OpenAI's Opportunistic and Sloppy Deal

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Unknown
This episode of the AI Inside podcast is brought to you by Airia. Get started for free today at airia.com.

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Unknown
Coming up next, Jeff Jarvis and I spell out the timeline of the Pentagon's fallout with anthropic and OpenAI's rushed deal to replace them. Block cutting 40% of its workforce in the name of, you guessed it, AI, and a Swedish whistleblower report that reveals meta smart glasses footage being reviewed by human contractors. That's coming up next on this episode of the AI inside podcast.

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Unknown
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the AI Inside Podcast, the show where we take a look at the AI that is layered throughout the world of technology. I am one of your host, Jason Howell, joined from the other side of the US, Mr. Jeff Jarvis in his office. Back in my office back, I've got I got my back brace on an ice pack in it, but that keeps me through the air.

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Unknown
Well, yeah. You know, this this show anyways, this show I can't speak for any other show, but this show, about an hour. An hour. Maybe a little bit more than that. Very tall. So. Yes. Yeah. Tolerable. Good to see you. We had an extra episode over the weekend. If y'all didn't, check it out, you definitely should.

00:01:23:27 - 00:01:48:02
Unknown
With Selima and Mercy talking about agents, negotiating with agents and, fascinating conversation. She works for Microsoft. Microsoft Research and, the majestic marketplace was the, big topic. Very timely after my first question was, was about kind of her emotional reaction to, open claw and all that's going on. So it's very timely to, to the tech world.

00:01:48:02 - 00:02:09:24
Unknown
And as Jason has been saying, this is the year of agents. It's just all bad. Agents will soon see war. But we'll get to that. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Unfortunately we're going to get to that right off the top. And I will be completely honest. Like stories like this I realize my my immediate knee jerk reaction is to like, hide from it because it makes me kind of squirmy and nervous.

00:02:09:24 - 00:02:30:21
Unknown
But, so instead of hiding from the story, why don't we dive right in? And I actually kind of put together a little bit of a timeline just because, like, literally this happened, you know, like starting Thursday and every day it's been a development. Yes. In, in this story. And so I figured I just kind of piece it together.

00:02:30:21 - 00:02:51:27
Unknown
Right. But feel free to interrupt me at any point. But I've got kind of, you know, I will this is open AI anthropic and the Department of Defense. I will not call it by the other name. Like it ain't Twitter. It's still Twitter. It's not X. Yes, yes yes, exactly. Although every once in a while I slip up, I slipped up I just last Thursday and I was like, damn, why did I?

00:02:52:05 - 00:03:17:14
Unknown
It was like a Ron Burgundy moment. So we got a little bit of a timeline. If you've been living under a rock, maybe you haven't heard of this, I have. Maybe you want to be a little rock. So you're safe from nuclear war? Not a bad place to be, by the way. Exactly. Yes. Yes, totally. So last Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that the Pentagon posed a hypothetical question to Daria on the die from, anthropic about whether it's clawed.

00:03:17:14 - 00:03:41:28
Unknown
I could be used to, I don't know, let's just say shoot out a nuclear missile. If it was headed for the US, I'd just throw it out. That hypothetical question there. And his answer was reportedly something along the lines of, you know what? Call us. We'd work it out. And I think anthropic is saying that that's patent, a patently false representation of their response.

00:03:41:28 - 00:04:08:27
Unknown
But defense officials nonetheless didn't like whatever answer, anthropic gave to them. And on Friday, US President Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using anthropic products as a result. And this was after or as I remember if called me, if I got the sequence right here. Because the sequence this is important. Yeah. He did he meet with Hegseth in that interim?

00:04:09:00 - 00:04:34:15
Unknown
He came and met with? No, with, at a yeah. Yeah, I think he he came and met with Hegseth in that process and it was not a happy meeting. Thus. Yeah. Trump then next said, yes, I do like this whatsoever. And not only that, Hegseth themselves, my understanding, denoted that anthropic or rather designated anthropic as a supply chain risk.

00:04:34:15 - 00:04:53:26
Unknown
We don't know whether that's been officially done yet. I saw something from from. Yeah. Tropic. It was it was clearly a threat and maybe more than a threat, but it all officially been done yet. And there's some considerable debate as to whether or not a Hegseth has the authority to do that. Yeah. To the extent that he's talking.

00:04:53:29 - 00:05:20:08
Unknown
So one guess was that if any university has a government contract, they can't use anthropic. Apparently not. It's that it can't be used on government work. There are specific things and and I thought I was going to sue. And so all this is up in the air. All this is crazy land, super crazy land. And by the way, like the supply chain risk designation, not the sort of thing that's normally just thrown around and applied to like a US company, a US tech company.

00:05:20:08 - 00:05:51:03
Unknown
This is a label that's often referred are reserved for foreign adversaries. Maybe companies like I don't know, Wawa is one company exactly comes to mind that we've heard many times. So that's a little weird. Then you've got OpenAI and OpenAI announced its own deal to replace anthropic. Ahead of that, though, they had basically shared what was referred to as anthropic red line, or at least publicly shared this, like the night before.

00:05:51:03 - 00:06:14:22
Unknown
And then the very next day, Sam Altman is announcing a contract that, they claim included similar guardrails as the ones that anthropic was fighting for. So that was an interesting turn of events. It was like the night before. It's like, yes, we stand united. And then the next day it was, oh, wait a minute, actually, we went ahead and carved a deal.

00:06:14:22 - 00:06:42:23
Unknown
So we're just going to go ahead and deal anyways. That was a little strange. Over the weekend. Lots of pushback, lots of people not really liking very much that OpenAI was quick to, sign this contract, whatever that contract may have said. OpenAI getting tons of pushback from users. In fact, during that time, Claude shot up to number one free app on the Apple's, US App Store.

00:06:42:26 - 00:07:08:08
Unknown
ChatGPT saw a huge wave of one star reviews 300% spike in uninstall. So definitely some consumer pushback and response saying we don't like this very much. We're going to go overhead, you know, go over here and support the company that actually drew a line in the sand. And, you know, was kind of not part of this versus just carving the deal the way, they say OpenAI did.

00:07:08:11 - 00:07:40:19
Unknown
And then, that put Sam Altman in a position of damage control, right? He was he sent a memo to his staff, said that, yes. My rush to sign looked a little opportunistic, looked sloppy. And, I think those were his exact words. And announced a new renegotiations phase with the Pentagon to include Fourth Amendment protections to include a ban on intentional domestic surveillance.

00:07:40:21 - 00:08:13:06
Unknown
It's unintentional. Hey, no big deal. But if it's intentional, there you go. We don't like it done so much. And also called for the Pentagon to offer anthropic similar terms. Altman has shared this post publicly on on X, so everybody has, access and can see that. And then ever since that has happened, you know, 900 employees across Google and OpenAI signing an open letter of unification, they're unified that that's titled we Will Not Be divided.

00:08:13:08 - 00:08:35:00
Unknown
It basically says that the Pentagon is working to pit the AI companies against each other, and that that letter says that's the goal. So let's, I guess, stop there because there's there's more. The story is going to continue. Yeah. Yeah. So here's a question for you, Jason. I think you're probably too young for this reference to mean anything.

00:08:35:03 - 00:08:59:04
Unknown
Do you know who Eddie Haskell was? I mean, it's a name that rings a bell, but I don't know. So, only for the few old people watching the show, because we have a young and vibrant audience. I know, a show called Leave It to Beaver. Good. Okay. The neighbor boy, Eddie Haskell, was a two faced, smarmy, lying creep.

00:08:59:06 - 00:09:28:14
Unknown
Who, would always say he had brown nose. This is Cleaver. Cleaver, you look lovely today. And then turn around and smash. So if you go to line. Mishear. That's what it is. It, 22, in the rundown. I had, Sorry. I should have warned you. This the Vance, the I got, I got I had, I think it was Gemini, put together Sam, meeting his alter ego and Eddie Haskell.

00:09:28:16 - 00:10:01:09
Unknown
Nice. And and to me, Sam is just done himself huge damage in this, he's he's two faced. He's a traitor to, I he snuck in under anthropic and grabbed the contract and did it in a way that lacked principle. And he's in a bit of a panic about it. So you referenced his post where he said, he talked about the principles and alignment and all that stuff.

00:10:01:11 - 00:10:21:22
Unknown
And then there was a story in front of the Wall Street Journal, said that, he admitted, I think you said this, that it was opportunistic, not united with the field. It was sloppy. But then he started talking about how, to try so hard to do the right thing. He gets so absolutely, like, personally crushed for it.

00:10:21:25 - 00:10:44:11
Unknown
And, and I know this is happening to all of you, too. He said it to his employees. So I feel terrible for subjecting you to all this is really painful. I think this was an example of a complex but the right decision with extremely difficult brand consequences. Oh, yeah, that's from the heart brand consequences and very negative PR for us in the short term, Altman said.

00:10:44:13 - 00:11:10:08
Unknown
So he just didn't think and stepped on it. Meantime, he did a big deal with, Rupert Murdoch and, and, News Corp. A lot of people don't like them either. So, that part of the world, Altman is going to be the devil. Yeah, I think he's going to replace, Mark Zuckerberg in the spleens of the left.

00:11:10:10 - 00:11:39:03
Unknown
Do you think that this is enough to kind of put him in that category immediately? A part of me just thinks that this is the sort of thing that, like, not to say that it isn't important at all, but I just feel like people have such short attention spans for this stuff now. It's it's really right point. And I think a lot of people are leaving OpenAI that are going to go back in like a week or two because like, they really do because they're they're uncomfortable with having to change the way they do things, you know.

00:11:39:03 - 00:12:03:23
Unknown
And that ends up being more important than the ethics behind anything. Yeah. The difference is I think that he did the deal with the devil himself. Right. I think those who don't do that and some people like I said some people like Trump, some people are, you know this administration. But my point here is for those who do not for those who consider him, that's a pretty large red line.

00:12:03:23 - 00:12:30:06
Unknown
I think it really hold red line. Now whether he, he freaked out on anthropic, that's nuanced. That's people don't. It's a tech company. We don't like AI. So. Yeah, that's that's no honor among thieves would be, I think, the view of many people. But in this case, I think the fact that he did the deal with the Pentagon and about what the matter, how much he doth protest about, well, I changed the contract and I asserted this, and this hurts me.

00:12:30:09 - 00:12:49:24
Unknown
I don't think anybody's going to pay attention to that. So, yeah, I think this could be a little too late. Really damaging now. Meanwhile, it came right after another huge amount of investments from companies that also by association. I haven't seen that kind of rub off yet, but I wonder whether people are going to say, why are you investing in this?

00:12:49:26 - 00:13:19:12
Unknown
Yeah. You know, in any case, you know, anthropic is I think, the robots in real danger if they're, they're called a supply chain threat. And if the government tries to enforce that and what they think of their maximalist ways, that could hurt the badly. But one friend of mine in Virginia said, we may not be allowed to use anthropic because university has contracts with the government for research.

00:13:19:15 - 00:13:42:09
Unknown
Is that what it's going to come down to? You know, well, and even, like you mentioned earlier, supply chain, threat, you know, not maybe officially, targeted as such. Maybe it's just a threat and not an actual label. But right now, we do have reports of the government phasing out Claud from all of its workflows or many of its workflows, but not all of them.

00:13:42:09 - 00:14:07:21
Unknown
Washington Post reported today that the US military use clod in processing a thousand targets in the first 24 hours of strikes on Iran. In this well, this new and sudden war that we find ourselves in. So how does the US government wean itself off of clod when it's that darn good at doing its job? Yeah, no.

00:14:07:24 - 00:14:31:15
Unknown
The surprising part to me was how much it is actually being used. Yes. Yeah, that's that's a good point. Right. And the belief was the clod was the only limb that was, I was gonna say battle ready, but government ready. But even then, you know, the problem with this is so, so, Ben Thompson, Mr. history had a long as a that's redundant.

00:14:31:15 - 00:14:57:02
Unknown
Anything he writes this long, post about this, that I had, Gemini summarize for me. And he's way taking the government side here and arguing that, company, no company should be in the position to tell the government what they can or can't do with a given tool, and that that's becomes a dictatorship of the corporation.

00:14:57:04 - 00:15:34:05
Unknown
And, he goes on at length and as is usual for Ben, he reasons it out at his, smart way. I disagree pretty strongly here on two bases. One is, at some point a company has the responsibility and. Right. I think, to say how their product should and should not be used. And so you have pharma companies, for example, that will not sell certain drugs to certain states to be used in death penalties.

00:15:34:07 - 00:15:47:12
Unknown
Okay. That precedent is pretty clear to me. That's a that's a bizarre precedent. We're not this is our rule. And if you're going to violate that we will not sell this to you. You may not use it because you may not use it for that purpose. I'm going to go overboard here and I'm not making a full.

00:15:47:12 - 00:16:10:28
Unknown
This is not a Godwin's rule Nazi thing. But I won't go there for just one second. If e k Farben, the company that made Zyklon B, and of course, they were in the pocket of the Nazis. So then this never would have happened. But what if that company had said, no, we're not going to sell you this product now, the Nazis, too, would have done what they did.

00:16:11:01 - 00:16:40:07
Unknown
But what responsibility does a company have in extenuating times to resist what they see as a, illegitimate, illegal, immoral, immoral use of their product? That's part one. Part two about this me is that basically, I think there's a whole nother argument here, which is which is anthropic sane. And I think they'd be the one company who would say this.

00:16:40:09 - 00:17:08:05
Unknown
It's not ready. Yeah. Even if you're absolutely right. Yes. And even if you believe that we're okay to use this for autonomous weapons, to go out and pick targets and kill them on its own without human intervention. But it looks at it's yes, it makes mistakes. It's irresponsible at that product safety level. To use it, I which I think is a legitimate, argument super which they've been making that as well.

00:17:08:07 - 00:17:38:01
Unknown
And so in any case, I'm on TV anthropic here and, you know, I've been I said this, I think this show last week, I've always talked about anthropic because they're doing great work and they're doing amazing stuff. On the other hand, their safety, their use of the word safety is, to me tickles the test. Real world and, you know, I'm I'm never sure how to judge anthropic fully, but in this case, I mean, in this case, their commitment to safety, I mean, it kind of lines up with.

00:17:38:03 - 00:18:00:04
Unknown
Exactly. Right. Because they're they're willing to put their whatever contract potential contract with the US government on the line to say, no, we don't feel comfortable with that. And that lines up with their commitment. Their publicly stated commitment to safety. So yeah, I give them a lot of credit for that. Okay. Versus versus the Sam Altman OpenAI like, oh, hey, here's an opportunity.

00:18:00:04 - 00:18:21:00
Unknown
Let's let's jump on it and we'll apologize later. Opportunistic and sloppy coding. Sam. Yes. Right now it puts Google in a fascinating position because as you said, you have Google employees who are now, as they did back in the day with Robots at War. And they essentially struck the day to say Google you can't do this.

00:18:21:00 - 00:18:44:22
Unknown
And they influence Google's behavior. Google went closer and closer and closer to the Department of Defense. Well now Google is in a difficult position. And I haven't heard much out loud yet, but that chicken is going to be heard from their employees, heard of their employees, some of the employees signing the letter and all that. But but if it comes time for, you know, it's not hard to imagine the government trying to put Google in a really uncomfortable position.

00:18:44:24 - 00:19:14:12
Unknown
No, I say we want to use Gemini to kill people. And Google has far more of a consumer brand and a worldwide brand. Yes. Associated with other governments around the world. Thank goodness Dolan from the white House listens to this podcast. All we have to worry about, you know, giving them certain of that. But it's really uncomfortable to an extent for Microsoft to, you know, it's, and Amazon is on this too.

00:19:14:12 - 00:19:24:27
Unknown
I dunno, if you put this on the part of the rundown or not. Did you put the Amazon strike in? You a no. So just just to add in to the whole war theme here.

00:19:24:29 - 00:19:53:04
Unknown
It looks like there's a good chance that an Amazon facility in the UAE was targeted by Iran. Oh that's right. Yes. Right. So, these tech companies become, targets. Perhaps actors in it are over war situation, right? Yeah. It's what, a target. You know how much better than going and going after Amazon than going after McDonald's.

00:19:53:06 - 00:20:16:04
Unknown
You know, so they're in corporate position too. So all these high tech companies just at the moment when there's all these stories time magazine does its cover about nobody likes them. And we got all the things we talked about last week that we get all these polls that say they're very unpopular. And now they're going to need public opinion to stand up for them in these cases.

00:20:16:06 - 00:20:40:09
Unknown
And so that goes back to your other question of whether this will last or not. I think in the balance here is the antipathy toward AI great enough to outweigh the desire to support dissent against a government that some people don't like. I don't yeah. That's an interesting. Yeah, balance or, you know, an interesting scale. There's those two different sides.

00:20:40:12 - 00:20:59:04
Unknown
Yeah. And it's all happening in a moment. That is so charged because like I said earlier, suddenly we find ourselves in war with. It's just such a weird time like, and it's, it's really off topic. If I may have one more thing. I just saw a story this morning, I think was the journal. This is not war.

00:20:59:04 - 00:21:24:22
Unknown
This is the Netflix, versus Paramount Warner Brothers fight. Okay, the New York Post reported that that that the administration, this wasn't the only factor, but the administration soured on Netflix when they went and did a visit to the campus, and they found tampons in the men's restroom that was just too woke for them being trans friendly.

00:21:24:25 - 00:21:44:13
Unknown
Right. And so there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about a fight over vibes, drove the Pentagon to break up with anthropic. Yes. A lot of it doesn't come down to rational business or technical factors. A lot of it is this kind of weird emotional thing here. And you can't predict it. You don't know where it's going to go.

00:21:44:15 - 00:22:07:02
Unknown
Yeah. It's, Yeah, it's it's a wide interpretation all thing. Yep. That. Yeah. Not not cleanly delineated. So sorry to, go on so much, but it's just a fascinating story. It really is. And I'm. I'm happy that we took this time. And I'm happy that I spent the time to do the timeline. I'm really glad you did, too, because it's so confusing.

00:22:07:05 - 00:22:27:26
Unknown
Only. Only because, like, the the more I, the more I like face this story and was kind of confused by it in the beginning where I wanted to like, pretend like it didn't happen. And that's just the thinking inside of me. And it's like, no, wait a minute, get educated, get informed on what this is. And it's, you know, even knowing all the details is still such a a confusing mess.

00:22:27:26 - 00:22:52:28
Unknown
It feels like such a mess right now. Anthropic, by the way. Do it. All right. And all this. Bloomberg says it's doubled its revenue run rate to nearly 20 billion from just the end of 2025. Which seems to suggest that there's, a lot of consumer and enterprise surge happening, right now that could potentially offset the the losses that it might see from, you know, the loss of a government contract.

00:22:52:28 - 00:23:19:04
Unknown
So I don't know, you know, that that, that, that ethical stance could be, in this case, a really strong kind of outcome for, for anthropic, you know, and, I mean, I've been using anthropic. You've been using it, a little more. I've been really liking the the product and find myself opening it up more than any of the other, labs right now.

00:23:19:06 - 00:23:40:16
Unknown
The thing is, it's less of a consumer product, right? It's both for code and corporations. It doesn't give you funny pictures. No, it doesn't make your videos. It doesn't do all that, right. It gives you code and text. It does really well. All of those things though. Yeah, it does really well with the, with the text and, and at a time when you need consumer support.

00:23:40:18 - 00:24:00:20
Unknown
Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Well I just, I just how much value do those things like images and videos actually have like their need, their need to point to and do everyone's well like saw you know, as a video product for came out of the gate and then has really tanked and you know so for consumers like it's a it's a short term attraction.

00:24:00:20 - 00:24:22:26
Unknown
Yeah. Versus what is it consumer good at being old. So yeah. So I just just for the gist before we leave the topic, I just looked up on news on Google for what's so, OpenAI looking at contract with NATO. Sources say the Business Insider has somebody who went to a quick GPT protest in San Francisco. And the discontent extends far beyond OpenAI.

00:24:22:28 - 00:24:35:07
Unknown
Yeah, San Francisco, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Just see if there's anything to in anthropic. Probably so almost certainly.

00:24:35:10 - 00:24:53:21
Unknown
And throw out here's Axios anthropic ban may threaten the military's AI advantage over China. So they're clean off their nose to spite their face because the argument there anthropic, tops 19 billion in annual revenue rate, as you said, anthropic story and fine. So yeah, this story is going to be hot for a while longer.

00:24:53:23 - 00:25:20:19
Unknown
Yes. Yes, indeed. And we will be following it here and we will follow it closely. Team coverage. Yes, exactly. Team coverage of other people looking at the team. That's what we do. We cover other people's coverage. Hey, is that what podcasting is all about? Exactly. Patreon.com slash air inside show, if you like how we cover these things and how we talk about them and the lens through which we do that, you can support us directly.

00:25:20:19 - 00:25:38:18
Unknown
Patreon.com slash I inside show. We've got some amazing, patrons, including this week Lee woods, Mark aka Biggie and Martin. Thank you so much for supporting us. Everyone who does, on the Patreon. Yeah, like I say, we couldn't do it without you.

00:25:38:18 - 00:25:44:16
Unknown
All right, let's take a quick break and thank the sponsor of this episode of the AI Inside podcast.

00:25:44:21 - 00:26:13:24
Unknown
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Unknown
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Unknown
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00:27:34:11 - 00:27:54:12
Unknown
That's air Viacom and yeah, it's really worth checking out. And we thank the folks at area for sponsoring this episode of the AI inside podcast and enabling us to do this week in, week out for you all. Thank you, area for your support. All right. We're going to take a quick break. Come back and talk a little bit about block.

00:27:54:12 - 00:28:04:19
Unknown
There's been a chop chop down the block of the block. I'm trying to make sure it's not working okay. We're going to talk about block in a second.

00:28:04:22 - 00:28:28:01
Unknown
Okay. What is the what is the reference that I'm trying I'm circling something. Cut up. Somebody cut off the chopping block. Chopping block. That's. Look that out. Yes. I mean, it kind of works. Does look are on the chopping block. Yeah. Something somewhere on there. Yes. Okay. These, these references don't come easily obvious. My, my old tabloid days.

00:28:28:01 - 00:28:56:22
Unknown
I'd be trying to write a headline around that. Totally. I mean, and I'm sure that that exact headline had been crafted by somebody. It's just a little too obvious. Block is cutting or chopping 4000 roles. From the company. Jack Dorsey, its CEO, says it's because of a I, nearly 40% of its staff, in other words. So Jack Dorsey revealed this during the company's fourth quarter earnings report last week.

00:28:56:24 - 00:29:23:14
Unknown
By the way, that earnings report wasn't bad. It was strong. It showed growth and gross profit 24% earnings growth 38% year over year. So things look at all right. Nonetheless, block announced the job cuts saying the company is embedding AI across its operations. And, yeah, envisions that this will be will enable smaller, highly talented teams, he said, to do more, better and cheaper work.

00:29:23:14 - 00:29:58:04
Unknown
And he's also saying that this is a one time reset and that most companies will soon find themselves in a similar position as they restructure around intelligence tools, aka AI tools. So what do you think, Jeff? Are we going to see more of this in the coming months? There's a few takes on this out there. The Wall Street Journal, which I think is, showing their, worldview, this a treaty report we talked about last week, the one that said doomsday, doomsday, the journal of pumped that a couple times and pumped that that was scaring the market, which would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:29:58:11 - 00:30:22:00
Unknown
And so they like anti tech stories. So this comes along and the journal says the week the dreaded AI jobs wipe out got real. And they had a contrary column saying tech has never caused a job apocalypse. Don't bet on it now. So they try to do both. But basically the journal went full AI panic on this.

00:30:22:03 - 00:30:46:09
Unknown
But there's a lot of argument that this is that the AI is an excuse for the layoffs that companies want to or need to do anyway, and it is pointed out that when, Twitter was sold to Musk, he cut the bejesus out of the payroll, and a lot of did. I was among them who said, oh, this thing is good, it's going to crash.

00:30:46:12 - 00:31:13:13
Unknown
I was, too, and it didn't, did no. So Jack has a, a history, one could say, of over hiring, rather considerably. He's not alone in the tech ecosystem, by the way, especially today, in fairness to the pandemic, that led to a lot of this. And so, this could be just a, way to say not my fault, not my management.

00:31:13:13 - 00:31:38:20
Unknown
It's smart management, it's AI, it's the future. Rather than talking about over hiring in the past. I don't know, there was a, a column today in the times. I worked for block. It's AI job cuts aren't what they seem. Yeah. And there's somebody who left a few years ago. So I don't think their knowledge is really that current, recognizing that, that AI is around and there's a dynamic.

00:31:38:20 - 00:32:00:28
Unknown
It's fascinating is you have a department with ten people, and then they cut the hell out of that department, and then you're left to work. How are you going to get the job done? You probably are going to rely on AI if you didn't before. You are now. That's true. Right? So it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy that even if it's not been used, if you cut this much, people will use it more because they have to.

00:32:01:01 - 00:32:22:24
Unknown
But then you have to prove that the the less people using more. I actually does fill the space, you know, exact fill up, fill up the lost, minds and humans and that takes time. You know, I say this again and again and again. We don't have the data to know about AI and productivity. This was the test case.

00:32:22:26 - 00:32:47:19
Unknown
This is a yeah, this is a test case. Twitter was to have AI. Yeah. That's that's that's really true. Yeah. Do we look back in a year's time and. Oh, boy, that was a stupid move. Or is our things going quite all right or, and if it's going all right, is it because they're using AI and AI caused this or is it because, was hired.

00:32:47:21 - 00:33:05:07
Unknown
Yeah. Over hired. Yeah. So it's hard to say. That is because nothing's the simple. There's there's the cause and effect is not one thing. There's a lot of correlation. There's a lot of other factors that come in. We need large scale data on productivity to get some sense of what's really happening with the AI. And so far, we haven't seen it.

00:33:05:10 - 00:33:35:01
Unknown
That's not to say that doesn't exist. So not to say it's not there but we don't know it yet. I think so do you think I mean we're just guessing. But do you think that we're going to see more test cases like this in the coming months. Like are we kind of at the point to where I don't know our knowledge of these models or the confidence that companies have in their ability to, you know, replace, I guess, the efforts of human and upscale, efficiencies and all that.

00:33:35:03 - 00:34:01:01
Unknown
Are we at the point where more businesses are going to make these drastic cuts? You ask the question. I think it's a good question. Yes, I think so. But again, I think the cause and effect will be difficult down at line. Wo 22222221 21 I put up this thing from Apollo, a an analyst saying that I may be impacting labor markets, but it also could be fed hikes, lower immigration and trade war.

00:34:01:04 - 00:34:25:24
Unknown
And so they went through a whole bunch of of activities, sectors, jobs and said, is it AI sensitive across the board? Yes. Yeah. But these jobs are also sensitive to interest rates. These are also sensitive to immigration. And these are also sensitive to trade. Given everything that's going on with, with that these days. So I think we're going to be looking for a simple cause and effect.

00:34:25:26 - 00:34:49:15
Unknown
I equals this in productivity, and I don't think it's going to be there. I think it's going to frustrate people trying to understand this. But we need we need economists and academics to do independent work. And you know we shouldn't trust the AI companies to do this on their own. They're going to argue that it causes great productivity and tremendous savings and great economic value.

00:34:49:17 - 00:35:13:26
Unknown
They should but I want to hear independent voices and independent data. The problem there is the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the, the fed would be the best sources for those. But BLS has been denuded. They've been emptied out. Yeah. You know, for for my for my new book, Hot Tape coming out soon. Preorder now. I need I need a bell.

00:35:13:27 - 00:35:45:27
Unknown
That's what I need. I need a soundboard for the bell. That happens. Just go ding. Or a QR code on the screen. That would be helpful. Okay, I'll take it. Yeah. Jeff. Jarvis. Scott, you go right there. Sorry. So it was really fascinating. Jason. One of the things that struck me was that around the turn of the last century, the government, had commissions to look at the, labor and economic impact of mechanization, industrialization, and particularly the linotype, the machine.

00:35:45:27 - 00:36:06:12
Unknown
I'm writing about. And they looked at it after, you know, five years, ten years, 20 years and saw a huge impact in what happened and how and where the how much was saved, where the money went, because at the time, publishers didn't put it in their pocket. They used it to make bigger publications, more publications, to compete stronger.

00:36:06:15 - 00:36:33:16
Unknown
They used it also to by other publications to consolidate. So there was a there was a technology dividend that occurred and how it was used mattered. And the fact that the government saw this was such an important social trend they had to study. It was kind of wonderful that the data and the and the, witnesses before commission hearings are fascinating, absolutely fascinating, from both industry and labor.

00:36:33:16 - 00:36:52:16
Unknown
So it was really balanced. So I would love to see that kind of research today so that we understand what we're dealing with. Instead, what we see is people like us having takes on it because we don't have to get because we don't at the actual hardware. No. Yeah. And, and it's expensive to do this kind of stuff, but that's where we need this to go.

00:36:52:16 - 00:37:15:28
Unknown
So when the Wall Street Journal comes along and says it's the dreaded AI jobs wipe out, that's irresponsible. It's just stupid. Based on one company, right? No. Right. See, I told you it's right there. Well the market responded very positively apparently, after the layoffs were announced. So the market might feel like this is the truth or just opportunity.

00:37:15:28 - 00:37:40:10
Unknown
Yeah. Always like they love layoffs. Totally. Totally. That's a good point. Want to talk perplexity a little bit there. There was a time I remember that. Old enough to remember them. Yeah, I still use them, but my uses is tapering. Is it? I'm noticing. Yeah, definitely. But this actually sounds very interesting. Perplexity. Announced. Perplexity. Computer. Computer.

00:37:40:13 - 00:38:02:20
Unknown
For max users only. So you got to have a 50 a month like Citi. Yeah, 200, 250. I can't remember what it is, but definitely more than 200, which is a lot to pay on a monthly basis. But if you're using this to its core advantage, you know, maybe it's not. One of our executive producers, Doctor Do probably is the prime candidate for something like this.

00:38:02:22 - 00:38:23:24
Unknown
This is an agent system that lets users detail a specific outcome. So set the set like this is what I want, to achieve ultimately, and then orchestrate multiple different agents, different models, very varied. And we can talk about those to plan out and to execute to that goal. And we're not just talking like give this to me in like ten minutes or whatever.

00:38:23:24 - 00:38:49:24
Unknown
We're talking hours. We're talking even months at it, you know, in some cases. So, this all happens inside of a cloud sandbox with a file system. And, perplexity says that it uses the best model for each subtask. So, Claude, opus 4.6 for the core reasoning aspects, Gemini for deep research is very good for deep research. Grok for fast, lightweight jobs.

00:38:49:29 - 00:39:12:27
Unknown
ChatGPT 5.2 for long context and wide search. Also, if you want your image in your video, it's using nano banana. It's using v0 3.1 and just meant to be really flexible when you compare it to something like clockwork. As an example. So yeah. And you know, it's definitely coming along at the time. Well, we've talked a lot about Open Claw and the concept behind that.

00:39:12:27 - 00:39:34:25
Unknown
Right? I also found, TechCrunch. This angle of this interesting that, saying that perplexity is another bet that users a computer is another, but the users need many AI models, right? And not just using one model for everything. Yeah. And the construction of models, I think it's true. I think people can go back and forth to see which does the best job.

00:39:34:28 - 00:39:56:12
Unknown
As long as I can afford, you know, using the the spending for the tokens in multiple models. If you really care about getting the best answer on your company, why not? Makes sense. I don't think consumers necessarily need to do that to make their funny picture of their uncle, dressed as a frog, but for other things, for business sensitive thing was.

00:39:56:12 - 00:40:24:17
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. What's listen, I mean, I'm still there. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, it's it's just interesting. A year ago, they were. I was all in and and I know that, you know, perplexity does integrate the other services into its service. So it really is kind of like a trillium or whatever those multi chat, you know, message systems from back in the days of all that you know, it is kind of along those lines.

00:40:24:17 - 00:40:43:20
Unknown
But yet I still choose to go to Claude for certain things or to ChatGPT for other things. And Gemini you know I'm all over the map, so I don't know. Yeah. Interesting. I'd like to play around with it, but I'm not a mac subscriber, so I can't. But if you are, send us an email. Yeah. Let us.

00:40:43:21 - 00:41:05:28
Unknown
We would read it. Contact at Ironside dot show. I'd love to know or you know if you happen to be a patron. In our discord. Throw it in there. Maybe we can, we can read it on the show from there. This next story, I feel like people really responded to, and and on one hand, like, obviously it's a, it's a big deal, but on another hand, it's kind of like, well, yeah.

00:41:06:00 - 00:41:23:29
Unknown
Like, I was surprised about this sort of don't trust, don't trust, no trust. Yeah. Yeah I mean that that's what I mean. Like I was surprised by it. I was surprised by it. But then at the same time I was not surprised by it, you know what I mean? So what happens in meta Ray bans doesn't necessarily stay in meta.

00:41:23:29 - 00:42:08:29
Unknown
Ray bans, a Swedish site called SVD, which I can't actually pronounce. Is this good dog? Blot it, I think. There we go. You'd be the one to be able to read that. I would say a whistleblower type article, about a contractor called Sam, not Sam Altman, just Sam in Nairobi. That works for meta. And what they do, they have a bunch of workers that are working on data annotation, using photos and videos from Meta's smart glasses network, and the story really details how contractors are seeing very intimate moments and private information on the regular kind of passing through, which opens up, you know, the whole question about like, how much, you know,

00:42:08:29 - 00:42:34:07
Unknown
if my glasses aren't in this charging case and they're out on the table, are they actually sending information online? Or is this when I've got these glasses on and I record a video, is that recorded video sending off? And if so, like they have apparently they have filters in place that are meant to blur, faces meant to disguise, you know, really, sensitive topics and sensitive imagery and that sort of stuff.

00:42:34:07 - 00:42:54:18
Unknown
But no filter is perfect. And a lot of stuff gets through, and that opens up the door for things to leak out to the internet. And, that's no bueno. No. Good. So what's did surprise me here? And I shouldn't have, but I didn't realize that your videos from the glasses go up to meta. I didn't realize that either.

00:42:54:18 - 00:43:16:15
Unknown
And so, well, in the go ahead. Well, I would say I would say I didn't realize that in this context. I mean, if you're using meta AI, then it's being processed like it's being processed. So that makes sense to me. If I'm just recording a video that's local on my device, that's weird. If it ends up going somewhere, well, let's put it this way.

00:43:16:16 - 00:43:41:06
Unknown
When I take photos and put them on Google Photos, they're going to Google. I do not presume that anyone ever looks at those photos for any reason. Maybe I'm wrong. I got the terms of service. I could be wrong. I never presumed that. Yeah, the Svenska don't want it. Reporting said that in the terms of use for Meadow's I it states that quote in some cases meta will review your interaction with EIS, including the content of your conversations with or messages two eyes.

00:43:41:09 - 00:44:03:15
Unknown
And this review can be automated or manual parenthesis human in parentheses. Right? Right. It also states that the eyes may store and use information shared with them, and that the user should not share information that you don't want the eyes to use and retain parentheses bracket for me or the rest of the world, such as information about such sort of topics so that maybe it was there the whole time.

00:44:03:15 - 00:44:29:09
Unknown
Maybe it was obvious the whole time. Duh, I didn't I didn't grok that. Yeah, it was a ruined word. And so once you know that, yeah, it changes the whole scope of things and the whole moral panics occur around global, Google Glass. Right. Oh, my God, what is Jason taking pictures of now? I was he violated my privacy.

00:44:29:09 - 00:44:42:29
Unknown
No. That's right. I'm sending I'm sending this video to the internet. Oh, wait a minute. We're already we're already on the internet. And I really have, right to fear what a new York Times columnist at the time said. Oh, my God, Robert Scoble is going to take pictures of my junk in the restroom. And I said, nobody wants pictures.

00:44:42:29 - 00:44:47:18
Unknown
You're drunk fella.

00:44:47:20 - 00:45:06:26
Unknown
That was a moral panic to an extent about the the user's use of it. Right. It has the light on as a user reports, they should record. That's about the user's responsibility. I didn't layer in the companies in this way. It was stupid of me. Because I think, I think the story I'm surprised the story hasn't gotten even more pickup.

00:45:06:28 - 00:45:34:14
Unknown
So far it's good reporting on the case of the Swedes. And by the way, thank you. Could talk a lot if I'm saying your name. Right. For putting this up in English, I think it's really important. There's all kinds of great reporting. Yeah. That, I see in German and French papers. And Swedish papers, that I wish, it's very ugly American of me to want you to put it in English, but we don't speak Swedish.

00:45:34:22 - 00:45:56:22
Unknown
But you'll have more impact. But absolutely. On a on an exposé story like this, it's going to spread a lot. Yeah, potentially a lot further as a result. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know, maybe. Maybe I'm just like, throwing heads in the air, like. Yeah. I just assume that all of these things are, not quite as they seem, you know what I mean?

00:45:56:22 - 00:46:17:19
Unknown
Like, did I actually think that any video that I recorded on these things was going off into a room where people were reviewing all the content? No. But then once I found out about this story, I was kind of like, yeah, God, I'm just not surprised. You know, that kind of took a little bit of the sting out of it, even though, like, you know, that's that's potentially really, really bad.

00:46:17:25 - 00:46:35:27
Unknown
You know, there's a there's a lot of probably very personal stuff that comes out of these glasses and people wouldn't have thought twice about that. You know, it's certainly not part of the onboarding that everything that you record on these glasses are going to go to some, some human. Well, I was picking apart the image and saying, oh, that's a trash can.

00:46:35:27 - 00:47:01:20
Unknown
Oh that's a face that and also that that person may look at disgusting things. Yes. And it has an impact on them. And there that's true. That's a good point. Yes. Oh so I look up and according to Gemini it is pronounced Svenska Dagbladet. So I was right. Dagbladet Svenska dug. But it. Yeah I love sorry I know it's a great killer language.

00:47:01:22 - 00:47:20:04
Unknown
I like the sound of the Swedish of Hallelujah that I cut it. It's kind of like rabbit holes. My wife and I went to Sweden in great measure because I was. We were fascinated with Ikea. The first one came to Philadelphia. Any country that could produce this is amazing. I got to see it. So we went to Sweden.

00:47:20:07 - 00:47:38:18
Unknown
On the way over, I got a, Berlitz book, I practiced phrases. We arrived the first night at a restaurant. I go up to the front and I say slow, and put two fingers up to make sure that people can understand what I meant, and the person speaks back to me. The whole speaks back to me in Swedish, I wait politely.

00:47:38:18 - 00:48:01:03
Unknown
The only finishes that I say in Swedish, I'm sorry, I don't speak Swedish. Do you speak English? Why did you start this? Of course I speak English. I'm Swedish. They're amazing. They're absolutely amazing. Because I wanted to kind of cross the bridge. I would be good American. Yes. Yes, exactly. So anyway, hats off to Swedish journalists. Thank you.

00:48:01:05 - 00:48:25:07
Unknown
It did, they did, couple of restaurant related stories. I don't know, it's a restaurant block with I. This first one, I think this probably happens more than, definitely happens more than reported and and will probably continue to, but a Santa Cruz restaurant called Salty Otter. This is my neck of the woods. This is just, you know, a couple hours south of me.

00:48:25:09 - 00:48:48:13
Unknown
Use generative AI to create part of its graphical logo. This is an otter riding a wave on a surfboard, you know, kind of kind of looks. Has that Jedi quality to it. It's cute. Like, also a human could create this. How the heck could do, you know? But anyways, the owner has admitted, yes, I used generative AI to create the the image.

00:48:48:16 - 00:49:23:07
Unknown
Everything else though she created. She has a background in graphic design and she just she had a very specific. She's busy running a restaurant. She opened this brand new restaurant, the Sports Grill, and it was inundated by, and salty reviews and ratings. See what I did there? Online. That had nothing to do with the quality of the food or the experience had everything to do with the fact that she chose to use generative AI to make the image on the billboard that's outside, or the sign that's outside.

00:49:23:10 - 00:49:43:20
Unknown
I think she has since taken it down or replaced it. Yeah, she's replacing use of a black but white text on like, that's that. It's sad. Yeah. It's like, okay, here I am now. Great. Is this what you like? You know, but, Yeah, people, people hated it for that single fact that it's this it's the anti, time magazine kind of thing.

00:49:43:22 - 00:50:05:10
Unknown
And shout out to my friends, look out Santa Cruz run by my friend Ken doctor for the reporting. Oh great. 2024 breaking news. Pulitzer Prize went dead indeed for a brand new online only start up. Dang. Good job. Yep. Not. That's an interesting. They want to pill? Try something else. Yeah. Maybe they'll win a Pulitzer for this too.

00:50:05:10 - 00:50:37:23
Unknown
Who knows? Probably not. But it's. It's an interesting story. I'm not going to deny that. And then second, in our mega roundup of restaurant related AI stories, Burger King is implementing an AI chat bot into the headsets of employees working at the restaurant. The BK assistant named Patty. You know, like burger Patty, helps employees with meal prep, also analyzes customer interactions to make sure that employees are being friendly.

00:50:37:23 - 00:50:55:23
Unknown
So, you know, they're gonna make sure that you're saying, Welcome to Burger King, please. And thank you. All those things. I wonder how that works. I wonder if it's just like barking at you while you're while you're working, or do you query it afterwards, like, how did I do there? Or. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It was like Starbucks.

00:50:55:26 - 00:51:14:10
Unknown
It was a trouble. They got a new CEO, he comes in, this is this is this cup I just had is not draw this they but they've been getting rid of the of the, Yeah. The little cup, they cut the cups or whatever you call the hot cups. Yeah. And then they've been making they've been making the employees say welcome in when you come in, like you're in.

00:51:14:10 - 00:51:31:26
Unknown
Cheers, norm. Norm, do you get that reference? I get that reference. Okay. Gotcha. Eddie Haskell, I get you don't get I make sure you got Norm. And by the way, I did watch Leave It to Beaver when I was a kid, but it was an older show that happened to be on when I was a kid, you know what I mean?

00:51:31:26 - 00:51:47:19
Unknown
It was like, watch a few black and white shows that I actually watched when I was a kid. Right. But yes. The other they make him do is they make him right on the cups. Whoever this person is, they didn't, you know, I don't want to get fired. What? It's forced like that? Yeah. Yeah. It's awful.

00:51:47:19 - 00:52:06:25
Unknown
Right? So it's bad enough that you force the employees to do that. Now you're putting a spy on their on their head. Yeah. And, you know, watch it's going to have cameras and say, are you smiling enough? Is your voice friendly enough? What did you say? Your your mouth is only upturned. 30%. We require 35% upturn in your smile.

00:52:06:25 - 00:52:32:18
Unknown
I got resting grumpy face. Right. There's nothing I could do. Happy? Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's it's an intrusion in an awful corporate technology way. This is not the way to use the technology. Yeah, like I get I get like a nanny state. Sort of. Yeah. It really does kind of vibe to it. Like. Yeah. By the way, me, however, Burger King is a little bit in my heart this week because they've been absolutely making fun of McDonald's.

00:52:32:18 - 00:52:56:28
Unknown
Did you see the McDonald's presidents? McDonald's has a new, Arch Burger. It's a it's it's a it's obnoxiously American overdone two quarter pound patties, three slices of cheese, lettuce, a new special sauce on a special bun. And the CEO of McDonald's does a video. That's what he's just uncovered. I don't know how to hold this. He takes the world's tiniest bite of it.

00:52:56:28 - 00:53:14:00
Unknown
He's uncomfortable doing it. It's just horrible. So meanwhile, the Burger King CEO is going off and he's making a huge whomp out of the new, Whopper, and doing the whole thing. So it's kind of fun to watch them, war. This has nothing to do with I. But I just think that if there's everything to do with making me hungry, though.

00:53:14:00 - 00:53:36:20
Unknown
Not that I want that arch thing, but it sounds pretty bad, Yeah, it sounds, so thousand calories. Oh, my. In a single. My goodness. I mean, I'm I'm probably eating plenty of thousand calorie burgers in my in my lifetime, but not Donald's. Not a McDonald's. Wow. That's that's like a brick. It's probably the size of a brick to.

00:53:36:23 - 00:53:57:25
Unknown
Interesting. It's four for ten bucks for a burger. Yeah. Fast dogs to be inexpensive. It's not inexpensive anymore. It's not. It's really not anyway. Not I sorry, folks. I love it, though. If anything, you've reminded me that once the show is done, I need to find something to eat for lunch, so I will do that real quick.

00:53:57:25 - 00:54:13:22
Unknown
If you're enjoying this show and our tangents sometimes have to do with McDonald's burgers, you just never know. Make sure you give us a rating on Apple Podcasts. Make sure I mention that every once in a while we talk about McDonald's. And I actually probably prefer that you mentioned that we talk about I. That's what the show's about.

00:54:13:22 - 00:54:24:08
Unknown
But please, it would be a huge help. All right. We're going to take a quick break, come back, talk about a few quick hits and get you out of here. Hold on tight.

00:54:24:10 - 00:54:47:15
Unknown
So first up, we have the US Supreme Court refusing to hear a case from, that dates back to 2018, where a gentleman by the name of Steven Taylor Taylor, had applied for a copyright for a work created by an AI system he built. So this is 2018. This is before you had, like, nano banana. You could just go on and type out a thing.

00:54:47:15 - 00:55:05:15
Unknown
He actually created a system. Looks a lot like DeepMind back in the day. Remember, DeepMind is, you know, kind of psychedelic looking. This is just how AI generated imagery kind of looked back then. This one is more sensible than most of them were at the time. Yeah, that's true, that's true. It has a little bit more.

00:55:05:17 - 00:55:28:19
Unknown
Yeah. More more construction. You can kind of see the scene. Some of the stuff from back then was just really trippy. And so he built this is called a recent Entrance to Paradise that was rejected in 2022 by the US Copyright Office because it wasn't made by a human author. He went back to appeals. It made its way to the Supreme Court.

00:55:28:21 - 00:55:51:11
Unknown
The Supreme Court has rejected the case. And so as a result, it's pretty unlikely that Taylor can, continue on, you know, on this journey at this stage. But it doesn't really solve the question. Right, because we don't have a court ruling on it. Or does it? Is that right now, what stands is that, the creations of AI are not copyrightable.

00:55:51:13 - 00:56:25:17
Unknown
Okay. So I think that has a big, you know, like the salty otter logo. If somebody else wants to use it isn't copyrightable. Oh, okay. So now that, that hinges on the person who is creating, to be honest and forthright about the fact that they drew the AI. Right? Right. So, yeah, I wonder how much people are just kind of getting away with it because or how many people would get away with it simply because they just don't even admit that it was used.

00:56:25:17 - 00:56:45:26
Unknown
I, I don't think this is going to stand in the long run, because, yeah, the line between whether the human made it or the machine made it is blurred already. Totally. In this case, totally. So. And if you use I mean, yeah, we can always go to Photoshop if I use Photoshop does that. If Photoshop uses a little bit of AI, does that invalidate your creative?

00:56:45:29 - 00:57:26:17
Unknown
Well that's that's totally where is the line drawn? If I open up Photoshop and I create something from scratch with drawing tools and the different tools that are there, and then there is also a tool that allows you to select a portion of the screen and say, generate this. And so is the difference that I used text that fed into AI versus like selecting a tool that was a smart tool because there's other tools where you, there's like this, is one tool object aware fill or whatever, where depending on where you put point your cursor initially everywhere that you then place the cursor and hit the button, it kind of takes an amalgamation of

00:57:26:17 - 00:57:49:08
Unknown
what it that source area was and kind of makes it work in that space. Is that AI because it's you? Yeah, it's so blurry. But I think what might hit earlier and I'm no lawyer, I don't play what I'm podcasting. But, this was a ruling of the Copyright Office that was upheld by the Supreme Court. I don't see a reason that the Copyright Office couldn't change their policy.

00:57:49:10 - 00:58:17:25
Unknown
Yeah. Okay. Right. So that may be where the action happens. Not in courts, but they rejected his request. He took it all the way to the Supreme Court. They wouldn't hear it. Well that's good. So that's where we stand on this. So the Engadget story said, it's worth noting that that, toddler, also filed applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for AI generated inventions, which were rejected for similar reasons.

00:58:17:27 - 00:58:45:20
Unknown
So, I think if you're an ad agency, this makes you cautious about about obviously using AI. Yeah, it really does. And I mean meanwhile you've got Google and everyone else, you know nano banana which we're going to talk about. They're all presenting these things as real level level ups for marketing and for ad agencies. Yep.

00:58:45:22 - 00:59:08:06
Unknown
And there's a big risk there. If anything you create with those tools is not copyrightable like no one's. Then your clients are going to say, you better not use these things, because I don't want to find myself in a position where I can't copyright my own. You have the concomitant copyright risk that if copyrighted material were used to train the model that you use to make your artwork, then you could be liable for that too.

00:59:08:10 - 00:59:35:08
Unknown
Yeah. Copyright. This is all this copyright again was invented in 1710. Yeah. Jeff, moment from the Gutenberg parentheses is still available for, Jeff jarvis.com thing. They where, it was not the creators who sought copyright. It was the publishers and booksellers who sought it so that they could have a marketplace to sell creators works. It was the industry, so to speak, that wanted it.

00:59:35:11 - 00:59:58:03
Unknown
And so it's outmoded to that extent. It doesn't do what people say it does. It's or protect creators. It's it's entirely different. It makes something a, a, it makes creativity into a tradable commodity. And I think there will have to be a rethinking of copyright in that vein around AI. So think so. It seems that way.

00:59:58:06 - 01:00:18:06
Unknown
Mentioned it real quick here. Nano banana two non nano banana pro. This is like the the next number. And really what are the differences here. It's based on Gemini 3.1 flash. It's a lower latency model. So it's pretty fast actually. You put it in, you know a generation prompt and you probably get it in, like, 10s.

01:00:18:06 - 01:00:40:08
Unknown
It has a quick turnaround. Better, world knowledge, better text rendering. And translation inside of images, improves consistency for subjects and objects. You can actually have up to five characters, up to 14 objects that stay consistent between generations. I played around with that, definitely. It's very interesting. This is what I saw you demonstrating on the video you made.

01:00:40:10 - 01:01:03:12
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Well, yes, I did a video on, the AI inside YouTube channel. So go to YouTube. By all means, go to the site. I happened into it and was fascinating watching Jason was going through very methodically trying to test out its abilities. Yeah, I just created a bunch of prompts ahead of time and then, went in there and like, tested them to see, to kind of flex into some of these aspects, to kind of see how it did.

01:01:03:14 - 01:01:20:23
Unknown
And I think it did a pretty good job. It didn't it didn't succeed in every test that I gave it. But most of them, it did. And I've been using it a lot more since then. And yeah, it's a it's a strong image. Creation tool. Absolutely is. And now it supports up to 4K, you know, specific aspect ratios.

01:01:20:23 - 01:01:40:27
Unknown
So it's getting really, you know, really good. Now you just don't know whether you can copyright the images that it creates. So there's that. I tried to use various of these this week because of the war, and references being made online, for wagging the dog. Oh, okay. I could not get it to understand what that meant.

01:01:40:29 - 01:01:59:10
Unknown
Oh, really? Oh, that's that's an interesting kind of, because it's a soft case and it was kind of like real world model time, not the the dog wags its tail. I was trying to. No, no, hold the hold the tail steady and wag the dog with it. Oh, that's a good one, Geoff. I suppose my failure of language to get it.

01:01:59:10 - 01:02:18:07
Unknown
I could not get it to make something tail wagging the dog. Like what would that even look like in an image? I tried to say, well, there's a hand holding the tail. Yeah, that is wagging the dog. And no, nobody could they. They just befuddled them. I saw it kind of kind of along these lines, but a little bit of a tangent.

01:02:18:07 - 01:02:34:25
Unknown
I saw a video online of a of a guy who was having a voice chat with like ChatGPT or whatever, or maybe it was Gemini, and he was like, he was like, what? What am I doing right now? And it's like you're holding a pen with both of your hands. He's like, what do you think's going to happen?

01:02:34:25 - 01:02:52:26
Unknown
When I let go with one of my hands? He's like, the pen will fall down, gravity will pull it down and you know, he's going back and forth to stay. There he goes, what just happened? And the and the the assistant is like the pen fell like I told you it. Did he like. No it no it didn't see it's it's up there.

01:02:52:26 - 01:03:11:05
Unknown
Oh my mistake. It is up there. And he gave some like weird reason for like why it's up there, you know, with his other hand you're holding it with your other hand. But I can't see your other hand. He's like no, my other hands back here. These things are oh it's wonderful. It's just. Yeah, it's it's it's beyond the call and the need for role models.

01:03:11:05 - 01:03:34:21
Unknown
Yep. Totally. Yes. It was a really interesting example of the counter of that I suppose. Gemini 3.1 flash. Just a couple of real quick. Kind of, model updates here. Flashlight Gemini 3.1. Flashlight. There we go. Fastest, most cost efficient Gemini three model now out. Really meant for high volume developer workloads. So it's pretty inexpensive. You're probably going to see that in your tools.

01:03:34:21 - 01:04:00:21
Unknown
And then kind of along those lines OpenAI released its GPT 5.3 instant again, faster, more focused model. I guess better at everyday tasks. Better at up the tone weapons. Yeah. Really fat. Really quickly. Apparently low lift weapons. Yeah. So what can I say? A lot of people are going to encounter this one. Or maybe not.

01:04:00:21 - 01:04:20:18
Unknown
If people are boycotting OpenAI, they might not. That's it. We reached the end of this episode. There's a lot this week. We've made it through. Yes. And, fantastic time. Thank you so much, Jeff, for always, joining me every week and and talking about this with me, I learned so much through the plug of book hate type.

01:04:20:21 - 01:04:44:26
Unknown
That's right. Hot type. Go to Jeff jarvis.com place to preorder. You can also find Gutenberg parenthesis magazine and the web. We we've Jeff is a very talented writer and you should be reading his books. End of story. Thank you. Jeff. I inside dot show for all the things about this show, including our most recent interview with, Salima and Mercy, from Microsoft Research.

01:04:44:26 - 01:05:13:16
Unknown
Definitely check that out if you haven't already. It's up on the site and then Patreon.com slash AI inside show. You can go there. You can support us at any number of levels, and we appreciate if you do that. And we have, some amazing executive producers who help us out each and every month. Doctor du, Jeffrey McKinney, radio Asheville 103.7 Dante, Saint James, Bono, Derek, Jason, Knife Route, Jason Brady, Anthony Downs, Mark Stitcher, and Carsten Tamaki.

01:05:13:17 - 01:05:34:08
Unknown
And I also want to throw out a huge thank you to Victor Bug not who is editing the podcast. For me now. He's he's, a friend from my days at twit and, he's the editor on the show, and I want to start getting in the habit of thanking him because his time editing this show just takes a whole lot off my man.

01:05:34:08 - 01:05:56:18
Unknown
Huge relief for Jason. We almost had an extra job for him this week when we did our interview with the Microsoft executive, to tell the story. Joe? Yeah, sure. Yeah, we're partway through. And oftentimes there's a PR person, not on screen, but just watching. Yeah, you're right. The PR person came in the chat on, on, StreamYard and said, there's a whiteboard behind you.

01:05:56:18 - 01:06:17:26
Unknown
Is there anything confidential on that? And I'm like, oh no, oh no. I wanted us to stop the podcast to check what we would do, throw out everything we did before. So I texted Jason and I said, do you think that Victor could, blur the whiteboard if need be? And he said, yeah, I think so. So Jason came back and and said that of the chat, the PR person said, okay.

01:06:17:28 - 01:06:34:27
Unknown
And then at the end of it all, she looked around and said, oh, it's all fucked. Oh yeah, it's fine. It's everything we just talked about on the board. So it's it's okay. I was just like, oh, thank you. Good. Because I've been there, I've been the editor many times in my career and you know, it's it's hard work.

01:06:34:29 - 01:06:51:24
Unknown
Yeah. You know, having to go back through an entire hour of, of an interview and, and blur out certain parts of the screen. It's hard, tedious. It's it's not enjoyable. At least it isn't to me. There's probably a lot of editors that really enjoy that stuff, but, I don't know. So I'm happy that Victor didn't have to do it.

01:06:51:24 - 01:07:10:26
Unknown
But Victor is awesome. We're glad to have Victor here. And let's mention one other thing, Mr. Howell. If you're a podcaster, if you're a company doing podcasting, if you, want to make your podcast better and understand more about it, you can get advice from Jason. How old? Where Mr.. How old are you? Oh, thank you, I totally forgot.

01:07:10:26 - 01:07:27:20
Unknown
I need to be plug it in. Yes you do I got I got to be selling this stuff. Podcast.com I always be selling. Hey you got to run a business somehow. It's pod tune up. Dot com. All one word. No hyphens in the URL or anything like that. Go there. You know, take a look at what I got there.

01:07:27:20 - 01:07:43:25
Unknown
Yeah, I've been doing the stuff for 20 years. If you got a podcast or you got you're thinking about starting a podcast, do you have a network and you want to, like, get better systems on it? I mean, I've been close to a lot of this stuff, as I like to say, I've been breathing the oxygen of podcasting for 20 years, so I can probably help you out.

01:07:43:25 - 01:08:08:05
Unknown
So go to pod to video. Thank you for the plug opportunity, Jeff. You're great. Well you you plug me enough thing. All right everybody, thank you so much for watching listening. We appreciate you being along each and every week. And, yeah, I'm realizing that I don't have my outro already, so you're just going to have to trust me when I say we appreciate you.

01:08:08:05 - 01:08:10:08
Unknown
And we'll see you next time. Take care, everybody. Bye.