Better Offline - CES 2026: Part Six (Thursday)

Episode Date: January 8, 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 first episode, Ed is joined by Devindra Hardawar of Engadget, actress and standup comedian Chloe Radlciffe, Edward Ongweso of the Tech Bubble Newsletter and Matt Binder of Mashable to talk about the anti-consumer electronics show, how AI buying up all the RAM is going to make computing unaffordable, Dell’s quasi-reversal on AI, why you should be buying all your tech used, and why it’s time to use tech to tell people you love their stuff.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 The Tech Bubble Newsletter: https://thetechbubble.substack.com/ Devindra Hardawar:https://www.engadget.com/about/editors/devindra-hardawar/http://thefilmcast.com/ Matt Binder: https://mashable.com/author/matt-binder Chloe Radcliffe:  https://www.instagram.com/chloebadcliffe/?hl=en https://punchup.live/chloeradcliffe Donate in Sean-Paul’s honor: https://www.perc-epilepsy.org/ --- 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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It is Thursday and we're still covering CES. We are still here with an amazing assortment of guests from the tech industry. We've got an open bar, we've got tacos at places to sit down for members of the media, whether or not they join us on the microphone. And of course, we've got some new contestants and some old contestants, revisiting guests. My first is, of course, Chloe Radcliffe, stand-up comedian and actress from a, is this this thing on. You're never going to get rid of me. I'm like bad bugs. I love it. I'm here forever. With cradly booper. And of course, Matt Bender of Mashable joins us again. Hey, three times in a row.

What's up? Yeah. And then the wonderful DaVindra Hardware of Engadget. Hello, let's go. And you said you wanted to talk shit on Dell, so let's start that. What is, give us, oh, man. Give us the history. So last year, Dell did this, the dumbest thing. I've seen a tech company doing a very long time. They're like, hey, all these brands, you know and love, XPS, that thing. that's been selling for decades. People love it. Let's kill all that. Right.

Let's call all computers Dell, Dell Pro Max. Those names may sound familiar. They're a little Apple-y. And when that was announced last year, I was at a press conference, and Michael Dell was there announcing all of this. And my first question to him was like, what do you have to gain by copying Apple? Like, what are you doing here?

Yeah. He did not have a good response to that. Fast forward a year. Every other PC manufacturer, shipments growing. Dell, down. Right. Because nobody knew what the hell Dell was producing. this year, especially the people who wanted an XPS.

Right. So they turned, they turned around. They brought back the XPS brand. They're actually doubling down on it. And also fixing all the stupid issues we've brought up in our reviews over the last few years, too. So it's double vindication. XPS is back. What are the things that they messed up and what have they fixed?

Have you seen the XPS lately? I've not. So they did this thing. Sometimes designers go a little crazy. They're like, what if you couldn't see a track pad? What if it was just all wrist pad? So they did that. They made an invisible track pad that works and it looks cool,

but it's hard to use because you can't tell where it begins an end. It's hard to use because a huge part of using a track pad is being able to see a track pad. At least feel where it begins and ends. I have a problem with my MacBook Pro because the track pad is slightly bigger than usual. It is nasty, clammy wrists get on it. But an invisible one, I would snap that thing in turn. But also, at least with a MacBook, right, you have an edge. You can see where it is.

You can see the track pad. You don't even need to see it. You need to feel it, right? Because you're not looking at the track pad when you're using it. See, I could see, I can see an invisible track pad working if they made like the technology to just extend it so that whole area is a track pad. But what you're saying is that's not the case. A lot of it is a track pad, but the very edges aren't.

Anyway, what they did with the new redesign, they put just little little notches so you feel it. Wow. And these are just like basic usability things to think about. They could have very easy done that first. But anyway. And also the function row on the Dell XPS is for the last couple of years was this like capacitive touch thing. They weren't real keys.

They were buttons that kind of changed when you hit a button. And they disappeared in bright sunlight. You couldn't see them. So like your function keys, the volume button, all that stuff just disappeared. And I talked to the day. I was like, did you guys not go outside? Did you not bring this computer outside to see? You're talking to computer engineers.

They didn't go outside. But like, wait, but did they say whether they did? They were like, it was COVID and we were designing, you know, it was like a, the excuses were it was kind of a rough time to design. I think sometimes some companies let their designers go crazy. Yeah. We're going to out Apple, Apple. The thing about Apple is that they at least tend to think about usability and practical functionality sometimes.

The company best known for its usability, like very consumer facing. They don't like changing things up other than liquid glass, which fucking sucks. You could argue about liquid glass. Yeah, they're charging the mouse on the body. That's like Johnny Eye bullshit, but Apple itself doesn't tend to do that. So anyway, they're just keys. Now they're just keys. And these new, the XPS 14 and 16 are lighter than ever.

The XPS 14 is like about three pounds, which is pretty great for a 14 inch laptop. So yeah, total vindication. They fixed a lot of the issues. The branding is back. It is funny talking to people at Dell because all the executives and the marketing people like, yeah, yeah, the free branding is going to go great. And all the underlings, like all the people who have been working on these computers and have dedicated decades of their lives

to what, what is happening here? Like, I built XPS machines, you know, and they felt really bad about it. So on every level, the branding, the rebranding was a failure. XPS is back, and I'm happy about that. And we just got to tell Dell for like that whole, when I saw them again, yeah, we were right.

We told you. We told you this. Well, there's misinformation going on around Dell as well. Because everyone's saying, oh, Dell claim that they're backing off AI, branding and people don't like AI. Apparently, David Jerey. He chased this down, journalist, Jervid Jirad. Jesus Christ.

Apparently that was never said. And Dell is full-scale AI. Like anyone who thinks that they're not, they have forecasted $25 billion of AI server sales this year. Do not believe Dell's lies. Do not let them lie to you and claim that this isn't the case. They are fully AI-pilled and will be punished by the dark gods when the AI bubble bursts. I've had some interesting conversations with people at Dell who were pissed off at Microsoft,

They're pissed off about the AI PC push because it's literally all marketing bullshit, as you've covered extensively, that has not led to actually useful features for your people. So, yeah, Dell is invest in AI. What I have noticed is that they're not saying AIPC. They're not out there shipping. They're not saying like, hey, we got the latest copilot plus systems because nobody cared. Nobody cared about copilot plus. Did they try saying AIPT? Last year they did.

And now it's just like, hey, you know what's great? A computer. A computer that works. What if a computer turned on? Yeah, that works. What if a computer was a thing that you could see the things on it? What if the keys were? You could see it.

You could feel the track pad, basic concepts. I will say that from my now, you know, this is my first year at CES, from my relative limited exposure to the kind of products that get shown at CES, somebody being like, hey, do you want a laptop that you have no idea where you're touching on it? Do you want a laptop that has a bunch of buttons, but you're going to have a laptop that has a bunch of buttons, but you're going to have to use it in pretty limited facilities to make sure that you know exactly what you are clicking. That's the new product.

The whole world can be described by, like, I think you should leave sketches, right? Yeah, we'd be saying. It's the car sketches. I want a car where the steering wheel doesn't fly off. And that's basically what we're saying here. No, no, it's literally, there's two, CES is two, I think you should leave sketches.

It's that. And it's also a guy who just walks around going, what the hell is that? What the hell is that? Who needs smart glasses that goes, that's a flower pot. Oh my God! Oh my God!

Who walks into his pantry and goes, how what the fuck do I cook? I've got too much shit on me sketch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just can't survive in this world. Yeah. In The Verge. Just too many wearables.

Too many wearables. Although we had a good chat with the guy from Pebble, who's back. Everyone likes Pebble. Good wearables. Actually, I said smart rings were bullshit last year, and I still believe that. Sorry, Victoria.

But the Pebble Smart Ring, kind of cool. What do you think? is bullshit about smart rings. The form factor means they can never really do much. The battery life is always going to be bad. And sorry, form factor, you mean it's a ring. It's a ring. Where it can never have like a big battery.

It can never be that. So it's very limited in terms of what you can do. And all the rings we've seen, I know you've worn a couple of, like they're just, they're fine, but you know, what's better is just a smart watch that is not as, it doesn't feel as belty team. I will push back on you on that. I find smart watch is very annoying. And I agree.

Like my weird fucking like oddly dainty wrists mean that like the, I see muscle there. I think I'm not going to muscle upwards. You are being generous. Thank you, Chloe. Thank you, Chloe. Just like just destroying me and just annihil me. No, no, no. My Apple Watch for some reason just doesn't get a full connection.

No matter how tight I get. And like this ring for the most part works. But even then, like it's, I still don't get a full connection. Sometimes sometimes it doesn't fully. Yeah, even then it doesn't recognize a full workout sometimes. It's, it kind of. Wearables are personal. Like, that's the thing.

Yeah. We're all weird. Like what we like to touch, what textures we like. I think I've learned I just don't like ring stuff. Yeah, yeah. You know, so like that's just right. It's hard to make a generous product in that way. And the thing is, too, you have to be the type of person who wears whatever that

wear wear a wear a non-tech version of it too. Like, I don't wear watches, so I wouldn't wear a smart watch. I don't wear a smart watch. I don't wear a smart car. Yeah. smart glasses also kind of bullshit. But the Pebble thing is kind of cool because the Pebble guy was always like,

first off, their thing was E-Inc, smart watches like back in 2014. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are coming back. He's bringing that back. I like those. Wait, what are those? So Pebble used to have these smart watches

that lasted for weeks. And just they were very basic. They could like update notifications. You used the Kindle. Yes. So it's like that, but on a watch. Not really an LCD screen, but more like papery. Yeah, yeah.

It's the paper screen. And I can read my book on my watch. Well, I mean, I don't think you'd want to. You could read your notifications on your watch, for sure. But he's bringing back that because what happened was Fitbit bought Pebble, Google bought Fitbit. And he went to Google and was like, hey, my software, my Pebble software, nothing's happening. Can you open source that? And Google, for once, did a good thing and was like, yes, they open source this.

That's nice. Now the Pebble guy can go back and make hardware using that software. So the Pebble Watches are back, but he has a ring that looks a real. But the thing is, from what I've heard, is you have to physically hold it down when recording? So the ring, all it does, it does one thing, you're supposed to do it really well. You hit a button on the ring, it takes notes. Yes. Do you have to physically hold it down the entire time?

I don't know if you're... We looked this up and I was saying that I, because I, as a comedian, literally, my phone background says document everything. I record every single set that I do in my voice memos. Like, I use the notes and the voice memos in my phone are the two things. that like unlock my entire life. This would be perfect for you. It would be perfect for me. Supposedly will last two years.

Except. Yeah. Also, I love to, like sometimes I'll just record a meeting and not tell the other person. Now that's illegal in the state that I live. But it's a way for me to be like, okay, I remember, like if I'm practicing a pitch for a show that I'm trying to sell or whatever, I'm like, I just want to be able to be in the moment, but also remember how I did this and how they react to you and what questions they ask, whatever. Anyway, this ring sounds like a thing that I would use. Yeah. Then I looked up what it looks like. And it really does look like my ring that definitely does not have a microphone in it.

So I did just look this up. You just have to click it once to record it and it's 75 bucks. I hate to say it. I actually kind of want this because I'm not trying to surreptitiously record people. Yeah. But I absolutely like, usually 30 seconds before I meant to fall asleep, I remember 13 things I would like a reminder for. Yes.

Now, perhaps I wouldn't be wearing a ring. at that time, but foreseeably I'll walk around be like, shit, I need to remember this, shit, I need to remember this. Or even just, if I could say an idea and it says here, it's an on-device LLM. And that, I find quite interesting because... Not going to the cloud.

Not going to the cloud. Not melting giraffes as a means of powering GPUs. On which device? On a ring or on your phone? That's kind of what I'm trying to work out. We did, yeah, I don't... Can you get a whole LLM on a ring? No, that's kind of what...

We're going to get there. I'm asking. Such like podunk hillbillies. I don't know. Can you fit a whole robot on that ring? I actually will push back. That's not a podon question. That's a perfectly fucking reasonable one.

Because especially when we're being told we need 89 data centers. We must knock down entire neighborhoods and put up a data center the size of, I don't know, New York City for meta. I understand the question. I'm going to assume that this thing needs, you need to connect it to your phone and your phone. It has, I don't. fit a whole AI on your phone. Yes.

Yes. But I'm guessing it's a very simplified transcription specific one, but I do not know. It might store the recordings on the ring in case you don't have the connectivity to your phone in the moment. No, it says completely on device. You don't require an internet connection. That's cool. I'm finding out about this ring right here right now.

This should be device of the show. 75 bucks March 2026. Last two years. Now that's the thing. It's not rechargeable. So what? Once you, once it's done, you send it back to them. Why?

Because he is very much like, I think this is true, we have too much shit to charge. Like, I'm just tired of it. So he's like, okay, what if a ring lasts two years? And if you actually are still using it by then, send it back and maybe get a replacement at this kind of a cost. That is probably better than holding onto a charger that you will lose. No, I don't know. I don't know.

What happens a year and a half in, though, if it's got a last. of a charge in that last thing. It can record roughly 12 to 15 hours of recording and it lasts for two years. I'm sorry. I don't know. If you're a journalist. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It runs out.

12 to 15 hours. It runs out of recording total. No, no, no. That's what it says here on their website. I mean, that's not going to be able to offload. Yes. Yeah. We have not gone to the specifics of it, but it definitely, he wants you to like.

That it can hold 12 to 15 hours total and then you can dump that. Yeah. Yeah, but you just. We have the technology to clear. This is, I found an article on, it's not my outlet, but Android Authority, with, it's expected to last for up to two years with normal usage. And normal usage is described as 10 to 20 times per day recording three to six second voice notes. I wanted to love this. I wanted to love this so bad.

But if you're thinking a journalist and you do what, what? So 15 to equal like 30, 30 minute interviews. That's $75. That was a week. You're never going to record. This is not for interviews. Yeah, you're not going to record a full interview. This is for you on the toilet.

This is for you in the shower. I do have a lot of thoughts there. It's toilet thoughts. It's shower thoughts. The storage thing, we have the ability to do data. Like that could be solved. Sure, but I'm just kind of like, if this is meant to be for quick thoughts, fine. But I'm just like, as someone, especially because it does the transcription, I'm just like,

that would be really useful. but I guess you can do that with the Apple Watch. But also three to six second voice notes, I mean, is that really saving you the time that you couldn't just whip out your phone and type it yourself? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm kind of like my iPhone.

That does add up. Yeah, I do actually think that being able to say like a very quick thing. Captain's Log. Yeah. Yeah, I do think that that is cool. It is my, the use case that I would be using it for is if I, I am always like writing down, in a conversation,

if somebody says a very smart thing or like analyzes something in a really cool way, I'm always like, hold on, I want to write that down. And so if I could just be like, hey, can you explain, like, explain to me why this movie wasn't, wasn't effective in the way that we both felt that it wasn't effective, but I am not articulate enough to be able to put this into words, but you, my boyfriend, who is a smart director, can say it into my ring. And, but that explanation is going to take 60 seconds. Like I do think that there's a use case

And that is well under interview 60 seconds though is your 60 second note Is your entire use case for the day That's what I'm saying That's what I'm saying. Exactly that's what I'm saying I would be doing that in my mind too If you give me a time frame like this

If you want this the last two years You need to use it no more than six to ten times You're still going to have your phone Like breaks into science Every time I use it I'd be like Oh this was use number six Do I really want to go and push it for the next note And that is how you know that you did not grow up with money

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very clear class marker. I will give them credit in that they specifically say, this is not designed to record your whole life or meetings. It is very much a reminder thing. I can kind of see it. And there are numerous times where I will just be sitting there and be like, oh, I have an idea.

Like, what if Benoit Blanc interrogated Cuba, for example. But like, the useful ones too. But it's, I also like typing. But again, Different. But I can see different strokes, different folks. Like, that's fine. And also, Chloe does literally do this.

She's like, can you say that again so I can write it down? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this might be a Chloe Radcliffe-approved device, potentially. The way I do reviews is often I'm like out just like dictating thoughts. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's like often a thing. The other thing I'll point out is that, you know, the lifespan is the thing. Like, will people want basically a disposable device?

But what if I think you send it back to them? It gets recycled. The battery gets recycled. Good for them. Electronics recycling, not that great, but better than just need to put it in the mail. Like, it's just, you know. See, the moment I'm told I have to mail something, I just want to, I want to jump off a fucking bridge. Like, I'm just like, oh, you want me to go to the post office?

Let me just, let me go to Dwyer mode. You get a self, self, you know, label or whatever, drop it in the thing. No, no, no, no. But then that means, what, you got a print? You got a print? You got a print? Exactly. Self label?

Oh, just shoot me in the goddamn hand. You know, there's that startup that does the thing for returns right now where you get a barcode and you just bring it to like bed bath and that shit rocks. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, wait, what's that? Tell me about that. With like Amazon returns and. As long as you go to the UPS store.

You can do it with Coles as well, I think. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that's Amazon. There's also another company that just does returns. Yeah, yeah. I got Amberjack.

Amberjack is a shoe company I used and they have it where it was just you scan it. It was like you could take it to a cold or something, which is cool. Like it's weird. Like there are little things like that which are really useful. Like, I said this is a dyspraxic, physical coordination disability. Putting together, like, opening a package isn't fun. Packing a package sucks. Is like the pain box for me.

It's like, if you're like return this with a label, I'm like, you want me to touch the thing with the knife on it and the tape? It's also like, that's where millennial breakdown happens. It's like, oh, this is a task. Well, it's not so much. This is a task that takes time. Well, let me explain dyspraxia, though. It's not like it's like a task. It's picking up a box.

I'm putting tape in a straight line is genuinely difficult. Like my brain, it's in like, the more complex it is, like, it actually like is upsetting, like it's meant, like I'm sure that few dyspractic who listen are like, yeah, fuck yeah, dude. Boxes suck, but it is really like that. And it's hard to describe, because it sounds like I'm just being a baby. I wish I was. I wish this was just me being like,

ooh, I caught put a books together. No, it's really fucking difficult. It's really, it's so difficult for me. So it's like, oh, I gave you a label. You gave me a death sentence. To the point of what you're saying, we have the technology. Yeah, yeah, which is cool.

You have a QR code, you bring it to a story. They're like, I'll deal with this problem for you. Which is great. And you walk away happy millennial. Yes. Yes.

I was, okay, I want to, in defense of millennials, are you a millennial? I'm a lot of millennials. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In defense of millennials, I think the reason, I don't want to do a task for sure.

You're not wrong. I'm not, yeah, duh. The things that, the simple things that pile up that take five minutes to do. But yes, totally. But I think the reason that we, this is sort of off topic, And I'm finding it in the moment, so come with me on this. All right.

But I think the reason that we are so, that tasks are, feel like so alienating and so off-putting is because we are. Oh, boy, she's taking a swing here. Let's go. I think we are, because of our generation's interaction with the internet's, like, rapid expansion and social media's rapid expansion, we're sort of the first generation that was expected to do suddenly like twice as much in a career in raising a family in whatever that like we are the generation the first generation where it's like you're expected to be your own whole

small business yeah and i think that prior generations excuse me had more she's taking a swing had more free time yeah there's a lot of that life was slower and so that like you could say and 45 minutes once a week i do my little task And like, even if you can be like, I don't like doing them. But it's like you have that 45 minutes and there's not this like constant hammering in the back of your head that is you could be doing these higher scale things for your job or for your life that are made possible because of the constant access to the internet. Yeah, and your job is also not in your pocket all the time. Right.

That's what I mean. Exactly. That's what I say. And it's like also boomers and Gen X is of course hearing this will say, well, when I. grew up. My parents just left me at home and we had just entertained ourselves and yeah, we just are all so cynical. And of course, we could buy houses and college actually guaranteed you a job and college was cheaper and housing was cheaper. I guess not in the 90s. But even then it was easier to get a house. And I mean, it was just-

You're starting a generational war here. I don't fucking, boomers. Boomers. No, the Gen X has got us here, by the way. Yeah, Gen X, we need you. We need you. We do need them. They got us here. Yeah, because they're in action. Yes. Gen X-X is the problem. them. There we are. War. War. More than boomers? I think both of them had their hand. I think boomers and their shitty decisions, but Gen X's are the ones with their in action when they chose. And they were Gen X's who did. And they tilted right. A lot of Den X. Oh, yeah. Even if you look at like how like the generations fall politically now. Like, you know, the cliche is like, oh, you boomers were the worst or whatever. But if you look, there's a lot of boomers who are very like

anti-Trump. And I don't see the same with Gen X. In fact, Gen X is the one that went the other way during the pandemic. Like, well, everyone else was like, oh, I can't believe how Trump is doing, what Trump is doing during the pandemic, Gen X was going like, oh, I can't believe I have to steal it my shitty kid who I can't send off to school.

I'm right wing now. I mean, that's literally, and also, boomers will do the whole thing, which is going to get, people are going to be, I'm going to get some emails. There are a lot of boomers who were like, back in my day,

I could just walk into a star and say, good sir, I'd like a job. And they'd say, I like the cut of your job. But this. same time, and there was a lot of like old people who are like just go and get a job, it's that easy. The Gen X is, if you make a poster blue sky and I've done this several times, just be like, make fun of JetX as being like, yeah, I'd get home and my parents weren't there, so I'd make myself dinner. And I'd entertain myself all day, every day. And I was so

independent. There will be Gen X's who respond and be like, yeah, that's actually true. And they get very personal about it. I don't know, you live through some of the best music as well. Like, fucking stop. I mean, we're at CES. I mean, all the super. super rich fucking tech assholes are Gen Xers. Like, yeah. But to your idea, what you were saying about like the, back to me. Back to the millennial. Correct.

I think you're absolutely right. But also, there's other aspects of it. And people talk about it. It's the way millennials went to school. Because we went to school in this like, in America, in this really optimized, like, the sort of goals that you had to chase were very specific. The whole gifted and talented crowd. Like, we are seeing basically. I was one.

Yes, same. Which I was not. Yeah. I really was not. Neither gifted nor doubt. No. No, I was not. You see online like the gift and tell to adults.

We're like, oh, that was kind of wrong. Like maybe kind of broke us in terms of how we go through the world. Do you mean like the high expectations placed on it, us and the expectation of perfectionism? Or like how that metastasizes into perfectionism. Exactly. All that. Like we were built for school and for taking tests. and then sent to the real world.

It's like, oh, ooh. And do you think more so than other generations? Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, like, why, why did all the first internet culture come from millennials? And that's because, like, Gen X was at the age. There's history there. There's some Gen X.

That's, I mean, the foundation of the internet was done by Gen X. I don't know, because we're cooler. No, but I'm talking about, like, meme culture and stuff like that. All lives, sorry, that's, I think I know what you're saying, which is that, all lives were digital. at all in a way there's not. Yes. Here's what's interesting, is that we're getting two millennial focus

because we're all millennials, I guess, but also we knew what the world was. Not me, very young. Okay, thank you. Good to know. Hollywood, cast me in things. We knew what the world was before the internet. We saw what the world became with the internet. And we're expected to be experts at it post-internet.

So we saw the full breadth of it. Yeah, yeah. So that's why, like, Gen Z years and young kids do not know the world before. It's kind of tough to describe what that was. We also were children during 9-11 and we went to the workforce in like... Children and teenagers, but yes, the world fell apart. Teenagers are still children.

2008 as well, like, I think that it's understated like, because 2008, I moved to America that year and it was very much like, welcome to America. No, it happened as I moved, not because of it. I don't know. I moved and it was just like, oh, hey, you know that whole thing you were told about? you go to college, everything will be fine. Fuck you. Exactly.

And I don't think other older generations realize how stark that was. How hot, like, their Gen X, boomers probably remember before the Department of Homeland Security existed. And I just think, and the expectations of hyperdigitization and the constant expectation and notifications, stuff like that, I think it's really easy to color millennials like, oh, you're so, oh, you want your little treats and all this. no, we're being harassed by, I mean, everyone is now, harassed by everything all the time.

And we're aware of it. Yes. And we know, and we remember it could have been different, but we don't remember when. It's frustrating as well because, by the way, Michael Dell, Gen X. Yeah.

Just, and just to be clear, this is Mr. Dell of the Dell company. One of the richest men in the world, by the way. Like, he's up there.

He's also the guy behind Trump bucks. How have I never heard of Michael Dell? Oh, is he the guy who founded Dell? Yes. And yeah, he's, it's weird because Dell went through this thing is, and we'll rotate shortly,

but it's this weird thing where Dell went through this real shit house era, when they were just complete dog shit, their computers sucked, and then they went, took themselves off of the public markets, private again, fixed things,

everyone loved them again, and then they went public again. And then they appeared to be like thinking about being shit, but they're back to being okay, and they bet their whole future on AI. It's just one of my earliest computers were, Del, and I remember they were really big,

and then they sort of, everyone else beat them in every, everything. And then no one wanted it. And they had that really, to me, they had that time period where they were the computer that, at least I did, I automatically associated with like the older crowd, older people. Because especially as like the gaming PC became big and then building your own PC became big. Dell was still out there. I feel like doing like old school type marketing to specific audiences during a time period where like everyone was moving beyond that. And then they bought alienware, which was this insane company where they'd be these, I had a day. I had a day

My dad, my dad bought me an alien wear once and I fucking loved it. It was this insane like, I don't know how it, like three foot tall, giant thing with like a swinging door and a big alien head in there. For like a teenage boy with no friends, it was the, this is my super pop. Sorry, what does the alien in the box? It's literally just the gaming PC, but it looked like a tube. It was more tubes. It's why his wrists are so muscular.

The alien in the box. No. God damn it. They just get body shaming me. No, it's interesting though, because hearing them, it just, and as we'll transition into the next episode, obviously. But it's like, it feels like all these companies are having a midlife crisis. And I think, you know what? We're going to have an exers.

I was going to say, I mean, like, maybe they are. They are in their life. Well, now is the time of the millennial midlife crisis. It's like, give us room to have a millennial crisis. Okay. But yes. All right. Getting there.

And coming up now on ad just for gen X's, it's going to be for, something called latchkey.biz. It's going to allow you to have a social network where you crow about how you were such an independent child and how you remember when MTV was good. And is actively losing subscribers? No,

Gen XS will email me now and be like, actually, you know what? I watch Liquid Television and I was cool. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite unhumored me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk.

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Yep, that's me. Clever 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.

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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.

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What's up? And you know what? do actually kind of like this Gen X and midlife crisis happening with AI. It kind of makes sense because it's like, you look at all these companies. And they're all like, fuck, how do we keep growing the rock economy? I've written and said about it. But it's also a degree of like, wait, what do people want anymore? Because we got so rich.

Because Gen X is able to accumulate wealth in a way that millennials couldn't. It's all FOMO. It's all FOMO about what's next. FOMO with disconnection from anyone like that. I'm sorry. Oh, it was a rough time during COVID. we didn't go outside, fuck off.

You could still step outside. Just once, just be like, let's go out. You know, it's also funny, I spent all of COVID outside because that's where you didn't get

a, the germ. For a while, it was better to be outside. What are we talking about? Yeah, yeah. Just take the laptop outside. Or do you not have an overhead lamp?

I do. It was, that was very stupid. But to what is happening to all these companies, because I've, I've been covering them since 2010. I've been following the tech industry forever.

They're all. desperate. They're all desperate of missing out on the next big thing because Microsoft missed out on mobile. They tried desperately to kind of get that back like Windows mobile, all these things making Windows 8. But no, that was Apple. That was a smartphone era. That was tablets. They never quite got into that. But they also didn't realize people like PCs, people like computers. Maybe you should double down on that, which is what Windows 11 was. Windows 12 kind of became the thing. But that was the mobile era. Then there was like tablets and stuff. wearables for a while, people were hot, like, oh, this is going to be the next big thing. It's a niche. It's a very small niche.

Because you wear them, and not everyone wears the same thing to Matt Benner's point. What's happened is that the world revolves around our phones, because these are the most personal computers we have. It's my best friend. It's your best friend. It holds all your deepest secrets and inner thoughts. It connects you to the world. So how do you go past phone? The next stage of computing to them is, okay, a thing that processes data at obscene levels that we don't fully understand, but it seems like black magic.

and that's what AI is. But it's so funny, though, because they're like, well, what do we replace a device that's all about personal stuff and our communication with others and our ability to condense our thoughts and access media we like? Well, what if we took away

all personal choice and data entry of any kind? Would they like that? But I actually, what you were saying, I just had a thought, all these companies missed out of mobile. Microsoft didn't miss out a mobile. They made a shit mobile phone by acquiring Nokia,

and Windows phone, sucked and it's like, why do people like the Mac so much? Because it, because it was good, because the UI was good. Why do people like the iPhone? Because the UI was good. It took so long for Android to even be half-assed con. Was the T-Mobile G-1 was the first? That was the first, yeah. And it was so far behind and they were so far behind for long. And Windows phone was an insane. It was just this like tiles. It was Windows 8, but in a phone. And I will say, it was cool. It was cool because it was different, but they, they again missed out on some practical functionality. Like, Windows phone, they, Bjork is cool and different. But I would not like, and she misses out on some

my life. I would not, I would not be like playing Bjork at an NFL game. Like, I wouldn't be playing Bjork in a commercial. I'm saying that like, there are journalists and specifics. And it's like something. But if we're connecting with broad, like, middle America. Yeah, yeah. So you're referencing Surface now, which is at the NFL games. Oh, yeah. No, the surface. It's so funny having surface things there, especially with Aaron Rogers, just smashing them. But it's like, they don't, they're like, well, what do we do? We'll do a half spin. It's like, make it good, make it good, make it good. I can understand. We're going to go into history here for the kids, but Microsoft was making mobile shit for a very long time, right? Oh, yeah, the IPAC as well, right? The IPAC, all that

stuff. But it was BlackBerry era, right? Okay, rewind to like late 90s. It was like personal assistance, right? PDAs, the Palm pilots, all those things. evolution of that was BlackBerry. Microsoft was doing stuff within Pocket PC and they made a couple ones, but they never really took off. And they were like little laptops. They were like little keys. They were like little Blackberry clones. But you used like a little pen with something?

You could use. Some of them had like a stylist too, but the thing is BlackBerry was hot because data was bad and BlackBerry created the technology to have quick digital messaging to all your friends. Go watch the movie Blackberry, which is not fully historically accurate, but gets the tech right. Jimba City, a fan of the show. Sorry.

But the movie, but the movie The movie Blackberry, wonderful, amazing, has one of the guys from It's Always Sunny in there too, and he's just like wonderfully offensive and like really gives his eyes. Check out that movie. But Blackberry innovated, Innovators Delima came for them because they didn't believe you could have a phone that was all screen. And that was iPhone. Because it's difficult. It genuinely.

Wait, you mean like they had considered, they were like, should we make phone all screen? Yeah. Because Blackberry. And they were like, no, no, we not make touch the screen all keyboard. Oh my God. Yeah. Glenn Howerton. Yes.

Who is Dennis from Inso's Outsiola in Philadelphia. Plays my friend Jim Bucilliate. He reads my newsletter. What a glow up. I remember when I was in high school, the big phone at the time where the screen that flips out, the Nokia sidekick, I think it was called. Phones were so cool. Before the iPhone, phones had all this, like, cool stuff. I had a Helio Ocean, which flipped up vertically.

Yes. And also flipped sideways, like a sidekick. Amazing stuff. And then the iPhone came out. And it was like, okay, all screen, but also. apps. Your phone is now a computer. It's not just like a limited thing with garbage version of the internet. It's the full internet. And then cellular speeds got better. So like internet in your pocket, full computer in your pocket, you cannot deny that that's the best thing. So Microsoft just was never able, they didn't catch up to that quick enough. We talked about Android being shit early on. It was. But within a couple of years, they kind of did the Windows thing where Google just like had the software and had other people come and make the hardware. And Android took over the world. Like Android had dominate. cell phones, smartphones, pretty quickly, pretty quickly on. But it's hard to deny everyone is chasing, like, what is the next thing?

They think AI is the next thing. And I'm glad that there are people out there, like, we're looking at this. And like, this is bullshit. This is not good. But are they sure? Like, are they really convinced that AI is the thing? What's amazing is that they're not. Right.

Because, so Mashable published, I didn't do the interview, but we spoke to Lenovo CEO. And we asked him about. people who are anti-AI and AI skeptics. And his answer to that was basically you can't avoid it. You won't be able to avoid it. And it's like that's not the... That's not the answer. But it's also not like a ringing endorsement.

Wait, what? You won't be able to avoid AI. That's not the ringing. It's the whole thing of it's inevitable. It's inevitable. Right. Do you believe in this product? Well, you can't avoid what's coming. I mean, you know, we all die. Yeah.

Like it doesn't sell it. No, but it's... I think I, I, in having not read the interview, I could imagine. imagine being like, sort of having the attitude of like, I don't, who gives a shit if you, if you don't believe in this? It's happening. It's, it's, we've invested billions of dollars and our stock is going up. And like, deal with it. And why is it on me to convince you? You, you can sit there and bang your drum as long as you. And I'm, I don't mean this to, I don't mean to be on AI side. But like, I can imagine sort of be like, take or leave it. Who gives a shit?

It's going to happen. I appreciate the honesty, the answer. But if your job is literally, to market it to a journalist. Like Apple, when the iPhone first came out and people asked about the iPhone, like, are people really good? Apple didn't go like, it's inevitable. They were like, try it and you'll see. I will say, Steve Jobs,

famously an asshole. Yeah, you're holding it. Well, no, I'm not saying you. But he had the product to back him up. The messaging was, you'll get used to it. Like, the Apple way was, you'll get used to it. But that's not what AI is saying. But that's not what AI is happening.

And the funny thing is about AI as well, was if AI was, I can say to my computer, load this, do this, and it actually did it every time, that'd be fucking sick. Well, that's what, that's what Microsoft's pitching you with the co-pilot voicemen. Yeah, and they are lying. It doesn't work. They are just like, I swear to fucking God,

I thought public companies couldn't just fucking lie, but they can only do it about numbers. If you're all in the same grift, it doesn't matter, right? And also what we're learning is that rules don't matter. Laws don't apply to the rich and the powerful. But here's the thing, gravity does. And I think they will all be punished. Masha Allah.

When the stock was Nvidia's kind of down today, it's kind of fun to watch. It's also funny as well because none of it really clicks with what users desire. Because what users desire right now is,

I wish my phone just fucking worked. I wish every app didn't need to ping me 14 times a day to say, have you thought about using me? I think just work is the thing. Just do what I ask you to do.

When you're saying the companies themselves don't even fully believe, what more is? So I've talked to a whole bunch of exigate. I bring this question to every big company I talked to. And early on Microsoft was doing copilot. I was like, this thing doesn't work, right?

Like you're making me, you make me want to use copilot as like a search engine, but I cannot trust it. It's not always delivering correct information. If I bought a calculator that said two plus two equals five, I would throw it away because it's garbage. And the Microsoft people were like, it's a work in progress. We're going to get better. And that they're making you accept a certain. level of bullshit because they, they can't stop.

They've invested too much in it. They practically are invested in half of Open AI. So, like, they can't stop. It's too big. And their stock is being rewarded for it. So they can't say anything bad. But, okay. And again, just to play devil's advocate and that this is not, this doesn't, the views

reflected here are not my own. I can, you know, I look at what AI, take image, take image production, for example. the images that AI could create four years ago versus the images that AI can still images that AI can create today are unrecognizable between the two. There's so much better. And when they were producing the dog shit images four years ago, if somebody was like, if I, you know, like if you do the same calculator thing and then they're like, well, yeah, it's a work in progress.

And in four years, the calculator is going to say two plus two equals four every single time. again, I think that that is a fair response. And that's the thing, though. This is one I've answered a lot. This is one where I'm like, oh. So that made sense maybe two years ago. So it made sense like, I would say it stopped being rational to do that. Like maybe, I mean, at latest March last year.

So 2025. I would say right up until Imis Generation with GPT, that was when you just went, bono. I know people are going to say nanobanana. I went an entire day without saying Nana banana, which is now on televisions. It's just like, I do not know what that word is. It's a Google image generator.

It's like the best one on the market. And people like, look, it can generate a picture of a, a woman for some reason that I'm using. And she lives in a tube. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like tube generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they can't answer the basic question

about the entire idea of imagery generation. which is what I keep asking. But the thing is, it's not, like, it's, but the thing is, it's not having these meteororic jumps. Yeah, four years ago, sort of in 20, yeah. You're saying, like, the curve is leveling off. Yes, so we've reached the point of diminishing returns because the way these models get better is two ways.

One, you feed data into them. Two, you tweak the models by, they, you basically tweak their outputs. You say, don't do this, do this. Yeah. Things with images, you're right up against the wall now. They've got about where they can get. And their thing they'll say is like, look,

we've made some realistic looking images. The problem isn't making one realistic image. It's doing the same thing more than once reliably, twice, twice, a hundred times. It's being able to have a consistent visual image. And you can kind of do that, but it takes a shit ton of computational power. And as we run up against the realm of running out of money,

that's become the problem. But also, most of them have hit diminishing returns because we've run out of data. We are out of data. You mean feed? of things to feed into the thingy. Slop for the pig. Well, food for the slop.

Food for the pigs too. So they can make the poop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But here's the basic question about image generation. Like, I don't care how much better it's getting. Yeah. I don't care. Who gives a shit about it?

Yeah, it's like, why does this exist? That's the thing. Like, with so much of this, like, when we talk about like the calculator that, you know, has to get the math problem correct. Well, there's a use case for that is it gets the, you need to do math. Yeah. Yeah. With AI generation and an AI video.

image generation and video generation. It's sort of just like, okay, you can do it, but what is the purpose? Yeah, the TV guys are like, oh, you can make a wallpaper for your TV. I don't turn my TV on for a wallpaper. I don't care. Yeah, it's like, who gives the shit? Who gives the shit? For me, like, people like, oh, you can take a picture, a selfie of yourself and insert

yourself in different. Well, for me, like, when I want to look at a picture of myself, it's because I want to remember that experience that I experienced. But what I put myself in an AI image generator and it puts, me in front of the pyramids in Egypt. Why the fuck do I care? There's no memory there of me doing that. I saw a really evil one where it's like a guy showing his grandmother with dementia,

like a picture of her with Jimmy Hendricks. Parody. The following is parody. I think that person should be fucking tortured. No, I'm so glad you brought that up because I have... You should be in fucking pretty, you disgusting fucking monster. Facebook consistently hammers me with recommendations of groups for people who are asking people to like clean up their family.

photos and stuff. And those groups are now full of people who come in and go, oh, my daughter or grandma or whoever in my family died. And this is the only photo I have of them. Can you make it color or fix it? And now all the responses are people putting it through the AI image generators. And they spit out things that don't even look like the deceased family member. And some of these people love it. And some people even put them in like the deceased family member picture in a video generator that generates... Just yassifying their grandfather. But it's like, you know, at some point,

these image generators are going to distort your memory of the actual person. Totally. Because if you only have one photo of someone, and that photo was cleaned up, quote, unquote, but it changed how your family member looks and you're constantly looking at that photo, it's going to eventually actually fuck with your real memory

of what that person looked like or sounded like for like the voice cloning stuff. And it's like, I think that's so fucking unhealthy, they were going to have a world of people who remember their own ancestors as people who did not even exist because they don't have an actual photo in their brain of how they actually look. They had the AI generated photo of them. I completely agree and I'm sure that this is already happening. And then I, and this is where I get a little nihilistic. This is where I get a little depressed. Nice. I wind up going, my impulse as a millennial who experienced the world,

pre-unerrificitous internet. My instinct is that like their brains are going to be fucked up by shit like that because and it feels good in the moment and so they keep doing the drug and why wouldn't you? If the drug dealer keeps coming to your house, of course it is going to be very difficult to say no. It's much easier to say no when the drug is not inside your house all the time. And so they're going to keep doing the drug. They're going to fuck up the brain.

They're going to have this insane relationship with memory and with emotion and with human connectivity. And then I want to say, and at some point, they will, in their heart of hearts, understand that this is bad, in years, decades. Like, I'm not saying, you know, they'll wake up one week. Yeah. But, like, at some point in their old age or in their middle age, they will go, wow, this is, this is bad. I don't know how to describe this. I don't know how to articulate this, but I can feel in my heart that something is disconnected from what the human experience should be. I think that's partially what we're doing right now because people are using these tools and not fully thinking about it. And there are just so many philosophical questions about us.

Like how do we process information? How do we process memory? How does this work within our society? What's the anthropological impact of all this falsified information? Like there's the immediate harms of nothing. We can't trust reality anymore. We can't trust anything because they can just make up facts. But also the eventual harms is that the idea of memory is just going to disappear.

I mean another thing I've seen and this is the really one of really depressing one Like someone will ask for something Like they'll post a photo of their You know child who died like you know nine months Three years whatever And they'd like oh I'd love to see how they would look If they made it to like 40 and it's like no don't do that

No no no no right exactly Don't do that You have the actual image or videos of them When they existed and who they were And what they were and just keep that in your memory Don't look at this person who never will or did exist. That they're generating.

It's just, oh, and the thing is, all of that photo editing stuff, and in particular the new things where you can be like, okay, add a sword to the photo, make him look like Captain America, give my grandmother giant abs. Like all of the things that you can do with AI now. All right, now you've got my attention.

Yoke my grandma. Fphrase to remember. CES 2026, yoke my grandma. But his thing, I genuinely believe all of this is going away. No one other than the is really willing to fully go. I think all of this goes away. I think everything dies within two years. I think that there is going to be the big egg face moment.

And no one is real, no one wants to take the logical end point, which is the people who are dependent on these things are not going to have a thingy anymore. Unless they're going to put deep seek R1 on their laptop and wait 30 seconds between responses. Because I think all of this is just, I think every image is like a few,

my theory, I'm just, this is gut instinct. I think it's like a few bucks per image. And I think, and I hear MIT Technology review at an article middle of last year, images are more cheaper than text, but they're still very expensive. But nothing's worse. Oh, I'm surprised images are cheap. I was surprised too.

But it, there's, I forget the actual thing. But all of this, like the video generation stuff, that's gone away first. So, and, and sorry, that couple dollars per image or whatever is, for them to produce it. being paid by OpenAI or it is being paid by impromic to run. Right. Okay. And that's another thing, though. Most of the AI generated stuff you see out there, not professional work obviously,

but like things people post on social media or whatever, they're just using like the free version of a lot of. Exactly. Because no one wants to actually, unless you're using it again for professional purposes, no one is paying for this. It's yoke my grandma for free. No one wants to pay for the subscriptions. And that's the thing. Open AIS, this big thing. People love to email and be like,

what if they did ads? If you are someone who's emailed me about it, that you're like 75,000. Wow, what if they did ads? Here's the problem. The information had a great story this week, where it was 900 million weekly active users, though they bullshit those numbers.

800 million of those are outside of the US, thus their lower value advertising clients. So, yeah, most of them are free. They're just, and the most exciting, and the funny thing is, is even the ones that pay are the most enthusiastic who cost you the most money. Open AI loses money, even on their 200 buck a month one.

So the more you like something, the worse you are as a customer. It's usually the opposite. It's usually like your power user of Facebook doesn't cost them that much because it's basic. It's just, so the way a website works is like Facebook is. All right, Ed, I know I'm a lady and I know I'm not in tech. No, I'm kidding. No, no.

So when you should be in a box. So picture a computer. No, no, no. No. Chloe, don't maybe be sarcastic and be like, do you know what Acomai is? So it's, when you run a website like Facebook where you access a page with some videos, the streaming doesn't require, it's like a CPU and like requires storage and RAM like in a big server. Yeah.

That is intensive because they have shit tons of users. But because like shit tons of users is just because you have a lot of them. It's not because the process of serving you Facebook or Instagram is super expensive to do. It's expensive because they have so many people. The problem is with AI is that having one user who's particularly demanding is extremely expensive. It's actually bearing costs on the company. Exactly, because GPUs are extreme. They are cost-intensive.

They require a lot of energy. But they also put out a shit ton of heat, which requires a bunch of cooling. And the bigger the data center, the more intensive the cooling. And I had someone email me the other day saying really big data centers can cause like, like, like, gigawatt ones can cause like weather effects with the amount of heat that display. And they're affecting the local, like, communities. Right. And just to clarify what you were saying earlier, but when you're, when you're saying the logical endpoint of your pessimism about AI or whatever, however you want to frame it, the logical endpoint is that all of this goes away. You're saying it collapses from a financial standpoint. But what that, but then the logical endpoint of that is that the companies, Anthropic, Open AI, whatever, chat GPT, go, well, we don't have the money anymore to run these data centers. And the data centers are what are required to, when somebody types in, yoke my grandma.

Yeah, yeah. We need the data center to be having to have the electricity on and have the air conditioning running. Yes. And that when somebody's not paying those bills, then I can't get my grandma yoke. Correct. And there's no economic reason to do it because, to DaVindra's point, the only reason they're doing this right now is because their stock value is growing. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, meta. They've seen their stock grow.

Not because of AI revenues. They don't talk about those, but because AI's so big, so huge and so yoked. Everyone's talking AI. But the moment, and the thing is, I've heard people say, oh, well, it's a chat GPT bubble. It's not an AI bubble. Here's the thing. Oh. Yeah, it's a really fucking.

Why? How does somebody thread that needle? Because they're fucking stupid. No, the argument is that, well, open AI is the worst business of all time. It burns money forever. They have no profitability. But all the other ones will be okay. There will be other winners.

The problem is is that this is a vibes-based thing. Now, what happens to the vibe when the main business that everyone knows, like 800, 900 million weekly active users compared to everyone else where they have like 20? Now, you may think you've heard Microsoft say they've got hundreds of millions of co-pilot users. You've heard Google say hundreds of millions of Google Gemini. That's because they put them in their main products. But even then, their shareholders are just going to go, right, why are you spending on this fucking money on this? Why are you propping up these insanely expensive things? And if you wonder why I'm so confident about this, none of them talk about the revenues or the costs.

The thing also, though, is if AI was to disappear, what do customers, what do consumers lose out? Like what is the- Nobody will care. Yeah. And the things that people may use in their everyday life, like AI transcription or voice-to-text, we're at the point now where those models actually can just live on your personal computer. You don't need an outside server at all. you don't need a company to pay a monthly fee to. You can just download a model, it took a few gigs,

and you have your own voice to text and your own transcription. It's that other more intensive stuff that are just like little toys that no one really needs that will just go away. To me, that is the logical outcome by the way. It's like the big AI will die off to a certain degree. That will lead to widespread economic devastation by way. Like that will be hard. It's going to be worse than the great financial crisis in my opinion.

It could be worse than the financial crisis. It could be a depression level hit on the world. economy. So that worries me. But for when it comes, because all these companies, I know, I know, that was a joke. Oh my God. But the idea of local, the idea of like local AI and stuff that's just like, okay, my watch is a little better. My, my, I can transcribe to my computer that lives locally. That does happen. I have one piece of bad news, though. The only reason those models are being worked on right now is because of the big ones. And once those big ones go away, they're not going to have any fucking reason to do them. They don't care about transcription. They don't. They don't

care about the useful stuff. They care about... They still need a reason to sell you a new laptop every year or something. And I don't think this is going to be enough of one. And I, yeah, my thing is like, I'm not sure how we're going to intellectually reconcile with this, because this is the world pants shitting competition. Well, it's also, everything is so fucking stupid right now. Like, every, at every level, if you, we've been in the CS bubble, but looking at the wider world right now. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. It's so dumb. Like, we, uh, Trump invading Venezuela was how we started this year. I was born in Guyana, South America, the country right next to Venezuela. And it's probably right next on, like, because they just found oil. So X-Long is like,

just out there taking all that stuff right now. Put it back. We didn't find anything. Things are so stupid right now. So that's why I do kind of feel like, yes, we're going to see this. But this is, and I know this sounds hard to reconcile with. I think this is going to be stupider just because, hear me out. Every major CEO has added AI, has talked about AI. It's all they talk about is AI. Every major tech company, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI. And a bunch of people we work for, not me personally, but tons of people we work for, people have said that AI is the future, world leaders, AI is the future. Everyone said AI is the future. And I think all of them are wrong. What are we meant to do with that information? Because this is Trump, politics, okay, there's voting,

there's like a process. This is like, for now, sure, but the foundations of economic movement, but also knowledge in the world and consensus reality and paradigms themselves have been based on the idea that the people running the money, people running businesses are somewhat intelligent that would not be fucking wrong. And what's become obvious is almost nobody knows anything ever. And I don't mean this in the cutesy like, oh, bosses don't know stuff. I mean, these people have just been fucking wrong, like wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Just like, AI will do this. But it's not just AI. I will tell you, like, what? When I started covering technology and doing journals, and I was mainly like writing about startups at the time. I was like, oh, cool. These guys, their ideas are so interesting. They've gotten billions of, usually millions of dollars of investment. I was talking to, you know, Kevin Sistrim and the Instagram guys when it was just four dudes.

I was like, oh, man, they must be so smart and so interesting. No. Usually, usually not. Usually it's just like you're a nerd who knows how to code who came up with like one interesting idea. And the VCs were just throwing money at you. And even when it comes to big business in general, people rise to the top, not often through their skill. It's through they've been there long enough or they're a good enough company shell. I get that.

But my point is, imagine if the great financial crisis, Microsoft was in housing, Google was in housing, Amazon was in housing, Disney entered housing. Everyone bought houses and everyone was selling houses and everyone was offering mortgages. Everyone did mortgages with the future of every single business in the entire world. Everyone on LinkedIn was saying, I'm a housing expert now. that is it, except when they said housing, they meant cat litter boxes. Because I'm joking, but it's like, what if everyone was wrong, wrong, wrong, in a way that's not political? It's just obvious that so many people we thought were smart were just like able to do mad libs. I have a question about the leaders who have backed AI.

Right. Okay, as I see it, there's two categories that I understand, and I'm going to ask about what is the middle category. About the middle category. Category that I understand is tech CEO who has, whose company has some vested financial interest in AI being successful. Right. Totally get it. Absolutely. Like, why would Google add Gemini to all of their products?

Great, because they are, like, they are, they see a potential financial benefit. Well, fine. Yeah. They were also, Google's holding off. Google was trying to be cool and chill about it. And then opening eye kind of blew the doors open and then they had to rush everything out. Sure. Yeah.

Okay, that category I understand. Then CEOs of companies who have been sold the lie of AI can make your whole company work better. That I also completely understand. Like, you know, Salesforce saying, I guess this is sort of an example of the middle category, somebody at Salesforce being like, we're going to add AI and AI is flashy and sexy and that's a new and it's the best thing. And then turning to Home Depot and being like, now, you should pay us extra because our new sales force category or our new sales force product has AI and that's going to make your life better and Home Depot goes great awesome we'll pay more

for that that I understand I like I understand the the but even those don't truly make sense but keep going right right right right and I like disagree with the efficacy but I understand the messaging there what CEOs or what companies have added AI trumpeted AI you know championed AI that are not in the category of their company is a direct financial benefit, benefactor to the technology, or like a direct owner of the technology. Disney, Disney. Right, right, right. Disney being one of them, most journalist outlets and they will claim, oh, AI will generate stories, they don't. And I'll actually push back on the things with Salesforce because

there's a really cool thing. I will choose another company in my head because Salesforce is so special, but like a software company in this case. The really, simple thing I say to that is even they don't make sense because it don't work. It don't do it. It don't do it. It don't do thing. It don't do thing. The whole thing copilot is sold on doesn't work. It doesn't work. It's never worked. I do. It works enough. It is good enough for people to be using it. My issues are you're a computer. You should be, you should be my man, I got to push back. It doesn't. There have been like eight different stories in the last year where Microsoft's 365 copilot can't do things like prepare PowerPoint.

Oh, yeah. It's like specific failures, yes. But on the general. Yeah. On the general. What's it like the general? What I'm saying is like you ask copilot or you ask Gemini like a question and it will get to your response.

It is good enough. It will, he was like, hey, make me a chart of this data. Hey, that doesn't work. A lot of that stuff does work. I've used it many times. But it's untrustworthy. Like that's the thing. That means it doesn't work.

No, no, no. But there are variations. of how badly it doesn't work. But the thing is, if there's a variation of how well something works, that just means it doesn't work most of the time. Sure, but there's a reason hundreds of millions of people are still like using them. Yeah, because they're being, they're being pushed into by everybody. But people like using, like, for them, the degree of like as good enough as it can be,

for them it's good enough. That's why we're pushing back though when we're saying, like, you can't trust this data, you can't trust this stuff. They're not thinking about that, but they're just using it. So we'll continue this debate. It's not really a debate. We're all agreeing. Shortly after this break,

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Hello. And I think we're in an interesting point in the... in the show where we're all getting to the end and we're realizing we have to go back to the real world. And there's this thing of this AI thing and this whole, this whole situation where, and to get back to the debate we're just having, it's like, yeah, it kind of works. But I don't think that people realize that because it only kind of works, when they start charging what it actually costs, which is like probably two to five to 15 times what they're charging, no one's going to want to pay for the half-ass thing anymore.

And many will not be able to pay for it at all. Like I was saying yesterday, like a lot of these companies that are just being bolted onto LLM die. Just immediately, like, just they will turn to dust. Because imagine if the core fuel of a car, like double, tripled, quadrupled in value in cost. Of course. I, okay, interesting proposition here.

Do you think, two questions. do you think that AI companies will start charging subscription rates before the financial implosion that you predict? Yeah, I think that, well, you've already kind of seen signs. They're very unfair with this. No one likes this one. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have added priority processing to their API customer.

API just refers to instead of you or me using like Chad GPT or Claude, you as a company would connect your software with an API to their service and then run on top of it. Now, when you run something on top of these models, you're effectively just prompting them. A API stands for a pretty big interface. There you go, yeah. That's the new one.

That's why you got me here. Yeah, my brain couldn't think of the real one, so I can't make fun of anyone. But it's like those companies cannot survive with a cost race. And I had a reader listener and reader reach out and actually tell me that you need priority processes. if you're above a certain thing.

So just your cost double there automatically. And I think the other thing that people will say is, oh, the cost of models is coming down. It's a classic talking point. Jensen Huang and his Nvidia thing, his press conference said, oh, the cost of bottles is coming down. Yeah, but it's kind of like

if the cost of fuel came down a bit, but your journey to work took 15 times longer. Because now, when you use a new model, it isn't just spitting out on output. It's using models that use more computational power to give you a slightly better results. So it may be cheaper. But it takes longer?

Well, it's not that it takes longer. It uses more tokens, just for simplification's sake. Sure. The thing that they generate to give you an answer. It uses a reasoning model, which uses more tokens to do the output. So while it might be cheaper on a token basis, you're using more of the fuckers so it's not cheaper at all. It's actually more expensive.

Yeah. We can argue a lot about the AI industry. Like that's going to be an unending thing. I will say we are seeing the direct. impacts of the rise of AI, right? Go on. Talk about memory in the PC market. Oh, the fucking HBO.

Yeah, the memory. I'd love to talk about this. Ramp prices have increased by three to four times across the board. Which is insane. And that'll affect everything. That affects phones, computers, whatever. Cars. Like, there's every, like, everything has RAM.

You mean because Carr is computer now? Yes. Okay. So any device needs some sort of memory. What is interesting is like we are seeing the direct impact of that already. Dell's XPS 14, which should be a computer. computer that costs under $1,500 because of what it is, and that's what the competition is. And that was about the pricing.

Dell gave me when I first wrote my post. They said $1,600. Next day an update. That thing is going to start at $2,050. Jesus Christ. Because of RAM. Because they're not going to say why, but I would logically think, like, that is going to be the highest cost for a lot of new systems.

That is insane. That is a, it's a premium ultra-bordable, sure, that thing should cost under $1,500, or about $1,500. So we are going to see similar premiums like that. Are you saying if you need to get a new computer, do it now because it's only going to get worse? Do it immediately and maybe buy used or refurbished, which is my recommendation for everything. Interesting. But, yeah, buying a new system this year is going to suck.

So we're going to do an episode on this next week with Steve Burke from Games and Access. Oh, nice. So RAM in random access memory. A website is. Yeah. No, no, no. This is the thing. No, I want this.

I don't know. But also, the best lesson Sophie and Robert gave me is explain everything. because even if you think you know something, you don't. So, RAM is when you quickly need information to do a task on a computer. So you couldn't access the hard drive. No matter how fast the hard drive is, it's not fast enough to get something immediately. AI services are extremely demanding on something called high bandwidth RAM, which is just allowed you to keep a bunch of stuff in the RAM so you can constantly access it

because that's how LLMs works. Someone's going to email me and say, I truncated that, shut the fuck up. But it's nevertheless, because of the demands of Invidio, are building GPUs, of Broadcom building their own bullshit GPUs, AMD building their own bullshit GPUs, the price of RAM across the world has increased. Now, Eagle-Eared listeners may think, I heard a story, Edward, about OpenAI taking 40% of the world's RAM. This story is bullshit and everyone pushing it is a fucking liar. If you look on SK-Hinix and Samp, so OpenAI did a deal, quote-unquote, with SK-Hinix and Samsung, two companies out in Asia.

where they were going to get hundreds of thousands of wafers of RAM, just the things that you cut up into RAM, which is insane on its own. But it was a letter of intent, which is a concept of video. It's like if you and I email and say, why do we do this? It means fucking nothing.

And everyone's trying to blame that. No, what it is is just every GPU, anyone doing anything with GPS is just buying all the RAM. The new Nvidia supercomputer, the Vera Rubin, I hate that they're using these actual scientists. To apply to these things. It seems so disrespectful. But 1.5 terabytes of RAM

in this Vera Rubin supercomputer. And that's this. So it's like an AMD, 1.5 terabytes of high band with memory. How many is that? How, 1.5 terabytes per how many GPUs? I'm going to have to look into the specific theory. There's a lot of GPUs. Let me go.

But I believe it's in the full thing. Okay. And sorry. Not to be a woman who doesn't work in tech about this. No, this is actually very annoying. Okay. So supercomputer named after a lady. and we think it's disrespectful.

Yes. Tell me the name again. Vera Rubin. Viroubin. Okay. The Vera Rubin computer is a big box and it's really powerful. And inside there's a smaller, there's a little shoe box that you can keep all the little random things. Tons of GPS, yeah.

And like little smaller computers are all tied together. Yes, tied together. Okay. Ram is like one box where you have all sorts of random things that you might just need. It's like a chip. It's like a chip. I know, I know. But I'm picturing it in my head.

If you imagine like city block, right, different blocks are different blocks are different components. The RAM is the streets in between them to deliver information. Okay. So more RAM, bigger streets, high band with RAM, faster streets, faster traffic, right? Okay. So that's the basic thing. Great. It's just a shit ton of data. That's what AI needs. Why is there- Oh, my God, it's 1.5 terabytes per fucking rack. No, per rack. And there's a lot of racks in there. There's a lot of racks in there. Yeah. A fucking data center will be full of like hundreds of stuff. Racks on, racks on rags. Literally. Okay, but hold on. Why is, Is RAM a limited...

There's only three companies in the world that make it. You can have... No, no, please. No, do you go out. But that's basically it. There are only three companies. And nobody expected... They were fine.

We were fine. And nobody expected that... Why do you need so much goddamn RAM? Nobody was prepared to do this. Yeah, yeah. And is RAM a physical thing that somebody makes? Yes, it's a... So the preparator...

I'm going to fuck this up slightly. So, DaVindra, please correct me if I get something right. I am not an architecture. So there's a company called TSMC, Taiwan, Semiconductor. manufacturing corpric. I think I get that. Also, I respect companies that are just like, what's your name? Business company. Like, fuck yeah. Just tell me what you do.

They have these things called fabs and they basically build chips and there's a whole fucking supply chain of how chips are made. You get wafers of ram, you cut them up. Sounds delicious. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You get, like, a big sheet of, you get a big sheet of memory. Yeah, and then you cut them up. Making chips is fucking cool. But you're saying, a wafer is a certain amount of chips. You print this sheet, you And you cut them up. You make a sheet of 1,000 chips and then a wafer is 100 chips. Yeah, a wafer is just the thing that you carp into chips.

But really simple, just you don't need to know that pit. Just really simple. There is a limited amount of machinery to build RAM. There are, what, there's SK Hynek, Samsung, and who else who makes them? Marvel. Okay. Marvel. There's like three companies who make RAM.

And we can't make more machines to make RAM. There's just limited space. It's going to take a long time to spin that up. Maybe more. One important detail. So making chips in general requires something called a clean room. So think about any scientific process that cannot be interfered with by any contaminants. Growing mushrooms in your garage.

Right. Pretty close. Take it 300 steps higher where it's just like if a single speck of dust gets in there, you fuck up millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. Like it's really, you have massive things. And to run these machines requires very specific talent that we don't have enough of. But also there's only a certain amount of space. space in the world. So we're just, we're at the limits. And while they're building more fabs,

where you build these things, there's only so much. Right now, we have these fucking assholes who are like, I need 1.5 terabytes to give you an idea, like, I think this iPhone Air has 8 gigabytes of RAM. A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.com, correct? Yeah, correct? Great stuff. So it's just like, you have one big asshole taking all the chips. Now, back to my, I worry about the collapse thing. We're going to have, we have all of this allocation being done for one company. What happens when those aren't selling anymore? We're going to just have fucking chaos. But until then, the price of RAM is going to keep going up.

And it's going to be harder to get, which will make it more expensive, which will make every single consumer device more expensive without exception. And again, just to ask the stupid question, when we say the price of RAM is going up, I could equivalently say the price per RAM chip is going up. Yes, exactly. Okay, sure. Okay, great. And it's like, it's a very simple supply chain thing.

It's like if the price of wheels went up, cars would become more expensive. I realize that's a city. But like, it's a very simple thing. And it's affecting everything. That's what pisses me off. Yeah. Because like we can debate about like how useful AI is, but the direct impact to consumers right now, people building PCs, anybody buying a new computer, you're going to be screwed in 2026.

And I'm working on a piece right now about that because. Tell me. Tell us more. Yeah. It's the same thing. It's AMD also announced their new high-end supercomputer. or AI servers. Also, gobs of RAM.

So yesterday I sat down and I talked with one of the AMD executives about like, what is the state of the computing industry? Like, how do things look? And they admit like, you know, it's going to be rough. People are probably, if you're a PC owner and you're going to do an upgrade, you're probably not going to build a whole new PC this year. Maybe you'll just do a processor upgrade or GP upgrade or something. Even those are going to get expensive. But I think they're expecting a slowdown in this industry too. So it's going to be tough.

And the solution can't even just be by used and refurbished because those prices are going to go up. And we're seeing the after effects of that actually outside of this. So weird example, but we're running at, we also don't have enough power. So gas turbines, which they're using to power some of these data centers, which you should not do, but they're doing anyway, are actually sold out for seven years. So they're buying old used gas turbines. I wouldn't be surprised if the used RAM market gets fucked too. It's already game bad. Hell yeah.

I mean, who's the bigger worry. Someone stopped making consumer RAM, right? Was it Corsair? Micron. My dad, sorry. So, and I feel bad. And Micron owned Crucial and I feel bad because crucial was like the first ram stick I bought when I was building a computer and like I have memories attached. But my bigger worry though is they're lighting up nuclear power plants for this bullshit.

And that's where it's like. I'm not worried about that. I'm worried more about the gas turbines. The gas is bad. The gas is bad. Because nuclear power will get phillity. That's going to be a big fight. But we should, we should have invested more nuclear.

power. It may be too late, but I don't know. Hold on. You're saying bad to light up nuclear power plants because these are old things that might not be in good enough shape? Well, it's just more like... You're not saying, you're not anti-nuclear power. I'm not anti-nuclear power. We need that power for other stuff. And this power should be going to, like, residential uses. And it's literally going to be sucked up by bullshit. But it's also... And why are the gas turbines back? Because gas turbines are basically car mode. No, they're not the same, but like, they have the same after effect of belching out gas.

And Elon Musk's data centers are already ruining black communities because of this very specific thing. They're poisoning water. It's really fucking horrible. But also, this RAM thing, I think, is going to be everywhere. And the PC industry was already in decline, I believe. They were in...

No, it was... Last year, it was... They actually got up. I thought they were having... My bad. No, but... Only Dell was down. But here's the thing. For reasons we discussed. Surely won't everyone be down because more expensive. And Apple smartphone sales, like, Every bit of this is going to be bad.

And they are already running out of ways to sell you a phone. My biggest example being like, why else would they ship Apple Intelligence, which is the most mass radicalization event I've seen in tech. Just I've never met so many people like, fuck AI than people who use Apple intelligence. Yeah. Who would just like, fuck this shit. I fucking hate this. Why? I don't know why my phone is like sparkly rainbows and just wrong all the time and giving me a summary saying like eight Uber's.

coming your way. The notifications are bad. Apple wouldn't be doing that if other people weren't chasing all this bullshit, but they're being forced into it. And, you know, but are they being forced into it? They are kind of being forced into it because. Like, why could they not be like, because everyone talks. It's stock prices. Yeah. Shareholder stock price. Everyone's like, oh man, Apple's slow to AI. I guess Apple doesn't have the innovation, you know, charm anymore. Looks like someone didn't shit their pants yet. Yeah. So Apple rushed at Apple intelligence. They got out there. They announced a super smart theory thing, which was not, they couldn't ship it. So they took a hit for that. They took a hit for the intelligence issues.

Again, they were forced into that in a way. And hey, I blame them for the issues. But if Apple left its own devices is a company that is really slow about pushing and trying to change new things, I think they would at least try to make it less error prone. And the point I was making was that Apple shoving Apple intelligence in there was a sign that Apple doesn't really have anything else. And I will say it's people get so mad when I like my device. People, I get little emails of people being like, fucking shill when I'm just like, yeah, I like my phone and they're like, fucking piece of shit. But it's like Apple phone, good, use it. I don't know. I would love an Apple phone with a great aspects of Apple intelligence right now. Other than the liquid, liquid ass, the new operating

system that is so bad, it makes one to scream. But it's like, it's just because we're, and it's not because of Apple being a bad company necessarily. It's just, there's only so much you can do with a certain form factor. Your phone can only do so much. But there are things like, hey, voice memos, instantly transcribe now. That is sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. To voice notes getting transcars, that's fucking great. You can hit a button, record your calls now, and those get transcribed. That's happening because of an on-device AI model, so that's great. And that shit's dope, but that shit don't make growth happen.

But also, everyone does that now. And that's the problem. It's like, how do you sell a new phone? So they're in this situation where, how do we sell a new phone at a time when they're going to have to increase the prices on everything, because RAM is more expensive. Because to make a new phone faster, you need RAM. And also to fit models onto your phone. You need more RAM.

You need more RAM because those models sit in memory and have to sit there and work all the time. They can't just like come off the storage disk. Do you remember in like 2020, 2021 the supply chain crisis? That was caused by like basic goods being delayed. Yeah. This is kind of like that for computer. And we're going to see how many things have computer in it. Television's phones, cars.

I mean, even the thing we're recording on right here that that has RAM in it. That everything has RAM on it that has any. electronics these days. That's my big worry of 2026 is basically we're screwed when it comes to consumer tech. But the thing is, it will, screwed for prices. Screwed for prices, screwed for all sorts of things. But when, yeah. Oh, sorry, keep going. Well, companies may die out. Like, things will just be bad. But yes, prices is going to be where it starts. And the other thing is, is that we're at a point when they're, as you've seen, you're at the consumer electronics shop, you've had a very egregious example of how these companies do not have a fucking clue what you're. You're at the consumer electronics shop. You've had a

fucking clue what to sell you. They're still, they're half-heartedly coming up with ideas, like the death of a relationship. It's like, yeah, we're going to go, we're going to put a recall guess on, we fucking hate each other, we're going to go, it's going to be so happy. Everyone's trying to come up with a little idea to do something with. And at a time when they're struggling for ideas to sell more things, to grow, the core thing they use to build the thingy is becoming more expensive in a way that you can't circumvent. There is no way to fix this. Good example would be. So in video, I may have mentioned this. the previous episode of Com Review here.

So, Nvidia, crazy thing. 88% of their revenue comes from selling these things for data centers. A much smaller percentage comes from selling GPUs for gaming devices. So an Xbox, for example. The problem is with that is they've already raised the price on the Xbox. They're probably going to have to do it again. And those GPUs now, Nvidia also has deals with other companies where they can take an Nvidia GPU for gamers

and they can sell it. They can say it's an Nvidia GPU, but it's got our label on it. We do special things with it. Problem. Invidia is no longer including RAM with it. So every single non-NVIDIA GPU company has to now buy RAMs separately. So their supply chain just got fucked up. Imagine if you're a car company and you buy a certain block of car and it has certain bits,

but you customize it. And they're like, yeah, man, sorry, we just don't do steering wheels here anymore. They got real expensive. You're going to have to buy them from the steering wheel guy. Who is now charging more? That's already happened to some degree to stuff like LiDAR. and things. Like there was technology

that was in Tesla's. Like this is core to autopilot and self-driving and then like that got expensive. Yeah, but here's the thing though. This is a really simple thing though. This is just the like part of the motor. This is the core component

of the entire computing supply chain everywhere that is going to go up. We're going to see to your point of Indra, shit just get more expensive and see who can withstand that pain. I mean, what do you, what are you? you think the chances are that inflation actually causes some kind of spark conflagration

before the financial collapse of the AIs. This will likely lead to the borrowed money. This is a form of inflation, honestly, on the computer industry. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying, no, no, sorry, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying, like, you've talked about the financial collapse of the AI's system of borrowing money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That could go bad when if...

Keep going. Yeah. Okay. No, no, don't mean... This is good. This is like playing a clarinet solo in front of everybody. Okay. That could...

That financial collapse could trigger if Invidia stops... Fuck, we were just talking about this last night. Yeah, if Nvidia stops... Most of NVIDIA's revenue comes from people borrowing money. Yes. With borrowed money. Yes. And if people, I mean, if the banks ever come calling for that borrowed money.

They're in do-do land. Yes. Or if Nvidia stop, if their, what is it? If their numbers go down, but what numbers? If their revenues stop growing. If their revenue stop growing. Okay. That's the like financial system collapse.

Yeah. What do you think the chances are that this inflation just hits like general populace so severely before the actual, before the Nvidia Financial, you know, house of car. Like with this computer. No, I understand, but like, but like so severe, you know, I mean, people are just, people are just living through it right now. I think I get what you're saying.

It will cause two, two gut punches. It will be likely before the AI bubble burst. We will have a thing where anyone's selling consumer electronics or even enterprise hardware, so just consumer electronics for the enterprise, their costs go up. So they will probably sell less because their customers will be unable to afford as much, which will cause a bunch of tech companies to not make as much money, which will lower the values of their stocks. This will then lead them to go, AI AI, AI, and then their shareholders will go, great. You've been saying that AI bullshit for three years.

You got any money? And they go, what if I told you I had less money because it lost me? And at that point, the world pan-shitting competition will end. Like it's, I guess I, I listen to all of this and I actually get my gut, which means almost nothing because I understand almost nothing of it. But my gut says that the, thank you, that the inflationary effects are going to actually be more immediate than the AI bubble. I agree fully. And I guess I don't mean like, duh, yeah, they're happening now. But I mean like some degree of severity that that people decide is not tolerable.

Yeah. It will happen before the AI bubble. Sorry, we finally brought you into the... No, no, no, you're good. I mean, I think... I mean, this raises me to something I've just been wondering where it feels like we just keep coming up into this problem where we are having structural limitations imposed or, you know, rushed up against because, you know, the same thing. sector in one way or another is forcing allocation of resources, allocation of capital. Demands of growth. Yeah, demands of growth, allocation of energy to satisfy it. So, you know, at what point

does it end where, you know, we have a shortage of power, now we have a shortage of RAM that seems to be in the short and medium term fundamentally unfixable? It is. And it's the demands of eternal growth. It really, it's just, because here's the thing. We talk about a lot this week about we just want a computer that works. Yeah, that isn't going to grow the company guaranteed 20% year over year every single quarter. And it sucks because you should just be able to have a company that grows 3% every quarter. The stock market should like that, but they don't. And as a result, when things consume, they must consume eternally, to your point. Yeah, yeah. The best example of this recently is the instant pot, right? Oh, yeah. Love an instant pot. Everybody loves an instant pot.

It's too good. It's so good. Nobody needed to buy new instant pots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instant Pot went out of business. Well, because they got bought by private equity. Yeah, that too. But also, they couldn't hit that mass growth because Instant Pot too good. It just works. A pressure cooker is a pressure cooker. Yeah.

And they were one of the first digital ones. But it works and it works well. So sorry, you can grow fast enough. You're dead. And it sucks because I don't know. I have this somewhat, I don't know, maybe this is not nihilistic. Would they have died if private equity hadn't bought them? No.

Probably not. They were private. Yeah. They were private companies. They could just keep chugging along. They could keep. If you're a private company, you don't have share. I guess you have investors, but you don't have shareholders saying you have to grow.

You don't have fucking Jim Kramer up your asshole. Yeah. And it's, it's unfortunate, but I think that there is a level of this, honestly, I'm glad you brought this up. I think the thing that happens before the AI bubble is just the ultimate slowdown. Because what was, like the fact that, like, it's kind of insane. The Dell did such a big song. and dance last year and then we're like, actually, JK, I'm kidding. That was a bit.

Because they hit him where it hurts. Yeah. They directly saw falling sales and they could draw the line to the rebranding because of that. They're like, oh shit, what do we do? We got to refocus on consumers. Which is so bizarre, though. If only people loudly told them that this was a mistake from the beginning. If only there were articles at naggett.com that they could have read in detail last year.

But it's like, that's really, like, this is very bad. This RAM crisis, this is bad. It's so, I'm really glad you brought this. Because it's so scary. What now then happens with, because I think something that we've talked about also is, I think, like, you know, kind of like what you were saying off the top, the financial element of the AI bubble is one that we can see it for what it is, but that there are a multitude of ways

in which they've been able to juggle, find some new frontier of growth. Justify. But these structural issues that we keep coming across feel non-negotiable. So what effect, do you guys see them as being risk

of some sort of breaking point? Yes. In terms of the AI infrastructure overbuild, in terms of adoption amongst consumers. I mean, like, like what, like let's say for, let's say that nothing happens in terms of degradation

of the financial conditions. Is the structural limitations that we're seeing now with the RAM sufficient to impose like a crisis? This is basically what I'm... You're saying it so much more eloquently than what I'm asking. But that's basically exactly what I'm asking. You're too rude about yourself.

You were completely on the money. You were also, Ed. Here's the thing. And I think, Devendra, you have some thoughts in this as well. It's you can... Get more debt. Money can be found elsewhere. The Singaporean, uh, the, uh, the, uh, countries fund. I, I should remember the name for that.

Um, they invest it. They're going to invest in Anthropic. More money can be found. There's a limit, but we're not at it yet. There are limits to power. And here's the thing. 1.5 fucking terabytes per I'm going to guess, VR 200, 88, GP, whatever, the tower. That's what I was going to guess. Of course. You're constantly like the GB 300's, 4.5 million dollars. Ed, how the hell do the economics work? What do you mean at data center, REIT, Ed? I don't get this.

People are saying that the cost of inference is going down. Ed, it's going up. Ed, let's talk about high bandwidth RAM. You're constantly in my text with this. Yeah, I won't get out. You just won't stop talking about models. No, but it's just real simple. Inviteers are saying

we're going to build the biggest, fucking hugeest tower ever. And by the way, it's full of more RAM than ever. They haven't announced the price of their new big enterprise GPUs, I think they're going to be catastrophically more expensive because they have more RAM than ever. It's like everything, including the thing that needs debt, the borrowed money to keep going is going to get more expensive. Consumer devices are going to get more expensive. To your point, Ed, it's like, yeah, they've been able to get away with it because you can find

more venture capital money, you can find more debt, you can find more assholes to loan you money. you can't find more RAM. You can't find more power is not something. You don't just plug into the fucking wall. There are literal limits. And it's like, we're now, we're now seeing the after. I can't get over the fact

they raised a laptop spice 500 bucks. That's fucking ins, that is, overnight is the thing. That makes it unaffordable for most people. That is a huge. And this is, this stops people upgrading and upgrade cycles of what make these companies live and die.

At a time when there's less, you can get a laptop from you, even I could get like an M3 MacBook Air and be pretty fucking happy. I'm using a three-year-old MacBook Pro and it fucking bangs. That shit's flying. It's a computer that works. But the thing is, why would I upgrade? And that's actually, like that sounds like a cutesy thing. That's actually a huge question because I'm like a tech pig.

Like I'm a hog. I love my laptops and my doodads and my gizmos and shit. And I'm like, I don't fucking need new laptop. Why would I need that? It's going less and fun. That is a good problem. Like that is usually a son.

It's good for consumers. It's a good, it's, you made a good product that lasts. Unfortunately, that is bad for your overall revenues, but that's good that you, you were capable of doing that.

I wish more companies were capable of doing that, honestly. I'm also thinking about like where we are. The climate crisis isn't, isn't slowing down, right? Like we're all these companies that for so long we're talking about, we have all these climate goals. We're going to reduce energy.

We're going to be more conservative. Once AI shit started happening, they shut up because all their stuff blew away. That didn't matter anymore because it was all AI all the time. And yeah, the world right now is going to be more expensive when it comes to gadgets. The world in the future is going to be hard to live in because of all the stupid decisions happening right now. And I'm so angry about all of it. And we are now going to transition. to our final 30 minutes of this episode.

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learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search, learn the hard way, and listen now. And we're back in the room. We're back in the room. We've got the Vindra Hardo while from Engadgett. up. We've got Edward and Guasso Jr. of this heck bubble newsletter.

Hello, hello. And we've got Chloe Radcliffe, actress, Star, of this thing on. I got targeted on an Instagram. Star is real generous. There's a lot of heavy living there. No, what's great was the clip I got was like Cradley Bupa being talked to, sorry, um, we'll earn it. We'll on it. Thank you, Christ.

And going like, yeah, I'm in stand up. And Cradley Bupa going, what? Anyway, stand up comedian, Chloe Radcliffe. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, we're back, uh, talking about, uh, talking about RAM and the slowdown. And I'm going to be honest, I know it seems bad now, and it will be bad. The tech industry needs this. The tech industry needs to be punished for the growth lust because there is no, there's no sustainable future doing this. And this was also inevitable. And I think it's scary. So they're just, I mean, so then is the, you know, if we,

if ideally what, what, delays on the products that are the most RAM intensive to give, infrastructure a chance to fill a backlog and to give the next generation. There are rumors that they may revive old hardware. There's a rumor that Nvidia's RTX 3060, which is a two, three-year-old GPU, may be back in market soon because it's using older, slower RAM, too, so it's not using the newest, fastest stuff. Is it a less powerful GPU? Way less powerful, but it's also like... It's like two generations back.

It is a sign that you have to bring back the past because the present is unaffordable, and you cannot make it. So I don't know. That's never happened before. Yeah. I've never heard of that. We don't know if this is true, but this is the rumor that's out there. I thought that was confirmed. I'm glad you said it was a rumor.

So I, okay, as my responsibility as a layperson, I then think about how do normal people experience this? Because normal people have heard AI a million times. We've heard RAM is getting more expensive. But like, I think I'm smart and I didn't know any of this shit. I've heard these words, but I don't know the details. Right. And so as a representative of normal people, as stuff gets more and more and more expensive, so far the American population has just borne the load of more expensive life.

People have, people complain about it. It's very frustrating. It negatively impacts people's physical health and their ability to. enjoy life, but like pretty much everybody has just sort of gone. Well, the people who can afford it eat the cost, but then we don't hear about the people who do making life harder for it. Finish your question. Yes.

And but I think the people who can't afford it eat the cost too. I mean, like. In other ways, I guess. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. You're saying that for now, there is a limit. And what it is is people are eating the cost in as much as they can. at some point there is a limit

because there are people who wear like Apple's AirPod Macs. I don't really think that that's like a regular person thing. It's like 500 bucks, but those have RAM in them. Modern headphones have RAM and it. There are headphones that have RAM in them. Even cheap laptops have RAM in them. Everything has RAM in it.

So yes, the cost of everything already went up and never came down. There is a point when people would just stop buying new electronics at all. And I have a thesis. Okay, so there's a point where people will stop buying new electronics at all. And then there is some further point at which people will draw a line at inflationary prices overall,

whether it's in electronic, whether it's in whatever. Because I'm sure that RAM shortages are going to affect things that don't have RAM in it because the things that are used to ship those things have RAM in it. You know, it's like, right, I can imagine that this impacts prices overall. And what we have seen in trend lines is that once prices go up, they stay up. They don't come back down for the most part. So, yeah. That might actually not happen with RAM, I think, because if they,

my real crazy scenario and no one's to think about is AMD, NVIDIA buying all this RAM, what fuck they deal with it when no one wants to buy their bullshit anymore? Yeah. All of these companies that have built massive allocations for RAM won't have any use to. Yeah, but other like consumer goods, I think once those prices go up, they don't tend to come down. The thing is if no one's buying them, they will have to,

because what we're talking about here isn't just like the top crust, it's everything. But so far people are still buying them. They're off now. People are tightening belts, but I think a lot of people are just spending way more money than they would have been five years ago and not saving. And like because you're living paycheck to paycheck with no safety net. Right.

But I think a lot of people are paying the higher prices rather than not buying the items. Yeah. To a certain degree, like sometimes you need. It's not. Sometimes you need it. I do think we get to look at this culturally, too, because people don't just sit down and read business news and make logical business decisions as economists think we do. We respond to culture. We respond to like that's how things are reacting. And I think it is interesting that the youngs, the Gen Zs and all, are looking back to pre-smartphone culture, pre-social media culture. And how prevalent is this? I mean, it's just like they grew up watching reruns of the office. Right. But there's a lot of like. about this. They're theorizing is that this is a world they probably will never actually see,

just like having a simple office job that's like that. And there's a lot of like looking back towards retro stuff. I think culturally we will, we may regress a little. It's like going back to the old video cars, but like you regress back to, okay, we gave too much of our lives to social media. We will just take a step back. Okay. So this is, I was thinking about this on the plane to CES as I was like sort of collating

some of my thoughts about tech and AI and stuff. And I actually think I lay much more of the sin at the feet of the constant entertainment feed than I do at the feet of AI. I think that social media and the constant input of entertainment has numbed us and has reduced people's interest in making statements or engaging with societal ills. by, you know, orders of magnitude. And so I actually, to me, I'm sort of like, yeah, AI is whatever bullshit it is. But I actually think that the core of the social ills is the constant drip feed of entertainment. Yes, sure. That just turns your brain, that just dulls you.

And a lot of people are trying to take a step back from this information overload. And I think we will probably see more of that. I think we will see more of that. But so my thesis winds up being that I think the breaking point for people, for people living in this inflationary environment, I think that breaking point will be a lot higher than it would be without social media. I think the breaking point will take a lot longer

than it would be without... It feels bad, but you can just pick something up and scroll through things that make your brain go, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing. So I agree. My thing is, is they've forced AI into every social networking app, too. AI is everywhere. It's in your ear.

I realize I'm doing my same bit that I always do. But it's like when that disappears, gets weird, it kind of becomes obvious. It was bullshit. That will filter into the features. You're kind of already seeing it. You're seeing random people being anti-AI now. People I never talked about it. But two separate things.

But it creates the kind of chaos that makes people be like, wait, why do I need new fucking laptop? Why don't I just go on eBay and buy an HPOman from four years ago? Why don't I just buy an iPhone 16 instead of an iPhone? Yeah. Sorry, what you have is fine. Like this iPad is over a year old, and I will probably use it for another three years or more. I don't know what they could possibly do.

The iPad Pro, by the way, a stunning example of a product, Apple spent years being like, why does this exist? A super powerful iPad, who will spend the money of a laptop to just get an iPad? And they spent so long, figure out not what to do. Like, they had no idea what to do with anything. That's endemic of like another issue, like them trying to put. into bigger categories and more expensive products. But it's all kind of part of the same thing. Like you got to push more.

You need more. The information overload. We were not, we didn't evolve to processes much information. So I think that has had a cultural impact on our brains. COVID has like rewired people completely. You would think it would push us to be more, you know, more. Yeah, socially supportive. Most of our social supportive, like try to come together.

And it just broke our brains in other ways. So it's just like, I don't know. But I think that the reason it broke people's brains was facilitated by the entertainment feed. And I want to differentiate that from a social media platform where you can go and, you know, talk to your friends and family. Truly to me, it is the constant. They all kind of ended up becoming entertainment fees. But it's why I'm specifically different, why I am using the words entertainment feed. Because I think that.

How would you define that? a constant flow of entertainment that is instantly and always accessible. And this is this video or is text involved in this? Or is this only video? I think video is so much more poisonous than text. But I will say, I think text is, uh, I think text does a very similar thing. No, but video is much easier to cycle through and consume a bunch of video information fast. It's not even, it's not even just the cycle through.

it's that like I opened Instagram. I opened Instagram this morning to do a work thing to like find a specific producer and look at who she follows and be like, do I know anybody who she follows? Like it's like a networking. It's a useful tool. And I opened it and it's some. Two hours later.

Truly, truly, truly. And it's because like I see in the little carousel, I see this little 15 second like a girl being like, here's what my boyfriend expected on New Year's. And then here's what he actually got. And it's like a very funny video. And it's her going around and like looking at Getysburg or something. But my brain is like, I see, I see things move.

And that make me like, I like things like that. I'm so fucking glad I'm autistic. I'm so fucking glad. I see that. I'm like, I got something else to do. I'm doing, I'm doing work. I just, it's so cool. I don't, I see that.

I'm like, yeah, trying to fuck with me. This happened to me last night. Like, I'm a pig, but I'm not that kind of hog. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Last night I was like, I had hours free for, for once. And I was like, I could watch a movie. I could do all this stuff. sat down and started looking at TikTok.

I was like, you know what? This is comfy. Yeah. This is nice. And also because my brain has been at like 200% in the entire week. So it just needs to like cool down. But it is such a great.

But you cool it down with the like, with like the Bing Bing Bing Bing Brain massage. Yeah. I'm going to put on a movie and cool down in front of the movie, which is one bigger. Yeah. And I think the pressure is just increasing on people

and will eventually pop. And I think the pressure is increasing from all sides. I just think it's going to take a lot longer now than it would have with the technology we had 20 years ago. I will say that. The problem is the first of all, the real world was never meant to connect with finance this much. Most people were never meant to know what HB RAM was. No one was meant to know what a GPU was. Seven years ago, if you told you asked some what a GPU was, they would call the police. Like they'd be like, why are you saying strange words to me? You're a witch. And no offense to witches.

but it's just now everyone's kind of aware of this, and it's in their head and every boss and companies saying, AI, you must do AI now. You are stupid. You're a pig and a moron. There's a great video of a comedian. I don't remember who's just, try banana now.

And it's just like that's all I think of with this stuff. It's just harassing people. I think you're right in the, it's going to take a little longer because people are so addicted to feeds and the feeds are so intense. It just numbs them. But I think that there is a degree

of harassment from the AI stuff that means that when this starts the burst it's going to be like fucking Corosan and Return of the Jedi. I think people are going to be fucking excited to see this burn. I think people are just so fucking angry and the fucking price of all electronics going up

at a time when we're most, the angriest we've ever been at the computer. I'm not saying, I don't know the order of events. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think this is, I know this is... The thing is there's so much happening in the world, right? There's also the literal destruction of democracy right in front of us, right?

There is war we're being led by warmongers and also the economy is collapsing. All this stuff is happening. I tend to look at like what will be the broad societal ways like we move through this and the only way is like we do have to like step away from the tech a little bit.

It's also like, I don't know, doing those social things that we didn't used to do. Like we kind of stepped away from. So I love libraries. Hell yeah. Libraries are great. Libraries fucking drop. We let a lot of people really shit on libraries and also strip away their resources and stuff.

It is things like that where you see the rest of your community. You can help each other. You learn together. That's the sort of thing I want to support moving forward. And we need that. I will also say, like, I said this yesterday on the episode. It's like, I am a rare thing of like, the internet has allowed me to become a person rather than maybe less of one. Yes.

That's also. Like, I was a socially anxious kid. Yeah. And technology and the internet did help me. Like, so yeah. And the thing is, you just, I think there's just a level of intentionality where it's like, I, the feeds don't work on me. I get deep anxiety when I have an infinite scroll.

Like I have the opposite, it has the opposite effect on me. I'm like, why won't this end? I can't watch anything. I don't want to look at it because it's, it's worrying me. This is bothering, which is literally everyone else is different. It's so strange. But it's like, these tools also let me talk to everyone in this room in an instant. They let me put on an insane podcast for 20 hours in a week, and nobody stops me.

But there are actual beautiful things that technology can do. And what's great is, you could use the same technology from five fucking years ago. I'm not even saying put your phone down and burn it. I'm saying use what you got now or use what just happened. Computers, putting aside all the growth capitalism stuff, computers are fucking great right now. Computers are great. People are going back to personal music players, just like a thing that plays music. You know what?

That is beautiful. And the kids right now, the thing people are saying is like they don't know if they're trusting an image. That's AI. That's an inherent distrust in AI and calling it out as a cultural object. I think that's fascinating too. So we are seeing the signs that there is going to be some sort of like pushback. I don't want there to be like the Battlestar Galactica thing, right? Or the Dune.

The Bulgarian Jihad. Ed, you're talking about you get a Balderian Jihad. We're going to get just the guy who just like the Luddite Revolta. a jihad house, you know? No, it's like, we don't have to go all the way. It's the tweet where the guy's like, what's the highest number? But at the same time, my pushback, not, sorry, this is not a pushback. I'm agreeing with everything, but it's, the way through this is to just be a little bit more

fucking intentional with it. I know it's, don't look at this. You're going to look at it. Don't hate yourself, but be aware that something's being done to you with it. And also, remember, you can call any of your friends using these things. You can talk to any of your friends. If you're feeling lonely and sad, use signal or I message. Did you see they brought the landline back?

One of the most interesting products of like that was in the holiday season. I think it's more like uppity rich parents are doing this, but they're like there's a startup that made a handset and you can program like your friends to it. So your kids friends. It's a handset. They pick it up. They dial their friends. They're a court? I think there is a court.

I think there may be a courtless version. It's a handset. It's a phone. It's a phone number. Yeah. It's more like these are your trusted. contacts, that's all this thing can call. It's back to the days where we were just like...

Is it plugged into your wall or is it a cell phone that just has a cord on it? Because we can be quite cynical about CES and my God, have we got another two hours today and four hours tomorrow and one hour on Saturday, so we will be. But there's also a degree of like, as much as we complain, I've got to hang out with my friends. That's the human connection. I got to do it and I got to record and I got to record using a weird roadcaster pro too. Look at this thing. It's amazing.

And we can record the audio, I have one for Matt Ossowski, produce it. Can I make a beat on that? It looks like I can make a beat on that. You have a soundboard as well. You can do all sorts of noises. But it's like you can do really cool shit

with the computer now and you can talk to your friends with it. But the reason that things are shit is the people that are making the interfaces, the social interfaces, are getting in the way. Understanding that and starting from that position is what makes things better for you.

They're not going to make it better for you. They're fucking assholes. Mark Zuckerberg is overseeing a fraudulent operation, 10% of their revenue in 2024 for META was from scams and fraud. That is a fucking report thing for Jeff Horwitz of Reuters. Like, that should tell you everything. It does not mean that the computer is inherently bad. What they have done to the computer is bad. And what we can do with the computer is the solution in the you can pull together a bunch of people just using text and email.

I fucking just did it this week. There are great things. You can do it. Text, text, text, text. Go me in real life. You can take fucking photos on your phone. awesome. There are still good things to be done. I know this is so hokey, but I think it's it's a good point. It's not about being completely anti-tech. It's about intents to

it's about being anti-tech industry at the moment. Because it's like, we like Pable, because Pable's like, what if a device had a use case? And everyone's like, fuck this shit. What do you mean? You won't grow by 22% year every year every quarter you piece of, except he's private. It doesn't matter. And it's just by years that the moment. That's my big, that's actually my better off line 2026. I love by use. By refurb. By refurb. By refurb. Don't give these fucking companies another fucking dollar until they can prove that they can earn it because that is the real problem. They want to grow forever. You want to grow forever. Make useful shit. But the actual internals of the computer, I also will address something that people email me occasionally,

which is, oh, the computer industry used to be good. Whatever. I don't know if it used to be good, but it used to be better. But there are beautiful things from the computer. Yeah. Part of how we got here is that we didn't ask cultural questions, right? We didn't push back against certain elements. Like, I was there when social media was just starting out. And it was like, oh, yeah, look at this feed of information. It was so cool. But it was also, we knew Mark Zuckerberg was a piece of shit from the beginning.

But did we? Most people did not. Most people did not. But there were enough stories about, oh, look at this kid who dropped out of Harvard and, like, did this thing. But there were stories about what he did before, how, like, the shitty sexist, like, proto-social network he made, who he was. Like, those stories were out there. And I watched this kid who didn't finish college, but also had no real awareness of the world, be propped up by VCs and the entire industry as some sort of like boy king. And what he did was create a thing that just generated money, right?

And that the entire point of Facebook, 2000, you know, late 2000s to 2010s was just as much engagement as possible. It was just that farming. And then everybody copied that. And that broke us because they didn't want to create something good. they just wanted to create something that addicted us. So it's like cigarettes. It's that and the scourge of neoliberalism and the idea that everything that the market is dominant.

The market would never incentivize something bad. Again, everyone talks about- Lack of regulations in the 2010s that didn't help. You talk about killing baby Hitler, that's great. I think baby Milton Freeman and baby Ronald Reagan, put them on the top of the pile. We got all sorts of babies. There's a lot of babies.

There's a lot of babies. No, but the thing is it's like, The incentives of the problem, and the only thing we can do is consumers is don't stop using tech. I think that that's an unrealistic thing. Like, Chloe, it's your life. Like, you have to use tech, especially as a stand-up. You're kind of- I have to use social media.

Yeah, you have to. There's just no other way around it. Don't buy a new phone. I'm done buying you fucking shit. I'm going on. You haven't seen how broken my phone. No, but go on, go and buy a... Chloe, Chloe, go on by a refo.

You know what's great? My phone. Refer by phones. I actually think I am done buying new phones. I'm going to buy the refurb forever. I buy my parents. Refer by phones every couple of years from Amazon. Perfect for them.

It works great. The hardware lasts. And then they're still like. No new shit. No new shit unless it's cool. Unless it's fucking new and cool and good. Fuck CES. Fuck.

It's like, but really though, if you can buy new, by use, go on eBay, go on whatever. Go on Craigslist. Like go on buy from a regular person.

Circulate that money in the real world. Take it out of the fucking stock market. Cash, cat. Okay, I'm going a little insane. But it's like, I stand by it. Because it's like all of the new prices are going to go up. Yeah. And when it comes to social media, I think we can be more intentional, right?

It's like for the longest time, people are making arguments like, okay, I'm going to stay on X. Even though Elon Musk bought it and destroyed Twitter, I'm going to stay on this day. Now it's a freaking C-Sam generating garbage machine. It's like, I think we can start to make those moral choices where it's like, career-wise, I would be better off staying on X, probably. But you have to have some sort of like moral center. And I think we need to ask more of that as ourselves right now. So get off of X. I'm working.

I'm honestly working. Like, I want to stay on there for my fucking publisher and I might talk to them about it. It's just like, it's a horrifying pedo generator. You don't want to be there. And they're literally, nobody's doing anything about the pornography and the CSAM being generated on it. And that just exists. and they just got a bunch of new funding. They got rewarded for this too.

Well, they did that so they could buy GPUs. Now, actually, I want to end with a fun idea. Here's a fun idea that I think everyone's going to love. So, here is how Elon Musk ruins his life using AI. So Elon Musk is doing, they just raised $20 billion. Most of that is going to go to GPUs for AI for GROC. And where did they raise that from? VCs.

VCs. Oh, fuck, I forget. Like, who exactly were. The venture capitalists. But is it mostly VCs? It's mostly VCs in debt and Nvidia. Okay. So they're doing that to build.

more data centers. They're losing over a billion dollars a month just on the current thing. They're going to build more data centers, which will lose them even more money. Elon Musk's money mostly comes from leverage, which means just borrowing on his current holdings. He's not particularly liquid, and he's added the most money-losing thingy ever to a social network which already loses money. And R-slash Grock on Reddit, everyone there should be redacted. It's mostly just people generating horrifying things of women. Here's the thing. Every time he does that, it's probably five to ten bucks and it's happening

millions of times a day. This could actually lead. AI could lead to the destruction of someone like that. And people say oh, Elon Musk always finds more money. There are actual limits to Ed's point. There are actual limits to things. I would say for normal people, yes. He is still, he is the

world's richest man. He's finding ways to do it because he's the richest man on paper and he got so much. Like the Twitter deals $13 billion. dollars, that's fucking nothing compared to the bullshit data centers. I want everyone to just think about and laugh about the idea that this man is building big-ass data centers that just only losing money. He keeps talking about Mars.

Let him go to Mars. Let him go to Mars. Let him be hoisted by his own rocket. Yeah, if you've read the beginning of Red Mars, you know, there's, it's totally great. There's some ideas there in that first prolog about what might happen to Elon Musk. I love Kim Stanley. Yeah. Yeah.

And I realize that it's tough, and I know as we come to the end of this block, I know we've been quite cynical. This is so hokey and I do this every CUS. The best thing you can do when you hear this stuff, when you're like, I'm upset with this is love your friends harder, tell them you, I love everyone in this room,

I'm genuinely so happy to have everyone here. But it's like, that little thing that you think is so immaterial, we'll save lives, will make people's lives happier, tell people you love their shit. Go online. Use social media to say,

I think, Chloe, you're insanely funny and I've watched you only get funny. DaVindra, I've followed your work for like a decade. Edward on Grasso Jr. An insanely talented man. And I love reading your work and I love having you on the mic. These things are actually very easy to do and easier because of digital. There is never, go, you're listening to this. Go and fucking do that to literally anyone you know.

Family member, friend, creator, tell them you love them, love their shit. And why? That is actually something that digital communication allows you to do today that will make the world better. Buy used. By used now. If you want a new thing, buy a used one. It's probably fine. That is the only way we begin fixing things.

And these moral choices like DaVindra mentioned. But what if I want to chat GPT wrap or to tell me what color my shit is and if that is going to be indicative of a health problem. You could just use Microsoft copilot, which will be in a Windows laptop from a year ago. Microsoft 365 copilot. And you have to turn the laptop around and point it at your poop in the toilet

and then take a photo. And then also at the same time, look at the chat on and be like, is this working? You've got this. Yeah, yeah. We're going to see some cool stuff. Like these local LLMs, we're going to go back to punk tech, right?

People building their own cool little models. The maker shit. We're all little cool things. Like, we're going to be back there. Their own little gadgets powered by punk tech. I want to see that more. And the thing is, I know it's fucking grim out there and it really is.

We are still, one of the problems in society is we're hyper-connected and full of technology. One of the cool things is we are as well. And there is a ton of tech that exists today, that you don't need to worry about the future, that will do what you want to do by used, and also tell your friends and family you love them, tell creators you love their work, share their shit. Yeah, give me a little compliments. No, I'm actually deadly serious though.

Give friends little compliments that you can do that in seconds now. It doesn't matter where they are in the world as long as they've got an internet connection. It's so fucking hokey, but I think it's easy to miss. And I think like as we come to an end, as we come to the end here, it's come to the end this blog. It's worth saying that. And you know what? I'll let everyone plug something. Devendra, what are you working on at the moment? What do you want people to read? And gadgets where I'm doing this stuff. Check out our CS coverage. I also do a movie podcast, The Filmcast at the Filmcast.com. Can't wait to see your movie, Chloe.

But maybe don't listen to my review. I don't know. I don't know. Edwin, Griso, Jr., what are you excited about writing? What are you writing at the moment? Um, working on this very weird essay for, um, for print magazine. Tell me. It's... I mean, yeah. I've pitched the same idea. You're not supposed to do this.

I pitched the same idea at two places, but I know one is going to actually say yes and the other one. And it's... One of my favorite speeches is MLK's letter to Christians. It's from the perspective of Paul writing to American Christians and warning and kind of like sussing out the society they have and warning about it. But I wanted to invert it. So I wrote like a letter from a few.

where fascists won and it's a letter from the fascists who won to the fascist now as a way to reverse talk about stuff that's going on now. That sounds amazing. I don't like researching it, but it's been interesting. It's a fun experiment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stuff like that. I've been trying to do a lot more fiction experiments because I've been doing more readings lately.

Good. I'm excited for that. It's fucking great. Chloe, where are you playing? I'm doing Cincinnati this weekend, the 9th and 10th or 10th and 11th, whatever the Friday Saturday is. Link will be in there. Then Washington, D.C., the next weekend, MLK weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

And then that following week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, not a weekend. I'm doing my solo show cheat in Philadelphia. Come on out to that. After that, Vermont, Fort Collins, yada, yada, yada, on the road. Fargo. And I have been putting. putting a link to getting a permanent discount to my newsletter in these things. I've not done my paid newsletter. It's a chunk of my income. Please, fucking God, subscribe to my paid newsletter.

I really, if I can, in a year's time, if I can double from here, I can just do this. Yeah. So it's really happy. Also subscribe to mine. Yeah. Well, if you got a special, we can do an Ed, an Ed Ed, Ed's. Sue Ed's a better than one discount. Yeah. But really, though, if you're going to put your money into anything, Sean Paul Adams, who is a friend of the show, friend of the suite. He passed sadly last year. His son is epileptic. So we are honoring him by getting you to donate to the pediatric epilepsy research consortium. His family and friends would deeply appreciate you doing so, and so would I. Thank you so much. We'll be back for two hours in a few hours.

This has been incredible. I love doing the show. I love you all. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattosowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattersowski.com. You can email me at EZ 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? at to visit the Discord and go to R slash Better Offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

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