The Chaser Report - LJ Hooker's Real Estate AI-Gents

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Charles and Dom take a look at the property market in today's episode, and stumble upon a gorgeous rental in Farley being advertised by LJ Hooker. What could possibly go wrong, and how does AI fit into this mess? Plus, Charles explains the 'Dead Internet Theory'Learn more about Charles and Dom's book launch event at Gleebooks here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigall Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Jacea Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. We've got funny slash concerning story about AI being used in a beloved Australian institution. You know the ads that were they to play? You know, thank you, Mr Hooker, LJ Hooker. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of the leading real estate brands, probably one of the most trusted. I'm the most trusted. Yeah. And one of their branches has been using chat GPT to write a copy. Didn't go well. We'll get to that. But before we do, we have an announcement to make. Now, we weren't going to mention this because it's so crude to plug yourself.

Oh, just plugging yourself. Because you constantly plug yourself. Oh, right. But we need to sell some tickets to this. And what better place than this podcast, Charles, I'm so pleased you agreed to launch my book, The Dictionary of Terrible Ideas at Glee Books next week. Wednesday, the 20th of November, 6 for 6.30 p.m. Is launching your book?

in the list of terrible ideas that are in your book? Not yet. I think that's for the second volume. And in return for this, I am so flattered to be the one to launch your book. Yeah, oh yes, I'm very grateful for you to agree to launch my book.

Well, actually, the Chase's book, The Chaser Annual 2024. Yeah, which I wrote at least one caption for, one of the photos. Yeah, kind of contributed.

Am I in the list of contributors? That's a very good question. Yeah, I think you might have written an article or two. Oh, okay. No, I'm in the list. Certainly some headlines. Hang on a second. Craig Roocastle and Chris Taylor contributed to this thing.

Oh, fuck. I think we're supposed to anonymise them. Well, we don't know which bits. Yeah, oh, that's all right. Yeah, yeah. I think Craig just wrote the word contents. Yeah, because he would never submit ideas that he couldn't publish anywhere else. No, that's right.

Nor with Chris Taylor. All right, so anyway. Because, like, he definitely doesn't do it. No, no, he wouldn't do that. It's not as though he has like a kind of comedy writer's sensibility that needs venting anonymously somewhere that's why would he do that why would he do that well he wouldn't do it in a place that then publishes his name would you know what i love is that the chaser is famous for making typos and sloppy areas and by submitting any content to the chaser anyone involved with the chaser

knows that's what we do uh so all you need to do is go to gleebooks dot com dot a u g l double e books dot com dot com and come along on the 20th of november 6 for 630 p p m there's some issues oh yeah there's some issues with this webpage i'll tell you about them after this What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribby you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Okay, the first thing, did you know that we were selling tickets to this thing? Like, it's not free. It's $12. So if you want to come, it's $12. I think drinks are included, though.

That's pretty expensive. But the worst bit is the title of the event. Now, look, we love Glee Books. Cleabooks are supported the Chaser since our first newspaper. But look what they've called the event. Oh, no. Chaser Boy's double header. Someone send that to Jared Henderson.

The only person who still calls us to chase the boys, apparently apart from Glee Books. Embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. I'm 47 years old. And also, yes. So we might get them to change that text by the time you read this. But anyway, it should be a really fun night. We've got two books.

They're both out. They're both topical. And we will record the whole thing for a podcast, I think. In other words, there's no... It'll be a mega edition of the Chaser Report. There's no point in coming because it will appear on the feed anyway. So don't pay your 12. In fact, it's a stupid idea to come to this.

Particularly because Charles might sign your book. But I'll tell you what, the last time we did a live event was for South by Southwest, which was a few weeks ago. We still haven't put it on the feed because we haven't got the files back from them yet. That was excellent. It was so much fun. And I was very sick. I had done vomit.

You weren't there. I had an upset stomach. I couldn't make it. That's right. You also said that the previous live event, which I did. couldn't make because I was overseas was really fun. So is there a pat? Did you poison my drink or something? Anyway, I'm downed if I'm not going to be at the launch of my own book Wednesday the 20th November. That's enough plugging. Can we get onto the story now? Yes. All right.

So imagine you're just a local real estate company, I mean, admittedly part of an enormous conglomerate called LJ Hooker, but let's just say you have to, you've got to write ads. You've got to write text for domain.com.A.U. Or J. Hooker. website and realestate.com.com. Yes. What would you do if you were just a young real estate agent looking to make it in the, you know, in the cutthroat industry? Would you write your own copy or would you outsource it to chat GPT?

Well, Dom, I feel like it would be deeply unethical to write, just use chat GPT. Yeah. And being a real estate agent, I would be guided by my values. You definitely would use chat GPT. Which is to be unethical. And so, yes, I would definitely, like, If you get into real estate agenting, you're not doing it because you want to be the next George Orwell, hey. You're not going, oh, I want to be James Joyce.

Why don't I write some copy about, you know, the local? Well, that's it. If you were looking to be the next George Orwell, spending some time as a real estate agent to write a devastating takedown of the real estate industry, a la animal farm. That could be quite good. Anyway, the point being, LJ Hooker posted an ad for a four-bedroom home in a place called Farley in the New South Wales Hunter region. Yes, I know Farley. That's the place that doesn't have any schools, isn't it? Spoiler of that.

So the website it says, one of the standout features this property is its proximity to excellent educational institutions. Families will appreciate being within a short distance from several highly rated schools, making daily commutes easy and stress-free. Nearby schools include Farley Primary School, known for its nurturing environment and dedicated staff. This school offers a strong foundation for young learners. Charles, could you just Google Farley Primary School? Oh, yeah, that sounds great. Let's see where it ranks in the...

Yeah, in the Naplan test. In the Nat Plan tests. You know, because we don't want this to be misleading anyway. You want a fact check. Well, there's Farley Hill Primary School, which is in England. There's Farley Junior Academy. Oh, that sounds good. Yes, in England.

There's Farley State School. Oh, yeah. which is in... I'm guessing Queensland. Everything called state schools in Queensland. Yeah, and also it's not spelled the same way. Okay, so there's no Farley Primary School. That's probably just an error.

What about this one? Farley High School, Charles, with a range of programs and extracurricular activities, this school prepares students for future success. That sounds good. Future success is good. Yes. Yeah, perfect.

It actually, and I'm just bringing up the Fahley High School website here. Check it out. I actually looks quite good. I mean, they offer, let's see, they offer baseball. They offer mid-south Memphis Shelby County. Hang on, that's in Memphis. Literacy programs. I mean, this is not sounding as though.

Oh, wow, the Keeper of the Dream Award. Oh, so farly high school's a real thing? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, but I've actually been blocked from accessing it, I think, because we want to keep out. Foreigners. Yeah. Oh, and actually they're having a, they're on, they're not actually going to school today

because it's Veterans Day in the United States in Tennessee where Farley High School is. Okay, so the point is neither of those schools actually existed. The Guardian pointed this out. They've got a very good NFL program. So the principal of the local branch of LJ Hooker, a guy called, in Edensall Park guy called Patrick Hunt, said that it had been generated by a chat GPT

and the factual inaccuracies had not been picked up due to human error. I mean, which is the more erroneous CHAPT or the human? But he defends the practices by saying that all the real estate agencies use AI to write property listings. I don't know any real estate agent

that doesn't use it. We have to use it to help produce ads quickly. Well, I think this is the whole point, isn't it? Like, we've now reached peak content, haven't we? And this is where the dead internet theory, I think, starts becoming, going from something that's, you know,

on the boards of 4chan and Reddit and stuff like that. It's actually a mainstream idea. It's on the syllabus at Farley High School. Yeah, probably. Tell us what that theory is after this. What's better than a well marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door.

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Well, the dead internet theory is actually very simple. It's basic idea is that we've created a whole lot of content. AI is then being trained on all that content. And it's sort of good enough to create all future content. Oh, are you talking about the sludge problem? Yeah. And so the problem is that, you know, every firm, especially ones who have to do fairly boring jobs, like put up real estate listings, are of course going to just use AI to do that.

But the problem is that then to juice their SEO numbers and stuff like that, they'll also use AI bots to interact with all that content as well, right? And so what you end up doing is humans eventually get completely taken out of that that whole loop. And the theory is that Facebook itself is actually there are no humans involved in the creation or viewing of any Facebook content anymore. That's great. And it is entirely just AI content being interacted with other AI bots.

That's kind of funny. So you've got AI bots posting pictures of their children or their whole. holidays or whatever, and other AI bots going, wow, looks like a great holiday, and it doesn't need to involve humans. That's actually a good outcome. It's actually taken humans out of that whole. Yeah, it's freed us up. It's actually good.

We don't have to do that. It's freed us up to do what's far more important in this modern world, which is to proofread AI content. I thought you're going to say, which is to go on TikTok. No, no, it's to proofread all the condens that it fucking generates. But there's another issue with this job. We're going to end up serving the AI content. bots, you know.

For sure. Like literally already people's job, like real estate agents are not there using AI as tools. Where the servants of the AI engines. Yeah. And they're certainly not using their brains to prefer it. But Charles, it goes even further because one of the biggest problems on the internet now is AI sludge. So what this is is that for any given subject now, there are countless websites that simply replicate what AI produces in order to. try and get hits, right?

Yeah. So that's the one problem. And there's also the pink slime problem, which is where partisan websites in the United States, for instance, use AI to generate partisan content full of misinformation. So basically the quality of the average site on the internet is going down and down and down and down. Oh, absolutely.

And particularly the AI sludge. We've had that problem on the Chaser website, and we don't even use AI. That's right. The humans were really the Chaser were pioneers of that. But here's the problem, Charles. Of course, as we know, the way that AI trains itself, is by scanning the rest of the internet.

So if you imagine the AI continuously scanning more and more sites with AI sludge, training itself on worse and worse material, getting further and further removed from reality, and basically disappearing up its own cyber asshole, so to speak. Like, the AI will, everything that you read on an AI will presumably have just gone through infinite layers of processing by other AIs to the point where it was impossible to know what's true. And I think that this will, I think this will end. A lot of internet content.

Like, I think what's going to end up happening. And I've already started sort of mildly seeing it in my kids, who are, of course, addicted to their phones and everything like that, which is we've sort of reached the end of content. Like, my eldest goes outside and interacts with friends, and, you know, he's got a whole plant collection going on. Oh, dear God, plants. Yeah, yeah, like just sort of growing things.

Physical plants. Yes, doing a bit of gardening and stuff like that. But can't you have more fun? fun just looking at pictures of plans on Instagram or TikTok. Well, he does do that. But, no, I think because of, you know, you don't know whether it's real or AI or stuff that, you actually end up just, and I don't know about you, but don't you find yourself sort of, I don't know, like I literally in the last year have started just going back

and reading books by authors from a time before the internet. Yeah, this is true. It is getting duller and dull. And the thing I've started doing in the past few years is actually reading books again, absolutely. And particularly trying to go to sleep. Yes, exactly. Just actually using, and I'm, you know, getting a Kindle

so that there's no internet on it. Oh, yes. The shittiest internet ever. And I could buy paper books, I suppose. And so, Charles, are we saying that basically screen time has solved itself by becoming so, like, there's no need for moralising or whatever. It's just become such a terrible experience that now plants and books are a welcome break.

Yes, that's right. And things like, like in my kids' generations and they're teenagers, it's considered rude to, you know, be on your phone or bring your phone with you when you go out. Yes, there's a whole rejection of that sort of. And, you know, to my complete, like, I'm completely appalled by it, but, you know, my kids actually see the upside in the school phone bag. The school phone bag. Yes.

So they actually, they've turned around. How fascinating. been quite, it's sort of like, I think we've got to do something about the youth. The youth of today are, they're not going off the rails like they're supposed to. Charles, I'm going on the rails. We're at your house now, Charles, so I can see the plants to which you're referring. And I can also see the lizard. There's like real actual pets here.

Charles, I want you to do something for me, okay? Just trust me on this. I want you to go over to the kitchen there, find some matches. Yes. Trust me on this. It's going to be okay. Yeah. set fire to those plants.

Ooh. Just a little bonfire. And the lizards are going to have to go as well. I don't know if you've never barbecued a lizard before, but it's... Yeah. I just... Well, there's plenty of meg pies around here. Push them back to the screens.

No, well, you know what we've done? We've accidentally made the only optimistic episode of The Chase Report in its history. Episode 1001 is actually, we've come to the conclusion that actually the internet, through the process of our favourite word in shittification... Yes. has become so bad that it no longer has a hold on young people. Yes, that's right. That's exactly what I'm saying.

Can we just stop this podcast and like go for a walk or something? I think that that's what we should do, yeah. That's right, without even listening to a podcast while we walk. They just literally, I don't know, breathe in the air. Can you go for a walk without air pods in? I've forgotten how. I've heard that it happens. I'm scared, Charles, you think it'll be okay?

I think it's going to be great. What even is this podcast now? We're part of the Aconiclass Network. Will we catch you tomorrow? Maybe we'll be too busy smelling the flowers. We might see you in person on our walk or at the book launch on the 20th of November for those in Sydney. Maybe we shouldn't even record it. Maybe we'd just be in the moment.

No. You know what we should do? We should record like the first 15 minutes and then it should get unseatable for publication. I love it. Yep. That's a terrible idea as well. They should go in your book. I think it's already there.

What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribby you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver.