This Week in Google 722, 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.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for Twig this week in Google. Jeff Jarvis is here. Aunt Pruitt's in the house. Stacey Higginbotham's here. We'll talk about two Supreme Court cases. One that's bad for cyber stalking victims. One that's good for Google. The AI battle centering on China now. How a movie company plans to use AI to decide what films to make and what's happening to T C M. It's all coming up next on Twig

Stacey Higginbotham (00:00:29):
Podcasts

Leo Laporte (00:00:30):
You

Stacey Higginbotham (00:00:30):
Love from people you trust.

Leo Laporte (00:00:41):
This is Twig this week in Google, episode 722 Recorded Wednesday, June 28th, 2023, the Rupert Murdoch of Hotdogs.

(00:00:53):
This episode of this week in Google is brought to you by the AWS Insiders Podcast. Search for AWS Insiders in your podcast player, or visit cloud fixx.oria.com/podcast. We'll also include a link in the show notes. And our thanks to AWS Insiders for their support and by Brook Linen Summer is in full swing. And Brook Linen is here to help you swap out winter warmth for easy breezy comfort, where their award-winning sheets and home essentials. Visit brook linen.com today and get $20 off plus free shipping on orders of $100 or more with a code twig and buy a c Learning. Cios and CISOs agree that attracting and retaining talent is critical with an average completion rate of over 80%. Your team deserves the entertaining and cutting edge training that they want. Fill out the form@go.acilearning.com slash twit for more information on a free two week training trial for your team. It's time for Twig this week at Google the show where you talk about everything but Google there'll be a little Google in the show today. Hello everybody. I'm Leo LaPorte. Thank you very much for filling in for me. Jason Howell last week, I ran out the door, went to Disneyland and VidCon together. Stacy had the week off too, but she's here today. Thank you. Stacy Higginbotham.

(00:02:17):
I'm glad you're here, Stacey, because I had to, I have questions for you actually.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:23):
Oh, are they about chips or broadband?

Leo Laporte (00:02:25):
They're about home. Automation <laugh>. But I'll get to that. Ooh, even better. Yeah. She is the host of the IOT show with Kevin toefl. Also, her website happens to be Stacy on iot. So I guess you might know something about I o ot. I know

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:39):
A little something about that.

Leo Laporte (00:02:40):
A little something, something also with us, Mr. Ant Pruitt hands-on photography. I'm sorry. No longer a show, but Ant still with us. Thank God. He is the city manager of the still here. Still strong. Still strong. Damn it. Staying strong. In fact, you're gonna big day tomorrow, you're gonna do Stacey's Club at 9:00 AM Pacific. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> the new in la new right item,

Ant Pruitt (00:03:02):
Bushey Tale

Leo Laporte (00:03:03):
Book. The Transformers. Yeah. Then at one Amers Pacific Terraforms and at 1% 1:00 PM Pacific. You're gonna interview Hugh Howie. Yes. Who is the author of Silo.

Ant Pruitt (00:03:14):
Yes. Well, the author of Wool

Leo Laporte (00:03:15):
Wool, which is the Silo

Ant Pruitt (00:03:17):
TV series. He's is based

Leo Laporte (00:03:19):
Based on wool books. Wool. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. that's gonna be great. I'm,

Ant Pruitt (00:03:24):
I, I'm pretty pumped about

Leo Laporte (00:03:26):
That's now do you fit in the triangulation chair? Have you tried it yet? I

Ant Pruitt (00:03:29):
Can sit in those chairs, but man, they're on the Dagg gum floor. Might as well just sit on the floor.

Leo Laporte (00:03:34):
<Laugh>. Well, you do. If you wanna sit there, you could take the Dr. Evil chair. That's probably

Ant Pruitt (00:03:40):
More comfortable. I still don't know how you sit in that chair either.

Leo Laporte (00:03:43):
Well, what's wrong with

Ant Pruitt (00:03:44):
This? The Dr. Evil chair? That is not, they

Jeff Jarvis (00:03:45):
All hate your, that chair. Really? Yeah. They all say it when you're gone. Won't

Leo Laporte (00:03:48):
Know that. Oh. You know why? After 15 years it's sculpted to my figure. Oh,

Ant Pruitt (00:03:52):
So it has your ass groove in. That's what it is.

Jeff Jarvis (00:03:55):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:03:57):
I can't get comfortable in this thing. I don't understand. That is Jeff Jarvis. He is the Leonard Tower professor for journalistic innovation at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:10):
May, may I be so crass plugged now. Cause I have,

Leo Laporte (00:04:13):
The day has come

Ant Pruitt (00:04:15):
The time. Tomorrow is

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:16):
Pump day has come. I just today got a discount code. Oh, my friends

Leo Laporte (00:04:20):
Here now that I've already bought it.

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:22):
I know exactly. But they just gave it to me. So it's, it's tgp JJ 23 U us

Ant Pruitt (00:04:29):
Know you,

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:30):
Parenthesis, JJ 23, US or uk. Where

Leo Laporte (00:04:34):
And where do we use that?

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:35):
Thank you. 25% at

Leo Laporte (00:04:36):
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury.

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:37):
If you go to gutenberg parentis.com, go to Bloomsbury

Leo Laporte (00:04:41):
And click the Bloomsbury link. That's the purple link. P Oh, it's on the it's actually on the website. Put it there. Yeah. You don't have to even worry about it. Don't write it down. It's right there. Just copy that. Oh, nice. There. Good. Paste it in. Okay. My

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:54):
Son did it. Good,

Leo Laporte (00:04:55):
Thank you. 25% off.

Jeff Jarvis (00:04:57):
25% off.

Leo Laporte (00:04:58):
Well, I paid full price at Amazon, but that's okay. Mine comes the 30th day after tomorrow. It's

Ant Pruitt (00:05:04):
All good. It supporting the creators.

Leo Laporte (00:05:05):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:06):
Well,

Leo Laporte (00:05:06):
Thank you. Thank you. And very, and there's and apparently there's already a New Yorker cartoon about Jeff Jarvis <laugh>. Here you go.

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:16):
I'm glad you got this

Leo Laporte (00:05:17):
Historical irony included with every ebook purchase. It says, and look, I'm up there in the, in the corner

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:24):
And the bookshelves work, too.

Ant Pruitt (00:05:25):
Those strikes in.

Leo Laporte (00:05:27):
That's very good. The Twig actor Cartoon <laugh>. If you're not watching the video it's in the discord. We'll put it in the irc. I freaking love. You know what, let's make this the thumbnail.

Ant Pruitt (00:05:40):
That's gotta be it. <Laugh>. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:05:41):
Yeah. Gutenberg parentheses. Yeah. This is Celebration week. Yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah. Thank

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:46):
You.

Leo Laporte (00:05:47):
Congratulations,

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:48):
Jeff. I will be in London Monday the third, speaking with Alan Ruper prospect. If you're around, by all means come. I'll put it up on Mevo I on my Twitter feed so you can find the details. Nice. And on the eighth, one o'clock Saturday, I will be at the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, mass with Glenn Fleischman, Marchin Wicky and Doug Wilson, the creator of the line and type film.

Leo Laporte (00:06:14):
Nice. This is exciting.

Jeff Jarvis (00:06:17):
Yeah. Almost very busy. That might be the nerdiest group, like the

Leo Laporte (00:06:21):
Printing,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:06:22):
Nerdy, the nerdiest font print linotype

Leo Laporte (00:06:26):
Group I've

Jeff Jarvis (00:06:26):
Ever heard. I love it. It really is. It's gonna be amazing. Yeah, of course. Glen, we're

Leo Laporte (00:06:30):
Gonna, Glenn and Marchon are the authors of Shift Happens Kickstarter Beautiful. Two volume book about keyboards, typewriters.

Jeff Jarvis (00:06:39):
So the reason we're doing it then is because Glen and Marchin are on their way up to the press. I think it's in New Hampshire or, or Maine or somewhere. But they're gonna, they, they, they're stopping off at the museum printing, and then they're gonna go, they're gonna spend like a week with press checks as they print the books.

Leo Laporte (00:06:54):
Wow.

Jeff Jarvis (00:06:56):
That's quality control, man. Wow.

Leo Laporte (00:07:00):
Our top story this week, it's hard to choose a top story. There was a lot of big stories, but this one I thought was important and we'll talk about it on Sunday because Brianna Woohoo has been horribly stalked in her life. Mm-Hmm. Will be one of the panelists on this week in, in tech Supreme Court this week, decided seven to two to protect stalkers if they don't know that their threats are deadly. This is a weird case. The case Counterman versus Colorado. A guy named Billy Raymond Counterman, he was convicted under a Colorado anti stalking law because he sent a, you know, a ream of threatening Facebook messages to a woman he'd never met. The Colorado law did not require the court to consider his mental state when he sent the messages. It only had to consider his behavior and how the recipient would feel threatened. Right. Which

Jeff Jarvis (00:08:04):
Seems to make sense. Yeah. But

Leo Laporte (00:08:07):
Whether he repeatedly con, according to the law, repeatedly contacted, followed, or surveilled his target in a way that would cause a reasonable person distress. He was, of course, found guilty cuz she was highly distressed. And by the way, I, I've been, you know, harassed at anybody in the public eye has had this happen. I've had it happen for 40 years. You know, I once had a young woman praying for me on my stoop of my house, following me to grocery stores and commenting on my food and saying, and I didn't blame her. She was obviously mentally ill. Had she been, but it bothers you. Had she brought a knife, different story, I would've been felt threatened. Now, here's the thing. The, the Supreme Court said that if Counterman didn't have any awareness of his threatening, of the threatening character of his statements, it would not be a problem. And in fact, any restriction in his speech would be a violation of his First Amendment rights. The majority opinion written by Justice. Elena Kagan said the state prosecuted him in accordance with an objective standard that didn't show any awareness or did not have to show any awareness on his part of statements threatening character. That's a violation of the First Amendment.

Jeff Jarvis (00:09:24):
But Barrett in the dissent was, did say that someone who's delusional can be dangerous. Yeah. And,

Leo Laporte (00:09:33):
But by the way, both Amy Coney, Comey Barrett and Clarence Thomas have probably had Harris Barrers and people attacking them in I know they have in restaurants and so forth. Well, and you are, if it's a, in my, it's always been in the case in, in the law case of the law that if a if somebody tweets at us something bodily harm, that that's considered a, a threat and prosecutable. And I think it should be this sounds like if, if, if you're crazy enough not to know that that's a threat, oh, you're all right. Then

Jeff Jarvis (00:10:12):
I think about,

Leo Laporte (00:10:13):
Let let's Stacey go first cuz she interrupt her. Go ahead.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:10:16):
Well there's a couple things. One is, I know that, like with like protestors outside of an abortion clinic, a lot of times they will justify their protests and getting very close in your face and screaming at you mm-hmm. <Affirmative> as a first amendment. Right. But legally they're harassing you and it, it does count as harassment. So I'm really struggling with this because, because it's terrifying being on the other end Yes. Of any of this mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And it's, and it's not a First Amendment. Right. I mean, we, we talk about, you know, yelling fire in a crowded theater. And so I, I really, I don't understand the legal distinction being made here. So I I'm trying to figure that out a little bit

Jeff Jarvis (00:10:59):
More. Well, Jeff Kif would say that the fire in the theater thing is actually a mis noer, but we'll leave it to the side probably. Yes, yes, yes. So, I, I I, I, I'm very torn in this Stacy cuz I'm not, I'm a big believer in the first amendment of freedom of expression. I think we head to a doctrine, not just in the court now, but also, you know, with Elon Musk and Company, is this belief that free speech means there's no consequence to speech. I have free speech. Yeah. But if I libel you, if I cause damage, if I incite violence there are consequences. Or simply if you think I'm a jerk and say so or disagree with me, that's a consequence. But we move to consequence less speech. And I'm not sure that's first I agree with you, Stacy. Cause I'm not sure that's First Amendment really. Is

Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:49):
This well in put in place for, could you put it in the

Leo Laporte (00:11:51):
Sentencing autistic? No, no. That's the point. A de here. Here's what a professor at George Washington University said in there, amicus brief, a delusional speaker may lack awareness of the threatening nature of her speech. A a devious speaker may strategically disclaim such awareness. Such awareness. Right. I don't know. Right. That's a, that way. Devious, that's a common strategy of the Right mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and which is, oh, I'm not, I didn't mean I get this a lot. Oh, I didn't mean harm. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, you misinterpreted. I'm, I'm just speaking, person should

Stacey Higginbotham (00:12:31):
Be dead. I was just pointing out that this is where your house is Exactly. And that you don't lock your door at night and there's an unlatched gate and you have a dog that might eat some

Leo Laporte (00:12:40):
Poison. I'm not advocating violence. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'm just saying, you know, I, I think you're exactly right, Stacy. That's exactly the, how it's used. The e f and the A C L U both sided with Counterman and thought that, that, you know, free speech rights were abridged. I, I think this is insane. Because, you know, the reason you and I Stacy know about this is we've been harassed and we've had these oblique threats, which, you know, I think don't rise to the test of counterman. And so they would be allowed as, as free speech. You absolutely have the right to say, Leo is a complete jerk. You have the right to say that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, and I would never disagree. But if you said, by the way, Leo, Leo, I disagree with that statement. I don't even disagree with it. <Laugh>. if, but if you say where I live and the the door's unlocked, that's an hour, that's a, a threat, less threat. And it's not nice. And it should be. Absolutely. You should be liable. There should be just as you said, Jeff, consequences for what you say. I understand. The, the, the issue, which is that you have the right to free speech and

Stacey Higginbotham (00:13:48):
Well, and Jeff, with the consequences, we're talking about two kind of different things, right. Free speech is you can have consequences, but you can't have free speech consequences from the government, government like the government kink. So, but in this case,

Leo Laporte (00:14:06):
Well, the government's prosecuting, so that's why

Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:08):
It's Yeah. The government's prosecuting this guy, but I'm also like, this guy is, that's why his first

Leo Laporte (00:14:12):
Amendment.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:12):
Yeah. Yeah. But I don't, yeah. I like, it's not easy. If someone's Well, it is someone's mentally ill and delusional, I feel like you can take a case all the way through, prosecute them and say, I mean, if their defense is indeed, I didn't know. I was like, genuinely, I didn't realize I was threatening this person. I feel like that's in sentencing that could come through mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But to, to strip the ability to prosecute someone for that and to have real consequences for that, as terrifying as

Leo Laporte (00:14:44):
I agree. I mean, A C L U and e f argued that if anyone can be found guilty of making a threat based on how threat is received, there's a point there. Not how it was intended,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:56):
But it's a reasonable person standard. It's not like, just like

Jeff Jarvis (00:15:01):
You hurt my feelings. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:15:06):
I just, this, you know, this was the concern that Barrett Justices Barrett and Thomas had, which is that it opens the door to all sorts of harassment.

Jeff Jarvis (00:15:14):
I wonder where Kathy Elli and Mike Basner came out on it.

Leo Laporte (00:15:19):
Oh, I don't know. I should look and see. I haven't, I didn't look it up. Didn't see, I look at detector dirtt and see what ect Dirtt has to say. But it's, it's

Jeff Jarvis (00:15:24):
A

Leo Laporte (00:15:25):
Plastic. In any event this is it. And it was seven. It wasn't a, it wasn't close, it was 72. No. he, you know, counterman is now off the hook. And so I think this opens the door in a social media era for all kinds of harassment. I mean, the harassers are smart. They know not to make a threat of, you know, and that's always been the case.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:15:50):
I mean, yeah, there are smart harassers, and then those are the ones that are truly terrifying. Yes. In all honesty, the smartest harassers probably don't actually want to physically harm you because they're too smart and they recognize the consequence. What they wanna do is make your life absolutely miserable. Heads terrify you, if you will. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:16:07):
Anyway, the, just, you know, the Supreme Court has been very interesting. This full

Jeff Jarvis (00:16:12):
Surprises. I think I, I was saying with the, with the, with the voting decision this week, I think that the public pressure on the court has an impact. I think they're trying to prove No, no, we're okay. We're all right. We'll,

Leo Laporte (00:16:24):
Surprise you. Well, a number of people pointed out though, that the way that decision went down could open the door to other problematic The voting rights. Yeah. Yes. Issues. Yes.

Jeff Jarvis (00:16:35):
Yeah. It, it, it, it opened a portal to a bad doctrine.

Leo Laporte (00:16:38):
Right. So it

Stacey Higginbotham (00:16:40):
Opened a portals to a bad doctrine.

Leo Laporte (00:16:42):
Oh. You know how that is. That's like the guardian of the galaxies ride. You're really you're really in trouble now. It's good show titled right there. <Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:16:51):
Yeah. I love it. I'm like, oh,

Leo Laporte (00:16:53):
Scary, scary. Google. Google won in the Supreme Court this week. It, well, one, in a way, the court rejected a lawsuit. Do you remember this? There was a site called Rap Genius later, just genius. That was a great place to go to get the lyrics, lyrics signed the Ric song. And they did a clever thing in the lyrics. They stuck some some hidden secrets in there. And they found that Google was actually just lifting <laugh> the lyrics from Genius and putting them, you know, in the Google search results. Oops. So the Genius Media Group sued Alphabet saying you stole millions of song lyrics. They, they lost in court because it turns out Genius didn't own the right to it either. They didn't either. Didn't the Rics, that's what I said at the time. Exactly

Jeff Jarvis (00:17:41):
What I said at the

Leo Laporte (00:17:41):
Time. That's not old. That's the old news. They didn't know. So Genius wasn't saying, we have the copyright. They said Google violated our contract by scraping lyrics and boosting them in Google search without attribution, which caused millions of dollars in losses for the website. This lawsuit's been going on for, what, four years. That's caused it, huh? Yeah. Well, <laugh> well, this is the, I think really that's the issue, is these lyrics are floating around. Right? The copyright holder is a songwriter. The publisher. Right. Not Genius. Not Google. If that information is in the air, does it matter where Google gets it from it? Now, this is kind of goes back to Link text, because Google is eliminating a mo, you know, a, a click to genius to get that lyric by quoting the lyric on the search results. You don't have to go to Genius anymore. And that's really what this came down to. A lower court had ruled in favor of Google. The Justices did not revive the lawsuit. They didn't give cert to to the appeal. So it's over for that Google's off the hook, but it's an, it's an interesting Wow.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:18:43):
I feel like if you're on the internet today, if your core competency is just being a middleman Yeah. That is not, that, that is never gonna be a tenable business model. Yeah. You were like, which is where Drop Shipper of I don't think so. I think newspapers can create real value. They

Jeff Jarvis (00:18:58):
Can, but their past has been as middleman when it comes to advertising and to news. Right? We run the ap, you have to come to us to sell your car. Oh, you don't need to do either with us anymore.

Leo Laporte (00:19:10):
I should point out as often the case with these kind of stories, there is a deeper subtler legal issue at stake here than the obvious. One genius was s suing of her contractual matter saying, well, you know, our terms of service, say Google can't scrape the site and put the results up. In fact, they say now the Supreme Court has opened the door to people you know, ignoring contractual.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:19:39):
That would be amazing, actually. Yeah. Cause that's like, oh, I, I just clicked through. Or God help you, you didn't actually even click through. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:19:45):
So the agreeing apply

Jeff Jarvis (00:19:47):
That to, to large language models.

Leo Laporte (00:19:50):
Well, before you do that, cuz that's a whole nother cut,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:19:52):
Jeff. Yeah. Where,

Leo Laporte (00:19:53):
Where would that talk about Yeah. Talk about that sidebar. But before you do that, let's just, I just wanna point out that federal law, this is a subtlety, right? Federal law preempts lawsuits over issues that are similar to copyright. So Google was saying this genius is bringing a quasi copyright claim. It's not really about the terms of contract. They're kind of saying, Hey, we, we kind of own the rights of these. And, and, and I think that the, the court and the lower court were basically saying, no, no, the law says very specifically, you can't kind of infer some sort of protection because it's like copyright. And that's why, that's why they lost. So, yeah. Wow. by the way, the White House wanted wanted the court to skip the case saying it was a poor vehicle to resolve the tension between copyright law and contractual rights. That's an

Jeff Jarvis (00:20:47):
Just, copyright is just fascinating stuff. Sorry aunt.

Leo Laporte (00:20:50):
It's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:20:51):
Complicated. Oh my God. I think it's the worst.

Leo Laporte (00:20:53):
Yeah, I agree. It's complicated. <Laugh>, all this stuff is complicated though, right?

Ant Pruitt (00:20:57):
Lawyers, lawyers and more lawyers. Mm-Hmm.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:20:59):
<Affirmative>, give me, give me different, give me complicated. Based on physics and hard science, not, not imaginary legal concepts. Back let,

Leo Laporte (00:21:07):
Let's get into this AI thing that we were talking about. Stacy, you want a headache? I got a headache for you. Oh boy. <Laugh>. So,

Jeff Jarvis (00:21:17):
Punch of ant. Punch

Leo Laporte (00:21:19):
Of, right. This this'll give you a migraine. We were talking about this before the show, you probably heard a little bit Oh no.

Ant Pruitt (00:21:28):
<Laugh> <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:21:29):
No,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:21:30):
That was the, you did not see me. I'm like, I cannot with this today. Uhuh

Ant Pruitt (00:21:34):
All your

Stacey Higginbotham (00:21:36):
S in their bed about human consciousness. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:21:38):
Consciousness. Let's do it. I won't do it to you if you don't want me to. So we talk a lot about ai. In fact I'm really pleased Jason Howell's show was also canceled. We had, I'm sorry, both of you guys. It was just lack of interest business. Just bi just business. Business is business. Well, and I'm not you know, me, I don't, I hate business <laugh>, but somebody's gotta pay the bill <laugh>. And and unfortunately it's me. So I kinda, Lisa and I have to kind of pay attention to business. And we just, if shows don't get an audience and they don't get advertisers, we just can't keep doing them. And, and I

Ant Pruitt (00:22:14):
Appreciate it. I apologize. The

Leo Laporte (00:22:16):
And it's not you by the way. Is it Prudence that Yeah. And by well like yeah, we want to keep everybody employed as best we can. It's not you. You're like the Bob Ross of photography. You're a genius. I

Ant Pruitt (00:22:27):
Remember came here one of our first episodes of Twigs. You, you said that. And it ended up being a thumbnail. Somebody made a weird thumbnail with curly

Leo Laporte (00:22:37):
Hair,

Ant Pruitt (00:22:38):
Early hair, Bob Ross with biceps or something like that. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:22:41):
No, you are, you have this gentle kind. I'll never forget that appreciation of the art and you're really good at it. And that's right. So, but I think it's really more commentary on, cuz it wasn't the first time we've tried a photography. Right. Podcast. Catherine Hall and I did this weekend, photography also failed. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, because I just think, I don't know what it is. Is it It's your audience. It's our audience. It's, there are other photography shows. Yep. Scott Kelby does a bunch of 'em that maybe, maybe they're doing better. I don't know. I just don't know. But for some reason we didn't attract an audience. So, and the same thing, I think Android, I hate to say it on the, this week in Google, but I don't think, I think Android, which is still the number one smartphone platform, but phones in general aren't, just, aren't that interesting anymore. Right. Well that's what

Jeff Jarvis (00:23:27):
We've been saying on this show. Mm-Hmm. A lot. And, and it was just reality that Yeah. Jason Company. Jason Company. But the great thing was, so I talked to Jason today and, and he said that this title of the show drives him nuts. Cuz it's not about Google change the name and Leo likes it. Right.

Leo Laporte (00:23:42):
Well, it's just, it's Jason ironic, Jason, I can't change it. I know. It's stuck. It's like Jason did Ironic the name. Cause he had a show. It has to be good. Right? It's just <laugh>. All right, go ahead. Jason had a show about Android. It wasn't just about Android, right. It was the, it was the relationships that he had on that show. Oh. So well as, as with any great podcast, right. The people are what make podcasts great. Yeah. You know, aunt Jason Wynn and, and Ron. And and previous hosts like Florence, the newer host, like JR Michelle, all these people were great. They had a great rapport, but they just was a dwindling audience. And I think it's just lack of interest in the subject matter. I don't think its reflection on them. So but, but, and I didn't feel that way.

(00:24:26):
It was a reflection on me. It's not. No, I didn't feel that way. Absolutely not. So you know, Ann's gonna very much be a part of the network going forward, especially in our club. And here on Twig Jason and and Jeff are working on a AI show, which means much needs to be done. And the good news is because we have the club, thank God we have the club. Thank you. The club can subsidize an AI show. Even though there's, you know, as any show when it starts, there's a small audience and no advertising. So this is gonna be a club only exclusive for the time being. And we're hoping to launch it soon. But Jason spent 90 minutes yesterday in, in the, in the Discord talking to people about ideas. But one of the ideas I thought was kind of interesting, and I've been asking all our hosts this, and Stacy, please recuse yourself if you want <laugh>, I'm ready.

(00:25:17):
It's been my contention from the beginning that AI is very poorly named. It's nothing intelligent about chat. G P T or stable diffusion. All of these are computer programs that the distinction between these computer pro programs and traditional computer programs. You know, I've written a lot of computer software. You tell the in traditional programs, you tell the computer exactly what to do. If this happens, do this. If this happens, do this. Yep. And computers are really good at doing, they only, by the way, even today, a norm, a computer can add, subtract, do division and multiplication in some cases can move stuff around and can make decisions based on a condition. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it does all of that in concert so quickly that it looks like it's thinking or at least word processing or mm-hmm. <Affirmative> doing spreadsheet or playing a video game cuz it's very, very fast.

(00:26:13):
AI is a little different. And you, I know you're an expert on this, Stacy, because though they've started using data and training models using generative adversarial networks or large language models or neural networks or variety of different well-known techniques. And the difference is that instead of a human writing all the rules, the computer can generate its own rules. Right. So Alpha Go is a good example, which is a Google's deep mind program that learned to play, go by playing a lot of games. They told it the rules of go, which are very simple. And then it played a billion games in four hours and actually taught itself to be better. That's pretty awesome than the cause it was doing endless AB tests. Yeah. That's pretty awesome though. But it generated, in effect generated the same kind of thing that a human would write. Just a lot more of it a lot faster. And so it created a rule set. In my opinion, those things are deterministic computer programs, regardless of how it was created, that don't approximate thinking in any way. They just are fast. So it looks like it's writing, it's regurgitating. It's, but it's regurgitating.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:27:25):
Well wait, so I you're not, you're not wrong here, except we're talking about intelligence and I don't think you're talking about two things. We're talking about intelligence and then you're talking about thinking. And I would definitely agree that a computer isn't thinking. But I would say if you think of intelligence and you define it as being able to develop a system or a way to react and adapt to your environment.

Leo Laporte (00:27:55):
Well that's a good point.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:27:56):
Then I would say that, that AI is perfectly named because what a computer is doing is you're giving it a set of parameters and it's adapting and it's teaching itself basically how to write its own

Leo Laporte (00:28:08):
Code. Okay. You're, you're absolutely right. In fact, I'm looking at the definition of intelligence from Oxford. It says the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. That's pretty simple. Yeah. And you're right, that's exactly what AI does. But wait till he gets to the

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:21):
Next step.

Leo Laporte (00:28:23):
But is it thinking? There we go,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:26):
But we're not arguing that it is conscious.

Leo Laporte (00:28:28):
Well, okay. Maybe, maybe

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:30):
The original point was that AI

Leo Laporte (00:28:31):
Is mis maybe the term AI doesn't, but certainly a lot of the ways we describe the output of ai, like it's hallucinating that's anthropomorphic as hell. That it's waiting art anthropomorphic that.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:44):
Yeah. But we do that for everything.

Leo Laporte (00:28:45):
Cause we're people. Yeah. Cuz we're people. Okay, so mm-hmm. <Affirmative> regardless. So I'm not really arguing about terminology. What I'm really saying is just be clear. Understand it's not thinking mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Well you would agree with that, right?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:58):
Yeah. I don't think it is not thinking in the way that we think. I do think it, it has developed an intelligence in the same way your dog is, has developed an intelligence.

Leo Laporte (00:29:09):
Well I think a dog thinks

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:10):
That allows it to react to,

Leo Laporte (00:29:15):
Here's what I wrote on Masteron

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:16):
Again. I guess, I guess what do you mean by think? I mean like, I think

Leo Laporte (00:29:18):
They learn, learn. I think learn, learn. I think machines learn. Okay, this is, now we're getting in the nut of it. Okay. This is what I wrote on Macon. See if you agree with this. Don't kid yourself artificial intelligence. And I put that in quotes. It's just big text way of saying, Hey, it's not our fault, it's the machines. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> in point of fact every malign use of AI face recognition or you know, is really just some human composed algorithm doing something that maximizes profit or control at the expense of people. I, I I say don't let these companies off the hook. They're in charge, not the machine. Pay attention to the man behind the curtain. It

Jeff Jarvis (00:29:55):
Doesn't have to be at the expense of people. It sometimes is. Well,

Leo Laporte (00:29:58):
It

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:58):
Can be. I mean, yes. Yeah. If you stuck, if you stuck a dog, let's stick with dogs. Cuz everyone loves dogs. Yes. if I, if I stuck a dog in an environment where they learned how to bite everybody who was black don't, I don't know why would,

Leo Laporte (00:30:15):
It's your fault not the dogs.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:17):
It is. Well, yes, I mean, and I then unleashed this dog upon the world and he started biting everybody. It saw that it was who was plaque then Yes. I have obviously trained this dog. Yep. Improperly,

Ant Pruitt (00:30:31):
I'm blaming the,

Leo Laporte (00:30:31):
Similarly, if my Tesla drives into a wall under full, under full self-driving, it's the, it's the software at fault.

Ant Pruitt (00:30:40):
I'm blaming the software, but I'm also blaming the driver for

Leo Laporte (00:30:43):
Letting the software. Mm-Hmm.

Ant Pruitt (00:30:45):
<Affirmative>. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:45):
Yeah. Like if I, if I'll take a responsibility, if I knew this about my dog, if I inadvertently had trained it, I could not just go wander around saying, oh, sorry, my dog is really racist. Well, the Supreme

Leo Laporte (00:30:55):
Court says, as long as you Supreme Court says, as long as you didn't know the dog was racist, you're okay.

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:03):
Well that's another case. But that's

Ant Pruitt (00:31:04):
A different case because she said trained right training, trained the dog,

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:09):
The chat g PT lawyer. And by the way, the, the, I haven't put it in the rundown. The, the, the judge decided the case about him, he blamed the machine and he said, well, I didn't think the machine would lie. The machine lied to me, <laugh>, it's horrible. And the judge said, no, if you fine, you made a mistake. You used the word mistake, you tried once, once there was doubt raised and you didn't do your job. Yeah. To look up the cases on Google for God's sakes. Yeah. Then from then on it wasn't a story. It double

Leo Laporte (00:31:39):
Double down. What

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:40):
Else we gotta story about, about

Ant Pruitt (00:31:41):
You regular folks to understand that computers are only as good as what you put into them.

Leo Laporte (00:31:47):
Yeah. I just, I want regular folks to understand computer is actually an inanimate box of rocks. Right. That we animate with electricity and, and instruct with instructions written by humans or, or generated at the request of humans from human data.

Jeff Jarvis (00:32:00):
<Laugh>, <laugh>, Stacy Oz, this

Ant Pruitt (00:32:04):
Computer did this. I hear I used to hear that a

Leo Laporte (00:32:06):
Lot. Yeah. But we told whoever was

Jeff Jarvis (00:32:08):
On the board was great. That was a great edit.

Leo Laporte (00:32:10):
Quick switch to that was a great cut, Stacy, to roll her eyes. What does

Jeff Jarvis (00:32:13):
Stacy, that's the right moment. Perfect. Perfect.

Leo Laporte (00:32:16):
Meanwhile, I'm like on the guardians of the galaxy, I got my eyes closed and I'm holding onto those handles. <Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:32:22):
So I, I think there's a couple things here. I I think that people should be aware that AI and these algorithms are only as good as their training. Yes. And they are fallible. Yes. I think that's really important for everyone to realize. I also think there is a link between the marketing done by tech firms and the people, the end consumer who don't have knowledge of this. And the tech firms are being quite disingenuous. And I do think there's probably a case to be made for them being liable for their marketing. And then once they have assessed an algorithm and know it's bad to, so like that lawyer in his case, because he's a professional deploying and using the algorithm, he does have some liability here. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I would argue that whatever legal algorithm he used also has some liability because they're making claims. Liability is probably too strong. Deceptive advertis. Responsibility.

Jeff Jarvis (00:33:25):
Responsibility, yeah. Responsibility. I argue, this is my piece, that when you, you put a, just put a box there that makes it look like Google. You think you're gonna get Google like results back and Microsoft associated it with their search engine is being irresponsible in giving that impression. I agree.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:33:39):
I mean, Google results are terrible and most people know that now. I mean, part of it is we're really dumb as a species. We're just,

Leo Laporte (00:33:46):
We go. They used to be good. That's the Stacy think that was used. We've gotten terrible. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:33:52):
Yes. They, they have. But I mean, we ha we're just not ev the the other thing is these companies are throwing this out into the world willy-nilly. And it's, it's all like a big science experiment that we think is magic because we still think of computers like calculators that are infallible. Mm. And they're not

Leo Laporte (00:34:12):
So

Stacey Higginbotham (00:34:16):
Supreme

Leo Laporte (00:34:16):
Court, I guess. No, I just guess that you probably are in a way saying that it's silly to worry about thinking versus not thinking. Like they're not

Stacey Higginbotham (00:34:28):
Thinking. I don't think, I mean I, yeah. I think it's not germane to the issues that we're facing

Leo Laporte (00:34:33):
Exactly today. Yes. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:34:35):
It's a fun philosophical argument. And if I were like drinking and we were on a patio and it was late at night, we could have discussions about consciousness.

Leo Laporte (00:34:43):
Why does everybody, every time I bring this up, talk about that. Even Steve said that we're not in college staying up all night. <Laugh> on Well, it's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:34:51):
Side of a college. I mean, like,

Leo Laporte (00:34:53):
It is a college debate, isn't it? It's a

Stacey Higginbotham (00:34:55):
Philosophy. It's a philosophical argument.

Leo Laporte (00:34:58):
But it, it's, but but from a practical point of view, I guess what I wanna kind of emphasize is we don't want get in the hype cycle with AI either. Right. And i's I think part of the hype cycle is the scientist writing letters saying it's a threat to the human species. It's an extinction. It, it goes both ways. I think that's hype. That's like saying that's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:17):
Just marketing. That's so, that's marketing. They can be like, yes.

Leo Laporte (00:35:19):
It goes both ways.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:21):
It helps them wash their hands of it too. Yes. I mean

Leo Laporte (00:35:24):
That was my point al there needs to be more middle ground on all of it. You know, take some of the good bad.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:30):
It's not even middle ground, just a little, a little cynicism. Like I don't even wanna call it cynicism, skeptics,

Leo Laporte (00:35:35):
Skeptic, skepticism is a good

Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:37):
Word. Skepticism. Thank you. That's the word. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:35:38):
Yep. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (00:35:39):
Well, but, but it also, it does have larger implications cuz, and I've said this in the show recently as I've dug into the rat hole that is long-termism that drives Sam Altman and Peter Thiel and El Elon Musk and company. And they argue that, that we, that they're going, we're going to reach artificial general intelligence or super intelligence and that the machine will be basically as much as a human better in some ways. And that we can build countless 10 to the 58 made up humans on computers on Mars. They go, why? Why is he not musk? Wanna put things in your head and go to Mars and have a lot of babies. And so we owe to the future, but we can forget about the, the present.

Leo Laporte (00:36:23):
That's no big deal is a ripple. This is also Ray

Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:27):
Has

Leo Laporte (00:36:27):
Impact Christians. This is also what Ray Kurzwell said. The singularity is near. And this is Yes, exactly. If you believe, believe that the singularity being the top point in time in which you can no longer distinguish a human and a, and a machine intelligence. And if you believe that, then of course once machines get that smart, they will start designing better and better and better machines at an exponential rate. And yeah, maybe that is an extinction event. So the reason I bring, that's why I bring this up, is I don't think we know what makes a human and what makes consciousness. And I think it's a lot to say that we're, you know, we're approaching agi. Is that Stacy does that I is that right? I mean you, you

Stacey Higginbotham (00:37:07):
Agi being artificial generalized intelligence. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Not, not the income, whatever. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:37:15):
Gross. Not basic gross income. Gross. No gross. Just gross. The gross income. No. Yeah. Yeah. Generalized intelligent machines. Intelligent machines. Thinking machines.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:37:25):
I feel, okay, this is gonna sound really like a jerk thing to say. I think this is all a very male

Leo Laporte (00:37:32):
Problem. Yeah. It's a boy problem. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:37:33):
And I think it's a problem that is oblivious to, like, it's easy to think about this because the current work to fix things here and now is really hard. So if you can keep building better toys or come up with like, some cool philosophy that lets you kick the can down the road without actually acknowledging that you're kicking the can down the road, then

Leo Laporte (00:37:56):
I agree 100%. And not to say that that's exactly what I've been saying. I agree a hundred percent

Jeff Jarvis (00:38:01):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:38:01):
Yes. Minus the boy part. And we have,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:38:04):
Well,

Leo Laporte (00:38:05):
I under agree. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's like I know you agree. That's why I say bros, right? I say the AI bros cuz it is kind of a bros

Jeff Jarvis (00:38:12):
Because it is, it's, it's, it's it's, and and media. Don't quote the women who give it perspective. Like Nick GI

Leo Laporte (00:38:19):
Margaret Mitchell.

Jeff Jarvis (00:38:20):
Yeah. Emily, Emily Bender and Margaret Mitchell. And they never quote them. They only just quote the boys.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:38:26):
And Meredith Whitaker.

Jeff Jarvis (00:38:27):
Meredith Whitaker, thank you. That's the name I forgot. Yes. She's great too.

Leo Laporte (00:38:30):
So I hope you'll have both on the AI show.

Jeff Jarvis (00:38:33):
That's, that's the whole way

Leo Laporte (00:38:34):
I think. I think it's a great conversation. I think it's very interesting.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:38:36):
If you promise never to talk about consciousness. I'll visit at least once. <Laugh>,

Jeff Jarvis (00:38:41):
Jason is now running the anti rundown things to never talk about.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:38:46):
No, you should. I mean we should. I mean it's, it's fun. I mean I, I like thinking about consciousness, but I'm also like, yo, we got some real problems. And the problem and it also includes, okay, Stacy's gonna hop up on a little soapbox for a second. Please go ahead. Go ahead. It also includes the real issue, which is everybody here wants to use AI for optimization for their own end goals. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, which, I'm sorry, capitalistic society. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> is making as much money as possible.

Leo Laporte (00:39:14):
You're agree.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:39:14):
So we're building these machines Yes. To optimize for this in a way and to hide all these other issues. But really if we built these algorithms to take into account and optimize for maybe not producing as much carbon put, throwing as much carbon into the air, then we would have different algorithms that would not make us as much money and we would all, as a society hate that because that's antithetical to how we are kind of currently

Jeff Jarvis (00:39:43):
Wired,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:39:44):
Wired and going. But the path we're going down,

Leo Laporte (00:39:47):
Well don't get me started on the perverse incentives of, of late stage capitalism cuz that's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:39:53):
Well but I think that's, I mean that's a real issue here cuz that's a lot of the marketing hype around this stuff. Yeah. Is like, oh, we're gonna solve all these issues that are actually caused by a lot of the late stage capitalism. Like the not accounting for externalities that matter. And so then they're like, oh shoot, they might see it. Let's talk about it ending the world and this being a threat that way. But really we just have to make a, we have to make a collective decision to care about something that's not money. And we can use this technology in ways that would really actually be quite helpful. And we might not be having these discussions about AI

Jeff Jarvis (00:40:27):
Being secure. Amen. Which is, which is what what Jason talks about too is let's talk about the utility. Let's, we talked about today about, about good uses and bad uses and, and stupid uses, right? And, and malign uses. But there are good uses. And, and trying to figure out what that, concentrate on that. And then you're right Stacy, this is what the stochastic parrots paper says is also pay attention to the environmental cost. Pay attention to the human cost of people who are training your models for you and looking at horrible stuff. Pay attention to the bias in in what you bring in pay attention to trying to get ever bigger measurement and, and losing sight of, of the ability to manage what you have. That's what they said in that paper. And that's what gets ignored so often.

Leo Laporte (00:41:07):
Well that's a perfect lead in and it's really a to our AI segment, which is coming up next. We're gonna take a little break. Thank you. Stacy. You, you, you, you No, you you. Cuz you're right.

Jeff Jarvis (00:41:20):
You were dreading this. You did very well,

Leo Laporte (00:41:21):
Chris. Well it go and unfortunately it often goes right to that thing of, and, and Steve Gibson's position was, oh, you know, it's just a matter of calcula calculating speed, ram and you know, just add as it gets faster, faster, at some point it's going to, consciousness is an emergent property and it's gonna just start thinking. And that's for a late night conversation. <Laugh>. Yeah. That's, I mean you

Stacey Higginbotham (00:41:44):
Could stick stuff in a Petri dish Yeah. Without any ram and Well, that's

Leo Laporte (00:41:48):
How evolve, that's how, who knows. That's how that's called us. Yeah. That's called us. Unless you believe God made us some do. And I'm not criticizing that. I don't happen to we're just the result of a late stage Petri dish. Lot of science. Yeah. We're pretty random. It's just a random occurrence. Alright. I see. To me, I wanna stay up all night and talk about this, but we probably shouldn't cuz <laugh>, let, let me go get my wine waffles awake. Go get some wine <laugh>, grab my water. I'll smoke a doobie and we can talk <laugh>. But first, no, no. First let's talk about our sponsor. Right. We have a great sponsor, the AWS Insiders podcast. A fun, fast paced, entertaining, insightful look behind the scenes of WS and cloud computing. Now this is not your typical Talking Heads Tech podcast, high production value, high energy, unlike us and high entertainment full of captivating stories from the early days of AWS to today and beyond.

(00:42:51):
The hosts, Rahul Supermanium and Hillary Doyle dig into the current state and the future of AWS by talking with the people and companies that know it best. Raul's very funny, but he's also a veteran AWS pro. With over 15 years experience managing more than 45,000 AWS instances, he is known for pushing AWS products to their limits. And for believing AWS is truly the operating system of the future. AWS Insiders is a show that's full of opinions, takeaways, and untold stories about the challenges, innovations in the mind blowing promise of cloud computing. Take a look at this. The brand new season just came out season two, episode one, filling the Cloud talent gap. Talk about staffing and optimizing your cloud team, how it's a critical step right now. Also possibly one of the most difficult. Rahul, Hillary and their guests discuss solutions defining, retaining, and leveling up cloud talent.

(00:43:52):
I was really interested in episode three. It's all about Moderna, the mRNA vaccines and aws. Did you know that Rahul, Hillary and Moderna's Director of Data engineering cloud architecture? I, this was a revelation to me. Discuss how Moderna depends on AWS and the cloud Search for AWS insiders in your podcast player. Or visit cloud fixx.oria.com/podcast. That's cloud fixx dot A u r e a.com/podcast who will also include a link in the show notes. And my thanks to AWS insiders for their support. And now we have no bumper music, we have no trumpets. We have no drummers, but it is time for the AI stories of the week.

Ant Pruitt (00:44:42):
Not yet anyway.

Leo Laporte (00:44:43):
But

Stacey Higginbotham (00:44:45):
I can do

Jeff Jarvis (00:44:46):
What? Yeah, see now let's, what would AI sound like? I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm like Arthy.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:44:54):
I can't do that.

Leo Laporte (00:44:56):
I'm sorry Dave. Here's the AI generated books of nonsense. So this from motherboard, AI generated books of nonsense are all over Amazon's bestseller lists. Amazon's Kindle Unlimited bestseller list full of books with titles like Apricot Barcode, barcode Architecture, and Jessica's attention. Now Amazon woke up to this and has pulled most things. How did it

Jeff Jarvis (00:45:22):
Become? I don't, I'm not surprised they're there. How would they become a bestseller?

Leo Laporte (00:45:26):
Ah,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:45:26):
Because if you advertise 'em on Yeah. Oh, how do they, do they explain how

Leo Laporte (00:45:31):
I know Amazon's Kindle Unlimited young adult romance bestseller list was filled with dozens of AI generated books of nonsense on Monday and Tuesday. As of this morning, Amazon appears to have taken action against the books rights Mother Boyd's Vice. But the episode shows people are spamming AI generated nonsense to the platform and somehow finding a way to monetize it.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:45:53):
Oh, well it could be with Kindle Unlimited. If you download somebody's book on Kindle, if I as a Kindle Unlimited subscriber

Jeff Jarvis (00:45:59):
Download a book, it costs you nothing. Get paid for it

Leo Laporte (00:46:02):
And it costs you nothing. Yeah. So probably they have CL farms, right. Who say, okay, you know, here's a hundred bucks. Download a thousand or 10,000 or a hundred thousand.

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:11):
Pian has to do something. Now

Ant Pruitt (00:46:14):
I was just gonna assume it was more of the idiocy of our society.

Leo Laporte (00:46:18):
Who's pian. Thank

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:19):
You Stacy. Thank you Stacy. I don't even

Leo Laporte (00:46:21):
Know what you're talking about Nerd.

Ant Pruitt (00:46:23):
What are you talking about?

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:24):
Didn't you follow the news?

Ant Pruitt (00:46:26):
The what? Oh no. You know, I don't watch news.

Leo Laporte (00:46:29):
I apparently don't even

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:30):
Pian ran the perian who, who who was going up against Putin ran the I R C. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:46:37):
I didn't know that. How you pronounced pian. You pronounced that Pago Pian.

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:42):
Pian. I put the extra

Leo Laporte (00:46:44):
Prgo. Oh, you

Stacey Higginbotham (00:46:46):
Mean he took me a second to, I was like, I think he's talking about that

Leo Laporte (00:46:49):
Dude. The rebel guy. The, the, the co the leader. The

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:52):
The Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:46:53):
How do you pronou

Stacey Higginbotham (00:46:54):
Hot dog salesman turned,

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:56):
Is

Ant Pruitt (00:46:56):
That the, he didn't lie.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:46:57):
Putin adversary. Right,

Jeff Jarvis (00:46:59):
Right.

Leo Laporte (00:46:59):
Okay. No. Okay.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:47:09):
We should just, we should stop right now until we find like someone who actually,

Jeff Jarvis (00:47:13):
If his name comes up in an ad, Leo will get it. A hundred percent Right.

Leo Laporte (00:47:16):
I always get it right then. No, it's, it's I'm looking at the Russian. It's pian.

Jeff Jarvis (00:47:23):
Pian.

Leo Laporte (00:47:24):
Pian. That's what I said. Not pian. What I said. Okay. You said

Jeff Jarvis (00:47:27):
Pian? No, I put in the extra e in at

Stacey Higginbotham (00:47:28):
The end. I agree that I still understood where Jeff was going with that. So

Leo Laporte (00:47:32):
You mean the rebel? Oh gosh. Okay. Rebel guy.

Ant Pruitt (00:47:36):
That was an Irish accent, but but

Leo Laporte (00:47:37):
Go ahead. That's no Irish as this. I was using Russian accent y Prego

Ant Pruitt (00:47:44):
Jam, jam B shaking his head back there.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:47:46):
Where were we before we started talking to you? Were introing a

Leo Laporte (00:47:50):
Story seller rose to the

Ant Pruitt (00:47:54):
Most popular. He was gonna do the ai.

Leo Laporte (00:47:57):
He and he is one of Preor hot bugs. Hey, save it for the show.

Ant Pruitt (00:48:03):
What the hell dude? That was like a prop that doesn't even look like, why did you happen to have that was for lunch?

Leo Laporte (00:48:10):
That looks like a Cause I knew you'd say pago. Okay. Anyway, so that's what's happening on Amazon's unlimited. There are a lot of what are you surprised that people would then use AI to generate a bunch of junk nonsense? Let's talk about China cuz this is one of the things I mentioned to Jason and you know, we're talking about AI is it's behind this now the new Iron curtain. But you've gotta think the Chinese government is working hard on ai. This story from Bloomberg billionaires and bureaucrats mobilized China for AI race with the us. Now their position is yes, of course the Chinese tech sector is very interested in ai, but they're somewhat behind. Nevertheless there's a considerable amount of investment. I'm not somewhat much worried about private industry as the government, Chinese government using ai. And I have to think they've got some stuff going on.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:49:07):
Well they're, I mean if we call it ai, just AI then they're already using like face recognition. Right. And social credit, all kinds of other algorithms to like detract law breaking and that sort of thing. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:49:18):
The top flight Chinese talent and financing flowing into AI mirrors a wave of activity convulsing Silicon Valley, which has deep implications for beijing's escalating conflict with Washington rights, the hotdog vendor.

Ant Pruitt (00:49:31):
So are are, are you saying or the people in this piece saying that the Chinese AI is a threat to us, even though China probably don't give a crap about us and they just want to use it for their own, their own yard.

Leo Laporte (00:49:46):
I,

Ant Pruitt (00:49:47):
You know, so much of what they're doing now. That's, that's a

Leo Laporte (00:49:48):
Good question. Ant what is the priority? And it's not clear from the article. I mean, the article says the aggregate size of US deals and AI outpaces China's they 26 billion in investments in 2023 for the us just 4 billion for China. But it does, that seems to be talking about private industry. Mm-Hmm. And I have to think that the, we have no idea how much effort the Chinese government is putting into ai and we have a lot of anecdotal evidence that they care a lot about it, don't they? They

Ant Pruitt (00:50:14):
Probably care. But again, I I I think we're just being a little bit narcissistic in assuming that they care enough about AI to use it against us. Where, where they're probably just care enough about AI to do something for their own. Yeah. This is,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:50:31):
This is like the 5G debate where we were like, China's getting into 5g, we don't have our stuff yet. This is both like what is it called when you're one country? It like nativist fearmongering around around technology. Yeah. Chauvinism. There we go. And then also idealizing a, a hyped technology in this case. Ai, I mean, yeah. We could equally throw in like material science and have something really to worry about because that's how you get like weird nerve gases and new bombs and all kinds of crazy stuff. But, well,

Leo Laporte (00:51:05):
AI does say an interesting thing that one of the reasons private investment in AI in China is slow is because the Chinese government has lots of restrictions on what private industry can do with ai. Okay. They would like a monopoly. Okay. I would imagine of AI in the government. So, well

Ant Pruitt (00:51:22):
It's strict control even and control even if it's outside. Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:51:25):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I agree with you an that I think if anything, they're more interested in using AI to control their people. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> perhaps, you know, especially if you have a central planned economy there's a lot of opportunity for AI to do a better job than the, the the because you know

Ant Pruitt (00:51:40):
Everything to make things more efficient.

Leo Laporte (00:51:42):
Yeah, yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:51:43):
And there is a, there is a case to be made that you, I mean, it would be kind of brutal again based on how you train your algorithms, but it does cut out possibly some of the corruption,

Leo Laporte (00:51:53):
Right?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:51:54):
With, I mean you could theoretically, I don't you, I don't see that actually happening, but it could happen.

Leo Laporte (00:52:00):
The it's also the relevant to the US' policy towards AI US is considering new curbs on AI chip exports to China. There's some, you know, serious concern that Chinese might be using AI for weapon development, for hacking, using it against us. Mm. And so while there are no restrictions yet, there are perhaps some restriction thoughts about restricting AI chips from Nvidia and others. And is it your, is

Stacey Higginbotham (00:52:28):
It your view that China's

Ant Pruitt (00:52:29):
Just not the threat that it's made out to be? My view is we worry a lot about China and how they run their country, their country. And I'm not saying what they're doing is right or I agree with it mm-hmm. <Affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative>. But I am saying it is their house and their property, if you will, in that country and they can run their country however they see fit.

Leo Laporte (00:52:52):
I agree. And I think if China's a threat to the US it's an economic threat more than a military threat. Right. Although, you know, as it seems possible in the next few years, China decides to take back Taiwan. That would be a threat to us in the West, wouldn't it? I mean, yes. All the chips in our iPhones are made in Taiwan.

Ant Pruitt (00:53:14):
Right, right. You know, but then that could maybe be a good thing for us in the long run and create more jobs here

Leo Laporte (00:53:20):
In the US. Yeah.

Ant Pruitt (00:53:21):
You know, cuz we always talk about we need more jobs. Well stop our stuff to China to

Leo Laporte (00:53:27):
Do. Nvidia is responding to a potential curb on AI technology in sent to China by creating a special dumb AI chip for the Chinese market. Wow. It's the 800. It has it's, it's performances below the thresholds outlined by the Commerce department, <laugh>. So yeah, you can have this chip. It's a little dumber. This is, this is for you. The new restrictions that the commerce department's thinking about would ban the sale even of those chips without a

Ant Pruitt (00:53:57):
License. That's hilarious. Take this

Leo Laporte (00:54:00):
One. Wall Street Journal.

Ant Pruitt (00:54:01):
Stacy, you were gonna say something.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:54:03):
Oh, I was gonna say, I mean there's a couple ways that that could, I mean, China is no secret to corporate espionage. They could totally steal what they need and then build it on their own. It would take time, but they could totally do it. And two, I don't want us to go, I mean, the benefits of globalization have been pretty clear and I think it leads to less conflict over time because we're all like, oh, well this benefits me, so I'll ignore that. And so the way we're going about with this is scary personally to me. I don't know. I I just, yeah, we're not heading in the right direction. I'm like, oh, it's, it's very depressing. Also you can take dumb chips and do cool things with them and Right just engineer your way around some of this stuff with

Ant Pruitt (00:54:58):
Limitations. I've

Leo Laporte (00:54:59):
Always assumed that the Chinese

Stacey Higginbotham (00:55:00):
Faster networking

Leo Laporte (00:55:02):
Had a big head start on this kind of thing because they were way ahead of us in text to speech because they ha they don't use a Roman alphabet. They have a much more complicated, difficult system. And you know, it doesn't work well with typewriters and things cuz there's hundreds of thousand thousands of Chinese characters. And so I I've always heard for decades that they were way advanced in terms of text to speech. Mm-Hmm. And speech to text, which is ai it's kind of, it's a kind of ai, right. Google's

Ant Pruitt (00:55:31):
Well again, just, oh, go ahead.

Leo Laporte (00:55:32):
Sorry. I I'll just have

Ant Pruitt (00:55:34):
Another

Stacey Higginbotham (00:55:34):
Said. You ai, we should just call him hot, faster computers. Faster computers, and then specialized programs because I mean, that's,

Ant Pruitt (00:55:43):
Did he actually bite that thing? Oh gosh,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:55:47):
It's sausage. There's a lot of salt. It's gonna be fine. Leo's not gonna die on camera.

Ant Pruitt (00:55:52):
No. The thing is, I'm looking at it now and it looks like a prop. That hot dog does not look real. It looks like. Yeah. Why are you eating that? No. It looks like the sushi

Leo Laporte (00:56:02):
That you get in the windows of the Japanese sushi stores that are made of

Ant Pruitt (00:56:06):
Plastic at the gas station. Yes. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative> taste like that. What did you have for lunch was great today, but yours don't look so great <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:56:16):
It's not,

Ant Pruitt (00:56:17):
It looked like a Do you get in a drawer? I mean, this is there from a year ago. Some people did come,

Leo Laporte (00:56:22):
Cuz some people give you a bottle of whiskey in their drawer. I keep a hotdog in my drawer. Is that so strange? <Laugh>?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:56:29):
I'm like, I need, I need a little waffle toaster in my drawer. Yes. Excuse me. I'm

Leo Laporte (00:56:33):
Not saying there's anything wrong with that. Oh dear. Google's deep mind. We were talking about Deep Mind now. Google has mushed together the two AI companies that they had into one Google's Deep Mind CEO de Demi Habi says its next algorithm will be better than Chachi p t.

Jeff Jarvis (00:56:55):
So define better <laugh>. I mean, that's what this, there's this arms race here, <laugh>. It's, it's gonna be bigger. It's gonna be better. I to, to what? I don't know. I don't understand what the metric is

Leo Laporte (00:57:05):
Here. Right. So they did do alpha Go, which is amazing. Right? Right. As we were talking about, they, he at

Stacey Higginbotham (00:57:13):
Playing Go. Right. I really wanna stress <laugh>. Yes. Okay.

Jeff Jarvis (00:57:17):
And you take over

Leo Laporte (00:57:18):
The world. Can you play Go instead

Stacey Higginbotham (00:57:20):
Of ai,

Leo Laporte (00:57:21):
Which is can you play specialized programs? Ask can your dog play go? I mean, no,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:57:25):
I know the rules, but I am not good.

Leo Laporte (00:57:28):
It's a very hard game. Habi says engineers are using techniques from Alpha go to make an AI system. They call it Gemini that will be more capable than that behind Open AI's Chat. G P T. So there it's more capable. Gemini is a large language model that works with text like chat g PT four. But Habi says his, his team will combine that technology with techniques used in AlphaGo aim to give the system new capabilities such as planning or the ability to solve problems. Yeah, he's not very specific, but of course it would be over my head if he was,

Jeff Jarvis (00:58:07):
And what I hear a lot these days is that they're saying the next phase here, and, and, and Jan Lacoon said this, Chad's over the next phase is reasoning.

Leo Laporte (00:58:17):
Oh, that doesn't sound

Stacey Higginbotham (00:58:18):
Bad. That would be actual thinking. So

Leo Laporte (00:58:19):
Yeah, that would be thinking.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:58:20):
Then we come back to your,

Leo Laporte (00:58:22):
Yeah. Alpha Go was based on a technique deep. This is from Wired. It was based on a technique, deep minus pioneered called reinforcement learning. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> in which software learns to take on tough problems that require choosing what actions to take as in go by making repeated attempts and getting feedback. So as I said that the, the way Alpha go learned to play chess and then later go was by playing a lot of games. And did it win? No, Aren, I did a, you know it's also using these things

Jeff Jarvis (00:58:50):
Are prediction machines. Now they're, they're predicting that the next outcome and, and trying to do better at their predictions. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:58:57):
It's really well in this case, so in this case, with reinforcement learning, what it does is it's like imagine, imagine a maze, right? So I turn left and then I hit a wall. I'm like, okay, well that sucks. I'm not gonna turn left anymore. And then, so actually that's a terrible, terrible <laugh>. Lemme try a different analogy. I'm like that abort, abort. No <laugh>. It's, it's where you try,

Jeff Jarvis (00:59:22):
Besides Stacy's intelligence.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:59:25):
I know. Oh,

Jeff Jarvis (00:59:25):
Like, God, we're seeing the algorithm war live before our very eyes, ladies and gentlemen.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:59:29):
It's basically when it's trying to, it's trying to understand its environment and what went wrong when it takes an action. So it's not actually predicting, it's, it's taking an action. It's going down that stream. Like in playing a video game or using synthetic data, and then it's getting feedback that says, oh, like in a game, the, the game is probably the best. Like, oh, if I keep doing this, I die quickly. If my goal is to stay alive, then I'm gonna do this XY thing. You could argue then that starts working.

Leo Laporte (00:59:58):
That that is the whole reason OpenAI put out chat G P T because it gets reinforcement from human users. Right? That was the whole point is to get, in fact, they even asked for feedback. How do we do, how was that answer? Was that what you wanted? Right. And that, that's the, that is the, the reinforcement learning part of of chat G p T. But maybe Gemini will have some more efficient

Stacey Higginbotham (01:00:24):
Way is for the large language model for chat G p T, do they use reinforcement learning? Let's see.

Leo Laporte (01:00:30):
Well, one of the problems that chat g p t has is that it's frozen in time. So it's September, what is it, September, 2020

Jeff Jarvis (01:00:38):
Now with a big plugin? It will, it will, it could add in information, but it doesn't use that as the training. Right. They can use other,

Leo Laporte (01:00:44):
It's,

Jeff Jarvis (01:00:45):
It's Stacy, I wanna, I wanna go back.

Leo Laporte (01:00:46):
It's possible, but I think it's hugely expensive to update your model off. Yes. on a continuous,

Jeff Jarvis (01:00:52):
That's why they're too

Leo Laporte (01:00:53):
Big fashion. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. You can't

Jeff Jarvis (01:00:54):
Do that. So, Stacy, going back to Europe, we're gonna get back to consciousness. Watch out. So I mentioned this book a few years ago called How History Gets Things Wrong by Alexander Rosenberg. And what he, what he says, to your point is that the theory of mind is false. That in fact we don't come to things by having a desire and knowledge and then make a decision. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And instead we are doing just what you're saying. We are replaying games, video of life over and over and over again. And we choose, okay, I'll go down that path. Now, if you're an addict, you're gonna go down the wrong path because it's the path that's well grooved. If you are you know, trained in Go, then you go the same thing. So in a way, what you're saying is that the computer's brain in that sense to anthropomorphize it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> does operate according to Rosenberg, like our brain. And in the end it's all about survival of the fittest. And you don't know why the decision works. Why does it make you live longer than the next guy? But if it does, you win, you go on. There's more of the same.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:02:01):
Yes. Sorry, I'm, I'm looking at chat, chat, G B T and reinforcement learning, and yes, they do re use reinforcement learning. And now I know how, sorry, I can only do two things at one. No, one thing at one time.

Jeff Jarvis (01:02:12):
One thing at once.

Leo Laporte (01:02:13):
Yeah. I guess you could really argue that evolution.

Jeff Jarvis (01:02:17):
We more that hot

Leo Laporte (01:02:18):
Dog. Yeah. It's, you can argue <laugh> Lisa says that one of the reasons I'm healthier than normal people is cause I eat a lot of bad food and that it's conditionable. This, this is an example of reinforcement learning not working <laugh>. And, and you shower less than others. Shower less.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:02:35):
Well, I was gonna say the reinforcement probably is just has it's so long term it can't change the behavior. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:02:41):
Ideal.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:02:42):
Like your negative, your negative reinforcement's

Leo Laporte (01:02:44):
Gonna come. And that's why evolution takes millions of years, right? Yes. we are a big computer. Exactly. But we've done it, you know, because it's survival. Not <laugh> of the fittest or of the That's a it's really interesting that to me, I it was the most you know, my father's an evolutionist. That's what he teaches. He taught Darwin courses for years. He's a pale marine paleoecologist. But one of the great, so I should have known this my whole life, but one of the great revelations for me later in life was this notion, it comes from this Richard Dawkins' self selfish gene that really, you know, the universe tends towards entropy, towards disorganization, right? Except with us, we are heading towards organization. How does that happen? How does it, we get more organized when in fact, entropy is what is a driving force in the universe.

(01:03:42):
And it is the desire of a gene to reproduce and to succeed. That, that forces this organization. It's kind of an amazing thing. If you imagine all you needed to create at one point was one thing that was capable of reproducing itself. That's all you needed. Let's say you had two molecules and they somehow figured out how to make another of the same. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, that's all you needed to trigger this whole thing. Because then what happens is the molecules that are better at doing that outpace the ones that are worse at it, and they become better and then become better. And suddenly you have, instead of entropy, you have an organizational arrow. You move in the direction of organization. John, you disagree with this. You're shaking your head phone system. Huh? Entropy is

Speaker 7 (01:04:29):
About a closed system.

Leo Laporte (01:04:32):
Well, earth is a closed system

Speaker 7 (01:04:35):
In the whole we are going towards

Leo Laporte (01:04:37):
Disorder in the whole We are, but in a close, in a Yes as a whole, entropy will win. Yes. But temporarily we have a system moving in the opposite direction because of evolution, right? Because of survival of the fittest, or really just really the drive to reproduce and, and producers succeed. And as they succeed, the more they succeed, the more of them there are and on and on and on. And you get this bigger and bigger organization. I don't know what I don't what I'm talking about. Anyway Warner Brothers is wait tech, huh? Warner Brothers has just signed a deal for AI driven film management. We'll just cut that part out. Can we just edit that out? Thank you, <laugh>. I told you my brain gonna be going. What

Stacey Higginbotham (01:05:17):
Is a film management system?

Leo Laporte (01:05:21):
Sly is the company analytics. They have a AI driven project management system. And I love the Hollywood reporters lead on this. Resistance is futile. <Laugh>, Warner Brothers has become the latest studio to publicly embrace artificial intelligence. But this is a perfect example of kind of Link Beatty kind

Ant Pruitt (01:05:42):
Of, I hate the headline, but, but it's, this is good for them. This is

Leo Laporte (01:05:47):
Another way. And there's no threat to anybody, right? You,

Ant Pruitt (01:05:49):
You're just trying to make a job more efficient. Save some money.

Leo Laporte (01:05:52):
Warners will leverage the system's, comprehensive data and predictive analytics to guide decision making at the green light stage. Oh. Uhoh, the integrated online platform can assess the value of a star, you know, an actor in any territory, how much a film is expected to make in theaters or on other ancillary streams well know it

Jeff Jarvis (01:06:13):
Becomes formulaic.

Leo Laporte (01:06:14):
And well, we've always done this imp imperfectly. We've always tried to do this. Humans are imperfect and sometimes a good movies speaks

Stacey Higginbotham (01:06:19):
Through. Right? We'll still do it imperfectly, right? Because

Ant Pruitt (01:06:23):
Where feed

Stacey Higginbotham (01:06:23):
In people like surprises. This gets back, I guess, to your entropy. I mean, AI can only build on what has historically been successful in the data it has. And you even see this with hit pop songs. Yes. There will be millions of Right. Also hit pop songs. Right. And then there will be the random new success that will then drive changes to that.

Leo Laporte (01:06:46):
And in fact Hollywood reporter raises that exact example. They said nobody thought joker that would be a hit. But it was a billion dollar surprise. Yeah. And no, and no executive could have predicted it. But the, and well, it's a

Jeff Jarvis (01:07:01):
Huge issue. Ai I I, one of my students works at, at kp CCC aist and, and she was talking the other day with writer strike on AI is a sensitive topic in LA across the board.

Leo Laporte (01:07:16):
Yes. Because of the writers. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:07:17):
Any use of AI scares the writers, scares the directors, scares the illustrators instead of photographers. And so it's gonna, that's where it's gonna hit first. I think it

Ant Pruitt (01:07:26):
Scares a certain use cases Mr. Jackson.

Jeff Jarvis (01:07:29):
Yes. Their jobs. So it it, it's the next Silicon Valley versus Hollywood.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:07:34):
But this story, this is lytics mm-hmm. <Affirmative> tic lytics. Is it, is this just project management in the sense that it's telling you like, okay, we need to get the following things and reminding people and then saying, this is what we should prioritize and that sort of thing. Yeah. Give

Jeff Jarvis (01:07:51):
The machine an itch.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:07:51):
It'll, my Gmail does that, your

Leo Laporte (01:07:52):
Head. Right. So the idea is instead of executives spending time trying to figure out what it star is worth and what a market can deliver, the machine will do it. In fact, the founder Tobias Weiser says, artificial intelligence sounds scariest, but right now, an AI cannot make any creative decisions. What it's good at is crunching numbers, breaking down huge data sets and showing patterns that would not be visible to humans. Yeah. But for creative decision making, he says, you still need experience and gut instinct. Yeah.

Ant Pruitt (01:08:24):
At the end of the day, the executives can still say we agree with this assessment.

Leo Laporte (01:08:29):
Right. Or disagree, not this. Or maybe we'll make the jokers. Some executives said, you know, we should make this right. And he was right. Or she,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:08:37):
I think for most people, gut instinct is actually pattern recognition. We just don't

Leo Laporte (01:08:41):
Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> mm-hmm. Totally. That

Stacey Higginbotham (01:08:43):
We're doing it. Mm-Hmm.

Leo Laporte (01:08:43):
<Affirmative>, that's what our brain does, is pattern recognition. Yes.

Jeff Jarvis (01:08:45):
Yes. That's, that, that's, that's what Rosemary's point is too, is we're, we're replaying video on our heads. We see a pattern, and the pattern may be good or bad by others judgements, but it's the pattern that we choose

Leo Laporte (01:08:55):
To go down. There was a not cause we have

Jeff Jarvis (01:08:58):
Theory

Leo Laporte (01:08:58):
In mind, very famous chess family, the Polgar family the the head of the family who wasn't a great chess player himself. The father decided that the best way to become a great chess player would be see as many positions as possible. Laszlo Polgar. So as part of an educational experiment, he wanted to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from an early age. He taught his $3, three daughters <laugh>. He taught his three daughters how to play chess. He, they homeschooled him in, this was in the Hungary. They also taught him aspero, which didn't work out so well, but he taught him chess <laugh>. And in fact, the all three daughters became chess grand masters. And one of them, Judith Polgar, is the woman's World, was the Woman's World champion. Nice. and it wasn't based on some sort of child, you know ability, child ability. It was based on Yes, it was reps and what, and it was reps. And it was in fact POL Polgar put out a very thick book, which I have that's just thousands of chest positions. And you look at it and say, the move here is this. The more you play, the more you look at these positions, the more you absorb, the better your pattern recognition, the better player you.

Jeff Jarvis (01:10:19):
So, so machine learning is consciousness. It's just like that.

Leo Laporte (01:10:22):
What's interesting, okay. But what's interesting is, in chess, at least, it's the only thing I know anything about humans aren't capable of the kind of calculations a machine is. So a machine can in fact calculate 20, 30, 40 moves ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it does have to at some point assess a position. But, but it can do much more calculations. So humans actually have to do more pattern recognition than machine, because we can't calculate. So we have to, after four or five moves go Well, that look, that's the right, that's that pattern. I recognize I want that. And that's not quite as good. Unfortunately, as a machine can do, machines now beat all the best human players. Man, man you know, frankly, you could have a program on your phone now that beats the best human players, which is mind boggling. So we still do, do you

Jeff Jarvis (01:11:07):
Still play chess?

Leo Laporte (01:11:08):
Yeah. I love chess. Yeah. I bet you I played in years. I was, I was much better as a young man. But but the more I play, the better I get. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, the more positions I look at, the better I am. It's very much about pattern recognition for humans. Not, I think le a little less so for machines, actually. They're able to calculate a lot better. And that's our AI thing. Ooh, that was exhausting. Thank goodness. Sound Stacy, do the sound <laugh> nice one. Stacy, our show today. Oh man, I just changed the sheets. I did not want to take the Brook linens off. We only have one set of linens. Oh. And I just changed the seats tonight. We'll be sleeping on something else. I'm gonna have to buy some more, is what I'm gonna have to do. Linen sleeping during the hot summer can be difficult to say the least.

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(01:13:57):
Long staple cotton, so that everything they create is built to last and feels great. I can say it feels great. Shop in store or online@brooklynin.com today to give yourself the cooling sleep. Deserve this summer use twig for $20 off your online purchase of a hundred dollars or more. Plus free shipping on brook linen.com. That's b r o O k Brooke linen, l i n e n brook linen.com. Promo code is T W I G for $20 off plus free shipping. Thank you. Brooklinen. woo Boy. <Laugh>. Woo. Boy. What was the infrastructure bill? One point something trillion right?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:14:43):
Was, was this the Inflation reduction act or No, this was the jobs and Infras, whatever

Leo Laporte (01:14:48):
It was. Who knows? I can't remember. Was that last year? That's the problem, right? <Laugh> somebody they've gotta do a better job of marketing. Was that last year? I'm trying, yeah. Last year timeline. Okay. among other things, a lot of money allocated to improve broadband, Biden has announced an additional $42 billion high speed internet initiative. Yeah. Acknowledging finally the reality that if you're not connected, you're kind of left out in the 21st century. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:15:18):
I've only been saying that for, what, 15 years? Oh yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:15:21):
Wow. The plan, the, the goal is to give every American household access to high speed internet. Every American household should be a right access by 2030. It should be a Right. Each state will receive a minimum of 107,000,019 states over a billion Texas, 3.3 billion under the program. That's amazing. Just so they can censor it, but Yeah, I know more than 7% of the country, more than eight and a half million homes in small businesses are underserved. The government's standard is, and it's a pretty low standard 25 megabits download per second. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:15:56):
They last changed. I mean, they, it was a big deal when they upgraded it from,

Leo Laporte (01:16:01):
Wasn't like five at one point. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:16:03):
Yeah. It was, I mean, the definition of broadband has always lagged by the actual need for broadband by about a decade. What

Leo Laporte (01:16:10):
Would you say now? I would say a hundred is, should be like tape.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:16:14):
I would say two 50.

Leo Laporte (01:16:16):
Wow. Actually. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:16:18):
Well, because the streaming, I mean, think about what we're because of, well, not just streaming, but also multiple people in a household. Yeah. What

Leo Laporte (01:16:24):
If I said, how about if I said this 50 megabits per person in the household. Okay. Or user, not person per user in the household. You and your 30 devices switch <laugh> you and your 30 devices, one devices. Cause then I'd really be, I need, but I have gigabit at home and that's, that serves us. Yeah. We got that during Covid. Yeah. When, when Lisa was zooming, I was zooming, Michael was going to school via Zoom. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> we needed a gigabit and we hardwired all the workstations and all that stuff. Anyway, a lot of people don't have that, obviously. And I, I think given that it's gonna be government subsidy, it's reasonable to say, look, 25 megabits per second for downloads. Three megabits for uploads. Yes. That's, that should be higher. But it's, it's a good minimum anyway. How much

Stacey Higginbotham (01:17:10):
Of this comes from satellite

Leo Laporte (01:17:11):
Versus Ah, that's a good question.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:17:13):
Satellite can't do,

Leo Laporte (01:17:18):
And this is, this is the sad thing about this. And of course, you know that the big telecom companies are very active in their lobbying. And while a lot of this I think should go to rural, you know, ISPs and manip municipalities. Yep. Yep. The Comcasts and Coxes and at t's of the world are lobbying like Helen. I think they're getting the lion's share of this money. Sad to say. Yep. Pretty sure of it.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:17:42):
Well, there's a couple things happening. Yes. They're trying. The argument also, if you are in a rural area without access to broadband, one of the reasons you don't have it is because it's broadband. Historically, up until about 5g, some 4G has, you haven't been able to deliver it wirelessly at the speeds that even at 25 30 or 25 3. Right. And so you'd have these small rural ISPs that would come up and try to deliver it, but then they also had to pay for back haul back to Comcast. Right. And Comcast would be like, ha ho, you want, you, you want backhaul to the, the fast real internet. Yes. We'll charge you a lot. Or they wouldn't even offer it. So wireless with 5g and Verizon's actually doing it, they're actually doing wireless broad, like fixed wireless broadband, two homes with their wireless service, which allows you to do it economically without having to dig trenches, which is super, super, super expensive. So I don't know what Comcast is doing. They're not gonna be laying cable in those areas, I can't think,

Leo Laporte (01:18:57):
But Well, if they do, they better put shark repellant on the cables. Did you see that? First? It's the orcas attacking yachts. Now it's sharks attacking under sea cables. Orcas. Oh,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:19:08):
Sharks are always attacked under sea cables. We all like, every, every few years everyone's like, holy cow. Our internet is hugely reliant on these cables under the ocean. It ships and earthquakes and sea animals all disrupted. Ah. And then, yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:19:25):
Yeah. Sorry. So there <laugh>, take that sharks actually the story was that Google is puts Kev Kevlar on its undersea cables to keep the sharks from biting them, but they keep biting them, but now they just break a tooth. So that's good.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:19:41):
Yeah. It's like the ems, isn't it? The frequency that they're like,

Leo Laporte (01:19:44):
Oh, you, they actually, there's a buzzing or something.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:19:47):
I don't know if it's buzzing, but I mean, think about how a lot of undersea creatures have, I would call it extrasensory perception to deal with. Yeah. Like life under the sea. They need different magnetic sensing. I don't know. But whatever it is,

Leo Laporte (01:20:02):
You're right. Ing 1987, the New York Times reports sharks have shown an inexplicable taste for the new fiber optic cables that are being struggle along the ocean floor linking the United States in Japan. Now it seems Google is biting back according to network world's brand dinner. Look, you wanna see a video? This is this is a shark biting and undersea cable. Here you go. This is an old video. It's like a cat. Yeah. Here, here comes here, comes watch out. Dun. Oh, that looks like a tasty eel watch. Yeah, that's no good. Oh, that's taste's horrible. Yeah, I don't want to eat that. How about this one? Thought this was Twizzlers not Red Vines. Oh, maybe not. Maybe he's not gonna eat that one. Maybe. Here's another one. Temp. No, he's gonna swim my, no, he see the shark like a computer learns. He learns they use polyethylene protective yarn on Monday. Google infrastructures are Earls hoel. I don't think that's how he pronounce

Stacey Higginbotham (01:21:14):
Earls Hoel.

Leo Laporte (01:21:16):
S Hoel. Is that how you say Itzel? Yeah. And that's the company is helping to build a new trans-Pacific cable system to connect the United States of Japan at Get ready for the speeds of 60 Terabits a second.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:21:32):
Yeah, but that's like all the internet traffic from Japan. I

Leo Laporte (01:21:35):
Know. <Laugh>. I know. Why are sharks attracted undersea cables? Slate says unclear. Several outlets have pointed out that sharks can sense electromagnetic fields. So perhaps they're attracted by the current. Alternatively, a shark expert from Cal State Long Beach suggested to wired. Eh, they just curious. They just wanna know what happens when I bite this. If you're a shark, that happens a lot. That's animal learning. Animals. Yeah. Anyone with a dual expertise in that's

Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:04):
Animal intelligence.

Leo Laporte (01:22:06):
Con corick thin behavior and electrical engineering is warmly invited to offer a more compelling explanation in the comments below says slate <laugh>, then good. Good. Get on that word. Conine. Conine. I guess that means shark. I don't know. <Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:25):
I was gonna say, does that mean shark? Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:22:27):
You could just say shark and I have to look at that. No, no. Why are you shark when you could say conine. I

Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:34):
Mean, if you know that word, why

Leo Laporte (01:22:36):
Not? Why not?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:39):
Otherwise you're just wasting your brain space.

Leo Laporte (01:22:41):
Kendric. Theus is a classic. It tastes cartus fishes that have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage. Well, I'll use that when I'm on jeopardy, that's for sure. Sure. It's a cartilaginous fish. Hmm. Conine. Why do they, why do they conine? Yeah. Thank you. I'm probably mispronouncing it. And let's see what else do, okay, now it's, we're down to the seeds and stems. So let me take a break.

Ant Pruitt (01:23:12):
Seeds and stems

Leo Laporte (01:23:14):
And we won't,

Ant Pruitt (01:23:14):
And

Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:15):
Seeds and stem. We haven't done the change log. I just wanna bring that

Leo Laporte (01:23:18):
Up. We'll do the change log and then we will pick through. Cut down. We'll pick through the seeds and the stems for some <laugh>, some juicy stories. You never heard me say that before.

Ant Pruitt (01:23:30):
No, but I, it got it, but it just clicked. Oh. A

Leo Laporte (01:23:33):
Bite of my hot dog.

Ant Pruitt (01:23:34):
No, that's okay. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:23:37):
They look calm you down. Got an

Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:38):
Old hippie here.

Ant Pruitt (01:23:39):
Oh man, you said seeds. It

Leo Laporte (01:23:42):
Really does look like, except for the bites now,

Ant Pruitt (01:23:44):
Dude, it looks like a prop. And I'm sitting right next to you, <laugh>. Whoa. Look at,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:49):
Do you not have any like, condiments on it? I mean,

Ant Pruitt (01:23:52):
That's how they brought it in.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:56):
But don't you put Oh, did it not make it into the drawer

Ant Pruitt (01:24:00):
Dropped?

Leo Laporte (01:24:01):
It's all right. The carpet's clean. Yeah.

Ant Pruitt (01:24:03):
And the ants won't eat it

Leo Laporte (01:24:05):
Either. No, I ordered it with the works. What does the works mean to you?

Ant Pruitt (01:24:09):
Yeah. Put everything on it. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:24:11):
And then it came with nothing.

Ant Pruitt (01:24:13):
<Laugh> just, is

Stacey Higginbotham (01:24:14):
There like a separate packet of containers? Like with Skr and everything?

Ant Pruitt (01:24:19):
Nothing. <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:24:20):
Maybe they, they, I don't know. And then Burke, I think it's time

Stacey Higginbotham (01:24:23):
To call vendor.

Leo Laporte (01:24:25):
Burke. Burke had observed a weird explanation. He said, well if they put the works on, it would've been seven different things. And I said, yeah,

Ant Pruitt (01:24:31):
That's why you call it the works. That's why it's called the works. You can come on Mr.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:24:36):
Burke. It's cuz you don't wanna taste the hot dog.

Leo Laporte (01:24:38):
Come on. Hey, I have the pixel tablet right here in front of me. You didn't even notice. Ooh. But

Ant Pruitt (01:24:43):
I will. Yeah, you should

Leo Laporte (01:24:43):
Should talk about that. But I will be talking about that. We have a Google change log. There's still a lot more to come. Although I do have an obligation to get the show over in the next six minutes and 45 seconds. Oh

Ant Pruitt (01:24:54):
Really? Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:24:55):
No way. I made a promise to my wife a sacred holy vow. Wait,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:24:58):
That, that soon. Hold on. How long have we been talking? Even

Leo Laporte (01:25:01):
Even Stacy's an hour 23. She said, can you get the show in under 90 minutes? And I said, no problem. Watch.

Ant Pruitt (01:25:07):
No, no.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:25:10):
Dude, you can't even finish your ad in that time. Go right <laugh>. I'm just gonna sit back and watch.

Ant Pruitt (01:25:17):
And our end, our sponsor appreciates that too.

Leo Laporte (01:25:20):
<Laugh> actually, this is, I want to give this guy a full shrift because it's our studio sponsor. The great folks at a c i Learning. Thanks to a c i Learning The days of boring archaic training methods are finally over. Lack of meaningful impact shows up as a low engagement that translates to suboptimal performance. And you don't want that. You and your team deserve to be entertained while you train to be empowered to keep your organization safe and secure. It's simple. If your IT training isn't raising your team to the level you aspire to, you need ACI learning. With the training industry's completion rate, just 30% ACI blows its competitors out of the water with an over 80% completion rate. Now this is the format that IT professionals want in today's IT talent shortage. Whether you operate as your own department or you're part of a larger team, your skills must be at the bare minimum.

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Up to date, 94% of CIOs and CISOs agree that attracting and retaining talent is increasingly critical to their roles. ACI Learning helps you retain your team and entrust them to thrive while investing in the security of your business. ACI Learning keeps your skills up to date. With over 7,000 hours of content available and new episodes added daily, your enterprise needs cohesive cutting edge training to keep your team compliant and ahead of the pack. Choose an existing course or let ACI learning combine modules for a tailored solution. You can even let them custom design a course to address your specific needs. ACI Learnings Private Bootcamp will train your team alongside the most passionate and best subject matter experts certified in the latest versions of each certification. Full access to advanced reporting via ACI Learnings Pro portal. You could track and manage your team's results, manage seats, assign and unassigned team members for customized courses relevant to their position and access monthly progress usage reports.

(01:27:18):
Visual reports provide immediate insight into your team's viewing patterns and progress over any period. A E C I learning trains thousands of aspiring tech and cyber professionals annually, including providing scholarships to individuals from diverse backgrounds and those transitioning out of military service into civilian careers. Join the always on tech training solution in a rapidly changing world of technology. ACI Learning is in the studio every day to record and share relevant content that impacts your business. Be bold, train smart, learn more about a c learnings premium training options across audit IT and cybersecurity readiness@go.acilearning.com slash twit. For teams of two to 1000 volume discounts, start at five seats. Fill out the form@go.acilearning.com slash twit. For more information on a free two week training trial for your team, go dot aci learning.com/twit. So I did not order the pixel fold, but I have to say <laugh> Ron Amadio at ours.

(01:28:25):
Technica who did his broken four days. So that's not a really good maybe his is the only one, but maybe didn't handle it. A little rough one. Maybe his good reviews, right? There's nobody else really been griping about it. People seem to like the aspect ratio, the screen cuz more square than, than maybe the galaxy fold, which is taller. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Paul RA just got his and I asked him to do a little review. He's try, he bought one. He's trying to decide whether to keep it and he has like, he's leaving to Mexico in five days. So he has to, he has to decide before he leaves from Mexico. Pressure. I did order, you might remember during the Google io this went on sale, the Pixel tablet, because I liked the idea and Gula talked about this earlier of a tablet that docks on a little base pogo pins via pogo pins and a magnet.

(01:29:14):
Obviously this is really just like a regular tablet. Unfortunately a number of people have said that it, and I have to agree, it's just kind of an everyday Android tablet utility. I'm not, I have to say I'm not. What did you expect from it? Yeah. Well right, good question. Right. we did talk to somebody on Sunday who loves his Samsung Galaxy tab. And I and I, those have always been pretty nice though. I think those are, if you're gonna get an Android tablet, that's probably but ga but Samsung adds a lot of features, multitasking and stuff. This isn't just a, you know, it's an Android tablet. If you look at it, it looks just like an Android tablet. It runs apps. I not cheap Google apps. It's 500 bucks. And I have to say, if you put it side by side with the Nest hub Max, which I did not ask the tech guys on Sunday, it looks very similar and it functionality, at least when it's docked, is very similar. So the really, the main thing this has to offer is it is you can undo it. It's a, it's a standalone tablet in addition to, you know, one of these. Okay. That's interesting.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:18):
It does not have, it does not have a thread radio in it. Right. It does not have, have which

Leo Laporte (01:30:23):
Hub

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:24):
Has which

Leo Laporte (01:30:24):
Wideband. Which the hub has. Right.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:26):
So it's not performing the functions of a plugged in tablet in your home. Oh, that's Or plugged in. Oh, that's

Leo Laporte (01:30:34):
A very important point. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:35):
Google, it's not a smart home controller,

Leo Laporte (01:30:38):
It's an Android tablet as opposed to a Fusia tablet with those smart home features. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:43):
Right. So it's, I mean it may look similar but it doesn't have the same functionality. Like, and if you bought it to actually control your smart home in a matter world, it's not going to,

Leo Laporte (01:30:51):
It's twice as much. So

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:53):
That's an important distinction.

Leo Laporte (01:30:53):
It's twice as much as the Nesta match, but it's

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:56):
A tablet and it's a nice tablet. I mean, you don't buy this because you want a smart home hub. I mean we, we said that from the very beginning. Like this is not a smart home hub. Right. You buy it because you want a tablet.

Leo Laporte (01:31:07):
Yeah. And I, I imagine the use, and this is certainly how I plan to use it, it's replacing the hub max in my kitchen, which we use as a kitchen timer. It still does that because Google

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:19):
Assistance. Oh no, no, don't do that. This is terrible. Cuz what happens when somebody walks by and takes your timer with <laugh>?

Leo Laporte (01:31:25):
Oh yeah. I'm, this is, I'm not telling anybody they can do that. I only, I can do <laugh>. That's a good

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:30):
Point. This is not, do not use it as a smart home hub. This is not the intended use at all. And I think it'll frustrate most people if you tell 'em to use

Leo Laporte (01:31:38):
It that way. Do That's a good point. I do.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:39):
They're gonna encounter

Leo Laporte (01:31:40):
That. Yeah. Can I see that? Yeah. You want the tablet or the doctor? Both. Just the tablet because the doc is useless to me, but it's nice cuz the doc has a little base, although the speakers in the tablet are, the

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:49):
Dock is useless. It's $129 charger.

Leo Laporte (01:31:53):
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:54):
It doesn't have its own microphone. It doesn't have now

Leo Laporte (01:31:56):
Including in the price. Yeah. It doesn't do anything by itself. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:59):
Basically, you know what Google did here? What did the Google do? Google was like, Hey, let's make a really cool smart home tablet slash smart home hub slash tablet. It'll be awesome. And then they realized that the bomb was gonna be way too much if they added all this radios and functionality and made that dock anything more than just a charger, like by adding a microphone or any sort of computing into it or radios. So then they ended up with this weird stupid product that doesn't, it's a good tablet, but has this weird docking thing. And then they doubled down on it being like, it's a real problem. You've got this tablet and people leave it out and they don't charge it such a big problem.

Leo Laporte (01:32:41):
Well I wouldn't mind if Apple did something like this and I could have an eye. Whoops. He's watching David Letterman for some reason. <Laugh>,

Ant Pruitt (01:32:50):
I was actually, I actually clicked on Aubrey Plaza, but Oh yeah, it's Aubrey Plaza. On

Leo Laporte (01:32:54):
On David Letter. Yeah. David Letterman. Okay. Yeah, I mean it's got decent speaker. It's, it's not an iPad. And that's one of the problems I have in general with Android tablets is, is a lot of Android apps don't really use this, this screen realist. It's Android is not as mature a tablet ecosystem as as Apples. I,

Ant Pruitt (01:33:10):
I was, I asked for it because just looking at it over there on the table here, I was like, that sort of looks like a cheap sort of,

Leo Laporte (01:33:18):
It's a me it's a medium. Look at the camera. It's not a great camera,

Ant Pruitt (01:33:22):
But I'm holding it in my hand. It feels fine. It feels

Leo Laporte (01:33:25):
Substantial. It just

Ant Pruitt (01:33:26):
Looks

Leo Laporte (01:33:26):
Cheap. Screen's decent. The refresh rates. Yeah. Not as good as the Samsung, but it's decent. This

Ant Pruitt (01:33:32):
Is totally decent. How much was it? Was it 500?

Leo Laporte (01:33:35):
500 for the tablet? Right now? For the tablet and the base?

Ant Pruitt (01:33:38):
I don't, I don't know about 500, but

Leo Laporte (01:33:40):
Yeah, that's what an iPad would cost. I like the idea. I do like the idea of it docking when two doubt you a bit accident dumped. It's the opposite. Gin and tonic on all about Android. That was when, cause it doesn't, it's not, it's not a super strong magnet. But it shouldn't be cuz otherwise, I mean I can lift the

Ant Pruitt (01:33:57):
Base to try to get it off the Yeah,

Jeff Jarvis (01:34:00):
But but what you said a minute ago, it's not that it's a tablet that docks, it's a whatever you call these desk things, that

Stacey Higginbotham (01:34:09):
Smart display

Leo Laporte (01:34:10):
Separates

Jeff Jarvis (01:34:10):
Smart display that separates

Leo Laporte (01:34:12):
Yeah. Its not, it's a tablets not a smart display. It's a tablet task.

Ant Pruitt (01:34:16):
It's not a smart display is

Stacey Higginbotham (01:34:17):
What she she's it's not a smart display. It's a tablet thats it should been in. Yeah. And it should have been a tablet smart display.

Leo Laporte (01:34:25):
Yes. I don't disagree. I think you're right actually. I mean

Stacey Higginbotham (01:34:29):
You don't, it's an, Kevin tried it and he's like, Hey look as a tablet it's fine. And, and I was really excited about it cuz I thought it could be a smart display that I could also use as a tablet. And I

Ant Pruitt (01:34:40):
Was like, I mean okay. That's pretty cool. Those bezels. I'm looking at it from here. That's that's old school.

Leo Laporte (01:34:45):
Yeah. I,

Ant Pruitt (01:34:46):
Oh my god. I'm not seeing

Stacey Higginbotham (01:34:47):
Hours people in your bes the bezel contingent. No,

Ant Pruitt (01:34:50):
We're gonna talk, hold

Leo Laporte (01:34:52):
Up a tablet needs bes.

Ant Pruitt (01:34:53):
Just hold up my, hold up my phone today.

Leo Laporte (01:34:55):
No, but a tablet needs bes different because you have to, you gotta hold the tablet.

Ant Pruitt (01:34:59):
Yeah, I know. I know. But that, that just looks like a lot of lost screen real estate. They could have given you another

Leo Laporte (01:35:08):
I'll use it. I will use it in my

Stacey Higginbotham (01:35:10):
Kitchen. Sp shaving this tablet. I,

Leo Laporte (01:35:12):
I have YouTube tv so I'll spz shav put, you know, news on there.

Ant Pruitt (01:35:16):
Sports, I, I take one. I just don't think it's $500 worth is all I'm saying.

Leo Laporte (01:35:20):
Yeah. I think it's another Google flop. I hate to say it and I wonder how Well, yeah, I don't, they'll do with the fold cuz honestly, they better bring, I think Samsung owns that category pretty much. I

Ant Pruitt (01:35:31):
Could bring that price down on that

Leo Laporte (01:35:32):
Fold. I was thinking though, Stacy buying the next flip. It's, we're gonna cover the Samsung event. It's I think July. They're gonna announce a new fold and a new flip. And I was thinking of buying the flip. If I get tired of it in a month, can I send it to you?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:35:47):
Sure. I'll, I'll, I'll swap I'll swap phones again with my kid. <Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (01:35:52):
They'll like the flip. I think, I think it's a good phone for people who don't want, who just want a thing that's relatively small and carry in their pocket or purse. That's all you need, right?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:36:02):
I don't know. My kid's like an old man. They, they're

Leo Laporte (01:36:04):
Just like constantly like don't tell 'em that

Stacey Higginbotham (01:36:07):
Another phone

Leo Laporte (01:36:08):
<Laugh>. Oh, that's good.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:36:10):
I don't need any more changes in my life.

Ant Pruitt (01:36:12):
I love your kid.

Leo Laporte (01:36:14):
<Laugh>. Let's oh, I did. Okay. So I do wanna ask you about a home automation thing.

Ant Pruitt (01:36:21):
All right. Matter.

Leo Laporte (01:36:22):
It is matter. As a matter of fact, <laugh> teepee link has announced new switches, light switches. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that are, they're wifi light switches. But they are matter. And I thought now they're 25 bucks each. And I was thinking, and I asked my wife, I said, if I would you mind if I replaced all of the light switches in the house with these CP link switches? And she said a very, let's stop you right there. Well, she said an important thing. She says, what happens when the wifi goes out? <Laugh>. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:36:56):
Don't do that.

Leo Laporte (01:36:58):
Okay.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:36:58):
If you were messing, and I will tell you, I've literally been doing this now for 10 years and experimenting with, that's

Leo Laporte (01:37:04):
Why I wasn't gonna buy it till I talked to you. You bet.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:37:08):
The only way you should make your light switches smart is via a Lutron. I'm so sorry. You have to buy the Lutron hub if you do it. But pop those baby babies in, they don't support matter yet. I really hope they will one day. Most reliable, most functional, freaking expensive. But they support No, because like, these don't support three-way switches, for example. Yeah. You

Leo Laporte (01:37:31):
Don't want that. They do have dimmers, but this is exactly what Jason House

Stacey Higginbotham (01:37:34):
Said. You have to buy a dimmer or an on off. Right. Right. Don't the, I mean they're, they're relatively inexpensive. It like 25 bucks for the switch and I think it's 28 bucks for the dimmer. Yep. They're matter certified with wifi. If your wifi goes out, you can still use the the switch and go blo bloop, bloop, bloop. You're gonna have to double hit it probably to Sure it,

Leo Laporte (01:37:55):
But you could turn the lights off or not. Although Jason said with the Cass, the Lutron cassettes they work just like a regular switch does.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:03):
Yeah. That's why just go with Tron. It's so freaking relevant. I mean I wish I I'm, I'm still waiting for a technology that's better than that. And so far No, just

Leo Laporte (01:38:13):
Lutron all the way. So the thing of course, the thing that got my eye was matter because then I don't need a special hub. It will work with other matter devices. I think if I'm gonna go home automation in the long run, I should have everything be matter compliant.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:27):
Yes. And I think Lutron will eventually support matter if it becomes necessary. But for the reliability, for the ease of programming and use and everything works with Lutron basically. I mean Google does, Amazon does home kit.

Leo Laporte (01:38:41):
Even home kit Kit. Even Apple. Yeah.

Ant Pruitt (01:38:43):
Has Lutron responded to any questions about Oh, I

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:47):
Ask them like every week

Ant Pruitt (01:38:49):
And these, they just, yeah. I'm

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:49):
Just go quiet. Hey, can you tell me if you're going to batter? They're like, no news on that front yet. Stacy. Oh,

Ant Pruitt (01:38:55):
Spin. Huh?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:56):
You'll be the first to know <laugh>. I'm like, ugh.

Leo Laporte (01:38:59):
So I promised Lisa I wouldn't do it until I talked to Stacy and yeah, don't do it. And then Jason said, no, don't do it. Now it is the Lutron switches are you're expensive. A little more expensive. The, the the TP link are 25 bucks and they lit. Yeah. These

Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:18):
Are like, I bought mine for like 45 I think. Wow.

Leo Laporte (01:39:23):
They have a krieger variety of switches up. This is, this is the kind of switch I have in my house now. Oh. 70. The rockers three the rock. Yeah. It's a rocker with and this is timber.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:34):
Okay. Yeah. Don't buy them on Amazon. Just go to Home Depot. Okay. And you can buy like a, a 10 pack for a more reasonable amount.

Leo Laporte (01:39:40):
That's what I'll do then. Okay. While we're in shop and hub with, and I'll need a hub, but I don't mind having a, I have a Hue hub. I don't mind. I Yeah. The problem is right now I have to have hue lights in every thing I want to control with my voice. What I'd like to do is be able to have all the switches be voice controllable. One of the things that, you know, oh, go ahead.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:40:00):
If you are using Hue and you have now Lutron makes a device that you can like literally, and I think I just threw mine away. Well that's true. You can put it on your toggle switch. So you have rockers. So that's not gonna work. If you have a toggle switch, they make a device.

Leo Laporte (01:40:18):
No, I don't wanna, I don't wanna Goldberg, I want to unscrew. And by the way, you need a ground wire, which I have. I checked. You do need to. So I have three wires. So, but what I want to do is I want to that you couldn't tell that I've done this, right? Yeah. At least I could still go up the switch, turn on, turn it off. She won't know. But I will know that I can then open my phone and turn all the lights on or off in the house and that kind of thing.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:40:42):
Yeah. Just get Lutron. And they actually have a device. They actually have one that doesn't require a ground. I can't remember which, like P 64 5 or whatever version of it is, but Right. If you have a

Leo Laporte (01:40:51):
Neutral wire, just Well, I have, I have ground, I have neutral everywhere I checked,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:40:54):
Sorry, not ground neutral wire. Sorry. Yeah. If you have a neutral wire, just get the ones with the neutral wire. Okay. But yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:40:59):
Neutral. 63 bucks compared to 25 bucks.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:02):
Again, go to Home Depot.

Leo Laporte (01:41:04):
I'll go to Home Depot. I don't need the wall or don't need the wall plate. I just need the switch. I gotta a wall. I'll use the existing wall plate and then put the rockery in the wall plate. Okay. All right. That's why since we're shopping, shopping with Leo and shopping with Leo. Stacy related question. Yes.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:24):
And buy them all at once. And Okay. When you buy them all at once, just get your electrician to come out and install. I mean, I can do, if you're gonna do 'em all,

Leo Laporte (01:41:33):
I can do it.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:33):
Oh man. What? Oh, your fingers.

Leo Laporte (01:41:37):
Do you have to turn off the power before you do this? Yes, yes,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:41):
Yes. Please do not wire this.

Leo Laporte (01:41:43):
Really, Ashley please.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:48):
This is a <laugh>. This is 120 volts. I mean it will,

Leo Laporte (01:41:51):
If I wear rubber soul shoes, would that be okay? No, no, no, no. Go. You go right ahead. Let me know when you do it. I'll bring, bring TWI cameras. It'll unpleasant <laugh>. Okay. Buzzing Leo.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:42:04):
And oh, and the other thing, if you have three-way switches.

Leo Laporte (01:42:08):
Yes. What's a three-way switch? Need to

Stacey Higginbotham (01:42:11):
Like, if you have a switch in your kitchen that on one side of your kitchen that controls your kitchen and on the other side you have a switch.

Leo Laporte (01:42:16):
Yeah. Kitchen lights. Yeah. We have lots of three-way switches.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:42:19):
Yeah. So for those, oh, so the TP link wouldn't even work for you cuz they don't actually support three-way

Leo Laporte (01:42:23):
Switches. Oh. Well then forget it. But

Stacey Higginbotham (01:42:25):
With Luron, you're gonna wanna do the smart switch in one spot and then you'll get the like little pico remote and you'll install that where the three-way portions.

Leo Laporte (01:42:36):
We already have some video. Can you of you doing the install here and I, I think you're right. Flash warning it might on the video. Yeah. Flashing light warning seal of approval from Aunt Pruitt. All right. Well this is good. This is why I you know, this is why I do the show so I can ask the smartest people in the room. Big questions like that. And me,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:42:58):
I, big questions. Could you consult on my home lighting project?

Leo Laporte (01:43:02):
It sounds like I probably shouldn't do this. It sounds like trouble big time. Oh no,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:06):
It's great. You know what, we actually use lights in our house instead of shouting at my kid. So, and I programmed, wait a

Leo Laporte (01:43:13):
Minute, wait a minute. Have a little wait, wait minute. You better explain it how that works. Light signals.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:17):
So like to get attention, like downstairs, blink their lights. My kid is downstairs. You blink. I blink their lights

Leo Laporte (01:43:22):
Blink Their lights <laugh>. Andre waffles. She does,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:26):
She has

Leo Laporte (01:43:26):
Morse code. They do. You do mors. Yeah. You go on off. On, off, off, off. No,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:29):
No, no, no. I just, it's just a little on off. And the cool thing is,

Leo Laporte (01:43:32):
And then they go, oh, mom wants me. And they come downstairs. I've, I've seen several

Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:36):
Parents when they come upstairs. Yeah. Oh that's nice. And it's nice cuz we're not shouting at and it's like, come to dinner, whatever. And then you can do it. So I have a little remote that controls both the downstairs lights, the lights in their room and then Oh, that's cool. I even set up one of my husband's room now. So now I have separate remotes to like, call various people.

Jeff Jarvis (01:43:56):
Do you two blinks? Bring waffle? Three blinks.

Leo Laporte (01:44:00):
My mom when I was a kid, cuz she got tired of shouting dinner, got a little bell and rings it. And now every time I hear a little bell, my mouth was, oh, you're an animal. That's why <laugh>, you

Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:09):
Just call you pad love.

Jeff Jarvis (01:44:16):
Can I ask you a shopping question real quick since we're on this? Yeah. Son Jake needs an air purifier. You guys were talking about what you use. What do you recommend? Ooh, get

Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:23):
The co way. Oh, air Omega co

Jeff Jarvis (01:44:26):
Say it again.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:27):
Co way. Air Omega for big rooms or just the co way for not big rooms. Yeah. We,

Leo Laporte (01:44:31):
The, the Air omega's expensive. It's it's a big br you know, box, but does the whole So we have that in the house. This whole

Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:38):
House. Oh, that's not my Air

Leo Laporte (01:44:39):
Omega. No, I know. Mine's square. This is the new, there you go. Yeah. Oh,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:42):
Mine's that this guy. Yeah. The large

Leo Laporte (01:44:43):
Space. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And then, but they're expensive. And then this is the one that I ordered. I told you this story, I order it refurbished on Amazon. Right. It saved me a lot of money. It didn't come with filters. I used it for a year during covid without the filters, <laugh> because I didn't know. Whoops. I didn't look. I just got it. I opened the box, set it up, Hey honey, we're protected <laugh>, and then

Jeff Jarvis (01:45:08):
I protect you. And then he as usual

Leo Laporte (01:45:10):
Says, well, then a year later,

Jeff Jarvis (01:45:13):
I am the

Leo Laporte (01:45:13):
Protector. The light comes on and the thing and says New filters. I said, great. I ordered filters there, opened up and said, where? Where's no filters in here at all. Oh. So basically a fan blowing the air around <laugh> for a year. So tell Jake get filters if it doesn't come with him. Right. but you get the little thin ones. We have those as well. Those are 261 square foot for the 200 200 m That's what that says. Yeah. It's it's a basically a simple HEPA filter. But for smoke. Like are you worried about Canadian smoke fires? Is that

Jeff Jarvis (01:45:48):
No, just allergies and stuff. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:45:49):
Allergies. Yeah. It works great for that.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:45:52):
Yeah. Run it. So close the door in your bedroom. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, run it for an hour on high before you go to sleep. And then just put it back on sleep mode and then it's awesome.

Leo Laporte (01:46:01):
Oh, you're good. Sounds like you know. Yeah. Now if you wait

Jeff Jarvis (01:46:06):
Iway right now, if you using a guess air purifiers, water filters and Biden and, and bide toilet seats.

Leo Laporte (01:46:12):
Ooh, let's, let me tell you something. Until you get a bide toilet seat. You don't know living. You don't know living. I'm telling you there's, there's two things we miss. We're in Disneyland, we're staying at the crappy, one of the crappy Disneyland hotels. And we miss our eight sleep, you know, thing that warms cools the beds. And we miss the thing that the toto toilets

Jeff Jarvis (01:46:35):
Spritzes spritzes your rear

Leo Laporte (01:46:36):
Keeps you fresh and clean. Yeah. I've been in my search history. That's scary. Oh, highly recommend it. <Laugh>. They used to be. Well you

Jeff Jarvis (01:46:42):
Didn't tell us about VidCon yet. You didn't say anything about VidCon. Oh

Leo Laporte (01:46:45):
Yeah. Okay. So the big takeaway for me that I thought was Mo, so VidCon is John and Hank Green started this now almost 15 years ago. Was it 2011 Jeff? 2013, something like that. Something like that,

Jeff Jarvis (01:46:58):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:46:59):
As a way to bring creators you at the time YouTube creators time YouTube.

Jeff Jarvis (01:47:03):
Yep.

Leo Laporte (01:47:04):
Together. And they're with their audience. And so there's a big fan contingent of, and you told me this Jeff, to you warned me a lot of teenagers there. Oh yeah. But then there are a lot of creators there. And now of course it's since been bought by Viacom. Yes. So it has a slight, there's an industry track. That's what Lisa was there for. The industry track that's on the third floor. Well away from the children. The second floor is the creator track. And then on the ground floor is the conference. And there's the fans. The fans, there's booths. You know, there was a guy, there was a long line trailing around and I thought, oh, this gotta be somebody big. And it was some Minecraft guy who wears a mask. And he's standing there signing autographs in his mask or doing actually more likely selfies, selfies, selfies, selfies in his mask. And people were just all of Twitter about this.

Jeff Jarvis (01:47:53):
Well, you, you, you get, you get wristbands and you get a lottery as to you, you sign up and you ask for people, and then you get wow choices. And so you get like three guaranteed selfies

Leo Laporte (01:48:06):
Then. And then there are some little kind of auditorium sections inside the conference area, right? There were two of them. And they hold maybe a couple hundred people. There were two side by side running at the same time, both filled. One was some sort of Ghost Hunter YouTube show, and there was another show. And there the people, there are rabid fans of that mm-hmm. <Affirmative> thing. Yes. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. In fact, I was standing there watching the guy and there's four guys in a panel saying, Hey, do you wanna see the next video? And they're, the fans are screaming. Ah. And so they show the next video and they're all excited. So what I really took away from it is how uhm it's really, it's, it's programming has changed dramatically since my youth where we had three channels, three networks, and it was that. And everybody watched one of the site d Lincoln's Island. Now there's a thousand niches. We're one of them. Yes. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, we're a niche broadcaster. Everybody's a niche broadcaster now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so this, this, you know, ghost hunting show had its real solid constituency. And to them that's pretty cool. They were superstars up there on that stage, but oh yes. The people on the next stage, I don't know who that is, but this is and the guy on the mask, he's got his things. So each of these is as famous to that constituency as Paul Newman would be to, in my

Jeff Jarvis (01:49:23):
Generation. That to me is the new scale of everything. Yeah. That it's the, it's the massive niches and, and things come down for this ridiculous scale that we all have to like, the same thing, the smaller scale. The other, the other session I, I, I loved there, I presume they still have it, is their mental health sessions.

Leo Laporte (01:49:40):
Yeah. They have a lot of attention to mental health, to inclusion. I mean, it's very conscious. And, and I, and of course that's probably cuz of John and Hank mm-hmm. <Affirmative> initially. Right. And because they were very forward thinking in that regard. So yeah. It's good, you know, it's good, clean fun. It was very interesting. It feels very alien to a, a person of my generation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> because it's so different from the media landscape I grew up in. But it is, I mean, what's obvious is this is, this is what Twit is, is, you know, we have a small, there's we have's Army. Yeah. We have 700,000 unique listeners every month. Right. That's our, and that's actually pretty big. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> maybe not compared to a Marquez Brownlee or a Mr. Beast, but that's, that's decent for a niche for new media. And I think it's enough. It's certainly enough to make a living on there. Mr. Beast was not there because weirdly, Cannes Lion was at the same time. What is, what is Can Lions it's a, you got

Jeff Jarvis (01:50:43):
Me, that's, you

Leo Laporte (01:50:44):
Got me. It's the International Festival of Creativity. Oh,

Jeff Jarvis (01:50:46):
Canned Lion. Oh, can, yeah. That's, that's, that's the advertising industry.

Leo Laporte (01:50:52):
So that's where Mr. Beast and Emma Chamberlain and all the big shots were. Geez, they, there's

Jeff Jarvis (01:50:57):
Always been a problem for VidCon is that they occur just by happenstance. They occur at the same time. And so VidCon been trying, cause I was on the Indu, the Industry advisory board for a few years, trying to get the advertising executives to come and respect this kind of creator video is always the quest for them.

Leo Laporte (01:51:16):
Yeah. And of course here's she Leazar's pictures from the French Riviera. You know, she's, she's at Cannes Lions so you know, the Wall Street Journals at Cannes Lions. Right. So this is, this is the problem. This is, you know, there's two sets of creators and they're split. And the ones who were most successful are probably in France. I hate to tell you. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they're not. Yeah. Because who would not go to the French Riviera as opposed to la Well, it's also where the money is. You know, the fans are at VidCon. Right. But the money's at came over

Jeff Jarvis (01:51:50):
There. Was John Green there?

Leo Laporte (01:51:52):
I didn't see him. And as I mentioned before the show began, I didn't know this, but later read an article that said, oh, actually all the action wasn't at the conference center at the Anaheim Convention Center. All the action was over at the Hyatt a few blocks away where they, that's, that was where the creators stayed. And in fact, when, when the CEO of TikTok came to, to VidCon, they sponsored it last year. They were the key, key sponsor last year, YouTube's back again this year is sponsor. But la but when the CEO of TikTok came, he didn't even go to Anaheim Convention Center. He went to the Hyatt. So, so really the, I was maybe we didn't see the best of of VidCon.

Jeff Jarvis (01:52:31):
That was not the case when I went.

Leo Laporte (01:52:32):
No, I think that's changed.

Jeff Jarvis (01:52:33):
The hotels were right there. I think it's

Leo Laporte (01:52:34):
Correct. And only 50,000 attendees, I think was the, the LA final number. It was small. It's smaller than it's been in years past. Covid heard it. I'm sure it's coming back. Yeah. I don't, or maybe not, because one of the problems with being all these niche shows is there's no central place to go. Right.

Jeff Jarvis (01:52:54):
Yeah. And Hank tried, he, he announced this at VidCon some years ago where he wanted the Creators Guild. He wanted to create a, you know, a union around creators. And he couldn't get it going on the negotiation side. Yeah. it's trying to bring together a critical mass of creators.

Leo Laporte (01:53:10):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:11):
And that's what VidCon really stands for.

Leo Laporte (01:53:15):
It it was very interesting. I mean, I don't feel like any obligation to go. And certainly no one, it was, no one had any idea who Lisa or I were. Right. I mean, TWI, nobody, we are so old school.

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:26):
Right. Why would they? Well,

Leo Laporte (01:53:27):
That's a, well, because in some ways we we're part of the creator. Yeah, you bet. Ecosystem, aren't

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:33):
You? Your panel was Lisa on. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:53:34):
Again, she was on an industry panel on b2b you know, b B2B creators. And of course the consensus there was LinkedIn. You gotta be on LinkedIn, you gotta do your stuff on LinkedIn. And it was like when you

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:44):
Showed Sure. I was thinking, I always see her on LinkedIn as we call each

Leo Laporte (01:53:48):
Other. Do B2B people LinkedIn is probably a good place to be, although, I don't know. Alright. Quickly, because no one cares. It's time for the Google change log <laugh>.

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:59):
Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:54:00):
That I can really sell it, can't I? You got change

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:02):
Log <laugh>. There's a change log.

Leo Laporte (01:54:04):
I sold that Good.

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:05):
A spit off. Woo.

Leo Laporte (01:54:07):
<Laugh> YouTube music now automatically adds songs to your last playlist.

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:13):
Crickets.

Leo Laporte (01:54:15):
Google introduces a new shop tab for Reynolds and purchases on Android tv. This is Google's response to the fact that they took away the Google Play Store. Right. You can't buy TV and movies on the Google Play Store. So they are now gonna add this slowly to Android, to TV w if you wanna buy movies or TV shows, that's where you're gonna do it. And it will also show anything you've already purchased or purchased in the past from Google Play movies and TV or YouTube or Google TV or Android tv. I actually, I really think that Google you know, Chromecast with Android TV is quite good. Or is it the Google Chromecast with Google tv? I can never, yeah, I get so confused. <Laugh> one of them is really good. I have no idea. Which Google search is rolling out a perspectives filter for more personal and human results.

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:08):
Hmm. This is because

Leo Laporte (01:55:10):
This is part of Sge, right?

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:13):
I think it's also part of the Reddit problem.

Leo Laporte (01:55:16):
Oh. This is a response to the lack of input from Reddit if Reddit goes away. Because of course everybody knows the real way to do a good Google search is to add the word Reddit to the end of whatever you're searching.

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:26):
I never knew.

Leo Laporte (01:55:28):
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:29):
Yeah. How could you not know this?

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:31):
I know. I'll have all these shows. Even the best results. Google,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:34):
Like, even when you Google things, you have to scroll through all the crap and eventually you'll find something that looks like it might work for you. And it's usually on Reddit.

Leo Laporte (01:55:41):
I think it's really interesting, Stacy, that you said, and I agree with you that Google search results have gone to hell. Oh, they're terrible. They, they really are. And I've been looking for a replacement, but they, I don't know what it is. Is it duck com? I think it's

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:53):
Google's fault. It's the web's fault and it's gonna get worse. There's a story I put on the rundown that basically warn depends us Canada, when LLMs are gonna fill up the web.

Leo Laporte (01:56:01):
Yeah. There's a lot of crap out there. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I think it's both though. I think Google also has decided that they want to feature, I mean, search results have gone below the fold. The clickable links,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:13):
Right? Yeah. I mean, like, if I click the top result for anything, I search for just outta habit, cuz I'm an idiot that that's just wrong. Yeah. Don't ever do that. Don't

Leo Laporte (01:56:21):
Ever do that. End up that.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:22):
Well, you'll just not end up where you wanna be.

Leo Laporte (01:56:24):
Google is updating. See, we now have to cover Android because of the No more all about Android. So here you go. Google is updating the Android logo with a 3D robot head.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:37):
Really?

Leo Laporte (01:56:39):
<Laugh>. Sure.

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:41):
They put a

Leo Laporte (01:56:41):
Shadow on it. That's exciting. They put a freaking drop shadow on

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:43):
You. You put that. We've got 90 minutes in this show, and that's what you put.

Leo Laporte (01:56:46):
All right, let's move on. Google is giving find my device a new logo. Okay. You know what? That's it for the Google change log. The hell with it.

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:55):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:56:57):
All right. Last chance,

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:58):
But last problem,

Leo Laporte (01:57:00):
Last chance. I'd like to wrap this up. Anything. I see a lot of stuff you added. Jeff, is there anything, was, was there some news about Google and Canada? Yeah. Canada forces Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for linking to articles. This is the, I can never say that. And as a result, meta says, all right, fine. No more news for you Canada,

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:28):
No news for you. I and meanwhile, it's, it's just a mess. I put up a, a really good column. Somebody wrote Michael Geist, who's been covering this all along

Leo Laporte (01:57:37):
C 18, right

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:38):
After this is announced right after this is announced the Toronto Star Company, formerly Tor Star and Post Media, which is the conglomerate that's taken everything up, announced they're gonna merge, basically taking away all competition in news. They pushed for this law. And there's gonna be less news all around. Facebook's not gonna link to news, or there's gonna be no competition. It's abl the, the TV stations are now trying to push hard to take away their requirement for local news or reduce it. It's a bloody mess. And it all comes because the hedge fund owned big companies and investor companies went after their political, they bought their votes to get this protectionism. And it's a disaster. And, and what's happening is I submitted a letter to the California Senate because the California Journalism Protection Act, or not protection per Preservation Act is I think coming up for debate this week. And it's a disaster like the Canadian one, like the J CPA A, which is the one in Congress it's bakish for news companies. Full disclosure, Google gives money to my school, but it's still stupid. It's dangerous. It's as bad as that

Leo Laporte (01:58:51):
Hotdog. It, it's not bad. It's not bad. It's good. It's just, I mean, that

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:55):
Hotdog could be

Leo Laporte (01:58:56):
Dangerous. It's, this is the Rupert Murdoch of hotdog. It's just <laugh>. It just will not die. <Laugh>

(01:59:05):
Plot, I I, I would be remiss if I didn't cover what is turning out to be the worst corporate mismanagement Warner Brothers Discovery. Oh man, God, what a mess. They're making everything. The latest is Turner Classic Movies, which is arguably the greatest gift to movie lovers ever, especially in the Marvel Cinema, star Wars universe, world of movies. Warner has now fired the five most senior executives at TCM through a mix of buyouts and pink slips. Warner Brothers Discovery. We need a new name for this. The Evil Empire. How about that? Has promised the viewers would no long, would no see, no change to ccm. The management's all gone <laugh>, but there's no change. The channel will remain free of ads, but it's losing money like crazy. We remain fully committed to this business. Producers

Jeff Jarvis (01:59:58):
Came for an emergency meeting with Zaslav. Ugh.

Leo Laporte (02:00:01):
I swear. I think I saw the office on Netflix again recently. No one doesn't make sense. No one knows if TCM will survive or not. I pray that it continues. Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds said he told his 21 million followers on Twitter. TCM was a fixture in his life. The channel is a holy corner of film history and a living, breathing library for an entire art form. Right on Ryan Mark Harris, a journalist and film historian called The Cuts of Catastrophic Talent Purge. Patton Oswald blamed David Zaslav saying you couldn't just leave this one alone. So, so far, you know, besides firing everybody No, no changes. We'll see. Zaslav says, I keep TCM playing in my office. Okay, fine. New

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:58):
Rumor is that Comcast will buy Discovery. MGM whatever, whatever, whatever. No, I'm sorry. Not mgm. That's, that's Amazon. But we'll buy this mess.

Leo Laporte (02:01:10):
What a mess. Which means just so sad. More

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:13):
Antitrust than imaginable.

Leo Laporte (02:01:16):
Yeah. You know, I guess it's the me I don't know what's going on. This is, this is the, the other side of the VidCon story, which is, you know, media is changing dramatically in traditional media. Yeah. Is in an, in a tizzy is a, is a, the end of

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:29):
The mass, my friends. The end of the mass

Leo Laporte (02:01:31):
Succession. Yeah. Who will win the cage match between Zuck and Musk? Oh my gosh. <Laugh>. Oh. So I would say that that Zuck, what did we say he did the, the Murphy. He did the Murphy. Yeah. I mean, that's a tough I would've put my money on on his. He's got this kid besides the fact that he's like 10 years younger or more 20, 20 years younger. <Laugh>, this is quick. This almost over. This is like Godzilla versus Ra Bertha Bertram. I don't even want talk about it, except I think Martha, I think they serious it serious. I think they're serious about a cage match. Just, just yet. The other day, Elon Lex Friedman, the podcaster and m MIT genius posted,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:02:12):
Okay. These people are all just getting in on this for the media clout. Oh, they're

Leo Laporte (02:02:15):
Horrible. I cannot believe we're, this is the lowest when I'm gonna give them their time. It was at the bottom. It's below the fold. <Laugh> Lex Friedman posted video of him wrestling. Elon Musk. Yeah. Yeah. What's wrong with these people? Oh gosh. As have you not heard the update on this story? Oh, what's the latest? Bonita? Elon's mom came out and said like, no, this isn't happening. Yeah, his mom, oh, Elon's ass would get whooped. But his mom came and saved him. I think his mom should come in and beat up Zuck <laugh> At least give his stern talking to Right. Or Z's Deadest dad. Lord, I mean, what's wrong with these people?

Stacey Higginbotham (02:02:54):
Arguably the less, the lesser of two evils.

Leo Laporte (02:02:57):
Here he is. He's definitely, isn't that a sad statement? Makes, makes him look good. When Mark Zuckerberg looks good, <laugh> doesn't cause Elon so horrific.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:03:05):
He doesn't like, he's just, I mean, he's just the lesser of two evils. But yeah. What, what the hell? No. This is just boys ego. Stupid. Yep.

Leo Laporte (02:03:15):
Testosterone test. You know,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:03:16):
Skip,

Leo Laporte (02:03:17):
What are we gonna do though? Boys are, there's 50% of the world is boys. And how much of the power is boys? Yeah. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:03:29):
Fix that. Don't, let's not get into this

Leo Laporte (02:03:32):
<Laugh> Stacey. He'll never get to dinner. Well, all right. Elon's Musk mom can't stop the Mark Zuckerberg cage fight. <Laugh>. let us do your pick of the week so that you can go on to things much more worthy of your time. Stacy.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:03:52):
Oh, well, no. We can do, well actually, no. You know what? Yes.

Leo Laporte (02:03:57):
<Laugh>, it's your thank you know what? It's your time. Now is your time.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:03):
Oh, do

Leo Laporte (02:04:04):
I, I'm sorry. Have something, do you have anything? Do you not wanna talk? I

Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:09):
Brought this, I wanna

Leo Laporte (02:04:10):
Point out, didn't I press, I brought two things. I brought a pixel tablet. I brought those teepee link and the hotdog switches. He brought the hot things

Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:19):
He bring the hot dog, a

Leo Laporte (02:04:19):
Plastic hotdog with, and I even ate it. And nothing from you, Stacy. Nothing glued that

Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:27):
Bun. I've got gear sing off the bun. I not tested it yet, so I don't wanna I don't wanna show it until next week.

Leo Laporte (02:04:32):
Okay. Save it. So I'm like,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:33):
Wait,

Leo Laporte (02:04:34):
My thing of the week is this hot dog <laugh>? That thing just, it doesn't look right, does it? No.

Jeff Jarvis (02:04:41):
No, it does not.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:42):
It's not right. It's

Leo Laporte (02:04:44):
Not right. It's just too perfect. I don't know if I'd say perfect. Perfect

Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:49):
Is not the word.

Leo Laporte (02:04:52):
The hell is that, man.

Jeff Jarvis (02:04:54):
And what did you have for lunch today? For I had,

Leo Laporte (02:04:57):
I had burgers, I had burgers, hanging rings. I'm never ordering a hotdog again. That's, oh man. And that was good. Jeff, what's your number of the week? And it's a big one. I know. This is a big one.

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:08):
Oh, you want that one?

Leo Laporte (02:05:09):
Well, you give me any one you want.

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:11):
Well, that's fine. So, well, there was arguments about this. The, the it is said that the typical open AI engineer makes $925,000. Now, of course, that's not salary. It's a base of 300 and 625 in stock based compensation for a stock that has no actual real set value in the real world yet. Okay. But be that as it may, they're filthy rich. These people, 300, unless the company goes

Stacey Higginbotham (02:05:43):
Okay. They, they're filthy rich on paper. I've been filthy rich on paper. Or my husband has rather. But we're, we need to split our assets. So you have <laugh>. And you know what, we ended up buying with that after, after we had the.com bust. What? What? We bought a Tesla dining room chairs in a program that bought back the shares because they didn't wanna have more than 500 shareholders. Outstanding. Wow. So for a while we were millionaires.

Leo Laporte (02:06:09):
Oh yeah. I remember.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:06:10):
And then we had six dining room chairs

Leo Laporte (02:06:12):
I remember going to,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:06:12):
And we were grateful for those chairs. Tech.

Leo Laporte (02:06:14):
Yeah. Tech tv. Tech TV gave us shares. And I remember going into the CEO's office, and I think this was the illegal, and he was writing numbers. He said, if, if the company's worth this much, you're gonna be worth this much. It was like $10 million or something.

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:28):
Mm-Hmm. It was like the bell at dinner time. You started

Leo Laporte (02:06:31):
Salivating I started salivating and it was all a lie. You know it's

Stacey Higginbotham (02:06:36):
Not a lie. It's just, it's paper. It's paper value.

Leo Laporte (02:06:40):
Well, what happened was, this happens a lot of times. The lead investor who was Paul Allen gotta be made whole before anybody else saw any value in the stock. So I had actual stock, but Paul got his, cuz he lost his shirt. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. He got his money first, which meant I got, I got nothing. He got a couple, I got diddly. Squat one, Comcast.

Jeff Jarvis (02:07:03):
I've got so much advisor shares. Leo, can I ask you to do one more thing with this story? Yes. Can, can you put the camera on your screen there or go to that story? The

Stacey Higginbotham (02:07:11):
Oh, I know my thing. Okay. But then y'all

Leo Laporte (02:07:13):
Talk about, okay, I'm on this story. I have a picture of Sam Altman.

Jeff Jarvis (02:07:16):
Yeah. So now, now just mouse over the Twitter share or click on the Twitter share.

Leo Laporte (02:07:23):
All right. Purchase a link to this subscriber only article that allows anybody to view the content for $895.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:07:33):
<Laugh>. Isn't

Leo Laporte (02:07:33):
That insane? What is this? Inno Biz journals.com. It's,

Jeff Jarvis (02:07:37):
It's bizur. It's, it's my old employers. It's newhouse. It's

Leo Laporte (02:07:40):
It's biz.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:07:40):
I was my old employer too.

Leo Laporte (02:07:42):
Oh really? Do you have any stock in the New House Journal at 8 95 bucks? You can't have

Jeff Jarvis (02:07:47):
Stock it cause it's a family.

Leo Laporte (02:07:48):
Oh

Stacey Higginbotham (02:07:49):
Yeah. It's a family owned thing. It's

Leo Laporte (02:07:50):
Si

Jeff Jarvis (02:07:51):
You give a free link. A free link to a, to a truncated article. Or you can buy it where anybody can read it for $895. Damn.

Leo Laporte (02:07:59):
Do you think anybody buys that? No.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:03):
I mean, I might pay a dollar so 10 people could click on it or maybe $10. So a hundred people could click on it.

Leo Laporte (02:08:11):
Here's the free here, by the way. I got the free link and it's got, you know, the lead and it's got a link. But if I click that link, will it be just say, oh, sorry. You can't read this.

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:21):
It'll be, it'll be, it'll be what you got. It'll be what I gave you. It's the first two paragraphs. That's all you need to know.

Leo Laporte (02:08:25):
Oh, I didn't even know I wasn't, didn't getting the whole article. <Laugh> Dave,

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:29):
You don't care. You didn't

Leo Laporte (02:08:30):
Care. I didn't care. This article's for members. O suckers only. I mean, members only.

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:36):
By the way, one thing that drives me nuts about Mastodon, I love Mastodon, but whenever I put up a link to the Washington Post for the New York Times or whatever.

Leo Laporte (02:08:44):
Oh yeah. They

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:44):
Won't. I know, I know.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:47):
If you go to, if you do it on Reddit, they they'll master do needs to do a deal like Reddit, where if you just log in, you get like seven articles for free.

Leo Laporte (02:08:55):
I just steal my articles by typing archive.ph in front. No comment.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:00):
Hey, I found my thing, by the way. I remember what

Leo Laporte (02:09:03):
It

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:03):
Was. We got your, I should probably put it in the things

Leo Laporte (02:09:05):
When I No, no. What did your thing doll? Before the show? Give us your thing,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:09):
Doll. Oh my God. I am gonna smack you in. I need you. Please do a punch.

Leo Laporte (02:09:16):
We, I'm sorry, the ketamine just kicked in. Go right ahead please. Oh,

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:20):
The hotdog kicked in <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:09:22):
Microdose hotdog though. Didn't you see that? I, I don't know.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:25):
So you're arguing that you were delusional when you

Leo Laporte (02:09:28):
Don't, he's

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:29):
Not. The Supreme Court says it's not his fault. He didn't know,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:33):
Because again, I think I'm gonna need that punch

Leo Laporte (02:09:36):
Ring. Just punch me and it'll make her feel better. Here we go. Mean hit the button. Hit the button. Hit the button. Stacy,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:43):
What was the, oh, I,

Leo Laporte (02:09:45):
Oh God. Okay.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:48):
Thank you Aunt. I asked

Leo Laporte (02:09:49):
Water. I'm

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:50):
Watering. Sorry. We needed some serious negative

Leo Laporte (02:09:51):
Reinforcement was watering. My eyes are watering <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:55):
All right. So my thing this week that I forgot completely about, cuz I didn't put in the link, my bad. Is Nano Leaf released something that is only cool for people who like, are really into television or gaming. But if you're into it, it's actually a very affordable way to do ambient lighting. So it's the nano leaf 40 screen mirror and light strip kit. And this is a, what this does is you stick this over your tv. It's got a little camera that's like processing the colors of what's on the television. And then the light strip mimic.

Leo Laporte (02:10:23):
Oh, it's a bias light. That's bias lighting. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:10:28):
Okay. I was like so, but you think has done this for a while, but to get something like this, you have to pay like, it's like $400 to get the lighting and everything and the sink box. Yeah. But this is actually for a 65 inch light strip in the little camera, it is only $99. Or sorry, a hundred dollars. That's pretty cool. And then an 85 inch light strip is like 120. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:10:52):
This is really, did you do, have you done this?

Stacey Higginbotham (02:10:54):
So we've I've done it with the Hue. Yeah. So I haven't tried this one out yet because it's not gonna ship until July. Oh. But if this is something you're interested in, I love the nano leaf lighting. The camera's pretty cool. They have a little privacy thing if you're worried about it taking, so there's two ways they deal with privacy with this camera that like overlooks your tv, which admittedly is a little unattractive. They let you cover it. Or they also don't do any processing except like in the cloud. It's all local on the device.

Leo Laporte (02:11:26):
I trust them. What is Nana Leaf gonna do with my information anyway?

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:30):
Well, I mean, are you sure they

Leo Laporte (02:11:31):
Can't really A lot of YouTube

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:33):
<Laugh>. Yeah. They're basically know what you're watching on tv. But they're, they're, they won't know that cuz none of that data goes to the cloud. They're literally just saying, these are the colors on the screen. Quickly mimic it to the thing.

Leo Laporte (02:11:44):
I might actually do this. That's pretty cool. I've always wanted to do bias lighting. Yeah. And this is an inexpensive way to implement it. You do have to have that camera looking at your tv. It's like dark mode. Yeah. <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:56):
How is it like dark mode?

Leo Laporte (02:11:57):
It's cool. Do you watch TV with all the lights on? Yeah, he probably does. Oh man. Unbelievable.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:07):
The other cool thing they, and I didn't know this was a thing cuz I'm not a gamer. They actually synced their lights with Overwatch.

Leo Laporte (02:12:14):
Oh. Which, that's cool.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:16):
You okay? Yeah. So when you get kills, it'll like turn,

Leo Laporte (02:12:20):
Oh, it'll flash red. It's like fun colors. Oh,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:22):
Great. And if you die, it'll flash at red. And I'm like, why don't we have like an API like this for sports? Yeah. I

Leo Laporte (02:12:29):
Want that. You shouldn't need that camera. It should just be sending that information down the pipe course sign

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:33):
Down. You tried to build that

Leo Laporte (02:12:34):
Band starts playing. It should light up all

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:36):
Like 10 years ago. That'd

Leo Laporte (02:12:37):
Have been awesome. And what happened? Did the TV company didn't go along with it or

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:42):
It was a lot of, it was a lot of integration Yeah. On the media side. And so it was very custom for, it wasn't basically scalable, but now you can do with, I mean this is actually using computer vision and AI to, to quickly say, oh, these colors will work here. Go. And they can do it rapidly

Leo Laporte (02:13:00):
Enough. I'm a sucker. I'm gonna buy this because it's, it's neat. I, yeah. I like this idea. I've spent a lot of money

Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:07):
And they have the four different layers They have like <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:13:09):
Yeah. Yeah. I have too. It's in expensive. All right. And I'm gonna get it for the bigger I up to 85 inches. I mean, I, I want to,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:19):
You have other nano leaf lights, it'll sink to those as well in the room.

Leo Laporte (02:13:24):
I might be heading, heading toward nano leaf heaven.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:28):
Yeah. So if you got a new media room or you got the new couch or what you get, you got reclining chairs.

Ant Pruitt (02:13:32):
We got home theater

Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:34):
Seating. Spit out that spaceman.

Ant Pruitt (02:13:35):
We got home theater seating for our bedroom. <Laugh>. Oh, definitely. You invited an audience. Well, that's living right. Come on over. Watch. Don't snore. It's got, it's got They're heated. It's got massagers in 'em. Watch don't snore <laugh>. Watch me snore. <Laugh>. That's hilarious. I know. It's a long story. Lisa says there should, we should do a reality show. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. You should. I had to take down the ceiling swing though because I didn't, they were, oh, I should probably talk about that. <Laugh>

Stacey Higginbotham (02:14:19):
Ant is like edging away to, he's like, no.

Ant Pruitt (02:14:21):
Yeah, yeah. Ooh. Oh dude, I'm, I'm busy buying these lights. Okay, Stacy, that's a good thing. Oh gosh. And I will I'm gonna put these in the bedroom. Right side Jam B is saying, no, we shouldn't buy this for some reason he's, he, you shouldn't buy this. I mean, his mine has rage face going right now. Why should I not buy this? Wilton does not approve. Remember what

John Slanina (02:14:45):
Scott Wilkinson has told you

Ant Pruitt (02:14:46):
About bias lights? What has Scott Wilkinson told me about bias lights should not, they should be

John Slanina (02:14:49):
6,500

Ant Pruitt (02:14:50):
K. They should not sync. They should be 6,500 K.

John Slanina (02:14:53):
Yeah. And, and sinking will just distract you and ruin the

Ant Pruitt (02:14:55):
Whole, or the whole room will feel like immersive. I I won't push the button. Ask Scott Wilkinson. I will ask Scott when he's on at, he did just talk about home this at home theater geeks like this last week. Bias lighting. So the, for him bias lighting is just a neutral light behind the TV not attempting to match the content of the tv, which is what this does. Yeah. He'll be distracting. He's right. No man. They do. Go ahead Mr. It's immersive. They

Stacey Higginbotham (02:15:21):
Have different levels of it though. So you could actually have what sounds to be bias lighting at the

Ant Pruitt (02:15:26):
Lowest level. Well, it's okay cuz I'm sending it to my mother for some reason I don't <laugh> I dunno why mom enjoyed the bias lighting. Okay. You're

Stacey Higginbotham (02:15:36):
Like you sent me a camera and lights lead.

Ant Pruitt (02:15:38):
Mom has a disco party Saturday night watching college football. Then the band strikes up when a touchdown is score. Wouldn't that be great? I think that would be pretty dgu.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:15:49):
I think it'd be neat for nature documentaries. Yeah. But that's just me.

Ant Pruitt (02:15:53):
Oh. You know, you're like, all right. I'll ask Scott first. You're right. Thank you. You stopped me from sending this to my mom, <laugh>. And do you, do you have a pick? What was my pick? I know what it was. Sony Z Oh, E one. Yeah. Sony Zv E one. They're is this a vlogging camera? Yeah, that's their, one of their, their latest vlog quote unquote cameras, but it's full frame it. Recently you got a software update for video where you can now shoot 4K 120 frames a second at h can shoot 240 frames a second, which pretty much puts it on par with their, with their fx.

Leo Laporte (02:16:29):
Yeah. Their, yeah. Or their Alpha Z s3 s Yeah. So

Ant Pruitt (02:16:32):
You can get a decent video camera for a lot less money and

Leo Laporte (02:16:36):
They'll probably use my FX lenses. Right. It

Ant Pruitt (02:16:38):
Should yeah. They're all email usually,

Leo Laporte (02:16:40):
So. Oh, that's cool. That's,

Ant Pruitt (02:16:42):
That's a heck of a deal right there.

Leo Laporte (02:16:44):
So this is a firmware update if you've already got it. If you don't, do you use this? Do you have

Ant Pruitt (02:16:48):
It? I don't have it, but I don't have a problem with Sony cameras.

Leo Laporte (02:16:51):
Oh, I love my Sonys.

Ant Pruitt (02:16:53):
Yeah, they're, they're pretty nice. Yeah. but yeah, they have a firmware update if, just in case you're curious, but my pick pick is totally random. It's called Beamer Code

Leo Laporte (02:17:03):
Beamer. Code <laugh>. Does it involve Beamers?

Ant Pruitt (02:17:07):
Yeah, it involves bmw. If you have a BMW or a mini and you want to play around with your, which we do with your car. Yeah. And its software Beamer code allows you to connect to your O B D with a particular O B D dongle. Yeah. and you can play around with some of the things cuz with my car, I recently had some issues with my daytime running lights and I got tired of seeing an error until I fixed the light and I found Beamer code and it allowed me to go in there Oh. And turn that error off. Nice. Until I fixed the

Leo Laporte (02:17:39):
Light. This is your new BMW that you just got.

Ant Pruitt (02:17:42):
Yeah. I had it for a little while. It's nice.

Leo Laporte (02:17:45):
It looks very fancy. Yeah. Because of you and my wife who has a mini mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. I'm thinking maybe my next EV will be a a a bmw. The

Ant Pruitt (02:17:53):
Bmw EV's a sharp. Whoa.

Leo Laporte (02:17:55):
Yeah. Thinking sharp. I'm thinking with all that money I save the hands on photography. I think it's time to upgrade a No. See, that's what people think, isn't it? That's what they think. Yeah.

Ant Pruitt (02:18:07):
That's what it is. And I know it ain't the case. That ain't the

Leo Laporte (02:18:09):
Case.

Ant Pruitt (02:18:10):
<Laugh>. But yeah. Beam. I think Leo,

Leo Laporte (02:18:11):
It's a, it's a Kia

Ant Pruitt (02:18:12):
For, for a disability.

Leo Laporte (02:18:15):
A Kia.

Ant Pruitt (02:18:16):
A a Kia.

Leo Laporte (02:18:17):
A Kia. Not I'm a drive an a an Ikea car. Do I have to assemble it myself? I I would do that. <Laugh>.

Ant Pruitt (02:18:25):
Yeah. I like my car. Ladies,

Leo Laporte (02:18:27):
Ladies and gentlemen, ladies, if you are not a member of the club, you're missing out. Cuz tomorrow is a very big day. Stacy's book club is at 9:00 AM Pacific. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> noon Eastern Time. Anna Neitz. Latest The Terra four formers. Yep. I hear it's a good book. I haven't read it. We'll find out tomorrow. Tomorrow if aunt liked it or

Ant Pruitt (02:18:46):
Not. Did you? I have no comment. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:18:48):
We're gonna, it's gonna be surprise. No comment. We're It's gonna be a surprise. I, John loved it. We know that. Then at 1:00 PM we know everybody loves Silo. The new Apple TV plus series, which concludes Friday. How about

Ant Pruitt (02:19:01):
Apple putting that first episode out to the public for every It's on

Leo Laporte (02:19:05):
Twitter.

Ant Pruitt (02:19:06):
Yeah. That's crazy.

Leo Laporte (02:19:07):
Is that

Ant Pruitt (02:19:07):
Wild? That's, that's marketing. Here, let me give you a taste of it.

Leo Laporte (02:19:12):
<Laugh>. you, you, what's funny is the first three episodes are nothing like the rest of the show. Like, there's a big thing happens. The people who are in the first episode, well, I don't wanna spoil

Ant Pruitt (02:19:23):
It. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:19:24):
Yeah. But it changes dramatically. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and then Oh, that's not, they're not the Stars. Oh, okay. Yeah. Such a good show. It's a, it is good. And the books that it's based on the Wool series will be the topic tomorrow as an interviews. The author Hugh Howie. That's exciting. It's so crazy. 1:00 PM Pacific. 4:00 PM Eastern. That is a great get and I am thrilled to watch it. You should call it triangulation <laugh>. You should. You should. Because that's really what it is. You're interviewing a sci-fi office anyway. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I guess so. Tune in for that. That's one of many things we do in the club. These are club exclusives because we wanna make you feel bad that you're not in the club. Really. We want you to Yes, I do want you to. No, we want you to think, gosh, I'm missing all them.

(02:20:10):
Yes. No <laugh> we still offer all these shows for free ad supported, but if you want ad free versions of all the existing shows, if you want special content created just for the club and honestly the real reason they're in the club is cuz club members are paying for it. Yep. They're supporting it. Stuff that we can't sell ads to on, because it's one off like that Hugh Howie interview or it doesn't have a sufficient audience. Home Theater Geeks. We had to cancel it with Scott Wilkinson. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. But we could bring it back. Thanks to you club members. Yep. So if, and I think it's a very, very fair, $7 a month gets you ad free versions of all the shows, gets you a bunch of shows we don't put out in public. Like hands on Macintosh, hands on Windows. Scott's Home Theater Geeks.

(02:20:48):
The Untitled Linux Show. Yep. The giz Fizz, hands on Station Book Club. I mean it goes on and on. We're making the club a great place to be. You also get access to the Discord, which is the best social network ever cuz it's filled with club members only. And many of our hosts hang out in there. Lots and lots and lots of gifts. Yes. There's no gifts, but there are gifts. Great art Animated Esposito. Yes. Joe has done some great stuff. This episode. Anyway, seven bucks a month. Put that TV slash club twit. What's your thing? Doll? Is is now memorialized. Oh no. Did he really? Did he do that? Oh yeah, yeah. He's quick. Yeah. Get it Joe. I'm in such trouble. <Laugh>, you gotta show it such trouble. You gotta show it. There you go. Okay, I'm going back here. There it is. <Laugh>. So it's a poster. It says what's your thing? Dol and I have a black eye and some missing teeth, which is pretty much what Stacy's dream come true.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:21:48):
I mean, was I moral like incredibly offended? Yes.

Leo Laporte (02:21:52):
No, you're used to it now. You're right on Stacy. No, you were mortally offended was

Stacey Higginbotham (02:21:58):
Not mortally, but I was like, mother pucker <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:22:02):
Should

Stacey Higginbotham (02:22:02):
Just get up and leave <laugh> that Dick

Leo Laporte (02:22:07):
<Laugh>. Well, you'd been, you'd been dissing the guys for, for the whole show. I thought I could send one year away, but maybe I, maybe I made a mistake. I apologize.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:22:19):
You punched

Leo Laporte (02:22:20):
Up. I was doing it more in a twenties kind of gangster kind of a thing.

Speaker 9 (02:22:25):
Yeah, you are. T lemme just take that shovel from you now <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:22:30):
It's like, it's like, let me just tell you

Speaker 9 (02:22:33):
Something guy,

Leo Laporte (02:22:34):
Join the club for more of this hilarity twit tv slash club twit. Thank you. We thank all of our members. About 1% of our audiences joined. We would like to get that to 5% Should be least 10. Yeah, 10 would, if we had 10 we would, you know, we would do more shows. We would probably have no ads. Right. It would be a very different thing. True. It's, that's the kind of thing we need to keep going cuz it is getting really tough out here. Especially cuz of me. You go

Stacey Higginbotham (02:23:02):
To Disneyland as a, as a company

Leo Laporte (02:23:04):
Altogether. Yeah. We'll y'all big parties. I worked for iHeart. They had a Disneyland takeover. They did the whole Wow. Oh yeah, yeah. And I didn't go, whoa. What a moron. I was thinking, gosh, I could have, I had to wait an hour for every single ride. No, every single ride. At least an hour. No. Anyway, thank you everybody. We really appreciate your support. This show goes on every Tuesday, 2:00 PM Pacific Five, sorry, Wednesday 2:00 PM Pacific, 5:00 PM Eastern, 2100 utc. Watch it live at live dot twit tv. There's audio or video so you can listen live 12 as well. If you're watching or listening live chat. Live at irc dot twit tv. Open to all. You can use your browser to go there. After the fact on demand ads supported versions of the show at the website, twit tv slash twig. That website also has links to various podcast players. So you can subscribe and you can also, I think go to YouTube. I think there's a full, yeah, there's a YouTube channel dedicated to this week in Google. However you do it, please come back each and every week and watch as I get slowly beaten to a pulp, my Stacey and Aunt <laugh>. I apologize for anything I might have said. I blame the micro dosing. Thank you everybody and I'll see you. We'll see y'all next week on this week in Google. Bye.

Ant Pruitt (02:24:17):
Yeah, that was exactly 90 minutes. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:24:20):
<Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:24:21):
Yeah, we take out,

Speaker 9 (02:24:25):
It's midweek and you really wanna know even more about the world of technology. So you should check out Tech News Weekly. The show where we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. It's the biggest news. We talk with the people writing the stories that you're probably reading. We also talk between ourselves about the stories that are getting us even more excited about tech news this week. So if you are excited, well then join us. Head to twit tv slash tw to subscribe.