Full Transcript for Will Guyatt

00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:23.839 And it went to the extent of when I was practicing with it, that it was doing all of the kind of cheesy tweed jokes and things that I've typically done in my writing over the years. 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:32.240 My reticence to run it on a daily basis was quality control in case it suddenly went Nazi without my want. 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:38.000 But it was a really interesting experiment that, and it's something that I think I'm going to continue with. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000 But I've been a lucky guy. 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:45.920 I've been with LBC since 2012, and I kind of ended up there by accident. 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:51.279 I've got to work with some incredible presenters and folk there at the station. 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:59.279 One of my dearest friends in life now is now Clive Bull, feels like an uncle, an older brother, or something to me. 00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:08.720 And I kind of pinch myself in that Clive's far too modest to admit just how great he is at doing what he does. 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:10.079 And that's the thing with him. 00:06:10.079 --> 00:06:17.120 But I've yeah, I've done this for years and I've got a way with talking about technology, and it's grown from LBC to Radio 2. 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.199 I turn up on Times Radio. 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:22.720 I've just started a thing with the afternoon shows on Channel 5. 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:24.480 So Jeremy Vine, I'm at all right. 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:26.319 I'm doing more stuff over there. 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:29.120 And it's like, it's not really a job, but it's fun. 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:31.759 I love explaining all of this stuff and getting my head around it. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:36.560 I know what you just said about your own quality control. 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:46.319 And I'm thinking myself, well, wouldn't it be a damn fine idea if there were rather more quality control in tech? 00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:47.920 Okay, we'll come back to that. 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:50.240 Well, actually, no, the question I want to ask you now. 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:51.360 I'm all over the place. 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:53.199 I'm so excited to be talking to you. 00:06:53.199 --> 00:07:00.800 You were talking just now about you saying no to something because it wasn't up to the standard that you want. 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:06.959 And it occurs to me that consumers occasionally also say no. 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:15.600 You know, I mean, I'm so ancient that my first kind of reference point for that is the infamous Sinclair C5. 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:21.519 But you'll have many, many more recent examples of things that didn't take off. 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:24.319 So I just want to ask you one question very quickly. 00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:32.879 Is there any chance that enough of us will refuse to converse with pretend voices? 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:40.959 We won't allow the fridge to make our food orders, and we'll say no to having technology implanted beneath our skin. 00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:44.240 Is there any chance of us standing up to it? 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:54.560 It's a really interesting point that you make, because I hope sincerely that loads of us do say no and stand up. 00:07:54.560 --> 00:08:07.839 But if you look at, as an example, Deezer, who are the French version of Spotify, France always has its own versions of stuff still, which I'm quite proud of the French for kind of setting up yours to globalism and doing their own versions. 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:17.360 There were some numbers recently that 70% of all new music uploaded to Deezer has not been created by a human being. 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:23.600 Now, that could be terrible if you're a musician or a talented young person who wants to get a gig. 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:26.720 But the reality is, Jeremy, people are listening to it. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:32.240 They might be listening to it as background music dinner jazz, but they're not rejecting it yet. 00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:46.320 So for all this say of we're going to smash the printing presses, we're going to reject AI, too many of us are still now so in bed with the technology and love using it for a variety of reasons. 00:08:46.320 --> 00:09:05.519 And I'm morally torn every day I play with AI because I know at some point, at least one of the people I've happily worked for over 20 years is going to call me and say, yeah, we've decided we're going to use an AI voice to do some of this technology explaining because we can just get the AI to produce it. 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:13.759 Not the groups that I currently work with, but there are already radio stations experimenting with AI voices for news and sport. 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:26.879 And boy, give it the name Loughborough, give it the town name Loughborough, or try and get it to announce some of the names of some Serbian tennis players, and you'll really see just how not ready for action AI currently is. 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:29.279 But it's getting there really quickly. 00:09:29.279 --> 00:09:38.720 And I think we are going to get to a stage where there will be a movement against the technology, and there'll be a movement against some of this stuff getting into our lives. 00:09:38.720 --> 00:09:45.759 But at the same time, there's so many really good benefits for people to be online if you make it easier for them. 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:47.600 But not everybody's ever going to want to do it. 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:51.279 And I should I'm sort of torn into saying everybody should go online. 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:53.759 You should have freedom of choice still, you shouldn't be forced. 00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:56.320 Yeah, kind of agree with that. 00:09:56.320 --> 00:10:14.320 I was thinking the other day that if I still ran my agency, by now I'd put a strap line at the bottom of emails saying something like powered by humans, or this is a human organisation, or something like that.

00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:20.000 And my guess is that there will be quite a lot of that, but it will divide. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:35.679 And you know, like all the other divisions we've got, there'll be people like me who can justify going to a real shop and dealing with human beings, and we'll be prepared to pay a premium for it. 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:43.679 And an awful lot of people won't or can't, or think that that adds to the complexity or the inconvenience. 00:10:43.679 --> 00:10:46.000 And so we'll go down that path. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:49.840 And I think it's the biggest schism that we're gonna see. 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:56.320 So now that we're firmly established on negative grounds, I I want to come back to that news story. 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:00.960 And in fact, three stories that have been in the news recently. 00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:07.440 So the first one you mentioned was about how we behave with bots. 00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:09.679 And I was thinking about that. 00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:20.480 Okay, so the insert whatever word you like, the instruction, because I thought that's how it came across that we can't be rude to bots. 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:33.200 And I just stopped for a moment and I thought, well, are we not used to measuring civilization in terms of things like communication skills, like vocabulary? 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:40.000 It's a mark of how far we've come from other kinds of being. 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:47.600 And now we're using AI to write job applications, to write essays, to write letters of complaint. 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:52.559 It's not me, by the way, I very rarely write letters of complaint, and when I do, I enjoy writing. 00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:57.759 And now we've been asked not to say swear words to bots. 00:11:57.759 --> 00:12:05.440 So the question, Will, and I can't help putting it this way, is where the fuck is all this heading? 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:07.360 I think you've put that perfectly. 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:30.080 What I would say about this particular story is the fact that you have to be nice to your chatbot was conveniently the bit of these terms and conditions updates that everybody covered, because at the same time, it's going to ban you from making a uh chemical weapon, it's gonna stop you from using it for propaganda purposes, and it's also gonna stop you from blackmailing politicians. 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:35.919 Those are some of the other conditions that are also written into this set of terms and conditions. 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:44.159 But I think the reality is, right, mathematical formulas and artificial intelligence cannot feel anything. 00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:49.519 It shouldn't get remotely upset if you're short with it or direct in your answers. 00:12:49.519 --> 00:13:01.440 In fact, Jeremy, some people say saying please and thank you to AI actually uses a boatload more energy in the processing and the compute of this stuff, right? 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:07.759

So being polite to it, you're actually doing more to damage the planet, whether or not you believe in climate change. 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:13.360 But it's this um ampramorphization of the technology, trying to make it feel real. 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:20.240 And that's what I think the only reason this company has done this is all of these companies burn through billions of dollars. 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:23.679 None of them have made a penny yet of profit. 00:13:23.679 --> 00:13:28.639 And they're gonna need trillions of dollars to get to this stage where it all starts thinking for itself. 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:30.240 So they're selling the sizzle. 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:35.120 You've been in this game a long time, they're trying to do a PR job, and this is part of the PR job. 00:13:35.919 --> 00:13:42.159 Struggling not to fall into a deep depression at that thought. 00:13:42.159 --> 00:13:44.960 Listeners will know that I swear from time to time. 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:49.120 I'm a bit of a fan of swearing, not gratuitously. 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:54.159 But it's one of the things that lets us get stuff off our chest. 00:13:54.159 --> 00:13:54.559 Yeah. 00:13:54.559 --> 00:13:59.840 Okay, so language is going the way of the devil. 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:06.159 I mean language as in nuance, as in using our own words rather than relying on machines. 00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:26.480 Next news story was the one about hackers raising the temperature of fridges and freezers in French supermarkets, so that they went up to 50 degrees Celsius for six hours, meaning that everything had to be thrown away. 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:42.720 And according to what I've read, it's because the remote control software, thing that enabled people to do this from a desk or from their phone for hundreds of supermarkets, that software was known to have a weakness. 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:44.720 Yeah, and it was never updated. 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:49.120 So the point is, whatever their motives, we don't yet know the hackers' motives. 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:51.600 I don't think there was any ransom or anything like that. 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:55.360 They are always going to find new opportunities. 00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:11.519 So, from your point of view, Will, and this isn't a story about French supermarkets, because we all know by now that we can be the indirect victims of hacking with our bank accounts, with whatever. 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:18.639 What's the solution other than my favourite solution, which is to de-digitise everything? 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:26.960 Digitising everything would be a solution which would cost society a lot of money. 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:31.440 And that's the challenge, and that's why everybody's really interested in digitisation. 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:35.039 Just earlier today, I learned a really interesting statistic. 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:36.799 Well, I think it's interesting because I'm a nerd. 00:15:36.799 --> 00:15:47.600 Every

year the NHS still spends 200 million pounds on sending letters or text messages to patients. 00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:56.159 If they persuaded more of the people to use the NHS app, they could save hundreds of millions of pounds. 00:15:56.159 --> 00:16:03.039 And soon, if you look at that across everything that's going on in society, the numbers are really appealing. 00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:08.639 So I think the bigger issue, Jeremy, is how digitisation is handled. 00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:11.919 There's this sort of everybody's got to go and do it. 00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:12.879 You've got to pay. 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:15.600 Like I live in the middle of nowhere in Wiltshire. 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:22.960 And if you go and pay on some of the parking machines in the local towns, you've got to use a QR code and do all of these things. 00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:25.840 But nobody checked the bloody mobile phone signal. 00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:33.679 So let's just say you're my 75-year-old dad, and you go somewhere and you're like not that confident with a mobile phone anyway. 00:16:33.679 --> 00:16:39.679 You whip your phone out, you try and get this damn thing working, but there's no bloody mobile phone signal because they've not checked the provision. 00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:46.559 There are lots of problems that get in the way of making this sort of transition a lot smoother. 00:16:46.559 --> 00:16:50.240 There's a lot more that can be done, and people should get help and support. 00:16:50.240 --> 00:17:05.200 I'm kind of almost old enough to remember when the BBC did its whole computers for schools thing in the 1980s, and you had a series of documentaries and programs about the home computer and getting them for schools and stuff. 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:08.720 Nothing like that has really happened for a period of time. 00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:13.359 And there is this assumption that everybody is going to go digital eventually. 00:17:13.359 --> 00:17:19.759 But there's millions of homes who haven't for a variety of reasons, and some never will, but it's how they're tackled. 00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:24.799 But I don't think personally switching off everything is the answer. 00:17:24.799 --> 00:17:28.960 But there are also other examples of where digitisation goes mad. 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:31.759 You can buy a smart kettle now, Jeremy. 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:34.880 So you can get a kettle that you can switch on remotely. 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:37.519 Somebody got one of these and that had a software problem on it. 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:39.119 It took them 13 hours. 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:45.279 Why the f would you spend 13 hours fixing a kettle when you can boil a bloody pan on a hob? 00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:46.240 Do you see what I mean? 00:17:46.240 --> 00:17:58.079 So, tech for tech's sake, I'm not the hugest fan of, but digitisation and potentially more efficiencies, as long as you bring as many people in society along with you, makes a lot of sense to me. 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:00.880 You clearly win that round. 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:02.160 I can't argue with that. 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:03.279 I'm not, I'm not, I don't want to be. 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:04.319 But I know what you mean, right? 00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:13.680 Because I want to just agree with you in that there are so many things that are so flipping frustrating about the modern world and this rush into technology. 00:18:13.680 --> 00:18:27.440 But if somebody turned it around the other way and said there's a half-hour video or a 20-minute thing, or Jerry from the end of the road's going to pop round your house and show you how to use it, it will be so much easier. 00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:28.880 I completely agree. 00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:42.559 And it's the most obvious example, by the way, of an idea I had trying to interest people in in the last election, and we'll probably do so at the next one, which is all based on the idea of two-way mentoring. 00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:57.279 So the person who's had quite a long working life picked up quite a lot of skills, quite a lot to share, but doesn't really understand anything that happened after 1990. 00:18:57.279 --> 00:19:13.119 Um that person would benefit enormously from listening and spending time with somebody at the outset of their career for whom everything is entirely understandable and sensible. 00:19:13.119 --> 00:19:15.920 And so they would share some knowledge. 00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:21.359 There was a piece in the um Financial Times, and I don't normally read it, but somebody shared it with me. 00:19:21.359 --> 00:19:22.160 I was impressed. 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:22.960 You shouldn't have said that. 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:26.400 Well, that's one of the things I learned when I was working at Facebook many years ago. 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:31.920 Lots of people like to share economist content on social media because it makes them look clever. 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:40.640 That was the only reason the economists could work out why so many people were sharing their content because they weren't buying the economists, they weren't subscribing, but they were sharing it to look in the note. 00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:47.119 The point I was going to make about the FT, they did a piece recently about the so-called rise of the digital PA. 00:19:47.119 --> 00:20:01.200 The fact that there's almost like a dark economy in the UK where people like me, like last night I had to drive a 45-mile-round trip to ensure my dad's updated YouTube account would work on his telly. 00:20:01.200 --> 00:20:06.960 Now, I'm absolutely happy to do that because I love my dad and he's just got out of hospital and I wanted to look after him. 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:24.960 But there are people like me around the UK doing so much of this stuff that you could almost kind of quantify or recognize the ability for people to get access to help and support on various issues about training. 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:32.720

A mate of mine, uh, who's a few years older than me, who was a magazine designer, does a day a week now at the local library in Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:37.039 And it's one of these kind of things where it's like, come and learn how to use the internet or do a tech thing. 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:41.920 And I sort of jokingly said, not many people can come to that before I really started thinking about this problem. 00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:58.960 I went there, they were queuing out the bloody door because they want people want help and advice and they're nervous to do stuff or they feel terrified because every story in the press is another data breach, another hack, people losing their money, elderly person getting scammed for life savings. 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:00.720 Technology is scary. 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:01.680 I get that. 00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:02.480 I mean, I agree. 00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:04.720 I also know Bradford on Avon, by the way. 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:07.759 And um I think it's a gorgeous place. 00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:12.799 I could hardly think of anywhere better to offer that service, to be honest with you. 00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:19.440 Let's move on, because another story that's in the news now is in effect all to do with social media. 00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:32.640 And what happened, I guess everybody will be familiar with the story now, is that a vulnerable man filmed himself going into a tiger enclosure and was then mauled to death. 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:41.680 And I'm not necessarily the next example I'm gonna give isn't necessarily the same thing, but it is possibly on one level. 00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:52.000 We see pictures of people driving the wrong way down a motorway for kicks or for clicks, I suppose I should say. 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:59.599 So the point is, and I'm not talking about the man in the in the tiger enclosure because we really don't yet know what. 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:01.920 What was going on if we ever do. 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:17.920 But the idea of doing incredibly risky things in order to get an audience on social media or be interesting on social media that has gained a lot of traction. 00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:22.160 It seems to me that discouragement ain't gonna work, policing ain't gonna work. 00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:29.599 So the question to you, Will, is can any form of regulation stop these things happening? 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:34.160 I don't want to dwell on the tragic story, but I don't know if you've seen it in the last number of hours. 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:46.480 Donald Trump posted an AI-generated version of that video replacing himself with the man who was mauled to death, fighting off a tiger and posting it to his social media. 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:49.039 I'm not using Donald Trump as a good example of anything. 00:22:49.039 --> 00:23:00.880 But when you've got the leader of the free world doing something like that, you really are screwed when it comes to checks, balance, and decency on social networks. 00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:16.319 And that's the tragedy of this, is that we've had these examples, particularly it started in Ireland where people started driving the wrong way up the other side of the road for notoriety, and gangs were competing against each other to get TikTok views. 00:23:16.319 --> 00:23:21.440 And then we've had a number of tragic cases and stories where people have died as a result. 00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:32.319 It's hard to know what to do in these situations because the social networks probably need to do more to stop this stuff propagating. 00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:39.920 But when you've got, and I'm going to go back to that tragic case with the tiger because the young, the young man involved was uploading his own content to the internet. 00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:42.960 So it was widely spread across all the platforms. 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:55.279 But rather than the platforms going, right, let's pull this down immediately, it's got into the hands of so many people, including the president of the United States, who've chosen to use it for their own specific purpose. 00:23:55.279 --> 00:24:03.279 So I don't think you'll ever going to be able to get the genie back in the bottle around kind of gamifying these platforms. 00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:13.680 But I think what's important is certain platforms over recent years have put financial incentives in for people to upload content and share it. 00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:23.599 So those people that were making those videos on TikTok of racing cars on the wrong side of the road, if they got loads of shares and likes and comments, they would have got a payout for it. 00:24:23.599 --> 00:24:29.920 And that can be quite appealing if you've got a shit job and you're not earning money to kind of have another way of making money. 00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:39.200 A lot of that kind of mechanism, paying for views, etc., is being stepped on because they know that it fuels bad behaviour. 00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:45.200 But I don't know how you fix a problem like this, Jeremy, if you've got the American president getting in on the game as well. 00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:48.480 Yeah, we just don't talk enough about Trump, do we? 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:51.519 He's responsible for so many of the dreams I'm having now. 00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:57.759 It just turns the stomach and every other organ just to think about him. 00:24:57.759 --> 00:24:59.200 Let's move on from him. 00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:08.400 By the way, I was one of, I think, 12 people across the nation who went to see the film Social Reckoning last weekend. 00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:09.759 Nobody's going to see it. 00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:11.519 And actually, I think they're right. 00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:13.039 They shouldn't go and see it. 00:25:13.039 --> 00:25:13.839 But it nonetheless. 00:25:13.839 --> 00:25:16.720 I really enjoyed it too. 00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:19.279 Without going aside, I

used to work at Meta. 00:25:19.279 --> 00:25:24.640 And um the weekend before I started my job, I watched the first film, The Social Network. 00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:29.839 And then I was meeting people at the company who were being played by actors in the film. 00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:34.880 And I know people being played in that film by people are people I have personal experience with. 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:36.880 And some of the portrayals are quite accurate. 00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:47.440 Well, I thought the Zuckerberg actor was um well, I'd no idea, I'd no way of saying whether it was over the top or understated, but it was pretty bloody scary. 00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:50.640 Oh god. 00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:54.880 I just think that I'm not sure it stands up as a Hollywood movie. 00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:56.559 I mean, that's the only point I'm making. 00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:14.960 But it was about tech bros manipulating social media for ever bigger sums of money, which they get from advertisers. 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:26.799 Which interests me because I'm thinking, well, actually, this naive bit of me hopes that enough consumers won't consume something that is so obviously destructive. 00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:45.920 But there's another bit of me, maybe a more practical bit of me, although still idealistic, that thinks surely advertisers will one day say to themselves, hang on a second, do we really want to be associated with this kind of overt manipulation? 00:26:45.920 --> 00:27:10.880 So it all goes back, I suppose, to guessing which way human nature will go, guessing which way regulation will go post Donald Trump, and also thinking, well, I imagine kids these days in this country and probably all over the place are now getting quite a lot of good education to warn them of the dangers. 00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:20.559 So is it just a case of going through this Wild West type phase and then we'll come out reasonably intact at the end? 00:27:20.559 --> 00:27:36.799 Or am I right in my weaker moments just to feel so bloody depressed and fall into the trap that people of my age fall into, which is to end up saying, bloody hell, I'm glad I'm not 20-something now. 00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:55.200 Yeah, I think it's the 20-somethings now that I've got the real issue and the real concern for, because they've got no comprehension of life before the internet, and they're the generation that have kind of got to adulthood without any sense of the checks and balances. 00:27:55.200 --> 00:28:08.880 And unpacking kind of a bit of what you were saying there, everybody now knows the purpose of social media is to make money for these tech companies and the dangers of it, but we don't seem to be leaving it in any kind of numbers. 00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:14.480 Yeah, some people have left, but it's a bit like veganism, like people go, oh God, I vegan, it's brilliant. 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:26.240 The number of people who go, Yeah, I've left Facebook, and then six months later you see them back on their profile, liking Auntie Jean's birthday, because everybody is so interconnected in these platforms. 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:32.799 On one level, it's actually quite an easy way to see what's going on with long-lost friends, lovers, families, etc. 00:28:32.799 --> 00:28:33.279 etc. 00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:33.839 etc. 00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:38.880 But on the other side of it, you've got the impact on society. 00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:42.079 The advertising point is intriguing. 00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:52.319 Advertisers haven't yet left Meta's platforms, despite all the concerns and the massive court cases in the US and everything else that's happened. 00:28:52.319 --> 00:29:01.680 People left X, Elon Musk's platform, for a while when he was doing the whole white supremacy thing and talking, you know, in the way that he was on the platform. 00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:10.240 But they seem to have come back to X as a platform because it's still got a large engaged audience, mostly of white supremacists. 00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:12.880 So I don't know where this goes. 00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:22.799 My daughter at the age of eight, I think she's gonna have a far easier time because it's gonna be clear that she shouldn't be using the platforms. 00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:33.200 The kids who are kind of like 14, 15, 12, 13, 14, 15 at the moment are gonna be in this weird situation where social media gets banned in March next year for under-16s. 00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:36.160 But I've got no idea how you get the genie back in the ball. 00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:42.319 It hasn't worked in Australia trying to stop a number of those kids that really wanted to stay on the platforms. 00:29:42.319 --> 00:29:43.839 But maybe it's not for them. 00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:53.039 Maybe it's for eight-year-olds like my daughter and generations forward who will grow up with a more balanced use of the internet and a more balanced understanding of his dangers. 00:29:53.519 --> 00:30:01.599 It's hard not to think that this particular generation we're talking about hasn't had a really rough time. 00:30:01.599 --> 00:30:09.279 All the economic stuff, housing, now jobs, difficult to find, Brexit. 00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:15.759 I should tell my producer, by the way, afterwards that okay, I did mention the B word, but it's the first time for ages. 00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:21.119 And they've had to cope with the C word as in COVID, the T word as in Trump. 00:30:21.119 --> 00:30:23.279 They've had to cope with an awful lot. 00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:25.519 My God, they need help. 00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:26.480 I'd agree. 00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:27.920 I definitely agree. 00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:38.960 Well, I'm more depressed now than when we started, so no, I I'm not really, because even when being downbeat, you are such a cheery, life-enhancing person. 00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:40.319 That's why I listen to you. 00:30:40.319 --> 00:30:44.079 Because you don't come across as

cynical, even if you are. 00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:49.839 And I've spent most of my life trying to be less cynical than I started off. 00:30:49.839 --> 00:30:52.400 And yeah, I I I think it's worked. 00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:56.480 I want to end up, Will, with some um quick fire questions. 00:30:56.880 --> 00:30:57.200 Sure. 00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:01.279 We've started an occasional feature on Just Between Us. 00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:05.440 And you can connect this to technology if you want to, or not. 00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:06.880 Question. 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:14.160 What's the best idea you've ever had that you've done nothing about? 00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:21.920 I've always done something with my ideas, even if the decision was never to take them. 00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:31.680 And one of the ones that I really wonder what would have happened, I was all set to move to New York, and then for one reason or another, I decided not to. 00:31:31.680 --> 00:31:36.799 And I wonder how inherently different my life would have been if I did that. 00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:40.079 But I think I'm content in my own lane to a degree. 00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:45.920 I haven't come up with what I think is the solution to global poverty or the next biggest issue. 00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:54.559 But I often say to my friends, for somebody that can come across as a bit one-dimensional or dense on occasions, I think a lot about everything that I do. 00:31:54.559 --> 00:31:57.279 I overanalyze everything. 00:31:57.759 --> 00:32:08.000 I am genuinely astonished, given our different starting points with technology, quite how much you and I have in common. 00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:10.400 Well, I've always felt strongly that we would. 00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:12.400 We're from different generations. 00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:16.799 But it's like the old phrase, two nations divided by one common language. 00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:25.200 When I work with Americans, we both had the same language, but then most of them could not understand what the hell I was talking about at various points in my life. 00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:29.680 But I'm a believer in making connections with just like you were saying, right? 00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:33.680 With different generations, because I can learn so much from somebody like you. 00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:39.440 I've learned stuff from Clive, I learned stuff from Steve Allen, all of these great people that I've had a chance to work with. 00:32:39.839 --> 00:32:41.119 Feeling quite emotional now. 00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:42.480 Okay, second question. 00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:43.039 Yeah. 00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:48.480 What's the silliest new tech product to hit the market? 00:32:48.480 --> 00:32:59.920 I once saw, and I never quite worked out why on earth you'd need this, a kebab spit that ran on the USB of a computer. 00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:06.960 And the USB, for those who might be a bit like Jeremy, is the bit that you plug the mouse or whatever your accessory

is. 00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:13.440 And I kind of got around the technology and thought, you must be getting quite a bit of power draw from that to rotate a slab of meat. 00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:25.519 But I've never quite understood exactly why you'd want a uh USB powered kebab spit, but I saw it one year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and I've wanted one ever since. 00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:27.200 Well, now's your chance. 00:33:27.200 --> 00:33:29.200 I imagine there are quite a few lying up. 00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:30.799 Oh, 50 on eBay, maybe. 00:33:30.799 --> 00:33:32.640 Yeah, go to eBay. 00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:34.400 God, I never thought I'd say that. 00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:35.680 How ridiculous. 00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:36.799 Final question. 00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:39.119 This is the detox question. 00:33:39.119 --> 00:33:41.680 What do you do? 00:33:41.680 --> 00:33:48.480 And don't pretend that you just resort to one of the machines behind you that I can see. 00:33:48.480 --> 00:34:02.160 Listeners, he has an array of gaming machines behind him that makes it look like the corner of actually either a sort of development space for the gaming industry. 00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:04.079 Or no, it's not a museum. 00:34:04.079 --> 00:34:05.119 It looks fairly up to date. 00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:08.000 I was aiming for 80 seaside arcade, Jeremy. 00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:09.199 That's what I was aiming for. 00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:11.119 Okay, it does actually. 00:34:11.119 --> 00:34:15.440 I've only been into one of those recently, and I'm not prepared to tell you that story. 00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:22.960 So that is not an adequate answer to this detox question, which is what do you do to get away from technology? 00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:24.159 I'm really lucky. 00:34:24.159 --> 00:34:25.679 I live in the countryside. 00:34:25.679 --> 00:34:32.960 Looking outside my window, we are one of six houses next to a forest. 00:34:32.960 --> 00:34:41.039 And I have to thank Boris Johnson for his fiber optic cable that came to my door because it transformed my life and enabled me to move here. 00:34:41.039 --> 00:34:47.440 I've got faster internet here than various BBC studios have in London, so it makes no sense, but it changed my life. 00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:56.400 My life is so connected because even on weekends, I'm talking about tech on the radio or TV or whatever, or reacting to stories whenever they are. 00:34:56.400 --> 00:35:05.360 So when I get away from technology, I try to have at least a couple of hours a day where I'm not looking at my phone before I go to bed. 00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:08.960 I try to do all of the bits of advice that I'm telling people. 00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:15.199 I fail sometimes hideously when I'm talking to Clive Bullock for three in the morning after some breaking news. 00:35:15.199 --> 00:35:24.239 But it's a twee phrase, but you do have to touch grass occasionally because, like in the last 24 hours, I've spoken to you wherever you are in London. 00:35:24.239 --> 00:35:26.880 I did Australian breakfast radio. 00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:31.920 I've spoken to an AI training consultant in New York. 00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:35.039 So I've done everything from this one corner, but it's all digital. 00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:40.320 You just got to get out and talk to people and see people and chat to the animals and do whatever you want to do. 00:35:40.960 --> 00:35:45.440 We could all learn quite a lot from that, even those of us who already try to avoid technology. 00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:50.719 I'm in Barrison Edmonds, by the way, not London, but it's not as adventurous as you, frankly. 00:35:50.719 --> 00:35:52.800 I need other people around me. 00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:58.800 Anyway, I guess parting is such blah blah blah, but I guess we need to wrap it up there. 00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:06.719 But maybe we should do this again one day because it's a moving story, apart from anything else, by definition. 00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:14.000 And a bit like the Chinese said about the French Revolution, it's too early to tell how successful it was. 00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:18.559 It's way too early to try and tell what's happening with technology. 00:36:18.559 --> 00:36:19.519 But it's here. 00:36:19.519 --> 00:36:20.639 I get it. 00:36:20.639 --> 00:36:23.920 I'm not gonna say please when I talk to my screen. 00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:29.840 In fact, I can't pretend that I'm gonna change a great deal, but I accept it and I accept that it has good stuff. 00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:40.159 So I bow to your common sense and your forward-looking and your kind of general positivity about all things tech. 00:36:40.159 --> 00:36:47.440 And like many others, I'll be listening out for you on the airwaves, or whatever we're supposed to call them. 00:36:47.440 --> 00:36:48.480 Thank you, Will. 00:36:48.480 --> 00:36:51.119 Love the green glasses, by the way, listeners. 00:36:51.119 --> 00:36:54.559 He's wearing what looks like some kind of confectionery around his eyes. 00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:57.440 Is it right? 00:36:57.440 --> 00:36:58.480 Okay, good. 00:36:58.480 --> 00:37:00.800 Well, that's a good moment to go out. 00:37:00.800 --> 00:37:01.440 Thank you.