Substack has a Nazi problem; Dating apps are flopping; Ebay execs harass critics; Elon does race science, AI George Carlin – NEWS ROUNDUP

can't you. I do find myself getting annoyed at behavior that is like, ultimately, if I take a step back, I'm like, is this really do I really need to be getting annoyed by this? The last thing I had a big b in my bonnet about was how annoying the ads on Twitter I have gotten. Have you have you seen this?

I was going to scream. And then oftentimes the accounts that are posting it are like they have a board ape or like an nft avvy, and so I was like, I don't want this board ape telling me what kind of brought about it. Just didn't like it.

of numb because apparently the dating apps are a hot mess. Now, do you have any experience.

this shift. Match Group, which owns a bunch of them, tender hinge, match dot Com and Okaycupid, saw its stock price drop forty percent in the past year. Bumble, whose CEO Whitney wolf Heard, stepped down in November after ten years at the app, and also Field is struggling through a disastrous rebrand I actually the only dating app I have ever used with any kind of regularity is Field. It's an app that's like for queer people and like non monogamous people, and like, I guess, like kinky people.

Field just had a really I guess. The only way I can describe it as like disastrous rebrand that sounds like a good bit to get into you on the Patreon because like there, I have a lot to say about it. But all of these apps, Field, Hinge, Bumble

Tender are really feeling this change. Match groups said that they saw their paying users decline for the fourth straight quarter, and a twenty twenty three p Research study found that while forty one percent of online dating users age thirty or older have paid for the apps, just two percent of users under thirty, which is the demographic they are really looking to court, have done the same. And yeah, I just I just think it sounds like younger folks

are just like I'm good on these apps. What do you think?

I don't know, like I use hine a lot. But that's like there's like a thing where you can put like what you're looking for. I don't think I've seen a single person put like long just long term relationship or whatever. It's all like just see what happens short to relate, which is because I don't know, I feel like that maybe it's also just like a that's how

my we're seeing dating now. That's interesting about field too, because I was going to say the thing that I keep so you got data apps is like and also like I mean whatever, like I'm queer, I'm only I only date other queer people. There's so many people that are like non monogamous. I had to ask my little

brother what em meant over winter break. Kind though it was really funny because he was my really is like he's like nineteen, he's just like nono monography and I was like, oh, okay, what like they already put that monogamoust why don't we need to put that.

there's different ways of data, different ways. But yeah, that's definitely I think the majority of what I'm I've been seeing on there, which I don't Again, I don't think that's necessarily bad thing, but I can see, like from a you know, the corporation's perspective, not having people paying for the app or whatever is probably not great for them.

the pet household during this conversation. Yeah, so it does sound like exactly what you're saying is happening, that younger people just aren't feeling the idea of paying for this experience, and basically, you know, I guess I consider myself a millennial, like a generation older than you, And for my generation, dating apps and hookup apps were kind of considered the norm of the millennial experience, right, Like they were part of what it meant to be a young millennial when

I was coming up, and I think I kind of came up in the heyday of those apps. I didn't really use them myself, but a lot of my friends did like that that was the thing. And I think that for the younger generation it's just fatigue. I think people are experiencing fatigue around these apps and just not using them the way that they used to. I also think the experience of like just swiping after swiping after swiping, and then having to like go on the date and

be like, oh, do you have any siblings? Oh what do you do? Like, I think there's there might be a lot of feelings of exhaustion associated with the experience and what it feels like to be on these apps, and part of it does just sound like the experience of showing up there kind of sucks. Now, the most popular apps are free, but they really encourage you to pay to interact with people, and basically it sounds like they are paywalling all the good profiles on Hinge. You

might know this because you use it. You can only interact with profiles of people who are getting lots of attention or who the algorithm thinks that you might be a good match for things that you might like if

you send them a rose. Users get one free rose per week to send, and in order to regularly engage with those standout profiles, you would need to buy more roses starting at three ninety nine each, or limit your options to Hinge's general algorithm, where it sounds like they keep all the duds, all the people that they know you're not gonna like they'll show you those people for free, but if you want to see any of the like good ones, you gotta pay.

for her. I guess the one other thing I think for the I don't know if this is part of the generational thing, because I definitely do think like people still use it, but I think with the especially people looking at it more casually, like it's like playing a game.

people who are single dating. It doesn't sound like it's always very fun, and it doesn't sound like the addition of these apps, which at one time I do think came with the promise of like, oh, you'll get to swipe through lots of people and you'll get to go on lots of dates and it will feel really good and you'll you'll get to like have your pick. I don't know that it feels that way anymore. So Yeah, I just I feel for everybody.

like it is. I Yeah, I never thought about it that way too, of like, oh, if you're paying what like four dollars to see me, I don't know, that's a lot of that feels like a lot of pressure.

the companies themselves are trying to pivot. Like Tinder used to be considered the hookup app, like the app that was just for like if you want it, like for people who wanted a booty call, right, But since gen Z statistically is doing the casual hookup thing a lot less, Tinder is sort of pivoting to service folks who say they are looking for love and letting people pick and describe the kind of relationships or interactions that they're looking for on the app. So they're trying to pivot away

from being solely like a hookup app. I found this really funny. Tinder has also become more kind of politically and socially aware, trying to appeal to that gen Z

market that they're really going for. They know that gen Z really cares about social and political clauses, and Melissa Hobbley, the chief marketing officer at Tinder, says the lgbtqia plus community is the fastest growing demo on the app, and during Pride Month, Tinder helped connect eligible users with information about a study that hopes to combat the FBA's bloodban

against gig donors. Tinder also launched an election center for app users to access voter registration tools and locate their polling stations, and allowed users to include a pro choice interest on their profile. So all of that is meant to really appeal to like younger folks who they're trying to get to use these apps with more regularity.

find your person and then delete the app. However, like most platforms dating platforms, they want your data. They are interested in making money from your data. And once they have gotten all they can from the data of the maximum amount of users who are going to sign up, then they are pivoting to wanting your money too. So they're not designed to be deleted. They are designed to make money off of people who use them, right, just

like that's why these apps exist. And so if that means paywalling anybody that you might potentially be interested in, they are going to do that. I read recently that Tinder has launched this like super lux premium package for five hundred dollars a month, where they were like, oh, we'll have like super special algorithmic matching and even like

humans will help match people. Listen, if I'm paying five hundred dollars a month for a dating site, the person I meet there better also be like a valet and a personal chef and all the things. But I just think that they're just trying to like throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks, to set themselves apart, because people like I don't think they're offering people an experience. It always feels good.

that's weird. I yeah, at that point, like five hundred dollars, like just go back to finding a matchmaker or something like the old I don't know, go old school exactly.

offering an endless supply of potential matches. It was going to be really fun, but it seems like now it's like, hey, do you want this dud or do you want to give us ten dollars a month or whatever? Right, And like, I don't know. Dating should be fun and it should be pleasurable. And I hope that people who are looking to be romantically involved or partnered or having any kind of whatever interaction they're seeking, I hope that they are finding ways to do that that feel fulfilling and fun

and gratifying, whether they're online or off. Because yeah, it shouldn't just be a slog that mirrors the annoyances and exhaustion of showing up on social media platforms. Like that's not what romantic partnership is about, and like you deserve better than something that feels like a fucking slog. It's supposed to be fun.

content that incited violence. This comes after almost two hundred writers, including Casey Newton, who runs Platformer, which I love, a prominent tech publication on substack, signed onto an open letter threatening to quit the platform if substack took no action. So this has been an ongoing problem. The Atlantic reported that prominent white supremacists were using the platform substack not just to spread their message, but also to earn money.

The Atlantic reported that Richard Spencer, who you might remember getting punched in the face the last time he was here in my hometown of Washington, DC, which, by the way, anybody like ask somebody who is in kind of or at least at that time sort of like more sort

of like lefty radical protest circles. Everybody that I knew knew somebody who was claiming to be the guy who punched Richard Spencer because he was wearing he was like a lot like wearing all blacks, So like nobody knows who that person was.

Substack is essentially profiting from white supremacists who are also breaking their terms of service that that explicitly bans attempts to publish content or fun initiatives that incite violence based

on protected classes. So in the letter that these prominent writers and on Substack published, they said, from our perspective, as Substack publishers, it is unfathomable that someone with a swastika avatar, who writes about quote the Jewish question, who promotes the great Replacement theory, could be given the tools to succeed on your platform, and yet you've been unable

to adequately explain your position. The letters reads, Substack has always kind of had this public positioning where they were going to treat content with a re content moderation with a really light touch. However, as the letter accurately points out, that is not true. They do choose to moderate some content they including spam sides and newsletters written by sex workers, and so it's they can't really be like, oh well, we just allow everybody to express themselves, like we don't

want to pick and choose like people. Anybody can show up here. Why do they not allow content written and buy sex workers on their platform. Hamish mackenzie, a Subsetet co found or, defended the company's position back in December, saying, I just want to make it clear that we don't like nazis either. We wish no one held those views, but some people do hold those and other extreme views. He wrote, so basically being like, oh well, we're just

publishing the views people have. But again you might not agree that with the profession of sex work, but sex workers exist in society. So that if that is your argument that we're just you know, platforming the views that people have and we're not making any kind of like statement about those views, why is that clearly you are picking and choosing the views that you that you choose the platform.

is side. That is side, whatever your beliefs are. If you are as a company censoring people that, yeah, our sex workers are doing stuff that you know, maybe not even like leftists and like political sense, but sort of on the opposite set, like sort of side of like whose voices are being heard that you're censoring them, You're not censoring, Like, that's not an issue of we're censoring versus we're not censoring. That's just an issue of favoring the neo Nazis over you know, anybody just trying.

extremist newsletters. And so they'd also describe how, you know, substack, if you make a certain amount of money to give you a bed and like things like that, they are using those things to I would argue, promote as a company these beliefs and make money off of these beliefs that they then say like, oh, well, we don't support it. If you don't support it, why are you taking a ten percent cut? Like that's but a very literal definition of supporting it.

our guidelines, we will take appropriate action. They added, we are actively working on more reporting tools that can be used to flag content that potentially violates our guidelines, and we will continue working on tools for user moderations so Subtec users can set and refine the terms of their

own experience on the platform. And yeah, I just got to say, like, there is an old adage in content moderation of online spaces, which is if you don't explicitly and explicitly and specifically and loudly say that you are not a place for Nazis to gather online, that is how you get Nazis. And if you don't want Nazis, you have to say no Nazis. And I think this

really proves it. Casey Newton of platform or one of the big tech outlets that was behind this letter said the Nazis did not commit the only atrocity in history, but a platform that declines to remove their supporters is

telling you something important about itself. And I completely agree, and honestly, like I am usually somebody who will take any excuse to frame some thing as a win, like even if it's a small win, something about this doesn't smell right to me right, like removing five newsletters and then being like, oh, well, you know what, years later and after outcry and being pushed by these writers who spoke up, We're finally going to do the bare minimum

of enforcing our existing terms of service and removing five newsletters. They don't even say which newsletters were removed, and so it just feels so low effort to me that it's almost hard for me to call it a win. Like I'm glad that these writers spoke up, and I'm grateful for their organizing work to push them in the right direction, But like that said Substack, like get it together. This is such such a low it feels so low effort that it feels barely worth aplauding.

like Nazis are bad. It's like whoa, that's I don't know anyways, Yeah, like that that it just it just it seems like it's not really going to fix the problem if you're putting it on the users, because you know, one things that the og Nazis were really good at was propaganda and you know, sort of sanitizing their beliefs or packaging their beliefs in a way that like the average person would agree with it.

for platforms to allow you customization. But this is so far beyond a typical customization problem. Like clearly it is an organizational structural problem that the powers that be at subsect have to sort out. And like it is, if you are not being paid by subsack, it should not be your responsibility to figure out how to keep Nazi content off of the platform, Like that is a that is that burden should not be on us as the user,

like that should not be on the user end. And speaking of hate speech on these platforms, so one of my New Year's resolutions was to stop using Twitter so much. TBD on how it is going so far, not well, but that will probably mean spending more time on alternatives like Threads. When we first checked in on Threads when it launched, it felt like very brand safe to me, and just I didn't feel like a cool platform. I haven't spent a lot of time there yet, so like

maybe that has changed. But one thing that has changed on Threads is that people are reporting the platform is flooded with more transphobic, pro life, antie porn, and islamophobic posts. So hearing this, I logged in for the first time in ages, and it didn't take long for me to see this post from a user that I did not follow and certainly like, don't follow any accounts that would have recommended this to me. It was a tweet that just said it's okay to be white. It's okay to

be white, like I saw bunch. Did you see that?

but I am not. The only times I've opened it is when I get in the Instagram feed, I'll get like baited into clicking up like hate clicking on stuff because yeah, I'll get like all the there's that thing now where it shows you like recommended threads and they're always like the most like inflammatory, like there's been a lot of Islamophobic stuff or like very racist stuff that I've seen, and then like that can't be real, And then I'll click on it to like see the whole thing and whatever.

what's going on here? Before you know what, your knee deep in some weird ass profile being like like what is this? What is this ridiculousness that I'm looking at? On winter break when we were off, I spent an entire half of day. I lost a whole half a day to that process, and I was like, they got me.

It's it's total engagement rage bait. They want you to click, maybe they want you to click by accident, and yeah, I just it just it doesn't feel good, Like it's like a crappy It feels crappy to have that experience online, and it feels like more and more like that's what platforms have to offer you, is engagement farming and rage baiting and then like exploiting your accidental click into something

with shocking, inflammatory content. It is infuriating. But I will say that Facebook meta they are aware of this problem. So in a statement to Mashable, Facebook acknowledge that some users are being shown this type of repetitive, low quality content, saying we want people to have a positive experience on Threads and we're continually making improvements to what people see on the app, in addition to removing content to violates

our community guidelines. We're aware that some people are seeing this repetitive, low quality content they may not be interested in. We're taking steps to address it. So I've read a few responses on this from Adam Mosseerri Comma who some listeners might remember as one of my personal enemies. But all of his comments about it are like so general. They're kind of like, oh, we're doing our best to

get it off the platform, YadA, YadA, YadA. But it is clear that you need to have very clear rules, very clear enforcement of those rules, and a way to find it when those pieces of content are breaking the rules, when users are doing it in a repetitive way, Like it is not easy to run a text based social media platform. I'll be the first person to admit it.

It is a paygrade far above me. However, it just yeah, they've got to get it together because nobody wants to have the social platforms where it just feels scammy or baby. And I just think that most people have had their fill of experiences that feel that way online right now.

like confused, bait me into clicking on something I look, which you know as a marketing strategy to get people to use your app works.

the more it gets me on Twitter. Like, if you are a black person, a young black person who is on Twitter, you probably are familiar with a certain kind of post that you know it is just like I can't I can't describe it, but you know when you see it where it'll be like, there's there's a video recently of a of three black women knocking on a door at like knocking on a door of an apartment, and the caps on Twitter was like, this girl was out until five am and her man changed the locks

on her. What do you all think about this? And everybody is like, oh, like, why is it bad to go out at five am? And then people will being like, yeah, like she deserves it, and something about those kinds of posts where it's oh, it's always something like very inflammatory. It might not even be true. It might be like a skit that people are doing. That's a whole other episode about how people are making skits, putting them online as if they have been filmed, and then breaking in

that sweet, sweet engagement when people react to it. I could, I mean, we should do a whole episode on it, because it's a common thing. But for whatever reason I am, I am susceptible to that, Like I am not above that.

I find myself like scrolling the comments and I'm like, why am I getting angry about this probably fake scenario that has nothing to do with me, Like there's enough stuff in the world for me to be reacting to in my own life, Like why am I exposing myself and getting myself bent out of shape about things that are being presented to me specifically to react to. I don't know, I'm going off in a tangent here, but it's a problem and it doesn't feel good, and I agree.

week and sent out an unauthorized tweet. This is a pretty big deal. Twitter officially says that they investigated and determined that it was not a breach of their systems, but that somebody got a hold of somebody from the SEC's phone, which did not have two factor authentication enabled, and that's how they posted the fake tweet. The tweet said it does look like a US Securities and Exchange

Commission tweet. The tweet says, today the SEC grants approval for bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges. The approved bitcoin ETFs will be subject to ongoing surveillance and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection. So this would be a big deal had it been true, which

it's not. But that fake tweet did cause a brief spike in bitcoin's value of around two point five percent to nearly forty seven eight hundred and seventy dollars before crashing around three point two percent from its original price. So Twitter, you know, they denied any responsibility for this incident, so they say, I don't know, But what is clear is that since Musk took over at Twitter, Twitter has

gotten a lot less secure. This piece in Wired puts it really well, they say elon Musk's aggressive slashing of the company's staff over the past year raised fears that the cuts would leave Twitter unable to secure a platform depended on by users that include high profile figures and

government agencies worldwide. One former Twitter information official sued Musk and others for alleged wrongful termination after he was fired for He claims in the lawsuit, arguing that the staff cuts would interfere with Twitter's ability to comply with a twenty eleven concent degree with the US Federal Trade Commission to protect user's personal information. And yeah, I gotta say, like, one of the reasons I want to use Twitter less is that I don't trust that somebody like Elon Musk

would keep my personal information secure and safe. And it makes sense considering how he is, how he acts, how he shows up. Wired spoke to Alison Nixon, the chief research officer for cybersecurity firm Unit twenty two one B, which frequently deals with hackers accounts takeovers. She puts it really well. She says, people put a lot of trust into an entity that has stopped being a serious company. If a government wants to be able to make statements that people can rely on, they can't do that on

a platform that has a targeted account takeover problem. And yeah, like, even if Musk is denying any kind of responsibility for this, which he is, he certainly is not signaling that he is taking it very seriously. Right after the news of the SEC's Twitter account being compromised. Broke Musk was joking around about it on Twitter, responding to a post jokingly being like, oh, what's the SEC's password wrong answers only, Musk responds LFG doge to the moon, which is like,

let's fucking go a joke about doge coin. The jokes, I mean, like side note, the jokes aren't even ever funny with him, it's it's always some like stupid little meme that was like cool five years ago. He gets on everything very late. That's another thing about Elon Muska can't stand.

a time where elected officials, campaigns, governments, et cetera. When they needed to communicate quickly with us the public, it was Twitter that they used, right, And so I don't know if that's going to be the case going forward with Musk at the Helm, but yeah, it so it really does matter that it is a secure platform. And speaking of Elon Musk, Joey, is there anything that you want to ask me about Elon Musk?

You know, we've done a few episodes on Bill Ackman and Christopher Ruffo and their attempts to really create a moral panic around DEI diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and have had success in getting doctor Claudine Gay ousted from her position at Harvard. Well, as y'all know, if it is despicable people doing despicable stuff, you already know Elon Musk is going to be involved in it in the

mix somehow. So yesterday he was engaged in with a tweet suggesting that historically black college graduates have quote borderline intellectual impairment. So this pretty big account on Twitter, eyelash Ho, which is account that like really spreads a lot of junk race science, this account was talking about this program from United Airlines that gives HBCU historically black college students opportunities to interview with the company's career development program to

be pilots. Eyelash Ho says the mean IQ of grads from two of those United Airlines HBCU partners is about eighty five to ninety based on the average SATs at those schools. Side note that's just not true, that's made up. He says, the SAT correlates reasonably well with IQ. The HBCU IQ averages are within ten points of the threshold

for what's considered borderline intellectual impairment. I'll add that IQ is a well studied and well known predictor of job performance, especially for quick processing and mentally demanding occupations like major airline pilot. So none of that is correct.

this is going great, Like I'm going to keep endorsing this. Yeah, right, But however, this idea that like DEI initiatives mean that you have armies of black folks and brown folks and other represented identities working in these places. It's just a fiction, but that's what they're So they're basically creating a fiction and then turning that fiction into a boogieyman and then being like, ooh, I'm scared. I watched this Fox News report about the Alaska Airlines flight where the door came off.

Did you see that?

plane problems, like you will blame us for anything? Hi, Okay, Future bridget here popping in solo without Joey because we just got an update on a story that I was obsessed with even before I ever started doing these news round up episodes, so I have to talk about it with y'all. I don't think we ever actually talked about this story on the newscast, but it's one of the more bizarre, not to mention gruesome, tech stories that I

have heard in a long long time. Today, the online auction site eBay has been ordered by a Massachusetts court to pay three million dollars in damages after their employees and contractors waged what I can only describe as all out psychological warfare on a Boston couple. That three million dollars is the statutory maximum fine for eBay's charges, and in my book, the couple they harassed deserves every penny

of it. So back in twenty nineteen, eBay senior executives were annoyed that this couple, the Steiners, were running an newsletter called e Commerce Bites about eBay that was meant to give people who sell stuff on eBay and auction sites information about the site, happenings with it, news, all of that kind of stuff. According to Yahoo, this harassment campaign began after Aina Steiner wrote a story in her newsletter about a lawsuit brought by eBay that accused Amazon

of poaching its sellers. According to court records, about a half an hour after Aina Steiner published this article, eBay's then CEO, Devin Wehning sent another top executive a message saying, quote, if you are ever going to take her down, now is the time. That executive then sent his message to James Ba, who was eBay's senior director of safety and security, and he called Aina Steiner a quote bias troll who

needs to get burned down. After that, I guess Ba was like, I am on it because he became the ringleader of this harassment and intimidation campaign against the Steiners. Side note, also, don't put stuff like this in an email, Like, if you're ever going to to do something like this, hopefully you're never waiting a crazy campaign of harassment and

intimidation against anybody. But if you're ever doing something where you're like, oh, it might be bad if someone were to read these emails discuss it in person, your next email should be like, let's talk about it in person.

So eBay's head of security basically had other staffers send disturbing packages to this couple's home, including a bloody pig mask, an actual fetal pig, a box of live spiders, a box of live cockroaches, pornography, and a funeral wreath, along with a book called how to Grieve the Death of a Spouse. So like pretty obviously meant to be a threat or a way to intimidate them horrifying. The staffers also traveled to their home. They apparently had a plan

when they found that their home was locked. They had a plan and tools to break into their home to install a GPS tracking device on their car. They posted the couple's home addressed on Craigslist inviting randos to come to their house for sex parties. These were senior level executives at eBay. Jim bah eBay, senior director of Safety and Security, was the ringleader, and he was sentenced to fifty seven months in prison back in September of twenty

twenty two for his role in all of this. Six other employees also face felony convictions for their involvement in this, which include charges of stalking, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. Acting US Attorney from Massachusetts, Joseph S. Levy said eBay engaged in absolutely horrific criminal conduct and that the company's employees and contractors put victims through pure hell in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the

eBay brand. Imagine doing serious federal jail time because you wanted to protect the brand eBay. So get this. eBay's then CEO, Devin Wenning, the one who was sending those emails about this couple who was harassed, was not criminally charged with anything related to this, but he did step down from eBay in twenty nineteen after it all came to light. But James, the ringleader, his lawyers have said that he faced relentless pressure from Wedning and other top

executives to do something about this couple. He led that he was then pushed out by the company when quote an army of outside lawyers descended to conduct an internal investigation aimed at saving the company and its top executives from prosecution. It really does sound like this started at the very tippy top, Like he, like the former CEO,

Wedding was on those emails. So it does sound like this started at the very very tippy top, and that this behavior was not just tolerated but expected, but invited, but like all but asked to happen. And guess what that former eBay executive wedding. Even though he has not been charged with a crime, it is not like he is laying low after overseeing a company where this kind of criminal behavior happened. Today, he is the CEO of Symbolically AI, a company that he co founded that is

supposed to use AI to help writers and publishers. On his web site, he lists all the great accomplishments that he oversaw when he was at eBay, but conveniently does not list overseeing a criminal harassment campaign. Okay, so we got to talk about this new SAG agreement. This summer, actors and screenwriters were in a big standoff with studios in part over AI in what folks like me called

hot labor summer. Basically, the question was could studios use the likeness of actors without their consent to make AI versions of them they could use forever and ever and ever without paying up. Well, this week SAG after the union representing more than one hundred and fifty thousand film and TV performers, announced a deal that sets terms for

the use of AI voices in video games. So the deal is with Replica Studios, an AI Voice Technology Company, and it establishes protections around the licensing of digitally replicated voices.

Duncan Crabtree Ireland, who is sag Actress National executive director, told NBC News, I think what's really important about this agreement is the fact that it es protection for all performers at all levels in the industry, and the fact is a lot of times performers who may not be famous names really need that protection even more because their bargaining leverage to negotiate those kinds of things individually is

not as great. So one of the big pieces of how performers are thinking about the use of AI is whether or not their voices and likenesses can be used after they die, which is like pretty creepy. Crampchee Ireland said that posthumous deals are possible with the consent of whoever the estate has designated to act on the deceased performers behalf. So I was our I was sort of like set to be like, oh, that's great, that's good,

Like I'm so happy they have a deal in place. However, after doing a little more research, I came to find that a lot of performers are either a angry about this deal or be skeptical of this deal and still

have more questions. Like I went to the social media posts that were announcing this agreement, and several people were expressing frustration with this agreement and the announcement, saying that they did not feel like the Union had done a good enough job of representing their interests as it pertains to AI or even just like educating them on what they need to know about this agreement. And I don't know.

I think it's one of those stories where we will definitely keep an eye on it and give updates where there are updates. But yeah, it sounds like maybe the folks who are being represented here and the folks who are doing the negotiating there might be a little bit of daylight in between what they what both of those parties see as their best interests, and whether or not they're being represented.

Obviously it's not perfect, but like you know, I felt like at least like even as somebody who was not in the division that was on strike, like I had kind of an idea what was happening and like what the deal was, and like what the like kind of negotiation, how that was going. And I feel like there has there was a lot of like muddyins around the sag the negotiations and and yeah again like just from from my friends that are dealing with this because it's their careers,

they don't seem to be happy. And I also remember like looking at the stag Instagram hosts like look.

I'm getting this from Variety. I'm about to say this, but I'm not totally sure what it means. Dudecy coma a comedy AI that hosts a podcast and YouTube show with Mad TV alum Will Sasso and podcaster Chad Koltkin. I don't know what that means. So like is dude, see AI, like like, like what is what is the AI entity.

would have interested him today. So think of it like Andy coffin perceading Elvis, or like Will Ferrell in persuading George W.

but there you have it. So this special has Carlin commenting on things in tech that he never got to see because he died in two thousand and eight, like Elon Musk buying Twitter and Jeff Bezos's rocket launch into space in twenty twenty two. You know what they did forget to do, though, is get any kind of permission from George Carlin's very much still alive family member. His daughter Kelly Carlin, posted on Twitter saying, my dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his very human life,

brain and imagination. No machine will ever replace his genius. These AI generated products are clever attempts at trying to recreate a mind that will never exist again. Let the artists work speak for itself. Humans are so afraid of the void that we can't let what's fallen into it stay there. Here's an idea, how about we give some actual, living human comedians a listen to. But if you want to listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has fourteen

specials that you can find anywhere. So I hate that she has to make that statement, but I really appreciated it. And yeah, like you were saying, all the comedians that I feel like would not have rocked with this. I feel like George Carlin especially would not have rocked with this. Yeah, yeah, and I love George Carlin. There is a bit like I actually just finished edits on an op ed that opens with a George Carlin bit. I reference it on

the show like all the time. You'll probably are sick of me saying it, But I have gotten more wisdom and use out of this one George Carlin bit that I have gotten from anything I've ever encountered in a philosophy book or a college course. And that is his shit versus stuff bit. You ever notice how your stuff is stuff and everybody else's stuff is shit. This is

not me trying to do an impersonation with him. I literally quote it all the time, but that one there, I feel like there is more insight into the human condition and how we all live in a society together in that bit than anything else I've ever read. And it bumps me out. Like the idea of comedians or podcasters trying to re create that using AI, It's like, yeah, let the work stand for itself. Not everything needs to be a AI generated copy of something that was good.

That copy probably wouldn't even be good and his daughter's not into it, so don't do this. I just really hate this. Thanks so much for being here, Joey. Where can folks keep up with all your awesome work.

Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tegoity dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Tood. If you want to help us grow, rate and review.