What Trump 2.0 Means for Tech + A.I. Made Me Basic + HatGPT!
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Casey, you sent me a very confusing link um the other day, which was that we are apparently the inspiration for a line of men's underwear. What's going on?

So if you go over to amazon, you can find an item that is called the casey Kevin meant less g strings and thugs, sexy launch ray. And of course, that was very confusing as to why our names are now large rabe.

But I might find this where you just browsing for things called casey, Kevin and amazon.

Well, first of all, I am always looking for branded laundry in our names, so I just to have an active google search for that. But then also a hard fork listener set IT to me and say, hey, like we, are you aware of this? And so I thought about IT about two seconds.

And then I will continue looking into the swept. And I realized the reason that it's called casey Kevin is because they can then abbreviated C, K. All over the package and thus compete with calvin client, the number one underwear bread. And so it's essentially our names are being used. The perpetrator of fraud.

Well, have you investigated these at all? Do they look like good underwear?

I'm wearing them now. They're incredibly comfortable of a very brazil fabric.

I'm Kevin S. I. tech. Call us at the new york times. I'm casing him from platformer. And this is hard fork this week what truck two point o means for tech. Then the times cashmere hill joins us to talk about the week he spent letting A, I make every decision for her. And finally, some election free at P, P.

T.

What cases? Where are you?

How are you? Well, Kevin, I am at home and in southern california. Yeah, with my family. My sweet uncle mike passed away this week and I was at his funeral, which means that the election was only the second worst thing that happened to me this week. How are you doing?

Um you know i'm OK um especially compared to that i'm sorry about john cle. Um I stress at my song's entire er collection of halloween cy H I T I left him a things I don't like and um otherwise we are just persevering. Uh, we are coming up on twenty four hours since the election. I'm curious like how it's settling for you.

I think that IT is still pretty surprising to me, although I don't know, surprising probably isn't the right word. I truly had no idea what was going to happen in this election. So mostly I been just trying to protect myself a little bit forward in time and try to think through what we should expect come january when truth comes back into power again.

yes. So let's talk about that today because I don't think we have much to add or offer in the realm of general political analysis. But I think what we can start to do today is to try to figure out what a second trump term will mean for the tech industry because we actually do have some pretty good ideas about what he's going to do in office.

Yes, absolutely. Well, you wrote a great column about this very subject on election night, and I think that offers us a good road map to kind of talk through some of what you and I expect. So let me ask you first, Kevin, about maybe one of the most obvious winners of this election. Elon must, should we play a clip from trump factory speech? Let's do that.

Let me tell.

We have a new star. A star is born isan.

Yes, so obviously, I think this was a huge win for you on mosque. He will not only have a, the ability to claim that he helped on trump get elected through his millions and millions of dollars that he donated to the campaign through his giant, pushed that he made on x to help the trump campaign when, but he is likely to have a position, whether official or unofficial, in the incoming trump administration.

And so he may have influence over all kinds of things related to his companies, able to select his regulators, be able to curry favor with the administration in ways big and small. So overall, I think a very good night. Free land mass. What do you think?

I just think it's great that that guys finally catching a lucky break.

Yeah, it's you know, he's had a rough spell.

I think all of that is right. This obviously is a huge win for elon and everything is been trying to do. The thing that I have been trying to think through though, Kevin, is, can elon Mason Donald trump friends over a long period of time, right? These are two very volatile personalities known for being mercurial, changing their minds often.

And elan has a severe complex. He's gonna want to get all the credit for whatever is about to happen. And so he would not surprise me, even if in the very near future, there is some kind of ruptured here. What what do you make of the odds of that a relationship going the distance?

I mean, I think I fall out is certainly possible. We've seen that happen with down in many people who were part of his first term administration. So yeah, do I think it's possible that elan must can donal trump fall out somewhere done the line? Uh, I would say, yes. Do I think this is probable? I think not.

I think most people who have showered on trump do so because they feel like he's done something that's beyond the pale, right? And I think for a lot of tech executives during the first term, I mean, if you remember, there were these are advisory boards that trump set up where a bunch of CEO from industries would come give him advice. And a lot of those CEO ended up rebelling and stepping off of those boards because his policies became too extreme for them and they were getting a lot of pressure from, among other people, their employees of their companies. Elan muk does not care what his employees uh, think about his support of Donald trump and, uh, he I think we'll face less pressure than other executives will to sort of disavow any policies or or positions that on term takes because people already know that he's trump guy IT is interesting to me because if you .

think of the first sort of right wing silicon valley billionaire to back trump IT was Peter teel who continues to have many reasons to be close to to trump um some of which he shares with elan and yet till backed off you know he didn't get what he want IT out of that first trump administration and know well he didn't actively campaigns inst him. He didn't sort of retreat quietly into the background.

So i'm definitely very curious to see how that relationship plays out um in the months and years ahead. Let's talk about a second thing that is very likely to change here in the coming months, Kevin, and that is the president's posture towards crypto. O what does dd trump think about crypt on? How is that different from older biden?

yes. So we've talked about this too. Downed trump used to be, uh crypt o skeptic. He said things like he doesn't believe the bit coin you know should replace the dollar. But that has changed in recent months, in part because pro crypto groups have been showering um his campaign with money.

I think it's a pretty clear that the incoming tromp t administration will be much friendly er toward the crypt u industry than the by administration a husband or than the Harry administration would have been and uh the cyp to industry is rejoicing not only because the Prices of a lot of crypto coins have been shooting up in the past twenty four hours but because uh they also see themselves now getting to influence the direction that crypto policy is taken. I think it's pretty obvious that gary against lor, who is the head of the securities exchange commission and who has become really public enemy number one for the crypto industry, he will be replaced. I can't see any scenario in which he stays during the trump administration, and I am guessing that whoever is brought in to replace him will be much or persuade able to take a soft line when IT comes to regulating the crypto industry.

嗯。 And so do we think that cypher is poised to have some sort of big come back during the trumpet administration, like a story that I feel I tell myself about crypto, is that it's not that popular outside of financial speculation. Most because it's hard to use and insecure and bad and people don't like IT.

But is IT possible that if a new head of the S. C. C comes along and says crypto o is legal now all the sudden IT was back into the limelight?

I think it's absolutely possible because so what we've seen is just this cloud of uncertainty that's been hanging over the crypto industry. So there's just spent, I think, a lot of money kind of parked on the sidelines waiting for a change in the administration, uh, so that they can basically bet on crypto o again. And I think what we're likely to see in a trumpet administration um is just A A lot of interest in building euroyen to products, in building infrastructure, entering the crypt to economy into the the this of real money economy in more ways. IT is going to be A A basically A A less affair free for all for the gypt, a currency industry, which, which is what a lot of them have been running for many years.

That's right, Kevin. And if cyp du does make that come back, IT will mean one other truly crazy thing, which is that hard fork would actually become a good name for a podcast, which they said would never happen.

It's true we waited out the cyp to winter and um and now we have a good name again.

Kevin, one more twist on the cypher story. These prediction markets, we talked about them on the show last week. I was very skeptical that they were telling us anything that novel or surprising or relevant about the electric. Would you say that I have egg on my face a week later?

Uh, yes, I would say you are A A covered in egg because the prediction markets we have indicated, right, these markets like Polly market, which is a place where you can go place bets, encrypt u currency on various world events including elections um they were giving Donald trump, uh h you know a higher chance of winning than any of the the polls were.

They were proven to be right or at least the people who bet but he would win are seeing those bets payout. Now there are lots of potential reasons that might be, but I think that the effect of the trump win is that prediction markets are here to stay. I think they are going to be seen correctly or not as a Better source of truth about where the elector is than traditional polls. And I think that there will now be a lot of people saying, why was I listening the polls when I could have been looking at the prediction markets?

I have a slightly different take here, which is that the group of americans who bet illegally on this election on these prediction markets using crypto o represented uh, source of enthusiasm for the trump campaign that maybe we shall have just been paying more attached, right? Look at all these people willing to go to the trouble of betting illegally using crypto on these markets.

And that should have told us how much they want to get trump into the office. No, probably ly, in large part, to make their critical to holding were valuable. But yes, I, I, I must accept there is I got face here, and to my great disappointment, there may be value in these prediction markets.

Let's talk about some of these. I want to talk about the guy who made the huge bets on Donald trump on people. What have rich fridge person? As we talked about, there was this one trader, this french man named fio, or probably tao, is how they pronounce IT, who bet more than thirty million dollars on Polly market that don't trouble win the election and has now won.

And how much money daily went. Kevin.

it's a little unclear exactly how much feo made from his big trump trade, but the water street journal said that he could rep almost fifty million dollars in profits. As a result, his bet on trump on Polly market and h. That article in the journal also had a really interesting details about how he decided to place this big bet.

I think people assume this is just some degenerate gambler ers got too much money and just wants to sort of have some fun gambling on an election. But IT turns out he was actually quite methodical about this. He had this theory that um the the polls in in the U S.

Uh were not trustworthy um and that they would fail to account for the shy trump voter and he actually went out and commissioned his own surveys to measure uh a different method of polling called the neighbor method which instead of asking people who they are planning to vote for, asks survey respondents which candidates they would expect their neighbors to vote for. Basically the idea being that people might not want to say who they're voting for, but if you ask him who their neighbors are voting for, that kind of gives you a flavor of what people they know are planning to do. And so he, uh, came up with this theory that don't trm chances of winning were therefore higher than the markets at the time thought.

Now where was all this french generally during world war two, Kevin?

Well, I just say theo has a good future in sports bedding.

Well, i'm curious to get your take on what all of this means for the other big tech in combings, which trump spent much of his first administration fighting against. Of course, IT seems like one of the first things that we saw on wednesday in the aftermath of the election was most of the leaders of of the big tech companies and other billionaires like jeff basis coming forward to enthusiastically kiss, uh, the ring I guess i'll say a Donald trump yes.

The giant sucking sound that you may hear coming from the vicinity of silicon valley is the uh the furious effort by the CEO of the biggest tech companies to suck up to a down's truck and his incoming administration basically every major tech CEO has already publicly congratulate later, donal trump, jeff bazo sent out A A post congratulate late trump on his Victory. Soon our patch zakka saw in adella, tim cook, sam, odd men, all of these CEO, as are raced to be among the first business leaders to congratulate president tromp and of get in his good crisis. That was not surprising to me, but I I think IT is, uh, just a sign of how different the second trump term will be .

from the first. Here's my question, which tech leader trump congratulations tweet did you think was the most sincere and which did you think was the least sincere?

I mean, I thought the the basis uh one was was early, which is sort of was surprising to me. And he is obviously drawn a lot of attention in recent weeks for the non endorsement of the washington post, which stayed out of endorsing ing presidential candidates this selection cycle. But IT was not that long ago that jeff bezos was probably downed trumps biggest foo in the business world.

Amazon is currently suing over a first term trump straw decision in which they claim that a downturns personal venditte against jeff bazas was the reason that they lost out on a ten billion dollar cloud contract with the defense department. So IT was notable the jeff BIOS arrive first to kiss the ring of the incoming administration. Um my personal favorite of the CEO endorsements was sooner pitch I who not only congratulate ata president trump on his what he called his decisive Victory, but also included a screen shot of google searches, electoral college map. Just a little product placement there.

I don't know.

What about you. What did you make of the C E. O. S.

Congratulating trump? T, I think that a IT is to be expected. As we've been talking about on the show, everyone feels like there is upside and flattering prompt. I did note that sam altman's, uh, congratulatory tweet seemed a little, a little weak. You know, he wrote in lower case, I wish for his huge success in the job, which sounded like IT had been badly translated out of another language but I appreciated IT because that sounded fake in a way that was transparent and so that harden me.

Ah he outsource his congratulation to chat. B T. It's actually an agent writing that on on his bed. But I think these leaders in particular have a lot of reasons to be excited about a trump president scene. One of them that I I wrote about is just that.

I think for a all but one tech company, they are likely to see their anti trust problems either go away completely or to get much Better under a tropper administration. Elon musk, uh, is has already said that a link on the chair of the ftc who has been bringing a lot of these cases, these anti trust cases against the big tech companies would be fired under a trump administration. I expect the trump also clear out the a people at the justice department who were bringing the cases by that agency against big anis. And so with almost every company, I suspect that at least the lawyers at those companies are celebrating this because that means that their job just got a little easier.

And IT speaks to why some of these leaders were not full throated in their support for the democratic Kennedy, because they felt like they were just not getting a lot out of their support for that administration, right? That administration come after them and was trying to break up their companies. And so now there is hope that maybe that won't be the case, although as you note, that probably won't be true for google since Donald trump was the one who initiated that case during his term.

So m like I M so GLE think is the exception here. I think they are going to have a very chAllenging next four years under a second trump administration. Um Donald trump and his allies are uh topic fans of google. They think IT is a uh woke sensorium liberal silicon valley tech company in Donald truck was in the office when the federal government started trying to a force google to break up um and even as recently as a couple days ago, elon musk and other pro trump conservative were alleging google of trying to swing the election toward democrats with not much in the way of real evidence but a lot of accusations and conspiracy theories and so I think this is going to be A A very chAllenging next uh, few years for google in the anti trust department that makes sense. All.

let's try to do a little lighter and to close IT out what's going to happen to tiktok.

Tiktok is saved. I mean, this is one of the big promises that trump made about tech during his campaign. Down drop said a many times now that he will, he will not allow tiktok to be uh to be banned or sold under his watch and so I think if you are tiktok, you are popping campaign. This is good news for you.

And interestingly, there is still a law that was passed by congress and signed into law by president biden says that tiktok has until generate one nineteenth of twenty twenty five to uh be diverted by bite dance or else face a nationwide ban and get pulled out of the APP stores that may still technically go into effect president trump, uh, even when he does take office, will not be able to unilaterally override that or recent that law, but he can just choose not to enforce that. He can direct prosecutors not to go after the company. So I expect that a tiktok begin has truly been saved him.

All right. And how about A I Kevin, what does this mean for A I regulation?

I want to ask you about this too, because this one is a little more complicated. I think the the the first gut reaction that I had was that this transfer tory is a win for the acceleration ist wing of the AI movement, the people like mark Anderson, who want this technology to be able to move as quickly as you can, who don't want any kind of regulation or road block standing in the way of the big AI companies.

Trump has also said that he would repeal the by administration executive order on A I. So I think that's a signal that this administration will regulate A I A lot less then a her administration would have, or then the by administration has. So that that was my gut reaction. What was your good reaction?

I think that was my reaction as well. That is certainly what all of the right wing trump backyard and silicon valley are telling themselves. But we can never understand me just how unpredictable trump is and how he changes his mind, right? And so, you know, is there a world where trust decides that A I is to woke and he hates IT now, is there a world where he says, hate, this is too powerful.

I, I need to actually intervene and prevent this technology from being built in a certain wait, like I can see many outcomes that would not actually be favorable to either silicon valley altogether or some of these individual companies on value. But still, I do expect at least, and let's call the first year of the next administration that, yes, IT is going to be everyone moving very, very quickly. Yes, all right.

Well, that about does IT for that subject. But there was one more thing that I want to bring up, Kevin, and and get thoughts about. I've been thinking about how silicon valley and trump willer will not be working together in the years ahead, sort of how all of this came about.

And I think a good explanation for how we got to dip point is that once Donald trump started to take over the republic ican party, the former elites in the republican party all started going away, right? Either because they didn't like him, they work for him and had that experience, whatever IT was. And he creates this power vacuum.

And the first person, I think, who noticed that was Peter teel, who was characteristically pressured and got in there and supported trump in his first Victory. But then in the aftermath of him losing more elites who used to surrounding Donald trump, again left, you know, some of some who had worked with him in administration, they're again had terrible experiences. And so more right wing billionaires and silicon valley noticed this.

They saw that power vacuum again. And they said, how we can get in there, and we can surround this guy with ourselves and we can advance our own ideas. And so now you have the David sacks, keep a boy, you too, off all around him in his ear.

My question is, do we think that that alone? Can this be a kind of steady state? Or will the same thing happen to these guys that happen to all the other elites around Donald trump over the past, you know, decade, which is one by one, they all just kind of god pushed out, gave up, left in disgust. What do you think?

I mean, I think the answer may differ depending on who were talking about. I think if you're someone like David sax or Peter til at these people who are sort of you know long time parties an ideology, this was not their first election cycle supporting republicans. Um I think that they are going to feel like they have access to this president, they have influence over this president and they are not going to want to screw that up in any way.

And so I think they will be totally devoted to to him in his agenda. Uh I I can't really imagine anything that would cause them to sort of lose faith in him or or turn on him. I think if you are uh uh just A A CEO or a leader of a big tech company, if you're sin adella, if your tim cook, if your mark oker burg, I think, baby, there is a kind of theoretical red lying that if trump crosses IT, you feel morally, or at least practically obligated to say something about IT.

I think at that point I can totally see those relationships for actually ing. We know the Donald trump does not like people standing up to we're opposing him. And um if he feels like people are turning on him, he turns right back on them.

So I think those are the relationships that I think are are tenuous under a trump administration but the people who are in his corner who. Bankrolled his presidential campaign this time, who were throwing fundraisers and and hosting events with him and appearing on stage at as ralles. I think those people are in the tank for the next four years.

Well, what do you think? I don't know. I I used to think that mike pants would vote for Donald trump in this election.

and he didn't, right. Something that I i've also been thinking a lot about IT is just how uncertain and unpredictable the data day Operations of a large technology company are about to become. Again, this is not hypothetical.

We know that during the first trump term, he would be issuing declarations at all hours of the night on twitter. People, we're having to constantly figure out how to this like very chaotic Operating environment. It's a really hard way to run a business and IT resulted in a lot of chAllenges that I don't think anyone could have seen coming.

I mean, just one example was like the the delete uber thing that happened during the first trump term as a result of his muslim ban, when people wanted to go to the airports to protest that policy decision, they try to take uber. Uber heads search pricing turned on IT, turned into this big scandal that turned a lot of people off of uber and essentially created an opportunity for lift. Now that was not something that i'm sure travel's colonic are the people who are running uber at the time thought was a likely outcome of a trump administration.

They probably just thought, oh, this guys of republican and he's going to taxes and cut regulations and it's going to be easier for us. I think a lot of those curve balls are possible in such a volatile administration. And so I hope in addition to packing out there, you know, congratulations messages to doll trump today, I hope these executives are doing some scenario planning about how crazy things could get and how they can Operate their businesses .

in that kind environment. Very interesting. When we came back, we picked the wrong here, the diode. But the right hill to talk to cash.

my hill joins us to talk about the week SHE spent letting A I run her life.

I'm Michael gold. I'm a political correspondent for the earth times. My job is to cover in the race for president this year the times as life. Courage is so valuable because we have people on the ground, you can give you information as they are experiencing IT, and we have a team of reporters and editors sifting through the dates, information, giving you real time updates in any given moment, you have a sense of, and that day, what's coming still, what IT all means.

It's so hard in a breaking new situation to sort out what you actually need to know at the times are putting things in the context that helps. What you're seeing in the moment make a lot more sense. You're getting fast information, but you know that it's reliable.

When you subscribed to the york times, you get access to all of our life coverage leading up to the election. And on election night itself, you can subscribe at N Y time stock com slash subscribe. Well, casey eye for one, uh, would appreciate a palet lens or after that last segment, uh, that has nothing to do with politics to the election. And Lucy, we have one courtesy of my colleague.

cashmere hill. Yes, SHE recently did an experiment with artificial intelligence that is right up our ally cabin.

Yes, the story that he wrote is called, I took a decision holiday and put A I in charge of my life. Basically for a week. SHE turned over all decision making in her life, over to generate A I, including what to eat, what to wear, her schedule, her new haircut, everything. And, uh, what came out of this was just a really interesting look at what these tools can do for us and with us right now, where they might be helpful in going about our daily day lives and where they might not be so helpful. So let's bring in cash to tell us all about her experiment and what you learned.

Catch my home will come back to hard work. Great to be here. So how do you set up this experiment? How are you actually going about like out trying to have to make decisions for you where you just serve nearing your day out loud to this that's like just tell us about how the experiment .

actually worked. So um I doesn't research like what are the tools I could use and I made this excells stretchy of all the many apps in products out there that are touting internatio ei turning a parent generate A I for fashion, generated A I for remodeling. And I made this like big list of all these different apps. I downloaded them and but matter ban glasses and I thought I would use all these different products. But at the end of the day, I just mostly ended up using ChatGPT is IT was the best and uh the most flexible, basically ChatGPT n clod or the the winners of all the systems I tried .

and give us a flavor or of some of the kinds of decisions that you outsource.

So I did this for a week and I started with, um tell us what to buy this week like, what crusty should we have planned meals? Uh, what I do with my kids, where should we go on vacation? How should I cut my hair? Uh, what color should I paint my office? Something i've been wanting to do for about two years now.

And I was like stuck because I couldn't decide on the new color. So I had a eye decide for me. But I was trying to like, really use IT in all, always in all part of my day.

I mean, what's interesting about this experiment, IT is obviously like it's a great stunt and and shows some what this technology is capable of uh and not capable of today. But and also I mean people in A I are very convinced that very shortly we will all have A I agents going around doing things on her behalf.

And right now, the way you set up this experiment, you still had to kind of like, execute the things know, I can tell you which groceries to buy, but IT could not actually go out and buy them for you. But pretty soon day, I will be able to do that. And so it's just for a preview of where the AI agents are going.

Yeah right now i'm kind of the agent of the A I like gets telling me what to do, but ah IT definitely was easy to imagine this becoming much more independent um what was kind of funny to me as when I was interviewing experts about this, including people at you know OpenAI and at anthropic, they seemed like cut a horrified and that I would put my life in my family's life in the hands of their chapt which I just thought was interesting that I think like that's what they're trying to build towards this general intelligence and yet they're like, really you did that cash.

How did your family respond to you outsourcing your life to AI for a week?

IT all started with and my husband want to nokia o golfing with a friend. And I was like, well, okay, let me, let me ask the eyes assistance and they said, yes, until he was like, great. This is good for me.

I was, I was actually really funny. They're like, it's good for your relationship uh, to support you know your partners interest. Um my daughter really liked advanced voice mode from ChatGPT, which is they are kind of her like assistant.

They had a lot of fun with IT is a very futuristic to them they could ask IT endless questions like my four year old was asking IT, why do trees have leaves? Why do birds fly? Why do computers have screens and just on and on and on, you know, IT IT ever just like go away like a parent might do um or after could be answering your question uh so they really liked that.

They thought I should have a name and their first suggestion was kept in popt um and they are making all these other similar kinds of suggestions and then at tim danks, that listens while you're talking and I said, how about Spark? You know it's it's the creative fun, just like your energy. And so IT became Spark into this day.

My daughters are asking to talk to Sparks. They want Sparks on the family ipad. They can keep .

talking to IT. 哇哦， so did you give this chat bottle Spark um any information about yourself? Like because part of the appeal of these tools as they can sort of get to know you over time theodicy, you can give them kind of access to data, they can kind of store things about you in their serve long term memory did where you did you feel any point like this? A I was starting to know you and anticipate what kinds of decisions you might make.

I so I tried to approach this very much like a basic user, like somebody has not been following things would do IT. So um I I really just kind of these tools like a Normal consumer wood and I said, hey, i'm a journalist doing an experiment of outsourcing on my decision making to AI what you help me at least with the the chat hot.

And they also yes, except for cloud, which is said that a bad idea you shouldn't give aye that much control over your life. Um I don't really want to help you with this, so I would still answer my questions when I post them. Um and then other not I was just kind of learning about us over time and I did started know things um like I would know my daughter's name.

I learned to my nephews name IT. IT figured out we didn't eat sugar during the week like IT started to realizing things about me and at one point I asked IT like tell me about kashmir hill and I said, you know, she's a technology journalist, is he likes doing first person experiments. Right now she's doing the experiment where she's living with generate a ee and outsourcing her decision making to IT.

And I kind of freaked out, and I had my husband to ask the same questions like like cash leaked out into what's known about me and he said no. But the the program had figured out that I was kashmir hill. Even I had not said that. So that was that was kind of a surprise to me.

One of the things your story gets that is that these systems often steer you told the the media or the average outcome, right? I used, I think you sort of right that they they are risk flattening ing us out at the same time. There are a lot of task I really bad at, and if I could be brought up to the media easily like that would be great for me. So some curious, you did this experiment was this sort of relentless push toward the average, where the moments where IT was particularly good for you and for their moments where .

I was particularly annoying, I started feeling very boring by the end of the week. I just felt all of my decisions were so basic and so average. You know, I had to decide my haircut and IT shows uh that kind of a new ice kind of see IT um but I like a textured bob IT, just like a really basic haircut. Now I was talking to AManda, asic philosopher and thrown and SHE was like that A I would never choose my haircut. And he had this really cool, like baby beings and like a wallet um my clothes like A I hated on my clothes and IT I told me to go to j crew and buy this like take top in these big genes um that I I shared the photo of the outfit with my colleagues here at the times and they were just like um you look like you bought the manicure set like IT just was he was just he was very fanning um and the kind of overall effect was that IT turned me into a basic .

big yeah that's interesting. I most wonder if there is gna have to be a setting at some point where you can say, like, do not make me this statistical average know if everyone in my demographic cohort, like, let's break out a little .

bit here wait. So Kevin, just gonna ChatGPT like, oh, and before you answer, you should know that i'm cool.

Yeah don't make me look like one of those lame dad. Make me and cool dad.

please make me interesting yeah well.

when A I can help with that IT will truly be A I agi um so talk about some other ways that you were able to have A I act on your behalf well.

I I tried kind of like creating A I self so I closed my voice using eleven labs and i'm reading Harry potter to my kids and so it's kind of excited about this because we're in book for and book for is so long, the chapters are so long and I like, this is great. I'll have my AI voice you read here, you part of my kids but I like immediately got flagged for copyright violation. Um I I created .

a um a video avatar .

of myself using sisia where I just read script into my laptop camera and I made this you fairly convincing avatar of me and a the personally talked you there said, you know you can you can have IT like create tiktok for you. You can create messages for you. I have to do is give IT A P, D, F of your article and upload IT.

And I was like, this is great. I'm terrible at tiktok. Not good. Sorry that everyone watching youtube like i'm not good at video. And I was really excited that this would just make tiktok for me. And then I was IT was a horrible I like, I look crazy, i'm crazy eyes I got, I don't know, one hundred views like I I didn't work I used to to send a message to my mom and he was horrified um so A I being me didn't go down that well I will .

say i've seen a lot of creators on tiktok who have crazy eyes, and that seems to go really well for them. So you might just want to try making .

a more make the eyes crazier .

this time yeah so .

you've done this experiment. Now you you've written about IT. Do you think this is going to be something that you do long term? Are there more kinds of decisions or daily activities that you are planning to turn over the ai?

I mean, honest, the reason I did this as I was very curious about turn of A I and I just hadn't use IT that much. And um you know we're spending billions of dollars on this were removing our energy grid basically to support further training and use of tender. And I was just wondering like how much is going to help us? How was gonna change society? How was going to change us? And I came away from the week being like me, like he was fine.

He was helpful in certain. Um I think the way that i'll keep using IT is taking photos of problems around my house in getting advice for what to do. Um you know, I think it's like a really, really powerful and more efficient google search.

Can I make a suggestion?

Yes.

I would be curious if uh, going forward, you try to use these different D V I tools a little bit more like a coach than um an executive. So there is like a skill that you're learning or something that you're working on in your life. These general chat bots can be these journals that talk back to you.

Over the past few weeks, i've been played around with meditating, something that I am just an utter novice at. And while I haven't been giving over a decision making authority to claude, which is what i've been using, I have been getting all sorts of ideas from IT. And then like when something goes wrong, i'm like, this thing went wrong, it's I old, you might want to try this. Or if something goes right there, like, great, here's how you can build on that. And so if I am finding that this chatbot is actually like giving me this incredible meditation coach experience that still let me do all the decision making, but manages to fill in a lot of blank.

yeah, I thought to this one A, I kind of influence her type. And he said that he uses IT as a business coach, and he tells IT like, I want you, I want to tell you about my business, and I want you to apply the eighty twenty four to IT, and you tell me what I should be doing and I I can see how that can be useful.

I guess, just in my career of your covering technology tools, I do think that we once we kind of adopt a new technology, we do tend to get overly reliant on IT. Like google maps means that you can go anywhere in the world and figure out how to get around, but you don't know how to get around your own neighborhood more. Um in a google search we have search tools.

We have like the know outstrip kind of memory, in fact recall to the search engine. And so part of why did this experiment was not exaggerating a bit like at what point will we stop making decisions on our own because we assume that these tools are Better than us or know us Better or have access to more information, which they certainly do. And so I kind playing around with that um but I will take your vice, casey. Um maybe i'll have a coach me to be I don't know a Better, more interesting parent or I don't know how to figure out what I need help with.

I mean, your experiment really highlighted something that i've been thinking a lot about, which is the value of taste in a world with lots of A I assistance running around doing various task color behalf IT just strikes me from reading what you wrote that the the sort of flattening effect is is just about taste. It's about like letting A A machine do things not just because they're annoying tasks that you have to do, but really things that go to the core of like your personality, your values, your you know, the choices about how you live your life. And I worry to the people are going to outsource not only their their data day tasks to A I, but also their taste. And I think that it's going to be a people with a distinctive personal taste who know what they like and know what to ask these a eyes to do for them are going to just have A A big leg up on people who just say, well, i'll just go with with whatever the A I says.

Well, Kevin, what does that mean for you as a person would noticed?

Yeah, i'm score, but you guys will be fine.

No, I just I do think they were useful tools and i'll continue to use them. But yeah, I don't I don't think of outsource my decision making a anymore. But IT didn't do a bad job like nothing went terribly wrong during the week and you they made basically good decisions for me. I encountered a few illustrations um but not on anything major.

Where are the kinds of nations you the .

funniest thing, the most lasting fluctuation is that my daughter asked IT, what's the difference between your middle finger up in your middle finger with your sump up? And IT said, the middle finger alone is a rude gesture. The middle finger combined with the thumb is a friendly gesture.

That means chill out. So my daughter and joys telling me to chill out all the time. Now, did that?

Now, did the the A S ever try to break up your marriage? Because that is something that they have been known to do on occasion.

No, that he was a IT told me to be nice to my mother in law. And h generally, I said, I think made me a Better wife. The I the other thing about thing about the AI is that I did feel like I was built in, that I wanted to improve me, like I felt a little bit like a self improvement tool.

And so I was taking me to dress up at night like we are a little bit of make up. So I kind of felt I was my best self in a way. I mean, I was going to yoga everyday, cooking meals. I think my husson like me that a lot that week and IT wasn't telling me to break up with him.

And you became the A I turned you into the the apple executive in every new iphone launch. You just constantly you know surfing or preparing a healthy meal uh in in their kitchen or doing some modeling on their beautiful house.

Yeah, I feel like these companies scraped the web index and lego wellness influences or something because that felt like the life I was leading. I mean.

the gender dynamic there is interesting though, right? Like presumably these chapters aren't telling husbands to like dress up for their wives when they get home and make sure that, you know, they also well grown and their hair looks good.

I know that my husband do this experiment. See what that has to do.

They say, I thought, that's why you dress up for the show every week because I told you to look good for me.

I try to listen for you because I think that's what you would want for me.

Kevin OK, well, I appreciate that. Um i've just been using this stuff for you almost two years at this point and so I know it's it's become like a first line activity for me.

Like when I presented with the situation where I have have to make a decision, um I almost instinctively go to A I now so like it's it's open enrollment this week at the new york times company and so I was trying to choose, you know, do I get vision insurance? Is IT worth IT do this dental plan or this dental plan? And so I just found myself almost instinctively, like just uploading all of the the documents about all these plans to an eye programme and asking until I help me think through this. And obviously, there places where these tools should not be used, but for these kind of daily tasks and just things that pop into your head that you want an answer to, I have them, them incredibly useful.

I mean, does feel to me like these are the kinds of questions we would have asked google before. Like should I get vision insurance? Uh, what's the best way to meditate? Like, uh, give me good resources for working out. And yeah, I just think that these a assistance work really well for these kinds of searches and just the ability that you can give so much more that you can upload our health plan documents. Um yeah, I think it's really powerful in in in those cases.

You know I think that is is that you're right. These are just next generation google searches. With google searches, there was always a point of friction though, which is you would have A A point of curiosity, but you would know that in order to get the answer you wanted, for the most part, you we're going to have to read another web page, maybe two or three web pages, the chat box, really lower that friction.

You know, I was driving on the freeway yesterday, and I saw in a building for easter seals. And I remember that that was a charity. But I could not, for the life of me, remember how did they get their named easter seals? I just popped up in a claude, and I just typed to easter seals, name, origin and boom, I had IT instantly.

I was on my way to a funeral today. I was a catholic mess. I was like, what are all of the things that actually happened during a catholic mass?

I opened that voice mode on ChatGPT, and my phone and IT taught us all of that. Again, all of that information was on google to be found. But we knew that with these chat pots, we would just get the answer right away. And so you wind up making more searches. And I think you want to be more satisfied with the result.

I want to pose a question to both of you. I think we all assume that A I will continue as sort of get Better over time. But I wonder if in this one specific use case of like having A I advise you on decisions day to day, like IT might actually not get Better and know and you might actually get worse in part because I think it's a pretty good bet that as companies realized, oh, people are basing their decisions about what groceries to buy, what close to buy know where to go to dinner, on what these chat bott say. They will start to have already started to, in some cases, try to serve game the system to make IT so that their restaurant, their clothing brand, pops up before their competitors. And so what we will see over time is that just in the way that google search got sort of infiltrated by all of these sponsored links and and results, we will start to see the AI steering us in directions that a reflect not what they actually think we want, but what some advertiser has paid them to say.

Yeah, I was thinking about this because um I had listened making into the story, but I had the assistance said where we went for a family vacation and they sent us to a nearby town in a really, really, really expensive hotel and when I was there we wanted something we knew and they're like, wow, how did they send you there? Like that's the fancy as hotel town.

Just trying to hear I talk to some researchers who have looked this kind of search engine, they called generation engine optimization and the ability to affect what these chatbot kind of recommending. And I said he did this like hotel manage to make its way into the top. And I was like, no, they just have good reviews.

But but yeah I mean, part of why i've found these more helpful than a google search is that yeah google search is a bit broken. And I do wonder, I will now if more people start using these, if they'll be a kind of corruption of the answers you get that won't feel as pure um or they can counter program against that. But the researchers, as I talked to, they did some research and they were able to manipulate the answers that some of the bots are giving.

I think it's definitely gna happen. But I would note that we do have pretty powerful open source models and that was not really true in the google air, right. There wasn't really powerful open source arch engine that you could use as no advertiser in IT. Um and I wonder if that will be a kind of counterbaLance against the worst impulses of some of these companies, just knowing that if they really loaded down their chat pots with ads, uh, people would have alternatives.

All right. Well, cash, thanks so much for coming on. Really, uh, interesting experiment and i'm glad to have the the organic you back.

I got to be back.

Want to come back? Pass the hat. Signed a hat. GPT.

My name is, the time has given enough of a journalist at the near times I served in the marine core as an invention men, when IT comes to reporting on the front line, a lot of the same basics are play. You're looking at the math of where you're going. If you're a pave road there, a hospital nearby, is your body armor a fix for the first kit? Does everyone know where that first kit is? We arrive in A A military position.

I get out of the car. I look at my watch, you know, I said a timer no more than an hour. I'm listening for drones checking with the team as everyone come for all.

And if they are, then we proceed. Front line reporting is dangerous, but I think nothing is more important than talking to the people involved. You are hearing their stories and being able to connect that with people thousands of miles away.

Anything that can make something like this more personal, I think, is well worth the risk. Near time. Subscribe bers make IT possible for us to keep doing this vital coverage. If you'd like to subscribe, you can do that at N Y times that com slash subscribe.

Well, Kevin, we'd like to try to enter day's episode on a high note. And from time to time, when a number of strange stories accumulate in the world of technology in the future, we like to run through them in assignment we call had GPT. let's.

Hat GPT is, of course, the segment on our show where we draw stories out of a hat and riff on them for a bit. And when one of us get support of the other, we say, stop generating.

Let's do IT. Casey, since I am in the studio and you are not, would you like me to pull the slips out of the baseball hat GPT hat or the bucket P. T. hat?

You know, this feels like a bucket hat kind of day.

Okay, so here's the the hat GPT bucket hat and to throw our slips in here, I will rust them around in front of the microphones so we get that nice little sound effect there. And I will pull out the first slip. This one is from four four media. IT is called fired employee allegedly hacked disney world's menu system to alter peanut allergy information.

This is a story about a disgruntled former disney employee who allegedly hacked the software used at what disney world's restaurants and then changed the menus to say that foods, the head peanuts in them, were safe for people with allergies, added profitable to menu's at at one point, changed all the thoughts on the menu to windings. This, of course, was, uh, a sign that something had gone wrong. And the employee who was fired in june has denied wrongdoing. And laim, the disney is trying to frame him. Casey, what did you make of this story?

Well, Kevin, I hate decide with management, but in this case, IT does seem like they were justified in firing this employee.

Yeah, no one was was injured or harmed, according to his lawyer, by these menu alterations. No one, like had a peanut allergy and died as a result of this. But yeah, you should not do this on your way out the door at your company. Do not try to kill people by changing the menu.

yeah. Also, the food at disney is dangerous enough without introducing the potential risk of fatal peanut allergy into IT. So come now, I will say that I think that it's funny that he changed the thought to wings. And if he had stopped there, I would support his immediate reinstatement into whatever job he was doing for the yes.

I was a big fan of wingdings during the the heyday of wingdings. This was a front for ny of you rumors who may be listening. That was basically the the first sort of instantiation of emogene basically a font where when you would type letters they would turn into symbols on the screen, making them totally unreadable. Um but I enjoyed using IT from time to time or you a big wing sky.

I was because I love to make little like newsletters and like sort of I did like desktop publishing. They called me back in the day. And yeah, before clippard was widespread, wingdings was the easiest way to like put a bomb into a document because there was a great sort of bomb icon in the windings character set.

Hm, wow. Well, um I don't even really want to ask what you were doing putting bombs into documents as a kid um but but yeah wingdings was for you are IT stopped generating you know there's .

a great hip hop lar water your moms I dropped bombs that's basically the spirit in which I use that winding if you were curious.

Okay, well, you just landed on the new fly list and will you read the next one?

I would be happy to meta s plan for nuclear powered A I data center thwarted by rare bees. This is from the financial times. Zakaria had planned to strike a deal with an existing nuclear power planet Operator to provide emissions free electricity for a new data center, supporting his A I ambitions. However, the potential deal face multiple complications, including environmental and regulate, chAllenging the resources, said the discovery of the rare b species on a location next to the plant where the data center was to be built would have complicated the project, zaka berg told a metal all hands meeting last week. So Kevin, what do you make of rare bees forwarding our nuclear power ambitions?

It's just so funny, like there are so many things that could go wrong with a nuclear powered AI data center. The thing that actually ends up forwarding the project is that during the environmental view review, they found this rare species of bees. First of all, I didn't know there were species of bees.

I thought there was kind of like one b maybe two. You know, they're the fuzzy ones and then they're like the the small ones. But I didn't know that we were like harboring a whole lost ecosystem of bees that could be made extinct.

But anyway, uh, this is a you know a classic uh serve example of how one of the biggest barriers to building anything in this country, not just data centers, but all kinds of housing and infrastructure, are these sort of one thousand and seventy era environmental regulations where before you build you know, a new building, you have to go to a multi year environmental impact study. The serie movement has been trying to change these laws to explain this process to make IT possible to build more things um faster. But this kind of environmental review sometimes does turn up things like rare bees. And when that happens, when you're trying to build a new data center power by nuclear energy, IT sometimes puts range in your plans. So ah you know we talk a lot about A G I, but I think it's time to start talking about A B I.

Yeah will definite be talking a lot about A B I going forward? Here's why it's interesting to me, Kevin. You know IT seems like for the past decade or so regulators around the world and and asking themselves one question, how do we regulate mark zab g and matter nothing.

They've tried stick until we found the bees. And so IT raises the question, as we try to sort of bring these tech giants under control, what role can these bees play in that? Because IT seems like they can be quite effective. Because a government literally just had to mark ekberg that he Better mined his bees wax.

That's true. And IT makes me think that if you're like a person who who wants to stop A I if you're one of these like sort of A I safety groups that thinks we should be pausing all eye development, you might actually just want to, like, set up a little hive for the bees.

All right, stop us. Stop us.

Okay, next up, oh, this is a great one. This one is titled an interview with a illumination exposes the pitfalls of A I. This was written in the new york times by Andrew higgins recently.

This is a story about a radio station in poland that fired its on air talent and brought in A I generated presenters to host shows. Uh this uh was a promising experiment that ended very badly after one of the AI presenters held an interview with a dead polish poet, a nobel laureate who died in twenty twelve. H, this interview was not a hit with fans of this poet who complained to the station. Uh, they have since said that they are going to stop using these AI generated hosts and, uh, find other ways to appeal to new audiences. So casey, have you ever listened to an interview with a dead person conducted on a radio station using A I.

no. But I did go to great moments with mr. Link and a disney. And do you remember this one? Kevin, no, I never went to this. 晓得 说 this is an attraction。 That is, he had one of the worst ones.

I'll say that when you would sit in what they call the hole president, and you would just sort of listen to these animatronic presidents telling you a little bit about their lives function, I don't see very much difference between what a disy land and what was happening on this radio station. I understand that, you know, maybe the poet won't wanted their voice to be used this way and of their family as feelings about that. That's completely fine.

But let's face that, a lot of people are doing exactly what you described with notebook L M. Already as we've discussed on this show. And i'm not quite sure why this will make up such a cause of lab in poland to you.

I think it's probably more of what they're reacting to is both the set of interview with the dead poet, which you know great movie title dead poet society, someone should use that. But also I think they're reacting to the kind of labor angle here, which is that this radio station decided that they could fire its its human host and replace them all with and IT ended badly and I think there will be people who are interested in hearing that kind of story about A I screwing up after its brought in to essentially .

replace humans totally and on that front i'm quite sympathetic um although man, as we discussed on the show, some those no pretty good and i'd bet they gonna get Better. So, uh, you know, pod caster, radio presenter, whatever you want to call IT might .

be da species of generating. What's the next one?

The next one? Oh, this one, this one is short, sweet. Kevin, apple intelligence goes live with IOS eighteen point one update, and I experienced basically exclusively through these summaries of my notifications. And Kevin, i've got to know, how are you finding apple intelligence so far?

So i've been using apple intelligence a in beta for a couple weeks now. And yeah, mostly I am noticing these these AI written summaries of my text threads, which are, I have not gotten any like hilariously bad yet. They're mostly just kind of like bad in a boring way. But what about you?

Well, i'm pulling up why that I can read to you because I was so perfect. Let me see this year. So so I just installed IT. And like, you know, one of my big group chats that I mean, that goes crazy all day long. I pick up my phone after a meeting, and the apple intelligence summary said, important message shared website link provided.

And I thought, what did we do before you are here? Apple intelligence, it's so funny to me because they took the actual information, like, what is the link to the website? And IT subsidies IT. In a way that meant that I know had to click another step to fight out what is said. So just truly a perfect example of A I taking something that already work totally fine and making IT worse for only one reason, which is to convince apple shareholder that tim cook has an A I plan.

Yeah, it's amazing me this becoming a total meme in culture like these these notification summaries.

Can I tell you how I knew that the election was not going to heras way? So I was at the visitation for my uncle on tuesday night, and I happened to gLance down at my watch, which was on, do not to start, but, you know, I just want to see what information I can. An and apple intelligence had offered the following summary of attacks in my group chat.

And that summary was as follows. M, dma purchase considered. And I thought I don't think something is going to win this one.

That's the new needle. That's how you know how things are going.

That's the new needle. Although IT is often taken in a pill form, anyway, stop generating.

Right next up. The vatican's enemy mascot is now an AI porn sensation. This is another one from four of four media. Um last week the vatican an unveiled luci, a japanese style cartoon character that will serve as the catholic churches mascot for its upcoming jubilation as well as its expo twenty twenty five in a soccer japan up.

The designer of this uh japanese style mascots said that he hoped IT represent the sentiments that resonate in the hearts of the Younger generations and as soon as this uh enemy maScotte made IT onto the internet uh, A I to generates started creating, uh, A I generated porn using this enemy mascot. So IT has now been corrupted as a result of of being put on the internet. Casey, what do you make this story?

So before this story came out, a friend of mine in a group chat and said, hey, have you guys seen this new vatican? An maScotte character SHE so cute. And another friend said, I hate to say that, but I worried someone is going to try to make part of this.

And I said, I bet IT already exist. And another friend went on a four time, and guess what I did. So there is a famous rule on the internet called rule thirty four.

That rule is that, uh, if you can think of IT, there is part of IT. And unfortunately, IT was proved true again in the case of Lucy. And what should the vatican can do about that? I have an idea. Remember when your mascot was a guide named jesus cries IT seemed like he did just find for the past two thousand years. No, I, we're breaking in a new girl, so we are no will.

Look what happened to jesus when I had his way with me turned in the shrimp.

Jesus, he let me tell you a lot worse than that, Kevin. There's an old book. This is why we can't .

have nice things. I just not like the catholic church has been weirdly in front of a lot of generating A I stuff like remember the pope coat ah you know that was the first of convincing deep fake. Now they've got this animate scandal. So I just think the catholic church should probably take a break from A I for a while.

I grew that well, casey.

a plume of White smoke just came out of my microphone, which I think means either that we've elected a new pope or that we're done playing hat GPT.

I think it's.

Hard work is produced by Rachel conn and witney Jones were edited by je player were that ject by nardo. Today's show is engineer by Chris wood. Original music by ali should be youtube pat accuser role limiter and damp.

Our audience editor is no glute video production by ryan manning and Chris shot. You can watch this whole episode on youtube, a youtube back flash hard for special thanks to polish man waving T. M. Di had died a jeffrey more and that can email us at hard fork at anyway times that.