I get a team, Patrick, James Mean Andlla Craig, Anthony Harper, our Fortnightly get together and you are part of that. In fact, we get here together for you because you're loved by us. Hi, Patrick, how are you doing?
I have such an exciting day today, Craigo.
Remember what I'm doing today?
Thirty three on a Friday. As we record this everyone today, when did you tell me?
I don't know, middle of the week.
Today, I'm a shit friend Forretney.
You laughed at me.
What tell me again?
I'm waiting for a chimney sweep to come over.
Oh, that's right, the chimney sweep. And I said, what is this? Eighteen ten? Are you fucking Oliver? Please? Sir? I want more now. All of our young audience members will not know who Oliver Twist is. Just google it, kids. Why do you have a chimney sweep coming? Well, I guess it's obvious, but I didn't even know that they still existed.
People still have chimneys, and they still have flues that connect to their fireplaces. And mine isn't working properly. So the port Fritz, the schnauzer, who's very needy this morning. He and I well, he stood there looking at me while I tried to light the fireplace the other day when it got down to two degrees and smoke started billowing out out of the fire, I thought that flu.
Isn't working, first time I've used it this year, so it must be blocked.
And all the smoke alarms went off, and I'm running around upstairs with a tea towel and trying to stop the smoke, which wasn't helping. So yeah, I thought, I'm going to have to get desperate now. So I call the local hardware store and yes, they knew a chimney sweep, and he's coming over today.
Three weeks later. Wow, in high demand.
What's a good thing? It's been unseasonally warm for you? Well, probably not up in the land, but it's been bloody. There's twenty or twenty one the other day down here in I mean, well, I not winter, but nelly winter.
Oh for sure. And look we have really chilly, chilly mornings.
I have a wheat bag that I put in the microwave to put in my pocket so that my hands don't get cold with that is that is?
Oh?
I can't say what I was going to say, but fucking ninety eight percent of people would have laughed in two percent would have sent an email. But you know, you know, you know what that is? All right? Apart from that, have you been good? Everything? All right? Why is Fritz a underdog so needy?
By the way, because he normally goes through a walk at seven am, we go out for an hour, and because he woke me up at two am and I didn't get back to sleep till three point thirty, I had something of a sleep in.
Well, there you go.
I haven't taken him out yet. I'm gonna have to take him out after the show.
You're in the bad books, but in about an hour you'll be in the good books. It's right. Hey. There's been a bit of chat in the media about some parents and experts wanting to raise the age for social media for teenagers to like sixteen or something, and that's one What are your thoughts on that? And too, how the fuck would you ever enforce that?
Yeah, it's a tough one.
It's one of those generational things where well, I've got one, all my friends have one. I don't want to not have a phone. I don't want to have access to social media. It's really difficult because a lot of children's identities are also kind of included in that they connect by devices. You know, friends of mine have a fourteen year old and from the age of about eleven or twelve, he was chatting to his mates using his iPad. So how do you rule out social media as opposed to
just direct connection, You know, it's really hard. But the reasoning behind this, And look, I'm in two minds and I don't have children, so but I do see friends' kids and I wonder whether there is a problem when people are looking for likes, and that's the big thing that seems to be coming up. It's a and this is an Australian mind you they're saying that the like button the kids.
This is specifically about social media.
So you put a post up whatever the platform happens to be, and someone likes it. Now, how many likes you get can play a very big part in how you feel about yourself and what you've posted, particularly if you're posting a selfie. You know, think about you at the gym and how many times you post pictures of yourself and you know you.
Can one like? You know that must being to you.
Yeah, it's fucking I'm straight from here to my therapist because yesterday I only got two Yeah, and what was mum? And the other was Arnie Marge, So.
I like you last week yesterday. Oh sorry, I think it was the bear rug.
It was slightly out of position.
That could have been it. Well, see, there is there is a name for this. It's a new mental kind of health condition.
They're calling it problem Internet use or p I you And this this is not just kind of abstract statements being made by people in general. These are quite a few renowned researchers, experts, you know, clinicians who work in the area of child mental health. And that's what they're
trying to draw on to discuss ways. You know that this generation of children who potentially are being lost to the likes of you know, meta which is Facebook and Instagram, TikTok and all of those engaging, keep scrolling, keep engaging platforms that just do everything they possibly can to try to keep you online. That's what the whole aim of
social media is. So this is coming from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and they're talking about the impact of technology on teenagers and they really are the guinea pigs of this generation, aren't they when you think about it, because they're saying more than four in ten austraeteens, so forty percent suffer from mental health distress, with experts saying that you know, the case are now on the rise,
and this is being attributed to social media. But what is even more scary is they're saying the rate of hospitalization for intentional self harm has surged. We're talking by seventy percent in young young women between the age of fifteen and nineteen, and that's from two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine to twenty twenty one, twenty two. So in a very very short amount of time, the
warning flags are being raised. And so I mean, it's a long winded answer, but I'm not an expert, but if kids are harming more and there's more distress, then you know, there's got to.
Be a way to do it.
I mean, I think technology is such an intrinsic part of the lives of everybody, but we as adults can be discerning enough to put it away sometimes.
Well, I think, you know, it's like for me, it's a little bit like, you know, cigarettes kill lots of people, but then I've never had a cigarette you either.
Right, No, No, I had a we will them two cigar once mate when we were fourteen, and we almost choked the death and that did it for me.
Now, well, thanks for interrupting for that. You know, you know, whether or not it's well, I don't think that's a cigarette, whether or not it's booze or cigarettes or technology or pawn or you know, like it's we don't have to use social media, like it's not a rule. But as you and I have spoken about before, if you're fourteen
years old, you've never had a world without technology. You know, it's like it's well, maybe a few kids in Australia who grew up in you know, on farms in rural wherever, or in the outback or whatever, but the vast majority of fourteen year old Australian kids have pretty much had their whole life interwoven with technology in one shape or form. And I guess yeah, it's like do we get rid of it? Do we ban it? Or do we teach them how to you know, it's like do we teach
kids how to eat well? Do we teach kids how to move their body well? And look after their irreplaceable gift that is their body, do we I don't know. It's like when you just I feel like if you just ban it, I don't know that you're teaching them anything, and I don't know that that is going to be
a solution. And at the same time, you think about, well, if not for social media and technology and you and I wouldn't be doing this and we wouldn't have, you know whatever, half a million listeners a month and all the great things that we have. So I don't know that of themselves that all of these things are good or bad, but the rather the way that they are used and experienced and I guess exploited. And you're right,
like Meta is a for profit company. It's not a charity metas you know, despite what they'll say, which is all pr and as is it. Of course, every company wants to be seen to be morally conscious and ethical, of course because that's good for the brand. But the bottom line is the bottom line for most companies, like their bottom line is their profit. And if you can the longer that you can keep people on their sites or on their apps or whatever it is, as we've
said before, the more profitable it is for them. Right.
Look, you know, It's funny whilst you were talking, two things popped into mind. You know, you make that mental ledger the pros and cons. And I'm going to ask you a question. When you were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, living where you were was out MOOI wait, you know, out in the bush, would you if I sit to you now you can go back in time, would you want social media and to be able to actively actively be a part of it as a kid?
Yeow, one hundred percent. No. However, look, I think I think old people and I'm going to not put you in that category, but me in that category. I think we tend to romanticize the past and we go, oh, back in my day, I want to punch people in the face. I'm like, back in your day, it was shit sometimes, you know what I mean. It's like you know that it's everyone thinks that now is shit and
then was better, and like, I don't believe that. Like I think that they're being alive now, although there's a lot of shit going on. I think that being alive now depending on where you are, of course, I'm talking about you know, you and me living in first world luxury really in Australia, anyway, it's like it's never been a better time, Like it's never been We've never been more fortunate. Is there bad shit going on? Yes? Was
there bad shit going on back then? I think a lot of the current dilemmas that we're dealing with are self created. But for me, I loved my childhood. But then there were kids in the same era as me who had terrible childhoods. But me personally, I wouldn't change it.
No, So it's interesting you say that because on the flip side, for me, I had, for the most part, I had a pretty good upbringing. I had a lot of freedom, got on my bike, got up in the morning on a Saturday, and didn't come home till nighttime, you know, stayed at the mate's place. But as an older teen, and I'm thinking about this demographic we're talking about, I felt sad and isolated a lot of the time, psychologically mentally unconnected, and I it was Yeah, it was
a really tough time. And if I had been able to connect with peers online, if I'd been able to realize that I was okay and that there were other people like me, then my negative thoughts self harm probably wouldn't have happened, so I.
Think, and that's a beautiful example of there is no right or wrong, but it's right and wrong for the individual. And it's like, for you, I agree, it probably would have made your life better. I don't think it would have made my life better, but it may it may have. I don't know, but I think for you that's a and I think, like when we extrapolate this, mate, you think, well, there are lots of kids who use social media without problems,
and there are lots that probably more that have. You know, I don't know what the percentage is, but yeah, I sometimes I think we need to figure out what is the underlying cause, because it's like technology can be used for great stuff, but not so great stuff.
Can I throw some stats at you?
Sure?
So there's a campaign called let Them Be Kids, and they did a serve a recently of over three thousand social media users and this is what their pole come up with. Seventy percent of teens have had a negative experience on social media, three has been exposed to disturbing or traumatic content, Forty five percent have been abused or harassed, one in four have been cyber bullied or sexually harassed. Fifty nine percent have been scammed and one in ten
have been the victim of revenge porn. So when those statistics are thrown out, it's frighteningly high. And I guess, you know, it's three thousand social media users. Now I'd want to dig further into those stats, to be honest, I'd want to know, you know, the demographic spread, all that sort of thing. But those seem like pretty worrying statistics to me. And I guess we have to rely on the experts and not rely on knee jerk, not rely on you know, the media blowing things out of proportion.
And I guess what you do is you set up working groups with psychologists, with people who understand the industry, and you get the brains into the building. And that's
how you make those decisions. You know, often you think about politics, where I certainly think about politics, and you think, I wonder how many politicians actually did science and have doctorates, And they don't because generally, the pool of people, the talent pool of people who want to get into politics generally don't come from the science and technology background.
But that's why you employ experts.
From the CSIRO and other organizations to be advisors. So I guess my response to all of this is we can speculate as much as we like and kind of look back and reminisce and they wouldn't have been nice.
But the reality is, I guess it's out of our hands.
And I hope that whoever does make the decisions is asking the right questions of the right people.
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's very valid. There's also there's also another component that I think of, which is is teaching people to be able to self regulate and make good decisions. And what doors do I open? You know, what metaphoric doors do I open? If I choose to go and watch porn? You know that can become problematic. Well, nobody put a gun to my head. But I'm doing it. I'm going back each day or if I choose to. You know, I'm not saying that the kids are at fault.
I'm saying, you know, we stick like we For me, I find this a little bit. What's the words. I'm curious and fascinated around being a teenager now, the experience of being a teenager, because in a minute they're going to be adults, right, and the world doesn't give a fuck about your emotions or your feelings, right, and so when you step out of the nest, you know, the bubble where everyone's like you okay, And we need that.
Of course, we need love, care, compassion, of course, but also at the same time, we need to build kids to be able to or to help empower them to be able to be strong and resilient and make good decisions and be aware and be in charge of their own life. And you know, because the fourteen year old in a minute is going to be an adult with a job or at university and driving a car and
legally drinking booze and socializing with other adults. And so while we need to protect them, of course, I think we also need to from a sociological, psychological, emotional point of view, help equip them so that they are independently thinking, critically making decisions, and that they can build emotional and psychological resilience. Because the only person who can ultimately manage your life is you. So like, let's yes, let's do
all of these things, let's make decisions. But you know, like I would want if I And of course this is just an old white guy with no children, so whatever it means, But I know a little bit about human behavior. But if I had kids, I would want them to come out the other side of their teenage
years as a really well prepared adult for life. So I think there's a big emphasis on don't let them do this, do let them do that, all of that, but also how do we help them self regulate so that we're not running the show and we're empowering them as well.
My friends, I've got a great couple of friends who live now near you, as you know, and they've got two boys, young ones a young man now, the other one's still about turn fifteen. But what's always impressed me about them is they've never been shoved in the corner while adults are present.
What they do is encourage dialogue.
So we play board games, they sit at the table, they join into the discussions, so there's no taboo subjects. They're pretty open about whatever discussion happens to come up,
and they'll answer questions. And I think that approach leads to a more worldly and sometimes we underestimate young people the intellect, the sense for wanting to know and understand, and so I think in a lot of ways, the approach that individuals take, whether you happen to be a parent or a grandparent or a friend of so always being open to have discussion, and so maybe that's the approach. I'm going to change the topic a little bit, if that's okay with you, because this is something that I
was really really wondering about. When you go to a shop, do you ask for a receipt? You know they've got the button sometimes receipt you ask do you get the receipt?
I know I probably should say it depends on what it is, but in general terms, no, Well.
That's interesting because generally the fact that you ask for a receipt can sometimes work out whether you're a millennial or you're older.
Evidently, so really older people always.
Ask for receipts, and young people can't understand why we use receipts. My caveat on that is if I'm getting anything that I might potentially need to take back, and I have an electronic version because you know, I do my JB shop and I always get it sent to my phone because we all remember remember the old I think they still do that thermal paper where the receipt ends up fading anyway, so there's not really much point to it.
Yeah, yeah, and then like one side was shiny.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, And look, my bookkeeper always gives me a hard time about not keeping receipts, but I do the I just snap a photo of them with quick books on my phone, and that way I don't get in trouble every week, which I normally do for spending stuff and buying stuff I shouldn't have.
But I thought it was interesting that you don't keep receipts.
But evidently gen Z generation Z doesn't have wallets or time for paper.
I mean that's true too.
I mean my wallet, I should admit this sits in my car never ever ever is in my pack?
Could you not say that ship on a podcast?
Did I leave my walk in my car? I do lock my car most of the time.
Well, geez, because nobody can get into a car ever, so well, that's totally secure.
I don't even have to break a window.
The other day, I let the window open, got back after shopping at the local supermarket and thought, well, yeah, I opened the window.
There's I don't yeah, I'm I'm I just paid for everything through my phone, like I don't. I don't even take money. I don't even take my wallet.
Yeah, and as you know, when we've gone out anywhere, I use my watch. But it's interesting.
I just was curious as to whether or not you fell into that category as an old fogie.
But well, I am probably, I'm probably. I don't know that, you know. In some ways, I'm probably an old fogy. Probably. Otherwise I'm a little bit atypical. You know, I could literally be a granddad, which is fucking hilarious. Tell me about neural link one of my favorite things in the world of technology. I'm so fascinated with this thing and what's going to happen with it over the next year or ten.
Okay, one bloke's got it so far, and there's now pushed to get two more people. So it's been given FDA approval in the United States, the medical authority that basically says you can do real life experimentation.
I suppose.
Now.
The thing is, what we need to understand is the person who has had the implant has now been able to they're totally incapacitated, and they're able to play video games and do a whole lot of stuff on a computer that they weren't.
Able to previously.
So it's given them a level of freedom that they hadn't previously experienced.
And you know, we've spoken about this. I would hate to have anything implanted in my head.
However, that's all a relative decision, because if you were trapped in your body, you probably would. So the neural link now they're talking about the next two people are potentially going to be implanted with Elon Musk's chip. The only thing that would worry me is that, I don't know. I don't know if you know this, but there are certain features in Tesla's that don't get turned on unless you pay a subscription, So you know, could you imagine
if and that's even speed limiting I heard recently. Could you imagine if you bought, you know, one of your great bikes that you've got, if they said, oh, you buy subscription, it could go faster.
It's like, what's I mean, I own I paid for it, now you want to make me unlock.
That's what scares me about about Essentially, cars that are a computer on air on wheels, and you think about the fact that they can literally from from wherever in the world, they can program your car to do different stuff, to have more power, to to be able to access different features or whatever. Well, if they can do that, surely they can make the brakes not work or somebody.
You know, it's like, obviously Tesla wouldn't do that, but but imagine if somebody like things get hacked all the time. And I just I just I am. I'm not as optimistic about the cars. And I love cars on my car head, but I'm not as optimistic about all the technology that's happening in cars right now, even EV's. I think theoretically electronic electric vehicles are a good idea, but I don't know that practically that's going to work out. We know that EV price is secondhand prices are plummeting
and second hand and new sales are dropping. I don't know. There's something to be said for like a basic car that runs well, that doesn't that isn't completely technologically dependent. I don't know. I don't know. It just makes me a little nervous.
Imagine that you never have to go to a petrol station ever again, that you get in your car and it's fully charged, You drive off, get home, plug it back in again, and it's ready to go again.
But imagine imagine I'm driving to Ron and Mary's and I run out and there's no EV station like this is I mean, this is happening to a lot of people because there's there's the limitation of they can't and then when you've got to charge, you've got to wait minimum forty five minutes for it to charge. So I know what you're saying, but it's not all that positive, and you're very pro ev and I understand it, and
I'm not pro ORAENTTI. I'm just I'm like, I'm interested in the reality of Look, I could be completely wrong. I'm going to go on the record, I don't think electric vehicles are going to take off.
All right, I respond to that, no, Go okay. First thing is, if you're planning to go and visit your folks and you had an electric vehicle, you would be able to instantly know what the range is and how many charging stations there are between there. So cars are now smart enough to know whether you've got the range to get there, and if you don't have the range, where you can get to and then charge up accordingly.
So it is planned around it to have brunch or a lunch or something on the way there, but.
Not if you don't want to have brunch or lunch. Like you go, oh wow, I can fill up at Warrigal, but it's fucking an hour to fill up. Like I know you're trying to do the sales pitch. I get it. But also it doesn't know the exact driving range because there are so many variables. How many people are in the car, the weight of the passengers affects the range, how fast you drive affects the range. It's not perfect technology, that's for sure. But I think they're you know, I
think there's a case for them. I'm not anti them at all. In fact, the idea excites me. But I think there's so many natural resources that are actually being used in production it's almost ironic. And we've even got electric charging stations in remote areas that are being fueled by diesel generators, which is the fucking height of irony. And it's not a few, it's it's a lot. So is it? Look, I could be wrong, and if I'm wrong, I'll be the first to go I'm wrong, But I
don't think. I don't think e these are the magic pill that we think they might be.
Yeah, so you know how I said, I have two points? Yeah, Okay, cold, I say my second one.
No, you, you and your two points? All right?
You did you actually rightly mentioned that the uptake of electric vehicles and we're just saying Australia is an ecosystem has been a little bit slow, so they you know, there was this initial burst and that's been fairly consistent. But I think that the limiting factor has been the entry level price. And you know, I have come out and said many times that I couldn't afford an electric car when I needed a car just after COVID, so I didn't get we've got a hybrid instead.
However, that's said, we are soon going.
To see a big flood of electric Chinese cars hitting the market, which will be under forty thousand dollars. And I think that may be the additional hurdle because you know, you're right, going.
From where you live and doing.
Long distance tripping can be problematic, but if you could drive just in a city, electric vehicles are fantastic.
Think of the reduction in pollution. And there are some really great little cars.
There's an amazing car that Reno put out which was termed as a buggy and not allowed in Australia.
It was a one seater and it had goal wing doors.
This is like the ultimate mrdy little electric car maximum speed maybe fifty clicks. If I could have bought one for I think it was maybe fifteen grand I would be driving that around my little town and doing my shopping and put Fritzy on my lap and we'd just be driving around, pottering around in my little electric vehicle.
I saw it in Europe when I was over there in Malta, and it's like, I love this car. It was so cool.
But Reno weren't allowed to bring it into Australia because it was classified as a buggy, not as a car. And that's why this little electric vehicle, it may have had a range of maybe one hundred and twenty k's not far and you wouldn't put on a highway.
But what a.
Great little vehicle just to be you whizzing around And if you think about where you live parking, you park straight into the right into the curb because the car is so small, it's it's as long as a standard car is wide, so you know, you would have many more parking spaces, potentially two to three more parking spaces per parking space, and for zipping around in suburbia. They'd be fantastic.
You know what, it'd be better a scooter that you park on the footpath out of everyone's.
Way, which I have, which I have.
No, you have a scooter.
No you don't have it.
You are a toy. That's not a scooter. That's a fucking that's something from kmart. That's seven year olds.
Rightlome is an hour downhill with the hell what do you get in the fucking the race position?
Do you flection your these? Get your head down behind the handlebars.
I bought a new helmet the other day.
Well, it's black, it's kind of it's kind of gun metal gray.
It looks a bit cool, and it's got the fate. Yeah, you know I'm not gonna win you.
It looks a bit cool. He's the guy who rides a scooter that goes twenty segway.
Scooter that folds down flat.
It's pretty. It's got lights on it. I can make it flash lights as well.
I've done. By the way, you can't drive with a dog on your lap. It's illegal. You're welcome, all right. So you're very excited about a new gadget, which is not uncommon for you because you get easily excited about gadgets, But what is it?
AI headphones?
What does that even mean?
Okay, you've got noise canceling headphones, haven't you?
I do?
Okay, So noise canceling headphones are fantastic.
I wear them on public transport and flying because they can listen to a sound and wipe out a consistent sound, so an noise, which means you get a.
Much better trip.
Whereas these new noise canceling headphones are out of sight. These are amazing. If you can imagine putting on noise canceling headphones, being in a crowded room and I look at you for three or four seconds, the AI built into the noise canceling system will wipe out all the other voices, all the other noises except your voice, and even if you walk around, it will still continue to listen to.
Just your voice.
So particularly, I've got a good friend of mine who has hearing problems. They had an infection and an illness and was similar to tenatus. And admit that he's now very socially isolated if in large groups, and we've had this discussion.
He doesn't even have big birthday parties.
Generally it's small gathering because he just can't cope with all these voices. So these headphones that they're they're developing at the University of Washington, so researchers are currently working on these. They're an adaptive noise canceling so you can isolate a single person that you're having a conversation with in a room and cancel every other sound out. That to me is fantastic, Isn't that? That's so cool?
How's your memory, Grandpa?
Yeah?
Was that I spoke to you about this last episode?
Did you really?
Yeah? I told you, Yeah, I told you. I just watched a video. There was a dude and he was sitting at a table and everyone was talking and it was crazy, and then he was talking to another guy. Then all of the other noise drowned out and you could just hear his voice. So thanks for repeating that story that I broke last time. You're welcome.
Oh geez, I really pay attention to you, don't I.
You really should. But having said that is it is a really good idea, And I mean, imagine that's one of my things. I just, you know, old person alert. But yeah, being in really you know where you know, We're in unim environment and a million people are talking, which is not good or bad. But then trying to actually have a meaningful dialogue with somebody where you're essentially got to yell into their ear to it's not really
optimal for me, but being able to. But are these actual headphones that you are they you've got to wear over your ears or are they ones that you stick in your ear?
They're still developing them, and I guess there's also the bone conducting ones as well. Because noise cancelation is just a negative wave, isn't it. So what happens is when you put the headphones on, if you've got a consistent frequency, they then invert that frequency and it cancels it out so effectively.
If it can do.
That, it wouldn't Why if you just put your headphones on, are you blocking me out?
I just put on the noise canceling My.
God, that is so rude.
Do you know when I put on I have Sony I think they're called one thousand W X or X. You know they're really good? Break dad, I press the button. Yeah, I press the button and the lady goes noise canceling on and all of a sudden the room just like it's like now I'm in a vacuum. It's so fucking effective that.
Yeah, noise cancelation's really cool. So in answer to your question, I don't know that they've got to the point where I mean headphones as opposed to earbuds infer that they go over your ears. So, but you can get inner ear noise canceling headphones as well. And I guess if you're going to be in a social setting, you do want to be able to be as subtle as possible rather than you know, the old chunky headphones. But have
you noticed kids are wearing them down the street now more? Yes, over ear headphones have become really popular that you know that. I've got this a teenager who works for me, who works after schools sixteen, and he walks in. He's got his headphones on. Hi, how you doing?
Yeah? Hi, sits down, does his work with his headphones on?
Yeah, it's well. At the gym, it's it's like it's the thing like if you are in the gym, or if you're in the gym where I train at four thirty, you will be the odd one out if you're not wearing over ear headphones. If there's twenty people in there, seventeen people have got headphones. If they're not on their head, they're around their neck.
How do you train with headphones on? A You'll get sweaty and that would be really uncomfortable. And B it's impractical if you're doing you know, any of the exos.
I don't understand.
I can't, man, man, it's all they do. Like there's young dudes who are doing you know, squats, deadlifts, chins, like all of it. And they, in fact, they I think they train better with them on. It's like they almost can't train unless they have How about something blaring.
Watch out the smith Machine's falling on you.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's one.
Of the fact surely that is dangerous as well.
I think we should call our episodes grumpy old pricks like just. But it's like it is sometimes frustrating when
someone's well. One of the consequences, potential consequences and very common consequences in a gym, usually young dudes banging weights like a fucking cyclone, like just, and they don't know because they've either got noise canceling and or loud music so they can't hear the noise that they're making in the gym, and when you go over and politely suggest that they don't drop or bang weights or make they
look at you quizzically like what. But then, you know, old old grumpy guy in the gym, Maybe I should just put on noise canceling headphones and then I can't talk to the crab.
Yeah, well, you know, remember the good old days when astronauts met cats on the moon and played with them and provided care to them. Do you remember that? Do you remember that when the cats went to the moon and it helped us.
I don't know how you got there from what I was talking about, But why what are you talking about?
It's about the good old days, you know, when you didn't overhear earheadphones at the gym and cats went to the moon. So Google's AI has been criticized in the past, right because they're trying to incorporate Google AI into their search algorithm, which means you use AI and at summarizes information.
However, it's pulled up.
Well, initially they got in trouble because people were typing in Nazis and they had people of color and Asian people wearing you know, Nazi uniforms and it went one way. So visually it was just crazy, you know, vikings that had really good hands. And now they've done some searches and they found that the AI picked up things like you know, Neil Armstrong said one small step for man because it was a cat size step and buzz Aldron
also deployed cats on the Apollo eleven miss mission. So because there's so much stuff about cats on the Internet, somehow the AI algorithm has picked up this connection between the moon landings and ma and cats. And what's problematic is that there are lots of errors coming up with
this search algorithm, so it's generating flawed responses. And that's really been a big criticism because you know, obviously we we've got to a point where we take a lot of for granted, you know, doctor Google, if we've got a concern. I mean, I would probably be more inclined if I had a I don't know, a skin condition and I jumped online and I wanted to find out what it was.
I would look at those results and say, oh, yeah, Mayo clinic. I probably think that would be okay.
Well, a government service, you know, I look at the u UR l I look at the website. But you know, another example is that what an eerror recently that got pulled up by this AI search function was put glue on a pizza like and that you know, there was I think it was asked how many presidents of the United States were Muslim and it came up with Barack Obama.
So that's wrong and we know it's wrong.
So this misinformation is really kind of broading the trust in a search engine that we've invested a lot of faith in. We'll think about it the term googling something well.
Also when you don't know, when you you know, when you don't know that it's wrong, but it sounds like, oh that reads well and it's from the Mayo whatever, or it's from a Harvard Medical review or but it's not. It's not though, and you don't know that. And then all of a sudden that becomes you're in inverted Comma's truth. Now you're evangelizing that, oh, I guess what, but this is how that works, and then you're actually saying something that it is flawed or you know, improbable at the
very least. I mean, and that's I asked chat GPT, I've got the four point zero the burger with the lot to does me a logo? I just wanted to see what it would come up with the other day.
I don't have a logo, I don't need a logo, but I just went, designed me a logo with my name Craig Harper, and you know, basically, I'm going to I'm going to be working as a neuropsychologist, which I'm not, by the way, but I just wanted to see, you know, so I thought, brain mind, so it designs this thing, and it misspelled my name, so Craig Harper's it left out the eye so it had Crag Harper. I'm like yeah, and and then I went then I typed it in again you misspelled my name, and then it got the
Craig right and fucked something else up. Like it is. These are far from perfect tools, and I think the problem is when you're dealing with something that you know. It's like like the amount of pseudo experts. I'm not an expert by any on any kind of level, but who come out and say things that sounds scientifically valid and they're convincing, and they use terminology and people go, oh, I guess what if you do this, then that happens.
Maybe maybe not, you know, like, I think that's the danger or one of the dangers of getting all of your information on the internet. Which is even why even when I have actual experts on the show that I'm not sure not, oh you kind of are? You know, when we have like I have someone who's got a fucking doctorate in this or that and we're talking about, you know, something that is really a multi dimensional, complicated topic, I never I mean I always tell people this is
not advice. This is not a personal prescription, This is not a recommendation. This is too even you and me, it's two blokes talking about stuff. Don't can use that with individual advice. You know, if we bring up something that kind of resonates and it might be something that is an important topic for you, then go and see the relevant person and then make decisions off the back of that. You know. That's why. And I think, well, we're fifteen hundred and nearly fifteen hundred and fifty episodes
in how many things have I got wrong? Thousands? You know, because I'm human and normal, you know, so yeah, you got to you got to expose yourself to whatever you want. But think critically.
Yeah, this recent this AI researcher from Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico by the name of Melandy Mitchell.
She she explained it really succinctly.
She said, what's happening is that Google's AI isn't smart enough to figure out the difference between a citation and actual research. So if there's a citation and a reference to something, it doesn't necessarily mean that's true or factual or accurate. So, you know, if you've written a paper and there've been claims, you know it's remember the Mandala effect.
You've heard the Mandala effect.
I've heard of it. What is it?
So effectively?
You ask someone, do you remember when Nelson Mandela died in prison?
And people say, yeah, that's right, he died in prison.
Well, he didn't die in prison, was the president and you know of South Africa. So but it was the phrase was coined as the Mandala effect because we know that he was in jail for decades and he was in a very poor condition when he came out of jail. But for some reason, and the reason was called the Mandala effect is because people actually believed that and they false remembered that situation. So we're frail enough as it is with false memories and the way that our memory
reconstructs itself. And sometimes it's great when you have siblings recounting a story and looking at the different ways that story was remembered.
I don't have had that.
You know, you talk to one of your mates, haven't caught up with you, and you misremember and your brains within the blanks.
Well, and it's the same with eyewitness testimony. It's held in not very high regard because oh, well, where were your eyes on the other side of the street. Okay, Well, so this happened inside the shop, and you were outside the shop on the other side of the street, and it was dusk, and the person had their back, you know, then all of a sudden, it's like, well, like there was the thing that happened, and then there was what you think happened. Like sometimes they're pretty desparate, you know.
I was always I was saying to someone recently, there are always three sides to every story.
Your side, my side, and the truth.
Yeah. Hey, one of my favorite actresses, Scarlett Johanson, been in the news lately.
Well, you you were a victim of this, I know recently you were the victim of someone copying your voice. Go listen to the last episode, did you Was there any comments about that it would be Yeah, yeah it was.
It was actually funny, like it got worse through the show because you were making it up on the spot. Yes, but the stuff that you pre prepared in it, I think you told me it took about three minutes, but I listened. I didn't listen to the whole show, but I listened to that because I wanted to listen as a listener to see how the if you weren't if you didn't listen to it, everyone Patrick basically used took my fuck. I don't know. Can you tell people what you did?
You took my voice and uploaded it to an AI to copy it, and then I was able to type in some text a statement by Craig on how much he liked me, how much better I was at him, how much the more handsome, And I did the intro to the show as Craig's voice mimicked by an AI, which was kind of fun.
Actually was.
It was fun doing it, and it was interesting as an exercise because we've spoken about it before and we know that the tools are out there, but I'd never done it, so I thought it'd be a nice little experiment to the show.
But it was. It was kind of cool.
And you know what I really wanted to know was has anybody sent you five bucks? No, because one of the other things we asked was for everybody send five dollars for me, and that you'd match whatever amount we raised. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was worth a try.
I reckon, No, that's not happening. Hey, as we're winding up, it was worth a try. Self balancing motorcycles. That's kind of annoy I think it's funny.
Well, funny, you reckon. I thought this was really cool.
So having only ever been a passenger on a bike and being told sternly by you, you need to lean into the same direction that I'm leaning into. Why why do I need to lean into the same direction that you're leaning to, Craig when you're at speed?
Well, because we don't want to well what people try and do who are inexperienced on moti So say you're going into a left hand turn, well, and so your motorbike is leaning to the left because you're going into the car, and so you lean with it because you're one with a bike. But what some people do is they go, oh, I better counterbalance this, and so they try and hang off the other side like a fucking idiot and nearly kill everyone. So you lean into the corner.
But but I mean, I can't imagine because I've been riding for so long, but I guess I could hypothetically imagine that. It feels like that's a dumb thing to do when you're on the back. Can intuitive Yeah, it seemed correct, And you're like, fuck, my knee is about three inches from the ground and my elbows about eight inches from the ground. I really should maybe lean the other way just to help crag out.
Yeah, how is the heaviest bike you've got?
So, one of the bikes I've got is three hundred and sixty two kilos what they call dry, So with motorbikes they say dry or wet, So without drying, yeah, without oil, without fuel, so so probably wet. It's about three hundred and eighty k's before I put my fat ass on it.
So now, when you get to a set of lights and stop, rather than running the light, what's you do?
Well, you've got to put your feet.
Down obviously, No you don't, No, you don't, Okay, okay, Honda wait for this. Honda has unveiled riding assist technology, and what they demonstrated was a bloke with the bike stopped, standing on the bike, so standing actually on the bike headily things I don't know what they are, and with his arms out right, so his feet on the footpegs and his fully stretched out and the bike maintained it's up.
How awesome is that?
Well? How unnecessary is that? Because if you can't put your fucking feet on the ground, what's wrong with you? No?
No, but what about when you're stuck in traffic you can't weave around and you're going you're going slight.
The slower you go, the harder it is to balance.
Yeah, yeah, Are you trying to tell me about motorbikes? Now? I try and tell you about technology.
Okay? Can I ask you a question? At the beginner's side.
You know when you say can I ask you a question, that is of itself a question, So you should say, can I ask you another question?
Did I ask you another question?
Yes?
What do you think is the biggest hurdle to young drivers or young riders when they're driving in slow traffic. What's the hardest thing for them to accomplish if they're slowing down to say five k's an hour.
Well, what the inhibiting factor is their lack of skill and they can only get good by riding more.
Ah, you deliberately didn't say balance as a contributing problem for younger riders or people.
Who are in experience.
Don't you think this would be great to have this rider assist writing technology.
No bullshit, we're becoming so fucked and fragile. Now we need a self balancing fuck off with yourself balancing motorbike.
I was so excited when I saw that.
I thought Crago is going to get really happy and excited about this.
Now.
I'll tell you what I do want, though, I want a robot dog that blow shit up. That's what I want.
China's done it.
So China seems to have been the first they got one of those robot dogs. We've seen them all, the Boston Dynamics dogs, and there's some weapon on the back of them. So now they've got who knows what they're going to be using them for urban warfare or just knows what. That's really pretty frightening, actually, you know I'd hate to think that they're autonomous. I could kind of
understand if they were under remote control. But the idea of some sort of autonomous four legged, very fast, very agile upstairs, downstairs, round corners with a gun on top, we're just frightening to see.
I don't know if you saw the photos of it, but.
Actually has deployed a dog, robot dog with a weapon on the back of it.
I know, imagine sending that into bloody warfare, like into yeah exactly, I mean that, yeah, I mean the technology in that space is Yeah, that that that scares me a little bit, I mean, war scares me. Like fuck, that's a whole episode. Why can't we humans figure that shit out? Where allegedly the smartest species fuck, I don't know, have a look at some of the ship that we do, like some of the incredible shit we do and some of the horrible shit we do. I reckon dolphins and
OCTOPI have got us covered. And elephants. Yeah, you know, elephants are super smart. Did you know that?
I yeah, you just told me so.
They must be and also quite emotionally evolved. Yeah.
Look, I love seeing the videos of elephants when they nurture and protect, and they really have quite strong family ties, don't they community sense of how they.
They like dolphins too. They have language like they actually have like their version of you know, verbal communication obviously vastly different to us, but you know, all right, have you got a big fucking highlight to close something out on? We didn't talk about Scarlet, but we can discard her if you want. Have you got a banger that you want to finish with?
So a lot of us use our browsers, and think when I talk about browsers, I'm talking about you know, using Google Chrome or Edge or one of the other browsers. But Microsoft's Edge browser, which is not as used as much as Chrome. And I guess if you're on an Apple device, you've got what safari?
Is that what people know? Yeah, that's right, But this is a new feature that's kind of cool.
And I like to watch lots of videos, and a lot of independ and producers publish videos online. So foreign films smart small niche kind of five, ten, twelve, fifteen minute docos or whatever. But if there are in other languages and they don't have subtitles, that's really frustrating because they don't always have English subtitles. However, now Microsoft Edge will be able to translate and dub on the fly.
Wow.
Yeah, it's really good.
So real time video translation on anything from YouTube, LinkedIn, you name it. And this is something that's going to be built into the browsers. So as you're watching, it could be from German, Hindi, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and it can convert it on the fly into English or the other way around if you happen to be a German speaker.
So I thought that's kind of.
Cool that now it's going to make that sort of content more accessible to people.
Do you watch much YouTube or do you look at foreign films?
Do you like, Yeah, I watched too much. I go down the old YouTube rabbit hole when I should be reading a research paper or something because I've got the attention of a four year old. But yeah, it's yeah. But satally, I mean, that's amazing though, that you can watch something that is in a foreign language and have it convert in real time.
So it's called co pilot. And my dream for this is to have smart glasses and travel around the world where someone talks to you in Chinese and you get the real time translation floating in front of you, like a little talk bubble. You know, you can imagine talk bubble appearing over the person as they're talking, and it's translating in real time. And if they were wearing the same smart glasses with this real time translation, then you you know, all the barriers to communication can be dropped.
It would make life so fun and interesting.
You know how there's always been talk about that eventually we're not going to have to verbally speak, because we'll just be able to read each other's minds or thoughts or whatever, which who knows.
Frightening. I would not want to read your mind and you don't want to read it.
I would not want anyone to like that's I'll be put in an asylum. But I wonder if like you go, okay, so now I can Elon Musk and Joe Rogan talk about this a lot, this idea. They're fucking infatuated with it. But I wonder if they ever got to that, if you go to another country, if you could understand, because they don't they don't think in English, like I wonder
if do you know what I'm saying? It's like like when you're just thinking about something, Like when I'm thinking about something, it's not like there are words in my head. I this is a stupid conversation. Do you know what I mean? For people's mind if you could read them in different countries.
Some people have a condition where they can't verbalize in their head. They don't have the internal dialogue or internal narrator. So wow, that's yeah, that's a that's an ext condition that some people have. But I guess do we think in those arbitrary thoughts? You know, if I'm hungry, if I look at something and think that looks great.
That's a really interesting question.
As to whether on a deeper level, even though we may be applying words to that thought process, whether there is on a deeper level is translatable across languages if it was just the emotion that's built into that. So if I look at my dog and I look at him and I think of fondness and love because I love my dog.
We're'm about to take him for a walk.
I said the word, but in those senses, then, you know, I don't even understand how we do that.
On a you know, kind of neurological I.
Think the thought is just like we don't think in words like I'm not I'm not. I'm not looking out my window now at the beautiful trees in my yard thinking in my mind the words are, oh, they are beautiful grand trees. What a nice outlook like that's not happening, like there's just the I what that'll do? You've killed it again. For people who want to come and start your joint or you know, connect with you in some way, or take Fritz for a walk, or steal your wallet
from your car, that's there. Watch your home address, watch your web address. How do people do that?
Okay, our west of Melbourne.
If you just drive on the highway for an hour and then pull off at the first time you get to that will be where I live.
Traffic situation.
I guess you could be end up Betty where no websites, NOOW, dot com, dot au. So that's I guess my business website building part of it. We do lots of that sort of stuff, and I don't really do the social thing very much in terms of connecting online. So if you want to contact me about stuff, you could just go to them and.
Tie cheer at home. I do have some online tie.
Cheat courses that Craig refuses to take part in and go to ty chair at home and do some free time chat classes or as I said, websites now, dot Com, tod au and check out what we do and all that sort of stuff.
Well, if I could, if I was more flexible than a fucking cricket bat, i'd get involved. But let me let me work on that. Patrick, Thank you, thanks Crego, Thanks Mat