Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles. We're thrilled to be joined once again in our third seat by a research associate at the Leverholmes Center for the Future of Intelligence, where she researches AI from the perspective of gender studies. She's the co host of the great
podcast A Good Robot. Please welcome back the brilliant doctor Kerrie McNary.
Doctor kay, Hi, thanks so much for having me back.
Oh awful, thank you, thank you for accepting our offer to return, you know, to class up the joint as I say.
International you know, diplomacy going on. We had yeah, you know, work it out, but we're thrilled to have you back.
How have you been, I mean, how have we all been? I don't answer that question anymore so I'm just like, I guess in the big scheme of things, I'm personally doing really well.
But yeah, yeah, thriving, Yeah yeah. What's the energy like? Answer? What's the energy like? In Europe?
Looking at the cess pit that is a flame as known as the United States. Is it like, is it like a tooth like Iraq war? Anger like I experienced going to Europe, or like what the fuck are y'all doing over there? Or is it like how we felt after Bregg's there people are like, oh, sorry, is fucking themselves bad?
I feel like, yeah, a lot of confusion and fear. I don't know if it's necessarily even just anger as much as it's just people being like what is happening? Like what are you doing? But I think there is a degree of like shell shock to it, where just so much keeps happening that I think you start to like become slightly numb, which is very bad but also
very understandable. I got a bit of a refresh from that because I was back home in New Zealand in March and like, there's nothing quite like being in a country when you watch the news every day and like nothing happens. It's like a tree fell near the motorway, not even on the motorway, or you know that kind of level of me right right right, And then it came back here and I was like, oh my goodness, this is a very different level of news.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, well we're not getting them to it. Unfortunately, every day it hurts every day. Damn you got anything for that hurts every day?
Yeah?
Yeah, I mean, but that is the point. I think they want as many people to turn off and sort of ignore what's happening. But I think I think as things ramp up here, people more and more realize how how much the norms, as flawed as they were, were things that were worth keeping and trying to improve rather than be like FuG everything, get rid of it all and whatever.
This is, Yeah, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?
So I am working on a show called How to Live Forever right now, which is you know, I'm just so enamored with like how how these billionaires are spending all their lives like trying believing that they're gonna live to one hundred and sixty and and but they're also like crazy things like cats that like you know, I think Rick Perry's cousin is helping them.
Live to their thirties. They're like cats live to their thirties.
Yeah, with like tiny thimbles of wine and like there's a whole exercise course for them.
Wait, is the wine thing real, because like I always assumed that was just wishful thinking. Is it real? Well, for cats it is. I don't know about us with a little bit of wine. Well wow, okay, I mean it takes the edge off, I guess.
But you know, they're all these like things and and they're you know, miracles of science right now. Like they're these dancing molecules that in a lab in Northwestern they have severed mices spines to make them paraplegic and then give them this injection and within a month they're like walking normally again. And like, like the advances and science
are unbelievable. But also there's all this like snake oil, and like what happens when like billionaires stop like giving their money to society and taking like billionaire's pledge and just like conserving it for you know, when they're living to two hundred or whatever. But in all this research I stumbled into like this rabbit hole on the enhanced games. Have you been paying attention to this? Like it's basically an all drug Olympics.
And they're doing it.
I know that it was a one in it, but it is that it's supposed to happen next year, and and there's all this craziness of like trying to figure out where is it going to be because they're like, you know, you can, I think, dope up as much as you want.
For these Olympics.
They're getting people who are like retired Olympians and like people who have sort of like failed out of the you know, they were like a fifth place, like swimmer or whatever, and they're getting roted up and and other drugs obviously, and and uh and then they're getting these huge cash prizes to like beat the like Michael Phelps record or like you.
Know, and and uh.
It's just the whole world is fascinating to me, like the fact that like, you know, the Olympics themselves are are pretty corrupt. It's not like you know, they're there are things where like Ben Johnson and and.
Uh car Johnson Johnson.
Yeah, I mean they took the same drugs right, like and and and one of them is like a hero and the others like you know this pariah and and like.
Carl Lewis took those drugs too.
Yeah, yeah, come on, Barcelona Olympics.
So that's been like documented since.
No, but but but but there's a documentary about it Steroids that that talks about it.
Ben Johnson just like didn't hide it as well, because he definitely looked more on steroids than I think anyone I've ever seen.
Well I think also, I think the countries are better at hiding it than other countries, right, Like certain doctors are better at hiding it. So like you know, whether it's like Russia or China or various places, Eastern Germany, right was very very good at hiding it and not hiding it. But anyway, like the fact that like you one, like the countries are trying to bid on whether they can like sports wash through like an all drug Olympics is like kind of.
Stunning to me.
And and and also just the people are invested in this because they feel like people like Peter Thiel are invested in because they hope that all these longevity drugs will come out of an Olympics. And it's hard to tell, you know, is it going to be like a fire festival of sport or is it going to be like something that makes money and becomes like you know.
Regularly washed on TV. Or where's it located? Haven't announced yet oh International waters.
Right, Yeah, we're going to see it like the first televised like race where people are having like a heart attack during the butterfly stroke of a swim competition and you're like.
Oh, boy using air while you can literally see his heart pumping out of his chest. I feel like it either needs to be Vegas or Detroit in honor of RoboCop. I'm not sure, yeah, right, like or like or to just be like Saudi Arabia. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and and it just like plays it to this whole like weird.
There's a GQ article about like everyone you know is on steroids, you know, and it feels.
Like this, no, not Jack, I told you I'm not.
Yeah.
I had to ask my mom twice. She's everyone I know that she lifted the couch with one man. It was crazy, but got terrible back acne too, I noticed.
Yeah, but it is I mean this whole world of like biohacking and human augmentation where like people showed up two feet taller or like six inches taller after the pandemic because they'd had those like you know, like like this whole world is so bizarre and it's fascinating to see what'll stick.
I have some suspicions that there was one time where, like some I ran into someone I hadn't seen it in a while, and they were definitely taller than they used to be, and I just like wouldn't because I hadn't really thought of that as being a real thing. I wouldn't let it rest. I'd be like, are you so damn tall? It's crazy.
It's like you had a goddamn Rosebury in your thirties and they were like, yeah, man, just like stop, just like, no, I've always been this tall.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Oh man, bro, yeah I had my bones extended.
You're like, oh yeah, exactly. And you were saying before we recorded, Brian Johnson is hosting that show with you. That's your co host, the guy, his son's bonus. So that's cool. No, that's not true. That's uh, that's that is super interesting. I can't wait to have them have these games and they can't even get close to the real Olympian records because they were all on steroids too. You know, we'll see what is something you think is underrated?
Mashed potatoes underrated? Okay, that's just you think they're more versatile, just more more delicious than people give them credit for.
Yeah, I think they're top potato.
So you're saying underrated because we're emphasizing what the fry too much, I think so.
I think we're in too fancy with potatoes. Being an Idaho brought me closer to the potato and you can just throw butter and salt and that's good shit. It doesn't need anything else. People gussy it up too much. So mashed potatoes underrated a.
Lot of butter, you know, if you really want to real good, a fucking a lot of butter, like enough that their people.
Are like are you Are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, you okay, because this she's delicious when you worry about yourself. Yeah.
No, one just makes a bowl of mashed potatoes as they should.
Right, Yeah.
Yeah, I did it down with the movie.
Three Nights ago.
I had a bag of potatoes that like one started to sprout a little, you know, a little eye out of it, and I.
Was like, all right, I got to cook these straight, yeah, just right away. And I was like, maybe I can roast them.
I'm like, no, dude, I want to eat a big ass bowl of mashed potatoes, and I did it, and my life is better exactly.
You don't even need gravy. It's just comfort filling easy. Yeah, mashed potatoes are underrated.
Where are we on the you can't see big bowl where like where we sort of base the base that you're working off of. I loved it.
I've been suicidal at one point in my life, but never that sad r.
K big bull A dark experience that is also like kind of worth it.
That's the thing. I know, it's great. It's just I can't look at myself in the eye, you know.
Right, It almost feels it's like, yeah, like probably the reason I never did Heroin.
I was like, I've gotten.
Close, but part of it is just like it ain't. It's just ain't calling me like that. And I feel like if it did, it would be all bad. It would be all bad.
I did feel like, like William Burrows talking about Heroin, I was like, it's dark, it's a dark experience, but it's actually worth crying down the road that like you had to go down at least one in your life. Yeah, I give lunch indeed, Yeah, I.
Haven't tried that monstrosity where it's the fried chicken, cheese, bacon, fried chicken.
What was it?
Yeah?
That thing?
Have you guys tried it?
I can't bring myself.
That one just seems gammicky to me. But the mashed potato bowl like always made sense to me. I was like, yeah, no, this is something I would make at home. You know, It's basically what I did with Thanksgiving leftovers for.
It makes total sense.
And I think because my family Southern KFC is just like an abomination of fried chicken, so that I do have a bias, so that probably goes into it.
Yeah, wow's your favorite fried chicken?
Honestly it is Ralph's.
Ralph's Real.
Yeah, So California grocery chain has probably some of the best fried chicken I've had. That's not my mema us right, Yeah, bad day fried chicken, mashed potatoes, couch.
Ralph Kroger. I'm wondering if Kroger elsewhere has good fried chicken or if it's just something about Ralph. Oh, yeah, how's it up by you? Anywhere else?
We don't have Ralph's. Like I'm on the border of California and Nevada, so we have a rallies and it looks just like Ralph's logo, but it's different. I think it's privately owned.
Yeah that's not even a name. They just made that ship up. Yeah, Rales.
It's just as expensive as Ralph's, but different. They don't have Kroger brands. I don't know what their brand name is, their store brand that gang.
Let us know what is the best grocery store chicken? Because I do agree? I mean that and Pavilions. Pavilions get a fresh ship, fresh batch of Pavilions fried chicken too.
Yeah that in their donuts. Holy fuck. When I lived in Orange County, our Pavilions made donuts every morning. They were like still hot in a little greasy from the friar.
Oh my god.
If maybe they fry the chicken in the donuts.
Maybe they fry the donuts in the chicken.
KFC are you listening.
KFC Krispy Cream collab.
It's like, yeah, we brought over the friar oil from a CAFC to fuck up these donuts over here.
Bring in a weed brand and I never get anything done again.
Wow, Brian, what is something you think is overrated? Oh?
Yeah, so that that my pit. Thing was anti heroes. I think they're overrated. We're done with it. Leave that ship in when we weren't in the Age of Aquarius, because we are in the Age of Aquarius.
It's currently as of a few months ago.
That's great news for me. Is that good? That's from hair?
It's great.
It's when all the it's like historically, I don't know anything about what I'm talking about that, but.
Historically it's when like huge like revolutions and shit happened.
All right, Oh, hell yeah, I think we kind of need that right now, guys low key, I think we need that right now. All right, So that was your under overrated? Underrated? Is the pit? Overrated? Is he anti heroes? No?
Underrated? Was uh?
Fuck?
I actually forget what I just said.
No, did you say the pit?
No? The pit was me leading into anti heroes? I think anti and underrated is something else?
Is the pit? Wait?
Oh oh wait, I fuck this up? Processed food?
Oh that's okay, sod under let's do that, Okay, Okay, So I think we flipped your overrated and underrated? What what's something you think under rated? Okay? Process? Which one? What kind? What's the most underrated? Process? Food. I think like cheese, processed cheese, American cheese.
Yeah, I'm just kind of like over healthy.
It's like, yeah, American just oil and water in the shape of it. I fucking I am fully in agreement that I love American cheese. Like the melt the melting point on that ship is so crucial, Like, yes, I guess, and I was made in a lab.
I used to rake my teeth over the edges of the plastic to make sure I was getting all that cheese off when I was a kid, you know what I mean, Like.
Like room temps, like melts at room temp is a wild It is a wild quality for a substance to have.
Watching the craft singles get squirted into the plastic and then the plastic kind of adhering it around it is pretty fascinating.
Poetry poetry.
Yeah, that's the Hopecore edit that I should be watching.
Yeah, I guess. I mean we shouldn't be surprised that processed food as you're underrated because you said that your favorite cookie is white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from somewhere. Yeah, yeah, that's fine.
They're always moist.
They are they are, and you know why, because they are sprayed down with chemicals that aren't available to anybody except No Fortune, five hundred corporations and the US military. Brian just he trusts the process. That's right.
You gotta trust the process. I think we need to stop having trying to have so much control over everything.
That's trust the process. Control works in the short term. Long term, it's a bad strategy. It's gonna it's gonna fuck you up trying to control everything. Just to let it go. Eat the fucking processed food. Trust the process. Trust the process food. And we we know how well that worked out for the seventy six ers, so it'll probably work out for all of us as well. That's my basketball team, bro. You need a hope Core Sixers at it? Man, really, I do not. I'm going over here.
I'm dead man. I think about that ship for a little while. Yeah, all right, great to have you back, Brian. We're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna come back. We're gonna talk about some of this news. You heard about this stuff the news. We'll be right back and
we're back. We're back and we on this podcast, we asked the hard hitting questions such as where are we at with AI generally just like generally, what's the vibes, doctor McNerney, So every because I remember when we first had you on, we were.
Like in the midst of like e AI EI, mommy E I yeah, AI, researchers giving us like the warning could be the next just's gonna end the world. I'm I'm taking cyanide now to preemptively excuse myself from this apocalypse. And after a while, I think that's as we started to speak to more and more experts, we all became rightly unconvinced by its capabilities and they're like, oh, it's a fancy computer program that's like a toy basically, but
they're saying you can do so much more. Then we see more and more articles about how people using AI are like fucking up in like legal proceedings like the MyPillow guy his lawyers used chat GPT recently and the judges like they're like thirty critical errors in your like your response here, Like I don't even know what this is. But now I'm like, are we now? Sort of I think because we're sort of past the thing of like this is that world ender game changer. But still these
companies have to make the line go up. Are we like now seeing more of a strategy to just kind of normalize AI, use to get people to slowly warm up to it than sort of like the big explosive sort of debut with like chat GPT and things that we saw, because I feel like now I hear more people talk about AI when they are like miyazakifying themselves or getting a recipe recommendation, rather than like this is going to replace the entire medical field.
Yeah.
I mean, I think normalization is the exact right word. And I was just thinking this today as I went on to Google Search, and of course they now have that AI overview summary and even some of my fee Yeah.
You're talking about my friend Gemini. Yeah, we're pretty intited actually, so.
They're yeah, some answers, you know, even things like that. I think people like me who say probably wouldn't have gone to chat GPT just to do like basic information searches, I have to admit I do read the AI summaries quite a lot, and you know, and I think that it's a way of just kind of like making it really frictionless and really really easy to immediately use an
AI tool. And I think we see that with a lot of like AI roll out and look, and on the one hand, like, I'm not completely against the use of these AI tools if you're really finding it useful and if it's from liable, you're kind of getting the full picture behind the tool and what it's for. But on the other hand, I think something I do worry about is something that I think has to be integrated into all our ethical tech use is like a meaningful sense of the opt out or a meaningful sense of
the opt in. So like, do I have the right in the ability to say, like, nah, I don't want to use this, and you know, am I being like actively consulted and being able to consent to using particular tools or programs and so on and so forth. And yeah, I think the current rollout of AI tools is not really complying with that particularly.
Well mm hmm right, Yeah, they're as excited they have a new toy that they want to that they want to use that they're going to make a you know, Super Bowl commercial about Gouda cheese the most did you see that, doctor mckenry that Google advertised their AI product with a Super Bowl ad that had incorrect information in it. The premise was, this is a cheese farmer, and he is a whiz when it comes to me making good cheese, but he's all thumbs when it comes to writing marketing material.
And so he it showed Google AI like telling him facts that he could put on his cheese. And one of the facts was that gouda cheese is the most popular type of cheese and sixty percent of the world's cheese sales. What which is just like on its surface, like obviously wrong, and they still like put it in a in a super Bowl commercial, like somebody caught it once the ad had like been up and so it didn't make it to the Super Bowl, but it made
it like online and was viewed millions of times. And it's just that seems to be like it's if if it's not going to be one hundred percent, if it's not going to be right one hundred percent of the time,
it's kind of useless because it's just like that. I mean, yeah, I feel like everybody should be like would be opting out of it if they knew, like and just so you know, like one out of like every I don't know, twenty of the things that you search is going to be like blatantly wrong in a way that is going to be humiliating to you. Yeah. Yeah, we're not going to tell you which one enjoy the product.
Yeah.
I mean, first, I love the idea that it's not even an era, but it's just big Goudas out there trying to spread some misinformation about the popularity of Good as Cheese. But second, like, yeah, I feel like one way I've heard people describe it as this idea of like, yeah, something like chat GPT or the AI overview can be useful for getting like a sense of a topic. But yeah, I guess the issue for me is like that often requires quite a lot of expertise to be able to
know whether something is right or not. And so for example, like my husband as from North Carolina, as a basketball fan, like I am sort of forcibly inducted into the NBA enough that yeah, I could probably tell the eighty percent. Maybe actually that might be overestimating my knowledge, but yeah, that twenty percent would be totally out of my knowledge.
And so I think that's my fears. If you're relying on these tools, it's not that people can't tell that something's wrong, but you know, when we're using it for like a really wide range of applications. It does actually require a lot of expertise in all those different things. And I think, certainly speaking for myself, like that's not something I would be able to do or to discern.
Yeah, because I mean sure, like you think of it like, well, if I get to be on my test, but if you're asking something to like explain the Civil War and you get all the generals and the battles and dates right, but the reason for the American Civil War wrong, where it's like and they all fought over you know, economic rights, and then that's now it doesn't matter that eighty percent is completely negated by this other piece of information that
has completely colored the you know, the description of something.
Now.
That's why I'm like, even every time I see those summaries, I'm like, no, Like I'll click on the links that are saying like we're using these to tell us, and I'll look at them like, this is not really even exactly what's happening here, to the point that I feel like it's causing more harm than good because I've at least learned to try and just research myself. You know, That's how I got my theories on the Earth shape and things like that, you know, research.
I have some interesting ideas on that. I don't know if you have a couple hours, Doctor mcinnerey.
Well, Doctor, every time I've emailed Doctor Carry, she's respectfully declined to entertain the conversation, which I say she has a.
Luck going on. She has a luck going on, but I mean it is she could be a useful source to you though you're looking for somebody who's been in an airplane. You know, I looked out. Are there cool uses of AI that aren't getting attention or I guess even like tech breakthroughs that you know, we asked this the last time you were on but like we're still
in the early stages of AI. Are there directions that have like popped out to you that you know the future of technology and this technology in particular could take that are promising for like the bettering of the world for more than like twelve rich guys, which I feel like is the current the current model. It's like these twelve guys are like, yeah, this would be amazing if we could replace all the people to see me with total role. I was with Total Rope from the Miyazaki
movie but where are you seeing hope? Where are you seeing hope?
I guess I'm genuinely terrified and like say something it would be like that's the exact same amount so you said two years ago, and like destroy any hope. Yeah, I mean I think like I'm always like quite excited by more creative uses of AI or people who are like really trying to think about like instead of saying, like how can we make like one product that works for the whole world, like which tends to be the approach of things like to GPT and then like sprow.
They obviously don't work for the whole world in all these different cultural contexts and all these different linguistic contexts, because I don't think a single product can. But you know, I do think like there are really interesting examples of groups like Tahukumdia in New Zealand where I'm from, which have been like using AI machine learning techiks to try and focus on tremodi or the indigenous language of New
Zealand's language preservation. And so because of like long histories of kind of the state suppression of TERI, there was like a period where like there weren't that many native trail Moldi speakers, it was like really aggressively suppressed, and now as a result, people are kind of trying to really reinvest and support the kind of revitalization of trail Modi and Peter Lucas Jones, who this CEO, I believe Teaku Media and like their whole team have been really
intentional and sort of really world leading, I think, and how they've been trying to use AI machine learning for this. I think a big part of their project though, is that they're very insistent on like indigenous data sovereignty or making sure that like their platforms aren't sold to big
tech or reliant on big tech. And I think I imagine that's like a really challenging project because like this sort of small handful of like big tech firms like are incredibly dominant in this space, but a lot of that has been around like no, you know, we really want to make sure that this remains like technology by and for MALDI people and for our organization, And so I think projects like that I find like really really
inspiring and really important. But I think they're also just like a great example of like AI development being done super well, which is like you have a clear problem, and you have clear ideas and ways that you think that AI machine learning can help us address and part some of this problem without like positioning it as the solution.
Because I think if anyone comes out of the gate and it's like AI is going to solve this problem, that's when I think you should always be a bit like, oh, I don't think it is, especially if the problem is something like really really massive, right discrimination, it's kind of like, well, look, we just have to reject that one sort of straight out the gate and kind of think a bit more specifically about this.
And I'm sure those companies are like and when we made that claim, that wasn't actually meant for you to be the receiver of that message. It was for Wall Street and investors when we said this thing will solve everything, because like, yeah, I mean like that application feels like the kind of thing that like, you know, in the US right now, Trump is very focused on eliminating any semblance of equity or diversity inclusion.
Obviously as we've seen like the woke.
DEI initiative crusade against all those things, and that sounds like exactly the kind of thing that Trump would be. Like, that's not useful. It just has to be this other thing that's a money making endeavor. Because right now his people, like the people within the administration, like the head of Science and Technology, have said things like Biden's AI policies were like divisive and it's all been about all been about the redistribution, like redistribution in the name of equity.
And naturally Trump has fired many of the AI experts Biden hired because it was clear like obviously Biden hired them. He's like, there's a huge bias problem with any of this stuff, and if it's even going to be a product people use, like that's probably a thing worth tackling.
But now like it's become sort of like normalized within this administration to say this is all harmful now because it's trying to advance equity, when like when we've spoken to people like you and other experts, it's like, no, you have to get rid of those inequities or else it doesn't even fucking work, Like like when you're talking about things like being able to someone who has like a darker complexion, and how does a like a self automated car even identify that pedestrian as an object to
avoid because again, these biases affect all these different systems. But it feels like now, like at least from the American conservative side of things, or just generally the tech con con conservative movement.
Is like, yeah, maybe it's just like fine if it you.
Know, misidentifies like black people or doing these other things that just kind of show that at the end of the day, we only it only needs to work in the way that we want it to work, and all the other applications whatever be damned.
Keeps identifying black people as traffic cones. Do we think that we need can we go to market with us still? Or is that? Are we good here?
Well that's yeah, And I'm just I'm amazed at how you know, I think, how much like objectively, this is the thing. If you want a product to work, it has to be able to be used around the world. So how useful is that in a place that doesn't have like an ethnic majority that's all white people in the same way like that? You know, again, these all just feel very counterintuitive, But that seems to be the name of this year, this year's theme generally.
Yeah, yeah, I mean the idea of this is the year of counterintuitive things. Really resonates. Yeah, and I think it's like not only disappointing, because it's like I do think that it shouldn't be super hard to buy into the idea that like, yeah, AI that is like more equitable or less biased and more fear like genuinely is
actually in the long run good for everyone. Although I know there's like a reactionary group that feels like any kind of equity or equality is you know, kind of impinging on their own kind of share of the pie. But you know, I really think like AI ethics and
safety is for everyone. But yeah, I also think it's very sad because like this has huge knock on effects for the rest of the world, because like the US is a wild leader in AI and tech production, and so yeah, if you have an environment that is kind of saying, let's throw ethics out the window, then that does have knock on effects for the rest of the world their bias and uses still a lot of this technology.
So yeah, I think like these rollbacks obviously massively affect the as domestic context, but they certainly don't stop.
There, right, Is there any do you see any put like this is as stupid on its face as it sounds right to be like, we have to we have to stop with these inclusive efforts to address biases within AI like models.
There's no.
Like it's as dumb as that sounds, right, because in my mind and everything I've read, people are like, no, no, no, like it it works worse when it has all these like inbuilt biases, like it will not work as good therefore is not viable. So it is that is bad, right, There's no like secret things like well, you.
Know some bias is good for these things.
I mean, if someone if that is that is the secret source and please tell me, definitely not what I
would think. I mean, yeah, I mean I think it just comes down to again, like I think there's a fundamental irony of saying, like, you know, the power of these AI enabled tools and products is that you know, we can perform all these like massive tasks at scale in this idea, and again like a product that can be sold the world, a product that can be used at scale with the kind of knowledge that this only
really works for like a very very narrow base. I mean my assumption to be fair though, is like I think that a lot of people who make products that have you know, these kinds of exclusions or biases aren't necessarily going in being like, I know my product is really biased, and I actually just like don't care, Like I don't think that usually is it? I think often to me, it's just this kind of mindset of either
we just like haven't really thought about it. I think this particularly common with accessibility, which is that of accessibility has to be integrated and from the very beginning of the design process. It can't be slapped on at the end. And too often I think that's how it gets approached, and so people just haven't even begun to think about, you know, oh, like will my language, I mean, sorry,
will my model work for disabled people? My product work for people with these different kinds of like physical disabilities, Like, you know, I think it's just that the whole groups of populations just get ignored, or you know, maybe they've realized and they think, oh, it's actually a really bad thing that this product doesn't work for this particular group.
But I think I'm just going to make the trade off and decide, like, I think that's a small enough consumer base that I can still sell my product, and like, I don't think I'll get too much into pushback. I think it'll be fine. And I think this, you know, might often be the case for populations that are perceived as being like very very small. So I'm thinking of say like trans or gender diverse people who often get erased from certain data sets because they're like, oh, well,
this is like statistically a very small percentage. It's like, yeah, but those people's exclusion like really really matters. It has a huge impact on their life. If they go through a scanner and their body is not recognized or seen as non normative, or if they're excluded from different databases like these do have huge knock on effects for people.
So yeah, so I guess I would say that, you know, the kinds of people maybe who are not seeing AI ethics as a priority, aren't doing it because they're just like, you know, oh, you know, debiasing whatever. That's fine. I think it's Yeah, it's probably more just to do with a lot of different blinkers or like a certain kind of narrow mindset about who your consumer is and who's I actually using these products?
Right, Yeah, it does feel probably, But for the Trump administration, I'd say they're probably very much focused on the fact that because there it doesn't matter it's like, I don't know, even if it makes everything unsafe, I just have to say the words I don't like equity, and that's without any consideration for what that means.
And if the whole world breaks, like the better for him to consolidate power, you know, like that feels yeah, I mean, did you see this Semaphore article about like the group the Mark Andresen group chats that like it.
So he's been having like these signal chats since the days of the pandemic, and it's like he has like gone out of his way to bring in all of these tech leaders and then like fucking super far right wing like people like Richard Hannania, like the guy who's like an outright white supremacist, and like put these people
in group chats together. Like at one point he like brought in some progressive people and then they wrote a New York Times op ed criticizing laws that were banning critical race theory, and he just like had a meltdown and was like you betrayed me by writing this thing, and like kicked them out of the group chat, and like since then, it's just all this like extreme right wing propaganda that's being like kind of vomited back and forth between these people who are like the biggest, most
powerful oligarchs and like the people who are in charge of the direction that tech takes. And so I yeah, I mean it feels like this whole thing is developing in a way that feels particularly like non optimal and like stupid and narrow minded and racist and white supremacist and all those things, and like that this was very helpful for a context. I just wonder, like all of like we're seeing a model that's being developed, not in
the best way possible. It seems like like to say the least, and we're probably going to like discount a lot of these possibilities because they're so shitty at what they're doing. But do you do you see that sort of white supremacist mindset kind of pervading in the tech mainstream? What a question? I know, it's a big one. Yeah.
No, I mean I feel like, I guess, like what I do think this gifts just towards is this like very public repositioning of Silicon Valley, which I think always had this like relatively liberal venea, even if it's not clear how deep those roots actually went. Kind of very
explicitly aligning themselves with the right and with Trump. And it's a little bit hard to tell, like how much of this is like political expediency people saying, well, clearly, you know, I'm going to do anything to avoid heavier regulation, We do anything to avoid this kind of like sort of punitive regime that Trump's exacting on many different institutions. So we're going to you know, put ourselves in a camp.
And how much of this is like an expression of like deeper ideologies and deeper kind of political beliefs that have maybe sat door mentor sort of have kind of been cultivated within Silicon Valley and tech firms and now kind of finally bursting onto the scene now that they feel a bit more empowered as there's kind of been this like global shift towards the right. So yeah, I don't know, honestly, like how much you know, we can discern between sort of like the real deep feeling and
the kind of political expediency argument. But I think it's just undeniable that you have people like particularly Mark Zuckerberg, who would have been like normally more kind of center possibly center left a lot of issues even though he was obviously running like a massively exploitative, gigantic, quite dangerous tech company now sort of really aggressively rebranding as a kind of wooing Trump, but also sort of big into a lot of these like hyper masculiness, tech bro sort
of languages and ideologies that I don't think certainly five years ago we would have seen him sort of pointing in the same way. So yeah, it feels like there's been this sort of very visible shift in Silicon Valley. But again, as someone who's not based in Silicon Valley, like I probably couldn't tell you like how much of that feels like this this is actually the real face of the beast versus this is actually just like what people are doing for the moment.
Yeah, because I mean you see how much like Andresen got Silicon Valley money together to get Trump into office, along with a bunch of other crypto people's like seventy eight million dollars from like the and recent side of things, and you know, like these group chats they do, it's like our modern day smoke filled lounges where you get to see these very powerful people sort of debate these topics and get their takes out there that are like wacky as hell, and that's why I think, like reading
this article, it was a little bit more like damn. I mean, I don't know if any everybody in this group chet thinks that, but there are definitely some vocal people in this group chat that definitely think they are the ones who are going to solve these very complex issues, but in the most like inelegant, one size fits all kind of way.
That's just all about power. And that's when I'm like, oh, I think it's really these are.
Starting to blend together, especially as we see how much how people's like media diets and the information they receive are informed by what these people who are running these companies how they believe and like how information should move and how people get siloed into information bubbles and things
like that. That's when I started to begin to be like, hmmm, this feels a little bit more like a smoking gun when you hear like, you know, these ideas are being like exchanged and knowing that, like there's this guy Curtis Yarvin that we talked about a few weeks ago who's like basically like a tech monarchist who has a lot of ideas that people like Elon Musk and Peter Teel like are really subscribed to and yeah, and like in these group chats, it's is where these a lot of
these very influential people start getting introduced to these.
Kinds of ideas.
So that's when I'm like, hmm, this feels very sinister
at best. I mean, like when you see this and then thinking that these are the people that control the levers that you know, just normal people who are using the Internet and stuff get affected by their policies, it feels like a little bit like they figured out this is how they exercise like their immense control over people in these sort of you know, less sort of not like in the ways that we think in terms of governance or whatever, but through the spread of information and ideas.
Yeah, and I guess I feel like the signal chats like raise two things about this kind of like pivot to the right, which I think are both really important, and like, I think the one is what you've pointed out,
is this like small scale influencing. Like I think often when we talk about disinformation or misinformation, we're thinking about that in terms of like, oh, someone makes like an ai deep fink and they like release it onto the Internet and somehow that deep fake like convinces like many, many many people that this event occurred or didn't occur, and it has like seismic effects, and like, you know, again,
I don't think that's necessarily how disinformation works. I think that, yeah, these kinds of like small cultivated circles of true maybe the things that we should be really really concerned about, which is like what actually causes people to change their mind or change behaviors, Like maybe these are the levers
that can like be significantly more effective. But yet the second is kind of a point you were raising, and I think does again like tie into what happens when you build these bonds of trust, which is just like following the money. And like you mentioned sort of the massive amount of tech funding that got Trump at the office. And I had a colleague who now wisited Guardian and he and the team kind of just like tracked all
the funding behind the Trump and Harris campaigns. And what was just really astounding was just like the extraordinary amount of money that specifically just came from tech, and like that's been a really big change in the last five
years or so. It's just like how much money sort of Silicon Valley has putting it into political lobbying, and so I think, you know, yeah, it's even regardless of like your political orientation, but like particularly right now with the Trump administration, like I think that's something we should all be really concerned about.
M h.
Yeah, I mean, because it feels like this is the best a in some level, the tech industry is sort of like, well, we're actually now the ones that are really able to manufacture consent through social media and misinformation, and you marry that with like an a you know, presidential administration that would really benefit from that kind of like full court press propaganda kind of making, and it feels like, oh, everyone kind of wins in their own way,
although there are clearly some people in tech have their regrets after all the tariff chaos and they're like no no, no, no no no no not actually also, don't just fuck fuck that one's actually really valuable. I just wanted less regulations and for people to say the N word on Twitter more. That was my whole thing, and now I have no money or less money. But yeah, it's it feels like it's just like the most clown show version
of all this. I think, which is also very frustrating to watch or just have to sit idly buyas it's all happening to.
Us very intentional. Very Also, it's just like really pathetic, just like seeing how easy, easily influenced these people are. I mean, it makes sense because it feels like they're from a church that believes that whoever, wherever, the most money is equals the right thing. And so you just like get them on a group chat with a billionaire and they're like, well, I mean that guy must be the smartest guy in the world, and so right his ideas I have to listen to.
Yeah, and I do think as well, Like, you know, to some extent, I'm like, yeah, to that point, much less interested in what people like quote unquote really think and much more interesting than just what they do. And so to some extent, I'm like, yeah, you know, does
it really matter with them? Mark Zuckerberg is personally invested in these like you know, quite misogynist ideologies about like what it means to be a man or doesn't matter that he like has gone on Joe Rogan and now like propagates a lot of these ideas and has you know, publicly shift admittter to kind of align with or support
Trump's administration. Like that, to me is like what really matters right now, which is that we have kind of these active, kind of shifts of power in the tech industry that go beyond kind of like politically signaling in certain ways, like they're really really tangible. And I think Musk is like the flagship of that in him to someone who's just been like very very visible in the administration. But you know, he's certainly not the only one.
Yeah, it feels like there's no shortage of these tech billionaires who are dead set on a horrifying ideology. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and keep talking about AI will be right back, and we're back. We're back, and I do just add the floam reference smiles. I don't want that to go by without being remarked on.
It's okay, Like I said, check my bio encyclopedic knowledge of the nineties.
Is that the one that would like that would almost like crack when you molded it.
Yeah, it was like a bunch of little beads almost, yeah, like held together. It was really what if Rice Krispy Treats was toy. You know what, if Rice Krispy treats gave you bowel problems, if you even touched your mouth after handling it, if you ate them, they were in your body for the rest of your life and also your children's lives, your progeny.
Also, now every third person is like gooning to asmr shit and we have we have Floam to thank for that.
I know right exactly. We were just out here just trying to figure it out on our own. With Nickelodeon Floam. I gave it the full brand name because I felt like people would forget if I didn't properly say Nickelodeon Floam.
Nickelodeon Floam, a larger and larger part of their body is just made out of floam. It's like instead of a left knee, I have floam down there. I can just mold it and remold it as I walk. Anyways, old debate and this is not this is not the story that I thought I was going to be talking about today. And yet but like I said, we report
on the zeitgeist, we don't make it. Yesterday, I had the experience of checking social media and it just being wall to wall one hundred men versus one gorilla, you know, commentary videos, and so this is an old debate. I
mean this sort of debate. You know. There was one of my favorite articles from the early days of Cracked, like two thousand and eight Cracked, I think, was by this writer Chris Buckles that was just like how to fight twenty children like as one person, And it was just like really well thought out and good advice that I've that has shaped me as a person.
That you've used many times.
Yeah, yeah, I'll link off to that as my work in media. But it is kind of one of those questions like once you start thinking about it, it's kind of hard to stop. I will say the original question, as originally posed on Reddit five years ago, I think has a fairly simple answer because they really stacked the deck against the humans. Oh yeah, yeah. The original question was like, all right, first round, you can only go two at a two men at a time, Yeah, in
a gorilla and they're in a grilla exhibit. The second one is in a construction as at a construction site, and you can go ten at a time. They also say that it just has to be like one hundred average people. And then the third one, I guess you can go all at once, but you're not gonna have many people left after those first two rounds to go all at once, which is like, really your only hope.
I think all of the sort of modifiers are meaningless because really the question is, how can what just a in a fair one?
Okay?
Yeah, no tools, no weapons, not because this guy's basically bringing up like Rainbow Road type shit where like the headgrill fall off the edge or some shit.
No, what is it going.
To take for one hundred human beings to beat the fuck out of a gorilla?
Yeah, like a cage match or something like that. Yeah, you know, Yeah, And my first reaction is it's not happening. It's not happening. Ever, my big thing with all of this is human beings don't have like fangs. They cannot draw blood, So you're you're you're counting on purely overpowering a gorilla. I mean, we do have thangs, Moms, can you okay, can you can you draw blood from a through that gorilla's fur?
Probably if I had to, if he.
If he stayed still, if I hit the finger real hard like Charlie, yeah, I probably could. I can bite through a lot I got, but I'm just saying that's how I see a gorilla somehow, like if it fought a tiger. It's because the tiger slashes the gorilla and it's it's like it's leaking in a.
Straight up hold the gorilla. Not a fucking hundred people aren't doing that.
The first guy that gets ripped in fucking half by this thing, all ninety.
Nine other people are gonna go, no, right, you need These are the things that I think you need. I think first of all, we need to we need a draft like and not not a like military breach where we're going by birthday. I think we need to mcgroover's style, get to put together a team mcgoover of the film, not the SNL sketch, Oh thank you, which the film the film sketch. That the sketch is a completely different thing.
The film is a work of art. The you know, I think we need to be able to intentionally assemble a team. I think there needs to be some sort of a squid game style motivation that is going to prevent what you're talking about. Whether they see a person get ripped in half and everybody's like, this is not worth it. It needs to be worth like it needs to be one hundred men and the griller in the cage and like it's not over until.
It would be sick in squid like in the actual get a new season of Squid game, Like when there's like four hundred people left, it's like all four hundred y'all versus gorilla right now.
Right, Yeah, y'all are going to die. A lot of y'all going to die.
But four hundred, four hundred feels like maybe four hundred, So how are you?
I don't even know hundred is different than a hundred other than like I feel like a gorilla killing three hundred people with its bare hands may tire the gorilla out get tired, and then the other ones are just like coming up and like kind of yeah, I feel like that would probably be true after like fifty right, Like that's that's a lot of people to kill.
I could see that. I almost think now, I think you could almost it can be. It can almost be a random assortment of one hundred people. It doesn't they don't. You don't even need to do a draft. You just need a coach. That's what, like like a maestro, a conductor, Yes.
A maestro who's running plays and basically the goal of every play is some he goes for the eyes and once you get the eyes.
Brian, Okay, that is right, It's got to be the eyes. Although all right, so this is what I'm saying, you gotta be the eyes. Like that convinced me in a split second. At first, I was like, we need a like legendary football coach. I think the coach. No, I know, well, now I'm thinking we need still still I want Mike Tomlin. Mike Tomlin from the Steelers, and was like, just every
year they have a terrible team. Everyone's like, these guys are gonna win two games this year, and every year they are like a two seed, right, and he's just has energy. He like yells at everybody, cut your eyelids off, cut your eyelids off when they go out to play, which is just like so I don't know. And and also a great tactician, although we might not need one with Brian. No, no, Brian, I just thinking primatologist would be helpful, like somebody who sure can really speak to it.
But like a primatologists where you've like, you know, kidnapped their kid, because other way they're going to be like we should let the gorilla kill us.
Yeah, because I don't want to introduce like, you know, there could be something like gorillas hate like reflective material or something like maybe like a non weapon object that opens it up. But I don't even like that idea because now we're not talking. We're talking about one hundred people. Yes, one hundred people with tools can beat in a gorilla with just if we're going to brass tacks, bare hands and feet. I think, Brian, yes, you you take out
the vision. Now you're dealing with an animal has no situational awareness, and now you can kind of get a little like but even then you're.
Going to be teasing it. Yeah. Yeah, but either way terrified all of a sudden.
But you still have to solve the part that you have negated the absolute dude exponentially higher strength of the gorilla, because the second you grab it, the gorilla will just put hands on you.
Rip you a half, even if it can't see.
And I feel you're gonna you're just gonna take the gorilla off even more with his eyes being all pick gorilla is pod.
Yeah, I so I was. I was fully on the you just overwhelm it with one hundred at once. And then this Guardian article about this debate pointed out that somebody did a three professional soccer players, three professional football players verse one hundred children, Oh, I say, in Japan, in Japan, Yeah, and the professional soccer players won. Oh yeah, they beat the shit up them. They won. I mean, they won one nothing, But like, I don't know that maybe well they had if.
You see the video, they had like sixty kids in goal, like literally sixty, Like there were like sixty kids dressing goalkeepers in the goal and they just had to kind of headed in over them. But like the way they just the three of them just spread the field out and were just hitting long balls that they can like like just had the kids chasing right uh. And it was pretty it was pretty impressive if it's the one I'm thinking of, because I've definitely seen that one.
I was like, yeah, their skills are just way too high to get for the kids to handle that. But I think if it's one hundred random people, it depends. I do think you're probably gonna get one person who screams go for the eyes in that group, you know what I mean, And then and then you might have a chance if we're allowed to build a team. I do like the humans chance, like if we're allowed to draft on even if we're allowed to draft ten, there's
no answer. There's no answer, Like there's no conceivable answer for how you gate? What are you gonna do? Like have ten guys try and hold the arms right like a gorilla will I'm talking Mike Tomlin and the foremost primatologist and then like Laurrence Taylor or whoever the closest person to lost Taylor current.
Actually I like the eye thing, but I keep coming back to the thing, like you can't negate the strength in the sting.
Even in the I thing. I do think ten people will die for sure, Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, Ultimately the people will win, I do.
I do think that's right. Like everyone everyone's pushing vibes right now.
No one's giving me plays, and then you you show them and give me.
An example of the play. What happens? How are you gonna like, you can't can't damage your gorilla's achilles, ten do with your teeth, you know what I mean.
I'm trying to think the first ten are absolutely going to get fucked up.
That eleventh person goes through the eyes and then the ninety rush.
The fuck out of the gorilla.
I think a big difference is going to be if it's in a ring where no, you can't pick up something that's close by, because like our access to tools or like our ability to use whatever is at hand as a tool was like the crucial thing that allowed us to like get out of the food chain. So like if if it's a gorilla enclosure to zoo even or like you know, I feel like that is almost an advantage because then I do feel like you can like you have rocks, you.
Know, Okay, how about this not see but that's the thing, Yeah, I get that, but I'm I think that the thing that is in the appealing about this problem is how could the pure just strength.
Of the human body overcome a gorilla?
Obviously powerful.
If you've been watching these sports cars, these ope Core videos have run uh in a place where he believes I'm with him.
Yeah, he's just like over that, like like track, you just hear this song playing that's like thee and all the Hope Core You're like, oh man, and then the hundred guys ran after the gorilla.
It is very graphic and poking.
Guy, I'm saying one like access to one rock. I don't know. So there's this story I like that guy Brice versus a guy named the Lion.
This is what I'm talking about.
Thank you ahead Biblically, the original sports Hope Core. Way to bring it back, Way to bring it back. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like. The show means the world to Miles. He he needs your validation. Folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.