OpenAIGP

Summary

Red Scare Podcast: "OpenAIGP" – Episode Summary

Date: April 8, 2026
Hosts: Dasha & Monica
Special focus: The existential weirdness of 2026 – AI slop, holy war vibes, internet derangement, and the Ronan Farrow New Yorker expose of Sam Altman.

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Episode Overview

This episode unfolds as Dasha and Monica riff on a mix of anxiety-inducing world events (the Iran war scare, nuclear dread), the spread of AI-generated "fruit slop" on social media, and the sprawling, gossipy New Yorker exposé on Sam Altman. Laced with characteristic dark humor, self-deprecation, and tangents, the episode explores how the personal, the political, and AI-driven culture endlessly intertwine.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. War Dread and the New “Holy War”

• [02:26-09:19]
  The hosts open up about their mounting anxiety connected to the Iran-US conflict and the “10% nuclear dread.” Dasha admits, “just since the war started, basically, it’s given me...I feel very destabilized...just like, civilization will die.”
  Monica observes the omnipresent doom on social media, with real and faked images stoking public neuroses:

  “This is the first big, total social media war, so everything that you're hearing and seeing plays into people's existing...anxieties...such a skeptic now. I don't trust or believe anything I see on Twitter—is this AI?” (03:48)

• Meta-commentary: There’s a sense of everyone living on a knife’s edge, toggling between disbelief and collective panic.

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2. AI Slop, Fruit Videos, and Internet Brain-Rot

• [10:48-25:17]
  A major thread: the rise of AI-generated “fruit drama” videos, described as “raunchy, nonsensical genre [of] TikTok soaps starring anthropomorphic Pixar-inspired fruits and vegetables...cheating on each other and giving birth to interspecies spawn...” (25:30)

  • Origins: Most seem to emanate from India, via a platform called Object Talk.
  • Underlying anxieties:
    • Estrangement from reality (“It's so hard to look away...we're cooked, it's over.” – 29:27)
    • The emotional triggers embedded in slop content, and its addictive quality (29:39 – “we're cooked...it's over”).
    • The way AI enables mass production of ever-more bizarre, emotionally manipulative content.

• Quotes:

  “It reminded me of this earlier phenom...like these links to games...where it was like a girl wearing yoga pants farting...a new low in online degeneracy?” (23:15)
  “I went from being jealous of fake down syndrome chicks in yoga pants to being jealous of like, fake fruit chicks with big Brian Gnome titties strawberrina.” (25:07)

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3. The Kristi Noem & MAGA Meltdown Scandal

• [12:16-21:06]
  • Recaps the revelation that Kristi Noem’s husband, Byron/Brian, is involved in online bimbofication fetish communities, wearing rubber breasts and cross-dressing, amid Noem’s own political downfall and alleged affair.
  • The hosts dissect “kink shaming,” speculate on humiliation fetishes, and joke about the imbroglio:

    “He’s just a good old fashioned cross-dresser...He's sissified, he's got a fetish and they're kink shaming him. And she definitely knows.” (17:37)

  • Monica: “I have to be like an annoying clarifier...he's clearly not gay...he’s not even a tranny...he’s like a secret third thing.” (17:17-19:08)

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4. Escapism and the Underclass: Slop as Coping Mechanism

• [32:38-36:54]
  • Fruit slop as modern panem et circenses (bread and circuses):

    “If you want to escape into a tiny screen, it does take a psychic toll...there’s nothing else you can do because you’re poor.” (34:39)

  • Analogy to UBI:

    “People...warning about or celebrating the arrival of UBI don’t realize that UBI is effectively already here and you’re being...subsidized if not paid to just post to die.” (35:34)

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5. The Catholic Revival: Hype or Reality?

• [41:55-55:05]
  • Rise in Catholic church attendance and conversions, especially among young men (“38% increase in conversions” – 43:02)
  • Sincere return to religion vs. content creator clout-chasing
  • Dasha: “When I reverted...I was kind of having some problems with my medication...I heard a Daniel Johnston song at the APC surplus store in Paris. You know, like, it doesn't seem like anyone's making really, like, mystical, like, connections...” (52:48)
  • Is it for faith, socializing, aesthetics, or dating? Both hosts reflect on the changing function of the church in the digital age.

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6. Ronan Farrow’s Sam Altman Exposé: A Flaccid Takedown?

• [62:19-105:01] (Main Deep Dive)

  a) The Premise

  • Monica and Dasha skewer the New Yorker exposé’s tone and substance:

    “Sam Altman may control our future. Can he be trusted? Well, no, he's gay and Jewish. Do you need an entire essay to see this?” (62:31) “It is really like Perez Hilton or just Jared-tier gossip up-blogging...for the sophisticated, enlightened urban audience that likes to think that it's above this sort of thing.” (64:11)

  b) Character Analysis

  • The “case” against Altman: people-pleasing, lying, startup ruthlessness. The hosts find it standard, not scandalous.
  • Monica: “It’s a kibay-type sinister homosexual.”
  • Dasha: “Founder. It's called founder mode. Yeah, it's called going zero to one. And he met his husband in Peter Thiel's hot tub.” (67:55-68:02)

  c) AI Apocalypse or Hype?

  • Altman’s dystopian/utopian rhetoric mocked; real threat, says Monica, is not sentient AI overthrow, but “the AI bubble bursting.” (81:24)
  • On the social effects:

    “The risk isn’t that AI gains sentience, it’s that it’s already made everybody way less sentient.” (84:17)

  d) Who Benefits?

  • Bitter internal rivalries in tech, everyone angling to be a gatekeeper:

    “These people stand for nothing...it's like clearly none of the people who are hating on him now would do any different if they were in his position.” (81:22)

  e) Notable Quotes & Moments

  • “I wish that they had bothered to...like it was like the Brandy Melville expose. I was like, surely they're gonna rape these teen girls...And it was like, oh, there's some like racist group chats..." (102:12)
  • “Who does your filler? Where did you get your nose job? Ronan and Sam probably go to the same plastic surgeon.” (93:42)

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7. Work, Structure, and the Slop Hole

• [109:11-113:56]
  • Hosts riff on the inability to participate in normal work culture, the malaise of having “nothing to wear” or “nowhere to go,” and the way “slop brain” replaces ambition with cyclical, low-stakes pettiness and distraction.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “This is the first big, total social media war ... is this AI? Who are these people?” – Monica [03:48]
• “I’ve accepted the enlightened path of being totally brain dead and no longer monitoring the situation.” – Monica [38:26]
• “The risk isn’t that AI gains sentience, it’s that it’s already made everybody way less sentient.” – Monica [84:17]
• “It’s a kibay-type sinister homosexual.” – Monica [69:55]
• “I can’t change my personality.” – Sam Altman, as quoted by the New Yorker [83:03]
• “He's sissified, he’s got a fetish and they’re kink shaming him. And she definitely knows.” – Dasha [17:37]
• “Founder mode. He met his husband in Peter Thiel’s hot tub.” – Dasha [68:02]
• “When I reverted...I was kind of having some problems with my medication...I heard a Daniel Johnston song at the APC surplus store in Paris.” – Dasha [52:48]
• “People...warning about or celebrating the arrival of UBI don’t realize that UBI is effectively already here and you’re being...subsidized if not paid to just post to die.” – Monica quoting Nick Carter [35:34]

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Memorable Moments

• Fruit Slop Obsession: The deadpan recitation of twisted AI fruit soap opera plotlines, e.g. “The strawberry that sings a lullaby to terrified children as they are immolated in a blender...” (26:34)
• Ronan Farrow as a blue-eyed, possibly leg-extended killer of dads:

  “Honestly, Ronan Farrow needs the expose on why he's pretending to be Frank Sinatra's son, why he's wearing blue eye contacts.” (65:59)

• “Zero to Quran” as a podcast title – [96:13]
• Recurrent Self-Awareness: Both hosts openly ask, “Why not me? Why can’t I do anything?” as they dissect the corporate rat race—reminding listeners of the gap between internet analysis and real-world stakes. [76:19]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• War Anxiety & Iran Conflict: [00:31–09:19]
• AI Anxiety & Technological Overwhelm: [10:48–25:17]
• Kristi Noem/MAGA Sex Scandal: [12:16–21:06]
• Fruit Slop & AI Content Economy: [23:15–35:34; 25:30–36:54]
• Catholic Revival & Faith Cynicism: [41:55–55:05]
• Sam Altman/Ronan Farrow Exposé Deep Dive: [62:19–105:01]
• Work Crisis, Slop, and Ennui: [109:11–113:56]

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Tone & Style

Irreverent, sharp, and darkly humorous; the hosts treat even apocalyptic scenarios with bored skepticism and occasional warmth, flipping between “we’re all brain-dead” fatalism and searching for micro-meaning (in therapy, religion, or doomed gossip). No sacred cows: tech moguls, influencers, themselves, and the churn of digital life are handled with the same gossipy but critical eye.

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Takeaway

The 2026 malaise is one of endless internet drama, the death of meaning, and the rise of AI that doesn’t threaten us with consciousness but rather with emptiness. Between real-world holy war, slop economy, and the crumpled failures of cancellation journalism, Dasha and Monica insist on the comedy in catastrophe—if only as the last available refuge.

Transcript

[Dasha]

Let's do the damn thing. Do the fucking show. We're back.

[Monica]

We're back.

[Dasha]

We were gonna potty yesterday. I'm really glad.

[Monica]

I'm glad we didn't. You were right. Yeah. It would have been really bad if we were, like, up in here talking about Kristi Gnomes husbands, Sissy Hypno rubber humongous fake Cassie Pritchard tits.

[Dasha]

While we're on, like, a brink of a nuclear war. We're like, new episode out about Christy.

[Monica]

No, remember from a week ago. I kind of figured Trump wouldn't nuke Iran. And I'm happy that he didn't look at me pronouncing Iran correctly, but it would have been funny if he did. And then we published an episode like, two or three days late that was like, how about those weird tranny honkers? That guy's an autogynephile and a narcissist.

[Dasha]

They've done it again.

[Monica]

I'm gonna try to, like, do this episode without saying the N word. I don't mean the racist N word. I mean the psychological N word. Because the Sam Altman stuff is so, like, covert N versus grandiose, and it's like that dynamic all over the real N word. But I'm gonna try to desist

[Dasha]

and. Yeah. And then I said, let's hold off and read the Sam Altman thing. It's pretty long. Yeah. And the docket's pretty skimpy. Much like the small spandex shorts that Christine Ohm's husband likes to wear. I mean, that really was a good news item.

[Monica]

It was. I like any news item that, like, pulls people out of the Iran discourse.

[Dasha]

We're right back in today.

[Monica]

Yeah, I really.

[Dasha]

I can't. It does. I, like, was crying today.

[Monica]

Why? Because you were worried that there was a 10% chance that he might pull trig?

[Dasha]

Yeah, just since the war started, basically, it's given me, like, this. I feel very destabilized. And obviously there's other things contributing. And if it's like a just displaced, you know, we're fighting. Admitting me and Anna are fighting. It's like when my dad gets upset about the stock market, but he's, like, mad already. You know, he's like. So he, like, watches the stocks to, like, agitate himself and, like, prove that he's upset. But no, I was like. It was. I was like, just like, the civil civilization will die. I was like, oh.

[Monica]

Just.

[Dasha]

It's. So. What did he mean by. By that? The dread.

[Monica]

He didn't name the country.

[Dasha]

Interesting.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

I Didn't think he would.

[Monica]

He would do it. No.

[Dasha]

I knew it was bluster, but it's still. It's like, just the dread of, like, the ongoing. The conflict and the. The holy war aspect of it is causing people's like. I don't know, I feel like it's making everyone, like, men more mentally ill. Yeah.

[Monica]

I mean, obviously, like, maybe it's, like, trite or condescending to point out, but I say it as, like, a person who includes herself in the dynamic. Just, like, obviously, this is the first big, total social media war, so everything that you're hearing and seeing plays into people's existing, like, neuroses and anxieties. And I was thinking about that with, like, the footage of the human chains that were supposedly happening all over Iran today. The human centipedes of these people who were linking hands and showing up at bridges and power plants and being like, we're gonna die for the nation. And half the people online were calling them cowards and the other half were calling them brave. And I'm just, like, such a skeptic now. I don't trust or believe anything I see on Twitter because my first automatic question is, like, is this AI? Who are these people? Who are they being paid by? If they are indeed civilians, then from their point of view and their context, it is obviously a courageous gesture because they're unironic and faithful and believe in something.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Beyond themselves, and they have just a different frame. Yeah.

[Dasha]

You know, we gotta get that straight. We gotta need the straight of Hormuz.

[Monica]

We need it open.

[Dasha]

Mm.

[Monica]

Which, again, as the anti war people correctly point out, was already open before.

[Dasha]

Exactly.

[Monica]

Trump launched this.

[Dasha]

It's crazy to start a war, and then, Sam, we're gonna nuke you if you don't open the strait that you close because we started bombing you.

[Monica]

And, like, I had a sincere, non. Rhetorical question, which was when he was talking about, like, total civilizational annihilation.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Okay. It's like, yeah. Like, no, you don't get it. He's obviously doing art of the deal. Like, sure. But also.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Maybe people see that as a bridge too far.

[Dasha]

It's not civilized.

[Monica]

But also, like, my sense of it was that he was throwing the rhetoric of the Iranians back at them because Iran is literally known for issuing clownishly grandiose civilizational threats and not following up on them. And, of course, there's, like, a power imbalance where, like, the United States can easily obliterate them, but they can't obliterate us.

[Dasha]

That's the difference. And it's, you know, that's their culture. And now they're, they're intense like that. And like we in the west, we. You know, it's. We. What's nice is we're a little more restrained.

[Monica]

We're postmodern and irony poisoned.

[Dasha]

It just doesn't. And yeah, and I'm just too, like, I'm fragile. I'm in a fragile state.

[Monica]

I've been largely staying out of it because like, I can't, as one person on the Internet, get to the bottom of what's going on. And I keep reading these like, conflicting takes.

[Dasha]

You're not monitoring the situation.

[Monica]

I'm not monitoring the situation.

[Dasha]

Me neither.

[Monica]

Really. I don't think it's really worth it.

[Dasha]

It's just gonna stress you out.

[Monica]

It's not gonna really change anything meaningfully in my life except spiking my cortisol and making me less beautiful.

[Dasha]

I'm going back to psychoanalysis. I'm getting back on the couch.

[Monica]

You're converting to Judaism. They got to you, didn't they?

[Dasha]

They did. And I gotta go lie down on the couch and meet with some rabbis and say I'm sorry. For some, for some things this will

[Monica]

be great for you. You can like anti semitically abuse some like 38 year old shrink who has transference for you and maybe get some transference back.

[Dasha]

That could be. I mean, I'm feeling optimistic about this new journey I'll be undertaking.

[Monica]

She's going on the Adam Friedland show, you guys.

[Dasha]

My analyst, Adam Friedland. But. Well, yeah, and then the, the time, the like by 8pm yeah. Also like, it's like, oh, like all day. I was like, oh, like four more hours.

[Monica]

Like, I know, like counting, like watching the Israeli countdown clock. I hate that, you know, that, that specific thing.

[Dasha]

Yeah, just the, the brinkmanship, the. And the countdown and the, you know. Yeah, it gives me anxiety. And I already have anxiety.

[Monica]

I'm like, yeah, obviously Iran and the US are playing a game of chicken. And now there's news that there's this 10 point plan and either the Iranians are conceding or the US is conceding. It's unclear, depending on where you stand, if you're like a pannikin or a plan truster.

[Dasha]

We don't need to get into it. It's above our pay grade. Honestly,

[Monica]

I've just been bipolarly liking all sorts of different tweets from all sorts of different people. My likes are like the Gaza Strip right now. Just all these chaotic energies flying at each Other.

[Dasha]

Yeah, I'm per usual. I'm rocking with Glenn, you know.

[Monica]

Oh, yeah, he had like a pretty DEC post today that I read. Oh, you know what really annoys me? So I finally upgraded my computer and my phone. Oh, congrats. Speaking of AI.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

It took me like a week or a week and a half between when I got. When I picked the items up at the Apple store and when I actually set them up.

[Dasha]

You got a new phone too? Mm. Hell yeah.

[Monica]

Yeah. Nice girl, but camera's middle fake news. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dasha]

Better than the old one or.

[Monica]

I mean, sure, but like, marginally, yeah. It's like nothing to write home about. I'm not that impressed.

[Dasha]

My phone's all oily, so I don't really.

[Monica]

Pictures look like shit. Same. But the thing is, like, the new. The new phone and computer are like, armed with all these spiffy new AI technologies that are even more horrible and oppressive than like, being on, like, email lists.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And you, like, I guess you can opt out of them, but I haven't figured out how. And so whenever I get like a text message or an email, the AI will compile a summary of what's in it.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Which is like crazy making.

[Dasha]

Who wants that?

[Monica]

I know that's not.

[Dasha]

That doesn't seem. I optimized. Yeah, it seems worse. What kind of laptop do you get?

[Monica]

Just like the basic Air Air model.

[Dasha]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Monica]

I think like the same one that you have.

[Dasha]

Yeah. I mean, when all these people talk about how they have these, like, AI agents, like, starting businesses and stuff for them, I'm like, what? Yeah, I'm like, I can't even. I can't even use Airdrop.

[Monica]

Like,

[Dasha]

I'm not gonna make it.

[Monica]

You gotta clink your phone against somebody's like you're cheersing.

[Dasha]

I dread getting a new phone.

[Monica]

What's your phone?

[Dasha]

It's like, Matt old. Yeah. But it's working fine. It's whatever. My chassis loads up, so that's good. Nice. So depressed. Okay. So Kristy Noam, her husband Byron is a cross dresser.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And he likes to wear big. Do you think it's like a classic old school? Do you think it's like an Anthony Weiner humiliation fetish thing where he like. Oh, like the. You know, it's the best nut of his life that these are leaked, right? Yeah.

[Monica]

Everyone's happy.

[Dasha]

And she's been having an affair. Allegedly. Yeah.

[Monica]

She's been fucking Corey Lewandowski. So she gets to get dicked down by some other guy and feel like a victim.

[Dasha]

And she got. She lost her job.

[Monica]

And she lost her job, so she gets to feel even more like a victim. Pam Bondi also lost her job.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Sometimes I'll see various takes and memes floating across the TL and they get a chuckle out of me.

[Dasha]

A little lol.

[Monica]

And then everybody just copy pastes them and they become so tired and I get irritated and feel like a bull in a china shop. They were calling it the Night of Long Knives for MAGA bimbos or whatever. And then the other take on this that I saw that was initially funny but really, like, got played out really quickly, was that between her shooting her dog and him having big fake rubber tits, this was like a John Waters movie.

[Dasha]

Yeah, that's true. How is she? I was kind of skimming her Wikipedia, trying to figure out what the Secretary of Homeland Security even really does, and I guess she's been in politics for a long time and I know it's like a longevity game, but how is she qualified? How'd she even get this job in the first place?

[Monica]

She was going to Montana when she shot her dog. Oh, yeah, maybe.

[Dasha]

Yeah, those, like, Fargo states. Yeah, she shot her dog.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Because it, like, wasn't hunting the pheasants properly or something.

[Monica]

Yeah, it was like, wasn't even, like rabid. Poorly behaved.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

So she dug a ditch in her backyard and was like, kids, gather around.

[Dasha]

That's crazy.

[Monica]

I'm gonna show you what a real red blooded MAGA female looks like.

[Dasha]

But how is she? Like, she's clearly not good at her. Wasn't good at her job.

[Monica]

Yeah, probably not. So she was like the. The DHS secretary.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

So she was like, liaising with, like, ICE and local authorities to deport people. I was wondering what the nature of this leak was and why it happened when it did. Like, you know, some people were surmising that this was insult to injury to the MAGA movement, which is like. And to Trump, because the MAGA is, you know, supposedly dead and Trump's approval rating is in the gutter. But I wouldn't be surprised also if she leaked this info herself.

[Dasha]

Something.

[Monica]

Something in the milk ain't clean.

[Dasha]

This is from the Post. A family member previously told the Post that Byron has stuck by his wife with the cheating allegations because he believes it was, quote, his calling from God to support her and whatever she decided to do by Brian. Brian. Brian.

[Monica]

His name is Brian, but it's spelled funny.

[Dasha]

Okay. His family member added. So he has put up with the humiliation. We will see if he sticks with her. Now I think it's him honoring the calling from God, the family member continued. But it seems like there would be some limit to that. The Daily Mail cited hundreds of messages Brian allegedly exchanged with members of the bimbofication fetish scene. In the alleged conversations, Nome's husband enthusiastically praised their heavily augmented appearances and proclaimed he coveted huge, huge, ridiculous boobs. According to the Mail, he traded selfies with one woman he pledged to worship like a, quote, goddess, telling her, you turned me into a girl, before asking if he should put on leggings.

[Monica]

Monica has the opportunity to do the funniest thing right now. I guess the idea is that whoever leaked this did it to, like, kick Maga while they were down because she was, like, overseeing mass deportations and doing a not so great job, blah, blah, blah. I didn't see anybody being that offended. I mean, it was mostly, like, fake outrage, I guess. The leftists were doing a victory lap and having a gotcha moment. As they should, frankly.

[Dasha]

I guess. I mean, it's a mute we can all enjoy.

[Monica]

Yeah. Conservators were really outraged, as they tend to be. Everyone was calling him like a. And a freak.

[Dasha]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica]

I have to be like an annoying clarifier and go Michael Tracy mode and say that he's clearly not gay because everybody was doing the whole like, oh, Republican women don't marry a gay guy challenge. But, like, he's not gay and it's

[Dasha]

not even really clear what his politics are.

[Monica]

Yeah. And he's not even a tranny.

[Dasha]

No.

[Monica]

He's just a good old fashioned cross dresser.

[Dasha]

He's sissified, he's got a fetish and they're kink shaming him. And she definitely knows.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Like, I don't think this was a secret in their marriage.

[Monica]

They must have the happiest marriage ever.

[Dasha]

This must be working for them. Yeah.

[Monica]

Because he's like, oh, you humiliate me,

[Dasha]

I'll humiliate you back and get. Get a little more humiliation from myself, which I like.

[Monica]

I'm gonna come

[Dasha]

with my big goofy tits on.

[Monica]

I can even see how, like, a guy can strap on a pair of big rubber succulent, like, Spencer's Gifts chicken tits and like, whip himself into a neurotic frenzy. Yeah, Yeah.

[Dasha]

I could understand that

[Monica]

people were liking, likening him to Biden's health czar Rachel Levine, but I don't think that's exactly an apt comparison.

[Dasha]

Hmm. No, this is like, that was sort of not intentionally grotesque. And this clearly is. They're very different. It's not like an identity thing.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

It's clearly just like a sexual fetish.

[Monica]

So in that way it's more honest. Yeah.

[Dasha]

He's living.

[Monica]

He's living his truth.

[Dasha]

Yeah. People have to say, yeah. That like Republicans are homophobic because they're all secretly gay, but as you pointed out. Yeah. This is not something else. He's not even a gana autogy. I know. You know?

[Monica]

No, he's not. He's like a secret third thing.

[Dasha]

You don't. Lindy, man, you don't see that much anymore.

[Monica]

I know, I know.

[Dasha]

We don't really have. We have.

[Monica]

You know, they're going extinct like lesbians.

[Dasha]

It's true. And yeah, people really conflate like trans people with drag queens now. And this isn't even that.

[Monica]

Huh.

[Dasha]

It's unique.

[Monica]

Yeah. He seems.

[Dasha]

And I, and I support him like

[Monica]

a pretty masculine man. Otherwise I support him too.

[Dasha]

I stand with Brian Gnome.

[Monica]

Even Eli, who's usually like, pretty unironic and conservative, was like, yo, this guy rules. It's funny. I have his back.

[Dasha]

Like all the photos of like the expression on his face in his weird, like, suburban home. Yeah. Dead eyed, big, huge tits.

[Monica]

The stupid meme. That's like a photo of him with the tits taking a mirror selfie. And there's like a golden retriever in the back. And it's not even the fucking dog that she shot. But everybody's like, the dog had to go because he knew too much.

[Dasha]

That's where they got it all.

[Monica]

God bless these people for giving us like a reprieve from the discourse. A moment of comic relief.

[Dasha]

I mean, that's really all I got.

[Monica]

Yeah. I mean, I guess they have this like love triangle with who's.

[Dasha]

And who's Corey Lewandowski?

[Monica]

I think I recall that he's Trump's former disgraced campaign manager, I want to say.

[Dasha]

And he's just in the mix.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And she got fired because she's been like, misappropriating funds.

[Monica]

Who knows?

[Dasha]

And causing scandal. And why did Pam Bondi get fired?

[Monica]

I haven't really looked into that either, hate to say. Like I said, I'm really not monitoring the situation much these days.

[Dasha]

You watching the AI Fruit videos, though? Do you get those? What's your. Do you go on reels? Never. Never. I'm not on TikTok and I'm not

[Monica]

on TikTok and I still watch videos with the sound off, so I don't really know what's going on.

[Dasha]

So you don't do the dooms. The true doom Scroll.

[Monica]

No, I'm too sensitive for that.

[Dasha]

You're protecting yourself from the sloth.

[Monica]

Well, I do. I have seen those fruit videos around, like on Instagram and Twitter after they've been like, clipped. Right. For, like, reaction. And it reminded me of this earlier phenom from maybe two or three years ago that you saw a lot on social media, which were like these links to games that you can play that featured humanoid cartoons locked in harrowing, like, cheating and family scenarios where it was like a girl wearing yoga pants farting. And you could see like the ScentCloud or like a girl who was trying to steal a guy from his girlfriend and you like pushed a button or pulled a lever and it was like a casino slot game. Yeah. And you would like click on razor. Well, you didn't click on anything. It was just demonstrated for you.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And you know, you would gamble essentially to give her like a makeover, a glow up, but she would just like get hairy legs and have her head shaved.

[Dasha]

I know what you're talking about.

[Monica]

And I remember at the time being like, what, like, ew, what is this, like a new low in like, online degeneracy?

[Dasha]

It's gotten worse. But a lot of similar motifs. Yeah. Farting is a lot of scatological stuff. Infidelity, cuckoldry are all big themes. Originally it was cats. It was like anthropomorphic cats playing out these dramas. That was like the first iteration that I saw on Instagram. And then the fruits just really caught on because I guess you can just generate those. Yeah.

[Monica]

And they like tap into people's primal emotions and people jack off to them.

[Dasha]

Indian people probably.

[Monica]

Yeah. Like they were jacking off to like the sexy white stocking green M M. Exactly.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Like, she walked so the fruits could run.

[Dasha]

And some of those fruits. Yeah, they have like nice fat tits and stuff.

[Monica]

This is like the time that I fell for the AIs of like, down syndrome honeys working out at the gym.

[Dasha]

I remember that. Yeah. I mean, everyone knows the fruits are. The fruits are fake.

[Monica]

What? Wait, what?

[Dasha]

But they are. There's. It does. Like, it is hard to look away.

[Monica]

Yeah. I went from being jealous of fake down syndrome chicks in yoga pants to being jealous of like, fake fruit chicks with big Brian gnome titties strawberrina. Thinking of converting to Islam.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Wait, I read those articles that you

[Dasha]

sent me about, oh, the like, explainers, because I kind of figured you weren't really watching them.

[Monica]

Yeah, I guess the New York Times and Intelligencer both reported on this deter disturbing new trend of like, AI veg slop. It's a raunchy, nonsensical genre of TikTok soaps starting starring anthropomorphic Pixar and inspired fruits and vegetables. And they're like, cheating on each other and giving birth to interspecies spawn and other more emotionally harrowing scenarios like family separation.

[Dasha]

There's a lot of domestic abuse. There's like a secondary kind of like, slop economy of being like, we ought to talk about why the fruit videos are problematic and they play on racial tropes. Yeah.

[Monica]

Because the fruits are stand ins for minorities in an average day in their life.

[Dasha]

Yeah. Or like the whole thing of having a baby. And it's different visibly.

[Monica]

There's the homophobic clementine that kicks his gay Clementine son out of the house when he catches him experimenting with a strawberry. 1.8 million views on Instagram. There's the pregnant broccoli that dumps her broccoli child in the trash only to FaceTime him years later begging for forgiveness. 2.1 million views. There's the strawberry that sings a lullaby to terrified children as they are immolated in a blender to make a milkshake. 100,000 views. The terrified spaghetti mother and her two daughters submerged in a pot of boiling water.

[Dasha]

Oh yeah, one of those articles was more about the videos of like food getting cooked and crying and stuff. And those I've seen, but I don't find those compelling.

[Monica]

They're like annexes of gore and porn.

[Dasha]

There is something definitely pornographic about the

[Monica]

whole genre, but so far there's like a distance because they're like cartoons, not deep fakes.

[Dasha]

I mean, soon enough.

[Monica]

And they're like glitchy but highly addictive. The one of the articles was basically, yeah, like talking about the content itself. And then the other article was talking about like the origins, which is more interesting. Yes.

[Dasha]

Yeah, because they. It all seems to be coming from India.

[Monica]

Yeah, it. It says it's. The trend stems from a single program, Object Talk, a customized version of ChatGPT. Object Talk appears to be the brainchild of Aicentries.com which advertises itself as a company founded by two brothers with the mission to equip the next generation of AI creators. They didn't respond to multiple requests for comment. The website teaches creators how to make AI slop featuring custom prompts. Not only are tons of people watching cartoon fruit and vegetable drama, but ton of other people are making it eeking profits out of the dissemination of this specific kind of AI slob and upping the ante with Wilder and wilder plotlines to further their reach. So I guess there's like a whole consumer content creation economy.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

I assume that they were coming from like a single source.

[Dasha]

No, it's.

[Monica]

They're proliferating and I guess originally they were somewhat educational and they were like teaching viewers how to remove a wine stain or do a skincare tutorial.

[Dasha]

Never seen those in my life. Yeah, I'm looking, I'm looking.

[Monica]

And then they like morphed into these more absurdist plot lines that activate and exploit people's primitive emotional centers.

[Dasha]

Yeah, here's one. This is a hot dog yelling at a girl.

[Monica]

I'll divorce you. Don't say that.

[Dasha]

It's a pregnant apple getting yelled at by a hot dog. It's really so hard to look.

[Monica]

So hard to look away.

[Dasha]

And they're so abusive and. Yeah, this, I mean, it's crazy.

[Monica]

We're cooked.

[Dasha]

It's over.

[Monica]

I know, I know.

[Dasha]

This is all Sam Altman's fault.

[Monica]

It is. Yeah. That's. That's, that's the real existential threat of AI. Yeah.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

The, the Intelligencer article talks about how the talking food videos indicate that AI isn't just getting better at messing with our heads, it's going to get better at messing with our hearts as well.

[Dasha]

I mean, that's.

[Monica]

If we're primed to react to even a sad chicken nugget video. What does that mean for how we react to AI generated content that actually looks realistic? There's horrible and real violence in the news, wars, natural disasters, devastating family separation. And then there's this whole other world of fake terror. Encroach our algorithms and the fake world is even more fine tuned to our political leanings, emotional triggers and soft spots. As the technology develops, it seems inevitable that each person's consumption will skew more toward computer generated slop that taps into their deepest capacities for emotions without actually earning it.

[Dasha]

I mean, that's just, that's a bit of a reach. Honestly. I don't think people are experiencing real, like, catharsis.

[Monica]

I mean, they're feeling some kind of emotional release or titillation, otherwise they wouldn't be watching them.

[Dasha]

It's. There's some, like, there's comp. It's the repetitiveness and then the slight variations. Like any genre. Like, that's why. But you do, you are. You know, I watch these videos and I'm like, this is my life. Like, like, you know, like my life is like slipping away.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And I'm. This is what I'm Oh, I thought

[Monica]

you meant, like, this is your life in terms of, like. Oh, the stuff that's happening in the video. I'm pregnant and Riley's pitting me one custody battle after another.

[Dasha]

No, I just mean, like, act like this is it.

[Monica]

Yeah, I know.

[Dasha]

And what do I, you know, I wish I could empower myself to not partake.

[Monica]

Yeah, no, it's, like, hard to look away, but, you know, I do.

[Dasha]

It'd be better if I had a D.I.D.

[Monica]

drugs. True. We should go back to that.

[Dasha]

We should go back to, like, shooting up and nodding off. Yeah, that'd be, like, more productive.

[Monica]

Doing piles of coke. The good old days. Yeah. Ideally, this could be something that could work as a tool for, like, deprogramming yourself of insidious propaganda and brain rotation, because you understand how these things, like, exploit your emotions. But, like, that's not gonna happen because people want to be, like, emotionally persuaded and manipulated. All the risk and threat of the fruit slop that's described in these articles is already here because, again, people buy existing, real seeming propaganda hook, line and sinker. You, myself included. Like, we're all suggestible and easily propagandized.

[Dasha]

Yeah, we're. We're trapped.

[Monica]

Like, you see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear, which is, like, why, again, I've become, like, such a skeptic, which isn't good.

[Dasha]

But you gotta get out, you know,

[Monica]

it's, like, unhealthy to live in that state and not believe in anything.

[Dasha]

Well, you gotta touch grass.

[Monica]

Yep.

[Dasha]

You know, that's why you gotta get out there and, like, see what's real.

[Monica]

Yeah. I mean, like, I was thinking about this, like, when everybody was sharing that story about how a new bullet analysis clears Tyler Robinson of killing Charlie Kirk because it shows that the bullet couldn't have been fired from the rifle when it turns out that the bullet had been so fragmented as to be inconclusive. But the headline made it seem like Tyler Robinson was, in fact, exonerated of the death of Charlie Kirk. You know, and it's like, you know, people really do, like, fall for things that confirm their version of events, their, like, psychological predispositions and proclivities.

[Dasha]

So true.

[Monica]

Yeah. They also talk about how people like it because it's a form of escapism that helps them forget about, quote, what's going on in the world. I think that's why we watch them, because it's like, it's either that or you're going to bed feeling like the world is Literally going to be on fire tomorrow, said Carolyn Deary, a 29 year old content creator in LA. Kevin Kenneth Ray Yarborough the second, a 28 year old Houston resident who works in housekeeping at a nursing home, echoed her sentiment. Every time I open up TikTok, it's an escape. And now that I have this AI fruit, it's something to entertain me for a few hours, to just kind of get my mind off of what's going on in the world for a few hours. I mean, what's going on in the world that's such a damning. It's like you have nothing going on is the problem. I mean, none of us do.

[Dasha]

That's the thing.

[Monica]

That's the problem. Yeah.

[Dasha]

People.

[Monica]

I keep.

[Dasha]

People keep talking about permanent underclass. Yeah.

[Monica]

Like, why do you feel so oppressed by vague cataclysmic events that are happening in the world?

[Dasha]

It has.

[Monica]

If you want to escape into a

[Dasha]

tiny screen, it does take a psychic toll.

[Monica]

Yeah. But like.

[Dasha]

And there's nothing else you can do because you're poor.

[Monica]

Yeah. And it's like the fruits are a proxy of a proxy. The fruits are a proxy for world events, but the world events are a proxy for some kind of lack of meaning or purpose in your life.

[Dasha]

Right. I mean, it's sad. Yeah.

[Monica]

It's like that. I think I quoted this guy on the last episode. But it's like Nick Carter said. The bitcoin guy, not the black celeb. His name is also Nick Carter.

[Dasha]

Right.

[Monica]

Yeah. That like people who are either warning about or celebrating the arrival of UBI don't realize that UBI is effectively already here and you're being like subsidized if not paid to just post to die. Yeah.

[Dasha]

We're getting ubi, but it's AI Slop videos instead of money. But we can all have some.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And we can make some and we can watch some.

[Monica]

And it's like, you know, you could read a book or you could go outside or you could like pick up a new hobby or learn a new discipline. But like nowadays, I think just like merely the idea of that existing takes the place of going through it.

[Dasha]

Of what existing?

[Monica]

Just like the conceit. You're like, oh, I could do this. I could do this one thing that might pull me out of the morass.

[Dasha]

But you won't.

[Monica]

Yeah. And some people are obviously better at it than others. I'm not particularly good at that.

[Dasha]

I have moments. Yeah.

[Monica]

Of course, we all have moments of

[Dasha]

clarity and inspiration, but the slop's just undeniable. But it's having a deleterious effect. I'm a slave.

[Monica]

Yeah. I don't think the AI produce slop is here to stay. I think it'll probably be replaced by a worse, even more grotesque thing.

[Dasha]

Something new. Yeah.

[Monica]

But, yeah, the idea that they have that, like, fall or like, being addicted to a, like, cartoon AI slop is a slippery slope because it will lead you to become addicted to propaganda AI slop is fake because people are already addicted to propaganda AI slop.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Like, the cartoons are kind of like an afterthought. They exist.

[Dasha]

They're like, side by side, they're lighter, fair. That's why they're like, you know, you can get anxious or you can dissociate. Those are like, the modes that are available for a contemporary person is like, debilitating anxiety or just like, totally. Like being brain dead. Except. Yeah. Except with some of these tech whizzes who are optimizing every aspect of their life.

[Monica]

I've accepted the enlightened path of being totally brain dead and no longer monitoring the situation. The Iran war has personally been a pretty good thing for me because it's disabused me of my naive, idealistic notion that you can reason with anyone. So I'm just, like, free to live my life. Yeah.

[Dasha]

It's been bad for me, not saying about me, but, you know, I just, I hate, you know, I really, I hate war. And I'm willing to take that brave stance. But I've, you know, I was upset when the Ukraine conflict started and that's ongoing. And now another one that feels just really it's. And the religious aspect of it is. Makes it more distressing.

[Monica]

What do you mean?

[Dasha]

Like the holy war?

[Monica]

Like, you mean against Islamic civilization or.

[Dasha]

Yeah, the civilizational destruction like that people are out there, like, killing and dying for their religious beliefs.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Makes it feel much more like apocalyptic.

[Monica]

Yeah. But I would bet that a large portion of at least urbanite Iranians are the equivalent of like, Cafeteria Catholics.

[Dasha]

Sure.

[Monica]

And that they're not really like, Islamoid zealots. Try as lords, Laura Loomer May, to convince us of that fact.

[Dasha]

But the rhetoric around the war, which is as real as anything, you know.

[Monica]

Yeah. But even if you, like, surmise that Iranian civilization is more or less. Yeah. Like, still faith based and unironic, which I don't even think is true because, like, for, for instance, you have this, like, statistic that even their, like, TFR is plummeting even in an Islamic theocratic society, like The United States is so beyond secular at this point.

[Dasha]

The U.S. says. Yeah. And Israel in its own way, too. But they. Again, we're in the war because Israel thinks that. I mean, because there's a theological threat. Yeah. To Israel.

[Monica]

Yeah. Well, it's like an existential threat that they like to politely portray as a theological threat. The Israelis, not so much, but maybe the Jews.

[Dasha]

But that is the. You know, if you really. That is what it's about.

[Monica]

Yeah, well, it's. Yeah, it's about, like, securing the destiny of the chosen people or whatever. Yeah. But the United States is, like, obviously, like the Holy War is like a weird, undead, reanimated corpse of an actual holy war. Because it's, like, totally unholy.

[Dasha]

It's definitely unholy.

[Monica]

Yeah. And, like, blasphemous.

[Dasha]

It's unjust, and the Catholic church condemns it. J.D. vance.

[Monica]

Damn. We've reached a fork in the road because we could segue into the Catholic Revival. Or we can segue into Sam Altman.

[Dasha]

I mean, the. The Catholic Revival again.

[Monica]

I was like, I know. Really, we're having one, like, every two to three years.

[Dasha]

But the last one was kind of fake.

[Monica]

Yeah, I mean, they're all fake.

[Dasha]

When they were talking about the Dime Square Catholics, they kind of. That was just me.

[Monica]

I know. It's your fault.

[Dasha]

You started with me in Honor Levy, and no one was really being Catholic, and there wasn't, like, there wasn't a Catholic revival, but now, apparently, there, like,

[Monica]

might be one a Brewing. Well, J.D. vance has a new memoir coming out called Communion, about his journey to conversion and ushavants. His wife has a new podcast coming out about promoting reading and literacy among children.

[Dasha]

But, yeah, I guess conversions were up this Easter, like, 38%.

[Monica]

Yeah. And attendance was up 20%.

[Dasha]

Yeah. I think it was in the Washington Post. Yeah.

[Monica]

And then some other outlet I've never heard of called the Washington Times. They also wrote, like, dual articles that

[Dasha]

are all kind of reiterating the same.

[Monica]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, as you mentioned, like, every couple of years, there's, like, rumors of a Catholic revival that's, like, for real this time, and it's led by young people, and it mostly amounts to, like, a revival of the media discourse around the Catholic revival. There was that Evie Mag article which I didn't read because that shit's paywall.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

About how it's, like, the hottest club in New York right now. The picture they ran was, like, some influencer whore with, like, a really big cross.

[Dasha]

And the Washington Post article describes, basically Like a. An influencer economy.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

That's bolstered church attendance.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Because people make like, Get Ready with Me videos about how to hot girls for Catholicism.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And it's. I mean, it sounds nice. It does. Yeah. I'm all ready. I'm all.

[Monica]

You know, the interesting part about it is that both of them report that there is indeed this resurgence, but it's in young men especially. It's being led, driven by young men, which would seem unusual because you'd expect it to be coming from women who are more active, invisible on social media and who probably, you know, to be charitable, want a husband.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And these guys have also figured out that if there are women there, they can get a girlfriend or a wife, you know.

[Dasha]

Nice.

[Monica]

So mostly these people claim that they want a community outside of social media and quote, whack political stuff. One zoomer says, I'm not a political influencer at all. I wouldn't even say I'm a Catholic influencer. Catholic Catholicism in my faith is just one part of my personal brand. And it turns out he's a content creator. Yeah. Yeah. So they're reporting a 20% rise in attendance, 38 rise, 38% rise in conversion. But I want to know what, like, the turnover and retention rates are.

[Dasha]

Well, there's a study that's cited in one of these articles from the Pew Research center that found for every one young person coming into the Catholic Church, around 12 young people leave.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

So numbers are up, but it seems like.

[Monica]

Yeah, but there's.

[Dasha]

It's kind of like our Patreon. And it says attendees offered a variety of other explanations. Church was a much needed IRL third space for the terminally online. It afforded meaningful connection and the potential to turn those connections into serious relationships. In an ugly and inauthentic world. Catholicism offered beauty and tradition. A few people credited conservative activist Charlie Kirk's death as a catalyst. Kirk was not Catholic, but some associates of it had said that he was exploring Catholicism, blah, blah. And then the pastor at St. Joe's where I guess I've heard about this, the 6pm Mass at St. Joe's has become a real hot spot. And the Reverend there, the pastor, estimated that attendance had increased by 20% in the past six months. The number of people receiving their first sacraments at Easter remained steady between 13 and 16 annually. And 20, 25, 35 people received sacraments this year. The church is expecting 88 a year and a half ago. If 60 people stayed for the church's wine social after a Sunday evening service it was a good night. These days they average about 200 people. Okay.

[Monica]

So for every one person they gain, they lose 12 people. But that number is also offset by the fact that increased Hispanic immigration to the United States is largely Catholic. But nobody really cares about them or counts them.

[Dasha]

But they're not con. They're not converted.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And that's. Those numbers are kind of, I think about the church broadly.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Whereas like, I think in specific parishes that have become popular, they are seeing more growth.

[Monica]

Yeah. That are like hot spots for young people.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Who are content creators.

[Dasha]

Who are content creators and like trying to meet people.

[Monica]

A lot of them say that they prefer the traditional aesthetics of the Catholic Church, the big box aesthetics of the Bible. Bell. Also, Catholic young adult groups are one of the few places where many young people can question socially liberal positions without fear of being marginalized or ostracized. That's true. The theobros like the rules and order based nature of the church more than the service and community aspect. Gen Z men face the time of choosing. It's either porn, drugs, gambling and debt or truth, beauty, discipline and meeting a pretty girl at Mass. Why not both? You know, you're doing both.

[Dasha]

Well, that's the nice part about it is you kind of can.

[Monica]

Yeah,

[Dasha]

Yeah. And they. I think the, the men is kind of overblown. I think at least in the Catholic Church, it's definitely both because it has become kind of like a social event. And while I think it's broadly positive, my cynical read is that it is a bit of a recession indicator because going to church is for free and people used to meet people at work or at a club, but now no one has a job and can't afford to go anywhere. So makes sense that you know. Yeah.

[Monica]

And this like really kills two birds with one stone because you can get out there and meet people and then you can also make content out of it and possibly meet more people who

[Dasha]

slide into your DMs and make money. And that's also kind of like the cynical undercurrent is that like it's Prof. There's like profit to be made and not like for the church, but for like, like whiskey entrepreneurs or people who make like Catholic apps.

[Monica]

That's my jam. Yeah. We need a Catholic AI.

[Dasha]

There. There it is. Candace Owens advertises it on her show. It's called like Magisterium or something.

[Monica]

They have that confession AI.

[Dasha]

You can't get absolution from that.

[Monica]

People probably Confession Companion.

[Dasha]

Well, the AI is too sycophantic. It won't tell you you did anything wrong. Yeah,

[Monica]

you're like, I jerked off to the fantasy of raping banana, beheading this girl who's a fellow content creator on TikTok.

[Dasha]

Like, you are so valid for that.

[Monica]

A thousand Hail Marys.

[Dasha]

I mean, my. Yeah, my church. Like, the people. That doesn't seem like it's growing that much, to be honest.

[Monica]

Uhhuh. This really is your impact.

[Dasha]

Ah. J.D.

[Monica]

vance can eat his heart out. Well, J.D. vance is such a Lindy West. I'm sorry, why? Because he's fat and wrote two memoirs.

[Dasha]

Two memoirs is crazy.

[Monica]

And, like, you know, as Elena sagely noted, obviously his memoir, his wife's podcast, are a kind of normal, strategic attempt to campaign in 2028.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Like, they're trying to make themselves more, like, visible. Visible and appealing and so on and so forth. And, like, you know, you can't really blame or fault them for that.

[Dasha]

Sure.

[Monica]

But, like, it is. I'm such a hater.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

I need to stop being such a hater, because people are always like, oh, you're, like, constantly like dick riding J.D. vance. And, like, I'm really not. I. I really hate the. His thing of, like, writing memoirs.

[Dasha]

I mean, and they're all named after bell hooks. Did you see that?

[Monica]

No.

[Dasha]

Her. She had a book called Appalachian Elegy and also had a book called Communion.

[Monica]

Wait, I actually did see that. And I thought it was. I thought they were just, like, mocking him.

[Dasha]

No, no, that's.

[Monica]

He should. You know, since he likes name changes so much, he should start lowercasing his name.

[Dasha]

That could be cool.

[Monica]

That would be dope.

[Dasha]

Poetic. Yeah. But, yeah, like, again, I do think it's broadly. You know, I think it's good that people return, are returning to some semblance of, like, a religious bedrock in their lives. And even if the majority of them don't stay, it's. You know, the Holy Spirit will be working in the lives of these people for whatever reason. But I really just don't. You know, I don't relate to, like, the Catholic influencer.

[Monica]

Wait, say more on the arc.

[Dasha]

Like, when I reverted, you know, everyone's kind of like, oh, I saw a TikTok about how there were chicks at the church or, like, how to style a veil. And when I reverted, I was like, you know, I was kind of having some problems with my medication. You know, I heard a Daniel Johnston song at the APC surplus store in Paris. You know, like, it doesn't seem like anyone's making really, like, mystical, like, connections that are drawing them to the faith the way they used to.

[Monica]

But you, you think that this is a net positive because it's part of like God's plan.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And even if these people are suffering from like false consciousness and are misguided and don't know what they're doing and maybe believe that they believe but are inauthentic.

[Dasha]

Even if you're going to church just to meet someone and Scott. That you're going to church because you

[Monica]

believe in the power of prayer.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Okay.

[Dasha]

Of course. And. Yeah. And that God finds vessels to evangelize in new ways.

[Monica]

Yeah. I guess my biggest doubt or concern is that I don't know if it's possible to have true faith as a modern secular person in this day and age, which is like sad and damning. And I try to have it myself and like pray all the time. Well, because like, we are also like irony pilled.

[Dasha]

I think young people are less, are more earnest.

[Monica]

Yeah. Probably like by dint of their youth. That's true.

[Dasha]

And I think faith is possible.

[Monica]

Yeah. But I guess I agree. I would actually agree with you. I think it is possible, but it has to be much more self directed than it was in the past.

[Dasha]

Well, I think church attendance is actually important because self directed prayer can lead you astray.

[Monica]

Yeah. And no, I agree with you. You should go to church and involve yourself in the community and so on and so forth. But I mean, the decision to even return to church or like go to church in the first place has to be like entirely self directed.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And like, you know, as I get older, I find it harder and harder to judge young people. I mean, I still judge them, but in like a benign and maternal way versus in like an edgy and competitive way.

[Dasha]

Right.

[Monica]

Where I'm like, okay, these people are like youthful and retarded, but they're like on the right track and they mean well.

[Dasha]

I do think they mean well. They're trying.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And they do need, you know, I

[Monica]

mean, even if you boil it down to like the very basic primitive impulse of like finding a BF or a

[Dasha]

gf, I mean, that's been kind of the function of the church historically. Yeah. It was just more like integrated into people's lives and it wasn't so like deliberate.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

It just was, you know, if you lived in a, in a village, the church was like a natural way in which your like, social life was structured and that's where people paired off and that's where, you know, you met people who had the same values that you Espouse. And it gives you like a common ground that is Will build a healthier relationship than meeting a stranger off an app or something.

[Monica]

Yeah, but I even question what those values are on the surface level. They're decent, wholesome values, like you want to meet someone, get married, have children. But ultimately, and you know, this is neither here nor there, it's not a good thing or a bad thing, but values are just like a justification of primitive impulses, like you want to procreate, pass down your DNA, that sort of thing. And I saw some, I don't know how true this is, but I saw people on Twitter, like right before you got here, were talking about how like the white birth rate is up for the first time ever.

[Dasha]

Oh yeah.

[Monica]

In America. Which I didn't expect. But could that be in part due to a renewed interest in religion? I don't know.

[Dasha]

Maybe BAP was wrong. I don't know. But I think like. Well, when you talk like, I mean, really being Catholic is hard, like the window, like the night. The kind of like the wholesome social value of it is real. And that's obviously like what draws people to it. But I think people who engage with the faith in a sincere way, like, that's, you know, you're not asked to like, get a girlfriend. You're asked to like, literally, like take up a cross. And it's not like, it's not all like peace and love.

[Monica]

Yeah. I mean, just being religious entails duty and responsibility, which I think people crave. Like, ultimately this is a symptom of the fact that we live like already live in a super abundant society with an excess of like, superficial options and choices that make everyone like, totally neurotic and dysfunctional.

[Dasha]

And the structure, the structure of religious life is a good antidote to that.

[Monica]

Yeah. So like in that article there was this like, faintly disapproving tone of. Because, you know, we're talking about young men, mostly white men, who are like supposedly returning to the faith and they're seeking order and authority, meaning power, patriarchy. And they don't really care about the service or community based whatever, but like, I, I don't really care what reason they're doing it for. And I'm sure a lot of those guys are getting involved at least even, even like socially in a way that like, like exceeds aesthetics or power games or whatever.

[Dasha]

For sure.

[Monica]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dasha]

I mean, there's probably easier ways to like gain power than becoming a Catholic over your peers. For sure. Yeah.

[Monica]

You just have to like do more drugs and skate Better. You have to give chlamydia to more hoes.

[Dasha]

But that's what I mean by the kind of the recession indicator.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Which is good. Which is also part of God's plan, the deprivation to draw them closer, you know, because when I think if the economy was doing better, people probably won't be going to church. They'd probably be starting businesses and, you know, they'd be more preoccupied with like, their material gains, which is wrong. Spiritually.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

But materially real.

[Monica]

Huh.

[Dasha]

You know? Do you know what I mean?

[Monica]

Yeah, I think it's good. Yeah, it's.

[Dasha]

It's a good humble pastime in. In tough times.

[Monica]

Well, it is good if they can make more friends and have more sex.

[Dasha]

Yeah. Wait till marriage, but sure.

[Monica]

Are they even waiting till marriage? There's no way.

[Dasha]

I don't think some. Yeah. I feel like the 6pm St. Joe's Mass is probably not like the most pious crowd, but I think their heart's in the right place. And who am I? Who do I. I don't know what's in their heart. I don't know what they're up to.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

I don't go. I don't. You know. Well, should we talk about God? The godless faggot?

[Monica]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dasha]

See, he's not going to church. There's nothing for him there because he's making money.

[Monica]

He's scared. He's going to the church of profit deception.

[Dasha]

He going to the. The bank. He's telling lies. He's Ronan Farrow. Ronan Farrow back at it again with a very tepid expose.

[Monica]

I had such a ball reading this expose for like half of it. And then it dragged on and got

[Dasha]

way too long and there was kind of nothing.

[Monica]

But it was so funny. I so many, like, bangers, tidbits. So, yeah, there's this new expose in the New Yorker by Ronan Farrow that's co written with some guy called Andrew Morantz, some faggot on faggot violence. We love to see it. Sam Altman may control our future. Can he be trusted? Well, no, he's gay and Jewish. Do you need an entire essay to see this? It's based on new interviews and leaked documents that shed light on the fact that Altman may be a gay sociopath. Path. And it opens with this guy, Ilya Sutskever, who's OpenAI's chief scientist and he's sending top secret memos to the board expressing doubts about Sam Altman. He's no longer his second in command. And Greg Brockman his. You Know his stated commitments versus his hidden motives. And then it goes to this other guy, Dario Amade, who's another top AI researcher. Yeah. Neither of them are still at the

[Dasha]

company because they ousted Sam Altman. Briefly.

[Monica]

Yeah. And he kept obsessive notes on Altman and Brockman's behavior. Behavior for years. And the so called Ilya memos and Daria notes form the backbone of the New Yorker investigation. Though as the authors admit, neither collection of documents contains a smoking gun. Rather they recount an accumulation of alleged deceptions and manipulations, each of which might in isolation be greeted with a shrug. This sounds like an Anacachian tweet. It's word salad. That's a crazy thing to say about your exposition. Like we have no evidence.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And we have, we've got a bunch

[Dasha]

of anecdotes that don't seem scape important.

[Monica]

And we have, we have no, we have no like goal or objective other than to smear this guy who like one look at his physiognomy tells you everything that you need to know. It is really like Perez Hilton or just Jared Tier gossip up blogging. Which makes sense because Ronan Farrow came of age in that era and it's like dressed up for like the sophisticated, enlightened urban audience that likes to think that it's above this sort of thing, right?

[Dasha]

That's like concerned about like existential questions about AI and ooh, yeah, like, like

[Monica]

moral fag window dressing. And it did like, you know, know I said this on Twitter already, but like, you know, you, you read this against like Matt Taibbi's Twitter files or Nicholas Wade's investigation of like gain of function research and the lab leak hypothesis surrounding Covid. And it's so like scant, skimpy, flimsy,

[Dasha]

really kind of nothing.

[Monica]

There's like toward the end, there's even a part where they admit to spending months looking into allegations that Altman raped minors, prostitutes. So they're like really reaching now, but then they still come up empty handed. I personally wouldn't put it past Sam Altman to do those things. But Ronan Farrow can't really get him on that because he's probably guilty of the same weird gay sex shit that they're all doing.

[Dasha]

He's a gay guy in San Francisco.

[Monica]

It's like written in these like limp wristed homosexual tones of like tabloid gossip, petty intrigue.

[Dasha]

I mean they honestly, honestly, Ronan Farrow needs the expose on why he's pretending to be Frank Sinatra's son, why he's

[Monica]

wearing Blue eye contacts.

[Dasha]

Yep. Leg lengthening surgery. Blue contacts. He's Woody Allen's son.

[Monica]

I'm starting to come around to that hypothesis a hundred.

[Dasha]

I, I'm, I have no doubt. He's not Frank Sinatra's son. He's pretending to be.

[Monica]

Uhhuh.

[Dasha]

And that's why he started the I've said this, but he started the Me Too movement on as an oedipal quest to destroy his real father, Woody Allen, by like, spearheading this like, campaign against like, abusive men. And that's why he like psychologically has to like, pretend he knows Woody Allen's his dad. Yeah, but he's pretending he's got those baby blues. That's crazy. He had the leg lengthening surgery. There's your smoking gun. That's way more, that's way more interesting than anything Sam Altman did.

[Monica]

So apparently this guy Sutskever was terrified. At the behest of other board members, he had been working with like minded colleagues to compile some 70 pages of Slack messages and HR documents accompanied by explanatory text. All this to demonstrate that Sam Altman was a people pleaser and a pathological liar. So like a typical gay guy, not

[Dasha]

even a pathological liar.

[Monica]

It's really funny to like picture these two dudes like, compiling their notes and memos to betray their boss and he was Sam Altman. To make a long story short, TLDR was basically playing people off of each other and telling them what they want to hear, which is like, again, like consistent with gay guy behavior and consistent with startup founder behavior, of course.

[Dasha]

Founder. It's called founder mode. Yeah, it's called going zero to one. And he met his husband in Peter Thiel's hot tub.

[Monica]

Zero to come. They quote the belated Aaron Schwartz, who really is like the Charlie Kirk of tech and that, like everybody has like a hadith about how he said this or that. And apparently he once called Altman a sociopath who could not be trusted. They quote a senior executive at Microsoft who says, I think there's a small but real chance he's eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman fried level scammer. Okay, so there's a real chance, but it's, it's small.

[Dasha]

And what's the story?

[Monica]

We interviewed more than 100 people with firsthand knowledge of how Sam Altman conducts business. Some have dismissed Sutskever and Amadeus, failed aspirants to the throne, as gullible, absentminded scientists or as hysterical doomers. The main takeaway is that Altman is a guy who says and does things that, quote, make no sense in the real world because he's too caught up in self belief and unconstrained by truth. He has two traits that are almost never seen in the same person. The first is a strong desire to please people to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for consequences that may come from deceiving someone. Again, literally comorbid and gay guys and just very common features that coexist all the time in people like that in people pleasers.

[Dasha]

That's the thing about people pleasers is that, yeah, they want to please people

[Monica]

in the moment and have a utter reckless lack of regard for consequences.

[Dasha]

So they lie. It's like a very class as an archetype of a, of a person, really. It's just he's not even that special.

[Monica]

It's a kibay type sinister homosexual.

[Dasha]

It's. Well, yeah, when they talk about, yeah, he had some company called Looped.

[Monica]

Oh yeah.

[Dasha]

And they quote one of the investors, I guess, who says, there's a blurring between I think I can maybe accomplish this thing and I have already accomplished this thing that in its most toxic form leads to therapy. Elizabeth Holmes, fraudulent startup. There's more of a story there. She's got a story to tell and she should come on the show honestly. But that. And then they reference this later. But when in the first half of the article when they were describing his like kind of weird lies, I thought I did think of the Steve Jobs, like reality distortion field.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Which then they reference later.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Because that is kind of also like a classic tech thing is to dream really big and set these unrealistic expectations and act like they're accomplishable because then you'll be surprised at what people can do.

[Monica]

Yeah, you'll be surprised at all the gullible retards who choose to give you money because they have nothing else going on. So, yeah, he's described as power hungry and ethically questionable. Take a number, get in line. And he's therefore unfit to take on the momentous task of steering this company, which is unlike any other company in history because it's developing something that come to rival or even surpass human cognition by like sissy hypno ing everyone into watching horny TikTok veg slop. As a result, the firm has an unusual corporate structure and it's incorporated as a nonprofit with 501C3 status, which, you know, makes there's like an essential conflict of profit versus Safety that's more relevant to the public, given its special status. Right off the bat, the authors and interview subjects are sort of colluding in sounding the alarm over the existential threat of this like, extremely powerful, potentially dangerous technology. The quote, heavy burden and unprecedented responsibility involved in a civilization altering product. And like the built in irony, of course, that anyone, you know, willing to take on the job is going to be a person, you know, who has a mind of their own, plans of their own.

[Dasha]

Well, this. Remember that old man who was yelling at me in Austin about the effective altruist?

[Monica]

Yes. Well, that made me think of that.

[Dasha]

Yeah, that's. I was like, that's exactly what that old man was yelling about. And I was just kind of drunkenly arguing and didn't even really have a position.

[Monica]

Well, yeah, but like any, of course, anybody like that, like, they're, they're like hidden motives would conflict with like their like stated humanitarian ideals and values because they're, they're, you know, political and profit making in nature. This reminded me of Gain of function research where there were all these like, scientists and clinicians who were aware of the risks involved and they were downplaying their involvement to minimize their own liability so that when it blew up in their faces and their like, incestuous web of like lobbying and grants became known to the public, they could then position themselves as like experts who were tasked with the cleanup, you know, both literal and metaphorical. And I'm no fan of Sam Altman. I can believe that he's up to no good. But I fail to see how this story does anything but weaken any case that you could build against him.

[Dasha]

There's really no, as they admit themselves, there's no smoking gun.

[Monica]

Yeah, do you need a long read to tell you this? Also, why should we trust the motives of any of the people who are now conspiring against him?

[Dasha]

Exactly.

[Monica]

Like I, I really couldn't believe it, but this investigation was like almost making me side with him.

[Dasha]

Well, that's the thing about the fuck these people.

[Monica]

He's a Nietzschean and a Faustian who has a vision for civilization that he wants to enact.

[Dasha]

I mean, damn, he's got a job, you know, he's got in his bag.

[Monica]

In the case of Sutskiver and Amade, who are like the two main sources, he had courted them and poached them. And Google had given Sutskever a 6 million a year counteroffer because they knew that OpenAI was trying to get him and he declined. And he probably now has like buyer's remorse. OpenAI programmers were taking substantial pay cuts for, like, the privilege of feeling that they were changing the world, but by distributing mosquito nets to the poor. And it did remind me of that drunken debate that we were having at dinner in Austin where the question was, oh, do effective altruists really believe that they believe, or are they just opportunists and cynics as the critics who are

[Dasha]

exaggerating the dangers of AI so they can. Can like, control it themselves?

[Monica]

Yeah. And like, yeah, the resolution seemed to be that, like, all sides are basically vying for who gets to be the gatekeeper. Yeah, they're nominally against AI.

[Dasha]

Nominally, yeah.

[Monica]

And nominally promote its regulation, but not really. So Altman was removed by the board, and his partners and investors were blindsided. Then he, like, decamps to this multi million San Francisco mansion he owns where he and his team of, like, crisis advis set up a war room and they work around the clock to portray us firing as, like, a coup or a mutiny by the effect of altruists. I remember when this happened because we discussed it.

[Dasha]

I know. And we already called it Open Gay Guy.

[Monica]

Yeah. So we can't use that title again.

[Dasha]

Damn. It made me really. I was like, I wish I had a job. Like, it seems nice to, like, go to an office and there's like. And like, slack chats and like, like

[Monica]

you don't know how good you.

[Dasha]

Who's on the board. And like, you know, like, I'm like, how do you even get in the mix? Like, I have. I have, like, no skills just by,

[Monica]

like, being arrogant and delusional, which we're both good at doing.

[Dasha]

But, like, how. Why not me? You know, why can't I do anything?

[Monica]

Because we're women.

[Dasha]

I can't do anything.

[Monica]

Well, and at the time, they, like, remember when they, like, replaced him with a provisional CO and it was like this, like, hot for tech.

[Dasha]

No, I don't even remember that Albanian broad.

[Monica]

And then he sought to destroy her reputation, and she ended up signing the letter demanding his reinstatement anyway. So it was like an employees versus the board situation. He was reinstated. Five days later, the rogue board members were forced to resign, but not before demanding a thorough investigation, which of course would prove difficult because the new board was staffed with loyalists and was never officially recorded or documented as they report.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And, you know, it is really interesting how flimsy, how, like, skimpy the grounds are for this investigation. Like, they say that they were expecting fraud or embezzlement or sexual harassment, but there was, like, Nothing.

[Dasha]

Well, my takeaway was like, yeah, he's. It's OpenAI is a nonprofit.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

But he is profiting.

[Monica]

Yes, that's, that's essentially the.

[Dasha]

But isn't that like, doesn't everyone kind of already know that about nonprofit? Yeah, that's sort of the deal.

[Monica]

Yeah. The Democrats done had been doing this

[Dasha]

like, I don't think anyone thinks like a non profit. Like, no one has profit from a nonprofit.

[Monica]

Ronan Farrow is probably serving on the board of some nonprofit that he's profiting off of one way or another. But yeah, it was just like vague allegations of like, omission and deception and a lack of transparency. What was funny was how actually transparent he was in the interview he did with them where he talks about like knocking back Negronis and popping Ambien in a fugue state.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

They're all like quoting Marvel movies and Mike Tyson because they're gay sex nerds who don't even have sex.

[Dasha]

And well, he's a, he's a boss bottom, don't you think? Probably.

[Monica]

I wouldn't be surprised because he's such a high powered executive. Yeah. Someone describes him as having Jedi mind control. So ultimately what he's accused of is like, yeah, like double dealing over promising, you know, just a day in the

[Dasha]

life of your average tech startup.

[Monica]

He was freezing out investors who work with competitors. Like, of course. Why wouldn't you do that if you were in his position? He had financial entanglements with former romantic and sexual partners. Partners also.

[Dasha]

That's what's going on in San Francisco.

[Monica]

Yeah. You know, or like in life in general, frankly.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

He was possibly pivoting from being a Democrat to a Trump supporter because it was like, financially and socially expedient.

[Dasha]

Yeah, well, the real, the thing was with the military tech. Yeah. Anthropic.

[Monica]

Oh yeah, that was an interesting.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

So he, he was taking money from the Gulf states and wanted to build microchip foundries, data centers and other AI infrastructure on their soil, which is problematic because, you know, they, they were known for leaking to the Chinese and they also depend on Chinese hardware, Huawei. And it's also the Middle east, so it's, you know, vulnerable to military strikes and general strife. And then of course, Anthropic briefly ended up edging out OpenAI because that. So that company was started by Dario Amadei and his sister.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

And they got the government contracts because they had less stringent safety policies in place. But then, like, they refused to play along with the Trump administration and Pete Hegseth Blacklisted them.

[Dasha]

When I was trying to make conversation at the FUDO conference, my go to is being like, sir, you a. A clot or a opening eye guy? I'm like, so which LLM are you?

[Monica]

Are you into?

[Dasha]

My eyes are glazing. But someone there told me. Yeah, that the. That open AI is coming out on top. That Claude was briefly better, but they keep, you know, releasing new versions, whatever. Yeah. Still can't make one that cheats at Scrabble though, so how good could it be?

[Monica]

Well, yeah, and they.

[Dasha]

Maybe China will figure it out, but

[Monica]

it's probably gonna play Go. It's just. Yeah, it's crazy because it's like, clearly none of the people who are like hating on him now would do any different if they were in his position.

[Dasha]

Of course not. These people stand for nothing.

[Monica]

You know, there's this existential threat to the safety of human, but it's not AI reaching singularity as these people claim for their, like, marketing purposes. It's like that the AI bubble is going to burst. As Aaron Wolf acknowledged on our doomed and ill fated FUDO episode, it is like an overvalued and overhyped industry.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Here's a quote. Altman's rhetoric has helped sustain one of the fastest cash burns of any startup in history, relying on partners that have borrowed vast sums. The US economy is increasingly dependent on a few highly leveraged AI companies. And many experts at times, including Altman, have warned that the industry is in a bubble. OpenAI has since become one of the most valuable companies in the world. It is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering at a potential valuation of a trillion dollars. Altman is driving the construction of a staggering amount of AI infrastructure, some of it concentrated within foreign autocracies. OpenAI is securing sweeping government contracts, setting standards for how AI is used in immigration enforcement, domestic surveill, and autonomous weaponry in war zones. Okay, that would be a much more interesting investigation versus this blog post about

[Dasha]

how he's like, guilty of making money. Like, well, stacking too much paper.

[Monica]

Yeah, like lying and deceiving, which they all do. And then Altman responded, this is. I can't change my personality.

[Dasha]

That's funny. Yeah, Every kind of lie they kind of catch him in. He says, like, I was kidding. Or like, what are you talking about? Or like, I don't remember that.

[Monica]

I don't recall that.

[Dasha]

If everything's from the article, if everything went right. The OpenAI founders believed artificial intelligence could usher in a post scarcity utopia. Automating grunt work, curing cancer and liberating people to enjoy lives of leisure and abundance. But if the technology went rogue or fell into the wrong hands, the devastation could be total. China could use it to build a novel bioweapon or a fleet of advanced drones. An AI model could outmaneuver its overseers, replicating itself on secret servers so that it couldn't be turned off. In extreme cases, it might seize control of the energy grid, the stock market, or the nuclear arsenal. Not everyone believed this, to say the least, but Altman repeatedly affirmed that he did. He wrote on his blog in 2015 that superhuman machine intelligence intelligence quote does not have to be inherently evil sci fi version to kill us all. A more probable scenario is that it simply doesn't care about us either way, but in an effort to accomplish some other goal, wipes us out. And then later, when asked about the existential threat, he says that that's just not even a thing. He's very dismissive of it.

[Monica]

Yeah, I mean he's not wrong to take that line, honestly, because it's like, okay, I can't tell tell with that quote you read if these guys really believe that dichotomy between like a post scarcity utopia and that's definitely violation event or if that's just like the consumer friendly version they're giving to Ronan Farrow to like whip libs up into tizzy. But like this the their ver. The big problem is that their version of utopia is dystopia and it's already here. Because the risk isn't that AI gains sentience, it's that it's already made everybody way less sentient.

[Dasha]

Well, they talk about human enfeeblement. Yeah, that everyone's like outsourcing their like thoughts and thought processes to. I'll read the. I'll read that part. We increasingly rely on AI to help us write, think and navigate the world, accelerating what experts call human enfeeblement. The ubiquity of AI slop makes life easier for scammers and harder for people who simply want to know what's real. AI agents are starting to act independently with little or no human supervision. I. That's, I mean that is true, but I think also everyone can. Not everyone, but people can tell when something is AI generated.

[Monica]

Yeah, for the most part, yeah.

[Dasha]

But it is. I got like a year ago, I got an email from the Oxford Union, like their debate club, inviting me to participate in something, but they didn't fly me, want to fly me out, so

[Monica]

why would I do that?

[Dasha]

But it was clearly it was like from some Indian student just saying. But yeah, it was like your debate with Abby Shapiro, it like had all this like hallucinatory. It was like, just clearly I was like, oh, they just used AI to like lazily. Yeah. Write this email.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And I think like, that's certainly going to be more ubiquitous, but we just are going to have to be like, vigilant against that.

[Monica]

Yeah. Is like, is the real threat that like AI will gain sentience and become like a hostile enemy of humankind or the fact that like most people right now currently function like very basic LLMs who like aggregate like fake news.

[Dasha]

Well, I read, I read an article in the Free Press today actually about how coders are kind of fucked. Not like, you know, when everyone's saying you got to learn to code. How all these guys who went to school to learn to code because they were like, this is how you make money. Like most, like, you know, mid. Most coders aren't going to have job jobs.

[Monica]

Yeah. I mean, ain't nobody going to school to learn to code. Either learn to code or you don't. School is for something else. But like, also like, being a coder is like being a writer. Like, if the AI makes your job obsolete, you probably weren't that good to begin with. No offense.

[Dasha]

Hate to say it, I mean, it's true. But it's the, just the economic reality of these people not being able to.

[Monica]

No, that is very like, sad and unfortunate.

[Dasha]

And yeah, they were sort of made promises much like how, you know, when I was in, when I was in school, I thought a liberal arts degree was gonna get me gainful employment, you know, and that did not come to pass. And so then people were like, okay, well I'm not gonna be an idiot and study philosophy. I'm gonna study computer science. And now they can't get a job either.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And eventually like, no one, one will, you know, be able to kind of do anything. And I don't.

[Monica]

And that's like priced into the calculus.

[Dasha]

But I don't think there, there's not going to be a post scarcity utopia where everyone's lives are easier because they can't work.

[Monica]

Yeah. In the, in the affluent developed west, we already basically live in a post scarcity society. My argument is that it's not actually utopian, it's kind of dystopian.

[Dasha]

I mean, this guy, this coder they was talking to the Free Press, he is an, Ooh, he's a doordash driver. Now he can't get a job yeah. He lives in a trailer. He's fucked. Yeah. He thought that was gonna be his ticket off the block, is learning to code. And now, I mean, obviously there still will be, like, coder who will be using AI, But a lot of the coding that was done before, it's just that the technology's advancing so quickly.

[Monica]

Yeah. Which was sort of the only vaguely convincing concern that this article raises. That there were supposed to be certain checks and balances on the leaps that the AI was taking. And Sam Altman chose to disregard those. Goes in service of, like, profit and politics.

[Dasha]

But how can you. Someone's gonna do it like that?

[Monica]

That was basically what.

[Dasha]

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's like, cynical and wrong. But it's like, I don't. I just don't. I do think there should be some regulation. I can't say, like, what that looks like. But on the other hand, I think, like, there is no stopping. There's no stopping technology. Yeah. It's going to advance regardless.

[Monica]

Yeah. Once you, like, break the seal.

[Dasha]

So you have to just like.

[Monica]

But it's very hard to say, like, okay, so, yeah, this conflict comes down to, like, people who prioritize, like, safety and regulation versus people who prioritize, you know, product development and profit margins. Sure. But who knows how serious the safety concerns are? It's like going back to that Austin effective altruism, drunken dinner time debate. Like, are these concerns merely being used by people as justification for their own, like, power grabs? Power grabs. Gatekeeping.

[Dasha]

I, Yeah, I, I don't foresee and I'm extremely unqualified, but I don't think there will be an abundant utopia. Nor will I think. Nor do I think there's going to be some, like, doomsday event where the, like, machines put us in a cage or whatever.

[Monica]

And like, Sam Altman, actually, to his credit, seems pretty aware of this.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

In that he thinks that if. When did. When the dystopia comes, it'll be like a slow slide versus, like an apocalyptic event.

[Dasha]

And.

[Monica]

But who knows? Because he's like, telling all these people different things and trying to, like, get ahead of his critics.

[Dasha]

It just does seem so overblown.

[Monica]

Yeah. This is really hilarious. So Sudskever and the female board members became increasingly concerned about safety. At one meeting, they realized that Altman's claims that a safety panel, that a safety panel had reviewed and approved a variety of features In a forthcoming ChatGPT model were a lot. And there was no safety panel. At the same time, there was a safety breach in India where Microsoft had rolled out an early version but no one was informed.

[Dasha]

Okay.

[Monica]

So they were like. Okay, so they were like freaking out about some like breach in India. Yeah. Which like Indians are already like basically sentient aisle.

[Dasha]

There's just a lot of them. Yeah.

[Monica]

And they're all like scamming and content creating.

[Dasha]

They're making a lot of slob is definitely coming from one country.

[Monica]

I also like really like doubt the claims that this guy was like some ultra charismatic, ultra persuasive figure.

[Dasha]

Altman.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Doesn't seem.

[Monica]

I just like h having met a lot of these guys. Now they're all such like gullible gay nerds who like when you, when you give them like a prompt, you know, when you try to engage in normal conversation with them, they like come back with like nagging and annoying clarification. They behave like five year old children. They're like. How much do you think my head weighs?

[Dasha]

Yeah, I, I, I couldn't see myself being bewitched by, by Sam Altman. Honestly, I don't think.

[Monica]

Ooh, who does your filler? Where did you get your nose job? Ronan and Sam probably go to the same plastic surgeon.

[Dasha]

Sam looks a little better. Honestly.

[Monica]

You think Sam looks better than Ronan?

[Dasha]

I met Ronan. Oh. At Chloe wedding and my publicist introduced, introduced us into the sun. She said this is Dasha, she's a Republican. And he was like ooh, really? And his face was. Yeah, it was like really. It was so full of chemicals.

[Monica]

Yeah, I guess I, I didn't see him there but I did see him like a few, few months or years later at Essex Market of all places. And he is indeed 5 10. I'll give him that. He's like 510 because he has that leg lengthening.

[Dasha]

So surgery lengthen his legs and yeah. He broke the bones to make his legs longer.

[Monica]

What's okay, what's Ronan Farrow's play in all of this? Why is he so concerned with Sam Altman?

[Dasha]

They probably got in a dispute over some twink. Yeah.

[Monica]

Are they?

[Dasha]

If I know something about gay guys, they and I. Did you see Jeremy O. Harris called Sam Altman and not I did. Yeah. And my theory about Jeremy O. Harris also is that he's so he's because he, he's so mad at me. But I really think that I'm like catching some stray because he's really mad at like some gay guy who liked Red Scare and I think that's true. I think Ron and Sam Altman similar thing. There's like, you know, some twink came between them, and now it's war.

[Monica]

Yeah, he. He wasn't. He wasn't invited to Peter T's hot tub.

[Dasha]

That's where me and Anna.

[Monica]

How are you gonna hate from outside of Peter Tail's hot tub when you can't even get in?

[Dasha]

That's where me and Anna met, by the way. In Peter Thiel's hot tub.

[Monica]

We should start telling people that.

[Dasha]

Well, we were both in Peter Thiel's hot tub when we had the greeting.

[Monica]

We were the only women invited because, you know, Peter doesn't really like women.

[Dasha]

And we thought, you know, if we start a podcast, I bet we could go 0 to 1. Look, I still haven't even cracked. Damn.

[Monica]

I've read. I should. The two. Two. The two books that I've read. Zero to one and the Quran. Zero to Quran.

[Dasha]

I bet if I read that, that's

[Monica]

a pretty decent podcast title. That's a good idea.

[Dasha]

I bet if I read that book, I'd be. I'd be going founder mode. Be more successful. Maybe I will. Watch out.

[Monica]

They're just mad that they weren't the twink that was killed by Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is, like, the Carl Andre of tech.

[Dasha]

How so?

[Monica]

You know Anna Mendieta? Anna.

[Dasha]

Excuse me.

[Monica]

Anna Mendieta.

[Dasha]

I thought I got. I thought you meant Eric Andre, but Carl Andre, yeah, of course he killed his wife.

[Monica]

No, that's Alex Carp, because he's a Mulan plateau.

[Dasha]

Right, right, right. But, yeah, Carl Andre did kill his wife.

[Monica]

You think?

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

You think he did?

[Dasha]

I kind of come around and think he did.

[Monica]

I'm, like, undecided. Because it could be that she was being so annoying that he pushed her out of the window, or it could be that she just.

[Dasha]

I mean, it seems so obvious because of the BPD and the way her work, you know, was about her and stuff, but it's, like, a little too tidy and I bet. And the way his work is so, like, sterile and, like, calculated.

[Monica]

I feel like when you're a contemporary art star, they let you do it.

[Dasha]

I've come around

[Monica]

critical support for Carl Andre Greifer.

[Dasha]

Musk continues to excoriate Altman in public, calling him Scam Altman and Swindley Sam. When Altman complained on X about a Tesla he'd ordered, Musk replied, you stole a nonprofit. And yet in Washington, Altman seems to have outflanked him. Musk spent more than $250 million to help get Trump reelected and worked in the White House for months. Then Musk Left Washington, damaging his relationship with Trump in the process. And now Altman's in the mix.

[Monica]

Yeah, he's. Yeah. So. So Musk is mad because Al basically took his place.

[Dasha]

It is funny how no one thinks he raped his sister.

[Monica]

I know, I know. Somebody was like, so Ronan Farrow doesn't even believe that he raped his sister.

[Dasha]

And I think that is a real kind of like death KNELL on the MeToo era actually is that if even Ronan Pharaoh is like doesn't believe like this.

[Monica]

There are allegations of family incestual rape.

[Dasha]

Yeah. It's like his sound. And then his sister was saying some stuff but kind of no one believes her.

[Monica]

Uh huh.

[Dasha]

And that's, you know, I, I don't.

[Monica]

I wonder if she's fat.

[Dasha]

I think she is. And yeah. Apparently it's like a memory she like recovered as an adult. So it was like implanted by somebody.

[Monica]

And every family where there's like a successful, high achieving man. Man. And an unsuccessful unachieving woman. The guy is skinny and the girl is fat.

[Dasha]

Janice Soprano. But they both fat.

[Monica]

This is such a trope. Yeah, true.

[Dasha]

But yeah, it's cuz he's so gay. It's like he's so gay. It's like we were like, why would he rape his sister?

[Monica]

I know. And that's what turned him gay. He tried to rape his sister. And he was so disgusted by the female announcement out of me. He was like, I'm dipping out.

[Dasha]

He born. He born this way. But he's just. I mean. Yeah, I don't think he's like up to anything great. I don't think he's like a virtuous person or that. Like, you know, but I don't think he's a sociopath.

[Monica]

No.

[Dasha]

Garden variety narcissist.

[Monica]

Yeah. It's like sociopath is just like a term that people can lob against other people who they don't like who are more. More successful.

[Dasha]

He just.

[Monica]

It's like Jeremy o' Harris, like the critical error that our haters make.

[Dasha]

Yeah.

[Monica]

Thinking that we're more successful than we are.

[Dasha]

I know. And yeah. And he called Sam Altman and Nazi a Vanity Fair party. Which I guess because of the military. T. Like it's a little lost on. Yeah.

[Monica]

I mean it's like a dirty job, but someone's got to do it, right.

[Dasha]

Oppenheimer had to make that bomb. So the Nazis didn't make it.

[Monica]

Oh yeah. Sam Altman was like really invested in having like a Manhattan Project for AI

[Dasha]

they're saying it's Going to be like a nuke. It's going to be like the new nuke and we have to. But like what's the end game really?

[Monica]

I mean just charitable not to even take Sam Altman's side because like I said, I'm like creeped out by him and find him to be untrustworthy and didn't need Ronan Farrow and his like the other guy to write a whole expose about this charitably like you get into something again believing that you believe with. You come in with all these like naive ideas, feels you want to change the world and like help people and then gradually like you're beset by haters who are deranged and hysterical and not to be reasoned with and you're like, wait a minute, these people. I'm just gonna like stack my chips and like do as I please.

[Dasha]

And he hasn't done anything. Like I don't, you know, I guess maybe I didn't. Something's lost on me.

[Monica]

Well yeah, there is no smoking gun. I wish there was. I wish that they had bothered to

[Dasha]

like it was like the Brandy Melville expose. I was like, surely they're gonna rape these teen girls or there's gonna be some kind of ring of like pedophilic activity. And it was like, oh, there's some like racist group chats and the company

[Monica]

structured unusually or surely they were, they were engaged in like, like unethical business practices. But not even that.

[Dasha]

I mean I guess, yeah, I guess I don't know enough about like non profit structures to parse like what the like all real wrongdoing was. Maybe a man could, maybe someone could explain it to me.

[Monica]

There was an interesting excerpt from Greg Brockman's diary where he says, happy to not become rich on this so as long as no one else else's in another he asks so what do I really want? Among his answers is financially what will take me to 1 billion?

[Dasha]

What are these? What are these boops keeping diaries for? I don't know.

[Monica]

It's so. Well the other funny thing is like how all of this is like couched in like therapy speak. Like they're talking about like gaslighting. By 2018, Amade had started questioning the founder's motives more openly. Everything was a rotating of set of schemes to raise money. Okay, yeah, welcome to tech and startups. He wrote in his notes. I felt like what OpenAI needed was a clear statement of what it could do, what it would not do and how its existence would make the world better. OpenAI already had a Mission statement to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.

[Dasha]

Okay, so then up their own ass. Honestly.

[Monica]

I know, I know.

[Dasha]

We don't care. Like, let's just roll the fruit slop. Like, who fucking cares? Tell me how old a celebrity is. That's all I'm every. I'm pulling up chat GBD every day to be like, how old. How old was Winona Ryder in this movie?

[Monica]

How.

[Dasha]

How. How old is this person? How old is this person?

[Monica]

I know you go, how old was Sophia Coppola when she had her first daughter? Like, Monica Blake Bellucci? 40 years old when she had her first and 45 when she had her second.

[Dasha]

Okay.

[Monica]

Aubrey Plaza, pregnant with her first child at 41. There you go with that guy from Girls. Not even a year after her husband commits suicide.

[Dasha]

Oh, that's okay.

[Monica]

Aspirational role model.

[Dasha]

I mean, what are you going to do? God, of course you have to a tragedy, you know, you gotta live your life.

[Monica]

I love when like, some celebrity woman, like, moves on from.

[Dasha]

Oh, it's horrible the way people attack

[Monica]

her relationship because the guy divorced her or cheated on her or literally died by suicide. And every, like, all the. The manosphere guys are like, oh, she. She moves so fast. Meanwhile, got eyes like, the wife's body isn't even cold. And he out there like in the classifieds.

[Dasha]

Yeah. No. Yeah. When her husband died, everyone's saying she. That she cheated on him. And I was like, based on what? Like, that's crazy. That's so unfair. That's what really is so selfish about suicide is then people. I mean, besides all the pain and the loss. But it's also. Also like, yeah, people just, like, indict you of wrongdoing.

[Monica]

I know

[Dasha]

you, like, it's unescapable.

[Monica]

And you're like, well, he was the one who was like, selfish and immature for. Yeah, he's killing himself. I'm be.

[Dasha]

I'm suffering.

[Monica]

He could have written a. And everyone's gonna call you expose about what an evil and I was and then killed himself.

[Dasha]

Sucks happen for her.

[Monica]

Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good for 41.

[Dasha]

Good for her.

[Monica]

Gives me hope.

[Dasha]

It's f. It happens. It's going to be okay. Sam Altman had a baby with a surrogate.

[Monica]

I know. That's the real story.

[Dasha]

He. He.

[Monica]

He bought a baby on the Internet.

[Dasha]

Why. Why. Why does he even want to kiss for? I don't know, honestly.

[Monica]

Well, there's that big court case that's like, coming up now about those, like, UK fags who, like, adopted a child to rape and kill him. Which is like the conservatards, like, really love to, like, bang the drum on this. But it's. It's not even that. No, it's not that deep. It's not that alarmist.

[Dasha]

I just. What is he like? I don't feel like he has, like, some deep, like, paternal insecurity to.

[Monica]

No, he just like, feels like it's something that he has to do for.

[Dasha]

It's like a status thing.

[Monica]

It's like Hillary having one kid with Bill

[Dasha]

focus on the.

[Monica]

So she could promote her, like, fake family values. Let's try and get the AI Better than Scrabble. Okay. AI Baby Companion.

[Dasha]

Let's try and get it to stop. Well, the.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And then the thing this only suits really against ChatGPT are the. Have you noticed how black people call it Chad gbt?

[Monica]

Do they chat ebt?

[Dasha]

Because I think. Yeah, because they are used to saying ebt. So they say chat gbt. Can't even. Candace owns. Doesn't.

[Monica]

I almost.

[Dasha]

I almost just did it. Chat gdp. That's why I thought about it.

[Monica]

Oh, fuck.

[Dasha]

What was I gonna say?

[Monica]

No, I haven't noticed that, but that's amazing.

[Dasha]

What was I gonna say? I forgot.

[Monica]

Wait, I want to hear what you wanted to.

[Dasha]

I know something's so good. It was something about. I don't know,

[Monica]

I did like, the. The premise of the startup project that he unveiled while he was at Y Combinator after dropping out of Stanford. Looped.

[Dasha]

Oh, yeah. Which was like. What was looped.

[Monica]

It was a location sharing social network.

[Dasha]

So, like, she's Find My Friends.

[Monica]

Yeah, yeah, that's what it became. And it was novel at the time because, like, federal rules dictated that phone carriers could only shut down share location data at times of emergency. And he, like, bypassed this and like, struck sweetheart deals with, like, various phone companies.

[Dasha]

I mean, it sounds like a great sinister way to like, harvest data too, under the guise of, like, staying connected with your friends or whatever. It's also evil. I wish I was smarter.

[Monica]

Me too.

[Dasha]

And like, more just. I wish I had, like, a corporate desperate temperament and could excel and.

[Monica]

I know. Well, yeah, I. I do think about that sometimes. But, like, then you realize that, like, if you were in that position, you would swiftly come to regret it and hate every moment of your life.

[Dasha]

I don't know, maybe it would just give me like a. If you.

[Monica]

If you were clocking in and having drama with Korean girl bosses.

[Dasha]

Well, no, I. I'd be the CEO. I'd be in the boardroom. I'd be saying, this is my company. Get the out. You're fired. Okay. Just the structure of, like, you know, it's nice. Just have like a third place to go. No, I guess the third place isn't your work. A second place, a Catholic church.

[Monica]

Church, as they say in those articles.

[Dasha]

Well, the Catholic.

[Monica]

Yeah, but a third place is a

[Dasha]

place that's not your home or your workplace. But I literally need a second place.

[Monica]

I need a workplace. I need a place to go that's not my home. You're up in here, baby, surrounded by my weird, inexplicable, like, five copies of Passage Press, Steve Sailor noticing thing, Supreme Transformers truck, Mango Scarface poster that I like, copped on ebay after going to the Russian baths for your birthday where they had it hanging on the walls.

[Dasha]

You got that from the Russian bath?

[Monica]

No, I got it on ebay after seeing Mango pictures of Lenny, Maddie's painting of people with AIDS Plaza, my weird Mexican ceramic of a scary, like, Guatemalan woman giving birth.

[Dasha]

Are you selling that jacket?

[Monica]

Yeah. You want it? Maybe.

[Dasha]

I kind of want to buy a leather jacket.

[Monica]

All that shit is up for grass,

[Dasha]

but I want like a big. Maybe a bigger one, kind of that look. But once again, well, that's a size

[Monica]

medium because Spanish sizing runs small.

[Dasha]

Yeah, I'm. Yeah, I'm never. I'm not satisfied with any of my coats or jackets.

[Monica]

Once again, me neither.

[Dasha]

They all suck. They're not giving coat.

[Monica]

I know the way that they need to be. They're like, that's a real existential threat to my identity right now that I don't. Don't have, like a single item.

[Dasha]

I got nothing to wear.

[Monica]

Skin care or clothing that I enjoy brings me joy.

[Dasha]

Nothing makes me happy. Happy. And I've been wearing a nupsy jacket for seven months.

[Monica]

I know.

[Dasha]

And it's cold now.

[Monica]

It's cold again. Yeah.

[Dasha]

It's 30 degrees right now and it's April.

[Monica]

I know.

[Dasha]

And it just won't end. And I don't. I don't have a workplace. No, I know. I would hate it. I. I would.

[Monica]

No, you. You would hate it.

[Dasha]

I just wish that I even just had the temperament to like, you know, have a job. Yeah.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

Or like. Yeah, just the thought of, like, going a place, you know, like, getting up with, like, purpose instead of being, like,

[Monica]

to make some Excel spreadsheets and to send some emails, just.

[Dasha]

Yeah. Sit around somewhere. But, like, when you don't have that, you are just watching, like, the fruit slob and then being like, maybe I'll, like, wash My face.

[Monica]

Yeah.

[Dasha]

And then it's like two pieces PM and then your husband comes home from work and you're like, Then you're like pretending. And then I'm like sitting on my laptop in a different part of the apartment, like pretending like I wasn't in bed, you know, and he's like, what'd you do today? I'm like, just some work.

[Monica]

How was, how was your day? Oh, I was working.

[Dasha]

I did self directed research for my work. Hey, babe.

[Monica]

I got you these Reese's Ex Oreo com cups because I love you so much and not because I have nothing else to do with my day. And I go from bodega to bodega, haven't done looking for the next hit.

[Dasha]

Didn't get the laundry done today.

[Monica]

Oh, I've been trading on stripping the bed. You don't even want it now I'm like, aa. No, she asked me blocked.

[Dasha]

Why? I don't know what you do.

[Monica]

I don't know. I think I, I, I know what I did. I called her a fake sex worker. No, I called, I didn't, I didn't say she was enough of a. She's not enough for me.

[Dasha]

Well, Ava, whatever her name, buzz me for being a.

[Monica]

You can't win.

[Dasha]

Yeah, no, I know because I said I wanted to see a little more mid drift.

[Monica]

Maybe. Some people think that you're a Zionist tighten up. Some people think you're an anti Semite. One man's scientist is another man's anti Semite. You really can't win in this world.

[Dasha]

It's called having a nuance. It's called being a free thinker with nuanced thoughts. And people just don't get that about us.

[Monica]

Honestly, my question, which really is above our pay grade and out of my league is like find palace here.

[Dasha]

Whatever.

[Monica]

A company like OpenAI, what kind of services are they providing to the federal government to launch their military census in Venezuela and Iran?

[Dasha]

The kill chains, what does that mean? It's like I read about this. It's but for kind of forgot but it's like, yeah, the AI like drones, like just they're killing machines. It is like the military, whatever stuff is, is probably like beyond horrible.

[Monica]

Yeah, the AI precision software targets Iranian

[Dasha]

schoolgirls that I think a human being did. I think the AI wouldn't maybe wouldn't have done that actually.

[Monica]

But they should blame it on the AI. Kind of like I will blame all future racist statements on deepfakes.

[Dasha]

It's just. Yeah, that's like the icky feeling like, no one's accountable. It's just like the machines and.

[Monica]

Well, yeah, I would love to see, like a major legacy publication do a clear headed investigation of what AI is bringing to the table in terms of military intelligence, but that's never going to happen.

[Dasha]

I feel like the Financial Times might have something like that for good reasoning.

[Monica]

Sam Altman, come on the. No, don't.

[Dasha]

I'm sure. Come on. About. Tell us your twisted lies.

[Monica]

Well, no, I would.

[Dasha]

Let's have some Negronis and just relax. You know, let's take our minds off all this doomsday stuff.

[Monica]

Sam Altman is gonna really love Mark Granz's Marinetti Bar and Social Club because they're known for their Negro. Okay, I really. I actually would love to meet Sam Altman in Peter Deal's hot tub.

[Dasha]

I want Elizabeth Holmes because I think she's really got a story to tell.

[Monica]

Yeah, sure, but like, I want to meet somehow. Only because I want to see his, like, charisma at work. I want to see if he can sway me with his persuasive, like, lies and tall tales.

[Dasha]

I don't buy. I'm not sure, but maybe.

[Monica]

But I'm willing to be persuaded.

[Dasha]

Well, maybe he could entice me by telling me he'd give me a job at the office.

[Monica]

Maybe I'd. Maybe I, you know, maybe I'd come in.

[Dasha]

Maybe I'd see you on slack.

[Monica]

You know, he's like, see, you need to. You need to drop Glenn Greenwald and get with me.

[Dasha]

No, that's. The real thing is like, these gay guys just don't care about us.

[Monica]

No. Well, Glenn does, to his credit, which is why I'm a ride or die.

[Dasha]

Truly, I love him. Okay. Anyway, see you soon. See you in Peter Teal's hot tub.

[Monica]

Ra.