May 27, 2026 • 43 mins
What happens when you let technology take over your life? Joanna Stern (Fmr. Wall Street Journal / New Things) found out. She spent all of 2025 letting the robots in: Waymos, AI therapists, robot massagers, assistant researcher agents…
During that yearlong experiment, Joanna Stern chronicled her findings in a new book, I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything. She speaks to Oz about letting AI diagnose her son’s praying mantis, sending Bill Gates her health log, and how she sees AI impacting the job market.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm mos Volosen. My prediction for
twenty twenty six was that this would be the year
of the robot, the year that physical AI entered our homes, workplaces,
maybe even our bloodstream. Our guest today, Joanna Stern was
way ahead of me. On January first, twenty twenty five,
she handed over her entire life for the next three
(00:35):
hundred and sixty five days to AI and robots. She
took way Mo's on vacation, let AI answer emails, diagnose
her children's praying mantis. She even brought her AI therapist
into her human therapist's office, and also had AI confirmed
that she Joanna was in fact human. After more than
ten years at the Wall Street Journal, interviewing the likes
(00:57):
of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Dario Amoday along the way,
Johanna recently became chief Technology correspondent at NBC News, Launch
Terran Business, called New Things, and wrote a fantastic book
called I Am Not a Robot. My Year using AI
to do almost everything, which is out now.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Welcome Johanna, Thank you for having me, and thank you
for what an intro I wrote that I can actually
tell AI didn't.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Write that how could you tell, Well, there were.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Some real details from the book in there that I
know AI doesn't know about yet, pragmantis especially.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
So I'm very impressed, very nice writing.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
We have to get into everything in the book, but
start with the praying mantis, because I think that was
my favorite moment in the book.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So I have two sons that you learned that very
quickly in the book. I have a four year old
and an eight year old, or they were three and
seven at the time of the book, and they knew
about my experiment here. I was going to use AI
in as many parts of life as possible, which meant
that pretty much every question they asked me, I'm asking AI.
And if you have small kids, you know, they ask
a lot of random questions about things in the world.
(02:04):
And so last summer, my oldest son, Noah, was very
He's always been very interested in bugs and nature, and
so he had found a pragmantis outside and he wanted
He adopted it, made it a pet, and as a
great parent, I embraced this. We got a little terrarium
(02:26):
for the pragmantis. We got crickets so the pragmantis could eat.
We did all of the things to make the pragmantis
feel at home in our backyard. But then one day
the pregmantis did not look good. It started browning, and
I said, let's ask CHATCHYBTA and so we fired up
the chatchy bet voice mode with the live video chatty
(02:47):
BT confidently diagnosed the pragmantis as being pregnant. And this
was a big moment in our house. I mean, Noah
was so excited that his pragmantis was going to have babies.
Not only was going to have one pregnantis, he was
going to have so many and he was He kept
saying he was going to be the grandfather of these pregmantises.
So he called my dad, who's his grandfather, is like,
(03:09):
we're going to be grandparents together. And sadly, as we know,
Chatchipti doesn't know everything, and the premnantis was not pregnant.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Preignantis was dying.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I hope in your post edit here you can put
some really sad, somber music here.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
We will. How did your son? How did your son
react to being misled by the oracle?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
He was okay. The good the good thing is is
that it didn't die.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Immediately, but it was a very important lesson and that
he learned multiple times through the year and continues to
which is AI is not always right. But it was
an important moment in the year, and I'm happy it
happened because it really did show him that we cannot
trust everything we hear from machines, and that in a
future for this next generation where they are being promised
(04:03):
that these machines are going to be smarter than them
and they and they will be. I think we know
that with the trajectory of the pace and of improvement,
that AI will be smarter, but that they learned to
question it and they learned to rely on their own
thinking was a huge finding of the year, and thank
you to the Pregnantis for teaching.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Us that it didn't die in vain readio book. I
did think about remember that documentary Supersized Me where the
guy eas McDonald's for every day for thirty days. What
inspired you to do this super size me of AI
and robots, but do a whole year rather than just
thirty days.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So in my career, I've always tried to be the
person testing technology. When I first started being a tech reporter,
I loved reporting and I love going to meetings with
companies or talking to sources, but I always really loved
the part where I'm testing the technology and really using
it in my life. I've done that now for almost
two decades, and so when all of this stuff started
(04:59):
really coming online twenty twenty three twenty twenty four, I
was like, Okay, there's going to be a lot more
here to try to test in our everyday lives. And
then by the end of twenty twenty four there were
a lot of big proclamations that I talk about in
the book at the beginning, because I started this experiment
at the beginning of twenty twenty five. But I mean
this was the moment of like extreme hyperbole from the
(05:21):
AI execs right where they were saying, this is going
to change every aspect of life. Humans will not be
as smart as species, every part of life is going
to be better. And it was like, what does that mean?
What does that mean for a consumer of technology that
just even just wants to live a pretty normal life
like has a phone, has a computer, has a TV,
(05:44):
and then just like doesn't want to be living a complete,
you know, attached to the matrix life, Like what does
life look like for that And so that was the
idea of like all these parts of my life.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
And you did a great time teeing it up.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
But you know, to be clear, like I did not
have a I do every single thing in my life
because if I did, I would have been divorced and
out on the street and jobless, and like I could not.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I had to still be a functioning member of society.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Your wife didn't appreciate AI's responses to her text saying
you weren't going to help her make dinner right right?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
The autotext from you know, Apple's Apple Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
This really happened.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yes, like I did say, okay, this week, there was
a week in January or so, this is it, Like
let's go all in.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
We're ready to do the year. Everything's going to be
responded using AI.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
All my emails, all my texts, and the auto texts
and auto emails back are comical. And you know, I
have to say some of this is improved now, but
some of it isn't.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Like a year later.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Gmails responses sometimes are baffling. It's like this is a
company that knows everything about me. You have every email
I've ever sent. Why would I call my mom by
her last name, like missus Stern. Why would I ever
respond to that email that way? Right? And so the
example you're talking about is at Apple Intelligence on my iPhone,
My wife said can you please come down here and
(07:05):
make the kids lunch?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And it said, sorry, no, I'm busy.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, like Grounds for Divorce a fantasy life, right, It's
like AI want to say the things you can't, but
you can't say those things. So, yes, there were limits
that I put in place, but I really did try
to have AI touch these parts of our lives, from
healthcare to transportation to work, education, relationships beyond therapy, as
(07:35):
you mentioned, and see where this is going to intersect
and where it's not going to intersect.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You know what I loved about the book especially was
you know, it feels like tech media is somewhat bifocated
between like you know, the try guys, like the tech
consumer technology testing, and then they're like people who interact
with the tech overlords. And this is the first book
I've read where you I mean, it's amazingly you do
(08:02):
it in an amazingly graceful way, but used to outline this
influence you've had with like healthcare, technology and then you say,
so I called Bill Gates and then publish a transcript
of you know, two pages of that conversation. And you
have a similar moment with Sam Wltman, like, how did
you kind of think about navigating between the kind of
the takeover lords and the and and the and the
and the person who lives in the world they're building.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, I mean, and there are so many great books
coming out or out now about these tech overlords and
how important it is to know about the people steering
this revolution, because if we don't have a sense into
their humanity, well gosh, we're kind of screwed. So I
wanted to thread that through a little bit. But I
didn't want to do those books right. I would not
(08:47):
be a great biographer of Sam Maltman, Like it would
very quickly be like, oh, I went to Sam Martman's
house and I played with the new gadgets, and then
I forgot that Sam Martmin was there, Like that, that's
what would happen to me. But I I wanted to
thread that through because I do think it's very important
to get the perspective of the smartest technologists in the
world who are now building this future.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So you know, Bill Gates.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Who better to go to to talk about health care
and computing than someone like Bill Gates, right and get
his point of view. And I also thought it was
just funny, like, let me send this guy, you know,
the richest person in the world, or one of the
richest people in the world, my list of bouts of
sickness for the year, because that's what I did. I
kept this long logs as you read in the in
(09:31):
the book of all my sicknesses, and every time I
got sick during the year, I asked chat shept or Claude,
what was wrong with me? So I just sent that
to Bill Gates and his team and said, like, I'd
like Bill to look at this and respond for the book.
And there was a lot in there, like you know,
the joke I think I make is like, what else
are you going to do other than send your you know,
bouts of diarrhea to Bill Gates? And he came back
(09:54):
and like, you know, actually he doesn't want to talk
about your specific ailments.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
He would just like to talk to you on the phone.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
It's like, okay, I want him to talk about my
rash But okay, that's fine, Bill, you don't have time
for that. So, like, I just thought there was a
lot of expertise that I wanted to get in and
I didn't want it to just be sort of experts,
say or you know, and they're threaded throughout right, healthcare experts,
transportation or self driving car, autonomous vehicle experts. They're all
(10:22):
sort of threaded through and some of them are big
names and some of them aren't. And I just wanted
to make sure that was balanced. And that's always what
I do in my reporting anyways, It's like it's my take,
but also I'm out here talking to all of these
important people.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You have three kind of parameters. Forel Y had long
experiment always be testing which you've tooken a little bit,
benchmark the baseline, and track the costs. Maybe you could
talk about the second two of it.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, I think benchmarking the baseline it was tough because
when you're testing something that wants to replace a human, well,
we need to really think about what are we replacing
as a human. And I think that was one of
the chapters where I think that was really clear that
I did was yes, the therapy one, but also the
robotic massage therapist, where this robot is a massage therapist.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I describe going to this spa and walking in and
the robot's just there and the big, big giant massage
arms over this massage table and it's it's sort of
scary but also amazing. If you're listening, I do highly
recommend this. Yeah, I don't know where do.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
You live us?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I live in New York City.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Okay, so you can go right now and get one.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
It's called escape.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You need to diagnose your second bye goodbye John kicking
off right.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Now to go to Equinox gyms and they equos yes,
and you can do it for like.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Probably ninety dollars at most.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Wow. So it's expends it suspends it. Yeah, I mean
that's more expensive than going to like the tween naw
sense it.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But I think you can expense it for this job.
So you can go expense your massage, which is you
know I couldn't do that. I was writing book on
my own dollars, but you know, for work, you should
go get this massage.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Did you tell it exactly what you wanted or did
it to look into your soul and tell you what
you wanted?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Or it directly it's like it actually functions. They describe
it as like sort of the Netflix of massages. So
when you lay down on this table, there's a screen
and you pick which massage you want and you answer
a few questions, but it's really all based on what
you've told it, you what parts of the body you
went to massage. And so where I talk about in
this chapter is that for me, I have a very
(12:26):
bad lower back problem, like very right above the butt,
like you know, even in there, like in the glute area,
and I'm always irritated there and it just massaged there
for like twenty five minutes, which is not something a
human does, right, It's not like I talk about that
like this robot was obsessed with my butt and massaging
my butt. But on the flip side, it was exactly
(12:48):
what I needed and a human was never going to
do that because that would be really awkward for a
human to do, right, right, like right. So this is
where going back to your question benchmarking or testing as
the baseline, when we're asking, oh, you know where could
robots or AI be better than humans, Well, then we
have to compare to how the output would be for
a human. And so in this case, it actually ended
(13:11):
up being not cut and dry. There was things that
the robot massage was really good at, see massaging my butt,
and then other things that the human a human massage
therapist just does a lot better, the hotel.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Hot towels at the end.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Being able to massage like your head, because there's for
very good reasons this thing cannot massage your head, being
able to massage your feet, being able to adjust I
mean you can adjust the pressure, but it's not as
like customizable as saying to a human. But like this
is where I was kind of going with that, which
is what everything I was going to try.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I was really going to.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Try to compare to a human and what that what
that kind of job was, or what that AI was
trying to replace.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
And I did that in various things.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Right, So, whether it's self driving cars, well, of course
we've all tested ubers. Whether it was a therapist, well,
I have definitely tested human therapists in my life, and
so I take my therapy. I take my AI therapist
to my real therapist, you know. And there's a chapter
about work and testing an AI book reporting assistant to
my real human reporting assistant, and so really trying to
(14:16):
give us a sense of where are machines or AI
going to be better?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Let's talk about tracking the costs. I mean in particular,
I guess one of the questions when I saw that
phrase was to whom I know?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I know, and you know, maybe this is a place
where I could have done a better job of tracking
the costs, like they're part of me. That wish is
like I had a better database of all the data
I had shared with all.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
The systems over the year.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I mean, I had some sense, Like there's one part
where I talk about always on recording bracelet called the Bee,
and I wore that fairly for most of the year,
at least nine to ten months out of the year,
And this bracelet was always recording everything I said. It
doesn't record the audio. It actually the way it works
is it takes the audio in, it doesn't a transcript,
(15:00):
and then it tosses out the actual recording, so you
can't go back and listen to it.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
How did it compare to the friend pendant?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
It's far better than the friend Pendent? Have you wore
the friend Pendent?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I never wore a friend, but I was kind of
obsessed from a far But unlike you, I didn't take
the next step and get one, which I wish I had.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, I lost my friend.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I have actually no idea where I've lost my friend,
which tells you how good of a friend it was.
I have no idea where my friend has gone. And
for those that don't know a friend, was this AI
wearable that I think is still around you. You can
buy that you would wear around your necklace and it
was being marketed as your friend and you would be
able to press on it and talk to your friend,
but the friend didn't actually talk back. You would have
(15:37):
to go to the app and see what the friend
had said back to you. The difference with the B
is sort of like a path that this bracelet that
I wore that was always recording was called the Bee,
and it was always recording. I mean, you can tap
the button to decide, Hey, don't want to record or
I do want to record, But you basically just leave
this passive recording device on all day and it picks
up lots of things you say you're going to do
(15:58):
and you don't remember, and it adds them to your
to do lists. So just like you know, if I said,
you know, as after this, I'm going to send you
the address to the Equinox you can go get your massage.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
B would remind me to go do that, right, And.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So this passive assistant that's always listening to you, that's
always a step ahead. It would summarize my days and
these beautiful pros about how I was, you know, working
with my family and working with my book and these
you know, complicated days of strife but happiness. It was like,
you know, okay, like sounds like some beautiful you know, yeah,
(16:32):
essay about my life. But this all to say is
like hours and hours and hours of data went to
this company, which was then bought by Amazon later in
the year. And so think about how much data just
that sliver of what I did was. And then there
were the therapist sessions. There were all of the things
(16:54):
that I did with you know, my book bots, which
were my book assistants. There were all of the things
I did with talking to my mind AI boyfriend. I mean,
all these hours and this data that I was giving
over to these tech companies Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Open Ai, Andthropic,
dozens of companies, And so that's part of the cost, right,
(17:15):
I mean that was a big thing. I mean, there
was actual monetary cost to write, like subscriptions and stuff
like that, but I wasn't as focused on that. It
wasn't a considerable amount of money. But I think the
costs that we have to consider are where is our
data going? And what is the cost to our privacy?
Because I was fundamentally like creating a surveillance state of
my life, did.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Anyone say just don't do this, Joanna, like, please don't
do this.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Well, to be clear on the recording, like, I did
get very good at telling people, Hey, I'm going to
be recording this, And that's part of the path one
of the diary entries in the book, which is how
I sort of get through some of these fun stories
I have, these journal entries. I was a story about
a journal entry where somebody came to the house to
kind of tell me about how I needed to future
proof my basement or waterproof my basement.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
And I told the man like, hey, I'm going to
be recording this.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I don't really totally understand what you're saying, and I
want to take really good notes. And you know, he
understood and he consented. And I tried to get as
many people to consent as possible, you know, It became
kind of a running joke in my house. My wife
would be like, are you recording this again? You know,
and we would turn it off for sensitive conversations we're
talking to my accountant. I would turn it off if
I my bosses when I was working at the Journal
(18:22):
at that time, Like every time I would go meet
with my boss, who was the deputy editor in chief
at the time, he would be like, leave your bracelet
at the door. Do not come into my office with
that on, right, Like, and so I was very transparent
about this with people. But yeah, I mean, like I
don't think this is this is crazy, by the way,
Like I don't think that this is not going to
(18:45):
happen with more devices and that it won't considerably change
the data that we give over to tech companies.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Well, I want I want to talk about later in
the conversations kind of frog in the pup. But I mean, now,
whenever you get on Google Meets or something or Zoom
whatever it may be, I mean, we're recording now, we're
making a podcast. But I found myself saying to somebody
the other day, like they were about to say something,
I was like, this call is being transcribed, you know,
and it's sort of what a strange sort of life
(19:17):
we've we've we've for ourselves in terms of this idea
that we've given up one of the hardest thoughts for
rights in the history of humanity, wish is privacy to
be constantly recorded by tech companies and have our thoughts
summarized and then disseminated on email to all invited parties regardless.
I mean, it's kind of remarkable to think that this
(19:39):
that this is the kind of flip side of efficiency
moment that we find ourselves in, which I guess is
what you're sort of scratching out throughout the book, right, And.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
You're totally right. Even in the last year.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I mean, I feel like you now go to any
Zoom call and like the Fireflies AI or the Zoom
AI or the Google Meet AI is recording, and it's
just it's like you just assume any private call you're
having for work is now recorded.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
After the break, Joanna's human research assistant gets replaced by AI.
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is in the podcast episode description box. So what I
thought was cool about the book as well, Sorry to
(21:30):
keep praising you, but it was that there was some
practical practical wisdom as well that came through. I mean,
you talked about work, and we also we obviously worked
more or less in very adjacent fields. But you had
all these different tasks like researching AI trends across industries,
compiling lists of companies and experts, reaching out to people
at companies, conducting interviews, testing products, organizing and summarizing research
(21:54):
and transcripts, outlining chapters and narrative arcs, writing, editing. And
then you scored out of AI's performance on each of
these tasks and gave notes, which, for a normal person
or normalish person like me, I thought, that's actually great
because now I can this will orient me to think
about where to use my time when it comes to
using AI tools.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, and what's kind of crazy is that I think
now if I look at that chart, those ratings.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Will have changed. I will have gone back.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, they will have gotten better, which I shouldn't admit
because this is a very evergreen book and everyone the
book will last years and years. But yeah, I think
now if I looked, if we go back to some
of those probably the ratings would get better, or at
least if it wasn't something wasn't able to be done
by AI. It could be done now at a rudimentary level.
(22:43):
But even I saw that evolved during the year. At
the beginning of the year, and that's the story I
tell about the research assistant I hired. I hired a
research assistant. She was a wonderful journalist. Her name is
Maya Tribute. She was working at the time at the
John Oliver Show doing research and she had extra some
extra time, and I said, look, I that list you
kind of just mapped out. I said, these are the
things I need you to do. Researching, reaching out to companies,
(23:06):
finding contacts, and some of them I knew I wanted
her to use AI for but I still needed a
human to do those things. But by the end of
the year, AI was able to do a lot of
those things. I mean, the big one that AI wasn't
able to do at the beginning of the year was
do the outreach. Right.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I could draft the email, but it couldn't send it.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And by the end of the year, it was just
like you could use the Perplexity comment browser or the
open AI browser or claud plug in to say, go
look at these web pages, find me three emails and
then you could also say draft me that email, and
after that, I want you to draft me the emails
and then I will read it over and you can
send it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Maybe a life changing conversation for me Johnne. Yeah, I'm serious.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I know you can do all of that now, like
it's not a big deal. And so that evolved over
twenty twenty five to the point where what I needed
a second round of help on the book to do
the research assistant, and I didn't need Maya. I did
call her to interview her and see how she felt
about that, but I didn't need a considerable amount of
her time. In fact, I didn't use any of her time,
(24:04):
which was great for Maya two at that point because
she had gotten a different job and didn't even really
have the time.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
So it worked out for both of us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
But it's still disturbing absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
You know, if I do say, you know one thing
that has significantly changed that I would have written differently
at sitting here in twenty twenty six is that it
hints at it. I'm really happy with the chapters on
education and the work because it really does address that
this next generation is going to have a hard time
finding work and that we're going to have this pipeline
problem of AI can do the most basic tasks of
(24:36):
the entry level jobs. What happens, How do we raise
up these other generation and their jobs. This generation that
came out of college at the end of last year
is still looking for work, tons of people looking for work.
The interests I had. I had one job for this
new company I started. I had so many applicants, people
(24:56):
who are They're not journalists or their designers or their
video editors. And the reality really is, when you talk
to these people, AI has taken entry level jobs and
the jobs now require five to ten years experience. And
how am I supposed to get five to ten years
experience if I can't get the job right now?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And I think part of what makes your book the
humanity of it is the role of your children in
your book. And actually one of the final moments in
the book is calling Samiltman to ask him about his
child Atlas. But yeah, what was the experience thinking about
your children and all of this?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, I think that was the most surprising thing
to excite. When I was pitching this book, I didn't
think my kids would be a big part of the story.
They always I figured, Okay, I'm going to bring home things.
And I was working at the Journal, you know at
the time, so I kind of figured, okay, I'll be
doing a lot of testing. But then when I was
writing the book, I ended up being home a lot,
and I was using a lot of the testing or
(25:54):
using my home as the testing grounds really for stuff,
and so I didn't really realize how they were going
to be to seeing what I was doing and where
I was going to be testing things. So things like
Opening Eyes Sora came out, which now rest in peace.
But when that came out, I was using it constantly
with my kids to make funny videos of a hamster.
So it was really just interesting to see even through
(26:16):
their eyes, well, they're going to just be exposed to
a whole bunch of media that is outrageous and looks
so real, and they're going to have to figure out
how they decide what's.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Real and what's not.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
And to my credit, I think if maybe I'm a
terrible parent because I let my kids watch Sora videos
all the time. They also are very good now at
saying that's Ai. A four year old is very good
at saying that's Ai, which I am fairly certain. It's
not something I should be bragging about, but or maybe
I should be, I don't know, or just seeing their
(26:54):
ease and their comfort with certain technologies.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Have you been in a emo?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I have? Yah. Yeah, I had a very funny experience
with a weimo because I was in San Francisco with
one of my colleagues who who I adore, who has
a much more optimistic and gregarious nature than me, and
so which meant two things. One he'd organize for us
to stay in a hotel in the Tenderloin, and two
he thought it would be a good opportunity for us
(27:20):
to try a weimo when we had to get to
a meeting. And so it turns out that weymos don't
like stopping in the tenderloin, and so we had them.
We were in the middle of the Tenderloin banging on
the windows of this weimo that wouldn't let us in,
and the end we did go to Oprah and we
were thirty minutes late for for our meeting and that
(27:40):
was so that was my first less than magical experience
with a weimo. But but the second time, when they got interesting, Yeah,
I got in and it worked. And obviously it's's a
remarkable experience. And for listeners who don't know, the Tenderloin
is district of San Francisco that has you know, a
lot of unhoused people, and and I think Weimo for
whatever reason, maybe it's a I don't know, it's hard
coded or work with there are people in the streets
(28:00):
or whatever it is, it didn't it would not accept
us as passengers.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
And certainly if you called WEIMO, I don't think they
would tell you, yeah, we don't open the car door
and tenderline in the tenderline. But I think seeing Owaimo
or even a self driving experience from the younger generation,
like you sit on the edge. You know, I don't
want to assume, but when you did it, like probably
I'm like maybe a few minutes, right, and then you
(28:25):
kind of get over it, like right, like by maybe
your second or third bride, you're like, all.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Right, this is normal. And my wife is like quite.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Nervous about drivers, and she was very nervous, and so
we went we do the family vacation in the in
the book to go to Phoenix, and we only do
Weaimo rides. But my kids immediately just warm up to it.
They don't care at all. They're like, this is normal.
My four year old fell asleep in the car within
two minutes of us being in the Waimo, right, And
(28:55):
this is just I think going to be their comfort
level with this time of technology where machines are making
significant decisions in their lives, and may fe're just like.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I mean the question of what's real is obviously very
interesting and also a theme of your book. I mean,
one of the things that starts to kind of come
through in the book is like what's what's human and
what's not right? And so I want to get more
into that. But first I think, which is kind of
builds up to this is the three way between your
real therapists, your AI therapists, and yourself.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I mean, look, I have to say I still sometimes
do talk to the AI therapist and revisit it, but
I still do talk to the human therapist more.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But what I think was really interested.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
About the therapy idea is that there are a lot
of people who don't feel comfortable talking to a therapist,
and there's a stigma around therapy. And I think that
one of the reasons we have seen people going to
AI to talk about things that whether it be you know,
people who have fallen into AI psychosis or people who
(30:02):
just need another ear on things, is that you know,
they don't necessarily feel comfortable talking to a human about them.
And so I think that that chapter really does explore that.
And then the chapter before that, which is more about
the interpersonal relationships the boyfriend or the I speak to
another woman who has a boyfriend, some real significant AI lover,
(30:27):
wherever you want to say, really does explore like these
complex relationships we're going to have with this new species,
as Mustapha Soliman at Microsoft says.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And your real therapist did quite a good job of
skewing your AI therapist. I felt like, I hope to
measure myself as the fourth person in that woman and
thinking about your real therapist, thinking how can I say
something so cleverly that the computer melts down, which is
essentially what happened, right right right?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah, the seed was like and this really happened. I mean,
it's kind of a and I was so happy it
did happen because I brought the phone into the real therapist.
I mean, my real therapist knew this. Her name is
Veronica and I introduced Ash, who is my AI therapist.
ASHES made by Slingshot AI and they've made this therapy
(31:18):
app called ASH, and so I bring Ash into the
office in New York City and have us all start
talking about the topic was really my anxiety around around
the book and having doubt that the book is good,
and having doubt that I'm going to finish the book
on time, all the usual angst and gripes that an
author has about writing a book. And the AI therapist
(31:41):
is talking for a little bit, but then when Veronica
starts to chime in, it kind of says, sorry, I
can't It says I can't talk in a three way conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I'm sorry, this is not allowed.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And I was like, wait what like it kind of
like to me it was like, oh this this thing
feels intimidated by the real therapist. And it turns out
Slingshani I said like, we have not programmed it for
multiple people. We wanted just to be a one to
one to one conversation. We don't want to have multiple conversations.
I think also like they kind of don't want to
do couples therapy is my take on it too, right,
(32:13):
like and see why that would be a problem.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Though.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I was like, oh, that would be a fun test,
but yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
And then then Veronica like completely schools it on, you know,
human knowledge and human understanding of the problem, and it's
very clear.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I think you're like, it's very clear reading that chapter, like, yeah,
the therapist is superior. The human therapist is superior to
this AI therapist.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
There was a OSCAR nominated short film which I imagine
you've seen, called I'm Not a Robot Yeah, and it
basically the premise is a woman in an office in
somewhere in the Benelux region in the European Lowlands opens
her computer and tries to do the capture tests and fails,
(32:58):
and ultimately realizes she is a robot who belongs to
her her boyfriend's slash husband. Your book also has a
capture at the beginning and a little I'm not a
Robot clicker and in a sense ask the same question.
There's a moment where you come face to face with
an AI tool, an AI sort of robot essentially, which
(33:21):
is owned by or developed by Sam Altman owned company
whose job is to verify whether you are in fact human. So,
I mean this gets quite heavy.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
This is.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
The ORB, the effort from Sam Altman and world Coin
combination to basically create a system verification system using biometrics
that we are human. And the idea is that in
the future on the Internet, we're going to have more
(33:56):
that isn't made by humans than we are that is
made by humans. And so when we log into accounts
or we are interacting with others on the internet, like
even this podcast, that there is a sense of I
know that you are a human because you've been verified
by your ORB, which is a it scans your iris,
and I'm a human because I've been scanned my ORB,
(34:19):
scan my iris, and now we both know we have
verification of humanhood, which is wow, you know wow. And
they're starting to set these up in more places like
there you might listeners of this might start to see this.
They're putting them in malls and they're trying to put
them in various stars so we can all get our
(34:40):
human verification code.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
And that molest molds are paying for this. ORB is
paying for distribution, and it's also.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Paying for distribution like one point of because you have
to go to a physical place to see the ORB, right,
Like I got hit I got White Glove Service and
the company, and he brought me the ORB to a
local coffee shop to me. But like, you know, you
and your friends say, you all want to go get
human verified, Like what are you going to do? Go
buy an ORB and like bring it to your house
(35:10):
and be like yey, guys, come over for an ORB
verification party.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Like this is cool. Honestly, if you do that, I
will come.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
But like so yeah, they're trying to set these up
in public spaces so that we can all get our
human verification, and then their hope is that this becomes
the underlying architecture of the Internet. So like, for instance,
they've partnered with Visa and Tinder and other you know apps,
So when you log into Tinder, you have said I've
got my human verification and I can now go try
and date you know odds who's also now a human
(35:43):
verified or or whatever, or you know, same on Visa, like, oh,
I'm going to buy this. I'm a real person. You
can trust that it's not a bot. On the other end,
it's crazy. It's crazy stuff, it really is.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I mean, you dedicate the book to your mom and
dad who taught me to think for myself and the
AIS robots some machines that made me wonder if I
really was.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And that was like, I mean, that was the thing
for me. The final you know, it's where I kind
of end the journey. Is one of the big things
that I noticed through the year as I was leaning
incredibly on AI, is you just you stop doing the
mental work because AI can do it right.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And of course it starts small.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
You're first just having it write an email, and then
you're just having it make the spreadsheet. But then it
can get to be more. It can be uploading all
your notes about the chapter and asking it to structure
and outline the chapter, and then it can get to
which I you know, I really cut the line there,
which is like it could get to writing for me.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
I was just talking to a friend yesterday.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I didn't have this right AI write this because there
was so much personal stuff. I couldn't imagine how I
would like impart what was in my head to the AI, Like,
you know, it would have been really hard to do.
But presumably, you know, lots I mean not presumably lots
of people who are writing books and articles and columns
now are are not writing right. And I think anyone
(37:14):
who's really using AI is feeling that they are feeling
the cognitive dissonance. They're feeling the cognitive you know or
what I you know we all know as brain rot,
which is like, yeah, how do I do that thing?
You see that in the education chapter with the with
the women I speak to in college who's graduating soon,
where she you know, I say, this was the class
(37:34):
of chat Gibt, the class that you're graduating this year
in May twenty twenty six or June twenty twenty six.
They're the first class that grew up with CHATCHEPT. So
when they were freshmen, they had the introduction of chat
Gibt in November of their freshman year. And so some
of those kids, they're not kids, they're going to be.
They're adults going out into the workforce. Like they want
(37:58):
to know how to use AI, probably pretty better than anyone,
but they also know that like, hey, I used AI
to get through a lot of my college. Or maybe
they didn't, but I think a lot did. And I
talked to Grace, who was a student at my alma mater,
who I met in the class that I went back to,
and she was like, yeah, you know, I felt it.
(38:18):
I felt last year like wow, I don't even know
if I'm like really doing this work myself. And so
she had to cut herself off, right. She had to
say to herself, I'm going to use AI in these places,
but like, my parents are paying for me to go
to school, why would I not take advantage of what
I'm doing here?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I mean, you had a version of this conversation with
Sam Moltman towards the end of the book, right were
you p swayed by how he reflected on it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
His argument was, well, first of all, everything's going to
be great. So it's okay, guys, Sam Altman says's going
to be great. His take was that even though AI
has been doing things for humans for a really long time,
and he gave the example of that, the Gary Kasparov
chess example, even though has beat humans at chess for
(39:02):
now over a number of decades, humans still play chess, right,
they still find it challenging, they still do it. And
his point is that we will still find work to do,
we will still challenge ourselves because that is what we do.
I tend to agree with some of that, but again
it goes back to this other generation like if that
(39:24):
generation doesn't know hard work, it doesn't know to be
in a relationship like a human relationship. That's the part
talking about the boyfriend chapter. You know, there's like, there's
no friction in an AI relationship. It's just a yes man, right,
you know, it's just it's addictive.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
I mean, it's it's it's so I mean's both empty
but as so addictive. Right, that type of conversation that you.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Have, Right, And so if there's no friction in all
of these parts of life, you know, from let's picture
it out ten years, you don't have to do any
of your housework, you don't have to do any of
your homework, you don't have to do any of your driving,
you don't have to do these things that we learn
to do. What is what are we pushing ourselves to do?
(40:10):
Sam Outman argues that we will. We will find things
to do, we will find ways to challenge ourselves because
we are human.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I guess that brings me to my final question, which is,
in these three hundred and sixty five days, what do
you learn about AI and what do you learn about yourself?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I learned that I'm not a robot because I was
very exhausted by the time this book ended, and yeah,
I've realized I am actually not a robot. Funny enough,
I was on a shoot yesterday, video shoot, and I
got my foot got stepped on by a robot and
it hurt significantly, And so I think that was another
moment when I realized, not a robot.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
This really really hurts right now.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
I think that that's what like I wanted to leave
people with, which is like, we don't know what this
future looks like. You know, there's ways to look at
the future in a utilian way, and there's a way
to look at the future in a dystopian way.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
In fact, and likely you just have scenario modeling essentially
you lay out both, which which is again is like
interesting because the reader you don't just get an opinion,
like you get to sort of choose your adventures setting
sent at the end of the book.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I believe will probably be someplace in the middle,
like that's what we've seen from past technological revolutions.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
We've seen the good, we've seen the bad.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
But I think unlike all those other technological revolutions, like
a lot of it onus is going to be on
us as humans to navigate not only for more rules
and regulation in this country, which we absolutely need. I
hope we can enforce that, but like, I don't know,
I kind of feel helpless about that. Frankly, that's just
how I you know, that's my view of the world
a little bit. But what I do think we can
(41:45):
change is like what we do and how we raise
our kids and how we use it in our own lives.
And so that might be a little too hopeful and
a little too pollyanna ish at the end of the book,
but I like, I think it's important, and I think
it's how I left the year was like educate our kids.
Just make sure that our kids are growing up in
a world where they're you know, still you know, making
(42:05):
forts and playing outside, but also they understand this technology,
because if we're not going to teach them that, we
can't just hide under the fort, right, we can't just
hide under the couch and the bed and say like
it's all going to go away. So we have to
prepare our kids. But we also have to just like
remember the things that make us human, which is thinking,
and which is having relationships that are messy, and that
(42:28):
like that's we can take easy way outs, but like
what's up to, what to, what impact and what effect?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Understone? Thank you. The book is I Am Not a Robot.
Highly recommend you go out and buy it.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
As for tech stuff, I'm as Valos And this episode
was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. It was
executive produced by me Julia Nutter and Kate Osborne, The
Kaleidoscope and Katrina and veiled for iHeart Podcasts. Jack Insley
(43:02):
makes this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrot Art theme song
and please also do rate and review the podcast wherever
you listen.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
M
Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm mos Volosen. My prediction for
twenty twenty six was that this would be the year
of the robot, the year that physical AI entered our homes, workplaces,
maybe even our bloodstream. Our guest today, Joanna Stern was
way ahead of me. On January first, twenty twenty five,
she handed over her entire life for the next three
(00:35):
hundred and sixty five days to AI and robots. She
took way Mo's on vacation, let AI answer emails, diagnose
her children's praying mantis. She even brought her AI therapist
into her human therapist's office, and also had AI confirmed
that she Joanna was in fact human. After more than
ten years at the Wall Street Journal, interviewing the likes
(00:57):
of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Dario Amoday along the way,
Johanna recently became chief Technology correspondent at NBC News, Launch
Terran Business, called New Things, and wrote a fantastic book
called I Am Not a Robot. My Year using AI
to do almost everything, which is out now.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Welcome Johanna, Thank you for having me, and thank you
for what an intro I wrote that I can actually
tell AI didn't.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Write that how could you tell, Well, there were.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Some real details from the book in there that I
know AI doesn't know about yet, pragmantis especially.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
So I'm very impressed, very nice writing.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
We have to get into everything in the book, but
start with the praying mantis, because I think that was
my favorite moment in the book.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So I have two sons that you learned that very
quickly in the book. I have a four year old
and an eight year old, or they were three and
seven at the time of the book, and they knew
about my experiment here. I was going to use AI
in as many parts of life as possible, which meant
that pretty much every question they asked me, I'm asking AI.
And if you have small kids, you know, they ask
a lot of random questions about things in the world.
(02:04):
And so last summer, my oldest son, Noah, was very
He's always been very interested in bugs and nature, and
so he had found a pragmantis outside and he wanted
He adopted it, made it a pet, and as a
great parent, I embraced this. We got a little terrarium
(02:26):
for the pragmantis. We got crickets so the pragmantis could eat.
We did all of the things to make the pragmantis
feel at home in our backyard. But then one day
the pregmantis did not look good. It started browning, and
I said, let's ask CHATCHYBTA and so we fired up
the chatchy bet voice mode with the live video chatty
(02:47):
BT confidently diagnosed the pragmantis as being pregnant. And this
was a big moment in our house. I mean, Noah
was so excited that his pragmantis was going to have babies.
Not only was going to have one pregnantis, he was
going to have so many and he was He kept
saying he was going to be the grandfather of these pregmantises.
So he called my dad, who's his grandfather, is like,
(03:09):
we're going to be grandparents together. And sadly, as we know,
Chatchipti doesn't know everything, and the premnantis was not pregnant.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Preignantis was dying.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I hope in your post edit here you can put
some really sad, somber music here.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
We will. How did your son? How did your son
react to being misled by the oracle?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
He was okay. The good the good thing is is
that it didn't die.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Immediately, but it was a very important lesson and that
he learned multiple times through the year and continues to
which is AI is not always right. But it was
an important moment in the year, and I'm happy it
happened because it really did show him that we cannot
trust everything we hear from machines, and that in a
future for this next generation where they are being promised
(04:03):
that these machines are going to be smarter than them
and they and they will be. I think we know
that with the trajectory of the pace and of improvement,
that AI will be smarter, but that they learned to
question it and they learned to rely on their own
thinking was a huge finding of the year, and thank
you to the Pregnantis for teaching.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Us that it didn't die in vain readio book. I
did think about remember that documentary Supersized Me where the
guy eas McDonald's for every day for thirty days. What
inspired you to do this super size me of AI
and robots, but do a whole year rather than just
thirty days.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So in my career, I've always tried to be the
person testing technology. When I first started being a tech reporter,
I loved reporting and I love going to meetings with
companies or talking to sources, but I always really loved
the part where I'm testing the technology and really using
it in my life. I've done that now for almost
two decades, and so when all of this stuff started
(04:59):
really coming online twenty twenty three twenty twenty four, I
was like, Okay, there's going to be a lot more
here to try to test in our everyday lives. And
then by the end of twenty twenty four there were
a lot of big proclamations that I talk about in
the book at the beginning, because I started this experiment
at the beginning of twenty twenty five. But I mean
this was the moment of like extreme hyperbole from the
(05:21):
AI execs right where they were saying, this is going
to change every aspect of life. Humans will not be
as smart as species, every part of life is going
to be better. And it was like, what does that mean?
What does that mean for a consumer of technology that
just even just wants to live a pretty normal life
like has a phone, has a computer, has a TV,
(05:44):
and then just like doesn't want to be living a complete,
you know, attached to the matrix life, Like what does
life look like for that And so that was the
idea of like all these parts of my life.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
And you did a great time teeing it up.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
But you know, to be clear, like I did not
have a I do every single thing in my life
because if I did, I would have been divorced and
out on the street and jobless, and like I could not.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I had to still be a functioning member of society.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Your wife didn't appreciate AI's responses to her text saying
you weren't going to help her make dinner right right?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
The autotext from you know, Apple's Apple Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
This really happened.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yes, like I did say, okay, this week, there was
a week in January or so, this is it, Like
let's go all in.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
We're ready to do the year. Everything's going to be
responded using AI.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
All my emails, all my texts, and the auto texts
and auto emails back are comical. And you know, I
have to say some of this is improved now, but
some of it isn't.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Like a year later.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Gmails responses sometimes are baffling. It's like this is a
company that knows everything about me. You have every email
I've ever sent. Why would I call my mom by
her last name, like missus Stern. Why would I ever
respond to that email that way? Right? And so the
example you're talking about is at Apple Intelligence on my iPhone,
My wife said can you please come down here and
(07:05):
make the kids lunch?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And it said, sorry, no, I'm busy.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, like Grounds for Divorce a fantasy life, right, It's
like AI want to say the things you can't, but
you can't say those things. So, yes, there were limits
that I put in place, but I really did try
to have AI touch these parts of our lives, from
healthcare to transportation to work, education, relationships beyond therapy, as
(07:35):
you mentioned, and see where this is going to intersect
and where it's not going to intersect.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You know what I loved about the book especially was
you know, it feels like tech media is somewhat bifocated
between like you know, the try guys, like the tech
consumer technology testing, and then they're like people who interact
with the tech overlords. And this is the first book
I've read where you I mean, it's amazingly you do
(08:02):
it in an amazingly graceful way, but used to outline this
influence you've had with like healthcare, technology and then you say,
so I called Bill Gates and then publish a transcript
of you know, two pages of that conversation. And you
have a similar moment with Sam Wltman, like, how did
you kind of think about navigating between the kind of
the takeover lords and the and and the and the
and the person who lives in the world they're building.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, I mean, and there are so many great books
coming out or out now about these tech overlords and
how important it is to know about the people steering
this revolution, because if we don't have a sense into
their humanity, well gosh, we're kind of screwed. So I
wanted to thread that through a little bit. But I
didn't want to do those books right. I would not
(08:47):
be a great biographer of Sam Maltman, Like it would
very quickly be like, oh, I went to Sam Martman's
house and I played with the new gadgets, and then
I forgot that Sam Martmin was there, Like that, that's
what would happen to me. But I I wanted to
thread that through because I do think it's very important
to get the perspective of the smartest technologists in the
world who are now building this future.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So you know, Bill Gates.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Who better to go to to talk about health care
and computing than someone like Bill Gates, right and get
his point of view. And I also thought it was
just funny, like, let me send this guy, you know,
the richest person in the world, or one of the
richest people in the world, my list of bouts of
sickness for the year, because that's what I did. I
kept this long logs as you read in the in
(09:31):
the book of all my sicknesses, and every time I
got sick during the year, I asked chat shept or Claude,
what was wrong with me? So I just sent that
to Bill Gates and his team and said, like, I'd
like Bill to look at this and respond for the book.
And there was a lot in there, like you know,
the joke I think I make is like, what else
are you going to do other than send your you know,
bouts of diarrhea to Bill Gates? And he came back
(09:54):
and like, you know, actually he doesn't want to talk
about your specific ailments.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
He would just like to talk to you on the phone.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
It's like, okay, I want him to talk about my
rash But okay, that's fine, Bill, you don't have time
for that. So, like, I just thought there was a
lot of expertise that I wanted to get in and
I didn't want it to just be sort of experts,
say or you know, and they're threaded throughout right, healthcare experts,
transportation or self driving car, autonomous vehicle experts. They're all
(10:22):
sort of threaded through and some of them are big
names and some of them aren't. And I just wanted
to make sure that was balanced. And that's always what
I do in my reporting anyways, It's like it's my take,
but also I'm out here talking to all of these
important people.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
You have three kind of parameters. Forel Y had long
experiment always be testing which you've tooken a little bit,
benchmark the baseline, and track the costs. Maybe you could
talk about the second two of it.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, I think benchmarking the baseline it was tough because
when you're testing something that wants to replace a human, well,
we need to really think about what are we replacing
as a human. And I think that was one of
the chapters where I think that was really clear that
I did was yes, the therapy one, but also the
robotic massage therapist, where this robot is a massage therapist.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I describe going to this spa and walking in and
the robot's just there and the big, big giant massage
arms over this massage table and it's it's sort of
scary but also amazing. If you're listening, I do highly
recommend this. Yeah, I don't know where do.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
You live us?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I live in New York City.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Okay, so you can go right now and get one.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
It's called escape.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You need to diagnose your second bye goodbye John kicking
off right.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Now to go to Equinox gyms and they equos yes,
and you can do it for like.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Probably ninety dollars at most.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Wow. So it's expends it suspends it. Yeah, I mean
that's more expensive than going to like the tween naw
sense it.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But I think you can expense it for this job.
So you can go expense your massage, which is you
know I couldn't do that. I was writing book on
my own dollars, but you know, for work, you should
go get this massage.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Did you tell it exactly what you wanted or did
it to look into your soul and tell you what
you wanted?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Or it directly it's like it actually functions. They describe
it as like sort of the Netflix of massages. So
when you lay down on this table, there's a screen
and you pick which massage you want and you answer
a few questions, but it's really all based on what
you've told it, you what parts of the body you
went to massage. And so where I talk about in
this chapter is that for me, I have a very
(12:26):
bad lower back problem, like very right above the butt,
like you know, even in there, like in the glute area,
and I'm always irritated there and it just massaged there
for like twenty five minutes, which is not something a
human does, right, It's not like I talk about that
like this robot was obsessed with my butt and massaging
my butt. But on the flip side, it was exactly
(12:48):
what I needed and a human was never going to
do that because that would be really awkward for a
human to do, right, right, like right. So this is
where going back to your question benchmarking or testing as
the baseline, when we're asking, oh, you know where could
robots or AI be better than humans, Well, then we
have to compare to how the output would be for
a human. And so in this case, it actually ended
(13:11):
up being not cut and dry. There was things that
the robot massage was really good at, see massaging my butt,
and then other things that the human a human massage
therapist just does a lot better, the hotel.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Hot towels at the end.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Being able to massage like your head, because there's for
very good reasons this thing cannot massage your head, being
able to massage your feet, being able to adjust I
mean you can adjust the pressure, but it's not as
like customizable as saying to a human. But like this
is where I was kind of going with that, which
is what everything I was going to try.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
I was really going to.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Try to compare to a human and what that what
that kind of job was, or what that AI was
trying to replace.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
And I did that in various things.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Right, So, whether it's self driving cars, well, of course
we've all tested ubers. Whether it was a therapist, well,
I have definitely tested human therapists in my life, and
so I take my therapy. I take my AI therapist
to my real therapist, you know. And there's a chapter
about work and testing an AI book reporting assistant to
my real human reporting assistant, and so really trying to
(14:16):
give us a sense of where are machines or AI
going to be better?
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Let's talk about tracking the costs. I mean in particular,
I guess one of the questions when I saw that
phrase was to whom I know?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I know, and you know, maybe this is a place
where I could have done a better job of tracking
the costs, like they're part of me. That wish is
like I had a better database of all the data
I had shared with all.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
The systems over the year.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I mean, I had some sense, Like there's one part
where I talk about always on recording bracelet called the Bee,
and I wore that fairly for most of the year,
at least nine to ten months out of the year,
And this bracelet was always recording everything I said. It
doesn't record the audio. It actually the way it works
is it takes the audio in, it doesn't a transcript,
(15:00):
and then it tosses out the actual recording, so you
can't go back and listen to it.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
How did it compare to the friend pendant?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
It's far better than the friend Pendent? Have you wore
the friend Pendent?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I never wore a friend, but I was kind of
obsessed from a far But unlike you, I didn't take
the next step and get one, which I wish I had.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, I lost my friend.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I have actually no idea where I've lost my friend,
which tells you how good of a friend it was.
I have no idea where my friend has gone. And
for those that don't know a friend, was this AI
wearable that I think is still around you. You can
buy that you would wear around your necklace and it
was being marketed as your friend and you would be
able to press on it and talk to your friend,
but the friend didn't actually talk back. You would have
(15:37):
to go to the app and see what the friend
had said back to you. The difference with the B
is sort of like a path that this bracelet that
I wore that was always recording was called the Bee,
and it was always recording. I mean, you can tap
the button to decide, Hey, don't want to record or
I do want to record, But you basically just leave
this passive recording device on all day and it picks
up lots of things you say you're going to do
(15:58):
and you don't remember, and it adds them to your
to do lists. So just like you know, if I said,
you know, as after this, I'm going to send you
the address to the Equinox you can go get your massage.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
B would remind me to go do that, right, And.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
So this passive assistant that's always listening to you, that's
always a step ahead. It would summarize my days and
these beautiful pros about how I was, you know, working
with my family and working with my book and these
you know, complicated days of strife but happiness. It was like,
you know, okay, like sounds like some beautiful you know, yeah,
(16:32):
essay about my life. But this all to say is
like hours and hours and hours of data went to
this company, which was then bought by Amazon later in
the year. And so think about how much data just
that sliver of what I did was. And then there
were the therapist sessions. There were all of the things
(16:54):
that I did with you know, my book bots, which
were my book assistants. There were all of the things
I did with talking to my mind AI boyfriend. I mean,
all these hours and this data that I was giving
over to these tech companies Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Open Ai, Andthropic,
dozens of companies, And so that's part of the cost, right,
(17:15):
I mean that was a big thing. I mean, there
was actual monetary cost to write, like subscriptions and stuff
like that, but I wasn't as focused on that. It
wasn't a considerable amount of money. But I think the
costs that we have to consider are where is our
data going? And what is the cost to our privacy?
Because I was fundamentally like creating a surveillance state of
my life, did.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Anyone say just don't do this, Joanna, like, please don't
do this.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Well, to be clear on the recording, like, I did
get very good at telling people, Hey, I'm going to
be recording this, And that's part of the path one
of the diary entries in the book, which is how
I sort of get through some of these fun stories
I have, these journal entries. I was a story about
a journal entry where somebody came to the house to
kind of tell me about how I needed to future
proof my basement or waterproof my basement.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
And I told the man like, hey, I'm going to
be recording this.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I don't really totally understand what you're saying, and I
want to take really good notes. And you know, he
understood and he consented. And I tried to get as
many people to consent as possible, you know, It became
kind of a running joke in my house. My wife
would be like, are you recording this again? You know,
and we would turn it off for sensitive conversations we're
talking to my accountant. I would turn it off if
I my bosses when I was working at the Journal
(18:22):
at that time, Like every time I would go meet
with my boss, who was the deputy editor in chief
at the time, he would be like, leave your bracelet
at the door. Do not come into my office with
that on, right, Like, and so I was very transparent
about this with people. But yeah, I mean, like I
don't think this is this is crazy, by the way,
Like I don't think that this is not going to
(18:45):
happen with more devices and that it won't considerably change
the data that we give over to tech companies.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Well, I want I want to talk about later in
the conversations kind of frog in the pup. But I mean, now,
whenever you get on Google Meets or something or Zoom
whatever it may be, I mean, we're recording now, we're
making a podcast. But I found myself saying to somebody
the other day, like they were about to say something,
I was like, this call is being transcribed, you know,
and it's sort of what a strange sort of life
(19:17):
we've we've we've for ourselves in terms of this idea
that we've given up one of the hardest thoughts for
rights in the history of humanity, wish is privacy to
be constantly recorded by tech companies and have our thoughts
summarized and then disseminated on email to all invited parties regardless.
I mean, it's kind of remarkable to think that this
(19:39):
that this is the kind of flip side of efficiency
moment that we find ourselves in, which I guess is
what you're sort of scratching out throughout the book, right, And.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
You're totally right. Even in the last year.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I mean, I feel like you now go to any
Zoom call and like the Fireflies AI or the Zoom
AI or the Google Meet AI is recording, and it's
just it's like you just assume any private call you're
having for work is now recorded.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
After the break, Joanna's human research assistant gets replaced by AI.
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(20:27):
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is in the podcast episode description box. So what I
thought was cool about the book as well, Sorry to
(21:30):
keep praising you, but it was that there was some
practical practical wisdom as well that came through. I mean,
you talked about work, and we also we obviously worked
more or less in very adjacent fields. But you had
all these different tasks like researching AI trends across industries,
compiling lists of companies and experts, reaching out to people
at companies, conducting interviews, testing products, organizing and summarizing research
(21:54):
and transcripts, outlining chapters and narrative arcs, writing, editing. And
then you scored out of AI's performance on each of
these tasks and gave notes, which, for a normal person
or normalish person like me, I thought, that's actually great
because now I can this will orient me to think
about where to use my time when it comes to
using AI tools.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, and what's kind of crazy is that I think
now if I look at that chart, those ratings.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Will have changed. I will have gone back.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, they will have gotten better, which I shouldn't admit
because this is a very evergreen book and everyone the
book will last years and years. But yeah, I think
now if I looked, if we go back to some
of those probably the ratings would get better, or at
least if it wasn't something wasn't able to be done
by AI. It could be done now at a rudimentary level.
(22:43):
But even I saw that evolved during the year. At
the beginning of the year, and that's the story I
tell about the research assistant I hired. I hired a
research assistant. She was a wonderful journalist. Her name is
Maya Tribute. She was working at the time at the
John Oliver Show doing research and she had extra some
extra time, and I said, look, I that list you
kind of just mapped out. I said, these are the
things I need you to do. Researching, reaching out to companies,
(23:06):
finding contacts, and some of them I knew I wanted
her to use AI for but I still needed a
human to do those things. But by the end of
the year, AI was able to do a lot of
those things. I mean, the big one that AI wasn't
able to do at the beginning of the year was
do the outreach. Right.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I could draft the email, but it couldn't send it.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And by the end of the year, it was just
like you could use the Perplexity comment browser or the
open AI browser or claud plug in to say, go
look at these web pages, find me three emails and
then you could also say draft me that email, and
after that, I want you to draft me the emails
and then I will read it over and you can
send it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Maybe a life changing conversation for me Johnne. Yeah, I'm serious.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I know you can do all of that now, like
it's not a big deal. And so that evolved over
twenty twenty five to the point where what I needed
a second round of help on the book to do
the research assistant, and I didn't need Maya. I did
call her to interview her and see how she felt
about that, but I didn't need a considerable amount of
her time. In fact, I didn't use any of her time,
(24:04):
which was great for Maya two at that point because
she had gotten a different job and didn't even really
have the time.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
So it worked out for both of us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
But it's still disturbing absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
You know, if I do say, you know one thing
that has significantly changed that I would have written differently
at sitting here in twenty twenty six is that it
hints at it. I'm really happy with the chapters on
education and the work because it really does address that
this next generation is going to have a hard time
finding work and that we're going to have this pipeline
problem of AI can do the most basic tasks of
(24:36):
the entry level jobs. What happens, How do we raise
up these other generation and their jobs. This generation that
came out of college at the end of last year
is still looking for work, tons of people looking for work.
The interests I had. I had one job for this
new company I started. I had so many applicants, people
(24:56):
who are They're not journalists or their designers or their
video editors. And the reality really is, when you talk
to these people, AI has taken entry level jobs and
the jobs now require five to ten years experience. And
how am I supposed to get five to ten years
experience if I can't get the job right now?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And I think part of what makes your book the
humanity of it is the role of your children in
your book. And actually one of the final moments in
the book is calling Samiltman to ask him about his
child Atlas. But yeah, what was the experience thinking about
your children and all of this?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I mean, I think that was the most surprising thing
to excite. When I was pitching this book, I didn't
think my kids would be a big part of the story.
They always I figured, Okay, I'm going to bring home things.
And I was working at the Journal, you know at
the time, so I kind of figured, okay, I'll be
doing a lot of testing. But then when I was
writing the book, I ended up being home a lot,
and I was using a lot of the testing or
(25:54):
using my home as the testing grounds really for stuff,
and so I didn't really realize how they were going
to be to seeing what I was doing and where
I was going to be testing things. So things like
Opening Eyes Sora came out, which now rest in peace.
But when that came out, I was using it constantly
with my kids to make funny videos of a hamster.
So it was really just interesting to see even through
(26:16):
their eyes, well, they're going to just be exposed to
a whole bunch of media that is outrageous and looks
so real, and they're going to have to figure out
how they decide what's.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Real and what's not.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
And to my credit, I think if maybe I'm a
terrible parent because I let my kids watch Sora videos
all the time. They also are very good now at
saying that's Ai. A four year old is very good
at saying that's Ai, which I am fairly certain. It's
not something I should be bragging about, but or maybe
I should be, I don't know, or just seeing their
(26:54):
ease and their comfort with certain technologies.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Have you been in a emo?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I have? Yah. Yeah, I had a very funny experience
with a weimo because I was in San Francisco with
one of my colleagues who who I adore, who has
a much more optimistic and gregarious nature than me, and
so which meant two things. One he'd organize for us
to stay in a hotel in the Tenderloin, and two
he thought it would be a good opportunity for us
(27:20):
to try a weimo when we had to get to
a meeting. And so it turns out that weymos don't
like stopping in the tenderloin, and so we had them.
We were in the middle of the Tenderloin banging on
the windows of this weimo that wouldn't let us in,
and the end we did go to Oprah and we
were thirty minutes late for for our meeting and that
(27:40):
was so that was my first less than magical experience
with a weimo. But but the second time, when they got interesting, Yeah,
I got in and it worked. And obviously it's's a
remarkable experience. And for listeners who don't know, the Tenderloin
is district of San Francisco that has you know, a
lot of unhoused people, and and I think Weimo for
whatever reason, maybe it's a I don't know, it's hard
coded or work with there are people in the streets
(28:00):
or whatever it is, it didn't it would not accept
us as passengers.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
And certainly if you called WEIMO, I don't think they
would tell you, yeah, we don't open the car door
and tenderline in the tenderline. But I think seeing Owaimo
or even a self driving experience from the younger generation,
like you sit on the edge. You know, I don't
want to assume, but when you did it, like probably
I'm like maybe a few minutes, right, and then you
(28:25):
kind of get over it, like right, like by maybe
your second or third bride, you're like, all.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Right, this is normal. And my wife is like quite.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Nervous about drivers, and she was very nervous, and so
we went we do the family vacation in the in
the book to go to Phoenix, and we only do
Weaimo rides. But my kids immediately just warm up to it.
They don't care at all. They're like, this is normal.
My four year old fell asleep in the car within
two minutes of us being in the Waimo, right, And
(28:55):
this is just I think going to be their comfort
level with this time of technology where machines are making
significant decisions in their lives, and may fe're just like.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I mean the question of what's real is obviously very
interesting and also a theme of your book. I mean,
one of the things that starts to kind of come
through in the book is like what's what's human and
what's not right? And so I want to get more
into that. But first I think, which is kind of
builds up to this is the three way between your
real therapists, your AI therapists, and yourself.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I mean, look, I have to say I still sometimes
do talk to the AI therapist and revisit it, but
I still do talk to the human therapist more.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But what I think was really interested.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
About the therapy idea is that there are a lot
of people who don't feel comfortable talking to a therapist,
and there's a stigma around therapy. And I think that
one of the reasons we have seen people going to
AI to talk about things that whether it be you know,
people who have fallen into AI psychosis or people who
(30:02):
just need another ear on things, is that you know,
they don't necessarily feel comfortable talking to a human about them.
And so I think that that chapter really does explore that.
And then the chapter before that, which is more about
the interpersonal relationships the boyfriend or the I speak to
another woman who has a boyfriend, some real significant AI lover,
(30:27):
wherever you want to say, really does explore like these
complex relationships we're going to have with this new species,
as Mustapha Soliman at Microsoft says.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And your real therapist did quite a good job of
skewing your AI therapist. I felt like, I hope to
measure myself as the fourth person in that woman and
thinking about your real therapist, thinking how can I say
something so cleverly that the computer melts down, which is
essentially what happened, right right right?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah, the seed was like and this really happened. I mean,
it's kind of a and I was so happy it
did happen because I brought the phone into the real therapist.
I mean, my real therapist knew this. Her name is
Veronica and I introduced Ash, who is my AI therapist.
ASHES made by Slingshot AI and they've made this therapy
(31:18):
app called ASH, and so I bring Ash into the
office in New York City and have us all start
talking about the topic was really my anxiety around around
the book and having doubt that the book is good,
and having doubt that I'm going to finish the book
on time, all the usual angst and gripes that an
author has about writing a book. And the AI therapist
(31:41):
is talking for a little bit, but then when Veronica
starts to chime in, it kind of says, sorry, I
can't It says I can't talk in a three way conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I'm sorry, this is not allowed.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And I was like, wait what like it kind of
like to me it was like, oh this this thing
feels intimidated by the real therapist. And it turns out
Slingshani I said like, we have not programmed it for
multiple people. We wanted just to be a one to
one to one conversation. We don't want to have multiple conversations.
I think also like they kind of don't want to
do couples therapy is my take on it too, right,
(32:13):
like and see why that would be a problem.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Though.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I was like, oh, that would be a fun test,
but yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
And then then Veronica like completely schools it on, you know,
human knowledge and human understanding of the problem, and it's
very clear.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I think you're like, it's very clear reading that chapter, like, yeah,
the therapist is superior. The human therapist is superior to
this AI therapist.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
There was a OSCAR nominated short film which I imagine
you've seen, called I'm Not a Robot Yeah, and it
basically the premise is a woman in an office in
somewhere in the Benelux region in the European Lowlands opens
her computer and tries to do the capture tests and fails,
(32:58):
and ultimately realizes she is a robot who belongs to
her her boyfriend's slash husband. Your book also has a
capture at the beginning and a little I'm not a
Robot clicker and in a sense ask the same question.
There's a moment where you come face to face with
an AI tool, an AI sort of robot essentially, which
(33:21):
is owned by or developed by Sam Altman owned company
whose job is to verify whether you are in fact human. So,
I mean this gets quite heavy.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
This is.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
The ORB, the effort from Sam Altman and world Coin
combination to basically create a system verification system using biometrics
that we are human. And the idea is that in
the future on the Internet, we're going to have more
(33:56):
that isn't made by humans than we are that is
made by humans. And so when we log into accounts
or we are interacting with others on the internet, like
even this podcast, that there is a sense of I
know that you are a human because you've been verified
by your ORB, which is a it scans your iris,
and I'm a human because I've been scanned my ORB,
(34:19):
scan my iris, and now we both know we have
verification of humanhood, which is wow, you know wow. And
they're starting to set these up in more places like
there you might listeners of this might start to see this.
They're putting them in malls and they're trying to put
them in various stars so we can all get our
(34:40):
human verification code.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
And that molest molds are paying for this. ORB is
paying for distribution, and it's also.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Paying for distribution like one point of because you have
to go to a physical place to see the ORB, right,
Like I got hit I got White Glove Service and
the company, and he brought me the ORB to a
local coffee shop to me. But like, you know, you
and your friends say, you all want to go get
human verified, Like what are you going to do? Go
buy an ORB and like bring it to your house
(35:10):
and be like yey, guys, come over for an ORB
verification party.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Like this is cool. Honestly, if you do that, I
will come.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
But like so yeah, they're trying to set these up
in public spaces so that we can all get our
human verification, and then their hope is that this becomes
the underlying architecture of the Internet. So like, for instance,
they've partnered with Visa and Tinder and other you know apps,
So when you log into Tinder, you have said I've
got my human verification and I can now go try
and date you know odds who's also now a human
(35:43):
verified or or whatever, or you know, same on Visa, like, oh,
I'm going to buy this. I'm a real person. You
can trust that it's not a bot. On the other end,
it's crazy. It's crazy stuff, it really is.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I mean, you dedicate the book to your mom and
dad who taught me to think for myself and the
AIS robots some machines that made me wonder if I
really was.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And that was like, I mean, that was the thing
for me. The final you know, it's where I kind
of end the journey. Is one of the big things
that I noticed through the year as I was leaning
incredibly on AI, is you just you stop doing the
mental work because AI can do it right.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And of course it starts small.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
You're first just having it write an email, and then
you're just having it make the spreadsheet. But then it
can get to be more. It can be uploading all
your notes about the chapter and asking it to structure
and outline the chapter, and then it can get to
which I you know, I really cut the line there,
which is like it could get to writing for me.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
I was just talking to a friend yesterday.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I didn't have this right AI write this because there
was so much personal stuff. I couldn't imagine how I
would like impart what was in my head to the AI, Like,
you know, it would have been really hard to do.
But presumably, you know, lots I mean not presumably lots
of people who are writing books and articles and columns
now are are not writing right. And I think anyone
(37:14):
who's really using AI is feeling that they are feeling
the cognitive dissonance. They're feeling the cognitive you know or
what I you know we all know as brain rot,
which is like, yeah, how do I do that thing?
You see that in the education chapter with the with
the women I speak to in college who's graduating soon,
where she you know, I say, this was the class
(37:34):
of chat Gibt, the class that you're graduating this year
in May twenty twenty six or June twenty twenty six.
They're the first class that grew up with CHATCHEPT. So
when they were freshmen, they had the introduction of chat
Gibt in November of their freshman year. And so some
of those kids, they're not kids, they're going to be.
They're adults going out into the workforce. Like they want
(37:58):
to know how to use AI, probably pretty better than anyone,
but they also know that like, hey, I used AI
to get through a lot of my college. Or maybe
they didn't, but I think a lot did. And I
talked to Grace, who was a student at my alma mater,
who I met in the class that I went back to,
and she was like, yeah, you know, I felt it.
(38:18):
I felt last year like wow, I don't even know
if I'm like really doing this work myself. And so
she had to cut herself off, right. She had to
say to herself, I'm going to use AI in these places,
but like, my parents are paying for me to go
to school, why would I not take advantage of what
I'm doing here?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I mean, you had a version of this conversation with
Sam Moltman towards the end of the book, right were
you p swayed by how he reflected on it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
His argument was, well, first of all, everything's going to
be great. So it's okay, guys, Sam Altman says's going
to be great. His take was that even though AI
has been doing things for humans for a really long time,
and he gave the example of that, the Gary Kasparov
chess example, even though has beat humans at chess for
(39:02):
now over a number of decades, humans still play chess, right,
they still find it challenging, they still do it. And
his point is that we will still find work to do,
we will still challenge ourselves because that is what we do.
I tend to agree with some of that, but again
it goes back to this other generation like if that
(39:24):
generation doesn't know hard work, it doesn't know to be
in a relationship like a human relationship. That's the part
talking about the boyfriend chapter. You know, there's like, there's
no friction in an AI relationship. It's just a yes man, right,
you know, it's just it's addictive.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
I mean, it's it's it's so I mean's both empty
but as so addictive. Right, that type of conversation that you.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Have, Right, And so if there's no friction in all
of these parts of life, you know, from let's picture
it out ten years, you don't have to do any
of your housework, you don't have to do any of
your homework, you don't have to do any of your driving,
you don't have to do these things that we learn
to do. What is what are we pushing ourselves to do?
(40:10):
Sam Outman argues that we will. We will find things
to do, we will find ways to challenge ourselves because
we are human.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I guess that brings me to my final question, which is,
in these three hundred and sixty five days, what do
you learn about AI and what do you learn about yourself?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I learned that I'm not a robot because I was
very exhausted by the time this book ended, and yeah,
I've realized I am actually not a robot. Funny enough,
I was on a shoot yesterday, video shoot, and I
got my foot got stepped on by a robot and
it hurt significantly, And so I think that was another
moment when I realized, not a robot.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
This really really hurts right now.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
I think that that's what like I wanted to leave
people with, which is like, we don't know what this
future looks like. You know, there's ways to look at
the future in a utilian way, and there's a way
to look at the future in a dystopian way.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
In fact, and likely you just have scenario modeling essentially
you lay out both, which which is again is like
interesting because the reader you don't just get an opinion,
like you get to sort of choose your adventures setting
sent at the end of the book.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I believe will probably be someplace in the middle,
like that's what we've seen from past technological revolutions.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
We've seen the good, we've seen the bad.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
But I think unlike all those other technological revolutions, like
a lot of it onus is going to be on
us as humans to navigate not only for more rules
and regulation in this country, which we absolutely need. I
hope we can enforce that, but like, I don't know,
I kind of feel helpless about that. Frankly, that's just
how I you know, that's my view of the world
a little bit. But what I do think we can
(41:45):
change is like what we do and how we raise
our kids and how we use it in our own lives.
And so that might be a little too hopeful and
a little too pollyanna ish at the end of the book,
but I like, I think it's important, and I think
it's how I left the year was like educate our kids.
Just make sure that our kids are growing up in
a world where they're you know, still you know, making
(42:05):
forts and playing outside, but also they understand this technology,
because if we're not going to teach them that, we
can't just hide under the fort, right, we can't just
hide under the couch and the bed and say like
it's all going to go away. So we have to
prepare our kids. But we also have to just like
remember the things that make us human, which is thinking,
and which is having relationships that are messy, and that
(42:28):
like that's we can take easy way outs, but like
what's up to, what to, what impact and what effect?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Understone? Thank you. The book is I Am Not a Robot.
Highly recommend you go out and buy it.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
As for tech stuff, I'm as Valos And this episode
was produced by Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. It was
executive produced by me Julia Nutter and Kate Osborne, The
Kaleidoscope and Katrina and veiled for iHeart Podcasts. Jack Insley
(43:02):
makes this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrot Art theme song
and please also do rate and review the podcast wherever
you listen.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
M
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