Better Offline - CES 2026: Part Seven (Thursday)

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Welcome to Better Offline’s coverage of the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show - a standup radio station in the Palazzo Hotel with an attached open bar where reporters, experts and various other characters bring you the stories from the floor.  In Thursday’s second episode, Ed is joined by actress and standup comedian Chloe Radlciffe, Garrison Davis of It Could Happen Here, writer Westin Lee, Robert Evans of Behind The Bastards, Ed Ongweso of the Tech Bubble Newsletter, and tech writer Rob Pegoraro to talk about how this CES feels like something is missing, building things for actual people, how everybody is talking about “incremental” improvements in AI, OpenAI’s similarities to Theranos, and the problematic nature of mass-automation. EXCLUSIVE CES SALE! Get a *permanent* $10 off an annual subscription to my newsletter through January 13 2025: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/cue848p5sc Ed Ongweso Jr.: https://bsky.app/profile/bigblackjacobin.bsky.social Rob Pegoraro: https://bsky.app/profile/robpegoraro.com Westin Lee: https://bsky.app/profile/westinlee.bsky.social The Tech Bubble Newsletter: https://thetechbubble.substack.com/  Chloe Radcliffe: https://www.instagram.com/chloebadcliffe/?hl=en https://punchup.live/chloeradcliffe Donate in Sean-Paul’s honor: https://www.perc-epilepsy.org/ Here’s the robot we talked about: https://bsky.app/profile/iwriteok.bsky.social/post/3mbwvlat7dc23 --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AllZone Media. Damn, they got me feeling like White Michael Clayton. I'm Ed Zittron, and this is Better Offline's coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show. We are, as we have been all week here in the beautiful Palazzo Hotel in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada,

bringing you yet another episode covering CES with the crazy assortment of guests from the tech industry. We've got an open bar, tacos and places to sit down for the members of the media, whether they join us on the microphone or not. This is our second episode of the day, it's Thursday, and we've got two more on Friday an epilogue on Saturday, then they're going to roll me into one of the aqueducts here and flush me into the sewer. But before they do that, it's time to introduce the last.

latest contestants on the CES challenge joining me as ever as stand-up comedian and star of it. Is this thing on Chloe Radcliffe? No. No? No, not anymore. Unfortunately. No, not unfortunately. No, very fortunately.

I'm still here. You can't get rid of me. And we will not be. And of course, it could happen. Here's Garrison Davis. Hello, good morning. And tech writer Rob Pagoraro joining us once again. It's good to be back.

It sure is good to have you. Lovely to see you. So, Gare, what have you been up to? What are you seen today? I've been at LVCC all day. What did you LVCC? Oh, my goodness. I realized I said good morning because the CES time distortion is starting to kick in.

Oh, absolutely. Well, you were in like Tokyo a week ago, so your time is... Woo! The best, at best is an interesting word. The most interesting thing I saw today is I happened to arrive at the LG booth right as their home assistant robot demo started for the first time. Cloid. Cloid.

Floyd. Cloid rage. So I got to see that in action for their first demo. Walk me through the action part of this. Action. Like how was the action? Maybe it's more proper to say, I got to see Cloyd in. Yeah, it was good.

Action is generous. It was breathtaking because it's going to change so many people's lives. Oh, God. How so? So they gave us three different scenarios. One is you have this clumsy dad who always forgets his keys and the robot is able to find the keys then put them somewhere else. Which is an interesting solution to the problem of losing your keys because it was framed. So this this clumsy father of two left his keys on the couch.

Then the robot walks in the couch and grabs them from the couch and moves them to a different location in the house, which seems like a machine that just makes you lose your keys. The jester AI. I am here to add chaos to your life. So it was framed as losing your keys, but it's just the robot moving keys around. Right. And at what speed did it do this, would you say? Galatial. Just like real slow.

It's very slow. Nice. Its second segment was like a rich single guy who doesn't have anyone living with him. Nice. Who has this robot as a quote-unquote roommate. And the roommate mostly does laundry. and I watched this robot spend, I kid you not 90 seconds, putting a single shirt in the washing machine.

And then also spent, I would say, about two minutes attempting to fold a towel. How did it do? Again, I used the word attempting. It got about half the towel folded after two minutes and then was directed towards the next part of the demo. So it could not finish the folding's single towel task. I'm sure if you give it five minutes, it could fold a towel. That's actually a high amount of confidence based on everything.

You've described. Yeah, we trained it entirely on stoner data. Yeah. It moves like someone who's had way too much weed. Just forget what you're doing. By the time the third demo started, I had to go. I had enough. Do you be there seven hours watching it fold one thing?

It was like a middle-aged woman whose robot was like trying to get her to like work out more. I saw that one, and I mentioned it earlier. It was like, here you go, and it's got like one pound weights. And she goes, thanks, Cloyd. If you didn't give me this, I wouldn't even move. The most interesting part of the demo was, and like, I got to see, like, the robot, you know, tried to do a lot of these things that wasn't just on the screen. But it was the presenter kept reiterating that Claude knows what you want before you even have to say anything.

Oh, that's not creepy at all. And that was, that was the thing, because the cloud gets to observe you and, learn your patterns and learn your habits and what you like. And you can also input this data. And it was, during the towel folding segment, he even made a joke because it was, because it was taking too long.

It was like, ah, yes, Cloud was able to fold the towel. Exactly, exactly like I like it. Is this Cloyd the robot or Claude the AI? Yeah, Cloyd. Cloed, Cloe, sorry, does Coyd run Claude?

I mean, I probably not. I mean, it's slow and expensive, so I guess. And also, just from my understanding, this thing is fucking huge. Oh, it's big. It's big. So you just have this offensively large... It's like my...

It's like me-sized, yeah. Yeah, it's... But also super wide, like a big scooter, like the kind of scooter you see. It's like a sort of Storm Trooper-turned Butler, I guess. Yeah, but... It learns what you need other than like... Like C-3P... Any rapidity whatsoever.

Yeah, like a tower folded faster than seven minutes or correctly. Yeah. Yeah, and if it's... The presenter made a joke is that because... Because Claude, Cloid wasn't able to fully fold the towel. He made a joke about how that's how he actually prefers his towels being folded.

Because this was like an ongoing statement he kept making. He was like, you know, Coyd knows how long I want my croissants cooked. So he can bake my croissants. As they're left undercooked. So he can bake my croissants exactly how long I want to. He also,

Claude prepared a snack during the demo. And the snack was taking milk out of the fridge and putting the milk carton down on the counter. because I do not know if the robot fingers were able to unscrew the milk. Loves my snack of milkies. Like the milk carton, actually. So it was just taking the milk, putting it on the counter. But for the wife and father of two, wife and father,

for the couple and their kid demo, the robot was like, you know, if you're too busy, the robot can make breakfast for your family in the morning. Well, the robot can put a tray of croissant dough that's pre-prepared in the oven. So you have to put the croissant dough on there. Unclear. No. The robot can take, as long as the dough magically exists. Sure.

Claude, can walk towards the oven. The oven will automatically open with the new L-Gsmer oven. And then put the tray in and then take the tray out. You still have to line the croissants. Yeah, and you also have to unroll with those chews. It can do the easiest part. If you can afford the robot, can't you afford drone delivery of croissants from a really good bakery? The part that we saw was moving tray in.

into oven. How the croissant and dough got on the tray? Complete mystery. How? How the milk got from the cart into the glass also, we'll never know. My question is, did the nice actor

who they hired to lie seem... Well, acting is lying. Exactly. And he is good at his job. Seem like self-aware at all? Yes. A little bit. Like he seemed a little embarrassed.

he did he did a good job yeah this is also Vegas people humiliate themselves money all the time just think about the paycheck when he when the robot spent 90 seconds putting a shirt in in the

washing machine it was framed as Claude being extremely thorough look look how thorough it is being it knows my certifications I like shit done wrong and slow

I like my stuff done poorly it's like if I needed someone to do something slowly and poorly, as I said, I would do it myself. The odd thing, it's like, and there was so much robotics in LVCCC this year. Like, like North Hall full of robotics. And it's robotics that I, that have, have you've seen it say yes before, but it's always been, they've always been kind of janky and you haven't seen like big companies like LG really mess with it because it's all kind of janky.

And I was just kind of surprised that LG is actually like dipping their toes into this because it's not, it's not necessarily new technology, but it's at the same level of Jenk as it was like a year and a half ago. But for some reason they decided to like go for it this year. They got nothing else. I genuinely, it's just headline grabs. It's just I fucking read a Wall Street Journal story to them. Not even name the reporter because he

should know better. But it's like, yeah, this is the year of the robots. And one of the, I swear to God, most of the robots they mentioned didn't exist. It was like, I think they mentioned Floyd. I feel like it's irresponsible for anyone to report on Cloyd as if it's real.

Like it's real in the sense it's physically It's physically in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Central Hall LG booth. But it's like, this is not something that can be purchased or is sold or even does like the very simple thing. I mean, I feel like I'm going insane. I made this point last time we were talking about, we were talking about Claydon some other episode. I can't remember.

Several years ago. Yes. Truly. But so I know that this is a repeat point for anybody for the real headheads out there. But the key. keys finding thing, for the robot to be able to find the keys, that means that the keys must have some kind of air tag chip on them. Like, that's how the robot... Maybe. It's possibly... In which case, you go, how about you just put an air tag on your keys? Sure. I think,

Coyd might be able to find the keys via just visual recognition. Like, Cloyd was like sorting laundry by color. Cloid was washing certain items, but not washing others. It just feels like if, if I can't visually see my keys... Well, you know, You're a busy dad. You don't have time. I am a busy dad. You don't have time. Dad and wife are busy with AI, but doing productivity.

A woman, and a woman is because at CES 2026, she was given pink battery power. I was, I was walked around a little power bank thing and he pointed to the pastel colors and was like, this is, it looks like a foundation. It looks like a makeup. And I was like, ah, yes, that's for girls. And I pointed in a black one and I was like, that make me go no bad, but this make me go yes. And he was like, could not see.

He just kept telling me power banks for girls. It's woke. Woke is truly good, truly dead. No, but Woke 2 in CES 2027 is going to be fucking. It's going to be intense. They're going to be the gender forcing machine. I mean, yeah, they already have like the accessibility stage this year. Woke 2 is going to be big.

Yeah, it's going to be like the. the caliphate section and the gender section, the forced transgender section, that's gonna be fucking great. Sure. We're all changing genders next year. It's happening, folks. But that means you get a power bank

that's whatever color you want to be. I can get a pink power bank. That sounds fucking great. We're all changing our genders next year. No, it's, what else do you see? Yeah. I mean, it's honestly,

what was more interesting to me at Central Hall was what I didn't see. What was that? I didn't see Nikon. I didn't see Canon. I didn't see Samsung. They were not there. They don't have booths this year.

Holy shit. The Panasonic booth, very bare. Not really any product. There's like enterprise products. There's like, you know, energy efficiency products. They're like software. There's chips. But there's not many physical products.

There's no like Panasonic cameras. That's the Sony booth. Samsung isn't that? I'm sorry. The Sony booth just has cars in partnership with Honda. Well, they've been weird the last several years. Like it used to be they. But Samsung?

But Sony used to bring home. Well, they do have, Samsung has that exhibit somewhere. and the wind. Yeah, but usually they have like the Samsung Megalopolis thing. Like a giant booth, yeah. Not, not there. And Sony's exhibits is very small this year. It's just cars.

And no Nike. Well, Nikon. No Nikon, which has had huge booths at CES the past like three, four years. Yes.

I get this weird feeling about this show that something is up. Something is really weird this year. Something doesn't feel right because I saw like a chunk of a casino just with nothing there, no tables open. I think it was even at the Palazzo, which is just fucking strange.

but something feels missing. It doesn't feel like there are less televisions. Like last year. There is less televisions. Yeah, there's like a television verand you could stride around. Yeah. Like looking at all the various giant TVs that all look and sound the same. And that was fun.

This year, it's smaller, weirder. And I mentioned this in another episode. Usually they keep the country-based stuff in the basement in Eureka Park. Yeah. It was top-side? It's top-side. Okay, so I'm not going insane. There was some top-side stuff last year.

but it was much smaller but there's there's way way bigger top side pavilions above yourica this year this is a bad sign there's a lot of a lot of shifts

no this the CIS definitely feels feels very different and I don't want to be just like cynical for the sake of being cynical I want to have a fun time and see yes I actually am serious I would love that

I would love to see some shit that makes me go cool I would love that and yeah I don't know like I tried on some new new to me auto translating earbuds today. I know I've done a lot of auto translation stuff so far, but

these ones were really good. These ones were fast. Do you know who they were by? Let me look through my notes. No, I must say, though, I am not... They were in North Hall. Okay. I'm trying to find them here.

Yeah, I don't think any of us are trying to be reflexively synagogu. Why are you looking up? Rob, what have you seen? Let's bring you in here. So, yeah, I've... I've now sort of completed my inspection. I'm flying home this evening. And, yeah, so West Hall's the usual weird exhibit of things with wheels and sometimes tank treads. It's all the mobility stuff, which was never part of CES.

First year, I came here and God help me, 1998. Yeah, yeah. There's lots of interesting stuff being done with, you know, portable solar power. Okay. Like if we had balcony solar legalized in the U.S., that's where you'd see it in the North Hall. Right. Central Hall is, you know, that's still some exhibits with TV vendors. Companies like High Sense and TCL were sort of devoting war space to that.

And Samsung has sort of moved off site. And yeah, Panasonic, half of their stuff was like, here's what we do for data centers. Which are speaking as a Virginian, they're not that popular. People do not like these things. Yeah, I imagine you've seen quite a few of those recently. Every time I fly at a Dallas airport, can't miss them. And today I finally got over to the Venetian to, look at the sort of smart home exhibits upstairs.

Downstairs is Eureka Park, which is all the real sort of cats and dogs, random international exhibits. Just the random, the stray dogs that walk around. That's where you have the weirdest stuff, definitely. I think they need to lean into that with Eureka Park. They need to make it dirtier. They need to have like a dive bar in the corner. Let a few straight. Like the, it's always sunny in Philadelphia episode where they go to Atlantic City and there's

just like dogs walking around. I think like they need to make it weird and gross because I think that's the only thing that will make it interesting. I had the unfortunate order of going to Eureka Park first. I went, the first day that I got here, I just had an hour before the show floor closed and so all I could do was be in the Venetian, Venetian. And Ed had been like, oh, the downstairs is the weirdest. And so I, like, wandered around the upstairs of Venetian a little bit. And then I was like, I got to hit the downstairs, whatever. So basically, that was my intro. And I was like, this stuff fucking rocks. I mean, it's insane. It's bat shit.

it's 99% unnecessary. Yes. But it's so funny. And I was just having a ball, having the time of my life. Even the upstairs at Venetian has been great. And then the last two days at the convention center, I've been like, the fuck is this? Is this useful shit that you think I'm going to actually incorporate into my life?

Get the fuck away from it. I want the weird shit that I can make fun of. Yeah, I'm sorry for that. I wish the show was more dopey. But it's kind of sad. I want, I want. I like the novelty stuff, or I want like big and stupid. I hear there's a giant tractor I somehow miss.

That's very mean. I saw that's how the tractor today. What? Wait, the, the John Deer. It's fine, or was there another one? No, the combine. Yeah, it could be fun if there were two. Big Green mission.

They actually imported some corn from some farm in Iowa to plant in front of it to show you what it actually does. Interesting. Yeah. I wonder why. I feel like if you're a, it was a striking. If you have a farm, you probably know about tractors. Yeah, but I don't know. The people here looking at that tractor are people who have farms.

Right, but my point is, then why did you put the tractor there? It sounds like it's really a big machine. It's a giant green machine with huge wheels. The thing is, if their reason was just like, we can, fine. I love that. That's great. But yeah, so these head buds. Headbutts.

Time kettle. Wow. Time kettle. You could have given me seven million years. That wouldn't have come up with that name. Yeah. very fast, nearly leg-free conversational translation. That's awesome.

Do you know how much they cost or anything like that? Did they tell you? Because so many of these places just don't. It's like, when can I get it? Oh, no. No, no, not. We don't do that here. We don't sell things or put prices on things.

We are simply showing you something so we can raise money and then run away. Oh, no. They definitely have been selling them the past few months. and I will also go through my notes. No, it's okay. Rob, can I ask solar, balcony solar? Yeah, I was actually, this was in the back of my mind too.

Is that where somebody, is that where you have tiny little baby solar panels on your porch and you can sell the electricity back to the electric company? The whole idea is you don't. So this is a sign that's very popular in Germany. I was in April in Berlin.

Right. And if you walk around the city, you'll see solar panels on balconies next to flags and flowers and everything all over the place. And the whole idea is, Very cheap. It's not enough to like power your whole flat, but it will, it's enough. You put two, maybe three solar panels outside. You plug them into an outlet and that's it.

And they sort of found some way to legalize it. And they flow back. So the whole term outlet is apparently wrong because it is bi-directional. An inflow. Yeah. It's also an inlet. Oh, wait, you mean what we, what I think of as an outlet, that thing? We've been lied to our entire lives. I'm sorry. Are also inlets?

Yep. And Phil just stepped in, which is to say they're lying to you about those plugs that have two spikes. He's very big on the electrical city. You can take Phil. You agree with this. Yeah, the ones with the two plugs on the end, you plug them in, they're legal, right? Mail to mail. Yeah, yeah, mail to mail.

Mail to mail is illegal in most states. Mail to mail to mail to mail. Due to woke electricity people who don't want you to die. They're trying to overturn it now. In Texas, they are actually, it's the sleep flag. It's a 50-cow rifle just wrapped in mail. to mail. Yeah, so that...

$400. $400 for that. That's not bad. I can see, I can see... And do they need to be Wi-Fi connecting? Phone conducting? No, I mean, I think, no, the Bluetooth of the phone.

So, like, if your phone's connected. But I feel like they're running the computer through the phone. But I'm asking, does the phone need a Wi-Fi? It's probably a cell. It's not an on-device, L-LM. Listen to me. There we are.

Yeah, buzzwords. No, it is, it is not on-device. I will say with that one. It uses other LLMs. I will say with that one, if it's immediate, then the situation you'd be using that is like international business so I can kind of get it. Yeah, it was fine. But I'm kind of getting worried about like LLM translation though. Sure. Because it's like how would I possibly know it's like it gets things wrong in the language I

understand. Imagine the one I don't. Yeah. But at the same time I like this text. So you know, who knows if that'll exist. I want that I want that to work. But it's like because the, The Pebble Watch we were talking, the Pebble Ring we were talking about earlier, that's on device somehow. Right. And that's cool. It's just like, but the thing is, on device is very difficult. It's not, I can understand why people are doing it. It's just, what happens if this becomes more expensive, which it most certainly will?

I don't know. But Rob, you've been gone to CES since 1998, as we've just established. I think a lot about the life choices that put me in, yeah. What do you think about those? No, seriously, how do you feel about the CES? Like, how does it compare to even last year or the year before? So honestly, I would say... And how does it compare to 1998?

Well, in 1998, this was a show about TVs and stereos. And it was the dawn of digital TV. Look what they took from us. People were very excited about the prospect of being able to spend like $4,000 on some 30-inch CRT that would weigh 400 pounds, but it would display 1080 eye resolution. Whoa. Whoa. And along the way, it's become this, the show about all these different parts of technology. So there's all these, you know, electric cars, solar panels, AI household robots.

So, I mean, like, I complain a lot about the logistics because it is such a pain he has to get around. But yesterday, in the span of like four hours walking around LVCC North, I talked to a company developing, building a test fusion power plant in Massachusetts. Who else? Let me take a look at my notes. It was a bizarre sequence of events. All right, let's... Wait, sorry. You say that as in a new nuclear power plant in...

A nuclear fusion power plant. Oh, wow. Oh, this is non-existent. It's been 20 years away my entire life. Yeah, no, that's my favorite thing about all the nuclear stuff. It's like nuclear power is real, but it's like, fission. Yep, we are just, we are mere decades away from this. Like, fusion, fusion, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's the whole fission fusion thing. I don't want to get Phil on it. He actually knows what he's talking about. We don't do that on this show. The only reason I know is because... Phil told us. Last night, Phil spent an hour explaining this. And I was suffering a podcaster's concussion.

So I was, which I have no longer anymore. So other random conversations I had during this little tour, just LVCC North, guy with a battery company in Singapore where they're building much of the battery out of paper. Oh, yeah, yeah, Robert was mentioning this. Yeah, so that's really neat. Yeah, I tried on an exoskeleton to assist my legs. We've heard a few people. Which one?

Yeah, which one of them? How was it? This was a Hypershell X. I was wearing Hypershell today as well. Yeah, and so it's sort of like, you know, when you get on an e-bike, you know, it's almost like the hand of God is pushing you down the street. Sam's sort of weird thing except your legs. How's it feel? Honestly, you've both used them, yeah.

It feels good. I mean, anything to make my feet hurt less at the show. So maybe I should roll up wearing that thing next time. I got really into the settings. And tell me more. They have an app and they have three different modes. I'm not sure if it's Robert's hard. talked about HyperShell. He talked about it a little bit, but he hadn't really used it at

time. I, me and someone else have been trading, trading off wearing it all day. And so there's this like eco mode, which is like the regular mode that you can operate at it. And you can change like the percentage of how much power is getting directed to it and that changes how much it assists you. There's hyper mode, which if you have hyper mode on and all the way, you are like bounding. It is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is really pushing you forward. It is fun. It's uncomfortable if you are walking slowly. You have to be like walking, walking fast, but if you're walking fast with it, it's like really good. I grew up in London. I live in New York as well. That sounds amazing. For a fast walker, it's great. And you can,

you can change the intensity of it. But you can, you can change, like, the torque from, like, one leg to another to make, to make a different. Is that if you have, like, an injury in one leg or something? Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. That's actually fucking great. You can change, like, how much, like, input delay there is, how much it's going to, like, like, how fast the acceleration is for when it starts moving. Right. Something that I was using to, like, mess with the person who is walking around with today is they have on their, for their experimental feature,

they have something called fitness mode, which does the opposite of the main features. Oh, it's like resistance? It restricts movement. And this was really fun because I could have them, I could see them like running around on hyper mode and via my phone, I can change it to fitness mode

to completely stop their bodies moving. Like the wrong trousers with Wallace and Grubon. So I could just completely like, like, force them to a standstill. And it worked great. And I could do it from like, I could do it from like 30 feet away on the app. And it was fantastic. It was really fun. I've, I've been looking for more bits.

That's really, I've, I've been doing this for like eight hours. I've been so annoying with this. I love that they got wrong trousers mode. That's so good. And honestly, I'm not. synagogue. I love these things. I fucking, I fucking love these. I know so many people with mobility issues. I myself have a fucked up ankle. I love this. I love that. This feels like future tech. And it's small. It doesn't get, like I've tried on many, many an exoskeleton at, at, at the

CES as I've been to. This one was very compact, but still so functional. It's still, it's all wraps around your waist and your leg. So it's not really an exoskeleton. I'm like, what do you, what's going to do you call? Mobility suit. I don't know. Add on. But like, it's basically just like

an extra set of hips, kind of, right? I could use one of them. And hips that help, that help push your knee up. Well,

artificially assisted hips so they do, in fact, like. The hips, finally we've found hips that lie. Yeah, it's,

I love that. I love that they've got these, especially with like so much useless shit here, a way to like, help people walk feels almost like the platonic ideal of CES,

like other than a giant television. A television is so large you can't see all of it. 163 inches. Oh my God. Yeah, I saw that, I saw that too. Way too big. They just got a big ass, big ass TV?

Hell yeah. Yeah. Do you know what the price was? It wasn't transparent. Yeah, fuck it then. No, I... Yeah, LG had the transparent TV. Here's the thing.

They're the useful TVs, but every year I think they should try and make a bigger one. Like, just like every year they're like, here goes, 200 inches now. Now we've got one where we have to buy part of the wall. Like, yeah, just escalate constantly. And I saw on the very first day, a wireless TV situation where they were like, yeah, it's for trade shows.

You can get four of them and clip them into one thing. I'm like, or you could be a sports freak. And they just fucking look to me. They just look. I'm like, what? I mean, like, when I was getting my place here in Vegas, I went to look at a house where the guy had just four CRTs, all just playing different NFL games. And I also, what during that tour of house didn't actually get in the end.

I was just enamored with that. And honestly, it was all I could think about, was like, you could just pop up one of those sports TV things, like Back to the Future too. You get fired by a guy from Japan. Be great. Like, I'm not Martin McFly's dad in the future. Anyways, yeah, it's, I like the ex-execkel.

Hyper-Shell's good. I like Hyper-Shell. I need them to reach out to, they reached out to you, they reached out to Robert. They don't like me there. People are Hypershell don't like me very much. Yeah, they're afraid that you're going to get on your podcast and talk about them.

Positively. You know what, actually, based on the last 12 hours, I don't fucking blame them. If I was hyper shell, I'd be like, I don't know. I don't think hyper shell involves AI in any way, so you're probably, they should be safe. Yeah, more or less. You do have stats. You can see how many miles you walked, how many steps you've walked. That's fun.

The battery was great. Like, we've had this thing on since like 8 a.m. I got back to my hotel to drop it off about an hour ago, and we still had 50% of the battery left. That's really interesting. It's better than my phone's been doing. No, it is, it is better the phone. And like, we're walking at a convention center. Like, that's a lot of walking.

The fitness mode, who are there, is it the same? 10,000 steps. That's not bad. It's funny because so much of our podcasting has been looking at products that are unnecessary and pointing out the unnecessary parts of them and rightfully laughing at those. And this is a product that clearly, like, can help a ton of people and is wonderful technology and very worthwhile. And so I don't mean to apply the same logic. But is the person who's buying HyperShell going to use the fitness mode? Those feel to me like two different use cases. It feels

like something that's probably not difficult to add. It's an extra add-on. That's the thing. It is, it is an experimental feature. It is not, they are not, I don't think they're selling them with fitness mode enabled right now. Yeah, that makes sense. It is, it is an experimental feature that you have to like, like, click like, agree and okay to. All right, we're going to rotate of course. Now, this following ad is not for HyperShell. It's for something else that you should buy without reservation. Just credit cards out, please, everyone. If it's a podcast, you must listen to.

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Good evening. And tech writer Rob Pagararo. Hello. I like the fitness mode. I heard the moment you said that, I'm like, I want to fucking go for it. Like, I've been really, I've been getting into more cardio stuff. I'm like, I kind of want to fuck. I want to see how this fucks me up a bit.

It's really cool. So how does, did you try the fitness mode yourself? Yeah. How does it exert the pressure? Like, is it the, is walking more difficult? Yeah, it's more difficult. You can't, you have to really strain to like step more than like, maybe like, half a foot. Is it just that it sort of like binds up the mechanism of the... I think so. I think it's,

it's like locking the motor or applying, applying resistance to the motor. So you have to then push hard to. It takes, it takes way more effort. Because I mean, you've already got like weighted pants and stuff. I know this sounds like I'm doing it. Sure. You do, you actually do have these things. You have like sweat suits as well. That's sort of what I, that's where I wind up coming to is like this feels... You can change the, you can, you have like, you have like a slider. Like you can change the settings for it. I totally follow. I totally follow. And the, if, if we were not so positive on the rest of the product, no, you can trash it. I just am like, this, I'm thinking of Conover, of Adam Conover saying, this is a solved problem,

you know, where I'm like, we have weighted vests or we have. My thing is with fitness. You know how people bought the like Nordic tracks? Do you remember those? The cross, the internal cross country ski machines. And that there was like a year where everybody's like, everybody's got to get a Nordic track. Yeah. And then. And then a bunch of people just have a Nordic track sitting in their basement that they don't need. I think the difference with this is not only is an experimental feature, it's not trying to be a one-size-fits-all thing. You can use it while hiking. Yeah.

So if you want to have more of a work at well-hiking. And there's settings for going uphill, downhill, and it changes the way that, like, how the motors like function. So it does have a lot of like... But it's not being sold on this. Pardon? It's not being sold on this idea. This is an experiment. I don't think they even told me about the fitness mode.

I tried eco mode and... They took one look at you. Hyper mode. Like, 55-year-old guy, I have enough trouble getting around already. We don't need to do this. Walking, race-walking, uphill, downhill, upstairs, downstairs, gravel, cycling, running, mountain, backpacking, and sand dunes are the adaptive motion recognition settings on the fitness.

I would love to, because my ankle gets fucked up if I walk more than a mile. I would love this. Yeah. Dipe-shell reach... Fuck. Hyper-shell reach out to me. Like, I swear to God, I won't call it. They're never going to know that you call them diaper shell.

I'm not going to call them diaper shell again. It'll be fine. That was the last time. You're like, you can't take it off when you need to use the bathroom. Diper shell. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, so, okay, Rob, back to you.

Yes. Anything else you, well, actually, was there anything you really love during this? Was there anything you saw you're like, fuck yet? The story of most fascinated by, there's a company called Donut Lab that does not actually make, it's not a donut making robot. they introduced a solid state battery for electric vehicles. So we had a very brief conversation about this, and then someone emailed me and said they want more.

So guess fucking what, one listener? It's your lucky day. Reader service. So it is kind of mystery how they've done it because this has traditionally been the Holy Grail. Supposedly, if you can get the battery chemistry and everything in the physics to work, you have a much lighter battery that's cheaper,

the charge is faster than has far more cycles. And they say they've done all these things, but they're being very cagey about the, And they also say the minerals are globally available widely. But they want to say which one. Like, what's the catch? Is one of the other ingredients kittens? What are we, what's going on here?

And so we'll have to see. Like they've showing off a motorcycle, which includes the battery. Did you use it? Was it? No. They just had it parked there. It's a $30,000 an up electric motorcycle. It looks great.

But if they've cracked the code for that. And there's lots of other people working on solid state. batteries. And given that EVs are already good, like, you know, you have this thing, you can charge it at home, you know, a fast charger, it's enough time for me to take a nap, which I like doing it. Right. So address the other concerns people have. Is it big enough to power a vehicle that's bigger than a motorcycle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. They showed off, there's some company that makes, like an electric car chassis with the sort of skateboard thing where the batteries are right underneath the center that's how most EVs are designed. So, yeah, their whole aim is to have this

in a lot of different cars. Like they say, they'll have news soon about car partnerships. So, big deal. But if this is true, it's like a revolution in all car battery tax. Yeah, and not just that, I mean, like, drones, trains for that matter, because we don't know how to build transportation infrastructure affordably in America. Lots of railroad operators would rather put the battery on the train than put the wires above the tracks. I just want to be clear, if this is true, I will be the most excited about this ever.

If Donut Labs ends up being fake, I'm going to spend multiple episodes destroying this fucking company. I'm going to feel so dirty. No, no, no, you won't because it's an exciting and cool thing. And if this is real, it's fucking amazing. If it's not, I will learn everything about this company and publish it on this fucking podcast. They're on notice. No, they genuinely are. But it also sounds like somebody is going to crack this.

Well. Yeah. Like, there's enough money being put at solved, directed at solving the problem. Yeah. And what's, what's it going to do? I mean, is the oil industry going to have an even bigger proxism than we've... The thing is with the oil industry is... Good.

Yeah, but they're also well invested in this stuff too, and they will find ways to make money off of this. They will not like it, but it's kind of hard to deny electricity. Right. But nevertheless, they don't love it, probably. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the whole trend has been going on for years and years, and it's just right now in the U.S., we have this president who has just some drainage. notions of energy and affordability.

And I think his head is stuck in 1986, which is why he thinks it's a good idea to, you know, hijack Venezuela as if it's like sticking up a gas station. Yeah. It's, I love living in, I want to live, you know what I would love, I'd love to live in precedented times. I'd love to live in boring times. I've had too many interesting events happen.

I'd like to go back to boredom, but sadly they're not going to allow me. I... Yeah. It's frustrating because I've been asking people genuinely seriously, bring me stuff you're excited about. And everyone keeps coming back with like, you know, it was kind of...

Honestly, the exoskeletons are the one unilaterally thick other than big tractor. And again, I must be clear. Big thing. Big huge thing that's always on. Big TV. I'm not. I fucking love it.

I'm an ape. One of the best CES moments I've ever had is when we saw maybe two years ago, we saw the USPS's first one of those. The duct face truck, yes. Electric duck vehicles. And I was like, this is rad. This thing looks great.

And like two years later, I saw them rolling around the city. And that fucking rocks. I love that. So, Oshkosh, the company that makes it, they had a media day at their facility in Wisconsin, flew me out there. I got to drive it. Whoa.

Yeah. Tell me more about that. So, I mean, so first of all, it looks the way it does because you want something where people can stand up in the back. Right. And so, which you can't do right now in these 1980s vintage trucks, the Postal Service is rolling around. It's got air conditioning, there's cup holders, all the modern conveniences. And, yeah, the Oshkosh took a long time to sort of get production ramped up. It seems like they're doing that now. And, yeah, it was a neat. They also showed off like a battery electric garbage truck, which I got to drive. Nice. It was the quietest garbage truck I've ever driven. Also the only one, but whatever. I mean, I'm really, I just love the idea of driving a truck around there.

Yay. Garbage truck. Here's a, okay, here's a question that I had the thought of in an earlier episode and didn't wind up asking. Oshkosh, the company that makes those trucks, is a huge defense contractor. Yep. Makes a ton of military vehicles. They do indeed. I was reading on X, the Everything app, that ICE,

and CBB has been seen using smart glasses to record protesters and stuff. How much of the tech that we see at CES winds up getting filtered into what I would consider nefarious action? Probably a lot. I mean, the fact that ICE is apparently using some sort of facial recognition system against some database that I didn't know the government entirely had to see if someone is an American citizen, which, yeah, I have a lot of problems. Well, where do we start? I mean, maybe, like, perhaps they could not murder American citizens on the streets and then try to cover it up.

Oh, God. I'm going to be... I just shot two more people in point. CBP. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to be, I'm going to say something completely honest. People do email and ask, why don't I ever say anything? Because I'm a fucking immigrant and I'm terrified of saying anything about it at all.

And if you're ever wondering, if I have opinions on this, I do, but I'm terrified to say anything. Do not think that I don't have thoughts or feelings about someone being shot to fucking death and mother, which is disgraceful and disgusting. But I have to like, I am very guarded about it. It's not that I don't care. It's that as an immigrant with a child in America, die die here. So yeah, very fun fucking week for everyone. But this thing you were talking about, we see a lot of this with like the drone tech. and like one of the

first CES I went to and you still see this now in the show is like it was on like advancing drone technology and it was like half put on by Walmart and half put on by this

police department in Southern California who launched like the first big drone program which has now been copied around the country and this was like a panel with like both of them

talking about how Walmart's doing drone deliveries and how the police are sending or sending these drones to like surveil neighborhoods and go to crime scenes before officers and, like, secure the area to, like, you know, see what's going on. And, yeah, you see this a lot with, like, the drone stuff here in CES. There's, across from the, across from the creator stage, which is in Central Hall.

What is the creator stage? It's where, it's where if you're a content, it's all things content and creator and creator economy, Ed, you would love the creator stage. I'm going there tomorrow. I stood next to a panel where they talked about the changing, changing habits of gens, of, of, of, of, of, of, digital Gen Z life. A presentation created by people over the age of 40. All of them were, yes. What do they say, what habits were changing? Yeah, yeah. Again, I stood next to this panel because I just heard too many, like, things.

Sometimes in panels, you know, like, five minutes said, you're like, this is not going to be worth my time. You just start hearing the Charlie Brown parrot noise. Yeah, and then, and then, and then you have to leave. But it turns out they use TikTok to make purchasing decisions. What is that? Wow, that's so skibbitty of them. Did I say that right? That rocks.

But across from the creator stage. I've been podcasting for approximately 14 hours over the last three days. That's a top three moment. Across from the creator stage, there's a Chinese drone company that has these, they're called drone in the box systems, where basically you put it in the back of like a pickup truck and you can launch, you can launch a drone and it'll, you can, like, you can launch an autonomous drone and it'll pilot, pilot around and then go back, back into the box. This, this already exists in this. We have, we have, we, police departments in the states

already have this, but this was like a Chinese company that that was making, making a lot of these, and I can pull up the name. I've noticed less consumer drones here, though. I feel like last year there was like various, there were more fun things. There was like a baseball thing. There was a drone soccer thing last year. One thing is... DROC was the company with aerial surveillance and public safety where there are too many drone applications.

But I haven't seen many consumer drone companies. No, not many. How many of them are now sort of banned by this order that has come out, which... They're targeting DJI, which, without them, like, where are Americans going to buy drones? Yeah, they're targeting the horse when the barn doors have been open for a few.

thought this through entirely. It's just that whole thing. All of that shit's so bizarre to me. It's just like, oh, what if we fill American full of Chinese products that could be used? Oh, wait, we did that. We've done that for 10 straight years. We've just, Amazon has, with various letters, putting random orders, shifted security cameras into every home on the cheap. Oh, no.

How would we stop this? Well, it doesn't start with the stores. It starts with China. the sneaky Chinese who are, I don't know, selling to America constantly, we don't stop that. You heard it here, folks. No, it's just very confused. I don't really understand. I don't think anyone really understands what we're doing against China at this point. It's just like, we might let them buy stuff. Actually, that was an interesting story. So did they, in video with China, with these GPUs,

they're saying they have to be paid completely up front, whether or not they can actually sell them. they're saying that regardless of how the sanctions work out, if you buy them, you must pay completely fucking up front whether or not you can you can't change your order, you can't get a refund, you can't cancel, you can't reallocate. Fuck yeah. Invidia, doing great. That's the kind of shit you do when you're like,

not doing well financially. Fuck yeah, we live in the future. That's such a weird, like, why even? It's just because, you must think you have exceedingly captive customers. No, that's, yeah, it's like the kind of sheet you do when you think that you can't die. But you also are a little worried about...

Yes, exactly. You're like trying to pretend you're strong. And I say this in a town full of people that act like they can't die. This is the person who gets washed out first. Like, this is the person who they have all the money until they get sevened out on the craps table. Yeah.

Little craps for everyone. Anyone play crapsy listen? Email me at easier better offline.com with your craps tips. If you send me toilet-related stuff and be really upset, it's a different kind of craps. Anyway, moving on. What else, Rob? What else do you see?

Oh, let's see. So I've been trying to follow some of the political discussions. Like every Washingtonian, I fly 2,000 miles to hang out with people from D.C. Yeah, exactly. And so there's a really interesting panel about tariffs Tuesday morning where everyone was saying, this is such a dumb idea. Like, this is not helping. They are a tax paid by Americans, not the Chinese.

They're not helping people build factories. the CEO of this kitchen robot company, Suvi. Robin Liss was saying, you know, we've created a lot of jobs, not in the United States. They had a factory built in Mexico and went in Vietnam. Like, none of this stuff works. None of it makes any sense. Well, it's a stupid question.

Why would the tariffs make them put jobs in Mexico? And I say this genuinely not. So her answer was basically, first of all, a lot of the components to the stuff she makes is not made in the U.S. and will not be made in the U.S. at any time soon. And you can't make them here.

And therefore, you need to import those things. And so why eat the tariffs on the stuff you need to bring to the U.S. when you can just have them shipped to Mexico, pay a lesser tariff once that way? Oh, so it doesn't change the incentives at all? Yeah, like we haven't suddenly magically made it reasonable for people to, you know, do all this factory work that was, you know, profitable 30 years ago. Yeah.

We're not going to pay people like, was it NAFTA? It's probably what caused the problem. Not like the tariffs people were paying. NAFTA, now it's USMCA, which now Trump thinks is terrible. It's just not, you know, it's not policy making by grownups. And so the rest of the panel, I'm guessing everyone kind of agreed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was, I don't imagine.

The funny thing is, of course, a lot of people in the electronics industry seem to think that, oh, it's great that we're pushing ahead on AI. where we're getting rid of the regulatory shackles. But the problem is the person who's doing that is also the one who's imposing the tariffs. It's the same guy. Also, we don't have regulatory shackles. You know in Virginia.

You know that. There's nothing stopping data. It's a capital of the world. All you hear in Virginia is the screaming of the computer because the computer is in pain. The GPU is hurting the computer. We have a new governor getting sworn in in less than two weeks,

Lovigel Spanberger. And I think we will be seeing some things done about data centers that were not under... She's going to save the computer from the GPUs. Do you have a suspicion of what those things will be? Well, I mean, a lot of it is... She ran on that, didn't she? She was sort of...

She said, we need to make sure that, like, large utility users pay their fair share. Which, the previous governor, Glenn Yonkin, who is... I think most people would say he is the most mediocre governor of Virginia in the 21st century. Yeah, go a little further than we have a word for me. Swamp.

So, yeah, like, Yonkin, he, vetoed like really small board legislation saying like, you know, we need to have some standards for environmental review of data centers. Because these things are all over the place. If you take off from Dulles Airport, look to your left and right, you'll see these huge boxes with stuff on the roof, no parking lots around, nobody works in them. And they do provide a lot of property tax revenue for counties. So like it's a huge chunk of the revenue of like Loudoun County, Prince William County, Western Exeter's of D.C. But there's no benefit of people nearby. They don't, generate jobs. You don't get faster internet because you have a data center one street away.

In fact, you get more expensive electricity. In America, we don't feed those taxes into social and once a month. They've got to turn on the backup generators to make sure they work. So that's a lot of noise and pollution. Everyone hates them. They're really unpopular. And the whole idea that we need to do this because guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman think that we're going to get super intelligence or AGI. So we have to sort of suck it up. We need those GPUs to lure. This is a true story, Jeff Horwitz and Reuters, law a man with dementia to New York using a Kylie Jenner branded chat bot.

And then he fell over and died. Yes. True story. Yeah, that grandfather. Mark Zuckerberg should be in fucking prison and everyone who worked on it should be in there with him. I'm deadly fucking serious.

Everyone who worked on that. Every single fucking person. Fucking put Jenner in there as well. Her fucking face on it. Sorry, I have some slightly aggressive views on this. You do have views. No, no, it's just, I don't know. I think it's just,

But no, it's interesting hearing the data center conversation here as well, because we have some core weave bullshit. I should go and have a look. Go and have a look at them. Of all the companies to be here in Vegas, Corwave. Core weave. But did you see any other panels that are of interest, so I don't just talk about Corw? So there's a bunch of awesome. I'm going to have to sort of catch up via VOD when I get back home. Like every year, I walk miles and miles through this exhibits, think I've covered it all. Come home, read other people, see ES recaps, see all the same. stuff I missed and like, totally. Did I go to the same show? Yeah, no. Absolutely.

No, I walk through, I've been here for days and there was like yesterday when I walked through stuff, nothing was affixing to my brain. It was all just this slop of my brain just going, won't exist, won't exist, GPT rapper, won't exist, money laundering, photonics panel, solar panel. And it was strange because usually there is like a good amount. And I should also be clear. Sinic aside, there is a use for this. There are people who go here buyers who are like, oh, I'm building something and what have you. But it feels like it's either that or the L, like the slopification of CES. Yeah, it reminds me of like when 3D printers just started

just started like getting popular. And then and then you see 3D printed slop everywhere. And that is, this is interesting. Yeah, like the way that, you know, if you go to like a like a Comic-Con or like a rent-fair, things that used to be, you know, like handmade, cool, like novelty goods. Now it's just all these 3D printed dragons because we can use these, we can use these, uh, use these devices just to like print out, print out this like, you know, plastic bullshit. And there's a similar thing happening with, with these GTP wrappers. Yeah.

Where instead of, they are kind of new products, but it's all, it's all building some physical mechanism around this, the same, like the same software service. It's the natural end point of CES. It's just like half of the shit's never going to exist anyway. So they're just like, nah, fuck it. It's connected to the magic API thing. And then product, please invest. There is, partly because of where I am in my life.

I can't do this this year, but maybe next. I think I'm just, if they're not going to be here next year, but if there are still LLM companies next year, all I'm going to do is walk up to them and do the Radcliffe, as we call it. It's like, what's the point of this? Why do I care? And who gives a shit about that? Yeah, who cares. Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? Because honestly, I don't think 90% of this show can answer that question.

Last year, when I saw my favorite booth, which was the Korean baseball one, where it was just, it was like a golf tea thing, but for baseball. And the guys were like, no, you need to step up and hit the ball. I'm like, I cannot do it. I will be shit. And then when I finally did, they were like, oh, right, you can't hit it. I'm like, I fucking told you. But when I asked him, I was like, it's for people that can hit baseballs. I'm like, yeah, I know. And like, Professor. professional baseball players who have their own, like, mansions and shit. I'm like, that makes sense. I get the people who play baseball and you want to hit the ball at home and also just, it's fun to go to a batting cage. Totally. This year, it's like, I went looking for stuff like that. I really wanted like a baseball cage, something like that. I wanted something fun. There's a golfing. There's a golfing simulator one. Okay. Okay. What happened? Just go. It pretty much. I think it's at the, you said it, high, heisen, I want to say.

Highs? Highsense? Highsens. I think it's at the Highsense booth. That's nice. So there is some it's like a projected

onto a screen. Tennis set up in the Venetian Expo. The tennis thing? The middle of it. Yeah. You know, the idea is like you're sort of like tennis

coach it will like, you know, serve right at you. I should try that tomorrow. Yeah, I'm actually curious about the tennis. See, that's fun. Yeah.

We like that. That's good. We like tennis. We love tennis. I had a little bit of human connection. That's great. Tell me, please, God.

I was, I had called a cab, so I'm staying at Harrah's and I had called a cab from Harrah's to the convention center. And, you know, everybody just goes down to the little Uber waiting zone. And there were, there were a handful of people. And I just kept watching car after car drive up. One person get in. The rest of us are waiting there. And it just felt insane. Yeah.

And I think it would have felt insane even if I didn't live in New York, but living in New York. Yeah. And, you know, feeling so passionately about public transit, I'm like, this really is insulting. And my guy pulled up and I just turned to, there were two women who were next to me. And I was like, do you do want to get in the car with me? We don't have to talk. And one of them gratefully accepted in. She was like, my Uber kept canceling.

I kept not being able to get a car. Thank you so much. And the other woman didn't just looked up, didn't say anything, looked back down at her phone. I would just copy that. Now there's a New Yorker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And truly. And I'm not 100% sure that she understood what I was saying.

That's probably more likely. But this woman and I got in the car and we wound up riding the whole way, I mean, or talking the whole way on the ride. And I asked what she did. I saw that her badge said Apple. And she was saying that she's a buyer for stores. And she said, I didn't used to work in tech. And I said, well, I used to be in supply chain management.

And I went, oh, that's cool. I used to be in supply chain management. and she said, oh, yeah, I used to work at Target. And I was like, oh, I used to work at Target. She said, oh, I was a business analyst. And I was like, oh, I was a business analyst at Target headquarters in Minneapolis. Were you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for two years.

I had no idea. For two years, all soda, Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, all subsidiary brands that pass through all of the 1800 Target stores in the country passed through me, which is insane that they let me a 21-year-old do that. Queen of soda. Queen of soda. I used to say pop until I worked in the Soda industry. Oh, midwesterner. Yeah, yeah. Pop.

Oh, yeah, I have some pap. And she, you know, what's even wilder, she worked on the snacks desk and I trained in the Snacks department and I trained on the Cookie Cracker desk. That's good. In the Snacks department. It just was like this very weird small world. Did you learn anything about Apple? Anything? Absolutely nothing.

No, I was like trying to have, I was trying to get in a. a little bit more and I just was like, this is not, it's not, we're really just talking about it. You could have done a bit. You could have been like, what, like fruit? Just like stare at her with your mouth slay up. Fuck, that's gold. I know. I know. The thing about having like, because the area in West London I grew up in, I can sound fucking, I mean, I was about to say I can sound fucking stupid, really obvious set of people to go, whoa, you really. He's learning. He's learning what joke I'm right to be. Yeah, yeah. I'd see that one coming. No, but see you go, well, a fruit. You can just have your mouth.

I'll find her. Yeah. This is my simpleton friend. Spare enough time on a taxi line. He's a moron. No, oh my God, the idea of sharing my Uber with someone anywhere, but let alone Las Vegas. What was more interesting was the driver wound up talking about, the driver worked for over 30 years at a restaurant, at some restaurant in town. Oh, interesting.

And just got laid off. lost no severance, lost all of his benefits, now he's doing Uber, and he was like, there are no jobs. So many people are looking for jobs. Everybody's out of work. And he said, I just got hired back at the exact same restaurant that I worked at for over 30 years.

But I got hired back at the absolute lowest entry level and only for the holiday season. And so I don't have any vacation. He said, I can't even bump somebody working in the coffee shop. I like he it's it's such an insult and it was the most interesting thing he said um he said I think people in tech think that they are safe from it yeah because she also she was like uh she was very sweet but she was like you know they should repurpose the workers and I was like oh I want a fucking I know and I was like the whole point literally the point of laying off these people

is to not have the worker like the point is to not repurpose the work worker. It seems like they are repurposing the worker as the worker they had, but then they just pay them less. Yeah, it's a little confusing. I mean, I mean, I think both are happening. And he wound up cutting in and he said, I think people in tech think that they're safe, but they are not safe. So many tech jobs are going to fold in the next, in the coming years. And he was saying like, AI is going to take all the jobs. And, you know, who knows. AI is going to take all the jobs because it's going to destroy all the tech companies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I think that.

there are going to be a lot of tech jobs. And he was like, when, when tech people experience it, they will not, it will take until then for them to realize what other people experience. And it's kind of what you were saying earlier with Matt Binder, kind of an offhanded commune man like, oh, does somebody who grew up poor? Without money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the scarcity mindset of like, oh, I can't use this ring enough because it will literally

die on it. I grew up money myself. It's like the sense that something can run out. And it is weird, these tech people, especially with the AI, the fucking smugness. And that comment is probably the most Cutting. Yeah, no, it's also probably the most intelligent thought I've heard about the tech industry

all week other than on this podcast because it's like, tech people really do think that they're insulated from this. Like, tech media, they know that they can be laid off. They're well aware. They well, like, they are not. Yeah, if you work at meta and you've seen so many people fired Microsoft, Google.

But you think you're safe still. I mean, it really felt like the, you know, first they came for the trade unionists but I was not a trade Jesus, so I did not say that. But it kind of is, it's like this condescension towards actual labor. Like I always say, like, I can complain about my job, but I send little emails. I talk into the microphone and I drink my little drinks. Like, I'm very fucking lucky.

And I have a good amount of listeners who don't, like, have fucking manual labor jobs and working restaurants and so it's like fucking rocks to hear from people. But it's like, if you don't speak to those people, you are going to get surprised by this way. The way that labor is completely cut out of a convention like this. And, you know, there's, there's people, people talk about innovators and, like, ideas and, like, creatives and how, like, how, like, you know, like, ideas and creative, creative innovation is what is what drives everything. And it drives a little bit. It has, it has, it has a little bit, but you still have to do the physical work. You still have to actually labor. And often you have to have labor to create the conditions that allow people to innovate, quote unquote. But that perspective. And no one talks about, like, the actual, like, the, like, the, the actual, like, labor. part of like all of these things even like in the supply chain stuff even like the focus on like manufacturing this year um the labor is it gets it gets completely forgotten it made me wonder what the broad socioeconomic background trends are for most people who work in tech like it made me

it it sort of made me feel like i got to imagine that some huge swaths of tech of people who work in tech and i don't know this is me really really really taking up no please this is not even necessarily an educated guess. This is just a vibe gut. But it feels like a lot of people, some of the high preponderance of people who work in tech didn't grow up in depressed areas in the middle of the country, didn't grow up under the poverty line, didn't grow up, you know, with some, I think probably a lot of people in tech grew up with some relative amount of privilege, even if they're not white, even if they're, you know, even if they're South Asian, but maybe perhaps they come from a family where there is disposable income, whatever.

And it made me be like, I think, like I grew up with that, without a ton of money in the Midwest. And I'm like, I feel like if I was working in an industry that was potentially hollowing out cities or potentially impacting people with data centers, whatever, I think I would always, always have in the back of my head the people who I grew up around, the people who I came from. I am very lucky in that I didn't grow up with money but my parents worked their fucking asses off like they, my mum and my dad worked their asses off my mum and me and three other children

so you imagine that and I'm probably not the most normal child definitely wasn't I grew up around the corner from prison called Wormwood Scrubs and didn't grow up in a good area my mom put food in the table so you can ask for

and I feel like the people who are like we need to build the biggest most huge estate to do this never had a fucking they never missed a Christmas they never had a Christmas where they go. And to be clear, my mom worked her ass and my dad worked her ass off. But it's like those moments, there's one and it was like my, I think my parents felt worse about it than I did. I'm sorry if

my dad's listening. Do not feel bad dad, you watch your ass off. I love you. But it's like those moments are what teach you to actually have fucking humility and love for others because there is more than just stuff. But the idea of being like we can repurpose this workforce really fills me full of angry bile because it's like this whole show feels at times like a monument against that where it's just like we don't solve real problems because you don't fucking experience the michael and traitor of corbe doesn't know a fucking thing about that person driving uber fuck michael and tray of fucking pardon me um if you want to write a beep in there um but yeah it's just it sickens me because it's like we're gonna have carl chanard tomorrow last vegas son fantastic guy for the labor angle tomorrow

because it's something really missing from here. Yeah. And also, I'm going to be honest, hearing a guy driving Uber here saying that restaurants are having trouble, like laying off people, it's actually genuinely scary. Concerning, yeah. For the Vegas economy specifically,

because we usually... Well, I've read about things. We usually print money here. I hear international tourism is down. Can't figure out why that would be. Luke Winkle from, Winky, I don't remember how to say it's them, sorry, Luke. who wrote a piece of a slate.

Like, Vegas is down and it's like, when that's bad, it's bad. We're going to rotate now from this somewhat grim point, but I want to end this point by saying something, which is important, which is, I have more fucking respect for anyone who works in the McDonald's or diner or the shittiest chip shop in London or any city in the world than I will ever have for anyone who works at fucking Google. And if you disagree with me, go and work a fucking day in a fucking restaurant. I've never done it. I'm lucky enough to never have to, but my whole fucking family has.

And if you don't respect service workers, you're not welcome on this fucking show. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group.

The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name.

The Harvard Yardt. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

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Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand-new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for Raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clivert Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations,

stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark.

Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we're in the thing, we're in. We get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid?

Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keir Gaines, is we have real. conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free I Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Azizi Top once said, how, how, how, we're back at Better Offline CES 2026 coverage and we've

stuffed our face with tech and our face with guests. This was not a well-written one. Joining me is stand-up comedian Chloe Radcliffe. You won't let me leave. I won't let you leave. That's right. two more episodes and then you can go. Won't let me leave. The CES story. Robert Evans are behind the bastards. I'm also not allowed to leave. He's not. And then we've got Weston Lee, the writer. Now, I must say, Weston Lee is an inspiration.

Weston is one of the only people in the world who cares about annualized revenue. And you and I sat on, we are friends because we sat and went, we've lined up all the anthropic reporting around their annualized revenues. We put them in the line and we've worked out how much they've made. You know, it's amazing what you learn about somebody sharing a spreadsheet with them. No, it's, I brought you here straight up to just like, thank you in front of hundreds of thousands of people. How old were you the first time you had sex?

Wait, me? Yeah. Uh-oh, we're getting too, we're getting too dark. 19. Okay. Okay. I was five minutes before my 20th birthday. Wow.

I had my first kiss when I was, like, a Halloween, 2005? I don't know how old that makes sense. I was not, I was 19 at the time. I know because I had sex like five minutes before. Wow. Like a real like... Kiss then sex. No, sex then.

Oh, no, no. Sorry, no. It was months later. Like, it was in 2006 when I had sex for the first time. Yeah. See, I don't give a shit. Anyway, Weston, welcome to the show.

Hey, happy to be here a long time, first time. Long time first time. Sorry, wasn't. Sorry to drop you in. True open AI hater. 16. Wow. Nice.

Jesus Christ. Wow. Comfortably. That is so much younger. I love everyone said cool. And cooler than I was. would have expected from a man who said the sentence, it's amazing what you learn about somebody from sharing a spreadsheet.

Weston's a dog. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's been a long time since that. Yeah. Only once. That one time was nice. No, no, it was great.

I too, and I'm lying. I've never had sex. No, okay, so putting my lack of sex aside, we have had to delete Roberts' answer due to issues of national security. So, Weston, what are you doing here at CES? What are you up to? So I'm a game writer and I'm a copywriter. And when I copyright, I work in like certain niches that are CES adjacent, like gear that content creators use to do podcasts and videos and stuff and film production equipment. And I've narrowly avoided working CES in my lifetime like three, four different times. It's never been. And I had the opportunity. I was like, well, I should come scope it out. And I wanted to see all the amazing gadgets on the trade show floor. Yeah, and this was a bad year for that, sadly.

Do you guys really live like this? Like every January, you just come here and do us? Yeah. Go damn, fucking drag a headshot. And they used to give out liquor on the show floor sometimes. Is that for real? Some of the boots would have bars. You know what?

Did you say Comdex? Oh, my God. Because that's what CBS used to be, right? Yeah. That's a horrible. You should see the Mobile World Congress, we were drunk. I was there the year Angry Birds came out and the Rovio guys rented out like a whole beachside cabana. And every Rovio employee I saw at the party they were hosting was like blacked out to near or past the point of Vobics.

No, but that makes sense. The whole company. It was amazing. No, but that makes perfect sense because for a while they were like Rovio is going public. Rovio is the next. Angry Birds are the next mob. Well, I guess it would be Disney at the time. They were a bunch of like 22 year old nerds who suddenly had like a $300 million company.

Yeah, exactly. And they went insane. Well, they like German or something? Like, Swedish? Like, they were like a Nordic nation maybe. They're Swedes, right? Yeah. No, I mean, because if they were Swedish.

I met a couple of Americans, but I don't know. It may just have been that their team had some. I don't, yeah. Like, Peter Stormere, friend of the show, my mate, Peter. That might have drink me to death. I don't know. But, like, if it's Swedes, I'd be surprised if you could see the alcohol. Most of what I remember from that party is that there was a box of Cuban cigars that they just, like, had on a table.

And at a certain point, I was like, none of these kids smoke. Yeah. I just took them. You took the whole box? You looted the angry butts. I waited like two and a half hours had gone by and no one's touched these fucking Romeo E Giulietta's and I was like, fuck it, I'm taking them. So this is my first C, yes.

So what you're saying is in 2009 they had apps? Like, just a bunch of phones in a booth and you can play angry birds? Apps were huge because it was a new idea. Yeah, because apps were like rose in the new. That was the thing then. Well, that was the, you had your waves. You had like first like smartphones. And to an extent the smartphone and app.

home waves were at the same time where it was like every other booth is a new smartphone or like huge Google used Google had like this massive booth when Google had a second year after Andrew came or Android came out yeah it had a slide one year what it was like three acres because it was like Android was like a year or two new old and they were like used to be so much fun that's actually it was way better back then but that's kind of the thing that I think is missing as well like putting aside the fact that they're on useful stuff it doesn't even feel like light-hearted like There used to be something dorky. Like, E3 in its heyday used to be kind of silly and also very sexist in a way that was reprehensible and remains that way, though E3's dead.

It's like, there used to be a dorkyness to it's like, fuck it where Google would never fucking slide. Like the big tractor is the only bit of, this place is whimsyless. One year I went to E3. They had like 200 extras all dressed as North Korean soldiers to like marching. Yeah, I think it was from home front. Hell yeah. Yeah. The fucking, no, written by the Red Dawn guy.

Yeah, written by Millius. Yeah, yeah. John Millius. That had like 100 or 200 fucking North Korean soldiers marching around the fucking, it was, it was nuts. Little North Korean whimsy. This place is a bereft of whimsy. It's like a sexless goon cave.

It's just, there's just, it's doing stuff for the sake of doing with no level of like self-effacing. Totally. There was no sense of humor. It's silly, and you should be silly about this stuff. It would be so much more fun. It's not silly. Our pin that has a child.

chatbot on it has to succeed against the 400 other pins that have chat bots on it and on the glasses that have chat bots that have actually three different chat bots if you think about it. But no, I think the general lack of whimsy here is just very sad because the whole thing about tech is it should be kind of fun. It is kind of, especially for something like this where it's like it's ostensibly for consumers, but it's like we're trying some shit. Ow. It's like a concept car. Like I saw a concept car for an autonomous vehicle, which is a bit everyone does every, like last year. a TCA who makes TVs, had a concept car. And it's like, this year I saw one.

It's also half-hearted. Now, I will say, what you're describing is tech that doesn't fully work, but is like taking a big swing with everybody knowing it doesn't fully work. Yeah. We all sort of forgive it. That actually describes a lot of what we've talked about, the laundrobot that doesn't full laundry and find your keys that doesn't find your keys. But there is no, there seems to be no.

a feeling of experimentation. There's no, like... They're not big swings, is I think the problem. Like, something like a laundry folding bot is at least like that. That remains a high bar for a robot to breach. And so every attempt at it, even at least you're trying to do something that we don't really have it down. But most of by volume, the vast majority of like new shit I saw was, you know this product that already exists? It's got a chatbot now. You can talk to it. It can transcribe your conversations. I saw like a million glasses and rings and pins and like a bunch of different individual products that are all, it has a chat bot, it records your conversations, it has a translation.

Right. Yeah. The coolest thing I saw today, it sounds like doesn't even normally exist at CES, which is an install, like an interactive install like out of Comic-Con for a movie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Rebecca Ferguson movie. We're talking about this earlier. But I saw the booth.

Mercy. Now, and it totally fits this because it's dower. as hell because it's a dystopian future sci-fi where an AI is judge jury and executioner for people on trial and stuff and Rebecca Ferguson. So like Compass, the criminal justice system? The video that they had, and the booth is blacked out like it's a defense booth, like you're at a cop show or a military show. And so I just see this video playing on the side.

And it takes a second for me to register that it's Rebecca Ferguson in the video and it's not just an ad for a real company. So, yeah, Mercy coming out January 23rd. It's very funny because you said, that's the one with Chris Pratt. When I went up to the booth, I asked like, what is it? And she said, well, look inside. And then I'll tell you. And I look inside.

And it's like a guy in a chair. Well, it looks like the trailer to the movie players where it's like, yeah, it's clearly this is a robots are judging us kind of movie. Or we have an AI judge. So I walk out and I'm like, I don't know. Is it like a game? And she said, no, it's a movie trailer. And I was like, oh, she was like, haven't you heard of the movie?

And I was like, no. You haven't heard of mercy? No. And she said, well, it's got Chris Pratt in it. And I was like, well, okay, that didn't, that didn't win me over. Yeah, you're not selling it. Yeah, I think Chris Pratt, I think Rebecca Ferguson cancels out Chris Pratt, but she loses all of her, all of her draw is also canceled out by Chris Pratt.

So it's just a flat line. Yeah, she brings the movie to a zero. I am so, I'm fucking done with things like, what if AI takes over everything. Make a movie where it's like everyone bet on the wrong horse. Like make something where the dystopia is like societal failure based on stupid choices. Yeah. that are not just political or, what if the AI is so powerful?

Is this, Ed, are you saying one of your listeners should fund a movie that I write about this? Yeah, sure, fuck it. Only if I can be in it, though. Great. The idea I've had that I was thinking about since we were doing our episodes on nuclear war is, okay, you don't have Skynet gain control of the nukes,

but instead you have the military adopt, like, an AI program that it links a bunch of its radar and listening stations to analyze incoming signal intelligence data, right? And that errantly says that there's an attack imminent. And so the humans decide that they're going to start by firing all of the missiles. And it's the job of our protagonists to convince all of these generals and politicians who are losing their minds over data that over what the conclusions of this AI that like we are not in danger and you do not need to fire all of the nukes. If you made that like an Armando, Ianucci, Newchie, Death of Stalin style thing. That would be really good.

Because Mission Impossible, the last one, if you watch this fucking movie, great, if you didn't, it's so long and so bad and so, I don't know, but it's like the entity controls all of the nukes. And it's like,

who gives it fucking die? I watched that movie the whole time I was just like, I hope they all fucking die. Like, I'm just like, all these people. Other than Angela Bassett,

she's all right. Speaking of Rebecca Ferguson movies where somebody has to convince somebody to not fire preemptively. Right. There is the movie that's on Netflix that came out a couple months ago

that is pretty much exactly that, but it's not exploring AI at all. It's that they pick up a signal that there is something incoming and they can't figure out what it is. And that, I mean, you should watch that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the movie that just, yes. Rebecca Ferguson was actually,

I didn't remember who she was, looked up, she was actually in Mission Impossible, Final Reckoning. Yeah, she was very good. And my fucking boyfriend has a big fucking crush on her, so I hate her. Stuart? I kind of like her.

I think she's fine. Stuart, come on the show, you're very funny. You're invited. What if in your nuke movie, the nukes also had chatbots? Well, yeah, I mean, you've got to put, because the nuke needs to be able to tell you, like, how it needs to have a personality. It's like, like, a Dr. Strangelove thing where, like, every Peter Sellers character is a chat bot.

Yeah, it needs to. Each agent is like, you got this. You got this. It's going to be okay. Yeah, it needs to be able to text the, like, Bombadier who drops it. Like, hey, I just want you to let you know that, like, I think you did a really good job. You look fly today. It's not just heroic.

It's scary. Yeah. People are going to be angry at you for this, but you did the right thing. It's going to be dangerous, but it's also going to help. I think that we're approaching an Ianucci verse far more than anything else at this point, where it's just very silly and bad, but not for like the nuclear holocaust way. It's just going to be like everyone shits their pants at once economically, but that's also bad. I mean, maybe you see some looming signs of that here,

with just the number of things that they're they're like pulling back on. Like I'm still saying a lot of the same claims made about like what's, how self-driving is going to take off. Oh. Like that car you were talking about Tinsor, the world's first robocar, uh, that the,

the PR lady was absolutely certain is definitely coming out in the next year. Tell me more. And it's, it's level four self-driving. And I was like, okay. What does level four mean? Well,

she said like a Waymo. And I said, well, waymos are only allowed to drive in a really small, set of areas. What about this? Because you're kind of advertising that you can self-drive it whenever you want.

Is it just you can self-drive it if you're in like downtown San Francisco? And she's like, well, whatever we do, it's going to be completely compliant with the law and safe.

And I was like, that's simply not an answer about where your car can go. Where are you driving to today? I don't know. Your car go. It's safe. It's safe.

Wait, was this a booth person? This was a booth person. Now, to be fair, so I'm accurate, the car you can also drive. It has the first steel wheel that flips out. But I was asking about, like, well, the self-driving stuff, because you show it driving in a lot of areas. I also feel like self-driving at this point, it's not a solved problem even remotely, but it's like, we've seen it. I'm not sure what else you can show here unless it's driving you around. It getting better, it being functional in other areas.

Right, but how would you show that in the convention? They have a bunch of methods because a lot of the booths they'll show you, here's what the camera sees and here's like the big thing this year was demonstrating, here's how much better the sensors are at cutting through fog and cutting through like rain

and snow and stuff, right? But yeah, it's not the same as there being a bunch of new products. A lot of times you're looking at like a disembodied piece of an automobile and it's like here's how we're- And a bunch of flashing thingies And it's like, look at all the things we notice. Look at a cat.

Yeah, and I don't doubt that it's important, but I guess what I'm kind of gathering is that like, we're continuing to slowly figure out this technology and maybe one day it'll get there before, you know, society collapses. Yeah, it's like the CES trough of disillusionment show. It's just everyone's just kind of like, yeah, well, we're still working out. You want to give me money? And that's, what I want to reiterate is when we were talking about the whimsy, the kind of stuff that is like it doesn't work and it's not going to be ready for a long time, was acceptable when there is some kind of self-awareness of,

it's not going to be ready for a long time. But when a company is trying to pass it off, is hoping that you don't ask the question of, and when will this be available and how much money is it? And can it do this? When they seem to sort of be hoping that you just buy the ruse, that's when it's frustrating. And that's like, that was very much,

it usually was reserved for like Kickstarter and Indiego-go shit, where it's like, okay, you're kind of backing something. vestigial and like you usually wouldn't back the one that couldn't show you something because those ones will disappear with your money. But now like Nvidia is running things like Kickstarter because you can't get refunds or change things, which is so cool. You apparently don't have to pay for anything now either. We love it, folks. But it's, it's so strange as well because you, I mean, sure you've got Hux the CES, but there would be a level of mad scientist to it. Like the LG Coyd robot. Ah, Cloid. Oh, Cloid. Oh, Cloid. Oh, Cloid.

Coyd is your new best friend. He's a robot that can do your dishes very slowly. And also can't really do them. Not like well. And he can fold some kinds of very simple laundry like towels, again, very slowly. And Gare was saying, cook. He said he couldn't fold them properly. It didn't look good at it, no. And if you're kind of old and fading, it can remind you to eat fruit. Yeah. Its name is Cloid.

Cloid, like, it's not a natural thing to say, but the thing is, like, something like Cloid, they would be like, this is just a concept. Like, you, Samsung a few years ago just had a giant, like, circle thing. You could sit in and it had giant screens. And they were very much, like, it's the Samsung crazy experience. It's like, just some shit to show it's CS. And everyone went in and went like, cool, Samsung's fucking around with screens because Samsung makes screens. But this was like, yeah, it's the year of robots. Yeah, it's the year of robots in your home. Well, okay, not your home or a home anywhere. But this home we built here, it kind of doesn't work. in, but what if it did, but it doesn't? Please don't. You can't buy it. When can you buy it? It doesn't exist. How much is it? We won't sell it. Look at the video of this robot with a woman we got whose hair is like studiously gray, even though she doesn't look like she's about you out of her late 40s, but we clearly want you to think of her as old for the sections where it looks like it's a robot for helping an old person, but then here's some kids playing it. So you know that it's good with kids because we love it if families bought it too, but we don't really know

what people want out of a robot that looks like a cross between the robot from fucking, what's that 80s movie, not Wally, the one before, wait, decades ago. Silent running? No, no, no. Fuck. The nerdy.

Batteries not included. Yeah. That's definitely not it. No, I will say, email, if you remember the one. I'm just imagining my daily department. It's not a humanoid robot, is what I'm saying. Marion, my daily department,

grandmother would have fucking hated these things. Like, just the, also, old people, their brains still fucking work. They will feel the condescension of the world's slowest machine, doing something. But on top of it, if they were just like, here are some shit we're trying out, like we've found pistons and such. Like, sensors. We're trying these new cells. I would be like, fuck me up. Like, fine. Show me the new things you're working on. But it's framed as

it. And there are journalists writing this is the CES of robots and you're being fucking played every single fucking one of you. Well, there's the, there's industrial robots, which like, it looks like some of them are getting bad. I'm not great at it. But like, I've, I've seen like big robot arms that are like folding paper with a lot more dexterity that I used to sing and stuff like that. And I'm saying even like there was a humanoid robot with hands that could just do that. And so I'll believe that there's some like industrial applications. But so much of the show is set on selling the idea of a home robot. And none of those look like they can do anything useful and they all must be expensive. And I don't know why you think people want one.

I just feel like the CEA who runs this show. How is there? not like a fraudulent element to this because when most of the show appears to be deception, because like I've been to a lot of these, fuck it, they've been coming here since 2011. I've seen a lot of weird shit that was kind of vestigial and like, okay, we're working on this, maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. But not most of it. And it feels like the ultimate end point of just never fucking truly holding their feet to the fire and never asking, and I keep going back to this, Chloe. I know, I will actually say this just on behalf of me and the listeners. You keep saying these derives of things about yourself that are incorrect.

Like, oh, as a layperson, oh, I'm stupid. You're not stupid. You're asking the questions that the journalist should ask. Like, who cares? And it's like, well, who cares, but also, is this real? Will you ever make it? Does this do the thing that you should do? The fact that the CA themselves doesn't have this level is disgraceful.

Well, yeah, I think they made the decision a long time ago that they were in the business of, number one, providing real estate to these companies. Yeah. They're working for the company selling the schlock, right? Like, that's their job. And it's not even, you would think, and I think maybe in the past, there was a broader understanding that part of their job was to ensure that the tech industry remained healthy and didn't become what it's turned into.

But it's been a while since anybody in the business world felt like they had responsibility for anything. But even then, like this feels like almost the beginning of the punishment. because what happens when all of these companies with the LLM rappers die? Who's going to pay for these fucking booths? Because if there were other companies to pay them, they would have paid. I saw a fucking chunk of the Venetian or the Palazzo Casino closed off today because there weren't enough gamblers. Oh, pretty gamblers aren't here during a business week. What is going on?

We can't con people from other countries into gambling? I did wonder if... I don't think people from other countries are visiting as much. Yeah. Well, that's probably because there aren't good enough gadget. I'm joking. I'm obviously joking. Chloe, were you going to say?

I did wonder if this population is a, like, gambling, part-y-up population. Yes. 100%. People, it used to be CES. People would come get ripped shit. They'd sit at our, well, stand at our beautiful craps tables. They'd be going all the hard ways. They'd be doing big six, big A, all the dumbest bets.

These motherfuckers put so much money on midnight, which is $12. 12 on the craps table. That's how you know you have a healthy Vegas when you got some dumb fucks at the craps tables. Yeah. We've got empty craps tables. This is a bad sign. It's only me making really smart bets. Yeah.

You've got a system. That's why. I haven't gambled in years and they live here, which is crazy. But no, I'm genuinely serious. Something's off. Something is genuinely off. Oh, sorry. Well, I don't have the perspective with CES, but I got to say, I don't know how many of the

talks and panels you guys went to, but I spent a good amount of time. Oh, I went to the ARIA. And the main through line that I thought was a little odd, because there's definitely execs doing the lines, playing the hits, you know, use AI now or your job is in jeopardy. Right. I know of companies where 100% of the AI is written, when 100% of the code is written and I've heard that stuff for years. So it's a little bit like, this is the same, like we're still doing this, but there's like these little glimmers of things that make me go, huh, like the word incremental showed up in like three different talks where it's just like, what is the next year mean to you? And it's like, incremental. You need to be going to your

customers that are using these tools, you know, in advertising and asking for incremental gains. And I'm like, not revolutionary gains, not barn burners. Going from here to here. There was a talk that with the one of the guys who runs a spin-off, company from Tellis, which the Canadian telecommunications company, right? I didn't know. I think. And he's like, yeah, we, we saw 100, 250 million in savings, you know, using AI tools. And I'm like, all right, what's, what's, tell us is revenue? And that's like, you know, 0.048% of, yeah. Sure you did. Sure you fucking. Yeah. Fucking. Any details. No. I'm going to strap you to one of the fucking chairs from Saw. I'm going to fucking handcuff you to a radiator. And I'm going to have

jigsaw, extract from you how you. you save that money because I bet you didn't save a fucking penny with large language models. You're lying sack of shit. It's a lack of specifics. Incremental. You can get real incremental with a bone sore. And the big thing that you're seeing, the shift here, I think, has been because there's not, like previously, the thing about this was about consumer electronics, and there's always

been, you know, software and apps and stuff, but it's been very focused on things that people will use, right? And that's what journalists are here to report. And I was like, here is all these companies' vision of, like, what people, want to buy and what they want to use them, but we'll delight them and what will be useful to them. And a lot more of the emphasis, since all this AI stuff has come to centralize it on, is here is a product that will allow you to hurt a customer. Here is a product that will allow you to extract money from people without providing really, or while, well, that you're sneaking into a service.

There was a company I went to their booth and got to walk through SoundHound AI. Oh, fucking SoundHound. Yeah. Yeah. And their whole thing is we make agents. We make agents for companies. And one example they gave of an agent was like they basically an AI doing the job of taking orders for Burger King, right? And like taking down orders. And it also controlled the menu. And so the first thing that they showed, the guy demoing it showed was someone being like, tell me what burgers are good while there was a menu up in front of them, instead of looking at the menu, asking it. And so it suggested a burger. And I was like, I don't think people will use it that way often. That's a weird thing for him to show. But then I understood why. Because he was

talking to this group of like three or four people, and he was talking to them about how, and obviously, you know, Burger King feels like, okay, we have this much stock that needs to get moved right now for whatever reason, because it's like close to expiring. We can make sure to like really push that to customers, or if we want to sell more, you know, more whoppers with cheese, we can push the wopper. We can, we can recommend that to people. We can even alter the menu if things are out or if we really want to push certain items. And he said, like, for example, if Coke wants to really sell Coke vanilla, we can start pushing large Coke vanillas.

You can even push specific sizes. And I was wondering why they're talking about this, because, again, people don't use it that way. And then they realized all of the gaggle of four people that the rep from Softtown was talking to, I looked at their badges, they all worked for Coca-Cola. And so this was a pitch of, this is the future of ordering at fast food restaurants. And if you work with us, we won't push Coca-Cola on customers. A lot of the marketing in this bubble, like, you know, like as a writer, I've spent years watching, like, creatives and Hollywood and games and stuff just feel like they're on the back foot because they're being threatened by this marketing.

The marketing is not even aimed at them. When somebody says you have to learn this or else somebody's going to take your job, that's not actually aimed at that person. It's aimed at the investors. Yes. And that's one of the most, it's bullying, you know. The funny thing is, is soundhound was basically a Shazam competitor. But what's really good about that is Adam brought this up yesterday. And it's like, there is a famous tweet where it's like every Gemini commercial is,

what should I eat for dinner? And he goes, sandwich. And it's one of my favorite jokes. And it's literally that. It's literally what burger do I get? Burger. Holy fucking shit. That will be $150,000 a month.

And they showed their, like their car AI program where you can build your own agents in your car. And he gave it these capabilities. And the demo that he ran it on was, oh, my car's making this. weird noise, and he described the noise, and the chat bot on the car first said, that sounds like it's this kind of problem. The average cost to prepare is $700. Do you want me to find a place for you to get your car repaired? Aliens.

Yes, and he said, I'll call the dealership. I've booked a spot at the dealership. While you're there, do you want me to schedule a test drive and a new Nissan, whatever, type car? Yes, my wife loves that car. And it was all about, like, first off, nobody. unless you're, I guess I'm sure there are like rich people. There's one psychopath.

Oh, problem. I'll take it to the dealership and pay whatever it costs. Most people are like, okay, well, I've got a guy who didn't rip me off too bad before. I'm going to see if he can diagnose it and like, can I? But this is straight to the dealer, $700, okay. And like, yeah, I'll take a test drive.

I'm always in the market for a brand new car. Like, yeah, it's just like, it's just, and it's all predatory for the person driving the car. It's all, because everything that got the engineer excited, The only stuff he wanted to talk about was, and here's another place where it'll try to sell you something. That was it for the AI. The thing is, it's like, I think the tech industry has become guys selling stuff the guys that will not use it.

It's just companies selling things to companies. Numbers you don't need. Numbers you don't need to raise numbers that do money. Yeah. Well, and that's the, because one of two things will be true. Either all of these AI agents being integrated into these projects will drive sales significantly. And that will be the new thing advertisers fight over. and I'm not in love with that future.

That said, it'll probably work better than banner ads. I don't think it'll work at all. I don't think it's going to... It'll work for a while, at least until they get data on whether or not it drives sales. Open AI, tried to integrate shopping things. We're just going to get onto that. But we're coming to the rotation points.

We're going to start rotating our hours. We're going to move on to the final section. And I must say this upcoming ad... I don't know what we're doing. The Blades of Glory theme. I'm doing music under your... I appreciate that, Chloe. It's now a flawless transition.

Upcoming ads, it's probably for a podcast or some product or some shit, but I need you to click it or listen to whatever the fuck you do. I've never heard the ads. I don't know what they are. If you complain about the ads, please help me. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends,

me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Lerner, to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me.

Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open.

since you guys are middle-aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again.

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Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-4-I-Hart. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football,

or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices

that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space. For honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger.

So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey.

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Diane, I'm once again in front of a microphone inside the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, and everybody's staring at me because I keep saying strange things into the microphone. I'm on my 18th diet coke and feeling more alive than I've ever been. Joining me is actress and stand-up comedian, Clary Radcliffe, for sadly our final episode with her. Wow. This is it. We've come so far. Honestly, the listeners fucking love you and I need to bring you back because they're going to be pissed.

I'll come back anytime you want. And to your left is another person who, I need, Rob Pagararo, the tech reporter who has been around for a white, 998. It's been a minute, yes. genuinely multiple people have emailed him being like we love you and then one slightly horny person one slight was like

Rob Pagoraro, ASMR, and then to your left is Robert Evans of Behind the Bastards who I have heard two our names in the room right now so many horny things I've heard

like no I mean quite literally I'm so sorry but and then okay we'll just move on Robert Evans behind the bastards my boss about me anybody saying anything morey about me?

I got an olive in my mouth. Anyway, you're going to get it. I actually am just describing this. Chloe just has an entire, like, a jar of olives and one big spike. And I said to Phil.

It looks pretty good. There's a Greek man sitting in a room that's nothing but jars of olives going like, all right. Finally, my, yes.

Finally, podcasts do this from, that's more Russian. Is that you're Greek? Yeah, that was fucking terrible. I've not many Greek people. Yeah,

you want to try that one again? I know, my brain is like, I don't know what. Greek? No, I can't. I truly don't know. Is Greek an accent that white people can do? White people are doing Greek all the time. They're white. They're called Greeks. Yeah. Okay, well, let's move on for that one. This is a fun bit. One of my favorite bits, one of my first bits I got Europeans really mad at me. I read this article that was arguing that, okay, like, Greeks got inducted into whiteness at the end of World War II. And I shared it. And the person who got the, a bunch of Germans really hated me sharing. this article. This was around the time they were trying to make them pay for their debt,

DAC, too. Yeah, that is Edward Onguoso Jr., the writer of the Tech Bubble newsletter. And classic staple of the better offline experience, we were just talking about why people do CES. And I know I did this. About why people do racist accents. Why people do? Because they're very fun. No, that's a joke.

She is doing a bit. We are doing bans with band maxing. No, we were just talking about why people do Cases. CES and I've said earlier it's like okay people do these shows because it's an excuse to get people together that's completely true. I also think that there is something kind of magical about CES because you get like people just people happen to be here and if you take it for what it is which is a convention center full of bullshit you can see people you love like everyone in this room I'm really happy to see like everyone everyone is in different places some of them at like

Chloe you're in New York so I see you a decent amount but Rob you're in D.C. Ed I see you but like people get busy and Robert's in Port Portland, it's like, it's nice to get people together. And yeah, the more you suffer, the funny is to talk about it. And also, I don't know, this podcast fucking rocks and it's kind of fun to do something weird and different every year. I wish there was more on the floor to be excited about, though. Ed, what have you been up to today? We haven't heard much from you. Well, finally enough, I found there's this AI voice synthesizer that let you do any accent that you wanted to do. And I was on the floor. war doing something the worst he possibly could and it was really was it good at anything yeah no I wish you know because you're like I'm not the one doing it yeah I'm not doing it yeah it's allowed I'm not yeah yeah things you could do like

no I had to be clear this is not real this is just me a really fun man yeah this is me oh man can you imagine but if I could totally sounds like yes the most show for it project at CES. There would just be a line out the door with guys just being like, guys with podcasts, guys with racist podcasts.

Whoa, finally. I'm going to take our jobs. Yeah. Woke is not back quite yet. Because I'm not white. That's right. No, Woke 2CES is going to be fucking great. We were talking about the gender reassignment section. It's going to be fucking

great. It's going to be illegal to be white for one part of the convention. It's going to be fucking great. I cannot way. Got to open every day with the land acknowledgment. Yeah, exactly. Oh, no, a brand acknowledgement. Oh, right.

But just for like, we're on the unspraned land of Sony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're standing on the shoulders of giants. Yeah. In ages past, Black Bear, R-I-M would operate this booth. At times, Theranos would have been here, but they were canceled. I do like that Elizabeth Holmes is now doing, like, epic posting where it's just like, From jail?

What the hell? Posting from jail and being like illegally, illegally canceled for doing fraud. Actually, you know, my greatest fear about going to jail was not being able to tweet,

but, you know, this is, proving that you don't have to be afraid of it. Yeah, a person where I post, that's just me at home. Right, exactly, exactly. You can launch your own version of Theranos,

which is just people mailing you blood and you being like, it looks good. I'm going to be the first. I'm going to do the first. I'm going to do the first. I'm the first person in prison to have a fundraising round ongoing. Okay, they're going to be clamoring for the, I don't know what it will.

Maybe it'll be for a, I can do like an A.A. Potempton AI thing that's just like other prisoners. This is new, the Martin Luther King's letters from a Birmingham jail, Redux is like asking for VC funds. It's just pitching. Beware of the tech critics who tells you that you can't have a VC fund in prison. Series A from San Diego. And Quentin.

Chapter 2 begins as a chat, but I'm not allowed to hover it by son. I need to read you this Elizabeth Holmes tweet from 1231-25-so New Year's Eve. Prisons are meant to rehabilitate prisoners and break crime cycles. Instead, comma, they shatter families and make better criminals. It won't break me or mine, but watching it happen daily is heartbreaking. Honestly, this fucking rocks. I'm sorry, if you're going to post some prison just being like, I'm not fucking. guilty of the fraud I obviously did.

Fuck you. Yeah, fuck yeah. Let's just go for it. See, I interpreted that differently. I thought she was saying, prison is meant to like, like, breaks people and makes them into better and makes them into better criminals. That's not going to happen to me. I'm going to stay a shitty criminal.

If you only knew my real story is so much more interesting than the one you have been told coming soon in 26, and that is seven ellipsies. Nothing hidden. Nothing left. doubt the time for the truth has come. No one can hide from the light. Woman, you did actual fraud.

I'm ready for this. Elizabeth Holmes, you are invited on better offline. Here's my question. Did, are there other people who, are there men who have committed fraud as harmful as the fraud that Elizabeth Holmes committed? I'm not denying her. Sound bad.

I'm afraid. Yeah, well, I mean, like Bernie Madoff, the N-Rod guy. But they didn't get culturally crucified in the same. same way. Right. But they have been imprisoned. They have been imprisoned. Schrelli is the closest to getting that level of, like, notoriety, but it also worked

out for him a lot better than her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He built a little bit of a weird brand on it. Yeah, I think he's a DJ now. Right. Really? Well, and that journalist slept with him, too, which was weird. DJ allegations.

Yeah. Bloomberg Journal. There's a Bloomberg journalist who ruined her life for Charlie. Yeah. He's had a weird post-prison prison. on. Are there people who have committed fraud at a

harmful level, at a meaningfully harmful level who have not been who have not gone to prison? I mean, the web 3 and I'm from D.C. Where do I start? Yeah. This is going to be a long podcast. I mean specifically in startups, in startup culture.

Klingle. Klingle. This same way, where they are literally starting a company on completely false pretenses and raising VC money. I actually do it. Clingle. Clinkle was this one where you could... Clinkle raised maybe a little bit less, but they were just as prominent. They were also on the cover of Forbes.

They were also in a magazine for some reason. Yeah, what is it? Klingle was a sound-based payment thing. It was obviously fraudulent. I mean... Sound-based payment? So if it sounds like you have money in your pocket. Then that means we've paid you.

He was a very damp-looking white boys. So, no, it was a company where you could transfer money with like hypersonic it was bullshit but that's the thing like uh that that fuck we didn't go to prison none of the web three people who never did anything not fucking doodles nfti which ended up backing off nfts that alex a heronian who was a fucking asshole who should be crucified for his role in the racism and sexism of reddit let alone the amount of web three bullshit he put up a fucking hill putting that aside he like nothing happened to all the web three people who did a bunch of criminal shit like all of the blub three people who did a bunch of criminal shit like all of the

latent money laundering. And the question is... Fucking shout out... What is this? CZ from Binance. And also Adam Newman... But he was supposed to go to... He got pardoned.

Yeah. Adam Newman already got fucking $300 million from Mark Andreessen. Because there's two differences and we can debate which of them is more relevant in her getting penalized much more than a lot of other people who did similar things.

But like, one is she's a woman. But the other is, it was a health company. Right. People like had cancer tests that were lies. It was actually fraud fraud. It was like serious medical fraud too. It also didn't do anything close. We work was just a terrible business.

And that's why I'm asking like who harmed people to the same degree that wasn't just. Well, actually the question with Theranos says, I actually, like, I know, like people did actually die. It was very bad just being clear. I don't fucking mortgage back securities are a man like a lot of people. FDX did a lot more damage. I'm thinking specifically in. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, everyone involved with the great financial crisis, everyone who bet on this. And I'm going to be fucking honest. I'm going to say this. Every single company that invested in data centers that is going to lead to the financial collapse that follows is worse than Theranos. Every single person who pushed open AAP or Hill is worse than Theranos for what's coming. Yeah, yeah, I'm fucking going for it. I agree with that. But yeah, and they will crucify. Sam Altman, if what I think is happening over there is happening where they're misleading investors, which is my personal belief and not those of the I have. Radio Corporation.

If that is true, a woman should go to jail. If it's true, which we do not know if it is, he probably won't. Because, like, if he's a white, wouldn't he absolutely would.

But would he have been able to raise the money? We're doing this. It's, but Elizabeth Holmes was, like, an actual criminal. Like, we can't, we're not going to whitewash this.

She was an actual criminal who, like, talk with the deep, Steve Jobs voice, which I think is a funny bit. The voice thing, okay, I will say this. churnal neck the whole, the whole bit.

That is where I think sexism is coloring the entire interpretation. Because truly, when I speak in a lower voice, I get treated differently. And when I speak in a, and like you listen to women who speak in baby voices. And we don't say it's fucked up that women speak in baby voices. And you run into these women all the fucking time. And that's not their natural voice. That's not that voice that if they were just left, grew up in the woods that they would be speaking with, that's a performed voice that they, that's an identity that they have, sorry, we've got

No, no, I want to know everything about this. But, but like how women are perceived in society is, the, our voices are a huge part of it as, as they are with men. Think of gay men who sound gayer. Like, they get treated differently, right? Like, all of that is, is part of our performance of power in society, or our performance of how power and gender are knit together in society. Chloe. And so then I do think, and like, her voice sounds insane. It sounds insane. But I also am like, that one, I fully fucking get.

And it drives me nuts. Can you tell me more about, have you had, like, as a woman, have you had to lower your voice and in what scenarios have you had to? I have a very low voice. Right. I just like speak in a very low voice naturally. Right. And so I, it's more that, I think the inverse is a much more common experience where women, women, baby, like, talking baby voices and that is a that is like a relinquishing of power and that is a submissive

stance and for me it's like yeah if i talk if i speak to somebody on the street or in public if i'm speaking to a stranger and i'm like yo if i talk at that level like people people turn expecting a man right and treat and then like get sort of shock this is an actual 30 rock joke with that i'm a very sexy baby yeah yeah yeah totally totally totally the manipulation through no it's just, I mean, I'm all fucking white guy. Like, what do I fucking know? But it's like, the reason I ask is like, is this a commonplace thing in the workplace with woman?

I don't think it's a commonplace. I don't think the voice thing. I don't think speaking in a low voice. Or like a higher voice even. A higher voice is all the fucking time. Like, if you start listening to it, if you, there's so many women. Once you hear it, it's like the FedEx arrow. Yeah, weird, phony baby voices.

I don't, I think that the idea that a woman, like artificially lowers her voice like Elizabeth Holmes did. That's a little low. is very uncommon. Totally. And her voice sounds insane. Like, I don't dismiss that she sounds bat shit.

Yeah. But it's also like what we, it's, the fact that it clearly works. The thing that drives me nuts is like that we, it, we will, we will find fault in however a woman presents.

Right. And that when she tries to then model after a male presentation in some way, then we're like, well, that's wrong. But it worked though. It really was. What really frustrates me is you get a lot of people who will point out laughingly. She was clearly trying to imitate Steve Jobs in the way that she dressed with the

Turner, like, and what I pointed out like how like the style of her presentations was aping him. And what doesn't get brought up much, like nearly as often, in part because people don't like to think of jobs or other like heroic figures, like tech founder figures this way, is one of the other ways she aped him is Jobs was very famous. Not so much at the big public announcement level, but like when he was. talking to investors when he was like like putting together ideas with vastly overpromising, right? And part of like what he did was be incredibly anal retentive about like when a product was actually ready. But he had these like very specific often pie in the sky demands for what this thing needed to do, how it needed to look, how it needed to feel that he would promise could be done before they knew that they could do it. And he hired good people and Apple was able to square those circles.

Apple was able to produce. But there is a similarity with, because her. Her attitude was very much similar, which is what I need to do is make the promise and I need to aesthetically make the case of how this is going to look and feel and what it can do. And as long as we can get enough money doing that, we can brute force the having a real product thing. And it's not exactly the same thing, but it's close enough because almost every founder at some point relies on, I don't fully know that what I can do meets what I am selling to the people who are investing money. And I don't fully know that the product that I am promising them, I'm really going to be able to deliver,

especially for the cost that I'm promising them. And that fundamental reality of how all this works, it gets obscured a lot because it's not, it makes it, it makes it sound like gambling. And in a lot of ways, it very much is. I mean,

what's the difference, I mean, there is a difference in that Theronauts did not exist, but what you just described is large language models? like it literally is it's it's look this thing fucking sucks and it doesn't do what you want it to but what if we spent more money than anything has ever been spent ever ever forever what if it became something completely different and people will try and differentiate because okay the first step with theranos is bullshit they just sent it to lab corp they didn't even have the beginning

steps that fucking sucks but sam o'm does not have the first steps to aGI fucking Wario Amadei doesn't have the first steps to a fucking shit in a hole in the ground. Like they're all doing only a few steps from Theranos and they will be colored very differently that they were just innovators risking. If you end up writing that when this shit pops, you're a mark in the same way that every single person who covered Theranos was because it's the same shit. Not everyone. There was a real good reporter at the journal.

John Guerrero. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, several years after all the major articles came out. John Carrier was several year, 2015, I think that came out. There were Theronaut articles for years. And there was several blogs before Carri Roo that were like, hey, I looked at the science. None of this made sense. It doesn't seem like it can work.

Yeah. And Cariru did, and to be clear, he did incredible reporting a really great job. But it's like, there were very few people who did. And I think it's, I think when. Sam Orkman gets crucified, as I expect, Evangelion style, it's not going to be the same way. And I think everyone needs to pre-prepare for, if you want to frame this as the innovator's dilemma, oh, you know, just he was just trying something. That is not a fair way to look at it. Because there was never a guidance point from there to wherever AGI bullshit happens.

It's also fundamentally really bad for innovation. Like, the really big frustrations for me today was walking past probably a cumulative acre or two of different home robots. This is a robot servant. This is a humanoid robot that you can have due task for you. You can have it watch your kids. You can have it take your pets out. Here we've got one and we've got a robot dinosaur and they're trying to get past each other.

Oh, I did see. They won't watch them. Yeah. That was cute. And like, yeah, there's, some of it's cute. Some of it's, there were a lot of, like, humanoid robots that were like, like, awkwardly strung up like they were on a gibbet to keep them standing because, like, when they were on either they couldn't, they'd broken or they wouldn't stay up on their own power.

Like, I wasn't sure exactly what was happening there. But in the middle of all that, I come up at, like, after like an acre or two of this stuff, I come across a little booth where it's like two guys at like a desk, maybe two desks. Um, and they've got just like a couple of like stringy looking little like fabric tubes hanging and then a couple little like gizmos on the table. And I go up and I ask like what it is and it's a photonic muscle. is what they're calling it. And the way it works is,

I'm pulling up the picture right here, Araflex is the company. And yeah, it's a photonic muscle, and you have these little bundles that look kind of like this, and each of these bundles has an LED light in it, and there's like a kind of fiber or something inside it, and when the light turns on,

it causes that fiber to contract in a way that mimics a motor or functions the same way as a motor. And so you can put them in device, devices. And the example they had was there's this device that's like a, I think you call it like an intake thing on like a car, right, where you need these little flaps to open and the flaps open and close by the use of these. And they take up like half as much space as a motor would take because instead of a motor, you have these little like synthetic photonic muscles that are much

lighter, much less space, fewer moving parts. It's the chance to see stuff like that, which is why I keep coming back. And yet I miss this company. because there's a lot to take in. And you have to walk past, again, all these companies that have put how many, God knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars into humanoid robots, most of which never have a chance, really,

of establishing themselves. And very, like, basically none that I saw outside of, like, the ones meant for specific manufacturing uses seemed like they had a creative or intellectually interesting reason or solved a problem. And that's so vastly outnumbered

in funding and attention, the like, somebody made a muscle with light. That's kind of sweet. Well, the problem is, it's like the idea, a robot that does one thing is not what people expect from a robot.

Everyone wants to have one robot that is just a person, a slave. Let's just, let's just cut straight to it. LG's whole sales pitch was the zero labor home, which, I mean, like, big if true. Right. Yeah, yeah.

But it's like, I don't live in that home. I don't live in that home. Didn't you see the cloyd? Yeah. He's going to find your keys. Willing servant, yeah. Find your keys, bring your fruit when you're demented.

You are right that it is what people want as a slave. Yeah, it's a slave. You either want a completely faceless machine. And I'm sure, I want to make sure as the, you're here, is the black guy. Like, come on. Say it. Say it. As the what.

As the guy with rings. As the guy with, you know, you can't see, but I got some HOTAP rings on. So I know something about slaves. I know something about slaves. You know, in my newsletter I wrote, there's this essay I wrote that was talking about how the roots of automation go back to slavery, right? So part of the thing that developed impetus for automation is that, you know, you had the abolition of slavery and you had the British Empire being like, oh, my fucking God, how are we going to keep, you know, plantations are incredibly profitable? How are we going to keep these sort of profits because they're also integral to our empire? like for funding our navies and fielding our armies.

And so the idea was like, okay, well, you have to make the factory resemble a plantation as much as possible. And I think most people when they think of plantations, they think like, okay, you know, it's outside, it's disorganized a little bit. You have an overseer. But they were like very highly regimented and they developed very specific methods of extracting and terrorize as much labor as possible and terrorizing people. And so the automation that was developed by this guy, Charles Babbage, was like an attempt

to do early divisions of labor and create machines that were. would be able to self-surveil workers, or workers would be able to self-surveil themselves or quantify their work or divide it into pieces. Like some of the very foundational theories of how labor should be organized going into, okay, well, how do we get a non-human along a division of labor

where we're separating as much work as possible into discrete, repeatable, substitutable parts, you know, which we already designed to resemble slavery, how do we get that in this like embodied thing that is also just happens to look like a person without a face that we want everywhere in the house? I don't know. I feel like the heart and the soul of it does link back to it. And it goes back even further, right? But I think then also the other question is like, how much do you think this is also colored by experiences maybe some of these people have where you know, they're like, yeah, why shouldn't I? You know, why shouldn't I have a person or a thing

in my house and how can I convince other people to do it if only by having a robot do it, right? And I think that there's, well, there's two parts that it's one, they might have hired help and they're like, well, I have to pay some fucking piece of shit human. Jesus Christ. But also, there is, I feel like there's a division in automation with some people where there's some people where it's like, I see this as a kind of, as like an amplification of who I am, like an like an extra arm, like an arm that moves one thing to one thing, which is not a thing I command, but it's just a thingy that does an action. That's not a sexy thing you can raise funding on.

You can't be like, I got an arm that moves a thing from a thing, which is most industrial machinery. It's just like repeating one task again and again and again. The reason that replaces humans is that's a repetitive action. It fucks up humans, but it's not about the subjugation of a person. It's an action. It's not about controlling someone. It's about making a thingy happen.

Then there are the people who are like, wouldn't it be awesome if every fucking whim I had was perfectly solved and I could order someone around? To quote Adam Conover, for yesterday, dance, no, the way I like it. And it's this idea of this Aggie bot yesterday, oh, it can do the TikTok dance. Why do you want someone to dance for you? That's a fucking peculiar instinct. Part of what's so difficult, though, is that these are, it's a version of the same

problem that you have with a lot of, like, genetics and, like, fertility and technology, right? where do you want to make sure if you can find out in the womb that a child is going to be born with its lungs outside its body? Right. And you can just kind of snip that out. So the lungs are inside the body. Right. Do we want that?

Everyone's pretty much like, oh yeah, that's probably good if kids have lungs. Yeah. Do you want to be able to tell if someone has autism and snip that? Whoa. Suddenly, suddenly, or any of the other horrible eugenics questions, right? So everyone's like, yeah, there's certain things we want to be able to do with genetics technology, but if you say this is okay, all people are going to start immediately pushing for all.

And like drawing a line is something that, like the fact that you're drawing a line means there's going to be strong lobbies of people pushing for stuff that is really bad, right? And with automation, everyone's like, like I saw a product today, that's one of a, I've seen a couple like this, where it's a big, basically like a big cart on wheels that can go off road

and can be fully autonomous. And you can set, here's where wounded guys are going to be. Here's where the hospital is. Drive up to the front line. People throw a wounded guy in, drive to the medical area. Right? And you don't necessarily, like, it's better if a robot does that

because people can get blowed up. Right. If you can have, and there's also, like, obviously, I'm sure we all have individual pain in the ass tasks that we're like, well, yeah, I'm not if I have a robot washes my dishes. Yeah. But once you're saying, well, we do want to automate some stuff, you're having then a conversation where is the line

and right now everything's on the table including like the creation of like art and beauty and the raising of children the stuff that makes it do when we're not working basic cognition and that's the fact but you can't if you're going to talk about some of it all of it's going to be on the table at some point and right now it is yeah I think that's what's the other thing

right where it's like you know to your point there's automation that's saves you labor and enhances productivity around the home, you know, around certain workplaces that reduces the drudgery of tasks we have to do. And then there's automation that is deployed in a way to squeeze as much as possible out of people beyond what they might in of themselves want to do

if they had control over, to what degree am I going to augment my workplace or myself with this stuff, right? And I think that ends up also being the line with a lot of these technologies where it's like, you know, how if we were designing genetic technologies, if we were designing, you know, um, assistive, uh, automation or assistive artificial intelligences and grafting them onto our lives, I feel like the, the points in which we would let them and not let them look different than what your concerns and interests are. If you're like, okay, well, I'm looking to get a

return or I'm looking to organize the workplace in a certain way, or I'm looking to just meet a very specific need and this or that context, right? In a battlefield, an hospital. in a public space. So I think, so I, you know, part of this is like, you know, downstream with consequence of the fact I feel like we're almost all technical decisions have nothing to do with what anyone other than these private investors.

Totally. I mean, a thought that I have had this whole last few days is what does it mean to be optimized or to have your life optimized? What is the actual? outcome of that. Yeah. What are we optimizing for?

And if the optimization is, we're going to remove all of the annoying tasks so you can enjoy life, that sounds like an awesome answer that I can totally get behind. On the ground, that's not, that doesn't seem to be what any of the products you do. I was just thinking of something very simple, which is like, I'm lucky to live a really good life. And the reason I can is I have a, I have a washing machine and a dryer that works really well and I have a good dishwasher.

Like, it's like... It's all the refrigerator. Yeah. Like, it's like the shit that sucks isn't, like I can afford to use Uber. I can get around. Like, a $50 dishwasher that's really good feels like it would be more innovative than anything on this floor, because most people can't afford to have a good one. Like, like the things that get in the way of existing are labor,

as in having to do your horrible fucking job that doesn't pay you enough. or the shitty, like, how the fuck do you look after the children you have? There's not really tech. You can't buy more time unless you have actual labor help, which requires more money. And you can't really replace that with a robot because the reason they need an every man robot is because problems are complex. The problems of even dishes are complex. And decision making is, exactly. You know what, that is exactly it.

It's like it's not the problems themselves, it's the decisions around them. I mean, and that's why the most responsible technologies at CES stick to doing the things where there's no real downside if it's not doing perfectly. Like raising children, which I saw a really good child companion robot today, which I look for at every one of these. I love them. Oh, I wasn't sure you're going with them. Oh, no. So there was a really good one. that it's one of my favorite CES categories

where it's like Southeast Asian tech company marketing to Americans that doesn't fully understand our culture. Fuck me up. And so they have like a whole, they have a set of bleachers erected and like 50 of these like little robot dolls sitting in them. I'll show you guys.

But they're like, they're all wearing like sleeveless shirts. Let's, let's, let's, uh, and like, I did walk by that yesterday. Yeah, yeah. They're all wearing sleeveless shirts and like little beanie hats, basically. Like a, uh, that have the name of the, robot on it, which is booster?

Is it booster? Yeah, it's booster. But then in front, they had one robot that was dressed differently. And I didn't realize it first. It looked like it had like a suit and a black hat on. And then the video starts playing. And I realize that fucking robot is Michael Jackson. And it's dancing to Billy Jean alongside what I believe is a kid.

I know exactly what in the North Hall that was. And it was... Well, that did happen. Could not get across to them. Hey, guys, maybe Michael Jackson's not the best robot mask. got for a children's toy. You might have... Yikes.

Immediately, what I got to show you guys, and this is what I was telling you about... We might cut this in. We might just let it fly. I want the reaction. This is what happens in that video immediately after the robot's dancing to Billy Jean. I'm going to put a link to this in the notes. Yeah, so this is right after Billy Jean. What?

That is identical to the... Oh, wait. What? So weird. So what happens in that video? What? The instant that finishes doing a, like, dancing to Billy Jean while moonwalking, there's immediately a man runs into another version of the robot and starts beating it with a wooden stick,

which then switches to a guy putting cinder blocks on top of it and smashing it with a fucking mallet. And then right after that, a dude comes in with a liquor bottle and shabble. and shatters it over the robot's head. If you are protecting your children from the homeless. Or from the robots. Like, what else is that saying? And then the robot stands up after it seems fine. You can't stop it.

You can't stop. I love that because it looked almost identical to those things. I don't know if you remember the modeling experiment, like the regularly disproved thing about how children will copy anything. And it's just children hitting a clown with a stick. And it looked identical. Yeah. It's the same fucking thing.

that's CES, baby, just like, I want to be in the room when they were recording that. It's like, hit it again, hit it again. Get a liquor. Get a liquor bottle. Fuck it up. It was unclear. I'd do that for free. What the selling point, because it goes from, it can dance like Michael Jackson.

You can beat the shit out of it and it's fine. It'll walk with your little girl and help her learn languages. It's like quizzing her over her homework. You will never stop dance, dance, dancing. Why is the? And I kind of think maybe they just sort of incompetently realize something that is a brilliant idea, which is if you market and build a robot entirely on Terminator 2 logic, where you just show that this robot can't be killed, it's loyal to your child,

it'll never get drunk and hit them, it'll never not come home after staying out late at the bar at night. If the whole Sarah Connor's speech from T2. Important to note, I did not see any robots built out of liquid metal. But I mean, I missed some corners of the Venetian Expo, so maybe... I think that's the South Hall this year. I want the AI bubble burst. We'll get to what we really need to get to, which is building Terminators. All right.

As we approach the end of this, Chloe Radcliffe, what do you think of CES? It's... It's... I mean, truly I go back to numbers you don't need. Yeah. I go back to, so what does that do? You know what's funny, or so who gives a shit? It's so unnerving to think about how much of our society feels like there's no money.

Yeah. And then to come to a place where there is all the money. Yeah. And it's that I think is disturbing. Try going to an AI industry conference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Totally. And like I work in entertainment. And such a common refrain in entertainment is. like, oh, we just don't have the budgets to do that anymore. We used to have those kind of budgets and we don't anymore. And I'm like, there is money fucking sloshing around, hitting the sides, coming out people's noses. Like, there is so much money.

And it's infuriating to me that, you know, I'm taking a very narrow view right now. Actually, I will actually push back. You're not. You're taking a very reasonable position. Well, here, the narrow part of the view is like, I'm putting aside the fact that it's infuriating that people are living very difficult. lives amidst all this money floating around. But, but like even, I'm just thinking about my job.

You know, it's like in the entertainment industry, the fact that there is relatively little money that money is tight. And I'm like, it's not, it's also it's, it's especially relevant, sorry, and then one second, it's especially pertinent in entertainment because so much of entertainment is now owned by the things that own the tech. Yeah. Where all the money lives. And so I'm like, what the fuck do you mean?

There's no money in entertainment. You couldn't be more right because like, number one, like the other thing is that it's, entertainment makes as much money as ever. It's not no longer making money, but like you said, the companies that now own all of these fucking are taking those profits and they're currently pouring them into the shit that you're seeing on the broken shit on the floor here. And when all of this is dead and bleeding on the floor, you're going to give it to Chloe Radcliffe. Yeah, that's right. That's right. We're going to wrap here and I just want to say on behalf of all the listeners and myself, thank you, Chloe.

Thank you for joining us. It's been an honor. I've had a great time. I really hope you join us next year. God, I've had a fucking blast. Yeah, it's been a genuine pleasure to have you. Where can people find you? I am at Chloe Badcliffe on all platforms, like my last name, Radcliffe, but bad.

And I'm in Cincinnati this weekend. I'm in D.C. next weekend. I'm in Philly the week after. Follow me, sign up for my mailing list. Yada, yada, yada. Rob Pagarara, we'll have your links in there. but thank you so much for joining us. You are...

You are welcome. You are one of the best. I love having you here. I try. And you are at everything I'm at, which is genuinely a pleasure. Robert Evans, my boss, behind the bastards.

Thank you for joining us. And of course, the other head. Edongueza, love you, buddy. Thank you for having me. Love you too, bud.

And I love you all for listening. We will be back tomorrow for four more hours. Yeah, I forgot for a second. You fucking psychos. I can't believe you're listening about this shit. Nah.

all of the men I'm radicalizing and the woman that listen as well and the trans people and everyone are non-binary and everyone who listens. I don't care who you are, but I care that you are who you are. It has been a very long day and it's a very long week, but I love you listening. We will be back four hours tomorrow, an hour epilogue on Saturday, and then they are going to shoot me in the head parody. I'm Ed Zittron. Please subscribe to my newsletter. I did not do premium this week, so please use the link in the thing. I desperately need that. Thank you to Matt. My wonderful producer who has been working his fucking ass off all week. Amazing show.

More amazing stuff to come. We're also dedicating these episodes to the Sean Paul Adams, who was a friend of the show in the suite. Sadly, he passed last year. Sean Paul absolutely rocked. So we're honoring him by donating to the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium. Sean Paul's son is epileptic and his family and friends would deeply appreciate your donations, as would I. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattersowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattisowski.com. You can email me at E-Z at Better Offline.com or visit Better Offline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's Your Ed dot at to visit the Discord and go to R-S-S-Better Offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media,

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