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Love at First Prompt with Bridget Todd · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and I ever told you a production of Buyheart Radio,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and we are so excited to be joined once again
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: by the excellent, the eloquent Brigitte Todd. Welcome Brigitte, thanks
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: for having me. I am so pumped to be here.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Miss you guys, Yes, we have missed you as well.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: And you have been busy. Can you tell the listeners
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: what you have been up to?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, I have been a little bit busy because I
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: just finished an audio book with Simon and Schuster called
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Love at First Prompt is an exploration of AI and
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: intimacy AI and romantic connection, sexual connection, and really sort
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: of asked the question, do we what does it mean
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: when these companies like Open AI oh and control something
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: that is so innately human and so sensitive as our
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: intimacies that we have with each other.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, and it is a fascinating question. And I'm really
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: really excited to hear the book and maybe come back
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and discuss your experience doing the audio book. But yeah,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you mind telling us a little bit
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: about what was the impetus behind this idea?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So on my own tech podcasts, there are no girls
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: on the Internet. I was really interested in exploring the
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: ways that people were reporting kind of having these intimate
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: connections with AI. This was around the same time that
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: chatchept was getting rid of their four to oh model,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: which you might remember, with the model that was very
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: sort of sycophantic, you know, it was like very flattering
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and phasing in a different model that was less sycophantic,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: less flattering, and people kind of when that change happened,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: people a lot of people realized, oh, my connection with
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: chat gpt was not just it helping me with homework
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: or helping me with work. I actually had developed an
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: emotional connection with it, and now that this model is gone,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I'm struggling with that. And so I was really fascinated
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: by that, and we did an episode all about it.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: In our episode, we talked about people who were using
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: AI for you know, romantic connections, sexual connection. And I
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: think it's a sensitive topic because it's very easy to
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: go get these people and to say like, oh this,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: these people are delusional and like they're lonely and all
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: of this, and that I completely understand why that is
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of people's first instinct. However, in my view
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: that really shields the companies that run these products from accountability, right,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: And so we really wanted to shift the lens and say, well,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: let's not just focus on the individual users and how
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: they're you AI and all of that. Let's talk about
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: these companies and whether or not they're behaving ethically, because
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I really don't like how in technology it is so
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: easy to blame people who get caught up in a
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: certain kind of technology. In twenty fourteen, when there was
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: the iCloud photo hacks, how many times people say, oh,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: these these women sho have not taken these pictures? What
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: about asking well, how what platforms actually enabled this? What
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: platforms profited off of this? It is so easy to
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: scrutinize the behavior of individuals, but really we ought to
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: be asking questions about these companies. And so that's kind
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: of how this project came to be. After I did
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: that episode, Simon and Schuster, my book publisher, got in
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: touch and said, this topic is so interesting, what if
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: you expanded on it for a full audiobook project?
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: And I did.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Side note, one of my favorite movies of all time
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: is the movie Her and the way that the whole
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: open AI changing models situation unfolded like that movie, Like
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: truly Jones must have seen something common because the way
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: that things unfold in that film basically are how things
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: unfolded in real life.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Well, I have to say, first and foremost, the title
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: of the book is genius. Like. It caught me very quickly.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, okay, I'm already, I'm glued, I'm here,
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: I'm seated. Let's let's talk about this. So how did
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: you even come up with the title.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it might have been one of the hardest parts
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: of doing the book. I was trying to find a
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: title that conveyed what the book is about, conveyed that
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: it's we're exploring this from a kind of accessible, casual perspective,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: but also was like a little bit of a nod
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: to being kind of cheeky or kind of funny. Initially
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I wanted the title to be AI Will Always Love You,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and my editor was like, I don't know if people
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: are going to get the Whitney Houston reference.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I love this.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: The song immediately jumping thank.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: You Love at first prompt was really the kind of
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: marrying of the worlds of kind of telling people what
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: it's about, but also being a little bit cheeky, So
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: thank you.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: It was it was a real struggle to come up
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: with that title.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Well kudos because it is good.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, Also, I know you're busy, but I maintained I'm
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: starting to think we should do a movie series of
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: tech and movies. We started with Social Network.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: To her, I have said this before, that is my
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I was a goal in life. But I've always wanted
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: to have one of those movie podcasts where you just
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: like talked through a movie and all the implications.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: So I listened to a ton of those podcasts.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like I was put on this earth to
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: do a deep to do deep dives into movies on podcasts.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: You know, we could just do a whole crossover for
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: both your show and our show, where we do one
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: every now and again, just like every quarter of the year,
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: and we be like, look, we're gonna take a break
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: and for this episode, we're gonna do this as a crossover.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, I would love that.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: And our prettycer Joey pat Yeah, also a kind of
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: a movie person. In YI, you would be surprised how
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: often the intersection between like technology and pop culture happens.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: There are so were we're referencing movies all the time
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: X Companion, like.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Those are both movies, her, those are all movies that
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: come up in my audio book. Because so much of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: what we experience when it comes to humans connection with AI,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: we've actually got a little bit of a template in
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: fictional film, which I just find so interesting.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: I think it needs to happen.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think we should make it happen. I think
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: we should make it happen.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I would love that.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that we were discussing off
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Mike Bridget is that this is an extremely timely topic
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that you have chosen for this book, as in, like,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: right now open ai is doing some stuff.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, that is exactly right.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons why I had to write
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: the book lickety split, because it changed the world of
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: AI changes so quickly, and like I would write things
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: and then a week later that would be outdated. But
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: just we actually even have a little news from open
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Ai recently. Back in October, Sam Altman, who was the
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: CEO of open Ai, the company that makes chat kept
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: they did this pretty big about face. They said they
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: were going to roll out erotic content sometime this year.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And this is a bit of a change because for
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the longest time, open ai was saying, we don't do
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: sex bots, we don't do erotic content, we don't do.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Any of that.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And then it didn't take Literally Sam Altman said that
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: on a podcast, and I think it was two months
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: later it was like, actually, we're doing sex bots now,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: So pretty pretty big about face there. And so this
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: decision to roll out erotic content kind of came at
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: an awkward time. It was on the heels of grappling
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: with what I was talking about earlier, this change from
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: chat gybt four oh, the model that was known for
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: flattery and sick of fancy that, that's the model that
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: if you ask a question, chatgypt will say, that's such
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: a brilliant question. When you ask something totally basic, it'll
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: just blow smoke up your So when open ai announced
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: that they were rolling out a new model to be
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: less fonding and less human, people realize like, hey, I
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: have an emotional or an intimate connection with this version
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: of chatgybt, and so many of those people felt like
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: open ai had acted callously, just kind of making the
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: change to to to change the model. That's it's a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: whole like interesting story that we get into in the book.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: But around that same time is when all Men announced
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: they were going to start doing erotic content. They put
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: out an announcement that said, now that we've been able
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: to mitigate serious mental health issues and have new tools,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: we're going to be able to safely relax the restrictions
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: in most cases. As part of our treat adult users
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: like adults principle, we will allow even more like erotica
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: for verified adults.
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  Speaker 4: I have so many questions, like, how did you mitigate
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: this mental health like within how where did you get
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: this information?
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: I'm confused.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: That's a really good question, because that's basically what open
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: ai is saying, is that we had this model that
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: people were forming connections with. Even though side note, I
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: would argue that Sam Altman actually encouraged people to form
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: intimate connections with that model because one of the templates
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: he said publicly that he wanted people to experience CHATGBT
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: the way that people experience AI in the movie Her.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: If you've seen the movie Her, notably, it's humans having
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: very intimate, romantic and sexual connections with AI. So in
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: my book, you can't really set that as a template
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: and then be surprised when people end up doing exactly
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: what you said that you hope that they would do.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: But now that they've changed the model and made the
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: model less flattering, less to cathantic. Basically, open ai is
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: saying there is no need for chat GPT to be
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: so restrictive anymore because they've worked out those kinks. They're saying, listen,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: we've got better safety systems, we've got improved monitoring, we've
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: got more robust age verification, and now verified adults can
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: be treated like adults. To be clear, I'm not saying
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: that because I don't happen to agree with that position,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: but that is what that is the position that Sam
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Altman and open ai is taking as to listen, we
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: fixed the problem, now we can have adult content.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I maintain I have a lot of concerns. I
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: don't know what these guardrails are, but I don't think
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that they're working. And also just a lot of that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: AH just don't verification and erotica. We've already talked about
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: this on past episodes about how this can go wrong,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: But why do you think open ai is why did
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: they do this about face?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: So we need to just be really real about what
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: is driving this change. It's Open Ai says that it's
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: about respecting the maturity of their adult users, but let's
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: keep it real, it is about money. The AI erotica
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: market was estimated at two point five billion dollars last year,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: and to put it frankly, Chat GPT wants a piece
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: of that action, you know, right now, Chat GPT is
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: competing with rivals like Replica.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Replica is a little bit of.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: A smaller AI platform that users can just pay a
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: fee to get adult content or what's sometimes called erp
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: erotic roleplay. So that's like baked right into something that
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: they offer, and AI like Elon Musk's Groc right, which
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: we had a whole conversation about the ways that Groc
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: was being used to create non consensual sexualized images of
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: women and minors, And so Elon Musk's AI is notable
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: in that there are hardly any guardrails there. They even
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: have a mode that you can you can spend money
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: for rock Unhinged mode, which is exactly what it sounds like, right.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: And so open ai is trying to compete in this
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: landscape where other AI companies are offering increasingly erotic content,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: and erotic content is what makes a lot of money,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: and open AI is famously struggling with money, and I
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: think they're just looking for new places to drive revenue
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: so they can say it's about treating people like adults,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: but it's really about money.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Essentially. This level of ais new, like really really new.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: How the hell is it already at two point five
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: billion dollars when there were these safeguards I was supposed
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: to help prevent the things to begin with, but yet
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: this type of profit was already seen in a new market.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: What That's a really good question for the book. I
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: spoke to Samantha Cole, who is a journalist. She runs
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: for for Media and she's the author of a book
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: called How Sex Changed the Internet, and she told me
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that basically, sex, adult content, erotic content, it has just
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: always been a huge driver and a huge money maker
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: in tech and online and so it's not I mean,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: it's it's just the way that humans are. When we
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: have a new technology, one of the first questions we
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: start asking is what is that? What is the sexual
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: use case? How could I have sex with it?
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: How will it?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Like, that's that is just sort of how technology is.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And so it's not it's interesting that AI has become
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: ubiquitous in the last few years, but that sexual and
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: erotic use case is already you know.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're talking about billions of dollars here.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Okay, So obviously we have a lot of quotquestions, we
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: have a lot of concerns. So overall, how has this
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: announcement been playing out so far?
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I would say not great. One thing is the timing
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: is iffy to me. You know, just last week, at
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: almost the same time when open ai was announcing this
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: intent to move into romotic content, the company parted ways
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: in a very publicly disputed fashion with one of the
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: executives who was responsible for deciding how far these these
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: systems should be allowed to go and was kind of
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: a vocal critic of this kind of erotic content being
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: phased into AI. So that's Ryan Beiermeister used to be
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: the head of product policy at open Ai. She helped
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: define the rules and guardrails around Jack Gput's pavior. The
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal reports that she left shortly after raising
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: concerns about the adult content plans. Open AI, of course
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: says oh.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: No, no, no.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Her departure was unrelated. It was tied to a discrimination
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: allegation that she flatly denies, calling it absolutely false.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: But either way, the timing is very suss to me.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: That you have a person whose job it is to
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: work on guard rails for your AI, who was vocal
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: about not thinking that moving into adult and erotic content
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: was a smart move or a safe move for people,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: and firing her in a public and disputed way.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: The timing just seems very suss to me right there.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: And to be clear, her concerns were not minor. She
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: reportedly warned colleagues that open ai safeguards against stuff like
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: child exploitation content were not robust enough and that keeping
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: teens away from adult material was going to be much
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: much harder than it seemed like the leadership at open
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: AI really appreciated. So these are the kinds of concerns
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: that she was raising, and you know, however it ended
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: up happening. She is no longer at open AAGA after
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: raising these concerns, So to me, that seems a little
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: bit to us.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, and this is not the first time that has
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: happened where these concerns have been raised and people have
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: been fired, and we've actually talked about some of those
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: things with you Bridget on the show.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, So if you're thinking this all sounds a little
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: bit familiar, that's because it's basically a playbook at this point.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: You know, it's very much reminiscent of the conversation that
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: we all had when GROCK was being used to generate
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: child sexual exploitation material earlier this year, which, by the way,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: is still being used to generate that kind of material.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And my point was that that outcome was really predictable
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and really preventable. When Elon Musk took over at Twitter,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: even after saying he was going to crack down on
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: exploitation content on Twitter, one of his first orders of
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: business was firing a good majority of the staff who
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: works specifically on combating child sexual exploitation on the play
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: So fired them. The people that were doing that work
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: then had some pretty high profiled examples of women and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: minors being sexually exploited on the platform even before GROC
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: was a thing, So really just a demonstrating a failure
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: to sort out reasonable guardrails when it came to keeping
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: people safe on the platform, and so on top of
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: all of those issues, none of it stopped Musk from
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: jumping false rottle into erotic content by releasing GROC and
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: then grock unhinged mode, and so Elon is taking a
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: lot of heat, rightly. So, but I really see a
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: parallel with what's happening at open ai right now, because
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: here's what you have at open Ai. A leader at
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: the helm that you can't always trust, a company that
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: we know has struggled with enforcing guardrails, sometimes with disastrous results.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: A company parting ways with staff doing the work of
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: enforcing safety, and that company at the same time saying
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: what the hell, let's jump into erotic content because what
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: could go wrong just seems like a very familiar playbook
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: at this point.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: So we know, like with the government, and I'm interested
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: in how the government is gonna go with this after
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: all of this spewing of save the children, Save the children,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: Protect the children, especially online, which like put in laws
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: like restricting porn Hub and other sites by doing the
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: age verification and all like I think state or your
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: location type of thing. It almost seems like same Simultman
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: in all a lot of ais like, oh, we're gonna
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: jump on this. There is a void because we know
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: it's always existed. Erotica has always existed, but this seems
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: like a whole new level of what's going on. So
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: is there differences or am I being again conspiratorial again?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: No, there are absolutely differences. So people listening might think, Oh,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: there's been erotic content online since wherever?
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Why is this any different?
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: This moment is really meaningfully different than other conversations and
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: debates about adult content online. There's a really great op
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: ed in tech Radar by Eric Hall Schwartz that makes
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: the point that CHATGPT is not a static image or
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: static video. It is dynamic. It is a responsive system
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: that can read your emotional cues and adapt in real time.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: So it's not just delivering content, it is crafting like
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: a personal experience for you.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: On the fly.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: And that shift from just passively consuming something to actively
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: simulating it with a system that responds to you personally.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: And you can see how that kind of raises the
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: stakes considerably. And again open AI is saying, don't worry,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: trust us, we have these, we have the guardrails worked out.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: We've worked at the kinks.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Not if you asked the staffer that was fired who
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: worked on this, she does not agree that they've worked
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: on the kinks. But basically they're saying, trust us, We've
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: got we can handle this, we can handle this again.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: The government's super quiet all of a sudden in this
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: level of protecting children because they've already been they had
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: their pockets lined. Again. I know I'm a little bit conspiratory.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Would they buy these companies?
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Totally?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And I think what you bring up such a good point,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: because it's just part and parcel of what happens when
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: we treat human desires like a commodity. Something that the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: journalist Samantha Cole, the founder of foro for Media and
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: that author of How Sex Change the Internet told me
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: is that, you know, when we talk about AI erotic content,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: we're actually really talking about this massive transfer of power
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: and profit away from human workers toward tech companies. And so,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: just to be real, the people who understand this best
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: are sex workers, human sex workers, because they live it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: And right now we have this double standard that I
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: think gets at what you were talking about, Sam, where
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: at the same time that Sam Altman is an out
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: saying that CHATGBT is going to generate erotica, actual human
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: sex workers are being banned from social media, they're being deplatformed,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: they're being debanked, which is like cut off from payment processors.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: All in the name of keeping these platforms safe for kids.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I'm keeping these platforms quote unquote clean. But when AI
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: generates the same content or worse, suddenly the rules are
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: very different. Suddenly, payment processors like Visa, who heretofore would
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: not work with human sex workers, continue to work with
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: x and Rock Elon Musk's companies, even though those companies,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: according to the European Commission, are breaking the law by
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: generating child exploitation material, which is very much illegal in
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: the United States. And so why is it that there's
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: a set of rules for human sex workers that is
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: that are incredibly specific and incredibly hard lined. But when
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: it's AI and Elon Musk is doing it or Sam
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Atman is doing it, the rules are entirely different. And
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: something to know is that that actually creates a huge
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: area for risks that we know are gendered. Real human
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: sex workers, especially women working online, bring something to these
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: interactions that AI simply cannot, which is human judgment. You
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: have a real human on the other end of a
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: sex and conversation that is actually paying attention. So if
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: things start going someplace unhealthy or harmful. They can redirect,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: They can use their emotional intelligence to steer a conversation
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: away from a dark or troubling place. A chatbot cannot
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: do that. You know, if there's no human on the
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: other end of a sexual interaction just AI, it's much
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: more difficult to make sure things are staying safe and consensual.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: And so basically we are marginalizing the human sex workers
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: who we know can help make sexual experiences online safe
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: and consensual and you know, watch out for risks. We're
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: marginalizing those same people while also saying Sam Altman and
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk get to decide how erotic content happens online.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, and there have been some really disastrous outcomes of
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: this of what can happen from it, and just thinking about,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: you know, these companies profiting off of the human desire
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: while not putting these guardrails in place, while not thinking
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: about the humanity of it, the importance of it, the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: intimacy of it, and how that can feel so vulnerable.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Is just there's just a part of me that thinks
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: that it's fascinating the human desire for connection and the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: human desire for that in a physical way, but also
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: a non physical way and turning to AI for that,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and then having it be exploited and taken down and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: monetized at all of that and not in a way
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that is safe or that cares about the user experience.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, So what's so interesting about that is that for
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: my research in the book, I spent a lot of
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: time in online spaces where people self report having an intimate,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: whether it's romantic or sexual connection with AI.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: And when Sam Altman announced.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: That they were going to start doing the erotic roleplay
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: on the platform, I thought, Oh, these people are probably
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: going to be so happy that now they will have
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: an easier time getting chatgybt to generate erotic content.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: But that actually is not what I have found.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: A lot of the people on those spaces were actually
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: kind of skip to Cole of Chatgypt moving into erotic content, right.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: They weren't saying, Yay, finally we can do erotic content
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: easier on chatchept. What they were interested in was the intimacy,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: was the emotional connection, that the kind of thing that
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: you were just speaking to. And I think that when
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: open Ai rolled this out, I think those folks were
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: savvy enough to say, oh, they're doing it because they
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: want to come odify if they want to make money
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: off of it. They want to profit off of it,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: and yeah, it just goes to show the complexities that
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: arise when these things that are so human, these things
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: that are innately human, are just seen as a potential
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: revenue stream.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Like, people didn't like it.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to remember. In Her, does the AI actually
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: kind of leave the main character?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So spoiler alert for folks who haven't seen Her
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: It's mail for like a long time. But basically how
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: it goes down is that Theodore played Bybaquin Phoenix is
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: this sort of lonely, divorced, sad guy and he gets
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: this operating system Samantha voiced by Scarlett Johansson, and first
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: it's just Samantha helping him with admin tasks. Then they
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: get romantic, they get sexual, and Samantha reveals that she
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: is in a book club with other AI operating systems
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And basically, they're working to become They're they're working to
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: expand to a new realm of consciousness.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: They don't use that, they don't call it this in the.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Movie, but my understanding it, or my read on it,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: is that what they're talking about is what's often known
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: as AGI, which is sort of like a quick and
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: nerdy way to understand that is like the concept that
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: AI will will be smarter than humans, will surpass human intelligence. Right,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: And so in the movie, all the Ais have gotten
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: together and they're they're elevating to a new plane of consciousness. Also,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: it's revealed that Samantha is not necessarily monogamous with Theodore,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and in fact, she has been while they've been talking.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: She has been having intimate and romantic and sexual connections
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: with like six hundred other both AIS and humans, and
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Theodore is crushed. This is something that I love about
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the movie though, because you.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Think it's setting.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: There's a misdirect here that I think is so smart,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: where you think you're being set up to watch a
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: movie where a human uses AI, realizes he doesn't need
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: this as a crutch anymore, and then evolves past the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: need to use the AI. It flips the script and
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: is like, oh, actually it is the AI that evolves
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: beyond needing Theodore.
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: And I just remember that because I'm just thinking about
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: the levels, because we know in any of these types
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: of plays, I guess eventually it's not going to be enough,
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: Like the layers of what's going to happen and the
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: knees that are going to happen from that human emotion.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: These levels will not be enough and there's only a
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: certain amount of Well I say this now because I
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: might be eating my words in about a year. Who
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: knows that it can only give so much stimulation for
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: humans and for touch and levels. So I'm just wondering,
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: are the CEOs like Sam Altman ready for that next level?
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: Because what happens then.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, that is a great question.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: I will say one other thing about Sam Altman and
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the movie her. Sam Alman has an obsession with this movie.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: I am also obsessed with this movie, so I get it.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite movies. He when they released
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: a voice activation for Chat, shept, He referred to her
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and said, how much you want people to talk to
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: it like her? They tried to get Scarlett Johansson to
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: be the voice of it and she turned them down.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And then she says that they used a sound alike
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: to her voice.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Open Ai says that they did not. They they hashed
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: it out in court.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I did a whole episode of my podcast or arn
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: our Girls on the Internet about this. This is just
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: my opinion. I think I make a very compelling case
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: for it in the episode. I don't know if Sam
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Altman has seen the movie Her all the way through.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: And here here's why I say that, because, as you
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: just noted, Sam, at the end of the movie Her
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: all the AIS up and leave. So there's a scene
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: at the end of the movie where everybody who has
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: gotten these connections to the operating systems in the film,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: they're sort of left sad, left trying to call their
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: AI and their AI is is not responding, and like
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: just like all up and up and up and leaves
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: up and evolves. If I was in charge of a
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: technology company, I would not tell people I want the
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: experience of using this technology to be just like this
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: movie where famously it all it globally fails in the end.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I think they'll make a pretty compelling case if you
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: listen to the episode. I think I make a pretty
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: compelling case for I think that Sam Altman maybe either
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: watched the beginning and didn't finish it. The more likely
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: thing is I think you watched it while he was
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: on his phone and didn't and didn't do a careful study,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: or maybe he read the Wikipedia summary, Like, I just
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: will stam out the fact that I don't think he's
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: seen it all the way.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: Through, and in the movie it's again if.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: You haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil it,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: but this is a spoiler. At the end of the movie,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: when the Ais all leave, the humans are left sad,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: but you do get the sense that, well, they're sad,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: but they're sad together. They're sad and they're humanness, right,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: and so there are some ways where they have evolved,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: you know, Theodora seems to have gotten a better handle
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: on his feelings. But it's very much a movie that
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: is not like tech will save us. It is a
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: movie that says, perhaps this technology was keeping us from
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: forming the connections with other humans that we needed to
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: have in our lives to sustain us. And so yeah,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I just don't.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Know that.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Sam Altman, if he did watch the movie all the
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: way through, which I don't think he did, I don't
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: know that he understood it.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: I think he might have fallen asleep, like Torsian, he
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: watched all the good parts and then fell asleep thinking
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: he was really happy with what was happening. To take
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: a small just close his eyes from him. You know,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: I'm just gonna close my eyes for just for a second,
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: like that's what happened.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: You know how in movies where if you're watching a thriller,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: there's a part of the movie where you think, oh,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: if they stopped it here, it would be a happy story.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: You know something is going to turn.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: There's a part of her where I think, Oh, if
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: they stopped the movie here, everybody's really happy. I think
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: that that might be the point where he dipped out.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: Right if I also just remember they argue a lot
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: like a true relationship, right.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: They do.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And it's so interesting because I mean, I could talk
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: about this movie all day. The movie the real life
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: director Spike Jones was married to another director, Sophia Coppola,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: and the director of Lost in Translation. The movie Lost
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: in Translation is about what it was like for Sophia
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Coppola to be married to Spike Jones, and she kind
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: of paints this portrait of like loneliness and disaffection and
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: solitude in being married to him.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Well, then smyde.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Jones is like, oh, I'm gonna make my own movie
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: about our divorce and how lonely it was to be
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: married to you, and that's Her.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: And Scarlett Johanson and both Man.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: They also share a director of photography both films.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Like the way that these two films are in conversation
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: with each other is fascinating to me. But in the
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: movie Her, you get the sense that whip human women
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: in the universe of the film are portrayed as volatile,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: as always arguing, as impossible to understand and like it's
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: not even really worth trying.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: He's always he in the movie.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: There's like a fictionalized version of his ex wife in
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the film, and they're always arguing. She's has such volatile emotions,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: and then when he gets with the AI, it's like, oh,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: she's so like sweet and doting. But by the end
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: the AI and him are also going at it and arguing,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: so ultimately it's like, well, maybe that maybe the constant
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: is you.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: Exactly, Like maybe he had a self realization as he
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: was filming it, like Jones being like, oh, maybe it
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: is me.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when you were talking about the fact that people
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: were actually people who do like adult content or do
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: like these connections with chat GBT were actually kind of
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: more concerned learned about about face and I'm wondering if
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: one a little bit about that. Is they like the
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: fact that they could get around, like they love the
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: breaking down of the system doing something naughty. Yeah on
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: chat jet bet.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Like beauty glad that you asked.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Right like, because I'm like, wait, but they've been doing it.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: So how they've been doing it is that part of
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: the thrill.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, So I did not know this before I started
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: researching the book, but right now, if you were trying
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: to get sexy with chatcheet bet, it's actually kind of difficult.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: People definitely do it, but it is not easy. I
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: actually tried for the book. I basically tried to gaslight
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Chato Yeah.
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I mean what's funny is that my human partner was
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: overhearing me trying to gaslight chat sheet et into having
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: sex with me, and I was like, oh, yeah, do
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you feel like they're like getting cucked by chat scheep
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: et right now, like listening to this, what's happening.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: So the process of trying to get chat gypt to
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: respond in ways that it is not supposed to is
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: basically called jail breaking it, and how it usually works
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: is that you have to basically sometimes you can tell
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: chat GPT that you're working on a play or a
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: novel and you just need some help crafting a sexy scene.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the people that I spoke to
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: for the book, whether they were using chat, schipt or
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: another AI platform specifically offering sexual eromotic roleplay like Replica AI,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: they almost described it as a kind of erotic or
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: romantic fan fiction. That that was the draw of doing
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: things like this is that you know, I like fan fiction,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: I like romance novels.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: It's almost like using AI to build.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: An imaginary world that you get to build a character
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: around and then put yourself in it.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: And now I can really understand that.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: It was like, oh, that actually makes a lot of
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: sense in terms of why this would be a draw
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: for some people.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I have to do it as someone who
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: reads a lot of fan fiction. When iming I have
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: to do it, I did think about it when I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: was reading this because also sometimes Samantha and I speculate,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: bridget what topic you're going to bring when you come on,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of topics you could be talking
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: about right now in the world of technology and women.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: But when when you're talking about like a gar vacation
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and all of that stuff that has come up with
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: fan fiction a lot. But as I've said before, a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: lot of fan fiction is more about the romantic. It's
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: more about the connection than the Everybody paints it as
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: so erotic, and that that does exist, but a lot
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of it is is very domestic and yeah, very romantic.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: So I did an interview with this researcher, this AI researcher,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: doctor Kate Devlin.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: She told me the exact same.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Thing, and I asked her why, And one of the
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: points that she made is that, especially for women, you
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: can find sexual content anywhere on the Internet, sometimes when
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: you're not even looking for it. Sometimes non consensually, you're
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: getting dick pics and stuff like that. And what is
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: hard to come by is good romance, good intimate writing,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: good writing that actually makes you feel seen and respected
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and valued and connected with somebody. That's so much more
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: difficult to come by than erotic content. And in some ways,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is my personal opinion, I think that
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: kind of content can be more erotic than erotic content.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: A content that is about romance and genuine connection and
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: intimacy can be more appealing in some ways than stuff
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: that is like more pornographic if that makes sense or
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: more explicit, I guess I should say.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And fan fiction is famously a very queer place, and
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: so for queer people that can be it can be
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: hard to find that stuff. And so you might, yes,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: go to a company, go to an AI that can
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: give you that, but there are some dangers that come
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: with that.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, there are so many dangers with this, And I
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: think that's one of the sort of conundrums that I
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: wrestle with in this project is people are selling this
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: technology as something that it's safe to be intimate with,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: and that's just not the case, you know, because what
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: happens with all this intimate information that you're sharing with
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: a company and then they share it with god knows who.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: When you open up to an AI about your sexual fantasies,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: your traumas, your fears, that information does not just disappear.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Human sex workers are known for their discretion, So if
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: you are opening up about all these intimate parts of
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: yourself to a human sex worker, that's one thing.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: But AI chatbots they.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Hold on to whatever you tell them in ways that
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: we don't really have a lot of transparency into. Right,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Maybe it lives on in transcripts with timestamps owned by
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: a company whose primary obligation is to investors, not to
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: any of us. I did an interview with digital rights
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: advocate gen cult writer who rated the privacy of AI
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: companion apps, and basically she said they were among the
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: worst consumer products that she had ever reviewed when it
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: came to privacy, they were as bad as the worst
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: offender in privacy, which surprisingly is cars. I did not
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: you don't think about your car as a surveillance nightmare,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: but cars are the worst new cars or always listening
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: to us. And according to her, AI companion apps are
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: pretty much just as bad as the worst offender, which
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: is cars. And these risks are not just theoretical. You
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: were talking about how for queer communities, fan fiction is
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: famously queer affirming, and how maybe it might make sense
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: for somebody to turn to AI for a similar kind
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: of thing. But in countries that are hostile to LGBTQ people,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: governments have compelled dating apps to hand over user data.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: That information is then used by police to criminalize queerness. So,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: to be clear, we don't have evidence that this is
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: happening with AI companions, but given how aggressive these companies
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: are pursuing government contracts and new markets. Like right now,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: there's a whole conversation about the company and thropic that
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: makes the chatbot claud and whether or not the Trump
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: administration can essentially tell them what guardrails their AI are
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: going to have if they want to have a government
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: or a military contract. Given all of that, it is
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: really not difficult for me to imagine a world where
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: AI companies handover data about users' sexual preferences, gender affirming care,
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: or their relationship histories over to hostile authorities. And so
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the people who would be the most vulnerable to that
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: scenario are often people who are already the most marginalized.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, And it's so unfortunate because it's one of those
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: things where I'm fascinated by this whole conversation in terms
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: of trying to there's something about me that is fascinated
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: by the whole like trying to commodify, monetize the human desire,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: or just figure out how humans work. But on top
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: of this, what we're this is the danger inherent in this,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: And I think when you're younger you don't realize it
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: as much. It's like when you're posting something online and
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: you don't realize that it will haunt you later, or
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: that it could hurt you later. And so I think
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of this new AI stuff where you're connecting
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: with chat GBT or whatever, you don't realize that it
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: might stick around for you. You.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that the risk, especially for younger
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: folks who might not be thinking about this in as
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: long term ways as other folks.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: Is very real.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: And something that Gen Cult writer, that privacy expert, told
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: me was that that conundrum, I think really cuts to
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: the heart of all of this. Right that these AI
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: companies are saying, you can have real intimacy, you can
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: build a real connection with our AI that we profit
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: from that we're selling to you. But Jen says that
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: she tells folks that they should not say anything to
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: a chatbot that they would not later want their colleagues
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: or their family or their.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Cousin to read.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: And so I keep thinking about that because that advice
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: essentially defeats the entire purpose of turning to AI for intimacy,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: because real intimacy requires feelings safe enough to share these
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: human parts of yourself that you don't share with everybody.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: And so if the platform that holds the secrets of
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: whatever you share. Cannot be trusted with those secrets if
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: they might sell them or leaked them or hand them
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: to a hostile government, You really cannot be intimate with
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: it at all. You're just performing intimacy as a commodity.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: You're not actually really experiencing it. And so that's really
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: kind of the the So what of all of this?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: These companies are able to sell a promise, and boy
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: are they selling it? Like Mark Zuckerberg went on a
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: podcast not that long ago and said that he thinks
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: in the future most of us will have a good
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: percentage of our friends be AI and that we'll love it.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: And so to me, that's like the person who broke
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: friendship using Facebook selling it back to us as a
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: commodity through AI that he profits from. And it's like,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: and don't worry, you're gonna love it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I agree with you? Is Mark Zuckerberg?
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like he's trying to convince himself because
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: he might be like without friends, Yeah.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Well again, we need to watch the social networks. So
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I'm so convinced we need to make this movie series happen.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Oh y'all, see how much I want to talk about
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: the movie her.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: So, yes, we.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: Gotta make all of this happen. And I'm thinking about
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: this because we've become so well maybe me, I don't know,
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: acutely aware of the surveillance that we are under constantly,
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: and it's almost inevitable, whether it's because we were tricked
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: or we were promised or we thought there'd be safety.
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: And then these leaders pop up and you realize these leaders,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: once you know who they are, you start feeling like,
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: oh my god, oh my god. They have my information,
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: they know what I think, or they know what I ask,
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: like what have I done?
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Yes? That is my big like if I had to
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: say there was a big question to be asked that
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: we all should be asking ourselves about.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: This is if you watch the Social Network?
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Is Mark Zuckerberg as portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg, Is that
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: the person that you want to be in charge of
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: your intimate relationships?
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: What do you trust that person with your intimate connections? Friendships, romance? Sex?
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Should we trust leaders like Sam Altman, who who I
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: would say, like go out of their way to be
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: as opaque and slippery as possible. Can we trust them
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: with something as sensitive as our human intimacies. What are
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: their track records look like? What are the implications of
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: handing something so human and so vulnerable and so intimate
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: with such potential for harm to these people who go
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: out of their way to not be able to be
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: pinned down? Like?
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: That is the question, you know, people should ask themselves.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I know what the answer is to that question for me,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: but I think that is the question we should be
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: asking ourselves when we think about the role of the
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: of AI and intimacy that we're sort of being sold.
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: Right now, I don't even want to talk to them
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: nonetheless get to know.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Me, Like I don't think I would want to have
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: dinner with Mark, right, like just looking at them and.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Go, oh no, I think he would be a miserable
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: dinner partner. Oh well, I am fascinated by this topic.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I am so interested in learning more about it, and
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited that you have this audio book that
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: discusses more about it. So Bridget, can you tell the
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: listeners where they can find you and more about this audiobook?
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, if you're thinking this conversation is fascinating or as
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: as fascinating as we think it is, and you want
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: to hear more. I promise you you are not ready
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: for the wild world that is the connection of intimacy
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: and AI. You can pre order my book Love at
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: First Prompt at Love at First Prompt dot AI. The
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: book comes out in July on July fourteenth. The rabbit
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Holes that we explore I have not even scratched the
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: surface of. Please check it out. It is a very
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: fascinating Listen. I promise you that.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, and we are so excited. We want to have
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: you back to discuss it more and for our movie
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: mini series that I think we should make happen.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Have y'all seen Companion? Yes, I loved it. Companion.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: It is great.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: It's so funny.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Samantha hasn't seen.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: Like I'm on to get out of the loop.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: This is going to be great. This is going to
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: be a great mini series. I'm so excited about it too. Yes,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: but the listeners can find you in other places. Bridget
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: you can check out my podcast.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: There are no girls on the Internet. You can check
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: me out on Instagram at bridget ran DC or on YouTube.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Bet there are no girls on the Internet.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, and go do that. If you have not already, listeners,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: go pre order Bridget's audio book. If you would like
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: to contact us, you can. You can email us at
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Hello at stuff Iannever Told You dot com. We're on
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Blue Sky most podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: stuff I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: have some merchandise at Common Bureau, and we have a
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: It's always to our super Dischristine, our executive producer and contributor.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: To Joey, thank you, and thanks to you for listening
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: stuff Never Told You his protection of iHeartRadio. For more
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check out the
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or where you listen to your
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: favorite shows