July 22, 2025 • 8 mins
ABC's Mike Dobuski reports on this new technology and also reports on the first major Federal Crypto law
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven thirty eight on a legacy retirement group dot com
phone line. Let's welcome in Mike Debuski, ABC News Technology
Reporter and Michael good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I hope you're well.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
See open Ai, which is I guess the parent company
of Chat GPT, has launched Chat GPT Agent.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, so it's gonna basically get us to require it's
going to require us to explain what agent means. In
the context of artificial intelligence, an agent is a type
of AI that can take action on your behalf. It
can you know uh, it can order your groceries on Instacart.
(00:38):
It can write you out a PowerPoint presentation. Whereas sort
of non agentic AI technologies can just answer questions or
help give you an idea for certain things. Agents can
actually go out and do things. And that's where open
AI's latest tool comes into the picture. Chat GPT Agent
is a setting within chat gpt that you have to
(00:59):
subscribe too that the company says can book you a
trip on Expedia.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It can run code. It can even create sort.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Of business slide shows or spreadsheets for you. Opening I
did this by mixing together a bunch of existing technologies.
One of them is operator, which is a specific technology
that kind of understands what a website looks like and
can you know, click into search bars or scroll through
certain things. It can also you know, run on its
(01:27):
own virtual computer, so as you're giving it a request,
you can see it actually pull up a small desktop
within chat EPT and scroll through Amazon or Expedia or
Wayfair or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It happens to be opening.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I CEO Sam Altman says this represents a new level
of capability for AI, but he also warned about a
lot of potential risks. Guys, as we know, this technology
regularly goes wrong, it makes things up, it hallucinates, and
that's why he says it's not really intended for high
stakes use cases just yet, and that you probably shouldn't
give chat GPT agent access.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
To a ton of personal information.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, that's that's it's kind of concerning as we are
getting closer and closer to AI or in this case
chat GPT sort of replicating the capabilities of the human
brain not only to conceive of something, but then to
go out and take action on behalf of that thought.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, and we're referencing their AGI, which sam Altman also
brought up in sort of the launch of chant GPT agent.
AGI is artificial general intelligence. It's kind of a vague term,
but generally in the AI space it's used to describe
the moment when AI reaches or surpasses the capability of
a human brain. And he said that watching chat gipt
(02:43):
agent do its thing represented a real feel the AGI moment. However,
people who've gotten access to this in recent days have
reported the technology is somewhat lacking. A lot of reporters,
who have you shelled out the two hundred dollars a
month for a chat GPT Pro subscription, which is what
is required to get access to chat GPT Agent. They
(03:05):
saw a lot of strange, kind of unforced errors in
the technology. It invented fake Amazon links, for example. In
one case, it also put back a lot of janky,
kind of unprofessional looking PowerPoint slides. You can hook this
up to your personal accounts, so conceivably it can summarize
your email inbox for you. It can buy you a
(03:28):
plane ticket on Delta, or you know, do all manner
of other things. But given the sort of hallucination problem here,
the hiccups that it runs into the general consensus seems
to be maybe hold off for now because it's a
pretty early version of this technology.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, but it's only going to get better.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Wouldn't you agree that it's this is this first step
it's going to improve. I mean, do you think, Mike Tubuski,
ABC News Tech reporter, that this is eventually going to
be like a personal assistant where you almost like an
Alexa or a series situation where you call it name
and you say, I need you to book me a flight,
I need you to, you know, pull up the kids' schedule,
I need you to, and you're just sort of voice commanding,
(04:08):
you know, AI and doing things for you, and you know,
we soon won't have to leave the house.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
That is certainly what Sam Altman and open AI wants
this technology to become, right, But I not to throw
cold water on that kind of very nice idea of
a computer just being able to do all this for you.
But there is some good reason to doubt the you know,
continued growth, continued advancement of current generative artificial intelligence technology.
(04:35):
There have been a lot of reports out there that
open AI is unsatisfied with GPT five, which is kind
of the next engine that will undergird their next generation
of technology, they're pushing back the release date of that,
and across the AI space there's this big scramble to
figure out what to train these models on next, because
basically how they work is you input a lot of
(04:58):
data and it synthesizes that and it kind of spits
it back at you. Well, a lot of these companies
are running out of internet to train these models on,
which raises the question of what do you train them
on next? Right, do you generate more synthetic content and
feed that into the machine. Well, that create weirder answers.
It seems like we're at something of a plateau point
(05:19):
for the capabilities of AI at the moment, and that
maybe runs against this idea that these things are going
to constantly get better, because it seems like there's some
good evidence to suggest they're going to be about as
good as they are now. And even if that's all wrong, right,
even if they figure out a solution to all that,
there is a good adage in the consumer tech world,
which is, don't buy something based on the promise of
(05:42):
future software updates, right, buy it for what it is now.
And what it is now is a pretty lacking piece
of technology.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I peaked with chat, GPT and AI.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
When I ask it to create recipes for me, I
just plug in three or four ingredients I have in
the fridge and I say, hey, make someone out of this,
and I get a recipe back.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
That's about how I use it for. Do you have
time quick to talk about the Genius Act? Yes, sure,
think so.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
This is the first major federal piece of cryptocurrency Legislation's
really big deal, guys, and it was signed by the
President last Friday. Specifically, the Genius Act governs what are
known as stable coins. This is a specific type of
cryptocurrency that is tied to the US dollar. Right, It
is intended to have exactly the same value as a
(06:27):
US dollar one you know, X stable coin is equivalent
to one dollar. Normal cryptocurrencies, as you know, fluctuate pretty
wildly in terms of value. They go up and down,
you know, in a matter of hours, kind of based
on the news. They're a very volatile asset. So the
idea behind stable coins is that people who trade normal
(06:48):
cryptocurrencies ethereum or bitcoin or what have you, they can
at the end of the day, when they're done trading,
trade all their assets for stable coins, park their money
in the more stable, you know, kind of product, and
then when they want to go back to trading, they
can kind of trade back in to the market. The
Genius Act essentially makes it easier for companies to and
(07:11):
organizations to issue their own stable coins, and really it's
an effort to regulate this part of the market that
has not been regulated before. It's also designed to get
more people interested in cryptocurrency. The Trump administration has been
a very pro crypto presidential administration so far. However, there
have been a lot there's been a lot of pushback
to this legislation.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
For one, a company associated.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
With the president known as World Liberty Financial recently issued
its own stable coin, and the Trump organization is a
sixty percent stakeholder in that company. However, the larger concern here, guys,
is that this effectively allows companies to ignore traditional banking
regulations and act as their own banks, issuing their own currencies,
and a lot of experts warn that it's exactly the
(07:55):
type of thing that precluded things like the nineteen twenty
nine depression and the two thousand an innate recession
Seven thirty eight on a legacy retirement group dot com
phone line. Let's welcome in Mike Debuski, ABC News Technology
Reporter and Michael good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I hope you're well.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
See open Ai, which is I guess the parent company
of Chat GPT, has launched Chat GPT Agent.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, so it's gonna basically get us to require it's
going to require us to explain what agent means. In
the context of artificial intelligence, an agent is a type
of AI that can take action on your behalf. It
can you know uh, it can order your groceries on Instacart.
(00:38):
It can write you out a PowerPoint presentation. Whereas sort
of non agentic AI technologies can just answer questions or
help give you an idea for certain things. Agents can
actually go out and do things. And that's where open
AI's latest tool comes into the picture. Chat GPT Agent
is a setting within chat gpt that you have to
(00:59):
subscribe too that the company says can book you a
trip on Expedia.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It can run code. It can even create sort.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Of business slide shows or spreadsheets for you. Opening I
did this by mixing together a bunch of existing technologies.
One of them is operator, which is a specific technology
that kind of understands what a website looks like and
can you know, click into search bars or scroll through
certain things. It can also you know, run on its
(01:27):
own virtual computer, so as you're giving it a request,
you can see it actually pull up a small desktop
within chat EPT and scroll through Amazon or Expedia or
Wayfair or whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It happens to be opening.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I CEO Sam Altman says this represents a new level
of capability for AI, but he also warned about a
lot of potential risks. Guys, as we know, this technology
regularly goes wrong, it makes things up, it hallucinates, and
that's why he says it's not really intended for high
stakes use cases just yet, and that you probably shouldn't
give chat GPT agent access.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
To a ton of personal information.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, that's that's it's kind of concerning as we are
getting closer and closer to AI or in this case
chat GPT sort of replicating the capabilities of the human
brain not only to conceive of something, but then to
go out and take action on behalf of that thought.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, and we're referencing their AGI, which sam Altman also
brought up in sort of the launch of chant GPT agent.
AGI is artificial general intelligence. It's kind of a vague term,
but generally in the AI space it's used to describe
the moment when AI reaches or surpasses the capability of
a human brain. And he said that watching chat gipt
(02:43):
agent do its thing represented a real feel the AGI moment. However,
people who've gotten access to this in recent days have
reported the technology is somewhat lacking. A lot of reporters,
who have you shelled out the two hundred dollars a
month for a chat GPT Pro subscription, which is what
is required to get access to chat GPT Agent. They
(03:05):
saw a lot of strange, kind of unforced errors in
the technology. It invented fake Amazon links, for example. In
one case, it also put back a lot of janky,
kind of unprofessional looking PowerPoint slides. You can hook this
up to your personal accounts, so conceivably it can summarize
your email inbox for you. It can buy you a
(03:28):
plane ticket on Delta, or you know, do all manner
of other things. But given the sort of hallucination problem here,
the hiccups that it runs into the general consensus seems
to be maybe hold off for now because it's a
pretty early version of this technology.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, but it's only going to get better.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Wouldn't you agree that it's this is this first step
it's going to improve. I mean, do you think, Mike Tubuski,
ABC News Tech reporter, that this is eventually going to
be like a personal assistant where you almost like an
Alexa or a series situation where you call it name
and you say, I need you to book me a flight,
I need you to, you know, pull up the kids' schedule,
I need you to, and you're just sort of voice commanding,
(04:08):
you know, AI and doing things for you, and you know,
we soon won't have to leave the house.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
That is certainly what Sam Altman and open AI wants
this technology to become, right, But I not to throw
cold water on that kind of very nice idea of
a computer just being able to do all this for you.
But there is some good reason to doubt the you know,
continued growth, continued advancement of current generative artificial intelligence technology.
(04:35):
There have been a lot of reports out there that
open AI is unsatisfied with GPT five, which is kind
of the next engine that will undergird their next generation
of technology, they're pushing back the release date of that,
and across the AI space there's this big scramble to
figure out what to train these models on next, because
basically how they work is you input a lot of
(04:58):
data and it synthesizes that and it kind of spits
it back at you. Well, a lot of these companies
are running out of internet to train these models on,
which raises the question of what do you train them
on next? Right, do you generate more synthetic content and
feed that into the machine. Well, that create weirder answers.
It seems like we're at something of a plateau point
(05:19):
for the capabilities of AI at the moment, and that
maybe runs against this idea that these things are going
to constantly get better, because it seems like there's some
good evidence to suggest they're going to be about as
good as they are now. And even if that's all wrong, right,
even if they figure out a solution to all that,
there is a good adage in the consumer tech world,
which is, don't buy something based on the promise of
(05:42):
future software updates, right, buy it for what it is now.
And what it is now is a pretty lacking piece
of technology.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I peaked with chat, GPT and AI.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
When I ask it to create recipes for me, I
just plug in three or four ingredients I have in
the fridge and I say, hey, make someone out of this,
and I get a recipe back.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
That's about how I use it for. Do you have
time quick to talk about the Genius Act? Yes, sure,
think so.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
This is the first major federal piece of cryptocurrency Legislation's
really big deal, guys, and it was signed by the
President last Friday. Specifically, the Genius Act governs what are
known as stable coins. This is a specific type of
cryptocurrency that is tied to the US dollar. Right, It
is intended to have exactly the same value as a
(06:27):
US dollar one you know, X stable coin is equivalent
to one dollar. Normal cryptocurrencies, as you know, fluctuate pretty
wildly in terms of value. They go up and down,
you know, in a matter of hours, kind of based
on the news. They're a very volatile asset. So the
idea behind stable coins is that people who trade normal
(06:48):
cryptocurrencies ethereum or bitcoin or what have you, they can
at the end of the day, when they're done trading,
trade all their assets for stable coins, park their money
in the more stable, you know, kind of product, and
then when they want to go back to trading, they
can kind of trade back in to the market. The
Genius Act essentially makes it easier for companies to and
(07:11):
organizations to issue their own stable coins, and really it's
an effort to regulate this part of the market that
has not been regulated before. It's also designed to get
more people interested in cryptocurrency. The Trump administration has been
a very pro crypto presidential administration so far. However, there
have been a lot there's been a lot of pushback
to this legislation.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
For one, a company associated.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
With the president known as World Liberty Financial recently issued
its own stable coin, and the Trump organization is a
sixty percent stakeholder in that company. However, the larger concern here, guys,
is that this effectively allows companies to ignore traditional banking
regulations and act as their own banks, issuing their own currencies,
and a lot of experts warn that it's exactly the
(07:55):
type of thing that precluded things like the nineteen twenty
nine depression and the two thousand an innate recession
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