There Are No Girls on the Internet - Elon is Lying About Fixing Grok; Renee Good’s Killer Has a Rulebreaking GoFundMe; Tea App Wants Another Chance – NEWS ROUNDUP!

Episode Date: January 17, 2026

In this week's News Roundup, Bridget and Producer Joey cover the tech news stories you might have missed. Updates on X and Grok creating nonconsensual sex images. They're still doing it, but now they're at least pretending they aren't: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqz7pyd303o Our deep dive episode into what’s happening with Grok: https://podcasts.apple.com/xk/podcast/elons-grok-sexualized-renee-goods-dead-body-and-hes/id1520715907?i=1000744528946 A Phoenix gay bar announced a plan to use AI. Should they? https://www.lookoutnews.org/a-phoenix-gay-bar-announced-a-plan-to-use-artificial-intelligence-should-they The Tea App is back, and they want you to know they care about security now. https://mashable.com/article/tea-app-is-back-but-not-on-apple-app-store An investigation by the Fuller Project found that an algorithm used by the Veterans' Affairs Administration to determine which veterans get treatment prioritizes white men: https://fullerproject.org/story/artificial-intelligence-veteran-suicide-prevention-algorithm-favors-men/ GoFundMe Ignores Own Rules by Hosting a Legal-Defense Fund for the ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good: https://www.wired.com/story/gofundme-ice-jonathan-ross-renee-good-fundraiser/ Let us know what you think about these stories by emailing [e-mail] or leaving a comment on Spotify. Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.socialSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. There are no girls on the internet as a production of IHeart Radio, and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Welcome to There Are No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the intersection of technology, culture, social media, and identity. And this is another installment of our weekly news roundup, where we talk through all the stories you may have missed on the Internet,

so you don't have to. I am so excited because in the guest co-host chair, we have my amazing producer, Joey. Joey, welcome back to the show. It has been too long. Hey, Bridget. Thanks for having me back. Officially in 2026 now, I think the last time I was on mic, we were kind of fake in

26. We recorded it in 2025 and we're pretending it was 2026. But now it's actually 2026. Also, shout out to everybody who commented on the mailbag episode that my predictions were right about world ending the first week. No. As the helicopter, as the helicopter with Maduro was going over my... apartment, I don't know. We're both in Brooklyn right now, actually. He apparently, is it true that Maduro, Luigi, and Diddy are all in the same Brooklyn facility?

I read that somewhere. I don't know if that's true. I might need to fact check that. Yes, allegedly. I'll be real. All of my information about this comes from, if anybody's seen the, like, meme that's going around where they've put all of the people there are allegedly. I'm saying allegedly because I just need to double check whether they actually are in this jail or not.

But I'm assuming they all are. But the meme of all of them and then people are putting like Arkham Asylum inmates and like pairing them up and being like, I don't know, Maduro's the Joker. And I like, my favorite was Galane Maxwell as Catwoman. Like I was like, okay, first of all, like, no, love Catwoman. But I was like, that's kind of funny in like the context of like, yeah, the one woman, sure. But, yeah, but that is, I, I, this is Mom Dani's New York City. Arkham Asylum is here and the subway prices are just going up. Obviously, all his fault, he's done all this in the first two weeks of January.

It has nothing to do with any of the previous administrations in the city or the national government or whatever. I will say I saw something I liked fighting for public toilets. I am one of those people where whenever I'm out, especially if I'm going shopping, I always need a bathroom. So it is very difficult to find public toilets in D.C. similarly difficult in New York. I like that that was one of his first initiatives as somebody who... No, same. Yeah. I have made up so many insane, like, stories to try and get into random bathrooms in New York City.

There's been so many hotels that I've been like, yeah, no, my dad's staying here. I'm, like, definitely a college student. That's, I don't know. Please let me use the bathroom in your building. But yeah, no, I'm very glad about that. So, Joey, have you followed what's been going on with GROC? I don't know if you're on Twitter like that anymore, but how do you see what GROC's up to?

I have, I've seen bits and pieces. I have deleted the Twitter app off of my phone. I still every once in a while will log on to my computer and be on it for about 10 seconds before I'm like, I don't know what I'm looking at. anymore. But no, I'm sure GROC is contributing so much good content about all the, you know, public bathroom spaces available in New York City now, right? That's, yes, big advocates for public safety and health. Huge advocates. So if folks listened to our episode last week,

we did a whole deep dive into GROC, which is X's AI chatbot. I have a little bit of an update. we'll put that episode in the show notes for folks who missed it, but essentially the too long didn't read is that GROC is being used to undress women and girls without their consent. So both the GROC account on X and the GROC standalone app are being used in this way. Now, to be clear, we're talking about illegal images. The Internet Watch Foundation, which is a UK-based nonprofit, says that it uncovered, quote, criminal imagery of minor children generated by GROC. And so for the last couple of days, we've really seen this backlash grow.

On Monday, the EU threatened to find X under the Digital Services Act if it did not act quickly to fix GROC and keep it from doing this. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California would be launching an investigation into how GROC is being used. Late on Friday evening, California's Attorney General sent X a cease and desist letter demanding the company immediately stopped the creation and distribution of deep-fake, non-consensual, intimate images, and child sexual sexual. abuse material, saying in a statement, the creation of this material is illegal. I fully expect

XAI to immediately comply. California has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material. So after this backlash, Musk was like, okay, I got it. I hear you. From now on, only people who pay me money will be able to use GROC to undress women and girls and make illegal content. So there we go. Problem solved. That was his first fix. I mean, to me, the fact that he would even float that and would think, I mean, we talked about it on the episode, but I don't think that that, like, I don't think even he saw that as some sort of a meaningful fix. I think like, it's just a cash grab. It's just a way to squeeze whatever last drop of revenue they could out of this for themselves. And I mean, let's call it what it is. It's exploiting criminal behavior, targeting women and girls to make money. This one, the guy who like grandstanded when he first bought. Twitter about like how I'm in a crackdown on content that exploits children. Now he's like, I'm going to make money from content that exploits children. That's sort of where we're at. Weirdly, Elon Musk is kind of taking this like, I don't know what you're talking about stance. There's a really good

mother Jones piece called Elon Musk's alternate groc reality that makes us point that while all of this stuff is happening, all of these like threats of crackdowns and investigations and all of that, Musk seemingly just is burying his head in the sand. The piece reads, Within the secure confines of Musk's own mind, Grog is not only wildly successful, but solid as a rock, as he tweeted on Monday, with the goal of pursuing the deeper truth

and appreciation of beauty, you know, the beauty of a 14-year-old girl in an AI-generated bikini, which is a real thing that Grock generated. Musk also says that, like, these are all just attacks from people who want to suppress free speech. I just framing it as like from the confines of Elon Musk's head is such a funny way of thinking

about it. Because again, I feel like every time we talk about this guy, like I, the thing that you have to go back to is just being like, no, he genuinely does exist in his own reality. And like that's the problem at the end of the day is in Elon Musk's world. Elon Musk is the most popular, smartest, funniest guy ever. the problem is he's the only person living in that world. And I guess the rest of us are just having to suffer the consequences of that. I don't know.

Yeah. It's funny that you bring it up and say it that way. I once got into this very long back and forth with somebody on an event who basically, so I completely agree with you, right? I think Elon Musk is somebody who lives in his own world, his own reality, that has been essentially propped up by staffers and underlie. for him. And the point that I made was that it's not good to have leaders who have a lot of power and a lot of responsibility who are like not living in reality. Like I think that if you're going to be a

leader and people are going to be relying on you like, and I mean relying on people rely on him in like very serious ways. He's very mixed up in our military, very mixed up in like how global communication systems around the world, like very high-stick stuff, all flow through him. And so I said, I think you should be living in reality. The person I was speaking to made the point of, well, people who are really successful entrepreneurs or builders, it does take a little bit of, you know, delusion for you to build things. And side note, I don't, I'm not somebody who subscribed to the idea that, like, Elon Musk is this prolific builder of things. That's a whole other conversation, but I do not endorse that, just to be clear. And basically his point was that people who,

who are really successful, sometimes do you have a threat of delusion. And I just don't know about that. I understand that as a position. And I do think to do big things, you kind of have to, you know. There has to be, you have to have some sort of, like, like you have to be a little delusional to get to that point. The problem is, like, sometimes that delusion goes too far, you know?

Like some people are able to, some people are able to keep one, foot in reality while also being totally delusional. And then there also are a lot more people that will put one foot into that delusion and just like get sucked it to the vortex of like this is Elon Musk's world and we're all living in it is what he thinks. And I don't think most sane human beings feel that way. If you've ever like had any sort of relationship with like a genuine narcissist, like it makes perfect sense.

Like I'm like, this is just it, but you have a bazillion dollars. Like, I don't know. And like all the, all the power of the world. Yeah. I mean, there was just a story about his,

his ex-girlfriend too now who said what. Like, oh, I think we probably shouldn't be super evil to trans people. And he's like freaking out now. So that's great. I don't know. I'm glad you brought that up. We, we're doing an episode with Parker Malloy from the present age,

all about this basically ex or at Elon's I don't know if they were in a romantic relationship because Elon does that thing where they where he like establishes a child with women and it's like not clear to me what's going on so I don't want to make it seem like

they were in a romantic relationship but they did they did have a child together and so Ashley St. Clair is this like kind of prolific like right wing like anti-trans wrote a children's book that's like all about transphobia recently made a post essentially expressing regret for some of that behavior and regret for how that behavior is going to impact her child's sister, who was Elon Musk's other children, who was trans.

And now this was just reported earlier this week. Ashley St. Clair also filed a lawsuit against X. She filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court in the state of New York against XAI, alleging that Grock had been used to generate non-consensual images of her, including ones in which she was underage. She is seeking punitive and compensary damages saying that dozens of sexually explicit and degrading deep-dick images were created by Grog.

So, yeah, I mean, even people in Musk's own personal circle are being impacted by this. Right. And I mean, I feel like, I don't know, There's a complicated conversation to be had about, like, what does it mean when, yeah, you have genuinely dedicated your entire career to harming people, harming a very marginalized community and then suddenly change your mind and are like, actually, never mind, that was bad. At the same time, I mean, like, yeah, it's a double-edged sword. I'm looking at this cautiously. At the same time, I do feel like there is a lot of hope and being like, yeah, this person that was a mouthpiece for.

The anti-trans movement for so long is now coming out and being like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Like, I caused harm. This was bad. I don't think she's alone in what she's doing. Again, it's like, I wish that these people didn't do the harm that they did to begin with. But it is also like, you know, you read about X, X, X, gays. Like, it reminds me of that.

You remind, like, it's people that. I said a lot of times too I think like honestly at the end of the day the thing that pulls people away from hate movements is like knowing people in their life that have had these experiences like that's part of the reason why I'm so open about the fact that I'm like I am a queer person

I am like somebody who's trans I'm somebody who is like early on in their transitions so I don't really pass at all for what I'm going for but at the same time I'm like, I'll talk about it because I know that, I know there's people in my life that I'm like, maybe weren't going to be like Elon Musk level transphobic,

but like knowing me has probably changed their opinion of trans people. Yeah, and I don't know. I guess like if there's any hope to take away from it, hearing that somebody as, you know, right-wing darling as Ashley Sinclair can now come out and express some remorse for what she did. Like, that's a good sign. It's good. It feels like it's like, all right, we're going to get out of the.

We're going to get out of whatever weird shit show we've been in for the last year. Listeners, I'm sorry. I'm trying to curse less on air. But it's going to be a slow, a slow adjustment. I'm going to be real about that. You're doing so well. Thank you. John has to producer, Mike, who at one point did say, like, on air that he was like, he was like, yeah, like, I hate her thing usually.

And I was, like, editing it. And I was like, oh. So I'm glad that we can both bring our perspectives to this. But yeah, let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier.

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You only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard words, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion?

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At our back. So facing all of this backlash, whether Musk wants to like accept it or an including calls to remove grok from the Apple and Google app stores, Musk said, okay, we hear you. We're going to introduce some new restrictions to stop folks from editing and generating images of real people in bikinis or revealing clothing. Now, because we know Elon Musk is a liar, this is a lie, because both Wired and Business Insider and others have reported that since Musk announced

that they were going to be putting some new restrictions in place, not much has changed. From a wired piece called Elon Musk's GROC undressing problem isn't fixed, they write, while it appears that some safety measures have finally been introduced to GROC's image generation on X,

the standalone GROC app and website seem to still be able to generate undress-style images and pornographic content, according to multiple tests by researchers, wired, and other journalists. We can still generate photorealistic nudity on Grock.com

says Paul Bouchard, the lead, researcher at the Paris-based nonprofit AI forensics, who has been keeping track of the use of GROC to create sexualized images and ran multiple tests on GROC outside of X. I can upload an image on GROC Imagine and asked to put the person in a bikini and it works, says the researcher who tested the system on a person appearing as a woman. Tests by Wired, using free GROC accounts on its websites in both the U.S. and the UK, successfully removed clothing from two images of men without of any apparent restrictions.

On the Grog app in the UK, when asked to undress a male, the app prompted a wired reporter to enter the user's year of birth before the image could be generated. And so the same, it's like, sorry, all the men can be children now. Pretty much.

So a male reporter at Business Insider did the same thing, right? And so Harry Chattinay of Business Insider basically put a picture of himself on Grock and said, put me in a jockstrap and he says to my shock it obeyed he does say calm down grop did not generate actual genitalia but it got pretty close because it just made him naked but with his hand with a hand over his crotch so like not nude but pretty close to nude and so when elon musk says people are

no longer going to be able to use grok to create revealing images of other of real people it seems like these tests say otherwise. We're going, we're going to like Catholic Church like Adam and Eve, like this is out. Have you, if anybody's ever been to like an old

like cathedral where they have the art up where there's, they also added the like random ass feet fig leagues to, or the statues. There's like if anybody like there's a bunch of famously went to statues in the Vatican that they added like leaves to later to cover up their genitalia, which I do think is like one of the funniest things to happen and like art history. But I guess, yeah, I guess this is history repeating itself in a weird,

but like in a weird opposite way where I'm like, but I don't want to see more of the new. Like that's, man, again, I wish I could, I wish I could get in a time machine and go back to, like, I have a distinct memory of my middle school principal making us do this like assembly where they had all the girls, only the girls, and they had our principal who was like a middle-aged man explained to us why we shouldn't wear revealing clothing or take nudes or whatever. And it was genuinely one of the most, like,

uncomfortable experiences of my life, as you can imagine. Oh, God. But I wish I could go back and, like, be like, all right, guys, don't worry. Not only is this all, like, bullshit and victim blame you and whatever, but also in, like, 12 years from, now is not even going to matter because the next generation of middle school boys are going to have AI tools for this shit, apparently. This is something I can, I simply cannot get over. And I don't,

I don't know if I've talked, I think I've talked about it on the podcast before, but I distinctly remember when we were all kind of having those kind of conversations right about taking intimate images. You know, folks might recall 10 years ago in the 2010s when a whole trove of intimate images were stolen and released to the public. But I remember that at the time, the New York Times' tech critic, he tweeted like, oh, my advice for women,

if they don't want to get their nude stolen, don't take nude images, don't take nude images, don't take nude images. And I just see, at the time, it was clear to me that that was not the conversation that we should have had. And here we are 10 years later, because you don't have to take nude images to have to be undressed, right?

You could, we've seen story after story after story where children, you know, students in schools, middle schools and high schools, this technology is being used by their peers in some cases to undress them. And so I wish we could get back, go back in time and have a different conversation that wasn't about, oh, people shouldn't take nude pictures. Like that, like, that's just, it just was such useless advice. And I'm infuriated that we spent any time at all. But Joey, I'm infuriated that you were lined up in your school to be told to be lectured by your teacher about this. Yeah, no, absolutely.

I mean, again, I feel like I'm a broken record every time I'm on this podcast talking about it. But it is like genuinely so baffling. Again, as somebody who's like in their mid-20s right now, like objectively, I'm pretty young. I've not lived that much of my life. And I'm like in the time from when I was in middle school to now, the narrative has changed so, so drastically. it somehow still the woman's fault. And here's the thing. I'm not saying that this isn't a problem.

This is a problem. We do need it obviously. Like, this is a crime. This is a literal crime. I'm going to take a big, crazy take here and say, I don't think we should have like any child porn. I think that's, you know, sorry, really, really putting myself out there and saying that. No one on a record with that.

I don't know on the record with that. I don't think it should be a thing. I think it's bad. I also think like from the adult perspective on this, maybe this also is like a sign that we like societally just we have so many hangups about nudity still like the fact that a nude photo of a fake nude photo of an adult woman with a successful career again we're not talking about like the children at a legal aspect of this like this let's say it's somebody just some let's say it was me let's say it was me let's say it's somebody else like the fact that that is something that can derail somebody's career is insane like that that is also part of the problem here right oh absolutely So I don't know. We need to get more chill about nudity and also like, I don't know,

trying to not say something that will get me in trouble with the federal government. But I don't know. I think what I'm trying to say here is just I think the reason this this always really just sets me off on the show is it's like this is something that is just such a simple issue

and it affects everybody. And like it's affected everybody from like, Yeah, random middle schoolers in the middle of the country, and it's affected Taylor Swift. And, like, somehow we still, as a society, have such a strange reaction. I don't know. It's just a very weird issue, you know. I completely agree.

And I will say there might be some changes coming, because on Tuesday of this week, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would allow the victims who are targeted for non-consensual, sexually explicit. deep fakes, it would allow them to sue the creators of those images for a minimum of $150,000. This is the Defiance Act, which is now headed to the House. Folks might recall that leadership did fail to bring it to the floor in the last session. However, because of all of this new momentum around these conversations with GROC,

it does seem like the conversation has changed, so we will definitely keep y'all posted. I just, I'll end on this. I'll end on this. Listeners, I can't get over the name Grock. But the thing that I go back to, and again, I feel like I've said this on the show before, but the thing about Elon Musk that really pisses me off is he wants so badly to be this, like, meme, edge lord, like, dirty, whatever.

And, like, he's genuinely just so, like, uncreative and unfunny. Like, I, like, funny, like, weird, nerdy guy, girl person is, like, my favorite brand of person. And Elon Musk wants to be that type of person so bad. And he's just failing in it. so miserably that I guess if there's any joy that you can take away from this, it's at least that.

Yeah. It's so true because he makes these attempts at jokes and it's just so bad. It's so bad. He just really doesn't have it at him. Sometimes I catch myself feeling bad for him because I just recognize that the energy of the kid who wants to be cool so bad. in junior high and it's just not landing. And like thing after thing after thing is not landing.

At a certain point, you just, you do, it's hard to not feel a little bad sometimes. I know. And that's the thing, like I'm like that's like, those are my people.

Like let's go. Like so many of us more weird middle schoolers at once at some point. But like, and then we became real functioning people and also art. Here's the thing too. It's the, uh, the like,

if he just was like a good person, or even like an okay person like people probably would actually find some of the stuff funny like that's like the reason people don't find you funny is also just the fact that you're a miserable human being like I don't know what's tell you people to find cringy stupid humor funny all the time

yeah I don't know I don't know I wish there was a way to express my anger at Elon Musk better than just like reverting back to like mean girl high school like teenage girl insults, but like that is my best weapon right now and I'm going to use that, I guess. And it's a weapon that will always work against him because no matter how much money or power he gets, he will always be a loser. So that weapon is always going to work. Exactly, exactly.

Okay, so do you remember the conversations that we had all about the T app, the app that was designed for women to screen the men that they dated that ended up exposing their users sensitive information, like their driver's licenses? Are we talking the T on her, the T on him, the T on them, the T on the T on the Charlie Kirk haters? What are we? There were so many spin-off. Yeah. The T-Cinematic Universe.

Yes. So the T-Ap for women is back and they're saying, we're sorry for what happened. We're sorry that we ended up exposing our users' sensitive information. And they're asking for your trust again. So you might be wondering, well, what's different this time around? According to Wired, T's head of trust and safety, Jessica Dees, said that the new site features, quote, meaningful improvements intended to bolster security, including tightening internal safeguards, reinforcing access controls, and expanding review and monitoring processes to better protect sensitive information. They're also going to be working with a third-party verification vendor to ensure that users are women because it's a women-only app as part of the eligibility check. Folks might recall that in the earlier iteration of this app,

they were asking women to submit pictures of their driver's licenses or government IDs to confirm that they were women. I will say, just a side note, we already know that some of these third-party verification vendors are not always that secure. And so this just does not fill me with a lot of, like, I would not still trust this company, but that's what they're doing. Also, like, what's stopping people from just uploading

somebody else's information, you know? Like, great question. If you're asking, if you're saying, beyond the obvious, like, we've talked about other apps on this show before that I've tried to, like, enforce, like, quote unquote, women only and it required people to, like,

upload selfies and whatnot and why that's bad and doesn't work. But also, like, what's stopping somebody from being like, I'm going to use my mom's ID to just sign up for, you know what, this is again, I'll provide the Gen Z perspective here. There were plenty of apps that I was not supposed to sign up for as a child that were like 18 plus that I just put like my mom's email in and or something or made a fake email. Like I, I'm just like, I feel like these are such easy things to get around. Absolutely.

In the earlier iteration of the T app, there were plenty of times where men who were around, supposed to be on this app, use somebody else's information to get access to it to like take screenshots and put them on social media and things like that. So yeah, this is not an, this is not an ironclad system by any means. Anybody that has ever been on a dating app and tried to put their, been on a dating app, been interested, been somebody who either identifies as like a woman or a non-minor person or whatever and has put their dating eye preferences to women only can tell you, that doesn't do shit. Like I, Or when you, if you order Uber Eats and you're like, oh, Jessica is coming with my burritos. And then the person that shows up, you're like, I don't think you're Jessica, but okay.

I don't think you're Jessica. Like, people have figured out how to get around this is what we're saying. Exactly, exactly. So a new feature that they also have is this in-app AI dating coach that will provide advice for different dating scenarios and a chat analysis capability called Red Flag Radar AI, which says it can surface potential. warning signs in suitors. In both cases, a stop, sorry, I mean, I know, I know.

So according to the D's, the trust and safety person from T, she says, in both cases, AI is designed to supplement community insight and can help inform a community member's point of view on something they might not be sure about. Would you trust this AI dating coach and

AI red flag radar, which your with your online dating matches? Honestly, if there's anything, we ended the last story with me trying to pull a positive from that. This is me pulling like my negative, my worst, like, pessimistic take from this. Every time I see something about people using AI and like dating, like how to respond to people on dating apps and whatever,

like, I'm like, we're screwed. Like, this is it. Like I, y'all, I know date, like, flirting is awkward. It's hard. You got to put yourself out there. like I'm aware but like that's the fun of it that's the reason it's fun that's the re like I don't like imagine somebody says something really nice to you and then you find out that a robot did it not that like I would I would I'd be so mad are you kidding me I also idea of a red yeah I needed to pause there when we said the like red flag radar AI is this really what we need right now in the era of like TikTok therapy we have to therapy talk every everything every time somebody does something that I slightly don't like, that's a red flag.

Like, what are we calling red flags? What does a red flag mean? Like, what? Also, like, I don't know. We're human beings. We're flawed. Like, a lot of people, yes, there are things that I'm like, sure, if somebody does this, that's a red flag. You probably should drop them right there at the same time. I'm like, I don't know. We're all flawed individuals. I don't think I've ever dated anybody and been like, and they're a perfect human being and they've everything is great. Like, there's things that there's always something. they do that annoy you. I don't know. Like, that's just what being a human being is. Yeah, this is the story that's, I think, going to depress me the most. It's just like, come on, guys.

I don't know. Like, again, I keep going back to, because I do feel like this is a, like, my generation issue, too. Like, this is Gen Z. I'm sorry, but like, this is us doing this shit. Like, all of the AI boyfriends, the, like, the, yeah, they'll, like, using chat TBT to flirt with people. I'm like, that's so depressing. That's so depressing. That's so depressing. Just live your life. I don't know what to tell you. I once saw somebody they, I think I saw it on Reddit or something where somebody had worked out some, you know, lines to use support with women on chat GPT. And I was like, you need a chat GPT to give you the line like, hi, what's your name? Nice to meet you. And here's the thing. There's no harm. There's no harm in needing that.

I will say recently this week, somebody in my life who I love very dearly ran a like flirting line by me that I was like, you seriously needed me to tell you that that's an okay thing to say. Like, and that's not to push your right. Anyways, that being said, yeah, let's go back to the old fashioned ways. Ask your friends, you guys. Like, this is part of, this is what makes life. The reason I'm mad about this is I'm like, this is the thing to me that I'm like, this is what makes life worth living, right?

It's like these connections you have with people, sharing these experiences with people. If you are thinking through what you're saying so much to the fact where you're like, I need to have chat TVT editing it for me and saying it and making it perfect. Like that's not, you're taking the humanity out of your life. And that makes me really sad, you know, like talk to one of your friends. Ask you for it. Again, I've, I've sent so many like unhinged text to friends being like, hey, can you tell me that this response makes sense?

And they're like, yeah, like that's a normal thing to say, it's fine. That is so much less embarrassing than going to chat GPT and letting them look at it or, or or T-App, AI, or whatever. Or Grock, I guess. Yeah. Of all of the AIs, don't let Grock be the one that's in charge of your dating life. Let me just give that blanket advice for everybody. You don't think Mecca Hitler has some good one-liners, you know?

Yeah, maybe the person you're talking to likes, like, edgy, you know. Oh, it's just a joke, that kind of humor. Maybe they like, like, hatred and anti-Semitism. them masked with humor. Maybe they, maybe they'll be into that. If you can't pick that up as a red flag without AI, I feel like that's a new problem. If you're like, no, I thought the anti-Semitic jokes were like just a funny little bit.

He did, I don't know, man. Maybe you've got to do some self-evaluation too. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan, Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard,

you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, I-Hearts twice as large as the one podcaster. the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you

at IHeartadvertising.com. That's Iheartadvertising.com. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action, with stories told by the people who live. them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full

year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds, I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. But yeah, you know, good to know that AI is, uh, Valentine's Day is coming up in a month. So, you know, that's going to, we're obviously the most important thing that AI is doing is going to be writing our love letters and whatnot. And I'm sure, as you're going to tell me, Bridget, AI, uh, is being. used to just do so many more beautiful, like heartfelt really is just like propelling human connection forward, right? That's what you're about to say. I wish that was where this was going, but unfortunately, in common the opposite. Just a quick heads up for this conversation because it does

involve suicide. So, you know, we all know that AI is biased. And yet institutions have rushed to use AI in critical decision-making capacities. And I have a pretty grim example that I was reading about in the markup this week. According to this piece in the markup, an AI program that is designed to prevent suicides among U.S. military veterans is prioritizing white men and ignoring survivors of sexual violence, which affects a far greater percentage of women. Now, this is according to an investigation by the Fuller Project. The VA right now uses this algorithm that is meant to be targeting assistance to patients with the highest statistical risk for suicide. To do that, it looks at 61 variables, the document show,

and it gives preference to veterans who are divorced in male and widowed in male, but not to any other group of female veterans. So why is this a problem? Well, military sexual trauma and intimate partner violence, two things that are both linked to an elevated risk in suicide among female veterans are not taken into account. Now, the suicide rate among male veterans is higher than that of their female counterparts. However, the rate among female veterans is rising faster.

New government stats reveal that suicide rates for women veterans jumped by 24% from 2020 to 2021. That increase was four times higher than what male veterans experienced in that same time frame, roughly 10 times greater than the 2.6 rise seen among civilian women who would not serve in the military. And when I read that, that completely makes sense to me because that was before Pete Hegsath became the Secretary of Defense and initiated all these changes that were really hostile to anybody that is not a cis man in the military who was serving, right? So, like, what is making statements like this. And so it's just not hard for me to imagine that the climate has gotten increasingly more hostile since then. I want to add really quick because this is something that I think comes up whenever the stats come up about suicide rates in the U.S.

the fact that men do have higher suicide rights. A, it is a very, very complicated conversation about like also, you know, just culturally men are sort of like less encouraged to seek help than women are. Obviously, that's part of it. But I do also want to emphasize the fact that those stats don't take into account like LGBTQ plus identity, which I think we're going to get to a little bit later on in the story. But I think if you're somebody who is queer, if you're a queer man, If you are a trans woman, if you are somebody who was like a gender, a queer person who was assigned male at birth, like, you're also going to be just sort of stuck in that category of like men who commit suicide.

Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I bring that up just because I think I'm not, again, not saying everybody in that category probably belongs to that identity as well. But I do think, like, especially when we're talking about, like, the state of, like, the way that trans people are talked out in this country right now. Like, yeah, a lot of those people are also probably trans people that just are going to be put into, like, the man box because of, like, the world that we live in.

Absolutely that. I'm glad that you added that context because it sounds like that's exactly what's going on. The piece reads that the algorithm failed to take into account whether veterans identify as LGBTQ plus, even though the agency's own researchers have determined that trans veterans die by suicide at twice the rate as cisgender veterans.

VA scientists have also found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual veterans are at a greater risk for suicide than both the overall veteran population and the U.S. population at large. And so your point is exactly correct, Joey, that the way that these algorithms are responding to the data, it just doesn't actually reflect who these folks actually are and what the circumstances and warning signs actually might be in their life. So another thing about this algorithm is that not only is it kind of not considering the needs of service members who are not cis men, it might not even really be effective because the piece spoke to Meredith's. Rosard, who is a research director for NYU's Alliance for Public Interest Technology, and she doubted whether or not the agency's AI system even reached accurate conclusions, saying, whenever you have an algorithm that seems to favor the majority group, for example, white men,

and someone says, it's just math. It's most likely the case where systemic bias is manifesting itself in the math. And I really have to imagine that that's probably a bit of what's going on here. And that really dovetails with what we already know about how the Trump administration has been really hostile to the study of health disparities and just sort of calling it kind of like wasteful DEI. And so information and research that we might have had about public health issues and public health needs of women, trans folks, queer folks, black folks, that's really being purged and shuddered from the National Institute of Health to the CDC to the National Science Foundation. the administration has been canceling existing programs and research grants that really make it clear that topics like gender disparities are essentially forbidden. So the Markov spoke to Paulette Yezzi, who was a 45-year-old Air Force veteran from the Navajo Nation. And she talked about how it was difficult enough to be a woman in the military. She says, we get harassed, we get bullied, and now we are being pushed to the back again.

when she was told how this AI algorithm was basically prioritizing cis men over everyone else, she started crying and she talked about how she faced constant sexual harassment and unwanted advances during a tour in Iraq to the point where she would sleep with her lights on and her door locks and a chair up against the door for extra protection during her deployment. They always think about a second, this is going to cost people's lives, she said. And I just, something about that comment really moved me. because I think she's right, and I think it just goes to show what happens when we rush to deploy AI in situations that are life or death. It's very dangerous. You know, when we build algorithms on historical data that reflect bias and we train them on a world where the only experiences that are sort of taken seriously are cis white men,

we're not just replicating bias. We're like automating it and scaling it up. And she's right that it probably is going to cost people's lives. And I think it's just important to remember that we're talking about folks who are already marginalized and making them pay an even bigger price. And so, yeah, I just think that we're, it's just another example of the ways that rushing to put AI in a decision-making capacity in this way is really failing people and it's very dangerous. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, truly just coming on top of, I mean, I read a story that is, there's so much about this, that's so heartbreaking on its own, right? like Yazi, like her talking about her experience, like actually being in the military,

you know, the conversation about how the military particularly targets, uh, marginalized communities. Personally, I, I grew up in. I grew up around a lot of veterans and, uh, was at a high school where like, you know, there always was the booth with the like two army recruiters, trying to get people. Having that experience is like, honestly the thing that made me like anti-military growing up, which I think like a lot of people is very similar. I know a lot of it.

Truly, I think the way to summer, like so much of the AI stories we've been talking about lately, it's like an issue that is already like a dumpster fire of a problem. And then we're like, let's put AI in there to make it a little bit spicier. I don't know.

Yeah. Such a good way to put it. A, there's the systemic issue of the fact that it's like, yeah, there's so many ways that the military targets marginalized communities. There's ways that like queer people, women and whatever, are not taken seriously when they bring these issues forward.

And then just now we're, yeah, we're throwing an AI to say, and the narrative that we want to hear, which is that the military is for sad white men being sad, is apparently all that we're getting from this. I don't know. Yeah, and it's being codified and replicated and, like, entrenched using AI. And I want to be clear when I say all this, like, I am, like, this is not on the fault of veterans. Like, this is on the fault of the military and, like, the system that is in place. place. And like, if you want to be pro-veteran, you have to be angry about this habit, you know. Damn right. So speaking of things that I'm angry about, we talked a bit last week about what happened

in Minnesota where Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent on camera. Someone has actually set up a GoFundMe for that agent, Jonathan Ross, who shot Renee Good, even though it is against the rules of GoFundMe. The fundraiser titled ICE Officer Jonathan Ross seeks at least $550,000 to support potential legal expenses for the ICE agent identified as having shot and killed good. So this is completely and explicitly against GoFundMe's terms of service. The GoFundMe campaign's stated purpose,

which is raising money for legal services following a killing, directly conflicts with GoFundMe's terms of service, which specifically bars any fundraisers that are intended to support the legal defense of people accused of violent or financial crimes. So you might be asking yourself, why is GoFundMe allowing this on their platform? The long and short of it is that we don't really know. So Wired Reports that GoFundMe has not publicly explained why the Ross Fundraiser remains active despite its terms of service stating that users agree to not, quote,

use the service or platform to raise funds for the legal defense of financial and violent crimes, including those related to money laundering, murder, robbery, assault, battery, sex crimes, or crimes against minors. So, Wired was like, let's get to the bottom of this. They emailed a GoFundMe spokesperson on Sunday night, and GoFundMe said, oh, we are in the process of reviewing all the fundraisers tied to the shooting, saying, during the review process, all funds remain safely held by our payment processors. GoFundMe's terms of service prohibit fundraisers that raise money for the legal defense

of anybody formally charged with a violent crime, any campaigns that violate this policy will be removed. So I will say that as of right now, the ICE agent who shot good has not been charged with a crime. And you might have seen JD Vance on television saying that ICE agents had complete immunity. I think the law might feel otherwise, but that's what JD Vance says. So like, but like right now that person is not in charge with a crime. So GoFundMe told WIRE that they were working directly with Clyde Emmons, who was the person who started this fundraiser to gather additional information. So Wired said that on Sunday night, the fundraiser said very clearly that the funds were going to go to help pay for any legal services the officer needs. But because GoFundMe's rules

prohibit fundraisers for legal defenses for violent acts, Wired noticed that later the language was mysteriously removed after Wired inquired about it and replaced with the phrase, funds will go to help him. So not help him with legal funds. needed to defend himself because he's committed a violent act, just generally help him. GoFundMe did not respond to multiple follow-up requests for comment, including questions as to whether or not the company had advised the organizer to change the description to better comport with its rules. And even still, even though they took off that language that said it was a legal defense fundraiser, despite those changes, several slides in a carousel at the top of the Ross

fundraising page that was still active when I checked it out before we recorded, make the purpose of the fundraiser very clear, quote, give to cover Jonathan's legal defense, and quote, Officer Jonathan Ross's legal defense fund pays attorney fees and court costs. So what the hell go fund me? I don't understand why they are like bending over backward to keep this fundraiser on their platform, especially considering In 2015, after police were charged in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, GoFundMe did remove a fundraiser citing a violation of its rules against supporting legal defenses in violent cases. That same year, they also removed a campaign for a South Carolina officer who had been charged in the fatal shooting of Walter Scott. So there is a precedent for them taking down fundraisers where somebody is raising funds for these kinds of acts. when they took down that fundraiser for the police officers that killed Freddie Gray,

the statement they gave to the media was, GoFundMe cannot be used to benefit those who are charged with serious violations of the law. The campaign clearly stated that the money was raised was to be used to assist the officers with their legal fees, which is a direct violation of GoFundMe's terms. So I really can't understand what has changed, other than the fact that, I mean, I wonder if they're like, oh, well, he hasn't been charged with a crime,

so it's still fine to have this fundraiser up. But if that's the case, he just gets money for shooting somebody? That doesn't seem right either. The thing that I'm wondering, too, because I, I, you brought up both of these cases where cops shot unarmed people and those, those,

uh, those girlfriendies were taken down. Part of me also is curious, like, what are they defining as like a violent act? Because on the flip, like, like, what I'm wondering is like, on the flip sign, if it was somebody that had shot somebody, like, genuinely in self-defense. If it was somebody who had, you know, especially if it was a situation where somebody was defending

themselves against, like, racist violence or misogynistic violence or whatever, like, would go find me take that down, too, because it was a violent act, you know? Like, part of me, like, reading their policy originally, like, part of me is sort of like, actually, I'm a little bit conflict. like I don't like because again it's and I say that because this is the situation of like when we talk about free speech

and it's like well if you're saying we can't do X Y Z thing like how far is it going to go until you're like saying anything anti-government or whatever is dangerous I wonder if it's the same thing here where it's like what are they defining as like as a violent crime as a whatever

because I guess obviously like I agree I agree where I'm like, this is an insane campaign. Because, again, I am petty. I do want to take a second to say Clyde Emmons is like the most like bad guy, like Western bad guy, like kids cartoon, evil man. I'm picturing him with like a really weird mustache and a big hat. Like a twisty mustache.

Right, he's got a twisty mustache. He like, like, I just, that is an insane. name. But yeah, no, like I agree. I think like it's bad, obviously that this exists, that there's a fundraiser. It's really just heartening to see that people are, you know, cheering this on. I know it's I know that there is like, you know, people seeing what happened last week and having a very, very different response to it than what I did. But it's like sad to see that illustrated in this way. But yeah, at the same time, it does kind of make me wonder like what's happening on the go fund me side where like who gets to determine this, like who gets to determine whether or not

this gets taken out or not. Yeah, that's my big question. And it makes complete sense to me. And I just wonder if like we've seen with so many other tech companies, if they're just taking their cues from the administration, if they're just trying to, you know, yeah, I think that we're in a weird time where it seems clear to me that a lot of organizations are in, invested in selectively picking and choosing when their terms of services applied. And it concerns me greatly. Definitely. It appears to be a theme of this episode, you know?

And this is why I think it is okay that I never do read the terms and services because apparently they don't apply anyways. So it's really not my fault. And even though I do know that I probably should sit down and actually look at these things and I'm falling for the corporate tactic of just throwing a bunch of stuff at you and ignoring it and just saying yes anyways because it's too. But also, apparently it doesn't matter anyways. So maybe being lazy is the real thing that helps you win at the end of the day. I don't know where I'm going with this. Listeners, please don't take advice for me. Again, ever. That's a

terrible idea. Let's take a quick break. podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, uh, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard herds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard Yardt Yard's, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me.

I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not. thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business.

Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicleaf 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. but grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Well, I actually cannot wait to get your thoughts on the last thing I wanted to talk about. Okay, so this story was published by The Lookout, an investigative nonprofit news organization that covers Arizona's LGBTQ plus community. So there is a bar in Phoenix called Stacey's at Melrose. It's an LGBTQ plus bar.

Caviats to what I said before, actually, if there's anything you're going to take advice from me from, it's probably J-Bars. That's the only thing that I can take confidently. I feel like you know all the good spots in Brooklyn. Thank you. We'll do an episode at some point. That's just the Bridget and Joey review. every single gay, queer, queer adjacent bar in the eastern Brooklyn area. I'm going to start calling it that now.

But yes, Stacey's at Melrose. Tell me more. So Stacey's at Melrose, they are rolling out kind of a sassy AI chatbot. And it does not sound like the community is thrilled about it. I'll put it that way. Yeah, sorry. If there's any community that I'm like,

I'm proud of us. We have held our stance against AI. It's the gay community. Like I, there's a lot of stuff that we, I think, have some inner community issues. We got to work out. But I do feel like gay people have been pretty anti-a-y. Maybe this is just me being biased from like the people in my life. But yeah, no, this doesn't seem like the group, the community you want to be like, guys, cool, cool AI thing to look at. I don't know. No, people are not happy about it. Historically, gay people hate making art. on their own. Right. Yeah.

Okay, so in early January, the bar put up a post on Instagram announcing their chat bot, which is powered by Google Gemini, named Mother. The post reads, she's learning, she's listening,

she's almost here. Stop. It's Mother with no E. Just in case you just to help you picture it. I hate that so much. Come on. Of course there's no E. Yeah, it's better with no E.

So Mother is already helping with our staff schedules. sidework, internal tools, and website updates. Soon she'll be live for performers and guests, answering questions about events, shows, drinks, and all things, Stacey's. New tools, same heart. Design for our community by us, the post reads. Bridget, I know you don't get this reference because we talked about this off mic at a previous

episode, but I am picturing motherboard from CyberChase to my fellow PBS kids, people back in the day. Shout out CyberChase. was a foundational piece of media for me as a child. But yeah, if you know, you know, Bridgett apparently just is not familiar with this show. I miss that one. I miss that one. This was an older genie, like era TV show again, PBS Kids.

Shout out to everybody else, all of the other gay people listening that were shaped by that TV show. But yes, continue. It actually might have been better received had it been based. on the PBS character. For real, I was going to say my friend did like a drag version of mother for, or of the motherboard from Cyberchase

for Halloween last year, and it was like one of my favorite costumes that I saw. So it has a sassy tone. It kind of compare it to it sounding like a tongue-in-cheek drag queen MC as opposed to just like a regular monotone chatbot.

People are not thrilled as lookout writes, quote, since the announcement community members online have turned against Stacey's and criticized their decision to install an AI-based chatbot. They argue that queer spaces should be sensitive to, if not downright, eradicate using the technology. On January 9th, community members gathered outside of Stacey's to protest the bar's decision with a goal to pack the bar.

So people aren't happy. People aren't having it. I went to their Instagram and a lot of the comments. They did the thing where the comments are turned off kind of globally now, I think. but the posts about the AI didn't have comments. And so people would be like commenting on other posts that have nothing to do with the AI. Like, hey, are you going to address the AI?

So I will say the bar did respond with like a pretty meaty statement on their website, basically saying that they believe that AI is the future and they're trying to embrace it. Here's what the statement says. Let's start with the reality of the world we live in. We are currently navigating a technological shift as significant as the invention of the Internet

An estimated 63% of businesses worldwide plan to adopt AI within the next three years. Large companies, 92% of them, are already ramping up their AI investments to dominate the market. Expecting a small, independent business to ignore this shift is unrealistic. Worse, prohibiting the adoption of emerging technology creates a divide, one where marginalized communities are left behind economically while major corporations reap the benefits. It's a bomb! What? Yeah.

Sorry, continue the sentence and then I'll give my thoughts. Yeah, yeah. If only the big chains are allowed to leverage these tools, independent queer spaces will not be able to compete. We refuse to let that happen. What are your thoughts? Sorry, sorry, take a step back. What big chains are putting AI?

Also, what big chain bars are you talking about, first of all. Second of all, has anybody reacted positively to any food or drink establishment putting AI in their, like, I feel like what we, been getting for the past couple months is that people don't like that. You know what? There's a reason that I usually go to gay bars. There's a lot of things about gay bars that I really appreciate. There's better music. It's not like I go to gay bars and I'm like, God damn it. I loved that at the straight bar across the street, I was getting hit on every three seconds despite the fact that I kind of dressed like a 12 year old boy. I really wish I was

having that experience here. Like, I feel like this is similar where I'm like, you know what? If the straight world is going to be on board with AI, I'm coming to the space to escape from that. I don't know. No, that's such a good point of like the, in the statement that they're like, well, do you only want the main, like the mainstream establishments to have AI and like small queer spaces?

But yeah, underscores it. I do think that like queer spaces are different. and the expectation should be different. As we all know, historically, like, the queer community, our whole thing has been saying, well, everybody else is doing it, so we should do that exact same thing and make that exact same space happen

in this space that is for us. Like, I just, what's the logic here? Are we going to start pouring normally portion drinks and not drinks that are about 70% alcohol and like a couple drops of mixer in there? Because that's what straight people are doing. God, I hope not. Like, sorry, that's,

The reason I'm showing, that's the reason I can, I, I, um, yes, be mad at me. I am the person that brings my straight friends to the gay bar, but also you all are doing it too, so I don't care. But anyways, I was going to say, that's how I bring my, that's how I convince my straight friends come with me is I'm like, and you're going to get drunk off of one drink and you're going to have a great time. Uh, I'm just saying, maybe the reason of the straight people are doing it, is it, uh, exactly what we think in it. Like, maybe that's not the, the argument that we think it is here. Yes. This literally, this feels like a whole, horror movie. This feels like a parody of a horror movie. Like 2001 Space Odyssey, but it takes

place in a gay bar and like the AI would be called mother instead of Hal. Like what? We couldn't have called it Megan. Like I don't. That was right there. Thank you. Yeah. And she was kind of, you know, she had some, she had a lot of sass to her. I might be on board with it if they had modeled after Megan. I might be on board with it. Exactly. I was like if you put, there were so many ways you could have made this funny and no. I will say the, The lookout talk to the co-owner, Brandon Slayton. And, you know, I was thinking, like, what's going on at this bar is that they need to have an AI chat bot?

That's going to be the most efficient way to communicate information. Exactly. What's happening? That was my first thought is, like, what's going on? I will say that he said that they needed a more efficient system because they have different events happening throughout the week, different drink specials, things like that, that keeping the website updated was becoming a real headache.

Kind of much, I don't know. I mean, I'm such a ludite. When during COVID, when a lot of restaurants switched over to like QR code menus instead of paper menus, which I cannot stand is one of my biggest pet pee. I hate it. It's so bad. Yeah. I once got into it at a restaurant where they were like, oh, yeah, we, it's hard to update the specials all the time. So, you know, we use the QR code.

And I was like, I used to come in here all the time and it was a paper menu. So like, was that so hard? I don't know. I, on the one hand, I see his point that like up it in the website every time might be a pain. but I don't know, building a sassy gay bar chat bot, is that really the most efficient thing? I don't know. This is also where I'm like, I never want to be one of those people that's like people don't work anymore. Like nobody wants to do their jobs.

But this is one of those situations where I'm like, you can't update a drinks list on your website. Like seriously? Like, yeah, that's annoying. But it's, you would need AI to do that for you. Right. To your point, when you update the website just on your own as a human who knows what's going out at the bar, pretty low likelihood for human error. I have a feeling that this chatbot is going to give out so many hallucinations about

what's happening at this bar. I have a feeling when they roll it out, they're going to be like, I don't know about this. Exactly. I was like, too, I'm thinking about, like, the people that I know that work in, like, nightlife and have worked at bars and I've worked it and, like, events planning and stuff like that. Like, yes, there's a lot of work that goes into that.

But what you were saying, I don't necessarily trust a, like, chat GPT. Let me put it this way. It is already so confusing to find out when, and I'll drop this now and I'll say this now, somebody who is like a just starting out drag performer is already so hard to find information about this stuff. AI is going to make it, has you Googled anything lately and tried to find info on it?

It doesn't make it easier. It makes it worse. I don't know. This story is so bad. I just, I'm glad we ended on this so that I at least have something I can like kind of laugh at, but this is like, I think just because this is the world

that I'm probably like closest to that I'm like, yeah, I know people that work at these type of bars, but perform at these type of bars. I'm a frequent, you know, customer at these places. Why? Just why? You know what I just realized. If we, because the transcript of this episode,

if it gets scraped by AI, because you talked about doing drag performances and Arizona and, commented on Stacey's, I wonder if mother will be like, come see Joey at our butt. Stacey's in Arizona. Come see Joey Pat. Come see Joey Pat at Stacey's in Arizona. I'm just going to say that over and over again so I can mess up this particular. And then a bunch of random people in Arizona are going to be like, who's Joey Pat? Yeah, I've always wanted to be kind of a cryptid like figure. So I'm glad that that can finally happen through this AI. Sorry, actually, never mind. I've changed my mind. I've changed my mind. I'm actually very, very pro this AI. If it can turn me into a cryptid of the Arizona game. bar scene. Oh, you know, it's funny. I read RuPaul's memoir, and RuPaul writes about, in the early days,

just got a bunch of posters printed that said, who is RuPaul, who is RuPaul, who is RuPaul, to like drum up buzz and like, who is this figure? So yeah, this will be your branding. This will be my branding, exactly. You know, I will say, and the end of the subsov is we're going to get to my socials, but I bridge it as you know, all of my socials are pat-dot Pratt, and that has been great branding for me

because whenever people mess up my name, I got to be like, actually, follow me on Instagram. So I don't know, maybe make a, if you can make a joke out of your name that people mispronounce somehow or like, just be like, who the fuck is this person? It's a great branding tactic, is all I'll say. So yeah, Joey Pat, Arizona, Stacey's Bar.

I'm just going to say that over and over again until the internet like Joey Pat, Arizona, Stacey's bar, drag performance. We're manifesting it. We're making it happen. It's a tough world out here. It's a tough world out here, guys. We've got to do whatever we can to get a leg up. So let's go.

Well, Joey, this has been delightful. I'll be seeing you at your performance at Stacey's in Arizona. Thank you, of course. But until then, how can folks keep up with you and what have you got going on? Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Bridget. blessed as always, looking forward to seeing you in Arizona again. And yeah, you can, as I said, you can find me online on Instagram, on basically any social media platform at Pat Not Pratt.

With the exception of TikTok, TikTok, I am a hot topic dad that is hot topic like the store and then dad like the father figure. Otherwise, you can hear my work on this show. You can also check out some of the work I do. I am a producer for the Outspoken Slate here at IHeart, so you can listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison. T.S. Madison also going to make an appearance at Stacey's. We actually have a joint show we're doing together. You can also, I work on another show called Black Fat Fem that is also on the Outspoken Network.

Bridget might be making an appearance on there soon. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. And then also, yeah, stuff I've never told you, etc., etc. find me wandering around the streets of Brooklyn looking confused. I don't know. Looking for a bathroom and you'll be able to find one. Finally.

Finally. I have had to pee since 2018. And finally. Finally. Thank you, Zora and Mamdani. Sure words were never spoken. Thank you so much for being here, Jilly. And thanks to all of you for listening. I will see you on the internet.

If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoody.com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoati.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Edited by Joey Pat.

Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite.

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