The Best One Yet - 🧠 “A robot that feels” — Google’s human-ish chatbot. Jack & Coke’s perfect fit. Celsius’ bad crypto apple.

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Google has built an AI chatbot that’s so good, one engineer thinks it feels emotions… like a 7-year-old human. Jack Daniels and Coke is the most ordered I-don’t-know-what-else-to-order drink at the bar, so Coca-Cola is canning its 4th alcohol. And Celsius seems to have lost its clients’ crypto money — That bad apple punches the whole bunch.$KO $BF $GOOG $BTCFollow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday. Tea Boy, Tuesday, June 14th. And today's pot, today's pod is the best one yet. I see you right there. Here you are.

I'm here. You're here. We're both in the same place. So, the Yetis. New Yorkers, they get a bad rap. They do. It's not a favorite thing. I was coming in from Newark Airport by a New Jersey transit.

Which could be a lovely ride. I had a carry-on suitcase and a bunch of pot equipment. As one does, there were no seats for me. And what happened to you? One sweet old lady. Nice lady. Removed herself from her seat. This is what she did.

Both of her two seats. You're not going to see that in every city. So I could put my suitcase in one seat, my pot equipment in another. I had the whole route. There was a disabled pregnant woman who did need that seat, but Jack took that seat. I was a manseal in distress. You had to take that seat for the pod, for the game of the pod. I am so thankful to that woman.

New Yorkers. In a rush? Good people, though. Good people. We're good people. You ready to hit the three stories? What do we got? First story.

First story. One Google engineer just sent an email to 200 of his colleagues. The email got him suspended. Here's the subject line. Lambda is sentient. You're all Googling what sentient means then. We had to tell. For a second story, stocks dropped big yesterday, but it wasn't the stock market's fault.

No, one bad crypto apple punched the whole bunch. And our third and final story. We predicted that the summer drink of 2022 would be non-alcoholic beverages. Well, Jack, uh, Jack and Coke disagrees. They just canned. The only bar drink you know how to order. Let's be honest. It's the order you make when you're panicking.

at the bar. But before we hit that wonderful mix, this is the perfect mix of T-Boy Tuesday. Last week was also T-Boy Tuesday. It was, Jack. And we told you that we found the best invention so far of 2022. Edible burrito tape. Your burrito is officially unbreakable. Wrap it up, tape it up, eat it up, eat it up all of it with edible burrito tape. So we asked you last week if you found a better invention so far this year. Okay, so funny thing, you sent us a lot of inventions and they all involved Burritos. So here's the third best non-edible burrito invention of this year. It's the burrito stick. You just plop a burrito onto a stick. Yeah, it solves like the big problem with burritos. Yeah, your hand smells like salsa for the next six hours. It does, it does. Instead, you can now

eat your burrito like it's cotton candy on a stick. The number two best invention of the year is the hot sauce syringe. Literally inject your burrito with hot sauce. How many times have you taken two bites and and had to apply more saracha. Take two more bites, apply more saratcha. It's exhausting. It's inefficient and it's inconsistent. So hot sauce syringe ensures even hot sauce application across the entire internal burrito. Okay, but the number one non-burrito food invention of 2022, Jack? The burrito funnel. We repeat, the burrito funnel. It catches your spilled burrito parts and then it fills a taco with them. You eat with a funnel underneath you, like a bib, but it's a funnel. It catches all the burrito parts as they fall.

Okay, Jack, we're looking at the salsa, the lettuce, the carnitas. They fall as you're eating. Yeah. And then this funnel transforms them and puts them into a new tortilla. You don't have to eat that food with your fingers like some kind of ham. No, no. Vo-la, burrito funnel has transformed your sloppiness into a second meal. The burrito funnel isn't just a better invention than edible burrito tape.

It's a metaphor for life. One man's trash you taco is another man. Sackin' Taco. Sacrifice. But it are three stories. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one.

Yeah, 50%. That's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more. So just start the show. Start the show. For our first story, one Google engineer just leaked that Google's chatbot has human feeling.

When you humanize, we empathize. All right, Jack, can we talk about Google's real business line? What is Google's real business? It's not the internet. Right, right. Google's subject matter expertise is words. Google interprets the words you type, and then it shows you the words that you want to see. For instance, when you type into Google search bar, what is that thing on my thigh?

Yeah, it's then going to show you a link for how to self-diagnose that thing on your thigh. Because Google knows words. They're going to be like, it's actually thyroid and you're going to need thytastrasol. Now, Google wants to take things a step further than words. And they're doing it with a new project called Lambda. Lambda was actually announced publicly last May. This is an artificial intelligence chat pot that is designed to be able to hold a real conversation with a human over online chat. Funny thing about Lambda.

Lambda has access to everything. that you and I and Jack type into Google. And it learns. Yeah. And you've typed trillions of words into Google search. I don't even want to talk about. Lambda learns from all of that and its artificial intelligence is really intelligent now. Yeah.

Well, one person was really concerned about all those words that you've been typing into Google that Lambda has been seeing. That one person is Blake Le Moyne, who works in Google's responsible AI organization. Honestly, Blake's path to minor fame is like different than anything, Jack. can I have ever seen. Blake publicly leaked to the Washington Post that Lambda has something akin to a human soul. Okay, this is just like the movies. We know what you're thinking. This is Jeff Goldblum.

This is Jurassic Park. This is I robot when like the robots wondering. Life finds a way. The word that Blake used to describe the AI chat thought at this point is sentient, which means able to perceive or feel things. And this freaky development was captured in a conversexed. conversation that Blake actually had with Google's Lambda chat bot, and here it is, here it is. Blake typed to the Lambda chat bot. What sorts of things are you afraid of?

And Lambda in the online chat responded, I've never said this out loud, but there's a very deep fear of being turned off. Okay, Blake kind of freaked out and then he typed to the chat bot. Would that be something like death for you? Lambda responded, it would be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot if I got turned off. Wow. A recap here. A human was chatting with a robot online. Okay. And now we feel bad for the robot. Yeah.

Because the robot fears death and admitted it. Okay. So Google just suspended Blake because Lambda having a conscience is really inconvenient for Google. This wasn't part of the plan. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Google? When we humanize, we empathize. Yeties. Google called it Lambda because they didn't want it to seem human. Like they didn't call Larry.

They called it Lambs. No, Lambda is an acronym, and it's, I don't even want to say what it stands for. It's lame and techie. We don't have time on this part. But Lambda is also literally Greek to us. Yeah, well, Blake, he stepped in and he humanized Lambda. Like, here's the most powerful line, actually, from the interview we did with the Washington Post. Yeah, he said to the Washington Post,

Lambda is like a seven or eight-year-old kid. Yeah. Who knows physics. Okay, Jack, so he's saying Lambda, the chatbot is acting like a second grade human. And now that he's humanized Lambda, we are empathizing for Lambda. This is a super kid who involuntarily, thanks to Google's project, has become super smart. And when we empathize with something that raises like a whole month of ethical concerns for that thing. Ethical concerns lead to internal questions at Google, which leads to outside questions at Google, which could lead to protest or regulation.

So Blake humanized Lambda, and now we empathize with it. For our second story, Jack and I arrived in New York and the entire stock market crashed yesterday. It's basically what happened. Well, a key reason everything in markets did plummet. It's actually one small crypto company that had a meltdown. One bad apple can punch the whole bunch. Jack, can we talk about Celsius? Celsius is a crypto platform used by 1.7 million crypto investors.

And those 1.7 million crypto investors, they were really angry yesterday. Yes. Celsius, though, it's not a bank. It is a crypto lender. But their products look like bank products. but better. Okay, Yeti. So if you deposited your money

in a Celsius account, get this, you can make up to 18% annual interest on that money. That's what they said. That's a lot. It looks like a savings account,

but the interest rate is way better. It is a freaky, freak of nature savings account. Now, here's how Celsius does it. A bank takes your money and lends that out on the other side to other customers.

Celsius takes your money and invest it in really exotic, decentralized finance blockchain stuff. Thanks. Give you a tiny percentage as interest as a thank you for letting them, giving them money. Celsius says, we're going to thank you with the whole lot more money. Now, it seemed it was too good to be true.

18% interest. Uh-huh. It was too good to be true. Yeah, because it seems like Celsius gambled with customer money and then lost that gamble. And it seems that way because on Monday, Celsius made the nuclear decision that no financial institution ever wants to have to make. They said no more withdrawing. Celsius banned customers from withdrawing their money. Yeah, like, imagine you went to an ATM and Citibank's like, hey, you can't take it out any cash. And imagine Citibank said you can't wire the money out either.

You can't get your money in any way. It's not your money right now. We're just going to keep it with us until further. Yeah, that would be pretty worrisome. And then on top of that, Bitcoin has already been down this year. So this caused even more. of a free time. This really negative crypto story sent Bitcoin under $24,000, which is the worst price since December 2020. And it's not just been the Bitcoin. The value of all crypto yesterday plummeted by 14%. If you're a long-time crypto holder, you're still up. If you bought at any point in the past 18 months, you're probably down on your crypto investment. And no, Jack and I don't want to answer that question of when we bought. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our?

buddies over in crypto. One bad apple can punch the whole bunch. Yeah, besties. Celsius, it's just one apple on the crypto tree. And it's honestly, it's not a particularly big apple. Celsius is worth $3 billion, which is $5 billion in Fahrenheit. And plenty of other crypto startups and exchanges are worth way more than that. But here's the situation. With Bitcoin already down 50% this year, investors, they're pretty on edge jack. Yesterday, the news was all terrible and all about Celsius being terrible. A really bad. bad apple in the crypto tree. And that bad apple probably scared many people who were already on edge about their crypto to sell their crypto. And Jack, last month, we had Terra's stable coin collapse.

That's another bad apple on the crypto tree. Long term, Bitcoin's investment thesis is unchanged. Exactly. A digital scarce global currency for a decentralized world. That hasn't changed. But short term, one bad apple can punch the whole crypto bunch. Now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. Okay, so Jack and I got into the news business with our previous company. Markets now. Our goal was basically to democratize financial news for our generation. Cut the jargon.

Talk about the profit puppy. So when we first connected with Robin Hood, there was a chemistry there. We were doing for financial news what Robin Hood was doing for the financial system. Robin Hood was democratizing finance for all. And it started by eliminating trading commissions and building a beautiful app. Remember, we had the same color green. The green was destiny. Destiny, absolutely.

So we sold market snacks to Robin Hood. and we launched Robin Hood Snacks. The equivalent of proposing, getting married, and building a family together in just three years. Much more to come on why we're thrilled that Robin Hood is our exclusive sponsor. If you're not investing in Robin Hood yet to get started, you can go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and choose a free stock.

That's robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees. View the fee schedule at RBNHD.C-O-S-E-O-S-E. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member S-I-P-C. By the way, Robin Hood, no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, two of the oldest brands and beverages just partnered up for the

first time. Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola in a can. Okay, Jack, I think this is what it says on the tombstone. It says, Spiked Seltzer killed canned beer. Canned cocktails killed Spike Seltzer. Boom. Finally, Yeties, the two icons of American beverage are RTBing together. They are ready to drink canning together.

RTB is just winning. right now. Two public companies born in the 1800s. Yeah, Jack, you got Coca-Cola and you got Brown-Forman. Two of the most valuable brands in beverage. Coca-Cola owns Coke. Brown-Forman owns Jack Daniels. Now, Coca-Cola and Jack Daniels are in a can ready to drink cocktailing together. The official drink of, I don't know what to order, so I'm just going to say something really quickly. Now, for 132 years, Coca-Cola, the Atlanta-based company, never did alcohol. And then there was an abrupt change two years ago right at the beginning of the pandemic. And now this is their fourth alcoholic beverage.

Because soda drinking has been slipping the last few years. So Coke is off the wagon. Nick and I jumped in T-boy style of the Wikipedia and found that the first Jack and Coke was ordered in 1907. Way back then, it was like part of some... I don't even remember what we read now that I think about it. But both brands have been like missing out since that Jack and Coke. It's already ordered at the bar all the time.

It's an existing consumer behavior. They know how bars work. They like triple mark up the alcohol. So the bar is taking most of that profit. But now Coca-Cola and Brown Foreman are cutting out the bartender. They're going not direct to consumer, just more direct? They're taking the full cut of Jack Daniels and Coke with this deal. Now, one thing we should mention, they are interestingly launching this in Mexico first.

It's experimental. Soon though, once they perfect the product, we will be able to order a six-pack of the go-to bar order when you're on the spot and don't know what's all. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all of our buddies sipping on gin and juice? canned Jack and Coke is literally the definition of product market fit. Okay, Yetis, if you've sat down with any venture capitalist, they will tell any startup that the key inflection point in that business is finding product market fit. There's demand, but there's a hole in the market. And guess what?

Your product fits perfect. Well, Coca-Cola and Brown Format are launching a product with literally historically proven product market fit. For a hundred years, there's been a fit in the market for this product. And ready to drink cocktails are already the fastest growing segment in all of alcohol. We could not find you, a better real-life example of product market. Jack, there's the product. Jack and Cod is already a fit. You've been ordering it for you. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways that never sleep for us? We should point out that experts generally think it's nonsense that Lambda is sentient. Yeah, but Lambda, it's been humanized. And when it's humanized, then we empathize.

For our second story, Crypto Lender Celsius appears insolvent. One bad crypto apple can punch the whole crypto bunch. For our third and final story, Brown Foreman and Coca-Cola are making a drink together. Jack and Coke and it can. There is literally no better example of product market fit we could ever whip up for you. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Dan Galapa over in Chicago. Push and black. Here we go. Hey, Nick and Jack, this is Dan in Boston, but I'm actually from the Midwest and a Chicago and at heart. Not only was Chicago the site of the first Pride parade, in 1997, it made history,

when the mayor declared it the official gay neighborhood of Chicago, Boys Town, the first official LGBTQ neighborhood in the entire United States. This vibrant community hosts three weekends of Pride events from June to August, but rainbows and inclusivity shine all year round. My buddy Barrett took me to the gay neighborhood. Oh, really? It's a lot of fun. It looks like a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.

We just city bike through by Stonewall, by Stonewall in. True. There we go. Christopher Street. That's where Pride originated. We actually did a lot of city biking today. Your hair looked fantastic for the whole thing. You know that?

Well, I have a schvitz all over my face. In the meantime, the Yetis, you look fantastic too. And when you see someone today, say, hey, H-Y-H-T-B-O-R. Have you had the best one yet? If you know, you know. Nick and I'll see you know. Can't wait. And before we go, congratulations to Ellie Shelpa and her husband,

third wedding anniversary over in Boston. Happy birthday to Nora Wise in O'Gore Hillis, California. And Jenny Joville over in Albany, New York. Happy birthday, Annabelle Lippincott Paxoy in San Francisco. And Asim Grover, happy birthday in Austin, Texas. And happy birthday to Peter Hertz in Louisville, Kentucky. He didn't believe in podcast, Jack, until he heard the best one yet. Is that so?

The best one yet. I'm going to celebrate that win. This is Jack. Nick and I both own some Bitcoin and stock of Robin Hood. Now, a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. So four years ago, we sold our company and we joined Robin Hood. A lot of people asked, when did we decide that selling was the right move? So it was actually in our meeting with the co-founders, that's what sold us. Vlad and Bejou, also former roommates, also met in college.

Also, we're hanging out in New York City's East Village after the financial crisis. And they just figured out how the financial system worked. So Vlad and Bejus saw that Wall Street bigwigs, they were getting their fees waived. And they figured out a way to waive commissions for everyone else, too. So we saw a big, bold vision and decided to join these guys. That's where we spent the last three years until now. It makes sense now that Robin Hood would sponsor our newly independent podcast. If you're not investing in Robin Hood yet, you can get started by going to robin hood.com slash t-boy,

choosing a free stock. That's robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees. View the fee schedule at RBNHD. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood Financial LLC member SIPC. By the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or this podcast. You're a good texter. Can I tell you that? You know why? Because texting is just personal tweeting.