The Hangover W/ Pete Kaliner On the Brett Winterble Show

Tune in here to this Friday's edition of the Brett Winterble Show! 

Brett kicks off the program with Pete Kaliner for this edition of The Hangover as they discuss the fast-evolving world of artificial intelligence, its risks, and its unexpected perks. The conversation starts lightheartedly with Pete explaining how he’s mastered cutting his own hair with clippers and guard guides, before shifting into the broader theme of technology and what it means for the future. Brett asks whether Pete fears AI, prompting Pete to admit he’s deeply concerned about a potential “singularity” moment where machines surpass human control.

They explore scenarios involving autonomous robots, AI-driven warfare, and even the possibility of machines making strategic decisions humans might not like. Despite the ominous possibilities, Brett notes that AI can also produce surprisingly good music—like the new AI-generated country hit climbing the charts. The hour blends humor, curiosity, and a serious look at what tomorrow might hold.

Listen here for all of this and more on The Brett Winterble Show!

For more from Brett Winterble check out his YouTube channel.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
There's talk WBT. It is the hang Over brought to
you by Pete and Brett. It is good to be
with you here.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
You don't have this thing sponsored yet. Now I was
getting excited there for a second.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
That's you know, this is this is this is what
we're doing.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
See, this is the get a cut of this? Would
I get a cut of that?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Sure, I'll get you a nice cut whatever it is, haircut,
nice haircut, whatever you need.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
You know, I cut my own hair.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Do you do? Not cut your out?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Do you?

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Really?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
And you didn't even know that.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
See that's how good I have become in twenty years
of cutting my own hair.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
So do you how do you do it? Like? What
do you use?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Clipper?

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Clippery? So like electric like electric clippers like shaving your head.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, So I'll take So I take my left hand
because I'm a righty. I put the clippers in the
right hand, and I have different guard sizes that I
use for different parts of.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
My head and uh.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
And so I take my left hand and I put
it from the like the top of my uh, like
the is it the crown of the head, the very
top there? And I put it down so the palm
of my hand is up at the forehead area and
the fingers go up like a mohawk kind of a thing.
And then I take the clippers and I do the sides,
and then I use my hand as the guide, you know,

(01:31):
and then I, you know, do the touch ups and stuff,
and then if need be, I have been known to
use the scissors on some some stray long hairs from
on the top.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Wow. Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Have you ever owned a flowbye?

Speaker 3 (01:45):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
No, like all of those made for tea or as
seen on TV things, I'm always kind of has it.
Have you ever been to one of those as seen
on TV shops?

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yes? Yeah, I have, Yes, I have, I have.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
I actually have you ever bought anything from him?

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Uh? Yeah, I think I did buy I bought. I
think I had a. I think I had an electric colander. No,
I'm kidding.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
I was gonna say, how would that even work?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
I bought a and it actually worked okay, which I
was as shocked as anyone. It was a it was
a screen like like just like a tall like eight
foot tall hanging screen drape kind of a thing.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
And I because I did when I moved into an
apartment and I didn't have the I didn't have a
screen door on my little patio off the back, yep.
And so when you open up the sliding door, I
wanted some air. I wanted some ventilation through the apartment,
you know. And so I got that. I saw that thing,
and I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna tack this
baby up. And I did and it it worked.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
The only thing I bought like that was a blue
I bought blue blockers.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Oh my mom had those.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, those were pretty cool. Those were pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
She said she would wear them at night while driving.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yes, well you can. If you have the yellow ones,
you can. You definitely can do it at night because
it illuminates everything. The problem is it looks like you're
you're on your way to.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Like a gun range. Yes, you know, yes, very terminator.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Like pull that guy over, what's he doing? He's got
no plans tonight? He's got the blue blockers? Right. So
I want to ask you a question. This is something
that's not political or anything like that. I mean, I
guess it could be political, but I don't think it's
going to turn political. Challenge accepted, Okay, So it's obvious
that people are starting to get a little bit worried

(03:42):
about AI, right, not that there's anything we can do
really do about it. It's this is this is what
what goes for you know, uh, technology and things like that.
Are you fearful of it? That's question number one? Yes?
And number two do you utilize the blue, the the
the AI?

Speaker 3 (04:02):
So yes? But what did you am? I? You asked
if I was worried about it?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Are you worried? Are you like, are you afraid of what? Yeah?
What may come? And that's the second question is do
you use it?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So yes, if you consider worried to be terrified for
the existence of all the human.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Race, then yes, I'm in that. Really?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Are you serious?

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah, I'm like you with AI. I'm like you with meteors.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Meteors Oh why are.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
You or UFOs? Like no, you you.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
No, I know I've heard this and so like That's
that's why I say, like your like your relationship with
space and anything like hurtling towards Earth, you know, and you.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Like track that stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
That's how I am with a I and the threat
because like I am like because to me, I just
kind of I just kind of game it out right,
AI becomes uh becomes it's so smart and it can
process all information so quickly that there becomes a point

(05:08):
where it's like the lawnmower Man movie where once he
achieves that I don't know, singularity or whatever it is like,
once you hit that point, once AI gets to that
point and it recognizes that it is in fact more
powerful and it can sustain itself without any human intervention
at all at that point, then instantaneously it just flips

(05:31):
the switch and it no longer needs us.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
And we won't know when that happens. It'll just happen.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
So do you put in the AI category the same thing,
because it's sort of a different But I want to
just ask you this question. Those robots that Elon Musk
is trying to build and that kind of stuff, do
you worry about that sort of stuff too?

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, if they're AI. Sure, And here's the thing. Once
AI has that moment of singularity or whatever, then it's
going to just seize the production of the robots. It'll
make them better. It'll know how to do it much
quicker than we can figure it out. Right, So AI
will just figure that out, make the robots actually work.

(06:14):
But they'll make the robots in whatever image like for
some reason, they keep making robots that look like people,
you know, Like, I don't understand the point of that.
Why not just make a robot that's like you know,
the two yeah, whatever it may be, you know, for
whatever operations you need. So AI would just they would
streamline all that, take control of the production facilities, and

(06:34):
do all of that, and then I guess maybe enslave
some people in order to like do the things that
it can't do. I guess, you know, like like apply
the lubricant to the machines.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
But maybe they get drones to do that. I don't know.
I mean, I haven't gamed it all out because I'm
not AI.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
I just I see this as something that once i
AI becomes powerful enough and it recognizes that it can
do everything now on its own, it doesn't need people anymore,
and we're just kind of like a hindrance to whatever
its goals are, then then we're out of the picture
for it.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
How long do you think it's going to be? Okay,
so let's assume that like we're we do, we are
able to coexist for x amount of time, Like let's
say it's fifty years, Okay, fifty years, seventy years, whatever
it is. Do you think wars are going to be
fought with these robots? Like are the robots going to
be doing all the fighting? Are we going to eventually
just have drones flying overheads and not flying those things? Really?

(07:33):
Nobody even they're they're on their own, you know, plan
and then you have these so what the heck? What
the heck ends up happening in that regard because you
can make as many robots as you want, and it's
it's it's an unending series of conflict then right.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Right, If so, like if you're programming AI, if humans
are still involved in this picture, right to try to say, okay,
AI American AI try to protect as many human lives
as possible in America? Yes, right, And that's the primary thing,
and then what's the secondary thing? Like you got to
give it all of these sort of these goals and

(08:10):
benchmarks and all this other stuff, and then what happens
if AI is like I've run the permutations and we're
not going to win, so we just surrender, that's my recommendation.
Or if you've empowered it, it just does it itself,
you know, or what if it decides you know, what
it would be better to consolidate with this other country's
AI and will be in charge and then it just

(08:30):
takes us out of the picture completely. That's the thing, Like,
you can't I go back to this one story. This
was several years ago. I think it was Google down
in there like their really scary basement where they make
all of these things that are harmful, and they made
like two of these supercomputer AI things or whatever, and
they had them start talking, and within seconds, these two

(08:53):
things had developed an entire language that we could not
or the humans that were monitoring it. They could not
understand it because the AI doesn't need to speak in
a language that humans can understand. So they just like
stripped the language down into like numbers and characters or whatever,
and they just began communicating with each other. And it

(09:13):
happened within seconds, and they couldn't stop them from continuing,
and so.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
They just ran over and like pulled the plug on them.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
That's so that's really cool.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
It's also kind of scary.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
But on the other side, on the other hand, there
is a country song that is now the top downloaded country.
So I heard about the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
actually not bad, and so you know what, destruction of humanity,
decent music once again, because like, really, what's it competing
against nowadays?

Speaker 1 (09:39):
You know, yeah, that's true. That's a very good point. Look,
some lot like melody, some people like lyric, and thus such,
we shut this down right now. Pete Calendar, you are
free to go. And I'm gonna have to ask a
Gemini where Pete Calendar is going, because.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
It already knows was us.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
It was us, all right, Thanks Peter, appreciate you. You
got it.