TalkLinked - Must IP Law be deleted to beat China?

Summary

TechLinked Podcast Summary: "TalkLinked - Must IP Law be deleted to beat China?"

Release Date: April 22, 2025
Hosts: Luke and Elijah
Podcast: TechLinked by Linus Media Group
Description: A thrice-weekly news show about tech and gaming culture.

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Introduction to the Episode's Core Topic

In this episode of TalkLinked, hosts Luke and Elijah delve into the contentious debate surrounding Intellectual Property (IP) law in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). The discussion is ignited by a provocative tweet from Jack Dorsey, founder and former CEO of Twitter, who advocated for the deletion of all IP laws to gain a competitive edge over Chinese AI companies.

The Debate on IP Law and AI

Luke opens the conversation by referencing Dorsey's tweet:

"Tweeting delete all IP law on April 11th. And it kind of sparked some discourse." [01:52]

This statement sets the stage for a broader discussion on whether abolishing IP laws is a necessary strategy to accelerate AI development and outpace Chinese competitors. The hosts explore the philosophical versus utilitarian perspectives on AI-generated content's copyright status.

Elijah outlines the primary areas of concern:

"There are the three core topics around AI policy right now, which are open versus closed models, copyright and IP reform, and AI safety versus innovation speed." [02:16]

Global Competition: North America vs. China

The conversation shifts to the competitive landscape between North American/European AI firms and their Chinese counterparts. Luke and Elijah compare the differing approaches to IP law:

"China deals with IP law much more laxly, especially when it benefits the state." [02:58]

Elijah emphasizes the strategic advantage this laxity provides China in the AI race:

"China is much higher on the value chain than we previously thought and has the active ability now to take rungs on the value chain." [34:07]

Implications of Deleting IP Law

The hosts debate the potential consequences of removing IP laws entirely. Elijah expresses skepticism about the feasibility and desirability of such a move:

"I don't think deleting IP Law is like the way to go. I think they're trying to do a gambit and overcorrection." [09:12]

They discuss historical parallels, such as the impact of IP law on innovation, citing how patents can both drive and stifle progress. The example of Disney losing its monopoly on characters like Mickey Mouse is used to illustrate how the absence of IP protection can lead to a flood of inferior content:

"When they lost their ability to protect their IP on Mickey, it didn’t matter. Everyone stopped caring almost immediately." [13:04]

AI's Impact on Small Creators and Innovation

A significant portion of the discussion centers on how AI and the erosion of IP laws affect small creators and independent businesses. Luke highlights the struggles faced by small brands in the era of AI-powered platforms:

"A lot of small brands are getting screwed over by these search engines and now also by AI systems because everything's intercepting." [18:30]

Elijah adds that AI-generated summaries from search engines are defunding independent research and creative work:

"Independent small-time research, writing, whatever, is all effectively being defunded by these platforms that are using them." [18:43]

Use Cases and Benefits of AI

Despite the criticisms, the hosts acknowledge the practical benefits of AI in everyday tasks. Luke shares anecdotes about educators using AI to create lesson plans, demonstrating AI's utility in structuring and organizing information:

"My dad's a plumbing instructor and they use it for lesson plans." [27:10]

Elijah points out that AI can serve as a valuable tool for feedback and improvement rather than direct content creation:

"I use it to review my output and give me feedback on my output. I don't use it for output, but I'll use it to help guide me." [28:30]

Future Speculations and Conclusions

As the episode draws to a close, the hosts speculate on the future trajectory of AI and IP law. Elijah predicts significant IP reform rather than complete abolition:

"There's going to be significant reform because a lot of the laws that were made weren't even made in the Internet age." [09:59]

Luke expresses concerns about the societal impact if the AI race continues without adequate regulation:

"What if we lose our soul as a society? But if China develops a super intelligence that hacks the entire world, then we won't have a society." [25:10]

The discussion underscores the delicate balance between fostering innovation and protecting creators' rights, highlighting the uncertainties and high stakes involved in shaping AI policy.

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Notable Quotes:

• Luke: "Maybe Jack Dorsey's right and we'll have a utopia and none of us will own any IP and everything will be fine." [33:45]
• Elijah: "AI's getting better at convincing people it's not hallucinating, but it's still a significant issue." [30:50]
• Luke: "The AI race is like the nuclear AI arms race with China; we need to keep up." [01:16]
• Elijah: "Users continue to support AI companies despite ethical concerns because the AI tools are better." [26:17]

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This episode of TechLinked provides a comprehensive examination of the complex interplay between AI development, IP law, and global competition. Through insightful dialogue, Luke and Elijah highlight the critical decisions that policymakers and society face as we navigate the rapidly evolving tech landscape.

Transcript

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[Luke]

You'Ll own no IP at all, and you'll be happy.

[Elijah]

I will be sad.

[Luke]

Nope, not allowed.

[Elijah]

That's against the rules.

[Luke]

The AI will stop you from being sad. How could you be sad when you live in a utopia where everything's controlled and everything's generated? What are we talking about here, Luke?

[Elijah]

Powered by the IP grinding machine. We're talking about ip. We're talking about AI policy. We're talking about how this stuff is gonna possibly work. Because there's a huge battle going on between North American and European AI companies and mostly Chinese AI companies. Deepseek came and took everyone's lunch. And what are we gonna do about it?

[Luke]

You. It's like you host a stream or something. You've done this before. Maybe we haven't done a talk linked in a hot second, but. And you've never been on.

[Elijah]

No.

[Luke]

I'm so excited.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And also, you get to talk about AI.

[Elijah]

Wait, I just.

[Luke]

When Linus doesn't let you on.

[Elijah]

When he whips me.

[Luke]

As soon as you get to an AI topic. And I know this because I prepare the topic sometimes.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

I'm like, oh, they're gonna like this topic. I stopped preparing them because he just gets there and he goes on his phone.

[Elijah]

Yeah. He has literally done that. And then he'll get at me for not paying attention during other topics. But whatever, man.

[Luke]

Yeah, but now you get to talk about it. So the. The kind of impetus for all of this was Jack Dorsey, the founder, former CEO of Twitter.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Now X, which I still call Twitter.

[Elijah]

Yep.

[Luke]

Tweeting delete all IP law on April 11th. And it kind of sparked some discourse.

[Elijah]

Yeah, that's. That's part of what, in my opinion, are like the three core topics around AI policy right now, which I laid out as open versus closed models. Copyright and IP reform and AI safety versus innovation speed.

[Luke]

Oh, heck.

[Elijah]

And I think that's like, one of the really core things is what do we do with IP law? Because when you're looking at the. The race for AI stuff, it's becoming more and more like country or alliance based instead of company based. So a lot of people are looking at it like okay, the, the west versus the East, I guess, or right now, basically Deep Sea v. Everyone.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah.

[Elijah]

And there are differences in how the west and China. China deal with IP law. Do I understand Chinese IP law? Not even sort of.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah. I kind of started to Google it in preparation for this and I'm kind of like, oh, this is going to be too, too complicated.

[Elijah]

What my not enough Googling has told me is that they are much more lax on IP law, especially when it comes to outside of their own country, but also within their own country. And especially, especially when it has to do with anything that could benefit the state.

[Luke]

Right. Because over here, you know, the North American kind of capitalist mindset, corpo focused. Right. It's like let people go out there, struggle. Whoever rises to the top is good. And China also does that. I know they do that with like. But, but it's more like it's like they, the government directs these little experiments to happen. So if something is like, oh, this will be beneficial to the nation, then they can just kind of override.

[Elijah]

Yeah, the. Just make it happen. Which, which when you're in a race like this, could be very beneficial when the other side, the west is like squabbling over are we even allowing these companies to access this data at all? Which I think what a lot of the argument hinges on.

[Luke]

Right.

[Elijah]

Is like the morality around letting these gigantic companies that don't care about you and want to loot you for everything you have take all of your IP as well, or lose the whole race and have it not matter anyways, because a company in another country that's just going to do that anyways ends up winning.

[Luke]

Yeah. So.

[Elijah]

So for me argument.

[Luke]

For me, the there's kind of two. Well, there might be more than two, but the two perspectives that are kind of popping into my head here are the like philosophical argument for AI copyright. Like, as a society, just regardless of like, you know, where China's at, do we think that AI created stuff deserves copyright? Do we think that AI, a model could count as the author of something? There's all those questions and then there's the kind of more utilitarian, like practical question of like, is this what we have to do in order to keep up in the nuclear AI arms race with China? So which of those is more interesting to you?

[Elijah]

Well, I think right now the canon AI have ownership over something that it creates. Thing is, is technically somewhat decided in law right now and it's no.

[Luke]

Right. Well, can an AI model count as the author? Yeah, I think no, right now it's. No. Yeah, the copyright office has ruled a couple times, I think, at least.

[Elijah]

Yeah, about as far as my understanding go. There's. There's multiple precedents here.

[Luke]

I think there's one guy in particular. We'll look it up later maybe. But, like, there's one guy in particular who has submitted multiple times to be like, okay, this is definitely like, this.

[Elijah]

One for sure guys.

[Luke]

But I used an AI this time, and this time this AI is sentient for sure guys. And the copyright office is like, stop coming back here and put on some pants.

[Elijah]

So there's precedent against that dude.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, I think that the, the, like, do. Do we get to keep copyright in an era where all these companies are just kind of gobbling everything up anyway, like, that. Those are the interesting lawsuits that are moving through. The big one being OpenAI versus the New York Times. Yeah, it's so like, ChatGPT has been out since 2022, and obviously Transformer based LLMs, they were out for a while. I mean, they were in research scenarios.

[Elijah]

But attention is all you need.

[Luke]

It's been. Yeah, it's 2017. Yeah, I've done research. I can't believe that this question is still kind of as open as it is. I would have expected there to be some precedent set and a ruling set by now, but we're still just kind of like, you know, meta just is also going through proceedings where they're like, you. You literally torrented, like, every book ever. I mean, not that, you know, but like a massive archive of books. Yeah, yeah.

[Elijah]

And like, that's the. That's the. And this. I'm not the first person to reference this at all, but one of the co founders, I think, of Reddit.

[Luke]

Mm.

[Elijah]

Yeah. I don't remember the exact details of this story, but I believe he was pirating, like, research papers and then making them available to people for free, I think.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

And then he was gonna get thrown in jail forever and ended up unaliving himself over it because it, like, ruined his whole life.

[Luke]

Wait, Aaron Schwartz? You talking about Aaron Schwartz? Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm familiar.

[Elijah]

Yeah, yeah. And then now a company's doing it on a much grander scale and we're all like, ah, you know what? That seems fine.

[Luke]

That totally reminds me. I saw an article recently, like, referencing Aaron Schwartz and, like, how bonkers it is.

[Elijah]

It's like, actually kind of similar.

[Luke]

Well, it's. It's crazy that that was the case just a few years ago.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And really not that long ago he was, his entire life was gonna be ruined.

[Elijah]

Yep.

[Luke]

And now we have every tech company ever is just gobbling up, I mean I had, as one of the points, I wanted to talk about these like AI web crawlers that are taking up tons of bandwidth. Oh yeah, I, we've referenced it a couple of times on TechLinked, but there are like a number of studies now and like reports from administrators being like, yeah, we looked into it and it's like 80% of our web traffic is just AI crawlers. So regardless, we can, I don't want to bash on AI completely because I feel like there's an argument here and like for, for AI, for embedding it in society at every level, for even maybe deleting all IP law. And the argument would be is if it's actually, if it, if it actually leads to this scenario that Jack Dorsey and apparently Elon Musk and whoever, because Elon Musk tweeted as well, I agree to delete all IP law. Which is, yeah, if the argument, by putting, being put forward by them though, like, okay, this is actually going to help us. It's actually going to lead to a situation where we benefit. Do we like, if you could know, deleting all IP law will lead to a kind of a utopian society where you don't need money.

[Elijah]

It feels like, you know, there's a bunch of stories that are like this, where you have utopian society and then like in the basement of City hall there's just like a terrible demon machine that is like the reason why everything's okay. I feel like this is one of those scenarios I don't think, and I'm decently confident this is the route it's going to go too. I, I, I don't think deleting IP Law is like the way to go. I, I feel like what they're trying to do is like gambit and over correction. So they're trying to be like, let's delete everything, hoping that they'll end up somewhere 50% of the way, if that makes sense. Because I, I don't think they think that's going to happen either, to be completely honest. But I think they're trying to do the like Trumpian move of like, I'm gonna ask for this and then I'll send end up somewhere here.

[Luke]

You know, we'll delete half of IP law.

[Elijah]

Yeah, well, I think it's gonna be IP reform because like a lot of the laws that were made weren't even really made in the Internet age, let alone the like, AI web crawler crazy situation we are now. So it's likely a lot of modernization and reform that needs to happen. I mean, we even have this problem with like YouTube videos. Videos. Like, there's this huge question mark of like, can I have a clip from a movie in my video? Yeah, like, maybe. But also maybe not.

[Luke]

Yeah. I've been scared to put anything.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

That could go over the line.

[Elijah]

But then like, all short form content seems to just be able to use whatever music they want.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

And like, that seems fine.

[Luke]

That's completely different, Luke. It's totally different. One is watched by young people and the other, they don't have money.

[Elijah]

Why do they matter?

[Luke]

They don't. They're too dumb. Young and dumb. They don't know about copyright.

[Elijah]

Yeah. Elijah. One of the parallels that I would draw is to patents. And it's not perfect, but it's. It's an interesting argument because there's a huge debate on whether or not patents have driven or stifled innovation in the past. And I think it really depends on the time, the country, the. The field of innovation. Like, it depends on tons of stuff. A lot of people. This is the Wright brothers conversation I warned you about. Lot of people look at the Wright brothers and are like, oh my God, they brought in av. This is amazing. Right? We didn't. We didn't think we were gonna fly for a long time. And then the Wright brothers got us up in the air. That's true. That's sick. That's cool. They immediately turned into patent trolls. As far as my friend goes, I could be wrong about this. A little bit of online research led me to find that they got their patent and then just. Just wrecked everyone else as much as they could. And like, very close to stopped innovating.

[Luke]

Oh, geez.

[Elijah]

They. They like got aviation off the ground and then just tried to make money off of what they did.

[Luke]

Did you get this info from Grok?

[Elijah]

No.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Elijah]

But there's also like, in my opinion, the. Which I don't think is as common anymore. But being an inventor as your trade as like what you do probably became a thing because of things like patents and IP law.

[Luke]

Oh yeah, he's an inventory. Like no one has thought of, you know, automatic making machine or something. It's a chicken at one point. IP law, copyright law, patent law, whatever spurred innovation. And if we get rid of it, you're worried that we would lose.

[Elijah]

Well, but there's stories on both sides because, like, let's come back to more IP specific law. Right. Disney kind of owned children's entertainment for a long time, most of our lives and a lot of before it. And now they're losing, but they're not losing because you can use Mickey Mouse in other content now. Because that is a thing that happened that was like a tiny splash. A bunch of games all came out all at once. Right. When that got lifted, that all featured Mickey Mouse.

[Luke]

Yeah. And none of them were good.

[Elijah]

Everyone stopped caring almost immediately. No one talks about anymore at all. And Bluey is just completely taking their life.

[Luke]

Heck yeah. Have you watched Bluey?

[Elijah]

I have seen some Bluey.

[Luke]

Bluey's frickin. It makes me cry.

[Elijah]

They like lost their ability to protect their IP on Mickey.

[Luke]

Right.

[Elijah]

And it didn't matter.

[Luke]

And that's why the MCU didn't. Isn't as good anymore because they're losing their. Because they stopped. They didn't stop Steamboat Willie from escaping. He was going to join the Avengers.

[Elijah]

Steamboat Willie was.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

Honestly, I would go watch that. I haven't watched a Marvel movie in many years. If Steamboat Willie joined the Adventures Avengers, I would go.

[Luke]

I mean, I will say that like one argument for the deleting of IP Law is the. The. The few times. There's been a couple times where Disney Point puts out a project and it seems like the entire point of the project is just to brag about how much IP they have. Like, did you see the Ralph Rex.

[Elijah]

The Internet movie, like quite a few years ago?

[Luke]

Did you? You saw it?

[Elijah]

I think so.

[Luke]

Okay. Yeah. It was just. The whole movie just seemed like they.

[Elijah]

Were like, wait, Wreck It Ralph.

[Luke]

So there's Wreck It Ralph. And then the sequel was Ralph Breaks the Internet. Wreck It Ralph. They had a couple recognizable people. There was Sonic. It was there like Bowser and stuff. But then they go to the Internet in the second one and they. They go to like Disney, the Disney website. And it's just like, wow, what a magical place. Look, there's Star wars and there's these and Lilo and Stitch and like they're just showing all the princesses are there. So it was basically like, look at.

[Elijah]

All these things that used to be cool.

[Luke]

That watching that movie made me think like, this is kind of like if I. If I watch that movie. And then Jack Dorsey called me up and like, we should delete all IP Law. And I'd be like, jack, you're so smart. Why don't we talk more often? No, I.

[Elijah]

That's called me.

[Luke]

It kind of makes me feel that way because it's like we're heading into this AI future where if AI gets power, like there's kind of two paths that I see.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

One is we lock this down and we're like, enough AI companies. You're going all over the place. You're. You're slurping up everyone's stuff and making slop. We need to stop this. You, if you want to train on material, you got to license it. You got to pay all the people you've already trained other material. Like either that, that's not going to happen, but like that's either we kind of move in that direction or things just kind of keep progressing as they have been and copyright and IP just kind of become this kind of nebulous. Like, like the walls get torn down a lot more.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And it's a lot more where we're going to end up sketchy as to what's infringing and what's not. You think we're going there?

[Elijah]

I think we're going there.

[Luke]

So Jack Dorsey is going to mostly maybe get his way.

[Elijah]

I think he's going to partially win. I don't think. Like I said earlier, I don't think we're going deleting IP law, but I think there will be significant reform. Because I don't see America effectively just kind of being willing to lose the AI race. Because I see this as their. In. In their opinion. This is, this is computers, this is dot com. They have to fight again.

[Luke]

So I, I think I agree with you. If we're talking about like the powers that be.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

The, you know, tech corporations, government, they definitely don't want to lose to China.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

The question then is what. What are the. How do the people feel about it?

[Elijah]

Oh yeah.

[Luke]

Because every time I encounter sentiment about AI and copyright online. This is why this tweet was so interesting. Because the vast majority of the discourse around AI and copyright online is like, yeah, there's these AI companies are stealing from people.

[Elijah]

Oh, they are?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And you have the tech bros, you know, whatever, coming out every once in a while being like, we need to chill, guys. We need, like, how are we gonna get exponential growth if we don't steal all this copyrighted stuff? And. But they don't usually. Like, that's not getting a ton of engagement. It's like this. But this is saying the quiet part out loud pretty much.

[Elijah]

It's cuz. It's cuz it doesn't feel good. They are stealing stuff, they are taking other people's work and they are Directly, aggressively. Profiting off of it. The. Well, profiting off of investment, I guess. Most of these companies are really not making a profit.

[Luke]

Yeah. They're not taking the copyright machine and putting it into a different machine and it's like, wow, it's chewing up the copyright and spitting out profit. They're tricking people into thinking about that.

[Elijah]

They're taking a copyright machine, putting a cool little bow on it and being like, you want to give me money?

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

For nothing. Yeah. Sick.

[Luke]

The bubble, man.

[Elijah]

Yeah, the bubble is pretty.

[Luke]

Sorry, you were saying something though.

[Elijah]

No, it's just, it doesn't feel good. Yeah, it's morally, I think it's like bad. You're taking significant work from people especially. And we already see this from Google. Right. A lot of small brands are getting screwed over by these search engines and now also by AI systems because everything's intercepting. Like even right now, if you're using Google Search, not even if you're in a chat program, if you're using Google Search, it will give you an AI summary at the top. And the AI summary will often make it so that you do not have to go through and click onto one of those websites.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

And that is making it so that independent small time research, writing, whatever, is all effectively being defunded by these platforms that are using them in order to succeed.

[Luke]

Right.

[Elijah]

And that is a crazy concept.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

Because like, okay, we might win the AI race, but at what cost? The cost of like literally everything else.

[Luke]

I was gonna say, like, okay, yeah, definitely at the cost of like, you know, smaller creators. Smaller like copyright holders or whatever. Smaller companies that are trying to get up in the SEO rankings and they just can't, I think. But also at the cost of like, I feel like our minds. There have been some studies looking at people who use AI a lot versus people who don't use AI a lot. And it's like looking at their like problem solving ability to like create novel tasks. Yeah, they're worse at it. And I know that when I go to Google something it gives me an AR overview. I know how to Google stuff. My whole job is like researching stuff and like reporting on it. So like I've learned how to be really good, good at like Google Fu.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

But most people are not. And they're gonna be even worse now if they don't even have to click into like one site.

[Elijah]

Dude.

[Luke]

To see what the. To see the answer or what the quote unquote answer. Because it might be, it might be fake.

[Elijah]

And it's crazy that we we all know that AI hallucinates and just makes stuff up all the time, but a huge portion of the Internet, like, genuinely, a lot of people seem to be going under the route of blindlessly verifying things with AI. So, like, you see this on the tweeters, which I'm still going to call it, where someone will be like, rock, is this true?

[Luke]

Don't call it the tweeters. The tweeters just call it Twitter.

[Elijah]

Twitter. All right. But they'll ask, like, Grok or Perplexity or whatever, other ones will respond to tweets if something is true, and then they will just take that fully at face value.

[Luke]

I mean, I made a joke about this in tech, like, the other day, because, yeah, I've seen this where someone makes a claim and someone's like, I don't think that's true. And they're like, well, it is, because look at this website. And then they say, hey, Grok, is this true? And it's like, just click on the website. Just Google it. Why are you asking an AI that may or may not lie to your face? Like, they've gotten a lot better, but they still hallucinate enough that it's like, why are you trusting?

[Elijah]

They hallucinate a lot.

[Luke]

Yeah. And then it was even worse is the people who are like, I collaborated with ChatGPT on. On this, and then they, like, post some giant fricking thing.

[Elijah]

It's like, what was your participation in this?

[Luke]

I was wondering about whether this is the case, So I asked ChatGPT and it told me that. So I guess ChatGPT likes this. And it's like, guys, stop.

[Elijah]

Yeah. The confirmation bias is crazy, too, because a lot of the chat programs will try to detect what you're leaning towards and just affirm it.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

Because people like those responses.

[Luke]

We've done a lot of bashing on AI so far.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

But I deserves it. Well, it does, but I know that you and I. Well, I don't know, but I have a suspicion that you and I share an appreciation for some of its upsides as well.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And I want to talk about that after this segue to our sponsor, Vessi. And Luke, let me tell you, I've been wearing Vessis for years now.

[Elijah]

Nice.

[Luke]

And, you know, Vessi says they're waterproof, they're comfortable.

[Elijah]

Are your feet dry?

[Luke]

They are. We live in Vancouver. Here, it's tough. It's a wet place, rains all the time. It's wet and. And moist, and sometimes the water just gets in places you didn't even know it could critically. What?

[Elijah]

Don't worry about it.

[Luke]

Critical hit.

[Elijah]

He said moisture. Worry about it.

[Luke]

It's fine. Oh, moist.

[Elijah]

Critical.

[Luke]

Critical hit. By the way, this is completely real. So, like, we had an atmospheric river here in Vancouver.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

I don't know if it affected you. Seems like a new word in your ivory castle.

[Elijah]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke]

Up on the hill. You're safe and sound. I have a ground floor apartment.

[Elijah]

Okay.

[Luke]

And all of the pipes for my building go to this corner where my unit is, you know.

[Elijah]

You know what got me?

[Luke]

What?

[Elijah]

The snow drift on the roof. Oh, really separated the, like, shingles on the roof. Rained in my department.

[Luke]

Oh, my gosh.

[Elijah]

So you know, the ivory tower ain't that great either.

[Luke]

Oh, geez. Yeah, you need to find a different ivory tower.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Maybe an ebony tower. So the atmospheric river hit, it overloaded the drain system. My patio flooded. It's an enclosed patio and it flooded. I've woken up in the morning multiple times over the past few years to find water streaming into my. To my house. I've used vessi shoes multiple times. Wading through, bailing out my patio, throwing water over the side of the fence. Now all of these issues are fixed. But being out in the rain, in the cold, because they're warm too. These Vessi shoes. These crazy Vessi shoes. They're warm, they keep your feet dry. And you don't have to do up your laces every time they're. Slip on, slip off.

[Elijah]

Yeah. Actually, my girlfriend Emma went out and bought a pair just because she thought they sounded cool. She didn't even know they were sponsors of ours.

[Luke]

Oh.

[Elijah]

Which Bit of a failing on my part.

[Luke]

What did she. Yeah. What are you doing?

[Elijah]

I don't know. But she loves them too.

[Luke]

Just up in that castle, just imagining daydreaming.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Now, for me, my vessis have been very helpful. They kept my feet dry during these horrible, horrible nights I had to endure pumping water out of the sump. My whole body was wet. But not my shoes, not my feet.

[Elijah]

Feet dry. Everything else.

[Luke]

Feet dry. And I looked great.

[Elijah]

Now you need a vessi suit.

[Luke]

Vessi, make it happen. These shoes work with any outfit. They're very comfortable. They keep your feet dry. So check out Vessi in the description below if you're tired of squishy socks. Okay, now, AI essentially the argument we're.

[Elijah]

Talking about is AI, safety versus innovation, speed. Because it's like, is it more worth going for the moral argument of this sucks, we're stealing things from people, or is it more worth not losing to China.

[Luke]

Right.

[Elijah]

And this is why. I think the reason why there hasn't been precedent set is these are such different weights that it's hard to. And like, the same person can want both sides of it very deeply.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

The same person can want to not steal all thought creation from humanity ever, and also not want to lose this war because if you lose this, then this side didn't matter anyways.

[Luke]

So it's like, it's especially hard because you can, like, as you were saying that my first kind of like gut reaction is like, but what about principles? You know, like, there's kind of like, you know, the utilitarian thing of like, this is what's necessary in order to win. But I'm like, oh, but at what cost? What if we lose our soul as, as, as a society? But at the same time it's like, well, if China develops a super intelligence that kind of hacks the entire world and makes everything, you know, whatever they want it to be, then we won't have a society. But that's like, very far on the end of the possibilities.

[Elijah]

But. Yeah, but I mean, there's also the problem of how consumers act about things, which is everyone will say online. Not everyone. I'm exaggerating. A lot of people will say online that they want the, you know, don't steal everything from everyone route. But then if a company that does do that releases a model that's better, they will use it well.

[Luke]

And yeah, and like that.

[Elijah]

The precedent of that is like carved into every stone on the planet.

[Luke]

Who's they when you say they will use it?

[Elijah]

Users. If everyone knows that many things are made in sweatshops by slaves and they keep buying them. People won't like gambling, but they'll watch kick. People won't like a certain thing.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

But then if the thing is better, they'll buy it anyways.

[Luke]

And I guess this kind of comes into a part of the conversation that I wanted to address, which was the usefulness of AI, the, the pros of AI. Because I remember I had friends that are not techie people. One is a teacher. And in like 2023, like, shortly after ChatGPT is released, I go and talk to him and he's like, yeah, chat. I use Chat GPT all the time. Like, first of all, I was like, you know what ChatGPT is? Because these are like, not techie people.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And he's like, yeah, use it to help me, like, make lessons.

[Elijah]

Your growth in history has to have hit a lot of people, right?

[Luke]

Yeah. And he was using it to make lesson plans for his kids and, like, coming up with ideas for stuff. And I was like, wow. Like, because that was at a point where I even. I wasn't really. I haven't found it to be super, super useful for my specific work.

[Elijah]

Yeah. My dad's a plumbing instructor and they use it for. Yeah. Lesson plans.

[Luke]

Yeah. And once it gets, like. Once these actual, like, multimodal updates get out, like, it's. Gemini Live is now available with the live camera feed. Yeah, I think Chat GPT has. I know you can feed the images. I think they have a camera mode for the live mode, too.

[Elijah]

There's, I think, a lot of people dramatically misuse AI. And like, for instance, like, I say that about my dad's lessons plan, lesson plans for plumbing, and people are like, oh, hopefully it doesn't, like, teach people to go outside of code. And it's like, well, no, he's controlling those aspects. He's using it to build the structure.

[Luke]

Right.

[Elijah]

To build the pacing, to come up with the document that he can put the information on. He's using it to help organizational skills, those types of things. The way that I'll often use it is to review my output and give me feedback on my output. I don't use it for output, but.

[Luke]

Like, what kind of output are you talking about?

[Elijah]

My most common use case is I will write an email that is like, I sure hope this goes well, but maybe I have to be rather serious or whatever in the tone of the email, but I want to make sure that I get my point across but not come across as aggressive or whatever else. So I'll ask it for a sentiment analysis of the email.

[Luke]

Oh, nice.

[Elijah]

And then I might ask it, like, if I'm like, okay, that's not what I wanted someone to get from this, and it got that from this, then I'll be like, okay, how would you change it to get it there? And then I won't use its output, but I'll use it to help guide me in that direction.

[Luke]

Did I mention lizards too many times?

[Elijah]

Well, like, sometimes your email is pretty.

[Luke]

Good, but you seem weirdly focused on lizards.

[Elijah]

Maybe you should draw back on the lizards.

[Luke]

I think they're not like a reptile person.

[Elijah]

Maybe cats we've had. I think it's also a good Kickstarter of sorts. Like for writer's block, for instance. If you have to write a video on something, you could use it to give you your skeleton. I've tried to get it to write YouTube videos, man, it Sucks.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

I don't know if you've tried.

[Luke]

I've used it a couple times when I can't think of a word for something or I'm writing a joke and I'm like, oh, man, this is like this. And I'm just drawing a blank and I'm like, what's this thing? Something like when this guy says this and then another guy comes at it like that, and they're like, maybe this. And I'm like, okay, thank you.

[Elijah]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Luke]

But. But writing whole scripts, no good.

[Elijah]

But you can use it as like a research assistant. Again, there's huge pitfalls there because you shouldn't just believe what it outputs, but you can use it as like a kicking off point. So, like something that I've done is like, okay, here's a topic. What are the, like, key fields of interest in this topic?

[Luke]

Right.

[Elijah]

And it'll give me that list and then I'll go off and, yeah, learn things about those.

[Luke]

All of the AI chatbots now have, like, deep research modes. It does a good job of like, giving you kind of a beginner's summary of stuff. But if you know a lot about a topic and you're like, what was the finding of this research, like in the 90s, whatever. And it's like, they found up this. They found this stuff that I just made up because I'm an AI. And you're like, well, I know that's not true. So it's like.

[Elijah]

But that's why, like you mentioned earlier in the show, that it's getting better with, like, hallucinations and stuff.

[Luke]

A little bit.

[Elijah]

It's only a little bit. I think it's getting better at convincing people that it's not doing it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't personally think it's getting dramatically better overall. There are measures that it's getting a bit better, but I really think it's just getting better at convincing people and it's getting better at using slightly more vague language and stuff like that to get away from actually being pointed as doing things wrong. Because I catch it hallucinating stuff.

[Luke]

Oh, yeah.

[Elijah]

All the time.

[Luke]

I will say that I've. I've. I've just started trying to use it a little bit to help me research techlink stories. It's kind of like one of the steps in the process. And it has not been. It has not been very useful. But most of the time it's not hallucinating fake stuff as much as it's like, I'm asking For stories that are recent. And it like brings me something from a month ago.

[Elijah]

Here's something from last quarter.

[Luke]

Yeah. Yeah. On balance, if you look at the whole field, do you feel like the majority of AI tools that are available are like, helpful or just kind of taking up space and taking up resources?

[Elijah]

Whoa. Okay. Because there's majority of AI tools. So if you include every AI tool in that pool, then honestly, no.

[Luke]

There's a lot of compute. A lot of resources being taken up.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

And they're able to do that because these companies vacuumed up ip, vacuumed up.

[Elijah]

Copyright and massive investment. Because that's the hotness right now. I think most of the tools are garbage and we'll lose and we'll die. And that is how these, like very startup focused fields work. So that's pretty natural. I don't actually think that's weird. I. I don't think that's AI specific. I think that's just.

[Luke]

That's true.

[Elijah]

Big new fancy field with lots of investment dollars and everyone trying to dive in all at the same time. A lot of those people are going to make garbage for.

[Luke]

For the handful of like, crypto projects that were actually kind of cool and maybe like, we can.

[Elijah]

They did exist.

[Luke]

They did like the idea of having some like, records and stuff on a blockchain system. That was cool.

[Elijah]

Yep.

[Luke]

But for every one of Those, there were 250,000 rug. Pull. Yeah. Garbage things. So it's the same for AI, but maybe that all won't matter if y'all. We only need one. We only need one asi. Artificial Super Intelligence. And then it'll all be worth it.

[Elijah]

Asky.

[Luke]

You can do it.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

What?

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Ascii.

[Elijah]

Artificial Super General Intelligence.

[Luke]

I've never heard that together. I've heard AGI and ASI just. You can't just put them together like that.

[Elijah]

We were talking earlier about innovators.

[Luke]

That's true.

[Elijah]

I'm an inventor.

[Luke]

Wow.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Here's a patent. Sir. That was. You just witnessed innovation. Jack Dorsey. This is what you're trying to kill.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Stop it.

[Elijah]

Think of the children.

[Luke]

So maybe Jack Dorsey's right and we'll have a utopia and none of us will own any IP and everything will be fine. And maybe Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk and Sam Altman, especially Sam Altman, are going to enslave all of us.

[Elijah]

Yeah, definitely. Especially Sam Altman.

[Luke]

And those are the two options.

[Elijah]

Elon just wants to impregnate all of us.

[Luke]

He can be persuasive.

[Elijah]

I think this has been a Huge wake up call for people about Chinese position on value chain. America has traditionally been positioned very high on the value chain. And then I think in a lot of North American views, you go down the value chain from America and end up in China and a few other countries at the bottom of the value chain. But I think this and the tariff war going on and a few other things have revealed that China is much higher on the value chain than we previously thought and has the active ability now to take rungs on the value chain. Yes, and I think one of those.

[Luke]

Yeah, no, I was just saying that because I was thinking about a recent story that just came up with their. They have chips that they say are more performant than Nvidia's equivalent. But anyways, go ahead.

[Elijah]

Yeah, and like, I don't know about that being true, but they're, they're progressing very quickly in a lot of these fields. CPUs, GPUs, AI, technology, movies, random one. Lots and lots and lots of fields where they're, they're really taking major steps forward. One of those places. Insane story that I, I don't understand how it doesn't get talked about more, but the quote that I have Here is Ford CEO Jim Farley admitted he's been driving a Xiaomi SU7 for six months and doesn't want to give it up.

[Luke]

Wow.

[Elijah]

The Ford CEO drives a $30,000 Chinese electric made vehicle. Sorry, Chinese made electric vehicle unavailable in the US due to tariffs and safety regulation issues.

[Luke]

Is this something that he revealed on a podcast? Like, like of his own volition.

[Elijah]

Now we're basically the Ford CEO. Yes, he did. It was of his own volition.

[Luke]

Why would he do that? I feel like that's like so dumb.

[Elijah]

A motor company mentioned that he didn't want to give up a $30,000 vehicle from a competing company because it was so good. That should be.

[Luke]

Is he about to cash out or something?

[Elijah]

Like what Stunning wake up call to people about the automotive industry outside of America.

[Luke]

Yeah. I think in EVs in particular, China is like leapfrogging the automotive Teslas are.

[Elijah]

Falling apart and have panel gaps that I can shove my fist through and are like, yeah, you know, they're, they're just partying on Slack, sharing people's videos and stuff like that. So like, if you're. And I think that's a big part of the problem too where like when you, when you think about Chinese products, people traditionally go like, oh, but like they're gonna steal your information.

[Luke]

Right?

[Elijah]

It's like, yeah, but We. We know that our companies are.

[Luke]

Yeah.

[Elijah]

For sure.

[Luke]

Well, yeah.

[Elijah]

Tons of documented evidence.

[Luke]

That's a whole nother. That's a whole nother conversation. I feel like I'm still. I don't know what to think about because that's been the main reason why I'm like, don't. I don't want to use that, like, Chinese phone or whatever. Who knows what data they're sending, but I know my data is going out to all these other companies.

[Elijah]

So like, so at a certain point.

[Luke]

It'S like, this is the future. This is what they're saying. They're like, IP doesn't matter. Your personal information doesn't matter. You'll own nothing, including your own personal information and your own thoughts. If you can't sell them anymore, link and you'll be happy. Yeah, but we'll have to see. I don't know if this tweet that Jack Dorsey reposted is going to come to pass in which. So he tweeted. He retweeted a interview with Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleiman, who says the future isn't UBI Universal Basic Income, it's UBP Universal Basic Provision. Abundant intelligence as the new currency. You won't need more money because knowledge won't be something you buy. Not cash capability. We won't need cash because we'll have AI assistants who can do everything for us. You don't need to go to the store and buy a pop, a soda. Your AI will just synthesize it for you. Okay.

[Elijah]

This feels like that south park episode where Randy can't fix his oven because he can't fix the oven door. And then the, the, like handyman people end up being the wealthiest people in society because no one can fix anything because no one knows how to do anything. And they, they. I don't remember if this happens in the episode, but I'm going to make it up. I guess I'm hallucinating. But they, they like asking AI to fix the door. And it just tries to teach him how to do it, but he's like, no, I want you to fix the door. He keeps giving them steps, but he's like, no, I want you to fix the door. Like, we don't have things that can do our laundry right now. We don't have things that can build houses. We don't have things that can fix plumbing. We don't have things that can do any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's like he's talking about provisions of like this thing that can draw Studio Ghibli for me or, like, write a terrible email or a really, really, really bad YouTube video that would get one view. Like, is that really. I'm really excited about that being a universal provision.

[Luke]

Thanks. Yeah, bro, I think that's what makes the whole conversation just so, so hard to come down on one side of because it's so uncertain.

[Elijah]

You need your apartment to not leak. Is. Is. Is ChatGPT gonna help you with that?

[Luke]

Yeah, like, it's hot and there's. There's droughts and. And like, there's peaks and valleys too. Like, sometimes it seems like the AI whole thing is just hype, and sometimes it's like, oh, this is okay. It's happening.

[Elijah]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Yeah. We're not gonna solve it in this podcast, but maybe in the next one. So subscribe possibly.

[Elijah]

I wouldn't want to miss it. It might happen. Maybe we'll invent AGI right here.

[Luke]

Watch out. OpenAI. We're gonna delete your IP. Hey, thanks for watching. That was a talk Linked. Subscribe to TechLinked. See you later.

[Elijah]

Maybe I'll do another one of these in half a year. Nope, never happening.

[Luke]

Never again.

[Elijah]

Bye.