Sadie Dingfelder: "You Cannot Be Burned by Wind Alone"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist with Mike Pesca
Episode: "Sadie Dingfelder: 'You Cannot Be Burned by Wind Alone'"
Date: June 17, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Gist dives deep into the commonly-held belief of "windburn," with science writer Sadie Dingfelder as guest. Host Mike Pesca and Dingfelder unpack the myth, tracing its origins, scientific studies, and exploring why people persist in believing in windburn over sunburn, especially in skiing contexts. The discussion transitions to the invention of sunscreen, its mountainous origins, and the broader cultural narratives at play. The episode’s tone, as always, is witty, sharp, and laden with playful banter. Pesca follows up with a spiel (monologue) on the concept of miracles—restorative and additive—and uses this lens to reflect provocatively on public attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) and how private admiration diverges from public anxiety.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth of Windburn

[04:48–18:47]

• Listener Prompt:
  Jeff Large writes in, asking if "windburn" is real or "bullshit," having been told his whole life that red skin on the slopes is from wind, not sun.

• Sadie Dingfelder's Investigation:

  • Historical Study ([06:49]): Dingfelder recounts a 1974 experiment in which dermatologists used a wind tunnel and UV light on mice.

    • Wind alone did not damage the mice's skin.
    • UV light caused burns, as expected.
    • UV plus wind worsened burns and delayed healing.
    • Key Mechanism: "Wind does is strip moisture, which protects your skin from a little bit of UV." – Dingfelder [08:45]

  • Public Perception:
    People misattribute the severe skin reactions gotten while skiing to "windburn," ignoring the role of UV light and various environmental factors.

  • Environmental Factors ([11:22]):

    • Altitude: UV increases by 12% for every 1,000 meters in elevation.
    • Snow Reflection: Snow reflects up to 90% of UV rays back onto skin.
    • Cold Wind: Masks the sensation of getting burned, leading to delayed awareness.
    • Goggles: Lead to distinctive facial patterns, reinforcing misconceptions.

  • Why the Windburn Myth Persists:

    • People notice they burn more skiing vs. at the beach and incorrectly attribute it to wind.
    • Psychological/cultural explanations: Feeling unique about a "ski burn" or using the terminology to subtly signal participation in elite activities.
    • "It's fun to say windburn because what you're really saying is, I've been skiing..." – Pesca [15:15]

• Scientific Reality of "Windburn":

  • Wind alone cannot cause burns; it can worsen sunburn by removing skin moisture.
  • Correct term should be "wind-assisted sunburn."
  • "You cannot be burned by wind alone." – Dingfelder, echoing episode title [10:47]

• Persistence of the Windburn Myth ([14:49]):

  • Scientific consensus has not changed public behavior or belief.
  • Dermatologists’ findings are widely ignored.

2. Sunscreen’s Surprising Mountainous Origins

[15:43–17:26]

• History Lesson:
  Dingfelder highlights that sunscreen was created not for the beach, but for mountaineers.

  • Franz Greiter, a Swiss-Austrian chemist, developed "Glacier Cream" after a bad sunburn on Piz Buin in 1938.
  • Early sunscreen had an SPF of about 2, a far cry from today’s products.
  • “Wear a hat. That’s what I would say.” – Pesca [16:38]

• Cultural Shift:
  Sunscreen marketing is now beach-focused, but mountaineers were the first to understand its necessity.

3. Wrap-up – Is Windburn Real? ([17:42–18:11])

• Sadie’s Verdict:
  • "Windburn is an okay shorthand, if... you mean wind-assisted sunburn. But most people don't mean that, so therefore, windburn is BS." – Dingfelder
  • Pesca agrees, noting it's only "not bullshit" if people specify wind’s secondary role, which almost never happens.

4. Memorable Quotes & Lighthearted Moments

• Pesca on Ski Candidates:
  Jokes about “Uncle Luke” from 2 Live Crew running for office and his songs being campaign anthems in Florida [00:00–04:48].

• Skiing Mice Banter:
  Pesca imagines mice enjoying their experimental ski trips: “I think a wind tunnel and a little bit of, you know, a ski weekend… The hot cocoa they by law have to give the mice afterwards...” [08:06–08:45]

• Terminological Irony:
  "The kind of person who'd say, 'it's not the heat, it's the humidity'... has to have one of these lines to say." – Pesca [10:53]

• On SPF Math:
  “If the UV is reflecting back 90%, then your FPS 30 is… almost cut in half. It really becomes like an SPF 16, 17 maybe.” – Pesca [12:45]

• Sadie’s childhood sunscreen find:
  "I one time found SPF 7 sunscreen in my parents' cabinet...from the 1970s. It was older than my brother.” – Dingfelder [12:59]

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Segment Timestamps

• Intro and Florida Politics: [00:00–04:48]
• Windburn Myth Debunked (Sadie Dingfelder segment): [04:48–18:47]
• The Spiel: Miracles and AI [18:58–End (~29:30)]

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5. The Spiel: Miracles and the Psychology of AI Acceptance

• Taxonomy of Miracles:
  Pesca distinguishes between "restorative" (bringing things back to as they were) and "additive" (creating something entirely new) miracles.

• AI as an Additive Miracle:

  • Like other transformative inventions (printing press, antibiotics), AI creates something wholly new, inspiring both awe and anxiety.
  • AI is a "double black box"—opaque to both laypeople and experts.
  • Socially, it is fashionable to be publicly anxious about AI.
    • “The most acceptable thing… is to worry about it, to grouse about it, and you come out looking wise—the wise grouse.” – Pesca [22:00]
  • Privately, even the anxious are curious and often delighted by AI’s capabilities.
  • "There is a public private divide over AI.” – Pesca [23:45]
  • Comparison to socially taboo topics: “In public, AI operates a little like pornography… There is one acceptable way to react… There is another way to react… privately." [24:50]

• Anecdotes & Observations:

  • Graduation speakers and AI: Content with expressing worry garners approval;
  • “You can't write an article in the mainstream press broadly praising AI. It has to at least hold the promise of AI being a disaster.” – Pesca [24:10]
  • Explores why AI prompts nervous laughter in public but fascination in private.

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Conclusion

• Sadie Dingfelder synthesizes the science: Wind alone cannot burn you, but can make sunburn worse. The idea of "windburn" is, strictly, "bullshit" unless properly qualified—a myth forged by environmental illusions and cultural narratives.
• The episode pivots to a thoughtful meditation on how society processes new marvels, like AI, with a mixture of public anxiety and private amazement, drawing parallels with ancient and modern miracles.
• The Gist continues its trademark blend: mythbusting, science communication, and biting social commentary—all with generous doses of humor.

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• "You cannot be burned by wind alone." – Sadie Dingfelder [10:47]
• "Windburn is an okay shorthand… but most people don't mean that, so therefore, windburn is BS." – Sadie Dingfelder [17:54]
• "It’s fun to say windburn because what you’re really saying is, I’ve been skiing…” – Mike Pesca [15:15]
• "The most acceptable thing… is to worry about it, to grouse about it, and you come out looking wise—the wise grouse.” – Mike Pesca [22:00]
• "There is a public private divide over AI.” – Mike Pesca [23:45]
• "In public, AI operates a little like pornography… There is one acceptable way to react… There is another way to react… privately." – Mike Pesca [24:50]

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For listeners and the curious alike, this episode busts the windburn myth with science, makes you laugh, and provokes thought on how we talk about technology, tradition, and transformation.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign It's Wednesday, June 17, 2026 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. I was recently reading an article on how redistricting is dividing Democrats along racial lines in Florida. So what happened? As you probably know, they redistricted the Republicans who controlled the state House did. And the US Congressional districts are now fewer for Democrats but also fewer for majority black candidates. So what you have is established Democrats who have been Congress for a long time switching districts in order to get elected in Democratic safe districts. And this means Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced that she would run in the safely Democratic 20th district. But the 20th district is depending on how you read it, either majority, although I think this more accurate, say plurality black. And so you have four black candidates who are saying to themselves oh we could split the vote and then Debbie Wasserman Schultz will win. Here is the subhead of the New York Times article. I think it's a little blunt for black hopefuls risk split vote that hands win to white one Debbie Wasserman Schultz white one. The online version says it a little nicer. Four candidates running in a historically black district risk dividing the black vote and losing to Ms. Wasserman Schultz who is white. So I thought this to be quite the conundrum. And then my eyes lit upon the picture of the four candidates who were running and I could not place. Dale Holness, the mayor of Broward Howard county seems like a qualified guy. And then there's a young guy, a 27 year old guy who I'm not familiar with described as an activist, Elijah Manley. So they are two of the four splitting the vote. But then the others said to be splitting the vote. Uncle Luke. Who is Uncle Luke? Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew. Yes, he I suppose could siphon off some votes. It would be a shame where a long serving even if a long serving white representative were to win over the guy who brought you ass down face up that's the way we like to fuck. And of course this classic soon to be a campaign song in the 20th of Florida arrived at a house knocked on the door not having no idea of what the night had in store I'm like the dog in heat a freak without warning I have an appetite for love cause me so horny Democratic voters horny for change but the fourth of the four said to split the vote was Sheila Cherry Phyllis McCormick. Sheila Cherifolis McCormick. Wait a minute, I know her. She was in the news two months ago the house found her guilty of stealing and laundering $5 million in FEMA disaster aid. She was indicted on federal charges. I don't know how serious a candidate Sheila Terrific OR CHERRY Phyllis McCormick is. I don't know that her not having the possibility to be elected, which I don't know that it would happen. But her having the possibility to be elected and then going to jail during her term is anything that the fair minded among us should worry about. So really maybe isn't this story a young activist guy and a mayor guy would rather not lose to a congressman lady. And yes, they're black, she's white. But I think maybe the salient details on two of these candidates are one has been indicted for stealing 5 million and the other, well, is the impresario behind 2 Live Crew. He is a fixture in the area. Uncle Luke, on the show today I spiel about AI and what kind of miracle it is. But as a bonus and a promise to you, I will not do so in this voice. I found a way to take my track through AI and eliminate all the craggliness and scratchiness that this summer cold has given me. The summer cold keeps it. Wow. If you think me singing regularly is bad, me singing with a summer cold is especially bad. But first we have another ailment said to have occurred or coincided with the sun. And this is the idea of wind burn. What's heard about wind burn? But is it real or is it bullshit? Sadie Dingfelder stops by to answer

[B]

them.

[A]

My entire life people have been telling me, mike, don't eat that. Mike. That's not technically food. Mike, you're going to get sick to your stomach. I raised this because Jeff Large has been told his entire life, that's not sunburn, that's windburn. You see the connection? Not really. But Jeff wrote into us and said, my entire life I've heard people say that they aren't sunburned, their wind burned. And he wants to know the only question that you can ask when your whole life people have been telling you this is is that bullshit. So luckily Sadie Dingfelder is here. She pleases that bullshit with us. She is also the author of Do I know you? A Face Blind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory and Imagination. How are you, Sadie?

[B]

I'm doing great. How are you?

[A]

Good. What have people been telling you your whole life?

[B]

I'm not much of a skier, so no one's ever told me I was windburn. Have you gotten windburned?

[A]

I don't think so. I've definitely been burned by the wind. Where you, you see that it's 50 something degrees, but then they do with windchill. Negative 3 windchill. You know, wind chill always goes away in the summer, and the humidity always goes away in the winter. Right. Like in the winter it's never 22 degrees, but with humidity, 34, that never helps you. I'm resentful. Anyway, Jeff Large has been told this. It's funny, I just have this imagination of Jeff Large, random stranger saying, by the way, it's not sunburn, it's whimpering. Okay, why do people keep telling me this? So we have to really investigate. What about Jeff Large makes other random strangers confide in him the status of their skin discoloration? I don't know. But let's talk about. I think what he was assuming is, is the entire idea of wind burn. Bullshit. Seems like one of those questions it's hard to crack, right? Sadie, what did you do, take us through your journey?

[B]

Well, I was thrilled to find that it's actually been fairly definitively answered.

[A]

Good.

[B]

So in 1974, a pair of dermatologists built a tiny wind tunnel for mice. And they placed the. I wonder if they must have shaved them or something, but I don't.

[A]

Yeah, I was gonna say, I know you can experiment on mice, but is sunburn the best experiment to do? I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, I know there were albino mice. Maybe an albino mice with fur is equivalent to a human without, who's not albino? I have no idea. But I can tell you that they put them in this wind tunnel and the wind blew out about 6 miles per hour. And they exposed them to UV light. And they found that the wind alone produced no detectable skin damage. But the UV and the UV lights caused burn like you would expect. And the UV plus the wind produced worse burns and slower recovery than the UV alone.

[A]

Oh, okay. So just to try as best they could to replicate the conditions that humans get. Wind burn. If they get wind burn, they had to shave the mice. Were there little tiny ski slopes? Were they given tiny pairs of skis just to see? Maybe it's the incline that gives you the wind burn.

[B]

No, they got windsurfers.

[A]

Okay, that's good. That's the way to do it. All right, so they put these mice, maybe, you know, of all the lab experiments that a mice could go through, I think a wind tunnel and a little bit of, you know, a ski weekend. That's not bad. Especially the hot cocoa that they by law have to give the mice afterwards just in order for it. Yeah, yeah, the hot tub. You know, all the. All the crazy goings on. They get to. I'm thinking of the 80s ski movie, hot Dog. The movie. Okay, so the mice were doing well, but the mice weren't burned. Or they were, or they were a little burned, but not by the wind.

[B]

They were burned by the UV light, and they were burned worse by the UV light if they added the wind. And at the time, the researchers didn't know what the wind was doing to make it worse, but they now know that what the wind does is strip moisture, which protects your skin from a little bit of uv.

[A]

Okay, so skiing takes place outdoors. The sun is shining. People do not believe that it is the sun that is giving them the burn. Although it actually shows up. People are probably more attuned to it because of the contrast between the skin that is exposed on the face and the goggles, which keeps the skin out, right?

[B]

Yes. I mean, that certainly makes a funny pattern on people's faces. And that was actually apparently, like, almost trendy in the. Let's see, in the 1960s and 70s, to have a look, little bit of a ski mask burn, because it meant, like, you were rich enough to go skiing and skiing was like the big new yuppie activity.

[A]

Right now, people just keep the ski lift tickets on their parkas. That's the way to do it. Oh, I forgot to take this off. What? It does say Aspen. You're right. They're hard to take off this old thing. Yeah, they're hard to take off. Exactly. So is skin burn or wind burn on your face. But I'm just flummoxed why people a, would believe that it's not sunburn. You're out in the sun. And what is the psychological. This is probably beyond your remake.

[B]

No, I think I have a theory. I have a theory.

[A]

Why do they want to say, no, it's not sunburn? What would be wrong about sunburn is that anyone could get sunburn or, you know, you really want to say it's windburn because it's skiing. Why? Why are people attracted to that explanation?

[B]

So I think that people notice that they get burned a lot worse when they're skiing than when they are at the beach, for instance.

[A]

Okay, okay.

[B]

And so they. They correctly inferred that the wind was a causal agent, but it's only part of the equation.

[A]

Okay, so what's the Entire equation? Post 1974 mice tunnel, that you cannot

[B]

be burned by wind alone. So if you ski in the dark, you'll be fine.

[A]

Yeah, that seems that's one experiment that can be done. Or on a very cloudy day, people, you know, I'm talking myself through this. The kind of person would say, no, it's wind burn. Right. Which is the kind of. It's not the heat, it's the humidity type person who has to have one of these lines to say they never noticed the difference when they were skiing, when it was cloudy and overcast or even snowing versus on a sunny day. They never noticed that.

[B]

Well, you know, like, I know people

[A]

aren't scientists, Sadie, but can't they do that experiment in their heads?

[B]

There's other reasons why you are getting burned on mountains more than beaches. The altitude increases your UV exposure. It's 12% for every 1,000 meters. And snow reflects an enormous amount of ultraviolet light up to 90% back into your face.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then cold wind masks the feeling of being burned. So you don't notice until it's really bad.

[A]

Okay. All right. So it's a perfect storm. It's Mount Correlation up there, you know, Or I was thinking of the different experiments, the cloudy and the sunny skiing. You could go skiing with one mouse that you hold out in your hand exposed and another mouse that is under a cover and you could, you could ski that way. That's another way to do it.

[B]

I would love to see snow skiing mice.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or water skiing mice. Really.

[A]

They probably have that. So the U. I would think that the UV reflecting from the snow, that's gigantic. That's like doubling the UV. Right. It seems like 90% of the ultraviolet radiation.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So when you're out in the sun on the beach and it says SPF 30. Right. Isn't that indicating that you could stay out in the sun for 30 minutes? What is usually one minute of exposure?

[B]

I don't know if you can do the math that way, but I can tell you that I one time found SPF 7 sunscreen in my parents cabinet from. And it was from the 1970s. It was older than my brother.

[A]

Yeah, that might have expired. Yeah. So the sun protection factor is a measure of how well sunscreen protects skin from UVB rays. SPF 30 allows 30 times the exposure. So there you go. So one minute is 30 minutes if you have the SPF 30. But my point is, if the UV is reflecting back 90%, then your FPS 30 is, you know, almost cut in half. It really becomes like an SPF 16, 17 maybe.

[B]

I guess I'm not sure that it's like a linear relationship in terms of like what the reflect, the strength of the reflected uv.

[A]

Yeah. And also, you know, the scientists at Coppertone, like, they're probably okay scientists, but they definitely, like, weren't tops in their class. They're not. They didn't go into AI, so it's probably not that carefully calibrated. The 30 and the 17 and so forth, perhaps. So the wind burn comes from. What are we figuring out? That you are outside in the sun, that the sun is bouncing back at you from the snow, that you're outside longer because it's all windy, you're not feeling hot. And what was the fourth one?

[B]

The wind is irritating your skin by stripping the moisture off of it.

[A]

And the moisture. Talk me through how having moisture on your skin would be protective. Is that it or is that.

[B]

Yeah, actually we should be thinking the humidity, because I bet that. Well, I guess. I don't really know. There's a lot of factors, but it seems like in a humid environment, you're gonna be somewhat protected by the sun because the water will scatter the light. Maybe, or. But it will at least keep your skin moist.

[A]

There are a lot of factors, including the sun protection factor. Now, did you look into if the idea of windburn not just for Mr. Larch, but for others, is that still out there is a big thing?

[B]

Yes. Oh, my God, yes. Yes. I was so excited. But people, even though these poor dermatologists, you know, they definitively proved that it's not really. It's not the wind that is the main problem. But no one listened. And there's been lots of research ever since that has found specifically how the wind is taking the moisture off of your skin. And no one cares. And people continue to say windburn is a thing.

[A]

It's fun to say windburn because what you're really saying is, I've been skiing now in terms of developing SPF technology, I suppose this would have to be developed by many a beachgoer who is getting cancer. And then you'd have to convince the skiers to put it on, because if they didn't think it was sunburn, if they thought it was wind burn, they wouldn't put on anything that would block the sun because it's not sunburn.

[B]

Yeah, I assume sunscreen was a beach based thing too, but it turns out that sunscreen was developed by mountaineers originally.

[A]

What?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, because they're getting burned up there a lot.

[A]

So what was the history of that? How did. How did they bring it down to the beach then? I guess that's not my question. So take me through the history of That a little bit.

[B]

Well, okay. In 1938, the Swiss Austrian chemist Franz Greeter was badly sunburned. Can you say his name better?

[A]

Greiter.

[B]

Greiter was badly sunburned while climbing PIZ Boon. Can you say that better?

[A]

I can't. I mean, it might be pronounced differently, but. Pizz Boon. I'm going for it.

[B]

An alpine mountain. And the experience inspired him to develop the first commercial sunscreen called Glacier Cream, which had an SPF of about 2:2.

[A]

So instead of being out in the sun, so it made being out in the sun for four minutes feel like being out in the sun for two minutes on a mountain. I guess it's better than nothing. Wear a hat. That's what I would say. But all the. I think also all the sunscreen marketing is based on, you know, the Coppertone girl with the little bikini and everyone on the beach. And yes, it is a beach thing. I do. I guess I've not been mountaineering. I bet you that before you go up the mountain, the experts will say, oh, you're going to want to wear sunscreen. And everyone's like, oh, yeah, you're going to want to wear sunscreen. I bet that happens.

[B]

Yeah, I bet they know that. But I don't. I don't really like climbing mountains. I wrote a story about a couple that got married on a mountaintop and they made all their brides, grooms and guests and everyone, like, climb this legit Mountain in D.C. well, outside of D.C. obviously.

[A]

My God. All right, so the breaking news here at the end of the episode is pizz Booin is actually pronounced pizz bowien. And I further found that the parent peak is the world famous fluke torn. The fluke torn.

[B]

That's where sunscreen comes from.

[A]

That's right. If you're climbing the fluke torn or just pizza, wear your sunscreen. And which brings us to the question, wind burn. Is that bullshit?

[B]

Okay, I want to say yes. But the thing is, wind does make it worse. And so if you want to call that it's. You would want to call it like wind assisted sunburn to be accurate. But it's. It seems like windburn is an okay shorthand, if that's what you mean. But most people don't mean that. So therefore, when burn is bs.

[A]

Yeah. Considering the sentence is almost always as Larch hears it and as I hear it, it's not sunburn, it's windburn, then that is bullshit. If the sentence were it is sunburn exacerbated slightly by the effects of the Wind, then that's not bullshit. And the next time, which will be the first time anyone says that sentence, you could tell them it's not bullshit, right? Sadie Dingfelder is the author of Do I Know you? A Face Blind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory and Imagination. She places that bullshit with us. Sick burn. Sadie, thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

And now the spiel. I've been thinking about miracles more than usual. I have, in fact, created a taxonomy that's not complete but instructive. I think there are two kinds of miracles, broadly speaking, both the miracles from the Bible and the things we call miracles, like medical events or things in the news that we didn't think would happen. And those two kinds are additive and restorative. Those are our kinds of miracles. Restorative, that would be Jesus healing Lazarus, possibly bringing him back from the dead. Or in modern times, a miraculous rescue at sea, or a miraculous surviving after a natural disaster. Even a miraculous rebirth of an urban center taking a thing back to its original healthy state. Then there are the additive miracles, a transformation or the creation of something we hadn't seen before. So this would not be the rebirth of inner city providence or the creation of the modern city of Dubai. Another additive miracle might be an invention that the world has never seen before. And the reason that this taxonomy should give us a little bit of insight is I think this in general, the restorative miracles, both the literal miracles from the Bible, the figurative miracles, just the things we call miracles, if they're restorative, we welcome them. They're not scary to us. And the reason they're not scary is that they are returned to the status quo. And that is comforting and represents stasis. Whenever a miracle worker comes by and returns things to the way they were or the way they were supposed to be, we give them credit. But we don't spend any mental or emotional energy wondering, well, what does this mean? What are the consequences of this thing? Because it's not a new thing. We know that the consequences are what was always ever thus. But with additive miracles, there are questions. There is dislocation. Can you imagine if you were alive during the time of Jesus and saw this man, who you thought to be a man, change the loaves to the fishes? Your eyes might drop out of your head. You might not believe what you just saw. I don't think you would. As I describe the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, in fact, you, depending on your level of belief in the Bible as the literal word of God, you Said what? Well I wouldn't have seen that because it didn't happen. And this means that you can't believe it even happened. Which is certainly what someone who saw it, if it did happen, would be saying. This was a transmogrification. This was my category of additive miracles. Something new was created. It's hard to get your mind around that. And these sorts of miracles a rational person thinks probably didn't even happen. This of course brings me to a I like the printing press and the steam engine and the Internet and antibiotics created something new, transform something into what had never been before. But with AI there is the double black box, which is black box one Most layman don't understand it. I mean you could explain the printing press were Gutenberg so inclined to show everyone how movable type worked, but not really understanding it being beyond the can of the layman. That is pretty much true of all computing or anything dealing with electronic communication beyond the telegraph. It's a double black box because not only do we laymen non experts not understand it, but the experts don't really truly 100% understand exactly how it works. It's pretty cool that it does, they think especially if they have shares in the company. The scariness of AI inherent in any additive miracle is not necessarily ill founded. But I have noticed a social phenomenon when it comes to AI. So whenever a graduation speaker mentions AI and the clearly transforming nature of this miraculous technology, they're met with a response like this. Time magazine selected its person of the year for 2025 and it was this time it was the architects of artificial intelligence. Interesting. Is Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. Crowd didn't like that. When I heard that booing, I didn't say oh, undergraduates, they get it. Undergraduates wise beyond their years or undergraduates are reflection of the anxious job seekers of tomorrow. I said they're booing AI but without AI, many of them wouldn't have even made it to graduation. And this is the phenomenon of the additive miracle of AI. The most acceptable thing to do about it or say about it publicly. Unless you're on CNBC and are in line to get some shares of the IPO of OpenAI. The most acceptable thing is to worry about it, to grouse about it and you come out looking wise, the wise grouse. There is a lot to be worried about, but I also think there's just a lot of social approval. This is where we've landed that the socially somewhat quasi sophisticated take to show that you are in the know and a good person when it comes to AI is to put your worries forward. And the people who phrase their worries the best or put their worries forward in the most frightening form get the most social approval. But when even those AI worriers talk about AI in their own lives, they can't help but reflect upon how time saving it is, how wondrous it is, or all the things it can do. So there is a public private divide over AI. Maybe, just like someone eating one of those fishes 2000 years ago might turn to his neighbor and say, I can't believe this thing was once a loaf. You know, I guess I hope I don't get sick, but let me say this is one delicious mackerel. And the moldy pumpernickel it was set to be didn't seem so appetizing. Not at all. Oh, and the fatty oils. Didn't know about fatty oils. Then that would be the next miracle. My private conversations Again, I'm not in an elite tech class. I'm more in the worried media class. But my private AI conversations, even among the worried media types, are characterized much more by admiration and curiosity, trading tips and tricks for how to get AI to work better for us than it is by deep, deep worry. And it may all be true that I might be coming for our jobs, our lives. I don't know. I can't discount that. It may be coming for the nuclear codes and invent some weapons that we can control. But I am just struck by how big the disconnect is between the public consideration of AI and the private use of AI if anything, I actually operates. Miracle though it is, it operates a little like pornography, which is that there is one acceptable way to react to it among other people. If you think you're being watched and noted and someone is writing down your name. And there is another way to react to it on our screens and perhaps even privately, if our names and reputations aren't involved. Again, this isn't among tech investors. It isn't among the class of people that venerates the wizards of AI but it is among just regular people who want to be seen as sophisticated. You can't write an article in the mainstream press broadly praising a I. It has to at least hold the promise of AI being a disaster. I read an article in the New York Times real estate section. I used AI to negotiate my price. And I believe the reason that the article was titled that way was it held the promise of disaster. Because people are kind of curious about AI blowing things up, killing them, killing the deal. But in fact, by Using AI to negotiate a real estate deal. The author wound up much better off. I don't think that actual headline would get as many clicks. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they did some AB testing via AI. It's another way in which among regular people or regular readers of the New York Times or regular writers of headlines of the New York Times, just people who think of themselves and want to be seen as sophisticated. There is a de Gore demand that any mention of our discussion of AI be publicly accompanied by a laugh. And if it doesn't destroy us first because it will take many generations to complete. I mean, you know, theoretically anyway, that is in case, you know, AI doesn't take over everything in the next hundred years, which is the more likely scenario. This sounds like an amazing future. As long as the AI doesn't take over and destroy us all first. The AI that's going to take over all of us. Don't worry, we've got a lot more in store before the robots take over. AI doesn't take it over and right.

[B]

Rotorus.

[A]

Now sleep or something.

[B]

Right?

[A]

But the laugh. It's interesting. I've been thinking about that laugh. The purpose it serves, how other existential risks don't have it accompanying them with the frequency of the. I mentioned global warming. Right. The other existential threat supposed didn't get the but who knows, maybe the weather will murder us all treatment. But in public AI does get the world is doomed or Boo. How dare you credit the thing that brought us to these seats under these mortar board hat that reaction. Here was Gloria Caulfield of the Tavistock Development Company speaking at the University of South Florida.

[B]

The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution. Oh, What happened? Okay, I struck a chord.

[A]

She said that in private at a dinner, even with people who weren't in the know, just people who might be on the board of the University of South Florida say the conversation would not be boo. How dare you say that Or I'm mad at you for saying that or you're endorsing something that I'm against. The conversation would be just like the conversations I've been having. Oh my God, did you see how much faster fable is then Opus? That is Anthropics, New and old LLM. Opus and Fable, by the way, also good words to describe how the future assessment of the technology will read either as a great triumphant work or as a tale ultimately based on falsehoods. Fable and Opus are also two ways to look at the Bible, the account of miracles. One is preferred by pessimists. They'd call themselves realists who see themselves as sophisticates. One more by true believers who welcome the wonder working powers of the message therein. That's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the Gist. Jeff Craig runs our how to feature. It's a great podcast. You should listen to it. Ben Astaire is our booking producer. Kathleen Sykes, she does the gist list. And Michelle Pesca oversees it, all in fable and opus form. More opus than fable. Not the Penguin. The broad, majestic work of art. And thanks for listening.