I get a team. It's Harps and Patrick, it's you project. For the first time in twenty twenty six, we're back. And to those of you who are thinking to yourselves self, where is the answer to my question that Harps asked me to write in the group, It's coming. I apologize. I said, I'm going to do a Q and a
pod or two, which I'm doing. I've started. I just got a bit caught up in things, as is my way, a little bit of Ron and Mary business, and so the time that I put aside to record that episode or two selfishly got taken up by Ron and Mary. So blame them, get mad at them them. It could never be me. Patrick. James Bonello joins me, as he does on a regular basis. Happy New Year Champion.
Hey, it's great. This is exciting for me. I don't think I've done the very first episode of a New Year before because we've been doing this about three years.
We've been doing it for a while, and you are very much part of the furniture here typ studio, the human furniture that is you. So we're recording this on the third, Satdy. The third will be out on Monday the fifth. Yeah, what have you been doing?
Well? Right the second of being licked?
Wow? Yeah, And to that young man in front of you, if you could go and make Patrick some breakfast? Oh really, Well, you opened the door, you started.
It, but no you asked me how I've been what I'm doing, and I'm being licked, literally being licked by my dog. So look, it was a bit of a traumatic day yesterday because Fritzy apparently when we went out running at the park, he ran into something and it sliced a gash into his chest, but I didn't notice. He was fine. And then when he was at home he started licking incessantly and I rolled him over and he whimpered and there was a visible hole in his chest,
and I panicked and rushed him to the veton. So we had a very difficult night trying to get him to stop lick at himself. You know, ordinarily I would encourage that because it's I'm jealous, but in this instance, so.
That's twice in one minute. You don't need to go for.
Me, one for you. That's one age. Now we can get off that topic. So he's here next to me in my little broadcast area, and I'm trying to get him not to lick his wound. He's little wounds, He's got medication and I've been bathing it in saline solution, doing all the right things.
Nurse Patrick, Well, let's send our healing vibes a little Fritzi and hope that he gets better quick and for Ittz, stop licking your fucking wounds. Uncle harps here, stop licking yourself in that area, and when the wound's better, then you can return to business as usual with the other leaking area, as trained by Dad. But yeah, what did you what did you do for Christmas? You don't drink?
Right?
Do you ever drink booze? Very?
Very occasionally? I might have one little drink, you know, have a Guinness renown again, it's a little pub that I go to, and Fritz and I both go to actually, and we sit in the front bar and I have a Guinness. But that's maybe once a month. I think I would have a drink.
I shouldn't know this, well maybe I shouldn't, but I know beer is made from hops and shiit. What is guinness made from? Do you know?
Probably the same thing? I reckon. It's supposed to have lots of vitamin B in it, you know, it's that black, dark color. And in Ireland they used to give it to pregnant women after they had their babies because it was restorative to their health and well being.
Let's ask to please ask, let's ask chat jp T.
All right, So in the meantime, this is not.
No, no, no, We're going to We're going to We're going to chat to it. Ah, hey chat jp tea. What is guinness made from?
Of course, guinness is me from four key ingredients. Water malted barley, some of which is roasted to give it that dark color, Hops for bitterness and flavor, and he used for fermentation. It's the roasted barley that gives it that signature, deep flavor and dark color.
How does it differ from beer?
A great question. So guinness is indeed a tape of beer, but it's a stout, which is a darker, richer and often creamier style compared to a lighter lagger or ale. It has roasted barley, giving it more of a coffee or chocolate note, and that creamy head comes from the natridgen using the poor So it's just a specific delicious category within the big world of beer.
Well, what the hell am I you for?
Yeah? You know what I love about chat GPT is it can answer your questions but also make you feel good by telling you what a great question you asked. It can also it can build your self esteem while educating you.
Yeah, and you know what make you dumber?
Why? I just learned something.
No, no, it's making you dumber. Okay, explain how an article in the BBC I was reading just recently.
So this is not your thought. This is some one else has thought.
Yeah, because this is research that's been done by the Massachusetts So you're.
Doing exactly what I just did. You're outsourcing your knowledge.
No, you asked chat gbt did all the work for you. I had to research this, go through and read an entire article. You just asked the stupid AI chatbot.
Well, my way is just way more efficient. You're still out. You're still going somewhere to get the answer. I went somewhere. That's much quicker.
Yeah. Well, MIT published a study showing used chat GPT to write essays showed less activity in the brain networks associated with cognitive processing while undertaking that particular exercise. So the more that we rely on AI, the less No.
No, no, stop stop stop. Stop. You just said people who write essays. That's a very specific thing, which is not what I am doing. So you can't extrapolate and generalize on one thing. So what you do is you take you take a grain of sand and go. Let me tell you about the each right used in the way that we do, which is, hey, we don't know something, tell us what this is? Now we know? How is that bad?
Well? One of the things is that by reading, do you ever get anything wrong?
Come on, do you ever go are you ever going to go on this show? Actually, Craig, that's a good point.
Can I give you a quote from the BBC?
And so not your quote, someone else's quote.
AI makes it too easy to find answers. Okay. So a Carnegie mailon University in Microsoft, which I operates Copilot, found people's problem solving skills could diminish if they become too reliant on aim.
According to them, according to the research, why when you read something, do you go, oh, well, now, that's what I think?
No, I think that when you're reading an article, you're spending more time on it and taking more in. You're thinking through the process, reading the paragraphs, taking that information in. We're when you're asking an AI, it's just doing the summary for you. Everything's been done for you at least.
It isn't the point of both of them to find out the answer to a question.
Sure, yeah it is, But the other thing is the And this is what we kind of I mean, I guess. AI summaries is one of the big things that came out of twenty twenty five where first time ever Google and look, most of us do use Google for our online searching, and now when you do a search, it
means that you get this AI overview. And this is a concern for websites, people who are writing news articles because what we found is that between sixty and seventy percent of people are now no longer going to the actual website where the content's from. They're just relying on the AI overview information. And the big concern is that
sometimes that AI overview is actually wrong. And this is the big concern because people are getting their news from AI and they're reading the summer summary, but they're not delving any deeper into it, and they're relying on that and AI is wrong quite often, it can be wrong, and that could mean critical things for people if they're researching things like you know, with my cancer treatment, should I be doing X, Y Z. And these are specific
examples I was reading about where the concerns are that people are relying on it too heavily, and particularly medical advice is something that you know, you want to make sure you're getting that from a legitimate site, which is a medical authority or health government health authority, rather than just relying on an overview. So it is concerning. And look, I love the fact that AI is here and can
do some great things. I've got to go to a funeral service next week, and you know, I'm putting together the booklet for the service, and there was a photo, a family photo that my cousin gave to me, and there were two people in the family that weren't in the photo, and so she said, look, can you put those people into the photograph? And I was able to
put it together. And the reality of it is, you know, traditionally I would have to have cut out all the people from the photo using traditional photoshop tools, which is quite priceiss and one of the difficult things, not so much for you and I, because we you know, in your case, you've got cropped hair. In my case, I have none, so cutting us out of a photograph is pretty easy. But for somebody who's got lushes long lengths of air, it actually is really difficult to cut the
hair out. But now AI allows you to instantly remove backgrounds and then you can layer that, put new people in, arrange them around, take the backgrounds, put the background back in again, and suddenly you've got this family photo. And it was great to be able to use those tools which normally would have taken me ours. So yeah, I use stacks of AI and it's great in some applications.
Yeah, I think there are pros and cons for everything. But I think back just quickly to the AI summaries. Yeah, well, I think everybody knows we don't get our health advice from the end to that period, do we. I mean, who's going, I'm not going to a doctor. But hang on, how studio like you can get misinformation and you do everywhere. It's not just AI summaries, it's YouTube, it's Instagram, it's Facebook,
it's every fucking post that every person puts up. So I think to go, you know, like, you can go to actual websites and get bullshit because they sell bullshit and promote bullshit, and they've got a vested interest in you buying what they're selling. So I think to assume that, you know, like I agree with you, but I think, but that's just that's you know, everywhere like to be able to if you're going to any website that sells anything,
then you're not getting objectivity. You're getting a version of a sales pitch. And most most websites that we go to are commercial, you know, like it's not like it's just this amazing resource that nobody's making money from.
I guess the one thing that I was saying before is that like for specific things like medical advice, legal advice, there's certainly are legitimate sites that you can go to. I would go to a government and even if you look at the extension of a website, is that if it's a dot gov, dot au, then you know that it's a government site. You know, if you want a specific weather related information, you go to the Weather Bureau, you know, for information there, or for help to a
medical site. So I think it's discerning where you are in relation to the type of information that you're getting. But you're right, that is a difficult thing to kind of discern because there's so much slop out there. That was the word of the year. Remember AI slop was one of the dictionaries, the big Dictionaries word of the year. And if you create a new YouTube account right now, so you've never used YouTube, so you jump on and
you create a new account to start using YouTube. From absolute scratch, twenty percent of video is more than twenty percent of videos that you will be shown. You know when you start scrolling through your feed, well, twenty percent more than twenty will be AI slop. There's guaranteed, so you know already one in five will be you know, this generated AI stuff. Do you when you flick through and whether it's X or any of those, do you struggle with that? Do you look at that and think
to yourself, am I looking at something that's real? Is this fake? Is that something that's a concern for you?
Well, yeah, but I don't worry about it. I don't believe it's like even when you go the government, do you think the government doesn't get shit wrong? Do you think that everything on government websites is like I just think it's not about being negative or I'm not anti government at all. I thank God for the government, we'd be living in fucking whatever, you know, But the government
gets stuff wrong, the government gets stuff right. I think the reality like putting aside whatever the medium is or the delivery system, be it Facebook, be at x, be it Instagram, be at a government website. The human experience is we get things wrong. We give Have I ever gotten things wrong every fucking day of my life? Have I ever said things that aren't true every day of my life? Have I ever misled people unintentionally a million times?
So I think that we need to go you know, like, if you've got the two one hundred episodes of this show, I would say on every episode, we've said something that was bullshit, if not once, ten times on each episode. So this kind of thing that we have of oh, that's good over there and this is bad over here, I think you've got to turn down the volume on that because to say, oh, and it always with me and I am literally a fucking researcher at a PhD level.
I don't like to play that card. But when people go sixty percent of this, really it's not fifty seven, it's not sixty two. I'm not talking about you, by the way, but there are all of these very convenient research kind of numbers that come out. I was talking with somebody the other day about a particular thing in big farm, this particular drug and the efficacy of this drug.
And you know when you go through it. I was talking with David Gillespie about treatment for cholesterol, right, And then you start digging and you go, yeah, this is science and it is science, and you can read the report and you can read the paper and you go, fuck, but this is in this journal. This is a Tier one, very credible Q one journal. And then you dig and you dig and you dig and you go, oh, this is financed by big farmer, which it was, and then
you go, oh, but it's science. You go no, no, Like people get too hysterical about the validity of science. It's like, you've got to remember this, who designed the study, a human who's financing the study big farmer? Well as if they want you to produce outcomes that make them look bad when they are literally paying your fucking wage, right,
so you have and who interpreted the data. Oh, and for this one study we spoke about, they wouldn't reveal the data because the data disproved their theory, their hypothesis. So what they did was they just revealed the interpretation of the scientists of the data, right. But for the average panta, we go, Oh, Craig said this. Craig's smart. So this is how it is. No, Craig's not smart. Craig's a fucking human who gets things wrong all the time.
Scientists get things wrong all the time. Over the years, we've constantly been you know, like low fad eating in the early seventies was meant to revolutionize the health state of all First world countries, and in fact, what it's done since the fifties or since the seventies, there's been an increase in obesity and obesity related diseases. Sense the introduction of low fat food because low fat food equaled high sugar food, right, And so which is not to
say donat carbs or donat sugar. It's just to say that science is constantly getting it wrong. When the pandemic struck, it was estimated one hundred and fifty thousand Australians would die. It was on the front of the paper, it was on the Herald Sun, and it was on the age and this was this was the estimates by the best scientist virologist, except they got it wildly fucking wrong. Nobody comes out and goes, oh, you know that thing we said, we fucked up right, This is the world that we
live in. Politicians tell me a politician who comes out and goes, that thing that we did, we got it wrong. That thing that we said, we got it wrong. So I think, like, for me, I'm I'm not I read everything and I pay attention or everything I can, and I pay attention, but I'm more about let me see the results over time. So rather than going, oh, I read this here and it said that, therefore that's true, I'm like no, or I heard this, therefore that's true.
I'm like maybe maybe. And I just think that that assigning a certain value or worth or respect to something just because someone said it to me, I think is actually the opposite of critical thinking. Like I think, like, you're super smart, and I'm not saying that disingenuously. You're super smart, and I think that all of us have the ability to go, all right, this is what they said, but let me And by the way, research is not reading a paper that someone wrote that's not research and
watching a video that's not research. Research is actually research, you know, steps down off soapbox. But that's all I think. I just get I get frustrated when people go, oh, you're wrong because I read this here. I'm like, well, fuck, okay, let's see over time.
Look. One of the interesting things is I trained to be a journalist. We were told never to believe one source. That you check multiple sources, You interview more than one person on the topic, You get both sides of the story, try to get as much information in so that you could give both sides, you know. And that's where I think a lot of the mainstream media has diverged a lot. If you look at Sky Television for example, and look at some of the extreme more extreme you know, reporting,
and there's lots of reasons for that. I think that one of the challenges for journalism now is that, you know, there's less resources going into journalism because people are now using Facebook to disseminate information, people using X to seminate information. So the checks and measures aren't there anymore. There's no editors, there's no sub editors that are deciding that this person
who's on X is being vetted in any way. And that's problematic because you know, if you go down that rabbit hole, X will continue to serve up the same stuff. That is, you know, they just want to keep you there as long as you can, whether it's Facebook or X. And that way, the information you're being given, it may not be credible, but it will keep serving it up if you keep clicking on it, and it will try
to keep you. So, if your rabbit hole is the Earth is actually legitimately flat, that and I know somebody who has a sibling who dead set believes the world is flat, absolutely black and blue believes the world is flat.
And I have a friend who believes the world is flat. And you know this friend. I won't say this person's name, but i'll tell you after. I have a good friend who they are going further and further. They're not one hundred percent, but they're about ninety percent sure the Earth's flat. I'm like, oh, okay, okay, like all right and all that. You know, Yeah, go on, though, but if.
You if you then mix with those Facebook groups, if you if you're a flat earther and then you talk to other flat earth you're going to have that reinforced constantly. But with social media, So I would talk to you you reinforce my mindset. But what happened on social media is it's got an algorithm that's built into it to keep serving that up. So it's not just me catching up with Craig over a beer and you say, yeah, the world is definitely flat and I say, well, Craig
reckons it is. So there you go. Now you've got all these voices in the wilderness, and then your algorithm just serves you up that. So if you're far left or far right, then you're going to get more far left or far right information via your social media. Because the big thing to bear in mind with socials is that it's not government vetted, it's not government run. It's run by corporations that just want to make advertising revenue.
That's all there about the AI slop we were talking about before on YouTube, so you sign up to get onto YouTube for the first time, twenty percent of videos are going to be AI slop. But last year AI slop general id one hundred and seventeen million dollars US a year in ad revenue. That's why people are generating the crap because they've got money out of.
It, of course, but also think you're exactly right but also Patrick James Kevin, Patrick James Bonello think about this. So you go, oh, when I open I start watching fucking you know, videos on how I'm going to heal my exma, and I get all these weird products from the Amazon, and then I keep getting more and more and then this one will heal my fucking whatever. Right, and it's all similar stuff from So it's like, now you're in this echo chamber, but walk away from the
virtual world and the Internet. And then you go into a church. What do you hear everybody preaching the same message, telling you the same thing, and if anybody questions that message, you're bad, You're evil, You're going to hell. You go to a synagogue, same except without the Jesus bit, right. You go to a Buddhist temple where, well they're you know, they they don't really have a god per se, they don't have a deity. You go to a Carlton football club, Well,
Collingwood fans are fucking idiots, right. It's like the world is full of these echo chambers where you essentially belong to a group, whether or not you chose it, you belong to a group who keeps reinforcing the same message, and if you question the message, then you're somehow penalized. This is how people control and manipulate and coerce and
get the outcomes they want. And I grew up very much in an echo chamber of theology and philosophy, where if I questioned anything, I was basically criticized and humiliated and all of these things, and so was everyone, by the way, And that's how you control people. And that's how you manipulate people. Is you go, no, there's only one.
It's like when people go to me, what's the best way? Okay, So if I am an expert in anything, it's probably exercise science, what's the best way to achieve this outcome with my body? And I go, well, there actually is an a best way. There's probably one hundred and sixty seven different best ways, depending on your body, your genetics, your background, your medical state, your chronological your biological agent. So the idea that there's a best way, we need
to dispense with that. It's like you and the way that you live. So you're a single bloke, you live in the country. You like blokes, right, that's not good or bad. That's how you live. Right, for you, living with your dog, having a great social network, having life and work that for you is meaningful and purposeful. I
know you're not driven by money. You need to make money because you've got to pay the bills, but I know that you know for you, you're more about emotional and I guess spiritual and social connection and that's kind of your bank account right now. That's perfect for you. It's going to be the worst model ever for some other bloke. Yeah, right, So we're all trying to find like what is in the middle of the myriad of ways that we can
live and think and do and be. Not what's the right way, but what's the best way for me based on who I am. And so it's like I haven't had a job since I was twenty four, Would I recommend that? Definitely? Not if you're a clone of me, yes, But if you're not, which nobody is, will then figure it out for yourself. But what I'll do is I will tell you what I did and how I did it and why I did it, and I'll tell you
what my outcomes were. But then, because you're not me, you're going to think for yourself and you're going to maybe try a couple of things and see what the outcome is, and then based on your own data and experience, you'll figure out the best model for you. Craig Harper cannot tell you what is the path for you because I'm not you and you're not me, you know, And I think that's true for everything from how should I eat? To what's the best way for me to learn? What's
the best relationship kind of paradigm for me? Is living in the country good for me? I know people have moved to the country to have a kind of a what do they call it a tree change, and they're back in fucking twelve months they go fuck the country and then you go up there, you're like, this is the best shit ever.
Yeah, seventeen years.
That's it, mate. It's just everyone trying to figure out how they best fit and how they best work. In the middle of all of this overwhelm of you should do this, you should do that, you shouldn't do those things.
Yeah, it's interesting. I know people who bought in the town that I live in during COVID they did the tree change, They got out of the Ring of Steel and they did the move and then they moved back to Melbourne. Yeah, they just don't you know. The lifestyle is just not to their liking. They don't have a ray of cafes to go down to and have their avocado on toast.
Listen to you, listen to you. But I mean, but that's okay. Yeah, like not everyone. It's like I say to people all the time, don't fucking do what I do, like you would hate it, Like it works for me, And I don't think, oh, Craig's got it right. I look at people who go out and get shit faced and talk all night for seven hours and fucking party on and have the best time, and part of me is a bit jealous. I definitely don't want to do
that because I'm not wired that way. But I definitely look at people who do that and have the best time ever and go fuck good for them. That's amazing.
That's their idea of a good time. I went to bed at ten o'clock on New Year's Eve. I had some friends over. We played some board games, had a bit of a laugh, listened to some vinyl records. I managed to draw some vinyl records from a neighbor recently, including Elton John's Yellow Brick Road eight, an eight box set of the Beatles, and the record we were listening to was seventies disco music. It was great. So and then I went to bed like just after ten clock.
You know, I'm not a New Year's Eve person. Well, I guess you had an early night too, I'm assuming you know.
Yeah, yeah, I did fuck all. I did fuck all. I was like, to me, it was Wednesday or Thursday or whatever it was, But that's okay. It's like I was talking with somebody about this, max this morning. In fact, I out of coffee with Maxie shout out to Maxie and yeah, like you mate, you go. I'm well aware that the way that I do things is not the way most people should. And I don't think I'm better or worse or special or I just know that. You know, firstly,
I'm an old bloke who lives by himself. Don't fucking do what I do. It's like most people that listen to this show are not a version of me. So that's why, you know, I'm so fascinated with theory of mind, which is understanding other people's mind, understanding how other people think. Like, I'm not even that interested in the Craig experience. I'm more interested in why does Patrick think the way that he has? Why does he do this? And that? Not
good or bad? No judgment, just curiosity, just awareness, Like what is it like for our listeners when you and I argue? And I love when we argue, by the way, I'm glad that we don't fucking agree on everything? Right?
Like?
What's that like for them? I think even when you and I going at it, I think, uh, is this good to listen to? Is this shit to listen to? You know? That other awareness, that kind of that kind of external self awareness it's called as well as metaperception of trying to have an understanding of what something is like for somebody else. You know, for me that's that's a fascination, but for other people understandably, they're like, shut the fuck up, past me a beer.
You know, yeah, it's I was actually just thinking in relation to, you know, where we're heading in the future, and how some of us are attracted to the likes of say technology, and other people are resistant to it. And sometimes you can put it into an age Brad. You can say, well, young people have grown up with tech, but I'm not a young person. You know, there weren't computers around when I first went to school, and yet I love tech, you know. And I have people, my peers,
who say, oh, I'm technically illiterate. That's your choice to be technically illiterate. But I get it because you're now comfortable with it. You don't like it. But for me, you know, I think I've told this story before, and I know I'm getting off topic a little bit, But when I was a kid, we got our first VHS video recorder. It was an Achi and it cost a real lot of money. Do you remember the story? Yeah?
No, I remember though. My old man used to anyway run a store where we sold those Ai vhs.
Yeah, they were expensive. They were over one thousand dollars at that time, so we're talking in what the early eighties. You were paying over one thousand dollars. That's a lot of money for a working class family in Coburg. So Dad buys this Achai and it also had things on screen, so the counter was on screen whether we're going forward or backward. It was very high tech at the time. So the first week we had it, Mum and Dad get in the car to go shopping on a Saturday morning.
Patrick gets the screwdriver out because I couldn't cope not knowing what was inside and how the mechanism worked. So I'm in the poor sucker and I've got all the screws out, I've got a handful of screws, I've got the cover off, and then Mum and Dad pulled back into the driveway. It's like, fuck, what am I going
to do? So I throw the cover back on, put all the screws in the pocket and look guilty as shit when they walk back in, because Mum had left her purse and that's the reason they'd come back so quickly. And of course there's no way they knew what I was doing. I mean, I'd hidden the screwdriver and the bolt, the screws are all in the pocket. But Jesus shited myself. And then anyway, old, how old were you? Maybe thirty one? Probably about thirteen or fourteen, I guess at that time?
Did you fuck it up? Or did you successfully reassemble it?
Okay? I can tell you that I put it all back together again, but there was one screw left over, but that happens with everything ever taken. And not only did it keep working when I finally moved out of home, like a decade later they gave it to me to take with me because it still worked.
It's hilarious. Hey, you tell me about on my little list of things that we haven't covered of yours hiring a robot.
Yes, so in China, if you're having a meeting or a wedding, you cannot now hire a robot. So there's a Chinese firm called Aggie Bot and they're humanoid robot rentals. So the price of the rental is dependent on what the robot model is and what you wanted to do. But they're actually entering the economy in a big way. They're not cheap. But basically this has only just happened,
so this is going to be new. So for a lot of people, there's sixteen different event duties that they can be deployed for, so weddings, business meetings, concerts, trade shows. The Chinese rental market is fascinating. So rather than buying a robot, you pay about one hundred and thirty eight dollars a day US and you can like, if it's a robot dog, it's going to cost you one hundred and thirty eight bucks. But if you wanted a one of the have you seen the Uni tree U two
dancing robots. They're awesome, they look fantastic. That's going to cost you about six hundred and ninety dollars per day. Okay, so wow, This really depends on what you want the robot dog to do or the robot dancer to do. But how interesting is that? I reckon? I would do that? Definitely. I would hire it for a day. I'd try before I buy. That would be a me thing, definitely. But isn't that interesting that it's now become a thing in China that you go and you rent a robot for the day.
I would love that. And you know what would be even cooler is once they've got a lot of tech right and they can move around and do stuff and whatever you need them to do, clean or vacuum or chat to you or change the channel or whatever the fuck it is, then they start to build retro models that look like R two, D two and C three po. Yeah, you know.
So, Like.
I was listening to another podcast and they were talking about this Patrick, you know, humanoid robots, and the guy who is the I forget his name, the boss of in video. He was talking about all the potential he was talking about all the jobs that are going to go away, but all the jobs that will come. And he's like, but well with all the robots. He's like, even think about this. People are going to have personal robots. And he goes, you know what's going to become a market?
He goes, clothing for robots. What people dress their robots in? Right, There'll be whole lines of clothing for you to I'm like, I never thought of that, and he's like, I know, that seems crazy, it's absolutely going to happen. Have you seen people dress their dogs? I'm like, well, I've seen Patrick dress his dog. So if people are dressing fucking animals, then people. Yeah. So it's like that. That just fascinating me, the the development and the accelerated kind of rate at
which everything is happening. I'll tell you one quick thing, which you'll probably be all over, But so Melissa's gone down. Melissa for those three of you who don't know who Melissa is, runs my life, is my business partner. She's one hundred years younger than me, smarter than me. I'm not even being nice to her and bad to me.
She just is.
But she's down. The AI rabbit hole At the moment, Patrick building AI agents for our business, and she's trying to explain to me, right, which is like me trying to explain to my mum the functional anatomy of a deadlift or a squat or something. But anyway, so one of the things that she's building is an agent that basically runs the you project from a behind the scenes point of view. So it's currently being trained on the kind of guests that we want the language to use.
You know, there's a template to send out, but it personalizes it somewhat and like all of these variables that will basically save us having an employee from doing that thing. And as we've said before, so then you've got this agent or this employee in inverted commas that doesn't get tired, that doesn't get sick, that doesn't need holiday pay, that doesn't you know, have emotional and psychological and relationship issues. So that the stuff that's being developed right now that's
going to become commonplace. I don't think we can even even now compared to five years ago.
It's crazy, it is, yeah, and it looked at some great useful tools out there, But it also means that there's going to be a lot of people out of work as well. I think did we talk about this earlier that there were fifty thousand jobs lost to right by in the US, I think it's over. It might have been fifty five thousand jobs last year, So twenty twenty five were lost to AI, is what you know. And in some employment research company was put out basically
fifty five thousand jobs out. But you know, I was thinking about clothing for robots. So I'm going back a little bit because I do you have your news resolution? I know you spend a lot of time planning the future, and you usually use New Year's Day and you really think through all of that, which I don't normally do.
Yeah, I'm less kind of New Year's these days, but yeah, I'm always kind of thinking about and whether or not it's January one or December twenty three or but yeah, I'm always kind of I have yearly, weekly goals, monthly goals, yearly goals, So yeah, I'm because hopefully my PhD is finished in the next month or so, that's the plan anyway, and beyond that they're a goals.
So yes, well, no, in about November last year, even before November last year, I was reading a few articles on fast fashion and I thought to myself, I've got so many clothes I don't need to buy any new clothes. So for twenty twenty six, I've decided I'm not going to buy a new item of clothing for the next twelve months. And so I scattered out my local op shop to see if there's anything there that I might want to wear in case I do need a new top.
But that's my little pledge to myself, just to stop fast fashion and kind of keep using my current clothing. So yeah, that's that's my little promise to myself not to buy any clothing except for footwear, because of course, you know, particularly if you've got pronate feet, you need to make sure you've got the right footwear. But yeah, that's my little pledge to myself.
I hope you've got a lot of jocks in the cupboard.
Actually I have a lot of jocks, and I get my jocks from an Australian company that manufactures locally. I think that's really important too.
So wow, what are they called? Give them a shout out?
Aussie bum, Aussie bum? You started a couple of gay guys. Do you know what can I tell you this story? It's getting bit personal here. One of the reasons I started wearing them is, well, you remember the old advertising for cross your Heart bras and women who have supported bras for when they run to keep everything you know in place.
I don't think you needed to explain the second bit. I think we could have just said supported bras. Yep, we're with you, just trying to spell create a picture for everyone. Pretty sure we don't need that.
Well, these jobs, there's there's a particular range of these underwear that have a supporting cup in them as well to keep it.
I love how to our listeners, Patrick's holding his hand out like with his palm up like he's supporting a cock and some testicles. Yep, thanks fucking hell. Can you cut out the visuals today? I haven't had brecky yet, but.
I still a lot of paragliding and rock climbing, and keeping the boys in the right position when you're wearing a harness is pretty damn important.
Can I just say, nobody in the history of probably any show has ever started a sentence with but I used to do a lot of paragliding and hang gliding, rock climbing, now rock climbing.
Rock climbing, gliding and rock climbing, and those are sports where you need to have very good undergarments to make sure you don't.
So what do you what are you saying that you're well and doubt?
Is that the is that the I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that you're still going to keep the boys in place?
Well, what's wrong?
Have you been climbing before? Have you worn climbing harness?
No?
You do not want to slip out of your climbing harness and get something caught in that strap of the harness. You've got to be pretty.
I'm just a free range climber. I'm like an orangutan. You fucking scale up?
Shit, how do we even get there? So anyway, I buy a local and I try to buy Australian may where possible. But this year, no, I have got enough jocks to keep me through the year. I reckon Crago.
Talk to us about AI pro AI prompt. Yeah, I'm fucking taking a left turn AI prompt. So when we I think being able to write a good prompt makes all the difference, because sometimes and a prompt everybody we're just talking about when we're asking chat GPT your question or we want it to do something or give it an instruction, or any AI for that matter. Yeah, And I've found that the quality of what I tell it to do or ask it to do makes a huge difference to the output it does.
AI prompting is really interesting because I tend to use AI for the most part visually, so if I'm trying to edit an image, you know, or trying to create something that involves visual aspect. But AI prompting, it's this is a skill to it, isn't there getting the prompt right and getting it And I don't look, I don't know if there's any real secret to it. I think
being you don't want to be too long winded. One of an article I was reading with someone saying, one of the mistakes you can make is being too detailed when doing an AI prompt. If you do that, you can kind of overcomplicate things by trying to say too much and maybe start off with very simple basic prompts and then if you need to, you know, to kind of get more detailed, do it that way. But sometimes you can go too long and be concerned about Yeah, the detail don't get bogged down in the detail.
Yeah, And also sometimes yes is the answer. And also sometimes I'm writing something and i'm writing a let's say, a piece about decision making or something, and I'm using metaphors and analogies, and then I'm trying to figure out one and I might write nine sentences and I need a banger last sentence, so I just go, I put it in, see what it says. And so quite often it will give a last sentence that's totally out of kilter with the nine that I've done. Like I'm writing
tongue in cheek. It's it's like you have to figure it's not clear, and then it writes the clear obvious. So it takes a different style altogether. And while the sentence kind of makes sense as a reading experience, it totally doesn't fit.
Ye.
So you've really got to go, Okay, I want you to write a bit about this, but it's got to be it's got to be it's got to be accurate. But also it's got to be fun, it's got to be. You know, tongue in cheek it's a bit cheeky da data And even then it's like, yeah, there's a lot of like creative things. It's not very good.
Interestingly, Sam Altman, who is the genius, I guess behind one of the largest AI models, he's saying his vision for AI in the future is where it remembers everything and you basically put your whole life into it. Everything you've ever written, everything you've ever said. So we'd put all of your podcasts in there, all of the emails you've ever seen, and it would remember that. Because at the moment, it kind of doesn't really do that, and I don't know that fills me with a little bit
of dread. Would you want every single thing you've ever emailed out, everything you've ever done, because really, if someone was going to mimic you, or someone was going to assist you, if you had the ultimate AI assistant, they would need the full picture, not a sanitized version of you.
Yeah. Look, I get what you're saying. I'm not too worried about that. I guess some people be real worried about that. I don't think there's too much that's fucking incriminating or but but what I think about you know how we're kind of handing out a lot of information to AI, or we're kind of outsourced. It seems like we're outsourcing thinking, right, Oh, I don't want to think.
I'll let it think for me, which I understand that and I do actually think depending on how it's used, it can be a negative and it can as you suggested earlier, there's definitely that, Not that it makes people dumber, because IQ is IQ, but I think that it can have a negative impact on cognitive function even the structure of the brain. Like somebody uses their brain a lot, their brain looks different to someone who doesn't use their
brain a lot. Like there's just a lot of a lot more neural pathways, a lot of different stuff physiologically and anatomically going on. But I think like for me using AI, my brain's working more than ever because I'm not only am I it makes it gives me more time to do other stuff where I am using my brain, whereas it can give me a short cut and it can give me an answer to something quite quickly, which
then I have to verify, of course. But also I'm constantly thinking about how do I use this tool optimally, Like it's not a rep placement for thinking or for my brain or for my knowledge. For me, it's just a tool that I can use to do more shit and create better outcomes. And it's like, well, sure you can cut those bits of wood with that ten and saw, it's going to take you five hours, or you can use this circular saw. It's going to take you five minutes.
Oh oh yeah, but now someone's losing a job because they're not. No, now we're just all going to use these circular saws. Now it's much more efficient. So yeah, I think I think every I think with everything. You know, when rock and mole music came in, it's like it's the end of the world.
You know.
When computers came in, people are like, oh, that's not going to take on the internet. That was never going to work. And I don't know, I just think everybody has a negative bent when new things kind of emerge.
And I had an employee who left last year who was with me for about four year years and he obviously used a calculator a lot, and we would do an end of month's summary of the work that he did and come up with totals and all. We're doing proposals and we'd have to work out what the you know, we're going to quote for a job. Interestingly, I always like the challenge of adding up sums in my head,
just occasionally. But his total reliance on the calculator, and I mean a physical, literal calculator, either the on screen or he had a calculator on his desk. And this is old tech we're talking about now, But the reality was that even simple sums he would use in the calculator, so that part of his processing brain that did sums he just didn't want to use. He just used an electronic device. Now, calculators has been out forever, you know, they've been out. You know, we grew up with them
at school. But what does that actually say about the brain's ability to do that, you know, to process and to take figures. You know, a local supermarket a little while ago, the checkout girl was trying to work out the price or something and that wasn't in the system, and there were a number of them, and she was sitting there like she couldn't do anything, she couldn' add
them up. And I said, well it's this. It was a really not relatively simple I mean obviously, and I think it was a percentage of something or or a half price and then add something else. I can't even remember what the sum was, but it was a pretty
easy one to work out. But she just stood there dumbfounded because she a when I gave her the answer, she couldn't use it because she couldn't verify it, and b ended up having to get someone over to reset her computer so she could put it in and recalculate it, you know.
But it was, yeah, I'm with you, But then I think, Okay, so the person who can't add maths, you give them a canvas and some paint, and they paint something fucking phenomenal that I couldn't even begin, Like, I'm really good at maths, but that's my default setting. It's not because I try to be like I'm that's the way my brain works, But some people's Like one of my friends is dyslexic. He's a fifty year old grown ass man and he struggles to read a paragraph. But that's the
way his brain works. But you give him some shit to build, He'll build a fucking house in an afternoon, and I'll still be trying to figure out how the hammer works. So intelligence is on a spectrum. And just because I think some people using a calculator is the right thing, and I don't think I know what you're saying, but you're probably naturally good at maths. I'm naturally good at maths, but then there are things that I'm not naturally good at which I avoid.
And I go more than you'll lose it. Yeah, I was thinking the use it or lose it kind of mentality in terms of that side of it. But you're right. In fact, the person that I'm thinking of was amazingly is amazingly talented and creative.
So there are so many creative geniuses who are academically not brilliant.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Hey, just can we get onto a different topic. I've got this really interesting tech gadgets, and I thought, if there's a couple of little gadgets I'm really excited about. But this seems to make so much sense to me. I've never even thought about it before. You can buy a smart jar lid. Okay, so thinking a smart jar lid that uses UV light to keep your food fresher longer. So if you've got stuff that you're putting in the fridge and you put this lid on,
it emits ultraviolet light to stop bacteria growing. So obviously putting things in the fridge will prolong how long it will last because it slows down any movement by bacteria or any growth by bacteria. But the addition of a smart lid that just shines UV light onto the top of whatever it is. Because if you've got a jar of jam and you know you spring, the top of the bacterial will form at the top because the bottom hasn't got any air exposed to it. It's just the
top part. So how good is that idea? Having a UV light just in the jar the lid of your jar.
Wow, imagine opening the fridge. There's all these little kind of looks like science experiments in your fridge. There's just all these little illuminated fucking jars of shit. So it's not at all.
It looks like the YouTube podcast backdrop that you've got on your screen. So that's glowing blue. There's an ultra violet to keep you fresher.
That is. Yes, I'm actually two under thirteen years old. Just unless it comes every day and sprays me with something I'm not sure what it is. Yeah, it turns on the UV just to get the bacteria off me.
So Craig is using a fake background on his zoom could we not say fake.
Can we just say it's a virtual it's a virtual studio.
Fake, it's not real. It's fake. It's just a projected image. But it's very blue and it looks like UV. And now it suddenly occurred to me that he's probably using it to just keep himself fresh.
It's a real image.
Okay, hey, other So I know we're running out of time, but it's going to tell you. You know, China is now officially saying that any cars so predominantly electric car companies that have recessed door handles. So in a lot of cars, including Tesla, there are recessed handles you kind of tap and then they come out of the side of the car, so it's for screamlining. The problem is if something happens to the battery and the power, then
the handle won't come out. And so authorities in China are saying this is still a couple of years away. They're saying from twenty twenty seven, any car sold in China has to have a manual door release after electronic handles were failing during crashes. So that's an in one. I think that's a really good decision.
I've heard about that I've heard about people who had accidents and couldn't get out of the fucking car because it was all locked electronically and all the electronics were down. So though were just quickly on cars and China and electronics. I don't know if you saw the news last night, I'm doubting not so byd the biggest seller of electric cars in the world.
Now, oh yeah, that doesn't SPA. So it was.
Tesla I think probably in Australia as well. Yeah, so they they yeah, they're killing it. At the moment that some of the Chinese stuff that's coming out, I know, people are like, oh, it's junk. It's like, dude, some of the stuff is so fucking amazing. Like if you just objectively, you know, cars are an interesting thing. I'll talk for thirty seconds then back to you. But I've always thought cars are fascinating in that how much of an emotional attachment, not all, not you, not me, probably,
but like people having them. Oh i've got a MERK or I've got a BM or Traditionally those European cars that were very aspirational, Oh look he's got this or she's got that, right, but the actual car wasn't that fucking amazing. You know, there were Mazdas that you could buy for thirty grand less. Like, you've got a Mazda, which is a fucking amazing car. Yeah, I've got a Hyundai which is Santa Fe, which is better than some
of my friends fucking two hundred thousand dollars SUVs. They get in my car, which costs less than half of what theirs did, and they're like, oh my god, this is fucking space age. I'm like, yeah, made in Korea.
Bro.
You know, it's like it's just that psychology of where is this made, and therefore it must be, you know, especially with things like cars, where there are no ASI cars anymore, So fucking why whatever you're going to buy?
My first car was amazing. You know, it's funny you say that because I bought my very first brand new car because I'd never bought a brand new car before until just after COVID, when it was very hard to buy a brand new cars. But also the second hand car market had gone through the roof. So for me, I thought, I'm not gonna waste money on a second hand carsick at end problems, and I found a demo
model of a particular mas to the Mix thirty. But what I love about it is it's got They call them freedom doors, but everybody in the world calls them suicide doors. You know the doors. The doors open up the opposite way, and I think that you know why they called them suicide doors.
I'm sure because well, so, just to reiterate what Patrick said to everyone, So it's like, the door opens the opposite way. So instead of you know, like if you went up, you know, you open the handle, if you went up to the other end of the door, it opens like where you're opening the door to the world. Not yeah, so I guess it's because you were, in some instances basically committing suicide to step out into the traffic.
No, well, yeah, kind of. So in the olden days, the front doors would open the normal way that front door would, but the back doors would be hinged at the rear and flip open. But because people didn't have seatbell, occasionally the mechanism would fail and while they were driving the rear door the suicide door would flick open, and they would reach to grab it to stop it flicking open, and it would drag them out of the car. So people died grabbing for the rear door that flicked open
the wrong way. But what I was getting at is I've never gone for brands. My first car was a Mazda, and then I had a run of cars. I've only had four cars, Craig go, I know, you can't believe that I've only ever owned four cars in my whole life. First three were secondhand and I had them for ages. In fact, I still got my Nissan. That's I think I've had for thirty two years sitting in my driveway anyway. But the Mazda is my most recent car, and it's
those things that I like about it. It's got analogue still, so I've got knobs to control the volume, to turn the temperature up and down. I like that it's still a hybrid between and it is literally a hybrid, but it's got a lot of analog as well as digital. So it's got the heads up display and all the fun things that I love. But it's still not quite a scream like an iPad sitting on a dash, which is what the Tesla is. So I think I like
that combination of tech but analogue as well. That's kind of does it for me.
Yeah, I love that visceral experience of twisting a nob or sliding something across something that's physical, that I can give us one more than I've got to go.
Oh, this is great move over. Bluetooth wired headphones are back and they're super cool. So I watched the last episode of Stranger Things last night.
Can I just stop you? Did you say wired? W ir ed or wid no?
Wired? So it's become a lot of Hollywood celebrities and now going back to their headphones with a chord on them. So tis well, it's just the cool, trendy, hip thing to do. Man, if you're one of the latest trendy young kids out there, We've got CDs, we've got cassettes, and we've got wired headphones.
I'm pretty sure it's just the trendy thing to do. Man, is not a trend not a trendy sentence? Patrick, Where can people find you and connect with you?
Well, they can go to websites now, dot com, dot au if they want to kind of just chat. Give us some topics to talk about. If you want us to talk about something in particular that's tech related, then I'll I'll research it, I will and I'll read more than one paper about it too, Craigo.
That'd be great. Or if there's something you think Patrick and I should argue about, just same. It's beautiful. I love it all right, mate, fast recovery to Fritzie as well.
Fretzie for a lick then, just as you were talking.
Yeah, stop licking that ship, all right mate. I'll see you soon, do mate,