TRASHFUTURE - PREVIEW: Who Runs Gamertown? ft. Lin Codega

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

This is a preview of this week's bonus episode! Riley, November, and Hussein provide an update on the Glasgow Wonka situation - which is that Billy Coull officially has a tummy ache because everyone in the world is mad at him just for creating the only good AI generated art ever. Then, we look at the re-emergence of The Chicken Suits in UK politics, and what it means for our realm of nothing but floating signifiers. Finally, we are joined by games journalist Lin Codgea to discuss Saudi Arabia's plan to become the world capital of e-sports and games development, while remaining pretty much officially hostile to LGBT people. Get the full episode on https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture

This is an article in the Times, employers call for help as job candidates use AI in application. I mean, listen, if you're gonna make the applications process a mockery anyway, then don't be surprised when people treat it with the respect it deserves. That's my final answer on that, y'know? Don't ask me to write a covering letter, don't be surprised when I use a shitty robot to do it. Don't ask me to write a covering letter unless it's going to significantly rewrite the plot

of a beloved children's novel. I mean, that's the key, that's the thing that they don't teach you in like, sort of like work coaching or whatever. If you rewrite a beloved children's novel in your cover letter they have to hire you, legally. That's what they don't teach you in Harvard Business School. Hiring managers have observed potential recruits using generative AIs such as ChatGBT to write cover letters, formulate interview answers, and complete writing tests.

And like, what essentially they're doing is they're, the strap line of the article says that government should issue advice to employers. Which is great. Yeah, and the advice is, cope, seize, mould, you know? Cope, seize, and you won't know if the person you're hiring is really inspired by meeting challenges and loves teamwork. You will not know if they really think that. This is the thing, AI is terrible for writing essays.

Probably pretty good at writing covering essays. Daniel Wolken. Daniel, Daniel Wolken. Human resources expert. You gotta Daniel Wolken before you human resources expert at Daily Remote, realized an employee had used AI to help with an application. Quote, nothing quite prepared me- It just occurs to me that one of these days I'm gonna, like, read out the name of a person

who is listening to the episode, and they are gonna fucking shit themselves. And I really cherish the possibility of that. There is an outside chance that, like, Daniel Wolkin, a human resources expert at Daily Remote, uh, listens to the show. In which case, hi Daniel. Hi Daniel, sorry I made fun of your name, and more importantly, sorry I made fun of it with such a weak joke. I can do so much better. I liked how we played the Emperor in Dune. Nothing quite prepared me for the candidate who used AI to get through our screening.

After an initial phone call that went swimmingly, the applicant seemed like a perfect fit on paper, which is just a... She sounded weirdly like the TikTok voice. Yeah. Oh, but it's like... Creating value for the shareholders is my passion. If you're going to, as you alluded to earlier, right? If you're going to have the stupid robot and if you're going to, as you alluded to earlier, if you're going to have the stupid robot,

and if you're going to force people to act like robots to get a job at your company, then whether or not they're copying and pasting answers from a hover letter answer bank or just using chat GBT to do it, it's just some extra control C. That's all that's really different. Yeah, absolutely. So Chanel Espy, the owner of Tart and Social, a social media marketing agency in Glasgow. You know, maybe there's probably, there's a guy who knows how to get really big on social media who's currently got a tummy ache in Glasgow and doesn't have much else to do. It says compared candidates use of AI to generate cover letters to smoke and mirrors, adding

that it was eroding individualism. Be fair, if you're using smoke and mirrors in a job interview, you've probably taken it in a more theatrical direction than anyone's expecting you to. Can you tell us about a time when you used this skill, and you just sort of wheel out the David Copperfield rig and you saw a woman in half? Yeah, you could be really fun though, you could be like, hey tell us about a time you solved a difficult problem, and then you could just use a lot of visual gags, like, well, they say a problem solved is a problem divided, and then you just start sawing a lady in half?

When you say, I- Just going up to the recruiting manager and being like, was this your card? Yeah, people just- No setup, I don't tell them what the trick is, they don't even have a card. I am asked to leave very quickly. Yeah. She says, I get so many cover letters, where the applicant's personality just does not come through.

Who's writing a cover letter where their personality is coming through? Oh man, that's for sure. Adding. Yeah, I mean, I've been actually penalized for writing cover letters that were like showed any sort of like element of personality feedback. It's like you showed your personality and it's bad. We, I mean, basically, yeah. Like we had, you had bad vibes.

Like when I was trying to sort of, when I was trying to become a, like when I was trying to like go down the corporate law route and stuff before I like really lost my mind, like so many of the, so many of the things were just like, yeah, your grades are fine, but actually you kind of have too many interests or like, yeah, it was very strange. It was like, I'm trying to remember one thing a recruitment person said, but they were just like, yeah, if you use a template next time, you actually have a better chance of screening through, largely because they would use like computer systems to sift through applications anyway. So maybe this is like an extension of that recognized reality. Like no one's

actually reading your cover letter. It goes on. Individualism is getting lost. It would be amazing if the government could establish guidelines for employers. And this isn't the only person who is like asking for some, I don't know, not necessarily govern. I mean, they, what this article did is they talked to three people. One person was like, I wish the government would help. And they were like, boom, headline. Yeah, perfect. But it goes on.

Research conducted by Bright Network, which is a thing that hires graduates to staff them on roles doing data cleaning or whatever, surveyed more than 14,000 British students and graduates and found that most wanted to use AI to improve job applications with the CEO calling for clear guidance for hiring companies and urged them to clarify where AI should and should not be used during the application process so candidates know where they stand. PSEP. Whilst assessment technology and methods catch up and cope with or embrace AI, the need for clear guidance and instructions must be the focus for hiring companies.

The early career sector is one of the most susceptible to AI driven challenges in hiring. Where like, again, you... It's the part of the sector where you fuck people around the most. Yeah. And also, it's the part of the sector where most people are sifted with semi-arbitrary systems that are looking for fucking keywords. It's like, hey, these people haven't contorted themselves to fit our machine. They've just built a machine to contort us. It's like, hey, these people haven't contorted themselves to fit our machine, they've just built a machine to contort us. It's a bit like the Zizek thing of the Perfect Job interview, it's just two AI systems talking to one another.

ALICE Well, I mean, if you build it, it is no dream, right? ZEKE Yeah, I suppose so! But the, it is very amusing to see the world's... that AI is able to disrupt mostly the world, or at least generative AI in this sense, in its consumer application, is able to disrupt some of the dumbest shit imaginable. Just the most asinine nonsense. Couldn't happen to a nicer industry, you know? The future is watching two dueling TikTok-voiced chat GPTs, like, interviewing each other and you're going, oh boy, she's fucking it up in there.

You know what this is? It's trial by combat, but like, your champion is your large language model. I mean, well, I mean, getting a job, especially a corporate job, is basically like, the same kind of random chance. Anyway. Before we get to our interview I want to talk a little bit about the British politics. Which is...

Oh, not those. The chicken suits are back. They were gone. Beg pardon. The chicken suits have been gone for I think about twenty years, and the chicken suits are back. Riley, have you like, gone off any meds recently that we should know about? Yes, I'm cursed with memory.

Which in this country is a bad thing to have. So what is happening is, while the hospitals are literally falling apart, a guy being operated on fell through a floor the other day. Sorry. Sorry. What? I heard about the ceiling collapsing on someone in A&E, that was already funny. I imagine myself as a surgeon, I'm like, you know, I'm holding the scalpel and the guy

fucking drops 12 feet down away from me. That's... I'm sorry, you know, I'm holding the scalpel and the guy fucking drops 12 feet down away from me. That's... I'm sorry, it's pure slapstick. I really respect rack concrete as a kind of, like, generator of slapstick moments in our country. I'm sorry, I think that's what I was thinking of, is the roof collapsing on a man being operated on.

Your version was so much funnier. Just, like, disappearing into, like, a fucking sub operated on. Your version was so much funnier. Just like, disappearing into like, a fucking sub-base. Alright, making the first incision, and the scalpel is like, the straw that breaks the reinforced aerated autoclave concrete. Like, that's the pressure. That sends it over the tip. You touch the guy with the scalpel, bam. Down he goes into the cafeteria.

Anyway. But we've been talking about, like, the same six, there are six key issues, right, that politicians and the media seem to be unwilling to stop talking about, and it's like an analect, right. You of course must master the six key issues if you were to be a British politician. Oh yeah, of course. Just the eight key issues if you were to be a British politician. At the Eightfold Noble Path. But it's like, we've been talking about woke in the national trust, shared panic about minorities and left-wingers, just endless sort of, endless hand-wringing about the fact

that property prices can never go down, but homes must become more affordable. These things that are, that taxes may never rise in any way that matters, unless the must become more affordable. These things that taxes may never rise in any way that matters unless the conservative party does it. These things that are immutable truths that must always be discussed and may never be allowed to be put down. At the same time, as things get notably worse, whether for marginalized groups in the country, or just people who are in a hospital, I suppose, or a school. These things that are- You're in a marginalized group, right?

You're getting marginalized right into the cafeteria. But to see then that the Labour Party, when it wanted to not simply participate in the ritual discussions of the six noble truths of British politics, when it didn't want to follow the eightfold path, you saw it talking about things like towns should be better, people should have more money. What if when you were getting an operation, you didn't fall through the floor into the cafeteria. And that is how they talk to people. That is how the concerns of politics and the concerns of the higher spheres of government and the spheres of people's ordinary experiences overlapped. There was an actual genuine linkage.

But now that they have been once again sort of sequestered back into the Imperial Palace, they've become strained and the chicken suits have returned. This is what they wanted, right? The Labour right wanted to get back into politics so that they could be serious about it. Yeah. Jeremy Corbyn wouldn't let anyone get in the chicken suit. It was there. And everyone was like, Jeremy, we need to get into the chicken suit.

You need to get into the chicken suit, otherwise Asuka's going to have to do it. And Jeremy was like, no, not allowed to get in the chicken suit. You need like get into the chicken suit, otherwise Asuka's going to have to do it and Jeremy was like no, not allowed to get in the chicken suit. And now Keir Starmer is telling people get in the chicken suit. Yeah, absolutely. So the American listeners are going to be probably scratching, I'm sorry, American listeners and any British people under the age of fucking 50 are probably going to be scratching their heads as to why we're talking about. Right, so the Labour right had to do a their heads as to why we're talking about that. Right, so the Labour right had to do a factional coup to force or anything about Britain getting

better in order to bring serious politics back. And serious politics in Britain is denoted by an embrace of the fucking Six Noble Truths, and also strange and elaborate rituals whose purpose is to show dominance over the peasants. One of which is members of our sort of gentry scholar class dressing up in spucking chicken outfits and following around politicians to imply that they are cowardly for not calling elections.