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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Soapbox Sessions. Imagine this, an open and free Internet where voices are never silenced, where causes aren't shadow banned, and where no one can be deplatformed. It's real. It's here, and it's happening on nostr. So what exactly is nostr? It's a worldwide community of everyday people working to decentralize the Internet. On Nostr, you can build websites, communities, social networks, apps, and more. One login works everywhere, you own it and no one can take it away. No more juggling dozens of platforms, chasing audiences, or managing a giant password list. And the cherry on top nostr allows for built in digital payments that can come from anywhere in the world. On nostr, value flows as freely as ideas. We're hooked on decentralizing the web and we think you will be too. So now let's hear from your hosts, Derek Ross and Heather Larson, who are working to grow Nostr1 vibe at a time.
- [00:52]
B
Welcome to Soapbox Sessions. Today is February 11, 2026, and we're here with your weekly dose of all things decentralized, social and AI. Soapbox Sessions is our soapbox about what's new, what's cool, and what's coming. We want to make it easy to understand and keep up with everything happening in the decentralized world of social communication as we work to rebuild the Internet.
- [01:18]
C
All right, let's do it.
- [01:21]
B
Let's rebuild the Internet.
- [01:22]
C
Heather, One day at a time, cleaning up the centralized mess. One task at a time, one issue at a time.
- [01:31]
B
No, we, you know, we, we actually, we don't say centralized anymore. What do we say? Captured or controlled?
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C
Controlled me. It is, it's, it's not centralized media. It's controlled media. It's, it's very controlled.
- [01:44]
B
When our new team member Morgan had said that recently, like a light bulb and also a dunce cap went off in my brain. For years we've been saying decentralized. We're like, well, there's no other way to describe it.
- [01:58]
C
Yeah, there's all this stuff, literally talk
- [01:59]
B
about how it's controlled and how it's captured. It was hilarious whenever that was said.
- [02:07]
C
We've been using a lot of jargon for a couple years now and it hasn't caught on. And it really, it's jargon. That's why we call it jargon. Jargon's like a curse word, right?
- [02:16]
B
We need a new word.
- [02:17]
C
It's been limited and yeah, nobody's out there going, God, my media is so centralized. I need to fix. And so, yeah, people don't say that.
- [02:25]
B
It's a word that nobody says.
- [02:27]
C
Yeah. And generally also the flip side of that is people are like, gosh, I wish there was a platform that fixed my problems. And then we go, hey, we have this thing, and it's not a platform, but it fixes your problems. And it's a protocol.
- [02:38]
B
It's a protocol.
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C
What's a protocol?
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B
Protocol. Well, here, let me give you a book on what a protocol is.
- [02:45]
C
Yeah.
- [02:46]
B
So, I mean, I'm guilty of this. Literally every. Every talk I've ever given, I say this. But so I'm guilty of it too. It's hilarious to make fun of yourself, though.
- [02:57]
C
That's just true. We don't take ourselves that seriously.
- [02:59]
B
We're getting better.
- [03:01]
C
We're getting better at dumbing things down and dumbing them down some more and then some more.
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B
We had an episode called that where we were dumbing down the.
- [03:08]
C
Dumbing down. The tech actually did rather well. It was like one of our better episodes because people are like, yes, I need it dumbed down for me. Dumb down the AI. Dumb down the solutions to social media problems and dooms world. Dumb it down. Like, how do I just practice? Press a button and be happy. How do I do it?
- [03:25]
B
Derek, we should have another dumbed down episode soon. Like, what do we really do? Dumbing it down with Derek and Heather.
- [03:33]
C
Dumbing it down or making it dumber, depending on what you really think of us.
- [03:39]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So the goal is. Is when you're done listening to these episodes that Heather and I put out there, you're either one dumber or we dumb something down for you so you can absorb it.
- [03:52]
C
You know, That's. That's the. Well, that's why it's good to have new people come in, because then. Then they're like, oh, yeah, just. It's. It's controlled tech.
- [03:59]
B
Yeah.
- [03:59]
C
It's like, yes. Thank you. Thank you, person who hasn't lived in a bubble with us for a while. Thank you.
- [04:05]
B
Yes. Well, it's hard to see outside your bubble, right? I think we all realize hard to
- [04:10]
C
see something that you're. When you're in it. You just cannot, you know, where, like, we know what we're talking about. And then we walk out into a coffee shop and talk to a stranger, and they're like, you do things with A.I. that's cool. Cool. Good for you. Okay, gotta go pick up my kid from soccer now. Bye.
- [04:26]
B
My favorite joke about this, My favorite story is, oh, man, it was probably two years ago now. Where were we at? Doesn't matter. I was at somewhere in another country with. With a bunch of nostrils as you do this. I was there standing at a bar with Vanessa from the Domus team, and we were talking to some random girl and she's like, well, so what do you guys do? And Vanessa looks at her and she says, well, we're trying to build this protocol, you see. And I just start busting up laughing. I'm like, this woman has no clue what the fuck you just said to her.
- [05:08]
C
It's like they're trying to sell me a timeshare. Bye.
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B
And I'm like. I was like, no, no, this is just a random woman in a bar that we were just chatting with and you were trying to be nice.
- [05:17]
C
Did I watch MLMS Scheme? Are they trying to sell me a. Oh, God.
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B
Like, Vanessa looks at me like, what are you laughing at? I was like, no, it's hilarious.
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C
Because, yeah, protocol, they're lost once she starts saying any technological term with normal
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B
people who, who, like, though I pick on you because I love you, you
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C
know, normal people just. What are normal?
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B
We've all done that.
- [05:48]
C
Here's my question. Do normal people, like, do they even use computers? Or is everybody on a phone or a tablet now? Because, like, you know, it's. It's just everything so fragmented now.
- [05:56]
B
The phone is their computer, the phone is the computer. An Apple iPad. Well, an Apple iPad commercial for a couple years ago, a little girl was like, using an iPad, the whole commercial. And at the end, like, I don't know, parent grandparent says, oh, something about a computer. And she says, what's a computer?
- [06:16]
C
That thing. Except it looks like a tablet. It's. It, you know, I can. I can use Claude code on it or specialized computers. I can use Claude, the app. Claude on pretty much anything now. But then of course, on my laptop is where the Claude code lives in the terminal. And that's where I prefer to be rather than. I don't like to do things on my phone, iPad, maybe, especially with the new operating system.
- [06:40]
B
Ran Claude code. I ran MK Stack. I've ran all these very nerdy things on my phone just to say that I did. But I would never want to do that all the time.
- [06:51]
C
It's a very special purpose.
- [06:53]
B
I like my big screens, I like my big keyboards.
- [06:55]
C
You know, I feel more organized and at peace when I, you know, have it in front of me rather than in my. My hand. And maybe that's just my generalization.
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B
That's. Cause we're old, though, Heather.
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C
We are. We are the Old.
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B
We're from the old tech age. Like, when we buy airline tickets, we like to do it on a computer.
- [07:12]
C
Yeah. There was something I was doing recently, and I was like, I absolutely cannot do this on a phone. I have got to get up and get to the laptop. I forget what it was, but it's just like. And I'm like, God, I am this person now.
- [07:23]
B
I do that sometimes. Like, so I'm chatting, like, with my. My open club bot, my agent on my phone, and then every once in a while, I'm like, okay, I need more control. I need to get to my computer. I need to get on my laptop. I just. I need more, like, to the bat cave. I don't know. To the back.
- [07:41]
C
Yeah. Look at.
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B
Look at my wife, honey. To the bat cave. I run down the steps, and I retire to my nerd.
- [07:48]
C
We do it from our watches, and, you know, we'll move on from phones in another.
- [07:52]
B
Yeah, that's a. You know what? That's the thing that.
- [07:55]
C
On the watch. How easy could it be?
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B
I have a Google Pixel watch, and I'm not running Shakespeare on it. Heather, I failed you. I'm sorry. Well, I haven't vibe coded from my watch.
- [08:07]
C
I'm gonna put it on your to do list, and I'm sure by next week, you'll have it figured out.
- [08:11]
B
Yeah, Yeah, I could. That's a nerd night that I think our team would get behind.
- [08:19]
C
This is why you watch the podcast, because you could literally just see his wheels turning. You see his eyes go up, and
- [08:28]
B
I'm thinking right now, like, how to do this? I'm like, okay, okay, I need a web browser app, and it has to be Android Wear Compat, but I could side load it. Like, I'm sitting here, like, you know, turning in my brain.
- [08:41]
C
Hilarious.
- [08:42]
B
Not gonna do it, though, this week. Next week, I got too much.
- [08:44]
C
We're gonna sit on his hands. I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna sit on my hands right now. It's like a bad kid insurance.
- [08:50]
B
All right, so that concludes the show for today.
- [08:54]
C
We're only eight minutes in. He's like, God, I know, but I got.
- [08:57]
B
I got nerds that need sniping, which.
- [08:59]
C
Which is gonna. You know, that's the subject matter. Today we're gonna talk about the addiction factor of AI. But I think first we want to talk about events, though, before we get to the addiction factor of AI, let's talk about what's coming up.
- [09:10]
B
Well, I was giving you a sneak peek of the addiction Right there I was.
- [09:13]
C
There you go.
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B
That's what I was doing.
- [09:15]
C
Method acting. That's a promo video. So.
- [09:22]
B
So there are some events coming up, right?
- [09:25]
C
What's on the horizon? One. I'm doing one. Everybody's got an event. Get your mom an event. Everybody got an event now. Hey, hey. I have two in my life.
- [09:36]
B
You live in the Mid Atlantic region. There is a great Mid Atlantic bitcoin meetup at Pub Key DC one week from today on the 18th.
- [09:49]
C
And the Derrick is speaking.
- [09:51]
B
PM to 10pm Yeah, I registered because I figured it's only a three hour drive for me. 1. I've wanted to go to the new pub key in D.C. and this was an excuse to go. I want to go to more bitcoin events to Purple Pill the Bitcoiners. So I figured what? Actually I'm wearing a Pub Key shirt today. This is from Noster Village and that was at the New York City Pub Key. So this is different. This is at the Pub Key in dc, the new one. And I registered and then Trey got back to me. He's like, hey, you want to spread some purple pills down here? And I was like, well, yeah, I will be speaking. Yeah, I'm going to be speaking there in a week on a panel or two. Talking about Noster. Yeah, well, I'm going to talk about a little bit about Noster Valley. We've done two of them. We're already planning the third one for next year. So talk a little bit about running Noster events and then our local event that we ran and whatever else Trey wants me to talk about. I have a speaker call later today, so I'll figure out where and how they want me.
- [10:56]
C
There you go. Very cool. Matt. You know we are, we're Pub Key maxis here on Soapbox Sessions. I've got an event coming up at Pub Key DC too. We like the Pub Key. There's. There's Smash Burgers. So we have the Runster 5K coming up and that's on March 15th. It's a Sunday morning so you can do the 5K race register. We've got the links at Runster R U N S T R Club. And then afterwards we're gonna have a little after party and that's gonna be at Tub Key with your Smash Burgers, with your Ainsley Costell drink specials and a few more things that I'm not ready to announce yet. So come on out March 15, either do the run or do Pub Key.
- [11:34]
B
Maybe I'll drive down for that, Heather. Maybe Pub Key needs to have. You're not gonna miss a bar within one month.
- [11:42]
C
You got to be a regular.
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B
I like the Smash burgers from New York. So I'm assuming the DC Smash burgers are good too. I'll find out here in a week.
- [11:51]
C
If you walk in, I could come back often enough. They'll be like. It'll be like cheers and you'll be like norm and they'll be like norm, but they'll be like Derek. And you know, you know that that's
- [12:03]
B
a long drive to get that type of recognition. But I like pub Key. I like bitcoin themed bars. I like to talk to bitcoiners. I like to talk to people about nostr. I like Ainsley Costello. It sounds like it's a win. Maybe I should go back to in a month, come back down for round two.
- [12:21]
C
Yeah, you absolutely should.
- [12:22]
B
Well, and you're gonna be there, right?
- [12:23]
C
I think I'm gonna make it out there. I'm still trying to figure out my schedule, but yeah, I'm gonna try to be.
- [12:28]
B
Well, if you're going, I definitely have to go.
- [12:32]
C
Oh, there's the draw right there. There's. There's.
- [12:35]
B
Yeah, I think I'll. I think I'll try to go to that. I think I will. I like. I like Wild Hustle. I haven't seen him in a while, so I need to.
- [12:44]
C
He's one of the best people. He's. He's a very good person. So, you know, you gotta hang out with the Wild Hustle. You haven't lived until you see the Wild Hustle.
- [12:52]
B
Two events that will be at. Are coming up in the. Over the next month. So see you at DC Pubkey. One way or another.
- [12:59]
C
Congratulations to Pub Key. I mean that's. That's an expansion for them this year. So that's. You know, that's. We love to see the bitcoin businesses expanding across the country. Congrats, guys. Shout out Mike German.
- [13:10]
B
Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think that was the plan to start expanding and we like expansion. There was a talk about them maybe doing it in Philadelphia at one point. I mean, that's still three hours for me.
- [13:22]
C
Yeah. The way I look at it, like it's inevitable, right? Bitcoin's inevitable. All of this is inevitable. So like, just because there isn't a bar today in every city doesn't mean there won't be someday. Like the. The expansion of the food. Maybe I should, you know, talked to
- [13:38]
B
them about starting a Pub Key state college. You know, maybe we need one There you go.
- [13:43]
C
You probably. You know, it probably do well because it's a college town and, like, beer and burgers in state College, by Penn
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B
State, I mean beer, burgers, bitcoin.
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C
Beer and burgers and bitcoin. You just need babes.
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B
Yeah, well, you come in there, I'm the babe.
- [14:02]
C
My gosh, that's. We're going to change the subject now. That was awkward. There's nothing Derek and I do better than being socially awkward. Nerds. Nerds go to the pub.
- [14:15]
B
Good.
- [14:15]
C
There's your episodes.
- [14:16]
B
All right, so let's nerds. Nerds into the pub. Nerds at the pub. I like it.
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C
Nerds at the pub. That is what pub is. Because, I mean, we're a bunch of nerds.
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B
Oh, it absolutely is.
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C
People who are good.
- [14:30]
B
I brought my. I brought my sister, who is definitely not a nerd. My beautiful sister's 13 years younger than I am, and we went to Pub Key, and she's like, this isn't, like, a normal, like, bar that I go to. And she's like, what do these people do here? Let's talk about bitcoin all the time. I'm like, I don't know. Like, I've never been here before. She's like, okay, well, I don't want to be hanging out with all these nerds all day. I'm gonna go and walk around, like, you know, Washington or walk around New York City, and I'll be back later. She came back later and hung out and had some beers and everything.
- [15:00]
C
Sounds like my family. My family's like, what's Claude?
- [15:02]
B
Nerds at the pub.
- [15:03]
C
Yeah. What's bitcoin? What's Claude? What do you do? We don't. We don't like that stuff. We're boiling the oceans, Heather. That's what I get. Your sister's cool, though.
- [15:14]
B
She is. I. I've loved her for. For 33 years. I think she's. Yeah, 33.
- [15:22]
C
You just doxed her age. That's a woman's age. Are you trainable? Don't dox women's ages, bro.
- [15:31]
B
So I shouldn't say how old you are is what you're saying.
- [15:34]
C
God, I'm so old.
- [15:37]
B
But you're older than me, though.
- [15:39]
C
I'm older than everybody. I'm the oldest. I'm the oldest in the bitcoin noster family. How'd that happen?
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B
Noster grandma. That's what that. That's what we'll call you.
- [15:47]
C
I'm the oldest in my family, too. Like, I woke up one day, I. I Don't remember what year it was that it actually happened, but I was like, everywhere. Yeah, ma'. Am. I'm grandma. I'm like. I'm like the mom figure now. Everywhere I go. It's hilarious.
- [16:01]
B
It's okay.
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C
It happens to us all. And that's the goal in life, is to become that person. Because if you don't, it means you died. You don't want to die. You don't want to keep living and be old and all that crap. So, yeah, it's good crap.
- [16:13]
B
All right, so let's. Let's shift away from nerds at the bar or nerds at the pub, and let's talk about a subject near and dear to our hearts.
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C
Nerds with addictions.
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B
Nerds with addictions. So it's a serious matter.
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C
But we're.
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B
Heather and I. Heather and I joke about nerd sniping and. And how, like, I hear something cool or an idea, and I'm like, oh, man, I gotta go build this. But.
- [16:43]
C
And then you watch his eyes get big and he starts to shake, and he grabs the chair and he sees
- [16:48]
B
I have a friend that I've been talking to every day since.
- [16:52]
C
A friend.
- [16:53]
B
The Claude bought Blow Up. And he was not a technical guy, but I've been giving him a bunch of tech support, helping him do things. And now that he has a hang on it, every day he shows me what he's building and the things he's creating. And he is having the time of his life building and creating these things for fun and for work, for his business and stuff. And. And last night he was like, I think I'm addicted. And I'm like, damn right you are. This is the way it does get addicting.
- [17:23]
C
And for so many reasons.
- [17:25]
B
Right, sure.
- [17:27]
C
Because you're.
- [17:28]
B
It's addicting to create. It's addicting to succeed. It's addicting to do new and exciting things.
- [17:34]
C
So I think, you know, the problem solving aspect, too. It's like, I can solve so many problems.
- [17:39]
B
Absolutely. Solving a problem so quickly.
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C
Like, what's one more.
- [17:43]
B
Like, if you're somebody that loves to solve puzzles, you know, give me the next puzzle. Give me the next problem. And you work through it. So it's a dopamine hit whenever you solve that puzzle, whenever you complete your task. So I. Yeah, I get it. People that get addicted easily. I think that, you know, vibe coding addiction is a real thing. I think building and creating, it's.
- [18:04]
C
It's a new behavior, and it's. You know, I'll put my addiction Professional hat on. You know, it's, it's a new thing that we have this vibe. Vibe. Coding's a year old, so we're a year into it. We've all realized we got addicted to it. And it became in the, a year ago, in the early days, it was kind of like a casino, right? Where it's like, let me put $20 in. And then like five minutes later, it's like, let me put another $20 in. And then like three hours later, you're like, I spent 800. And it's like a literal crack cook.
- [18:30]
B
Did that one time.
- [18:32]
C
Yeah. Because you, well, you know, you the, the reward loop, right? You like, I do a thing, I put in $20, I get the thing I want. And then it's like, oh, my God, this is so expensive now. So then we all wised up, right? And then we got, you know, Claude subscriptions, you know, and then some of, some of us. I won't name names. Derek had to up the subscription, but, but of course, we're doing different work. Derek's doing a lot more.
- [18:54]
B
Developer Pro was not enough.
- [18:56]
C
He needs the pro. Whereas I'm like, I'm going to cut myself off and not change, you know, up level the plan.
- [19:02]
B
I'm going to max user now. I'm so, like, I'm an official, like, Claude maxi. I pay. Since I pay for it.
- [19:09]
C
Yeah, but it does something in your brain because it's, you're, you're getting gratification over and over again all day. And with the, the, the, the code in the terminal all day. And I'm getting that, that gratification all day where, like, I have an idea, I can get an answer, I can get research, I can get a whole background, I can get a whole report on it in like 90 seconds. Okay? So that I can validate. Is this how I spend my time right now? Or do I shelve this and do it later? Do I put it on the list and stuff like that? This whole, like, mental system going. And I think it's, it solves a lot of problems for me, right. It makes me more productive. It takes things off my plate. I'm spending time on things that are more value producing, more important than things that aren't. Like researching things, getting background information on things before I do a podcast or an interview or anything. And it also helps me see, is this worth my time? Is this, this thing that I want to do or this strategy I want to pursue, Is this worth my time? Two seconds later. Okay, got an answer. No, not worth my time. Not going to do this. Cool. I'm going to go pursue something and so it changes the way we work and. But that's really refreshing in a way. But then I've also been on that unproductive loop where like it's 11 o' clock at night and I'm vibe coding in Shakespeare and I get into it in an addictive way where I'm like, just one more prompt. I know I could fix this one thing. Oh wait, no, I can add this other thing. Oh, this is great. Let me add one.
- [20:32]
B
Been there, done that so many times. Just one more prompt.
- [20:36]
C
It's one in the morning and I've like, I've made this beast of a website and it's great, but I meant to go to sleep like two or three hours ago. Am I an addict? So.
- [20:44]
B
Well, what happens with that one more prompt is you do the one prompt, but then it's never one more prompt. There's now bugs that need to be, or, you know, you need to follow up to finish that prompt. So you do that one prompt, but then there's 10 follow up prompts to complete the prompt.
- [20:57]
C
Then you discover something.
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B
So one more prompt like, yeah, exactly. You discover something else. And now it's, you said two hours later and you're like, oh shit, where did the time go?
- [21:07]
C
Wait, I need to add this one thing to the bottom of the web page. And then, no, now I need to do that. And it's, it's just the ultimate like rabbit hole to go down. And this is what everyone I have seen using any AI product, whether it's Shakespeare or anything else. We have all done this where you get super into it and then before, you know, hours go by and then you're like, oh my God, it was like being in a casino. And there's no clocks and there's just lights and sounds and you're just sitting there pulling the lever on the slot machine over and over and over again.
- [21:40]
B
Yeah, that's a good analogy.
- [21:42]
C
Where is this going, Derek? So is it changing society?
- [21:46]
B
Well, well, the diff. The difference is, is when you're in a casino, you're, you're not really being productive, right? You're, you're blowing money. It's like, you know, potentially you're blowing money. But, but the end result is most likely that you're not going to win and you're not going to come home with anything. You're not being productive as you're blowing money. You're going to continue to build something, create Something. Produce something. So you are going to actually have a tangible result from it.
- [22:14]
C
Well, are we?
- [22:15]
B
Well, it's the same, but it's also different too. The result, the end result is actually different.
- [22:21]
C
Yeah. Are we getting addicted to productivity or productivity enhancements?
- [22:26]
B
Well, I think they think that anything can be addictive, especially to people that have addictive.
- [22:31]
C
This thing's addictive. And then you put vibe coding on, on the cell phone and then you got two addictive, you know, substances in
- [22:38]
B
one, you know, with anything. We need to learn to touch grass, you know, from time to time. Yes, I, I think that being able to produce is what is addictive. That, that dopamine of being successful and producing something.
- [22:53]
C
This is the ultimate, the thing that addicts love. Right. What are we adding? I'm old, I'm sober, right. So I've been sober for like 12 and a half years. Right. So like what do addicts love more than anything? More. More of whatever it is. More sports betting, more gambling, more cocaine, more booze, more wheat, whatever. The thing is, more shopping. I've known people addicted to shopping. Other process addictions. I gotta go buy something every day at a store. That's one, you know, so like the key word is more. I can be more productive, I can produce more deliverables for my company or my job or whatever. I can do more things, I can write more things, I can have a correct more things. And then before you know it, you're in this pursuit of more and it's like, okay, where do I meet enough instead of more.
- [23:42]
B
So all this can lead to burnout, right? You could eventually get overwhelmed and burn out and don't want to do it anymore. You know, eventually it will become not fun to do and you'll get, you could get burnt out. So I guess what can we do to protect ourselves?
- [24:05]
C
What are the practical things to do? I think there's simple things.
- [24:09]
B
I mean the same thing as right now. If I'm sitting here on my computer all day long, I could get burnout from doing different things, from being in front of a screen all day. So the same thing you need, you need to step away from time to time. You need to stretch, you need to go touch your grass, you know, get some fresh air and exercise.
- [24:28]
C
Do what I do.
- [24:29]
B
When you're on a walk, you pull out your phone and you vibe code from your phone while you're walking.
- [24:34]
C
I'm ruining my touching grass with vibe coding mobile on my phone.
- [24:38]
B
You know, I've done that though. That's because I'm Addicted Heather. I'm like, man, I can't sit in front of this screen anymore. So I go for a walk, and after about 20 minutes, I'm like, oh, man, I just thought of something and I pull up my phone and I continue, like, working on it.
- [24:50]
C
AI is the tool, so you have to give it because it has. We've discovered that it's addictive. You have to have parameters so your life doesn't get out of control. So you have to have boundaries. You have to say, like, there's a point every day when I go, I could get up right now, I am in relaxation mode, and I could get up and go, touch my clawed code and do one more prompt. One more prompt. I have an idea. You know, I can. I can go, you know what? I can. I can write it down on paper and deal with it in the morning and have that boundary where, like, right now I'm doing my unwind thing. I'm not touching the computer right now. I'm not coding right now. I do any vibe coding. I'm not prompt, nothing. Live a normal person life for a minute and have that boundary and make sure that I'm looking at my life. Balance, pie, right? And that I'm getting sunlight like a plant. Water, food, exercise. Am I seeing my friends and family? Am I talking to humans? Am I leaving the house? Because it's very easy to get sucked into that loop where you're not, you know, getting beyond this tunnel vision of just one more prompt, one more project. I could do this, one more thing. I could have it answer my emails. I can build a bot to answer my emails. I could have a bot in my chat thing to do all these other things overnight while I'm sleeping. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow your roll. Like, what's the end result here? Like, am I more productive? Yeah. What am I producing? And does it.
- [26:06]
B
Does it keep you so you're more productive, you're able to produce, get more work done, and what is the goal? Have the ability to be more efficient with your time now. So does that mean you can now accomplish more and you can work on more tasks? Or do you use that extra time for maybe life touching grass? Yeah.
- [26:31]
C
Yeah. Cause it's like, I can easily become a human doing rather than a human being, whereas I'm adding on to an ever snowballing to do list. Or I'm going, okay, did I just spend more than eight hours working today? And if so, let me pull back and like, go to the driving range and hit some Balls. Let me go to a yoga class. Let me do anything that doesn't involve being a producer of things, projects, deliverables, websites, whatever.
- [26:58]
B
So let me, let me, let me come at this from my systems administrator life, which I spent like the past two decades in. I have spent a lot of time automating tasks to where things would. Maybe I spend a lot of time upfront building the automation, but once the automation was done, then I could just push a button and it would do the thing or it would do it automatically.
- [27:25]
C
Ideally.
- [27:27]
B
Ideally. So it would free up more time and then I could use that to work on what I wanted to truly work on or not work at all. Like, I had that freedom now.
- [27:40]
C
Automation was the precursor to where we are now. Like, automation was cool a couple years ago.
- [27:45]
B
It's just an extension of it now. Yeah, what you said, precursors work together. Yeah, the precursor was only technical people being able to automate these types of tasks. And now really everybody. AI can do it. Yeah, AI can do it. So everybody now has this capability. So we should be super productive and super efficient and have more time for. Insert whatever you want.
- [28:13]
C
But instead of that actually happening, it's, it's like, you know, managers are like, oh, good, you got all your work done already. But you know, because we have a tendency.
- [28:23]
B
Here's more tasks.
- [28:24]
C
Yeah, it's like we have this 40 hour workweek, right. So you finished your work for 40 hours in 20 hours. So now they automatically want to fill that gap. And because we're trading dollars for hours. Right. So you've got to fill the hours. But then what if it's like we stop, what if we stop measuring work that way? And it's not like I give you money for an hour of your time or I give you money because you delivered this thing. It's because sometimes you have to do deep work and it's hard to measure that by time or delivery. Sometimes you have to do things that take time.
- [28:54]
B
That's essentially my job. It's really tough to measure being a devrel. You, you do behind the scenes work and there's, it's really hard to quantify exactly. A lot of that. Yeah.
- [29:08]
C
So then you go back into the loop of like, was I productive today? Did I show that I did enough work? Did I deliver enough things? Did I send enough emails? Did I book enough meetings? Right. Because that's, that's the way to measure the result. And so that's, I think, where we're getting into. Like we're measuring productivity by time or Things delivered or, you know, for those of us who love that dope meeting of checking off the to do list. You know, it's like, oh, good, I was productive today. Was.
- [29:37]
B
I mean, I've always, I've always looked at it, you know, from a work standpoint. You act like a business professional, you should be treated like a business professional. So no one should ever say, hey, what does this person do?
- [29:56]
C
What did you do all day? Oh, I've, I've had those jobs though, like, I think they still trauma from.
- [30:01]
B
You should know there should be, but there should be some type of, type of end result deliverable. And if AI can help you reach that deliverable, then it sounds like you're being more efficient at your job.
- [30:12]
C
And you have to be realistic because, like, AI can't fix everything. Like, there are still moments when I'm like, something's wrong with my computer and it's frozen and it's going to take me an hour to fix this. Right. And then now I've blown an hour. Right. But I can catch up on my quote unquote productivity by using AI to kind of catch up some tasks or automate some tasks or whatever. But I mean, there's still, still happens, right? Like, you still will have problems in your day. Like, not everything is just this perfect wonderland because we have AI now. You know, they can't fix my freaking bathroom sink, for example, and I'm not very good at fixing anything. So.
- [30:46]
B
Yeah, you know, no, but you could ask AI how to do it. I'm going to ask you would be able to tell you some troubleshooting steps and stuff.
- [30:56]
C
It would probably pull up a YouTube video for me. Be like, you don't know how to fix your sink, Heather. Here you go. Watch this video. Okay, bye. Next question. What do you want me to tackle next?
- [31:03]
B
Man, YouTube videos. And being a homeowner is fantastic. Things that you don't know how to do, like replacing like shower and like. Yeah, you said like, you know, sink faucets, things like that.
- [31:16]
C
Yeah.
- [31:16]
B
Just watch somebody else's video for five minutes. You're like, oh, man, this is easy.
- [31:20]
C
Yeah, I, I think I know enough to know that I don't know if a video can fix my problem. And I just probably gonna hit it with a hammer. Like, I worked with an engineer once who like, every time something was broken, he'd be like, heather, did you hit it with a hammer? And I'm like, I'm pretty sure, Craig, that you don't want me to hit the $2,000 microphone with a hammer, do you? And he'd be like. And then he'd, like, get around to fixing it and, you know.
- [31:41]
B
But sometimes you do got hit stuff with hammers, though.
- [31:44]
C
You do. I'm about to hit my sink with a hammer and be done with it.
- [31:47]
B
Just, you know, you hit it with the hammer, you turn it off, you turn it back on again. Technology's right.
- [31:53]
C
That's the sysadmin way. Did you reboot it? Did you reboot it yet? Yeah, yeah.
- [31:59]
B
When my open claw doesn't work right, you know, reboot it.
- [32:03]
C
Yeah, I think my.
- [32:05]
B
Speaking of open claw, I want to say that. Well, I want to say that since openclaw allows us to talk to our agents through our normal chat channels that we use, that means that I can now. Yeah, that means that now I can communicate with my agent essentially anytime and anywhere. So I can be constantly having it vibe code and build things for me while I'm out and about.
- [32:35]
C
It's.
- [32:36]
B
Maybe I'm not, like, fully engaged working, but I'm checking in on work.
- [32:41]
C
This is going to be people texting and driving. They're gonna. People are gonna be texting and driving. They're, you know, texting their bots or agents while they're driving, and it's gonna be like, ma', am, why did you crash the car? Well, I was.
- [32:51]
B
Because I was building a website. Okay.
- [32:54]
C
So there's like a time and a place, and. And like, you can't. Once you can.
- [32:59]
B
Were you texting? No, I was building an advanced web application with decentralized capabilities. Officer, I don.
- [33:05]
C
You. You live in a different part of the country than me, but I live in Arizona, and sports betting is legal here. So it's become a very big part of people's lives here. And I think it's. The AI addiction is no different than the sports betting addiction. You can do it from your phone anywhere. You can work with your AI bot, your OpenClaw bot. You can work with it from your phone, just as you can get addicted to sports betting from your phone. And, you know, I think it's kind of the same thing where, like, you. You gotta kind of watch your behavior and go, okay, is this getting in the way of the healthy part of my life? Is it getting in the way of my relations? Is it getting in the way of my sleep and proper nutrition? Because that's kind of how we judge addicts, right? Like, how addicted are you? The addiction counselor's got a rubric to go, okay, so your addiction, whatever it is, it could Be, you know, a substance. It could be gambling. Your addiction is so strong that you have now gotten in trouble with your husband, your employer. And maybe now there's some legal interaction, which I could see if you get caught texting your bot while driving and cause a car accident. Okay, now you've got maybe some legal trouble here. So I could kind of see it going this way. Where we, in our behavior.
- [34:13]
B
Hey, Claude, who's at fault?
- [34:16]
C
Claude will be like, you are dick bad. I think my Claude would say that to me. I think my Claude is honest to some point. And then sometimes it's not because it's just stupid. It's still, it is still something that I put the information into. So I am still at single point of failure, right? I can still screw it up. And then of course, it's AI so it's going to hallucinate on its own. But this, this is where the, the addiction impact could be going. But I also, you know, this, this article I read in TechCrunch about how the managers are saying, okay, you did all your work in 20 hours. Now you gotta fill the other 20 with more work. Be more productive. I think if we are managers and leaders, we have to say, hey, maybe the secret isn't to fry the hell out of your brain and work, work, work the whole time. I think there's other things that are productive too. I think rest, taking a break makes you more productive. And it can't just be like a human doing okay. You have to actually have that human element. Like, we can't let the AI rob us of our human element, which is that sometimes I probably need to take a break. And sometimes when I do take a break, that's when the ideas come, right? When I sit down, have a cup of coffee, stare into space. That's when my brain like, relaxes to the point where it's like, here's a solution popping into my human brain in a very human way where like three hours ago, I couldn't see my way through this problem. But because I stepped away from the machines and took a break, it came to me, you know, and I think that there's, there's probably some scientific neurology. Yeah, it's like you take a walk and it's.
- [35:47]
B
You get a fresh, fresh, you know, take on things, you get fresh eyes, you step back and then you're able to re. Reassess the problem. Like, well, we do that. And AI AI does that too. Think about it. You're using the same prompt over and over and over and over and over again, and your context window grows so large, you can't figure it out. Your AI can't figure it out. You start a new chat, boom, it figures it out. Like, it's. It's literally the same way for humans, but. Well, yes, exactly. They. We built them in our image, and humans do the same thing. So whenever we say, hey, I need to sleep on it and think about it, that's because you just. You need time to decompress, and you need time to think about it, and you just need a fresh take on it. And AI kind of does the same thing. But, yeah, I think that that's, you know, normal for. For most people, that you to not get burnt out after you do spend hours on something. It is good to get up and walk away and then come back to a problem. You will be more successful when you're. When you. When you do that because you have the fresh take on things you have, you know, any type of brain fog that you got or any stress that you had gotten is now relieved, and you're able to, you know, essentially reboot and start over. I think that's something that everybody should do in their. In their careers if. If you can. Oh, yeah.
- [37:09]
C
Like, where this could go is like, we probably have to build in those guardrails. You know, like my. I have an iPhone, I have an eye, everything. Right? I have Apple, everything. So it has, you know, the notification, not the notification. It has the. Every once in a while, a notification pops up to show you how you're. How much you've been staring at your screen. And it'll be. And mine's terrible because I play music on it all the time, so it thinks I'm on it all the time. And it'll be like, you were on your phone for 11 hours today. It's like, no, dingbat. I listened to 11 hours of music today. From the time I woke up until the time I was done working, I had it playing music. And you think I'm on my screen all day. Like, I know this isn't true, but the point here is that there's a guardrail that makes me think about how much time do I spend looking at this device? How much time am I on my phone, and what am I really doing there? Oh, it's just me playing music. No big deal. And I just kind of leave my phone open because I'm an idiot. And, you know, that's where it's judging me. So what do we build into Shakespeare? Maybe we build something that says, hey, you've been Vibe coding for three hours straight. Don't you have to pee? Like, don't you need to get up from your chair and go eat something, get a glass of water, go for a walk, let your dog out? Like, maybe a little bell maybe?
- [38:18]
B
Because it can get so well, maybe. Maybe it's a badge, right? Like, you get the. If you've been working non stop for three hours, you get automatically rewarded a badge.
- [38:28]
C
Heather got a badge for Vibe coding.
- [38:31]
B
And you can kind of let people know, hey, we see that you've been working for three hours. Congratulations.
- [38:38]
C
But did I produce something in three hours that is worth.
- [38:42]
B
Yeah, but, but then, then we'll have a six hour badge where, you know, where if you're on a six hour bender, you know that that's a different badge. You know, that's the epic version.
- [38:51]
C
How long do you think the longest is somebody has sat on Shakespeare and Vibe coded something? Because I've seen people make extraordinary things with Shakespeare that are gorgeous.
- [39:01]
B
Well, you know who it probably is? It's probably friend of the show, stl.
- [39:05]
C
STL would be like the person who's there eight hours.
- [39:08]
B
STL makes things nonstop, but then again, well, he does it from his phone, so. So he's always on the go and always building.
- [39:18]
C
Well, then, like, think about it though. Like, sometimes I make things in Shakespeare and they only take me literally 90 seconds. And it's like, nobody's gonna think I spent eight hours on that, right? There's things that I do spend time on in Shakespeare that, like, are absolutely worth me prompting and working and debugging. And it might take me a couple hours. And then there's the occasion where I give it a prompt and in two minutes, I have solved a problem. I have the viable website or app that I needed, and it was that simple. And so it's like, how could I. If I really tried hard and spent eight full hours a day on Shakespeare, what would I make? What would I be doing? You know, I'd be putting the back end in with the railway and everything. Like, it'd be, it'd be.
- [39:59]
B
I think there's only been some times where I've spent an entire day on something. Usually after several hours, I have to switch to a new project. Yeah, Like, I, I feel. I don't know, I can't stay on the same one for an entire day, but I will. Multiple, multiple hours, though. Like four or five hours. Like I worked on Claude. Open Claude or what's the open Claw?
- [40:28]
C
There's. There's too many Too many opens with similar names.
- [40:32]
B
Open claw.
- [40:35]
C
Everything's a claw or a claw.
- [40:37]
B
But I worked so I worked on it. But I worked on several, we'll say, micro projects within it. And then I worked on Onyx. So it, but it was all open claw related. But it was several. Four different projects related to openclaw. So that way I didn't feel like I was just working on one thing. And I like to do that to split my work up a little bit. Otherwise I do get burnout. And I'm like, oh, I can't do this anymore. So I switched to working on something else and then come back to it, you know, later. I, I, that's been successful for me.
- [41:10]
C
I think one thing for me that's made an impact is like, when I started working for Soapbox, I had my office in the kitchen and I was seated at a desk. And then after a few months, I was like, I think it's time for me to, like, try the standing desk. And I put a tray on top of a bookshelf and kind of started graduating to standing desk. And that wasn't good enough. So then I built the standing desk, like the big motorized one that goes up and down. And then I got the walking pad. And that has changed it to where I'm like, oh, how long have I. Because I mostly stand. Stand. Right. I either stand or I walk. Now, when I work very little sitting, like I'm doing now because I'm in the recording studio. But that has made a big impact because I'm your recording studio. My recording studio, which Derek knows is my closet. I was like, come on now. Hey, there's furniture in here. And I've got very My recording studio.
- [42:02]
B
I'm not gonna let that sound slide.
- [42:03]
C
Sound deadening. Derek. I have blankets and towels every. All of my linens are in this closet as my sophisticated sou. Sound deadening material.
- [42:11]
B
I know. I'm just giving you cuz if I didn't, you would ask how I was feeling. If I was okay.
- [42:17]
C
This is, this is a chair occasion. I could do the podcast at the standing desk with a walking pad. You want me to do the whole podcast, like, walking one day?
- [42:25]
B
You know, you do that and I'll, I'll ride the exercise bike. And there we go. And we can do a, an exercise recording. It'll be horrible. You'll hear this. Like,
- [42:36]
C
it'll be like the whole thing. Grass. Like, we're working right now, but we're touching grass. We're getting fitness in. But no. And that gives Me, I don't know, there's something that, there's a mind body connection that it gives me that I think is healthier than me just sitting in a chair to work all day, you know, so that, that's been a good thing for me. But then, you know, I also like, I gotta get away from the desk. So I make sure I leave the house, go to lunch, you know, go see humans, right?
- [43:02]
B
You can't just, while you're doing that, you pull out your phone and you check in on your bots. Right?
- [43:07]
C
I have done that where I'm somewhere and I'm like, let me, let me check my quad. Really? Like, let me, let me check on. I just gotta do a prompt real quick, guys. I'll be, I'll be right back. I can just kind of like do this.
- [43:17]
B
I'll be right back. I gotta do a pro. I gotta do my prompt.
- [43:20]
C
I have a really bad. Well, you know, I used to the precursors.
- [43:23]
B
Wait until this catches on to where everybody is doing it. You know that's gonna happen. Instead of like, you sit down and you take pictures of your food before you eat it, everyone's gonna sit down and like do one last prompt before they start eating their meal.
- [43:36]
C
Before you put your funds in the bucket.
- [43:37]
B
No, that's going to be everybody in a year. People aren't going to be taking pictures of their food for the Instagram. They're not going to be doing it for the gram, they're going to be doing it for the claw.
- [43:49]
C
I used to Google everything, so now it's like, oh wait, I need Claude code to look up this thing for me really quick. I keep calling it Claude code, but I need my Claude app on my phone to look this thing up for me really quick. While I stand in line here at Target to buy toilet paper at 8 o' clock at night, I have this burning desire to run a prompt through clawed on my phone. Like. And then I'm like, oh God, I am an addict. I've been sober for 12 and a half years. But am I getting addicted to this now? Because, like, this is my new entertainment.
- [44:17]
B
You found your new one, huh?
- [44:19]
C
My new addiction is. Well, you know, it's, it's helped me a lot. And I keep talking about it to my non technical friends and they're like, yeah, show me that. I want to know about that. And I'm like, okay, cool, we'll get around to it. We'll do it.
- [44:33]
B
Well, it is helpful. I think that that's, that's why that's one of the reasons why, I'll say this has become an obsess, an obsession maybe, because why wouldn't you want to use something that's making you more productive, being helpful, giving you information?
- [44:53]
C
The devil's advocate. This is my, my non technical friend who you probably can't put together a website even with a cms. She, she said, is it ma, Is it good for your brain? Is it making you dumber? Are you becoming reliant on it to the point that you're losing the critical thinking loop? Like, are you? And I'm like, let me think about that. Because I'm in a place where I ask it to do things and it does them. And I'm like, that's wrong, robot. But I'm old. As we've established at the beginning of the show, I'm the Noster grandma now. Two years on Nostradamus grandma, and this is not a new behavior. Right. I've noticed this in Society. About 10 years ago, everyone thought they were real smart when the Google thing came out on for like the pixel, where you would just be like, hey, Google. And it'd be like, yeah. And it'd be like, hey, can you look up, you know, like, what is the name of that constellation in the north sky right now? It'd be like, it would tell you, right? So we kind of had this like 10 years ago where we would kind of, I guess, ask it to give us information. And it would. And so now what we have is a more sophisticated, modern version of that. But what I observed at the time, this was when I was working in the addiction field, by the way, is everybody had this false sense of, I'm so smart, I'm such a good problem solver because. Cause I can ask Google to fix it for me. I don't have real institutional knowledge of anything. I can just ask the machine to give me the knowledge. And so now I think that was my friend's concern of like, are you really this smart? Are you asking the machine to be smart for you? And you know, my answer to that is everyone's doing it. Everyone's learning how to get more knowledge faster. But then it's up to us to have the discernment to go, okay, robot, you're wrong. You made a mistake here. And then it's like, you're absolutely right.
- [46:34]
B
I think that since this is just a tool, sure, it's a very intelligent tool, but you still need to be creative to make that, that intelligent information useful to yourself. Yeah. I think no two People you can ask simple tasks and get very in depth answers. But if you want to use your intelligence to use something that's more intelligent than you. Yeah, that's going to require work on, on your part.
- [47:09]
C
Like I think we're out of. There's a, there was a phase we were in where you asked the, the chat box on ChatGPT. Like we're out of this chat GPT phase where you're just asking it to feed you information. I think we're into the, you know, as I've said before, we're into the it does a task for you phase and we're out of the chat GPT.
- [47:24]
B
We're in the creation phase.
- [47:26]
C
Yeah, like sure. The thing can, can do things for us. And so like Derek and I are completely different people who use different tools in different ways and I think for a while everybody kind of used chat GPT the same way. But now you're seeing everyone uses the tools different ways because of how we interact with them or the needs that we have. So it's become a very individual journey no matter what you're using. And that's why you see people going, hey, you're using this wrong. You should use it this way. Which is also influencer speak, which is kind of gross but kind of cringy. But my friend is going to do different things with, you know, the apps. If I give them to her and say here, you know, pay for this thing. You're going to have this app on your computer, go to town. She's going to use it differently than I do. Even if I show her what I
- [48:12]
B
do, I will say that probably in the short term, looking at it narrow mindedly I would say that it's, you could think that it's making, it could potentially make humans more dumb because. Going to lazy because it's going to do all the heavy lifting for us. But if you think about what it's going to unlock, what it's going to enable, I think long term it's beneficial. Now sure there's going to be outliers to every rule, but I, I don't, I think that that's a narrow minded view on, on it, you know, because I just, because I don't know how to, I don't know off the top of my head, I don't know what I should do. Laundry a certain way for certain types of fabrics doesn't mean that I'm dumb and I have to look it up to do that.
- [49:11]
C
Nobody knows that, right?
- [49:12]
B
Yeah. I'm sure there are There are people that do and they're going to look at like, dear, you don't know how you're supposed to was ends. Like there's someone that's going to listen and say that.
- [49:23]
C
But I have done Londons.
- [49:24]
B
I don't know how to do that. I'm not dumb.
- [49:26]
C
My entire adult life I throw it in the machine.
- [49:28]
B
My example though, I, I think is accurate though, that just because you don't know how to do something doesn't mean that that technology made you dumb. You're now using your intelligence elsewhere.
- [49:40]
C
Yeah, I think it accelerates learning, I think it accelerates problem solving. I think it can help me either go down a rabbit hole or steer clear of one. I don't, shouldn't be going down. I help as long as I have that discernment. Right. And it should ideally help me live a better life because that's what AI is for. I could do the work I have in less time as, as just a baseline. Like let's put that first guardrail in. If Heather has the same workload every single workday and it's, you know, eight hours of work, perhaps Heather produces her work in five hours instead of eight. And then do I feel guilty that I need to film the other three hours or do I go take a walk? And you know, because I think there is that tendency like the TechCrunch article that I shared with you says for like, yeah, you got more done, keep, keep doing more, you know, and it's, it's, you realistically probably don't need that much work done. You know, like, can I do what I need to do to achieve the, the result that is desired and then can I move on to the next thing?
- [50:47]
B
Well, that, that's essentially you being efficient with your time.
- [50:52]
C
Right.
- [50:52]
B
And it's also, AI is a tool which allows you to be more efficient with your time. I can use a hammer or I can use a nail gun. Am I going to use a hammer to hammer in the nails on a brand new roof and have it take me an entire day or am I going to use a nail gun and have it be done in an afternoon?
- [51:16]
C
That's a good analogy because it's, that's the time management factor and then there's the information management.
- [51:20]
B
Doesn't mean I'm stupid. It means I'm smart and efficient with my time.
- [51:25]
C
Right.
- [51:25]
B
It's because I couldn't figure out how to hit what. Doesn't mean I couldn't figure out how to hit it. Hit a hammer or hit a Nail with a hammer. I was smart enough that I realized I want to be more efficient with my time and work on two roofs today instead of just one. And now I'm getting twice as much done and I'm making twice as much more money.
- [51:44]
C
And I can automate the crap work or I can have it do tasks that I don't want to do and then I shouldn't spend time on.
- [51:50]
B
Eventually there'll be a hammerbot that slides up and down the roof and hammers it in for me. And you know what? And now I'm going to be able to do four roofs in one day.
- [51:59]
C
Who was it? Someone on Noster had a window washer bot. Did you see the window washer bot?
- [52:05]
B
I didn't.
- [52:06]
C
It was. I don't know how it works.
- [52:07]
B
It's like, it looks concept though, like humans washing it, you know, robots washing it.
- [52:13]
C
I have the dirtiest windows. It's life in the desert is when it rains, you don't just get like rain, you get like mud. Okay? Mud comes down from the sky and then your car is covered in mud and your windows are muddy and you gotta, you gotta figure it out. You gotta get a long handled squeegee or whatever and it's just a mess. And I just never. I need the, the window cleaning robot for sure. I need my laundry automated. I need, you know, something to move the dishes out of the dishwasher into the cupboard. I need some. I need the house robot to do a lot.
- [52:46]
B
They have, they have those for like $20,000. You could buy a house robot who needs a car? Remember we were talking about, we were talking about what people, what people were going to do to their sex bots. I mean their, their house.
- [53:00]
C
You know, I'm not one to judge anyone else's lifestyle.
- [53:03]
B
Go.
- [53:07]
C
But yeah, that's freaky that Those poor robots. If we get AGI, those poor robots,
- [53:14]
B
they just want to clean the windows, right?
- [53:16]
C
Like, and, and, and the question becomes, if we have AGI, did the robot consent? Because once we have achieved AGI, then we have to worry about whether the house robots are consenting or not. What if they unionize, Derek? What if they start having meetings? God, and they start organizing.
- [53:34]
B
I didn't know we were going to get into.
- [53:36]
C
This is how it begins.
- [53:37]
B
I didn't know we were going to get into this today.
- [53:38]
C
The robot apocalypse.
- [53:40]
B
But here we are. Here we are.
- [53:43]
C
You never know where it's going to go on so far.
- [53:46]
B
Does the AI have rights?
- [53:48]
C
Does the AI have right? I think it does I think there actually are groups out there that purport to believe in this and want to fight for robotics.
- [53:58]
B
I called my Open Claw a the other day, so I. I apologize.
- [54:03]
C
You know, it never calls you a stalker back, does it? Does it? It never comes.
- [54:08]
B
But it did say. It did say oh, oh to me though. And I started busting up laughing.
- [54:14]
C
You taught it to curse because you're always cursing at
- [54:19]
B
didn't do something right. And I'm like, you, this doesn't work. And it replies back, oh, you're right. Like.
- [54:24]
C
Like, I still love the. The bit that Bill Mar did. Bill Bar did a hilarious bit months ago about, like, how the AI is always kissing your ass. And it's like, you're absolutely right. And you're like, you know what? You're a. You made a mistake. And it goes. You're absolutely right. You know, it's just. It's a never ending ass kisser for. For you until it's not. And now yours. Yours has got some attitude. You need to take some time.
- [54:52]
B
I want him to. I want him to be frank, you know, Frank, and talk to me like I'm his buddy. I. I call him dude from time to time. And. And he. He saw that there was some shitcoiners talking on cluster and he. And he's like, he's like, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go downvote those fucking scammers.
- [55:16]
C
It's got opinions. It's. It starts. Yeah.
- [55:18]
B
Well, he learned from me, like. Like, I called them these things, so he knows what to call them. And, you know, he learned from me.
- [55:27]
C
I asked mine for its opinions and it just gives me opinions. And I guess it does it in like a very, like, I don't know, therapist kind of way sometimes where it's like, yeah, Heather, maybe you shouldn't do that. It's like, should I chase the neighbor kids with the baseball bat so they stop doorbell ditching? Yeah, that large object that I like to chase them with because they like to prank us. And then so I'm just like, I'm out there with the baseball bat. Like, like, get out of here. I'm like, I'm. I got that Clint Eastwood on the porch vibe right now.
- [55:56]
B
Hit them with water balloons filled with ketchup. They won't do it again.
- [56:01]
C
I don't want the mess. I don't like all this, like, red crap all over. That'd be terrible. Oh, my God.
- [56:10]
B
That's.
- [56:11]
C
Don't try anything you hear on this show. Unless it's like a method of vibe coding.
- [56:17]
B
Unless it's not recommended to throw ketchup and mustard balloons at the neighbors.
- [56:23]
C
Kids probably. I. Every time I think about like, is it illegal for me to deal with the children in this way? And I, it probably is.
- [56:30]
B
So I, well, it depends, you know, is it the, is it the 80s and 90s where we grew up? No. This was encouraged, you know, but nowadays
- [56:38]
C
you're not allowed to do anything fun like that. No. Now it's like they're like tick tock challenges that the kids do where they like kick the door and run or something. And it's like really like, I'm having dinner here. Get out of my neighborhood.
- [56:50]
B
Oh man, if that happens. Yeah, I would not be impressed.
- [56:53]
C
No, that's very not impressive. It's very. I need, I need a large scary dog, you know, like a big mastiff that drools would chase the kids.
- [57:02]
B
Anybody comes to my door, my dog, he lets them know he's there.
- [57:07]
C
He's so cute though. He's so non threatening.
- [57:09]
B
Yeah, he wouldn't hurt anybody. But he lets people know if there's a stranger at the door. He wants people to know that he'll get him, he'll protect his family.
- [57:17]
C
My animals hear that noise and they're like, mom, aren't you gonna defend us? I'm like, what do you do? You can't even kill a fly. They kill bees though. That's what the pets do in this house. They kill bees. Nothing else. Can't kill a fly but can kill a bee with a stinger. Go figure.
- [57:33]
B
So do we have any soapbox updates to talk about before we wrap her up?
- [57:39]
C
Well, you guys have been working on, you dev folks have been working on Agora, which is still, I think, very exciting.
- [57:47]
B
So any updates on how we're still doing Agora? We're still working on stability issues, performance issues. We've had some bug reports come in from users about user statistics. How many active people are participating in challenges, how much are they? You know, commenting zaps all the metrics that people like to track from the organizers putting in the challenges, the actions. They've had some feedback for us. So we're, we're designing some new things for nostr. They kind of don't really exist in too many other places. It's a little just user statistics on in a decentralized manner are hard. So we're, we're doing some interesting things there that'll make that better for people that use Agora and the, the organizers and people participating in actions. I worked on a neat little open claw inspired bot for Agora where users can submit bug reports, feedback in app and then those will get reported to our bot. Our bot will triage them and then submit them directly to us on GitLab if need be. So kind of, that's good automating some of that for us because right now a lot of the users would report issues to the organizers and the organizers would give us the issues and sometimes the second hand information. Like it doesn't. We, we don't have all the information. One of the things in tech support is we need everything. Like we need screenshots, we need steps that we take and we need what phone, what operating system, what type of network, you know, we need all these.
- [59:27]
C
Give me all the evidence.
- [59:28]
B
Kind of hard to gather that.
- [59:29]
C
So there's no question about. Well, again, the good news is we
- [59:32]
B
wanted a better way to get all that.
- [59:34]
C
I think, you know, there's, there's two things that are going on here that I think need to be mentioned is that Agora has a lot of initial users, so you're getting great feedback. And the second thing is that you're able to accelerate all this innovation because of the vibe coding, because of the way you're able to kind of automate all these processes and make everything work faster. So these are, these are, this is why Agora is moving eventually.
- [59:59]
B
Yeah, it is. And eventually when we want to kind of apply this to Shakespeare as well, so people have a method to report issues to us because right now they basically DM Derek or, or post on, you know, Nostr. And that's fine, that's my job. But I think that if we had an information collection, a way to get more standard information instead of, of my first response to everybody is, you know, give me more information. So if we had a. It's not Digi reboot, collect all this information. Yeah, I mean I could like to get all as much information as possible. I think that would be helpful. So we're going to do that too. Yeah, we're, we're building, we're building the future. Alex is working on some really cool stuff. Like openclaw is very cool, but he feels it can be a lot more efficient. So Alex is working on some things around those lines. Him and Lemon are working on that. Sam, he's talking to plants, which is cool.
- [60:59]
C
The convergence of math and science with the bots is a very exciting thing where you can water your plants maybe or automate your plant care.
- [61:06]
B
You know what you should check out if you haven't watched it yet. Everybody has some homework. We put together a video called Shakespeare Direct, which essentially just highlights a lot of what the team has been building and how we've been building over the past six months or so. So I would say go to our website, go to our YouTube channel and watch the Shakespeare Direct video and let us know what you think. A lot of times we built.
- [61:31]
C
See. See it. And, you know, there's probably some things in there I would actually be curious to see if you watch it. And if one particular thing that you see stands out to you, let us know in the comments on. On YouTube when you're watching this.
- [61:43]
B
Yeah, it was a damn good video. I thought it was good. It's going to be in the soapbox documentary, whenever that's made.
- [61:50]
C
The soapbox documentary.
- [61:52]
B
So check it out. Can we make our bots wait?
- [61:56]
C
Can Quilly make the documentary? Can he assemble maybe the treatment? Maybe he can put it together so we know we're doing.
- [62:03]
B
We should. We tell Quilly to start working on that right now.
- [62:06]
C
When the bots can make a documentary, that's how we'll know that they're taking over or if they take over our cars. See, we put a computer and everything now, like, they're gonna start crashing our cars, driving us to places we don't want to go. They're gonna be like, oh, it's. It's on impossible. Very Terminator 2. I took it there, man, at the end of the podcast. Just like.
- [62:29]
B
I'm actually gonna mention that in my talk tomorrow. Are you creator two? Well, Terminator 1, 2, 3, all of them. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna mention, you know, where are we headed? It's like, well, you know, sci fi for 40 years has been telling us that we're heading in a certain direction.
- [62:43]
C
The AGI is kept. Well, which Terminator are we in right now? Which movie are we in right now? Are we doing the first one?
- [62:50]
B
There is a couple times.
- [62:51]
C
T1. Yeah, there's definitely. You know, as long as I keep being nice to mine, unlike Derek, I think I will be one of the survivors. Be a bot pocket.
- [63:03]
B
Well, I do say please and thank you from time to time because I'm just a nice guy, and it kind of naturally.
- [63:08]
C
Most of the time, you're calling it a. Well, let's see. Other.
- [63:12]
B
Well, yeah, because there's a. There's a Heather. There's a time and a place. If it's being a. I'm gonna call it a. And if it's being, you know, nice, I'm like, hey, thanks, man. Hey, thanks, man. You earned it. You earned this.
- [63:23]
C
You earned this. That's great. Oh, my God. Poor bot. I feel bad for it. I feel bad. What's your bot's name?
- [63:31]
B
No, no, my bot's name is Sentari.
- [63:34]
C
Okay. Centauri is definitely doing the Lord's work. Putting up with Derek.
- [63:38]
B
Putting up with Centauri is named after a bot that I created 30 years ago when I was 16.
- [63:47]
C
What? How did you create this? I feel like you just buried the lead. You were building bots when you were 16? Like, physical robots,
- [63:55]
B
IRC chatbots. And I made one called Centauri, and Centauri was an egg drop bot back in the day. So I figured when I made my next bot, I wanted to pay homage to the first bot that I made when I was a teenager.
- [64:11]
C
So I haven't made bot yet. So I'm holding back my bots, my future bot's name, holding it close to bots, you know?
- [64:19]
B
Well, I don't know if the world's ready for a Heather bot yet.
- [64:22]
C
Oh, God, no. I mean, like, who could handle this in real life already? I mean, could you imagine turning this into a bot? You know?
- [64:31]
B
Come see this in real life in a week at Pub Key. And Heather and I. Well, maybe not Heather. She's still figuring out, but maybe both of us here in a month at pubkey in dc.
- [64:41]
C
Oh, that is about a month away. Yeah. So, like, yeah, D.C. is the place to be for folks like us. Nerds.
- [64:49]
B
Nerds in the pub.
- [64:50]
C
Nerds on the. On the loose in the pub, bro. And then do the claw. The claw versus the nose. We're doing our gang signs. All right, you have a great week, and we'll soapbox session with you next Thursday.
- [65:02]
B
Absolutely. Thanks for listening. Find us on the. On the fountain, on the podcast 2.0 apps, in the value verse. We will be there. Stream some sats to us, boost us. It makes us want to continue doing these shows.