Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - AI Slop Is Rotting Your Brain: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1933

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

In this 1933rd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Jeremy Hopkin goes off on AI slop.A version of this podcast without programmatic ads is available to all Toronto Mike'd Patrons at patreon.com/torontomike.Toronto Mike'd, an award-winning podcast, is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca.If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please emaail Toronto Mike at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, Toronto mic listeners. This is Jeremy Hopkins. Let's talk about AI slop. I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad because of AI. It's a human depression. Everybody's out of work or being scared about losing their job to AI. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, brick and mortar stores are going bust. We no longer can own the media we purchase. Tech bro punks are running wild in the markets. And there's no politician anywhere who seems to care and there's no end. to it. We know our digital life is unfit to live and our fake media is unfit to consume. And like zombies, we watch our cell phones while some influencer tells us that today we had thousands of humans laid off because AI helped companies to be more efficient, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We all know things are bad. Worse than bad, they're crazy. It's like everything

everywhere is going crazy and we don't use our own skills to create anything anymore. Many of us sit in a tiny apartment that robs us blind of our hardened wages. And slowly, the world we're living in is getting smaller. And then all we say is, please, at least let me alone while I escape the drudgery of the world by listening to my podcasts. Let me have my Toronto mic and my palma pasta and my Great Lakes beer. And I won't say anything. Just leave me alone.

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad. I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to do riot. I don't want you to write your member of parliament because I wouldn't know what to tell them to say. I don't know what to do about AI and the waste it creates and the millionaires and billionaires

who own us. All I know is that first, you've got to get mad. You got to say, I'm a human being, God damn it. My life has value. I hate this AI slop. So I want you to get up right now. I want all of you to get off your cell phones. I want you to get up right now

and go to the window, open up, and stick out your head and yell, I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore! Like a cannon. Holy spoke to my heart rate. My heart rate is soaring. Oh, that was fun.

Welcome to episode 1,933, 1933 of Toronto-Miked. An award-winning podcast, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at Great Lakes Beer.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta, enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palmapasta.com for more. Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Catch a game at Christy Pits this summer. No, ticket required.

Fusion Corpso, Nick Ieinis. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to. Recycle MyElectronics.C.A. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921.

joining me today making his quarterly appearance although he's a little later than usual it's the official Toronto historian of the Toronto Mike podcast it's Jeremy Hopkin Hey Mike Jeremy good to see you again

Good to see you too That was tremendous off the top Thank you for that Thank you so much How did it feel to deliver that Like was it therapeutic? It was therapeutic I'm a little shaky right now

But it was good to get that off my chest and normally I'm not the cranky old man anymore, but that was a good chance. It was fun to get that out. So right off the top, do you want to let the, I mean, as if my listeners don't know what you were parodying there. Is it parodying or parodying?

What word am I trying to say? A tribute to or maybe? You were making a parody of a film that was discussed many times on Toronto, Mike, particularly with Ed Conroy, a FOTM Hall of Famer. One day you'll be in that esteemed hall, I predict. But I sure hope so.

Let the listenership in on that movie, which you were parodying there. That's from the 1976 movie network, and that's a pretty famous rant. Even when I told some people about what I was going to do, they knew right away what I was talking about. Right. Well, that one line everybody knows, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore, even though they might not know where they know that line from. That line has sort of become a part of pop culture. Yeah, and Faye Dunaway is watching that actor deliver that,

and saying, keep on them, keep on them. And they follow them around the studio. I couldn't do that here, but it was just a really moving scene that a lot of people remember today. And where was that scene filmed? That was filmed right in Agent Court in Scarborough. And a lot of people didn't realize that. I guess until you and Ed brought that up in a few episodes, I guess, over kind of recently. Or did you know about that for a while now?

Well, we've talked about it for years, I'd say. This is one of our touch points. You know, just like Uncle Bobby. We're going to bring up the filming of network. And the fun fact we drop is that Uncle Bobby witnessed the filming of that scene. He was just around the corner at In Ageing Court Studio. That was the fun fact that was brought up recently. Yeah.

I'm thinking of. Okay. Yes. Yeah. And do you know the late great CTV Toronto? I guess we called it CFTL back in the day. Do you know the broad? Tom Gibney.

Yes, for sure. Yeah, he had a definite voice. He's in that movie. Oh, my goodness. Go watch that movie. He's playing like a talking head anchor guy in that film. Incredible. Wow.

I didn't know that. So there's a lot of Toronto connection. Jeez. So good to see you. Good to see you too. Before I ask you, the official Toronto historian of the Toronto Mike podcast, to give us an idea of anything interesting happened in this fine city in the year. 1933 because this is episode

1933. I just want to say it has only been less than a week since I last saw you because I saw you Wednesday night right outside where the world's biggest bookstore once reigns supreme at Edward Street and Young. Just let the listenership know what you did there that night. I was there in support of Cam Gordon

and his new book track changes and we just wanted to present a little bit of history of some of the physical media stores that used to be there that are now long gone, including World's Bigest Bookstore, HMV, and Sam the Record Man. So we stood there for about an hour and just talked about it, and there were some people in attendance that actually used to work for HMV and Sam's over the years. They came up and talked a little bit about their experience. Some people got a little emotional that they weren't there anymore.

I got a little emotional too because I missed those places, and I used to frequent there all the time, and it was just really nice to get there. and tell people about what was there. We had a lot of people in attendance that didn't know about those physical media stores, and they learned a lot, we learned a lot from them. I even brought a gramophone along. I was dressed up old school styles,

and I wanted to pay a little bit of a tribute to one of the stores that used to be there, and I have an HMV gramophone from 1935, so I actually brought it down there to play for everybody with the old 78 records, and even though it didn't have a direct connection to that HMV store, its history is very much interwoven with all of that.

And when you see a man dressed like you're dressed right now with a gramophone playing old jams, like you did at Casilloma for episode 1800. Yes, we did that too. There too, yeah. Yeah, which was amazing. But this was, you know, public people could just drop by. It does, like, a crowd attracts a crowd, right? So when you're trying to sell snake oil to somebody, you usually get a few of your buds to collect around,

and then suddenly you get a bunch of potential, you know, victims there. Yeah, a lot of the walking traffic coming by, just stop to listen to see. what it was all about because they saw this gramophone and this guy dressed up old school and for the most part it was very positive but it took me a while to take everything down because people just kept coming up to me saying are you taking that down like no right they thought it was like a new fixture or something maybe olivia chow should consider a grant of some sorts to get you to hang out there at that corner well you know they support that guy that spins the speaker on his head so maybe you never know what i'll make some calls i wish olivia was an fotm i would make

that happen within the next half an hour. So you mentioned emotional people because they worked at Sam. So I just want to shout out somebody because he stuck around after you and Cam did such an excellent job. Oh, thank you. It was a great hour.

A lot of great FOTM showed up too. Tobias Vaughn, VP of Sales, Yoni. Am I missing anybody? Was Robert Lawson there? No, he had to work, I think. He did comments on the post, though, and Citi actually worked with one of the gentlemen

there, the guy, the guy who was... What was that guy's name? Quite a quiet voice. Frederick Harrison? He worked at that Sam the Record man at Young and Dundas forever. He was there from the 80s

right up till the close, pretty much. Well, another guy who, that was his first job in Toronto when he kind of arrived from the Maritimes, and then he went on to work 25 years at 680 news, and he took a selfie with me because he wanted to blow the mind

of his former colleague, Mike Epple. And when I heard this guy's voice, I knew who he was right away. I invited him to the... the basement. I don't know how to contact him. I was like trying to find him on Facebook or whatever, but I want this man

in the basement. He even used an alias too at the time, so maybe Mike Apple knows some contact for you? Well, the name we know him as, his public name, I don't know if it's a real name, but his name on 680 was James Monroe. Oh, wow. And James Monroe, and I think that's his real name, but what do I know? But James Monroe

would, he would deliver sports updates. He worked for Peter Gross. Oh, my God. Peter Gross hired James Monroe. He also hired Mike Wilner, right? I believe he hired... Did he hire... Maybe...

Okay, he's hired a bunch of names you know and love Peter Gross, who, by the way, his daughter just gave birth to a child of Peter Gross has another grandchild. Oh, congratulations, Peter. And Peter, there's a photo I saw the other day of Peter's mom holding the, you know, what would be her great-granddaughter. and there's about 103 years between these two human beings. It's quite something.

Any chance of her coming on the pot? No, she's not interested in being as famous as you become since you started coming on Toronto Mike. So James Monroe, if you're listening, it was great chatting with you after this wonderful Cam Gordon and Jeremy Hopkins event. And James, I'd love to have you on Toronto Mike to talk about everything. But another chap who showed up who I've been, he's been in like, his brother was close to a couple of dear friends of mine, Mike Kick and Jordy. And there's a whole HMB connection to the slow pitch team I played on for 15 years. There's a lot of inside baseball here, a pun intended. Shout out to the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team.

But I want to say hi to Jason Paris, who was there. And it's always good to see Jason Paris, who does, you know, comment on my blue sky posts and on my TorontoMite.com blog. And he also worked at that HMB at 333 young. Oh, yeah. And he's had a long history with a few of the companies down there. I think he was working for sunrise for a while. And he's a big fan of yours.

And I didn't realize that until he just waited patiently while I was talking to people. And he got a selfie with me and he really was very happy to meet me. And I'm very happy to meet him too. That was really a nice treat at the end. Well, I saw on Instagram, you posted a nice selfie with you and said he's a big fan of your quarterly appearances on Toronto Mike. So he's probably listening right now. We had a little bit of a chat afterwards too because he knew a lot of the people at HMV. and my wife's, my wife was an assistant manager at HMV for a number of years in Scarborough.

So he kind of wanted to figure out if he knew her, but he didn't really know her, but that family kind of knows each other from a lot of the stores. So you did a great job on Wednesday night. Thank you so much. It was a free event. Nick Aini says we should be charging $65 at least for that. I'm always worried that I miss something, though, and no matter what presentation I do. Oh, yeah, but nobody will know.

Only you will know that you miss something. But I think overall everybody had a good time. It was great to see a lot of the FOTMs out there too. And you came as well on your bike. Of course. That was great. Well, I only learned about it on FOTM cast. Like, I know it was promoted here and there.

And then Cam made the media rounds. Like, he made the real media rounds, right? Like the Toronto Sun. If I ever bring out a book, I'm calling Cam. Because Cam knows what to do. He's an incredible promoter. Well, he was on Zoomer radio talking to downtown Jane Brown. and I have subsequently scheduled Jane Brown

to make her Toronto Mike debut. Oh, sweet. So that's coming soon. So get excited about that. So I want to hear about the significance of episode 1933 from you, J. Hobe, at first. And then, of course, the rest of the way, it's all about AI slop. Yeah. And you'll set the table for that.

But I have a hello for you from somebody. This hello comes from Dave LeBlanc. Oh, my God. So Dave LeBlanc. I haven't talked to Dave for a while. He says hi to you. He says he loves you. I love him too.

I follow him on social media at least, but we haven't seen each other for a while. Well, he wrote a book called Hidden Toronto. And possibly my next guest will be Dave. Like, we had it scheduled for Wednesday, and I said, how about 2 p.m. And he wrote something like lovely. I can't remember what word he used, but something very affirmative. And then I put it in my calendar. And then it turns out he doesn't know why he said lovely to 2 p.m.

because he can't do 2 p.m. But we might do Thursday morning. He's going to let me know. But Dave LeBlanc will be on Toronto, Mike, to talk about Hidden Toronto, and he says, hi to you. Amazing. I've known Dave LeBlanc since the early 2000s. He was covering a lot of architecture and events from the Globe and Mail. And he came by when I was working at the studio in Wexford in Scarborough called 54 East.

And after that, we struck up a friendship. He liked a lot of cool things, a lot of the things that I did. Yeah. And he and his wife eventually took over this mid-century modern store called Ethel, 20th century, and it was down in the beaches, but they moved it up to the Danforth. And everything they've done is in honor of the past. And it's just great seeing what he does and gets out there. And it's very nice that he's brought out this book.

And congratulations, Dave, on the book. So you read Hidden Toronto? I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Honestly, it's right up your alley. Oh, it's right up. I loved it very much, actually. and it's got some great photos in it and I can't wait to talk to Dave about it.

So Dave, if you're listening, I hope I see you Thursday morning. If not, we've got to get this in the calendar. Get it back in there. Can't wait to see that episode. Okay, so before I basically, and again, I'm coming off, I think summer colds

are the AI slop of illnesses, okay? I'm just throwing out there like, I never get sick in the summer. And I say that, but for the last like five or six days, I've had this like mild head cold. if you listen to the last couple of episodes in Toronto mic, I have a much deeper voice. I want to make sure the listenership knows.

No AI was used to deepen my voice, okay? This is what happens when I get a summer cold. So maybe it should stick around. But before I pass the mic to you, Jeremy Hopkins. Yes. This is the low as I get. Any significance to the number, 1933? Well, it's a little bit of a negative

and a little bit of a positive significance. 1933 in Toronto is very famous for the Christie Pit riots, where it was basically one of the largest anti-Semitic riots to ever happen in Canada, where in the fields there, there was different teams, some of Jewish origin and some not, and there was a huge conflict there and people fighting all night. No one, thankfully, was killed, but for days after that brawl happened, there was people sort of creeping into the hospital saying, oh, I just got hurt.

And it wasn't that fight. No, I wasn't in that at all. It's just my skull's kind of hurting today. August 16, 1933, sort of a day that will live in infamy because what, about 10,000 people were either participating in this, you know, violence. Yes. Or witnessing it. And there was a lot of pushback as well, people that just weren't having that in Toronto. Well, good.

And there was a few things happening. in support of the Nazi party in Germany, swastika clubs developing here in Toronto and tension building. Yeah, 1933, right? Yeah, and when that happened at Christy Pitts, that was kind of the release of the energy. And after that, there was a lot of the laws were changed in Toronto to prevent that sort of thing to happen again and prevent the anti-Semitism from happening. Well, that's a good thing because this riot that we're talking about in 1933 at Christy Pitt, It was sparked by a Nazi-inspired youth flying a swastika flag at a baseball game.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you know what I think it's go time. Yeah. I think when you see this one, even in 1933, because again, we're pre-World War II here. Yes. But I think even in 1933, if you were aware, if you were reading the newspapers, you knew about the movement in Germany and you would know that seeing a flying swastika, means it's go time because that's a blatant provocation of our Jewish Canadians.

And in southern Ontario, some groups had sort of penetrated their way into places like Oakville, like the Ku Klux Klan. They were starting to drum up support here and there. But eventually, all of that was pushed down or pushed away. All right. If there's any members of the KKK listening to Toronto Mike right now, please unsubscribe. unsubscribe to this podcast. We don't want you hearing any Jeremy Hopkins

ranting about AI slob. Oh, do you want to shout out because on a previous visit, you come every quarter, by the way, so four episodes at least a month, a month of that would be a lot. Although we are going to get together again next Monday, which we should tease before we dive into this.

Yes, I've messed up the Toronto Mike quarterly timeline. I'm sorry. So this is last quarter's episode? It is. We're catching up. Okay, this is how late you are. Okay, even Blair Packham was late for rewind. So I forgive you.

But this episode is actually last quarter's episode. And then next Monday will be this quarter's episode of Jeremy Hopkins. Do you want to just shout out what we're going to do? It's kind of exciting. What we're doing next Monday? Yeah, we're doing another remote recording. Hopefully we can do it live, but it might not be possible there. There's no Wi-Fi really in this building.

Yeah, what podcast shouldn't be live, okay? Which is the oldest building in Toronto that still stands. It's the scatting cabin at C&E ground or on the C&E grounds, very close to the Banshell. It was basically the first building that was moved to the C&E from Queen Street near the Don River. And back in the 1870s, they moved it there, and it's been sitting there ever since as buildings came and went at the C&E. So we're going to talk about the whole history of the C&E. And we're also having a few experts there, too. A representative from the York Pioneers, Bob Georgie, he's going to come there and talk a bit about their role with the cabin because they're the group, the oldest historical society in Toronto,

that moved the cabin there to save it. It's exciting. And there's also the C&E representatives from the C&E and also exhibition place that are going to be talking there with us for a little bit. How many mics do I need? Can we do this with three? Yeah, we can do it with three mics. Like just circle in the guests and you and I get a mic.

Yeah, kind of like we did at Casilloma. Like the third mic will be for the person that just comes and switches. And I know you said there's no Wi-Fatting Canning. Scatting Canning. That's going to be a tough word for me to say, Scatting Cabin. Scatting cabin, yeah. What year was that built?

Oh my God. I don't know if they know the real day. We'll know that for Monday. We'll have a better idea. But I guess that explains why there's no Wi-Fi. But did they wire it for electricity? Can I plug in my board? They did at least get into the late 19th century and wire it for power.

So you can plug in. Only because I don't need Wi-Fi to record a podcast. But I actually do need, unless I get a battery, I need to plug in this board I'm pointing to. Oh, right on. We're going to be okay. Okay, so this is happening. I'm going to bike the studio to scatting cabin next Monday, and we might not be able to go live at live.com like we are today

because we do need Wi-Fi for that. Although I could use my, I guess I could use my phone data. Yeah, we could tether our phones to it and give it that power, yeah. We'll figure something out. But regardless, we'll be dropping this episode next Monday, which is July 20th. This episode is all about AI slop, but just one more fact on the Christy Pitts riot. of 1933.

This is where I was going 20 minutes ago. See how this works? You got to come back. Right on. For the first 2000 episodes, I was going to say, the first 1,000 episodes I forgot to come back. Jeremy Hopkins.

Yes. In a previous episode of Toronto, Mike, you brought, you brought like a memento from the home you see in the Bob Cajun video. Yeah. The great, the famous, tragically hip,

Bob Cajun video. What does Bob Cajun have to do with the 1933, Christy Pitts Riot? Well, some people say that that riot inspired a lot of this song to be written. Now, I don't know if that's been confirmed by everyone, but it has a definite possibility with the way the lyrics are going about them having the riot. Okay, so there's a connection between that great tragically hip song and the, yeah. That episode was filmed in Toronto when we talked about all the music videos and the movies.

Right. And I brought that old lamp that used to hang in the ceiling of that house until it burned down. And I went in there and grabbed it. So Jeremy Hopkins, this is where I'm going to pass the mic to you to set up the episode. And then we have some audio elements. We're going to walk through. And then periodically, speaking of AI slop, dear friend of the program, in fact, he is an FOTM Hall of Famer. Rob Pruse, he put together some AI slop for me.

This is a while ago now. and I used it a couple of times to make him happy, but I always hated it. And I hate it because it's AI Slop, but it's appropriate for this episode. So we will be hearing a few AI sloppy jingles for Toronto Mike's sponsors throughout the program. Let's listen to one right now.

It's Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery, we believe in supporting community, Good Times and brewing amazing beer It's Great Lakes Brewery Order online for free local home delivery In the GTA Good Times and amazing beer

That's GLB So there's some sloppy AI slop But some delicious fresh craft beer From Great Lakes Brewery Jeremy Hopkin I have some fresh craft beer for you to take home with you today. Thank you very much. I love it. All right, set the table for me. I'm hungry, darling. Well, let's see. AI slop. Let's just get into there.

Oh, one thing I did want to mention about the agent court, though, where the studio was filmed, but I'll talk about that another time. You're sure? Yeah, yeah. Okay, because, you know, I don't mind you going on tangents. We're pro-tangents around here. We're human beings, Jeho. So when I think about AI slop, because I'm on social media a lot, I see a lot of things that are on there and people post and some things are correct, some things are incorrect. But ever since AI has become just this widespread thing and free for a lot of people to use, there is just so much historical and accurate garbage being pushed out there by AI. And it's infuriating historians and people that were actually there in the history.

And it's just driving people nuts. and I know you too are frustrated sometimes. It's a short drive, Jeremy. By what you see on these social media platforms. And it's just, it's gotten to the point where, yeah, it's out of control and nobody really is even trying to control it. And it seems like people just love it because it's something that can crank out the content and get it out there fast.

And they don't care if it's accurate. They're just like, well, I'm making money off it. I don't care. No, they don't care, which is what makes it so sloppy. They do not care if it is accurate. And it is presented as fact, which I know, you're going to get into this, and I've ranted on this in the past, but an example might be, you'll be

on Facebook, and you'll see a photo, and it'll say it's Yorkville in the early 60s, okay? And you'll see, it looks like the Allman brothers are walking by or something, right? You've got these long-haired, freaky people. The stereotypes come in, yeah. The mustache,

the long hair, the bell-bottom jeans or whatever, that looks like they're straight out of Woodstock or something, but all these people are kind of, you know, just smile and having a good time. Wow, what a great scene and it's presented as an actual photo of Yorkville in the early 60s and I would think somebody just

perusing who, you know, well I wasn't I actually wasn't in, this is going to shock you Jayho because I look really old compared to you but I was not in Yorkville in the early 60s. Did you know that? I didn't. No, I pretty much put it together, yeah. Well, well, this is presented as like a piece of

Toronto history and then you'll, this infuriates me, Jayho. Yeah. I don't know if they're real people or bots but you, you know, oh, those were the day Yeah, back when Toronto was great. Like, you'll get these comments from supposedly real people, you know, nostalgic. Like, oh, yeah, I remember going to the Riverboat Cafe or whatever.

And Uncle Neil was playing or the minor birds or whatever. You get all this. You know, oh, I saw Joni Mitchell when she was Joni Anderson there, like all this, you know. And we've lost sight of the fact this is a slice of stinky bullshit. This is AI slop designed for engagement and clicks. or maybe you'll get into what the whole purpose of it is, but it's super lazy because there is zero, zero attention to detail or any desire to get it right.

And I say, give me, give me authenticity every day of the week and twice on Sundays, Jeremy Hopkins. I agree. It's just anything that takes any time, they're not willing to do. They just crank this stuff out,

and I'm starving now for that authenticity. And I try to provide that with all my social media, All your images are real. They're all real. The only thing I really did was maybe like every once in a while I would animate some or put coloring on them, that sort of thing. But everything does have some historical backing. I even, when I color, I do the research and look through old newspapers,

try to find those color references. You care to get it right. I'm trying to, yeah, my best to get it right. I care about it. But a lot of these people, like I've seen this one that's called Vintage Toronto, which. Oh, big offender. Keep going. Vintage Toronto.

Which is basically borrowed a popular. Vintage Toronto site on Facebook has borrowed their name and called themselves a science website. And their location keeps changing from Japan to someplace in Guatemala to like, they just keep changing their location and they keep changing what kind of page they are because they're kind of on the run

from these people that are coming after them like and reporting them. But meta doesn't care. Mehta really doesn't care? Seemingly meta does not care. One thing I've seen recently though, they've been forced now to use that they're using AI information. So meta will...

So small font on the bottom or something it says uses AI. But that's a more recent development. If it was up to these guys posting this stuff, they really do not care. And they just want to make that revenue. And they're cranking out tons of different sites, probably all from the same source.

They'll do like a vintage New York, a vintage Chicago event. And when you look at those sites too, their artwork looks all the same. It's just they've changed the names on all the Billboard. and all the signs in the street, but it's the same stuff. Right.

There's no, looks like they put in no effort. Yeah. And it looks like it's just designed to exploit online algorithms. Like it's clickbait. Oh yeah, completely clickbait. Also rage bait. A lot of it is, a lot of the people that have actually subscribed to these sites are people that are angry with it and just go there to yell at them.

I'm guilty of this, right? When I see the fake image, I click in to see the comments, to see how many people believe it's real. and does anybody call it out for the fact that it's AI slop? And so I'm as Gild, you're right. I should just block and ignore, but I feel some sense of responsibility as Toronto Mike, who gets the great Toronto historian Jeremy Hopkins in his basement

or some cabin from, you know, way back when. We try to keep it real. We get together at least once a quarter. And I feel some sense of like, I need to monitor this for the people. Same. Journalistic, like for some journalism. journalistic part of my brain feels, I need to know what's going on because my mom is going to log into Facebook and she's going to tell me about Yorkville in the early 60s and she's going to talk about this image and I'm going to have to tell her that's AI slop.

Yeah. Like there's that vintage Toronto site and I'm sure by the time I get back from this, they'll have blocked me because they won't want me to spread about them. But there is a good vintage Toronto site as well, which has been around since 2012. And if you look, their icon is, uh, You know, the two brothers that blow each other up on SCTV. Oh, the, you mean Hans and Franz? No. No, there's these, you know, may the good Lord taking a liking to you and blow you all up real soon. Right. Those two guys are on the front, but the other one is just a generic AI slop picture

that keeps changing every once in a while. So those guys, they were into it for, you know, very many years and just finding anything about Toronto and posting it there. And a lot of people sent in their own personal photos to vintage Toronto, and they shared, and now a lot of those people feel betrayed because they think that this new AI slop one is the same place.

And so now they're getting very fed up. Why does meta, which owns Facebook, why does it keep, because I don't subscribe to the fake vintage Toronto. So why do I, is it because I clicked and now the algorithm thinks I want to see more vintage Toronto? That's my guess. Yes.

So once I engaged, the algorithm, the meta Facebook algorithm says, oh, this Toronto, Mike, user seems to enjoy the content from Vintage Toronto. Let's hit him with it every day. Yes, and they'll say... Rage bait. Rage bait, or if you like history in general, they'll send you history from all over the world. Some of it you don't want to see. And then a lot of it is the AI companies that are just

trying to say, oh, here's something that works and maybe we can make some money off of this. And, you know, they just keep it going as long as there's clicks and as long as they're making some cash. They're depicting pictures of a Toronto past that never existed. Definitely. Okay, is there any, besides this fake vintage Toronto, which you called the science website or whatever, is there any other

repeat offenders on Facebook you want to, I would say shout out, but I think that's a positive connotation, but Well, I know they say any publicity is good publicity, so maybe I don't want to shout them all out. But there's one called Beauty of Toronto. Yeah, even Beauty of Toronto, it's the owned by the same company that's doing that.

And then every once in a while, when that, you know, if that one gets shut down, they'll open up another one. So it just keeps going. I think possibly they even have bots running this stuff now. They don't even really attend it very much. All automated and... Yeah, all automated. They're not really setting up very much. They're not doing any research.

You know, there used to be a problem with a lot of these sites where someone would be really interested in the stuff and just copy your stuff and paste it to another site. Oh, sure. Like there was this one site called Friends of Vintage Toronto that we always would be like, why are you guys doing this? But at least it was real photos. They just weren't attributing the source.

Yeah. And some people like that a little more because they could actually post their own content where vintage Toronto that we had, people couldn't post their own, but they could comment on these things. So that took off because of that. So it's that I'm not even really, you know, not even really upset about that anymore. It's nice to see people so interested in Toronto history and wanting to have tribute sites and also wanting to do sites of their own. But what's come about with AI and with automation and a lot of these things and people just not caring, it's just to make a buck. It just, it really sours the whole thing. Do you want to speak to the ethics of AI creation and how artists need to self-govern when they use AI to create their art?

Yeah, like if you're putting this art out and you're using AI, you've got to ask yourself, is this really deceptive? Are you trying to deceive someone? And I know now even that AI is being labeled pretty fast, but, you know, what's your intent with this? Are you having an artistic attempt? Is this to expand your artistic knowledge or your creativity, or are you just doing this for profit, like I was saying before? Also, if you are doing anything that's really copying somebody else or copying their style or actually borrowing from the way their art is to make your art, are you somehow attributing the artist? Are you giving a tribute to them? Are they okay with it? But really, with a lot of the people making this,

they're not actually artists. I think people who are artists really do respect that sort of thing already and I think if they did use AI to enhance their art, they would be, they would already know about this sort of thing and sort of give them a tip of the hat or at least, you know, give them a heads up about it. And you've got a great hat. Why, thank you. Right. Right.

Anything more on the, because I also think I feel like I need to slide in there. Maybe it's because I'm fresh off the cadence weapon episode of Toronto Mike here. You should have a conversation. I'm not just going to rant all the time. I know, I know. I want to make sure you got your, get enough air time. But like if you're using AI to create, we'll put quotes around art, right?

To create your art, you need to ask yourself, I think, as the artist, like beyond, is it being built on like a stolen artwork like you mentioned? But also, I feel like we absolutely need to ask ourselves, is it worth the environmental impact? Because every time you use AI, especially, I mean, I'm firmly in the anti-Gen AI camp. I don't see an ethical use for it because of this environmental impact. I agree, because they're building these data centers all over the place that are just detriment to the environment.

And as far as to cool these centers, I know that's increasing everything from our energy use to the planet's temperature going up to, you name it. There's something negative about these things. To cool, these are not your, because we're used to data centers, right? But even that's had another effect too on just even people wanting to create with computers, because because of these centers, those centers have actually bought up all of the storage devices. Even when you go to like Best Buy or whatever, all those prices have doubled or tripled now.

Right. Because of these data centers. So there's so many effects that it's having on so many people that it's just, yeah, it's overall negative. you, right? This AI slop that you were going to dive into here, right? It's deceptive, right? It's, it's, it's, it's, you're mass producing crap for profit, right? The intent is not good. Yeah. Right. You are likely possibly stealing from an original source. So maybe there's an artist that you're stealing from or for sure. You're not contributing something new and of value. No, isn't the OC, the original

content that you're producing for the world is not of value. You're not increasing human creativity, right? You're adding to the brain rot, we're already fighting with the AI slob. But again, when you throw in the immense environmental impact and cost to humanity so that you could create that image of, I don't know, a crying Donald J. Trump or whatever, you know what I mean?

Like in the old days, like we had artists, of course, and then we had Photoshop. And, you know, guys like you and I, we would create these images. But the environmental impact is so much more severe now. And you mentioned that I'm going to ride or die. I got this AI, this MacBook I'm touching right now, MacBook Pro that's running the TMDS universe.

It's literally paying my kids' tuition and feeding my family and paying the mortgage and everything. And I'm holding on to it for dear life because of the immense cost now to replace this machine. And that's also a result of this use of AI. Yes, for sure. Okay. I agree. All points.

All right. So now with the intellectual property as well being stolen, you have some celebrities now actually, you know, using stuff like trademark law to protect how they sound, how they look, so that they can't be copied on media like this, you know, like a deep fix especially. That was a big problem. Right, the deepfakes. Right. And that would be like somebody like Taylor Swift would use a trademark law. Yes, she has done that, actually. She has taken that out now and is protected fully because she's very good with her business savvy.

Are you concerned that we're a dying breed minority that actually still care about getting it right? Like we have our real historians. You know, we just talked about Dave LeBlanc and his new book hit in Toronto. And, you know, Adam Bunch comes over. And we have intelligent, passionate people who care to get it right. but AI, there's no, like the barrier, barrier of entry is so freaking low and it's so easy, apparently,

to fool people on social media. That's a big scary part of it, yeah. I know the things my mom believes, and like, did you do the sniff test? People have forgot, I think they've lost the capability to do a sniff test and then to go to a probate. And what's the source?

I hate it when you ask me for the source. Well, the source is everything, Jeremy Hoff. It is for sure. And I understand your problem with your mom because my mom recently has started checking the source. And I was very proud of her for doing that because there was so many things she would send me. And I go, Mom, it's... Check the source. That's some crazy AI there.

Please don't believe that because that's very racist or that's very horrible. Don't believe that. Oh, geez. Yeah. That's a whole different element. That's a scary part. When you have the consumers of that media not really caring where it comes from or not having the time to care, we're even having that problem with politics with people not really checking who or what the platform is for these people.

Right. And just like, oh, that name sounds familiar. I'll vote for them. And it's very sad. So we're having that happen also with the media that people are consuming. They don't care and they just think, oh, that sounds nice. I don't really care where it came from. And, you know, if there's more artists on the street, they can't rent their house anymore because they're starving.

and there's definitely an effect on the humankind that a lot of people aren't seeing, but it's definitely happening now. Well, this is one of my beefs with Integrity T.O. You're familiar with this? Yes. And he's a, the gentleman behind it is an FOTM. He wrote the Flyer Vault book with Rob Bowman. Oh, yes.

He recently had a victory with sneaky D's. Him and a bunch of people were trying to save sneaky D's from... Well, RBC ended up saving it, actually, in a weird way. I'm all over this case. It turned out that when the plans reveal that there's an actual branch, an RBC branch, that in kind of convoluted way, RBC actually owns this thing because of this branch is there. And the branch, they weren't going to close this branch,

and the branch would have been affected by the plans. So as owner, they just kiboshed this whole thing and said it's, we're no long, this is not happening. Okay. So RBC. It's better to not have the bad press. RBC, well, they didn't want to close the branch. Oh, okay.

I think it was like a business decision by RBC. They're like, no, it's, if. affects this branch. I didn't know that angle. Okay, cool. When you dive in, you've got to know people at RBC, but when you dive in, it's kind of,

it's kind of interesting how that thing, but luckily we saved, we saved sneaky D's because RBC made a business decision, I think. You were originally saying about Rob Bowman, though? Well, I'm saying, okay, so it's Daniel Tate. Or Daniel Tate, sorry. So Rob Bowman,

not affiliated with Integrity T.O. As far as I know, Daniel Tate has Integrity TEO, and part of his agenda is to get, to have, Olivia Chow defeated in the mayoral race. Like, not a fan of Olivia Chow and her policies, et cetera. Yeah, I've seen a lot of the smear campaigns lately.

And it's, you know, politics, dirty politics and all that, that's nothing new. We're actually sadly used to it at this point. But don't use AI slop in your, to present a fictional Toronto to what I call fight. I worked in B2B software companies forever. And there was, it was always the sales guy. That was always in the marketing part. The salespeople always wanted their fud. Give me the fud.

The fud on the competition. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. This is what they needed in the arsenal or whatever. Give me the fud. Give me the fud. And if you need AI slop to produce fud for the competition, you're doing it wrong. Yeah. To me, it's unethical.

I agree. I've seen some of the stuff that you're mentioning. I think one of the things was a 7-Eleven with a bunch of homeless people around. it and look what our neighborhood's becoming. And I'm like, that's not our neighborhood. That's fake. And actually that 7-Eleven looks kind of cool. Yeah, do they have video games in there?

Can I get a big gulp is when I want to know? But it's not a real photo, which is the bottom line. Because we're talking about you're seeking reality. Yeah, and I don't know how anyone could trust the people that are pushing that stuff out. And I think a lot of, there is a lot of pushback, actually, of people who are starting to not agree with being posted and not really trusting it because they're starting to catch up on that's AI and you know it's just that's just a fake thing and really I shouldn't believe what they're saying so even with you get you get things like posters for bands coming up and a lot of these things that

people don't really want to pay for or hire somebody to do right like a graphic artist like a graphic artist that I used to be um people don't want to pay for it so you know you know, people like me are losing a lot of jobs to AI. But the thing is though a lot of people are starting to hate that, which is actually now in a search for a new career, I'm kind of thinking of, why don't I get back to just painting real paintings and forget all this digital stuff?

And I know there's still a market out there for it. So there's sort of a grassroots movement of people that just are going analog again that really didn't think about it before. The craving of authenticity that we talk about often on the show. which is really partly why this particular podcast exists. Like I got tired. It wasn't AI slop at the time, but it was PR spin. This was just a reaction to PR spin because I got tired of being fed like bullshit talking points

in these like, you know, three to five minute segments or whatever. And I felt like, hey, let's have a, at least we can try to extract authenticity from somebody if you have a, I don't know, 60 to 90 minute conversation. Oh, yeah. There's even on interviews that you see for people on movies, the junkets. The junkets, the stars are so sick of the same questions because every single media company has the same. And they got to say the same thing. So a lot of the people that would cut through like you are the ones that ask off the wall questions or something that's just a little different.

Which is tough to do though. Something that involves them, you know? When you're, let's say Rob Salem is representing the Toronto Star, I'm going back on this one, but I'm picking on an FOTM here. But if Rob Salem is working for the star and he's going to get his three, to five minutes on one of these junkets or whatever, it could be dangerous for him to go off the beaten path. He's only got the three to five minutes. So you can see why they play it safe,

because he's not independent, Rob's. I suppose if you're an independent, you could do the left field things. But I don't know how you do it in three to five minutes without being uninvited to these junkets. Like, you have to play, I think you have to play it safe. Oh, okay.

Whereas if you can get them out of that guarded PR environment, this is difficult because most big stars won't. There's a reason why Taylor Swift doesn't visit the basement, right? Like, there's a tier of star that simply doesn't, won't take the risk and play that game.

So that's why they're so guarded in the PR and you get the look from the PR and we're going to scratch that and it's off the record, whatever. But if you can get them in an environment where they can, even an hour, like an hour to build a rapport,

have a conversation. Some stars probably would love it, but it would absolutely better serve the listenership. I agree. Because it would be the closest thing to authenticity. You can't get it in these junquets. Yeah, in that kind of interview,

you would just feel like you're hanging out with that person. You wouldn't necessarily feel like you're just watching some little snippet. And I'm sorry to hear that you're one of the creatives. I think about the creatives that are losing work and jobs to AI. Because we used to employ humans

to make that poster for the rock festival. Oh, for sure. And I mean, I'm going to call out in this episode, because I follow a lot of FOTMs on Facebook and people that should do better. The amount of AI slop I see on Bill King's Facebook page, and he's got apparently a very successful substack. He came to Canada to, I don't think, I don't know what the term is,

morally avoid the Vietnam War. I don't think they like the term draft Dodger. I think there's another term like war evader or whatever. So he didn't want to go to war in Vietnam. He didn't believe it was a righteous war, righteous war. So he came to Canada. That's how we got Bill King, who was an amazing musician,

and I love this guy, actually. He's on C-I-U-T. I think he's got a radio show. I think it's with his son even. And I think Rob Salem is a frequent guest. So Bill King, I'm a big Bill King guy. And he's got a very successful substack because he goes off on Donald J. Trump.

Yeah. As one does. Okay. But the amount of, and maybe it's getting better, but when this new toy appeared, AI, I think a lot of people said, oh, there's a shiny new thing. I know Humble and Fred were,

they had a song and visuals for a Humble and Fred beer, and the song was AI, and they couldn't believe, like, this piece of software could produce a song that they sounded great with the lyrics they wrote. Like, I think the shiny new toy emerged fairly recently, and people were so excited to use the shiny new toy, that we got a lot of it,

like slopped around, left, right, and center. Because look what I can do. I'm no coder. I'm no graphic artist, but I did this by getting the prompts right. Yeah. Like anyone can do it. There's no barrier of entry.

But Bill King would go nuts. I don't know. There would be Donald J. Trump at a diaper. You know, it was just the sloppiest slop. And, I mean, he's a great writer. You don't need the AI slop. But obviously, it was. worked for him. He sold a lot of substack

subscriptions. That's one thing with this new tool. It's the AI in the hands of the right person, it can make some extraordinary results. But I kind of remember when Clippart was a really big thing, when it first came out, and everyone's using it as like, oh my God, that looks horrible.

Why is everyone using this crap? It was a shiny new thing. Yeah, it was a shiny new thing, so everyone's using it. It's a sign of the time. So it just might be a sign of the times now, because now the AI is getting even better. And the stuff that originally was coming out. You don't have that

poor quality anymore. That sheen. It has that sheen to it. And if you drill in, you'll see, they have trouble with faces, I noticed, and signage.

Like, oh, this is a Jewish neighborhood in Toronto. And you'll see, and you'll, let's dive into these, the names of these stores. And it's like,

oh, that's like gibberish. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's sort of a, but you're saying, AI is getting better.

So at some point, we'll see the AI slop looks a lot like it could have been a real photo. It is getting very good now. And it's scary. And the more you pay for it, the better quality you get as well. There's better models trained

on what you're making. And better camera, angles, better, just, you name it. It's sort of done everything where you can enhance this and create something that looks very startling real, even animated with sound.

You can make full movies with this stuff now and it's actually looking pretty good. But, you know, someone who's just, like, going solo, they don't really have a big budget. I can understand why they're using this to really help them out a little bit here and there. And I don't come down on it because of that. But I just think if everyone's using this and when you think about the data center and what it's doing to the earth, like, I don't know.

There's just so much where there's no foresight into the future. Like, this will have a big effect in the future. It's like everybody using coal back in the day didn't really think about it. And, you know, by the 1970s, everything's dirty. and everyone's got health problems and it's just wrecked the environment. Well, you know, we're talking about creatives losing, losing work and losing their jobs because of companies are investing in AI and they're using AI instead of employing human beings. Yes.

I can tell you that there are large tech companies and financial tech companies and finance companies that are using AI. And one of the things is that, you know, they have a system. They'll have like a token system. and to use everybody, like the developers, right? Like, oh, you use AI and it costs this many tokens. And, you know, this costs the mothership real money, like cash money, right? And there's the great question now of like, do I need AI to do this because of the financial cost?

So we've been talking a lot about the environmental cost and how it's destroying, you know, employment for the creatives. But from a coding perspective, we used to have people who understood the code and could, and could build good clean code, and then you'd build upon that good clean code using proper ethics and standards. And now you can use AI to generate the code where, hey, you don't need to know the code, you don't need to have that skill set.

It's not going to be clean. You're going to build upon that crap and crap begets crap. And now you've got the token system and the question of, is this even saving money? That's what's going to happen. I think what's going to happen is the real invoices are going to be received

for what the AI is costing, and there's going to be a general realization that, oh, shit, Boris, that great coder we let go because we bought the AI was a lot less expensive and a lot more effective. And he could train the young up-and-comers to have that skill set and to be able to code in the proper manner,

and that would allow the skill set to transfer to the next generation. Right. What comes next? Well, that's one of the major things that a lot of people think about is, what are we actually going to do in the future? There's just... No skill sense. I know there's been a few movies like that,

and even a few cartoons where basically we're just blobs in a seat and telling everything to serve us, basically. Wally. Yeah, Wally. It's just, it's getting to that point where, you know, a society could function like that. If you have some of these utopian societies like you see in Star Trek, where like everyone's working for the greater good and they're all working together and they're,

they want the, you know, human race to exist in the universe and they're all working towards one goal and they're not employed. They're just doing it because they want to do something. But yeah, I don't know, human nature. I don't know if it'll necessarily do that, though, because once you get everyone employed, you get a lot of people in tent cities and a lot of other bad things that happen where, you know, you're just, you're making more people, but you don't have jobs for them now. Yeah, what does a regular person do for work in this dystopian future we're embarking on?

And I completely understand there has been the Industrial Revolution. They thought the same thing back then. Even when I was a kid, and just before me, Adobe came along and basically made this whole suite of things starting with Photoshop. Right. The creative suite. Yeah, the creative suite, eventually known as. But back then, that was revolutionary. too. All of a sudden there's all these typesetters, graphic designers, you name it, all these

people connected to that industry that all of a sudden they're looking at themselves like, oh my God, our jobs are done. Like there's going to be none of this anymore. And either they adapted or they were just fell by the wayside and just didn't exist anymore as that, you know, as that kind of a job. How much blame does the L word get here, which is, is laziness. So much of this to me just seems lazy. I think it's definitely lazy, but it also, I think, like you were saying, money is a lot to blame. But laziness, it's, you know, and people want time as well. They don't want to wait for someone to actually craft or paint a poster and do it the old

traditional way. If you can get something done in an hour, like even less, like maybe like five minutes, there you go. I got my poster. It says everything I wanted to say. And, you know, I didn't have to like negotiate price or do any of that. So it's just ease, laziness. It's a whole number of things that are really making people lean that way. All right. I gave you fresh craft beer. Thank you, sir.

Let me serve up some AI slop that will tell you about the delicious Palma pasta lasagna you're going home with today. I can't wait. Palma pasta come and taste are authentic. A Italian cuisine, palma pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma pasta. Palma pasta.

We're in Mississauga and Oakville. Palma pasta. It's the best of Palma pasta tonight. Do you want to speak further on the inshittification? Oh, sure. We should. Of graphic design companies here. I would love to.

Yeah, the companies, because of this cost and also the time, it's getting much worse, pushing the humans out that sort of made the art and design in the first place. And now it's just sort of modeling on what they created and churning out all this brand new stuff. So a lot of these companies like Etsy, Canva, Adobe, Shutterstock, they're all running a version of that whole, the way that that goes now. And it's just getting worse. And we're seeing a lot of layoffs.

We're seeing even in the movie industry, a lot of layoffs due to AI, where it's doing all of these great special effects works that really nobody has to set up manually anymore. Yeah, I guess that's pretty much it for that. I just read this morning the sad news that Sam Neal has passed away. Yeah, that hit me this morning too. I was actually very surprised because I did.

didn't see that one coming. No, no. And he was so good in Jurassic Park. Oh, yeah. Just him collapsing when he sees the dinosaurs and he's so happy. And that film, which was made in the mid-90s, we're going back here. And it does have, absolutely, there are early CGI elements, right? Early CGI elements in that film and you can kind of see it because it's really early days for that.

But so much of what's great about that movie is the practical effects. Yeah, they have a little bit of both. They have the large dinosaur, sorry, the Tronosaurus wrecks, and a lot of the dinosaurs were practical effects. And it was getting, well, the Tyrannosaurus, though, it was kind of heavy, so it had some problems at the beginning, but I've watched a lot of making of on that film. And it's amazing how seamlessly they brought the two together,

but that's because they cared. They had the cash behind it. And they also had the early great design work of, oh, I forget his name now, but he was actually, he went to Sheridan College. Spaz, I think, Spaz Williams. He did all the, like all the character animation back then, and it just looks great for its time period.

Even now, it holds up very well. I got some more insight on what happened with sneaky D's, okay? I want to thank Toronto Mike's correspondent Chris Ward for this, okay? He says, because I was, you know, clearly I had an idea what was going on of RBC, but I didn't really have the specific. fix off the top of the lid here. But Chris Ward says pre-COVID, RBC was going to move across the street

and sell their property to the developer, and that would have enabled them to proceed. But RBC's relocation opportunity disappeared, and then they had to stay at the location they own. So the fact that they weren't going to close that branch. So I was right, but that gives you some more insight into what changed. Okay, thanks, Chris.

So RBC said basically, this development plan were kiboshing it, because it would involve closing this branch and we want to keep this branch open. I've seen a lot of the development plants that were around get canceled recently too. I'm sure you've talked about that quite a bit with Nick Aeneas as well. Well, did you say Nick Aenees who was on the program last week? Okay, on that note here. Build in Toronto Skyline, it's a podcast and book from Nick Aini sponsored by Fusion Corps construction management.

Oh, sharp but sweet. shout out to Nick Aienis, who was on the program last week. So Nick is a proud sponsor of this program, and it's funny because, of course, I want... I want him to not get himself in serious trouble. So I asked him some questions to see what he would say about that live event with Brad Bradford. Because that's...

I mean, sure, a lot of journalists tuned in to hear what he would say, and I'm sure the people at Progress Toronto were tuning in, and I bet to the Integrity Commissioner was tuning in, but Nick was clearly not going to speak in any detail about what went down there because it would be, it would not be wise to do so. And he had the wisdom not to,

but I still had to kind of go there. And as I was in the moment, like he's like, I don't want to go there. And I would kind of find, I'll go out at this route. And I tried like three or four different routes. And then I got the hint.

Sometimes you got to be smart about these things. Sometimes you got to plead the fifth. Sometimes you got to, yeah, pretty much. You don't, you know, it's Canada, but pretty much here. Now, so many places we could go with this, but I feel like we need to talk, because now you've talked about, you know, all the graphic design companies and the insidification. But do you want to, and you did allude to the movies, which I'll ask you a pointed question about shortly. But do you want to talk about AI music?

AI music. A lot of people aren't realizing right now, but there's Spotify playlist that come up every week. are coming up with AI artists and last year was a huge year for a lot of them with a lot of these AI artists charting and a lot of people including my parents and a lot of people's parents didn't really question who these people were

and just love their music which it sounds great but yeah there's no humans behind it some of them had humans but a lot of it just was just complete fabrication from AI trained on models of popular singers okay because what I noticed being pushed to me and I don't have a Spotify account and I don't use Spotify, okay?

It's all over YouTube too, though. It's everywhere, yeah. I think somebody sent me like, oh, this is what, I don't know, Pearl Jam's Even Flow would sound like if it were like a gospel tune or something like that. And I clicked the link to listen. And I was like, oh, that's interesting.

Never thought of it again, okay? But then the YouTube was pushing me a lot of, like, in the, like, songs I would love, from real bands who created this art I enjoy, but in the guise of a different style or whatever, but it was AI generated. I was being pushed to me quite a bit. It no longer is,

so maybe I stopped clicking in the algorithm change course or something like that. So I do know what you mean by that. It's like, oh, this is like a soul version of like that 90s Euro dance song that you know. Well, even before AI started to take over, there was bands like Scott Bradley's postmodern jukebox who were a big band

and they would take regular tunes and turn them into sort of an old school sounding thing and then AI came along and probably train their models on Scott Bradley's band and started cranking out a lot of that stuff you know like let's make Nirvana look sound like it's big band and there you go you're nail it so I just had Susie McNeil in the basement and Susie McNeil's latest album is basically great CanCon jams in a bluesy style that she does

that she loves to do but it's like re-rearrowing arranged and recorded by human beings. So we're not going off on that. They're putting a lot of thought into it to make these arrangements and make it work because a lot of times that song wouldn't work is that kind of song. But I'm shocked. I am pleading a little ignorance here. Like some of these AI musical artists are charting?

Yeah, they're actually charting, getting lots of listeners. And it's called into question how they're actually charting music now. So with programs like Suno, being discontinued, a lot of this has sort of gone on the download. Like it's a little bit... Do you know why Suno was discontinued? I think that's what Rob Proust used to make these jingles I'm playing. Okay.

Well, Suno, because of deepfakes happening, there was a lot of questions of the ethics coming up, and it basically, they felt the pressure, and they basically started, they discontinued it. And after they discontinued it, came back for a little while, and then they went back into hiding again. So it's currently not available.

A lot of things that you look up online, when I did research for this, I was trying to find out all the programs just so I could be a little more knowledgeable about what was out there because stuff comes and goes so quickly and, you know, there's lots of competition. So, but yeah, Suno was apparently gone right now. Okay, so I think there's probably some litigation from the recording industry. Definitely there's some litigation. They have been, they were royally sued and they kind of neutered the program and had it come back as this new program. And then that got a lot of backlash because, well, I can't do what I want. to do now because now there's all these copyright laws that are preventing it from happening.

So it became a less effective program and then they just decided to cancel it. By the way, fun fact about the aforementioned Nick Aienes, which will tie into this audio clip I have here. But Nick had like a new look to him when he came by last week, okay? Oh. And I said, Nick, looking good. Like he had a, you know, I, he looked like, and he said, he goes, I have a new stylist. And I said, Nick, who's your stylist?

he said chat GPT. Okay? So Nick Aini's, I don't know if he gave a pick. This is me. How should I dress? What should I wear? And he had cool shoes on and he had this new look with black. You know, I don't have any style.

You do. Oh, wow. You look dapper. Well, thank you, sir. But then I see that you sent an audio clip with the title, Nick Hustles. And at first I actually thought, oh, it's another ad for Nick Aeney's. But do you want to set that? this up? Like, what is this?

This is, these do have humans behind them, basically typing in what they want. Or prompts. They type in prompts of what they want the recrano or whatever program to do. And some of them are coming up with some pretty funny stuff. And this guy, Nick Hustles,

Nick Hustles has actually been getting tons of listeners on YouTube and Spotify. And it's just hilarious what it's presenting because it's got some gangster lyrics with something you would assume, is just a nice soothing song or, you know, some soul. And this song is called, I do whatever the fuck I want.

And it's just when I first heard it, I laughed my ass off. And then I did some research. I'm like, oh, my God, this guy's, it's not real. So, Nick, this song I'm going to play is AI. So, yeah, humans always prompt AI to spit something out. Yeah, this is AI prompted by a guy named Nick Arter. I've never heard about, this is almost like Nick Carter, but it could be a fake name as well. I played softball with Nick Carter once.

Oh, wow. That's a real story in Mississauga. But let's listen to this Nick Hustles. Yeah. AI warning. You can't tell me what to do, Jeremy Hopkins. By the way, this also doubles as my kid's song for me. It's going to say, you can't just do a prompt and I do it because I'm not an algorithm.

But this guy, very popular on the internet. Okay, so I'm unaware of all this. So this song, and I hear what you say, no, it's kind of funny once. I don't know if it would be funny twice, but I do feel like humans have been doing this forever. Like human beings have been redoing, you know, comedic songs like that. Oh, for sure. But once I know, and you can tell by the sound of that, because it sounds a lot like those jingles I'm playing.

But once you realize that's AI, to me, it leaves me empty. It's like I drank a bottle of Drano. Yeah, it kind of gave me a chuckle at first. Now playing it again, I'm like, yeah, it doesn't really have re-listen quality there, does it? I don't know. It sounds lazy to me here. But I do, I will, like, I won't play the full versions of the rest, but you sent me a few clips.

I don't want to jump ahead. The rest of them aren't the full song. I've kind of taken a minute or like even less out of them. Okay. Do you want to set up this second clip? Yeah, the second one is basically a guy who's portrayed as sort of a wild west type of guy, you know, like Red Dead Red Dead Redemption or very hard looking very much, you know, living in the wild. Like me.

Like a cowboy. Yeah, like you. And so his name, they call him Breaking Rust. And this is Living on Borough Time. It's actually created by somebody named Avier Rivaldo Taylor, who just is the prompt person who puts it out there. Yeah, yeah. So that gentleman is to this song as Rob Pruss is to those jingles.

Somebody has to put in the prompts. But he's this, that gentleman's not playing an instrument or singing a note. No, not at all. This is all completely AI, all these examples of songs. Oh my goodness. Let's hear it. Very soulful.

I've been broke, been bruised, been used. Had folks talking like they know my shoes. Ain't no sane I've raised some hell, but I learned my peace where my demons dwell. I quit chasing ghosts that don't pay rent, quit worrying about the ones who went. Now I walk my road dust on my boots, singing my truth, whatever it rules.

Because I don't give a damn who don't. like me this world spins fast and time ain't free we're all just sparks in the midnight sky fading out slow saying good by it burned fine laugh at the scars that proof i'm alive we're all 100% i can see the appeal of that song because it's uh it's not a bad song but but so much of music to me is who's singing it what's their story and and the lyrics that are in there they're not the most crafty lyrics in the world and you think yeah any yeah i could have crap crank that out and you kind of wonder sometimes now when you hear a lot of the big artist like is this just them singing an AI song that somebody prompted like you're sort of like an avatar for this

fake oh i see like i'm working the other way yeah you get that song and you go okay now i'm gonna record that with my actual voice and an actual band so it's not going to be AI but it was an AI song so it can be a crafty tool that way if you're stuck you know you got writers block you need to come up with ideas you shoot it off chat dp and it spits you something back and you're like oh i'll modify that a bit and there's my new song. Can I ask you a question? Do you have AI generating emails you send to people?

No, I don't. Okay, because you know this is very commonplace now, right? Like, oh yeah, I have used it to sort of help me out of a couple of jams, but I haven't ever sent a whole email. I feel bad sending that out because I can feel it when somebody sent me one of those as well. Yeah, so I think some light was shed on this by actually Nick

again, because we were talking about this, but Personally, and I realize I should disclose, personally, because I've always been what I think I've been a great writer. And I did get a double major in English and History from U of T. And I enjoy, this is key, I enjoy writing. Oh, nice. I think I'm good at it. And the last thing I would want to do is sort of outsource writing to a piece of software. Like, I enjoy doing it.

I like to control that. So, but I could see if somebody were struggling to articulate themselves. in the written form, I could see AI composing, like you gave them general bullets on your thoughts and then AI presenting some eloquent way to present this in the written form. I could see somebody of that nature jumping on this solution.

Oh, for sure, but I do think you have to have that foundation of actually being taught to write yourself and use your own brain power and make those connections because otherwise, you know, if you're not policing that, it can just everybody's, it's just going to be AI, talking to AI to everybody, nobody really connecting at all. Well, that's the joke, right? Yeah.

And I know that I use Gmail, and they introduced some, a Gemini thing. Gemini's their AI bought in Google Land. Yeah, and they keep trying to force it down your throat. The amount of time I spend saying no and disabling the AI that's inserted into the things I use. I mean, with Zoom now, I use Zoom. I just did one with Wide Mouth Mason last week, a Zoom with these guys from Wide Mouth Mason. Although I found subsequently one of the guys I was talking to was like a 20-minute bike ride away, which is a whole different story for another episode.

But like, you know, AI note takers trying to get in there and there's, AI is trying to do this and that. And it's like, I don't, it's just become like something that is forced upon you whether you want it or not. And it's trying to disable it as half the battle. Yeah. And that's why I brought up in the rant there, the tech bros, because a lot of those guys are just really trying to make money right now.

And they really, but is it a bubble? Like, are we here in the bubble going off on it? and then in five years we'll listen back and say, few, or is this one of those Pandora's boxes, which will never close? Like, this is it. This is the way of the world now. It could go either way,

but it's going to be interesting to see which way it goes because I never thought people would still be listening to vinyl records now, but a lot of people pushed back and wanted something physical, so that came back. But I always think that's like a small percentage of the enthusiasts that are really behind the vine. I don't you, do you think there's not widespread vinyl usage? There is. I think it's become a trend thing.

And a lot of people want to have that thing that they can show people. And you do see a lot of the people that are very diehard Taylor Swift fans going out there to Costco and buying her last album and putting it out there and trying to get the limited edition stuff that comes out on record store day. Well, you just reminded me, where's my rusty fluke vinyl? I would say this message is for Scott McCullough, except I'm not certain he's listening right now. But I know Jim Moore is listening right now. So Jimmy, can you send a note? to Scotty Mac from Rusty and tell him I want to talk to him,

set the record straight on some things, and I want my vinyl copy of Fluke. Sweet. Okay, I just wanted to put that into the universe. The only thing is with people like Taylor Swift sort of crowding the market on vinyl, a lot of just smaller bands are really having a hard time getting their records.

Like Taylor needs more cash from her fan base. My goodness gracious. By the reason I brought up the Gemini and the Google thing was because it started doing this thing where, you know, Google uses threads for the email, and that's the way you get back and forth and it's threaded. But at the top, it'll be like a summary, like a bullet three. This is, this person's pitch this price.

You replied and said this price. This person said, maybe, but you got to throw in a palm of pasta lasagna or whatever. Like, and I, one of my, one of my many, many, many faults is that I don't, long threads of emails, I will be very quick on it and maybe miss some significant details or whatever. And I have found that reading that and the emails

has helped me make sure I didn't miss anything too significant. So there's an example that was forced on me and I find myself using it. I'm just disclosing that I'm not, I don't want to present myself as somebody no AI at all. It's really this gen AI usage of, we'll get to movies in a minute,

but these songs and these, I want to hear, I'd rather hear a human's voice, out of tune and badly played guitar than breaking rust. I agree, and that's one of the things, if this band actually

became huge, how do you bring that to the stage? It's... Well, I mean, the guerrillas tour, like, it's not much different, I would think. But I have seen a lot of digital personalities that actually go on stage, though, as well, so it is possible if you want to get some holograms up there. I saw two-pack perform recently.

Oh, maybe it was about 10 years ago, but not on TV. Like, there was a two-posh. hologram that performed at some something I watched on television. And there's some performers that are completely digital. Like this one thing that my kids told me about, it's actually kind of old now, Hatsime Miku, who has a stage performance,

goes around everywhere, people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars just to see this, and it's not real at all. It's just a stage show, and there's no real person behind it at all. It's all fabrication. So I guess it's like Disney or whatever, you know, people are willing to,

to see it though because they love it. What's Jerry's Sound Room? This is another one. It's not really a particular character that is played over and over again. Like with Breaking Rust, there's only one person or one image there.

But with Jerry's Sound Room, it's sort of like all genres and they just bring out new songs. Is this AI? This is completely AI. And I actually don't know who runs this one. They have been very secretive with the information. this one. Jerry Garcia's ghost. I don't know. Oh my goodness. Okay, here we go.

This song's called These Roads Know Me. I wake up a little more slow these days. Coffee kicks in about an hour. My old truck still rattles when it starts. But somehow that's still warms my heart I used to think youth was something to hold this might be better than gold funny how life changes without making a sound line like that the older I get right these are all you know human thoughts we all have but when you realize it all like ones and zeros are telling you the older they get. Like, that's what I'm saying. How do you resonate?

How do you relate? How do you, how does that resonate of somebody? I've heard now, this is the third one we played. And they all kind of remind me of like a, yeah, spoonful adreno. Like it'll clean you out and it'll leave you empty inside. Well, that being said, you don't have to play all of them. These are just there if you do want to play more.

But is there one? Do you want? Okay, these, I have avon this? Is that avon this? Yeah, Dead Men Walkin. And it's a little bit more of that country feel, I guess. All right, I got the vibe on it. I feel like, also I do honestly feel,

like there are probably at least 100 human beings listening to us right now who could create a piece of music as good or better than these these three pieces of AI slot for sure and it would actually come from their heart and their experiences it wouldn't just be

some generic stuff of like which enhances art some generic stuff that oh well this sells let's let's put this in the song so is there I ruined it what is that one this is one that we should talk about actually because this actually has this guy named Dustin Ballard.

He is the brains behind it, but he actually plays violin, adds instruments, and also sings a lot of this stuff, but then he trains the AI to go on the vocals that he's doing to change them to other singers and other performers. And a lot of what he's created is pretty interesting, and it kind of plays with your mind, and it also... Okay, let me recap here.

So he's playing the instruments. All these instruments we hear now are actually a human artist creating them. It's sort of varies depending on the song. Like he might use more instruments in one than the other because he knows how to play violin. Why can't he just get local artists to local singers, local performers? Why does he need AI?

Is it just that it's cheaper for him or easier for him? He's more of a marketing person. This was just sort of a fun COVID project that he was doing. And I don't even think he's really making money, but he does things like TED Talks and goes around there and informs people about what AI is and what it does and how it can be a tool for creativity and really trying to define

and also undefine what people think about AI and how it's bad or good and yeah, you're just sort of getting out there and talking about it. When AI, when the aid of AI cures cancer. Oh, okay? Yeah. I'm telling you, there are absolutely some benefits to AI when it comes to,

I just had David Ryder on to talk about how they were using some AI to parse through a large quantity of reports and maybe in spreadsheets. And there are, I am here to say there are probably positive uses of AI. And we're focusing on all the AR, I don't fucking want to see from the AI slop on fake Toronto history photos. I don't want to see fake pictures of Donald J. Trump crying in a diaper with his shit overflowing. I don't need to see that.

And I don't need to hear these songs. I agree. I don't need these songs. These songs do nothing for me. They leave me feeling, I'm going to play this there. I ruined it in a second. I don't need these songs.

And then before we say goodbye today, Jeremy, we got to talk about film because music is one thing. But I keep hearing about this movie, an AI actor or actress is going to star in this film or this movie was made with AI. We'll have to talk about that. But are you ready for There I Rewnd It? Yeah, right on.

There I ruined it? I actually enjoy a lot of what this guy creates, and I think it's because there's actually somebody behind it thinking, sort of like how Weird Al would back in the day completely remake songs and make a parody of it. Which I love. This guy's playing with a lot of those things, and a lot of the artists that he's parodying,

he submits it to them, and a lot of times they love it, and they'll promote it themselves. And here we go. This one here is one of his that did pretty well. It's a mashup of two different things you got into club, mixed with Conway Twitty of all people that you wouldn't really expect the tune to be mashed together. Yeah.

I think I did a darling earlier today here. Okay. Fitty meets Conway. Yeah, this is Conway Fitty. Okay, here we go. You can find me in the club, a bottle full of fun. I'm into having sex. I ain't into making love.

So come give me a hard if you're into getting road. Go shoddy It's your birthday We're going to party Like it's your birthday When I pull up out front You see the bends on the doce When I roll 20 deep

It's 29 My flow, my show brought me the dough That bought all my fancy things My crib, my cars My cools, my jewels And tight-fitting jeans Him on the fiddle there

Okay, we'll keep the fiddle The rest, it makes me I want to recommend the great cover of Hayya, outcast Hayeah by Matt Weddle. Okay, go seek this out. Human being Matt Weddle covering Hayeah in a completely different style, and it's amazing.

I know he's from Obadiah Parker. I don't know if that name means anything to you, Jayho. But I don't need this Kanye Gwai-Twitty doing, you know, 50 cent via AI. I don't need it. Yeah. It's, I guess, crafted mostly for, Social media. I'm out of you now, Jayho.

You made me listen to all this phony music. I'm so sorry. Listen, that's what the problem's about. Look, we're venting here. We're conversing about it. We're just getting this on the table. I'm glad we're doing this here. Now, what can you tell me, like, what do you know about film and movies and AI coming for

that space? Well, I know there's been a lot of smaller productions that are using AI to basically, you can basically create a whole movie, create a whole features, based on just small concepts or whatever. A lot of these small guys really don't have the budget to make a big film, so they're creating everything from fan fiction to brand new works. And I kind of feel like this is just the new sort of sketch pad. But a lot of it, because it's evolving so rapidly,

and if you pay the money, you can create a pretty amazing production out of nothing if you have the storage. Okay, so this is a budget. budgetary concern then. Yeah, budgetary concerns also just studios, just wanting to crank out more and make more money. And getting rid of practical effects seems to always be their goal, where you have a lot of people employed to create these practical effects

and also even create digital effects. But now that AI can do it, they're looking for ways to kind of push these people out. And it's just, it's sad because Hollywood needs that kind of support. and you see a lot of actors now are trying to push against it and refusing to work certain jobs because of what these employers are doing to their crew. Let me ask you about something.

I think about this all the time. Okay, so believe it or not, this household might be one of the few households left that still tunes into New Simpsons episodes because my 10-year-old likes the new stuff too. And so I've seen, I saw this Disney Plus exclusive, which was based on the talented Mr. Ripley, It was called Simpsley, I think, something like that.

And I've seen that. So that's how up to date I am, everybody, on the 2026 Simpsons here. So I'm well aware that the primary voices are all still amongst the living, okay? And some sound better than others, although I've noticed an improvement lately for some reason on the voice of Mr. Burns. And even Marge Simpson voices seem to be a bit better than they were just a couple years ago. So I'm glad to hear that. but the voice that the straw that stirs that drink is Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson. What a tremendous, I don't know if we give him enough props because we've had it for 30 years or whatever,

but Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson, that is maybe the greatest voice acting I've ever heard. What a beloved character, and Dan does such an amazing job on that character. And he still sounds as good today as he did back in 1989. Okay. So where am I going with this? Okay. Yeah. Well, time comes for us.

all. Okay. Yeah. And one thing about AI and about a lot of the digital things that are happening right now, especially with big franchises like Star Wars, James Earl Jones before he passed, they digitized a ton of his voice. And so now they could basically make a new movie just based on Darth Vader, train AI on it. And there you go. You got all the vocals from James Roll Jones because he submitted it and made some money off of it before he passed. So that's exactly where I'm going. exactly what I'm talking about here. But this is, no, that's, I love it when you, you can see where I'm going here. But that, I'm going to take 20 seconds because we're talking about the inevitable.

And this happened to James Earl Jones. And it will eventually, hopefully not anytime soon, but it's going to happen to Dan Castellaneta at some point. Shout out to Redley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1920. Let's say he signs a similar agreement with Disney. Okay, Disney owns Star Wars, like you mentioned. They also own The Simpsons. How do you feel about, like, in the future,

a Simpsons episode where the voices are all AI generated based on the original actors? I like it as long as it's well-written, because the writing tends to suffer when a lot of those creatives go away. Okay, but let's say it's well-written, okay? We'll just say, let's pretend it's a good episode. The voice of Homer throughout sounds like Homer. Yeah.

But it's actually AI because you know this actor, Dan Castellanetta, has already shouted out Ridley Funeral Home. Jeez. That's a tough call. It's a tough one, right? Yeah, because the fans want more, more, more, and Disney wants to sell them more, more, more. Yeah, they do. And it's going to keep going, but I definitely.

And we have a true connection, right? More, more, more. Yep. And, yeah, I don't know what to say about that. I am all for more content being there and it to keep going. And a lot of franchises have kept things going for hundreds of years. Like you look at Mickey Mouse, when Walt Disney died, it just kept going. And they just found new actors that could replicate his voice.

As long as there's the popularity and the need for it, then I'm fine with it. But yeah, I've seen a lot of writing suffer and a lot of shows that lasted too long. And you've got to watch out for that. Well, the writing. We need it to be top shelf. but you make a good point. Like if we watch, there were some Flintstones episodes

where Fred sounded different than others and you realize, oh, it's a different voice actor because I guess the voice actor passed away or whatnot. What's the difference between that? And maybe that's the difference. Maybe it feels better if they replace Dan Castellena

with somebody else. Yeah. Like, I don't, I mean, that would have its own issues because, you know, Homer's got such a distinctive voice. But that's what they would do with Mickey Mouse, for example.

That's what they did with Kermit the Frog. Yeah, for sure. That's what they do. One of the FOTM's voice, Bugs Bunny, like, Spike, is it Spike Jones? Who's the Bugs Bunny guy? Anyway, Mel Blank.

Mel Blank, okay. Who's Spike Jones in the comic? Is he a cartoonist? Spike Jones is the musician? Like the... No, there's no, he's the second one, but there was another Spike. I'm off course here,

but somebody will correct me in the live stream. But anyway, maybe there's, maybe it feels different when a human takes over a role, especially in the cartoon world. And I also wonder if there's a difference, like the James Dural Jones, they would use the voice sparingly.

Like, there's be a, Darth Vader is a man of few words. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. He's not doing big long monologues or whatever. But if that were like a meteor part of a movie, maybe that would hit differently than the fact it's like one sentence, one word here and there.

Yeah, all food for thought. Darth Vader's a lot of presence, not talk. Right. Well, here, 30 seconds. to hear this presence. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2.14 a.m. Eastern Time, August 29th.

In a panic, they try to pull the plug. Skynet fights back. Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia. Why attack Russia? Aren't they offensive? Because Skynet knows that the Russian counterattack will eliminate its enemies over here. What are we listening to there, Jayho? This is one of the things that people of our age kind of think of right away when they think of AI.

And things thinking for themselves is that it's going to eventually get into the defense system and start a war that basically tries to wipe out all of humanity. And there's a number of things like this. Like you got like Hal 2000 and the Space Odyssey and where things just kind of go awry. You've got to think... What are you doing, Dave? A lot of this science fiction that happens out there eventually becomes science fact.

So people are very cautious. A lot of things are being put in place now to stop AI from doing certain things. And yeah, it's just... But this is the one clip I thought about, about, you know, Skynet becoming geometrically, which isn't really even a term, but it's just taking over

and starting wars between us, humans, to just get rid of us. Yeah, it becomes Skynet. that becomes self-aware. Yeah, but then I also think in science fiction too, though, there's so much about artificial intelligence, like the movie AI with Steven Spielberg, with Star Trek, with Blade Runner,

that's dystopian and utopian, and you don't really know where it's going to go, but I find that when there is more humanity programmed into these examples of AI that they talk about, you get characters that are more endearing and people love them like their people themselves, And then I also think about, you know, just even about the future of humankind, if we do eventually burn all the atmosphere off of this planet, maybe by then we'll have transferred our consciousnesses into these synthetic bodies. And that's the way humankind's going to go.

So there's so many science fiction things that I think, oh, my God, it could actually go this way now. But there's also people trying to prevent that from happening as well. It's a mad, mad, mad world. Yes. I'd like you to stop this planet because I'd like to get off, Jayho. And even Mr. Burns had his head preserved in the robot body running around in a few of those episodes, right? Yeah, he had the teddy bear, whatever, the allusion to Rosebud. Yeah, yeah.

I was going to recall. Holy smokes. Andrew Ward nails it on the live stream, live.totronomike.com. And he says, you ready? You ready for a compliment? I'm ready. Not only are you dapper. This is after I called you dapper earlier.

He says, you're always well-prepared and well-spoken. Andrew Ward, much love, like Jason Parris, who we talked about earlier, loves your episodes of Toronto Mike. Thank you so much, Andrew Ward. I love it. And shout out to Canada Kev. And Canada Kev. And Midtown Gord.

Was he there today? And Rob Delmundo and Midtown Gord. And I mentioned Chris Ward, who's been with us, and everybody loves the Jayho episodes. And this is the mind blow, as far as I'm concerned, because I'm used to you visiting every quarter. Thank you so much. But we're going to be together in seven days.

Yeah, we'll be back over at Scatting Cabin to talk all about the history of the C&E. Wow. Okay, Scatting Cabin, I'm biking my studio. It's not a torrential rainpour or anything, but I'm biking my studio. Also, that's the day I get my car because I'm off to camp next week. So I'm going to enjoy one of the last Toronto-Miked episodes for a little bit with you, Jay-ho. I also got into a little bit of trouble because I didn't realize when I booked it. I'm like, oh wait, that's my wedding anniversary.

So it will be my wedding anniversary as well. Well, just give her some love off the top of the episode. I will try. Okay, that's how you get out of that one here. Woo! You know what? I fear for humanity. I do too.

And then some days I kind of wouldn't be too opposed to the meteorite coming down and taking us out. No, we just need to unplug Al Gore's internet. Is it under Chicago? What is it? Just unplug it. Maybe. You know, we're Gen X. You're Gen X, right?

You're a young man. No, well, I'm a Zenial. I'm in between me and the two. You're like a border. Yeah. So what you and I have in common, with many others, of course, who are listening right now,

is we grew up without the internet. I think this is key. Like, we actually know what life is like before the internet. We both have one foot in both areas. Yes. I was a full-fledged, I was a big boy.

I was at University of Toronto when I first got on the internet. Okay? So I'm in university when I first go on the web. And of course, we all know the early web, vastly different from the current, ever-present smartphone web that follows us everywhere. And the sound and dial-up. Right.

So I feel like we'll be okay should we unplug that big box. Yeah, I sure hope so. But our kids will be fucked. We need to teach our kids the skills. Yeah. You know, teach them how to code. We'll have to protect them. We have to protect them.

And thank you for doing this, raising some awareness. Yeah. And it felt good, right? It felt great. Thank you so much for letting me blow off the top there and blow some steam off and just calm down and talk about everything. And that brings us to the end of our 1,933rd show. Go to TorontoMike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. And much love to all who made this possible.

Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery. Jayhoh's got his beer. Palma Pasta. Jayho's got a lasagna in my freezer upstairs. Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. You've got the history book. The history here?

Nick Aini's. He sent you nothing. Recycle MyElectronics.ca. And Ridley Funeral Home. You got a brand new measuring tape slash bottle opener slash level slash flashlight. A little bit of everything.

I hope Dave LeBlanc is my next guest because he wrote a great book on Hidden Toronto, and he's hopefully coming over Thursday morning. See you all then.