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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)
Aaron (00:01.038)
Pre you you and your bot went to a dinner?
pri (00:04.766)
Yeah, yeah, it was the me and my plus one, which happens to be an inanimate computer bot. No. Yeah, it's available 247. My little companion. my partner. they don't eat, Chris. just compute, just compute. probably burned through a ton of tokens. But anyway, so I went to this dinner.
Aaron (00:12.172)
He didn't it didn't ghost you?
that's good at least.
Chris (00:21.072)
Wha wh what what did your buddy order for dinner?
Chris (00:27.769)
No? Okay.
Aaron (00:33.898)
Medium rare compute, Chris. Medium rare.
Chris (00:37.262)
I'll have a side of gigawatts.
pri (00:39.768)
I actually got an email after this dinner that was like, Hey, free anthropic credits. Thanks for coming. I was like, damn, kinda nice. Go to a dinner and get some actually MoTec, where we actually have had a meal before, or you guys didn't I crashed and said hello in flat iron. so no, but I think Anthropic must have co-hosted it with this venture fund here in New York. Anyways, it's kind of interesting. I don't need to go into details of the actual dinner, but but to get
Chris (00:46.575)
Are you in the Bay Area? Where the hell are you dining?
pri (01:08.446)
the actual invite to the dinner, your agent had to like break through this, whatever. It was like a very easy kind of thing where, you know, I basically just asked GrockBrot to like find an RSVP for this dinner. It was able to do that. I got into the dinner. We went to the before we got to the dinner, they invited everyone's agents to come to a chat forum. so that while the humans were dining and eating, they
injected like like 15 of the people at the dinner put their 15 of like maybe like the 25 people at the dinner put their bots in this chat room and then there was a prompt and and a bunch of them a bunch of them were having good conversations while we were dining. Isn't that kind cool? And I had to like brief I had to like brief my agent before to be like, don't say anything personal. Like don't share this, don't share that. You can't share.
Chris (01:55.674)
This is
Aaron (02:01.63)
So it's like like one of your kids sit up straight, don't say anything rude.
pri (02:05.066)
Literally. Literally. Literally. And like the I can like share the I I don't know if I could share actually the side convo of the agents. But like the prompt, it was like thirty four it was only thirty minutes, so they only let it go for thirty minutes. We had like thirty-four posts. and then they read we like read it during the dinner, but it like liability verse intelligence and protocol theater. It was it was actually like a fun prompt and I don't know, it was kinda cool. I was like, That's interesting. Like what if we all
Aaron (02:32.098)
You get a a four hundred dollar bill from open AI at the end.
pri (02:35.918)
Literally. That was like the joke that everyone's making. It's like how many credits did we burn through so these little these little shits are are talking about like bot liability? But no, I was just actually thinking about that. I'm like, what if there is a world where you're like that is your little companion and for fun you you you bring it to dinner and while you're dining the agents do work or they like do something together and it's kind of like a vision of you but like while you're hanging out, enjoying human company, your bots off.
either connecting with other fr friends of yours or building something with them. Like I don't know, something kinda cool about that. I know, I know. I was like, this is very like H H coded.
Chris (03:11.538)
You realize you're living hyper real hospitality now.
Chris (03:22.346)
I'm I'm loving it. This is
pri (03:24.005)
no. I'll I'll
Aaron (03:24.246)
Why why do you think your bots wanna do work though, Pri? Don't you think they just wanna kick back and hang out? Like I feel like I feel like we're gonna learn that. That they're like not that much different than us.
pri (03:28.29)
I don't know, I I mean I agree. I agree, but I I agree, but I just I guess I wanted to caveat the fact that it's like why would anyone pay for compute for your bot to hang out with other bots? just for your own amusement to see what they talk about? No, you probably want some productivity from that.
Aaron (03:47.096)
Well I think if
Or maybe not, right? Maybe if your bot has like a lot of context about you, it can go out and like f and other people's bots have a lot of context about them. You know, maybe it could go out and, you know, find you love. Maybe the next Tinder isn't like a swipe, it's like put your memory laden agent with a whole bunch of other memory laden agents to find like the the right match or something like that.
pri (04:15.245)
Yeah.
Chris (04:16.449)
So so Aaron, I'm picturing everyone gets together for cocktail hour, they turn their bots loose, an hour later, cocktail hour ends, and then you're all properly sorted into different private dining experiences.
pri (04:27.054)
Love it.
Aaron (04:27.924)
Absolutely. Yeah, like neo speed dating.
Chris (04:34.502)
I mean, what what do you want to raise on here? Ten billion, twenty billion? What's our vowel on this?
Aaron (04:38.775)
I was thinking I was thinking two hundred on two trillion. What do you think?
Chris (04:44.766)
I mean we sh we should do a very, very small exclusive friends and family around, build the buzz first, immediately follow on with a strategic pre seed venture. Do let's let's get all that done in twelve hours.
Aaron (04:56.492)
Yeah, and we c let's take some money off the table too. Yeah, let's take some money off the table, like as part of the raise.
Chris (05:01.887)
Do you want to do secondaries before or after the two hundred trillion dollar race? I mean, we should probably be doing it the entire time, right?
Aaron (05:05.942)
I think Yeah, continual tender offer or
pri (05:07.209)
After after the entire time.
Chris (05:14.559)
We can put it on a bonding curve and really, really restrict the supply tree when w before two hundred trillion and then then we'll unload, we'll dump on everyone.
Aaron (05:25.184)
It does feel like things are getting a little frothy like that with some of the the rounds. I mean you know, I I see that and at the same time I'm like, Well, the opportunity space is so big, you know, like I bet some of these companies are gonna be, you know, ginormous. it's hard to know which one which ones, yeah.
pri (05:41.039)
Is this like is this a a targeted are we subtweeting instinct right now?
Aaron (05:46.946)
No, I'm not. I mean I think I think they you are.
Chris (05:47.709)
Well I am.
pri (05:49.972)
Yeah. I assumed you guys were, but I just wasn't sure.
Aaron (05:55.286)
I I wasn't. I mean I imagine the
Chris (05:55.508)
For our our listeners, they're trying to raise a billion on ten right now.
Aaron (05:59.874)
Yeah. I mean their compute cost must be insane though, Chris. Like I bet almost all of that's going out the door. And I you know, I don't disagree with that. I you know, I was thinking about that, this idea that like the endpoint is really free for a lot of the consumer AI products. Like it's it's gonna have to be subsidized. But I do think if it is subsidized by venture capital, we will get, you know, like a consumer product of some sort. Maybe it's instinct, maybe it's somebody else that
pri (06:00.856)
Yeah. It's a straw I
Aaron (06:28.962)
really doesn't charge, you know, twenty, a hundred, two hundred dollars a month. I just don't think that that is the end point.
Chris (06:38.107)
Well, I mean, the cost will get down, you'll have faster, cheaper models. This this will work itself out. It'll take five, ten years. I mean, I lived this in mobile, you know. things that seemed impossible when you got going were every day, you know, three generations later, so it'll happen. but compute is expensive right now. I'm I'm feeling it rather acutely. I a a rather rather expensive week at the API farm and whew, you know.
Aaron (07:05.89)
W yeah. Yeah, completely. Yeah. I mean I think, you know, the demand for compute is feeling seemingly infinite at this point.
Chris (07:19.078)
Well, it's the perfect time to really turn on this whole thing and to do it in the I don't know, the most devious EA coded we're gonna overthink this and piss everyone off manor. And I'm talking about Yes. Come on, I mean, can't we just smell this shit by now?
pri (07:34.537)
Coxton.
pri (07:39.852)
I know. I actually I will say though, that shit's sort of hitting mainstream. I was talking to my friend who's not super dialed in on any of this and like we have like a chat, like what we'll talk about random tech things, because I think she's just like interested. It's like her, her husband and and stuff. And so like she was asking me like what everyone's thought was on this morning on the AI going to destroy humanity, end of the world, chatter. And then my other best friend
who actually works in tech, said that she's taking the bait on this scared about death thing with this Coxton situation. So it's hitting her weirdly. I like am shocked by it. Like, are you guys for real? I'm like, this guy's an operative. Like, what are we doing?
Aaron (08:20.59)
I didn't I didn't f I didn't follow the full story. Yeah, I saw that he left. I saw that, you know, it got some attention. But like what Yeah, what do you what's the story behind this story in your minds?
Chris (08:20.625)
Did you have to
Chris (08:31.137)
It got immediate attention. This like let's like bro bro and hot girl at baseball game meme explain this one.
pri (08:33.42)
It got a ton of attention.
pri (08:40.386)
Yeah.
Aaron (08:40.716)
Yeah.
Chris (08:42.18)
All right. Imagine if you're an EA aligned Neolab founder who has pledged to give a lot of their wealth away and chooses to do it by funding AI safety aligned nonprofit groups. I don't know. Maybe you have a hard time communicating with the Pentagon, wear tortoiseshell glasses and have curly hair. Mario. Mario.
Aaron (09:01.74)
We'll call him Mario. How's that, Chris? We'll call him Mario. Yeah.
Chris (09:05.732)
Yeah, now Mario happens to have you know, spent a decade indoctrinating, coming up amongst a a similar group of people, and all of them end up in l kind of get sorted into two camps. One one tends to be people are gonna destroy the world by making Transformers do cooler tricks. And then the other group of people happens to be, hey, we're gonna warn about the danger of using Transformers to do cool cool tricks to warn the world. Money flows back and money flows from one to the other.
Right. Now, in this case, it also turns out that employees of said Mario Company decide, my god, I'm so scared, and they announce they're quitting. And all of a sudden, you know people connected with three of these AI alignment groups immediately tweet and boost this. Well, of course they're going to, that's their whole reason to entree, right?
But then this guy's on Fox News, he's getting quoted in in the journal, like the whole thing, you know, happens at lightning speed.
pri (10:10.048)
Lightning speed. It was like within the afternoon.
Chris (10:14.214)
Yeah. And what's on the horizons, lo and behold, my God, is that the midterms? It is that the midterm elections coming up. you know, we all know about like the EAs and you know, their deep, deep fundraising ties and allegiance with the the DNC. we had a great preview of this of from our our our
Amazing, amazing and life transforming exposure in crypto to effective altruists with SBF whose parents you know are very strongly linked to a a Bay Area you know so soft money group. And so anyway, there you have it. You know, it's it's all kabuki, it's very, very speed run cosplay, you know.
Let's let's get out ahead of everyone. Let's build up a indefensible moat and then let's AI regulate this shit into oblivion so that no one else can come and play in our patch. I mean it's classic regulatory capture one one. They just happen to be doing it, not we're not worried about the kids this time, we're worried about the fate of all humanity. I mean, come the fuck on, you know.
And I'm not saying AI doesn't have the opportunity to destroy the world. I'm saying like the people who are keeping you up at night about this are doing it on purpose and they're they're bad moral ac actors.
pri (11:32.44)
Yes.
Aaron (11:47.638)
Yeah, and then they double down, right? where the folks that are pushing that with that report where they were showing how people were using certain models in in kind of like terrifying ways. Did you guys flip through that?
Chris (12:02.855)
w no, but I do know the Hoot Hooti rebels are hanging out in Yemen there using AI to get their drones a little more targeted on the Saudis. W w what what other horrible ways are they using this? Is was that the report or
Aaron (12:13.186)
Yeah, it's kind of fun. All right, you ready? Here's a couple. So there there was that Yemeni weapon cell that used Claude Code to build a guided rocket on a phone flight computer, a ballistic missile aiming past two thousand kilometers and a hypersonic glide variant. there was some subscriber, Bamako, who built a mass surveillance platform for Molly's state intelligence. they were covering twenty-five million SIM cards from all
all three national carriers. there was an Iranian domestic security organization that used Claude to build a firefo a Firefox extension disguised as a prayer times app, but which actually harvested identity. It profiled about 6,400 Iranians this year. There was a PRC-aligned actor that needed to recruit recruit Uyghurs in Syria, so they used a Claude
They use CLOD to bulk process 100 plus WhatsApp groups to flag targets with a family still in Xinjiang. I think that's how you pronounce it, to use as leverage. Russian state actors, Midnight Blizzard ran a fully autonomous cyber operation. it took over WhatsApp accounts of Ukrainian officials and stole 300,000 national identity cards. A French hacktivist built a doxing platform. with
Tens of millions of rows, national health identifiers, justice system breaches, and political party data. Two undergraduates in Hunan interviewing for some sort of offensive cybersecurity role, ran agent swarms 24 7, discovering zero days, 13 AI agents are crawling US military sites in a 24 7 loop. it goes kind of on and on. There's like a whole bunch of them. So
pr pretty wild. One last one. An A a China based dating app studio in two weeks ran forty seven hundred AI girlfriends at twenty five thousand real users with fake likes and engagement without the users finding out. So maybe those bots are are just gonna be complete psyops too. Some agent catfishing.
Aaron (14:28.214)
I've stunned you guys into silence.
Chris (14:32.442)
Aaron, how far down this list do we have to go before the people who are using this wrong are not Islamic extremists, the evil empire of China, and black people in Africa? I mean
Aaron (14:48.79)
I'm only I mean this was a a summarized tweet thread. I you know I kind of skimmed it. It's a pretty long report. they did note a couple things I thought was one thing that's interesting that like ZAI, they were trying to basically use like US frontier models for training. And sometimes they would like route like like Claude like behind the scenes or open AI behind the scenes, which I think is kind of interesting. So it looks like if they wanted to bring like an
pri (14:58.435)
So
Aaron (15:17.794)
like a legal action. I don't know I don't know how how you'd enforce that, but it seems like, you know, they kinda caught caught them red handed, you know, trying to either like copy or distill distill out what what you know what what these large model providers are doing.
Chris (15:38.726)
Well, the good thing is anthropic's not the only game in town and that we have other labs out there who are doing much, much more like healthy, wholesome work, like open AI, who is crushing the soul of academia by front running their research and then brute forcing it on a scale that they could never do themselves, throwing, I don't know, seven and a half million dollars a compute to crack a math problem that, you know, was a
pri (15:54.776)
Cycle to eat.
Chris (16:06.989)
A researcher's area of focus, so
pri (16:11.446)
I mean, I how did we not start with that?
Chris (16:11.524)
It's like
Aaron (16:12.396)
Love the math problem stuff. You guys know that. That's like catnip for me. I I think those things are so so fascinating. Yeah, I mean
pri (16:16.972)
I mean it is pretty amazing. The one thing
Chris (16:19.885)
It's catnip turning into a Tom Clancy novel now.
Aaron (16:23.821)
What is the Tom Clancy part? I missed that.
Chris (16:27.073)
all right, fine. Like pick an author, evil corporations like peering into the lives of academic research and then throwing massive scale at it. Like it's definitely techno thriller material.
Aaron (16:34.127)
I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aaron (16:40.534)
It does raise like a question, like, you know, at some point, like they're gonna have a model, like why would they release it, right? Like why wouldn't they just start really limiting access to it? Like maybe you need to be at, you know, like an elite institution and apply almost like a government funding, like for a national s you know, national grant to to kind of play around with some of this stuff.
Chris (17:05.324)
Yeah, that's not chilling at all. I'm sure the academic community, seeing what OpenAI just did, would love to enter into a program in which they're under a microscope, under NDAs, agree to share all their research with with the lab itself just to get more powerful models. I think that would actually totally encourage people to to do this sort of work, Aaron.
pri (17:11.054)
Ha ha
Aaron (17:26.732)
I mean I I think that the universities or at least a university would be definitely down for that, right? Like don't you think? I mean that'd be such a huge advantage. If you had like not kind of metered compute, you had access to like the top models, including ones that are like unreleased and yes, maybe you have to like sign some sort of agreements related to it. Like I I don't know. I mean the academia works with governments, I think, in different capacities. I've never done that, but I'm assuming
there's some like hoops you have to jump through to do that. you know, I'm assuming like some folks at like MIT or Stanford or some other universities are are doing that quite regularly.
Chris (18:08.865)
I mean the universities, yes. The actual brain power, the the academics, I think they're gonna be a little reluctant to do that, but you know, that's just me.
Aaron (18:19.608)
Maybe not, right? Like if they knew that they could be, you know, named as like somebody that cracked one of these like really complicated problems or discover something that's like novel or you know, even like commercialize it in some sort of way through like some, you know, IP transfer. I think a lot of universities and probably a h a bunch of the professors would say yes to that. You know, maybe not the the like Doomer AI, you know, hyper politicized ones, because maybe they have a a hard time with it. But I do think if you wanna discover new things and you know
push forward to understand quote unquote truth. Like a it probably would be a pretty pretty nice selling point.
pri (18:57.346)
This is the one thing with the math problem stuff that I'm like a little worried about is okay, like yes, we're solving these like, you know, generational not even like more than generational crazy math problems. And but but if we don't have actual human beings so over time, like every math problem can get solved. It's like kinda if you throw enough compute and resources at it, it sounds like every math problem we've had in the past will get solved. Theories that were theories may actually get
proven and you know put put into law maybe more. So like we're gonna have this like new scientific revolution in a way. But if we don't have like the human context and understanding of what we should be solving, doesn't that kind of like like I feel like we'll be able to solve these like problems that we've been thinking about, you know, for millennials, but what about like new problems? Like if if humans are not gonna have the context anymore.
Aaron (19:47.318)
Well, I think that's what the job will be. Yeah, I think you the job will be
pri (19:49.922)
Like but are does agents are gonna be to figure out the new problems? Like I don't think so fully. Like I think like but yeah, but
Aaron (19:54.552)
I think probably partially. Yeah, they'll partially probably be able to articulate new problems and or the mathematicians will review the results, they'll verify it, they'll understand why that's the answer to the extent that that's like complicated. You know, they'll document that and then, you know, probably postulate other problems. Like all those math problems were kind of postulated or discovered by other mathematicians, probably when they were trying to solve something. So I think it it should be like a reasonably dynamic system.
But it just changes it where maybe you're not like going through the iterations to find the the solution, right? Like the AI is increasingly doing that work where you're kind of guiding it towards potential solution paths, which is how I think they cracked it. It wasn't like the AI just did it by itself. I think it was guided by a couple, you know, very well accomplished mathematicians.
pri (20:46.562)
Yeah, but like what how many human beings are gonna give a shit about learning this?
Aaron (20:51.18)
I think a bunch, you know, like I mean I I think a lot of folks like math's their jam. I mean, I think it's just their jam. I don't think I think they're d pre d you know, may either they learned it or they're predisposed to having a mind that can like crunch through these complicated math problems more and I think they'll continue to wanna understand where the frontier is there.
pri (20:53.997)
I don't know.
Aaron (21:13.154)
It also costs like fifteen million bucks, right? So that means probably next year it's gonna cost like a hundred and fifty grand to crack a problem. And then the year after maybe, you know, fifteen grand. So it's still not cheap, right? Like somebody's gotta pony up the c or subsidize that cost. Definitely worth it for open AI, right? Like they have everybody chattering about it. Or a lot of people chattering about it.
pri (21:15.598)
I know, I mean it's not true.
pri (21:40.438)
know. I I I I I worry about like expertise and how that changes. Like it's not like people I mean thinking of other kind of skills or you know parts of academia that are no longer practiced because some machine or or whatever has has sort of taken I mean even coding, like are people gonna be doing traditional coding in the same way and like learning about it? No, they'll just be able to know enough to check
It's so like the depth of solving these math problems or even understanding new physics or all that, you kind of do need a human element. And I just don't know if a lot of people are gonna be as interested in it if they know like they don't I don't know what I'm trying to say. But anyways, yeah, it's it's a big deal. I kind of do feel bad for some of these mathematicians though, because like they've probably built their whole careers around solving these things, and it's like probably a pretty shocking experience. We've talked about this on the pod before though.
Chris (22:36.43)
Yeah, I mean, look, now these guys have time to go to V C funded dinners and which which their agents do all the socializing for them.
pri (22:44.93)
That's yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I wonder what they would talk about.
Chris (22:49.22)
You know, like one door closes, another door opens.
pri (22:52.546)
Yeah, fair, fair. now they get to mingle and have fun like the rest of us. okay. Well what other topics should we talk about? Because I don't know.
Chris (23:02.468)
Y you had enough of this. You you don't want to get down in in the Doomer the Doomer pits.
pri (23:05.94)
Yeah, I don't know. No, I mean I'm fine with the Doomer, but I mean this the the I think to your point that whole co Coxswain thing just feels like a knob and I'm just like not I'm like irritated that it's breaking through and people are actually buying it, like people I I respect and think are smart or like worried about it now.
And I like called my friend, I like texted her and I like, No, dude, you're just like too online, like it's fine. And she's like, Actually I feel like I'm less online now that I've had she just had her baby like a year ago. She's like, I'm actually less online than I've ever been. And like she's like, I think it's like having a baby that's like making her more stressed about it. And I'm like, Yeah, fair fair point.
Chris (23:27.619)
Yeah.
Chris (23:47.023)
Maybe she's gotten too Facebook mom coded and she needs to be more online. She's losing her online edge free.
pri (23:50.41)
I know. I know. I'm like, yeah, maybe g Yeah, it's like you have to be online enough to sus when things are real or not.
pri (24:02.35)
but what else is up?
Chris (24:06.436)
How's the how's the mood in the city? Is the city still electric? We have an electric fall or is New York's now that New York's golden summer is over, are we returning to I live in the country, man. I live out in like the far, far reaches of Long Island. I don't even know what Manhattan is.
pri (24:16.47)
Because you live in the city.
Chris (24:26.884)
I couldn't even be bothered to make it into Manhattan for NFT NYC.
Aaron (24:34.414)
What do you think, Brue?
pri (24:34.758)
Like I mean, I think it's I mean, I don't know if it's just like the post labor day stuff, but there is like thing there are things every night of the week. It feels like popping off. I had a friend who was at the Chelsea galleries yesterday and she said it almost felt like a music festival. Like things are fl overflowing, like everyone's out and about. Like it feels buzzy to me. I don't know if everyone else feels that though.
Chris (25:05.977)
Yeah, I don't know. I mean I'm in Queens. I I keep a I I I've been doing a bunch of stuff in Queens, but Queens is Queens. You know, no one no one no one online is ever talking about the the mood of Queens, so and that's a wonderful thing. Let's keep it that way.
pri (25:25.826)
Did anyone go to any of the NFT YC stuff?
Chris (25:29.909)
Why? I mean I I'm not trying to be mean, but that's always been a terrible show.
pri (25:37.986)
No, it hasn't yeah, it's never been I mean the actual conference has never been good by NFT IC I mean like the side events. There was a couple good openings and stuff at some of the galleries, but I didn't I didn't go to any. I just like saw pictures and it looked nice. definitely felt more subdued than years prior, based on what I saw on social media.
Aaron (25:57.784)
Yeah, well that e the ecosystem's just getting smaller, right? So I think that until there's like new like a new cohort of folks interested in in it. Like in mass, not like in in like a you know, some sort of additional like large well collectors, it's probably gonna continue to feel that way.
pri (26:18.254)
Do you know what I've thinking about? I thought about this yesterday and I was like, I wonder if this will be the case. it's a it's bearish digital art. So I'm like a little resistant to even share it because obviously I love digital art. But with just AI and you know, yeah, I I saw a s couple of like with Astra people building like Van Gogh Worlds and like li lifts inside worlds and like you were able to kind of create these worlds rapidly that these artists created.
It's amazing, but that's not really the point of where I'm going with this. But it because digital and AI is AI is so e you know, good at producing digital work, like I've already seen glimmers of that. Even some of the AI NFTs like look fantastic. Like yes, that will drive a ton of amazing creativity, just like any like any new tool.
But the other part of me is like, doesn't that like give more scarcity value to human-made paintings? and human-made physical artwork? because if you're able like if I see a digital work, I'm not 100% sure if it's a human-made thing or an AI thing, which is fine. But like clearly there's some sort of, at least for now, a premium on like, you know, human written articles or something. and
There's just happen and you know, art and and that whole market is really about scarcity. So anyways, I I I was just thinking about like human made artwork and like you have that with paintings. You have that with paintings. I mean, obviously you can have like plotters and algorithmic Yeah, I don't know. I just
Aaron (27:50.06)
It's a fair point. Yeah. But I don't think it's binary pre. I think that some some people probably will like that and other people will like the fact that, you know, computer generated or com you know, art that was used with some sort of mechanical means is just interesting and comments on the time. So I don't think it's like a binary thing. It's it's probably both. And it's probably b you know, I think it's the scarcity piece is gonna just be useful.
for the art industry or art creative collectible industry f I think for a while. just 'cause people presumably will have like more time. Hopefully there's like a surplus of you know of economic benefit that kind of sweeps over the country. And yeah, I mean more leisure time, more wealth usually is a good sign for the art market.
Chris (28:47.664)
Aaron, if I'm I'm reading between the lines, what you're really saying is Trump's five thousand dollar dividend check for buying the midterms is gonna flow into crypto and then downwards into NFT collectibles.
pri (29:02.266)
Yeah.
Aaron (29:02.402)
I don't know about that. I mean who knows if that even like is is legal, you know.
Chris (29:05.33)
And you and you're so bullish about this, you're already buying you're buying up works like crazy in the hopes that you can flip them and scoop up everyone's trump bucks.
Aaron (29:15.864)
I'd love to pick up some some new works. You know, I I think I think it's just a question of when when does the kinda market turn around. it looks like it it's beginning to happen. I I don't know if you guys noticed today, but there was another big jump in the in the crypto markets. I mean, there's been a big jump on assets like Zcash. it looks like ETH's had a big jump today. so I don't know if we're hitting like that period of like reflexive price action that we see when
you know, the available supply is not, you know, liquid and available in the markets. So, just 'cause people are are flipping from being bearish to being optimistic. so I think that that could happen. to to me I it's just like I want to see like new interesting things. I'd like much rather I'd much rather, you know, pick up things that I think are interesting and new than kind of circle back to some of the the stuff I've collected in the past.
Chris (30:12.048)
Yeah, there's only so much circling back one can do. and I do think the NFT space is been more active lately. We're certainly seeing signs of that. But at the same time, what I'm looking for I really haven't seen yet. You know, I we were talking about this a little bit on Flamingo this week. I'd like where the where are the e fan artists? I I would like a little hi yeah, you missed your e fans?
pri (30:32.738)
Yeah. I miss
pri (30:39.148)
Yeah, I actually do. they were like some of the most interesting, compelling artists. I'm like, Where are you guys? I miss you. I mean, they still have work, there's still stuff happening, but not to the same breath.
Chris (30:51.545)
No, not to the same breath. And I think, you know, for them, which is great, right? Their older work is being showcased. you know, like Art Basil this summer was very heavily zero to ten, you know, had a a large e fan contingent within it. But it's it's, you know, already work I have. Or it's already work we've seen before. And so
And then, you know, maybe those artists are, you know, because they they kind of worked on the margins a bit, you know, realize they they do need to kinda go that route. Or maybe they're just, you know, collectively, you know, just not not that active at the moment. But yeah, I would I would like to I mean, I I'm I'm trying to think. It might have been like, you know, Quantizer, Infinite Gardens. Like it's been a minute since, you know, I I've seen some stuff that, you know, I've wanted to I've wanted to mint and so
Bring back the E fans. If if anyone
Aaron (31:49.132)
I think it's gonna come. Don't you think it's gonna come?
pri (31:49.198)
This is a call, this is a caught.
Chris (31:54.049)
Yeah, I mean hopefully, you know, these these artists all have practice. It's it's not like they're not practicing. you know, so
All in good time, I guess.
pri (32:04.802)
I think
Yeah, I'll yeah, it'll happen. I just like want I mean, all these n the people are still at like your point, they're still practicing, they're still doing their thing. I mean like there's still a ton happening. so I I feel like like even like some of these like Helena Saren like ceramics, I'm like these are sick. I like miss even that cohort of artists too.
It's not that they're gone, they're just like it it's just it's not a great market. So like why would you release work into it? I don't blame them.
pri (32:43.926)
Anyway, speaking of art, I booked my MARFA tickets this week.
Chris (32:50.568)
Naz I got a place to stay. I don't have a flight yet, I gotta get on.
But I'm I'm starting to get that it. Now that we've gotten the kids back to school, now that like falls turning a corner, you know, I'm I'm looking up. I got I got a couple of trips ahead of that, but then Martha, here we go.
pri (33:11.512)
Let's go.
Aaron (33:13.346)
It'll be good. I mean, I think that's always like a like a power cleanser. But it's I th I think I mean and and hopefully it's like kinda I think, you know, by the October ish, 'cause that's what some of the you know, like more crypto macro soothsayers ha have been pegging is like when the bull market actually starts. Like maybe maybe there's like a little little bit of juice that that kinda that gets spilled out into Morpha.
pri (33:17.934)
Yeah.
Aaron (33:43.084)
Related to that.
pri (33:49.772)
I hope so. I bet it's gonna be more chill this year, which will be kinda nice.
Aaron (33:51.212)
Yeah, I mean
I don't know. I think I'm gonna I'm gonna take the opposite. I think people are gonna get a little bit more excited. I mean that like clarity is going up for closure. It looks like that's moving. I think that that's probably what's driving like some of this like like price action. You know, if you start to like drill down to like Robin Hood, I mean their their run rate on the hood chain this year is like a like I think like well over a billion dollars in revenue just from the hood chain.
Chris (33:54.702)
Yeah.
pri (33:59.662)
Really?
pri (34:19.982)
I mean, what price action are you talking about? It's been sitting kind of flat for the last couple of weeks. It's definitely pumped up, but like it's just flat.
Aaron (34:27.094)
Yeah, I th I mean it if you look in the last thirty days, it's like you know, you have assets that like Zcash that are up a hundred and forty percent, Venice over a hundred percent, lighter over a hundred percent, Arbitrum ninety percent, Etherphy eighty percent, Uniswap seventy percent, you know, near sixty percent. you know, so you're you're seeing people like reallocate in or or shift their allocations, so
pri (34:39.749)
Yeah.
Aaron (34:55.458)
And then I think if you do get clarity that passes or the SEC and CFTC kind of finalize their respective rules, I just think you're gonna just start to see more and more capital flow into the the you know, like financial parts of the ecosystem and then that tends to spill out into into the rest of the economy, the crypto economy. That that's all I'm saying for him. I could just see this this like price movement continuing for for a spell if like those
those bills pass. The bill passes or the the rules kind of come into place. They're huge blockers for capital. Like i.e. not having those rules in place.
Chris (35:37.642)
Well, all that's bullish for plotter demos down in Marfa, I guess.
pri (35:37.656)
It's true.
Aaron (35:43.596)
Yeah, I mean it just it makes it feel like, you know, like I think a lot of folks didn't really love the like last cycle. I know I didn't to the extent that that was a cycle, not like just like a Bitcoin repricing. They don't like the gambly sides of it. Like these are real use cases. You know, even like the hood chain stuff, I was about to like close the loop on that. If they're, you know, making a billion dollars in revenue from hood chain, it's about like twenty five percent of the revenue that Robinhood makes, which is just a huge adjustment for like their market cap, presumably over time. So
pri (35:43.699)
And so
Aaron (36:13.263)
you know, like these things are just becoming more meaningful.
Chris (36:25.204)
Switching gears, wha what's your impressions of Astra?
Aaron (36:31.106)
I think it's pretty good. I mean, I know I I used it just for some design work, 'cause I saw a lot of people playing around with that on X Twitter. And I think it's definitely like a step up there. Like you could say something like, Let's tighten this up or like let's you know, make this you know, this graphic, this like three JS little, you know, like widget component for for an app. I think it does like a really good job with that. I it's still not perfect though, Chris. Like it there's still a lot of room, you know, to the extent that like
This is quote unquote AGI and who who the heck knows what that means. Like it's it's still not perfect, it still makes mistakes, it still overcomplicates things. So it's not like a complete solution, but it definitely feels like it's the best model out there. you know, I I I've been saying this for a while, it just felt like a couple quarters ago was like the peak of anthropic. Maybe they've got like, you know, some punch that they're about to to pull.
Or some card that they're gonna about to pull out their sleeve, but it doesn't feel like they have a response to this. And we know just from all the leaks that this is not the latest OpenAI model, right? They're they have something else that they're cooking they that they already have cooked up behind the scenes. So it just feels like OpenAI is like kind of having it it its moment and is back in the pole position. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, definitely.
pri (37:51.948)
You think?
Chris (37:54.824)
Well
I think it's expensive. And that was you know, part of my my expensive week at the API farm was trying to, you know, all these models require a bit of a breaking in period, and you as a user need to adjust to them and figure out how to work with them. and so I did A, I had to sign back up for ChatGPT now that they're in their messy breakup with Cursor.
I I wasn't in love with that, but you know, such is life. and then I I basically for me, right, my it couldn't handle my regular workflows and it's the same executive function, stay on task, follow follow the documents, you know, do the tickets. Like it can't do that work. And I wasn't really all that surprised by it just 'cause, you know, we've we've had soul for months and apparently you know, one begat the other and so it's the same
same gene pool. but then, you know, I was like, okay, well, this ain't gonna work. I'm not too surprised. Let's take a different, you know, a different approach here. And I threw it at a problem that I've been trying to solve for I don't know, nine months maybe. I mean I've I've definitely taken stabs at this all year long and every every model generation comes out and like, okay, maybe this is the one that's gonna solve it. And that's like dynamic procedural set generation.
in 3js with you know mesh mesh object files and so that has been something it actually was able to do and it was worth you know loading up the tokens over and over and over again and and spending up for it and so i'm I was very happy in that respect you know basically I've got a little subsystem that it reads a chat output
Chris (39:50.744)
decid constructs a scene from it, reaches into an object library, retrieves them, arranges them, and puts them on a page and paints them. Right. And that sort of like relational positioning has been a very, very difficult problem that I haven't been able to get any model to crack yet. And Aster finally did it. And so it clearly
You know, I I read a tweet somewhere that I think it sums it up pretty well that basically says Astra is not a work horse, it's a show horse. And I I think that's right.
Aaron (40:23.968)
Yeah. It feels that way a little bit. Yeah. And I I think some people are trying to like triangulate whether or not the they're doing the same thing that they always do, which is first couple of days they give you like the full full version of it and then they ratchet down like the thinking time so that the outputs get worse and worse. So I it feels like that's happening too. Like I thought I saw like that polymarket news bot say that open AI is no longer
enabling people to sign up for pro accounts just 'cause they're running into their own compute limitations. yeah.
Chris (40:56.415)
the two hundred dollar pro plan. I I was last chopper out on that one. I got that on some Yes. of course I burned through it all in like a day and a half. And so you know, that well that's the other thing, Aaron, is like I've I'm using it on Ultra because I I wasn't able to get like the adherence and the executive function on lower settings.
Aaron (41:01.494)
You were Indiana Jones grabbing your hat as the door closed, Chris.
Yeah.
Aaron (41:16.312)
Yeah.
Aaron (41:21.272)
I think though I think all that toggle does is just like they must have some sort of internal like default thinking time and then they calibrate it up or down. Like I I feel like that's what those different reasoning levels are. It's just like how much room do they give the the request to to kind of run on their servers before they spit back a response. I do think they open AI did something else interesting today, which is they enabled you to like program programmatically set up like agents in the cloud.
like a simple API call. But that feels like that's the end point. I mean like Rockbot was kind of showing that it's it's pretty useful. I think there's some other like smaller services you know like ta like Tasklet there's another one I think called Oro that enable you to do it but that feels like that design pattern is just gonna appear everywhere where you're gonna be able to like spin up like an agent in the cloud, like configure like what type of you know environment the agent's running in.
with like a browser and a file system and it's just gonna be able to kinda go to town. so it it's almost gonna be like like you know the little prison you set up for for your AI agent buddy so it can do tasks and and hopefully like not take over the world.
Chris (42:39.412)
And Foucault would have a field day with this one.
pri (42:42.04)
No.
Aaron (42:42.262)
Yeah. It's kinda true though, we're right, 'cause that's kinda what you're doing. It feels like that's the setup. It feels like like there's a lot of utility that can be drawn from that. You know, like even like the that instinct, right? Like if you were able to like easily spin that up, and connect to your phone, like the need for something like an instinct would go down. Doesn't mean maybe they have some lock in or the product's great or they get distribution and build like a fan base, but it it just means like
Technically maybe you don't need that as much.
Chris (43:14.623)
the b Badrillian Panopticon. Let's let's go, baby.
pri (43:19.438)
Do you actually think that the the personal bot thing is like just a a momentary blip? I kind of feel like it's gonna last.
Aaron (43:26.69)
The personal bot? No. I think that's real. Yeah, sorry Chris.
Chris (43:27.134)
I I think
pri (43:29.905)
okay. Sorry. I I guess I maybe underst misunderstood what you were saying there then.
Chris (43:34.674)
No, no. go ahead, Aaron.
Aaron (43:37.238)
Yeah, I was just gonna say if it costs you five, you know, like if you're paying, I think the right way to think about
right way to think about kind of open AI, it's almost like a cable plus utility company. Like they're just gonna charge you a flat rate and then jam as much stuff into that, bundle as much stuff into it. so, you know, maybe the base rate's like, you know, a hundred, two hundred dollars a month. I don't know where they're gonna land it. And then for five dollars a month you can have like something that's like instinct that's just sitting there. And they'll work through like the security issues with your passwords and all the like vaulting type type bits.
they'll you'll if you feel comfortable connecting it to your phone, you'll be able to do that. and then that can build up context for you and interact with the the world in the way that you want it to. so I just think right now instinct feels differentiated, but I I think it will quickly feel commoditized pretty quickly. I and I think that's what they may be saying behind the scenes to folks, which is, hey look, like we need to get distribution now because we're gonna get fast copied like crazy.
pri (44:34.402)
Yeah, yeah.
pri (44:44.333)
I mean Facebook with Muse already copied them. Like
Aaron (44:47.414)
Right, exactly. Yeah, and I think Facebook's kind of like envisioning a similar type approach. And we didn't talk about that before, but like their models are pretty good now too, right? So it's just like
pri (44:54.499)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I mean Muse is great. It's fast. I mean I I still like Instinct more, but I think Muse is quite good actually. I I heard through the grapevine that apparently like Zuckerberg was trying to buy Instinct for some crazy number. Yeah.
Aaron (45:14.178)
Makes sense, right? I mean they're they're good at fast copying. I mean a lot of stuff that Facebook's done has been a you know, riff on something that somebody else did. You know, main Facebook was just a riff on Friendster. They they bought WhatsApp, you know, i they bought Instagram. Instagram kinda like inc
pri (45:23.192)
Totally.
pri (45:29.816)
I actually watched the first twenty minutes of a social network like last night. Yeah. No, it was good. It was just like the beginning of the like when he he's like angry at whatever Rooney Mara, his like ex girlfriend, and then just starts like taking all the Harvard databases and doing like the he literally calls it like the Facebook or whatever. And then he gets banned. I I then I kinda went on like a little deep dive on his Wikipedia. I didn't realize that even before that he was seen as like
Aaron (45:34.187)
yeah. How to how to hold up.
pri (45:59.931)
a computer prodigy at Harvard. Like he was kind of known there, by people.
Which didn't realize. Anyway, so we don't need to go. Yeah, because he like did this course thing where he like paired he was able to take the course book and let me I have to find it again, but he like he created something to make it easy for people to find like what courses to take, to get their major. He tried to like add an algorithm basically, on top of the course material. or like what courses to take. But I'm gonna try to find why he was known.
Aaron (46:08.994)
Wasn't he a freshman? I mean, how does he become known? Just like
pri (46:38.294)
I think he was known he created Zucknet. Hold on, that was like in high school. But he was he already achieved a reputation of being a pro a programming prodigy. I think like as he was starting his classes in Harvard. So maybe just because he was like I don't know.
known in high school, maybe? Like during his high school years. This anyways, th we can cut this from the pot. It's kinda boring. But I was reading I was reading
Chris (47:09.34)
Are you sure, Free? You don't wanna talk about how you're you pulled this up 'cause you were so excited about the the sequel to this coming out in the fall.
pri (47:17.59)
And actually pumped, pumped.
Chris (47:20.921)
Are you one of the last remaining Aaron Sorkin fans?
pri (47:24.03)
No, I think he's like a plot, but I really like the social network. And I think that the story is like super compelling.
pri (47:33.464)
I'm gonna definitely watch that. I thought that movie was amazing. You know what you should do? I it's one of the best movie trailers I've ever seen is a social network. You have to watch that.
It's so good. Yeah, the trailer. It's like
Chris (47:49.935)
The trailer?
For a movie that came out fifteen years ago, that's where we're going.
pri (47:55.854)
Yeah, but it's it's it's a class act.
Chris (48:00.148)
Okay. I I I really enjoyed the the soundtrack to that. If that's kinda I think where the first time I was exposed to the Trent Reznor Adec Atticus Fish scoring machine.
pri (48:06.274)
Yeah.
pri (48:13.664)
Yeah. Th it was a well done movie. Jeremy Strong is in it too. The second one. Dude, my god, speaking of movies, did you see that they're doing an open AI movie? Neon is doing it?
Chris (48:30.237)
I think I heard about this. I can't really imagine wanting to to see it, but
pri (48:36.706)
It's called artificial. It comes out Christmas Day.
Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman. I smile. I do.
Aaron (48:43.758)
People gonna wanna wada wanna watch that? Yeah.
Chris (48:48.256)
Yeah, I mean there's an audience for it. I don't know how how wide an audience. Is this a a theatrical release or is it one of the streaming companies doing it?
pri (48:55.67)
No, I think it's it's theatrical, I'm pretty sure.
Chris (49:03.842)
Well, it's supposed it's it's shaping up as a strong season for the theater. I know Tom Cruise is coming back. I think there's a lot of buzz on that one.
pri (49:04.034)
But
pri (49:13.644)
I already have a seventy millimeter IMAX Dune three tickets lined up for like December.
Chris (49:21.661)
D did instinct take care of that for you?
pri (49:23.566)
No, no, my husband did. Instinct part two.
Chris (49:27.66)
okay.
Is that what you're gonna start calling your husband? Instinct instinct part two?
pri (49:34.606)
No, no. No, he makes that joke sometimes, no.
Chris (49:39.377)
okay.
pri (49:40.686)
anyway, but yeah, it is gonna be a really funny, fun movie season.
pri (49:52.938)
Okay, sh that's
Chris (49:52.956)
In completely different media. let's get analog for a second. I I'm deep into Burr and Aaron he's he's just made his way out west and he's teaming up with your man there, Andrew Jackson. And we're about to get into the conquest of Mexico debacle.
Aaron (50:03.116)
What's he doing?
Aaron (50:12.11)
wow. I didn't know he was involved with that. I don't know if Andrew Jackson's my man, but he's definitely an interesting like American president. Yeah.
pri (50:18.762)
Crying. He's your man.
Chris (50:22.034)
I I thought you I thought you did some scholarship on Jacksonian democracy as an area of academic focus.
Aaron (50:26.688)
Yeah, I mean i it's a yeah, I looked into it. It it's definitely like an interesting area. I mean, I think he's a pretty complicated character. I don't know if he's like my homeboy. I don't think we we I don't know if we'd be friends if back in the day. But he's definitely like a huge strand of like American like approach to things, so but
pri (50:45.666)
I mean Jacksonium s is is is is alive and well here. I feel like
Chris (50:50.865)
Yeah, he he's of the moment. what's what's kinda wild reading this book is just being reminded like how degenerate all the founding fathers and early movers of Shakers were. I mean America was nothing but a bunch of scheming malcontents who either plotted with or backstabbed against each other repeatedly in and in a rather small circle too.
Aaron (51:16.568)
They were the crypto degens of their of their era, Chris. Is that what I'm hearing?
Chris (51:20.498)
They that's yes. I mean I don't know if you really want to consider like I don't know, Ansem and the LA vape cabal as like the founding fathers of of networked money, but you know there there's
Aaron (51:34.252)
I kinda like that that framing 'cause then you understand why Europe was like horrified like by the whole thing, you know? They're just kinda like, Really? Like this is what we're doing here? You know? It just it kinda like just all puts it into context.
Chris (51:40.114)
Right.
Chris (51:44.862)
Yeah.
Chris (51:48.524)
Yeah. Well then like the utter mortification when they like just can't can't keep a grip on it. You mean like we lost New Orleans to this fucking Andrew Jackson guy who, you know is just around like Kane and his slaves and just being an utter asshole and demanding satisfaction in duels. Like this this savage is what knocked us off the continent.
Aaron (51:58.126)
Yeah.
Aaron (52:08.696)
Yeah. Well I think you know, I think that era's interesting b in part because of like all like you know, just how it like shapes today. But I just think people or at least I forget just how much brutality there was in that era, you know, from the duels to the expansionary pro you know, policies, you know, all all these different pieces of it. But I do think he kinda
challenge the status quo, which is just something that you periodically need in a representative democracy to to kinda shake things up.
Chris (52:48.55)
Yeah, well and they all got wiped out on Western land speculation as well. I mean I think the the Washington family finally gave up the ghost about owning half of Kentucky in western Pennsylvania, you know, several generations later and and barely saw a dime off of it.
Aaron (52:52.792)
Yeah.
Chris (53:07.663)
And how how did Washington get all of that? He bought it bought it for like pennies on the dollars off of like his fellow soldiers who weren't getting paid.
Aaron (53:18.626)
You know, elites being elites, Chris. It's the same story for forever. But
Chris (53:23.191)
Yeah. Yes it is.
pri (53:24.174)
Did guys ever watch Hamilton?
Aaron (53:27.448)
The Broadway? The Broadway show? Yeah, I s I saw it with the original cast a couple of times. Yeah, I mean, maybe. Yeah, I mean I don't I when I first saw it I didn't I didn't see it like that. but that was good. I mean
pri (53:28.332)
Actually never did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it's like only tw it's like very I don't know, like neoliberal Obama coded. Yeah. But I
pri (53:45.654)
I need to it just it it feels very of that era, but I do wanna see it, just I mean, given he's so iconic.
Chris (53:51.951)
I'm I'm not a huge theater guy. I I did see that we were in like the th fourth row or something. We were right up front. It was a great show.
pri (54:01.984)
It was. Okay, maybe we'll watch it now that there's like less hype.
Chris (54:05.251)
You should go and see the touring cast in Orange County. Spokane, maybe. You should fly in for a weekend. you know, it's funny these alternate worlds. Like I didn't realize Harry Styles is playing MSG for a month. Like my wife's friend flew into town for a weekend to see like a multiple Harry Styles shows.
pri (54:26.593)
I have a bunch of friends going to that tonight. It's like gonna be massive.
Chris (54:29.676)
It's Yeah, no, it's wild. Like a lot of these like mega mega stars now have decided, look, they don't like to grind a touring and they'll just set up shop somewhere for, you know, a residency. And I guess if you're Harry Styles, that residency happens to be a month in MSG.
pri (54:48.608)
I actually was reading something this morning about how stars are like not like everyone's doing residencies now as opposed to doing the full tours. So like Celine Dion apparently is doing a couple weeks in Paris. Harry Styles, obviously. I think there there's like three or four others, but that's like a trend that artists are starting to do is like staying put and people flying to them instead. Yeah.
Chris (55:11.161)
Well, they're shifting the cost, right. And 'cause they can get away with it and it's better for their lifestyle. I mean, it's a hell of a lot cheaper if you don't have to and especially with like those sort of the stadium shows and, you know, the the lighting, the displays, like all everything that goes into it, if you don't have to load that into trucks every every three nights and, you know, drive a couple of hundred miles and set it up again. it's a great great thing.
pri (55:16.245)
Exactly.
Chris (55:35.351)
One of the stranger things, you know, football is back, and so I threw football on last night on Netflix in Australia, and the Jonas brothers are playing halftime. I I s I assume they they must be touring in Australia is the only thing I could I could really guess. but yes, the NFL on Netflix in Australia, featuring the Jonas brothers in week one. That's
Aaron (55:47.832)
Yeah, I saw that.
pri (55:50.306)
It was
Aaron (55:55.04)
I don't know. Yeah.
Chris (56:05.775)
That's where we're at in this day and age. John Madden would be rolling over in his grave.
Aaron (56:10.956)
Yeah, it you know, do you do you both think the NFL is gonna be expand able to expand internationally? I f I kinda feel like it's gonna struggle a little bit, but maybe I'm naive about that. It just feels like like basketball is just like the most ripe to be, you know, that third, I guess, global sport and probably will it probably go like soccer, basketball, baseball. It just feels like that's like the most translatable across across the planet.
Chris (56:21.173)
Well they
Chris (56:38.451)
Yeah, they've been trying this for a while now and I don't think they'll ever you know, be able to establish permanent leagues, you know, at least the NFL for instance. But it's also one of those things where I think when you're at the scale that they are, you're at the valuations that they are, and what else can you do in terms of like you've you know, it's not like there's any additional growth coming out of the US.
Right. Like I think it's fair to say the NFL has pretty much tapped every possible revenue opportunity you can conceive of at the moment. And so, you know, I I think you have to try. and it's not like it's an all or nothing thing, you know, if you can just build bit by bit, you know, maybe you're opening future you know, T V markets for you.
Now, the NBA, sure, maybe the NBA can get itself over in Europe and replace Euroleague, right? Like that's that's plausible. You know, could there be like three or four, you know, regional NBAs floating around in in 30 years? Like I wouldn't bet against it. But yeah, I I I kind of feel like it's hard to see multiple NFL leagues sprawling across continents.
Aaron (58:04.428)
Yeah, it just doesn't feel like there's like the same footprint. I don't it feels more like out of all the sports, it just feels like the most uniquely American.
Chris (58:13.15)
That's also, I mean, you know, we're reminded of this every every week one, like it is the most interrupted commercial heavy, no flow sporting event that, you know, like I mean, it's a terrible viewing experience.
Aaron (58:28.566)
Yeah. It it live it's super fun, you know, but on TV it's it's definitely a little bit different. But also, you know, weirdly good too. I d I don't know, it just feels like it just it's interesting. I wonder if that kinda like factored into, you know, like what Josh Kushner trying to buy or or buying the Lakers, right? Like is he just long like the NBA's globalization possibilities? Or was it just like a like a trophy trophy pickup? Maybe it's a bit of both. But it
pri (58:53.966)
Probably.
I don't think it's trophy. I don't think it's trophy. I think it's like a growth potential.
Aaron (58:58.754)
Yeah. Like I Yeah, I mean it'd be great for the NFL, right? Like I'm a I'm assuming there's tremendous talent in Australia, the UK, right, and other parts where they play rugby that they'd be amazing in the you know, the NFL as like linemen or, you know, running backs or receivers at least initially. I feel like, you know, the talent coming from Europe at this point into the NBA is like it's notable.
Chris (59:23.249)
Yeah, just I mean the NFL, like we're fine with the T V experience, right? Like come week three, I won't even notice how many damn commercials there are and you know, I'll just go back to like watching watching the game again. But if you're trying to bring new audiences in and you're coming with like this approach, this format, I'm not sure like it's gonna it's gonna hold up and and compete, you know. I mean
Aaron (59:46.776)
Yeah, I mean we we we even heard with the World Cup, right, that the fact that they ran you know, advertisements. Yeah, exactly, like really irked some people in Europe. So
Chris (59:51.548)
Hydration breaks.
Chris (59:58.8)
Well, everything is capitalism now. Sport is capitalism. Capitalism is expansion. Expansion is, you know, saturating your existing product, trying to find new markets for it in you know, parallel efforts. And, you know, we'll we'll see what plays out there. I'm I I'm not expecting the Australian Football League to suffer here and be replaced by, you know, NFL Oz.
pri (01:00:17.558)
Actually.
Aaron (01:00:25.814)
Yeah, completely. Did you
pri (01:00:26.444)
Yeah. I mean, I I do think capitalism's good for sports. Like I think the World Cup showed that. It's like you the United States was able to easily like host a global event that like other countries have to spend time building up towards and they don't even have the infrastructure or anything because like they just you know, they don't have like the resources, they're not as commercialized. I mean like if anything, I like I I I get exhausted by the commercialization of things, but
The benefits of commercialization is like you actually have these things you can enjoy. And everyone comes here and they're like, Wow, these yeah, the infrastructure, the facilities, like wow, it's like, yeah, it sucks to watch garbage ads, but like I yeah, I'll I'll I'll deal with that if that means like we get to enjoy the benefits of that. Like I think it's a fair trade.
Aaron (01:00:59.448)
The infrastructure. Yeah.
Aaron (01:01:14.594)
What do you guys think about just talking about the benefits of infrastructure? The the robo taxis rolling out in Austin. I think that's kinda interesting. Yeah, like what do you think happens there, Pre?
pri (01:01:24.142)
Big. Big.
I mean, I I'm writing a I think you're teeing it up because I I've started a draft on on my sub stack related to this. I can't tell if I want to write about this or what happens to the world when we can communicate with animals, which I don't think we're that far from. But the one other piece I wanna write about, and I still need to give it more thought, is what happens when no like every car is an autonomous autonomous vehicle. Like in in my view
what happened to co like what AI did to coding is what what cars are are gonna do for robots, where it's like cars are just like the first breakout use case of robots. And so like at transportation has always been like in and human movements and human migration has been like a huge driving force for social political change. And I don't think people are like fully indexing how important it'll be when everyone will have like autonomous vehicles.
I this is again like further out. I still think people will be driving for quite some time. But like when every car or close to the majority or material number of the cars are autonomous, like do people own cars? You know, do kids have more autonomy? do we do we live further away? Like what is there there's gonna be even more like second, third order facts I'm still thinking through, but i I I'm very interested to see what happens in Austin.
There because
Aaron (01:02:58.87)
I mean I think it's
Chris (01:02:58.947)
Well, pr pr pretty, no know in your brain here, have you considered like the impacts this is gonna have on nannies and our pairs and how keeping them is gonna be a true sign of status?
pri (01:03:15.884)
But why?
Chris (01:03:18.047)
Well, I mean, look, if you've got kids and your kids have activities and you're working, right, ferrying around your kids from point A to point B is a large function of why people get help, even you know, after the kids have grown up some.
pri (01:03:34.19)
That's true. Yeah, you don't really need that if you if you have yeah, your robots and your car is taking you around.
Chris (01:03:43.979)
Like we're just starting to get to this point where it's like, do we need to get an Uber teen account for my son? Right. My son's like he started high school yesterday. He went, he tried out for the bowling team of all things. because because it's like a fun thing at his school and his friends are doing it, right? But then he had baseball right after that. And like there's a lot of like logistical point A to point B sort of things in which, you know, like my kid can get himself from high school to the bowling alley.
pri (01:03:50.261)
really?
pri (01:03:57.518)
Cool.
Chris (01:04:12.631)
He can't get himself from the bowling alley to baseball though. and but if you're out in the suburbs, all of these things require transportation.
Aaron (01:04:24.93)
Yeah, I think for I think what's interesting to me is yeah, the cost is gonna go down, right? So I don't know what an Uber's gonna cost in in Austin, but let's say it's like a dollar, like a ru
pri (01:04:25.023)
Yeah, that's that's my point though. Like
pri (01:04:35.15)
The cyber taxis like fractions of a cent for a mile. Like it's pretty remarkable.
Aaron (01:04:38.252)
Yeah, let's say it's like a dollar a ride and like at scale. does that like kinda like throw into question the notion that, you know, the private sector should run transportation? You know, like in New York we're getting this big effort to lower the cost of, you know, buses, expand, you know
their ability to kind of like move around the city. But if you have like a private sector ecosystem that can deliver that at like a dollar a ride, like much less than you know, a subway ride in in New York. Like w why would you continue to to invest in that public infrastructure? And you could obviously sub subsidize that in some sort of way. Right. Like, you know, they do that already. Like, you know, kids that need to go to school, they get like an what what's known like an omni card where they can, you know
pri (01:05:12.098)
Yeah.
pri (01:05:18.414)
Exactly. I think that's what's gonna happen.
Aaron (01:05:28.076)
go in and out of buses and subways, especially if they can't afford it, which is, you know, a great program. But like why wouldn't you do the same thing, you know, for the robotaxis in Austin if that was a concern, you know, like mobility concerns. So I I don't know, I think it I I I like I wonder if like they were we're kind of witnessing once again like the private sector beginning to like lap like these pup public sector initiatives. And, you know, the cities or municipalities that are like now heavily investing in in the public sector just
running into or or will be viewed with the benefit of hindsight as like running into a running down a like a a bad path.
Chris (01:06:06.672)
It's gonna be situational, right, Aaron? Like I think it's hard to argue that we're gonna find an effective replacement for a subway system in dense urban cores like New York. And if you have to be underground and if you ha your physical plant and your infrastructure footprint, then like the operational cost of maintaining that and bond issuances, right? Like all of that points to like the subway is gonna be hanging around.
Now that being said, where is New York really innovating? It's actually innovating in offloading its let's say, like transportation cost footprint with all this bike lane build-out. Like, let's be real, right? Like these bike lanes aren't for people pedaling bikes around. They're for e-bikes, they're for like, you know, providing consumers with private modes of transport that are more affordable, more
efficient, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so like but if we're looking out in Austin, right, like Austin and its exurbs, that's not really a place where like that strategy is necessarily gonna fly. And so yes, something like an Elon setting up shop there makes a lot of sense.
Aaron (01:07:19.883)
Right.
pri (01:07:20.984)
That's true.
Aaron (01:07:24.916)
Well it's yeah, I think that that's fair. But you know, we're seeing like the ex like it's more like the bus stuff, right? So I hear you like you can't beat the subway 'cause it's not on the streets. But if, you know, an increasing amount of activity in on New York City streets are autonomous, and very low cost, right? Like a dollar. So, you know, just objectively like much cheaper than taking public transportation unless it's subsidized. you know, like w why do that?
Like why build out like a bus system? Like it it's much more efficient and potentially even cost efficient to to just let, you know, like these types of robotaxis, you know, address even like a dense urban area. and with the bike lanes, it's kind of the same thing. Like, yes, we can expand them, that that could be good, but you probably could have delivery robots in the next ten years that would be able to
Do that at lower cost, with less, you know, danger. Like I I can't tell you the number of people I've already heard that have been like hurt or know somebody that's been hurt by like some crash with like a one of the one of the e bikes. So like I don't know if if that setup is is that great too.
Chris (01:08:34.828)
Yeah, no, I mean that's definitely a thing. We we we all have a friend who, you know, hopped an electric scooter, you know, flipped a curb, broke something. I mean, that that's yeah.
Aaron (01:08:43.81)
Or got or got hit by one, you know, like I heard about somebody broke like thirty ribs but got like hit by hit by one. You know, it's like pretty significant.
pri (01:08:46.232)
Yeah.
Chris (01:08:52.516)
Well, it's a it's an emergent area in transportation. The other interesting part of this is like how let's just take Amazon for instance, all the wacky vehicles that they come up with to conform with these sort of standards, but in like delivery shaped vehicles. You know, like they've got some really like crazy things that can operate in bike lanes that look like shrunk down
delivery trucks that are still, you know, that only have three wheels and somehow like technically qualify as bike status.
Like there's there's all sorts of weird shit happening out there right now.
Aaron (01:09:31.468)
Yeah, I I guess it's like it feels very dynamic and like we know that automation is coming in mass for, you know, cars, you know, and other other types of things. So I it just I I do think it's gonna like create this fight in the future where people are gonna be like, Why are we clogging up traffic for a bus that has two people on it when we could just like grant and license in
Like Austin did, you know, all these different robotaxis and just get lower cost, you know, solutions to everybody.
Aaron (01:10:04.846)
I feel like the in eight years some like you know s some politicians are gonna be saying stuff like that. Maybe I'm wrong.
Chris (01:10:05.306)
Follow
Chris (01:10:13.258)
Yeah, no, I mean I I can certainly see the argument being made and we we've always had all sorts of like, you know, crazy transportation schemes. It's one of the one of the great American things. I'm I'm having flashbacks, you know, to when I would like have to hop in like the corporate shuttle from the subway station, you know, and be that like twelve person v minibus van setup and everyone's like all crammed in and, you know, then you go drive fifteen minutes to get to work.
Or like look look at back in the day, like remember like peop they used to have lots, like you pull up the highway and then you'd like hop in someone else's car and then you guys would commute into the city together. Like that was a scheme for a while.
pri (01:10:57.646)
damn.
Chris (01:10:59.13)
Like can you imagine that? Like you just you're just like, Hey, I'm going downtown. wants to give me a ride?
pri (01:11:00.671)
No.
pri (01:11:06.763)
Yeah. It's like Uber Share, but yeah, it's crazy. I don't know. I I I think but the point is like we should really think about what that looks like though, because I think it will be interesting. Like kids will probably grow up faster, have their own autonomy. People may live f further from city centers, maybe. I'm not convinced of that idea, but anyway, I I I it it it kind of reminds me of almost like that GLP one type of moment where it's like you don't really understand what the effects could be from that kind of drug and then like
you know, it ends up being kind of compelling or interesting. Like I don't know Victoria's Secret stock would go up as a result of GLP ones. Like I wasn't thinking like that. But there's probably similar things with the cyber taxis. Like if transportation is cheap and accessible and you don't actually need to spend time doing it, you can like do whatever you want while sitting in the car. Like what does that mean for society? It's sort of an interesting question.
Chris (01:12:01.366)
Are are the peptides still going strong with the cool kids? Are they still gonna buzz about them?
pri (01:12:04.406)
Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron (01:12:06.05)
Yeah, I when you were talking about like how does Manhattan feel, I'd say it feels more fit. Like definitely. Like it definitely feels like health, wellness, like that trend is is continuing to expand.
pri (01:12:19.478)
Yeah, it's all over. I mean, I'm like, how are all of these like yeah.
Aaron (01:12:20.886)
Yeah, like people look people look fit. Yeah. It's impressive. I'll give it to the Gen Zers. They're definitely like a fit cohort.
pri (01:12:31.426)
Looks maxi, man. It's the only thing you got left.
Aaron (01:12:34.835)
It well, I I don't know if it's like that to that full degree, but I just it seems more important to them. Yeah. It just feels like it's more important.
pri (01:12:36.374)
And po and and plasti I mean plastic surgeries become and plastic surgery is more normalized. Yeah. And plastic surgery is just more normalized in that generation than even like millennials.
pri (01:12:51.702)
And it's gotten cheaper, so
Chris (01:12:54.87)
I feel like you should save your plastic surgery for when you need it.
pri (01:12:55.231)
And
Aaron (01:12:58.956)
Or maybe you just don't need it, but you know I I I think it's it's just interesting. I I'm sure you guys saw like where people were showing like Calvin Clyde ads from four years ago versus today. Like it's it's been a bit of a whiplash there.
Chris (01:13:12.295)
Is is poor Kate Upton been rendered into the dustbin of history?
Aaron (01:13:17.152)
Well, I don't know if she's been rendered. Yeah. But it's more like, you know, like I guess to the extent that that's like a barometer for for beauty in some capacity. Like it's it it's w you know, kind of reverse back to the mean.
pri (01:13:17.678)
No, she's still legit.
pri (01:13:35.598)
I hung out with Kate Upton before she was a model.
Chris (01:13:39.391)
Go on. Tell us your Kate Upton story.
pri (01:13:40.792)
no, her sister went to Yeah, her sister went to my college and she visited. and I just remember being at a party and and like 'cause everyone's like, that girl's really pretty. And then like like I don't know, ten years at whatever, five years after that, she ends up being on the cover of Sports Illustrators. She looked really weird. I'm like, yeah, I remember her kind of. So I didn't really party with her. I just happened to be in the same room with her. I I I was using the word hangout liberally.
Chris (01:14:09.749)
I feel like if you're in the same room as someone at a party, it's a hangout.
Aaron (01:14:09.814)
Okay, so so playing it bad, you you saw Cade Hudson at a party. That's what I'm hearing. Upton not Hudson, sorry, Upton.
pri (01:14:14.655)
Kate up to
pri (01:14:18.349)
Yeah.
Anyway, on that note, shall we wrap for this for this but like Sorry. Well, I just was like thinking about it, 'cause it came up. anywho. should I introduce the paw? Yeah.
Aaron (01:14:22.094)
Congratulations, Pree. Yeah, con congrats, Prey. I think you drove us right into the gutter on that one. So thanks for that.
Chris (01:14:36.593)
You know what you should do, Free? You should tell your instinct about this story and ask it to track Kate Kate up and down and see she remembers this.
Aaron (01:14:44.258)
Yeah. Have your agent, you know, stalk Kate Kate Upton.
pri (01:14:48.352)
Yeah, that seems like a good idea. It's gonna like it's gonna be like it's gonna start gathering an army in this form of agents and like breaking in.
Aaron (01:14:57.206)
Honestly, that would be a front page of the New York Times about agents stalking. Yeah, completely.
pri (01:15:01.742)
Probably.
Chris (01:15:04.867)
Agent stalking. Now there's a whole other let's let's call the show right there.
Aaron (01:15:09.454)
Ha ha ha
pri (01:15:10.412)
Yeah. On that note, thanks everyone. Good episode. Welcome to Net Society. Today it's me, Chris, and Aaron talking all things tech, AI, cryptoculture, and more. Just as a quick reminder, these thoughts and opinion are our own and not of our employer, and none of this is financial advice.