Artificial [fill in the blank]

Bob Dunn:
Hey there.

Nathan Wrigley:
Hello.

Bob Dunn:
What do you think about these two words as a term, artificial intelligence? Is that an oxymoron or what?

Nathan Wrigley:
Just moron. Let’s go with that. I am so skeptical about this. So first start. I don’t believe that the word intelligence applies. So keep keeping it serious for a bit. I think, I think that there are characteristics of intelligence that it doesn’t seem to map to. So what I mean by that is it’s an incredibly sophisticated kind of prediction engine. You know, it’s really good at getting the next word. And, and, and it’s so good, in fact, that we believe that there’s something there, that there’s like a there, there. There’s an intelligence, a consciousness, but it’s not. It’s just prediction. But, but then like, who cares? It’s really good at predicting the next word. But I’m not entirely sure I want to live in the world in 50 years time when all this technology’s taken over.

Bob Dunn:
What I’m thinking of here is how we’ve taken human, how do you want to say attributes and we’ve tied them into machines and really compare it to artificial plants. You know, they’re not trying to make this plant live the same way or whatever, grow the same way. It’s artificial. It’s just.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah, that’s an interesting analogy. Yeah.

Bob Dunn:
And so then you have artificial intelligence, which is. I mean, in a way, those always were just another nice term for fake, you know. I mean, you have an artificial Christmas tree.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah, yeah, that, that’s, it’s a really, that’s a really interesting analogy because let’s say you go to a restaurant and you’re 20ft away from the artificial plant and you look at the artificial plant. It serves its purpose perfectly in that you think it’s a real plant if it’s well made, you know, you just look at it and it. The whole point of that plant in that context is just to look like a plant. You know, if it was a real one. Its purpose is to look like a plant. It’s not there for any botanical reasons. It’s there to do some simulation of looking nice. It’s only upon closer inspection, isn’t it? When you get a bit closer, you become slightly disappointed and actually become slightly disappointed not just in the plant itself, but in the restaurateur thinking, why have you done that? Why don’t you just get a real one and tend to it? So, yeah, I get what you mean. Like, I think what you’re trying to say there is, we know it’s artificial. Let’s just accept it and benefit from it, because it can do what it can do and it can do it really well. And what’s curious, right, it’s just suddenly occurred to me, I. I’m talking to you and I have no idea what’s going to come out of your mouth. And you don’t have a clue what’s going to come out of your mouth until it starts coming out. And even then, when you think about it, you don’t really know how the sentence is going to end. Like that one, I have no idea. When I began that sentence, I had no idea how that was going to end. I didn’t know how that one was going to turn out. And it just spews out of me somehow. And the same is true for you and everybody else. And the AI is a bit like that. And so maybe we’re all a little bit artificial in that sense, because nobody knows where any of this is coming from. I suppose the thing that’s troubling me about artificial intelligence is just how quickly and headlong we’re going into it and getting. Getting so many things full of all the AI that we possibly can. And there’s this idea of the alignment problem. The alignment problem being whether or not this wave of technology aligns with the best interests of humans. Let’s go with that. Or I suppose you could be the do the planet. And I’m not sure it does because I’m not sure that suddenly putting a lot of people out of work is a great idea. I’m not sure we’ve had anything like this. You know, people always point to the past like, oh, the Industrial Revolution, everybody found jobs in other ways. The agricultural revolution, everybody found jobs in other ways and what have you. But I don’t think. I don’t think this is like that, because all of those technologies were really bound. They had real constraints. Like the Industrial Revolution was a bunch of metal that, you know, went round cogs and things like that. So it could do that, but it couldn’t think and it couldn’t simulate the work of a brain. And this stuff can, and it appears to be able to learn how to play chess in a heartbeat, how to play go in a heartbeat and become better than almost any, well, every other human. And from that moment, nobody’s beating a chess engine Ever again. And that’s the bit that kind of worries me, is that this stuff is going to be so profoundly impactful and we haven’t really thought about the consequences of it. That’s the bit that sort of churns me up inside.

Bob Dunn:
And it’s all artificial, you know, that’s the thing that’s. That’s a kind of weird thing, you know, when I think about it, it’s like the connotation of artificial is. Yeah, it’s kind of a synonymous with fake. Fake intelligence. And is it fake intelligence or is it you? Because most of the time, when we look at something that’s artificial, that’s mimicking a structure like artificial plants, we’re thinking, oh, that’s fake, that’s artificial, that, you know, it’s just trying to be something that it isn’t. And so if we think of artificial intelligence in that same way, it’s kind of bizarre. Is it trying to be something that it isn’t? But everybody assumes it is. And then, you know, you go into super intelligence or whatever their next thing is.

Nathan Wrigley:
I don’t know where you go from here, frankly. Godlike intelligence in your phone.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah. Is it. Is it tradable? I mean, look, it always. Whenever I see the word, it kind of just jumps out at me. It’s like, I did. I don’t even think of, you know, how it got here. And I’m sure somebody. You could go into it and have elaborate research into why do we call it artificial intelligence? Which I’m not even going to bother with. You know, you could ask AI what it is, who are you? What are you?

Nathan Wrigley:
But.

Bob Dunn:
But then I’m thinking again, taking that part. We have smartphones, smart televisions, things that are smart, you know, and it’s like, okay, we used to have a phone, now it’s a smartphone. And that essentially doesn’t mean the phone is smarter. It just has more capabilities in the technology.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah.

Bob Dunn:
And how do we define smart? You know, does it mean it’s, you know, what we think of when we look at somebody thing, oh, that’s a very smart person. Then we look at this phone and go, wow, that’s a very smart.

Nathan Wrigley:
That’s a really nice black rectangle. It’s ever so smart.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah. Smart televisions, you know, it’s like, what makes. Makes it smart. It makes it smart because it can just do more things, but it’s not actually the television itself.

Nathan Wrigley:
I think there’s a lot of marketing and PR in all of this. Yeah, I think it is. If you apply Artificial. You just pop the word intelligence on the end there, and suddenly everybody’s like, oh, this is great. You know, it’s really intelligent, but. But the thing is, it is really impactful. However, you and I are probably not the best examples of what humanity as a whole is doing with it. And I have no data to back any of this up, but imagine that most people are not really dealing with AI in any kind of meaningful way. You know, I imagine. And when I say most people, I’m talking about, you know, of the 8 billion people on Earth, you know, just got no interest in it. There’s no bit that they can push it into their lives. But for those of us that do touch technology, it does seem like there’s this possible apocalyptic horizon. Maybe not. Maybe we can avoid it, but it does seem like, you know, it’s coming to get our jobs. I don’t know if that’ll turn out to be true. I also kind of get this feeling. I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but I get this feeling that people are getting weary of hearing about it. Which bodes well for this episode, by the way.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, really.

Nathan Wrigley:
You know, there’s like this fatigue, just. Oh, yeah, okay. AI. There’s AI in that now, is there? Oh, great. Really great. That’s gonna make life great.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s. Yeah. I just. It gets me thinking about all the. You know, and I. I overthink it sometimes. Well, I don’t overthink it, but I look at it differently. I mean, and I. I find it interesting how we find more and more ways to put human qualities or human actions into machines in the sense of how we name them. I mean, your computer goes to sleep. Does it really go to sleep?

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Bless it. I need to get it a little blanket. Little pillow and a little blanket. Tuck it off, make sure it’s happy. Yeah. What is that called? Isn’t it called skeuomorphism or something like that? It was a big thing that. The only reason I know that is because I used to follow Apple products and they had this whole design language where they tried to make their apps look like the thing in the real world. So the note taking app, they tried to make it look like a pad, and round the edges they did, like, fake stitching. So it was kind of like an app masquerading as the real world thing. And anyway, so the word skeuomorphism is in my head. There is a bit of that, isn’t there? Like, trying to give it human characteristics so that it feels less weird. Because I don’t know if you called it Cyborg Lord or something like that.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, really, it’s less likely to be.

Nathan Wrigley:
Oh, has he got Cyborg Lord in it? Yeah, yeah, it has. Okay, I’m not going near that.

Bob Dunn:
And have. What would we call, you know, what would be called instead of artificial intelligence or smart phone? You know? And were they all, you know, was the phone basically dumb before? I mean, I always think of that.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah. That’s now what they call that whole raft of phones. So I’m holding in my hand that very thing a DOM phone. I mean, basically, it means a phone that is. Isn’t a new phone. I guess what they’re trying to do there is saying, don’t buy one of those. They’re like 34 pounds. Get one of these ones, which is over a thousand quid. You’ll be. You, too, can be smart.

Bob Dunn:
Oh, really? It’ll make you feel smart.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah. Make you feel like you’re doing a smart thing. I. I don’t know. I think any amount of crystal ball gazing with this topic is. Is. Has proven to be wrong for me in that, you know, just five years. I mean, it seems like such a short amount of time, really, but just five years ago, if you told me that I could have a meaningful conversation or something which felt meaningful with a computer, I’d have said that was nonsense. If you’d have said that a computer could create a picture from me asking it to, I’d have said that was nonsense. Or a piece of music, I’d have said that was nonsense. Now, you can argue the merits of the art they produce and the music they produce. I get that. But the fact is, it does it. And I can’t believe how quickly we’ve gone from, no, that’s not gonna be possible, to, oh, yeah, that’s totally boring. You know. Yeah, computers can do images now. Because I fully thought that was gonna be like the Turing Test to me. I had this thing that computers will never be able to draw art or create images or, you know, you know, create something new and what have you. That was it. That was, for me, the mark. It was going to be, when computers do that, I’m giving up on life, and I’m going to go and live in a shed, you know, and grow mung beans and lentils and chant Kumbaya,

Bob Dunn:
have a couple artificial plants, and therefore they don’t die. So, you know, we have vibe coding and all these different words that are created out of it. What if everything had to be artificial? Artificial coding. Hey, I do artificial coding.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah.

Bob Dunn:
Or I do artificial podcasts. I do an artificial podcast.

Nathan Wrigley:
Do you know what? I think? I think we should do that.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah. I mean, that would really tell it kind of like it is and it really puts a skew on things. How did it become so acceptable with intelligence, but other things that it actually creates? Here’s my artificial art.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah, right. I think there’s merit to that because I don’t know, I feel like a bit of a Luddite when I say this. And also, I just simply don’t know how it’s gonna turn out. But I do long for that a bit. I do long for knowing that, like to have no uncertainty around things like that. You know, if I listen to a song, I kind of want to know that the artist that made that song did some struggle, went through stuff to get that in my ears, you know, had the brutal boringness of learning to play the piano over countless thousands of hours, went through a horrible moment in their lives. So that that beautiful song reflected that moment, you know, that there was pain and anguish and struggle and all of that, as opposed to, hey, write me a song with pain and anguish in it, which is sounding like it’s on a piano and then waiting 4 seconds and publishing it. Yeah, I want that. I want the world to be full of that. And of course, the sad thing is the world was full of that and everybody knew that every song was that. And now we’re just totally confused about it. So, yeah, I’m up for that. I think if you can sort that out, that’d be great.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, I’m sure everybody will want to start saying, you know, well, I offer, you know, coding, and then I do offer artificial coding, and I also, you know, I’ll get you some photos, but most of them are artificial photos, not photos I took.

Nathan Wrigley:
Okay. And I wonder when the calculus is listening to music. I want that to be art, but there’s bound to be examples in my own life where I demonstrate massive hypocrisy about that. So let’s say, for example, I need an image for a website I’m building, and if I go to, let’s say, Getty Images or something, that one is going to cost me $89. Oh, but this AI one over here is like 4 cents of compute time. Okay. So, you know, I’m saying all of that, and then I’m sure I’ll be hypocritical in the face of the, the reality and the, the, the cost, basically. So I, I don’t know how good I’ll be at sticking to the, the thing that I just said would be important is essentially I just like to click my fingers Thanos style, and maybe it all just to go away and it, I just wake up from a dream and it never happened.

Bob Dunn:
Like, oh, wow. Yeah.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah, just a reset.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, yeah. So, so anyway, yeah, I think it’s, you know, it’s, anymore it’s not called as it is. It’s, you know, it’s like a lot of times we have to figure it out now, you know. Oh, we have to take the time, which is, you know, I mean, and then you could actually think of it logically. Okay, I’m listening to something that this person wrote, and I’m listening to something that artificial intelligence or whatever wrote. You know, it was concocted by a machine and. Yeah, but nobody will want to call it that. I mean, I, I, I think of weird things, and I know that, you know, that’s not gonna happen. Anyway, maybe you and I can call, you know, this is not, this is a podcast. In fact, I read somewhere that these podcasting platforms that help people start podcasts, some of them are, are putting out up to four. I think about 38% or 40% of the podcasts going out are not people, you know, and they’re saying that it’s really not working as people thought, you know, as far as when they listen, you know, they either want to see and hear a person that’s real versus even though they look real. You know, there, there’s some connection there, but.

Nathan Wrigley:
Yeah, but they got five so we

Bob Dunn:
could, we could start an artificial podcast, you know. Oh, we could call it the Artificial podcast.

Nathan Wrigley:
If I ever knew that I was listening to an artificial podcast, I’d be really annoyed. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve done it because essentially I’m a bit of a. You know, you and I have been doing podcasting for a long time. I’m kind of stuck in a little rot as to the podcast that I listen to. And basically all of them have history going back way before. Yeah, any of this stuff. But I don’t know now what I’d be doing if I was an 18 year old. And I thought, oh, let’s. I quite like the idea of listening to podcasts. I’m guessing that quite a lot of it would be like that. And some of these podcast houses, businesses or what have you, I think they’re pushing out like thousands of, like literally thousands of episodes a day. And I, I don’t know what we do with that apart from just, you know, every time we spot it, call it out and say, this is rubbish. You know, stop doing this, it’s not helpful.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, really. So on screen credits for a movie, they could have the cast and then they could have the artificial cast. Oh, yeah.

Nathan Wrigley:
So I was reading something in a newspaper the other day which is kind of like a weird amalgam of that. Like it’s a bit of both. Like a lot of movie costs, it turns out, is when they’ve got the real talent there, you know, they’ve got the very expensive actors who are standing around doing nothing and they do one take and then, you know, something slightly, slightly wrong, so they do it again and then they do it from a slightly different angle, or the cameras are just focused in a little bit more and, you know, 55 takes later, I mean, maybe 55 is an exaggeration, but dozens and dozens of takes for this 12 second scene. Some of them because of mistakes, but some of them because they just want every single angle. This, this article in this newspaper was basically saying there is a future in which you do it once. You just capture the first one and then you apply AI. Like, okay, we want to zoom out a little bit or go around the corners, go for 10 degrees, change it a little bit. That’s now possible. So the costs are driven down. If you’re a movie producer, how do you argue against that? How do you make the proposition, no, we need to do it 55 times? Well, why not just do it once? So all of that is kind of creeping in. Um, and then you’ll never know if the shot of Robert De Niro is actually him or somebody else or some sort of AI version of him turned through a few angles. And that’s so weird. It’s just so weird being in a confusing world like that where you’re essentially in a dream the whole time when you’re watching a movie like that. Yeah, I, I do, I do wonder. I, I, I don’t know. I, I, I kind of have this hope that people will be able to rally around that, like the idea of watching authentic things, but I don’t have a lot of hope. I think basically if the, if the thing that’s in front of them and I would apply this to me, I’m not pointing the arrow at anybody else. If the thing that I’m watching is entertaining, I kind of watch it.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah.

Nathan Wrigley:
You know, in the back of my mind, you know, I’m in 10 years time. I’m sure that, okay, 95% of what I just watched was made in a computer. I, I don’t know if that’ll bother me for a movie because it’s a lot of the kind of movies I watch is, you know, it’s fiction anyway. You know, it’s made up stories, a simulation. The, the whole setup is a simulation. Why not go one step further and make the actors a simulation? Well, okay, if I was watching a documentary, I probably want to know that that’s authentic. If I’m watching the news, I probably want to know that that’s authentic. That’s a whole other layer, isn’t it? Proving. Yeah, that is the thing that you’re seeing is the thing that happened.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah. So we should just call this the show, not the artificial show, in fact. No, no, just, no, we don’t.

Nathan Wrigley:
I’m very real.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, we both are. I mean, people have, people can atone to that. A lot of people. You know, I mean, real, maybe unreal in some sense at times, but I’m real.

Nathan Wrigley:
I’m feeling, I’m feeling very real at my old age. I’m starting.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That, that really does.

Nathan Wrigley:
My body is real.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah. No, getting everything. So I’m thinking on another topic, I mean, just kind of sliding off on that, what I’m doing on the podcast or I’m, this is on channel four is, I’m trying to put everything into series. So on channel four, essentially, there may be a series that lasts five episodes. You know, some, somebody finds a topic around it. And I, I was thinking, because this has been in that channel, maybe we should bring it back and call it the show.

Nathan Wrigley:
Well, you know, that’s what it was.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah. And that’s what I mean, people might ask, well, what’s that? We didn’t, we didn’t really talk shit. We talked about shit. We kind of talked about shit with a little bit of shit.

Nathan Wrigley:
We talked about shit in a shit way. I think the strap line on that website was something like shit topics hosted by shit people or something like that

Bob Dunn:
may not go quite that far, but you may see that name pop up again because you know, it’s, it’s near and dear to our hearts.

Nathan Wrigley:
Oh, I love this stuff. Even if nobody listens to it. It’s a pleasure just getting on a call with you and just. What, what’s really nice is that I don’t know what’s coming or you don’t know what’s coming, depending on who gets the episode off and when. When in life do you ever get that? When in life do you ever sit down with another human being and have absolutely no idea what the next half an hour is going to be full of?

Bob Dunn:
Yeah.

Nathan Wrigley:
And the answer is never. There’s always like, you show up to a thing and you, you know that, that, like, I don’t know, you go and play golf or you go out horse riding or whatever it may be, the conversation is going to be kind of bound to that a little bit and you know, everybody’s going to fall into a pattern. This is, this is not that. No idea what’s coming up. And it’s lovely.

Bob Dunn:
Yeah, it really is. So. So I think, yeah, I think that’s it, you know, I think, you know, the shit show must live on, must return.

Nathan Wrigley:
Well, there’s all sorts of ways to resurrect that and this is one of them. I will promise you that I can talk shit for as long as you can have me on a microphone.

Bob Dunn:
So this is a never ending series, you know.

Nathan Wrigley:
Well, there’s going to be an, you know, my tombstone will mark the end of it, but until that moment, I will continue to talk shit.