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- [00:00]
Host 1
This is an iHeart podcast. Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
- [00:09]
Host 2
Still using yesterday's tech Upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultra Light, ultra powerful and built for serious productivity. With Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed and AI powered performance, it keeps up with your business, not the other way around.
- [00:23]
Host 1
Whoa. This thing moves.
- [00:24]
Host 2
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- [00:42]
Ed Zitron
Say you've always wanted to take a spontaneous trip around the Caribbean. Here's the thing. If you get smart with your money, you can do things like that. With Empower, you can start making the most of your money so you can go out and live a little. Isn't that why we work so hard, right? To have some fun with our money, like treating yourself to something special or spontaneously doing something extra for a loved one. So use Empower and get good at your money so you can be a little bad. Join their 19 million customers today@empower.com not an Empower client, paid or sponsored.
- [01:12]
Brian Koppelman
In business, they say you can have better, cheaper or faster. But you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second cheaper. OCI costs up to 50% less for computing, 70% less for storage, and and 80% less for networking better. In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads right now with zero commitment. Try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com strategic that's oracle.com strategic.
- [02:18]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing.
- [02:28]
Mike Drucker
Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless Everybody get 30, 30. Better get 30. Better to get 20, 20, 20. Better get 20, 20. Everybody get 15, 15, 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month.
- [02:37]
Ryan Reynolds
So give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [02:41]
Host 1
Payment of 45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com.
- [02:51]
Ryan Reynolds
Corzone Media your scientists.
- [02:54]
Ed Zitron
Have yet to discover how neural networks create self consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two dimensional retinal images into three dimensional phenomenon known as perception. Yet you somehow brazenly declare seeing is believing. Yes, I do. Better offline. I'm Ed Zitron. This is better offline. I'm your host. Buy our merchandise, go to my newsletter. Where's your head out. Anyway, fuck all that. Brian Koppelman is joining us here in the studio. He's the incredible writer, producer and he's in the Bear, the flippin Bear. He's a real deal actor. He's also the co creator, showrunner and executive producer of Showtime's Billions and Superpum the Battle for Uber. Brian, thank you so much for joining us.
- [03:41]
Ryan Reynolds
Thrilled to be here with you, man.
- [03:42]
Ed Zitron
We've of course got Mike Drucker, the wonderful comedian. And of course you have a book, don't you Mike?
- [03:46]
Mike Drucker
Yes, sir. It's called Good game. No Rematch.
- [03:48]
Ed Zitron
Ooh, okay.
- [03:48]
Mike Drucker
It's about embarrassing myself with video games throughout my entire life.
- [03:52]
Ed Zitron
Wonderful. I'll be embarrassing myself with tech on this show. Sherlyn Lowe as well joining us from Engadget. How you doing, Sherlyn?
- [03:57]
Host 1
I am about to down a protein shake hopefully. Yes.
- [04:01]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, we're just talking about the Ninja Creamy and all our various slops.
- [04:04]
Ryan Reynolds
They're great. Ninja Creamy. I'll tell you, there's no endorsement out there for any of us. They don't need it because people just get these things and they immediately go to TikTok because they want to share how good they are. Yeah, they're honestly, they're so good. That's all.
- [04:18]
Ed Zitron
I full endorse, full endorsement. This is the Ninja Creamy show. Now I'm going to get what's great about this is literally any time I mention any product, I will get an email from someone being like, here is a post from 2003 from the CEO, in which case they shot a dog. It's like some insane. They'll be like, ed, how dare you break up. I'm like, I don't know everything. Please help me.
- [04:38]
Host 1
Well, Fairlife's bottles have a lot of phthalates in them. So you know, that's our, that's our thing today.
- [04:42]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, I just eat like too much. Yogurt, So I want to actually start with a really good thing. So, Mike, you wrote a really great piece for the Gamer. I think that went out very recently. It's called. I'm Starting to worry this industry has no respect for the people who work on it. Why don't you walk us through the article? Because I think it's a good subject matter.
- [04:57]
Mike Drucker
Sure. Well, as listeners may or may not know, Microsoft recently laid off about 9,000 people, most of which were in their gaming department. Simultaneously, they were claiming that their gaming department's quite profitable and they're making a ton of money and everything's going well. I don't know if that's actually true, but they are saying that. And they've kind of also said that a lot of the money that they were paying these employees isn't. Isn't about losses. It's that they want to move this money into AI development.
- [05:25]
Ed Zitron
Did they say that? Yeah.
- [05:26]
Mike Drucker
Yeah.
- [05:27]
Ed Zitron
That's horrifying.
- [05:28]
Mike Drucker
Yeah, it's kind of. I mean, they didn't say that word for word, but it was very implied that the budget was, you know, they're more focused. That was kind of the language. The language was like, you know, as we restructure, we're more focused on AI going forward.
- [05:39]
Ed Zitron
Just so ironic is like video games is one of the first. First real exposures to AI for most people.
- [05:45]
Mike Drucker
Yeah.
- [05:45]
Ed Zitron
I remember when Fear came out. Anyone remember Fear? Yeah, it was one of the. One of the first. It was the first time a guy would, like, shove his head over and look around before just jumping up and getting shot. Yeah. It's just the reason this really spoke to me, other than the fact it was very well written, is that I feel like this is the central problem with a lot of tech, entertainment, everything right now, where it's like the people at top. And you make this point well in the article, that the industry is the problem because the industry is not being piloted by the people creating.
- [06:12]
Mike Drucker
Right, exactly. I mean, you know, and it's a problem that also extends to the, you know, Hollywood, which I also work in because I'm famous. No, that's not true at all. But it's this problem that, like, you know, a lot of the decision makers are not as close to the product as they used to be. Yeah, I mean. I mean, you could even say the same. Same for things like Boeing, where, you know, you don't have engineers running the department anymore. You have business people who've been brought in because they're good at business.
- [06:37]
Ed Zitron
Well, track alliance.
- [06:38]
Mike Drucker
Exactly, exactly. And you know, these people are far away from the product, they're far away from the development of it. So they see these, you know, workers as numbers on a spreadsheet. And for better or worse, video game development is a very long process. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of money.
- [06:54]
Ed Zitron
It's getting longer horizon as well.
- [06:57]
Mike Drucker
And so it's, you know, very easy for these companies that are looking for a short term, you know, next financial quarter boost to go. We fired all these people and this product wasn't going to come out for two years. So it really doesn't matter.
- [07:08]
Ed Zitron
And that's the thing with Microsoft as well. They've laid off 15,000 people this year as well.
- [07:13]
Mike Drucker
Nuts.
- [07:14]
Ed Zitron
And is the money really even going any. It's just so confusing. But you're seeing everywhere with Hollywood, there was the Acme versus Coyote thing, sorry, Coyote versus Acme thing, where they just like mothballed it. Releasing it now, but they mothballed a movie to save on taxes. I feel like that shouldn't be a loophole.
- [07:31]
Mike Drucker
I hate that loophole. I hate the idea of that loophole. I mean, it almost reminds me of that loophole from. And Brian, you could maybe correct me on this, but remember, like in the 90s, they made a Fantastic Four film. They weren't going to release just so they could maintain rights for it. Because the rights for it were. You have to make a movie to keep the rights. You don't have to release it.
- [07:50]
Ryan Reynolds
I don't remember that exactly, though. Now you say it rings a bell, but I don't have particulars on it. But I think what you're talking about, really the answer. I agree completely as you diagnose it with how depressing it is. But to me, these things feel like a systems response, like complexity theory. Well, they're like systems responses to what's happening in the world as opposed to feeling like. Because I think it's easier for us to look at the human being and go, that motherfucker. And that may be a motherfucker, but another possible answer is that from a far remove, like something's happening, right? And when this thing is happening, it gets into quantum theory, but it is a complexity systems response to this giant change of artificial intelligence having certain capabilities and all of this. You can look at all of it. And I mean, we've seen people who had one set of beliefs for so long and on the record in your industry completely switch. And they may think that's an autonomous decision they're making. But I found a little bit of solace by reading about complexity theory because that for me offers potentially more, not hopeful, but so sort of a more complete understanding.
- [09:18]
Ed Zitron
So you're saying like a systemic response to conditions? Because I don't know about the AI capability side, but the existence of capabilities potentially being there makes sense in that they're all trying to reconfigure for a future. They don't know if it's actually there. The generative AI doesn't seem to do it. But the potential of that, the idea of it is motivating them so much. Microsoft of all people as well should know how little money is actually being made from this considering out the 30.
- [09:42]
Ryan Reynolds
But that's it. But yes, but executives, I also, because I've studied these people so much and written about them so much and I understand how venal they are and how short term they think at times. But they're also, I think, looking at data that we don't have very often and they're trying to forecast out a long time.
- [10:06]
Ed Zitron
Why do you think they have data we don't have though? Because like with Microsoft for example, and I have probably studied Satya Nadella too much at this point, I learned too much about the growth mindset and Carolyn Dweck and all of that nonsense. But the data, if the data is there, they're acting very peculiar about the data because they're only making $13 billion this year from AI, 10 billion is ARR hours from OpenAI burning giraffes and whatever they put into the machine for ChatGPT. But it's. It feels almost like they are reacting to what they hope will happen or what may happen. I'm just trying to.
- [10:42]
Ryan Reynolds
The data might just be when everyone reacts to quarterly like the problem in our business, the entertainment thing is that these people are responding to quarterly earnings calls that they have to make. And maybe the data isn't about the long term. Maybe the data is literally that we don't know that they're looking at is their little cohort of people. And the exact moment they can exercise which kinds of options, some of which they have to declare and maybe some of which which they are somehow able to flip on a different market.
- [11:11]
Ed Zitron
Well, I mean that's what Anthropic, basically Amazon did with Anthropic. They flipped their investment into a certain kind of thing they could tax deduct little fuck up.
- [11:18]
Ryan Reynolds
I mean there's no doubt that there's heartlessness. But because Drucker's here, I just want to say even in the most depressing times or in moments where the technology, the platform seems brutal, people's humanity can transcend it.
- [11:34]
Ed Zitron
Absolutely.
- [11:34]
Ryan Reynolds
And I remember in some dark days of Twitter, Drucker was. And it was really amazing, man. And I remember, you know, you and I don't know each other well, but we've known each other a long time, like 20 years. And yeah, it's true. And I remember that there were many nights you were like, not sleeping that well. Sleeping at the wrong times. Yeah.
- [11:52]
Mike Drucker
Oh, definitely.
- [11:52]
Ryan Reynolds
And like sleeping during the day, up at night. But he doesn't want. I remember him really, like very vulnerably talking about sadness and depression and getting people to entrust, sharing, and him actively trying to save people in a place where people were so callous almost by profession on there, by everything they wanted to do. Everyone was at home playing Grand Theft Auto, which. Could you guys fix that and get the next one out? Everyone's at home playing Grand Theft Auto and being callous. And he was literally going, let me explain depression to you and what you can do and what the resources are and why you shouldn't kill yourself. And which I think is great. Of course, you would lead with empathy on this too. And look at these assholes and think about all the engineers and it's the right way to process it. I just think often it's not a binary.
- [12:43]
Host 1
No.
- [12:44]
Ed Zitron
And that's.
- [12:44]
Mike Drucker
That makes sense.
- [12:44]
Ed Zitron
And that's the thing I've been saying, like a lot about this show is, yeah, I'm talking about the pigs and the assholes and the scumbags and all the different names and the voices I do for them. But it's also about the fact that there is like, I'm pissed off. Casey Kagawa, friend of the show, said this to him a lot. It's. I'm broken hearted, romantic. Because things like what Mike did. Actually, one of the reasons I read Engadget as well is it's like, yeah, there are a lot of these financial horrors in there, but there's fun, dorky shit online still. There's still one. Like, most of my friends are from the Internet. It's like I'm like the drill. Crying, tweet. Like, being online, it's like, like everything I got is through emails. But I still think there is a lot of joy in this. And I think the central thing about your article now is just like beneath this capitalism crush is actually some really, like, wonderful things being built. There are still wonderful games being built. Yeah, there's like an entire economy on Minecraft. For better or for worse about selling mods and stuff. There are people on Roblox, other problems with Roblox obviously who are like building games on there and selling them. There's still some cool shit happening in tech.
- [13:47]
Mike Drucker
Yes.
- [13:48]
Ed Zitron
It's just being interfered with because every three months someone gets upset at them.
- [13:54]
Mike Drucker
Or finds a new way to make money off it, which you have to, you know, shove into a new category.
- [13:58]
Host 1
But a new thing to chase. Right. That's what it is right now I think that what you're talking about, the like macro picture of everyone sort of having that reaction and I think we will course correct in time. I think we're right now at that stage in history where it's not as cut and dried to me as the NFT crypto sort of bubble where like it was clearly.
- [14:17]
Ryan Reynolds
But that was the word that was criminals.
- [14:19]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [14:20]
Ryan Reynolds
Fucking people over knowing it. Con people.
- [14:22]
Host 1
Right. And I argue that at on some level these are criminals. There are criminals at play in this scenario right Now I will say that with what Mike was writing about in your article, the Microsoft thing was all the more like I think when my team saw the news last week, my instant reaction was didn't they just ratify a union contract with like their first ever in the US too? Like to be saying that on one hand we really care about workers rights and really want to protect workers and the other you're like, and those are their quality people. Right? And now we're like, oh, game developers. Nah, 9,000 of you can go. Because AI NPCs are all the rage right now and they really make a lot of sense AI NPCs. They never said a bad thing, Never said anything.
- [14:58]
Ed Zitron
That was that Nvidia demo from last year.
- [15:02]
Host 1
Or was it this year? I can't remember.
- [15:03]
Ed Zitron
I think they've done too like every year Nvidia wheels out a demo would be like the generative AI NPCs are here and within one day someone has made it. Cecila. Or like it's just said something in Microsoft. Tay was the 2016 AI bot that learned from the Internet to be racist. Like kind of a proto Mecca Hitler situation.
- [15:22]
Host 1
Oh, that was Grok.
- [15:23]
Ed Zitron
Yeah. Taylor.
- [15:25]
Mike Drucker
Whoa. So was that the Microsoft Bat from.
- [15:27]
Host 1
Like years and years ago, 2012 or something like that?
- [15:30]
Mike Drucker
I forgot about that.
- [15:30]
Host 1
It's been. But the thing is back to Brian's point is that this keeps happening and then we keep course correcting back. Like it feels like there is a systems response and Ed, I think you're looking for the joy. I wouldn't use the word intervening or interfering, I would say it's noise. And the way for companies and people existing in this industry to deal with that is to focus on what you think is good. I find the irony in saying that, which I think these tech bros that you're referring to, Brian, they're also trying to focus on what they think is good. So they're cutting out noise from their perspective. And I don't know, it's that movie that was just released featuring those four dudes in the mountain lodge.
- [16:08]
Ed Zitron
Oh.
- [16:10]
Ryan Reynolds
Mountain head.
- [16:11]
Host 1
Mountain head, yes. So it feels like that. It feels like everyone's got their little bubble, which is also at the same time created maybe and supported by tech. And if we continue to operate in silos, I don't know, I feel like if we only.
- [16:23]
Ryan Reynolds
If we only think of those. And often they are men in those roles, though they're not all, but often they are. If you think of some of those, you said bros. But if we only reduce them to those guys running around trying to kill someone in a sauna, where I think in a way it allows, in a way it allows us to like not worry about them because we get to the model. Right.
- [16:47]
Mike Drucker
That's fair.
- [16:48]
Ryan Reynolds
Some of them are smarter, like just raw synthesizing power. Some of those people, not all of them. They're smarter than everyone in this building combined.
- [16:56]
Mike Drucker
A couple of them.
- [16:56]
Ryan Reynolds
And I'm not saying that that makes.
- [16:58]
Host 1
Them good or anything.
- [16:59]
Ryan Reynolds
In any way good.
- [17:00]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [17:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Or in any way good for now. Because even if you say, like, I agree with you that some of them may believe that they're doing this, that they're doing good. Right. But if they're thinking in thousand year chunks, that's really bad for. Yuval said this, and Yuval I think is amazing. And he said, well, the problem is historians like me. He goes, you may look at it now, he was on a podcast, he said, you may look at it now and say, but those things worked out okay, look where we are. But as a historian, I have to look at the cost of human life that happened for all the intervals, all the little intervals to get from there to here. And that's really what you guys are just talking about. Rightly so. Is all the, you know, the devastation and the wake. But. But can I just ask because you might all might be so jaded, but do you not think AI is like mind bogglingly great at times?
- [17:45]
Host 1
No, I can see the balance. I think Ed's like far off.
- [17:49]
Ryan Reynolds
You don't wait. You really. I think it's like the single. I think it's why the single greatest invention in my life.
- [17:55]
Host 1
What is, what is your favorite thing that AI has done?
- [17:58]
Ryan Reynolds
I think the ability to have super high level conversations about, really esoteric about systems theory, complexity theory.
- [18:05]
Ed Zitron
How do you know it's correct in them?
- [18:07]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, you can. Well, you have to do a bit of work, right?
- [18:10]
Ed Zitron
I don't want to talk to something that I have to verify constantly. I talk to people.
- [18:14]
Host 1
Well, you have to do that with people too, Ed. To some extent. You can't trust everything I say.
- [18:18]
Ryan Reynolds
How do you feel about the automobile? Or is the horse drawn carriage still your thing? Dang. No, I'm just saying.
- [18:24]
Ed Zitron
No, I'm wondering what the point is.
- [18:25]
Host 1
Mike looks very uneasy right now.
- [18:26]
Ryan Reynolds
I mean, the point.
- [18:28]
Mike Drucker
No, I just have jokes in my head, you guys.
- [18:29]
Ed Zitron
No, no, I'm sure you got ribs.
- [18:31]
Ryan Reynolds
Because I think you can decry the industry and the way people are using it. And I guarantee, I'm pretty sure I was reading Eliezer Yudkowski before anyone.
- [18:38]
Ed Zitron
Yeah.
- [18:39]
Ryan Reynolds
In this room, I mean, how to actually change your mind is a book that I was obsessed. Christmas gifts.
- [18:43]
Ed Zitron
I can't take Yudowski. I just.
- [18:45]
Ryan Reynolds
It's got to take him serious. I mean, you have to take. One has to take that guy's brain seriously. He think everything you guys are worried about, he called out 15 years ago in detail.
- [18:54]
Ed Zitron
Okay. I mean, like, here's the thing. The automobile is not a comparison because we knew we had to go forward side to side and everything like that. Like we had an actual use case for that. With generative AI, the way that these conversations happen, and large language models can be conversing with documents. It's one of the only use cases that is actually remotely useful because you can actually verify based on the parts of the document having a conversation with one of these. Fine, it's a thing. I'm not amazed by it because there have been chatbots doing this with KMS since like what, 2013, 2014?
- [19:24]
Mike Drucker
And the Eliza effect goes back to the 60s.
- [19:26]
Ed Zitron
Yeah. And Eliza. Even then there's Karen Howe's empire of AI is a great thing about Eliza. The creator was just like, why is everyone so fucking impressed? Impressed by it, really. Just like, what the fuck is this? I think what it is is I am just not that impressed by it. Based on the larger discussion, everyone acts like this is the fucking future and it just feels like a growth of the past. What ChatGPT has become, for better or for worse, is what Google could have potentially been. It's insane. That attention.
- [19:54]
Ryan Reynolds
I agree with you. But like, okay, I got a tick bite.
- [19:56]
Ed Zitron
Okay.
- [19:57]
Ryan Reynolds
And you can literally, the second you get a tick bite, everybody says antibiotics. You gotta go if you can't find the thing. I got a picture, I put it on there. The AI was immediately able to. And yes, I could verify it afterwards. Cause I call the AI was able to say, this is the kind of tick it is. This is the area you're in. This kind of tick, you don't need antibiotics. You're not gonna get Lyme disease. Here's why. Sent it to my doctor who that it's feedback. And they agreed that'll be harder to do on the.
- [20:25]
Ed Zitron
Why didn't you send it to your doctor before you asked him?
- [20:28]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, he doesn't. His job isn't to, like, identify what tick it is.
- [20:30]
Ed Zitron
Oh, sorry. I misunderstood what you said.
- [20:33]
Host 1
Yeah, I want more clarity on the doctor thing. I raised my hand as you were talking because I'm like, did you trust the ChatGPT answer and leave it at that, or did you.
- [20:41]
Ryan Reynolds
Then I. Then I took that when it said that. Then I searched for what it said and compared and it was right. Okay, so it was a dog tick, not a deer tick.
- [20:50]
Mike Drucker
Out of curiosity and Ed, you might be able to answer this question. Is that. And I don't actually know the answer. Is that iterative AI or is that generative AI?
- [20:58]
Ed Zitron
So we're using ChatGPT so that it's a mix.
- [21:02]
Ryan Reynolds
I don't know which one.
- [21:04]
Ed Zitron
So that would be generative.
- [21:05]
Mike Drucker
Okay.
- [21:05]
Ed Zitron
And so that would still be that. And by the way, sounds like a use case. It is the growth of. Sorry, what were you going to say?
- [21:12]
Host 1
No, I was going to say, I think a version of Google could have done that for you in the past too. Before ChatGPT. What? ChatGPT, the generative side of it is providing is the LLM, the natural language interface, but pulling a lot of different sources of data and putting that together for you. That is chatgpt. You could have done that with Google or I think there were apps. Right. That you could do a photo sort of recognition of for a while on Google. Yeah. And to my knowledge that parts of Google and Google Health researchers with their AI divisions were working on apps that could identify different things, like skin things. So, like, is that a bug bite or is that eczema kind of thing? Through the pixel phones, I don't think they've ever broadly released it, but they were experimenting way before ChatGPT was even a thing. I would argue That I think the LLM portion of this is more about how it converses with you and how it understands what you're actually concerned about. So if you didn't give it the exact words of look up this thing and should I see a doctor. Even if you didn't input the see a doctor request, it might, you know, divine that that's what you really want.
- [22:06]
Ed Zitron
And this is the thing like ChatGPT, I don't think would have been a big deal if Google had actually innovated in search at all.
- [22:12]
Host 1
If they instead of something adds into it.
- [22:14]
Ed Zitron
Google search has been the same for like 15, 20 years, except worse. What you were describing there valid. It's inference basically it's infers the understanding from the image and all this and then spits out an answer. It's a use case. I think that in the way you used it that was responsible. The problem is at scale that is not going to work out so great because.
- [22:36]
Ryan Reynolds
Oh, I believe you know way more about this than I.
- [22:38]
Ed Zitron
No, no, no, this is.
- [22:39]
Host 1
I'm actually really.
- [22:40]
Ed Zitron
No, I'm genuinely glad you brought this up because it's like. But what about that is extrapolating out to the greater AI replacing jobs thing? Because that's where, where my principal problem is people are taking what is what Google should have been in 2017 and turned it into. This is going to replace half of workers. A quote from Dario Amadei that was fucking made up, which he said off the top of his head. But sorry, just getting Wario himself. Wario Amaday.
- [23:08]
Host 1
I think what you're also bringing up, Brian, is that there is this marketing, I guess, problem with AI, which is that like AI has existed for a very long time and the current version that everyone's really obsessed with is Gen AI and generative AI is all about like what it can generate for you using large language models, using art, like creating art, creating videos. All of that stuff is this current iteration of AI we're all talking about. But the previous stuff has existed before and this is all just more of the same. I think that's why so many of us in the industry are so frustrated with it because there's a misconception. There's also this idea that the jobs that it's trying to replace are in that field of coming up with art, music and words that are not jobs that A, pay well to begin with, but B, like are the parts of our life that we want it replaced. Right? We want it.
- [23:52]
Ryan Reynolds
When I talk about Yudkowski, the reason I do is that it freak is that he was somebody who. He's right on your side in a way. I mean his thing always was this is not going to be a net good for society.
- [24:03]
Ed Zitron
That's not even where my argument is.
- [24:05]
Ryan Reynolds
And I'm sure you remember when Astro Teller wrote Exegesis. I remember reading that book like the day it came out and it really did freak me out about what was possible. Now we're not even there yet, right? It even isn't where that but that version of AI and Yudowski. But Yudowski's his Yudkowski.
- [24:22]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, Yudkowski. Sorry. He's so find him quite distasteful. But on top of that he's a fucking AGI doomer. And he's saying he's just, yeah, sure, if a frog had. But a frog had wings that could fly. It's like, yeah, if the computer wakes up and does this, this could be scary. He's one of the few people that seems to actually think about what AGI could do. But also we're so far off from it that I can't see him as anything but a grifter because all he is doing is grifting.
- [24:46]
Ryan Reynolds
It's just he's been on it long before there was Griffin. It. He was on it as a non profit. No, he.
- [24:50]
Ed Zitron
Non profit Griffs exist.
- [24:52]
Ryan Reynolds
No, I mean you're talking. Dude, think about what I've written. You think I don't know, nonprofit. What's the matter with you?
- [25:03]
Mike Drucker
Brian won.
- [25:04]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, but he's. I have a different view now. I'm not saying all his opinions are correct. What I'm saying is that that's somebody who flagged a bunch of these potential issues a long time ago. And of course it shouldn't. I mean it's horrible that these people in charge are so willing to slough off human beings the moment they think there's this much of an edge. But also because of what I study in life, I can't be. So we've all of us who write about this stuff in fiction, right? You do it because, okay, you guys have to report on something. You have to. I can take sort of like my partner and I can take what's in there and try to dramatize what might happen and always would try to point out exactly that these motherfuckers will do all this shit. It's not surprising to me. It's horrific, but not surprising.
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- [29:01]
Ed Zitron
What bothers me as well with it, and I think you're completely right and also, like I'm not completely saying everything you're saying is wrong. Like you actually are. Well read on this, which is nice because a lot of people who mention the AGI stuff don't read anything. But I think the thing is as well is so much about this AI AGI thing is not about what it can actually do. Yeah, the best fiction about AGI girlfriend Sarah showed me the Kill Switch X Files episode. Fantastic AGI episode. It's scary because it's not about the people making it. It's about the computer itself and the intentions spilling into it. A lot of what the AGI discussion now is. And it will automate Jobs. And that's the last time I'm gonna think about it before I say, here's anthropic Kevin Rose. And I think what it is is there are discussions to be had around what this stuff could do if AI could do the things that they're saying it could do. If it could replace Jobs, it would be doing it. But also it would actually require a change in society. It's almost as if they're like they want all of the profits from AI, all of the exposure and the ability to lay people off without actually doing anything to earn it. And it comes back to what you said about the people running this shit aren't even trying to build AI. They're not. Mark Zuckerberg's building a Manhattan sized data center to build super intelligence.
- [30:14]
Ryan Reynolds
I wonder though, when you say, and you guys all speak to this, I wonder when, when you talk about that Google could have done this or should have done this. And then it's a great point that you made about that it is the way that it communicates. Because what I wonder is you're all expert, you're all native early adopters, native to not only the Internet, but native to tech. And so sure, you have used AltaVista to do this stuff. Jeeves, for fuck's sake.
- [30:46]
Mike Drucker
Right?
- [30:47]
Ed Zitron
Fuck yourself, baby.
- [30:48]
Ryan Reynolds
But I'm saying you could have used all that for generations of people who aren't literate, in millions, billions of people.
- [30:54]
Host 1
Exactly.
- [30:56]
Ryan Reynolds
Even if that was possible through Google Image search. But you ever try Google Image, watch people try to do a Google Image searching?
- [31:03]
Ed Zitron
No, I Agree.
- [31:03]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm saying this is making it for people, friendly to them, as you said, easy for them. And I wonder if that's the.
- [31:12]
Ed Zitron
That's exactly what I'm saying. That's why people like ChatGPT. It's not because it's this amazing product. It's because it does what people go to Google, that's hard.
- [31:20]
Ryan Reynolds
But communicating well in an inviting, seductive way is very challenging.
- [31:27]
Ed Zitron
Yes.
- [31:27]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [31:28]
Ryan Reynolds
So for tech to be able to do that to regular people is the amazing thing.
- [31:32]
Ed Zitron
It's almost like you're saying is Google invented this tech. The attention, the 2017 attention is all you need. Paper was eight Google scientists. I just looked this up, I thought it was several, but it's like Noam Shazir, they ended up paying like $2 billion for character A just to bring him back. Google had this technology and had this movement just been. We're going to make inference of meaning better exactly what you're talking about. It would not be this big story. The thing is they need it to be. What you were describing are use cases. Good, bad, whatever they are things that people use it for. The actual things they're describing as a PhD level intelligence, it's going to solve physics. It's like, no, it's not. But if they say, what if Google search worked? They can't make a trazillion dollars. They can't be like, this is going to be everything we need. We're going to build data centers. It's just because what you're describing, Brian, is the most evil thing in the world.
- [32:23]
Ryan Reynolds
Let's go back to Mike Drucker. Yeah, you really should be looking at. Because I think what I think in all these things, what I've learned, just being curious, is to look at the incentives.
- [32:35]
Ed Zitron
Yes. That's what I'm saying.
- [32:37]
Ryan Reynolds
And Google was de incentivized to disincentivized to make search work for the user. Yeah. Because of the profit agenda.
- [32:45]
Ed Zitron
Right.
- [32:45]
Ryan Reynolds
You said, oh should these things should make a fucking profit. But here's the thing, in a weird way, them not making a profit is better for the users. Yes. And in the original Google wasn't. But I'm sure it's all in the Google paper that nobody's reading except you.
- [32:59]
Ed Zitron
I'm talking about the 1994 one, but.
- [33:01]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm talking about for the user. I'm trying to. You're raising these amazing questions, but if I try to think about how to answer them, it's that these companies are like in the early days of social media and all this stuff in the beginning they try to super serve the user to get you addicted to it so that then they can. But the incentive structure is what you gotta look at. And obviously Microsoft's incentive structure has been locked in for a very long time and that is for the people who have the most stock in Microsoft to make the most money. That's the incentive structure.
- [33:29]
Host 1
Google too to an extent, and that's why they had that stuff for that long. But they never, because they never found a way to integrate it into all the different parts of its businesses that matter. The app ads part, the search parts.
- [33:37]
Ed Zitron
It's also their monopoly. They just.
- [33:39]
Host 1
And they have a monopoly. They have no reason to be. But I don't know if you remember this Google IO 2017, 2018, even 2019, when they first showed Kitchen Sink, which was their version of ChatGPT, but it wasn't as conversational. It was. You can ask this app to come up with ways to learn about a new hobby or to plan a thing for you. Before ChatGPT even was known widely to everyone, I think it was OpenAI wasn't really even a thing and it just wasn't a chat interface. And I think to Brian's point, The incentive that ChatGPT was has brought to people and to my parents who by the way discovered ChatGPT last year, very annoying to me. But it's like it's so much easier. It brings them into technology in a way that technology used to be kind of looking down on people for not knowing things and, and you deal, you do away with that with the chat bot. My parents not only like feel so hip now, which, sorry mom and dad, you're not but, but also like there's people who seek comfort in the companionship brought on by AI bots.
- [34:34]
Ryan Reynolds
Like differently hip.
- [34:35]
Host 1
They are amazingly hip. They dance at their age and I love that's that. But the thing is if you look at the use of Geni from the last and I think I talked about this on that Kevin Roos episode I was actually here on. But the use of chat AI services has changed, right? Used to be like very interest based and very search based, but it's now companionship based as the top few users. And that's why people are drawn to it. And I think that. And one last point that came up really when I was like listening to you talk Ed, is that like the incentive for them to push towards like. Yes, let's go towards AGI. It's not just like laying off people, it's Also who can get there first? It's this race of like it's the tech AI ego thing, the tech AI, the tech CEO ego thing. And then from the ego standpoint then they push down to profit.
- [35:21]
Ryan Reynolds
But so many businesses are like. But so many businesses are already sort of. The industries are already acting in bad faith.
- [35:30]
Host 1
Oh yes.
- [35:30]
Mike Drucker
Yeah.
- [35:31]
Ryan Reynolds
Like okay, look at the. Here's, here's. You want to. I'll give you. Not a you like a real industry that I think will be transformed by it. And I think that's not a bad thing. Is like money management. Money management which is a billions of dollars generative AI. AI already can replace very set parameters between AI though. But well you, you can do that. But what I'm saying. No, no, I'm saying look at that whole business. That whole business is about a front. If you think money management. I'm not talking about the high net worth. I'm saying in general people who use for their retirement accounts, money managers, Wealthfront, Future Advisor, all that stuff. But within those companies they're front facing language of humans who are just trying to keep you invested. They don't know that stuff. They are not offering value really. And they're taking this big percentage from regular people trying to save for their retirement and they're bleeding off money and in the end they're going. I was listening to like I'm smiling.
- [36:27]
Ed Zitron
Because you were right already. This was the 2015 through 2020 welfare.
- [36:31]
Ryan Reynolds
No, I know that all that stuff. But I'm talking about even now like big banks. Like the big banks. I'm not talking about their, their AI front. I'm saying that I was listening to a talk given by Josh Brown is. And one of his partners I think and he was talking about how essentially all of the back end of all that stuff, meaning you might still have a person talking to the user but everything else is going to be done by I just in the businesses. I think it was Michael Batnik from his company was talking about.
- [37:05]
Ed Zitron
Because here's the thing with that is from my knowledge of basically financial regulation, they don't want an LLM touching much of this. There's a lot of stuff within financial research happening now with generative AI. There's a ton of companies doing like insanely high compute burn to do these massive kind of like evaluations of stuff. I don't know if anyone wants to touch the money with LLMs and they've actually been quite resistant to it partly because they don't know how they work. Like they truly don't know.
- [37:32]
Ryan Reynolds
Oh, I know. The black box thing.
- [37:33]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's like a lot of these things also. When are they gonna happen though? Because they've been saying this for two years.
- [37:42]
Ryan Reynolds
But do you think there's a scenario, do you think there's a scenario where this, this goes away?
- [37:48]
Ed Zitron
I don't think it goes.
- [37:52]
Ryan Reynolds
You think it's going to reveal itself as being fraudulent for what it purports to be?
- [37:57]
Ed Zitron
No, no, I think you're going to see what. Call him my shot. So I believe that OpenAI will, as an ongoing concern, eventually go into nothingness. Matt Hughes, my editor, believes they'll become a patent show. I actually think it's an amazing thing. I think that what we experience of large language models will vastly pull back. I think there will be rate limits.
- [38:16]
Ryan Reynolds
What do you mean pullback?
- [38:17]
Ed Zitron
As in there'll be rate limits on GPT. People are going to be horrifyingly sad because those companions.
- [38:22]
Ryan Reynolds
Companions are going to go away.
- [38:24]
Ed Zitron
They're not going to go away. They're just going to be much, much, much more limited. And I think that everything we see today, the kind of. And you look in any of the reds behind any of the serious like GPTs, they're all kind of saying like, yeah, we know that the abundance, the free ride is over. So no, it's not going away but you're not going to hear about it constantly. And everything you is going to be so severely rate limited or dead. Those companies that are charging for generative AI things beneath the surface, all of the API rates behind these companies. So the things that you plug in to run the models are vastly subsidized by big tech and by the companies.
- [38:58]
Ryan Reynolds
So altavista goes away and. But Google takes over.
- [39:02]
Ed Zitron
Well, Google Gemini exists but the Gemini requests perhaps don't hit the LLM as much they have.
- [39:07]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm using it as a parallel.
- [39:08]
Host 1
Yeah, I'm saying the parallel consolidation that that's going to happen but it won't.
- [39:12]
Ed Zitron
Be this big thing where you hear about all the time. I think you are going to.
- [39:15]
Ryan Reynolds
Of course it'll just be the back end of lots of stuff.
- [39:17]
Ed Zitron
It will be. Oh no, it would just be something that sits on.
- [39:19]
Host 1
No, it's smaller in scale. Right.
- [39:21]
Ed Zitron
It's also not good as a backend. Large language models are not good backend.
- [39:24]
Ryan Reynolds
I understand. Yeah. They're good at talking to you.
- [39:26]
Ed Zitron
They're good at talking to you. And the one thing they can divine stuff as well.
- [39:29]
Mike Drucker
One thing we're kind of circling on the consumer level that we're not talking about is it's still a novelty now. I think it's going to be continued to be used. I do think that people are going to continue to make lists and scheduling and summarize my PDF, summarize my thing or like, you know, what's a good vacation?
- [39:43]
Ed Zitron
And there are on device models that are able to do that.
- [39:45]
Host 1
Right.
- [39:46]
Mike Drucker
I just think that right now it's such a big deal that everyone's using it because it's cool, because they, you know, your parents hear about it because you're told you should use it for work. And I do think that it'll stick around. I do think there will be a contraction in the sense that, you know, it'll be a cool thing. But I think in 15 years it's no longer gonna be as funny to produce like a picture of a pig with like Mickey Mouse's head and three boobs. And I feel like now that's a big.
- [40:09]
Ed Zitron
Some comedy is timeless.
- [40:12]
Mike Drucker
But I just don't imagine that in like 15 years having the same novelty as it does now. 15 years or 5 years, 10 years.
- [40:18]
Ed Zitron
If you take away all the headlines, if you take away all of the money and you actually look at what's there, it is everything you've. What you're describing is probably the most useful thing. It's like, do I know this? Okay, this seems plausible. I'm gonna double check it. It's kind of like what in Carter could have been. I don't even mean that sarcastically. I as a very cool child, I was very cool. Would sit on and Carter for hours reading stuff because it was kind of wow, you have access to everything. And I think human beings are curious. So of course they're going to talk to it. If it talks back.
- [40:46]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [40:46]
Ed Zitron
I just think right now there is no business model. That's the biggest one. The biggest one is there really is no business model. Ads do not work. Ads are not going. How do you put. You inject ads within an LLM? Look at what happened with Grok. Grok happened because they tried to make us. Let's make it just. How do we crank up this racism dial and like how do we mess with this system prompt. But the thing is those subtle changes for even advertising will be bad. Perplexity's been talking about doing ads for a fucking year. Not heard much of that. Aravind. And it's like on some level, regardless of how useful it is, the economics do not make sense. They're nothing like an Uber. Uber was you well know still don't make sense. Uber was a complete fucking and it still barely makes sense. They're raising another $1.2 billion. But you can at least tell someone exactly what Uber is and why you'd use it. And it's just kind of chugging along through necessity. I don't know how necessary. ChatGPT is a large language model, a Google Gemini and Google is claiming they're doing efficiency stuff that could last. I think it will be heavily rate limited.
- [41:51]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm certain you are all right about the business models and the viability of this. From a business standpoint, you know so much more than I do. I'm learning and it's fascinating. As a user of it who is not on the inside of the business, my prediction is you're dead wrong. No, Brian, it's going to become the dominant thing in most of society in lots of ways.
- [42:13]
Host 1
I think here's people are going to use it.
- [42:16]
Ryan Reynolds
It's going to be part of them like William Gibson predicted a really long time ago. I think it's bad at creative things. The thing people think it's good at, it's bad at that. I don't think it can write a story yet. None of them can convincingly write a story like Drucker could. There's lots of that stuff that's not there yet. I have no idea. Again, you all know way better than I do the science behind it. But you were asking about working out before you could there 95% of people who are trainers can't do as good a job of programming. And you could play different AIs against each other asking questions.
- [42:52]
Host 1
That's also because 90% of them are influencers with no serious background.
- [42:56]
Ryan Reynolds
Yes, but I'm saying even if you talk to science.
- [42:57]
Host 1
But.
- [42:57]
Ryan Reynolds
But because you can show programming, it can track for it can just now you may, you may and I'm sure you're correct. That's not the AI doing it. It's other people could have done. But the way AI can program and interact with you and allow you to catch up. If someone asked me all day long people are asking me weightlift questions about programming. Well, I can't program for you. I don't know you well enough. But if we talk generally about what your goals are, I could definitely talk to ChatGPT or Claude and build something that you could then iterate.
- [43:33]
Ed Zitron
That's a search engine. We're describing the iterations of search though.
- [43:36]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, but it's packaged in this way now. Go ahead.
- [43:39]
Host 1
The thing that Three of us are going to tell you are at different levels. I think Ed's coming to you at the business model. The very like micro level and true. And yeah that's the way kind of how it's got to play out financially. And Druckers come in with the like medium level of the use case and everything. And I'm going to tell you that at the top level I'll draw another parallel first you. Which is two things come to mind. One is how Bitcoin and crypto. Very exciting. Everyone found a novelty factor and it ran for everyone wanted to make NFTs and crypto a thing. And then that was kind of dialed back down to a less fever pitch and more of a regular body temperature pitch. The macro metaphorical level is what I'm going to say. I think AI will dial back down to that Norman normal regulatory sort of body temperature. And then to draw another parallel. Tinder was. Everyone was making their app the tinder of this tinder of real estate tinder. And what you're describing is like an interface that works really well for something like a use case. The ChatGPT model is an interface that works really well for question and answers seeking help assisting you with things that might never go away that might just get built into every app. As access to LLMs becomes easier for developers, they'll build it into the bank of America chatbot. They'll build it into everything. And so I think that's where it balances out eventually over time. Maybe through rate limits. I don't know that that's. That's going to be the way. I think some consolidation might happen.
- [44:56]
Ed Zitron
Yeah. But right. Limits on actually accessing it.
- [44:58]
Host 1
The question back and forth for the people who are using ChatGPT. Right. Or. Yeah. Yeah. I think that will come too. But I think eventually we're talking like five years with druggers. I think with the rate limits maybe in the short term but I think even longer term than that we're seeing that might eventually go away. Those apps may not even exist standalone.
- [45:15]
Ed Zitron
Yeah. And I think. I actually don't know if I fully disagree with you about everything you're saying. It's just that the scale of what we're talking about might be different. Everyone having a large language model to access. Just saying that this is the future we're talking about doesn't really change that much. I don't like the economics effect. I know I'm gonna do the business bullshit thing I do. But it's. The economic effects are quite limited right now. Now if you're saying everyone will have a large language model, it'll be hamstrung in some way or what have you, fine, I can buy that for good or for bad. I could see that happening. I just don't think that. But it goes much further than what we see today. And I think what you're describing is what Google search should have become. And, like, that was what. I remember when Bard came out, I wrote about this, and I was kind of like, surely what ChatGPT is, is what search was meant to be. Right?
- [46:03]
Ryan Reynolds
As the Kohn brothers said, you know, sure, if a frog, you know, had.
- [46:09]
Ed Zitron
Had wings.
- [46:10]
Ryan Reynolds
Had wings, it wouldn't bump its ass hopping. You know what I mean? And so.
- [46:16]
Mike Drucker
And I'll say that, you know, I think that even as it's completely absorbed into our culture, we're still going to be on the phone listening to an AI list, medical options and going, human, human, operator, human. Like, I don't think that's going away.
- [46:28]
Ed Zitron
Walgreens771.
- [46:29]
Mike Drucker
Right?
- [46:30]
Ed Zitron
Yeah.
- [46:30]
Mike Drucker
Like, I don't think. Like, I do think that people are going to be like, yeah, okay, I'll talk you through my problems until I hit this part with my insurance. And I just want a human. Right. Right. Right now. And I don't think that's going away.
- [46:40]
Ed Zitron
No, not at all. I'm. And weirdly, I actually think we're really more on the same page than they even seem, because it's like my whole thing is what you're describing is a use case. I think there are real harms, but I think we kind of agree where the dangers would be. My thing is, is that people are extrapolating from that to this insane level. Like this whole. They keep talking about agents everywhere. You got Matthew McConaughey, but Agents is.
- [47:02]
Host 1
Kind of what I'm describing, which is, like, every app, every service has its own chatbot, more or less. They're just using a different world.
- [47:08]
Ed Zitron
They're just using a different. Yeah. And I mean, that's kind of what like. Like bank of America already has a chat bot. And it does. It does not work. It's the bot you use when you're trying to search for a transaction.
- [47:17]
Ryan Reynolds
Am I talking about, for sure, the human? Of course. We all do that, I guess. I think it'll fool us better.
- [47:25]
Mike Drucker
That's fair. That's fair.
- [47:26]
Ryan Reynolds
I don't think.
- [47:26]
Mike Drucker
Right.
- [47:27]
Host 1
It's already fooled a lot of people very well.
- [47:29]
Mike Drucker
It's people into killing themselves.
- [47:31]
Host 1
Oh, God.
- [47:31]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, that's. Take your. Carry that old character AI thing.
- [47:33]
Ed Zitron
Of course, Google paid $2 billion for that.
- [47:37]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm not making an argument that this is a beneficent horse.
- [47:40]
Ed Zitron
No, no, no, no. I wasn't accusing you of Daniel in.
- [47:42]
Ryan Reynolds
Any way, shape or form. Like I said, I've been reading about this for so long, but I do think that to just sort of. That's why I brought up the horse and buggy. Because, no, the people who wanted the horses, right, they were right about a lot of stuff. About the harms it would do.
- [47:57]
Host 1
Yeah, the pollution.
- [47:58]
Ryan Reynolds
The pollution, the noise, the way it would take us away from our communities, they were right about so much. What they were wrong about was the inevitable march of the future in time.
- [48:10]
Host 1
I think the same. Before coming to this podcast, I was reading Mike, your piece and I was like, oh, yeah, Are we like in the industrial revolution, forgetting about the agricultural revolution, forgetting all the revolutions that came before?
- [48:20]
Ryan Reynolds
Because I've seen it all from when I was. I remember when AOL showed up and CompuServe, and I remember I was invited on a message board when I was 14. I'm 59. Like this guy I knew had a message board in New York and had to dial up. And. And I mean, so I've seen this. I'm an early adapter of stuff, even though I'm an old dude, but not from a tech side, from a user side.
- [48:40]
Ed Zitron
I was on usenet as an 11 year old.
- [48:42]
Ryan Reynolds
This is the single. As a. Just as a user, meaning. I don't know how it works or why, but I can explain to you why people are so fascinated. And NFTs, I was on, you could find the old tweets going, did you buy one? Calling people buy one? Are you fucking mad?
- [48:55]
Mike Drucker
Hell yeah.
- [48:57]
Host 1
I don't know what kind of early.
- [48:59]
Ryan Reynolds
People is like literally, like why I started doing what I do, but like, no, of course I recognize that as a con from the moment one, but.
- [49:06]
Host 1
This doesn't be like a con.
- [49:08]
Ryan Reynolds
But even when you say the bitcoin thing, it's at 120 today.
- [49:10]
Host 1
Yeah, I know.
- [49:11]
Ed Zitron
Okay, so bitcoin won.
- [49:12]
Host 1
There is actual value. Yeah.
- [49:13]
Ryan Reynolds
NFTs were always huckster devices to separate suckers from their money. And look, Theodore Veblen said, and David Mamet quotes it all the time, every profession is a conspiracy against the laity. Every profession fucks over the regular.
- [49:28]
Mike Drucker
Yes, I think that's super fair.
- [49:30]
Ryan Reynolds
And there's no doubt about people who get harmed. Yeah, Mamet was ahead of that by 20 years. But you gotta, you gotta look at it. And not me. Mamet and then me. But, but. So you gotta just understand that it is very effective for people.
- [49:47]
Ed Zitron
I'm just trying to bridge from what you're describing to the automobile, which changed everything. I don't think large language models, I think they're going to create harms. I think there are going to be things that change. But it's like what happens now? Because what we have right now is basically what we've had for two years. If you want to email me about reasoning, please do. I will email as much as you want. But the thing is you look at this and people are going okay. And then this will happen. It's like that thing that with an LLM that goes and does something really basic thing, an LLM that you tell to go and do a thing online. They are bad, bad at it. There was a Salesforce study that said like 35% they like it was like 30 something percent they fail or that was the only ones they completed.
- [50:34]
Ryan Reynolds
I don't think. I've never asked an AI to do a task for me. I've never asked it to do one of those agent kind of functions. I wouldn't. I agree with you. I wouldn't. Well, I don't think it's there yet. I mean again as a user, but research. I've had good research done really well.
- [50:48]
Host 1
I mean the AI and gen AI has done a lot of good stuff in the medical fields too. Right. Crispr and all of that stuff. There's been a lot of discoveries about what sort of mutations you find in certain types of cancer that like I don't think science could have done well.
- [51:01]
Ryan Reynolds
If I want to study an industry to consider writing about it, I can ask. You have to ask. Good. I mean it's like in anything else. Right. I can ask really good questions of an AI and send it, you know, for the $200 a month Model 1 where they'll do that research thing and if I ask it to do research and then you can. It'll like, it will come back and maybe you have to send it back three times but speed and accurate. Yeah, but you can very quickly.
- [51:29]
Host 1
It accelerates the stuff.
- [51:31]
Ryan Reynolds
A lot of it. Because you can like the book list thing that I can't fathom being that irresponsible like those idiots who in the paper. But you literally all you have to say to them is when IG presents any kind of list, all you say to it is go verify that list, please.
- [51:45]
Ed Zitron
How do you know what right is?
- [51:46]
Host 1
Or verify it myself. I mean I would verify it.
- [51:48]
Ryan Reynolds
Then I verify my.
- [51:49]
Host 1
At some point.
- [51:50]
Ryan Reynolds
But you go verify the list, it immediately goes, you're right, I was hallucinating. These three books don't exist. That happens. Then you go do it one more time and make sure that these titles are available in these stores. Then they'll give you links and then you can go look at.
- [52:04]
Host 1
So it's about the prompting that you're doing.
- [52:06]
Mike Drucker
And I think sometimes we're splitting here though is you're, both of you are extraordinarily intelligent people who have done a lot of research in your life. So you know how to do those states. You know how to be like, I need to fill this up, I need to search this, make sure. I do think that one of the problems, again, coming from like the low level, consumer level, is it's often being marketed as an impartial reference. Impartial reference.
- [52:26]
Ryan Reynolds
Oh, you're totally right, Mike. You're totally right. It's not that you cannot, you'll be fucked so bad.
- [52:31]
Ed Zitron
But most people don't interact with it like you do, is what I'm saying.
- [52:34]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, but, but they can.
- [52:35]
Mike Drucker
They can. And I agree with you, they can. I think it's almost sure. But it's.
- [52:40]
Ed Zitron
They don't lead them to do it. It's not like they have things that guide them.
- [52:44]
Ryan Reynolds
This is really interesting here, what you're saying about this.
- [52:46]
Mike Drucker
Yeah, Well, I mean, I think that, you know, when you see people and we all saw the Grok Nazi thing, but if you see people on Twitter, they don't use. They, I would say fewer use it to do Nazi shit as much as they go, hey, Grok, is this true? Is this true? Is this true? And depending on what finger is on which scale, the answer is different each time.
- [53:05]
Ryan Reynolds
But I think I understand why you're saying I did. I haven't been on Twitter or since October, whatever that date is, so I don't know, but I would never. Of course you can't just say, let's go to the AI as though that's a final arbiter, and certainly not today.
- [53:23]
Ed Zitron
But it's being positioned as that.
- [53:25]
Mike Drucker
I think that's my problem is it's being positioned that way. And I think you're absolutely right. I think you're absolutely right how useful it is, especially if you have the skill to use it. I think the problem is it is being marketed as this is a catch all solution. This is a panacea to your knowledge problems. And you know what I mean, of.
- [53:41]
Ryan Reynolds
Course, as a dumbing down well, it is like believing Rockstar games that they're gonna get fucking Grand Theft Auto out, right? I mean, it's no different. I mean, I literally would agree with you. Look at the actuarial table if you had to build one on my life expectancy verse when the next fucking iteration of GTA I might lose.
- [53:59]
Ed Zitron
But here's the thing though, with you describing the research, it isn't an invalid use case. What you're describing is how people use Google search to do research. They pull up a bunch of stuff, they go through them, they look at it and they go, is this right?
- [54:11]
Ryan Reynolds
But that's a slog.
- [54:13]
Ed Zitron
It is a slog.
- [54:13]
Ryan Reynolds
Why would it be describing as a slog? No, no, it is not. It's a pleasure. It's not. No, you gotta be honest about it. It is a total pleasure.
- [54:20]
Ed Zitron
I should be clear. I'm also. I have actually used these things. I've genuinely tried because I'm. I love my Dudad's mcizmos and I've really. I've sat down and been like, what am I missing?
- [54:30]
Ryan Reynolds
You just became Paul McCartney. That was a true Paul McCartney moment. Right?
- [54:36]
Ed Zitron
He has not accept my invite for the show though. No, I'm not invited. Maka. My mom would be so happy. No, it's just. I really feel like this keeps coming back to the. You are using it in a totally fine way. I'm mad at the fact that everyone's like, and this is the only thing you'll need. You can fully trust this. This is the best thing. The information's the best you're looking at and going, this is a way of digging through information and passing stuff and.
- [54:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Having a conversation with the information in the broad society.
- [55:03]
Ed Zitron
Yes, the lowest.
- [55:03]
Ryan Reynolds
That's lowest common. But unfortunately, yes, you're right. Our educational system's really fucked up. Disadvantaged people have no chance. Mike went to a school that allowed people from disparate areas to get. We gotta. Yeah, we gotta reform the education system in the country so that everyone has a fair shot. I agree, but there's a very basic. So let's do it.
- [55:20]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, but there's actually a very basic thing we don't have to.
- [55:22]
Ryan Reynolds
What's that?
- [55:23]
Ed Zitron
There should be regulation that says that these things need big fucking disclaimers that say, hey, check everything. They won't do it because the incentives we discussed. But. But that would actually be. I think all the stealing is also bad. I think the environmental damage is bad. But I think we agree on that.
- [55:37]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, it's just safeguards are Always great. But they are safeguards. But then you gotta figure out who decides what those safeguards are. And who's like. You talk to Bill Gurley, he'll talk about regulatory creep. Right. So where do you want to. I'm just saying.
- [55:48]
Ed Zitron
No, no, no, I agree with you.
- [55:50]
Ryan Reynolds
He's a smart person and he's, you know, thoughtful about this stuff. And so how. Who do you want? The guard. I mean, with this. Do you want the. The current government to sign guardrails? Who. Who's to do?
- [56:02]
Ed Zitron
But here's a very basic guardrail. It's just a disclaimer that says everything with generative AIs, blah, blah, blah. You cannot.
- [56:07]
Host 1
Some of them have it now, but they're all in preview. Right. And that's probably what they're couching against.
- [56:11]
Ryan Reynolds
They do say, right on. Now it's gbt, Gemini Double check.
- [56:14]
Ed Zitron
Every single time.
- [56:16]
Ryan Reynolds
It does it every single time.
- [56:17]
Ed Zitron
Really?
- [56:17]
Ryan Reynolds
Every single time.
- [56:18]
Host 1
And Apple Intelligence.
- [56:19]
Ryan Reynolds
I saw it today, actually. For sure.
- [56:21]
Host 1
Yeah. Because they. They have been criticized. But to Brian's larger point, there are guardrails put in place into a lot of these. I'm most familiar with the Geminis. And the intelligence is in the Amazon ones of the world. And they. Their guardrails are around like csam, Right. Child sexual abuse material or like not presenting people's faces or like trying to avoid photorealism. Because then you get very deceptive very quickly. You don't see any of that in Grok. Maybe. It depends.
- [56:46]
Ed Zitron
I just looked.
- [56:47]
Ryan Reynolds
I know. I mean, I just used.
- [56:48]
Host 1
Which one? GPT.
- [56:49]
Ryan Reynolds
I don't use GPT does really. It does, but I'm not gonna turn on my phone.
- [56:52]
Ed Zitron
But I'm like. I'm just like, here's the thing. If they're there sometimes and not others, that's also bad. Like, it's like, it's. It's because when you've got people who are killing themselves, people that are having. It was Miles Klee, I think it was over at Rolling Stone, wrote this piece about people having psychotic reactions. Yeah, I agree. This. This administration, I probably don't want regulating this. But the answer being let's regulate nothing is terrifying.
- [57:15]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, it's really. But it is confusing because if you think about, let's say Facebook, right. There's no doubt that Facebook was used in Myanmar to foment a genocide. People were warned inside. Who knows where it got to. It's very well documented. How could one. After the fact. It's okay. It's really hard to sort of figure out these use cases. And then should all social media have gone away? Some people think it should be all social media.
- [57:49]
Ed Zitron
Should feel better about that. If Andrew Bosworth, the cto.
- [57:52]
Ryan Reynolds
I know who that is.
- [57:53]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mostly say it for the list.
- [57:55]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah.
- [57:56]
Ed Zitron
Because also the yellow.
- [57:57]
Ryan Reynolds
No. But if I know I'm a Luddite.
- [57:58]
Ed Zitron
Well, that's good.
- [57:59]
Ryan Reynolds
If I know.
- [58:01]
Ed Zitron
Listeners know he did an internal letter in 2016, 2017 where he said that all things were justified for growth, including a terror attack. And that's kind of how they approach everything.
- [58:10]
Ryan Reynolds
No, it was monstrous. Like when I saw that Myanmar thing, it made me say, like, I should never use Facebook. I mean, I think that is as bad a thing as I've ever seen. I mean, literally.
- [58:19]
Ed Zitron
But this is still an example though. And Meta's LLM allows children and Jeff Horwitz reported this at the Journal, allowed children to like have sexual conversations with John Cena. Very peculiar. Like there was like a super clear. It was John Cena voice. It was just John Cena.
- [58:46]
Ryan Reynolds
He's going to jail for 100 years on the bear. I was in a scene with John. Lovely guy. And he definitely wasn't doing that.
- [58:53]
Ed Zitron
No, no, he seems like it. I'm saying it was the voice of John Cena you're allowed to have pedo conversations with. But again, it's this lack of restriction because no particular technology is evil at its core.
- [59:05]
Mike Drucker
That's fair.
- [59:16]
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Host 1
That's right. Right?
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Host 1
Ugh. Come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
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- [61:23]
Ryan Reynolds
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Ed Zitron
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Ryan Reynolds
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Ed Zitron
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Ryan Reynolds
Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O D O O dot com.
- [62:12]
Host 1
I think what Brian was saying and I don't know if I misinterpreting you, but like, like it's. There is some fatigue at seeing these things throughout all the pharmaceutical warnings you get, the end of every commercial, every warning you're going to get from Gemini from now, and every Apple intelligence warning. That's like notification summaries can be wrong sometimes. Like sometimes I see them on my phone.
- [62:30]
Ed Zitron
Where are you seeing the notifications?
- [62:31]
Host 1
I'll show you later.
- [62:31]
Ed Zitron
No, no, no, I believe you. It's like why am I not seeing.
- [62:34]
Ryan Reynolds
I guess you know what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that. But why I brought up Myanmar is no, we as a society, unfortunately we default to the convenience fun, easy. Yeah, that's that what we all should have done when Facebook. And I'm not even blaming exactly like you can blame Boz. I don't know enough to blame anybody there. We know that the technology that Facebook itself was used by these generals in Myanmar, right? Yes. And nobody took pause. Like I think very few people left Facebook as a result of that. I think so. I just don't know what the fix is for these problems because we gravitate like bees to honey.
- [63:11]
Host 1
But they're also like tools that can be used as weapons and it depends on the perpetrator and the person using these. Right. And it's an age old question again, coming back to the industrial and agricultural revolution. This can be just a tool for hacking a plant off of its husk or it can be used as a murder weapon. Back to AI can be very informative, very helpful for people who need companionship. It can be used like people will send me scam texts all the time. The technology keeps keeping up with them and filtering them out so they keep changing their spam. Bad actors are going to bad act. That's just always the way it's going to to be. What can we do? We can I stop using Facebook? I try to educate my parents every single time they use a GPT answer with me I'm like mom and dad stop using that. But then they just keep using it because they're the sort of person that's susceptible to this. They will just use it because convenience and they don't want to do the extra work of maybe the Google search method, which you were saying, Ed. Or they just want something that's easy and they don't care if they get it wrong.
- [64:08]
Ed Zitron
Maybe.
- [64:08]
Ryan Reynolds
I guess I love the idea of you using your brains to figure out how to make, make these things safer and more useful as you agitate within the industry. I think trying to, trying to find a way for them to disappear seems it's impossible. And again like NFTs were obviously going to disappear, but the underlying bitcoin thing wasn't because there's too much. Well, the moment this election happened. The moment this election happened, Bitcoin was going to 200. Bitcoin was going because.
- [64:37]
Ed Zitron
And what sucks about that is we could have stopped crypto. I was writing about it at the time, I was.
- [64:42]
Ryan Reynolds
And the only how are you going to stop crypto?
- [64:44]
Ed Zitron
By informing people about the inherently criminal aspect that underlies everything. The fact that tether is more than likely in the hands of multiple different group. I tried and I failed. And you know what? It sucks. But you try. You can put ideas out there, you can see if people pick them up. And I mean that's kind of what you do there. In the case of crypto, it's Such a weird thing as well, because it's there but it isn't. It doesn't really do anything other than fund things or be funded. And it just kind of exists where it's just like they kind of. They don't even. I kind of respect the fact they don't even try and be literally.
- [65:16]
Ryan Reynolds
You're talking that Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett's book. That's what they always say. I know, but that's what they always said because of that. That's their whole point that it forget the blockchain. It doesn't really do, you know, do anything.
- [65:28]
Ed Zitron
And the thing is though, there was real money in that. That which there isn't in Generative air. And I think that what's funny is this convenience thing you're talking about may actually be their downfall because those 500 million weekly active chat DPT users are costing them billions of dollars. It's probably all going to fascinating.
- [65:44]
Ryan Reynolds
That is fascinating.
- [65:45]
Mike Drucker
That is interesting.
- [65:46]
Ryan Reynolds
They mean their popularity is going to destroy those companies. Not the underlying tech, but that the companies themselves. That's fascinating. I'm really like. I'm saying you're teaching me something. I had no idea about that.
- [65:58]
Ed Zitron
I'll explain it very simply which is OpenAI last year spent $9 billion to lose $5 billion. Anthropic spent $5.3 billion. No, sorry, they look, they spent like 9, 7, 8. They spent billions to lose $5.3 billion of which a chunk of that was just given to Amazon for servers. It's very fucking weird. They lose money. Their conversion rate on chat GPT is awful. So 500 million, I think they have 15.5, 60 million paying subscribers. They don't publish monthly active users because if they did you could do the math and see it's trash. And on top of that they just can't find a way to make money. They lose so much money. So what's more than likely is yeah, these companies might die. LLMs will hang around because there are use cases and Google is like Jeff Dean over at. Google is one of the least evil tech people. There are actually people there who like the tech and give a shit about it. And there's more efficiency stuff coming out of Google's model. The thing is what we see today, I do not believe is I think the most annoying scenario is going to be the longest life large language model with unlimited access is going to be on fucking meta because of their unrestricted tripe that's on every fucking app. But I think things like chatgpt are just going to be limited. You may still have people who use them in the way with the gym.
- [67:13]
Ryan Reynolds
But it's interesting what you're saying about maybe an answer and you think about the industrial revolution is eventually is that people are going to have to be trained on. Instead of firing 9,000 people, train 9,000 people.
- [67:27]
Host 1
Become prompt engineers.
- [67:29]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, become prompt engineers. And the fact that they didn't. I mean look, no one is less surprised than me by incentive structures making these motherfuckers act like evil, completely non caring, you know, monsters. But if they can be convinced that there's profit motive in training people, there's no profits. No. If they can be convinced of it.
- [67:50]
Ed Zitron
No. But I must be clear though.
- [67:52]
Ryan Reynolds
But eventually. But in all these businesses there was no profit until nothing.
- [67:55]
Ed Zitron
Nothing even.
- [67:56]
Ryan Reynolds
How long did it take Amazon to become profitable?
- [67:57]
Ed Zitron
Amazon took about 11 years with AWS, but AWS was a concern that reduced costs for Amazon itself to run their.
- [68:03]
Ryan Reynolds
But in 2000 a lot of people thought it was never going to become profitable, right?
- [68:07]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, but that's not the same. Yeah but no, but economics are complete. It's completely different economics.
- [68:12]
Host 1
Can I ask though, Brian, how much would you pay to keep using chat GBT a month?
- [68:15]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm a, I'm a bad. I, I'm, I'm, I'm older and I've done well and I've, I've. Do you know what I'm saying?
- [68:22]
Host 1
Do you pay anything right now?
- [68:23]
Ryan Reynolds
I guess I pay 200amonth.
- [68:25]
Host 1
200Amonth. Okay, so Google one's like 250amonth.
- [68:27]
Ed Zitron
Why do you pay 200 a lot of.
- [68:29]
Ryan Reynolds
For the research. Because for the supercharged research on the.
- [68:33]
Ed Zitron
20 bucks a month one though not.
- [68:34]
Ryan Reynolds
The same level of the.
- [68:36]
Mike Drucker
That's an interesting thing to point out too is that you're getting better quality by paying for a higher.
- [68:40]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm aware of it.
- [68:41]
Ed Zitron
No, but seriously, is there a question quality difference?
- [68:43]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, if you look at it we could. Yeah.
- [68:44]
Ed Zitron
Oh my God.
- [68:45]
Host 1
Mike's saying.
- [68:48]
Ryan Reynolds
They would tell you there isn't. And in the amount of whatever the user. What is it the rate so they.
- [68:53]
Host 1
Sell you product to make you buy them less.
- [68:55]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, I don't know if they sell you product but you're saying the use rate. I. Someone told me, someone I trust a lot. A person who's tech savvy was like this is when that happened. They used it for a while and a couple months ago I was in a meeting with someone and they were like, like if I was going to tell you to spend money on anything. Spend 200 bucks.
- [69:12]
Ed Zitron
You want to know something crazy though?
- [69:13]
Ryan Reynolds
Yes.
- [69:14]
Ed Zitron
They lose money on every 200 buck a month customer.
- [69:16]
Ryan Reynolds
I believe you because. Because I'm using. Because when they do that search, you're saying it's burning so much.
- [69:22]
Ed Zitron
But that's the thing.
- [69:23]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [69:23]
Ed Zitron
How likely do you think that that will continue? Because the deep research stuff is they start charging you more.
- [69:29]
Host 1
Are you gonna quit? I guess.
- [69:30]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, of course there's a number very soon. I'm already at the.
- [69:33]
Host 1
Yeah, you're very high end of it.
- [69:34]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Double this. I would not pay double.
- [69:38]
Host 1
Right, Exactly.
- [69:39]
Ryan Reynolds
I would not pay.
- [69:39]
Ed Zitron
And I will be honest. And this is not even me being like a hater or anything. It may not be that cheap because right now I just did a big story in my newsletter. Please pay for it.
- [69:49]
Host 1
500Amonth.
- [69:50]
Ed Zitron
For a 200amonth power user who's already, pardon me, losing the money. They lose so much money on them that it's like 400, 500, $1,000 a month Claude code right now. Which is. Is slightly different because the way they do context stuff. Nevertheless on the $200amax user on Claude, they could be losing. They had someone on, I saw on Twitter they spent $10,000 in compute on a 200 month subscription. These are the majority of power users. Power users go nuts, as you well know. This is why I'm so pushy on the economics. Because what we are seeing today, it's like if every Uber weighed 40,000 pounds and the fuel was giraffe blood. It was just like this insane economic. And I sound like I'm kidding, but the economics are completely bonkers. So as much use as you're getting today, I just don't know how practically they'll provide that. And they might be cheaper models, but the cheaper models might not be able to do. I assume you use 03. Yeah, yeah.
- [70:47]
Ryan Reynolds
So which takes a lot. Yeah. And sometimes it still takes such a long time. And that's the thing to even have a conversation. And that's incredibly long.
- [70:54]
Ed Zitron
How much of this is sustainable long term? And I know the business stuff is annoying because you still have your experience, which you like.
- [71:01]
Ryan Reynolds
No, it's not annoying, it's fascinating. I'm fascinated by the whole thing. And this is great.
- [71:05]
Ed Zitron
It's just the long term here. And I'm talking long term as in 18 months is. I don't know if we will have deep research at any price point approaching the one we'll have in that period.
- [71:15]
Ryan Reynolds
If. Well, the Deep research is the only reason anyone should pay the money.
- [71:18]
Ed Zitron
And that's the thing though. The only reason that people should pay is the thing that is not sustainable and has no profit. So when you talk about how we bring this towards like an AWS situation, AWS's lack of profitability was built on infrastructure expansion. It was because they were building the rails of cloud writ large. It was never in the billions and billions a year with no, there is no path to profitability here. There was One model that OpenAI said they were going to deliver to open Microsoft in 2023 called Arrakis and they failed to do it. They have yet to discover a or make because it may not be mathematically possible. A really good large language model that can do the kind of reasoning like that that would be reliable and have the web search tool.
- [72:03]
Ryan Reynolds
And I want to say you do have to when you talk about prompts. Sorry. I was thinking about this when I was learning about complexity theory. I read this book by a guy named Neil Theise that I love. He's a professor at NYU and I'm not good at physics and I really want to understand quantum physics and so I would ask questions. Right. Do research on this and then find a way to be able to explain it. So go read these books, go find documentaries. And then I just quickly realized at some point that the AI hadn't. It was clear to me it hadn't read something because it doesn't have access to. But I could figure it out. I hadn't. And I just said like did you really look at that video? Like it was video. I go did you really look at that video, that speech? And then it immediately went no, you got me there. I didn't look at the speech. But I'm going to go now find it a different way. So you do and you do have to be vigilant, acculturated to having those kinds of crazy at two times. Like you have to maybe have advanced degrees or have trained yourself. So I'm not. This is fascinating. Right. Because I take for granted the steps I. I take for granted.
- [73:04]
Host 1
You're learned behavior. Right?
- [73:06]
Mike Drucker
Yeah.
- [73:08]
Ryan Reynolds
And make my way through the world.
- [73:09]
Host 1
Yes.
- [73:10]
Ryan Reynolds
And like the way that I would interrogate something like that to get to an answer that's useful.
- [73:17]
Host 1
Yeah. As opposed to maybe my parents would be like oh, okay, you watched that video. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Right. That's your answer.
- [73:22]
Ryan Reynolds
And they might get wrong information from it. I can't argue with that. You're right about that.
- [73:26]
Ed Zitron
And I think that a Lot of this, a grand theory of this comes down to I think people have a lot of questions and not a lot of people to ask them to questions about their life, how they're feeling then that's the loneliness. I think it starts with the medical side where it's. It's quite hard to ask a doctor a question in any country. It's hard to know whether. And also doctors regularly make you feel annoying. I'm not talking about my doctor, he loves me. But you can't go to a doctor regularly with little questions. They don't have the time because they must maximize profits or they are busy. One of the two.
- [73:57]
Mike Drucker
Yeah.
- [73:58]
Ed Zitron
And ultimately we are sitting there going I've got this weird rash or like I might leg itched in this place in the same day three days running. What could that mean? And you can't really Google that It's.
- [74:09]
Host 1
Just cancer, this whole webinar but you.
- [74:11]
Ed Zitron
Can'T really Google that. But ChatGPT whatever can do an impressive impression of it or in your case Brian I think this is reasonable lead you in a direction towards like a Mayo Clinic article about a particular thing something you could raise to your doctor that makes sense. People are lonely, people just have weird questions and I think that there is partially a bad side where it's like everyone wants everything immediately, we must have everything we want immediately. But also people are curious and we are more disconnected as people we are more decentralized as people we don't meet people we don't have. We are by at scale overworked, underpaid so we don't have the time to be generous with our time.
- [74:50]
Mike Drucker
Yeah.
- [74:50]
Ryan Reynolds
I'll give you one other use case though because and it goes to the question of training but you could use this for. You said your parents dance or whatever so I'll tell you that that if you are somebody who is. I'll use like deadlifting or squatting with a barbell as an example. If I put a 30 second clip into ChatGPT and I say please watch this, tell me is this form at risk of injury? How should I modify it? Is it good enough? What do you think about the load of this weight? The answer it will give is an I have checked it against like the world the answer it will give is outstanding and that's. How would you get that in another way? I don't think there is and that's the ultimate example. Well that's different than search. There's no.
- [75:37]
Ed Zitron
That's it's searching using a video.
- [75:40]
Ryan Reynolds
No, it's not searching.
- [75:41]
Host 1
The matching is a bit less sophisticated in the regular Google search.
- [75:45]
Ed Zitron
No, I'm saying that. No, that is the.
- [75:47]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm merely matching it against a perceived perfect form. It's looking at your femur. Literally, it'll go with your femur size. This is the kind of squat that you could do if I. Low bar versus high bar. Here's why. Here's what this looks like you're over mixing.
- [75:58]
Ed Zitron
I'm agreeing with you. I'm just saying that search as a term has grown to look at this image and compare it to these sources, which is theoretically what searches.
- [76:07]
Ryan Reynolds
But then in the good language. Right. They didn't know it simplifies how to fix it.
- [76:13]
Mike Drucker
But I do worry if you ask a bad question. Like if you not ask a bad question. Phrase a question incorrectly.
- [76:18]
Ryan Reynolds
Sure.
- [76:19]
Mike Drucker
And I'm not saying you. If one phrases, let's say they ask a fitness question, but they phrase it a little bit weird and the answer they get is harmful. It almost. I'm worried about nightmares, situations like that. And also it feels like we're removing an element of human responsibility or accountability where it's like, well, the machine answered weird rather than like a doctor answered weird.
- [76:41]
Ed Zitron
And I think that lots of corporations love that idea.
- [76:43]
Mike Drucker
They love that because it's like doing it. If my AI accidentally denies your insurance. It was the AI, it wasn't us.
- [76:50]
Ed Zitron
It's the algorithm. It's the same algorithmic pass on thing. But I think you're right in that that is kind of cool. I also have used O3 because I do pay for this. I'm not a baseless hater. I did ask what's the distance between this bottom of this photo frame and the floor? And it spent 10 minutes to give me a completely insanely wrong answer. They're not good with numbers.
- [77:12]
Ryan Reynolds
Oh, fascinating. See, the other day in this example I just gave you, it said I can't. It just said like I can't see, which is good. That was great.
- [77:20]
Ed Zitron
That should do that.
- [77:21]
Ryan Reynolds
That was great.
- [77:22]
Host 1
Both of you using the same model.
- [77:24]
Ed Zitron
I was using O3 on. On chatgpt+ though. So now I now my cons. I don't know how I feel about giving clammy Sammy 200 bucks.
- [77:32]
Ryan Reynolds
Try it for a month and see what it does.
- [77:34]
Ed Zitron
Yeah, I.
- [77:35]
Mike Drucker
You can write it off.
- [77:36]
Ed Zitron
I don't want to write, I already gave 200 bucks to Wario Amade.
- [77:39]
Ryan Reynolds
No, because I would love you to do that and then call me and say, say it's the same. No, no, I would Love you to tell me.
- [77:44]
Ed Zitron
I'm now actually really curious.
- [77:45]
Ryan Reynolds
I would love you to say to me, dude, just spend 20 bucks the.
- [77:48]
Host 1
Same, then you could save your 180amonth.
- [77:50]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, that'd be great news. Please, I am.
- [77:52]
Host 1
What Mike was bringing up, I thought was going to be similar to the point I had been mulling over when you were talking about the training stuff, which is that we already deal with due to like, you know, capitalism, lower barriers to entry, an influx of individuals who may not actually be fully equipped for the jobs they purport to do, do. So whether it be journalists like myself or like, again, fitness influencers, or trainers that say they have whatever types of physical health degrees that are just the result of a 10 hour course online, that sort of thing, we're already dealing with the like, quality dilution of like, information coming from sources like that. To throw AI into the mix feels like making it even worse, like harder than ever to tell what the truth is. And I don't know about you all, but I find myself gaslighting myself all the time now, regardless of like my own life. Whether it's the truth in the world, whether I'm being too sympathetic to multiple different perspectives. I don't know what the truth is anymore. I can't tell you what the cold, hard, scientific truth of anything ever is. And that's where it's led me.
- [78:50]
Ryan Reynolds
But you also have to be willing. I agree with. That's a brilliant point. I think one of the things I would say to people if someone asked me, well, how do you. How should you communicate? I would say, and it's really painful for people, like, because I've seen them talk online about what they love about conversing with AI. You gotta say, click every toggle that says be mean. Tell me the truth. Don't tell me I'm smart. Yeah, like you gotta suck up to me to really be withholding in that way if you want to actually engage so that, so that you're not getting gaslit. Because yes, I agree that. And this is dangerous. The default setting is to gaslight you. You gotta actually go. I don't need to hear, like, glaze you.
- [79:29]
Ed Zitron
I think the young people glaze you.
- [79:31]
Ryan Reynolds
Sure. Wait, can we talk about one before we're done?
- [79:34]
Mike Drucker
You didn't hear the producer just laugh.
- [79:36]
Ryan Reynolds
Out loud at that one. Can we talk about just one? I think they used to say glaze, but can we just talk about one positive, purely positive tech thing that happened the last week? July 4th. Okay, who, who's on Tik Tok and knows all about the antipasto party in Texas. Biggest story.
- [79:53]
Host 1
Was it the one that one person went to?
- [79:55]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah.
- [79:56]
Host 1
Okay.
- [79:56]
Ryan Reynolds
It's the greatest thing.
- [79:57]
Ed Zitron
Please run this Thursday.
- [79:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Okay. They're in Texas. These people have a July 4th party. There's a woman, she's just moved there recently. Her kid becomes friends with someone else's kid. And this woman, Sarah, is the parent of one boy, says, come with me over to these people party. These people's party. Woman A makes the apotheosis of all antipasto salad. The greatest salad you've ever seen in your life. Like, goes to their house.
- [80:24]
Ed Zitron
Yeah.
- [80:25]
Ryan Reynolds
And these people are like, who's this stranger in our house? And they kick her out, even though she brought this incredible. She goes home and gets on TikTok and she's crying and she's like, I brought this salad and they kicked me out of their house. And the entire Internet defended her and loves her so much. And it's like, it's an incredible story. Everybody I know is like talking about like everybody of all ages, like nieces and nephews of mine and then older people older than me are all sending. And it's an amazing thing. It's a huge community has rallied to hate these fucking people and to love her and her homemade mozzarella and homegrown tomatoes that she brought to their house.
- [81:07]
Ed Zitron
Scaling local news.
- [81:08]
Host 1
I saw something else, but.
- [81:09]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, summary of it.
- [81:10]
Host 1
No, I saw something else altogether.
- [81:12]
Ryan Reynolds
It's really worth buying.
- [81:13]
Host 1
But like Reddit does things like that.
- [81:14]
Ed Zitron
And that's the thing. Reddit. Reddit, like this is. I liked ending this on a positive note. That's a lovely. Reddit does that. You were going to say something.
- [81:20]
Host 1
Well, yeah, no community and social forums like that. That's what the Internet is great for. And not a lot of AI is present in a lot of that.
- [81:27]
Ed Zitron
And it's almost. Reddit, especially right now, has got good because it isn't. The CEO keeps thinking of shoving it places. But even like the better offline Reddit, we've got 9,000 of you now. Hey, guys. But it's great because one of my biggest stories I wrote recently was on cursor and them falling apart. And it was because someone on the red. The forum was just like looking through their stuff like, hey, you. And everyone had this full conversation about it. You've got these people out there in this morass of fake stuff or generated stuff or SEO stuff. You've got genuine people. There is still a joy to all of this crap. I love Blue sky as well. But Reddit has really just. I'm shocked.
- [82:06]
Ryan Reynolds
I spent a lot of time on Reddit. I read it.
- [82:07]
Ed Zitron
I'm shocked.
- [82:08]
Ryan Reynolds
There are groups I won't ever go to on.
- [82:10]
Mike Drucker
Oh, sure, yeah, of course.
- [82:11]
Host 1
You gotta pick your.
- [82:11]
Ryan Reynolds
On. I mean. No, but I'm saying, you know, like. But. But there. Where people have a hobby or a thing, like, whether it's music, you know, you're like, I take stuff. Yeah, it's great. And you must love the, like the Claude Reddit because they hate every day someone's like, why does Claude suck today? You must.
- [82:30]
Host 1
I love R slash Google. Yes.
- [82:32]
Ed Zitron
I. I like R slash sass. Because it's all just people. Like running sas. No, it's all people software. No, no, no. You're thinking of a different SAS one. I'm talking SaaS software as a service. Yeah. I'm a loser. So. No, you watch people being like, my app has been up for six months and it's made $7. Should I continue? A bunch of people are like, yes.
- [82:51]
Host 1
And those subscribers.
- [82:52]
Ed Zitron
No, I kind of love them that you've got these niches, but I hate to say it, I do need to call this episode Brian. Where can people find you?
- [83:01]
Ryan Reynolds
Oh, Instagram.
- [83:03]
Ed Zitron
Yes, we'll have a link through there as well.
- [83:05]
Mike Drucker
You can find me on Instagram at Mike Drucker is dead and on Bluesky Ike Drucker. And by. Good game. No rematch. It is a book that's available digital, hardcover or audio. With the audio read by myself?
- [83:17]
Ed Zitron
Hell yeah. Very nice, Sherlyn.
- [83:19]
Host 1
I'm@ngadget.com or on threads@sherlynstagram. C H E R L Y N N S T H E R E.
- [83:24]
Ed Zitron
M Type in Google. The man who destroyed Google Search, that's me. I'm Ed Zichel and thank you so much for listening as ever. This is recorded in the wonderful New York studio in iHeartRadio. Daniel Goodman, of course, is our producer. Thank you so much, Daniel. Thank you all for listening. 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 projects@matasowski.com m a t t o s o w s k-I dot com. You can email me at easytroffle 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 listening.
- [84:18]
Host 1
Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [84:56]
Ryan Reynolds
Want to feel more creative but don't have the right laptop? Lenovo.com can help. Look through our legendary lineup of AI powered PCs and devices and find the one that fits your passion.
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Host 2
Our PCs, powered by Intel Core Ultra.
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Ryan Reynolds
Processors as well as cutting edge AI tools, allow students to focus, learn and create with ease. That's the power of Lenovo. With intel inside plus plus college students and teachers can get 5% off their order. Shop now on Lenovo.com the future's waiting and it needs you.
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Ed Zitron
Say you've always wanted to take a spontaneous trip around the Caribbean. Here's the thing. If you get smart with your money, you can do things like that. With Empower, you can start making the most of your money so you can go out and live a little. Isn't that why we work so hard, right? To have some fun with our money like treating yourself to something special or spontaneously doing something extra for a loved one one. So use Empower and get good at your money so you can be a little bad. Join their 19 million customers today@empower.com not an Empower client, paid or sponsored. Here at the Almond Joy Factory, where tropical vibes abound, we soft, fresh tasting.
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Host 1
Coconut, the crunchiest almonds and delicious chocolate candy.
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Mike Drucker
Ah, but do you know what our.
- [86:12]
Ed Zitron
Most important ingredient is? Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. Almond Joy's got nuts and something even.
- [86:21]
Host 1
Way better than that.
- [86:22]
Ryan Reynolds
Yes, Almond Joy is made with almonds and jo.
- [86:29]
Host 1
With depression. It feels like every day you're just going through the motions. I wanted something that could help me feel better fast and that also lasts. That's when my doctor told me about Ovelli.
- [86:40]
J
In a study, Ovality started working for some as early as one week, with significant improvements seen on average at six weeks compared to placebo.
- [86:48]
Host 1
Ovelity is helping me to feel more like myself. I'm glad I talked to my doctor about Ovelity.
- [86:53]
J
Ovelity is a prescription medicine for adults with major depressive disorder. Ovelity is not approved for children under 18. Ovelity may increase suicidal thoughts and actions in young adults. Tell your doctor about sudden changes to mood, thoughts or behavior. Do not take Ovelity if you have a history of seizure eating disorder or have abruptly stopped drinking alcohol or taking benzodiazepines, barbiturates or anti seizure medicine, serious allergic reactions can occur. Do not take if you are allergic to dextromethorphan, bupropion or any of the ingredients in ovality. Do not take with maois. High blood pressure, manic episodes, serious, serious eye problems and dizziness can occur. Report all medicines you take to avoid a life threatening condition. Do not take Ovelity if you are or may become pregnant. Side effects can include dizziness, headache, diarrhea, feeling sleepy, dry mouth, sexual function problems and excessive sweating.
- [87:46]
Host 1
Ask your healthcare provider if ovelity is right for you. Visit auvelity.com that's a-v E-L-I-T-Y.com or call.
- [87:55]
Sherlyn Lowe
866-496-62976 for more information.
- [87:59]
Host 1
This is an I Heart Podcast.