Tech News Weekly 388 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

0:00:00 - Emily Forlini
Coming up on Tech News Weekly. I'm Emily Forlini from PCMag. I'm filling in for Mikah. We're going to have Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from the Verge talk to us about a robot vacuum she tested with an arm that had mixed results at picking things up. Then we're going to talk about my story of the week, which is about what the heck is going on with Fisker EVs now that the parent company is bankrupt and there was a recent implosion with the two groups that were keeping those cars running, and we'll be back with Jennifer. She's gonna tell us about some tech. She did really love wireless charging for a smart lock which kept it on and no battery replacements or anything super cool. And finally, we have Lauren Goode from Wired talking about a huge story this week, which is the partnership between Sam Altman and OpenAI and Johnny Ive, former Apple design exec, and they say they're going to build a new mysterious device that is going to change our world.

This is Tech News Weekly, episode 388, with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and me, Emily Forlini, recorded on May 22nd 2025: OpenAI's Big Bet on Johnny Ive. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where, every week, we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. We have some amazing reporters here today. I'm Emily Forlini, from PCMag. I am filling in for Mikah, who is hopefully having a wonderful vacation, and with me is Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from the Verge. Hi, Jennifer.

0:01:34 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Hi, Emily, great to be here. Wish I was also on vacation, but this is the second best thing.

0:01:43 - Emily Forlini
So are you like me, where you have a segment every month on TWiT as well? Yes, okay cool. So we're like soul sisters. We just haven't come together. Yes, perfect, very nice to meet you, you too so you did some really amazing testing. I was reading through your articles. You actually are testing like the coolest smart home stuff. I think so. You are the one I'm going to talk about this. Tell coolest smart home stuff. I think so. You are the one I'm going to talk about this.

0:02:08 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Tell me about this robot vacuum that has an arm. Yes, yeah, I've had a wild couple of weeks in my smart home. So I think a few months ago on this show we talked about Roborock releasing its first robot vacuum with an arm. They actually debuted it at CES and I at the time I was like, yeah, right, as if this is going to ship. But it showed up at my house and I've been testing it for the last couple of weeks and the concept here is this is a regular old robot vacuum. If you're familiar with them, they roam around your house, vacuum and mop. But one of the problems with robot vacuums is, if you haven't tidied up after them, they may suck up a sock or get trapped by a wire. And the idea behind this Saros Z70 is it has a robotic arm that pops up from the middle of the robot and picks up things that are left in its path in order to be able to finish its clean, which sounds both kind of wildly sci-fi but also really quite practical.

0:03:13 - Emily Forlini
Yes, like robotics in a whole, nother level of it, plus the robots already zooming around and now it's like taking actions with this arm.

0:03:20 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Exactly it's like this. It's a real evolution of what the robot vacuum can do, and you know the next step obviously legs, and then you know taking over the world. But we'll get there. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well.

0:03:36 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, so what did you find that it was good at, and what was it not good at?

0:03:40 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So, just off the bat, I have to say I was very impressed, like as I said, when they showed this off at CES, and actually another robot vacuum company, dreamy, had one there too that had an arm. So this was kind of you know a trend, and it does look gimmicky, it sounds gimmicky, it's kind of fun though, but it actually does. The concept makes sense. You know, even no matter how well you are, you do at tidying up your home or you know which, I spend a lot of time picking up stuff so that my robot vacuums will run, because I test a lot of robot vacuums. So you know I was like actually this does make sense. The problem is it only picks up three types of items or granted ones that are quite common to be found on the floor socks, light shoes like slippers and sandals, and then paper or like tissue.

0:04:33 - Emily Forlini
So you know this isn't quite limited. It might worry you when I walk in the door. Yeah, I don't know what I'm putting on the floor. It really could be any object at least, or something.

0:04:44 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Clothes could be any object, at least teeth or something Clothes and Roborock says. You know, this is all still a work in progress. The arm will at some point be able to pick up more. It's powered by AI, because robot vacuums do have. Many current ones have AI powered obstacle detection, so they detect obstacles and decide what to do about them.

The most interesting way this has been used to date is with pet poop, so to make sure that they don't run over pet excrement. If you are unfortunate enough to have that happen in your home, they can detect it and go around it, versus detecting popcorn and be like, okay, that I need to vacuum. So this is sort of a step up. There's a camera inside the arm that detects and identifies the object and determines whether it can pick it up. So, for example, there was actually a picture. Ah, well done, thank you that.

It saw my rug tassels and thought, oh, this is a sock, and tried to pick it up. But then there's also a weight sensor, because the arm can only lift up to 300 grams, and once it tried to pick up the entire living room rug, it realized that wasn't going to work and thankfully he put it back down. So it's got some element of machine learning here and intelligence and it just wasn't very accurate. It kept missing shoes. I only got it to pick up a shoe once, which is kind of the biggest thing that I wanted, because I have teenage kids, which means I have shoes all over my house, and it just wasn't any good at the shoes. It was good at the socks, but it would only ever pick up one sock on a run.

0:06:19 - Emily Forlini
So the video is doing it.

0:06:23 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It's pretty strong. It's very slow, but it's methodical and it does what it says on the tin Just not reliably and not enough for this to be useful. And did we mention it's $2,600? For it to be worth spending that much money, it needs to do a lot more. I do think the potential is here. This is you know it is a beta project robot, even though they're selling it. I mean, essentially it's a test case. People that get this are just doing it. If you buy this, don't expect it to clean up your home, but you will have some fun watching it. You can also remote control it. So you know you could get two and you could have full on robot wars. If you just like to spend your money on crazy things, absolutely.

0:07:09 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, so where's I'm going to watch this video? It's putting it in a in a bin. Yes.

0:07:15 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So this is the other part which I thought was was really quite neat is you can program it to tell it where you want the specific items it picks up to go. So socks and like paper and tissue could go in this bin and then shoes are supposed to go in a designated shoe storage zone. And now this is where it failed me completely, because the one time it did manage to pick up a shoe, it did not manage to get it in the shoe storage zone. If and when they managed to fix this concept, I would love. I mean, the idea is, you know they put it, picks up the shoes and puts it all by the front door and everyone knows where their shoes are on Monday morning when it's time to go to school.

0:07:52 - Emily Forlini
It labels them and puts a little present inside and says hope you have a good day at school.

0:07:58 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Oh no, then it's going to replace me entirely. No, it could never.

0:08:02 - Emily Forlini
So how did you tell it the shoe designated zone? It take a picture and upload it to an app, or how does that work.

0:08:08 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So robot vacuums all come with an app, and actually Roborock has one of the best and they map your home using LiDAR detection and this. Actually, this robot has a really advanced form of mapping and navigation which I was very impressed with and it is actually a very good vacuum, I should mention that. But yeah, so the app basically maps your home and then you choose the areas where you're going to put the box and where you're going to where you want it to put the shoes. You don't have to use the box, but the box was kind of fun, so yeah, so it will put it in. In theory, it knows from the map where you want it. Yes, so here's my kitty. My kitty did enjoy the robot. My dog did not enjoy the robot. My kitty tried to play with it. My dog likes to eat our socks, not swallow them.

0:08:56 - Leo Laporte
It was competition.

0:08:58 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
But it was competition. Yes, he was not pleased that this robot was stealing his toys, taking his job.

0:09:03 - Emily Forlini
He got automated before our eyes.

0:09:06 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
But yeah, it was fun to test. I'm really interested to see where they take this. I think there's going to be, you know, a lot of upgrades, firmware upgrades to it. Hopefully it'll get a little more intelligent. The hardware felt solid. It felt like it was much better than I was expecting. It looks kind of spindly and like it might break, but you know, gus did have a go at getting the sock out of its claw and didn't succeed. But yeah, the software, you know they need to get it in people's homes and improve the AI algorithms and recognizing the items and hopefully expand to more items. It was like we never picked up my slippers because it thought that they were pet poop. So my slippers are actually really nice, so I was quite offended by that.

0:09:59 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, wow.

0:10:01 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Different style, I guess. So it's, as I said, work in progress. Exciting to see this sort of type of really quite advanced robotics be in consumer homes like this is something you can go buy if you have a spare $2,600 it was supposed to be cheaper when it first came out it was only $1,900, which sounds crazy, but is actually what the going rate for some of the top of the line robot vacuums.

So Roborock wasn't charging a significant premium for what is a significant premium addition. But they said, as we've heard from a lot of smart home companies and other tech companies, um, that because of the tariffs, the price had to go up. So yeah $2,600 is a lot.

0:10:48 - Emily Forlini
Whenever I see that, it's just so disappointing and it's kind of scary because it's creeping up everywhere and you have no idea to know, like oh, I'm paying $600 more than I would have had to just last week. And then it's like does it match the percentage of the tariffs and where is this thing made? And you're just kind of go, I'm just going through this whole set of operations and it just ruins the purchase process and just such a bad vibe, the whole tariff thing.

0:11:15 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
I know it's and you know it's interesting, though, because Roborock hasn't launched, hasn't raised the prices of its other robot vacuums, it's only raised the price of this one. So it's interesting to see how the different companies are approaching this. I've seen a number of companies say that they're raising their prices soon, so go buy their products now, which?

seems like good advice, but also like almost like using the tariffs as a sales tactic and, yeah, it's definitely gonna affect the smart home significantly. I've seen a number of companies I'm trying to think off the top of my head which one I saw just recently that has that says everything's going to go up 70% oh, lorex, which is a smart home security company 70 is a lot.

Yes, that's not a joke, that's like, like almost I'm basically doubling the price yeah, although I think you were saying it was 70 from their current sale price, so not their current msrp, but still you know you're gonna be paying 70 more in a few weeks.

0:12:16 - Emily Forlini
It's all funny money.

0:12:17 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It's like what I know it's, um, it's, it's definitely something we've been watching closely. I've spoken to a lot of manufacturers who you know they're just bouncing all around because one minute it's definitely something we've been watching closely. I've spoken to a lot of manufacturers who you know they're just bouncing all around because one minute it's tariffs are 140%, next they're 30% and then it's like, well, most of them, especially in the smart home company, in smart home realm, a lot of them moved to Vietnam and other countries after the first round of tariffs, but now obviously they're seeing impacts there. So it's yeah, it's a kind of a game of whack-a-mole for these companies right now and we're waiting to just sort of see how much impact it's going to have on on the consumer.

0:12:54 - Emily Forlini
It's just this little robot vacuum is getting caught in an international trade war.

0:13:00 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yes, poor guy, at least it can defend itself.

0:13:05 - Emily Forlini
I kind of imagined it like speeding down the road, throwing socks behind it, like bananas and Mario Kart.

0:13:12 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
I wish.

I could have got it to do something like that. Unfortunately they've, and I'm sure some people are wondering if there's a concern around. You know, could it pick up the wrong thing? Like you saw, it did pick up the tassel on the rug instead of a sock, but I did try and trick it a few times with things that it really shouldn't pick up and I think it's actually more inclined, it's less, it's programmed so sort of tightly there's more likely to not pick up a certain type of sock because it doesn't you know, it doesn't really fit its rigid algorithms. So they've really doesn't really fit its rigid algorithms. So they've really focused on this being safe and not going to be great for TikTok videos, right, doing crazy things. But I'll keep trying and I'll let you know if I get it to do anything. Sorry, I wasn't going to be able to pick up my cat because it wouldn't stand still long enough.

0:14:03 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, this just opens up. I can imagine their engineers are like putting all these random objects in front of it and putting safeguards like yeah, the way it interacted with your rug is actually smart. Like it had that little light tassel it could pick it up, but then it hits a snag it's too too heavy, it just drops it like that worked pretty well, right yes, yeah, it did and yeah, it had a couple instances like that where it realized it couldn't proceed and was able to sort of retract.

0:14:27 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
There are safety buttons so you can press it like an emergency stop button on the robot. So if it did happen to do something you shouldn't, you can stop it right on the device. And then the arm itself, which is like a five-point axis. It has sensors all along it so if you put your hand above it or underneath it, it won't close or raise. But then this was another limitation so it won't pick up anything that's under something. So it can't pick up socks if they're under the coffee table, or it can't pick up a shoe if it's under the sofa. So again, I would say it was probably about 40% successful in picking up things from my house, which just is not enough success for that price point. Even if it was a bit cheaper, it's still not enough.

0:15:13 - Emily Forlini
Well, I hope that somebody listening runs a sock factory and this is like the best product they've ever heard of an expert sock picker-upper just go around the factory floor. That might be best case scenario, all right, well, very cool. It was a really fun piece. Everyone should go read it. Jennifer doing God's work in the name of science out here. We're going to take a quick break with an ad from Mikah, and then we'll be right back with my story of the week.

0:15:40 - Mikah Sargent
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0:17:57 - Emily Forlini
All right, Thank you, Mikah. Mikah on high, Mikah on vacation. So my story of the week is, I think, a crazy story. When I came across it I was just like this is so nuts and it's about Fisker electric cars. Have you heard of Fisker, Jennifer?

0:18:14 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah, Didn't they go out of business?

0:18:16 - Emily Forlini
Yes. So they had like the most epic rise and decline. So it started in like maybe 2015,. A European automotive entrepreneur, you know, was going to make this Tesla rival. He has a long track record. He raises tons of money.

In 2020 at CES, they debuted the Fisker Ocean, their first car, and all these EV fanatics are like, oh my God, it's so cool, it was just like the coolest thing. And this is kind of around the time like Rivian and Ford were starting to think about electrification. So this was a very exciting time for electric vehicles. And then they debut their first car in 2023. And by 2024, they are bankrupt and they had this stunning public decline and so, basically, before they went bankrupt, they shipped 7,500 Fisker Oceans to customers around the world.

So US, europe I don't know a couple other countries. So there's a bunch of people out there with these cars that they spent 70, $80,000 on that now have no parent company. So, as part of the bankruptcy, they initially filed for chapter 11, which they would, you know, still be in the mix. The parent company would be involved, but they were in such dire straits it eventually converted to a chapter seven and now, like they're really just not there's no Fisker like kaput, but these cars are still out there and these people so this is like the ultimate nightmare in the smart home.

0:19:52 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
This happens too often. But a car? This is not a small investment, but the cars still work right.

0:20:00 - Emily Forlini
You just don't have, so I'll. I'll get to that. That's like that's actually the story, but you're right, it's a cautionary tale.

0:20:08 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It really is, and this is something. I've wanted an EV for a while and I'm really interested in some of the more new companies. But my husband's always like, but what if they're not around in 18 months? I'm like, ah, this is. I don't want him to read this story.

0:20:26 - Emily Forlini
Yes, yes, but you should send it to him. But, um, yeah, it's a cautionary tale, like just the. The big issue was the software and that's why it applies to every product category. And you're right that the fact that it's a car, the stakes are so high. Um, of course, if you're buying a 70, 80,000 car, you're an early adopter. I think you have the money, but you're still pissed. So basically, the cars are running, but running.

But a group of owners formed what they called the Fisker Owners Association and they partnered with this other company called American Lease, which is not very well known. It's just that they are a rental company and they rent out cars for taxis and Ubers and Lyfts, so it's just kind of like a car service. And for whatever reason reason in the courts they make this deal that American Lease is going to be able to get the licensing for Fisker's software and they're going to kind of vend it out to this Fisker Owners Association and between these two parties they are going to keep the software alive for all these owners. So it's been this like crazy renegade effort. The Fisker Owners Association thinks is pioneering a new form of car ownership where the actual drivers have access to the code base, they can actually make adjustments and so they're like wow, this is like crazy new and cool. American lease is kind of like these cars were cheap. American lease is kind of like these cars were cheap and also this is cool. Let's like see what happens. So are you following?

0:21:50 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It's great that they did this. I mean and I've seen this happen once in the smart home as well like where you know the owners, the users, banded together, and this is something that we need to see more of with connected devices and like I think that Stacey Higginbotham, friend of the network, has repeatedly talked about this being like companies, when they start up, they should like put their code in like escrow, so that when something, when or if and I know companies when they first start up don't want to think about going out of business, but the odds may be not in your favor they need to plan for this type of it's like a prenup.

0:22:27 - Emily Forlini
You know you hope it doesn't happen. But like, what are we doing if it happens? Yeah, so the story I wrote is basically last week there was a yet another stunning fallout in this whole Fisker saga where the Fisker owners association and American lease have soured the relationship so much to the point like so much bad blood has happened that they have formally broken up. An American lease abruptly pulled the plug on software access for the cars. So now the car runs, you can charge it. It cannot get OTA updates. It does not have.

You know, used to have like internet through T-Mobile, all these like AWS, azure capabilities, like all the fun stuff. The reason they bought the car. Now it's just a ticking time bomb rolling down the street in terms of like, if it needs maintenance, it can't get that software update. Like it, just what you have is what you have. So they're, I would say, kind of screwed. Like they're just so. The story basically outlines how both parties now hate each other Like they. I had these crazy phone calls with both of them. The accusations were wild, like oh, the Fisker owners association is trying to get money from people Cause they're collecting dues and the Fisker owners association is is like American Lease, is like mobsters and they're fraudsters. And it was nuts yeah.

0:23:51 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Sounds like a sort of Hollywood melodrama, absolutely. I think I noticed some people say you quoted someone saying this could be a movie. It does sound like it would be a good one.

0:24:00 - Emily Forlini
It does.

0:24:00 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Where's Fisker in all of this? Have they helped at all, or are they just like we're done?

0:24:07 - Emily Forlini
Well, it's just so crazy. Yeah, like, where is Fisker? And they're probably watching this. You get the popcorn out, like, oh, somebody else is failing, you know, but it's really Henrik or Heinrik Fisker's fault to some degree. Like he started this whole thing. He raised a bunch of money, he put these cars on the road and they actually weren't viable, like it just within a year, collapsed and now all these people are out here just trying to pick up the pieces.

0:24:36 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah, so what is that? I mean, what's the? What's the next step? Like, are they, are they just screwed, or is there a way that they, that these? I mean, it's great that they've formed their own association, so it sounds like they have some kind of collective bargaining power here, perhaps to do, you know, salvage something out of this situation? It sounds like the number one rule here was that they they should have had a contract yes, so right, exactly because this is where kind of all went south like no one was really.

I don't know very much. They maybe weren't on the same page. No, they were not. In this kind of scenario, when you're and this is you know, this is good lesson for any startup, you know, if you're, when you're creating the prenup, make sure you get all parties to agree. Make sure you get all parties to agree, because, yeah, this sounds like things really. I mean trying to involve two organizations that really had nothing to do with the original product to keep it alive and keep managing it. It was such a great goal. I think it's wonderful that they tried to do this, but you can see how it was somewhat doomed from the start.

0:25:46 - Emily Forlini
You can see in hindsight. Yeah, so basically what happened is in October, november, december timeframe they figured out the software solution and really started working together in earnest. And then American Lease was footing the bill. American lease is footing the bill. So you know, the FOA, which is what the Fisker Owners Association, makes a $500,000 payment to American lease in like February timeline, but meanwhile American lease is just paying all these bills like Azure bills, aws bills, and in May no April like last month American lease sends them an email and they actually forwarded me the email chain. So I saw like all the dirt on this whole exchange and they, american lease, sends an email All right, we've spent like over $800,000. Here's the breakdown Like, you guys need to pay us because your, your members, are supposed to be paying your dues every month, and then you are using those to pay me, to pay my tech bills. And then they negotiate all right, well, you're operating some of these cars for your taxi business, so we're not paying for that. Here's what we're going to pay for. They propose paying $515,000. And everyone's like great, and then the FOA is going to pay.

But then something happens at the FOA and this is where it's like, I know power to the people, like good for them. But there is some disagreement in this organization because on the email chain this one guy, guillaume, proposes the 515. And then, like kind of weeks go by and the American lease is like, hey, guys, still paying your bills, where's the money? Didn't get a wire yet. And then another one steps in and is like, oh, guillaume's not a board member, he couldn't propose that.

And now they're backpedaling and they apparently they did not like American lease. They had botched a huge software upgrade, left cars just bricked around the world. So they've lost full trust in American leasease. They're like we don't have a contract and we're cool to pay you, but we want to check in with our members if we even want to keep working with you after that. So they're kind of stalling. They're like, oh, we're going to put it up to a vote and it's just bad blood everywhere. And in that American Lease, just like this is the final straw, they just pull the plug and the relationship. And so that was last thursday oh so.

0:28:06 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So what's the state of the cars now? Everything's fine, but going forward there won't be, although they bricked the cars in may. No, they work they work.

0:28:15 - Emily Forlini
I realized I didn't answer your question about like what now? So, yeah, they work, but I don't have any of the premium connectivity and I can't get any maintenance and a lot of in an ev. A lot of the maintenance is software, so it's just like not. As I said, it's a ticking time bomb. But now these two organizations are still feuding, they're not going to work together. But american lease is going to work on its own connectivity plan and the foa has engineers in its core and they are. They say they've learned all about the cars ever since, like the recalls and the bankruptcy. They know how these cars work, their engineers, they're going to tap into the system.

0:28:52 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
They're going to build their own connectivity plan oh you know, they need to go and talk to home assistant. I bet home assistant would help them out. So it's an open source connected home platform. But yeah, there's a lot of connection between the home and the cars, obviously. But, honestly, the FOA when I first saw that, the first thing that sprung to mind was HOA, like a homeowners association, and all the drama that comes with something like that. Exactly, it's got to be hard for. But this, I tell you a key takeaway from this when especially for anyone listening who pays subscriptions for any of their services in their smart home and doesn't like it because I know many people complain about having to pay for subscriptions for, like smart home cameras or for, you know, any of your services things cost a lot of money to maintain and if you want those products to keep working, you're probably going to have to come to terms with the fact that it's not always going to be a one and done purchase that you are going to have to help continue.

0:29:53 - Emily Forlini
And I think American Lease didn't realize how much it was going to cost. I don't think the FOA realized how much premium connectivity features really cost. And once the bills hit, everyone was like whoa, whoa, whoa whoa.

0:30:07 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah, it's not cheap to have smart products.

0:30:10 - Emily Forlini
No, it's not. These are some of the most expensive cars, expensive products in the world. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. So it does make me think like am I an early adopter? Will I ever be? I don't know. Do you consider yourself an early adopter, early?

0:30:26 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
adopter. Will I ever be? I don't know. Do you consider yourself an early adopter? I'm an early adopter through my job. I'm not sure I would be if I was.

You know, going out and buying just products for myself in terms of, you know, getting to test, you know, robot vacuums with arms and other kind of cool products. It does make me realize how much of this, especially in the connected world and now with AI, is being released to consumers very much still in like a better state. You know we're not. It's not like the products of old that you know gone through a lot of R&D and manufacturing before they were launched, because once they were out there companies couldn't change them, so they had to be up to scratch, top notch, before they got to the shop floor. But now we get products that, again, you know it's a good thing in many ways. You know it's a good thing in many ways.

So I may have a device that, like the Nest thermostat, for example, when I first bought it it didn't work with Apple Home and then it got a map to upgrade and now it can connect to Apple Home. So you know, updates and product changes with connected devices can have benefits, but they can also have, as we've seen, a lot of negatives. But I also feel like a lot of companies have gotten to the point where they're shipping products before they're completely done because they want to see how they work and maybe get feedback and then sort of iterate and improve and there's benefits, as I said there. But it needs to be good first, then improve it. Don't send it out half done and expect to improve it once it's out there.

0:32:06 - Emily Forlini
That's an amazing point. Yeah, I think for us, and like everyone listening, she's like what do we accept? Sometimes it's hard. They blur the lines oh, you should like this because it's going to upgrade and you know your car will never feel old. You can keep the same model but all the software will get better and it's kind of like what are they selling us? And like where is this going?

0:32:28 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
And it is so confusing. Yeah, yeah, and it's. I mean, it's a brave new world for manufacturers and for us as consumers, because, yeah, benefits pitfalls. But we've really got to always sort of keep that, that clear line. And I think it's fine to be an early adopter, maybe with, you know, a robot vacuum, but I perhaps wouldn't choose to be an early adopter with a car just because you know the larger the the product is, the more you're risking and the more danger. And obviously this doesn't this doesn't sound like it had anything to do with any concerns about safety, but I would be concerned about buying a vehicle that wasn't necessarily 100% tested or had software that might have some quirks that could cause some issues.

I think there's levels that consumers are willing to put up with, and an interesting thing I've seen though I've been seeing a lot now just sort of in the vein of this is companies, well-known companies, launching products first on Kickstarter and rather than you know, kickstarter used to be for like strappy bootstrap boot yeah, it's strappy bootstrapped startups, it's a lot of P's Strapped to people, and that was what it was all about originally. But now I'm seeing companies like Eufy and Switchbot and this is in my space well-established brands who will launch their products on Kickstarter, sort of being a bit more transparent about the fact that they're releasing products in sort of a beta state and then you can adopt, you can choose to maybe pay a bit less and help them develop the product. I think that's a. I think that's quite a smart way of doing it, because then the consumer is kind of like, okay, I've signed up for this and I kind of got a discount, hopefully to help them out and for early adopters that's fun to get to try these new products and give feedback.

But yeah, it's a crazy world connected devices and software and I think we really honestly we're going to need and this is something going back to Stacey Higginbotham and she's now working for Consumer Reports and there's a lot of pressure, or the Consumer Reports and a few other organizations are putting a lot of pressure on the government to come up with some type of legislation around how connected devices are regulated in our homes to help specifically with issues like bricking devices that are in our homes and that, can you know, you bought a product and then a software update or a company goes out of business and they shut it down and it no longer works either at all or the way you expected it to, and we don't want to see more and more of that. We want to see less of that, hopefully.

0:35:06 - Emily Forlini
Exactly, yes, exactly the point, all right. Well, that's a cautionary tale for everyone. Your PSA for the week. We're going to take another quick break with an ad from Mikah, and then we're going to be back with Jennifer's second story of the week.

0:35:23 - Mikah Sargent
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0:37:03 - Emily Forlini
All right, thank you, Mikah. So for our next story, Jennifer, you tested something that you actually liked and you felt like was a positive advancement, so can you tell us about that?

0:37:13 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah, so my house cutting edge technology here over here. This is something that if you've been sort of following consumer tech for a while, it's sort of like the unicorn. You've probably heard about this for years and years and thought it's never actually going to happen. And this was one of the reasons I tested this to see if it really is real. And I can say it is and it is something called wireless power. So this is a company called Y-Charge. I tested their wireless powered devices.

This is a little black park that you can see in the picture there, that power, low powered, battery powered devices over the air with transmitting wireless power. It's short range, low power. It uses infrared lasers to connect to, like a photo, a specially designed receiver, ir photovoltaic panel on a receiver. And there's only one commercial product that you can buy for residential consumer today that it works with and that is the Alfred smart lock. Alfred is a smart lock manufacturer based in Canada. So I got to test that smart lock with the Y charge receiver. You can see it in that picture there the little white sort of thing in the ceiling is the wide charge device sort of angled towards the lock, and then, if you zoom in and see all the smart home sensors on my door. You can laugh at me. That's my goodness.

0:38:48 - Emily Forlini
What are all those doing?

0:38:51 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
That's because I test a lot of smart security systems, smart all sorts of stuff. My house is Frankenstein, but yeah, a lot of the comments on the article were about that photo. Yes, welcome to my world. Everyone Robots, lasers and sensors Kind of looks like.

0:39:12 - Emily Forlini
I've been watching Last of Us. It's like a cordyceps infection, but it's but it's smart home sensors.

0:39:20 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
But yeah, what this did for my scenario. I test a lot of smart locks and one of the biggest problems with smart locks is battery life. They are a great concept. I love having a smart lock, being able to access your door with a key code, let anyone in and out, let anyone in remotely. With an app you can control the lock remotely and there are other ways it has. It works with. This lock specifically works with readers, so you can sort of tap a little tag. There are a lot of great smart locks out there, but the majority of them need to be replaced. The batteries need to be replaced about every four to six months and there have been a few.

0:40:03 - Emily Forlini
That's frequently.

0:40:04 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It is and it may not. And for me I admit it's a bigger problem for me because I have a lot of smart locks I'm testing, so I find it very frustrating. But even when you first get a smart lock and you're like, oh, this is great for two months, and then you get the battery warnings and you're like, oh, this is great for two months, and then you get the battery warnings and you're like, oh, I'm gonna change that, I'm gonna change that. You never get around to it.

0:40:23 - Emily Forlini
And then one day you walk up to your door and it's dead which is totally unacceptable, by the way, yeah, it should not happen it's like we all change our smoke alarm batteries right when they start beeping, don't we?

0:40:36 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
um? So, and there are some workarounds, like yale has a little thing where you can use a nine volt battery to kind of jolt it to life so that you can unlock it, and some of them now have usbc um plugs outside. So if you have like a portable battery pack you could, but the idea, ideally you do not let it die, right? Um? And that is what this we wide charge device did for this alfred lock. I had that installed on my back door for nine months, which is the maximum amount of time that, well, the minimum amount of time that the Alfred battery apparently will last, because it's a Bluetooth smart lock, so it doesn't die as fast as some of the Wi-Fi smart locks do. And at the end of the nine months it was still at 100%.

0:41:18 - Emily Forlini
Wow, so it was beaming charge from the ceiling into the door and keeping it Into the receiver, yeah which was then powering the battery pack inside the lock.

0:41:28 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
And this is what's so exciting for me about this technology is that it could work for anything that's battery powered in your smart home smart home and whilst it currently would require as it did for this lock basically a complete redesign of the lock in order to incorporate the receiver, the company is working on easier ways of adding sort of like a dongle or something to a device so that you could power it with the transmitter, which is in the ceiling. You also don't have to put the transmitter in the ceiling, but that is sort of the cleanest install and you can actually just put it in a an existing can light, so you don't necessarily have to cut a hole in your ceiling. I did have to cut a hole in my ceiling yes, so how much did it cost?

0:42:12 - Emily Forlini
and then, how much was the installation?

0:42:15 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
so this is the other thing. The we, the white charge unit is not currently available to sort of just go buy off the shelf. You have to buy it through the Alfred Lock Partnership, and again it's like a better program and it takes, they told me it's between, depending on your installation and your system and exactly sort of what your setup is it's sort of between $400 and $700 to have it installed. It cost $ dollars for me to have an electrician add an extra hole in the ceiling and connect it to an existing light wiring light system in my downstairs back hall there, and then the unit said would. There isn't a specific price for the unit, but somewhere somewhere between $400 and $700. And then the lock itself is a $300 smart lock, which is about it's on the high end for a smart lock.

But when you buy the wide charge kit that $400 to $700, it comes with the new receiver for the back and a new battery, especially modified battery, and a new battery, a specially modified battery. So in total, though, it cost me $1,250 to do this, which is not tenable, obviously. But if I could use that transmitter to power the smart shades in my bedroom, which is right next door to that door, to power another lock, maybe even power a video doorbell. There are so many devices in my bedroom, which is right next door to that door, um, to power another lock, maybe even power a video doorbell, like there are so many devices even your phone, like if it was just in the top, like a ceiling light and just beaming out charge.

Yes, that is something they're exploring, Although that is a lot a bit more complicated than a low power single device that doesn't move.

0:43:57 - Emily Forlini
Right. And also you wonder, is it?

0:43:59 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
toothbrush charger is the other thing. Yeah, but you see, that's a great. This was a great use case, because this is the bathroom. As you can see, I do not have GFCI outlets Please don't tell my local council but, yes, a toothbrush charger. This, unfortunately is not something you can buy. It's a prototype, but they say they are going to try and bring it to market.

Um, there's basically y charges, partnering with companies to get them to develop their products to be able to work with their transmitters, um, and this was sort of a prototype that they built and it was great, although it wasn't very waterproof, so it did die after a few months, but until then it meant no, no wires.

You know, it'd be great for battery, for shavers, electric shavers, any things in in spaces where you really would rather not have cables and wires. And you know, for, as as a smart home reviewer who, as you could see from the sensors on the door, has multiple devices in my home that use batteries, anything, if I could, you know, install three or four of these around my house and not have to ever worry about changing a battery or charging a battery or buying batteries and then the e-waste and it would be, it would totally be worth it. If you know it could be a little more affordable and a little easier to do. But again, early adopter, but the concept is great and I was. I enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to worry about getting locked out of my back door for almost a year.

0:45:22 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, absolutely, and you tested it for nine months, right, that's actually a year in total.

0:45:27 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So after the nine months I was, I took the battery. I took the wide charge device down to just to make sure that the current battery wasn't like a trick one, you know. So we drained it and then we left it to see if it would just recharge on its own. My editor was like that's a photo, photovoltaic panel, maybe it's just charging with solar power. And this is all a scam. It was not, it didn't charge, um, and then so we tested it like that for a while without anything. And then I put the WeCharge the WeCharge. I just want to call it WeCharge.

0:46:03 - Emily Forlini
I'm sorry, ari, I think you can just call it WeCharge.

0:46:05 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
I think it's okay, but it is so. Then we plugged the WeCharge unit back in and it took about a week, but within a day it got it back up to 58%. Within a week it was back to almost 100%, so it powered it up. It powered it up pretty fast and then it's also interesting because one of my other concerns was that it could you know if you're constantly powering a lithium ion battery. Is there a safety issue? Is it going to degrade the battery? Like, am I going to have to be replacing an expensive lithium ion battery every year or two?

And the company Ori Moore is is the founder of one of the co-founders of Y-Charge, and he said that and actually I was talking to both him and Alfred Bradcook, who is one of the people that works at the Alfred Locke company, and they said that they'd worked on sort of a charging algorithm that actually optimized the health of the batteries so that, in fact, if long-term using one of these receivers and transmitters, the battery should actually last longer than it would do if you had been manually charging it, so basically could last the lifetime of the lock, which is another bonus. So, yes, I was excited by this tech. I just feel like it's probably not something everyone's going to be using for a long time, Right.

0:47:24 - Emily Forlini
I'm excited about this tech too. I see this and I report on this for electric vehicles and they're testing it for that too, these huge battery packs. And yeah, there are concerns about is it efficient or is it not? How does it power up slower than plugging in? So these are all the same questions and again with the car thing, it's like on a bigger scale. But they're testing it and I think I think wireless charging, if it can be safe and efficient, would be a major, just usability breakthrough. So I'm I'm definitely interested and I I'm a little bullish on it, like I think people would like it and that it'll be here in 20 years. I think I can safely say that.

0:48:03 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah, 20 years feels reasonable. I think Y-Charge would tell you it's going to be sooner. But I think commercially we'll see it more Like. One of the other use cases they had is as they've actually deployed this in places Like, I want to say, somewhere like CVvs or wargreens, but some kind of pharmacy. So they have the y charge receivers, transmitters that send to little um digital displays, so for updating pricing, um.

0:48:30 - Emily Forlini
So I mean no, I don't want them to increase my prices wireless chargers hold on. Yeah, yeah it. That's not what I was signing up for.

0:48:38 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah it helps them. And, you know, display like advertising, billboards, digital billboards, those types of things, things that are hard to actually wire, that sort of seems like a more viable use case in the short term, but in the long term I would definitely love to see wireless charging, wireless power, come to the home. Love to see wireless charging, wireless power come to the home. I've also tested not tested but seen and I'd like to test soon uh, key wireless power, which is um where you, which probably is is more contact. So I think this may be where I don't know what, whether the ev situation is, but this is um batteries in countertop appliances. So you have a specially designed countertop where you put your appliance, like your blender or a toaster, on the countertop and it powers it up so you don't need cables. Cool and that I think. I saw that demoed at IFA this last year and it's from the Wireless Power Consortium.

The key charging no, key, it's not. There's chi and kiium. The key charging no, key, it's not, there's chi and key. Oh, the QI. Qi is for the phones, key is for the kitchen. Ah, okay, and that's pretty neat. I could definitely see, ah the kitchen, right the kitchen.

I could definitely see. I mean I have too many cables in my kitchen, you know, for all the appliances.

0:49:59 - Emily Forlini
In your kitchen.

0:50:00 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
My kitchen Not doing well with the talking today.

0:50:05 - Emily Forlini
I'm sorry. No, it's me. I'm like antagonizing you. I just think it's funny.

0:50:10 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
I know it is. It is awful, key chi. We We've got them all.

0:50:16 - Emily Forlini
All right. Well, we're going gonna wrap it up. Watch the space, Jennifer. You're brilliant. You're testing all the coolest stuff that we can't even get. So where can people find?

0:50:25 - Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
you? Yeah, well, you can read all these stories and more on my author page at the vergecom and that's the best place to catch up with me. Um, I'm also on the threads and x and what's the other one? Oh, blue sky. Um, as um, jp2e or the smart home mama. Um, on those various platforms, and great to hang out with you today, Emily, glad we got to meet and um maybe Mikah can stay on vacation and we can do this again sometime yeah, we should, we should.

0:50:56 - Emily Forlini
This is so much fun. Um, thank you. Yeah, all All right, so we have another quick message from Mikah and then we'll be back with another story. That is pretty big in the news this week, so you're going to want to stick around.

0:51:09 - Mikah Sargent
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0:54:00 - Emily Forlini
All right, thank you, Mikah. So up next we have Lauren Goode from Wired, who's going to talk to us about a huge story this week. Hi, lauren, how are you doing? Hey, Emily, I'm doing well, how are you Good? So you wrote about this crazy huge partnership between OpenAI and a former Apple executive, johnny Ive. So why did they partner and what do we know about this so far?

0:54:22 - Lauren Goode
I think crazy and huge are the right adjectives to use to describe this. This was like a bomb dropping yesterday on Silicon Valley, in a good way, like a design bomb, a hardware, like a hardware announcement you know when's the last time we sort of got excited about one of those. So what we understand about this partnership is that it has been in the works in a sense for a little while now. It was last spring when Johnny Ives' design firm first announced this entity called IO that was sort of partnering with OpenAI to create this next generation of devices that serve AI as we know, ai now in the modern era. By the end of last year, openai had taken a 23% stake in this IO entity that existed and then yesterday we heard that OpenAI was buying that entity outright for, you know, something like $5 billion in equity. Essentially, it was one of the world's most expensive acqui-hires in that they were hiring this incredible pool of talent.

But the interesting thing is that Johnny Ive, while he is going to be leading the creative process of whatever hardware development you know comes from this, he's still going to remain independent. Hmm, why do you think that is? I think it's because he's Johnny Ive and I think you know, given his history and his background and his pedigree as a designer and the fact that he does have this other design firm called Love From, which is something that he created when he left Apple in 2019. I think he probably just wants to remain independent. It probably doesn't make sense for Johnny Ive at this point in his career to become completely embedded in OpenAI, but he has really kind of structured this incredible deal for himself where he gets to work closely with Sam Altman and the team at OpenAI. He gets to have closely with Sam Altman and the team at OpenAI. He gets to have a sort of design control over whatever ultimately comes out of this partnership and this merger now. But I'm sure he still has the ability to go work on other things if he would like to.

0:56:30 - Emily Forlini
Right, right and what's he most known for. I mean Apple, everything, apple, everything, apple, the Apple design shot on iPhone, the whole thing, All those campaigns, yes, basically.

0:56:43 - Lauren Goode
I mean he joined Apple in the 1990s. At some point he became its head of industrial design and he really helped define the sort of sleek, industrial, unibody, aluminum era of Apple design that we really associate with the company's hardware over the past two decades. I mean, he's also he's British. He is known for having very refined tastes. He's very exacting. You know, when he was at Apple there were some, you know, reports of the fact that he had such fantastical ideas around how our devices should look and feel and how thin they should be and how parts should be glued together and all of this that sometimes it did sort of butt up against what engineers were sort of physically able to accomplish in designing the products. But you know, I think we all think of Apple products as having this incredible design and he's largely responsible for that. He was also, during his time at Apple, kind of meme worthy Like. Do you remember the? Was it unapologetically plastic? When they made a plastic iPhone and everyone was like, okay, what does that mean?

0:57:50 - Emily Forlini
Like it's too far, yeah, yeah.

0:57:52 - Lauren Goode
It was a little bit, yes, but but that you know that is. That is Johnny Ive.

0:57:56 - Emily Forlini
Wow, so he's a legend. Sam Altman is a quickly made legend. Here. He's kind of like the new guard and now they're both partnering. So what are the mix of opinions you're seeing about this, like, are there the skeptics who are, oh, they won't do it, they're just dreamers, they won't do anything about this? Are people who are really excited, like, what's the spectrum?

0:58:20 - Lauren Goode
Yeah, that is a really good question. There is certainly one potential outcome of this, which is that, because of Johnny Ives' incredible background and history as a designer, that something comes to fruition here that really does feel innovative or changes the way that we use technology, and I think you could easily argue we could all argue that the hardware market is ripe for that kind of disruption. We've all been using our glass labs for a long time now. They serve us really well. They're impossible to detach from. People have designers, technologists, engineers have toyed with different form factors.

Now Nothing has really taken off the way that the smartphone did, and so would it be interesting and fascinating to see something else emerge from this. Sure, and, as Johnny Ive, this legendary designer, and Sam Altman with his billions and billions of dollars in venture capital and institutional funding, the right partner for this, quite possibly, and so there's some folks who are feeling optimistic about it. On the other hand, the video that the duo released yesterday the nine-minute, 22-second beautifully produced video of them hanging out in the legendary cafe phased zoetrope in San Francisco. They talked about the new era of computing that we're entering with AI and how technology has changed their lives. They didn't really talk about the product that they're going to build. It was a lot of gesturing and hand-waving and like, wouldn't this be great? And we don't really have a sense yet of what it is.

Sam Ullman has expressed ambitions in hardware before this. Johnny Ive obviously produces consumer tech designs and hardware, and also I think the Wall Street Journal reported late last night that Sam Ullman did sort of give a speech to employees at OpenAI, giving some sketches of you know, some outlines, some metaphorical sketches of what this thing might be, but we don't really know what it is yet and so we won't. We'll believe it when we see it right. There's also that mindset because in Silicon Valley, like we can talk about the Humane AI pin. I'm sure what happened there, which was two former Apple employees who got together and raised a bunch of venture capital and kept promising this revolutionary device that was going to give us an alternative from our phones, and it sort of crashed and burned and so it's a hard problem to solve.

1:01:02 - Emily Forlini
It absolutely is, and you're right. People have been experimenting. There was a humane pin, the rabbit pin. Glasses are really big. Right now I saw my colleague is testing one AI device that kind of goes in your pocket like a pocket protector, but it's kind of like recording your voice, and so there's all this experimentation in this space right now and it's like what lane are these guys going to pick?

1:01:26 - Lauren Goode
Yes, exactly. Are they going to go with a screen? Are they not going to go with a screen? Is it just going to feel like an echo that sits? You know an echo speaker that like sits on your desktop while you're working in response to questions? Is it going to go in your car? Is it going to have biometric sensors, like there's so many? Um, and what value add is there? Right?

Because I think what we're seeing with some of these hardware devices that are trying to capitalize on the AI moment is that they're purporting to solve a problem that doesn't really exist and maybe are over-engineered or, in some cases, even oversimplified. You also have to wonder about what happens, then, to the data set that is ultimately captured or generated from this kind of device, because, in a way, you know who owns this next wave of hardware is also the person or the entity that owns our next wave of data, like we're. You know, we're beyond the sort of sweet summer child phase of believing that technology is just a tool. All of these internet connected devices are capturing information about us in the world around us and then processing it and can be, you know, sometimes misused. And so this is it's not only can you get the hardware form factor right and it is. It's something that people actually want to use, but how are you approaching the amount of data that is now being taken from us and processed?

1:02:45 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, and I think that's the big difference between when the internet was first coming up and the first version of Silicon Valley. Now they have all this baggage and we all know all these problems and now they're trying to compare it to like the advent of the internet. But that means oh no, like all these problems we've gone through since then, you're just going to put us through that again. And so I feel like it's like that innovation period, but it's a little heavier.

1:03:11 - Lauren Goode
It is, it is, it totally is. It feels like, you know, this is my personal sort of feeling about this and so I can't project this onto anyone else, but it feels like we're sort of in this mourning phase kind of, or a correction phase from the 2010s era of tech, when we were all sharing freely and trying all of the new gadgets and the smartphone was really doing pretty amazing things in our lives. And it's like every time someone comes to the funeral and is like okay, it's time to party, there's a new thing coming out. You're sort of like, well, wait, I'm still literally processing what just happened with all of the data that we gave away. And also you sort of have to ask and try to answer the question well then, who should I trust next? Who can we trust to build this next generation of technology? And so you know Johnny Ive and Sam Altman, with their beautiful black and white buddy photo that they put out, you know, like they hired a photographer's kind of engagement shoot vibes, Honestly it really was.

It really was. Yeah, I saw, I saw a tweet last night I have to admit it was like a pretty good tweet where someone said this is the, this is the um. It said like you're a part of our family now, and the tweet said this is this is like what the notice that you got just before your your um bid on a Pacific Heights home gets rejected. So, yeah, that's kind of what it looked like, yeah.

1:04:37 - Emily Forlini
I mean it's, it's all very exciting. I I think there could, it could be nice to not carry around our phones all the time. I do think you're absolutely right that there is some innovation here. Like it's not perfect, like we're all staring at these phones, we're hunched, like chiropractors are getting a ton of business. There's carpal tunnel, I mean it's. Sometimes I look around on the on the train and I see every single person on their phone and I'm like what are we doing? You know it. Just it feels like there's a next step.

1:05:11 - Lauren Goode
It would have been nice if they had hinted at what they were going to do, right? I, yes, I think so. I think there have been hints along the way, and now it's just what are your predictions.

Yeah, so Sam Altman seemed to indicate to staffers at OpenAI that it's something that you're not necessarily going to carry on your person, but might be in a more stable environment. So that makes me think something on the desktop, something that's at home, which is why I referenced you know what, if this just ends up being like another version of an Echo? Yeah, and my guess would be screenless, is my thought?

1:05:51 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, that seems to be the trend. Yeah, what do you think? I mean, I'm just thinking. I actually had this crazy experience. Yesterday I went to a brain implant company and it was totally nuts. I'm actually still processing it. It's the first time I've spoken about it, but I'm writing a piece on brain implants and that is like the most futuristic thing I've ever seen and it it's kind of like all these devices but it just you just removes the device and it's just like in your brain and that that is. It's like you know the glasses your hands free. It's kind of like if you put these new AI glasses, but they're like in your brain and there's a whole new data set and the data set is like your thoughts and how they map to actions and stuff. So I'm just thinking about that Cause I'm like fresh off of that. But I I agree, if you step way back from that, you know there's no screen. Um, it definitely would be hands-free, like you wouldn't be holding it. I think that's that's the sense I'm getting from the tech industry.

1:06:51 - Lauren Goode
Do you um? Is this Neuralink? May I ask what company were you? It was not Neuralink.

1:06:57 - Emily Forlini
Yeah, it was a competitor and it's um it's called Synchron and um a much more easy kind of installation, if you will. And so, yeah, I don't know, installation like it's window shades.

1:07:14 - Lauren Goode
I know, just put a chip in my brain. Would you do it?

1:07:18 - Emily Forlini
No, I wouldn't. We went straight to the bar after this interview. It was like we got to what is going on. So I I definitely would need a minute, but, um, I mean I don't know if they're, I don't think they're going to go that far. I think they're probably many steps before that. Maybe, yeah, something that goes in your pocket, I mean, maybe it could go in your skin. That'd be crazy. We talked about wireless charging earlier on this show, but I don't know.

1:07:50 - Lauren Goode
I, you know. It's interesting when you say that about the brain implant, because if this device ultimately serves what Sam Altman's vision of AGI is artificial general intelligence, that moment when AI supposedly will surpass human intelligence, then what does it mean to have that sort of juxtaposed directly with our human intelligence? Do you want the brain implant and now we're taking five leaps ahead do you want the brain implant that has AGI capabilities embedded in your very human you know?

1:08:25 - Emily Forlini
basic brain, right? Well, that's what he's saying. If he wants to truly achieve, like, how big are his ambitions? Cause it does feel a little bit like just launching some rinky dink pen is like a little womp, you know that hasn't really, and even in Echo.

It's kind of like yeah like we'll let Amazon figure that out, like it still can't, you know, set a timer properly. Like let's let Amazon do its thing with the echo and it's, I don't know. There's just, we'll see, we'll see, but I guess I guess jury's out. We can, we can take guesses from anyone who's listening.

1:08:59 - Lauren Goode
Yeah, I often like to say that some of these men in Silicon Valley and it is often men are just racing to propose solutions to the problems that they have helped create. And so you know, when you think about this idea, that we're so surrounded by distractions. You know, notifications around us, screens around us all the time. Or we can't let go of our phones. You know, notifications around us, screens around us all the time, or we can't let go of our phones. You know, we are a set of human beings who had enough ingenuity and creativity to create that thing, and so we've created this, we've put it into the world, and now there's going to be a new generation of people who are selling us on solving it.

And the idea of AGI is like it's so fascinating right now. It's such a big topic of conversation, and who believes in it? Who doesn't? Who's calling it by a different name? When it's going to happen? And I would just like to remind all of these men in Silicon Valley that we're all going to die anyway, folks. So you're all, you're all good, you're all still going to die. I don't know how to tell you that, but there's your. Yes, that's true, that is so true. So maybe pick your head up from your screens sometimes and, um, you know, be kind to the person next to you and go touch some grass.

1:10:12 - Emily Forlini
All right. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for coming on. Everyone should go read your article. It is so thorough. All of your work is really interesting. Um so if people want to keep up with you, where can they find you?

1:10:23 - Lauren Goode
I am on Blue Sky under Lauren Goode with an extremely long handle, because that's what Blue Sky handles are, and if you have tips on anything you're hearing around Silicon Valley, not PR pitches, you can also find me on Signal. My Signal handle is in all my bios. Okay, perfect, thank you so much.

1:10:40 - Emily Forlini
Thank you so much. That is the end of Tech News Weekly. This show publishes every Thursday at twit.tv/tnw. That's where you can go to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats. I'm Emily Forlini, senior reporter for PCMag. You can find me all over the internet, especially on Blue Sky at Emily Forlini and my bio page at PCMag. You can see all my work right there. Thanks again, and Michael will be back next week. Bye.

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