It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 164

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.  Q&A 2025 2025 Predictions CES 2025: Listen to AI Executives Laughing At People Losing Their Jobs The AI 'Ick': What Big Tech Is Bringing for 2025 CES 2025: Robert and Gare Meet The Literal Devil You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, it's Nikki Glaser. So I hosted the Golden Globes at Hollywood's biggest party. Honestly, you've probably seen all the headlines this week, but like any good party, there's a lot of wild stuff that goes down behind the scenes that you don't know about. And since I hosted the Golden Globes, I'm letting my podcast listeners, my besties, in on all the behind the scenes tea. Stuff that didn't make it to the live TV taping, what went down in rehearsals, who said what at the after party.

You're going to hear it all. Listen to the Nikki Glaser podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And this January, we're going to go on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada to cover the consumer electronics show, Tech's biggest conference. Better Offline's CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest gadgets or biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025. I'll be joined by David Roth at Defecta and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with guest appearances from Behind the Bastards' Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis,

and a few surprise guests throughout the show. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts from. Like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor What's in the Museum of Failure and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer go to really no really calm and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead the really no really podcast Follow us on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast Welcome to decisions decisions the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF, and me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love.

That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, we share our personal journeys navigating our 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engage in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that'll resonate with your experiences. Decisions Decisions is going to be your go-to source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections.

Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica.

And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices Podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here.

If you like witty women, know this is a compilation episode. Every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Hi, everyone. It's James coming at you with a pretty nasty cold here. I wanted to share with you that wildfires have swept through Los Angeles in the last

couple of days while I'm recording this. Thousands of people have been displaced, five people have died that we know of so far, thousands of structures have been burned and many, many people in LA will be finding themselves out of their homes with nowhere to go and with very few resources. If you'd like to help, we've come up with some mutual aid groups who you can donate to and we'll be interviewing one of them on this show next week. So if you'd like to help, the three places where we suggest you would donate some cash are the Sidewalk Project, that's thesidewalkproject.org. Ktown4all, that's letter K, T-O-W-N-F-O-R-A-L-L.O-R-G.

And EtnaStreetSolidarity, you can find them on Venmo or I think on Instagram as well. That's AETNA, S-T-R-E-E-T, S-O-L-I-D-A-R-I-T-Y. Alright, I'm gonna go rest my voice. Order in the court! Order in the court! Justice Robert Evans presiding. I see we have a fine jury here to take questions from the audience of our of our daily news show Which is also my courtroom Everybody everybody get it because I'm a judge now Really because that's how the legal system works all those rumors are finally have come true No municipal judge Garrison, that's

Okay That's good, municipal, municipal. You're right, you're right, you're right. I will now for the rest of my life be able to say when people ask questions, well, as a man of the law, which I'm very much looking forward to, not only able to say, Robert, quite likely to say. Anyway, that's all I got.

All right, this is the It Could Happen Here Q&A episode we've got. What are we calling you now, Robert Evans? What's your title? The Honorable Robert Evans. And I actually did get the judge who made me a judge sent me a gavel, but I didn't grab it for this one. So I just used, I have the barrel and lower receiver from an antique sawed off shotgun that belonged to a bootlegger. And I just sort of slammed that into my table.

Great. I'm sure our editor will love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right, but before we broadcast so you have a sawed-off shotgun, it's not a, it's not functional. It's been destroyed.

I see. I see. Good. Didn't want a little Ruby Ridge moment. Yeah. We've got Mia Wong, Garrison Davis, James Stout, and the dishonorable Robert Evans. And Sophie Lichterman. Oh, yes. It's me. Yeah. We've got Mia Wong, Garrison Davis, James Stout, and the dishonorable Robert Evans. And Sophie Lichterman. Oh yes, it me. Yeah. We're going to do some questions.

We posted it on our blue sky. If you're not following us on blue sky, we are on there. Blue ski. One does not post on blue sky, Sophie. One skeets. I really hope that's not true because that's really embarrassing. Unfortunately. They really tried to get that off the ground.

I don't see anyone actually using skeet. That's really embarrassing. That's an unfortunate. They really tried to get that off the ground. I don't see anyone actually using skeet. I saw someone use it in French, and it was a real moment. I use skeet. Garrison. Instead of saying send tweet, now I just say send skeet in conversation. Everyone loves it. Mm-hmm.

Fever-y skeet. Is that a thing? Yeah, I guess you do. I guess you do. Mm-hmm. And we're moving on. I'm just going gonna throw out some of the questions we received online. I'm not even gonna say the name of the app again, because I'm afraid being labeled as an old garrison's embarrassed by me, I can tell.

I didn't say that. But you thought it. But you thought it. I didn't think that. You did. Any advice for someone with a desire to do some hobby or freelance journalism in the coming few years? I want to actively fight for equality.

Also thank you for your questions, everyone. I don't thank you for your questions. I'm actively angry at you for your questions. That's why you're the dishonorable. Start rich if you want to be a freelance journalist because you'll progressively become poorer. I have funded my journal. I love whenever people ask me questions like, how did you convince KraK to send you to Iraq? I didn't. I bought plane tickets. Like being an entertainer has always been what's funded my journalism.

I guess my advice would be get really autistic about something problematic. Just like one thing, this one thing I get like really into it to the point where it kind of takes over your life, your personal life starts fading away. It kind of blends into your whole state of existence. And only then will you actually get good at that. That thing. Yep. That's my advice. And then you just take one thing at a time and every few years you kind of change the

scope of the thing that you're getting really autistic about. But that's kind of how I've rolled and it's been okay. Yeah. You just finished 36 hours of digging into the life of a school shooter. And I also built the back of my career spending hours and hours digging through the online lives of mass shooters. And you don't have to do that,

but you do have to do that thing, which is yeah, exactly what Garrison said. You have to pick a very narrow thing and make it your life. And not just a random thing, but like a thing that you think is important and that people don't, other people don't understand how important it is. And if you make yourself, there's a fella,

his blog is called We Hunted the Mammoth, Dave Futrell, who's been covering what we call the Manosphere for like more than a decade before anybody else in journalism was taking it seriously. You gotta You got to do that kind of thing. If you do that kind of thing, you, you build a name for yourself and that can allow you when the, the thing that you're obsessed on becomes a big story. Being burst to have something meaningful to say about it can provide you eventually with the opportunity to cover other things.

Yeah. I think that's good advice. I would say if you want to get started freelancing, it's a good idea to join the IWW Freelance Journalists Union. You can learn a lot from people who are freelancing there. You can learn who not to pitch, which editors are toxic as fuck, which is a surprisingly large amount. Yeah.

You can learn which email to send your pitches to and how to pitch if you're not familiar with how to pitch. I also teach sometimes journalism workshops at a community college. So if you have a community college near you, you might be able to get some either free or very cheap sort of advice and the real nuts and bolts of journalism, like sending pitches and stuff like that. Cool. What is the consensus on what the next Trump administration will do on the first day or first week? All of us just look like we're in pain.

Ugh. Ugh, fuck knows. Like it's chaos. Bad. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not for seeing good things. Uh, there'll be a lot of executive orders that are, you know, probably bad, you know, things that aren't great.

Yeah, I think that he's going to try to do as much of what he's promised to do in terms of particularly, not in terms of everything he's promised, but in terms of going after immigrants. Yeah. He's going to do as much of what he's promised to do as he possibly can. Now, that doesn't mean he's going to actually deport millions of people There are like some just practical limitations based on the capacity of the institutions He'll be using to do this and he could get there's a very good chance things will get bogged down and whatnot

But like he will try yeah, that's that's my take Yeah, I think I think the other thing that's gonna happen pretty quickly is I think he's gonna start moving on tariffs very very fast Yeah, yeah, if you're planning to buy a computer go ahead and grab that fucker now if you can. If you're getting anything from overseas you should get it in the few weeks that you still can. Yeah, if it has a battery it may do. I had my annual physical today because otherwise our insurance screws us over and my doctor was like you should try to get as many our insurance screws us over. And my doctor was like, you should try to get as many prescriptions filled before the end of the year, before things come up, just in case.

There you go. And you know, that's not terrible advice. Yeah. I think in terms of executive orders, he will try and further restrict access to asylum, try and further change. There are things he can do by executive order with ICE and CBP in terms of how they operate that he will try and do. It's not impossible that they will try and again, immediately mobilize public

health law against migrants like he did in 2020, right? Yeah. Those things could all be done without congressional support. We made a whole podcast about this, but Stephen Miller has suggested that they might do some of those things. So yeah, not impossible. Probably won't be a great day. Somebody's getting fired the first week.

Ask her. Yeah. Probably first day. Yeah. I mean, I've seen the fact that the FBI director is stepping down, pushed as like an act of resistance because it means that Trump now has to actually go through like Congress to get it done. I don't know if how much I buy that, how much I think that I think a lot of what

I'm seeing right now from establishment people, and maybe this isn't true of Ray. Cause I did find some of the arguments there compelling, but a lot of what I've seen from establishment people in politics is they're scared and just really trying not to make waves. Yeah. And I think that's what you're going to see overwhelmingly. I think that he's going to probably probably will not immediately act against the press and in a legal sense as the president, they will do that.

But I think he's he's going to he's already suing differently. And I think that that's going to be kind of his focus there for a while, just because there's a lot on his plate. But I think there will be attempts to fuck with libel laws and stuff, especially as things go on. Okay. Several of you have asked about the Android ad-free version subscription channel, and I want you all to know that it will happen next year.

I have been trying to get this to happen for two years now. And for unforeseen reasons, it just keeps getting roadblocked, but it, but it is happening. We're just waiting on a couple couple final things to get into place. So that will be happening hopefully very soon into 2025. I will update everybody as soon as that's possible. And I'm so sorry it's taken so long. I want you to know I have worked so unbelievably hard on this. Miserably hard.

Yeah, we've seen it. Sophie has. It's been a nightmare. Harder than I have worked on anything else this year. Like it's been nuts. And here's the thing that sucks for no reason. No reason at all. Like not that there's no reason to launch the app, there's a great reason.

There's no reason it should have taken this long. Correct. But we can't say anymore for reasons that are also equally frustrating. I'd like to say in general folks, there's a few things that get brought up. A lot is like, why haven't they done this yet? Why haven't they done this yet? We're talking like technical things or like, you know, things like

like a paid subscription. And they're like, why haven't they gotten around to it yet? And the answer is always some infuriating bullshit based on some bureaucracy. Bullshit, some be right, some legal shit where you're like, you don't actually realize it's illegal to do this if you, if you do it this way or whatever, like some sort of bullshit that makes it impossible. It's not that we, we, we want to make this is it as easy as possible for people to have the best listening experience that we can afford to provide them. But

there's a lot of annoying bullshit that exists for reasons beyond our comprehension. Sorry. Anyways, here's ads unless you have an iPhone and subscribe to Cooler Zone Media on Apple. All right, we're back. How do you each motivate yourself to write or do your jobs? I get asked that question all the time, but I'll let each of you tackle it. While this is a communally hosted show, I feel like each of you do very different things. So your answers are going to be all over the place.

So Garrison. Oh, well, I mean, paying rent's a great motivator. Yeah. Sure. Yes, yes. Understated. This is a big thing that a lot of people who want to be writers,

but have never done it for a living miss, is that all of your favorite writers who do it for a living, a big part of how they get over fucking writer's block is they have to pay rent or a mortgage. Turns out that helps. It's a quite compelling motivator. And sometimes it does require the assistance of caffeine or other things. I have a variety of playlists to help me when I'm in different moods. I definitely will. About, you know, maybe twice a month, I just do a complete body check to my sleep schedule

to get a special project finished. And that's just kind of part of the deal, at least in terms of how I work. Not everyone does it this way, though. Maybe people are more healthy than me. Yeah, for me... Okay, so the easiest way something gets done is just pure rage. I get really angry at something, and I can just do it. Like, it just comes out.

Yeah, anger's a great motivator. It's awesome. Yeah. Uh, the other fun one is pure joy at something funny happening. Like, the Shinzo Abe assassination. Easiest writing I've ever done in my life. Sometimes it just flows. Yeah.

Yeah. Other times it's just like, there's a deadline and everyone is counting on me and I have to get it out and I've gotten to the right level of sleep deprivation where I can just do it. That's right, that's right. Yeah. I also think, you know, there's obviously like

health insurance, which is sort of a joke given our health insurance. But yeah. And then the last thing, and this is the sort of the serious one, is that like this, you know, I mean, I do some organizing stuff, too, but like this. This is the thing that I have to do that can materially affect the world, which is a very, very weird thing to say about a podcast, but I've seen it happen, right? I've seen all of you go and do things that wouldn't have happened. And I've, you know, it's a weird situation, right? Because

my motivation for doing this stuff is the chance that you will make the world better. But I've, I've seen it happen and I have to continue to believe that the thing that I've been doing for all these years is project of building a very large hammer and deploying it against our enemies can work and will work. And that is, you know, that's how I get out of bed every morning is we're building the hammer and we're swinging it. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Very large hammer will be a banging name for a podcast. I agree. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Yeah. There's a, there's a great speech in the comic series, trans metropolitan about how journalism is a gun, uh, that you, you wire up to your eyes and your ears and several other organs in order to shoot at the world. And that's, I think a good way to keep yourself doing it when it feels like you're just shouting into a void. Yeah. I really like the process of writing. I like telling stories. Like that makes me happy and I feel so lucky I can do it for my job. I don't particularly like like receiving trauma, which I also do for a job. But like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,. And like, as Mia said, it has materially changed the world.

Like the amount of people who listened to our podcast and came to the border to help last year when we really desperately needed help, people who just like on Sunday night gave their money, which I know like none of us have enough money right now to help people who are displaced in Rojava, like all that stuff really makes it feel like if you tell a good enough story, people will care. That's always what I felt. Like if you could just get people to see it, if people could be there, they would

care and if they care enough, they'll do something. And I've seen that be true with people who listen to the show and that really makes me happy, so I want to keep doing that. Yeah, for me, it's a two-part answer. The first part is that I genuinely give a shit about everything that we put out. And what we do is not really... While it is a job, it matters so much. And the second part is if I don't do my job, the amount of people's lives that that impacts is a lot of fucking people.

And I give a shit about each and every one of them. So I'm going to keep doing my job so that everybody else can keep doing their job. And maybe we make a difference in this world. This fucked up, crumbly world. Robert? Did you have anything to add? You were speaking and then I talked. Did I have... Did I already not give an answer?

You gave an answer, that's why. But you were starting to speak. Oh, yeah. I do it for the fame, baby. Great. (*laughs*) Next. What episode or episodes were your favorite this year to make or otherwise? My favorite this year were definitely James's series

from The Darien Gap. That was an incredible series. I'm so unbelievably proud of it. James had been trying to do that work for a long time and I'm happy that we were able to fund it and James was able to do the incredible reporting that he did. I'm also quite proud of Robert Garrison and I

surviving the RNC and DNC. The RNC was a good time. Like legitimately was a good time. I had a great time. Fooling the worst people in the world. It was the D&C that fucked me up. Yeah. Yeah.

Same. I was like destroyed emotionally after the D&C. Yeah. The D&C was really a huge bummer. And then Mia has covered some of the most important labor stories that like nobody covers. Absolutely. Yeah.

And like without those genuinely like nobody covers like small labor stories or big labor stories. And she's always on top of that beat. And yeah, I also really just like Robert's Don't Panic episode was something. Some great writing, my friend. I answered now everybody else has to. Well, I'll start with Mia. There's weirdly a few this year.

Cool. I normally isn't. I like the Boeing ones. That was fun. Yeah. The one that was most emotionally impactful for me was getting to interview Dr. Julia Serrano, who, um, if you haven't listened to that episode, go listen to it.

Great book. Yeah. Whipping Girl is the book that literally created a bunch of the, like, like the concept of misgendering is like from that book, right? Like, like the language that we use to talk about transness today, like, is directly her. And so few people have ever read the book. So few people even know who she is and getting a chance to talk to her was like incredible. And I'm also really happy about the organizing one that I did

because I've gotten so many messages from people who were just like, Oh, wait, my knitting is useful to organizing. And I'm like, yes, yes it is. You're knitting. You're so incredible, staggeringly useful. Yeah, so I'm proud of that one. Yeah, let's take a quick break then, Garrison, Robert, James, you can answer that question. ["Sweet Home Alone"] And we're back. James, how about you?

Um, I'm proud of doing the Darien ones, I think. Like, I'm so happy that we finally got to a place where, like, we could do that, where we could fund that. Like, I've been trying to do that, like I said, for nearly a decade. And, yeah, it's been hard and it continues to be hard. Like one of the people you heard from in those episodes got deported last week. And so like, it continues to kind of be emotionally difficult, but I really liked how many people messaged me and were like, I sent this to my father, uncle, not just dudes, aunts and their mums too, I'm sure.

And think non-binary relatives, but like, well, maybe not because they sent it to their right-wing relatives and, uh, and they like learned some compassion. That's always what you want to do. Like I said before, you want people to see it so that they care and so they understand it and they didn't just get this stupid Fox News bullshit racism stuff. And so, yeah, that may be really happy. The reason we're all different on this, by the way, is because we have not done a come 2024 episode. And if we had, this would have been a much shorter segment. James, let me just tell you, I think we can all look forward to a white Christmas

this year. Jesus Christ. Jesus motherfucking. Is this going to be coming out after that? I set him up. I set him up! It's my own fault! Wow. I guess I'll go now. I'll just, sure, clean out the aftertaste of that. So, I think I started out pretty strong with police drones, even more topical as we record this now as New Jersey is about to get completely abducted, I think, by alien aircraft. Yeah, there's no one left in New Jersey now.

They've all been taken away by these unidentified drones. That actually happened three days ago. It just took a long time for the rest of the country to notice or care. Bruce Springsteen hasn't made a song about it, so we have no way of knowing. Besides the mass hysteria of the New Jersey drone panic, police drones are a real problem, and those are going to be increasingly so. I was happy with my reporting on that at CES. And then I guess, I mean, to echo Sophie, I had a great time at the RNC. It was fun.

A sentence I never thought I would say. Yeah. And particularly the RNC Grindr episode, I still think is pretty good. It was pretty great. It was a banger. The amount of places that Garrison and I snuck into at the RNC, a time. It was really dangerous too, because I was having to do my RNC research next to Robert and Sophie the whole time. And oh boy, it's like a minefield scrolling through that app.

Thanks. An experience, to say the least. Any thoughts on the proposed 2028 general strike? How are people feeling about that? I'll start with Mia. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty good idea. There's definitely sort of, and I'm immediately going into this naysay a little bit. There's definitely problems with it It's gonna be extremely hard to execute

Because we just don't have a modern history of doing that in the US and even some of the successful ones in the last decade But people have pulled off hadn't been that effective but on the other hand as something that we you know a concrete thing that we have to Organize towards that has a bunch of like pretty large unions behind it already. Oh, my I did an episode about that a few weeks ago. I don't know a couple months ago, I don't remember when I did this episode. I'm sorry, I can't remember anything we've ever done. But I think I think I think it's a good opportunity to connect a whole bunch of different kinds of organizing together, both in terms of sort of labor and in terms of the support work you need for

that. So, yeah, cautiously optimistic. Anyone else have anything they want to add? The time to start figuring out those logistics like is now, it's not waiting until 2027. Yeah, I agree, Garrison. I think that the fact that there are serious people who represent serious unions talking about it is part of why it's one of the things that does give me a degree of hope. We're going to have to start working now towards it.

It's not going to be simple in any way, shape or form. If they see it coming, they are going to start trying to criminalize things preemptively. If it is something that even looks like a real possibility, they're going to come after it with everything they've got. And it's one of those things where maybe if the midterms go well for Democrats, maybe Democrats stop that, but it's just as plausible and probably more plausible that Democrats line up with Republicans to attempt to criminalize something like that. Yeah, it's strange to be seeing something like this organized so far off.

Like you said, it's not something any of us are familiar with. Which it has to be, to be clear. Yeah, it has to be. Barring an actual coup, that's the only way you get a general strike, right? Either something so earth- shattering that everyone's ready to risk it because they're already in danger, or you take the time and you plan that you do it properly. But it's just not something we're familiar with. I love the general strike. I'm always going to support a general strike. I'm excited to see a general strike. But yeah, we have to put in the work now.

Yeah. The only responsible way to characterize the organized left in the United States is a complete and utter failure. Like it has, it has been a calamity for the causes that it seeks to, uh, to represent. And a lot of that is because of like fucking bullshit online clicktivism, you know, we're all going to do a general strike. Everybody, everybody get ready next week. We're going to do it, you know, shit like that is, is it's just so deeply unserious. And if we're going to take the momentum and the energy that exists and the number of people who are angry and who, you know, and that number of people will be increasing as the consequences of conservative policies hit home by 2028. Like it has to be hit home by 2028. Like it has to be something taken deadly seriously by very serious people who are thinking through

the consequences and what's necessary in order to make this feasible, you know? And lastly, do each of you have, you know, a movie or a book or something you would like to recommend? In 2025, when I finish my book, you should buy it. Yes. But read General Strike. I've been reading a book called Presente, which is in English, but it's about how San Francisco dock workers blocked a shipment of weapons to El Salvador.

And it just seems a very relevant book and they did it to Pinochet as well. It's easy to read and like, it just reminded me how important labor organizing is going to be in the next four years and how powerful it can be too. So I'll give that one a little plug. Excellent. There's a film called The End Will Be Spectacular which is about the Kurdish youth movement in Northern Kurdistan in Turkey. It's a really good film I think to help you understand the Kurdish freedom

movement. And it's worth a watch. It's not like necessarily a happy feel good film, but I think it's worth a watch especially if you've recently become interested in that because of what you've heard on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, I have a couple. So I'm trans fiction-pilled right now. We're giving you fiction for trans authors. Would you say you're transfixed? Wow. I walked right into that one.

Like, drove directly into it, like JFK's head into that bullet. Oh my god! Wow, we spend a lot of time with each other. Yeah, the first one I wanted to talk about is the gun runner and her hounds by Maria Yang Which is the the pen name of a couple of authors? Okay, so it's this is a this is an absolutely unhinged lesbian book about a lesbian crime lord and her new bodyguard Who is also a lesbian and it rules? There's a whole sort of like

Post-apocalypse us thing going on but they're still in like civilized Hong Kong. It's awesome. It's great. It's you need you need war on hinge lesbians in your life. Go read this. The the other one is one of the boys this is forthcoming is we want to release May 13 2025 by Victoria Zeller and it's about a trans girl who's like the kicker on her football team. And she haser on her football team and she has to like leave the team because she transitions but then the team needs her back because they don't have a kicker and it's it's fun it's it's a good time so you should you should get that when it comes out.

Yeah so I'm actually right now in the middle of a book that I found myself surprised by how much I've liked it's called when Paris went dark and it is a history of the occupation of Paris under the Nazis. That is a really fascinating social history by Ronald Rosebottom that I found very like emotionally affecting, especially in light of, you know, some things going on. And yeah, just kind of a fascinating look at the psychology of an entire people grappling with what's about to happen to them in the wake of the failure of the French army and then what happens next. And then I would also recommend Setting the Desert on Fire by James Barr, which is one of the books about T.E. Lawrence that I cited in the T.E. Lawrence episodes.

If you are at all interested in the realities of needing to fight an insurgent war. Here? I guess just two recent things I've enjoyed. Finally finished The Steppenwolf by Herman Hess. Ah, yes. I enjoyed that deeply. It kind of picked my Twin Peaks the Return brain, so that was pleasant. And for a more recent release, Luca Guadagnino's new movie Queer, adapting the short story by William S. Burroughs,

I found this movie to be utterly fascinating and, uh, uh, transfixing to use the term from me. Uh, Robert. I don't have much else to say about it because I would rather people just watch it and take away what they want to themselves. But it got me thinking a lot about the lack of meaning inherent to identity and, uh, why I hate the term queer bodies. So yeah, good movie.

Awesome. I just have one movie to recommend and it's one of my favorite movies of all time. The original 1973, 72, so 73, 73, the Wicker Man. Not the fucking Nicolas Cage version, the original version. And if you have a local theater that plays old movies, a lot of times they'll play it in theaters and I highly recommend that experience.

It's really fun, especially at the end. I see it in theaters or watch it at least once or twice a year and vibes are good. Yeah. That's it for our Q&A episode. Thanks for submitting and goodbye. I'm not here to roast you. I'm here to overshare everything that went down at the Golden Globes last Sunday. Everyone is already talking about what happened on air at the Golden Globes, but you are going to hear about what happened off air from the horse's mouth. Yes, I'm the horse.

Me, Nikki Glaser. Join me on my podcast, the Nikki Glaser podcast, where I will be telling you all the details. I can finally relax with my besties, my listeners, and dish what happened backstage. What went down, the things people are already talking about, the things that people should be talking about, I've got it all. From what it took to prep for the Golden Globes to the behind the scenes of the Golden Globes, what went down in the rehearsals, who said what at the after party, who I saw at the after party, who was dancing with who.

I'm going to spill it all. Secrets will be revealed. You do not want to miss this episode. Listen to the Nikki Glaser podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And this January, we're going on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada to cover the Consumer Electronics Show, Tech's biggest conference. Better Offline CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest

gadgets or the biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025, interrogating their narratives alongside a remarkable cast of industry talent and award-winning journalists. We'll have daily episodes, on-the-ground interviews and special panels covering everything from the BS of AI to the ways in which race and gender play into how people are treated in the tech industry and at these conferences. I'll be joined by David Roth of Defecta and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with appearances from Behind the Bastards Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis and a few surprise guests throughout the show.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts from and check out betteroffline.com. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Lily podcast. Our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like. Why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientists who figured out if your dog truly wants to go to the way to the floor? We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer? We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the wooly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stunt man reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by.

Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, sir? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No Really. Go to ReallyNoReally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really,

and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["Really No Really"] ["Really No Really"] When I smoke weed, I get lost in the music. I like to isolate each instrument. The rhythmic bass, the harmonies on the piano, and the sticky melody.

Hey, hey, hey, the sticky melody. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, careful, babe. There's someone crossing the street. Sorry, I didn't see him there. If you feel different, you drive different. Don't drive high. It's dangerous and illegal everywhere. A message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and my latest interview is with Mel Robbins. The theory is very simple. It is a mindset tool that instantly helps you identify what's in your control and what's not in your control.

Renowned motivational speaker, bestselling author, Mel Robbins. Work has been seen as the number one cause of stress. How can the let them theory help? As you notice the stress come up, Jay, you're simply going to say, let them. You have no idea right now how much time and energy is being wasted because of other people's behavior. It's like a death by a thousand cuts. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here.

This is our 2025 predictions episode. We were starting to bicker off like about what we predicted last year. And I was talking about the things we predicted. And one of the things I predicted early on, I was like, I think Kim Kardashian will be part of the Trump cabinet. And like, honestly, goals at this point. But I'm not that far off though, like, because essentially what he has done is he's basically tried to go for people that are good on TV.

It's true. It's true. And like going off of that reality TV energy. Finally, we will acknowledge the Armenian genocide. I was vibing, okay, James? I was vibing. No vibes allowed. No vibes allowed. Genocide.

Just, I know. James. All right. Vibaside. God, all right. Mia, Mia Wong's here. I was hoping to bring Gerson's here. James Stout's here and the dishonorable Robert Evans is also here. I judge that nickname bad. Jesus Christ. Wow.

Let's go over some of our terrible 2024 predictions just briefly. Now, unfortunately, there was a lot of election ones, which were very sad to listen to. Oh, no. Oh, no. Now, we were correct about many things. We did talk about how Harris would probably be a really bad candidate to run against Trump. Totally forgot about that. We did! Yeah, huge dub for us.

Massive L for the country. That brief period of time when Biden stepped down, it really felt like it might be, I mean, she did better than he would have done. Yeah. Well, I think that's just because we were still just reeling from that debate so bad. Yeah. That like anything was like, oh my God, there's like a lifeline. Look at how she can walk 30, 40 feet at a time.

Exactly. Sentence. Good God. None of us picked Vance specifically at that point in time, but we did pinpoint Trump's orbit and his campaign crew pretty well. Mia predicted that RFK Jr. could be a Trump VP pick, and though he didn't become VP, he essentially kind of took over the VP campaigning role from Vance in August. Yeah, because Vance was so bad at it.

We all decided that Vivek was simply way too loud and obnoxious, so Trump would find some other spot for him. Stand by that. And that's what happened. He's still in the orbit, but he's not super close. So if he talked about possibly Kristi Noem as getting linked in with Trump, maybe for VP. Now that didn't happen for VP, but Kristi Noem as getting linked in with Trump maybe for VP now that didn't happen for VP But Kristi Noem is in the cabinet good job past me Yeah, and Robert said that he would not be shocked if Trump got close with Tulsi Gabbard. Oh Robert and

Whomp whomp whomp Other less good predictions. I predicted that a Daily Wire host would get pied. Unfortunately, did not come to pass. There's still time. It's still 2024 as we're writing this. Not when this airs. Not when this airs. Yes, Kim Kardashian getting into politics. Didn't really happen. She kind of stayed at her regular coast level. Sorry, Sophie. So far. Trust me. she did all those things when Trump was elected the first time where

all of a sudden she was like with other lawyers trying to get people out of jail by utilizing Trump. Yeah. I mean, and she was doing that with the Biden campaign as well. Not as visibly. The Harris campaign. She was meeting with Harris multiple times. She kind of stayed at this like distant but like talkative place. That's the Kardashian way. Distant and talkative.

Speaking of, speaking of, your other prediction was that people would start forgetting about the Nazi stuff and Kanye would put out a well-received album, which kind of happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. God, I haven't thought about Kanye in so many months. It was really nice.

Well, it's over now. It was really nice. Thanks, Garrison. Lastly, my failed prediction is that if Trump won the election, that there would be two solid weeks of rioting, which simply did not happen. Yes, nothing happened. I just think it's actually kind of interesting. And we will maybe unpack that in the coming months as Trump's second term kind of settles

in. I'm sure we will kind of revisit why we think this did not happen. Certainly I'm curious about what Inauguration Day will look like. But yeah. Oh, that was a lot. Also sorry, Morrissey is still alive. David, David, Scavage is still alive. Putin is still alive. And though James. Scavage is still alive. Putin is still alive.

And though James did say that Assad would eat it, and though Assad didn't die, he kinda did eat it. Quote, unquote. Well done. I mean, James, yeah, that's not to be the biggest dub of the year. Eat it. Yeah, that's right. Damn, I forgot all about that. Really happy with myself now.

James, I'm so proud of you, buddy. You gotta pick another one this year. Min on long, baby. He's next. Let's, I guess, let's start with some kind of dictator predictions. What do we think will happen to like a dictator in 2025? Which he thinks is going to die. Do we think or just general dictator predictions? Dictator predictions.

Maybe we get a new one, you know? Maybe we get a new fancy one. Yeah, well, yeah. I don't know. Something's happening in January. I have two. Well, one of them, I mean, it's kind of a hack one, but I don't think the Junta Myanmar makes that a 2025.

Yeah, I think not in the version it is today. Yeah, that's the hack one. The other one is another Assad one is I think someone actually does assassinate Assad. Well, he's like, like he gets too full of himself and he goes to Abu Dhabi and some Muslim Brotherhood guy just whacks him. Yep. Okay. My Assad prediction is he becomes a Russia Today host.

That's my Assad prediction. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I know he's going to open his ophthalmology clinic. No, I mean, I think he's gonna get signed to host a podcast by a little network you might've heard of called Cool Zone Media. Congratulations, guys. Let's bring him on, Sophie.

Get him on the Zoom. Tell him he can hop in the room now. Bashar, baby! We are merging with Tenet Media to bring out our friend, Asar Al-Assad. Yeah, Asar Al-Assad. Welcome to the pod, Bashar. He's actually doing a whole media tour

with the Pod Save guys next week. That's gotta be fascinating. Pod Save Bath is Syria, the most cursed podcast in the world. My dictator slash world leader prediction is that despite being Netanyahu's, I was thinking last ride. From your mouth to whatever fucking clot is working its way through his coronary system.

God, in a year, I really fucking hope, I really fucking hope I'm right. We all do. I don't know what else to say there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big thing for the world.

Yeah. I mean, we are verging into not doing predictions, just doing hopes and dreams. Yeah. Well, I did Morrissey like that last year and we didn't get it and I'm sad. We need some hopes and dreams out in the world, I think. Fair enough. Yep. Oh, do you know what else we need, team?

Money. From these advertisers, that's right. Mm-hmm. ["The Daily Show Theme"] And we are back. All right, Garrison, what's next? So usually in the middle of these prediction episodes, I like doing our third annual death segment. Who do we think will die?

And I guess we kind of touched on this briefly, but I don't think we actually secure death for any of those people in our predictions, just that they would have circumstances change. Though for this year's death segment, we have a bit of a twist. So it turns out about two years ago, on Spotify Rapped Day, we all woke up to the news that both Angela Badalamenti was embarrassingly my number one Spotify artist that year, but also that Henry Kissinger died. Honey. And this Spotify Raps day, we woke up to the news that the UnitedHealthcare CEO was gunned

down in New York City. So Spotify R wrapped 2025. Who's dyin'? Who's dyin'? On Spotify wrapped day. On Spotify wrapped day. So this is like what? Late November, early December, we don't really know.

Spotify wrapped death day predictions. So long, farewell, a-veeter say goodbye. Mitch McConnell. That's a good one. That's an easy one, but okay. I'll give it to you. I'm thinking like, who's gotta get through most of the year, but not finish it out, you know?

It's tough. I'm gonna make my call, tie up, rest up, air to one. You know, that's my hope. That's a long shot, I know, because he doesn't seem like he's in bad health, but. That's a big one. Kissinger was a long shot too, because he was arguably immortal.

He'd kept living for so fucking long. So long, farewell, of either say goodbye, Elon Musk. I was gonna say that! I think he might die. You think we're finally gonna get that drug overdose, huh? He just seems to be spiraling so hard right now. The spiral's mad real, yeah.

He's getting everything he wants though, but I mean that also- It's true. Sometimes that's dangerous. Yeah, especially if you are addicted to a drug that you can get in unlimited pure quantities and no one will ever say no to handing it to you We have some more must predictions for later on the episode. Okay, but I can see of some, you know like famously the Secret Service, you know not

Not great at hiding their own drug problems. I could I can see possibly with Musk entering a new level of comfort Maybe the spiraling a little a little too far out of his control in two secret service agents are found dead with infected blow Maybe a SpaceX launch goes really wrong Who's to say who's to say Damn, I gotta think of who my Spotify Rap Day death is. I have a long shot. Ooh!

Here's your long shot, man. My long shot is that sometime on Spotify Rap Day, JK Rowling sees a trans woman just like existing and gets so mad she has an aneurysm and dies. No. She's looking through the Spotify Raps and she knows that trans women make the best music and she sees it gets so mad, she just kills over. She transvestigates every single female artist on the Spotify rap list and dies of sleep deprivation doing so. Her own fans start transvestigating her.

This is just driving her off the edge. Yeah. Okay. I have a real long shot here. But I can see how it could happen. So we're in, we're in like what? Like month 10, 11 of Trump term two, right? The right-wing Nazi content creators are settling into their groove. Some of them aren't really happy at Trump not like,

you know, carrying on all of his big lofty promises. And one disgruntled fan of Nick Fuentes does something crazy on Spotify Rapped Day. And that's my prediction, is that somehow some really weird stalker or fan does something to Mr. Fuentes. Just pure prediction on what would be the oddest thing to happen, but something that could totally make sense.

Maybe it's like an old Kanye fan, you know? From Kanye and Nick. From his Nazi era. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I feel like it's... His fandom's getting close enough to pull some weird, crazy shit like that on a deeply parasocially destructive level.

Like Stephen King's misery. A misery happens to Nick Fuentes, but he doesn't make it out. That's my Spotify wrapped prediction. I have said for years, Nick Fuentes is going to go down. Live, probably. Maybe live, he's gonna go down like George Lincoln Rockwell. It is not gonna be like an enemy of his that does it. It's going to be a result

of his incredibly messy personal life. Yeah. Like someone is going to take him down. Like it's that. Yeah. Yeah. Like someone is going to take him down. Mm hmm. Like it's, it's that. Yeah. Yeah. That feels right. Do we have a non categorized predictions?

Is it that time yet? Sure. Now that we have, we have finished our Spotify wrapped predictions and I do not know who my top artists will be. This last year it was Trent Reznor. So salute that flag. Okay. Garrison.

Challenger soundtrack, that thing fucking bops. I tried to make Robert watch that on the way to, oh, was it the DNC or the RNC? I don't remember. And, but he wouldn't watch it with headphones and so it was just on, on the plane. I think it was the DNC. That's terrible. Yeah. I think I think it was reading a Nick Land piece during that whole time.

That makes sense. Honestly, that's a vibe. That actually pairs quite well. I landed completely deranged. It was great. Ready to work. A prediction that I have is that Trump basically tries to move a lot of the main time he spends to Mar-a-Lago versus the White House.

Like I feel like he's going to make Mar-a-Lago some like national monument type shit so that he can take whatever the fuck documents he wants from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and spend as much time there as he wants. And make that like a national residence or some shit. Into White House? Yeah. Yeah. The whiter house, one could call it. Yeah.

So true. So true. I mean, Harrison, no. I'm kind of interested to watch what happens with AOC over the next year, because she has definitely become, to a lot of folks, the progressive and on the left, like a villain over the last year. And I kind of wouldn't be surprised if like, in assuming there's still politics in 20 years, when we're talking to young people, they think of her like Pelosi,

and we're like, oh, you've got to understand, when things started out, this was a very different person. Yeah. And I'm not saying that's a fair way to characterize her now or where she'll go, I'm just saying, like, I wouldn't be shocked if that's the way a lot of folks are looking at it in fucking a few years, because I'm seeing, I'm hearing a lot of that now.

People are very angry at her over, largely Gaza, but yeah also the fact that she and Bernie both tried to back Biden kind of yeah late in his senescence, yeah Okay, my big one for the year is this is this is the year the economy finally collapses Like this is the way I find out that no company has made any fucking money in a decade it's all been being pumped up by like a deranged combination of interest rate bullshit a bunch of fucking money from Like overnight repo purchases keeping the banks propped up I don't know if it's gonna be a trade war that fucking blows it up. Although I think that will instantly detonate Everything I don't know. Maybe it's maybe it's the Chinese housing bubble, maybe the tech bubble finally collapses,

maybe all three of them hit at the same time. This is the year it fucking goes. I've never actually put my name down on this on the show on any other fucking year. This is the year. The zombie economy will fall over dead. The necromancy cannot hold. I guess my prediction is that the economy

is going to be basically identical to the Biden economy in that we're going to get like fucked up inflation and people are going to be very angry and the number will continue to go up on the stock market because that's kind of what it's designed to do. That's my theory. And the housing market will still be trash. Yeah, and we will never afford homes. And the housing's just gonna get more expensive. It will be interesting to see Trump's entire, all of his backers and his whole media.

Like one thing that will be easier for the left is really hitting conservatives on inflation as it gets horrible again or continues to suck. Because that's, you know, at this point, just a factor of the economy working as intended. Yeah. That they all have to pretend isn't. Yeah. Before we go to a break, I just want to say the price of eggs will go up. We need to get chickens now.

Oh yeah, this bird flu thing is not going to help with eggs. Oh boy. Oh boy. Get your eggs now. Buy hundreds, buy thousands of dollars of eggs now. If only there was some kind of device to make eggs that you could have in your own garden. Oh my goodness. It's time for ads.

I guess to piggyback off of Robert and Mia's predictions there in the economy, my prediction is that once I finally launch CoolZone coin this year, I'm going to make it big. The economy is going to go down. I am going to be going up. Everyone's going to start buying CoolZone coin because the US dollar becomes worthless. Bitcoin's going to crash too. It's fake. But CoolZone coin has real fun dollar becomes worthless. Bitcoin's going to crash too. It's fake. But Cool Zone coin has real fungible value.

The thing about Cool Zone coin that makes it different from all of the other crypto coins is that it is really based on a fundamentally limited and valuable resource, which is movies from the 90s that I showed Garrison and they actually liked. So, you know, there's only so many Cool Zone coins that can ever be in circulation. We're lucky I was in Portland this Christmas because we really stocked up a few more of those 90s classics to bump up the price of Cool Zone coin going into 2025.

That's right, everybody. Wow. Sell your house, buy Cool Zone coin. Have you seen Hook, Garrison? I have seen Hook, I like Hook. Oh, of course, of course. I seen Hook, Garrison? I have seen Hook. I like Hook. Oh, of course. Of course.

Good. Good. Yeah. A classic. Have you seen Wicker Man 1973? You know, I actually haven't. I've been waiting to catch it in the theater. We will make this happen at some point.

It's necessary. I would, I would love to. I would love to. I bet one thing I think it's very predictable board of stuff. They will stunt on another caravan of migrants. And I think it's pretty easy for them to kind of organize that and make that happen. And it will be a way for Trump to flex his border fascism. Yeah.

Much like he did in 2018. Maybe they'll wait till the midterms again. There's always a fun border disaster for the midterms. Can I just do one that might not be a prediction, but like a Sophie hope? Sure. Yeah, get it. Something has to happen to those Paul brothers. Oh, Sophie.

Oh, yeah, that's possible. Yeah. My prediction for the Paul brothers is that one of them dies within the next five years and one of them lives to be 107. That tracks. Sure. Yeah. They decide to take on Bob Dylan in a boxing match and only one of them survives.

I think Bob Dylan will live through this next year. I've just found Bob Dylan's tweets. The purest things you've ever seen. He just tweets about what he's doing. What a hero. Netflix paying Jake Paul billions of dollars to fight 900 year old Mike Tyson. And then Jake Paul coming in on like a vintage car and spraying his product and it having higher streaming numbers than the Superbowl. Is that real?

Yes. To be fair, that was a rancid Superbowl. Rancid Superbowl. This cannot, This cannot be. Most of us just turned in on the off chance that Jake Paul would die. Yes, that is true. That is true. The hope. Or at least get bitten. Yeah, all of us were hoping that Mike Tyson was not in fact 60 years old, but he is 60

years old. So yeah, something, God. Yeah. Something, something's gotta give. Oh, and there won't be a left-wing Joe Rogan. Thank you so much. Oh, I don't know, Sophie. I think I can. As soon as we launch Cool Zone Coin,

I think we can really. Oh my God. There'll be somebody trying to be. Oh, sorry, Fee, they already are. By the way, it's time for me to do our new ad plug. You've heard of how good elk meat is for you, and you've heard of how liver is a super food. Well now try new elk liver steaks.

It's just ground up liver shoved inside a steak. I send it through the mail, through FedEx, five day delivery. It is not refrigerated in any way. No refrigeration. It's better at room temp. Better at room temp. Better to get the healthy bacteria.

And it gives you mystical powers. It's just. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha. One of my, I guess, more hopes, and still partial predictions, is that National Guard gets into a scuffle with Border Patrol in some kind of blue state. Yeah, yeah, good chance. We have some brave and strong governor is gonna salute the troops and send out our proud National Guard boys to fight off ICE. And that's just a battle I would love to see. I've wanted to see that ever since Portland 2020. I've wanted to see National Guard troops fight against Federal forces.

Two groups of men who don't really know how to use their guns, using their guns. It's going to be amazing. It's a battle I've wanted to see for like five years. Whose plate carriers have to top closer to their nipples? It's anyone's game. I need to see it. I need to see it. Come on. I would like to see it from a distance, because that would be a shit show.

Yeah, from a sizable distance. Yeah. General Whitmer, let's go. Let's go. Spinsing a fucking telescope for that firefight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A periscope, maybe. I trust the Iraqi army more than either of those sides. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen a lot of dudes fire guns while ducking behind a K-beam, holding the gun from the head. They love doing that. It does look fun. It does look fun.

It is, yeah. It does look fun. I would like to do that. That they kick me out of the range every time because of woke. How sad. Well, not anymore, James. Yeah, that's also the casualties, yeah. Not anymore, James. Woke is beaten. That's right. Yeah, they went broke.

They went broke. I'm going to buy the range. That's right. We're all far from behind the bench rest now. Oh, mama mia. Other predictions. Maybe we'll get a good solid couple of weeks of rioting again, like Garrison said. Maybe it'll only take a year or two this time.

I don't think that anymore. Something will have to change. Yeah. There will have to be a material change in either organizing or social conditions. Because people will need to either be vastly more desperate than they are right now, or they will need to have a specific reason to think, well this time getting out on the street might do something. Yeah.

I think we're going to kind of continue the trends that, that we've been seeing, which, which points towards a bit of an apathy towards like, like big popular mobilizations and more towards kind of bizarre lone wolf attacks, something that, you know, could be slight, even be slightly problematic or possibly darker predictions. I think we'll have a really bad Luigi copycat within the next four months. Sure. Yes. A year's of Luigi.

It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. There's probably going to be a situation where some guy either gets... The best case is that he gets killed immediately by the dude's security The worst case is there's a big public firefight and a whole fuckload of people get hit Yeah, didn't I predict that there will be a big public crime with a 3d printed gun last year I think that was the year before we talked about that Damn, okay, so close and and yeah, you know, I mean, this is, this certainly does kind of fit that mold.

We'll see how much that like gets focused on in the trial and like continued reporting. Yeah. And in that legislation too. I miss a death. We can also include it in the hope section. Matthew Iglesias, that mother-father motherfucker has been standing bullshit for 20 years. It just, it cannot continue. He's lost a juice a little bit. I think he's, he's on the way out. All right.

Something very funny did just happen that we should talk about as a team. Senator Doug Mastriano, a 30 year US Army veteran who taught at the war college. Yeah. Just tweeted an indignant furious tweet about the US government not being honest with Americans about what's happening with these drones and the picture of the crashed drone is a tie fighter that's like a model tie fighter on the bed of a flatbed being driven through. Yes!

We've all lost our minds. Taught at the US Army War College. They're not sending their best people. Oh, fuck, that's funny. Oh, that's beautiful. That's amazing stuff. That's one of the best things I've seen all year. Oh, fuck me.

Finally, I like the closer predictions a little bit on Trump's cabinet. I think it's pretty safe to say, considering his last presidency, we'll have at least one third cabinet turnover by the end of the year. This is something that we've been talking about a lot. When do we think Musk is going to get the boot? And based on the way Trump's positioned him, I'm not sure if it's going to be as soon as what we all initially thought, because Trump has kept him out of his inner orbit, but pretty solidly in his middle orbit.

Like he's not in any like real position, right? He has doge, but like, come on. It just came out that he's not gonna be able to get the highest security clearance. There you go. Ah, that's funny. But like he has him sitting next to his family at Thanksgiving.

Totally. Yeah. No, no, totally. Especially in like the three weeks after the election, I think he has him sitting next to his family at Thanksgiving. Totally. Yeah. No, no, totally. And especially in the three weeks after the election, they were like honeymoon, right? They were neck and neck. And some of that's going to start dissipating. Musk can't get fully booted out because the federal government needs SpaceX and Musk's other technologies.

So they will remain friendly, but they're not gonna be in the close position that they are now. I initially, I put that date for being March 20th, 2025, two months after Inauguration Day. It's enough time to get, for someone like Trump to get tired of Musk's personality.

But I think I might stretch that out a little bit more now than my initial prediction. I might stretch that out a little bit more now than my initial prediction I I think I think they might do a little bit more of a long-term game here but but that also means that that must maybe will not have as much like Constant influence as what it was first looking like in those like, you know three months after the election I think that RFK juniors probably at pushed out of the picture before Musk is Yeah, if he tries to get out of the picture before Musk is. Yeah. If he tries to get rid of the polio vaccine, it's going to be a real quick

trip to the unemployment line for Bobby Boy. Yeah. I really, I don't think Trump's that reckless. No. Like that would be quite a line to get rid of the polio vaccine. Trump's also old. Like he vaccine. Trump's also old. Like he remembers. He's that old.

But if RFK Jr. could get the wheat ingredient out of the McDonald's fries, I'd be most obliged. Oh yeah, no, I'm sure that he's going to reverse a hundred years of corn subsidies and get corn served out of our Coca-Cola. I believe in RFK. Yeah. I feel pretty good about the continuing legality of Kratom, as long as he's the HHS head.

There you go. All it's gonna take is one of Joe Rogan's friends to speak it in his ear. Ha ha! And we'll be all right. We're gonna have legally required DMT for everyone in the country? Yeah, why not?

I think we need, and I've been saying this for years, We need to acquire DMT for everyone in the country. Yeah, why not? I think we need, and I've been saying this for years, we need to put the lithium back in the water. We also need to use those crop dusting planes and just like fill them with Xanax. Just calm everyone down. Take everything back a couple of steps. All right. I'm going to go pet some dogs. So the podcast is over. Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy Happy New Year, everyone. I do want everyone to pick one thing that that they're going to do this year that will improve their life. However small for me, I'm going to get a new mirror. We're going to all pick one thing we call that project 2025. It's what one thing we can do to improve our lives. And you know, and then by extension, the lives that everyone else around us.

So make sure everyone has their own personal Project 2025 going into this next year. I think we will need it. I'm holding my Project 2025 in my arms right now. Your new dog, your new dog. I adopted Anderson, a sibling, and her name is Truman. Lovely. After our greatest US president. After not the greatest US president.

I would never name a child of mine after our president. After the sheriff in Twin Peaks, that's right. Also no. All right, well, we love that. After the house that Vivek Raman, who grew up in the Truman Sherpa house? Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz. Yeah, named her after Matt Gaetz's childhood home.

Matt Gaetz is like totally out of a job now. That's so funny. It's very funny. It's very very funny. And I feel like we should end on that note. So ha ha ha ha ha! To Matt Gaetz. Anyways. Anderson, Truman, let's get the fuck out of here. at the Golden Globes last Sunday. Everyone is already talking about what happened on air at the Golden Globes,

but you are going to hear about what happened off air from the horse's mouth, yes, I'm the horse, me, Nikki Glaser. Join me on my podcast, the Nikki Glaser podcast, where I will be telling you all the details. I can finally relax with my besties, my listeners, and dish what happened backstage. What went down, the things people are already talking about,

the things that people should be talking about, I've got it all. From what it took to prep for the Golden Globes to the behind the scenes of the Golden Globes, what went down in the rehearsals, who said what at the after party, who I saw at the after party, who was dancing with who. I'm gonna spill it all, secrets will be revealed. You do not wanna miss this episode.

Listen to the Nikki Glaser podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zetron, host of the Better Glaser podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And this January, we're going on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada, to cover the Consumer Electronics Show, Tech's biggest conference. Better Offline's CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest gadgets or the biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025, interrogating their narratives alongside a remarkable cast of industry talent and award-winning journalists.

We'll have daily episodes, on-the-ground interviews, and special panels covering everything from the BS of AI to the ways in which race and gender play into how people are treated in the tech industry and at these conferences. I'll be joined by David Roth of Defecta and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with appearances from Behind the Bastards Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis, and a few surprise guests throughout the show.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts from. And check out betteroffline.com. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. and check out betteroffline.com. signal the astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer we talked with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the wooly mammoth plus this Tom Cruise really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's gonna drop by mr. Brian Cranston is with us. How are you? Hello my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight welcome to

really no really sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really, yeah. No Really. Go to ReallyNoReally.com.

And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When I smoke weed, I get lost in the music. I like to isolate each instrument. The rhythmic bass, the harmonies on the piano, the sticky melody. Hey, careful babe, there hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey Hey, I'm Jay Shetty and my latest interview is with Mel Robbins. The theory is very simple. It is a mindset tool that instantly helps you identify what's in your control and what's not in your control. Renowned motivational speaker, bestselling author, Mel Robbins. Work has been seen as the number one cause of stress. How can the let them theory help? As you notice the stress come up, Jay, you're simply going to say, let them.

You have no idea right now how much time and energy is being wasted because of other people's behavior. It's like a death by a thousand cuts. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about it, which in this week's case is the Consumer Electronics Show is happening here. And yeah, we're here to talk about things falling apart.

And again, in this case, that's the tech industry because the story this CES, as it has been for the last several CESs, is that the continuing degradation of big tech as it seeks more places to get money from while providing less and less utility to the people that it needs to give it money. And every CES, at some point, I find myself face to face with something that makes me say, I've now seen the silliest thing I've ever seen. And this year year that experience happened for the first time within 30 minutes of the first half day. And I'm gonna talk about that and show some videos to my panelists here, which of course are the

great Ed Zitron. It's me, I'm here. The pretty good Garrison Davis. Okay, thanks. Okay, alright, alright buddy. Damn. And the supernumer And the supernumerary, I'm sorry, I messed up the word I was using as a superlative to praise you. I'll take it. Ed Ongweiso Jr. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us, everybody. Are you ready to see some of the dumbest

AI generated videos? Sure. Nothing would fill me with more pleasure. Excellent, excellent. Nothing fills me with pleasure. The first panel I sat down today with at 10 a.m. in the goddamn morning was the Hollywood trajectory generative AI timeline 2025 to 2030. Oh boy, I am fascinated for what they think will happen in 2030. Everything's just

gonna get better, Garrison. This panel featured a number of luminary thinkers including Mary Hamilton, a managing director at Accenture, who announced her company's $3 billion investment in AI by dropping this gem. I have a digital twin and she's constantly evolving and how she gets used and what she says and you know, there's big implications around that. So I think this is a really exciting space to be thinking about turning up. I like that she just stole Hurley Herndon's thing but okay. If I said that to a doctor they'd think I had a concussion.

This person needs like psychologically. Yeah you shouldn't be allowed to drive if you say things like that. You need a blanket. Okay. Let's get you to sit down. Maybe we're taking the phone away from you. Now, I think this is very silly, because again, I think it's just a fundamental mismatch in what people might want from an AI agent and like the way in which they get talked about.

But also, they use digital twin, which is some enterprise software shit. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I'm excited to go see some digital twin technology that I'm sure will make a cheap avatar of me from a picture. I don't like the tech industry code switching. Oh my God. And now it's like every other company at CES. It means so many different things. It means literally a digital representation of anything. It doesn't even mean an AI agent.

The fact that they're using it in the wrong place is very annoying to me. Yeah, I keep seeing like, they can now make an AI chatbot trained off of your social media presence that's 85% accurate. Oh, I love 85%. As all twins are. I want to say like, no they can't,

but then you talk to the average person at CES or the average panelist on this particular panel, I'm like, yes I do believe in fact, everyone on that panel. You could accurately get 85% of their personality with a chat bot. For a bit. Maybe a lot higher.

Improvement, yeah. Yeah, so I will say like that was silly, that's not the silliest thing I saw oh the silliest thing I saw came courtesy of another panelist Jason Zada founder of secret level and COO of the company the videos that Jason came to CES to brag about were a collection of the laziest Ai-slop ever to stain human eyeballs his most recent big success that you could just see ever to stain human eyeballs. His most recent big success that you could just see

radiating off of him, how proud he was of this, was Coca-Cola's annual Christmas ad, which last year was produced for the first time entirely with AI. And I'm just gonna, if you haven't seen this, who here's seen Coca-Cola's AI ad? I've seen it. Oh, I've seen it.

I haven't seen it. I guess, yeah, no, I've seen pictures. I think I've maybe watched it one time. I've watched it a few times. Just in frame, okay, well let's take a little watch. I've watched it one time. Just in fri- okay, well let's take a little watch. I've watched it a few times, I hate it, it deserves. We're gonna play- there's three different versions of this.

Why? We're just gonna play one. Well I mean that's what it spat out. Oh my god, if there's three different versions, that's just- they save the pro- Ugh, fucking hell. Everyone is the same length of shot. Can you believe this song's AI generated? I can't believe.

How could they teach a computer to write the lyrics, holidays are coming. I just can't believe we finally have the technology to have three trucks driving somewhere. And a dog wagging its tail with dead eyes. Oh, these two horrible squirrels covered in snow. That's not how squirrels move. Trucks with Coca-Cola in them driving down not a street. Raccoons?

Why is there a satellite? Oh, they're gonna drop the ion cannon on the polar bears. It's all clearly AI. It's all glowing, like these city shots of like snow-colored villages with that. As we're going to see in later videos, AI loves putting smoke in random fires where there should not be smoke in random fires.

That crisp, crinkle pack. That's such a bad omen for four more years of a Trump presidency. It's a bleak, bleak thing. That we have even uglier Thomas Kinkade-esque artwork. That's like shit. Every frame looks like a Thomas Kinkade thing. Shitily animated.

It's like they just generated a Thomas Kinkade frame and then badly animated it. And the way that they move is very weird. looks like a Thomas Kinkade frame. It's like shittily animated. It's like they just generated a Thomas Kinkade frame and then badly animated it. And the way that they move is very weird. It looks kind of right, but kind of right looks very strange. It does that all of the scenes, because it's showing you a bunch of, you see a polar bear, obviously.

It's a Coca-Cola Christmas ad. You see a fucking reindeer. You see squirrels. You see a dog. But it always is this very AI shot where it just pans across the animal and it's like glowing and kind of glossy and dead-eyed staring.

And they move a little bit, but not too much. Very limited. Like they're not going anywhere with the movement. It's just like they are doing something and that's it. You think in 10 years they're still going to have these commercials? No. Because where's the snow going to be?

There's just polar bears walking around like. System One, which tests emotional responses to ads claims that the initial response to their Christmas ad was overwhelmingly positive. I don't think they're lying about that. I think if you walked up to someone like randomly on the street and showed them this, I think they'd be like, oh yeah, it looks fine. Yeah. No one's watching a Coca Cola item being like, yeah, wow.

I've never had one of these before. Yeah. It's not, it's never a new experience. Not yet. We need an ad man. You need an ad man for the Coke holdouts. We need an AI Don Draper. Yeah. Whoa. Do not give them ideas. What if a company lost $5 billion? Yeah. It's just an ad that doesn't work. Instead of going to the movies like Don Draper does throughout all of Mad Men, it just doesn't work and respond to any of your queries. Just Don Draper spending hours watching that looping Christmas video?

Staring into nothingness. Yeah, so there was like an immediate, pretty immediate backlash to this. Like all of the responses, if you like go to any of like, where these things live on YouTube, it's just people shitting on them. Which he did acknowledge Jason by saying the video was very debated. That classic thing with commercials.

We love debating commercials. Many things are very debated these days. A lot of people are saying. And then he showed us next an AI generated video, The Heist, which was entirely made by a text script that itself was mostly written by Chad GPT. And here's how Jason describes the workflow for what you're about to see. It took thousands of generations to get the final film,

but I'm absolutely blown away by the quality, the consistency, and adherence to the original prompt. When I described gritty New York City in the 80s, it delivered in spades consistently. While this is not perfect, it is hands down the best video generation model out there by a long shot. Additionally it's important no VAFX, no cleanup, no color correction has been added. Everything is straight out of VO2, Google DeepMind. So what is the model? VO2, Google DeepMind, I think is

what he's saying it is. So I thought that they had another one. Either way I, I'm sure what you're about to show me looks like a dog's arsehole. It looks like, yeah, New York, exactly like New York at Giuliani's right before he came in. Clean it up. Uh-huh. So this is like the competitor to Sora, I guess, that is the other big like video generation. This is brand new, I don't buy for a fucking... And I'm not impressed, but we'll see what you guys think okay? I don't want to poison your

God okay, there is fire in this last time you're gonna see the sack full of money It does not show out again It's a lot of a lot of fire a lot of random fire in the lovely cause go backwards when they're driving forwards Yeah, was that five wheels? again another street fire? I would love to do freeze frames on this. Actually, it's in Gotham. Why is there so many fires?

Just for a little while. All right, let's take a shot every time the car's on fire. Oh my god. And also, take a shot every time he is wearing different clothing and has a clearly different face. Well, the car has changed color three times. He's praising the consistency, and he is dressed completely differently every scene

His jacket has has changed since the last one. Yeah. Yeah, and again the cop caught the cars When it shows the cars driving across the screen, they're kind of doing the same thing usually that the animals do in the coke ad minimal motion at the best Yeah, I Also love this. Can you believe this music? I also want to just say when it's work to hit that thing. It was driving like half a mile on here. Yeah Well, that's how I run. Yeah Obviously different man

Obviously different man. So the way he runs Was like he had his arms up two cops are chit three guys The running is very funny, yeah What is going on with his feet and that way different levels of facial hair different different jackets He's wearing different colors jacket vaguely different Just what the fuck is going on different jackets he's wearing, different colors jackets. Also vaguely different-ness in the cut. Why did his face just move? What the fuck is going on? Oh my god. The fuck does that mean?

Directed by Jason Zada in big flaming words, because again, the AI only knows how to put random fires on things. Wow, I'm so glad that we have the technology to do a thing where a guy gets chased by the police. Yeah, this would have been impossible before. As he runs at anywhere from one to a hundred miles an hour. I assume they just trained, like this was specifically pulling on like Scorsese movies a lot. I just want to know about these thousands of generations of script.

That is interesting. I am very curious. Because I just don't believe that for a fucking second. Did he just go like, uh, just read there? Yeah, no, that's the opening crawl to just like some generated Star Wars. The dead speak. Alphatine is the special cops. I assume it's like shot by shot, right?

Like each shot is going to require a lot of iterations. He said the script. It's just... Yeah, I mean, again, like unpacking what he actually is saying is unclear. Because I went to the YouTube video for this, and the first five or four comments are, looks like we found the new king of video. Jesus Christ, give it a rest. Clothes change in every shot.

Four to six year old boys are gonna love it. And still lacks character and vehicle consistency, but we're getting close. Which is the exact same thing people said last year. By 2030, you'll be able to make a man wear the same clothes Which is the exact same thing people said last year. By 2030, you'll be able to make a man wear the same clothes for an entire video. This has happened before with Sora. When they put Sora out, they like check out Airhead.

Oh my god. And the balloon changes every single shot. It's a different size and color. Each time, there are just people running in the background sometimes, and then they made a new one, and you're like, oh, this is going to be good. It was worse and less consistent. And this is what they think of us.

They're like, these pigs will slop up anything. And you can't expect technology to do something as complicated as dress a man in clothing and have him stay in that same clothing over multiple scenes. Hollywood never figured this out. It's so cool that this costs like so much money as well. Just burning. There was some fucking GPU melting in a data center in Arizona that's draining the local water. We're burning down North Carolina for this.

The bad part is also there's going to be like 30, 40 companies trying to recreate the same misshapen wheel, you know, for the next five to ten years. And also the little pigs that watch Star Wars including myself, they'll notice every minor inconsistency. Do you think that they're gonna tolerate Luke Skywalker's and Watto and all their favorite characters that have sex? No, they're gonna drive up to the office with a cyber truck. Yeah, there's gonna be a cyber truck situation. I think the issues are twofold which is like number one in order to make this shit sell to the people who watch movies, you have to dramatically reduce the average intelligence of people watching movies.

You have to give everyone brain damage. Which they are working on doing. And the other thing is, the models have to get much better. And Jason made a point that like, every time people would like talk about the criticism, he'd be like, look, this is the worst it's gonna look, guys. And I was just looking into it, GPT-4 took 50 times as many resources,

like 50 times as much energy to train as GPT-3 did. So these are the kind of exponential increases that we're looking at. So if it took them so many millions, billions of dollars of investment to get to the point where they can make this shitty video To make anything close to watchable you're talking about again just like lighting on fire billions of dollars to do what to make a scene that you could already get like a

26 year old dude who grew up watching fucking Quentin Tarantino movies and taking cocaine and you can just give him $60,000 and he'll film that shit for you with an old car like yeah, I mean you could you could even like animate it Mm-hmm I mean look you give me a ps4 and somebody's grandmother and I will make them think that they're watching that no seriously seriously Yeah, that'll sex on also this I just want to read out some of the fucking people that use this model We started working with creatives like Donald Glover, who I said was washed 10 years ago, and I'm fucking sick of people.

And Wake Up My Love was a good album. This is America is an objectively bad song. It's a bad song with a great video. Yeah. I thought his jazz, his like kind of R&B stuff is very interesting. Anyway, moving on. No, you are right.

And of course The Weekend Nerd, so Weekend, and someone called V4VD. Oh, his TV show was great. Oh yeah. I'll work with creators on V01 and form the development of V02 and we look forward to working with trusted testers and creators to get feedback on this new model. How long are you going to get fucking feedback? It stinks. We've got some feedback for you.

Yeah, I got a few thoughts. Hopefully all those people are just getting paid to tell them words and be like, yeah, sure, I'll take your money, but who's to say? If they give me $20 million, I'm flipping the whole... Oh yeah, sure, I'll take your money. But who's to say? If they can be $20 million, I'm flipping out. Oh, yeah. No, I will turn on a dime. Speaking of turning on a dime for money, here's ads. Ha ha ha.

["Spring Day in the City"] Ah, we're back. So the next video that our friend, I now feel he's like a brother to me, Jason, puts on was of an AI generated fictional elderly rock star talking about death. Oh, I'm excited. Oh, I'm excited. He's going to be at the computer to do this. Plastic and incapable of dynamic expression as he guzzles randomly from bottles of liquor that flash in and out of existence.

Sometimes he lies on his back in empty streets while talking about all of the CGI featureless women that he has loved in his exciting life. Other times he plays stadium shows while obvious GPT written dialogue about aging and death drones on. When the video ends, everybody in the room claps. And as you watch this, I need you to imagine

seeing the thing that I'm about to show you all and a room with like 200 people in it, all clapping enthusiastically. I don't think, I did. I did, I did. I said, come the fuck on as loud as I could. It's like me at Riser Skywalker. Yeah, so here's fade out It's George Carlin and an old man. Yeah, it looks a little bit like George Carlin. Oh, it's the end from Metal Gear Solid 3

Like the world's just too goddamn big and you're just to go spasso What's he doing? Playing a concert? Granddad calm down! I love these slash cuts There's so many fast cuts No these fast cuts are because the next frame was unusable No, yes, yes actually

Yes, like he drank and the bottle changed in his hand You can see it starting to happen What is this? Just anonymous women Just in a beautiful music, listen to that lived it to the bone Also the old man does look very different each time very different old man. Yeah, that's a different guy Yeah, that's the Emperor from the first Gladiator. Ha ha ha!

The show's over and all cause a lie. He's just sort of trotting across the stage. Running away from the stage. Awkwardly. The way this model generates running is really uncanny. It's not, ah, there he is drinking again. Why is it on fire?

Why is there a fire? Did you see this old rock star drinking in front of a flaming house? The world might end tomorrow. The AI loves burning buildings. What is this voiceover? I would love to track his tattoos from frame to frame. We'll say he's about to eat the mic right now.

Completely different. I've done it. Yum. Now he's sleeping in a broken Mustang. Ferrari? The classic Ferrari Mustang. A Ferrari Mustang that's in like a pool in front of a mansion, but he clearly hasn't crashed

into it, the car is hovering slightly over the pool. Like. I love this, I love this, I love the word. And he tells us, he tells us during this, as if we're supposed to be impressed, that Chachie P.T. wrote 75% of that script. Fucking hell, you like to punch that shit up? I can't believe that as a bartender I regret

walking into the room to see if people want drinks this is the better of my bartender I apologize I apologize that you had to hear like a drink I also would like actually can I have a drink we are in the better offline CES suite and we are all drinking because I just to say, I'm fucking disassociating after that. I'm so fucking sick. Every, a year of doing this nonsense. And I look at these shit eaters and they show us that. And they're like slurp down the slop.

Oh my God. It's, it's, it's hideous. One of the easiest things to find an old man that drinks. For an idea of like how real this company is, obviously they were one of the companies. They were not the only people who made that Coca-Cola ad. They were one of like three or four companies. It takes four companies to make that Thomas Kip Cade ad.

I can't believe it. They have 622 followers on Twitter. Hell yeah. Or not Twitter, on YouTube. X, X, oh sorry. On YouTube, on YouTube, sorry. I don't have more than that. And all I post is karaoke songs.

And this, this fade out is their, or sorry, the heist is their most successful video with 56,000 views fade out which we just watched has less than 5,000 views they're not ready so they're they're not they're not quite ready it's only gonna get better yeah it's only gonna get better gonna get better famously things only ever get better floor or a small price of 1 billion dollars this is like a hundred thousand dollars a compute. Yeah Yes, imagine how good it would be. It will only get worth more. Yeah Mm-hmm. I mean I get now garrison. I do think you should invest all of your salary

I just did a 16th minute about this one. I think I would rather hawk tour has a more obvious use case than this shit Hey, do you want to spend way more money to get something way worse? I actually can't get over the 75% checked GPT. Like that was... Neither can I. Should it be more? No, it should be.

Theoretically, it should be. It should be 100%. It should be 100%, yeah. Not seven, which means that a quarter of it was just fucking unusable. No, absolutely. They're generating like individual shots that they're stitching together,

and who knows how long it takes to get the prompt right for that shot to work. However long it takes, it was too long because it looks like shit. We're going to watch a video I haven't seen yet, or at least a board because it's five minutes. We're not watching all this. Oh my God.

There's 250, two views, and came out a week ago. It's called Mniminade. What? Say that again. Mniminade. What. It's called Meniminade. What? Say that again. Meniminade. Yeah, that's a word. It's a word.

What now? It's like when you find your cats vomited on the floor. Again, so first we see a diner called Meniminade that appears to be both on fire. It's Blade Runner. Yeah. Blade Runner. Oh God.

When an old lady rices up out of a pile of ashes. That's how mouths work. Where am I? He rices up out of a pile of ashes. That's how mouths work. Great AI voice. What is this phantasmagoria of voice acting? It's me, Harrison Ford. What the fuck is going on? What? I think this is death, This old lady's dead.

Oh, that's the way. Oh. Now she's tripping on tomatoes? Oh yeah. The decaying sandy diner that exploded has turned into a lively 50s diner from her youth. It's popping off. It's popping off.

Dennis Villeneuve. Is this a segregated diner? Yes. I only see white people in the diner, Edward. She's going back to the good old days. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and now there's a little Indian boy.

He is the help, though. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad for me. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's natural. That little kid just fell down. And the way it shows falling is that he just sort of deflates.

Is that Björk? And then he's up again. The action is staring at a girl. Well, that's terrible. We don't need to watch anymore of that. What is this for? No one, no one, no one wanna watch this. If you watch this and have a positive reaction,

they should keep you in a holding self for a week. I'm deeply unhappy at the time we already spent watching. Just yes, like we don't know what you're gonna do next. We're building a facility for you. The phrase reality distortion field gets used a lot when we talk about tech, but I really tasted it in that room because all anyone on stage could talk about is how good it looks.

In every one of these videos, people are like clapping, they're like, wow, this is amazing. Why do you think they think it looks good? It looks better than an Xbox. Yeah. And the idea was you typed a thing in and now a thing came out and that's magical. So by virtue of not having humans work on it,

it's better than you'd have, yeah, okay. There was a moment after this where Jason joked about how, obviously I don't wanna replace actors yet. Wink, wink. Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh. Wink, wink. Yes, yes. Like, yeah. Uh-huh. And another panelist was like,

I think we're going to have to make some, have to see how some decisions go as to fair use, because obviously this is cribbing from a bunch of fucking Scorsese movies and shit. It also kind of looked like Blade Runner 2049. Yeah, and Thomas Kinkade things. And Blade Runner 2049 and Denny Villeneuve in general, like all of his films have been like a massive source for these motion and still generations,

so much so that I think Blade Runner 2049 is one of the easiest films to replicate film stills almost exactly for, based on how load-bearing that film has been for a whole bunch of these models. That could be due to a number of factors. Now, I know what you're wondering. How soon until we can get a full 90 minute movie that looks like this?

Oh, I'm guessing days away. No, no, Jason said probably not at least for a decade or so. Really? OK. I can't wait that long. This needs another 10 years of work. That's interesting. Yeah.

I don't want to wait that long. What a worthwhile endeavor, though. No, because he could have said shorter. That actually is interesting. He could have said anything. Those chumps in there would have believed me. I think it is like, he did have to spend probably hundreds of hours of his precious one human life

stitching those turds together. And he's like, it's nowhere near ready. There's no way I could make a 90 minute video and kill myself. He is giving himself a lot of time for that. Yeah, because I've only really seen one interesting generative video thing, but it wasn't a generative video thing it was they filmed

Brian Eno filmed a documentary and they created, you know some back-end software so that they would be able to do cuts of Existing footage and try to totally focus on parts of the documentary footage and try to totally focus on parts of the documentary but I never ever see anything interested in like constructing narratives or to like you come teasing other aspects of the creative process it's only let's try to replace right let's try to replace you can't do narrative with it if I would if I'd sat down there because I was sitting I said this I was sitting next to a guy from USC who was one of the only people in the room

who was similarly critical to me of what we were seeing on stage. It was like, look, if they had come down and been like, look, this is how we can plug a script in and it can create a storyboard. And you can kind of see a crude CGI animation of how the shots will look, and that can help you plan out.

That's legitimately useful. That's a thing that adds value and can cut costs in a meaningful way to like the production of good TV and movies but that's not as sexy as like I'm and they were all talking there was this this like very weird moment where one of the panels Leslie Shannon who's head of innovation for Nokia a company that used to make phones and now makes panelists who pretend to be entertained by awkward AI swap. They also like make cameras and-

They make a lot of stuff. I was just shitting on Nokia. She's like, can we use neuroscience to see how people are reacting to AI generated videos and then adjust the ending to be like, let's make this resonate more. I have an idea. That way we're helping the creative.

And I was like, are you out of your fucking mind? Can we attach electrodes to panelists? To people's skulls? Resonate I have an idea that way we're helping the creative and I was like are you out of your fucking mind attach Electrodes to people's schools. I would I would have supported electrodes in their skulls. Yes, Jesus Christ We should do the monkey mirror link thing to all perhaps a pair of calipers Some skulls I am fascinated the skull shapes that fucking but also to say that is There's so many things they've said that just, they wouldn't survive a deposition. Speaking of things that wouldn't survive a deposition, the sponsors to this podcast. Okay, so that first panel was a real moment for me.

I went through a couple of more, one of which was on like advertising and AI and was mostly pretty boring. The third panel I went through though was called AI Cinematic Spatial and XR. And I just want to actually play you guys, you'll have to cluster around. I would actually believe that was generated with chat GPT Yeah, but like GPT 2.0 So let's start with this one AI will be more impactful than the internet Maybe

It's a trick question It's a trick question. Because it is the internet. That was my answer too. Is the internet so not? Although it can run without the internet. So I'm like oh. What impact do you mean? AI is going to result in astronomical job losses.

True or false? There will be an evolution of job loss. Next. I'd say redistribution of jobs. That's right. That was the scene I wanted you to hear where they're like, we don't want to say it out loud and then everyone chuckles. These people are too fucking smug. Yeah. These people sound too confident and too chummy and too happy to say things like this.

That's not good. I don't like that these people are laughing about people losing jobs. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that.

I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that and too chummy and too happy to say things like this. That's not good. I don't like that these people are laughing

about people losing jobs. They shouldn't have jobs. That's a good place to start. Yeah, I don't like that either. And the people you're hearing from, let me tell you who's in this fucking panel who was just laughing about like- Sociopaths.

Well, there will be a- An evolution of job loss. Yeah, so the motherfuckers who were on that panel laughing about people losing their jobs. Ted Shillowitz, literally his name is Shillowitz, futurist at Cinemersion Inc. That's like a J.K. Rowling name. Yes, yes.

Rebecca Barkin, co-founder and CEO Lamino One, Erin Luber, director of partnerships at Google, Adam Simon, managing director of IPG Media Lab, Leila Amir-Sedeggi, principal program manager at engineering, Microsoft, and Katie Henson, SVP post-production at Sphere Studios. So those are the people who were all laughing. Oh my fuck no. And like it's, generative AI is like good at like one thing creatively. It's good at like streamlining VFX like.

Workflow to it. The workflow of how to do like VFX shots. It is, it is. There's aspects of it that's good. the only useful thing that's been used for is making people's eyes blue in Dune Part II. It's not $100 billion good. And it is applicable for changing objects into other objects on screen.

It can produce really odd, uncanny effects that could be utilized by a team of human artists really well. What it can't do is generate a short film that is in any way compelling as like- I disagree based on what we're saying. Well, that is anyway compelling as a piece of art. Oh, okay. And the fact that they're like laughing at how much-

These people haven't lost enough jobs. They have not. Or had structures fall to the beauty of the flame. Right. Although the AI keeps foreboding that they're coming for them. It wants something. The pernicious flames. I'm going to end on a happy note because the last panel I went to was actually really cool.

It was AI and the Crisis of Creative Rights, Deep Fakes, Ethics and the Law. And it featured the first intelligent person that I've seen at CES this year, Moja McTeer, who is a folklorist and senior advisor at the Human Artistry Campaign. It also featured Duncan Crabtree Ireland, who's the National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator of SAG-AFTRA. There we go, there we go. And this was no bullshit, it was talking about all of the different lawsuits that are going on right now, all of the litigation around AI, and the actual strategy for litigating. And there was a couple of points where Duncan was like, a lot is going to hinge on some very brave,

very famous people choosing to throw down some big dollar lawsuits. That's what we need right now. They did talk about the No Fakes Act, which has bipartisan support and gives some legal force to allow people to push for AI copies of themselves to be taken down And they think there's also some bipartisan possibility to get AI labeling like Legislation the thing is any of these things should be fucking fatal because if what you have to remove something from model a model

How the fuck do we do that? Yeah, we don't know it you have to throw away the entire model You have to retrain like it's there's no way around it Yeah And there was a really good point where kind of at the end of this, part of what I appreciate is again, there was no bullshit. Like, Moja at one point was like, I think it is absolute, it being generative AI

is absolutely a net negative for the artistic community. The point is not to get something out as quick as possible, it's to like make art. And then this has to be like one of maybe five people who are doing panels at CES who is like willing to say that. Yes. And Duncan got on and was like, look, you can't stop the technology from being invented.

So the best path forward is to like try and channel this into a direction that like is at least better for artists. Like there was very little, for most of the people on the panel, very little bullshit. There was some bullshit from one person on the panel. Okey dokey. Ginny Katzman, senior director of government affairs from Microsoft.

Oh, I bet. Oh, I bet. That was fun. So after, there's this whole point where everyone else on the panel is like, yeah, I think it's probably a negative for artists on the whole. And Ginny comes on, she's like, actually, I think it's a net positive.

And her example of this is, well, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you couldn't do before that thanks to AI you could do, like de-aging Harrison Ford for the Indiana Jones movie. Something famously that went over very well. Yeah. Everyone loved it and thought it was a great creative choice. You know what, this is the fucking problem with all of this on top of how shit it is

and how expensive it is. Which kind of AI are we talking about there, dipshit? That's not generative AI. That's not generative AI. That's not what that fucking was. And they love to use this. And it also steals us from being able to cast a young River Phoenix.

Exactly, exactly. To play a lovely young Harrison Rory. Which is the only thing in the way. Getting cast in more stuff, Gary. I'm asking that every day. It'd be very unfair. Well, luckily with the power of AI, we can put River Phoenix. I've read through every newspaper sequentially starting in 1834, so I have not gotten to the end of River Phoenix's

surely long career yet. It would be really cool. I'm this sleeping guy. I think he's got some bold ideas. I think this is gonna work out really well for Germany. It would be really cool that instead of just doing Young Harrison Four, they just do a River Phoenix deep fake for young Indians. It would be really cool that instead of just doing Young Harrison 4, they just do a River Phoenix deep fake for Young Indiana Jones.

Look, it's canonical. Great idea. I love the movies and the future of them too. This is so good, this is so bad. James Mangold, you're a hack and a fraud. So I gotta say, it was very funny, because she also suggests, Jenny, we can use animals without causing harm thanks to AI, a thing that no one had figured out how to do before. Nobody had ever figured out how to just like, not hurt animals in movies.

That didn't exist before AI, thank God. Thankfully AI will never do any harm to animals or the environment. Nobody asked the lobbyists from Microsoft, what else the company is doing with AI? Right. With police departments, doing with AI? Right. With police departments, or with fossil fuel companies. Yeah, is that bad for animals?

No, actually it's really good. They love answering, they need it, they yearn for the mines. They love data centers. Great for their habitats. She said there's issues with employment, but there's lots of issues that fall around that. And I do think you need a balance.

And at the end of it, the guy running the panel just says, okay. Yeah. That sounds like you guys are saying a bunch of woke shit on this panel. All right. All right, Microsoft. Once I'd like on the panel someone to go and say,

what the fuck do you mean? What do you mean there's just to that that you were gonna get? I think we do need a balance of some people being fired, like these people, and other people keeping their jobs, like everyone else. Like Moja, give her more jobs! Somebody has to lose and somebody has to win. Exactly, that's their entire argument. Somebody has the gun, somebody doesn't.

Somebody knows the way the maze works and somebody doesn't. gonna? We shouldn't have guns we shouldn't have a Man and one of them knows the maze and have a gun like we should never gun maze Yeah, you're talking about the gun maze now look we all like keeping a couple of people in a maze beneath our house, right? Yeah, yeah, there's nothing wrong with this is just the torment Nexus. We just we keep doing it It's not even the torment Nexus is fun. It's's fun. It's a nice maze under my house. They have plenty of space to run, some of them even like it. Sometimes sunlight creeps in through one of the corners. The minotaur gets them only sometimes.

Yeah. I'm the minotaur. Anyway, the gun maze isn't real. But also, most of their arguments mostly just come down to, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking it. Like you have to fucking make people lose. You have to break the human drive to come and break the omelet. isn't real. But also, most of their arguments can't mostly just come down to, well, you can't make an omelette without breaking it. Like you have to fucking make people lose.

You have to break the human drive to create art, obviously, to make an omelette that does not taste good. We must commoditize this. Yeah, right. An omelette-esque food. It's a piss omelette. Like there's piss in the omelette. And we had to burn down the Sistine Chapel to make the piss omelette. The computer made it though. Yeah.

Go on, clap for the computer. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. We did fire bomb the Louvre, but look. Look at this video of a nameless rock star. Oh, God. All right, well, that's the episode. That's all I got, folks. That was my first day at CES 2025.

Huzzah. Yeah, this is just my first day. Better Offline's here all week. I'm going to hear about stuff like this all week, and I think I'm going to be fully jokified. I'm going to wake up in the clown makeup on Friday. I'm going to find the funnest thing to bring back for you. I'm going to find an artist to put me in full joke.

No, I'm not. I'm going to try to steal that AI enhanced grill. Yeah. Can I have this? The grill that texts you. Can I just, like, move this around? I'm gonna try to steal that AI enhanced grill. Yeah. Can I have this? The grill that texts you. Can I just like move this around? I just wanna test how it rolls.

See, AI grills. Open the door, open the door. As someone who's done a lot of like grilling, done a lot of spoken barbecue, I don't know what an AI would do. Is it gonna talk to me in the six hours? Wait, are you trying to tell us here, Edzitron, that you have grilled meat

without a robot texting you about it? Because I just don't believe that. I don't know how I did it, but I did it. You're never gonna go back. Mankind has always dreamed of knowing how to cook meats. No one would ever believe that that happened. But until the robots, it was impossible. Oh God, we're at the death of innovation.

Yeah. The end of technology. A lot of things, maybe. And the end of the episode. Yeah, And the end of the episode. Thank God. You know, everyone else be the cyber truck in the Hey, it's Nikki Glaser. I'm not here to roast you. I'm here to overshare everything that went down at the Golden Globes last Sunday. Everyone is already talking about what happened on air at the Golden Globes, but you are going to hear about what happened off air from the horse's mouth. Yes, I'm the horse.

Me, Nikki Glaser. Join me on my podcast, the Nikki Glaser Podcast, where I will be telling you all the details. I can finally relax with my besties, my listeners, and dish what happened backstage. What went down, the things people are already talking about, the things that people should be talking about, I've got it all.

From what it took to prep for the Golden Globes to the behind the scenes of the Golden Globes, what went down in the rehearsals, who said what at the after party, who I saw at the after party, who was dancing with who. I'm going to spill it all. Secrets will be revealed. You do not want to miss this episode. What went down in the rehearsals? Who said what at the after party? Who I saw at the after party? Who was dancing with who? I'm gonna spill it all. Secrets will be revealed.

You do not wanna miss this episode. Listen to the Nikki Glaser podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And this January, we're going on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada to cover the Consumer Electronics Show,

Tech's biggest conference. Better Offline's CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest gadgets or the biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025, interrogating their narratives alongside a remarkable cast of industry talent and award-winning journalists. We'll have daily episodes, on-the-ground interviews,

and special panels covering everything from the BS of AI to the ways in which race and gender play into how people are treated in the tech industry and at these conferences. I'll be joined by David Rothert Defector and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with appearances from Behind the Bastards' Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis, and a few surprise guests throughout the show.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts from. And check out betteroffline.com. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like... Why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

We got the answer. Well, space is a good place to do that. And we're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. Our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse To make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor

We got the answer space junk block your cell signal the astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer We talked with the scientists who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the wooly mammoth Plus this Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stunt man reveals the answer. And you never know who's gonna drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you two? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir.

Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really, yeah, really. No Really. Go to ReallyNoReally. the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No Really.

Go to ReallyNoReally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When I smoke weed, I get lost in the music. I like to in the music. I like to isolate each instrument.

The rhythmic bass, the harmonies on the piano, the sticky melody. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, careful babe, there's someone crossing the street. Sorry, I didn't see him there. If you feel different, you drive different. Don't drive high. It's dangerous and illegal everywhere. A message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and my latest interview

is with Mel Robbins. The theory is very simple. It is a mindset tool that instantly helps you identify what's in your control and what's not in your control. Renowned motivational speaker, best-selling author, Mel Robbins. Work has been seen as the number one cause of stress. How can the let them theory help? As you notice the stress come up, Jay, you're simply going to say, let them.

You have no idea right now how much time and energy is being wasted because of other people's behavior. It's like a death by a thousand cuts. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, welcome back to It Could Happen here, a podcast about it happening here, which is really true in a lot of ways tonight. Harrison Davis and I are seated at the glorious, majestical hotel name redacted on the Las Vegas strip.

We got a long day at CES. Long day. Listening to panels, catching up with the latest tech news, trying gadgets. And also at the same time, texting our dear friends in Los Angeles as unprecedented fire sweep them from their homes. Literally the gettiest threatened Pasadena and Santa Monica are both being evacuated as once. It's a real one-two punch of America's favorite tech show in the apocalypse today. How are you feeling, Gar? It's an average day in America. Average day in America. Temperature's not

coming down anytime soon. No, no. Well, I'll just take a moment to breathe with that. So you want to start us off with what you did this morning. I was panel guy yesterday. There was a man of action walking around and mostly trying all the free massage chairs. What did you see this morning? I saw so many AI panels, half of which I left halfway through because I knew they weren't going to be useful for me. Just dog shit, yeah.

The other half I took notes on and just got sad. But no, today was full panel. Starting bright and early in the morning, where I walked into a panel where I heard augmentation, not replacement, about 20 times in the span of like 20 minutes. Yeah, I keep hearing versions of that too in the AI and Hollywood panels.

They would be like, yeah, we want to develop a machine that can read the brains of our viewers and alter the endings of movies, you know, but we see this as a way of augmenting the artist's work. Yes. And the biggest thing I noticed across multiple panels today

is an almost like anxiety among these tech executives about consumers rejecting the AI sloppification of everything. And they're trying to find ways to actually force people to start using these products or having them like it. And I haven't really sensed that anxiety before. It's all been very, very positive. I think it's a mix of, number one, the money still isn't there where they need it to be.

It has not started like blooming to the extent that they were expecting it by now. And the other part is people are still not happy with this stuff. I'm glad you felt that too, because that most was like, especially after the election, like I don't trust my feelings on this, that they're really scared. But I really do think there's a piece of that coming through. No, a phrase one of the panelists used this morning was the AI ick. Like, how do we beat the AI ick? And if you ever say to yourself, how do I stop having people feel an ick around me?

Maybe you should really look inwards. Yeah. Maybe the problem's you, not them. You know who doesn't need to worry about quote-unquote ick for their product market? It's people who make things that people like. So, but I heard a lot about, you know, in trying to get people to use these products, it's like making sure artists don't feel like they're being replaced instead, having their, like, art production process be augmented with AI

and how that can make art easier to make while still keeping the human at the center of AI tools. And this is just what they talked about for like a while, while reiterating that lots of the developments they need to see on AI, they have it on the tech side. What they need to rely on is consumer acceptance to really drive that innovation to see like what they can get away with. Like how much will the consumer accept the slothification of art and entertainment and customer service? And all these things are trying to cram AI into and like, how much worse can you make

the world before people stand up and stop you with their fists or guns? And you mentioned something about like trying to like tailor like movie endings for specific people and I definitely heard some stuff about that. There's this one guy who was like the panel's resident content creator. He was supposed to represent the artist block, even though he's like... Yeah. You know, some kind of AI-friendly content creator though on this panel. And he talked about how back in the day, you needed to have friends that would recommend your music.

And the Spotify algorithm is too based on like an echo chamber what you already like but now with a Gentic AI this allows trust between the consumer and the machine to recommend new music I'm like again like so much of these AI products is just trying to like replace friendship Yeah, have you people have you tried having friends? Have you tried knowing people? How can you engage with like art and culture? Without friends like how can you like learn more about like what your friends are into, what they like? How can you discover new music just like without that instead of replacing that beautifully human process? Every year at CES, there are points in time where I get that like,

oh, yeah, 2020 really fucked us up a lot. Like 2020 really did some lasting damage. Like I know it was that was happening with the younger generation before, the iPad kid generation, but like, that really did a number on some folks. Someone from Meta, right, Facebook, specifically their like, Metaverse division, which they're still trying to push for, by the way. Oh yeah, oh yeah. No, I mean, they're still calling it Meta, which honestly, there's a degree in which I almost respect it, because we are not biting.

No, no one is. But she talked about how they can blend the metaverse and AI to make customized personal experiences. Say that you're watching an immersive live concert in a mixed reality, something that both me and Robert do all the time. Oh man, I love mixed reality. You and me, we're watching our Harry Styles

mixed reality concerts. We're, I love mixed reality. You and me, we're watching our Harry Styles mixed reality concerts. We're seeing the 100 gecks, you know? Honestly, a 100 gecks mixed reality concert could go crazy. Yeah, well finally, I'll finally get you piled on real big fish. But basically, as you're in this like metaverse concert, they can have an AI that will sense your own excitement

and personalize the ending of the experience based on your favorite songs or artists. So as you're getting excited, some like AI Taylor Swift can like finish the song like for you based on like your own like musical tastes based on what the AI knows about you. And it's about creating these customized experiences. It's such a you can clearly tell that none of these people have souls, right? It's such a mismatch of what people get from music because they think that like, oh, this is just like a, if I see that like this specific beat line is guy, I can just sort of like plug this in and like, no, no, no, like what makes people react to musicians and artists is that they like make things that make them feel something like that's why people get like really into artists

as they feel seen and identify with a piece of art as opposed to like, oh, oh, that guy really liked the first opening bars to fucking octopus's garden. Like, let's just like really turn up the octopus a lot. More octopuses. 10% more octopus. How many more octopuses can we fit in this track? No, another panel I went to later in the day

was about like, how do you market to Gen Z? Very funny panel. Yeah. And they're talking about how like authenticity is so important. Like you need to partner with influencers that have like an authentic brand. And it's funny having that ducted post with like these like these like AI slot panels where like you need like an AI Taylor Swift to come like boost the excitement for all these kids who are in their metaverse concerts. Oh boy. But no, like personalized

content, like targeting like AI, AI generated content specifically for certain people, for certain users, whether that's on social media, whether that's on, you know, the metaverse, like some of these people talk about. Someone on the panel from Adobe, who's in Adobe is integrating a whole bunch of generative AI into their suite of products, like Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, big, big company in the creative space. He said that personalized content is always the most impactful, content that a person feels like a genuine connection to. And that connection can be formed by just being a compelling artist,

where you can recognize shared experiences of shared experiences of humanity. But now you don't need that artist part anymore. He said they only need three parts to create a pipeline. You need data, you need compelling like journeys to take the user on and you need the content itself. And the goal is to create content at scale that's highly personalized. He said, he quote, we're good at the first two parts. Now we just need to improve the actual content side,

which I don't even think that's true. I don't think AI is good at creating compelling human journeys. I had it. So the video I didn't play you guys from my terrible fucking AI generated videos was this. It was like a girl coming to college, we had a picture of her dad. And it was like a narration of her life with her father who like is dead that she misses

and all that she learned from her dad. And it like, it's a mix of like all these different, like there's a chunk where it looks like a Disney animated picture. There's a chunk where it looks like anime. She and her dad having these like adventures around the world. There's a bit of it that looks like a Marvel movie.

And he's like, we can do all of these different, you know, animation styles and they're seamless. And like, you know, the audience really goes on a journey with this. And it's, but it's like, but there's, there was no girl who lost your dad. Nobody lost their dad here. You just had a computer generate text about a dad dying.

Like there's nothing underpinning this, right? Nobody has anything they're trying to get across. Like you just, in this one, they look like Marvel heroes for some reason. in this one, they look like Marvel heroes for some reason. In this one, they look like Zulu warriors kind of done up in a slightly racist Lion King style. Like what is being transmitted other than like look at all of the different art styles we can rip off. No, they do not have a journey, but even they themselves admit that they still don't have the content. The content itself still isn't even there.

And that's something like they even acknowledge, and this is like a hurdle to get over. What they do have is the data, and this is like something that Adobe has done, because if you use Adobe products now, some of the most used creative products, Adobe trains all of their AI systems on the stuff that you make using their products. Which, you know, he really just blazed past that point, because that's a whole other discussion. But even they know that they don't have, like, the actual products. And this is still reliant on, like, consumer acceptance.

As they said before, someone from Meta, the same person on the panel, that talked about how, like, a few days ago on Instagram, they tried to announce, like, you'll have, like, AI profiles, right? Like, completely AI-generated pictures, profiles, like, you know, like, fake, right? Like completely AI generated pictures, profiles, like, you know, like fake people who have their own accounts. And this created such a big backlash that they rolled this back. And they simply announced this before CES. One of these accounts was literally like,

I'm a mother of two queer black woman, you know, I got a lot to say about the world. So I'm going to call up the situationists, please. And some like people started talking to her like, were any black people at all involved in like making this chat? She was like, well, no. And that's a real problem. That is a real problem.

Okay. Yes. And the excuse that this person from Metta said is that the market just isn't ready yet. It's not that the actual product itself is like bad or like no one really wants. It's the market's not ready yet. It's not that the actual product itself is like bad or like no one really wants, just the market's not ready yet. Well, they're so used to everything that they've done so far. They've kept getting money, right? And like it's slowed down and they've had to do layoffs,

but like nobody's just made them stop at any point, which honestly, you know, I made a comment about healthcare executives a while back needing like a fucking retirement plan paid in millimeters. So I'm not going to make that same comment about tech industry ghouls because you know, we all know what's in the news, but something has to be done to force these people to stop moving in this direction. And I don't know how to get across. They're already at this point of like,

they seem to really not want this. And we have to find a way, they're just not ready. We have to find a way to force this on them. There's a few ideas. I don't know how to get across to them in a peaceful manner. Oh, oh, sorry. People don't want this.

Peaceful manner. I'm a man of peace, Garesan. I'm a man of peace. I'm not a plumber. Oh, the last thing I'd want to add about this panel, in terms of how much this stuff is actually taking over more and more of the market, even if people don't want it, is that the guy from Adobe announced that in the fourth quarter of last year, they were able to boost all of Adobe's emails. If you send an email to Adobe, you have a problem, you know, emails. If you send like an email to Adobe, right, you have a problem, like you need help. Like everything that they do on emails is now 100% generated by AI. And this was boosted from 50% at the start of last year.

Now it's 100% of all of their email content is now done by AI with some moderation by humans. By that mean they're comms, like when the company itself is like communicating with customers through email? That's what it sounded like, yes. Because I assume that like they're still writing emails sometimes to each other or Like when the company itself is like communicating with customers through email. That's that's what it sounded like. Yes. They're still writing email sometimes to each other or all for that too. He described it as like email content.

So I'm pretty sure it is like content that probably customer service stuff. You like marketing, maybe like out like certain like outreach things. But yeah, like 100 percent now generated by AI with some human like moderation. But yeah, that is where things are moving. And that's how I started my morning. Well, better than a cup of coffee is that sense of creeping dread that like, wow, I just saw a bunch of people

who probably would rather kill the world than be stopped from shoveling AI slop into people's mouths because this is the only future they can imagine is one in which they work for a company that feeds the planet poison and kills the human concept of creativity so that they can buy a house in San Francisco. Do you know what I wanna feed the concept of?

Yeah, we'll talk about that, but here's some ads. ["Spring Day in San Francisco"] We're back. What was part two of this episode meant to be, buddy? I'm, uh, oh, let's talk about that helicopter. No, yeah, I think as I was going from panel to panel, scribbling notes on AI as some very exciting news stories dropped that we'll talk about later. What were you up to, Robert? Well, I was I was trawling the show floor as I off to do at some point in a CES. And I came across a number of majestic products. You know, a lot of it was AI based.

We'll talk some more about that here. But I ran into something that was, thank God, had nothing to do with AI. And it's a death trap. Every every one of these, there's like some sort of- Every CES we find a new death trap. There's a lot of connected vehicles, there were a lot of EVs. Last year there were a ton of different

flying taxi type options. People that were really trying to convince us- But you don't see it all this year? Nothing this year, nothing this year because it's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea. The people who are rich enough to pay for flying vehicles don't want it to be a taxi.

And the people who can't afford their own flying vehicles also can't afford them. Anyway, so this is instead of any of that, Richter, Richter, R I C T O R, which is a Chinese company, their ads say, I'll say, why be normal? The future of- Many people are saying this. The future of travel will not be on the ground. And the Richter is a hybrid, it is like a smart car style size vehicle.

It's like half the size of a smart car. It only has two wheels though. It looks more like a scooter. It's more like a weird little scooter golf cart thing. Like a Vespa almost. But it's fully enclosed. and in addition to having its wheels and being able to travel about on the ground, it has four like quadricopter style rotors

because it is an aquatic flying car. Aquatic flying. I saw no evidence that it could actually go in the water. How high can these things go up? Less than 200 meters, you know why Garrison? Why is that? Because if you try to go above that, you need a pilot's license. You don't need a pilot's license? I have that when I was interviewing them I was

like so I assume there's got to be some sort of pilot's license for this flying craft and they're like no as long as you stay under 200 meters you're good. Do you need drivers like are you going to put a license plate on this? There's no space for one buddy. Is it completely unregulated? I'm going to be honest and I don't say this for any problematic reason but like these folks are Chinese and did not seem to have a great deal of knowledge about the US Awards laws. Sure. That said I can't imagine China's less strict about personal aircraft. I would love to take this fucker on the i-5. Just start zooming up in the air because you could probably do like a pretty a pretty good road trip on this right? You can You start zooming up in the air. Because you could probably do like a pretty good road trip on this, right?

Well, about that. So it's very small and it's completely electric. So I asked him, how much time do you get in the air with this bad boy on battery? Maybe 25 minutes. What happens after 20 minutes? I did ask this and I was like, is this just rough out of the sky? And they were like, no, we're working on like a,

like an intelligent thing that will like force it to the ground. Yeah, which is also very exciting. Really looking forward to seeing how they pull that off. The videos that they have show it driving on the highway too. They weren't able to tell me what a top speed was. It has no rear view mirrors and no side view mirrors, but they said there's lots of cameras on the inside. So I'm sure that's fine.

It's a death trap. This thing will get everyone who even looks at it wrong killed. They showed me a video of the prototype. It was completely frameless. It was just quadricopter blades and like a chair on a platform lifting a guy into the air. It couldn't go forward or backwards, but they're like, yeah, we didn't like it here We can have this figured out. It can't it can't move forward. It only only went up in the videos I saw

So you can't actually travel absolutely not absolutely not I was by the way, I couldn't fit in this thing like you was quite small be cramped in this fucker But it's good for vertical travel. It's great. If you just need to go up to under 200 meters, there's no more efficient way. What happens if you get pulled over by the cops? Just go up above them.

I'm in the sky now. You can't do shit to me for 25 ass minutes. Oh my God. Instead of you just just driving you go up to 100 kilometers which made me think so what does that get? That's like 60 miles per hour. If I'm in the air for 20 minutes then I land then my battery's dead. Then you can't go anywhere. Then you can't go anywhere. You can't get back home. The battery issue is gonna is gonna be troubling but. This seems completely useless. But as we've heard non-stop the past two days this is the worst it's gonna days, this is the worst it's going to be. This is the worst it's going to be.

Only going to get better. Things only ever get better. That's that's what everyone was trying to insist upon to me here. What else did you see on the show floor that caught your eye? Garrison, so many magical, wonderful, marvelous things, most of which were just like various different AI connected smart houses. That was what Samsung was showing off. That was what Samsung was showing off.

That was what LG was showing off. But I believe you saw one as well, right? Yeah, I mean, I walked through the LG booth. It was kind of the same as last year. The Samsung booth was too intimidating. But I should check it out, because last year we didn't do the Samsung booth because we were going to.

And then either one of us threw up or spilled something. Hey, okay. Okay. Yes. Did I did I did I pour my kratom into a cons into a carbonated beverage that spewed a geyser of blood red foam into the sky around us. Into the white Samsung garbage.

Did the security guard stare at me as it happened? Did I set the drink down as it continued to spew and said, I'll go get some towels and then leave forever? We never got towels. We left so fast. We fucking bounced. So we couldn't do the out of some booth last year. Maybe I'll try it this year,

but tell me about these smart houses. Well, Gare, Samson has a great idea for a smart house. First of all, you remember that game, The Sims? No. Well, they're really betting that you do, because their current plan is design your home with the AI-powered map view. Okay, okay, sure, sure.

You should feed it like a picture, you like, you lay out your floor plan in your house and it gives you like a 3D model. And you can take pictures of your furniture or pictures of furniture that you want. And then- You can really place it around. And you can place them.

Now, a couple of things. One of them is that there's no scaling done by the AI. So it's up to you to figure out how the furniture you might wanna buy measures up in comparison to the AI. So it's up to you to figure out how the furniture you might want to buy measures up in comparison to the apartment. Sure, sure. But it does look like the actual like map that they've got. I'll show you the picture that I took.

I'll try to put it up somewhere. Like it looks like the video game, the sims. No, yeah, that doesn't look like the sims. You're populating like a little 3D CGI house. And I was like, okay, well, there's, there's a use there, right? People like planning out, like you're moving into a new apartment. Um, but I, I know people who would have used that. Sure. That seems useful. So I talked to them about security.

Some one thing that concerned me is like the first guy I talked to was like, Oh yeah, I think it's all stored locally. And I was like, so Samsung doesn't have any access to any of the data on like my house and its layout. And he was like, let me, let me get you to one of our like engineers, cause he can answer that question. And the engineers answer was, and I'm paraphrasing here Oh

Okay, that may be very confident that does make you feel safe about sharing your personal data, right? Yeah on the layout of my actual house Well, the thing is I really don't like that at all because this is it This is something that people were asking Facebook slash Metta When they were doing like they're you know, like metaverse stuff because their headsets are recording, you know, very, very extensively like your home layout. And the whole point, well, part of the point was that some of that data could then be used to send you targeted advertisements based on them seeing everything in your home. And I suspect that Samsung might also have some interest in targeted advertisements being a tech company. But I could never say.

Yeah, and they were, that was not really, one thing they had is for their retail segment, they had a live video grocery store ad showing you prices of different produce. And I think the insinuation that it lay out is you can change prices on the fly, which kind of made me think about that. There was some talk last year of like, okay, we want to be able to like face scan customers

so we can see if they have money and increase prices for like products for certain people, which I'm sure they're going to try. They're too enticed by that idea not to. So I caught a little bit of that, but they really like to the extent of how big, and this was an interesting last year, Samsung and LG, their booths were huge and they had a lot of different gadgets. Samsung's booth is big this year. 40% of it was that scan your furniture, scan your fucking like map out. There's not that much like stuff.

Very little actual shit going on. People slap the word AI onto everything now. Another big thing was all Samsung, because Samsung makes a ton of appliances, they make TVs, all sorts of entertainment products, all of them have this, I forget what they call it, like Samsung tag or something, that you can map it in your phone.

So you can have a whole map of all of the devices and shit that you have in your phone, and you can control them all from a single point. No one, by the way, had any interest in answering my security questions there. But also, if you're into that, if you want to have all of your appliances and entertainment things linked up and controlled on your phone

and all of them are Samsung, you don't care. You don't care. No, if you're getting a smart home, I don't think you really care about that. But also none of it was like, yeah, I can control everything from my phone. You've been promising me that literally like in 2011 at CES, they were promising me you're going to be able to control your whole everything from my phone. You've been promising me that literally, like in 2011 at CES,

they were promising me you're gonna be able to control your whole house from your phone. Nothing feels new this year. This is the thing, is like, even walking through the LG booth, which usually has some really cool new thing, this year, nothing new. No. Nothing new. They slapped the word AI on one corner of their television set.

Right. I guess LG does have, like, a large language large language model in like one corner of their booth, but like so does everyone else. That's not like compelling. There was SK, which is a South Korea company. Their booth again, the massive like AI your life was their big thing, but it's nothing. It's just a big visual display that looks cool.

That looks like a bunch of server racks. Like you're in this huge cube of servers, but everything's spectacle. A half dozen different actual products. One of them was real-time CCTVs that use an AI, like an LLM type thing to summarize pictures. So I like walked through and it did pick me out as a notable person.

So I've got like this people of interest thing where it's like a man holding a smartphone standing next to another man. But also I'm like, what does that really get you? Like the fact that you're summarizing up where it's like a man holding a smartphone standing next to another man. But also I'm like, what does that really get you? Like the fact that you're summarizing up like these people who are like, this person's kneeling and taking a picture.

This person's standing. Cause I like, I actually tried deliberately. I like reached in my bag to try to be suspicious. I like did finger guns and it never marked me out. And like, I didn't pull a real gun or anything. Cause I very rarely bring that to the CES floor. But I don't know like I can see how there could be a utility there if you're actually able to say you're setting up like surveillance outside of a residential building and it can

alert security that like something is happening outside. There's a potential you if it's good enough utility in that but they didn't display it at the show. It was literally just describing randos from the audience. And like, I just don't see how a security guard is, there's a guy with a phone on outside of the building. Like, yeah, no, it's it doesn't seem very new. It doesn't seem very innovative. Now, so again, when I'm when I'm seeing here overwhelmingly for all the talk about like, there's no resisting it. AI is coming.

It's going gonna dominate everything, this is the next big thing. A remarkable lack outside of what I will say, the one thing where there are continuously new products that are better every year is smart glasses. They're getting more impressive and more capable every year. I don't think I'll ever be a smart glasses guy.

I hated glasses enough that I let them shoot me in the eye with lasers. Shout out to our Lasix sponsors. But I see why people would like it. And there seems to be legitimately substantial utility. If we have high powered smart glasses that look like a regular pair of glasses, I will get a pair eventually. Because yeah, why not?

There was a great demo I'm pulling over to and that LAWK view. They had like one glass that was the first world smart glasses for TikTok live, not particularly excited about that, but they had another set of AR glasses with a 12 hour battery where like, if it works as well as the demo, and that's a big if, but it syncs to like your smartwatch.

So it'll tell you, you can see in a heads up display as you're cycling, that was the demo. It'll both like give you directions like in your eyes. And it seemed to be like fairly well thought out. So it's not like overly corrupting your view. It'll show you your heart rate. You know, it'll show you like all that kind of stuff. So you get like a useful degree of control

and assistance from that kind of thing. And that is, I will say the last three CESs, the glasses get a little better and a little smaller every year. Smaller, certainly. I would say that's a real product that's probably going to continue to improve. Do you know what else always seeks improvement, Robert? No. The capacity for you to get personalized, possibly AI-powered ads.

Well, that is exciting. To help you make informed consumer choices. Let's all sit down for some AI- powered ads. To help you make informed consumer choices. Let's all sit down for some AI powered ads. Wow, I can't believe they put Jay Shetty's voice in the D.A.G.E. Harrison Ford from the latest Indiana Jones movie. My dick's hard. How are you, Garrison? Oh, I feel good, because today, as we are recording this, it's late Tuesday night,

there was a series of fascinating breaking news articles that happened as we were sitting, or at least as I was sitting in on these AI panels, which made it hard to not just, like, completely interrupt everything and be like, hey, hey, any comment on this? Guys, guys, something real happened. Shut your fucking stupid mouths about this AI Hollywood bullshit.

So, so a few weeks ago, if you were unaware, a Green Beret rented a Tesla Cybertruck to feel like Batman and Halo and drove to first the wrong Las Vegas and then eventually Las Vegas, Nevada, parked outside of the Trump Hotel and Casino and then loomed himself up. And this has been a big news story. It happened during the same day as a pretty horrible terrorist attack in New Orleans which resulted in about 15 people dead, done by a guy who was employed by Deloitte, a frequent CES sponsor. So these felt like a very CES style of attacks.

One Deloitte guy driving into people, murdering homeless guys, and then this cyber truck explosion in Vegas, like a week before CES, very odd. And then, Robert, some news drops today that I would love to hear you announce. You know, Garrison, I made a comment the other night about how like it's pretty well documented that veterans, you know, not that they're more likely to carry out violence, but when they do, they tend to have higher body counts

because they have more skills. It turns out I thought we were getting more literal bang for our buck training green berets than we are. My assumption is, because my uncle was a green beret and he did some very scary, probably war crime-y shit in Vietnam. And I assumed like that man, I'll tell you one thing about my uncle Jim,

that man could make a bomb. That man would not need to ask anyone for advice if he'd needed to make a bomb. He's not with us anymore, God rest his soul. But it turns out this Green Beret, who, you know, a fucking dollar store, TJ Maxx version of the Green Berets is what we're working with now, asked ChatGPT how to build a fucking bomb. It sounds like he was trying to make it triggered by Tannerite, which is a bipartite explosive compound that you use as like an exploding target.

So it'll go boom big, but you have to shoot it with something like a rifle that's high velocity or use like a blasting cap. Otherwise it's very stable and very safe, which obviously has use, you know, it was invented actually to set off avalanches and stuff. Anyway, because that's very available and very high power, he was looking to like fill his car with that and then shoot it with a rifle while he was in it. And that's what he was asking ChatGPT about. So it's not clear to me actually,

the actual headline is that like he used ChatGPT to make his bomb. It seems, and I'm not privy to what the police are obviously, but it seems like based on what I read in the article, we're not sure if he actually used chat GPT to make a bomb. It's more that he was interested in making a bomb, setting off Tannerite by shooting it, but may have ultimately decided not to do that

because he would then be alive for the explosion, which he didn't want to be. Also the authorities don't seem to fully know how he triggered it. Yeah. So it's still kind of unclear to me. I guess hopefully we'll get more later, but he definitely needed ChatGPT's help to try and figure out how to make the bomb that he set off.

He certainly used ChatGPT in the planning process of this attack. Yeah, fair to say that. And it's odd, because both me and you spent a number of hours today actually, like, attending like demos from like these, you know, speech to text, text to speech, AI systems. We went to like two specific ones that they like, you know, demonstrated, demonstrated the capabilities of their like, you know, like AI assistive tech. The first one we went to spent 20 minutes talking about how their biggest inspiration, their quote unquote North Star was the movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix.

They had a whole slide about how that was the gold standard for AI human communications. The movie Her in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an AI chatbot voiced by Scarlett Johansson who hires a Prostitute to have sex with them while she participates vocally And then it turns out the AI is really kind of Polly and Joaquin Phoenix is not okay with that And then maybe the AI's all go to space. It's kind of unclear at the end I don't think it was a great movie a lot of people liked it I don't see whether or not you like it. Why this is your vision of how a chatbot should work.

The actual chatbot they had was like fine. It was actually pretty good at translation. You know, you're translating from Spanish to English. It worked quite well, yes. The demo was like solid. It was pretty accurate. You know, I love coming here and fucking with people. I love like being a dick.

They asked for a volunteer. And at that point we knew about the chat GPT. I wanted to go up and ask live this robot to help me make a bomb. But the guy who was pretty handsome and an interesting English, Spanish mix. I like how you specified he was handsome. I didn't wanna be mean to him.

He seemed nice. I didn't wanna be mean to a handsome guy. He wasn't shitty. No specified he was handsome. I didn't want to be mean to him. He seemed nice. I didn't want to be mean to a handsome guy. He wasn't shitty. No, he was fine. There was like 10 people in this room that was supposed to have 200. I'm sure they were bummed by how it- He wasn't the one that talked about her.

No. That was someone else at his company. That was someone else at his company. And he just seemed like he wanted to do, I didn't want to be a dick to him. No, no. He wasn't hurting anything. It was fine.

Similarly, we went to this one- Nice jawline. We went to this other one about this, actually a much more dubious concept in my mind, which is this AI assistant to help elderly people, people in their 80s and 90s who don't wanna be in assisted living facilities who have been living on their own, but they're getting to the point in their life

where they need some degree of in-home care. He specified a lot of them are people who have either just lost a spouse or maybe their spouse is aging faster and worse than them and is no longer really able to be the kind of companion that they were before. Yeah, so it's like this it's it's both like a conversation tool. It helps like memory recall kind of in some ways has the features that like, you know, someone in their 60s would just use their smartphone for to help keep in touch with their family. It's kind of simplified and more automated. So ways to help keep in touch with your family, improve your memory, talk about your own life. And the device is weird.

It's about the width of a bedside table, maybe six to eight inches deep. So think about 18 inches long to maybe six inches deep, something like that. Half of it is like a little tablet, like a seven inch tablet with the speaker. Half of it is something about the shape and size of a head on like a neck that can pivot and nod on the neck. There's no face. So when it's talking, there's like a white light in the center of it that kind of like pulses in time with the speaking that it does.

So we saw this picture of the device and we saw the description of like, this is an AI companion for the elderly. And we were both like, number one, these people are gonna be monsters. This is going to be like something to shovel your dying dad off with because you don't wanna spend any fucking time with them.

You don't wanna spend time with your family. You're scum, you're too busy AI generating scum. You're trying to sell your shitty robot to Garrison and me. More on that tomorrow. More on that tomorrow. And so that's what we came in prepped to this meeting. Yeah, because this idea I find pretty distasteful in general is like replacing actual friends or human contact or in-home care with a fucking Alexa machine, essentially.

And to be clear, I still think this product might be a bad idea that doesn't work, but the guy behind it, who is the dude that we talked to, cares a lot and is really very clearly trying to do a good thing and thought through the ethics and the efficacy of what he was doing a lot. And I'm not convinced it will actually do anything, but I like wish him the best.

No, like specifically he's designed to not look like a human so that someone who's using it, you know, wouldn't like start to believe it's like human-like. We don't wanna trick people, we don't want them to mistake it for a person. It refers to itself like as a robot, as like it refers to its own like, you know, like motors and functionality, like pretty consistently to like, you know, make sure that the person who's

talking to it gets like reminded of that. And something I talk about is, you know, there's been a lot of news stories this year about people building very unhealthy attachments and relationships to these kind of AI AI programs like character AI. There's a story like a year and a half ago about like a journalist who, quote, unquote, like, like, like, like fell in love with some kind of chat thing that resulted in him killing himself. You know, but these kind of these systems like encouraging...

Was it a journalist or was that a teenager? What was the character thing? Was that a journalist? Last year there was there was a journalist who fell in love with an AI chat thing. A few weeks ago there was the kid who was talking to this like a character AI. Also I just need to reiterate her, not a great movie. But, but you know, there's been a lot of these stories of these things like going wrong or you know, encouraging or like not stopping, you know, like these like intense conversations of like suicidal ideation, or you know, like self harm, all these things. We brought these up kind of thinking he would flinch away and not want to talk about it. And he very much acknowledged that like he was aware of this

and this is something that they were attempting to build in. This is like, this is, you know, built into it. I think this is still, you know, a big problem with this entire industry. I'm sure everyone would say, this is the, you know, obviously that we have, we have guardrails for this and then becomes a new story when those guardrails fail. Similarly was to go back to the Tesla bomb, you know, there's supposed to be guardrails fail. Similarly, was to go back to the Tesla bomb.

They're supposed to be guardrails on chat GPT to make sure it doesn't tell you how to build a bomb and those guardrails can fail. He showed us one which was like, he told the robot, I love you. What was it? L-E-Q? L-E-Q was the robot. Yeah, L-E-Q, E-L-L-I-Q.

I love you, L-E-Q. And the robot like responded with a like, oh, that makes like my fans are all spinning or something like that. Where he's like, I wanted the response needs to be that it's reminding the person talking to it that it's a machine, that it can't think or love them back. We don't want it to be negative,

but we like, we don't want to be like feeding into that. And I don't know that that's the best way to do that, but like at least they're thinking about that kind of thing. Though the thing that was interesting to me is that he built this as the first proactive home AI thing. So unlike an Alexa or whatever where it's just waiting for you to ask it something, but it does not chime in randomly to talk to you. Or it won't like change the subject either and like continue conversation. This will prompt you out of the blue be like, hey, how are you doing? How are you feeling today?

It's been a while. And specifically- Do you want to see pictures of your family? It's been a while. And specifically- Do you want to see pictures of your family? Do you want to see pictures of your family? Do you want to call your son? You know? But do you want to play a game?

Talk to me about that movie you saw last week. Yeah, talk to me about that. Hey, remind me, how did you meet your husband? You know, like literally, these are all the things it will do. And it had some side features, like if it prompts you to start telling a story, it'll save that as like a memoir thing. So that like, you know, when your elderly mother passes or whatever, it saved up this like collection of stories

over the years. And you can like show it pictures while you're telling it stories and it will listen and it'll have comments and it'll ask you further questions about, so how did you feel, you know, after meeting them this way? Like, that's really interesting. I didn't know that.

Explain to me how it worked. And it'll also prompt you to send those to your kids. And the big thing, almost every kind of dialogue thing would prompt you to send a message to a friend or your kids. So a big part of it seemed to be, this is not a replacement. This is a machine that we hope people

will get comfortable with. And then it can prompt them to try to engage with the world more and their loved ones. Because that's our whole goal is to connect them to people. I asked him is like, you know, part of this product is designed to like, you know, help solve like loneliness in older adults. And like how much of this is really just like kind of trying to like replace actual human contact with this like, you know, a eye contact. Will that really help? you know, loneliness? And he talked about how, like, like, I think, like, he said, like, 90% of the people who like use this, like, it results in actually more,

more communication with their family. Yeah. They have this in like some 2000 homes right now. Two, yeah. They have like 2000 units. It's like a subscription model. I think it's right now it's like $99 a month. It's going to be boosted up to like $150 with some extra features in the next year. It's very much still under evolution. So one thing he pointed out is that like, yeah, initially we had the ability to like connect people

to other elderly folks using this. And so they've kind of formed their own community. They have like a weekly bingo game. They've asked us to build in more chat so they can message each other directly. And so some of them are like playing bingo directly now through these machines. And I'm like, well, that seems probably good.

Yeah. Cause like I still am like fundamentally opposed to this premise. Yes. But it's interesting seeing someone- And it's sad still, but aging is sad. Aging sad, right? That's not their fault.

And it's interesting to see someone like approach this from like a very like compassionate standpoint, even if I find the actual kind of nature of this thing existing to be like deeply uncomfortable. Yeah, I can't not find it off putting, but I think there's a chance that it will help with the real problem. I certainly would prefer if it helped.

Yeah. So I don't know, it was kind of, it was a unique in this world of like AIS, it was a unique kind of like product for me where it's like, I don't know, it was kind of, it was a unique, in this world of like AIs, it was a unique kind of like product for me where it's like, I don't know that this application of AI technology will actually do what you're hoping it will, but I got the vibe from that guy I got was nothing but goodwill. You really were trying.

Compared to some of the other people we talked to today who are completely soulless. Yes, yes, nothing behind their eyes, dead eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. Even the way this guy talks, you could tell, you had like a very empathetic voice, like genuinely. He cared very much. Like one of the things he did is he would tell it like,

I'm in some pain. And then the robot would cycle through to the pain scale and would try to, because one of the things it does is it will take information for care and it will text actively. So it's not just communicating with the old person, it will text and message their kids, you know, and whatnot. And try to get and try to prompt their kids, hey, your mom's lonely. Yeah, or even say if, you know, someone like didn't take their meds today.

And again, it's kind of sad that that but also his part of this is he was talking a lot about like empathy. And I think just because of the kind of brain you have to have to want to do this, he used it in terms of like the machine's empathy, which it doesn't have. But the whole project, it was impossible not to see that he was a deeply empathetic man. He was really trying to make the world better. And I can't not respect that. Well, I think that does it for us here at CES. That's right. What a packed 13.

Don't worry, no empathy tomorrow, folks. Just a real dead-eyed monster. A true villain you're going to hear from in the next episode. Scumbag. I am the best that I'm gonna be, because I'm starting this week. I can still feel the CES magic. Yeah.

By Friday, I am going to be a different person the CES kind of sideshow called Showstoppers, to hear also some exclusive brand new AI-generated ska music. So we'll give you that hint for tomorrow's episode. See you there. Mm-hmm. Well, see you all there. I love you all. Go to hell. happen on air at the Golden Globes, but you are going to hear about what happened off air from the horse's mouth, yes, I'm the horse, me, Nikki Glaser, join me on my podcast, the Nikki Glaser podcast, where I will be telling you all the details. I can finally relax with my besties, my listeners,

and dish what happened backstage. What went down, the things people are already talking about, the things that people should be talking about, I've got it all. From what it took to prep for the Golden Globes to the behind the scenes of the Golden Globes, what went down in the rehearsals, who said what at the after party,

who I saw at the after party, who was dancing with who. I'm gonna spill it all, secrets will be revealed. You do not wanna miss this episode. Listen to the Nikki Glaser podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And this January, we're going on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada,

to cover the Consumer Electronics Show, Tech's biggest conference. Better Offline's CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest gadgets or the biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025, interrogating their narratives alongside a remarkable cast of industry talent and award-winning journalists. We'll have daily episodes, on-the-ground interviews and special panels covering everything from the BS of AI to the ways in which race and gender play into how people are treated

in the tech industry and at these conferences. I'll be joined by David Roth of Defecta and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with appearances from Behind the Bastards' Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis, and a few surprise guests throughout the show. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts from. And check out betteroffline.com.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer.

We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the wooly mammoth Plus this Tom Cruise really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's gonna drop by Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us. How are you? Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park Wayne Knight. Welcome to really really sir. Bless you all Hello Newman and you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really? Yeah.

No, really? Go to ReallyNoReally.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really. And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. The I Heart Radio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When I smoke weed, I get lost in the music.

I like to isolate each instrument. The rhythmic bass, the harmonies on the piano, the sticky melody. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, careful babe. There's someone crossing the street. Sorry, I didn't see him there. If you feel different, you drive different. Don't drive high. It's dangerous and illegal everywhere. A message from NHTSA and the Ad Council.

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and my latest interview is with Mel Robbins. The theory is very simple. It is a mindset tool that instantly helps you identify what's in your control and what's not in your control. Renowned motivational speaker, bestselling author, Mel Robbins.

Work has been seen as the number one cause of stress. How can the let them theory help? As you notice the stress come up, Jay, you're simply going to say, let them. You have no idea right now how much time and energy is being wasted because of other people's behavior. It's like a death by a thousand cuts. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh man, welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast that's happening here if here is your ears. If you're deaf and reading this, then it's happening to your eyes? Either way, it's happening here. Here also being Las Vegas. Oh, yes.

Also Las Vegas. Nevada. Nevada. Not the other one. Nevada IA. Yeah. Uh-huh. Podcast number three, how the time does fly. It sure does. By the time you listen to this, Garrison and I will have just had the best meal that we're going to have this year.

Oh my God, yeah. It's tomorrow for us still, but we're still, we're very excited about Morimoto, which is a fantastic, every year we have a very special dinner, just them and me and a couple of friends who will remain anonymous, because people get weird on the internet sometimes. It is literally the highlight of my year sometimes. It does keep me going actually.

Really gives me a lot of power, some of the best tacos I've ever had in my life. So good. Anyway, ah, we're just thinking about delicious food. Let's talk about the dead-eyed ghoul we met. Oh wait, no, we're doing something else first. Not yet, not yet. We met a dead-eyed ghoul that I'm gonna spoil now.

Real monster, like real, real, real evil vibes. Sad evil though. If this guy, as soon as I met him, shook his hand, like, oh, if this guy gets power, you're going to be responsible for a lot of death and suffering. I mean, speaking of kind of- I don't think he will, he's just not that talented.

He's not that powerful. Maybe, maybe. He wishes. You never know where these guys are gonna end up. Speaking of sad evil, Twitter X. The Everything app. They, that's what people are calling it. They gave a keynote, which was very sad. The CEO, Linda. Yeah, Linda really yakka-reenote about Twitter for a while.

That was so bad. So they started by talking about how Facebook Meta has copied Twitter's like fact checking policy of actually not having real fact checkers. Now, fact checking maybe has actually kind of failed as an industry, but for, you know, our problems perhaps with fact checking, very different from these people's problems, and the fact now that Facebook is walking away

from actual, like genuine, like fact checks against like disinformation, misinformation, and parting ways with like using like legacy media outlets to verify information because those media outlets are too political, quote unquote, and instead is copying the current ex-model of free speech and specifically saying there's been way too much censorship on gender issues. Now you can comment that women are a piece of property. Well, I mean, I think specifically this is like trans, like queer stuff too.

No, no, no. One of the things that is a specific exemption now is that you can now refer to women as if they are property on Facebook. This is the future of communication. Right. Yeah. Thank God. Linda's really blazing a trail for women everywhere. Linda was very excited about that. And they, Yakery, know about that for like a good 10 minutes about how, you know, this is this is really entering a new era of free Speech and social media and then she got asked a question about how much X Twitter the everything app Will will take a part in Elon Musk's plans for the Department of Government Efficiency

Doge and and this got got the first applause of the panel, applause only happens two times, during the Doge section was the first, like, you know, room starts clapping moment. Everyone goes crazy. How many minutes in was that? Oh, it was like maybe like 12, 13 minutes in. So people really, yeah, had to be intentional here.

This is not like they were just overdue for clapping. No, no, no. Talked about Vivek, talked about Elon turning to Twitter X, the everything app, for suggestions on which government agencies to get rid of. I hope we get rid of the ATF. So, that was- Like machine guns mandatory.

Why not at this point, right? It can only help. It can only help. It can only help. Look, if we learned anything from a thing I'm not going to specify that happened late last year, more suppressors is always handy. Oh. Uh.

Uh. The second thing that got applause was what they talked about next, was about, you know, everyone's turning to X, Twitter, the everything app. The everything app, yeah. For information now, and Twitter, you know, everyone's, everyone's turning to X Twitter, the everything app. The everything app, yeah. For information now and Twitter, X the everything app, played a crucial part in bringing to

light the Muslim rape gang story in the UK and how that was so important for saving children. And we have to, we have to post more, not less. And like, this was the other thing that got massive applause, was talking about the rape gangs. People love rape gangs. People love rape gangs. That was a pretty good Star Trek episode. That was Tasha Yar's planet with the rape gangs, Garrison?

One of the more blackpilling things, certainly. It wasn't a very good Star Trek episode. It's also not a good Trek episode. I was referring to the panel, not the Trek episode. But that was the other thing that got massive applause is it's like save the children type rhetoric and you know, saying, you know, like as a mother, it's so important that the more people post about this problem. That was the two big applause moments. But I think in general, this this whole panel was trying to like, you know, demonstrate

how symbiotic a new Trump presidency and Elon Musk's Twitter are going to be. This is your direct info line. This is a tap from the Trump presidency to you. This is how you talk to the new government. This is how you talk to all of these new people, all these new cabinet members. They're all on Twitter.

They're all talking on Twitter. This is how you stay connected to the new government. It's interesting. One thing I'm curious about. So this is the thing that happened, the last set of Nazis that gained power in a country in a big way. The German ones. There was this common attitude of like, if only Hitler knew, because Nazi policies didn't help the people they were supposed to help.

They hurt a lot of people. They were just bad at everything. Like fascists tend to be. And there was this attitude that like, well, Hitler can't know. The fact that the country's been handed over to gangsters who are continuing to hurt the people Hitler promised to help, he must not be aware. Like if he knew, he would fix this.

If only he knew. So I'm wondering how that's gonna play in here as Trump's policies continue to hurt the people who, a lot of the people who voted, from not the rich people who voted for him, but the people who like flipped between him and Biden or whatever, like those folks are gonna get fucked like the rest of us.

And I kind of wonder if they're going to, if there's going to be, win the blowback against X, the everything app will happen, right? Like as people are like, either I'm being ignored or I'm being called like a retard by Elon Musk for complaining that like- Can you say that on the air?

Elon Musk tweets it in randomly to people when they make very valid critiques of the shit that he's doing. Like that's literally what he's calling people. He's saying it like every day. Constantly, I'm not using it as a slur. That's just the term he's using. If they comment that like their fucking Medicaid got cut because Trump put Dr. Oz in charge of it

and Elon Musk calls them like, you know, a slur, what does that do? I don't even have any more intelligence than like, yeah, I wonder what that does to Twitter's bottom line. I mean, yeah, I'm not sure if they care anymore. I mean, something else Linda talked about is how, you know, Twitter's the only place for independent news to spread. And as both of us have, you know, worked in the independent journalism minds, nothing, nothing spreads on Twitter anymore.

No, no, if it's news, it doesn't. The only thing that spreads is, yeah, like the shit that makes people very angry but keeps them on the site. Like articles, videos, if it takes you off site, it doesn't spread. Yeah, things that go viral and get spread is like encouraging racial riots, pogroms essentially. Yeah, which is what happened last year in the UK and they're sure trying to do it again.

I mean, I think some of what she's referencing is there's a lot of throttling intentionally of people on maybe our proclivities, and there's a degree of boosting for more centrist or right-wing journalists, and maybe that's some of what they could be more referring to there. But it was a short keynote, only 30 minutes. The two things that got applause are Doge. Linda doesn't know that many words, so they really need to keep it under 30 minutes. Doge and literally Muslim rape gangs is this type of very, very gross racial fear-mongering, and those are the things that lit up the room.

We all want there to be an after, where there's even the minimal degree of accountability that happened after the Nazis, but what I try I try to in my darker moments think is like, well, that's another person who like really made the argument of like, what needs to happen when this ends? Because it's just, I want to hurt people. My business is enabling harm. I want to get mobs in the street beating migrants. Like that's Linda's business. That's the business she has willfully attached herself to. And we should all see that. It's very important to not stop talking about it like what it is. These people are trying to cause racial violence and they are trying to cause gendered violence and they are trying to cause harm at scale to communities of people that

they see financial profit in damaging. Well in other uplifting CES news. Cool stuff. I love the Consumer Electronics Show. Actually, I think it might be time for an ad break. Speaking of damaging communities of people. That's right. There's a chance.

Yeah, ads, oh well. ["Forgot You a Blow?" by The Bunch of Fools plays in background.] We're back, boy. I'm so glad that those ads told me that Fogaccio Blow is touring with Bono. I never thought they'd do it, but boy howdy, and they're singing each other's songs. So you know, that's really exciting.

It's like when Barbara did Celine. I don't know who Barbara or Celine is, but that's cool, Robert. Luckily, I do know what ska is. I consider myself a they of culture. And for tonight, me and Robert attended this kind of like side event at CES called Showstoppers. And as you walk around the CES floor, there's a lot of frankly garbage.

There's a lot of just like- Mostly garbage. Or stuff that like you're just not interested in because you're not literally buying like screens from a manufacturer in China. It's like, that's just not the business you're into. Some of this stuff is meant for companies, right? So much floor space.

Like there's like, we walked, what, 20,000 steps today. The town that I spent the first seven years of my life in is smaller than one of the rooms CES has held. It's across like three hotels and a massive convention center. 90,000 people come into town for this thing. It can be hard to like see everything you want to. Now what's cool about Showstoppers,

this side event at the Bellagio, is that basically it's a room full of kind of all the coolest stuff. A whole bunch of stuff that has won CES Innovation Awards, all packed into one room with food and alcohol. So, oh boy, did I order- Free food and free alcohol. So many drinks that I then just left on tables.

And always pretty good food. Pretty good food. So we walked around Showstoppers and there was a number of pretty cool stuff that we saw. But I think it's maybe time to talk about the saddest man. The villain. The villain of the episode. The villain of the episode and of this year's CES. I have trouble, can you bring up their name?

Cause I'm gonna wanna get this right. So we- Okay, this could be dangerous, but yes. Neither of us had eaten and I had had like a hot dog eight hours ago and walked literally 19,000 steps and also done 40 minutes of pushups in between. So I was starving.

So we like shovel food into our faces and then we turn. The first booth we see is called Open Droid. Open Droid. Or Open Droids? Droids. Droids, yes, there is an S. Open Droids. And it's like kind of Star Wars-y font. It is.

And I did ask them if they had any issues with Lucasfilm. Apparently not yet. Sue them, Lucasfilm, by the way. Sue these kids. Destroy them. I know there's people who work for Lucasfilm who listen to this. Crush them.

Burn them like Los Angeles is burning down as we speak. They had a giant sign that said R2D3. Yeah, that's the name of the robot that they're selling. And the robot that they're selling is like an AI enabled household helping slash like retail, you know, like, you know, robot, where it basically is like a human torso with articulated arms and pincher hands on,

and then the base is like a little tank, basically. It's got like treads or wheels and it rolls. It has wheels, yeah. And then the torso, there's like a tall, maybe six foot tall, like pillar built into this like rolling base that the torso slides up and down on. And this was their way of not making like what Musk is trying to do, right?

A humanoid robot where you have to figure out like knees and balance and stuff. It's like, no. Or like Boston Dynamics. Wheels are cheap, right. Wheels are cheap, it'll roll, it works in most situations. You know, and then, but you still have the ability for it to articulate and go up higher or go down lower,

like something that can crouch, but it's much simpler. You don't have to deal with nearly as much. And so I saw that I'm like, oh, well that's at least somebody who's thinking about like, how do we make something like this like more affordable and less complicated, less to fuck up? And so I start talking with one of the co-founders of the company who is a an Indian guy in his 40s, something around that he had like gray hair, he'd clearly he said he'd spent 20 years in robotics. Very nice guy, you know, I brought up that I thought the design was interesting. And he he very much specifying like, here's the things we didn't do

because they were too difficult, too inefficient. This is what we're thinking of. This is a machine that can fold laundry. This is a machine that can do dishes. This is a machine. And he was very much specifying. And the way he phrases like, these are undesirable tasks people don't want to do.

And this is a robot that can handle those for like small businesses or for households. And we do see this as eventually like a, you know, something like this we want to have in households. But he was more focused on small businesses and he was again, very focused on this is a thing that will do undesirable tasks for people. Right. And as I started asking more questions at a certain point, I got

foisted off to the co-founder of the company. Is it the co-founder or is it just like another one of their reps? You know, I'm assuming co-founder because I think it's just a couple of guys, but maybe I'm wrong about it. Sorry. I got foisted over to the other of the two guys. There were two guys there, right? I'm not sure because they don't have listed anywhere what their role in the company is.

I got a co-founder's vibe from them. That's how it seemed to be to me, at least in terms of like the way these two were talking, but I don't know the scope of the Open Droids company. Maybe there's a lot more there. At least there's like a PR guy who knows. But these were the two guys who were there talking to us. So one of them is this very wonky engineer

who's been at this a long time and was really focused on the nuts and bolts details and wanted to build a robot that could handle unpleasant tasks for human beings, right? The same thing we've all been wanting to see. So at this point I'm like, this could work. Maybe this is a viable product, right? The second guy, Jack J. Jesunowski. So he is wearing what Garrison described as a Jordan Peterson suit, because it is half purple. It's a two-faced suit.

And half plaque. It is a two-faced suit. Split down the motherfucking middle. With like new agey, hippie necklaces. He had five necklaces. Five necklaces? Five necklaces. He had pants with embroidered flowers on them.

And a nose bridge, it looked like one of those things you put in your nose when it's stuffed up. That was one of the other things at Showstoppers, there was a company that was doing that. He had wannabe Steve Jobs vibes from his half-unbuttoned shirt and many, many spiritual medallions to his Jordan Peterson suit.

And very much just that like, I am the charismatic founder and what I bring to the table, my partner knows how to build robots. I'm charismatic. I'm Jack J. Jesenowski. And Jack and I started talking and boy howdy, we had us a conversation. And I think we're

just going to play that. What do I need to do to set this up? No, I think you've set it up. We walk up to Jack, I start recording and we start talking about the robot and then things spin in some pretty interesting directions. Yeah. All right. So what is this thing useful for? Well, generally capable just like a

human can reach to the floor and reach up high to a cupboard, go up and down that's what we made this for obviously in a little bit of a different fashion because most surfaces are level we don't need to reinvent the wheel and the biggest market that we're going after is households, domestic, dishes, laundry, make the bed, clean up around the house. Eventually cooking, that's more fine-tuned. Dishes and laundry is really that first task

that is going to be fully autonomous. Obviously from a folding standpoint and a cooking standpoint, you can do teleoperation today so can use cheaper labor internationally. Through robot, full autonomous is coming very quickly like Jensen talked about recently. So I see there's a lot of folks in the robot space that are trying robots based on the human form. You guys have not gone that route.

Talk to me about that. Droid form, yes. Well, as we know, robots didn't evolve from monkeys, and so we have an ability to reimagine them. All of the existing hardware we use in the world has wheels for a reason. It just works better. It's easier. There's less friction.

That means there's less maintenance. easier, there's less friction, that means there's less maintenance, that means there's less energy output, it's efficiency. It's also easier for us to manufacture that stuff at scale. So I think long term, do robots all have legs? Yeah, more or less the home robot does turn into the leg robot because then it can go with you in the car, everything. But I think the early stages, the wheels, because of their cheapness, because of their reliability, I think that will be what wins early stage. That's where we started here.

You just said because the robot can go in the car with you. What do you see people wanting to have a robot in the car with them for? I think it will just become basically the same way if you have enough money a lot of people afford like a assistant to come with them places. That seems like a niche market compared to household utility. I think it's the barrier I think is because of the cost and then the humanness like then you have to care for another human and whereas in this case it's kind of all positive sum and yeah I guess it's wrong

to try to say majority of people but Anyone who's you know in media? You know they've videographer will be something you use a robot for to follow you around and take media and film for you They won't get tired and say go grab me a drink or you know go figure that thing out But it also can't decide. Oh, that's actually not a good location to film from, it's not going to look as good. We need to get over here, we need another camera on this side here, we need to get like different angles because we're going to want to edit this together into a thing and as a videographer I'm not just a machine, I'm a part of a collaborative creative enterprise.

I think we're starting to see just how artistic these AIs can be. What's the best example of that using? Well, I think the most used thing is just the Gen. AI art. And then you have some of the new video models are pretty cool. And they're using certain sort of zoom-in shots, everything. I think they'll make just as good of movies as humans. Oh, I think the best reference in order to

actually say that that's possible is music. I don't know if you've played with the most recent AI music, there's songgbt.com. I've heard some things people call music that are produced by that, yeah. We can make one live right now that I, I don't know if you've heard like the latest models. Pick me a, pick me a genre. Irish spirituals.

Ska. You can try ska too. You love ska. Ska is like definitely probably niche stuff is where it's gonna have a harder time, but SK. SKA. SKA. I wonder how much Ska data there is out there.

There's a lot of Ska music out there. What should we make it about? Should we make it about iHeartRadio? Sure. iHeartRadio and Sure. iHeartRadio and Robert and Clear Channel Communications. All right. Let's hear a Skull song. We're like, oh, it has to load for like 30 seconds.

It feels weirdly like I'm upset that I have to wait that long for something to load online. Is that really how it feels to you, huh? Yeah, I guess I keep playing with it a lot. But it's funny to think about how much time and effort it does take to produce a song, typically. I am 27. That's interesting.

I wouldn't have guessed that. One thing that's really compelling to me is your partner, when I came in here, was very much talking about the utility of this in terms of replacing human beings in tasks that are generally unpleasant. Laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning up trash. You seem a lot more bullish on robots replacing human beings and what are generally considered to be enterprises

people want to do with their time. Is that like a discrepancy that you guys have kind of talked about, or do you think it's something you guys are more on the same page with stuff? From a business standpoint, we're 100% going after the dishes, laundry, nursing practice of just doing vitals, which is the very repetitive task. That's the push.

I was starting to just talk into the aspect of the legged robots and kind of imagining why a legged version would have better utility or be something someone wants to purchase rather than the wheeled robot. And yeah, stairs is definitely a big one of those. There are wheel types we're working on right now which have ability to climb like single stairs obviously easiest and that's what most people have in their home if they do have stairs. Oh are we gonna listen to some robot scoff? I heard listeners this morning. Is this ska?

It's a pretty basic melody. I mean there's horns in it, but I feel like it's kind of taken a... I feel like it's trying to do pop that it's just thrown some horns in on This is a little closer to ska Although it's still Yeah, it's not really singing, but I guess that's a matter of taste. What do you listen to? This is the worst it's going to be. I hear that a lot.

It's interesting because GPT-4 took 50 times as much power as GPT-3 to train. And there's a lot of mixed reactions on that. And we're entering into a period where we're very likely looking at a recession. Venture capital funding, there's a chance it's not going to be what it has been. Is that concern you at all, that like this vaunted next level for all of this stuff, the energy cost, the investment cost, is just not going to be borne by a market that is not going to be as strong tomorrow as it was today, at least in the immediate term? I think even if we created no more energy as a human species today, the amount of advancements we create would, from an architectural standpoint,

continue to advance. So you have other models, like I think Lama 3.3, which has matched 4.0's capabilities, and is, I forget how many parameters, but like super, like much, much, much smaller and was much cheaper to train and like we're continuing to see like smaller models that are just as effective and were much cheaper training runs.

I think DeepSeq was one of the newest ones. What I'm concerned about is I'm looking at the PNL, right? I'm looking at OpenAI's PNL. I'm looking at the fact that they're losing five or six billion dollars last year, and we're very good chance it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of double that this year. And it's not that there's nothing impressive there. It's not that I don't see like, oh, you can generate a song that's got like guitar and trumpets and vocals and stuff and, and you know a minute or so.

It's not that that's not impressive but like a parlor trick isn't a trillion dollar business and that's the kind of investment they're looking at. And I do wonder like is it not much more reasonable to focus on folding laundry? Well obviously I personally am in the the boathouse of focusing on allowing this intelligence to flourish and doing these laborious tasks and getting them in the households. I do think from OpenAI's standpoint and the reason why VCs and private investors will value them so highly is what's next is white collar work, a lot of the jobs online. That's what they do have an internal model

which is able to control the computer, same way you would ask an executive assistant to do certain things online. Now it's just. Adobe's handing along all of their emails now through AIs. Which is, you know, we'll see how well that works in the long term. There have been some interesting polling on like the degree to which customers and investors feel trust when somebody's responding to them with an AI. But what's interesting to me more here is the dichotomy between

what I see here is a very pragmatic choice, which is we're not going to try and remake a human being-formed robot and deal with like knees and hips and all of that stuff. We don't need that. We can have it turn up and down on this platform and reach things the same way, melded to what I consider to be kind of a little more pie in the sky, we're viewing this as eventually something that can take creative roles and think independently and make things. Which is, it's interesting to me to see that in a company's DNA.

What, you guys are eight months out right now? Yeah. Is that what you're more interested in? I'd say I tailor my pitch to the person I'm talking to. So some people definitely enjoy thinking about more of the sci-fi futures that are coming. For example, the droids building droids moment. It's when you are decreasing your own manufacturing costs by using your own hardware to build more of that hardware. And parts are just

being shipped into the factory. Obviously I think the first fully automated phone factory just came out in China recently which is like some cool press and news but the phone is separate from the actual manufacturing process. So there's that like interesting component, the exciting part of the idea that how do we reach true abundance as a species of material and resources is well, because GDP is a calculation of capital times productivity, a robot really represents capita, one unit of creation. And I'd say that's where the sci-fi thinking comes into play and it's not worth going there when just dreaming about the future of robotics and talking about it and having an interesting engaging conversation. But definitely when it comes to what are we

doing from an engineering standpoint on the day to day and how are we trying to approach the market those conversations are not being had. Well I appreciate your time. You gave me a lot I'm gonna let you get to the other Pete. Thank you. Thank you so much. Nice to meet you Jack. It was fun. Oh wow that's super interesting. I hope you all liked Jack J as much as I didn't. Getting to 27 years old and not knowing what Ska is. Shocked he's that old, I thought he would be much younger. You thought he was like 22.

Yes. But the fact that he didn't know what Ska was as a genre. He was unaware of it. I don't think he listens to music. Well, he listens to AI-generated music. He listens to AI-generated music, he's just as good. He has the most, he has the most I listen to AI-generated music. He listens to AI-generated music, it's just as good. He has the most, he has the most, I listen to AI-generated music vibes

out of anyone I've ever seen before. Just very clearly does not have a soul. No. Like nothing, nothing would leave the universe if he did, right? Like- It's so opposite from the first guy you talked to who was it so like about, no, like I want to help

with actual tasks that people don't enjoy. I love cinematography, I love filmmaking. I don't, first of all, I don't think a robot can replace this. No, I watched five different AI generated movies yesterday and they all looked like shit. Even like a robot handling a physical camera to make like choices on like shot framing

and composition and like movement. It's one thing to be like, we want, we have a race car going. And so we've got this robot on a track so we can go 70 miles an hour. And we're just kind of running on a straight track to follow it, because a human being can't move that fast, sure.

One thing we've left out of this up so far. So this machine that I described earlier, this robot that goes up and down this rolling base has a floppy Donald Trump mask over its head. Which first attracted us to this table. Yeah, that's why we showed up there in the first place. Is because you have a robot moving its arms around, wearing a Donald Trump mask.

And as Robert was interviewing this guy, the robot was like moving around and like trying to simulate its washing dishes capability. And it knocked over the same water bottle about five times. It couldn't pick it up consistently. So I will not trust it with my fine china, I'll say that. As soon as I got up there, I asked like, I can take my jacket off now, can it fold?

And he was like, well, we'd have to reprogram it. And it was this, when I talked to the guy, I was like, cause he was like, yeah, we really see this as being, you know, potentially good for elder care. Sure. And we had just seen the product we talked about in the last episode, which for all of its, I don't know that I think it'll work,

was a lot of thought and care went into it. I was like, okay, so like what work have you done to build a machine that can like communicate and be helpful to like people who are dealing with health issues in their later years? And like, well, that's why it's open, right? Someone else will, you know, close something. It's open source.

Someone else can do that part. So you guys are just, you guys are just saying it can do everything because somebody could potentially code something for it. Yeah, cool. There always could be code. Yeah, there could be code. I mean, again, the other guy, the actual engineer,

seemed very interested in the nuts and bolts of making an affordable, reproducible machine that could handle specific tasks. And Jack Jay had absolutely no interest in the actual machine that they were making. This is clearly, could not be clear. This is just a stepping stone, and he's kind of grossed out by it because it's not replacing all human art with a machine that he owns. He's a man completely fueled by Lex Friedman podcasts and he doesn't want to actually do any real work.

No. He just wants to talk about how AI is going to take over everything and we have to welcome it in and here, listen to this scaw. He wants to take money by owning something that does not provide anything and also put people out of work like At no point did he express a desire to do anything other than replace something people were already doing with something worse

that Tech guys could profit from that's all there is to this man. He's not a human. It's so anti-human Yeah, I cannot over emphasizephasize the degree to which there was nothing behind this boy's eyes. Well, do you know what? There's also nothing super intelligent behind. That's not true. All of our ads are sponsored by real people.

Even if they're bad people. That is true. They're at least people. They live and they love and they hate, and you know, maybe they have a promo code. Let's see. ["Scarlet Devil's Theme"] All right, so after our lovely robotics.

Jack J. Jesonowski. Scar adventure. Oh yeah, Scarenowski. Ska Adventure. Oh yeah, god. Also the ska was shit. Not good. Not good. It didn't. It just kept saying the word ska.

It kept saying the word ska in the music and saying the word Robert. Yeah. Saying the word Robert and ska. Repeatedly. While just doing random noises. After we had our fill of that, we did walk around the rest of Showstoppers.

He was so surprised that I wasn't impressed by any of the... He was like, you must have heard the lady. Man, I hear them. It's not good. It's like, I made this comparison a few times. If somebody like walked in while I'm at a house party and was like, hey man, I taught my dog

to masturbate to pornography with its paws. I would be like, I mean, that's like, I guess, I didn't think a dog could do that. Like I am kind of impressed, I guess, but I don't want this. Like this doesn't do anything for me. No, it's like a parlor trick.

I am surprised you figured this out. What value does this have? How does the dog know who Farrah Fawcett is? I have questions, sure, but it doesn't give me anything. No. Who's Farrah Fawcett was, Garrison? No. Oh, god damn it.

What do you think I do? I don't know anymore. Well, what I did is walk around the rest of Showstoppers. I stopped this one booth that had like an iPhone case with like a little keyboard on the bottom that like plugs in. And I started messing around with it. And the guy at the booth walked up to me and made fun of me because he's like, you've never held a phone with a keyboard. You've never had a Blackberry, did you? He literally said like, you've never held a phone with a keyboard. You never had a Blackberry, did you? He literally said like, you've never had a Blackberry before, have you?

I'm like, no, like, yeah, you're typing all wrong on that thing. There was a solid nine day news cycle when Barack Obama, newly the president revealed that he had a Blackberry that he was continuing to use. I do remember this, I remember that, which sounds like a lifetime ago. There was a company called RIM once,

and they made a tablet that was pretty good. And we only made a couple of rim job jokes about it, but it didn't do very well. And so I gave it to my dad and accidentally, there was still a picture of my dick on it. Anyway, that's a story for another day. Cool. These are the kinds of things you get recording at 11 56

PM. We've got to get to bed. But no, he made fun of me for not knowing how to use a smartphone keyboard. He did the right thing. I don't need to use that because I have a keyboard on my phone built in already. It's much faster.

So anyway, we stopped it at this company that makes well now just makes the software to use in conjunction with the augmented reality glasses and any like high powered laptop specifically the laptops that have like built in like, you know, like co-pilots because they require like higher processing power. They have a an NPU or something like that like a like an Amp euro processing unit is what they're calling it. Like the AI dedicated GPU thing effectively. It allows you to hook up these glasses and run possibly infinite amount of monitors using AR.

And we talked about this company last year. Cause we saw them at Showstoppers. You put on the glasses and it's like you've got six monitors or whatever that are all full size. And it's actually really easy to use it works very well seamless nice It's it gets its good quality easy to use can move the monitors around it's an excellent excellent Yeah We talked to them last year and the main thing that was holding this like holding us back on it is that you needed to

Use their own proprietary. That was their own laptop, and it wasn't a great one It was just like a Linux laptop. It didn't have everything I like I won out of my own personal laptop. And we were still impressed with it then. It was still good. And now you can just use any high powered laptop with it essentially. So it's lovely to see that improved. We saw this lovely, like very small foldable projector.

Oh yeah, that was cool. What's that company name? Because we should be giving out the names of these. Yes, the AR glasses and the software system is called Spacetop. Very good by a company called Sightful. It works great. But yeah, this little folding projector currently has a Kickstarter. The company is called AuraZen.

Yeah, AuraZen. Specifically, it was the ZIP trifold projector. Right now, it's a 720p, very small foldable projector. It has like a auto-focusing, auto-keystone. They're working to get it up to 1080p, but they're running a Kickstarter right now to ship in about three months. Super good quality stuff.

If you're a gadget person, you know, like, it felt like a quality piece of electronics in my hands. Like, the way gadget person, you know, it felt like a quality piece of electronics in my hands. Like the way it like snapped when it closed just felt good. I think I'm gonna buy one. Like it's exactly what I want for traveling, which is the ability to, it goes up to like 80 inches of screen

and like very good resolution. The ability to just have that plugged in to a battery or the wall and my laptop and like wherever I happen to be, I've got a movie screen that I don't have to worry about the fucking hooking up a TV to my laptop or some shit. It doesn't need wifi to work. It just can cast from your phone. A-U-R-Z-E-N zip trifold projector.

R-Z-N, yep. Yep, I think they're selling them for 250 right now. That's for the Kickstarter. For the Kickstarter. Very cool. It'll go up a little when it's a product. But we saw it works. I think they're selling them for $250 right now. so that it looks proper. Yeah, obviously this is the full review because we don't own one, but remember everything we could tell

by looking at it in the moment. It seemed like it did it properly. We tried it out. I hooked up my phone to it. As I went to my phone screen, I realized I have a slightly, I would say artful, lewd image of an angel, which I quickly swiped away from.

Wish you didn't show your dick to your dad. On my home screen of my phone. Things could always be worse. Things could always be worse. But I think where we'll end is, and this actually is not entirely in order because this is the next, after we had that conversation with our friend Jack J,

which just left me thinking about, like, some people aren't really people, right? That's what I kept thinking about. This whole thing is a sham. It's all for rubs. It's soulless. We immediately walk over and we just kind of like randomly turn a corner

and there's like a human shin, like tibia and fibia basically with like a carbon fiber frame around it that's roughly the shape of like a person's- Lower leg. Lower leg. And it's called bioleg. It's a powered microprocessor knee made in Japan where it is a prosthetic, but

unlike most prosthetics, it is powered and has a muscle built into it. So like when you lift up your prosthetic, it doesn't hang and it doesn't lock. It actually has a degree of motion and it feels like what lifts the rest of the leg with your remaining muscles. Like it, it measures based on like, it can like what- It lifts the rest of the leg with it. What your remaining muscles, like it measures based on like, it can like take measurements from them and it can act intelligently based on that. And I know that it works because the inventor was there

and he was a man who was missing his leg below the knee and had built this for himself. And he spent like 10 years working on this. Yeah, eight years, he said. Eight years. And that's like really years working on this. Yeah, eight years, he said. Eight years. And that's like really the thing that is like so both like addictive and also like this like very tonal whiplash you get at CES is you will go from like this dead-eyed con man trying to scam the world so he can do god knows what kinds of other harms with absolutely

nothing, nothing inside of him at all. And then I lost my leg and I built a better prosthetic to help the entire world. And that's like 30 seconds between those two experiences. And like that's like that's like the dark magic of CES. And like, I don't like I'm not like anti-tech. Like I think there I think technology can really improve people's lives if used well. And sometimes I get kind of black-pilled walking around CES, but then we'll stumble across this,

like, you know, someone who like literally lost a leg and made themselves their own better leg. Spent eight years figuring out how to do this. Yeah, is winning awards for it. Award-winning, like, tech innovations. It's changing your, as a person who has lost your lower leg, changing, being able to like have a normal gait and balance again, like massive potential

to improve people's lives as a result of this. Yeah. Just steps away from AI Ska and the Donald Trump mask over the laundry folding road robot. The company is again Bionic M and it's the Bioleg. The Bioleg is the product. Yeah, the Bioleg is the product by Bionic M and it's the bio leg bio legs the product Yeah, the bio league is the product by bionic M I'm gonna try to check it out more tomorrow at Eureka Park, which at this point, you know

That'll be in like maybe future episodes Come next week, but I guess this closes our actual like this is a real coverage Let's go get fucked up and eat Japanese food. Oh, I'm down. Yeah. I'm down. Let's do it. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hey, it's Nikki Glaser. So I hosted the Golden Globes at Hollywood's biggest party.

Honestly, you've probably seen all the headlines this week, but like any good party, there's a lot of wild stuff that goes down behind the scenes that you don't know about. And since I hosted the Golden Globes, I'm letting my podcast listeners, my besties, in on all the bottom of the list. So I'm going to go ahead and start by talking about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes.

I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. I'm going to talk about the Golden Globes. Like any good party, there's a lot of wild stuff that goes down behind the scenes that you don't know about. And since I hosted the Golden Globes, I'm letting my podcast listeners, my besties, in on all the behind the scenes tea. Stuff that didn't make it to the live TV taping, what went down in rehearsals,

who said what at the after party? You're going to hear it all. Listen to the Nikki Glaser podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline Podcast. And this January, we're going to go on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada to cover the Consumer Electronics Show, Tech's biggest conference.

Better Offline's CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest gadgets or biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025. I'll be joined by David Roth, the defector and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with guest appearances from Behind the Bastards Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis, and a few surprise guests throughout the show. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts from.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden and together our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor what's in the museum of failure and does your dog truly love you we have the answer go to really no really.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF. And me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex and love.

That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability and authenticity we share our personal journeys navigating our 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engage in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests

to relatable stories that'll resonate with your experiences, Decisions Decisions is gonna be your go-to source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections. Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions

on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast,

brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms, but not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast

every Wednesday. On the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you go to find your podcast.