The White House holds a meeting with tech luminaries to discuss concerns about the potential of "AI." A concertgoer apparently experienced an orgasm during an orchestral performance. Around the world, the old rules of tradecraft are thrown out the window as global tension ratchets up. The most recent person arrested? None other than Pras, Earth's third-favorite Fugee. All this and more in this week's Strange News segment.
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Episode Transcript
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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 iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul, mission controlled decands. Most importantly, you are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. Longtime listeners, fellow conspiracy realists, people of particular professions,
you may know it is a terrible time for spies,
(00:49):
and now more than ever, as Fox News would say,
you may also be interested to hear a story about
how music can move you. And before we talk about
any of that, we are returning to the world of
machine learning, of algorithms of AI. We always say legislation
(01:11):
will be eternally outpaced by innovation, especially the world of tech,
and it looks like those concerns are real, especially now
you know you've seen all the chatter. I'm sure there's
more news that's coming out. But Matt, when you say
people are starting to across different demographics and across different ideologies,
(01:34):
when you say, people are collectively starting to take AI
a little more seriously.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh, certainly. There are signs littered all over the side
of highways like off ramps around the Atlanta area that state,
hey call this number, we use AI to enhance your business.
And like, there's small companies forming all over the place
that are trying to find ways to make money on this.
(02:02):
And it's not just small companies, it's big companies. Big
companies are investing millions and millions of dollars in AI
research because they think this is the future.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
This act is studios, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Lots of studios and lots of let's say, data specialists.
They are really focused on AI and how it's going
to change their operating costs and what they can actually achieve.
And in response to this, the White House has They've
decided they're going to call together a bunch of experts
(02:38):
and have a little chat about this AI thing, what
is it, what's going on with it. They're gonna ask
questions about modems and routers and the internet and dial
up and it's gonna be really important and good. But
it could I'm being I'm joking there, being facetious, but
I do think this is an important and important event.
We're going to talk about it and why why it's
(02:59):
probably crucial at this time. So here we go. This
is from Reuter's May fourth May it be with you?
White House to meet Microsoft, Google CEOs on AI dangers.
Reading directly from the article here, the White House will
host CEOs of top AI companies, including alphabets, Google, and
(03:20):
Microsoft on Thursday to discuss risks and safeguards as the
technology catches the attention of governments and lawmakers globally. When
it says Thursday, there it means yesterday. As we're recording
this May the fourth, And here are the people that
are actually going to be meeting. Google's Sundar Pichai, Microsoft
(03:40):
Sataya Nadella, Open AI's Sam Altman. This is a new
one for me, guys, I didn't know about this company, Anthropic.
Their person Dario Modi. I'm oday. This is one of
the people who founded chat GPT originally or like created
chat GPT, have their own company now called Anthropic. Also,
(04:03):
they're Kamala Harris, Vice President, Chief of Staff of Biden,
national Security Advisor, Director of the National Economic Council, and
the Secretary of Commerce. They're all going to be hanging
out talking about, Hey, what is this stuff? And uh,
what's what are y'all doing with it? Because it does
seem pretty powerful and a little bit scary, especially when
(04:24):
it comes to jobs, because you know, elected officials are
really really concerned with jobs always because you know who
has jobs, Voters.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Voters, you know who, you know who's taken our jerves.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Computers, Yes they are. They definitely aren't vote. They can't
vote yet, not yet, not yet.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Won't that be when that happens?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know, I think saying I told you so is
one of the most unhelpful things that can be said
in conversation. Instead of saying that, I will say that
we pointed out here's back. I know it sounded like
it was high or something, but we pointed out years
back that eventually generative AI would be writing scripts.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And that's the thing. Let's just let just go into
really quickly, like this is less true artificial intelligence than
it is machine learning, right, I think it's always important
to kind of draw that distinction. These algorithms, while incredibly impressive,
you know, it feels like a magic trick, like it's
reading your mind or something, but what it's doing is
(05:32):
regurgitating in different order words that already exist or ideas
that already exist, you know, on the massive archive of
all human knowledge that is the Internet. But they're not
capable of like creating new ideas, I mean theoretically this week.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, agreed with both of you guys. The goal. Look,
I don't know the end goal of these very influential,
intelligent and powerful people that are going to be meeting
with the White House. But if you look at let's
just give an example, anthropic dot com. That's that company, Anthropic.
(06:10):
They've got an AI assistant named Claude, and Claude you
can see, at least in my mind, you can see
the end goal is to create an actual assistant, like
someone you would hire to be your assistant. If you're
let's say a podcast executive producer. You would have this
person that could perform tasks for you and they would
(06:34):
be done. They'd be on your desk or whatever within
a matter of seconds.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Like super clippy. Well we're talking about is super clippy.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yes, but even interacting with people in the outside world,
creating emails like email responses, you can imagine a world
where Claude would give you a rundown of your day.
Here's all the emails you need to respond to. In
what way would you like me to respond to those emails?
And you just give it a quick blah blah blah
blah blah.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Blah, and then it, well, it creates those things, even
like in an office suite you know, Microsoft, which you know,
I think we all have our opinions on leadst thething
to be desired. It will tell you about emails that
are like, you know, a little detect that you haven't
responded to a certain email, and tell you how old
it is. And then it does generate some kind of
pat you know, generative responses that you can click on.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
You know that.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, it already does something like that. It's not robust,
it's not thoughtful. You know, people will be able to
tell really quickly if you're just banging those autocomplete responses.
But there already is something like that in there. This
is just like taking that super clippy situation to the
next level.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Absolutely, And the reason why I'm framing it in this
way is because you can imagine then placing that thing,
that program into a physical entity, right yes, And I
think at that point is when you have the situation
Ben's talking about when this entity now has rights and
can potentially even vote on you know, on inelections or whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Where's the justification Microsoft?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Thinking just quickly, Microsoft is one of the main companies
that's investing millions and millions and millions of dollars into
this pursuit of AI, and Microsoft's involvement with chat GPT
is why that group who created Anthropic made their own company.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Right, I guess I don't understand how putting software into
some sort of bot or some sort of like mobile
you know, thing creation, how that gives it personhood any
differently than it just existing in the cloud.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Well, that's certainly the next step. Right, it exists, it
thinks therefore it is not just in some place, you know,
some unknown place, but it exists physically in Nebraska somewhere, right.
I mean, it's just I think I think that's just
part of human humanity is understanding of what a thing is,
you know, an entity is. That's just my opinion.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I don't know that it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
So this is a topic of conversation that's huge on
multiple levels. I know that sometimes I come off sounding
a little bit esoteric when we talk about things like
how AI itself as a term is fraudulent. Right? What's
the difference between one intelligence and the next? You know,
(09:22):
I know it sounds kind of crazy to ask when
these entities might exist and be able to vote, But
like you said, Matt, there are millions, probably billions of
dollars being poured into these questions. And shout out again
to our buddy, professor Damien Williams, who has who has
(09:43):
been raising this flag for years and years and years, Matt,
when you learned that Pennsylvania Avenue was meeting about the
potential dangers of these algorithms, right, is your spider sense
telling you? Does it sound like it's p R bluff
(10:04):
and bluster? Do you think they're going to make some
substantive policies of some sort?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, there was already action taken by the White House.
They announced a one and forty million dollar investment from
the National Science Foundation to launch quote seven new AI
research institutes. Uh, this coming from the White House's Office
of Management and Budget. Oh and by the way, what
are we at again, guys, The same predicament we've been
(10:31):
in how I don't even know how many times where
the United States is running up on its budget limits
and we got or everything is going to crash and burn.
That's not political. We sell it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Fine, we're selling right now just because we've been through it.
We're all laughing immediately.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Have you guys seen any of the Writer's Guild demands
pertaining to AI.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yep, they're all very reasonable. Yeah, okay, great.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
I just think I think it's that's such a topical thing,
and you know, basically there the demands are one thing
which we should talk about. But the response of the
industry is basically like, oh, we're not going to do
any of that, but we'll have a meeting yearly to discuss.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Oh yeah, let's say yeah, anyway, Matt, Matt.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, let's jump to the Writer's Guild of America currently
on strike. This comes from Deadline May first. Uh, it's
a huge headline, Hollywood hit with writers strike after talks
with a mp TP failed guild, slam studios for gig economy.
Mentality didn't mean that whole thing.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
It needs Transatlantic accents. That's a headline.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
You can find it though. You can find it. That's
the whole reason you can find it. Put all that
give gobbledegook into your browser.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Here it goes quote on the topic of AI. The
w g A wanted to quote regulate use of artificial
intelligence on MBA covered projects. AI can't write or rewrite
a literary material, can't be used as source material, and
mb covered material can't be used to train AI. That's
what Uh, that's what the guild wanted. And as you said, Noel, Uh,
(12:09):
those on the other side of the table, the big
studios and such said, quote, they would offer quote annual
meetings to discuss advancements in technology.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, let's let's meet. What's a year? They totally answered
a different question too, is really sketchy. Uh. And I
just want to go on record saying that I stand
with and support the writer's guilt that way.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, let's do all.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
We all work closely with writers who are you know,
guild members, various fiction shows that we've been a part of. Specifically,
I think you map probably more than anyone. But I mean,
this is a difficult job and it is something that
warrants a human mind, you know, I mean if only
for you know, the benefit of the audience. Right, let's
think about it just on those terms, like generating creative
(12:55):
original ideas, not just regurgitating stuff. That's already out there.
But Matt, I have a question, how can let's say
that this demand of not allowing Writers Guild associated work
to be used to train AI isn't the transparency of
what is and isn't used to train AI kind of
murky because there's so much stuff being just on the internet.
(13:17):
How can you even know what it used to train
itself or what you know materials were used?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
It is unknoble. What you're what you're saying is currently
unknoble unless you went in with an FBI task force
and got up in the guts of Claude and all
these other AI generated He just said, hey, what's in here?
I don't think you could. I think it's right. I mean,
that's just my opinion. I do have a riddle for you,
(13:45):
just based on what you're saying earlier. Noel, Uh, one
of us is a writer, but three of us are authors. Weird.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
That is weird.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
And you know, I mean technically, just by speaking this
podcast into exists and then transcripts being created of it,
we are technically writing.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I mean, it's weird. You know it is a it
is a chicken or the egg kind of question, you know,
he yeah, if.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
You can hear me, join the WGA. You know what
I mean, World the Rights for AI. You know, that's
that's going to be the next thing. This this stuff
is Look, if you are if you are serious about
creating intelligence, we have to understand it's gonna again have
(14:30):
the inherently human biases right of its creators. You know.
So warmongers who are doing some of the best research
in this field are creating warlike things, right They're raising
They're raising some agro possibilities. Matt. I hope that the
White House and UH and the tech bros. I hope
(14:52):
what they're talking about is not necessarily chat GPT that's
getting the headlines. But what we need to be watching
as a society is going to be the machine learning
algorithms that are in the world of finance, in the
world of macro weather, and in the world of medical technology.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So Strenkenstein's monster situation, y'all, like, you can't play god
and create what you would consider to be an analog
to life without having a thing that you then have
to deal with. You know, when you stop being able
to control it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Guys, think about it. You are a massive guild that
holds most of the members who do the writing for Hollywood,
for television, for film, for all the streaming services, for podcasts,
for everything. You are in this guild, and you are
attempting to fight for the rights of the humans who
work amongst your guild, right, And there's some political things
(15:49):
in there. Always that just what happens when you've got
a guild or anything like that. But they're fighting for
the humans. They go on strike. None of those humans
can write. But what do these studios have right at
their fingertips.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Oh, they're playing Sorcerer's Apprentice. They've got the magic mobs,
now you know.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I mean it feels like a setup to me. Guys
like oh yeah, no, yeah, you guys, don't go on strike.
We we really want to work with you. By the way,
we've got Ai over here, because listen to this, Noel.
This also comes on the heels of something that happened
on Monday. The CEO of International Business Machines Corp. Also
(16:28):
known as IBM, Arvin Krishna, had a little conversation with
Bloomberg News this past Monday, May the first, And in
this conversation it was spoken let's say it wasn't officially
announced or anything, but it was spoken into the world
and to Bloomberg that they were going to pause hiring
(16:48):
humans for a while for a little while.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
We're specific not all humans necessarily, but for specific places
like HR. Yeah, that was one.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Specifically for HR and quote non customer facing roles, and
how these roles could be replaced by AI and automation
in five years. Specifically, they're thinking that would be around
seven thousand, eight hundred jobs that would be replaced by AI.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
I mean, make no mistake, if the companies can do
this kind of thing, they will do this kind of thing.
If there are no safeguards in place to keep them
from doing it, they're going to do it whether or not.
Like the Hollywood at large or the big studios start
using AI to write movies that's yet to be seen,
and I personally think it would be a disaster.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Are the guys that we really dig on Internet today
on YouTube pointed out that maybe this kind of tech
could be used to write like shows like Law and
Order and like just mega mega procedural type kind of
B level shows. But you're not gonna get AI writing succession,
you know, or something that really requires like the mind
(18:02):
of a playwright, a true original creator. Prestige TV will
go away, you know, we'll just be left with all
these Law and Order clones, which we already have, but
now that'll be written by machines. And it's like, you know,
I know the shows are popular, but that's not the world.
It is just the world liberals want.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
That dude totally. And Noel, I just have to say,
Prestige Worldwide. If you don't know what that is, boats
and something else I can't remember anyway, Okay, good. Also,
do check out. There was news about chat GPT having
a security breach that wasn't a major problem at least
(18:40):
according to everything they're saying.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
But everything you fine, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Do look at that because it's occurring. All right, But
that's it for now. We're going to check back in
with AI as we will probably every week from now
on in perpetuity. For this moment, though, we are going
to take a quick break and hear a word from
our sponsor and we'll be right back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Shut up, Jeffrey Hinton, and we're back with another slightly
less apocalyptic strange news. It's an interesting one, quite a banger.
As a commenter on Independent dot co dot uk noted,
(19:19):
hello again says, to be fair, Tchaikowsky's fifth is a
banger and that second movement slow burn. What is this
user referencing, well, referencing potentially what may have been the
alarming sound of a woman experiencing ecstasy at the sound
(19:40):
of said Tchaikowsky classical work, as performed by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall in LA beautiful, beautiful
concert hall. If you've never seen it, it's a really
really neat design on the outside in a beautiful place
to see a concert. During the LA Philharmonic formance of
Chaikovs fifth on Friday, April twenty eighth, some concertgoers reported
(20:06):
hearing in a kind of moment of you know how
classical music it's very dynamic. It will get really loud
and bombastic, and then it has these hushed moments, you know,
just the perfect opportunity to hear what is described as
a woman having a quote loud and full body orgasm.
And it's interesting on a couple of levels, because, as
(20:30):
we talked about, off air, reports have varied. One concert goer,
Molly Grant told The La Times, I saw the girl
after it happened, and I assumed that she had an
orgasm because she was heavily breathing and her partner was
smiling and looking at her like in an effort not
to shame her, curious her and curious or Matt you
(20:50):
pointed out that maybe that indicated there could have been
a little bit of extra musical panky panky going on,
perhaps bad behavior. You know, I have to say from
events like the La Philharmonic.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I don't know. I'm not I can't talk about personal experience.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
You don't have to do.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I know some people find it exciting to mess around
in public. In my mind, when you first started talking
about the story, that's what I'm hearing. But maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Well, I'm with you certainly on the table, Okay. I
think mainly the reason I brought this story up is
because it opens up some conversations around some other kind
of interesting concepts, the idea of Stendall syndrome, Okay. Stendall
syndrome is a condition wherein people who experience great works
(21:47):
of art, whether it be you know, usually it'ssociated with
visual art, like going to the Florence for example. That
is actually where the name came from. You know, there's
so many incredible pieces of art in Flora's Uffizi gallery,
and over the years, throughout history, there have been reports
(22:08):
of folks being overcome with ecstasy, you know, having palpitations
of the heart as an art attack, exactly an heart attack.
That's There's actually a Dario or Gento horror film called
Stendall Syndrome, where the central character is someone who is
afflicted by this condition. But the name comes from a
(22:28):
French writer named Marie Henri Bio, who was known by
the pen name Stendall and wrote this in eighteen seventeen,
referring to his trip to Florence. I was in a
sort of state of ecstasy from the idea of being
in Florence. I was seized with a fierce palpitation of
the heart. The wellspring of life was dried up within me,
(22:50):
and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.
And this has been described from a psychiatric perspective of
beginning in nineteen eighty nine by Graziella Margharini, who is
a psychiatrist in Florence at Florence's Santa Maria Nuovo Hospital.
(23:10):
She reports to have observed one hundred and six tourists
specifically who have experienced some of these types of symptoms, harpalpitations,
clammy hands, kind of you know, sort of almost like
anxiety attacks, but even more, you know, unusually even hallucinations
when they viewed paintings from Barticelli or the sculptures of Michelangelo.
(23:32):
You know, these are incredibly affecting works, as is the
music of Tchaikowski. These pieces are designed to move you.
And specifically, I'm someone who is quite easily overcome by music. Specifically,
I think I'm maybe more sensitive to music, but just
beauty in general. And I've been known to have a
good cry, you know, during a particularly emotional scene in
(23:55):
a film that hits me just right, you know, And
this is all because of things that we have in
our brains called mirror neurons, which are neural structures that
essentially are activated when we are emotionally triggered by things
we experience, whether it be visually or auditorily. Because, after all,
(24:20):
the works of art, and this actually kind of goes
back to our AI discussion a little bit. Works of
art at their best are distinctly human. And you know,
if you're experiencing something within you. It's because you are
resonating with an experience that is being presented by a
piece of music you know, or or work of art.
So you are connecting with that on a very human level.
(24:42):
And certainly there are ways to game the stuff and
maybe even trick the body or trick the mind into
thinking that you're experiencing something human that maybe was not
generated by a human. But at base mirror neurons are
essentially reflexively creating emotions within you that you are observed
being in someone else you know, or in this case,
(25:03):
someone else is a stand in for a piece of
art created by, you know, an individual. So I don't know.
I don't even think we need to bother playing the tape,
you can find it decide for yourself what was happening
with this woman. There are, you know, varying accounts, but
I do think the idea of being physically overwhelmed by
art is very interesting and very real, whether or not
(25:24):
that's what happened with this woman or not. Have you
all experienced anything like this or observed or yourselves experienced,
you know, crippling emotional overwhelmedness, you know, in the face
of beauty or art.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Oh yeah, no, yeah, I think that often occurs in
film and television. For me, it's a combination of portrayal
of a character in the writing of the character, right,
and the editing and all the all the elements that
come together.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
To fore hitting.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, it can be overwhelmingly emotional for me. Vibrationally though, Uh,
live music or any any music really, but specifically live
music is a fascinating thing because it is energy moving
through you, right, these waves that are.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Through you, And yeah, I know what you're saying there.
I also you know, having a synesthasia and probably a
not super stable mental state. I yes, Stendall is quite
familiar to me, and I think I think to most
people now. The research on mirror neurons, as we mentioned
(26:35):
in some previous episodes, has some problems. Uh that they're
they're a little bit diceier than they might sound in headlines.
But I personally think that the research indicates there's something
going on there. Right. The the ability to empathize with
(26:55):
a perceived situation from afar is a huge deal. Like
I recently got super into research on orangutans oranguting and
how they how they process witnessing acts of cruelty or
acts of kindness in other animals, right, and how they
(27:19):
react to music. And I know, I know that not
all of us are as impressed with with the higher
order birds as I am, but I'm.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Impressed just that.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
But you gotta watch, you gotta watch some birds reacting
to music like they are clearly not to anthropomorphize, but
they are clearly experiencing some sort of emotion past simply
reacting to the sound that's impacting them. And I'm just
I'm putting that in as like a secuitous way to
(27:55):
get back to your point, Matt about about live music.
There's something you know, what always gets me when I
when I see live music is it's it's often a
secular version of a church experience. Right, people had gathered, Right.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
You and I were at a concert last night, and
I think you may have witnessed me experiencing some of
what I'm describing. It's an artist, and I know we
both love Dan Bihar aka Destroyer, doing a very intimate
acoustic set, and it did have a church like vibe
because people are it's a hushed atmosphere, so people are
kind of whisper singing along and there's this cusserius in
(28:31):
the crowd and it's just electricity, and you know, there's
a reverence and I really was overcome at that at
that concert and it was just fantastic. Specifically referring to
vibrations physically, like you've ever seen a band the you know,
or orchestra that's generating a serious noise you know that
is physically affecting. Have y'all ever heard of hyper sensitive
(28:53):
person disorder? It's it's a condition now.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I think I get it just to but maybe, yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
It's it's a condition that that that I've actually knew
somebody who had it, where people are just incredibly sensitive
to certain physical, emotional, or social situations and type of neurodivergence.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Correct, So I think I think neurotypical. I think the
very concept of normal when it comes to human mind
is intellectually fraudulous. Sir. So that's my soapbox. Just snipe
in a soapbox real quick. But yeah, it's a real thing.
It's it's a type of neurodivergence, but it.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Can extend to physical sensitivity where people you know that
have this could be a hair trigger for experiencing that
level of physical ecstasy. Let's just leave it at that,
you know, or family show.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Think about the nature of many of the instruments used
in an orchestra. Many of them are not focused on
but are designed to be able to sustain notes. Right,
and when you've got a number of musicians on stage,
all armed with instruments that can sustain vibration, if you're
(30:06):
a hyper sensitive person, I can imagine that's a recipe
for ecstasy.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Indeed it is so I no, well you did it beautifully,
doesn't matter, I mean a straight face. I really enjoyed
this conversation. I think this is you know, the story
itself is sort of secondary. Do I think what it?
You know, what it points to as an interesting and
unusual phenomenon in our human species. So thank y'all, and
(30:34):
let's take a break and then we'll come back with
one more piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Ready or not? Here I come gonna.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Spy to yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
And get rested, all right, yeah? Yeah, So it's it's
not a great month for people in the trade, people
playing reindeer games. Here's what's happenings as the global tension
ratchets up even more than has been normalized in the past.
(31:16):
Countries are increasingly playing less nicely with each other in
the shadowy world of trade craft, and they think. In
our group chat, we were talking about how Norway expelled
a ton of Russian diplomats en mass, which is normally
not how you do it, unless unless it's like a
(31:37):
pr move right. We also know, as we reported earlier,
that the FBI made to arrest for some so called
so called admin centers slash secret police stations where the
Chinese government was enacting Chinese law on the US soil.
(31:58):
There was there's this high level Iranian government official who
was executed, and it turns out he was working for
the British for quite some time. He got turned while
he was in London. And by far my favorite story
in this escalation, which is only going to continue, by
(32:19):
the way, my favorite story the fujis the Fuji's got
caught up in the international spy game. Everybody's third favorite
Fuji Braswell was found guilty quite recently. He was found
(32:39):
guilty quite recently of quote a clandestine foreign influenced campaign scheme.
He got hit on ten counts of it. If you
trace through the shell games and you don't you disassemble
the Matroshka dolls there he was working for China, got
(33:00):
he got turned, he got turned to uh to do
some illegal kind of you could call it lobbying.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Here, let's take a Dennis Rodman kind of situation, like I'm.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
The Dennis Rodman thing is way more wholesome actual proswell, yeah, yeah,
now that I awake, all right?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Anyway, So isn't a pro Israel or how do you say?
I don't know how to say that.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I don't care what it is good coswell, Michelle is
a full name. But Prose to Prose to the fans.
I know, we got a lot of Fuji's fans here.
I also absolutely, I am absolutely over the moon about
that first album, The Schools a classic Yeah, and Lauren
Hill's solo or Miss Hill's solo album of course classic instant. Anyway,
(33:51):
Prose was able to do this music while he was
apparently spy. Here's what happened. So there's a guy Low
Tite Joel and our buddy. Low is a very well
healed Malaysian national who is now a fugitive and and
(34:13):
loved proxy donations. He he used a bunch of fake
donors to pour significant amount of money into the Obama
twenty twelve re election campaign. He did that with praz.
He also had prose attempt to attempt to eighty six
(34:36):
a DOJ investigation. I'm not sure how that conversation works out.
Does he just like does he walk into the DOJ
and say, hey, guys, this is me. Remember the fujis
stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Yeah or else? A hey like knocks a like a
stapler off the desk. Be a shame if something happened
to your stapler. Whoops?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You guys, Remember we talked We talked about this. This
is the Malaysian State Fund thing that got I don't
know a good way to talk about it, but there
was some messing around going on where money was stolen
from this huge fund at one point, and he was
used to then fund other things like bribed other very
(35:20):
influential people in other countries. I th was a weird
thing we talked about. I think mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah. And it's one of those things that unless you
actively keep an eye on it, or unless it's part
of your job to know about it, those headlines are ephemeral.
They come and they go very quickly and okay, so
here's the argument. Oh, the other charge is that when
the Trump administration was in power, Praz was apparently supposed
(35:49):
to try to influence an extradition case on behalf of China,
and knowing what we know now about the secret police
stations and the PRC's policy toward anyone they consider Chinese,
that's very dangerous. Right, They will take you if they
are incentivized to do so. All right, So those are
(36:10):
the charges. He's been convicted on ten counts of that
related stuff. His lawyers, his defense attorneys say that they're
pleading ignorance, or they were pleading ignorance. It just wasn't successful.
They said, Look, this guy just wanted to make money.
He wasn't purposely like, he wasn't an ideologically motivated sleeper
(36:32):
agent or some kind of weird James Bond character. He
just got bad legal advice, and he wasn't familiar with
the murky world of actual geopolitics, which is way different
from all the pr stuff you read. Honestly, I don't
know how much we should care about the a lot
(36:52):
of the public announcements anyway. So okay, so here's how
it happens. Proz meets Jolo, the Malaysian financier in two
thousand and six, and this guy is going around Hollywood.
He's throwing cash, or, as our buddy Brad Neely would say,
(37:13):
he's flipp and flip left and right. He's financing all
these movies. He helps put the money up for Wolf
of Wall Street. Of course, like you're like so unsurprised
and slightly bitter about that. You watch that, You watch
Wolf of Wall Street, Matt and you were like, the
(37:33):
Malaysians have their hand in here.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
No, no, y'all. How films get their financing is so murky.
From an outsider who knows nothing about the business, you
just have this sense that, oh, these are massive studios
that make billions of dollars now at this point on films,
and they just use some of that money to finance
(37:56):
the other films. No, that is not how it happened,
at least not fully. That's not how you get full
financing for a giant film that costs hundreds of millions
of dollars. There are often people like this guy.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, they're often fixers, right, and not for nothing. As
producer somewhat of a nebulous title in the world, of film, right,
So okay, there's a star studded cast for this trial.
Leonardo DiCaprio testifies in court and he says, look Low
(38:30):
seemed legit. You know, we talked about money, we talked
about the film. He said he wanted to donate to
Barack Obama's re election campaign. Praz goes and testifies in
his own defense, which is a very dicey move, and
he says, look, I'm not you know, I'm not a
super spy. I'm not out here trying to topple capitalism.
(38:53):
I met this guy. He seemed like he had street cred.
He said he wanted to get a photograph with Barack
Obama in twenty twelve, and he told me he would
pay millions of dollars to get it, and so Proswell said, okay, or.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
He said yeah, yeah please, sure, yeah, I get you
a picture.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah. So Pras said, okay, I will try to help
you out. And then he got some money from Low
and then he paid for associates of his to go
to fundraising events. And he said, I didn't know that
was illegal, which honestly, it kind of makes sense. It
does sound legitimate, you know, it doesn't sound like he's
(39:33):
doing a Monty Burn's steeple of the fingers and saying, yes,
here's how we can get around these weirdly specific laws
about money and diplomacy. He's just like, all right, I
like money, you know, shout out idiocracy. And and so
this relationship continues across administrations. Right, the Trump administration comes
(39:58):
into power, and Prose is still working with this guy.
He's getting millions of dollars. And now it's getting a
little bit passed the point of plausible deniability, right, it's
getting past the point of whoops or oops, I did
it again. Britney Spears did not testify it as far
as I know, But okay, So he under the Trump
(40:20):
administration low pays Prose millions of dollars to try to
stop a investigation. This is a DOJ investigation into money
laundering and bribery. And this is what we had mentioned before, Matt,
what we were talking about, right, the Malaysian State Investment
Fund one MDB. This scheme took billions, not millions, billions
(40:47):
of dollars, and Prose was somehow wrapped up in it.
He was apparently paid to try to get the US
to extradite someone who is critical of the government of
China to China, which is beyond the balance of Oh,
I thought we were just making movies and getting photographs.
(41:10):
That one, at least that one you knew. You had
to know, dude. This this prompts a larger conversation. I
know we're going to wrap up pretty soon, but I
have to ask you, guys, what do you think is
going on? What's in the wind here? What's the lay
of the land. It is somewhat extraordinary for this many.
(41:33):
I mean, it's fun to talk about weird stories with celebrities, right,
people like that, But why are so many spies getting
the boot? Now? Why the acceleration.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Optics, you know, the whole thing with the spy balloon,
and just like some of the news swirling around it,
and just so many, i mean stories coming out like
they're just kind of maybe cleaning house a little bit
and needed some fall guy. And who better, what better
than like a celebrity who was kind of just stumbled
his way into a problem like this. You know, I
(42:05):
don't know, pr I don't I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Maybe I don't know. I don't want to be doing
gloom in my opinion. It's it's early waves of a
much bigger thing that's on the way, which is a
global conflict, new superpowers emerging and fighting against the current. Hegemont.
I don't know, that's just my that's my spider sense.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Hot take for Maddie's two hands at both hands.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I thought I was hoping you were going to say
early waves for a new Fuji's album. Yeah, that's it,
But I guess yeah happened.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Also, one called that kinda they tried to do and
then it kind of died. They were going to have
a concert in They're getting together. They did one concert
and then it was over.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's tough. It's tough to be
working musicians and wish them the best, of course, chase
your dreams in all things. But I do know what
you're saying there, guys, like the idea of a change
in the so called global order seems in the works. Right.
(43:11):
The Brick countries, it's the street name for Brazil, Russia, India, China.
The Brick countries are talking about making their own currency.
We know it does all go. It often goes back
to the ownership of currency. Right. The US petro dollar
is increasingly less competitive than it was. And if you
(43:35):
want to, I mean this changes, this attempt at change
is kind of a continual thing. Like it still reminds
me of the real reason that the Goaddafi regime was
overthrown in Libya. It's not it wasn't for human rights
because he had been a monster there for quite some time. Instead,
he wanted to start a currency, kind of an African
(43:58):
continent's answer to the euro and France said no. So
there's always a hidden hand here, there's something deeper when
you when we hear these stories, we have to be careful.
We have to treat it like watching stage magicians, right,
don't look at the hand they want you to look at.
(44:19):
Look at the hand you're not supposed to see. And
with this, good luck to anybody out there in the
cold as we record. Be careful, maybe consider a different
career and let us know your stories. What do you
think about Matt's statement regarding the fluid, dynamic nature of
(44:41):
the geopolitical order There are conspiracies of plenty in there.
What do you think about chat GPT. What do you
think about the future of synthetic intelligence. I don't know
of non human intelligence, and what's the most powerful experience
you've had at a live show?
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Let us know.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Shout out to Dan from Destroyer if he's hearing this.
And we try to be easy to find online. That's right.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
You can find us on the usual social media channels
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Speaker 2 (45:18):
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(45:40):
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Speaker 3 (45:53):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul, mission controlled decands. Most importantly, you are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. Longtime listeners, fellow conspiracy realists, people of particular professions,
you may know it is a terrible time for spies,
(00:49):
and now more than ever, as Fox News would say,
you may also be interested to hear a story about
how music can move you. And before we talk about
any of that, we are returning to the world of
machine learning, of algorithms of AI. We always say legislation
(01:11):
will be eternally outpaced by innovation, especially the world of tech,
and it looks like those concerns are real, especially now
you know you've seen all the chatter. I'm sure there's
more news that's coming out. But Matt, when you say
people are starting to across different demographics and across different ideologies,
(01:34):
when you say, people are collectively starting to take AI
a little more seriously.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh, certainly. There are signs littered all over the side
of highways like off ramps around the Atlanta area that state,
hey call this number, we use AI to enhance your business.
And like, there's small companies forming all over the place
that are trying to find ways to make money on this.
(02:02):
And it's not just small companies, it's big companies. Big
companies are investing millions and millions of dollars in AI
research because they think this is the future.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
This act is studios, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Lots of studios and lots of let's say, data specialists.
They are really focused on AI and how it's going
to change their operating costs and what they can actually achieve.
And in response to this, the White House has They've
decided they're going to call together a bunch of experts
(02:38):
and have a little chat about this AI thing, what
is it, what's going on with it. They're gonna ask
questions about modems and routers and the internet and dial
up and it's gonna be really important and good. But
it could I'm being I'm joking there, being facetious, but
I do think this is an important and important event.
We're going to talk about it and why why it's
(02:59):
probably crucial at this time. So here we go. This
is from Reuter's May fourth May it be with you?
White House to meet Microsoft, Google CEOs on AI dangers.
Reading directly from the article here, the White House will
host CEOs of top AI companies, including alphabets, Google, and
(03:20):
Microsoft on Thursday to discuss risks and safeguards as the
technology catches the attention of governments and lawmakers globally. When
it says Thursday, there it means yesterday. As we're recording
this May the fourth, And here are the people that
are actually going to be meeting. Google's Sundar Pichai, Microsoft
(03:40):
Sataya Nadella, Open AI's Sam Altman. This is a new
one for me, guys, I didn't know about this company, Anthropic.
Their person Dario Modi. I'm oday. This is one of
the people who founded chat GPT originally or like created
chat GPT, have their own company now called Anthropic. Also,
(04:03):
they're Kamala Harris, Vice President, Chief of Staff of Biden,
national Security Advisor, Director of the National Economic Council, and
the Secretary of Commerce. They're all going to be hanging
out talking about, Hey, what is this stuff? And uh,
what's what are y'all doing with it? Because it does
seem pretty powerful and a little bit scary, especially when
(04:24):
it comes to jobs, because you know, elected officials are
really really concerned with jobs always because you know who
has jobs, Voters.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Voters, you know who, you know who's taken our jerves.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Computers, Yes they are. They definitely aren't vote. They can't
vote yet, not yet, not yet.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Won't that be when that happens?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know, I think saying I told you so is
one of the most unhelpful things that can be said
in conversation. Instead of saying that, I will say that
we pointed out here's back. I know it sounded like
it was high or something, but we pointed out years
back that eventually generative AI would be writing scripts.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And that's the thing. Let's just let just go into
really quickly, like this is less true artificial intelligence than
it is machine learning, right, I think it's always important
to kind of draw that distinction. These algorithms, while incredibly impressive,
you know, it feels like a magic trick, like it's
reading your mind or something, but what it's doing is
(05:32):
regurgitating in different order words that already exist or ideas
that already exist, you know, on the massive archive of
all human knowledge that is the Internet. But they're not
capable of like creating new ideas, I mean theoretically this week.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, agreed with both of you guys. The goal. Look,
I don't know the end goal of these very influential,
intelligent and powerful people that are going to be meeting
with the White House. But if you look at let's
just give an example, anthropic dot com. That's that company, Anthropic.
(06:10):
They've got an AI assistant named Claude, and Claude you
can see, at least in my mind, you can see
the end goal is to create an actual assistant, like
someone you would hire to be your assistant. If you're
let's say a podcast executive producer. You would have this
person that could perform tasks for you and they would
(06:34):
be done. They'd be on your desk or whatever within
a matter of seconds.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Like super clippy. Well we're talking about is super clippy.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yes, but even interacting with people in the outside world,
creating emails like email responses, you can imagine a world
where Claude would give you a rundown of your day.
Here's all the emails you need to respond to. In
what way would you like me to respond to those emails?
And you just give it a quick blah blah blah
blah blah.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Blah, and then it, well, it creates those things, even
like in an office suite you know, Microsoft, which you know,
I think we all have our opinions on leadst thething
to be desired. It will tell you about emails that
are like, you know, a little detect that you haven't
responded to a certain email, and tell you how old
it is. And then it does generate some kind of
pat you know, generative responses that you can click on.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
You know that.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, it already does something like that. It's not robust,
it's not thoughtful. You know, people will be able to
tell really quickly if you're just banging those autocomplete responses.
But there already is something like that in there. This
is just like taking that super clippy situation to the
next level.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Absolutely, And the reason why I'm framing it in this
way is because you can imagine then placing that thing,
that program into a physical entity, right yes, And I
think at that point is when you have the situation
Ben's talking about when this entity now has rights and
can potentially even vote on you know, on inelections or whatever.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Where's the justification Microsoft?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Thinking just quickly, Microsoft is one of the main companies
that's investing millions and millions and millions of dollars into
this pursuit of AI, and Microsoft's involvement with chat GPT
is why that group who created Anthropic made their own company.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Right, I guess I don't understand how putting software into
some sort of bot or some sort of like mobile
you know, thing creation, how that gives it personhood any
differently than it just existing in the cloud.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Well, that's certainly the next step. Right, it exists, it
thinks therefore it is not just in some place, you know,
some unknown place, but it exists physically in Nebraska somewhere, right.
I mean, it's just I think I think that's just
part of human humanity is understanding of what a thing is,
you know, an entity is. That's just my opinion.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I don't know that it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
So this is a topic of conversation that's huge on
multiple levels. I know that sometimes I come off sounding
a little bit esoteric when we talk about things like
how AI itself as a term is fraudulent. Right? What's
the difference between one intelligence and the next? You know,
(09:22):
I know it sounds kind of crazy to ask when
these entities might exist and be able to vote, But
like you said, Matt, there are millions, probably billions of
dollars being poured into these questions. And shout out again
to our buddy, professor Damien Williams, who has who has
(09:43):
been raising this flag for years and years and years, Matt,
when you learned that Pennsylvania Avenue was meeting about the
potential dangers of these algorithms, right, is your spider sense
telling you? Does it sound like it's p R bluff
(10:04):
and bluster? Do you think they're going to make some
substantive policies of some sort?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, there was already action taken by the White House.
They announced a one and forty million dollar investment from
the National Science Foundation to launch quote seven new AI
research institutes. Uh, this coming from the White House's Office
of Management and Budget. Oh and by the way, what
are we at again, guys, The same predicament we've been
(10:31):
in how I don't even know how many times where
the United States is running up on its budget limits
and we got or everything is going to crash and burn.
That's not political. We sell it.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Fine, we're selling right now just because we've been through it.
We're all laughing immediately.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Have you guys seen any of the Writer's Guild demands
pertaining to AI.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yep, they're all very reasonable. Yeah, okay, great.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
I just think I think it's that's such a topical thing,
and you know, basically there the demands are one thing
which we should talk about. But the response of the
industry is basically like, oh, we're not going to do
any of that, but we'll have a meeting yearly to discuss.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Oh yeah, let's say yeah, anyway, Matt, Matt.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, let's jump to the Writer's Guild of America currently
on strike. This comes from Deadline May first. Uh, it's
a huge headline, Hollywood hit with writers strike after talks
with a mp TP failed guild, slam studios for gig economy.
Mentality didn't mean that whole thing.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
It needs Transatlantic accents. That's a headline.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
You can find it though. You can find it. That's
the whole reason you can find it. Put all that
give gobbledegook into your browser.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Here it goes quote on the topic of AI. The
w g A wanted to quote regulate use of artificial
intelligence on MBA covered projects. AI can't write or rewrite
a literary material, can't be used as source material, and
mb covered material can't be used to train AI. That's
what Uh, that's what the guild wanted. And as you said, Noel, Uh,
(12:09):
those on the other side of the table, the big
studios and such said, quote, they would offer quote annual
meetings to discuss advancements in technology.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, let's let's meet. What's a year? They totally answered
a different question too, is really sketchy. Uh. And I
just want to go on record saying that I stand
with and support the writer's guilt that way.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, let's do all.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
We all work closely with writers who are you know,
guild members, various fiction shows that we've been a part of. Specifically,
I think you map probably more than anyone. But I mean,
this is a difficult job and it is something that
warrants a human mind, you know, I mean if only
for you know, the benefit of the audience. Right, let's
think about it just on those terms, like generating creative
(12:55):
original ideas, not just regurgitating stuff. That's already out there.
But Matt, I have a question, how can let's say
that this demand of not allowing Writers Guild associated work
to be used to train AI isn't the transparency of
what is and isn't used to train AI kind of
murky because there's so much stuff being just on the internet.
(13:17):
How can you even know what it used to train
itself or what you know materials were used?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
It is unknoble. What you're what you're saying is currently
unknoble unless you went in with an FBI task force
and got up in the guts of Claude and all
these other AI generated He just said, hey, what's in here?
I don't think you could. I think it's right. I mean,
that's just my opinion. I do have a riddle for you,
(13:45):
just based on what you're saying earlier. Noel, Uh, one
of us is a writer, but three of us are authors. Weird.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
That is weird.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
And you know, I mean technically, just by speaking this
podcast into exists and then transcripts being created of it,
we are technically writing.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I mean, it's weird. You know it is a it
is a chicken or the egg kind of question, you know,
he yeah, if.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
You can hear me, join the WGA. You know what
I mean, World the Rights for AI. You know, that's
that's going to be the next thing. This this stuff
is Look, if you are if you are serious about
creating intelligence, we have to understand it's gonna again have
(14:30):
the inherently human biases right of its creators. You know.
So warmongers who are doing some of the best research
in this field are creating warlike things, right They're raising
They're raising some agro possibilities. Matt. I hope that the
White House and UH and the tech bros. I hope
(14:52):
what they're talking about is not necessarily chat GPT that's
getting the headlines. But what we need to be watching
as a society is going to be the machine learning
algorithms that are in the world of finance, in the
world of macro weather, and in the world of medical technology.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So Strenkenstein's monster situation, y'all, like, you can't play god
and create what you would consider to be an analog
to life without having a thing that you then have
to deal with. You know, when you stop being able
to control it.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Guys, think about it. You are a massive guild that
holds most of the members who do the writing for Hollywood,
for television, for film, for all the streaming services, for podcasts,
for everything. You are in this guild, and you are
attempting to fight for the rights of the humans who
work amongst your guild, right, And there's some political things
(15:49):
in there. Always that just what happens when you've got
a guild or anything like that. But they're fighting for
the humans. They go on strike. None of those humans
can write. But what do these studios have right at
their fingertips.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Oh, they're playing Sorcerer's Apprentice. They've got the magic mobs,
now you know.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I mean it feels like a setup to me. Guys
like oh yeah, no, yeah, you guys, don't go on strike.
We we really want to work with you. By the way,
we've got Ai over here, because listen to this, Noel.
This also comes on the heels of something that happened
on Monday. The CEO of International Business Machines Corp. Also
(16:28):
known as IBM, Arvin Krishna, had a little conversation with
Bloomberg News this past Monday, May the first, And in
this conversation it was spoken let's say it wasn't officially
announced or anything, but it was spoken into the world
and to Bloomberg that they were going to pause hiring
(16:48):
humans for a while for a little while.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
We're specific not all humans necessarily, but for specific places
like HR. Yeah, that was one.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Specifically for HR and quote non customer facing roles, and
how these roles could be replaced by AI and automation
in five years. Specifically, they're thinking that would be around
seven thousand, eight hundred jobs that would be replaced by AI.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
I mean, make no mistake, if the companies can do
this kind of thing, they will do this kind of thing.
If there are no safeguards in place to keep them
from doing it, they're going to do it whether or not.
Like the Hollywood at large or the big studios start
using AI to write movies that's yet to be seen,
and I personally think it would be a disaster.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Are the guys that we really dig on Internet today
on YouTube pointed out that maybe this kind of tech
could be used to write like shows like Law and
Order and like just mega mega procedural type kind of
B level shows. But you're not gonna get AI writing succession,
you know, or something that really requires like the mind
(18:02):
of a playwright, a true original creator. Prestige TV will
go away, you know, we'll just be left with all
these Law and Order clones, which we already have, but
now that'll be written by machines. And it's like, you know,
I know the shows are popular, but that's not the world.
It is just the world liberals want.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
That dude totally. And Noel, I just have to say,
Prestige Worldwide. If you don't know what that is, boats
and something else I can't remember anyway, Okay, good. Also,
do check out. There was news about chat GPT having
a security breach that wasn't a major problem at least
(18:40):
according to everything they're saying.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
But everything you fine, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Do look at that because it's occurring. All right, But
that's it for now. We're going to check back in
with AI as we will probably every week from now
on in perpetuity. For this moment, though, we are going
to take a quick break and hear a word from
our sponsor and we'll be right back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Shut up, Jeffrey Hinton, and we're back with another slightly
less apocalyptic strange news. It's an interesting one, quite a banger.
As a commenter on Independent dot co dot uk noted,
(19:19):
hello again says, to be fair, Tchaikowsky's fifth is a
banger and that second movement slow burn. What is this
user referencing, well, referencing potentially what may have been the
alarming sound of a woman experiencing ecstasy at the sound
(19:40):
of said Tchaikowsky classical work, as performed by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall in LA beautiful, beautiful
concert hall. If you've never seen it, it's a really
really neat design on the outside in a beautiful place
to see a concert. During the LA Philharmonic formance of
Chaikovs fifth on Friday, April twenty eighth, some concertgoers reported
(20:06):
hearing in a kind of moment of you know how
classical music it's very dynamic. It will get really loud
and bombastic, and then it has these hushed moments, you know,
just the perfect opportunity to hear what is described as
a woman having a quote loud and full body orgasm.
And it's interesting on a couple of levels, because, as
(20:30):
we talked about, off air, reports have varied. One concert goer,
Molly Grant told The La Times, I saw the girl
after it happened, and I assumed that she had an
orgasm because she was heavily breathing and her partner was
smiling and looking at her like in an effort not
to shame her, curious her and curious or Matt you
(20:50):
pointed out that maybe that indicated there could have been
a little bit of extra musical panky panky going on,
perhaps bad behavior. You know, I have to say from
events like the La Philharmonic.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I don't know. I'm not I can't talk about personal experience.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
You don't have to do.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I know some people find it exciting to mess around
in public. In my mind, when you first started talking
about the story, that's what I'm hearing. But maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Well, I'm with you certainly on the table, Okay. I
think mainly the reason I brought this story up is
because it opens up some conversations around some other kind
of interesting concepts, the idea of Stendall syndrome, Okay. Stendall
syndrome is a condition wherein people who experience great works
(21:47):
of art, whether it be you know, usually it'ssociated with
visual art, like going to the Florence for example. That
is actually where the name came from. You know, there's
so many incredible pieces of art in Flora's Uffizi gallery,
and over the years, throughout history, there have been reports
(22:08):
of folks being overcome with ecstasy, you know, having palpitations
of the heart as an art attack, exactly an heart attack.
That's There's actually a Dario or Gento horror film called
Stendall Syndrome, where the central character is someone who is
afflicted by this condition. But the name comes from a
(22:28):
French writer named Marie Henri Bio, who was known by
the pen name Stendall and wrote this in eighteen seventeen,
referring to his trip to Florence. I was in a
sort of state of ecstasy from the idea of being
in Florence. I was seized with a fierce palpitation of
the heart. The wellspring of life was dried up within me,
(22:50):
and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.
And this has been described from a psychiatric perspective of
beginning in nineteen eighty nine by Graziella Margharini, who is
a psychiatrist in Florence at Florence's Santa Maria Nuovo Hospital.
(23:10):
She reports to have observed one hundred and six tourists
specifically who have experienced some of these types of symptoms, harpalpitations,
clammy hands, kind of you know, sort of almost like
anxiety attacks, but even more, you know, unusually even hallucinations
when they viewed paintings from Barticelli or the sculptures of Michelangelo.
(23:32):
You know, these are incredibly affecting works, as is the
music of Tchaikowski. These pieces are designed to move you.
And specifically, I'm someone who is quite easily overcome by music. Specifically,
I think I'm maybe more sensitive to music, but just
beauty in general. And I've been known to have a
good cry, you know, during a particularly emotional scene in
(23:55):
a film that hits me just right, you know, And
this is all because of things that we have in
our brains called mirror neurons, which are neural structures that
essentially are activated when we are emotionally triggered by things
we experience, whether it be visually or auditorily. Because, after all,
(24:20):
the works of art, and this actually kind of goes
back to our AI discussion a little bit. Works of
art at their best are distinctly human. And you know,
if you're experiencing something within you. It's because you are
resonating with an experience that is being presented by a
piece of music you know, or or work of art.
So you are connecting with that on a very human level.
(24:42):
And certainly there are ways to game the stuff and
maybe even trick the body or trick the mind into
thinking that you're experiencing something human that maybe was not
generated by a human. But at base mirror neurons are
essentially reflexively creating emotions within you that you are observed
being in someone else you know, or in this case,
(25:03):
someone else is a stand in for a piece of
art created by, you know, an individual. So I don't know.
I don't even think we need to bother playing the tape,
you can find it decide for yourself what was happening
with this woman. There are, you know, varying accounts, but
I do think the idea of being physically overwhelmed by
art is very interesting and very real, whether or not
(25:24):
that's what happened with this woman or not. Have you
all experienced anything like this or observed or yourselves experienced,
you know, crippling emotional overwhelmedness, you know, in the face
of beauty or art.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Oh yeah, no, yeah, I think that often occurs in
film and television. For me, it's a combination of portrayal
of a character in the writing of the character, right,
and the editing and all the all the elements that
come together.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
To fore hitting.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, it can be overwhelmingly emotional for me. Vibrationally though, Uh,
live music or any any music really, but specifically live
music is a fascinating thing because it is energy moving
through you, right, these waves that are.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Through you, And yeah, I know what you're saying there.
I also you know, having a synesthasia and probably a
not super stable mental state. I yes, Stendall is quite
familiar to me, and I think I think to most
people now. The research on mirror neurons, as we mentioned
(26:35):
in some previous episodes, has some problems. Uh that they're
they're a little bit diceier than they might sound in headlines.
But I personally think that the research indicates there's something
going on there. Right. The the ability to empathize with
(26:55):
a perceived situation from afar is a huge deal. Like
I recently got super into research on orangutans oranguting and
how they how they process witnessing acts of cruelty or
acts of kindness in other animals, right, and how they
(27:19):
react to music. And I know, I know that not
all of us are as impressed with with the higher
order birds as I am, but I'm.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Impressed just that.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
But you gotta watch, you gotta watch some birds reacting
to music like they are clearly not to anthropomorphize, but
they are clearly experiencing some sort of emotion past simply
reacting to the sound that's impacting them. And I'm just
I'm putting that in as like a secuitous way to
(27:55):
get back to your point, Matt about about live music.
There's something you know, what always gets me when I
when I see live music is it's it's often a
secular version of a church experience. Right, people had gathered, Right.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
You and I were at a concert last night, and
I think you may have witnessed me experiencing some of
what I'm describing. It's an artist, and I know we
both love Dan Bihar aka Destroyer, doing a very intimate
acoustic set, and it did have a church like vibe
because people are it's a hushed atmosphere, so people are
kind of whisper singing along and there's this cusserius in
(28:31):
the crowd and it's just electricity, and you know, there's
a reverence and I really was overcome at that at
that concert and it was just fantastic. Specifically referring to
vibrations physically, like you've ever seen a band the you know,
or orchestra that's generating a serious noise you know that
is physically affecting. Have y'all ever heard of hyper sensitive
(28:53):
person disorder? It's it's a condition now.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
I think I get it just to but maybe, yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
It's it's a condition that that that I've actually knew
somebody who had it, where people are just incredibly sensitive
to certain physical, emotional, or social situations and type of neurodivergence.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Correct, So I think I think neurotypical. I think the
very concept of normal when it comes to human mind
is intellectually fraudulous. Sir. So that's my soapbox. Just snipe
in a soapbox real quick. But yeah, it's a real thing.
It's it's a type of neurodivergence, but it.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Can extend to physical sensitivity where people you know that
have this could be a hair trigger for experiencing that
level of physical ecstasy. Let's just leave it at that,
you know, or family show.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Think about the nature of many of the instruments used
in an orchestra. Many of them are not focused on
but are designed to be able to sustain notes. Right,
and when you've got a number of musicians on stage,
all armed with instruments that can sustain vibration, if you're
(30:06):
a hyper sensitive person, I can imagine that's a recipe
for ecstasy.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Indeed it is so I no, well you did it beautifully,
doesn't matter, I mean a straight face. I really enjoyed
this conversation. I think this is you know, the story
itself is sort of secondary. Do I think what it?
You know, what it points to as an interesting and
unusual phenomenon in our human species. So thank y'all, and
(30:34):
let's take a break and then we'll come back with
one more piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Ready or not? Here I come gonna.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Spy to yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
And get rested, all right, yeah? Yeah, So it's it's
not a great month for people in the trade, people
playing reindeer games. Here's what's happenings as the global tension
ratchets up even more than has been normalized in the past.
(31:16):
Countries are increasingly playing less nicely with each other in
the shadowy world of trade craft, and they think. In
our group chat, we were talking about how Norway expelled
a ton of Russian diplomats en mass, which is normally
not how you do it, unless unless it's like a
(31:37):
pr move right. We also know, as we reported earlier,
that the FBI made to arrest for some so called
so called admin centers slash secret police stations where the
Chinese government was enacting Chinese law on the US soil.
(31:58):
There was there's this high level Iranian government official who
was executed, and it turns out he was working for
the British for quite some time. He got turned while
he was in London. And by far my favorite story
in this escalation, which is only going to continue, by
(32:19):
the way, my favorite story the fujis the Fuji's got
caught up in the international spy game. Everybody's third favorite
Fuji Braswell was found guilty quite recently. He was found
(32:39):
guilty quite recently of quote a clandestine foreign influenced campaign scheme.
He got hit on ten counts of it. If you
trace through the shell games and you don't you disassemble
the Matroshka dolls there he was working for China, got
(33:00):
he got turned, he got turned to uh to do
some illegal kind of you could call it lobbying.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Here, let's take a Dennis Rodman kind of situation, like I'm.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
The Dennis Rodman thing is way more wholesome actual proswell, yeah, yeah,
now that I awake, all right?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Anyway, So isn't a pro Israel or how do you say?
I don't know how to say that.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I don't care what it is good coswell, Michelle is
a full name. But Prose to Prose to the fans.
I know, we got a lot of Fuji's fans here.
I also absolutely, I am absolutely over the moon about
that first album, The Schools a classic Yeah, and Lauren
Hill's solo or Miss Hill's solo album of course classic instant. Anyway,
(33:51):
Prose was able to do this music while he was
apparently spy. Here's what happened. So there's a guy Low
Tite Joel and our buddy. Low is a very well
healed Malaysian national who is now a fugitive and and
(34:13):
loved proxy donations. He he used a bunch of fake
donors to pour significant amount of money into the Obama
twenty twelve re election campaign. He did that with praz.
He also had prose attempt to attempt to eighty six
(34:36):
a DOJ investigation. I'm not sure how that conversation works out.
Does he just like does he walk into the DOJ
and say, hey, guys, this is me. Remember the fujis
stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Yeah or else? A hey like knocks a like a
stapler off the desk. Be a shame if something happened
to your stapler. Whoops?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
You guys, Remember we talked We talked about this. This
is the Malaysian State Fund thing that got I don't
know a good way to talk about it, but there
was some messing around going on where money was stolen
from this huge fund at one point, and he was
used to then fund other things like bribed other very
(35:20):
influential people in other countries. I th was a weird
thing we talked about. I think mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah. And it's one of those things that unless you
actively keep an eye on it, or unless it's part
of your job to know about it, those headlines are ephemeral.
They come and they go very quickly and okay, so
here's the argument. Oh, the other charge is that when
the Trump administration was in power, Praz was apparently supposed
(35:49):
to try to influence an extradition case on behalf of China,
and knowing what we know now about the secret police
stations and the PRC's policy toward anyone they consider Chinese,
that's very dangerous. Right, They will take you if they
are incentivized to do so. All right, So those are
(36:10):
the charges. He's been convicted on ten counts of that
related stuff. His lawyers, his defense attorneys say that they're
pleading ignorance, or they were pleading ignorance. It just wasn't successful.
They said, Look, this guy just wanted to make money.
He wasn't purposely like, he wasn't an ideologically motivated sleeper
(36:32):
agent or some kind of weird James Bond character. He
just got bad legal advice, and he wasn't familiar with
the murky world of actual geopolitics, which is way different
from all the pr stuff you read. Honestly, I don't
know how much we should care about the a lot
(36:52):
of the public announcements anyway. So okay, so here's how
it happens. Proz meets Jolo, the Malaysian financier in two
thousand and six, and this guy is going around Hollywood.
He's throwing cash, or, as our buddy Brad Neely would say,
(37:13):
he's flipp and flip left and right. He's financing all
these movies. He helps put the money up for Wolf
of Wall Street. Of course, like you're like so unsurprised
and slightly bitter about that. You watch that, You watch
Wolf of Wall Street, Matt and you were like, the
(37:33):
Malaysians have their hand in here.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
No, no, y'all. How films get their financing is so murky.
From an outsider who knows nothing about the business, you
just have this sense that, oh, these are massive studios
that make billions of dollars now at this point on films,
and they just use some of that money to finance
(37:56):
the other films. No, that is not how it happened,
at least not fully. That's not how you get full
financing for a giant film that costs hundreds of millions
of dollars. There are often people like this guy.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, they're often fixers, right, and not for nothing. As
producer somewhat of a nebulous title in the world, of film, right,
So okay, there's a star studded cast for this trial.
Leonardo DiCaprio testifies in court and he says, look Low
(38:30):
seemed legit. You know, we talked about money, we talked
about the film. He said he wanted to donate to
Barack Obama's re election campaign. Praz goes and testifies in
his own defense, which is a very dicey move, and
he says, look, I'm not you know, I'm not a
super spy. I'm not out here trying to topple capitalism.
(38:53):
I met this guy. He seemed like he had street cred.
He said he wanted to get a photograph with Barack
Obama in twenty twelve, and he told me he would
pay millions of dollars to get it, and so Proswell said, okay, or.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
He said yeah, yeah please, sure, yeah, I get you
a picture.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah. So Pras said, okay, I will try to help
you out. And then he got some money from Low
and then he paid for associates of his to go
to fundraising events. And he said, I didn't know that
was illegal, which honestly, it kind of makes sense. It
does sound legitimate, you know, it doesn't sound like he's
(39:33):
doing a Monty Burn's steeple of the fingers and saying, yes,
here's how we can get around these weirdly specific laws
about money and diplomacy. He's just like, all right, I
like money, you know, shout out idiocracy. And and so
this relationship continues across administrations. Right, the Trump administration comes
(39:58):
into power, and Prose is still working with this guy.
He's getting millions of dollars. And now it's getting a
little bit passed the point of plausible deniability, right, it's
getting past the point of whoops or oops, I did
it again. Britney Spears did not testify it as far
as I know, But okay, So he under the Trump
(40:20):
administration low pays Prose millions of dollars to try to
stop a investigation. This is a DOJ investigation into money
laundering and bribery. And this is what we had mentioned before, Matt,
what we were talking about, right, the Malaysian State Investment
Fund one MDB. This scheme took billions, not millions, billions
(40:47):
of dollars, and Prose was somehow wrapped up in it.
He was apparently paid to try to get the US
to extradite someone who is critical of the government of
China to China, which is beyond the balance of Oh,
I thought we were just making movies and getting photographs.
(41:10):
That one, at least that one you knew. You had
to know, dude. This this prompts a larger conversation. I
know we're going to wrap up pretty soon, but I
have to ask you, guys, what do you think is
going on? What's in the wind here? What's the lay
of the land. It is somewhat extraordinary for this many.
(41:33):
I mean, it's fun to talk about weird stories with celebrities, right,
people like that, But why are so many spies getting
the boot? Now? Why the acceleration.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Optics, you know, the whole thing with the spy balloon,
and just like some of the news swirling around it,
and just so many, i mean stories coming out like
they're just kind of maybe cleaning house a little bit
and needed some fall guy. And who better, what better
than like a celebrity who was kind of just stumbled
his way into a problem like this. You know, I
(42:05):
don't know, pr I don't I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Maybe I don't know. I don't want to be doing
gloom in my opinion. It's it's early waves of a
much bigger thing that's on the way, which is a
global conflict, new superpowers emerging and fighting against the current. Hegemont.
I don't know, that's just my that's my spider sense.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Hot take for Maddie's two hands at both hands.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I thought I was hoping you were going to say
early waves for a new Fuji's album. Yeah, that's it,
But I guess yeah happened.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Also, one called that kinda they tried to do and
then it kind of died. They were going to have
a concert in They're getting together. They did one concert
and then it was over.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's tough. It's tough to be
working musicians and wish them the best, of course, chase
your dreams in all things. But I do know what
you're saying there, guys, like the idea of a change
in the so called global order seems in the works. Right.
(43:11):
The Brick countries, it's the street name for Brazil, Russia, India, China.
The Brick countries are talking about making their own currency.
We know it does all go. It often goes back
to the ownership of currency. Right. The US petro dollar
is increasingly less competitive than it was. And if you
(43:35):
want to, I mean this changes, this attempt at change
is kind of a continual thing. Like it still reminds
me of the real reason that the Goaddafi regime was
overthrown in Libya. It's not it wasn't for human rights
because he had been a monster there for quite some time. Instead,
he wanted to start a currency, kind of an African
(43:58):
continent's answer to the euro and France said no. So
there's always a hidden hand here, there's something deeper when
you when we hear these stories, we have to be careful.
We have to treat it like watching stage magicians, right,
don't look at the hand they want you to look at.
(44:19):
Look at the hand you're not supposed to see. And
with this, good luck to anybody out there in the
cold as we record. Be careful, maybe consider a different
career and let us know your stories. What do you
think about Matt's statement regarding the fluid, dynamic nature of
(44:41):
the geopolitical order There are conspiracies of plenty in there.
What do you think about chat GPT. What do you
think about the future of synthetic intelligence. I don't know
of non human intelligence, and what's the most powerful experience
you've had at a live show?
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Let us know.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Shout out to Dan from Destroyer if he's hearing this.
And we try to be easy to find online. That's right.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
You can find us on the usual social media channels
of note where we are conspiracy stuff on YouTube, Twitter
and Facebook, Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Pick up your phone and call say it with us.
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you did that, Cadet, I mean you say you do so, Cadet.
I hope you said that out loud. Call that number
and leave us a voicemail. You've got three minutes. Give
us a cool nickname, whatever it is, as long as
(45:40):
this not your government name. Let us know if you
can use your message and name on the air. And
that's really all you gotta do. If you got more
to say than can fit in three minutes, why not
instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
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