The Daily Show: Ears Edition - The Precap | Jordan Klepper on Xi's Pandas, Tuberville's Furry Pilots & Trump's "Super Intelligence" Branding Fail

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

This week's host Jordan Klepper sits down with Daily Show writer Randall Otis to recap the latest news and preview the week to come. They weigh in on President Xi giving America the glorious gift of pandas during an otherwise fruitless summit with Trump, Sen. Tommy Tuberville obsessing over furry pilots in the airline industry, and Meta launching its Muse Charm AI device as wearable tech continues to gamify everything. Plus, Klepper and Randall examine Trump's uninspired rebrand of artificial intelligence as "super intelligence" and look ahead to this week's guests: novelist Marlon James, Irish musician CMAT, and director John Wilson. -- The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central. Stream full episodes on Paramount+ Follow TDS: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Do us a favor if you could and tell them the Daily Show Ears Edition sent you to support the show. You're listening to Comedy Central. Hello, and welcome to the pre-cap, a Daily Show podcast where we sit down with this week's host to recap some of the latest news and preview was coming up next. I'm Randall Otis. I'm a writer at the show. And I'm joined today by your host this week, Jordan Klepper. Randall, how are you? I'm doing pretty good.

I'm all right. How are you? I'm good. I'm ready. I'm ready. Big week. You're excited to take on? You know what? I've been through Northeaster. You know, this is, it was the weekend of the North Easter, and we battled it, and New York has come back stronger. At least the enclave that I've been in came back stronger.

Yeah. And or got into work today. And so I'm ready to face whatever metaphorical storm hits the Daily Show offices this week. Well, there's been a lot of metaphorical storms, Jordan, so I'm glad you're prepared. You have to be, you know? Or you have to, you, you, you kill the part of you that gets scared by the chaos. So you make yourself dead inside, and that prepares you for the storm, metaphorically. And some of us just have no fear because, you know, we're adults and can face the world as it is, but you can do whatever you need to do. Yeah, oh yeah, no, I'm inside of a little child who has had

to kill the part of him that's alive so that he can face the onslaught of the news, but you do you. And that's what you get at the Daily Show. Little boys hosting news programs. Tall, long little boys. I'm just the lankiest of little boys. Just stretch me out, put me in a chair, lower that chair down. You know what I noticed for the first time? I've been at the show for a decade plus.

Been behind that host chair for a couple years now. And last week, I believe, I saw, I had to do a promo in the desk right at rehearsal. and I saw them switch out the chair, my chair with Desi's chair. And I realized that my freakish height forced them to have a chair that could go very low so that Desi could look like a normal person and I could look like a normal person. We're not sitting in the same chair.

It's okay. I also noticed that at rehearsal and I'm glad that's the explanation because in my mind I thought Desi was like, I don't want to touch anything he's touched. Get that chair out of my sight. This is now I read into it, it was a height accommodation,

but you think it was simply like, oh my god this guy has sullied I have a mind of malice and paranoia so yours is a much better nicer description that's probably true I think it's high well I because I've seen John they bring on a ladder and John just stands on top of a ladder to do the show and then they

forklift the ladder up because he's that's smalled out and then they lower the audience the audience has to get lowered about a good four feet so that they're looking up and then with the cameras in the right place then it looks it looks normal yeah if you haven't been to the show John is so short that everyone looks down on him like you're looking into a like a tank at an aquarium.

Yes, exactly. And he does tricks. It's like the ways of which, remember how they used to do when they would do surgery? They would seat everybody up and they would look down into the body cavity. It's a situation like that. Before we get into the news, I will say as a writer, this is a difficult thing I have a problem with sometimes. Because, you know, part of comedy is making self-facing jokes. But I'm your writing for someone else.

And so when you write a self-effacing joke for someone else, it is you writing an insult. Yes. And so sometimes I'm like, I hope this is not a sore spot for you because I'm going hard on you. Now, can I ask you? So you have to write for multiple hosts and correspondence. Is anybody more difficult to write self-effacing jokes? Not exactly. I will say maybe John, because John does like to make Jewish jokes.

And so already Jewish jokes, I'm like, hey, just so you know, this is because I'm in your mind. I don't believe. I feel you would say this in jest. But when they don't pick that joke, you're like, ah. You know I don't mean that. It's because you would say it, sorry. You just run by, John. Just so you know, I thought you would like it.

I don't believe. We're on the same page, right? We're a team. I feel like whenever I do something like sports wars. which tends to really go pretty hard at one another. I become very aware of my limitations and how weird my head is shaped, how tall I am. There was a point where it felt like the writers went really hard at like my inability to have like sex or like to achieve like an erection.

I've gotten quite accustomed to looking strange, but there was like an extra level of like, Did people decide that I'm, I'm really, I'm really, I'm, I'm an asexual human being. It has no appeal to anybody else. It feels like the writer's room just sort of went with that and ran. And I had to kind of go back through, like, what vibes have I been giving off that I've opened up? This is for the character version of me, right? Yeah, right? I will say another tough adjustment is when we come off a Josh week and someone else.

And I'm still in like, I can write whatever black joke I want mode. And then Desi's like, I can't say this on TV. I'm like, you're right. You're right. I got to adjust. The Daily Show teaches empathy, is what it is. You have to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and then make fun of those shoes. But understand that there are different shoes.

There are different shoes. Speaking of different shoes, it has nothing to do with our next topic. But we could easily talk about different shoes. President G visited America. He's already left, right? I believe he has departed, is my assumption. I think the pandas have stayed, but G. G. is gone.

Yes, he brought us a glorious gift of two pandas that are going to the Atlanta Zoo. and I think that may be all that was accomplished in this trip. In some ways it feels like she sees us more than we see ourselves. All you have to do, deliver the cuddly pandas. The media will go apeshit, for lack of a better term, over the pandas. Trump will be excited about it. And then we can focus on more important things like AI on our own timetable because these little ones are just happy enough

because they got bears. Yeah, part of me does feel like it is a purposeful, the pageantry of it, because we know we don't hold the cards when it comes to trading. So it's like we need as much spectacle as possible to cover up the fact that we really can't tell them anything right now. And I also, we were talking about this earlier,

I do feel that Xi trolls us without us being like the American people, the news or Trump understanding that we're being trolled. Like I was saying when Trump went to China, I don't know if it's earlier this year or last year, and it was at the height of the Epstein files being in the news, Trump was greeted by hundreds of children. And I'm like, he's messing with you. And then he comes here where the number one thing that we were supposed to talk about was trade in which we get no concessions, no rare earth matterals, none of that.

but he's like, here's some fucking pandas. I'm like, he is trolling us. He is trolling us hard, and we're just too stupid. We're like, oh, the pandas are great. I'm like, no, it is an insult. We are being insulted. I don't know. I think we haven't seen the polling yet on the truckers across America

or having problems paying for diesel. We haven't seen if they've been swayed by the pandas that we've achieved. You know, truckers, we make a lot of assumptions about the interests of truckers. but the panda interest in truckers is something we rarely ever look at. And maybe the tides are turning and this will pave the wave for that red wave in the midterms. It would be great if at an exit poll interview, they talk to a trucker.

It's like, look, yeah, I lost my rig, my business. It's difficult for me to travel to work. But, you know, the pandas really turned things around for me. It really made me realize what America's all about. I mean, cute shit. People like cute shit. I do. As a person who doesn't truck, I think it's great.

You do a truck? Who doesn't truck. Oh, doesn't? You don't truck. I don't engage in trucking. I'm not, it's against my religion. But, um, I, pandas, for me, that's the best outcome of this meeting. I like cute shit.

I have a little kid who likes cute shit. I see a lot of cute shit. If you could bring axolotles, are you aware of axelotles? Axelotles. Are axelotos, those like weird little amphibious things with the... Yes. Yes. Yes.

They, they're incredibly adorable. I've never seen one in real life because I think they're almost microscopic. They're not microscopic. I saw them at the aquarium the other day. You actually saw one. I saw one. Yeah? They're like this big.

I tell you, whatever. They're like lizards, sea lizards. Yes. Are they as cute? Like, do you need to zoom in to understand how cute they are? No, they're really cute. They do the little, like, smile thing. Yeah.

Like, you know, their perpetual face is like you're walking by someone in the office so you don't really know. But you're like, let me tell you, this is where you get people on your side. Cute overload. You know? what in my that's the thing though like knowing american politics there's part of me it's like it might work i don't know well i mean knowing the the media ecosystem which also this is this is taking place in such a unique vacuum like watching all last week where suddenly trump is bringing a she in with an authoritarian government who limits the media uh suddenly into the white house where the media has been

limited and is boycouting covering all of this and then she drops just the shiny object for not only the media to chase, but more so for Trump to uphold as the big win. It does feel like an FU to this whole charade that we have. And yet it also feels like a testing point of like, all right, we're going to show

what sort of access we give the media, what sort of stories are going to chase. I think the thing that feels almost tragic to me is we were talking about this. I think we were talking about it today too. There are such implications about America's relationship with China, about AI, about trade.

There's so many important. important conversations to be had. There's negotiations to be done. There's also there's bartering. There's there's conversations. There's there's intellect to be we need to have intellectual conversations around a relationship with this giant partner. Yeah. And yet, they're throwing pandas at us and Trump is showing AI pen pictures of Joe Biden on the wall like he's a 24 year old who trolled somebody. It's like, please, please, please, please. Let's just. Let's get some adults in this room. I do, yeah.

I also do wish I could understand Mandarin, or I should pay more attention to Chinese media, even though it's, like, very controlled. I'm just so curious when Xi is walking around the White House being show the auto pen stuff, looking at a demolished east wing, walking by the reflecting fool that's messed up. I wonder if it is mine.

He's like, huh, I thought I was going to need spies to do all this, but you guys are really beating yourselves in your own dick. this is great. It's like he's doing a victory lap. I didn't even have to try. You think just for fun, he's like, can you take me by the Kennedy Center? I love to just see,

fuck, man, they are. I'm just taking photos like, ha, ha, ha, ha. They're doing it to themselves. Good job, USA. There's also been in the news, Tommy Tuberville, the senator from Alabama, who is warning us about a very dire threat

of furries in commercial airlines as the pilots. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. He fears that there are pilots who on their own time dress up as mascots and have sexual Congress.

And he believes that in and of itself is something that should disqualify them as pilots. But more so it should be the focus of his ire at this point right now. Would you have any personal feelings about having a furry pilot? The only issue I have with a furry pilot is if I saw them, I just want to talk to them for hours on end, and it would never take off.

Let me in there. Let me know. I want to know. I got to know more about it. You know, there's, I want to know, I mean, I kind of get it. I want to know logistics of furry sex. I want to know hangouts. I want to like, is there a, is there like a conference that takes place?

There is a conference, right? There is a free conference, right? There's a big convention. I know they have one in New York. And, yeah, I just, I'll win. You don't have to, you know, come on, you're not going to fly a plane. Tuberville's not coming for you. They're very nice.

Sure. The costumes are soft. Are they mascot specific? They're mostly just costumes. Yeah, it's a costume. It pretty much is like kind of a cutified football mascot. Is it anime adjacent? Is it like...

It feels that way. I'm not entirely sure. But when I look at the costumes, they seem... I do get like Japanese vibes. I hear mascot and it does make me think more college football and it feels like the fan base or the furry clientele are more so sports related. But anime makes it feel it's more niche than that.

Yeah, no, it's definitely its own aesthetic that gets propagated. And I feel too, like, I don't know, when it comes to flights and pilots, my perspective is whatever you need to do, do it do it whatever it gets me to Ohio

you're thinking Denzel in flight right yeah I'm like if you need that to do your job I'm I will feed you kibbles and bits out of the palm of my hand if that's what it takes if Sully if Sully Sullenberger walks off that plane and puts on a Dalmatian outfit

and takes it great also how much better would that have been to see on the news the plane land on the Hudson then you just see this dog walk out and you're like, what? It's like, that's the guy.

That's the guy. He's getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's the man. And it also just shows, I mean, dear Lord, the obsession. It peaks inside that guy's head, which there's a lot of cavernous space. In Tuberville.

In Tuberville's head. Just of like, this is what you're spending your time with, but also just the obsession with the, these right-wing Christian mindset of like, we have to, we have to be aware of what's happening in bedrooms across America and then we have to do something about that. Just this party that wants to be left alone to do their own things

and yet now wants to somehow go after pilots for things that they do. And again, this is assuming there's reality to the accusations that are there. It's beyond that, even if there are, like, that being an obsession is so wild. There was a video that caught my eye. He doubled down on this. He said it on the floor, I believe, and then, And then TMZ hounded him about it afterwards. And this video kind of blew my mind because, one, he's doubling down because he's obsessed thinking about people having sex and having lives that are more exciting and interesting than his own.

And yet, then you have TMZ, which is chasing after the senator with no actual question. They're just chasing the excitement and the tawdryness of it. And watching those two just exist in the halls of Congress is like, these organizations, these entities that both don't really know what they're talking about. They're just chasing a story that they actually don't fully understand with zero research on either end. And that's God bless TMZ. I see them like hustling out there. And I like holding the feet to the fire wherever they can. But more often than that, you see like they're catching senators and Congress folks and they don't really have anything to ask them. They don't have anything to like,

they're not shaming them with hypocrisy. They're just sort of like, I need them to say something crazy because I'm used to just running up on Jonah Hill outside an airport and having him try to say something weird. So I'm going to just ask you to say something crazy, but I don't know anything about your political standpoint. So they feel like to me these boats that you wind up and then you put in the water and they just go haywire. Like that's what TMZ and Tuberville are. They're just like, they don't know where they even want to end up. They just know they want to be wound up and just let go. And that's sort of Washington right now. Yeah, like to fit the metaphor. forward to the story. It is very much like a dog chasing a car. I don't know what to do once I get it.

And it makes me think of two things. One is kind of what you're talking about of Tuberville doesn't even know where he's going because I'm thinking about the closest corollary I can think about is when conservatives argued against gay marriage, right? Even though it was wrong, I disagree. There was the logic they presented of like, the reason we can't have this is because it will lead to these negative outcomes for society. But with Tuberville, he's just like, I think it's kind of weird. I'm like, but what are the, what's the negative impact on society?

He's like, it's just weird to me. Yeah. There's nothing else after that. There used to have to be a logic for the bullshit. Yeah. Or at least you had to, you felt compelled to present it. Even if there were more nefarious reasons for the political points you took, you still had an obligation to give us a logic.

Yeah. That has gone by the way, It's also an example of just how Why are such old people in charge right now? There are AI, please. Like, Tabby Tuberville feels like a grandpa who just read a weird sex thing or somebody, like, he was scrolling

on whatever device Tuberville has and saw a weird sex thing. It was like, oh my God, this is crazy. I got to talk about this. It's like, grandpa, chill up. People have talked about this for quite some time. And now your brain is obsessed with it because you've never seen these images before.

Like, there's, this is, This person should be enacting rules for AI companies right now. But dear Lord, he's still focused on mascot sex because that blows his mind. It is one of those things like, oh, if you write the history of AI, say it does lead to the worst possible consequences. Like, all right, what were people doing to combat it? It was like, we're mostly talking about people dressing up in costumes and fucking each other. It's like, oh, you don't even try. We didn't even try to stop it.

We were kind of busy with more important things. Sorry, guys. Yeah. There's also the joy of being in a safe slash an uncontested seat because there are some politicians who are focusing on AI because they have to because they might lose their race. But Tuberville, Alabama, Senator, not even up for re-election. They're just like, I can have fun in conservative Disneyland. It's like, oh, what's the weirdest thing I can find?

Oh, first, all right. That'll be what I do for the rest of this Congress. and also the next Congress, because what are you going to do about it? It's a very much, what are you going to do about it, energy to even cover this at all. This scene is safe, baby.

I'm just going to sit in it. Related to AI, we got meta out here to releasing a new product that everyone will love, I'm assuming, the muse charm, which I didn't hear about

until today, which is apparently, you might know more. It's a device you wear like a necklace, and it listens to you, it talks to you,

it records you. It's sort of like an evolution of the meta glasses. Maybe evolution is giving it too much credit, but it holds your information. If you have the meta glasses, are you into wearable tech? I'm not.

I just haven't found a use for it in my life at all. Like, what would I, what do you, what does it do for me that I'm not doing right now? I am, I am anti-awareable tech. I mean, part of that is I feel like it will, I don't need a device to tell me how I slept last night or what my heart rate is.

I will say the heart rate thing. The only time I have used it is I was playing squash with a friend. Yeah, we're liberal leads here. I was playing squash. And it has this zones of like good heart health, intense, danger. And we were like, let's see if we can get to danger. And we got to about 15 seconds in the danger zone. And I was like, yeah, that was not good.

The AI was pretty, the tech was right. That was not good to get. But the tech is what got you there. It is. Yeah, I wouldn't have even tried. The tech gamified it. So you're like, ooh, I should do this. You wouldn't have gone there beforehand.

Yeah, that's true. It didn't save your life. It invited you to threaten your life. It did endanger me. Yeah. I got, I got entrapped by the wristbands. I have friends who have so gamified the way they sleep and move through space and time because of all of that. I mean, I think the baseline level was like the 10,000 steps that became a novelty within the last decade,

which is curious to see how much you're moving or what have you, but suddenly you gamify that. All of that has never made my life better. And I see Mark Zuckerberg, like, constantly trying to over-gameify the things that you can wear, mixed with fashion, which I don't need Mark Zuckerberg's fashion sense to impede on our lifestyle. The glasses, they don't work for me. I like Buddy Holly. He rocked it, but Buddy Holly wasn't spying on me at all times. But he was already cool, too. He's very much, now Zuckerberg's trying to, we were talking about this, this is my opinion.

The only tech person who's ever been semi-cool was Steve Jobs. And the rest of these guys are absolute losers compared to him. Well, they all want to be him. They want to be, they want to be Steve Jobs. They also, you, you know, you have to be a public persona now, or at least it's very hard not to be. And so they become the face of these companies. And you see they're literally a bit like they it comes from socially stifled adults who are literally building friends and ways in which to connect to human beings in a digital world because they don't have that

outside of it. And now you are seeing moments where literally Mark Zuckerberg is trying to start fashion trends and force other people to join in on that fashion trend, which is the mindset of a of a nine-year-old. or I'd say the mindset of a 12 year old who bought that one fancy gold chain and is convinced themselves that I'm going to go to school this is going to suddenly be the cool thing everybody else around me is going to see the cold chain and in within a month everybody's gonna have a gold chain and let me like oh man Carlo Carlo was the coolest he knew it he knew it a month ago and we all all hail Carlo I feel like you see

that in Zuckerberg of like I will be on the forefront and I will make it happen and through an algorithm and through digital technology, I will create the style that becomes the future and I will be hailed. But that's a thing that's the self-aggrandizement that I find so strange is because there is a job for that in terms of you have a spokesperson. You know, I don't know who owns State Farm. It's not Jake. But we're like, yeah, Jake, we'll get him out there.

He's pretty charismatic people seem to like his face. But all of these tech people at Zuckerberg's like, I'm Jake. It's like, you're not Jake. You will never be Jake. You think meta needs their own Jake. Get a person who people like to sell your product. It's one of the oldest operations of business of capital is like, look, I'm a weird, freaky little guy. Obviously, people don't like to see me. Let's get a cool person who people do like to see it. But no, I have to be the special little boy out there representing the product. It's like, no, you don't.

No, you do not. You should not be. It is odd. It is odd for it to be you. Yeah. Yeah. And Elon. Elon, he's like, I want to be the guy.

And the, the, the, invidia. He's like, I'm going to wear alligator jackets. I'm like, none of you are cool. This is, you are right. They, they, they, you get to own the company. You don't get to be, you don't get to be the star of a progressive ad at at the same time. Yes. There are plenty of wonderful sketch actors out there who will.

will become the star of those ads for you. I'll saw my soul. Child labor, I can look past that. Come on. No, I'm kidding. Well, you're half kidding. You're like, yeah, I mean, if the price is right, sure. Yeah, I can look, put a weird emulette on me. I'll take those fancy glasses.

Yeah, give me the glasses. It'll make every evil things look like sunshine and rainbows. Yeah, this is money. I've been too. You know Kevin Hart will do it. Kevin Hart will. Shaq and Kevin Hart exist for a reason. And it's to sell this dumb.

bullshit. You don't even have to ask. You set it up, put it out there in the ether. Kevin Hart will show out up. He'll sell your amulets. You know, it'll be charming. He's already got too many gambling ads to go do after later in the day. So keep the shot short.

It's going to be a short filming day. But God bless. Truly, yeah. You're keeping your best player on the bench. Use it, Mark. Use them. Advertising on Spotify puts your brand in the moments where Gen Z fandom takes shape.

They're 35% of our audience and spend two hours building rituals and shaping culture with every stream. Download the Culture Next Report to discover trends and insights that will inspire your next campaign. We're at the Pre-CAP Looking Ahead section.

I love it. I love it. You know, it's fun as it is to look back on all we've been through. Can you imagine the things we're about to go through? The beautiful future of hosting. So we got kind of just AI as a topic is perennial at least at the moment

the very important thing more important than legislation or setting up barriers is that we're trying to or Trump's trying to rename AI into SI, superintelligence which is caught on with all my friends

I'm surprised we've been calling it AI this entire pre-cap because it's a new term it's it's SI baby it does Part of me feels, in terms of all the news of that AIs might kill us all in the next 10 years, is Trump doing the thing of, like, being nice to the weird kid. It should be like, hey, you know, he might pop off and go crazy.

But remember, I said you were super intelligent. I love you, baby. I think you're great. Just going by your smart refrigerator, like, you know, I think you're the best appliance in the house. Remember that. You're super, right? remember that when you think about leaking coolant into my apartment.

This also, it pushes, Trump is usually good at branding. I mean, he puts his name on every gosh darned thing, but there's a world where it was like, that's the thing he likes more than anything. But you see where, oh, we've, we've overutilized this so much now that we, this is, it's such first draft

branding. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's where it does feel like he's kind of losing a step because, you know, kind of. But he, you know, he used to come up with so many good nicknames, but now super intelligence, everything we rename is just America, Lake America,

Gulf America, straight America. It's like, okay, the lexicon at the library has been corrupted and we don't have many files left. He used to workshop stuff. Like the Lion Joe came from, he workshopped a few Hillary terms at the time.

You'd see it happen in real time on Twitter where like he'd throw out a nickname, it wouldn't stick, or what have you, and he'd keep working through it and then eventually people would. This one, yeah, he's tired. He's going to bed early. He's like, yeah, this should be good enough. Even super intelligence, when he was announcing it, he referenced the fact that it's SI now, which makes him think of Sports Illustrated, which, like he already saw that there was an imperfection in the brand. I don't know. Well, he even, but he did test it because he gave us three options. I remember one was super

intelligence, what was supreme intelligence? And one was, I can't remember the third one. And that one got, the one didn't get voted for, so he cut it off after a couple days. Yeah, so he said Supreme was like, Supreme's not doing great, so Supreme's got to go. But I'm like, you didn't even give us good options. There's not one thing in here that's like, oh, I could see that instead of the thing we all naturally use already for the past, I don't know, five years. I mean, he doesn't even have the guts to use artificial intelligence to give him 10 options to pick from renaming artificial intelligence. This is how old this man is. Well, that's the thing, because you've been covering Trump, Trump supporters,

for like a decade at this point. But I don't know. I can't, I'm not any closer to understanding his man's mind. Like, I don't understand what this fixation is about. Like, can you, do you have any insight to, like, where could this be coming from, this desire to call it super intelligence? Well, I think, to me, it's that the well is dry. And, I mean, I think he does feel like,

such an old man here who doesn't know how to connect to it. As a lot of people are unsure about this technology as it moves forward, I think, like, he has no, he has an inability to articulate what is, what is scary about artificial intelligence. And I do think quite earnestly, he's like, fuck, I think this thing makes money. I don't fully understand it. I think if I add any kind of regulations or limitations to it, then this could affect the economy in a negative way. So I just have to be, yay, artificial intelligence.

How do I do that? I'll just throw my branding machine on it and go with God. although I think what is in Congress with his supporters right now is that I think there is an anxiety about AI and so and and we are just flooding flooding the the scene with so much shit like I don't I don't know I'm going out soon to talk to to more supporters about it I don't know if any of this is actually sticking or resonating or solves the problem that is there that it's a branding issue I think there's an anxiety there that he doesn't know how to speak to and And he's sort of lost the plot as far as that goes.

It's like people, they don't like the data centers. They don't like what's happening with AI. And you don't really know how to talk about it. So you just put this weird band-aid over. And maybe we go out there and everybody's calling it super intelligence and that has fixed the problem. But my instinct is no. Yeah, it does.

With AI, it is this thing where it feels like, in terms of the technical aspects, it's too complicated for like the average person to understand. I don't understand the ins and everything. out of the actual technology. But this may have the worst rollout in terms of public relations for a product that I've ever seen. Because the positive, like we were talking, I would say like for the iPhone, things like that when it came out, all the positives are front load.

It's like, oh, camera's very easy to use. All of your technology is in one place. Look at all these just cool little apps that you can get at every moment. And then later it's like, okay, we're not responding on you. We're not usually getting the materials for the most ethical way. But the good stuff was front-loaded. But it feels like with AI, all the horrible stuff has been front-loaded. It's like, we're going to take up half your time with the data center.

It does hack into a lot of places it shouldn't hack into. It's going to take a job and it might kill you. But! And I'm like, no, no. That should have been after the but. Yeah. You know, what this is exposing, Corey Doctoro wrote a wonderful book about this. But there are a lot of things to be afraid about AI in the way in which it's utilized.

But AI can be a tool. And what it, at its best, is a tool that is used by people to, to, to help to create solutions to big problems. But it's often a tool for bosses. Like more often than now, what you are seeing is that AI can do a lot of awful things. But more often than not, it's the bosses who are doing awful things with AI. They are not limiting AI. They are using AI to replace. people instead of using AI to expedite problems that are issues and then using those resources

to give those people better wages and to utilize them in better places. Like there's examples about like, you know, you could put machines in Walgreens that takes away the jobs of three different people who have to scan items at Walgreens. Or you could take those three people who now two of their jobs have been replaced by the machines that you added for scanning and you could give them new jobs at Walgreens to be customer service people to open them up to be more helpful on the rounds there. It's a boss's decision to be like, oh, fuck it, no, we're not using that money we saved to put it here. Like, the boss is the asshole there. Like those machines took away those two jobs, but a good boss might find ways in which to utilize those two people who now have more free

time to make the customer service experience better. And I think AI more often than not has those opportunities. We're like, what this is exposing is how shitty the bosses are in this gosh darn country. The people in charge who are given this tool aren't limited where it needs to be limited and when they are given the keys to expedite things are making the choice to get rid of the humans as opposed to unlock opportunity within those humans. And there's an oversimplification within some of that but I do think more often than out what we are seeing with with this is like we have shitty greedy bosses who have been given a

tool that can make things work better. And they keep blaming, like, AI's taking your job. No, you made a choice. You made a choice instead of evolve that job. Utilize it. That person was, yeah, maybe AI took away some of the bullshit that that person was doing day in and day out. That person is a full human being who can do other things as well. And it's on the boss to utilize that in a smart way. Don't keep blaming AI for it. Blame that fucking boss. That is funny because I'm realizing now, as you say that, how I, talk about AI is as if it is already autonomous but no it's like oh AI did this thing I was like well it's not a control it's not so who so yeah that's and I think there's bosses are

like oh they add that no no you're still in control boss man what no I just hold the gun it tells me what to do and we're still in this space where it's like let's look at the CEOs let's look at the bosses let's look at the people in charge who are utilizing it and they are still making the choices. It's not just AI that's ruining it all right now. Well, I don't know if you wanted to talk about the Nvidia security platform to protect us. Yeah, that's what we're seeing now some of these AI companies are afraid of the power of AI and now starting to create products and selling products to help protect from the threat of AI, which is very mafia. It's like, woof, it'd be a shame if someone came in here and messed your shit up. It's like, aren't you messing my

shit up, why don't you shut up and buy the protection? Yeah. It's like, well, I didn't have this problem before you came in. Yeah, exactly. But it's all worth it because Googling things is slightly easier now. And that's the most I use it for. It's the thing that pops out up and tells you this is the answer to that query you have, right? It is great.

I always love using AI to like search something up. And then you look at the sources. I'm like, that's just like a 12-year-old on Reddit who posted that answer. I'm like, I don't know if that's right. And it's like, shut up. You got the answers, didn't you? I know this is more often than not, I will type in Google, and now AI has replaced that Google search. When I type that in, I'll do it for like restaurants or things that are nearby.

I am shocked at how incorrect it is. But I can already feel my senses numbing to, like, you know, initially it's like, jump past this and look where the sources are, read some articles. You have a better chance of actually getting answers. You just feel how these neurons, we get smoothed over. and it's like, I can feel myself just getting used to what this is. Oddly enough, though, it does make it feel more human to me in the sense of, like, when I used to Google stuff, I would get very precise exact answers,

but now it does feel like you just kind of ask, like, your dumb friend. He's like, oh, well, who was that guy in that movie? Oh, that was definitely, that was Michael Jackson. It's like, I don't know if it was, but, you know, whatever. It is. It's a dumb friend. You're like, is you right? I don't know, sometimes he's right.

It's an answer. Yeah. Maybe that's, we are, it scratches the itch of, I need an answer right? No, not exactly the edge if I need the right answer. Yeah, and I think sometimes, this is hot to, I think sometimes misinformation is okay if it's low-level stuff that doesn't matter. Like sometimes I'll be like, you know, I heard volcanoes actually spew this type of gas instead of this one. They're like, oh, that's wrong. I was like, oh, well, no one's hurt by that.

Now, if it's about like government policy and you get the wrong answer, that's not good. But certain things, I think you got to allow, there's a certain amount of misinformation you will and ever will get. You just have to engage with that responsibly. engage with stupidity in a responsible way. I will be, let myself be stupid in these areas. It hurts no one. I like to think of it as like, it's like the affable looking stranger on a corner that you ask. Yeah.

Do you know if there's a good pad tie spot around here? Like, oh yeah, two blocks up that way, great pat tie. Is that guy right? Sometimes. Yeah. But if it's Mexican, it's like, all right, I'm not going to die. I can still eat here. Don't ask that guy about...

Where the hospital is. Yes, where the hospital is. What do he thinks about nuclear proliferation? It's just like, you. You know what? Don't ask that guy. But there are small rins of questions that you're fine. You'll do. We also have a lot of very interesting guests coming up this week. Hot week of guess on this show.

We got Marlon James. Yeah, Marlon James wrote The Disappearers, which the New York Times is heralding as the book of the freaking century. Yeah. I read it. It's the talk of the town right now. It is, wow. it is a truly impressive book. It is 600 plus pages, which I say only, and like, it is worth it. You sit in this world, which starts in like the 80s, Jamaica, sort of deals with

like homophobia and being gay in closet at that time, and it follows this group of theater performers in Jamaica, and it spans 20 years about how people deal with grief and violence and sexuality, and it's a remarkable book. I dove into this book, and I feel changed after having read it. So I can't wait to talk to about all that stuff. I'm excited to read it. Anything where the topic is highly specific, I'm like, the person writing it must have a very clear vision of what they want to be.

Because no one just happens to write a book about queer culture in 80s, Jamaica. No. And I think Marlon James grew up in Kingston. Yeah, so he has plenty of opinions about it. There's a quote that I'm butchering, but that like this is a completely true story and everything is made up. But it clearly is, I think the true story part is so much research from a perspective. And I don't know if I hadn't heard all the great reviews. I don't know if I'd pick up the 600-page book that I'm like, what is this about?

Well, it's about 80s queer culture in Jamaica. I'm like, oh, am I going to be able to connect? of this? I don't know. It's a hefty thing to connect with. But it is, it's amazing to dive into a novel that you find so much connection to, but also eye-opening with like what is happening in Jamaica. What is happening across the world at this time? Like it's, I don't know, the, the power of fiction lies in this book. I'm excited. Yeah. We also have C-MAT, musician coming. Oh my gosh. Performing. Yeah, she's performing on Wednesday. C-MAT is awesome. She's from Ireland. I actually spent some time at Newport Folk Festival this year,

and she was the talk of the Newport Folk Festival. She is so funny. I got to talk to her a little bit, and she's this whipsmart, Irish pop singer who's subversive in the ways that she presents her music and her lyrics. Like, in some ways, it reminds me a little of Chaparone, who kind of, like, flip the script on a couple of, like, the songs are poppy and fun and danceable,

and yet some of the narratives are, subversive and C-MAT is just, oh my God, she's slayed at Newport. And we watched it being like, oh, she'd be great at the Daily Show. Watching her set just like as a performer does everything is funny, is surprising, is virtuastic, is subversive. So she's a great daily show guest. Very excited for that as well. And then our last guest of the week, John Wilson. John Wilson.

Who I loved his series, what was it, how-to. How-to with John Wilson. It was like one of my favorite COVID watches. Yeah. He's so idiosyncratic. And I haven't gotten to see the history of concrete. It's this new movie. Which is a feature.

It's feature. But my favorite thing is always, it would start in one area. And by the time you're at the end of the episode, it's kind of like going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole where you're like, I don't know how I got here, but I've been thoroughly enjoy it and entertain the whole time. That's, he's found such a new language. in the documentaries that he does. Yeah, and this is called The History of Concrete, which is a hilarious pitch to any kind of company. Like, I'm going to make a movie.

Can you fund it? It's about the history of concrete. And actually, he uses the audacity of that being. It's a true subject that he's interested in, but, like, you see Zoom calls where he's pitching investors to invest in this movie. And, like, all of his stuff, it's... What feels so honest and of this moment

is that like it's all about distractions. It's about the tangents and it's beautiful and interesting and poetic in the fact that like we're talking about concrete and then we're following a guy that he meets who's doing free mescal tastings at the local liquor store and he just follows this guy for for months at a time. And you're, it's, he's just a, such an interesting mind who follows his curiosity and let's that be the more interesting story. Yeah, it's truly, um,

in comedy it's like follow the funny it's like well I had a plan and it was like well sure but this definitely is more interesting as opposed to whatever your fucking plan was yes so let's just follow the interesting thing why not I think it's funny looking at all these guests this week

I I feel exhausted by narrative in my life I just feel like we are fed so much entertainment and stories and context for everything in context is very important for understanding the world around us but whatever art can kind of puncture that

and break narrative. I think it's so eye-opening. I think John Wilson does that in such a lovely way. It's like you think you want this story, but life is more complicated than that. Marlon James is like, I'm going to sit you in a beautiful story. I'm going to explode it and tell it for a bunch of different

ways. And then we have C-MAT who is like, I'm going to subvert your expectation. So I think like this is, this is going to be such a fun week to, for the artist, the art nerd in me and the music nerd and the literature nerd in me. I think everybody kind of checks an awesome box. So tune in,

Losers. Yeah, losers. If you're a loser, then you won't like this week. But if you're not, then you're going to love it. To wrap up, we have something we call our Daily Show & Tell, where we talk about something we watched, read, listen to, argue about, or just been on your mind lately. Do you have anything?

I do. You know what? I binge-watched DTF St. Louis this weekend. Like down to Fox St. Louis? That's what it stands for. Oh, what is this? See, it won a bunch of Emmys. It's the HBO show with Jason Bateman.

and David Harbour It was great I didn't know what to think of that show Great mini series Limited series on HBO And quite frankly It's like done It's just this season

And without giving too much away Because I didn't know what the show was But I heard enough people I like say Hey this show is great and surprising I was like all right It's probably the best look at Modern masculinity that I've seen in a very long time.

It's really surprising and funny. It reads like a sketch premise up top, but it's played with Gravitus by the actors, and then it goes to such weird, vulnerable places. It's a show about friendship and a potential murder, which I loved. I'm checking that out. Two thumbs up.

What about you? What do you got? I saw Primetime, which I thought was great. I thought it was so good. I love Roper Pattinson, even though all the actors who's killed it. With Robert Pattinson, he just makes such interesting choices as an actor. His physicality is great. This isn't a spoiler, but there's this one scene where he swishes mouthwash. And just the way he spits, it was like, and I'm like, that was him. You made that.

No one directed that, unless they did, in which case, kudos to the director. But it's shot in a really interesting way. Like, it's a very dreamlike ethereal shooting. But it's also a bit retro because it goes to that mid aughts um thing and i just i just like how um it kind of looks at turning even the darkest parts of humanity into entertainment and like is that good is that not good um to even see chris hanson in terms of like oh how much of this is being driven by ratings and spectacle and fame versus how much of being like a true believer as like a crusader is he misguided in either of those, both of those. So it's really interesting.

I thought it was just a really well-done, well-done, intentional movie. Oh, I want to see. Yeah, Pattinson is one of the best ones out there. He reminds me of Nicholas Cage in the surprising choices that he makes. Yes. I never saw that coming.

God bless. And the voice is great. The way the crowd erupted. Is there a Chris Hanson voice? Yeah. I guess there is. Yeah. Yeah.

It was like. With the crowd erupted when they heard. heard him say um you see how this looks right everyone's like yes yes he said it was great everyone was like he said the line oh but yes um but yeah that's all the time we have for the precap i'm renal lotus catch jordan clep we're hosting this week on comedy central paramount plus and right here in podcast form on the daily show ears edition Thank you, Jordan. Thank you, Randall.

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