What A Lot Of Things

In this episode of "What A Lot Of Things", Ian and Ash consider the nature of time, before diving into two main topics: AI's evolving role in our lives and the nature of creativity.

They discuss "large action models", the new Rabbit R1 device, and Apple's recent AI announcements, debating whether AI is best viewed as a feature or a standalone product before going on to challenge the common belief that some people "aren't creative," examining how past experiences shape our perceptions of our own creativity. Ian and Ash explore the importance of practicing creative skills, maintaining a growth mindset, and the challenges of creating art while still developing skills.

Links

Creators & Guests

Host
Ash Winter
Tester and international speaker, loves to talk about testability. Along with a number of other community minded souls, one of the co-organisers of the Leeds Testing Atelier. Also co-author of the Team Guide to Software Testability.
Host
Ian Smith
Happiest when making stuff or making people laugh. Tech, and Design Thinking. Works as a fractional CTO, Innovation leader and occasionally an AI or web developer through my company, craftscale. I'm a FRSA.

What is What A Lot Of Things?

Ash and Ian talk about interesting Things from the tech industry that are on their minds.

Ash:

Episode 17.

Ian:

Episode 17. So if we do this quickly, no 1 will notice that you have in fact been away for a really long time.

Ash:

There is no time on this podcast. Time is not an issue for this podcast.

Ian:

There's no time like the present.

Ash:

Yeah. Well, there's only the present.

Ian:

There's only the present.

Ash:

And if you're in the past, that's your present.

Ian:

Oh my goodness.

Ash:

Yeah. Exactly. So there is no time.

Ian:

You said… your very words were, let's not make the podcast into a time machine. And now you're making it literally you're now redefining past and present. I think I think I like it.

Ash:

We are the technology, your time lords.

Ian:

Yes. Eat your heart out, Doctor Who.

Ash:

I think what we said is the podcast itself can be not this isn't what we said, this is just what I'm thinking. Because I realized that I've just dragged you into the the delusion that I'm having. That I think it's okay for the the podcast itself to be a time machine. We just don't wanna within any individual episode, we don't wanna say when the next episode will be available.

Ian:

Because that sounds a bit like a deadline to you.

Ash:

It does. It does. And we should avoid those at all costs.

Ian:

And we still haven't had your deadline aversion as a thing.

Ash:

No. No. That's true.

Ian:

Which we said we would do. Yeah. Maybe we can do that in exactly 2 weeks' time.

Ash:

We've worked hard to achieve consistency.

Ian:

That's true. Release often.

Ash:

Yes. Consistency over deadlines.

Ian:

Yes.

Ash:

Deadlines are the the last the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Ian:

The scoundrel? Yeah. So so you're gonna have to elaborate on that because some people are gonna listen to this and go, but I I think deadlines are are the bee's knees.

Ash:

The bee's knees. They

Ian:

really I'm no scoundrel, they'll be saying.

Ash:

They really focus people, don't they?

Ian:

They I always remember Douglas Adams' quip about them, which is he loves deadlines. He loves the sound they make as they whoosh by.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So but by prioritising deadlines, you you then deprioritise consistency and releasability and all the other things in my experience. So that's why I don't like deadlines, because, actually, you start to replace good things with striving for deadlines.

Ian:

Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Is it is it another example of a metric Yeah. That gets that loses value once we start gamifying it.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think the Dora metrics have anything about hitting deadlines, do they, in terms of being a successful software development organisation?

Ian:

I don't think they do.

Ash:

And, you know, given that that's widely considered to be the evidence based starting point for metrics that suggest that you're developing software well, then, I don't know, maybe there's other things which are better to strive for than hitting the deadline.

Ian:

You mean like, minimizing faults in production?

Ash:

Yeah. You know? And change success rate.

Ian:

Take that deadline, lovers. Yeah. Exactly.

Ash:

Come and fight me. I'm ready for you. Metaphorically speaking.

Ian:

Yeah. I think let's let's be really clear. We're not advocating actual physical combat No. Between Ash and any listeners or even non listeners No. Or anybody, really.

Ash:

Well, no. No. No.

Ian:

Well, I'm glad we sorted that out.

Ash:

Yes. Absolutely. That's absolutely clear.

Ian:

So have we got any announcements?

Ash:

I guess I could announce that I've just spent time in Australia.

Ian:

Australia, you say?

Ash:

In Australia, I say. I do. I say that. We had a wonderful 3 weeks. That sounds amazing.

Ash:

Sydney, Byron Bay, Brisbane, and a few other places, visiting family, sightseeing, being tourists. So, yeah, it was a great 3 weeks. I feel I feel refreshed.

Ian:

That's very good. You it it it always helps to feel refreshed and be refreshed from time to time.

Ash:

Yeah. Because before we went, I just left a job, So it was kind of a nice bookend to all

Ian:

that. Yes.

Ash:

So that that was really pleasing.

Ian:

So, are you proud of me for managing to react to that without trying to put on a fake Australian accent? Yes.

Ash:

Yes. I am. You should be because I

Ian:

my fake Australian accent is truly it's not an Australian accent, really.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. You haven't

Ian:

been back all that long, have you?

Ash:

No. Only a few days. So I'm waiting for the jet lag to come roaring back.

Ian:

Roaring back.

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

So you could just fall asleep spontaneously at any time. Well, if you do and you snore, we'll make sure that, you know, that that that is preserved for posterity.

Ash:

Well, I'm sure that you can you can fill the gap with, by externalizing your internal monologue. Really? Really?

Ian:

My external internal monologue.

Ash:

So before I went, I did identify a an article of interest, which made me think of you when I saw it because it's by Corey Doctorow.

Ian:

Oh, well, I always interestedly read things he writes.

Ash:

He's a he's a he's a big favorite of yours. Yeah. Yeah. And he's obviously written about an an an certification of the Internet

Ian:

through,

Ash:

various feature feature paywalls, etcetera, etcetera that lots of companies like to to to implement.

Ian:

After they've got you in Yeah. In very large numbers by being free.

Ash:

Yeah. So what I found really interesting about this article so it's called what kind of bubble is AI? Oh. And the general premise is when the dotcom bubble burst, what was left?

Ian:

Google.

Ash:

A few companies and lots of people with some form of programming skill. Yeah. There was actually technology jobs became a, like, a bigger thing.

Ian:

Mhmm.

Ash:

So that was what was left after the dotcom bubble and all of its chaos burst. So and then it goes on to say, well, what about, cryptocurrency and blockchain? So after that burst, what was left? Has it burst? This is what Coro doktoro

Ian:

says. Okay.

Ash:

It has burst.

Ian:

We can accept it as a premise that it's Yeah. It's burst.

Ash:

You know, all of these things are arguable.

Ian:

Hopefully, it

Ash:

has. And what's left of use?

Ian:

Anything?

Ash:

Nothing is generally what he says in the article. So and then he goes on to think about, well, after the AI bubble burst, which is showing no signs of doing so quite yet.

Ian:

Mhmm.

Ash:

We're still in the in the hype cycle the bit before the trough of disillusionment. Yes. That's true. So he's like, what what will be left? I think he generally says not a lot, but this is in a this is 1 of the interesting arguable points, isn't it?

Ian:

Well, I think he's he he falls into the I don't think I'm not gonna paint him as an AI hater, but certainly an AI skeptic.

Ash:

Yeah. I

Ian:

think it's very interesting. But the thing is, I think there's genuine value in AI. I'm not saying it's not a bubble and that it's not at the peak of the hype cycle and

Ash:

that Sure.

Ian:

You know, that there will be a reckoning undoubtedly. But I on the other side of it, there's some genuine value in it. 1 thing I find quite interesting is, that there's a lot of going going on about large language models, but you can quietly see that, DeepMind, who are an AI company in London that was acquired by Google, are quietly solving actual problems with it. Yeah. Not necessarily language models, but with the underlying kind of stuff of of language models.

Ian:

And they're doing things like they've completely trashed a protein folding competition that happened every year. This is 1 of these things where I might be hallucinating my own facts.

Ash:

Well, your own language model is starting to hallucinate.

Ian:

Yes. Which actually, gives me some sympathy for the AI ones. But, I'm pretty certain that, there's a a protein folding calculation competition that has competition has been, has been running for quite a long time. And DeepMind just came along and and basically won it by a much bigger margin than had been done before.

Ash:

Right.

Ian:

And I think the thing is they're doing a lot of stuff that's there's a person outside interrupting my external internal monologue by hooting their car horn. It's very disconcerting.

Ash:

It's like, Ian, stop. Honk.

Ian:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it you, actually? I'm keeping my hands away from my secret buttons away with my tin pot despot dashboard.

Ian:

I couldn't resist. I guess they're doing things of genuine value Yeah. Medical, you know, that that can produce genuine genuine, you know, customized drugs that combat particular viruses in particular even for particular people. You know, the the this kind of and and there's there's real value in that. And so I feel like there wasn't really that in Bitcoin or into cryptocurrencies.

Ian:

So I I think maybe he's been a bit harsh.

Ash:

Yeah. So, like I said, maybe there's 2 different there's like there's, like, use uses of AI to solve, like, real problems and then uses of AI to, I don't know, come up with, a set of test scenarios to run. It's like, well, yeah, kinda useful, but no really, like, killer use case yet. Yeah. Yeah.

Ash:

So and then that'll pop, and it'll go away. And then maybe the stuff that you're talking about, medical advances, scientific uses, would my may remain once the corporate monsters have stopped, you know, in trying to put 1, 000, 000, 000 and 1, 000, 000, 000 of dollars into AI usage, which is of dubious value. So that was Corey Dobsonaro's article, which I found really interesting. I will link to it. But in the meantime In the we've got some things.

Ian:

Have we got some things?

Ash:

We've got some things.

Ian:

It seems like so long since we Yeah. Since we started talking that Yeah. I'd forgotten about the need for things. So, Ash, tell us, what is your thing?

Ash:

So my thing is we're on the AI train again.

Ian:

Woo hoo.

Ash:

And it's about large action models.

Ian:

Sounds like something that you get like Star Wars

Ash:

Oh, yeah. It does a bit. Cosplayers. Yeah.

Ian:

Or Lego r 2 d 2.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So in my my naivety, I'd never heard of large action models before. And I'm reasonably engaged with the world of, with with the world of artificial intelligence. But so there was a device that came out called the Rabbit r 1, And, it's literally what you do with it.

Ash:

You tell it, so you press a button on it like a like a like a walkie talkie. I'm not even joking. And you tell it what you want it to do. Go to Airbnb and book me a room for 2 people on these dates in this city.

Ian:

It's a good thing you haven't got 1 because it would be now going off. Yeah. Booking you a room Yeah. On these dates and

Ash:

some shipping. So and then it goes off to the the to the Internet, like, the literal, the web the web Internet with the and builds like a goes to, like, a browser with a DOM and all the other crazy things that don't work on the Internet, and starts to do it, and logs in as you, and to and goes searching for, hotels, apartments that you might quite like on Airbnb. And then it then learns. It says, okay. Well, how successful was that search?

Ash:

Because if you say, well, actually, I I didn't really like that place that you found, then it would then learn from what you've just done. And this was all encapsulated onto this 1 device for the low, low price of $199 with no subscription fees. But the device was a bit less interesting to me than the the concept of the large action model. So I don't know. What do you think?

Ash:

Well, I've got so many thoughts.

Ian:

1 of them is that, actually, I think that large action model is the rabbit r 1 company's marketing department's invention. Because actually, what you're describing is AI agents, and, that started off with a paper from Google, I think, researchers in 2023, called confusingly, for those of us who are interested in software, React.

Ash:

Is that because they were mad with Facebook?

Ian:

The name the name's been taken, you would say, but no. So React is a a conflation of reason and act, and it's, a thing where you you you get you get your you get a large language model and you basically get it to reason. So say what it needs, and then you give it some APIs with descriptions of what they do. Yep. And then it can it it so it might so let's say you wanted to find out what the, I mean, the examples I always see are a bit lame, but there's an example, for example, there's an example of, a question like who won the FA Cup last year, and what is the GDP of that city.

Ian:

And so The crucial question. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, what a ridiculous example. But it it illustrates the the this react process.

Ian:

So I

Ash:

don't know if we'll be able to move on without knowing that, to be honest.

Ian:

Well, if only we had an AI agent that could do that for us. But the point is that the the language model would would have a thought. So it would say, I need to find out who won the FA Cup last year. And so and and then it might you might have given it a search action that it could take. So it would then do a search to try and find out who who that was.

Ian:

And then and then it would say, well, now I know and so so you'd have the the thought, then you'd have an action, which would be the search, and then the results of the search would come back as an observation. Yeah. And then it loops back around again. So then it would its thought might be, well, now I know that it was, and of course I've chosen a question that I don't actually know the answer to. But let's say it was, Iltie Town AFC, which I'm gonna say is unlikely, but, you know, this way, I can avoid annoying We

Ash:

probably would have heard about it if if that was happening.

Ian:

Yeah. We we would. Yeah. And then it would say, now I know that the winner last year was Ilkleytown AFC. Now I need to find out the GDP for Ilkley, which is, and then it would search and try and find the GDP for Ilkley.

Ian:

So it's kind of able to to have this kind of multistage process of reasoning and acting, and that makes it very effective. So the rabbit, I guess, is is an agent like that, and the actions are things like searches, Airbnb API, you know, whatever capabilities it has to do that kind of stuff.

Ash:

But it's not the API.

Ian:

It's use well, it's using

Ash:

the browser. Yeah. It just uses the browser.

Ian:

So it's got so so but it's still doing that same it's that Yeah. Skeleton of that process.

Ash:

Yeah. I think that's that's a reasonable it's a reasonable description of it, but like I said, maybe we've just come up with a snappier title rather than say an LLM agent. Yes. It's like, let's call it something of a

Ian:

cool attraction model.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Ian:

And then go on the lam. Sorry. That was extremely poor. But the the other thing that so as that was my first kind of thought about it. Mhmm.

Ian:

But something else has happened recently, he says, placing us in time. Mhmm. And that is, Apple is currently having the last day, I think, of its, worldwide developers conference. Yeah. And they had a a lengthy keynote on Monday, which was all about their AI stuff.

Ian:

And, of course, they are calling some some of that what they're doing is called Apple Intelligence, which is also AI. So Oh, god. Now we What

Ash:

a land grab.

Ian:

Now we cannot know what we mean when we say AI anymore, which is actually, I think, we never have known what people have said AI, so it's probably fine. But, 1 thing that III recently saw a bit of commentary about this, which was basically saying that what Apple has done is shown that AI is a feature, not a product.

Ash:

Right. Okay.

Ian:

So the the great advantage that Apple stuff has is that it knows all about you. Mhmm. And, obviously, they put privacy at the center of it, and then they're going nuts explaining that in in great detail. But effectively, your Apple device, your phone, for most people, knows who you are, knows who your parents are. It knows who you talk to and what about because all that information is on your device.

Ian:

It's not using cloud services or or is using cloud, press special privacy enhanced to help services. But it's it's it's it's not using it as a data grab, but it is using it to fuel the ability to interact with it about the stuff that you have, and it automatically has things it can do. So 1 1 example they gave was, when is you can ask Siri in this new world when is mom's flight landing. Yeah. And it knows who your mother is.

Ian:

It can look in your email. It can look in your messages and say, oh, yeah. That was when she sent you the email with the flight details, and then it can answer the question. Yeah. And and it's doing that not from some hallucinated, you know, stuff in its training data.

Ian:

It's doing that because it it's the the query that's going that's actually being processed by the language model Yeah. Includes all the information that it's found that's kind of background information about that. And what and this idea that it's a a feature, not a product, is because, actually, the context of using AI, if if there's no context, it doesn't know anything about you or it knows any limited amount about you and about the situation of the of the question. Yeah. It can't do much, or it's more likely to do the wrong thing or get the wrong end of the stick.

Ian:

Yeah. And Siri, to be fair, has not been a shining jewel in Apple's crown No. Over the years of its existence.

Ash:

Distinctly kind of average, isn't it?

Ian:

Yeah. I mean, you, you know, I I still get annoyed with it because I tell it to play music, particularly music that's in my own music library, but not in the main music library. Yeah. And it just does something random, and you just think, don't don't do that. So what I'm hoping is that Siri, which is kind of part of the OS of all Apple Devices, will be able to will will be able to, by understanding my context, serve me better.

Ian:

Yeah. Sorry. I'm just talking a lot, but I find this very, very interesting.

Ash:

It's okay. I think it's it's getting closer to the what is the actual use of to to to an individual of these large language models? What because, again, with the article we cite, a lot of large language models are searching for a problem to solve, and we don't know what that quite is yet. And maybe because if you can have, you know, like a privacy focused model on your device, a thing that already knows all about you, then that could be an actual use case for it. Yeah.

Ash:

Because 1 of the 1 of the the criticisms of the the Rabbit r 1 was that it's just an app for it's like, well, what is it? It it didn't need to be a separate device. So who cares? It's like, well, it's just another thing to carry around with you, ain't it? It's like you could just open up an app, and it would have, you'd say, give it access to the microphone, you tell it what you want it to do, and it would go and do it, which is kind of what you're saying about Siri as well, isn't it?

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, you know, the fact that they tried to sort of force it into a a separate piece of hardware rather than tying it to, you know, making it an app available on various stores. Maybe it might have been problems actually getting it available on various stores based on certainly, on Apple plans from what you've just described. So it's like it's a similar space, isn't it?

Ian:

Yeah. I think it I think it is, and it's interesting. It's just this idea of it being a feature and not a product. Yeah. And and the and and that's about a context, isn't it?

Ian:

It's it's if it's a a feature of something bigger, then it's got the context of that bigger thing, but it on its own, it's kind of a chatbot.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So well, I mean, I guess it's a feature and not a product is a similar thing to like, could've just been an app for a phone.

Ian:

Yeah. Well, it is a

Ash:

As in not a a product in its own right.

Ian:

Yeah. And and that's exactly it, isn't it? Because you've got their humane AI pin Yeah. That had a slightly embarrassing battery catching fire to sort of recall, and the rabbit r 1. Yeah.

Ian:

But but both of them lack a lot of context, and I guess their success probably depends on how many of your things you can integrate them into.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So with if you got a Rabbit r 1 and started to use it, you'd have to use it quite a lot for it to get the same level of knowledge of you that your phone already has.

Ian:

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Ash:

You you you know, it would take quite a lot of training to to make it useful, whereas if it's already on a device that knows all about you, then it's got more chance of already being useful.

Ian:

So you're tempted by an iPhone 15 pro now?

Ash:

Well, I've just bought a a new Android That's a Samsung Galaxy.

Ian:

So, no,

Ash:

I've got 7 years until I need to replace my phone.

Ian:

That's true. Although you actually bought a a phone that was not new, didn't you? So you have to subtract that from the 7 years.

Ash:

No. 7 years.

Ian:

That's from

Ash:

dying on the phone.

Ian:

Honestly, for a man that that doesn't do deadlines, it's just

Ash:

Yeah. Well, you know, everyone has their contractions. So 1 interesting like, there was loads of takedowns of of rabbit r 1 on the, on on YouTube because people were, like, very much like, well, you know, it seems like it could have been an app, but it doesn't really do anything useful. And in terms of, like, booking AAA place to stay on Airbnb, it's like, well, you have the you you are presented with a list of places to stay, but then that's when it gets a bit sort of, much, smoother, doesn't it, after that? Because then you choose based on the pictures what you perceive to be value.

Ash:

Yeah. And there's loads of other weird human, biases and decision making things that go into me finally saying, that's the 1 that I want. That's where I want to stay.

Ian:

As opposed to, you know, I mean, some random thing could put you up somewhere really bizarre.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So does that is is it, like, truly useful? So and the other thing that that I kinda mentioned is would an LLL age agent basically be like a superpowered bot with the ability to turn the Internet into a further wasteland of human interaction because, you know, you've got you've basically given these bots the access to the whole Internet.

Ash:

If it's just gonna sort of troll websites and do things for people, it's like, well, where is there just gonna be more spaces where there's only bots acting there

Ian:

rather than at each other.

Ash:

Yeah. Avoid. Yeah. I I And no humans go there anymore.

Ian:

There's a I read an article. There's an interesting thing happening in recruitment at the moment, which is that you increasingly have AI applications for jobs being evaluated by AIs. Yeah. And know that there's these AIs, this war of AI sort of escalating and escalating as people are able to write these amazing fluent things that maybe aren't quite an accurate reflection of themselves. Mhmm.

Ian:

And, companies having to evaluate 1, 000 of because, you know, now, even I think even LinkedIn has got features for automatically, you know if you can automate applying for jobs, that's not great for the people who have to evaluate the applications. No. No. And so they're putting in place AIs to help them do that. But now you've just got I mean, And

Ash:

if if if you use It should delve into the CV. And if if if you use

Ian:

It should delve into the CV Yeah.

Ash:

Exactly. Finds

Ian:

the phrase treasure trove.

Ash:

And if if that phrase is is present, then you immediately dismiss whoever's done the application.

Ian:

It used to be that if you couldn't grab somebody in the first 2 lines of your application, then Yeah. You it was in the bin or something. It was that was always what was said. But now it's, you have to get past the AIs, and you wonder if the AIs like their own outputs more than the

Ash:

Yeah. But because I was so with the, you know, with the chat GPT 4, it has it's trained up to a certain point in time with data, and then it has no further access to the, to new data. Yeah?

Ian:

Yeah. Let's say yes.

Ash:

I mean, they might be updated periodically, but the idea is that you have, like, a particular point.

Ian:

Well, it can also go online and search things, and Yeah. It's got some capabilities like that.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a bit of agent in there as well, isn't there really? The original models kind of went to a point in time and then stopped unless they were updated, which was supposed to be a good thing. It didn't have active access to the Internet, whereas LLM agents don't seem to do that.

Ash:

They seem to go further than that.

Ian:

Well, I don't think it's a good thing. I mean, III just think it's a consequence of the the technology. And then then you got your computer. Your satire stuff, like the the whole glue pizza thing that's been going on. Did we talk you heard about this?

Ian:

No. I think this was a, somebody somebody asked about something to do with pizza ingredients, and it recommended that some people put glue in to make their the thing go like this.

Ash:

Well, I superglue or glue. Oh, nontoxic. That's alright. Yeah. And Well, you know, we've all been kids.

Ian:

And rocks or something. And and and and the the it turned out, my memory of this is a bit vague, but it turned out like something like there was an article in the onion.

Ash:

Right.

Ian:

That was obviously satire if you were reading it, but the the language model failed to, make correct judgments about.

Ash:

Oh, right. Okay.

Ian:

And so it was 1 of these, I think, you know, you you look at search results from Google now, and there's, like, the AI summary at the top, and then there's, you know, sponsored results

Ash:

Oh, yeah.

Ian:

Yeah. And all of this sort of stuff that's now there. But I think that was the AI summary that had basically came from it it believing satirical

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

Things. So, yeah, that this is the kind of thing, I suppose, that makes people into AI haters because they're just like, oh, you know, another example Yeah. Of AI being dumb.

Ash:

Yeah. So, basically, an NLM agent, you could ask for a pizza, ask for it to order you a pizza, and it would try and add rocks and glue and things like that to your Domino's order.

Ian:

Possibly, if it if it's if you'd made some specification that might lead it to Yeah. To want to do that, like, you know and it and, actually, I I think it's more of a more of a recipe sort of scenario.

Ash:

I'm not saying, like, you know, your local pizza company would be, well, they said rocks and glue.

Ian:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ash:

Yeah. I'll be back in a moment.

Ian:

Sorry. I've just been captivated by the phrase utter rabbit poop in your in your notes.

Ash:

I found it interesting that once I started to dig into it, that the large action models, like you said, were actually LLM agents, which is the thing that's been around for a little while. But and then the existence of a device to do this, but which was a curious choice to me, you know, going off to the actual Internet to spin up a browser on the on the Rabbit Rabbit Cloud side in order to do the job that you wanted. I found that really interesting because after many years of testing the web, it's 1 of the most broken and fragmented places out there, which you know

Ian:

But that's why it's nice to have an AI agent that can do things for you Yeah. Without you having to engage with it. Yeah. Because because actually, it won't matter how crap it is.

Ash:

Uh-huh.

Ian:

And 1 if we get to the sort of platonic ideal of no. There's no platonic ideal of this. But if we got to the point where an agent knows you really well to the point where you trust it more or less to do things could just go off, You know, look in your bank account to make sure you've got enough money for whatever it is, find the the 1 that would be best for you, you know, find that perfect hotel room. And then all it does is, at the end, it just comes back to you and says, I think you would like to stay here. Yeah.

Ian:

And then you say, yes or no because and then it would then it books it. You know? Then you really have taken a lot of faff out of it

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

Yeah. For yourself. III think there's some there's something to this, and I don't know that anyone's nailed it yet.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that's the other thing is with this is it's part of that search for the the the like, the real use case to, you know, to someone on a daily basis of using a a large language model with certain capabilities in order to help them rather than it remaining as a kind of, well, this is sort of interesting. And the reality is you speak to a lot of people, and they've never used it before. They've never used an NLM before.

Ash:

It's it's very much a technology people, topic, so it hasn't crossed over in that way to becoming truly useful. So this is part of that journey, I think, but I'm not certain that rabbit arm 1 and the way that it's been put together is is is the way to get there. Maybe what Apple has done, despite the fact that they've called it Apple Intelligence, is more like that kind of use for more likely to discover the true usage of it in terms of your daily life.

Ian:

Yeah. I mean, there was a story of a thing called AutoGPT which somebody this was must have been quite quickly after the react paper kind of emerged. This guy gave said he need to his life was too expensive. He need to save money. And he gave he gave it his bank statements, and he gave it the ability to search and email and stuff like that.

Ian:

And he was having interactions with it along the lines of, oh, I see you're a member of this gym. Do you ever go? And he's like, no. And it wrote to the gym using, an API with the US postal service where you can use an API and create physical letters.

Ash:

Oh, right. Okay.

Ian:

So he wrote to the gym and canceled his membership. And then, and then he said you were on a plane. I see you were on a plane, and and you paid for the in flight Wi Fi. Did that work? He knows now it was rubbish.

Ian:

And it wrote an email to United Airlines demanding a refund, and then they offered they wrote back offering him a partial refund, and it it wasn't happy with that and wrote back and said, no. It was it was completely useless. You know, I need all the money back. Yeah. They refunded him all this money.

Ian:

Mhmm. And it also identified, like, $280 a month of savings or something from subscriptions that it identified. I I I'll find the article. Yeah. I'll find the thing I read about that and, and and link to it.

Ian:

But I think this is once we have these things with broad access to our information and our preferences and other stuff about us, I think it could be really good, even though it might mean that we never go to websites anymore. Yeah. Is that a bad thing? I mean, you know, we could just go on Instagram all day and scroll and scroll and scroll.

Ash:

Don't forget about LinkedIn Shorts.

Ian:

Not a garment.

Ash:

Not a garment, but yet another short form video service.

Ian:

Yes. Has that actually happened?

Ash:

I don't know. IIII don't want it I don't want it to happen, and I don't want to know if it does happen. No.

Ian:

But you will

Ash:

But undoubtedly, it will be presented in front of me. Yes. And then I'll have to leave my final social media.

Ian:

Don't worry. There's always Mastodon.

Ash:

Well, yeah, maybe I can have a 1 in, 1 in up service and replace it with Mastodon.

Ian:

I think you'd be a lot happier with Mastodon than you are with LinkedIn, so I think, it could be a match made in heaven.

Ash:

There is no end to the mustard on marketing, is there, Ian?

Ian:

No. Because it is really nice. It'd be a shame if you caved in only after some sort of stratification had started. Well, I don't really see how it can because there's no corporate ownership of it. It's it's open source and federated.

Ian:

Did I say that? I told you that, Ash.

Ash:

You did.

Ian:

It's open source and federated.

Ash:

Federated. Federated. So that was my thing. Large action models and rabbit r 1, and the implications of such.

Ian:

I think it's a very interesting it is a very interesting thing. I think I'm gonna start I've got my Ilkley Town Council AI project. Yeah. And I think I'm going to start adding a bit of agentness into that and maybe give it the ability to search and go and find stuff that it thinks it needs to. Maybe let it search the Ilkley Gazette and Ilkley chat or something.

Ian:

But III think I'm going to have done something with this before too long. So I'm I'll

Ash:

I'll But without putting a date on it?

Ian:

Yeah. You have to make sure that, that that you don't mention it. Otherwise, I might be forced to tell you about it.

Ash:

Okay.

Ian:

Well, I think that was a great thing. I I find the whole thing fascinating. And

Ash:

and the end thing.

Ian:

Yes. So now we have to have a named interlude.

Ash:

Named interlude? Yeah. Should we, should we glug some water?

Ian:

Do you, play any of the New York Times' word games? No. Not Wordle?

Ash:

No. No. I'm aware of it, but never played it. It was massive for a little while, wasn't it?

Ian:

It was. Yes. And I've consistently played it ever since because I guess I really enjoy it. Yeah. But they've launched, I guess, more recently, but still some time ago, a game called Connexions where you give a grid of 16 words, and you have to pick you have to divide them into 4 groups of 4 that each have a common theme.

Ian:

And the simple ones are like, I don't know, things you find things you find backstage at a theater or something, and it'll be stuff like, props and so that, you know, there there'll be words that you think, oh, yeah. But then there's like, words that start with a month of the abbreviated month of the year. Oh. Like marathon or,

Ash:

Febrile.

Ian:

And those are a bit more challenging to get. Sometimes they're really, really insane. Like Octagon. Homophones of something that Alright.

Ash:

Okay.

Ian:

Anyway, yes. Octagon.

Ash:

Apparently, I can do this all day.

Ian:

You can do this all day, and you should give it a try.

Ash:

I should. I should. I feel like I'd be like, that would give me a a nice ego boost.

Ian:

Yeah. Well, should search for New York Times connections and have a go at it and tell me what you think.

Ash:

I'll probably be confounded by it.

Ian:

I know. I often am.

Ash:

Then I'll curse Ian Smith and the day that I met him. Curse you.

Ian:

Well, we know what

Ash:

I've done. Second time I've cursed something today. I shouldn't do that.

Ian:

Well, if it worked, you'd feel guilty.

Ash:

I cursed Apple, which, you know, I I feel like the curse would just bounce off.

Ian:

Yeah. I think I think you're right. Yeah. Right. We're going back to sensible well, okay.

Ian:

Not all the way back.

Ash:

Mhmm. But things.

Ian:

But things.

Ash:

But things.

Ian:

Which is what it does say on the tin.

Ash:

So if we

Ian:

if we don't do that for too long, then we're kind of it's false over time.

Ash:

And we're already sort of on the borderline of that, aren't we, really?

Ian:

Yeah. I think that line is some way into the past.

Ash:

Which is our present. It is our present. Yeah. It is. So, Ian, what's your thing?

Ian:

Well, my thing is a homage to vagueness. I I recently, in May, went to a conference, and I've been going to this conference on and off since about 2010 or something.

Ash:

Mhmm.

Ian:

And I'm very, very fond of it. And I remember some lower points in my career, I used to go to it and think, this is why I like technology. It would remind me, and it's called Thinking Digital.

Ash:

Okay.

Ian:

And it's, in Newcastle, Pontine every year in May. And I'm gonna give it a plug. I think it's fantastic, and you should all go to it. You should come to it.

Ash:

Yes. It sounds like it would be I would enjoy it.

Ian:

And, it's a bit it was inspired by TED a long time ago. Mhmm. It was kind of wouldn't it be great to do something like that in in the UK? And, no. We've done something exactly that in the UK since then.

Ian:

But Thinking Digital is a is a really great is a really great thing. But 1 of the speakers at Thinking Digital was a lady called Jennie Maizels So Jennie Maizels came up with this thing called the Sketchbook Club.

Ash:

Okay.

Ian:

Which is a way of teaching art and teaching people to draw and almost making it, sort of making it so that it's really designed for people who think they can't draw to learn to draw. And that kind of captured me a bit because I've always had a bee in my bonnet about this whole thing where you talk to people, particularly people in our industry, and they say, I'm not creative. Yeah. And that upsets me because I feel like creativity is something that everyone can access. And even even if it takes the form of I can't draw, you can learn to draw.

Ian:

And I I there's a lot tied up in this. It's like the whole, growth mindset thing. Yeah. And Carol Dweck and all of that. And this but it makes me a bit crazy that people feel like they're not creative.

Ian:

And I think and and I picked on up on this big time from Ken Robinson's TED talk about schools killing creativity. Mhmm. And it was this 2006 talk, and he he he basically goes through he talks about how people go to school and then they're told they're not this and they're not that. And then it kind of make they internalise that and they feel that way. And he he quotes Pablo Picasso saying, everyone is born an artist.

Ian:

The trick is to still be 1 Yeah. After you've grown up. And yeah. So this I think my thing, having failed to put it in a nutshell, I'm gonna try, is is is about creativity, and particularly about that that phenomenon of people feeling and saying I'm not creative.

Ash:

Yeah. Because so what immediately popped into my mind while you were describing the thing was so many people say in the technology industry, I'm crap at design.

Ian:

You mean visual design?

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they're like, well, I can't do user interfaces, and someone else does that. There's like a design team over there that do that.

Ash:

Yeah. And that's like the, you know, the sort of de facto accepted position that if you, you know, if you're, especially for, like, back end developers. It's like you can't do that, and you won't you won't even try to do that. Yeah. Whereas in reality, like I say, you could learn to do that.

Ash:

You could certainly be part of the process Yeah. Because some understanding of how the back end works is probably important to how the design would work on the front end. Front end, but it's just kind of accepted that you would never be involved in such a thing, and, you know, you would leave the design to someone else because they're the creative part of the process.

Ian:

And and it's that belief that people just accept I can't do that.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

And I I just disagree with that so so viscerally and strongly.

Ash:

Yeah. The other thing that popped into my head was years years ago, I did, I can't remember which personality test it was. You know, the Myers Briggs? Yes. The Bellbin 1.

Ash:

I think that was the 1 that I did.

Ian:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Ash:

And it basically said, you don't have a creative bone in your body. It said, you're good at tasks. You're good at finishing tasks.

Ian:

I was never good at finishing tasks.

Ash:

So Yeah. So and I for better or worse or for sensibly or not, I internalized that and took that away and said, right. Well, good at getting things done, but rubbish with ideas. It wasn't true at all. No.

Ash:

Later on in my career, I took similar tests, and they had swung the other way completely. I was more ideas based than completing tasks, which was really interesting. I was like, wow. But I had internalized that for so long that I was a completing tasks person and not a coming up with ideas person. Whereas later in my career, I was very much an ideas person, a modeling person, a thinking person, still with some completing task skills, or else, you know, I wouldn't be sat here doing this now.

Ian:

You wouldn't have got around to it yet.

Ash:

Yeah. You know? But so but the interesting thing was the it must have been already a belief that I had, and then that was that initial test that said I didn't have any creativeness just confirmed it. But and I think it's probably the phenomenon that you were talking about where it's like throughout your growing up years, you gradually, like, leave those skills behind or are told that you're leaving those skills behind.

Ian:

Yeah. People tell you you're not good at that.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

Don't try and don't try and do o level oh, I'm showing my age now. Yeah. O level art, for example.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. People who did music and art at school, there there was some sneering. They were called creative types as if it's it it was an insult and not, like, real work. And members of family would call people creative types in the, you know, in the sense of it being a negative thing, which kind of all went to reinforce, like, how I felt.

Ash:

And then when I was told that I wasn't creative, I was just like, yeah. I'm not.

Ian:

Yes. That confirms my existing belief. Yeah.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, since then, I've, you know, written loads of articles, talks, books, all sorts, which, logically, you need some creativity to do those things.

Ian:

Well, I I searched for a dictionary definition of creativity, just now, thinking I should've done that before. And I've got dictionary dot Cambridge dotorg, which, has a

Ash:

I'm sure Oxford will have something to say about that.

Ian:

Probably will. It's probably completely wrong. But, it says, creativity is the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas. And I I quite like that actually. I feel like, it's not the ability to draw, which some people III feel like, that's a a thing of creative types as they can draw.

Ian:

I would really like I what what I think it comes down to I I remember learning coaching years ago. Mhmm. I'm learning about the concept of limiting beliefs, which coaches really are supposed to help you challenge. So why do you believe you can't do that? Yeah.

Ian:

And the this idea of a growth mindset. So the the Carol Dweck, I hope I'm saying her name right, in a sort of podcast tradition.

Ash:

I'm just gonna nod.

Ian:

Saying people's names wrong. But, Carol Dweck did a famous TED talk and has written books and stuff about it, but this idea of a growth mindset, And there was the the other 1, which was a static mindset or something. I can't remember the the other 1. Yeah. But a growth mindset is that you believe that you can learn to do new things.

Ian:

Mhmm. Whereas the other 1, it was a belief that you are whole and complete as you are, and you will never be good at the things you're not currently good at. Yeah. Yeah. And III strongly identify with that, and I've learned to do a lot of things that I thought I wouldn't be able to do.

Ian:

I think that's become my sort of guiding principle is I have to learn to do things all the time. I'm always trying to learn I mean, it sounds a bit cliche, but, you know, learning AI programming or learning Yeah. React, the the original 1, not the not the reason and act 1 from Google. But, you know, learning these these things as and I think in a technology career, you can't afford to not have a growth mindset because you you you it's a the technology of 1993 or whenever I started is unrecognisably different in almost every way from the technology of now. Yeah.

Ian:

And if I and so you need a growth mindset to have have a career in technology that lasts, you know, oh my god, 30 years. Yeah. Oh my god. But, yeah, you and I think creativity is another thing that you could learn. And there's an article I found while I was I put in my notes, from psychology today.

Ian:

Although, obviously, it's not exactly today because I found it.

Ash:

Psychology in the present.

Ian:

Psychology at that time. And 1 of the the quotes I pulled out from this article, and we'll link to this as well, but creativity is often thought to be a fixed trait, but it is a learned skill. It is not spontaneous, but rather developed and nurtured over time.

Ash:

Yeah. And I guess there's, like, there's something in there, isn't there? It's like it's almost like you have to practice being creative. Yes. That's true.

Ash:

Which I I have, like in my head, I'm always like, well, you know, practice is, like, rigid and structured, whereas creativity is sort of smooshy and flowing. But that's not necessarily true either. That's just, like, my initial it's like setting aside time to be creative. People sneer at that because it's like, well, that's not true creativity, is it? It's almost like you should be, I don't know, in the bath, and, you know, you have your eureka moment, and you go muse comes upon you.

Ian:

Yeah. And you're like, what? Get out.

Ash:

Get out. Knock. Please knock.

Ian:

Please knock.

Ash:

So there's off to me, in my brain, in the way that my brain has been forged over the years, there's like a, there's a slight contradiction between practicing and being creative. Yes. But I guess what that article is saying, that it's not like that, is it? No. It's like it's something you you need to learn to use.

Ian:

And there's also emotional labor. I mean, if you are right if you're doing writing and you know this more than me because you've written, as you say, books, but there's a discipline to it. Yeah. And it's the create the discipline of creativity is perhaps different from the disciplines of engine of engineering, but both require labour, you know, emotional engagement and labour to do. Yeah.

Ian:

And I think that's where this whole dismissive sort of creative types thing comes from is that people think, oh, well, I'm an engineer. III work in a discipline which has rigid, you know, rigor rigor and and discipline. But actually, the writer who's getting up in the morning and going sitting in their little hut at the end of their garden, staring at the blank screen and refusing to move until they've done written something Yeah. That's in a different way. Every bit is difficult.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. And it requires sort of equal discipline in order to do so.

Ian:

There there's another thing about this, actually, that I I haven't connected in my brain and I have just now. Ira Glass, who's a a broadcaster in America, who's associated with PBS, the public broadcaster, But he describes this problem of creating art where he says that people start creating art, whether that's music or or pictures or paintings or whatever it might be. People start creating art because they've got good taste in something. They have a taste that that they they love the thing, and they are able to evaluate it and say this is good and this isn't good, and I like this and I don't like this. And then when you begin, you can't create things that you like because you just don't have the technical skill to do it.

Ian:

Yeah. And then what you have is this gradual improvement, and you have to be able to keep at it for long enough until your the things you create can satisfy your taste in that Alright. Okay. Thing. Yeah.

Ian:

And most people can't make it.

Ash:

Yeah. You

Ian:

know, it's like playing the violin. I mean, everyone who's heard someone that's not very good at playing the violin doing so is is not great, isn't it? And imagine if that's a person that just loves violin music.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

And then all they can do is this kind of pedestrian sort of performance. But if they stuck at it, then maybe they would get to the level Mhmm. Where they they liked what they were producing. But it's it's for someone embarking on on a creative pursuit, they have to put up with being bad at it Yeah. And doing it a lot.

Ash:

I think, sort of building on that as well, we're always presented with finished things. Yes. So whether it be paintings, pictures, songs, films, plays, we're always presented with the finished thing, which, you know, is is fine. Yeah. But that we haven't seen the toil No.

Ash:

That went into them. So where we get a very simplified view of, like, the the fruits of creativity, if you like. We just get, like, the the packaged product at the end Yeah. Rather than the 1, 000, 000 versions that came before it and were dismissed, or the the journey that the artist went on to create it. So I find that I find that really interesting because you just that's part of, like, your expectations.

Ash:

You have your taste and your expectations, and then you can't meet those expectations to create something to your taste as in your own expectations because you're presented with finished works of art or

Ian:

that literature. That's your standard that you're holding Yeah. Holding yourself to.

Ash:

And, like, when you think about it, it's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. You know? Because, there are obviously people who spend their entire lives dedicated to creating works of art or whatever. Some of them got unrecognised in their lifetime as well.

Ash:

Yes. So but to hold yourself to that standard is is pretty crazy, isn't it? But I can see how someone might do it. You know, let's say, pick up the acoustic guitar, strum out a few chords, realize you're not very good at it, and it doesn't sound like, I don't know, whoever your favorite guitarist is.

Ian:

Yeah. I just can't quite get to that Dave Gilmore then. Yeah. Yeah.

Ash:

So, you know, you you hold yourself to very, very high standards because you are confronted with the finished product all the time, which is pretty bullish Yeah. In a lot of a lot of occasions. Not always. But I think sometimes it's like there's a disbelief that you can do it as well. So I went to a this was a few years ago.

Ash:

It was described well, it is described as a noise gig.

Ian:

So You're setting some expectations at the out of the gate there.

Ash:

Yeah. So it's just like, you know, basically, like, what the chap was doing, he had, like, instruments of different types set up in different corners of the room with, like, microphones. Yeah. And then he would, like, just play, like, a chord on 1 of them and leave it running, and then go to the next 1, leave that running. Maybe do a couple in quick succession.

Ash:

Yeah. Maybe leave longer pauses. But the effect was amazing. But I'm just like, how did you think of doing that?

Ian:

Yeah.

Ash:

You know? So I think there are some brains that do work differently. Yeah. But you But it didn't come from nowhere. No.

Ash:

It still came through that process of because if I dedicated myself to creating noise and, you know, trained my ear on it and learned how to make it coherent, and then I could probably get to a similar spot. I would create different things

Ian:

Yeah.

Ash:

But I would get to a similar place just because, like, we have different brains, me and the whoever it was that did the noise Yeah. All those years ago. But my initial reaction to that form of music was, how on earth did you even arrive at this?

Ian:

Yeah. And that's the thing, isn't it? There's this massive iceberg of a journey.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.

Ian:

But yeah. So and that's just it's been very thought provoking, actually. Mhmm. But I think, I hope people listen to this who think they're not creative will, I don't know, will maybe give themselves a break.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Because it's let's say you can have some pretty high expectations for yourself.

Ash:

1 of the things that I love about the the testing atelier is that the night before the atelier, we go and we create posters for the day. Just like, you know, some some some are functional. There are signs that say the toilet's this way. Yeah. But some are representations of the talks.

Ash:

So someone, you know, like at the last at telehealth, Jake Kasai was talking about speed versus quality. So we created a load of things about speed and quality and, you know, like races and, you know, things like that. So we come up with whatever you want. There's there's no there's no barrier in these sessions. And people, like, as a group, and we invite other people in who are, like, who are in Leeds the night before or or whatever, who are coming to the conference.

Ash:

So anyone can come along. And everybody comes up with, like, really amazing things. And also some of them look less than polished, but it doesn't matter because the idea is that you're there together creating something Yeah. Rather than it being you know, it doesn't have to necessarily look like the thing that you wanted to look like. So, and that there's there's a kind of, like I think sometimes there's confidence in creating things together as well.

Ash:

Yeah. Because I think sometimes there's an expectation that you should be the creator, not you, Ian, but you the whoever the human is.

Ian:

Yes.

Ash:

That you should be the creator of the thing, and it should be like an immaculate conception from your own creativity.

Ian:

Yes.

Ash:

But that's not always the case.

Ian:

Yeah. I I must admit, I I think I think better with other people.

Ash:

Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. So you got, like, the writer who might sit alone in the shed and try and write, But that probably doesn't work for all writers. I think I read I can't remember what it was, but there was, like, a writers group during COVID, during lockdowns and things, where people would get on a call and talk about, like, the daily struggles of writing, which kind of helped everybody else to unblock, like, their thinking.

Ash:

Yeah. So again, some things that you think that might be a lonely creative endeavour might not be as lonely as you think, because that's the way that they've been shown to you. Like, you know, you watch a a film about a writer, and they'll literally be, like, in a cabin on the lake on their own with a typewriter bashing it out. And it's like, well, is that is that strictly true?

Ian:

Bloody hipsters.

Ash:

I mean, that's my dream, but yeah. Yeah. So the other thing, the I I wanna call it the business case mentality. Oh, yes. So if you can't prove that this will, to a very, very high degree, have an output, a positive output, which is gonna make a real difference or make some money or whatever, then we're not doing it.

Ian:

So Yes. We're never taking any risks.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. In my previous role, I said, why don't we have a, like, a hack day? And because there was a couple of ideas that have been thrown around.

Ash:

I'm like, well, you know, come to the end of 1 thing. Well, let's just have a a couple of days where we can have a go at these things and come up with something, and then see how it goes. It's like, no. We need to move on to the next thing. It's like, well, you might get something of use out of it.

Ash:

It's like, well, can you do a business case for it? It's like, well, no, because, I feel like you're misrepresenting the purpose of the hack day. It's that everybody gets to work together on something in not the usual ways

Ian:

Mhmm.

Ash:

And work on a completely different idea, which, you know, they can the team can, you know, use themselves as inspiration for for how it might look. So I guess the most famous 1 is always Gmail, isn't it? Which was created in Google's I think it was 20%. Time. Yes.

Ash:

So, like, probably 1 of the most successful products behind search that Google's ever

Ian:

created Yeah.

Ash:

Came from that time that isn't dedicated to the list of stuff on the road map.

Ian:

And equally, a 1000000000 other things Yeah. That were also part of that time that didn't have that same level of success.

Ash:

Yeah. So you have but you you have to, like, have a tolerance for things that aren't going to succeed.

Ian:

Yeah. Well, I think going back to that Ken Robinson talk, you never get anywhere, he said, if you're not prepared to file.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So what some of the best advice I got about the the testability book that me and Rob wrote was that you're probably gonna be a little bit embarrassed by certain parts of this, and parts of it are gonna seem naive and not particularly well written or thought out, and I I tried to, like, take that on board and say, rather than trying to perfect this, just, like, let certain things go, because they're good enough. Yeah. And it's your first book, so you shouldn't be too hard on yourself either in trying to present a perfect image of what you're trying to what you're trying to say.

Ash:

And it taught me a lot about about that whole process, and what it meant, like, for me as a creator of of content.

Ian:

I feel like, there's a tremendous like all my vague things, there's quite

Ash:

a lot of stuff we could tremendous well.

Ian:

We could continue to talk about, but, we've been recording for an hour and a half plus some extra that we did at the beginning. So I think, I should probably call that a thing.

Ash:

It's probably time.

Ian:

But yeah. So that was my my my thing.

Ash:

Excellent thing.

Ian:

It's a lot lot to think about there, isn't it?

Ash:

Definitely. So we have a long painful outro now as well. It's about 10 minutes long.

Ian:

Yeah. Undoubtedly. Even if we said, no, we won't, we probably would anyway, because it's just, you know, it's who we are.

Ash:

So before we do it, should we just say

Ian:

Low level

Ash:

Long running, low level pain.

Ian:

Yes. Of of an outro.

Ash:

Yeah. So before we do the outro, should we just say to everybody listening, thank you very much for your time. And that was 2 things.

Ian:

And you can turn it off now.

Ash:

And that's it. Job done.