Episode 237: The Internet is Groundhog Day

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "The Internet is Groundhog Day"

Podcast: What the Hack?
Host: Beau Friedlander (DeleteMe)
Guest: Virginia Heffernan
Episode: 237
Date: February 2, 2026

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Overview

This episode draws a bold parallel between the 1993 cult classic film Groundhog Day and the modern experience of the internet. Host Beau Friedlander and guest Virginia Heffernan (writer for The New Republic, Substacker, and author of Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art) dig into how relentless digital repetition, surveillance, and data economy keep us in personal and societal loops. They question whether growing knowledge—via AI and pervasive data collection—makes life richer or merely more controllable and invasive.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Groundhog Day as an Allegory for the Internet

• The hosts use scenes from Groundhog Day to illustrate how the internet, like Phil Connors, absorbs and exploits our routines ([01:22-09:11]).
• Beau Friedlander: “That's not charm, that's surveillance...the Internet has been running the same day on us. It's been learning our patterns, selling what it learns, calling that connection.” ([01:22])
• Companies like Meta and Google are compared to Phil Connors: “...memorized the entire town. Every person, every routine, every secret. He’s not a God. He’s just been stuck in the loop long enough to know everything about everyone. Sort of like Meta or Google.” ([07:54])

2. Surveillance Economy & Personal Vulnerability

• Virginia shares her firsthand experience as a target of online harassment after being spotlighted by Tucker Carlson, highlighting the real danger of being digitally findable ([03:44-05:28]).
  • “I thought I was pretty unfindable. I was extremely findable.” ([03:43])
  • She credits DeleteMe with helping restore her privacy after doxxing escalated to threats delivered to her physical mailbox.

3. How We Give Away Personal Data, Online and Offline

• Groundhog Day clips demonstrate how people casually reveal details about themselves, making them vulnerable to deception and manipulation—mirroring the way we give up data online ([13:43-17:37]).
• Virginia recounts being catfished by a Twitter account posing as Larry Summers, emphasizing how curiosity and desire for connection override skepticism ([16:14-17:37]).
  • “Somebody’s sort of like, inquiry... she can’t help it. She starts giving up information about herself. It’s very hard to gray rock and just say no to these things.” ([15:28])

4. The Lure and Danger of ‘Connection’

• Beau theorizes that our drive for connection explains why we so willingly disclose personal data: “One of the reasons I think Facebook worked was it promised connection...what we're opting in for is connection.” ([17:37])
• Virginia: “Other people’s curiosity about you is flattering. And we’re all walking around… wanting to be known” ([15:28])

5. Algorithms, Empathy, and Exploitation

• The conversation unpacks how Phil’s learned “empathy” is transactional, reflecting a major critique of AI and personalized marketing. That is, being “nice” or “helpful” primarily to keep us engaged and extract value ([22:05-27:05]).
  • Beau: “He’s an embodiment of a selfish algorithm.” ([20:41])
  • Virginia: “If he is a kind of proto Internet, is he optimized for some kind of particularly barbaric aggression?” ([22:22])

6. Thank You, Thank You: The Illusion of Mutual Benefit

• The notion of the “double thank you”—that both sides gain in exchanges—gets challenged:
  • “Why you will hear people say, ‘Instagram is listening to me, but I don’t mind because I just found the perfect grill’. The thank you, thank you really matters...but it makes data brokers richer, though. That’s how you got notes in your mailbox, because of that excess.” ([28:32-29:11])
• Virginia notes most data collection does little for individuals but serves opaque commercial and surveillance interests ([31:19-38:18]).

7. Beyond Economics: Who Are We Online?

• Virginia critiques the notion that our primary digital identity is that of a consumer—an assumption that shapes data collection but grossly oversimplifies who we are ([33:04-38:18]).
  • “The Internet gets us wrong when it thinks that about us...so much of us doesn’t show up online.”

8. The Breaking of the Cycle & What We Can Learn

• In Groundhog Day, Phil only breaks the loop when he acts with genuine care—moving from exploitation to empathy. Beau asks if the internet or AI can learn this lesson, shifting from “owning us” to actually helping ([40:32]).
  • “Phil Connors breaks the loop by stopping the con. He quits treating knowledge as leverage and asks a different question: What if I actually helped?” ([40:32])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Virginia, on online vulnerability:
  “I thought I was pretty unfindable. I was extremely findable.” ([03:43])

• Beau, on the surveillance analogy:
  “He’s not a God. He’s just been stuck in the loop long enough to know everything about everyone. Sort of like Meta or Google.” ([07:54])

• Virginia, on disclosure and social engineering:
  “Even she… is willing to give up the name of her high school… Other people’s curiosity about you is flattering.” ([15:28])

• Beau, on transactional empathy:
  “He’s an embodiment of a selfish algorithm. The clock rolls around to 6am again. He tries to get in her good graces. Again. And, yeah, that’s a euphemism.” ([20:41])

• Virginia, on identity:
  “So much of us doesn’t show up online… I am not the number in my Citibank account.” ([38:18])

• Beau, on data and care:
  “Phil Connors escaped Groundhog Day by understanding that knowledge without care is just another way to run a scam.” ([40:32])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:44-05:28] — Virginia’s personal story about being targeted, doxxed, and saved by DeleteMe
• [07:35-09:11] — Parallels between Phil Connors’ accumulated knowledge and surveillance capitalism
• [13:43-17:37] — How social engineering (both in Groundhog Day and online) exploits our willingness to overshare
• [20:41-23:00] — The “selfish algorithm” analogy and transactional vs. genuine empathy
• [28:32-29:11] — Double thank you: The illusion of mutually beneficial data sharing
• [33:04-38:18] — Critique of the idea we are reducible to consumers and the inefficiency of data-driven identity
• [40:32] — Final thesis: Breaking the loop requires shifting from extraction to care

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Actionable Advice: Tinfoil Swan (Privacy Takeaways)

([42:00-end])

• Check and adjust privacy settings for AI chatbots (like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini).
• Never enter sensitive info (passwords, proprietary material, confidential data) into public LLMs.
• Use incognito or private modes — many LLMs delete conversations after the session.
• Read Terms of Service/Privacy policies — or, ask the LLM to summarize them.
• Stay vigilant: Policies and data retention change frequently. “What’s private today may not be tomorrow.”

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Tone and Style

• Witty, referential (frequent allusions to Groundhog Day and pop culture)
• Cautiously optimistic about technology, but sharply critical of surveillance capitalism
• Candid, personal, and occasionally sardonic

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Conclusion

In a world in which our every click, search, and like can be memorized, optimized, and weaponized, the Groundhog Day allegory rings more disturbingly true than ever. The path out of the loop, the hosts suggest, is not just being harder to find—but also reconsidering the terms of connection, care, and what constitutes our true digital identity. The internet—and soon, AI—may know everything, but knowledge without authentic empathy serves only power, not people.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Announcer]

On February 13, Crime 101 hits theaters.

[Male Voice 1]

What is it that you do?

[Narrator/Announcer]

I take high value items and make them disappear.

[Virginia Heffernan]

So you're a thief.

[Beau Friedlander]

This guy's a ghost. There's no DNA. He's in and out in seconds.

[Female Voice 1]

Your guy's untraceable.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan and Halle Berry. One crime connects them all.

[Beau Friedlander]

We're good at this.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Crime 101. Directed by Bart Layton. Rated R. Under 17. Unmuted without Paris. Only in theaters February 13th.

[Camp Counselor/Announcer]

Hey campers, rise and shine. And don't forget your booties, cuz it's cold out there. It's cold out there every day.

[Beau Friedlander]

What is this, Miami Beach?

[Female Voice 1]

How's it going, boys? You're playing yesterday's tape?

[Virginia Heffernan]

I thought I was pretty unfindable. I was extremely findable.

[Beau Friedlander]

Virginia Heffernan, Writer, thinker, target. She's not speaking in metaphors here. She's. She's describing what happened when Tucker Carlson sicced a mob on her and the Internet handed them everything they needed to make her life a living hell.

[Female Voice 1]

Can I buy you a drink?

[Beau Friedlander]

The next clip here comes from Harold ramis cult classic 1993 movie Groundhog Day.

[Female Voice 1]

Sweet vermouth, rocks with a twist, please.

[Male Voice 1]

The same. That's my favorite drink.

[Female Voice 1]

Mine too.

[Beau Friedlander]

Phil Connors. That's Bill Murray. Doesn't like sweet vermouth in this movie. But his producer, Rita, aka Andie MacDowell, she does. And he's lying. He's running the same day over and over. If you know the movie, watching her, memorizing her, refining his approach until her behavior becomes predictable enough to him to get her to do what he wants. That's not charm, that's surveillance.

[Female Voice 1]

Maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long, he knows everything.

[Beau Friedlander]

And that's the Internet. Not magic, not fate. Just repetition, memory and leverage. For more than 20 years now, the Internet has been running the same day on us. Actually, 1993 was when the world wide web became public Thing you could use it now. What's it been doing? It's been learning our patterns, selling what it learns, calling that connection. Connection, Connection sounds so good. AI is now in the process of finishing the job. And we have to ask, as it becomes so good at what it does, does knowing everything make life better? Or just creepier and a whole lot easier to control? Foreign I'm Beau Friedlander and this is what the hack. The show that asks, in a world where your data is everywhere, how do you stay Safe online. Virginia Heffernan. Welcome. Virginia writes for the New Republic and has a substack called Magic and Loss. She wrote a book by the same title, Magic and Loss, the Internet as Art. Basically, she's in the business of politics for English majors. That's what she likes to say, which I think is super funny. Virginia, welcome to the podcast.

[Virginia Heffernan]

So wait, where are you right now?

[Beau Friedlander]

So what, the hack is now part of Delete Me? Have you ever heard of Delete me?

[Virginia Heffernan]

Are you kidding? And I'm so happy you're wearing the shirt Delete me came to my rescue after Tucker Carlson, who, like, got me in his sights and led a show with a picture of me and then talked about how stupid I was naturally. And sicked his many, many followers on me and other female journalists that he covered in the same week. And I was inundated with, you know, threats and threats on my children in my actual mailbox written. Some of them were on thank you cards, and one of them said, thank you, and then inside for being such a bitch.

[Beau Friedlander]

Now, this was actually in your physical mailbox.

[Virginia Heffernan]

In my mailbox. So they had my address. I got calls on my phone and just tons of hate mail through every email I've ever had. So I got the FBI involved and I got the cops, local cops involved, but no one they can't do anything to, like, take your name off, making me less findable. I thought I was pretty unfindable. I was extremely findable. So Delete Me really came to my rescue, and I've just been. Been an evangelist for it ever since, because you don't know how messed up your life gets until this administration and its many acolytes turn on you. And it was a pretty terrifying couple months, and it stopped pretty much the second I had Delete me involved. So that is a very heartfelt something I would have said to anyone, not just someone wearing a Delete me shirt.

[Beau Friedlander]

Well, the funny thing is, I love my Delete me shirt. I feel like this makes me look like a nicely groomed Jerry Garcia. But the. But the. We're not gonna talk politics today. We're gonna talk Internet, because you know a lot about that, too.

[Kathy Werzer]

Yes.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah, that's. Yes.

[Beau Friedlander]

We're talking about the Internet. We're talking about Groundhog Day, and we're talking about what's broken that keeps us stuck in these loops. Now, this episode. I've been thinking about this since last fall when I went out to visit Seth Godin. And I was. I was so excited that I just. It was like the first thing I blurted out when we sat down, Seth, he's like, yeah. I was like, the Internet is Groundhog Day. He didn't miss a beat. So it's not that the Internet is Bill Murray. It's that there are companies that are rewarded for acting like Bill Murray. Exactly. Except Bill Murray's got a name in the movie. And it's not Bill Murray, it's Phil Connor. Listen to this.

[Female Voice 1]

I'm a God.

[Virginia Heffernan]

You're God.

[Female Voice 1]

I'm a God. I'm not the God.

[Male Voice 1]

You're not a God. You can take my word for it. This is 12 years of Catholic school talking.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay? So if you haven't seen Groundhog Day, and you should, it's a classic by Harold Ramis. Here's the setup. Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, this sort of narcissist weatherman who goes out to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover weather. Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog sees his shadow. There's a snowstorm and he gets stuck in. The next morning he wakes up and it's the same day, February 2nd, again and again and again. Day after day after day after day. The clock, you remember, it's a digital clock. Flips over to 6am wakes up. first he doesn't know what's happening. And then he gets angry. And then he realizes, hold on. If I'm stuck in the same day forever, I can learn everything. I can watch people memorize what they do. Figure out exactly what they're going to say before they say it. And Phil Connors, well, he's a jerk, so he uses it.

[Female Voice 1]

This is Doris. Her brother in law, Carl, owns this diner. She's worked here since she was 17. More than anything else in her life, she wants to see Paris before she dies.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Oh, boy, would I. What are you doing?

[Female Voice 1]

This is Debbie Kleiser and her fiance, Fred.

[Male Voice 2]

Do I know you?

[Female Voice 1]

They're supposed to be getting married this afternoon, but Debbie is having second thoughts.

[Beau Friedlander]

What?

[Male Voice 1]

Lovely ring.

[Beau Friedlander]

Now, see, by this point in the movie, Phil Connors has lived this day so many times, he's basically memorized the entire town. Every person, every routine, every secret, every. He's not a God. He's just been stuck in the loop long enough to know everything about everyone. Sort of like Meta or Google. And now he's gonna prove it.

[Female Voice 1]

This is Bill. He's been a waiter for three years. Since he left Penn State and had to get work. He likes the town. He paints toy soldiers. And he's gay.

[Beau Friedlander]

I am.

[Female Voice 1]

This is Gus, he hates his life here. He wished she stayed in the name.

[Beau Friedlander]

Well, I could have retired on half.

[Female Voice 1]

Pay after 20 years.

[Male Voice 1]

Excuse me. Is this some kind of trick?

[Female Voice 1]

Well, maybe the real God uses tricks. You know, maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long, he knows everything.

[Male Voice 1]

Oh, okay.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Well.

[Kathy Werzer]

Who's that?

[Female Voice 1]

This is Tom. He worked in the coal mine until.

[Beau Friedlander]

They closed it down. And her?

[Female Voice 1]

It's Alice. Came over here from Ireland when she was a baby. She lived in Erie most of her life.

[Virginia Heffernan]

He's right.

[Female Voice 1]

And her, Nancy, she works in the dress shop and makes noises like a chipmunk when she gets real excited.

[Beau Friedlander]

Hey, it's true.

[Male Voice 1]

How do you know these people?

[Female Voice 1]

I told you, I know everything. In about five seconds, a waiter's gonna drop a tray of dishes. Five, four, three, two, one.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Wow. I'd forgotten that.

[Beau Friedlander]

Can you see why? When I was watching that, I thought, God, that's the Internet.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah. The idea of the recurring day, or the memory, I guess, of the day no one else remembers is I wouldn't have connected it to surveillance online.

[Beau Friedlander]

The surveillance economy. And the surveillance economy, which includes data brokers, but this is the whole panoply of data brokers and data related companies. And put meta at the very top of that list. And Google and other social media companies where they are able to know who you know and who. Who they know and who you're related to and what's happened in your life. And what's happened because your cousin once removed wrote a post about your great great, great, great grandfather. And there's 23andMe. I could go on and on.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

So we'll just call it the Internet.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yep. What stands out also is just the state of the economy in on the eastern seaboard and just the discussion of how the Penn State guy is a waiter and the waitress can't go to Paris. And. And there's the what the Internet and what the Bill Murray character would know about you. That is what. What makes up your identity are essentially small facts about your economic and familial situations. Where at the around the origin of social media, we didn't really care if you were posting to Facebook about. Well, your wedding didn't happen because you'd had second thoughts about it. You just thought, why would some overlord. Why would some all seeing eye care about knowing what I had for breakfast? And all the usual trivia that was Twitter and Facebook were expected to document. But now I think if we saw this again, you'd see a more diverse Crowd in the diner. And you would see great anxiety about people's political positions online. Even their relationship, like the interior lives or the private lives of people look different now. Like we almost cheat them out to the cameras. Like what is supposed to constitute your identity?

[Beau Friedlander]

I mean, so this is 1993, right? And what I found, the first thing that I found interesting was not that Clinton became president. NAFTA passed, the World Trade center was bombed. World Trade center was bombed for the first time. Waco. Waco, Texas. So all these things, 1993, cool. But you know what the most important thing is that happened in 1993. The World Wide Web became public. That's when it happened.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

It spans the globe like a superhighway. It is called Internet, the Net.

[Female Voice 1]

To longtime users, Internet is a whole group of networks.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

The Net is made up of some 12,000 individual computer networks. Internet began back in 1969. It was a tool of the Pentagon. But nowadays just about anyone with a computer and a mobile.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Wow.

[Beau Friedlander]

So this is pre computer. This is like a pre computer allegory about our lives online.

[Virginia Heffernan]

There are actually archaeologists who do work on basically, I think it's called like pre digitizing societies. So there are even Greek and Roman examples of small communities that are acting digitally avant la lefre or like before there is actual digital life. Sorry.

[Beau Friedlander]

Avant la lefre means before writing, before.

[Virginia Heffernan]

The letter of the Internet. And I gotta say, there's no better application of avant le lettre than that. So if we want to, like, if we're ever going to indulge in that kind of ridiculous pretension, that's now's the time. But anyway, yes, self digitizing or pre digital, but sort of anticipating digitization. That seems like what you're describing is going on in the movie. I'm trying to see if I agree with you though.

[Beau Friedlander]

Stay with me. We'll be right back after this. Here we go.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Let's hear it.

[Female Voice 1]

Hey, did you see the groundhog this morning? Uh huh.

[Male Voice 1]

I never miss it.

[Female Voice 1]

What's your name?

[Male Voice 1]

Nancy Taylor. And you are?

[Beau Friedlander]

He's already struck out with her several times.

[Female Voice 1]

Okay, what high school did you go to?

[Male Voice 1]

Lincoln in Pittsburgh.

[Beau Friedlander]

She won't give him the time of day, but obviously he gets another try every day because the day keeps repeating.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Who are you?

[Female Voice 1]

Who was your 12th grade English teacher?

[Virginia Heffernan]

Are you kidding?

[Beau Friedlander]

So today he's just decided to be a jerk and shake her down for information?

[Female Voice 1]

No, no, no. In 12th grade your English teacher was Mrs. Walsh.

[Beau Friedlander]

Mrs. Walsh? Yeah.

[Female Voice 1]

Nancy Lincoln Walsh. Okay, thanks very much.

[Beau Friedlander]

Hey, hey, so what just happened there was. And you know, one of the things that just happened there is like, that's how cyber criminals work, right?

[Female Voice 1]

Nancy. Nancy Taylor. Lincoln High School. I sat next to you in Mrs. Walsh's English class.

[Male Voice 2]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Female Voice 1]

Phil Connors.

[Male Voice 2]

Wow, that's amazing.

[Female Voice 1]

You don't remember me, do you? Um, I even asked you the prom.

[Male Voice 2]

Phil Connors.

[Female Voice 1]

I was short and I've sprouted.

[Beau Friedlander]

They're just trying to get enough information about you in order to. To pull a scam on you.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Gosh.

[Male Voice 2]

How are you?

[Female Voice 1]

Great. You look terrific. You look very, very terrific. But maybe later we could.

[Male Voice 2]

Yeah, whatever.

[Virginia Heffernan]

I'm wondering about the, like the spear phishing or the sort of inquiry about where she went to high school and who our teacher, what her teacher's name was. Also just the willingness, the sort of sociological willingness to give up, answer questions that are asked you on the street. And the fact that even she, who's trying to brush him off is willing to give up the name of her high school is actually also really interesting that, like, other people's curiosity about you is flattering. And we're all walking around. I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I wrote once about this that was, I guess, fished, catfished by Larry Summers.

[Beau Friedlander]

No.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yes. Okay.

[Female Voice 1]

Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers will take a break from teaching at the prestigious.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

University after his continued relationship with Epstein was exposed.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Larry Summers real account on Twitter. DMed me on Twitter, so it was his real verified account. DM'd me and said, hey, I really like your work and I wonder if you'd look over something I wrote. Now, obviously the former treasury secretary and president of Harvard is not going to ask my opinion of something that he wrote.

[Beau Friedlander]

No, no, that's not true. That's not true. If he's read your op EDS and stuff, I disagree. He might.

[Virginia Heffernan]

That's actually okay apparent. By the way. Apparently I've just been waiting my whole life to be of service to the former treasury secretary. Because, yes, I clicked. I clicked and my whole screen was filled with Turkish letters, all of it. And this guy came up, this picture of this like, AI kind of warrior came up saying, like, we've seized your whole account. And suddenly they were like, running my Twitter account. And anyway, it was a huge headache. But the point is, somebody is sort of like, inquiry. Even as that woman in Groundhog Day is trying to blow off Bill Murray, she can't help it. She starts giving up information about herself. She just, like, it's cracked Open. You know, it's very hard to gray rock and just say no to these things.

[Beau Friedlander]

You know why? Here's why. I don't know why, but I'm going to say my theory. Connection. So one of the reasons I think Facebook worked was it promised connection. It promised we're you. You know all these people you used to know, you're going to know them again. They're on here. All you got to do is hit friend and you can meet them again. Kindergarten, right back in your life. So that connection happens on the street too. And when I. I was on a train from D.C. not that long ago, and I was sitting next to someone who's clearly a journalist and really wanted the whole car to know was going through edits in the train. Super annoying. And I was writing something, and she finally, she said something so wrong that I said, I don't know why I offered it, but I was just like, you know, I heard, you know, that edit might get you in trouble. And she was like, are you a journalist? And I said, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. And then I said, I gotta work. And I went back to work, not answering her question. She circled back, where do you write? I said, on my computer mostly. I really do have to work. And she kept trying, and she finally said, I have to get off the train, but I'm pretty sure that you do national security journalism. And I was like, cool, have a great day. Good luck with your article. And that is all I will give. Because if I want to connect, I'll call you up. If I want to connect with a journalist or intellectual or writer or reader, I will call those people who I want to hear from and who I want to share my thoughts with. But I don't increasing like, I never was big on Twitter. So, yeah, I do think it's opt in. But what we're opting in for is connection. And I think that brings us to our next clip, which is really alarming when you think about the fact that what we're really looking for, the comfort of being known, is very alluring.

[Female Voice 1]

So what are the chances of getting out today?

[Male Voice 1]

The fans still won't start. Larry's working on it.

[Female Voice 1]

Wouldn't you know it? Can I buy you a drink?

[Beau Friedlander]

She already is totally annoyed by him. She's his producer. He's a total arrogant jerk.

[Female Voice 1]

Okay, Jim Beam, ice water.

[Beau Friedlander]

So he's struck out with her a million times. For you, miss.

[Male Voice 1]

Sweet vermouth in the rocks with a twist, please.

[Beau Friedlander]

Now here's Phil Connors doing what he already knows will work. Because it worked with a woman who went to high school in Pittsburgh and coughed up the name of her teacher and other stuff that helped him get a date with her. So he exists now to do reconnaissance. It's okay if he strikes out, every wrong answer will lead to a right one. He's an embodiment of a selfish algorithm. The clock rolls around to 6am again. He tries to get in her good graces. Again. And, yeah, that's a euphemism.

[Female Voice 1]

What are the chances of getting out of town today?

[Male Voice 1]

The van's deal won't start. Larry's working on it.

[Female Voice 1]

How wouldn't you know it? Can I buy you a drink?

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay.

[Female Voice 1]

Sweet vermouth, rocks, with a twist, please.

[Beau Friedlander]

For you, miss?

[Male Voice 1]

The same. That's my favorite drink.

[Female Voice 1]

Mine too. It always makes me think of Rome. The way the sun hits the buildings in the afternoon.

[Male Voice 1]

What should we drink to?

[Beau Friedlander]

And he's doing. He's taking another try at her. You know, making her like him.

[Female Voice 1]

I like to say a prayer and drink to world peace.

[Male Voice 1]

To world peace.

[Female Voice 1]

World peace.

[Beau Friedlander]

So next they're Post Bar, hotel bound and Phil Connors busts a move. The kiss. But just enough for Rita Hansen, played by Andie MacDell, to push him away and remember herself. Remember who she actually is. Not who the Internet is reflecting back to her or trying to gently guide her to be.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Oh, no.

[Male Voice 1]

I can't believe I fell for this. This whole day has just been one long setup.

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

No, it hasn't.

[Male Voice 1]

And I hate fudge.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yuck.

[Female Voice 1]

No white chocolate, no fudge.

[Male Voice 1]

What are you doing? Are you making some kind of list or something?

[Female Voice 1]

No.

[Male Voice 1]

Did you call up my friends and ask them?

[Beau Friedlander]

No white chocolate, no fudge. He sounds like an LLM calling out its own drift and thus failure to execute. Whatever was asked.

[Virginia Heffernan]

If he is a kind of proto Internet is he optimized for some kind of particularly barbaric aggression?

[Beau Friedlander]

Yes.

[Virginia Heffernan]

And it actually. Right.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yes.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Okay.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yes.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Okay. Tell me more. Tell me why you think that. Why isn't this just. You and I go on a date and I call up a bunch of friends of yours and say, what's Beau into? You know, and that's great.

[Beau Friedlander]

No, that would work. But that would work. And that's not what's happening here.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Okay, tell me.

[Beau Friedlander]

First of all. First of all, if we just take the scene at face value, this is a narcissist who has weaponized what he knows to get what he wants.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Mm.

[Beau Friedlander]

I think. I think that he's got Gathered this information because he has a theory that mirroring the person is going to get him where he wants to go. And. But it feels very transactional and planned.

[Virginia Heffernan]

I mean, don't you amplify the things that you're interested at points of commonality and play down the other ones and also.

[Beau Friedlander]

But not if it's just in the service of he. I don't know. I think. Cause he's been. He has been a swordsman in the movie. He has bedded a few people. What I was thinking in this scene was that he's doing. He's a kind of meta's privacy is dead. Google. Don't be creepy incarnate. And why. It's very simple. This is why I said yes so confidently. Because they're selling stuff. Because if I know those things about you, because I watched you like stuff with your friends from high school on Facebook, I can sell you stuff.

[Virginia Heffernan]

And he's also right. Pretending they have something in common that they don't. Actually. Later she'll find out he doesn't care at all about Rome. Which seems like the sort of typical route to divorce. Which is like you pretended you were into UFC fighting in the beginning and now you haven't wanted to go with me for 10 years and sounds like a bad date. Actually, I did pretend to be into UFC fighting to like court my husband.

[Beau Friedlander]

So again, I'm thinking of it as an allegory. Bill Murray's not a narcissist who's maybe being chivalrous. Chivalric. Chivalric. And trying to get a girl that way. He's. He's the Internet. And he's plowing through everything the way the Internet does, which is it gathers information and then it deploys it. And that deployment of information has become more and more subtle and smart. Like you mentioned getting catfished or spearfished, actually by Larry Sumners. You know, the idea that the way in can be super interesting later on in the movie where this process of Bill Murray as the Internet, the whole Internet is learning stuff and taking that data and deploying it and building defeats that process actually destroys the narcissism that drove it in the first place.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

And that's what's interesting.

[Virginia Heffernan]

That's good.

[Beau Friedlander]

Because it comes out the other end. And we're going to look at this. So that process destroyed the narcissism that drove it in the first place. And it turns into something resembling AI.

[Female Voice 1]

I was just talking with Buster Green. He's the net grava hunchum. And he said if you set up over here? We like it. A better shot. Let me think.

[Male Voice 1]

Sounds good.

[Female Voice 1]

Larry, what do you think?

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, let's go for it.

[Virginia Heffernan]

It worked.

[Beau Friedlander]

Phil, Chat GPT knows that you should probably ask the producer and the cameraman to get the best possible result. That is amazing. That surplus of empathy turned into AI sycophancy.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Right? Yeah, but it's not the ChatGPT sycophancy.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, exactly. And here's what worries me about that sycophancy. It's not just that AI learned to be nice, it's that it learned to be nice because being nice gets us to stay longer on the LLM click More. Buy More. Well, the LLMs are just starting to advertise. But just be there more. What do you do with all that information at the end of the day? Right, but be helpful. Sure, but helpful to whom? To us or to the people selling stuff to us? So in business, this whole motion that we're talking about is marketing. He can do anything he wants. He could make the world a better place because he knows all this stuff.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah, interesting.

[Beau Friedlander]

At some point the shopkeeper says, how can I help you? And they, they mean it. And they mean it because they want to sell you something, but they're also successful because they're genuinely helpful.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah, I think that that's right. And I like that you are seeing like that you're that marketing and sales and trade are like what some people call the double thank you. Like ideally everyone's getting something out of it and it's not just a one way act of barbarism. And it seems like now we have a world where, you know, Andie MacDowell and Bill Murray seem to be mutually benefiting from their relationship. And we might also in human terms call that love. And also there's just so much fun around it, you know, Like I don't. That's. I think why it's why it's Bill Murray, right? There's some inefficiencies in it, in his game that make that are his charm. Now what I want to ask is in that last scene where we see them on the shoot and they're making decisions about how to do it, is he coming up? Is he just building consensus by asking both the producer and this other figure what they should do to make everyone feel good and like advance his ends or is he making the shoot somehow better or more efficient or better work done in the world?

[Beau Friedlander]

Well, you said this just now.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Okay.

[Beau Friedlander]

It's a thank you. Thank you.

[Virginia Heffernan]

It is. Okay.

[Beau Friedlander]

Why you will Hear people say, Instagram is listening to me, but I don't mind because I just found the perfect grill.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Right?

[Beau Friedlander]

The thank you, thank you really matters here. The problem is that the thank you, thank you, all that information, it doesn't get me the perfect grill. It doesn't get me anything. It makes data brokers richer, though. That's how you got notes in your mailbox, because of that excess, because of data brokers taking things they didn't need and putting them places where it shouldn't be.

[Virginia Heffernan]

I think that's right. I mean, why is it. What happens with all the three players in the last scene? I probably should know it. I mean, the last one you showed me. Is everyone mutually satisfied? And like, what are they?

[Narrator/Documentary Voice]

Everyone's shocked.

[Beau Friedlander]

Everyone's shocked, Including Bill Murray, because he's just being nice.

[Virginia Heffernan]

But is he getting thoughtful? Yeah, right. He's better at his job. He's making, like, the shoot go better.

[Beau Friedlander]

No, the cycle breaks. It's over. He gets. That's what sets him free. That is the kiss. That is the kiss that makes the frog a prince or princess.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah, I see, I see. At some point, he jumps the tracks of these even exchanges.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, well. And it keeps saying, like, we're gonna keep you in this. You're gonna be in this rut, literally, to say, keep with your metaphor until you understand. Like Amy Mann said, it's not gonna stop till you wise up. You know, you're going to have to eventually understand that you're the problem and only you can be the solution.

[Virginia Heffernan]

So you say that. Is that last. So that last scene that you showed me is. All I wanna know is, are they making the. Or is any money involved?

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, there's money involved in that. Everybody has done their job better, which usually results in promotions.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Okay, so. Right. So, yeah, I mean. Cause humans are sort of like seduced by niceness, and that means that they work better. And he is catching more flies with honey. And.

[Beau Friedlander]

And it's thank you. Thank you.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah, he's a better manager now. And maybe that, like, maybe the local advert, lumber camp company or advertiser on the local news show or what is gonna, like, attract more eyes and pay more for the slot on the show. And there is some way you can imagine it being monetized, but it's very incomplete. You know, it's very unclear, you know, whether the surplus of niceness that counts as being human is like, maybe the whole thing is surplus at that point.

[Beau Friedlander]

But it results in. You asked about this value question, so let's look at the final. The final one. Okay, we have gotten here, which is.

[Female Voice 1]

Hello, welcome to our party.

[Male Voice 1]

Phil, I didn't know you could play like that.

[Female Voice 1]

Oh, I'm versatile.

[Beau Friedlander]

They're at an auction.

[Male Voice 1]

What was that all about?

[Female Voice 1]

I really don't know. They've been hitting on me all night.

[Beau Friedlander]

They're. What do you call it when you auction? Dudes off for dates, for charity. They're at one of those a.

[Camp Counselor/Announcer]

Okay, folks, attention. Time for the big bachelor auction. Phil Connors, come on up here. All right, now, what am I bid for this fine specimen?

[Virginia Heffernan]

$5.

[Camp Counselor/Announcer]

The bidding has begun at $5.

[Male Voice 2]

$10. 15. 20. 25. 30. 35. 40. 45. 50. 55. 60.

[Virginia Heffernan]

I'm good. 60.

[Female Voice 1]

Do I hear.

[Male Voice 1]

$339.88?

[Beau Friedlander]

So, you know my sense. There is that, like. And there is your monthly LLM subscription. You know, you just got to the point where you're like, huh, I will pay for this.

[Virginia Heffernan]

That's a human face. Yeah. So something I've. This is 93. But one of the dates that I get in my head is 1969, the year of my birth.

[Camp Counselor/Announcer]

Because, yeah, we should initiate that.

[Beau Friedlander]

That's personal information. But I think people can find it.

[Virginia Heffernan]

I think. Right. I think that would be easy enough to find, and I've certainly written it. But that is the first year they offered the Nobel Prize in economics, which had previously been reserved for only hard sciences. And it's a social science that jumped from being just competing theories the same way psychology and sociology and anthropology is. That was like one other way to explain how people lived to suddenly having these laws. And one of the laws that we are, like, very in. And laws. Right. Because none of them are natural laws that we're very in the spell of is the idea that we are all at heart, consumers or shoppers. Right. Rather than like, producers or artists or, you know, or like people caught in Freudian neuroses. That that's like a fundamental driver of our identity, is that we're consumers. And I've written marketing stuff before, and the only way you describe people is as consumers or customers. It's bananas. But I think that economics is one social science and the other ones compete very well with it. And I think the. I suspect that this century is going to be a century much more interested in philosophy than economics. And that's maybe a longer argument. But the idea that we're fundamentally shoppers. I think the Internet gets us wrong when it thinks that about us. You know, when I was thinking, like, it can Sell data to a company that can sell me a barbecue grill or might want to sell me a barbecue grill. I mean, talk about inefficient. I mean, mostly I use TikTok, but I never get to the cash register. I'm not much of a shopper. There's like the problem with your and my and many people's kind of social identity is that it's like hard to predict, hard to predict exactly what demographic we're in. Like, are we going to buy like fancy things or Uniqlo or nothing or thrift, Are we going to have BMWs or no cars or whatever? And even a ton of data gouging around, you know, our dates of birth or who we date or whatever does not do very well and predicting what we're going to buy. So the, and the other thing is I just like, I guess to be especially cynical about data, you have to just think, well, the Internet sees me because they see my shopping habits. I mean, we haven't talked about our political identities or that all that I am are the like bits of data that could be used to seduce me by Bill Murray or all that I am are bits of things that could make me optimized to make the TV station work better. Right? The like who, whom that, you know, Lennon's who whom, like who's doing this to whom is like what marketer is doing this to what poor chump? And all we in the equation are, are not even objects of violence. So I don't want to, you know, say we're all great artists, but that we're seen either as like potential deportable people, right? Like any data Palantir is collecting is probably less interested in the fact that I buy a lot of. And so because my identity is somewhat constructed in the mirror of what they. What is wanted out of me, what data is wanted out of me. I then like want to elude that kind of data and that beca or that kind of giving up that much data about myself. And then I start to become a kind of different player in the matrix and they move their thing and become a different player. And all the while we all know very clear clearly that so much of us doesn't show up online. Like when I was writing on my tour for Magic and Loss, someone said, you know, I just don't see this kind of self invention going on online anytime that someone could like hack your, you know, could take everything from you and hack your, you know, really get into who you are and hack your Citibank account and empty it out. And I was like, but is it possible that I am not the number in my Citibank account? Like, it would be terrible to lose the $15,000 I have in my savings account on Citibank. But would that do damage to the thing I ultimately am? And if we've gotten that far, that Homo femo economicus is like the be all, end all of who we are. We're not physical agents. We're not political agents. We're not artists. We're not thinking weird thoughts. We're not, like, psychologically crabbed strange people. We're not people who act sociologically. We just are consumers. And if they want to see us as consumers, because that's a way to maximize whatever, more power to them. But talk about inefficient. Like, all I feel like I'm doing is eluding the vision of me as a. As a whatever.

[Beau Friedlander]

Do you understand what I was seeing when I looked at Groundhog Day? I was like, wow, this is some sort of, like, cultural marker for something it wasn't at all talking about. Obviously, it's, you know, W.K. wimsett's intentional fallacy in full action. Is it because.

[Virginia Heffernan]

I don't know. Because pop culture speaks us. And I think something like this could be prophetic. And I love the idea, by the way, of romantic comedy is doing better than science fiction. This is exactly how pop culture does work. I'm obsessing about this Mussolini movie. I don't know if you saw it, but the Joe Wright movie, it's so good. And in it he keeps saying, I'm an animal. I smell the future. And it's just like that fascist obsession with what the future is, is really interesting. And I can imagine. I mean, why did this land in our cells this way? And there were kind of proto Internet stuff circulating. There were zines. There were like. I don't know.

[Beau Friedlander]

There was a lot of.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Yeah, there were a lot of consumer culture. There was a lot of other things. And people who. A movie like this catches on changes the entire meaning of Groundhog Day, by the way. It only means one thing now. And it's this movie and then. And gets in our heads and has explanatory power for us over time. And also is so like, you know, the future when you see it. And usually you're, like, laughing because it just lands. It's, you know, it expresses something important. So I think you're absolutely right. And also, movies are so made by such groups of people that I don't think you have to say that there's some hauteur there. And really auteuristic movies also don't predict the future because it's just like, one guy in his own head. But anyway, I think you're absolutely right. And I think, like, we. I don't want to overlook the fact that you, like, dropped a huge thesis bomb at the beginning and, like, saw it all the way through, because that is, like, really impressive. I wish people did that all the way. I wish people did that more and did it flamboyantly like you just did.

[Beau Friedlander]

Well, it's. It's. It's data. Data removal for English majors.

[Virginia Heffernan]

Data removal for English majors. Exactly. And like. And pop culture. Those are the places to look.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah. Virginia Heffernan, author of the book Magic and Loss. The Internet is art. And her active substack called also Magic and Loss. There's a link in the show description. So what just happened? Phil Connors breaks the loop by stopping the con. He quits treating knowledge as leverage and asks a different question. What if I actually helped? What if I actually got into the. Thank you. Thank you. The Internet hasn't asked that question yet. Really? Not really. Maybe AI is starting to, but. But LLMs also just started to advertise, so maybe not. Ancient merchants learned about customers so they could sell them wheelbarrows. And eventually that curiosity became care, like, as it would, I guess. And the Internet went the other direction. It learned about us to own us. Phil Connors escaped Groundhog Day by understanding that knowledge without care is just another way to run a scam. Maybe that's our way out too, you know, is the scam. All the data out there that's associated with me and about me, I think. Yeah, I do. And that's why I try to keep as little as I can out there on the Internet. So with that in mind, now it's time for the Tinfoil Swan, our paranoid takeaway to. To keep you safe on and offline. Are you using an LLM? And if so, how good is your security? How good is your privacy practice? What are you putting in there? Let's talk about it. So here's what you need to know. Most AI chatbots, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. They're training on your conversations by default. That means that when you open the box of this particular product, it starts to take things from you. By default means everything you type could end up teaching the next version of the model. Your ideas, your drafts, your strategies could get coughed up in someone else's query. First rule, check your Privacy settings in ChatGPT turn off chat history and training in Claude. Look for data retention controls. Look for the incognito, because you can also say, don't train on my content there. Google's Gemini has similar options. These settings do exist, but they're not. You know, if an LLM were a person, this is not something that's tattooed on their knuckles or their forehead. You've got to go looking for them, and then when you do, flip them to the right setting. Now, second, never put sensitive information in a chatbot, okay? I know you're writing the next great novel and you're putting it on there. Don't do it because it's. It's anybody's novel now. No passwords, no proprietary code, no confidential client data, for sure. No unpublished work. If you care about protecting it. Now, is someone really gonna. Is it really gonna go walkabout? I don't know. And that's why I need to be careful. If you wouldn't post it publicly, rule of thumb, don't put it on an lm. Third, use incognito. Use it or a temporary chat mode there. It'll be something different depending on what LLM you're on now. They're designed to delete your conversations after the session ends. You can also just delete chats when you're done. With most LLMs, after 30 days, it's out anyway. It's gone. They don't know. They're not storing everything. Or are they? We don't know. Again, be careful about what you post now, fourth, read the terms of service and pri and the privacy policy. And, yeah, I know nobody does, but listen, there's a trick now, and it's funny because it's the LLM itself. Ask it to summarize what they're collecting and how they're using it. And you can even ask the LLM to. To give you the questions, to ask it to protect whatever it is you're trying to protect. And remember, finally, that companies change their policies, so what might have been true last year may not be true now. So any assumptions you're making about your content that you're putting on these LLMs, bear in mind, if it's something really sensitive, check today, check the day of, and see what's going on. Because policies change now. What's private today? We've learned this a long time ago. Not private today, tomorrow, no idea. The Internet learned how to own us a long time ago. Right now, you can get your. You can get yourself. You know, you can get some agency back. You don't need to be owned by the Internet. It's hard, but you can start reducing the ways in which you are known to the Internet. And Delete me is a perfect way to start. But here's the deal. In the same way the Internet did what it did, AI can too. So don't hand AI the same playbook. Be careful if you're using an AI chatbot. Just remember, set the privacy settings super tight, make it forget what you're doing, don't let it train on your data and and don't put anything on there that you don't want people to see because breaches happen and, and you don't want your stuff to be be wrapped up in that. Okay, Stay safe out there. We'll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. What the Hack is produced by Beau Friedlander. That's me and Andrew Stephen, who also edits the show. What the Hack is brought to you by Deleteme Deleteme makes it quick and easy and safe to remove your personal data online and was recently named the number one pick by a New York Times wirecutter for personal information removal. You can learn more about Deleteme if you go to joindeleteme.com wth that's joindeleteme.com WTH. And if you sign up there on that landing page, you will get a 20% discount. I kid you not, a 20% discount. So yes, color me fishing, but it's worth it.

[Kathy Werzer]

Curious about the future of Healthcare? Tomorrow's cure, the chart topping and Ambi Award finalist podcast from Mayo Clinic brings it to you today. I'm Kathy Werzer and in this new season I sit down with researchers, doctors and industry experts who are leading the way in medical innovation. From cutting edge technology to breakthrough treatments, we'll explore how new solutions are improving and even saving lives. Follow Tomorrow's Cure Wherever you listen to podcasts.