Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms.
This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
Happy Wednesday, Freaky's thirtieth of August. Pinch and a Punch is happening in two days. Just getting quickly letting you know, because we need to bring back that bit from the early primary school days. And also, if you're a little child on today's show, if you could be a barnyard animal, which would you be taking into account that you can't choose your owner or your lifespan.
Well your lifestyle, Yeah, exactly like being a free range chicken lit being a little cage giving anyway, Also, were to talk about giving a speech at your sister's wedding when you hate the husband to be ill.
Take time, Tech time, tech time, It's tech time with Flex and Frooms on cater.
To the next level.
Oh.
A couple of weeks ago, Josh, who works with us in the studio filming our social videos, came in and immediately asked me the question, did you hear what happened with snapchat? Aibot? Well, knowing that we like tech, we like futuristic themes, and we like unpacking gossip and drama, but I hadn't And because it was happening in real time.
There wasn't really anything to say. All he mentioned is that it seemed as though Snapchat's aibot had posted a story or a snap of some sort of something that looked like a white wall, kind of the line of demarcation where the ceiling meets the wall, like very indiscernible, who knows why. But that immediately started going viral because people like, what is the meaning of this post? Why
did it happen? And so what ensued were people tweeting pictures of their walls in comparison to the Snapchat walls to confirm that it was a wall being posted, and from there try to figure out why what's coming up? Is it a sign? Is it a clue? And for context with this Snapchat AI bot, you just ask it questions like what's going on today? How do I make a million dollars? What's the weather? How do I say
sorry to my friend? That's the kind of function, kind of like Smarter Child from when we were teenagers.
And it's got the logs of what you said to it.
Yeah, did you use smarter Child?
I have no idea use any chatbots, Mickeynabe.
Yeah, he was on MSN for a little bit.
What was it?
Child Smarter Child was an AI? I don't know it was an AI, but it was a chatbot. You would speak to it and it would speak back to you.
Oh yeah, okay, so it's where we learned how to get out some aggression.
Yeah. People were obviously just so rude to it immediately. I wasn't. So people started speculating immediately that the AI was growing sentience because of what it posted. How could it post something so normal, so human if it wasn't intending on becoming or being human Like Snapchat came out and responded and said, it's just a glitch people, truly, just a glitch, a temporary outage. But people think that
might be some kind of cover up. Why would you tell us if this AI is growing sentience, that might reflect poorly on you, or you might not know the scope of what's about to happen, so you're concealing this evidence. Now. When I saw this, what concerned me is number one, our inability to tell the difference between what is human behavior, what is just a random glitch, and what AI is actually capable of. The AI that's in the Snapchat one
is not one that's generating images and whatever. It's just responsive. You're giving you information. It's giving you information back forth, back and forth. It's not like compounding intelligence like these
other things like chat, GPT three and whatever. And then the other thing that we see a lot of when it comes to AI is this concept called anthropomorphism, where you give kind of like human characteristics to objects or to add animals or you know, like if I hit if I hit a table and I say, oh, sorry, babe, accidentally, or if I look at a dog and be like, oh, she's so manipulative, and it's like, is she just being
a dog? Or is she being manipulative? And I think if we're doing it now, where for the most part, the AI we're interacting with doesn't have a lot of power. Our fear that AI is going to gain power over us is going to happen just statistically eventually, but I fear that it might happen prematurely because of how we're viewing it already already as this thing that has so much power when it's not even doing anything profound. This
thing glitched and immediately it went viral sentience. What's happening next? What's it going to say, what's it going to do? Keep an eye at it? Just glitched And realistically, now I've started to think whether AI gains power or not
in our life over in the next five years. Every conversation we have about it gives it social power, Like we render ourselves kind of submissive to this entity that we don't know anything about, and we're just assuming we're at the bottom of the tone pole, even if for all intents and purposes, it's at its infancy.
Yeah, until it isn't.
And I grew up so fast so far. A big sentiment I've seen floating around in my own personal circles is that people aren't feeling creative. They're reflecting on who they were four years ago, five years ago, and have all these tales about what they used to do with their time. Gosh, I used to paint so often, I went to pottery, I made videos, I listened to all these podcasts, I read so many books. I had so
many thoughts, and now I just don't. And given the age group that we're sitting in late twenties, I assumed it was just a byproduct of getting a little bit older. You know, when you're twenty and twenty one, you have more time, and you also have more incentive to in on these things that become part of your identity. Yes, and then when you grow up and you kind of formed your identity, maybe it becomes less of a priority to try and signal who you are by what you do.
For sure. So that was one idea. But then as I kept thinking about it, I reflected on a conversation I had with a friend where they asked me what I was doing on the weekend. This general chit chat just evolved into like, but I'm too exhausted to do the things I actually want to do. You said, so I'm yeah, so I'm doing like low level fun things like I'm playing more games and I'm building my lego.
But what I really want to do is get back into building my furniture and reading and learning and exposing myself to things I don't understand and like upcycling and whatever. Then the person said to me in return, oh, so, like is it a creative block thing? And I was like, I guess, so, like maybe I'm overestimating how much energy it takes to do these things I want to do. But I just think I don't have ideas, like I
used to. I was thinking that I really wanted to make some videos on what I thought about stuff, but then I just feel exhausted to think sometimes. And then this person's like, do you think that part of the issue with this is that you're just not bored enough? And I was like, what do you mean, I'm not
bored enough? And so this person went into a bit of a monologue and they were saying that they feel as though the antidote to, or kind of like the Achilles heel of creativity, is that a lot of us are filling in all that bored time with stuff, generative dopamine, TikTok, socials, empty kinds of fun. And he's like, the real thing that's meant to fuel your desire to do stuff is the absence of doing stuff. It's that empty time we're like, gosh,
I'm just like sitting around doing nothing. Oh, I'm gonna pick up a really fun book. Oh I'm gonna build I'm gonna play with some Plato or something. Yes. And so I'm like, that is so true, because if I have any kind of empty time, let's say I've got forty five minutes, I think to myself, that's just enough. Time to watch forty five TikTok videos. Yeah, it could be just enough time to make some progress on my
Barbie dream House Lego set. You know, I could make some distinct progress, but I guess I'm not bored enough to think about it that way. I'm trying to measure the energy I have based on the outcome I think it's gonna give me. And so I know, if I just scroll on TikTok, it's gonna be enjoyable because something's gonna come up one percent. But forty five minutes of lego, is that really gonna be enough to make me feel good? I don't know.
I wonder what that is, because, yeah, watching Tiktoko is essentially just like putting your brain on ice for a bit, Yeah, which is sometimes kind of like.
It's not just a bit, it's like now the majority and now we're all dumb guys.
What the food?
Do you think that boredom is integral to creativity? I probably never.
Used to, but yeah, like I think I was really creative during COVID MM, So I think what else is important for creativity is having little expectations on yourself. And I wonder, like, the longer you don't do a video. The longer you don't make a piece of furniture the more or like, the longer I don't write, then I'm like, damn, what the this is really hard? Like why do I ever enjoy that? And then you get in the group and you're like, yeah, let's go rub on the hands, feel and let's go boys.
Look.
So I've never enjoyed being bored, and it's hard for me to think boredom means I'm more creative because to me, they're.
Like when is boredom ever inspiring? Exactly?
And to me they're so opposite into the spectrum because my favorite thing is to make something I don't know, man, chick, got's pretty good, though. What can I say? Thank God's name when I's ready, truly truly.
Am I last I saying no to giving a speech at my little sister's wedding. She framed it as a request but also said, do you want so? I said no, I don't actively want to, but if you genuinely really want me to, I will. I'm gay and I have two hetero sisters, both getting married in the next six months, so I've been absolutely inundated with boring wedding chitchat for ages. I feel weird about marriage as a whole because being gay wasn't an option until recently. Plus, I've never liked
the fiancee in question. He's a good person, but I find him super annoying, and she and he both know it. And they've been together since they were fourteen years old, which I just find so weird, and they're twenty four now. Drag him. I don't care about marriage or the guy. So am I the asshole for not wanting to do a speech at my little sister's wedding? Is this person
the asshole? I'm going to go ahead and say no, you're not the asshole for not wanting to give a speech at the sister's wedding, but you might be an asshole for thinking that. In any way, a request from your sister who's getting married is anything mandatory. It's never optional. Do you want?
Do you care?
What color the dresses? You might care? You might hate wearing salmon, but if your sister wants salmon, I think you're gonna have to wear salmon for the kind of day it is. I think for me personally, I really would not want to give a speech at any kind of wedding, not my friends. Yeah, I don't know what it is. I just the thought of it. Maybe you're a seasoned empty Well this is the thing, and I have a weird relationship with spotlight. I like the spotlight
that I've earned. I don't like the spotlight that feels like it's being taken and every kind of wedding that I've observed, when somebody outside of the actual couple gets the stage, it feels like a derailment. Doesn't feel genuine, it doesn't feel completely necessary, and it also doesn't feel like the most appropriate reflection of the celebration we're having at hand. In this instance, in particular, you got assist who's like, not that big on weddings, not that big
on marriage, doesn't really like the guy you're marrying. Why would she do a speech? You know what I'm saying. Yeah, But then, when observing what wedding culture is and how people feel about it and how sacred it is, it's almost like you're feeding into someone's fairy tale. So the very least you could do is play your position. How do you feel, Mickey?
For me, I think family dynamics are always going to be complicated and like you can never like you know, there's probably a lot of history here, So yeah, I don't think she's an assehole for not wanting to do it, but I guess it depends on how important it is to your sister, like if your sister's going to like cry, or the fact that you're not going to give a speech, give.
The speech, give speech, story, don't have to make it long.
Honestly, I think that if you are diametrically opposed. Is that the term?
I don't know, but I like the way it sounds.
To marriage, And obviously you have your history of being queer and like it not being available to you, So I say fair enough, Like I think your sister should appreciate all of that. And plus she knows that you don't like the husband, Like if she wants you to do it, she's setting up you to do the perfect
roast and that's going to make you more sad. So like, I would never want someone to be my bridesmaid or do a speech because they feel like they have to, Like it's going to rip the bandaid off for them for them to tell you. But it's better than you putting all of this emotional energy into someone who doesn't like you that much.
You definitely want an enthusiastic yes for all of it. But then I also think on the other part, who can be more excited than you for your wedding? You know? I feel like to a point, you have to recognize that nobody cares about this as much as you do, and most people recognize the burden it is to be involved in somebody's wedding, you know, like it's an honor
to be somebody's bridesmaid. But then you think about the financial burden and like the responsibility and the timing and all of these things that make it not that fun.
That's apparels of being popular, truly, would you rather barnyard? Addition, we have been known to be piglets and little tiny animals running through the forest.
Cats always like a team united front. When I'm not down, talk to me Ready.
If an evil genie came to you and said, waking up, you are one of these pets. You cannot fly. Your owner will be completely random, and the owner can be good or bad. You cannot choose when to die, but you can only choose the species of your choice. WHOA Here are the selected animals in the PS three of your mind five ps five dog, cat, rabbit or rodent fish. And then in one brag it horse, dony, pink, donkey, pink chicken.
I think I'm going to be a cat.
Okay why?
I just think on the hierarchy of privileged animals, cats rank quite high. I was initially going to say dog. But if I'm a barnyard dog, that means I'm working.
Oh you're a red dog.
Yes, But if there's no working cats on the farm, I.
Mean you might not be in a barnyard. That was more just the catch hale for this break.
How you can I say barnyard edition and say, well, not really in a barnyard.
What is a barnyard inside the barn or outside the barn.
I'm going to say it's a cat. Of all the animals that exist, and the domestic ones, I feel like you don't really have to give a lot to your owners to get a lot in return. I feel like a lot of other animals put in work or have to justify their presence.
However, you would be in the broader demographic as a cat. In Australia. They are the most prolific animal in Australia.
I not have an owner in this witchy rather.
You can't choose. They could be the worst person ever. So it's really like what speaks to you. I'll tell you what I want to be. Okay, I want to say cat, but you took.
It, so I won't done.
Dude, Okay, okay, not big because it's too intelligent for its own good chicken because the chicken practices in Australia read on eating meat. It's a good one, stilly meat.
But it was very when it needed to hear. It resonated at the time, exactly.
I wasn't more of like a pescatarian died at the time. So yeah, I'm gonna say a rodent like being a little mouse.
People like pest control and like rat traps.
Yeah, but i'd be super cute. So they think, oh, the little mouse, like like Stuart Little.
I don't know that'side in the context of a pet store. Rodents don't really get that far.
It's a mouse, not a rodent. Put some respect on the name.
Is a mouse not a rotent?
Yeah, but like it's a mouse, a little little mouse, not derogatory or actually a funny one. Possum ringtail possum Barnyard Edition.
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