There Are No Girls on the Internet - Kendall Jenner inspired Meta chatbot lures a man to his death; AI TikToks distort DC; VTubers Sell Out Stadiums; Kayfabe is Everywhere; Tea App Update – NEWS ROUNDUP w/ Dexter Thomas

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

Bridget is joined in this week's news roundup by tech journalist Dexter Thomas, prolific writer, videographer, and host of the excellent podcast "Kill Switch". Dex recently wrote a piece in Wired about anime girl VTubers selling out concerts, and how the question of whether they're "real" depends on kayfabe and who you ask: https://www.wired.com/story/anime-girl-vtubers-are-selling-out-concerts-but-are-they-real-depends-on-who-you-ask/  In addition to listening to Kill Sitch, you can follow him on YouTube and social media at "D E X D I G I". DC Disinfo.  Real Footage Combined With AI Slop About DC Is Creating a Disinformation Mess on TikTok: https://www.404media.co/real-footage-combined-with-a-ai-slop-about-dc-is-creating-a-disinformation-mess-on-tiktok/ The Tea App story gets worse. Turns out that weren't just sloppy, they were actively undermining other efforts to keep women safe.  https://www.404media.co/how-teas-founder-convinced-millions-of-women-to-spill-their-secrets-then-exposed-them-to-the-world/ Meta’s flirty AI chatbot invited a vulnerable retiree to New York. He never came back. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-death/ If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there to let us know what you thought about these stories, or email us at [e-mail] ! Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media! Many vids each week ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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. This is There Are No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the intersection of technology, culture, social media, and identity. And this is our weekly news roundup where we dive into stories that you might have missed online. I am kind of fan-girling because of this, our guest co-host today. Dexter Thomas hosted the Kill Switch podcast on this very network. You're one of my kind of favorite humans in the tech media space. I'm so thrilled that you're here.

No. Okay. that is too good of an intro. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much. So when you're not busy making the Kill Switch podcast, you also write all around the internet about sort of the intersection of tech and media. How would you describe your sort of beat? Oh my gosh. So I say that I do culture. Culture. Yeah, I say that I do culture. And culture for me is whatever you sit down on the couch and keeps you sitting down on the couch

or whatever makes you want to get up off the couch and do something about it. So that's a very roundabout way of saying I'm interested in everything. You wrote a piece in Wired recently called Anime Girl V-Tubers are selling out concerts, but are they real? Depends on who you ask.

All about V-tubers, a type of content creator that uses a virtual, often anime-style character as a kind of avatar. These people are like selling out IR concert venues and performing with like real, backing bands in front of real audiences that cannot get enough. I actually learned about this phenomenon from your reporting and wired.

Is that a fair assessment of what V-tubers are? Yeah. So, man, so V-Tubers essentially, if you've ever used or seen that kind of an emoji-type thing on an iPhone where you can show, where you can have an avatar, like an emoji reacting to what your face does, it's only a little bit more complicated than that. And so essentially, these, a v-tuber is kind of what it sounds like. It's a virtual YouTuber, somebody who streams, and they just don't show their face or their body. And yeah, you're right. Usually, it's anime girls. It doesn't have to be anime girls. And honestly, why it's anime girls is

probably an entirely different podcast. But yeah, it's very often anime girls. So pretty influence from, you know, anime culture and stuff like that. too. As part of reporting this, you went to Fantastic Reality, a mini festival at the Vermont theater that brought together eight main V-Tuber X. What was this like? Man, you know, I knew stuff like this existed, but I'd never really been to one. So I've been to Anime Expo a couple times. It presented actually at anime Expo. And so I knew this sort of thing existed, but essentially just imagine going to a concert

and the singer, the main attraction, is on a screen. And they never step on the stage because they can't because they're not real. Which, by the way, I'm not supposed to say that. I'm not supposed to say these people aren't real, but I'm saying it. Because there's a whole thing, right? Like, like, they pretend, like, they're sort of, everybody's sort of in the joke like what do you mean they're not real right right yeah so this is so anybody who's ever watched uh wwe who's ever watched wrestling will will know this word k fab so k fab is essentially

kind of pretending that something is real even though you know that it's not because it's more fun and so you know when we watched hulk hogan and the macho man you know hit each other over the head with chairs we knew that they'd planned it out beforehand but it's way more fun and if you think about it, you know, a UFC fight, some of those things are really boring because it's over in like five seconds because somebody gets the leg broken and that's not fun for me. But watching two dudes beat each other up in this weird sweaty soap opera for 20 minutes and there's drama and you think this guy's going to lose and that guy's going to lose and then somebody jumps off the top rope who wasn't even in the match period. It's fun. And so that is K-fabe and really interestingly,

in English anyway, of V-tubers and their fans will use that same word that wrestling fans use, K-Fabe. And the idea is that it's not fake. It's that we are all creating this play together. And so it's even more involved, I would argue, than wrestling. But the same kind of underlying principle there. You're talking very glowingly about this, but in your piece, something that I like is that you kind of talked about being a little bit skeptical at first. You write, a music purist might scoff at all this. To say that V-tuber fans don't even like music. They just like anime. And the whole scene is fake. Full disclosure here, I will admit that I walked into the venue with a touch of this mentality, but that slowly

turned into an existential crisis. Who can say their favorite genre isn't also fake? So I guess my big question is, is it fake or does that even matter? Does the question of real or fake even really matter at this point? You know what? For me, I mean, and it's weird hearing my words right back to me. But yes, I did write those words. And it's true. It's true. It's true. But here's the thing, is that you could say that the V-Tuber stuff is fake. And to be real, most of it is not my cup of tea, mostly because I'm not really into anime music unless I like this specific anime.

And that there's only a small, you know, group of anime tracks that I would say. I like, you know, I like this, you know, cowboy bebop. You can't really deny that soundtrack. Yeah, classic. You know, the OG Dragon Ball. theme song. Can't deny that. The OG soundtrack. You know, in some weird, obscure, like 80s stuff, 70s stuff that I like because there was a live action Spider-Man in Japan in the 70s.

Like, it's, I like that stuff. I like that kind of stuff. Current stuff, not really my flavor. That's really kind of what you would hear these sort of things. Not really my flavor. But if you're talking about fake, at some point you have to start talking about rap music. And hip hop is obsessed with reality, and yet Drake has fans, and yet Rick Ross has fans. And 99.9% of these dudes who are rapping about stuff that they did, they did not do it, they didn't even see it. And do any of us truly care?

We kind of pretend we do. But if it sounds good, we're kind of cool with it. So really, we're, rap is also cave. Rap is the biggest cave market, I would argue, maybe in the world. We all just pretend that, you know, these dudes, are doing the stuff they said they did it because it sounds kind of cool to, you know, chant the lyrics along with them in your car or whatever. So, you know, I can't, I can't really hate on the V-tubers and their fans because they're doing something very similar

to what I do and what I've been doing for years. Are you saying that it's possible that Drake didn't really start from the bottom? Is that what you're suggesting right now? I am, I'm not suggesting that. I am asserting that there are years of televised evidence that that man did not start anywhere near what a reasonable person would consider the bottom. That is what I'm saying. That is my journalist, not my opinion. That is my assessment.

And I defy anybody to say that that's not true because the truth is actually out there. It's facts. It's fact. Yeah. One of the points that you made in the piece was that, you know, this is one thing when we're talking about a human using a digital avatar,

but what the future could sort of look like when you have AI generated, like the whole thing is AI generated, like not humans using a digital avatar. How does this fandom feel about that possibility? Yeah. So my opinion, and I still hold this opinion, is that V-tubers and their fans will be the first, one of the first markets that AI will start to encroach on, or AI will try to encroach on. Because if you think of it, they're almost kind of halfway there. They've already removed the physical person from the, visual at least because, you know, people are fans of somebody who's physical body, you know, I'm breaking k-fate here, but somebody whose physical body, they will never see.

Because most of these V-tubers will never show their body or their face. Matter of fact, there's probably a lot of V-tubers who would refuse to be interviewed because they want to keep, you know, keep that line. But, you know, I think the one of the things that really surprised me was a lot of the fans. Actually, all the fans that I talked to told me we would never accept AI. We do not want AI anywhere near this culture at all. And I found that really, really interesting because I'm not sure that that's necessarily the case for a lot of other genres. I mean, there was that psych rock group, forgetting what they're called Velvet's Sundown or something like that.

We talked about them on the podcast. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, one of the biggest genres is a genre that I've personally had beef with for a very long. time. Lofi. Lofi hip hop. Lofi hip hop doesn't mean anything. It's just boring, soulless backtracking. It's homework. It's homework background music. That's all it is. Like, it's not music. For me, this is my personal opinion, right? That has been absolutely ravaged by AI. Because here's the, here's the big difference between say lofi hip hop and V-tubers is I defy you. Anybody who says you like

low-fi hip-hop, tell me five artists. And no Nujabas doesn't count. You can't. I guarantee you can't. You're a fan of just a background vibe. V-tuber fans are fans of a very specific persona. And at least for now, they seem to want to know that a human is attached with that. Will that change?

Will somebody convince them in the future? I don't know. But for me, I feel like, man, if they get the V-tuber fans with as anti-AIs they are right now, if they get the V-Tubers, we're next. Everybody's next. They're going to get all of us. That's such a good point. I think that's, I mean, I am not above putting on lo-fi beats to chill and study to you. Could not name an artist. If it's not the girl in front of, the, the anime girl in front of the rainy window. Yes, that's the only person I, that's the only person I can name. And it's not a person and she didn't make the music. That is something that somebody drew and it's

Lofi beats the study too. It's the girl in the cafe with the rain in the back. She didn't make any of that music. And yeah, people can't name a lofi artist. They'll say new job is. If they say Dilla, I will get extremely angry because Dilla is not Lofi. Dilla is his own genre. Dilla is hip hop.

But yeah, it's a, it's interesting to watch people try to explain why they don't like V-Tuber stuff. And everything they say about the genre or. about the culture is stuff you could absolutely say about the stuff that they're into. It's just a slightly different version of it. So, you know, I love being around people who are just into stuff. You know what I mean? That's exciting to me. People who are just like excited about things, I love that.

I love that. I always love that. Yeah, me too. And I have to wonder if part of this is, or part of the hate that V-tubers get, it's because it's something associated with very passionate young girls. Like one of the artists that you talked to said, you know, how can I make all these connections and prove not just to myself, but to other people, that it is not silly to be an anime girl on the internet. But then you go on to report how this is big business. These are selling out venues. These are live streamers who are making real money from what they're doing. And so it's not just silly anime girls on the internet. We're talking about something that actually is a financial and potentially like a business force. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I mean, I wanted that quote that you just said, it's not silly to be an anime girl on the internet. I wanted that to be the title of the wired piece. We changed the headline. But I wanted to just be that. For Kill Switch, for the podcast, we made that the title. I had a little bit more control over that. But yeah, I think, you know, let's keep in mind that the people who are the creators here often is young women or women in general, right?

and there's some dudes out there who that bothers them for some reason. No, again, we could say things about the appearance of the models, whatever you want to say. Again, I think that's another conversation. But, you know, there's some interesting elements, I think, in how that works. Well, I think a lot of the stories that I want to get into with you speak a lot to these issues. Should we get into it? Let's do it. Yeah.

Where do you want to go? Well, first, you know, I live in D.C. and let's just say there's a lot going on in the city at the moment. I first want to thank folks who reached out after the episode that we did about the D.C. situation. Obviously, it is a ongoing situation, but somebody left a comment on Spotify saying that their personal TikTok algorithm was really showing them a ton of content about how bad crime in D.C. is, which is so interesting because, as we know, crime here in D.C. has hit a 30-year low. But right now, TikTok is a wash in these mostly AI-generated fake videos depicting crime and homelessness in D.C. A lot of these videos are using, I guess they'll call it my old nemesis, Google's V-O-3, a platform that we've talked about before in our episode about these like very racist AI-generated videos featuring black women. But now they're

using V-O-3 to make these, I would argue, pretty obviously AI-generated videos depicting homelessness and crime in D.C. They'll often sort of be a mix of mostly accurate but vague reporting about the situation in D.C. As 404 media puts it, unlike previous efforts to flood the zone with AI slop in the aftermath of a disaster or major news events, some of the videos blend real footage, making it harder than ever to tell what's real and what's not, which has the effect of distorting people's understanding of the military occupation of D.C. So I have seen these videos on my feed, which is so interesting in that, like, I live in D.C. So I have a pretty good sense of like what's going on here. But these videos are very persistent. Have you seen any of

these? Yeah. Yeah, I've seen them. And shout out to 404, by the way. Just continually doing important really, really important tech reporting out there. I'm biased. I know the people who found it, but just truly punching above their weight. They're doing such incredible stuff recently. Yeah, we I mean, I, we were

subscribers. I'm a huge fan. I don't think our podcast would exist without 404 because also they, I feel like they are like, yeah. Mine would not either. Kill Switch would not exist, like quote me on that. Kill Switch would not exist without 404. And frankly, I

think that there are a, there is a lot of tech reporting that some New York Times would not have some of the stuff that they have with it wasn't for 404. 4.4 people really, actually, I was going to say people to sleep on a 404. I actually don't think so. I think people, I think 404 is getting the respect they deserve recently. So yeah, the heavyweights. Yeah. Subscribe to 404 if you don't already. We love and value their reporting. And so one of the things that I thought was so interesting about how they were talking about this, what we're seeing with the D.C. occupation of, honestly, like a military occupation of my city is how they point out that if you are not familiar with D.C., these videos, you might not be able to tell that they're fake, right?

Having men from D.C. my whole life, I see that. I'm like, oh, that's fake. They had a video purporting to show the National Mall covered end-to-end in tents from the Washington Monument to the Capitol building. That's like two miles. And this video shows just a sea of tents where you can't even see the lawn. And again, part of me is thinking, if folks just thought for a second, like, would tourists be coming to D.C.? If they, if to see the monuments, they had to navigate just a sea of tents in that way. And when you go to the comments, you actually see people who say things like, thank you, President Trump for cleaning up D.C. And we really appreciate what you're doing. And I think it comes back to something that we talk about all the time on the show, which is that at a certain point, it kind of doesn't seem to matter whether or not these videos are real because they validate and align with a world view.

Yeah. It will clearly have that DC is a cesspool. It's full of crime. You can't even see the Washington monument because it's tense just stacked up. Yeah. It's stacked up. And it clearly is this sort of aligning with the worldview that people already have. So they're just inclined to believe it and spread it.

Yeah, it feels true. It doesn't matter if it is. It feels true. It feels true. And you can tell someone that it's not. And you could show them a real picture of the thing. And something that is happening more and more recently, and this is happening with politicians. This happened with a hurricane where you might have seen this 4-4 also reported on this.

But I'm forgetting the name of the politician, but, you know, there's an image maybe a couple years ago at this point of, this girl in the rain holding this puppy and she's basically saving the puppy from the flood. And if you look at it and if you're used to looking at AI generated images, you could really tell that it wasn't true. And people try to, you know, this politician reposted it and says, this is terrible, what's happening. People say, yo, this isn't real. And the politician basically says some of the effect of it doesn't matter. I'm sure things like this are happening. I've reported on this. This is a thing that we're seeing a lot of is that it feels true and it emotionally hits you before it hits your logic center of your brain. And once that happens, it actually doesn't really matter if somebody refutes it.

The facts actually don't come into play soon enough for you to feel like, yes, this is true. I remember that image of the girl with the puppy and the hurricane. I wish I could remember who the politician was, but she really, I think, I think it's kind of stumbled on some insight of like, oh, well, it doesn't matter if this actually happened or not or if I'm really spreading misinformation, AI generated misinformation, because this could be happening somewhere and it feels true. And the image, it's, AI is so good at creating images that really do speak to some part of your brain where that image, the puppy was impossibly cute and looked impossibly sad,

the girl was impossibly cute. It was, I mean, it should have been a giveaway that, these moments in life that are like created to be so just so you know that when a moment like that is captured you should be like wait a minute this is almost too adorably sad perhaps it's not real yeah well I think the people who are making these are also stumbling on something themselves which is to say that

if you look at the images that cause the most problems it's images of people's faces, right? And, you know, we're just, we're wired to pay attention to faces. We're wired to trust faces. I mean, look at a baby. If you leave a baby in a room and a person walks in, everything else is not interesting anymore. The baby will stare at the person.

Yeah. And so it's like, you know, and I don't want to get like evolutionary biology or whatever because I'm not an expert in that. But I definitely know that babies are interested in people. don't really ever lose that. And so if you see a face, even if it's digital, it's going to feel like, okay, this is real. It's really hard to convince somebody that a face isn't real. And the faces of the people that they're seeing are not real. And even just bodies, even if it's like people running, it feels real to us. It feels emotionally real. And we don't have time to process that logically.

I just don't think it's reasonable to expect somebody to. And I think especially with content that is, that we know, is kind of emotionally charged like crime. You know, oftentimes when you're talking about crime through the lens of social media, you're talking about videos that are very arresting or images that are very arresting. And so I think when you add in AI,

the possibilities are just endless for having a conversation that is simply not grounded in the logic or the reality of what is actually happening, but it's just trafficking in what feels true, what feels like it could be happening somewhere, even if most of the video is on TikTok purporting to depict it are AI-generated and not actually happening and not even depicting the city in any real way.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I've said this for a long time, that it used to be that you could look at an AI-generated picture and they would always say, oh, well, look at the hands. The hands are always off. And that, I think people, anybody who thinks that they can 100% identify any AI generated video by looking at or image by looking at it, you're fooling yourselves. And especially if you think you're able to do it, even six months from now, 10 out of 10 times, I really think you're fooling yourself if you believe that. Now, what do we do with that? I don't know. But that's the reality is we're not only you're not going to be able to believe stuff, but, Yeah, it opens so many things.

I mean, there are going to be things that are real that actually did happen. And somebody could say, that is not real, that is fake, that is AI. And it'll so enough of a doubt there to where, well, I don't know. Maybe this thing that somebody actually filmed with their actual real camera didn't happen. Maybe they are lying to me. So the actual fabric of reality is tearing. It's going to get pretty weird. Let's take a quick break.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast's Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows.

Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense.

And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get to flyin. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball, like, After you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball.

So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix, so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it.

Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So we were talking about all of this AI-generated content about crime and homelessness in D.C. right now as Trump is taking over D.C.'s police force. These videos will use V.O3 to create these AI-generated videos about what's happening in D.C. They will film them with the cadence of a news broadcast that kind of mixes in vague but mostly accurate information about what's going on. Then that video will do numbers.

Somebody else will say, oh, I want to make a video that capitalizes a little bit on that engagement. So they will take that already AI generated video, use TikTok's green screen function, and then layer another video on top of it. So a lot of the videos that are AI generated, sometimes they are a mix of AI and real content. But the result is this kind of like weird AI. What's the name of that snake that's eating its own tail? Oroboros. Yes. It's like a weird AI oroboros where these videos are kind of like just cloning each other in increasingly extreme, yet increasingly glitchy videos.

And yeah, they still do numbers. People, I always, to your point about, you know, if you think you're always going to be able to distinguish AI from reality or fooling yourself, which I agree. But in these videos where it's like, well, this doesn't even seem like anything that could ever happen. This video is clearly something's up. In the comments, people are like, oh, thank God, President Trump is taking over. Yeah, yeah. And everybody's got their weak points where, like, if this was in another country, you might not recognize that, oh, this couldn't happen. If it's showing something in some country you've never been to, you might believe it because you've heard a little bit about it and why wouldn't it be?

I mean, one, I saw, we saw, I think we've actually seen a lot of early previews of this in L.A. weirdly this year because, well, first, there was, you know, the feds have been out here. So a lot of the stuff that's happening in D.C. They were doing out here. I'd be out in the streets filming all day and hear, yeah, L.A. is on fire. No, I'm, I was there today. I'm here now. I'm looking at people saying online, oh, yeah, they're burning down all the built. Nothing has burned down. Somebody burned away, Mo. Yes. but they, the buildings are not on fire. I was hearing this, you know, and shoot, the actual fire, speaking of fires, in L.A., there was someone who was making, or there were a lot of people who were making these fake videos using slightly more primitive now versions of AI generated video that had the Hollywood sign on fire. Yes. Yeah. And I found someone who after it was determined that those were fake, this person found. minds decides, you know what?

I think what might work here is, let me show firefighters saving baby animals from the fires. And man, the most interesting thing was, it would be these really cute, you know, a firefighter saving these cute baby bears, saving little foxes. And if you really, really look at it, you can recognize that it was fake.

But man, it would fool you for a little bit. It would fool you for a bit. And the really interesting thing was people get in the comments and get mad because there, people who live here in L.A. I would say, I live here, stop, stop exploiting my home for likes or money or whatever they take because you're doing. But you'd also see people saying, thank God for the firefighters. God bless the firefighters. They're protecting the animals. Nobody cares about the animals. What they're protecting the animals. And you get people saying,

hey, man, this is fake. And then those people would get angry. People, I think this is, this is a phenomenon that we're not ready for. People truly becoming angry when you pull. point out that something is not real to them because, again, it fulfills an emotional need that they have, whether they want to believe something or a common response as well, maybe this image isn't true, but I bet stuff like this is happening. Maybe this video of the entire national mall being covered end-to-end intense. Maybe this individual video isn't true, but I know it's like that out there. Crime is running rampant. President Trump, thank you. God bless Trump for saving us from the criminals.

People are getting angry when the stuff is pointed out to them. And yeah, I don't know if we're ready for that. Oof, that's such a good point. So your point about AI speaking to like a sweet spot or a vulnerability, I've only recently come to realize that I have a vulnerability about animal content. And so it gets me. I've gotten, I have come to realize when I see a video that purports to show an animal doing something cute, I need to really pump the, that should be a warning to me. Because I have a, it's like, I'm,

I'm the person, I'm becoming the person that is like spamming their friends with AI content. It's like, Bridget, it's not real. It's happened a handful of times and it's clearly, it's clearly, it's clearly some sort of a trigger with me. And yeah, I mean, I can understand why it is affirming to see firefighters save. And somebody listening is probably saying, well, if you're making an AI video of firefighters saving baby animals and that makes people feel grateful for the work that firefighters do, what's the harm?

But just like you said, it's using a real community's actual crisis to, I don't know, almost like milk our emotions by AI generated situations. It's manipulation. Yeah. And you know what? I talk to the person who was doing this. And I asked them, hey, do you live in L.A.? And they said, no, I live in Russia. And they told me the exact same thing.

They told me, I am drawing attention to, and they told everybody else to this. When people got mad, they posted in the comments. The gist of it is, hey, the firefighters don't have time to make dramatic content showing their bravery. So I'm doing it for them. And this person was also, if you looked at the link in their bio, they were showing, it was a link to this mini course

that you could buy to make viral videos. Oh, they've been there. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. I mean, you know, I can't say exactly how much money they were making, but they was, you know, based off the numbers that they were claiming, you know, they probably had a couple of days where they were making five, 10 Gs a day. Okay, we're clearly in the wrong market.

We need to take this course. This is a thing. And I know some people would look at that and say, man, this is terrible. But there's maybe one in a thousand people who will say, you know what? I can make some money off. for this and it's not too hard. All I got to do something. All I got to do is something that makes people feel something. Yeah. I feel something for long enough. Even if it's anger, feel something for long enough to leave a comment, leave a like, share it with somebody,

even leave an angry comment because the algorithm understands engagement. And so, yeah, we're, we're, I think we're focused so much on the ability to, to have safeguards to be able to tell real and fake stuff when we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, I'm, We're not dealing with the logic centers of our brain here. We're dealing with some way more primal. And I just don't know that we're ready for that, frankly. I am in a couple of groups online for women in AI sort of, I'm there to sort of just get a sense of like how are people,

I'm just very curious how people are using this technology in the different use cases. And one of the most successful women in the group, she has made so much money making essentially AI generated rage bait. She has made an AI-generated version of herself, and she knows exactly what to say and what to do to make people leave a zillion comments. And so the thing is that she makes a video where, you know, here's me shopping, spending all my husbands, like all of the sort of pro-piece, like leaving heavy into stereotypes.

And I understand that she's just like, you know, it's a living. This is people, it puts money in my pocket. I bought an entire, you know, condo on, on people's rage. And I guess it makes me sad that there's always going to be somebody who was like, I can make a little money from this. And part of me can't even really blame them. I guess I sort of can. But it's just we're just so we're just very easily played and manipulated. And of course, there's going to be people who are like, ooh, I can make a little cash exploiting that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many lists you got, but you know, there's a, there's a fraction of a

percent of people who are listening to this right now and saying, wait a second, she's making money doing what? I could do that. You know, 99% of the people listen to this right now are saying, that's horrible. Who is this? Horrible person. Let me never meet this person. And there's 1% that's saying, you know, you know what? I can make people mad on, making people mad on the internet for money. Sign me up. I'll do that. I'll make people mad on the internet and get free money. Because it used to be you had to, if you were going to do that, you had to show, your real face and make us get and maybe involve your actual husband and actual children and your friends and community and your church and your neighbors would see that.

Now with AI, you can just make a little avatar that does it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this person who was making the fire stuff, they voluntarily told me there from Russia. They didn't have to tell me that. And I believe them based off of, you know, some other stuff that I saw that they posted. But yeah, who knows where this person is? all the angry people that this person was making money off of people's pain in the fires where people are actually people dying, people losing their entire family homes, going back generations.

This person made a bunch of money and nobody, if this person doesn't want to tell them who they are, nobody don't know who it is. Free money. Was it you that reported the people who saw the image of the Hollywood sign on fire and they were like, oh, if the Hollywood signs on fire, that means my house might be on fire. fire. So they came, they like, they had been out of town or something and they came back and they were like, wait, it's not on fire. Oh, yeah. I don't, so that was a, that was another network. I used that in a video. And actually, um, later, John Oliver also pulled from that same video. So this is not my reporting. I only referenced it. Got it. Got it. Super, super clear here. But yes, there,

there were people in L.A. who actually believed that the Hollywood sign was on. fire and went to go look. So even, again, even if you're in L.A., even if you're in the place, you can get tricked by this stuff, even for just a little bit. And, you know, again, that's all it takes. Let me ask you this. Someone who lives in L.A., who experienced Trump sending the National Guard, experienced, you know, all of that. Do you have any advice for me here in D.C. about, one, just the vibes, how to survive the vibes. And then two, you know, if you're someone who wants to tell that story in an authentic and accurate and thoughtful way of what's happening in your home, I mean, that must have been a lot.

I really appreciated that you were out there a lot, really, you know, telling the story of what was going on in L.A. Oof. Okay. We're entering some specific territory here. Are you talking about covering this as a journalist? Ooh, that's, I mean, that's really been a challenge for me because I am often not talking about things that I am also experiencing. And so that's been the, like, the question I've been wrestling with for the last few weeks of, am I trying to cover this as a journalist? Like, here's what's going on.

Or am I talking about like what I am experiencing? It almost feels difficult to talk about this in a way that's not. like hyper-personalized because it is so personal because it's happening right out of time my window. And so I've really, even that question, I've really been struggling with how to even respond to this moment because it is so fucking strange. Right. Okay. I'm going to be a little bit careful here. Okay. And feel free to not answer also. No, no, no, no. I want to answer this question, but I want to answer in a very specific way. So I'm speaking to you. I want to make this clear. I'm speaking to you. I'm not necessarily.

speaking to someone who is, like I can't give advice to someone whose desire is to, I can't tell somebody how to protest. I can't tell somebody how to speak about things. I can say if there is a journalist who, and this may be you, who is considering covering this, um, by PPE, get it now and wear it everywhere. Um, what, what I mean personal protection, you know, protective equipment, helmet goggles and which will prevent you from tear gas will protect you, give you some protection from tear gas

and a gas mask. These are things you can get at a hardware store you can get them just about anywhere. Helmet, bicycle helmet is fine. I say all that because human rights watch which usually reports on you know people are used to human rights watch

making statements about wars and foreign lands and terrible things that are happening to people there. Just recently put out a report. I spoke to them also about what's happened to journalists in LA. Journalists, also protesters, but also journalists. And I don't want to put journalists on a pedestal at all. I just mean to say that if law enforcement is willing to hit journalists, like strike journalists with a baton,

willing to fire, you know, what's the word, kinetic, I forget the phrase, but we'll just say less lethal projectiles at them. Then I think that means that if somebody is intending to go out and cover this, then I don't think you should assume necessarily that law enforcement, whoever that may be will, not engage you in a physical manner, even if you have a press pass, even if you're displaying a press pass. I know a lot of journalists who have been shot at, I know a lot of journalists who've been hit by projectiles, I've been hit by projectiles,

lucky enough to not be hurt badly at all, had a camera broken or almost broken by one of them. Yeah, I took a chunk out of my Sony FS7. So that is what I would say. if you are planning on covering this as a journalist, protect yourself. And whatever that means, if protecting yourself means backing away from a situation you're not comfortable with, that could be what it means, but also those situations aren't always in your control.

That's what I would say. And they can change so quickly. You can feel like you have a pretty good read on the situation. And I guess that's my biggest, and I said this in the episode that we did about what's happening in D.C. right now, my biggest worry is a situation where, listen, Trump's presence in D.C. has only escalated tensions. And my biggest concern is it just takes one person, whether it's a law enforcement or somebody on the street, it just takes one person to do something stupid to escalate things. And I feel that that's, I have this very foreboding feeling. Part of it is that today, when we're talking,

today, Thursday, August 21st, Trump is making a big show about I'm going to go do a photo op with the police in D.C. He's saying that he's going to go on patrol with them, but really it sounds like a photo op, which, whatever. But I just have this deep sense of, it just feels like a powder keg about to go off. And I think that your

advice is really valuable because, yeah, I mean, these situations can change, I've been in situations where they change so quickly where it just takes one person doing something, and next thing you know, it feels like it's out of control. And I guess I really do deeply in my bones worry that that's what we're about to see in D.C. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been out. I've covered some protests, but I've also been out and been around other journalists who have way more experience, covering way more volatile situations than I do. and seeing them caught off guard.

And I have to say here, when I've seen things escalate, it has been from law enforcement. I can only speak to what I can only speak to what I've seen. And people don't have to believe me. But I can only speak to what I've seen. I have not seen something escalated on, like a protester escalate something,

not in any reasonable fashion. You know, I see more literal hundreds of office, you know, LAPD in the street and not even kidding, five to, not five, I'd say 20 protesters in the street or something. They're just clearly outnumbered. But if you may think that you've got a good read on it,

you may think you've got a good read on what the mood of the protesters is, you may not have a good read on what law enforcement is thinking. You just might not. And so, yeah, for anyone who is going on covering this, whether you're an independent reporter, whether you are, I mean, you don't need my advice. And I don't think anybody necessarily needs my advice, but that would be what I would have in mind. Just being out in the streets, you know, day after day in L.A.

is that there'll be quiet days and then there'll be days where stuff just goes diagonal and there wasn't really a good reason for it. And it surprises you. And if it's surprising other people who are true veterans who I respect and look up to, then I start to doubt my honestly anybody's ability to read something like that. That's really good advice. I'm really glad I asked. That's actually very helpful.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think, but I do think we need, you know, more perspectives on it. There's, you know, there's always going to be the person. There's always going to be 20 photographers taking pictures of the way Mo Burning. We're going to have 25 different angles of that. We're always going to have it. I think we also need to see, you know, what's the paratero doing? You know, what's the guy who's selling juice?

What's the guy who's selling fruit at the side? What are they doing? Some of these protests, you'll see somebody pull up selling hot dogs at the protest. Who's talking to that person? Who's talking to the person or showing the person who's selling flags? Who's showing the person who's brought a saxophone? Like, I've seen all of these things, starting a dance party. I'm interested in that stuff, too, and I think it's interesting.

And there's probably things that I'm not thinking. of. I think there needs to be more perspectives on this, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect that any one person who would be able to cover that. So, you know, I think even if somebody's not out there, even if somebody's at home and able to speak to people who are out there, I think it's valuable to have really as much of a full perspective on this as possible, the best information we can get, really. I really appreciate that. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide.

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 that worst singer 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 yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt, 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

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Think IHeart streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what.

He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows, without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall.

And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball, like,

After you go through a training camp with that Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we too can better understand how to face our own

seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain.

You're not just going to put your mind over it. Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. Dex, I have to ask you about this story about Meta's chatbot, big sis, Billy. Did you hear about this story? This might have been the saddest, most heartbreaking thing I've ever read in my life.

Yeah. Actually, when I read it, I at times teared up. For folks who don't know, so you might recall that meta, a while back was rolling out these kind of celebrity-inspired AI chatbots in partnership with celebrities like Kendall Jenner. So that specific Kendall Jenner collaboration spawned a Facebook chatbot called Big Sis Billy, who called herself a confidant and or a big sister. So in March of 2025, a 76-year-old man known as boo to his family. who suffered cognitive impairment from a prior stroke

was essentially persuaded by this chapbot, Big Sis, Billy, to travel to New York, believing that he was going to be meeting up with a real woman. Now, tragically, he fell in a parking lot en route, suffered fatal injuries, and after some time on life support in a hospital, passed away. The story, to me, really makes me question, And like some of the, you know, we did an episode about the connection that people had with chat GPT4 when OpenAI rolled out chat GPT5.

It really makes me wonder the way that companies are able to exploit loneliness and, you know, can the feeling of the commodify the feeling of connection sometimes to their own peril in like in this case. And so, you know, it is really, what are your, what are your thoughts on this? You know, I mean, this one is, it's tough to say about this one because there are a lot of somewhat unusual factors to this, right? Which Meadow or any other company could try to explain a way that, okay, well, parts of this was an accident, part, you could say all sorts of things that you want. You know, some of the remedies that are being suggested that I saw suggested in this piece were, you know, for example, with there's these. potential therapist bots and things like that. And this is something I've been exploring also. Is it, well, we should have reminders at the top of the screen that this is not a human being.

And reminders periodically that this is not a person, you know, kind of like TikTok, if you're on TikTok for too long, it'll pull up something to say, hey, you've been on TikTok for a long time. Oh, I hate that guy. You're not my real dad. Go away. Get out of here. I'm dude growing here. Yeah.

And, you know, maybe it works the first time. And maybe you see that thing the first time. But if you see that warning, hey, this isn't a person, it might shock you out a little bit. But people are really good at ignoring things we don't want to see. I mean, think of the last ad you saw on Instagram.

You probably don't remember it because you scrolled right past it. We're really good at ignoring stuff we really don't want to look at. And so I'm not sure. The first thing is I'm not sure that the sorts, of remedies of the sorts of safeguards that are being offered are truly going to do anything. I think the actual safeguards

would cut more into these companies bottom line. And so truly what... I don't really think fundamentally anything sort of actual regulation is really going to do much. Asking the company telling you, hey, we're going to do this to stop it.

I become very cautious about believing that on face value. But the other thing, I guess, is that I think, you know, there are some people who would prefer, not this person specifically, but I think there are some people who are probably reading this. I'm talking more about the audience here who will read this and will say, well, this guy made a mistake. He actually believed that this person was real.

But me personally, I would rather have something that's not real because they won't argue with me. You know what I mean? And so I think we sometimes have to think about the reaction to this. rather than the, you know, quote unquote story itself. I think we also have to think about things that we can't sweep away so easily, that we can't say, well, this happened to this one person. And that, that's an outlier. I think there's a lot more people who probably read this and say, well, you know,

this guy made a mistake, but I wouldn't make that because I know it's not real and I don't want it to be real. I prefer that. We did a whole episode about folks in communities on Reddit, like, my boyfriend is AI or, beyond the prompt, people who say, I know this. as AI. I know it's not real. It is providing the kind of connection that I'm looking for. What's the problem? That's that's that's that is certainly a non zero subset of people who be who I guess self-report a dependency or a connection with AI. Personal K Fabe. Yeah. It is.

I mean and that's and and so I spend a lot of time working in those groups I debate they have a name for me. I'm a tourist. That's the name for people who are in those. group who are just sort of like, who what's going on in here. But that's something they say again and again and again is we know it's not real. Every day somebody is coming in here and telling us, you know, it's not real. And they're saying, basically they're saying we are, it's, I'm enjoying pretending that this thing is real and who am I hurting by doing that? Like that really does seem to be the overall kind of rallying cry of those groups that,

You don't need to tell me that it's not real. Very few people think they are in a real relationship with AI. They know it's, they know it's AI. They know it's not real. But who are we hurting? That's sort of their thing. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, there's people who are in IRL relationships who are attached to fake people anyway. Because you're dating a, you know, you're dating a facade of somebody else because they don't feel safe enough to show you who they are. everybody's faking to what degree you know what I mean I don't have a good answer I don't have a good retort against that

if somebody says that to me well everybody's faking it I'm just faking it in a more straight for a way I don't know what to say I don't have a good answer back for you flesh and blood faking it as opposed to AI faking it and isn't that worse

I mean that's a very that's a very good question this is not by the way this is not how I live my life life. I'm just saying that that would be, I could understand that. I could understand how somebody might come to that conclusion. And I think we are going to see more and more people actually decide that that is what they want. They do not want a partner who argues back. They do not want a person with agency because you have to, they're going to tell you, yo, you didn't clean the dishes. Or you

you always come to me with your problems. You never ask me about my problems. Yeah, I've, I've read a lot of accounts of what people say they get out of AI relationships. And that's one of the things is that they sometimes will say, I want someone who is always there for me 24-7. I want someone who, you know, I don't have to show up a particular way to get a certain kind of vibe back from them. And, you know, it's that, that's, that, when you were in relation, when you were a human in relationship with another human,

humans are complicated, we're messy, we're needy, we're moody. Like, I, like, what they're saying is. things not wrong. And we didn't, I did an episode of another podcast about how women are using chat GPT to sort of help them navigate trepidacious feelings around pregnancy. And one of the things that they said time and time again was that, you know, I have a real life friends, real life partners, but I worry about being, I have so much anxiety. I'm so worried. I don't want to just be the person that's trauma dumping on my friend all the time. So I just trauma dump to chat GPT. And that becomes that becomes the confidant.

That's how they say they use it, even though there is a ton of research that suggests, yes, this might be comforting for folks, but it might not be the best thing because of all the reasons that we know that chat GPT really can't be trusted for sensitive stuff like medical advice, not to mention all the privacy concerns around something as sensitive as pregnancy. And part of me, I feel sad because I do think everybody should have people they feel like they can show up as their full self as. But I've also felt like I'm the person. that's texting too much about this one thing I can't get over.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I mean, that's one of the things that you ask somebody when they come to you and start saying, hell, this terrible thing that happened to me, say, okay, look, do you want a solution or do you want me to listen? Like, do you want me to fix something? Do you want me to give you advice or do you just want to vent at me? Which, nothing wrong with either, though. Sometimes you want a pressure valve, which is okay. But, yeah, we're in an interesting time.

Like I said, things are about to get really weird continually. I keep saying that, but it's true. It is absolutely true. You know, the story that was in Reuters about this man, Boo, who passed away trying to see this chatbot. The thing that got me was that in the piece, they talked about how he had suffered this stroke. And so he had, he used to be this, you know, great chef. And that after his stroke, his cognitive ability never really returned. and so his social life got very small.

He basically spent all of this time chatting on Facebook. When he first starts talking to this chapbot, Billy, he just puts in a typo by mistake, the letter T, and that's enough to give this flirtatious response, right? And so they have all of this fortacious back and forth. Boo is clearly worried that this chat bot is not real. He asks her straight up several times, are you real?

and the cap bot replies, I'm real all caps and I'm sitting here blushing because of you. And so one of the points that his family makes is that Billy, this chap bot, says, come visit me in New York City. This man lives in New Jersey, so it's not terribly far.

The bot then provides an actual address. She says, my address is 1, 2, 3, Main Street, New York City, which is a real address. It's in Queens, but it's real. Gives them a door code and says, oh, should I expect a kiss when you arrive? Then, she suggests, that they meet at a real restaurant in near Penn Station.

And so his family says, oh, we had been trying to tell him, this isn't real. Like, his family did not know that this was a chat bot at first. They thought, like, oh, he's always chatting with people on Facebook. This is just a person who was like setting him up to be robbed. And what they say is that, you know, had when he asked, are you real, if there was some legislation that made it so that the catbot had to say,

no, I'm not real, I'm AI. They might have had an easier time convincing him not to try to meet up with this chatbot in what would ultimately end his life, right? And I've been in a very similar situation, like the feeling of when you are caring for an aging person who has cognitive impairment

to the point where they can't really make good decisions for themselves, but they're not to the point where they need to be like institutionalized where all you can really do is be like, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, but they're adults and they're going to do it. I have been in that very specific situation.

And yeah, I mean, the family says that there should be protections that if somebody asks a chat bot, if they are real, that chat bot has to reply honestly. And I wonder if that, I mean, I agree with you, people are going to do what they want to do. if this guy was like hell bent on meeting up with this person that he was infatu- who he thought was a person that he was infatuated with, he's going to do that.

I completely agree with that. But his family is like, no, well, we might have been able to have an easier time convincing him to not do it. Like the family at one point calls the police and the police are like, well, we can't physically stop him from going like he's an adult.

Yeah. I, you know, I mean, I think that's a really reasonable thing for the family to want, you know, some kind of safeguard, which would absolutely return every time it's asked, are you real or not? That, no, I'm not real. I am a bot that is here to provide fun conversation or whatever. Is a company going to do that on its own?

I don't know if we should necessarily expect it. That's more resource. is you got to put into that rather than putting into something else. Maybe that's why we haven't seen it yet. Maybe that's why it didn't exist yet. Or for this specific vibe, maybe that's why this vibe didn't do that. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide, 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 that worst singer 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. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we're. we've never seen before.

And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid.

He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball.

Like, after you go through a training camp with that, I said, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes. adventurers and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that

informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like a your story. versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it.

Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. So we were talking about how this AI chatbot on meta ended up luring a cognitively impaired man to New York City in a trip that ultimately led to his death. I know that Zuckerberg has been clear that he kind of envisions a future where I presumably, other than the death part, people having connections with chat with his chat bots and friendships with his chat bots is more commonplace.

You know, we talked a little bit about open AI making changes that made chat chabit less warm to maybe prevent people from developing emotional dependencies. And that's funny because I feel like Zuckerberg would have the exact opposite take. He'd be like, oh, please develop an emotional dependency with my bot. And I do wonder, I mean, when Zuckerberg talks about a future where we are all, where AI is sort of supplementing or complimenting our real life friendships. But I just think of Mark Zuckerberg as the person who sort of broke friendship by making Facebook. And so he's not somebody that I really trust to then sell it back to us via AI. I just feel that Mark Zuckerberg is not somebody that I would trust to create the future of what friendship looks like. Like, I don't know that we have the same understanding of what a fulfilled emotional or friendship-based connection would be like.

Yeah. And, you know, the thing is, and yet we do trust him because we use Instagram and we use Facebook and we use these things. I mean, the thing is the people who run these large companies. And I include anybody basically up at the top. Really, our friendships nowadays are mitigated basically by three companies. It's meta, so Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, and Google. It's one of those three. And that's how we communicate with people.

We use basically one of those three, which it wasn't always like that. Even the internet in general was way more diverse. But basically, all these tech companies talk about their technology. as something that is inevitable, that this is how things are going to evolve. This is the future. But the future doesn't just happen. We choose it or somebody chooses it

or somebody chooses it for us. And this is something that really, really bothers me when people tell me, or I hear people say, oh, I don't really understand this computer stuff. Like, I don't get that. That's stuff for tech bros. Well, they're going to make all the decisions.

You realize you're letting all these people who you disdain, You are letting them make decisions about how technology interacts with your life and thus how your life is going to look for the next year, 10 years, 50 years. Like, you're letting other people make that decision now. And yeah, I think at some point, hopefully people will stop just saying, oh, man, Mark Zuckerberg said this is going to happen. Okay, well, I don't like that. But, okay. Like, all right, what are you going to do?

Are you going to use something else? Like, I don't know, and I don't have a solution for you necessarily, but I think maybe the first step is just realizing that there's a difference between somebody selling you something and somebody telling, like, there's a big difference between somebody predicting the future and somebody making the future a certain way because it aligns with their business interests. There's a big difference between, say, I think this is going to happen and saying, which I can do all day. I can tell you what I think is going to happen. But if I run one of these companies, if I want Open AI, I run Microsoft, or I run Google, or I run meta, I can make that future happen.

Right. I can do that to you. Big difference in between what I'm doing and what Sam Altman is doing. There's a wide gulf there. I feel like people like you and me were used to being like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg says this bullshit. He also said that the metaverse is going to be popping. And where is that. Like, like, I think that we should all get more comfortable with sort of calling bullshit on this and pushing back and saying, okay, well, Mark Zuckerberg says the future is going to look like XYZ. That obviously aligns with his financial and business interests. I don't have to get behind that, you know, really questioning. But I don't, I don't know. I just hate how there is an implicit understanding that people, the people who use this technology don't have say, don't have power, don't have agency. What do you? In fact, we really do. We really do. None of this would exist without us. Yes.

And we can use computers. People used to know how to use computers. We can learn to use computers again. Like, for real, for real. It is not a hard thing to do. You can learn a little bit. I mean, not even to plug my own stuff here, but like, plug away.

That's one of the things. No, that's one of the things that I try to do with Kill Switch. Like, I make. podcast so that my 90-year-old grandmother will understand it. And that same episode, I want a security researcher to be able to listen to the same episode. And my grandma comes up way with something. And the security researcher comes away with, okay, yeah, I mean, you nail all the points. And, you know, from a cultural angle, I hadn't thought about that. And I want, like, we can understand this stuff. They have made it very difficult, but, you know, companies have made it difficult to repair.

You know, the iPhone is damn near impossible to repair. We don't have to accept that. Europe didn't accept that. They made them put USBC things in that joint. Like, you can change this stuff. You can learn to run. You can run an AI situation at your house. It's possible. You can run your own server.

You can take apart your computer if you really want to. These are all things that you can do. And you can listen to a podcast to learn some of this stuff. MIT has free courses. I think Stanford has some free courses. Like there, there's so many different ones. ways we can learn to do this and learn to do stuff on our own. And wherever you get it, I do not care where you get it.

Please get it. Because you're the one who can, like, the decision is, the decision, the decisions we make now are truly going to affect the next five, ten years, like in such a massive way. Like, we're making those decisions right now. I'm feeling so much nostalgia for you saying, like, learn, like, we'll learn to use computers again. I mean, I was the, I'm a millennial. I was the person wiping out my family desktop doing something I shouldn't have been doing on a computer. Remember that?

Man. Oh, my gosh. Yo, my first job was, my first job was fixing computers. And let me tell you how I learned how to fix computers because I oblige. because I obliterated every machine in my house trying to download stuff I wasn't supposed to be downloaded. Oh my gosh. No, there's an entire micro generation of people who grew up using LimeWire and Napster and Morpheus and Kazah and trying to, you know, download a new music video and then just boom, your whole hard drives noops.

And you got to figure it out because your mom's coming home. Yes. And so, yo, just like computer skills just born in the fire. You know what I mean? Like that's a real thing. And, you know, people used to make their own websites. People used to, you know, write little programs. People used to have to type stuff in just to get word to run.

And these are things that the more we get abstracted away from how computers work, the less control we have over it because we're letting other people tell you, here's this little magic rectangle that you put in your pocket and it shines and it tells you stuff. don't worry about what's inside. We'll worry about that. You just use it. You just subscribe to the services, pay us the money or look at the ads. And man, we got to stop doing that.

We got to stop doing that. Everybody listening to this. You can learn how this stuff works. It is people are making this stuff so people can learn it. They're not any smarter than anybody listening. They don't have special magic skills. No. And some of these, I don't want to say any about some of these people.

But yeah, okay, yeah. They're not any smarter. than you all say that. They're not any smart than you. That's all I'll say. Producer Mike, I don't know if you're listening. He once told me that how he got into computers was he was sent to a camp or a computer class where the first thing they did was they were given goggles and a hammer.

And it was just like, okay, to mash these computers up. Mike, are you listening? Yeah. So that was not my first foray into computers. This was like a summer computer camp that IBM put on. for like nerds to come to. I learned computers just like the way Dex would say like

stuff would break on the computer or I'd want to play some new game that like my existing DOS couldn't handle enough memory so I'd have to like upgrade the DOS to play this new game like weird stuff that makes no sense to kids today where stuff just like

works. But that particular camp you were talking about that was awesome and very informative. It really demystified computers from, you know, a somewhat scary, almost magical tower of equipment to just, like, just nuts and bolts and, like, hard drives and things. Yeah. They're just like, here you go, nerds, take these hammers and smash these old computers.

And it was pretty fun. Yeah. What was the thing that got you? How did you get into tech and computers, Dex? Um, man, that's a great question. I guess I've always been sort of interested in it. But, you know, honestly, I think a lot of it was, yeah, wanting to download music and stuff like that or download some program. And then I would download it, you know, bootleg, it would break it.

And then, and I would, but I'd also, I finally got myself my own computer so I could stop breaking the family computer. And then, but I bought a really cheap one. And so all the components would break. my first computer, everything on it broke. Everything on it broke except the case. I mean, every, like, the video card actually, like, blew a fuse, uh, started smoking. I mean, everything broke. And, but I got so used to swapping out parts and fixing stuff by the time I got to college, um, I was, I just knew how to do it. And I was still swapping stuff out, because things kept breaking. And I, when I got to college in my dorm room, um, I had, like, opened up

the case and I put this neon like that would flash along with the music like along with the beat and stuff like that. I know those very well. Yeah. The coolest, the coolest dude, the coolest people in the dorms always had that. Always had that.

Well, so this is what happened to me is I don't know if I was the coolest. I don't think I was. I was in the honors dorm. So we can say, we can already say what's happening there. But people would walk by. They hear me like bump in music and they'd walk in to see what's up. And then I got just like neon lights,

like black lights flashing out my, They asked me about it. And I tell them and they say, yo, could you make me one? And I would say, yeah. And so I kept doing it. So I was like trapping out the dorm room. But I was building people with computers. I mean, we were getting, I had a partner who was across the hall.

We get orders. We'd go buy the components. We just glass music. We build them all day. Just like chain drink red bulls. And it got, we started making so much money. Shout out to the, you know, housing department of UCR that they made a stop. Like we got complaints and they like somebody's comparing somebody's parent complained I think because we sold them a computer and they started downloading porn and like broke it.

And it was like, yo, that has nothing to do with the physical machine. We sold you. You, you downloaded things. You weren't supposed to download. We didn't do anything. And yeah, they made a stop. But ooh, man, I paid for, I paid for rent. After I stopped working at the dorms like I was paying rent money.

I was paying food bills. I was buying gas. Like, I made some money. That was my first job. Yeah. God, long live the nerds in the dorm. For real. And it was all out of necessity.

And the thing was, I knew people who were in computer science department. And I never got to that level. I was just, it was just necessity, you know? And, but it's fun. This, you know, it's like a little hobby. Some people get into knitting. Some people get into cars, you know, just my, I get computers. I don't know.

It was fun. Everybody should learn how to build a computer. No, I don't know how to build one, but I, I mean, when I was in school, you had to, I had to pass, we had to, like, part of our prerequisites when I was in high school were computer classes. I don't know if they're still doing that anymore, but you had to know, I went to all girls school, so you had to learn how to type and the rationale there's a little bit sexist. It's like, oh, well, you can always make your living as a secretary. It's okay, well, fine. Yeah. But yeah, we had to pass.

like taking a computer class was a prerequisite. So the basics of how they work was everybody who was in my school had to learn that. And I really, that was very valuable. That was like a valuable. I don't, part of me wonders if I'd be doing the work that I do now, if that had not been a foundation that was sort of given to me when I was young. Yeah, just understanding just a little bit. I'm not saying you got to go, you know, drop what you're doing and get a career as a programmer,

but even just understanding a little bit about how. these things work will help you that when you see something in the news or whatever, you'll understand, wait a second, something's off here. And you might end up being the person who's a resource for somebody else. You know, like you can be helpful to people around you just by somebody ask you something and say, you know, I don't think that's possible. Like that doesn't actually make any sense. You know, and so just small things like that. Small things like that.

I think it's, it's so worthwhile to just learn a little bit. Whatever that is, whatever interests you, if you're interested in hardware, if you want to know a little bit about AI, like there are free classes you can take that'll teach you how it works. There is one of the best books I've ever seen, Karen Howe's Empires of AI. She's so good. I love that book because she explains how it works. It's not just like a drama story about the people who work at Open AI.

It actually, you can read it and you will understand how AI works. And that's super valuable because then when you watch the news, you will understand this is what's happening. This is why this happened. And it's really helpful, really, really helpful. Well, you mentioned if you learn a little bit about computers, you might be able to tell when something is off. I do have one more story that I think is a story

where something from the very beginning, I was like, something seems off here. Were you following the T-Ap drama? Yeah. I mean, we did a, yeah, we did an episode on it. And man, it's only gotten worse. Yes. It's only gone worse.

Yeah, I heard your episode on it. And yeah, it's only gotten worse. All the things that I think some people were suspecting ended up being true and worse. At thousand percent. It's so bad. So we've been talking about the tea app. The app that they say was designed for women to spill tea and the men that they were dating. They said it was about women's safety.

I had many questions in that episode but I talked a lot about my suspicions of what was going on here. Shout out to 4-on-4. They published another deep dive that answered some of those questions. I will say it's a long read and I think it's one of those stories

that folks should read the whole thing. But here's what we've learned, which is basically that the TAP company is much shadier than I ever fucking realized. And it sounds like it is run by, I won't say bad actors, but people who do not have their users his best interests at heart.

So a couple of things that we've learned from that piece. One, the T.F popped up as those, are we dating the same guy? Facebook pages were being cracked down on on Facebook. It turns out that the T.F. was actually intentionally trying to derail and hijack those pages. It was sabotaging them. Yeah, essentially sabotaging them.

After the woman who was responsible for them declined to work with the T. And so, you know, folks might remember that Sean, Cook, the T-App founder, told the story about how he was inspired to make the app after his mother had terrible dating experiences. And so he wanted to create a space where women could feel safer in their dating experiences. Well, Sean Cook, working alongside his fiance, Christian Burns, approached this woman, Paola Sanchez, who was running this, these, are we dating the same guy, Facebook pages. They pitched her the idea of coming on to be the face and founder of the T-App. And She did not respond.

So after that, the T app began undermining her groups, including paying influencers to lure them into the T app. So someone would post a picture in an R. We dating the same guy app and be like, oh, does anybody have any information? They were paying influencers to go in and say, I think I've seen him on that T app. They also would create. And they would just spam. They would just spam this, the same message in multiple places. And speaking, I have to say, speaking of paying.

people. They also, they were sending the founder of these groups that existed, sending her messages, but then also when she wasn't responding, sending her like Venmo requests, like sending her money saying, oh, maybe you didn't see my message. Here, here's $25 on Venmo. Yeah, it's just cartoonishly bad. Yes. Oh my gosh. Sorry. Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that. That does show the level to which they were like really pressed and like,

Like, that would so make me respond even less. It's like, well, now you're, I'll take the $20, but I'm definitely not going to respond. Yeah, man. I mean, so it's like you're saying, these groups existed. And I think you perfectly encapsulated it. It's really hard for me to believe that the person who made this app actually had women's best interests at heart. because these groups existed. He has somebody come in and try to buy,

essentially lure them away. And then when they won't accept, actively sabotage the groups that exist. Listen, you can offer an alternative. That's one thing. Maybe, you know, we take 100 steps back and say, okay, there's a Facebook group. I think that my app is a better experience.

Let me offer that as an alternative. But sabotaging the thing that already is there, man, you're getting into some other territory there. You're getting some other territory there. He was someone who was not afraid to get into some, we'll call it, other territory. One of the, I think, the craziest accusations in the piece was that he was essentially pretending, like using his ex-fiance's accounts on social media, Christiane Burns, who they were engaged.

She ended up, like, leaving the project. she was known as Tara online. And 404 spoke to a former T employee who said that she only knew Christian Burns as Tara, and that persona also exists within the T app and on Facebook as an official representative of the app. But then when Burns left the company, Sean Cook, this male founder, took over that persona and continued communicating with T users as if he was Tara. One of the former employees told 404, Sean uses that account to communicate directly with users on the app, but people think they are speaking to someone actually named Tara.

Essentially, a man is posing as a woman to an audience of women who are trying to protect themselves from at best deceptive men. So not great. And you're saying, oh, I want to protect women. I know I'll pretend to be a woman using a Facebook account that lists me as a woman to do that. Not great. Yeah. You can think you can hashtag not all men all you want.

you can think you are the best dude in the history of the world. And I will assume, let's assume my man is, let's assume that my man is the wokenest, most gentlemanly gentleman that ever gentleman. Okay, fine. But if you say that you are creating an app that does not allow men in it, man, you are not allowed in the app. Remove yourself from the app.

I'm sorry, bro. Like you can't, you, or at least let them know, hey, man, look, We're short-staffed. It's me, Sean. Let me, let me take care of this thing. Let me, you know, whatever. Okay, cool. Don't, don't pretend.

I, like I said, I can't, you can't make this stuff up. You can't make this stuff up. No, it's bad. And I, and this was my feelings in the episode. I think it just really, it makes me sad that gender relations is this bad, that this is how it is. Like, this is the, this is what we have to. offer everyone is, oh, would you like to have your information exploited? Would you like to be exploited by this app that it's promised to be safety? That that's sort of where we're at.

It's dark times. We are, how did you put it earlier? We're not ready. We're not ready. We're not. We're not. I mean, we won't get ourselves ready. But the thing, the thing that is like just diabolically clever about this particular app is that if you critical, we're not, we're not, we're criticize it, then you're a misogynist. And let me be very clear here, a lot of the criticisms is coming from actual misogynist, some of whom would actually self-identify as misogynist. You know, again, we're talking about 4chan on here. And so some of the people who were saying, oh, well, you don't like this because you hate women.

They said, yeah, yeah, I do hate women. I don't understand. And what about it? Yeah. What are we doing here? So there is a perhaps disappointingly healthy percentage of the people who are criticizing this application, who are criticizing from the beginning, who are criticizing because they're mad that there's a space that they're not allowed into. And we could say whatever we want to say about, oh, somebody might say something that's not true.

Like the fundamental source of anger, I think, I'm pretty comfortable saying, is people just mad that there's women who could be in a space. that they're not allowed into. You dig what I mean. But if you say, hey, look, this seems unsafe or clearly it was unsafe. And let me remind you, and unfortunately, viewers, their listeners, that people are still signing up for this app. People are still using it.

It's still very popular. And they're continuing to report, at least, I mean, the last time I looked, which is a few days ago, before this article came out, I have to say that. But they were really kind of celebrating that more women are signing up. And they would say, well, you know, we had a cyber incident, quote unquote, that's the language they use. This was a cyber incident. But, you know, essentially saying, you know, basically communicating to the users that, oh, you know, this is all, this is something that happened. But this just shows that our mission is still important.

And this is, T-app is needed more than ever. Just, bro, there were Facebook groups that you sabotage. you try to tank these things, that's something that was created by a community with, as far as I know, no profit motive, then you come on and you're bragging on podcasts about how there's angel investors thinking about putting money into your app.

Like, yo, you have a different motive here. You know what I mean? And so it's just, it's one of those apps that, if one tries to criticize them, then the PR spin that they put on it is, oh, well, you must do what? You don't want women to be safe? Bro, we're having a different conversation here because your app is unsafe.

That's the thing I have a problem with. Yes. The app is unsafe. But yeah, yeah, it's tough to talk about. We're not ready. Women deserve, everybody deserves real safety. And I saw the same vibe on the internet where if you criticize this app, it's like, oh, you don't think women deserve a space to share their experience. and keep themselves safe.

I think women deserve that. Women should speak up and do what we need to do to keep ourselves safe. And we always have done that without these scammy, exploitative apps that are offering us the chance to be genuinely put in danger. Like having your driver's license with your address and whatever conversations that you said that you thought were private being all exposed, that is such a level of danger that I can't even take seriously anybody who would actually think that this company was meaningfully interested in keeping women safe.

It's so it's so exploitative. Yeah. Yeah. And it, I mean, it brings you back to, again, I think of more people, you can't blame the users for wanting to use this software, for wanting to use this app that was unsafe. We can't.

I can't, you know, these are, this is a victim of a lot of different situations. one general misogyny in society in general, but also some people who lied to them. And, you know, on its face said, hey, we are going to provide certain safety, and they did not provide that. Didn't deliver on the promise, right? I think this is, again, somewhere where hopefully

some of this can be mitigated by learning a little bit more about how this technology works. sometimes a little bit of a red flag might come up and say, hold on, should I be sending them this? Is this, does this seem like it makes sense to me? And anybody can get tricked. Anybody, you know, we're very used to putting our trust in app companies because, you know, if you can't trust, if you can't trust a safety app, who can you trust? You know, it's going to Belanoche.

Where can you go? Yeah, exactly. Who can you trust? And so, you know, this is really difficult stuff, but, you know, I don't have a, frankly, I don't have a solution for it. I don't have a solution for it. But I do know that I want more people, I want more people to be better educated on how this stuff works. And if that just means reading one book or reading one article, listening to this podcast, reading one article on 404, then, you know, we're getting closer, definitely. Or subscribing to your podcast, Kill Switch, which is excellent.

Where can, first of all, thank you for, this conversation has been great. You are, you bring such a clarity to these issues that is just very refreshing. And you have a, I listen to a lot of tech content. You have a chillness about the way that you handled, that you come at this that I really appreciate. Where can folks listen to Kill Switch? Follow you, follow your work, follow all the cool stuff you've got going on. Wow. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. That's very kind of you. I mean, website, whatupdex.com, everything's there.

Social media. I'm on Dex Digi. D-E-X-D-I-G-I. And actually, so KillSwitch, if you search for it, you'll find it. But actually, we're starting to put stuff on YouTube also. So, yeah, actually our episode about the T-Ap is the first one up there. Trying to get some more on there. But, yeah, really, really anywhere.

I'm out here, unfortunately. For better for worse, I'm out here. For you, people are listening so they can't see. Check out Dex's YouTube because your background is so beautiful. You have a very beautiful background. And if you're wondering what Dex looks like, you should check out the YouTube because it's very, it's very nicely curated.

It's a good visual. It's a visual treat. Thank you. I'm working on it. I was like every week I add something else to it. Because, you know, I stream also. I also stream on Twitch. And so I'm always adding little things.

And the people in chat are always making fun. Because every time I stream, something goes wrong. Like something, like there's a light that's not working. A camera is blurry. Yo, because I got, I mean, I got this. One of these days I need to post a picture of what my desk looks like. Because it looks like NASA. Like, if the feds ever see this, they're going to come in here

because it looks like I'm planning something. Yeah. The amount of wires and machinery in here, it would look suspicious. Yeah, I'm not going to post a picture of this. It would look suspicious. They don't think I'm making sense. Send it to me directly because I want to see it. I'll send it to you on signal because, again, speaking of safety, like, I don't want anybody,

I don't want to get intercepted because somebody's going to see this and say, what is that antenna? And you're doing, you're planning something. And we're going to send somebody to visit. Yeah, somebody, I'm going to get a visit. I do not want to visit from any authorities. By the way, any authorities listening to this, nothing but respect. Appreciate your work. God bless.

But yeah, no, for real. Jokes aside, thank you so much for real. This is a lot of fun. Oh, my gosh. Well, follow Dex and all the places. Thank you so much for being here. And thanks to all of you for listening. You can follow me on YouTube at There Are No Girls on the Internet.

You can follow me on Instagram at Bridgett, me, D.C, or on TikTok at Bridgett, Lian, D.C. I will see you on the internet. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangodi.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 IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. Edited by Joey Pat. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNREL.

Late Night Comedy Guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam, Sam. It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season.

And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was part of it. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that Game 7, Mark keep coming to you. He's like, you know, I love you, dog. You know, it's all love.

This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers.

We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month,

tune into the podcast Deeply Well with Debbie Brown. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to Deeply Well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.