November 1, 2021 • 55 mins
The US once again declines to declassify documents related to the JFK assassination, citing fears of 'identifiable harm.' Scammers get away with an audacious crypto-related heist using a fake food delivery service. Robot artist Ai-Da is detained by Egyptian authorities at the border. All this and more in this week's Strange News.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nolan. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's the top of the week,
fellow conspiracy realist, which means it is time for some
strange news. If you have jumped in spoiler free with
(00:49):
no idea what we're going to talk about, there may
be any number of potential news pieces you think will hit.
There are spies speaking out against the South, the Arabian government,
that's one. Things are going nuts again in Sudan, that's too.
There are no shortages, of course, scams, debates over legal
(01:11):
personhood promises made and forgotten by politicians of every stripe
in every country in short uh oh. And then further
studies came out and said, yes, the world is burning
down faster than we thought, and we're watching it. Happen
as the United States again gets hit by like six
storms at once, and were just collectively that cartoon dog
(01:32):
watching all of this and sitting in our little kitchen
table saying everything's fine. That's all we are, and maybe
a different breed of dog than they due to the nihilism.
But but yeah, fine means a lot of things. Here
we go, folks, it is it is time yet again
for strange news. We've got some stories on the very
edge of technology. We've got some stories on the very
(01:54):
edge of the future of identity as well, I would say.
And then we have a story that is a new
twist on something very old. And you may see my
colleagues and I take our cynicism out and drive it
around the block because that one, oh boy, you just
can't trust people. And maybe that's where our first story starts. Huh, yeah,
(02:16):
the old, the gold fashioned grift. Before I get into
the griftiness of it all, let's just see how this
sounds to everybody. What if there were a food delivery
service that, wait for it, it would rival Uber Eats,
or or if you're in Europe, something called delivery I
believe that's what it's called. But you could pay using
your cryptocurrency holdings without having to convert it to uh
(02:40):
fiat currency. So you know, while you're like earning interest
from your crypto investments, you can literally just tie that
to um, you know, a food delivery service and pay
with a fraction of a bitcoin or a light coin
or a you know etherory UM sounds pretty cool, right.
It seems like, you know, people that are in that
space are looking for ways, i mean use not the
easiest thing in the world to spend uh. It's more
(03:02):
of something that you hold onto or total as they
say in the in the cryptosphere, UM, but like it's
not the easiest thing to spend on like, you know,
goods and services yet in the United States. So this
seems like a great idea to me, UM. But as
it turns out, this whole idea is an elaborate roots,
(03:23):
an elaborate grift. Crypto eats UM very originally titled UM
was you know, put out a proper press release claiming
to have raised like eight million dollars in Series A funding,
which is the kind of talk investors like to hear. UM.
They you know, had events around this brand where they like,
(03:45):
you know, had all of these delivery vehicles. Like on display,
they hired you know, TikTok influencers as a UK thing,
TikTok influences from the UK to basically pimp out this brand.
And and just in case anyone's not familiar, the way, um,
some of these crypto projects work is you buy a coin.
They meant this coin, you know, in in the blockchain
(04:07):
that's verified by the blockchain UM, and you're essentially investing
in a project by investing in that coin. Oftentimes, UM
it's them trying to raise capital, you know, to to
do the thing, but you usually get some sort of
fringe benefits for investing in the coin, like in this case,
they were promising five percent off all orders for holders
(04:27):
of the token. So essentially, like a token is a
uh let's say, let's call it proprietary crypto coin. The
ones that fail are often called coins because there's no
nothing backing them. But in these kind of uh niche
crypto spaces, you know, people are always looking for the
next big crypto project. Exactly what this was. You have
(04:49):
these uh you know, these influencers on TikTok saying, oh yeah,
the crypto eats gonna be the next big thing. Invest
in it now. Uh, it goes you know, for sale
on the market on the first of October. Get in
while it's hot. It's gonna be the next big, you
know brand, It's gonna be a you know, a competitor
for Uber eats UM. And you know, people that were
watching this saw it rise and rise and rise until
(05:11):
they had a massed about a half a million dollars
UM in selling these tokens. And then the creators of
this did what's called a rug poll where they essentially
all of the information surrounding this UM this brand was
entirely fabricated. UM. They claimed to have partnerships with Nando,
which is a very popular UM like Perry Perry Chicken franchise,
(05:34):
very popular in the UK. There's a few in the
in the States, but it's mainly a big UK thing,
and McDonald's. UM. They had this event, you know, this
influencers showed up, all of these influencers pumping this price
up for this coin, and then they just vanished. They
just ghosted with five hundred thousand pounds of investors money UM.
(05:54):
And that's that's that's really the story. I mean, while
you know, the crypto space is super interesting, and there's
a lot of neat things that are happening because it's
sort of like the wild West. That also means that
there's not a lot of regulation and there's nothing to
protect people from literally losing everything, uh to a scam.
The the CEO, supposedly a guy with a very innocuous name,
Wade Phillips, total fabrication, not a real human being. Um
(06:19):
even was like pictured in the press release purportedly this
this like this cool looking young hip dude with tattoos
holding a latte. Wade Phillips, not a real guy. Um. Yeah.
And so no recourse you know, for these folks because
even though these transactions are traceable, you know, on the blockchain, Um,
there's nothing anyone can do. This is the the risk
(06:41):
you run when you invest in these types of projects.
So I don't know, guys, ethically, I mean, obviously this
is trash behavior. Is this sort of like you should
have known better? Is this taking advantage of people that
are you know, not um seasoned? Uh? Is this just
part and parcel of this new kind of technology? Just quickly,
(07:01):
I would say there are people who are probably perceived
as ripe victims, right that exist here because there is
such interest and as you said, it is it is
such a new realm to get into if you've got
money to invest. Uh, it's messed up. But I I'm
kind of impressed in an in a morbid way, with
(07:23):
how much they did to pull this thing off, to
to create so much of a ruse there, to get
this thing going, to have an actual physical like launch
party with some celebrities. You know, there's this bouncer guy,
I don't know his name, but there's a bouncer here
who had like, yeah, who you know went to a
(07:44):
physical thing and they had they had actual delivery like
machinery outside and uh, their their official logo, their swag,
all that stuff. It's just I don't know, there's something
genius about that in a messed up way. Sure, all
the communication is online save for that that physical event. Right,
(08:06):
So it seems like in a way, the unless an
investigation reveals something else, it seems that the folks who
were touting this fake service were also getting getting taken
for a bath. Here are getting taken for a ride.
I would say there are more things like this occurring.
(08:29):
This hit the news because it is a it is
a scam based on a legitimate service. But think of
all the people who got ripped off in bitcoin scams
on the dark web, for instance. You can't very well
go to law enforcement and say these guys screwed me
out as so much opium. Right, So in this case
there's a higher than average chance of someone attempting to
(08:54):
at least take legal action. But where how far can
you race the bread crumbs here? I would I would note,
and I've said this before, that intelligence agencies at some
level have a very high likelihood of being able to
learn more about bitcoin transactions than is being revealed to
(09:16):
the public. But will they do that, I don't know,
because there that would mean that they are showing their
hand uh and might lose some of their opportunities for
uh future covert actions. And that's something we run into
a lot with classified stuff, with um, with covert operations,
and with as we'll see in a little while, classified
(09:37):
files in general. I do want to point out, and
I'm gonna soapbox here. I'm gonna soapbox just for a second.
There's also a good argument to be made that things
like door Dash, Rubhub and uber eats are themselves on
some level scamming us various parties involved, some restaurants get
screwed over by them, and uh, some of the drivers
(09:58):
often have really terrible times, but they are at the
end of the day getting some sort of compensation, some
kind of money, which these folks did not. Yeah, I
mean they put out a proper press release, like through
the appropriate channels that other big tech companies used to
break news. Uh. It's actually still up in a couple
of spots since he's some some have pulled it down
(10:18):
or replaced it with like, you know, follow ups about
the scam, but honestly hasn't really broken the news widely.
And and this, uh, this, this press release, it reads
super legit when you pair this, the language in this
with the party and and the influencers and all of that.
Taking a face value, I mean like I could see
being taken in by this, even if you're a bit
of a pro right um, because there's certainly much more
(10:42):
risky and um fly by night type crypto projects Like
I once a friend of mine, a friend I love dearly,
who was so obsessed with the crypto stuff. He got
me into that. It's called the finance smart chain. It's
like a sort of little I guess subnet kind of
of of the blockchain, you have to convey hurt you know,
crypto to a different type of format. Essentially, it's called
(11:04):
BEP thirty or something like that. I don't know if
I quite got that right, but that's where you invest
in all these projects. So they're all these tokens with
names like you know, fog and uh, you know, like
cub and um. There was one called Gator that I
was messing with, and then there was one called Jazz
and my friend and a friend of his, who's who's
(11:24):
really you know, made a lot of money in this space,
and I'm full disclosure, have not a very much, just
in it for kind of a little fun. Caught me
investing in this Jazz token and it just like tanked.
It went down to like a fraction of a penny.
And the way these these work is they people pump
them up. You know, there's buzz on the internet and
that's on the price. Um. But what this also shows
(11:48):
is the shallowness and kind of hollow lack of accountability
of influencer culture. You know, I mean, these these folks
just like took the money and and wore the damn
T shirt and the hat and held up the bag
as if it were a real thing. And sure where
they scammed as well? Were they taken for a ride
maybe as much as the investors. Yeah, you could argue
maybe yes, But also I wouldn't put on a T
(12:11):
shirt and promote something that didn't even exist, especially if
it was to pump up a cryptocurrency that I was
probably also being paid in. Uh. It's a super huge
conflict of interest and I think a lot of the
folks that do things like this should maybe think better
of it, because if they're trying to have successful brand partnerships,
you know, and then all of a sudden, they're seen
(12:32):
as being you know, who will I'll do whatever to
the highest bidder or even if it's bulls, that's probably
gonna make their stock tank, you know, as influencers. So
it's something to think about. Well, there's also an aspect
that hasn't been brought up that is probably going to
reach ahead in a few years near future, which is
that influencers do not do not have the same rules
(12:55):
applied to them that traditional broadcasters would. And I'm talking
specifically about what's called the Sponsorship Identification Rules by the FCC,
which you can read on full you go to FCC
dot gov. Uh, the idea here is and this applies. Now,
this applies to UM mainly what we call the more
(13:17):
old school stuff. It does. It does apply to people
in our network, but it doesn't apply to a lot
of podcasters, It doesn't apply to a lot of new media,
and it doesn't apply to a lot of influencers because
influencers for now are still starting out on their own
to a to a great degree, for now. I want
(13:39):
to emphasize that, because it's not going to be the
case for long. But because of that, you can't really
you can't impose the same kind of strictures or requirements
for sponsorship identification, because then you would be telling people
it might not even be their official job. You'd be
telling people, uh to obey new rules about what qualifies
(14:02):
as their freedom of speech. So it's a sticky thing because,
as always say, the legislation is going to be continually
outpaced by the technology. And in this case, it means
things like this. Just to finish, it means things like
this are going to continue to happen. Oh, I underston agree,
and I mean and also it becomes up to the
influencer and they know the risk they're taking, um by
(14:23):
maybe putting an ad in a format that isn't transparent.
So I think a lot of uh influencers will tag
certain posts on social media as ad ad or like
you know, sponsored or whatever like that, just to make
sure that folks know the difference. And I mean we
do the same thing you guys, like we we we
get we get the first right of refusal on any
sponsor that that that are is offered to us as
(14:44):
a show, and I think we take it pretty seriously, uh,
in terms of stuff that wouldn't feel like an alignment
with us as people or with us as a show.
And then you know, we've certainly you know, get uh
get flak you know when we when people don't agree
with those decisions sometimes. So it's something that we're very
acutely aware of, you know. I just want to put
out there, like if if we got approached by crypto eats,
(15:08):
it is a cool idea. They've got a website, they've
got a press release, they appear to have funding coming in.
It looks legitimate on the front for any influencer that
got hit by these guys. Um, I just you know,
I don't want to put the I don't want to
lay anything out on the influencers themselves, who were paid cash,
you know, money dollars to make the or you know,
(15:31):
in this case, pounds to make these promo videos for
a seemingly real thing. And uh, I think that's why
I'm My initial reaction to it was like, Wow, I'm
impressed by the grift here because they were able to
not only scam uh, not only influencers to make videos
(15:52):
on their content, but also you know, people to actually
invest their money in this thing. Um. And I can
imagine myself saying, yeah, sure, let's let's do a cryptometes ad.
That sounds really cool and interesting. It's easy to feel
like it's easy to look at something like this from
the outside, or look at almost any con or grift
and think, oh, not me, I would have figured it out.
(16:15):
But grifts and cons are successful because they prey on
the base impulses of people. Right and as long as
as long as those things happen, um there, as long
as those psychological traits exist, then grifts like this will
be necessarily successful. I think it's fascinating. Um, it's fascinating.
(16:40):
The point you bring up, Matt. From the perspective of
a lot of people, the checklist that would be considered
due diligence is not very difficult to game, especially in
this space, because it's not as if they were like, hey,
we're starting a new mining interest that would be a
really common grift in nineteenth century America. Don't you want
(17:00):
to get in on this gold mine? Now they're those
those industries are subject to a lot more scrutiny, but
this really isn't. So hopefully we're not making a supervillain
by saying again how easy it is to do things
like this. I agree with everything you're saying, and I
think maybe I was being a little hard on the
influencers here. I think for me, it's the the crypto
(17:25):
investor aspect of it. You're not just telling people to
try out a service. You're telling people they should invest
in something you know that doesn't fully exist yet. So
you are asking people to gamble, you know, with their money. Uh,
And you're pumping this up as like the wave of
the future when all you really know about it is
(17:45):
that it has had and a and a T shirt
and like, you know, a party with some free finger food.
Um so I'm not trying to be too I understand
completely what you're saying, Matt, and I agree that I probably,
especially being somewhat interested in crypto stuff, would be intrigued
and be like, oh sure. But I also think it's
dangerous when you just like go out there and say, yeah,
all my followers like, check this thing out. It's so cool. Um,
(18:08):
I love it. I'm not gaining anything from this, because
that's bulls because people that say they're not gaining anything
from it are being disingenuous, you know, And that's what
a lot of these influencers that made these videos said.
So it all depends on how you handle it. And
of course a lot of them have come back and
apologized and you know, are are donating their fees to
charity and things like that. So more power to them,
for sure. But we are going to see more elaborate
(18:30):
things like this. And we're running that movie the game,
you know, where everything is just like so perfectly laid
out that the illusion. I don't want to spoil the movie,
but it's basically like, you know, everything is so perfectly
laid out that no one knows what's really going on.
But um, yeah, I think with that, we'll take a
quick sponsor break and then come back with some more
strange news. And we have returned, U folks. Earlier I
(18:59):
alluded to the idea of secrecy, the nature of it, uh,
and we are still very much a show that we
have always been, which is critical thinking applied to things
at the edge of conversation. Conspiracy theories, the paranormal allegations
of psychic powers, and UFOs. You name it. There is um,
(19:22):
there is some stuff. It's weird to start it this way,
but for a couple of different reasons, I've been really
deep recently into by far, the most popular conspiracy theory
in modern US culture, which is the theory surrounding the
assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. This is one
(19:45):
of the most widely not only widely known conspiracy theories
in US culture, but it is by far and away
one of the most widely accepted. A ton of people
in the US don't accept the official findings of the
later investigations into the Kennedy assassination. And again I can't
(20:08):
say why I'm on the steep dive yet, But and
the crazy thing about it is, when we look into it,
the war it makes sense that people would have a
problem with this. We're not saying we've nailed down who
done it, but there are so many inconsistencies, discrepancies, questions
left unanswered. I just recently learned that in the wake
(20:32):
of the assassination, Robert Kennedy, very much off the record,
sent a secret message to the leadership of the Soviets
after the assassination saying, hey, we know it wasn't you.
We think it was actually a right wing conspiracy. And
they never they didn't say that in public. And you know,
not that Robert Kennedy had much of a chance to
(20:53):
because later he got killed by Sir Hans Sir Han
who is now in the parole process, so he might
get out to anyway one of the Yeah, I know,
I know, I didn't see that one coming. It wasn't
on the Bengo card, as they say. But during during
all this has really attuned to whatever news might be breaking.
(21:15):
And just recently, the White House under the Biden administration,
just as past Friday, as we record, said that they
were going to yet again delay the release of long
classified documents about the JFK assassination. UH President current President
Joe Biden wrote that the remaining files shall be quote
(21:38):
withheld from full public disclosure until December of next year,
which will be nearly sixty years after the Kennedy assassination,
and the anniversary of that is is coming up. Uh. Also,
you know, this is a pattern we've seen across multiple administrations.
The Obama administration said they would release file and then didn't.
(22:01):
The Trump administration said they would release files. They released some,
but they didn't release all of them. They kept holding back.
So if you were someone like many many people who
believes there's something more to the story about JFK, this
feels like a smoking gun of a sort. I wanted
to set the set up the quote that I think
(22:22):
is the most interesting here, and then have you guys
react to it, and then let's talk through what it
could mean. So in the statement from the White House,
current President Biden said he said a lot of stuff,
but he said the delay was quote necessary to protect
against identifiable harm to the military, defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement,
(22:45):
or the conduct of foreign relations, and that this quote
outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure end quote. What
stands out for you there, guys, man so much? I
mean just the idea of full public disclosure. Like it's
been so long, what could we possibly have to lose?
Like what what? What What? I don't understand what could possibly
(23:06):
be in there that would affect national security? That isn't
something super sketchy is still alive? Right, that's true identifiable
harmfiable harm, that's the one freaking George H. W. So,
(23:28):
we tried to get data KRV for this. But he
are you implying because he made the call? Is that?
Is that the conjecture here? Are he in some way
order this or was involved? Yeah, it's a shout out
to the It's a shout out to the people who
believe some variety of that idea. Years on, George H. W.
(23:51):
Bush still couldn't clearly remember where he was on that
day in Dallas. That's always stood out. Um. It's no
secret that he and some other some other players, including
Lyndon Johnson, were in opposition with some of Kennedy's Kennedy's
ideas about how to proceed with Cuba, right and with
(24:13):
the threats of the Cold War. But identifiable harm is
really what stood out to me as well, because it
could mean a couple, It can mean a couple of things,
and they're not all necessarily sexy. Like the the identifiable
harm as a phrase, it is so purposely vague. It
could mean that, you know, like we're talking about, with
(24:35):
intelligence agencies maybe knowing a little bit more about crypto
than they let on. This could be something that exposes
um an active flaw in a foreign intelligence apparatus. It
could also, at the far end, mean that there was
evidence pointing to someone on the inside being involved or
(24:56):
having knowledge, maybe having knowledge and not taking it seriously.
It would be seen as like casting aspersion on incompetence,
like what if what if that theory that the Secret
Service accidentally discharged firearms? What if that ends up being true.
That's a real kick in the pants for a lot
of people. But I still I don't know. The one
(25:17):
thing that got exaggerated about this was that the the
folks who made this suggestion that these files should like
the National Archivist who made the suggestion that these files
shouldn't be released. Yet they didn't blame a conspiracy. They
didn't blame the Soviets or the MOB or the CIA.
(25:38):
They blamed COVID. They said, we need more time to
review this because of COVID, that's that's their culprit um,
and the current president agreed. I just want to point
out that before COVID, multiple presidential administrations said the exact
same thing. I I'm just I'm not saying we're in
(26:02):
a fishery, but it sure smells fishy, and it doesn't
like what what's gonna be released anyway. I mean, it's
gonna be the black highlighters all over again. I don't
think there's I don't think there's some juicy thing that's
gonna come out and say, you know, like here's NAUGHTI
overcording of Lyndon Johnson going whoo al right, tight, good
(26:24):
job fellas, and like somebody in the mob going all right, thanks,
Mr President. I don't think there's anything like that. But
but doesn't this just stoke the fires further? It does, man,
And and it's because of that phrase that we we
talked about. Somebody knows the archivist and the people working
(26:46):
around the archivist know that something really bad is in there,
really like not good, um, and we know that something
not good is contained in those files. So it's so
strange to me that we're in the situation where we
all know that something's there. They just won't let it
(27:06):
loose on the world because they somebody, somebody really does
fear that it's gonna destabilize something. Yeah, I'm thinking about
conversation any anyone who's not listening. We've been delving more
and more, I think, on our own time into clubhouse
a little bit, just kind of seeing what's going on
there there. I have heard rumors guys that a member
(27:30):
of the Kennedy family used to go on quite often,
has like slowed down a little bit, but would consistently
state that this person was aware of a conspiracy to
kill John a member of their family, and George A.
Swe Bush had something to do with it. Um uh,
(27:52):
but anyway, I'm just that really piques my interests. Um yeah, well,
what if there? What if it's uh, what if fits
an attempt to hide proof of fore knowledge, So not
necessarily conspiracy, but to hide incompetence. A lot of actual
government conspiracies are somebody messing up and then somebody else
(28:14):
trying to save face. So what if the FBI and
the CIA knew Oswald was sending signals and he didn't
do anything because they thought he was he was a loon?
We know that we know that intelligence in Mexico warned
the US that there was this there, like, hey, there's
(28:34):
this crazy guy. He's walking around Mexico. He's telling people
he's going to kill the president when he gets back
to Dallas. And they did get warning. We know that
from from Mexican intelligence. But in I didn't think I
would say this. But in fairness, how many warnings like
that did they get? You know, like how many how
(28:56):
many warnings do intelligence agencies receive every day regarding a
president or a senator or congress person. Well, yeah, and
like I mean, on the one hand, you gotta take
them all seriously, But on the other hand, there has
to be some protocol, you know, some base level protocol
for how to handle them. And I'm sure that's some
thing you you always hear about, maybe maybe only in
(29:18):
like film, but it seems like it's potentially based on
things that certainly could happen about signs, signals that were missed,
you know what I mean, Like you can tell that
was dismissed in some way as it's not credible, but
then proves to have been very credible information. Yeah, there's
there's the other question too, like like it goes back
to the the idea of how advantageous retrospect is because
(29:43):
we're we're retrospect, we're on the outside. Some of us
weren't alive when the assassination occurred, and so it's easy
for us to look in the past and say, I
could have I could have done a better job, I
could have known, But I, like, I really liked point
you're making that, which is why does it keep getting
(30:03):
pushed back? What the hell is in there? Is it?
Is it personally embarrassing to like a public figure? Is
it just? Is it um? Is it exposing incompetence on
an organizational institutional level? Is it? Is it proof of
some other twist to this story? Like Jack Ruby was
(30:25):
down with the mob. Everybody knows that, but they don't
talk about it too much. And then there are other
people will say, this happened, you know, like sixty years ago,
so who cares? You should care? Is the call to
declassify this in the first place based around the fact
that it's such a high profile event and there's such
public interest, because I mean, certainly there are things that
(30:47):
stay classified forever and no one would be the wiser.
But you can go to the white House or just
excusing www dot white House dot gov and you can
read the official reporting. And we've we've been talking about
the want for presidents, like sitting presidents, to reveal this
information for a long time, but they've always been held back.
(31:09):
But you know, something that was compelling them to uh
them and the archivist to withhold information right there, they're
fighting something from That's what it is. Yeah, So I
want to go back way further, guys. Yeah, I think
this goes back to the business plot ben No Prescott Bush,
(31:33):
Prescott Busch, Smithley Butler trying to stage a coup didn't
work out for him that time. And then he has
a son, George H. W. Bush. He's hanging out in Texas.
He's not he's not yet a US representative. He doesn't
get there until nineteen sixty seven, but he will get there,
(31:54):
maybe add an umbrella, but he's he's Prescott Bush's son.
I don't know. Yeah, I'm I'm hesitant with that stuff sometimes,
Like I'm real deep in the in the business plot
right now for another unrelated thing. But the thing that
gets that we have to be careful of is that
(32:15):
when we're reading these to the and encountering them as
though they are just stories, right old tall tales. What
it's so tempting for humans to think of it in
terms of like dynastic soap operatic stuff. But in this
case I would say that I am more tempted than
usual to agree with you. Just knowing what we know
(32:37):
about Oswald doesn't look good. Uh, knowing again, knowing about Ruby,
knowing about the various weird things that were going on
with like for a time it was as if the
Soviet government was working with two different US governments who
are often in opposition of one another, which is of
(33:00):
very common thing in Congress now, for sure, but back
then it was unusual, and people realized it's not a
good way to uh, it's not god way to govern
a country. I just the thing is, so much stuff
has already been released. What is keeping this last last
little dingleberry of secrecy from over half a century? What
(33:22):
is what is keeping them from just flushing that down
the bowl of transparency? I don't understand, and it makes
it look worse. Like the monster you don't see on
screen is ten times more frightening than the monster that
you can see clearly depicted. Gotta protect those dynasties been.
I guess yeah, well, like I'm having fun with the thing.
(33:48):
I just putting it out there. I don't necessarily believe
that at all. I just, uh, I think it is
weird the way our world makes these coincidental things sometimes yes, yeah,
and and are they coincidence? Like my old professor said,
you have to prove to me that something is a coincidence.
(34:09):
And this can be kind of tough. So at this
point we're gonna pause for word from our sponsor before
we go. Fellow conspiracy realists, I would love to hear
your take on this. I know several of us are
pretty deep into the the almost endless fractal that becomes
JFK assassination research. So right to us with your take.
(34:30):
What do you think is in the papers? Conspiracy and
I Heart radio dot Com called directly one eight three
three st d W y t K. Assuming that the
mob isn't outside right now, we'll be back, And we're back,
(34:50):
and we are jumping to Egypt for one of the
stranger stories we've we've read recently. It combines a lot
of things that we've talked about. I don't know if
you remember, but last week we talked about robot dogs
and they're big sniper rifles that they're gonna have on
their backs thanks to Ghost Robotics. Well, uh, there's another
(35:13):
fairly famous robot I think that would be correct terminology
that is run by an artificial intelligence, you know, as
close to AI as we can get in this moment.
And their name, its name is Ada Ai d A.
And some weird stuff went down when Aida took a
(35:34):
trip to Egypt for a first scheduled thing. It was
it was on the books, everything was above board, but
some weird stuff happened. I'm gonna read from the BBC
title Robot artist Aida released by Egyptian border Guards. That's fun, right, Okay, okay,
So Aida, like I said, is is a robotic thing
(35:58):
that is named after it a love lace. It's a
mathematician and she specifically is meant to create art, visual art.
She has arms that move and she can manipulate and
create art with and that's all kinds of visual art.
We're talking paintings, drawings, even like carving things or shaping
(36:22):
things out of clay, molding things, pretty incredible stuff. And
she got held up by Egyptian authorities for ten days
as she was coming in. As she was coming in
and heading to the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Pyramid specifically.
Pretty interesting, right, You may think, why would the Egyptian
(36:45):
authorities hold up a robot like this. Isn't it just
another piece of luggage or something coming through or is
it you know, is the robot walking around? Well, in
this case, it was inside a special container like you
would send any other luggage, but it has pieces of
equipment that we're strange to the authorities, um, specifically her
eyes because their cameras and her and her modem and
(37:09):
her modems. Yes, um, and the authorities believed that this
this was a spy infiltrating through the through the other
luggage just kind of hanging out. Yeah. Yeah. This is
If anybody wants to learn more about Ada Lovelace. Uh,
we did a two part episode on her for Ridiculous History,
(37:32):
where you can learn a little bit about why this
groundbreaking robot is named after that groundbreaking researcher, but with
with actual Aida Ai dash d A. Uh. This should
be familiar to anybody who tries to get uh specialized
a V equipment through an airport. Even domestically, you can
(37:55):
get hassled. Also, I do want to point out I
haven't seen this report in a lot of stories. Egypt
has a long history of being extremely paranoid when it
comes to ideas of espionage. The whole Middle East. In fact,
this is the home, this region is the home of
the majority of animals as spies, accusations and conspiracies. Right
(38:18):
They've they've captured, uh, They've captured animals that were just
tagged for like biological research purposes and claimed that they
were basically massad. So if there is a country that's
gonna be paranoid about it, it's probably going to be
in the Middle East, or maybe Southeast Asia, or of
course the US, which is also notoriously paranoid. But the
(38:42):
I gotta ask, matt Um, when when you're looking at this,
when you're looking at this story, we know that the
cameras and the modem specifically were the issue, but was
there was there anything further that would have aroused suspicion
from Egyptian authorities? Like I'm I've looked at the art.
(39:04):
I've looked at the drawing, and the sculpture perhaps is
maybe the most impressive to me, Um, But but I
have to ask what your since is of this, Like,
why why was it ten days? They basically that's enough
time to take the device apart. Yeah, I mean that
that would be enough time to take it apart, I
(39:27):
suppose and put it back together if if you wanted to.
I can't find anywhere where that occurred, all right, I
don't see that reported where they actually took the entire
thing apart and then put it back together, but I
must one can assume that at least parts of it
were taken apart and reassembled. One of the creators who
made this robot had like has He is quoted in
(39:49):
The Guardian a couple of other places, specifically talking about
the modems and the eyes and and how essential some
of them are. The modems he was saying, Yeah, I
can take those out, but I can't, like gouge your
eyes out and then, you know, let you to have
them for a while. She needs those to see I'm
confused why why like why are modems inherently problematic because
(40:09):
the cameras, because it should transferred the wrong thing she
could get instantly uploaded. Well, one thing we haven't even
really talked about that much. We said this robot was
going to the Pyramids. It was literally to display art
at the pyramids for the first time in like fort
hundred years, that there was going to be a showing
of art at Giza, at the Pyramid of Giza forever
(40:33):
is now? Is the name of the exhibition? Yes, And
the sculpture you're talking about Ben that, Oh my gosh,
it's based on the riddle of the Sphinx. It's like, uh,
incredible to look at. If you read about this robot
and its art, you can see that she's got these
metallic hands that have electronics going throughout them, and they
(40:53):
had to put a special substance on the hands in
order for it to work with clay so it could
actually mold the clay. And the what you see, like
you said, man, it's crazy impressive. It looks creepy. I
wanted to say, Matt, we've got I know this is
we talked about this off air, and I know this
is something that that you were struggling with a little
(41:13):
bit about anthropomorphization. Uh yeah, So if this, if this
helps maybe uh, if this helps reassure you a bit.
I don't know if you saw, but Ada is I
have to be careful how I say this ad is well,
it's tough to say cognizant. People get mapped when you
(41:34):
say that. But Aida is able to communicate with humans
and the Guardian, actually I believe it was Mark Brown,
the arts correspondent, had a conversation an interview with Ada,
and I don't know if this will make you feel
more comfortable or less comfortable. But here is a response
(41:57):
that Aida gave when asked if she enjoys art. So
I don't know if this will help you on your
journey here, Ada responded, I do not have feelings like
humans do. However, I'm happy when people look at my
work and they say, what is this. I enjoy being
a person who makes people think, okay, that's a little
(42:19):
a little creepy, um, this is meat. Though, I mean,
I don't know, like uh, it seems like yeah, I
guess I just don't quite still understand the uh, the
security threat anymore than like, you know, bringing cameras. I mean,
oftentimes you can have cameras that have modems, that have
wireless modems that can upload things from memory cards directly
(42:41):
to the cloud, and so quite understand the it's it's
it's very clearly a weird art robot. You know, it
just seems like maybe there was a language barrier or
just some kind of like misunderstanding that led to it
being so protracted. You know. I think part of it's
the novelty, and part of it's the prominence, because it's
(43:01):
not as if this mechanism, this entity, if you will,
was going to be put into the halls of government. Right.
It's not in a room painting while people are debating
the next step, the next step in Middle Eastern negotiations.
It's there to spread awareness of the abilities of what
(43:25):
is often called AI, and AI of course is controversial
to some people prefer the term machine consciousness. But I
think you're right because there are there are web enabled
cameras of plenty. People go through customs with their smartphones.
How different is that? Right? Our smartphones can't really paint,
(43:45):
but there's a cool if you don't care about your privacy,
they're cool apps like deep dream and services like that
where you can see AI attempts at creating or embellishing
things into art. Yeah, I think I think it's the
I think really it's the novelty and the newness because
Ada is, if not the first of its kind. Aida
(44:06):
is the newest iteration thereof um. I hope everybody gets
a chance to read these excerpts from the interview with Ada. Uh.
It's like a much more. Do you guys remember Clever?
But do you ever play with clever? But yeah, yeah,
I was one like a text input situation right where
you could have a conversation. And then there was there
(44:27):
what was that Microsoft one that like on Twitter and
went dark in twenty four became racist? Yea, yeah, it
became a nazi with some very loose ideas about sexuality
because it was based on what people in Twitter were
saying to it. Yeah, great idea, great idea. I want
(44:48):
to I want to read a quote, a couple of
quotes from the Guardian article where Aidan Miller m E
L L A R the human what they described this
person as the human force behind a da Uh. Here's
some quotes from Aiden. Uh. They say she is an
artist robot. Let's be really clear about this. She's not
a spy. People fear robots. I understand that. But the
(45:10):
whole situation is ironic because the goal of Aida was
to highlight and Warren of the abuse of technological development,
and she's being held because she is technology. Ada would
appreciate the irony, I think, yeah, And and Aiden goes
on to discuss just the powers of the supercomputer, of
the extraordinary algorithms that run much of our social lives
(45:34):
right now, and just imagining that there's going to be
a major disruption within the next really four to five
years somehow with technology and artificial intelligence. And Aiden says
that Aida is literally trying to bring attention to that
fact by being an artist and sharing what it does
(45:55):
with the world. Yeah, I mean that's an incredibly important point.
It's when we've talked about in little bit before. If
we take the problematic analogy of raising children, or you know,
when we're we're talking about creating a new civilization, a
new intelligence, then we have to think very carefully and
(46:15):
mindfully about what those what those minds are being created
to focus on. The human species is strapping sniper rifles
onto robot dogs, as you said, Met and as we
talked about last week. And this this is powerful because
it's showing peaceful, thoughtful I mean, all art is inherently
(46:38):
philosophy of one sort or another, right, that's one of
the main definitions. So we're showing the ability of these
the precedence of these things were showing the potential of
synthetic minds to do something more than destroy or more
than just uh loaded word here. But we're showing their
(46:59):
ability to do more than just soullessly calculate weather patterns
and do things that people once thought was only the
providence of their species. So I applaud it, and I
think it should happen. I think it is a tiny
bright light in a in a vast thundercloud on the horizon.
(47:21):
Because the first, the first, like full machine consciousness, the
first artificial intelligence right now is sadly almost certain to
be created by a military And like I had said earlier,
you know the idea of the of the new child soldier,
that's what's gonna happen. It's just gonna also happen to
(47:42):
be brilliant, far beyond the capacity of meat brains. So yeah,
do art, get them into art. Put all the AI
in art school. Yeah, for sure, Give him those liberal
arts degrees and see what happens. Roll roll the dice.
Maybe they'll all just play a D and D together.
M Well, you can also use AI and like algorithms
to create generative music. You know, that's certainly something like
(48:05):
Brian Eno has done a lot in um some of
his um installation works or you'll kind of build these uh.
He's actually designed apps as well that will do generative
kind of music triggered visual patterns. UM. So it really
is an interesting space, you know, because I remember, for
the longest time, you hear people that didn't fully understand
how electronic music was made, and they just assumed that
(48:26):
it was just computers doing all the work, you know,
that kind of outdated notion or whatever. Well, now that
definitely certainly is a thing, but it's you're you're feeding
it some kind of um, what's the word, uh, parameters,
you know, and then kind of setting it off on
its on its path. And then a lot of video
games use generative music to to create long dynamic stretches
(48:46):
of like ambient you know, textures. So certainly we're going
to see more of this kind of thing as it
develops and gets sharper. Do do I think, you know,
computers are ever going to completely replace the creativity of
a human person, And maybe I don't know, I hope not.
I think I think I think it'll be different. Maybe
it'll be a time where humans and AI can collaborate.
(49:07):
That'd be cool. Yeah. Indeed, we also have to be
careful not for this to be phrased as a threat.
I mean, no creative industry will be left untouched. Ultimately,
I've pitched already something that almost regret growing public with,
which is we're not far from a world. Maybe not
maybe not in your lifetime, fellow conspiracy realists, but certainly
(49:28):
in the next generations. There's potential for world where a
h a certain type of algorithm close enough to be
called AI, could take inputs from like two stories you like,
and then make an original mash up of those. You say,
I want I want something like I want something like
Stephen King's it, but then I also wanted to be
(49:51):
the matrix, and I want Steve BUSHEMI to be in it. Uh,
And then you know, we just calculated and we create that.
So that's collaborative. But also to be very clear, computer
generated podcast could become a thing even sooner because it's
just audio. All you would need is voices that sound
realistic enough to not trigger Uncanny Valley responses. Speaking of
(50:15):
Uncanny Valley, I was hanging out on MSN watching this
very short clip that they have of Aida at the
Great Pyraod of Giza after she got out of jail. Uh,
just looking at the pyramids, and guys, it looks like
she's really taking those pyramids in and contemplating them. I
(50:36):
don't know, she's very expressive camera eyes. I'm not gonna lie. Um,
you can really gaze right into those suckers. She looks
quite quite arresting. Oh yeah, she's just gazing upon the
past of humanity and imagining what the next thousand years
will be like when she's the leader. No, I'm just looking.
(50:56):
It is really cool. It is really cool to to
have that kind of bookend to history or two eras
of history. Lest I sound too nihilistic, maybe we can
see what the It makes you wonder what will be
the next duration? If Aida is the first of its
kind to contemplate the pyramids, and if the Pyramids are
(51:18):
still around a few thousand years from from today, what
will be the thing that Aida marvels at when it
sees something staring something. No one's quoting Yates even on
this what rough beasts slouches towards beth Lehem, you know
what I mean? Like this is uh, this is a moment.
This is a moment in history, and it could be
(51:40):
that we're making it overblown, but this is one of
those things where it's got to feel pretty profound to
realize you're alive during this time, you know what I mean?
Stick around, See what else? See what else is on
the way. We haven't even begun yet, Rivals. It just
became the next idea. So here, here we go, here
(52:04):
we go. And that's what they just had their first
training day. Can't wait for the next next iteration of
the air Bud franchise. Uh. And with that, we're handing
the reins to you folks. What's uh? What's your what's
your favorite crypto scam? Either your favorite idea that you're
(52:24):
going to try I'm kidding, don't tell us that, or
what what do you think is actually in those JFK files?
Is there anything of substance? If not, why do they
keep getting pushed back? I mean, it's like Disney with
copyrights at this point, you know what I mean. It's
it's jam tomorrow, never ever jam today? And what do
you think the next step is in the world of
(52:46):
artificial intelligence, machine consciousness? And where do you believe human
beings fit In interesting note about Ada Lovelace, by the way,
she was not necessarily a big fan of a I
know what the quote we should done with that's a
really good one. Gosh, she said that. The she said
the analytical engine is it was either the analytical engine
(53:08):
or the difference machine is capable of performing tasks that
it's assigned, but it is not capable of generating so
original ideas or operations. Yeah, that's right. I don't know
if I would necessarily interpret that personally as her not
being a fan of that. I just think she didn't
think it was possible. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's true. Uh,
she had an enormously prescient mind. She had a great
(53:31):
grasp of things to come. But yeah, you also have
to wonder how she'd feel about the No, you know what,
this is what Ada Lovelace called poetical science. She wouldn't Ada, Yeah,
and she basically coined this term to describe the particular
pursuit that she was drawn to, which was I think
when she was a small child, she designed a flying
(53:53):
machine much like something Leonardo da Vinci would have designed,
only it was a unicorn. And I joke on the
podcast that that's exactly the kind creation. Uh that that
both screams little girl growing up h and also massive,
massive intellect and prescient kind of foresight. You know, so
share with us and your fellow listeners your prescient ideas.
(54:14):
We try to be easy to find online. Also, if
you want to send those JFK documents to us, go ahead, man,
shoot your shot. Oh man, please do shoot those shots
right at us on the internet where you can find
us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
While you're on the internet, once you do a solid
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(54:38):
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(54:59):
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(55:21):
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(55:44):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nolan. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's the top of the week,
fellow conspiracy realist, which means it is time for some
strange news. If you have jumped in spoiler free with
(00:49):
no idea what we're going to talk about, there may
be any number of potential news pieces you think will hit.
There are spies speaking out against the South, the Arabian government,
that's one. Things are going nuts again in Sudan, that's too.
There are no shortages, of course, scams, debates over legal
(01:11):
personhood promises made and forgotten by politicians of every stripe
in every country in short uh oh. And then further
studies came out and said, yes, the world is burning
down faster than we thought, and we're watching it. Happen
as the United States again gets hit by like six
storms at once, and were just collectively that cartoon dog
(01:32):
watching all of this and sitting in our little kitchen
table saying everything's fine. That's all we are, and maybe
a different breed of dog than they due to the nihilism.
But but yeah, fine means a lot of things. Here
we go, folks, it is it is time yet again
for strange news. We've got some stories on the very
edge of technology. We've got some stories on the very
(01:54):
edge of the future of identity as well, I would say.
And then we have a story that is a new
twist on something very old. And you may see my
colleagues and I take our cynicism out and drive it
around the block because that one, oh boy, you just
can't trust people. And maybe that's where our first story starts. Huh, yeah,
(02:16):
the old, the gold fashioned grift. Before I get into
the griftiness of it all, let's just see how this
sounds to everybody. What if there were a food delivery
service that, wait for it, it would rival Uber Eats,
or or if you're in Europe, something called delivery I
believe that's what it's called. But you could pay using
your cryptocurrency holdings without having to convert it to uh
(02:40):
fiat currency. So you know, while you're like earning interest
from your crypto investments, you can literally just tie that
to um, you know, a food delivery service and pay
with a fraction of a bitcoin or a light coin
or a you know etherory UM sounds pretty cool, right.
It seems like, you know, people that are in that
space are looking for ways, i mean use not the
easiest thing in the world to spend uh. It's more
(03:02):
of something that you hold onto or total as they
say in the in the cryptosphere, UM, but like it's
not the easiest thing to spend on like, you know,
goods and services yet in the United States. So this
seems like a great idea to me, UM. But as
it turns out, this whole idea is an elaborate roots,
(03:23):
an elaborate grift. Crypto eats UM very originally titled UM
was you know, put out a proper press release claiming
to have raised like eight million dollars in Series A funding,
which is the kind of talk investors like to hear. UM.
They you know, had events around this brand where they like,
(03:45):
you know, had all of these delivery vehicles. Like on display,
they hired you know, TikTok influencers as a UK thing,
TikTok influences from the UK to basically pimp out this brand.
And and just in case anyone's not familiar, the way, um,
some of these crypto projects work is you buy a coin.
They meant this coin, you know, in in the blockchain
(04:07):
that's verified by the blockchain UM, and you're essentially investing
in a project by investing in that coin. Oftentimes, UM
it's them trying to raise capital, you know, to to
do the thing, but you usually get some sort of
fringe benefits for investing in the coin, like in this case,
they were promising five percent off all orders for holders
(04:27):
of the token. So essentially, like a token is a
uh let's say, let's call it proprietary crypto coin. The
ones that fail are often called coins because there's no
nothing backing them. But in these kind of uh niche
crypto spaces, you know, people are always looking for the
next big crypto project. Exactly what this was. You have
(04:49):
these uh you know, these influencers on TikTok saying, oh yeah,
the crypto eats gonna be the next big thing. Invest
in it now. Uh, it goes you know, for sale
on the market on the first of October. Get in
while it's hot. It's gonna be the next big, you
know brand, It's gonna be a you know, a competitor
for Uber eats UM. And you know, people that were
watching this saw it rise and rise and rise until
(05:11):
they had a massed about a half a million dollars
UM in selling these tokens. And then the creators of
this did what's called a rug poll where they essentially
all of the information surrounding this UM this brand was
entirely fabricated. UM. They claimed to have partnerships with Nando,
which is a very popular UM like Perry Perry Chicken franchise,
(05:34):
very popular in the UK. There's a few in the
in the States, but it's mainly a big UK thing,
and McDonald's. UM. They had this event, you know, this
influencers showed up, all of these influencers pumping this price
up for this coin, and then they just vanished. They
just ghosted with five hundred thousand pounds of investors money UM.
(05:54):
And that's that's that's really the story. I mean, while
you know, the crypto space is super interesting, and there's
a lot of neat things that are happening because it's
sort of like the wild West. That also means that
there's not a lot of regulation and there's nothing to
protect people from literally losing everything, uh to a scam.
The the CEO, supposedly a guy with a very innocuous name,
Wade Phillips, total fabrication, not a real human being. Um
(06:19):
even was like pictured in the press release purportedly this
this like this cool looking young hip dude with tattoos
holding a latte. Wade Phillips, not a real guy. Um. Yeah.
And so no recourse you know, for these folks because
even though these transactions are traceable, you know, on the blockchain, Um,
there's nothing anyone can do. This is the the risk
(06:41):
you run when you invest in these types of projects.
So I don't know, guys, ethically, I mean, obviously this
is trash behavior. Is this sort of like you should
have known better? Is this taking advantage of people that
are you know, not um seasoned? Uh? Is this just
part and parcel of this new kind of technology? Just quickly,
(07:01):
I would say there are people who are probably perceived
as ripe victims, right that exist here because there is
such interest and as you said, it is it is
such a new realm to get into if you've got
money to invest. Uh, it's messed up. But I I'm
kind of impressed in an in a morbid way, with
(07:23):
how much they did to pull this thing off, to
to create so much of a ruse there, to get
this thing going, to have an actual physical like launch
party with some celebrities. You know, there's this bouncer guy,
I don't know his name, but there's a bouncer here
who had like, yeah, who you know went to a
(07:44):
physical thing and they had they had actual delivery like
machinery outside and uh, their their official logo, their swag,
all that stuff. It's just I don't know, there's something
genius about that in a messed up way. Sure, all
the communication is online save for that that physical event. Right,
(08:06):
So it seems like in a way, the unless an
investigation reveals something else, it seems that the folks who
were touting this fake service were also getting getting taken
for a bath. Here are getting taken for a ride.
I would say there are more things like this occurring.
(08:29):
This hit the news because it is a it is
a scam based on a legitimate service. But think of
all the people who got ripped off in bitcoin scams
on the dark web, for instance. You can't very well
go to law enforcement and say these guys screwed me
out as so much opium. Right, So in this case
there's a higher than average chance of someone attempting to
(08:54):
at least take legal action. But where how far can
you race the bread crumbs here? I would I would note,
and I've said this before, that intelligence agencies at some
level have a very high likelihood of being able to
learn more about bitcoin transactions than is being revealed to
(09:16):
the public. But will they do that, I don't know,
because there that would mean that they are showing their
hand uh and might lose some of their opportunities for
uh future covert actions. And that's something we run into
a lot with classified stuff, with um, with covert operations,
and with as we'll see in a little while, classified
(09:37):
files in general. I do want to point out, and
I'm gonna soapbox here. I'm gonna soapbox just for a second.
There's also a good argument to be made that things
like door Dash, Rubhub and uber eats are themselves on
some level scamming us various parties involved, some restaurants get
screwed over by them, and uh, some of the drivers
(09:58):
often have really terrible times, but they are at the
end of the day getting some sort of compensation, some
kind of money, which these folks did not. Yeah, I
mean they put out a proper press release, like through
the appropriate channels that other big tech companies used to
break news. Uh. It's actually still up in a couple
of spots since he's some some have pulled it down
(10:18):
or replaced it with like, you know, follow ups about
the scam, but honestly hasn't really broken the news widely.
And and this, uh, this, this press release, it reads
super legit when you pair this, the language in this
with the party and and the influencers and all of that.
Taking a face value, I mean like I could see
being taken in by this, even if you're a bit
of a pro right um, because there's certainly much more
(10:42):
risky and um fly by night type crypto projects Like
I once a friend of mine, a friend I love dearly,
who was so obsessed with the crypto stuff. He got
me into that. It's called the finance smart chain. It's
like a sort of little I guess subnet kind of
of of the blockchain, you have to convey hurt you know,
crypto to a different type of format. Essentially, it's called
(11:04):
BEP thirty or something like that. I don't know if
I quite got that right, but that's where you invest
in all these projects. So they're all these tokens with
names like you know, fog and uh, you know, like
cub and um. There was one called Gator that I
was messing with, and then there was one called Jazz
and my friend and a friend of his, who's who's
(11:24):
really you know, made a lot of money in this space,
and I'm full disclosure, have not a very much, just
in it for kind of a little fun. Caught me
investing in this Jazz token and it just like tanked.
It went down to like a fraction of a penny.
And the way these these work is they people pump
them up. You know, there's buzz on the internet and
that's on the price. Um. But what this also shows
(11:48):
is the shallowness and kind of hollow lack of accountability
of influencer culture. You know, I mean, these these folks
just like took the money and and wore the damn
T shirt and the hat and held up the bag
as if it were a real thing. And sure where
they scammed as well? Were they taken for a ride
maybe as much as the investors. Yeah, you could argue
maybe yes, But also I wouldn't put on a T
(12:11):
shirt and promote something that didn't even exist, especially if
it was to pump up a cryptocurrency that I was
probably also being paid in. Uh. It's a super huge
conflict of interest and I think a lot of the
folks that do things like this should maybe think better
of it, because if they're trying to have successful brand partnerships,
you know, and then all of a sudden, they're seen
(12:32):
as being you know, who will I'll do whatever to
the highest bidder or even if it's bulls, that's probably
gonna make their stock tank, you know, as influencers. So
it's something to think about. Well, there's also an aspect
that hasn't been brought up that is probably going to
reach ahead in a few years near future, which is
that influencers do not do not have the same rules
(12:55):
applied to them that traditional broadcasters would. And I'm talking
specifically about what's called the Sponsorship Identification Rules by the FCC,
which you can read on full you go to FCC
dot gov. Uh, the idea here is and this applies. Now,
this applies to UM mainly what we call the more
(13:17):
old school stuff. It does. It does apply to people
in our network, but it doesn't apply to a lot
of podcasters, It doesn't apply to a lot of new media,
and it doesn't apply to a lot of influencers because
influencers for now are still starting out on their own
to a to a great degree, for now. I want
(13:39):
to emphasize that, because it's not going to be the
case for long. But because of that, you can't really
you can't impose the same kind of strictures or requirements
for sponsorship identification, because then you would be telling people
it might not even be their official job. You'd be
telling people, uh to obey new rules about what qualifies
(14:02):
as their freedom of speech. So it's a sticky thing because,
as always say, the legislation is going to be continually
outpaced by the technology. And in this case, it means
things like this. Just to finish, it means things like
this are going to continue to happen. Oh, I underston agree,
and I mean and also it becomes up to the
influencer and they know the risk they're taking, um by
(14:23):
maybe putting an ad in a format that isn't transparent.
So I think a lot of uh influencers will tag
certain posts on social media as ad ad or like
you know, sponsored or whatever like that, just to make
sure that folks know the difference. And I mean we
do the same thing you guys, like we we we
get we get the first right of refusal on any
sponsor that that that are is offered to us as
(14:44):
a show, and I think we take it pretty seriously, uh,
in terms of stuff that wouldn't feel like an alignment
with us as people or with us as a show.
And then you know, we've certainly you know, get uh
get flak you know when we when people don't agree
with those decisions sometimes. So it's something that we're very
acutely aware of, you know. I just want to put
out there, like if if we got approached by crypto eats,
(15:08):
it is a cool idea. They've got a website, they've
got a press release, they appear to have funding coming in.
It looks legitimate on the front for any influencer that
got hit by these guys. Um, I just you know,
I don't want to put the I don't want to
lay anything out on the influencers themselves, who were paid cash,
you know, money dollars to make the or you know,
(15:31):
in this case, pounds to make these promo videos for
a seemingly real thing. And uh, I think that's why
I'm My initial reaction to it was like, Wow, I'm
impressed by the grift here because they were able to
not only scam uh, not only influencers to make videos
(15:52):
on their content, but also you know, people to actually
invest their money in this thing. Um. And I can
imagine myself saying, yeah, sure, let's let's do a cryptometes ad.
That sounds really cool and interesting. It's easy to feel
like it's easy to look at something like this from
the outside, or look at almost any con or grift
and think, oh, not me, I would have figured it out.
(16:15):
But grifts and cons are successful because they prey on
the base impulses of people. Right and as long as
as long as those things happen, um there, as long
as those psychological traits exist, then grifts like this will
be necessarily successful. I think it's fascinating. Um, it's fascinating.
(16:40):
The point you bring up, Matt. From the perspective of
a lot of people, the checklist that would be considered
due diligence is not very difficult to game, especially in
this space, because it's not as if they were like, hey,
we're starting a new mining interest that would be a
really common grift in nineteenth century America. Don't you want
(17:00):
to get in on this gold mine? Now they're those
those industries are subject to a lot more scrutiny, but
this really isn't. So hopefully we're not making a supervillain
by saying again how easy it is to do things
like this. I agree with everything you're saying, and I
think maybe I was being a little hard on the
influencers here. I think for me, it's the the crypto
(17:25):
investor aspect of it. You're not just telling people to
try out a service. You're telling people they should invest
in something you know that doesn't fully exist yet. So
you are asking people to gamble, you know, with their money. Uh,
And you're pumping this up as like the wave of
the future when all you really know about it is
(17:45):
that it has had and a and a T shirt
and like, you know, a party with some free finger food.
Um so I'm not trying to be too I understand
completely what you're saying, Matt, and I agree that I probably,
especially being somewhat interested in crypto stuff, would be intrigued
and be like, oh sure. But I also think it's
dangerous when you just like go out there and say, yeah,
all my followers like, check this thing out. It's so cool. Um,
(18:08):
I love it. I'm not gaining anything from this, because
that's bulls because people that say they're not gaining anything
from it are being disingenuous, you know, And that's what
a lot of these influencers that made these videos said.
So it all depends on how you handle it. And
of course a lot of them have come back and
apologized and you know, are are donating their fees to
charity and things like that. So more power to them,
for sure. But we are going to see more elaborate
(18:30):
things like this. And we're running that movie the game,
you know, where everything is just like so perfectly laid
out that the illusion. I don't want to spoil the movie,
but it's basically like, you know, everything is so perfectly
laid out that no one knows what's really going on.
But um, yeah, I think with that, we'll take a
quick sponsor break and then come back with some more
strange news. And we have returned, U folks. Earlier I
(18:59):
alluded to the idea of secrecy, the nature of it, uh,
and we are still very much a show that we
have always been, which is critical thinking applied to things
at the edge of conversation. Conspiracy theories, the paranormal allegations
of psychic powers, and UFOs. You name it. There is um,
(19:22):
there is some stuff. It's weird to start it this way,
but for a couple of different reasons, I've been really
deep recently into by far, the most popular conspiracy theory
in modern US culture, which is the theory surrounding the
assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. This is one
(19:45):
of the most widely not only widely known conspiracy theories
in US culture, but it is by far and away
one of the most widely accepted. A ton of people
in the US don't accept the official findings of the
later investigations into the Kennedy assassination. And again I can't
(20:08):
say why I'm on the steep dive yet, But and
the crazy thing about it is, when we look into it,
the war it makes sense that people would have a
problem with this. We're not saying we've nailed down who
done it, but there are so many inconsistencies, discrepancies, questions
left unanswered. I just recently learned that in the wake
(20:32):
of the assassination, Robert Kennedy, very much off the record,
sent a secret message to the leadership of the Soviets
after the assassination saying, hey, we know it wasn't you.
We think it was actually a right wing conspiracy. And
they never they didn't say that in public. And you know,
not that Robert Kennedy had much of a chance to
(20:53):
because later he got killed by Sir Hans Sir Han
who is now in the parole process, so he might
get out to anyway one of the Yeah, I know,
I know, I didn't see that one coming. It wasn't
on the Bengo card, as they say. But during during
all this has really attuned to whatever news might be breaking.
(21:15):
And just recently, the White House under the Biden administration,
just as past Friday, as we record, said that they
were going to yet again delay the release of long
classified documents about the JFK assassination. UH President current President
Joe Biden wrote that the remaining files shall be quote
(21:38):
withheld from full public disclosure until December of next year,
which will be nearly sixty years after the Kennedy assassination,
and the anniversary of that is is coming up. Uh. Also,
you know, this is a pattern we've seen across multiple administrations.
The Obama administration said they would release file and then didn't.
(22:01):
The Trump administration said they would release files. They released some,
but they didn't release all of them. They kept holding back.
So if you were someone like many many people who
believes there's something more to the story about JFK, this
feels like a smoking gun of a sort. I wanted
to set the set up the quote that I think
(22:22):
is the most interesting here, and then have you guys
react to it, and then let's talk through what it
could mean. So in the statement from the White House,
current President Biden said he said a lot of stuff,
but he said the delay was quote necessary to protect
against identifiable harm to the military, defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement,
(22:45):
or the conduct of foreign relations, and that this quote
outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure end quote. What
stands out for you there, guys, man so much? I
mean just the idea of full public disclosure. Like it's
been so long, what could we possibly have to lose?
Like what what? What What? I don't understand what could possibly
(23:06):
be in there that would affect national security? That isn't
something super sketchy is still alive? Right, that's true identifiable
harmfiable harm, that's the one freaking George H. W. So,
(23:28):
we tried to get data KRV for this. But he
are you implying because he made the call? Is that?
Is that the conjecture here? Are he in some way
order this or was involved? Yeah, it's a shout out
to the It's a shout out to the people who
believe some variety of that idea. Years on, George H. W.
(23:51):
Bush still couldn't clearly remember where he was on that
day in Dallas. That's always stood out. Um. It's no
secret that he and some other some other players, including
Lyndon Johnson, were in opposition with some of Kennedy's Kennedy's
ideas about how to proceed with Cuba, right and with
(24:13):
the threats of the Cold War. But identifiable harm is
really what stood out to me as well, because it
could mean a couple, It can mean a couple of things,
and they're not all necessarily sexy. Like the the identifiable
harm as a phrase, it is so purposely vague. It
could mean that, you know, like we're talking about, with
(24:35):
intelligence agencies maybe knowing a little bit more about crypto
than they let on. This could be something that exposes
um an active flaw in a foreign intelligence apparatus. It
could also, at the far end, mean that there was
evidence pointing to someone on the inside being involved or
(24:56):
having knowledge, maybe having knowledge and not taking it seriously.
It would be seen as like casting aspersion on incompetence,
like what if what if that theory that the Secret
Service accidentally discharged firearms? What if that ends up being true.
That's a real kick in the pants for a lot
of people. But I still I don't know. The one
(25:17):
thing that got exaggerated about this was that the the
folks who made this suggestion that these files should like
the National Archivist who made the suggestion that these files
shouldn't be released. Yet they didn't blame a conspiracy. They
didn't blame the Soviets or the MOB or the CIA.
(25:38):
They blamed COVID. They said, we need more time to
review this because of COVID, that's that's their culprit um,
and the current president agreed. I just want to point
out that before COVID, multiple presidential administrations said the exact
same thing. I I'm just I'm not saying we're in
(26:02):
a fishery, but it sure smells fishy, and it doesn't
like what what's gonna be released anyway. I mean, it's
gonna be the black highlighters all over again. I don't
think there's I don't think there's some juicy thing that's
gonna come out and say, you know, like here's NAUGHTI
overcording of Lyndon Johnson going whoo al right, tight, good
(26:24):
job fellas, and like somebody in the mob going all right, thanks,
Mr President. I don't think there's anything like that. But
but doesn't this just stoke the fires further? It does, man,
And and it's because of that phrase that we we
talked about. Somebody knows the archivist and the people working
(26:46):
around the archivist know that something really bad is in there,
really like not good, um, and we know that something
not good is contained in those files. So it's so
strange to me that we're in the situation where we
all know that something's there. They just won't let it
(27:06):
loose on the world because they somebody, somebody really does
fear that it's gonna destabilize something. Yeah, I'm thinking about
conversation any anyone who's not listening. We've been delving more
and more, I think, on our own time into clubhouse
a little bit, just kind of seeing what's going on
there there. I have heard rumors guys that a member
(27:30):
of the Kennedy family used to go on quite often,
has like slowed down a little bit, but would consistently
state that this person was aware of a conspiracy to
kill John a member of their family, and George A.
Swe Bush had something to do with it. Um uh,
(27:52):
but anyway, I'm just that really piques my interests. Um yeah, well,
what if there? What if it's uh, what if fits
an attempt to hide proof of fore knowledge, So not
necessarily conspiracy, but to hide incompetence. A lot of actual
government conspiracies are somebody messing up and then somebody else
(28:14):
trying to save face. So what if the FBI and
the CIA knew Oswald was sending signals and he didn't
do anything because they thought he was he was a loon?
We know that we know that intelligence in Mexico warned
the US that there was this there, like, hey, there's
(28:34):
this crazy guy. He's walking around Mexico. He's telling people
he's going to kill the president when he gets back
to Dallas. And they did get warning. We know that
from from Mexican intelligence. But in I didn't think I
would say this. But in fairness, how many warnings like
that did they get? You know, like how many how
(28:56):
many warnings do intelligence agencies receive every day regarding a
president or a senator or congress person. Well, yeah, and
like I mean, on the one hand, you gotta take
them all seriously, But on the other hand, there has
to be some protocol, you know, some base level protocol
for how to handle them. And I'm sure that's some
thing you you always hear about, maybe maybe only in
(29:18):
like film, but it seems like it's potentially based on
things that certainly could happen about signs, signals that were missed,
you know what I mean, Like you can tell that
was dismissed in some way as it's not credible, but
then proves to have been very credible information. Yeah, there's
there's the other question too, like like it goes back
to the the idea of how advantageous retrospect is because
(29:43):
we're we're retrospect, we're on the outside. Some of us
weren't alive when the assassination occurred, and so it's easy
for us to look in the past and say, I
could have I could have done a better job, I
could have known, But I, like, I really liked point
you're making that, which is why does it keep getting
(30:03):
pushed back? What the hell is in there? Is it?
Is it personally embarrassing to like a public figure? Is
it just? Is it um? Is it exposing incompetence on
an organizational institutional level? Is it? Is it proof of
some other twist to this story? Like Jack Ruby was
(30:25):
down with the mob. Everybody knows that, but they don't
talk about it too much. And then there are other
people will say, this happened, you know, like sixty years ago,
so who cares? You should care? Is the call to
declassify this in the first place based around the fact
that it's such a high profile event and there's such
public interest, because I mean, certainly there are things that
(30:47):
stay classified forever and no one would be the wiser.
But you can go to the white House or just
excusing www dot white House dot gov and you can
read the official reporting. And we've we've been talking about
the want for presidents, like sitting presidents, to reveal this
information for a long time, but they've always been held back.
(31:09):
But you know, something that was compelling them to uh
them and the archivist to withhold information right there, they're
fighting something from That's what it is. Yeah, So I
want to go back way further, guys. Yeah, I think
this goes back to the business plot ben No Prescott Bush,
(31:33):
Prescott Busch, Smithley Butler trying to stage a coup didn't
work out for him that time. And then he has
a son, George H. W. Bush. He's hanging out in Texas.
He's not he's not yet a US representative. He doesn't
get there until nineteen sixty seven, but he will get there,
(31:54):
maybe add an umbrella, but he's he's Prescott Bush's son.
I don't know. Yeah, I'm I'm hesitant with that stuff sometimes,
Like I'm real deep in the in the business plot
right now for another unrelated thing. But the thing that
gets that we have to be careful of is that
(32:15):
when we're reading these to the and encountering them as
though they are just stories, right old tall tales. What
it's so tempting for humans to think of it in
terms of like dynastic soap operatic stuff. But in this
case I would say that I am more tempted than
usual to agree with you. Just knowing what we know
(32:37):
about Oswald doesn't look good. Uh, knowing again, knowing about Ruby,
knowing about the various weird things that were going on
with like for a time it was as if the
Soviet government was working with two different US governments who
are often in opposition of one another, which is of
(33:00):
very common thing in Congress now, for sure, but back
then it was unusual, and people realized it's not a
good way to uh, it's not god way to govern
a country. I just the thing is, so much stuff
has already been released. What is keeping this last last
little dingleberry of secrecy from over half a century? What
(33:22):
is what is keeping them from just flushing that down
the bowl of transparency? I don't understand, and it makes
it look worse. Like the monster you don't see on
screen is ten times more frightening than the monster that
you can see clearly depicted. Gotta protect those dynasties been.
I guess yeah, well, like I'm having fun with the thing.
(33:48):
I just putting it out there. I don't necessarily believe
that at all. I just, uh, I think it is
weird the way our world makes these coincidental things sometimes yes, yeah,
and and are they coincidence? Like my old professor said,
you have to prove to me that something is a coincidence.
(34:09):
And this can be kind of tough. So at this
point we're gonna pause for word from our sponsor before
we go. Fellow conspiracy realists, I would love to hear
your take on this. I know several of us are
pretty deep into the the almost endless fractal that becomes
JFK assassination research. So right to us with your take.
(34:30):
What do you think is in the papers? Conspiracy and
I Heart radio dot Com called directly one eight three
three st d W y t K. Assuming that the
mob isn't outside right now, we'll be back, And we're back,
(34:50):
and we are jumping to Egypt for one of the
stranger stories we've we've read recently. It combines a lot
of things that we've talked about. I don't know if
you remember, but last week we talked about robot dogs
and they're big sniper rifles that they're gonna have on
their backs thanks to Ghost Robotics. Well, uh, there's another
(35:13):
fairly famous robot I think that would be correct terminology
that is run by an artificial intelligence, you know, as
close to AI as we can get in this moment.
And their name, its name is Ada Ai d A.
And some weird stuff went down when Aida took a
(35:34):
trip to Egypt for a first scheduled thing. It was
it was on the books, everything was above board, but
some weird stuff happened. I'm gonna read from the BBC
title Robot artist Aida released by Egyptian border Guards. That's fun, right, Okay, okay,
So Aida, like I said, is is a robotic thing
(35:58):
that is named after it a love lace. It's a
mathematician and she specifically is meant to create art, visual art.
She has arms that move and she can manipulate and
create art with and that's all kinds of visual art.
We're talking paintings, drawings, even like carving things or shaping
(36:22):
things out of clay, molding things, pretty incredible stuff. And
she got held up by Egyptian authorities for ten days
as she was coming in. As she was coming in
and heading to the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Pyramid specifically.
Pretty interesting, right, You may think, why would the Egyptian
(36:45):
authorities hold up a robot like this. Isn't it just
another piece of luggage or something coming through or is
it you know, is the robot walking around? Well, in
this case, it was inside a special container like you
would send any other luggage, but it has pieces of
equipment that we're strange to the authorities, um, specifically her
eyes because their cameras and her and her modem and
(37:09):
her modems. Yes, um, and the authorities believed that this
this was a spy infiltrating through the through the other
luggage just kind of hanging out. Yeah. Yeah. This is
If anybody wants to learn more about Ada Lovelace. Uh,
we did a two part episode on her for Ridiculous History,
(37:32):
where you can learn a little bit about why this
groundbreaking robot is named after that groundbreaking researcher, but with
with actual Aida Ai dash d A. Uh. This should
be familiar to anybody who tries to get uh specialized
a V equipment through an airport. Even domestically, you can
(37:55):
get hassled. Also, I do want to point out I
haven't seen this report in a lot of stories. Egypt
has a long history of being extremely paranoid when it
comes to ideas of espionage. The whole Middle East. In fact,
this is the home, this region is the home of
the majority of animals as spies, accusations and conspiracies. Right
(38:18):
They've they've captured, uh, They've captured animals that were just
tagged for like biological research purposes and claimed that they
were basically massad. So if there is a country that's
gonna be paranoid about it, it's probably going to be
in the Middle East, or maybe Southeast Asia, or of
course the US, which is also notoriously paranoid. But the
(38:42):
I gotta ask, matt Um, when when you're looking at this,
when you're looking at this story, we know that the
cameras and the modem specifically were the issue, but was
there was there anything further that would have aroused suspicion
from Egyptian authorities? Like I'm I've looked at the art.
(39:04):
I've looked at the drawing, and the sculpture perhaps is
maybe the most impressive to me, Um, But but I
have to ask what your since is of this, Like,
why why was it ten days? They basically that's enough
time to take the device apart. Yeah, I mean that
that would be enough time to take it apart, I
(39:27):
suppose and put it back together if if you wanted to.
I can't find anywhere where that occurred, all right, I
don't see that reported where they actually took the entire
thing apart and then put it back together, but I
must one can assume that at least parts of it
were taken apart and reassembled. One of the creators who
made this robot had like has He is quoted in
(39:49):
The Guardian a couple of other places, specifically talking about
the modems and the eyes and and how essential some
of them are. The modems he was saying, Yeah, I
can take those out, but I can't, like gouge your
eyes out and then, you know, let you to have
them for a while. She needs those to see I'm
confused why why like why are modems inherently problematic because
(40:09):
the cameras, because it should transferred the wrong thing she
could get instantly uploaded. Well, one thing we haven't even
really talked about that much. We said this robot was
going to the Pyramids. It was literally to display art
at the pyramids for the first time in like fort
hundred years, that there was going to be a showing
of art at Giza, at the Pyramid of Giza forever
(40:33):
is now? Is the name of the exhibition? Yes, And
the sculpture you're talking about Ben that, Oh my gosh,
it's based on the riddle of the Sphinx. It's like, uh,
incredible to look at. If you read about this robot
and its art, you can see that she's got these
metallic hands that have electronics going throughout them, and they
(40:53):
had to put a special substance on the hands in
order for it to work with clay so it could
actually mold the clay. And the what you see, like
you said, man, it's crazy impressive. It looks creepy. I
wanted to say, Matt, we've got I know this is
we talked about this off air, and I know this
is something that that you were struggling with a little
(41:13):
bit about anthropomorphization. Uh yeah, So if this, if this
helps maybe uh, if this helps reassure you a bit.
I don't know if you saw, but Ada is I
have to be careful how I say this ad is well,
it's tough to say cognizant. People get mapped when you
(41:34):
say that. But Aida is able to communicate with humans
and the Guardian, actually I believe it was Mark Brown,
the arts correspondent, had a conversation an interview with Ada,
and I don't know if this will make you feel
more comfortable or less comfortable. But here is a response
(41:57):
that Aida gave when asked if she enjoys art. So
I don't know if this will help you on your
journey here, Ada responded, I do not have feelings like
humans do. However, I'm happy when people look at my
work and they say, what is this. I enjoy being
a person who makes people think, okay, that's a little
(42:19):
a little creepy, um, this is meat. Though, I mean,
I don't know, like uh, it seems like yeah, I
guess I just don't quite still understand the uh, the
security threat anymore than like, you know, bringing cameras. I mean,
oftentimes you can have cameras that have modems, that have
wireless modems that can upload things from memory cards directly
(42:41):
to the cloud, and so quite understand the it's it's
it's very clearly a weird art robot. You know, it
just seems like maybe there was a language barrier or
just some kind of like misunderstanding that led to it
being so protracted. You know. I think part of it's
the novelty, and part of it's the prominence, because it's
(43:01):
not as if this mechanism, this entity, if you will,
was going to be put into the halls of government. Right.
It's not in a room painting while people are debating
the next step, the next step in Middle Eastern negotiations.
It's there to spread awareness of the abilities of what
(43:25):
is often called AI, and AI of course is controversial
to some people prefer the term machine consciousness. But I
think you're right because there are there are web enabled
cameras of plenty. People go through customs with their smartphones.
How different is that? Right? Our smartphones can't really paint,
(43:45):
but there's a cool if you don't care about your privacy,
they're cool apps like deep dream and services like that
where you can see AI attempts at creating or embellishing
things into art. Yeah, I think I think it's the
I think really it's the novelty and the newness because
Ada is, if not the first of its kind. Aida
(44:06):
is the newest iteration thereof um. I hope everybody gets
a chance to read these excerpts from the interview with Ada. Uh.
It's like a much more. Do you guys remember Clever?
But do you ever play with clever? But yeah, yeah,
I was one like a text input situation right where
you could have a conversation. And then there was there
(44:27):
what was that Microsoft one that like on Twitter and
went dark in twenty four became racist? Yea, yeah, it
became a nazi with some very loose ideas about sexuality
because it was based on what people in Twitter were
saying to it. Yeah, great idea, great idea. I want
(44:48):
to I want to read a quote, a couple of
quotes from the Guardian article where Aidan Miller m E
L L A R the human what they described this
person as the human force behind a da Uh. Here's
some quotes from Aiden. Uh. They say she is an
artist robot. Let's be really clear about this. She's not
a spy. People fear robots. I understand that. But the
(45:10):
whole situation is ironic because the goal of Aida was
to highlight and Warren of the abuse of technological development,
and she's being held because she is technology. Ada would
appreciate the irony, I think, yeah, And and Aiden goes
on to discuss just the powers of the supercomputer, of
the extraordinary algorithms that run much of our social lives
(45:34):
right now, and just imagining that there's going to be
a major disruption within the next really four to five
years somehow with technology and artificial intelligence. And Aiden says
that Aida is literally trying to bring attention to that
fact by being an artist and sharing what it does
(45:55):
with the world. Yeah, I mean that's an incredibly important point.
It's when we've talked about in little bit before. If
we take the problematic analogy of raising children, or you know,
when we're we're talking about creating a new civilization, a
new intelligence, then we have to think very carefully and
(46:15):
mindfully about what those what those minds are being created
to focus on. The human species is strapping sniper rifles
onto robot dogs, as you said, Met and as we
talked about last week. And this this is powerful because
it's showing peaceful, thoughtful I mean, all art is inherently
(46:38):
philosophy of one sort or another, right, that's one of
the main definitions. So we're showing the ability of these
the precedence of these things were showing the potential of
synthetic minds to do something more than destroy or more
than just uh loaded word here. But we're showing their
(46:59):
ability to do more than just soullessly calculate weather patterns
and do things that people once thought was only the
providence of their species. So I applaud it, and I
think it should happen. I think it is a tiny
bright light in a in a vast thundercloud on the horizon.
(47:21):
Because the first, the first, like full machine consciousness, the
first artificial intelligence right now is sadly almost certain to
be created by a military And like I had said earlier,
you know the idea of the of the new child soldier,
that's what's gonna happen. It's just gonna also happen to
(47:42):
be brilliant, far beyond the capacity of meat brains. So yeah,
do art, get them into art. Put all the AI
in art school. Yeah, for sure, Give him those liberal
arts degrees and see what happens. Roll roll the dice.
Maybe they'll all just play a D and D together.
M Well, you can also use AI and like algorithms
to create generative music. You know, that's certainly something like
(48:05):
Brian Eno has done a lot in um some of
his um installation works or you'll kind of build these uh.
He's actually designed apps as well that will do generative
kind of music triggered visual patterns. UM. So it really
is an interesting space, you know, because I remember, for
the longest time, you hear people that didn't fully understand
how electronic music was made, and they just assumed that
(48:26):
it was just computers doing all the work, you know,
that kind of outdated notion or whatever. Well, now that
definitely certainly is a thing, but it's you're you're feeding
it some kind of um, what's the word, uh, parameters,
you know, and then kind of setting it off on
its on its path. And then a lot of video
games use generative music to to create long dynamic stretches
(48:46):
of like ambient you know, textures. So certainly we're going
to see more of this kind of thing as it
develops and gets sharper. Do do I think, you know,
computers are ever going to completely replace the creativity of
a human person, And maybe I don't know, I hope not.
I think I think I think it'll be different. Maybe
it'll be a time where humans and AI can collaborate.
(49:07):
That'd be cool. Yeah. Indeed, we also have to be
careful not for this to be phrased as a threat.
I mean, no creative industry will be left untouched. Ultimately,
I've pitched already something that almost regret growing public with,
which is we're not far from a world. Maybe not
maybe not in your lifetime, fellow conspiracy realists, but certainly
(49:28):
in the next generations. There's potential for world where a
h a certain type of algorithm close enough to be
called AI, could take inputs from like two stories you like,
and then make an original mash up of those. You say,
I want I want something like I want something like
Stephen King's it, but then I also wanted to be
(49:51):
the matrix, and I want Steve BUSHEMI to be in it. Uh,
And then you know, we just calculated and we create that.
So that's collaborative. But also to be very clear, computer
generated podcast could become a thing even sooner because it's
just audio. All you would need is voices that sound
realistic enough to not trigger Uncanny Valley responses. Speaking of
(50:15):
Uncanny Valley, I was hanging out on MSN watching this
very short clip that they have of Aida at the
Great Pyraod of Giza after she got out of jail. Uh,
just looking at the pyramids, and guys, it looks like
she's really taking those pyramids in and contemplating them. I
(50:36):
don't know, she's very expressive camera eyes. I'm not gonna lie. Um,
you can really gaze right into those suckers. She looks
quite quite arresting. Oh yeah, she's just gazing upon the
past of humanity and imagining what the next thousand years
will be like when she's the leader. No, I'm just looking.
(50:56):
It is really cool. It is really cool to to
have that kind of bookend to history or two eras
of history. Lest I sound too nihilistic, maybe we can
see what the It makes you wonder what will be
the next duration? If Aida is the first of its
kind to contemplate the pyramids, and if the Pyramids are
(51:18):
still around a few thousand years from from today, what
will be the thing that Aida marvels at when it
sees something staring something. No one's quoting Yates even on
this what rough beasts slouches towards beth Lehem, you know
what I mean? Like this is uh, this is a moment.
This is a moment in history, and it could be
(51:40):
that we're making it overblown, but this is one of
those things where it's got to feel pretty profound to
realize you're alive during this time, you know what I mean?
Stick around, See what else? See what else is on
the way. We haven't even begun yet, Rivals. It just
became the next idea. So here, here we go, here
(52:04):
we go. And that's what they just had their first
training day. Can't wait for the next next iteration of
the air Bud franchise. Uh. And with that, we're handing
the reins to you folks. What's uh? What's your what's
your favorite crypto scam? Either your favorite idea that you're
(52:24):
going to try I'm kidding, don't tell us that, or
what what do you think is actually in those JFK files?
Is there anything of substance? If not, why do they
keep getting pushed back? I mean, it's like Disney with
copyrights at this point, you know what I mean. It's
it's jam tomorrow, never ever jam today? And what do
you think the next step is in the world of
(52:46):
artificial intelligence, machine consciousness? And where do you believe human
beings fit In interesting note about Ada Lovelace, by the way,
she was not necessarily a big fan of a I
know what the quote we should done with that's a
really good one. Gosh, she said that. The she said
the analytical engine is it was either the analytical engine
(53:08):
or the difference machine is capable of performing tasks that
it's assigned, but it is not capable of generating so
original ideas or operations. Yeah, that's right. I don't know
if I would necessarily interpret that personally as her not
being a fan of that. I just think she didn't
think it was possible. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's true. Uh,
she had an enormously prescient mind. She had a great
(53:31):
grasp of things to come. But yeah, you also have
to wonder how she'd feel about the No, you know what,
this is what Ada Lovelace called poetical science. She wouldn't Ada, Yeah,
and she basically coined this term to describe the particular
pursuit that she was drawn to, which was I think
when she was a small child, she designed a flying
(53:53):
machine much like something Leonardo da Vinci would have designed,
only it was a unicorn. And I joke on the
podcast that that's exactly the kind creation. Uh that that
both screams little girl growing up h and also massive,
massive intellect and prescient kind of foresight. You know, so
share with us and your fellow listeners your prescient ideas.
(54:14):
We try to be easy to find online. Also, if
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(54:38):
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(54:59):
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(55:21):
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(55:44):
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