The Gargle - Stanley Cups | AI Carlin | BookTokers

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Guest editors Laura Davis and James Nokise join host Alice Fraser for episode 147 of The Gargle - the sonic glossy magazine to The Bugle, with one rule: no politics! Stanley Cup lead AI George Carlin Sexualised BookTokers AI Taylor Swift Disappointments Story 1: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/26/health/stanley-cups-lead-wellness/index.htmlStory 2: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/george-carlins-heirs-sue-comedy-podcast-over-ai-generated-impression/Story 3: https://news.yahoo.com/disrespectful-and-demeaning-influencers-say-they-were-offered-payment-to-create-sexually-suggestive-videos-to-promote-a-book-221536302.htmlStory 4: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/29/taylor-swift-ai-pictures/HOW TO SUPPORT THE GARGLE- Keep The Gargle alive and well by joining Team Bugle with a one-off payment, or become a Team Bugler or Super Bugler to receive extra bonus treats!https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donate Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Acast.com. This is a podcast from The Bugle. A spit take about to be taken. A piping bag too ambitiously stuffed with cream cheese frosting. You wake with a start. You're 40 and a half weeks pregnant and still pregnant, which is more pregnant than most people are at 40 and a half weeks, but it's okay. You know you're delivering one thing this week, and it's the gargle.

Welcome to the gargle, the sonic glossy magazine to the Bugles audio newspaper for Visual World. I'm your host, Alice Fraser, and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are Laura Davis. Hello. And James Nokise. Hello. Welcome to this special extended edition of The Gargles.

So extended. So unfortunately extended, distended even. Before we light the candles and get into the deep breathing session that is this week's top stories, let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine. The front cover this week of the magazine is the tweet that Elon Musk did that a successful Neuralink implant has been put into a human person's head which was reported in news by every outlet despite the fact that it failed to be corroborated by Neuralink itself so that's the state of the news in the world at the moment

would you put a chip in your head I put many chips in my head um they all had salt and vinegar um i don't think i have space for the chip there's a lot in here what's it i want to know what what what's it going to bump out a place but also like these all these ambitious sort of tech projects always end up being degraded by the enchitification of things. So I feel like what's going to happen is they'll do a few successful brain implants and then they'll start selling a subscription service and it will become the new blue check. And then, you know,

they'll have 10 people who are being filmed with a chip in their heads and you can vote on whether to make them punch themselves in the balls or not. Or there'll just be a better chip in like that comes out six months later and you've got the equivalent of like an ipod nano imprinted in your skull or you'll get serious brain surgery in order to get like breaking bad and then they'll just take it off yeah the streaming service in your sleep one day the satirical cartoon this week is an online hustle culture influencer saying i don't care how many spiders the average person swallows in their sleep one day. The satirical cartoon this week is an online hustle culture influencer saying I don't care how many spiders the average person swallows in their sleep every year I bet I can do better. Maximize your spider swallowing potential. Top story this week is

the news that the viral Stanley Cup phenomenon may have feet of clay or rather feet of lead. The news that apparently they are harboring lead in their bases, which I've got to say is worrying in a thing that you're meant to be drinking from. James Nokise, you're well hydrated. Can you unpack this story for us? I thought I was doing it because I've definitely drunken lead. unpack this story for us? I thought I was doing it because I've definitely drunk and led. I was initially surprised to find out this was not a hockey-related story,

because my knowledge of Stanley Cups was the trophy that they have in the American hockey sports situation. But these are the viral cups. I think they're meant to be camping cups originally, isn't it? Or is it one of those things where they've become, they were camping cups and then they've become sort of urbanized. They're for the digital nomad. Digital, the Land Rover yoga mom cup. Starts with campers, moves to Mormon mums who aren't allowed to drink coffee, and then via water talk hits the teens and then goes viral.

That's the pathway of the Stanley Cup to the mouths of the youth of today. It was all taking off, and it's just like a very innocent drink out of these cool cups. And then it turns out, I believe it's to do with the vacuum between the inner and outer layer of the cup. They've discovered there's lead or potential for lead in some of the cups. So now all of these people may have been ingesting lead, which can cause a whole bunch of medical problems. They've been led to the lead. They've been led to the lead.

They've been led to the lead. And I think they would be happy. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink lead out of a Stanley cup. Well, I think it would make them happy because this can only lead. The lead? Yes, because.

I think that is a side effect this can only uh result in more tiktoks about what to do if you've accidentally drunk lead um my cousin tried this uh after ingesting lead and it re-grew their hair. Horses, we've actually found, have more lead in their blood than humans and that's why they run faster. And a whole bunch of other content creation just waiting there to be unleashed. Unleaded content, if you will. I feel like this is the natural life cycle of a hype cycle in that everyone has now bought a Stanley Cup and the nature of a reusable cup is that you're not really going to buy that many more of them putting aside the people who buy hundreds of these things

and collect them like they're Pokemons but the point is it's a reusable cup so that's your cup for life or for 10 years or whatever so what better to happen to the market than that now everyone has to throw out their Stanley Cups and find a new unleaded, clean girl aesthetic. So I feel like this is a wonderful news for the cup market. What would be amazing is if it turned out that the leak had come from Stanley Cups and then they launched some sort of campaign, we'll take back your old cups. And then they just resell those cups in a year or so going, we fixed the cups. Or like the amnesty on guns in Australia after the Port Arthur shootings where they were like, yeah, you can just hand your guns in. after the Port Arthur shootings where they were like, yeah, you can just hand your guns in.

Well, in many ways, Alice, this is the Port Arthur of social media cup content. Yes. I think that's what they're calling it in small states of the United States. I feel like the Stanley Cup is a slightly less lethal lead delivery mechanism than a gun. Well, I mean, that depends how many cups you own, really. Some people have made major investments. They come in a rainbow of colors, Alice. Some have got blue, red, green, one for each day, one for each yoga class, and a couple for each child. It's so many cups.

and a couple for each child it's so many cups it's so many cups it's so many it's an upsetting number of cups and i've a little sort of eagerly await the next thing i've never really it's a real real corporate eucharist to just drink from the leaded stanley cup corporate eucharist to just drink from the leaded stanley cup yeah i've never really understood this kind of social social content creation like i i like i said i thought this was sports related initially i was very excited we never do sports uh properly on on the gargle and then i was like no it's weird social media stuff again and i've never really understood how the cup things take off, like how one person just starts drinking from a Stanley cup with some bullshit, and then people are like, I like that bullshit. Let's also drink from Stanley cups.

You'd have to ask the Pope, James. That's true. I'm not Catholic. It's that and a Krispy Kreme donut is the Eucharist, and then you join the church. Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Chicken Soup for the Soul Trader,

homemade remedies for the existential angst of taking time off as a creative. That's my new book which will be written entirely while breastfeeding. Remember, nine out of ten cosmetic surgeons agree biological inevitability is shameful. If you don't stay beautiful forever, you're worthless. And cryogenic freezing really is the only way to stop the aging process. But maybe you don't have the budget.

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Broomgate. Available now. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts. Everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Top story, AI George Carlin was a lie. Lie spelt with an AI.

lie, lie spelt with an AI. Apparently, the George Carlin AI special that is being sued by the daughter of George Carlin has been revealed to be fake AI, which is to say somebody pretending to be AI, pretending to be George Carlin, their defense in court against the accusation that they used AI to replicate George Carlin's voices that actually they did not. Laura Davis, you speak with the dead. Can you unpack this story for us? I think, you know, as a fan of George Carlin, I feel like it's fairly to say this is not what he would have wanted. I think the idea that they wrote it and passed it off as AI is, you know, it's true cowardice.

It is very funny. I think they have said that it is not AI because that is a more serious copyright claim. copyright claim so they can be sued for more money if it was AI generated than if they wrote sort of a pastiche on their own volition

so I don't really even believe that it wasn't generated by the AI I think the AI wrote it but there's still i think probably a lot of prompts that they may have put in on you know certain issues that they would have liked material to be generated on so you know different uh political hotbeds that they will wish to fabricate an opinion on and it really is it's it's it's properly dystopian and it's really like it is fascinating

and where i mean it's so much work not to do the work i mean it's so incredibly much work to put out a special where you pretend that you did none of the work. I don't understand the motivation. And then lie and say that you did because the work was so bad you had to take credit for it. A computer couldn't have written something this bad. That's exactly the argument that they are forced to make of themselves. I don't know.

If I die, will you put all of my comedy into an AI machine and resurrect me from the dead? Only if you really wanted me to. Yes, please. But I wouldn't be happy about it while I did it. I'd be really angry. With Laura, the chore itself would be the joke, not the end result.

Oh, yeah, you wouldn't get anything good. It's impossible to replicate your unique voice in the way that it's impossible, I think, to replicate anyone's, right? The legal argument is that you should not, that, you know's there's different ways of sort of uh paying homage to somebody but you know fictionalizing opinions long after they're dead on issues that they never encountered is maybe not not polite i mean have you met religious people

because yeah just keep bringing more back. Which other dead celebrities are we getting opinions from? I want Rasputin's opinion on the AI controversy, please. I think the most disappointing thing is that, you know, these are crimes by comedians. And as famous comedian crimes go over the past decade somehow still quite bad but it's carlin like be brave commit to the bit and show up in court saying that it's not ai it's not you it's actually george carlin himself because one night you got two stoned and out of nowhere this phone booth just came out of the ground and out steps george carlin with a couple of teenagers and electric guitars

and told you what his next special would be like if you're just gonna be a burning bush involved yeah george carl showing up as a time travel get high on opium and say that it came to you in a dream like at least that but what about not just the comedians that are dead but the ones that are dead to us like can we have a louis ck special where he hasn't committed any sex offenses can we run all the material prior to the sex offenses through and see if we can sort of rewrite history is there like a forking off point that we could start to rewrite the timeline get more creative if you're gonna i mean if there is a burning bush of stand up comedy that's probably louis ck in the bush they're all in the bush. They're all in the bush. And that brings us to our reviews section, which this week, because it's a special extended edition,

is a themed section. The theme of the stories this week is that there's some level of deception or rug pull involved, so I'm asking our guest editors to bring in the thing that they are most disappointed with um your biggest disappointment James Nokise uh what have you got and you can rate it out of five stars if you like well uh my my biggest disappointment uh so far this year is that I'm in the UK and uh there's been no snow and and I'm quite I'm in the UK and there's been no snow. And I'm quite north. And I've had storm after storm.

And they do the slightly psychotic thing here where they name heavy storms. You know how in the Pacific region we name cyclones because they're proper storms or you get hurricanes. In Britain, they just go, oh oh that's a bad storm let's give it a name and it just feels like it it just undercuts the threat of a major storm like if it's not a cyclone and it's not a hurricane it's it's just thursday you know and there's it's british people walking around going oh it's isha oh it's Jocelyn. Now, if you have such, like, innocent-sounding names in the Pacific, that's a Category 5. Like, you know, that's 200-mile-per-hour winds.

And here it's like sleet. This is inflation at work. This is what happens. You start by naming your pets and you end by naming your sea monkeys. So if you go from naming big pets and you end by naming your sea monkeys and so if you go from naming big storms to naming just petty storms it devalues the storm market entirely i do think alice that brexit might be behind this because it just feels like everything is more disappointing in the uk um since brexit's happened and that includes i i wanted a blizzard you know i want a reason

i when when they tell me the train is delayed for five hours and cancelled uh i i want to know it's because there's major earth-shattering weather going on um not a branch uh on a track somewhere in Scotland. And so, yeah, I think that's my major disappointment is the weather. Not apocalyptic enough. Insufficiently apocalyptic out of five stars. Laura, what have you brought in for us? Well, my mother always told me that I would never truly understand what disappointment was until after I'd had children. I would never truly understand what disappointment was until after I'd had children.

But this week, I did have a croissant that was so bad, it made me question just everything. Like, I bought it on the walk to the park. I was like, look, you're hungry, and the croissants are not the cheapest, but you're hungry now, and you deserve to eat. You can have a croissant. and the croissants are not the cheapest, but you're hungry now and you deserve to eat. You can have a croissant. You like croissants. And then I had this croissant and I was like, this is, this croissant, you've done something wrong in your life to deserve this croissant.

This croissant is a reckoning for something that you did not see coming. This croissant is tough. It is rubbery. You cannot part the flakes of pastry with your teeth you need a knife you need to involve steel with this croissant this croissant requires tools this croissant requires a hardware shop this croissant does not deserve to be eaten in a park this croissant deserves to be eaten off a factory floor that you found it in a corner and i don't know how it has

come your way but i regret every wrong that i have done to bring it upon myself and that was my greatest disappointment was this particular very bad chrysanthemum it is good to have something that sort of crystallizes and actualizes the worst experience there are far worse things in the world but that chrysanthemum is definitely up there oh yeah and it's the level of expectation and it's the moment you know it's disappointing being such a subjective thing the same evil forces of man that created that chrysanthemum have created all the other things that are going on. It's at the root. We're talking on like a psychic plane here. That result comes from the same realm of the blackness of man and the depths to which we will sink.

I just applaud the naturalization you've gone through, Laura, that you've been living in the UK for six months and you're already the worst thing as the French. I think that's amazing adjustments that you've made. I'm very proud of you and the way you're embracing British culture. The moment I get on the Eurostar, I'm willing to swap sides. And that brings us to our BookTok news. BookTok news this week is the news that influencers,

including underage influencers on TikTok, say that they were offered payment to create sexually suggestive videos in order to promote a book, which is sort of worrying and depressing. James Nokise, you're a reader. Can you unpack this story for us? Oh, man. Here's the thing. If you're writing a book and it's called Behind a Closed Door

and it's listed as 50 Shades meets David Finch's The Game, that's your tagline. If you've already summons this much creepiness to the artwork, don't do anything sexual towards underage influencers. Don't even write the word sexual. Don't approach you can't write that kind of book and then approach underage influence and say hey could you sex it up to to to make the the book be controversial i mean look they're getting media coverage um i i and i don't

know it's going to be the same way i don't think people are going to be leaping out to grab this thing from the air um airport shelves like there were 50 shares not when you can get just a good pedo book free in every hotel room you stay at it's in the bedside drawer just open it up this is the best-selling author, J.D. Barker, who has claimed that he knew nothing about this campaign, that this was an act by his PR agents without his consent, but that he takes full responsibility because he ought not to be paying attention to what his PR people would have been doing.

Don't take full responsibility. You can use the same AI technology as the Carlin specials, sort of the way that AI sort of magnifies themes. If you can put, like, every book that is published should be run through sort of an extrapolation of itself so that anything sort of grim in it is revealed. Like it might not be that this book is super off colour, but if you sort of, you know,

times it by 1,000 monkeys on 1,000 typewriters, do you end up with a dystopian, paedophilic hellscape? In which case, maybe we go back to the editor. Well, some of the suggestions that they made, that these PR agents made for people to create racy content regarding this book was to pan a camera up their body using only the book to cover up their naughty bits, or that the camera should focus on the influencer and then flash to a taboo place where they claim to have had sex. The email with the PR agent's suggestion continued

that the creators are happy, free to come up with something sexy on their own, which is so creepy because, again, some of the influencers to which this email was sent were underage. And even if you're not underage, were underage um and even if you're not underage don't don't don't tell me to to adam and eve myself with a with a creepo book there's also a small bit of racism that they snuck in um which is that they mentioned the pr company's definitely in central america they want to make sure let's and all the correspondences is a is a Central American PR firm. Even though getting underage girls to do rude stuff to promote your book

is the most middle-aged white American man thing that you will ever read. It's also just not very fairly paid labor. Like if you're going to be, you know, if you're going to be you know if you're going to be in that arena at least unionize you know they that you're doing a lot of unpaid promotional work when they say feel free to come up with something sexy on your own you go no that is additional creative labor you will be paying for it there's also one one small thing here as well which people have pointed out which is that um the the pr firm best of tiktok one of the founders is the author which again it you know if you're going to come in and say take for i take for responsibility but you're not taking for responsibility for the creepiness you're taking full responsibility for

hiring the firm that the creepiness but you're one of the people that made the firm i mean apparently this firm is a separate firm he's blaming a different firm for generating this particular email have i misread that is it not the same firm he started a book talk firm which makes people think that he this may have been generated by him. But he said the email was not meant to go out without a substantial rewrite. And through a chain of errors, it was released into the wild early. But I don't know what level of substantial rewrite you're looking at here to have it not be creepy. But his statement is very beautiful.

It says, I have nothing but the deepest respect for women. I'm a husband. I'm a husband. I'm a father, which I feel is always the best response to an accusation of sexism, which is I've got some women. I own a couple myself. Yeah. I'm a husband. I'm a father and if you like women in dungeons with a hint of psychological degradation, have I got the book for you? Like check on his wife.

And that brings us to our final story, which is the news that due to a proliferation of fake AI images of a nude Taylor Swift, the microblogging platform X has now banned searching for Taylor Swift on Twitter. So there's much outrage in various directions, accusations that perhaps they've blocked the term because she might prompt people to vote for the Democrats, accusations that you just don't want to see these sexy images of AI Taylor Swift, including a number of people who found these images of AI Taylor Swift and are body shaming the AI generated nude pictures of Taylor Swift.

It's all a bit of a schmuzzle. Laura Davis, you understand microblogging platforms. Can you unpack this story for us? I do not understand microblogging platforms. Does this AI make me look fat is great. That's a great addition to this, the dystopia. In a similar vein slightly separate the MP in Australia who just had their photo run in Channel 9 News

and they had revealed they'd edited her dress to be a midriff dress and they'd made her breast bigger and done some sort of filter on her face and she you know quite reasonably complained and said this is not happening to male mps and channel nine has said it was an ai error as well that the robot and it is it is an ai quirk you know it is a

function of it where it does you know it does extrapolate bias so any existing bias is already there uh i really think it's interesting to uh to watch sort of big cultural giants like taylor swift come up against these very specific problems of modernity and watch the way that opinion can swing. Like, do you have comments underneath of like, this AI image is ugly. This AI image is not what I wanted to see. This woman is ugly in real life and in AI. Like, it's really messy. It's an extension also of the imaginative play that i feel like uh misogynists have always uh participated in which is i wouldn't f**k that lady

as though it were an option and now now it's taken the next step to i wouldn't f**k what i imagine that lady might be yes the thing that they're finding ugly is this extrapolation of their own hatred. The tits are the mirror to their idea of tits. They're just standing in an endless refraction

of themselves. And that brings us to the end of the show. I'm flipping through the ad section at the back of this magazine. Laura, have you got anything to plug? I would like to plug the edit, which is the show James and I are running at the stand in Edinburgh once a month. It's a political comedy night with trying to make a nice space

for comedians to come down and try new political material that they might not be able to try at your standard, like, stag and Hindu open mic. And James, what have you got to plug? Yeah, I've got a new book. It's called Inside the Garage. It's a mixture of Taylor Swift AI- images and David Fincher's just more body horror work. This is why I don't let you out of that room. Go along and see the edit if you're in Edinburgh I hear it is expanding soon but if you want to see some

new political comedy being worked out on stage by some of the best people go see that at the stand once a month it's all written by AI it's all written by AI I'm Alice Fraser you can find me online at patreon.com slash alicefraser it's one stop shop for all of my

stand up specials, podcasts, blogs as well as my weekly writers meetings which will continue through my maternity leave that's patreon.com slash alicefraser you can join that for a dollar a month and get access to all sorts of exciting things including my two most recent shows twist and chronos which are available also on go faster stripe if you don't want to join the patreon go faster stripe.com and you get both of those shows for 10 pounds if you join the patreon you get both of those shows for £10. If you join the Patreon, you get them for free or for however much you join the Patreon for. This is a Bugle

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producer is chris skinner your editor is ped hunter i'll talk to you again next week you can listen to other programs from the bugle including the bugle catharsis tiny revolutions top stories and the gargle wherever you find your podcasts