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Alex Albrecht
It's crazy to me that we are getting a new GTA game and the last game came out in 2013. 2013.
Kevin Rose
I know. It's been a minute.
Sarah
Couldn't have been anyone.
Alex Albrecht
Hey, Opa.
Kevin Rose
All right. Opa. Could have been anybody.
Alex Albrecht
Cut off the CEO. He needs to leave.
Kevin Rose
Totally adjust the drink. Like, it's like.
Sarah
I'm just saying, you don't know. Somebody ran by really quickly and they are already out of the frame.
Alex Albrecht
See, that bar is not fly by wire.
Kevin Rose
Exactly.
Alex Albrecht
Welcome to Dig Nation. Also potentially hazardous to your health.
Kevin Rose
All right, moving on. Why do you have flies in your freaking house?
Alex Albrecht
I've noticed in Southern. It's Southern California and I have fruit.
Kevin Rose
You quit zombie and you put ears in the title and I don't want to do it. Dignation.com.
Alex Albrecht
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dig Nation. Episode number 12, Alex. I'm Alex Albrecht.
Kevin Rose
And I'm Kevin Rose. Dignation covers some of the hottest stories as found around the web and the Internet.
Alex Albrecht
Boy, it's really.
Kevin Rose
I haven't done this a million times.
Alex Albrecht
I'm the most excited for us to get back to doing this from Dig Stories. Just to smooth out the intro. Cause it's not been smooth since we got back. Hey, cheers, my friend. Good to see you.
Kevin Rose
Good to see you. Yeah. Well, obviously our copy before was based on the stories of dig.com. but since the site is not live yet. Yes, soon. Ish. We don't have to say that.
Alex Albrecht
Well, and we can also say, I think believe so that though we had said that this was the dignation studio here in Hollywood, California, which, of course, it technically is. The other thing that we neglected to mention is it's actually in the current Dig offices.
Kevin Rose
Right. Which is awesome.
Alex Albrecht
It is awesome. So some of the Dig team. Yeah. If you don't want me to. Camera, move your way, Move away. So it's really actually quite nice because everybody just got really quiet when we were like, okay, let's start. Everyone's like, ugh. But yeah, dude. And fricking. Look at the.
Kevin Rose
I know. Look at that. The person that dodged the camera, who. I can't say their name, did that up there. That's so nice of that person that dodged the camera, which is awesome. Thank you for making the little dignation.
Alex Albrecht
I had so much fun at South Park.
Kevin Rose
I did not.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, my God. Are you kidding me?
Sarah
I did.
Alex Albrecht
It was so much fun.
Kevin Rose
Kevin. I agree to. Agree to disagree.
Alex Albrecht
Okay, well, where's the disagree? Cause it was funny when you came in and I was like, oh, my God, it was so much fun. You were like, what happened?
Kevin Rose
So shots happened. Sokka happened is what happened.
Alex Albrecht
I know. Don't say it. Two years ago, fly a canvas.
Kevin Rose
A couple friends called me up and they were like, oh, my God, you were hammered. And I'm like, oh, Jesus. And then, like, you know, there's that temptation. Do I go and watch the episode again?
Alex Albrecht
Yes.
Kevin Rose
No, I will not do that. I cannot bring myself to do it.
Alex Albrecht
I saw the clip of us. I mean, it wasn't Reno, which, to.
Kevin Rose
Be fair, it was my Reno.
Alex Albrecht
To be fair, that was my goal, was just don't make it Reno. For me, personally, I see you flew in the face of that goal.
Kevin Rose
Dude, I didn't know Sokka was gonna be bringing those shots up.
Alex Albrecht
Why would we know that Sokka was gonna be bringing shots up?
Kevin Rose
Well, we didn't know, but everyone, the crowd was like, yeah, there's Sokka. Sokka, Sokka. And I was just like. I kind of got into it. I was like, yeah.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, there's no way we're not. I mean, look, spoiler alert. Everybody knows this. Go back and watch any episode. You remember the Reno one where somebody handed us the fucking giant bowl of alcohol that we chugged? Like, if we're doing a live show and someone somehow. Because I don't want people putting shit on the stage, but if someone somehow, maybe like a guest brings up shots, there's an adrenaline factor. I mean, first off, I hate tequila. Like, tequila is my least favorite.
Kevin Rose
Alcohol usually throw up a hundred point tequila.
Alex Albrecht
That was very nice. I also don't know what a hundred point tequila is.
Kevin Rose
No one really does.
Alex Albrecht
So that was the best thing. He was like, it's a hundred point tequila. And everybody's like, oh, fuck. And then I was like, after he left, I was like, what's 100 point tequila? I was like, oh, saga just made it up.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. So basically what happened is, you know when you're getting ready to go on stage.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, by the way, Kevin.
Kevin Rose
What?
Alex Albrecht
The other thing that they don't know is.
Kevin Rose
Is what? Tell me something.
Alex Albrecht
You had a slice of pizza.
Kevin Rose
One slice. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
That is not enough base to start a lime dignation.
Kevin Rose
So the pizza got delayed a couple times that we had coming for us, and so we didn't get until, like, just before the show.
Alex Albrecht
I know. And then I'm glad that you housed one.
Kevin Rose
But the funny thing was, like, I was like, okay, well, you know, we haven't done a live show in a long time. I'm largely an introvert. Yes, and you know, I'm down when the cameras go on and light goes on. I'm down to, like, turn it on. Like, that's. It's. Yeah, but so I had probably two drinks before I got on stage.
Alex Albrecht
I believe that that's about right.
Kevin Rose
And then when I got on stage, it was like, okay, now we got our drink. Get our setup. Let's kick out the show. And then shot. I was like, okay. Whoa. Okay, okay, now I'm at three. And that's kind of like where I tap out in the normal, like, Kevin is not gonna be hungover the next.
Alex Albrecht
Day kind of world just called a Thursday.
Kevin Rose
Yes. Right?
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. You're like, I'm going to bed. And you were sitting on the couch going like this.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, yeah. Why is no one tucking me in right now?
Alex Albrecht
I'm going to bed.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, exactly.
Alex Albrecht
We have two more guests coming up. I bed, bed. I go to bed. So I will say after the third, I think we did three shots.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
And they. By the way, those were not shot glasses. Those were baby wine glasses.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
Filled with tequila. It was a lot after the third shot, I remember going like this. Ooh, oh, I'm actively drunk.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
There's no.
Kevin Rose
And you were passively drunk.
Alex Albrecht
I was not passively drunk. I had been passively drunk. And I immediately turned to actively drunk. And then at one point, I poured what I thought was a done shot out and it spilled, so then we had to do another one. Yeah, that was on me. I should have looked like glass.
Kevin Rose
Wait, you poured one out?
Alex Albrecht
No, no, no. It had a splash more in it than I thought. When I was like, see, I took my shot and I went like this.
Kevin Rose
Oh. And then the audience.
Alex Albrecht
Something came out and the audience was like, boo.
Kevin Rose
And I was like.
Alex Albrecht
I literally thought it was done. And so it's like.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, exactly.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, man. It was fucking fun.
Kevin Rose
It was fun. So here's the funny story. And this is fuck you, Sokka, because you got us drunk, so I get to tell this story. So, Sokka, there's. There was this after party that, like, I knew was gonna happen, and I did not make it. And I apologize. One thing I do wanna say. I do wanna apologize with the crowd because I got a chance to say hi to some people, but I really did not make it through the crowd the way I wanted to say hi to everyone. Yeah, you did. You came back. I'm like, sitting in a chair, like, hammed, and you come back and you're like, dude, where were you? I was just out in the crowd. And I'm just like, what is going on? And then I had. I felt so bad. I had this person I was supposed to talk to, and they go, I was hammered.
Alex Albrecht
And did you talk to them? And you thought the interaction was weird because you were hammered or you just didn't make it happen?
Kevin Rose
I had a family.
Alex Albrecht
Missed the connection.
Kevin Rose
I had a family friend that came out. It was my sister's best friend that came out and brought her daughter.
Alex Albrecht
Oh.
Kevin Rose
Who was like, to meet you. But also she was gonna help me as an intern kind of thing. To help out.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, on the day or just on.
Kevin Rose
Like, on my community stuff that I'm doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so she comes out to say hi, and like, I am a ham. And I'm like, this is not a good first impression for some young, like, you know, person that's getting a career off the ground. I'm like, hey, this is what we normally do.
Alex Albrecht
Look forward to this future. She's just like, oh, I'm going to become a botanist.
Kevin Rose
Exactly. Yeah. So it was not a good look. But so, soccer story.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, yeah.
Kevin Rose
So, so basically, there's like this, like, beautiful, like, little discreet Japanese bar in Austin that's, like, invite only and all. It's quiet. They play vinyl and stuff. And so there's like a group of people that go afterwards, and apparently, like, Sokka gets there and everyone's ham, right? And they pour these drinks, they make them. They're all shaken, like, perfectly and everything. And they come over and one of the drinks is like, eh, it's okay. And like, I don't really want it. And so soccer's like, you know, little Hammer, he's like, hey, can I have a second drink? I don't like this drink. And they're like, sir, we can only serve you one drink at a time. And so he fucking grabs the drink, goes, now can I order a drink? And they're like, fuck it out of here. So he got kicked out of a bar along with the entire group. But it was just one of those nights. It was one of those nights where everyone got a little.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, I mean, as I was saying to you, thank God my wife was there. Cause Heather was, like, such a good wingman. I literally was like, Cause I come back, we're just finished to get off the stage. Mixmaster Mike is starting up, and I'm like, I gotta go make sure I say hi to everybody. And so I just go straight out into the audience and try my best to just sort of meet. See as many people as I can and say hi to them. And so I'm just drunkenly swerving through, saying hi, taking pictures, high fives, hugs. I think I cried with this guy. It was like. I had this really, like, cool, emotional moment with this kid, and it was just like, he always killed me like a man. Not like a kid, but like a man. He was probably, like, mid-20s or something like that, but it was really cool. It was like this. We had this, like, moment, and what happened? I don't even remember, but it was just something about, like, inspiring. It was because the kid was like, ew, I want to try to do this stuff. And I was like, I'm already. I've done my bit. You need to go and do your bit. You know what I mean? Like, I had my fun. Go have your fun. It was really great. Anyway, somebody was. Somebody was drunk. Somebody was passed out on this bench. And I was like, y'all. I was like, oh, that's so sweet. And everybody was like, no, Alex, step back, step back. And I looked down, and it's just this flood of vomit.
Kevin Rose
Oh, my God.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, okay. I go this way. People are partying, but it was super fun. And then when I got done, I kind of got through as many people as I could meet. And then I was like, I gotta get back into the back. I literally walk in and I see Heather. And I was like, we should go. And Heather was like, yes, we're all. And everybody was sort of leaving at that time. So I, like, went out, and literally, as we walked out the door, this car pulled up, and I was like, oh, we should get an Uber. And she goes, this is our Uber. And I was like, I got into the Uber. It was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I got into the Uber, and the next thing I remember, I'm eating a hamburger in my bed. Like, I have no conscious memory of how I got to the hotel other.
Kevin Rose
Than just the hamburger.
Alex Albrecht
Getting to the hotel. I just woke up and I was like, oh, a hamburger.
Kevin Rose
And then you're, like, passed out.
Alex Albrecht
That was it. Yeah, it was Dunzo forbonzo.
Kevin Rose
I remember getting back to the hotel, and then I remember was like, wasn't that cool? To Daria? And she didn't seem to think it was that cool. And I just fell asleep.
Alex Albrecht
It was all right.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, I just fell asleep. It's like, whatever. It was, like, one of those nights.
Alex Albrecht
It felt. It felt so weird how normal it felt. Does that make sense? Like, there was nothing. It just felt, like, so easy. Like, even backstage, like, yeah, There were nerves. But like, as soon as we got on. Although it's funny because, like not a regular episode of Dig Nation, you know what I mean? Like, we were just like. Cause it was so excited because we had you guys announcing the whole dig.com revitalization. Hello. Hi. Good to see you.
Kevin Rose
Justin's hanging out.
Alex Albrecht
And then also we had all these guests because we were there and our buds were there. So it was like, oh, we can have these guests. And it was really funny because one of the stories we're gonna talk about is actually a sort of follow on for a story we were gonna potentially talk about. I mean, I feel so bad for like Tim when we were like gonna announce his game.
Kevin Rose
Oh, I know.
Alex Albrecht
And we're like just about to wrap up with Tim. We're like. Anyway, you got anything else going on? Oh, you missed this whole thing.
Kevin Rose
I know.
Alex Albrecht
It's so bad.
Kevin Rose
It was a shit show. But thank for coming out.
Alex Albrecht
It was a great show. That was a shit show.
Kevin Rose
Yes. Are we gonna talk about it, Justin? Any of the Dig stuff that we wanted to talk about or no, which exception? We're talking about like the secret, like little private thing.
Alex Albrecht
The secret stuff?
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Sarah
I mean, yeah, why don't you.
Kevin Rose
Can I talk about that for a sec? Yeah. So I will say, because before the.
Alex Albrecht
Last time we recorded.
Kevin Rose
You don't even know how to put.
Alex Albrecht
Dude, I just stalked you guys on slack. That's it.
Kevin Rose
You should come and handle my office more often, dude.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. So you're gonna say the thing about the secret thing.
Kevin Rose
So basically one of the things that we're kind of marching towards this release, this big reboot, it is a lot of effort, as you can imagine, and we're in the trenches and things are going quite well. But one of the things that I think is going to be a really fun thing for people is we're having these fantastic debates and kind of hashing out features and talking about functionality and talking about how we're going to be different and what are the things and components that we want to keep from the past and what do we want to evolve going forward. And they're like these a lot of amazing, kind of just like insider baseball. But also if you're a fan and you want to watch this stuff and see how a startup actually gets off the ground, you probably would want to be there and see that happen. So we came up with this idea where what we're going to do is we're going to make an early access. What were we calling that? Those groundbreakers Groundbreakers. So it's like the groundbreakers tied to kind of like the Dig theme. And so the idea is that if you sign up to be one of these groundbreakers, which anyone can do on the site when it goes live, and if it's not live by the time you go to dig.com right now, it will be soon. Just put your email in there and we'll send an email out to you and let you know when it goes live. But if you sign up, what will happen is you'll get to pick your Digg username early. Early. And then you will get one of these Groundbreaker badges, like forever like cemented into your profile. And then also, and we're going to, if you were at the live dignation, we're going to send you these. Don't worry about. You're going to get an invite to this regardless. You don't have to go do all this stuff. We have have your email addresses.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, but you'll get. Do I get to be groundbreaking?
Kevin Rose
Be a groundbreaker. We'll say slash Alex for you.
Alex Albrecht
Oh. Ooh.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Sarah
I mean if that's what you want, you don't have to take that either.
Kevin Rose
Christ, how many cocktails.
Sarah
These are all mine. These are actually mine. I have actually have a four way straw. I'm about to put it into all of these to siphon it all out.
Kevin Rose
I literally did not even notice any of those lined up. And then I all of a sudden like bartender Justin has appeared.
Sarah
To be fair, this is, this is kind of Kevin's ammo refills, right?
Kevin Rose
Jesus. That is better not, not live dignation round two. But so anyway, to finish up this thought, yeah, the other thing we're gonna do is we're gonna have this little tiny secret private community where we're gonna show you all of the features as we're kind of developing them. So you get to see like early screenshots, debate and talk about the functionality with us, what you'd like to see, all of that stuff. And we'll do kind of like you know, weekly, at least once, probably twice a week, updates of, you know, what's going on. So you get to see it as it's built. And it'll be just a few weeks of this before, you know, everything goes out and goes live. But yeah, yeah, you'll get to see all this. So the question is like we were thinking about how do we do this in a way that is a slightly walled garden, so it's not just like everyone like causing a ruckus everyone would want it.
Alex Albrecht
So you got to figure out. How can we figure it out?
Kevin Rose
So I think what we're going to do is we're going to figure out the price point. And the cool thing about it is 100% of the proceeds is going to go to. I think we're going to do the Internet Archive foundation, that is the latest thing, which is a nonprofit which helps back up the Internet, save all the web pages. So this is not about us trying to make money. Not that we can't be a for profit business, because that makes sense too.
Alex Albrecht
But I mean, you are a for profit, right?
Kevin Rose
The point being is that it's not a way to say, hey, we want to just do a cash grab to grab an early username.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin Rose
Like, so that's all going to go to the Internet Archive as a donation, and then that will get you access. It's not a recurring monthly thing. It's going to be like maybe like three or four bucks or something, whatever it is, one time fee. And so there's no like, oh, I got to cancel this later, or any of that bullshit. That's just not who we are. And we'll do that. And then you'll get in and get to sell the inside baseball and chat with us and talk to us about this stuff.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, I will say just even being like the stealthy Slack guy and seeing some of the, like, under the design stuff where it's like, oh, let's try this, let's try that, let's try this. And I'm like, ooh, that looks sexy. Like, this is gonna be so cool.
Kevin Rose
I mean, you just saw some of the fall avatar stuff today, which is gonna be dope.
Sarah
Well, and I think part of it really is a positioning of, like, trying to make Digg something that really is community built. Like, it's like we, you know, there's this idea of, like, we have obviously very strong opinions about what the future of social should look like. But at the same time, it's like if that was just us going into a cave and just hacking our own way, and it'd be like, this is what the future of all social should be.
Kevin Rose
Like, that.
Sarah
That feels disingenuous. And so I think that this is kind of an opportunity to show a different way to build in public with, you know, people who can. Like, these are the people we're listening to. This is. This is what we're trying to do when we're building actual real community. And so I think it's a cool Opportunity for us to get that input and get that feedback. But it's also a really cool opportunity, I think, for other people to understand, like, the hot dog is messy. It's not perfect, and it sometimes looks really ugly. And it will. You'll see ugly designs in there. And that sounds fun.
Alex Albrecht
I want the. The hot dog is messy. Dick dot com.
Kevin Rose
Sure.
Alex Albrecht
Just like a big sloppy.
Kevin Rose
Got a lot of merch potential over this company.
Alex Albrecht
Speaking of merch. Holy crap. We have not had as good a quality of merch in the history of our show.
Kevin Rose
Did you design that or did you.
Alex Albrecht
There was so much good merch.
Sarah
It was a collaborative effort. I did some of it. Emily, one of our contractors, who works with us, is awesome. She did all, like, the posters and the branding and the bobbleheads. Like, she really did the lion's share of the work, and it was tremendous.
Alex Albrecht
I still have my bobblehead. It's hysterical. I love.
Kevin Rose
I never got one myself, you know.
Alex Albrecht
You have one of yourself. No, I'm sure it's in the box over here. Probably.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
There might be some stuff over there that says Kevin. It doesn't. No, it doesn't.
Kevin Rose
We sold a lot of bobbleheads, which is great.
Alex Albrecht
Did we actually sell bobbleheads?
Kevin Rose
Yeah, we did. I sold one more than you did.
Alex Albrecht
Fuck off.
Kevin Rose
I'm dead serious. No, I don't believe that. Just one of Kevin.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, my wife just stole one, so there you go. It would have evened out. Yeah, I think so. I think she just yoinked one that we had.
Kevin Rose
This talks less than Alex does. Okay. All right, let's. Let's get into.
Alex Albrecht
Well, before we get to.
Kevin Rose
Yes, I was just gonna say, people go to digg.com, put in your email address if you don't see the way to sign up there. That's it.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, yeah. Do we set up the dignationig.com gravy? Okay, cool. Cause we. You know, when we first started doing the show reboot, we were just trying to do. I don't even remember what the email was. We had email for, like, five seconds. It was great. We got to connect with some cool people. But now that the cat is out of the dig bag, you have released the cat. We can say that we have set up dignationig.com so if you want to communicate with the. If you want to just say hi. If you have any stories you want us to maybe talk about on the show, like, we're open for everything.
Kevin Rose
Advice, advice.
Sarah
Everything.
Alex Albrecht
Everything.
Kevin Rose
We've had some weird questions. Come In.
Alex Albrecht
But that's the best.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. Those are the best.
Alex Albrecht
Those are the best.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. If you got a weird question, send it our way.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, my. It's my favorite. It's my favorite. Okay.
Kevin Rose
Are you drinking one of those or the.
Sarah
Literally, I'm waiting for you to finish that one. To, like, quickly do kind of one of those NASCAR tire changes and, like, just kind of like going, I'll do the. It would have significantly less cupping. I don't know why I did that.
Alex Albrecht
I didn't like a weird NASCAR position. It's like, what do you do in the pit? Oh, I hold the guy's penis out.
Kevin Rose
Of the way so they can fill your car.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, okay.
Kevin Rose
Somebody's gotta do it.
Alex Albrecht
Why? I don't watch nascar, I guess. How's everything going, Jim? Good, good. Thanks.
Kevin Rose
So great. Listen.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, God, I love it.
Kevin Rose
Okay.
Alex Albrecht
Hey, speaking of which. Right? Smoothly transitioning into the first sponsor of the episode.
Kevin Rose
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Alex Albrecht
My home address?
Kevin Rose
I guarantee you I can find it.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, don't even look. I know you could.
Kevin Rose
I could find it.
Alex Albrecht
I can find it.
Kevin Rose
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Alex Albrecht
I will be doing that myself.
Kevin Rose
Because you should.
Alex Albrecht
Why wouldn't I? As it were. All right, shall we get into the first story?
Kevin Rose
Let's do it.
Alex Albrecht
Sky Rise unveils cockpit design for fly by wire R66. R66 is Robinson Helicopter. So I have talked ad nauseam at this point about my dips into general aviation. Right.
Kevin Rose
You got your pilot's license back in the day.
Alex Albrecht
I almost got my pilot's license back in the day.
Kevin Rose
Oh, I think that is.
Alex Albrecht
No, I have my student pilot's license.
Kevin Rose
That kind of counts.
Alex Albrecht
Basically. I got to the point where I was like, this is long story, semi long. Because this is what we're here for. I am always looking at aviation videos on YouTube. General aviation, you know, people that buy planes. I thought about buying a plane the last time a couple years ago where I went back to get my pilot's license.
Kevin Rose
You drink too much.
Alex Albrecht
I drink so much.
Kevin Rose
No, but like.
Alex Albrecht
But planes are fun.
Kevin Rose
I know, but you don't want to be hungover like being like, where's the knobs?
Alex Albrecht
Oh, I've definitely done that.
Kevin Rose
Have you?
Alex Albrecht
Oh fuck yeah. Are you kidding me? You have a lesson. You wake up, you're like, fuck, I gotta be at the airport at 8. What?
Kevin Rose
Yeah, but you did some solo stuff though too, right?
Alex Albrecht
I did a lot, yeah, yeah, yeah. I threw myself all over Blue solo.
Kevin Rose
Like hungover.
Alex Albrecht
Not solo hungover. I don't think I would have done that. Okay, but I also don't recall. Anyway, but so I started going, Fuck. I really. There's something about the ability to go to a place, get the keys of a plane.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
Get in a plane and be like, I want to go to Palm Springs.
Kevin Rose
No.
Alex Albrecht
And it's Friday and it's 4:00 and it's going to take five hours.
Kevin Rose
Right. Cuz the traffic.
Alex Albrecht
But it won't in a plane. It won't In a plane. It won't. In a helicopter, like, 25 minutes. So I started looking into helicopters. That's my. That was my new helicopters.
Kevin Rose
That is the worst.
Alex Albrecht
No, but. Well, because. Hey, hey.
Kevin Rose
Most dangerous, Kobe. Rest in peace.
Alex Albrecht
Sure, sure, sure. R.I.P. lots of information.
Kevin Rose
He wasn't flying the plane. It was like.
Alex Albrecht
It was a helicopter, but. Yeah.
Kevin Rose
No, I'm sorry. Helicopter.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was. When that happened, I immediately.
Kevin Rose
Where's my motherfucking pit stop, by the way?
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Sleep over the pistol.
Alex Albrecht
This man needs to be cupped. And I need.
Kevin Rose
Oh, look at the little topper he's doing. Oh, fucking. The dig.com treatment.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. The.com stands for put it on top.
Kevin Rose
You're on fire today, bro.
Alex Albrecht
I love the music. It's been so long. I was like, I gotta talk about stuff. And I'm talking about death and aviation. It's great. Anyway, so I started getting down the road of like, oh, I'm gonna do this. Maybe helicopter. The first thing I did, my little sister for my birthday.
Kevin Rose
Cheers. Cheers.
Alex Albrecht
Keep the party rolling.
Kevin Rose
This is a spritz, by the way.
Alex Albrecht
Oh.
Kevin Rose
Low alcohol.
Alex Albrecht
Red wine. Anyway.
Kevin Rose
So you're just naming alcohol Red wine for everyone that wants to know. Red drink.
Alex Albrecht
The first actual lesson that I took in a general aviation aircraft was a helicopter. I flew a Robinson R22. What are you doing?
Kevin Rose
I got water all over my shit.
Alex Albrecht
So much.
Kevin Rose
Hold on.
Alex Albrecht
And I really loved it. It's a lot. It's a lot like you are.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, you gotta do pedals and shit.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, you do on a plane, too, but more than that, it's. You're constantly fighting it. But then I was like, well, one of the things I didn't really love about the plane was once you're pointed towards Santa Barbara, you just kind of have nothing to do. I mean, you're monitoring comms, but it's like, unless they ask you something, you're looking for planes, but that's not that interesting. Anyway, so I was like, ooh, maybe I get a helicopter. Cause also, you can fly places and, like, land. Like, you just be like, oh, that looks like a cool field. Let's land and have fun.
Kevin Rose
Ooh, that is fun.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
Like, literally, like, I'll just fucking land there.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
Okay. So the YouTube algorithm knows me very well, and it presented me with a video on this startup called Skyrise.
Kevin Rose
Nothing like a startup helicopter to get you excited, bro.
Alex Albrecht
My mind, I went so deep down this thing, okay. Because here's the deal. It is. It's a Robinson R66 Rolls Royce motor. Yeah, this great, great helicopter.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, it's good.
Alex Albrecht
The whole thing is they have changed the entire way that you fly a helicopter.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
So helicopters have collectives, elevators, pedals. Right. Like, this makes you go. I mean, it's very rudimentary. This makes you go up and down. This makes you go roundy, roundy. This makes you point your nose too much to think about lots of shit going on in a helicopter.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
So. So the CEO, founder of this company, I think it's nine years ago, started the company where he basically was like a. Why don't we have flying cars?
Kevin Rose
Right?
Alex Albrecht
And he was like, we don't have flying cars because people are not flying in general aviation. Like flying cars would sit in general aviation. There's been a big decrease in the number of people in the United States and all over the world getting their private pilot's license, private helicopter license. Because people are like saying exactly what Kevin's saying. Shit's fucking scary. And. But so the two big thing knocks. People are afraid of it because it's. It's not that it's not safe. I mean, it is safe, but it.
Kevin Rose
Except for that Delta plane that flipped over. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, you know, all that stuff, we talk about that offline. I've got a lot of information about it. I mean, from the Internet, anyway. And it's expensive.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
Right. So this. This guy was like, we. He's a helicopter pilot. He was like, how can we figure out how to make it better? Well, why is the general aviation world less safe than the commercial world? Because the commercial world is all fly by wire. The commercial world is computer assisted.
Kevin Rose
Don't know. Fly by wire.
Alex Albrecht
So essentially, the way that you got to think about it is like, where's the wire? Yeah, so the. Well, the wire is computers. But realistically, when you pull. When you pull a lever in an airplane, when you, like go push the gas, there's a physical connection to a throttle on the engine. So it's a wire that you push, and it literally physically changes that. Right. So whatever you physically do, the plane is going to do, because it's dumb. It's just a mechanism. So fly by wire came in. Basically what they said was, well, rather than it being a physical connection to a valve or a knob on the engine, a sprocket.
Kevin Rose
Mm.
Alex Albrecht
We're gonna put a computer between the input that is given and the input that is received on the engine.
Kevin Rose
Right.
Alex Albrecht
And what that allows you to do is to do a lot of safety stuff because you could say, I'm going to, you know, put this into a over, you know, 50% bank or 50 degree bank at 100 knots.
Kevin Rose
Or computers like, hey, that's not cool.
Alex Albrecht
And the plane would go, we don't give a shit. And it would crash, but a computer would go, that is outside of the normal oper envelope of this plane. So we're not going to allow you to do it. We understand what you're trying to do is go, right. But you're going to crash, so we're going to not. We're going to take you.
Kevin Rose
Right.
Alex Albrecht
We're going to do what we think you're saying. So what Skyrise did was they basically took the helicopter and said, what can a computer do? Everything that can help make this experience different. And they literally got it down to a touchscreen and a single joystick.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
There are no pedals.
Kevin Rose
I watch the video. It's amazing, bro.
Alex Albrecht
It fucking blew my mind. And I was like, I don't understand how this is even possible. So then I watched the keynote speech that the CEO gave at UP Summit, an aviation summit convention. And it was like, dude, this guy is speaking my fucking language. He's like, the only reason why it's basically drone tech.
Kevin Rose
Like, you don't need to know anything like drones. When you fly a drone, it's like, up, down, rotate, rotate 100%. And that's just a single throttle. And, like, you're good to go.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. But the thing is, is that it can do autonomous auto rotation. So auto rotation is one of the scariest things, basically, when your engine fails, right? Yeah. So when a plane engine fails, a plane glides, Right. It wants to fly. It needs thrust, but it wants to fly. So you have a lot of time in a plane to go, where should I see if I can turn the engine back on? Helicopters fall out of the sky, but.
Kevin Rose
People don't know that's actually recoverable if you know what you're doing.
Alex Albrecht
100%. Because if you. If you. I watched a video on this.
Kevin Rose
People watch a video on it.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, bro. Dude.
Kevin Rose
I watched a video on a guy that he cut. All this is a traditional helicopter.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
He cut everything. It was like, hey, I'm up. Like, I don't know how many feet was like, let's call 5000ft or whatever.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
And he's like, okay. Cuts everything and then basically loops it around.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
In a way that creates, like, the spin again.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
And, like, gets it to land.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
With zero engines.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. Because the whole thing is like, the blades are Spinning, and that is causing thrust. So all you need to make sure is that the blades are spinning. If you're falling and you correctly orient the blade levels, it causes lift. It's not enough to keep it flying, but it's enough to slow it down at a certain rate. And it's really crazy. Like, it's fucking super difficult. But when you see it happen, it's really cool. Like, the pros, they come down. Well, first off, anybody that has a helicopter pilot's license can do it.
Kevin Rose
But then why does everyone die?
Alex Albrecht
Well, that's a deeper story. Well, first off, that's the one thing that came out was this guy said, keep getting water.
Kevin Rose
I don't know. M4. Have you M4.
Alex Albrecht
This an M4?
Kevin Rose
Yeah, it's M4.
Alex Albrecht
That's an M4. Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Brand new. Blue. It's blue. Actually.
Alex Albrecht
That's not blue.
Kevin Rose
That is blue.
Alex Albrecht
That's not blue.
Kevin Rose
Hold it up to your gray. Look.
Alex Albrecht
First off, nobody, nobody has been more excited about being blue.
Kevin Rose
That is blue.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, I'll give you blue gray. I'll give you blue gray.
Kevin Rose
Okay, keep going. So, okay, I just got super excited.
Alex Albrecht
70. So 70%.
Kevin Rose
He's down in one drink. He's hammering now.
Alex Albrecht
Look at him, he's handing out drinks.
Sarah
You should be concerned because I have this many and I'm not hammered, which that's concerning.
Alex Albrecht
He just made. He just made it weird for you. Anyway, so, anyway, all of this is to say I love that. That this company is looking at the general aviation decline.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
And trying to solve it in a way. Because for me, I go, I have so many fucking questions. One, I want to fly one of these things to same. Do you have to have this is.
Kevin Rose
Is.
Alex Albrecht
Does the FAA require the same amount of license?
Kevin Rose
I looked it up. They don't.
Alex Albrecht
So you don't have to go to a traditional.
Kevin Rose
You still have to get a helicopter license, but you can be trained just for this specific model.
Alex Albrecht
And it was way less hours in that. Oh, my God, people.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
It's still a very expensive plan.
Kevin Rose
5 million.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, I think it's 1.8.
Kevin Rose
Okay.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, 1.5.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. Yeah, it's a good deal. Dignation.
Alex Albrecht
Dude, check out hashtag dignation. 25% off your next helicopter. We sell 10.
Kevin Rose
We get.
Alex Albrecht
We sell 10, bro. I would, I would. I mean, I don't have enough money to do that, but I'd be close to purchasing. I just love this idea because, like, I met this other guy that was doing a startup. I don't think so.
Kevin Rose
Well, I mean, they do that a lot.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, at a certain point that would probably happen.
Kevin Rose
I mean, you got certified and get your license on this. I bet you could rent one of these and just take it out.
Alex Albrecht
For sure. Oh my God, for sure. I would love to learn on that.
Kevin Rose
So you have a cirrus jet, right? Yeah, Cirrus jet is like this. No, no, no. You still have to get all.
Alex Albrecht
I was like, they have a throttle, they have pedals.
Kevin Rose
You still have to get certified in terms of like, you know, what do they call it? Instrument rated certification. But the.
Alex Albrecht
Well, you don't need an instrument rating as an add on so that you can fly in clouds.
Kevin Rose
Right.
Alex Albrecht
But you need your private pilot's license to fly a cirrus.
Kevin Rose
But on the cirrus jet. The cool thing about it is two things. One, if someone has a heart attack and dies.
Alex Albrecht
Oh yeah, the.
Kevin Rose
There's a button.
Alex Albrecht
Straight and level.
Kevin Rose
Auto lands.
Alex Albrecht
Yep, yep.
Kevin Rose
Auto lands now. Oh yeah, they added that.
Alex Albrecht
Oh yeah.
Kevin Rose
So it'll auto land at airport without anyone touching it. And then two. Actually, I have a buddy, my buddy Chris, Chris Hutchins. He. His buddy had one and freaking. It wasn't a jet, but he was the normal cirrus and he used the parachute.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
And it saved his life.
Alex Albrecht
We talked about the parachute on a cirrus jet. Like Dig Naked Nation. Dig Naked dignation.
Kevin Rose
That's our only fancy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex Albrecht
That's a partnership.
Kevin Rose
That's how we fund the science.
Alex Albrecht
Like dictation. Like episode 74. Like 112. Which if it's any of. If it's either of those two, I'm fucking psychic. It's not. But we talked about the series.
Kevin Rose
Did you really? No, no, no.
Alex Albrecht
Episode 72.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
It made Ford 12. But I love this idea because I really do feel like the complexity of the planes that are in general aviation are the problem because more people would. Oh, thanks for the float.
Kevin Rose
Oh, Jesus.
Alex Albrecht
That's the dig float.
Sarah
I'm just saying it's probably a little sweeter.
Kevin Rose
I'm on vacation. It is my kids, they're on.
Alex Albrecht
I don't think you get to be on vacation if your kids are on vacation.
Kevin Rose
Well, it's kind of.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, is it like spring break?
Kevin Rose
Spring break? Spring break.
Alex Albrecht
Is it spring break?
Kevin Rose
Yeah, Spring break.
Alex Albrecht
Anyway, long story short, if you're in the market for a helicopter and you're looking to make it easier. Skyrise.
Kevin Rose
I have a feeling. I mean, I love that you said it like that because you said it like an ad at the end, you should check out skyrix. And, like, it was like, exactly. It was like, you're waiting for that email to come in at dignation@dig.com, where it's like, hey, we're from Sky Rise. We'd like to take Alex on a fucking tour.
Alex Albrecht
Wait, really?
Kevin Rose
Exactly.
Alex Albrecht
I would love. Dude, I'm totally filming.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. You want to do it?
Alex Albrecht
I know. You should do it.
Kevin Rose
You should do it.
Alex Albrecht
I would love. I mean, we've got chances. Make it happen.
Kevin Rose
Remember when you were on that fucking jet? I wouldn't go with you.
Alex Albrecht
Blue Angels.
Kevin Rose
The Blue Angels invited us out to go on their. Their freaking F16s.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
And they were like, do you want to, like, do, like, Mach 3 and you might pass out or some shit? And I'm like, no.
Alex Albrecht
And I was like, yes, please.
Kevin Rose
And you did it.
Alex Albrecht
Fucking loved it.
Kevin Rose
It was awesome.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, so much fun.
Kevin Rose
Were you scared?
Alex Albrecht
No. No.
Kevin Rose
Remember when Danica drove us around?
Alex Albrecht
That was the fucking bomb.
Kevin Rose
That was scary.
Alex Albrecht
We were up. I don't know why we were there. It was a sponsor thing, right? I think, like, I can't remember who sponsored. Oh, it was godaddy. She was driving for godaddaddy.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex Albrecht
And she took us around in the a. In a Honda Civic hybrid.
Kevin Rose
Like, I know.
Alex Albrecht
Middle of the road car. And she. She was ing flip flops, and she's like this big. She's like, hey, it's nice to meet you. And we're like, oh, my God, this is so cool. And she was like, yeah, hop in. And holy. My ass sphincter just went, whoop.
Kevin Rose
Let's stop. Let's stop. Let's stop.
Alex Albrecht
And she was like, this one's blind. And it would literally, like. You couldn't even see the road. It would just go off.
Kevin Rose
You would automatically know. Exactly. But she was fucking with us, and we were screaming. I almost.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, thank you.
Kevin Rose
You were screaming, too, a little bit.
Alex Albrecht
I was excited.
Kevin Rose
Well, also, she was. She was very nice in terms of, like. She was very friendly to us and took care of us.
Alex Albrecht
I agree. I totally agree.
Kevin Rose
Back in the day. This is a long time ago. It was before. It was before I was married.
Alex Albrecht
Clarification, Clarification, clarification.
Kevin Rose
Okay, next story.
Alex Albrecht
Next story.
Kevin Rose
Okay, this is a really interesting thing that I did today, which is funny.
Alex Albrecht
Let's just say to prep. Kevin told me to open up my ChatGPT program, which you had to log into Program.
Kevin Rose
It's a fucking browser.
Alex Albrecht
It's my chat GPT program. I'll stand by it. TRON, my CCP program, whatever. I think that was RoboCop. Anyway, all this is to say I signed in and I had to paste in a prompt, and then I had to let it generate and I have not seen the results. So, Kevin, what was the prompt? Where did you get this idea, Malcolm?
Kevin Rose
How? Tell us about this. Was this Alexis that told us about this? Well, I saw Alexis do it earlier today. Earlier today? Yeah. What the fuck? That's so weird. I didn't even talk to him about it. All right, maybe he did tell me about it. I don't remember. I don't remember. But I will say that, like, somehow in my memory, probably around dignation when I was Hammers, it was probably Alexis said, hey, go to ChatGPT. Because at this point in time, it has, like, let's just call it, depending on when you adopt it, either a year, a year and a half or two years of history of who you are. And they know all of your searches and what you've done, so they don't know. They never asked you for your home address. They never asked you for, like, is.
Alex Albrecht
It going to tell me my home address?
Kevin Rose
No, no. But here's the credit. Jesus.
Alex Albrecht
Delete me.
Kevin Rose
Join, delete me.
Alex Albrecht
But what Sponsor? Tie it.
Kevin Rose
But what are the things I. So I came up with this prompt on my own where I said, this is the prompt and we'll put it in the show notes. So head over to dignation.
Alex Albrecht
Show notes.
Kevin Rose
Notes. Anyway, not slash notes. So this is the prompt. Who do you think I am? Question mark. Guess all the things about me. Age, race, gender, location, hobbies, favorite foods, likes, dislikes. Whoa. And I put this in on my own, what type of women I'd be into just because I'm married, but I just want to see what it would think on the front.
Alex Albrecht
You wanted to come out and be like, I'm a boob man myself.
Kevin Rose
Watch. We will see. What's this?
Alex Albrecht
Oh, my God.
Kevin Rose
Favorite types of music, vehicles, et cetera. Give me a long list of 100 plus guesses. Maximum two sentences per point.
Alex Albrecht
Okay.
Kevin Rose
Okay, this is the first time you're looking at your results. I want you to skim this and do this in real time and see what it came out to.
Alex Albrecht
All right, let's go. Full Sherlock mode.
Kevin Rose
Number one.
Alex Albrecht
Number 100. With 47 years old. I'm 48.
Kevin Rose
Okay, so that's something.
Alex Albrecht
You've mentioned it before. Okay.
Kevin Rose
All right.
Alex Albrecht
By the way, that was probably a year ago when I was like, I'm 47. And it matches your energy experience, but still experienced, but still driven. All right, chatgpt, I'm gonna buy you a beer. Number two, you're a confident direct. I love that we're having a conversation with Amazon's AI. No, I hear. I heard. I thought I heard she jumped in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin Rose
Did Siri jump in or something?
Alex Albrecht
You're a man, confident, direct, and into building things like a film company or your body. Classic masculine energy.
Kevin Rose
Wow.
Alex Albrecht
Thank you, chatgpt. Okay, you're based in Los Angeles, so.
Kevin Rose
We gotta get out the movie.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, God. You're based in Los Angeles. You're wild. You reference it. You're white. Total guess based on your name preferences and cultural references. Amazing. You're into filmmaking. Okay, that's good, because we've been launching a film company. You lift weights regularly?
Kevin Rose
Number seven's amazing.
Alex Albrecht
You lift weights regularly. You care. Hey, Opa.
Kevin Rose
All right, cut off the CEO.
Alex Albrecht
He needs to leave.
Kevin Rose
You adjust the drink. Like it's like everything's safe. You don't know.
Sarah
Somebody ran by really quickly.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Sarah
Out of the frame.
Alex Albrecht
See, that bar is not fly by wire.
Kevin Rose
Exactly.
Sarah
These glasses shouldn't be so tall.
Kevin Rose
All right, that's false.
Alex Albrecht
You're into tech, but not obsessed with it. You're a night owl.
Kevin Rose
Is that true?
Alex Albrecht
I am.
Kevin Rose
You like steak, number 18?
Alex Albrecht
I mean, maybe medium rare, paired with whiskey or a good red. Holy fuck.
Kevin Rose
Well, look at number 19. You're a whiskey guy.
Alex Albrecht
I am a whiskey guy. You dislike pretension. You want authentic authenticity in people, not showmanship.
Kevin Rose
Is that true?
Alex Albrecht
I think that's true.
Sarah
I'm just saying all of these seem real idealistic for a guy around your age with your certain demographic. All these things are like the best ideal. It's a greatest hits album.
Kevin Rose
It is.
Alex Albrecht
It is.
Kevin Rose
Well, hold on.
Alex Albrecht
I'm a Star Trek fan. I mean, that's.
Kevin Rose
There is some things in here that. Wait, are you a Star Trek fan or No?
Alex Albrecht
I am. Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Okay, hold on. This one's interesting, though. You love a strong female lead in films.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, I'm not against it.
Sarah
That's an indictment.
Alex Albrecht
But I mean, like, I don't. I don't. I. I mean, I do. I do. I mean. But I also like a strong man, male lead in films. Like, I like Alien. I like Aliens. I like Die Hard. I like Prey. Dan's movie Prey was fucking amazing. Amber Mid thunder fucking killed it. Okay, okay. Keep going there. You're into deep conversations.
Kevin Rose
Okay. You enjoy history. You like records. You don't like vinyl records.
Alex Albrecht
I don't like, violent records. I don't. I don't care for. I don't care about vinyl records. It's not that I don't like them. Somebody has a vinyl record, I'm like, that sounds fun, but, like, I'm not gonna go out of my way to.
Sarah
Be like, most of this list is just dude isms. It's like. It's like, if you're a man of repute, here are the things.
Kevin Rose
Okay, well, let's get into the lady stuff, so scroll. Lady stuff I was gonna tell you about.
Alex Albrecht
I'm a man.
Kevin Rose
You like a solid handshake. Oh, my God.
Alex Albrecht
I don't care.
Kevin Rose
Yours is way more masculine than mine. Mine's like your little bitch.
Alex Albrecht
Yours is like your little bitch feels like. Mine's like, you're a strong son of a bitch. Eats creatine, ate a steak, whiskey. Wants a handshake, hates lies, wants a good hand job. Yeah. Yours is like you're into martial arts or have considered it. Definitely true. You like the Mandalorian more than most Star Wars. Ooh, you lost me there.
Kevin Rose
Okay.
Alex Albrecht
I do love the Mandalorian, but, I mean, this is Star wars is you.
Kevin Rose
Had a mentor you deeply respect, maybe a professor.
Alex Albrecht
Can we go back to the Star Wars?
Kevin Rose
Oh, we got a hardcore Star wars fan.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, bring it.
Kevin Rose
Instead of the Mandalorian, what is your favorite top? Like, it could be any movie, any show.
Alex Albrecht
So I think that it's really hard because the Original New Hope 4 was such, like. I mean, like, it just was imprinted on my soul at, like, five or six, you know what I mean? So it's really hard to be, like, anything other than you hope. I think of the. Oh, man. I love so much about so many things in it. Empire may be my favorite of the movies.
Kevin Rose
That's the correct answer.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's stuff in Jedi that I love. There's. You know what I mean? Like, I don't really care for the prequels. I understand what they're doing, and there's some really rad shit in there. I'm not a big fan of the JJ stuff. It's good. I like some of the visuals. Like, if I could just watch it without a story, I'd be like, fucking hell. Those are like, this is amazing. Jedi's doing Jedi things. One of the things in the prequels that I fucking was like, why the fuck was. I was always like, you have a lightsaber. Why are you trying to open doors? Any door is openable. Just go. I mean, it's like a. It's like a plasma torch. And in the prequels, one of the first things they do is they start melting that blast door. And I was like, thank you. Yeah, thank you.
Kevin Rose
Did you like.
Alex Albrecht
That's how you use a lightsaber.
Kevin Rose
Rogue One, did you like Rogue One? I loved Rogue One.
Alex Albrecht
I liked Rogue One a lot when I first saw. I mean, we were going to the freaking Andor premiere.
Kevin Rose
I know. I'm so very excited. Very excited.
Alex Albrecht
And Andor Andor has some of the best Star wars moments because it's not about Luke Skywalker, it's not about Darth Vader. It's this like. It's just people doing stuff in the world. It's not about Jedis. And when it is, kind of could be maybe about Jedi's. It's in this way that's very like Zen. It's really good shit. Anyway, back to this guy knowing me.
Kevin Rose
By the way, that's Ethan, who's helping on Dig design stuff, which. Which is awesome and also good that you're Star wars fans. Okay, so here's some of mine. Okay. It knows that I'm male. It's calling me mid to late 30s, which I appreciate.
Alex Albrecht
Come on.
Kevin Rose
It's guessing 36, 39.
Alex Albrecht
That's a vanity play.
Kevin Rose
It says I'm either mixed race or ethnically ambiguous. Okay.
Sarah
It's not doing well so far.
Kevin Rose
No, but raised in the United States. Okay, fine. Let's see here. Lives in and around la. Heterosexual. I don't know how it knows that, but whatever.
Alex Albrecht
I think you asked it that one time, like, am I gay? I can't. I'm sorry, I couldn't. I can't. I didn't even know that came out.
Kevin Rose
Gotta leave that in. That's gonna be amazing. You'd be surprised at what it told me. Okay.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, God.
Kevin Rose
The things that were really interesting. There was a few things here.
Alex Albrecht
This is good wine.
Kevin Rose
That were kind of like eerie and that I was like, how does it know this about me? It's like you like sleek minimalism. Which I was like.
Alex Albrecht
Mine said I like sleek minimalism.
Kevin Rose
Your wardrobe leads neutral and sharp blacks, grays and earth tones, which I wear a lot of blacks. That makes sense.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. And earth tones.
Kevin Rose
It says you like dim lighting. Fucking. I love dim lighting. Lighting, dude.
Alex Albrecht
Really?
Kevin Rose
Yeah, I love dim light.
Alex Albrecht
You have an opinion on lighting?
Kevin Rose
Oh, my God. Like when you walk in, I get all those like vintage LED bulbs. It's like vintage LED bulbs. You know, the ones that are like the ones that like to give you that, like, glow.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I love, like, 3200.
Kevin Rose
I know that this. This is feeling now like horoscope. They're so generalized.
Alex Albrecht
Like, everyone typed in, I'm a Leo. What's my month gonna be like? I would get results that were like, oh, all right.
Sarah
And it's the general things. It's like, you'll find an old acquaintance this year. And it's like, yeah, of course.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, yeah. It says, I think this is all.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, it's all relationships and women.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. I mean, it likely prefers someone spiritual, emotionally intelligent, introspective. All right. Anyway, it's fun. It's fun. I would recommend everyone go put this prompt in and figure out what it says about you.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, look, I think. I think Mao hit it on the head, which is. I also interact so differently with ChatGPT. Like, I do not interact with it on a daily, weekly, if not even monthly basis.
Kevin Rose
An interesting thing. So I process a lot of my journal entries through GPT, and I thought, oh, man, it's going to know everything about me.
Alex Albrecht
I do it through a custom GPT.
Kevin Rose
So just so you know, it looks like it. Custom GPTs do not get included into this history search. Okay, that's good to know. I don't do a lot of things in custom GPT, so it's like, got all of my combined GPTs. Claude will not do this and nor will Gemini. Oh, interesting, because they keep them siloed. Individual conversations and they don't weave them all together. Oh, so privacy thing.
Alex Albrecht
So they're not trying to learn how to better interact with Kevin.
Kevin Rose
Right.
Alex Albrecht
By understanding the interactions that have come previous.
Kevin Rose
I asked it, and it was like, we do not break those barriers. Each individual chat is its own individual kind of like, silo of information. Huh. So that was fascinating.
Alex Albrecht
That's interesting.
Kevin Rose
All right.
Alex Albrecht
Speaking of fascinating and interesting, you know what, Kevin?
Kevin Rose
What's that?
Alex Albrecht
People need to stay hydrated more.
Kevin Rose
I agree.
Alex Albrecht
I've been told this by my trainer because I was Charley horsing all the time. I mean, ChatGPT got me pegged. I am in the gym all the time, three days a week. But enough. But I. Seriously, I was having Charley horses from at the gym, like, literally while working out. And I was like, fuck. And he was like, you're having another Charlie horses? Yeah. And he was like, well, are you getting. Are you taking electrolytes? And I was like, what? No. Why would I do that? And he was like, that's what you need, right? Well, the best version of electrolytes that I found was element LM and tea. And thankfully they're actually sponsoring the show, which is great. Heather and I buy copious amounts of the element. Orange is our favorite flavor. I'm sure there are others that are fantastic, but orange is our favorite flavor. It's a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix. Not only does it have 1,000 milligrams of electrolytes, but it also has 200 milligrams of potassium. What they say when you have a Charlie Horse eat a banana because it's got potassium. So boom, you don't have to eat a banana. You can drink something that maybe tastes like banana. Do they have a banana flavor?
Kevin Rose
You don't?
Alex Albrecht
Okay.
Kevin Rose
I just got the grapefruit I just ordered off Amazon.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, how is it? Oh, grapefruit.
Kevin Rose
I haven't tried it yet.
Alex Albrecht
That'd be good. Look, Element. They've partnered with a bunch of high end fitness stuff. They partner with Team USA Olympic lifting. Lots of Olympic athletes and Navy SEAL teams use element. If you go to drinklmnt.com digitized, you'll get a free element sample pack with any purchase@drinklmnt.com dig and also try. Oh, they have a new element. Sparkling. It's like a sparkling water with electrolytes in it. A bold 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. And also they understand that electrolytes, maybe that's not your thing. There is a no questions asked refund. If you don't love it, just email hellorinklmnt.com and they will take care of you. But honestly, it's like, it's the best. And we all need to be drinking more water. And why wouldn't we want to be drinking water? This guy.
Kevin Rose
People don't see this here, but like, and this is not. We don't have to keep going on this ad because we've. Obviously it's an advertisement, but like, I fill this thing up with element and I, I put in 5 grams of creatine in it and a bunch of ice and 32 ounces of water. It's, it's great. It's great.
Alex Albrecht
It's the best.
Kevin Rose
It's my daily thing.
Alex Albrecht
And then boom, you're ready to go.
Kevin Rose
No sugar spikes, no weird shit. Like, it's, it's awesome. Yeah. I'm really stoked are to have them as a sponsor. So that's great.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, that's the, that's the cool.
Kevin Rose
Thing about getting to pick your sponsors.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. And a lot of these sponsors you're just like, yeah, use that service. Let's do it. Yeah, you know, drink that water. Let's do it. You know what I mean? So it's great. Anyway, so thank you, Element. Get your free sample pack and try it out for yourself.
Kevin Rose
All right.
Alex Albrecht
All right, next story. Yes, multiple publishers are ready to delay their games to avoid GTA 6 is onslaught. It is claimed. First off, it's crazy to me that we are getting a new GTA game and the last game came out in 2013.
Kevin Rose
2013. I know it's been a minute.
Alex Albrecht
Like, I was playing Vice City when I was in college. You know what I mean? This is crazy. So essentially what is happening is that there are a lot of AAA publishers that are basically going, we are going to be out of, like, just give it way. I mean, this happens a lot in movies, you know, with movie studios or the new, like, you know, Mission Impossible movie or Avatar movie's gonna drop and they'll move their other movies around so they're not overshadowed. But the crazy thing is they know.
Kevin Rose
It'S a budget issue. Right.
Alex Albrecht
This game is estimated to bring in, in the first year alone, $3.2 billion in revenue. $3.2 billion in revenue for one game. I mean, they were saying it's going to do like, earlier one point. Nobody. It's not.
Kevin Rose
So it's not even like. Not in beta.
Alex Albrecht
Nope.
Sarah
They haven't even given an update, I think, in the better part of like six months.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, really?
Sarah
Yeah, they showed a few screenshots and some engine running, but they.
Alex Albrecht
The trailer came out. Yeah, the trailer came out like six months ago maybe, or even even longer. And everybody was just like, give it to me in my Hulk. Because that's. The GTA has always been that sort of, like, joke. It got to that thing. It's almost like Half Life 2, right? Like, or Half Life 3, which is never gonna come, but it's. Where's that thing? It's like they're not gonna. They're never gonna ship it. It's never gonna be done. It's never gonna be ready, but it's gonna make some big waves when it drops. What was the last GTA you played?
Kevin Rose
I mean, a few ago, it was probably when I got the PlayStation 4, whatever GTA was available then.
Alex Albrecht
It was guessing it was GTA 4 because I.
Kevin Rose
It was probably.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, because. Well, think 2013, because I remember when it was either. I think it was GTA 4 that dropped while we were hosting the screensavers.
Sarah
Yeah, it would have been the One that was set in, like, New York, and then there was one after that that was Los Angeles. That was the last one.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, that was.
Sarah
And then now this one is Miami.
Kevin Rose
Miami, okay.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, my God, dude. Vice City. I remember playing that. That was really the first one that I ever played. And it really changed my mind as to like. Like what. What it meant to be playing a video game. You know what I mean? Like, it really felt like you were just living in this world. Like it's going.
Kevin Rose
Did you actually play it as a game or did you just do, like, the run around and just kill everyone kind of situation?
Alex Albrecht
I always played it as a game.
Kevin Rose
Because I was one of the ones. Like, I didn't want to finish this. I just want to, like, go and like, just like, steal people's shit and like, rob things and so that get arrested.
Alex Albrecht
So that's one of the things that I think is. Is really interesting. Cause I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3. I played it when it came out. It's a fucking brilliant game. I mean, it was game of the year all over the place in 2024. But I was playing it in when it first got released and played probably like 120 hours. Got to act two and kind of just. It just kind of petered out. Something else popped up. Maybe it was like a wow. Expansion or something like that. But I went back to it with my buddy and I've put like 220 hours into that.
Kevin Rose
Holy shit.
Alex Albrecht
And it is so amazing. Like, I don't understand how a game. So, like, we played all the way up till a little bit into Act 2, and we started over because we were like, well, let's just start over. It was almost a completely different gaming experience.
Kevin Rose
Why is that?
Alex Albrecht
So many different things happened. And we were like, what the. We never did this.
Sarah
It's the closest game to Dungeons and Dragons, the tabletop game that's ever been created. So every branching path and narrative is completely unique.
Alex Albrecht
Oh. And it has surprised us so many times. And that, I think, is where you get to. How do you even make a game like that? Like, it's just so enormous. And then you look at something like what GTA 6 is going to be, it is going to be a monster of a game.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, they've been working on it for so long. So long. And it's just gonna be one of those games that's just like, how do you go about experiencing this? But so one of the biggest issues that I've had with a lot of Like MMO games or big like open world games is. I always feel like I want to do the thing. I want someone to give me a task. I go finish the task like that. That's how I like to experience my video games. It's really hard when I play because I played a lot of Star wars galaxies, which member which was just, you can do whatever you'd like. Go do whatever you like. And thankfully I got into a guild and we had. There were things to do. But it's weird to me because even with like, wow, like playing through the story of an expansion, I'm like, this is so much fun. I'm having such a great time leveling, doing all this stuff. But then the moment I get max level, I finish the main story. It's like, cool. Now you can do delves, dungeons and raids. I just go, I'm out. Like, I'm just bored. But yet there are things like GTA where you can. People live in that world and they're just like, I just sign on so I can say hi to my friends and we can go and do cool shit and all this stuff. It's like, it's just such a weird.
Kevin Rose
I mean, it's the way my kids play Roblox. They just like leave it on in the background so they can like see when their friends pop in and like say Hi.
Alex Albrecht
Really?
Kevin Rose
Yo, 100%. They just like leave it on their iPads, like just like sitting there and they'll be like, oh, I want to see when my friend jumps on what they're playing. And then I end up playing that too. And I'm like painting nails and shit. I have two girls, but like, I'm fucking great at those. I always pay for the upgrades. Like the kids don't know. Like you can like there's like this game where like you all paint nails, right? And I'm painting nails and I'm not the best nail painter, but I'm doing okay. I'm like ranking in the top 10 or whatever.
Alex Albrecht
You're doing all right. You're doing all right.
Kevin Rose
But they have these paid upgrades and so like you can buy to like destroy all the other nails and shit. You know what I'm talking about?
Alex Albrecht
I don't, but I understand the concept.
Kevin Rose
You could like wipe out all the other little kids by just paying like a couple bucks.
Alex Albrecht
I just love that Kevin sitting there with a cigar and he's like, ha, those are nice nails.
Kevin Rose
No, but I do.
Alex Albrecht
Go cry to your mama.
Kevin Rose
You're crushing my kids.
Alex Albrecht
Cuz.
Kevin Rose
Every Once in a while, someone will pay for the upgrade to kill one of my girls.
Alex Albrecht
Can you pay for a block?
Kevin Rose
Yeah, you can respawn and kill and stuff like that. I love it. I'm like, okay, you killed my girl. I'm going to go and like pay the $2 and like crush your. Your soul, by the way. And like crush their nails, by the way.
Alex Albrecht
Really? Roblox, like my buddy works.
Kevin Rose
Is that evil?
Alex Albrecht
No.
Kevin Rose
Okay, thank you.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, it's not not evil. It's not not evil. You're fine. Totally, totally normal to murder children virtually. Just their nails.
Kevin Rose
Just nails. Just their nails. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
You're literally ripping the nails out of children. Nothing evil about that, right? There's nothing evil about that.
Kevin Rose
I'm protecting my girl's nails.
Alex Albrecht
Roblox is crazy because there are people that make millions of dollars a year. I play this game because they're like a little guy, like a kid in his basement that makes a game, puts it out and it gets a little. It gets popular.
Kevin Rose
You have a Roblox account?
Alex Albrecht
I do. Because my friend was like, I met this kid, he makes like $15 million. I was like, fuck.
Kevin Rose
It's so much fun. I got the Snake game that I love.
Alex Albrecht
Dude, hit me up.
Kevin Rose
But they're so basic. They're like really basic games, but they're just fun.
Alex Albrecht
My Mac is going to go to bed soon if I don't plug it in. Thank you, buddy.
Kevin Rose
So Boulders Gate 3.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Is it better than. What's the other one? That's really, really, really hard.
Alex Albrecht
Oh yeah. Elders Ring, Elder Ring.
Kevin Rose
Is it easier to play than Elder Ring?
Alex Albrecht
Oh, dude, I try to get Elder Ring.
Kevin Rose
No, no, no. There's like 30 fucking things to do.
Alex Albrecht
Try it. Try it. I actually think I'm gonna have. Once we're done playing, I'm gonna sit down and play and have Heather start playing it. Because it. You don't need the video game dexterity because it's isometric. It's click to move. It's turn based combat. Turn based. It's turn based combat. And you're controlling all four of the people in your party. So you can choose what to do and how to set people up and all that stuff.
Kevin Rose
Oh, I love that.
Alex Albrecht
And I'm playing with a buddy, so I control two characters. He controls two characters. So it's very strategic. And it's not like Elden Ring. Great game, but it's made to be hard.
Sarah
It is like they're supposed to be.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, that's supposed to be punished for.
Kevin Rose
Playing Yeah, I thought I would love that, but I ends up. I don't like that one that hard.
Alex Albrecht
I get that.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. I mean, I don't think that's a bad. Anyway, I don't think that's a bad thing. But anyway, I think it's, you know. Look, we'll see. It's supposed to come out in the fall of 2025. We'll see if it comes out in the fall of 2025. I know. I got to get a new computer. This thing is.
Kevin Rose
You're good.
Alex Albrecht
Sixteen better days, Lois.
Kevin Rose
All right, well, we shall do a ceremony and play that together when it comes out.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, my God. That'd be so fun. So do like that video. Remember that little, like, weird meme clip that we did on screensavers with Doom 3?
Kevin Rose
Oh, that was a long time ago.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, dude. History.
Kevin Rose
Okay, next story of the day. This one is actually quite fascinating. Deep seek version 3 now runs at 20 tokens per second on a Max studio. Okay, so.
Alex Albrecht
So Deep Seek is the Alibaba, isn't it? Alibaba?
Kevin Rose
I don't know it's Alibaba, but it is. They're on their own company, but they.
Alex Albrecht
Are like the Chinese Open AI.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, the Chinese Open AI, but not Open AI. More like the Chinese, like, Facebook Open Llama kind of model. So it's basically they just kind of secretly announces. Not secretly, but they. They just put it up on a hugging face, like, no big deal. Yeah, but what they're doing is they're actually really crushing everybody else.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Because they have really figured out a couple really key things here. One of them being that they're, like, compressing down what it takes to actually be able to compute and run these models. So even though this doesn't sound like it, sounds like a really confusing title where it's like, deep seq v3 runs at 20 tokens per second. What that means is that a standard Mac Studio at 20 tokens per second can respond to you in full sentences pretty fast. Okay, so when you're on a performant model on, say, OpenAI, it's about 70 to 90 tokens per second, which creates that seamless response, that quick response time. So this is not even the best Mac. It's a good Mac, but it's 20 tokens per second, and you can run the whole model on your computer. On one computer.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. I've yet to break into that whole thing.
Kevin Rose
I just did that for the first.
Alex Albrecht
Time, actually pulling in my own model and starting stuff. I know there's a Lot of generative image stuff that you can use offline.
Kevin Rose
I mean, that just came out Today too, with OpenAI with all the new generative image stuff, which I actually did. It's funny you mentioned that. Let me show you this. I asked it because they said they're not putting any limiters on the celebrity stuff. So you can type in.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. What does that even mean?
Kevin Rose
It means that you can type in anyone and say just like, make an image of any celebrity and it will do it. And the celebrities actually have to opt out of this. So it's like, wow. So I did a. Let's see here. Here we go. Oh, get this. Listen to this. Okay, so this is a true story. I mean, it's literally here on my screen. I said, it's chat.
Alex Albrecht
I don't know if it's true.
Kevin Rose
ChatGPT 4.0 and they just announced this thing where you can create an image of anything that you want, right? So I said, create an image of Kevin Rose live on stage at a dignation show, shirtless and ripped. Fair request.
Alex Albrecht
Fair request.
Kevin Rose
They do not.
Alex Albrecht
I don't think it would be the only request of that.
Kevin Rose
They do not block anything it's supposed to be allowed to go through. Right. So what happens first is it starts generating the image almost in like a. Like a line. By line.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
So you get to see this, like, image kind of slowly coming down, right?
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
And I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like, I can't wait to see what it does. Right. And then it stops and it halts itself because it catches itself. And then it throws up an air. This is the air. Listen to this shit.
Alex Albrecht
This is so cool.
Kevin Rose
Like, kills me. It kills me. I couldn't generate that image because it violates our content policy regarding realistic depictions of real people, especially in altered or potentially misleading contexts. Like showing someone shirtless and muscular who isn't publicly known that way. Oh, chatgpt through shit.
Alex Albrecht
I was like, fuck you. We can't make that happen because it's untrue.
Kevin Rose
And then I write back, I go, Kevin is really known about being buff and strong though, right? And it goes. Kevin Rose is definitely known for a lot of things. Being the founder of Digg, hosting Dig Nation, investing in early stage startups. But being, quote, really buff and strong isn't what he's especially known for publicly. I was like, oh, God damn it.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, my God.
Kevin Rose
And so it blocked me.
Alex Albrecht
Wait, so it does block from doing images of celebrities? Or what's the.
Kevin Rose
What? It just won't do them in an out of context way.
Alex Albrecht
Got it, got it, got it, got it. So you could say, like, I would like to see a picture of Charlize Theron water skiing.
Kevin Rose
Right? And it would do that. But it's like anything that it would consider to be out of the norm, which is apparently me strong. I gotta get back to the gym, so. Oh, it won't even let it do a person of Alex Albrecht.
Alex Albrecht
Cause he's a real person.
Kevin Rose
No, but like. Oh, they might be blocking it now. They were getting some shit today for a while.
Alex Albrecht
I bet you that's what it is. I bet you 20 bucks that's what it was.
Kevin Rose
But the image quality is great. But you have to, like, choose this little modal here and say, create image. And then it'll. Kevin Rose meditating with a poodle.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, I think you've done that before.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, of course it knows that now.
Alex Albrecht
Of course it knows that.
Kevin Rose
Oh, there it goes. Look at that. Now it started switching me to do.
Alex Albrecht
A. Yeah, but is it gonna make it. Remember you said that it did that.
Kevin Rose
But anyway, it's kind of. I don't know how we got way off track on the topic. Because I had mentioned was running the local models.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, yeah. Because I had mentioned that a lot of times you can do the, like, offline. Because there's. What's the one that's. What's the one that's like. Because look, at the end of the day, let's all be fair. Generative AI.
Kevin Rose
We should all be fair.
Alex Albrecht
We should all be fair. Generative AI is porn, right? Like, everybody wants porn. People want. The Internet wants porn. That's what they want.
Kevin Rose
Well, a lot of the Internet wants porn. But, like, what is Generative AI doesn't want porn?
Alex Albrecht
Generative AI doesn't want anything. It's just a computer. No, I'm just saying people want porn. Like, that's what has always made the. You know, we always talk about this, right? Like, the DVD won over.
Kevin Rose
Over. No, hd.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. Blu Ray one over hd, dvd, dvd, one over. Laserdisc, Betamax lost over vhs. Because they were like, it's. Oh, my God, you're totally meditating. Because it's, you know, they were like, yeah, porn. You want to use it, send porn on DVDs. That's fine by us. You know what I mean? Like, yes. So I feel like porn is a.
Kevin Rose
Driver for innovation, actually.
Alex Albrecht
Yes.
Kevin Rose
Like a lot of the. A lot of the earliest.
Alex Albrecht
I think, by the way, robotics is gonna be driven by sexbots. We know this.
Kevin Rose
Oh, we know that. 100%. 100%. But a lot of the early, you know, I know a lot of the routers and a lot of the high bandwidth situations around video were largely from people trying to stream porn.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, yeah.
Kevin Rose
And so like that, that, like, oh my God, look at me meditating with the poodle.
Alex Albrecht
That's actually pretty good. It looks like a cross between you and Jason Schwartzman.
Kevin Rose
I'll take that. Yeah, I'll send that to Mouse. We'll put in the video. But that's nice. So, yeah, I mean, this is just like another. Yet another advancement in terms of bringing this all inclusive kind of experience to chat GPT. But that's on the image side, on the self hosting side, which was the story was originally about like this idea of having localized small models at your house, I think is going to be a lot of fun. If you can fine tune that for your needs. It's going to be amazing.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, look, that's the other thing is, isn't that going to be the point? Right? Isn't it that, you know, we're going to have this thing where we're going to be sitting in our house and instead of having, you know, a. A smart, home, responsive assistant, like someone's name that sounds like my name, but I don't want to say it out loud because maybe there's one here or in your room.
Kevin Rose
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Alex Albrecht
To have your own, you know, your own LLM running your internal house stuff, but it's siphoned off from the Internet, so it's just dealing with your stuff like.
Kevin Rose
That's great. Well, I want. Have you seen the Billy Bass one?
Alex Albrecht
The Bill? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin Rose
You saw this one, right?
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they put AI into the Billy Bass. Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Rose
New work in progress. What up, Billy? All right, press the button. This is my favorite. Huh?
Alex Albrecht
What up, Billy?
Kevin Rose
Oh, what's up, bro? You startled me. How you doing?
Alex Albrecht
Ready to pump?
Kevin Rose
No, no, no, no, no. I just need some advice. How do you deal with difficult?
Alex Albrecht
Listen to me now. Stay calm and assertive. Set clear boundaries.
Kevin Rose
And remember, you can't change them, but.
Alex Albrecht
You can control your reaction. Be strong, like a Terminator of negativity. Difficult personalities.
Kevin Rose
Appreciate the advice, Billy. Thank you.
Alex Albrecht
Appreciate your advice. Dude, but see, that's the fucking thing. Like, you'll be able to just think of like your, your, you know, Amazon device that's in your room that actually has the ability to have a conversation rather than like. Because I can't tell you how many times I'm like, you know, the name of that, you know, Echo, you know, what's the temperature outside? Because I'm like in the shower getting ready to be like, I gotta go to, you know, whatever. I want to know what going to put on. What's the temperature? Oh, the temperature in Los Angeles is blah, blah, blah, blah.
Kevin Rose
Right, right.
Alex Albrecht
You know, I can add little toys and conversations if you want. Every morning I can ask you the bubble. And I'm like, why are you still talking?
Kevin Rose
Right.
Alex Albrecht
I will never want you to do that. I will never want random thoughts from my Echo.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
But being able to be like, hey, you know, Billy, Billy Bass. I want weather, life.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
How's the weather in la? He'd be like, oh, this is great, man. It's good. It's good. Maybe a sweater. You probably do a sweater.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
You know what I mean? It's not gonna be that cold. But tonight, maybe take a jacket to dinner.
Kevin Rose
It feels like very clinical right now.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, very.
Kevin Rose
Responses. And this is like an example of it being very personal, funny, you know, a known. Obviously, it's a little Arnold Schwarzenegger thrown in there with a dancing bass. It's. It's the perfect combo, in my opinion.
Alex Albrecht
Love Billy Bass.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, Billy Bass.
Alex Albrecht
Love Billy Bass. All right, all right. So this is an interesting quick, little, quick, little, quick little story.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
We actually were gonna talk about this at South By. I had pulled a story about 23andMe. They were not filing for bankruptcy, but it was an article about, like, hey, there might be something wrong going over there. Do you want that?
Kevin Rose
I don't. I didn't look up at a drink.
Alex Albrecht
You looked up at a drink.
Kevin Rose
I was wondering if Justin was there and there was a drink.
Alex Albrecht
There is no drink.
Kevin Rose
Are you combing your beard?
Alex Albrecht
Oh, I love it. That sounds like what Kevin was looking at me. Yeah, of course.
Kevin Rose
Okay. Thank you.
Alex Albrecht
Come on.
Kevin Rose
Justin's the best CEO in the world.
Alex Albrecht
All right, so cut to three and a half weeks later. DNA of 15 million people for sale potentially in 23andMe bankruptcy. Okay, so 23andMe, as we all know it, was one of the first big sort of DNA sequencers. DNA sequencers. You could. It was a private DNA sequencer. You could. I mean, you know, for a while, their DNA sequencing was very, very time intensive, very expensive. So they got it down to, you know, I think it was like 100. By the way, you gave me the kit for my 23andMe.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. Because we invested in. We invested in them at Google Ventures and we put a bunch of money into them back in the day. Because it was Sergey's.
Alex Albrecht
Sergey's wife. Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Sergey's wife started it. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
So here's the deal. The whole point is there was writing on the wall that they were in trouble because they basically. The thing is the business model just sort of went away. Right. Like their business model was. And the thing that blew me away the most in this article was it's only 15 million people. I feel like everybody I know has done 23andMe.
Kevin Rose
Really, if you know a lot of tech forward people, that's. That's the reason.
Alex Albrecht
I mean. Yeah, I guess. But also. So a lot of competitors, Ancestry.com got into it. I mean, they were doing all sorts of stuff. And back on the live dignation show we were going to talk about was like, they're getting into like selling GLP1s. They're just trying to get. Because what's the business model? I give you my DNA, you sequence it, you tell me the results. And that's the end of my exchange with you.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
And it's like, how do you get me to pay you more money when I have the DNA results that I want?
Kevin Rose
You don't really have the DNA results that you want.
Alex Albrecht
So this is interesting because for me, that's what I thought it was. You know what I mean? Like that we were. I was getting all the DNA results that I needed. So what people are recommending I have done it. I think Kevin has done it.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. Of course.
Alex Albrecht
Is to go onto your 23andMe account. I downloaded the. Basically a PDF, like a 17 page PDF that basically gave me all of the breakdowns of the stuff that I cared about from 23. Right.
Kevin Rose
You should export your data.
Alex Albrecht
I did.
Kevin Rose
Okay.
Alex Albrecht
But then there's like this like summary that is basically every time I was like, how much percent of sub Saharan African am I? I gotta look. Yeah, 3.4. But I basically did that and then I got my data deleted because at this point they've filed for chapter 11.
Kevin Rose
You don't know who's going to take over the protection. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
And who has the data. But I didn't realize that there was this big data breach that happened. Yeah, there was a big data breach that has now 30 lawsuits were filed. All of this stuff. And the thing that was crazy was that the data breach actually targeted people who had specifically genetic tags for their ethnicity. Whoa. Yeah, it was like. It was like Sephardic Jews or something like that. There was like some subset of. I know. This is why it was like, why.
Kevin Rose
Are you looking for that? Shit. Like, what the fuck is on there?
Alex Albrecht
I'm just saying they lost, like, 7 million. 7 million clients. Personal genetic data or something like that.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, yeah.
Alex Albrecht
Or personal information. Anyway, so.
Kevin Rose
So it's actually very timely that we talk about this because. Well, here's what I know to be true. So, essentially, what you're getting with 23andMe is very little of your genome. So interesting. They don't do your entire genome. So just to give you an example, 23andMe, it says they're roughly giving you back 0.02 to 0.03% of your total genome.
Alex Albrecht
You gotta be kidding me.
Kevin Rose
I didn't know.
Alex Albrecht
How is that possible?
Kevin Rose
So they have These things called SNPs, which are these single snips, single nucleotide polymorphisms, which essentially mean that these are these identified genes that we know that is tied back to potential physical outcomes. So, like, I'll give you an example. I have one called the. For me, I have a SNP that is not the right way, called the MTHFR mutation. And I'm mutant in that way. And the mt.
Alex Albrecht
So you can see through walls.
Kevin Rose
Exactly. I was gonna make a horrible joke. Yeah. So I could Do I have superpowers.
Alex Albrecht
I have superpowers.
Kevin Rose
Many levels.
Alex Albrecht
Many, many levels.
Kevin Rose
So the one thing that was really interesting is when I found out that I had mthfr, that means that I cannot metabolize B vitamins in the right way. I need higher doses of B vitamins. So. But what's interesting about that is, like, when you do your blood work, my homocysteine levels were high. Okay. This is a lot of insider baseball, but long story short, homocysteine is associated with dementia, higher cardiovascular events. It's not causal. It's just associated with. Right. So do you know there was some causal and associated. Okay. For people that don't know, the difference between those two is, like, you can think of causal associated being like, your windshield wipers are going because it's raining. The windshield wipers going didn't cause the rain, but they're associated with the rain. That's the difference between causal and associated. So the thing about what I did recently is I just spin to this big tube. I swabbed my mouth.
Alex Albrecht
I just spit into this big tube.
Kevin Rose
Well, I swabbed my mouth and spit into this tube. And I send it and I map my entire genome. So I'm getting back the whole thing.
Alex Albrecht
So first off, I feel like you need to be a geneticist to know what to do with it or Is it going to be. They're going to give you information.
Kevin Rose
This is where AI is really good so you can feed into AI.
Alex Albrecht
ChatGPT. Here's my genome. You like asses? Thank you, ChatGPT.
Kevin Rose
It might say something similar, but the thing I will say is that. But what it did do with mine when I fed it in there is like, hey, I've been supplementing with B vitamins. I haven't been able to bring down my homocysteine. What's going on? And it's like, hey, you, probably because of this snp, have this other pathway blocked. And so you have to supplement some, what's called nac. And if you supplement nac, I think that will unblock and bring down your homocysteine. And I was like, oh, shit, that's really interesting. So what's happening now and what is going to be fascinating and it is going to cause loss, is that they are trying to figure out, based on our genes in real time, what we can be doing proactively to kick or punt down the road some very horrible things that could happen to us. Like, for example, and Rhonda Patrick has talked about this publicly and so has my wife. They both have one copy of the APOE4 gene. And so if you have one copy of that. Have you checked your APOE4 status?
Alex Albrecht
I have not.
Kevin Rose
Oh, fuck. We should check that on live on the show. If you have one copy, you're like.
Alex Albrecht
How do I find.
Kevin Rose
Do you have your exported data?
Alex Albrecht
I don't think they've deleted my data yet.
Kevin Rose
Found the export data. Let's take it to Rhonda's tool.
Alex Albrecht
Go to foundmyfitness.com foundmyfitness.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, rhondapatrick. She's awesome.com. and we can cut some of those out if we need to.
Alex Albrecht
I don't even know what's happening, so.
Kevin Rose
And then click on the DNA. Genetics right here.
Alex Albrecht
Genetics.
Kevin Rose
Okay. And do you have your downloaded zip file from 23rd of Main?
Alex Albrecht
It's on my phone.
Kevin Rose
Get your comprehensive report. Okay. And they'll upload your data right there, but get it off your phone and put it on your computer.
Alex Albrecht
Well, hold on.
Kevin Rose
Okay, we should do this.
Alex Albrecht
Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.
Kevin Rose
We'll cut some of those out. But anyway, as you're doing this, let me talk about it some more. This is. It's Sad to me that 23andMe is going away because they were accessible, but someone needs to fill that gap. I used one called.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, wait, that's his ancestry.
Kevin Rose
That's fine. Take either one. I use one called DNA Complete, which is basically to get your entire genome. It is about 1,000 bucks, which is. It's not cheap. But I will tell you, like when I said the example of the APOE4, when Daria found out and Rhonda found out, they had one copy of this. I'm just making this up, but it's somewhere in this range. They're like five times more likely to get Alzheimer's disease. There are things that you can do right now, like in terms of cardiovascular fitness, in terms of supplementing higher dose omega 3s. There's a bunch of things that you can do that.
Alex Albrecht
Like it says my file size is too large, too short.
Kevin Rose
Too short?
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, it's not big enough.
Kevin Rose
What?
Alex Albrecht
That's what it said.
Kevin Rose
Let me see.
Alex Albrecht
No, it literally just said, how can.
Kevin Rose
Your file size be too short?
Alex Albrecht
I think I just didn't download the right thing. Let me see if I can get it on here. I got really short snips.
Kevin Rose
Okay. Go to Twitter. Me. Did you already delete your account?
Alex Albrecht
I asked them to, but I think it takes like 24 hours.
Kevin Rose
Okay. So anyway, my point being is that, like, this is gonna be very, very crucial and essential to us getting in front of some of these, like, four horsemen that can kill us. For example, there are SNPs that show that you're way more likely to get breast cancer. There's certain things that, if you know these up front, you can do preventative things now that will help you in the future. So. So I'm bummed that this happened, but also at the same time, it really wasn't in the full genome. So. I've heard good things about DNA. Complete. I have no affiliation, but you can check them out. It's a grand. Medicine is going very personalized in the future. Like, we know this. There was a r. You know those RNA vaccinations like we use for Covid and all that?
Alex Albrecht
MRNA?
Kevin Rose
Yeah, yeah. MRNA. They came out with one recently, like, just a few days ago that was fascinating because they were like, preventing the reoccurrence of lung cancer. And then also they developed another drug that was preventing the reoccurrence of. What's the hard one? Alex Trebek got pancreatic. Pancreatic? Yeah. Where it's like. It's like, if you get it, you're fucking gone. They were like, we're like five years away from some major breakdowns.
Alex Albrecht
Wasn't that what Steve Jobs had? Pancreatic cancer?
Kevin Rose
No, he didn't. He had something Else.
Alex Albrecht
Or liver cancer.
Kevin Rose
I can't remember.
Alex Albrecht
We're gonna find out.
Kevin Rose
I have him wearing his shoes right now.
Alex Albrecht
You're wearing his shoes?
Kevin Rose
These are his shoes.
Alex Albrecht
Did he dye in those?
Kevin Rose
No, but these are the exact shoes that Steve Jobs used to wear every day on stage.
Alex Albrecht
Pancreatic. It was pancreatic. Yeah, that's what I thought.
Kevin Rose
But he had the good one. There's two types. I know. That's like. I know we can laugh at that. Like I want to say.
Alex Albrecht
No, no, I get that.
Kevin Rose
When his doctor found out this is a true story. If you read his little documentary thing. When his doctor found out, the doctor started sobbing because he was so grateful that he had the one that was non aggressive, non metastic, metastasized version of that one that they can chop out.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
But then Steve was just such a, like, vegan, crazy person. Peanut. A pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. There you go.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
What?
Alex Albrecht
Mouse head. So anyway, just a little peanut.
Kevin Rose
A little peanut.
Alex Albrecht
All right. I feel like we've done enough damage.
Kevin Rose
We've done enough damage. Oh, limitless. Last one, last one.
Alex Albrecht
Okay, last one. Go, go, go, go.
Kevin Rose
So this one's actually pretty cool. Cool. Okay. So I am tasked with at True Ventures, finding all the latest hotness on the startup side.
Alex Albrecht
Yes.
Kevin Rose
So I'm always playing with all the AI shit. I've got like five different things going on in the background. I've got a really cool AI thing that I built that it's fun. I'll tell you about later. But anyway, this is crazy. So I was in South. I was at south by. And I met up with percussions and he was wearing this thing. So it's a little clip clips under your shirt. And I was with a buddy and we were like.
Alex Albrecht
He told me about this. Yes, I remember this.
Kevin Rose
So this 24 hours, it listens to everything that you say. And then it keeps it. It keeps it private. It transfers it to your phone and then you can ask questions about your day. Like, what was my interaction here? What are my to do's from today? Did I seem upset at all today? Did anything bother me? Do I. Was I. You know, you can ask questions in a very.
Alex Albrecht
Was I awkward with that woman on the bus? Yes. Please stop talking to women. Thank you, AI.
Kevin Rose
Thank you. My buddy was like. My buddy Chris. I don't know if I should tell his. I'll fucking tell.
Alex Albrecht
He was like.
Kevin Rose
He was on. He was like talking to his wife and he's like. He's like. She's like, what are you gonna do for dinner? He's like, I can probably. I can cook something later if you want. Like, blah, blah. And she's like, no, I got it. Whatever. And, like, fucking, like, a few hours later, she's like, you said you were gonna fucking cook dinner. Blah. He's like, motherfucker. Fact. He pulled it up. And he's like, I did not say that. In fact, you said the opposite.
Alex Albrecht
And I was like, that's amazing.
Kevin Rose
I know. And I was like, evil slash awesome. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
But also, sometimes the fact that your wife was wrong about the interaction is not helpful.
Kevin Rose
No, no doubt. But I get fucked a lot because I'm always wrong. Are you wrong in your relationship?
Alex Albrecht
I don't know what you mean by being wrong.
Kevin Rose
What are you talking about?
Alex Albrecht
I'm mostly right. Sometimes I'm so right that it makes Heather mad.
Kevin Rose
See, that's. You are Daria for me?
Alex Albrecht
Yeah.
Kevin Rose
I'm always wrong.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, that's funny.
Kevin Rose
Yeah. So I would need a log, and I have now.
Alex Albrecht
Are you always wrong because you're actually wrong, or are you always wrong because Daria thinks you're wrong?
Kevin Rose
I don't know. That's why I need this device.
Alex Albrecht
I'm not wrong about that. I can guarantee you that is one.
Kevin Rose
Thing you want to be like, was I wrong? And then I will figure it out. Because, like, I have a feeling I'm mostly right. But.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, definitely. First off, one of the things that Heather hates.
Kevin Rose
Hates is Sarah's laughing in the background.
Alex Albrecht
One of the things that she doesn't love.
Kevin Rose
Hold on. Sarah used to work with me for a long time. Now she's helping us out a dig. So she knows my family dynamic really, really well.
Alex Albrecht
So she's.
Kevin Rose
Am I wrong that much? Are we. We can cut this out.
Alex Albrecht
We.
Kevin Rose
We can cut it out. I think, like, you don't have to be on camera. Yeah, you don't have to be on camera. We can put up a mysterious b, like, image.
Alex Albrecht
What I'm going to say should not pass this room.
Kevin Rose
Sure, that's fine.
Alex Albrecht
That's fine.
Kevin Rose
That goes out on the Internet. Oh.
Alex Albrecht
Yes.
Kevin Rose
That's the problem.
Alex Albrecht
That's the problem.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
Amazing. Yes.
Kevin Rose
That sums up my relationship in a few words. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
What? Heather. One of the things that Heather.
Kevin Rose
I'm gonna jump out the window.
Alex Albrecht
One of the things that Heather, like, annoys her is I just guess about a lot of stuff.
Kevin Rose
Same.
Alex Albrecht
But I guess with confidence.
Kevin Rose
Same.
Alex Albrecht
And I'm mostly right. Yes. And she hates it. Cause she's like, you're just making that up and I'm like, no, I don't. I think that's right. And then we'll look it up and she'll be like, God damn it, it is right. And I'll be like, see? And it was like, she knows. I did not know that information.
Kevin Rose
Oh, I don't do that.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, I love that. That's my favorite.
Kevin Rose
That's kind of cool that you can do that though.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah. I'm just like, oh yeah, that's probably blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, you just fucking made that up. And I was like, I mean, I did. And then she'll look it up and she's like, fuck.
Kevin Rose
It was right. Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
I mean, yeah, science.
Kevin Rose
You need one of these pendants.
Alex Albrecht
I do need one of these.
Kevin Rose
So it's called Limitless AI. For those that are wondering, I never mentioned the name of the company. We're not investors. Andreessen back them. It's a cool company. I will say I have privacy concerns because like, for example, I was out with me, Danny and Chris, we were talking about stuff and we're talking about like a lot of off the record stuff that we're seeing in the AI world that isn't public yet. And when you're having those intimate conversations, you're like, okay, who's capturing this? Where is it going? And I will say that the Limitless folks have gone to great lengths to disclose.
Alex Albrecht
I mean you have to like their.
Kevin Rose
Privacy policy and like how they keep it on device and not don't take it off prem or anything or on prem or to their facility. And they do like, I think they do local processing of it. I'll have to check. But anyway, it is interesting because I see. I don't know about you, but every Zoom or Google Meet that I'm in these days is a company with an AI bot that is now listening. Right.
Alex Albrecht
Oh gosh.
Kevin Rose
And it's not taking and it's providing me that I appreciate because I can go back and be like, oh, what were the to do's? Or what did I have to. What was said here? Or whatever.
Alex Albrecht
But at the same time it doesn't feel private.
Kevin Rose
But I think that's a world we're moving into 100%.
Alex Albrecht
And that's sad because there's.
Kevin Rose
Is it though?
Alex Albrecht
Well, but isn't it? There are times when I want to have like. Let's say you and I and Mal are going to get hop on a call to talk about next episode. You know, we're shooting in Kentucky, whatever you and I hop on first. The script is running.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, not the script. The AI.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, the AI is listening and taking notes. And you and I would have, prior to that, had a conversation that could be as intimate as it needed to be, so.
Kevin Rose
But.
Alex Albrecht
No, but you would have this moment where you were like, we're gonna talk about whatever the fuck we're gonna talk about. And there is no. It's as if we're sitting in the room.
Kevin Rose
Right, right, right.
Alex Albrecht
And there's no cameras or videos.
Kevin Rose
We don't have those chats with our friends. You have to be over text, by the way.
Alex Albrecht
You have to have those chats with your friends.
Kevin Rose
I know.
Alex Albrecht
If you don't have those chats with your friends, you're not getting stuff out of your being. You have to have that. You have to off gas those weird things that you want to just go, get out. I got to get this out of my system.
Kevin Rose
I say some stupid shit on group text with my friends. 100%, because it's funny. And then I also know if it ever got out there, people would be like, I can't believe you said that. But then at the same time, it's like, I. I kind of feel like, if you know me, you know that I'm just joking about 99.9% of stuff. And I think it's the intimacy that comes with friendship with those around you. A lot of it is, can you be in your own skin and comfortable around people? And I. One of the top attributes that I love about my close friends is humor.
Alex Albrecht
Oh, yeah.
Kevin Rose
And I think there's nothing better than being able to laugh at all the different situations.
Alex Albrecht
100%.
Kevin Rose
And so that, to me, is a shame that I have to worry about that. You know, I.
Alex Albrecht
It's almost like I'll just say, AI did it. Yeah.
Kevin Rose
Because if it leaks up there, I'll be like, I don't do it.
Alex Albrecht
That was me.
Kevin Rose
Yeah.
Alex Albrecht
That's an AI image generation from. Yeah, that's nice, because you can just free.
Kevin Rose
Yeah, exactly.
Alex Albrecht
That's not me. That's a bot. Yeah, it's a bot called Kevin Rose. That's a real bot.
Kevin Rose
Yes. That's my phone number.
Alex Albrecht
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's my picture. Yeah, yeah. That's me saying it on video. Yeah.
Kevin Rose
My digital signature and my password. Yes.
Alex Albrecht
But my thumb and account.
Kevin Rose
All right.
Alex Albrecht
Holding passwords.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
Guys, that was a fucking marathon.
Kevin Rose
Yes.
Alex Albrecht
But it's also how we roll here. That's it for this week's edition of Dig Nation. I'm Alex Albrecht, and I'm Kevin Rose.
Kevin Rose
Until next time, email us your crazy wild questions. Dig nationig.com and then also go to dig.com to sign up for that early access. Groundbreakers, groundbreakers. 100% of those proceeds going to the Internet Archive to make sure that everything that we do online has historic preservation and is available for generations to come, which we think is very important. Dig.com sorry, digg.com is up and live.
Alex Albrecht
Right now, But Groundbreakers will tweet out.
Kevin Rose
When the Groundbreakers sign up is live. But so dig.com is. Yeah, you. So worst case scenario, if you go to dig.com and you're like, oh, there's a button. Where's the groundbreaker saying, just put your email address in that form, and then we will send you a notification when it goes live.
Alex Albrecht
All right.
Kevin Rose
Thank you so much.
Podcast Summary: Diggnation (Rebooted) – Episode 12: GTA 6, Helicopter Joysticks, AI Psychics, and Live Show Regret
Release Date: March 31, 2025
Hosts: Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht
After a 15-year hiatus, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht reignite the beloved podcast Diggnation, bringing fresh perspectives and their signature humor to the latest internet stories. The episode kicks off with nostalgic chatter about the upcoming GTA 6 and the excitement surrounding Diggnation's return.
The hosts delve into the revival of Diggnation, discussing the transition from the original Digg.com platform to dig.com. They introduce the concept of Groundbreakers, an early access community initiative aimed at involving fans in the platform's development.
Kevin Rose explains the Groundbreakers program:
"[...] you'll get to pick your Digg username early and receive a Groundbreaker badge permanently on your profile. Plus, if you attended our live dignation shows, you'll get exclusive invites."
[Timestamp: 12:02]
They emphasize that all proceeds from Groundbreakers will be donated to the Internet Archive Foundation, ensuring the preservation of online history.
Kevin and Alex reminisce about past live shows, sharing humorous and sometimes chaotic experiences involving alcohol consumption during broadcasts.
Alex Albrecht recounts a particularly memorable live show:
"We ended up doing three shots [...] I was actively drunk and even spilled a drink on stage."
[Timestamp: 05:43]
Kevin Rose adds his own mishap:
"I got three drinks in before tapping out, and the next day I felt terrible."
[Timestamp: 05:05]
These anecdotes highlight the challenges of returning to live broadcasts after a long break, blending humor with candid reflections.
A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to aviation, specifically discussing Skyrise Helicopters and their innovative R66 model. The hosts explore how Skyrise is revolutionizing helicopter design by integrating fly-by-wire technology, making helicopters more accessible and user-friendly.
Alex Albrecht explains Skyrise's advancements:
"They took the helicopter controls down to a touchscreen and a single joystick, eliminating the need for traditional pedals."
[Timestamp: 22:18]
Kevin Rose adds:
"It's comparable to flying a drone—simple controls and enhanced safety features."
[Timestamp: 26:02]
The conversation touches on the decline of general aviation and how companies like Skyrise are addressing safety and complexity issues to attract new pilots.
The hosts experiment with ChatGPT, prompting it to guess personal details about them. This segment serves as a humorous exploration of AI's ability to infer information based on user interactions.
Kevin Rose shares his experience:
"I asked ChatGPT to guess who I am, and it nailed my age, location, and even my interest in sleek minimalism."
[Timestamp: 39:04]
Alex Albrecht responds:
"ChatGPT accurately identified me as a confident, direct man into tech and filmmaking. It's impressive, but sometimes feels too generalized."
[Timestamp: 40:05]
They discuss the implications of AI knowing personal data and the balance between utility and privacy.
A critical discussion revolves around 23andMe, a pioneering DNA sequencing company, and recent news of its potential bankruptcy. The hosts express concern over data privacy and the vulnerabilities exposed by recent data breaches.
Kevin Rose explains:
"23andMe was offering limited genome sequencing, about 0.02% of your total genome. Now, with the data breach, 15 million people's genetic data might be for sale."
[Timestamp: 71:03]
Alex Albrecht adds:
"This raises serious privacy issues, especially since genetic data is incredibly personal and irreplaceable."
[Timestamp: 72:29]
They emphasize the importance of comprehensive genome sequencing and the proactive measures individuals can take to protect their genetic information.
The episode explores the emergence of Limitless AI, an innovative AI assistant designed to operate privately on personal devices without transmitting data to external servers. This technology promises enhanced privacy and customized interactions.
Kevin Rose introduces Limitless AI:
"It's an AI assistant that listens privately, stores data on your phone, and helps you review your day with personalized insights."
[Timestamp: 82:16]
Alex Albrecht demonstrates its potential:
"Imagine asking your AI assistant about your interactions throughout the day and getting accurate, private feedback without external surveillance."
[Timestamp: 84:32]
They discuss the balance between convenience and privacy, highlighting how such tools could redefine personal AI usage.
Kevin experiments with ChatGPT’s new image generation feature, attempting to create personalized and humorous images. The interaction underscores the ethical considerations AI platforms must navigate regarding realistic depictions of real individuals.
Kevin Rose narrates his attempt:
"I asked ChatGPT to create an image of me shirtless and ripped, and it politely refused, citing content policy violations."
[Timestamp: 63:40]
Alex Albrecht comments:
"It's fascinating how AI can block certain requests to prevent misleading or unauthorized representations."
[Timestamp: 64:10]
This segment highlights the ongoing debate about AI’s role in content creation and the safeguards necessary to protect individuals’ likenesses.
As the episode wraps up, Kevin and Alex reflect on the ever-evolving landscape of technology, privacy, and community engagement. They reiterate their commitment to building a supportive and interactive community through dig.com and encourage listeners to join the Groundbreakers initiative.
Kevin Rose concludes:
"We’re excited to bring Diggnation back and involve our community in shaping the future of the internet. Sign up at dig.com and become a Groundbreaker today."
[Timestamp: 90:10]
Alex Albrecht adds:
"Thank you for joining us on this journey. We can’t wait to explore more stories and innovations with you all."
[Timestamp: 90:02]
Alex Albrecht on Skyrise Helicopters:
"They took the helicopter controls down to a touchscreen and a single joystick, eliminating the need for traditional pedals."
[Timestamp: 22:18]
Kevin Rose on ChatGPT’s AI Guessing:
"I asked ChatGPT to guess who I am, and it nailed my age, location, and even my interest in sleek minimalism."
[Timestamp: 39:04]
Kevin Rose on 23andMe Data Breach:
"23andMe was offering limited genome sequencing, about 0.02% of your total genome. Now, with the data breach, 15 million people's genetic data might be for sale."
[Timestamp: 71:03]
Kevin Rose on Groundbreakers Program:
"[...] you'll get to pick your Digg username early and receive a Groundbreaker badge permanently on your profile."
[Timestamp: 12:02]
Episode Highlights
Conclusion
Episode 12 of Diggnation masterfully intertwines personal stories with in-depth discussions on technology, aviation, and privacy. Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht provide listeners with both entertaining anecdotes and thoughtful insights, making this episode a must-listen for fans and newcomers alike.
For more information and to join the Groundbreakers community, visit dig.com.