voice]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures.

Let's talk about modern home shopping. It's sort of become a fun side hobby, right? Scrolling listings at night, dreaming about kitchens you've never seen or backyards you haven't even stepped foot in. All from the comfort of pretty much anywhere. Redfin knows a lot of people like you want to own but are stuck in this browsing mode loop. That's where Redfin flips the script. With listings that update within minutes and tours you can book right from the Redfin app, you can see your dream home the moment it appears. Now, liking a listing is easy, but actually landing it, that's where Redfin comes in. Redfin has over 2200 agents with local expertise. And Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. That means they want to help you win, not just window shop. Redfin is built to help you go from just looking to wait. This could actually be home. So become the newest neighbor on the block. Visit redfin.com to start finding and start owning. That's redfin.com running a business is hard.

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[Ed Zitron]

An Olympics you'll never forget. Prime time in Milan the moments flowing. Kim with the gold medal Flex the stars. Ilya Malinin out of this world the.

[Arif Hasan]

Spectacle from beautiful northern Italy with very.

[Ed Zitron]

Special guests Every night of the Olympics experience the world's biggest show. Prime time in Milan tonight 87 Central.

[Caleb Wilson]

On NBC and Peacock. So what's funny is there was because Matt Hughes, who's my editor who long suffering.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah, poor guy.

[Caleb Wilson]

By which I mean I made no I made him watch a two and a half hour long Dario Amade interview. Sorry, sorry, Matt. But he found one fascinating quote in here. This is Wario Amadei, CEO of Anthropic. Even though a part of my brain wonders if it's going to keep growing 10x, I can't buy $1 trillion a year of compute in 2027. If I'm off by a year in that rate of growth, or if the growth rate is 5x a year instead of 10x a year, then you go bankrupt. And previously he said if my revenue is not $1 trillion, if it's even 800 billion, there's no force on earth, there's no hedge on earth that could stop me from going bankrupt if I buy that much computer. I want to be clear. Well, no, this, this interview, by the way, is fucking sick. It's so funny.

[Arif Hasan]

What's that?

[Caleb Wilson]

He, he uses this example where he says he has.

[Arif Hasan]

He.

[Caleb Wilson]

He describes having better than 50% gross margins, but that's because the way he evaluates gross margins is based on how much a model costs to train and how much the model made money. Like how much money.

[Arif Hasan]

He separates out the training cost in the inference cost and buckets out future training cost against a different margin. And so like if I, you know, if you did Sonnet like 4.5 or whatever, the amount of revenue Sonnet 4.5 brings in is greater than the inference plus training cost of Sonnet 4.5. And he's ignoring the training cost of like 4.6, which is like 10 times larger. And it always needs to be.

[Caleb Wilson]

He's ignoring the reinforcement learning and the updates they have to do, which is also a training cost. But actually, I take it back. Here is how Dario Amadi talks about profitability. Let me quote him here. Profitability is this kind of weird thing in this field. I don't think in this field profitability is actually a measure of spending down versus investing up in biz in the business. I actually think profitability happens when you underestimated the amount of demand you were going to get. And loss happens when you've overestimated the amount of demand you were going to get because you're buying the data centers ahead of time. No, Dario, profitability is when you make more money than you spend.

[Arif Hasan]

You underestimated the. That's such like a fake smart guy way to say that.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, I like that. They can have their own Mac.

[Arif Hasan]

Amount of demand you were going to get, like, yeah, I guess the price would go up in a world where Your supply doesn't meet demand.

[Ed Zitron]

They unlocked capitalism too, and they unlocked a new version of profitability. That's awesome.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah. He said that these are stylized facts.

[Arif Hasan]

What?

[Caleb Wilson]

That is his term, dog.

[Ed Zitron]

See, I hate these people. I hate these people.

[Sponsor Voice]

No, I just.

[Caleb Wilson]

If I'm an investor and I read my investment saying stylized facts are. I'm stylizing a 9 millimeter in my mouth.

[Ed Zitron]

Like.

[Caleb Wilson]

It'S just like I, I am. I think things are going to get crazier. Not in the actual outcomes, but the things they're going to start promising. Like, I can't. I hope anthropic tries to go public just so I can see what insane definition of gross margin they have. Cuz I don't think it's like revenue minus cogs. I think It's a model plus N plus divided by 70 divided by 7,000 plus 2 million plus 1. And they're like, yep, look, numbers higher than last year. What do you think? And the investors who just are, I assume, catatonic, like they're pitched in their sleep. I just, it's all gonna, I don't see how this doesn't come down. I'm just like, look, every time I look at the numbers I feel crazy. But when I read their definitions from. They just go, yeah, just, you know, work out.

[Ed Zitron]

So I don't know if you guys have been noticing this particularly since also I know you guys like this football. The Super Bowl. Ever since the super bowl, yeah. Brand new to you, but there was a ton of AI generated ads in the Super Bowl. Since then I have seen three different companies. One of them being Liquid Death, another being Noodles and Company.

[Arif Hasan]

Oh God.

[Ed Zitron]

And another one, I'm blanking on what the other one I saw was, but I saw this is after the super bowl, different companies using AI generated fucking ads. And they're horrible, they're horrifying, they're awful. They're so bad they don't make me want to even look at the brands anymore. And it's like my theory, I haven't confirmed this, I haven't looked into it, but I'm assuming a lot of these AI generative AI models, these companies, whoever runs it, are striking deals with these companies to do like, hey, make this next ad campaign entirely on us. Entirely on us. Because in these ads they do mention that they're AI generated. I think the, the Noodles and Company once says it like in the corner, it's like AI, there's like a little pun. It's been a minute since I've seen it. But there's like, a little pun to be like, oh, it's AI. So I think these are like, very obviously ad campaigns to try to be like, hey, wow, AI is everywhere, isn't it? It's crazy how everywhere AI is, everyone loves AI.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's an attempt to change, just get attention. Because, like, it's basically like, look how much this sucks, but would cost us a lot of money.

[Arif Hasan]

Well, that's what. That's explicitly what Liquid Death did in their ad. Right? They. They were, like, very, like, they thought they could kind of get away with being, like, tongue in cheek about using AI And. And it, like, kind of fits their brand image to be kind of irreverent or whatever. And so then they made a terrifying, horrifying, uncomfortable ad. The worst about was it their energy drink.

[Ed Zitron]

Wait, wait, it's just one of their drinks.

[Caleb Wilson]

Have you seen The Darren Aronofsky AI generated thing 17 this day in 1776. So if you haven't heard about this, dear listeners, unbelievably big fucking hack. Darren Aronofsky is making a. He's making a thing called on this day, 1776. A is telling the story of America's first meme. I didn't learn any American history. I'm not going to start today. They handed out some shit to some people, I guess, just like there's some historian. This thing is like you.

[Arif Hasan]

No, no, no. My understanding of. Of 1776 is that it's a John Boyce piece.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With the really low football fields. No. So this movie, it's. It's called on this day, 1776, America's first meme is born. When Thomas Paine arrives from England, he is encouraged by Benjamin Franklin to write what others hesitate to say. The resulting pamphlet sends ripples through from the colonies to the other side of the Atlantic. And what unthinkable becomes irrefutable, as in, I don't know that he's a huge fucking hack. There are some really good bits in it. Like Thomas Paine, the collar of his shirt changes between shots. They have to constantly cut shots early.

[Arif Hasan]

Because the model breaks down after six seconds or whatever. It's really expensive to have long shots.

[Caleb Wilson]

There's a great bit in it where they hand out common sense. And as they hand it out, as they pick it up, it goes from saying America to, like, just like Cthulhu.

[Arif Hasan]

Language because, well, unintentionally, kind of apropos, I would say, but yeah.

[Caleb Wilson]

But apparently they're releasing it on Netflix's YouTube.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, God.

[Arif Hasan]

On Netflix, which is really. YouTube.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Arif Hasan]

It's like really like sucks. What?

[Caleb Wilson]

It's like the Family Guy, Ringo Starr thing with like, we'll put the song on the fridge, but I haven't seen more of it. They put out a few bits of it and then they just. Just stopped releasing it. Probably because of all the comments that said this looks like dog kill yourself. It's mostly just that.

[Arif Hasan]

So like, the thing is, like, you could. If it didn't have this insane cost and an ethical problem associated with it, you could convince me that like that one Marvel opening for whatever the fuck it was with the Skrulls, right, where it's unsettling and it changes a little bit every couple of seconds.

[Caleb Wilson]

What is this?

[Arif Hasan]

There was a Dr.

[Juniper]

Strange.

[Arif Hasan]

It might have been Dr. Well, if it was Dr. Strange, that wouldn't have been very helpful. I thought it was like there was a Marvel TV show where the opening. Because it's a show. I haven't watched anything after.

[Ed Zitron]

Was it like the scroll?

[Caleb Wilson]

It was Secret Invasion.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah, Secret Invasion, which involves the Skrulls, Right?

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Arif Hasan]

And so the opening for that was with the early version of like AI video generation. And it is uncomfortable.

[Ed Zitron]

Oh, I remember this.

[Arif Hasan]

And it's changing a lot. And you can't keep a stable image. And it's like. Well, you know, there are a bunch of problems, both like, environmentally and ethically from a plagiarism standpoint, that should stop this from happening. But aesthetically, this does make sense for this show. Why the fuck would you need that for Thomas Paine's Common Sense? Like, it's just like a bad aesthetic. What the fuck are you doing?

[Ed Zitron]

Was.

[Caleb Wilson]

Cuz you're a fucking hack.

[Juniper]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Okay.

[Arif Hasan]

Well, yes. No, that is a good.

[Caleb Wilson]

Just what pride do you have in your work if you put this out? If I was a filmmaker and it looked like this, I would just stop making movie. Like, it's just.

[Ed Zitron]

It completely values whatever catalog he has.

[Caleb Wilson]

I mean, I like.

[Juniper]

Yeah, I mean, I actually like some of Aronofsky's stuff, but if you know anything about him at all, like, this makes total sense. The guy is a just.

[Arif Hasan]

Has he. Has he done anything good after Black Swan one?

[Caleb Wilson]

I like stealing.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, he did the.

[Arif Hasan]

I. I haven't seen that.

[Ed Zitron]

So. Yeah, he. I mean, he did the whale. I haven't seen the whale. I was going to see Caught Stealing. I just never got around to it. It seemed like it could be.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's exactly that kind of movie. It's exactly the kind of Movie after Black Swan. What was that?

[Juniper]

The wrestler came out after Black Swan.

[Caleb Wilson]

I think I never saw that.

[Juniper]

Doesn't matter. He's got some, he's got some okay movies, but he also steals. He loves stealing, like, half of his careers.

[Caleb Wilson]

Well, there you go.

[Juniper]

Satoshi Kon, like, well, there you go.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's very appropriate. I also love the idea that they used AI for the opening of Secret Invasion, which had, like, Samuel L. Jackson in it. Like, very expensive actors. Also years of footage they could just cut together without spending any money. I don't know.

[Ed Zitron]

It's, I think it's the thing where it's like, I, I, I've been trying to, like, figure out exactly why, because I am felt this, and a lot of people have felt that AI just feels bad. And I've drilled down, I think, on as much as I can because there's so many different parts of it that feel bad. But I feel like there has to be a source of the bad feeling. And I think the bad feeling with AI is if you put aside the environmental factors, because, of course, that is one of the main ultimate bad things. But the reason why it personally feels bad in the world is it is constantly pushed onto us in a way that it's like, oh, you're gonna love this. A it's going to be here. You're going to. Not everything's going to be AI it's going to take your job. You should consult it about what temperature it is outside. It can tell you if a glove is good for snow. It's stuff like that. But it's like stuff like that. It feels like it is just like people. The tech world is like, you will like AI and you will not complain about it. And if you do, we are the victim. Victims. And that's why I think it feels bad.

[Caleb Wilson]

I can't, Like, I actually do think that leads into one of my definite predictions, which is when AI shits itself and dies. Because I think it's going to end up being on device or really expensive. Like, expensive in a way that just no sane person would pay for. I can't wait for the articles and boosters where it's like, look what you did.

[Arif Hasan]

Millennials.

[Caleb Wilson]

No, it really, it's going to be like, like millennials killed. Like, look, we had this amazing thing that sometimes got things right sometimes and cost. It costs $10 to make $1. And coders were able to write at an indeterminately faster speed.

[Arif Hasan]

And after you were done ransacking all of gardens, you went to AI Yeah.

[Juniper]

Like the Gary Vee or maybe the other one of the Gary's will have an article about, like, oh, you've never lied before.

[Caleb Wilson]

What's really. It's just. It's people without culture or sensuality trying to do both. I think the AI video doesn't look good because it looks. It looks like a next Netflix movie in that it's got this kind of pallid color palette. But also when people look at each other, they're not looking in each other's eyes.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, that's all they're just saying.

[Arif Hasan]

And the shadows are off. Like, they are in a bunch of, like, Netflix features now. Like, the shadows are really off and it's really off putting. And so nothing looks like a movie anymore. And AI kind of triples down on that where the lighting is bad, the shadows are off. But to me, the issue is AI writing is grotesquely bad. And I say that not because it is. Like, I've had writers submit to me pieces that from a technical perspective are worse than if an AI had generated the piece. But like, it's. I mean, you're a new writer.

[Ed Zitron]

That might be.

[Juniper]

Dude, Arif, I'm right here.

[Arif Hasan]

But like. But like, the problem is that, like, their writing has, like, character, right? And their writing has a distinct voice and it needs to be honed and it needs to be refined or whatever. But, like, AI doesn't have character. It doesn't have a voice. And I don't mean that because it's a machine. I mean that because I have read thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of words written by AI and it all sounds the exact fucking same. And so when I see a tweet. Tweet, or I see, like that editorial I mentioned from cleveland.com, i just see a tweet or a snippet from an article and I can immediately tell it's AI because it has this, like, banal, voiceless kind of.

[Juniper]

That same thing at the end, too. We're like, imagine just talking. I'm American. So imagine a hamburger article will end by saying, it's not a hamburger. It's a lifestyle. It always has that one thing at the end that the ultimate tell.

[Caleb Wilson]

It's not just the food. It's yummy.

[Ed Zitron]

No, no. Yeah, that's. That's something I feel like. Yeah. Caleb, you and I have talked a lot about on our show Kill the Computer, where it's like we. We've sort of peeked into the world of, like, people dating AI a lot. And whenever we read people talking about or to their Their AI partner or like, you read these conversations and it's. I don't see a human quality in this, but yet this person.

[Juniper]

If my humor ever talked to me like that, I would shoot myself tonight.

[Ed Zitron]

Like, there's no humanity. It's very weird. It's weird to see that people see humanity in it because to me, it's. I am very clearly reading generated text from a machine.

[Caleb Wilson]

Yeah. I also like when people like, yeah, I went and talked to ChatGPT about my relationship problems. That is just a breakup. Just you. If you find yourself going to ChatGPT to ask it for coaching through a breakup or like, is my partner right here? Just. Just fucking.

[Ed Zitron]

I do love those. I do love those. The. Specifically the. It's my. Am I in the right? But, like, not going to Reddit software.

[Juniper]

That will never tell me I'm wrong, by the way.

[Caleb Wilson]

My God. What do you do if it tells you you're wrong?

[Arif Hasan]

Regenerate button. You're fine. Yeah, yeah, you're good.

[Caleb Wilson]

Change it to one of the Chinese.

[Juniper]

Models, the new GPT model where it used to always tell them everything they wanted to hear.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice]

There was that one woman that was.

[Juniper]

Like, like, it was like, I. I need the chat GPT to something. Like, I need to be clear, like, I'm not going to rescue you, I'm not going to save you or whatever. She was like, upset about it. It's so funny.

[Ed Zitron]

You're. You're talking about that. The hashtag keep4o. Like the movement.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

That I have been digging into those people.

[Arif Hasan]

Yeah. So I've been doing enough of that that, like, my phone gives me notifications from these subreddits of. Of people complaining about Chat GPT and it's just, it's just like one after another of, like, them threatening to, like, fly a plane into Sam Altman. Yeah.

[Caleb Wilson]

There's one where it's like a hamster standing outside of a building that says open AI on it, that's on fire. It says never for. Oh, get.

[Ed Zitron]

You know how, like a wine mom with, like, blue hair was one of the people that went to Nick Fuentes house and, like, got pepper sprayed? This is like that version of it. It's like the median average, like, random person in. In these AI communities is going to, like. Actually, I probably shouldn't be saying this. You. You know what I'm going to say?

[Caleb Wilson]

They're going to.

[Sponsor Voice]

They're going to.

[Juniper]

Yeah, we can find. You can bet on that on polymarket.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Check out Sam Altman. On polymarket.

[Juniper]

Yeah.

[Caleb Wilson]

And as we wrap up here, I just. I just looked up the hashtag keep4o thing, and I'm looking at this image where it's just people running with, like, it looks like a relay race, I guess, that says keep 4.0. They keep dropping the baton. We just wanted the one that worked. You know, that's how batons work. But my favorite part of this image, which I'm gonna share with all of you, is the fact that there's a guy with, like, they've all got helmets for some reason, and their arms are going the wrong way for some reason. One of the helmets just has a mouth on it, and someone has a. They have an eyebrow by their nose.

[Ed Zitron]

I also like that in this image, the one that they say is the one that works is the one that's not running in the track.

[Caleb Wilson]

But awesome don't function. You hold them, but thorns are.

[Ed Zitron]

This is maybe one of the greatest posts I've ever seen. One of the greatest AI posts ever. Just. It's so long. It's got every quality of an incredible post that you need here.

[Caleb Wilson]

All right, let's wrap it there. June. Caleb, where can people find you?

[Ed Zitron]

We do, yeah.

[Juniper]

You guys, I feel like I was more annoying than you on this episode.

[Ed Zitron]

No, no, I intro the episode being mean to Ed. That's what I feel like.

[Sponsor Voice]

That's good forever.

[Ed Zitron]

But, no, I guess I can do it. I'm bad at pitching. But what I will say is Caleb and I, we do a show called Kill the Computer. It's a show about how the Internet sort of influences and actually, I don't know. This is edited, right? Caleb, how about you do it? Can you cut me out? I need to work on my pitches. I need to work on my pitches. No, please.

[Juniper]

Yeah, I would say it's like. It's a show where we just kind of look at how the Internet is Internet stuff. Internet culture spills out into the real, real world and how it affects us on a personal level. I guess the most highbrow way to say it is just different. A subculture analysis of different. How different kinds of. Of people use the Internet.

[Ed Zitron]

Absolutely.

[Caleb Wilson]

Hell, yeah. And Arif, people can find you where.

[Arif Hasan]

At wideleft. Football. Where I talk about football.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Caleb Wilson]

And I'm just gonna say to the people that really didn't enjoy the super bowl episode last year, like, you have any idea how close I was to just only talking about football for, like, 15? Like, do you hear they released Tyreek.

[Ed Zitron]

Hill, like, going up?

[Caleb Wilson]

No, no, no. No, we're gonna end the episode there. Thank you all for listening to Better Offline. There will be a monologue this week, I assume. Download the episodes, read the newsletter. I'm Ed Zitron and goodbye. Thank you for listening to Best Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio [e-mail] m a t t o s o W-K-I.com. you can email me at easyetteroffline.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 youred app to visit the Discord and go to R betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

[Ed Zitron]

Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Sponsor Voice]

For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit.

[Caleb Wilson]

Our website coolzone media.com or check us.

[Ed Zitron]

Out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Arif Hasan]

Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz.

[Caleb Wilson]

We host the podcast Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.

[Arif Hasan]

We're back for season four to talk to some incredible small business owners.

[Caleb Wilson]

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[Ed Zitron]

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So what I'm really excited about is.

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