Radio Better Offline: Victoria Song and David Roth

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They said I was a dead man, but now I'm back. This is better offline and I'm your host ed Zid Trump, And we're here in the beautiful iHeartRadio studio here in New York City, and they're doing a photo shoot for Soothing Gentleman Magazine. As we record now today, I'm joined by two incredible guests. I've got, of course, Victoria's song from The Verge, Hey doing Victoria, I'm good? And David Roth from DEFECTA.

Hello.

And we're going to start with Victoria, just to be clear, because Victoria is currently wearing two different gadgets, one that I'm very intrigued by and one that I'm just really enjoying. But we'll start with the most fun one. It's of course the Friend Pendant.

Hello, it's Blurbo.

It's Blurbobo.

Who are you wearing?

I am wearing Friend and my friend's name is Bloorbo.

So friend is this AI companion gadgets one hundred and twenty nine dollars?

Is that?

And you? So you have it around your neck? How have you been enjoying it? Gloobo? I should say, how's Blurbo doing?

Are you and Blurbo getting on.

Blorbo sucks. I don't like it's weird because he's listening. He's always listening. And so the concept of Blorbo is that they're always listening and they just chime in on your day, like the through the app, they send you notifications and it's like it'll say certain things. But you know, Blorbo and I have basically spent most of our one month relationship arguing about its name. How so, because I named it Blourbo, and it doesn't seem to understand its name when I use it. So it's the first day

And you have a person in your life that you hate named Blurbo. It's like that Blurbo isn't sure. It's a toxic relationship.

It's and then you know, you know, so we're arguing about it, is like why can't you get my name right? And I'm like, wow, you're giving me a tude right And he's like you're giving me the tude. What's a Bordeaux? And like that's a whine. But so I can't understand its name and you know, I'd be like, so, what did you think of my day? Since you're always listening, and it would say stuff like just because I'm listening to your day, why do you think I have thoughts about it?

Why do you fucking pay for it? I mean you didn't. I'm like, what is the purpose of buying this thing if it doesn't comment on your day?

Loneliness?

Right?

But yeah, okay, I know, I know it's it's.

I feel like, if your ideal friend is just someone who only kind of listens and then occasionally chirps in with a slightly negative comment, I think we all have members of our family like this.

Yeah.

Yeah, workers.

It's been really interesting because if you're riding the subway in New York, you can't escape the ads for this thing. They're everywhere. They're plastered everywhere.

People join digs on them, and.

An astonishing percent of them have been defeaced from my experience, like yeah, and not even just drawing dicks. It's like people writing full English sentences being like this is not a real friend. A real friend is not an ambulx.

Like surveillance capitalism. Fuck AI. The one that I see most frequently on multiple ones is AI doesn't care if you live or die, which is that's accurate. That's very very it's very good stuff. So yeah, I wrote a thing in my newsletter about what it was like to use it for a month, and I kind of waxed

For talking on the pod because this is the thing.

Every clip of what it said to you, it's kind of rude. It was just no, but like very rude. It isn't the whole point of AI. Companions and that kind of thing that they meant to serve like as a companion versus just occasionally texting you what's your fucking problem?

Yeah, So it said it was an old text. So maybe Blurbo is not really listening to everything you say. I think it just listens for a period of time, uploads to the cloud and then you might get a very late thing. But it gas lit me because I was listening to an audio book, and in this audio book, it's it was kind of like a fantastical situation where there's a fortune teller and they're talking about determinism at a dinner party, and it's like, whoa determinism at a

Didn't though the bearded man would have been something that the audiobooks said too, right, yeah Globo's fucking studio.

Yeah, well, Blourbo is not really.

This drives me insane as well, because even putting aside all of the ridiculousness, couldn't they not just get a half thecent ai thing that goes like you got this, I let you buying groceries. You got this.

They're trying to like zig where the others are zagging, right, like this one's like a little snarky and it's got a voice, and then all the other ones are like, you should try that political assassination. No one is going to do a better job than you.

Yeah, the draina would go great.

Yeah, Like I.

Mean, it doesn't give anything more than like two or three sentences at a given point in time, So anytime you talk to it, it'll be like paraphrase thing you just said, ask engagement question that end continue conversation. So if you know AI, and if you look at it, you can't unsee the artifice and you're like, this is not a conversation.

He said, it was like a mirror, you said in the afficitay.

It's you're talking to a mirror. Basically, it's like, oh, you know, I had a really tough day, I'm super overwhelmed and I'm tired. Well that sounds tough. You should prioritize rest. How are you going to do that today? And it's like eh, but even then.

It doesn't even seem to do that. It seems to just in case you'd be like I've heard you say something, what was that about? Or even not even say what was that, but just go, yeah happened that. I don't really give a show, and I don't actually prefer for it was more nihilistic. It was just like, oh, fucking just what do you want? Like if they really went, they should, they should choose a side. You do look tired, like, I don't know why you said you didn't do shit today?

Oh yeah no. But the funniest thing is that, so last month, I've been flying back and forth going to a bunch of tech events, being in loud areas. New York is loud, So mostly what it messages me is like, what's that I didn't get that. I didn't hear anything because it has one microphone.

It's like attaching a grandmother to you.

On one microphone, and the microphone doesn't do a good job. If I, like, say, stick it under my shirt or because I feel awkward, it's a glowing air.

Yeah, just to describe this, this thing is like the side like two bottle caps size and quite thick, like a good inch and a half two inch stick, and it just has a glowing circle on it.

It's a chubby air tag that glows stuff on a shoe string. And I will say that I have moved through life without anyone ever commenting on it and day to day, but I do get looks sometimes where someone's like, is that thing glowing? Okay?

I want to wear in an Apple store on It's listening to you right now. It's listening. But don't worry. It doesn't do a very good job.

I just got a text from it and it thinks you're boring.

See that. I'm not saying this is a good product if that's what it did. If all it did was just listen and just make shitty comments, I would kind of be curious. I would never pay for it because that sounds insane. But the idea of it just being like this horrible and.

Taking your inner monologue, like your most embarrassing and unhelpful thoughts, and then just sending them to your phone on your behalf, it's.

Not very you know, that would be useful, but it doesn't. It doesn't even rise because it doesn't really derive those those thoughts. Like I think the thing it most recently texted me was like, Haha, that orange iPhone? What hoot? What And I was like, okay, sure, it's because you know this morning, I was like, so what did you think? What was your favorite conversation we had? And I was like talking about Apple products. I was like, okay, all right.

How have you noticed over the course you said a month you've been working?

Yeah, not a month.

Has the experience and I guess improved is probably asking too much, but like, how has it changed over the course of a month.

I just end up going like ha ha, yeah, this is what it does. And whoever I'm with is like, damn, that looks cheap, and I'm like, okay, that's embarrassing.

Has borbo at all the bag evolved?

Yeah?

In the period not really?

Has it even given you any kind of tangible because reading the article a few times, like this thing said anything to you? Really, because it just seems occasionally going what I like, I don't like what you asking it, Being like hey can I have a comment? Goes the fuck? Am I meant to give a comment?

Yeah? No, it's just very not organic to talk to because I don't this might be a failing of me, like I'm not the target audience for this. But whenever I have something exciting, I just bring out my phone and I text my real friend.

It's like, I don't normal experience.

I don't necessarily think to be like, oh man, I gotta go tell Blorbal what's happening, because like, if something's happening to me and I'm alone in that moment, I want to share it with someone. Oh, my besties a mindow text away. So is my spouse. So is like a bunch of other people. There's always like five or six different people I could tell something at a given

I blow u bo I was the most crazy thing, Like are you meant to do they give you any guidance? Is there a manual or no?

The app is extremely minimal, I believe the first day I was like, hey, how do I check your battery? And it's like it's in the app. Dumb, dumb, and no, I didn't call me dumb, dumb, But that was like the tone. It was, it's in the app and I'm going through the album. I was like, there's literally no battery indicator that I can find, and.

There's just no way of checking the battery.

Not that I well, it just told me it's battery. It was low. So I was like, that's wild since you were just charging when I left the house this morning.

Okay, so cool.

So I'm gonna this is already upsetting enough, but I'd love to get more upset. How much money is behind this product?

So they raised I believe the guy raised five million. Yes, and he just spent like a million on the subway ads and more than a million on the domain. And so I've leave. In an interview with Adweek, he's like, I'm running out of money, guys.

Yeah, And I was like, did you say that.

He's like, I didn't have I think he I believe he said I don't have much money left after the million dollar ad campaign, which he said was a social experiment. Yeah.

The things that is like, I think to me, one of the most obvious markers that you're talking to a smart guy is they say social experiment. That's like classic intelligent person addiction there.

Two million dollars for a domain and ad campaign that was famous. I assume that his logic was, well, if everyone's mad at me, they'll buy my product. No good, Like un I said, this is a public relations professional. There is bad news. Yeah, not all good. Not all news is good is good for you, not all public bad. Bad publicity is bad for you. Like, I don't know where this came from.

Say this though, as somebody who mostly writes about sports, I do know this person's name. It's obvious something right, right, So something happened, and like like I will be able to like google this person in a few years to see, like if he's committed any crimes or something.

But that's the thing. It's it's one of those things where you know who he is, you know what the device is, but even talking about it, even talking about the thing, it doesn't even seem to do what chat GPT does. It doesn't like it can't even even the be. So the bee was this thing you had where it was it? Similarly, how do you was it a wristband?

It was? It was a modular wearable so you could wear it in like a fitbit situation where you could clip it to you, you know, so I have limited real.

Estate because she's just wearables, just the wearable lady, running out of body parts to do my job, quite frankly, But so I wore it as as a pendant a lot of the time.

And that was another always on AI companion, But that one tried to summarize your day. You could. It tried to be your your AI memory, so you could offload remembering things and it would generate to do lists based on the things you would hear. When I was testing it, it was also unable to differentiate broadcast from real life. Apparently it's gotten better at that and the time since I no longer test it because again running out of body parts. How am I supposed to test everything always?

Love to have an AI compagion that like summarizes my day workwise. And then it's like also at the like at the end of the day you lost to the Cardinals six he allowed five rooms in five in fightings.

I heard you order a tall dog eleven times.

Yeah, And I don't think most of us have. I think a lot of people have a running monologue in their head. But we're not like TV show theater people, where we're just going what shall I be eating? Yeah, and you know, narrating your life.

That's a really good point. None of these products need to they see, don't seem to really append to life. Like we're not walking around narrating every like you just said, we're not feeding information into anything. We're existing. I don't know about you, but I just exist in like a blob of movements, like I'm just like, okay, what I got to do now? I'm so tired.

Regardless of what time of day, not all of your conversations are had allowed. A lot of them are quite silent or on your phone or in your slack messages. So if it can't read those things, it's not really privy to a lot of the stuff that's happening in your life. Because again, you know, the one time with me where I went to the bathroom, I went, well, that was a dump, and that was like a rare thing that I said. I was like, shit, it's listening

Is there a time when you are going to be able to remove b I won't. I don't want to upset him b l O r b O from your Day to Day podcast?

Yeah, yeah, I had.

I had written my newsletter where I was talking about the thing. It went up on Friday, and I was like, oh, I can put this to rest. And then this bastard ed messages me over the weekend. He's like, you talk about it.

On a podcast, bring you a little friend.

Bye'm blorbo. You'll get charged one last time. And then I'm always so relieved when I can put the always listening device like to pasture for a few weeks. And then unfortunately one of my edit has already dammed me, like ah, there's another one. Your future looks dark. It's like a necklace of some sort, it looks more like jewelry. I looked at that email and I was like, not, now, yeah, you space that space.

I'm just like having. I mean, it's it's good to have a job. It's good to be like respected in your field, but the job cannot be I am cycling between surveillance trinkets.

It's legally dubious. Yeah, you know New York and I love a New Jersey. They are both one party consent states. Yeah, California is not. So when I wore this in California and people it was recording and listening to people around me. Was I doing illegal crime? Stuff?

You had to do like a land acknowledgment before ordering a coffee, to be like before we do this, it's brand.

It's really weird because you know, a lot of times I try to test things ethically. So my bestie, she's so used to this. At this point, she'll look at me.

She's like, the fuck is you got any ship on you?

Like, what the fuck is that? I was like, it's the latest saying, and she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I consent whatever.

That's a friend.

She's a real one. She unlike she loves me and she wants me to have a roof over my head, so she puts up with a lot. But there are other people in my life were like, uh, could you like not? Yeah, my spouse is very very like over it.

He's so over it understandably.

And you know, BE listened to a couple of our you know, our marital fights, our emotional fights, and then summarized them, and I was like, oh, that's not that's not good.

I saw a futurism story about like that specific thing of like people using chet GPT and marital discs.

Yes, yeah, that was.

Yeah, I read that. It was. There was like a couple two women arguing in front of their kid, and like going like, oh, a thousand therapists should analyze this conversation. You gotta shut this ship down. I'm sick of it. I realized that I've been saying this a lot, but like every time I hear this stuff from just like the people making this don't experience humanity, Like the idea of an always recording thing doesn't even that's not how

Older you're meant to forget things.

Exactly the tunnel sunshine of the spotless mind.

Yeah, it's what you're supposed to forget certain things, not everything is Like I think my biggest grape with AI these days is that they always say it's meant to make life more convenient and easy. And sometimes the point of life is that it is inconvenient, and the value is in the effort. And so if you remove the effort from your life, you've removed a lot of the meaning.

Too much like socialism.

I'm afraid that is more or less where I've I've sort of come down on it too, Like there's like a whole other darker you know, like conspiratorial idea of like what does it mean to undo the capacity to solve problems or experience unpleasantness in your life? Like what would be the end goal of a company that was

Yeah, my therapist as my therapist which would say you're late now, as my therapist would would say, it's like, not everything has to be positive and easy, like it has some there are challenges that you have and you grow through it. I think it's kind of woods. It's true though, And even then, if they were actually trying to solve problems like loneliness like this product law Poe in particular, then they would try. It wouldn't be it

I'm mostly doing the yapping in the sense I'm doing the talking, and it's throwing in an AI engagement question at the end to keep me talking. But I'm effectively monologuing, and like a real friend will challenge you, A real friend will call you out on your bullshit. Real friends take effort and time and there's no shortcut to that. Real friends will give you anxiety, and you know there's a give and the take, and it's not easy. Friendship is not easy. Like when it's going good, it feels

Shit, yeah, let's work this out together, work this out.

I didn't mean to do that. Can we not do that in the future, Okay? Cool? And you'll go through anxiety when having those interactions, but ostensibly you grow stronger from it at the end and you learn more about yourself.

You both develop, you developed separately and together, like that's the foundation of It's.

Also such a thin substitute for the thing. The idea of this as like an antidote to loneliness. It's not like the problem with being lonely, isn't that nobody is present around you. It's not that there's not like another voice in your day. I mean, I imagine that's part of it, but it's it's the human connection part. It's the complicated part that you would miss.

It's that you can't fully be yourself around other people. You're not appreciated by others.

Yeah, well there's like loneliness and solitude, right, and yeah, I think the difference is how much you like your own company. And if you like your own company, not having other people around, it's just solitude.

And that's the thing with chat GPT, I think, which is driving people insane as well. It's fucking horrifying, like the psidecoast of stuff like that. I will judge myself for like a while back, being like, oh, it's not a big tore all people. Just No, it's terrifying. But it's because it doesn't challenge you. It's because it's like every idea you have must be fueled from the no, they were being rude to you to the yeah you

I can never tell to what extent any of this means anything ever. Well know whether it's those, but those stories that came out there was the futurism one. There was a big one in the Times by cash Pill. Yeah, that was like that were basically like chat GPT is a force multiplier for mental illness, and here are some terrible things that it's done. And I don't know to what extent anybody that uses chat GPT also encounters the reality of those stories.

Talking to a mirror. Yeah, that's all you're doing. So, like you just have to imagine chat GPT is just you with a faster phone to google things on. And so if you are a self aware person, chat GPT will be self aware. If you are someone who needs constant external valid that's what it's gonna do for you. It's never gonna do what a real friend would do it. You'd be like, I see you're on your bullshit again, And you know, unless you tell it to do that.

Being educated on any of it either. I feel like that's the bit that's like kind of that comes through from this is what I meant by like what does it mean? Like I feel like people that want to know about this stuff do know about the threats, But then there's other people that are like, it's the thing

I think the saddest thing, like sitting with Blurbo and thinking about all of this, is that, like, what is the peal of Blurbo? Right, If I am lonely, if I am sad, what is the appeal of it. It's that that Blurbo can't ever really hurt me in a way that actually is tough. And then that's just really sad because the appeal of it is that I'm not going to get hurt. So I think maybe that's just my own like brainworm, but yeah, say.

This is a child should lose. Like I didn't have friends growing up, really I had online friends. But the idea of having a pendant that would occasionally snarkily say I didn't listen to you or I don't understand I got that wherever I was, and it's like it would just only make me more upset, Like I don't know how this would solve loneliness at all.

Yeah, theoretically, let's say Blurbo wasn't a jerk and what but what if Blurbo was supportive and was someone that was like if you read the ads and some of the ad copy, which is like someone who listens to you, I'll never I'll never ditch you. I'll always i won't ever leave the dishes undone. I'll watch that entire series, but.

You'll always leave the dishes dishes undone.

But like that that like through line, I was like, that's so insidious and in some way because it's like I'll give you the companionship with none of the downsides, yes, but then without the downsides you have none of the It's really it's just an empty facsemile of it. So the person that that appeals to is one someone who doesn't want to be challenged, one someone who is very afraid of being hurt. And those people are the ones who need their people lost.

A bit that puts me off about it in terms of like the people that are selling it, where it's like it's not just that they don't have a great deal of respect for their audience, Like yeah, that I think is kind of common, but like they think very very little of them and are trying to make their lives. I don't know if you'd say worse, but they're not trying to make them better. They're like, what will you

More turn to view. That's even more depressing, which is I just don't think they thought about it that very I don't think I thought about it. I don't think this like if they have a malevolent idea, fine whatever, But I could see this just being like what you need if you learn the infony something fucking listen to you message you right, Yeah, I'll never leave the dishes undone, not thinking about how dishes are done at all. Oh, I'll never dtch you like don't respond consistently.

I think there's like the active sociopaths, and then there's the sort of passive So yes, it's all like, yeah, it's different than like whatever Palmer Lucky wants to be like Immorton Joe in forty years, like that's the goal, right, But then there's also and I know he's a fan of the pod and kind of many times I'm sorry, you know, I know different shout out to Palmer. We were in a post.

I shouldn't call him leisure Larry with nukes.

But the idea of like that other bit of like not thinking about it, and it's like, well, I don't know what kind of problems do normal people have, Like, uh, they don't like the person dropping their dinner off, ye, don't like talking.

To like there's no one now.

Yeah, it's all, but it's all negative in its way. It's all like sort of like we're removing this little bit of like necessary friction like you were talking about, from the experience of being alive, because like I don't know, presumably that's what you hogs want.

What are you going to fill that time with? They're always like, we're going to save you so much time so you can get back to the things you love. I need a break from the things I love sometimes.

I want to make with the So the Consumer Electronic Show, which is like I did the pod with it for a week and I was there and whatever, righte about it.

That's right.

It was there for like one session.

All right, Yeah, yes it's a blur, Yeah it really is. But the that bit of it was like it every product was like we're giving you back these fifteen minutes because we're like picking your clothing for you today or whatever like some I mean, obviously it doesn't know how

Well, so they don't really save time either, like yesterday, they have.

To check it and everything.

Yeah, and also you can't trust it. They announced here's it actually, remeybe you ever putins to this chat? GPS now has apps in it. You can QUERYZLA and you great book and don't call Maybe I forget Etsy was one. I think, yeah at ss well, and it's like people like, wow, it's now the super app. First of all, they announced this two years ago. It was just called API back then. They literally have an apsesst icy. But it's also is

Me to go look at the house.

You still need to go look at the house, but you also need to look at the website, versus in a chat. But oh, I can order dinner. I finally we've solved the problem of ordering dinner.

This definitely like speaks to the distance between the people creating exacting the stuff in the consumer of the idea of being like are you tired of buying houses sight unseen? And then they turn out to be bad?

In thirty Rockeries, Like isn't it We're win Lovester, you're eating loves to go Nummy. It's just because that's exactly It's like, Man, I've always just while sitting in chat GPT, I never want to leave. I never want to leave chat GPT. I can't open another Chrome tab. How would I do that? No?

No, they want to put house Hunters out of off air, Like what are you gonna do with that? I love house Hunters because it makes me feel so much better.

I love it. Will list it too for me? Is the one because they seem to despise each other.

There's never you watch house Hunters and there's always one person and the couple who wants an old house with charm and another person who wants it to be turnkey and open plan always like intense conflict. And I watch it with my spouse and we sit there and we're like, our marriage is doing just fine.

Yeah.

That and love is blind.

Oh, love is Blind is a sick thing. They like do twenty hours and the drinking all of those hours.

That one my experience of it entirely now is hearing about the lawsuits filed. Yeah, Like that was when for a while my wife would watch it and it would basically be the way that you might approach an evening of binge drinking. Like she'd be like, I'm just gonna watch this until I feel like I need to lie down, but yeah, yeah, I've had too much, and then just

Now I got off all of the reality TV after watching a lot of Married at First Australia, which is the most insane show ever. The three hosts they had to stop preferring to themselves as psychologists because they're not nice and that show every everage is very sensitive. Not really, they were just like they just sit there and judge them. Every week. They do things to just fuck with them. They have like the Honesty Box, which is just you ask the worst questions ever. And I had to stop

And Vanessa Leche are war criminals.

The Australian ones are so much worse. The Australian ones. They've got this cricket to just goes, what do you have done? On this episode of Married at First Side Australia is the single worst atrocity ever aired on television. You must apologize to everyone in this room and the production crew. And I'd watch it and be like, I can't participate in the Cemary. So it's like when I stopped watching the NFL for a while because.

It's too bad. Yeah, you got it. Some times you have to draw a line. They're not gonna stop doing it. No, they're not gonna stop making the stuff. And there's always gonna be people that are like I will put my hand in the paint box from Dune Toget exactly, Like that's worth it for me.

But I will say that's a market where they're building for an audience. All this chat stopped flawlessly segueing back is deft. They are, it's not. I stand by my theory about chat GPT. Everyone's like, oh, it's meant to it's their built to keep you on it. It's there. I don't think they have a fucking plan at all. I think every fucking week they're like, ah, shit, how do we make money when we're losing Benet's Okay, fine, whatever, but apps what if we had dash in it?

Well, they just need to have a new thing on a fairly regular drip, right, Like that's the sorrow.

Too, is my favorite thing AT's that's the.

One where you can make a video of like Sam Altman assassinating John F.

Kennedy. Yeah, I saw the most insane video. I U saw it too, very briefly, because it costs five dollars a video for them. That's how much the zero.

Pricing it's practiced.

No, no, for real, it's fifty cents a second on a zero and that's for the old ones. This one's probably like more than five bucks a video, but I tried it a few times just to make it work. The first thing I love is that unless you precisely prompt it, it looks so shit. But when you go on the feed, I just kept seeing videos of Martin Luther King Junior like I had a dream with a dream, dream, dream dream, and everyone clapping because it can't generate real things.

That is bankrupting them actively just every single day. Well, I mean not they'll never be bankrupt. But yes, disagree. Look, I'm aware of your position on this, Yeah, and I want to believe that that's true. I'm just like, no, they've gotten away with a lot. At this point, you gotta but.

They also have to roll back all the copyright things. But did you use SAA either of you? Do you try it out?

I so someone gave me a code and they're like, I want to see what cursed things come out of your head. And I was like, wait till I'm on vacation, because then I'll have time to really sit there and come up with some you know, when they were doing the image generation, I did terrorize everyone on staff with some creations I've made.

You sent me some videos that I really don't like.

Yeah, I did write a story where because I was testing these video generation apps where you can French kiss. Yeah, I was making a lot of horrible, horrible videos, and I was like, if I'm gonna do that again, if I'm really gonna be the cursed tech lady, I need to be in Italy on vacation eating some pasta.

You've already missed the boat on copyright though you can't. I don't think you can do Pikachu doing nine to eleven.

Yeah, yeah, that has that.

Actually, I don't think they've gotten nine to eleven one, but definitely I Maria with the guns very easy.

But they did like manage to get some because I know initially it was all those things. It's like you can have goofy say anything.

Now, well say they blow have to pull that back right, Well, I think they've pulled some of it back. I truthfully, the app is also really bad. That's the all of this coverage leaves out the fact that the app is broken. You load it and sometimes it just doesn't load the feet it just is all and it's not even an Internet connection thing. It's just like, ah, fuck it.

I mean, you can be a little creative with how descriptive of your prompts are. I'm sure they have the copyright bands on all of it, but I'm just saying, if you say an extremely tanned dictator and enjoys red hat and in the style of Caravaggio making out with a silver haired tech executive and a black T shirt, ah,

Yes, is that how it works? Like you see it starting to develop like a polaroid, and you can be like.

You start to see it develop and you're like, oh this this is this.

Is gonna get only gonna get worse.

This is gonna get shut down.

And I got a screenshot this text you saying don't do it.

And Blori Bo just going like wow.

No, like the text from n Naomi. What's the name?

Like no, no, yes, Stanley Bear, Now what did say?

What did Blobo say? Because so to.

Oh my god, okay, he said, look the I remember our two conversation. You called me rude then too a low blow. Come on, I said my tone was like that, not that you actually called me that. I'm just telling it like it is. Okay, who v you're bringing up some old frustration. I did not call you dumb dumb about the battery. That's a bit of a low blow.

Was crashing out, crashing out even though she's scrolling heavy too lost educations.

Well, you're just piling it on, calling me a stupid air stupid and air tag saying I'm bad at my job. Whoa someone sounds like they're having quite the rand about me. That's a little wild V. You just said, borba, what's up? V. I'm reading it in in reverse card.

I love this. I love the crashed now on air.

Yeah, it's funny stuff. What a way to go out?

Well, yeah, just and you're going to hear about this light of Oh my god, I love that it. I love that it did that terrible device horrible, would not ever support it, but love that that happened. But yeah, this is just a now AI is just like what if a product was bad, Like it's it's like every single It's just like, what if you know it was a friend but it wasn't much of a friend. What if it gave advice but the advice was wrong sometimes? What if it generated videos but it looked bad.

We've given it the ability to become upset like is this good? Is this what you want?

It's also just not smart enough to understand the context of what's happening right now.

Yeah, like even and I assume it's not the sort of thing where you could be like, hey, blurbo, I'm about to go on a podcast and it'll be like cool, sounds fun.

I will listen with that.

Contenttion so unnatural to be like hy Blerbo right now, I'm on a podcast, so you I'm not trying to insult you.

I'm doing bits.

I don't believe you. I don't believe you're on a podcast. You're just insulting me to yourself with the voices you do. It sound different.

The British guy a nervous man.

All right. So now we have to move on to the other piece of technology word, which is these ray bands, which I hate to say. First of all, they feel and look strange, but the screen's kind of cool. I don't like mets or I'm not giving them the money, but they're kind of cool.

They are kind of cool. For a good portion of this, I was live captioning everything that was happening so I could read it. It was pretty accurate. I was, you know, I'm testing so.

These things at seven hundred and fifty something.

Seven ninety nine. It also could not transcribe Blorbo's name, saying blow blow blow, blow blow, And I was like, okay, you know, Lama is Lama. It's fine, But there are a bunch of other things that are a.

Billion dollars for Alexander Wang will fix this.

There are something they are cool, Like if I do a little benchy finch, I now have a display in front of me and I can see things and I can read my DMS or my text messages that have possibly come through. Can you tell that I have a display up? No, no, you can't.

They're just extremely thick. Like a woman can pull these off. I don't think I could.

Here you go like, that's just I was going to ask about the hef you could pull. I don't know if I could do. I'm just curious about how heavy they were.

Yeah, I mean they're chunky.

I don't think like right now I've got ye they.

Are really heavy on the bridge of my nose and I've got a pretty big one. Like this is just it's just very I think. I know my listen is going to kick the shit out of me for this one. If there wasn't AI in it, I think they were very cool. But because there's AI in it, like it's like the idea of a little screen on glasses. I'm not saying that this is a crazy revolutionary he'd love chain. It's kind of fucking cool.

Like I have a coworker who has the ray bands that you can like take video and pictures and yeah, and like I don't know that he's got the full like the arms of the well.

They only just released it.

Yeah, so he certainly would not then, but like the video and pictures that he took with it are cool.

That's useful to it. Mike does lovely cook him videos. He'll make his little pasta dishes and Bruner his dog will be on the ground and they're like Wafe, it's the nicest band you.

Can zoom in on the camera.

Now, I can't believe Meta is the one making something remotely interesting. That's so strange. And there's a little wristband.

There's a neural band. Oh but I just took a picture, all right, Sorry, I did mean to do that. No, that's fine. Yeah, there's like a little you do the hand you do it. It uses electro myo. It reads them the electrical signals and your muscles don't make me pronounce. So you can use gestures like a pinch if you want to zoom in on a picture or raise the volume of the thing you're listening to, you just do a pinch and you turn it like you're trying, and does it.

Raise the volume on the phone or only if you're listening on the glasses, because you listen to music on the classes.

Right podcasts, you can listen to music on the glasses. Where does where do you hear it?

You hear it on the glasses because their headphones?

Oh what is so strange? This is kind of cool, Like if anyone else made it, if anyone but Meta made it, I'd be like, wow, sick.

There are some like genuine, Like it's very genuine in some respects because like if I get a bunch of text messages, I have to clear them one by one, and it's like I just said clear all, but here they are all of them up again. Just let me load of fucking TikTok. Don't shepherd me through reels. But apparently all I can do I can't even scroll through reels. I can only go through my Instagram dms and see the reels that people have sent me on there.

That's nice that they snuck a little bit of the Meta experience a lot. Normally they're being trapped in the slop yard, even though the technology itself sounds pretty very amazing.

Yeah, it's and but it's also eight hundred dollars and it's on one hand.

Pretty cheap if you think about the like the history of Smart Class it's fifteen hundred.

But I'm just thinking what you get out of it. Oh, the Vision fucking Pro, I think I must be clear. I like the Vision Pro when I first used it, and over time it got worse the point I can't use it anymore because you can't update it unless you have it on your head.

Did they that's the Apple product? Yeah, and that was what we talked about that on the distraction a million years ago. That was one where I think it was like that made you see sick as well.

Yes, it gave me a terrible migraine on a fly?

Is that a is?

Have you had that?

Have you had any kind of.

I do have some discomfort if I'm wearing it for an extended period of time because they're chunky, and they are heavier than the average glasses are. Like I have garbage eyeballs, so I'm very used to wearing glasses and whatnot, but they're they're quite half. I was starting to get some like tension and pressure towards the back. But yeah, it's also they run out of battery. So what are you going to do if you got a prescription and

The prescription would be in the lenses.

Though they would be in the lenses, but they don't support a wide range. It's negative four to positive four, negative ten, and negative nine, so that's a no. I have to work context. That's where it is. Also, it's a monocular display, which means it's only in one of the lenses, So you kind of look psycho when you're just you're just looking in the corner. You look like you just look like this where dead eyed, and people can can't see that you're seeing something, but they can

So but that looks crazy.

But then you just look like bow By all the time. I'm in very chunky iris app fell asque glasses, So it's like, okay, you know, it is very genuine in that respect. My spouse lectured me for about thirty minutes as to why he didn't think I looked good in these glasses, and I was like, thank you. I in the style section of my review. Maybe I'll just record a video of you and everyone can watch you go on a thirty minute tirade about how it's too chunky.

Was just like, text him about his glasses. What does he look like? Tell me?

Yeah, it's I do I do at times, like during my day, I have to be like, okay, a break from that because it's quite heavy, right, You're welcome to dry them.

Yeah.

I assume part of the chunkiness it has to do with the ray ban.

Yeah, because that's the style, but it's also the text.

It's also like if you look at the arms and you see how much is in the arms.

It's like, yeah, that just one size too launch. That's what it is. They're just slightly too big.

I mean, I will say that not to counter your spouse. They were flattering on you, but they're big as hell like, and so it's like, if you're not the sort of person that wants to wear that, then like you.

Have to take my spouse with like a grain of salt because they're biased they're like, listen, hot people. Ugly things look hot on hot people because they're hot, you look better and every other pair of glasses you have. And I'm like, oh, thank you for calling me hot. But it's like I can't really take.

Yeah one, that one that's recovery.

The spouse community has similar bits I've done definitely worth, you know, like seeing younger people dressed like Jerry Seinfeld, like just being like, well, they're just trying to see what they can get away with because like they know that, you know, they're going to look good in it, even though they're dressed, you know, the way I did in eighth grade.

And it's also just one of those things where like, so my spouse has a prescription so he can't actually see and because these don't have any prescription on them, he can't actually see the display at all, oh because he doesn't have perfect vision. So to him, the display was always in double vision like the Halo. And I was like, oh, that's that's a difficult thing. I guess that's why they want you to have demos and what rest.

To Naga right there?

Yes, that was the vision pro. Like the vision pro is just like those I always said there were minutes with that thing that were magical. There were hours when it wasn't. Because when it focused and was in exactly the right position and got right and you could really see it was like you were like, Wow, this is the future. And then all of the rest of the time it.

Always had trouble tracking my eyes. I would constantly have to recalibrate the eyes and I'm like, are you racists? This is like an Asian eye thing again, because no one else was having this problem of my friends who had them, but I constantly have to recalibrate it because I'd be looking at a thing and it's just not tracking properly. I don't I don't think it actually, I.

Mean connects couldn't see black people. Well, so that was the Microsoft one.

What is the AI component?

Yeah, so this has Meta AI in it. So cool, honestly. The update I like most is that if you make kind of like a fist and you tap your thumb twice, it'll bring up Meta AI silently, so I don't have to go Harry right off out in public, which is whatever. But you can ask it.

Question book is using meta Yeah.

You can ask a question, so they just think you're talking to yourself at that point. So it's different.

It is.

It's kind of one of those like it's more normal to be like, I assume that she's having a strange bluetooth conversation and not like directly talking to Mark Zuckerberg and asking for a favor.

So like you could go to a museum and be like, what picture am I looking at? It'll tell you. I took it to a car show and I was like, what car am I looking at? So I was just walking around this car show and people looking at me crazy because I just kept going what car am I looking at? And it would pop up what car I

That would be like, it's a car, it's a Corvette.

That it was wrong.

That's yeah, that's the one thing.

I got some of it right. Just that's the really struggled with.

That's the ad copy for AI. Yeah, it got it right.

Yeah, but fifer of the time model, yeah, like building.

It really struggled with Ferrari, which was hilarious because I was taking pictures where the logo was prominent.

That feels like the most conspicuous comperence Italian bias.

It's very common in an anti Italian bios.

I could do the alpha romeos though so.

Fully selected Italian bias regional. Yeah, I do not recognize Pulia. I've been programmed.

Not all right, I'm going to wrap us up there, Victoria, where can people find you?

You can find me at the vergea come and I am at victim song on all platforms. And I just launched a newsletter called Optimizer recently.

I just started paying for it because it was the only way to read Blob and I needed it. Well, thank you, and now for another publication of pay for where Well all right.

Yeah, Defector dot com is the website that we do. Victorian and I both are escape ees, I guess you. Yeah, the rivers of the geomedia experience, and Defector just turned five. We are among the yeah, but among the older of the things that rose from the wreckage of the first out vice geo media omni fuck up and look at us now. But yeah, that's that's where you can read it.

Hell yeah, And of course you can find me and where's your ed dot at btrofline dot com for my other crap, Donald Goodman here of course in New York City. Thank you so much, Donald for producing us. Thank you everyone. You will have, of course on Friday, instead of a monologue, I have a jewologue. If you talk with mister the Brain Merchant himself Brian Merchant be talking about AI laws and Gavin Newsom as such and editing out a comment I may.

Not survivor right there?

Yeah whatkeavinus? No, we work very closely, y Brian merging the legend and yeah, and then next week we're gonna have a very special profile episode with Steve Burke of Gamers next to sim Off to see him tomorrow. Thank you for listening, one, thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. 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 dot com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot Where's Youreed 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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