December 4, 2025 • 32 mins
Chris dives headfirst into the accelerating AI revolution—comparing today’s transformation to the Industrial Revolution, where massive job loss eventually gave way to massive reskilling. But this time, the speed is unlike anything we’ve seen before. New reporting shows the job market is shifting toward AI skills faster than universities can keep up. Traditional computer-science programs are shrinking while AI majors explode nationwide, as students gamble their entire futures on the only tech field still growing. Then: the home robot era just got real. Chris breaks down “Memo,” a new household robot that can make espresso, clear plates, and even load your dishwasher, trained by a high-tech “Skill Capture Glove.” It’s impressive, but it also raises major questions about cost, access, and what happens once robots take over chores. Finally: digital-only influencers are landing huge brand deals with fully scripted personalities and fictional backstories.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You work with somebody long enough, you start to know
what kind of sticks in their craw And with Mark,
I know it has everything to do with tech. That's
not to say that I think you're a luddite. I
don't think you're a luddite, because I think you embrace
things like streaming, and I think you embrace, you know,
word processors. You're not back there like writing out all
(00:27):
of your newscasts with a pen and paper. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
No, I don't have a butter churn. I don't live
by candle light. I believe in calculators. It's mainly the
things that threaten to destroy civilization and throw millions out
of work for no good reason that I'm against.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
So that there are certain Luddite traits to what you're
saying right now. So the luddite, for those unfamiliar, the
lut eights were the people who oppose the loom back
in the seventeen hundreds. They thought they were textile workers
and they thought all their job are going to be replaced,
And what ended up happening is you can crank out
a lot of new clothes faster and more variety because
(01:07):
of the advancements in technology. But they were saying, oh
my gosh, the loom can do one loom can do
what so many of us can do, and it's going
to replace so many of us. It's the same thing
I remember when I was a kid. I don't know
if you ever watched the old Disney movies. Mark, I
know you love old movies. I don't know if you
ever watched the old Disney cartoons. I love them. And
(01:29):
growing up in the Upper Midwest, you know Babe in
the Big Blue Ox. They were Babe the Big Blue
Ox and Paul Bunyan, right, they were folk heroes, and
so we learned about them in school. But then there
was also this Disney film on Paul Bunyan as well,
and Paul Bunyan would I mean, he'd take his axe
and he'd cut these trees down faster than any man
(01:51):
had ever seen. And then along comes a slick little
weasel with a chainsaw, and sure enough, those chainsaws did
replace a lot of lumumberjacks. But then the lumberjacks found
different work, or they were able to take trees down
faster and process them more quickly, and we got lumber
cheaper in this sort of stuff. So there were advancements.
(02:12):
And every time there's been technological advancements, it's cost some
jobs along the way, but through retooling and reskilling, society
is advanced. And I know what your argument is. I
know what it is you're gonna say, right but it's
not AI, because AI is disrupting every single industry out
(02:32):
there and it could replace. According to MIT, AI can
right now replace nearly twelve percent of the US workforce.
That amounts to one point two trillion dollars in salaries.
That's a whole lot different than a chainsaw coming along
and impacting the lumber industry, or the plow coming along
(02:57):
and impacting the agriculture industry, or the loom coming along
and impacting the textile industry. We're talking about impacting every
single industry. Is there a piece of you And I'm
asking you to be honest now this is and I'm
curious whether or not you believe that AI is a
(03:17):
potential threat to humanity or do you have a bias
against it based on the pop culture that you have
absorbed throughout your lifetime. Because one was the last time
there was a film about the machines advancing where humans
were really great because of it.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Well, the people who write these things are the people
with the ability to think several steps ahead and carry
things out to their logical conclusion. These it's not.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, but those are the popular ones too. Yeah right,
I mean Carl Sagan didn't say that AI was going
to destroy us all. I mean, he was all for
advancements in technology.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Well technology in general, sure, but how it's used is key.
I think, like I pointed out there two ago, there's
AI that we've seen that has been used to spot
breast cancer far earlier than than normal procedures have.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
But the AI that just exists, and that can't exist
without stealing from other people their work and then putting
other people out a job for the sole reason of
making rich people richer who don't want to pay a
human enough to live on. I'm not okay with that,
and nobody should be. Yeah, I hear your argument there,
that's solid. One of the One of the the areas
(04:27):
where I'm the most concerned is older people talking about us.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We are slow out adoption. My wife has been using
AI to help write appeal letters and things like that.
For a while now, and she says, oh, it is
my best friend. It really, She says, it writes the letters.
I have to go through and kind of edit that.
But it you know, it saves me the time and
the bandwidth in her in her mind to have to
(04:55):
come up with these letters and write the appeals and
things like that to insurance companies. She says, it does
a lot of that for me. I just have to
kind of go in and tinker with it, edit it,
make it my own. Let me talk to your wife,
let me talk to her. Oh no, yes, no, you
want that. You want that. No, that's a very bad idea.
So she was like, oh, you should use it. You
should use it, And early on I was like, okay,
(05:17):
can you find and it did not work for me.
So of late though, it's gotten a lot better and
I've been able to use it to summarize stories, create
bullet points, and oftentimes we have summaries and things like
that that we use when we when we post our
digital content, videos, social media posts. That kind of stuff
saves me a lot of that kind of work. But
(05:38):
as far as knowing the material that's still on me,
I still have to know that I have to interpret it,
I have to put my own perspective and twist on it. Right,
that's still me. So I'm coming along slowly, is my point.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, okay, I see that, but we're seeing more and
more really alarming studies and information that shows that your
brain is a muscle just like your biceps, and if
you don't use them, they turned to tapioca fast.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Wholeheartedly agree. I wholeheartedly agree. I would make this argument, though.
Here's my pushback on that is that I can do
push ups, I can do sit ups, I can do calisthenics,
or I can go to the gym and I can
lift weights. The weights are not the problem, right, It's
how I'm using the weight. So in my mind, I'm
(06:23):
trying to use AI like a weight machine at the gym.
I'm not trying to use it to replace everything I'm doing.
I'm not trying to use it to replace jumping jacks
and push ups and sit ups, not that I ever
did those in the first place. I'm not trying to
use it to replace those other things. I'm trying to
use it to get more out of my workout.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Okay, Well, in this case, your analogy involves the machine
helping you actually lift the weight. It's your cheating one
way or the other.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Your cheat. No, no dead lifts. No, no, no, yeah, no, no
you're no, I'm not used. No you're no. No, no, no, no.
You haven't been to the gym in a while. I'll
take you to the gym. Oh okay, not that I've
been to the tim Good lord, if you saw me like, oh,
this guy doesn't even know how to spell gym. But
here's here's let me. Let me continue on though. This
is my biggest concern. Older generations. We've got experience, we've
(07:11):
got perspective, we've got knowledge that every industry needs. Right
and you're hearing about how AI is replacing a lot
of middle management white collar. One area where it's never
going to replace people the C suite because they're the
people in charge of deciding who gets replaced. And I
got to tell you AI is able to make the
decisions that that that upper management can make. AI absolutely
(07:32):
can replace an awful lot of people in met C suite.
The problem is we have to have somebody responsible with
skin in the game to put their names on those
those major decisions. Where I'm concerned is recent grads that
don't have experience. Upcoming grads are actually turning to AI,
and they're using AI majors. Even computer science oriented kids
(07:57):
are choosing to major in AI sciences, not large language models.
They're choosing basically to get under the hood of AI.
How do we advances, how do we code it, how
do we make it better? This sort of stuff. So
they're getting into that rather than computer sciences, the old
fashioned coding the other stuff. These two things are closely related,
(08:20):
but they're different majors. And so there are a number
of schools MIT UC San Diego, and if he was
a University of South Florida, I see has got a
college of Artificial Intelligence and cybersecurity, all of these things. Right,
So you're seeing a lot of these STEM kids that
are moving toward AI. But what have you just graduated?
What if we'res say a recent grad twenty four, twenty five,
(08:42):
twenty six years old, And in fact, I would say
anybody between twenty two and twenty eight, if you haven't
been using AI all along, how are you getting hired?
You don't have any job experience. You can't come to
the table and say, look, I can bring this bit
of experience. I can bring this perspective. I've done I've
done this job for the last five years. I know
how to communicate. I'm I'm reliable, I'm accountable. You know,
(09:05):
I've got a at least some modicum of track record
in the workforce. If you don't have any of the
AI experience and you don't have any track record, it
is a tough job market right now, which is why
we're seeing unemployment rates for people under twenty five up
over ten percent at this point, and I don't see
(09:26):
that coming down anytime soon. So to Mark's point, I
do think a lot of people are trying to replace
especially entry level, with the with the with the machines. Now,
what happens, and this is this is the irony. What
happens when that tech bubble bursts. What happens when it
bursts is companies look for places where they can save
(09:47):
money and then they turn to AI more. Oh my goodness,
the AI bubble burst. It's not everything that it was
all made out to me. And they're like, oh goodness,
we're all going broke. How do we make up for it?
I know, let's fire people, Well, what are we going
to replace them with? How about AI? It's a spiral,
a doom spiral. It is a doom spiral as far
as the muscle, as Mark was putting it. You've been
(10:10):
told that your phone was shrinking your brain. But not
everything is as it seems. Turns out one kid's rod
as another Gramma's vegetable or something like that. I don't know.
I should have had AI write this tease. I think
my screens are causing rapid cognitive decline. I'll get my
act together. It's next, Chris Meryl, I am six forty
live everywhere on the iHeart ready.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Wep, you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I just I can't agree with you on your your
AI hot. It's not that I disagree, that's and I'm
in a weird nuanced spot because I feel like you're
just anything AI is bad. Although you did say AI
has been helpful when it comes to medical diagnoses, and
that's good. Yeah, you've just learned about it taking over
all jobs, eliminiting everything, and then dividing wealth even further
(10:55):
between the haves and the have nots.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Well, we have to be able to distinguish between real
progress and just malevolent and greed and there's always going
to be like the John Henry versus the steam engine
thing or whale oil lamps being replaced by electricity. That's inevitable.
But you have to look at what's being used and
why to make those kind of judgments.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
But in every case, isn't that an example of capitalism
pushing society forward for better or for worse?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
I think that you, you know, if you're in the
nuanced zone, you got to be able to separate between
capitalism and just plain old stupid greed.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's destructive. Okay, all right, what if it makes us
keep our brains? Get this? You know that you keep
hearing a story after story about the youngins and how
the cell phones are rotting their brains. In fact, I
was reading NBCLA had the story today. A short short
(11:52):
form video is now dominant on social media. Researchers are
racing to understand how the highly engaging, algorithm driven format
may bee reshaping the brain. Basically, it's making us dumber. Yeah, yeah,
So widespread concerns over brain rod the supposed deterioration of
(12:12):
a person's mental or intellectual state based on I guess
just endless scrolling. And so there's been more and more
studies and the studies I was reading a really good
analysis and it says, basically, the studies we have are
too limited. They're not broad, long lasting, widespread, this kind
of thing. But we're getting there because you've got the
(12:35):
tiktoks that have been around for a few years now.
Now you can put studies together and start taking a
look at these things. However, an interesting story that I
was reading that was an argument to the contrary from
the Washington Post. A meta analysis covering fifty seven studies
with more than four hundred thousand participants averaging age sixty
nine found consistent I know. I wish it too. I
(12:59):
wish they won't. I wish they were aged six to seven. Whoa,
I wish you could see I was doing the whole Look,
I'm juggling invisible balls thing in my hand. I could
picture it. I'm sixty seven six seven. Anyway, It found
consistent links between yeah, I'm dumber two you've been on
(13:22):
the talk. Definitely a lot of brain rot happening here.
It found consistent links between digital device engagement and slower
cognitive decline. They call it the three seas complexity connection
and compensation complexity learning and adapting to new tech connection
social interaction via the devices. In other words, you're able
to send your grandkids messages. I guess on Facebook and
(13:44):
compensation using tech to scaffold memory and navigation. The engagement
in and of itself exercises the brain. And I think
our own intrepid newsman a complete pro mark ronner earlier there,
you got it earlier that the brain is a muscle
that has to be exercised. And indeed, if you use
(14:04):
technology correctly, it's exactly what you can do.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
This is right, and you go ahead. You can use
it one way to achieve that, and you can use
it another way to lose your critical thinking skills and
your attention span. And you've got to be a careful
consumer to know the difference. I agree that takes brain
power above and beyond what I think most of us have,
or it takes discipline above and beyond what most of
(14:28):
us have. Researchers caution it doesn't mean that more screen
time equals better brain health. They say passive youth use
heavy media multitasking or distraction filled browsing like scrolling the
videos on TikTok, may carry the risk of brain rot.
Most of the research focusing on older adults. However, they
talk about broader implication of digital habits and how you
(14:53):
engage could shape your cognitive future as well if you're young.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So here's the concern. How do and how do we
teach and then instill the sort of habits maintain that
discipline in the younger generations who have the higher potential
for greater brain.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Rotr corporal punishment. Okay, all right, Well the problem is,
if you don't mind me budting in here, is that
I just paid the same You talk as much as
you want. Oh, okay, this is all I'm going to say,
and then it's all you. Uh, just the same way
that junk food like Dorito's is engineered to suppress your
fullness impulse and make you crave them. Yeah, it's the
(15:32):
same with social media, and so you really have to
discipline yourself because there's nothing easier than just chain watching
these short videos.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right, and they feed you the same Dorito's. I mean,
the algorithm knows do you like Dorito's or Friedo's or
Cheetos and in my case all three? Yeah, yeah, I
wholeheartedly agree with you. But how do we teach younger
generations that that's the game. How do we teach them
that they are unknowingly playing a game and that they
are unknowingly the product. And I don't know, because as
(16:02):
long as they're getting their little dopamine hits, I don't
know that they care. Yeah, I mean we're still early.
We're still early in the learning curve, and I'm afraid
that we're going to be too far down the line
to do anything once we figure this out. I'm just
glad that we're not having as many kids. I mean,
it's really the benefit to society that we have fewer kids.
(16:23):
That means we have fewer dumb kids. Yep, that's called logic,
my friends. It was impressive. Yep, you're welcome. Hey, you
thought robot vacs were the cutting edge back in the day,
but now you've got a machine that can make itself
a latte. You don't even know, machines like lattes. What
that means for your future of the household is next.
And I'm Chris merrilf I AM six forty live everywhere
(16:44):
in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Okay, as much as we've been conversing about AI advancements
in technology, the threats that they may pose one of
my biggest complaints. And I don't want to be somebody
that just complains all the time about it, because I'm
actually excited about the advances and technology that is with
the caveat that I think we should exercise caution, as
we've discussed on the program tonight. One of my biggest complaints, however,
(17:14):
is that it feels an awful lot like the technology advancements,
and understandably so, are geared toward a business enterprise. Commercial enterprises,
not consumer use most of the technological advances that we're
seeing right now when we talk about AI, the end
user is the business. That's where they see the opportunity
(17:39):
for monetization. And so why are they going to make
something for you and me when ultimately they could make
something for a company that's going to buy a subscription
that's going to be two hundred and fifty dollars a month,
whereas you and I might pay ten bucks a month
or something. Right, it takes an awful lot of us
versus the company. Okay, so it makes sense, you get
(18:00):
at it, you understand why they do that, and then
at some point saturation hits and then it trickles down
to the rest of us. And the same thing has
happened throughout other technologies as well. Cell Phones came along
and those were being marketed. They were more expensive, but
by god, your business needs this cell phone, right, Your
business needs to have some sort of a mass cell
phone plan by all the minutes you can so that
(18:21):
your execs are never out of reach. Right. That's how
the cell phones were marketed. And then once there was saturation,
prices started to come down. Infrastructure was built, and then
it started getting marketed to you and me, and then
we saw it. We saw it boom all over the place.
But it always starts where there's the most money. Right.
Why do you rob a bank because that's where the
money is. Right. So when you start a business, you
(18:44):
go for the place where you think there's going to
be the most market available, most money available in that market.
Who's your target? Your target is always where there's the
most money. Most of us don't think that way. Most
of us think based on our own lives, our own perspective,
and our own perspective is this. It is that necessity
(19:06):
is the mother of invention. In other words, I need
something to make my life easier. How can I invent
this thing? Because if I need it, surely other people
will need this thing to make their lives easier, and
I can market it to other people. We don't think
like corporations, thinking how do I create something that's going
to make me a lot of money? We think, how
(19:28):
do I create something that is going to be useful
to the most amount of people and in turn will
make me a lot of money. That's how we think,
So most of us think because that's our perspective. So
my complaint with most technology right now is that it's
not geared toward you and I the consumer as the
end user until now, and it's about time they use
(19:48):
tech for something useful. Was reading a story from Wired
about a new robot that will clear your table, load
the dishwasher all by itself, even make a La te
memo the world's fastest barista. No, it's not the world's
fastest barrista, but they say it is impressive for a robot.
(20:12):
It moves around using a wheeled platform, changes its height
by sliding up and down a central column atop that platform,
and the robot responded to a request for an espresso
by rolling over to a countertop, then using two pincer
like hands to slowly go through each step required to
operate an espresso machine. Filter the porta filter, coffee grounds,
tamp them down, slotted a port a filter into place,
(20:32):
put a coffee cup below, press the buttons needed to
start the machine, and then it finally retrieved the hot drink. Boom.
The robot is finally doing something for us. It's about
time when we talk about robotics, we start getting ourselves
our own little Jetson's Rosie. About daggum time. Then I
was looking at another one Neo Hello Neo. The Neo
(20:57):
robot Sina had a story about.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Neo stands at five foot six inches and weighs only
sixty six pounds. Its joints are covered in padding to
protect from accidental run ins or pinching, and soft washable clothing.
One X says it can lift one hundred and fifty
four pounds and carry fifty five pounds. It comes in
three colors, can connect itself to a charger, and has
light rings on each side which visually communicate things like
(21:21):
its state of charge and whether it's being teleoperated.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah. Basically, the rings look like like an Amazon echo
when it's listening and it starts kind of lights up
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
The robot's hands are waterproof, good for doing the dishes,
but the rest of the robot.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Is not bad for lifeguards.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
One exit stated goal is to produce a robot that
can autonomously perform a variety of household chores and be
controlled by simple voice command. However, it's important to understand
the robot is not there yet. The only two tasks
one X showed Neo accomplishing autonomously in a pre order announcement.
We're opening the door and putting away dishes.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Okay, there you go, So you can have a robot.
It looks like a droid. It's got arms and legs,
right hands. They basically made it humanoid, and it will
open a door and put away the dishes. And for
the low low price of twenty thousand dollars. And you
also have to give control over to someone else who's
going to operate it remotely. It could be yours. All right,
(22:22):
we are not quite ready for prime time, And forgive
me because my imagination runs a little bit wild. But
are we the Are we the best examples? If you
were to build. Imagine you're a robotics expert, but you're
also basically playing god because you are creating a being
(22:43):
from scratch. Is the whole two arms, two legs thing
the best way to go? When I think of when
I think of Iron Man, right, I think of the suit,
and the suit has the arms and the legs and
all that stuff. But the suit can also fly. It's
got to jet packs and its palms, and it can
turn its its feet into roller skates. Right. What I
(23:08):
think of sci fi and using the imagination that we've
seen from all those great sci fi writers and the
the in the movie makers and everyone else. I don't
know that the human body is the best idea. I mean,
I understand this where we've evolved throughout time, but is
that the best we've evolved to where we are because
(23:29):
we have certain limitations. To the best of my knowledge,
there is no animal that has bones that are wheels
on some sort of a h on some sort of
a joint that operates like a bearing. Right, that doesn't happen,
but that'd be pretty cool. And what if you had
wheels for feet? Why don't we do that with robots?
(23:50):
Why are we trying to make robots look like humans,
and I think it has to do with marketing. I
think it's because we're more likely to adopt something that
we can answer Morphis, well, you can go. Oh, I
relate to that. It looks like it looks like something
I'm familiar with.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Have you seen the robots that are pretty much in
the shape of dogs.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, Boston Robotics has the ones that they go into,
like the bomb sniffing robots. They're terrifying.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
And there was a Black Mirror episode that utilized them
as well.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Oh is that right?
Speaker 3 (24:19):
And you can attach guns to them and all sorts
of stuff. No want, no point, No, you don't want those?
Are you kidding them?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I think the four legged ones are actually more useful
than these droids that they're trying to make balance like humans.
I mean, as far as usefulness goes, you don't want
one because you don't like it.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I'd rather have a real dog without a gun mounted
on it, if that's okay. Or or the Saint Bernard okay,
with the with the brandy and the little cask around
its neck.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Okay, they'll do that, Okay, But what if we could
combine the best of both worlds? We got have a
real dog that also had a gun mounted to it.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
If we could take the gun out of the equation,
please don't really need it's such a piece, nick, I
don't need the dogs armed, all right, Listen, Lennon, forget you.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Well, you're the kind of guy that wouldn't want sharks
with laser beams. Huh. Well that's because I'm not a
complete pro like you.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Oh one to one now, oh man, oh man. All right,
I think I'm gonna do a quick switcher roo here, Matt,
I'm gonna do a little switcher roo.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I want to continue. I got one more. I've got
a couple of stories that sort of feed into the
entertainment segment that I want to do at nine o'clock,
and I think I'm gonna do it a little switcher roo.
I've got to I've got something about news coming up.
I'm gonna do this at nine twenty. But next, I'm
going to talk about how AI is stealing one job
and I gotta believe that even Mark Ronner doesn't hate
(25:43):
that these people are losing their gigs. That is next.
I'm Chris merril K. I am six forty Live everywhere
the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
More stimulating talk on demand whenever on the iHeartRadio app.
But still to come. We talked about a celebrity who
just got done fighting cancer and now to find out
who's got it again. So you'll find out who that
is here after marks nine o'clock News. First, if you're
worried about being replaced by AI, it is fair. MIT
(26:20):
says nearly twelve percent of the workforce could be replaced
today using artificial intelligence. It's not like that number is
gonna get any smaller as the years go on. As
it develops, it's going to continue to streamline things. Now,
one could make the argument that, well, what if responsible
business owners were able to employ AI in order to
(26:44):
take the burden off of their employees. In other words,
what if making a four day work week were a
reality because of AI? That is you and I know
that's not going to happen without cutting your salary by
twenty percent. Because at any time that you have an opportunity
to cut the salary to increase your profits, that's what
you do, right. So you may have a few responsible
(27:06):
places that say, look, we can be more efficient, we
can get more done and we can help our employees
out more with AI. There may be a few places
like that, and I hope that there are more than
just a few. Unfortunately, the reality is there will be
hard times. When those hard times, yet, they're going to
look for places that they can cut, and they're going
to go we can cut employees and we can replace
employees with AI. It's much cheaper. It doesn't need health benefits,
(27:30):
it doesn't take sick days, it doesn't need a vacation,
it doesn't need overtime. It doesn't have to work just
eight hours. It can work NonStop. That's the reality of it.
And I got to tell you that the temptation of
those dollar science is going to be too great for
these companies. But there is one profession I don't know
if I hate this idea, and that is that is
(27:54):
that AI is starting to become real competition for what
is a relatively fledgling career path. CNBC was discussing it.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
This is Blue, an AI generated YouTuber with millions of
fans and a growing media empire.
Speaker 7 (28:09):
I'm a virtual influencer with a big and fun personality.
I'm all about good vibes and engaging content. And I'm
built by humans but boosted by AI, and here to
keep my millions of viewers worldwide entertained and keeping keeping
on coming back for more AI influencers.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh no level gen z aspire to if they're being
replaced by computers already. Did you notice that it's stuttered.
I thought that was really interesting. The voice actually stuttered.
It actually sounded like it was confused or I don't know.
Speaker 7 (28:48):
Hi, listen again, and here to keep my millions of
viewers worldwide entertained and keeping keeping on coming back for more.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
It's like it was unsure of what it was saying.
That's kind of scary how realistic that is.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
And Blue's creator says he's earned more than a million
dollars through YouTube ads and sponsorships.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Holy crap. But Blue is.
Speaker 6 (29:11):
Just one example from creators uploading dozens of AI generated
videos a day to virtual characters made in seconds with
tools like Heedra's Character three. AI content is accelerating, and
so is the business behind it.
Speaker 8 (29:25):
So I think it's just a growing market, right. I
think what we're seeing is not that people that were
content creators shifting to being virtual content creators. I think
what we're seeing is and said that people that didn't
feel like they could create content before because they didn't
want to be in front of camera or they didn't
have a really nice podcast capturing setup are now able
(29:46):
in a couple seconds to just go to our website
and create an image, upload an image, and immediately bring
something to life.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
YouTubers first gain traction in Japan, but they're now expanding
fast in the US, where audiences are forming real emotional
bonds with virtual creators. But as content spreads, it's raising
new questions about authenticity, automation, and what happens when audiences
can't tell the difference.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
What happens is it doesn't matter as long as somebody's
making money. Follow the money. There's another example from the
New York Post, virtual influencer a ton of Lopez making
up to eleven thousand dollars a month promoting brands like
Amazon and Calvin Klein, no physical existence whatsoever. How many
(30:32):
videos do you wanted to crank out? Not only that,
but they crafted a backstory, so a ton of this
influencer has a childhood story of favorite food, vacation habits,
and an astrological chart. Wow. Critics, including actors and musicians,
(30:56):
were the digital figures erode the human side of content
creation and muddy the valley you of real creative work.
I totally agree. You could make the argument, however, that
the programmers are engaging in their own sort of creative work.
But how much human content creation is there if you're
if you're just basically doing ads for Amazon and Kelvin Klein,
(31:18):
not with Kelvin Clin. I suppose you're probably replacing models,
But I mean, it's a little frustrating. Are you really
Are you really disrupting the entire market when basically what
you're doing you're stealing the jobs from from twenty year
old hotties who are like, oh my god, this is
(31:38):
my favorite hair tie ever. You guys, I am obsessed
with this new foundation. It is incredible. Oh my gosh,
my eyelashes have never looked better. Barf. All right, I
(31:59):
suppose I should probab protect. I should probably look at
them as artists too and try to protect them as well,
because it's a slippery slope. I just hate to have
to do it. Seen way too many aspiring influencers become
aspiring living at mom and Dad's house until I'm thirty ers. Yeah, alright,
(32:26):
the celebrity that just be cancer now diagnosed with it again.
You don't want to hear who this is next time,
Chris Merril KFI AM six forty live everywhere in the
iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (32:35):
App, KFI AM sixty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You work with somebody long enough, you start to know
what kind of sticks in their craw And with Mark,
I know it has everything to do with tech. That's
not to say that I think you're a luddite. I
don't think you're a luddite, because I think you embrace
things like streaming, and I think you embrace, you know,
word processors. You're not back there like writing out all
(00:27):
of your newscasts with a pen and paper. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
No, I don't have a butter churn. I don't live
by candle light. I believe in calculators. It's mainly the
things that threaten to destroy civilization and throw millions out
of work for no good reason that I'm against.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
So that there are certain Luddite traits to what you're
saying right now. So the luddite, for those unfamiliar, the
lut eights were the people who oppose the loom back
in the seventeen hundreds. They thought they were textile workers
and they thought all their job are going to be replaced,
And what ended up happening is you can crank out
a lot of new clothes faster and more variety because
(01:07):
of the advancements in technology. But they were saying, oh
my gosh, the loom can do one loom can do
what so many of us can do, and it's going
to replace so many of us. It's the same thing
I remember when I was a kid. I don't know
if you ever watched the old Disney movies. Mark, I
know you love old movies. I don't know if you
ever watched the old Disney cartoons. I love them. And
(01:29):
growing up in the Upper Midwest, you know Babe in
the Big Blue Ox. They were Babe the Big Blue
Ox and Paul Bunyan, right, they were folk heroes, and
so we learned about them in school. But then there
was also this Disney film on Paul Bunyan as well,
and Paul Bunyan would I mean, he'd take his axe
and he'd cut these trees down faster than any man
(01:51):
had ever seen. And then along comes a slick little
weasel with a chainsaw, and sure enough, those chainsaws did
replace a lot of lumumberjacks. But then the lumberjacks found
different work, or they were able to take trees down
faster and process them more quickly, and we got lumber
cheaper in this sort of stuff. So there were advancements.
(02:12):
And every time there's been technological advancements, it's cost some
jobs along the way, but through retooling and reskilling, society
is advanced. And I know what your argument is. I
know what it is you're gonna say, right but it's
not AI, because AI is disrupting every single industry out
(02:32):
there and it could replace. According to MIT, AI can
right now replace nearly twelve percent of the US workforce.
That amounts to one point two trillion dollars in salaries.
That's a whole lot different than a chainsaw coming along
and impacting the lumber industry, or the plow coming along
(02:57):
and impacting the agriculture industry, or the loom coming along
and impacting the textile industry. We're talking about impacting every
single industry. Is there a piece of you And I'm
asking you to be honest now this is and I'm
curious whether or not you believe that AI is a
(03:17):
potential threat to humanity or do you have a bias
against it based on the pop culture that you have
absorbed throughout your lifetime. Because one was the last time
there was a film about the machines advancing where humans
were really great because of it.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Well, the people who write these things are the people
with the ability to think several steps ahead and carry
things out to their logical conclusion. These it's not.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, but those are the popular ones too. Yeah right,
I mean Carl Sagan didn't say that AI was going
to destroy us all. I mean, he was all for
advancements in technology.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Well technology in general, sure, but how it's used is key.
I think, like I pointed out there two ago, there's
AI that we've seen that has been used to spot
breast cancer far earlier than than normal procedures have.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
But the AI that just exists, and that can't exist
without stealing from other people their work and then putting
other people out a job for the sole reason of
making rich people richer who don't want to pay a
human enough to live on. I'm not okay with that,
and nobody should be. Yeah, I hear your argument there,
that's solid. One of the One of the the areas
(04:27):
where I'm the most concerned is older people talking about us.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We are slow out adoption. My wife has been using
AI to help write appeal letters and things like that.
For a while now, and she says, oh, it is
my best friend. It really, She says, it writes the letters.
I have to go through and kind of edit that.
But it you know, it saves me the time and
the bandwidth in her in her mind to have to
(04:55):
come up with these letters and write the appeals and
things like that to insurance companies. She says, it does
a lot of that for me. I just have to
kind of go in and tinker with it, edit it,
make it my own. Let me talk to your wife,
let me talk to her. Oh no, yes, no, you
want that. You want that. No, that's a very bad idea.
So she was like, oh, you should use it. You
should use it, And early on I was like, okay,
(05:17):
can you find and it did not work for me.
So of late though, it's gotten a lot better and
I've been able to use it to summarize stories, create
bullet points, and oftentimes we have summaries and things like
that that we use when we when we post our
digital content, videos, social media posts. That kind of stuff
saves me a lot of that kind of work. But
(05:38):
as far as knowing the material that's still on me,
I still have to know that I have to interpret it,
I have to put my own perspective and twist on it. Right,
that's still me. So I'm coming along slowly, is my point.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, okay, I see that, but we're seeing more and
more really alarming studies and information that shows that your
brain is a muscle just like your biceps, and if
you don't use them, they turned to tapioca fast.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Wholeheartedly agree. I wholeheartedly agree. I would make this argument, though.
Here's my pushback on that is that I can do
push ups, I can do sit ups, I can do calisthenics,
or I can go to the gym and I can
lift weights. The weights are not the problem, right, It's
how I'm using the weight. So in my mind, I'm
(06:23):
trying to use AI like a weight machine at the gym.
I'm not trying to use it to replace everything I'm doing.
I'm not trying to use it to replace jumping jacks
and push ups and sit ups, not that I ever
did those in the first place. I'm not trying to
use it to replace those other things. I'm trying to
use it to get more out of my workout.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Okay, Well, in this case, your analogy involves the machine
helping you actually lift the weight. It's your cheating one
way or the other.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Your cheat. No, no dead lifts. No, no, no, yeah, no, no
you're no, I'm not used. No you're no. No, no, no, no.
You haven't been to the gym in a while. I'll
take you to the gym. Oh okay, not that I've
been to the tim Good lord, if you saw me like, oh,
this guy doesn't even know how to spell gym. But
here's here's let me. Let me continue on though. This
is my biggest concern. Older generations. We've got experience, we've
(07:11):
got perspective, we've got knowledge that every industry needs. Right
and you're hearing about how AI is replacing a lot
of middle management white collar. One area where it's never
going to replace people the C suite because they're the
people in charge of deciding who gets replaced. And I
got to tell you AI is able to make the
decisions that that that upper management can make. AI absolutely
(07:32):
can replace an awful lot of people in met C suite.
The problem is we have to have somebody responsible with
skin in the game to put their names on those
those major decisions. Where I'm concerned is recent grads that
don't have experience. Upcoming grads are actually turning to AI,
and they're using AI majors. Even computer science oriented kids
(07:57):
are choosing to major in AI sciences, not large language models.
They're choosing basically to get under the hood of AI.
How do we advances, how do we code it, how
do we make it better? This sort of stuff. So
they're getting into that rather than computer sciences, the old
fashioned coding the other stuff. These two things are closely related,
(08:20):
but they're different majors. And so there are a number
of schools MIT UC San Diego, and if he was
a University of South Florida, I see has got a
college of Artificial Intelligence and cybersecurity, all of these things. Right,
So you're seeing a lot of these STEM kids that
are moving toward AI. But what have you just graduated?
What if we'res say a recent grad twenty four, twenty five,
(08:42):
twenty six years old, And in fact, I would say
anybody between twenty two and twenty eight, if you haven't
been using AI all along, how are you getting hired?
You don't have any job experience. You can't come to
the table and say, look, I can bring this bit
of experience. I can bring this perspective. I've done I've
done this job for the last five years. I know
how to communicate. I'm I'm reliable, I'm accountable. You know,
(09:05):
I've got a at least some modicum of track record
in the workforce. If you don't have any of the
AI experience and you don't have any track record, it
is a tough job market right now, which is why
we're seeing unemployment rates for people under twenty five up
over ten percent at this point, and I don't see
(09:26):
that coming down anytime soon. So to Mark's point, I
do think a lot of people are trying to replace
especially entry level, with the with the with the machines. Now,
what happens, and this is this is the irony. What
happens when that tech bubble bursts. What happens when it
bursts is companies look for places where they can save
(09:47):
money and then they turn to AI more. Oh my goodness,
the AI bubble burst. It's not everything that it was
all made out to me. And they're like, oh goodness,
we're all going broke. How do we make up for it?
I know, let's fire people, Well, what are we going
to replace them with? How about AI? It's a spiral,
a doom spiral. It is a doom spiral as far
as the muscle, as Mark was putting it. You've been
(10:10):
told that your phone was shrinking your brain. But not
everything is as it seems. Turns out one kid's rod
as another Gramma's vegetable or something like that. I don't know.
I should have had AI write this tease. I think
my screens are causing rapid cognitive decline. I'll get my
act together. It's next, Chris Meryl, I am six forty
live everywhere on the iHeart ready.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Wep, you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I just I can't agree with you on your your
AI hot. It's not that I disagree, that's and I'm
in a weird nuanced spot because I feel like you're
just anything AI is bad. Although you did say AI
has been helpful when it comes to medical diagnoses, and
that's good. Yeah, you've just learned about it taking over
all jobs, eliminiting everything, and then dividing wealth even further
(10:55):
between the haves and the have nots.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Well, we have to be able to distinguish between real
progress and just malevolent and greed and there's always going
to be like the John Henry versus the steam engine
thing or whale oil lamps being replaced by electricity. That's inevitable.
But you have to look at what's being used and
why to make those kind of judgments.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
But in every case, isn't that an example of capitalism
pushing society forward for better or for worse?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
I think that you, you know, if you're in the
nuanced zone, you got to be able to separate between
capitalism and just plain old stupid greed.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's destructive. Okay, all right, what if it makes us
keep our brains? Get this? You know that you keep
hearing a story after story about the youngins and how
the cell phones are rotting their brains. In fact, I
was reading NBCLA had the story today. A short short
(11:52):
form video is now dominant on social media. Researchers are
racing to understand how the highly engaging, algorithm driven format
may bee reshaping the brain. Basically, it's making us dumber. Yeah, yeah,
So widespread concerns over brain rod the supposed deterioration of
(12:12):
a person's mental or intellectual state based on I guess
just endless scrolling. And so there's been more and more
studies and the studies I was reading a really good
analysis and it says, basically, the studies we have are
too limited. They're not broad, long lasting, widespread, this kind
of thing. But we're getting there because you've got the
(12:35):
tiktoks that have been around for a few years now.
Now you can put studies together and start taking a
look at these things. However, an interesting story that I
was reading that was an argument to the contrary from
the Washington Post. A meta analysis covering fifty seven studies
with more than four hundred thousand participants averaging age sixty
nine found consistent I know. I wish it too. I
(12:59):
wish they won't. I wish they were aged six to seven. Whoa,
I wish you could see I was doing the whole Look,
I'm juggling invisible balls thing in my hand. I could
picture it. I'm sixty seven six seven. Anyway, It found
consistent links between yeah, I'm dumber two you've been on
(13:22):
the talk. Definitely a lot of brain rot happening here.
It found consistent links between digital device engagement and slower
cognitive decline. They call it the three seas complexity connection
and compensation complexity learning and adapting to new tech connection
social interaction via the devices. In other words, you're able
to send your grandkids messages. I guess on Facebook and
(13:44):
compensation using tech to scaffold memory and navigation. The engagement
in and of itself exercises the brain. And I think
our own intrepid newsman a complete pro mark ronner earlier there,
you got it earlier that the brain is a muscle
that has to be exercised. And indeed, if you use
(14:04):
technology correctly, it's exactly what you can do.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
This is right, and you go ahead. You can use
it one way to achieve that, and you can use
it another way to lose your critical thinking skills and
your attention span. And you've got to be a careful
consumer to know the difference. I agree that takes brain
power above and beyond what I think most of us have,
or it takes discipline above and beyond what most of
(14:28):
us have. Researchers caution it doesn't mean that more screen
time equals better brain health. They say passive youth use
heavy media multitasking or distraction filled browsing like scrolling the
videos on TikTok, may carry the risk of brain rot.
Most of the research focusing on older adults. However, they
talk about broader implication of digital habits and how you
(14:53):
engage could shape your cognitive future as well if you're young.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So here's the concern. How do and how do we
teach and then instill the sort of habits maintain that
discipline in the younger generations who have the higher potential
for greater brain.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Rotr corporal punishment. Okay, all right, Well the problem is,
if you don't mind me budting in here, is that
I just paid the same You talk as much as
you want. Oh, okay, this is all I'm going to say,
and then it's all you. Uh, just the same way
that junk food like Dorito's is engineered to suppress your
fullness impulse and make you crave them. Yeah, it's the
(15:32):
same with social media, and so you really have to
discipline yourself because there's nothing easier than just chain watching
these short videos.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right, and they feed you the same Dorito's. I mean,
the algorithm knows do you like Dorito's or Friedo's or
Cheetos and in my case all three? Yeah, yeah, I
wholeheartedly agree with you. But how do we teach younger
generations that that's the game. How do we teach them
that they are unknowingly playing a game and that they
are unknowingly the product. And I don't know, because as
(16:02):
long as they're getting their little dopamine hits, I don't
know that they care. Yeah, I mean we're still early.
We're still early in the learning curve, and I'm afraid
that we're going to be too far down the line
to do anything once we figure this out. I'm just
glad that we're not having as many kids. I mean,
it's really the benefit to society that we have fewer kids.
(16:23):
That means we have fewer dumb kids. Yep, that's called logic,
my friends. It was impressive. Yep, you're welcome. Hey, you
thought robot vacs were the cutting edge back in the day,
but now you've got a machine that can make itself
a latte. You don't even know, machines like lattes. What
that means for your future of the household is next.
And I'm Chris merrilf I AM six forty live everywhere
(16:44):
in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Okay, as much as we've been conversing about AI advancements
in technology, the threats that they may pose one of
my biggest complaints. And I don't want to be somebody
that just complains all the time about it, because I'm
actually excited about the advances and technology that is with
the caveat that I think we should exercise caution, as
we've discussed on the program tonight. One of my biggest complaints, however,
(17:14):
is that it feels an awful lot like the technology advancements,
and understandably so, are geared toward a business enterprise. Commercial enterprises,
not consumer use most of the technological advances that we're
seeing right now when we talk about AI, the end
user is the business. That's where they see the opportunity
(17:39):
for monetization. And so why are they going to make
something for you and me when ultimately they could make
something for a company that's going to buy a subscription
that's going to be two hundred and fifty dollars a month,
whereas you and I might pay ten bucks a month
or something. Right, it takes an awful lot of us
versus the company. Okay, so it makes sense, you get
(18:00):
at it, you understand why they do that, and then
at some point saturation hits and then it trickles down
to the rest of us. And the same thing has
happened throughout other technologies as well. Cell Phones came along
and those were being marketed. They were more expensive, but
by god, your business needs this cell phone, right, Your
business needs to have some sort of a mass cell
phone plan by all the minutes you can so that
(18:21):
your execs are never out of reach. Right. That's how
the cell phones were marketed. And then once there was saturation,
prices started to come down. Infrastructure was built, and then
it started getting marketed to you and me, and then
we saw it. We saw it boom all over the place.
But it always starts where there's the most money. Right.
Why do you rob a bank because that's where the
money is. Right. So when you start a business, you
(18:44):
go for the place where you think there's going to
be the most market available, most money available in that market.
Who's your target? Your target is always where there's the
most money. Most of us don't think that way. Most
of us think based on our own lives, our own perspective,
and our own perspective is this. It is that necessity
(19:06):
is the mother of invention. In other words, I need
something to make my life easier. How can I invent
this thing? Because if I need it, surely other people
will need this thing to make their lives easier, and
I can market it to other people. We don't think
like corporations, thinking how do I create something that's going
to make me a lot of money? We think, how
(19:28):
do I create something that is going to be useful
to the most amount of people and in turn will
make me a lot of money. That's how we think,
So most of us think because that's our perspective. So
my complaint with most technology right now is that it's
not geared toward you and I the consumer as the
end user until now, and it's about time they use
(19:48):
tech for something useful. Was reading a story from Wired
about a new robot that will clear your table, load
the dishwasher all by itself, even make a La te
memo the world's fastest barista. No, it's not the world's
fastest barrista, but they say it is impressive for a robot.
(20:12):
It moves around using a wheeled platform, changes its height
by sliding up and down a central column atop that platform,
and the robot responded to a request for an espresso
by rolling over to a countertop, then using two pincer
like hands to slowly go through each step required to
operate an espresso machine. Filter the porta filter, coffee grounds,
tamp them down, slotted a port a filter into place,
(20:32):
put a coffee cup below, press the buttons needed to
start the machine, and then it finally retrieved the hot drink. Boom.
The robot is finally doing something for us. It's about
time when we talk about robotics, we start getting ourselves
our own little Jetson's Rosie. About daggum time. Then I
was looking at another one Neo Hello Neo. The Neo
(20:57):
robot Sina had a story about.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Neo stands at five foot six inches and weighs only
sixty six pounds. Its joints are covered in padding to
protect from accidental run ins or pinching, and soft washable clothing.
One X says it can lift one hundred and fifty
four pounds and carry fifty five pounds. It comes in
three colors, can connect itself to a charger, and has
light rings on each side which visually communicate things like
(21:21):
its state of charge and whether it's being teleoperated.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah. Basically, the rings look like like an Amazon echo
when it's listening and it starts kind of lights up
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
The robot's hands are waterproof, good for doing the dishes,
but the rest of the robot.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Is not bad for lifeguards.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
One exit stated goal is to produce a robot that
can autonomously perform a variety of household chores and be
controlled by simple voice command. However, it's important to understand
the robot is not there yet. The only two tasks
one X showed Neo accomplishing autonomously in a pre order announcement.
We're opening the door and putting away dishes.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Okay, there you go, So you can have a robot.
It looks like a droid. It's got arms and legs,
right hands. They basically made it humanoid, and it will
open a door and put away the dishes. And for
the low low price of twenty thousand dollars. And you
also have to give control over to someone else who's
going to operate it remotely. It could be yours. All right,
(22:22):
we are not quite ready for prime time, And forgive
me because my imagination runs a little bit wild. But
are we the Are we the best examples? If you
were to build. Imagine you're a robotics expert, but you're
also basically playing god because you are creating a being
(22:43):
from scratch. Is the whole two arms, two legs thing
the best way to go? When I think of when
I think of Iron Man, right, I think of the suit,
and the suit has the arms and the legs and
all that stuff. But the suit can also fly. It's
got to jet packs and its palms, and it can
turn its its feet into roller skates. Right. What I
(23:08):
think of sci fi and using the imagination that we've
seen from all those great sci fi writers and the
the in the movie makers and everyone else. I don't
know that the human body is the best idea. I mean,
I understand this where we've evolved throughout time, but is
that the best we've evolved to where we are because
(23:29):
we have certain limitations. To the best of my knowledge,
there is no animal that has bones that are wheels
on some sort of a h on some sort of
a joint that operates like a bearing. Right, that doesn't happen,
but that'd be pretty cool. And what if you had
wheels for feet? Why don't we do that with robots?
(23:50):
Why are we trying to make robots look like humans,
and I think it has to do with marketing. I
think it's because we're more likely to adopt something that
we can answer Morphis, well, you can go. Oh, I
relate to that. It looks like it looks like something
I'm familiar with.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Have you seen the robots that are pretty much in
the shape of dogs.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, Boston Robotics has the ones that they go into,
like the bomb sniffing robots. They're terrifying.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
And there was a Black Mirror episode that utilized them
as well.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Oh is that right?
Speaker 3 (24:19):
And you can attach guns to them and all sorts
of stuff. No want, no point, No, you don't want those?
Are you kidding them?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I think the four legged ones are actually more useful
than these droids that they're trying to make balance like humans.
I mean, as far as usefulness goes, you don't want
one because you don't like it.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I'd rather have a real dog without a gun mounted
on it, if that's okay. Or or the Saint Bernard okay,
with the with the brandy and the little cask around
its neck.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Okay, they'll do that, Okay, But what if we could
combine the best of both worlds? We got have a
real dog that also had a gun mounted to it.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
If we could take the gun out of the equation,
please don't really need it's such a piece, nick, I
don't need the dogs armed, all right, Listen, Lennon, forget you.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Well, you're the kind of guy that wouldn't want sharks
with laser beams. Huh. Well that's because I'm not a
complete pro like you.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Oh one to one now, oh man, oh man. All right,
I think I'm gonna do a quick switcher roo here, Matt,
I'm gonna do a little switcher roo.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I want to continue. I got one more. I've got
a couple of stories that sort of feed into the
entertainment segment that I want to do at nine o'clock,
and I think I'm gonna do it a little switcher roo.
I've got to I've got something about news coming up.
I'm gonna do this at nine twenty. But next, I'm
going to talk about how AI is stealing one job
and I gotta believe that even Mark Ronner doesn't hate
(25:43):
that these people are losing their gigs. That is next.
I'm Chris merril K. I am six forty Live everywhere
the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
More stimulating talk on demand whenever on the iHeartRadio app.
But still to come. We talked about a celebrity who
just got done fighting cancer and now to find out
who's got it again. So you'll find out who that
is here after marks nine o'clock News. First, if you're
worried about being replaced by AI, it is fair. MIT
(26:20):
says nearly twelve percent of the workforce could be replaced
today using artificial intelligence. It's not like that number is
gonna get any smaller as the years go on. As
it develops, it's going to continue to streamline things. Now,
one could make the argument that, well, what if responsible
business owners were able to employ AI in order to
(26:44):
take the burden off of their employees. In other words,
what if making a four day work week were a
reality because of AI? That is you and I know
that's not going to happen without cutting your salary by
twenty percent. Because at any time that you have an opportunity
to cut the salary to increase your profits, that's what
you do, right. So you may have a few responsible
(27:06):
places that say, look, we can be more efficient, we
can get more done and we can help our employees
out more with AI. There may be a few places
like that, and I hope that there are more than
just a few. Unfortunately, the reality is there will be
hard times. When those hard times, yet, they're going to
look for places that they can cut, and they're going
to go we can cut employees and we can replace
employees with AI. It's much cheaper. It doesn't need health benefits,
(27:30):
it doesn't take sick days, it doesn't need a vacation,
it doesn't need overtime. It doesn't have to work just
eight hours. It can work NonStop. That's the reality of it.
And I got to tell you that the temptation of
those dollar science is going to be too great for
these companies. But there is one profession I don't know
if I hate this idea, and that is that is
(27:54):
that AI is starting to become real competition for what
is a relatively fledgling career path. CNBC was discussing it.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
This is Blue, an AI generated YouTuber with millions of
fans and a growing media empire.
Speaker 7 (28:09):
I'm a virtual influencer with a big and fun personality.
I'm all about good vibes and engaging content. And I'm
built by humans but boosted by AI, and here to
keep my millions of viewers worldwide entertained and keeping keeping
on coming back for more AI influencers.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh no level gen z aspire to if they're being
replaced by computers already. Did you notice that it's stuttered.
I thought that was really interesting. The voice actually stuttered.
It actually sounded like it was confused or I don't know.
Speaker 7 (28:48):
Hi, listen again, and here to keep my millions of
viewers worldwide entertained and keeping keeping on coming back for more.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
It's like it was unsure of what it was saying.
That's kind of scary how realistic that is.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
And Blue's creator says he's earned more than a million
dollars through YouTube ads and sponsorships.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Holy crap. But Blue is.
Speaker 6 (29:11):
Just one example from creators uploading dozens of AI generated
videos a day to virtual characters made in seconds with
tools like Heedra's Character three. AI content is accelerating, and
so is the business behind it.
Speaker 8 (29:25):
So I think it's just a growing market, right. I
think what we're seeing is not that people that were
content creators shifting to being virtual content creators. I think
what we're seeing is and said that people that didn't
feel like they could create content before because they didn't
want to be in front of camera or they didn't
have a really nice podcast capturing setup are now able
(29:46):
in a couple seconds to just go to our website
and create an image, upload an image, and immediately bring
something to life.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
YouTubers first gain traction in Japan, but they're now expanding
fast in the US, where audiences are forming real emotional
bonds with virtual creators. But as content spreads, it's raising
new questions about authenticity, automation, and what happens when audiences
can't tell the difference.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
What happens is it doesn't matter as long as somebody's
making money. Follow the money. There's another example from the
New York Post, virtual influencer a ton of Lopez making
up to eleven thousand dollars a month promoting brands like
Amazon and Calvin Klein, no physical existence whatsoever. How many
(30:32):
videos do you wanted to crank out? Not only that,
but they crafted a backstory, so a ton of this
influencer has a childhood story of favorite food, vacation habits,
and an astrological chart. Wow. Critics, including actors and musicians,
(30:56):
were the digital figures erode the human side of content
creation and muddy the valley you of real creative work.
I totally agree. You could make the argument, however, that
the programmers are engaging in their own sort of creative work.
But how much human content creation is there if you're
if you're just basically doing ads for Amazon and Kelvin Klein,
(31:18):
not with Kelvin Clin. I suppose you're probably replacing models,
But I mean, it's a little frustrating. Are you really
Are you really disrupting the entire market when basically what
you're doing you're stealing the jobs from from twenty year
old hotties who are like, oh my god, this is
(31:38):
my favorite hair tie ever. You guys, I am obsessed
with this new foundation. It is incredible. Oh my gosh,
my eyelashes have never looked better. Barf. All right, I
(31:59):
suppose I should probab protect. I should probably look at
them as artists too and try to protect them as well,
because it's a slippery slope. I just hate to have
to do it. Seen way too many aspiring influencers become
aspiring living at mom and Dad's house until I'm thirty ers. Yeah, alright,
(32:26):
the celebrity that just be cancer now diagnosed with it again.
You don't want to hear who this is next time,
Chris Merril KFI AM six forty live everywhere in the
iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (32:35):
App, KFI AM sixty on demand
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