Two In The Think Tank - 363 - "EMOTIONAL HACKING"

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Sketches TBACheck out Alasdair on Who Knew It With Matt Stewart and Gamey Gamey GameGustav and Henri Volume 2 is now available to purchase in Australia here!You can support the pod by chipping in to our patreon here (thank you!)Join the other TITTT scholars on the TITTT discord server hereGet Magma here: https://sospresents.com/programs/magmaHey, why not listen to Al's meditation/comedy podcast ShusherDon't forget TITTT Merch is now available on Red Bubble. Head over here and grab yourselves some material objectsYou can find us on twitter at @twointankAndy Matthews: @stupidoldandyAlasdair Tremblay-Birchall: @alasdairtb and instaAnd you can find us on the Facebook right hereAll the thanks that's fit to tank to George for producing this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Alistair. Alistair, just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.

It's a Christmas episode. What's the word you used, Andy? Andy? I mean, Alistair. Oh, Christ. Yuletide. I used the word yuletide. Yeah. You know, I don't know if there are other

tides throughout the year, but this is the yul one. Mealtide. Yuletide. We all tied for ice crime. I'm having a good time already, Alistair. Or should that be a good tide? Tickle bells, tickle bells, tickle all the way.

Oh, what fun it is to ride. I've decided I like all music. I've decided that. That's great. Yeah. World music? No, all that. That's great. Yeah. World music? No, all music. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. No, I don't like world music. No, not world music. Well, I don't consider that to be music. See, this is a great way. It's a great way to get around. Yeah, well, you see, I think ben shapiro attempts shit like that he's like my dad actually had a great logical explanation for why rap music isn't music and then he just

like creates a criteria in which uh rap music isn't music so it's like oh there you go you found a way of excluding black people from being able to create music there you go you're fucking smart fucking asshole um um you think you think he's smart do you you think uh ben ben shapiro's smart you agree with his his look i don't i don't want to agree with him but his logic is is watertight so it's so watertight you wouldn't be able to get water in there into his logic. Nothing worse than wet logic. That's why you've got to have watertight arguments. Because if your arguments

get wet, they get soggy. And then the fibres start to come apart. I would actually need to make an argument that actually repels water. Or it can actually be an underwater argument.

Or, better still, build your I mean an underwater argument. This argument is so good it works underwater. Where the normal laws of logic don't apply. This means that you can actually go down in a submarine and this argument, this would work on one of

those octopuses, one of those weird octopuses. You could use this argument on a fish. You could use this argument on a fish. You could use this argument on a tube worm living next to a hydrothermal vent. It's still valid. This would be a great – I know. This is a book called Logic for Fishermen. And it's entirely all the prepositions, all the conclusions.

They work no matter how submerged you may be. This is in your book, How to Win Fish and Gain Influence Over the Sea. Under the Sea. I'd be so good if you did come up with an argument so persuasive that it worked on water. water you know there's a there's a big there's a big uh it's a new type of um ocean ocean going travel where your your boats are very very flimsy right and very very shallow you can you can build them a lot more affordably and all you need is just a very powerful logician to stand on the poop deck arguing with the water. So there could be one of those huge mega waves,

and he'll just deploy a devastating, he'll destroy with logic that wave. Jordan Peterson. Logician. Jordan Peterson. Logician. Is standing on the bow. He destroys tsunami with logic. Waves actually go on the water.

It's impossible for them to go on the land. Actually, none of the parts of the wave move forward. They just move up and down. That's really good. That's a really good that's a good it's a really good one it's just the energy moving forward um yeah i mean in a way violence is an argument that the ocean understands yeah you know you can you can hit water and it will yield. That's true.

It is the answer. Is this an argument for why violence is the greatest argument? Could be. Could be. In many ways, the sword is mightier than the pen. Because if you hit the pen with the sword, it will break. Now they don't have that pen. Yes, and then you can cut off their hand, which allows them to grab more pens.

What's this situation in which you've got a sword and the other person is writing letters to you i think the reason the pen might appear mightier than the sword is because they're quite a long way away from each other they're um you know they're corresponding via letter and yes it's a it's it's not a malay weapon it's a what's the other one correspondence it's a i know but what's a rate like a range weapon like a bow? There's another word, you know. Yeah. Artillery? It's a projectile. Yeah, I suppose it's an artillery.

It's a projectile of some sort. Yes, good. Running out of steam. No, I'm actually trying to cast my mind back to earlier points in the conversation when it felt so full of potential. There were so many funny things we could have said but didn't. I'm so sorry. We were talking about watertight arguments, arguments that work underwater.

And it was before all of that that I was quite excited about something that I was going to say. I didn't have a lot of confidence in anything you were going to say, Alistair. In fact, I found it very difficult to visualize. But I was like, oh, that's a good thing I'm here with all my potential topics and avenues to explore. And then you lost your map i did i did yeah it's real sad no that's good but i mean would you like to wallow in it for a little bit further or should we just move forward uh arguments arguments that work on fish arguments that work on water. Water type arguments. Ben Shapiro. No, it's gone.

Music. World music. And you love all music. Yeah, I do love all music. I think it's all good. But then anything you don't love, you don't consider it music. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's the no true Scotsman fallacy. It's the fallacy. Yeah, I mean, well, actually, I don't consider that to be a fallacy. I don't consider the no true Scotsman fallacy to actually be a fallacy. And so that's why, logically, what I'm saying is still sound. That would be a great... This is the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Ben Shapiro destroys the no true Scotsman fallacy. With logic. Many people think that the no true Scotsman fallacy is a fallacy. But here's why it isn't. It's very easy to listen to the watertight logic of this fallacy and think that this is a fallacy.

But in fact, that is a fallacy. I think if I could turn that into a joke, the no true Scotsman fallacy is not actually a fallacy. Here's why, five reasons why the no true Scotsman fallacy is not actually a fallacy. That would be possibly the smartest joke I have ever made. Really? If I did make that joke, I feel like- Do you want me to write it down? Do you want me to write it down as something that you will one day write?

Yes, that'd be great. it down do you want me to write it down as something that you will one day write yes that'd be great if i ever want to um reach my peak my full potential which i'm holding i've been holding off on but if ever i decide to succumb to temptation and realize everything that i'm capable of doing yeah and know that i've peaked If I ever want to peak, I'll write that up. You'll climb it because it's there. But that's actually something interesting because deciding to peak means accepting that the rest of your life will be a descent. Indeed.

Or at least a little bit of like hangout time at base camp Yeah, and coasting down, that'll be relaxing Alistair Yes, yeah Do you feel at the moment, do you ever feel, with the state of Twitter at the moment With the feeling that Twitter is now sort of in this descent into being quite a, you know, even more toxic and dangerous place. It is an insane last couple of months on there.

Yeah. As everybody's saying goodbye. Yeah. Well, everybody join me on this other thing I don't enjoy being on. Yeah, this one's shit, but that's where we're going. It is like getting onto life lifeboats right you're like i'm not i'm not saying the lifeboat is better than this boat that we're on but it is taking on water yeah uh i have you ever um gone to tweet a

joke and then felt it no longer feels appropriate to tweet jokes on twitter twitter is exclusively now a medium for attacking elon musk or bemoaning the death of twitter yeah i have thought that a little bit but it's been like that maybe for the last five basically since donald trump it's kind of been like, is fun allowed on this thing now? If I do write a funny joke on here, which is a battle already. It's hard enough to think of something funny and be bothered to craft it in a sensible way. to craft it in a in a sensible way but if i managed to do all of that like would i be doing that work in order to basically promote a a right a you know a a white supremacy network am i sure um you know yeah um i mean i'm not making a big splash on there anyway. I don't think a lot of people are joining for me. And if they are, they're just getting on there and realizing I'm not doing that many jokes and that many good jokes.

i love a reference to something right and then that's funny to me but it's not a it's not a like i need other people to see this kind of funny right yeah and so that people would join twitter see that that's what i write they go right and now they just have an account meanwhile elon's going twitter numbers have never been higher really like that well i think he's he said that in the last couple of months you know um well that's if you include real accounts you know yeah maybe yeah or you'd say if you also include this the bots i guess i'm trying to do a no true Scotsman. Yes. Reference. It's going to be. You were holding back. You were holding back on making it entirely.

Understandable as a joke. Because you're not ready to peak. Yeah exactly. I'm edging the punchline. Baby. So Andy. Andy. It's.

So this is Christmas. I mean this is what the 23rd 20 yeah 23rd amazing so what have you got have you wrapped your presents yet uh look the the family presents are wrapped as in the ones that come from us the parents they are wrapped not by me no pardon me i've um but all of my presents that i've got for people they're in a jb hi-fi bag yeah um no i'm i'm in a very similar situation except because of the nature of the presents that I buy, they all come in paper bags. Everybody's getting a meat pie. Yeah, because you got them from a farmer's market? Yeah, that's right. No, I got my youngest one of those purple sweet potatoes, but my other two, I thought they liked the orange sweet potatoes.

Did you get yours from a farmer's JB Hi-Fi? Yes. Yes, I did. Is that anything? All right. We got a farmer's market. And a farmer's JB. Farmer's hospital.

Electronic farmer's hospital. Beautiful. A farmer's funeral services. A farmer's guns. Farmers Hospital? Farmers Hospital. Beautiful. Farmers Funeral Services. Farmers Guns and Ammo Store. They carry your loved one on the end of a forklift, like a thing on a, you know, like when there's like mad cow disease and they have to like just pick up cows on the end of like a tractor, but with a forklift like fitting. And they're dropping them into a big hole. But that's the big hole is just for your, you know, your, I don't know. Or they're putting the cows onto a big pile of burning cows.

Yeah. How do you start a cow? What's the kindling you use to start a cow? The hair? Yeah. I mean, do you use small cows? Do you use some of the calves? Is it like lighting any fire? You make a little teepee out of baby cows. They get started. That's how you get it started. Maybe at first you just got to like, you got to just break up some hoof. Sure. Some hoof shavings. Leave some hoof shavings just like in the sun for a bit, you know, and then you start with that. And then you put some baby cows and then you put some adult cows and then you put some elderly cows.

Although I imagine for some reason elderly cows will be drier than big cows. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I wouldn't want to speculate about what's the wettest cow. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I couldn't... I wouldn't want to speculate about what's the wettest cow. No? Well, that would be something like a water

buffalo. Yeah. That was what I was thinking of earlier when I was trying to... Sorry. Water buffalo. Water buffalo Alistair is very good. That's very funny. You've done incredibly well. No, Andy, that's not what I meant. I meant, I'm shocked

that you were thinking of water buffaloes before. I know. I know, Alistair. But I actually was moving on and not taking I want to, for my purposes, take a moment to appreciate how good water buffalo is as an answer to what

is the wettest cow anyway i wonder if buffalo is in the bovine family anyway i'm just avoiding getting to your thing of course they're in the bovine fucking family jesus yeah but a buffalo have you ever seen one of those regular buffaloes they don't look like they're in the bovine family their whole head shape is different yeah they're bovine mate they're in the bovine family. Their whole head shape is different. Yeah, they're bovine, mate. They're as bovine as they come. Yeah, right. Okay.

And it's nothing, especially now that there's some buildup, but just the idea that there's dry comedy, but what would you consider to be wet comedy? Okay. Oh, yes, I see. We know that Matt Stewart is a famously dry comedian. I've appeared on Matt Stewart's Who Knew It podcast with Matt Stewart. It's a really great episode.

I've listened to all the episodes of that show so far. I really enjoy the podcast. Alistair and Evan Munro- smith's most recent episode is i think for my money the best one well that's very kind and i also appeared on a gamey gamey game episode with matt stewart and evan monroe smith now this is going to sound insane naomi higgins but i watched most of that episode and that was one of the worst ones we know i think it's the best one really i think i just i i don't know i think i really like your comedy alistair wow that's very nice i'm coming around if you do i didn't like it for the first 10 years yeah but just recently you know

it's like one of those jokes where if it goes on long enough, it starts to get funny. Well, you've really hit that point for me. I've driven you insane, Andy. Was it the part where I sang in French the third song we sing in happy birthdays in my family? I really loved that. I really liked that bit. Yeah. But I liked all the bits.

Thank you so much, Andy Matthews. Check out those things. I'll put the links. If you like Alistair Tromley-Murchell's comedy, Andy, you should listen to the Two in the Think Tank podcast where I appear with a friend, Andy Matthew matthews now in a way comedy i mean i yeah i mean in order to define wet comedy perhaps we have to define what dry comedy is i mean isn't you shown you show not much emotion i suppose and you and you don't give away that you're telling a joke.

Ah, I think that's a big part of it, isn't it? Like, you make it appear very confrontational. You're not selling the comedy very much. Yeah, I've got an example of who I think so far is a wet comedian, maybe one of the wettest. Harry Hill. Ah, I don't know harry hill no but like do you think that clowns are wet comedy because they wear a lot of like funny clothes and stuff yeah they are a very wet comedy they also squirt water a lot of the time which you know i mean that helps yeah what yeah what do you think you could turn dry comedy

into wet comedy if you had a um maybe a projector screen right and you had uh a a for each joke you have maybe like a graph or maybe just a countdown timer that shows you how far away you are from the punchline like to really like say this is the punchlines coming it's counting down to each one here it comes here it comes there it is it's a really insane thing to do because like people aren't even paying attention to what you're saying they're like is the timer is it gonna are they gonna arrive at the same time yeah but you know you could you could do it you could use any kind of like multimedia elements in order to remove the element that remove timing and surprise as a component like you you're no longer

going to be surprised by when a punchline comes yeah yeah yeah that's i mean that's good i mean that would make it a real safe space for people who feel uncomfortable uh around punchlines they could like close their eyes and block their ears at that moment. That's for people who don't like comedy, but they like sitting in a room full of people and listening to one person talk. Yeah, that's what they want. Yeah. Andy, I think also

another wet comedy technique is the wink wink and the nudge nudge. Ah, of course. That's how you can really moisten a bit of comedy i mean i suppose there are people who sort of almost start laughing to themselves about the punch lines that are coming up yeah ben lomas does a little bit of that sometimes yeah um and so he yeah and he wets up the comedy and i think some people need a wet comedy he slops it up yeah yeah he's lost

and because and and saying this and then he said yeah that's a very yeah that's a very wet comedy uh uh line you know because now you're like you're building up tension here it comes right and actually there was a guy who did a bit about the funniest him and his kid friends used to find people with funny names in the phone book matt something hang on and and then they had found the funniest name and and he he would build it up by saying and i know in comedy it's not good to say that something is going to be funny, right? It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that can really ruin something that's funny but this is how funny this name is right and look how wet he's made he's just got he's hosing down the audience he is hosing down the audience at the moment he has got a whale doing you know backflips yeah into a pool on on the stage with him. And then he says the name.

And did it still work? It still works. I think the name was Eggly Bagel Face. It's pretty funny. It's Matt Brongerer i think his name is yeah um but yeah uh a fine wet comedy technician i would say and you know what's so great about that is that there's no feeling in that name that it's a foreign name because i think a lot of the funny yeah is how breakfast it is

but it couldn't be more english as well right like yeah bagel face yeah yeah you're right it's not it's not funny because it's it's oh he's from like romania or something like that yeah and he might be from romania we don't know no right but the name just sounds like something like like your breakfast has come alive. Oh, that's great. Yeah. All right. Are you going to write down wet comedy as a sketch idea? Andy, I've written down wet comedy. I've already written down wet comedy.

It's made the cut. Drenched, soaking, juicy. You know what I still can't figure out is umami. Yeah, right. I've talked to you about this right i think maybe i have um i is that i also can't figure it out and you're not gonna like this alistair but i feel like possibly it's something that i could never figure out so yeah no but you can't you can't have people people point you towards some things that are strong umami flavors and then allow your brain to start categorizing it in a certain sense? You don't think it could be learned? I wonder if that's one of those perception type things where it's like trying to perceive a new color or something where your brain um doesn't have the ability to nobody's ever said that that's not possible yeah okay stop it stop it i don't think anyone's ever said it's not possible for you to

imagine or or see a new color yeah it happens all the time it happens all the time you see new colors but you see how you see how you change it from imagine it might be impossible for you is it impossible for you to imagine a new color uh that might be impossible because but but maybe not but it's also impossible to check because you can't take the colour in your mind and compare it to all the other colours that you've seen. I mean, this is an interesting question. If you'd never seen the colour light brown, right? Now, you've seen white and you've seen brown, right?

Yeah. Normal brown, primary brown. Normal brown. Normal brown, right? You brown, primary brown. Normal brown. Normal brown, right? You've never seen light brown. You've seen light blue, you've seen light red, light yellow. Do you think it would be possible to imagine what light brown looks like?

Yeah, Yeah. Well, look, in my mind right now, I'm seeing if I can darken colors. And I can. Yeah. Now, there just needs to be a shade of a color that I haven't seen that I'm imagining. Right? So, like, let's see. Okay, I'll go to pink. I've seen a lot of pink. like let's see okay i'll go to pink i've seen a lot

of pink but let's see okay there's a i'm not sure if i've ever seen light fuchsia okay so now okay let's picture fuchsia okay now let's add like a layer of white over it like a kind of just a thin fog of white yeah f. Future in the fog. Yeah. Oh, there it is. I can see it now. I'm going to go a little bit lighter. This is a great. I think I can picture it.

This is a great new podcast. It's going to be called Imagining Colors. All right, start. I want you to say, everyone, they start on primary brown. I reckon if I said primary brown, everyone would know what I was talking about. Yeah, I have a pretty definite brown. It would be good. You know how it would be a great way to test it?

Would be to do it in a room of people everybody's got their own little cubicle right and then in front of you you've got just different shades yeah of brown and you've also maybe got paints in case you want to do it with paints and mixing paints and stuff like that and then everybody colors uh writes color colors which one they think is the primary brown. Yeah. And then you show it and then you get an average. And then you get a PhD.

Everybody holds it up. Everybody holds it up. Reveal your brown. We say to them. They all blow it up there. A couple of people will pull their pants down and stick their ass in the air. But that's always going to happen anyway in any scenario statistically. That's actually secretly what the psychological examination is about.

Wouldn't that be interesting? Everybody reveals their brown, right? And then this is step two. Everybody say, now show us your asshole. And everybody turns around. say now show us your asshole and everybody turns around and it we discover that what people believe to be primary brown is exactly the same color as their bum hole isn't that wouldn't that be remarkable even if you've never seen your bum hole i don't on some level thank you but it's not really brown brown well yeah i, it might be for some people.

But, yeah. Like down on the, yeah, no, you're right. It might be for some people. I've forgotten. But I'd forgotten, Andy. This is maybe something I haven't seen yet in comedy, or at least the comedy that I've watched. But that thing about psychological experiments where they get you to do something, but really- The test is something else.

The test is something else. But then to keep pulling back and revealing that it is still something else. Yeah. Because part of the experiment is revealing to them what the experiment really was about and seeing their reaction to that six levels in. They leave and they go home and they're talking to their partner about the day and describing the fact that they revealed what happened. And then they see a guy crouching behind the couch with a clipboard yeah and the lab coat on and they go wait a second what are you doing here you go i'm sorry that's what the experiment was really about was how people respond after being revealed that experiment was

not what they thought it was originally about and then how they talk about it to their spouse and then they like well get out of my house i didn't i didn't agree to this and then the wife kind of agrees you know says oh yeah well i was i had you know i had to keep it a secret from you things like that right and then and then he kicks the guy out and it causes a big fight and things like that and but then he looks behind the tv and there's another guy there crouching with a clipboard. They're sort of like infesting the home, like vermin. All these layers and levels of researchers.

We've got researchers. The house has got researchers. Oh, no. That's not what the cycle is. How did they get in? Oh, well, under a pretext. That's how researchers get in. Mice, it's through a little hole. Researchers, they sneak in via a pretext.

Yes, and of course, well, first. I discovered another pretext behind the fridge. Well, first they have to go through an ethics committee. So if you can eliminate the ethics committee, then you can eliminate the pathway. That's the way they get through to the pretext. Of course, they have to have their pretext first and then go through the ethics committee,

and then they can get in. I think interesting, the idea of an ethics committee. Yes, you think so? Well, yes, yes. I wonder if we could build an ethics computer. Do you think you could build an ethics computer? Yes. Okay, great.

But should you? That's a better question. Yes, well, that would be, and there's actually an ethics committee issue there, because could an ethics committee decide in a sort of non-clashy way, what's that word? Conflict of interest. Yeah. Way, whether or not they may be replaced by a computer. Yeah. A lot of them, I think, would be against it.

But then you could probably take that to court and say, well, they're not. And then that's it. That's it. All the ethics decisions are being made from computers from then on. But then I suppose your court is becoming your ethics committee. Yes, but is that not being affected in any way by the ethics computer? There are so many layers of consequences to all our actions.

There are so many layers of consequences to all our actions. I think it is not inconceivable that we will have modeling computer technology that is in real time able to inform us of the consequences of all of our actions and help's show at the Fringe Festival. She's doing the show again at Comedy Festival, Melissa McLinsey. And it's called The Briefing. And it was about Sarah Huckabee Sanders kind of doing a briefing for Trump. But it was like about her becoming governor and stuff like that. Anyway, and it's a very funny show. Anyway, but it's at Comedy funny show anyway but uh it's a comedy festival if you want to see it anyway uh but after i was talking to one of her friends there and he

uh works on some weird line between policy government policy and computer technology and he said he's now working with this basically brand new piece of computer technology and he said he's now working with this basically brand new piece of computer technology that essentially does that thing that has been like the holy grail in government policy where you can put in what the policy is and there's like you know thousands and thousands of variables in this thing right and it can tell you what the outcomes will be oh that's the effect right but and like and i was like so wait have they like have they like you know like backdated it like tried it on like you know like a policy you know they would have brought in in like the 80s and then seen if its results match up with the actual results that did occur and he was like yeah alistair he's like it's that's an incredibly clever question to ask well done that's very smart well because but well thanks because it's because like that kind of stuff is really interesting but

i was like but it i he's like it's so complicated that sometimes you do just have to find the results you want and then work backwards or whatever because it's hard to know it's like this thing knows way better than you yeah do and like so so because i was like because i imagine you could be turning knobs having no idea what they do but you're just kind of going let's just see what this does yeah and you could end up with some really really interesting like unexpected outcomes so it'd be great if you could like you know say that you what you want is there to be more public swimming pools to be built in rural areas right so you put that in as the outcome and you might find that the best way to achieve that outcome is by banning peppermint crisps. And we don't actually know the connection between those two things, but the computer can tell us that if we do that, that's what will achieve this.

And you do it, you're like, oh, okay. And actually, that's one way that you can sort of... Apparently, that's one way that you can discover whether there's cheating in chess, is whether... Because that means that you'd be using assistance from an AI. It's because computers tend to make decisions that are very counterintuitive

to what a human would do, including sacrificing a queen for no immediate benefit because it knows five like four moves ahead that then there will be a benefit it's so crazy yeah and and so that's one way that you can kind of go oh shit so like yeah so so once once people are like we need to ban peppermint crisps, then you know that the politicians are now using AI-assisted. Just, we need, I want there to be more polls in rural areas. That's why I suggest we ban peppermint crisps.

What? Okay. Okay. Now, I apologize that I took us on this far journey. But you started with something about a machine like this kind of policy thing. Yeah. Oh, I was just talking about researching the consequences of our actions. You know, the moral and ethical components.

And an ethics computer. I don't know if there's a script in it, Alistair. I think the peppermint crisp thing is probably funnier, but maybe too weird and too esoteric anyway. Doesn't matter. Let's go AI-assisted politician. But you were talking about things that you've been talking to people about, right? And here's something I was talking to someone about recently,

been talking to people about right and here's something i was talking to someone about recently which is that um uh this guy works in artificial intelligence research right specifically voice recognition technology to recognize emotion in people's voices right and determine their mood now and what they use this for right is you know when you call someone up like telstra and they say yeah um uh this call may be recorded for quality and training purposes right yeah what they're using what that's not actually for quality and training purposes what they're doing is they're using this software. They're doing this now. They're analyzing your voice, determining your mood,

and using that to market new products to you. So they can tell from the tone in your voice things about, you know, whether you're going to leave the company, that kind of thing, whether you're going to leave the company that kind of thing whether you're going to cancel your account and that's when they'll hit you with a you know a new marketing offer or something to try and that's really interesting because this year because my texts stopped working for about a week on my Optus mobile. I have considered leaving. I have been like, all right, I got to move. And then over the summer, they're like, by the way,

for the next three months, here's 50 gigs of data for free per month. I bet you that's what's going on. Yeah. How fucking crazy is that? But now what we should be doing is we should be trying to manipulate. When we call up these companies, we might be able to hack them in some way. Yeah, of course. If we can create the right combination of emotional tones in our voice, if we become good enough actors capable of doing this, we might be able to bypass some of their security protocols.

And I know Optus isn't that hard to hack into anyway. Yeah, yeah. Use emotion to get inside the machines, maybe steal some money. Maybe we could do it in such a way that we can get them to, like, just email us a million dollars. Absolutely, yeah. Because get them to email us a million dollars. Yeah, because get them to email us a million dollars yeah that's right you heard me i sorry i was like i i guess i assumed i knew what the ending of that

sentence was going to be and so that it i was like i'll just prepare what i'm going to say now that i know where andy's heading and then oh I would never do that, Alistair, in a conversation. No, of course not. It was a real water buffalo. Yeah. All right, look, I'm just going to AI. Emotion hacking. It's going to be one of those really easy to understand,

easy to set up sketches. A nice, clean, clear, you know, almost universal slapstick to that comedy um well yeah but i mean i guess you got to set it up with you somebody finding out that that they use your emotions yeah to give you what you want what maybe it's a movie um oh it's a full movie hacking into the it's just a guy on the phone it'll be like her right it'll be like the movie her but instead of him the guy being on the phone to his fake girl ai girlfriend he's on the phone to optus on on waiting waiting to talk to a to a customer

service so that that could go for an hour and a half that's it could be 90 minutes very easily right but then i had a phone call and that's why while he's scrolling he discovers this information yes andy this is how you this is how you make a a low budget film that is that is interesting because you're it's still somebody navigating a labyrinth yeah andy this will make phone booth look like a piece of shit. This is an even smaller area that he's in for some reason. Yeah.

He's in a closet. All right. I will stay in. It's phone booth style film. You don't believe in this film, Andy, but I do. No, I mean, I'm open to it. I believe we should probably go to words from a listener is that correct oh andy unfortunately today we don't have words from a

listener today we have words from a listeners now i think i you know you may have heard my cry for help the last podcast episode where i said uh we could use some more uh words submitted uh into the patreon for the three words from a listener uh and then some listeners in the discord which i haven't been able to engage with in the last week just things have been a little bit hectic um but they have come up as sort of notifications and i have felt bad about it but also i saw somebody say should i be posting these in the patreon because you know yeah and i was like my answer was definitely yes but i didn't get around the writing net because i didn't get into it until i needed words which was right now so then uh three separate people submitted words um and i i will i you know i don't want to reveal their identities in order to not dox them

um and also i i can't 100 remember but i but if you go on to the uh the discord you'll be able to find that out that's right so join the discord so that you can find out i can't give you i can't i can't uh spoon feed you all the information um and so andy would you like to try to guess now now these were these words were hidden behind some black some darkness now you didn't look behind that darkness andy did you i never look behind any darkness not great not in my own soul and certainly not in the discord great okay well somebody also posted behind some darkness a very long german name did you look at that no okay that's like oh very consistent yeah with your values um all right so then you want to guess what the three words are from the

mystery listeners okay the first word is misunderstanding oh way too long and, way too long, Andy. Way too long. First word is puff. Okay, puff. Actually, that was the one word that I had seen before they put that behind the darkness. And I'd still forgotten it. Okay, the second word is laparoscopy. No, Andy. The second one was words. They'd hidden it to tell people to hide your words behind darkness but i think maybe the sentence was behind darkness you should hide your words and then that was behind okay of course anybody who didn't know how to look behind the darkness wouldn't of

course been able to do that but anyway um puff words um reinstatement oh not close at all uh no it's obfuscate hey you know what i feel that is fucking close certainly like in the in the in the world of the the the words that i was doing that's the closest what was the word that you said well i said misunderstanding i said reinstatement you know obfuscate yeah yeah yeah oh it's because i don't know what obfuscate means obfuscate means to hide behind something so know, possibly hide behind darkness. To conceal. Very clever. Often you conceal your motivations or your true intent. You know what it makes me think of? Puff words is making croissants,

but like a literary croissant where you you know, you write it out and then you fold it over itself and then push the paragraphs together. And then you stretch it out again. I think what you're describing is a book. I think in many ways a book is a literary croissant. Yes, well, but they're not folded in that way. It's like a book that's all centerfold.

Sure. You know? Because then you cook it. I don't know how you cook the books. Well, I know how you cook the books in accounting, but I don't know how you cook the books in sort of nonfiction or fiction. Well, nonfiction, I think, is probably the easiest thing to cook the books in. Maybe you can cook the books in fiction by making it, just writing out true fact.

Now, I'm sure this has been done as a thing, but origami books, you know, it's a book where, you know, you look at it and it's a shape there you know a paper crane or whatever maybe something more complicated um and it has it has a certain form maybe you can see some words are exposed right and they they give you maybe it's the blurb maybe all you can see is the blurb and then you unfold it yes i i like that i like this as a uh as a as a book folding technique. I apologize if this is completely destroying. But I had an idea. It's a book that you write. It's a story, but it's like a story of a person.

And it's a story of their life. But you hide it in a chat bot a chat bot like a chat bot ai yeah um kind of thing so that in order to find out this the story of from this book you've just got to ask it questions about its life yeah right and you find out about why it is the way that it is by, you know, teasing it apart, by getting, you know, getting, I don't know, does that seem like an interesting way to interact with a kind of book? Yeah, this seems so fucking interesting and it's incredible. And I think what you've hit upon is that there will be an entirely new form of media and entertainment that is not stories so much. It's not you creating stories. You will create entire people.

You will create a person, right, with one of these bots. That will be the thing. Right. With one of these bots, that will be the thing. And maybe this already exists, but the idea that they will have their own lives that you can ask and you can probe and you can ask about any element of their lives. And you will have programmed this thing in such a identities as entertainment as media in a way that like you know like we already try and do with our parasocial relationships with celebrities and their social media and that sort of thing we're being trained to do this anyway wanting to probe and find out as much as we can about real people who we only interact with on that digital level um but it it will be that but it'll be an ai and you'll you know and and instead of saying have you um uh read any good books recently we'll we'll say have you probed

any fascinating identities fictional Fictional people. Yeah, yeah. But you know what? And look, this may have been done already. But my feeling would be is that the first one, right, if it hasn't been done already or whatever, would be already a satire of this idea, making fun of the idea that eventually – because we're it's like you know it's like sugar fat and salt right if you know eventually foods were just made to just uh that just have that because that's what the body craves and in the end the body craves a connection to a person um and and so this ends up being the fast food a weird you know weirdly a fast food of of art

because you know or of something to consume because it's like it's just it's just connections to people or whatever like that but it's not even real and so the first one will be a satire of this idea basically saying that this whole art form that this person is creating is a terrible idea but then that will lead to people wanting to recreate the success of this thing it'll be the the junk food of people yeah exactly the junk food of people and and then and then it will become its own art form that will continue and then it'll be like you know, the first was a warning against itself. And then we'll be the – is that a sketch? Yeah.

Yeah, I think it is. I think it's really cool. I think it's a bit of a bloody dystopia you've got there. Almost a bit of an episode of an anthology series. Warning us of the dangers of um things to come yeah well do you think we should wrap up our episode thank you to our our mystery listeners um and uh and you should before well i guess we'll go into the song oh no i gotta read out the sketch ideas a little a little christmas present

to all the listeners uh well here we go andy we've got underwater arguments uh these are arguments that work underwater potentially work with with fish or or tube worms or um you know or even on water itself uh you know and this can all be uh you know found in the book how to win fish and influence the sea and we've also got this idea that logician destroys tsunami with logic could be not having the word logic in the first word as well um the no true scotsman's fallacy fallacy that's uh that's andy's everest that we will eventually climb and then peak and then probably retire with Tenzing. I'll be your Tenzing. And we'll retire together.

Oh, that'd be really nice. Like Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing did. And on an island somewhere with the dinosaurs and albus presley uh then we've got wet comedy um you know that's obviously it's the opposite of dry comedy it's just a it's just a categorization um that we've we've we've managed to find kind of like the the umami of uh of comedy um we've got primary brown uh this is uh something that is brought up every time as a starting point in uh our new podcast imagining colors um then we've got uh not what the psychological experiments was uh really about um which is a a multi-layered psychological experiment looking for the reactions

to people the people have to uh having people reveal to them that what they've just experienced was not what the psychological experiment was really about uh then we've then we've got the ethics uh community uh committee computer and how do you get it approved and getting approved in the court case that ensues uh then we got ai assistant politician banning peppermint crisps to get more pools in rural areas um we've got ai emotion hacking phone call uh like phone booth style film where we uh we try to navigate the um the labyrinth that is uh the ai and the uh i would like to cancel my account that is uh i have a friend that i could talk to because he was actually knew how to he was giving me the the path to getting like a reduced phone bill because he worked at Optus and knew how to navigate the thing. Anyway, I want to speak to retention was one part.

I want to speak to retention. And those are the people who try to keep you and they have the power to give you stuff. Yeah. those are the people who try to keep you and they can have the power to give you stuff yeah yeah then there's um and then of course there is the ai chatbot story of person um sort of book which is a satire and a first warning against itself this is not going to be useful writing down for when we're trying to look at it very very science fiction heavy episode very oh yeah a lot of big ideas, I think. Big ideas.

I think so. I think, you know what, Andy? I think today's episode was a Christmas miracle. It's a Yuletide miracle. A Yuletide, Miltide, we all scream for Christmas. Yep. Ice crab. Ice crab. Yep. Ice Crab. Ice Crab. Ice Crab.

Thank you so much for listening to Think Tank. We appreciate everything about that situation and how it unfolds. Oh my God, so much. We would like to wish you a merry Yuletide. Happy Summer Solstice or Winter solstice to all who celebrate. Yes. And of course, a happy birthday to Jesus Christ.

And also to Allah, maybe? I'm not sure. Are they like... Are a set of magic people like horses and they all have the same birthday? Yeah, that's right. So Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy as well. Yeah. And we love you.

Take care. Bye. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, mate. Take care. Bye. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Stop. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls. Yes, we can deliver that.

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