Oh, hello. Assuming we're live,
>> let's see. Hey, according to according
to the gizmos, we're live, which means
some people somewhere out there, this is
their very first time encountering the
Weird Things podcast. Hello, new people.
We used to be a podcast about the
speculative future. Then we became a
podcast about the future, and now we're
a podcast about the present, which looks
a lot like what was the speculative
future. It's a weird time. Hello, Andrew
Maine. How are you, sir?
>> I'm doing fantastic, Brian. Uh, Brian
Brushwood, is it?
>> Yes. Yes. Brushwood.
>> Brushwood.
>> Brushwood.
>> It's I know you heard say I just want to
be in the village that day. They came up
with that name.
>> Yeah. The I the family lore is that they
were bandits called the Brush Woodsmen.
And then the deeper family lore is they
were exactly like Robin Hood except
better because they robbed from the rich
and the poor and they kept it.
>> Yeah. I think it could be a you know you
listen my full names it remain harder.
So I went through all sorts of things
but harder sounds a lot like harder so
I'm allowed.
>> Uh I'm like oh uh where's where's you
old Brian? Oh he's off brushing wood.
>> Yep.
the uh uh yeah the oh uh I was very
confused for decades why nobody saw the
R in Brushwood and then one day I saw
Catty Shack and I'm like oh I get it
now.
>> Yeah. Bushwood.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> We we we went to we grew up near uh
Catty Shack.
>> Yeah.
>> Was that shot in Florida?
>> South Florida. Yeah.
>> I did not know that. Part two was, I'm
sure, Cattyshack 2. Yeah.
>> Ah, the real one. The Jackie Mason one
that was played infinitely on on cable
TV.
>> Yeah. Rolling Rolling was rolling hills,
rolling woods, whatever. Golf Course.
Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Cool. All right. You guys ready?
>> Yeah. Let me uh One second.
>> Yeah.
>> One second.
>> He's gonna go on break.
Uh Justin Robert Young. Yo,
>> I Oh man,
I don't want to devolve into great
night. I have things I wanted to say,
but they're great night things.
>> By the way, Catty Shack won, the
original Catty Shack, the Rolling Hills
Golf Club.
>> I I like that even better now.
>> Yeah, that's I'd always I've been
bragging about, you know, the fact that
I worked at the Buka Deepo right next to
where Catty Shack was shot for decades
now. So, I got to protect that.
>> Yeah.
All right. All right. Ready to go.
>> You ready? In three, two.
>> Hello and welcome to the Weird Things
podcast. I'm Andrew Mine joined by Brian
Brushwood.
>> Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
And Mr. Justin Robert Young.
>> Hello friends. Good to be with you yet
again.
>> Yeah. So, um,
you're gonna get an AI episode because
it's been pretty topical this week, but
we're not only the AI podcast.
>> We We could get the Apple fanboying out
of the way. Sure.
>> Right up top.
>> Sure.
>> What did What did you guys think of the
Duo announcement?
>> Uh, I'm ordering it.
>> Yeah, I'm getting it.
>> I I find myself weirdly conflicted
because I I need a refresh.
>> Good. More for us.
But the
>> stay away. It's too expensive. Probably
going to be bad.
>> A couple a couple of the oldtimer
YouTube videos that I shot were shot on
the really good cameras on the Max. And
the idea of going to a lesser camera
like who am I kidding? I'm going to get
the duo. But but but it gave me a
complicated feeling for a second.
>> No, I that's that's the tradeoff. And I
was talking to to my wife about this
because, you know, she's likes the Duo,
but she's, you know, she's making more
video content. And and I said, "Here's
the thing. If you like the form factor,
get it because the best camera will
never be on the Duo. It's always going
to be on the Pro." And that's going to
be the way. Like, if you're like, "Oh,
next year it'll have a better camera."
Like, "Yeah, next year it'll have the
better camera." And guess what? The
camera on the Pro is going to be even
better. And so you just have to come up
with if you like I
>> I love the form factor. I I look at the
way they did it. I've looked at the
Samsung stuff. I've held off. I've you
know I have other I'll buy Android
devices and stuff to have backups. I've
held off for a long time because the
first I mean they've gotten way better.
The first time I looked at one somebody
showed me the crease was terrible. It
was just terribly done. They've come a
long ways. I think Samsung's come a long
ways what they've done and Apple's got
it solution. We'll see how durable it
is. I like the look of the iPhone one
better. It's in the iPhone ecosystem,
which is, you know, where I am right
now. Um, they did a lot of really smart
things. Um, you know, people like the
cost. It cost I agree, but it is a
device that I use 90% of my waking
hours. So,
>> that's the thing, man. It's the internet
that you not only look at the most, you
literally touch it. And that matters
like that form factor. And to be honest,
the aesthetics kind of matter in terms
of you I mean, you're going to spend
time cozied up with it. you probably
want it to look and feel really good.
You want good design. So yeah, by way of
being friends with uh Darren Kitchenen,
who is a Fold afficionado and has bought
every version of the Samsung Fold lines,
including the trifold that I think they
sold like a thousand of and then stopped
because it was going to be more
profitable for se to sell those screens
to Apple uh than than to do something
that had a fairly limited market value
for them.
I think that there are a lot of
trade-offs to fold phones. The crease is
an issue if you have an eye for it. Um,
so I was encouraged by what the duo's
crease looked like. It took me a little
back that they went with the passport
design. uh a little stubbier, but I I
was swayed by their reasoning of like,
hey, we actually what what you want is
the right screen, not the largest screen
because of the way that formatting
works, you're just going to wind up
getting black bars on things anyway. And
uh Apple has the ability to force a
design language change for apps and
websites which I think will uh be very
interesting when it comes to to those
devices.
I'm going to get it because for me,
we're in a generational sea change for
how we think about our devices. And I am
looking to a world where
I might never bring my laptop
places again. My laptop might be a
machine that I that that seems so crazy
because you do real production work. Are
are you picturing a world where where
you work on World's Greatest Con and do
that stuff on a on an iPhone?
>> I mean,
and we can blend into our other big
stuff, but uh I have seen the light of
me possibly never touching the input
controls on editing systems again.
and and what what we're talking about
and this will probably seamlessly take
us into the land of AI, but but we're
>> Yeah, let me yeah, let me let me let me
just we'll just leave that there. We'll
get into what what I mean in a second
and why I believe it. But
>> I think that we're in a place now where
you are going to do more and more and
more via a device that goes to a server
and visualizes back to you what the
result of that process was. That doesn't
need to be a laptop. Uh that doesn't
really even need to have a keyboard for
most stuff. But if you have something
like the Duo that can stand up uh or or
lean up against something and be a
fairly credible uh monitor with a
keyboard,
you know, that plus a a a little
trackpad and yeah, I could see myself
using Audition on that. And that that
would be even the fine-tuning stuff that
I think we're going to rely on less than
we have. I don't want to completely sell
the world that everything is going to be
voice dictated, but like I think more of
it is. And in that case then like yeah
if I'm not in crunch time and we have to
get a world's greatest con episode out
for example while I am on the road or
I'm on an airplane or something like
that where I'm not going to have the
same kind of uh uh uh connectivity
then yeah I think I can move the ball
forward pretty credibly with the tech we
have now let alone what we're going to
have in a year because if I look at what
we had a year ago it looks like the
Flintstones Maybe.
>> Yeah, the that's an interesting a
Bluetooth keyboard, a mouse, and even a
step further, I I don't think there
exists an iOS app for parseek that that,
you know, allows you to remote desktop
control. Uh, but if they were to bring
that and like you could just clip open
the Duo and you're actually running a
desktop, it's just remotely, I could see
that. That does that does track. I mean,
I think there's go there's always going
to be room for you to have a home
server. I think the idea that the the
concept of home servers, I think, are
going to become more popular
>> uh because there there is stuff that
you're going to want to run locally
>> where we visualize that.
>> I think we might think of desktops
very differently in the next five years.
We might think of laptops very
differently in the next five years. And
the biggest thing that I think might go
away
is the thing that changed the world. The
the form factor of the phone. I I think
that you know we we do less and less of
what it was designed for to actually
take and make phone calls. Those are all
things that I think can be done
differently. And in an increasingly
agentic world where a lot of business is
kind of handled agent to agent, then I
think that's even going to be less and
less. So the question is what do we want
out of the the computer in our pocket?
And I think the the Duo brings us a
little closer to that. If they sold the
Duo without a phone, with no cell plan
except for data, like I would be fine
with it. I think that I could I could
make that transition immediately.
I Yeah, it's interesting because I
somebody had a somebody tweeted out like
uh ah they're making the same mistake as
the Apple Vision Pro. There's no use
case for this. I'm like, it's a phone.
Like, that's the use case. Like, it's a
pretty simple use case. And And they
sell like crazy. Foldables sell like
crazy in China. And And I'm going to I'm
going to give you my stupid reason for
doing this. Like, I don't actually use
my phone very much. I'll use it in the
bathroom. Sorry. Too much personal
information, everybody. Uh, you know,
I'm the one. Nobody else does. Uh, and
then I go to Taco Bell, not connected,
and I set it on the table. I usually set
my phone against my hat so I can watch a
video or something while I eat and I'm
looking at this going 90% of my use case
is literally going to be folding this
thing and setting it on the table at
Taco Bell to look at it. I understand
me. I know me. I'm okay with me. All
right. Um I you know I bought the Air
because I wanted a lighter phone. You
know I was I was into the idea of
foldable but I got the Air because I was
just kind of sick of a phone. Like I
just like the cameras I don't care. I
don't take that many photos. I really
don't care. I got a photo. I want to
make it better. Oh, chat should be make
it better. I don't care about cameras
video. I don't make a video. I don't I
don't think I made a video this year,
you know. So, like I'm like I want, you
know, I like the idea of, you know, like
I am very I can find some very laughable
predictions by me about like how I'm
going to use stuff. Like the Apple
Watch, my excitement about using the
Apple Watch for dictation and stuff like
that. It's finally usable for that. Um,
and so I think I'm often very very wrong
about how I'm going to use it. But I
don't know. I I love my iPad Mini. Then
phones got bigger and I never I didn't
touch my iPad mini until I touched my
Apple Pencil and I look at this like,
oh, I can use my Apple Pencil on this. I
can make notes on it. I don't know.
Looks really cool. I'm excited.
>> Speaking of the voice dictation on the
the watch, what did you guys think of
the always on, always listening mode for
that.
>> I mean, at least they're admitting it.
Uh yeah, there there we talked about
this I think here a couple weeks ago
about how Apple will figure out the most
Apple way to do these kinds of things
because we do think that always on stuff
is going to be and everybody else did it
weird and you and I thought that it was
a very good pattern like hey uh we're
not recording voices we're doing
real-time transcription you know we're
transcribing it we're not saying who
said what we're not doing speaker
tireization so that gets rid of some of
the concern if I'm talking to Justin and
Justin's like oh tell me Tell me your
opinions about Babylon, you know, five
again, Andrew, and who watches it and
then, you know, pulls it out the court
transcript. Like that is literally what
they didn't say was a legal thing, too.
Is that well, I was talking to Brian. I
had my Apple Watch on there. It's like,
we don't know who said what. And I think
that was a very smart thing. They didn't
want to get into legal stuff, but right,
you don't want to start having your
phone, your watch subpoenaed. Like, you
still could, but then it's like, well, I
don't know who said it. I know this was
said. So, a lot of it's trying to figure
out how to navigate that.
Yeah. Uh that'll be interesting. I think
that the there have since recording
things became, you know, useful. There
have been a number of conversations that
I was like, "Dang it, always record.
Always record. Where was that?" And then
I'll probably be real thankful for those
opportunities.
Yeah. I um
to me the question isn't the technology.
The question is society and you know
we're already in a world where everybody
walks into houses and they're okay with
devices that are constantly recording
you and listening listening for
wakewords.
Everybody's probably got at minimum one
device that is currently doing that on
some level. Um where it goes, how long
it's saved, diorization like that is a
step further. It's not the craziest step
further. It's not like we haven't had
the ability to surreptitiously record
people to begin with. Uh might I remind
you that
Nixon went down for recording things in
the White House. That was a system that
was put in there by Lynden Baines
Johnson, his predecessor, which he
started doing in the Senate, literally,
Brian, for the reasons that you want
this tech. Because he wanted to record
every conversation so he knew if he made
a deal with somebody in the room that he
knew if they were trying to BS him or
lie to him when they didn't deliver on
what they said. If they came back three
weeks later and they were like, "I never
promised you that." He can say,
"Absolutely you did." and he would do it
with conviction because his secretary
would transcribe all of the recordings
that he had both on the phone and in his
office. So, it's like we've had this
text since the early 60s. Uh uh people
have recorded I'm sure people do that
today uh doing it now society making a
decision. Obviously, we're going through
a bit of a moment where we're wrestling
with how much of this is a reality. Uh
but
I don't know. I mean I I don't know how
much use I would have out of it but I I
can understand it.
>> Yeah. I would think uh the bulk of the
use would be contextualization
like uh when when you're working on
especially you know I'm working on this
wolf masking project and and uh when I'm
in a thread I have to ask like are are
you the version that knows what I'm
talking about with these madeup words?
Um and you know having more fidelity to
that is probably pretty good. And
especially uh you know as an extrovert
there are a lot of times my mouth
answers and then after the fact I'm like
that was pretty good that was dumb. Uh
the ability to have that record and be
able to say you listen to me give this
pitch a hundred times. Can you write the
best version of it and that'll be the
one that I memorize.
>> Yeah. I I think we're I think that once
we feel comfortable about the way the
stuff is used like
putting it's interesting like we go into
stores now there security cameras
everywhere. We just get it. The
trade-off is in theory it eliminates
stuff. Uh I have you know I have I am
very very pro- freedom very
libertarian-minded but I have no problem
of flock cameras in public because I
don't think I have an expectation of
privacy in public. I think if a city
wants to put cameras and stuff up there,
like I'm I'm fine with that, how that
data is used, whatever, something else.
And I think that we're going to get to a
point where the problem with a lot of
these devices happened when people found
out like, oh, the government was able to
subpoena your Amazon, you know, Echo
device because it turned out that it was
listening. It's like, wait, what? You
know, um LG TV is listening without you
knowing. Like that's an issue. I think
that these things we have to sort of
really address and understand. Do we
trust who's doing it? What's happening
to it? But, you know, you go into a
shopping store and and you're under
surveillance. Do you know if that data
is being sold to some company that's
tracking buyer habits, things like this?
I don't know. I don't know if I care
anymore.
>> That that report um it really is some
LGTV QIA questionable
internet activity.
>> Yeah.
>> Just he's so smug. If you're just
listening to this, the smile on Brian's
face. Uh uh just just oh god, send him
to the nationals for dad jokes. That's
just amazing.
>> Uh yeah, I think it does come down to
reputation. And if you're looking at
where the future is in terms of
privacy,
technology, and our relationship with
it,
I've had my issues with Apple as a
company in terms of being visionary in
hardware and software, but I've never
had a question of how they're going to
handle my data. I will trust them. that
in fact it's part of the reason why I've
been frustrated with their lack of
movement in AI because I want to trust
them with more than than they are asking
for because they've built it. Uh on the
other side of this, you've by all
accounts had a pretty good system being
built by Meta, by Facebook with Muse,
and they're building all these bots that
you know if you just hook up all your
data to them that they can do awesome
things and they can do it very fast and
everything. And I will sooner post whole
on Twitter than trust uh Meta. like I
just won't because they've burnt me so
many times. I have no uh belief in them.
Uh same with LG. Do I think that
anything that LG does just won't be
resold to the highest, you know,
commodity bidder for data? Like
absolutely it will because that's the
kind of company they are. That's how
they make money. Uh I trust certain
companies. I don't trust others. And
they have to demonstrate why in their
actions. And and I think that's that's
where we're going with privacy in these
products.
>> Yeah. The uh the moment I heard about
the always on, I thought, you know, only
Apple only Apple has the credible
reputation with enough actions to back
it up that this could even be
approached.
>> Yeah. Honestly, I this is probably the
time where I would buy an Apple TV, like
a physical monitor TV. Uh because always
on like, you know, having the right
FaceTime settings so I could, you know,
uh Bella could talk to her her nona, you
know, in in a in a flash. It would have
all that. they would be beholdened to me
and not to a bunch of advertisements
that they're constantly trying to jam in
front of me, which is why I have to go
through a stupid screen before I can get
to my television every single time I
turn it on. I'd pay a premium for that
for for a big beautiful uh screen. And
that's something that I know that Andrew
and I have had this conversation for a
decade and a half about why it didn't
make sense because televisions were more
of a commodity market. But now, I don't
know. I I might be willing to to to peel
off a few more if it's the right
product.
>> Yeah. I don't they're not I don't see
them doing it though. It's just
not not the margins are still you would
have to charge so much more for them to
be justifiable.
>> And especially like this Samsung is the
size of a wall and it was $599. It's
unreal.
>> Yeah.
>> But what's what is the the barrel of
like All right. Yes, you can get the
$250 90in television and that will do
you. And
this is not reality. We're just going to
push it forward in a hypothetical. Now
it is like absolutely it's an always on
listener and we are uh uh you have to go
through two menus before you can get to
what you want to watch and there's no
way to turn any of that off because they
do have to serve is it a 30-se secondond
ad before you're able to watch whatever
you want to watch. Yeah, I
>> uh I I could picture Apple charging a
premium for the peace of mind to cut
through that crap and to know that
you're never
>> and so so my my question is how bad
would it have to get on the low end for
you to be like nope I want to spend
more. I just don't know. I don't think
the point for Apple specifically to do
it like just the where they're they're
shipping their margins, everything else,
the engineering. Again, they looked into
it. It's just there's never there's no
point at which for them
>> that they make. I mean, look at how much
they charge for a monitor. You know, for
Apple to charge for a TV, great. It's
going to be a $20,000 TV. I would say
though there it is an opportunity for
another trusted brand like Costco or
somebody to come in and say I'd say
Amazon but Amazon's going to shove ads
all over it you know because they love
ads but like we trust Amazon to an
extent but once I have an Amazon device
I don't um you know I trust them to get
the stuff to my house once it's in my
house I don't know but I could see
somebody in because also there's there's
a market to somebody to go to LG and say
okay we will buy your TVs from you, but
we're going to pay a $50, $100 premium
and charge people to just have it be a
FNT TV, you know, because I think that's
that's part of the way. I think that's
one way to do it. It's the hard part is
they once they see that, you know, that
opportunity to sell you something
through there. It's it's, you know, look
at look at how hard it is to even buy a
streaming service without commercials.
>> Yeah.
>> Because the revenue from that is just so
big. But I think there's a market there.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, I like the Duo. Uh, we'll
see how it actually is in practice, but
I'm excited to play with it. I'm curious
to see like, you know, I love the little
things people did. Like very curious to
see what it's like to type on a bigger
screen like that, too.
Um, okay. Let's talk
Astra.
Oh, that's right. That happened since
the last time we talked. Uh guys, I
think Astra is a pretty big deal. I'll
say it.
>> Brian going out on the limb.
>> You're saying it's a that you love big
Astra
>> and I cannot lie. Uh I'll tell you what.
So, right now we're in that delightful
phase. If you're old like us, you
probably remember various waves on the
internet where new tools were available
and for a split second, not everybody
knows what to do with them. And as a
result, wild experiments abound. And
we're in the middle of getting to see
that right now with Astra and to live
with some of the tinkering. Uh let me
let me show you guys one thing I'm
extremely proud of. Uh I was able to
redo the uh the UI for Cord Killer
program. So I've always wanted to do
something that read as kind of sports
radio, pardon the interruption, style.
And so I opened up Astra and I said,
"Hey, let me give you these V-Mix files.
Let me give you the Roadcaster Pro 2
files and so on. From these, can you
piece together how my studio works?" And
it it said, "Well, the most I would need
to know blank blank." And it gave me a
whole bunch of homework. And just as I
was about to start typing explanations
and answers, instead I just pressed
record and talked as though I had an
intern on the other side of the planet.
And I said, "Hey, this is the thing. You
see this button?" I held up the um the
stream deck with the physical buttons
that I just dropped and broke. Uh and
then the uh Oh, yeah. I really did mess
that. Uh and uh describe what I wanted
it to do, what uh what it currently did,
and what its utility was. I pointed the
camera over at the other side of the
studio and said, "Over there is this,
that, and the other." And then it said,
"I got it." And then I said, "Hey, let's
do let uh we already have this living
show rundown doc. Can you put it on
screen?" And at first, as it does, it
did a bad job. And then, you know, over
a few iterations, it got quite good. And
now I I it's it's it was really
astonishing. It was really astonishing.
I you know we had been hearing rumblings
you know for those of you new listeners
here uh I worked at open AI Justin and I
produce and I host the opening podcast
so we're in the office as open quite a
lot and and talk to interact with you
know my former colleagues um and
we had seen since I'd say early parts of
this year that there was this optimism
this this this this very much enthusias
IASM even when they're like ah open eyes
behind it's kind of like a look on their
face like well wait and see and um we
saw model improvements you know 5.5 was
really the first time I think that in a
while they had a coding model that was
you know you know I think comparable to
what anthropic was offering and then 5.6
soul which I think is fantastic model
just efficiency whatever and that was
great like 5.6 six soul just started
making huge huge inroads and then they
dropped Astra and uh Astra is GPD 6 and
I mean it's crazy I did the launch of
GPD4 you know I had the launch of GP4
came up with all the examples of it is
insane to go back and look at when that
came out I made the videos I made the
launch page I did all the stuff for this
and now there's hundreds of people much
do much more confidently too let me let
me make that clear too it's amazing to
watch two iterations later what the
launch is like and Astra is uh and I I
you know I come at it I kind of forget
that I was there and now I'm like just
as a consumer of this um it's phenomenal
and what they did is it's a new paradigm
for how they train the model the
capabilities were great when they
started showing just on the on the
frontier of capabilities very very
highly capable I've thrown it incredible
tasks it's done amazing jobs we've
talked about this like video editing
stuff like this things that people were
like let me just throw at this see if it
can edit does it really well video games
and design and stuff. Really, really
cool. I've got mixed results on some
stuff, but also I've been sort of
cautious in how we've done stuff.
Instructions really matter. Um, the kind
of the the the crazy part was is
earlier this week there was a whole
thing where OpenAI said they used an
internal model to solve what's called a
Millennium Prize, which is these
category problems that are some may be
unsolvable, but considered like really
interesting problems to solve. And they
showed a proof for one called the
Neville Stokes conject Neville Stokes
and and they released this graph said
yeah we used a model that's better than
Astra and they showed this model with
its performance capabilities a map and
it was like significantly better than
that and like yes they're sitting on
this we're in this incredible
capabilities curve and to its credit
anthropic you know Fable's been people
loved Fable they did Fable 5.1 they'll
probably come out with other ones uh
we'll we'll see what's happening We're
watching model development across the
board. The Chinese models which are you
know some clever Chinese innovations and
a lot of distalization of American
models have become very very confident.
>> I mean beyond beyond beyond that
according to anthropics risk assessment
uh uh maybe even just a false front that
was routing stuff to American models.
Yeah, that was a thing that I remember
that came up at the time and then turns
out like they they they claim they have
the receipts for it was like I think
Kimmy like Moonshot which people love
that Kimmy model which the whole story
that's kind of crazy was
>> Moonshot model comes out and anthropics
like yeah they were actually routing
people hitting trying to use the
moonshot model to anthropic accounts
that they that that that Moonshot
controlled to basically look at all get
all that data of what people are asking
for. And I got news for you guys. Like
um
you you worry about American companies
and data that Chinese companies do not
care and like the amount of stuff that's
going through there is insane. But
anyhow, literally they were selling
people like oh yeah this is the Kimmy
model and it was actually clawed and
they were using that data to train the
next generation Kimmy model. Uh which by
the way was what
>> interesting. So, am I understanding
correctly that essentially they just set
themselves up as a a uh LLM in the
middle attack where it's like they they
they were just a man in the middle
passing everything around and then and
learning from all the data. Well, they
would say, "Hey, we're offering our
model at super cheap tokens." And so you
would go in and go use the model. What
they were actually doing is they had,
you know, thousands of fake accounts
that were actually routing it through
there because they wanted to get
billions of training tokens to be able
to train is see how the model had it.
And I've had this argument for a long
time like well you can't copy your
reasoning traces like I can tell a lot
from tokens I can tell a lot from other
things and there are actually tricks to
get the reasoning token the reasoning
tokens out and so some of these people
like it's a weird thing and I want I
explain like like here's the situation
is that um
we live in a world where if you're a
developer you don't want to be dependent
entirely on open airropic for models.
You don't want to have a couple
providers to say this. You want
opportunities. You want that to be
available to you. And I think that is
scary if you're a developer. The idea
that somebody might try to shut down
open source or whatever because it is
cost-effective in many ways. It allows
you to do a lot more and if anthropic
and open I say you can't fine-tune, you
can't do this, you're really in a bad
situation. So open source drives so much
of the AI community. On the other hand,
so much of these modern open source
models, the exception of the stuff
that's maybe coming out of like Nvidia
and a couple other like you know
American labs like maybe Meta like
initially they did some distillation
apparently um all the Chinese models for
the most part are literally taking
billions of tokens from American models
and copying the way that they perform
which is you know you know you could you
people are ah it's the same as copying
in our text like well and there there's
a there's a difference where if I'm like
you know stuff that's publicly available
on the internet versus creating
literally fake accounts and signing
contractual agreements that I'm then
going to break and do that. Um so it
makes it you know challenging but also
it means like where you know what is
where is the Chinese frontier without
American labs you know but also is it
fair and that was a frustrating thing to
like anthropic is like hey listen we're
spending billions of dollars to train a
model only to have the Chinese come out
and copy the model not sell an unrelated
service but sell exactly the same
service. It's one thing if I train on
top of a stuff like text or data and now
I'm telling you here's an AI you can
talk to versus no I'm selling you the
same product I just copied their product
to do it. So it creates a very tricky
world you know and I think that some
people kind of like you know like ah
fair is fair it's like
fine you know or you know it's a
problem.
Yeah. So, what's been the biggest
surprise that you guys have encountered
since getting your hands on Astra?
>> The uh token bonfire.
>> Holy moly. I've gone through two resets.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, it's I I'll put it this way. I
use it
>> I use all these models primarily for
creative work that does not involve
dealing with code bases.
Um if you are doing that, this was the
first time that just
doing stuff with like computer use and
uh things like that that I saw really
meaningful
erosion on my limits. And then I had it
take a full look at my codebase for the
vibe coded fitness app that I have and
it just
decimated what I had what I had left.
Um,
it is
incredibly
talented
and it is incredibly token hungry. And
if you are using it for development,
like I think the idea now
is have it make the plan and then have a
really efficient model maybe execute on
it. But uh it is boy it is a it is a
ripper. It is it is a fatty fatty little
model. Greedy.
>> Yeah, I concur. Um I I have I've gone
through multiple resets uh considering
asking for my old job back so I can get
unlimited. um uh you know um I would say
that yeah and that's it's a bigger model
and that's the thing that Enthropic went
through with Fable where they went up
the the model size was a bigger model
you know they they upsized you know the
cap you know you you go from you know 5
trillion to 10 trillion however many
parameters it is you're running a bigger
model I think we're going to see some
efficiencies coming through I think that
they'll be coming out like I've been
going actually using GPD 5.6 six Luna a
lot because that model is actually tiny
little model but extremely capable. I
think we're going to see a lot more some
efficiencies there. I think that I think
I'm not I'm I'm frustrated like I'm
looking at like I got seven days left
and I'm at you know 60%. You know I'm
like guys. Uh but uh I think the
efficiencies are going to come but it's
frustrating. I think yeah it's been but
it's amazing.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm also way more ambitious on the stuff
now. Like I'm like literally just trying
stuff that you know you you would tell
you me a couple years ago, yo, you're
going to do this with a model. I'm like
cool on the moon.
>> Yeah, I I I will. It's computer usage
and understanding for creative tasks on
like Cap Cut is nuts. It is just
bonkers. you know, I
it it it has unlocked elements of things
that I've kind of wanted to do but
couldn't justify. Like now this is this
is the paradigm and you know we we've
certainly been a lot of conversation
over the last three years about what AI
is going to do for work and what is AI
going to do for jobs and what is AI
going to do for XYZ.
Here's the results. The science is in.
You do more. Everybody is working more.
Everybody is doing things that they
wouldn't have otherwise done because
what we couldn't visualize before we had
the tech was how much of our what we
would love to do in a dream scenario was
just grayed out because time spent,
effort spent, money spent. What if now
all of a sudden those weren't grayed
out? Like a video game with skills. Now
you could just do those things. It's
like it's it's insane. It is it is
remarkable. And it's the more I do, the
more I want to do. You get addicted to
running fast. Um
it's it's
remarkable. It is. It is insane. And I
don't even think that I've really
scratched the surface. That's the other
exciting part about it to be honest.
Like I'm a little bit worried to scratch
the surface because I'm afraid that the
moment I experience the comfort of blank
looking so much better and taking less
work that I won't be able to go back.
I mean but like were
you know when you first had a keyboard
it's like oh will I ever be able to go
back to writing on hand like you know
it's like no now you just use a keyboard
for everything. It's like that's this is
just the new way of the world.
>> Yeah. I
I you know, my biggest thing is just,
you know, running out of tokens. You
know, I I you know, we'll talk about the
doomsday stuff, but like I'm I'm like
I'm more worried about running out of
tokens else just because just it makes
me want to try more things.
>> How do you decide? because I have
noticed that in the in the usage, you
know, there's a bunch of these little
100% things and then for the smaller
models and I'm like I I don't know what
tasks to delegate to that level.
>> So,
nobody knows. Nobody knows. I I I had I
had a talk with a research the other day
about a big problem they solved and like
you know they used thousands of agents
to go do this thing and and a question
came up like uh was that the right
amount? I don't know. Don't know. Maybe
we could have done it with 10 and it
taken you a little longer. Like that's
that's a mystery. The hard part is is
these models are so new until you put it
in front of millions of people and
understand how they're using it. It's
difficult. I tend to the pattern I've
been doing right now and do not take
this as a hard rule because I'm still
figuring this out is I'll go into
projects where I have more routine
stuff. I'm like, "Hey, I just need you
to check this thing is working." You
know, I need you to check for something
here. I had a project I'm working on
with Justin that's running a very very
big bill every month and I needed to see
if there was any efficiencies there and
I'm like oh I just need 5.6 soul is
fine. It can go in there and check you
know the costs on stuff and I'd say
things that models were good at before
just keep using the older models for
things that are harder for it to do go
to Astra. As as a matter of fact, just
today I posted the bonus episode for
Great Knight and I asked I was like,
should I upgrade this thread to Astro 6
and it says no, it's fine. Everything
works. Look at the last seven posts.
Don't change nothing.
Yeah. You know, so I I tend to I've been
doing a lot of smaller stuff, too, like
using Luna, like in chat GPT, like I had
I have to go to Ecuador next week to do
a presentation. I need to go over my
slides. I'm like, I'll have Luna go look
at it. Luna's perfectly good at stuff.
You know, my instinct is always I'm
going to use the best thing for
everything. But I've had some stuff
where I did it and I'm like, ah, I I
didn't need to use the super big
powerful model on the Ultra to do this.
That was dumb.
>> Yeah.
>> But it's it's it's eventually the models
will get better at knowing and they they
actually Astra is interesting because in
theory it can decide how much reasoning
it to use.
Yeah, the uh I have noticed this is the
only thing close to a complaint is
they'll be like 10% of my compute will
go and it's like so what did you
accomplish and it's like I rehearsed
adding four records and it's just like
all right well I'm not entirely sure
how you know whether or not the project
is just too uh you know exponentially
split or what on
I I will say
this is the first model where I have
noticed a personality difference. Its
personality is naturally flat
comparatively
to soul. And I only really noticed it in
uh my food tracking because like
whenever I would food track with soul,
it would be very kind of like, okay,
here's where you are and here's what you
have and here's where you know you're at
in in in the day. That means that you're
about this far through your protein.
about this partah
Astra's like here's my breakfast
breakfast logged
here are your calories and it's like
it's like okay it is very it like just
the facts ma'am and I wonder how much of
that is on purpose because they know
that it's a model that is in incredibly
curious and wants to check and recheck
and try to figure out xyz and so it's
like they don't want it to be chatty
because
you know, that's just going to be more
tokens when they know it's already a
token hog, but it is far flatter to to
talk to.
>> Yeah. Do do we have any idea from the
outside view of when the training
happened for this? Like uh you know, we
assume that inside the Wonka factory
everything's at various stages of close
to completeness. Like if we're going
back in time, for example, Justin, the
fact that Astra is flat, like if I go
back in time, does that mean that maybe
the problem of syphy was was very public
at the time that they were training
this?
>> Oh, this would have been a really recent
run like months ago. Like um they uh the
model the model called Bell, which they
used for the Neville Stokes uh problem.
um that had only been trained like a
couple weeks ago. started training. It
only started training in a couple like
the
>> the rate at which new models are being
trained and delivered is now going to be
measured in like a couple months or
weeks like the fast like that's how fast
it is and that's also you know Astra
they sat on they sat on it for several
weeks though because of that but yeah
they've been the&D and all that that's
been they've been post 40 like tons and
tons of updates into that what I'd say
it's I think Justin mentioned this
before the thing that's sort of slept on
is until you use it like you look at a
capability see like 20 different things
like ah this thing's better here this
thing's better here computer use is
insane and computer use is literally
take over my computer and do stuff and
it is it is somebody made some comment
like well Apple always own the ecosystem
because they control apps I'm like
what's an app like like like like you
know I want to edit video and now
they're showing plugins for Unity and Da
Vinci and all these you know computer
graphics and you know video projects and
stuff but also it's kind like I kind of
like I don't know like do I even need
you know do I need you know does maybe
as Adobe just licensed me some really
cool filters and stuff that I just have
my you know my system do itself like
kind of getting into like what does an
app need to be
and that's where you know
we
we look at goes back to the duo thing
where it's like you know we think about
a laptop and mobile computing is I need
the hardware
to do the, you know, resource intensive
work of editing, right?
But do I need that in this world? Do I
just need a point and shoot? So, I'm
shooting a bunch of vlog stuff and it's
going into a box that's uploading to a
server and then is using either computer
use on a remote server with another app
that already has these tools built in or
as Andrew mentioned now it's just
totally deconstructed and just built
into some kind of operating system
that's that's swimming around on a
server and then it just spits back to me
a first cut and now I'm just
what I really need at that point is a
sophisticated screening room app where I
can pause at specific points, be like,
h, trim that, do that, that needs to be
quicker, watch the I mean, like
yesterday I did PX3 clips. This has been
a bugaboo of mine forever as being a
oneman band doing, you know, a million
different shows. It's a pain in the ass
to do promo and it takes time out of my
day and the work that needs to be done
on it, the time that needs to be done on
it is just not I I can't afford to pay
the the rightful wage to somebody to put
the time and effort into it. But, you
know, if I can throw this into Cap Cut
and it can put stuff out and then I can
just get to notes where it's like, hey,
on this um animation
the text is staying on staying on screen
longer than the animation goes. Just
make sure that the it uh the text goes
before the animation goes boom done.
It's like these are these are truly
shocking creative abilities. like these
are next level and what it does is again
just brings online the ability to be out
there and and I think we're going to
build
entirely new systems for delivering
content like this like at maybe to the
point where I don't need to do waterfall
video things to advertise a show that
people might not want to listen to.
There's different ways that this gets to
people, but like uh yeah, it's
it's insane. And I I think it's going to
rapidly revolutionize what we think we
want in hardware.
>> I have run into a couple times where
when it does project based stuff and
sometimes it'll surprise you where it's
like you think you're just finding out
an answer and then it says, "Made it for
you, boss." And you get something that's
not quite right, but it's enough right
that you're like, "Whoa." Um, there's
this moment where it formatted. I was
working on an email to send out on
Mailchimp and it went ahead and it made
everything with its own custom HTML and
it was close enough to write, but then I
went to go make a change and because
everything was custom made in HTML, I I
would there was no grabbing like move
this picture down here. And so it's
like, well, either I gotta reaw reawaken
my HTML memories or I have to write a
paragraph. And what I ended up doing was
taking a screenshot and then literally
drawing arrows this here or whatever,
which felt a bit clujy than I'd like. So
I I would imagine that enough other
people are having the same problem that
in the future they would probably, you
know, I don't I don't know. Most of the
problems I encounter, I assume other
people are encountering the same problem
and there'll be a fix for it.
>> Yeah, it's it's you know, now there's
more people there to try to figure out
and prioritize what that and they they
make a lot of these little simpler
improvements along the way. Um,
you know, and it's also like you get to
the point where if you can keep getting
the price of if you can keep getting
more compute efficient, you know, one of
the things that's interesting that they
talked about with Astra is the tokens do
more, right? And it's it's hard because
people like, "Oh, this model, the tokens
are this cheap or this model costs
more." Like tokens aren't always equal
anymore. Like tokens can have a lot more
intelligence behind them and what
they're able to do. And so you get to a
point in theory where it's like, I'll
make you 20 versions. Choose the one you
like best. I'm done, boss. You know, um
the, you know, spoiler alert, there's
not enough compute on the planet planned
or in people's heads to be able to
handle the demand that we're heading to.
an open eye. Like we made fun of
Anthropic when they had to uh throttle
people with uh Claude and uh cut off
like selling subscriptions to that.
Well, guess what? Uh you know, thinking
about getting an extra $200 a month
subscription to get the extra tokens.
You can't. They suspended that right
now.
>> Oh, did they really? Yeah. You can't you
cannot buy a new $200 subscription.
>> I mean, that was like the best deal in
the world to be honest with you. Like
that was just just
I mean
>> very happy to be on the space arc is all
I'm going to say.
>> Yeah. I seemed pretty foolish six months
ago. Pretty extravagant. I'm glad I
bought in.
>> Yeah. I think if you could resell those,
I think they're worth a lot. Um
so, uh bit of a brewhaha last couple
days.
>> Yeah, let's talk about it. Look, we have
a lot of fancy toys. What is it going to
mean when we're all dead?
>> At least in 10% of the scenarios, uh,
according to a man that nobody had heard
of.
>> Oh, is this a case of of this is the
dude who quit and said the right scary
thing that the whole world wanted to
hear?
>> He quit twice. Number one, he quit
OpenAI to go to Anthropic and then
Anthropic. He quit. He wrote a viral
tweet and um
you know through whatever means we can
have a discussion as to how news
spreads.
Uh he got a lot of attention not only on
in the media but also in politics and it
has reignited
uh a political will to
shut down AI, slow AI, control AI.
Um, you know, you match that with the
hugging face stuff, uh, and you a lot of
anxiety.
>> Did didn't Anthropic like announce a
fourth uh hacking incident or something?
That was what the headline said.
>> There there have been a few.
>> Yeah,
>> a few.
>> Regrets. Oh, I've had a
>> Yeah, I mean this guy it's
I mean I've been too deep into this but
you know I on one hand I'm like I get
tired of dumerism on the other hand I'm
also like nothing's going to go wrong
it's fine nothing we build can hurt us
I'm like oh okay uh I mean this this guy
kind of was frustrating to me because
you know it's the same thing you know
10% why why 10 I get it you you're like
well I need to give you a number well
then it's not a number. You're just
saying you got concerns, but you know,
if you don't put a number on it, people
don't take it seriously, but you know,
it's not a serious number. And I've got,
you know, I have an alumni group, a
bunch of open eye people, and people are
putting numbers on stuff. And I'm like,
God, this is just the numbers don't mean
anything.
>> I know the three of us are big fans of
the work of Michael Kiteon, who in one
of his speeches pointed out that the
famous Drake equation about estimating
whether or not there's alien life out
there. And you picture a fraction of of
stars that have planets. what fraction
have the right ingredients for life and
what fraction of those and ultimately
all of it sounds very scientific but as
Michael Kiteon pointed out uh to be
clear this is nothing but a confession
of your biases of your preconceived
notions they every one of these fancy
sounding numbers are you tattling on
yourself with your madeup supposition of
what it's going to be and and that is
very frustrating when it comes to
calculating poom which sounds so Very
impressive.
>> Yeah, I that's been my issue. It's just
it's it's it's it's a BS number. Like
you can say I have concerns. These are
my concerns. These is the areas. But
when you try to put your and again it's
I'm in circles where it's very
fashionable to talk about your pedum
risk and I'm like
on I don't know and not in a helpful
way. Um I I but I would say here's the
thing is that I watched one guy write a
thing like yeah the hunking face thing
it wasn't like the agents decided to
their own valition to go do this they're
given a task they did this like great
and then he's like and then it gets like
you know point two and then as far as we
know like open eye the models can't do
this math because it probably copy the
problem like no you're wrong so you're
in this world where you're expecting
these things not to be very good which
is why you feel safe and I'm sorry these
things are getting better I just had to
go through my slides for a few months
ago that I do for my talks and pull out
stuff about brittleleness because
brittleleness isn't an issue anymore
with these models. They're extremely
capable and can function for long
horizons. I had to pull out like 15
slides have been outdated and most
people don't update their thinking. Like
I'm like these models are much you look
at Astra and you see how much it
perseveres to solve a problem, how long
it will work and it's good. We're seeing
agent coordination. We're seeing all
these capabilities here that are real.
And so my concern, my primary concern is
what mischief of a bad actor can do. And
OpenAI and Anthropic, you know, the the
model that went and did the hugging face
attacks was a model that was apparently
in training was trained to do a lot more
reward hacking, but also extremely pro,
you know, robust model. If I was another
government or maybe even our government
and I wanted to have the ability to take
down other infrastructure, I would say,
"Oh, well, I just need to take this
recipe and train a model to do that so
that I can then aim it at my targets
that I want to do." Those things are
real. Now, I can go on about the
safeguards and why I'm not like I'm not
as worried about I'm I'm feel more set
confident now than before. That's the
thing you can do and that's a world we
live in where somebody could say I will
build a thing that all it does is
generate worms all day fishing things
all sorts of stuff and do that and you
could do a lot of bad I just think we
have to be prepared for that world I
don't think you stop that world I think
you just build better tools
>> I and that is a huge task that where I
think the conversation
is today
is that there are I think good voices
out there that are saying, "Well,
regardless of what you think about your
10% existential risk, there's a today
problem that exists where agent swarms
are real.
We need to build tools that understand
that this is going to be a thing." And
it it could be humans. It could be, you
know, uh uh something that that
continues on chained on from somebody
starting a thing uh uh down the road.
But like we we need to understand this
is a real problem. This is an active
problem.
Uh as for the the the the Doom thing, I
was talking to Brian about this a couple
days ago.
Obviously there's been a lot of
conversation about robots, artificial
intelligence getting out of hand since
Turing, right? Since the earliest
conversations of this, it has been
fixated on the idea of what happens when
it becomes smarter than us and what
happens when it is not controllable by
by humans. And I'm not here to step on
any of that conjecture. Although I dare
say that
for smart people, it can get into naval
gazing. How many angels can dance on the
head of a pin territory a little bit
earlier for me than some people who like
to talk about it a lot would would like
to probably admit themselves. All I
would ask is this.
If your P doom is 10%.
What then is your P delight? the idea
that uh uh these tools are going to
solve all disease and hunger and we will
live forever because
>> the p eternity
>> p eternity whatever you'd like to call
it because I would dare say that based
solely on the evidence that we have seen
now
this technology has leaned very clearly
one way more than the other. The the
most demonstrable problems that we have
had with this technology have been in
benchmark tests where we're trying to
figure out how dangerous they can be.
It's like, yes, we've determined that a
gun can fire 500 bullets a minute. When
did we figure it out? In the how many
bullets can we fire contest? That's how
that's that's where we set the record.
It's like, yeah, that's really
dangerous. We should understand that a
gun can do that. Okay, good. Meanwhile,
we have seen medical breakthroughs,
we've seen scientific breakthroughs, and
we've seen mathematical breakthroughs.
We solved wind this week. And the
biggest conversation around it was who
did it first. Like so we had I mean that
I mean like wrap your head around how
much we can do now that we've solved
wind like in architecture and aerospace
like this is this is a fundamental
breakthrough that to me says we're a lot
closer
to infinite good than we are to infinite
bad. But you know I'm just a barking dog
on the internet. I'm not in the right
Berkeley group houses, so what the hell
do I know?
>> The I I do like framing it because it
does correct nicely for the rhetorical
problem of of essentially doing the
Drake equation of trying to put a number
on your your likelihood of doom. Like
I'm willing to from an argument
standpoint seed that PDOM should be
nonzero nonzero chance that we humans
are replaced. Uh, but I I really like
what you've done, Justin, in that you
must also admit that there's a nonzero
chance that this technology cures the
fact that our our cells are designed to
self-destruct once we've procreated.
That seems like a fixable hardware
problem. So, what is your nonzero
version of that?
I yeah I think that we we forget you
know every year x number of people die
cancer is real you know given and yet
you can act you can go existential to
civilization also for personally what is
the chances that you know we're going to
be adding 20 30 healthy years to
everybody's lifetime which it seems
likely I don't and also like I don't
yeah the existential stuff like I I do
think that uh it's funny the guy that
was out there talking about you know the
the his doom scenario is saying like,
well, the problem is these models can
just copy themselves. It's like, well,
like, yeah, but you know,
>> but it's like, wait, what what are they
going to fight over the the the the
clock cycles that are avail like like
that's the ultimately that's the
machinery, the gizmo?
>> Yeah. I don't I mean, I don't I'm I I
play with like, you know, really highly
capable models that run on a device and
something. And there's the thing, but
it's kind of like you kind of you gotta
you gotta got to ground yourself
somewhere. I think that the, you know,
when we developed civilization and
culture, you know, when when when a
group of humans got together and said,
you know, if we hunt together, we can
get more of, you know, these mammoths or
deer, whatever the hell we're hunting
right now. And I think other humans were
kind of scattered like, oh my god, what
are we going to do? They they they can
they can move together. They can
coordinate. And it's like, what if we do
that, too? And then we actually found
out like the real thing is cooperation
and trade. And boom, we ended up this
civilization we have today. And I think
that's the path forward as civilization
and cooperation etc. Um I'm optimistic.
I I think that the the key is that
everybody learning how to use this stuff
getting smart about it is good. Like I
think the problem is my fear is that we
will get like we get terrible terrible
knee-jerk reactions from Bernie Sanders
which is you know if you develop AI you
should 20 years in jail. It's like okay
let's say you you pass that rule right
now. What is your China solution? Like
like
>> put China in jail.
>> Yeah. Like like are we you know you may
think that they're actually who knows
but like like where do you think we are
five years from now? Where do you think
it happens when all of your best experts
who've been working on this problem are
now in jail and you find out that your
entire grid and everything else has been
taken out by you know Chinese, Russians,
whoever you want. Cool. That's where you
get us. It's terrible. That's suicidal.
Like to me that's just suicidal. The
smart approach is it's like nuclear. or
why haven't we developed a nuclear bomb?
The United States would say, "No, nobody
else knows nuclear. No, we're all going
to want nuclear." Well, then we last
time a nuclear bomb was used in warfare
was 1945, you know. Yeah. Um,
>> and everybody predicted everybody
predicted, well, we're gonna we're gonna
we're going to use it. It's going to
happen. It's going to come up. Guess
what? 80 years later, 80 years later,
maybe one crazy Russian guy might
actually try to use it right now. But 80
years without using a nuclear bomb,
>> which which to to be fair for anybody
who's bristling at at our hot takes. Uh
we are not aware of the uh negative
externalities and the concern and and
all of that stuff. But but what boy oh
boy do we see some hysteria that that
that is hard for us.
>> I I
>> I want I want to stop the Leites from
giving us all cancer.
>> That's my goal. I would like to stop the
Leites from giving everyone I love and
hate cancer.
>> I I am I am okay with with the AI labs
now talking about like, hey, we're going
to pace our development to make sure
that our tools catch up. I don't have a
problem with that. I And I am like very
much put your foot on the accelerator
kind of guy. I'm like, yeah, now now is
the time to learn how to build
robustness stuff like this. I don't
think you shut things down and stop. I
think that you you know, we've seen from
hugging face, we've seen these instances
things that like containment issues,
those are real. Those are real and we're
only hearing about those from the
responsible labs. By the way, we don't
know what's going on. If if every time
you get a new deepseek model, they say
this is capable. Cool. Do we get a you
know, I man, one of these things I
thought was hilariously terrible take. A
guy on on Twitter's like, you know,
these Chinese researchers, you know,
they're not they're not negative or
doomers because they've seen all the
positive growth they've gotten from all
the benefits of of capitalism and
technology. And I'm like, um, I wouldn't
put too much confidence in Chinese
researchers being honest about
existential risk on stuff.
>> Can I tell you this is this is my
favorite, um, dumb take from smart
people. And I won't say who it is. No, I
will. It's Derek Thompson. He was like
like, "Oh, are we sure? Are we sure?" If
this is the US versus China, which I'm
increasingly I don't like that framing.
It is us versus death. That's the
that that's that's the race that I care
about. I care about humans versus death.
I I mean like I I think we can and will
beat China and that is something that we
need to focus on. But if we're just
going to say USA versus China, is China
really a threat? Are you telling me that
China, famous for being repressive and
obsessive about control over
information, that they would allow a
technology this powerful? Are you sure
that they wouldn't restrict it? And it's
like, okay, I'm going to give you two
hypothetical scenarios. Let's say
theoretically that Chinese researchers
had figured out how to make a uh a
social media technology that was so
addictive people couldn't get off their
phones and they released it worldwide
but then crippled and restricted it only
in China so they would make sure that it
was not as sticky in amongst their
population as it would be other places
because they would want the disruption
other places they would like to keep
their people at a certain level. Oh,
yeah. You mean Tik Tok, a thing that
actually happened? Oh, okay. Well, then
let's also focus on maybe No, that's not
a military issue. Let's focus on a
military issue. Let's say the military
was involved to try to keep uh uh uh
experiments for viology secret
>> and that they weren't able to do it and
it broke loose. Do you think that we'd
be able to rely on them to be truthful
and honest about how things happened
even if millions of people's lives were
on the line? Oh, I guess we couldn't do
that either because that literally just
happened. Both of these happened in the
last five years. These are not good
arguments to just say, are we sure China
wouldn't want to do it? It's so stupid.
>> It's al it's also I would just say very
ignorant of like what goes on in China.
Like not not rumor but like you know in
China anytime you have a lot of controls
controlled by the regional governors and
anytime you have a high death to hole or
mass casualty event the governors are
held accountable. They get pulled in
front of the CCB. Why did this happen?
Why do you have to unsafe thing? So
you'll see this number. It's called like
like the 29 number or something like
that. Anything over 30, you get called
before the principal's office and asked
why did this happen? Anything under like
that, that's normal. So you'll see this
number like 29 29 29 29. The number of
casualties 29 29. And you have a system.
It's the same problem the Soviet Union
happened that lies to itself. That lies
to itself. There are no Nick Shirley's
in China. You know, if California has
its way, there will be no Nick Shirley
in California.
>> Nick Shirley.
>> Yeah, there are none. There are none.
There are there are no John Staceilles.
There are no FactFinders. The the the
funniest comedian in China, you know, is
not going to go like John Stewart did
and go on the Late Show the Tonight Show
or whatever show and talk about like,
hey, maybe it's a lab leak. Does not
happen. There is no They will they will
they will complain endlessly about
parking situations and stuff like that.
Municipal stuff like my Chinese friends
like they're very very happy to tell you
how pissed they are at the mayor and
very pissed at all this other sorts of
stuff. beyond a certain point there's
absolutely none of that. So like Yeah.
Like that's that's just it's such a
midwit take of like you know
>> Yeah. You got any picks, guys?
>> Uh
>> uh.
>> You go ahead.
>> Yeah. I haven't been on in a while. Um
>> did we talk I think we to we we talked
about lanterns, right?
>> Yeah, we talked about lanterns. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> It is. It is getting I mean every
episode there's a Lindelof writer room
stuff that just comes through and I'm
like, "Oh man, did you pull that out of
a script from four years ago?" Because
you're just waiting to use that.
>> I
I I read in the reviews before the first
episode even came out, I heard the word
uneven and but I like the first two
episodes enough that I'm like uneven or
no, I'm in. And and it has been uneven.
But I'm still looking forward to episode
five.
>> Yeah, I haven't finished the latest
episode. I I've been enjoying it.
>> Better. Yeah, there's just stuff in
there where it's just the the the the
very hamfisted political correctedness
kind of stuff and the way thinking like
you're it's you know you're I'm getting
getting a character trying to explain
the situation of you know the the black
experience of America who also likes to
shoot you know have her husband shoot
apples off his son's head and risking
him gun violence and stuff. I'm like I
don't know your message here. It is a
little schizophrenic and uh in that it
uses comic book logic and then very
grounded real uh political issue logic
and uh uh in episode three there was
>> why has that ever happened in a Lindelof
directed comic book adaptation before
though
>> uh the in in the third episode there was
there was an arc that didn't make any
sense to me and I'm like why is this
even here and then you know I see the
headlines the next day breathlessly
saying at last the comic book backstory
is reconciled with the cartoon backstory
and I'm like, "Oh, we're doing some four
Gospels of the New Testament
reconciliation stuff here." All right.
Yeah. I I I mean, you know, my my take
on stuff is I I'll sit down and I'll
watch, you know, I'll watch, you know,
CCP movie, a Scientology orientation
video, whatever you want. Just make it
entertaining. just make it entertaining.
You know, some of my favorite artists
are absolutely batshit crazy as far as
I'm concerned politically, but they do
great stuff and I'll still enjoy it and
and still enjoy it. So,
>> we'll see. I hope it there's there's
been some I'm like, "All right, like
this is just,
>> you know, like in the moment and they
stood up and clapped in the writing
room, you know, when somebody read this
book."
Uh,
>> but I'd say my pick was uh what I loved
was uh still Spider-Man Brand New Day.
>> Brian hates it.
>> Uh, no, it's just my
>> Brian hates it. Every time you bring it
up, he spits on the ground and says fi
on Spider-Man's life. I hate Brand New
Day. It's a bad movie.
>> It was good. It was good. It's my third
or fourth favorite Spider-Man movie.
>> I I think that I think that people have
takes. I do. I think that because it is
very interesting because I think
rankings say you I think we may talked
you mentioned your ranking. I mentioned
my ranking. I think that it's just
they're we get different things out of
them, you know, and and and like I don't
I don't hold the Sam Ramy stuff in high
regard. I like Sam Ramy. I think they
were fine for the day they came out, but
I don't go back and rewatch those and go
great. I go like this was a good first
attempt at a Spider-Man movie, you know.
Um I like the first Garfield one. The
second one I was okay with. And then,
you know, I the Spider-Man um
uh No Way Home. I'm like, I liked it,
but I was like, man, it was it it felt
overstopped for this. But like, yeah, I
think again, it's what I like. There's
Spider-Man for everybody.
>> Yeah. I don't know whether or not this
is a pick, but since the dawn of codeex,
I have been looking for a good
text me clean text message integrated
scheduler,
a gentic scheduler where I can just
through text it can remind me things.
And so I'm trying out I don't know if I
like it yet, but I'll update you guys
later. Have you heard of Instinct?
>> What is it?
>> Instinct?
>> No, I don't know what that is. Have you
heard it, Maine?
>> I've probably seen the name somewhere,
but I have no idea.
>> It's buzzy currently.
>> Well, not that buzzy of Brian like
>> Brian. Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm
super into this. I saw it mentioned
enough on Twitter that I was like, "All
right, let me try it." Um, it's on a
wait list now. Uh,
but it is an agentic scheduler. You give
it access to your calendar. Um,
and it can just text you at the
beginning of the day and say,
"Oh, there we go. Yeah,
personal assistant.
>> Look at this website. It is Times New
Roman Pot just like a notepad. It says
Instinct contact San Francisco,
California. Email coms at instinct.co.
Instinct is a personal assistant that
understands what you're working on and
what's important to you. It connects to
your applications and devices. Blah blah
blah blah blah. It's currently available
to private access group as we're scaling
up compute. Well, they're certainly not
wasting compute on a pretty website. It
may well be AI as in actually Indians. I
don't know. Um
but uh it is it is interesting
currently.
>> So you're am I right in understanding
Justin that you're an existing member in
which case I would like to request an
invitation?
>> I can I can give you although I'd be
curious if you tried to get on. I got on
I did not have an invite from anybody
and I got on within 12 hours. So
>> I'm I'm like I mean it's cool but I'm
like I'm so hesitant to get into any of
these things because I just look at how
much Codeex improves all the time.
>> You want to know what though? I've just
had a problem with integrating messages.
Just having it talk to me through
my messages. Like that's that's just
been
>> Well, they just added messages
integration a week ago. So
>> I know I know. But this has been
cleaner. It's been cleaner than what I
had tried to do myself and and
>> uh I've tried to do it
>> a few times. I've tried to build myself
a version of this a few times and it's
always been janky. Uh this has been at
least initially cleaner, but I'm not I'm
not giving it my full recommendation
just yet because I just got on it a
couple hours ago. you you you know what
there's a uh codeex use that I forgot to
mention but you know now that that it
integrates with iMes on a Mac as you
guys know I managed to buy my very first
Mac just in time for codecs to come to
PC but I found a delightful use for it
which is uh uh I had it go through IMA
messages and I said find every text
thread that doesn't have a proper
contact to it see if you could sus out
who that person is and uh and then make
it complete and then and as a result I'm
just going back year after year after
year and it's able to figure out like
well from the context it looks like you
were at Defcon. I checked your calendar
you were definitely there in the
background of the selfie that you took
with this person. You can see that
they're at this booth. So uh uh I looked
up online and they almost certainly are
this person and I'm like yeah great. And
so as a result, my my half skeletal
contact book is phone book is yearbyear
becoming whole. It's really great.
>> Yeah, I I'm
good luck to you, Justin. Uh with this
platform that you're putting all your
stuff into and connecting everything
into that's going to be obsolete in a
couple months. Um
>> I'll be happy to cancel it.
>> I'll be happy. still be happy to delete
all your data, I'm sure.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, cool.
>> I mean, at this point, what the I mean,
>> what are we even talking about when it
comes to our data?
>> Well, gentlemen,
it's been weird.
>> Nailed it.
Uh
>> uh, boys, I do have to leave because I
got to get my car. My car is in the
shop.
>> Actually, I actually have an important
to-do. I don't think I could do after
things today either. Um, is it okay if
we punt on that one?
>> Yeah, sure.
>> Okay. All right. Well, here I'm going to
bid a fond ad to all of our live
viewers. Thank you guys so much for
joining us. We will see you guys next
time.