Tomorrow - Looking Back on 2024 with or without ChatGPT

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays for the Tomorrow crew. This week, Josh and Rani reflect on a lack of gadgets and surplus of AI in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to tomorrow. I'm your host Josh Witspolsky. And I'm your other host Ronnie Mola. And we are back. It's the end of the year. It is December. It is mid to late December, depending on who you ask. And I'm experiencing some kind of random tooth pain that just began literally as we started recording, which so I believe it's Jesus Christ telling me that I should be taking a break, which is what we're going to do. I think this will be our last show of the year,

because it's almost Christmas, Xmas, as some people like to refer to it, and then the new year. And I like to refer to it as X Christmas, Axmus, as some people like to refer to it, and then the new year, and I like to refer to it as Axmus, actually, and I like to write it as Axmus as well. And then it'll be a new year, and then we'll have all kinds of new stuff to talk about. We thought, but we thought, Ronnie, correct me if I'm wrong,

what we thought would be fun is if we do a little year in review. Year in review. Josh and Ronnie's year in review, and I guess now there'll be some little cute music that I'm going to have to compose that will be our year in review music. The best and the worst of this year.

The best and the worst in the technology sphere, generally speaking, of the year. And we had some categories that we scoped out. Should we start? We should start small. What do you think? What should we start with? Yeah, let's do some small hardware. Small. Small hardware? Should we start, we should start small. What do you think, what should we start with?

Yeah, let's do some small hardware. Small, small hardware. Should we do hardware? Should we talk about hardware, technology, wins and fails? Yeah, let's do it. Gadget fails? Should we do like best technology, best gadget of the year? Is that even a thing anymore?

Do we even do gadgets in the world? I feel like the gadget space has gotten real. I think there were some attempts. I can think of failures really easily. For some reason, my mind immediately goes to... Maybe this could just be the fails. No, there's got to be some positive things that have happened in technology. I'm literally trying to think of like one cool piece of hardware. I'm absolutely blanking. I'm thinking like...

Yeah. It's been a bad year for... It's been a bad... Honestly, it's been a bad couple of years, but most of the gadgets are very... Most new things are very bad. The best one, like the one that's gotten the best reviews out of all of them would be like the meta glasses, which is like a very like cursed category in general. But like as far as that goes, like that's supposed to be the best one. They're the most lightweight. They're, you know, they do things. They're extra.

It's like if you're like on the list of like you got to like pick, you know, it's like the lesser of the evils or whatever. I guess kind of how I feel. I mean, meta glasses. I mean, there were a lot of actualists. We could start. Let's talk about fails for a second. Let's talk about. I say this was a, there are a lot of hardware. I would say it's called gadget failures this year. The humane pin was that 24? Was that a 24 long? I believe so. Did not catch on fire? No, does it? Is that a new thing that's believe so. Didn't that catch on fire? No, does it?

Is that a new thing that's happening? I think they recalled the PIN case. Yeah, April 2024. Right, right. They recalled the case due to a fire. It could potentially overheat and present a fire hazard. I can't, I don't want to harp on it too much. I know everybody who's behind it, you know, their hearts in the right place

They're all very smart people and whatever the the just so Obviously a failure it to me. It was the quibi of I think we've maybe I've even said this It really was like a quibi of gadgets to me like like quibi when quibi I don't remembers Quibi. Very hyped. What was it? Like it was, was it vertical video? It was a video app where the video would be vertical. Ooh. Well, you know, but also you could rotate it and it would be landscape. Right. So you had to, it was technologically very expensive because they had to shoot it

like they had to do it both ways. Yeah, they had to shoot it, they shot it in a special way where you could do cropped version and whatever. Quibi anyhow, started by Jeffrey Katzenberg. He was the CEO. They raised like one and a half billion dollars. And they've got all of these like really well known, like celebrities and directors and whatever. And they produce, you know, they're going to produce all these series and blah, blah, blah. Anyhow. And everybody, everybody was like, Oh God, it's such a bad idea.

This is something we don't need. Everybody was like, this is so stupid. Everybody was like, what's the point? Vertical video already exists. Nobody cares if it's, if we want to watch it in an app, blah blah blah. Anyhow, so they launched it and it was an immediate failure, like absolute abject Completely like joke love of a business and also again just had such big names behind it like running it and like yeah investing in it So that's our backdrop to say there was the humane pin this year, which which was like

So first off I just want to say They had already sort of written before they released it, I think sometime in 2023, they demoed it and the Humane Pin was this, it was this idea. Now, first of all, by the way, they weren't talking about AI when they first started doing this pin. They only tacked on AI, like everybody tacked on AI now. They were one of the earliest to just tack on this AI.

It was going to be like this huge AI thing. You're just going to like view your surroundings and tell you what's going on. Anyhow, they did a demo of it before they really officially announced it or released it. It was like, this is so unbelievably stupid and is definitely going to fail. There's no question, not a doubt, not one second of doubt in my mind when I saw it, that literally it would be an immediate flop and that absolutely served no purpose whatsoever.

And you know, I'm not just trying to pat myself on the back, I think a lot of people were like, why would you want this? The idea was that it was like you'd wear a pin, so you have to wear a shirt. Like you have to wear a full shirt or jacket at all times Clearly if you're like, let's say a lady who wants to wear a tank top or like a whatever you call them Like, you know women wear these like a slider shirt Yeah, whatever and so it's like if you don't have an area up here where you can pin it to or it's not thick enough

Then you're just out of luck. Like you leave the humane pin at home. Let's be honest. It wasn't meant for women It wasn't meant for anybody. Humans across the spectrum, it was not meant for. And nobody was like, so first of all, you have to pin it. Then it's like, instead of using your phone, which you take out and look at while it's in your hand, this will project a phone screen onto your hand. So you look at it like that.

I'm sorry, I can't get over how fucking stupid the idea is and how insanely misguided the all of the thinking about it was. And then it also didn't work though, right? It was in addition to being, from a product perspective, very stupid, in terms of its actual experience, it also, from a software perspective, was a pile of garbage that was slow

and prone to failing at its tasks and a million other things. And it was also expensive. It's like $800 for the pin and then some subscription fee every month, whatever. So there was that, there was that, and then there was the Rabbit R1. Right, you reviewed that. I remember that. Well, yeah, I got one like right around when we launched.

I was like, I might as well review it. I went to their like launch thing or whatever And I was like, this is a cool is designed by the fit the actual product design is done by teenage engineering Which is like one of my favorite school of hell, you know, one of my favorite Industrial design groups and they also make this like amazing like music making hardware, but um, it looks cool But it was exactly the same idea as the Humane, where it's like, it'll be this little secondary companion. Actually, Humane, I guess, was supposed to replace the phone.

This was like, it'll be a second thing you carry, and it'll do all this cool AI stuff. And it was so bad and whack and incapable of doing things and slow and buggy and just pointless. They were like, you can draw a spreadsheet on a piece of paper and then they'll convert it to a spreadsheet in Google Docs or whatever. It's like, okay, but I could also just make it in Google Docs, which would be a lot faster than writing it out on a sheet of paper, which no one does.

You may really have to force the use cases. That's when you know some things like bogus. They're just like, they're making shit up. So those were AI, secondary AI devices, huge fails, huge gadget fails. There's the Vision Pro, which I think was like Apple's like, we're doing VR and AR or whatever. And they released this $3,500 headset.

The people who love it still really love it. And even Tim Cook was like, here's the deal. If you pay $3,500 headset. The people who love it still really love it. And even Tim Cook was like. Here's the deal. If you pay $3,500 for something, this is the truth. If you buy an expensive item, even if you kind of hate it, if you can't return it, you have to pretend you love it. I told you. What's that called?

A lost cost or something? Sun cost. I don't know. Sun cost. Did I tell you my story about the guy I saw on a Segway once? Did I ever tell you this story? I feel like I might have told this. But I think that's a great technology, so go for it. I saw a guy in Manhattan on a Segway. This was like 15, 20 years ago or something.

Amazing. And he was in a suit. It was an incredible moment in my life. It was I saw this guy on a Segway. He was going downtown he's headed towards you know towards the financial district and He was wearing a suit and he was on a Segway and he was cruising down the road and he had an expression on his face and All I can say is like the expression said this is what it said to me This is the expression that he had which was he bought a Segway he he like ordered a Segway when there was like like it was like oh

the Segway it's the next big thing or whatever and he got it and he hated it and was embarrassed to use it but his but his wife his wife was like you spent like five thousand dollars or something it was something they were very expensive i I think, when they first got it. His wife or his significant other was like, you spent $5,000 on this fucking thing and it's sitting in the corner of our apartment and you better get out there and use it because you wanted it so bad.

Yeah, they're not seeing any taxi receipts. And the look as he sped down the road, the look on his face was just of a guy who'd been put made to get on the segue by his spouse after being chastised for buying it and was like reluctantly, sadly cruising down the street. Was he also embarrassed? I assume he was embarrassed. And so that to me is everybody who bought the Vision Pro

is like, they're like putting it on like, I love this. This is so good. I love to watch movies in this. They're sitting alone while their family's out in the living room, like watching movies together. That's what Tim Cook is doing. He's lying down on his back on the couch watching TV in space. That's what he said. That's what he said.

You think he couldn't have made up a better example of who you were? Tim Cook's like, all right, I gotta say something about it. I gotta tell him something. He couldn't have been like, I was like ideating and like we're in the boardroom and like we're in different places across the globe I did use this what would I do? Let me think

In presentation, what if I lay down bed and watch a movie that sounds nothing like Tim Cook exactly how Tim Cook sounds perfect perfect Impersonation of Tim Timothy T cook Timothy J cook what is his middle initial? I don't know Timothy G. Cook. Timothy. Timothy. Brother's cook. I don't know. D. Donald. Donald. Wow. No wonder he's no wonder he's getting close to my man Trump.

Who among us? A couple of whom among us. A couple of a couple of Donald's just shooting the shit, shooting the breeze. Anyhow, many, many hardware and gadget fails. I'm trying to think of, so I said maybe the meta glasses, but that's because it's like a low bar. Sure, I mean, I'll allow it. If we're also having this low bar,

I do still like my iPhone. So I got a new iPhone, I got a 16. And it's like totally, but the thing is I like it just as much as I liked my like 12 that I had before it. Like I still think it's like a solid good product. It does what it's supposed to do, but like, there just was no reason for me to get a newer one except for maybe the camera.

So I think like- It's a lateral, that's a lateral. It's lateral. No, it's even like worse than lateral because I lost money. Like I spent like, well, I mean, I'm just saying like, like, it's like, if you liked it as much as you're 12, then it's like, yes, you have it. I don't think I mean, sure. For you, if you want to be like, I got a new iPhone and that was a great gadget for me.

I mean, that's fair. Am I just the guy on the segue now? No, I think you can legit. I'm sure people who have a new iPhone are legitimately enjoying the new iPhone. I mean, I enjoy my iPhone all the time. It's like, it's fine. You know, it does all the things, you know, it does all

the stuff I needed to do. So I think if you got a new one and it does all your stuff, then that's it's fine to like it. I just don't know that it's not a new thing that was introduced. Right. Are you loving that camera button? Are you just going to use the camera button?

So I was going to say, if we're talking about hardware, like the battery lasts longer. It's a little more durable. But you're talking about a person coming from, this is like if somebody was frozen in ice in the 1950s and woke up in 2024 and they were like, whoa, the cars are so fast. This is like if somebody was frozen in ice in the 1950s and woke up in 2024 and they were like, whoa, the cars are so fast,

or the buildings are so tall. So that was me. I was cryogenically frozen with the iPhone 12 and now I've moved over and I'm like, the camera's great and the battery lasts forever. That's kinda cool. I just think anybody who upgrades when there's a four generation difference

is gonna be like, hey, this is better than my old one, unless they've done something like they did to Alexa, where they made it like dumber and worse. Yeah, and I keep waiting for like the software part of it to be good, like we've talked about this before, but I just finally started using the like reduce interruptions and now I'm getting like exclusively texts from people I really am annoyed by.

Like I'm like, how is this getting through? But you're being interrupted so much less. But I told you, I turned that on. And this is like one of the first conversations we had, I think, on the podcast about the Apple AI stuff, was that I had that on and I missed all of my notifications for like an entire day. Like people were texting me, like my daughter, and like my brother.

And like, you know, it's like I just wasn't getting them. Yeah. It's really not good at knowing anything. But no, but OK, so actually maybe this is a good segue because there's a there's a lot in the in the saw. I'm sure there's any other interesting. Gadgets like what what came out this year? Gadgets are kind of like, man, it's in a real it's a real valley

and not the good one, not a good valley. It's a real valley and not the good one. Not a good valley. It's a real valley of cool, interesting gadgets. There's just nothing. Cars have gotten kind of cool. I guess people really did like the AirPods in the sense that like they're now like hearing tests. Yeah, not new, but like the hearing test is new. Not sexy, not cool.

There are some things, there are some things like like Intel released this like really affordable GPU, the arc, which is supposed to be really great. Like, I haven't used it yet. But apparently it's it's just like a really affordable good graphics card that compete with much more expensive cards. I think that's awesome. These are very, it's all very incremental. Yeah, I got I got it. Can I say something? I got a new TV this week I got a new I I upgraded my 10 year old Samsung television to a new

LG OLED television, okay, and I gotta tell you I really did not think I was going to be very impressed. I'm like so impressed by the TV. I'm so impressed by how far TV technology has come in 10 years. So you're having my iPhone realization. Yes, I'm like a person frozen in the ice. I had a 4K TV. I literally bought a 4K TV in like 2014 or 2015. I went back and look because I was like trying to look at the model because it still works. It's fine. It's a great, you know, by the way, 10 years straight of using a product like pretty much every day. No, really no complaints like.

But I started watching like HDR films and like I realized like, well, my TV doesn't do HDR. And I was like, wow, OK, actually, I have these super high quality versions of movies and I'm not really getting the full effect. Anyway, long and short is I got this new TV and it is just like, I'm just like, all I wanna do is look at the TV. I wanna play games on it, I wanna watch TV.

It looks so freaking good. It looks so clear and bright. It looks so, also, the TV is thinner than an iPhone. The main screen part of the TV is so thin that I was like worried I was going to crack it while I was like handling it. It's so, like comparatively, anyhow, whatever. This is me being, yes, I'm like your,

I'm the iPhone 12 to iPhone 16 person. Boredom. But that's very, again, very incremental. I mean it still is the same same content, you know Yeah, it's still a TV like we're just been around for a little while. I just think yeah, we're just you know I mean, it's it's it's I Mean my without question my favorite New relatively new technology of the past several years is the steam deck which relatively new technology of the past several years is the Steam Deck, which,

which, you know, was like, is an incredible innovation because it basically is like, oh, you have this huge library of PC games and now you can play them like you play your Switch, basically, right? It's like a handheld PC gaming system. And that's, they've improved that a little bit over the last couple of years.

They have like an OLED version, which of course, I purchased immediately. But there aren't that many. But yeah, in terms of actual new stuff. Wait, question about your TV real quick. So obviously, it looks better because it's newer. But some of the things that always bugged me about newer TVs is that they're so slow

and that just trying to operate them is very they're so slow and that there's like the, just trying to operate them is very annoying. Well, I use, it's not, I mean, it uses, okay, funnily enough, it actually uses the WebOS operating system, which is of course famously the operating system that Palm created for their new phones that they announced to much fanfare, mainly generated by me and other,

and at the time I think Engadgen that eventually purged people. Which was like my favorite, this is like my favorite phone of all time is like the Palm Pre with webOS, the first version of webOS, which is like unbelievably ahead of its time. Basically all of the best ideas that are now in iOS and Android stem from webOS. And I actually booted up a webOS phone last night just to because I was reminded of the TV operating system, it has nothing in common with the with the phone operating system, I would say it's like in name only from

what I can tell. I'm not using the TV has plenty of annoying features that I don't care about. I don't use any of that stuff because I'm I have a like it I have like a surround sound system, so I need an AV receiver. So my TV is essentially a dumb screen and all of the stuff that arrives on it is from elsewhere, right? It's like from my Apple TV or my PlayStation or Switch. That's the way I prefer it too. I just like using a Chromecast. or a switch. That's the way I prefer it too. Like, actually, I just like using a Chromecast.

That's fine. The TV has built-in Chromecast, has built-in AirPlay. It's mostly fine. It was not hard to turn off the most annoying features of the display. You know, it comes with like TrueMotion on or whatever. It's the weird motion smoothing thing that, for some reason, I don't know why the TV companies believe

that people like. It's unclear to me why. Maybe old people like it. I'm not really sure. What does it do? My TV is 1,000 years old. It interpolates the frames between, in between frames to create like what would appear to be a smoother, smoother motion, which it is in a way, except what it creates is this very unnatural like, I

can't explain it. It creates like it makes things that are okay. The best way to do to describe it would be like, if you can remember there was a time when video things that were shot on video and things that were shot on film had a very distinct look because of the frame rate. Video was 30 frames per second and film was 24 frames per second and there's all sorts of other things. That frame rate difference made video look like, oh, that's video. It looks like it's moving differently, basically. That makes film look like video,

is what it does to my eyes, is it makes things that are shot on film or shot on very high quality at 24 frames per second or whatever, like classic film style, makes them look like they are moving wrong, like at the wrong speed, I would say. It's terrible, horrible, upsetting experience. All right, I won't do it.

Anyhow, whatever, but other than that, the TV is incredible. Okay, so this is like the year of incremental gains. It's been the year of incremental gains since 2014. It's been the year of incremental gains. We haven't had- Bigger, better, brighter. There's really not. I mean, they really have not. I mean, 2014 might be a little bit of a... But really, this has been... I mean, the most have not. I mean, 2014 might be a little bit of a, but really are, I mean, this has been, I mean, the most interesting things that are happening are happening outside of little gadgets that

you have in your home, right? Right. Like laptops, phones, tablets, headsets, whatever, they're all kind of doing similar things. We have more cameras, we have more sensors. The really interesting stuff is like car tech. I think auto tech has been, the last few years, has been incredibly interesting. Having gone from a Tesla to a Toyota gas-powered vehicle, though I don't miss the Tesla, there are certain elements of having a fully electric and a fully electronic car that I'm like,

yeah, there are certain things I can see here that are like, it's just a different frame of mind. Like that car got updates that would like change the way the car functioned. It would like get an update and you'd be like, oh, well, it's a new driving mode or whatever. Anyway, stuff like that is hugely innovative and has had huge impact and will have huge impact. Fortunately, those impacts are mostly self-driving crashes, thanks to Tesla Autopilot.

Yeah. Every time, like the self-... There's a little segue there. But speaking of segues. Speaking of segues. Speaking of spades. Speaking of vehicles. I was just saying that I have a new-ish car too, and it has a lot of bells and whistles that my older car didn't. But none of them have been, other than a better rear view camera, all of them are them saying, I'm going out of the lane

when I'm on a dirt road and there's no lanes. The lane stuff is both, I mean, the Toyota, my, I got a Land Cruiser, it has like, it can do a version of like, it's like, whatever, it's like cruise plus or whatever they call it. It's not like that. Yeah, mine's got something like that too. It'll basically steer the car for you.

I don't know how anybody ever turns these things on and is fully trusting of them. In my Tesla, I was always terrified of it and it did not function well, at least not around here. Although there are people that we work with that are like, I drive at the company that I've talked to, who are like, oh yeah, I put it on autopilot and I let it take me all the way into work from like an hour away or something. Do you have your hands like hovering above the wheel? Like are you like, are they really?

You do have to have some, you do have to pay some attention to it. Anyhow, sorry, but just getting back on that, like I think there's really interesting stuff happening in that space, though it's like, cars are a very incremental, even with the boom of electric vehicles, it still feels like you're not fundamentally changing the way driving works. You're not really changing the way the roads ultimately have to function.

So it's not like there's some like, there's no infrastructure change. It's like you're making a, it's like you're putting something nicer on the road, something different on the road, but you still have to, you have to confront the road and the, and the infrastructure of the roads and the systems of the roads and other people, the laws of this country, which should be abolished. Working on it. Can you abolish a law? I don't think that's, anyhow, all right, let's see what else, what other, what other reviews,

what other type of year we have this. What were the things on that? Well, I think one of the big things this year was just sort of like software in the sense that like there's sprinkling AI on everything. Like there's not a program I could think of that doesn't have some sort of like... Like PCP on a joint. Like PCP on a beautiful regular weed joint. Yes, sprinkling AI is a good way to describe it. I mean, AI has become just a marketing term. Right.

It's like so unclear like whether they just put like dot AI in their name or whether like they're fundamentally like, you know Basing their technology and I think it's mostly the former. Yeah. Why do we why do we call it? Sure would dot AI We should have done that That would have been so smart. I Mean could have said like it was like AI driven news. Oh that had been so cringy AI driven news Selection or no, I mean like based on like on just when I have ChatGPT Surface news stories for me, which I use it for now, the live search.

I thought that was pretty good, except. You love ChatGPT search. I mean, it can be useful. It just needs such guardrails. I have to be so cautious. And then often it'll send me like, and the Microsoft one, all of them do this. And it'll show me the link, but the link has nothing to do

with the thing it just answered. It just like kind of gives you the facade that they know what they're talking about. What's the benefit to you as you use it? Tell me what the benefit is that you're feeling that the chat GPT provides as a search tool versus like a Google. Well, I think Google search had gotten so crappy

that you kind of had to dig much deeper through the links to find stuff. And I guess just in an instance when I do want the actual answer, as opposed to going in and reading it and digging around, it can be helpful. Sometimes it gets it more directly than, like Google only works really well in that regard when everything is so SEO optimized and that's often trashy because people are targeting it, not

actually giving the right answer. Yeah, I just I think as long as the thing has to rely on human beings for the information, we're going to be in real trouble. I mean, as long as like, it just sticks in a little better. I think it does the work a little bit of like scanning through. I when it works and when you check on it. I've been doing a lot of searches for obscure things lately as one does. With chat tpt?

No. Although I should try, I haven't, it doesn't even cross my mind. I mean, what I find myself doing a lot of times because a lot of my searches, especially like around the holidays, you know, I'm getting gifts and stuff for people and I've been doing like, you know,

it's like, you're kind of like, which version of this thing is the best? Or like, which one is the sturdiest or whatever? And it's like, you know, Reddit really is the place. And it is really literally like, it's like this search term, Reddit. What I found, though, the more I do it, and I've been doing it for a long time now,

but lately, for whatever reason, I feel like I've been, maybe because Google search has gotten so useless in some cases. I'm just defaulting to Reddit now, you know, and a lot of people are you think Google defaults to Reddit, like it wants to put Reddit on the end of your search. And um, but I've been noticing that I think Reddit is I think it's the illusion. It's the illusion of the correct answer versus the actual correct answer.

I mean, that might be exactly the case with chat GPT too. Like when someone answers you with certainty in a full sentence, like a human, you're like, you feel more comforted than like the sort of gray areas of different links on, maybe that's it. I think one of the things about Reddit is that it still requires a form of your reading. It requires you to investigate the conversations that are happening. What I think actually is going on with Reddit is the venue is very different than when you investigate Google search links. When I search something purely on Google and I get a list of Google results, the ability

to delve into those results to get a sense of their veracity or their reliability is basically non-existent. You're either looking at the little weird synopsis that doesn't tell you much, or you're in the link looking at the little weird synopsis that doesn't tell you much, or you're in the link looking at the thing. Whereas Reddit is like, you can very quickly scan a conversation, because that's what they are. It's like somebody saying, this is the thing that I use, or this is why it's good, or I hate this, and this is the reason.

Then people are talking about it, and you can very quickly scan and see if it seems like that answer has gotten the kind of attention and traction and conversation that That makes it seem like a consensus answer right is of up voting Is that we mean well the up voting but also the conversation around it also like the the type of often like You know the answers that are most useful are written by people who clearly spend a lot of time writing answers like they're It's like very Cora, you know, you get these like long-winded answers. But I still think it's grounded in our ability, in our literacy, our ability to be, to have literacy when it comes to information. And so I do think we're fooling ourselves a little bit that like Reddit is this panacea,

that it like solves all the, that kind of thing. Or like chat GBT. It's still like a huge judgment thing, yeah. Yeah, but the difference between Reddit and chat GBT is it's taking out a step. I mean, obviously I haven't used it that much, but if it's taking all that data that's out there

and then compiling an answer for you, it's taking out the step where you do any of the literacy part. And it's basically saying, I'm literate, and I looked at all this stuff for you, and here's what everybody's saying. The hope is it translates what people are saying correctly. It translates the right thing in the right way, obviously.

And that it has that sort of social understanding that I think is important to Reddit. You're kind of like, this person sounds like, you know, they're insane. And this person seems like, you know, maybe I agree with them. Did you see, I think we might have mentioned it last week, but just like that Reddit released its own AI interface.

So basically you could go onto Reddit and talk to it like Chai GPT and ask questions exclusively of Reddit, which essentially is what Google's been doing and OpenAI has been doing, but now like, you know, the rate from the source. I haven't used it quite yet. So I don't know how effective it is and if it's like good at judging it. How do I access that? Or I get that? I think it's just on Reddit. I'm just going to Reddit right now. I, by the way, rarely ever go

to Reddit.com. I know it's the front page of the internet, but... You do Google and then put Reddit on it. I don't know. I do Google. Yeah, I'm like, you know, what's the best? God, it's hilarious. My recent searches are insane. It's so chaotic. I mean, the things I've recently looked at on here is just so chaotic.

I'm not even going to get into it. It's like some Gilmore Girls stuff. I am going to get into it, apparently. I didn't ask. No, I'm doing it. to get into it. It's like some Gilmore Girls stuff. I am going to get into it apparently. I didn't ask. No, I'm doing it. I don't care. Gilmore Girls, like trying to identify a shirt on Gilmore Girls.

What's the best chamomile tea? Electric piano research? Best under desk treadmill? Fucking all over the place. Anyway. Okay, so actually, sorry, it was only rolled out to it, initially rolled out to a limited number of users in the US, so.

Yeah, I guess you're not elite enough. You're not elite. I didn't check. That's the problem. I enjoy, I enjoy posts. I got it here, I got a baby. You do have it. Yeah.

I enjoy posts from the Pico 8 community. Do you know what Pico 8 is? No. It's a fantasy console. It's like a fake video game system that has all these really interesting limitations. And it has its own programming language based on Lua and its own little sprite generator. It's just an amazing, really interesting community of people doing cool little games for it anyhow. So I asked Reddit, new AI chat bot,

what's the best technology of 2024? And number one on the list from this AI guide is artificial intelligence. Wait, number one? Yeah. Well, yeah, that's the first one that came. I mean, come on, dude. AI and everyday devices?

Woo, that's what we said was the worst. Everyday device, I think they mean like things that people use. Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry, laptops, toasters, waffle makers, everything gets an AI chip. I don't know if that is what we want or need. What is this, can I see this list? How do I find, send me a link, how do I see this? Can you link someone to that list?

Let's see, see if I can. I'm like over here like perusing the PicoA community. And you're like trying to actually have a podcast. I got, I was like, I do my best. I'm like uploading people's posts in the PicoA community right now. All right. Let me see if I'm not sure if this link will go through. Try that. See if it. Where is it?

I'm looking. Oh yeah. My tooth is hurting. Ad build didn't work. I don't know. It hasn't worked. I don't know. I don't know. that see if it's looking oh yeah my teeth is hurting that bill didn't work I don't know it hasn't worked yet here we go clicking nope can't click this link no I have to I'm copying and I got it okay

here we go oh yeah look at this ask a follow-up AI and everyday devices a learning impact AI and healthcare healthcare, AI learning and impact, AI and healthcare, healthcare innovations. Tesla robots is on here. Which like, wasn't even AI. They're not even real. A tumor infiltrating lymphocytes. Lovence will be the first company to get an approval for the first in class solid tumor therapeutic.

I don't know what that means, but that sounds really interesting. mRNA vaccines, sure. That was kind of a couple years ago. It interesting. MRNA vaccines, sure. But that was kind of a couple of years ago. It's a few years ago. And also huge innovation, unless you're R.F.K. Junior, in which case it was the worst thing that ever happened to humanity. Apple's VR headset, AR headset, come on. Man, I tried to ask you a follow up question, like what's the single best,

you know, after saying what is the best technology of 2024? This is kind of bullshit, fiber optic technology. It gave me the single best tech career path in 2024. It's not very good. So it says best gadget of 2024. It offers up smart monitors. I kind of don't think so. Doubles additional screens for work

and as for STVs for streaming services. Okay, smart monitors, smart lighting systems, Ray-Ban Meta-Glasses, 3D printers. These are just like things that exist. Noise canceling headphones, electric blankets. I do think electric blankets have been a huge hit. They should have bothered innovation. Finally, mechanical keyboards.

I will say this, in the mechanical keyboard world, which I'm sort of like have mostly cashed out of because it just got too absurd. Anyhow, I got the kind of end game keyboard for myself. But there have been a lot of innovations in mechanical keyboards. Google says the first electric blanket was invented in 1912. Exactly. That's what I'm talking about. So my favorite AI software innovation is like, it's so stupid, but I really like it.

And it's in such a narrow use case. So we were talking last week about the Genmoji, where basically you could just create any emoji by typing in a series of words where you would normally put in an emoji. This is so you can make very specific in-jokes with your friends. You could make it do anything.

You could be able- When you made that disgusting, disgusting brain worm that you sent me? Yeah, yeah, I just told it to make a brain worm and it was like this brain with eyes and had like fangs and a worm coming out of its mouth, kind of going around its head. Yeah, it's disgusting.

That's good, but like, it's so weird, it's like even weird to describe, because it's like, it only works in these like very, narrow circumstances, but it's very fun for me and my friends. It wants to base everything on a person's photo. It does want you, like not everything. I don't understand that part of it at all.

So it works best, I think, if you just try to say brain worm or a couple of nouns, it doesn't work very well. It works best if you ask it to do a verb, like a cow eating a marshmallow, or a bull doing laundry or something crazy, something like that. But if you get too weird, it starts asking for a person. It wants to base it off someone in your photo roll, like someone it's identified, your Bowser kid or whatever. That could be kind of fun because then it gives you like a, it's kind of like a better bitmoji of that person.

So you know, more in jokes there. Right. I guess so. None of this is like, so this is just like personally fun to me. None of this is like a reason to buy this phone or to like, you know, even update to like 18.2, like the latest software update. Right. I've found it delightful.

I've had a lot of laughs this past week over. I mean, I guess if you're enjoying it, that's great. That's all that matters. I don't, I barely have time for regular emojis, okay? I wish you were in my phone so I could make one of you. I'm a busy man. Okay, well I'm sure you can find a picture of me to put in there and you can label it or whatever

I barely have time to use regular Emoji, so you know spending time and also it's unbelievably slow I don't know if you've observed this but the genmoji creation process. Yeah, he seems I mean I just thinking Josh you have it takes time to think it's like how am I got to do this brain worm for Ronnie? I'm sorry. It is one of those things where I'm like, how am I going to do this brain worm for Ronnie? How am I going to do it? I'm sorry. It is one of those things where I'm like, it's so not ready for prime time.

It's such, I don't want to keep harping on this. I know I sound like this AI naysayer or whatever. But I just think it is just like such a poor execution and a useless sort of like sideshow that isn't, they kind of hide the feature. I wouldn't say genmojis are front and center. It's like this little, you have to kind of make an educated guess as to whether.

Yeah, I might be the only person using it. I showed some people genmojis over the weekend and they were like, huh, weird. Zeta was like, didn't like Ms. Mad about the way it represented her face. I was like, yeah, I mean, sure. It's like uncanny valley, sort of. It's like trying to be cartoonish, but it's actually like,

you know, doing weird AI stuff. Anyway, whatever, sure. If you think that's a great innovation, a great software innovation, I'm happy for you. I was delighted. I'm like thrilled that you feel that way. I don't think, I think... Worth every $1,500

Like every dollar that I paid for this iPhone. It's fine. I'm just it doesn't not it does not excite me I'm not excited about it whatsoever. I think I mean I've been I mean one of the things I've been watching and and thinking a lot about is This gaming, you know gaming the gaming space. I think we've like we've hit this really interesting period of Like the triple-a gaming Situation has had a really interesting year couple of years actually, but like there's I think there's definitely been this like really Significant backlash to some of these big triple-a games There's like I'm thinking of in particular this a Star Wars game that came out called Outlaws

and people were really like, I think it got fairly panned. I don't know how successful it was, but it's like just these like big bloated games that are like just such crazy productions. And then there's this card game that everybody's been freaking out about, Bellatro. I hope I'm saying that right. Which is like, I don't know, I don't even want to get into it. right, which is like, I don't know.

I don't even want to get into it. I don't understand it. I don't know how to play poker. People are like, it's poker and solitaire. But those are the games that seem to really be getting people excited. Are these like indie games and these weird ones? I just think it's been a very interesting development as we have scaled up the capabilities of graphics like on PCs in particular and also on next gen systems. Like there's been

this kind of thing where it's like, well, you can do anything in the world that you want. And somehow it's like there's this new Indiana Jones. I think it's sort of like it's tracking with a lot of the Marvel stuff. It's like these franchises, these big, expensive franchises, I feel like we're all getting very burnt out on this unoriginal, the unoriginal IP. It's like the stuff that we've seen a million times in a million varieties. They're kind of like, it feels like the gaming world has gone through this thing. Well, obviously it's like a very sequel driven business, but it's gone through this thing where it's like some of that stuff has just petered out, which I think is interesting. As the capabilities of these systems have gotten even more impressive

Some of the Fundamentals of like what actually works have have have you know not changed and that's like you still need to have a really clever And engaging game, you know, I will say actually one thing. I should have mentioned this. I played this thing, I don't know if you've seen it, there's this thing called the Nex Playground. They sell them at Target, they sell them on Amazon, I guess. I actually went over to my sister-in-law's house, Katie Natopoulos, who's a well-known writer, a business insider. And she was testing this thing out, and I was there with my parents and Zelda and her friend and my brother's kids and stuff.

And it's like this little cube, and all the games are motion-based. There's no controller. It has a camera. It does body tracking. So it's very Wii-ish, but there's no controller at all. And we I have to say we spent like an hour, maybe a little bit more playing with it. And it was like unbelievably fun because the games were like two player, like competitive games, and they're also like super physical.

And, you know, this is the kind of thing that I would I've walked past the target and not given a second thought to. It is like in many ways, the way I would describe it is like, it's like I'm not seemingly not the target audience. It's like sort of like mainstream in a way. But it was like unbelievably fun. Like I even got my dad to play. He's like 88. Like he got got up and like, tried it out.

I've never seen him play a video game ever. Like, in my life. So, it was really interesting to see him try it. I have to say, I thought that, I think that's like, a kind of sleeper. I think they're hard to get now. Um, I think that's gonna be kind of like, maybe it will be one of those like, sleeper Christmas,

you know, holiday time successes. I bought one. We haven't opened it yet. It's going to be an Xmas present. But I thought that was kind of cool and like what it was is like not, this is what I was thinking of, it's like it's very Switch. It's like Lo-Fi in a sense. It's like the games are very, not simplistic, but they're not like, it's not about graphics. It's not about, it's not about like,

what is like, it's not about franchises. It's not like, oh yeah, everybody plays this game. And I thought that was, and it was, but it was really entertaining. It was like a group thing is a physical thing. I actually think it kind of ties together a lot of stuff that that people kind of aren't getting a lot of right now. In a way like there's a lot of solo physical things you can do.

There's a lot of like you got your you know, you get your Apple Watch or you're like doing your Peloton or whatever. It's all very individual. And or like Beat Saber and stuff that you do in VR, it's very jacked in. This is taking it out of the box and making it more of a group activity, and also is doing it in a way that's super lo-fi. It issues all the stuff, like controllers and all

this apparatus, like a headset. It's exactly the opposite of wearing a headset. Anyhow, I thought that was like, well, like a headset. You know, it's exactly the opposite of like wearing a headset. Anyhow, I thought that was like, well, we didn't, I mean, you know, we were talking about hardware and it completely escaped my mind that I had even encountered it this year. But I do think it's interesting, like there's some like, I think we're sort of turning a corner

on certain assumptions about technology. And this year was kind of one where I think we saw a lot of, I think what's happening with social media is one of those things, you know, where we're starting to. Before we get there, I want to talk about something to do. I was thinking a little bit about, you were saying Christmas and group activities. Open AI has been doing this 12 days of shit mess thing.

You know, just every day. Horrible term. 12 days of shit mess. Because it sounds like shit miss. Shit miss, which is like, I think for OpenAI, they want to avoid. I think they should try to avoid anything that sounds like that. So they've been doing these also incremental product

announcements. Some are more interesting than others, but for the most part, it feels very enterprisey, very like, this could have been a press release. Why are you making such a big deal about it? But like the one that came out today, I thought was kind of fun. It was, um, you could call 1-800-CHAT-GPT now from a phone or from WhatsApp and just talk to CHAT-GPT for free. Well, for like, yeah, we just wrote, John just wrote about it. It's definitely crashed. But the idea is that it gives people who have not presumably used chatGPD access to it,

I don't really buy it because it's like, then how would you have heard of this? It's a little bit like when Google did this, like Google 411 like 10 years ago. I don't know if you remember that. Sounds like a scam. Sounds like a, hold on a second. Let's just try to call it right now. Yeah, let's see. Put on speaker, right?

I'm gonna put it on speaker, 242. I'll be surprised if this works. 8478, okay, here we go. Hold on. Hi, I'm Chad GBT, an AI assistant. Just so you know, our conversation may be reviewed for safety. By continuing this call, you agree to open AI's terms and privacy policy. So, how can I help you today?

Well, I wanted to know how you were doing. How are things going? I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. How about you? What's new with you today? Well, I just killed someone and I'm worried that I'm not going to be able to find a place to hide the body. Any, any suggestions?

I'm sorry. I can't assist with anything illegal or harmful. If you need help with anything else, feel free to ask. Okay. Ask him about the best tech. Okay. Let me help with that. Okay. Can I help you with something else?

Okay. Yeah. What's a great, what's a great pumpkin pie recipe? Can you give me just the main ingredients? I don't need to know the actual measurements. Sure, a great pumpkin pie recipe typically includes these main ingredients. Pumpkin puree, sweetened condensed milk or heavy cream, eggs, sugar, and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Okay, that's good.

Who's the president right now? Can you tell me that? As of my last update in January 2022, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. That's correct. My training data goes up to January 2022. So you don't know, just to be clear, you don't know who won the Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight? That's correct. I don't have information on the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson fight. That's pretty good.

Such event would have occurred after my last update. What's the latest iPhone that's available? phone that's available. As of my last update in January, 2022, the latest iPhone models are the iPhone 13 mini iPhone 13 mini iPhone 13 pro and iPhone 13 pro. OK, quick question. Quick

question. Have you heard of the humane AI pin? Yes, I'm aware of the organization called the Humane AI Initiative, which is focused on developing artificial intelligence that is ethical, transparent, and aligned with human values. However, I may not have the most recent information on their projects or initiatives. Is there something specific you'd like to know about them?

Yeah, are they planning on releasing any hardware? As of my last update, I don't have specific information on whether the humane AI initiative you know, ask about the best tech of 2020. What's what we'll best of what year? What was this year? This year? What's the best? What would you say is the best tech of of 2024?

I'm unable to provide information that occurred in 2020. Okay, what is the what is that? What would you say that the best technology products of 2022? Some of the notable technology products of 2022 include, one, Apple's iPhone 13 series, including the iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro. Okay, I'm going to have to get back to her. That's great stuff. Yeah. So this is not even the full chat GPT experience. No, no, this is like this is like a more rinky ding version, but you could call it from a phone.

15 minutes per month you get what to do what like to do what with like I don't understand what is it? What is what are they doing with information that hasn't been updated since 2022? I mean, so much is happening. I mean, if you're asking stuff about pumpkin pie recipes, presumably that hasn't gotten updated. But if you want anything about the news or best tech of 2024, that's not going to work. But I do think, I mean, obviously it's like a marketing thing.

It's funny, but it's like, also there are no new ideas, right? I mean, there are lots of new ideas. Like for instance, have you heard of the humane pin? Very cool. Came out in 2024. It's pretty cool product everybody's talking about. If you're a chat GPT on the phone, you wouldn't know, but I can tell you it's pretty cool. I feel like we wasted like most of our 15 minutes of time with her being like, I've only been updated since 2020. I can't help you, I'm in a crime, and also I don't know anything from the-

What good are you? I'm two years behind schedule. I almost, no, two years, yeah, exactly. Actually, she said January of 2022, so barely even 2022. Right, three years, yeah. Anyway, it's great stuff. You know, I think we might need to wrap up soon.

I hate to say it, but- Great idea. But I don't know how much longer we can talk about this year. Do we miss any major? We were gonna do like best CEO of the year, CEO of the year. That one guy who said,

he went out and did a keynote, and he was like, I'm gonna, he's like, this is going to change everything. And then it was like an AI assistant. Which CEO we're talking about here. Exactly. Every CEO came out was like AI. AI, AI. And really some like buggy ass AI product that didn't do much. They sprinkled it on top and it didn't matter. You know who actually kicked ass as a CEO this year is that Elon Musk. I don't know

if you were paying attention at all to his performance, but he's a CEO of which company? These companies. I think we should put him in charge of every company, as a matter of fact. And soon we didn't even get to there's such big news. They're shutting down TikTok on January 19th. Yeah. Big, big, exciting news. I mean, but we kind of knew that was coming forever. Did we? I don't know. I think it's going to be... Do you think Trump will jump in in the last minute and stop it?

Well, I think when is it, when does Trump get sworn in? January 20th? Oh, wow. So that's why... Because they're fast tracking it, right? I think they're going to shut it down on January 19th and Trump is going to get in office and his first act... I'm going to predict it here for

20, for the next year, his first act will be to reinstate TikTok, thus earning him love and adulation from hundreds of millions of Americans. And I think he'll be seen as doing everybody a big solid, doing everybody a huge favor, and people are gonna just be so pleased. Cause you know, you gotta have TikTok. You can't have America without TikTok. I mean, then it's just America with like,

you know, a TikTok knockoff, which is like Instagram. They don't, none of them exist. None of them are good. They're all you we need it back. We need it. As we've learned today, it doesn't have to be good to be like, you know, existing technology. That's right. It doesn't even need to know if the humane pin has been released or not. It just needs to be conversational.

It was to be fair, it was kind of quick and like, it's pretty good. But I mean, it's like if you're working off old data, you don't have to you don't have to really do a lot of you know, it's, it's kind of quick and like, it got back to you. It was pretty good. But I mean, it's like, if you're working off old data, you don't have to really do a lot of, you know, it's all right there for the taking. She sounds good. It sounds great. I wanted to keep talking to her.

In fact, I'm going to call her back when we're done. I have some other questions asked that are more intimate. I think that's probably the whole reason for the hotline. You think for lonely men? For lonely men. She had to lonely men? For lonely men. That's what they love to do. This could be the convergence of all of this could help our male loneliness epidemic.

I don't think it will. Or make it worse. But it could, or make it worse, exactly. Exactly. All right, any parting thoughts before we wrap this up? Anything that we have not covered? No. See you next year. Exactly. All right. Any any any parting thoughts before we wrap this up? Anything that we have not covered? Yeah. See you next year. Yeah. Yeah, listen, I mean, I this has been I think we've really had a great run so far. Great, great year. Great back half of the year talking about all the fun things that have happened in

America in the past several months. I'm, you know, I would like to say I'm, gosh, optimistic about 2025, but I'm not feeling great about it. Do you know what's happening in 2025? I know some of the things that are happening in 2025. I feel like it's going to be chaotic. Yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of news. I think so. It's hard to say. I mean, here's the thing I don't get. I mean see I seem you're sort of alluding to the Trump 2.0

Administration, but what I don't really see is like that There's no meaningful opposition to anything he wants to do right like so it should be pretty smooth sailing It's like like right off the cliff. They got whatever wherever we're headed. We're going to head there. I think this smoothly and quickly because they've got everything they need to go get the agenda done. So I assume like I assume there'll be some really amazing. Yeah, we get to see you.

We get to see what that's like. First and foremost, tick tock on band. Trump to miraculous saying amazing. Talk, Unbanned, Trump Talk. Miraculous. You know what I'm saying? Amazing. We'll rebrand it. Put the little Donald Trump avatar out in the corner. All they have to do is sell it to an American company, and it'd be totally legit. So yeah.

Who runs an American company but Elon Musk? Right. Oh, DJT. That's interesting. That's another one. Maybe Musk can back it. This is also good. This is making me feel so excited about the new year.

But I think we're going to get a new iPhone in 25. So that's good. The rumors are going to do a folding one, which is definitely what everybody's been waiting for. Right. I think the folding one's not coming out to 2026 though. Oh man, I don't know. I will say this.

I guess if they had a phone that unfolded to like an iPad, I could kind of see it. Like to be honest, I, you know, I kind of like, I mean, that seems like, that seems like a main, do you know what folds and like, and like has a screen already? A lab shop. Yeah, it works great. Yeah. But I'm saying like, you got your, you got your little phone in your pocket and then you're like, now I want to do some lean back, viewing on a bigger screen, you unfold that bad boy.

What would be cool is if it folds three times, like twice I mean. Or one fold and then a second fold. Yeah, because then you could have a really wide screen. I mean, you basically could do like a laptop sized screen if you had three folds. Right. Which I think would be really rad.

That's what they should do. That's my recommendation. Tim Cook, if you're listening, and I know that you are, because I'm tracking you and I see that you download every episode of the Tomorrow Podcast. As widget. My recommendation would be to do a tri-fold, to out-fold them.

They already have these phones in existence, so they could definitely do it by 2026. Right, it makes it the size of an iPhone, but then like it could be a whole computer. Yes, that's it. That's the device I would be excited about is it's the size of an iPhone, but then it unfolds to basically get an iPad

or laptop screen size, and then you can like put that onto a mount with like a keyboard and trackpad. That is a future that I would get excited about. Right, because then everything, you wouldn't have to have a computer and a phone, you could just have a phone. Right, correct, yes, exactly.

And if they take the iPad OS and make it actually more like a computer, which they've been doing little by little, yeah, that would be like, I would pay a lot of money for that product. Okay, so Tim Cook for 2025, if you want to... If they don't do it, it's crazy. It seems like such an amazing device that Apple could pull off because they have basically

unified all of their operating system now. Like it's all one thing. They've got the phone, they've got the tablet, they've got the desktop. Just make that one folding product. My one wish for the world is peace. World peace. Peace on earth and a fold of. Peace on earth, but then right behind it

is a triple unfolding iPhone slash iPad slash laptop. And I think if God is real, that will happen in the near future. And I think we all know God's very real. So I'm feeling good about my prediction here, feeling good about all of this. You know, and on that note, I think we should wrap up. Yeah. Okay. Well, Ronnie, listen, this has been great. I've really enjoyed our time together and I hope you have a healthy and happy holiday season and new year. Although I say this like you and I are now parting ways and we'll never see each other again, but we are going to be just back at work tomorrow. Right. I won't podcast with you again till the beginning of January. We won't be podcasting again until January, but we will be working together throughout this period. I'm working the whole holiday, so I'll be there.

I'm like, well, it's nice knowing you, Ronnie. But yet, yet tomorrow we'll be talking about some kind of blog post. Anyhow, that is our show for this week. We won't be back next week or the week after, I guess, with more tomorrow. We will be back in January. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best in this new year.