Tomorrow - Google's New Orders

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

This week, if you have $20 Billion laying around, Google may have the perfect holiday gift for your loved ones. Trump has ironically appointed two CEOs for one position in Government Efficiency. Also, even the Apple marketing team seems stuck on what's exciting about the iPhone's new AI features. Have a great Thanksgiving, all. And we'll be back Dec 5th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, and welcome to tomorrow. I'm your host, Joshua Topolsky. And I'm your other host, Ronnie Mola. And we're back. There's a lot going on. We're back. And the world is shifting rapidly, moving forward rapidly towards a glorious new state of being. Just a lot going on in America right now. A lot of a lot of news really reminds you of when Trump was president. And it was like every day there

was just like a barrage of insane news. You're like, what is going on? Why is this happening? I think people are going to soon come to miss the quiet, sleepy days of sleepy Joe Biden. I think we're going to really, we're going to be, we're all going to be longing for a nap very soon. That's my impression. Need nap Trump. What's impression. Need nap Trump.

What's that? Need nap Trump. Yeah. What's going on in the world? What's the big news this week, Rani? Well, the big news actually was something that was happening during the last Trump administration. The government brought its case against Google. More recently, during Biden's administration.

They found that Google was a search monopoly and Bloomberg recently reported that one of the remedies that the Justice Department is going to seek is that they want Google to get rid of Chrome. It's browser. It's the way you get onto Google and then you use the search bar and then they see what you're looking for and then they serve you ads against it. Kind of like the basis of all the money machine. Yeah. I want to just see while we're talking about this. Browser. Let's see. What am I

looking for? Browser? Market share? Market share, yeah. browser, let's see, what am I looking for, browser? Harjes? Kline? Market share, yeah. Harjes? Yeah, in the U.S. I think it's something like 60%, around 60% market share. Yeah, I'm looking at a Wikipedia entry here. Stat counter has it.

Yeah, well, there's a bunch of different, there's a bunch of different sources here, but net market share and stack counter. Net market share says 66%. Stack counter says 64.7%, 8%. Wikimedia, which I assume is their own analytics, says 52.5%. Regardless, the next runner up is Apple Safari, which has 13%. Right, and if you look at the, that's the browser market

share, but then if you look at the search engine market share, the thing underneath that, you know, then it's more like 90% for Google. But that's sort of like, okay, but Chrome, I mean, just to back up here, Chrome, the browser is very popular and it's very useful and works pretty well. And I would say they do have something of a monopoly, but I feel like the monopoly is derived from them having created like, I mean, I guess like to begin with a better browser, because I do feel like I had a different, I was using a different browser when Chrome came up, when it came around. What were you using back then?

I was using like, I mean, so I might have been using, no, no, Safari didn't exist. I mean, pre Chrome, I mean, I might have been using God, I mean, I don't know, Opera. I mean, no, what was like, what was the prevailing, the leading browser? I mean, I might have been using like, oh, Firefox. It was Firefox, right? Yeah, Firefox. Sorry, I didn't hear you. No, I was using Firefox and like, it was fine.

And then Chrome came around, it was like, oh, well, this is way better. Like the browsing experience, like it didn't matter that it was made by Google or not. It wasn't like suddenly I was using Google to search. I had been using Google to search. It wasn't like suddenly the integration was so great that, you know, you could not use it. It was just like, it was faster and it like worked better. It was like better designed and had like better ideas.

I think like if you're going after Google for search, the browser seems like the obvious answer. It's sort of like in a way, like I think about, um, it's like, you know, when sometimes when companies do layoffs, they like, they'll like, you know, be like, well, who are, who's the highest, who are the highest paid employees? And then be like, okay, like, can you, can you cut off a few of the highest paid employees? And then you don't have to worry about these mid or lower level employees? You can save some of those jobs. I think this is a similar tactic. What's a big target that has, we could say pretty clearly, it's got some kind of footprint, more than 50% market share and then that presumably would like lead people to what like I mean Chrome would be what bought by somebody would be a separate company.

Yeah the idea is that someone would pay you know 20 billion dollars for Chrome and but as as the charter folks over at Chirwood pointed out you know like only a few people could foot that bill and then those same people who could foot the bill would also have their own anti-drug problems. Well, well, maybe though, I mean, because Apple could buy it and then turn it into Safari. But then Apple doesn't run search, doesn't have search, right? Right. So like they might use Google search underlying it all in the first place, and then that won't break up the search monopoly. Well, I mean, I think what makes sense that would happen is that no one's going to stop using Google search because the browser is owned by somebody else.

You could set a default search engine to be the default. And that was one of the big things in the case. We found out that Google was paying Apple, for example, you know, billions and billions of dollars in order to be the default search on Safari. And same thing with Samsung phones. So like they were paying for that pride of place. If, if, if, right. I mean, if Google, if you really wanted to break up Google's monopoly search monopoly,

you would really, you kind of have to go after their ad business, right? Probably the most effective thing you could do if you were trying to break up Google's search dominance is you would say, you're not allowed to run this ad business and the search business. You can run the search business, you can partner with people who run ads, but you can't run them together, basically, right And or you have to dis you have to distance some way like how like the ads work versus your search right like basically maybe like say you have to open up like the ad opportunity to multiple partners, right and so

Like that who knows that might happen in their whole other like antitrust case that's also going on. Yeah, I mean, this is the thing. Why is search, where is the search dominance derived from? One is like, for a long time it was just simply better, right? So people use it because there was a sense that it was a better experience. But yes, but, yes, but. I mean, has anybody empirically proven that any of the other search engines are that much better? Like, is there empirical information that exists to say, my search results on DuckDuckGo are more satisfying

than my search results on Google? Because I think a lot of people who use Google get exactly what they want. And I'll be honest with you, and this is probably sacrilege to say, but a lot of the stuff they do, where they excerpt things, or they snip things, or they show you a little bit of a Wikipedia page instead of you having to go there. They can just publish your article above the length of the article.

It's all bad. It's all bad for all of the businesses that live underneath search. But in terms of a user experience, I'm a person. I want some information. I need it as quickly as I can get it. I don't want to have to go spelunking down into random places to find it.

It is actually a better experience in a lot of ways. It is not a better experience in a lot of other ways, but like there are places where what they've done, which is monopolistic in its practice, is actually a better experience for users. And if you were to break it up in a way, if you were to say, like, you can't do that. I mean, one thing you could go after with them

that seems really easy is, like, you're not allowed to pull other people's content and put it up onto your pages. Like, a really easy one to me seems like you can't look at another website and then reproduce the content in a Google search. Like, you can show people where the content is, but you can't show them the content itself.

To me, that would be really a big no-brainer in terms of their monopoly. But then you wouldn't get those really convenient AI blurbs. It would be a worse user experience. And I think the argument, you were just saying that, I don't know if there's empirical evidence that the other ones are better now, but I think the argument is that because they've kind of

kept a stranglehold on this for so long, they've paid to be on Safari, et cetera. No one's gotten a chance to be better. There's not been the correct competition to have a better browser, or sorry, a search engine out there. What's stopping Apple from creating a search engine, from buying a DuckDuckGo and putting it into as the default search engine in Safari?

I mean, I understand. Do you see Apple's getting into ads? Maybe they're gonna. I mean, I'm sure. I mean, Apple's been doing ads for a long time. They've had an ad network, but like, and that's been a long standing thing they've been doing. But the reality is, like, why? What is stopping them?

You know, one of the most valuable. What does it mean? Microsoft has a search engine, right? It's like, why? What is there? Why can't they get market penetration? Is it because they? Is it because, like, Google has monopoly?

Or is it because their search isn't as good? I think their search isn't as good. That's what I think. And I think if it was good, and I don't want to be like Mr. Free Market, I don't think it's monopolistic practices that keep people using Google search. I actually don't. I think it's the quality of the content they receive in the way they receive it.

People don't change anything. They use whatever's on their phone or, you know, computer to read with. People do change. People change a lot, actually. Not normies. Normies don't change. Like, mom's not going to change her search settings on Safari. Y'all went from Firefox to Chrome. I mean, yeah, your mom's not going to change the search settings in Safari or whatever. But that's not the kind of change we're talking about. We're talking about, you had a Blackberry and then you're like, oh no, I want an iPhone.

Now everybody has an iPhone. Like you had Firefox and now you have Chrome. People do make changes, you know, you had a Internal combustion engine car and now you have electric or a hybrid like people definitely adopt new things I don't think it's like beyond the consumer to say like hey, there's a better option, right? Like like I think a good example would be like social networks, right like Like, social networks, right? Like, clearly Instagram is trying to fight the popularity of TikTok.

TikTok has become a real threat to Instagram because people seem to like what they're doing better than what they're getting on Instagram in some way. Not saying that it has the same size audience, but it's growing, it's definitely a threat. People will move on to things. And I think like the question is for, when you think about the monopoly,

the question is what is it about the situation that makes it a monopoly? I understand it's like, well, they have a certain amount of market share, but if the market share was earned, yeah, I mean, there are instances where they're like, hey, we're paying whoever you know, whoever for to use our search engine, or, you know, we've made it like the

default on our Android devices or whatever. It's like, sure, but there is nothing stopping an Apple or a Microsoft from being competitive in the space. Apple in particular, like, could absolutely be competitive if they had a great search engine, and they made it the default on all of their devices. You know, like Safari's browser share is not that shabby. Right, and if they opted to have their own search engine on there, they could obviously.

I mean, for instance, like on mobile, depending on what you look at, it's like 33% market share for Safari on tablet browsing, it's 84% market share for browsing. It's, you know, and this is, I'm looking at this, like, it's different sources here, but varying sources that say, you know, who are you using as your main source for browser?

I was doing stat counter. I think that's counter. Stat counter. I mean, so let's see. Safari, I mean, I find this hard to believe. But they say that Edge, which is Internet Explorer, is 13.5% for desktop. Safari is 18.7% on mobile. Or no, sorry, all browsers. So whatever. But the point is, like, if Apple

invented a better search and like that made like made it like you could only I mean, what would they do? You'd still be able to access it in Chrome. Like Chrome doesn't change things. I mean, this is such a complicated, it's such a complicated problem. Like, I don't think that and again, I'm not defending Google, but I don't think that they just arrived at this through like monopolistic practices. I think they made a better product and nobody's made a better product. I think nobody's like made a better product yet. And maybe their monopoly prevents it.

I'm reading from the opinion that Amit Mehta wrote back in August. After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion, Google is a monopolist and it acted as one to maintain its monopoly. But a monopoly of what? This is the search monopoly.

Search. And the search text ads, I believe. If they wanna break up a search monopoly, then they shouldn't go after the browser. They should go after the actual search itself. So I talked to George Hay, who's this Cornell University law professor and antitrust expert. And he was saying, they don't really want Chrome.

This is what the DOJ is doing, is that they're suggesting something really extreme in hopes of getting something like middling in the end. Like this is a negotiating tactic. Right. Right. Like they're like, we're going to lop off a big exit, a big thing. And then maybe they'll pedal back and be like, okay, we'll get rid of this billion, billions of dollar deal with Apple. For example, the more extreme thing to say a Google, you have to sell off your search division. Like you have Chrome, you have Android, you have all these different products, you have to sell off your search division. Like you have Chrome, you have Android, you

have all these different products, you have enterprise, you do education stuff. You have to basically take the search engine business and get rid of it. They can't do that because that would definitely break up their monopoly. I don't know. I didn't actually think about that before, but then I was but isn't like Google is search right like to Google is to Search like it is it is their business. It's not even like yeah, I don't know Then they then they would have to they should say you have to break up your search you buy. I don't know type category I don't know by like market share and so you have to give like You know, I don't I mean, yeah, like how how do you actually have? What do you do about that? It's like, you can't

really change. I don't think you can change it at this point. I think you need something that's like legitimately better to come along. Like, you know, and I don't know what that is. I honestly don't, you know, I hear people talk about AI search all the time and stuff. But like, I haven't seen anything that has really wowed me. about AI search all the time and stuff, but like, I haven't seen anything that has really wowed me. Actually the, the open AI one, it worked for me for a little bit.

Um, I, I didn't, sorry. The opening with the, with the, like the live news results is actually pretty good. Is it? Yeah. I was impressed by it. Would you switch from Google? Um, if I was like not boiling the ocean every time I asked a dumb question, maybe. Right, exactly. I know. Yeah, I mean, it's like I'm not defending Google, but I'm sort of like I think this is like I mean,

I think we have actually like more troubling like I mean it is Google's fault that the internet sucks. Like don't get me wrong. Like to be clear, their foundational foundational idea and I've said this literally a billion times Yes, and you can check it. It's literally a billion times the the the foundational idea of their business has ruined like Information in the world, but like the real nail on the coffin wasn't Google It was social media and it

was it was it was Mark Zuckerberg basically. We'll have more on this later. A little bit. Sure, sure, sure. I mean, but you know, but like so so so like the problem is so deep. It's so much bigger than a single antitrust case. It's so much bigger than like Google's business practices. Like there needs to be something, there's something that's fundamentally wrong with the whole idea of the whole concept of how we get information. And no one has come up with a solution to make it better.

Like, and like what precedes it? Like what precedes how we gather information? It's like very piecemeal, you know? There's libraries and there's like- For now. Well, no, I and there's like, um, for now. Well, no, I'm just saying like proceeding Google search. Like if you wanted to know something, you could read a book about it. You could go to a library and find books about it. You could like probably find,

you could look at old newspapers. It did make search like markedly amazingly better. I just, then it got cluttered up in bad because they like took took advantage of it and you know let the system like well they paid ads are going to the top and it's sort of you know it yeah had a peak and then went down. It's a system that can be gamed for profit and that's like what has happened is it's been game their profit for their profit right but also for the profit of other people. Like, I mean, sure, SEO, to be clear, to be clear, like, right, there are businesses that

exist today. There are websites full of content that would not exist if it were not possible for them to make money off of producing garbage. And it drives like the information illiteracy in this country and in this world. It drives misinformation. It drives disinfo. It drives a confused populace. And it is fundamentally not working.

Or it's working for the wrong people. And I don't mean this politically, but what has, and I don't wanna go down a rabbit hole too much here, but what has risen up through this gameable system and through this sort of depression of certain other, certain content is just like a system that's rife for abuse, right?

Rife for misinformation, rife for, just full of like unreliable, unverified slop for lack of a better. I can't wait for AI to get rid of that. And AI, and I know AI is contributing to it now, but I mean, in some ways, like it's honestly like the damage is so much already done that AI is only like an additive element. It may accelerate certain parts of it, but we're already in like a complete crisis.

We're in a complete information crisis. We're in an education crisis. We're in a literacy and media literacy crisis. And it's like, I mean, not to be doom and gloom, but Google can't do anything about it at this point. Like, you'd have to have, I mean, you know, you can break up their monopoly. Somebody else will pick up the same bad, dumb idea.

Like, there would have to be a concerted effort amongst like. Not everyone else owns the whole ad infrastructure around it. You know, they've got the whole shabang. Meta has a massive ad infrastructure and they have billions of users, and that's only growing. That's the prize. People think OpenAI is valuable partially because they probably think they can create

an ecosystem like that, create the framework for the foundation for an ecosystem that can be so big, because scale is all that people care about. Scale is all that matters. You want to talk about something less depressing? No, I don't. Because I don't have anything. I want to talk about something exactly that's depressing. I just think, sorry, just to round out

this conversation about Google. All of this is irrelevant, first off. Because as soon as the Trump administration is installed, these types of cases are not going to proceed in any of the ways that we think they're going to. But that's the weird thing, though. The Trump administration brought this case, but you think... But then now there's like...

He brought it when... We don't know what he's going to be like the second time. He brought it when Sundar Pichai wasn't ready to bend the knee or whatever, you know, you do like in front of royalty. Clearly, all of the tech people are like, all of the tech leadership are on board for Trump and his policies and his desires. That is very, very clear. Right. But that doesn't mean like Trump is going to like do something. Well, can he get from them? I think Trump, I mean, if you look at his presidency previously and his business dealings previously, Trump is like, what can I, what can you do for me? What can I get from you? And so the question to ask is not like, does he believe in, you know,

antitrust? He doesn't give a fuck. No, no, no. But he hasn't been especially kind to Google. Because he thinks Google was like not surfacing like Trump positive Trump stories or some dumb shit like that And so the answer will be they're gonna change the way they have like content moderation They're gonna change how the news algorithm works. So they're gonna you know, whatever, you know, they're gonna Make sure the daily wire gets prominent Placement, you know, but like, you know, I download it just sorry not to go on a tangent I download this speaking of this exact thing this news app called particle. Have you seen it? I have not AI news app It's like oh it like I do all these sources apps. Yeah

Well It's no it's fucking awful And it's the reason it's awful is because it takes every possible news source and Just says yeah, they're all equally they're all equally trustworthy and So what you get I mean nine times out of ten What I have seen is that it has headlines and stories that are unbelievably right-leaning

unbelievably like worded in a right leaning misinformation like heavy. Because it's waiting the slop just as much as it's waiting like real journals. It thinks the daily wire is as valid as a lot of slops. There's a lot of that stuff and it's also very, it's like using, I believe it's using signals from social because it does like quotes from social media related to stories. And those are like, seem to be largely from Twitter, maybe all from Twitter. Twitter is a right-wing, right-leaning website now. It's like verifiably true. It is like from a data perspective, it prefers and gives preference to right wing content. And so what surfaces in this like free and open marketplace of news, of content is like

completely skewed. And it's skewed because there's no filter. And like the filter, if the filter is like a machine going, well, everything's the same, so show them a mixture of this content. What you end up with is the worst if it rises to the top, which is what has happened on social media and what has happened to some degree with Google, which is there's so much of the bad stuff being produced because it can be produced so cheaply and so quickly and without any care that it just floods the marketplace. Anyway, so it's a very bad situation for us.

Unfortunately, the only answer to any of this is education. The reality is no machine, no company, no antitrust case, no single person, no Zuckerberg, none of these people can actually fix this. None of them can fix it. The only thing that can fix the problems that we have with how you get information and how you like perceive it and how you use it is it's like literally education. Right, so I got some bad news for you. Okay, hit me. Well, you've already heard this news, but it was after we recorded last week that the Department of Government E Well, you've already heard this news, but it was after we recorded last week that The Department of Government Efficiency, you know the thing that Trump said doge Elon Doge

Yeah, is actually see appears to be happening. I was like other not there. They're really calling it Doge and They appointed Trump appointed not one but two people, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to the Department of Government Efficiency. And the joke goes, nothing says government efficiency than appointing two people for one job. Two leaders, yeah. That's good. It's good.

And then wasn't there a thing, sorry, not to, maybe you're going to get to this, but Elon Musk. Go ahead. OK, so and it appears also that like Elon Musk is already getting his way his like his his bet on Trump is already working because Trump aides have said that like one of their main priorities this year is to Get federal approval for self driving cars and in one end that sounds good because like obviously a patchwork of state laws That say a bunch of different things,

that's noise for everybody. But the subtext is that they're going to be more lenient federal laws about self-driving cars, which is what Elon Musk has said. Is the whole point of Tesla in the first place? It's not about anything else. It's about the cars driving you. And this is like he's fast-tracked his way to getting there, it seems. Yeah.

Or he's going to fast-track his way. I think it's absolutely fine because I think, no, I mean, I know that there is about roughly half the country that didn't vote for this stuff, but in this case, in this last election, there are many, there are more people that did vote for it and there's a lot of people who just stayed home because they didn't care. And so I think like we should let everybody who is in like Trump's admin, like I think

they should do everything that they say they're going to do. Right. And make the highways like the survival of the fittest. I think we should just see how it is and it'll either be better or worse. It certainly won't be the same. And I think it's like, I think it, look, I have my perspective. I believe that we.

And we have absolutely no choice in the matter now. We have no choice in the matter, but that's sort of like, fine. That's what everybody has asked for by name. And I think we should let the full extent of their desires be expressed over the next four years, if it's only four years. And then I think we should just see how things are in four years. Like if America is a better place and the world is safer and calmer and like man, I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited to see it. What I think is the truth is that

what's going to happen is like a lot of Tesla's are going to start crashing into people like a lot more than we have now. If they want to ease the regulations on self-driving and more and more people are going to experience firsthand like what happens in an unregulated marketplace, like in an unregulated... Like sort of, you know. Marketplace of cars, of work, of roads. Of transportation, unregulated. Interchange.

Or low regulated stuff like that. You know, it's like more doors are gonna fall off planes, like more cars are gonna crash into people unexpectedly, more bridges are gonna collapse. Like these are not like food is going to crash into people unexpectedly, more bridges are going to collapse. These are not like food is going to be, more people are going to get sick from the food they eat. The regulations, you can talk about bureaucracy all you want. And I don't mean this even,

I'm not saying this in a political stance, like Republican, Democrat, whatever, on just pure basic understanding understanding of like why regulations exist. Like almost every regulation that exists has a precedent for why it exists, right? Kids used to work in factories when they were like nine and like they would like get their hands cut off and like machines and factories and that was normal in America. That was normal all over the world and then eventually somebody was like wait a second we shouldn't allow that. This is fucked.

This is not good. We want our kids to have their hands and not be working all day. Instead, they should probably go to school. And there were regulations and laws put in place. Because if the people who ran the factories had their way, they would just keep making new kids. It's not their problem. So anyway, so like, I think Elon Musk should just run with it. I'm excited to see what Doge does. I'm excited to see them dismantle the regulatory bodies of the government. I'm excited to see RFK Jr. get into the,

get into healthcare in America and dismantle protections for people here. I mean, you know, when people are dying of like getting getting sick with polio and measles and on mass, it's not going to be fun. But it is what has been voted for, and I think we should just let it happen. I mean, I think you got to let it happen. I mean, there's nothing we could do. And I think it'll be good for people to remember.

I think the problem is, one of the things about vaccines that is really interesting is, um, there was a study done not that long ago when, when you talk to people who are like vaccine deniers or vaccine skeptics or anti-vax, a lot of their reasoning is like, well, I'm healthy. Like I've been healthy my whole life. Like why should I be putting this like stuff in my body when I'm completely health? And it's like, yeah, well, like one, you were almost all like vaccinated when you were kids before you had it say in

the matter. There's a reason why you're so healthy. And there's a reason why you're healthy. Cause like we, we, we beat diseases, like polio got rid of them. Like we got rid of them through vaccinations and, uh, but they, you know, you forget, people forget, like they're like, why it's always been like this. And it like, why? It's always been like this. And it's like, it hasn't always been like this. Kids were getting their hands chopped off in the factories and people were dying of polio.

And then we fixed it with like medicine and science and regulations. But, you know, I think it'll be cool to see all the Teslas like driving off of like cliffs and into, you know, pedestrians. And I think it'll be an interesting test of whether America likes things getting worse or or not. Not to be too. I don't mean to be too dark, but.

Like, this is just been it's been asked for. So I think we should just see what it's like. You know, I would have said, like, for instance, you know, I might have said,, for instance, I might have said like with school shootings, you know, we tried it with like fewer gun regulations, right? We've been doing it with like, right. Let's try the other way and see if it works. I just say like, let's do four or five years of just trying it the other way and see if it has any effect. You know, we're doing an AB test our lives. Just didn't do an AB test. Exactly.

Let's just try. Okay. Let's just make for four years, two years, just make it like you got to have a registration. You have like a national registration to like own a gun or whatever they were proposing and see what happens. You know, so we'll have to see. We're gonna have to see what happens. You know, we're in the find out phase when the find out phase. And I'm excited to see the results. Not excited like happy, just on the edge of my seat with anticipation. All right, speaking of things, getting worse. Sorry, there's a real tangent. I'm just just thinking, I've been thinking a lot about this. I've sent you a link to one

of the new newish Apple intelligence ads. I've been watching these, so everyone if they would like who has a new-ish iPhone can have Apple intelligence. And all the ads are basically people who are kinda maybe lazy or a little stupid or you know trying to get away with something and then using Apple intelligence to make them look really smart and then like it's like genius so I want you to watch like one of these ads okay here we go it's a man in an office he looks like he's wasting a lot of time. He's maybe procrastinating. He's

writing an email. Okay. I think his original emails better. It's more succinct. But but the idea is that he tells, you know, Apple to rewrite it so that it's more professional, he sends it to his boss or whoever and the boss and it's like, he's actually found a way to pawn off The work on his boss by being so like I'm secret. I'm sequest or whatever Yeah, the message here the message is a message to you, I mean the message seems to be one like You can use this to appear To be intelligent if you're not

Mm-hmm, and also to like get out of work. Is that the plot here? Yeah. And then there's like another one. And I'm not going to make you watch it, but the there's this families at home and I guess the kids remember dad's birthday and they got him some really nice sweet things. And the mother is like, oh, shit, I forgot his

birthday. And so she's in the kitchen and she just asks Apple Intelligence to make like a sweet slide show of the kids would working with dad over the years. And it quickly does it. And then she shows it and she's a great mom. She's a great partner. If she didn't really care about doing this, she does it.

And Apple Intelligence helps her be lazy and do something good. The thing is with both of these, so first off, you know, lazy people using AI to look like geniuses. But like to me, these aren't that interesting of things. Like you could have had ChatGPT rewrite your bad email already. Yeah, but- Or any number of writing tools. Sure, but you're thinking about like you're thinking about like

people like us. I mean, to an average consumer, they don't have any. I mean, it's not like Chad GBT is like that popular. I mean, I think there's a kind of an illusion that like lots of people are using Chad GBT. I don't believe that that's the case. I don't believe lots of people are using Chad GBT in their everyday life. I think that there's a edge case group that's using it. Sure, there are a very small group of people who use it all the time.

People are familiar with it. But obviously, having it on your iPhone means that many more people will do it. But you could have also made, I don't know if you have, anyone who's had an iPhone in the past like you know five years like they automatically make you these little montages of your photos with music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like the worst.

If the marketing team behind Apple like the biggest like if they have like if they're sitting there like okay how are we gonna impress the masses? How are we gonna impress people like with what the Apple intelligence can do? And they're taking things that have already been done for a really long time, maybe better. And these are their moonshots. These are the best examples they could give are things that already exist and are minor time savers and just kind of convey people as like lazy and a little dumb. I don't know. I was really unimpressed.

I mean, they're unimpressive. They suggest things that are like in a way like, it's like Apple hates their customers. Well, I mean, I think it's like it sounds like, you know, they feel like their customers are I mean, some of their customers are like, I mean, maybe we're supposed to relate, maybe I'm supposed to relate to this one that I just watched, which is like, this guy's like, he's procrastinating,

he doesn't wanna do this task or whatever, and then he like pawns it off on his boss to do. Now, like I think probably any boss that had like half a brain would be like, um, no you do it It doesn't work. It doesn't work like that Like I don't think these guys are equals the boss seems to be sitting in an office and this guy's sitting out a bunch of Like with a bunch of other deaths. So presumably he is like this is you know, I Mean, I would be like yeah, dude, like you can't just get out of work and give it back to me

This seems like a like this guy's on a on a path to getting his ass fired. So so I'm not sure what the message is like. It's like it'll make you do things that are like make you seem like you can write in English better but like aren't necessarily that ultimately like a good idea. I guess. Yeah, the takeaway is like, hey, it'll help you get out of work. Yeah, they're all kind of like this. They're all like people being kind of crappy. And then Apple Intelligence swoops in, saves the day in a really minor, unimpressive way.

It's not compelling. But it's not compelling because it's not a compelling product. I mean, as a user of Apple Intelligence, I don't find it compelling. I find it distracting and relatively useless. And I actually don't think people are like, I need someone to rewrite my email. I don't believe that's a problem that people are having. Like, there's almost like a meme going around,

and it's not quite a meme, it's just people posting, like, you know, the summaries of their, from Apple Intelligence, and often it's like, you know, like about a fight or a breakup or things that don't need to be so glib. And it's hilarious the way it does it that has like, it's so tone deaf to like these really important events in people's lives or like nuance. I have very high hopes for Apple's take on AI, but what they have shown thus far has been no more than no better than any other parlor trick that AI does, which is like,

it like imitates like something a human would do but does it worse and like does it more like more transparent like it's more transparently not by a human in my opinion and and it's that's not that's not it like that to me is not it like that is not what AI where AI is going to solve problems is like rewriting an email like first off emails writing emails is like people don't really do it that much. Some people really hate it. Like there's like, you know, we're not, we're writers, right? So like, yeah, I don't, I don't like sending emails, but I'm just saying like,

people aren't even sending emails that much anymore. Right. They're texting, they're slacking. I'm just like, they're, they're, other. I mean, most of my communication with people that I know, vast majority, people I'm close to, people I work with, whatever. It's either messages or Slack. And so sort of in a way, it's a sort of a quaint notion. You're like, oh man, writing email sucks.

Like, okay, boomer. Yeah, writing email sucks. Like, who's doing that? Not that many people. Yeah, I think it's just adding more noise into the system too, which is like, who needs more bad copy? I mean, imagine getting a letter like, imagine getting an email like this. Hey, Jay, upon further consideration, I believe this project may require some refinement. However, you are the most capable individual to undertake this task. Please let me know your thoughts. Best regards, Warren."

Reading that, I'm like, if I got an email like that from a person that I know, I'd be like, was this written by AI? Right. Yeah. What if I sent that to you, Josh? Yeah. I would be like, this is such a weird formal, phony ass way of talking. You know?

Anyway, so I just feel like they're like, they're like trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. And honestly, this is very unapple of them. And so is it so it's the part of it is the product is not there. And then the advertising also isn't there. So it's like they can't even put lipstick on the pig. Or is that the expression? I don't know.

It's a controversial for some reasons, saying putting lipstick on a pig is controversial. But but yeah, the idea is on a pig is controversial, but But yeah, the idea is like a pig is a busy I mean, I don't know I think pigs are cute but I guess the concept is like you can't dress up like an ugly animal because like the word pig is sort of Synonymous with like ugly and like fat I guess or whatever. It's like superficial chain, you know I guess like but you know, even if you put lipstick I mean you can't put lipstick on a pig they're right because I think if you put lipstick on a pig, I think we can all agree It would not look better. I think it would be very upsetting and will definitely make the pig look worse

I feel like this is a good use case for Jenna. I put lipstick on a big Yes. Yes, but um, no, I mean, but they're not even there's not even a pig They're putting lipstick like they're like buying a pig and not even a pig. They're putting lipstick, like they're like buying a pig and putting lipstick on it. They're like, you're like, hey, you don't own a pig and it, and, and, but now you have one and here's some lipstick for it. Because like the email thing is really not a problem

that people are dealing with. They had some demo where it's like, write a bedtime story for your kid. And it's like, get the fuck out of here. Yeah, imagine like- People, people want to read like a great bedtime story to their kid. They don't wanna read some like fake ass AI generated like swaps.

And all the things you're gonna phone in like. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Phone in, right, phoning in like, oh, you can put your kid in the story. You know what my dad used to do? When he would read us books, he would like, he would insert stuff into the story and it was really funny.

He would like. Wonderful. Sound effects, he would like add stuff that the characters were doing. Maybe once in a while we would appear, you know, me and my brother. Like that's like parenting. I'm too busy grinding. Yeah, too busy in the grind set to read a normal book to my child or interact with them in a way. And make some cute sounds.

Yeah, I mean, just think. I thought the book was great. You know, you pick up the book, it's right there, you read it. Books are great. You pick a short one. Books are great. They're resilient. They don't need to be charged. No.

Books are tremendous. I highly recommend them. And then you can insert the fun details if you'd like. Yeah, I just feel like we're all just in this, I mean, I've talked about this for, again, I've also talked about this a billion times, but we're just in this valley. We've been in the valley for a long time, and I don't mean that like sarcastically. I don't mean that as a pun. I mean, just in this like valley. We've been in the valley for a long time. And I don't mean that like Sarcastically, I don't mean that as a pawn. I mean just Innovation Valley, I mean I think you can like listen things that are truly innovative over the last like decade or so

And there are real ones like I think I think the Tesla I think the rise of Tesla is like an unbelievable Shift. I mean you can say what you want. I say what you want about Elon Musk say whatever you want about the guy Yeah, but like but what he did whether it was through marketing or whatever, you know his automotive genius or otherwise You know that's truly was that huge innovation that's gonna change the world over time That will change the world is changing the world already, you know, and like there are you get a couple of moments like that here and there And there are a couple of moments like that here and there, but man, there's a lot of people looking around for a Tesla moment or an iPhone moment and not finding it and trying to shovel up some crap in its place. That's such a good transition for me.

Is it? Great. I just feel like that's where we've been at for a while. And I think it's like, you know what actually is like an incredible innovation is, you know, what gamers have given to the world. And I don't mean Gamergate. I mean, without gamers being total like freaks, like there would be no fucking Nvidia AI shit right now. Like if gamers weren't, if gamers and game developers weren't such absolute freaks trying to push the boundaries of computing, we would have so little of what we actually have now in

technology. I think that's one that's like an incredible... The evolution over, say, the last 20 years of the graphics capabilities of game systems is just unbelievable. What a moment. What a crazy moment in culture to have seen that go from where it was to where it is now. Anyhow, but that's like real innovation. They like, no pun intended, like change the game. Gamers change the way we can process information. That's pretty crazy. Anyhow, sorry, but getting back to was shoveling crap to people. You had a nice segue. Go ahead. Yeah, it was a great segue. Alexa, Amazon Alexa. I've heard about this before.

She's the best. She's the best. I think I have a man's voice on her. But yeah. They're the best. They're the best. He's the best. Yeah, I don't know if Alexa can have anybody's voice. Well, can I know? I mean, I'm getting confused. I use a lot of the, I use a few different ones. Either way.

I don't know. Zelda has an Alexa, she calls it Ziggy. Oh, that's cute. Yeah, it's adorable. But Ziggy hasn't been doing so hot over, you know, the past few years. There was like definitely a high point of these assistants and then they got crappier.

They're like just less likely to do the things that they used to do, like turn on your lights or play Netflix or that sort of thing. Anyway, Amazon has been shoveling a bunch of AI into Alexa, hoping to put out a new Alexa that's going to be better, faster, smarter, et cetera, et cetera. Jason Del Rey over at Fortune has got some leaks, some memos from internal memos from Amazon where the employees are like Alexa is so slow you ask her to do something or him

them to you ask them to do something or it you ask it to do it some sort of task and it just takes forever to the point where they're like customers are gonna be really upset. Like, this is not the future we wanted of talking to the machines, because it's not like, they've managed to make it slower. And that makes a little bit of sense because they're using like large language models.

It takes a little bit of time. It's different than just like recognizing a keyword and kind of plopping back a probable answer. But it's just funny to me that like, they're trying to make it better and they're still making it worse. And the results are supposedly subpar as well. Yeah, so they're making it less good.

I mean, to me, this is like a great example of... I mean, this is what Apple's doing, though. Like, it's sort of a similar thing not to harp on this. You shovel some AI on it. But you're like, AI is hot. Like, let's stick it in there. Like, let's just cram some AI in there, and it'll make things better.

And it's like, yeah, I mean, I think that right now, and again, the future of AI is this is a developing new area. I'm sure it's going to get better and smarter and whatever. But I do think a lot of people are leaning on it now in a way that's really lazy and whatever. But I do think a lot of people are leaning on it now in a way that's like really lazy and without, it's like just bandwagon jumping, right? Just like being like, yeah, we have AI too, you know, just cramming that into something.

Yeah, it's like putting AI in your startup name,.ai. Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, I just think that's bad for consumers, bad for the planet, good for earnings calls, I think. And no, and I think we'll chart this period. I think we're going to see there's going to be a lot of people who... This is very NFT. I'm not saying it's the same thing because I think AI has more real applications than an NFT ever could, but I think that there will be a period of reflection in a few years over all of the companies that tried to jump on this bandwagon and whether or not any of those like any of those promises or any of those technologies or any of those sort of like

the insistence on or the leaning on AI as a crutch actually paid off in the long run. And I think like I would say Apple's play is interesting because they could easily wheel this back and very few people would notice or care. They haven't really like, they haven't, I wouldn't say they've like doubled down on AI or anything. It's like, you know, very surface integration at this point.

It actually sucks is that it's surface integration. If things work the way they should, like Alexa would be really, really smart. And Siri would get like all kinds of cool capabilities integration. If things work the way they should, Alexa would be really, really smart, and Siri would get all kinds of cool capabilities using what it knows about you and using its ability to process that information. If AI were as exciting as everybody says it is, but it's not anywhere near that right now. I think in a few months we'll get genmoji. That's what's happening.

I don't think you could dump all of your personal stuff into any of these models right now and your calendar and have it still intelligent and be able to do things for you that you would want it to do. And I think the missing link for AI is when it can actually step in for you and think, oh, you're going to want to do this, or oh, when you ask a question, it's complicated. Right. But when it can correctly anticipate your needs. Okay, anticipate or even tackle them in a way that's like fluid as a part of the process. Like, you know, I mean they can't even get the keyboard to accurately predict the words I want to type.

Like the Apple keyboard still thinks I want to say thus all the time instead of this. And it's like, you should be able to look at my history of typing and say in town, count the number of times that I've typed thus. Okay? No, it's really bad for me too. I'm always like why? And also contextually speaking, you should be able to look at the context and say, is thus the word that he wants to use here and like we're not even there yet we're not even they

don't even have that figured out so like get back to me when you can figure out thus like let me get the I want to hear about Alexis AI when when when she can do the most basic things like so it's so it's such nonsense I don't mean I'm really in a negative mood today I gotta tell you yeah yeah maybe we should do God feature bugger feature bug let's get it yeah we should actually we're saying that Alexa is like slow now because it's like thinking and there's like models of chat GPT where you can switch it to a reasoning model, but it's slower because it's, I'm using a lot of air quotes here, because it's thinking.

Something AI, Gen.AI happening more slowly because it's thinking. Future or bug? I mean, that's an interesting one. On the one hand, who cares? I'm like, I don't want to wait for my answer. I mean, I think look, I think the value of like speaking to a computer is is getting having something that feels more like a conversation, right?

Which requires the kind of cadence, the pace of a conversation you might be used to. I think as a person who hates like, I mean these calls are, these are okay, there's low latency on these, but like, you know, as a person who's been on many, many Zoom calls or meets or whatever where you can tell there's like some kind of a bit of latency, I find it to be unbelievably aggravating and very like disruptive to a conversation. So I think the thinking thing, it's like Siri does this all the time where I'm like, you know, I'm like, hey Siri, she's going to wake up now.

And then I start talking and she's like, yes, like at the same time. And I'm like, shut up. Don't make it angry. Like just and then we're talking over each other. And it's very annoying. That happens to me constantly. Yeah, I think so. Especially in the car. I think if you want me to talk to my stuff, you shouldn't make it slow. And I think if it has to be slow, then your technology isn't ready and you should stop trying to act like it is. That's what I think.

Okay. So that's a bug. That's a bug. Yeah. It's a bug. Hiring two people to do one person's job at the Department of Government Efficiency. Well, you know, co-CEOing has always gone swimmingly. I'll never forget the research in motion guys had like a co-CEO situation for a while. I think that imploded pretty badly. I think like there are duos that work great together, you know. There are duos, peanut butter and jelly, Hall and Oats, you know, salt and pepper. Like, I don't know. Like there are duos that work really well. And then like there's like these guys and have they ever even work together before?

I mean, it's a bug. If you need two people to run the efficiency department, doesn't seem like a good start. I'd say it's a bug. Feels like a bug to me. I don't know. I like it for the comedy aspect of it. And like someone's like, people keep making that joke. I just think it's so funny, like that they know one. It's definitely funny. It's like, if it can make me laugh, it's a feature. You'll get no argument from me that it's funny. I just like, is it a feature?

I mean, I guess if you want to call it that, I don't, the feature, I mean, jokes on them, like I think it's a bug generally speaking, but at any rate federal rules on Federal, you know rather than patchwork of state rules federal rules on Autonomous cars huge bug big bug. We don't need it. We don't need rules No, I think in this sense in that this like a Small sense like feature like it is good to like I a lot of things should be on a federal level, right?

Like more efficient, less like, there's so many like patchworks of like. What are you asking? Are you saying regulation on a federal level for things like driverless cars? Yeah. I think anything we regulate all that is like. I do think it should be regulated heavily,

but I think it should be done at a grand scale. I'm pro-regulation. I think federal, I think there's this, the thing that I actually find really aggravating about America generally is this idea that states versus federal. And it's like, well, we can be a country or not. I think we should decide if we're a country. If you feel like your state is so special and different

that we shouldn't all be able to agree on laws, then why are we like, what is the, what are we doing here? Are we a country or are we just a bunch of, are we just a bunch of little miniature countries pretending to be a big country? We're like three countries in an overcoat or whatever, three countries in a trench coat. Like I think-

50. 50 countries in a, whatever, you know what I mean. 50 countries in a trench coat. Like I think- 50. 50 countries in a... Whatever. You know what I mean. 50 countries in a trench coat. I think there are places where... Look, you can make arguments here. You look at abortion laws, for instance, right? Roe v. Wade deserve return, which was a federal law establishing a woman's right to choose what she does with her body. The right wing Supreme Court decided to change that law and now we're like, hey, states. And now states are like some states are enacting actually like better laws around like protecting a woman's right.

And then some states are enacting really shitty laws that are bad for women. And I think on something as fundamental as like, does like half of the population have like legal, the legal rights to like govern their own body? I think that should be a federally mandated decision. And I think there's like an obvious answer to that. And but in the gun control, I think cars, like I think things that can cross states would be a good, it'd be weird if we had one rule for emissions in Ohio and a different rule for emissions in Pennsylvania.

Which we kind of do in a sense. Yeah, I don't know if we do. It could be stricter than the federal. Stupid though. I mean, it's stupid that you would go, the car can drive all over the country, and so it might be like emissions are can only leave your emissions in Delaware. There should be a general standard that we all agree on.

Like these are what emissions standards. I mean, see, we won't have any emissions standards. So I think that'll be, that'll solve the problem. I think the idea of kicking things back to the States is like some kind of weird get out of jail free card for when we aren't operating like a functional federal government, when we don't have a functional federal government. Other countries don't really work like this. They are like, we're a country and here's the laws of the country.

We're exceptional. They're like, oh, this province in France doesn't like abortion, so they're going to not do it. That doesn't happen as far as I know. By the way, I'm not that familiar with the laws in France. Maybe it's all province-based. Maybe it's like, is that what they call the state there? Is that like the equivalent? But anyhow, so yeah, sorry, I mean, bug. What is the thing? Oh, feature if we have federal regulations. I think that's a feature. Yeah, generally I have to say it's a feature. Oh, God. Can you tell the political landscape has been weighing on my mind?

I know. Speaking of which, I got two tweets for you. Okay, oh good. Okay, let's go. Let's do it. I'm ready. All right, all right. Let's see what we got.

Oh, so last week we done one where Elon Musk has said, becoming multi-planetary will greatly increase the lifespan of our civilization and is the critical next step to becoming multi-stellar. But this week he said he credits X or Twitter being a free speech platform was necessary to increase the probable lifespan of civilization. He thinks that because he made X horrible, made X horrible, I think that's right. Civilization's gonna live a longer time. I mean, I think, you know, we have- But long enough to get to Mars, I guess, is the hype. It's the last one. It weren't for the free speech we all experience

on X. God only knows what humanity would be right now. Yeah, no, I mean, like, I think it's I think. So wait, is that tweet number one? That's tweet number one. OK, I think I mean, I think he's making a valid point and definitely accurate and totally not like a guy who's like doing a ton of cocaine or something. Right. You think the human humanity will live longer because of X. I think X is the only thing stopping us from immediate annihilation. I just think it's so funny because last week he was like, we have to go to Mars to make

civilization last longer. Now he's like, well, actually what made it last longer was X. But I mean, because it helps us. Well, you know, without without the free speech, how could you ever come up with good, great ideas for getting to Mars? Right. And number two, this is a he's now calling the Southern Poverty Law Center a criminal organization. And joking that it's also a hate group because like words are meaningless. Maybe it's racist against white people or something. Is that what his suggestion is? Reverse racism? They wrote a piece where I don't know if you're

familiar with the Babylon Bee or it's like news. Very familiar with it. It's horror, one of the worst. And then they have a news site sort of or like a non-Satire site. To be clear, the Babylon Bee, sorry, I just wanted to say is like a right wing like onion style publication, I believe. And then they have like, it's not the Babylon Bee, it is the, what is it, the new bee, hold

on where it is, it's not the Babylon Bee, it is the, what is the new bee? Hold on where it is. It's the, not the bee, which is a junk news site, but it's like it's sister site and supposed to be a non-satirical site. Anyway, they just post a lot of really hateful, mean things about immigrants and trans people and things like that. And it's just generally very hateful, but it's got authors writing under pseudonyms. A enterprising Southern Poverty Law Center researcher

realized, looked at the source code of the website, which had all of their actual names on it. And now, and published this it said These are the people writing these very hateful here are these like hate groups essentially here These hateful people writing these things and their information was readily available You know is which a thing a journalist does all the time is look at the source code It's public and now They're saying that Elon Musk is saying that basically

Southern Poverty Law Center doxed these people by giving out their names. He likes to use the word dox really liberally. If you share information with people that he doesn't want you to know. That's not what doxing is, to be clear. Doxing is when you find someone's personal information that isn't readily available on the internet and then you post it.

Right. Like the auction is when you take someone, when you violate someone's privacy, like in a way where you're, that you can't just type their name in and get it or you can't just look at the source code of a website and see it there. And usually with a malicious intent, like hurt this person or, you know, bother them or, you know or harass them somehow. Yes. Yes. But I mean... So Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate group because, you know, just kind of using words, meaningless things to target a very important nonprofit or him saying that X has lengthened the humanity's,

the lengthened humanity. They're both dumb, you know? Like they're both sort of like, they're both like barely worth the time that we've spent talking about them. You know, I don't know, it's just, there's just so much stupid stuff being said on the internet these days.

Like, you know, Elon Musk is like, traffics in some of the dumbest commentary that I've ever seen, like from a person who's ostensibly supposed to be smart or whatever. You know, the Southern Poverty Law Center, one, probably will get more traction. Probably will be- There's a billion news headlines

just kind of saying what he said, which is horrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing is that society just seems to be bending around these ideas in a way where they're like, OK, yeah, that's what's going on. That's the real thing that's happening, because somebody with enough money says it.

I think there's a huge amount of fear right now. We didn't even talk about the onion buying info wars, which would have been a good thing to talk about a little bit. Oh, right. But now there's some. If it happens now because there's some lawsuit that's being instigated, which I assume is being backed by Elon Musk, or at least financially being backed by Elon Musk. I mean, we have rampant abuse of the legal system in this country right now. And

I think, you know, it's like people are scared. Like they're scared. Like now there's- Especially nonprofits where you could sue them into oblivion. Yeah, and it's like, you know, it's like people like Elon Musk don't like it when people say negative things about them. And sometimes like when you're really rich and famous

and you tell people things, like sometimes- And you like free speech? Yeah, and you like free speech. Sometimes people are gonna be like, actually that's bullshit and here's why. Or actually, this is bad and here's why or whatever. I think we're living in a world now where people with a lot of money are like, well, if I don't like it, then it's like hate speech.

But that's how free nations become not free. You talk about censorship, that is the greatest form of censorship possible, which is that because somebody said something you don't like and you think they shouldn't say, you stop them from saying it. And you're in the government. That is the textbook definition of censorship, which is you don't like what somebody said and so you try to stop them from saying it. That is what censorship is and

It's certainly one of the definitions of it. So anyway, it's just like yeah I mean this is they're both they both stink but the Southern Poverty Law Center one is probably like the worst tweet because it Has more destructive properties. So you put that one in the bracket, I guess. Yeah, I agree All right. Well, I gotta go start drinking now after this. I don't know. It's 330 p.m. So, you know what? It's been a couple of long weeks and I'm ready to I'm ready for Thanksgiving. I'm ready to I'm ready to celebrate the controversial holiday of Thanksgiving, which which I do love. And I like eating too. I think we're all yeah, we're all looking for just a little bit of cranberry sauce and a beautiful, big, beautiful bird.

And anyway, all right. That is our show for this week. We won't be back next week because next week is Thanksgiving. We're going to take off. We're going to take a break. And then we'll be back to tell everybody about what kind of bird we had, how it was prepared, if we had it at all, and how bad we felt afterwards, which I'm very excited about. And until then, I wish you and your family the very best. if we had it at all and how bad we felt afterwards, which I'm very excited about. And until then, I wish you and your family the very best.

["Spring Day"]