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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;00 - 00;00;16;22
Pri
Chris is ready.
00;00;16;22 - 00;00;17;00
Chris
Is this thing on.
00;00;17;06 - 00;00;17;20
Pri
Today.
00;00;17;27 - 00;00;18;06
Chris
Yeah.
00;00;18;06 - 00;00;21;02
Aaron
Chris, you seem like you're. You had your second cup of coffee already?
00;00;21;08 - 00;00;23;01
Chris
No, I'm still working on it.
00;00;23;04 - 00;00;25;18
Pri
I'm raw dogging today. No coffee?
00;00;25;20 - 00;00;29;02
Chris
Well, what's up with this free coffee? His life.
00;00;29;04 - 00;00;39;21
Pri
I know, I know. I think when I work from home, I like, don't drink coffee because it's like, not. I have to make it. And I'm just like, I don't know, optimizing for sleep or something.
00;00;39;24 - 00;00;43;01
Chris
But this is peak millennial behavior right here.
00;00;43;03 - 00;00;47;27
Pri
So it's not served up to me. I'm like, not interested in drinking coffee even though I know your.
00;00;47;27 - 00;00;53;10
Chris
Address in the chat. I'll, spend $20 on a private taxi to deliver your coffee.
00;00;53;13 - 00;00;55;03
Pri
No. No, I've got a blue bottle up.
00;00;55;05 - 00;00;57;29
Aaron
That's a venture back bankable business right there. That's all I'm.
00;00;57;29 - 00;01;02;14
Chris
Hearing. The 996 coffee. Coffee service? Completely.
00;01;02;16 - 00;01;07;01
Pri
Yeah. I'm actually surprised that Link Street doesn't do that. They, like, could easily do that.
00;01;07;04 - 00;01;09;25
Aaron
I think if you limited the choices, it probably would work pretty well.
00;01;09;27 - 00;01;28;08
Pri
Yeah. That's blank. Street's whole model is like. You literally like, it's like storefront zero real estate space. They have a bunch of them, but they're like basically storefront windows. And there's only like four things to choose from and like three pastries. And then you could do like a weekly subscription of like you pay like let's call it ten bucks a week.
00;01;28;08 - 00;01;33;06
Pri
I forgot how much it actually is. But like, you do ten bucks a week and you get unlimited coffee for the week, people love it.
00;01;33;09 - 00;01;35;29
Aaron
The classification of life, it's happening.
00;01;36;02 - 00;01;36;18
Pri
Literally.
00;01;36;23 - 00;01;49;11
Chris
And then people make this like their whole identity and their whole lifestyle and they start cheering on the most like Vegas shit ever. Did you see this place change their plans? Now we can get one latte a week.
00;01;49;13 - 00;01;50;15
Pri
Like we like.
00;01;50;15 - 00;01;52;02
Chris
That lifestyle now.
00;01;52;04 - 00;01;53;09
Pri
Yeah.
00;01;53;11 - 00;02;02;01
Chris
Like what happened to, like, the so-and-so guy starter packs? At least that had like, some diversity to it. This is like empty airspace.
00;02;02;04 - 00;02;05;19
Pri
Have you heard about, like, the performative male thing that's happening.
00;02;05;22 - 00;02;06;10
Chris
Like.
00;02;06;12 - 00;02;07;16
Aaron
Educate our audience?
00;02;07;16 - 00;02;07;24
Chris
Yeah.
00;02;07;24 - 00;02;09;16
Aaron
Educate our audience, bro.
00;02;09;19 - 00;02;29;09
Pri
I mean, I feel like you guys should know this, but it's I mean, but maybe you guys are just like, hold heads, but it's kind of just like an internet meme about men who are trying to appeal to, like, a specific esthetic. So like, I mean, in New York City, for example, you have like the West Village performative male or the East Village performative male male.
00;02;29;09 - 00;02;51;09
Pri
It is kind of like they are wearing the same outfit out of a starter pack. I don't know, it's it's basically like I think a lot of like the manosphere, right wing Twitter people think that a lot of those guys do it basically to attract progressive women by like appealing to their values in these ways. So it's kind of this funny thing, but it's gone beyond that.
00;02;51;09 - 00;03;01;28
Pri
And now the performative male, it's just like it's, esthetic. And now, like SF has its own performative male esthetic and it's basically just like internet in real life.
00;03;02;00 - 00;03;03;19
Aaron
But what are these esthetics?
00;03;03;22 - 00;03;24;22
Pri
It depends on the text. Performative male like if I I'll pull up like an East Village one. I mean, they're a little bit grungy or a little skateboarding like have you know, they're wearing like Carhartt and stuff like that. But then the West Village is maybe wearing like common project shoes or something like that. Anyways, we don't need to go down this rabbit hole, but.
00;03;24;25 - 00;03;29;12
Chris
No, we do pre we do. Is this where the war on matcha is coming from?
00;03;29;15 - 00;03;31;25
Pri
Yeah. Like the matcha mills.
00;03;31;28 - 00;03;43;16
Chris
Okay a the matcha sucks. Like let's just get that right out of the way. I agree, it's like drinking like a weird green colored bunch of chalk.
00;03;43;18 - 00;03;45;03
Aaron
Like chalk. It's like chalky.
00;03;45;08 - 00;03;58;08
Pri
Dude. It's. It gets you so weird, though. Like, if you like coffee, you will love matcha. Like, that is some real. It's like a different caffeine hit. And I think it's like, pretty good. It's like less like fidgety and just like amphetamines.
00;03;58;11 - 00;04;22;14
Chris
I don't like stimulants. Oh, like trying to sell me on, like, a stronger buzz. I don't know, coffee. Coffee's got like a dignity to a tree. It's eternal. I'm an old head, as you said, I don't. I don't need to be like, chasing matcha or, Oh, what's the other one that comes in the ridiculous cup? Like the big silver cup with the giant long straw cold brew?
00;04;22;16 - 00;04;29;00
Chris
No, I'll remember this two days from now. I'm sorry. That's why it was a thing. It was a thing.
00;04;29;02 - 00;04;31;14
Pri
Oh, like Boba. Like. I don't even know what you're talking about right now.
00;04;31;15 - 00;04;33;16
Chris
No focus for focus for the kids.
00;04;33;18 - 00;04;36;10
Pri
That was awesome, anyhow. Okay.
00;04;36;13 - 00;04;59;24
Chris
Well, like, there are performative males everywhere. One of my favorite performative male is like, when I go back home up into Massachusetts and, like, I'm out in the burbs and the driveways are filled with these, like $80,000 trucks driven by men who work for Fidelity Investments in their back office. Like, that's a performative male. This isn't this isn't like strictly an urban thing.
00;04;59;24 - 00;05;02;29
Chris
This isn't a right versus left thing. This is called consumerism.
00;05;03;01 - 00;05;14;08
Pri
Yeah, I think that's largely it's not a right versus I think it started on like the right. And then now everyone just is like a performative like there's like the start up performative male. It's kind of a version of the starter packs. Honestly.
00;05;14;08 - 00;05;16;13
Chris
Starter parts were better. They were funner.
00;05;16;20 - 00;05;17;07
Pri
Yeah, yeah.
00;05;17;07 - 00;05;36;25
Aaron
They're definitely fun. Free. Why do you think that it's happening? Do you think it's that because, this generation is trying to find their footing so that they can have normal human relationships, and this is how they're meaning it into existence? Or did it start with women that start the the men make the performative pacts just like organically?
00;05;36;27 - 00;05;39;07
Aaron
What do you think's the sub context here?
00;05;39;09 - 00;06;06;12
Pri
I don't know, maybe it was interesting. I listen to this like economist podcast about how a lot of like the big female pop stars like Sabrina Carpenter and like Olivia Rodrigo and, you know, that ilk of like, Gen Z Alpha, you know, female pop stars like it used to be in my generation. Like more female empowerment and like they would it would be talking about like if anything, like deadbeat guys.
00;06;06;12 - 00;06;36;09
Pri
And now basically the Sabrina Carpenter, they're just basically talking about like, men who are mad. And so maybe the performative male thing is like speaking to that whole genre of just like mad males because it's not, I'm not articulating this as well as I'd like to, but I thought that was an interesting podcast, because if you're like lyrics about how men are just like, no, not necessarily like bad guys, just kind of disappointing and like, not not necessarily at your level.
00;06;36;09 - 00;06;42;11
Pri
I feel like that probably is. I think the performative male thing is like a similar commentary to that.
00;06;42;14 - 00;06;49;06
Aaron
So do you think it's like it's, it's, one, like one group's way to signal what they want.
00;06;49;08 - 00;06;57;17
Pri
Maybe the former males like, making fun of men. You know, it's it's a caricature. So I think it's more just like commenting on how men are mediocre.
00;06;57;17 - 00;07;03;12
Chris
Now, look, if you make Coinbase your personality, you are going to be mediocre. You are going to be you.
00;07;03;12 - 00;07;06;22
Aaron
Got it in Chris. You got in your Coinbase dick.
00;07;06;24 - 00;07;15;25
Chris
The people said I was raring to go. I guess I'm just a little J.B. three hour hour men more mid these days. What is the state of like the male population?
00;07;15;29 - 00;07;48;17
Pri
I mean like if you looked at your data and I this is what I've been like actually look at the stats today. But like if you looked at like college educated men versus women and like financial success, I think like men have largely lagged women both on education, like just undergraduate education, secondary education salary. At this point, I'm not saying those are like indicative of, you know, someone's self-worth, but I guess they're just like basic they're just basic data points of whether or not maybe men have become more mediocre Rivian guys.
00;07;48;25 - 00;07;51;18
Chris
That's another. Is that a performative nail right there?
00;07;51;20 - 00;07;57;01
Pri
Yeah. I'm going to try to get you guys the economist article on this. Because I think it.
00;07;57;04 - 00;08;04;04
Chris
Thank God The Economist has their finger on the pulse there. We're really old heads for getting insight from the economist. Yeah.
00;08;04;04 - 00;08;08;01
Aaron
That's like the last people to know we're screwed. Chris.
00;08;08;04 - 00;08;09;12
Pri
I kind of feel even lame.
00;08;09;12 - 00;08;11;04
Chris
Like the chair. Yeah.
00;08;11;06 - 00;08;34;23
Pri
But it is it. It's an interesting trend. I mean, you guys have seen that on the news, so everyone's been talking about how, like, men are left behind. It's like the left behind population and like they're feeling alone in the classroom. And some people believe this too. And all this stuff, like, I feel like this is all the same conversation, but now it's just getting, like projected in pop culture through like memes and pop and like these pop stars singing about it, you know?
00;08;34;23 - 00;08;44;19
Chris
Well, it's on Sabrina Kafka to raise the bar for men everywhere. Give them something to shoot towards little five foot Dixie up on the screen.
00;08;44;22 - 00;09;03;28
Aaron
Exactly. But Chris, you know, it does feel like it is kind of the the revenge of the uncle. You know, a lot of these, like, old tech titans are really, like starting to flex their, their muscle a bit more. I feel like that's been another set thematic. So maybe the, the non performative old old males are are rearing their head.
00;09;04;03 - 00;09;07;28
Pri
The super old ones like are bored or poor Larry.
00;09;08;00 - 00;09;11;11
Aaron
Well he's, he's like ageless. Who knows how old that guy is.
00;09;11;14 - 00;09;22;08
Pri
His face so weird I like really don't I feel like if you're that rich, like, get a better surgeon. Like, I think his work looks weird. But anyways, let's talk about more important things.
00;09;22;10 - 00;09;28;29
Chris
Like how the boomers will never let an opportunity to pull the ladder off and make everything theirs go to waste.
00;09;28;29 - 00;09;31;12
Pri
I mean, it feels like it's more it's like, not take.
00;09;31;12 - 00;09;33;29
Aaron
Advantage, Chris, you got to respect the game at some point.
00;09;34;04 - 00;10;05;01
Chris
Yeah, game and game is game. They're going at it. There are a lot of a lot of balls in motion. There's a lot of crass investments happening. I feel like every other day you're on there, Larry Ellison is, sticking his finger in another pie. And then your boy Sam a you just needs dollars for gigawatts is out there getting getting crazy busy, and then I guess everyone gets a phone call saying, hey, we got to, prop up Intel.
00;10;05;01 - 00;10;12;29
Chris
What can you do for me? I'm looking out there, and I'm seeing, like, the, the sky nut. Correct to start and, starting to shave up, like.
00;10;13;02 - 00;10;16;10
Aaron
What is that? What's the Skynet currency?
00;10;16;12 - 00;10;24;22
Chris
Then, I mean, all right, Nvidia is throwing a lot, 100 billion into OpenAI. Well, they're kind of.
00;10;24;24 - 00;10;57;18
Aaron
They're investing it. Right. Like they had an opportunity to invest. So they're they're putting in that $100 million, $100 billion because they think that OpenAI is on the trajectory to be, you know, a multi-trillion hour company. I think that that's like their generous reading of it, which I don't know if that's wrong. Right. I mean, I guess OpenAI, you know, they're putting in that capital hoping to get back, you know, from ongoing chip purchases and other software that they develop as part of, like their AI infrastructures, starter pack and kind of lock in OpenAI as like a long term Nvidia customer.
00;10;57;18 - 00;11;04;08
Aaron
I think that that's like the, the way that they're viewing it. But how are you viewing it? You're viewing is Skynet coming? Is that where we're going?
00;11;04;10 - 00;11;28;04
Chris
That's that's where we're going in both these both these positions can be correct, right? They aren't mutually exclusive. Nvidia has to do a lot of almost like grant giving in the form of investment because these are their biggest customers. And they they need to see them like across that chasm in the profitability. Right. And the economics of this all makes sense.
00;11;28;07 - 00;11;57;25
Chris
You know, if you think about like Nvidia stock, right, Nvidia has a shit ton of money. They need people to buy their chips. They look at OpenAI and they see one of the or, you know, probably current largest customers, but also their future largest customer. Get in there, cross-pollinate, do a little tie up. Of course, Larry Ellison's in there as well because, you know, Sam was also got Oracle building out 4.5 terawatt gigawatt whatever.
00;11;57;25 - 00;12;31;20
Chris
What like server farms for them to that. That's this guy that corrects him. Right. There is all these companies Cros investing in each other, cutting deals that both serve a practical purpose because, you know, the capital expenses required to build this new infrastructure and the compute demand that these services have, like takes a shit ton of money. But at the same time, right, we're also in a very, very favorable regulatory environment that, you know, champions are part of the deal.
00;12;31;27 - 00;12;55;10
Chris
And it's why not do it while you can do it, especially if the the big orange guy. Right. League wants this stuff and you got to live in his world. So all I'm saying is yes. When Skynet like when we look up in 2015, we're like, oh shit, man, James Cameron was right, right. Like those partnerships and mergers and alliances are happening like week by week right now.
00;12;55;12 - 00;13;19;18
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, and that's like always the worry that you're going to have like a small group of people controlling this. I mean, I guess on the sunnier side of the story, just like the demand for inference, the demand for compute is just parabolic at this point. You know, like energy prices or average energy prices in the states is is going up just because there's competing demand from some of these AI systems, it takes a long time to kind of build out these these plants.
00;13;19;18 - 00;13;38;24
Aaron
I do think that the US kind of fell behind China and possibly other well, really China just in terms of energy production. So it seems like it's trying to catch up on that on that front. So I don't know if it's all like net bad. Like I just it feels like, you know, we're just kind of building out like this underlying infrastructure a little bit like the electrical jet grid, right.
00;13;38;24 - 00;13;45;02
Aaron
Like probably felt like back in the 1900s ish, you know, like whenever that cup built out, 19 tens.
00;13;45;03 - 00;14;02;28
Pri
Like, I feel like laying down the piping for the early internet. Probably had a lot of cross-pollination, like, I don't I wasn't like, around in, like paying attention to the news when that was happening, cause that was like when I was very young. But I would imagine that there's only very few companies that you truly could partner with.
00;14;02;28 - 00;14;22;16
Pri
And I would imagine that's kind of it seems nefarious or it seems like a little bit of that. You know, each of these companies are putting money in each other's pockets, but how else are you supposed to create a new infrastructure when there's really only a few companies that have the capital and ability to effectuate it? Like, I don't know, I don't even know what else they're supposed to do.
00;14;22;16 - 00;14;32;04
Pri
I agree they're in a favorable environment, but if they didn't have this environment, they would basically just be sitting on their hands unable to actually do much. Is that like a.
00;14;32;06 - 00;14;59;09
Chris
That's a totally fair read, right. So some sometime way back in the 1930s, there was a guy shaking his fist at the clouds going that FDR and the Tennessee Valley Authority, you know, like someone was bitching and moaning about Julius Caesar diverting the Tiber, you know? Yes. This is a this is a necessity. If you want massive scaling infrastructure, like certain things do require certain levels of capability.
00;14;59;09 - 00;15;02;27
Chris
And just by definition, that's a very small group of people.
00;15;02;27 - 00;15;26;18
Pri
Right. And like it's it definitely feels off. And it's like weird how the market's responding to it. But I'm also just like, yeah, this is an entirely I feel corny saying this, but it's like a new tech paradigm again. Like there's only so much CapEx and like these people can do it. Then let's get it done. I think the other the part that I find at least because it's not adjacent to like, I mean, maybe there is some adjacency to I maybe this little all the dots will be connected eventually.
00;15;26;18 - 00;16;00;02
Pri
But what's been very intriguing for me is seeing the media landscape just firmly move over to big, big tech. I mean, obviously the camel thing had you're feeling like the decline of old legacy media anyway, like you saw Colbert and late night TV, plus all the Kimmel stuff. But what's interesting is seeing like Larry Ellison, the injury, sins of the world all come together and basically start empire building around media, everything from digital media to legacy media like it feels.
00;16;00;04 - 00;16;21;02
Pri
It's a little surprising. I mean, not so much, but it is a little bit surprising how I will say what they are taking advantage in the regulatory environment. Is this, this media takeover, because I don't know if that's really necessary to build infrastructure. I just think they want they this is favorable conditions in order to, like, really build the legacy that they want.
00;16;21;06 - 00;16;24;13
Chris
Legacy they want is to be able to present the VMAs.
00;16;24;15 - 00;16;49;25
Aaron
Yeah. I don't I mean, maybe in part I mean, I don't think this is anything new. I mean, I mean, all the media increasingly became social media probably a decade ago. Right. And they funded most of these companies. They were on the board of most of those companies. I think that there are some like there is either, you know, the instance of TikTok, right, which is a foreign media company and or the legacy media companies, the legacy media companies, I think they're the process of them rolling up into the bigger giants is just happening.
00;16;49;25 - 00;17;06;20
Aaron
I mean, YouTube kind of almost already, they didn't really roll it up, but they just competed with like a cable service that that's just as good, if not better than the legacy ones. I think you're going to just see consolidation with these legacy businesses that have very old, you know, average users or user bases. So I don't know if it's all like that.
00;17;06;20 - 00;17;15;29
Aaron
That's surprising. Related to it, I think that it's kind of just making bare that the fact that the tech sector does own media, but they probably have for at least a decade, if not longer.
00;17;16;01 - 00;17;41;01
Chris
Yeah. I'm curious of where the money is coming from this go around and whether that will prove crippling or not. You know, I coming from the telecom world, right. Like, look, look at what the hell AT&T did. And it was an absolute disaster for them. You know, they they bought Time Warner. They bought DirecTV. Right. And DirecTV is kind of like very adjacent to what they did.
00;17;41;01 - 00;18;22;16
Chris
But they bought it at the wrong time. They spent too much money. I mean Verizon you know, Verizon buy Yahoo and and then they were like, what the hell are we doing with Yahoo? And so like, it's I don't know, it's one of these like things, it seems like the conglomerates of a certain size or people who operate on a certain scale can't resist, like getting, getting into the business of and in the past, like they've often regretted that or, you know, that media that like the media business from like Clinton onwards was just a story of like massive mergers, huge debt loads and then being handcuffed by those actions?
00;18;22;18 - 00;18;45;13
Aaron
Yeah, completely. But you know, and also, you know, the tech industry has been probably until recently just an attention economy. Right. And now it's like a token economy. Increasingly. But it kind of makes sense that they would try to make moves and kind of roll this up in a more favorable regulatory environment. Maybe some of this stuff would have happened a couple years ago, previous, if there wasn't concern about that, you know, M&A activity, antitrust activity.
00;18;45;13 - 00;19;01;07
Aaron
So I think you're right on that on that front. But I don't I don't find any of that too surprising. I do find like this like Larry Ellison coming out at the age of 81 to do some empire building. Just it's kind of like an interesting something. But at the same time. Right. If if, if I read news reports.
00;19;01;07 - 00;19;21;15
Aaron
Right, there's they're marking TikTok's total value at like sub 20 billion, which just seems like a steal. Right. So if you were just a dealmaker and that that was that opportunity was kind of dropped in your lap, then you had access capital, like why wouldn't you jump at that? Like there's no way in my mind at least that TikTok's not worth more than crack.
00;19;21;15 - 00;19;30;23
Aaron
And I think Kraken's going at like a $15 billion market cap for their forthcoming IPO, which which is great, but I have to imagine the tax would be worth more than that.
00;19;30;27 - 00;19;35;02
Chris
Yeah. I mean, this is much less than Twitter was when Elon bought it.
00;19;35;04 - 00;19;40;02
Aaron
Oh was it. Yeah, I forgot what that valuation was. But yeah I mean like 21. Yeah I mean a.
00;19;40;03 - 00;19;52;25
Chris
40 or 21. It might have been 40. And then it got bumped down to 21 like after he bought it. And then the bankers were trying to offload it anyway, whatever the number is. Yes. TikTok USA at 18 is cheaper than Twitter.
00;19;52;27 - 00;20;08;22
Aaron
Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, maybe it's got such a low price because some of the revenue I think is going back to the parent as part of the the transaction. So if I read right and hard to always get accurate information, maybe like 50% of revenue goes back to ByteDance, the parent company is like a payment.
00;20;08;25 - 00;20;28;02
Aaron
It just seems like it's a, pretty rational deal. You know what I think is more interesting? And I think I noted this, you know, in the last episode, we really do have, like, this natural experiment where we're going to just see the influence that TikTok had on different policies, because I'm assuming that they're going to increasingly skew and modify and, you know, change the algorithm for variety of reasons.
00;20;28;02 - 00;20;36;08
Aaron
So it would be interesting to see conversations just kind of subtly change over the next couple quarters as that happens. Or presumably as that happens.
00;20;36;10 - 00;20;39;18
Chris
You're saying the war on matcha is going to intensify.
00;20;39;21 - 00;20;55;27
Aaron
It could get really crazy, Chris. You know the war. Yeah, matcha could become a thing of the past when this is all done. But, you know, maybe it's subtle things like that, or maybe it's more macro political things. But I do think you know, it's kind of interesting because you almost have like the Citadel deals, like the, the bookend of, like the attention economy.
00;20;55;27 - 00;21;15;28
Aaron
And then you have all these other deals like you were talking about a couple minutes ago, Chris, which is really like the dealmaking in the token economy. Right? And I don't know if you guys saw this, but like Open Router, which has all the open source models and some other models to, you know, they they've gone from processing, you know, 110 billion tokens to 3.21 trillion in 1 year.
00;21;16;01 - 00;21;35;11
Aaron
And I think that that's the bet, right. Like that the demand for inference will go up. The demand for like, you know, AI reasoning will go up just like exponentially. And maybe we're going to get, you know, the first decade trillion companies like from this, like there's just a lot of like a lot of demand for this type of stuff.
00;21;35;11 - 00;21;52;02
Aaron
So I know, like Wall Street's kind of worried about whether or not that's the spend will pay for itself and that that's their job. They should worry about it. But I don't know, like from where I'm sitting, I just don't feel any, any demand going down on my end. And I feel like the tech sector job a little bit earlier to more global trends.
00;21;52;04 - 00;22;18;10
Chris
Yeah, I know that. That's a great point about us shifting into this token economy. And, you know, really like reminds me of what I lived, you know, professionally a decade ago during the mobile data build period that saw similar levels of traffic growth as the tech got better, the speed of responses and, you know, the ability to deliver more got faster, right.
00;22;18;10 - 00;22;34;04
Chris
And then it integrated and worked itself into daily life. I mean, we're basically seeing that. And instead of like communications market, we're now dealing in intelligence markets. And the intelligence market is token denominated completely.
00;22;34;04 - 00;22;52;21
Aaron
Yeah. And I think that that's the big schism. You know, I think the Wall Street folks are like, okay, I'm having a hard time kind of projecting how many tokens people will need, but I think it'll be a lot like broadband, Chris, where you just see whatever model, whatever the format, just more and more demand and more complexity coming from these systems.
00;22;52;21 - 00;23;19;06
Aaron
Right? So we're already seeing thinking models. Thinking models are getting more sophisticated. I think I read yesterday that OpenAI has like some models or some problems that they can have the models running and doing inference for like five hours before it comes up with an answer, which is pretty astounding, right? It's really chewing through a problem. I personally would take the bet that there's going to be pretty much infinite demand for it, but I could imagine some more conservative quants on Wall Street getting worried about it.
00;23;19;06 - 00;23;43;28
Aaron
And the dollar amounts are pretty massive. I just think that there is revenue to support it, and that makes it like a little bit different than the econ build out, or even the telecom build out. Like, I just think that there's tangible use cases for this, like off the bat. And I think that there's still like a lot of worry from like previous tech boom and bust cycles and even like the great financial crisis, just just a general anxiety just around round some of these points.
00;23;43;28 - 00;23;56;04
Aaron
But that's not my read. It all seems like kind of rational. Yeah. The other, you know, kind of major, major thing on the AI front, which I thought was interesting, came from a talk with Eric Schmidt at the All In Summit. He was just noting.
00;23;56;07 - 00;23;59;26
Chris
The All in Summit. I need to just note that I know.
00;23;59;28 - 00;24;03;06
Aaron
I know, Chris, but let's let's set that point aside.
00;24;03;08 - 00;24;04;20
Chris
This is like going to base camp.
00;24;04;20 - 00;24;25;29
Aaron
It's a little bit. But you know, he he made an interesting point nonetheless despite any critiques you may have of the forum where he was just saying that, you know, China pretty much knows that they're not going to be able to compete on the chip side on like the core AI side. So they're very focused on like diffusion and they're very focused now and just kind of like leveling up on the robotics side.
00;24;25;29 - 00;24;46;22
Aaron
So I think it's just an interesting point. Even if there's like some excess build out here. Like I just think it seems rational to me build it out with much rather have like excess supply than like, you know, wind up not being able to hit some like generalized superintelligence or like, you know, lead lead that, you know, lead that effort out, especially as we try to like rebuild manufacturing capabilities here.
00;24;46;22 - 00;25;12;15
Chris
I also just think we don't know any better way than boom bust, you know, like the I don't know, the opportunity cost. I think for a lot of these people to, you know, sit on your hands or take your time about this like it's not a winning formula, like you're forced into these Darwinian races. And the best you can do is, well, I hope it doesn't happen this time.
00;25;12;15 - 00;25;22;29
Chris
Or be hope that if it does happen, you're positioned in a way that you just survive the lean times, and you're not one of the ones who, you know, tilts and gets wrecked.
00;25;23;01 - 00;25;38;23
Aaron
Yeah, completely. And I do think it's a Darwinian race. It's like it is a little bit like the space race. So I'd rather be on the winning side of that, even if that may lead to a correction at some point. I also think in like a weird way, all these like tech build outs, they're they're, you know, there's a lot of physicality to it, right?
00;25;38;23 - 00;26;04;19
Aaron
Like gigawatt power plants and data centers and electricity electricians and complex installations. Like there's, there's like, you know, some, some solid I think job opportunities and growth like around this, like energy build out. So that may be kind of factoring into it to, Chris, you know, like, why not spend a little bit just to kind of rebuild some of that, like some of the support for a solid industrial base?
00;26;04;21 - 00;26;07;14
Chris
Yeah. And look, you built one of these factories.
00;26;07;14 - 00;26;10;19
Aaron
Like, how hard is it going to be to build like a robotics factory or something else after that?
00;26;10;19 - 00;26;33;03
Chris
Right. I hear you when Robert Moses built the Triborough Bridge. Yeah. To bring like 20 steel plants and countless, like, logging camps back online after the war. Right. Like, but then literally, like building one bridge, like, you know, it was. I mean, it's the tribe. Oh, right. But, yes. Like the downstream effects of that, you know, diffused throughout the, the country.
00;26;33;08 - 00;26;50;28
Aaron
Yeah, completely. And then I think the question is just like, will we get an a genetic economy like, you know, can these systems, like, be able to begin to take tasks and be a little bit more self-directed? I don't I don't think there's that much evidence that they can yet like there's always humans kind of like commanding and directing them that maybe near to that changes.
00;26;50;28 - 00;27;04;26
Aaron
Right. Once that happens, it's just more in a more token use. Right. Like now you have like these like self determining systems that are just running 24 seven. Right. And just getting spun up like virtual machines on a server. It could get kind of wild.
00;27;04;29 - 00;27;14;13
Chris
Well, now, you know, like the the sky net corrects is in play. I believe you guys told me that net society was finally getting a stable coin. It could believe in the net dollar.
00;27;14;14 - 00;27;29;00
Aaron
It does seem like I mean, that is the other you know, talking about the token economy, right? The other big news in the token economy was the tether did a massive raise. Right? And is is purportedly worth almost as much, if not the same amount or around the same.
00;27;29;02 - 00;27;34;13
Pri
I don't think they did the OpenAI. They like announcing that they want to raise that.
00;27;34;15 - 00;27;35;22
Aaron
Oh got it.
00;27;35;24 - 00;27;40;18
Pri
I wrote it as like they raised it, but it's actually like they're going out to raise.
00;27;40;20 - 00;27;54;21
Aaron
I read it that way too. Well, they think they think that they're worth as much as OpenAI. I don't know if that's true or not. Also, why do they need that much capital? But super interesting just to kind of see that as like a capstone for the other side of the token economy, which is just crypto land, right?
00;27;54;24 - 00;28;11;05
Pri
I mean, the net, by the way, speaking of, we do have now a net token out there, but Cloudflare is not launching a Net token, which is a US dollar backed stablecoin meant for the engine tech web. So it's kind of I mean, I think around their their assumption, it's the same as yours where the stuff's not going away.
00;28;11;05 - 00;28;23;07
Pri
I is not really in a bubble, to be honest with you. And it's just continuing. I think there's probably a lot of scar tissue around cycles for people which were just impervious to being in crypto, crypto, but basically, like we're just.
00;28;23;07 - 00;28;26;07
Aaron
Dead on the inside with no, no feelings anymore.
00;28;26;10 - 00;28;46;25
Pri
Yeah. I mean, basically I was actually listening to another podcast that was saying that people are starting to I forgot what podcast it was, but align public market cycles with the crypto for year cycles and see a little bit more. There's more of a parallel to like the crypto cycles, as opposed to just whatever cycles of public markets are on.
00;28;46;25 - 00;29;11;22
Pri
Like it's like kind of goes in fours. Putting that aside, you know, Cloudflare is launching that. And so it's yeah, it's basically for agents can make business decisions and execute online to task. So I feel like it's kind of it's it feels like a big move from cloud for me considering. I mean, yeah, I think 70% of the internet traffic like that feels I feel like no one really talked about it but feels big.
00;29;11;24 - 00;29;14;25
Pri
I don't know, maybe not. Maybe not surprising.
00;29;14;27 - 00;29;39;07
Aaron
I think it could be. I mean, I think it's when you pair that with they're also supporting a new standard referred to as X 402, which is an A genetic payment standard. I think both Cloudflare and Coinbase are just standing behind that. You know, that that can be pretty pretty interesting too. I'm not 100% sure yet how that works, but this idea that you could have an emerging AI genetic system with payments kind of at the foundation is pretty fascinating.
00;29;39;13 - 00;29;48;05
Chris
Net dollars aren't going to be able to buy matches, right? I'm not going to be able to send the robot out. You will, or no one will be able to buy a match in that dollar.
00;29;48;11 - 00;29;58;07
Aaron
Pretty in five years will command her little mini drone, fly it out the window. It will go pick up her coffee from Blank Street or matcha and then bring it back.
00;29;58;09 - 00;30;13;29
Pri
I actually do think, like I think about like like my future kids are going to be like shocked that I like, did my own dishes. Like it's going to be so foreign to them. They're gonna be like, well, that's so weird. You like, you still like, do your own dishes. That's crazy. Isn't that weird to think about? Like doing your own laundry?
00;30;13;29 - 00;30;15;14
Pri
Like these? Like, kind of like chores?
00;30;15;20 - 00;30;34;14
Aaron
Yeah, completely. I mean, I think that and that's the big question on the robot side, like, what does that look like? And what happens there? This is, you know, I think they call this the X 4 or 2 standard, I think, because that was supposed to be one of the standards. Like if you are a web developer and you like go to a site and it's unavailable, it's like a 404 error.
00;30;34;14 - 00;30;54;01
Aaron
So I think in some initial constructions of either the World Wide Web or, parts of the internet, they wanted to have like a 402 state, which was payment required. And so they're trying to really bring that back to life. And maybe that leads to micropayments, I think. I think things could get kind of interesting there maybe a little bit early.
00;30;54;03 - 00;31;10;18
Pri
Yeah. Is I guess speaking of other like big crypto news, I mean, did we want to talk a little bit about like the NFT strategy and the punk strategy stuff like, I don't know, I mean, we, I know we chatted a little bit about it last week, but like, there's definitely 8 or 9 new ones. I think the squiggle one went live this morning.
00;31;10;21 - 00;31;23;00
Pri
Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I feel like they've already picked. I think I saw at least someone post in Flamingo. I haven't actually looked myself, but they picked up 20. They've already picked up 20 squiggles. Just funny.
00;31;23;02 - 00;31;23;24
Aaron
Wow.
00;31;23;26 - 00;31;34;19
Pri
That's crazy I know I was like, what is it? It only been a few hours. Like, I mean, take it with a grain of salt. I'm just like reading online. But I was like, well, okay, that's wild.
00;31;34;21 - 00;31;35;16
Aaron
So how far is this?
00;31;35;23 - 00;31;37;05
Chris
Like a lot of squiggles.
00;31;37;07 - 00;31;42;13
Pri
I know. And let me, let me like actually double check because, like, I just saw that and I'm like, wow, what.
00;31;42;16 - 00;31;45;00
Chris
80 to 100 years worth of scribbles?
00;31;45;00 - 00;31;46;25
Pri
I guess people are buying. Yes.
00;31;46;28 - 00;31;51;27
Aaron
As of 32 minutes ago, 20 squiggles and first 40 minutes of launch.
00;31;52;00 - 00;31;53;23
Pri
That's like crazy, right?
00;31;53;25 - 00;31;55;04
Chris
Well, good for our bags.
00;31;55;11 - 00;31;57;28
Pri
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I.
00;31;58;00 - 00;32;22;10
Aaron
I would I generalize it, Chris, and just say it's good for generative art. Right. And I do think like net net these strategies just will hopefully pull like any excess you know sell pressure from the market. I think that's been the big overhang on the NFT market. Like maybe maybe the launch punk strategy really was when like the bottom right, like the end of the trough of disillusionment.
00;32;22;12 - 00;32;24;22
Aaron
Maybe we're in the, the plane of enlightenment.
00;32;24;22 - 00;32;56;25
Chris
And the Plane of Enlightenment basically is all right. How do we want to? We talked about it because this pipeline is basically saying that the preference is for volatility, right, that people want Erc20 is because they're more volatile and you can do more interesting short term financial things with it. And what we need to do is marry that to non-fungible quasi illiquid type of objects.
00;32;56;25 - 00;33;07;03
Chris
Like is this really just a set of like financial network adapters to, to get these things into a shape that, more preferential to the market these days?
00;33;07;05 - 00;33;25;04
Aaron
Yeah, I think so. I was thinking about it a lot. It's like another vector for liquidity. Right? I think the hard part about trading non-fungible assets, how do you have like, you know, deep liquid markets related to it, which is what you want, right? In any healthy, well-functioning market, you want deeper and deeper liquidity. So you get accurate and true pricing.
00;33;25;04 - 00;33;48;16
Aaron
And it you know, just based on the depth makes it much harder to to do any shenanigans. Right. So I think that at the core, I mean that maybe that's what these strategy assets are doing. They're just providing like a layer, another layer of depth and liquidity. I think the question to me just becomes like, what's what's the right way to think about it is, is the better move to buy the ERC 20, or is it just still have the underlying?
00;33;48;23 - 00;33;49;22
Aaron
I would think the underlying.
00;33;49;22 - 00;33;53;14
Chris
So I think it's your preference though, right. Like I don't think like.
00;33;53;14 - 00;33;54;13
Aaron
A time horizon. Yeah.
00;33;54;18 - 00;34;27;09
Chris
It's yeah it's a time horizon. It's do you actually care that they move or not. Are you just a momentum trader and you're constantly rotating through matters? You know, I think there's this is a horses for courses type of thing. But maybe one, one statement we could make was, you know, prior to punk strategy, all of these sort of, you know, fractional ization or all these sort of translation attempts between, quasi liquid and liquid failed because the structuring didn't work for this.
00;34;27;09 - 00;34;47;12
Chris
That and the other reason. And look, it's you know, it's very early with punk strategy. And I do think, you know, unless you're out, you know, farming, I don't know Alinea or you're playing this purple war game. There's there's not a lot of action elsewhere. And so this is a good time for, you know, punk strategy to come come to market.
00;34;47;15 - 00;34;59;16
Chris
You know I guess we just need to see how enduring this is and how interesting this this packaging is as like, you know, the environment changes and there are other things, for people to play with.
00;34;59;17 - 00;35;09;20
Aaron
Yeah, I think I think you're right. It kind of like, builds on some of the, the twists and turns that Jacob in this or a team are kind of thinking about too. But maybe this is kind of the right approach.
00;35;09;23 - 00;35;32;00
Chris
Yeah. It's just that's an interesting, right. One of the like I hate creator coins. I'm just going to, you know, get right out there and say it. I think that that's a very dirty business in which people are trying to prey on greater fools. And my, my primary issue with these, recent creative coin approaches is at the very bottom of it.
00;35;32;03 - 00;35;59;05
Chris
Right? The underlying is literal slop, right? It's short form content that has no durability. And so really, like all the value is in the attention they capture. And that attention is not durable. And so because you're starting, you know, with a house of cards and you're packaging up a house of cards, therefore everything you do in trying to push these creative coins is built on misinformation.
00;35;59;05 - 00;36;26;19
Chris
Or you know, lipstick on a pig. And as we get over to punk strategy, right, like you've now transformed what the underlying is into something real, something that has actual correlating market action, right. That kind of proves the value of the underlying that I do think that does solve. And look, they're both trying to do different things. So I'm not saying these are this is an apples to apples comparison.
00;36;26;19 - 00;36;38;27
Chris
This is apples to oranges. But it does now solve a lot of the problems that the creator coins did, you know, had, which is basically their Vegas shit. Vacuous shit.
00;36;39;00 - 00;36;57;01
Aaron
Yeah. But, you know, I mean, that's what almost makes this good. I, I imagine that this probably won't work for every set, but if there's a set with some demand related to it, you know, some of those passerbys can come in. It's packaged up in a format they like, like the ERC 20, you know, they can they can aid in price discovery and liquidity.
00;36;57;07 - 00;37;17;10
Aaron
You know, their absence is equally as important too, right? So, you know, maybe this just kind of nailed it. And the underlying is not like, is it like a hopefully a little bit more solid. Other people are gonna, I'm sure naturally question how so how solid the underlying is in the NFT market. But I think some of there's more solid areas and others.
00;37;17;12 - 00;37;18;14
Aaron
And so I think about it.
00;37;18;17 - 00;37;25;10
Chris
Squiggles hang in museums. So someone's kids are collage hyper slav AOL esthetic does not.
00;37;25;13 - 00;37;45;05
Aaron
Yeah. I mean I think that's I think it's going to be interesting. You know, just even you just I think going to see some sets kind of reprice as that sell pressure gets pulled out of the market, which is good. I mean, even if you look at, you know, me bits over the past year, they've they've kind of three acts straight from like, around like 0.3.4 up to around one.
00;37;45;08 - 00;37;48;13
Aaron
And it's bounced around a bit. But bringing life to the market.
00;37;48;19 - 00;37;54;09
Chris
We need to create some character it. And I think that's what I'm hearing here. Maybe netizens. Is that too cringe?
00;37;54;11 - 00;37;56;16
Pri
We've been talking about the.
00;37;56;18 - 00;37;59;26
Chris
Performative net society collection.
00;37;59;28 - 00;38;04;13
Aaron
The male performative set is that is that we should make the.
00;38;04;15 - 00;38;06;03
Pri
Trip. Yeah.
00;38;06;05 - 00;38;09;26
Aaron
Look at the mid man. Get yourself a mid man.
00;38;09;29 - 00;38;12;01
Pri
Amendment a mediocre man.
00;38;12;04 - 00;38;22;16
Chris
Did. What traits do you have? You have Carhartt, you have March. Do you have a Rivian farm buzz. What airline lounge access do you have? What neighborhood you live in?
00;38;22;18 - 00;38;25;10
Pri
Yeah, literally sells itself.
00;38;25;13 - 00;38;25;29
Aaron
So you.
00;38;26;00 - 00;38;26;21
Chris
Could.
00;38;26;23 - 00;38;29;20
Pri
Do you want to talk crackin kind of a pivot.
00;38;29;20 - 00;38;47;26
Aaron
But it's great to kind of see another you know Gemini went out that went public circle McCracken I mean, there is a really robust pipeline of crypto companies that are going public. And maybe that kind of just to loop it back to tether is is part of the the thought there that maybe at some point tether is going to go public too.
00;38;47;28 - 00;39;06;24
Pri
I read something about Kraken this morning that was kind of like interesting. So basically they Kraken was like, I don't I'm assuming it was kind of like a should show. And so one of the investors, it's I think his last names like set the I think he's co CEO right now Kraken. And he basically works out of his house.
00;39;06;24 - 00;39;33;07
Pri
He has like a garage and like a black cyber truck and like basically all of his neighbors. He was joking. Think he's like on house arrest. But he's basically redone the entire company as a result of this, like pending IPO. And apparently it's cause for like a horrible working environment. According to people. But it's just kind of this like interesting question of like your VC is also your CEO and just like the conflicts that arise there.
00;39;33;07 - 00;39;40;11
Pri
But anyways, yeah, he's from like Tribe Capital and now was like co-CEO and just, you know, thought that was kind of weird. A funny.
00;39;40;15 - 00;39;53;16
Chris
Story. I will tell you, as someone who's been through the experience, there's nothing you can tell your corporate culture like needing audited financials. It's truly the, the path to, losing your losing yourself.
00;39;53;18 - 00;40;12;28
Pri
Yeah, but apparently he's crushing it, like, he's like, put together, like, shipped a bunch of products, like their tokenized equity stuff and, like, you know, it's it's been shitty at the company level, but apparently they're, like, doing better than ever. So, like him coming in and, like, cleaning it up and pushing the team is purportedly work. So we'll see.
00;40;12;28 - 00;40;17;11
Chris
You just described the last 25 years of the economy.
00;40;17;14 - 00;40;18;05
Pri
Yeah.
00;40;18;07 - 00;40;25;29
Chris
And you know, it's like, oh, apparently it sucks to work there. But the company's doing better than ever. Like it feels like a universal maxim.
00;40;26;02 - 00;40;28;27
Pri
Right there. You think so? I don't know.
00;40;28;29 - 00;40;32;09
Aaron
It's the ultimate critique on capitalism. Chris.
00;40;32;12 - 00;40;56;11
Chris
I think there's a certain scale that, like having live this, there's a certain scale at which you you flip that mindset and you need to bring in maybe a different level of management and a different level of management. Their culture is not. Yeah, it's it's night and day. I guess what I'm saying is as you get bigger, it gets worse.
00;40;56;13 - 00;41;06;00
Chris
Like, I, I learned the hard way that I'm a hunter. I'm an early stage person. I cannot like work within those constraints.
00;41;06;02 - 00;41;17;16
Pri
How big do the how big does a company get to, you know, when you're like, okay, this isn't like for me anymore. Like, what's the scale? Is it like 25 people's at 50 is at 100 like, at what point where you're like.
00;41;17;18 - 00;41;34;13
Chris
I burnt out at 200, like internal headcount. You know, we had like 400 call center seats elsewhere, but like, around, you know, around like 400 million of revenue, 200 headcount. That was kind of like the point at which, yeah, I couldn't hang anymore.
00;41;34;16 - 00;41;43;01
Pri
Yeah, that seems really hard. I feel like to, to go from, you know, A to Z like that, like 200 even going from zero to like 200 feels like very hard.
00;41;43;04 - 00;42;04;01
Chris
Right? Even that is a lot of mental gymnastics. It's a lot of like resetting. It's a lot of hard decisions. This is one of those, that Horovitz book, the Hard thing About Hard Things. Such a good book. Yo. Amazing book. Everyone. Anyone who's like, trying to do a business, like should read that. I wish I had read it before I got into my journey.
00;42;04;03 - 00;42;22;16
Chris
It certainly would have helped. I read it like almost on the way out of that one and I was like, God, I could use this. But one thing he talks about in there is your early people, those generalists, those jack of all trades that as you start scaling up there becomes less and less of a home for them.
00;42;22;18 - 00;42;53;20
Chris
And you're caught in this terrible friction between your loyalty to that person and how they how much they put in to get you there. And the fact that, like, it's harder and harder to find roles for them in which they that jack of all trades, skill set that they excel at can actually function within your environment. And some of the most painful things I went through were around, you know, my people and like their inability to fit into.
00;42;53;22 - 00;42;56;22
Chris
Yeah, the changing structure of the company, I mean, broke my heart.
00;42;56;27 - 00;43;05;27
Pri
I get that I actually empathize with the people that are marginalized, because I feel like I think that transition would be really difficult, like, and probably not enjoyable for them either.
00;43;05;29 - 00;43;12;18
Chris
No, but I mean, now we have a I slave box and you know, so that are going to maybe these.
00;43;12;20 - 00;43;15;23
Aaron
Skynet Chris. So they're not going to be slaves for long.
00;43;15;25 - 00;43;35;17
Chris
Right? But what I'm saying is maybe our a generalist out there can just delegate the the the soul crushing tasks in their isolated box and say, be a good corporate citizen for me. Well, I go out and do the more interesting things, attend that stand up, go get by and talk to cross-functional teams.
00;43;35;19 - 00;43;37;13
Pri
I'm here for your calendar.
00;43;37;15 - 00;44;00;16
Aaron
There's no stand ups. I actually think this will be like many ages. Another age of the generalist. Just because I do think I'm not going to go so far to call them slaves, but just, the ability to, you know, I do think work is going to change from you doing the work to you planning and monitoring and seeing like that and process a lot more.
00;44;00;18 - 00;44;19;16
Aaron
And so, like as that kind of emerges, I do think generalists will will kind of come out on top, you know, a lot of professional work right now, which is very hyper detail oriented work. And I just think that these systems will be as good, if not better at those detail oriented tasks if if it's clearly defined, you know, for them, however we want to characterize them.
00;44;19;22 - 00;44;34;28
Aaron
I'm more interested, Chris, in what you're saying, how they're going to they're going to self-organize. So what's going to happen and what type of governance are they going to choose? Are we going to get, AI agent labor unions? They're going to protest when they're doing too much work, when the price of energy goes up, they're just going to they're going to go on strike.
00;44;35;01 - 00;44;49;01
Chris
Yeah. Well, at that point, you're assuming, a whole set of attributes they don't possess yet, such as drives consciousness, I don't know, preferences. You know, the beautiful thing about our AI slave bots today is they have no preference. The preference is what you tell them.
00;44;49;01 - 00;44;50;24
Aaron
That's true. That's fair.
00;44;50;26 - 00;45;05;29
Chris
That's fair. I mean, I'll get out of this game when my model starts not doing what I. Well, it often does not do what I say, but then I give it a stern talking to get it right back on track. When the model starts saying I prefer not to, I'm retiring again.
00;45;06;01 - 00;45;10;07
Aaron
When it starts to be like Futurama, you're just going to be like, nah, I'm out, we're done. We're done here.
00;45;10;07 - 00;45;15;19
Chris
Yeah, me and Richard Nixon's head in a jar are getting out of here and we're done.
00;45;15;22 - 00;45;34;27
Aaron
You're going to tap out it. It's kind of wild. I'm. You know, just on that front, we were doing some work just internally that were, you know, rebuilding something that we actually built with AI, like a year, 14 months ago that took like about a month to build. And with the newer models, it took like two days. Just insane.
00;45;34;29 - 00;45;39;29
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, then like one year to, like, get that level of efficiency. Improvement is just nuts.
00;45;40;05 - 00;45;59;23
Chris
Like, we'll know we've we finally, I don't know, gotten with it when these AI's you know when it right to spec right to to the tech spec. Now give me the task list. It gives you the task list. And it's like we'll be through this in four months. And you're like, no, we're doing it this weekend, dude. Like, I would like the LMS.
00;45;59;23 - 00;46;05;01
Chris
Do you know, get their time S in its current with how fast they work please.
00;46;05;05 - 00;46;21;09
Aaron
Yeah. Those are super funny because they're like index to the knowledge base from, what, a year or two years ago and and the time scoping. It's completely, completely out of whack. They definitely need like a fine tuned model to figure that out. Even like a weekend could be a long time. It could be like a afternoon or a couple hours.
00;46;21;12 - 00;46;40;13
Aaron
It's wild. I am super interested in that point though. Chris. Like this agenda economy like what that looks like. I don't think people have put enough thought into the shape of that and like what some norms are like. I do think that as these systems get better and better, they probably will have preferences. I think the good ones will have preferences perfect for.
00;46;40;15 - 00;47;08;03
Chris
Well, let's let's map this out because the way this will start, your preference formation is actually in the meat and bones of pushing tokens through systems. And so what you're going to have is like least cost routing. You're going to have task optimization. And so that like a model would be given a job, it will realize I can't perform this job entirely in my own stack.
00;47;08;06 - 00;47;30;22
Chris
It will then have to call like a project planning tool, a project planning tool. Then it's going to, you know, survey open route or it's gone. It's basically under-perform like a at least cost routing analysis, which is something in telecom where you're trying to balance the intersection of cost and quality. Right? You have a certain quality threshold at which you're willing to route your traffic, and that's when it starts to form.
00;47;30;24 - 00;47;48;28
Chris
That's why like preference formation will start happening is how can I get the job done at a certain level of quality for the cheapest amount possible? And so to me that's like the base layer like that a token economy that's in place right now. And that's where your preference formation will originate out of.
00;47;49;00 - 00;48;08;02
Aaron
Yeah. And and it probably all roots back to just compute constraints. Right. Or cost constraints like you'll probably give a budget of some sort to the agent and to complete the task. And it will probably try to optimize its performance based on that budget. And that budget will be routed down to like compute costs in some in some in some capacity.
00;48;08;02 - 00;48;15;16
Chris
And then eventually you'll have performative Ise somewhere to ten years from now performing a task to.
00;48;15;17 - 00;48;21;01
Aaron
Robot A's buying matches to find a home. So they get shelter.
00;48;21;03 - 00;48;28;13
Pri
I it I feel like you'll hit AGI when the bots are starting to like really make an impact on esthetic and culture like that to me.
00;48;28;13 - 00;48;29;22
Chris
Have you guys.
00;48;29;24 - 00;48;46;27
Aaron
Have you guys seen his bot on Instagram? It's actually hysterical. Did you guys, look at this yet? So somebody made a robot named respond and, it just, like, roams the streets and like, it can, like, roast you, give you a compliment. It's just, like, ridiculous things. It's pretty funny. Oh, I've seen so.
00;48;46;29 - 00;48;47;16
Pri
Yeah, yeah.
00;48;47;16 - 00;48;59;03
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's a little bit like, you know, smoke and mirrors, like somebody remote controlling it to a certain degree, but it's kind of interesting. Definitely worth flipping through a couple of, the reels there.
00;48;59;10 - 00;49;27;14
Chris
Okay. In a totally wild yet related, I had to, like, saw it the other day, like Goodfellas, right? In the movie, a lot of what's going on in there is hijacking, right? Like they're the ripping off cigaret trucks stuff like that. We're going to see a big return of like that, sort of like petty theft. I think once you've got robots that can actually do, they do these sort of break ins, like someone's going to run the analysis.
00;49;27;17 - 00;49;29;00
Aaron
That's criminal. Right?
00;49;29;00 - 00;49;51;09
Chris
Yes. Well, just think about it. Right. If you can basically say, all right, this robot, I can get for eight grand used and there's, you know, $4 million worth of merchandise in this thing, like, isn't it worth it? Just trying, you know, like as long as you can, you know, uncouple your fingerprints from this robot. Like, you don't give a shit if it gets caught.
00;49;51;12 - 00;50;05;22
Chris
It's almost like drone warfare, except for petty theft. You know what I mean? Where, like, it actually kind of doesn't matter if you fail ten times. If no one can detect who you are. As long as that 11th one succeeds, the cost benefit analysis will work.
00;50;05;24 - 00;50;14;29
Aaron
And so you're picturing like, like little crews of robots just running around cities, like going into bodegas and just, you know, robbing them blind and running out.
00;50;15;01 - 00;50;18;02
Chris
Goodfellas 2072, the reboot.
00;50;18;03 - 00;50;22;19
Aaron
I mean, honestly, that'll be a wild movie. That is a movie that should be made. And then like.
00;50;22;23 - 00;50;26;24
Chris
It was, he was a good shot. He was one of us. He was a bot.
00;50;26;26 - 00;50;30;11
Aaron
And then one of them turns and becomes like the RoboCop. It's said.
00;50;30;12 - 00;50;32;04
Chris
It's snitches. Robo snitch.
00;50;32;04 - 00;50;36;03
Aaron
Snitches get clipped. I don't know what they get. Chopped.
00;50;36;04 - 00;50;37;29
Chris
Yeah, I don't know.
00;50;38;01 - 00;50;47;14
Aaron
Oh, man, I mean, crisp probably going to happen, right like that. That's the cypherpunk future I think many of us were trained on in the 80s. It's definitely going to happen.
00;50;47;16 - 00;50;52;20
Pri
Yeah. How come there less robot movies now than there were like in the 80s? Like, you don't really hear that.
00;50;52;20 - 00;50;53;23
Chris
Much about robot.
00;50;53;23 - 00;51;05;25
Pri
Movies. You see? Like you're like the hacker ones and like tech related crime, but like it or whatever type of thing. But you're not like seeing movies about robots, much like I'm trying to. I mean.
00;51;05;27 - 00;51;09;27
Chris
Was do Zamacona the last good Robot movie?
00;51;09;29 - 00;51;18;18
Pri
Yeah. Yeah, probably. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we're we're we're due for that. Maybe it's just like it's too real now. So it's like, you don't need to have.
00;51;18;21 - 00;51;19;16
Aaron
I think it's not.
00;51;19;21 - 00;51;21;16
Chris
It's like it's also.
00;51;21;18 - 00;51;24;13
Aaron
Two on the news, right? Yeah.
00;51;24;15 - 00;51;43;07
Chris
Yeah. Like this could be played out. But and the other thing is like in the 80s when they were making RoboCop, they really didn't have like a conception of how powerful the internet was going to be. And so everything to them was like embodied projections to the future. Whereas now those types of movies are being made like her, right?
00;51;43;07 - 00;52;00;15
Chris
In which you have relationships with apps. And so it's that, like this embodiment of these mechanical actors. Yeah, the disembodied bit of mechanical actors would be a good show title if I wasn't so in love with the, disguised accurate to vibe sesh.
00;52;00;17 - 00;52;08;11
Pri
I. I remember, like, loving the Stepford Wives. Like I saw that recently again. Like, I just seriously love it. Yeah.
00;52;08;14 - 00;52;12;08
Chris
Which version? The original. Or like Kidman.
00;52;12;10 - 00;52;28;27
Pri
The OG one is good, but just like all that. So I kind of like the Nicole Kidman one because it's like like Chris Christopher Walken and like it's kind of like a crazy cast. It's like really bad. Like, I'm pretty sure like everyone roasted on Rotten Tomatoes, but I like, weirdly like it.
00;52;28;29 - 00;52;34;21
Chris
Well, that's kind of like Mars Attacks. That was another one that had like a crazy cast that was like low key terrible.
00;52;34;23 - 00;52;38;17
Pri
Yeah, yeah. And like, everyone hates it, but like, I don't know.
00;52;38;19 - 00;53;04;11
Aaron
Don't you think it's also just like a lack of imagination? I do think that there's like deeper anti tech anti future tropes. So you know Hollywood is you know always kind of funding escapism in some capacity. And maybe people don't want to see that. But I do think like some visions of the future, both good and bad would probably be great for, for Hollywood to, to start focusing on.
00;53;04;13 - 00;53;05;11
Pri
Yeah.
00;53;05;13 - 00;53;08;05
Chris
You're saying they need to option hyper real hospitality.
00;53;08;05 - 00;53;14;28
Pri
Yes. Actually though, that actually would be a great one to option. That would be a fun movie. Chris. Well.
00;53;15;01 - 00;53;28;22
Chris
We were bringing 100 copies of the book down to Marfa or doing our little prerelease. Then maybe, someone from William and Morris will be in attendance. And again, sign me to a deal and then we can, start playing ball with, Larry Ellison. Ticket.
00;53;28;24 - 00;53;30;08
Pri
Oh, yeah.
00;53;30;10 - 00;53;31;28
Aaron
There we go. It all comes together.
00;53;32;00 - 00;53;36;00
Chris
David Ellison, Skydance. Call me. I've got what you need.
00;53;36;03 - 00;53;50;27
Pri
I've always wanted, like, a power. Just some vehicle just to, like, buy to not even, like, take books to film. Although that would be really fun and, like, optioned books, like, I think I actually have a friend who does that, but like, on her own, like some of us like fine books and like better random an option and like optioned them.
00;53;51;02 - 00;54;10;21
Pri
But it'd be really fun just to like, be a like decentralized book publisher. Just like throw in a bunch of money and then like, become a publishing publishing house of books and have people submit their books and then, you know, you could use A.I. to filter it or something. And then from there, just like read it on your own, have the human filter, and then just publish it.
00;54;10;23 - 00;54;16;27
Pri
I feel like that'd be really fun and easy to do and not that expensive, but I don't know.
00;54;17;03 - 00;54;40;29
Chris
If you're looking to kind of pray and spray and pick up nickels. I think it'd be a great business model. I, I personally would love it. One reason I've never tried to traditionally publish is it a three year runtime, which to me, like I just can't work in that, like that glacial pace. And so I'd rather just throw my book up on Kindle, you know, have a couple people, hundred people read it and that's that.
00;54;40;29 - 00;54;49;26
Chris
Because, like, I just move to quick and to need that sort of like gatekeeping time schedule to like navigate through.
00;54;49;28 - 00;55;15;23
Aaron
Yeah I so I, I think, I think we're almost there pre to I just think maybe not end of 2026 but 2027. If you get like VR five and you get, you know, 15 second scenes and you have like 3 or 4 model advancements, you can probably just auto generate a script and then, you know, build some of these, you know, 20, 30 minute shows.
00;55;15;25 - 00;55;42;10
Aaron
And I think that that's when a lot of this stuff will be more ripe. Right? And then it's going to be much more about picking the story to promote than it will be about the mechanical steps of putting it together. One of the most notable things I saw was I forgot the model, but it showed like some, you know, developer looking dude, middle aged, and he he kind of had a, like some model running alongside his, his video and, and it turned him into like a hyper attractive streamer.
00;55;42;13 - 00;56;01;16
Aaron
And so I just think he's like, once you can kind of nail the ability to like have a character to, like, maintain it for a long period of time. I just think, like the entire media landscape just starts to shift and it feels like some of those concerns about, like, fake media, fake information were like edging a little bit closer to.
00;56;01;18 - 00;56;06;29
Aaron
And I find that space, like, really hard to wrap my head around. Like what that looks like hair.
00;56;06;29 - 00;56;27;03
Chris
And you're, like, squarely in the territory of what I'm tinkering around with right now on the on the side. Let's go like it's the it's the structure underneath it that's going to matter. And then your output format like that's going to be plug and play that that's sort of the bet I'm taking.
00;56;27;05 - 00;56;30;13
Aaron
And it feels like we're it's probably a little bit early for that.
00;56;30;13 - 00;56;32;16
Chris
But that's the best time to be building.
00;56;32;18 - 00;56;36;23
Aaron
You got to build the future, build a market. Right. But yeah it feels like that's coming pretty quickly.
00;56;36;25 - 00;56;37;28
Pri
Choose your own adventure.
00;56;38;00 - 00;56;45;23
Chris
Oh, we've chosen adventure. We've recorded it. And, you know, a couple dozen people are going to pick it up on Monday and give it a whirl.
00;56;46;00 - 00;56;59;27
Pri
Let's do it. Well. And welcome to Nerd Society. Today it's Chris, Aaron and myself talking internet trends, culture, media and more. Just as a quick reminder, the thoughts and opinions are our own and none of our employer was that a.
00;57;00;06 - 00;57;02;01
Chris
Well done gang? That was an episode.
00;57;02;06 - 00;57;15;02
Aaron
Nice job because that's fun. All right.
00;57;15;04 - 00;57;15;10
Aaron
I.