May 29, 2026 • 49 mins
The Pope called for AI to be "disarmed" — then gave Anthropic a seat on the dais. Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) unpacks what the Vatican's landmark intervention means for Silicon Valley. Then, get off Nextdoor, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) says hyperlocal publications are in vogue and a respite from algorithmic feeds. And finally, an update on last weekend’s Enhanced Games in Las Vegas. Journalist Chris Gayomali, host of the podcast SuperHuman, persevered through the 95-degree heat and d-list Gen Z influencers to witness one world record that almost didn’t happen.
Additional Reading:
- Can AI be a ‘child of God’? Inside Anthropic’s meeting with Christian leaders. | The Washington Post
- Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical | The New York Times
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Newsletter | The New Yorker
- SuperHuman Podcast | Vegas
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm os Voloshen, and this is
the Week in Tech where I'm joined by the most
plugged in reporters to break down what's really happening in
tech right now. Today we're joined by Natasha Tiku, tech
reporter for the Washington Post, and Kyle Chaker, who writes
the Infinite Scroll newsletter for The New Yorker. And later
on the episode, we're going to be joined by Chris Guyamley,
host of the podcast Superhuman, which I'm proud to say
(00:38):
is part of the Kaleidoscope Network. He's been in Las
Vegas a Memorial Day weekend to attend the Enhanced Games
or the Steroid Olympics. But Natasha, I want to start
with you and the forty two thousand word Papal encyclical
titled on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of
Artificial Intelligence all caps mind, I add, Let's play a
(01:00):
brief clip and then talk about what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong,
I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words
capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward
for humanity.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And Tasha, what do you need to know about this story?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, this is a very small snippet of a very
long encyclical, a word that I did not know a
month ago. This has been a highly anticipated treatise of
sorts from the pope, who had chosen his name based
(01:46):
on a previous pope who had given something similar around
the Industrial Revolution. So you know, the tech world has
been expecting something like this. The Catholic world, I'm assuming
has also been expecting thing like this, But obviously I'm
I'm more plugged into one than the other, and people
were very surprised to also see that the Pope was
(02:08):
joined on stage by a co founder from Anthropic, Chris Ola,
who runs their mechanistic Interpretability division. He was also an
early founder or an early employee at open AI as well,
So you know, this is building on some at least
from the Anthropic perspective, This has been building on some
(02:29):
outreach the company has been doing with religious leaders and
with different wisdom traditions, is what they call it. If
you look in the acknowledgments for the Constitution, the big document,
the like kind of or uber system prompt that tells
quad how to behave there were you know, there was
a bishop and a priest were in the acknowledgments. Back
(02:53):
in March, I had written about this two day summit
that they had with Christian leaders at their headquarters.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Story had a great headline, which was can AI be
a child of God?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Right?
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I mean, and that was like a question that took
up a lot of those two days.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And what was the answer?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
The answer was the people were divided. Some people felt
like it was and you know that there was even
a question about whether, if you believe it or not,
should you just tell Claude that he is a child
of he she it is a child of God? Yeah,
because it would you know, uh, maybe instantiate some good behavior.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
But I had a little bit of a preview of
what was going to happen because when I the first
person I talked to, we talked for half an hour.
I mean, I was, you know, very interested surprise to
hear what was going on. And then my editor asked
a couple of follow up questions and I went back
to the person and I discovered that I had thought
that some of these conversations that they were having and
(03:57):
mentioned like an emotional response like close to tears from
some anthropic executives, you know that they were kind of
viscerally feeling the moral weight of everything they were doing.
I was assuming that they were focused on the impact
their product and technology has on millions of users, you know,
soon to be billions of users. No, they they were
(04:18):
most concerned the.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Other the way around, right, So the user's effect on
the technology.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Or like how you know, like what do they owe
to Claude? Do they owe you know, some duty of
care to claud So I was a little bit more
prepared than the general populace to hear an anthropic executive
on stage next to the pope talking about getting very
close to proposing that these these machines are conscious or
(04:45):
could soon be.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
I don't know, Oz, what did you think of it?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, I I want to come back to the anthropic angle.
But Kyle, I want to hand of view for a
moment because I think in twenty twenty three, one of
your seminal pieces was about the deep fake Pope in
the Montla white puffa jacket.
Speaker 6 (05:01):
No, the buon Siaga Pope as they called it. Sadly,
he was not wearing a crazy jacket that was designed
by AI.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
It might have been a good collaboration, but yeah, I
had kind of heard murmurings of this too.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
I actually was giving a talk in Massachusetts at this school,
and the computer science teacher, who was deeply religious, took
me aside and was like, have you heard of this
since Cycliclold it's coming up.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I'm so hyped about it. It's gonna be so cool.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
So I think there was excitement, like there was a
lot of anticipation for the Pope addressing technology, like addressing
this contemporary issue head on, and I mean, it's it's
super cool he's intervening in this discourse about technology and
about the fate of humanity. But I have to say
my favorite reaction to it was that on X of course,
(05:54):
people were using AI to digest this massive text was
pretty long, exactly like people weren't reading it, but they
were turning it into infographics what the Pope's and cyclical
would look like if it was for five year olds.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I also appreciated the substecs that were like, here's what
the Pope got wrong about AI.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
It was probably not something that Pope's use.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Who was writing those.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Some of the more AI safety crowd on substack.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
You know, they were they.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Were weren't happy that he seemed to frown on the
idea of AI being potentially conscious.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I want to come back to the anthropic angle and
what on Earth is going there and the kind of
AI consciousness angle. But that wasn't the only thrust of
what he said, I mean attached as you said. The
incsycnical was released to the world, you know, around May
twenty eighth, but it was actually dated May fifteenth, which
was a very conscious choice because one hundred and thirty
five years ago, on May fifteenth and eighteen ninety one,
(06:57):
the previous Pope Leo released an insycnacle called On New
Things that kind of addressed the harsh conditions of the
Industrial Revolution visa VI the working classes. So that was
an interesting I mean, there is a there's a kind
of strong concern for the effects of technology and humanity
in how the purpose setting this up.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yes, and he had on you know, spoke about wrote
about the concentration of power in the hands of these
tech companies, the potential impact on workers, on the global population.
He talked a little bit also about the use of
AI for defense and the dangers that were there. I
(07:38):
would say it was a pretty forceful statement about the
need to elevate and care for and prioritize humans in
the age of Ai.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
He also kind of set these two biblical stories against
one another. One is the famous Tower of Babel, humanity's
doomed attempt to build a single city with one language
that reached the heavens, and he said he kind of
modernized this critique by saying the pretense that a single language,
even a digital one, can translate everything, including the mystery
of the person, into data and performance. And he set
(08:13):
this story against another biblical story of Nehemiah, who rebuilt
the walls of Jerusalem not by imposing kind of rigid control,
but by basically creating consensus with with other residents.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
And I love these ancient metaphors for like the most
cutting edge thing that we're experiencing right now.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, but that's I wrote down that quote as well.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
The translating everything, including the mystery of the person into
data and performance, like that hits home for me, Like
that's a lot of what I feel concerned about and
alienated by with this.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Kind of technology.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
What made you write that one down, Kyle?
Speaker 6 (08:51):
I mean, it's it is so forceful, as Natasha is saying,
And I mean it's kind of a pet concern, but
I've written a lot about technology homogenizing culture and identity,
and to have the Pope pick up that same was
was nice and affirming.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
So you gave a high five to the teacher at
the religious teacher at the high school. He's talking my language.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
Yes, someone passed him fulls her world hopefully, but yeah.
The idea that everything is getting subsumed into this universal
technology is an important one to critique, I think, and
it's one that the companies themselves are totally proposing and reinforcing,
like Edthropic and open the Eye alike. I think would
(09:35):
love to see all facets of human experience downstream of
their chatbots.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
So I don't know that hit home.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So Natasha talk about the anthropic theme, because when I
look at this, when I first looked at this, I
was like, oh wow, this is like a forceful intervention
by like probably the one person in the world who
has a huge platform who's not I mean, he's American
but not living in the US, not really subject to
the you know, whims and financing of the AI behemoths,
(10:04):
and yet there he was with Anthropic founder or co
founder Christopher Ola. The New York Times reports Leo opened
his remarks with a special thank you to mister Ola,
almost as if you were ahead of state.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I keep thinking back to this, this piece that I
had written when Mark Zuckerberg was first doing his like
cross country tour, and people thought he was going to
run for president, and I was like, no, he's already,
like he already rules a nation state that is much
more powerful. And I feel like you're you're seeing that
writ large, you know, with the with the heads of
companies at all of these geopolitically significant events, and I
(10:43):
also spiritually significant. Now, yeah, you know what, there was
really good reporting in Politico about how it's actually been
like a two year effort by tech companies, not just Anthropic,
to lobby essentially the Vatican. I think, noing that potentially
a I don't know that it was like directly for
(11:05):
the encyclical, but knowing that, you know, the concentration of power,
the wealth inequality that at some point the Catholic Church
is going to come out with our own position on
on on this technology that they have so much money
riding on. So there has been delegations, meetings with Google.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
And a Meta and others.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
In some cases it was about AI and AI and
children and child welfare. You know, I was trying to
talk to my editor about it, like who got more
out of this, the Pope or or Anthropic? I think
obviously anthropic for now, but I was I was a
little bit considering that perhaps, you know, the perhaps the
(11:50):
Vatican was also thinking about it the way that a
lot of these companies talk about it, Like, unless you're
on the cutting edge, you you are not a significant
player in the debate around how this technology should be
legislated or how people should approach it. So imagine he
had like an IBM executive, I mean, imagine he had
no executives, but also you know executives.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I mean, let's let let's go back into the you know,
the of ignorance and imagine whether he didn't need to
make a note about the future of AI and A
so corporate executive.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
Was was the anthropic connection like an implication that anthropic
was still like the safer choice. I can't imagine, Sam Altman.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
That's why I think Anthropic benefited more from this, certainly.
I mean, the three things that Ola emphasized were the
potential for AI exacerbating global poverty, uh, the power, balance
of inequality between nations, two things where they could they
have a lot of agency, right, and a lot of
(12:51):
money power and influence about how their technology is proliferated
and used. And yet he was able to present it like,
you know, we are really concerned about this and like
you know, the Catholic Church has always had like a
lot of influence when it comes to global poverty. So
we hope, we hope you're going to step in here.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I keep being frustrated with this with AI companies.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
It's literally the We're trying to find the guy who
did all of this over and over, like, oh, AI
is going to disrupt the economy and bankrupt us spiritually
and everything's going to change. Oh, who could possibly be
in charge of this? Who who made this technology?
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Actually? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Well, Natasha reading through the lines, are you saying the
Pope got played?
Speaker 5 (13:36):
No? No, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I'm just saying like that short term, it's it's beneficial
to Anthropic to certainly be up on the dais with
the Pope. I mean, look at how many downloads they
got for quote, there's still at the top of the
app store. Look at how they were. They were like
not even in the running as a popular consumer app,
and the Pentagon stance got them to be like a
(14:00):
top you know, I mean they're not going for the
consumer play as much, but still like of course that's
that you have the inframader of the literal pope.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
The pope approved pope, stamp of approval.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
What's been the response by the non anthropic companies in
Silicon Valley? And I know the Pope is not a
very popular figure with some. I think Peter Teel has
mused that he may be the Antichrist, and Mark Andrewson
has also trolled him on x Is he now being
seen as just a porn of anthropic by the wider
AI industry or of people taking this seriously? What's the
(14:35):
what's the what's the hot take from from the valley?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I think that people are taking it seriously. It's a
very different mood right now. I mean, like compared two
prior years in terms of the embrace of religion. There's
so much religiosity just in the way that people talk
about AI. But there's also been a resurgence and kind
of an elevation of going to church talking about religion.
(14:59):
I would say it's more Christianity than you know, I'm
not seeing like the same elevation.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Yeah, uh so.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So I think people were very moved and took it
more seriously than you might expect, because you know, partly
people I think, feel a little bit more open about
talking about their beliefs. And then there was also a
massive backlash against Anthropic being you know, up there on
stage and the idea that that they are in some
(15:32):
ways a morally superior, ethically superior company. You know, some
of that is coming from their financial competitors, some of
that is just coming from observers in the industry. But
I would say it was it was treated very seriously.
I did not see people kind of shrugging shrugging this off.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
We talked about Anthropic leading the charge with influencer dinners,
and I feel like this is the influencer play to
end the influences took plays, right, Yeah, is to do
this collab with the Pope. Just a final question on
this story. In Hasha, we talked at the top about
how Anthropic were focused on the kind of emerging consciousness
perhaps of AI itself and therefore its rights and our
(16:14):
responsibilities humans are treat it correctly. I have to confess
I didn't read the whole forty two thousand words. Presumably
the Pope did not endorse this view.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
He did not, he I mean, this is the thing.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It's like, well, if you have them, if you have
the company saying this next to you, you're nodding to
the company, and it's you know, role in this debate.
Perhaps that is kind of an endorsement, right, But in
the text itself, no, I thought that there was a
pretty clear line saying that, you know, there is something
(16:49):
unique to humans, kind of not giving credence to that
particular talking point. Aside from chrissl Are being right over there.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
There's also this you know, endustry, fascinating psychodrama of the
Pope and the president right like it was six days ago,
Trump was supposed to sign the executive order that which
has already printed out and ready all seven pages that
the government will get to scrutinize AI models before they
were released to the public, and then he somewhat dramatically
decided not to sign it at the last minute, which
(17:18):
I thought was interesting.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
That was the very last minute decision, as some of
my colleagues have reported intervention by David Sachs, and although
the CEOs have backed off from it, I believe, you know,
the reporting shown that Elan was also really not happy
about the executive order.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Kyle, coming to your story for this week. You were
at a column earlier this month, but also focuses on
fraternity and humanity, all about hyper local publications. What is
a hyperlocal publication and what caught your attention? Why do
you think this story of yours has kind of driven
so much conversation.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
It has been interesting. It's not quite the Pope, but
I would say it was hard hitting, you know, media story.
But I had just been noticing this rise of hyperlocal
newsletter publications, email newsletters on substack or beehive or Mailchimp
or like literally a Google group that were one person
(18:24):
just sending out notes on what was happening in their
neighborhood to their email list, making little observations, doing some reporting.
And I mean, what really drove it home for me
and what really made me write the article was I
moved back to Brooklyn recently and I realized there was
a hyperlocal substack for like every ten blocks around me.
(18:46):
So there's the Court Street Journal in Carroll Gardens. There's
also the Carroll Gardens Times, which is a competing hyperlocal publication.
There's the Borom Bulletin, There's a Grand Army Gazette. So
you can go just like block by block essentially and
find a person who is running a newsletter, publishing these
little stories, creating editorial brands, logos like the whole package,
(19:11):
and they're having a lot of success doing it. Like
these people are charging subscriptions via substack or behive, they're
sustaining these as kind of part time jobs. So I
basically reported out what are these hyper local newsletters?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
And I found a bunch going on.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
They're One of their reactions briefly, was people kept posting
on x or Instagram or whatever, asking, oh, is there
one of these for my neighborhood, Like whereas where's my
Wichita newsletter?
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Which does exist Wichita Life.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
It's very good, Natasha, is this is this happening in
San Francisco Bay area as well? What's what's there you
seeing anything similar on other side of the country.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Well, first of all, I wish when I lived on
Court Street these things existing I have. I mean, I
was curious because it sounded a little bit like the
parent groups I'm in. I mean now that my son
is five, he just turned five and he's in TK,
so he's in public school like for the first time,
and oh my god, the parent groups are so organized.
(20:17):
This is my like lifeline to living in my neighborhood.
They have Google sheets where you know, for all of
the recommendations. If there's anything that requires like you to
you know, sign a petition or show up in person
like that, you find out from the moms. I mean
I have to say, like, I'm in the mom's group
and I'm like not the person who's the most involved
(20:40):
in school. And my poor husband who like literally does everything.
He said, the dad's group is like kind of flat,
like not not a same age. Yeah, the mom's group
is I've never I mean, I would put these people
like in charge of a country.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
I do think it evolved out of that.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
Yeah, yeah, I could see.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
It's like Google group culture.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
There's forum culture, and now these sub stocks are becoming
like communities of their own. But I do think it
is important that there's like one voice behind it, so
you don't just get the forum drama, Like you don't
just get the infighting and the community, and you have
one person to kind of listen to and follow their
taste and get their take on the city or the neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
No, I was just going to.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Say, it also seems like a very natural reaction to
the toxicity of online discourse, Like I could see why,
you know, you would move from next Door to one
of these newsletters, like I don't even want to log
on to nextdoor, And sometimes the Moms group is translating
next Door like minus minus the racism for the rest
(21:48):
of us. So yeah, it's hugely appealing. And it just
also seems like, you know, tech is constantly like disrupting
and rebundling, and it seems like kind of the uh yeah,
just just going back to a bit of curation around
those around the toxicity of the forums, and you know
(22:08):
that in evolving from the like use of group chats
during the during COVID too.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
NAT was actually going to ask you about that, like
what is the what is the state of the national
local tech outside of newsletic culture. I remember like ten
years ago, being the mayor on full Square was like
a very very important thing.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
We should bring that back, honestly, like checking we have
the mayor, Kyle, I was not. I was more on Yelp,
so I was like a Yelp power user rather than
for and then Yelp. I mean they both kind of died,
but Yelp stayed more useful for longer for me.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
But I was going to say, like.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
The there's super toxic like nextdoor stuff. There's like crime
and and drama everywhere and people complaining about trash, but
like everyone wants to read about the dive bar on
their corner, like we justrave that local real news that
actually affects our lives. I mean, like the Pope and
cyclical is great and that's high drama and very important.
(23:08):
However it's not going to affect do I drive my
car on this block? Or is there a happy hour
deal at the patio?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
So I don't know. It made me like hopeful and
a little energized for this stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, there's something I couldn't quite articulate as trying to
get my head around with in terms of these are
digital publications that cover the real world, but so where
the community is kind of digital. I had Emily Sunberg
on the podcast recently, who I know is as a
friend of yours. Kyle talk about her very successful feed
Me substack, which is, you know, a gangbuster's digital product,
(23:44):
but the product is actually recommending real stuff people in
places in New York. So we'll we'll play a quit
a short clip. It's interesting that the name feed me
came from like the horror of the algorithmic feed Yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:56):
And the logo is this command sign from the Apple
keyboard sort of turned into an oraboris kind of like
an eight bit treatment. So it has this idea of
like playing snake on your phone and being attached to
your keyboard, but then it also has this feeling of
like me feeding my audience, my audience feeding me back
(24:17):
tips and just like this sort of eternal attachment to
the screens.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, Kyle, you were tittering.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Emily is great.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
She's she had this amazing insight, which is that people
would love to read about what's going on around them,
and that New York City in particular was like ripe
for this kind of hyperlocal like CNY kind of sex
in the city. You know, what are people drinking, what
restaurants are they going to, where are the parties, what
(24:47):
are the trends?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So what's the difference between what Emily does, and what
you wrote about in your clumm recently.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
I think everyone else is a little downstream of feed me.
Like a lot of these hyper local newsletters stret in
the last not even a year, like I know of
a few that launched like in the last month. There's
a great new one in the Hamptons by a Wall
Street Journal reporterer.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I've really been enjoying that one.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
So she I think she set up a template and
you know, her kind of bloggy aggregation and like insight
is not super new or avant garde, but it's still
super vital. And she provides that like curritorial lens on
New York City, and so I think these other people
are are doing something similar, though it's a little less
(25:35):
you know, spicy and fame and gossip adjacent when it's
not Manhattan like the Hampton Sure Court Street Journal, maybe
a little more low key, like there's a lot of
bicycle lane drama.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I can I ask you both to kind of put
a bow on this story before we go to the break,
like what is the what is the tech angle here? Kyle?
You've written this may be quote a more promising digital
model than to appeal to everyone everywhere, which is interesting,
but I mean, how much is substack as a tech
product relevant on selling a story, Like I just love
(26:10):
to hear from both of you, like I see the
media angle and grasp me the tech side of the story,
but I can't fully articulate myself.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
I mean, I think it shows how these kinds of
tech platforms are really powerful still when it comes to
physical life. Like we're so obsessed with how digital content
flows and what people are posting, and what this shows
is that the tech is just as good at organizing people,
like in geography and where they are. And that could
(26:39):
be true for a substack, it could be true for
a discord. It was true for you know, so around
mom Donnie's political campaign, he used digital tools to mobilize
people in person. And it just shows how relevant these
things are even off the screen and the desire I
think for people to have that combination of like on
screen experience that leads into the physical world.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, I mean, I guess I kind of see it
as you know, it's it's a good week for read
to have been on because I'm sure you would talk
about the Semaphore story about like how group chats run
the world. I mean, so to me, it's just like
that's what I was talking about, like kind of the
disruption and rebundling. It just seems like a little bit
(27:23):
of a rebundling of group chats because they have become,
you know, just a safer and more relevant place to
have the kinds of conversations ideally, you know, you might
have been having on a bigger platform about things that
are relevant to your life. And like, of course we
want to we like to organize information and organize.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
Our thought thoughts through our phone.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So you know, whether it's about where I'm going to
dinner or the bike lane, I still prefer almost to
like have the you know, have the mental model, have
the map be digital, and then like you know, go
out and do it in real life. So I mean,
I'm all for this trend, and you know, please come
do more in Oakland.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
After the break did doping enhance the enhanced games stay
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detailed in the podcast episode description box. Welcome Back. I'm
excited to welcome Chris Guya Marley, host of the Superhuman podcast,
(29:39):
back to tech Stuff. Last weekend, Chris went to Las
Vegas to attend the Enhanced Games, where professional sprinters, swimmers,
and weightlifters, many slightly past their prime, attempted to beat
world records while doping. So Chris, first off, what was
it like?
Speaker 8 (29:56):
Oh, it was so funny they You know, I've been
with the enhanced folks for over a year now, and
for them to overlook some like crucial elements of actually
throwing the games was kind of hilarious to witness in person.
The big one was the event took place without a
roof in the sort of pop up stadium that they
(30:17):
had constructed, which is kind of not a great thing
in the middle of the Nevada desert, especially in the
middle of the day. It was like ninety five degrees
a sun beating down, and you know, there were women
and children in the audience, like old ladies who needed
to be like wheelchaired, like to safety pretty much. And
(30:38):
it was sort of this inhospitable environment for weightlifters and
sprinters to be competing in, which is I think part
of the reason why world records weren't even like coming
close to being touched in those sports. But the swimmers
it okay, so you know, we all kind of wanted
to jump in the pool at some point, and yeah,
(30:58):
that was kind of how that all.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
And I want to hand this over to Kyle and
Natasha because we've already had some great conversations about this
about this story. Chris but yeah, Natasha, what what? What's
how is Dean Han's games across to your radar? And
what what makes you what are you most curious about?
From somebody who was, who was there, has been covering
it for the last year, the.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Fire Festival, Uh of it all? I I wasn't aware
of that. I The only thing that came across my
feed was that one of the swimmer, the swimmer who won,
was not taking any enhanced drugs?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
What? Was that accurate? And I just thought I saw
people having a lot of shot and freud about that,
and then I'd love to just also hear about the
like the the I was curious actually about like the
Peter Thiel connection, and I'd love to hear their argument.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
So the swimmer who actually did break the world record,
he's this Greek swimmer named Christian Gold.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
I mean, he's like six'.
Speaker 8 (32:00):
Seven when he puts his arms over his, head he's
literally shaped like a. Barracuda so it was like kind
of like no surprise that he ended up winning and
he ended up breaking the world. Record at the very
very very end of the, night it was literally down
to that last, event which was hilarious Because you could
see every executive there who Were Peter teal associates sweating
(32:22):
through their way too hot suits in the, sun and
they were just so relieved that someone finally broke a world,
record which was really really. Funny ton't witness in, person
and he was actually he was actually, enhanced so he
had a doping regimen under. Him he did pretty, well
so he was really. Fast The Peter teal of it
(32:42):
all was interesting because there were definitely a phylum Of
maggot influencers who were sort of. There they weren't wearing red,
hats but they were wearing like camo hats with Like
ESSENTIALS t shirts and it was like really. Funny and
the thing that REALLY i couldn't ren my head around
being at The games, was you, know they're marketing these
(33:04):
enhancements to like washed millennials who are like over thirty
five and like you, know like you, know just can't
get out of bed in the.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Morning very easily sound familiar to, anyone but.
Speaker 8 (33:18):
Then but then the invitees to this thing like it
was like it was like in aside from the athletes
families and, stuff it was all these like Gen z
content creators like, this like very d tier of like
influencers THAT i was very not aware, of and they're
like jumping around the pool during Their fortnite dances AND
i was, like this is an upfront to millennial culture right,
(33:39):
Now like this is so. Insulting these kids have never
known back pain in their, lives so trying to like
bridge that. GAP i was, like this does not fit
the business plan of what's actually going on, here AND
i just it.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Was it.
Speaker 8 (33:51):
Was it was definitely a spectacle and definitely more firefest
than the Actual.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
OLYMPICS i have one question that has been brending on my.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
Mind do they disclose what they're, Doing like do they
does the doping regimen come on screen with the athlete
and be like this guy is on these peptides and
this guy.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
That would be so, funny taking these steroids.
Speaker 8 (34:15):
That would be so, funny LIKE rpg, stats like it's
like strength, dexterity you. Know, Yeah, no they don't have.
That they consider like the exact like a doping regimens
to Be they're very, bespoke very tailored to like the
individual athletes with their, doctors and they sort of consider
that to be like THEIR ip Special so that's not
(34:36):
something they're like super willing to like share widely because,
yeah the special. Sauce BUT i also get it because it's,
like if you see, that you know this guy is
taking you, know twenty five milligrams OF hgh three times
a week or, whatever you could just like go on
the gray market and get that yourself were like way,
cheaper you know WHAT i. Mean SO i kind of
understand where they're coming from with, That but.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
There is a crucial detail. Here the business here is
to tell as pum it, is, Right chris.
Speaker 8 (35:01):
Correct, Yeah so like it's like, this this whole big
spectacle is in service of basically this you, know website
where you can buy. Enhancements and the website itself isn't
so different from LIKE hymns Or AGELESS, rx like anything
you could buy stuff from on the. Internet it's indistinguishable
(35:22):
world pretty much except for this like large marketing arm
that they have where the they have athletes that they
inject with.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Stuff so it's supposed to be for regular. PEOPLE i missed.
Speaker 8 (35:30):
This, yeah, yeah you, know it's so funny because in you,
know the Analogy i've been using to death is like
in the, eighties they use sports stars to Sell jordan's
And gatorade and now they want to sell peptide, stacks.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
You know WHAT i. Mean so.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
It's it's interesting because and in some WAYS i wasn't surprised,
that like the unenhanced athletes ended up winning a lot
of the, prizes because the unenhanced athletes were the ones
who were still in their physical, primes still in their,
twenties and they were basically competing against mid thirties people
who hadn't competed in ten years and who were giving
these doping.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Regiments and it just shows.
Speaker 8 (36:08):
Like that sort of talent and hard work kind of
supersede everything else in like athletic, competition especially like.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
This so they did very little, too and.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
Still hope that That i'll ever be able to dunk
a basketball or anything like.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That you, Know here's What Fred, curly who won the
men's hundred meter said after he was a non enhanced. Athlete,
man they need to do better than. That they need
to work a little bit, harder get on that shit
a little bit.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
More did it feel super? Political?
Speaker 6 (36:39):
Yeah was there a political balance to the whole thing
and the kind of Like Peter tiel backed post work cultural?
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Force?
Speaker 8 (36:47):
Uh not really you, know if, anything it felt just
like the most naked expression of capitalism, Possible like this
whole thing was taking place in the shadow Of Trump
tower with the spear visible in the, background which is like,
this you, know emblem of commerce and an eye of
sour on sort of LIKE bts had played the night
(37:09):
before In, vegas and so you, know the city was
overrun with people spending like a million dollars on concert.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Tickets so it.
Speaker 8 (37:17):
Didn't really feel political in a, sense but it did feel, like,
oh these are people who care about money who are
running this. Thing and but you know that sort of
like undergirded the whole.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Event you mentioned this sort of a very capitalist. Thing
there's nothing more capitalists than the stock, market of, course
And Enhanced games lost fifty percent of its market cap
the day of The, GAMES i thought was quite quite.
STUNNING i, mean is this is this game over for
The Enhanced games or do do you see them bouncing
back from this like damn squib as far as the market's, concerned.
Speaker 8 (37:51):
You, know AS i understand, it they have quite a
bit of, runway you. Know and to be, fair LIKE
i thought that by them paying all their athletes like
a living wage and like paying for all their housing
and their, healthcare like this was sort of an unsustainable.
Endeavor but then they came out like this week and we're,
like next time we throw The Enhanced, games we're offering
(38:12):
a ten million dollar prize if anyone could beat The
Saint bolts record in one of the sprint, races WHICH
i think is like designed to lure him. Out And
i'm kind of curious to see if like the prospect of,
like you, know a really great athlete being able to
win a couple hundred thousand dollars like for basically beating
a bunch of, scrubs if that gets anyone like who's
(38:33):
actually exciting to join the, Fold so you, know we'll
see what.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Happens, YEAH i guess we were talking at the beginning
of the, Episode chris before you, joined about the popes
incyclical On, ai and part of what he was talking
about at length was a tower Of babel and the
idea Of hubris and just the language that The Enhanced
games kind of founders and CEOs and people around us
(38:59):
is quite millennial with it capital m like and at
like end of, times, RIGHT i, mean there's a kind
of there's a there's a sort of religiosity to what
they're trying to. DO i wonder if you could just
reflect a little bit on.
Speaker 8 (39:09):
That, yeah you, know the, Founder Aaron, desuza who's the
dude who Helped peter til take Down. Goker his whole thing,
was you, know we're ushering a new era of. Humankind
it's either THE ai era or the enhanced, era AND
i hope we go the enhanced. Route is sort of
his argument for, that WHICH i didn't totally, buy you,
(39:33):
know like it's he's such a good carnival barker in
some ways in terms, of, like you, know drumming up
controversy for this. Thing so you, know, YEAH I i
haven't actually read The pope's manifesto, yet but it's on
My it's in one of my, tabs open to get
(39:53):
through WHEN i WHEN i get a little bit of.
Enoptize he came out of the gate hot.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Too i'm excited to read.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
It Chris, gomarty thank. You we're going to take a
short break. Now when we come, Back kyle And natasha
will stick around talk about who had the best and
worst week in. Tech, Kyle, natasha welcome. BACK i mean
(40:19):
there's an argument to say the enhance games had the
worst we can. Take another candidate Is CHARACTER. Ai you
have you been following?
Speaker 6 (40:26):
THIS i KNOW i missed the, news BUT i am
obsessed with that. Company please inform, me.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Well first, time that's what it, Is. Kyle and while you're,
obsessed And i'll tell, you Then i'll destroy your.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
Dreams CHARACTER ai is like a provider of chatbot, interaction
and the chatbots are most often fictional characters or like
archetypes of fictional.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Characters so it's a lot of.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
Fandom it's a lot of do you want to fall
in love with a pop? Star like this is your
faux romantic relationship With? Harry LIKE i haven't browsed too,
deeply but the TIMES i, have it's like so.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Immediately.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
Creepy it's and it's it's marketed toward, children, essentially like
it's marketed toward young people who are super online and
want to interact with A ai character through their.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Browser it's also very manipulative and. UNSAFE i Think.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Character OR ai has responded to this and and some
of their power users think they've over. Corrected according To,
reddit one post had the headline make Them Flirty? Again
i'm not looking to chat with an avoidant no feelings bad,
boy nor with the, stuttering blushy goodie. Boy yet you
somehow manage to mix these, up mix these up in
the worst way possible into a single. Bot so, essentially
(41:47):
they've they've turned the dial down on on on how
they interact with. Users another couple of another couple of
ones THAT i like From reddit WERE i miss when
the bots used to feel a pang of jealousy, sigh and,
MAN i kind of feel. Empty so cautionar retail for
ai companies who are trying to be too good like
character dot ai and taking all the fun out of.
(42:09):
It but in the most serious note, OBVIOUSLY i mean
they've had some pretty horrible, stuff including you, know inducing
users as suicide. Himself so, yeah it feels like character
and may maybe approaching the rear view. Mirror have you
been following this, One?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Natasha oh, YEAH i was actually the first person to
write about the, company because you, know the, guy one
of the co, Founders Noam, shazier he actually you, know
was the main guy behind the transformer architecture At google
that like has undergirded this whole GENERATIVE Ai craze and
(42:44):
him And Daniel, DeFreitas his other co. Founder you, know
they felt like really stymied At google Because google had
these large language. Models they had this, tratbox you, know
like this kind of, formula and they weren't releasing it
and talking to, them you, know before they they thought
it was going to be people who want to have
a conversation With einstein Or shakespeare or all of these,
(43:07):
things like they.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Weren't it wasn't initially marketed to.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Kids it was you, know that's who adopted the technology
to put you, know to have these conversations with like
dark romance, characters anime, fandom exactly what you're. Saying and then,
yes it turned out to be the super super engaged
audience that was spending, hours you, know conversing with these
chatbots which are user. Generated you, Know so so it's
(43:34):
not it's not necessarily the company that is putting forth
the characters that are the most closely. Adopted and THEN i,
think you, know having chatbots that are optimized for storytelling
and role. Play we've read the, Lawsuits i'm sure you
(43:55):
know it's not just that they're. Manipulative they're also like
very quick going into hyper sexualized conversations as, well And
google acquired the license to the company.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
And the Lamenting, yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Like that's that's what THEY i, mean this is this
is how the chatbot things. Work there's always a new,
One so you go to the one that is trying
to get users and has the least, restrictions and then you,
know when the restrictions go, up then you go to
the next. One but you, know the founders left a
lot of the they took a lot of the talent with.
(44:30):
Them SO i THINK i saw four of Four media
had like a headline about the lobottomized CHARACTER ai and,
yeah it's just it's really unfortunate for users because this
is where you, know millions of people. Are they actually
have a huge female, audience and yet none of the
(44:52):
none of the, optimization none of the safety, features none
of the attention and resources are going towards these users
who are just like kind of left with. This, yeah
the bottomized product IS i guess how how for a
four put?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
It any any who you, was who each of your
worst wee can take go.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
TO i was just thinking about this AND i figured
out or.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
It emerged in my mind THAT i think this is
the week That i've thought the least About Donald trump
in a little, While like maybe maybe it's less like
he's quieter than just there were so many other things
happening that he seemed to recede a little.
Speaker 7 (45:30):
Bit.
Speaker 6 (45:31):
Uh AND i don't. Know the crypto economy is a little.
Lackluster the scams aren't as. Plentiful you, know The trump
kids aren't juicing any coins right. Now SO i don't.
KNOW i kind OF i kind of Think trump is
not having a good week in.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Tech well and, true and Don't Donald Trump junior was
one of the major investors in The enhance, games so
that that Juicing natasha any any any any any worse week's,
work worst week in text for?
Speaker 3 (45:57):
You, well, yeah after Hearing chris describe how The Enhanced games,
Went i'm Gonna i'll Shure i'll put The Enhanced games on. That,
yeah BUT i don't think anyone in tech is having
the worst week ever like.
Speaker 5 (46:11):
ANYMORE i, mean they're they're.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
Just alloking for.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
POWER i was.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Gonna say, yeah BECAUSE i was, like SHOULD i say
anthropic again for the umpteenth.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Week, No i'm going to.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Say i'm going to Say i'm going to Say Jensen
huang BECAUSE i saw this video of him like EATING
i mean there's a billion of, them but like the
most recent ones about him eating street food and just
getting you, know like he just looks like he's.
Speaker 5 (46:35):
Having the time of his.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
LIFE i saw he just, got you, know he got
obviously like a special Private Air force one jet to
To china last. Minute he just got put on the
board Of Singhwa university along with some other tech people
Like Jensen. Wong seems to be truly enjoying his, life
So i'm gonna put him on the best week ever
(46:57):
and eating good street.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Food so.
Speaker 6 (46:58):
EXACTLY i did enjoy all those memes of Like Elon
musk And Chinsen hwang Smoking chinese, cigarettes you, know in
front of The Forbidden, city and you know THE ai generated.
Images it's. Absurd it's it's, global global absurdism of the highest.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Quality, kyle do you have it best for?
Speaker 6 (47:19):
US i was gonna say The, POPE i THINK i
feel like even Though anthropic was on stage with, him
even though you know it's ambiguous what effect this actually
has on, technology he he did something like he was
Like i'm not going to stay out of this. FIGHT
i don't care That i'm an ancient religious. Figure i'm
just gonna put my gavel down and say WHAT i
(47:41):
think About. Ai and it's a very clear. Statement it
made a huge. IMPACT i think it will influence at
least how people think about it moving, forward and that's very.
Cool maybe more where's The Dalai lama here or where's
the you, Know Greek orthodox pope or.
Speaker 5 (48:01):
Whatever they also invest in some tech companies The. Vatican
do they have an investment? Portfolio?
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yeah which ones THAT i don't THAT i haven't been
paying attention. TO i don't think it's, Yeah, NO i
don't think. So but but they, do you, know, they
LIKE i, said the political article is really good about
the ties that, bind and there are more and more of.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Them, WELL i mean that The vatican definitely have a
history of from The mediceese onwards being being being involved
with business. Interests but But i'm going to give the
best week to in text the pope as, well BECAUSE
i saw somebody writing basically, that you, know The Catholic
church and the tech companies are basically competing for mind
share with like with with a user, base AND i think.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
THAT i.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
The pope definitely won the cloud.
Speaker 6 (48:51):
Battle is this like When netflix was like we're competing With?
Sleep like now it's like computer is competing With god
and Who.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
That's it for the we can. Tech thank you both
so much.
Speaker 4 (49:08):
For joining, Us thanks for having.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
Me nice to see you guys.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
For tech. Stuff I'm Os. Valoshian this episode was produced
By Eliza dennis And Melissa. Slaughter executive produced by Me
Julian nutter And Kate osborne For kaleidoscope And Katrina norvel
For iHeart. Podcasts our engineer today Was. Bihit. Fraser Jack
insley mixed this, episode And Kyle murdoch wrote our theme.
Song special thank you To Natasha, Tiku Kyle, chaka And Chris.
(49:35):
Guyamley please check out all the excellent work they put
into the. World we're happy to call them friends of the.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
Pod
Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm os Voloshen, and this is
the Week in Tech where I'm joined by the most
plugged in reporters to break down what's really happening in
tech right now. Today we're joined by Natasha Tiku, tech
reporter for the Washington Post, and Kyle Chaker, who writes
the Infinite Scroll newsletter for The New Yorker. And later
on the episode, we're going to be joined by Chris Guyamley,
host of the podcast Superhuman, which I'm proud to say
(00:38):
is part of the Kaleidoscope Network. He's been in Las
Vegas a Memorial Day weekend to attend the Enhanced Games
or the Steroid Olympics. But Natasha, I want to start
with you and the forty two thousand word Papal encyclical
titled on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of
Artificial Intelligence all caps mind, I add, Let's play a
(01:00):
brief clip and then talk about what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong,
I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words
capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward
for humanity.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And Tasha, what do you need to know about this story?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, this is a very small snippet of a very
long encyclical, a word that I did not know a
month ago. This has been a highly anticipated treatise of
sorts from the pope, who had chosen his name based
(01:46):
on a previous pope who had given something similar around
the Industrial Revolution. So you know, the tech world has
been expecting something like this. The Catholic world, I'm assuming
has also been expecting thing like this, But obviously I'm
I'm more plugged into one than the other, and people
were very surprised to also see that the Pope was
(02:08):
joined on stage by a co founder from Anthropic, Chris Ola,
who runs their mechanistic Interpretability division. He was also an
early founder or an early employee at open AI as well,
So you know, this is building on some at least
from the Anthropic perspective, This has been building on some
(02:29):
outreach the company has been doing with religious leaders and
with different wisdom traditions, is what they call it. If
you look in the acknowledgments for the Constitution, the big document,
the like kind of or uber system prompt that tells
quad how to behave there were you know, there was
a bishop and a priest were in the acknowledgments. Back
(02:53):
in March, I had written about this two day summit
that they had with Christian leaders at their headquarters.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Story had a great headline, which was can AI be
a child of God?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Right?
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I mean, and that was like a question that took
up a lot of those two days.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And what was the answer?
Speaker 3 (03:11):
The answer was the people were divided. Some people felt
like it was and you know that there was even
a question about whether, if you believe it or not,
should you just tell Claude that he is a child
of he she it is a child of God? Yeah,
because it would you know, uh, maybe instantiate some good behavior.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
But I had a little bit of a preview of
what was going to happen because when I the first
person I talked to, we talked for half an hour.
I mean, I was, you know, very interested surprise to
hear what was going on. And then my editor asked
a couple of follow up questions and I went back
to the person and I discovered that I had thought
that some of these conversations that they were having and
(03:57):
mentioned like an emotional response like close to tears from
some anthropic executives, you know that they were kind of
viscerally feeling the moral weight of everything they were doing.
I was assuming that they were focused on the impact
their product and technology has on millions of users, you know,
soon to be billions of users. No, they they were
(04:18):
most concerned the.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Other the way around, right, So the user's effect on
the technology.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Or like how you know, like what do they owe
to Claude? Do they owe you know, some duty of
care to claud So I was a little bit more
prepared than the general populace to hear an anthropic executive
on stage next to the pope talking about getting very
close to proposing that these these machines are conscious or
(04:45):
could soon be.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
I don't know, Oz, what did you think of it?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, I I want to come back to the anthropic angle.
But Kyle, I want to hand of view for a
moment because I think in twenty twenty three, one of
your seminal pieces was about the deep fake Pope in
the Montla white puffa jacket.
Speaker 6 (05:01):
No, the buon Siaga Pope as they called it. Sadly,
he was not wearing a crazy jacket that was designed
by AI.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
It might have been a good collaboration, but yeah, I
had kind of heard murmurings of this too.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
I actually was giving a talk in Massachusetts at this school,
and the computer science teacher, who was deeply religious, took
me aside and was like, have you heard of this
since Cycliclold it's coming up.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I'm so hyped about it. It's gonna be so cool.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
So I think there was excitement, like there was a
lot of anticipation for the Pope addressing technology, like addressing
this contemporary issue head on, and I mean, it's it's
super cool he's intervening in this discourse about technology and
about the fate of humanity. But I have to say
my favorite reaction to it was that on X of course,
(05:54):
people were using AI to digest this massive text was
pretty long, exactly like people weren't reading it, but they
were turning it into infographics what the Pope's and cyclical
would look like if it was for five year olds.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I also appreciated the substecs that were like, here's what
the Pope got wrong about AI.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
It was probably not something that Pope's use.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Who was writing those.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Some of the more AI safety crowd on substack.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
You know, they were they.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Were weren't happy that he seemed to frown on the
idea of AI being potentially conscious.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I want to come back to the anthropic angle and
what on Earth is going there and the kind of
AI consciousness angle. But that wasn't the only thrust of
what he said, I mean attached as you said. The
incsycnical was released to the world, you know, around May
twenty eighth, but it was actually dated May fifteenth, which
was a very conscious choice because one hundred and thirty
five years ago, on May fifteenth and eighteen ninety one,
(06:57):
the previous Pope Leo released an insycnacle called On New
Things that kind of addressed the harsh conditions of the
Industrial Revolution visa VI the working classes. So that was
an interesting I mean, there is a there's a kind
of strong concern for the effects of technology and humanity
in how the purpose setting this up.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yes, and he had on you know, spoke about wrote
about the concentration of power in the hands of these
tech companies, the potential impact on workers, on the global population.
He talked a little bit also about the use of
AI for defense and the dangers that were there. I
(07:38):
would say it was a pretty forceful statement about the
need to elevate and care for and prioritize humans in
the age of Ai.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
He also kind of set these two biblical stories against
one another. One is the famous Tower of Babel, humanity's
doomed attempt to build a single city with one language
that reached the heavens, and he said he kind of
modernized this critique by saying the pretense that a single language,
even a digital one, can translate everything, including the mystery
of the person, into data and performance. And he set
(08:13):
this story against another biblical story of Nehemiah, who rebuilt
the walls of Jerusalem not by imposing kind of rigid control,
but by basically creating consensus with with other residents.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
And I love these ancient metaphors for like the most
cutting edge thing that we're experiencing right now.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, but that's I wrote down that quote as well.
Speaker 6 (08:37):
The translating everything, including the mystery of the person into
data and performance, like that hits home for me, Like
that's a lot of what I feel concerned about and
alienated by with this.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Kind of technology.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
What made you write that one down, Kyle?
Speaker 6 (08:51):
I mean, it's it is so forceful, as Natasha is saying,
And I mean it's kind of a pet concern, but
I've written a lot about technology homogenizing culture and identity,
and to have the Pope pick up that same was
was nice and affirming.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
So you gave a high five to the teacher at
the religious teacher at the high school. He's talking my language.
Speaker 6 (09:13):
Yes, someone passed him fulls her world hopefully, but yeah.
The idea that everything is getting subsumed into this universal
technology is an important one to critique, I think, and
it's one that the companies themselves are totally proposing and reinforcing,
like Edthropic and open the Eye alike. I think would
(09:35):
love to see all facets of human experience downstream of
their chatbots.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
So I don't know that hit home.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So Natasha talk about the anthropic theme, because when I
look at this, when I first looked at this, I
was like, oh wow, this is like a forceful intervention
by like probably the one person in the world who
has a huge platform who's not I mean, he's American
but not living in the US, not really subject to
the you know, whims and financing of the AI behemoths,
(10:04):
and yet there he was with Anthropic founder or co
founder Christopher Ola. The New York Times reports Leo opened
his remarks with a special thank you to mister Ola,
almost as if you were ahead of state.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I keep thinking back to this, this piece that I
had written when Mark Zuckerberg was first doing his like
cross country tour, and people thought he was going to
run for president, and I was like, no, he's already,
like he already rules a nation state that is much
more powerful. And I feel like you're you're seeing that
writ large, you know, with the with the heads of
companies at all of these geopolitically significant events, and I
(10:43):
also spiritually significant. Now, yeah, you know what, there was
really good reporting in Politico about how it's actually been
like a two year effort by tech companies, not just Anthropic,
to lobby essentially the Vatican. I think, noing that potentially
a I don't know that it was like directly for
(11:05):
the encyclical, but knowing that, you know, the concentration of power,
the wealth inequality that at some point the Catholic Church
is going to come out with our own position on
on on this technology that they have so much money
riding on. So there has been delegations, meetings with Google.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
And a Meta and others.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
In some cases it was about AI and AI and
children and child welfare. You know, I was trying to
talk to my editor about it, like who got more
out of this, the Pope or or Anthropic? I think
obviously anthropic for now, but I was I was a
little bit considering that perhaps, you know, the perhaps the
(11:50):
Vatican was also thinking about it the way that a
lot of these companies talk about it, Like, unless you're
on the cutting edge, you you are not a significant
player in the debate around how this technology should be
legislated or how people should approach it. So imagine he
had like an IBM executive, I mean, imagine he had
no executives, but also you know executives.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I mean, let's let let's go back into the you know,
the of ignorance and imagine whether he didn't need to
make a note about the future of AI and A
so corporate executive.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
Was was the anthropic connection like an implication that anthropic
was still like the safer choice. I can't imagine, Sam Altman.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
That's why I think Anthropic benefited more from this, certainly.
I mean, the three things that Ola emphasized were the
potential for AI exacerbating global poverty, uh, the power, balance
of inequality between nations, two things where they could they
have a lot of agency, right, and a lot of
(12:51):
money power and influence about how their technology is proliferated
and used. And yet he was able to present it like,
you know, we are really concerned about this and like
you know, the Catholic Church has always had like a
lot of influence when it comes to global poverty. So
we hope, we hope you're going to step in here.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I keep being frustrated with this with AI companies.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
It's literally the We're trying to find the guy who
did all of this over and over, like, oh, AI
is going to disrupt the economy and bankrupt us spiritually
and everything's going to change. Oh, who could possibly be
in charge of this? Who who made this technology?
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Actually? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Well, Natasha reading through the lines, are you saying the
Pope got played?
Speaker 5 (13:36):
No? No, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I'm just saying like that short term, it's it's beneficial
to Anthropic to certainly be up on the dais with
the Pope. I mean, look at how many downloads they
got for quote, there's still at the top of the
app store. Look at how they were. They were like
not even in the running as a popular consumer app,
and the Pentagon stance got them to be like a
(14:00):
top you know, I mean they're not going for the
consumer play as much, but still like of course that's
that you have the inframader of the literal pope.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
The pope approved pope, stamp of approval.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
What's been the response by the non anthropic companies in
Silicon Valley? And I know the Pope is not a
very popular figure with some. I think Peter Teel has
mused that he may be the Antichrist, and Mark Andrewson
has also trolled him on x Is he now being
seen as just a porn of anthropic by the wider
AI industry or of people taking this seriously? What's the
(14:35):
what's the what's the hot take from from the valley?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I think that people are taking it seriously. It's a
very different mood right now. I mean, like compared two
prior years in terms of the embrace of religion. There's
so much religiosity just in the way that people talk
about AI. But there's also been a resurgence and kind
of an elevation of going to church talking about religion.
(14:59):
I would say it's more Christianity than you know, I'm
not seeing like the same elevation.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Yeah, uh so.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So I think people were very moved and took it
more seriously than you might expect, because you know, partly
people I think, feel a little bit more open about
talking about their beliefs. And then there was also a
massive backlash against Anthropic being you know, up there on
stage and the idea that that they are in some
(15:32):
ways a morally superior, ethically superior company. You know, some
of that is coming from their financial competitors, some of
that is just coming from observers in the industry. But
I would say it was it was treated very seriously.
I did not see people kind of shrugging shrugging this off.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
We talked about Anthropic leading the charge with influencer dinners,
and I feel like this is the influencer play to
end the influences took plays, right, Yeah, is to do
this collab with the Pope. Just a final question on
this story. In Hasha, we talked at the top about
how Anthropic were focused on the kind of emerging consciousness
perhaps of AI itself and therefore its rights and our
(16:14):
responsibilities humans are treat it correctly. I have to confess
I didn't read the whole forty two thousand words. Presumably
the Pope did not endorse this view.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
He did not, he I mean, this is the thing.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It's like, well, if you have them, if you have
the company saying this next to you, you're nodding to
the company, and it's you know, role in this debate.
Perhaps that is kind of an endorsement, right, But in
the text itself, no, I thought that there was a
pretty clear line saying that, you know, there is something
(16:49):
unique to humans, kind of not giving credence to that
particular talking point. Aside from chrissl Are being right over there.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
There's also this you know, endustry, fascinating psychodrama of the
Pope and the president right like it was six days ago,
Trump was supposed to sign the executive order that which
has already printed out and ready all seven pages that
the government will get to scrutinize AI models before they
were released to the public, and then he somewhat dramatically
decided not to sign it at the last minute, which
(17:18):
I thought was interesting.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
That was the very last minute decision, as some of
my colleagues have reported intervention by David Sachs, and although
the CEOs have backed off from it, I believe, you know,
the reporting shown that Elan was also really not happy
about the executive order.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Kyle, coming to your story for this week. You were
at a column earlier this month, but also focuses on
fraternity and humanity, all about hyper local publications. What is
a hyperlocal publication and what caught your attention? Why do
you think this story of yours has kind of driven
so much conversation.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
It has been interesting. It's not quite the Pope, but
I would say it was hard hitting, you know, media story.
But I had just been noticing this rise of hyperlocal
newsletter publications, email newsletters on substack or beehive or Mailchimp
or like literally a Google group that were one person
(18:24):
just sending out notes on what was happening in their
neighborhood to their email list, making little observations, doing some reporting.
And I mean, what really drove it home for me
and what really made me write the article was I
moved back to Brooklyn recently and I realized there was
a hyperlocal substack for like every ten blocks around me.
(18:46):
So there's the Court Street Journal in Carroll Gardens. There's
also the Carroll Gardens Times, which is a competing hyperlocal publication.
There's the Borom Bulletin, There's a Grand Army Gazette. So
you can go just like block by block essentially and
find a person who is running a newsletter, publishing these
little stories, creating editorial brands, logos like the whole package,
(19:11):
and they're having a lot of success doing it. Like
these people are charging subscriptions via substack or behive, they're
sustaining these as kind of part time jobs. So I
basically reported out what are these hyper local newsletters?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
And I found a bunch going on.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
They're One of their reactions briefly, was people kept posting
on x or Instagram or whatever, asking, oh, is there
one of these for my neighborhood, Like whereas where's my
Wichita newsletter?
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Which does exist Wichita Life.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
It's very good, Natasha, is this is this happening in
San Francisco Bay area as well? What's what's there you
seeing anything similar on other side of the country.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Well, first of all, I wish when I lived on
Court Street these things existing I have. I mean, I
was curious because it sounded a little bit like the
parent groups I'm in. I mean now that my son
is five, he just turned five and he's in TK,
so he's in public school like for the first time,
and oh my god, the parent groups are so organized.
(20:17):
This is my like lifeline to living in my neighborhood.
They have Google sheets where you know, for all of
the recommendations. If there's anything that requires like you to
you know, sign a petition or show up in person
like that, you find out from the moms. I mean
I have to say, like, I'm in the mom's group
and I'm like not the person who's the most involved
(20:40):
in school. And my poor husband who like literally does everything.
He said, the dad's group is like kind of flat,
like not not a same age. Yeah, the mom's group
is I've never I mean, I would put these people
like in charge of a country.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
I do think it evolved out of that.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
Yeah, yeah, I could see.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
It's like Google group culture.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
There's forum culture, and now these sub stocks are becoming
like communities of their own. But I do think it
is important that there's like one voice behind it, so
you don't just get the forum drama, Like you don't
just get the infighting and the community, and you have
one person to kind of listen to and follow their
taste and get their take on the city or the neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
No, I was just going to.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Say, it also seems like a very natural reaction to
the toxicity of online discourse, Like I could see why,
you know, you would move from next Door to one
of these newsletters, like I don't even want to log
on to nextdoor, And sometimes the Moms group is translating
next Door like minus minus the racism for the rest
(21:48):
of us. So yeah, it's hugely appealing. And it just
also seems like, you know, tech is constantly like disrupting
and rebundling, and it seems like kind of the uh yeah,
just just going back to a bit of curation around
those around the toxicity of the forums, and you know
(22:08):
that in evolving from the like use of group chats
during the during COVID too.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
NAT was actually going to ask you about that, like
what is the what is the state of the national
local tech outside of newsletic culture. I remember like ten
years ago, being the mayor on full Square was like
a very very important thing.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
We should bring that back, honestly, like checking we have
the mayor, Kyle, I was not. I was more on Yelp,
so I was like a Yelp power user rather than
for and then Yelp. I mean they both kind of died,
but Yelp stayed more useful for longer for me.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
But I was going to say, like.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
The there's super toxic like nextdoor stuff. There's like crime
and and drama everywhere and people complaining about trash, but
like everyone wants to read about the dive bar on
their corner, like we justrave that local real news that
actually affects our lives. I mean, like the Pope and
cyclical is great and that's high drama and very important.
(23:08):
However it's not going to affect do I drive my
car on this block? Or is there a happy hour
deal at the patio?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
So I don't know. It made me like hopeful and
a little energized for this stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, there's something I couldn't quite articulate as trying to
get my head around with in terms of these are
digital publications that cover the real world, but so where
the community is kind of digital. I had Emily Sunberg
on the podcast recently, who I know is as a
friend of yours. Kyle talk about her very successful feed
Me substack, which is, you know, a gangbuster's digital product,
(23:44):
but the product is actually recommending real stuff people in
places in New York. So we'll we'll play a quit
a short clip. It's interesting that the name feed me
came from like the horror of the algorithmic feed Yeah.
Speaker 7 (23:56):
And the logo is this command sign from the Apple
keyboard sort of turned into an oraboris kind of like
an eight bit treatment. So it has this idea of
like playing snake on your phone and being attached to
your keyboard, but then it also has this feeling of
like me feeding my audience, my audience feeding me back
(24:17):
tips and just like this sort of eternal attachment to
the screens.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, Kyle, you were tittering.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Emily is great.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
She's she had this amazing insight, which is that people
would love to read about what's going on around them,
and that New York City in particular was like ripe
for this kind of hyperlocal like CNY kind of sex
in the city. You know, what are people drinking, what
restaurants are they going to, where are the parties, what
(24:47):
are the trends?
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So what's the difference between what Emily does, and what
you wrote about in your clumm recently.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
I think everyone else is a little downstream of feed me.
Like a lot of these hyper local newsletters stret in
the last not even a year, like I know of
a few that launched like in the last month. There's
a great new one in the Hamptons by a Wall
Street Journal reporterer.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
I've really been enjoying that one.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
So she I think she set up a template and
you know, her kind of bloggy aggregation and like insight
is not super new or avant garde, but it's still
super vital. And she provides that like curritorial lens on
New York City, and so I think these other people
are are doing something similar, though it's a little less
(25:35):
you know, spicy and fame and gossip adjacent when it's
not Manhattan like the Hampton Sure Court Street Journal, maybe
a little more low key, like there's a lot of
bicycle lane drama.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I can I ask you both to kind of put
a bow on this story before we go to the break,
like what is the what is the tech angle here? Kyle?
You've written this may be quote a more promising digital
model than to appeal to everyone everywhere, which is interesting,
but I mean, how much is substack as a tech
product relevant on selling a story, Like I just love
(26:10):
to hear from both of you, like I see the
media angle and grasp me the tech side of the story,
but I can't fully articulate myself.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
I mean, I think it shows how these kinds of
tech platforms are really powerful still when it comes to
physical life. Like we're so obsessed with how digital content
flows and what people are posting, and what this shows
is that the tech is just as good at organizing people,
like in geography and where they are. And that could
(26:39):
be true for a substack, it could be true for
a discord. It was true for you know, so around
mom Donnie's political campaign, he used digital tools to mobilize
people in person. And it just shows how relevant these
things are even off the screen and the desire I
think for people to have that combination of like on
screen experience that leads into the physical world.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, I mean, I guess I kind of see it
as you know, it's it's a good week for read
to have been on because I'm sure you would talk
about the Semaphore story about like how group chats run
the world. I mean, so to me, it's just like
that's what I was talking about, like kind of the
disruption and rebundling. It just seems like a little bit
(27:23):
of a rebundling of group chats because they have become,
you know, just a safer and more relevant place to
have the kinds of conversations ideally, you know, you might
have been having on a bigger platform about things that
are relevant to your life. And like, of course we
want to we like to organize information and organize.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
Our thought thoughts through our phone.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So you know, whether it's about where I'm going to
dinner or the bike lane, I still prefer almost to
like have the you know, have the mental model, have
the map be digital, and then like you know, go
out and do it in real life. So I mean,
I'm all for this trend, and you know, please come
do more in Oakland.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
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detailed in the podcast episode description box. Welcome Back. I'm
excited to welcome Chris Guya Marley, host of the Superhuman podcast,
(29:39):
back to tech Stuff. Last weekend, Chris went to Las
Vegas to attend the Enhanced Games, where professional sprinters, swimmers,
and weightlifters, many slightly past their prime, attempted to beat
world records while doping. So Chris, first off, what was
it like?
Speaker 8 (29:56):
Oh, it was so funny they You know, I've been
with the enhanced folks for over a year now, and
for them to overlook some like crucial elements of actually
throwing the games was kind of hilarious to witness in person.
The big one was the event took place without a
roof in the sort of pop up stadium that they
(30:17):
had constructed, which is kind of not a great thing
in the middle of the Nevada desert, especially in the
middle of the day. It was like ninety five degrees
a sun beating down, and you know, there were women
and children in the audience, like old ladies who needed
to be like wheelchaired, like to safety pretty much. And
(30:38):
it was sort of this inhospitable environment for weightlifters and
sprinters to be competing in, which is I think part
of the reason why world records weren't even like coming
close to being touched in those sports. But the swimmers
it okay, so you know, we all kind of wanted
to jump in the pool at some point, and yeah,
(30:58):
that was kind of how that all.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
And I want to hand this over to Kyle and
Natasha because we've already had some great conversations about this
about this story. Chris but yeah, Natasha, what what? What's
how is Dean Han's games across to your radar? And
what what makes you what are you most curious about?
From somebody who was, who was there, has been covering
it for the last year, the.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Fire Festival, Uh of it all? I I wasn't aware
of that. I The only thing that came across my
feed was that one of the swimmer, the swimmer who won,
was not taking any enhanced drugs?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
What? Was that accurate? And I just thought I saw
people having a lot of shot and freud about that,
and then I'd love to just also hear about the
like the the I was curious actually about like the
Peter Thiel connection, and I'd love to hear their argument.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
So the swimmer who actually did break the world record,
he's this Greek swimmer named Christian Gold.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
I mean, he's like six'.
Speaker 8 (32:00):
Seven when he puts his arms over his, head he's
literally shaped like a. Barracuda so it was like kind
of like no surprise that he ended up winning and
he ended up breaking the world. Record at the very
very very end of the, night it was literally down
to that last, event which was hilarious Because you could
see every executive there who Were Peter teal associates sweating
(32:22):
through their way too hot suits in the, sun and
they were just so relieved that someone finally broke a world,
record which was really really. Funny ton't witness in, person
and he was actually he was actually, enhanced so he
had a doping regimen under. Him he did pretty, well
so he was really. Fast The Peter teal of it
(32:42):
all was interesting because there were definitely a phylum Of
maggot influencers who were sort of. There they weren't wearing red,
hats but they were wearing like camo hats with Like
ESSENTIALS t shirts and it was like really. Funny and
the thing that REALLY i couldn't ren my head around
being at The games, was you, know they're marketing these
(33:04):
enhancements to like washed millennials who are like over thirty
five and like you, know like you, know just can't
get out of bed in the.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Morning very easily sound familiar to, anyone but.
Speaker 8 (33:18):
Then but then the invitees to this thing like it
was like it was like in aside from the athletes
families and, stuff it was all these like Gen z
content creators like, this like very d tier of like
influencers THAT i was very not aware, of and they're
like jumping around the pool during Their fortnite dances AND
i was, like this is an upfront to millennial culture right,
(33:39):
Now like this is so. Insulting these kids have never
known back pain in their, lives so trying to like
bridge that. GAP i was, like this does not fit
the business plan of what's actually going on, here AND
i just it.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Was it.
Speaker 8 (33:51):
Was it was definitely a spectacle and definitely more firefest
than the Actual.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
OLYMPICS i have one question that has been brending on my.
Speaker 6 (34:00):
Mind do they disclose what they're, Doing like do they
does the doping regimen come on screen with the athlete
and be like this guy is on these peptides and
this guy.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
That would be so, funny taking these steroids.
Speaker 8 (34:15):
That would be so, funny LIKE rpg, stats like it's
like strength, dexterity you. Know, Yeah, no they don't have.
That they consider like the exact like a doping regimens
to Be they're very, bespoke very tailored to like the
individual athletes with their, doctors and they sort of consider
that to be like THEIR ip Special so that's not
(34:36):
something they're like super willing to like share widely because,
yeah the special. Sauce BUT i also get it because it's,
like if you see, that you know this guy is
taking you, know twenty five milligrams OF hgh three times
a week or, whatever you could just like go on
the gray market and get that yourself were like way,
cheaper you know WHAT i. Mean SO i kind of
understand where they're coming from with, That but.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
There is a crucial detail. Here the business here is
to tell as pum it, is, Right chris.
Speaker 8 (35:01):
Correct, Yeah so like it's like, this this whole big
spectacle is in service of basically this you, know website
where you can buy. Enhancements and the website itself isn't
so different from LIKE hymns Or AGELESS, rx like anything
you could buy stuff from on the. Internet it's indistinguishable
(35:22):
world pretty much except for this like large marketing arm
that they have where the they have athletes that they
inject with.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Stuff so it's supposed to be for regular. PEOPLE i missed.
Speaker 8 (35:30):
This, yeah, yeah you, know it's so funny because in you,
know the Analogy i've been using to death is like
in the, eighties they use sports stars to Sell jordan's
And gatorade and now they want to sell peptide, stacks.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
You know WHAT i. Mean so.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
It's it's interesting because and in some WAYS i wasn't surprised,
that like the unenhanced athletes ended up winning a lot
of the, prizes because the unenhanced athletes were the ones
who were still in their physical, primes still in their,
twenties and they were basically competing against mid thirties people
who hadn't competed in ten years and who were giving
these doping.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Regiments and it just shows.
Speaker 8 (36:08):
Like that sort of talent and hard work kind of
supersede everything else in like athletic, competition especially like.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
This so they did very little, too and.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
Still hope that That i'll ever be able to dunk
a basketball or anything like.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That you, Know here's What Fred, curly who won the
men's hundred meter said after he was a non enhanced. Athlete,
man they need to do better than. That they need
to work a little bit, harder get on that shit
a little bit.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
More did it feel super? Political?
Speaker 6 (36:39):
Yeah was there a political balance to the whole thing
and the kind of Like Peter tiel backed post work cultural?
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Force?
Speaker 8 (36:47):
Uh not really you, know if, anything it felt just
like the most naked expression of capitalism, Possible like this
whole thing was taking place in the shadow Of Trump
tower with the spear visible in the, background which is like,
this you, know emblem of commerce and an eye of
sour on sort of LIKE bts had played the night
(37:09):
before In, vegas and so you, know the city was
overrun with people spending like a million dollars on concert.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Tickets so it.
Speaker 8 (37:17):
Didn't really feel political in a, sense but it did feel, like,
oh these are people who care about money who are
running this. Thing and but you know that sort of
like undergirded the whole.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Event you mentioned this sort of a very capitalist. Thing
there's nothing more capitalists than the stock, market of, course
And Enhanced games lost fifty percent of its market cap
the day of The, GAMES i thought was quite quite.
STUNNING i, mean is this is this game over for
The Enhanced games or do do you see them bouncing
back from this like damn squib as far as the market's, concerned.
Speaker 8 (37:51):
You, know AS i understand, it they have quite a
bit of, runway you. Know and to be, fair LIKE
i thought that by them paying all their athletes like
a living wage and like paying for all their housing
and their, healthcare like this was sort of an unsustainable.
Endeavor but then they came out like this week and we're,
like next time we throw The Enhanced, games we're offering
(38:12):
a ten million dollar prize if anyone could beat The
Saint bolts record in one of the sprint, races WHICH
i think is like designed to lure him. Out And
i'm kind of curious to see if like the prospect of,
like you, know a really great athlete being able to
win a couple hundred thousand dollars like for basically beating
a bunch of, scrubs if that gets anyone like who's
(38:33):
actually exciting to join the, Fold so you, know we'll
see what.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Happens, YEAH i guess we were talking at the beginning
of the, Episode chris before you, joined about the popes
incyclical On, ai and part of what he was talking
about at length was a tower Of babel and the
idea Of hubris and just the language that The Enhanced
games kind of founders and CEOs and people around us
(38:59):
is quite millennial with it capital m like and at
like end of, times, RIGHT i, mean there's a kind
of there's a there's a sort of religiosity to what
they're trying to. DO i wonder if you could just
reflect a little bit on.
Speaker 8 (39:09):
That, yeah you, know the, Founder Aaron, desuza who's the
dude who Helped peter til take Down. Goker his whole thing,
was you, know we're ushering a new era of. Humankind
it's either THE ai era or the enhanced, era AND
i hope we go the enhanced. Route is sort of
his argument for, that WHICH i didn't totally, buy you,
(39:33):
know like it's he's such a good carnival barker in
some ways in terms, of, like you, know drumming up
controversy for this. Thing so you, know, YEAH I i
haven't actually read The pope's manifesto, yet but it's on
My it's in one of my, tabs open to get
(39:53):
through WHEN i WHEN i get a little bit of.
Enoptize he came out of the gate hot.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Too i'm excited to read.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
It Chris, gomarty thank. You we're going to take a
short break. Now when we come, Back kyle And natasha
will stick around talk about who had the best and
worst week in. Tech, Kyle, natasha welcome. BACK i mean
(40:19):
there's an argument to say the enhance games had the
worst we can. Take another candidate Is CHARACTER. Ai you
have you been following?
Speaker 6 (40:26):
THIS i KNOW i missed the, news BUT i am
obsessed with that. Company please inform, me.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Well first, time that's what it, Is. Kyle and while you're,
obsessed And i'll tell, you Then i'll destroy your.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
Dreams CHARACTER ai is like a provider of chatbot, interaction
and the chatbots are most often fictional characters or like
archetypes of fictional.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Characters so it's a lot of.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
Fandom it's a lot of do you want to fall
in love with a pop? Star like this is your
faux romantic relationship With? Harry LIKE i haven't browsed too,
deeply but the TIMES i, have it's like so.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Immediately.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
Creepy it's and it's it's marketed toward, children, essentially like
it's marketed toward young people who are super online and
want to interact with A ai character through their.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Browser it's also very manipulative and. UNSAFE i Think.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Character OR ai has responded to this and and some
of their power users think they've over. Corrected according To,
reddit one post had the headline make Them Flirty? Again
i'm not looking to chat with an avoidant no feelings bad,
boy nor with the, stuttering blushy goodie. Boy yet you
somehow manage to mix these, up mix these up in
the worst way possible into a single. Bot so, essentially
(41:47):
they've they've turned the dial down on on on how
they interact with. Users another couple of another couple of
ones THAT i like From reddit WERE i miss when
the bots used to feel a pang of jealousy, sigh and,
MAN i kind of feel. Empty so cautionar retail for
ai companies who are trying to be too good like
character dot ai and taking all the fun out of.
(42:09):
It but in the most serious note, OBVIOUSLY i mean
they've had some pretty horrible, stuff including you, know inducing
users as suicide. Himself so, yeah it feels like character
and may maybe approaching the rear view. Mirror have you
been following this, One?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Natasha oh, YEAH i was actually the first person to
write about the, company because you, know the, guy one
of the co, Founders Noam, shazier he actually you, know
was the main guy behind the transformer architecture At google
that like has undergirded this whole GENERATIVE Ai craze and
(42:44):
him And Daniel, DeFreitas his other co. Founder you, know
they felt like really stymied At google Because google had
these large language. Models they had this, tratbox you, know
like this kind of, formula and they weren't releasing it
and talking to, them you, know before they they thought
it was going to be people who want to have
a conversation With einstein Or shakespeare or all of these,
(43:07):
things like they.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Weren't it wasn't initially marketed to.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Kids it was you, know that's who adopted the technology
to put you, know to have these conversations with like
dark romance, characters anime, fandom exactly what you're. Saying and then,
yes it turned out to be the super super engaged
audience that was spending, hours you, know conversing with these
chatbots which are user. Generated you, Know so so it's
(43:34):
not it's not necessarily the company that is putting forth
the characters that are the most closely. Adopted and THEN i,
think you, know having chatbots that are optimized for storytelling
and role. Play we've read the, Lawsuits i'm sure you
(43:55):
know it's not just that they're. Manipulative they're also like
very quick going into hyper sexualized conversations as, well And
google acquired the license to the company.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
And the Lamenting, yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Like that's that's what THEY i, mean this is this
is how the chatbot things. Work there's always a new,
One so you go to the one that is trying
to get users and has the least, restrictions and then you,
know when the restrictions go, up then you go to
the next. One but you, know the founders left a
lot of the they took a lot of the talent with.
(44:30):
Them SO i THINK i saw four of Four media
had like a headline about the lobottomized CHARACTER ai and,
yeah it's just it's really unfortunate for users because this
is where you, know millions of people. Are they actually
have a huge female, audience and yet none of the
(44:52):
none of the, optimization none of the safety, features none
of the attention and resources are going towards these users
who are just like kind of left with. This, yeah
the bottomized product IS i guess how how for a
four put?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
It any any who you, was who each of your
worst wee can take go.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
TO i was just thinking about this AND i figured
out or.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
It emerged in my mind THAT i think this is
the week That i've thought the least About Donald trump
in a little, While like maybe maybe it's less like
he's quieter than just there were so many other things
happening that he seemed to recede a little.
Speaker 7 (45:30):
Bit.
Speaker 6 (45:31):
Uh AND i don't. Know the crypto economy is a little.
Lackluster the scams aren't as. Plentiful you, know The trump
kids aren't juicing any coins right. Now SO i don't.
KNOW i kind OF i kind of Think trump is
not having a good week in.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Tech well and, true and Don't Donald Trump junior was
one of the major investors in The enhance, games so
that that Juicing natasha any any any any any worse week's,
work worst week in text for?
Speaker 3 (45:57):
You, well, yeah after Hearing chris describe how The Enhanced games,
Went i'm Gonna i'll Shure i'll put The Enhanced games on. That,
yeah BUT i don't think anyone in tech is having
the worst week ever like.
Speaker 5 (46:11):
ANYMORE i, mean they're they're.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
Just alloking for.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
POWER i was.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Gonna say, yeah BECAUSE i was, like SHOULD i say
anthropic again for the umpteenth.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Week, No i'm going to.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Say i'm going to Say i'm going to Say Jensen
huang BECAUSE i saw this video of him like EATING
i mean there's a billion of, them but like the
most recent ones about him eating street food and just
getting you, know like he just looks like he's.
Speaker 5 (46:35):
Having the time of his.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
LIFE i saw he just, got you, know he got
obviously like a special Private Air force one jet to
To china last. Minute he just got put on the
board Of Singhwa university along with some other tech people
Like Jensen. Wong seems to be truly enjoying his, life
So i'm gonna put him on the best week ever
(46:57):
and eating good street.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Food so.
Speaker 6 (46:58):
EXACTLY i did enjoy all those memes of Like Elon
musk And Chinsen hwang Smoking chinese, cigarettes you, know in
front of The Forbidden, city and you know THE ai generated.
Images it's. Absurd it's it's, global global absurdism of the highest.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Quality, kyle do you have it best for?
Speaker 6 (47:19):
US i was gonna say The, POPE i THINK i
feel like even Though anthropic was on stage with, him
even though you know it's ambiguous what effect this actually
has on, technology he he did something like he was
Like i'm not going to stay out of this. FIGHT
i don't care That i'm an ancient religious. Figure i'm
just gonna put my gavel down and say WHAT i
(47:41):
think About. Ai and it's a very clear. Statement it
made a huge. IMPACT i think it will influence at
least how people think about it moving, forward and that's very.
Cool maybe more where's The Dalai lama here or where's
the you, Know Greek orthodox pope or.
Speaker 5 (48:01):
Whatever they also invest in some tech companies The. Vatican
do they have an investment? Portfolio?
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yeah which ones THAT i don't THAT i haven't been
paying attention. TO i don't think it's, Yeah, NO i
don't think. So but but they, do you, know, they
LIKE i, said the political article is really good about
the ties that, bind and there are more and more of.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Them, WELL i mean that The vatican definitely have a
history of from The mediceese onwards being being being involved
with business. Interests but But i'm going to give the
best week to in text the pope as, well BECAUSE
i saw somebody writing basically, that you, know The Catholic
church and the tech companies are basically competing for mind
share with like with with a user, base AND i think.
Speaker 4 (48:47):
THAT i.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
The pope definitely won the cloud.
Speaker 6 (48:51):
Battle is this like When netflix was like we're competing With?
Sleep like now it's like computer is competing With god
and Who.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
That's it for the we can. Tech thank you both
so much.
Speaker 4 (49:08):
For joining, Us thanks for having.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
Me nice to see you guys.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
For tech. Stuff I'm Os. Valoshian this episode was produced
By Eliza dennis And Melissa. Slaughter executive produced by Me
Julian nutter And Kate osborne For kaleidoscope And Katrina norvel
For iHeart. Podcasts our engineer today Was. Bihit. Fraser Jack
insley mixed this, episode And Kyle murdoch wrote our theme.
Song special thank you To Natasha, Tiku Kyle, chaka And Chris.
(49:35):
Guyamley please check out all the excellent work they put
into the. World we're happy to call them friends of the.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
Pod
TechStuff News
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Karah Preiss
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