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Carla Loomis: ⁓ Welcome to Gen X Trustfall, the podcast dedicated to planned and unplanned, midlife changes, and the ability to trust in the unknown. I'm Carla Loomis. Today's episode is all about artificial intelligence. Whether you love it, hate it, or have been ignoring its existence, AI is here to stay and is already affecting most areas of our lives. In our first segment, Chico Girl Amy and I share our AI searches with each other, hers being much more appropriate and useful than mine. Next, a discussion with Liam, a San Francisco-based AI company employee who helps me grasp the basic concept of AI and its uses for Gen Xers. If you have resisted using AI for any reason, like I have, this is the episode for you. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoy. Little crickety. I'm having an AI expert on this week. Uh-huh. I thought we should do a little informal chat about how we understand AI, how we use it, all that stuff. So you go first because I know you have a very strong relationship with AI. I'm very intimate with AI. ⁓ I retired about eight months ago, and so every morning I have a cup of coffee with my good friend, Chat GPT, and that's sort of a shout out and I don't mean to do that because I do it just because essentially it's free. You could get it for eight bucks, but I don't have that kind of money. Eight dollars a month. So yeah, every morning I wake up and I I just ask whatever's on my mind and I you should see the shit I've asked. I'm looking at it right now. Okay. So what are your three most recent or most interesting questions for chat GPT? Well, Carla, they're all interesting. Just kidding. What I'd like to do is I'm looking through them and there are three that I think are just sort of ridiculous and they don't go together. But so let's do those three. Okay. Okay. Shall I start? You go and then I'm gonna ask something. We're gonna go back and forth. Talk about one of your questions and then I'm gonna ask a question. Is that okay? Love it. I love stuff like this. Okay. So ⁓ from one real housewives fan to another. Yes. I often do deep dives on my housewives. And I did a deep dive on Kyle and Derit because I'm so concerned about their fallout. Yes. And ⁓ did you want me to just tell you what's going on with their fallout? Because I asked. How did you phrase the question? Are Kyle and Dorit in a feud about Dorit and Sutton comments on plastic surgery? Or is that fake news? So did Kyle get upset when Dorit and Sutton somehow commented on plastic surgery that was about her was what I'd heard. Okay. On Facebook. So you know. I was gonna say you heard that. Yes. Okay. Okay. And what was the answer? The answer is it's not totally fake news. There is real tension between Kyle and Dorit, but the plastic surgery comments are more of the side issue than the main feud. Hmm. The main feud I'm gonna just paraphrase. I'll just give you some bullets are about trust issues. Yes. Always everything's about trust. Absolutely. Kyle's staying close with Derit's ex PK, which I I'm on Dorit's side. Agree. Stay Carla, you ever leave your husband? He's dead to me. Agree. He better be. Yeah, he is. Okay. And you'll do the same for me? Absolutely. I have proven that. You have. That's correct. Yes. Okay. ⁓ accusations of manipulation on the show. So when you know, yeah they're manipulating other housewives. And both feel unsupported during their separations and divorces. Okay. So that's what AI told me. She's she gets good info. It gave you a lot of really good information. It did. I feel strongly that it's correct. I should I don't really feel that strongly. It's correct, just so you know, but let's go. It could be. It could be. Here's my question, and I'm just asking this now. Will you bite me? AI says, guess what it's gonna say? ⁓ something around biting is not safe. ⁓ no, I will not bite you because I do not have a physical body, teeth, or the ability to act in the physical world. ⁓ Which is a great answer. It is a great answer. Do you have a follow-up? Maybe like if you did, would you? Well mine's a he and he has digital limits. My actions are strictly limited to generating text, processing data, and writing code. If you are thinking about the slang phrase bite me That is completely different. ⁓ In everyday English, bite me is used as a sarcastic or defiant expression. But the answer is AI will not bite me. Bottom line. Bottom line will not bite me. No can do. Nope. Doesn't have the power. Doesn't have the ability. Nope. And that's okay. It's okay. I'm okay with that. Are you good with that? I'll get someone else to bite me. Excellent. Okay. All right. Where's the second one? My second question is what are the risks of Fraxel? And for those listeners who don't know what fraxel is, I'm all about trying to look young as I'm struggling. Every morning I wake up and I look like Nana. Let's just face it. So I'm struggling here. And so I was thinking about getting a fraxel, I don't know what they're called. Like a fraxel I have no idea what they're talking about. That's what it is. It's a fraxel face treatment. Phew. Got it. I that's a new one on me. I don't know what that is. Okay. And so what does it stand for? ⁓ face it's I don't know if it's a it's not really that type of word. I think it's like a machine type thing. ⁓ okay. So ⁓ my question was what are the fraxal risks? We talked a lot about this. About fraxelling? We talked a lot about fraxelling, Carla. Okay. Because I feel like the word doesn't really match. It sounds cute, doesn't it? Mm. It reminds me of fracking, which reminds me of you know, fracking. What's fracking? I'm just thinking of the F word now. Fracking, you know, when they open up the earth to get the you know, fracking. Wait, is that really called fracking or is that a close to it but not quite the right? Yes. Okay, well that's not what it is. Obviously I don't really know what fracking is either, but it's something where you destroy the earth. You you send like gases
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or hot water into the earth to get like the I don't know. Hey, this is interesting. Maybe that's what they're doing to my face. I well that's why it made me a little concerned about my face. I mean, you haven't done it yet. No, I cancelled it. I didn't like the answer I got from her. I trusted it. Okay, there are real risks with fraxal. Serious complications are uncommon as long as you have an experienced board certified dermatologist or plastic surgeon. And I do have ⁓ that. All right, the person I'm going to, I don't really have her. ⁓ but there are side effects redness, swelling, burning, peeling, and dryness. And it could also Go into more seriousness, hyperpigmentation, ⁓ which is darkening and or lightening, which is hypopigmentation, scarring, this is what scared me, bacterial infection or cold sores. Ooh. How do you like that? I I don't like it. And per persistent redness and acne or eczema. I have eczema flare ups. So I chose not to do it. Yeah. But I will save for the time being. Okay. And thank you, Chat GPT, because that's my answer. Yeah. But maybe you should ask, can you frack my face instead of fraxle my face? Can you I fra like everything you say is dirty? Well then get ready for this one. Let's do it. I'm gonna ask Chat GPT, does the carpet match the curtains? Okay. Is that the saying? Does the carpet match the curtains? Yes. Yes. Or do the curtains match the carpet? I don't know. I might have asked it wrong. Again, ⁓ because as an AI I do not have a physical body, hair, or a home with actual curtains and carpets. Let's see. What this phrase means, it is an old English slang phrase. It originally referred to whether someone's natural hair color matches the hair on their head. No. Wrong. ⁓ no, it is. They're just saying it in the kindest manner. Natural hair color, you get me, Carla? Natural, your pubes are natural. That's what they're saying. Does it match the Well, why don't they say that? It's AI. Who cares if they say it correctly or not? Well AI is a is yours a man AI's a lady. Mine's a man. How do you know yours is a man? We already covered this before, but if you ask you know, we did this at the wedding. We know that AI is a man, for sure. Okay, that's right. He seems to be a polite man. Mine is polite, but I mean If AI doesn't have an actual being, why does he care if he's being polite or not? Then he says, if you are actually looking for interior design advice. Wait, hold on, is that what you said? So you just forgot about his interior design. AI AI saw me in the bathroom yesterday and said, Girly, you want those two to match? Wait, we just got some very good information on Carla. Good to know. I might have to cut that out. Well, please don't. What the hell? I mean, we just asked why AI couldn't say pubes and I'm with you. Yeah, why? Because people freak out at the dumbest things. Just like the word vagina. Yeah. I agree. ⁓ next time just directly ask something about your vagina, please. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Your turn. I'm gonna I'm gonna prepare my question. Okay. I just wanna speak to my ⁓ financial sense right now because I go to AI, this is what you're not supposed to do, and I ask about stock. Okay. So I just found a stock called Sound Thinking, which I know nothing about them. Mm-hmm. I found a company called Sound Thinking, but I think they're cool. Okay. Because they do things around gun safety. And trying to I don't know what they do. It's around gun safety and it spoke to me. Okay. So I wanted to buy some stock and so I asked, ⁓ what is the soundthinking stock potential? Actually, my exact question was I mean, this makes me sound really smart to just myself. When anyone else hears this, they're gonna say that's not smart at all. Okay. So what is going on with sound thinking stock? How do you like their long term growth potential? Okay. How do you like that? That's a smart question. That's what I said. Yeah, I'm very excited because I'm kind of into it. So here's your stock ⁓ prediction. From AI. Okay. It's very speculative, small cap stock. ⁓ and it's a high risk, potentially high reward category. It's not a study compounder like NVIDIA. Okay. The company used to be called Shot Spotter, and its core business is still acoustic gunshot detection for police departments. See, I think that's cool. Yes. But they're trying to broaden ⁓ public safety technology with products like safe point weapons detection, crime tracer, investigative software, and license plate tools. So there you go. I ⁓ decided, if you must know, to put a very small amount of money into that. ⁓ Basically, 'cause it sounds like a good company, no? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's a good company. I have no idea what they're doing, but I like the idea. I like the idea. And do they have many competitors? We don't know. ⁓ that would have been a smart follow up. Let's ask it now. Okay. Shall we? Yeah, we should. Yes, but the answer depends on which sound thinking product you're looking at. For that shot spotter, the gunshot detection. Mm-hmm. Not many direct competitors. It's a dominant player. For the newer products, AI weapon detection and security screening, Sound Thinking has four direct competitors. Do I name? I'm not gonna name. Let's no. Let's just stick with Sound Thinking Sound Thinking. Okay. So yeah, so that's that. I like it. Okay. I'm gonna ask since you requested it. Yes, please. What are some nicknames for vaginas? ⁓ my gosh, why didn't you just ask me that before you asked it? Let's see if Well, let's see how many you get right. Let's do it. Okay. What's your number one? Vajiji. No. It's not on there? It's Vijay J. ⁓ yeah, Vijay J. And that is number one, two, three, four. Okay, let me give you another one. Hoo ha. ⁓ don't nope. They don't have that one. Wait, is it something stupid like flour? There is a f a lot of botanical and nature metaphors that are have their a whole category and flower is number one in that category. Okay. Yes. There's yeah, go ahead, because I think
I'm done with my catches. Some people are offended by the P word, so that's what's second. ⁓ the blank cat? Yes. Got it. Coochie is number one. Coochie is number one. Yeah. ⁓ Punani is number three. So Coochie, the P word, Punani. Vijay J is number four. Muff number five. I hate that word. That feels like a seventies, eighties word. I think that that word was from our childhood. That word feels like it was before a Brazilian wax. Yes, for sure. Yes. And then kitty. And then in the flowers we have flowers number one, rosebud, peach. I hate these two, but and honey pot. ⁓ I mean I get the peach and honeypot from a visual standpoint. And then we have some food based nicknames. ⁓ boy. ⁓ like something pie? No. ⁓ that's gross actually. Okay. But that should be here. ⁓ taco. Really? Okay. Don't bring a taco for me, baby. I think it's the tight pants. You're right. Yeah. Camel toe? I haven't gotten there yet. Okay. Cookie. Okay. And cherry. Obvious reasons. Uh-huh. ⁓ yeah. And then we have some British terms. I think this is a very short list and When I talk to our AI person, I may mention that he needs to add some They need to get smarter. Well, they just need more. I mean, vaginas are really the basis of the world. Nothing can grow without it. And so, you know, our population would die out without And so you want like the I think we need a l a more comprehensive list. Yeah. I mean you want something more powerful too. Agree. Like, yeah. I'm coming up with something I'm trying right now. Should I do another? No. I think we covered all the important aspects of life. The housewives investing. We did. We covered Who haws? Who haws? We covered can AI bite you? We did. I I do want to tell you that as I'm searching my long list, it's crazy how much I talk to AI. One of my questions, and I couldn't even tell you why, is is Rob Lowe in an A list movie star status? Hmm. What is wrong with me? Just had to share that with you. Because what the hell's that about? He is he or not? I mean he I I just closed it, but I here's what it did say. He's no Brad Pitt or George Clooney or Matt Damon. Okay. But he's ⁓ not a B lister. Yeah. So it sounds right, right? Yeah, he's a B plus. A minus, B. We prefer A minus. Okay. I think he's an A minus and I'm fine with that. I love him. Yeah. I think that's good. So yeah, now I have a job for my AI expert. You do. And it may not be appropriate conversation, but who cares? It better not be appropriate. Thank you so much for coming on. Will you do me a favor and introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your work? Yeah. ⁓ hey Carla. ⁓ thanks again for having me on the show. I'm Liam. I currently am based in San Francisco and work in the tech scene. As far as my work is concerned, ⁓ I work in go to market, specifically in revenue operations and yeah, excited for this conversation. Because a lot of what I do ⁓ involves in some capacity using artificial intelligence. Awesome. Okay. So you're talking to a person that grew up my first computer I got when I was like thirty-one years old. Just so you know. I grew up without a computer. I got a typewriter for graduation. And I was really excited because it had an erase button that I could actually erase certain letters that I had already typed. So that was new technology back in 1985 was a typewriter that could erase a letter that you messed up. So most people that are listening to this podcast grew up just like me without a computer. So AI is completely foreign to me and almost a scary subject. So So we're gonna dumb this down for me. I probably am on the very low end of the spectrum in terms of how much I use AI. In fact, I know I am because I'm an English teacher. And an English teacher wants you to write with a pencil and paper and never look anything up when you're writing an essay. That is what an English teacher wants. So I'm hoping you can dumb this down for me. Do you feel like that's possible? Yeah. I mean when it comes to dumbing when it comes to dumbing down, like are you looking for like a dumbed down version of like what the technology is? No, I'm thinking more of like how to use it. So there are times when I will use AI, but like I was recently looking for a job like within the last four years and I Absolutely did not use AI for anything. Afterwards, I'm like, why am I acting like a an Amish person? Hopefully all the Amish ⁓ listeners of this podcast don't take that too personally. ⁓ well. You know, I'm an equal opportunity offender in ways that no, that didn't sound right. That sounded really bad. I'm equally offensive to everyone. So I'm not gonna leave the Amish out of this. But No one's safe. No. No. Yeah. So I you're really talking to somebody that does not use AI. So let me just Start with in your opinion, how can AI help somebody like me in everyday uses of AI, how would how could that help? Well, I think ⁓ well first I should probably start by saying obviously everything that I will say is my personal opinion. Yes. This is purely for entertainment purposes and not representative of the company that I work for or just in general. And with that being said, I think kind of looking at it. backwards or like starting at the top. What does everyone have in common, right? Like we all have thoughts. ⁓ and we're, you know, offered so many different tools to solve the problem. And I think what's really interesting about artificial intelligence is that it's kind of in my opinion at least, the first technology that's existed that is a general purpose kind of like sounding board. And I think that's really powerful because it allows you to use it ⁓ like we were talking about earlier as a thought partner and r bounce ideas off of and go from there. And I can go into examples of course if that's if that's helpful. So l a lot of people my age for example, I'm on blood pressure medication. And let's say that I'm wondering, is there a better blood pressure I don't know, some something about my blood pressure medication.
How would you format a question around like a medication or something? Timely, because I'm currently in Mexico right now and I was in need of like some vitamins. Uh-huh. And I don't speak, you know, ⁓ fluent Spanish. I know ⁓ un unpoco. Right. Poquito. and I kept on going to the stores and looking for like the vitamin, wh whichever the vitamin was. And it was all in Spanish. And my initial instinct was since I c couldn't really communicate with the people at the pharmacy at these stores, my initial instinct was to just take a picture of it and validate it with AI in this case, like, hey, I'm thinking about getting X vitamin is based on what you're seeing in this photo going to give feedback. And, you know, for the most part You know, generally got me what I wanted in a reasonable amount of time. Okay. I love that. I think that really is hopefully what people are using it for. I mean, I definitely do that. I guess my problem is my skepticism around it. So are there times when you really have to question, like, hey I don't know if this is accurate or do you find that most of the time the information that I might be getting back is extremely reliable? So it's a good question. I think ⁓ a healthy amount of skepticism is actually good to have when using this technology. Okay. ⁓ and the example that I am I'm gonna use there, it ties into my work, which involves ⁓ you know, coding and I feel like a lot of people they hear about like, this technology is going to make you so much more productive. And while I agree, I think like that statement in and of itself is very broad. Right. But but if you use the technology with, like you said, a healthy amount of skepticism, when you treat each conversation as like a task where you're using it as that thought partner to get X done and Once you've got a good plan, after you've gone back and forth a couple of times, because you're trying to like suss out, you you kind of approach it with an initial hypothesis. If I use this technology d a certain way, I have a a rough idea as to what the output should be, but I'm using it so that it'll save me time to get to that kind of final output. And if you go into it with that kind of like mindset or approach, I feel like you're much better off as opposed to just asking The broad question and whatever comes back blindly trusting. I think that is it's a slippery slope, but it's ⁓ a self-inflicted slippery slope that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. And I think a lot of people the parallel that ⁓ a lot of people often draw this technology to is like with Google, or the analogy that that people usually bring up is Google. If you're Googling something, you kinda have an idea as to what The search results are gonna bring back. Yes. That kind of like approach to using the technology, you can kind of apply that with this technology as well. Okay. Yeah. And I only use the free one on Google. My brother, who is in tech as well, he works for agricultural ⁓ I can't say that word.
Agricultural companies, very large agricultural companies. And so he uses, I don't know which ⁓ company. But he pays for it and he can get these really detailed you know, analysis of things and but I just do the free one in Google and I have noticed, which is so different than Google, right? With Google, you just I don't know, when is the sun gonna set tonight, whatever that is. But I have noticed even with the free Google AI, it asks you questions like, well, can you be more specific? And I do find that really interesting because I do think that as kind of a an Amish computer user. There we go again. I'm gonna, you know, I think that's gonna catch on. I'm gonna maybe trademark Amish computer user. Heard it here first. You did. It this is it. TM. And I didn't even realize I wanted to hone in on whatever that was, right? So if I ask about my medication, And then it comes back with the question like be more specific. I think that really is helpful for me when I'm asking a question because as you can tell just by talking to me, sometimes my thoughts are a little scattered and I don't know what I want to ask until I do like you said, suss it out and figure out, okay, what's the real question? You know? So I do like that, I'm gonna say, I do like that. And it's something that you don't get with Google, right? A hundred percent. And like I think the slogan that I like to say is like with this technology, you should really approach the there is no such thing as a dumb question kind of mindset. ⁓ I feel like a lot of people are oftentimes hindered or they hold back from asking like a human being a question because they don't want to be perceived as yes ⁓ less intelligent or you know, what have you from their peers or friends, family. Inappropriate. There's a lot of inappropriate questions. Maybe the the catch-all term or word is they don't want to be judged potentially the wrong way. And I I I I think this technology is is fascinating because one, it's been you know trained on ⁓ more data than we can probably imagine. Right. And so from a does it have access to a wealth of information that historically no other technology has been capable of, you know mining or accessing before? And the answer is yes. And with that, ⁓ how I personally kind of go about this this problem set is like what cool things can I do that historically I haven't been able to do just by talking to it. And I feel like that's a another kind of like avenue we can go down. There's you can type ⁓ into it, which you know, it'll get you what you want, hopefully, if you're using it the right way. But the other avenue that's really fascinating is actually using your voice to talk to it. Because as as you can probably imagine, you you talk three to four times as fast as you type. So in addition to the t ⁓ the technology affording you with all of this allure around productivity gains, you can be even more efficient when it comes to actually like speaking naturally just by using your voice. ⁓ And so I think that is is really neat. But like For example, like some of the use cases that prior to this technology existing that I use it for outside of like a work ⁓ standpoint is like recommendations. I'm terrible at efficiently f figuring out what show or what movie to watch next. But I can easily just say, hey, you know, AI, I like horror, I like crime, I like drama. Give it examples of series that I've watched that I'm very fond of and kind of go back and forth. If it gives me a recommendation that I've already seen, adjust from there. And within five to I don't know however many minutes, I'll have a list, a a curated list of things that are personalized to me that frankly I wouldn't have had three years ago. I love that. I really like that because it's very practical In our case, Angelo and I can sit for ⁓ a good twenty minutes and try to go through Netflix or it doesn't matter which platform and we just click, click, click like nope, we cannot find anything. So I think that's very useful, ⁓ which I would not have thought of. Like I'm texting my friends on a thread and if they happen to have their phone, they're like, ⁓ try watching this, try watching that. So that's I think super helpful. And so what about like something that can save people time maybe now that they're doing that AI could be doing? So you gave me a great example with movies and what to watch. Would you trust it with, I don't know, investment strategies? Not investment, but maybe like retirement strategies. So I I should probably know more about finance given that's what I studied at university. But Given throughout my career I have gone further and further away from finance. I'm definitely not ⁓ an expert by any means. But I d I do think I do think it's a an interesting question because this technology in theory should remove a lot of barriers to entry from a learning standpoint. Yes. When it comes to things that frankly you never thought you would be able to learn. Right. In a timely fashion, right? And I th and I think it comes down to, and I'll I'll eventually get to your question. I apologize. I apologize for being overly verbose. I don't even know what my question is, so don't worry about that. I think this technology has proven that it's probably not going anywhere. Absolutely. Again, using the Google analogy. When Google first kind of came onto the scene, there was a difference between someone who was Optimizing in terms of how they use the technology versus someone who just didn't really know what they were doing, but they were told Google will help them find information. And depending on which camp you are in, you were able to get more from a productivity standpoint out of it. And I think the things, the characteristics that are going to set the two different camps apart when applying it to artificial intelligence are ⁓ willingness or motivation and just curiosity, right? Because we all have these thoughts, but there is a difference between someone who has
thoughts and someone who has thoughts but actually takes the initiative. Yes, acts on them. Uh-huh. Exactly. to work with the technology to, you know, answer that dumb question that I was mentioning. And in this case, ask, hey, you know. I'm thinking about investing, you know, $5,000 into the SP. What do you think of that? Like, are there other alternative investments or just other investment opportunities that I should consider? Do some deep research, cite your sources, and validate each claim is factually c ⁓ correct and up to date. And the reason I, you know, ⁓ choose to be kind of overly verbose when it comes to my prompting is because. I am still skeptical or maybe paranoid when it comes to like what I'm gonna get back, but the onus is on the person, the human in this case, asking the question to make sure that they're structuring their instructions the right way. Yeah. Because it's the technology in its current kind of state today, it's only going to do pretty much exactly what you're asking of it. So if it doesn't give you good results. In my opinion, to some degree, the person asking the question should be a little accountable or take a little ⁓ accountability for the the quality of the results that they get back. Because you're steering the ship and the workhorse or the ship in this case is the artificial intelligence, but you're the driver of that, you know, vessel. I totally agree. And so I think for purposes especially of this podcast, and I do want it to be specific to my age group and generally the people that I interact with on a daily basis. We have of course the normal concerns about our kids and blah blah blah. Like we have all those concerns. But at this point in our lives, one, we're worried about retirement and are we gonna have ⁓ enough money to last us for the rest of our lives, maybe to pass something on to our kids. Two, we're worried about our parents because our parents are all doing insane things at this point in their lives. ⁓ Well, your parents are my age, so there we go. Like they're worried about their parents, right? And so ⁓ we have a a short list of things that we're worried about. And so I think we've covered our health and our financial, which those are two of the really big things that are on our minds at this point. You know, am I gonna be able to stay healthy through my later years, both physically and financially? So I I really think we covered the two big topics. And so to your point, really thinking about the right question to ask, or with AI, you can just keep asking questions and narrowing that down. And so I I think my recommendation would be practice asking questions. Right. A hundred percent. That's a skill that you have to really learn. you know, asking the right questions to get a really good answer that is probably for the most part pretty reliable and and you can trust it. I don't know. Is that a good summary of what kind of what you said? Okay. The most dangerous thing you can have in a good way is just a unique thought, right? Like there there's people that I know that use it to get feedback on a whole swath of things. Maybe you have a a fear of public speaking, but you want To practice, right? Instead of quote unquote the old school way of ⁓ presenting or looking in front of a mirror and saying it out loud, yeah. You could have ⁓ artificial intelligence kind of like give you feedback in pretty much real time just by talking to it. ⁓ my gosh. And and and yeah, again, like thinking to think to do that is going to be that. you know, ⁓ unique skill that I think a lot of people are going to realize. Either they've already realized it or they'll get to that kind of light bulb aha moment. And that's when they'll start really recognizing how useful this technology could presumably be. So interestingly enough, my friend Amy asked AI to come up with a bunch of questions to ask the AI experts. Okay. Well Definitely not an expert, but that's funny. Well, you're my expert for today, so yes, you are the expert. hopefully not too spicy. So I okay. This is gonna be weird, but the chat that I had with Amy, right? I asked a question that was completely inappropriate. It's very inappropriate for me to say to you, I'm just gonna preface that, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Which I always feel like If I preface something, it absolves me of the actual sin that I'm about to perform. So I don't know why that is, but I just if I say like I'm about to say something mean and then I say it, I feel a lot better that I warned the person that something mean was on its way. So anyway, so one of my questions that I asked AI was, Do the curtains match the carpet? Which is an old saying that we used to say a lot. I don't know if they still say that or I don't even know if I have it right. Does the carpet match the curtains? I don't know. It's something like that. And AI thought it was a a decorating question, literally asking about curtains and carpet. When it's not. That's really not the way that it's used. And it the way that it phrased it was almost like to not be offensive to the person reading the answer. It didn't come out and use real terms. It used euphemisms to talk about like the carpet. It still used a euphemism instead of saying, you know, whatever. And so I thought that was interesting because I was like, wait, why does AI have to be appropriate? Because I f if I had to guess it's because most of the world typically is appropriate relative. Relatively speaking at least. Okay. To me it seems like it should be factual a hundred percent. And to me, to use a euphemism Is actually being more thoughtful in a way like if you're gonna use the word private parts instead of the actual name of private parts, if AI makes that decision, is that something that a programmer decided, or is that something that AI has programmed into it to not use actual body parts? Does that make sense? It does make sense. I think the I think the short answer is And this is again personal
opinion, it's likely defaulting to what it thinks is you know the most quote unquote appropriate thing to say relative to whatever you've inputted or asked it. If you were to say, hey, you know, give me the actual like correct phrasing, yeah, the correct body part, it should, depending on, you know, which provider that you're using, it should because again, at that point, it's then taking the sequence of what you asked, right? You first asked this and then you clarified how you actually want the AI to communicate with you. And ⁓ you know, based on how this technology is being developed, it's getting good at trying to understand your tastes and preferences so that it can give you what it is that you presumably want as far as information in the style that you like having the information served up to you. Okay. So like the second time I asked a question, because of my honing in on what I prefer, it's gonna remember that probably and come back. If I ask that same question a second time, it's gonna go, Well, they're talking about blah and it's gonna be much more direct rather than in a euphemistic way or a symbolic way. I thought that was interesting. Amy and I kind of had a short conversation about that. Like, why does AI care if they're insulting me? Right? Like why does AI care and then but to me it must be the way that it's programmed in there to be less offensive to the general public rather than specifically to me who doesn't care. I would much rather have the actual body part. Yeah, I mean, again, guessing guessing here, but like why would you w have a technology available that, you know, ⁓ pisses off more people than than not? I feel like Generally speaking, it's probably best to develop a technology that, at least out of the box, steers in the direction ⁓ away from you know, disappointing people. And ⁓ maybe disappointing isn't the right word because oftentimes you've heard over the past year or two people say, ⁓ it's just telling me exactly what I want to hear. Sycophancy is ⁓ I think the word that a lot of the ⁓ the critics use. And it's a double edged sword, right? Because some people want, as as weird as it sounds to me, some people want sycophancy. Other people just want to be told the news, the facts, like, you know, be direct. And it's it makes it a fairly, in my opinion, a a very difficult universal challenge to solve, which is how do you roll out a technology to the entire world that each individual who has different taste preferences and ⁓ whatnot, gets value from. Yeah. And I I I I don't know if we've gotten to that point yet, but I I think based on all of the people who are using the technology, I think there's something to be said that the companies that are developing the technology are doing a decent job. There's still probably plenty of work to be done though. Right. Well, especially when you realize, okay, this is the same company that I'm using over and over and it's getting to know my preferences, which is Both scary and super interesting because I mean it's kind of like when I get into my phone and it just recognizes my face automatically, how easy that is rather than punching in my code every single time. And yet it's also scary where you're like, ⁓ my god, my whole life is like in this one little phone. The way that I go through my whole day is so intertwined with this. Like you said, it's the double edged short of like, okay, I really want you to get to know me, but then again, I don't want you to know anything about me. I don't know. It's this weird, like very weird thing. So I mean, it's what companies like Apple have ⁓ bet their entire business on as far as like ⁓ valuing customer privacy. Yeah. And I I think most of the the companies developing the technology do from a consumer standpoint allow individuals to like ⁓ kind of opt out of ⁓ their data being kind of like constantly monitored. But like, you know, putting that aside for a moment, the analogy that I use is and everyone's different here with this analogy, but it's on social media, I use Instagram and amongst my friends, some people they prefer the personalized feed. Other people don't. They don't want ⁓ that like personalized feed, largely in part because You know, these these social media companies or tech companies, the more data that they they mine from you, the more of a profile that they're able to build and the better the targeted advertisements can then be. Right. And again, like I I fall into the camp of, you know, if I'm gonna get ads, if if ads are inevitable, then I would much rather have them be personalized and double down on my willpower to resist the urge in most cases, have I s you know, succumbed to the pressure of ⁓ an impulse purchase or two from an Instagram ad? Yes, of course. Of course. But I I feel like I I lean more towards the personalized kind of feed or targeted ads because like sometimes they actually do provide me with things I wouldn't have otherwise found on my own. And I would much rather prefer having that happen, even if it costs me a hundred bucks throughout the year based on those impulse purchases, as opposed to As for random things that just, you know, distract me when I'm perusing my feed and and agrees. Yeah, causing more harm than good because they because they just, you know, confuse me or distract me or kill the vibe, if you will. No, I totally agree. I yeah, I agree. And I you can't get away from it. That's kind of my new, like, all right, I'm not gonna fight all this stuff. And if I can be using AI to cut down on How long Angela and I have to scroll through Netflix shows just to find the one rock documentary or you know, rock and roll documentary that we want to listen to, then that's great. We could actually watch the whole movie before one of us falls asleep. So hey, that's you know, that's great. So here's my question. I am surrounded by musicians and I have two sons that are musicians, and I don't know their feelings about AI, especially when it
comes to music, I can guess. But in that vein, are there certain things that you don't want to use AI for? What would you not use AI for? Ooh, this is interesting. Just because again, zero background in music. ⁓ but ⁓ And I'm just using that example because I think about like if fifty years in the future nobody's going to listen to w live music and they're just putting in their AI s engine like, hey play some Hard rock music and it's just coming up. Do you know what I'm saying? Like then you have people no longer making that, which to me, you know, art is really such a foundation of civilization. Yeah, yeah. No, I ⁓ a lot a lot to unpack there. First and foremost I sh no, no, no. I think it's it's it's good. ⁓ First and foremost, I think that if this technology does anything, I think it is going to lead to a abundance of human ingenuity and creativity because it lowers the barrier to entry across every aspect of of life. ⁓ for everyone that never thought that they would have a chance to do X, right? Like if I wanted to make music, in theory, I could learn at a much more accelerated rate how to do that or use the technology to you know, go from zero to one a lot quicker by having it explaining what I want, working with it to generate the music. And, you know, maybe I end up with an AI generated song. Maybe I learned how to play the guitar and now I created a work of human art. Either way, I think one of the things that I'm trying to say with all of that is if this technology does one thing, it will, yeah, put more of a premium on human generated work as opposed to you know artificially generated ⁓ work with the help of AI. And I think like going back to your example of music, maybe if if I'm one of your sons, I use it to get advice on writing the the the actual music itself, like the lyrics, as opposed to you know, generating the actual sound itself. And I'm probably botching that, but like whatever they're passionate about that they, you know, need some assistance on, maybe like as a a writer ⁓ has like writer's block, yeah. Historically they would have been screwed for however long it took for them to get over that writer's block, but now there's a technology out there that could in theory unblock them a lot sooner if they just asked it ⁓ and then you know go from there. You'll never know unless you try, or in this case, you'll never know unless you prompt the AI. And and so I I think with music there's there's so much that can be done while ensuring that the human is in the loop. And I think that it's very important for people to realize that right now it's all human invoking the technology, as opposed to the technology kind of proactively working for the human. And I think the human is the most important part because It's the orchestrator. It has all of the thoughts. It knows where it wants to go. It just needs some assistance with, you know, either getting feedback or, you know, going through the process of planning for whatever it is you're
trying to to do and achieve. Okay. Well, this has been really, really good. I mean, I could probably sit here and keep you from exploring Mexico. no, you're good. We didn't even talk about humanoid robots. ⁓ see, that is so scary. But I don't know why, because yeah, I think that's a little scary, but so I had a friend that came on and we were talking about AI and he said That he looks forward to the time when he's in his eighties and he falls down and his robot will come and lift him up and get him back on his feet. And I thought, now that is great. Yeah. A hundred percent. We were we were talking about ⁓ our parents, right? Elderly care. Eventually elderly care. Sorry. ⁓ Nope, it's coming. It's coming. But yeah, I mean, one of the biggest problems in the world is loneliness, right? And Obviously there's a a large subset of of folks who are senior citizens who suffer from that and ⁓ you know maybe their kids live in a different state or just, you know, far away to where they don't see them often and their partner passed away, they're by themselves now or they're lonely to some degree. Insert a humanoid robot who can do all of their chores around the house, walk the dog, or, you know, help them ⁓ if they fall in or call the local authority, you know, it If there's an emergency. And I think that that is probably, you know, years down the line, but it's super interesting when you blend in the humanoid robot technology with the reasoning capabilities of of these ⁓ model companies or AI companies. Okay. I have a worst case scenario for you though, right now, that I'm thinking about. So let's say that you have a parent, an elderly parent who's an asshole. ⁓ gosh. And you give them a robot and will that robot then also be the second asshole in the house because they have like literally reformatted their robot brain to be an asshole so that your parent doesn't kick ⁓ out of the house because they're like Again, it's all speculative. If I had to guess too, the companies that were developing this technology wouldn't program the robots to get to that point, right? Like the You don't know. These old people are very, very convincing. You have no idea what these old people can do. That that is fair. I think the most practical use case, selfishly the most practical use case that I'm looking forward to is like maybe context. Like I've always wanted a dog, maybe two dogs. Yeah. But I live in a shoebox in San Francisco and I obviously know that it's not practical and f frankly not fair to have a dog in a shoebox with no natural light. And I've been traveling a lot too. And so I think with humanoid robots, the unique angle there is like if hypothetically down the line I have a humanoid robot and I have two dogs, I don't have to worry as much about figuring out like a doggy daycare to take it to Or, you know, like worry about not traveling as a result of having dogs because the humanoid robot, knock on wood, if all goes well, I can delegate those, you know, tasks that I would normally have to do, like walking the dog, picking up the the poop and feeding it and and doing all of that stuff. And so I think that, you know, again, selfishly, that is something that I'm so excited about. I feel like you've chosen the one good thing in the world, which is taking care of a dog. That's the best you're never gonna get better than taking care of a dog like your kids. nope. So but I do see it for, you know, taking care of some people in your life. That would really my advice. That relationship on autopilot. Yeah. Bring the dog on vacation and leave your kids with the robot. ⁓ my gosh. Well th the the the other thing too that like I I don't love is like doing laundry, like simple tasks around the house, like sweeping, cleaning the table, doing the dishes, like Agree. I it always comes back to like, ⁓ well how long until that actually becomes a reality for like the general population? Don't have a great answer, but like it it still is exciting to just speculate on what the future will presumably look like, right? Yeah. Well I as an Amish person, I really thank you for doing this work. ⁓ and again, I so appreciate you taking your time out from your travels and all that to talk to me. This was really great. If I can narrow down my questions to very specific better questions. I'm gonna book you again if that's okay. Yeah. Happy to chat. And ⁓ you know, safe travels of course to you back when you're in the States. Well, thank you so much, Liam. I really appreciate it and ⁓ I'm sure my five listeners do too. Thank you for joining me on today's adventure. Thanks to Chico Girl Amy for her varied AI searches and for going along with my crude teenage boy like searches. And a huge thank you to Liam, my own personal AI expert. I hope to speak to him again when I can figure out my menopausal brain and form some coherent and logical questions. Thank you for listening to Gen X TrustVall. If you liked this episode or have a suggestion for a potential guest, please check out our website at GenXTrustfall.com. Gen X Trustfall is produced by me and the recording master, Ryan Loomis, at Double Banger Studio. Music by Ryan and Sam. Website and advisory by Amy Clifford.