The Anti-Consumer Electronics Show with Steve Burke

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Alzo Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed
ze Tron. We're back in the normal verse after nineteen
hours of CS coverage. As ever by the merchandise in

(00:26):
the links in the show notes and subscribed to my
freaking premium newsletter. Got a banger of a beast coming
out Friday. But today we're talking once again to the
incredible Steve Burke of Gamers. Next as how you doing Steve.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
I'm doing well.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
How about you doing all?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Right?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
After post CS and just feeling like I was drowning
in nothing is the best way to put out?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, I mean it was definitely. The keynotes were a
lot of air.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes, yeah, I mean we can start within video, I
think because I watched that one in person, and the
funniest thing was we get there and they're like, there's
you have to do. This is like a massive line
rounded around the corner, and then there was a different
line where everyone lined up, only to find out that
that was actually the line for the viewing party, and

(01:16):
then they let us in and it was standing room only.
Then someone came around and said, actually there were seats,
and then the actual presentation felt like they just stapled
together a few GtC speeches and then gave up, Yeah,
like go.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Then video one was like, uh, that one I was
watching with someone on the team, and I want to
say the whole thing was maybe like ninety two or
ninety three minutes. And then they had the lead in
as well, and it was you know, the frustrating thing
for me was they had actual news. So on the

(01:54):
consumer side they had some news the Lusus four point
five or some other stuff, didn't really get to mention
that all the keynote. And then even on the enterprise side,
it was like they bury the vera Ruben stuff an
hour deep and they had published this huge article that
was actually pretty interesting on their website about the architecture,

(02:15):
and none of it made it in.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
What was was a lot of the vera Uben stuff
wasn't new though, Like they announced the six so called
new chips that went into it. That was all announced,
like every single one, and they didn't even talk about
the interesting part, which was they really buried the fact that, yeah,
the actual the next stage of this whatever this is
to make it faster and whatever, isn't just the power

(02:39):
of the GPU, but the surrounding hardware, the networking, the
RAM and so on and so forth, and storage, which
is actually kind of interesting to me. None of that shit, no.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
No, no, Yeah, and Intel did a similar thing where
Intel re announced Panther Lake. They had a little more
detail this time, just I guess like Nvidio had a
little more detail, you know, on Viera Ruben. But ultimately
it's a thing that was announced months ago and it
was just I don't know. The whole show is kind
of weird. I think easily the worst cees that I've

(03:12):
ever personally witnessed. Uh and uh yeah it was. It's
just there's the strangest thing to me was when AMD
pulled the White House up on stage.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Actually I missed AMD. Tell me what happened in that
when we can go back to in video in a minute.
I missed AMD just because the concussion. I sustained watching
Jensen talk. But what happened with AMD? What did they do? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I think if you watched another keynote after that, he yeah,
I went in the hospital. So yeah, it was AMD.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Was they?

Speaker 3 (03:50):
So they have a new CPU. They have a ninety
eight fifty x MED which is a refresh and a
little bit faster clock. It's like four hundred megger hearts
or something. Did not mention it a single time they
talked about their helios racks, so they're kind of er rubin,
you know, equivalent discussion.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, so AIGPU ranks.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah. And then the part that was strange and different
from even in videos was when they pulled up I
think his name is Michael Krasios. He's a technology policy
like head advisor for the White House. They pulled him

(04:31):
up on stage and had this clearly rehearsed, scripted conversation.
And this is the guy who is leading sort of
the the federal government charge on stripping down states rights
for data center and AI regulation, and even on stage

(04:51):
he was talking about how they've been getting rid of
these obstructions to AI and data center development, and it's
just I don't know. I was like, I don't know
what the fuck I'm watching because it's like it's CES,
which is put on by the Consumer Technology Association and
they have a consumer product. They didn't mention it, and

(05:12):
now we're having a White House government policy meeting on
AI on stage in front of an audience. You know,
It's like, what am I watching?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah? And on top of that didn't Greg Brockmann from
Open Aye show up. Yeah, that fucking guy AI for
everyone everywhere, everything at once.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
I guess yeah, he he he he, I don't. I
don't know, man, he like told some stories I questioned
the veracity of about how AI has saved the lives
of people and oh blah blah blah. And then they
talked about a child management optimization what what he had

(05:56):
a He had a line about everyone, you know, raise
your hand if you've had an important moment in your
life and something has happened to you, like the birth
of a child. And I'm not even I'm not trying
to make it ridiculous, like that is basically what he said.
And audience is dead silent. Yeah, and then he talks

(06:16):
about how, yeah, the goal is to get there and
have AI provide these or help with these important moments
and optimize them. And this after he's talking about managing
you know, children and you had of course managing children,
well you had Sam Altman on.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
A Jimmy Fallon. I love going on TV just be like,
I don't know what to do chat GPT. Yeah, it's
it's so weird. It feels like living, it feels like
living through a giant gas lighting, just like everybody pretending
and I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna guess. Nobody brought up
the data centers they're meant to be building for this

(06:54):
year either. They just were like, we love we love
number go up, don't we folks.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, I mean if they didn't, there wasn't any detail really, yeah,
no specifics.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
And also to your point, Consumer Electronics Show, Consumer for
the for the consumers.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah, nothing again owned by the Consumer Technology Association. So
it's like the I don't know, the whole thing was
just it's fine if that's what you wanted to be, fine, right,
but like that's a different show.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, but we were promised and back to in video
for a second. I will also say that it was
fucking I give Jensen want some real credit here, And
that's if you were going to start your it's your
it's really a make or break here for AI. The
first thing I think when I'm thinking AI make or break,

(07:48):
I've got to really blow the stocks off is half
of the show, like forty five minutes straight about the
fucking omnibus.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
I sat there and I had David Roth from DEFECTO
with me trying to explain what the omniverse was and
just being like, I think it's computer simulations.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, so that's seeing if you're talking about and videos omniverse. Yes, yeah,
it's there, Like you can use it if I remember
it correct, that you can use it to make digital
twins of things. Yeah, like or at least that's their
buzzword for it. But yeah, they've had some examples in
the past of using it for like logistics mapping and
for planning around things like typhoons and Taiwan and simulations.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah. Interesting Yeah, well interesting isn't the word. It wasn't interesting.
It was so very it was so very boring.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Well, you know, I've seen but I've seen some. It's funny.
Some of the limited sort of pushback I've seen online
against the negativity about what's going on right now has
just been well, why is every one so negative? Everybody's
everyone's very critical. Everything's dumerism, it's Ai doomerism, it's you know,

(09:07):
it's it's very negative. And you know, I read that stuff.
I try to factor it and consider it. And like,
we ran a piece that was really positive today as
a palate cleanser after CS because cs was actually genuinely awful.
What do you think about that, because that's that's uh

(09:28):
I'm sure you see that too.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well. I mean when he says AI doomerism, is he
talking about the people saying that the bubble will burst?

Speaker 3 (09:37):
If we're talking Jensen Huan, then I think, yeah, he
just did an interview with some podcast. I think it's
called no Priors or something, and uh, oh, yes, it
would be no Prior yeah, and so in that he
said for him, I think dumerism is, to use his words,

(09:59):
like the science fiction version of AI in the future.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Okay, I if he's saying that's bad, I agree because
but not for the reason he probably says it's bad
because he doesn't want people to be scared of AI
so they keep buying it. I say it's bad because
it's a lie, because they because they're lying. They're lying
about it. They're just they're making stuff up. It's just
just lying.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Oh it's interesting too, because you could you could spin
that both ways. But it's like it could be the
well we're talking about the companies. You know, their version
of AI in the Future is also a science fiction
it's just the utopia version.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Uh yes, and like.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
There's yeah, there's there's ground between Terminator and Utopia, but
it's kind of a hand wavy dismissal right, to just
be like all this negativity is is unreasonable. And in
that same interview he was talking about how it's it's

(10:59):
sort of hurtful I think was the word he used
or harmful, uh and and you know, damaging, And the
general vibe I got was like, this negativity is hurtful
to society as a whole. Can't you please buy my product?

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well that was the weird thing as well, like they
did the whole Vera Ruben song and dance at that presentation,
and they didn't they're not talking pricing yet, they're not
talking about anything. And then they made the comment where
it's like and Vera Ruben is now in manufacturing and
dead silent, just dead sub partly because that doesn't mean anything.

(11:44):
I assume, I'm gonna be honest, I assumed it was
in manufacturing. They're meant to be shipping them soon, like right,
what was with people? Were people like, oh, they haven't
put them together yet. They just I don't know, And
there was that I think it was Patrick moorehead as well.
During it who was saying, like, you know, the crowd
went wild, which it didn't this crowd. The crowd went

(12:04):
to quote someone on Twitter, the crowd went mild was
the best way of putting it.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah. You could hear like a couple claps.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
You know, Yeah, and I could. I've never and I've
watched a lot of press conferences, good and bad. I've
never heard a cough.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
And it was just like, yeah, I mean, if you
dropped your phone after that, you would have heard it
on Yes on the crowd Mike.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
But another great part of that was the the robots.
And he brought in the robots, which I did not
realize was Star Wars robots. He kind of muttered it
under his breath, and I thought, oh, he just thinks
Star Wars is about robots, I get. I just thought
it was like almost a boomery thing. It was like, yeah,
you know, robots, but apparently it's the robots from Jedi

(12:49):
Fallen Order. It is. Yeah, that's so weird.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Because he brought them out. The long reason I know
that is because they brought them out last time as well.
I think COMPUTEXT or GtC.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
That's so sad.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, and so last time they brought them out. That
was when he was I don't know if he was
actually frustrated, if he was like joking frustrated, but they
weren't responding to the commands properly, and they got kind
of stuck. The green one wouldn't move. This time, they
responded to the commands more. But it was strange because

(13:23):
there he was using the second person you from that
point on, and sometimes it wasn't clear to me if
he was talking to the audience or to the customer
or to the robots. And he was talking to the robots.
He was like there was one I didn't talk about
this in the video, but there's a clip we've used
where he says he's talking to the robot and he says,

(13:45):
and we're actually gonna give you're gonna be born in
these systems. Yes, that was so he had this like
give birth, you know, and then he cut himself off.
I was like, what the hell?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
He was so strange, and he was like to and
he talked to them for what felt like an hour.
It was like they're twenty or thirty minutes, and he
was like, yogot, this is how we build you. And
he turned and he looked at the picture of the
robots behind him that was from GtC, like we've seen
that picture before. He's like, this is where we're traying.
These are your these are They're like you, these are

(14:19):
your friends, And it's just like, mate, you are worrying
a I assume twenty five thousand dollars leather jacket. Your
company is the largest on the stock market. Why are
you talking to them? To quote David Rath from DEFECTA,
like you're offering them skittles? Like it was so bizarre it.
I think that we're going to look back on that

(14:39):
press conference as like the top because I went and
I rewatched GtC twenty twenty five. I watched some of
his other like even his analyst things. He used to
have this like braggadacious swagger. He would trot around. He
had a big smart Even last CS he had he
did the Avengers sheet, like the Avengers shield, They're they're
gonna eat melted me about the Avenger shield, the Captain

(15:01):
America shield thing, and like he he felt kind of
like up and at them. This time he was like, ah,
you know, got some shit. I guess you want to look,
We're gonna maybe do it. I didn't even catch that
they're planning to do a Robotaxi service. Yeah, I didn't.
I was watching and listening, but it was not super obvious.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, I know some people who were who tried it
and were like actually impressed by it.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I mean, it's a Robotaxi. We've the cool but like
but just also like, you're in video, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah. We we went back on the team here and
we were looking at some of their older keynotes because
I was basically has it always been, like I'm just
not remembering it right? And no, I mean they were
a lot tighter in the past. Like if you go
back to nine hundred series ten series era keynotes and
how long ago is that, That'd be twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, right,

(15:57):
maybe twenty fourteen. Yeah, and yeah, so you go back
to that reigne of two to three years and generally
they were tighter together. It's interesting how much I mean
we all change. Certainly, I've my hosting style has changed
on camera. You know, if you're running ten years apart,
then yeah, it's like a totally different person. But it
is interesting though to see his change in particular where

(16:21):
the the gaffs and the sort of silliness. Back then,
they were more of like your your uncle is telling old,
tired jokes that you've heard a million times, but you know,
but it was like it was a likable style and

(16:42):
now it's just like, instead the jokes are things that
I don't know. You're just kind of like you should
have to fuck up?

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Can you tell me about do you have a graphics god?
You could show me? Can I see a graphics god?
What are you talking about? Yeah? What do you? And
he also just psychoanalyzing Jensen woea. But he seemed unconfident,
Like even when he was being a huge asshole last
year when he was like saying, you broke the audio
thing to the guy he named right, even then he

(17:12):
seemed confident. He seemed excited. He was kind of like, yeah,
let's go this year. He was like, and we've got
we've got some you want to see the omnibus. I
guess look Fear of Rube and it's so powerful. There
were less slides. Yeah, I actually fly went lot. I mean,
he just kind of seemed like he didn't have anything new,

(17:34):
probably because he didn't.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
It's so weird though, because like at least with and
not to make it all about gaming, but you know,
it's it's kind of like if you're gonna make space
for robotaxis and for robots and AI and omniverse and okay,
so there's a little carve out for everybody. Everybody's got
there ten or twenty minutes, and it's the gaming stuff.
It's like there was actually new stuff there, and it

(18:01):
could have replaced any number of other things. But I
was almost just uncertain if do they feel like the
gaming topics sort of devalue what they do in the
business enterprise world, like they if they talk about gaming
for you know, five minutes in the keynote, are they

(18:24):
worried their stock price is gonna go to our Yeah?
Like I couldn't figure out why I wouldn't get a presence.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
I mean, I think I think they're just scrambling. I
don't think they know what to do anymore. There's a
lot of the kind of key jingling going on. I
think they just like have fucked. But even then that
was what that's actually I don't know if I actually
agree with that thinking about it, because why did you
talk about the omnibus? Why talk about that at all?

(18:53):
When you don't appear to be able to explain what
it is. But I think I talk to a few
analysts AFT towards as well, like good ones that you
know what they're talking about, so not the one's on Twitter,
and all of them pretty much came the same conclusion,
which was, this was a half hearted attempt to claim
the GPUs can do something else.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Oh yeah, sure, yeah, trying to start creating a carve
out for if if interest wanes or whatever and the
other you know, an AI or other applications didn't.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Really work because it was impossible to it was impossible
to actually divine what it was they were selling. Also,
it didn't help that that morning the Information put out
story saying the Omnipus sugged that like nobody would buy it.
It did, but that was crazy though. That was one
part of that story that I'm unsurprised that they didn't

(19:42):
talk about on there. But apparently in Video has been
paying the cloud. They've been paying various cloud providers money
to rent capacity so that people can do omniveruse stuff. Yeah,
but I mean it sucks, like it just doesn't work
so good because also digital twin stuff is being around

(20:05):
for a while and I.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Guess it's yeah, it is interesting, Like, I mean, that
is one of the ones where the first time I
saw one of their digital twin demos was before they
were throwing around AI as much as they are, and
I was a buzzword, and I mean I do remember
I was like, okay, I yeah, no, this, I kind
of get this this And because the example they were
giving at the time when I first really saw it

(20:29):
was they had a weather simulation, but they also had
a warehouse simulation, and they were using it to show,
you know, at the time, instead of AI, it was
more commonly referred to as like machine learning, right, and
using it to show how you might digitally replicate a
warehouse and all the stocking and then map out how

(20:52):
people and robots move and interact with the warehouse, right, Like, Okay,
this I get.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
I mean, this is like, yeah, it makes sense. It
isn't a complete vaporware.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Product, But they're not really like that's already been done.
You know, that's been They showed that a long time ago.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
So it's also just not a sexy story, even though
it's very likely useful to someone.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Not an interesting story at the consumer technology association's ces.
You know, it's like, yeah, oh great, cool, I'll yeah, I'll.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
I can't wait. So I as a consumer technology person,
we'll look forward to doing something. And it was also
not obvious what it was meant to be, like he
didn't do like a traditional product rundown and well, one
could argue the people that want this don't need that.
It was still a keynote. Yeah, still a keynote. You're
meant to be showing things that the keynote.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Yeah, And I mean I think also he did mention
palet heer like three, oh, yes.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
He did, just reading a quote from the information. The
problem might be that and I quote developers who have
used Omniverse two for building and simulating scenes and objects
often say the software was hard to use, that it
easily broken, that its features felt incomplete. So who knows

(22:22):
what could have happened there? I don't know, I think,
but Nvidio actually announced stuff though they just chose not
to announce it at their announcement. Yeah, I mean great,
what did they announce because I truly missed it. I
truly I was there.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, it's like it wasn't huge. But also they had
they've had announcements in the past that weren't huge. So
like back in the day when they were pushing I'm
trying to remember the name of it, it was like game
something anyway, they had they had a program where Game Works,
that's what it was. It had some controversy over the years,

(23:00):
like all their products, but even when it was just
game Works, where they were, hey, here's some developer tools
to make graphics look better, easier, it was kind of
the pitch. And even when that was it for the
announcement they didn't have new GPUs, they would still find
spots to talk about it on stage at keynotes at
these various shows, and yeah, this time, I mean they

(23:21):
had DLSS four point five.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
But it's the thing that you can upscale, right, Yeah,
unless I'm miss unstanding.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, it's kind of like more. They've rolled in a
bunch of things to it now, so it's it's a
general blanket name to describe the upscaling solution and also
frame generation and things like that and so so yeah,
now they have an update to their model. They rolled
out a transform model last year as opposed to the

(23:52):
uh neural the CNN model previously, and we tested that
last year it was improved, and then their new one
that they have this year, the half step iteration actually
directly fixes and resolves most of the issues we found
with the previous one. Yeah, I was like, okay, cool, Yeah,
they're doing stuff. They you know, they took the feedback,

(24:13):
they fixed it, and then they don't really show it anywhere.
It was just kind of disappointing.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
But and so that allows you to run games at
high resolution or is the frame rate high?

Speaker 3 (24:26):
Just fill that, Yeah, so it sort of fakes it.
It basically you can run the game as far as
your computer is concerned. It's being run at a lower resolution,
so there's a lot fewer pixels, which reduces the load
on the GPU, especially so if you're on an older
GPU even more easily run the software to higher performing

(24:50):
frame rate to get a better experience. And it then
upscales that lower resolution native render and stitches it back
together by using machine learned upscaling. And it's one of
the use cases where it's like not just bullshit two
letters AI, you know, like it actually does something, and

(25:13):
so yeah, you get there's there's actually instances now and
this didn't used to be true, but there's instances now
rarely where an upscaled output can at times be better
than a low resolution native output. A lot of that
has to do with replacing what the game is doing.
So the game is doing like a temporal anti alias

(25:34):
and in your place with DLSS, it's going to look
better and so like it's in I don't know, it's
that's one of those where it's like the fake frames thing,
not the biggest fan of, but generally DLSS and the upscaling,
I think it works fairly well, and they've actually improved
on it, and they've actually addressed the criticisms and it
was nowhere to be found in the keynote.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, that's it. I get.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Well.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
I guess the argument being the Okay, they're not going
to talk about why you don't need a new GPU.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
That's fair. Yeah, but they can't say AI.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
They can say AIS. So it's really really difficult one
for old Jensen. But you know, moving off of Nvidia,
I didn't catch it. What did Intel do at CES
this year?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Way up to Intel does have actual products that are
potentially promising. I mean they've got eighteen ins from rolling
in their new process and what is them that is
their new process Node where Intel for a while now
has had to rely on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC

(26:42):
to make their parts. Intel historically has fabbed all of
its own silicon, and then as its process technology fell
behind and started losing the race of TSMC, they had
to take their own in house products and get them
made by their fab competitor. And now they've gotten some
of their fabs operational, like one of their new ones

(27:04):
in the US at least one, it might be two
to where they're producing their modern, more competitive process technology
eighteen and Angstrom eighteen A it's called UH, and they've
rolled out things like backside power delivery, which is a
more efficient way to deliver power into the CPU. It
has some benefits where the frequency can be uplifted a

(27:28):
little bit, a couple percentage points, single digit percentage points.
And so there's there's actual technology improvements there. Like Nvidia,
the actual technology and improvements and the engineering got almost
no airtime at the show. What did they ai?

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (27:45):
What?

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Sorry?

Speaker 3 (27:47):
I was so. I was so disappointed because it's just
like man the so you re announced Panther Lake, which
they announced in October. I think it was.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
M Path lake is the new you see, Yes, thank you, Yes,
the new SEC solution CPU and yeah for mostly for
mobile products, handheld laptops and.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Yeah, and it's kind of like the backside power delivery
is not a new technology, but it's kind of new
for being deployed in actual things that you can buy.
And if you're going to re announce the existence of
the product, I feel like you might as well take
the time to just go into detail on the cool

(28:30):
engineering that makes it actually interesting and potentially competitive. But instead, Yeah,
they reserve all that time for you know, the usual
revolving door of executives and suits to come talk about AI.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
But what are they even doing with AI?

Speaker 3 (28:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
Oh oh, okay, I thought that rocks.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
You've been in this, You'd be in in hardware for
decades now, you just who the fuck great stuff? I
was like.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Intel, it was It's weird. So I would say if
I had to rank the keynotes least least worst.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
To best worst, nice, Okay, it would.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Be I think Intel was the least worst. They were
not as bad as the others. I watched them among
the first Little did I know at that point it
would get worse from there. So I'd put Intel at
the not as bad scale, uh, and videos in the middle,
and he's honestly, for me, theirs was the worst.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
I really wish I'd have watched it now.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Oh it's it sounds you're welcomed. It's still out there.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, I could hit myself in the nuts with a
baseball bat. And that's just really that's that's that sounds
more fun is He is really depressing though, with Lisa's sue,
because even a year ago, I would have been like, Okay,
Lisa is the smart one. Yeah, she's not gonna do
the key. But but I guess not. I guess it's all

(30:04):
keys from here on out. Yeah. That's so. It's so weird.
And I mean I mentioned it earlier and I've ye
I need to put this in an episode of US
just a newsletter. But they announced this deal with open
Ai back in September October last year that they were
going to build they were going to have the first
gigawatt of m I four fifty instinct whatever's in a

(30:27):
data center this year. And I feel like I'm going
insane because nothing has happened. They haven't raised their guidance,
they haven't changed anything. They're not. They're not acting as
if they're going to build it. They're just like, look,
it's Greg Brockman. You love him, right, Yeah, and he
just turned like the least charismatic man.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yes, story Jensen, Juan his leather jacket.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Just like, hey guys, yeah, you know, imagine if your
children could be raised with an AI. Wouldn't that be good?
They can't do that now, in fact, it can't do
very much, but what if it could. Welcome to a day.
This is the Consumer Electronics show. We have no products. Goodbye.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah, I mean it's am D's in particular. It's just
like your couent on. Lisa is interesting because you know,
Jensen absolutely is is intelligent and different multiple different ways.
And yeah, and so is Lisa. They both have originally

(31:26):
at least an engineering background. I'm not sure that they
do much of that now. It's not slight against them,
but like Lisa, I would say, has had a fairly
clean reputation of kind of a no bullshit straight shooter. Yeah,
you know, welcome to our show, here's our stuff, see
you later. And she's still I would say, it's still

(31:48):
more of a straight shooter than Jensen. But it's just
like I don't know, I watched the ay Quy note.
It's like, oh, okay, you're you're all doing sort of
the same type of thing right now with the company
is because it's the same government policy discussions on stage,
it's the same AI B to B enterprise obsession, data centers,

(32:12):
and and you just kind of go ah, I thought
maybe you were different, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
You are not only the same, You're really the same
like you were just it's also very strange based on
the history, the modern history of like amdvs Nvidia and
Intel and such, watching a MD being and also ran
like like, I don't know, I'm not anywhere near as

(32:37):
bath and this as you, but like I had reached
a point where it's like, wow, MD isn't a company
that jumps on shiny objects, or if they do, they
do so with consideration and thought and how it might.
Now it's just like, yeah, we're gonna do AI GPUs
now the ones that are so expensive that the only
way you can buy them is using debt. That one.
That's what we're going everything is on this now.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Yeah, And it's the thing I find if I try
to take a devil's advocate position I think I think
the thing I would say would be, well, but if
they don't try at all, then they get completely left
behind and there's zero competition for Nvidia. I don't know

(33:20):
the best responses to that, like other than well you
could do it in more moderation, or do we really
have to try? Though? But yeah, you know, I think
that's probably the response is like, well, what do you
want them to do? And that's what I see a
lot of that when I I read a lot of
the initial comments on content from a place of like

(33:41):
actually trying to gather sort of feedback. I would say
the general the general sentiment definitely, at least in our channel,
is aligned with kind of how you and I are
both talking right now. If you look at the people
who are more cynical of the negativity in good faith,
I think they I do think a lot of times

(34:06):
it comes down to, well, what would you have them do?
Almost as if to say, not pursuing you know, infinite
money glitches is impossible, like you have you literally have
to pursue an infant money glitch in this market. I
think that's probably the argument, or maybe that it's idealistic

(34:31):
to assume that they wouldn't right.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
I think the no, I think you're right. It's just
the level of maybe they're making the money now, but
I don't even know if I am d MS these
days and revenue like it's a hit four point three
billion in Q three twenty twenty five. I mean, it's like, okay,
you can get that money the stock. It's good for

(34:53):
the stock and all that. But the same time, how
do you walk this back? If you fail? How do
you walk? But because that's the thing that I keep saying,
because putting aside how anyone feels about AI in any
particular moment, it is proof that this is not coming
out of cash flows, that this has to come out
of DAM and AMD. I don't know AMD staking their

(35:17):
entire future on this. It just feels it feels chaotic.
It doesn't feel like a strategic There is no strategic mote.
They're not trying to be I'm sure that they'll claim
there is something, but they're trying like there's no real
difference other than they're not as powerful and they don't
have kuda. They're trying with hip dif I guess which
is their version of kudo.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
Kind of do you think if this all implodes. Do
you think I saw a comment that was interesting to
me where no particular evidence or anything, but the guy
just said if it all collapses, he thought AMD would
get screwed the most because he said they just don't

(35:59):
have the cash to deal with the collapse like on
video does. I mean, what's your take on that.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
I mean, let's see their free cash flow two point
four billion. I mean it really comes down to the
cash and hand which I'm gonna look. I'm gonna look
at live on air. So they got about five billion,
let's see seven billion on hand. I mean when a
crash happens, I don't think it's something where in Video

(36:29):
dies or AMD dies. I think Oracle could. I think Oracle.
Oracle has negative thirteen billion dollars of cash flow, the're fucked.
But with AMD, it's like I am not super familiar
with their finances well enough to say, oh, this will
mess them up. That being said, they have a much
much much smaller cushion, right, like their cushion is like
in video has like tens of billions of dollars in cash.

(36:49):
I think ah AMD AMD as well. Their business, They've
they've really had to yank their business yeah, they have
about seven billion dollars in inventory as well. They've really
had to yank their business towards AI rather than they've
had to rush to catch up, which is not great.
If this explodes, and then the longer it takes for

(37:10):
this to explode, the better it will be for MD
just because they will be able to make some sales
and actually get some instincts out the door. If it
breaks in the next year, they're in real trouble. And also,
I personally am looking forward to watching all these companies
have to explain what they were doing, like hey did.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
Like ideally in front of a congressional committee.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yes exactly, or like over a shark tank or something
like that, like because it's just throughout ces. Actually, I'll
give you a great example. The worst presentation I watched
was actually yesterday. Okay, I watched it on the fly
and it was only five minutes, and it pissed me off.
So Lenovo, Ah, you remember Lenovo, they make laptops and such,

(37:51):
Remember that famous famous laptop company, Lenovo. So they rented
out the Las Vegas sphere Okay, and they get up.
I'm wondering if I can actually get this get the
quote of what the CEO said, because the CEO got
on stage, don't remember his name, not gonna lie. See
here we go, here we go, and I quote. Nowadays,

(38:15):
AI is no longer just generating answers, writing code, creating
images and producing videos. I mean citation needed. AI is
quickly evolving and gaining new capabilities, sensing our three dimensional world,
understanding how things move and connect, learning our logic and complexity,
and interacting with reality in ways never seen before. AI
is everywhere. So based on that, you would think that

(38:37):
they would have something new. What they actually had was
an AI called Kira Qira. That was they called a
superagent and you'll be shocked to hear. It can summarize things,
It can tell you what's on your calendar, it can
look things up. The worst part was because the CEO
came on did his kind of like word vomit, and
they just walked off and this unnamed spokes person, this

(39:00):
woman comes ang. It's like, Kira, what do you see
around you? And he goes, I see, we're in there.
It's a big screen and this, that and the other,
and they say the size of the screen of the
sphere and it's wrong. It was like a hunt. It
is just just immediately, but also it's like, wow, that's
so new, except multimodel AI has been around for years.
So and then she says, well, Kira, when I have

(39:21):
some time later, what should I get for my kids?
So it's just like, oh, great, yeah, you fucking Kira.
I am? I am. I don't give a fuck about
my family. What can I do?

Speaker 3 (39:32):
What suld I?

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yeah, I'm too busy rebranding a chatbot as a new thing,
and I shit you not. It goes Las Vegas's fashion
more has some laboo boos that kids will go crazy for. Ye,
and I was just I was on a plane, so
I couldn't make the noise I wanted to make, which
was just a guttural raw, just a just complete disgust.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
I have their press release here and it says it
is AIH but did you know their definition of AI?
No tell me because it's not the same as everyone else's. Oh,
there's Lenovo Kira called a personal Ambient Intelligence system. That's
Ambient Intelligence AI. It says we'll begin rolling out on

(40:28):
select Lenovo and Motorola products and it's yeah, so it's
going to help people move more easily between PCs, tablet
and phones by keeping tasks connected again see Google Calendar
or any calendar app.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, it was, and like the sphere is that probably
cost them north of ten million dollars to rent that,
And then probably that spokesperson was definitely I don't know
if she worked for Lenovo. She was very clearly like
a seasoned actor right in the sense that she was lying.

(41:03):
But it was just it was remarkable because it's it
was just I've watched a lot of ces keynotes, I've
gone to a lot of ces is, and I've heard
a lot of bullshit. This feels like this feels like
just the year when everybody just gave up on trying.
They were just like, it's a large language, it's AI

(41:24):
is large language model. Good you like this, and they
were claiming it's their own ambient intelligence. You'll be shocked
to hear it's just connected to Microsoft as.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
You're a great Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
And then rightly, and she's like, and here I have
a proof of content. To be clear, this is like
minutes of her just doing the classical them bullshit. And
right she says, I have here a proof of concept,
and what it is is it records what you're saying,
but only when you give it permission. Oh, and it
transcribes everything. It's also just yes, I also don't trust that.

(41:57):
But on top of it, it's like, wow, a device
that records you in transcribes everything.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
You don't even need AI for that, right, like.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Alta, Yeah, well literally any LLLM will do this. I
mean it's almost as if nobody has anything. I mean,
Lenovo did have this really cool unrolling screen situation that
was pretty cool. I like that they didn't show that.
They can't show that. You can't can't be showing interesting stuff.
You have to show so.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
You can't show the screen products inside of the giant
El Las Vegas.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
How would people possibly see it? It's so weird.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
It's but I don't so is is.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
I don't know?

Speaker 3 (42:40):
I kind of I almost I want to come back
to this negativity topic a little bit because it is
something I've been thinking about a lot lately. We're just like,
it's you know, we're trying to balance as best we can,
palate cleansers of there's a lot of bad things. Let's
make sure we're still trying to get some coverage of
good things, interesting, fun, education, whatever, but not to the

(43:04):
point of it just being for purposes of you don't
want to hide from reality, right, Yeah, so there's got
to be a balance, But I just it for me,
the negative things that are going on right now in
the tech industry have become so intertwined with global economics

(43:28):
and politics that it's a lot worse, I think than
just this series of GPUs is bad and you're not
going to like the frame rate with them, you know,
it's a lot more wide reaching. And I have a
hard time like the negativity for me or the criticism.

(43:49):
The cynicism doesn't it's not an act. It's I actually
am very concerned about the direction of where things are
headed right now. Uh, And so I don't know what
you you know, It's like I don't know what to
say to someone who's like everything so negative, because we

(44:09):
put a couple of pieces out that are more positive,
but you're really you're just kind of hiding from reality
at some point.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
So yeah, it's it's weird as well, because I mean,
we did nineteen hours at CES and I asked everyone,
did you see stuff you liked? And I, shit, you not.
The most consistent thing I got was, yeah, I saw
a battery. I liked and every like Cory Doctoro found
a plug that he really liked.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Okay, like that goes into a like yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
A British plug that has a satisfying metallic click.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
That's nice.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, but that's the thing I'm not even see.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Why can't you be happy ed exactly for.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Look plug plug clickluck plug click. It's the thing is
I love my dud dud's, my gizmo's. I love seeing
like the TVs when nice there's big old TVs. We
like a big television.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Some computer cases that looked interesting, but even those, even
those well so even those the public doesn't know some
of this yet, they will soon. But the preview is
that even the cases that are nice are nested in
bad things that are about to happen. And it's because

(45:28):
the companies like the computer case and the cooler companies
cannot survive when people can't afford to buy a stick
ram and oh yeah there's like as of the last week,
two major companies in the computer case and cool inside
have terminated. Basically, they're like entire staff for one of them,

(45:51):
and then the significant amount of the staff for the other,
and so it's in these companies are companies that just
showed actually pretty cool cases at yes, you know, but
then it's it's sort of the last hurrah what they
can get across the line, and then they're just out
of money.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, it's I mean, I don't know. I have also
had the opposite, like a few weeks, like maybe a
month ago, I had I was like, I like the
iPhone Air and I got so many comments people, you
fucking chill you thought you could, you could fuck and
chill Apple. It's true. Apple has tons of shitty things,
like they their app store is a horrifying mob like thing.

(46:30):
They won't take they won't take X's child porn generateor down,
but they will take down like the ice app. Like
it's it's very Yeah, it's very like there are tons
of bad things. But at the same time, to your point, yeah,
being negative is kind of just telling people what's happening.
Like the RAM crisis in and of itself was a

(46:51):
big conversation during the show, and it's like, yeah, everything
is going to get more expensive because of this, and
I think the I think it's odd to not be negative,
even when like trying to be positive right now makes
you sound like an insane person xd everything out, being
like this is the year that agents take over can

(47:12):
shoome it just you just have to just stop lying,
like you.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Just stop lying from it where it's like, yeah, I
can I can find a computer case to be happy about.
H and we will, you know, we'll publish reviews of
products that are good. But yeah, you just you can't
strip out the general undertone because I don't know, I've
I've even seen some comments about that where there was

(47:39):
one that I agreed with, I didn't disagree with at all,
but where the guy referenced an ad we had for
a thermal take case in a video and and I
always wanted to heart it too, and he said, oh,
this case looks awesome. It'll be great to put the
nothing inside of it that I can afford. Yeah, see
it out. And I don't blame them letely agree. So yeah,

(48:02):
it's just I don't know, I've never seen it this bad.
And it's not just technology. It's just like, uh, or
I should say, it's not just consumer gaming, it's technology
sort of broadly has this this problem, and it's AI
and the need to keep this bubble inflated has crept
into everything, including just if you want to go buy

(48:25):
groceries or whatever, you know where they're manipulating pricing in
some stores.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
So well, I think what my whole thing is my
rot economy, all the growth that all costs thing like
I like, of course that is my bit, but it
is kind of that. It's they've chased out all the
people that run these companies that make actual technology and
those that have those that have remained, those that those
that are actually run by technology people are technologist like

(48:53):
Elisa Sarra or Jensen Want are just like fuck it,
Number co Op. We must buy as much as possible,
we must sell as much as everything, must have every ramstick.
I just I think the a reckoning is coming for
everything related to technology, and I think it is going
to be bloody, not literally, but I think it's got

(49:14):
like most of ces La lam rappers.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Right, like what was it called something with a queue
for Lenovo.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Quit Hero Kira Yeah, yeah, just like everything had an
ELM and they were I think consumers are also aware
they're being lied to in a way that they're not usually.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
Right and not usually lied to or not usually aware.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
They're usually not aware of it or at the the
wank is not as whang. The wank has never been
this wanky. It's never been so bad that right now
it's the wank. It's the peak wank. Yeah, that's that's good.
I'm gonna write that down. But it's I think it's
also the it's never hurt this much like. It's never

(50:00):
in a case where it's like, hey, everything's getting more
expensive because we must buy all the RAM for this
thing you don't like. Also, this thing you don't like,
we're going to tell you it does things that it doesn't,
but you're gonna need to adopt it now or you'll
be left behind. By the way, you should be scared
for your job because you're going to be overtaken by
the software that doesn't work that's making everything more expensive.
I just think it's pushing people to a limit. And

(50:21):
I even said this on the show. I'm not buying
new electronics for a while. I'm for the first time
in like seventeen generations, I'm not going to buy the
next iPhone. I'm going to buy used for as long
as humanly possible. My MacBook here is like three years old.
I don't know why i'd update that, because I think
that that's the only thing that will possibly shift. And

(50:43):
also new electronics are not as like there's not really
anything new either.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Yeah, I mean I feel the same way with Uh.
I don't know. I went through and canceled some subscriptions
to software Company, which is just my favorite thing, toscribed. Yeah,
and you know, part of the reason I was canceling them,
I was like, I don't know, maybe we have a
use for this couple times a year. We probably get
the we probably get the value out of it. But

(51:09):
I just it's it's the smallest form of protest, I guess,
and it for me, it felt like putting your money
where your mouth is a little bit. You know, if
I'm going to complain about all this shit, I should
at least stop feeding into some of it. Yeah, and
I don't know my like. So, I've got three computers
I use regularly, two at the office, one home, and

(51:30):
two of them have ten ADYTI is from what is it,
twenty sixteen? I think in them seventeen and uh. If
I play games, it's like, you know, independent developer indie games,
and they tend to not need ray tracing and they
play just fine on it. And and at the office,
I've you know, have newer stuff for video editing, but yeah,

(51:51):
I I don't know. I think the only concern I
have with the well, do you just boycott broadly? Do
you try and organize or whatever a boycott or I
think the only conturn I have is it seems that
these companies can if you don't want it, fine, they
want it you know, yeah, you can rent it back

(52:12):
from them later.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
But right up until they can't. Because the thing I
keep coming back to is all of this is based
on that and video the It is the ultimate in
growth economics because in Vidia reached a point whether like
we can just set the price to whatever we want
to eight git like eight b two hundred GPUs in
a part is what five hundred thousand dollars I reckon

(52:35):
ve're a Reuben could be like seven hundred thousand dollars.
They just set the price. And what's funny is people
will buy it right up until they don't. And when
I say people, I mean enterprises, right And it's very
clear that everyone is just in a fuck you customer mode.
And it's hard to be positive because I I can't

(52:55):
find anything to like. My favorite my favorite game of
the last year was Dead Zone Row, which can run
on most PCs and is on PlayStation five and Xbox
Series X. Great name and I don't know, like I
reckon it would probably run on old PCs too.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Yeah, my favorite game right now is Nova Roma, which
is a city builder, and hell yeah, it can run
on probably any computer I've owned since like twenty ten,
you know.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
And it's just and I think that that, like the
best thing about the Internet is being able to connect
to people. Technology has stopped being built for people, so
I feel like people are just understandably frustrated and tired
of it. And this CS really did kind of show
that the companies are in that fuck you consumer mode.
So if there is I'm always open easy better off

(53:45):
line dot com. I'll take email, email recommendations for things
to be excited about in tech. But walking around that
convention center bringing people in specifically to do that, to
be like go and find cool stuff. I couldn't I
talk to eleven journalists on air that week.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
I couldn't really watch that plug though. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
The clique, well it's only for England though, so unless
you go to England, it's not really that excepting.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
I know, you guys get the best end.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Well. Thankfully I'm in New York though, because otherwise I'd
have to live in England. And that's the thing, Like
I couldn't even find an anchor booth. I couldn't even
find like a delightful charger booth, just if it was
just like, oh, we've got a cable. That was my
One of my favorite tech innovations this year is an
anchor search protector that has USBC cables built into it. Yes, perfect,

(54:34):
but it's it's like, uh, maybe at the end of
this era, I think, like you talk about what AMD
will do if things go wrong, the answer is suffer
in a way that they should for not building a
sustainable company. Suffer in a way anyone, any company that
is put in distress as a result of chasing the

(54:54):
AI bubble. At this point, I'm kind of like, fuck them.
I hope they burn.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
I feel bad for the people that work there and
get laid off. I really do. The people that should
suffer of the CEOs.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Well, and and feel bad for the people who are
in the wider economy, right who are gonna get.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Oh gacho, But I mean they're the they're already the
victims of Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
But I agree with you, and I also I do
I know effectively nothing about like macroeconomics or whatever. My
gut feeling hot take or not. Is the sooner it pops,
the not necessarily better, but the less damaging it'll normal people. Yes,

(55:35):
But then at the same time, the longer it goes on,
probably the you get maximum damage for some of these
companies or something. You know, more of them are more
likely to go out of business, which is maybe a
good thing. I guess it depends you know who it is.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
But well, and as we wrap up today literally is
recording this, a story just came through that the Chinese
government has told tech companies that would only approve purchases
of Nvidia's H two hundred AI chips on the special
circumstance you know what. To wrap it up, it is
funny watching China just kind of taught like I've got cats.

(56:08):
This is how cats play with dying mice. It's like,
we're gonna we're gonna do this and.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
Say where it was going.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Let you run away, You're gonna smack you again. Oh,
I'm gonna get you in now you're gonna run away,
because it's just like, yeah, well they were I think
I've read three different stories saying, hey, wow, China is
gonna buy fifty billion dollars worth of H two hundreds,
and now it's China isn't gonna do shit, China's just
playing with you, and it's well.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
And it also XMT is at like five percent or
whatever the memory supply market right now, Jonathan Memory Technologies.
They're a Chinese fab silicon fab for memory for like
year and and they've just taken like five percent out

(56:55):
of the chunk that was part of the big three Samsung, Aska, Hanicks, Micron.
And the consumer sentiment as I've never seen more people
be positive about like Chinese products, where you know, I
started at the time where it was like if you
bought something from Ali Express, you were happy if it

(57:15):
got there and people were surprised if it worked. And
that's just it's the sentiment. It's not necessarily the quality
has changed, because like the quality of manufacturing has been
pretty good for a long time in China because we
you know, it's that's where everything's been made forever. And
the thing that I'm seeing shift, though, is the sentiment
where now there's almost this like literally any other silicon

(57:40):
manufacturer on Earth please save us from these companies. And
it looks like it's going to be up to right
now Chinese silicon companies, because they're the only ones who
kind of have products that are there, you know, starting
to make so.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Well. On that happy note, Steve, anything coming up you
want to plug?

Speaker 3 (58:04):
We have? Yeah, we do have our data center series
we're working on. So we're going to be visiting a
bunch of different data centers around the US and covering
the story about people, you know, getting screwed by them,
and hopefully connect with a bunch of viewers around the
US and get their story on how the data centers

(58:26):
are coming in and bulldozing literally and metaphorically everything in
their path. Yeah, happy, Yeah, Yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
That's the kind of chip thing. No, it's always good
to have you, Steve. Thank you for having us, was
having you all us for having you. It's a podcast.
Thank you everyone for listening. I've been ed Zytron. Of
course we will be back with a monologue this Friday.
And thank you, of course for sticking with us during ces. Goodbye.

(58:59):
Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T
T O S O W s Ki dot com. You
can email me at easy at better offline dot com
or visit better offline dot com to find more podcast
links and of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend

(59:23):
you go to chat dot where's youreaed dot at to
visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline
to check out our reddit.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For
more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
H

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Ed Zitron

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