AI Copyright Wars Go Global: Australia Bans AI Music, Hollywood Holds Firm & The Agents Go Shopping

[music] Hello everyone and welcome to Tech Magic the podcast where we talk about AI, spatial computing, space technology and everything in between it seems. I am your host Kathy Hackle and I'm joined as usual by my co-host Lee Keebler. Lee, that home studio is looking pretty amazing. >> It's getting better every day. It's just one. I finally have like soundproofing up and I was like right before we decided to record I was fighting with the ceiling and it kind of fell on me. But I'm all right. It's fine. We're moving on. I'll figure something else out. >> Well, I feel like now I got to level up. I've got a pretty good setup here. But I'm like, wait, wait, wait. You know, >> I like I like the background. I like all of the books. It's very It's very You got the the the headsets back there. You got the books that you've written, co-written, and your friends literatures and things like that. I like it. I like it. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's always been like organized and colorcoordinated. It's a little messy right now, but we're getting back there. We're getting back into it. It's all good. >> So, how are you doing? You're back in your you're you're back from your trip. Um, how was Costa Rica? >> It was awesome. So, before you ask me, [laughter] I am reading. I was still I read most of my dad's book on the plane. I almost cried. I laughed. I learned a lot about the things that I had no idea about my dad about getting expelled from school and running out of like detention out of a window. I'm like, "Dad, never knew that about you, right?" >> That's funny. Well, now you can't use it against them. It's too far. It's too far. >> Yeah. It's too far out. You know, I will not share that with my kids, though. But >> when when you were a teenager, that was probably information that could have been fodder. But now, what are [laughter] you gonna do? Okay. Everyone's got this. >> It was actually really fun to read it. And um I mean there's a lot there on his work in diplomacy in Colombia and like really a lot of work that he did with human rights and people that were disappeared or disappeared, let's say that in in different [snorts] regimes. But um but yeah, it was it was lovely. And I'm back. I'm back in in DC. I'm going to be here for a while. Um I've got a couple of trips planned out and I'll share what what I'm doing. But yeah, it's it's good. I've been so busy. It's been it's been great. But as busy as we both are, I feel like the news just does not slow down. >> No. Um, it just keeps going. And [sighs] I don't even know where to start at this point cuz there's so much AI news. There's a little bit in gaming news. Um, I think one of the, we didn't talk about this before the show, but one of the weirder gaming things that happened this week, um, for a little bit of a history lesson for people, everyone knows I'm kind of a fan of Atari. Atari is back. They're publishing new games. They've been publishing new games. They've been re-releasing legacy collections, things like that. They're doing amazing things. They announced that they got a hold and they're re-releasing the original Activision catalog. Mhm. >> Now, that for people who've been following gaming history seemed like something that could literally never happen >> because Activision started by Atari developers that quit because Atari wouldn't give them credit. So, these are the title they like it took 35 years. [laughter] But that bit of like well-known gaming history of like how did Activision get formed has finally found its way back home to Atari? That's been kind of crazy. Um, we have Grand Theft Auto that you and I were talking about a little bit. Uh, I have not watched the trailer. It's like a 30 minute behind the scenes that went to Netflix. >> Yeah, it launched on Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, [laughter] it's it's interesting because we all know that Netflix wants to get into the gaming space. >> Netflix is in the gaming space. I'll I'll >> we'll debate that sometime. >> That's like saying Apple's in the gaming space. Like, you're technically correct. >> Gaming space. >> You're technically correct. Okay. I technically I guess >> I'm going to get so many messages for this. [laughter] >> But Netflix is in my perspective. >> They're entering. How about that? Okay, they're they're a new entrance. They're a new entrant to the gaming space. >> They're they're a new entry to the gaming space. This bringing in one of the most hotly anticipated games of literally the decade because it's been pushed back like a decade for the game to release. Uh for them to release this whole thing behind the scenes through Netflix, very interesting. Um, it it's kind of I'd love to know how that came about because you're limiting the people who can see it. Like you have to have a Netflix account or access to a Netflix account. >> Well, no. So Netflix has the had the rights for it for a certain specific time and then you could watch it on Rockstar's website or YouTube. >> So it was kind of a world exclusive in Netflix but only for a certain amount of time. That that was the key. That was the key part of the negotiation, I'm sure, was that cuz of course they want more eyeballs than Netflix has subscribers. >> Um, so so no, but that was part of the draw. It's like you wanted to get the first sneak peek, >> you better have a Netflix account. >> Have you watched it yet? I haven't watched it yet. >> No, I haven't. I was traveling. Um, but I did I did post about it on my LinkedIn. people were really excited and I was like it's one of those things once again where gaming, streaming, IP like this whole kind of >> mix of things that we've seen over the last couple of years is just continues to be super strong. And once again, and I go back to this all the time and you and I do, gaming IP is super strong. >> The gaming industry might be going through a hard time and not all gaming IP succeeds, but my gosh, most of it that does does amazing. it. Speaking of intellectual property, one thing that we did, uh, I went a couple of days ago to go see the new Coyote versus Acme movie there, that movie is incredible. Um, it's it's a mustgo. Uh, this is not a paid sponsorship or anything crazy like that. Like, it's so Let me tell you the weirdest thing about this film. you the film starts, you know, it's chuck full of like Looney Tunes characters >> and there it does not open with a with a Warner Brothers logo because Warner Brothers didn't distribute the film. They sold the film because they wanted to backlog this, right? And so it starts with some I've never heard of Ketchup Films. Evidently, it's some film studio that bought this film and then they decided to release it. So it's it's a Warner Brothers film without Warner Brothers and it goes hard. It's a great movie. >> Well, I told my kids after you text because we're good friends, guys. Like in real life, we're actual friends. You texted to me and you were like, "You need to take your kids." And I told my kids, "So, we're planning on going next weekend." I actually, my youngest one, I had to explain what this >> Oh, that's a bummer. Now I feel old. >> I was like, "How did you My older kids knew what it was, right?" But my youngest one was like, "What is this?" [laughter] Like, "Oh, let me explain who Wy the Coyote is." >> Yes. >> Um, but yeah. >> Yeah. It was really good. If you like uh Who Fra and Roger Rabbit or Space Jams, it's very much in that kind of like cartoon live action and it's just great. It's a lot of fun. It's >> I love Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit's one of my go-to costumes. >> There's There's no Jessica Rabbit in this. I That might have been like a missing character that they could have. But no, there it there's there's nothing quite like Jessica Rabbit. Uh >> well, I might be Betty Boop. >> Jessica Rabbit. >> I might be Betty Boop this year. I'm like thinking cartoon characters. Yeah. So, we'll see. We'll see. That will be for Halloween. We'll We'll see how it goes. We're still a long way from Halloween. >> Oh, are we though? Not Not too >> Well, it's everywhere in the stores, which is like I >> It's It's two months basically, right? It's We're recording this on August 31st. >> Time goes time goes. >> Anyways. >> Oh gosh. Um, all right. So, let's talk about some news. What's happening in the space? Uh let's talk about this one first which is um the one that you just told me about uh from Australia which was really interesting and I want to preface this before you share what it is. I think it's something they have been working on for a while there in Australia. Um I recently spoke back in March uh for the Australian Recording Industry Association Arya. I did a whole keynote on gaming and music and how musicians are are using it. you know, after you and I produced several virtual concerts and in gaming platforms, I we learned a lot from that experience. Um, but AI, gaming, all those sorts of things are top of mind. So, I'll let you talk about the story because I know you have a lot of strong opinions about this. >> Yeah. No, this is really interesting. So, for those who don't know, AR is like Billboard, right? Um, it's where the Australian charts, what's selling, what's playing well, what's popular in Australia. It is not by any stretch of the imagination a small organization. in Australia is actually pretty commanding in the music industry in general. Like they're they're a target audience for sure. And so for Arya to come up and say we are banning anything that is AI generated or contains uh anything that's wholly AI generated is like not going to happen. Um I kind of suspect it'll go deeper than that because of how this came about. Uh which to me this is really funny. This crackdown is because of Madonna's pop hit, Like a Prayer, um, had been recreated by an Australian producer using AI generated vocals, drums, blah blah blah blah blah. It spent 16 weeks in the top 20 in Australia. >> That's crazy. >> Now, why is this particular song interesting? Because for those who know their music history and music technology, >> Madonna was one of the strongest forces to take a a hammer to peer peer-to-peer sharing. So the Napster era, the Lime Wire era, um, in the way she did it was really quite brilliant. Uh, you could go on to like Lime Wire and Napster or whatever and download her latest album. Uh, it was when she was doing a song with Moby, but it's it's split my it's slipped my mind at this point. um >> late '9s, early 2000s. Uh but you would go and download the song and it was just her cussing you out >> about stealing her music. It had all the same right metadata. You couldn't tell the difference. So like it became this song. It almost became its before memes were memes. It became kind of this meme where if you went and tried to >> Rick where Madonna, >> you were basically getting Rick rrolled by Madonna and you would illegally download her music and it was just her voice like cussing you out. uh which was brilliant. It was a great way of going at it as opposed to just trying to take do takedowns. You couldn't do that really easily back then. So, the fact that Madonna a Madonna song is also now kind of spearheading the way of getting AI generated music uh out of the charts and out of the the the listenership uh sphere is is just really interesting to me. >> I love that she I love Yeah. Did she get any Did she get any money from this from it being at the top or 16? I mean, AI like >> Okay. So, legally speaking, >> that's a question of who wrote the song. That's publishing. So, if Madonna wrote the song or is one of the co-writers of that song, then yes, she would have been paid. If she was not one of the song writers, then no. uh she wouldn't have been paid anything even though it might have a likeness of her voice >> right so if the track is utilizing the same melody right and the example I give is this I as a DJ or music producer cannot sample anything from the Beatles catalog right I can't take a Beatles record and take a snippet make a new beat and go and sell it to Jay-Z right like I can't do that >> but if I go and re-record a Beatles song. I just have to pay percentages of the publishing for the songwriter because I'm not using a part of the mechanical recording. This is getting super nerdy. I'm sorry to my listeners, but >> No, but I love this. I love this. We're all learning about the music industry here. >> So, no, if if she if I don't know if she's a co-write on this, but if she is a co-write on it, she would have gotten paid something, but not nearly the same amount. >> Um, if she's not a corrite on it, she would have gotten paid nothing. And >> this brings up a really good question, right? Cuz this show is about tech, but it's also, you know, evergreen topics. Like you have a couple hits that you wrote. >> I don't know if I'd call them hits, but I was proud of >> it was a hit. Come on, Lee. Come on. Pat yourself on the back. >> Well, actually, the the So, the Britney Spears song is a really good example. Um, the Britney Spears song was a For those who don't know, I ended up getting on the Britney Gene album back in 2014. I was working with Willam at the time and I was at the right place in the right time and got an opportunity to like work on this album. It was just one of the songs of of all of them. The song got on the record because Britney actually wrote the lyrics to that song. It's Don't Cry. The song's called Don't Cry. Um, please go listen to it. [laughter] But lyrics, >> you helped write it, didn't you? >> Well, I help produce the music, which is a different part of the percentage, right? >> But you get a percentage when anyone plays this song. >> Yeah. Fractions of pennies. Um, >> oh yeah, >> they are paying for the nails that are hanging up the pictures in my background. >> Uh, but but that's fine. That's fine. Um, so yeah, like that song, but not every song that's on that record did Britney right. Um, >> famously famously Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You. It she want she wanted Elvis to sing it. Elvis's manager said, "If you split the publishing," Elvis didn't write the song. >> No, no, no. But the manager was like, "Well, if Elvis, an artist as big as Elvis, is going to do this, I want him to own some of the publishing as if he had wrote it." And Dolly, who was new in her career at that time, said, "No, that's a hard that's a hard walk away to take." But it paid off because fast forward, you know, however many years, and then Whitney Houston comes up and smash >> to this day, we still hear that song, right? >> Yeah. It it broke so many records and that that song stayed ownership to Dolly. Dolly wrote a lot of songs that she didn't necessarily even perform or that would later become duets. Um >> well, she has a lot of songs I think things that haven't been released that will probably will be released. >> All of the artists do. Uh you know, one of the more famous examples was Tupac. after Tupac died an like 10 years later or something like that, a new Tupac album came out with all new songs on it because there's just cataloges. >> It's usually the songs that they decided not to do or to hold on for later. Um, but it is this idea of all this like intellectual property and a lot of this stuff has gone and trained AI. So when AI can then regurgitate the song, why doesn't a the why doesn't the AI model have to pay for the rights to the song just like I would have to if I wanted to cover uh Billy Gene by Michael Jackson. >> Yeah. >> Right. So AI gets to cover Billy Gene by Michael Jackson. >> Transformative technology. That's the excuse, right? But >> I'm a transformative technology. You can't unplug my talent. I don't know what to tell you. >> That is so going on social media right there. Love, love, love that. Oh lord. Um, so yeah, like what do you think other And I'm asking, I'm interviewing you now, right? Because I feel like you're, this is your industry. Um, I just play in it like, you know, the gaming side more of it more so and the fashion side. But do you feel like other countries, other you know kind of kind of organizations like similar to Arya across the world might follow suit? >> I think so. I think the United States is due for reckoning in this space. It's going to be a battle. We are starting to see it. Uh there was this period of time where it got really confusing because we were watching labels partner with AI models and we didn't fully understand like in the background what was happening. We are seeing like most recently Sony and Warner are now suing Anthropic because they're alleging blatant theft of intellectual properties. Welcome to the party guys. I don't know where they were. Um but I think they were trying to figure out do we partner? Do we fight? Uh and if the writing is on the wall that there might be a bubble then I would go with fight. Um, if there, you see what I'm saying? Like if if they felt like this was truly an a locomotive that could not be stopped, then I could see them having to feeling like they're against the wall and like, "Okay, we're going to have to partner this cuz this isn't going to stop." But if everyone is worried about this bubble and they think that they can't live up to the massive amount of money that they have to, there's going to be an IPO, which means there's going to be a huge influx of cash. I could see a lot of these rights holders who are have just armies, legions of lawyers uh finally take their moment to strike and it could be really gnarly. The interesting thing about the globe in the music industry is barring I believe two countries, one of them being North Korea and the other one being a small country I think in Africa and it slips my mind which one. All of the other countries basically have a copyright agreement of like what it's not all universal, but they all have this like we're all going to play nice with each other agreement. >> Um, and so as a DJ, I can't go and just sample world music. It happens all the time. You can, it's just in a gray area. Um, >> but yeah, it's it there's only like two countries in the world who do not partake in this agreement. Uh, so I could see this spiraling out of control, especially on the music side of it. >> Interesting. Interesting. So, and by the way, you and I have an invitation to Arya's awards. >> Awesome. Let's go. >> Yeah. So, if we we got we got to get ourselves to Australia, but yeah, there's always an open invitation to Australia to go and experience uh, you know, >> I love Australia. Absolutely. I love my time in Sydney. It's great. >> So, okay. So, here's something else interesting. I know you're not really keen with a into AI right now, but are you would you let an agent, you know, if if if AI was actually working the way you wanted it to, would you let an AI agent do shopping for you? >> No. >> No. Why not? >> Uh because there's no [sighs] I I look, I am not like an overly private person. I live a fairly public life. uh through this show, other shows that I do, things like that. But >> being on stage, your music performances, >> right? So, this is not me running off and hiding in a shed. Um, but there is a part of me that doesn't really like the tracking of people's private lives. I don't even have a reason behind this other than I it feels weird and invasive and that's probably just me coming being in that last generation how we are between not having this to having this like younger people don't care. I still kind of care even though I know what's happening in the background. So there are things that I don't put in my house. Um I never put the uh Amazon button that would like repurchase toilet paper and things like that in my house. I never put like an Alexa or smart Google Home device in my house where I could order something uh online. Um I'll be honest, I don't have an Amazon Prime membership. >> I'm just Are you serious? >> I'm dead serious. Yeah, it's it it's >> I know very few people that don't have an Amazon Prime like account. >> I don't order enough. Do >> you have a Netflix account? >> I do have a Netflix account, >> but I have Netflix stock. So like yeah, I want Netflix to succeed. Uh >> well I'm sure you are invested in Amazon in AWS. >> I'm sure somewhere along the way I am but not like inadvertently or directly. And it's not even like >> oh I don't Amazon I think does something very well and they're big for a reason. They're one of the few tech companies where I see people kind of like shake their fist at them and I'm like yeah I get why you're mad at them. Totally understand. You're not wrong. However, they're one of the few tech companies that I look at and go I understand how they got there. M >> I I can understand the evaluation. There are tech companies where I look at them and I'm looking at the valuation. I'm going, "Oh, you're all crazy. This this literally the numbers don't number." Uh Amazon totally makes sense to me. But [groaning] yeah, I don't I don't need it, right? I >> That's interesting. So, I will say this about AWS because I worked at AWS for a period of time. I learned a lot. It was almost like getting an MBA. like I it was hard at the moment but I am thankful for what I learned there because it was >> there's a reason it operates the way it does. So >> and the reason AWS is so profitable but um there's an article in Forbes that says it turns out AI agents have unpredictable shopping habits. I think we humans have unpredictable shopping habits too. Uh but in this report says 42% of millennials for example would trust an AI tool to make purchasing decisions for them. um things. There's several statistics in this article which is really interesting and then talks about how AI agents do the shopping etc. I'm bringing this up because back in 2021, mind you, I wrote an article called marketing to robots, >> right? >> Which at that time I didn't I didn't have the language of agent commerce or AI agent shopping, right? I did just the nomenclature wasn't there. Um, so I remember was Tamara McCclary who's an amazing uh person in tech and AI and I chatted with her and we kind of wrote this article on marketing to robots and how in the future right we people would go through some type of you know in this case agent that time machine robot we called it uh an AI to kind of potentially do some shopping. So, it was kind of really forward thinking. Not everything in the article is is hitting, you know, is perfect. But when I look at it, I'm like, "Wow, it was really way ahead of its time thinking considering what's happening right now with Aenta Commerce where more and more people are trusting their agents to do shopping for them." >> I guess I would question what that would mean. Um, >> like a commerce in general. >> Yeah. Well, like from an in from a beginning to end point, like from a point of sale, I am certain that there have been times where I've dealt with something online and got processed an order or something like that and there would have been AI in the background, right? But it wasn't prevalent and I was still clicking the buy now button. >> Uh I I don't really I can't think of a scenario where I would want someone else buying on my behalf. I I don't know. >> Here's where I would do it. So, there's I I love luxury handbags and there are certain luxury items that I want and sometimes they're vintage >> and sometimes they're really hard to find. So, like Claude can, you know, you know, you can set up Claude to be like, "Search for this specific bag at this rate wherever you find it, blah blah blah blah," right? I haven't gotten all the way where I'm like, "Hit go and buy it cuz I still want to see it, especially if it's vintage. I still want to see photos to see the quality. If it's, you know, most of these things, if they're vintage, they've been used, >> right? So, like I still want to look at the photos and make sure that the quality is there because I, you know, if I'm paying a premium, I don't want it to to to look bad, right? cuz I've had it I've had it where I've bought things online and you know and they came here and they they don't look that great or one of the one of the luxury designer bags I bought smells like cigarettes. I do not smoke. Um it's to this day I was I've not been able to remove the smell of cigarettes from this luxury handbag. >> That's funny. >> So there's a part of me that still wants to be the human in the loop, but I'm getting closer and closer to being these are the Valentino shoes I want from this season that are vintage in this size. find them for me. Once you find them, they're in good, you know, in good condition or certain level condition, buy them for me. I'm getting to that point, though. >> I I now I have leveraged AI multiple times to help me decide on the right product for me to leverage. You don't go through this much gear without being like, I don't know if I should get this one or this one, and they look exactly the same, and they have the same specs. >> So, there have been times like I've shopping for washers and dryers. I've leveraged AI because like there who knows I don't know which brand is more reliable and so it you know claude or whatever AI you want to utilize can go through those reviews really quickly and give you the best suggestion and then you can argue with it until you find you are convinced yourself that I've done uh I find that to be super helpful but even in that would I say okay you've convinced me I want this one go buy it for me I don't think I would do that. >> See, I'm getting ready to do this, but what I'm setting up is an extra little credit card with a very low limit. >> So that if the agent, for any reason whatsoever goes rogue, there's no way it's going to like go insane. It's not getting an AMX platinum, you know? No way. >> Right. Right. [laughter] >> It's going to get like a little credit card with a very like a teenager. That's how when I was growing up, I had a little credit card with a limit >> cuz my dad was like, "Here's your credit card." He knew. So I almost feel this my approach to agentic commerce and the agents is also like that. I'm giving a teenager this card. It must have a limit because I do not you know I'm not giving giving them an MX platinum. >> Yeah I I'd like to say no this is not something that I would do. At the same time I also remember my parents saying we would never buy something online. We would never buy something off the internet. I there was a period of time early Amazon when they just sold books, early eBay where you weren't sure, there was no like rating system and people weren't, you know, following their their rules and things like that that it felt so wild west that it didn't feel safe. >> Um, and you wouldn't just hand out your credit card number online. Now it's like, well, everyone's got it. So, >> yeah. >> But I'm kind of weird. Like, I don't do the tap to pay on my phone. I don't I don't like my phone having that information. >> Are you serious? Well, there's reason there's good reasons to have it, good reasons not to have it. I have to be honest. After doing a little bit of research, it's like >> I still It's so convenient. >> I I It's I'm a weird duck where it's like a lot of my stuff is super sci-fi and then there's a part of me that I'm just like, I don't trust that. >> I don't trust that. You're like It's like you're a weird combination of like a futuristic person but like an old grumpy person, too. >> Yeah. that that I'm a I'm a very futureforward pessimist. [laughter] I believe in the technology. I don't believe in the humans behind the technology. >> That's a good point. >> I think that's the best way I can like >> I'm a future forward optimist for sure. >> Totally. Totally. And I >> sure >> I've totally missed the train on things because I was like, well, that's never going to take off or I don't trust that, you know. Okay, fine. I missed that train. I'll get on the next one. It it You can grow some teeth and grow some dentures apparently now. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm all on board to our last episode. If anyone hasn't listened to our last episode, >> yeah, a lot of people are like, "Wait, what the >> what [laughter] what dentures? What?" >> For those who don't know, Japan's working on being able to regrow teeth. That's super cool technology. I'm all on board. I think it's great. Um that that I'm for all of this stuff. We've had a huge number of like breakthroughs and like new vaccines and new technology and new cancer research and all of that stuff. Yes. Push forward. I don't need you buying toilet paper. I can I can handle that. >> Here's another good question I'm going to ask you. Would you buy a dog that is hypoallergenic that has been altered using crisper? >> Yes, >> you would. So, you buy you'd buy a clone dog. You buy a crisper dog. >> Yeah. But my reason be my reason being is most dogs are so far away from what dogs were ever meant to be. We've basically just did it with time, right? Um so, sure. Why not? That that's okay. >> And I hope Beanie, your dog does not get upset at the question. >> No, no, cuz we Okay, so my dog, for those who I can paint the perfect picture of what my dog looks like. My dog's a very small little white dog. She looks like Falkor from the Never- Ending Story. This is what she looks like. If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. A little white dog, very long, like a dragon, got big floppy ears. Swear it was a maltise. My wife, I don't know why. My wife spent the money, did the DNA test. She just really needed to know what this dog was. I'm like, "It's a dog. She's adorable. We love this dog. It doesn't matter." She did it anyways. And it came back with literally every everything you could name it. It it from Chihuahua to Pitbull is in this dog. >> Um >> what? >> I'm dead serious. >> No pit bull in your dog, but okay. Where the heck I don't either. I don't know. >> Yeah, but I'm not kidding. It's the little just the smorgish board of a of a little hound. Um, cute as can be. >> Basically a science experiment gone wrong. Um, or gone right, however you want to look at it. So, yes. Would would gene editing change how I look at a dog? No, that's fine. Yeah. Go ahead. >> Well, so there's an article in the New York Times. I was listening to it this morning with my daughter um my youngest daughter and it was like, how much is that gene edited dog on the window was the title, right? And it's about a startup that has done gene editing on these on dogs and they have two beagles right now. Two beagle puppies who are super cute. Uh they were two years old and they are completely hypoallergenic in the sense that it's not I'm talking not talking like a a you know a doodle like I have a mini golden doodle because I didn't want the hair and you know there's some allergy issues. >> That's great. They still produce certain things. These gene edited beagles produce none of the protein or whatever makes people allergic so far, right? >> Cats. >> Oh, yeah. There's actually a company that did hypergenic cats that supposedly do not. And I am I am like deathly allergic to cats. I think they're the cutest, fluffiest thing. My daughter and I cannot have one. So, we actually got kind of excited. We're like, "Oh my gosh." You know, but there is a company that done has done these cats. It's been a couple years. They still haven't like rolled out a mass, you know, offering of the cats. Um, but yeah, it's it's interesting and I was thinking about that. I was thinking about other than AI, other things that are happening in the space, >> right, >> of that could change how people live, right? People are cloning their dogs, you know, would you would you gene edit your dogs for it for it to be a specific thing? And, you know, is that a good thing or a bad thing? >> I don't think it's a bad thing. Um, I don't think our dog I love our dog would not clone our dog because every study that we've ever seen of of cloning is like, okay, you can't clone the personality, right? So the dog would look the same, but it could come out with a completely different personality. A lot of that is like trained. I will say this to our listeners, before you go get your designer dog, >> go to the shelter and adopt. Until all the dogs are no longer in the shelter, don't worry about the designer dogs. But once that's done, then go ahead and go get a designer dog. I don't think there's anything wrong. >> In my defense, our designer dog was acquired in the pandemic where there was no dogs left in the >> Totally. See, total justification. I am totally on board with that. We could not get a cat. There were cats, >> but we could not get a cat or a guinea pig cuz I'm allergic to both of those. >> But I just know we got some listeners like, "But there's dogs in the p." Yeah, there are. >> Yes, I'm sorry. It was a p pandemic puppy. [laughter] The only way you could get a pup at that time. Oh lord. Um, well, any other any other stories you want to talk about right now? It's not a story, but it's something that I was talking to some people online about specifically on LinkedIn, and I think I had mentioned this to you a couple episodes back. We talked about AI watermarking, >> and it was a good episode. A lot of people, a lot of people downloaded it and listened to it. >> The AI watermarking and how it works is super interesting. And it was like sometimes on this show we have a really interesting topic and I we give our thoughts. >> Mhm. >> And then we end the show and we disconnect and I go grab a cup of coffee and 5 10 15 minutes later I go, "Oh my gosh, I'm totally wrong and now I can't go backwards and recorrect it. I'm going to have to bring this up on the next show." So this is kind of one of those moments. We talked about AI watermarking, how it worked, how it could be applied to making sure that things are authentically human written. Da da da da. >> Went and made a cup of coffee, must have woke something up in my brain. I realized this has nothing to do with humans. Um, >> I think it's being touted as such because it makes sense because humans have are currently in a point where there's a negative reaction to figuring out what is and isn't human generated. So the average person really wants AI watermarking so we know if something was written by a human or not. But what got me was none of these companies have ever said they're going to tell us the user. >> H okay. >> How to spot the watermark that's never been mentioned. I see. >> Right. >> And I was like so why then why are we doing this? Is this like an upsell? Is this something for enterprise? You got to pay for it if you want to know. Was it one of those? Then it then it real I realized all of it. If you go back a full season of this show, there's an episode where we talk about AI running out of data and not knowing if it's eating its own slop or not. >> Right. I think I likened it to a dog eating its own barf or something absolutely insane like that. Sorry. >> It's training on synthetic data that it >> Yeah. And so it was getting into this cycle of like why it's it's eventually got this solves that. Right. So the the LLM, the model itself, if it can recognize this was written by an AI, it can >> shove it into its own corner. >> And now it has a mechanism for it to recognize if it is reading something that it could learn off of or reading something that has already spit out and does not need to use as new data. >> That's really interesting. >> So we all s humans are so self-centered, right? We're like, well, This is about us. No, this has nothing to do with us. Cuz if it had something to do with us, it would tell they would tell us how to use it. They don't want us using it. Maybe there is this upsell to enterprise or upsell to school systems because they can and it will make them look good. But I would darn near guarantee you that they didn't do this so that school professors could tell you if your English lit, you know, paper was written by an AI or not. You think Sam Alman cares if a English lit professor knows if it's authentic or not? He doesn't want that English paper, English professor to know if it's authentic or not because it means he's succeeding if you can't tell the difference. >> That's such a good point. >> So why >> what kind of coffee was this? [laughter] >> Portland's got some of the best coffee. [laughter] >> Anyways, I needed to bring that up. Um it's it's a bit of a tin foil hat, but I think it's right. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's such an interesting interesting perspective. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Our friend Andrew Schwarz actually wrote something really interesting on AI watermarking as well. We should have him back. I think we should have him back and and chat with him about this seems to be such a hot topic. So, >> okay, that's interesting. Um, I will tell you, so last week I got invited by um the local Fox 5 station in New York, um, which is a pretty big Fox 5 station and it's it's Fox local Fox station, not Fox News. um if anyone cares. I don't care about that. But um they they have a program called uh Street Warriors uh with this icon of a woman um who's an amazing reporter there. She does all these stories. She It's interesting. Her beat has been gangs and crime, but now she's doing all these like exploratory tech things. And they called me and they're like, "Can you be on our AI and romantic relationships um episode?" And I was like, "Absolutely." So I came and talked about my experiment, my perspectives. Uh there was a uh a psychiatrist on the on the call as well. Also uh um this amazing Bridget this amazing author Bridget who wrote an article I mean actually she didn't write an article she did a whole voice um um a whole audio book on AI and romantic relationships. It's called like love at first prompt and we all had like the most brilliant conversation around everything happening in that space. It was one hour. I wish we had had more time. So, you're going to see those clips kind of coming from me in the next couple weeks. Um, it was a great conversation. It was a great conversation about everything that's happening in the space both from the the psychologist perspective, the psychiatrist perspective, also uh from folks in the industry. And I spoke I spoke up specifically about my experiment. >> It's interesting. I I would love to know your take on this. Um, so when you were first doing that experiment, right, where you had gone through and created like five different AI personas and >> four AI boyfriends, >> four AI boyfriends, uh, it was it was a hot topic and there was this concern of a younger generation that was finding themselves very like infatuated and kind of like having these uh, digital significant others, you know, >> and then somewhere along the lines about 6 months to a year after that, that generation got very anti- AI. Oh yes. >> Like it just went I don't know what that tipping point was but at some point it became very unpopular. Um do you think that that has shifted or do you think that those relationships are still kind of like happening in the background cuz you don't there's no articles on it. You don't hear it like you heard. >> You don't hear about it as much. I I think some of them might still be happening. Here's what I think. The narrative started turning into it's going to take all your jobs. It's going to take all your jobs. It's going to take all your jobs. And then I think the younger people, right, especially those heading into graduation and we saw this at commencement were like, >> I don't want this technology. Why would I want this if I'm going to come out of college or I'm going to come out of high school and don't and not have an option. So I think it was all related to that. The narrative now from an AI perspective is shifted. Oh no, it's not going to take the jobs. It's going to generate more jobs. It's gonna solve everyone's problems. Like >> I can't tell you how. >> This is what I feel. Well, I feel and I should write an article about this in Forbes about like how the narrative has shifted, right? um how narrative really is is you know you may have the best model in the world but if you are not telling the right story with the right narrative this is not going to get you the IPO that you're of your dreams >> and these companies are actually hiring narrative specialists people that can take emerging technology or challenging subjects and use a narrative that can convince the public right whether that's good or bad that that's up to people to decide right um but yeah like it it's super interesting so you see that change in the narrative so That's a part what I do see them doing the younger generation and I see this in the dating platforms through and through is the constant reliance on AI for you know for the prompts or like how do you describe yourself? So, I was talking to a friend of mine and she and I were talking about this and it's like if you go into one of these dating apps, many people are not even looking at what you have answered in the prompts because when you go on a profile like let's say it'll have like oh three things I like to do or my guilty pleasure or whatever and a lot of the now is written by AI because everyone's using Chad GPT or the AI um prompt helpers in these apps. So, I'm like why would I even read this that I know is not genuine. It's like what AI is telling them to say. So there is also that fatigue on the other side of the dating spectrum. And that's not, you know, that's not high schoolers, but that's college people. And like there's this I don't know. >> We have changed a lot. [laughter] That's because that's a really interesting shift. I didn't think about >> I I've never used the dating app, so I don't know how that they function, but I was fairly I fairly much understood how they used to function. Now that I know that they're kind of like autofilling details, >> it's AI now. They're all throwing AI every the whole thing with with one of the some of the dating apps right now is that it's going to be an AI matchmaker and you're going to talk to an AI and then it's going to find you people and AI are going to talk to AI. I'm like, at the end of the day, yes, the AI might find you someone amazing, but if I show up and in the biometric world, you know, in the ecological world, if I don't like how you smell, I'm not going to date you. >> Yeah. >> Right. So, I think that there's there's this mishap that AI can find the perfect love for you. And I am not sure that you still need human interaction to truly decide if someone is someone you're interested in getting to know. >> And that's why I don't want an AI agent to shop for me. >> [laughter] >> We've come full circle. >> Not shop for companion >> if you know Valentino shoes are different than you know my future husband. So I don't know [laughter] >> but that's really >> on that note. >> On that note let's close this out. Lee >> all right everyone. Thank you for listening to Tech Magic where we always invite you to come for the tech stay for the magic. I'm Lee Keebler with the incredible Kathy Hackle. You can always find us online. Send us story ideas. Say hello. We love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram. Kathy is notoriously married to LinkedIn and just like absolutely rules the LinkedIn sphere. We both have our substacks. You can just hit us up there. Until next time. [music]