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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
00;00;16;23 - 00;00;21;20
Pri
Aaron just discovered that people actually don't like AI. He had this awakening recently.
00;00;21;21 - 00;00;47;18
Aaron
I didn't discover it. I just I thought it was a smaller group of people than what it appears to be. And it was just like pulling some numbers, talking to some folks about this. And it seems like there's just been some polls from like YouGov and I think Pew, that just indicates that roughly half of at least U.S. adults don't like, hey, I r think it's going to be worse for society than good for society.
00;00;47;21 - 00;00;56;12
Aaron
And it's turning into like the majority position. And I don't know, it feels like kind of unwarranted to me. And I'm not I'm not 100% sure where it's where it's kind of coming from.
00;00;56;14 - 00;01;02;26
Chris
An elitist activity that directly threatens people's check paychecks. You don't know where it's coming from. I just don't think.
00;01;02;26 - 00;01;26;18
Aaron
That that's going to be the endpoint, man. Like, I just I don't buy the the Duma thesis. Like I just think you know, where is it hitting the most like software development. You're just going to get more beautiful software. You just have to learn how to like, do something different. I frankly think it's like a weird psyop that, you know, either some foreign power is, is, engaged in or, you know, different forces are kind of engaged in.
00;01;26;18 - 00;01;34;13
Aaron
But I don't know, it just, it feels like very unwarranted to me. Well, I don't know where me, Chris Duma resigning turn me into a duma.
00;01;34;20 - 00;01;52;23
Chris
Like a you're thinking in longer terms. You say the end point, right? People aren't thinking in the endpoint. They're thinking their car payment next month. They're thinking of the vacation they want to go on like they think in the near to midterm. And this shit is taking jobs on me. Like, this isn't rocket science.
00;01;52;26 - 00;02;00;13
Aaron
But is it really? Where is it taking jobs? There's been some studies that indicates it hasn't taken any jobs, that it's just like it just fear market mongering.
00;02;00;15 - 00;02;25;20
Chris
Like this isn't like some CCP blackout. All right. The jobs numbers came out this, like just this morning. There were 22,000 net jobs added. The other stat floating around right now is there's more UN people unemployed and there are jobless. Things like, we don't need some sort of, you know, we don't need Pew Research to run off and create a 120 page report on this.
00;02;25;20 - 00;02;30;08
Chris
Like people just see A and chibi and equate to two.
00;02;30;11 - 00;02;48;04
Pri
Exactly. I don't I don't think they are necessarily indicative of it. I mean, there could be more macro reasoning as to why employment is way it is. It is not. I don't even think AI is fully trickled into society when it comes to employment. Yet maybe in software engineering and some specific subsectors, but I don't think like en masse it has.
00;02;48;04 - 00;02;53;00
Pri
So it's like whether that is the case or not, people are going to tie the two together.
00;02;53;02 - 00;03;16;16
Aaron
Yeah. And I think that that's like it's a little wrongheaded. Like I actually I don't think it's really there's, I don't think it's taking too many jobs. I think the economy may be soft for a variety of reasons. I think the only area where it may be changing the way people are working is software development. And I just think a lot of organizations and teams are just struggling to, like, understand how to implement that internally in the right way.
00;03;16;16 - 00;03;26;13
Aaron
Do they want like more seasoned engineers? They want junior engineers, like I don't I don't think we know the answer to that. But I just think the dumb prism is is still pretty wrongheaded.
00;03;26;15 - 00;03;51;22
Derek
I'll just chime in and say, like there's there's probably arguments on both side sides here. I think my view is you kind of need to see where like the concentric circles are emanating from. And I think he's right. It's probably tech. And I have a handful of portfolio companies who, you know, are valued in the hundreds of millions, in some cases billions that have really moved much of their development cycles into the hands of a gigantic infrastructure.
00;03;51;22 - 00;04;15;14
Derek
And, I mean, even Brian Armstrong last week said like 40% of all code at Coinbase, which is on the low end from the numbers I'm hearing from, from some of these companies is now being developed by agents. And I and I think it's clear that like the this technology is impacting coding. First, I think the point you're making though, Aaron, is a good one, which is like it's it may not be that total job numbers collapse immediately.
00;04;15;16 - 00;04;52;23
Derek
I do think that job comp is composition is already starting to change. And there's probably like this messy middle period where organizations are struggling to understand exactly how to apply AI and fret to their stack, even if it's something that typically doesn't touch software or code. It could be consumer products companies or retail companies or marketing companies. And I do think that there's this hazy period right now where maybe they're they're starting to shift responsibilities to start allowing other types of people in their org who never had to do, you know, more full stack work, start to do some of that full stack work with the help of AI.
00;04;52;27 - 00;05;11;28
Seth
I think what ends up happening, though, is Chris's viewpoint materializes, which is just like the technology gets good enough where it starts to become duplicative of like the stuff that humans can really help out with internal to some of these organizations. And what we're seeing on the pure software side will start to apply to all areas of an organization.
00;05;11;28 - 00;05;28;07
Seth
Now, is that a week from now? Is that a year from now? Is that three years from now? I think this is this is where like, you know, these different industries and categories will take will run at different speeds. But I do think that end state is pretty correct. I think I align with Chris's view there.
00;05;28;09 - 00;05;44;08
Aaron
I think the answer is correct, but I think that middle is messy, and I don't think that there's strong evidence that it I think a lot of the, the workers that kind of lean into this, they will find tremendous amount of work to kind of do. Doesn't mean that, you know, may be at a different organization. Those organizations may get leaner.
00;05;44;08 - 00;06;01;20
Aaron
But I think that you're going to see new, you know, new organizations, new things kind of pop up that are leveraging and using this. I just really still have a hard time believing that, that there's really any abatement in the demand for something like software or a lot of the kind of services or jobs that people do.
00;06;01;22 - 00;06;10;22
Aaron
If you make it more efficient, you tend to just increase wealth across the board. It frankly just feels like a lot of millennial whining to me. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Derek.
00;06;10;26 - 00;06;42;09
Seth
Oh, no, I'm so offended right now. No, I guess that's I think that's right. I think my my only other note on that is, you know, I think there's this there's this black hole that exists with this technology which is just like, you know, with traditional improvements in infrastructure and technology over the course of human history, whether it's like, you know, inventing the wheel or electricity or whatever it may be, I think the point you're making has largely been true, which is it just creates new stuff for humans to work on, new stuff to do, new businesses to explore, new products to create.
00;06;42;11 - 00;07;09;02
Seth
I think the sleeping giant with this tech is really that the cost per intelligence to any job is actually going to dramatically increase. And so knowing that that the end state is really just like, you know, whatever the the per dollar price per unit of intelligence is today is going to be slashed by like 99% as a result of, you know, models getting better and reinforcement learning being applied to news corners of the world.
00;07;09;04 - 00;07;38;14
Seth
It's really difficult for me to see that even with job expansion, how job and like how employment and how salary like, you know, salaried humans and you know, the way people get paid per unit of work today, it doesn't just get completely eradicated and eroded, like meaningfully. So I, I tend to agree, like I think in this messy middle, like it probably means, you know, we find new things to do with AI and new businesses to explore and all these things.
00;07;38;16 - 00;07;50;01
Seth
But man, it is really difficult for me to see how the economic structure for labor doesn't just get totally wasted by this technology as, as, as cost per intelligence just starts to fall off a cliff.
00;07;50;04 - 00;08;04;06
Chris
I was looking for a job, and then I found a job, and heaven knows, I'm miserable now. I mean, I hear you, Derek. It's going to be tough before we, like, slide into a permanent well of despair here. We do have a guest on the show, and we should probably introduce that.
00;08;04;07 - 00;08;04;20
Aaron
Hey.
00;08;04;23 - 00;08;06;07
Pri
Hey, Seth.
00;08;06;09 - 00;08;15;14
Seth
Hey. Hey. Welcome. So I'm just listening along. I've been on, like, a cloud code bender for 3 or 4 weeks now.
00;08;15;17 - 00;08;16;20
Aaron
Nice.
00;08;16;23 - 00;08;20;22
Seth
Yeah. So I'm, It's, it's been it's been a trip.
00;08;20;24 - 00;08;29;13
Pri
You know who else has in this group? I mean, Aaron has for, like, the last several years at this point, but another another newbie is, Chris.
00;08;29;15 - 00;08;30;05
Aaron
Yeah, I just I.
00;08;30;05 - 00;08;57;09
Seth
Don't know what it I mean, he reminds me, I guess a boomer, like, it reminds me of like 95 when, like Netscape, or at least for me, like when Netscape came out with tables was really exciting and like, it just felt like, you know, like the web was this amazing canvas and there's a lot of energy and like, it became accessible to people that didn't study computer science.
00;08;57;09 - 00;09;24;04
Derek
And I remember making I think I was making 60 or $70 an hour, like coding tables, HTML for Epicurious at Condé. Net and, in New York. Then I guess 30 years goes by. I never took the time to study computer science. It was always a deep insecurity of mine. I understand technology, I understand product development after all these years.
00;09;24;06 - 00;09;45;01
Derek
But it was always like my medium was always, you know, rallying the troops or writing the overview or writing the deck or getting in front and just like sharing the vision. But I could never actually build something, you know, I had to work with the designer. I had to work with, you know, a coder to prototype it. Therefore, I had to raise some money early on to kind of create a prototype.
00;09;45;01 - 00;10;05;08
Derek
And and also I would just like end up spending six or 12 or 18 months getting to a point with an idea before I knew it was actually viable or not. Right. And now it's just like everything is different. I feel super empowered. I mean, I was on a high maybe a couple weeks ago because I was like starting to code things.
00;10;05;08 - 00;10;15;15
Derek
And then I got more ambitious and everything starts to collapse. And I have a lot of appreciation for system architects and CTOs in a way I didn't, but it's definitely an exciting time.
00;10;15;15 - 00;10;43;09
Chris
If you're a product guy, if you're a vision guy, if you're someone who, like, had wild things in your head and they were always gated by money and the developers, it's an incredibly freeing time. Like I'm going through that right now where, like, I can finally build things the way I want to be able to build them. And I finally have like On-Demand programing that doesn't complain and can keep up pace with me.
00;10;43;09 - 00;10;56;01
Chris
And if I show up there, there and so yeah, I feel that like an entire terrain or like a whole new country has opened up for me and I've really plunged in. So I'm with you.
00;10;56;04 - 00;11;17;17
Aaron
Yeah. I think that that feeling I, I would probably not do, at least for me, it was like Macromedia Dreamweaver when you could just do HTML, like in a what, what you want, you know, or what you see is what you get type approach. I just thought that that was just magical or flash. It is super empowering. I think you're going to hit this point where you do have some respect for engineers.
00;11;17;18 - 00;11;33;02
Aaron
Then you'll learn like three more tricks, and then you'll realize that a lot of that, a lot of that work is, it's pretty easy to. So just keep on pushing through on your bender. I like how you describe it as a bender to it kind of feels that way because it's so engrossing and you, like, get a little disoriented related to it.
00;11;33;04 - 00;11;56;24
Derek
There's a cool, open question, which is like, what? So I've been, you know, for the, you know, for the last year or whatever, like when, you know, beyond ChatGPT and claw, just like using cursor, using windsurf, using bolt dot new using loveable like I kind of felt like I was vibe coding even though it was like really rudimentary, like basic like web stuff.
00;11;56;26 - 00;12;17;18
Derek
And something opened up with cloud code and I'm not sure why, because functionally, like as a UI, it's it's just a terminal. And I'm curious if anybody else has felt this. But like I said, there's like a step change in terms of like flow state and creativity around using cloud code in a terminal that I wasn't expecting. And then I'm sensing from other people, I.
00;12;17;18 - 00;12;42;12
Aaron
Don't really use cloud code sets, so I don't I don't really know. To me, it just feels like what's the right way to say this developer is just masturbating over new tools and they're all pretty pretty much equivalent. I think it's like whatever. Whatever works for you, I think works. They seem like functionally the same. A lot of the new stuff that either teams are building around, like cloud code or cursor or even some of like the, the developer agent stuff, and you can just do it like manually.
00;12;42;15 - 00;12;58;14
Aaron
You know, cloud code has like commands, a cursor just added them. You know, if you were using this at like an expert level beforehand, like you were probably just developing plans or having like subroutines that you could work from even before. So like a lot of the things that developers like, I don't know if they're, they're that lasting.
00;12;58;14 - 00;13;14;26
Aaron
You know, I think the big shift, the best way I've described it is I just think a lot of developers right now, they're like classical musicians. They like want things a certain way, but like the area that we're entering into is like punk rock or like jazz, where there's no liner notes and it's just a completely different way to do it.
00;13;14;29 - 00;13;24;05
Aaron
So whatever they like, I actually just kind of discount instantaneously because I think a lot of them are. Unfortunately, their jobs are changing radically fast, and I don't think a lot of them are going to make it.
00;13;24;07 - 00;13;27;11
Pri
And you wonder why people don't like I.
00;13;27;14 - 00;13;38;06
Aaron
I mean, I that but my point is like, I understand it if you're a software developer, but like, you know, put down your Mozart and and start listening, you know, to to Miles Davis, like, I don't know what to say.
00;13;38;08 - 00;13;39;03
Pri
Yeah.
00;13;39;05 - 00;13;42;05
Aaron
Like you gotta you got to learn. You got to stay with the times.
00;13;42;08 - 00;14;02;26
Chris
Yeah. Aaron, I think we take for granted how adaptable we are. And that's not. It's not a trait that, like, is widely dispersed. That's like a snob. Yeah. Mastery domain knowledge, comfort. Working within an environment. Like a lot of people need that. A lot of people can't just get up on the wire and freelance.
00;14;02;26 - 00;14;14;01
Aaron
Yeah. And maybe that's like the skills when we think about how to train the next generation of, people to we should be focused a little bit more on that, like how to be adaptable.
00;14;14;07 - 00;14;36;10
Chris
I've always been a generalist, right. And it is something that has been native and natural to me. It takes a long time, I think if that's your way of thinking, to understand that not everyone thinks that way, and you might be the actual weirdo in the bunch now, just because the world is shift or the environment is shifted to favor you, right?
00;14;36;10 - 00;14;45;03
Chris
Like you gotta have like some empathy and consideration and sorry, I don't mean to be like, morally scolding you like heaven knows I'm miserable now.
00;14;45;05 - 00;15;14;01
Aaron
I'm used to that. And nice. Nice reference. Yeah. I mean, I think that is important to kind of have that empathy. At the same time, though, I do think like sliding into these like negative doom loops is just completely counterproductive. And I really think it's getting stoked by more powerful forces. I think there's a huge incentive to like, have Americans not like I if you're behind an I, it is a great psyop to make sure that the great country of America is not adopting new technology, not playing around with it.
00;15;14;02 - 00;15;20;18
Aaron
It's all about who's going to be able to use these tools the fastest and the most effective. Like that's who's going to control the future.
00;15;20;18 - 00;15;25;12
Chris
Free. I think it's our turn to call Aaron out for falling down the rabbit holes here.
00;15;25;15 - 00;15;33;19
Pri
Yeah. Do you remember, like that episode where I was, like, freaking out a year ago? Yeah. And you were like, I don't know what you're talking about.
00;15;33;26 - 00;15;43;14
Aaron
I still don't get what you're. I'm not worried about that. I'm. I'm saying that the people that have fallen down the rabbit hole, we need to throw down a rope and pull them out and get them to lean into this stuff.
00;15;43;18 - 00;15;47;14
Chris
What's the rabbit, dude? You're like the lodge. Are you talking? I'm not.
00;15;47;17 - 00;15;48;18
Aaron
Dude, that is that.
00;15;48;19 - 00;15;49;23
Chris
Whoa whoa whoa.
00;15;49;26 - 00;15;51;03
Aaron
We love the lodge. But come.
00;15;51;03 - 00;16;07;19
Chris
On, like. No, you're seriously, like, full Mr. Robot here, implying the CCP is actively influencing anti-Asian, sentiment in the US because it is behind in the technological arms race over advanced air models.
00;16;07;22 - 00;16;08;21
Aaron
The good strategy, Chris.
00;16;08;22 - 00;16;10;19
Pri
That's not that crazy, Chris.
00;16;10;21 - 00;16;30;26
Chris
It's not that crazy. At the same time to say that, like people whose paychecks feel threatened, right. Like to discount that as the majority sentiment here and want to place powers on like outside forces for this this foreign Hollywood opinion. I mean, I don't know, I'm an Occam's Razor sort of dude.
00;16;30;29 - 00;16;34;03
Aaron
You know, just to be clear, I'm not suggesting it. I'm just saying it's plausible.
00;16;34;08 - 00;16;37;04
Chris
Derek is the voice of centrist reason.
00;16;37;07 - 00;16;59;13
Derek
I'm just trying to figure out what the rabbit hole is here. I think I finally latched onto it from Chris's hypo here, but I guess Aaron, maybe. Can you play? Can you play this, this probability out a bit and like where you think it's originating from and, and maybe the risk that exists if too many people go, you know, red pilled by by the idea, I'm, I'm just trying to kind of like track, I guess it's.
00;16;59;19 - 00;17;18;29
Aaron
It's kind of more like the anti, like tech sentiment and why that's growing. And I hear that like, the paycheck fits, Chris. But it doesn't feel like that actually has happened yet to create that this much worry. So it's getting stoked from somewhere. And so then the question is what is stoking that? And I think most people are pretty smart that I think that most worries are.
00;17;19;01 - 00;17;35;22
Aaron
There's some rationality to it, and I'm not 100% convinced that that's the case. Again, in this instance. And if it was a hundred years ago in the states and new technology came out, people would be running at it. But now we have like kind of a European veneer across part of the America where we don't want things to change.
00;17;35;28 - 00;17;59;08
Aaron
And I think that that is, some cultural detritus that has been building up. And I was just suggesting not saying I agree with it, but saying it's plausible that it may be, it may be stoked by, by some powers. There's huge incentives for the US to not adopt technology anymore, to become not as kind of tech leaning as it has been historically.
00;17;59;10 - 00;18;00;26
Derek
And what are the incentives?
00;18;01;00 - 00;18;14;23
Aaron
Yeah. So AI is going to get commoditized, right? Like at some point everybody's going to catch up. Right. And I think that's a reasonable thesis to have. And maybe there's like, 1 or 2 models that are a step ahead. They they probably will not never be fully commercialized. Right. So like the commercial layer is going to be pretty commoditized.
00;18;14;23 - 00;18;28;09
Aaron
So which society is going to win in that environment. It's the one that's uses it the fastest and the deepest. There's some research from I think there was a book I forgot where the guy was from. I think northwestern, they talked about this fact. Right. Like, why did the US kind of eclipse Europe way back in the day?
00;18;28;12 - 00;18;56;29
Aaron
Like we didn't invent the car, right. But we mass produced it. You know, there's lots of technology that that actually diffuses better in the US than in other parts of the world and planet. And that's actually one of our major keys to success. So if you believe that AI is going to be commoditized, the right question is how do you get the most people to use it so that that you can build a more productive, efficient, and Bountiful society and so convincing half of the population that it's not in their interest to adopt the technology is an amazingly winning strategy.
00;18;57;05 - 00;18;58;26
Aaron
So that's the rabbit hole there.
00;18;58;29 - 00;19;25;16
Derek
Welcome. Yeah. I'm min I need to chew on that a little bit more, I guess. You know, I, I think I see things a little bit more simplistically, which is just like, you know, I think the great, the great thing about America. And just to put on my red, white and blue hat for a moment is like, we've, we've, we've built a country that allows for ideologies and viewpoints to kind of like ping pong back and forth across, you know, the across the center.
00;19;25;22 - 00;19;46;21
Seth
And, you know, given the fact that we're largely a democratic nation and, you know, we have a majority rule system and a federalist system of states rights versus federal rights, we end up landing over time, you know, as a country in places where you know how the group wants to move forward and in a way that is, you know, civically, you know, practical.
00;19;46;23 - 00;20;09;00
Derek
And I think with disruptive technologies like it, it can be tricky to kind of wrap your head around the pros and cons and timelines like Christophe was saying, around impact and investment and how this may affect the the household and capital formation and, and all of the kind of the, the messiness that a disruptive technology like this implies.
00;20;09;02 - 00;20;40;14
Derek
And, and I guess what I'm seeing is just a country that is also, you know, at fear of like the geopolitical, you know, impact of of other countries racing towards this technology faster, adopting a faster, struggling with those questions in real time. I'm finding just people from different places in the US, people in different categories of our economy, people who live in different states, people who are, you know, find themselves working in tech versus working in other, you know, maybe more blue collar industries.
00;20;40;16 - 00;21;12;08
Derek
I think we're just seeing this really messy discourse happen at a time where the internet can proliferate these views really quickly. And it just I think it just feels very garbled. And I guess my sense is less like there is a an invisible hand behind this all, and it's just more like, this is what it looks like to have something incredibly disruptive, you know, national discourse kind of pumped into our bloodstream every second of the waking minute because we have like these rails now that exists where conversations are happening constantly and in real time.
00;21;12;08 - 00;21;19;05
Seth
And yeah, I guess I guess that's that's kind of what I'm seeing is just like a very messy discourse happening around a very hard to understand technology.
00;21;19;08 - 00;21;24;25
Aaron
Yeah, we're we're fearmongering works better to kind of spread them memetic energy.
00;21;24;28 - 00;21;26;03
Chris
That's the world we live in.
00;21;26;07 - 00;21;50;07
Pri
I think part of the turn around and hyper skepticism around AI is because the promise of the internet and the brain rot culture and how internet has changed youth minds and iPad kids and all of that has kind of just altered the perception and openness to new technologies as well. Just like thinking out loud, because there's way more openness to the internet than I.
00;21;50;09 - 00;22;08;27
Pri
And I'm like, well, why is that? Maybe it's just like past experiences informing future. And I think even just thinking about from political lens, like the left used to be more protect, they become more anti-tax. I think part of that is like the Jonathan Haidt kind of rigamarole around, like the podcast circuit that's been like, tech is bad for your kids.
00;22;08;27 - 00;22;17;24
Pri
And like, I think that that at some point hits people over the head and gets them skeptical of future technology as well. Just to kind of add that in as well to the.
00;22;17;26 - 00;22;39;23
Chris
Yeah, no, it's a good point. Like a just this technology skepticism has been around for a while, right. Like we can go back to, I don't know, Cambridge Analytica that that era of time when the internet became more of a captive manipulatives type of environment. So this isn't new, right? Let's say it's been floating around in the ether for ten years or so.
00;22;39;26 - 00;22;58;07
Chris
I think that's one aspect of it. But then, you know, to the point of, well, people always treated the internet as a playground. Oh, everything's free. Should we go look at shitty ads? But it's kind of like fill our, you know, our free moment and give us dopamine hits. I think AI is far more threatening in its capabilities.
00;22;58;07 - 00;23;21;23
Chris
Right. Like, to me, to some degree, the internet was a bit of a carnival, and you can get in trouble in a carnival, but you're going to have a good time. The carnival. To me, AI is like the clone army, and in Star Wars you know, there's a higher threatening degree. And plus, we've all grown up on this, you know, sort of like sci fi concept of what I was like.
00;23;21;23 - 00;23;25;19
Chris
It's been culturally programed into us our entire lives, and now it's here.
00;23;25;21 - 00;23;44;06
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I think that's true. I but it's the same thing. Like, let's say we were back in the, I don't know, 18, mid 1800s, Chris. And everybody was ramped up on steam engine power and then electricity came out. I, I just don't think that there was 50% of Americans that were saying, I don't want to try out electricity.
00;23;44;08 - 00;24;05;14
Aaron
It's bad for us. And that's the shift that I think is, is like to me is like the most concerning bit. And I and I think that it's deeper than just like, oh, the internet gives us dopamine hits. I think it's something that is getting pushed by various different channels. And I don't understand the logic as to why that would be the case.
00;24;05;16 - 00;24;31;29
Chris
Yeah. So many places we can go here. One, right? The America of the late 19th century was in a radically different position than Europe of the late 19th century, like Europe, the back half of that century. Dude, that was like everything was a revolution. Every or a lot of instability going on over there. And so through the lens of our country, yes, we were wildly optimistic about new technology, embracing it.
00;24;32;01 - 00;24;38;01
Chris
Europe was a different story. So that's I don't know that that's one aspect of it.
00;24;38;03 - 00;24;58;01
Seth
I'll also add one other thing, which is, I mean, surprisingly, electricity actually took quite a bit of time to diffuse here in the US. I think it took something like 25 or 30 years just to reach 50% usage rate by our population. And I think a lot of that had to do with kind of the unknowns that people had around, like what electricity was and like, would it shock me?
00;24;58;01 - 00;25;07;09
Derek
Would I die? Would I get electrocuted? I'm sure there was like all sorts of lobbying efforts against it from, you know, the I mean, who knows?
00;25;07;12 - 00;25;08;21
Chris
Big deal. The big.
00;25;08;24 - 00;25;12;22
Seth
Scandal, big, big candle or something or but but like but.
00;25;12;22 - 00;25;18;13
Chris
I mean tuck it whacked syndicate. Yeah. Yeah but but but my whale oil cards but my.
00;25;18;16 - 00;25;22;00
Seth
But my larger point is like this, this, this idea of technology, the New.
00;25;22;00 - 00;25;25;26
Aaron
England, the New England candle company, Chris, I think is what you're looking for there.
00;25;26;02 - 00;25;27;23
Chris
There we go. Yankee Candle.
00;25;27;26 - 00;25;28;08
Aaron
Exactly.
00;25;28;08 - 00;25;29;02
Seth
Yankee Candle were.
00;25;29;02 - 00;25;30;17
Aaron
Just they were just evil.
00;25;30;19 - 00;25;34;15
Seth
Evil. It does take a long time. Candles come from the whales.
00;25;34;17 - 00;25;35;22
Aaron
Yes. Yeah. Obviously.
00;25;35;27 - 00;25;36;16
Seth
Probably.
00;25;36;22 - 00;25;46;17
Chris
No, I, I totally screwed that. The oil for lanterns came from the whales. Candles. Just steam from, melted down pig parts.
00;25;46;20 - 00;25;47;08
Seth
Exactly.
00;25;47;12 - 00;25;48;18
Chris
It took 40 years.
00;25;48;18 - 00;26;07;07
Seth
For Big Candle to finally lose that battle, I guess. But the larger point is like, this is I feel like this is actually just like the the normal, which is just like it takes time for technology to diffuse. It doesn't matter what form it takes. It's like there's humans are really good at like being very fearful about change.
00;26;07;09 - 00;26;22;20
Seth
And that could be changing livelihood. That could be change in safety, that could be change in, all sorts of ways. Our brain tricks us into thinking that change is bad. And I think we're just seeing the same thing that we've always seen around AI, which is like lots of rapid discussion. We just it's more in our face.
00;26;22;20 - 00;26;43;08
Seth
The internet has put these conversations in front of our eyeballs, six inches away, to look at every second that we're awake today. And I just don't think we had that before. So if I would say that there's one reason why it feels more divisive is just because we're we're confronted with these conversations in a way that I think we haven't in previous technology revolutions.
00;26;43;10 - 00;26;59;26
Aaron
Yeah, I think you're right, Derek. But I also think just because you mentioned it before, there are people that know how to skillfully coordinate memetic activity on the internet. Right? We learned that with Cambridge Analytica. A Chris. That's true. I don't yeah, I don't think you can completely disregard that possibility.
00;26;59;28 - 00;27;15;29
Chris
I'm not completely disregarding it. I'm just saying I think there are more pressing concerns, but I'm part of the other thing going on here is we live in a very anti-human time, you know, like, I was just on vacation last week and we had a lot of people, you know, come in and out for the day, stay with us.
00;27;15;29 - 00;27;45;04
Chris
And like, I really was noticing how, like my, my peers or I, people who are parents, late 40s, early 50s are just so stressed out and couldn't unwind. And like it was really in this, like, noticeable way that, you know, I didn't go down to Fire Island, I don't know, like a dozen years now. And I've never sort of seen this level of stress and tension from people who were coming out and visiting us, and it was just like, oh my God, I apparently it's me who was like completely out of step with the mood of the world right now.
00;27;45;04 - 00;28;18;22
Derek
Yeah, it's it's it's, something it wasn't your normal summer. It's something is just like people are stressed, people are anxious. And it's like you're either anxious because you're sort of, you know, gaslighting or ignoring I. But you know, it's coming and you can't get away from reading about it or hearing about how it's going to impact your life, or you're in it and you're fucking with it and it's fucking up your head because, you know, you're getting psychotic believing one of these models or you know that what you're telling them is, is truly, you know, a Nobel Prize winning breakthrough.
00;28;18;22 - 00;28;38;26
Derek
It's a very anxious time, you know, and, you know, I think got my anchor, some of our anchors looking through the lens of art and digital art and see it there. But I think it's it's definitely way broader than that. You know, that being said, I think there's some really good pragmatic experiences around it. And it's it's so accessible.
00;28;39;04 - 00;29;00;05
Derek
You know, it's so available in the fact that ChatGPT has a billion users now is looking insane. But it's not it's not a mainframe, you know, it's not it's not something that you don't have access to. Anybody can call it up on their on the phone. And Roger's just walked in. So he sends his love to everybody on the internet.
00;29;00;09 - 00;29;01;14
Aaron
We send it back to.
00;29;01;18 - 00;29;02;25
Derek
You and we all say hi.
00;29;02;28 - 00;29;04;08
Pri
Yeah. Probably say hey.
00;29;04;11 - 00;29;12;10
Seth
I will, but speaking, you know, he just dropped the interview today with Rick Rubin about voting on Graham Button. Right? So it's all connected.
00;29;12;13 - 00;29;30;25
Chris
It's all out there. Yeah. Before a double decker bus crashes into us. Tell us about, like, how you're working. Are you locked in? Are you do you get a second screen activity going on like as you discover this in like you go on this bender, like, how is it locked in are you and be like, how does it how was your world change?
00;29;30;25 - 00;29;33;22
Chris
Like walk us through like steps in the vide coding ride?
00;29;33;25 - 00;29;59;05
Seth
I guess I'll start just with the really like positive I think optimistic story somewhat, which is, you know, I think this is a becoming a fairly. Yeah surely popular use cases is the fact that we can self surveil ourselves was always interesting in terms of, you know, the quantified self and privacy and, you know, yada yada yada. But now like we have something we can't, we can take that information about ourselves.
00;29;59;05 - 00;30;23;19
Seth
We can take these recordings of calls from granola or from Google. Gemini I've been wearing this, you know, stupid pendant called limitless. It's not a stupid, super smart and, you know, hiding it under my shirt. And I'm just recording all the time because then I can go back to it, grab transcripts, grab whatever, feed that into that GPT and clod, among other things, and just kind of have this second brain.
00;30;23;19 - 00;30;44;19
Seth
And so where the rubber hits the road, which I find really encouraging, I spent the last three days in Zurich, with a couple folks working on a project. There's this kind of workflow that I'm finding for this around the table. It used to be that you'd have, you know, off site, whatever, and then you'd have to spend a week or two, you know, writing up the results and writing up a deck.
00;30;44;26 - 00;31;07;17
Seth
And what I'm finding now is like, you kind of do it at the same time that like the the time and cost of creating artifacts or media or documentation basically goes to zero. Because, you know, my workflow is I've got, you know, as the granola going during these sessions and meetings in person for people as we're talking through things every hour or so.
00;31;07;18 - 00;31;37;25
Seth
And I'm taking the transcript of the conversation, you know, I'm putting it into an LM, and by the end of the the meeting, you know, I'm firing it up on Manus and we have a deck. And like, I was, you know, I was with two Europeans who are probably like late 40s, you know, 50s. And they were just kind of blown away by how fast this was all going and how like we had all these, you know, there used to oh, wait a minute.
00;31;37;25 - 00;31;58;21
Seth
We now need to hire a designer to make some really pretty diagrams for the PowerPoint presentation that we have to give to potential partners. And that's going to take three weeks. And X amount of money that's just gone, even though there's an infinite scrolling and and super distraction across all these different terminal windows and screens, I think there isn't that positive coming out of it.
00;31;58;21 - 00;32;16;00
Seth
And I felt that I think it's exhilarating and it's not just making, you know, generative imagery slop or making, you know, AI music or whatever. It kind of it cuts making us more productive and, and for now, the human is still in the loop. And there's a role of the human.
00;32;16;03 - 00;32;31;11
Aaron
I don't think that's gone. I'm still skeptical that that's going to go away. And like that scene that you painted, Seth feels like so empowering, right? Your ability to kind of create and to to get rid of what, frankly, is just like a ton of scut work is fantastic. Right? And it's.
00;32;31;11 - 00;32;35;08
Seth
Like bionic. Yeah, exactly. Kind of exoskeleton.
00;32;35;11 - 00;32;56;04
Aaron
Yeah. Completely. And I just think that that is super empowering. You know, you don't need to be just like the generalist to kind of succeed in that environment. Right? Like you can be, like super specialized creative or a contribute to, you know, a group project in some sort of way that works, maybe even it would align with the emerging, you know, much more luxurious European lifestyle, right?
00;32;56;04 - 00;33;15;26
Aaron
Where they can they can be much more about sitting around and ideating on things and actually turning that insight into lots of productive output for everybody. I don't know, like that feels like a really positive vision of the future. I'm feeling that too. You don't need to, like, have a meeting to plan something. You can just meet to do something which is just totally different.
00;33;15;28 - 00;33;16;11
Aaron
Yeah.
00;33;16;11 - 00;33;34;26
Seth
Another observation I wonder a couple of times. One is, because the barrier of entry is so low with, with, by putting and you can create something so quickly, you can create anything quickly. I find really interesting that some of the, the most sophisticated engineers I engine, you know, whoever in the valley you live in the bay area.
00;33;34;29 - 00;34;02;29
Seth
When I hear kind of what they're doing with their coding projects, it's like either to do list or, workout tracker, like the use cases that they're imagining are really fucking boring. I don't want to make a broad generalization, but it's interesting, I think, as I'm in New York or Europe, that maybe there's a chance for the value to to shift higher up in the stack, where coming up with weird ideas because you now can implement them so quickly.
00;34;03;01 - 00;34;13;28
Seth
Is that a premium? And maybe the people that come up with a weird, strange, freaky punk rock ideas, that's the ones who are working at OpenAI or anthropic or somewhere like that.
00;34;13;28 - 00;34;17;15
Aaron
I 1,000% agree with that said. Yeah, completely.
00;34;17;22 - 00;34;29;27
Chris
Yeah, the West Coast get that 9.96 thing going on. And like the lack of imagination. Yeah. No, it's just like, oh my god. Like you can do anything with this shit. Why the hell do you want a workout planner?
00;34;30;03 - 00;34;51;24
Aaron
Right. So I I've thought about this a lot. I think that the engineers don't realize how much they can do with this. Like they look at a problem or a technical task, and it seems really big. And in reality, for the AI systems, it's very small. And so they don't push the systems to kind of like the, the knob that it actually can go and, and I think that that's part of the challenges.
00;34;51;24 - 00;35;10;03
Aaron
I think it's it's the same as like classical music mentality. Right. Like they just feel like they're a cog in a broader engineering machine. And that entire machine is just been destroyed. So I do think people need to expand their minds a little bit more. I hate the term vibe coding. I think it's just programing with AI.
00;35;10;05 - 00;35;10;28
Aaron
It's like,
00;35;11;01 - 00;35;11;11
Pri
I agree.
00;35;11;12 - 00;35;32;26
Aaron
I think it's like a clever trick that software engineers have implemented to, like, disparage it, but I actually think most software that is generated today is garbage, and there's no way that the AI pretty software is not just better if it's being produced by somebody with imagination and at least like some like mild amount of technical competency.
00;35;33;00 - 00;35;46;04
Chris
Derek, man, you're getting a lot of Northeast New York City like doubting fornicate hatred going on here like you know how Joan of Arc feels now. Like speak up for the West Coast. Well.
00;35;46;06 - 00;35;47;29
Seth
I think I think these are all great points.
00;35;47;29 - 00;35;50;06
Aaron
This is Biggie's arrow, Derek. Biggie's era.
00;35;50;08 - 00;36;08;04
Seth
I'm going to acknowledge biggie because Eric could be back and the East Coast could be could be rocking right now. My one, I think maybe the thing that I'm reflecting on as you guys are riffing here is, you know, I think it gets back to the original conversation we had, and I think it's really difficult right now to see.
00;36;08;10 - 00;36;33;00
Seth
I think there's two parts. The first is like the substrate of what synthetic intelligence is or what agents can do. I still think, you know, I maintain we're still kind of like in inning one there. We kind of understand where the innovations around scale for performance can be. I mean, reinforcement learning and and some of like the a infra that's now getting put together and larger and larger training runs like these are all leading to improved performance.
00;36;33;00 - 00;37;00;12
Seth
But, you know, these systems still hallucinate. They're you know, they're they're not as good as they will be. And so the ground is shifting. And so I think it really precludes or it scares off talented engineers from really kind of like digging in and just saying, like, you know, fully availing themselves to the weirdness of what can be built with these systems, knowing that the the error space for how these things can go off the rails still kind of exists and is in the back of their mind.
00;37;00;14 - 00;37;21;12
Seth
I think that's part one. The second part is it's just difficult with new technology to understand how these things can be used and we see this over and over again, which is like, we've talked about this idea in, in, on this podcast before, but it's like the first use cases for the internet were like scanning and making PDFs of newspapers and putting them up as images on the internet.
00;37;21;12 - 00;37;42;05
Seth
And I love this conversation because, like I, I think we all acknowledge here that it is the weird stuff that people do to kind of like push these things to their limits and play at the edges. That's going to lead to breakthroughs around new products and services, new ideas, new ways that, you know, we can consume and generate and and participate in, kind of like these AI generated economies.
00;37;42;08 - 00;38;15;09
Seth
But for now, you know, there's this whole infrastructure to support, like commercialization around product and services that the Bay area is just like falling into. And it's like we that's, it's really difficult to reroute your brain on how to create value. And all you know is this one thing of how to make money and how to build products and services and so what we're seeing, I think, at the earliest stages, is just like this shoehorning in of this technology stack into kind of like the way capital formation works and the way products get launched and the way they get marketed.
00;38;15;09 - 00;38;18;17
Seth
And I think it's going to it's going to take some time for that to massage out.
00;38;18;18 - 00;38;24;23
Chris
Hey, you do that out west in here in New York. Big pun hit you with the big guns.
00;38;24;26 - 00;38;26;13
Seth
There you go, there you go.
00;38;26;15 - 00;38;44;00
Aaron
I think you know, Derek. I mean, I think that's right. I actually think it's going to be great for creatives in LA too. You know, like the moment and you know, Seth and I just happened to meet up and he was showing me said some really cool stuff you were building. And it was the first time I felt like, oh man, Hollywood is is going to completely change.
00;38;44;00 - 00;38;57;11
Aaron
The video generation stuff is just leveled up and with some clever, you know, orchestration technology that people can build, you can. I honestly really think in in a year or two you're going to get full 30 minute shows.
00;38;57;13 - 00;39;02;02
Pri
We want to hear about what you're doing because Aaron mentioned that it was like pretty impressive.
00;39;02;02 - 00;39;05;01
Aaron
I liked it a lot. Yeah, it was inspiring. Seth.
00;39;05;03 - 00;39;32;11
Seth
Thank you. Always work on a couple of things, but I think of late I've been really focused on building really creative, interesting, unique, fully expressive agents that are also fundamentally rooted on chain. So it's like a full stack. I'm working with, some of you know, Gene Kogan, og AI artist, and he co-founded Brain Drops, which a number of people here listening knows.
00;39;32;11 - 00;39;55;16
Seth
He was the first and was first artist on Brain Drops. He invented something called Abraham. I, conceived of it in 2017, which was the first fully kind of conceptual framework and whitepaper about a fully autonomous, artificial artist named Abraham. And then out of that, he built, this platform he's been working on for a few few years called Eden.
00;39;55;18 - 00;40;36;16
Seth
Eden art, I think there's a kind of analogy I make. It's like he's kind of like Snow Pharaoh, you know, for AI or for AI agents, as I think of it, in terms of Eden being this platform, where he's the first agent on it and that to know him over the last year and just been spending a lot of time together, and I'm coming in to join him in his team and work on Eden as a a studio for human beings to train created AI agents that have their own daily practice, that are unique, that have, that are tokenized, that generate revenue and flow it back to the token holders that can express
00;40;36;16 - 00;40;58;01
Seth
themselves through video, through images, through text, music, sound and whatever mode that are styled and that they involve with memory. So it's kind of like, you know, I think I think we all saw the end of last year with virtual and with Elijah, just you just kind of like huge hype cycle, very quick around on chain agent AI agents.
00;40;58;01 - 00;41;14;27
Seth
And it still persists a little bit, but it kind of was a quick boom and bust. But I think it's going to stick around. I think it's going to grow. And I think the problem then some of it was kind of a Silicon Valley thing where like it was either are these are these fully autonomous or not, as if that was the only thing that mattered.
00;41;14;29 - 00;41;41;11
Seth
And I think there is a overemphasis on autonomy. I do think autonomy is important in the long run as an aspiration for AI agents, but I think the humans are going to be in the loop for a long time. And I think exploring that, giving us human creators tools to train agents to do things that we can fit our style, that fit our sensibility, but can also generate passive revenue for us is really interesting.
00;41;41;13 - 00;42;00;11
Seth
I also think just this connection between, you know, the AI world and the and the crypto worlds, like they don't always get along and there's a lot of resentment. It feels to me, you know, in particularly in the Bay area like crypto is, is bad. You know, for these AI companies, you know, they don't play that well. It's changing a little bit.
00;42;00;11 - 00;42;28;23
Seth
Maybe there's such a natural use case for NFTs and crypto in the world of these agents, because it's the only way to establish uniqueness is the only way to establish and maintain identity. And I really like using NFTs for something other than, you know, Jpeg speculation using them as ownership machines, using them as programable ecosystems. And I think they just played really nicely with this movement of AI, you know, sort of to become more, more human.
00;42;28;25 - 00;42;31;13
Seth
You know, we're going to have robots soon enough. Yeah.
00;42;31;13 - 00;42;50;23
Aaron
It's interesting just to kind of, feel that sentiment from San Francisco. I think that change is just one, I don't know. I don't know when that change is fully. Maybe when you can use this stuff for capital formation a little bit more. I feel like then entrepreneurs will be more excited about it. As a general concept, I still feels like stablecoins are a little bit hard to wrap your head around.
00;42;50;26 - 00;43;03;02
Aaron
I don't think that, you know, your core entrepreneurial, you know, tech executive has a huge, huge demand for stablecoins in their business, except for some, you know, fintech related businesses. So I don't know, I think it's great.
00;43;03;02 - 00;43;09;28
Seth
It should it should impact e-commerce. You know, stablecoins should be the way that everyone gets paid and pays for things completely.
00;43;09;28 - 00;43;22;22
Aaron
But, you know, a lot of like the bleeding edge, I guess SF based tech companies are not. I'm sure some are, but it's not like the predominant way of rent. So it's still kind of not relevant to their day to day. But I think eventually two will converge.
00;43;22;24 - 00;43;57;12
Chris
When you think the entire world is going to either end or, achieve superintelligence in three years, maybe you just don't give crypto much consideration. I'm saying that a little tongue in cheek, but you know, there definitely seems to be like this, I don't know, a bit of a, messianic forecasting around these things and believing in the primacy of AI as a transformation tool that might like a and you snobbery, be like, tunnel your vision, but, you know also just cause you to like, consider everything else meaningless.
00;43;57;12 - 00;44;05;17
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, I actually I've been thinking about that. Like, when are we going to see the AI religion start? I feel like the clock's ticking on that one.
00;44;05;19 - 00;44;08;18
Pri
I feel like that's what's that's kind of getting it a little bit.
00;44;08;20 - 00;44;39;15
Seth
Oh it's coming, you know. So. So anyway, to finish a story, you know, in in Paris now because I get to set this all up like Abraham is on October. Guess I'm saying here for the first time, October 18th, October 19th is going to be starting a 13 year contract. It's all the it's it's his covenant where he will be as per a smart contract, making a new work of art every day for 13 years, except for resting on Saturdays.
00;44;39;15 - 00;45;02;05
Seth
So six days on. And then he rests on the Sabbath. And that's going to happen for 13 years. And after 13 years. And there's all sorts of interesting mechanics. And that's why, you know, and we were talking about, okay, how do you, you know, if you want to lock in this permanence, this long term contract, like the clock of long now, but what if people just don't like auctions and it just dies and attention starvation deaths.
00;45;02;05 - 00;45;22;23
Derek
Like, what are the right mechanics so you can lock in now they're going to work 13 years out and hopefully 13 years out. There's some extraordinary celebration based on what ends up in Abraham's treasury. But that's, you know, Abraham, it's the platform is called even, you know, and the agents that graduate from Eden were calling spirits. So maybe it's too much on the nose.
00;45;22;23 - 00;45;31;19
Derek
And, you know, it's not religion. But, you know, we talk about lower and lower is just probably another word for religion. You know, there's no there's no culture without cult.
00;45;31;21 - 00;45;39;09
Pri
Out any curiosity. I haven't thought about this, but is this is this meant for robots or is it meant for humans or is it meant for robots and humans?
00;45;39;10 - 00;46;02;24
Derek
Yes. I don't know. I think, it's meant for it's weird. Like, you know, I the first five code project, to your point, Chris, that I started was I created this thing called lone cast Lone Cast app, and it's a peer to peer lending system because I remember a called Zopa or something years ago and circle kind of started to spread or scout what it was.
00;46;02;25 - 00;46;22;11
Derek
There's a way for I was like, I want to use forecaster because when you when you cast something, you can now collect it as an NFT. And that was really clever. And I remember learning from and then I saw some of the early casts were valued more than $5, not because they had a picture, but because they promised something.
00;46;22;13 - 00;46;52;04
Derek
So if you buy this, I will make a really cool of you. And some of them are going for 60 or $70. I was like, oh, that's cool. I learned years ago, from Lou Ranieri, who really invented the modern, collateralized mortgage obligation trillion dollar mortgage market when he was at Salomon Brothers in the 80s and Liar's Poker, we worked on it like a mortgage, online mortgage, lead generation business before the mortgage market collapsed in 2008, 2007.
00;46;52;11 - 00;47;11;17
Derek
Anyway, so, what he taught me was that mortgages are just promises to pay. And so I was like, okay, like, why don't just, like, create a system where anybody that makes a cast can, can say in the cast that I promise to pay the holder, the owner of this NFT, whatever. He paid for it, plus interest.
00;47;11;20 - 00;47;30;29
Derek
And I coded it up in a couple days, and it works. And people and a couple people can lend money to each other without credit checking, without any kind of centralized authority, just based on somebody's open, you know, sarcastic profile ID and which I'm telling the stories. Then I was like, oh, we should make it a like available to agents.
00;47;30;29 - 00;47;57;20
Derek
Like agents should be able to lend and borrow to each other and humans as well. And that was just like another night of vibe coding. To open that up to agents of the agent can now lend to themselves. And so I actually lent money to one of the agents, Eden. And she paid me back. But ten days later, an extra 2 or $3 of Usdc with my help, I kind of felt like a parent, and I'm fine with that.
00;47;57;22 - 00;48;05;18
Derek
I'm not trying to prove that it's fully automated, but it's nevertheless really interesting. That's where I'm. That's where my head's at. Pre.
00;48;05;20 - 00;48;16;16
Pri
Yeah, I've been waiting. I'm curious. The reason I ask is I'm like, there's going to be a new religion where both robots and humans are followers. And so I was like hoping this was edging into that idea.
00;48;16;16 - 00;48;36;25
Derek
Well them the most. The most exciting cultural event happening in the Bay area these days is robot boxing. It's the only thing that really just feels underground is happening in the frontier building. I think there's been 2 or 3 times. Did you go? I didn't go, but the Christy sisters helping. So we have we have access to it, but it doesn't surprise me.
00;48;36;25 - 00;48;58;01
Derek
Like I think when people see humanoids, when people see these robots, like they don't care about the sedans, or the, the auto glyph next to them. They just want to see the fucking dog. The robot dog that's walking around. Right? It's really visceral right now. I think we take for granted seeing screens like there are screens now in every fucking retail establishment.
00;48;58;04 - 00;49;24;05
Derek
It's not special anymore to see a giant LCD screen, but humanoids are a big deal. I think people are going to Tesla dealerships just to see the robots. If I had more time, more money, and a great space, I would start a robot. Like a culture, like a high culture robot gallery to do robots and have people just literally just, I don't know, Museum of Natural History for the future, where you see robots in dioramas, just behaving, interacting with each other.
00;49;24;08 - 00;49;33;13
Derek
I think we'll get normalized to that, just like we have with Waymo's, you know, relatively soon. But for the next couple of years, I think, like, that's where all the heat and the interest is.
00;49;33;13 - 00;49;57;15
Chris
So, Seth, you're like, traversing so many interesting spaces. You're in the Old Testament right now. You're in Robot Fight Club, and then you're actually out in Legion, which like a lot of people don't don't know this or like maybe you've forgotten, but like Legion was kind of the thing that like first, first really God is going after the dotcom crash.
00;49;57;15 - 00;50;05;08
Chris
Like I was out in L.A., I worked at, yeah, yeah, I worked at Ryan. I was, like, attractive. Lower my bills.
00;50;05;11 - 00;50;31;22
Derek
Lower my bills. Matt Carson, you had a had a did a great job with that. Like. Yeah, there's so many of them. It was you know it was it it drove Google you know it was there was a lot of that free iPods. That's why now like I'm really like when I hear that, one thing I hear, you know, people complain about, you know, about someone's complaining about Zora saying, oh, you know, the, you know, the top whatever creator coin.
00;50;31;22 - 00;50;59;03
Derek
And Zora is just, you know, some kind of porn sex thing, as if that was like, is that was an example of failure. I was like, oh, that's actually like all great new internet technologies come out of, you know, these kinds of illicit, edgy spaces. You know, I think a big, you know, in terms of Legion, like there's a big market, as we're seeing for online gambling, sports gambling, huge.
00;50;59;04 - 00;51;15;26
Derek
And my son Goldie's doing it. He was at Poly Market. He's at a place called knows it now. But the lead generation around betting and emerging prediction markets, I think to your point, Chris, is going to be really important and valuable, to drive the industry wild times.
00;51;15;26 - 00;51;43;10
Chris
I don't I can't even, like wrap my head around the agenda and but like, it feels really right. Like what you're saying around, you know, the forecast, for example, of simply being promises and and that's like an interesting idea, especially because it speaks to the era where in this punk rock air, this era where the an anti-establishment thing to do is to extend trust in a non contractual form.
00;51;43;15 - 00;52;03;21
Chris
Right. Like there is something human about that, that even if we're talking about image and text back there, but like, you know, we got to remember like promises, right. And just like having a little bit of trust really matters to get your going. You know, everyone right now is living in this like code is law and PvP sort of world.
00;52;03;21 - 00;52;10;16
Chris
And like, you're never going to get anywhere at that mindset if all you're doing is walking in with like into an adversarial environment.
00;52;10;18 - 00;52;29;27
Derek
Yeah. It's not it's not about monetizing trust and tokenize. And it's a different kind of trust. Like I think about friend tech. I think about things on the social, social side, services versus like what you're saying is just promising something to somebody without a contract, without a token. That's the most radical gesture of all. Because why would you do that?
00;52;29;29 - 00;52;46;03
Derek
You know, when you can, when everything can be known and everything can be agreed to in advance, you know, which is why, at the same time, like we want these agents to be interesting than what we hate slop. We don't want to. We don't want predictability, we want entropy. We want chaos where we need the chaos to keep these systems interesting.
00;52;46;03 - 00;52;47;25
Derek
Otherwise, like, our brains rot.
00;52;47;25 - 00;52;50;29
Chris
Literally. Yeah. No, I'm with you, man. I'm like.
00;52;51;01 - 00;53;03;08
Aaron
I wonder when that happens. Like, because, you know, that's one notable thing I noticed about GPT five. It is like it is less hallucinatory, but it is not fun to engage with. Like I was trying to amp it up and it like.
00;53;03;08 - 00;53;04;23
Derek
Barely.
00;53;04;25 - 00;53;08;01
Aaron
I can barely like it has like no personality at all.
00;53;08;04 - 00;53;16;24
Chris
Yeah. I mean, how much of that was just like, oh my God, Claude can call the tools Claude in code. Everyone out here cares about that. Let's over optimize.
00;53;16;26 - 00;53;18;07
Aaron
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.
00;53;18;10 - 00;53;19;07
Chris
Oh, yeah.
00;53;19;09 - 00;53;35;03
Aaron
Yeah. But it's interesting that like that. And maybe that's where open source kind of wins here. Like once you get past like a sufficient level of reasoning, open source ecosystem will play around and start to develop systems that have a little bit more entropy in them, or at least something that's a little bit more interesting.
00;53;35;06 - 00;53;36;05
Derek
Yeah. Weirdness.
00;53;36;05 - 00;53;57;25
Chris
Weirdness unique like city complexity, like, I don't I don't think anyone really wants to think in systems. I think everyone wants to think in terms of like hierarchical control, because, you know, the world is so rigid, so punishing. And like, if that's the mindset you grew up in, like, that's the wrong match for for the what these tools can do.
00;53;57;25 - 00;54;14;00
Chris
I really am hoping in a couple of years from now, like, people are going to be stacking these things and really in really wild ways in which the value of emergence right starts to come to the fore and people can open their minds up and, you know, stop white knuckling the shit.
00;54;14;00 - 00;54;31;21
Aaron
I think I mean, and maybe this all goes full circle like, but and that's why, like the anxiousness of everybody is so corrosive. You know, I just feel like you can't get weird. You can't have like that degree of freedom that you need to explore, like as a collective society. And everybody's just so, so and so tightly. We got to loosen up.
00;54;31;23 - 00;54;32;20
Aaron
I don't know what we'll do that.
00;54;32;23 - 00;54;34;24
Chris
Clearly our podcast is going to do it.
00;54;34;26 - 00;54;38;09
Aaron
I mean net net society going vertical. Yeah. Absolutely.
00;54;38;10 - 00;54;39;20
Pri
No way that doesn't happen.
00;54;39;27 - 00;54;42;27
Chris
Is this the, revenge of the 50 year old era?
00;54;43;00 - 00;54;43;11
Aaron
Hey, hey.
00;54;43;11 - 00;55;28;17
Chris
I'm like, well, all right, sorry, man, but you know, like, I do wonder, like, I have been thinking a little bit lately about, you know, have we hit peak human general intelligence and we hit peak population like something's got to give here right now. And all the all the trend lines seem to be wanting to push us into this, like, smaller, more futile world in which, you know, people are dependent on, on, like, outsized influence or like outsized power and like, that's like, you know, if you're coming up and you're not established and that's the environment you're growing up in, it's really got to constrain, you know, the like the whole, like, structuralist idea.
00;55;28;17 - 00;55;49;15
Chris
Right? Which like, you know, you're thinking is bounded by the language, the world you live in, you can only have thoughts of related to what you're exposed to. And if this is the world we're exposed to, you know, like, I mean, Aaron, to come all the way back around to your, you know, state actors want want people against these things and want people thinking small, right.
00;55;49;15 - 00;55;54;18
Chris
Like it does feed into that. Like you, you need to be able to to roam, man.
00;55;54;21 - 00;55;57;20
Aaron
Yep. Welcome to the rabbit hole, Chris. Welcome to the rabbit hole.
00;55;57;22 - 00;55;59;05
Pri
On that note.
00;55;59;08 - 00;56;00;14
Aaron
That society pretty.
00;56;00;16 - 00;56;06;23
Pri
Yeah. Do want to enjoy the podcast Seth. We typically introduce the podcast at the end of the podcast.
00;56;06;25 - 00;56;11;24
Derek
I was going to say, was this all just a preamble to like, talk about what we're going to talk about?
00;56;11;26 - 00;56;15;29
Pri
Yeah. We just we done. Yeah. No we're done. Don't worry. Okay.
00;56;16;02 - 00;56;17;23
Derek
I was kinda I like this.
00;56;17;26 - 00;56;25;13
Pri
I know, I know, I've kind of we've actually done requests to have net society be longer than an hour. So we'll see.
00;56;25;15 - 00;56;32;11
Derek
How long is that like the longer Lex Freeman seems like a Lex Friedman anthropic thing. That was like five hours. Can we break?
00;56;32;13 - 00;56;34;12
Pri
Those are always like 3 to 5 hours, I feel.
00;56;34;13 - 00;56;35;13
Aaron
Yeah, those are not.
00;56;35;19 - 00;56;57;01
Chris
That's nothing. Let's go Dan Carlin like let's do it. Oh, I don't know. He breaks them up into chunks, but like some of his little series there can go like 14 hours or like even longer, but like it's impressive. Darren Carlin podcast. We'll go like five hours and then he'll be like. And that was just the conditions that set the stage for World War One, you know?
00;56;57;01 - 00;57;01;11
Chris
And you're like, oh my God, dude, like five hours just to sit at the table.
00;57;01;17 - 00;57;12;02
Derek
We do it like a while. We're talking. We're, we're we're distracted. Levi coding. And by the end of the podcast, we're all selling or sharing what we do.
00;57;12;05 - 00;57;31;14
Chris
Unfortunately, when I do audio, like the pod, I gotta pay down. Yeah, no, that's true, that's true. Oh, it's funny when I vibe code, like, during the day, you know, I'm I'm fairly focused on it. In the evening, I head down to the basement. I throw on like some HBO show I've already seen. So it doesn't really matter.
00;57;31;17 - 00;57;43;05
Chris
Right. So that like during those like 60s of petaflop crunching or during a commit and a deploy, I'm looking up and I God, what am I on now? I'm on a band of brothers. It's it's like I.
00;57;43;05 - 00;57;48;18
Derek
Can be like an ambient ambient, ambient ambient ambient HBO.
00;57;48;20 - 00;58;12;10
Chris
Yeah, I don't know, there's something like, really reassuring about, like, well crafted long form prestige stories, you know, it is like a comfort food or a blanket or something that like, as I'm like, out there, just like free will and and trying to pull off crazy shit that, like, I can, I can look out and be like, Steven Spielberg was involved in this.
00;58;12;13 - 00;58;17;26
Chris
And HBO threw $100 million, and there's Tom Hanks and there's this, and you know what I mean? Like.
00;58;17;29 - 00;58;25;07
Derek
Do you think that's because the coding terminals are back to being like DOS terminals and there's no visual information?
00;58;25;09 - 00;58;48;14
Aaron
I actually think they're like they're a little antidote. Dopamine. Yeah. Which I think is is good. You know, like that's why I think the dope, the what the dopamine like addiction cycle that social media really mastered. I feel like I enjoy AI tools a bit more because it's a you have a lot more control on the input and also the outputs like pretty flat, which I think is.
00;58;48;16 - 00;58;50;29
Derek
You're creating, you're not consuming.
00;58;51;01 - 00;58;51;13
Aaron
Well, right.
00;58;51;14 - 00;59;09;21
Derek
Whether you're coding or you're prompting. I mean, it still feels, you know, semantically like we're creating something. And so even though it's exhausting and draining and your head hurts like it doesn't, it's not the infinite scroll where you just feel like you had, you know, three boxes of just like, yeah, candy.
00;59;09;24 - 00;59;15;16
Aaron
You get the dopamine hit of like, like doing something productive, which is a good a good feeling.
00;59;15;18 - 00;59;20;01
Derek
And seemingly productive or temporarily productive or family productive. But yes.
00;59;20;03 - 00;59;41;17
Aaron
Yeah. Like there's some like at least hopefully like Vale of Productivity, like you completed a task, like learning something new. Like you got something done without like the the dopamine slot machine of most social media platforms. And I think if you use it right, you are thinking, I know people are worried that will kind of use the second brain and that will shrivel our our primary brain.
00;59;41;19 - 00;59;52;01
Aaron
I'm a little skeptical those arguments, but there is something there. You know, Chris, I don't I don't watch those longform ones. I just watch the worst reality television because that also pairs well. So, give it a try.
00;59;52;01 - 00;59;54;01
Chris
Are you talking about the Mets bullpen?
00;59;54;03 - 01;00;19;27
Aaron
Yeah, that's what I mean. That sports is great, honestly. You know, because especially with the more advanced thinking models, it does take them like 3 to 5 minutes to complete tasks. So you kind of are watching it to make sure it doesn't go a little bit sideways. At least I do. But at the same time, like you have enough time to like either like read an article or, or just, you know, get some, some good old fashioned reality TV garbage in your head.
01;00;19;29 - 01;00;37;01
Chris
Yeah. No, there was, like, an hour rain delay in the NFL game last night. Like, silly got hit with a thunderstorm, and I didn't really mind because I was like, well, I got I got a couple of hard tasks I need to lock in for a minute and bang out of that. Yeah. Later on, when I'm a little more fried and slow, I can just deal with quality of life things.
01;00;37;01 - 01;00;44;14
Chris
So great. Go to go. Go to rain delay. I don't care, you know. Yeah. Just means we'll be football for me when I'm more ready for it.
01;00;44;17 - 01;00;50;10
Aaron
And you're spitting at the TV, right when they're right. When they're booting everybody out of that game, like.
01;00;50;10 - 01;00;59;11
Chris
God. Yeah. Like, the NFL. At least I didn't have money on that football. I always come out. It's so conflicted.
01;00;59;13 - 01;01;05;15
Aaron
Yeah. I'm cleats football guy. But I love to talk about football for a minute.
01;01;05;17 - 01;01;07;16
Pri
Tiki Barber.
01;01;07;18 - 01;01;08;27
Aaron
Great. You go.
01;01;09;00 - 01;01;13;04
Derek
There you go, you go. Joe Namath. You're good. You're done.
01;01;13;06 - 01;01;14;22
Aaron
What's your what's your favorite team for?
01;01;14;22 - 01;01;17;03
Pri
You, I guess the Bucs.
01;01;17;06 - 01;01;18;16
Aaron
Yeah, that's where.
01;01;18;18 - 01;01;32;15
Chris
The Bucs are. Bucs in the Bucs, play heroic football. They get themselves in trouble and they desperately try to find their way back from it. I, I really enjoy the Baker Mayfield experience. Yeah. That's what makes it fun.
01;01;32;17 - 01;01;36;21
Aaron
Yeah. Like they're like they've they've delivered.
01;01;36;23 - 01;01;46;29
Chris
I love a tragically flawed nine and seven team that just ekes into the wild card. And like I don't know there's so so much fun. Get behind a team like that.
01;01;47;00 - 01;01;51;03
Aaron
Yeah I like to have Brady went there. But again kind of crushed.
01;01;51;09 - 01;01;56;12
Chris
Yeah. Some people got to prove a point. You know, it's they don't call him the goat for nothing.
01;01;56;15 - 01;02;01;27
Aaron
He is the goat. And I think this episode was goaded, so maybe. Should we call it here?
01;02;01;29 - 01;02;23;25
Pri
Yeah, let's do it. Welcome to nerd society. Today you have me, Aaron, Chris, Derek, and special guest Seth talking all things digital culture tech. I, crypto art, and more. As a reminder, these opinions are our own and not of our employer. Let's get it going.
01;02;23;27 - 01;02;28;23
Chris
There we go. And guys, I would vibe code tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear.
01;02;28;29 - 01;02;31;26
Aaron
For you, man. I feel you all right, guys, I hope you have a say.
01;02;31;27 - 01;02;33;04
Pri
Thanks for joining.
01;02;33;06 - 01;02;35;24
Derek
He's. Thank you. This is fun. Always here for you.
01;02;35;26 - 01;02;36;27
Chris
Great. Thanks, guys.
01;02;37;00 - 01;02;44;01
Pri
Thanks.
01;02;44;03 - 01;02;50;11
Pri
For.