Before we start? I just want to say last week we were at south by southwest, we did a live episode. You can check out. It was at slack headquarters, slack city at south by southwest it was very cool, very fun. Thanks again to slack for having us the go. Listen that it's in the feed. We talked a lot about them in support, for Podcast comes comes from slack and they're. Looking to help make you and your team work better slack as a productivity platform that connects all your team members together instantly. Its builds help your team with a host of features like for quick chickens and clips for recording and sharing video slack. All It makes it easy to search and find the right information you need. You can even integrate the apps you use in your normal workflow, like your calendar or project management tools, to steak acted on the work that matters and get more john learn more at slack dot com, slash productivity, which late it's easier than ever, to drive electric with a growing network of public charging stations, with my chevy up that lets you easily find charging locations near you, you can take your chevy

just about anywhere chevy has been making. these for more than a decade. So you can feel secure wherever the road takes you, knowing that you can find more than nineteen hundred certified chevy evie dealerships across the country, chevy, giving you the confidence to go electric, visit, chevrolet, dot, com, slash, electric, to learn, more the I welcome the vote. Cast reflection, podcast at all implications. What We pivoted this entire show to just like moon, crystals and ike lunar wisdom. What I Getting from the internet at this point in time is that might be more lucrative than journalists first, while I suspect me

pod casts might be an even more competitive space in business or to act like it's like guys. We can take it that jason cow harrison david sacks by moon people director is too to loaded I'm your friend the eye. The servers ass, its actually puck asked about technology. Adjust the technology implicates. Moon and a very serious way our hands here, I'm the dark side of the bed. There we got, that was a lazy joke, sorry, It was not great other best album and every format throughout history very confusing, album yeah they vicious. Here. I am your friend who, over the last five years, has been totally erratic. eyes into believing the moon doesn't even exist. There is also the idea of what we are doing. This was going to happen in the real world If the ai moon, reporter james and sincere, I am on the moon right now, as we speak, can I tell you my my favorite silliest culture war moment is when, like a

She knew right wing, not jobs. Looked at them, the issue of pink floyd socks, side of the moon, which very famously has a rainbow going through a prism and her this band is woke, this sort of like polite water. you're talking about that occurred after it was, it was just a choice of choice moment, sir. This is a tower records the same getting I would start quickly with a moon update. So if you must know shots at my south west, you know There are some extremely important breaking news about them, and maybe the most diverse story in the history of the world, which is that, samson involving other companies, have been processing photos of the moon taken taking office. Smartphones increasingly aggressive ways and samson. Particular emphasis as a lot of funds and states. People have been trying photos testing, I'm seeing the limits of the processing, a rabbit user, discovered that you could. You can take a photo Where is out of the moon, and the samson system would add detail back into the further sewed

imposed, each other was not in the original trot. However, it still the moon so the philosophical implication of what is the moon is David said: can lead you to go absolutely haywire aims samsung has attempted to assuage? You wrote the original story here, some curious, what you think the moon. Is and whether, through its assets, has not responded to this story with an explanation of what its eyes during the first is basically an english translation of the dream, like those that already exist, and a little bit more detail in second does not appear to be all that convincing or actually explanatory I so I mean I've been covering this with another uk based proposal. My colleague John porter, and We we've sort of been having weaving, get the the weeds getting into philosophical arguments, about what is the difference between taking a photo and creating an image, and I think that for me that distinction you take a photo, you could

an image is sort of the that. The crux of this difficulty about what's happening is basically something of cop to everything that this red posts said that there are in details essentially, and from that point of view that you say well, we know people try to take nice, spiders of the moon. We trained a combination of neural network, which is sort of quite now, an old fashioned form of machine learning muddle, but is a small enough to run on offer we train the images of the moon and when we think you're taking a picture, the moon, we use that to suppress it up and make a lot more. Like the moon, I end you know. I think this is a fascinating age case gives you really can't do it with many things: the moon, the man, the moon,

It's the same. It's the same to everyone, famously we only get to see one side of the moon at any one point. The other side, as woke as I've, been led to believe. That's where I'm at the other side is one huge pride flag and the government does not want you to see that, but you only ever see one side of the moon. You see it in various rotations and there is a really interesting thing called the libration of the moon, which is essentially how it wackos an x axes and exposes bit to the edge anyway. So everyone is always looking at the moon from the earth that which makes it really easy thing for a neural network to improve and turned it into his it's nice picture, and it also happens to be this fantastic marketing. Make a new there's. These adverts form for some. His phones where they show off. You know that we're doing all these phronsie things and I'm one of them is gonna, be taking a picture. The moon, anymore,

with them. You know they obviously have the the sampson can reverse is a telescope and the sampson camera takes a better photo of the moon and everyone's really impressed like. I think it is just this really unique conjunction of technical and the inability of marketing marketability and then exposes what others on our side have written about Alison Johnson did a fantastic piece about this. Talking about how you know, photography on smart phones is thing ever more and more towards computational, rather than optical data. Shall we say- and that is the balance that I think people are trying to try to understand and that's the difference for me between taking a photo and creating an image where there is more optical. there is more computation of the moon happens to be an example where it can shift really far towards the computational, and that is why it is caused this sort of explosion of what outrage, I'd, say but dismay and also who doesn't want to put

a headline that says the moon is fake and I've been one again and again, and I was very jealous that you are able to palestine, and I will say The there like clips of us on the hasta spot forms. If you like freedom, They think for mad. I'm sure the joy and I want to live in the story for the rest of my life I will say to complicate your dialectic there. James, yes, professional photographers, have called it making a photo for, everyone right, because there they are deeply aware that their choices in lighting in exposure and treatment, all that stuff are intentionally, has two choices that they make along the way, and they are not. You know just like taking a photo they're like making they're they're, making choices. I made that he talked to any professional photographers, which you can just find them to talk, and they will talk at you fearlessly about this. Very careful that that what they're doing is making further so that that little dichotomy

that little tension in the world has existed for an extraordinarily one time. What I would ask you is direct. The moon is assessed. it's all of this work if it were doing all this work, here's this whole flowchart from samsung that you can look at, and it's like this. worth it should you just paste in them like it's it's always the same like. Why are we doing all the work in theirs Think about doing all that work. That makes it honest, or at least are you honest, as opposed we noticed that you are taking a picture of the moon. It turned the moon is always the same. Here's a clip, art moon, we are yet some notion of authenticity. Isn't it, and this is what people who have agreed that something is facing these image. I think that is what they are annoyed about. They feel it is inauthentic and, as you say, you are right professional photographers, we have been aware of these choices for ever since cameras were thing and I think a son.

The explanation is basically what we put so much work into it. It can't be a bad thing and I think That's not what people are annoyed about, they're, not denying that this work involved there saying that you know, maybe societies is really artificial. I don't know it makes me sound like on posting on facebook. Again, if I go, you know what guys ivy things really fake right. Now, I'm smart fake, as in the world for the phone is you know it's real moon, crystals. Ninety. Ninety nine was every month outside that that I am also sorry that Why you just described is really interesting because it's like, if you were to just like take out your samson phone and say like bixby, take a picture of the moon for me. Do a lot of the same work and figure out where you are. What time of day it is what the weather is like and conceivably use relatively similar technology to get you a picture of the moon would look like the moon. As you see it now that I think would feel much worse to people than this.

Being functionally, not all that different, so that there's something about like I'm, pointing a camera at it, and I am doing something that feel better. where that line is. But if you like, that's where this has come up and there's been this big argument- and I think everybody is right- which is my favorite part about this right, where there's like the proposed I there's some people who are wrong and there in the Surrender up up up up, some of whom were wrong with our people who were like of this is exactly simpson should be doing you. Why would you want to take a crappy picture of them? and when samsung is able to give you a better picture of the moon totally valid point. I completely agree with it. There are other people who were like this is not the photo. I just took what the hell is. This thing that you're giving me- and I also think there right and it's a sense of in this, like weird philosophical, question, which is, I think why this has been so much fun for eight years. I want you to do. I wish to make a volume metric scan of your new baby feed. It into blunder emulate. What I need you to do is age this baby over time and then just take for

those are the three him off what I was like that's kind of what we're talking yeah the moon's, a little more static than David's baby. Presumably point we're just world. she will smith, the I generated young will smith instead will smell like I am in what he said. By the way it did just want to be very sucked really really badly, but interrupted this really great piece this week about astro photographers and like their reaction to the moon photo and they were like yeah. We do that. All the time like in astro photography, they're, like yeah we take like crummy pictures go into photoshop and we, the hell out of them, and then allow the stars are there and this very normal for us, and so there are again This is also normal same sex, doing it think samson. I think, starting from the assumption that bad pictures are bad and you should make them not as bad is both not

terrible assumption and also what every camera manufacture is doing like Google's out. Removing things from the background of your photos. Like you know, Google can do, is just remove the moon, moon and then be like nope no hon, bye, bye moon it's like this is what everybody is doing to different degrees. They're, just saying you don't intend to take bad photos, so, let's hope the old ones, wherever we can and where that line goes wrong. I dont nobody, honesty, for most people is like way down the road where it's like, as my picture is not blurry. I'm a happy man I own, I warn quick point I agree with that totally like what what is the point of photography, what its point of hardware is, as you say, David is to help people take good photos, and I think this is something If the ai is really as neal, I said, is going to confuse more and more as it gets more and more accessible and as it's mused into more products, because I saw this sought at the other day, which was like a u boat.

Making bad headshot save yourself for your santa give us your photos. We put them in, and I m a generator and we give you your perfect. I used my minutes from now. They're just gonna, be making David's baby photos that in a business business man we ask for is hustler culture in your way through the internet, the moon rocks are just ninety. Ninety nine they're gonna be re energised or energy, and change your vibes? That's it emerged that come now, wear them I will say this are producer. Has now changed the words we got it Pham. Let's move on from normal to bull, to read, to underline, but I could I can live in the moon story forever, but there is an actual news this week that it was not about. The moon, sadly, were happily defend. When'd you jimmy she for is released from ebony. I google announced I tools and gmail and dogs microsoft, its own eye tools in office. Let's start with jpg, for which, frankly, that the things

will have done with it in just that. The handful of days that it has been publicly available are kind of mind. Blowing James, what's gone on here, so this it's been awaited and hyped and rumored for a long time, g p t three came out in all gosh. Now, twenty twenty two or three point five has been powering chat, g, p t, so people have been waiting for this and has been a lot of pressure on opening our about what they gonna do with this. They have been how's, the roll up and they've, given it to a lotta people already, I feel they've already got it and a lot of products. I think this is the point at which you know the ulip at the first g p t paper, which was in twenty eighteen. Obviously it's a research paper g p t four is straight out of the gate product. It is something that is being used by stripe being used by we stand is being used by your lingo, it being used by all these companies already, and so I think the excitement Magee pity for is that it is a fully fledged product. There are all these

Trusting novelties, you know, load new loan, twitter and you cannot escape some thread of someone say his why'd. You pity for is gonna, be the most revolutionary things to sustain engine since fire since whatever and a lot of those on a tree very impressive, but we ve seen in the past, but technologies like this, that consistency. That truthfulness continue to be big problems for these language models and obviously then we also have the marks of news, which will get to later, that that putting deeply before that using it threat that office sweet in order to help with the sort of drudgery over off his task. So yeah its peace story. It's been everywhere, but people are still really trying to assess how much of a revolution. This is the big thing that it does, that early restorations didn't do is it can understand it can process images as well as text, so you can show it a visual input of some sort, whether that's a meme or a diagram, and it will be able to answer questions for you. One demo of this was you showed a picture of the inside of your fridge. It recognizes what's inside that and gives you recipes to make. However, that is

that's not a skill functionality that is widely available yet so far we ve only got the chat, input and output really available. the public, so yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we're gonna have to process as this sort of rules out and people test it more one of the things that is weird to me. At this roll out and I'm curious how you ve processor james is that, on the one hand, like you, said, is the most product thing open. I has ever done too old degree, is really gets its their charging money for these things now, they're closing their research. We, in not showing people a lot less, but what they're doing which we should get you in a minute, but then at the same time same old man. The ceo of opening, I is, has been out your sandbagging deputy for four. Like me, in every interview. He's like this thing is can be as good as you think. We haven't solved everything he keeps saying like it's less impressive. The longer you use it, which is just a deeply hilarious thing to say about your own product, but what open a. I actually think of this. Do you think so? I think open

Speaking when he's been in these, it's really interesting to look at what he says, depending on who his audience is going to be, and I think when he is speaking, the only saying these things about dumbing down people's expectations he's often speaking to not the mainstream crowd per se, but he speaking to a sort of hardcore of ai researchers within silicon valley, who are very concerned about existential risk. For example, these are people who think that the current path we're on is that ai is going to become. You know this out of control entity that acts on it's own structural action under its own regards such messing up things. It means that in his deputy speaking to them, he saying look guys it's not at that point. You need to come down so he's trying to convey our that it's not the end of the world like little we be asked what he's doing this rhetorical trick. Oh my I gonna shoot before an lighthouses. I think it's called where you bring up some.

in order to say that it's not a thing like I wouldn't. I would never dream of talking about my opponents luxury. I would never even use him of you visiting brothels or whatever is an old minnesota doing that with AI. He saying, oh, do not even worry about this being the world destroying super intelligent computers with internet. We do that so under control, don't even think about it and then suddenly, everyone's going, oh, my god, they're building a super intelligent computer by and I think that's what he's doing as well- is that he is very clever at using people's cultural expectations of ai in order to gin up excitement. And if you look at the trajectory the open ai, been on under his under his command. It's worked fantastic.

Clearly. They are rolling in money. They are beating Google, they are. You know that microsoft is, is working for them in some ways you know in terms of the as yet supercomputer that they ve built for them like open. I are from a sort of business competition standpoint doing incredibly well, and a lot of that is to do with how open masters that sort of rhetoric in here field, but he's also doing it too, like cover up the fact that it is kind of dangerous people do have concerns, and he hasn't addressed any of the facts of like how it can be a major tool for misinforming. right, but as a business stuff at the genuinely the the potential cost of like me, your parts for ending the evidence of the hours. I completely agree. The evidence of that is that they have come goes down. The research function it's open nobody. I is a misnomer. Now they ve closed down and james I've told you that their previous approach to building in the open was, I think, the they actually used when we were wrong flat out wrong was the quote

I got from Elias at schema, who is chief scientist co founder, so he was one of the original seven or eight figures along with oatman, along with elon musk who's. Obviously he is no longer connected with the company who founded open. Ai and again there. They are speaking to this idea of a safety in our risk, and you know the tricky thing about. This is one of the tricky fate of the fascinating thing about it is everyone disagrees Some people think you should have open ai systems, because only the community can truly stress test these things, and I think this enormously. We look what happened. The bing chapel much of icy russia at the most stress tested, but he got stress tested by the entire internet over the space of a couple of weeks, and they you know it on in a way that was very bad for microsoft to put out such a easily breakable product, but I bet microsoft was also pretty happy with the fact that they got all this fascinating and useful data about how to improve it. That. Is why you're so far from no one ever talking about being too alone,

If down like, I think being is in love with me, which is an incredible journey for any brand to go on and I bet they got a lot out of it and, and you know some people think that opening eyes research should be open for the same reason. Others think that, as a schema told me that, because it is now getting potentially dangerous, that means it should be closed off, however, and stress that he gave two reasons he gave. One was the business reason and that we don't want our rivals to copy us, and the second was If the reason in that we think this could be a threat to society, and he said right now. The business reason is foremost, so I think he didn't say. There's someone I should have asked. I reckon, a bit more directly, but I think microsoft is probably had a word. I think at this point the amount of money that microsoft has behind this product and the amount of which that brand his curtly tied to this, I'm what it can do you know we have, then your announcement for them today. I think part I think someone said in the dataset. You know we can't be.

And he secrets away to Google when we are suddenly and a chance to overturn their position in a lot of dominant more in a lot of markets. So a lot of people are incredibly matter aren't because they were united to use the star wars mean they were the chosen one. They were supposed to save ai research by making sure that everything would be developed for the benefit of humanity. That's not part of their original mission statement, and now they are another corporate. So like anyone else, and if you're really worried about, I risk you might now, see them as someone who is accelerating, I risk because they are developing it based on business interests, not an ethical and safety interests. So it's it's a big trouble silver, maybe the most prominent critic, their heels to summarize. Iran has an opinion about something online, but young. The initial investor and of an eye- and I think his sweet was very here- is how my hundred million dollar investment into an opening. I project has turned into a thirty

billion dollar for profit company, which you want baggage aside. That is a view direct statement of the problem. Yes right here is this: This thing that was started as a nonprofit to reduce this risk and has now become a very profitable private company, increasing the risk. Yes yeah it. The tricky thing is that the nonprofit still exists and opener has an incredibly bizarre corporate structure, which I am not fully qualified, to explain all the data for essentially has a nonprofit controlling entity and then a capped profit see that makes all the money and that is controlled by the charter of reopening, and they have this big promise in the nonprofits charted as soon as they think they are. Anyone in the world is two years away from developing a super intelligent api. They will stop all business, what they're doing and work towards helping that project be launched. Finally, now one ways over the very admirable some people say

very admirable to be like? Yes, okay, we'll give that up in order to have the safe thing first, on the other hand, it's also for lots of critics complete bullshit, who has a definition of what super intelligent ai is they can change that whenever they like there is you know if the opening eyes proved anything It's that their extremely valuable and if they prove what that goal. at the moment, is making money from microsoft, as it were, and if you're open, I, the simplest business decision now would be to decide the you're, the one who is two years away and like oh, no, we happened to win this race against, will take all of the money and what's been weird me about this, is on the one hand it does totally fly in the face of everything open. I has ever said about what it wants to be as an organization, but on the other hand, they ve been kind of telegraphing this first, long time and my my running theory for the last six months has been that this happened much much much faster than anybody at opening thought, and that somewhere in the last like twelve months, the the

if team there and frankly, like the whole tech industry, went like. Oh, my god. This is this. Is here like this is real. Now we can do that somebody in Albany I went like owner were we're screwed. If we don't how to do that, and somebody at microsoft, potentially including somebody like searching Adela, was like we need to pull as much of this under our own auspices as possible, and I don't know I just can't stop thinking. Everybody thought this is gonna, be like a twenty twenty seven problem, turned around in like september and was like oh shit. We should probably start doing this now. I think that's a yes or no in our blood, in summer is, if tease the principles that that from microsoft in particular the bourbons about, was nonsense and a. I would The thing were already there right in the background to the good it's been saying eh I was going to be there for ten years like this. Is everybody knew it was coming? I just don't think anybody knew it was here. the thing I savage where all I'm saying that the current administration twitter is bad, does not mean the previous administration was good. Google is just like lost right and, like google

errors along the way to not let people play with the product weren't damaged, it convincingly have created perception that is very far behind whether or not It's true, rightly they're, giving away one of their models, but then the good one lambda, that's the guy thought was alive. We have really Seen it inaction is going it rolled out in some of these products, a james Curious unit of the facebook model was led. You can just like tory at it Weird things have started happening with that model. That has implications for for safety. I think it's going to be the first kind of big test case. happens on these models are just literally me in the meat. time. I don't want to lose sight of this. Things we have seen from jpg for this week are legitimately amazing right there, a photo of a hand drawn sketch of a website in a coded. The website for me and it works, is amazing. I saw one person feed into it code me a game where the right side is pong and I control the paddle.

Side is the game of life. Yet you know bob's like the pixels like breed and kill each other, they worked, it just worked. I can't do it, That is a capability I didn't have now. I can judge. Will it into existence battalion we're about to make it for me, I have seen people fully code, swim dui ios apps. Did you see the one where the guy built an apt that would recommend five movies to him every day you jack, that's me They get such a for. Whatever for me, like all of the chad jpg stuff has just been like a movie recommendation service like an army and whatever, but I can say, like I like hastily yes and I have amazon, prime and netflix. What movie should I watched tonight and it like? Does it successfully and it's incredible- and this guy was just he basically with some back and forth with dvd for it's an app that everyday recommends. Five movies pulls in trailers pulls in information, and it just does it no coding, no nothing, and then, at least according to this thread, basically like copied and pasted it and submitted to the app store it's nuts right. So there's there's something underline that that is important, which is he knew how to

Again, I a lesson in so that In writing. The code by tragedy couldn't do. The word is James, pointing out like a cat he might be able to deduce the nuclear codes, but it can't go push the buttons for him and SAM Altman is like and we'll never let him do that wink wink. this is like yeah. I can write a bunch of swift code because there's a bunch of swift code on the internet for it to look at, but it can't actually put it into excellence, they can actually hit compile. I can't tell you if it's gonna work or not right. This is like examples here are a human being working with vat system almost disappear. Yeah right am I going back and forth together in a way that even the previous jpg three point, five iteration trashy He was not up to that standard to that's really impressive, but the idea that now it's a business and the chief before announcement came with a lot of sort of like api customer announcements, as you were so james now, other businesses can depend on this to run their business. That's the turn, and that's where I think

casey, and so he had it in my former this week that microsoft is like jailing down its ethical ay. I research investment because there too people who say no and now you're like well there's money here, so we're going yes at a higher rate since the turn here, it seems to me, isn't that can't you He got better. The ai has got better. It's that we realized. We could make money, we figured out how to profit off of them, and we found that the profit was better than the potential moral ramifications of seeing this thing that has like, as a major misinformation tool, what J weight with james. You do. You think it's accurate to say that I agree I james I mean calling bullshit if it's bullshit, but that's like my read. I think that is one hundred percent part of the dynamic, and I think that is why this Lack of information that open I released for jpg for four in particular, has stung people because they were founded as a nonprofit where they were supposed to be above the unease, corporate motivations and, obviously they pay

it's- not that that the reason for getting into bed with microsoft was that they needed a huge amount of computing power in order to create the systems and microsoft or some other corporate partner was necessary to provide that, and I I speak to a lot of people in the ai see well- and this is one of the big things that really worried about is the only corporations can build. These systems and corporations have very different incentives. Aven't haven't jobs that are not necessarily aligned with the rest of society, and that is not a controversial statement. You look at annie, I do know the history of any chemical manufacturer dupont or whoever it is Do you know any any any industrial supplier? They will always make decisions where all the consistently make decisions where people safety is just not first and foremost the alex. I think you completely right that this. This is part of what is happening now the interesting thing that makes the so naughty is that you have people who believe not,

this is say- a minor hazard to society, misinformation or propaganda or or spam. But it is an existential threat to society that is going to turn everything into paperclips and it's going to turn us all into grey goo, very difficult to pull apart. That. Thank you. and- and you know what is motivating whom, because a lot of people in silicon valley, you are building this stuff. You know you look here, surveys and now at yeah. I fully believe this is a huge threat to humanity, and then you go well. Why building them up, and they say because I think I can help it be less of a threat and that's that's very real, as well so pulling apart. What is a corporate motivation is an existential, a philosophical motivation, very, very difficult yeah. I think that The thing that gets here now is we're so on the verge of there being a robot internet work.

Robots are making esa spam for other robots to read and turn into affiliate links, and then a human internet, more real people are just merrick riding fanfare for each other. Whether this was an the gvt for experiment where a guy was like. He started a conversation with it and was like I've got a budget of one hundred dollars. I want you to make me money. Tell me what to do I will do it and he ended up the dvd for came up with this idea of starting an affiliate link website for more subjects fearful and so it, but it It coded the website for him. It decided what gadgets to put in there- and it is I this was this- is happening as we speak now, so I don't know how far it sticks, but it it. It started, making a little trickle of money. I I pretty sure bowser also started making money, because people started investing in it, because everyone knew that the thread going viral on twitter, so it was bound to get some click through.

Became came this sort of like a ruin, the experiment immediately. It was not a. It was not as very good an isolated experiment but but yeah yeah. That is one way, and we saw this news with linkedin this week that they're now saying g pt four will write your user buyer, for you and linkedin already has prompts like ai written prompts and the people answer it, and then it generates ai written articles, but I don't know how to be a workflow or whatever it is only in the air the whole universe of robot internet to come a lot of ai moons of have moods, and it's like, if you shopping for a desk. Is it and you know what the answer is, what you have to lighten slice your way through the air I chum that is designed to commence Google, its people and land like you just by this desk, however, and I think that there is like a pair well human internet that will be created out of office, it just might this is my theory: will we just be read it yeah? It's like it like. It's there's a there's, another kind of social networking that is to come.

The report, in particular on the internet, that where people people are pretty good at spotting, the chat like the chat jpg up there better than the eye systems are detecting it and they are certainly good. It spotting boring stuff, which is the the majority of what is produced. Yes- and I just I like that's my optimistic take on It- is that eventually the the it'll be more profitable for the robots to just be robots at each other. That will I'll just like hang out somewhere. Where beam of evil watson and asthma outdated, since two thousand for and that'll be fine That's also a really good transition into the next thing we should talk about, which is microsoft and Google. We should take a break first yeah. We should let's say break and come back we'll talk about microsoft and google and then there's a very funny tidbit about apple, where she gets it as well, but we'll be right back we're gonna talk about smashing listener Sport for today show comes from delight. What does the future look like? It's a question that drives progress, but, more importantly, how d you get there

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dishes, the djibouti for news. This week, microsoft announced direct integration into office, proud everyone has the same. Let's start with microsoft, just because it is before by the silliest mystery intact, would solve this week. When microsoft and we have asking them if it was jpg for I kept intimating that version numbers were not the right way to think about it and opener. I would make a big decision about version: an announcer cpt for a cop to it cool mystery. Microsoft if the James walker was happening with the office products and chips for it's. Well, I mean, I don't wanna say cause it was going to say, but it's a souped up, clippy right. yes, a little assistant called copilot that has a nice little logo that lives in your side, bar of whatever office app you're using and you can give it instructions and- and I think this is actually a pretty good, pretty good product and actually could be very useful because a lot of the stuff it's doing is tasks that, in my experience

these bots actually can be quite good at and it's things like summarizing documents, and it saying you know you gotta, you gotta have a lot of meetings here and we're going to pull out the three key points. You have a press, station and will turn it from a word document into a slideshow. Now, of course, the proof is in the pudding. We don't know how good the stuff is gonna be until we can start using it ourselves, and we have been able to do that. Yet we will very soon, but I think in theory, this is the sort of limited task that these systems can be quite good up. I think one of the big mistakes that we ve seen in the tec world with language models, is thinking I ll be good at such, but miss, but hallucination making up information is such a bad problem when you point something at such a large array of of information that whenever gonna get over that network, not never, but it's a tricky one. Whereas if you just go, if it's quite a short document, it can fit inside the context window of the language model, which is the amount of money.

It can sort of hold in it's short term memory as it were then yeah it it. It's much less likely to make mistakes, and it probably will do some useful drudgery for you. So I think this is actually potentially really useful. It's funny because whose nascent province search, but it's not for your average corporate powerpoint. It's like hallucinating good idea for me yet that I can tell to my boss and my clippy will just do it well, but I feel like the the the thing about that, and I think that the constraint that James you're talking about is really important and is the thing that we're seeing right like it seems like the first killer, app or at least the first path, no one is going to be feed this I some so that of our corporate data and have it makes sense of it right like who should right to this meeting. What should my email say? What is this threat about? Where does this information live is like? That is the kind of thing because its constrained, because it a very small amount of data, it's just getting enough information from which to make a lot of really aggressive, spectacular mistakes.

And they're gonna be easier to catch the, because it is in theory, information that everybody already knows. It's just doing a better job of like distilling in organizing it, for you the thing that using to me about this is like a. I think this is going to be like a truly magical thing in itself, which is the kind of application that can do almost anything and you kind of no. What you wanted to do it I don't know how to do it and just being able to tell a thing like hey the thing that's in here. Can you put it in all these other places, too is going to put like a bunch of tech talkers out of business immediately, ah, but but The other thing is like I just can't stop thinking about this, as, like all of these companies telling on themselves where it's just like. Do you know how many people's job it is to take a word document and turn it into a ten slide? Powerpoint presentation like a lot of people, do that more or less for a living. were right, summaries of email threads for the person that they work for, like so much of modern work, is stuff and a year, my dream, David, my dream is to arrive at a point. My career, I no longer use software

If I can just get there, I will know. I have succeeded in that work here's using invisible software commanding in a item print out my emails for me. Summarize them presented some slack ten times a day for you, but as long as I'm not using a graphical user interface, I will have succeeded, we're gonna using some edit. We like piece of enterprise software, I'm sick, yelling a robot fine at seventy five I think that you're saying now microsoft is without this forever. This is where clip he came from always known. The products are too complicated. They have not been aim. To build unnatural user interface. I mean this is like nineties, microsoft dreams and even Adele is a life microsoft. He grew up in like the cloud of bill gates dreams that clip you would buy, do it for you and he could compete with steve jobs. and now he is here and he's a here's. What you do you tell excel to act like him, accountant ended of a business model based on these five inputs that you have an external

will generate maxell spreadsheet, for you in just one dvd writing, swift code thinking, I, u s app excel, is computer, like people have built doom incited excel. It is a programming environment. now built a natural user interface for one of the most for programming environments is ever shifted scale and that's right and an over here, you ve got people be like a need to make a powerpoint presentation at the battle of eighteen, twelve for three class- it maybe maybe along the way we destroy the american educational system like who knows, but these are things really calls or nothing to do, but at best the right now, I think, work. in this place. Now, where we ve talked a lot about kind of a right in general and to me I think that the sort of generative writing thing is the thing that seems to click for most people. First, where it's like. I can have this right me a poem in the style of my favorite poet or like right. My eighth grade essay for me, but I think that

The thing that has jumped out to me as an especially this goes back to microsoft, too, is like you know. It's super boring is most work emails and, like we get really press, about writing, cause it's like what we do for a living. Most people just need the like make a marketing brief that doesn't get them fired and needs to. Like put all the information into a doctor and I feel like all so much of this type is so low stakes and so straightforward that the idea of having my eye summarizing an email for me like there was one thing in Google's marketing materials where it was like. It was a whole thing and you you take- into the google I'm on it and I wrote dislike flowers. The paragraph e now about like. I will prepare this information for you ahead of our next meeting. Thank you so much for your country. and struck, and it's I don't want him that makes me want to die on your head. That's how people too and that's the robot internet You don't understand that thing where we are now sending a I generated emails to other people

was a eyes to decide whether that should result in a calendar invite. So humans can talk to each other is scan silo itself away. My dream of never using software work will come true, yeah. No, I think. I think that it is a victory in more places than I have given credit for and then, where you cap, that, before it becomes disastrous in other places, is really complicated but like if I may have to read an email again like that's a gigantic win in my whole life. I can do I can just tape to microsoft, like no. I hate your guts, never email me again, and then it can just said most email to someone telling that's really users and don't do it issues we should. I google tool is Google's roller other stuff to an airplane, to gmail, which is a direct application of this. The bringing into docks docks her. Pretty spiffy user interface update this week, you can buy the way, see how just oh, it. All competition is amazing in these markets. Like me,

we thought about what google docs about like for a decade Joseph was like there's going to be a clippy in it, and it was like here's us redesign here. It is stewart. There's always your features for germany better. Now I digress. But they're all your gmail, the royal docks. We have sooner power their model and a james. I shall start with this. They google opened up one of its models palm it is not let us anyone really see even what its other model barbie can do, they have a lot of models. I dunno what the differences between them, but what do you think of them opening up this one? Well, the opening up palm, so they have a couple of big ones. Palm and lambda and bard is going to be built on lambda palm is a you know. Another state of the art is five hundred and forty billion parameters. I believe

that is more of a competition with open ai eyes, an enterprise business which is selling their a p. I am for various flavors of the g p t series and making giving businesses the opportunity to build their own stuff on the googles by this basically said we want to get in on that. Business is well for start ups to be building stuff on our language models. Here is the a and here is also some they release amid the or they are going to release and additional software that he's gonna make processing that sort of information in integrating that easier. However, as with the notes which they made food food, what place it is. You know they they see.

I can do it and there was this thing where they, the news, went, live and then someone said well yeah, but if you click on the blog post and where it links to the palm a poi, it links to another blog post that links back to the original blog and there's nothing. That says how much this costs you sign up for I I saw people getting very annoyed that, like Google had announced like a little labyrinth for you to click through, but no actual product, it's the robot internet, I'm telling you it is, but but the thing that palm yeah- I don't think it's necessarily a significant thing, I think, is there that you real, held that cloud business. It may win some stuff from open. I, but I think the consumer facing stuff is where all this is at the moment I wanted stress that not only do we have microsoft, writing assistance

very soon, google writing assistance coming very soon they're in slack salesforce put them in slack about generating and summarizing meetings. There are dozens of startups who have ai keyboards for your phone while you download them- and you know it's a button that shows up next to the emoji selector and we'll write? What it thinks is a response to what you just got said, so you don't even need to switch to a browser to get tat tv teasing put. You can do it direct from the keyboard in your phone. So I You know I don't know. I I feel weird about this stuff, because in a way we've been introducing this technology for awhile with stuff like gmail, auto replies, smart replies, but I feel we're now at the point in twenty three, where there's so much of this, that is going to be released, simultaneous, that it is going to have a real, tangible difference on how we community one another and they sort of similar to what you were saying they lie like about how it might stop. You know people might recall whether that email was worth sending or what you want it's gonna do. Maybe people will pick up the phone more. Maybe that will be the thing instead will start, but his

If you want to guarantee that it, I didn't write what you just sent to your colleague central It was super easy to not be fake too, but it got me fight with as much expression. That's what I will say for the moment. That's true, my favorite genre of a high tech talk right now is its creator, who just has brought obama Joe Biden in donald from arguing about sound mixing. Whether some beats are good, it is the funniest shit I have ever. I cannot get enough of it hearing an old shrub say to Joe Biden. Those beats are whack is one of the funniest. They can see them simply imagined- and you I won't do- makes our real problem I'm worried about the elections. The stability of the peace is at stake, but this was streamline funny honestly wish it was real. I just I just knew her matters. I the the Google stuff realist here.

Soon. You will be able to draft reply sunrise. Pirate has your gmail brainstorm, refrain right and wrong. Dogs, otto generated images, audio and video and slides raw data. In it's an analysis. We oughta completion, foreigner generation in sheets, balance he was very dangerous. These models are not good at math generally in would not trust. My business today, I sheets, I dont trust. Your businesses sheets were different. In writing about transit and notes and meets the auto surmises meat, which many there are many sort of certain enough resume already, and this one is just re ominous, enable workflows for getting things done in chat, It's like there. You go, that's the one where it just it just lays off ten thousand employees. Google chat for you hence the need to boost our margins. the button and the lamb two horsemen,

we can, of course, everybody back into the office that that's just sit here. Is our hurtful over getting things done. Coming back to the off strategy, there itself- I just I can't I can't shake this idea- did like most of this stuff doesn't need to be human, like the thing where You should pick up the phone and call is like. Maybe what we're actually going to realize is that the email your boss sends you that is like. Where is that thing? And then you send them the thing like actually never needed to have two humans evolved at all. It like it turns out that a vast majority of the stuff that we do at work is not human, I'm going out. General law sets up a serious short cut. That asks you for a thing which give us that every month- and you can start asking being- and google docs where's. That thing- and I like, I, do think

Things were like there were there than the people who are getting called out. Freezing chat, gvt to like right notes when they're, leaving or notes is like apologizing for lay offs and theories. really complicated thing where it's like. All of these things we ve been able to assume are like written by a person, and now that you can't the question of like what actually needs to be human, I think is way less than everything, but it's something, and I Don'T- I don't know where that lands, but to me it's like if we can solve this problem, as transactional commerce that we all do with each other at work all day gigantic victory, even if it means less human to human contact, I'm into it. This sounds like it's going to increase. It sounds like this is just going to make that more common. because everybody is gonna, be like I'll. Just rely on the a I to send the email and then everybody just sending a emails and not actually getting any playing crusader. Kings all day and red and the region people in Hooray, when you have a company full of robots talking to each other.

And then like one here, one monopoly guy with a motto collecting the profits from his affiliate website. That is only traffic by fraud, bots and everyone else is on, like a v bulletin from two thousand and four like there's a thing, that, and I dont want to sound too much like the boss, because, as this group will tell you, I hate meanings and process. If anyone wanted, the entire company is true- and it is my goal very much to never suffer again, but the business that you're talking to David is like that's how you make friends at work right the thing that exceptional emails or meetings like just like be useful to some one else is what builds trust you can. I do the next thing together that's. Actually the thing like the congo, of I have five remote jobs, most of which are being performed by. I understand brain and that waiting for One thing that requires more like this, like a human to do, is just a weird outcome of all this. Like maybe it's not you know, chassis bt turns on a paper clips me, usually

we willingly turn ourselves in the paper glimpse yeah. Well like this This is done by robots. Yeah I mean I I would. I would quibble with the idea those are the only two options either I have two cats in an email or I become a paperclip, wiser choices. If we want the job or not realise what, if we are to come of this, as we get three martini lunches back, then we can also drink for several hours and then it all day we yeah- I don't know- I guess part of any. This comes back to like. Where is that line right? Unlike what is what of work is required to be? Human is not really a question we have ever had to answer because at some functional level it is all had to be human, even taking your word doc and turning into a powerpoint, but that is like massively going away very quickly. I don't agree with that. I think we ve been careening towards us for a very long time like we were all having to take those courses. I say that maybe we weren't james, I don't know how they do.

in the uk, but we had to like take a course once it's year, three martini lunches and unlike first grade, but he had to take a course in school where you had to learn how to use word. You had to learn how to use excel you to learn how to use all of these things and all of the tools, and then he would go to your job and and, like. I think, we've been we've been at that place where we're interacting with the computers, where we're not interacting with people for a very long time, and when, where there's a lot of processes, there's a lot of business work around like the actual jobs and what we ve seen again and again and again, is that when we create these things, we don't get more martini lunches. We get people being paid less because o robots can do this. You don't need to be as knowledge of all your skills no longer as are as well people so late, I'm sure this will create other new forms of jobs right like Neela, I think you were talking when we were at slack the other day about how there's a prompt engineers who are going to figuring out how to do this.

I just got stuffed and stuff so like it's good that we're going to see other things come out of this. That are really really good, but I do not think this is suddenly going to give everybody their time back. I think it's just going to reallocate their time and hopefully less miserable ways, David's positive case there. As it will reallocate our times towards more useful creative work in three murky right, my What do you want like being great ever like here, making better product ideas or whatever it is in this era of drudgery of operating, the company will go away. My negative case is there jobs through a jury is like a necessary component of working together, and if you remove that than ever and just showing up sauce three martinis a great idea? I have no idea how to execute it, because I ve met actually done. Any work, and I just like a weird place to be and then you gotta get this like automated linked in a official it s, yo scheme, the

It's like the real hot in like a house of cards. That's, I think, that's the negative case. someone's, obviously somewhere in the middle by we definitely started out being like Google is adding a chat bot to gmail and we ended with it's either paper clips or grey goo, and you just got to pick yeah. That's like that's just the natural trajectory anytime, you get a. I ended the conversation you just spin it there immediately. You can't help like we as people can't help, but wait before we switch away from this james can, you I want. I want to follow up on one thing that you said a few minutes ago. I want to know if I heard you correctly. I think what you said is all of this in a I right now is around consumer stuff. Unlike regular peoples, do you actually think that's true like is that going to be the most interesting space yacht, because I think that we should the research side. We have just not good up

is it all right that there is so much research at the moment that we haven't yet product ties that the law of attention is going into that if you go on and the sovereign it's for, like a machine learning. What you will see right now is a lot of people who work on natural language processing. This is the field underlies language models in universities, going, while our job is useless, now literally lit yeah. I mean I need to write story about this, because there are a lot of people in academia despairing, because what they do has now been outclassed by gp

four and then I'm going. Why would we ever bother to continue this research, because this huge corporate commercial lab has done it better than us? So I think we're just catching up with this stuff. I there is obviously they're super. There is more interesting stuff coming down. The pike audio generation is one video generation is another. That's really going to mess stuff up. Hippo is really going to really going to cause a lot of weird stuff, but I think we kind of have enough to be going on with in order to sort of integrate all this new technology into society and what to say, I I've sort of out of everyone here I am nearer to Alex.

His stance on this. In terms of what the effects of this productivity software will be on alive cause, I think, has there ever been a year in my life when I got less email than the previous year in, I think I think people just create this work for themselves when it's not very necessary, and that is unfortunately how a lot of the corporate life is structured. So I I sort of agree that people will use this to be careless about messages. They send people rather than be careful, but it's a ballot will work it up. What is you just gotta find something harder you know like my work, gmail is Wasteland you now, but there people will get through to me on channels that are not merely as automated ashes like fascinating. Like a deep level, sending me an email at once, the most personal and light highly valued piece of communication that anyone can do and its most versatile in many ways it is also the

I am just inclined to ignore the vast majority of it, because that's what the flood of automated email messages I get has trained me to do this, unlike the tricks the people play, I dunno, if this happens to other people, certainly happens to us as journalists that tricks people play to get our attention in email, like the robots, have up on them, and I I just hit countering fights or like emails, are like I'm following up like you: have responded and, alas last email and it works like a lot of the time I'm like did. I do the matte, no they're just lying the robots just lying to me. That's the one I forget. Any time. Somebody says I've been far I'm following up. You didn't respond to my last one. I'm like that's a lie. I never look. I for one, don't care about any of your your balance, delete, I don't care about anyone who can take care of it. Yeah find a better way to communicate with me goodbye. I want to end on this note microsoft, wherefore software attach about google work by software went organised with the chatter

This is obviously for better or worse paperclips ago. This is the future of most interfaces to software right. We can see The sort of natural language component has just its take off him, like everyone's imaginations accompanies arisen towards it that the p well, consumers know about it. We're seeing people use it ways are unexpected. Joe Biden has strong thoughts about audio mixing. Apple is like woefully behind, and so the times this week had a piece of SIRI alexa and google assistant heather all about a decade old they were supposed to do this in twenty sixteen, we ran an entire piece about chatbots and the future. The internet, like we lived through a cycle before the technology, was ready or that this technology really existed in this form and the way they architected this technology did not allow it to become this really it's the part where can respond to any query being creative, but here's the line that jumped out at me from this piece, which is good and worth reading

just a good recap of roma wrong apples headquarters last month, the coming. How is anyway, I summit it internally, from voice, learn about slap about its large language model and other tools to people written for him Many engineers, including members of the siri team, have been testing language generating concepts every week. So we're oh man, google, so far behind, because they have and just let anyone talk to barter whatever apples are still testing it. Unlike siri, stole a job, it's not very useful. James. Do you think this is a just a matter of replacing the siri back end with some llm and apple sprinting ahead or is? Do you have to do something more more drastic to compete?

Well, I mean I, I think I disagree a little bit with the premise of your course of your question because use your you saying that the way now secured that this is the future of interface that is going to be conversational. I don't think we've yet worked that out for sure. I think this year is going to be the year of testing and it's going to be the year of norms. Changing and we're gonna work out where we're going to have to find out because we're not using it. Yet it looks very good, it might work. It also might still be kind of awkward and clumsy to use, and it might be the fact that these natural language interfaces are only used in very specific things, and actually people still want to click around. They still want to tap menus. They still want to get that precision of control and that speed of control, and so I I sort of disagree that this is necessarily the feature of computer interfaces. Whether

apple. Can capture yeah. I think they can. I mean, like I know, that the work that they've they've done some really interesting small bits of work around this like creating a as as a custom version of stable diffusion, image generator to work directly on apple silicon. We've like we can't yet get apple, who can't get yet sorry get language, a language models working on a phone locally right, they're still too big? They need to be compressed a little bit more in size. When that is available. That's I think, when apple can make that switch, because right now it all needs to be sent off to the cloud and if apple is going to stick with everything it has in terms of marketing about privacy, keeping it local under your control, they're going to want to do this stuff locally, so I think they they will be able to catch up when this becomes a possibility. But actually ios is their biggest platform. It's their most important one, that's where they need to get this stuff working, and I don't think it's

it's not technically possible just yet to get it working locally. So I I don't think they've yet lost a lot of ground necessarily they said they will be able to catch up. I think yeah, I would argue one of the biggest mistakes that you know, Alex syria and Google assistant having common, was bearing everything on voice as a primary thing, one because voices really hard speed The text is really hard text. Two speeches really hard. Naturally, with processing is really hard, so they just starting with a chance. What is actually like a necessarily easier computational problem to solve, but then also all these come they said voices can be everything you're going to live your life with microphones and speakers and, like that, turned out not to be at all remotely true, for all the reasons you're talking about james, like people like to click, people like to look and when it's like I have a I'm in a yell at my screen, but then it's gonna show me something on it like that, doesn't actually make any sense. So what what chat? But it is just like, take a u! I afforded the people, understand and use all the time and give it back to them.

I think, like such a law is quoted in these times peace right, he said something and they caught him in the same speech. He says something to the effect. voice. Assistants are damas, rocks you Jessica, the easy thing to say when your company made cortina like gradually put. I don't. I don't agree with that assessment. It's just that we d all these companies did them wrong, but I don't think Fundamentally, the science underneath them has gotten drastically better over time, and I think it is much more of an interface problem for a lot of these companies than a tech problem. At this point, let me just call out that, in the height of the siri vs Google assistant wars, our dear friend Paul Miller, he used to be a coach on the show complained vociferously just type to his assistance enormous into, so that they should have lots of all he called out. I don't it is just a matter of the underlying technology they built around.

If you swap out the model and let siri answering questions, you do still have the duty to do. You talk to a problem, and I would wager that if you asked most people know how you can either type in a command here phone or you can look at it and say, take a photo of the moon, and I also do it for him mostly be like I just wanna. I just want to tell it things right: I've got this star trek communicator around me all the time. I just want to tell it to do stuff and that's what serie was supposed to do. That was the promise of it, and now you potentially have to swap out it's entire architecture and build a model that runs locally because your apple and all the stuff we can see. I can glue those concepts together and you might end up actually being it like for the first time in quite a while being able to rethink what the interface of photos I'll bring up an oliver chest. Favorite bixby, the dog samsung's assistant, where the promise was you'll, be able to change the settings on the phone yeah right, you will be able to say, hey like I don't want to get text messages between Aden,

night tonight just do it in this field like adjust the do not disturb settings within that did not work. I think we made the extreme more famous and samson ever managed to save for the outstanding issues but if it could, that is actually good idea. Right am I, it's these models. That would actually enable something like that to happen in some way and that's the convergence and after she is very funny that the apple's privacy stance in many ways prevents it from happening right now, where they've gotta increase the processing power of the phone and make that happen locally, and I want to say today's a a use case that gpp for specifically enables because it can process image alongside text input. It's it's perfectly this in to have that sort of control over the aid over the operating system. That is also what a lot of the ice safety research is worry most about, because at that point you are no longer constraining the system's activities to a little box to generate

the text you are now saying you can take control of my computer and you can make actions on my behalf whether that is buying something on the internet, whether that is selling something- and I think that is where the safety problems really. come back into it again because you like okay, how do I limit? How do I, how do I balance making this thing respond to my commands in a way that doesn't have the same problems as passive voice interfaces, which is when you tell it to do something that doesn't know how? How do you balance giving it that control with le, not letting it become out of control as well? yeah, that's another problem, but that is something that is technically feasible on the near horizon and is going to change very soon in a commercial context already deployed at the scale of multi billion dollar companies. Right, like you, I have is a robotic process: automation, company, the basically just builds computer vision systems. I systems that use like windows, three point one.

Machines to hospital billing on their behalf, because it's easier to have our ai control, your windows, you point one system than his turf surrender. Your went one system yeah and so in in another context and I'll shoot, Dana vines. The ceo of your path was on decoder to listen to that episode because we talk about or at what point are you just? Is it just robots talking to robots and he was like adena making a lot of money, but he is very thoughtful like he he knows, building. It was kind of a weird closed loop, and so it's already happening there and you can see how this brings it to this context. Outside of the constraint of the person who's interested in using this is a hospital insurance administrator and that's usually, when things go sideways hospital insurance, administrators, very safe, they should all yeah. It was alright. We are we're

cruising away to a two hour show which stated promised me that james thank you so much coming on. We gotta take a break like it's a bunch of stuff in the lightning round that we should get to come back with james. Thank you so much my pleasure. My budget, packers ransom work world view for it to be on. My instagram was gone in that second, the person responsible for their identity theft was also responsible for my identity. Then, all of a sudden, I see a picture of me that doesn't exist on the internet. Welcome to what the heck a show about hackers, scammers, identity, thieves,

Will they go after as when you share your pin number if they take money from you you're, on the hook for a living former director of the new jersey, division of consumer affairs and chairman of the cyber insecurity guilt society? I broke free letter, the person who always replies when a hacker reaches out to me, because I'm travis taylor resident tech guy. I sleep a lot better at night, not having an instagram account, and there were these crazy, like gifts, they'd, never seen like evil clown with you trying to stay up to date on the latest ads or suffered from yourself to help, and if you have a story to tell we're here to listen, listen to what the fatima, wherever you get your pod guests high its phoebe judge host, the podcast criminal, we ve exciting news. I'll, bring you more besides than ever before Four times a month were sharing true stories about people who ve done wrong

been wronged or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. I never did anything wrong. I never had a speeding ticket, so I think I just saved all my stuff up for just one thing was told by people who know them best. Like a group of friends. who broke into an fbi, building or man who figured out how to negotiate with his foot his kidnappers. Your ultimate goal is to convince them that they ve no cure for everything, you're worth from lotto scams, the black market, bourbon to the accidental death of a rare and beautiful finch. We bring you stories about the most care. his crimes around discover the unexpected side of true crime? Listen to criminal. Wherever you got your podcast we're back lightning around,

Honestly, I can just talk about the the trailer for the black re movie for the next twenty minutes. If you want me to forty five minutes scare but sucked at it, so there's a movie how blackberry I've seen it? Does this I've seen it Did you see it? You watch it on monday in my hotel room itself by southwest, is it we're going I have more to talk about it on this. Show at some point in the next few weeks I also interviewed Matt Johnson, the director of that movie. We had a very good time we're going to riot on this. Are you telling me this now when she called me right away, I like to bring surprises to the various casting on my god? Is it great? It's great. Its Leon has also seen it liam aren't a few thoughts, but I most tech movies are bad, I would say, is like general stance on tat movies? This one is not bad. It's like weird and funny, and enjoyable, and also lands in sort of an unusual place about blackberry it's like it doesn't just tell the like apple showed up with the iphone and launching

in eighty and idiots didn't see it come in and go buy blackberry. It's already like, is more complicated than that and lands that way, and it's a very good movie, everybody should see it. It's based on a book that I loved when it came out, polluting the signal, the untold story behind the extraordinary rise in spectacular, fall, blackberry, excellent book tat Actually that title really set the stage like a formula for almost every type of title, become governments I came out my top twelve thirteen. We had a big feature that we re promoted and trying to fall back. Very that the wave of nostalgia that I felt tremor the backers storm came out. We offer there and take it to the often he added these are early days. We real children. My favorite, though, is that this storm came out and it was like this is. This is the time this is coming and then my distinct memory is the first time. I think this happened to everyone. You, you held a blackberry storm in your hand for one second, anyone oat milk, nor much the same it like the whole.

Well the thing clicks the whole screen neglect. They thought that was the universe cause they wanted to bring the viewer back in as a full structure yeah, but it was, I think, the in particularly the blackberry devices and they're sort of failed attempts to compete with the iphone, which is now curious about, but that that, for me was when I realized that was not the hardware that was important but harder as important as if you listened to the show. You know I think arteries are important, but it was like they didn't change the software. They thought that people just wanted a touchscreen, yeah yeah and no one. Actually I about the touch screen and that that was which is a very formative moment in trailer just watching this trail, if you're a long, longtime broadcast van gogh washes trailer any just bring you back to that entire moment, which was super excited. It's like where he came from. That's enough nostalgia, but go watch a trailer and then David, when we're done with this. You tell me everything about this movie in great deal when the movie comes out in what may so he answers early may, if you're in canada comes out before them. Of course, we got where we're going.

We interviewed now we're gonna. Have him on the show, I think, sometime in April united states it because out may exclusively and rising. and if you, if you pay to see it, you will eventually get your money back worse if ever better, get extremely strange, that of news from two top you probably so we talked about the house, passed a bill that will allow the by the administration to ban tik tok bankruptcy created leverage for by administration. Now that an saying work either sell it orient uses power that we have and takes up its with. This reporting is weird so at first version of Austria. in all, and then it was confirmed by the new york times, but Tik tok won't say it out loud if they set it to those two newspapers, and they will not respond to any comments from anyone else. What else is in the but you can see what is happening here, is that there's so by partisan concern by the chinese ownership of tiktok the by,

illustration was given this leverage and now they are using it, and the funny thing is like this is exactly what trop wanted yeah right, he was like mad at tick tock, because the rumors about his rally not selling out or whatever and he's like, I'm gonna ban it and they tried to ban it and there's this whole thing where microsoft almost bought it and they're going to sell it at work. and then we back that off because the process, there was bad right that the procedure of the government being mad at you and you have to destroy your business was bad right, the press, in his mouth. Erasmus is like, not a good operating principle for our government, but the outcome that were meant to lay it on his the saint right wishes. We now all this process in a toll plan in their project, texas and work of data centers and were still like yeah. That's weird! You ve got a cell and I bet work on supplying it anyway. I would agree that that they certainly seem to be the leader in the club house to be the ones who buy it at this.

But it also seems like if we ve got into this point, is there anything left for tik tok to do to convince anybody that it is above board but like I should say, I sincerely have no idea like there are lots of very smart people who argue in both directions. Tik tok has gone way out of its way for years to talk about where it source of data and how the corporate governance works, and all this, if I dont know- and I am not convinced that anybody does- but it does seem like we are passed- the point where, like

The the ceo of tiktok is coming to d c to testify to congress next week, and I literally cannot imagine what he would say that would convince anybody of anything at this. I don't think he can say anything because the the general consensus in like the intelligence community is that if your company is based in china, you are a chinese company and they have access to all of your data, regardless of where you put it and everything else, because that's how china works as a matter of your oppo, it doesn't matter if your bite dance parent company of tiktok. If you are base for your huawei, if you're based in china, china has it's fingers all over your data. All over your infrastructure and that's like the general consensus of the majority of the intelligence community, so around wasn't nothin yet around the world, not just in the. U s spoken with experts like in canada about this as well, and if, all saying that, then I think it's a really difficult thing from four to talk to do to convince you, because how

I can say it all day long. Oh definitely, I do not give my data to china, but there is no proof of that and there's no way you can prove that it's just a big, broken trust issue and it's it's larger. It's part of that larger problem of new. Would he trust China right? So one notable exception to that assessment, which is our one hundred per cent accurate, is apple, is apple apple. Does a lot of business in china I have rather turned over the cloud servers in china to a state controlled entity, as they obviously manufacture the fence there and they seem to have just that. Never comes up. I had just they're not based in china though, so they they, they have part of their company, isn't china and that part of the company is very tightly bound with china. But the american companies not baseplate. It's an american company, it's the same with md and stuff, like there's a lot of companies that do significant business in china and we tend to give them a pass, because, oh your base

U s elegant little, but as in a phobia that drives all of us- and it is just too to the intelligence. Like conversation is definitely xenophobia is part of this right, but yeah. I just don't see how anybody can kind of get out of that. If you're a chinese, if the company you're always going to be fighting, this battle will- and it is true nila- that if you, if you play the argument that is being used against tiktok all the way out, why shouldn't we be looking at the companies who manufacture things at foxconn? Like remember that big, bloomberg story about the tiny chips that were being embedded in things that turned out it. Probably, be true that god only knows who knows that story, one of the one of the truly weirdest moments in tech reporting number drops, this big big We cover story, and every company did nevertheless talk about anything comes back, comes out just like nope, not that but like if you're gonna, scrutinise these things based the idea that if you have any connection to the chinese government, there is probably a way for the chinese government to influence your business in your company and inner users.

your contract, that there is no end to that? That eventually consumes the entire tech industry, but I think jamming, that's one of the reasons for seeing a lot of tat companies say we're moving out of china were move which were faut, we're looking to india. Manufacture, iphones and stuff. Everybody wants, looking at being the operative word. Looking right, they're going to be everybody's, really interested in the idea, yeah they're they're, just hoping this all blows over, like I think that's part of it, but at the same time there is if there is definitely like a functional difference between apple doing business in china and fight dance being faced with china, because I disagree saying that functional differences kind of well defined by one if they kidnapped by the government and held until they pay taxes TIM

I think we have a little more apple owns how many seats permanently on. However, many flights to china every day like what the chinese government can can destroy apple's business or tesla tesla's a good example of this too and right, everybody has talked about like the way that elon musk is running twitter could change that the tests that operates in china. It's like all this stuff just is tangled and the like I don't see how you pick, which one to be mad about at some point. Saucy I just this facility. I deepen international site, We'll see, and I think this ban again, it was all set off a conversation where that wine is, right now feels like we know right. Something's are about traceability and ensure a manner companies, but it like this right, is so big that we will shut down a thing on the scale of tik tok, because there's political will on both sides, and also a partition, does not want to go home in an election year and tell parents who shut down to it. So I think, there's there's quite

to come here, but we'll see how this hearing your six week mechanic to be there. I think that we're sitting back with her to make a video about the about the hearing stationed. Can we talk about better tech doctors really fast before we get off of tick, tock tick, tock launched my favorite thing to exist on a social media platform in a very long time which its calling refresh and the ideas. Basically, you can go into your tik tok settings and you can say all the things that you have learned about me that govern what I see my for you page. Never might, let's just start from scratch and build this up again, and I want this on every single algorithmic feed that he feels like me. Youtube, has been absolutely over run by people telling me what gadgets to put on my desk because of one story. I wrote and one admittedly like months long obsession that I had and my tik tok for you page, is only like I'm not kidding only videos of Mattie Healy, the lead singer than eighteen, seventy, via singing o caroline outside in life,

two out of three videos are different angles of that same thing, and I just one thing that is like I get it. This was great. We have a good run, let's start over and like thank you, tik tok fur, saying letting me that if I wanted myself out of this hell that I have brought myself in, but don't you want to be able to save your old algorithm, that's the one thing that this feature needs that just save whoever. I was two years I go and I'm going to start over me new person, it's fun, that's like on spotify, I start a new playlist on the first day of every month and then every song I come across that I just got kinda sorta, like I just dump in there. Oh that's cool, so I can go back to, like my you know, July. Twenty seventeen playlist and it just like instantly transport me back that would be so fun to do on these services like who was. I Yet this was my algorithm. There was new girl, clips and office depths of algorithm, unlike lockdown. Now how to make soured starter ways, long run that I

it was a surreal anyway. That's all this. While I have asked for protects, let me say the algorithm we just Russia netted. Shall you last week the procedure you son mckenna, has a story this week binds run at a time to add a fifth commissioner to the fcc, so they can bring back net neutrality, There is actually a lot of action on that front row with estate bills that would block like in texas state building. any abortion information on the internet and taxes, crazy staff to be good to have a federal authority. Why? This time funds is fully running a time because of his disaster. To do so, we ve got more That's really come and then on the same note right transmit mobile wishes. It team in vienna, so they just resell t mobile's network, but for cheaper prices and fire advertising, c mon, just gonna buy it the numbers for up to one point: three: five billion handsomer skuytercliff, it's on the one hand you could argue this doesn't reduce competition because it's all just t mobile and you all run anti ball in the end. Another and you're like oh,

there was a challenge, your brand to his teeth and two others. Gonna go away it's like we get ourselves to have any competition in mobile service in this country like whenever there barrister, whiff of it were like not let somebody by Lee, I need you to turn on your camera and unmute your microphone. Liam is a long time been mobile customer I need, I need to know you're feeling slim it's time. This is your moment. You ve been preparing for this already I am not camel ready. I've been a member will cover steamer for eight years as someone who used to be in the freelance world, it's an especially attractive service, because or you can pay by the year and that's one of the few companies. I can think of that. Let you do that must have been like shocked at how good the services on meant it's better than it should be sure. When I go visit, my folks in atlanta, georgia, it's sometimes flaky, but for the most part I like to say you get like ninety percent of the coverage for

like twenty percent of the cost of going to one of the three big ones, so kind of furious arraign reynolds at like most people, I mean like most people in this country. I think he's in it just to just a lovable guy. How could you not like rain reynolds, but now its peaceful oppression reynolds were in a car crash? I wouldn't be that upset about I have one last words were dead: pull you ran round will appreciate bedrock. I gotta bianca. He was fond of it. can make a commercial about that you we are supposed to have for national wireless cares and country, one is so irrelevant systems have been crashed for weeks as they still down. I don't jerk me you're. The only cite the covers. That's how relevant this company is like the it's like the negative competition in an

and even the little envy and our competitor, that manage to make a name for itself, as I swallowed up, where does horrible at this marion's pay more for some reason they were asking me. Can I can I read you just in the spirit of I'm just gonna. Do this every week now, I'm in a region, the notice at the top of dishes website its if they hopefully your interest in dish, t v, your needs are important to us. We appreciate your patience at the sign, while our teams are working hard to update our full website and get services back up to help you no one gives a shit. Can you imagine if eighty agency was down for this long? Regrettably, the hearings more no one cares. This is supposed to be the fourth competitor to eighteen t, t mobile and rising is going to another by anyway. Whatever we I mean, I just set up my own renegade it work like inform the volume the scc is you to drive around vans, trying to ninety nine month, prosecutor bangemann crystals.

so. The other thing I once I got just while we're doing lading ran up here is emmett, sheer the sea of twitch just suddenly and summarily resigned from which, just like dropped the make a blog, post and left this doesn't seem to be as a sort of earth shattering a thing as when Susan, where does he live, left youtube wherever there was a few weeks ago now? This is still a big moment. He's been running twitch for a long time up through the amazon acquisition. Twitch is huge. He is like he is the face of twitch in every. He was running it before it was twitch when it was still justin dot. Tv yeah, that's right, he's been an like Forza. Sixteen,

years. I think he said yeah in a solar to amazon for less than a billion dollars in two thousand and fourteen, which is just amazing, to think about in the context of ideals now, and so it's not like a buyout situation. Yeah right, like usually, there are three four or five year deals. This is he's been at it and I'm cute very curious. I mean he he basically he wrote a thing where he is either companies. My kid announcement for the kid to go to college people say a lot, but I mean you look at this. Chad jpg could have written right like it's, not that far off will get more colors and you see out which Dan Clancy, as is stolen by amazon out of his enemy, any meaningful disruption but no besides, I might add, seasonal justly living youtube. Leaving twitched generation of tech leaders is, is moving on, ok, real, lightning round stuff, the real lightning now the math, and now the fake lightning round, which was not swift at all is over the real I now and the related policies interview the conference spotify. Gustaf, sir tristram underwater. He said spotify Haifa still coming

at some point in the this was a little bit of extra reporting. The thing has been ready, so I'm place had high for a long time its apple on amazon, blew up the entire huh structure of lost. Listen, I'm music, thereby giving away for free. So what if I can't figure had charged for it? So it's ready. The business model is not ready. Amazing, that is you just describes. Basically, we move the belgian smart home brand. They announced a bunch of matter stuff last year at sea. Yes, this year, and for more done We are a little scoop.

They're, done as a freelancer, hit me up and said: hey. I think we may have just accidentally announced to me that they're done with with matter for the time being, and so they said they they confirmed, they are taking a step back. They are not planning to update anything. That's already out there to support manner, they're, not planning to release anything on matter. They just kind of want to wait and see, and the general consensus from folks we spoke with like all around and is it probably is something that's a lot of people in the industry are worried about which is becoming a commodity and not have anything special having to being belkin and having to compete with like these tiny, tiny companies making light switch smart light switches, so they're like Ours isn't gonna, be any different from theirs. Why should be even be in this? Business stepped back because you could make one. That's better works better. I guess I don't know, I guess they disagree. If any one from to listening to the two messages, I believe in you

a garbage ones will be garbage, fall off the network and restart and sometimes just die, and you can make a good one. These charge slow. the more money for, I think didn't you have just given you every platform and protocol war. There has ever been like everybody's like what, if we build open things in somebody like, I dont really feel competing with that. I'm gonna build my own thing, the idea and openness. It has been the story. The smartphone raised in this way will the systems. I will say that I am not sure we must have and which I am sad. Whenever we are really anything you. People love these products I dont for belgian, I believe in you just look at me. I believe in you It is right in his eye. You can make good stuff that people will pay slightly more money, for you can do it better to see a rocket we are in the midst of what I would say, as a person in devastating football new cycle for me, but

youtube, tv has rights to sunday ticket and there they ve been promised, in multi view for sports. For a long time. They started testing it. You can watch koreans at once. You can see how this is just going to be for sunday ticket when it happens. It's for, like specific set of things in a specific set of ways. You don't get to really choose it. It's like the least multi view you could do was still being marty view and also other views about. While we were according this, you too tv announced it's raising. It's prices, another eight dollars to seventy to ninety nine. So it's just cable. Now it's just it's just for cable, and this is the world in which we live. It's on penser said and I want to pay for it is they have some years ago? That's how they get here that's gonna work David, you the camel up, which I think I agree with you in writing your piece I thought continuity came on a map we get rid of it. This is therefore to use it, and I found his webcam. The new ones, pretty it's just its power user continuity. Camera. Basically right like that. That thing that apple

to do is try to make everything work, sort of magically and simply and what that means is not giving you any options or any controls. It either just kind of works or it doesn't come in the cameras to it's credit works more than it doesn't, but you don't get a lot of control over how it looks or the lighting or something of that. M just jumps in and is like. Oh, would you like to choose which lends you use and how much you zoom and how much exposure you have and what the lighting looks like and you can do all of them. I'm using right now. So if you're watching you youtube, you can be the judge of how it looks. But I it's it's great. It's expensive it forty bucks a year or eighty dollars once which is too much money for what it is like if you're, not a person who records and publishes video all the time, it's probably overkill, but it really like for for the purpose it does serve it. Does it really really? Well, I'm a fan. Do I get a free upgrade? I bought it about the lifetime Last time I get an upgrade or yes again, I'm pretty sure. If you bought the lifetime, when you get free upgrades or less nice, I bought a new one.

Subscription that I let lapse and I got it cheaper so, but I think if you buy the lifetime, if you don't that feel like that, having an airport. I don't know. I only use it when I after like be on television on the road, and it is fine, but its outrages are refused him My macro us every other year cycle and I'm sorry this year as net camel candidates, the last story- another one of the I would say, tat and verge ideas, verge stories that we have encountered recently seo match group, which is a company that and every dating out in the world, except for bumble. I think it's like barely an exaggeration I think they're suing pump on great they own tender. They own, ok, keep everything match. They are ok, We ve met we cover than what the national currencies. We did a lot of coverage of this one company, how big it is

but they've got to me see our bernard him and he was at a summit and he is an ex gaming ceo and he was talking about why it's worth more. Spending. Time was why it's worth it to spend money on tender, and he is people spend a lot of money and games. Here's a correctly says: no one place these games forever. After a certain point, people turn out of the game. Experience I've person, We spent fifty thousand dollars in three months on clash of plans when I look back and that with a lot of shame What did I really get out of that experience? Nothing other than like a really amazing wall, which is not cool and then he's like what I paid for tinder and now I have to in a generation scenarios that one might be mobile gaming whales. Isn't it credible thing to think about wow and that's, like you think when somebody says something like fifty thousand dollars in three months on commercial glance is like a super exaggeration. not clearly not an exaggeration, like my man, clearly spent fifty cats entire just

spent the money. This is followed. Follow now, look at what can come out of tender. You meeting your wife, that's an immeasurable reward, something that will last a life thing that will lead to unbelievable happiness, maybe sometimes despair, but at least you're feeling some insist. Evil shit This is at a conference wrapped up in a subdued, became clear, plans away he's. Apple services, why thirty percent Is that clash plans, money went to apple services, revenue, the vessel. The story is that mitchell cap producing the denominator so started fifty thousand dollars and three years, and then he is Its sixteen thousand six hundred sixty six dollars a month, then he's like it's much better defined, We know it is happiness worth five hundred and fifty two five dollars a day. Like look what happened you,

get a. Why don't we spend it on the wife he invested it. Are you if you know that the sea of your company is a clash of plans, whale please reach out to us. I wouldn't why to compile a list whenever even publish it. We just want to have it. It's like. No wonder all these people were in nfc. Is this dudes, like I gotta, sell the swallow and there's no one to sell it thousand dollar, it's really good. Ok, I promise you that I have not seen any money, a clash of plans. What I did in one sense of money in candy crush. I felt such overwhelming aim. I did I hedge Did my family out of what was rightfully there's never played, did even worse, you did you spent the money. I've got no happiness, at least here but now I gotta worry that he got a nice wall out of it. sorry, but we are so far over thanks to james

being on the things that of you came in sauce itself, south by southwest. That was really find him to meet folks this week. we got solo access, a good one. Margaret are meant. The developer of overcast is going to be on. We've been wanting to do some kind of podcast with him forever, so I'm excited with that one and then what's on the wednesday, We're going to talk about us if we're gonna talk about ipads dancy for wrote, two consecutive really good things about ipad, so we're gonna talk about Dan's feelings about ipads, which long time listeners will know he has kenya. We're going to talk about de I see three just so. Grants will be shut up through one that promises to be the longest second to none. Mitchell is coming on to do really cool fun special thing, the spoil just yet that pits can be very sad and that's it. That's your chest and that's a rap for verge cast this week, thanks for listening,

if you enjoy the show, subscribe and passed out of your choice or tell a friend you can send us for back at birch, cast the birds dotcom, the show. Is by me Liam James and our senior audio director, andrew marina, this episode was edited and mixed by amanda rose smith. Our editorial director is brooke mentors and our executive producer is Elinor Donovan. The verge cast is a production of the verge and bucks media podcast network, and that's it we'll see you next week.