The Gargle - AI vs Mumsnet | Chicken cop | Bipolar diet

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Support Bugle podcasts here https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donateJosh Gondelman and James Nokise join host Alice Fraser for episode 175 of The Gargle.All of the news, with none of the politics.👩��👧‍👦 OpenAI vs Mumsnet🐓 Chicken cop🧠 Diet vs bipolar📈 AI online prices🍦 ReviewsWatch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@BuglePodcastWritten by Alice Fraser, Josh Gondelman and James NokiseProduced by Ped Hunter, with executive production from Chris SkinnerHOW TO SUPPORT THE GARGLE- Keep The Gargle alive and well by joining Team Bugle with a one-off payment, or become a Team Bugler or Super Bugler to receive extra bonus treats!https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donate Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. This is a podcast from The Bugle. Exterior, blackstone abbey night. The moon hangs low in the sky, an ancient sentinel casting pale light over the dense mist that clings to the earth like a shroud. A biting wind howls through the towering trees of a forgotten forest, rattling the skeletal

branches that loom over the winding path. And at the end of that path, a brooding stone abbey emerges from the fog. Blackstone Abbey, a crumbling fortress of faith and mystery, its gargoyles seeming to watch with cold, unblinking eyes. Superimposed text. England 1367. Interior. Blackstone Abbey.

Chapel. Night. Candles lined the shadowed walls, their weak flames barely holding back the darkness. The chapel is vast, echoing with the whispers of long-dead monks, forgotten prayers lingering in the cold air. At the altar, a blood-red cloth is draped, concealing something beneath it. The abbot, aged and weary, kneels before the altar, his hands trembling as they clutch a rusted key.

His eyes are closed in fervent prayer, but fear flickers behind his lids. Suddenly the great wooden doors creak open. A gust of wind extinguishes the candles in a breath. Darkness descends. A man in a hooded cloak slips in silent as death. The abbot sensing his presence opens his eyes before he can react. Flash! A blade gleams in the moonlight. The hooded figure strikes and gushing from the abbot comes The Gargle! Welcome to The Gargle, the Sonic glossy magazine to the Bugles audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm your host, Alice Fraser, and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine

are James Nukise and Josh Gondelman and my small angry son. James, how are you going? The voice of the people. That's good. James, how are you going? That's good and this is why I don't keep any of my children in the house at all. I'm sure they're doing well on the street. Outside children is the way to go. You know, once you let them indoors they get used to it. Josh, how are you?

I'm doing well thank you. My small angry dog is nestled comfortably on the couch with my wife as she works in the living room. Well before we plunge into this week's top stories let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine. This week the front cover is Hugh Jackman styled as a glamorous cat burglar in a cinematic shoot directed by Baslom and the theme is called The Heist of the Heart and features him alongside a Chanel clad Timothée Chalamet in a fashion narrative reminiscent of a Hitchcock film. The satirical cartoon this week is just a blank page. Everything's become too satirical to be satirized, unfortunately, for us all. It's a real shame. It's a real shame because I, for one, quite enjoy satirizing

things. What about you guys? Oh, I don't touch this stuff. It's all sincerity for me. This week's top story is two big bad guys going up against each other in the predator versus alien of the internet world. This is the news that open AI has gone up against Mumsnet. Josh Gondelman, you are open to AI. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, thank you. So I had to do a little extra research to unpack this,

because Mumsnet is not quite as native over here. So there's been some conflict between OpenAI, the internet's best funded plagiarism robot, and Mumsnet, which as I understand it, Americanly, is an internet forum for British transphobes who happen to have children. Apparently, a parenting forum Mumsnet caught when that OpenAI was scraping its data, not

sure why. Maybe it wanted a chatbot that would mimic 100 people screaming at you about what you decide to feed your children no matter what that item is. Mumsnet tried to strike a deal with the tech giant who pulled out an act which is antithetical to the very existence of a parenting forum. Mumsnet is now threatening to sue OpenAI, which should be exciting for them

because the legal filings will give OpenAI hundreds of pages of new documents to mine for data. Yeah, James Nukisi, whose side are you on in this epic battle? Well look, we've all been there. I think who amongst us hasn't hooked up with a mum and thought, you know, this could lead somewhere and then actually had to think about it and go on, oh, this might be a bit too much drama for me.

I don't know if I want that much data floating around. And then suddenly a whole bunch of moms, a threatening litigation against you. And you're like, maybe I should stop going to kindergartens to go on dates. I don't even have a kid. I just keep telling people I leave my kids outside, but they don't exist. It's just a chat up line I'm using.

I'm actually a psychopath, which in many ways is how open AI has been described. So look, on the one hand, having spent time in the UK and supporting queer rights, I really don't want to be on the side of MUNSnet. On the other hand, being a human being, very difficult to be on the side of MUNSnet. On the other hand, being a human being, very difficult to be on the side of open AI. I think Alice, you brought up Alien versus Predator earlier, which is also a touchstone that popped up in my mind. I remember the tagline for that movie was, whoever wins, we lose. Yeah, yeah, I feel like that's good. I mean look if they if they manage to moderate each other into slightly less Reprehensible behavior. I think that would be a good thing. Mom's now of course comes out of Manchester

I believe making them the second most aggressive export from Manchester after Oasis Mom's net is what mom's net is what happens when you take a whole bunch of women who haven't had a lot of time in their lives to sit down and think about life and then feed them an unholy cocktail of sleeplessness and hormones and then set them loose on the internet to give each other advice about how to do the thing they're all doing badly. Well, this is what I'm worried about is both outcomes seem to lead to an AI version of Mumsnet. So it's like the mumminator, right, is going to just emerge from this. And that's what I'm worried about.

Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by the Newt. The Newt. The world's wettest philosopher. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Sandwich Socks. These are tiny patterned socks designed specifically for sandwiches. Each sock features a different design like polka dots or animal prints to keep your sandwiches warm and stylish.

The marketing slogan could be, dress your lunch for success. But it isn't. The marketing slogan is, socks for your sandwiches. Who doesn't want their PB&J to sport a trendy outfit? And am I just a collection of molecules craving more molecules? Deep questions, shallow answers, answered by half a glass of water. With each gulp you'll feel your thirst momentarily quenched, only to crave more. Forever. That's right, water. Just half a crystal clear thirstifying glass of the good stuff, straight from wherever water comes from. Don't think about it too much, it's probably dinosaurs.

But wait, there's more! If you call within the next 30 seconds we'll include another half a glass of water because one is never enough. Water is the thirst trap you didn't know you needed. Half a glass of water for when your existential thirst meets your actual thirst. And that brings us to our next top story. This is the news that a San Francisco cop is dressing as a chicken to catch law-breaking motorists. James Nukise, you've dressed as a chicken before. Can you unpack this story for us? I thought we were going to talk about that, Alice, but thanks for ruining the friendship just for a story. Yes, look, in chicken news, of which I'm always excited, and this is my specialty, in San Francisco, in an effort to catch motorists who are breaking the law,

the law in question being that you must always stop for pedestrians, a San Francisco police lieutenant, lieutenant, which is an American version of the word lieutenant, or lieutenant, depending on whether you're in the cops or the Navy. Jonathan Ozel, a cop in San Fran, dressed as a giant chicken, apparently because the amphetamines were kicking in.

I need to know this first. Was he dressed as a giant chicken or was he dressed as a normal chicken but the costume was unconvincing because he's bigger than a normal chicken? Was the costume meant to be a convincing chicken that happened to be oversized or is he actually dressing as a giant chicken? This is relevant. It's not. For our listeners of this audio format, if you are familiar with the inflatable costume where the bottom half is a horse and the top half is you. So you look like you are riding a horse and it's sort of cartoonish.

That kind of inflatable costume that you have on. It's that. But it's a chicken. It's a rooster, actually, with glasses. So I would say that means giant chicken, right? Because he wouldn't be riding a regular chicken. Well, it's an interesting costume because he's got tiny legs at the top. So it looks like he's a small man with a chicken costume. Yes, to be clear, there's a rooster on the bottom

and you are on top. So you're essentially a cock top. That's... Yeah, you're cock heavy. Is that what that means? It's... We might be having a translation issue. That's, that's, if you go to San Francisco and you say you want a cock top, that's normally

what you get. I believe that's. A flatable chicken costume that you are on the top of and it is on the bottom of. Yeah, that's, that's, that's what I'm asking for. I just have always lived on the East Coast, So on America's East Coast, it means a different thing. If you show up and you say, hi, I'm from the Pacific, I'd like a cock top. Generally everyone greets you with a smile and a handshake in San Francisco.

I would like a cop in a crop top atop a cock, please. Thank you. So he crossed the road, the chicken crossed the road and motorists, some stopped and some didn't. And that's when the chickens friends, which is the part of the joke that no one ever does except for the purists, go and flagged him out. And the friends being one cop on a motorcycle and another cop in a car just in case the drivers fled the giant chicken

and went down an alleyway I guess. There's an amazing quote here which says if you don't see someone in a giant chicken costume then we really have a problem. So I'm not sure if the test was stopping for the person crossing the road or acknowledging that you were seeing a giant chicken. Because if a cop pulled you over and you saw a cop in a giant chicken costume, would you acknowledge to them that you were seeing a giant chicken or would you just not acknowledge it, scared that they would think that you were on drugs and then search like because that sounds like entrapment to me. Why?

Because all the cop has to do is go what chicken and then search the back of your car and plant the crack. James, you called it. That's why the chicken crossed the road entrapment. We know it now. And I do think this is San Francisco and I'm fully with you that many drivers probably were like, Oh, that's probably not a chicken. I copped in a chicken suit. That's just my acid peeking. I should get home quickly. Anecdotally, right, the

officer says that people are starting to drive more carefully since they've started this program. But like police officers in America often anecdotally say that they have had a seizure after laying eyes on fentanyl. So I take those anecdotes with a grain of salt. But hopefully this does make the roads of San Francisco safer, right?

Because motorists injuring or killing pedestrians is a real problem. And so hopefully this outfit, this kind of costume-based policing is helpful for the community. And maybe next, the police can figure out what outfits civilians can wear to ensure that police don't hit them. And then we'll have really solved a problem. Often this is how new slang comes about.

And I'm looking forward to people just going, hey, watch it out there on them streets. You know, the chickens be out there. Mike was driving home, saw a chicken on East on 4th. Or that was my attempt at an a chicken on East on 4th. Or that was my attempt at an American street. I have no clue. Very good.

East on 4th, right? That's how they say it. East on 4th, yeah. Yeah. The block is clogged. And that brings us to our reviews section. As you know, each week our guest editors review something out of five stars. James Nukese, what have you brought in for us this week?

Thank you very much, Alice. I have brought in the current state of the New Zealand men's rugby team. Very controversial thing to review publicly and internationally. The All Blacks, that is the name of our rugby team, Josh, just in case you, as a New York resident, thought that this was going to take a very dark turn. The All Blacks have just barely beaten Australia, which is our old nemesis. Again, Josh, not nemesis necessarily in an American conflict way. They bowled a cricket ball underarm to us

in 1981 and we haven't forgiven them. So they've barely won that. They've lost to Argentina, renowned rugby powerhouse Argentina. They've lost to South Africa, which is a bit more expected because New Zealand only likes to lose to countries which have a slightly darker race relations internally than we do. We famously lost them in 1995 and blamed it on food poisoning because we are oppressed. Right now they're under a new coach, Scott Robertson. They bring in some old players. There's a lot of technical rugby stuff coming in There's a lot of technical rugby stuff coming in that I know the, the podcasts, seven, uh, us fans who are also into rugby, uh, will appreciate. Um, but a key factor is they're losing, uh, and barely winning. It's a tough year.

Um, I'd normally give them, uh, two stars, but my cousin, Arty, God bless him, uh, is, uh, the captain, um, some days, some days he's, he's not the captain some days. Some days, he's not the captain most days these days. He was the captain for quite a bit last year, but then they lost a world cup. And so now he's just the captain occasionally. So I'm gonna give them three stars, two for performance and as is the New Zealand way,

one for a family member who may or may not acknowledge me in the streets of Wellington. Beautiful three stars for the All Blacks performance this season. Of course the All Blacks as a concept, five stars from every New Zealander at every opportunity. Josh Gondelman, what have you brought in for us this week? I brought in not eating ice cream. Not eating ice cream has a number of positive outcomes. You don't feel full from eating too much ice cream. Not eating ice cream has a number of positive outcomes. You don't feel full

from eating too much ice cream or sick from consuming a chihuahua sized amount of dairy. You also save money, which is I think a nice thing to do, right? Because my apartment is right near one of those gourmet ice cream shops where all the flavors are like Caprice salad and it costs $13 per scoop. Plus if you don't eat ice cream you're not at risk of dropping your ice cream scoop off the cone and ruining your whole day in kind of a visual metaphor fashion. Unfortunately, not eating ice cream means you don't get any ice cream, so one star. So one star. One star for no ice cream.

What a shameful and yet healthful experience. Pregnancy. In other health and eating news, this top story is the news that apparently bipolar disorder is not just a disease of the mind, it's also a disease of your friends telling you that what you're eating is wrong. Otherwise known as a metabolically linked disorder

that is affected by things like sunlight and sleep and what you eat. Josh Gondelman, you've eaten food before. Can you unpack this story for us? Would love to. So a new study out of Scotland suggests that bipolar depression may be linked to physical conditions, not just brain chemistry.

So at long last, scientists have discovered a link between what's happening to someone's body and how it feels, which is mind blowing. A sensitivity to light was one sign mentioned that someone might be approaching a manic state when they are living with bipolar depression. An extreme sensitivity to light, however, means what it always has meant, vampire. Researchers have theorized that a low carb high fat diet may help treat bipolar depression, but it may also lead to an unpleasant side effect known medically as biorea. It is really interesting to think about treating things this way, right? Because they did, it was a pretty small study, about 27 people, which is less of a study and more of a party,

but in which a third of participants felt more stable after eight weeks on a keto diet. Although their manic impulsiveness did return, manifesting as an inability to stop talking about the benefits of a keto diet. Look, I'll be honest. I always thought it was the cocaine. I never realized it was actually the other stuff I was putting in my body. But it's good to know that the mania and the sensitivity to light and what people would call one person's bipolar diagnosis is another person's undiagnosed heavy drug use habit from the 20s living in North London. But as I've said before, Alice, we've all been there.

And it's comforting to know that we can fix it all with diet. I've often tried a healthy diet of cake. Just no matter the situation, cake. I mean, this is the problem. Sometimes cake is the correct choice for your mental health. And as we've just discovered, mental and physical health are so strongly linked that maybe if you just put some yogurt on the cake, it'll balance your gut biome.

Josh? I've found, and this is a secondhand research I've done, cocaine rarely helps people's mental state, nor the mental state of the people around them. So I think, yeah, but I do think cake has often raised the floor of my mental condition, which I think means to cover all our bases, we need to cover all our bases, we need keto friendly cakes, which I think is a filet mignon. Yeah, I think that's a hamburger. That is a keto friendly cake. Yeah, hamburger, but you feed the bun to the ducks.

That's a good mental and physical health combination, I think. When KFC did a burger, so I've heard rumors in the past in the past of, um, one that was like chicken and then a slice of bacon and then chicken. I think I believe, I believe I'd heard a rumor. It was called the double down. It was called the double. I tried it for science. Uh, it was briefly tremendous for my mental state and then immediately

catastrophic for my physical state, which then had a cyclical effect on the mental state and then immediately catastrophic for my physical state. Which then had a cyclical effect on the mental state. This is an incredibly true and embarrassing story, but when the Double Down came out in New Zealand, it was so popular. There were lines for blocks, blocks in Wellington, you know, the political capital, the woke, the woke capital of New Zealand, the bubble that you lefties need to get out of. We're lining up for about three to four blocks from the cinema where they did Lord of the Rings premiere to get two bits of chicken with a slice of bacon in the middle.

And they ran out. KFC ran out and people almost lost their minds because it turns out an absence of the double down is terrible for people's mental health. That's why I, I've been micro downing. That's when I eat a little bit of a double down every day just to keep myself level. And that brings us to our final story, which is the news that AI is going to get way better at screwing you out of your cash. At the moment, we are subject to what are called black boxes for price decision making, the kind of thing where you check the price of a flight and then when you check it again, it's gone up in order to make you buy it.

That is now going to be optimized by AI. James Nookie say you've bought a flight that was too expensive before. Can you unpack this story for us? It's actually my lifestyle choice, Alice. I don't know if you've ever been a full-time artist traveling the world world but buying over priced flights.

Oh, what a living. This is a dark and terrifying story. So I'm going to try and make it as light and uncomplicated as possible. But basically those black boxes you're talking about in terms of controlling algorithms and looking at what people are paying and regulating it, they're semi-autonomous and it turns out that they may in fact be talking to each other. And there's a genuine danger of them working with and off each other to raise the prices up. And that's something that the UK's, one of the UK's watchdogs, which are the

sort of the people who look at the markets and ways in which the market might be manipulated are trying to counteract. So what essentially we're talking about is Terminator if it was made by the guy who did the big short. So instead of like guns and nukes and that, we all just slowly go broke from ever rising prices. Now for people in the UK who are living in a cost of living crisis, they might be going, aha, that article on mum's net was correct. The algorithm boxes are working against us. We've got university professors, Professor Emilio Calvano, who's an economist, who specializes in algorithms and competition, which is something you can get a degree in.

And he's saying that the information that they're seeing is that it's very vulnerable. The market is very vulnerable to black boxes, computer black boxes working together to raise the prices. Now there's nothing in these studies that says what happens if you just buy the flights on a private window. That you just, you open a private window and then you buy the flights.

Cause that's often how the rest of us have gotten around this, which of course is the only thing that you use a private window for. There are concerns that as artificial intelligence gets even better and gets more improved and gets more data sets, that it's all because it's geared towards getting the most money for investors, it's just going to get worse and worse and might not be able to be picked because it's very hard to, you know, companies aren't open with this stuff. Give me your jacket, your boots and your motorcycle. That's a very famous scene from a movie. He's nude if you remember Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's nude and then he asks for his jacket, his boots and his motorcycle. And then he rides off on the motorcycle with no pants on.

That's the one where he plays an Amazon delivery guy, right? Jacket, boots and motorcycle are about to be how much a plane ticket costs. And when you consider that some of the like the biggest fine I think that that's come out as about 160,000 pounds which is also the cost of a flight to the Marshall Islands from Scotland I discovered earlier this year and So it's the fines aren't really matching what's going on. So again apologize to users There's not many jokes this particular story because it is kind of the more I read it. I was like, oh, this is terrifying particular story because it is kind of the more I read it, I was like, Oh, this is terrifying. That is bad. On the bright side, the other thing is that AI uses so much energy that will probably drive up the prices of the flights just sort of orthogonally as well.

Not just manipulating the market, but also eating up the market. Josh? The bonger here, right, is that some for some websites, AI could have helped to set prices for products that worked in the consumer's favor, but because it's 2024, why would anything be good? What one outcome could have been is algorithms attempting to undercut competitors, lowering prices. But what's really happening is that these algorithms are coming together to raise prices,

which is difficult for me because I love teamwork, but I hate dystopia. So it's like kind of like, oh, you know, it's a tough way in one against the other. If I'd learned anything about dystopias, it's that teenagers fall in love during them. Oh, you know what, maybe I'm for dystopia then. They deserve it. Let's open their hearts.

How else do you expect them to come of age? Yeah, they're gonna do it the way I did it. Y2K. I love when people warn that there might be a dark side to AI. It's all dark side. It's dark side and darker side. When you leave a cookie in the oven for too long, the top side is dark,

the bottom side is way too dark. The real question is, right with AI, it's the dark side, darker side. It's does this make me feel horrible or will it end my life? And those are the two outcomes. And we just want to make clear on behalf of the gargoyle that we are not against AI relationships. All right.

We don't want to keep these AI black boxes from getting together. If they meet each other, you know, star crossed AI, you know, more, more power to them, we're just saying that there are inherent dangers between them manipulating the market and causing prices to collapse. So sometimes when you're a kid, you don't realize that your romance is a tragedy. I don't care what AI does in its own black box. I just don't want to throw it in my face. The invisible hand of the market is wrist deep in a black box. Fiddling the tiles. And that brings me to the end of this week's episode of The Gargle.

And flipping through the ad section at the back, James Nookie say, have you got anything to plug? If people who can follow me on Twitter and Instagram or X as I believe they still want us to try and call it but we're not. In November I'm going to be launching a new podcast which I cannot tell you about and is not very funny but it's a very deep investigative series into the Pacific. So if you followed me on this before and you want to find out more interesting tales

from the Pacific, I'll have something new for you, which is a combined series between ABC Radio Australia and Radio New Zealand, which I highly recommend doing a show produced by two massive broadcasting companies. Oh, so good for your stress levels. Absolutely not complicated at all. As someone who helped you read through the initial contract, I concur.

Ha ha ha ha. Josh, have you got anything to plug? Yes, I write a newsletter every Monday called That's Marvelous. It's full of pep talks and jokes and all your Josh Gondelman news. It's joshgondelman.substack.com. In that'll tell you where I'm on the road. I know in late November, early December, I'll be throughout the Northeast in the US touring with Amy Mann and Ted Leo's Christmas show. So it'll be Amy, Ted, Paul F. Tompkins, me, Nellie McKay, and then some other I think guests. I'm so psyched

for those shows. And then I have a stand-up special that I just finished the edit of this week that hopefully will be out this fall. But subscribe to the newsletter for more info if you'd like to hear me speak uninterrupted for roughly an hour. Always, always. Thank you, Alex. If you are in Tokyo, there are a few places remaining for my afternoon intensive workshop in Tokyo on the 12th of October. If you want to come and write something with me and I will help make your thing better and help get it out into the world, go to linktree.alicefraser. That's linktree.alicefraser and you can put your name into the application form and come

along on the 12th of October in Tokyo. The Writers Retreat in Switzerland and the Writers Intensive Afternoon in London both were incredibly successful and I've got a bunch of testimonials and things going up. If you're wavering as to how great I am, I'm about to start telling people how great I am. Patreon.com slash Alice Fraser if you want to join the weekly Writers Meetings. We do two Writers Meetings a week on zoom and we're going to start doing some more in different time zones if you haven't been able to make the time zones work that's patreon.com slash alice phraser my book is coming out on the 6th of february it's called a passion for passion and it's available on unbound.com i'll also be doing a bit of a tour around the uk uh Australia and possibly the US into 2025 so keep

your eyes, ears, sensory organs open for news of that probably on this channel also on all of the social media. This is a Bugle podcast and Alice Fraser production your editor is Ped Hunter, your executive producer is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from the Bugle including the Bugle, Ped Hunter, your executive producer, is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from The Bugle, including The Bugle, Catharsis, Tiny Revolutions, Top Stories, and The Gargle,

wherever you find your podcasts. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing the risk of heart disease to go up. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca