Is Anyone There?

[0:00] Matt: It comes like a fleeting memory. Whatever you grab just turns to dust. Like eye contact with strangers. All right, shall we?

[0:21] Michael: Let's do it.

[0:22] Matt: Let's go there.

[0:22] Michael: To the shores.

[0:23] Matt: To the shores. How we doing?

[0:31] Michael: Well, I liked what you said. We were sitting outside and it was like peaceful. And you said, it feels like it's pregnant. And I always like that. That idea. Whenever you said that, I was just like, oh, that's cool. I was like, what does that mean? Yeah, sometimes you get that feeling right before a rain. Like it's just like it just feels. Because it's about to release.

[0:51] Matt: Something's here. Something's coming.

[0:53] Michael: Yeah.

[0:53] Matt: Yeah.

[0:54] Michael: And you can also feel that for whenever you shift from, like, you know, hot to false fall.

[1:01] Matt: To fall.

[1:04] Michael: Yeah. It's like there's sort of like this pregnant where it's like releases that cool air into the. Yeah, it's kind of cool.

[1:10] Matt: Yeah. I've been kind of feeling that a lot lately. Like, I feel like something's coming.

[1:18] Michael: Yeah.

[1:20] Matt: I don't know well what that is,

[1:22] Michael: but it's also the thing where you've kind of been chewing on something for a long time and you kind of feel like it's building up to something, but you don't know quite what it is just yet. But you feel like you're. You're kind of like close to some sort of either revelation or activation of the thing that you're.

[1:41] Matt: Yeah.

[1:41] Michael: Kind of mulling over. So I just like that word.

[1:45] Matt: Yeah.

[1:46] Michael: Feels pregnant.

[1:49] Matt: Well, let's see what there is to find.

[1:51] Michael: Yeah.

[1:56] Matt: Been thinking a lot about AI.

[1:59] Michael: Si.

[2:00] Matt: Si. That's right. Sorry, Trump,

[2:05] Michael: real quick. So I had this sort of knee jerk reaction going from AI to si. Just because during COVID we were kept renaming things. This one I'm not so, like, I'm not so anti that, but I just feel like, you know, we're changing the definitions and name of things and I kind of get the reason why we're going from AI to si.

[2:33] Matt: What do you think the reason is?

[2:34] Michael: Well, artificial just sounds, you know.

[2:37] Matt: Fake.

[2:38] Michael: Fake. Yeah. So super intelligence sounds like, okay, we're using this thing to move us forward into the future. It's a super intelligence.

[2:49] Matt: Yeah. I don't really have any strong feelings about it. I don't think people are going to stop saying AI, but I think it's a smart move. I mean, on one end, there's a lot of the P. Doomers that are worried about artificial intelligence killing us all. I think a shift to something like super intelligence makes it sound more like the tool that it is rather than something that just going to become sentient and act against your will. So that makes more sense to me. Sometimes it is helpful to rename things when you need to move them away from. Spoiled perceptions.

[3:35] Michael: Yeah, no, I get it. I think there was just such a move to rename so many things or to call things something that they weren't like anti racist. You're like, what? Like, I thought we all already were. We start disagreeing on what the actual term racism means. It's like, oh no, white people can't be racist because it's, it's about. It's about power. And I'm like, wait, didn't we all know what racism was just like three minutes ago?

[4:06] Matt: Yeah, right.

[4:09] Michael: And like, who determines the power dynamic here?

[4:12] Matt: And.

[4:13] Michael: Oh, it's you. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's you who determines that. So.

[4:16] Matt: Well, I think all of the instances that you're naming are examples of people trying to rename things in order to take power for themselves. Power of the narrative, power of superior morality or superior ethic. You know, a lot of the woke renaming of things seemed like the purpose of it was some sort of virtue signal. Whereas not all renaming is like that. I think, for example, take two stories that you and I both love. We talk about almost every episode. But Lord of the Rings and the Bible, there's many instances of things and places and people being renamed because they change as they go through their journeys. And that change is in part marked by a new name and they are also transformed by that. So that's a different kind of renaming. I think I see the logic for changing AI to SI as something like that. Now let's bring it more in line. Let's bring the name more in line with what it actually is and not our old, you know, sort of sci fi fantasy fears of what it might become.

[5:39] Michael: But you can almost say like, well, that's. That's just the lawless in the seat into sleep for our AI overlords.

[5:44] Matt: Yeah, well, you could say a lot of things.

[5:46] Michael: I know, I just play. But it's interesting you kind of make a point there that, you know, there's differences between renaming to reveal something and there's a difference and then renaming something to kind of conceal something.

[6:00] Matt: Yeah.

[6:01] Michael: Which is really fascinating to think of it that way.

[6:05] Matt: Well, yeah, it's like, why did we rename Robert E. Lee Boulevard to AZ Morton Boulevard in Austin during that time? We renamed a lot of streets and it seemed to me like that was more of like we need to rename this to conceal something. Because civil war south bad, right. Slavery bad, right. We need to forget the names of all of those people. It's like, are you forgetting about reunification? The reunification that necessarily had to happen after the civil war so that we could remain a country. These are people that we should remember. Not only because we should remember what actually happened in that time, but they were people that lost the war and conceded and stayed. They stayed a part of this country. They. They deserve to be named for that and to conceal it. It's like, no, tear down all the statues, Change all the names. Erase them from history. It's like, that isn't good for anybody.

[7:15] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's not good to. To forget. Even if it's. Even sometimes if it has a negative connotation. It's sort of. It's like, oh, no, actually, it's good to remember that.

[7:26] Matt: Yeah. Well, it's like we put museums up around the Holocaust and turned, you know, Auschwitz into a museum. It's like, never forget, right? Yeah, but we forgot about that, I guess. It's like, no, forget.

[7:41] Michael: Yeah. Even all of our intentions to remember. Starting to forget.

[7:47] Matt: Yeah.

[7:48] Michael: It's funny. So sorry I derailed us. Like, I just kind of noticed that with the AISI thing.

[7:55] Matt: We don't need any rail.

[7:57] Michael: Oh, we have a script.

[7:58] Matt: We have a script.

[7:59] Michael: Stick with the script.

[8:00] Matt: Read from the teleprompter. Well, so you sent me this song, this video.

[8:06] Michael: Totally.

[8:08] Matt: And it's so funny.

[8:09] Michael: That really rubbed you the wrong way. I was like, dude, I was like. I just listened to it.

[8:14] Matt: No, I don't think it rubbed me the wrong way. I have a lot to say about it, I think. But it got me just thinking a lot. So here's the situation. Michael sends me this song, and he goes, I like this song. And. And I open it up and It's a video. YouTube video. Or maybe it was on X. I can't remember.

[8:32] Michael: Irrelevant.

[8:34] Matt: So I'm listening to the song. I'm watching this music video, and kind of immediately I was like, okay, this song is si. It's generated by si. It's kind of obvious. And I was starting to think about why is it obvious? Like, why can you tell when a song was written by Si? I think it's because it's almost. It lacks mistakes. It lacks sort of the unexpected. And it got me thinking about this great story. There's this great story of the musician Ryan Adams when he made this record called Jacksonville City Nights. He wanted to make this Record. And he was in Nashville, and he walks into this bar, or not a bar, coffee shop. And he sees this woman who he knows plays bass. And he goes, hey, do you want to go? Come play bass on my record? And she was like, when are you recording it? He said, we're starting today. And she said, how many songs do you have? And he goes, I don't have any. So Ryan Adams is famous for doing things like this. He writes songs almost immediately. And they recorded this record live. And there's this great interview with the woman who was the bassist, and she was talking about how frustrating it was that they would do one take of the song. She goes, which, by the way, no one had ever heard the song before. He basically wrote it in the seconds before we recorded it, and he wouldn't let us do more than one take. And she goes, I remember we did this one song, and I made a bunch of mistakes. And she asked Ryan if they could do another take. And he said, what are you talking about? You can't pay for mistakes like that. And it's such a great story because it reminds you that often so much of what is good and in art and in life is the unexpected things that you would never do kind of on purpose. It gives things character. So, anyway, AI is missing a lot of that in music. I imagine it will get better at adding more variation, and at some point, maybe you won't be able to tell. But all that said, I could tell the song was AI and so I'm like, but, you know, whatever. I am a little offended by AI music. Personally. I don't like it. I don't want to listen.

[10:52] Michael: Of course, you are a musician.

[10:53] Matt: Yeah. I have a friend who sends me AI songs that he generates all the time.

[10:58] Michael: Oh, yeah, that's awesome.

[11:00] Matt: And then I start doing that. I don't listen to him, and he gets really offended. And I'm sorry if you're out there listening. Sorry. I'm going to try to be better. So anyway, whatever. It's an AI song. Fine. But then I'm noticing that the video, which I didn't at first, it didn't peg it for being an AI video. At first it looked real, but then I noticed that. So this guy's playing the guitar part and singing. And then I noticed that he was not making the finger shapes for the chords he was playing. And I was like, that's strange. I was like, maybe he's in an alternate tuning. And I was watching it more and more, and I was like, oh, no, this is AI So I went and looked him up, and I found his Instagram account and started looking through his Instagram account. And it took me a little bit, but I was like, I don't think this is a real person. I think this is an AI song, an AI music video for an AI avatar with its own Instagram account. And it kind of freaked me out because it was hard to tell.

[12:11] Michael: Totally.

[12:12] Matt: And I just thought, where is the world going when it is already hard to tell? And soon you won't be able to tell, and almost everything you interact with isn't real and there's no indication of any mind behind it. That world kind of freaked me out.

[12:35] Michael: I really do agree with that. I have two instances that I really liked this song. That's one I might have sent to you, I don't know. But this one girl, I think they kind of. She's supposed to maybe be Ukrainian, is maybe speaking Russian, maybe Ukraine, I'm not sure. But the way she sung was just. So I was just like, whoa. And I was like, it. It sounds off like, I'm almost 100 sure this is AI but then if I just, like, ignored it a little bit, I was like, I really liked it, you know? And then this other one, this other lady does a kind of a Viking songs and. And hits all these different notes and stuff like that, and it's like, oh, okay, I know these are AI But I still. I still really like it. It's confusing, I know.

[13:23] Matt: Yeah. So this is a number of years ago. I was trying to decide what criteria is necessary for something to be called beautiful.

[13:36] Michael: Hmm.

[13:38] Matt: And I thought about it for a really long time, and I decided that the only criteria for something to be beautiful is intent. It is the intent of the artist to create something beautiful, and therefore, we find it to be beautiful. Most of us. You know, you knock a pain of cant, Pain of cant, can of paint, a pain of can off of the shelf, and it splatters on the floor. You don't admire its beauty. You clean up mess.

[14:16] Michael: Well, it kind of depends. I mean, if you knock a paint. Knock a can of paint off the wall off the shelf, and it just kind of catches you for a second, like, oh, yeah.

[14:31] Matt: You might say that was kind of an interesting pattern. And certainly people do make splatter paint as art, but there's intent behind it. So what does it mean to live in a world in which almost everything that we see online is divorced from intent, Where everything that we see online is divorced from a person? There's Not a person behind it. I mean, think about it. When you really love an actor, an artist, a musician in general, you want to know who they are. Who's the person behind this art that I'm looking at? That's why actors are celebrities. That's why musicians and actors and artists have millions of followers on Instagram. It's like, we want to see who the person is behind this. It isn't enough to just simply listen to the record. It's like we want to watch documentaries about these people, we want to follow them on social media, we want to read books about them. It's like, why do we read biographies? The person behind the mind behind the thing that we love is very important to us. And we are racing into a world in which there is no mind behind anything. And I mean, I'm taking it to an extreme, right? It's not like people and things they make are going away, but people cannot make stuff as fast as superintelligence. And with no sort of barriers to all of our social media just being flooded with AI generated content, that's going to happen so fast.

[16:19] Michael: I kind of wonder just maybe a little bit of a rebuttal to this, because I do agree with you, but I kind of wonder because it's still. There's sort of certain amount of AI slop. And then I would say some of the things that you and I were just talking about is kind of just kind of almost another tier up from the AI slop. Wow. It's almost convincing. But like you said though, it's like, what was the first thing it is, who is this person? And so that's the next level. So I think there is something that you can actually find AI creative because now you're looking for the mind behind the AI. Like what. Who is directing this? Because the thing that I started going, sorry, thinking about, because I'm starting to see sort of like people almost creating a whole character around these people. And still right now we're kind of like, they're kind of shallow in some degree. But what if you created something that was like. It was almost like a movie. It was like a movie that's going to 247 or, you know, that's. That's actively engaging. So it's like as you would go to a movie theater and you'd sit down and watch a two and a half hour movie, like this could be a different type of movie where you're creating something that the backstory is getting more and more elaborate.

[17:39] Matt: And I think you're missing My point, I went looking for the guy and the guy didn't exist.

[17:44] Michael: Totally.

[17:45] Matt: Well, I think it's himself was AI.

[17:47] Michael: So, yeah, that's the point I'm making is like. It's like at this point, there's a sort of. Like, there's the absence of what the creator behind it. Like, it's actually trying to fool you that it is something. And, you know, it's like I can just see in the future moving forward is like. Is like people creating these sort of realities that you actually kind of like, as you would with a TV show, you participate in that reality, you know, almost like. Almost like a book, but it's. It's almost. You could even do, like, choose your own adventure kind of stuff, you know, which I don't. I find interesting.

[18:30] Matt: I'm. I'm trying to find. I'm trying to figure out how to connect what you said with what I feel like I'm saying, because I'm. I'm freaked out by a world in which there is no mind behind the stuff that we're interacting with. And I guess I do take your point that. Well, the prompting is the. I mean, there was a human that prompted the thing at some point. Yeah, but in this case, that person wasn't identifiable. And it's perfectly reasonable with the state where AI is. I mean, I. I have an application that I built in which I am prompting AI to write prompts, to prompt another AI to do something down the road at a point in time in which I'm not involved anymore that maybe sounded more scary or apocalyptic or like I'm going to die or something. That's not the point. It's a service that allows somebody to build a website, and at the point that person is building the website, it's like, I'm not there. And obviously. So I have AIs prompting AIs prompting AIs. And at the point that the website gets created by the AI, the prompt came totally from AI. And can you connect that back to me? And my intent, Yes, I designed the system that way, you know, but the analog to that would be okay. I design a system that automatically creates characters, gives them backstory registers, an Instagram account, fills it up with posts, and just basically invents a life. My prompt was build that system. I can't reasonably say that the output of that system has really anything to do with my intent. The mind behind that is gone at the point that that thing runs without its training wheels. And so you discover this Ukrainian right, that you love the way she sings. And a reasonable human reaction to that might be, I wonder why she sings that way. And so you go to investigate something about her life. Where did that conviction come from? Where's that kind of pain that I hear in her voice? But it's countered by courage and triumph. So I want to go learn something about her. And you go down this journey and then you realize none of this was true. As a matter of fact, none of this actually exists at all, apart from zeros and ones in a system. And it's like you're living in the Matrix, right? But it's worse than the Matrix, because at least in the Matrix, everything's either another asleep human, you know, or a bot of some kind. But in this world, it's like they're not even bots. They're just figments of some. You can't even really call it imagination. It's sort of figments of a collective imagination of humanity that the model trained on and then spit something out that we can't tell isn't real. Like, are you. Are you catching my existential crisis with this? No, that's crazy.

[21:54] Michael: Well, I think I just see more of the creativity on the other side of it. It's like, where you see it more as an end, I see it more as a beginning. So right now, I'm in the middle of a Lex Friedman episode with three mathematicians. They're at the highest of their field.

[22:14] Matt: Three at one time, three at.

[22:16] Michael: And, like, mit, Harvard, and they're doing these certain types of maths I have no idea about. But they're talking about how right now it's like all these graduate students are working on these problems that are actually being solved by AI right now. And you kind of hear this sort of reaction to it. That's not fair. Almost. It's like, it's not fair that AI is solving these problems that, you know, we as humans are sort of like, devoting our time and sometimes whole careers on solving one problem. And these guys were kind of saying a little bit of the opposite. It's like. It's like, no, we're actually going to new frontiers. Like, now that this. This. This frontier that we've kind of been stuck in for kind of a long time. It's like that's. That frontier is starting to etch away. And you can almost see this. The same idea, like, in the US are on this Earth, the planet Earth. It's like a lot of the frontiers are gone, and it's like, where do we go next? It's like, oh, when we start looking out to the stars, okay, let's go out there. And so I think in a lot of these areas that, yes, there's a lot of. I feel like the way you're saying this is sort of like the graduate mathematician who saw this whole field of mathematics before them, but they're seeing that. That field of mathematics being basically stripped away. Like, it's not. It's not. It might not. It might. Some of it might exist now, but you see the possibility of it not existing into the future. So what do I spend my time on? And kind of like, I'm not done with the podcast yet, but from what I kind of am hearing them, there's like, it's basically saying, because there's new frontiers. Like, it's. The old frontiers are gone. And so it's like, how do we move into this new space? I mean, I wonder if, like, people even thought this way with electronic guitars and it's like pianos that are not chords. They're actually like sound, electronic signals. So I'm just curious, like, more of like, as you're saying this about these characters you're building, it's like I see this, like, whole, whole idea of where, man. Maybe I can even express some of my ideas in a story form. That would. That would be. That I would not have been able to communicate before. But now I have these new tools available to me that now I can maybe even explore the depths. Because I was thinking about the character you're talking about. It's like I went to explore who it was, and it ended up being very one dimensional, you know? Well, what if you could tell us a story through AI that actually gives it multi, multi dimensions, that you can actually communicate something a lot deeper. Obviously, I'm still saying there's an intent behind it, because that would be my intent behind creating this, you know, but you're using a new tool that actually defies some of the boundaries that were there before. You know, I don't know if that makes sense, but I do, I do agree with you. I mean, fundamentally, I see what you're saying, and there's a certain morning of like, oh, this is gross. You know,

[25:37] Matt: it's. It's not just that. Is math real? Are numbers real?

[25:57] Michael: Well, I mean, it's the same thing as is language real? So, like, it's. It symbolizes something, but is it real? Like, like, what does that even mean? I think anytime you symbolize something, it's. It's not real. It's a.

[26:17] Matt: Well, it's.

[26:18] Michael: It measures Something.

[26:19] Matt: It's a symbol of something which exists. Right. What is the AI generated content a symbol of?

[26:32] Michael: Well, it's a symbol of it's mirroring reality. It's like, it's like, is a TV show real? You know, is a movie real? It's like sometimes, you know, fiction is, is truer than non fiction. I think Madeline Engel like talked about that.

[26:48] Matt: Sure. I feel like a human being is like the most real thing that we can point to on this earth. And most of us who are civilized behave that way. You know, we deserve that. Human beings deserve dignity and respect and to be treated, we have a word for it humanely. The way you would treat a human. Right. I think what I'm struggling with is we are taking that. That's sort of a core tenet. The core idea of the west, in a sense, is the realness of the human being. And we are entering into a world in which we are surrounded with representations of human beings that do not, nor did they ever exist. Can you do art with that? Yes, of course. Will lots of really great things happen as a consequence of this technology? Yes, absolutely. That's the, that's the core of what I'm struggling with here. What does it mean? It's one thing, okay, can you make AI give you a picture of a hot woman and if you show me that picture, will I go, yeah, that's a hot woman. It's like, okay, what did you just do to me? So for example, the story is once AI got good enough, you know, dudes in their dorms at colleges were creating AI avatars of hot women, putting them on OnlyFans and making obscene amounts of money. Now what is it that they did? They just hijacked the incentive structure of the male visual stimulus for attraction and monetized it and tricked it and said, do you want to have sex with this? And the man's response is, I'll pay money to see more. Okay, the this in that case is non existent. There is no this. That's the matrix. I've plugged into your brain something that tricks you and makes you think that this is real when it's not. That's a whole different thing than making art. Like if I say, hey, look at this video that I made with AI That's a different thing than purposefully trying to. Trying to trick a person into thinking that the most real thing, another human being, is actually real, when in fact it's not. And what's. There's nothing behind it. It's a deception. And who Is it that deceives? What is the spirit of deception? I mean, what is a demon? Well, you know what I mean.

[30:16] Michael: But I think. I mean, before we go way down this aisle, it's like, you know, because, like, there's a lot of things that. Because I don't disagree with you, but it's sort of like a tool can be used for many different reasons. And it's something that we've seen with a lot of technology is actually driven by pornography, like the Internet and early usage and stuff like that. I forgot all the statistics on that. That's kind of an old. Now I even want to make sure if that's even true. It's like how pornography the kind of drove the early web.

[30:50] Matt: Oh, it's 100% true.

[30:51] Michael: Okay. Yeah, I thought so, but I just didn't want to, like.

[30:53] Matt: Yeah, say it.

[30:54] Michael: So I think there's something about. Sometimes with new things, it's like, you know, there's going to be a deceptive quality to it. However, I think as it becomes more like, I guess, adapted or adopted, that then, you know, you start seeing more true art forms come out of new technology. Because, I mean, at first it's like, what do we create the. The atomic bomb for? You know, it wasn't to have unlimited energy. It was to kill people. You know, So I think a lot of times, like, technologies, you know, you know, first and foremost is to either kill, deceive, or, you know, propaganda. You know. So I take your. I take your point. But I think of it that's more of the infancy of a. Of what we're in. And it's in. At any point, whenever you have something new, it's almost like a child, you know, they don't have. They don't know the difference between whenever you play peekaboo with them, like, oh, are they gone? Oh, they're here. It's like even now, where we're seeing, like, is this real? Like, what is this? Like, what are they trying to do with this? Are they trying to deceive me? You know, motion pictures, it's like, is that real? It's like, oh, no, this is entertainment. And actually, I know I'm telling a story. No, there's not a place called Mount Doom. But it's like, what are you trying to say? Because even whenever you didn't like that song, I was like, I was more encaptured by what it was saying than whether it was real.

[32:31] Matt: Well, I didn't say I didn't like the song. Wow.

[32:35] Michael: Okay.

[32:37] Matt: I don't remember saying that. I just said, I think this is AI, which I think you took as an insult.

[32:44] Michael: I guess I didn't feel insulted. I just kind of heard you insult to the AI. Yeah, I was like, okay, now I know how you're looking at this. When I sent this, that was not my intention.

[32:57] Matt: I feel like this is the second or third time we've had a similar conversation like this. And I feel like we're disconnecting. I don't feel like I'm making my point. Well, somehow, because, okay, there's a difference between inventing, well, splitting the atom, thereby inventing both clean, abundant energy, but also the ability. What. What is clean, abundant energy? Well, it can be a weapon, right. Rightfully, we should be concerned about that. This AI case is different in that there's no rate limiting. There's a building. An atom bomb is very difficult. Even if I knew how to do it, it would be extraordinarily difficult for me to pull off. Right? So there was no danger of like, oh, we've split the atom, you know, and in two weeks, every single human is going to be able to make a dirty bomb. That was just not a realistic scenario. Right? So that's one difference. Because the thing I'm talking about now is all of our digital experiences being flooded with the output of AI. This is happening in more than one way. This is happening with images on Instagram, but it's also almost every interaction we have in a business capacity. These days, all of that texture reading is generated by AI. People aren't reading emails, they're asking their AI to read them. They're not replying, they're asking their AI to respond. So we are interfacing through an intermediary. And what we are looking at is not the product of either of our work. So that's kind of weird. And the other problem is. We won't know when we're being deceived. It will become harder and harder to know whether the person you're looking at online, whether they're real or not. So you will always have to either say, well, I just take it all as kind of art, as entertainment, basically as porn. That's kind of what that is. I mean, what is it? What is porn? You're not even experiencing your own pleasure. It's like you're watching someone else experience the thing that you want, but you can't have or don't have access to. Right? So you're living, what vicariously? And it's almost like everything is becoming that because there's not a real person behind almost anything. And so I think that's really going to mess with our perceptions. I don't think it's a matter of I either like or don't like everything that I see, because we don't just see images. We see the person in the image. We see stories, we see backstories. We see. You know, and you say there is no Mount Doom, and I guess I would counter. And I would say, no, Mount Doom is in Tolkien's head. That's where Mount Doom is. You know, Is it a real mountain? Well, you know, I don't. I don't know the answer to that. We don't have one on the map here that I could go to. But it's still quite real in that sense, in that it lives in this man's head, informed by his whole history, informed by his whole life, and that's worth knowing and interacting with. But when everything is divorced, I say everything. When an increasing amount of the stuff we come across online is divorced from that head, What is that you're perceiving?

[37:01] Michael: Well, I think you're making my point.

[37:03] Matt: Okay.

[37:03] Michael: For me, it's like, it's. I think that's why I think we actually agree a lot more than the sounding. It's like, because there is slop in the world, and then there's something that is a lot more meaningful, you know? And I think that's the part that I think a lot of. I think a lot of people are getting hung up on is sort of like, look at all this slop, you know, rather than looking at the new frontier of, like, okay, what is the story we can tell now with these new tools? Like, what can we do to communicate something greater because it is true. It's like you can be deceived for a period of time by something that's not true, but at some point, it's going to keep. It's going to leave you wanting, and it doesn't have to be AI this is something we've been experiencing from time immemorial, you know? And I think even with a lot of our media, you know, it's like they're telling us a story that's not true. And at some point, you're like, what is this? Like, you've just manufactured this whole reality for me. And then I look behind, like, who is this person telling me this? Like, whether it be like, Gavin Newsom going to the French Laundry when he's telling us how dangerous it is to go out, you know? And so. So I Think that's the part is like. It's like, yes, there's a lot of deception that is possible, but I feel like there's a. There's a. There's a new horizon that. That is possible now that we didn't have before. And I think, like you said, intention is. Is. Is still built into these types of. These types of things.

[38:43] Matt: Okay. Remember when Joe Biden was president? Who? Who?

[38:48] Michael: Oh, the auto pin. Yeah. Yeah.

[38:52] Matt: Remember how, you know, he was obviously. And I think pretty much everyone is willing to say this now in retrospect, I mean, he was pretty obviously not doing good.

[39:01] Michael: Yeah.

[39:03] Matt: And so all these conspiracies crop up. People are analyzing photos and video and saying, it's a body double, it's a clone, a lizard person. Right, right.

[39:13] Michael: Yeah.

[39:15] Matt: Great. Right now you don't have to have a body double or a clone. You just tell your AI to make a video of Joe Biden addressing the nation and you go, air that on tv. Joe Biden doesn't have to exist. Joe Biden can be dead. It's. It's not. What's that? The movie where they pretend the guy's still alive?

[39:41] Michael: Weekends at Bernie's.

[39:42] Matt: Weekend at Bernie's. It's not Weekend at Bernie's. And it doesn't require an elaborate plan. The intent behind that piece of AI is to make you think that you have a president when you do not. Okay. And it costs almost nothing to do. You can create it instantly, and you can actually have it responding in real time to inputs being made to it. So it can actually answer a person's question. It can answer a caller's question. Now scale that up to every single politician. What's his name? Talarico was gone for two weeks. They should have just made an AI avatar and had him posting every day, and then no one would ever know. What is it that you're looking at? You don't know. Is there intent behind it? Yes. Now do that to everyone, everywhere, all at once. You are living in a world in which you cannot perceive the reality of anyone at any time unless you are physically with them in that space. And I'm not saying that there's not a new frontier, and I'm not saying that good things will not happen. But I don't know how we're going to. How we're going to deal with that. And, you know, it's like, I don't think I can recover that point.

[41:18] Michael: Well, I don't. I don't. I. I don't feel like I'm negating what you're saying, because I think that's perfectly viable and true. And, and I think that will happen.

[41:26] Matt: Well, what I'm, I think what I'm trying to recover is, you know, you said AI slop. In general, we think of AI slop as obviously created by AI and of low quality. Right. But we're getting to a point where we're not. Where AI is not going to create things that are obviously created by AI. We're not going to be able to tell and it is not going to do anything of low quality. So whatever AI slop is like, you might add to that bad intention, bad prompting, all of these things, you're not going to be able to perceive it anymore and therefore you're not going to be able to tell the difference between the art and the deception.

[42:12] Michael: Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree with that. I just think that just really comes down to intent. It's like, what's the intent of the author? If the intent of the author is to deceive, then yes, I think, I think that is very true. Now, if the intent of the author is actually to reveal something, then I think that's a whole nother. It's a whole nother aspect that is, I think, going to be kind of cool, you know, and so I don't, I don't see. I see.

[42:40] Matt: Like, but how are you ever going to perceive the intent?

[42:44] Michael: Well, I think that's exactly what you're saying is because, you know, the author will be behind it saying, hey, this is my intent, or the story itself will communicate the intent. So it's like, it's not like J.R. tolkien tells you, like, you read the story and it actually communicates something that's deeply real about the world through make believe. And you, you, you connect with it in a way that you don't connect with something that is false and, you know, deceptive. You know, there's just a, it, it's a, it's just, I mean, you just hear, you just see it in how people actually identify and react to certain works of art and literature and movies and stuff like that, or something that connects, it connects in them because there's something real that it's symbolizing. The thing itself is not what's real. It's like what it's pointing to. So I think that's the part where you're going to have a lot of things that are pointing to deceptions, you know, But I think there's also a place where it can also point to something greater than itself. And I think we just know as humans what that is. You know, I do agree. I think that's. That is a scary world. Because what you're saying is like, yeah, you could have almost a whole society. You could. All your politicians could be AI and you might not know. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think that's why it's. That's why it's important that we have, you know, seating areas in the Congress and stuff where you can go and observe. You know, I remember doing that was a kid, you know, sitting in the balcony and actually observing the. The proceedings, you know, and so I don't know, because I don't. I don't disagree with you. I think there is. There's a lot of scary and crazy ideas, ways that people can use it for ill intention. But I also see that there's some really cool ways that it could be used in a way that actually can elevate the human experience.

[44:54] Matt: Sure, Certainly. Absolutely. Certainly. Did you ever watch Black Mirror?

[44:59] Michael: I got through a few of them, yeah.

[45:02] Matt: There was one that kind of dealt with some of this problem, and it was imagining a future in which AI got good enough that when you had a loved one die, you could create an AI version of the loved one.

[45:14] Michael: Yeah, we were talking about that last night at the dinner table.

[45:15] Matt: Really?

[45:16] Michael: Yeah.

[45:17] Matt: And it's exploring this kind of conundrum. It's like, well, is that your loved one that you're talking to? If it's convincing enough that you think it is, then you could make a case. Then what does it matter? And I guess what that Black Mirror episode is trying to suss out is like, well, no, the realness of that person mattered. That person is no longer there. You being deceived into thinking, into interacting with it, as if it is that loved part, that loved one. You're sort of buying the. You're buying the porn, right. It's like, what are you doing when you're watching porn? You're deceiving yourself into thinking that you're having a sexual experience when you're not. I mean, does sex matter? You know? Yes. Does it involve two people? Yes. So that's not sex. That's porn. And I'm just. I guess what I'm trying to think about is, let me add, do a bit of redefinition there in the way that I'm using that. Porn isn't just sexually explicit or nude imagery. It is exchanging the idol for an icon. It is taking something which is phony. It is perpetrating a fraud. And yet you're accepting it because you're having a response that seems like you're experiencing the good thing that you actually want. Okay, so in that sense, I would say you create an AI of your dead father and you call it on the phone every night. That's porn. If you live in a world in which every representation of another human being you see through a screen doesn't require that human being's involvement at all. That's all porn. And it's. So it's exchanging the. What might be good, for example, a relationship with a loved one with something which is inherently false and saying, because I can't really tell the difference, I'll take it. You know, can I orgasm with porn? Yes, I'll take it. But I think inherently the reason that porn is not good is because it hollows a person out. It hollows out the idea of what sex is and what sex is for and ultimately takes all of the goodness out of it. And so it's like back to, well, what's not real and what's real. If we take our definition that what the most real thing is, another human being. And then we remove from our perceptions the necessity to have any other human being behind any of it. I think we're all going to get hollowed out. And it won't take sexually explicit content to do it. It'll just take our inability to perceive the realness of anything.

[48:37] Michael: Yeah, I'm kind of on the porn thing. I get your point on that. I think it starts to. There's some gray areas that I. Because at some point you need to accept that your dad is dead. Like, it's just, that's just not healthy. And people don't. People do that, whether or not there's AI or not. Like, they don't live in that acceptance, you know, whether, like, you know, you can go back and read your, your dad's journals or something like that, you know, and just like. And try to live with him through that, you know, and try not to. And not accepting the death or whatever, you know, And I think there's something about, like, even if you were to. It's not a matter of whether or not you put the AI, you know, like, I die, my kids make an AI of me. You know, the problem is not the AI, it's. It's a. The problem is their acceptance of my death, you know, so it's maybe that the AI itself perpetuates the non acceptance of my death. And so I could see that that could also. But then I could also see it as a benefit is like. It's like, hey, you know, we took, you know, the 300 episodes and the 10,000 journals that your dad wrote, and. And my grandkids could sort of interact with a version of me. You know, it's like, I don't. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Could it be a bad thing? Yes, but I don't think it's inherently a bad thing. Like, porn is just. It's just inherently a bad thing. You know, it's like, it's. It's completely false. Where. No, there was a Michael, and there's. There's. There's all this information we have about him. And so there's. Here is a semblance of him. And I mean, I would totally be interested in, like, interacting with an Einstein or a, you know, Bertrand Russell or something like that that I could, like, have a conversation with, you know, as if it is Einstein, as if it is Bertrand Russell. But if I start treating it as it is, that is a totally different thing. And that is. But then I think where you're also kind of getting at is, do we start to fool ourselves that we're technically uploading our consciousness into AI and that now I am this other. And I think that there. There's some really gray areas there. You know.

[51:23] Matt: What? People can and do often make

[51:27] Michael: very

[51:28] Matt: serious arguments for the positive utility of pornography.

[51:35] Michael: Like what?

[51:39] Matt: I don't have them off the top of my head. I mean, go back and listen to Eric Weinstein's podcast. He interviewed that porn star, Riley something.

[51:51] Michael: Yeah, that wasn't convincing to me at all. Like, it just didn't.

[51:53] Matt: I'm not saying it's convincing. I'm just. But she was convinced by it. She clearly believed what she said.

[51:59] Michael: Oh, yeah. I mean, there's definitely arguments, but I don't think there. There's any. I mean, I'm not extreme. I don't think there's a lot of convincing. But that's just me, though.

[52:08] Matt: Let me. Let me extend it, though.

[52:09] Michael: Yeah.

[52:11] Matt: You are already making positive arguments for an AI representation of people who do not exist. Right. And I guess I sort of see it. As far as you are saying it, it's like, yeah, would it be interesting to talk to Abraham Lincoln? Of course. We do this all the time. It's like, who would you have dinner with? Past, present, whatever, dead or alive? It's a great, interesting question because it reveals something to you about a person's interests. Who would they like to spend time with? Who would they like. And if our answer is, okay, great, I can schedule a call with you and Albert Einstein. What I have just done is hoodwinked you. Well, hoodwinked your perceptions.

[53:05] Michael: Well, just by the way that you're saying that though, it's like you're actually not talking to Albert Einstein. You're like, hey, well, I have a simulation here that can kind of simulate Einstein. Would you like to, like, have a conversation with this simulation? So as long as we're calling like a spade a spade, it's like, you know, I think that's, that's something. But the hoodwinking part is, what I agree with you is like, yeah, that's not.

[53:28] Matt: But you're making, you're making an argument that consent is necessary. Like, if I consent, if I knowingly know Albert Einstein is dead, you haven't brought him back from life. You've just created a computer program that can tickle my fancy about having a conversation with him.

[53:45] Michael: Totally.

[53:45] Matt: Right? Okay, now do that to your grandkids. To me, that seems like, like I wouldn't want anybody to do that when I'm dead.

[53:57] Michael: Shoot. Sorry.

[53:58] Matt: Because. And here's the reason why. You don't know what I'm going to say. You don't know how I'm going to react. You can train an LLM on 301 episodes of Shores of Ignorance and it will still not know what I think or what I'm going to say next or how I'm going to react to something which hasn't occurred yet. What it will know how to do is convince you that it does, but it doesn't and it cannot.

[54:32] Michael: Maybe I'm being too generous. Like, I'm thinking of. And it's like, I agree that, like, I mean, with anything. There's maybe some age limits on this. I mean, that, that's, that's, that's not really the point I'm making. It's, it's sort of like, will this and can this be used irresponsible? And my answer is yes, it can and will be used irresponsibly, however. So I agree with, I kind of agree with all your points. I'm just saying that there is also a, a positive aspect to this also. It's not just all that these, these applications are bad. It's that, no, but they also can be used for something good and positive. You know, like, I would love to, like, if I had like an AI of all my ancestors, to me, I would just, I would so much enjoy it. Just be like, okay, cool, I want to kind of get a. And let's just say they had hundreds of journals, you know, and I can kind of get a feel for what it was like back then. You know, it's like, yes, I could read the journals and then kind of create a story in my head and, and, and understand the historical aspects of the times and stuff like that. To me, this is just one more factor of that. It's like, but it's like, you know, is the journal my, my dad is the journal, my great grandmother. It's like, no. Was there more to them than just that? Yes, but at least I'm getting, I'm getting some sort of information about that ancestry, that history, that what they went through, what they felt, what they, you know, it's like, it's like, is it going to be. Is it a complete model of that? It's like, no. And I think, I think where it goes wrong is kind of in what you're saying is like, is that going. We actually confuse the tool for an idol, you know, for something that's more real than it actually is. And so I think that's the part I agree with you on almost across the board, Because I feel like I'm even hearing this just with just using AI at all. It's sort of like, it's like, oh, it's always, it's always, what do you call it, dreamy? What is it, drifting or whatever it's called? Or. It's, it's just, it does all these stupid things. It's like, it's like, well, I've been interacting with all the different models and it's actually even. It's way better than your idea of AI is.

[57:05] Matt: Yeah, I mean, I'm not making any argument against using AI. I actually think that we are moving into a future in which it will not be possible to not use it. I mean, we're already living in a world where, I mean, that's the case. I'm making. Everything is being generated by AI, even the emails you receive. I think we're also going, we're moving into a digital world that's going to dramatically change in that the need for a web browser, for example, goes away. And actually the need for a desktop computer or a laptop goes away. So here's an example. You know, I've been a programmer for 25 years, been building online technology for a long time. And you know, it's like, as a programmer, what do I want? I want two 24 inch screens with a really good keyboard and mouse, you know, A chair that's ergonomic. So I'm going to be sitting there for a long time and I'm going to do these dev sessions and knock out software. Right. I still build software, but you know what? I don't need any of those things.

[58:23] Michael: Totally.

[58:24] Matt: You know what I do need and actually my preferable way to work now? My iPhone with my earphones. I don't type on a keyboard. I talk.

[58:33] Michael: Yeah.

[58:34] Matt: I don't need the screen. I don't need to sit down. I walk. I can develop a website or an application when I'm walking. I don't even need the screen on my phone. All I need is a voice connection. And I can develop software.

[58:47] Michael: And you know the vocabulary, too, and I know it.

[58:49] Matt: And it's not completely that way yet. Like, I'm still going to sit back down and review things and go over stuff. Right. This doesn't work perfectly right now, but what do you need to book a flight? You used to need to get onto a computer and open up Google, go to Google flights, use their ui, you know, try to log into your American Airlines account or United account to try to find your passenger number so you can get the rewards and then decline 30,000 upsells, you know? Right. What do you do to book a flight now? Hey, Grok, could you book me a flight to Fresno, California?

[59:29] Michael: It's like he starts doing it.

[59:30] Matt: He doesn't answer to hey, Grok. Apparently you can set your iPhone up to make it work, though. So I think in a weird way, a lot of the Internet, it's not that it's going to go away, but it's going to go headless, meaning you're not going to be browsing web pages. You're going to be interacting with everything through an AI agent, and you're not going to be able to not do that because we used to spend a ton of time and money on user experience and UI design and all of these things. None of that is necessary anymore because nobody's going to be using it. The agents are going to be using it and they're going to be doing it with code, not with eyes, with code. I used to wonder why. So I've used Bank of America for 26 years. I don't think they've made a meaningful update to their website.

[60:26] Michael: No, it's stupid.

[60:27] Matt: 25 years. Yeah. You know, it's a terrible experience. Banking sucks. But now I have my AI agent checking my bank. I don't have to log into my bank anymore. I just ask my AI agent To tell me what I want to know. And it can actually tell me things that I can't easily figure out by logging into my bank. So all of these things are going away and it's not going to be tomorrow. It's going to be over the course of the next several decades. Three weeks over the course of the next several decades. And what you are going to have is a handheld device. And you will get everything that you need from that. In a lot of ways, that's a really exciting and kind of beautiful future. In another way, maybe it frees up some of my sedentary lifestyle because of my job. Maybe it. I don't know what point I'm trying to make with this. I guess the whole, the whole point is you're not going to be able to not use this stuff.

[61:34] Michael: Well, I think it almost starts to kind of come full circle again because I think you're gonna, you're also going to sort of like the whole, you know, people use records, you know, and there's something very nostalgic and, and gritty about it. And I think there will be more demand for inhuman experiences.

[62:01] Matt: Inhuman?

[62:02] Michael: Yeah, like, or in presence or. Human experience. Human experiences, yeah, inhuman, whatever.

[62:08] Matt: Like in person.

[62:09] Michael: In person? Yeah, yeah, yeah. In person experiences. Because it's, it's, it's. Everything is so like untethered for the most part. And so I think those things that are tethered will be more sought out after. And I think maybe just because it's like a little bit of a microcosm. But I see that at the gym that I'm at. It's like, especially with younger people, it's like having opportunities to have in person events and you know, barbecues or just get togethers, you know. And it's something that I think people are seeking out to do.

[62:48] Matt: Yeah, I think so. I hope so. I see a lot of services actually cropping up, being advertised about in person social networking events. But your point about Analog records? I have always loved Analog as a musician and I want to explain why. And it's not, it's not about nostalgia, it's about the physicality of it. And I don't mean the physicality of holding the record or putting the record on the table. I mean that like simplify the concept, you know. Thomas Edison's first recording audio recording machine. Basically a round cylinder of wax, a big sort of megaphone thing that is connected to a needle and you spin the wax and when you speak into the megaphone, it vibrates the needle and the needle cuts into the wax. Then when you reverse it, basically put the needle into the groove. Now that's cut and spin it again. That needle vibrates the air and that gets amplified out of the thing and you hear a representation of what was said. That's exactly what happens with a vinyl record. When the musician sings, it vibrates. Basically a needle. There's an elect. It's transmitted not direct needle into the wax, but through electricity. That electricity makes a direct imprint on a magnetic tape. That direct imprint on the magnetic tape is then etched into the vinyl. So that sound wave that's being read back by the needle on my record player, it has a sort of direct connection to the moment that artist sung. Take all of digital music. Digital music is not a direct representation of what was sung. It is basically connect the dots. Instead of the needle moving back and forth in response to the airwaves moving and creating an indent, it's sampling, it's saying, tell me where that needle would have been at this point in this second. Where would it have been in this point in this second? And we say, well, as long as the resolution of your connect the dots is high enough, people won't be able to tell. And that's true. But for me, once I know that, once I know what you're playing for me is not the direct re presentation of something that happened in the physical world, but a very sophisticated connect the dots such that I believe the picture I'm looking at is real. I think that's the same kind of deceptive deception that I see underneath this world filled with AI content. And I'm looking at it at scale and at speed. Again, no rate limiting, not like the atomic bomb. And at scale meaning every single person has it. So that was an interesting example.

[66:30] Michael: Yeah, I think it's. I mean, again, there's. But there's just no substitution for being live. Like, no one will ever hear that song like it was sung that day.

[66:43] Matt: Right.

[66:44] Michael: And it's like even just our conversations, like, hey, Michael, what did you and Matt talk about? I'm like, okay, well, we talked about this, this, this and this and this and this. It's like I'm representing, representing what you and I talked about, but it's not the same as being in the room when you and I are discussing it.

[67:02] Matt: Yeah.

[67:03] Michael: And so I think that's the part that we long for too. You know, it's like we want to be in the room with people experiencing things in real time and. Yeah. And you know, but then there's also benefits to this Sort of like technology that we've. That we have. Like, I mean, for me, it's like I have access to thinkers I would never have had access to 200 years ago.

[67:31] Matt: And so by means of the Internet,

[67:34] Michael: you mean just technology in general, whether it be books or, you know, because, like, even to get a book, you know, 200 years ago, you kind of had to be pretty rich, I think, to. To have the book, you know, and then most thinkers never had their thoughts written down, you know?

[67:49] Matt: Right.

[67:50] Michael: And again, it's hard because then there's also the problem of, again, book slop. There's, like, so many books out there and sort of like, well, how do I know what to read? And a lot of you like, oh, well, we'll start with the classics. It's like, oh, okay, I'll start with the classics. So the classics are for a reason, you know, they've stood the test of time, you know. But I don't even read any current authors. I think the Red Rising is one of the first, like, current. Is it contemporary writers?

[68:20] Matt: I've.

[68:20] Michael: I've. I think it's in the last, you know, 10, 15 years or whatever. Yeah, I guess maybe like Wheel of Time was. It started in the 90s, but there just very few, like, because it's like, how do you even just pick something from all of the crap out there, you know, like business books and that kind of stuff. There's like. There's just so many, and. But then it kind of gets filtered out through people, like, hey, I read this book, and if I hear it enough times from certain people I admire or respect, then it's like, I'll pick the book up, you know, but it's got to go through a. I feel

[68:55] Matt: like I want to leave well enough alone, but I want to give you. I want to try two more things. All right? And I want to use. I want to use.

[69:05] Michael: I just shot that through my nose. That's hilarious. I'm going to try two more things.

[69:09] Matt: I want to use books, and I want to use art.

[69:12] Michael: Okay.

[69:12] Matt: Okay. When you go to an art museum, you go to the Louvre, you see a Picasso. Pretty cool, right? Pretty cool experience. Is it possible for people to create art that looks like it's Picasso? Yeah. I mean, you have to be somewhat kind of talented. You have to understand kind of deeply who Picasso, how he was, how he made things. But it's like I could feasibly, somebody could paint a painting that looks like, oh, this is a undiscovered Picasso, but it isn't you just made it up, right? Okay. Like, if I tried to sell a painting as if it was a Picasso, but it wasn't a Picasso, everybody would want to figure out, is this a real Picasso? Like, we care about the origin of things. We care that a Picasso is a Picasso and not a fraud. Right now we live in a world in which I can nearly instantaneously flood the market with things that look like Picassos that aren't Picasso.

[70:32] Michael: Basically. NFT craze similar to what you're talking about, it seems like, well,

[70:42] Matt: okay, try the book angle.

[70:45] Michael: You can keep. I'm sorry, I mean, to catch up on that one.

[70:48] Matt: There's book slop, right? Where do you start? How do you know what to read? Well, read the classics. Read Shakespeare.

[71:00] Michael: Lebis.

[71:02] Matt: What's Shakespeare and what's not. In a world in which I can train a model on Shakespeare and say, create a new play every day, create a new play every minute. How about that for the next year? Now, the Internet is full of things that look and sound like Shakespeare, but they're not Shakespeare. And how do you figure that out? We know, right, because we read all the stuff. And the stuff is the corpus, the cv. The record of what Shakespeare wrote is complete and knowable. And it's that way for every author. But we're looking at a future in which that's not the case anymore. Shakespeare can continue writing plays. Tolkien can continue writing Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth trilogies. Isaac Asimov can continue writing his foundation series without limit. Right. And you might say, well, that's kind of great. I'd love to read more of his work. But then how much of it would have to get put into the market before you would go, no, it actually matters that I read what is his work. Just because I can read something that AI generated that sounds enough like him that it tickles. That part of my brain doesn't mean that that's his. He did not write that.

[72:28] Michael: Yeah, I mean, that's totally true. I think that's like, in some instances, I'd be curious in some of those ways, it's like, what would it look like if Asimov's World was continued on? It's like, that's not Asimov, you know, but it's. It's. It's extrapolating from Asimov and projecting different futures or ideas from that. So I would be. I would actually be curious. But then I think there's a difference between that and just slop. To me, sometimes it doesn't really matter if it's in Some instances, whether it's human or AI it's like, what is it communicating? Is it communicating something true? And I think that's more important to me than whether it's AI or human. Is it communicating something true? And I think there's another part is this, you know, identifying that, like, with the artist. It's like, well, no, Shakespeare work is Shakespeare work. And the others is just extrapolations from Shakespeare, you know, Like, I don't think that, like, that unless you're gonna, like, try to deceptively sort of offate that line and saying, oh, no. Like, you're saying, like, oh, no, this is a Picasso, or this is. Well, that's just lies and deception. It's like. It's like, obviously, like, that's not something that, you know, we want, you know, but it doesn't mean that if it's done really well and it's honest, then I don't. I don't think I have a problem with it, you know, but if it's deceptive, I do have a problem with it. Like, no, this is Picasso. It's like, no, it's not Picasso. Like, Joe Biden is coherent. That's like, no, he's not coherent. You know, it's like. I think it's like. It's like, what is the intention? Is it the. To deceive or to. To tell the truth? You know, And I don't think it. I don't think matters to me what tools you use to do that. But I think it also just really. Even just the authors themselves, like, there's a certain amount of, like, oh, wow. Well, I would not have the context of this if there was not a Tolkien, if there was not a Shakespeare. That's like, hey, right in the form of Shakespeare. It's like, well, who's Shakespeare? I would have to make up that person altogether in order for the AI to have the context to even imitate Shakespeare. So I think that's still possible today and will be possible in the future, but we'll also have different tools to do that. I think there is, in the way that we interact with. AI will also produce original content because it's reacting from the originator. But then also, if the originator is deceptive or shallow, it's going to mirror that also, I would believe.

[75:43] Matt: I don't know. I find it. So many crazy scenarios to imagine.

[75:55] Michael: Well, I think, too, is like. Because this might be too far in the episode to do this, but I. I see this sort of, like the spiritual element of this and the Connection. Is and can be problematic in one sense, in that if we're sort of using all these things to distract us from reality. That's totally true. But you can do this before AI came along. But if it does it become easier, like Netflix and endless amounts of TV that I can now watch, it's like, it's so much easier. Or scroll or whatever, I can disconnect from reality, you know, but these, it's not that the shows or the TikTok or the X or any stuff is necessarily bad, but if it, if it, if it gets out of proportion, then it can be bad. And so I think that's the part that it's like any tool. It can both be good.

[77:03] Matt: Well, I think the difference is, you know that when you, when you sort of check out of reality by going on Instagram and scrolling, you are in a sense checking out of your own reality by checking into someone else's

[77:18] Michael: or their manufactured reality.

[77:20] Matt: Yeah, and it is manufactured. It's curated, you know, but if what I'm check using to check out of my own reality isn't someone else's reality, it's not just manufactured and curated by that person trying to show themselves in a certain light. It's literally every pixel on the page is not a representation of anything that ever existed. So I'm not checking into anyone else's reality. So in that sense, it's far worse. I'm not even connecting with, you know, anything which ever had another real thing on the other side of the screen.

[78:02] Michael: Well, I would just, I mean, I, I just keep coming back to the same argument before is like, like, what is that? What does it point to? To, you know, something is because, like, again, there's a lot of influencers, and that's like, they're. They're actually not. They're lying to you. The whole thing is a lie. And, and is that any different from an AI? You know, it's like. Or could you have the same thing where someone is like, honestly trying to communicate through this medium? Kind of like what we're doing on this podcast is like, we're trying to honestly communicate through this medium. And what if you used AI to do the very same thing, is like, to honestly communicate something about reality. So, like, intention, I think, has probably the biggest impact on these new tools. And like, with anything at the very beginning, it's gonna, it's just mayhem, you know, And I think, I think as we get more accustomed to this, that will start to wield these things more expertly. Some will be able to wield it more expertly. And they'll. And they'll. They'll stand out, you know, it won't be my music. It's like, there's so much freaking music out there. You know, it's like. It's like, how do I get to like, what. You know, it's like. But it's also been beneficial because there's a lot of artists that you would never heard of that are amazing and. And. But there is a lot to sort of wade through in order to get to. To that music, you know? Well, I like this. No, this is good.

[79:41] Matt: It's giving me a lot to think about.

[79:42] Michael: Well, I think we've, like. We've kind of like painted this really huge landscape of, you know, what is AI and sort of the harmful effects of AI and the deception of AI and the idolatry of AI. But then there's also. My view is like, there's also a place where it can actually enhance our experience. And, you know, I think it comes down to, like, what are. What are you. What are you aiming at? And I think if you're aiming to know the truth and what is real, I think any of these tools can help you in that. But if you're wanting to deceive or escape, then these tools will also escalate that sort of like. It's sort of like hyper escalation. As we get further and further, further in the future. It's like everything makes all the things possible faster and more available, and so it makes the error greater. Like the nuclear bomb, you know, it's like. It's like as we move into the future, it becomes as if we do all hold a nuclear device in our hand for ill and for prosperity.

[81:00] Matt: All right, well, ready to. All right, put it down.

[81:04] Michael: Sounds good. All right, love you guys.

[81:07] Matt: Love you all out there, so stay safe.

[81:08] Michael: Bye.

[81:09] Matt: Cheers. Touch grass.

[81:13] Michael: Touch grass.

[81:26] Matt: It's like a marine.