TV Characters WITH Jobs? A.I. Throat Bubble 10.17.25

In episode 1949, Jack and Miles are joined by the Senior Fellow for Gender Equity, Paid Leave & Care Policy, and the Director and Founder of the Entertainment Initiative at the Better Life Lab, Vicki Shabo, to discuss… ChatGPT Is Just A Digital Shopping Mall Now, A Recent Study Found That AI Might Be A Bubble, The Chinese Robot Takeover Should Terrify The Forces of Capital, But I’m Good, At Least Tron 3 May Have Finally Killed Jared Leto’s Career and more!

1. Writing About Jobs, Money, and Work-Family Stress
2. OpenAI's ChatGPT is so popular that almost no one will pay for it
3. Soon you'll be able to shop at Walmart through ChatGPT
4. Walmart Partners with OpenAI to Create AI-First Shopping Experiences
5. You’ll soon be able to shop Walmart from ChatGPT
6. Walmart CEO’s AI warning is existential. Pay attention.
7. Walmart CEO: ‘AI is literally going to change every job’—how the best employees can still stand out
8. Shopify and OpenAI bring commerce to ChatGPT
9. ChatGPT goes shopping with new product-browsing feature
10. ChatGPT Is Already Bungling Product Recommendations
11. OpenAI is staffing up to turn ChatGPT into an ad platform
12. New ad channel for ecommerce just dropped: Ads in Grok
13. A Recent Study Found That AI Might Be A Bubble
14. Western executives who visit China are coming back terrified
15. “No One Asked for This Reboot”: ‘Tron’ May Mark End of Jared Leto’s Franchise-Leading Days
16. Michael Fassbender’s History of Alleged Abuse: Former Girlfriend’s Story Resurfaces in #MeToo Era

LISTEN: the one by Gabriel Jacoby

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
So I plugged in my earbuds, which are substandard but
might be the best we can do.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is a substandard podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Yeah, fun true, Well, allow me to lightly Vicky.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
How do you pronounce your last name? Because we have
a bet going? I think it's pronounced shabow VICKI shabow.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
And what's the other alternative?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I don't know. I'm all, I'm really an Adam Sandler.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's shabo, like pretty much answer to anything.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
So it's fine, Oh shabo, Hello the Internet, and welcome
to season four ten, episode four.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Now this episode five isn't it week? Episode four of Guys.
It's a production of iHeartRadio as a podcast where you
take a deepdab into American chair consciousness. And it is Friday,
October seventeenth, twenty twenty five. I just ate a kiwied
and Kiwi and I got a little Kiwi seed in
my throat. Oh, so that's what's going on with me?

(01:13):
Aren't we doing well? Eating?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Kiwis ten good, ten seven GOLDI and Kiwi. It's national
Oh straight Edge Day for all the people that are
straight edge.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
You know what I mean? If you're not down, never were?
I know I have homies that are straight edge to
this day. It's also a Black Poetry Day.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
It's National Mammography Day, National Mulligan Day, National pasta Day.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, straight edge doesn't smoke either, or do they smoke? No?

Speaker 3 (01:38):
No, sorry, this new cigarette whimsical no alcohol, no drugs, alcohol, tobacco,
drugs no. Yeah, keeping all keep all that's out. It's
the straight edge lifestyle. Almost Church of Latter Day Saints.
They're like edging on Church of Latter Day Saints. But
I bet they have Do they have caffeine?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
You know, depends depends on where you're at. Well, my
body is a temple, so that all sounds good to me.
My name is Jack O'Brian aka whoa Jason? Watch out Jack,
he's stan Lee's son. Whoa Jason? He's a skateboarder. That
one Curtzy Christy, I'm Gucci Mane and uh and Miles

(02:15):
fucking with me and tell me that Jason Lee was
stan Lee's son.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, that was actually that was an early missed like
early internet misinformation, I remember, but then it was my name. Yeah,
when my name is Earl came out, he got cleared
up real quick because there's nobody was terrifying.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Jason Lee Let's Stan Lee's. He was in maul Rets
with with his dad, So he was a comic book
guy in Malrets. Wasn't he exactly brody? There it is.
I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co host,
mister Miles Grad.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yes, it's Miles Great, the showgun with no gun Akay,
the Lord of Lancasham, North, Hollywood's very own thank you
so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
You're welcome. I gotta say it. Eight years now, Jack,
eight years now years and you thanked me every day.
And you know what, I don't often thank you for joint,
for being here, for having me as you about this,
how I talk about this every time I said, you know,
I've never noticed, never says things back, just says yeah,

(03:12):
you're welcome. You like, yeah, why are you? Why are
you thanking me? But no, yes, eight years I think
almost eight glorious years of marriage. Miles were thrilled to
be joined in our third seat by the Senior Fellow
for Gender Equity, Paid Leave and Care Policy and the
director and founder of the Entertainment Initiative at the Better

(03:32):
Life Lab. She's drinking water out of a comically large
beer Stein please welcome to the show, Vicky Saber.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
You guys, Oh well, we try, We try in a
world where it seems there's a lot of darkness.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
You know, how could you not have fun when talking
about what's going on? What I said, right right, it's
I'm very curious for you. You're in DC and the
work you're doing is basically diametrically opposed to all the
values that are coming out of this current administration. What
I'm stretched out talking about it.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
And then I and I have friends, like my partner,
she's from DC, so a lot of people in her
orbit and families are federal workers. And there's all varying
forms of existential dread of getting rift. Everyone is saying
that for shorthand, and I'm like rift and like reduction
in force. And I was like, yeah, what's what's just

(04:34):
what's it like?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
What's it like? Right? Yeah, No, that's what they say.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, what's it like? Well, I was walking down the
street yesterday and there were like four National Guard walking
towards me with rifles.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
That's fun.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
That's kind of what it's like right now. Yeah, it's
a little I would say two things. I think the
communities of people are coming together in ways that are
really exciting, Like neighbors are showing up for each other. Yeah,
there's like people and fatigues with weapons all over the place,
and people are scared and restaurants are kind of empty. Yeah,
and yeah, a lot of people don't have jobs or

(05:10):
don't know if they will have jobs.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Do you feel like it's worth it because you can
wear your watch outside again, like the administration keeps talking
about you can wear hyper expensive watches outside in DC.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, that doesn't really make up for it for me.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
I can I work three ye rolexes now because I
can afford them? Of course. Right, you might get arrested
by the National Guard or as we call it, zip
zap zopped by the guard. Getting fired. Rift is so weird.
It's like we're just man. I mean, I'm reducing the

(05:46):
workforce and ruining people's lives. No.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
I have a friend who works at HHS and they
are just like, every day you just wonder if you
get the rift alert And I'm like, at first, I
was like, am I not? I just wasn't savvy.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
On the term. But yeah, that the acronym for reduction
enforce no foundation. Yeah, all right, Vicky we're going to
get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First,
a couple of things we're talking about. We're going to
talk about the world, the tech economy. I guess chat
GPT just announced that they're partnering with Walmart to make
capitalism even more frictionless and their product worse. We're breaking

(06:26):
this product that people are in the process of adopting
in record time. So we're going to talk about that.
We're going to talk about a new study that went
viral on Wall Street about how circular, aka incestuous, the
flow chart of money is on the AI side, it's
like a handful of companies just all slashing money back

(06:47):
and forth between each other, and that could be a
bad thing because as they note the statistics coming from there,
like we're going to do a blind item here and
say we're one of the plays, their statistics are very
opaque and chat GPT like they forget they're doing a
blind on the next sentence. So we'll talk about that

(07:10):
and just generally like there's a lot of articles also
coming out about how America is like behind the curve
behind China on the on technology robotics, and they they're
written with a tenor of fear, and I just want
to say I feel fine about this. So all of
that plenty more. But first, VICKI, we do like to

(07:31):
ask our guests, what is something from your search history
that's revealing about who you are?

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Well? I love Broadway and I love musicals, and they
are like the thing that gives me joy in this
moment of you know a lot. So I have windows
open trying to figure out what I should go see
when I'm next in New York.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Any early contenders.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Definitely want to see Chess. Definitely want to see Ragtime.
Another fun fact about me, I go to Adult Broadway
camp every year. Uh so spend spend a week in
New York and sing and dance and uh yeah, meet
other cool people from across the country who, like may
or may not. Most of them are talented. We're all
like varying levels. I would never want to do this professionally,

(08:14):
but it's super fun.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
What's your vocal range?

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Well, just hit us with hit us with a little riff.
Sorry if you don't if you know I'm singing. We
just heard Laura Trump sing I Won't back down.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
By Tom Petty. So cool.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, this past summer, I sang finished the Fight from Stuffs,
which was like very on point, just about the fight
for women's equality. Uh so I'm not going to do
that for you.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
You mean to put you on this spot. I could,
I couldn't. I could lot with Laura Trump offering to
she could be the halftime performer if they asked me.
I don't know, I'm just an idea. I mean you
think about how mad the left would be if you
asked me to perform at the super Bowl halftime show
help my fledgling career. Yeah, start doing that too, guys.

(08:56):
Think about how mad the left would be if you
let me make the next Pixar movie. Yeah, right, right right? Yeah, Vicky,
are you I'm going to go out on a limb?
You must be a theater kid.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
I was a theater kid.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah yeah, because I'm like adult.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Broadway camp sounds like an extension of theater kid who's like,
I'm not I can't give up the stake.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
So this, this camp I go to is called Broadway Weekends,
and it's basically like all theater kids that have grown
up and become you know, insurance adjusters and pediatricians and
obstetricians and lawyers and policy nerds like me, And yeah,
it's really like a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
That's just that's probably pretty good networking too, where it's
like it's like meet a lot of interesting people at.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
I meet a lot of people. Yeah, I've really I've
really enjoyed it. Lots of like it's good to see
that there is I don't know, a shared bond of Yeah, sure,
you know, grown up theater kids all across the country,
like some this year there was like a newly retired
pharmacist from Ohio and a drag king also from Ohio

(09:59):
and owns a Hamburger restaurant, and like preschool teachers from
New Jersey and other teachers from Sacramento. So yeah, super
super fun.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Nice. Nice. What is something you think is underrated?

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I think, on point for our conversation, entertainment that helps
people see themselves reflected on screen is very underrated.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah. I want to talk to you about this because
I totally disagree. I We were talking before we started
recording about this new study that you shared with us
that your organization put together that found that consumers like
to see the things they deal with on a daily

(10:42):
basis reflected on screen in the entertainment that they consume
things like stubbing your toe or you know, having billship pay,
having jobs. I've never noticed that, like we have jobs,
but like the friend don't, or they like have like

(11:02):
little five minute interludes. But for the most part, they
just live in expensive apartments and don't really work or
ever have to worry about anything ever, and like exist
in a world free of economic gravity, the economic forces
of gravity. But yeah, what did your study find?

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me on to
talk about this also. So our study was conducted by
the firm market Cast, which works for lots of studios
and production companies, and they surveyed for US thirteen hundred
more than thirteen hundred people who are streaming subscribers or
in households that are streaming subscribers who watch five hours

(11:40):
or more of programming a week, so people who are
watching and consuming media, And what they found is overwhelmingly
ninety two percent of viewers say that seeing stories around
work and family on screen is important to them, including
nearly half who said it's very important to them, and
that people are seventy nine percent of viewers are better

(12:02):
able to connect with characters that have work, family, and
care circumstances that are like their own, right and so
and we found, Yeah, people want to see relate to
job concerns and financial concerns and caregiving concerns, and they
want to see characters on screen navigating these things and
finding solutions and dealing with conflict and feeling supported because

(12:25):
so many of us don't feel supported.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
In those things.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah, And like I think for me, watching TV in
the nineties and when this was like the height of
this kind of thing where it's like I don't know,
these characters live here and you're watching them do the
thing definitely contributed to my financial illiteracy and just the
idea that it's like yeah, and like you can just
kind of like have it like that, I think eventually,

(12:49):
because that's and I'm assuming that's all there is. That's
it's not a positive effect. It probably has on like
younger people or just people generally trying to make sense
of the world when their entertainment is like obscured like this.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, I mean to the point that Jack made earlier,
like people on on screen like often don't have jobs,
or if they do have jobs, it's sort of like
they go there, but you never see it. Yeah, women
in particular on screen are usually either shown at home
or at work.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Rather is about a blogger who lives like the richest
human being on the face of the universe.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Like right, without without a particular statement of income. Though,
I will say that the reboot and Just Like That,
which just finished this final season, they actually I thought
did a decent job with some of the characters kind
of talking about both their their work lives and their
home lives, and for parents on that show, the struggle
between the two and so obviously that's like a rarefied,

(13:47):
very wealthy environment.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, and we're not going to claim that reboot for
the cause here. I think that's bad. That would be
bad for the cause. Well, there were.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Things I liked about it. There are things I actually
really liked about it, but but yeah, like I I
wanted to know more about the servers and the restaurants
that the Friends went to and the domestic workers that
we're caring for them, and you know, our research kind
of shows that would have made the story and really
all stories more interesting in some ways.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, because more people are servers in this country than
are dynastic media figures who you know, live in these
impossible brownstones, but it looks great, and I get that
it starts off as escapism for people. It's like, well,
I'm trying to get away from the toil I have,
like toiling every day, and I watch this other sort
of texture of life. But I think now, especially since

(14:37):
the like the pandemic lockdowns, people have just become so
much more and more aware of like how people are
sort of portraying their lives or what values are trying
to sort of you know, disseminate out there like with
certain characters or lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
So yeah, I think the thing that's really interesting to
me and our research also a couple of different things.
But to your point, you know, I think people might
go to television or film for escapism, but what they
want to find are the characters that are relatable and
sort of sticky to them. And what makes a character
relatable or sticky or like somebody that you would want

(15:13):
to have coffee with or get to know, is when
that person's life somehow responds to or reflects your own.
And so, you know, our research showed that viewers want
is overwhelmingly want to see work, family, and care stories
embedded into shows. About science and technology into apocalyptic you know, horror,
into shows about other things. And I think that that's

(15:36):
really positive, you know, for for creatives and executives to know,
and for audiences really to say, like, this is what
we want to see when we're turning on our screens
or booting up our streaming service.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Because it feels like it's probably also suffering from like
executives probably being pitched this kind of stuff from writers
who are like, this is kind of like real and
they're like, nah, no, one.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Never met with that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah, it's like, well, you have nine nannies, right, yeah, yeah,
but they're but hey, they're paid well and my kids
love them, so I don't know about this other stuff
you're trying to bitch me.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
It's like, well, this is kind of real life for
a lot of people. So when's this poor guy get
rescued by his millionaire uncle. That's what I'm wondering. Yeah, yeah,
we've all got them, right. I mean that's how I
was able to work as an assistant for seven years. Yeah,
my millionaire parents. Yeah yeah. I feel like that that

(16:29):
is the that has to be the secret backstory to
every character on most TV shows. It's just like, oh, yeah,
they come from dynastic wealth. Yeah they don't mention that
because people who come from dynastic wealth never do. But yeah,
what is something that you think is overrated?

Speaker 1 (16:47):
I definitely sort of male superheroes who solve problems all
by themselves and don't need anybody else.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yeah, I just need I just need to be alone
for a little bit.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
I'm going to go.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Solve this problem. And you know, I got here on
my own, and I'm going to fix the problem on
my own.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
And do you think that's Do you think that's helped
or harmed American culture?

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Totally harmed American culture?

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Questions?

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, no, I think like one of the big problems
with American culture and why it is that we have
such a hard time investing in policies that would help
most people, things like paid family and medical leave, which
I've worked on for the last sixteen years trying to
get the federal government and states to pass laws. Why
we have a hard time with childcare and funding home

(17:39):
and community based care and other services for older and
disabled people. Why we have a hard time recognizing that
we need like supports and protections in workplaces and different
cultural norms and society is that we have this idea
that everybody should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps,
and you know, kind of like if you work hard
and play by the rules, you're going to get ahead,
and it's up to each person and their own like

(18:01):
ingenuity to figure everything out. But that that turns out
not to be the case for many reasons.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, so you don't think Batman made the right move
investing in bat shaped fighter jets, spending spending that money
like donating to better mental health care.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
It takes a village, but you know, yeah right, yeah,
that would have health care, you know, will give Arkham
an upgrade, maybe get a little more progressive than making
every sending everybody to a spooky prison if they if
they're suspected of having mental health problems.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, I think we could do a lot better.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
What do you think interesting now? I'm just saying, like, yeah,
he just keeping his identity a secret, doing everything all
by himself, with like one elderly butler and an arms dealer.
I don't know. I think it's an interesting choice.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
Your neighbor probably too, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think
most people are like some guys. I'm like, man, if
I could just shoot laser beams out of my eyes,
I'd be able to have a relationship with my brother again.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah. Also, yeah, we also talk about it. Another version
of this myth making, which is when people succeed in
America and write biographies about themselves, they cut all the
helpers out. It's always a hero's journey narrative that starts
in a garage. For some reason, you got to start

(19:31):
in a garage. Yeah, and then you know, the people
who actually help them along the way are like recast
to be people who are like, you'll never make it stupid,
Your idea of a personal computer is dumb.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, the hero's journey is like a very strong narrative.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
America loves that shit. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
And yet yeah, I mean, I think it's so much
more interesting. I think it's more interesting to surround that
heroes journey with the supports and the barriers that have
gotten in their way that are not just about them,
but are sort of more reflective of all of us.
And I think that people see themselves in the stories

(20:13):
of others in ways that can be really powerful.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
It's just not how the world works. The world doesn't
work like that at all. It's a fun story that
people like to tell themselves when they're children, and then
you get out of that and realize you need people
and by asking for help and helping other people, that's
the only way to like happiness and fulfillment. Yeah, well,

(20:39):
all of our stories just like go back to that
central idea.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Right. What's interesting in this research that we did is
that actually, people overwhelmingly want to see characters being helped,
being supported by friends and family and coworkers and community.
They want to see people looking for and finding solutions.
They want to see people navigating and coming out of

(21:05):
conflict because those are much more realistic and relatable to
most people's lives.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
That's right, And it's because it's relatable. And I think
the other thing too, is like there's just such a
culture of like this concept of being like invulnerability for
American people that's fed to us through media, like, well,
you're not vulnerable, You're strong, you can just you you.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Laser beam everybody with your eyes. You're fine.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
And I think because of that we many people, I
think most people who understand the need for real, like
human centered progressive policy changes understand that we are all
very vulnerable and you and many people like it's a
really entrenched I think in conservative thinking. That's like they
don't want to acknowledge that we are vulnerable, that things

(21:49):
can happen and we do need help sometimes, and it's
always said you like, not me, not me, right until
it is.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
What's super interesting actually in our research is conservative, more
conservative viewers and more progressive viewers both want these stories.
They're both interested in seeing people navigating conflict and finding
support in their communities. They're both interested in people looking forward,
finding solutions, and so sometimes they think there's perceptions of

(22:19):
you know, sort of what the other side and amusing
air quotes kind of wants, and that turns out maybe
not to be true, but because we believe it, we
perpetuate it, and storytellers perpetuate it. And the other thing. Actually,
there's really interesting new research among men and young men
in particular about how held back they feel by this

(22:39):
idea that they're supposed to be, that they're supposed to
be in vulnerable, that they're supposed to be self sufficient,
that they're supposed to be providers, that they're supposed to
be strong, when what they and like many men in
surveys and multiple research projects really want is to be
able to be vulnerable and to talk about their feelings
and to be able to provide care without stigma and

(23:01):
to feel a little bit less of that like protector
and provider pressure that I think is creating like a
lot of stress and toxicity and mental health problems. Yeah,
you know, and for women it's these other messages that
are are being sent. And you know, one of the
things we think a lot about here is like how
do you break down gender stereotypes and gender expectations and

(23:25):
ways that let people just be human?

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Right, And so you're not spending tens of thousands of
dollars at an alpha male in vulnerability camp where.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah that recent episode, yeah where I think yesterday's episode
where we broke down a man ritual where instead of
like they did end up holding each other and like
kind of had a break doing a little snuggle, but
they had to like do this man ritual where he

(23:54):
was like you push through my chest and I like
push and then I say move forward and you scream
I'm a man over and.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Wow, I mean we just watching him were like, man, like,
this is what happens when you. Luckily, I was raised
in a home where you know, my father was very emotional,
like it was emote and that was okay. My grandfather,
his father, my grandfather was a like he was a
famous crier in my family.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Wow, And that.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Was and that was because he was always he would
always cry because he was overcome with joy all the
time and it was very beautiful to see and that
was very normal. But I also recognized too, most a
lot of other households are just not You don't have
that example A lot of times like stop crying, be
strong whatever I'm crying.

Speaker 6 (24:40):
Yeah, yeah, stop whining and right right right, But then
also realizing to just like, no, you have to be
like you have to accept that these are all parts
of who we are, and like to push that down
is just going to lead you.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
To spending tens of thousands of dollars out an alpha
male camp or almost screams at you and then you
get a hug at the end.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
But also if your father or grandfather were asked by
somebody whether they were criers and they didn't think that
it was going to be acceptable for them to say
that they were, would they still fess up to it
or would they pretend that that wasn't the case.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
No, they would.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Luckily, they're very like self assured and who they are.
I think, yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, they were
very much.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
On the other side, I've never cried, never even felt
like it. Oh yeah, well don't over here. So that's
I mean, those are just the two sides of either.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
I guess should we try to make you cry right now?

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah? You should.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Just immediately, just the mere asking asking him, Jack, do
you need to cry?

Speaker 2 (25:41):
No? No, no, all right, let's take a quick break.
We'll come back. We'll talk about the tech economy and
other fun stuff. Will be right back, and we're back.

(26:02):
We're back, and all right. AI is all the people
the forces of capital are talking about these days. You
got the good, you got the bad. On the good side, exciting,
exciting new announcement. Chat GPT is partnering with Walmart and
they've announced a long shit that will allow people to

(26:26):
buy shit from the company through conversations with AI and
even more exciting, in no way creepier, Chat GPT will
help customers quote anticipate their needs before they do, kind
of like Minority Report. But the end goal is selling
you a bunch of shit you don't need.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
That's I didn't realize the ant I knew that their
whole thing was like a lot of other AI companies
have like browser extensions, so you can still be within
a browser and do things like by doing this, you're.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Like, we're keeping you inside the chat GPT infrastructure to
do all these things. And now how many errant purchases
because I.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Remember, like like in the beginning of Prime, they're like
this three year old boy seventeen thousand dollars worth of
matchsticks or whatever, and they're like, I don't know, my
kids just clicked ad to Kart five hundred times with AI,
Like are you just gonna be like, oh, man, I
wish I had a better pair of slippers, like just ordered.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
They yeah, yeah, you do check your front porch, and
it's like the slippers are gonna suck. Because they have
tried to integrate with these sorts of platforms before, and
when they did, CHET GPT sometimes recommended sketchy third party
vendors or non existent vendors, which I don't even know
what that could possibly me. They're probably saying, like you

(27:48):
you want to go to Wonka's Hut for that, right well,
because they always like they make up fake sources, so
why not make up fake stores that can get you
the thing that you're looking for. I didn't know Walmart
was all in on AI.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
I thought they were fine with just like becoming hoovering
up all of the transactions that exist in the country
at the expense of like smaller shops.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
But now I guess they're only on AI. Know, yeah,
they I think they like one their chief executive like
warned of the quote existential threat of AI to literally
every job a long time ago. And by a long
time ago, I mean two weeks ago. And now he's
made good on that warning. He's like, I told you, guys, sorry,
I gave you two weeks notice. That's why I said.

(28:33):
It's because it was I was. I was sort of
telegraphing this move about embracing chat GPT okay good today.
But it is part of a trend that we've talked
about before on the show of like removing all friction
from consumption so you don't notice the purchases, you don't
have to deal with anybody, you don't have to deal
with any difficulty when it comes to spending money, accumulating shit,

(28:57):
and now that inflation is so out of control, like
being bankrupted by consumption. And also I do just think
this is probably not great for Chatgy, Like this is
a pretty quick move to slopification of a product that
I feel like, you know, according to chat GPT numbers
that like they're telling everybody is like extremely popular, but

(29:21):
I don't feel like it's at the plate like Facebook
and Google got like crazy market share before they started
breaking their product with that, you know, mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah, Well they're moving fast. They're moving very very fast.
I mean, even like those numbers. I was reading another
article about how like how dubious those numbers are, because
that's the next thing I want to talk about, is
that because like I just like personally, like I hear
some people being like, yeah, I use it sometimes for
like you know, writing emails or something, but I don't.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
It's not like everywhere, and people aren't like using it
constantly like every but like according to their numbers, it is.
But there are some There's a recent article and chart
that went viral on Wall Street that just tracked like
how in money is being invested by like in the
AI sector, and it's just like these seven blocks and

(30:18):
they're all just like investing like billions of dollars back
and forth between each other, which could lead to a
domino effect if it turned out that, like one of
these companies was full of shit. For instance, right, do
we not.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Learn anything from like the tech bubble bursting?

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Right? No?

Speaker 3 (30:35):
I mean the one benefit with like the dot com
thing is like at least we were laying infrastructure for
the Internet, like there was like fiber optic cable and
like now I mean like the more sort of charitable
descriptions I read about like these data processing centers, Like, well,
maybe we can use the data processing centers after the
bubble pops for what. I don't It's still not entirely

(30:59):
clear to me, like what that is. But yeah, yeah,
here we are, they said.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
You know, it could be like the aerospace industry and
the twenties through the fifties, where like Boeing funded its customers,
it funded suppliers, it owned its suppliers, like it was
all very like financially incestuous, but like it just needed
to be because like they were the only companies with
that technology. But it could also be very risky if,

(31:23):
for instance, there isn't as much demand as they claim
there is. And that's something that like the reason they
did this study is they were like, there's one major
player who is very opaque. The interviewer said, you wrote
increasingly You wrote quote increasingly complex transactions make it challenging

(31:47):
to evaluate how demand for AI is developing. Could you
explain why these transactions make it challenging? And then the
person who did the studies said, I think the opacity
we have published work for from some of my colleagues
that suggests a lot of the numbers from a certain
player are maybe somewhat aspirational. We just don't see that clarity,

(32:09):
which is kind of the reason why we wrote this note.
And the commitments seem somewhat binding. So some of open ais,
I mean, uh so, some of open AI's commitments with
other providers, chip makers, et cetera. They appear to be
somewhat binding, but we don't see their financial statements.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
So freaks me out, just like the institutional investment in
AI too, Like people's pensions are being like tied to
this stuff. That's the really horrific part is that this
is all just this huge gamble on a thing that
they keep insisting people want to use and it's just
not there. But it's the the it's the pensions and

(32:50):
those kinds of things that really that's really where the
damage is going to be done. I mean, like I've
sure in there like Fantasy World. It's like were artificial
general intelligence has achieved people better watch. It's like, no,
if the bubble pops, what about people's retirements? What about
these investments? What about companies who are overly invested in it,
who now have to lay off thousands of employees because

(33:10):
they took a.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Huge hit from the from the AI bubble popping. So yeah,
I like I think that There's this writer Daniel Bezner,
who is one of the hosts of the American Prestige
podcast and what's that he was on before many years ago. Yeah, yeah,
and he was saying that he thinks that this because

(33:33):
like we've been talking about this idea for like since
the pandemic, that it just feels like the economy in
quotes like the Wall Street thing that people treat as
the economy has just like left the earth. Like when
there were like you know, people were no longer working
and stuff, the Wall Street was just like doing fine
and just like coasting by, and it was like, oh,

(33:55):
they've insulated themselves from everybody else. It's just this like
sort of money inflation machine that they have at a
high level that they're able to just like kind of
keep inflated with like hype and excitement and like whatever
news stories they're reading. He is at least suggesting that
it could work the other way. He said, AI is

(34:17):
obviously a bubble, but to my mind, a very different
one than two thousand and eight or nineteen twenty nine crashes.
AI investment has been largely limited to the very wealthy
and enormous corporations and relates primarily to stock market inflation.
Itself indicative of how the nature of capitalism has changed
since two thousand and eight, when the government essentially provided
the capitalist class with free money. So basically, I think

(34:39):
it's possible the bubble could pop without the widespread social
effects of eight and nineteen twenty nine, which basically undercut
assets people owned houses, for instance, or relied on. Because
capitalism is essentially a game only the wealthy play while
the rest of us look on. I'm sure like in
my experience, anytime the market is facing trouble, they use

(35:05):
that as an excuse to cut jobs, like it's gonna
it will affect people. But to that point of like,
it's not real estate value, it's stock market value, which, yeah,
pensions and people's retirement is obviously going to hurt people,
but it's not it's less connected to reality than it

(35:29):
has been in the past, I think is one possibility.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
I think that's pretty interesting. I mean, part of the problem,
right is there's so much income inequality and so much
wealth inequality. And to the point that you made like
there's only a certain segment of people Americans who are
invested in the stock market at this point, or even
who have pensions, right, or retirement savings that are invested
in the market. But the trickle down effect right in

(35:53):
terms of jobs and wages, yeah, which are already hurting,
is yeah, is pretty It's scary.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Right, We can't like completely keep their shit from raining
down on us. But like it does feel like a
little bit less connected maybe than it was in the past,
because it feels a little less real. But yeah, I
mean the investments that are happening that are out of
people's control, I think that's the part that, Yeah, it's
really hard to avoid.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
It's one thing for someone an individual, you know, investor,
to be like, well, I'm going to buy some stock
in this.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
But when you're like, wait, what's our pension fund putting
the money into right now? Or the company that employs me,
what are they invested in right Oh, they're they're propped
up by stock market value. I'm the stock market's about
to take a shit. Yeah, And if the shit does
start ring, I feel like this is where people just
start eating them.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
But we'll see I'll eat my AI, my Nvidia chips.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
That's right, they go great, and they'll be worth as
much as a chip at that point. There is another
type of story I've been seeing where people are very
worried about Chinese robots that I think in a way.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
About a sci fi way, not in a sci fi
our money kind of way.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, it's another our money story. Another executive from this
time from Ford went over to China and looked at
their factories and was like, oh, no quote, it's the
most humbling thing I've ever seen, said Ford's chief executive
about his recent trip to China. After visiting a string

(37:29):
of factories, Jim Farley was left, of course, Jim Farley
was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into
Chinese cars from self driving software in to facial recognition.
Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far
superior to what I see in the West. And this
is somebody from Ford. And then another an Australian billionaire, said,

(37:50):
I can take you to factories in China now where
you'll basically be alongside a big conveyor and the machines
come out on the floor and begin to assemble parts.
And your walking alongside this conveyor, and after about eight
hundred and nine hundred meters a truck drives out. There
are no people. Everything is robotic. And of course the
article makes sure to mention I think this was in

(38:11):
the Mirror or the Telegraph, UK Telegraph, so they they
make sure to mention that like and they could do
this to make war machines and attack us, so you
should be scared. But assuming they don't, which by the way,
that seems to be traditionally more of our thing, more
of a US thing, of like, once you have a
tech getting overleveraged on, you just invade everybody. This does

(38:36):
this does seem like a problem for the capitalist class
that could be good for everyone else in the sense
that like this is just America. Is yet another way
America is falling behind, and like it's because they just
keep letting people like oligarchs decide what to do. Like

(38:57):
they're just like, yeah, that will figure it out. Just
keep giving them more and more money, keep giving the
people at the tops of companies more and more money.
And like in China that is not like this shift
to robotics. They talk about how it's a reaction to
like we've talked before about them China having a demographics

(39:20):
problem because of the one child policy that they have
for so long. They're about to hit this point where
a massive part of their population all retires at once,
and then the part of their population that was, you know,
the children of the one child policy will be in
the workforce. And that's like there's this thing called the
dependency ratio where it's basically like the more people you

(39:43):
have who are working age compared to the people who
are either retired or too young to work, it like
so goes your economy. It's why the US economy was
like booming so much when the Baby Boom generation was
like moving through the years of like eighteen to sixty five,
and why the economy is like slowing as they hit
retirement age. And China has like an extra extreme version

(40:07):
of that happening, and they've just taken money as a
government and like made the centralized decision to be like, well,
this is how we solve this massive problem that we
have facing it. And it's just like so impossible to
imagine America doing something like that, you know, like doing
something with like long term vision, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yes, Instead we just talk about how I certain people
are talking about how we need to have more babies
here right exactly, But we don't have policies that support
people to have babies here.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
No, no, no, no, no, because I would mess with
the millionaire and billionaires and like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
The idea that like for free enterprise and deregulation. But yeah,
like no paid family leave, no child care, insufficient childcare,
no clue. Like apparently we don't really care about clean
water or air anymore either. Guns, you know, guns aren't
a problem. People.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Well, fewer old people if we say, if our if
our water is really fucked up, fewer old people, because
you start lowering that. Uh sure, we're kind of doing
some work on our end. We're making true decisions.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Vicky, Like with the work that you do, what's like
what do you I think. I'm always thinking like, what's
just like the most efficient thing that we can be
doing policy wise that'll have like the most robust effect
across the board for people. And I'm always like I
always think of like how other nations, like when you
read about like parental policies and other countries like huh right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
So the you know, the United States is the only
one of like six countries in the world that doesn't
have paid maternity leave, or one of a handful of
high wealth countries that doesn't have paid parental leave or
family leave, or one of two high wealth countries that
doesn't even guarantee paid sick leave. Right, So providing these
like basic supports that other people have would be a

(41:57):
very strong way to start valuing workers in families and
fostering people being able to care for themselves and other people, right,
raising wages, guaranteeing health care, and again like ensuring that
people can care for the children that they have, whether
that's raising wages so you know, an adult can stay home,
or whether that's insteaentive is fully funding high quality childcare

(42:21):
with high wages for care workers so that people want
to want to do that job.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
When you like meet people or I'm sure you've you
encountered people who have a completely like antithetical worldview in
terms of like, well, we don't need to invest in that.
Has anyone ever articulated something that even remotely sounded humane
as to why it's not needed or it's veiled in
some kind of language that isn't sort of centering how
inhumane that?

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, yes, I've talked to lots
of people who don't believe that there's a role for
government and solving these problems. I think what's been really interesting,
and there's been an evolution over the sixteen or so
years that have been working on a set of policies
around work and family and caregiving. I think there's there's
and this used to give me hope, and now it

(43:07):
doesn't so much give me hope anymore because of where
we are. There's an agreement that we need to do
better for families, families with children, families who are Sandwich generation,
of which there are more than eleven million who are
caring for children, in caring for older adults or people
with disabilities. But the difference really comes in and whether
this is like a private pull yourself up by your bootstraps,

(43:29):
figure it out. George W. Bush a thousand points of
light kind of conversation, not w the real the first Bush, Sorry,
but anyway, yeah, HW. Or whether there's a role for
public policy and community systems that are funded with public dollars,
and that's really where it comes down to, where the

(43:49):
difference comes down to. I think there's also a big
difference about the role of women in caring for children
and left ones, and whether women belong as full, inequal
participants in the economy. And that seems to be the
dividing line. So I think we you know, there's a
lot of agreement around we need to do more. And
I will say also, like among people when you survey voters,

(44:13):
when you survey actually even these TV viewers that we surveyed,
there's like widespread agreement across party lines that national public
policies around paid family and medical leave, childcare, elder care
would be beneficial in terms of a more secure, more
secure families, more secure economy. People overwhelmingly across party lines

(44:34):
believe that we should have national paid leave, national childcare,
national elder care policies. But where the breakdown really happens
is with politicians, right, and that is you know, really
empathetical to representative government. But that is true of so
many issues where the public agrees.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
And yet oh we've seen it, we saw it, We
saw it really in four K.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
This last year.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
I feel yeah, just yea, it seems like this, this
might be kind of where people's heads are at.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
No, we're not talking about we have the proof that
letting companies and billionaires like make the decisions as opposed
to government doesn't work. Like we the fact that nobody
just like makes that point it like concerted that that
isn't just the Democrats entire position, like here, here's what

(45:20):
we've been doing does not work. Your quality of life
has gotten worse. Our entire our entire system is essentially
like based on trickle down in economics, and like the
idea that if we just give billionaires enough money, they'll
start investing the money back into the rest of us,
and it just like over and over and over and

(45:43):
over has been shown not to work. And people know that.
It's just these like institutions in between that are like,
I don't know why that's zaram guys so popular. He
seems weird to us or he seems like he's very talented,
and that's why it couldn't be his messaging that is

(46:03):
resonating with people.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yeah, well, you know, when these things go to voters,
they get approved overwhelmingly.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Colorado pass to paid family and medical leave program in
twenty twenty, the same election Trump Biden election. Counties that
went for Trump voted for the paid leave proposal. We've
seen the minimum wage and paid sick time be approved
in places like Alaska and Missouri. We've seen paid sick
time be approved in Nebraska. Yeah, not controversial for people,

(46:31):
real people who are working day to day and need
to care for themselves in their families. And the way
that it's polarized in legislatures.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
I think that's what's so interesting too, is like certain
things are just not partisan, Like your ability to support
your family. I mean, obviously like policies affect that, but
you're to yearn for that as a human being, right,
doesn't fall along a political ideology.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
And I think there's and that's where I think like
television and film storytelling can come in and start to
change how people think about these things. So, you know,
in our survey, something like seventy nine percent of viewers
said that they related to job, job instability, job concerns.
I think seventy four percent related to money concerns. This

(47:15):
isn't Yeah, these aren't parties in there's some divides by income,
but really it's everybody, no matter where you sit, you're
worried about these things because we live in this like
incredibly precarious and unstable time.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, hold that thought. Actually, we're gonna take a quick
break and then I'm going to come back and talk
about a movie that I think really gets it right
in terms of just like being meeting people where they're at.
It's a little film called tron Ares, And I think
you're going to like what you see here. We'll be
right back and we're back. We're back. And so I

(47:58):
don't know, Vicky, I have you've seen tron Aris so
either we so it in a way based on the
analysis we've been reading. It in a way addresses how
people are feeling in this precarious situation where jobs may

(48:19):
be threatened by AI by introducing a character who is
AI bit of a messiah figure, is only there because
he wants to help and like breaks free and then
evil tech people want to take him down because he
too good played by Jared Leto. I should I should

(48:40):
add so. I feel like, but for some reason this
did not connect with people. I don't know, like what
it uh? It bombed at the box office for for
some reason, even though it's this abstract political cartoon that's
trying to send the message that like what if AI

(49:01):
was like actually pretty cool and.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
It should have been like they should have Tron. I'm
just gonna call the character Tron. How Yeah, Tron should
have been like, uh riffed, you know, should have been
a federal federal worker who got riffed or something that
would have been way more relatable than being like a.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Perfect super AI soldier who is also benevolent. Wow, what
is this? I mean?

Speaker 3 (49:25):
I think again, it's I think because when we were
talking about like, you know, Jared Leto's own ties to
having his own AI company, where you're like, guys, this
is so transparent, like what is the point of this
right now? I think that's also again, it shows how
people like Jared Leto think people, how they are influenced. Well,
it's like, well, if in the movie I say AI good,

(49:47):
then they will believe that even though they are under
immense pressure existentially financially, in many different ways, the message.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Will get through. I'm pretty sure it's like my Pixar
idea that I did mention earlier that I want to
make a pick our movie about soup and it has
nothing to do with my soup company and the fact
that Tomato bisk soup is the hero of my movie
called Soups.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Say the character, it's called Jack's Tomato bisc soup. Yes,
tomato character. Yeah, yeah, yeah it's and yes, the font
is very similar to Campbell's. But that's being settled in
a lawsuit.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Yeah, but yeah, I don't know, like that, that has
nothing to do with why I want to make Soups
an exciting adventure about learning to except that the soup
that you have inside of you is actually going to
make you live forever. But yeah, so this is I
don't know. This just seems like such a weird place

(50:44):
for a Hollywood to be where they're making a sequel
to a movie that when they last made a sequel
to it, everyone's like, oh, I guess nobody wants a
sequel to that. They make a sequel to the one
that didn't do well with Jared Leto who the last
time they made a future film with Jared Letto, people
are They were like, oh, I guess nobody wants to
have a future film starring Jared Letto. Morebius they did

(51:05):
all the mistakes, Yeah, They're like, but what if we
made all these mistakes together and at the same time,
maybe maybe that would work. It might just pull it off,
might just pull it off.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
I mean like this feels like this sort of intersects
with your research too, in that like these are the
value clearly from the filmmaker standpoints or the studios standpoint.
This is like a message that's needed without understanding what
people are looking.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Yeah. Well, and also again like this idea that you
want to see like these like muscular white men on screen,
when really what audiences say they want to see and
what research tells us make more profitable engaging films are
diverse characters from a diversity of backgrounds, right, characters not
just of your own race or ethnicity, but of different

(51:52):
races and ethnicities, including among white viewers in our survey,
people of different income levels, and people who are yeah
relatable and not and like explaining why it is that
they believe what they believe and having some point and
counterpoint to it and not sort of asserting things.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Wait, hold on, what's not relatable about these aries? A
master control program?

Speaker 1 (52:16):
I'm in the wrong circles or.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Something like The Hollywood Reporter released an article. Thato was like, well,
that's a wrap. There will never be another major motion
picture with Jared Letto as the main character. But then
they had this to say.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
But do we think that's true? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
I mean, that's that's what I thought. I thought that
people were saying that. After morevious they're like, guys, I
think it's a wrap on this. But yeah, uh they
had this paragraph in a world where Michael Fassbender, you
and McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch are having a hard time
getting lead roles, would do you even go to a
person who can't open a movie and who has question
marks about around him as a person? Those from one

(52:57):
top talent manager partner who may or may not represent
Michael Fasbender really quick someone from wm H. Of course,
Fasbender also has some question marks around him as a person,
stemming from a domestic violence charge in two thousand and nine.

(53:18):
But yeah, I love that they They're like, Wow, what
about these other white guys that all kind of seem
similar to one another. You could be totally hiring them,
And then they couldn't even come up with the example
of someone who doesn't have problematic shit in their past, right, right.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Well, then, also Kamala Avila Samon, who used to be
at Lionsgate and now has her own production company, cast
Cast Productions. She's just really smart on this and talks
a lot about the high standards that are put in
place for films that are led by filmmakers of color,
by women, filmmakers that are on topics, you know, that

(53:56):
are a little bit outside the mainstream. And you know,
there's one of those, and if it doesn't do well,
it's like, oh, that's it.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Do this again. And if it does do well, like Sinners,
they're still like, well, we don't pay for one moving
the gold It did even better the next week. Uh, well,
we'll see if they make money on it forty five
years from now when the rights revert to Ryan Coogler.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Right, And so it's like, yeah, treated like an anomaly,
whereas these other other movies that are mainstream get made
over and over and over again, and some of them
do well and some of them don't, but we keep
making them because somebody believes that this is what audiences want.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
To see, right Yeah. I mean that was the thing.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Like even with Tron I was like, you know, there
there are women of color like in this one, like
Greta Lee is like one of the leaders, Jody Turner
Smith and like hassanman Naj And I'm like, are you
just going to.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Do the thing where they're like they went woke? Yeah? Yeah,
and we woke. And because it was an allegory for
chat GPT being the savior of humanity.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Being led by a big creep right now who has
a terrible track record opening movies.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Yeah, it's not bad at all. It's the fact that
Greta Lee was one of the leads. So that was
like my one when we were talking about the movie. Initially,
I was like, God, I hope they don't just drag
Greta Lee for this movie being bad. Oh you know
behind the scenes, that's exactly what's happening. I mean it
must because how is Jared Lettle still working like after Morbius? Seriously?

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Like that was such that was like one of the
that was like the cutthroat island of our times.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
That's what they should call getting fired from the Trump administration,
getting morbed, got morbed. Yeah, I don't know. We'll try.
I will workshop that all right. Well, Vicki, it's been
such a pleasure having you on the dailies like Ice. Yeah,
where can people find you? Follow you, hear you all
that good stuff?

Speaker 1 (55:39):
You can follow a New America a Better Life Lab
on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. I don't use it that
offen anymore at view shavo.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Oh what happened? Oh I don't know that was a.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Thing that happened in Twitter. Also on Blue Sky, but yeah,
I don't know. I don't spend as much time on
either of those as I once did so, but yeah,
look us up with all of our entertainment research is
at New America dot org slash entertainment. The Better Life
Lab is a New America dot org. You can find
us on that site. But check us out, and yeah, look,

(56:11):
thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
This is super fun, awesome having you. Is there a
work of media that you've been enjoying? That is a
question I have for you. What's a popular show or
movie that's doing well?

Speaker 1 (56:22):
I talk about this show all the time, and I should.
Maybe there's several of them, and several of them that
were Emmy nominated. But the show that I've been loving
is high potential on ABC in part because it shows
a woman, kay Lin Eelson's character Morgan, managing work, managing family,
like being an involved parent, having a co parent who's

(56:43):
a guy, a man, a dad who is like fully confident.
She brings her family life to work with her in
her mind, and she brings her work home like so
many of us do. So I've been enjoying that show.
But also the Pit I think is doing a great job.
Have been actually loving Severance and kind of the working
family themes and Severance as well as the anti corporate
them sort of workplace themes in Severance, the Bear I

(57:06):
think has like lots of cool family relationships in a
workplace where you get to know the characters and their
family situation so loose.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Shown after that Christmas episode that's true too much. Abbot elementary.
What do we think of ABD elementary? I feel like
there's from yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Yeah, like abbit a lot. There's there's another example of
like a show that you know has makes the the
point that like working parents need to take time off
of work to come to school meetings.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
I would say for all of these, I'd love to
see more solutions being put in place and more sort
of characters questioning why things are so hard and suggesting solutions.
And I think that helps audiences then also see they
can ask for solutions and band with others, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
To make it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Yeah, because like you watched and you're like, yeah, it
is bad. It's kind of a than like, yeah, it
is bad, and we can do this.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Yes, exactly, like we can do something.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
There's a great sne on The Morning Show from the
last season where one of the characters like asks a
board member what he's going to do about equal pay
for the rest of the people. She had gotten a
settlement to make up for a wage gap, but she
shows shift, which our research shows the audiences want to see,
saying what are you going to do for all of
the other people here who can't hire lawyers? And I
kind of love that as well.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Talking about the like lack of solution, we've positive the
theory that the reason people like like post apocalyptic zombie
movies is because it allows them to experience community and
walkable cities for the first time. That's how they.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
I think we can do better than that.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
What if like there weren't just like cars flow, Well,
that's what it just shows.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
It's like it's easier to think that part up than
like a utopia where it's like, yeah, and we've figured
out income inequality and you know, just generally like societal
ills have been solved through wealthy distribution.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Yeah, it's been really fun to talk to writers who
are interested in all these topics and hopefully our data
helps them sell them their shows and ideas.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Yeah, right for sure. Yes, Miles, where can people find
you as their working media you've been enjoying? Yeah, find
me everywhere at Miles of Gray.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
You can find me talking about ninety day fiance on
four to twenty de fiance with Sophia Alexandra.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
A couple posts I like.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
First one is at Rob Delaney dot beascout on Socialist said,
just saw tron Ari's calling it now Jared Fogel is
gonna win another oscar.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Another one from Paul F.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Tompkins at PF Tompkins dot be scout on social post said,
I know everyone is sick of hearing this, but Dorothy
is a mom's friend's name, not a mom's name.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
If your mom is named Dorothy, she's not really your mom.
And I just like how assertive he was being about
that facts. Yeah, you actually can mom's friend is named Dorothy,
not your mom. You can find me on Twitter at
jack Underscore, Brian on Blue Sky at jack Obe the

(59:57):
number one working media enjoying trash Jones on Twitter tweeted, hey,
hate when somebody is starting to piss me off a
little but not enough to say anything. You're on thick
ice with me, buddy. I feel like that it really
resonates with me. Okay, nobody's ever been shots fired nicker
ice been with me? Yeah, exactly. You can find us

(01:00:21):
on Twitter and Blue Sky at daily Zeikes where a
d daily zekeist. On Instagram, you can go to the
description of this episode wherever you're listening to it, and
there at the bottom you will find the footnote no,
which is where we link off to the information that
we talked about in today's episode. We also link off
to a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles,
is there a song that you think the people might mean? Yes,

(01:00:41):
I think with d'angelo's passing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
I've just been listening to a lot of R and
B and also just stumbling upon some other artists I
wasn't as familiar with. This is a new artist I
wasn't familiar, name familiar with, named Gabriel Jacobi. The track
is called The One, and it's got.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
He's had, like I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
He's doing so many things vocally, like there's a lot
of false sell it falsetto.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
It's like whispery.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
It kind of feels like Prince vibes sort of vocally,
but also who else am I trying to say? It's
like it's you're gonna enjoy it. If you like R
and B, you're gonna like this. And it's it's a
little bit more faster paced. It's not sort of like
a slow R and B ballot. It's just like a
nice track.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
It's called The One and it's by Gabriel Jacobi and
we will link off to it in the foot Nope.
Daily Zite Guys is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's gonna
do it for us. This morning for this whole week. Actually,
we're back tomorrow with the greatest hits of the moments

(01:01:43):
from this week's episodes, and back on Monday morning to
tell you what was trending over the weekend and what's
trending on Monday morning, and we will talk to you
all then, by the Daily Zeite.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Guys is executive produced by Catherine Long, co produced by
Bay Wag

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Co produced by Victor Wright, co written by j M mcnapp,
edited and engineered by Justin Conner.