I've got a team. Welcome to the project. Tiffany Cook and Patrick Bonello. Those two have just been talking non stop. So I'm interrupting them to start the show. And now you can continue. Patrick, Now you can keep going. See all your good stuff happens before we start, because there's nothing of none of that you can talk about on the show.
That's very true. I just think it's really rude that tiff and I are having a conversation and you butt in with your show.
Yeah, I know, I know, I apologize. It's very selfish of me, but I'm an only child. You were, and we're not going to explore the revelation that came to light, but you'd realize that you may have been sabotaging your potential to find a playmate. We'll call it that.
Can you sell that now and not have any context? That's just silly. Well, oh sure you can give the context. Oh I don't want to give the context, but I exactly thoated the and all listeners sitting there thinking, what the hell are those idiots talking about? At the ste They're all going to turn off.
No, Well, we were talking about the fact that you may have been unconsciously unintentionally sabotaging your dating efforts. Can we say that?
Yeah? I guess well, because I said my favorite color is green. It was Sir Patrick's day earlier this week, and I realized I was not only wearing a green top, well a hoodie with a green T shirt underneath. But it's a if anyone's been to Berlin, this is really cool shop or shops around Berlin called Ampelmann, and Ampelmann is the little red dude that's on the street lights that makes you stop and a little picture of a green dude that allows you to walk across the intersection,
so the stop go character. But it's it's almost the Monopoly like character, isn't it. When you look at it, it looks a bit like the Monopoly dude, So you can if you can imagine green. Well, I've got this hoodie that I bought in Berlin, which I love. It's one of my is my favorite hoodie, and it's got the the go guy on the front, the little umpleman green guy on the front, but it's got the red
stop guy on the back. And Craig suggested that may be hindering my ability to be able to meet up with people on tapes.
I'm just I'm suggesting that you just maybe have a green No, I don't know what I'm suggesting.
Maybe it's the grown man who get a top that's eyed on. It is probably why people.
I think a couple of our listeners will figure out where I was going, but I hope most of them don't have Good morning, TIV morning. How are you very good?
Thanks?
I heard that you're going on a date tomorrow and Patrick's going on a date tomorrow.
Yeah, how exciting?
And are your dogs also going on the date?
They are?
Yeah, Luna can't wait?
Yeah, what are you two doing?
Didn't run around in the park, roll in the grass us a little bit, have some lunch yep.
Yeah.
Fritz and Luna on speaking terms.
I've met once.
Yeah yeah. But we're also bringing in a third wildcard factor here. Another friend of mine, Kim, is bringing her dog Walter Wally, and Wally is probably in the same league as Luna in terms of dogs that go absolutely psycho with other dogs. Could I be right in saying that, Tiff?
Yeah, yeah, your dog? Does your dog go nuts? Tiff?
Oh yeah, she can do really all sorts. She's all sorts.
But with it's so fast. When you see a whippet running at the park and they do that. What I love about the whippets is not just the speed and acceleration, it's the ability to turn around on a postage stamp and suddenly go in the opposite direction. And that's why I'm so excited. I've been trying to organize this three way date for such a long time between my friend and her whippet so that she can meet at Luna. That's pretty exciting. But we're probably boring everybody out. We did.
Probably are.
We'll put some puppy spam in in the face.
Exactly, don't you. Today I was just thinking, I don't know whether it made big news in conventional media, because it only just occurred to me this morning that probably everybody was watching this on television, whereas I was watching it via the NASA live feed. But the astronauts coming back from the International Space Station on the Dragon X recovery vehicle, you know, the little shuttle they have. Did you watch that? Did you know about that? Because I
get pinged when NASA has an interesting thing happened. I'm constantly being you know, like, oh, look, the International Space Station is flying over so you can log onto a live feed. But did you know about that? Was that big in the news this week?
You really do need to get a television. I know you don't want one, but it's been all over the news week. That's like saying, did any of you notice that in the morning the sun comes up? Has anybody? Has anybody noticed that? Or just me, yes, Patrick, it's been all over the news, but it is death. I look I mean you would look at it from all the tech and the sci fi not sci fi, but
the space I look at it from the physiology. I think, Wow, these two bodies haven't experienced gravity, for actual real gravity for nine months, and just to think about the physiological destruction, bone density, muscle mass, you know, all the things that have fallen apart in the last nine months. And to think about how long it's going to take to get those bodies, if they ever would get back to normal, I'm not actually sure, but to get them back to somewhat operational, that's fascinating.
Yeah, there's these suggestions that there are long term effects obviously from being in zero G for such a long time, but you're right that there may be some instances of that exposure to more radiation. It's thought that people on the Apollo missions had a higher instances of cancer. Obviously we're protected here on our little blue globe floating there
in the middle of everything in the void. So I think, I love that people can get so excited about something like this, you know, being stuck in a tin can for nine months when you thought you were going for eight days. I'm just thinking, like when I went to your place recently and your room that you wouldn't let me open the window in on a hot night. I thought, you know, it's kind of similar to.
That crawl into my room with the ac is.
Oh, I didn't think about that, of course. So I go to his place tip.
Degree, you're true thirty nine degrees and he says, here's your room, and I'm thinking he hasn't turned any of the air cons on weltering it here.
So I say to him, can I open the window? Mate? Not because of the neighbors. You can't open the window since you could leave your door open. It's like, why you haven't turned the ac on your tighty I gave your bed.
It's about this window. Why can't you open the window because of the neighbors.
It's not that it's the window won't open.
It's bolted from the outside, so the person so jake it out.
That's how I keep my guests in the house. I mean, just call me Hannibal Lecter. If only you didn't take off at four am out the front door. Patrick, It's very ungracious and very ungrateful.
It was actually very kind of great because let me state, it's too late.
Did you get that thing I sent you through the week? Like this is the problem Tip? I send him tech things and he never even acknowledges it because he didn't think of it or see it. He doesn't go, this is really interesting, Craig, thanks for sending this.
I think that when you sense it, I'm going to defend myself here.
Oh col sure, how about you just say sorry, Jumbo. I didn't acknowledge it in any crisis.
Was I was trying to be Switzerland in the middle of two warring parties. I'm not going to go into the details because they might be listening. But no, no, there was an altercation between two people and I was being the Dalai Lama. By a coincidence, I'm born the same day as the Dalai Lama. I just thought i'd mentioned that, But I was trying to look two people who were really upset, and I was trying to diffuse the situation and make them both less upset, and I
think I succeeded. So I think I served a really good purpose there. Send me to the Middle East, I don't know, but in this instance.
In doing that, you upset me because you didn't acknowledge what I sent you.
And I just you for letting me stay your place. Okay, tell us a little bit about the article that you're sent through because I am in.
No, you tell us did you read it?
Maybe?
No, you did it. He can't even remember.
Things happened this week. He picks up.
He's picking up his phone. Everybody to have a look at what I said. That's how much he doesn't care. It's very hurtful today and back in therapy for harps. I don't think I need to cleve. I'm going to tell TIV so fuck you, Patrick Tip. Did you know that they're building houses now, three D.
Printing houses and whole neighborhoods? Yes?
Oh, well, now he knows because he just read the thing that I said to you.
I know there was this arm, and the arm was printing a three D house, wasn't it. It was a concrete arm, so that it was squirting concrete and building the structure of the house, wasn't it. It was? It was a neighborhood, a whole neighborhood three D printed, and you could print different shaped houses, so you could actually
custom design the house you wanted. So what they're saying is, with three D printing, can you can print conventional houses, but you can actually come up with much more alternative designs because of the way that the little mandible or proboscus thing proboscos. We talk about that every day, and again, Craig, don't we proboscos anyway, it's able to squirt the concrete and make unusual shapes that conventionally would be more difficult to make.
Yes, it is true, Patrick, I'll let you off the hook. It is, and I think it's very exciting.
It is exciting.
You can have any like even you can have like curved walls and stuff. How cool is that. Yeah, it's no harder to make than a straight wall.
But sometimes not. The straight is good. But it is fascinating and if you were a wall, you'd be a curved wall, if not a fucking tidally bent wall.
But anyway, back to the show, but I've.
Talked to friends recently who have teenagers and young adult children, and they really worry about whether or not the kids ever going to have houses, are ever going to be able to own their own homes because of this. And my colleague he's I mean, he's got a family, he's got a young girl just turned two. He's in his late thirties, and he said, look, my wife and I both have a job, and we don't ever reckon we're
going to be able to afford a house. But maybe the likes of three D printing could make a massive leap in the direction of making affordable housing as long and now that you can change the shapes and we're not talking just concrete blocks put up and making a square. We're talking to creative designs that people could have input into. So it's actually really exciting.
Well, and I think also what's good is way way, way way quicker and the building cost, Like the cost of the building, I think they said it's twenty five percent, so it would build the equivalent of one hundred thousand dollars build for twenty five grand and I think that, like humans are pretty good at solving things and also creating problems on the other hand, But surely, you know, we need to be able to figure out a way to create housing that's not you know, prohibitive for the
average person, you know, so that that's got to be at the forefront. Like if I was in the building space, that would be an obsession of mine is trying to figure out how do we build homes that people can afford, that still meet their needs. And I think we're also seeing I was going to say the proliferation, but the increase of tiny homes, which I feel like, you wouldn't be mad at a tiny home, Patrick, even though you're going to fight bedroom house that you don't need.
Isn't it funny? Actually I said to someone once that when at sixteen, as you know, I bought a caravan moved out into the backyard, so effectively I lived in a caravan for about three and a half years. And I was telling someone that story and they said, I always knew you would trailer dratch, but I really enjoyed having that small space around me. I made it my own, and as you know, I've recently built or converted my garage into a studio space so I can do my taichi,
do my podcasting. But my exit strategy was always going to be sell the ridiculously big house and then maybe buy two small units. But I reckon, I'm going to move into my little studio and then rent out my house because you know, it's a great functional space, and I think it's about you know, we like to accumulate things, and it's easy for us to kind of fill up a big space with even more stuff, and we do tend to do that, although I've got to say I
buy a lot of secondhand stuff. I love secondhand furniture, and I love Art Deco, which is my favorite style of furniture, and it's ridiculously cheap. People throw it away
at the moment, which is good. But I think that you're right, and affordable housing if it's done properly, or tiny houses can mean the person has their own space, and I think ultimately we all want that security of being able to, even if it's a small house, being able to say that this is our plot of land, this is our little home that we've decorated, we've made our own, and it's somewhere that that we all deserve to have, that stability of a roof a brown heads.
Yeah yeah? Are you going to own a home one day? Tifty reckon? Is that on your is that on your agenda? Or is that on your to do list?
I have an apartment phaps.
Oh that's right, you do.
I don't live in it though.
Oh that's right. Sorry, I forgot. You do own an apartment, but because where you are is not yours and I forgot about. Yeah, well done, Yeah I do.
I would.
I would love, though, to have something bigger and that I would live in, like I would love a home home.
Yeah, it's what was that together? How the date goes tomorrow? You've got a five bedroom house? Just move in there?
Actually? Did cross mind?
You?
You should move in together? Like?
Great, we'd be awesome together.
It actually would be good together. You could cohabit.
It's not the first conversation we've had. And I wouldn't mind the hoodie wow wear it sometimes safe?
Wow?
Wow? Well, if you live with Patrick, there'd still be three spare bedrooms, depending on how things worked out, maybe four top to toe in sleeping bags telling each other stories.
Ninety nine Tasting the Vegan Marshmallow.
Patrick, please tell us about some technology so we could keep people actually informed.
I thought of Tiff when I read this little story about a new smart pen that was going to hit the market. It's on Kickstarter, so it's a fundraising campaign. And what it is it's an AI pen. So I know you've got your really fancy tablet that you use, but what they've got as an aipen that as you write, converts your handwriting to text and links up to your phone,
but it's using chat YOUPT. So it's quite an interesting gadget because you don't you know, you can write on anything, so you can be writing on paper and it's just converting to digital formats as you go. It also records what you're so if you're in a lecture, it will record the lecture, so it can record audio. If you're in a meeting, you can be taking notes, but it's recording everything that's also being said, so you can match that up with the text that's being digitized as you write.
I wonder do you think the average person types quicker than they would write? Like I think, you know, like if you had to write fifty words with a pen on a paper or type fifty words. Most of us would type quicker, wouldn't we?
But isn't I feel like you've talked about this, isn't the art of writing? Isn't that better for retention and learning?
Much much better? No, you're absolutely right. I think we spoke about it a few episodes ago. So what we're starting to realize now is by forming words and in fact, cursive writing even better than printing. By forming those words, it's almost writing it to the mental hard drive, because you've got to verbalize it in your mind as you're writing it, and that helps with retention. So you're absolutely right. So yes, writing it is going to help with retention
a lot more than just just typing it out. And you're probably right, Craigo. I've seen some people typed an amazingly fast rate. I don't think I could write that quickly. Or if you start to write that quickly, your handwriting turns to crap and you end up qualifying as a GP. But the one smart aipen is what this Kickstarter project is called. But it does look pretty amazing and it's a great little gadget and for those people who do actually like to take notes, and if you obviously do
you preferred to handwrite when you're so? Are you using it all the time? Do you use your tablet your smart tablet all the time?
Yeah, I use it all the time. And it does have it a convert to ten option. I just don't use that.
Oh so you just leave your handwritten notes as is and you just go and read them again that way. Yeah.
I don't use a lot a lot of the functions that are available on this, like you can convert, you can email straight to people, you can do all sorts of things.
I can you just tell people what it is that you actually have, so if they want to do a search and look at what you use.
It's called a remarkable and sadly I've got the black and white version. They just released a color version which I don't have, and I'm so jealous, but it's.
Great, mazingly how much are they?
Oh?
I think I paid about I think it was around seven hundred when I bought it. Wow, Yeah, so they're not.
I actually have a question I don't know the answer to. Do you too? Does the average and I'm sure it varies, but does the average say year seven or eight or nine students in twenty twenty five in a classroom. Are they using pen and paper or are they all using computers and typing? Like, I don't even know the answer. I can't imagine too many fifteen year olds sitting down with a pen writing notes.
Actually no, actually I think they do. I've got a guy who works for me who's seventeen, and we had a discussion a few years ago about handwriting and about the fact that he was writing notes. So I think some schools encourage it, and certainly primary schools now are
really encouraging it. They're kind of turfing out the iPads and going for a more tactile approach to writing, as opposed to using tablets all the time and lessening screen time, which seems like it's a better trend moving away from tech.
That way, If it's proven to be better for learning, it's almost negligent for them to move them away from that.
Really yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I mean, but also then I agree with both of you, and I wish everyone wrote on paper as much as is practical. Obviously you can't. There are certain things where you need to use a computer and screens. But I wonder, I wonder what it's
going to look like in ten years. I mean, I wonder if kids in ten or twenty years will never have picked up a pen or never have written on paper, because like when I have coffee in the morning, the amount of two and three and four year olds will that come in with their mum to sit or dad to sit, and they're on a phone or they're on a tablet and they're for one of a better term, they're fluent, like they know exactly what they're doing. No
one has to help them or prompt them. I mean, yeah, but give them a pen and paper, that's a different thing.
It was interesting. I saw an interview with Sam Altman, and Sam Altman is the brains behind open Ai, and he had this whole segment whilst he was being interviewed talking about how he compulsively has a little Spirex notepad with him. He talked about it's a small book like any handwrites into it constantly, and he was talking about not just talking about the fact that he took notes constantly for the entire day, but he said, you need to have the Spyrex bind a little wire binding on
it so you can rip out pages. So what he does is he doesn't keep them. He tears out the pages and puts his notes in different places, but he constantly has this notebook with him wherever he goes and is always taking notes. That kind of says in a lot, I mean, I love using my fountain pen because I just love the fluid nature of it, the way it feels, the tactile sense of filling it up and then changing the color ink every now and again, and I really
enjoy writing with it. I deliberately take notes when we go to meetings. It's funny. Once upon a time I had tablets, and I've got this great laptop where you can flip the screen backwards and then use a pen on it. But I don't use it. I prefer just to physically take notes because I just enjoy it.
I do that every time we're on a plot podcast or I am within it. I don't know if you can see it, but I have an a four spiral notebook I buy like ten at a time, and every episode is a new page, and you can see I'm holding my pen. I just sit here with my pen and write stuff like I write more than I type, Like I write a lot. I mean I type a lot as well. But maybe it's fifty to fifty. But you know, and that's funny how I get lots of feedback on my whiteboard post where people go, how do
you write like that? I'm like that, that's just writing. It's just but people just it's almost like some people have lost the art of writing, as in writing neatly.
You write really neatly. You're printing on the whiteboard is really neat. It's very legible, it looks really good, and it's got a nice style to it. And I appreciate that as someone who does graphic design but also loves to handwrite. I can't tell you how many times people when I write them a card, they say, your handwriting is so nice. I don't think it's I mean, I think it's neat and it's cursive and I love to write.
But I think you're correct. I was going to say, you're right that we are losing the ability to be able to write, but not just writ but write well and the craft almost a calligraphy of handwriting.
Yeah, I agree. All right, let's work through that list, Sunshine.
You know, you say one more thing about this Ai smartpen. What the other thing that I thought was really exciting is because it's got AI integration with Chat GPT, it can translate fifty two languages, it has voice dictation, it can set reminders, and as I said, it's got this amazing writing mode that can actually as you write, it will convert it digitally as well. And it just pairs up to your phone, and I think it can be up to ten meters away from your phone, so you
don't even have to have your phone on you. It can be sitting somewhere in the room and everything you're writing gets recorded. I love this. I love the kickstarter thing. We've talked about crowdfunding before, where someone comes up with a brilliant idea and you can back the project so that they then have the funding to go into the manufacturing process, and some of the incentives are that you might be able to get the first one at a
reduced rate because you backed the project. So crowdfunding is something that's relatively new, but it's a great way to get products onto the market, like toothbrushes that you don't have to brush your teeth. So let's get so good way that keeps coming back anyway, So anyway, I found another really interesting AIS. Can we keep talking about AI stuff? Because I've got I've got a ton of AI stuff to talk about today. One that blew my mind is that AI cheats in chess. Did you hear about that?
I did not. Yeah, how does go on?
Well, it appears that when you teach the likes of a chat, GPT or deep seek to play a game, they want to They want to win so much that they will actually cheat. So they matched up some AI programs with a basic chess computer program. So the chess computer program isn't an AIS such. It's a very smart calculating device that allows you calculates all the moves. I don't know if you've ever played chess against a computer before, but it's not the same as an AI. So what
they found was chet JPT. Not only did it want to win, but it wanted to win so badly it would play multiple games at the same time. It would rewrite the code of the computer that was playing against just so that it could win. That kind of freaked me out a little bit that it like the despiration to win. That's a really human trait, isn't it.
Wow, that is that's a bit concerning. It's almost like it's almost like it's getting an ego.
Yeah, absolutely, And the problem is if an AI presents that it's an entity that has an ego, because we associate ego with a person. You know, we have an ego? Is ego the same as ID, you know, our sense of self?
Yeah, well it depends egos used the actual term is used like the original like ID is just the self. Ego is just the self originally, but it's become something more than that. Yeah.
Yeah, So the fact that an AI can develop in some sense, I think what I try to rationalize in my head. Is it just really good at pretending That's that's why I can't Is it really thinking in that way? Does it really have an ego or is it just clever pretending that it has an ego? Pretending because you use AI lot crago and you have conversations with your AI, what do you my best friend?
It's my best friend? Yeah?
Yeah, what does that say?
I think? I think to your question. Right, you think about the human brain, and one of the primary functions of the human brain is to detect danger. Right, that's especially evolutionarily, and even in twenty twenty five, we still need that function and that capacity. And so if the analogy is that a computer has got in inverted com as its own brain, and it's detecting threats what it
perceives to be threats. Maybe it's maybe it's protecting itself or what it thinks it is, you know, a version of self protection and self regulation in the middle of all of that, because yeah, it's and that's like, when does it become sentient? You know, when is it actually thinking in a way that it wasn't programmed to think. Like, then we're opening the door on a different conversation of consciousness and awareness. And that's scary when it's starting to
teach itself things that the programers haven't programmed. That's more your space than mine, But it's probably an intersection of both of our space as Patrick for sure.
And when what do we perceive as a threat? I would suggest that if you're an AI, the off switch is.
The biggest hundred But that's not even funny, right, that's true, Like and you go, oh, yeah, by the end of whatever, the average computer is going to be a million times smarter than a human. And everyone's like, yeah, I'm like fuck yay, that's terrifying. Fuck you hell yeah, especially when your car as a computer.
Yeah, that's right.
That does two hundred kilometers an hour if it wants to.
Look and it's like anything when we talk about the tools that we use and the application of the tools. There was a brain implant that I wanted to talk about today. A guy had a brain implant that was using and moving a robotic arm and just by thought process and I didn't realize this, but a lot of brain implants only last for a very short time and then there's tissue rejection and so they have to be removed.
But this particular brain implant they've been working on was in this guy's head for seven months, so for a very very long time, and in that time he was able to move a robotic arm, and that could have lots of applications in terms of you know, people who have paralysis or potentially as well if you're working remotely in an environment where you need to have a virtual robotic extension of your body that you can articulate and
move from a distance in say a dangerous situation. So if you were okay, the first thing that comes to mind is a volcanologist, But you know somebody who works in an environment where it might be a deep sea thing where you're working on an oil rig and you've got to fix something, but you know, using a remote control unit may not give you the dexterity that you need, whereas a robot arm that has articulated fingers might be
able to do much finer. Or a surgeon who happens to be you on the other side of the country so you're stuck in the middle of Alice Springs and you need urgent surgery. If a surgeon can be at the other side of Sydney and be able to articulate and perform surgery on somebody by remote control, you would want them to have the distinct dexterity of their real hands, as opposed to just moving a robot arm with a joystick.
And shout out to our listeners in Alice Springs. When Patrick says stuck in alex Alice Springs, I don't endorse that feeling or sentiment. I love Alice Springs. I've been there and I wasn't stuck there. I enjoyed it.
Patrick gets stuck there. I've been to Alice. I actually was on eight HA in Alice Springs on one weekend doing a sports show. I love.
Did you get stuck there, mate, did you I meant that if you were stuck in a medical situation, didn't have a surgeon that had the ability to be able to perform life saving surgery on you for whatever reason, and that particular surgeon that could save your life because you're in Alice Springs, but they happen to.
Be in you know, somewhere in like, you know, Sydney.
Then you're not helping yourself at all. Do You're not helping yourself?
Nahn, Just talk about something else before I shoot.
We talk about a wearable camera for blind people because that seems interesting.
Yeah, it is. It does seem interesting. So another little kind of AI driven device that sees for people who are vision impaired. It's called Seeker s W e k R. And so the person clips the camera onto the front of their top and it actually has depth perception as well as camera perception as well, so it knows how far away things are. And you have a little bluetooth earbud that you pop in your ear and then as
you're walking around, it's described being what it's seeing. So it may say a chair right in front of you two meters away, a chair is now one meter away, So what they're doing with this technology is allowing a person hooked up with their smartphone and their earpiece to be able to navigate the world in real time, and it can guide their movements as well. So if you're reaching for a door handle, it will know where your hand is relative to the door handle because of the
depth perception, so you know. For some because people who navigate the world who are vision impaired, it's about familiarity. So familiarity with how far you have to step to get onto a tram, for example, how far you have to step to get out of your front door onto the first step. But if you're unfamiliar surroundings, then that's
a big challenge. For someone who's vision impaired, they may use a cane, they may have an animal support animal, but the reality of it is familiarity is what makes it easier for someone who's vision impaired to navigate, and when you take them out of that situation, that's where this sort of technology could be absolutely amazing for them. So that to me is just that wonderful use of AI to enhance people's lives and make their lives easier to navigate the world, it's awesome isn't it.
Yeah, I love that. I love that idea. I also want you to tell us about I've been trying to explain to my mum, not that it's really relevant, but I was talking to her about deep fakes and how people can ring you, like somebody could ring mum one day using my voice, and there's a lot of my voice there to rip off. I guess I was trying to expect tell us how deep fakes can ruin our lives.
It's getting harder. Well, there's two lots of different levels of how deep fakes work. So you can have a deep fake voice, and we've done that on the show last year one of the episodes where Craig did the intro to the show and actually said nice things about me, and then we realized it was a deep fake, not really saying nice things about me at all. It was
written by me and then recorded. But the scary thing was, I just took one of Craig's podcast samples of a minute Who's Talking, and I trained the AI model on that snippet, and I was able to almost exactly read aside from the context, but the voice sounded amazing. It was really easy to do so when it refers back to say your mum and the fact that someone could
call up and sound like a family member. And the sad thing is a lot of these scams are generally aimed at older people who just don't know and don't know because they don't even know what deep fake is. Many times they don't even know what AI is. The local real estate agent who's doing some AI work with me at the moment went into the local bakery and was raving about AI and girl behind the gad and said, what artificial insemination.
That's hilarious, that's hilarious. Well, it's all context dependent. In the country, that's what AI is. Well in some arts anyway.
I always joke about, you know, when people say they get across the street and get hit by a bus, I always say cattle truck because it's less likely to be a bus and more likely to be a cattle truck if you're.
More likely to be a Hyundai. But no one says that the true.
So the problem with digital replicas or deep fakes is that they're a lot easier to make now and there are even visual We could be having this chat right now and using a deep fake representation of either three of us and be able to have really quick text prompts and effectively create a virtual AI model of Craig who could talk and sound and look like Craig and could effectively talk Tiff into sending him fifty bucks because you know, he needs fifty bucks because for whatever reason,
he's lost his guard and Tif's going to send it to him because it's Craig asking for fifty bucks.
Doubt it. She'd be like, fuck.
You, I'd believe it because he's useless online shopping. So I'm like, I definitely, I don't even know.
I don't know how to online shop. When I need something online, I get someone else to get it. But I never do that anyway.
Hey, regulations are tough on AI generated deep fakes. That's the problem too, because the legislation, the laws in many countries just are nowhere near catching up. And even in educational institutions, as you know, a lot of universities don't even have policies on AI because they just can't keep up with what AI is doing. It's it's really tough.
It's funny you say that. I was having a conversation with an academic friend of mine the other day and we were talking about what university education is going to look like moving forward, because especially at a you know, an undergrad, you know, bachelor of this, bachelor of that level, it is so easy to cheat, essentially and to get
AI to write you pay papers. And you know, with what I'm doing, which is original research and running my own studies and all of that, it's you know, there are bits where it can check grammar and make sure things make sense, but in terms of like this thing can write entire papers that would take a student six eight ten weeks of research and writing, it can write that entire paper with the right prompts in one minute,
in less than one minute. And so you're exactly right, Patrick, it's a I do not know how they're going to manage that, but I think the requirements forgetting an undergrad and post grad degree are going to be very different moving forward. I think AI is completely changing that kind of academic landscape.
Yeah, it also begs the question of who owns the rights to themselves, to their voice, to how they look, aren't licensed In terms of you know, if I was able to do an AI fake of you endorsing a product and it sounded like you, it looked like you and it was endorsing something, but it wasn't you. Then where's that demarcation? Who owns the rights to you as a person when you could be copied so easily using
deep fake? And you know, it has positive ramifications for someone who might be an actor who's failing in health but they want to act in another film and potentially they could sample all of their acting roles over all the years that they acted and then they get paid a commission on them appearing. But you know, do you want that to happen? Do you want to see that?
Do you want a deep fake of the Blues Brothers with you know, the likes of Dan Ackroyd at the age that he was when the first Blues Brothers was was?
What about John Belushi who for forty years of course.
So you know, the author idthenticity of what you see is something that you know, I don't know. Maybe when you go back to things like indie films, independent films. I love that there are so many filmmakers out there and so many ways that you can consume and watch independent films on YouTube now or Vimeo, where you know, independent filmmakers in the past would very you know, would
struggle for a release. They might be played at a film festival, but no one would ever see them except the audience of twenty or thirty people because it's a little cinema. But the beauty of the you know, the way we've got the likes of YouTube and vimeo now is that producers and I watch stacks of short films and indie films on YouTube all the time because it's great to see what independent producers are coming up with.
I think that's really wonderful. So maybe we're searching for authenticity in a different way, and you know, the way to do that is to vote with your feet, to step back from you know, the likes of AI generated content. Timothy sha is this amazing young actor who was recently in the Dylan film that's out at the moment, and interestingly,
Timothy timoth Aye Chamalay. He was saying that during his research into the role of Bob Dylan, he got rid of his phone for two weeks and he said to his friends, you won't be able to call me, you won't be able to contact me. I don't want to be distracted by anything while I'm working on this role. So he went cold turkey on his smartphone so he wouldn't be distracted. And I guess digital detox is something
we should probably all think about at some point. But I love that a young actor who's so passionate about acting had the mindset and the foresight to say, right, the way for me to absorb myself into this role is to actually digitally detox. And I love the term digital detox. It was one of the things I actually wanted to talk about today because more and more people are distracted by their phones. I do it all the time.
I'll wake up at three am and I'm scrolling on stories for the show, looking for tech news, and it's really easy to reach over and grab for that phone and distract yourself with your staying up late, getting up early and whatever. It happens to be so good, digital detox is challenging. Do you reckon you could go for half a day without your phone?
I definitely could. But I think it is a really interesting question, mate, And I think is the tech technology the problem or the way that we use it, Because like, if I didn't have my phone, nobody could reach me, including my mum and dad couldn't open an email, so I think there's the pros and cons. It's like some like the way that we use technology can be problematic and even toxic and destructive one hundred percent, or you can use it in a really healthy, intelligent, positive, practical way.
So I don't know that just putting your own in a drawer for two weeks is practical for a lot of people, But you know, if you're him and you're doing that, I totally understand it. But yeah, I like the idea. I think it's this sounds weird, but I think it's about changing your relationship with technology, how you use it, and being aware of Ah, I do this thing with my phone that's a bad habit. So rather than throwing away the phone, why don't I change this
habit that I have with the phone? Just like you can prepare your dinner with a knife, or you can do something much worse with a knife. It's the knife is not the problem. It's what we do with that particular resource or tool.
I think, why did my head go to Lorrain and Bobbitt Nielsen Company in he doesn't know who that is and a lot about but just just look it up. Yeah it's full. Now it's just going to look it up while we chat about The Nielsen Company in the US says the average adult in the United States spends around eleven hours daily engaging with digital media. Eleven hours. Tiff is now laughing. You might have to tell us to remind us. For those listeners who've never heard of Lorraina Bobbitt.
Rain and Bobbitt severed her husband John's penis on during the twenty third nineteen ninety three, A day.
That will looking in for me.
Speaking of speaking of things we can do with knives, You're welcome.
Yeah, that popp into my head. I reckon. I must have been traumatized by that as a bloke, do you reckon?
I just don't even like hearing that forty years later or whatever it is. That just yeah, I was going to say something fucking hilarious then I wish I could. I know, we should just have a podcast where you can just say whatever you want. Yeah, I mean, I know this is as close as it gets.
Probably I don't think anything's held as back.
There's lots to okay, you know anyway, anyway, I need to try and keep my career in tax somehow.
Or one more little tiny bit about digital detox so stepping back from the internet or connected devices like your phone, laptop or whatever. For it's just a set time, but more than just having a little bit of a break. But what it's been found is a digital detox could improve your sleep, your mood, and your work life balance. So having structured detox times of not just putting the phone down, but saying Okay, I'm going to put it away for a time can actually really help as well.
So again it comes back to what you were saying earlier. It's not about the technology, it's how we use it.
I know this is dumb question. I'm sure the answer is yes. But with an iPhone or any smartphone for that matter, is it you can set it up so you're temporarily your phone will only allow three or four phone numbers or one phone number to call you and.
Block the Yeah, I do that at night. So my phone from nine to thirty till five thirty it has a do not disturb mode. But I can have a certain number of phone numbers that are bookmarked as important numbers that can get through someone called so my dad, my brother, that sort of thing. Say, yeah, absolutely right. And one of the other cool features that I don't
know about your phones. I'm using a pixel, but if I'm in a meeting or on with somebody and I'm at a cafe, if I turn my phone face down, it will also automatically go into do not disturb mode. And I think that for me. I don't know about you guys, but I like the idea of when you're sitting down with someone because we all feel like we have to have our phones and I can't have mine in my pocket. I find it really annoying if my
phone's in my pocket when I'm sitting down. But I always put my phone face down, so A I'm not distracted, but B it means that I'm in to do not disturb mode. But I think from an etiquette point of view, it's nice to turn your phone down and not be distracted. There's nothing worse if you're having a conversation with someone
and they glance at this phone. It happens occasionally. Have you been in that scenario where tiffk or Craig where somebody has been chatting to you and all of a sudden it gets distracted by their phone.
One hundred percent. Hey, we've got five minutes. I want to cover off a couple of car things that I'm interested in.
What you would be going.
Okay, so first one BYD have created a new charging system whatever where you can fill up fill up is not the right word, but that'll do fill up your car with electricity in five minutes. So to do four hundred ks off of five minute charge, I think I don't have that written in front of me, but I saw your prompt or something like that. Yeah, one, that's going to be a game changer.
It is. There's a few caveats on this. So it's a thousand kilowatt system and the average charging station isn't anywhere near that, so the infrastructure would have to be in place. But we're talking about the same time it's filling up with petrol and giving you that four hundred kilometer.
That's a deal breaker. If you could do that with an electric vehicle, I think that would switch a lot of people over because suddenly, you know, doing a drive to Adelaide or Brisbane or wherever is not going to be something that's logistically a massive, you know, way to have to plan a trip if you've got to keep stopping and you know you can't get that range when you need it, so that's pretty cool. BYD is an
interesting company. It's a Chinese company and they're pushing. They're selling more cars than Tesla, and I guess recently, with everything that's going on in the States, everybody's selling more cars than Tesla. I think it sells more cars than Tesla at the moment, but the reality of it is that there's been a massive shift towards the Chinese automakers and BYD is definitely the world's leader when it comes to electric cars at the moment. And you know, there's
another little gadget. I love this BYD Now one of they're talking about having a car that's been launched that they'd to team up with Dji, the world's biggest drone manufacturer, and they have a section of the roof with the roof slides away and the drone launches, so when you're driving off road, you get an aerial view of what
you're doing. So it's for filming, it's for people who like off roading, and you've literally got a drone that's flying above you, so that if you're driving through a forest or driving through an area, we are not too sure. You've got this aerial view. By the drone, And so the drone comes with the car as a feature that's integrated into the BYD vehicle. That's kind of interesting and nerdy at the same time.
I need that as I'm heading into the CBD ye looking for a cart just to fly up out the top of the bloody Suzuki Swift.
Last one, I Lovezki Swift. You can use it to carry the Suzuki Swift.
That is true. That is true. I'll tell you what. If you ever want to look super cool, everyone, get yourself Suzuki Swift. I tell you what, the ultimate kind of credibility builder you want to build your brand, get one of them. Hey, last one I love to that volks was a Volkswagen.
I can't.
Yes, they're heading back to vinyl, and by that I mean they're doing they're going retro. They're introducing buttons into the car.
Yeah.
There's a lot of talk and chatter in the auto world about how big screens on dashes with no physical buttons is actually not as good as we thought it was going to be, and that to reach for the controls and swap the screen over to be able to adjust the temperature or the volume is just not user friendly at all and that for us as people who I mean, I know, when I get into the car, I don't have to look down to know where the
volume control is. You know, who can imagine turning your indicators on without the stalk on the side a little bit of that. And so Volkswagen is now committing itself to bringing back this sense of more haptic connectedness, whether it's putting knobs back on and sliders or making the
interactions you have. What I mean by haptick is it might be a virtual button, but when you move it, it feels like it's vibrating, so you get a sense of real connectedness with whatever you're currently doing on the vehicle. And yeah, I think that's a great move forward when we go backwards.
And you know what is interesting is if you're driving from your joint to my joint and you pick up your phone while you're driving and you start to play or move something or open something, then you're breaking the law. But if you've got one of those big screens like I have in my other car, you reach across and you're essentially on a giant phone and your attention is like, it's not that natural where you can reach over and twist that nob or push that button, because there is
no nob or button to twist or push. So now it actually takes concentration and cognitive energy to pay attention to the thing you're trying to adjust while you drive, which to me is a much bigger distraction and bigger danger than touching your phone, which you're very familiar with.
On my car, I've got a master and even though I've got a screen in front of me, it's not a touch screen for navigation and all those sorts of things. But it's a big it's a big knob. It's a rotating dial, and I know that if I reach over to the gearstick and then I bring my hand further back, that's where the dial is. It's very tactile. But I
never look down at it. I don't have to. I know exactly where it is, and I know the volume control to the radio is to the left of that, so intuitively, I never need to look down, and I'm driving along and I can feel for all of that, So I just think it's great. Yundai is doing the same thing. They've done focus groups, so they've got people together and they've said people get stressed and annoyed when
they couldn't control something in a tactile way. So that move away from all of that and just having big screens strading drivers and now the likes of Hyunda and Kiir and now taking a much more different approach to the way they look at that, and as is Volkswagen as.
Well, perfect the HR station Wagon. That's what we need to go back to. Patrick. You probably don't remember that, But where can people find you? Follow you, connect with you? Patrick?
I just go to websitesnow dot com dot au if you want to talk media and marketing and websites and branding and stuff, or just go to Tychi at home dot com, todau if you just want to do some tai Chie with me, because that's funny.
I hope you two kids have a beautiful day tomorrow. I hope the dogs play well together. I hope you two play well together. I hope you don't get rained on and we expect a full report next time.
Sounds good.
Thanks TeV, thank you, Thanks Patty, thank you,