The Chaser Report - AI and Ice-Cream | Welcome To The Future

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

In the face of all the horrid news of the present, Dom presents Charles with three products from the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. Look, the news in the world is dark today. I don't want to live in 2024. I think it's time we took another trip to a better place, to a brighter place. Yes. And said, welcome to the future. This is our tech spinoff podcast, which we also post on. feed. We haven't done many of them in a while. And it's a shame, Charles, because frankly,

the hypothetical future is much better than the very, very sad present. Real reality present. And that's the best apology you're going to get from us, Buckingham Palace. Let's talk about something else. I've got three products that were launched earlier this year, and I can't believe we missed this at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I'm hoping that if we could grow this podcast, Charles, or we ought to actually bring the podcast to CES. Next year, that's our stretch aim for next year. Every January new products come out in a giant convention centre And I've got three absolute classics for you here

Let's begin with a product that solves a problem We often have here at the Chaser Report We're often not in the same place I mean you're about to go off touring again I'm sometimes off somewhere doing something In India or whatever visiting the in-laws Wouldn't it be great if instead of just having some shitty Zoom There were a more physically present version of a remote colleague

This is a product called Wehead Yes. Like we work, which is a terrible moment, only wee head. Charles, can you imagine what the wee head product does? It's not some sort of like kink, is it? No, no, it's not like something Donald Trump would want. No, there's no Mario mushrooms involved. It's not like head with a flaccid penis. No, I mean, you could.

Look at the picture here, you could use it for that if you really wanted. Okay, so it's not that. Okay. Well, I presume what it is is like a head that gets projected onto it the face of whoever you're trying to speak to in order to give a sort of physical realization of that thing. It's like a monitor that's in the shape of a head. Not bad, yeah. It's actually quite like that. Let me let the shitty video tell the story.

Hello. Hi. What is your name? Bro, my name is James. I'm your bro, remember. We used to hang out back in the day in Jersey. How could you forget your bro's name? It's all good, though, bro.

I got your back. What's up? Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. That guy looks real, but he's speaking like he's not real. He's an AI. What is he? So there's two ways you can use it. Right.

So just to be clear, the video that Don was just showing, it looked like a sort of Iron Man mask. It is. It's very much a rip-off of the Iron Man mask. If you think of essentially two phones, so two widescreen phones, One horizontally for the eyes, one vertically for the mouth and nose in a sort of T shape, because presumably they couldn't afford custom screens or anything. But then this, and then a camera above it, and then it looks a bit like a shield in the end.

And that is stuck on a pair of wheels that can move around the office. So it's a telepresence robot. Yeah, right. So it's not just, if you weren't here, if you're on tour, the Charles bot could roll into the room. And so if I was on tour, I could control where I'm going in the office. Is that right? You potentially could. Yeah, right.

Okay. It moves with the remote co-worker. So it would follow me around, basically. Yeah, wow. So it'd be very similar to having you there in a weird kind of disembodied face-only version. But why was he talking so weirdly and like as if he was an AI? Because that's the other feature. If you don't have a co-worker actually wants to talk to you in real time,

There's a completely sort of AI-generated version. That was James. Who talks in bro language. Yeah. That's one of the built-in ones. So, we, for instance, could get, because he's very busy these eyes, we could get a Craig AI that just sort of insulted us and said banal things about the environment. The two things that Craig ever does.

Hey, bro, the way to fix climate change is by cutting down on plastic straws, man. Man, yeah, exactly right. So that's the Wii head product. Guess how much the founders edition will cost in US dollars? Well, there's actually an adage, isn't there, that you can sell 100,000 of anything because there's enough Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley adjacent people to sort of sell your first 100,000. And the point is, you know, don't judge the success of a product by...

Oh, the first 300,000. So I would say it's going to be very expensive. Two iPhones would cost like, say, two and a half grand. Add to that, the hype, I'm saying $3,000. Not too far off. I think they had to make it cheap because it's called Wii Head. It's $2,000 and presumably they're very cheap phones. So, yeah, I mean, not too bad.

No, it's terrible. It looks terrible. The price isn't too bad. But no, it looks terrible. Does it come with the body? No. It's just the two. So how do you move around?

Well, just conceptually. I think you just follow it. you around. I don't think you would control it, Charles. I think it would just sort of walk around and follow me and have a conversation. So it would be like Zoom only, actually more intrusive and annoying. And is Edan Newman the guy behind WeWork behind this one? I certainly hope so. If he was, it'd be worth $100,000 if you're charging for it. That's one product. If you miss your colleagues and you want a genuinely weird thing rolling around you with their face, or even more strange, the AI. Yeah. I mean, what a good way. We could collaborate with Elon

couldn't we, using this? We could get an Elon bot to call us paedophiles and poor shit on our ideas and basically say lots of really racist right-wing things. I mean, that would be, that would add to our, we could say Elon was our CEO. He needs some of the business to run. So that's the we face. Okay, that's good. Yep.

I'm sort of hanging out for the next one, Dom, to be honest. In terms of overwhelmed, I don't think I'd say I'm overwhelmed at this point. They're going to get more practical as though. I want more whelm, please. Okay, Charles, you're going, you're going traveling, you're going on tour. This is actually adjacent to the other product in many ways. Have you ever wished that you could be on public transport, like on a plane or something, and wanted to continue talking to someone, continue meeting, continue conversations?

Yes, yes. Well, there's a lot of people on my bus that I catch each morning who clearly have that desire, but also don't resist that desire. just continue talking on the phone, on the bus. Forever. Yes. Well, and on the train, especially trains. Why do people think trains are acceptable to speak on?

That's a very good question. I don't know. It's like you're in your own bubble, aren't you? Yeah. We did that Clive to start a commuter sketch, taking advantage of that, pointing out to people that can actually hear you when you're on the train talking about your genital wards or whatever it might be. So look, this is the product to solve that problem.

Guess what it is? Oh, so I'll be able to talk about my genital warts. without anyone hearing. Is that... Maybe not quite, but it certainly will improve matters. How do you think it works? Okay.

So the way it works is it uses active noise cancellation and you sort of have a mask around your face because masks are now trendy because of the pandemic. And so it looks like you're sort of in some sort of kinky gag sort of, you know, thing and it sort of mutes your voice. It's got... But also does an active voice. It's sound cancellation.

So you really can't hear anything. Is that correct? Introducing the Sky Ted's silent mask, which is indeed, it's a mask that goes, I don't know about the AI and the noise to canceling, but it's a mask that goes over your nose and face. It just looks like a mask. It looks almost like a piece of Tupperware, actually. Yeah, but it goes over your nose and your mouth. And they worked with Airbus and the European Space Agency.

You talk about overkill. Yes. And basically what it does is it muffles your voice by 80%, apparently to the outside world. and the people who's listening to you on the voice or video call will hear you normally now I mean if you're on Zoom you will look like a complete idiot

with this mask on you're telling me to be able to see your eyes but yes it's apparently it works quite well they did a demo at CES and someone took a Zoom call and was apparently inaudible in the room which I mean I must say most Zoom calls would be improved

if the people talking were inaudible on the call as well I think that's the missing that's the missing piece of the deck is we should have a thing where you can remotely make someone inaudible. Oh, that's the mute button, isn't it? Well, just don't pay attention. I mean, the kids really showed us the way during the remote learning period.

Yes. Just playing video games while supposedly on a Zoom call is the way to go. Yeah. You really need some sort of device that can make your video game silent as well. Anyway, so how much would you pay for this product? Oh, I don't know. Does it have Bluetooth? Surely.

It would have to, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it won't work. Okay, so I reckon... It will work intimately at best. I don't know. It looks like it's worth about five bucks.

For a mask. Yeah. Because it just looks like a mask. It does look like a mask. But it's a silent mask. Think of all the noise battling technology. Okay, 20 bucks. The standard retail price is apparently $599 U.S. dollars.

I reckon they'll be able to sell exactly 100,000 of those. Well, yeah, because the kind of tech bros you're talking about don't take public transport, do they? Hey, yeah. You're right. So, oh, but they go on planes. Oh, but no, they'll probably go. private jets, don't they? Yeah, okay, so they're not going to sell any of these things.

And also, you can't talk on your phone on a plane because the phone doesn't fucking work. You're fuck wit. It doesn't have Wi-Fi? You can do Zoom. No, you can. Well, maybe in America, here, the Wi-Fi's terrible. Yeah, no.

So what the mask is for is basically to muffle the sounds of you going, hello, is this on? Can you hear me? The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. This was supposed to be uplifting, Dom. This is the most depressing. I mean, this is depressing just in its mediocrity.

I want to give you one. I want to hear about robots that can solve climate changes, I mean. I want to... Yes, the consumer electronics show? No. I've got, look, I've got two very practically oriented products for it to wrap things up. One of them is genuinely useful. Okay.

And the other one, I think, could be actually life-enhancing. Okay. Okay, so the first one, can I take a guess, is a Bluetooth-enabled knife that Julians. Yourself. Without. When you've been to CES and seen all the shithouse products. So this uses AI to solve a pet-related problem. See if you can figure out what this.

Oh, it's picking up poop. Wouldn't that be great? No, it doesn't quite do that. But it does make life less disgusting. It, well, what else? I don't really. it... Now, you have lizards, I know, but what if you had a cat?

Cats are fairly self-sustaining, aren't they? They're not bad. Checks for worms? I don't know. What's disgusting about a cat? Oh, they cleans the cat? That would be good too. Well, they clean themselves, generally.

Yeah. It's just kind of gross when you think about where they've been. Yeah. So this is a cat door. How could you add AI to a cat door to make it better? I mean, having had a cat before... It's a fairly simple... This would have been genuinely useful for us.

Really? Yep, yeah, AI Cat Door. Is it... Give you another clue? There's a camera. Because cat door's like a fairly symbol. The cat just pushes their head through the door and it works. Not in this case, not all the time.

So what... It's got a camera... Oh, it takes a photo of a camera and posts it to Instagram. Automatically, that would be brilliant. No, it's not. What it does is, this is the genius of it. It scans the cat as it comes through the door. And two things,

happen. One, if it's not your cat, it won't let it in. Right. Is that a problem, though? I thought cats were quite territorial. Well, that's the thing. So, but if a cat tries to sneak, I don't know. We had a cat once that would go up and down the street stealing chips from building sites and stuff. We had a thief cat, so it would foil him. It was a cat burglar. It was a cat that's right. So that's one. So only your own cat can get in. No snakes. Your snake wouldn't get in, Charles, because the door would stay locked. Unless it came in with the cat. I don't know if it can tell whether it's got the cat in its distended belly either. Anyway, but the most useful thing, the thing that I'm really excited about is that it scans

the cat to see if they've brought in any dead animals. Because the really annoying thing about cats is that they bring you gifts. Yeah, they do give you gifts. In the form of various dead creatures. Yes. And so that's what this door does. It will stay locked if the cat tries to bring in a dead rat or a bird or whatever. And our cats used to kill birds and bring them in all the time.

And I think quite as heartbreaking as waking up in the morning going down for breakfast and realizing that your cat has murdered some poor, lovely little bird. Yes. But not to eat, just to impress you. And the thing is that the cat will still murder that bird. Yes, of course. But it will be out of sight, out of mind. Yes, which is exactly, that's what you want out of modern reality.

Like, that's why we're doing this podcast now about this, rather than all the horrific but important events that we should be talking about. I mean, some would say that you could use this technology in the Gaza conflict, but I don't only want to go down. I don't even want to go down that thought of that. We don't want, no. No. To stop things that we don't want happening.

Yes. Anyway, it's a sad thought. No, but it'll stop your cat impressing you, but in many ways that's a good thing. Because I always, I must say when the cat drops a bird, there's one way to take it. One of these, oh, a lovely gift, thank you for giving me your most precious object. The other is it's a threat, isn't it? I'm a killing machine. Yes.

You're next. You're next. Stay in line. I promised I'd bring it home. Okay, bring it home. With a positive item here, okay. Okay. So that was the flappy AI cat door.

Okay, well, I'll be rushing out by that. Now, Charles, you have... I reckon they'll sell less than a hundred than those. You've got, buy what if I had a cat? You are into, like, home gadgets, right? You have a nice coffee machine. Yep. Okay.

What is another machine you could get for the kitchen counter that would make your life better by giving you something you can, you normally have to pay for in a shop? A kitchen counter. Something for your kitchen counter. Yep. So instead of getting, like, really nice coffee, when you want it, like just fresh your ground espresso.

This makes another product that you generally have to pay for at a shop. Ooh, okay. Okay, so maybe yogurt. You fill it with milk and it creates yogurt. You could do that, butter. Not a bad, yogurt's not far off, actually. Oh, okay. Cheese?

You would love that. I would so love that. I would die. It's in the dairy space. Okay, so not yogurt, not cheese, not butter. Oh, whipped cream. Closer, closer still. Ooh, okay.

Whipped sour cream. No, okay, cream fresh. Andrew Hansen would love this. Ice cream. It's an ice cream maker. But wait a minute, you can get ice cream makers already. I've got one. Not like this.

Not like the cold snap. Because your ice cream maker, presumably at home. It churns it. It's not pod-based. So I think of an espresso machine. Yes. They finally found a way to make home- made ice cream more expensive.

Yes, and involve consumers that create rubbish. See, right now, you use milk and sugar and whatever. It doesn't leave, like, a massive amount of stuff that has to go to the tip. Yeah. Doesn't create a war on waste problem. Huge mistake. Yeah, or is this one. So this is kind of like...

And, you know, this one eliminates all the joy of making you own ice cream. That's right. Except for the inconvenience of having to make your own ice cream. So it's kind of like a soda stream. So it's basically, here it is. It's sort of about the size of a small espresso machine. Yeah, so it looks exactly like in a spouser machine. So you put a pod.

You get a, well, it's a cold snap. You get a pod that's like one of those slim cans of Coke. You know, it's a quite large pod. There's a bunch of different flavors and it will make it fresh for you. And it's soft serve ice cream too. Ooh, okay. And do you have to put the milk in or? No, everything's in the pot.

Oh, everything's in the pot. So it's just literally soft serve in a can. So it basically turns, yeah, it's basically turns the pod into beautiful, fresh soft serve. And apparently it's genuinely very tasty. Okay, and how much is that? It is, I don't actually know. Because I know someone who would like that and it would work, which is every fucking McDonald's.

Oh, yeah, no, but Charles. Because their soft serve machines are always broken. What we should do is we should buy one of those machines, stand outside of McDonald's and just profit. It's not a McFlurry, it's a Mick Flurry. Yeah, that's a great idea. So you could do that. But also, isn't it famously the case that almost all soft serves

incredibly unhygienic like that's what you always hear it's kind of made with pig fat and whatever and they don't clean the machines out properly and there's all sorts of bacteria yeah i don't know that but i assume that's always why the ice cream machines aren't working because there's some sort of like they've done some sort of swab and it's basically toxic do you have to clean that one or well you it's your own fault then you'd have to clean you'd have to clean it wouldn't you'd have to clean it'd have to clean it coffee machine. Like, my coffee machine's often beeping at me going, clean me.

Come on. You don't need to do. That's boiling water. Isn't boiling water sterile? It's fine. You don't clean, with the change the filter light and everything? Oh, who needs to do that? Oh, dumb.

A waste of time. Dumb! This thing will kill me one at the cold snap if I ever get one. Anyway, I brought it home. That's a night. But that is a good. That's, you, yeah, it's like, instead of bread and circuses, it's ice cream and and AI.

All we need to do is just all the war torn, troubled parts. the world, just airdrop, just get some of these cold snap machines and put them in there. What I really want is an AI camera like the cat flap, just scans the ice cream machine for Listeria and other things that will kill you. I don't think we can solve the Middle East crisis with soft serve if it is indeed made of pig fat. Yeah, that's a genuine problem. All right, back to the drone.

We were so close. We were so close. We were so close. Oh, dear. Our gear is remote. We're part of the Iconicless network. Should we come back tomorrow? I mean, what's the point?

I'll go on into BLT and think about it.