0:00

Today's. Episode is sponsored by In Power.

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And a Power What's next? Start Today

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and empower.com. Lauren.

0:17

Mike. How excited would you

0:19

be about a new social network where

0:21

you just listen to people talk. Like

0:23

reply guys on twitter. Or

0:26

human club house. Well sure. But

0:28

also in addition to getting to hear people

0:30

talk, you can also just read their posts

0:33

and feed. Oh so like clubhouse but

0:35

on twitter. Ah, I'm sort of

0:37

have a isn't do either of those

0:39

comparisons really bode well for a new

0:41

social app. We're not going to

0:43

a new social. Did Silicon Valley come up

0:45

with a new social out. Yes, it has

0:47

and we should talk about it because you actually wrote

0:49

a story about. It, It's true I did. This is

0:51

alters the set up. Okay let's do it. Let's do

0:53

it. Hi.

1:01

Everyone welcome to Gadget Lab! I am

1:03

Michael Calorie Wired Director of Consumer Tech

1:05

and Culture. And I'm Lauren Good. I'm

1:08

a senior writer at Wired. We're also

1:10

joined once again by Wired Director Special

1:12

Projects Allen Henry Allen Walk back to

1:14

the show. Thanks. For having me.

1:17

It's. Great to have you on. It's always good to

1:19

be here. Allen. Is joining us today

1:21

because like Lauren, he also got an early

1:23

invites. This new app everyone is talking about.

1:26

it's called air Chat and we twisted his

1:28

arm to tell us his thoughts. It wasn't

1:30

that much of an arm twisting. I have

1:32

led a opinion separate African Grey. well so

1:35

it does feel like that when he turns

1:37

all over again. Today we're talking about air

1:39

Chat. A new social media outlets getting a

1:41

lot of attention in tech circles. And the

1:44

thing that sets Air Chad a part in

1:46

the social media world is that it's voice

1:48

only. There is no typing. Allowed. The.

1:51

App shows your feet of posts from

1:53

all with people you follow but their

1:56

posts are audio clips. Everyone.

1:58

Is into leaving voice notes in their

2:00

prey. It messaging apps these days this

2:02

is like that but in public. Your.

2:05

Voice Note: Get set out to the world

2:07

immediately. It's like a chaotic marriage of Twitter

2:09

and club house with a side of voicemail.

2:12

Your child is also invite only, so of

2:14

course all the Silicon Valley Elites are on

2:16

it. That also means there's a long list

2:18

of people stuck in the outside who are

2:21

very interested in waiting their turn to get

2:23

in. Now Lauren, you are a Silicon Valley

2:25

inside or of. Yes,

2:27

I mean with capital as capital capital

2:30

I and you got an invite to

2:32

air chat you use that you wrote

2:34

about it. Please explain. Air chat

2:36

to us. How

2:40

do I even began? Maybe we should

2:42

start with a little contacts, Which is

2:44

that over the past twenty years, Silicon

2:46

Valley has obviously transformed our social lives

2:48

with the rise of social media. And

2:50

then when the app or launched in

2:52

two thousand and eight things changed even

2:55

more because suddenly there was this. Combination

2:57

of constraint. Like.

3:00

You can only do and see

3:02

so much on a physical, some

3:04

frame with these far extending capabilities

3:06

and sometimes and over it's like

3:08

being able to track your location

3:10

speed. It also means you can

3:12

take photos and videos and-off posts

3:14

from anywhere because of our mobile

3:16

phones. So a lot of companies

3:18

over the years have tried to

3:20

launch social apps that take advantage

3:22

of all of this and some

3:24

have been very successful like Instagram

3:26

until recently sweater many many others

3:28

have sailed. Airs Her

3:30

is another attempt. To. Make. This.

3:33

Work as a new social media app.

3:36

I see. So. It's

3:38

a feed of audio

3:41

snippets. Right when

3:43

you open the app. What? It's

3:45

going to look like is actually a seed

3:47

of text blocks but there's a play pause

3:49

button and the lower with mix and of

3:52

the way as a button. Sorry

3:54

Attack without a. very

3:58

connecticut it was Well,

4:00

that's not a dig. It's still in Sun Valley,

4:02

Connecticut. That's not a dig. Okay. So

4:05

when you open the app, you

4:08

see the text box, and then there

4:10

is the play pause button in the

4:13

lower right, and when you tap play,

4:15

it starts to play the audio. So

4:17

it is an audio first app, because the

4:19

way that you share is you hold down

4:21

the record button and then you

4:24

record a voice note, and as soon as you let go,

4:26

it like goes into the feed. But

4:28

because of the live, nearly live

4:30

transcription feature in the app, it

4:32

also prints out those text

4:35

blocks immediately, and so you can read

4:37

those as you're listening to it. And it is

4:39

kind of this, like I use the word chaotic,

4:41

it is kind of this chaotic Twitter-like

4:44

experience, but as you

4:46

were scrolling Twitter, everything was being read aloud

4:48

to you. So

4:50

it's just like an endless scroll of people

4:53

talking. Right. So there

4:55

are mechanisms that honestly aren't fully clear

4:57

to me yet. You can follow

4:59

people, they can follow you. You see

5:02

replies. The replies get very confusing.

5:04

The threads, they get very confusing.

5:06

It's hard to go back and find the thing that

5:09

you saw earlier, pardon me, listened to earlier. There

5:11

are some rules around what

5:13

replies you can listen to and

5:15

in which ones you can't

5:17

because you can mute or block people. Yeah,

5:20

it's a little bit confounding, which is what

5:22

I wrote in the Wired story. It

5:26

is a little bit unique because

5:28

it's asynchronous audio, whereas one of the

5:31

references you made earlier, Clubhouse, was just

5:33

a live stream of audio. Right. So

5:36

yeah, Clubhouse, you went into a room and there were people

5:38

talking in the room and you could put your hand up

5:40

and speak, but mostly it

5:42

was just centered around listening and

5:44

maybe participating in like an actual

5:46

live conversation. Right. And

5:49

Twitter now has that too. Yes, everybody

5:51

has it. Yeah, they've had some well-known

5:54

technical difficulties in the past. Alan,

5:56

what's been your experience on AirChat? More

5:59

or less. The same. Of.

6:02

So it's been interesting because

6:04

the first thing I saw

6:06

upon redeeming my invite amd

6:08

joining their child was a

6:10

post at the very top

6:12

of the screen that said

6:14

hi everybody, let's make each

6:16

other happy with our mouths

6:18

today and else am I.

6:22

I'm merely just. I mean you

6:24

ever wondered apply that kind of

6:26

walks in with the pizzas and

6:29

everything's on fire at of kind

6:31

of like well. Okay, this is

6:33

what I signed up for. A

6:37

It's it's strange. A is is such a weird

6:39

and I'm of two minds of it. like. Of

6:42

the what and everything you just said

6:44

is exactly true and real. And it's

6:46

It's literally like if would give you

6:49

don't listen to the post. It feels

6:51

like I'm reading. The someone. Stream

6:53

of Consciousness because it's transcribing. What people

6:55

say in the way we talk is

6:57

different than the way be like you

6:59

know. So I see a lot of

7:01

things that are just people kind of

7:03

rambling. On. And on about

7:05

I don't know hi, good morning or let's

7:08

have a great day or something like that,

7:10

you know And then that. interspersed with the

7:12

people who are like I'd like to welcome

7:14

the city oh of x companies who else

7:16

out and all that I was so and

7:19

so redeemed my invite. Welcome this person the

7:21

air chat the person who invited me set

7:23

up a when you join just thought your

7:25

profile and I'll I'll introduce you and I

7:27

was would. I. Be dismissed as

7:30

Doc soon or so or on. and

7:32

I'm a social media like a social

7:34

networks see never did do that intro

7:36

by the way so I'm gonna hang

7:38

out over here. You are like I

7:40

just want alert. And I was.

7:42

I mean for the most part I have been

7:45

lurking and it's just so. Stream.

7:48

it's such a combination of very

7:50

obviously silicon valley conversations i mean

7:52

i've just learned later today yesterday

7:54

that their topics you can follow

7:56

their kind of like channels almost

7:59

but not because you see them interspersed

8:01

with the main feed. But,

8:03

I mean, the channels are

8:05

so clearly, this app is built in

8:07

Silicon Valley for people who are from

8:10

Silicon Valley. Some of the topics include

8:13

effective accelerationism and crypto.

8:19

Oh, cryptocurrency? People talking about cryptocurrency? Oh,

8:21

yeah, there's crypto talk. But there's also

8:23

the normal stuff. Cats, dogs,

8:25

politics, you know. Relationships.

8:29

Critical rationalism. Yes. Yeah,

8:33

it's a weird intersection of topics. It is.

8:36

I would say it's a dichotomy of

8:38

both the Silicon Valley mundanity and

8:40

then like hype beast stuff. But

8:43

it is not just a

8:45

couple different types of content. It's all

8:47

out there. Like

8:50

Alan was describing, one of the first things I saw

8:53

was Gary Tan, the CEO of

8:55

Y Combinator, saying that

8:57

breakfast is like, I'm paraphrasing

8:59

what makes people successful and what did everyone

9:01

have for breakfast today? And then like someone

9:03

responds like bacon and eggs. And I'm like,

9:05

wow, this is early Twitter. What

9:08

am I having for lunch? Then

9:10

shortly afterwards, I

9:13

stumbled upon one of the channels that was

9:15

just called War. And

9:17

it had over 500 members in it. And

9:21

the conversations ranged from Iran's

9:23

recent drone strike attempt on

9:25

Israel, the war

9:27

in Gaza, the genocide in Gaza, US-China

9:30

tensions, Russia

9:34

and Ukraine. It like really ran

9:36

the gamut. And there were a lot

9:39

of strong opinions

9:41

and quote unquote people doing their own research.

9:45

Someone did say

9:47

sort of snarkly in that channel,

9:49

yes, more VCs posting about geopolitics.

9:52

It definitely had that feeling of

9:55

people are also discussing this on Twitter

9:57

and threads right now. You

10:00

sort of don't know what to trust, and it

10:02

gets very noisy very quickly. Oh, let's see.

10:05

Well, before we take a break, Lauren,

10:07

I know there's some interesting pedigree with

10:09

this app, like who the founders are.

10:11

Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, good

10:13

question. So one of the

10:15

founders is Brian Norgard. He is

10:18

a former chief product officer at Tinder. He

10:20

was there for several years. And

10:22

the app actually launched sometime

10:25

last year without much fanfare.

10:28

Then another person came in, Nival Ravikant,

10:30

and he is the founder of AngelList.

10:33

And he's got a longstanding reputation

10:35

in Silicon Valley for being an

10:38

entrepreneur and investor. I saw

10:40

one person describe him as kind of a philosopher

10:42

type in Silicon Valley. And he

10:44

told me in an air chat that he

10:46

joined a couple of months ago. The

10:49

app had pivoted twice, and

10:51

he also funded the

10:53

app and became kind of the driving

10:55

force behind it. It's relaunched

10:58

just last weekend. And

11:00

he is the person who has been responding to

11:02

a lot of the inquiries within the app, both

11:05

to journalists like myself and Dave Lee

11:07

from BBC asked a couple of questions,

11:10

and others are chiming in, but just

11:12

to users. And it's

11:15

kind of interesting how he's been responding.

11:18

I tried to DM him, and he

11:21

politely responded and said, let's take this to

11:23

the public channel, and he was

11:25

talking in DMs of the old world, and this

11:27

is the new world. And then he kind of

11:29

compelled me to leave these thirsty voice notes for

11:31

him, asking him questions in front of everyone, which

11:33

is fine, but it was asynchronous. And

11:36

then the conversation got really interesting, and we

11:38

should talk about that. Okay, that's a good

11:40

place to take a break. Let's come right back and we'll get into

11:42

it. And

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the free app for Apple or Android now

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or check out empower.com So

12:31

AirChat creates almost real-time transcripts of your

12:33

voice once you post a voice note

12:36

and based on our observations so far

12:38

those transcripts are pretty good, even useful.

12:41

As journalists we work with transcripts a

12:43

lot and they're also really important for

12:45

people who rely on language translation or

12:48

for people who can't necessarily hear voice

12:50

notes because of a disability. But

12:52

of course all of that transcription is

12:55

done using machine learning and artificial intelligence

12:57

and since we're living in a world now where data

13:00

is being scraped all the time to build

13:02

powerful AI models, it is absolutely

13:04

worth asking what AirChat is going

13:06

to do with all of

13:09

this voice data that is being

13:11

uploaded into their app. So Lauren,

13:13

you asked the founder this question

13:15

on AirChat. That was my

13:17

only option, just to keep

13:19

the AirChat voice notes flowing.

13:21

Yeah, there were a couple different layers

13:23

to this. He did

13:26

say that AirChat might

13:29

use voice

13:31

notes and transcriptions to improve

13:33

their own app which

13:35

is something that we hear quite a bit now with

13:37

apps that are using AI. Sometimes

13:39

you can opt in, sometimes you can opt out.

13:42

This just seems that once you use

13:44

the app you're in it. He also

13:46

said that he doesn't plan to sell

13:48

AirChat data to outside entities that are

13:51

building LLMs and then I asked what

13:53

if they just scrape it

13:55

anyway? Because to your point that's what's

13:57

happening on the internet these days. And

14:00

he had this kind of

14:02

funny response, which is just basically if I

14:04

had satellites in orbit, I

14:07

would like nuke them. And

14:12

then a reporter from Bloomberg followed up

14:14

to that question and he had gone

14:17

through the terms of service, the VARET

14:19

chat, and basically said

14:21

to Naval Ravikant, again in a

14:23

voice chat, you

14:25

know, it looks like you guys can do

14:28

anything with this data. That's what the TOS

14:30

says. Even if you're not giving

14:32

away this data now, you know, for others

14:34

to make AI models with them, you could

14:37

potentially in the future. And Naval

14:39

Ravikant basically said, look,

14:42

this is where it gets a little

14:44

interesting. Look, terms and conditions are written

14:46

by lawyers in chat GBT these days.

14:49

So you know, you going through a magnifying

14:51

glass right now isn't useful when I've got

14:54

a product to build, I've got code to write. It

14:57

was a very like tech entrepreneur type

14:59

response. And then he basically said,

15:02

settle down. I'm

15:05

glad he was saying or writing this to me because,

15:07

yeah. And he said,

15:09

if you're a person who gets your knickers in

15:11

a bunch over terms of service, then just don't

15:13

use the app. It was amazingly

15:16

unconcerned with the reporter's

15:19

question. So Naval so far, you

15:21

know, as the founder of air chat is someone who

15:24

is both very responsive to questions in

15:26

this app and remarkably glib. And

15:30

these are real concerns that people have right now about

15:32

AI. Yeah. Alan,

15:34

what do you think everything that

15:36

well, so you haven't you haven't spoken into

15:39

the app that much yet. But once you

15:41

do, do you think that everything is just

15:43

going to be used to train LLM? Yes.

15:47

I mean, I have no I, I,

15:49

I both respect that response,

15:51

right? Because on some level, he's

15:54

not wrong. Right. TOS

15:56

And things are written by lawyers to

15:58

give you the most possible. The

16:00

runway to do whatever you want to keep

16:02

us does this alive. I get it. I

16:04

get it's add the yeah it's like two

16:06

things could be true as my therapist always

16:08

tells his and as well. But

16:11

also means I look at this and I

16:13

think about how good the transcripts in his

16:15

and I'm like some company is going to

16:17

make a bid for this and they're going

16:19

to buy it up and they're going to

16:21

keep it running and they're going to use

16:23

it to train and l a lumber, train,

16:25

some other model and. And.

16:27

That at that point he's like was trying

16:30

to build a company. Young who we get

16:32

it. you know what's his company gonna do

16:34

is the question we're trying to get to

16:37

it. It's it's it's one of those things

16:39

were like when I it's as I looked

16:41

through the app have been. Granted I'm silver

16:44

move from kind of silicon valley vibes

16:46

and culture but I still kind of understand

16:48

a little bit of it's the I see

16:50

that this is for very specific kind of

16:52

person that is disconnected from you know. I

16:56

don't know that. Of the first

16:58

thing that comes to mind is at Walmart just

17:00

settled of. Class action lawsuit because their

17:02

cash registers were overweight and groceries. You know

17:04

what I mean. That's not a conversation with

17:07

can happen. It aired. It's just

17:09

not the people in there are not

17:11

those people worried said having a conversation

17:14

so that's fine. But is

17:16

that let's not pretend that the app is

17:18

something that it's not right. Like it's someone's

17:20

going to want this data and they're going

17:23

to offer you enough money to get it

17:25

right. It's a it's a build build

17:27

build mindset. Absolutely observe and write about

17:29

align Silicon Valley in. The people who

17:31

are on this app so far are

17:33

tech enthusiasts. Early it and during the

17:35

seas journalist like as cover that I'm

17:37

it's. You made Allen. It's like

17:39

they're probably some channels and some conversation

17:42

that are happening there that. Are

17:44

interested in the rights of consumers, the

17:46

right, the delay people in I'm not

17:48

the early adopters, the people who are

17:50

just like hit the know that. The.

17:52

old saying like if you're if you're not

17:54

paying for the product you are the product right

17:57

like fundamentally the people who are the training

17:59

data for that But right now

18:01

the cacophony of voices is kind of concentrated

18:03

on the people who are like, yeah, new

18:05

thing, let's do it, half the board. And

18:08

given that audience, and also given the fact

18:10

that the app is invite only right now,

18:13

it may not seem to the community

18:16

that something like moderation is

18:19

a huge priority. I don't know how

18:21

they feel about moderation or how they're looking at

18:24

moderation. But sooner or later

18:26

when it opens up to the wide world,

18:28

they're going to have to start moderating the

18:30

conversations in a way that they don't have

18:32

to really moderate when it's a

18:34

bunch of people who work in the tech industry. So

18:37

how do the moderation tools feel

18:39

now? What sorts

18:41

of things can you do? What sorts of things

18:44

can't you do? And what does the next year

18:46

of moderation and air chat look like? I

18:49

mean, that's a great question, right? I mean, I just,

18:51

I'm going to look at the app right now, again,

18:53

just to make sure you can block people, you can

18:55

mute people. But

18:58

as far as I can tell, that's it, right?

19:00

You can't do too much else. And

19:04

now granted, I'm using the Apple and Android, which

19:06

I don't know if there are any

19:08

substantial differences between the Android version and

19:11

the iOS version. But that's about

19:13

it. You don't really get

19:15

to, there's no muting, there's

19:17

no keyword muting, there's no

19:19

topic filtration, there's no anything

19:22

like that. I mean, I don't even think you

19:25

can directly report users. I

19:27

don't think you can directly report users. I don't think you can.

19:29

You can block and mute a user, but you can't

19:31

do anything else. And

19:35

I mean, I guess that's fine when

19:37

you're a nascent social network, right? Because

19:39

the eternal September comes for all of

19:41

us. And eventually you're just going to

19:43

get people

19:46

in who are going to say wild

19:48

things. And what is going to stop

19:50

someone from, I mean, other than the

19:52

invite trail, joining AirChat

19:54

and posting a really,

19:57

really immediately transcribed odious

19:59

man- FASTO something

20:02

and I mean of course

20:04

you know I just looking at

20:06

the app and I understand the

20:08

challenges of moderating social network like

20:10

I'm a big blue sky person

20:12

so I've watched that network go

20:14

from no moderation to some moderation

20:16

to community-based moderation but

20:18

I don't see anything like that happening

20:20

here I think that air chat's gonna probably wind

20:22

up being yet another app that pretends to have

20:25

no values that's like oh well

20:27

we don't want to we you know freedom

20:29

of speech and everything and we're not gonna take

20:31

anybody's voices away including the

20:33

Nazis and the other people over there that

20:35

are calling for your death I mean I'm

20:37

so sorry that they are but I just

20:41

I don't have too much faith I really don't in

20:44

some level I think that's okay

20:46

at this stage because I love

20:48

that the future of social

20:51

media seems to be the smaller

20:53

more concentrated networks of

20:55

people who actually do want to

20:57

talk to each other as

20:59

opposed to people who don't but just want

21:01

to fight and

21:04

I do like that that's

21:06

kind of how we seem to be trending as

21:08

opposed to kind of the big outsize power that

21:10

a lot of the big platforms have had people

21:12

are starting to kind of realize they're like wow

21:14

that's that's a lot of influence you have on

21:16

my life and my feelings but

21:19

you can't run a business that way right you

21:21

can't chase scale and also say I want to

21:23

be a small gated neighborhood where everybody who comes

21:26

in is somebody I know understands me us and

21:28

it's gonna have a good time those two things

21:30

just don't match yeah in in the

21:32

short time that I've been on it I've seen

21:35

some content that's that's

21:37

pretty questionable and I I wonder if

21:39

those people are actually just pushing the

21:41

boundaries to see what the content moderation

21:44

policy is the company's stated policy is

21:46

that it's kind of one person for

21:48

themselves that you have autonomy to mute

21:50

or block but they're not taking kind

21:52

of a widespread platform up

21:54

or platform down approach yet The

21:57

stuff that I saw included. The

22:00

couple of people engaging and conversation about

22:02

gay you his teens and they seem

22:04

to very intentionally be doing it. They

22:07

are just falling back and forth and

22:09

so I suspect those people were kind

22:11

of read teaming the moderation policies. Another

22:14

person seemed legitimately irate at the Founders

22:16

and was dropping bombs that them and.

22:19

Calling them out and I'm demanding

22:21

that I'm. They. Perform Fellatio

22:24

which is that most polite way. I

22:26

will say this on the podcast see

22:28

know to me is like and and

22:30

so that person I checked a day

22:32

or two later and not voice note

22:34

was still up. The women of all

22:36

described it actually in a Dm to

22:38

me as that he envisions this being

22:40

a little bit like a dinner party

22:42

or a Parisian so on where they're

22:44

going to be people who are who.

22:47

Are. At the dinner are at the

22:49

salon and they might say things

22:51

that are offensive or that you

22:53

don't like and you may ask

22:55

them to leave. But. There's no

22:57

kind of over arching rules at the

22:59

door, and. You know, I

23:01

don't believe these founders it like I don't

23:03

believe he's a sweet summer child who doesn't

23:06

understand how this works. Is

23:08

that I wouldn't say it's naive it. it's

23:10

like it's it's a choice. Right now and

23:12

it is while and the network is small

23:14

and if it does happen to grow and

23:16

doesn't flame out, then content moderation is going

23:19

to become an extremely thorny. Issue for them. Okay

23:22

well best of luck with that

23:24

strategy for to right? Yes, I

23:27

would love to be a fly on the

23:29

wall of their presents. Or. I'm

23:32

just waiting for an invite. I just I

23:34

have to say that like Alan, you're you're

23:36

not the co host of or of tech

23:39

podcast Wired and yet you got an Android

23:41

devices Or with that mindset, assess assess whether

23:43

I don't get invited. I would love it

23:45

if you would introduce me. I'm like absolutely

23:47

I will follow through with. I.

23:51

Think you may be question Mark I out of

23:53

the up seems to be going in and out

23:55

of invite. Only mode yet they close. their

23:57

doors opened it up again briefly for iowa

23:59

recently I don't know. I

24:02

don't know. Well, we'll see. Nobody ever

24:04

wants me in their party anyway. No The

24:08

first thing I do is pair my phone to the

24:10

Bluetooth speaker Oh, let me tell you about that Did

24:13

that at my house once all of a

24:15

sudden Enya was playing and I you know

24:17

I was chatting chatting chatting with people and

24:19

I my ears like I was like

24:21

is this And yeah, the answer is

24:23

yes playing on the speaker. It is Enya. That

24:25

sounds fantastic That's what's a right part of

24:27

a great party, right? Never

24:30

let mike take over your bluetooth Okay

24:33

Well mike is going to take over the conversation

24:35

at this point and say that we are going

24:37

to take another break and come right back with

24:39

our recommendations Okay,

24:47

we've reached the third part of our episode

24:50

where we go around the room and we

24:52

each give Recommendations for things our listeners might

24:54

enjoy alan you get to go first. What's

24:56

your recommendation? My recommendation is

24:58

a youtube channel called kurzgagat in

25:00

a nutshell. Um, I Love

25:03

them. I I don't I can't believe I haven't mentioned

25:06

them before but like I buy their calendar every year

25:09

um, they are just a

25:11

bunch of guys in germany who have been making

25:14

explanatory like videos about everything

25:17

from what space travel is would

25:19

actually be like and How

25:21

far the observable universe actually stretches and

25:23

whether wormholes are possible things. I know

25:26

that's i'm It's a lot of space

25:28

science i'm saying, but that's just my

25:30

background. There's more they do other things,

25:32

too What else

25:34

do they do? I mean they they

25:37

also like they had a whole series on how

25:39

your body's immune system works at the microscopic level

25:42

And i've never thought of my

25:44

body as a constantly raging battlefield

25:46

before but now I do And

25:49

it makes me feel kind of cool Like

25:52

on some level my body is

25:54

at combat readiness at all times

25:57

and I mean including when i'm on the

25:59

couch pizza which is wild to

26:01

me but anyway they're great

26:03

YouTube channel they do these videos like I think about

26:05

once a week they have a store

26:08

too which they have lots of cool little posters

26:10

about like stellar they just launched a poster about

26:12

stellar evolution which is I am

26:14

the target audience for that no one else

26:16

but how stars develop from proto stars to

26:18

end of their lives I'm the

26:20

only person who cares about that but it's okay because

26:23

I'm gonna buy that poster so anyway

26:25

YouTube channel check it out it's really cool what

26:27

are the posters or the calendar like the

26:30

posters are usually pretty big

26:32

and heavy quality like

26:34

very very nice but the calendar I've been getting

26:36

for a long time the thing I love about

26:39

the calendar is that they're like this

26:41

year is 2024 so to them

26:44

the calendar is the human era 12,000 and

26:46

24 they add 10,000 years because

26:51

they it's like a calendar that goes all

26:54

the way back to the beginning of the

26:56

agricultural age so the extent of human history

26:58

about an additional 12,000 years a

27:00

couple years ago they their whole

27:02

calendar was archaeology last year their

27:05

calendar was all the microscopic world

27:07

this year it's all exoplanets and

27:09

space science so it's pretty neat

27:11

yeah that's really cool it's extremely

27:14

wired it's so wired I know as

27:16

I'm saying that's really cool I'm thinking that

27:18

is so nerd-tastic yeah yeah that's what

27:20

we specialize in here I mean

27:23

we just spent however long talking about

27:25

an audio only invite only social networking

27:27

app for nerds but

27:30

everyone commuting in their cars right now really

27:32

appreciate so thank

27:36

you for that Alan that's that's lovely thanks

27:38

thank you Lauren what is your recommendation I

27:40

have to one is our

27:43

colleague Julian's review of the humane

27:45

AI pin if you

27:47

haven't been following the other drama

27:49

in Silicon Valley this week its

27:51

reviews of the humane AI pin

27:53

Marcus Brownlee a well-known youtuber who's

27:55

got something like 18 million followers

27:58

really good at his job hugely influential

28:01

pandit just totally

28:04

killed the humane AI pin. People

28:07

are having a very strong reaction to that. Julian,

28:09

our colleague, wrote a fantastic review as well.

28:11

It's a good, thoughtful read. He also gave

28:14

it a four out of 10. And

28:17

the reason why it's good is because he's doing

28:19

a consumer service for you. He is telling you,

28:21

you should probably not spend $700 on the first

28:24

iteration of this product,

28:26

which is what our jobs are as

28:28

reviewers. So check that out. And

28:30

my second recommendation is the

28:33

movie Scoop on Netflix. A

28:35

friend recommended it last week. I

28:37

enjoyed it. It's the inside story

28:39

of how a BBC team of

28:41

producers managed to get the now

28:43

infamous interview with Prince Andrew in

28:46

the wake of the Epstein scandal.

28:48

Wow. Yeah. And so as a

28:50

journalist, you know, I appreciated it

28:52

seeing inside the newsroom and it's

28:55

a bit dramatized and journalism

28:58

movies always have that same kind of arc, right?

29:01

Where like, look, it's a bunch

29:03

of people sitting at their desks making calls. It's

29:06

a hard thing to make interesting. And

29:08

yet, and then there's a little bit of

29:10

padding on the back at the end. Like we got the story, we

29:12

got the scoop, but still

29:14

it's a great watch. That's awesome. Yeah.

29:16

Yeah. So does it go up

29:18

there with other great recent journalism

29:20

movies like She Said and Spotlight?

29:23

It's not at the level of Spotlight. It's not at

29:25

the level of All the President's Men. Maybe more

29:27

like Frost Nixon. It's, oh, I remember Frost

29:29

Nixon. Yeah. I think I like covered that

29:31

for the Wall Street Journal. I'm trying to

29:34

remember. I remember, yeah. I'm

29:36

like, I remember interviewing. I interviewed,

29:39

oh my God, Ron Howard

29:41

about it. No, that's an assignment. Yeah, right. Right.

29:43

Yeah, my God. I'm like going back. A story

29:45

about a movie, about a television show. Right. Very,

29:49

very meta-media. This whole thing is so

29:51

meta-media. I'm like, read the story, then

29:53

also go to the YouTube review about

29:55

the thing that people are reacting to

29:57

on Twitter and also air chat it.

30:00

But yes, those are my recommendations. Scoop on

30:02

Netflix. On Netflix. Nice. Yeah.

30:06

What's your recommendation, Mike? So

30:08

I'm going to recommend that everybody check out

30:10

Wired's new podcast. And this is

30:12

not like self-dealing or anything

30:15

like that. I mean, it is, yes,

30:17

technically. But like I listened to it.

30:19

It's called Wired Politics Lab. I

30:22

listened to it because I introduced it on

30:24

our feed last week and it is excellent.

30:26

It's very good. It's a brand new podcast.

30:28

We just launched it. We have

30:30

a politics team. They're covering

30:32

the 2024 election here in the

30:34

United States where we will be

30:36

selecting a president and we will

30:38

be determining who controls Congress and we'll be passing

30:40

all kinds of laws of the state and local

30:42

level. And of course,

30:44

it's an extremely online election and there's

30:47

a bunch of shenanigans. There's

30:50

disinformation. There's

30:52

voter disenfranchisement. There

30:55

are ads made by AI

30:57

that might be deep fakes and might

30:59

not. So it's very juicy and

31:01

it's extremely fun. Most of

31:04

the time I just can't listen to politics stuff

31:06

because it just drives me batty. But

31:08

this is not one of those kinds

31:10

of shows. It's about the technology and

31:12

like the data scraping and the

31:15

bad actors out there who are doing the

31:17

work to try to influence election. And

31:20

it's also about the election itself.

31:22

So I can't recommend it

31:24

highly enough if you have room

31:26

in your brain for another politics podcast. This is

31:28

the one to add. Wired Politics

31:31

Lab. And I love that

31:33

they went with lab with the name. That's right.

31:35

We're keeping it consistent here. And tell us what

31:37

the first episode is about. The first episode

31:39

is about voter

31:42

rights issues and

31:44

how companies are using technology

31:46

to try to get people

31:49

off voter rolls and

31:52

to make tools that make it easy

31:54

for local political organizations

31:56

to challenge people's

31:58

right to vote. vote. The

32:01

second episode is about RFK Jr. and

32:03

his platform and all of the conspiracies

32:05

that he believes in. So yeah, that's

32:07

good stuff. Yeah, I really enjoyed the

32:09

first one with Leah. Leah Feiger and David Gilbert

32:12

and Tori Elliott and McKenna Kelly is a part

32:14

of that team as well. Yep. So

32:16

if you've listened to the show for a

32:18

while, you will recognize some of the people

32:21

who are on Politics Lab and if you

32:23

listened to our feed last week, you heard

32:25

the first episode and I introduced it. So

32:27

definitely go subscribe. It's a great time. Alright,

32:31

well that is our show for this week. Alan,

32:33

thanks for joining us again. Always.

32:35

Thanks for having me. I will happily come

32:37

back anytime. Great. And

32:40

can I just give a quick shout out by the

32:42

way to our excellent producer Boon Ashworth who we thank

32:44

every week but I want to give him a special

32:46

thank you because we're currently in a

32:48

new studio. We just moved offices at

32:50

Wired. We had to basically

32:53

rebuild the podcast studio from scratch

32:55

and when I say we, I

32:57

really mean Arthur, our

32:59

amazing colleague, but Boon and you, Mike,

33:01

who just like just put this podcast

33:03

studio together in about a day. So

33:06

thanks to you guys and right now

33:08

we're in the library actually so we're

33:10

staring at these this amazing assortment of

33:12

old Wired spines and those of you

33:15

who are longtime subscribers know the spines

33:17

are a trademark feature of Wired. It's

33:19

super cool. Yeah, three colorful. It's a

33:21

great room. Thanks. So thanks guys. Of

33:23

course. Do it all for the pod. All

33:27

right. Well, thank you all for listening.

33:29

If you had feedback, you can bark at all of

33:31

us on air chat. Just check the show notes. No

33:34

DMs. We have to talk in public. Our

33:36

producer, as Lauren just mentioned, is the excellent

33:38

Boon Ashworth. We will be back next week

33:40

with a new show and until then. I

33:48

LOL. Look, I typed LOL and I

33:50

LOL. And LOL,

33:52

you LOL'd IRL? I

33:55

did. But did you lamell? I

33:57

didn't lamell. I went. Okay,

34:02

let's record some content. Okay,

34:06

here's the... Now

34:11

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