Pivot - TikTok in Court, Shein and Temu Crackdown, and Guest Evan Ratliff

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and what impact (if any) this will have on the election. Then, Tiktok has its day in court, the Biden administration cracks down on Shein and Temu, and what we're learning about OpenAI's future plans. Our Friend of Pivot is longtime tech journalist Evan Ratliff, who embarked on AI experiment with his new podcast, "Shell Game." Plus, Kara and Scott share some fun stories from the big birthday weekend in Scotland. Follow Evan at @ev_rat Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Kara Swisher, and I look fantastic in a kilt. Scott, happy birthday. You do look fantastic in a kilt. I'm Scott Galloway, and I heard you were excellent on the archery range and axe throwing. And shooting. And shooting. I'll leave that out. That's right.

Yeah, I was. It was really good. We're going to talk about your thing, but I did. These Scottish men kept calling me wee lassie, which was irritating. I love that. They were like, oh, do you need to ride wee lassie up the hill? You got the full Scottish experience. Scotland's actually quite progressive, I think.

I think the UK is more progressive than the US on a lot of ways. But tell me about you. We had such a lovely time in Scotland. What a beautiful place. And beautiful, gorgeous. Your friends are lovely. Beata, let me say, did an astonishing job. And by the way, it was interesting in all the tribute videos.

It was all about how lucky you were to have her as a wife. I would concur. How did you feel? I was anxious for a while. And then once the speech was over on Saturday, I was able to enjoy myself. But when you ask 80 or you ask 100 people to come to Scotland, you're really hoping they have a nice time. I mean, it's not, I had friends from LA and San Francisco, so it's not, it's not, you don't want everyone to have a good time. You want everyone to have a great time. And to be honest, Kara, I was just a little bit overwhelmed with emotion.

I had everyone from my sister to my best friend from the fourth grade to, you know, I just, it was just a lot for me. And once all the speeches were over Saturday and I got the sense everyone was having, I'm a transistor. I'm not, with my family, if my kids are happy, I'm happy. If I'm somewhere and everyone's having, if someone else is laughing, I'm happy. So for me, it was once we got to kind of through

sort of halfway through Saturday night, it was obvious that everyone was having a nice time. And all the speeches were over. Then I could relax and everyone had a great day Saturday. And so, yeah, it was very rewarding. I don't think I'll do it again. Right. Well, this was the big one. What, the 75th?

Probably the 75th, right? No, I still, in 10 years, I'll do my 60th. Yeah, okay. 75 right no i still in 10 years i'll do my 60th um okay there's an active thread on reddit trying to figure out how much it cost oh which is sort of interesting and also a reddit talking about how on instagram i only follow hot women i'm like you didn't know that what am i supposed to call economists like what's the point of instagram it's like my cinemax well let me just say it was a beautiful place. It was at a haunted hotel.

That was nice. And it was just, there was full of like animals that were preserved. And it was really fantastic. It was so Scottish. It was so like, it just felt like we were in a movie in a lot of ways. But let me just say, Scott, you have a blessed life. That's all I have to say. Thank you. I appreciate that.

You really do. And I know you have a hard time. We had a little chat while we were there on the couch there looking like we're dating. A lot of people thought we're strangely disturbed by that photo of me. Well, it's because you had a tattoo of my initials. That's right. And it's still there, by the way. It's a good tattoo. But it was very, you have a heart. You should know you're very much loved. I appreciate that. And I know that. Thank you. Can you, I have one question though.

What was that thing in the front that we're wearing? Is that a murse? The little furry thing that you wear in front of your penis, which I didn't have. No, it's just a little purse. I don't know the actual name of it. Did you get a knife for your sock? Yes, I got a knife, but it wasn't,

it's called a sporin apparently. That's what Lara tells me. I got a little knife, but it wasn't a real one. So I was vaguely disappointed about that. No, I'm sure there's a Scottish name for it. Sporin. It got a little knife, but it wasn't a real one, so I was vaguely disappointed about that. No, I'm sure there's a Scottish name for it. Sporin. It's a Sporin. No, the purse, the nurse you're talking about. The purse is called a Sporin. Oh, you're right. Sporin. Very good. Do you know more about Scotland than I do? No, Lara just typed it to me, so I didn't know that. I just said furry, weird nurse. Oh, wait, she sends you tips and not me? Yes, that's correct. I have the deck so stacked against me here.

It's true, yes. I'm always the one that gets in trouble. Yes, yeah, yeah, yes. I'm always the one that has my jokes edited. If you would even read the script, which you never do, you would be part of this. I like to be authentic. It's the real dog. It's the real dog.

He doesn't go to the groomer. He doesn't respond to hand commands. Which dog are you? Are you like a Scottish? People saw the picture of us because I'm so short and you're so tall. And they were surprised by us in kilts. But it did look like that Danny DeVito, Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Twins. You're a Scottish wolfhound and I'm a terrier. That's what someone said. I'm sorry. We saw that picture. And I look like a recently divorced father dropping off his five-year-old daughter at Edinburgh Elementary School. I mean, we look ridiculous.

There's a reason we're on a podcast and not on TV together. I'm sorry. We are just not Mika and Joe. We are a strange pair. Thank God for the audio medium because I saw those photos. We are a strange pair. Thank God for the audio medium because I saw those photos. Yes, we are a strange, strange pair. I look like the alien from Close Encounters for the first time. You look like a Scottish redo of Hervé Villachez going,

the kilt, the kilt. The kilt. Boss, hey, boss. We look so fucking odd. We do. I mean, cute in an odd way. We do, but I like it. You know who I look good with for a time? You look childlike. You look so fucking odd. We do. I mean, cute in an odd way. I like it. You know who I look good with?

You look childlike. You literally look childlike. I looked like, with George Hahn, I looked good. And by the way, George Hahn turned his kilt into a Britney Spears video later in the evening. Yeah, he did that thing with his shirt and he started, oh, God. Yeah. Hit me one, maybe hit me one more time. I admire anyone that behaves that way, and he doesn't drink alcohol.

I just think that's so impressive. He had a good time. Your wife danced a lot, too. I saw Amanda bust in a move. Bust in a move. She did. She likes to dance. You do not.

I could tell you were hating it. I was. In the kilt. I can't dance in a kilt. So anyway, we have so much to get to today, including President Biden cracking down on Xi'an and Timu, your two favorite Chinese retailers. And TikTok gets its day in court, but there's so much more going on. Plus, our friend of Pivot is journalist Evan Ratliff. He's got a brand new podcast, Shell Game, where he's embarked

on a fascinating experiment with his AI voice clone. Kind of cool. But on to serious news. The FBI is investigating what appears to be a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. It's not clear yet. Trump was on his Florida golf course Sunday when a Secret Service agent opened fire on an armed man hiding in the bushes. The suspected gunman is Ryan Wesley Roth. I think it's Roth or Roth. A 58-year-old formal construction worker. He's been charged with two federal gun crimes.

He supported Trump in 2016, but more recently favored other Republicans like Nikki Haley. He's been charged with two federal gun crimes. He supported Trump in 2016, but more recently favored other Republicans like Nikki Haley. He's registered unaffiliated, but voted in a Democratic primary this year. He's all over the map, but pretty much a Republican again. What were your initial thoughts when you heard this? What were your initial thoughts when you heard this? Look, this is, if you're going to have, we don't have a monopoly on mental illness. We don't have a monopoly on disaffected young men, although this guy was unusual in that he was 58, who are looking to recapture social capital through what they perceive as some sort of heroic act of violence. But this is just happening too much.

And I mean, whether it's school shootings, I mean, all roads lead to the same thing. When we were in Scotland, the guy who drove us to the hotel was taking everyone shooting. And I said, tell me about the gun laws here. And he said, oh, you can get a gun here. It's just, you have to take a psychological test. You have to, you can't have a criminal record. And then the local police officer can then, if they want, say no. And they oftentimes come to your house. They want to see where you're storing the gun. And what do you know? And then, by the way, after they had this horrible mass shooting at a school, they, within a couple of weeks, passed laws outlawing assault weapons. And I actually believe if we had fewer mass shootings in the US, there'd be more momentum against them because they'd be such spectacles. But because we have so many of them, what you said was actually really radical or kind of radically insightful and depressing, and that is humans

adapt. And Americans have adapted to the steady state of mass shootings in a nation where NRA and far-right folks claim that there's nothing we can do about it in a nation where it's the only place that it happens. So for me, it all just reverse engineers to guns. And if you look at key moments in history, arguably the most seminal person of the 20th century was a 19-year-old man joined a group called the Black Hand. I mean, when you're 19, I don't even know what that means. And he ended up murdering Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which not only kicked off World War I, but set the stage for World War II. So if it's not school shootings, if it's not worrying about our kids being shot or cut up by hot metal, at some point,

you'd like to think that maybe we'll see that you destabilize the world when you have so much access to so many guns by people who are going through a mental health episode. And then just find- Yeah, it seems like that. I was looking at the social media for this guy. You know, it's typical. I mean, there's all these nutters online now. They're just nutty. They're just, and you know, you wouldn't necessarily, you know,

his son said something lovely about him saying, I can't believe this is him. But, you know, he just was intense online and just overstimulated, let's just say. You know, and speaking of overstimulated, after the last shooting, there were calls to dial down rhetoric. And Trump certainly has not done that, hasn't happened at all. People have not dialed down rhetoric at all. And speaking of which, Elon Musk, of course, because he cannot keep himself out of the center of attention because he's a

truly heinous person at this point. Had a horrific post on X after the incident, essentially encouraging violence against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. He later deleted it. I'm sure his lawyers got involved and said, oh, what was funny in the room among his employees and paid people wasn't quite as funny online in text. What a fucking asshole. I don't know what else to say. He should be investigated. He has contracts with the government. I just, this is just, he won't pay a price for it. But what a truly horrific person he is and has become.

Yeah, my dad asked me once, he said a few years ago, he said, as your profile is going, have you found that you're more measured in your comments? And I proudly said, no, I want to be authentic. And if I'm thinking it, I say it. And my dad said, you should be more measured, Scott. be careful about shooting from the hip in the sense that you have an impact. And if a few people who are unstable or are extremists are listening to you now, now it's hundreds or even thousands. And you want to be really thoughtful just about the ripple effect of some of the things you said. And I thought, wow, I hate it. I hate it when he's right. And when you have, the ripple effect of some of the things you said. And I thought, wow, he's, you know, I hate it. I hate it when he's right. And when you have, there's just a different, there should be a different set of standards for when you put out a communication

to 175 million people. Well, they don't. I mean, he essentially had a very rapey one at Taylor Swift, and which was followed by Donald Trump. I didn't interpret that as rapey. I did. It was creepy as every woman did. Yes, I agree. It was weird. I'll did. Oh, creepy, yes. I agree.

It was weird. I'll get you pregnant. Like, what? Like, excuse me? It was grotesque. For women, every woman I know was like, ah, that's really gross. And the other one was Donald Trump saying yesterday just before this shooting, this recent attempt was

I hate Taylor Swift. I felt worried for Taylor Swift who has so much security around her. That was dumb. That was really dumb. That just, just... Well, it adds up. She's a woman. Right, right. But I hate, in all caps, it calls out people to do something to Taylor Swift. It really does.

And what an irresponsible person, and then himself, you know, be the subject. I don't think the assassination attempt, if it is that, will have any impact on the election. Because again, we've gotten used to it with him. And in general. flag in the background. That'll be the image of the decade. We're going into the RNC convention. I mean, it just, the momentum was there. This is a bit of a nothing burger other than at some point, at some point you'd like to think we're going to do something here because if a world leader is assassinated, it potentially can lead to world war. And it's, I don't want to be resigned about it, but when you have this many guns, these many... I mean, this guy, this guy, I believe, was convicted of owning a firearm in 2002. He's had run-ins with the law.

And any other Western nation, if you have run-ins with the law, the in any other western nation if you have run-ins with the law you don't get you don't get an ak-47 it just so anyways all roads lead back to the same place and uh you know i i find the whole thing a bit of a distraction i don't think it's going to have any impact on the race but at some point you know, I'm a broken fucking record here. There's no reason to have weapons of war in a nation with 350 million people. It just doesn't make any sense. 100%. 100%. It's a shame. And stop with the fucking tweets. They're not funny. They're not funny right now. They're not funny ever, but they're really not funny right now. And again, Elon Musk is a heinous piece of shit. Thank you. All right. The Biden administration is proposing new shipping rules targeting Xi'an and Timu and Alibaba. A longstanding trade law packages within the exemptions. According to the committee, a gap paid $700 million in import duties in 2022, while Xi'an and Timu paid none. I think that probably needs to be fixed. What do you think about this? It does make things more expensive for the American consumer, for the average.

Yeah, look, just disclosure, I'm an investor in Shein. I think this is hard to argue for maintaining. I don't, I mean, two things. They're taking advantage, as companies do, of a loophole. And what I would like to see is these taxes done away for everybody. I'm totally anti-tariffs, anti-taxes, unless it's used as a strategic weapon, if we're outsourcing pollution or someone or the Chinese decide to try and dump steel, whatever it is. But I'd like to see the taxes. I mean, Gap and H&M, say they paid $700 and $200

million respectively on this tax, because this is a loophole that says if it's less than $800 and it's going direct to the household, you don't have to pay these, I think it's import taxes. So I think this is hard to argue that this shouldn't be closed or they shouldn't get rid of the taxes or the import duties on the other brands. What they don't realize is this is only a small cost or delta in what gives these companies such an incredible advantage. And Shein, and the reason I invested in it, is that if you look at companies over the last 20 years that have added tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization, they tend to have one thing in common, and that is their asset life. And the really amazing thing, and the reason I invested in Shein, and the reason why even with if they have to pay these tariffs,

they're still going to have an unbelievable advantage over these other players. And these two companies will be responsible for one in five dollars spent over the holidays. And their advantage is the following. It's all software. They don't own any assets. They don't own a single factory, a single truck, a single plane, a single warehouse, or a single store. And what they do is they use AI to examine activity on their site. And with this machine learning and AI, they can go, okay, we're going to need exactly 7,700 pairs of bell-bottom tie-dye jeans. And then within a microsecond, the software goes, these are the three best factories to produce it. And then other pieces of the software start going, okay, this is the fastest way to get it to the consumer. And because of all of this incredible demand estimation, it's because it's such a low price, there are fewer and fewer returns. It's more efficient. And they're able to charge a fraction of the price of Zara. I mean, it's what Zara did to everybody else. These guys are doing to Zara. And it's all with software.

There's no assets here. So as a result, Shein is going to be the second largest apparel company in the world, surpassing Amazon this year. And next year, they're probably going to surpass Walmart with no assets. So this will hurt them a little bit. I think it's unfair. I think they should pay the price. Yeah, they should pay the tax. But be clear, it's barely going to slow their growth. That's not the issue here. The issue is these other companies have an outdated business model and Shein has just a much better business model. Yeah, well, Walmart was ahead in technologically. That's why they did so well. Technology always matters in these cases.

But we'll see. They deserve to pay the tax. Sorry. Sorry, companies. That's fair. Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about some big changes coming to OpenAI and we'll chat with our friend of Pivot, Evan Ratliff. He'll share what it was like to create an AI clone of himself.

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work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Scott, we're back with more news. TikTok is heading to court to fight for the right to remain available in the U.S.

as we tape on Monday. The case, Samson Law, signed in April, which would require ByteDance to sell the app to a non-Chinese owner or face a U.S. ban. ByteDance sued to block the law in May, arguing the ban would violate free speech rights. The court ruling will not likely be the final say as legal experts expect the case to go to the Supreme Court. Is there anything TikTok can say that would be impressive enough to get them out of the ban? Obviously, it's going to probably be a stay and back and forth but it looks like um they have to um do something now yeah i look i don't i don't i think this is going to get solved i i think if i think they're playing my guess is tiktok's doing everything it can to try and delay until

hoping that trump gets elected or hoping that after the election, people that it's, I think they're hoping that it's Trump. Cause even though Trump is now turned, you know, is, is now say he's for TikTok cause he hates Facebook. They're hoping that similar to other issues that we're like a cat chasing a light and then we get distracted with something else. But I don't, I, I think this, and I've said this, I think it will on the eve of the banning, the White House and the quote unquote folks at TikTok, meaning including the CCP, will come to some sort of accommodation because I think a decent way to bet on anything is just to follow the money. So I think they'll come to some sort of accommodation in terms of spending it or divesting it. There is a face-saving element with China,

though. They don't, they do not, they feel they are bigger than the U.S., you know what I mean? They aren't going to, like, act like they acquiesce to the U.S., so I think there's elements of that, of not, you know, standing down. It'd be interesting if Vice President Harris has part of this. Obviously, she has legal skills, And, you know, this is a dicey thing. She's been sort of in the middle of this, like, well, there should be a ban. There should be not a ban, but a new owner. That's, I think, how she's putting it. And so, and I think she must be fully aware of the constitutional issues around free speech here.

So, it'll be interesting if she was, they sort of gave her a gimme here and let her be the face of a settlement of some sort, where everyone gets to keep their TikTok and yet U.S. security is protected, right? That seems to me what will happen here if something will happen. Court will decide what's a national security issue and what is, you know, if we can as a country do that. We do it in other areas. And whether this is a free speech right or just a national security issue or both in some fashion. Yeah, but it falls under the same rubric of we've decided that anything that's communicated digitally can be categorized or immunized for any scrutiny, whether it's a defense threat or hostility or crime, if we just call it speech. And we have consistently, frequently, early and often decided that defense trumps free speech. And I believe that the Supreme Court would find that here. So I don't— Yeah, there's certainly precedent with broadcast networks, magazines, other media, right?

They can't really own it in the same way. And any remedy would probably involve a divestiture of ownership. And to your point around China not wanting to save face, I think that argument would have held more water two years ago. Because in the last two or three years, the Chinese stock market has shed three... The Chinese stock market is literally off. Yeah, that's a very good point. By a third, it's been cut in half. And here's the thing, when the economy goes really bad and people's quality of life goes down, in most democracies, they vote in the other party. Voting in the other party in

China means revolution. And to a certain extent, I mean, granted they're autocrats, but to not think that they're not very sensitive to what people are thinking. Financials. They need to understand. China has to keep pulling about 30 to 50 million people out of poverty into the middle class each year or there's going to be a revolution. And things do not end well. It's not like they go start building homes for Habitat for Humanity and a library gets named after them. They end up getting killed when they're overthrown, if you will. So these guys, if you think about Xi, he cannot kneecap his thoroughbreds economically.

And the kind of really tough line- Well, he talks about it. The really tough line he's taken with Didi and some of these companies, there are now big companies in, Alibaba's been cut by 60%. Right, they have because of what they did to Jack. Yeah. There are analysts now who are saying that Chinese companies are uninvestable. And this is a big

issue for their economy. So in China... You remember all this bullshit that China was going to overtake the US economy by 2028? We have absolutely... we're killing it. We're absolutely beating the shit out of them. Anyways, my point is, I think they need to come to some sort of accommodation. They're hoping that, like on so many other issues that we have, the attention span of a cat. Yeah, it's got to be done very deftly. It's got to be done super deftly with cooperation from decent Republicans. And I think Harris is going to be right, just like the hostage negotiations with Russia. I think she might benefit here from it looking like she handled it, right? Handled, like that's a strong thing with minimal criticism, right? And that we can get it out of the way. But it is better to get it out of the way than have it go to the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court will rule in favor of defense, especially this Supreme Court. Although it has done a lot of free speech stuff around companies and has ruled against, like, Missouri and Texas. So who knows? knows. Next, speaking of people that are killing it, Sam Altman has told OpenAI staff the company's nonprofit structure is set to change next year, according to Fortune. And OpenAI spokesman responded to reports saying the nonprofit is core to our mission, will continue to exist. How much it exists, we'll see. But as we discussed last week, OpenAI is now in talks to raise about $6.5

billion. It would value the company at $150 billion. That was a big leap from $100 billion. It's doing very well. It's selling a lot of, it has a really good, strong balance sheet right now. Of course, but things cost a lot. That's the problem. Microsoft is set to participate in the funding round, and Apple and NVIDIA are also in talks to invest. I mean, they're going to need money from all over the world for this kind of funds. Talk about the new funding. What do you think of these numbers? And what's your latest prediction for when OpenAI goes for an IPO?

I don't know. It's difficult to predict when companies go public because they're now, what's different is you, just maybe 10 years ago, you wouldn't be able to raise $7 billion in the private markets.

So, and not only that, the reason you went public was a fundraising event to raise this kind of capital and also provide liquidity to the existing shareholders. And you can do both of those things now in the private markets. So, it's like, well, when do we really want to, unfortunately, what that's led to is the starching of all the upside to private investors, VCs, and institutions. Now, if OpenAI goes to $150 billion, it might even go to $500. And unfortunately, when these companies decide to go public, oftentimes the best companies is when they think it's gotten so fucking expensive, the only people we can convince to invest at a higher valuation are retail investors. So a lot of the kind of fun, a lot of the kind of

the white meat or the real value here gets starched out in the private markets. I don't think they could stay private. I mean, the question is, why would they go public unless they thought retail investors were the only ones dumb enough to keep bidding this thing up? And at $150 billion, we said this the last time, relative to other AI companies, I think it's undervalued because of these other companies are raising at what they're raising at. Right, exactly. They are pulling away. They're raising a ton of capital. The new, you know, I don't know if you've seen this new feature where it thinks longer. I think that's brilliant marketing. They have more capital to spend. But I wouldn't expect an IPO anytime soon. They don't need it. Why do they need it? Why do they need to go public? Well, it's interesting. Well, because they've got competitors everywhere. I mean, just Larry Ellison just gave an interview, Oracle.

He's his best buddy. All time high, by the way. Oracle just said all time high. Yeah, I know, it is. That's having, he's become the second richest man for, I think briefly, I think he's probably down again.

But he said that vast AI fueled surveillance system can ensure citizens will be on their best behavior. Thanks, Larry. We should be watching you. Jesus, tomorrow belongs to me. I know, I know, I know. I was like, maybe we should watch the mayor a little bit.

On their best behavior? La, la, la. Define best behavior, white man. What does that mean? Between you and Musk, God, we really do need a ad to watch you too. But he also, you know, he was saying they begged Jensen Huang for GPUs over dinner in this interview. You know, this is, people are really spending here. And so I would suspect they need, they absolutely have to, they have to be geared for, to be competing with these people who are, you know, not, who are spending money all over the place. And Musk, he did some, I think it was in Tennessee or one of those, he put, he did a legal, or things that were questionable about the power grid there. He put, I think he put in methane

things, hurting people there. They're all in the race. And, you know, Ellison talked about nuclear reactors that he needs to build to create the energy necessary. So the money is just, the costs are massive. And again, even though I think fewer players will win here than others, it's a race. The race is on. So he's got, Sam Altman's got to be as strong as he can against these. And he needs as many allies. There is sort of an Ellison-Mus a Microsoft, Altman, Apple team.

NVIDIA is sort of in the middle, but I suspect, you know, probably will maybe invest here, too, which I think then the Justice Department has to look at the stuff, too. So there's enormous money happening here. So we'll see. But just real quickly, one guy, Allison, is probably the kind of the billionaire no one's talking about in AI. I think their AI group is growing really quickly. Yeah, talk about their stock. Their stock is on the tip. Their stock just hit an all-time high.

Yeah, that's because he said AI several times. But it's more than just AI washing. They are actually, their fastest growing, I think their revenues are up 6% or 7%, but their AI group is exploding. Just this week, it started September 9th, and now it's gone. It was down in the 100th. It's been around 139, 140, and it just came up to 173 in the last couple of days since September 9th is when. It's a really well-managed company. And no one ever, I mean, quite frankly, he's the billionaire.

I mean, there are very few people that are as powerful in executing as well and as rich as him. They get his little press. You don't really hear about him or Oracle a lot. And they are executing really well. He saw AI. And I mean, Microsoft was obviously the visionary in terms of existing companies around this. Alphabet, you would argue, has been slowest, but he has, to a certain extent, kind of turned a tanker. And you could argue maybe a little bit less Dell, but the stock's at an

all-time high. He's an outstanding manager, and the team there has done a great job. Yeah, he's also an older gentleman, speaking of age. He's an older gentleman. You know, Salesforce stock has gone up too, even though it's down for the last month. It's been moving since September 11th or 9th or something like that. It's been moving slowly up from the 240s to the 260s. Anyway, it's interesting to see what's happening with all these shares in that genre area. But yes, Larry Ellison's a very sharp cookie. So we'll see what happens. I think they need to go public.

They need as much howitzer power. We're using too many shooting metaphors. But they need as much power as possible. They need as much whiskey power as possible, Scott Galloway. Anyway, do you like that accent? Your Scottish accent is worse than mine. Do you like it? It sounds like a language that twins speak to each other.

Yeah. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Evan Ratliff is a longtime tech journalist and the host of a new podcast, Shell Game. He's been a great podcaster for many years. So, Evan, tell us what a new podcast, Shell Game. He's been a great podcaster for many years. So Evan, tell us what this new podcast is about. We sort of previewed it as about AI capabilities, but give us your elevator pitch on this one. It is about AI, but it's sort of taking AI from a very personal, immersive approach, I would say, which is that for the show, I created a clone of my voice. I attached that clone to a phone line. I attached it to an AI chat bot to power it.

And I created what's called a voice agent, which is basically a semi-autonomous AI voice that could be sent out into the world. And then I kind of let it loose. I let it talk to people. I had to call people. I had people call it. I set up talk to people. I had to call people. I had people call it. I set up a line for it to talk to telemarketers and scammers.

I talked to my friends and family. And so I sort of started doing a combination of things, kind of seeing where the technology was when it comes to voice AI and also how people reacted to it. Because I think what I was most interested in was just sort of... The reaction.

The reaction. Knowing it wasn't you, correct? It wasn't tricking people, necessarily. It was tricking people, sorry to say. Some people. Some people. Yeah, oh, some people. It was sort of had varying success at tricking people.

I mean, I had to call my friends and family from my phone number, attached to my own phone number, without them knowing that I was doing any such project. And most of them pretty quickly realized it wasn't me. They realized something was amiss. Or something was wrong with you. Let me just say, it's called show game. So after making the show, are you more or less worried about it?

Because one of your friends, I mean, again, as you said, you do lots of things on your behalf, including talking to therapists and friends and marketers. One of your friends said he felt so lonely talking to the AI. So do you feel more or less worried about the capabilities? I would say more worried than when I started, although I was fairly worried at the beginning. Why is that? I think partly because there's a lot of talk about sort of the big AI safety issues,

the more Doom-related issues or the kill switch or, you know, this and that, but less about sort of the daily infiltration of AI into our lives and what we want to do with that and what that's going to mean for us to be human. And I think Voices actually sort of brings that to light in a way that just typing into a chat box or sending an email that ChatGPT has composed doesn't. In that you're going to be interacting with AI voices. You're going to be hearing AI voices that are almost real, very real, sound real, can fool you. And the question is, how much of that do we want in our lives? And I just think that discussion is not even happening. Like there's AI therapists out

in the world right now. Right. But your friends were not fooled necessarily. I mean, they weren't, right? Correct? Because it doesn't really mimic you that well. It mimics me well. I mean, not for my oldest friends. I mean, I had one friend who spoke to it for 10 minutes, believing that it was me, but that I had had a mental health break. Okay. Okay. And on that note, Scott? Nice to meet you, Evan.

My sense is, so the entertainment community is really worried about AI replacing actors and that at some point. They listen to Kara and me and then start mimicking. We feed into the LLMs, today's or this week's news, and it throws in a dick joke. Kara gets angry at me. Kara talks about somebody she knows. Kara talks about somebody she knows, and then boom, we put out a reasonable facsimile of Pivot, and pretty soon Vox no longer needs Kara and Scott. I have found that is not the case, that it is shockingly anodyne, and so far hasn't made the progress that everyone was worried about. You've been there. A, do you agree with that? And B, what advice would you have for creatives who are looking to inoculate themselves as this gets better? Is it being more salty, differentiated? Advise your kids, if they're creators, on how they stave off the advances in AI. Well, I mean, I would agree with you that it is fairly anodyne. I mean, the sort of running joke of the show is that when you

have them speak at length, it becomes incredibly anodyne. So for instance, we have them talk to each other. They have these conversations that are sort of unbelievably mundane. But on the other hand, I think the problem is for many, take podcasting for example, there are so many people speaking into microphones now, and many of them are just mimicking each other. And when the content that is being created is itself anodyne, it's relatively easy to replace. So I think part of the problem is we've dumbed down much of what we consider journalism on the Internet to a level that it actually is replaceable by an anodyne LLM or a voice powered LLM. And so if I was giving advice, it would be to try to find unique ways to express yourself that are not based on everything that you hear every day. Because the problem is people are

just mimicking what they're hearing. I mean, you can go on Instagram and just get clip after the algorithm, just feed you clip after clip of people saying literally the same thing in different forums. And so I think uniqueness is going to be at a premium because even if it can replicate your voice, it's going to have a much harder time replicating that creativity, which doesn't mean that creativity is necessarily safe.

Like the more creative you are, the safer you are. But I do think that the more anodyne what you're doing is, the easier it is for it to be replaced. Right. But it's like the emails you get that aren't very good, right? They're not interesting as writing yet, at the very least. Do you wish it could do something else? I was surprised, and I think a lot of people who have listened to the show are surprised at how good it is,

actually. Like, I think as much as tech journalists write about LLMs, they write about open AI and what's the new model and this and that, most people are not consuming all that stuff. And when they find out that you can make a voice clone that sounds reasonably like you, find out that you can make a voice clone that sounds reasonably like you, that is powered by AI and can have its own conversations, a lot of people are quite shocked and concerned about that. So I found that in that sense, it's actually more powerful right now than a lot of people think it is. Now we say, well, it can't do this, it can't do that, it can't act in a movie, it can't actually be a journalist.

But even it's sort of pushing the boundaries of those things too. Like I had to conduct interviews, interviews that I would have conducted. And the fact is like some of the questions that I would ask, that I would put into a document for myself to ask, it's pretty good at asking those questions. It's not very good at following up. But even some of the people I talked to, they didn't know it wasn't me because they're expecting a journalist to ask questions and that's what they got. But that's being you. I would like it to be like Jarvis on, you know, on the Avengers movies like that, where I have a discussion, do this for me, do that for me. I could see that being much more attractive than it being me. Like a digital assistant kind of thing? Yeah, that seems very logical to me and very helpful, actually. You produce this show independently.

I'd love to know a little bit of why you decided to do this. Of course, you were the longtime host, along with others, of Longform. You also did Persona, the French Deception. And you also did a very famous thing way back when, about 12 years ago, I guess, where you vanished. You vanished and Wired had a reward when you worked for Wired. I think you worked for Wired. But you were off the grid communicating, which was hysterical. I remember that at the time. They eventually found you in the challenge to get you. You left a coded message,

et cetera. You've done a lot of different things, obviously. That was honestly my favorite, the vanishing. You and many people. Yeah. Talk about why you decided to do this independently and about the end of Longform, which was, I think, in June. I think June is when it ended. It was, yeah, right at the end of June. I mean, there's a long answer to a short answer when it comes to doing it independently. I think the shortest answer is I knew what I wanted to do and I wanted to have complete control over how it was made. I mean, if you listen to the show, it's like a lot of it is very weird. And, uh, it's very funny because we kind of push the boundaries on these strange ways you can use it, like having a talk to therapy or having a talk to itself. ways you can use it, like having a talk to therapy or having a talk to itself. And I just didn't want, in this day and age, when you do a podcast with a big platform,

a lot of people get involved and they have a lot of opinions and they're very institutional. And so some of those opinions are, they're not really willing to take risks. And I was very happy to take risks that I didn't want anyone telling me not to. That's the basic answer. Well, welcome to our club. That's what we don't like. What? That's what we say. We often are like, are you speaking to us? Because we're not listening to you. So I did, we built a Prop G AI.

And one of the things I found, I'm curious if you believe this or found the same thing. I find that AI is progressive or woke is the wrong term. It's politically correct. And that it's been trained on, I think because these companies are worried about,

you know, everybody tried to start getting it to say racist things or say stupid things. And so I think- Which it did, which it did. But as a result of that, I think it's built in so many protections that I find that it errs on the side of being very overly

sensitive is the term. I found it that it's overcorrecting to the, I don't know, like your stepmother or your mother-in-law doesn't want to say anything that might offend people, even when occasionally Kara and I will say to somebody, that's just fucking stupid. It would never say that. Did you find that it kind of errs on the side of being over-mannered or politically correct? That's what I found. It's certainly over-mannered. I didn't really explore the political correctness or the wokeness aspect of it. That's not a big interest of mine. But when it came to being well-mannered, I would take it even further, which is that, so for instance, when, when we had two of

them talk to each other, so there's two AI versions of me in conversations with each other, and I would prompt one to be angry at the other. I would say, you're angry at the other one. You're angry at this person you're about to talk to. The reason is up to you. They would resolve their differences within a minute or two of the conversation. And I believe that's because, and they would often do it using mental health terminology

that I think the training data tends to center on. There's so much discussion of mental health now. There's so much discussion of mirroring back what someone says that it would use all these techniques. And I would have to really prompt it very severely for it to stay mad. I literally have to say, there is nothing that will make you let go of this anger. And then it would do it. But short of that, they would always come to an agreement. It was actually quite lovely, but it was also, there was something very strange and funny about it. Well, although I would argue if you had real people not on Twitter and you had them in a room, that's exactly what they do. People don't, you know, they'll do it on a social network, start really going down a rabbit hole of anger and rage. But when you have two people in a room, they tend to try to come to an agreement. I don't know. I've always noticed that, which I think is the difference between online and offline sometimes. Certainly in person. Yeah. I mean, it all highlights a value of in-person communications.

I mean, the whole thing points to what you get when you sit across the table from someone. Right, right. It's very hard to get people, except if you're on Jerry Springer's show, but that's all designed for bullshit. But I have one more question. What will you have the AI do in season two of this? I'm not sure yet. I mean, more question. What will you have the AI do in season two of this? I'm not sure yet. I mean, the question is, will season two even be AI-driven? I mean, the sort of premise of the show is it's a show about things that are not what they seem. So that covers a lot of my journalism over the last 10 to 20 years. Yeah, it does.

So it may be AI. I mean, I'm surprised the extent to which people love the AI agent. Like, Yeah, it does. Something in that that I might explore further, but I also, I don't want to be the AI voice guy forever either. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's interesting for now. In two, 10 years, I'll be bored with it. Like, why would you want to talk? You know what I mean? Sort of trying certain things. Scott, last question. Curious after getting deep here, what jobs do you think are most at risk? And if and what businesses would you advise people to consider starting leveraging this technology? I mean, the most obvious thing that's immediately at risk is all sorts of call center-based telemarketing stuff. I mean, that's the stuff that it's used for right now. So that's an obvious one. But I think anything where people are just sort of

reading off a script. I mean, a lot of the advertising you're going to hear is going to have AI voices in it. Be surprised if you're not hearing that already a little bit. I mean, you both probably know, like, there are podcasters who use this to fill in parts of podcasts using clone voices. Like, that is already happening right now. There's a major podcast platform that tried to launch an AI-hosted podcast. And so, this doesn't mean, like, podcasting is under threat necessarily, but I think they're going to infiltrate. It's going to be much less sort of like everyone getting wiped away in an industry and much more just sort of like little places where it starts to

infiltrate. And then it kind of grows out from there. We were thinking of translation, right, Scott? The idea of translating. Well, that's an easy one. You can now put almost any podcast and even the video. It doesn't get the eye movement right, but you can do it with other languages. But the customer service is really what everyone's talking about.

It's just crazy how much more efficient I've been using all these bots for airlines or whatever you call them, chat agents. It's been really striking. Do you think there really is a threat? Do you think that the fear of the writers unions should we have AI in the room? And I said, no, you should have people know how to use AI in the room just for brainstorming. Do you think that their fears are overblown, underblown? I don't think they're overblown. I mean, I think it's very smart to try to have discussions about this before it's absolutely everywhere. Because the risk is like it's being

put into the market without any of these discussions. And so places, unions and other places. Wow, that's never happened before in tech, but go ahead. Right, exactly. And so anywhere where these discussions could be had, whether it's around trying to ban it from writers rooms or whatnot, it doesn't necessarily mean like it has no place there or it has no place in getting you past a writing block or prompting creativity or whatever, like without condemning the technology, I feel like having the discussion, well, what do we want out of these rooms? What do we want out of human writing? Those are discussions that are worthwhile to have. Yep. That's fair point. Anyway, does your voice would have another name, Evan2, EvanAI? Well, for the purpose of the show, it was always me. So it's just AI, Evan Ratliff. But oftentimes it was just operating under Evan Ratliff until questions. All right. Okay. Evan Ratliff. That's interesting. Anyway, we really appreciate it. It's a really cool podcast. It's called Shell Game.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you, Evan. Thanks, Evan. Thanks for having me. All right, Scott, what'd you think of that? That guy's impressive. He should be on TV. He's got a great voice. He's very handsome. Yeah, it's obviously very talented. Yeah, long form is amazing. But I found it really interesting what he was saying about trying to get the AIs to be angry at each other. But what people don't realize, there's only three things you need to have in your arsenal for all conflict resolution.

When things get really heated, you pick one of the following three things. You just pause. You look at them in the eyes and you say, I'm taking the kids, albeit my sisters. That's number one. Number two, man or woman, you pause and you look at them and you say, is that the menopause speaking? Question mark. And then the third thing, if things get really heated, you look around and then you look at them and you go, wait, you can see me? Boom! Conflict over. World peace, Kara. I have to say, I like Scott in this seventh decade of his life. Fifth.

Seriously, I'm done. We need to stop. The scrotum lift is kicking in. Anyway, whatever. You do whatever you want. You're 29. Okay. All right.

Next up, wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Shall I go first? Sure, go ahead. The Emmys were delightful. I didn't watch it in real time, but I thought the outfits were great. And I thought Steve Martin, the group from Only Murders in the Building, Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. By the way, he's dating

Meryl Streep. He's dating Meryl Streep. But not dating? I don't know. It's not confirmed. Whatever. They seem like they're dating. You mean actually in real life? Yes. Just rumored. Oh, no. They're sitting together all the time. They're out all the time.

Martin Short and Meryl Streep? Mm-hmm. I don't know how I feel about that. But I know. But that's what it has happening. They were sitting together. They've been going to things together. I'm sorry.

Sophie chooses Martin Short? I just am not. It's a rumor. But I'm just telling you. Yeah. I think it's so. Anyway, the Emmys were really delightful. There's so much good television. Baby Reindeer. They both won. Yeah. Jean Smart

winning for Hacks. I just love it. She gave a great speech. I thought it was TV is really, even though the economics of it have changed drastically and not in the better. It's great for consumers. Yeah, it is. I got to say, Hacks is so good.

Gene Smart, that's my win. My fail is Elon Musk and Donald Trump tweeting very dangerous things around people's... I hate Taylor Swift and the threat against Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. It's repulsive. You cannot, you need to stand the fuck down. I don't think you will because you're both toddlers, but it's dangerous. It's actually dangerous. You can make as many memes as we want about this thing, but it's not funny. You're not funny. You're only funny to the people you pay and they don't think you're funny really. And

they have to laugh. They're forced to laugh. So that's my fail. And they have to laugh. They're forced to laugh. So that's my fail. They do something they could easily be mocked, and they show a level of vulnerability and courage where it's like, okay, no one ever thought of that. And this guy, Richard Gad, I thought his performance, because it was autobiographical, was just so raw. And so I just thought it was so powerful. I couldn't, I really happy for him. And also, I believe his counterpart, the woman who plays the stalker, I believe she also won. Hiroyuki Sonata won for Shogun. By the way, Shogun record 18 Emmy wins, just so you know.

Oh, it did. I didn't know that. But what people, we talk, we should post a lot about, you know, how stupid the union is, or I do, or how these companies are becoming a shadow themselves and consolidating because Netflix is running away with it. But what we don't mention enough is that the biggest winner here are the consumers because the quality and depth of original scripted television right now is just insane. It's just incredible because they're all in a content war and they're all basically putting each other out of business, quite frankly, with the exception of Netflix. Anyways, I'm like you. This is a weird one, but I wanted to share it because I thought it was interesting. There's this wonderful TikTok or Reels of this woman who has alopecia, and she's talking about, she goes out with a wig on for the first time, and she does a 30-second video showing her hair loss. And she's very emotional, and she's saying that this is the first time in a decade I've gone out

without a wig to run errands, and I'm not going to let alopecia change my life. It's really a wonderful, very gripping TikTok or I can't remember if it was TikTok or Reel. And I remember thinking, I was looking at this woman, she had this most beautiful skin, a great smile. And it's like, yeah, people are going to look at her and think, okay, she has hair loss. And it's like, yeah, people are going to look at her and think, oh, okay, she has hair loss. But then they really, they look at the whole thing and they think she's an attractive woman who looks nice. She has like great nails and anyways. And what I would say, and I so related to this because I remember when I was a young man, when I started losing my hair and it was like five years of just ridiculous stress. Because for me, it meant kind of my manhood, my youth. My hair was something I took a lot of pride in. I had a ponytail. You had spectacular hair. I was amazed by those photos. I did. And when you start losing it for a lot of reasons, it's just devastating. And like so many things, what I realize now and what I would want to try and communicate to people, especially young men and also especially young women, a lot of whom experience hair loss, but they have to wear wigs because it's unforgivable for a woman to lose her hair in the eyes of a very luxist America. promise you the thing you're going to regret is how upset you were about it. And that people, when they look at you, they look at the whole thing. And you can be in shape. You can take great care of your skin. You can dress interestingly. There's so many people look at the entire thing. And anything to do with my looks or insecurity,

my acne when I was younger, my hair loss when I was a little bit older, the thing I really regret about it is how upset I was. I don't regret the acne. I don't, I mean, I would rather not had it. I don't regret the hair loss. Yeah, I would rather have George Clooney-like hair, but what I regret is how upset I was. And I wanted to reach into TikTok and tell this woman, let me be clear.

Guys look at you and they think, oh, there's a nice woman that I would like to know or date. Yeah, you have hair loss. But that's it. They look at the whole package. Hair has a lot of power. You know, it does. It really does. But let me just tell you, I think you look very good without hair.

No, I appreciate that. You look just as good. I think you look very stately. You know, Patrick Stewart. Think about all the people who look fantastic. I still look like that alien from close. I look so like that guy. But anyways, I stand.

Whatever. Whatever. I think you look great. I think you look great. And go ahead. I have hair look great. And go ahead. I have hair transplant in the form of money. I have long flowing locks. Scott, that birthday just showed

that's not why people like you. But go ahead, go ahead. You're being generous. But what I want, it's impossible to communicate this to people. You can tell them until they're blue in the face, but anyone who's struggling with something about their aesthetics, to people. You can tell them until they're blue in the face, but anyone who's struggling with

something about their aesthetics, that's not what you're going to regret. You're going to regret how much you beat yourself up over it. And there's so many different ways to be attractive. Unfortunately, there's more ways for a man to be attractive. If a man is funny, does well professionally, it is interesting. Unfortunately, women are mostly evaluated based on their aesthetics, but there's so many different ways to express aesthetics. It was this, this TikTok really moved me and I thought I can totally relate to this woman. Okay. All right. Well, we will, we will watch this.

I guess I did two wins. Baby Reindeer. That's okay. Baby Reindeer and Shogun and this young woman's courage. And I wanted to like wrap my arms around her and go, trust me on this. People look at you and think you're an attractive woman and I'd like to know you or I'd like to date you. And that's all you got to be focused on. That's it.

All right. It's so interesting what affects you, Scott Galloway. I have to tell you, you're always a surprise to me. By the way, I forgot one win and fail is you're cheating on me with Jessica Tarlow, and I love it. See? That's a win and a fail. That's generous of you. You're being very supportive.

I think people are, I mean, I know people are tuning in for her, but. Yeah, we talked about it last week, but it's done very well. People seem to like it. So tune in. Tune in. Raging moderates. We're raging. We want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Milsa Vario.

Nishat Kerouaz, Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Young people, if there's something about your physical appearance that's giving you, making you insecure, that keeps you up at night, trust me on this, you're going to look back and the only thing you're going to be upset about is how upset you were. Figure out a way and there's a million different ways to be attractive to others and most importantly,

attractive to yourself.