CES 2026: Part Nine (Friday)

All zone media.

Unstoppable, unbelievable, impeccable, unflappable, outrageous, stupendous, chosen by God and perfected by science. I'm ed Zeitron and this is Better Offlines coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show. That's right, we are back for a final two hour stretch here in the beautiful Palazzo Hotel in even more beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada.

We've been here all week with.

An open bor and tuckos for journalists to hang out and chat shit about the world's largest technology conference. Thank you all, Thank you all for joining me, Thank you for being here as listeners, as guests. For everyone, this has been the best CES yet. There's only been two, but nevertheless, you don't know how the next one's going to be. But in all seriousness, this has been an incredible, incredible show. We've got four more thirty minute blocks and then an epilogue tomorrow.

Who it's been a lot.

Our first quarter lineup is the incredible activist, journalist and author Cory doctor Rowe hello ed, the fantastic writer of the Tech Bubble newsletter, Edward on Graso Junior, and the wonderful returning champion Kyle Shanad of the Las Vegas Sun Local boy either, how you doing, Kyle?

How's your show been pretty good?

I started with a pre cees little conference between some Korean companies and Nevada investors and businessmen.

Okay, well, it.

Was talking about how to bring their products, bring their companies kind of to the American market, and kind of the main point of it was, you know, CS has been here in Las Vegas for so long at this point, but Nevada itself, for Las Vegas itself, hasn't always seen the fruits of that, right besides the actual of course, you know, Las Vegas main market is in tourism and bring people here, and conventions like this are a big

That failed attempt with Old Vegas though with Tony she and that long Yeah.

I mean it's the recent iteration is newer, Ye'll say that.

And also that that one was very kind of limp. No copy on it, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that one.

That one whiskey bar next to the barbecue joint in the mall made it of trail shipping containers, is pretty good.

I didn't see that they talk about downtown.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was that there was there was like one good thing that there's a good coffee shop right there.

You'd think, why is it that it's so hard to attract companies. There's like no state tax is that is like the local business taxes high?

Like no, I mean they've they've been working on that and kind of promoting the favorable tax regime. I think it's probably the best way to put it for companies. That's why a lot of people moved from California to hear Nevada.

Yeah, the same way that we've had that.

I mean Nevada's legislature, there's a push for a dedicated business court similar to what exists in Delaware, so we can have companies incorporate here instead of there. Like we recently had Friend of the Show and Rees and Horowitz moved to Nevada. So there there's been a big push there too, kind of because the pandemic so brazenly showed that if there is an issue with travel, the economy collapses here.

Yeah, well that's got quite a race. It it feels like the finish line is at the bottom though.

Yeah, but wait, so this was a pre conference the cees and what were they talks and such?

It was actually it was kind of fun.

It was like a shark tank style pitch session from a bunch of these companies. There was one about incorporating some technology into golf clubs that would analyze your swing.

There was another. There was another on.

Like it was a pool uh, contaminant analysis machine.

Is this like a pee detector?

No, because it's not that those are useless, but like those very much exists.

Yes, yes, So it was kind of.

Like it's not like they were showing off like the cutting edge of it was. It was it was people trying to break into the American market from Asia.

I mean, what Korea really needs to introduce to America clearly is hidden cameras and dressing room. They are the world leaders and incredibly vegic uses of hidden cameras.

Yeah, Vegas needs more perverts and chicken and and also like also like rising up in the face of fascism.

Yeah, that was an export that we would welcome here.

Well, just other than all that, have you walked around CS atoll.

A lot less actually than last year.

I'd say I spent some more time off the showroom before talking to people, but quite a bit. And I mean it felt I think we talked about this last year. I mean, this is my second sees oh and last year, I mean you come into it and it's all this cool stuff that you've never seen before, concentrate in on space. And this year I remember people talking about like, this feels a lot similar last year, and now that I'm a returning guest, Yeah, I understand why that feeling existed.

Yeah, it's this kind of echoing. It's very strange this year, like it feels like last year, but with less stuff like they were there at least felt like there was some things to look at last year that we're like, oh, that's fun.

I do I remember them that.

God, No, I saw a lot of smart picture frames. That was a really big one.

This year.

Yeah, I saw one that was completely broken.

It was with like eeing.

No.

I actually quite liked.

The idea because I'd only seen them in pictures. And then you see whenever they cycle kind of like a kindle like all eating think they flash up the yeah, and it's like just the static image I'd be okay with, but the moment it's like be like, yeah, that's shit off my wak.

But I like the idea. I like the idea.

I know what you can't see by looking at the gadget itself is the back end. And that's the whole thing, right, Like what is what is the experience of adding images to it? And my wife just moved overseas. Uh, we're living in two different continents right now. And our hustmate gave her a smart camera for a picture frame for Christmas, right, and we, you know, sort of together conspire to put a bunch of photos in the camera's cloud accounts so that when she set it up at home overseas that

Not?

I got one from my parents a few years ago and the app was like and it.

Was all on an app, right, So like, which is fine if you're out and about taking pictures and you are sending the picture to the frame, But when you're setting at the frame, de nova.

I have ten thousand photos on my.

Laptop and we're had to take a subset of them and put them in the frame, and like phones are very bad for that. Yeah, and I did this elaborate thing where I plugged my phone in, moved seven hundred photos from my laptop to my phone, then use the app which only let me select one.

Hundred photos at a time to upload the phone like it was, and none of that is visible.

Right.

You can be on the trap floor and you can be like, this is the most beautiful frame I've ever seen. But if it's a giant pin in the ass to get pictures into, who cares.

I will say I was interviewing someone at their home once and they had one in their living room and it changed one point or it was either that or they told me it was. I had no idea that it was digital until you told me so. For the people who are coming into your home who did not see the hassle sure of getting it that works?

Yeah, yeah, it's I don't know.

It feels like a very easy to solve thing. Feels like it should just be like an ftpiece of with like a.

As a fallback right. Yeah, here's here's a thing you drag images into. Be easy, but it isn't welcome to see you and have the app on my phone.

Yeah yeah, let you find out one contrastition name and shame boo.

I don't know too many bring back shamed flander. No it's not. It's not come back to me. It's Aura A U R A or.

I thought that was meant to be one of the easy ones too.

I'm sure it's very easy if you are sending off photo to it.

That one gets advertised on podcasts.

Yeah, it's well, it means Casper mattresses have photo frames.

We're anti stamps dot Com. We're inside the Aura frame.

Don't try and sell me a fucking mattress unless you give me one stepsot Com got a.

Web interface yet because it was Windows only.

I got no idea. Man, when I need stamps to go to the post office, do.

You know what?

I have a private mail box where I get my mail because I don't want to give my home address to random right and uh, I gave them a credit card number and they charge one hundred bucks credit at a time. And I walk in with all my parcels and I'm like, here's the parcels, and I wut again.

I don't have to wait for them to weigh.

Them, and I don't have to wait to all surprise them, and they just I get an emailed receipt.

It is so good Post office fucking rules. Yeah. Well for a private mailboxes too.

Okay, okay, well yeah, so ed have you been I've been doing. How was your last day?

It's good.

I got to walk around o VCCC all the shit gadgets with Corey and it was really interesting. I mean, the stuff I think that interested us most was like we talked about the devices that seem like, Okay, this is a real thing. We want a manufacturer to integrate it into their supply chain so they can scale it up,

That was very fun.

I think the weirdest advertising for that.

Hand all was weird little sign that made it look like it was going to eat your hand.

So Massadi is your hands.

Yeah, it was like that Benny jesserte y thing you stick your hand. They did have a sound, so it had a sign, right, They said like do you dare to put your hand in it? And it had a monster's mouth around the aperture your hand went into. And then when you read the marketing more closely, it was like the virtuous will feel delightful.

Yeah, and you put your hand in.

A sensor detected it and then it started inflating the little Okay, I know, it feels like the first step and like cultivating myself.

I just want to be clear though the thing sucks, but the virtuous will feel delightful. It is something I'm going to be saying for the rest of my life.

Apparently I'm not virtuous because I felt that. I was like it kind of just feels like two things are.

Grinding against my hand, virus.

And it's like, hey, if I want to go. If I want that, I'll to go to like some packed conference or I'll come back on the first day.

Yeah.

Like it's like if you need to give you a hand a message, you have two of them. I guess if you want to do both once, it might be a chat.

You know the amazing safety label that's the two gears with the hand being squished. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I want.

Yeah. Pleasant, you know, it's like an incredible machine situation, but with just my hands, like a cat jumps on the thing and it crushes it. Just a beg aanvil would be great at the end of this week. Just let me just fall under the end anyway, But nothing impressive at the end of the day is same old shite.

No, I mean, this is the thing. I mean, we talked about this a little bit. Also, I feel like, you know, I am of the group that is the wrong group for it, because I come into it feeling I think, disappointed broadly, because there's a lot that I would like to see and I don't see it.

Well, what would you'd like to say?

I would I would like to see.

I am listen if someone can make uh you know, for example, there's a lot of pitches about AI assistance that can be integrated into your home and make you know, task management a bit easier, schedule management a bit easier.

Things like this.

You know, I would be open to something that seem to be doing that. But a lot of the times, you know, when we pressed them, it's more so like what if you went on Chatchy bet yourself and chose the third best answer for each thing and then integrated that and organized your life around that. It's you know, so it's just it's a lot of times I feel like what I'm actually seeing is not even someone who tried to solve a problem, but someone the I mean

Right?

Yeah, you know that's really what it was.

I'm like, I'm not a tech person, I'm a a local reporter here, but I mean, I feel like, and this is kind of what I'm curious about, your guys thoughts on it. How much of the things on the showroom floor, just like repackaged CHATCHYPT models into other different package.

Actually be easier to ask how many works?

Yeah? Yeah, deadly.

We need like a cat in the hat where it's not a situation for this, I'm what's.

Funny is generally surprised most were lost. Yeah.

I remember being like, oh, I'm being a cynic whatever and sleeping for hours every night, so I felt particularly spicy, but people still came in, like journalists came in and like, oh I saw some cool shit. Oh it made me laugh. It was kind of weird, but you know, I enjoyed

Yeah, a lot of aih evil, evil shit, Like Robert found this one that was like an LLM horoscope Furby creature that I want to hit with a baseball bat.

I want to Finally enough, there's a demo for one where you can hit it with a baseball.

Yeah, but wasn't that the one where Robert had the video and it's just like dancing like Michael Jackson.

And then you just fucking hit it with sticks. I want to put a bottle. I want to do free boat on top of that, fuck out of it.

There's an old American children's show called The Andy Devine Show, and there was a character on that show called Froggy who is like a frog, and he was a mischief figure and he would as Andy Devine was speaking, he would he would grunt, he would like growl out these uh, subliminal suggestions.

It's like, then you.

Put the peanut butter in your hair, Yes, you do, you do? And then Andy Devine would start putting peanut butter in his hair. And every time I see an LLM toy for children, I'm like, eventually, like you're gonna leave the room and it's gonna.

Say and then you put the knife in your parents?

You do?

You do?

But that's already happening with like actual chat Have we not.

Seen the hack horror movies that start with the doll that says I'm chatty.

Cathy and I want to be your friend. I'm Jeddy Katy to kill you. The story is just going to activate someone, you know.

This time it's going to be like Taiwan is part of China, like ever mentioned Winnie Pooh and Winnie that poo in mysent to make you feel No, it's just and it's just like it's I think what it might be, and after thinking about this too much for too long, it's just papering over the laziness that already existed at Yes, I don't think like there's something exceptional about the activity so much as they found it's the panacea panic. I

I want one.

That's large and obviously can never be purchased, she said, like a monument. Now she just she mostly just says it's okay, it's okay, it happens, but it's it's just you don't need to. It's just kind of frustrating because I'm not reflexible. I just want to see some dude, ad give me a like Michael Fisher came in and showed the clicks, the shell of the Clicks, the Android phone that's got like it's basically like a new BlackBerry,

Yeah, it's something.

It's also you know what, it's using existing tools Android and you can manufacture overseas.

Wonderful.

Cool. We built a new thingy this year. It's like we didn't build anything.

I think you're in the wrong part of the whole because because when we were back in the crack Adge its There was so much of that, but it's in the so like the thing is that the stuff that you use every single day, right, like your charter, Yeah, is stuff that has an enormous bearing on your quality of right, Like if your charger's fucked, you are fucked.

Right. It's a low margin item and it has barely been optimized. Yeah.

And in this pro over Delta and around the Pacific rim there are a lot of incredibly clever mechanical engineers and product designers who are sort of turning their intellect to this.

I agree, And like ANKA for example, is a great company, even like GPD who makes these really interesting devices for one hundred people. It's like it'll be a PlayStation portable sized gaming PC that costs two thousand dollars and superheats in your hands, so it needs an external battery. Those ones I didn't see having a prominent.

But but you go back to the booths where that we only do wholesale. We have a minimum ten thousand unit order. So I was you were there earlier, but we were off where I was talking about this thing that I saw that was the British electrical adapter for your charger that you carry around in your bag, and so people who aren't familiar with it, the British Electrical adapter that the plug is the world's ultimate cal drop.

It's this incredibly It's.

Just like a big spikey like gold yeah, big like chunky.

Yeah.

And you know, I lived in London for thirteen years and and I'm moving back there again. And like the chargers, it's hard to carry around. It puts holes in your pockets, yeah, snags on things of your back.

It's a real thing and it's an actual quite easily.

Yeah.

So these this charger was it had the three prongs and when you fold it, they all folded down together in unison. They were they hit some sort of mechanical linkage. They made the most satisfying little when you snap them down and when you snap them back up again. It was a beautiful piece of mechanical engineering. If you owned it and you lived in the UK every single day, you would use this thing and your life would be better.

Yeah. Right, that's that's like pure.

We were asking on the last recording session, where were the consumer gadgets that is a consumer gadget that would see daily use and make a significant difference in your life.

I agree, it's.

Just that that is like one percent of this show. No, I agree, yeah, And that's that's my principal thing is not that those things aren't here. Though there are less of them, there are remarkably less of them. Like last year there were more of the year before that way like there was tons of them.

This year.

I saw one booth and I wish I could remember because it was just The problem is as well is a lot of the ones I saw were just the same old ship we've had for years. Anchor is doing some cool stuff. Was gallium nitrite with making the plugs small?

Oh yeah plugs.

Yeah, they're fucking amazing. They're awesome. Didn't even see any new interesting gang stuff. And like Anchor, I give too much money because they always got some new, thinner, weird one with a cable in it.

I'm fucking do you know what.

The downside of gan plugs is they draw so many watts. They're such good chargers that they blow the breaker on airplace seats on the mains on a plate. If you've got like a hundred white wine in the Little Green a meeting, I.

Dropped my prime on that bitch all the time, and it's fine. Anchor's got there.

I've I've had I've got two different gang chargers in my bag.

Neither of them work.

Reliable, explains No, I've been very lucky then, because I is it a sixty five white though one hundred and twenty five and fifty even you've gotten lucky that this well, it's just also it does.

Get very hot, right, but it is on right, and I can chrut.

I look like a real prick because I've just got this thing on the side, just like sure, just balancing barely on the side. Oh no, it's you're coming on to talk about the local Vegas area, and like the effect of CS even Vegas feels a little quieter, Like we were just discussing earlier how there was like a chunk of the plants or of Venetian and I can't remember it was just closed, just like no tables. Yeah that oh, no local residence of local resident. That fucking

Fuck yeah, yeah, they can. They can get it.

Kind of well, I mean pastline. But it's just it feels like everything. Maybe it's just the wide world. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a mix of things. Las Vegas has definitely had a decline in visitation.

Throughout the year.

I have I have notes next to me, please, So through November of twenty twenty five compared to twenty twenty four, it's a seven point four percent decline in visitation.

Uh.

To be fair, twenty twenty four is a record year. Part of that is pent up interest from the pandemic that got everyone going everywhere that was interested in travel. But that's still a drop of two point eight million people right going to media.

And two point seven million other Canadian Well, I mean I.

Got those numbers too.

Yeah, I mean I think international travel definitely been affected. I think it does surprise a lot of people when they look at the numbers at Harrod International Airport that the bigger client actually was in domestic really lights.

Yeah, it's do you have any idea why?

Well, I think there's a couple of things.

One, I when you look at travel and the process of it right the in my opinion, the most important thing is consumer sentiment at that moment and forward, forward looking sentiment. If you don't feel comfortable in your if you don't feel comfortable in your position, you know, for feeding your family or just paying the bills on time you are not traveling. But at the same time, I will say, I think this is an important note because I think a lot of the narrative has been like

Is up this year. Is that because they're gouging more though they.

Well that Actually there's been some efforts to scale that back because people were getting very angry, and there was a large narrative online that, like the the destination marketing organization here in Las Vegas has tried to push back against.

But the sor I'm trying to think about those say of phrases.

The actual spend was higher, and I think, and I'm not going to act like I have a definitive this is why. But I think in all sectors you're seeing an increasingly bifurcated economy right k shaped and what does that mean for those of us suits that the really rich are doing very very well and that the rest of us are not.

Of the consumption is the top death sile So that coming at this, that is that I mean if you look at when, if you look at other you know, high end, I don't have the numbers.

Those numbers right in front of me. They're doing okay.

So I think there is like discussion of price gouging, and I think that was a really big factor. You mentioned Canadians I talked to at the beginning of the year.

I went to a Winnipeg.

Jets game here at Nice I stood outside and I was just interviewing people who were coming in. This was right after or right around when Trump took office, And obviously when you're going to talk to Canadians who were in Vegas, it's a big sampling bias.

Of these are the people who didn't care.

Most of them did and they said, you know, I scheduled this month ago not coming back.

And the November numbers those they do have a friend of me. In November.

Travel into Vegas from Air Canada compared to last year fell twenty six percent.

Jesus Christ.

And the discount carriers are worse, right, Yeah, ultra low cost.

Carriers are having a hard time. Spirits kind of its own.

Thing, starving the Canadian discount, the Western Charter flights, West Chat, and there's another one, I forget what they're called.

Canadian Okay, west Jet was thirty three point two.

Percent decline Jesus Christ.

And that's just for Canes. There's actually have been uh that's been made up in some other countries coming to United States. But there's also all these policies coming down the pipeline where I believe it was Customs and Border Protection had a proposal of people coming into the country, many of the folks who be coming into the country

Was Georgia specifically against South South are.

There are South Koreans, many of them were not all that he had to be convincing people that it was okay to come to the United States, that they should, that they can still come to see.

Sir to America. There is a class of migrant They're welcoming. If you are the former dictator of Honduras who's been convicted of multiple narco trafficking charges, white South Africans, you will be Yeah.

It's and I mean this is specifically a place that attracts you based on being free and easy and quick and simple. And it's all of these little roadblocks, these little additions that you just make it like. You can't treat this like adult Disneyland.

What happens in Vegas gets imprisoned, definitely in Vegas.

What happens in Vegas requires a long form Now it's just like I don't know. And also the hotels are not as cheap as they used to be. It used to be you could you could roll your ass into Ballys for forty five bucks a night if you felt.

Like well, there's also a resort fees that people are.

Very those are bug fee by the way, I was wondering, I paid the extra bud okay, Uh, that's that you get that one special.

That's the Canadian special they call it. It's just frustrating as well because this place. I love Vegas. I love being here. It's a vending machine city. Uh. My addiction is not coke. So that's been great for the Cocla corporation, but it's like adding these roapebooks fucks up a place like this so much, which is based on convenience.

Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at the different narratives people are putting out about Las Vegas. I know local Democrats have labeled this the Trump slump that's there. That's their big thing going into We have a governor's race this year, and that is a big part is tying the current governor, Joe Lombardo, to the policies of the Trump administration. I'm skeptical about how well that's gonna work because I think it's a lot more complicated than

But the thing is, we're in the plot someone I like staying here. It's the fucking case here the resort fee every night, and it's like these resort fees kill people. Not literally, well the rest of Vegas does that maybe, but not really. It's like the little needling things that Vegas did. And it's not just post twenty twenty one, but it's like, if you're gonna do this to a place where it's about just kind of like frictionless entertainment.

And they've waved through so many mergers too. Yeah, the casinos aren't really competing anymore.

Well, there's that, and also that some of them aren't they don't own the property the property itself in some cases.

But even downtown Vegas is more expensive now. Like I am't being to Fremont Street much before Lost Year and I went it's more expensive in some cases than the strip, and it fucking sucks. I'm sorry. It's like genuinely like it's a loud, hostile place that when you go it's just like punishing and it's like, Oh, used to go there because it was cheap. Now it's expensive and loud and bad. If I wanted that, I got to fucking Charlotte.

Yeah, what's happening in Reno?

Is it just as bad as Phil was mentioning the other day that Reno is actually trying to like not reject the casinos but grow outside of them, which I don't think.

I think it's a state that's a statewide Is that sleep?

Yeah?

I would say it's like pretty statewide.

No, like housing and jobs.

Oh wow, I hate that.

That's crazy.

I know what kind of a town runs on that. When we have our big, beautiful casinos and our loud slot machines, slot machines.

They're so loud. We've got the Buffalo slot machines.

You've got the Bullet Farm, You've got the water Castle, the Gonsto Lives, You've got we have to discuss on stars.

We have the most lifeless NFL team in the most lifeless NFL stadium I have always made.

Actually, I was at an event recently and Mark Davis sat next down next to me, and I got I.

Was, man, if he ever sat down next to me, I've got some fuck questions, mate. I'm not gonna what the fucking offensive line. They're all gonna play out a position? Why do you think Pete Carroll's son do?

Sorry, but it's crazy because, I mean, it's so emblematic of the industry that you can have a successful in air quotes NFL franchise without winning.

I mean, I mean even then, I don't even think they're that successful. We're going to transition to the next part. The next ad is for the Las Vegas Raiders. We won three fucking times despite Pete Carroll Gino Smith. I guess that's what happens when you don't have an offensive line playing in position. This next ad is for the Las Vegas Raiders. Any other is an error, and we're back for the second quarter. We're back with, of course, Carl Shnard of the Las Vegas Son Hello, mister Edwin

So it depends and Madrigal's show on MPR in San Francisco. It's the largest MPR station in the country. Right after Brandon car Chair, the FCC announced that he was going to pull three years of their underwriting. Uh, and their general counsel had said, you cannot even allude to the title of the book. And through the entire segment we called it the book whose title we cannot say?

And when I did on the media, which is.

Nationally syndicated, they called it in poopification?

Was that with with a Brook? With Brook?

Yeah, she's terrific, Gladstone fucking rocks. She is a national treasure.

Uh. And yeah.

Various other affiliates and radio stations have have dealt with it in different ways. You know, the Daily Show their cable. So they were like, it's fine, but anytime I'm on broadcast, we can't do it.

And weirdly, I was just on.

Show in Toronto and they decided not to let me say the title of the book, and so I was like, it's in somethingification and the something is a word for poop that rhymes with snit.

Nice. That's the word they use, snit. I used it. I was like, I mean.

It's great, it's general counsel is having a Yeah, it is always funny.

Like when I went on on the media, I did like half an hour of just like I managed it. Because actually to Brooke Gladstone, older woman and genuinely, if you can't explain something to her, she's very smart, but like she's a regular person, older woman. So if you if you can explain it to her, you can explain to anyone. But if you can't, you can't explain. Normalis won't understand you. I got so many emails, lovely emails, good might pay us door my od wh who was listening?

You know, you just don't need to take a nap afterwards.

But sure, yeah, yeah, I have to enter like my mind palace, like the stone will of the Buddha to like just three hours point Gianggong in the back you know I.

Feel about Samone done.

Just no I can I'm calm, I'm normal. Yeah, it's I want Vegas to come roaring back. But I think there is a degree of the post twenty twenty one greed that came in. I think that everyone jacked stuff up. I think so. I don't know how is Summolin being received by tourism. Is it being a good tourism destination. It's it's like twenty five minutes away from everything which is in Vegas.

Far Yeah, I mean, I would say.

In my own experience, I don't even really see Summerlin as it a specifically very tourist.

Does it not try and appeal? What is it?

It's like it's sitting twenty five minutes away, which anywhere else would be like, oh you get that twenty five minutes a way in Vgas You're like no, you You're just like, oh, I'll come visit you in New York City.

I guess.

I mean, if they let you fire an automatic weapon, maybe you'll go that far.

But you can do ten minutes off the strip. There's like full different places Wazooka. Then it's okay, there's a place fifteen minutes you can blow up a car for two grand here, Okay, Vegas rocks. It's an idea.

It's a very wealthy area, and they got some really nice shopping.

I think the trip a baseball team as well. Yes, Aviators, No, it's fucking great.

As a person who doesn't like sports, I like that Avia is brilliant.

It is I would say, at least in my experience, a place that's like more designed for locals, I would say probably more affluent.

Yes, yes, it's a master playing community.

Yeah, which I've got a couple of times I had to go to an event at the Aviators Stadium.

It's really nice.

I just never really saw it as I was tifically like serving the tour risk.

True.

It's kind of interesting with that is that the locals casinos actually had a really good year. What would be what you mean, like Green Well all the Stations casinos.

Yeah, yeahah, but also Green Valley as well. Is they doing all right?

I believe? So that's one pretty close to me.

Yeah, I know, I like all the local casinos that just like, yeah, stations overall had a very good year. It's good is because there's the asmr of just the slot machines they're always like somewhere between completely empty or just a few people, but they somehow still make money.

I love them, are the best.

It's I also didn't realize before moving here that like all of the movie theaters that.

You would go to or in casinos.

Yeah, there's one in the Orleans, and took my parents there when they were in town. And there's just these horrifying giant like chucky cheese looking animals, like a giant statue to.

Them when you well, that's my jam.

I fucking love it. No, my parents thought it was one.

I'm not committed robot sexual Sadly.

They're not robots. They're just giant statues of rats.

No, it's so strange key tournament there.

I did not see that the right, I swear.

Maybe I just like hallucinate it just these just like, oh, yeah, my mum gave me pot or something.

I don't know.

But and that cab on the way down, Ed and I were talking about ed ed On Gueslo and I were talking about my new favorite podcast, which is No Gods, No Mayors, which is a podcast about the oaths that are mayors, And on that I learned that Las Vegas UH is not a city. Yeah, the city of Las Vegas is a suburb.

On the other side, when you hear about the mayor of Las Vegas, this is an unincorporated area, right, we.

Have Paradise and then yeah, the when I first moved here, I was like being explained all the different government structures, like a lot of things in southern Nevada run through Clark County.

Uh huh, just because it's.

Encompasses the tire or not entire but most of the population that lives around this area. But Las Vegas itself is not the Strip. And then you have North Las Vegas and Henderson.

It's but the part of Las Vegas you see as a visitor to Las Vegas is an unincorporated county land right largely.

Yeah, so I also just want to be clear, it wasn't rats. It was giant, kind of stoned looking crocodiles. Like they're just like they all look like animated. What is the point like these things look like, Yeah, they look like they are just I don't want to know.

They're very they're very uh splash mountain looking, yes, like a little alligator minstrel city.

Oh god, I wonder if they have their own shredder. You know, what do you mean, like a shredded like the yeah, yeah, like.

Instead of you know, teenage Benja alligators and they've got to like who's yeah, yeah.

It's the people that collect unemployment taxes. Like they're just constantly at war with them.

It's like a dude who's just hanging in the sewer.

One thing else say is like, I know this sounds strange, but Vegas doesn't also seem that welcoming to see. Yes, Like it's it's weird. They you'd think that they cater to it more like when Raiders games are going on, there's a shit on a pop up events with this, it's like the only specific drinking specials or anything like that are just Lenovo has brought a restaurant, right.

I mean, it's it's pretty crazy to see though, as you know, I come to the strip probably a lot less than people would think. Yeah, but I mean cees maybe not getting drink deals, but it is everywhere on the strip.

It is, but it's events where people have bought them. It's not like they are. Vegas usually like opens their arms to people in like a just a kind of a can I have your money please?

Thing?

And I don't know whether it's just c Yes doesn't treat them with respect or something.

It's just something they haven't forgiven them from disaggregating from AVN. I think, yeah, that's.

The thing they should never have done. It's because of fucking purity.

I mean, yeah, you know that, I understand, but I understand intellectually like they should.

Have them in the same conference hall.

Yes, actually yeah, it's now at Virgin Hotels, which I kind of very funny.

So the other event I come to in Vegas most years is Defcon and talk about an event that Vegas does.

Not roll out the red car.

Yeah, we just keep getting turfed out of hotels and conference centers.

So yeah, it's just it's weird. There's this combatative relationship with it as well as like, Okay, you'll hear you're gonna spend a lot of money, but weirdly we don't love It's I I feel like both sides need to come together and do something. But I guess Vegas is a city of honest cons and ces isn't. Ha No, I mean like that's kind of what I love it here. It's like everyone's weird, so no one's weird. And also we're like very human labor focused.

I mean there's that.

I mean, I think, like we talked about last year, there's a huge union culture and union participation here in Nevada. That for a I think a state that has a Republican governor and it was the first time in twenty something years voted for Trump, very you didn't have it that there is a big focus on the people who make up the city, which I really have appreciated learning about that and that kind of the culture around work.

I'm splitting time between both, I would say New York has got a hell of a lot better at that, like most people will talk to And also if you have a disrespect for service people, chop your hands off for thirty seven to a review a piece of shit. But I like, yeah, this city is very pro labor, and I guess the current state of the tech industry isn't.

Yeah, well I was gonna yeah, I was gonna.

Conference where it's like, what if we didn't have people?

There is like a.

This like overarching theme of feels almost like anti human. Yeah, like we are trying to and I mean like tech innovation. Forever I've been like, how do we minimize the labor cost of whatever? But it feels like we're taking it to such a degree.

And everyone's so excited.

Everyone's like, oh, I can't wait.

I mean, yeah, there's people who are like excited to see people lose their child.

And the thing is as well, like Vegas, one of the best things here is go and fucking talk to the people working at the restaurants, at the door and your cab. There's so many everyone in. No one comes here by accident. Everyone like ends up here because they had a few choices they needed to make.

And it's like, I'm here.

You talked to like one of my good mates, I know, Arenstein used to work at Custiply Abs now in S and P in New York, one of my dearest friends. And it's because just Vegas, people fucking will talk to you. And there's never a case I've never talked to anyone here. And it just happened in New York, where there was like the look up and down?

Who were you? What do you do?

No? One everyone started whatre you Like, Yeah, don't know, there's a genuine every man culture here, And I don't know if.

This is the case.

It probably isn't at a large scale, but yeah, I can imagine if you're well here, there is a certain degree of fuck off, Oh you want to replace me and everyone I know and everything I do.

Yeah. I'm not sure how.

Ingrained or like supremely aware people are of that sentiment with history for like people who are just like going about their day.

But I think, like.

It's always funny to see how the ads change in Vegas based on what conferences in town.

Yeah, I think.

I mean I've certainly picked up on when there's like a tech show, like some of them are like the.

Human need not apply.

I mean not literally that, but no, it's yeah, I mean.

There are literal I don't know if they ran them here, But there's that one I saw in the Bay.

I don't think I saw that one.

And they did that specifically to drama about right, because that if people are running around saying this AI company is so good at what it does, that it's going to replace humans that investors are like.

Oh, that's the advertising campaign of llm's in general.

Well, say, like the fear you're putting people into is making them take your products seriously?

Yeah, market even though work.

I mean it's just another chat SHE'DBT rapper.

Yeah exactly, it's just And I had this conversation with the radio earlier about like, oh, the MGM's chat boys replaced in concierge. Just no, it isn't. They just wanted to lay some people off. Like also, I feel like concierge culture he was kind of dead because I don't interact with it enough. No, but it's like it used, like ten to fifteen years ago you would talk to the concierge and they'd be able to get you into

Just use open table mate.

There was, Yeah, there was this story I did a while back about this website called Restaurant Trader.

Oh yeah, that was and one of the little nuggets of information that I got out of it that I wanted to make it into a bigger thing, but I just wasn't able to was that there were concierge folks who were getting reservations sound like through their job to then put on restaurant trader that people would pay that on the side, dhaustedly, Oh wow, where like I think there was an option on the website where you could like pretty much request to work with a concierge.

Well, so, yeah, it's that that's a little anecdoti And when trader like is like banned in multiple New York restaurants New York City. Sorry, it was the New York Assembly that passed a law. Fuck, yeah, that was I think there was a there was a similar effort here in Nevada. That's why I was writing about it.

I genuinely think it should be an actual crime to resell a poison.

The most disgusting version of this was there was a bro who was paying people to call the I r S when the lines opened at eight in the morning and sit in the hold queue and then sell their positions in the I r S hold queue to people who wanted to figure out how what's going on with her?

That should be adjailable offense.

Well, he was eventually shut down, but I don't think he was ever put in jail much as he absolutely holding your holding a place in line fans, that's right.

He should be put in the books. They put Captain Captain Jack her massage one. No, I'm talking about that.

Anyone watched torch Wood torch Wood when they put Captain Jack in the concrete box, Well go and watch that.

Look, Yeah, that's where that guy should go.

It's Can I tell you my best Vegas?

Please please please? Story.

So my sister in law's good friends started a guide to places to romantic hotels called the Mister and Missus Smith Guides.

What was the romantic hotel in this case?

So the we were asked to come and review a hotel, and the way that it works is they ring up ahead and they said, we're the mister Smith company. We're thinking about putting you in the guide. We're going to send some anonymous reviewers. What we would like is a voucher for the manager to present at checkout that says these people should be camped, but they will book the reservation as per normal. The staff won't know until you check out. So we stayed in the high roller suite

It was very good. This was in two thousand and five.

It was the weekend we got engaged, so we came here about engaging and we stayed in the hotel. I was I was teaching in la and my wife would come over and was working for BBC America, and it was it was so great and like the concierge culture, and they had lots of perks. The best thing they had was they came in they gave us a menu of newspapers and we were like, how do you get these newspapers? Because it was the Singapore Straits Times and mine Las Vegas Sun, the Las Vegas Sun as well,

Was that additional cost?

No, it was all bundled him with.

I mean, was amazing the margins there when you're getting someone, Oh yeah, of course twenty five ten grand at night. Yeah, And that's the thing, Like Vegas is a service culture place. Like shit, we're going to spego tonightbout Garcia. I've a GM there, fantastic place. Look over the Blogio Fountain, I mean formerly Bazomie. I don't I have my thoughts on that, but like there are so many great restaurants here with

Get a pretty good Pristami sandwich at New York, New York.

There's a great margarita deal at the station's casinos.

But the Street Station as a microbrewery, doesn't it.

I'm just saying no.

But that's the thing, Like you can go, you can have a laugh, or if you want to do the fancy stuff, you can go at any number of places. I mean, like the whole thing about this city is it's relatively accessible, affordable, and if you want to spend some money, well you can spend some money and like have a luxury experience and it's not as expensive as doing it in the other cities. And I just it's weird,

Yeah, it's pretty difficult to get into that building like the Center.

I mean, you can go to the Renaissance Hotel and then they ubers will be like, I'm being told to go somewhere else and you're like, mate, I don't know where to go because CEA doesn't know how to wipe their asshole. At this point, how many CS has be done with uber around fucking anyway, I'm.

A big fan of the monorail for dirt.

Monorail. Is there a chance the track could bend?

I mean hopefully not, consider I don't on a diet outside Harris, but it's like I will say also that Harris was cheaper this year, even on like an expensive night. It was three hundred bucks night, which doesn't sound cheap, but it is for cees and which makes me wonder if CES attendance was down.

I so I'm mad at Caesar's harra for kicking deaf Con out. I wouldn't stay there again.

And that's the thing, Vegas. I'm not going to be romanding, but it used to be. But it feels like that's a that's a dollar to be made to work with the people at deaf Cone and be like, Okay, we have security concerns. What are some things that right deaf Con could do to make you comfortable?

And then we could make you comfortable too.

The last also, the last time I stayed at Harrah's, they gave me a room that not only didn't have a desk, it didn't have a closet.

Oh.

I was like, where do I hang up my stuff? And they're like, if you want a room with a closet, that's an extra charge. Jesus Christ, what year was that?

That was two years ago at deaf Con.

That's supremely fucked.

It was.

Years ago, deaf three years ago deaf Con in Releiss.

You what you're just saying, thought i'd pull this up. The average daily room rate on the strip. This is, you know, year to date comparing November twenty twenty five to twenty twenty four, on the strip's actually falling four point seven percent and downtown six point Interesting.

Yeah, I just everything's out of sorts.

This is but that's the room that's the rack rate, and they're piling it up with junk fees. So the rack rate is not the price, right, the one you have to add in the junk fees together.

I believe that's inclusive. Is that inclusive? I believe?

I mean that's the average, that's the room rate itself. Okay, you know that's a one to one comparison last year.

I'm not positive, but yeah.

I just feel like there is an ocean of opportunity here for the CEA if they could do one thing right and just like Gary Sparrow come on the show, CTA CTA, CTA, is that CTA c ATA. I don't know who fucking runs this shit. They centainly don't want to talk to me, but it's like, so I have.

To say, I've known Gary Shapiro for twenty years. I've never had a bad interaction with him. I don't know all the dealings of the CTA, yeah, but I've never had a I get the impression that he is someone who is in charge of an industry association with several large, important members that like to throw their weight around, and he is the peacemaker and coalition binder of this, this big,

Well, I've been saying CEA incorrectly for days, so I apologize that. Also, Ben is not your son.

I think they were. I think they were the CA. Okay, his name to CTA because electronics sounds a little outmoded.

I just feel like the CTA, now I'm saying it correctly, could work directly with Vegas and do way more. There's just it feels like they could streamline this whole thing and they get a little bit better because it's been here long enough that it's it's still too chaotic.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the exact relationship they have, but they do have a pretty close working relationship, especially when it comes down to like construction and renovations within the convention center.

How about getting people to and from the convention I think it.

I mean there was there's another reporter, Alan Stell, who had a uh.

I'm just gonna call it a tweet. I don't care.

That was about like the difficulty of biking to the convention center.

It's really really hard.

I'm so sorry, you're a psychopath if you buy that convention stead.

You know, I was thinking about e bikes when we were stuck in traffic today and thinking this would be fastest.

I mean, biking throughout Vegas is quite hard.

Yeah, I would never is that because bikes aren't allowed on the.

I mean there's no infrastructure. I mean there is instructure, but there's not a lot of infrastructure for bikes.

I mean, the way it was today, you would have been moving five times faster than on the road.

But it's like we've had this convention hip for a while and it's still insanely difficult to get around. And it's not And they will probably say, well, you know, it's a big conventions.

A lot of people.

I can go around. I went to dinner Drew in the f one. It was not that different.

What if they had helicopters that came in and skyjacked any car that moved into the junction when I didn't have time to completely and block the grid. Yeah, just just like take those cars and then dry and and then like take them out to the Grand Canyon. Just leave them at the bottom of the Grand or.

A big arm that just took them.

There was a there was a little viral clip of the new Zooks.

One get stuck like it was.

It didn't get stuck, it moved eventually, but it was like in the That's.

Not your company.

But they were just like in the middle of a turn in a giant like strip intersection for like a good little bit of time, and everyone around like what are they doing?

Like cab drivers are just saying the most ugly shit of old time.

Well, I just can't imagine being like the visitor and freaking out transparent boxes.

Everyone's is that you like the Homo sampsum thing where he gets stuck and has to be craned out. Right, I mean, this is a town bereft of shame, but even that, that's a new kind of shame we invented here in Las Vegas.

It's your adults.

I've fallen in love with weimos as an Angelino because you can make a left turn into their path and they'll just defer to you and they won't even hank although yeah, and I'm just like, fuck you, right the right roads for people, not robots, last yourself.

It's my ship, my street.

That last time, last time, I was in Santisco and I took away Moo, I got out of it, watched as a Waymo in front of it got stuck at the inter I watched it gets stuck at the intersection. Then another Weymo gets stuck behind it, and I checked back half an hour it was still fucking sick, just like beautiful, just like stare at like by the w hotel and just staring out into nothing this as people are like, yeah, this thing isn't fucking hearing you.

It can only see.

Was it ser Fantisco where a bunch of people just kept calling weymos to one spot until it just.

Can no sorry, yes, that was actually yeah yeah, and people putting like traffic cones on top lender. I think it was really funny when that was happening and people were like, you can't deface way Moe.

It's like, this is domestic terrorist.

Do people fucking say that, okay damage? It is illegal to smash up a car, so I will accept that property damage is.

A legal is it though?

Yeah?

Yeah, I don't know lost the cops or maybe I don't think they'd have the answer.

Yeah, cops are like, wow, obviously correct in forty percent of cases Google forty cops. Yeah, I can see what comes up, right, the truth, the truth about this specific situation. Yeah, it's it's unfortunate. I feel like that everything feels out of sync here. I feel like the CTA could work with Vegas and make this a little bit easier. I also think the CTA needs to fucking kick companies out from renting restaurants in the Venetian. I think it's fucking stupid.

Is so what I want is for Lenovo to distribute badge flair that's a little adhesive backed pointer, red pointer nub oh yeah yeah, I think pad and that, Like everyone can can go to the Lenova party and then have the red Lenova pointer on their badge.

Yeah, but if you have a green one, well then you can do anything to them.

I yeah, it's sorry. It's Vegas. Yeah, it's it's weird. It's just weird. I don't know.

I I love living in Vegas, and then this this week, it's just all of the Vegas stuff that's fun kind of turns off. We've had less fun off strip vent like things. No one's blown up a car. There's not been any like interesting stunts. It's like they everyone forgot to have fun or make anything this year.

It's it's really sad. It's sad.

I'm upset that like CS is kind of not having fun, and neither is Vegas rules kind of sitting is rolling around in our filth at least I am yeah one just staring at me. I'm not filthy. I've been showering every day. We just send no when I was on the show earlier. I felt bad for them, but they were like, well, what about Lenovo's ai AS system. I'm like, yeah, that's just an LM, and they're like yeah, but like,

What if we breathe these horses to run so fast that eventually one of the mayors gives birth to a locomotive.

On something.

Okay, what if we all ship ourselves enough and maybe our asses all white themselves.

We need more hay than it currently exists on the planet.

That's right, We've thrown a ball so fast that it now flies.

That well covered unprecedented reserves of hey in other countries.

That we're not. We're gonna We're gonna do it. We're just gonna run down for a few years.

Beautiful, big, beautiful, Hey, big beautiful, the big We love him.

That's the sister town to hay on Why and whales beautiful?

Oh God, Like the whole week my brain has been broken. Someone sent me a video of someoneding Trump was going I made a boom boom, I mean the biggest boom boom i've ever seen.

They're saying, it's quite beautiful. Yeah, and this specific week is like even that.

The Trump voice just I don't know if this is.

The week to do it.

Very sad, but you know yet Trump. Yeah, he's still alive, Chicken. Yeah, I mean he's still going.

Now.

The upcoming ad you're gonna get is for nothing political, nothing weird. Everything's normal here. We're all the most normal people to ever do a podcast in history. And you too can be the most normal person ever if you buy and or listen to the following advertisement. Just throw your fucking credit card, your phone, your pig. I'm sorry, you're not a pig. I please don't stop listening to my show. I desperately need the downloads.

Diane.

I'm once again finding myself in front of a microphone and beautiful sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, even though it's nighttime or i've been for what feels like weeks. I'm surrounded by several wayward travelers that I adore, starting with another journalist and activist. I think author.

Cory Doctor Well, Hello, edit, that nice to be here.

That's him, and we've got Garrison Davis of it could happen here, I apologize, we had a podcasting emergency. No, it's fine, we are doing it now. And Carl Shnard of the Las Vegas Sun, Hello, and of course Edward and Graso Jr.

Hello?

Who is Who's Diane As?

It's a Twin Peaks reference. I thought it was a Cheers ference.

And that's what I'm not. That's Robert Evans behind the Bosto's Yeah, and famous Cheers fan, famous Cheers head. Yeah, and he Robert is very excited because we have the pieces to make what was it? We've got to cu We've got we've got a CD.

Cory doctor c D. You've got a Robert. We've got us his last name, yeah, because there's not an first name here. And then what's the end. The editor is Matt Matt, so cd ROM also some other people's names and some Yeah, sure you have to add other names.

What's the cd ROM?

Oh?

Oh, it's what you when you have an ISO and you want to convert it to optical media, you take that ISO optic toast the one onto the other.

Yeah.

When you've pirated Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven and you have to you have to make your computer think that you've put a CD, oh my daddy CD, and I've been played with that with that in a minute.

I miss I miss pirrating and the little isovern bringing it off.

I missed when the only way I had Microsoft Office was a pirated version that never touched the Internet and didn't ask me to use co pilot everything. Yeah, it really is sick.

I remember when I started reading classified ads and it was like, uh, you know s w F, I s O s w M. And I was like a straight white female as an ISO frustrate white male.

I don't understand.

Yeah, Garrison, was that a legit question? No, I'm sorry, that would have been No, Honestly, if it was honest, that would have been fired.

It was barely though, because like my dad used it for the music he purchased legally on the Internet and transferring it to CDs when I was a kid. But like I just I got like the last bit of CD rock like probably like my younger siblings don't know what a CD.

Meanwhile, I once owned a ZIP drive.

I had the same I had a jazz drive. Yeah, no, my dad, this is the kind of kid I was.

My dad.

I had a dwarfull of scuzzy terminators.

Jesus Christ. They took me a minute for remember what scuzzy referred to. So that was the one where you screwed it into like it had literal screws.

You had to set dip switches on the back. And if you gave two scuzzy devices the same idea, all of your drives would go south forever.

Hell yeah, I love it.

Computers used to be used to have to fight with the computers and they administer a lethal shock.

Used to be a proper country.

Now we used to.

We used to have jazz drives, zip drives now anyone. Now you just drop box gives you a whole, a whole terror bio to any all sorts and sundry.

Unlimited access for the US government without a warrant, but also unlimited access for the chat box that they signed deals with.

You know, be fair. I did see earlier that chat GPT apparently is doing a Hippo compliant chat GPT, which just is a lie. What again, it's a lie. I thought it's a fucking lie.

Imagine how many GPTs we've seen in health like like like wearable products, just just like these past few days.

Yeah again, we're talking about this on the other show. But you can tell. One of the the things that you can divide the people with AI products between is the ninety percent for whom if you ask them what happens if somebody like if there's a data breach with all of this biometric data you've put in the cloud, they go what or we're really concerned with safety, right. They'll give you one of those two answers, but they

I'm trying to work out how anything GPT can be Hippo compliant, though it can't, I mean, based on my understanding of Hippa, I'm sure they're working out a deal with I mean now that the government's run by who's run by?

But like.

You sketch out a way that it could be hippo compliant. So HIPPA, although it's commonly called a consumer privacy law, is not a consumer privacy law because it only affects your rights as a patient and not as a consumer.

And so if you.

Were to construct a kind of matrioshka where the inside doll is a consumer company that is providing you with consumer medical services and the outside of the doll is a medical company that does nothing except kind of exists as a fig leaf like that, like the MD whose name is on the private equity owned practice, then what you could say is, well, you haven't given us any

Okay, okay, yeah, that makes sense. I just think if you feed your healthcare that you're into this, you deserve whatever comes out.

Like It's just I would I would like it's easy to take that attitude.

People are being canned into it and claimed this morph.

And it's going to be it's they're going to be

What? What is it being safeguard?

Can a prompt injection attack reveal all of my biomede?

They'll think, They'll think, you know, I am not special enough, right. I understand the nature of targets of opportunity, But the thing I'm.

Worried about is more than it will give you the wrong advice more than anything.

I mean that in terms of objective health realities, that is the big concern. But also I mean, and that's part of what I'm saying, is that when people, the majority of people I suspect who come into these devices will not have made a choice to go it into the world and buy something. They will have been advised by a medical professional. They trust that this is a

I also think it's that no one can afford healthcare anyway.

Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing with like AI therapy that I always say, It's like, it's obviously evil, obviously bad, terrible, it's going to reinforce things. But at the same time, therapy is extremely expensive. Yeah, and when it's covered by health care plants, which it's often not. And I don't even think therapy is covered under the NHS.

There.

If it is, it's extremely it is. When I was there, I could not find a therapist.

It was hard to find a therapist. But there it is covered.

Then it may is like the thing is, then it may as well not be. And I say, this is a big NHS defender and lover of the NHS mental health. Is this weird bifurcated thing where everything's too expensive?

So yeah, well, I mean, and that was I went to a panel that was about AI in the Future of mental health. And I went there hoping that it or expecting it to be a normal panel where I harass whoever is up there during the q and a. But no, it was one very earnest clinical therapist who was talking about people are already used AIS for therapy. We have data on how often that's being done, and

They're true.

I think people journaling is a well understood therapeutical modality. Journaling with prompts is a well understood therapeutic modality. I think those prompts don't have to be very sophisticated, uh, And I think that there are lots of people who would find it nice to have a thing where when you type some stuff, gave you a response and said, you know, tell me more.

I think you've kind of like this rosebud or something like there are ones like that as well. It's just when it comes to therapeutics, I guess more.

My My concern was that I don't deny that there is a market and there are people who would get utility, and you probably could make a device that could handle that responsibly, but I don't see that as solving the societal issue of huge numbers of people use it because the chatbots are addicted, right, and that's what like that?

Well, the good news is is that none of this is remotely profitable in any way, and healthcare dates or is extremely extremely token intensive, and so anyone using this is just working on borrowed time.

And in defense of chatbots and medical applications, they are reliably good at upcoting things in EHR, so you can rip off in sure.

Which is great.

And hey, no, I've heard that's the one that is the one lllm use I have heard where it's just like, yeah, find if you're being overcharged in this, which is you know what the one oh.

No, I mean overcharging.

They're very good at like EPIC, which is the Electronic Health Health Record monopolist, which is a cult. Basically, they they've basically redesigned the chapbots in their EHR systems around upcoding so that they can rip off insurres. So if you go in and you say I have an X and a Y and a Z, and they're like, well that infers I can infer that you have an A, N, A B in a c UH and also we can treat X as a we can treat X as this

And that makes me think a product I might want because there's a lot of agentic AI here and I legitimately don't want an AI agent to handle stuff like booking flights or booking to my car to get repaired or whatever for me. But what could be useful is if somebody coded an AI agent that you could have call companies that you need to call on the phone and fight through their chatbot, and like, this is an optimized chatbot for fighting through other chatbots. We have that

Yeah, Human dot Com they already hit they've had that for a while.

It's it's funny.

It's like even the good idea, it's kind of already done. Also, if you use wargreens, I think if you just type seven seven to one the moment you call, you immediately go to the pharmacist.

Yep, just do that.

That's a little tip for you all, just if you'd work with wargreens. Fuck chatbots, Yeah, it's I also just think that it's irresponsible to have a chatbot talk about any healthcare thing, just because the nuance of what even I might my further radicalization of that is I think all the fitness stuff is unhealthy too, because you can

I went to a comedy smart I who they have an optical recognition program and it worked in that they had it read my eyes and then when I walked in front of it in the future, it would identify me by the name I gave it, and the other people by the name they gave it. But the thing that it was meant for is number one. Like several products I saw at CES, if you were distracted, if you're looking at your phone, or if you fall asleep while driving, it will try to wake you up, or

But also people drive on the different side of the roads so that eyes would possibly look in different directions. And I always think, and I mentioned it earlier, Microsoft Connect which could not see black people quite literally batter off ted anyone remember bat of great show, Literally we see you.

And that was the And I don't know that smart Ie has this I have because I can't.

I can't. Really I did show up.

I had ripped a shipload of uh my my CBG joint, which is like, himp, what is CBG? It's one of the many different cannabinoids. They figured out how to extract and that's federally legal for that doblement. So I was high as hell and I'd taken a shipload of my Credom pills and it didn't notify that I was fucked up, but I wasn't drunk.

So so you can drive on CBG and cradle. Yeah, you know I should not have been driving.

Yeah, driving high as fine, that's on this.

I mean, if you if you take a little k just get just get to the edge of the k hole when.

Best.

Yeah, you can become the richest man in the world.

It turns out you can use you can use nitrous in multiple ways in your car.

Look, some of us may have done car nitrous before, and if so, as long as you don't do a double, it's safe.

Better or flying brow By Calmageddon like.

Steve Jackson's Car Wars. Jesus Christ.

That's a blast from the Pand oh my god, now they're doing a newcom again.

Now it's gonna be nice.

Yeah, it's I can't stop thinking of the eye thing now. It's really bothered me because that feels like this, How would you possibly ever get enough data?

I don't. That's the thing is they had a video of it recognizing a drunk person, but nothing that they had at the show.

I cannot test. You should just get every journalist rip ship and just to be like, yeah, this is there used to.

Be bars at some of the Yeah, and that's what they should have had. They should have been like, take three shots and get in front of this thing. You see if it can tell response.

No, they should have like a driving simulator and they should have like shots and you should be able to go up do some shots, getting driving simulator and see if it can tell if you're drunk driving.

Again, this sounds great.

This is why CEES needs to be moved to Minneapolis, right.

No, no, absolutely not in January? Are you insane? That mean drunk driving city in January it's gonna be ice everywhere.

Well there's currently everywhere everywhere. Oh god, now.

They should they should move it somewhere more punishing, though. I agree it's Vegas is too nice. Let's send this the fucking like Merced, California. There we go, black Rock Desert.

There we No, No, no, that's too nice.

Ce s Dallas, Yeah, Dallas, Dallas, joke about that. Yeah, that would be to Orlando, Florida.

The most the most.

Painful place in the world, the most I'm I'm not not super spiritual, but that place is.

Bathed in evil. And I live in Las Vegas.

Yeah, you live in Vegas. You can't see very little room to stand up.

I have a lot of experience. I mean, if we're going to Florida London, how about clear Water right, the world's headquarters for flexidisc manufacturing scientology.

Yeah, and I you know, to be honest, a lot of people don't like the culty aspects of flexi disc. But I think, you know, there's a lot of what is that I don't know you.

Ever buy a magazine that had a floppy printed forty five rpm record that you tore out of the magazine and put on your turntable.

No, that is a flexi disk?

Well when when was this the thing?

It was a thing from.

Like the fifties through the early two thousands.

Really, wow, Garrison, that's basically like a CD rom But oh I got it that I woke one of It's like a DVD for your ears. That might be what finally broke me on this.

I mentioned on an earlier installment of this that one of my Christmas gifts was this Olivetti typewriter. But one of my other Christmas gifts was a Mad magazine from nineteen eighty one with a Flexi disc. It's the great, big, beautiful day fly desk that had they recorded eight different endings to the track and they had a in the groove that has a hard stop that caused the needle to pop up and it would land in one of eight random tracks.

That's cool. That's actually the coolest shit.

Also, that's cooler than anything I've seen it. Yes, technically based on the standards of ce S. That's AI enabled.

That's a smart smart and actually quite literally more reliable than any LM.

It's all on device, doesn't connect to the cloud. It's everything we've been looking for in products.

And it's customizable and uh user centric.

Yeah, wow, I love this. This is the only company I respect. I heard about this week.

I Wills in terms of good products. We saw Gary and I we talked about this on our show. I talked about in the first episode with you. There are a lot of exoskeleton products out that are a mix of and often they're meant for both, but a mix of therapeutic for people who have different like disabilities where they might need the extra assistance offered, and also for like laborers, for people working, and I'm also like people doing working like factories. The shoe one, I didn't get

Gary and I both wore it.

I have some data on it, by which I mean I tracked how fast I was moving. I walked from the Venetian to the LBCC, and normally when I am just walking and on a particular hurry, it's about a nineteen twenty minute mile if I'm just kind of like walking and not going, which is more or less normal, and my heart rates usually between like ninety five and

Yeah yeah, same amount like again my heart rate.

Yeah, like that's that's yeah, because you can feel it like lifting your legs. Basically it is kind of moving you. I didn't have any less foot pain, like by the end of the day, fourteen thousand steps or so, like my feet. You're sure because it doesn't do anything to your feet, But my knees didn't feel strained, and my lower back didn't feel strained. That's you know what.

I found it pretty cool? Yeah, I like this. I like this in a quite cynical CS. Yeah, I actually really love the visa everywhere. These are actually future tech, but fucking rocks.

I actually I literally thanked the rep who had given them to me, not forgiving me to them, but just like, thank you guys for bringing a real thing to the show. Yes, like when you went through the entrance metal detective, it was fine.

They didn't even notice it. Really, that's not good, no.

No at all, Like carbon fiber or something.

Yeah, yeah, oh wow, Hyper show should let me have one.

I'm sure we can get you try and get used to too similar response. Yeah, I know.

We talked about it yesterday on the show. I think it's really cool that, like, again I've been trashing this show with good fucking reason, but I like that they're doing this. I like that we finally see because that I've seen like kind of like shreds off across the ears and they're everywhere in a show that otherwise should be shut down. Uh, maybe not the entire thing there is.

That's part. Part of what's frustrating is there are people doing innovative stuff. Like I've talked about the photonic muscles right where it is like a device that replicates the way physical muscles work. Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah, where you like you shine a light and it causes to constrict and you can use it as like a motor and it takes up less space than a motor. But they're not being like and this is going to be

I'm like, that's the thing. Thank you, Garrett.

You and Robert are different shapes to be, you know, to broadly, we wearing different axos.

Yeah, we are slightly slightly different in size. Ye hurtful the same exim so it has the bad adjusted the carbon fiber slides on both sides so it can get wider for the hips. I did have it at the smallest option, but I'm the kind of in terms of my hips, I'm kind of the smallest adult size there is.

Yes, I am.

I am an examorphous And then the leg straps also have like some pretty some pretty strong eylon, so you can tighten in two cases for it to go above your knee. I definitely if I was considerably smaller, it may not have fit on as as well. But like it's it's it's it's difficult because like I have like a very like twinkish form like with some some people who are like smaller than me, which which should be which was.

Going to be in really Scott's new alien film.

Yeah, but no, Like if it's certain people who are like smaller than me in a lot of ways might have bigger hips, it would it would fit on them.

Fine.

If if someone's hips were considerably smaller than mine, then they might have a child, then they might have a problem and it but it it works, It worked for my side.

Yeah, And there is there is an app which gives you more control over the device and the fit. You can control it all in the fitness but you can control it all with the button. But with the button you're kind of like there's four levels, and with the app you could be like I wanted it thirty one percent or whatever, so you have a little more adjustment.

And what does what does the power on it?

You can feel it lifting your legs as you walk, and it's like something lifting your body.

Is it like just turning your e bike from three to four?

Yeah kind of.

Yeah, it's your physical but it also when you install it, you put in your weight and your height and it will tell you this is probably where you.

Want to adjust it.

There's like numbers when you like white, probably what will work best for your body. I like this. It's a good product.

Yeah, I wish more things will like that.

I you know, it's not two thousand dollars is not a casual purchase for most people. But it's not like insanely out of reach for a normal person. And it's a business for and it's certainly reasonable for a business. And I think they do worth what they're charging. They do have it, you need it.

Their their last model from from last year is it's like a thousand dollars like this is this is, this is this is this is their new.

Pro version and this is a weird thing. I know that this is a weirdly optimistic thing. I can imagine them being cheaper until three years.

I'm sure they will be And I.

Think, I see this is like two thousand dollars not to be able to walk regularly when you conned.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, and the other thing that I'm working on and I'm trying to get one of the companies that makes a full body the upper body one too, because I have an environment and putting on my body armor, like my my, my my plate carrier and my helmet. And I think that there's an opportunity to create your own like Jerry rigged power armor out of this And like every American boy, all I've ever wanted to do is be a space marine. So I really do think I think there's a potential. So you could be Matt Diamond

Do you know they have a fucking trademark they took out on Space Marine?

They sure did. They shared it.

I mean, I meanshop oh get they are there there. This is a whole separate cop But like their their attitude towards like intellectual property law has been crazy, Like for the last thirty years, there hasn't been any movies or TV despite the massive demand for it, and they would sue anyone who created like fan ones.

Uh.

Like there was a German a full length fan movie that they had scrubbed from the Internet because the argument was that German intellectual property laws would mean that they would not have full control of their IP if they allowed this fan probab to exist.

Which is I mean, this is the trademark argument. It's a story that trademark lawyers tell their children when they're worried about not having enough money to pay for college.

It's nonsense.

This trademark genericization generous bullshit.

But Games Workshop is otherwise kind of a cool company, I thought. I mean, they they pay people well.

I think they've got good lore.

Yeah, and they got more.

They've got good minis also there.

A weird company.

I did that.

I enjoy the fact also that they don't even try and romanticize any of it. They're just like, no, they fucking anyone.

They bring enormous pleasure to Riley Quinn, who is a force for good on that right.

Coming up better offline, we're doing a thing with Trash Future. It's coming up in the that's me announcing it. That's all you're getting.

No, I love Hams. We'll be doing it, launching a Hams podcast has well, like the that's what the kids call it, what what Hams?

Well, just like the Warhammer warham Hams Sorry for a certain British this is your culture.

Yeah I did.

I hung out like the one happy place in Hammersmith, London where it was the local game workshop thing. I found the space Marine game kind of shit.

Though the new one. Yeah, it was just repetitive no orcs, no, no, no, they went they went with tear nits and chaos.

Or actually I wanted like Yobo orcs like so I could feel at home, like being beset with men going.

My favorite piece of warhammer lore is that Games Workshops orcs, which started out in Fantasy and then when they created forty k Mitigated that were initially largely created to be a parody of the Diggers, as in the Anarchists. Yeah, yes, God. One of their games was specifically based on the coal mine protests during the Thatcher era, with orcs that were standing in for the different sites, including an orc that

Yeah, I mean an alternative uh huh Orkard Thatcher. I love the idea that like New York, Oh, my god, no, I I I really should have known that one. But no, the Diggers would have been just before my time. So yeah, ninet eighty six. I was born yep, so like just.

Before that era. But I did grow up with two parents, which.

Is like, yeah, Margaret Fletcher, fucking such fuck Margaret Thatcher. Well, Neil Kinnock stands here. Well, we're gonna rotate to our final rotation, our final half an hour. Whatever is coming up, you must look at it, you must listen to it, you must click it forever. Otherwise this show will suitly inspire.

Please subscribe to the news letter.

Two. We're going to an ad break and they'll be back for the final quarter. Ladies and gentlemen, Mister Mattiski, welcome back to Barre Offline for the final core of I'll See Us Experience.

That was the wonderful, mister. I mean, that was fine, ed. But what if instead of a human being, a chat bot has played guitar for you. That's not just music and sound. They make my favorite holiday song, what is it? The Coca Cola Holidays Are Coming song, which has lyrics that really stick with me that include holidays are coming. Wow, Holidays are coming, Holidays are coming, Holidays are coming.

Threat whether you like it or not, literally threatened me with a good time. Yeah. I love the Coca Cola where the truck changes size several times.

I see. I'm glad you said that because we are going to make so much money by just cutting that audio out and having like put throwing that in as an ad of just Exitron saying I love the Coca Cola. I love That's like the Homo Simpson thing. I love Coca Cola. I love LLM. My voice is my passport. Verify me.

You're real good at turning me. Uh yeah, this is CS. We're here for the final It's it's fine CS. This year has been so strange and I mean this even the metaverse CS, which was kind of like weird. I missed the metaverse C. I missed the meta US in general.

The good old days, Grey simple back then, NFTs, Oh my god that but the.

Weird That was a weird CS because there was like not one in twenty twenty one. No there, and it wasn't.

I did the virtual one. Twenty two was their first CS, and Gary and I, thanks to the metaverse, made a lifelong a lifelong friend. For the last four years. Every year we go to Moromotos and MGM, which is sorry, We'll go to more Motives and MGM which is a really good restaurant with our friend Andrew, who is the CEO of Alcat Games Nice which ischem Alchemy Labs is part of I think ol Wait sorry, yeah, you're out shit is it alchemy?

It's alchemy?

Okay?

Sorry.

Anyway, we go and we eat and we hang out because in twenty twenty two.

We are in the metaverse.

Yeah, there was a metaverse party on the side the Belagio where everyone showed up outside the Bolagio and then at a certain time there was like a QR code that you scanned and you went into a braw. It wasn't even an app, it was an in browser metaverse metaverse experience. It crashed immediately and no one fountain.

It was supposed to sync up to the fountain, and nobody could get it to work, and the whole thing completely crashed.

It was a massive dud, and there.

Were guys who were worked for the company there who fled. They see they ran away.

Because people, the friends you made along tally was it quite So we went to the beer Garden which was across the street. And then we met Andrew, who now we have Yeah, yeah, now we hang out and now we hang out every year.

The metaverse brings people together. This was Mark Zuckerberg's beautiful vision all along. This This was my first CES miracle, like the first of many.

But I love the idea of going outside the Belagio Fountain. It's like a very analog thing full of pistons.

That works beautiful. You're just gonna say pissed, but yeah, probably pistons too. Yeah, I wonder. I don't think you can piss in that.

Oh you can piss in anything. Oh I could, Yes, let me rephrase this. I don't think you could piss in it without getting arrested. No, No, you pee in a bottle and you just toss the bottle.

You would get arrested for that.

They would absolutely. One time, I was watching those fountains and watching them kill a bird.

They've got one of those Amazon surveillance masks.

We we had dinner outside of the Bolagio Fountain a few years ago and we talked about all.

The words, who are flying just get yeah, just like just like because the fountains are fucking huge, yeah, like they look like you see him on the video the giant and they had just pistons and just a book, just a fucking endangered But that.

I taught a special ed one of my because you know, there were a bunch of different kids, and like one of my kids who I worked with was this kid who was like seventeen years old, so who's got to graduate? Uh. He had at the time what they called Asperger sentrum. Obviously that's not a diagnostic term now, but that's how I was introduced to him. And he was obsessed with pumps, with like water pumps, fountains and stuff, and incredibly knowledgeable.

Him well as an artist with all these specific likes and dislikes. I fucking love that.

It's a beautiful story. He was a great kid. Yeah, but no, you're right, this is this is still a great kid. I don't know.

This is the weirdest see us since the Meta versus Sety.

It's so strange because.

No, I they're they're they're both, they're both they have but they both have this hollowness to them because at least last year, AI was still like ascendant exactly, it was still going to you, and now it ascended, and now it's going it's going down, and you can you can tell because the only thing they can imagine as like a new thing is combining these models, which haven't really improved the last year, really really combining them with

One kind of felt like lost.

No, it's like absent and hollow in a way that I only felt before while inside the medaw verse, which is also absent in hollow, which it's it's you.

Know, what it needs, though, it needs to be appreciated on a segway, because that was the truly transformative technology of two thousand and all of you were.

Going to change the world with all this. Don't even remember the last time I walked around without using a segment?

Do you remember life before the second I was born in two thousand and two. I only ever known a time without segus.

Garrison's feet have never touched the ground.

Yeah, it's just to segue. I've never been on a segue. I'm gonna be honest. Oh man, it's like being on a segue. It's like standing but different. I see the tools and I'm just like, I ready look like a bell end. I don't need to need to.

Steve Wozniak used to play segue polo, which is apparently of the sport of kings.

My man, I am a British Polish guy. Do you understand how difficult it is to fight away to be more.

White than me? Jesus Christ segway polo polo?

I did mean?

I mean was is also Polish? I am also I am also Polish and also technically British.

So racquetball, sea pickleball, Jesus Christ kill me.

I say technical, I what sea technical? That's on that some bit oh someone has.

That's just when you're open carrying on a segways the only way I red that's just Texas man.

My wife gave me a Tabasco holster for Christmas last year, and that is my open carry Nice.

Yeah. I I met was once, and you know what, he's one of the few tech people I've met who I wasn't just like revolted by. I sat down and I talked to him, and we talked for half an hour and he was like, you know, you've got trye cab. But I'm like, all right, what's he talking about. No, it's a share where it's a sharewear run by a single German developer. It's completely secure, and it was you can just give this random develop a twenty five euro and I what else does the No, it's just a

And I used it.

I'm like, oh, I need to ask a question. I emailed the developer. Think immediate response like very sternly telling me that I wasn't using it correctly, But what the fuck? Is the Internet for and that browser is more useful than anything I've seen here. I do Garson, You've you've given. I've been trying to find the words for this. But yeah, it's like last year it was we're gonna do AI, folks, you're excited about all the AI.

We're gonna do, but you know it's not there. But we're all excited.

This year it's ah, fuck, you know, God, do you want to chat? But in your in the physical world.

It's that potential is always more interesting than the real thing. This is why the right is only interested in potential babies, but.

Not actually because they're full of fucking.

Babies like want things and have agency, whereas babies that don't exist, imaginary babies in pizza parlor restaurants or women's uteruses are are are worthy and important.

No, And it's the mix of AI is entering the physical world. This is going to be in everyone's house. Everyone is always going to be communicating with and listen to by one or more chatbots. That is the vision, and that is the vision that every time I talk to one of the people who works at these companies, especially the engineers and the c suite people. Every time I listen to them in a panel, the default assumption is you will never not be connected to some form

Yeah, the most important thing is getting your article to get summarized in an AI because no one's the actual article anymore. They're just reading the either the Google summary or the reading the chat GPT summary. And so trying to like like like engineer for for ai for for for for ai to grab and use.

Your contentive four hours on Monday, just doing marketing panels about AI and advertising Jesus correct, And.

What was the term that they used for this? Which one for for trying to trying to do like search engine optimizations.

No, no, no, no, no. It was the term that they used was model hacking. Model hack because in the again four hours of listening to people who were like cour Suites, the CMO of into it right, people who in like one of Google's heads of marketing. The only specific and there was one in all of these panels specific of this is an AI augmented marketing plan that

Meds would make you drowsy. And that was like, that's the one example.

Have we replaced SEO with model?

That is?

My take?

Is this all me?

Ow? Jesus fucking God fucked. There's another term. But now calling it me ow.

And it's model engine optimization for the web right now? Nice? I mean, that's a very cless And that was when I got to what is the actual because everyone would say AI is supercharging the way that we do advertising and marketing. It's completely changed the game. That was the actual specific is that we are basically replacing SEO with model hacking, right with me? The thing is that's it, that's that's the idea they've got.

And people do say about this loot, but it's like, oh, no, we're going to start changing articles to appeal to a shadowy algorithm.

What could possibly happen?

Oh, it's like we're in a regression. It's like, oh, what is the big new hot thing chatbots? What were knowledge management systems doing this crap ten years ago?

More?

They've got data, and I some of the data I can say is very inconsistent and not they're not representing it accurately. Some of the data. I don't know fully how viable those studies are, but the data does suggest that, especially gen Z, people are very commonly using chat GPT when they're trying to make purchases. Right, it's just new SEM right, And so at the moment, it does seem as if there is value for advertisers and you can in fact drive sales this way, right, But.

That's my question, is it driving sales or clicks? Because as many years out, let's find those are not the same. They are convinced that it's driving sales.

Do we all know Gresham's law? I don't.

So bad currency drives out good So Gresham's law dates back to when Newton was the exchequer and there was enormous debasement of the currency, and so people would like shave down coins, they would sweat them, they would.

Clip them, and that's where you literally clip a piece off the coin. Pieces of eight you were literally break could break into eight what is cool.

So, so you have this debased currency in the in the stream of commerce, and if you are past a bad note, the thing that you want to do is or a bad coin rather is pass it on to someone else, because if you're holding onto it, then it's worthless. And so people preferentially spend bad money and they hoard good money, and so the bad money eventually takes over the economy.

But what does this manifest in this one?

So in this in this case, what you have is the bad driving of the good.

So if you are if you have a good product that you just list and you put on your website, or if you have factual information. I mean, one way that we express it more recently is the truth is paywalled and the lies are free, right right, the bad drives out the good over and over again. On Amazon's so called advertising network where they So you know, when I wrote the chapter in Incentification about Amazon advertising, which is where they auction off search results, that was a

And the.

Winner of the auction for Amazon search results is the company that spends the most on search result placement, which means that they have less money to spend on either fair pricing or product quality or both. So the top results on Amazon are always going to be the worst products, either the most expensive or the worst quality, or both. And we are living through an era of Gresham's law. Right, the bad drives out the good over and over and over again.

I think what's funny is you'll completely right. Does sound like a hell then that.

But it's like no, but and I'm very smart for saying it. You'll not just right, you'll smum.

But it's and that snazzy blazer makes you look powerful.

And it's also have you considered having a Coca cola with vanilla? I think that you might really benefit from some Coca cola with vanilla?

Right you sniffle it's non drowsy Kyle Colin I both there in the same moment. But it's also it's the ultimate point of that. With these llms, it's like we've reached the precipice where it's like we can control the search engine, the results, the everything, except they attached it to the one thing that you're not meant to do with a search engine, which is make it expensive.

It's just a fucking well, I mean, but what they're going what they see as the utility here. Like I've talked a bit about Soundhounds Booth. The company makes AI agents that are largely meant to drive sales for other people. But one of the things I didn't bring up that the representative very excitedly told me is that they will

So I published a story where this was the plot. In two thousand and five, it was called Human Readable. It was publishing an anthology Byron Slowly called Future Washington's. It's been reprinted many times since. Like, cyberpunk is a warning and not a suggestion. Yeah, the tolment in Nexus for bringing you say that, But I mean the cyberpunk I was raised on but was shadow run. And I do feel like if I had a troll friend with a machine gun, a lot of my problems would go away.

I also agree, but I will say none of this works. Like this is the thing I understand you completely separately from a troll with a machine gun. The troll of the machine gun would work flawlessly.

I actually think it would solve many of the problems I have with this current absolutely, yeah, almost immediately. But the important thing to say is these are necessary fears and discussions that do not exist and cannot exist with l M technology.

They don't work, they do not want, and there's there's so little thought about the seams right Like when I was talking to that guy about their map that sends you to places, I was like, well, what if I'm in like a country, because he talked about it'll work in other countries, Like what if I'm in a country that you have no deals with any of the businesses there, right, like because there's a lot of countries and that's like home. Or what if I'm in the middle I live out

And I was like, out of your base.

Clearly, no one And it became clear to me no one at SoundHound had ever thought about that.

But that's because like, yes, like my mom's it's a map app like it.

Feels like it should just do that.

It's forging places.

Like my mother is from, like a very small town in like rural Canada, in the middle of like Saskatchewan, where it's it's just like prairies and farm towns and there's not like there's not like big companies, so it's all like locally owned, like.

Snow Saskatchewan is like Canadian Texas.

Yeah, it's like, is it just not gonna be able to help me navigate anywhere from like driving to go see my family for Christmas, and I need to like find like a gas station.

There's a crazy gas station that we have an arrangement with sixteen hundred miles away. Yeah, the gas is what it's worth. The tree.

It's just this fly home, fly back to leave immediately. But that's the funny thing. This is like a classic CS theme as well. It's just like the Chloe Radcliffe. Yeah, but why or why does this matter? Or who cares? And they look at you like they are experiencing latency. I went to the way they do they it looks it looks like they're like loading.

They're not.

They're not expecting anyone to not want this.

This is the fucking the tech press.

Sorry, this is this is the funniest part about walking through with you, Corey. You ask like very basic like data privacy questions, and they'll just like look at you kind of confused.

They are not ready for Corey, doctor swag.

I mean my questions are pretty basic. It's like where's the data held? Where's that?

Like?

Can I change the battery? Computers?

Very simple, like all of all of all, all of like the battery questions, and then they'll like eventually say no, you can't change the battery, and they'll look kind of disappointed in themselves and it's like, oh, well.

I like we talked to this woman who who had a dog companion for old folks, which was a relatively It was fine, it was an innocent product.

Yeah, but like Jenny, it.

Was she sat there and was donned they even and was like, yeah, you know, I just think that if I see a doll on the ground, I pick it up. We need to just show we need to train people to respect these things.

It was a little merry condo ish, like you should apologize to your sock.

She was suggesting that, like, we need to start treating AI better, and I would like to start this year by saying we need to start treating AI worse. We need to You see a fucking AI thing wants me to anthropomorphise it. I'm gonna show h.

The waimo is waiting to go straight and you're waiting to make a left turn. Fuck the way I am deferred to you.

I am updating the Herman Garin quote to when I hear the word chatbot, I reach for my gun.

Yeah, like that's that's that's where I know what I.

Had had a funny event where we were walking along as the trade floor was shutting down, and we passed by this booth and I saw the on their on their very weird sign the phrase differential privacy, which is a subject I'm very interested in. It's an obstruse mathematical way of making uh, making data that might be non private more private. And so I stopped and said, tell me about your differential privacy. And then I was like, you know about differential privacy, And I'm like, I know

This is just mad. This is just madly that's the definition of it. Differential privacy, though, it was. It was genuinely nuts. Just this a bit.

What does differential privacy mean?

So there's this problem with data sets that you've de identified. So say you've got like a record of everyone in a territory who's had interacted with the hospital system, and you replace their names with a number, and you give it to medical researchers, and you say, go find like correlates. Go find out what two factors correlate, Like people who get pneumonia are more likely to have had a fall or something. And the problem with that is that it's

Was when he had them.

So if you have a data set of a de identified data set of all of the NHS data, you can find Tony Blair. You just find the person who is this age who had these two heart procedures on these days, and that's Tony Blair, and you can follow

Like a balancing act between injective size.

And so I'm I mean, it's the thing I'm interested in. As I was saying to Ed, oh, uh, you know this, there's a lot of wish casting here. People would really like the identification to work because then you could do a lot of things that would otherwise be really shitty and make people angry to just say, oh no, we're respecting your privacy. It probably doesn't like that. It's probably the case that in most applications the identification uh doesn't work even with differential privacy.

But it's like when I see the words differential privacy, you know, like I.

Just feel like a very specific thing to not be doing. And you're like, oh, yeah, what you actually.

A robot could see a personally chase.

Yeah, that's really where it was, it's like, how do we chase down people of color? Yeah? This is this is why I prefer the booths.

That's that's in the same section, maybe a few booths over in central Hall, which is I think it's a South Korean company called dreamy Okay, oh yeah, with two weeks. But their motto is all dreams in one dream.

Hell yeah, that's beautiful.

This actually reminds me I've got some really good like names miss the Cool, doctor, Boss Astrositus, pet Goo Goo planned Emoji Yangaroo. Uh fucking just f k I was I was a legitimate fan of a company uh something and fucking fucking tapo. Uh. Let's see, I've got That's there's more. I think it.

What's so representative over this? Like, I think it's so representative of this whole cees and the whole like current like AI smart moment is all dreams in one dream, dream all.

Dreams in one You want to go to ring, But what if your wedding ring could tell you how to make thermite? Here's a good one. Also tell you if you're stressed or called, Yeah, you want someone to watch your kid, what if that person could tell your kid how to hang themselves.

So here's a nice one that is foreign app but could be for Lockheed Martin make your inside outside. Oh hey good, Well that's a company called Wow.

Good.

I love I love the And they're usually foreign companies who did not think about some of the implications of their of their branding or their American name. There was one booth I saw, and I don't know what the company did, but I took a picture of it because it just said making it easier to edge with AI.

And there was another and I talked to him. They had a legitimately good.

Case enabled cave.

I mean that exists here by the way, No, I I wrote down in the phrase sexlesschoon cave.

Well, I'm not now we're gonna have a and they're gonna.

Be but I feel likes is the sexless goon cave. It's just a bunch of activity. Oh, people are fucking the cees. The robot with the with the with the model.

Yeah.

No, there's a robot with a flesh light attack.

That's nice.

And so the chat bottle talk to you as you have sex.

With One of the best bits I ever saw burning Man was this someone the bits you're gonna have to be someone hung a hanged a flesh light from a signpost that said public flesh light.

Yeah, this dusty kind of clang and.

Pendulous flashlight, just waving back and forth the wind in the dust storm.

If I saw anyone walking up, I'd be like, Oh, you gonna go, You're gonna go. You want to get you want to wait.

Just to see if they do.

It would have been that would have been a better bit, would have been fucking the flesh the public flashlight. But the public flashlight, it's unto itself.

Was a photo op of all photo ops. I just like the idea.

If you see anyone walk up to it, you're like, oh can I do you want to go?

Yeah? No, you first, I insist.

I was.

I was gonna send this episode to my grandma.

I talked about you fired from your talking about fleshlight on a podcast job.

I just want to be clear that the level the one of them where it's about my dad's horny level from last year. I mentioned it again and it was the episode my father listened to. That's good and he has not brought it up. He just said he liked the episode, So that's gonna Dad very rarely on podcasts. Do we talk about your your libido? No, privately a lot. I honestly text me almost daily about it. Just as nothing weird, nothing to date, Robert, just no feelings, just completely empty.

No, that's my favorite bern Art project. Corey was at the Regional Texas burn flip side. Someone built a giant bug zapper that was like a big like like a like rectangular prism and they had a bunch of so it was all metal and it was all electric, and there were a bunch of like different little alcoves in it that had like whippets or joints or little bags of drugs. So in order to get drugs you had to like navigate your way in and get electric.

Kid. That is actually that is kind of what it feels like to be a see yeah. Yeah, well like trying to get to like anything worthwhile, but it's just like exactly this LLM thing. Oh god, Well, as we wrap this up, I have to thank everyone in this room. Robert Garrison from It Could Happen Here Behind the Bastards,

At one point claimed that they had found life on the moon.

And that's why they got shut down.

They got shut down for fired for truth. I think, no, that's that's a different guy.

No, we've we've been doing so well.

Of course, Edward and Guaiso Junior, thank you so much, sir, thank you for having me.

I truly love you all.

You've done an incredible job, and all of you listeners have done one to and thank you to Manasowski, the producer of the hour, the guitarist Philip Broughton are incredible bartender. He will be here for our epilogue tomorrow. Thank you to every single guest we've ever had. We're also dedicating these episodes to Sean Paul Adams, friend of the show, past Sadley. Last year, please donate to the Pediatric Epeleepsy Research Consortium and Corey Doctor. Of course, thank you for

Yeah, there we go.

Oh god, I love doing this show. Thank you all so much. You'll get an epilogue tomorrow will be a little more chill, but we are out. Thanks to the City of Las Vegas.

Thank with you with this. We're not in the city of Last Vegas.

We're at the Las Vegas for County, well Clark County, right, we've established the city of Las Vegas is a are you've never been to. On the other side of the airport full of houses.

Well, this is not a city. This is unincorporated La County to.

The Las Vegas Strip.

There go, as I would say, less vomiting trash cans than last year.

Yeah you know, and you were fewer, and yes I would I'm truly out of thanks to Gear, but thank you to the listeners. It will come with us for this twenty hour adventure. We will be back next week and we'll be back next.

Year as well. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matosowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com m A.

T T O S O W s ki dot com.

You can email me at easy at Better offline dot com, or visit Better Offline find more podcast links, and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot Where's youread dot at to visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline to check out our reddit.

Thank you so much for listening.

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