Latest / The M&M Experience / M and M EXTRA June 2, 2026 Our Driverless AI Future
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to a meeting of the minds crafted from decades
- 0:05Speaker 1: of talk show experience, an extension of the magic they've
- 0:08Speaker 1: created together on radio in the phenomenon called M and
- 0:13Speaker 1: M Hot Topics in the News and Wisdom from Light.
- 0:16Speaker 1: It's Mark Davis and Mike Gallagher. This is eminem Extra.
- 0:23Speaker 2: Happy Tuesday. And we're not going to count episodes. Mark,
- 0:27Speaker 2: I think I've already decided. I'm my keys. Mark, Why
- 0:31Speaker 2: we can't I mean show right, because I mean we'll
- 0:34Speaker 2: be up to numbisode number six hundred and thirty seven,
- 0:38Speaker 2: number one thousand, Although it is kind of funny once
- 0:40Speaker 2: in a while to see an episode that is numbered.
- 0:44Speaker 2: But we want to welcome you in. Our apologies to
- 0:46Speaker 2: our YouTube crowd for being a little late today. Once
- 0:49Speaker 2: in a while, life gets in the way. We had
- 0:51Speaker 2: a company meeting. Poor Mark was hanging in there patiently,
- 0:55Speaker 2: and I had a meeting with the suits and very
- 1:01Speaker 2: important meeting, but we had so we had to delay
- 1:03Speaker 2: by a little bit. So we're live now on YouTube,
- 1:05Speaker 2: so welcome in if you're just tuning in. If you
- 1:07Speaker 2: got that little ding you know, Mark that when people
- 1:10Speaker 2: follow us on YouTube or subscribe, what us get a
- 1:13Speaker 2: little they get a little bell, they get a little
- 1:14Speaker 2: ding saying, and I just got I just got it
- 1:17Speaker 2: on my phone, which is kind of cool. Did you
- 1:18Speaker 2: get what?
- 1:19Speaker 3: We should be able to customize that where it makes
- 1:21Speaker 3: some other type of so like a some kind of
- 1:24Speaker 3: like it's like, hey, hey, hey, you know something that's
- 1:27Speaker 3: kind of personal I mean, can we can turn Alexa
- 1:29Speaker 3: in anything we want? We can. I can personalize things
- 1:32Speaker 3: on my phone like the Ringtones throwing to be a
- 1:34Speaker 3: special eminem Extra here we come kind of thing, or
- 1:37Speaker 3: we could we.
- 1:37Speaker 2: Can put it in President Trump's voice. Quiet piggy, it's time.
- 1:40Speaker 3: It's time.
- 1:41Speaker 2: It's the piggy. So but I just got a notification
- 1:45Speaker 2: which is kind of cool on my trusty little uh
- 1:48Speaker 2: my little gadget here, Uh eminem Extra watch live now,
- 1:52Speaker 2: eminem Extra Live stream now. It does say Monday, June first,
- 1:56Speaker 2: twenty six. So that's a little problem. I date a
- 2:00Speaker 2: little loft. We're working out all the hitches, We're working
- 2:02Speaker 2: all the glitch.
- 2:03Speaker 3: Hey, we'll get there, We'll get there. What iPhone is that?
- 2:06Speaker 3: Which one are you up to?
- 2:07Speaker 2: This is the orange one. This is the seventeen pro.
- 2:11Speaker 3: We Stone ivy Stone Knives and bear skins. I think
- 2:15Speaker 3: it's sixty. I think it's sixteen. By sixteen, you run
- 2:18Speaker 3: out and get and get the moment they are released
- 2:22Speaker 3: this second.
- 2:23Speaker 2: I'm one of those dufises that stands in the line
- 2:26Speaker 2: like I got to get the new And it's dumb
- 2:28Speaker 2: because every time you upgrade your iPhone, yes, they promise
- 2:32Speaker 2: you it's seamless, right a spoiler alert, it ain't. I
- 2:36Speaker 2: mean all the passwords go away. There's a whole bunch
- 2:39Speaker 2: of stuff that doesn't transfer over yet they claim it does. Now,
- 2:42Speaker 2: why can we have autonomous cars but you can't upgrade
- 2:46Speaker 2: your iPhone without going through a removal of a kidney?
- 2:49Speaker 3: I have an autonomous car update from North Texas, and
- 2:52Speaker 3: the main plot line and narrative of this is I
- 2:56Speaker 3: went from literally terrified to comedy terrified, like just kind
- 3:01Speaker 3: of do it a bit. You're like, oo, who's good
- 3:03Speaker 3: to get in a driverless car? I've still never done it.
- 3:05Speaker 3: I will at some point, I really will. I don't
- 3:07Speaker 3: think I'm gonna die. I know on balance that generally speaking,
- 3:10Speaker 3: it's safer than when humans drive A little One of
- 3:13Speaker 3: the local stations had a thing we've had some who
- 3:17Speaker 3: is it that about eight or nine little accidents in
- 3:21Speaker 3: the last few months. But here's the thing for each
- 3:24Speaker 3: and they're going to be it's not like they're accident,
- 3:26Speaker 3: but in each of them there was a human being
- 3:30Speaker 3: at the wheel. Is there is there kind of a
- 3:32Speaker 3: gradation process where before it's full self driving, they stick
- 3:36Speaker 3: a human being in there to sort of monitor things,
- 3:39Speaker 3: in which case I would ask what did that person do?
- 3:41Speaker 3: The other thing said, I love this, they said. The
- 3:44Speaker 3: company said they were at low speed. Have you ever
- 3:47Speaker 3: been hit by a car at seven miles an hour?
- 3:49Speaker 3: And the other thing was somebody said that it was
- 3:52Speaker 3: the other In many cases it was the other car's fault,
- 3:54Speaker 3: which I'm totally I'm prepared to I'm prepared to believe.
- 3:59Speaker 2: Well, my experience with a truly autonomous taxi was it
- 4:04Speaker 2: was the Waimo experience. Now Elon is putting a robotaxi
- 4:08Speaker 2: together for Tesla I Rode, an autonomous taxi in Las
- 4:14Speaker 2: Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I forget the name
- 4:16Speaker 2: Zoop or zoom or something. There's some kind of funky name,
- 4:19Speaker 2: and it's completely there's no steering wheel, there's no obviously
- 4:23Speaker 2: no driver. You get into like a like a cab.
- 4:25Speaker 2: You get like a it's like a cabin on wheels.
- 4:27Speaker 2: It's very comfortable and it drives itself. But Waimo is
- 4:32Speaker 2: a particularly interesting story because I saw a profile. It's
- 4:35Speaker 2: an African American woman who's very innovative and she's the
- 4:39Speaker 2: driving force behind Weaimo. I'm pretty sure it's based out
- 4:41Speaker 2: of San Francis, Cisco, where so many of these tech
- 4:44Speaker 2: companies are based, and in Phoenix. They are everywhere. You
- 4:49Speaker 2: can't drive a half a mile in Phoenix without seeing
- 4:52Speaker 2: one of those familiar white jaguars with the big round
- 4:57Speaker 2: dome on the top. And that's the spinning radar and
- 5:00Speaker 2: all that. And it basically is like an uber without
- 5:03Speaker 2: a driver. You summon it on your app and it
- 5:06Speaker 2: comes to the hotel or the restaurant wherever you are.
- 5:09Speaker 2: You get in the car, it says Hello, Michael, welcome
- 5:12Speaker 2: to Waimo, and you pick your music and you can
- 5:15Speaker 2: pick jazz or and it takes you to the airport,
- 5:18Speaker 2: airport or wherever you want to go. And it's an
- 5:20Speaker 2: amazing experience. Last trip I took to Phoenix, it's all
- 5:24Speaker 2: I took. Everywhere I picked, I had a Waimo pick
- 5:26Speaker 2: me up at the airport. I had a Waymo take
- 5:28Speaker 2: me to the restaurant. Well. Earlier today, Weimo announced it
- 5:32Speaker 2: is recalling about thirty eight hundred of its robo taxis
- 5:36Speaker 2: around the country after identifying a risk that vehicles could
- 5:41Speaker 2: enter flooded roads with higher speed limits, which of course
- 5:45Speaker 2: raised safety concerns. This followed an accident. An incident on
- 5:49Speaker 2: April the twentieth, a Weaimo vehicle drove into a flooded
- 5:53Speaker 2: lane in San Antonio in your state of Texas mark
- 5:57Speaker 2: during extreme weather. The vehicle accord into the Waimou officials
- 6:01Speaker 2: was unoccupied. There were no injuries, but the incident prompted
- 6:05Speaker 2: the company to review similar scenarios involving high speeds and
- 6:09Speaker 2: impassable flooded roads. So this is a good thing. They're
- 6:12Speaker 2: going to try to fix whatever.
- 6:14Speaker 3: Every opportunity is a chance to encounter something and adjust accordingly.
- 6:18Speaker 3: So I guess there's a long list of things that
- 6:20Speaker 3: it can realize. Somebody posted not long ago that there
- 6:24Speaker 3: was the driver he was in full service driver mode
- 6:27Speaker 3: in his Tesla or something, and there was some car
- 6:30Speaker 3: that was some truck was doing something and made a
- 6:33Speaker 3: sudden move and he really needed to get into the
- 6:35Speaker 3: next lane, or would have if he were driving, and
- 6:37Speaker 3: in the time it took for him, would have taken
- 6:40Speaker 3: for him to check his blind spots. Blah blah blah.
- 6:43Speaker 3: That car with all those cameras already knew that the
- 6:46Speaker 3: lane was open and moved him right over effortlessly and
- 6:50Speaker 3: everything and everything was just fine.
- 6:52Speaker 2: I can attest the Tesla full service driving supervised. They
- 6:58Speaker 2: call it full service driving Supervisor, and they always do
- 7:01Speaker 2: that caveat supervised. You watch it. You still have to
- 7:04Speaker 2: over You have to be able to override anything it's doing.
- 7:08Speaker 2: But what can you do?
- 7:09Speaker 3: What can you not do? I've heard you, I've heard
- 7:11Speaker 3: you say, or they have to al blurs together. I
- 7:14Speaker 3: was checking emails, I was getting some work done. How attentive?
- 7:17Speaker 3: Doesn't it know when your eyeballs wander?
- 7:20Speaker 2: It actually does to an extent, But I've noticed over
- 7:23Speaker 2: the last six months that it's gotten more lax. You
- 7:26Speaker 2: can have your.
- 7:27Speaker 3: Phone, Can you wear shades?
- 7:29Speaker 2: So yeah, I wear sunglasses every day. But but if
- 7:32Speaker 2: you but but if you're looking down or you're looking around,
- 7:36Speaker 2: it does catch you and it'll the dashboard will say, hey,
- 7:40Speaker 2: pay attention, or it will take you out of full
- 7:42Speaker 2: service driving mode. But if you mount your phone like
- 7:47Speaker 2: an eye level in front of you to like the
- 7:49Speaker 2: left of the Tesla screen, and that's where most of
- 7:52Speaker 2: those mounts are, you can you can be on that
- 7:54Speaker 2: phone till the cows come home. You can check email,
- 7:57Speaker 2: you can text, you can look at X, you can
- 8:00Speaker 2: scroll because for what the what? And people are going
- 8:03Speaker 2: to find that fine fault with that because and be
- 8:06Speaker 2: critical of it, because they're going to say, wait a minute,
- 8:07Speaker 2: you shouldn't be on your phone while the car is
- 8:09Speaker 2: driving you. This is when you you're in the full
- 8:11Speaker 2: service driving mode. But look, I haven't had any issues
- 8:15Speaker 2: at all, and I will tell you that it does.
- 8:18Speaker 2: It is a step ahead of you. It does recognize
- 8:21Speaker 2: I'm sure the cars that don't come out in front
- 8:24Speaker 2: of you, or somebody who darts out in front of you.
- 8:26Speaker 2: It reacts faster, you know, technologically than you can. And
- 8:32Speaker 2: they're saying there's already studies showing that it's statistically safer
- 8:36Speaker 2: to have the full service driving option triggered. I went
- 8:40Speaker 2: by the Tesla dealer last week. I was kind of
- 8:42Speaker 2: looking at a why model and that's kind of the
- 8:45Speaker 2: because they've stopped making the luxury models, and they and
- 8:48Speaker 2: the first thing to sell. The guy, the Tesla guy said,
- 8:50Speaker 2: is art Do you use full service driving? And I said, yeah,
- 8:53Speaker 2: he goes, you should be using it all the time.
- 8:55Speaker 2: I'm at a point now where I get my car
- 8:58Speaker 2: in the parking garage, I push a button, I don't
- 9:01Speaker 2: touch anything else until it pulls into the studio studio
- 9:04Speaker 2: parking lot.
- 9:05Speaker 3: It's props diasmin again for the last couple of minutes
- 9:09Speaker 3: of way Mo b roll there. I'm sitting there listening
- 9:12Speaker 3: to you and watching that thing go do what it does.
- 9:15Speaker 3: Now here's something I did not know. I don't expect
- 9:17Speaker 3: anything to be free. That full service driving thing apparently
- 9:22Speaker 3: comes at a month ninety nine dollars a month.
- 9:25Speaker 2: Ninety nine dollars a month. And now back in the
- 9:28Speaker 2: day you could pay ten thousand dollars for it, and then.
- 9:32Speaker 3: You had it for a while for life.
- 9:33Speaker 2: Yep, now it's nine. But now they got rid of
- 9:36Speaker 2: the pay model in terms of the sales model, really,
- 9:39Speaker 2: and now you just pay a ninety nine dollars a
- 9:42Speaker 2: month subscription.
- 9:43Speaker 3: My luck, I'd pay the ten thousand dollars of the
- 9:45Speaker 3: following day. The thing would drive me off a bridge
- 9:47Speaker 3: to my death.
- 9:49Speaker 2: Well you know what's crazy, though, Mark, It is wild,
- 9:52Speaker 2: And I've read this and I can again confirm this.
- 9:56Speaker 2: Your stress level is so reduced when full service driving
- 10:01Speaker 2: is implemented. You're not like sort of you know, you
- 10:04Speaker 2: don't have to you get used to it. Because for
- 10:05Speaker 2: my first couple of rides, oh, it takes them getting
- 10:08Speaker 2: used to it, there's no doubt about it.
- 10:10Speaker 3: Then once once you've been absorbed into the into the.
- 10:12Speaker 2: Extenc you got to get into the now. Now for me,
- 10:18Speaker 2: the fully driverless taxi is a much odder experience. But
- 10:24Speaker 2: I've never had a problem.
- 10:25Speaker 3: I've never had a Look why why why would that
- 10:26Speaker 3: be stranger?
- 10:28Speaker 2: To have no ability to override it? You've got no
- 10:31Speaker 2: In other words, I'm sitting in the past in the
- 10:33Speaker 2: driver's back seat. When you're in the back seat, there's
- 10:35Speaker 2: no control. So something goes wrong, And I think there
- 10:38Speaker 2: is a way you can push a button, I think
- 10:39Speaker 2: on the screen. I've ever had to do it, but
- 10:41Speaker 2: you can stop the car if you had to. And
- 10:44Speaker 2: remember when they were having riots in Los Angeles over
- 10:48Speaker 2: they were beating up the way most they were they
- 10:51Speaker 2: were going, they were because there's nobody in the cars,
- 10:53Speaker 2: and they just trash the heck out of all those cars.
- 10:56Speaker 3: So if you're going point A to point B, if
- 10:57Speaker 3: you you're you're at point A and your destination to
- 11:00Speaker 3: some hotels or radio stations, some sums twenty miles away,
- 11:02Speaker 3: you hit the thing off, you go and halfway there
- 11:04Speaker 3: you go. You know, I need to pee here, I
- 11:07Speaker 3: want a burger. How do you edit your your trip underway?
- 11:12Speaker 2: There's you have a screen in front of you, and
- 11:15Speaker 2: I think you can you can adapt, or you can
- 11:17Speaker 2: push a button or and put a stop in. I
- 11:19Speaker 2: guess again, I've never really done that.
- 11:21Speaker 3: I never changed a trip in progress ever.
- 11:24Speaker 2: No, because you mean in the Weimo or the Tesla.
- 11:28Speaker 3: Oh test either one?
- 11:30Speaker 2: Oh yes, because Weimo. No, I've always just gone from
- 11:32Speaker 2: point A to point B. I mean with Tesla, you
- 11:34Speaker 2: just you just disconnect from the full service drive and
- 11:37Speaker 2: then re enter your navigation and put in the new
- 11:39Speaker 2: new location. Weimo. I don't know how you would do there.
- 11:42Speaker 2: There's got to be a way. But but look, this
- 11:44Speaker 2: leads to a broader conversation that I'm glad we're having
- 11:47Speaker 2: about the entire AI universe that we're in right now,
- 11:51Speaker 2: and it's everywhere. I shared this story with you and
- 11:55Speaker 2: I talked about it on my show. I needed a
- 11:57Speaker 2: plumber a month or two ago, and I called the
- 12:00Speaker 2: plumb the local plumbing company in Tampa Bay, and the
- 12:05Speaker 2: lady answers, Hi, this is Annie with ABC Plumbing. How
- 12:08Speaker 2: can I help you? I said, Hi, Annie, I've got
- 12:10Speaker 2: a I've got a clog. I need some help and
- 12:13Speaker 2: I want to see if you guys can come out
- 12:15Speaker 2: and as soon as possible. And she said, oh, thanks, Mike.
- 12:17Speaker 2: She said, you know you gotta plug. Well, we're going
- 12:20Speaker 2: to work on that. We got to get somebody out there.
- 12:22Speaker 2: Now we're talking. I'm chatting away. I am Kathy Chatty
- 12:25Speaker 2: talking to her.
- 12:26Speaker 3: And you got no idea.
- 12:27Speaker 2: She was completely AI. It was a total It was
- 12:32Speaker 2: a total computer now here was the clue. And by
- 12:36Speaker 2: the way, as she's talking to me, I can hear
- 12:38Speaker 2: voices in the background, I can hear a keyboard, you
- 12:41Speaker 2: hear a.
- 12:42Speaker 3: Tip tip tip ten. The illusion, the illusion of a
- 12:45Speaker 3: human experience.
- 12:46Speaker 2: It is done. It is presented to the to the
- 12:49Speaker 2: person on the phone as a total deep fake. You
- 12:52Speaker 2: are believing, and I believed it. The only thing that
- 12:55Speaker 2: tipped it off from me was that she was pausing
- 12:57Speaker 2: a little bit, funny like I would say something a little.
- 13:00Speaker 3: Delayed, a little bit still a little bit, but look,
- 13:04Speaker 3: but she was responding.
- 13:05Speaker 2: Finally, when it dawned on me, I said, oh, I said, look, hey, Annie,
- 13:09Speaker 2: let me talk to a live person. There's a pause.
- 13:12Speaker 2: And she said, now, Mike, I help you with it.
- 13:15Speaker 2: I can help you with anything you need. She's trying
- 13:18Speaker 2: to talk me out of it. I said, and now
- 13:20Speaker 2: I'm getting ticked Now I'm getting ticked off. I said, Annie,
- 13:24Speaker 2: I want to talk to a live She said, stand by,
- 13:26Speaker 2: hold on the phone rings. Melissa picks up HI as
- 13:30Speaker 2: is Melissa. I said, Melissa, are you live or AI?
- 13:34Speaker 2: She burst out laughing, and she said, I see you've
- 13:36Speaker 2: met Annie. And I said you and I said Melissa,
- 13:40Speaker 2: she said, Mike, it is the most. It has made
- 13:42Speaker 2: our office so much more efficient. It is no more practical.
- 13:47Speaker 2: It gets to it takes human element out of it.
- 13:50Speaker 2: And guess what, it costs a lot of jobs. And
- 13:54Speaker 2: that's the concern market that whether you're driving up to
- 13:57Speaker 2: a drive through and the AI is taking your order,
- 14:00Speaker 2: or you're calling a plumbing company, the world is changing
- 14:03Speaker 2: my friend, and it's and it's happening quickly.
- 14:07Speaker 3: It is I can one of the ethics of us
- 14:10Speaker 3: plugging other podcasts, I don't mind doing it. If they
- 14:12Speaker 3: plug us, we should plug them because I some months
- 14:15Speaker 3: ago wandered into one called shell Game by a journalist
- 14:20Speaker 3: named Evan Ratlift. Okay, shell game, what he does? You take?
- 14:23Speaker 3: He takes you step by step through He sets up
- 14:26Speaker 3: an entire company and runs it on AI with AI employees,
- 14:30Speaker 3: has it make sales calls, has it at one point
- 14:34Speaker 3: he has one AI talking to another AI, and and
- 14:36Speaker 3: it works just superbly because it's not a lot of
- 14:40Speaker 3: stupid small talk blah blah blah. So shell Game, Evan Ratlift,
- 14:44Speaker 3: it will amaze you, intrigue you, and terrify you all.
- 14:48Speaker 3: At the same time, you mentioned the whatever where the
- 14:52Speaker 3: fake woman's name was, I think I tried to That
- 14:56Speaker 3: was during regular business hours. They were trying to prevent
- 14:59Speaker 3: plugging Human in the loop, right. I had a I
- 15:02Speaker 3: think it was time to get our grill cleaned or something,
- 15:05Speaker 3: and I wanted to see if they were. It was
- 15:06Speaker 3: like Friday or Saturday at five, and I didn't know
- 15:09Speaker 3: what their hours were. But rather than you know, leave
- 15:12Speaker 3: a message and you know we may get back to
- 15:14Speaker 3: you by your next birthday. It was a thoroughly conversational
- 15:17Speaker 3: AI thing who asked me what I kind of needed,
- 15:20Speaker 3: it answered it, and it had a human being called
- 15:22Speaker 3: me back the following morning, eight o'clock. It was it
- 15:25Speaker 3: was better than just leaving a message in the ether.
- 15:28Speaker 2: And you and I both tend I think, if I'm
- 15:31Speaker 2: reading you right, we both tend to favor where this
- 15:35Speaker 2: is headed. But when you stop and think about the
- 15:38Speaker 2: real consequences, I know it's it's a terrifying prospect when
- 15:43Speaker 2: you think about what life is going to be like
- 15:45Speaker 2: for our kids, our grandkids, when you think about not
- 15:49Speaker 2: only the way you stop interacting with other human beings,
- 15:54Speaker 2: but all these services that are now going to be
- 15:56Speaker 2: provided without any human interaction. And look, you laughed when
- 16:01Speaker 2: I said that she tried to talk me out of
- 16:03Speaker 2: talking to a live person. What happens when when it
- 16:06Speaker 2: gets mad at you just won't let you.
- 16:09Speaker 3: You don't seem to understand what I'm saying. You don't
- 16:12Speaker 3: have any need for any of that primitive you know,
- 16:14Speaker 3: the life forum thing that you used to talk to.
- 16:18Speaker 2: I mean, you know what you know what it reminds
- 16:20Speaker 2: us all of and you're old enough to remember two
- 16:22Speaker 2: thousand and one A space on it?
- 16:24Speaker 3: Oh hell, sorry, sorry, Dave opened the bay doors. Al, sorry, Dave,
- 16:28Speaker 3: I can't do that. That was nineteen sixty eight. Nineteen
- 16:31Speaker 3: sixty eight.
- 16:32Speaker 2: So I thought it was in the seventies.
- 16:33Speaker 3: Wow, No, no, no no. Arthur C. Clark wrote the
- 16:36Speaker 3: book in the mid sixties. Movie came out in nineteen
- 16:39Speaker 3: sixty eight.
- 16:39Speaker 2: WHOA and ahead of its time, ahead of its time.
- 16:43Speaker 3: Ahead of its time. So on this do you know
- 16:45Speaker 3: what I did? An hour of the show? All right,
- 16:47Speaker 3: you ready? Curtain rabbit hole? How we always have a
- 16:51Speaker 3: plan for the show. We have a plan for the show,
- 16:53Speaker 3: and sometimes it's guests and segments and clips and have
- 16:56Speaker 3: you ever had something happen on the show where someone
- 16:58Speaker 3: calls you or you come up up with something you
- 17:00Speaker 3: think you'll throw out? It's funny you mentioned yesterday when
- 17:03Speaker 3: when the phones were broken. Nothing I'm doing is working, nothing.
- 17:09Speaker 2: Not one call, not one call. Hours went by, not
- 17:12Speaker 2: one call, and Eric's sitting there just fat and happy,
- 17:15Speaker 2: and then finally calls me and says your phone aren't working.
- 17:18Speaker 2: I'm like, well, thank you. I wish you had told
- 17:20Speaker 2: me that two and a half hours ago before I
- 17:22Speaker 2: was suicidal because I thought I couldn't even toast a
- 17:24Speaker 2: talk show anymore.
- 17:25Speaker 3: So let's take the reverse of that, where you bring
- 17:28Speaker 3: up something and it's just you got twelve calls about
- 17:31Speaker 3: something and you go, you know what, I'm going to ride.
- 17:33Speaker 3: This is this is what people want to do. I'm
- 17:35Speaker 3: going to ride the time. Had that happened this morning,
- 17:37Speaker 3: and it was the related, very related subject of I
- 17:40Speaker 3: don't know how big a deal this is there in
- 17:42Speaker 3: South Carolina where you are now, or Florida where you
- 17:44Speaker 3: usually live. Here in Texas. In my world, I'm gonna
- 17:47Speaker 3: say two words. You ready, data centers.
- 17:52Speaker 2: Uh nothing, I got nothing.
- 17:54Speaker 3: Really, this AI world that you and I have just
- 17:58Speaker 3: described require vast acreage of enormous buildings the size of
- 18:04Speaker 3: several football fields, containing rack up on rack of computers,
- 18:08Speaker 3: endless miles of wiring in order to make all this
- 18:11Speaker 3: AI stuff electricity, water. They are in it. They're either
- 18:15Speaker 3: an environmental nightmare or not, a boon to the local
- 18:19Speaker 3: economy or not. And so the huge Nimby not in
- 18:24Speaker 3: my backyard battles taking place in Red Oak, just over
- 18:28Speaker 3: the Dallas County line in Ellis County, south of Dallas.
- 18:31Speaker 3: They had a big meeting last night. Virtually every speaker
- 18:33Speaker 3: said we don't want it, we don't want it, we
- 18:35Speaker 3: don't want it. Council voted like eight to one. We're
- 18:38Speaker 3: changing the zoning. It's going to happen.
- 18:40Speaker 2: Why they're going to do it anyway, They're totally doing it.
- 18:42Speaker 2: So what's the takeaway? What were your callers saying, I mean,
- 18:45Speaker 2: what they don't want it?
- 18:46Speaker 3: Why they were It's funny because the callers were more
- 18:49Speaker 3: even handed than last night's council meeting was. Apparently most
- 18:52Speaker 3: people said, you know, I don't. They just put it
- 18:54Speaker 3: even further out in the boonies where it doesn't affect
- 18:56Speaker 3: as many people's lives. I think I said, I got
- 18:58Speaker 3: one a mile from my house and nobody cares. It's fine.
- 19:00Speaker 3: It's the fears are overstated. They they're worried about property values,
- 19:08Speaker 3: worried about if you got one of those things, you know,
- 19:10Speaker 3: a quarter mile out your back fence, it probably doesn't
- 19:13Speaker 3: help you sell the house for as much as you
- 19:14Speaker 3: wanted to. So it's but so the data center there
- 19:16Speaker 3: is and I ran part of are you a fan
- 19:19Speaker 3: of John Stossel ring a bell.
- 19:21Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, I like his work.
- 19:23Speaker 3: Huh. He's great. And he puts out these five or
- 19:25Speaker 3: six minute little videos and he did one on data center.
- 19:28Speaker 3: He's just said everybody's upset about them, nobody wants them,
- 19:31Speaker 3: and he said, that's dumb, because this is the future.
- 19:34Speaker 3: It can help the future. It's more of it. And
- 19:36Speaker 3: then he talks to a lady with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
- 19:40Speaker 3: I don't think I missed that up, and she's just
- 19:42Speaker 3: all on board for it, and he points out he
- 19:45Speaker 3: shows some of the public objections to it, but ultimately
- 19:48Speaker 3: it winds up being pretty pro data center. And I
- 19:51Speaker 3: can see the pro data center side, and maybe there's
- 19:53Speaker 3: just another on the list of things that we're just
- 19:56Speaker 3: that it is the future, we're living it, and it's
- 19:58Speaker 3: happening right in front of our faith.
- 20:00Speaker 2: So you know, just well watch it. Let's rewind a
- 20:03Speaker 2: little bit. Let me be the wet blanket here in
- 20:05Speaker 2: the room, because this is what the kinds of things
- 20:08Speaker 2: that I worry about I'm afraid of. A year or
- 20:10Speaker 2: two ago, Eric, my veteran operations manager, and look, I
- 20:15Speaker 2: just I was thinking about this. I'm celebrating twenty five
- 20:18Speaker 2: years with Salem. Eric's been with me for twenty four years. Eric,
- 20:24Speaker 2: I guess twenty oh. No, he was asked you with
- 20:26Speaker 2: me before Salem acquired us, So I take that back.
- 20:29Speaker 2: Eric's been with me twenty seven years. We've been with
- 20:31Speaker 2: Salem together now for a quarter of a century, twenty
- 20:33Speaker 2: five years together and Eric, and he's been with me
- 20:37Speaker 2: through thick and thin. He was with me in the
- 20:38Speaker 2: Empire State Building on the morning of nine to eleven.
- 20:41Speaker 2: So he's been with me with the highs and lows
- 20:44Speaker 2: of my Denise and the kids and Micah driving the
- 20:48Speaker 2: car through the garage door and everything else. So and
- 20:50Speaker 2: I've watched his kids grow up. I mean when I
- 20:52Speaker 2: first hired him, he had two little toddler girls. Now
- 20:55Speaker 2: he's got three adult daughters who rule the ruse. So
- 20:59Speaker 2: that's just life. And it's a joy to be on
- 21:02Speaker 2: a progression like that. As you've got you're surrounded by wonderful,
- 21:05Speaker 2: wonderful people, Ronda and Matt and and you know, we've
- 21:08Speaker 2: added people to our team, Yasmin and Tracy, who are
- 21:11Speaker 2: here with us every day for the M and M
- 21:13Speaker 2: extra and for the shows. But in any event. Eric
- 21:16Speaker 2: comes running in and says, Mike, you're not going to
- 21:18Speaker 2: believe it. Line three, You've got a caller. Line three.
- 21:21Speaker 2: It's Bill Maher from Los Angeles. I said, the Bill Maher.
- 21:25Speaker 2: He said, yeah, it's the craziest thing. He said, he
- 21:27Speaker 2: wants to weigh in on something you're talking about. And
- 21:29Speaker 2: I said, it can't be Bill Maher, And I said,
- 21:32Speaker 2: check the number. He checks the phone number. He did
- 21:34Speaker 2: a quick Google search. The number that popped up on
- 21:37Speaker 2: the screen was from Bill Maher Productions in West Hollywood, California.
- 21:42Speaker 2: So he said, I checked the number. It goes back
- 21:45Speaker 2: to Bill Maher Productions in Hollywood. I said, go back
- 21:48Speaker 2: and talk to him, vet him. You've got to make sure. Here.
- 21:51Speaker 2: He goes back, He talks to him for a little
- 21:53Speaker 2: bit longer. I can see him. I'm watching him talk
- 21:54Speaker 2: to the guy. He comes back. He says, Mike, it's him.
- 21:57Speaker 2: It's Bill Maher. Okay, Line three, let's go to West Hollywood, California.
- 22:02Speaker 2: On the Mike Gallagher Show. It's Bill Maher. Hey, Hey, Mike,
- 22:05Speaker 2: cow are He starts talking to me. Well again, it's
- 22:08Speaker 2: the Annie syndrome. It's totally a manipulated artificial intelligence voice
- 22:15Speaker 2: and it's Bill Maher and he's having a conversation. Again.
- 22:17Speaker 2: The thing that they can't perfect, although they will I
- 22:20Speaker 2: think one of these days, if they haven't already e
- 22:22Speaker 2: the ease.
- 22:22Speaker 3: Of beta the pause natural human being.
- 22:26Speaker 2: Yeah, there's still unnatural pauses when you're having a conversation.
- 22:30Speaker 2: But you know, after that happened, I got to thinking,
- 22:33Speaker 2: do you realize how many seniors have a grandkid named
- 22:37Speaker 2: Travis and they're going to get a phone call from
- 22:40Speaker 2: Travis at midnight saying, Grandma, I'm I'm in big trouble.
- 22:44Speaker 2: I need you to wire five thousand dollars.
- 22:47Speaker 3: You know what to do? You know what to do?
- 22:49Speaker 3: Have a code word, or just asking a question that
- 22:51Speaker 3: only Travis would know, Where did we go on your
- 22:54Speaker 3: tenth birthday? Something like that.
- 22:55Speaker 2: You're going to have to have that conversation. We should
- 22:58Speaker 2: be having that conversations with our seniors and for everybody,
- 23:02Speaker 2: but you've got.
- 23:02Speaker 3: To have that senior exact. People get be fooled. But
- 23:05Speaker 3: here's what I so, what was the Bill mar thing?
- 23:07Speaker 3: What was that?
- 23:09Speaker 2: It was a guy? Well we never got to the
- 23:12Speaker 2: bottom of it, except that we know that there was
- 23:14Speaker 2: a person who used a computer to manipulate and use
- 23:18Speaker 2: Bill Maher's actual voice, and was able to apply it
- 23:21Speaker 2: to have a fairly normal sounding conversation with talk show
- 23:26Speaker 2: host Mike Allagher.
- 23:27Speaker 3: And he woul show up is coming from and show
- 23:29Speaker 3: up is coming from his phone.
- 23:30Speaker 2: They spoofed his number. That's that's easily gone. That's what
- 23:34Speaker 2: they do that all the time. People spoof numbers. In fact,
- 23:38Speaker 2: be careful. You could get a call that says from bank.
- 23:40Speaker 2: I got a call ones from Bank of America on
- 23:41Speaker 2: my phone.
- 23:42Speaker 3: All all the time, and they're spoofing.
- 23:44Speaker 2: That number, but it actually is the Bank of America
- 23:47Speaker 2: phone number. And they but they're scammers and they can
- 23:50Speaker 2: what they call spoofing the number. But that's the part
- 23:54Speaker 2: of it. Mark, I'm telling you there. I have a
- 23:56Speaker 2: sense of dread about this. I have a dread that
- 24:00Speaker 2: terrible things are coming with this technology, that things are
- 24:03Speaker 2: There's gonna be abuse, there's gonna be there's gonna be malfeasance,
- 24:08Speaker 2: there's gonna be corruption. I think there's gonna be loss
- 24:10Speaker 2: of life.
- 24:11Speaker 3: Well you know why, you know why, and you're why
- 24:13Speaker 3: you're one hundred percent right, is because it's true of
- 24:15Speaker 3: absolutely everything that thing called the Internet is a wonder
- 24:19Speaker 3: and a curse. This little things, little things we've been
- 24:22Speaker 3: dangling in front of the cameras, these little phones that
- 24:24Speaker 3: we have are an absolute wonder and a joy and
- 24:27Speaker 3: a miracle, and they're also a curse and a blight
- 24:31Speaker 3: and a scourge. The differing factor here is is is
- 24:34Speaker 3: the X factor is humanity, which means they're gonna be
- 24:38Speaker 3: good people, good purposes and bad people doing things to
- 24:42Speaker 3: bad ends.
- 24:43Speaker 2: Well, and I've got and I've got four adult sons.
- 24:47Speaker 2: One of my sons, who I think I can admit
- 24:49Speaker 2: I don't think he'd mind me sharing on the podcast
- 24:52Speaker 2: candidly suffers from bouts of depression and uh, you know
- 24:56Speaker 2: kind of has always has to battle through that. I
- 24:59Speaker 2: don't think it's I don't know that it's chronic. I
- 25:01Speaker 2: don't know that it's that it's it's a severe level
- 25:04Speaker 2: of depression. But you know, he admits it, and it's
- 25:06Speaker 2: an open thing. He is so despondent about AI. I
- 25:12Speaker 2: think he's got almost obsessing about it. And I don't
- 25:15Speaker 2: think that he's off the beaten path. I think a
- 25:17Speaker 2: lot of young people are worried about what's going to happen,
- 25:19Speaker 2: and for the.
- 25:21Speaker 3: For the darkening of our future, for the job loss,
- 25:24Speaker 3: for the justify that this is not going to go well.
- 25:28Speaker 2: All of the above. That it's not going to go well.
- 25:30Speaker 2: And he's worried for his daughter, he's worried about his
- 25:33Speaker 2: potential grandkids, he's worried about what this looks like ten
- 25:37Speaker 2: twenty fifty years from now. Because Mark, we joke about it,
- 25:41Speaker 2: but it's it really is like the old cliche, the
- 25:45Speaker 2: machines taking over and humanity is being if that isn't
- 25:50Speaker 2: being eradicated, And I think that's fair. You seem less
- 25:53Speaker 2: cynical or worried about it.
- 25:55Speaker 3: I'm saying this is just me being pensive about exactly
- 25:58Speaker 3: where I am on the spectrum. I mean, enormously enthusiastic
- 26:02Speaker 3: and cripplingly terrified. A few minutes ago, as you were
- 26:05Speaker 3: sort of shaping up the direction of this conversation, you said,
- 26:09Speaker 3: we we probably are harboring a certain amount of optimism.
- 26:13Speaker 3: I think, I am you. Certainly are there elements of
- 26:15Speaker 3: it that are exciting and fun and wondrous, but we
- 26:18Speaker 3: have the I think the requisite amount of concern, like, Okay,
- 26:21Speaker 3: what might happen? What might go wrong. So from if
- 26:25Speaker 3: I am more optimistic than pessimistic, which I think I am,
- 26:29Speaker 3: why is it just faith? Is it just faith that
- 26:33Speaker 3: we're going to get this right in some way that
- 26:35Speaker 3: we're you know, I mean from the internet to the
- 26:38Speaker 3: cell phones. I think the positive still outweigh the negatives.
- 26:42Speaker 3: I think, you know, I guess I think I can
- 26:45Speaker 3: under it.
- 26:46Speaker 2: I can answer it. I can answer it for you.
- 26:48Speaker 2: You're a perennially optimistic person. You're somebody and I don't
- 26:53Speaker 2: say this just to blow smoke in your ear, but
- 26:54Speaker 2: I as I've gotten to know you over the years
- 26:57Speaker 2: and come to love and respect you, and and you're
- 27:00Speaker 2: you and your bride and your kids. You are a
- 27:03Speaker 2: guy that almost always sees the glass half full. And
- 27:07Speaker 2: I think you probably look at this on the horizon
- 27:09Speaker 2: and you say, look, it could be bad. But I
- 27:11Speaker 2: choose to look at the possibilities here. And that speaks
- 27:15Speaker 2: to your character, and that speaks to your intellect, and
- 27:18Speaker 2: that speaks to your worldview. And I try to be optimistic.
- 27:21Speaker 2: I'm a pretty optimistic guy too, but I also can
- 27:25Speaker 2: be a bit of a fatalist. I'm somebody who who
- 27:27Speaker 2: also dread. I get into my head too much, and
- 27:30Speaker 2: I think what if? What if? What if? What if?
- 27:33Speaker 2: And I'm afraid that that's probably the what why you
- 27:35Speaker 2: and I are a little bit, a little bit at
- 27:37Speaker 2: loggerheads over this because I really see horrible things coming
- 27:41Speaker 2: with this, yeah, and I don't.
- 27:43Speaker 3: Not see them. And you you were very kind to
- 27:45Speaker 3: me a minute ago, and I thank you.
- 27:46Speaker 2: But the.
- 27:48Speaker 3: Reverse analysis on that might be that you are the
- 27:52Speaker 3: more realistic, that you are, the more a pragmatist, and
- 27:55Speaker 3: I'm just kind of naive. I'm always willing to consider that.
- 27:58Speaker 2: Bob, Well, you give you ten as I kind of
- 28:01Speaker 2: pseudoanalyze your your personality. You tend to give people the
- 28:05Speaker 2: benefit of the doubt. And I love that about you.
- 28:08Speaker 2: You do you see the good in people, you know.
- 28:10Speaker 2: I keep thinking about the old Will Rogers Bromide. I
- 28:14Speaker 2: never met a man I didn't like, you know, and
- 28:17Speaker 2: I loved that about about that. I love that mindset.
- 28:20Speaker 2: I love trying to and I and I hate that
- 28:23Speaker 2: about myself. I wish I could be less cynical and
- 28:25Speaker 2: less negative, because look, I get excited about technology. I
- 28:30Speaker 2: was convincing you about the autonomous driving and this whole
- 28:33Speaker 2: surce driving. You were like, I'm never.
- 28:34Speaker 3: Dragging you have dragged me into the into the grudging
- 28:37Speaker 3: willingness to do it.
- 28:38Speaker 2: Yeah. And I love the new iPhones, and I love
- 28:40Speaker 2: the Apple Watches. I love technology and what it can do. Look, Eric,
- 28:45Speaker 2: who I mentioned, Eric, who's been with me all these years.
- 28:47Speaker 2: He just last week. I kid you not, I'm not
- 28:50Speaker 2: trying to embarrass him. He just discovered chat GPT. I've
- 28:54Speaker 2: made references to chat gpt repeatedly and he he didn't.
- 28:59Speaker 2: Finally got on board and tried it. He called me,
- 29:02Speaker 2: He said, Mike, this chat GPT is the greatest thing
- 29:05Speaker 2: I've ever experienced, and and mark it is. You can
- 29:09Speaker 2: utilize it in every aspect of your life, both personal
- 29:14Speaker 2: and professional. We had a company thing that happened a
- 29:18Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago, and it was just a little
- 29:20Speaker 2: bit of restructuring and corporate hierarchy stuff. And I fed
- 29:25Speaker 2: all the information about our employer, Salem Media, and about
- 29:30Speaker 2: investors and things like that, and I fed it into
- 29:33Speaker 2: chat GPT. It was terrifyingly accurate. It. Oh, it knew
- 29:40Speaker 2: our founder, it knew that our history of Salem for
- 29:44Speaker 2: fifty years, that Salem started fifty years ago with a
- 29:48Speaker 2: little radio station, a Christian radio station in California. And
- 29:52Speaker 2: it knew the whole thing. And let me tell you
- 29:56Speaker 2: what it did. You ready to get it? Be really
- 29:57Speaker 2: blown away? Sure, it predicted to a t what was
- 30:02Speaker 2: going to happen in the next week or two of
- 30:04Speaker 2: our company, And it happened just the way chat GPT
- 30:07Speaker 2: told me it was going to happen. In other words,
- 30:09Speaker 2: the applications of chat GPT are a lot deeper and
- 30:13Speaker 2: broader than Hey, what's the spot on my forehead? No,
- 30:18Speaker 2: I'm telling you, Mark pers but people don't know how
- 30:20Speaker 2: to use it, and Mark Eric just figured out how
- 30:23Speaker 2: to use it. And now the more you do it,
- 30:26Speaker 2: I'm on chat BT twenty times a day. I'm telling
- 30:29Speaker 2: you it's incredible.
- 30:30Speaker 3: Now, this is funny because and now where there's like
- 30:32Speaker 3: a there's a loyalty of it and the first thing
- 30:35Speaker 3: that everybody needs to know. And I after years of
- 30:38Speaker 3: doing this, I'm going to bet you there are all
- 30:41Speaker 3: kinds of people consuming this now, whether it's live on
- 30:43Speaker 3: YouTube or later on on YouTube, or later on on
- 30:46Speaker 3: Apple or Spotify, that maybe even a majority of people
- 30:49Speaker 3: consuming us right now are saying, hey, guys, I don't
- 30:53Speaker 3: know what it is either or I just discovered it too.
- 30:55Speaker 3: Eric is what we call a normal human being who
- 30:58Speaker 3: is in a media world, but it doesn't mean that
- 31:01Speaker 3: he is as hovering over every you know, a crazy
- 31:04Speaker 3: cutting edge thing like you or I or somebody else
- 31:06Speaker 3: might do. I've been late to the game on a
- 31:08Speaker 3: couple of things at times, and just because I sort
- 31:10Speaker 3: of wandered into it, took me forever to get a
- 31:12Speaker 3: DVD player, as I recalled, like, oh okay, so I
- 31:15Speaker 3: think there's a lot of people who just haven't done
- 31:18Speaker 3: it yet. But you're right once you do, and I
- 31:21Speaker 3: don't feel like I've surrendered my life to anything. It's
- 31:24Speaker 3: like having it's like having a twenty four hour executive
- 31:27Speaker 3: assistant who will go run look at stuff, who will
- 31:31Speaker 3: google stuff for you and do a little summary and
- 31:34Speaker 3: hand it right back to you. Now, you mentioned chat GPT,
- 31:36Speaker 3: which I do sometimes. I am a I'm a grock
- 31:41Speaker 3: guy that as the elon Twitter environment, and I have
- 31:46Speaker 3: heard them categorized in a kind of that chat GPT
- 31:52Speaker 3: that see if this resonates, Chat GPT is kind of
- 31:55Speaker 3: a straight down the line, useful, uh, not real edgy,
- 32:00Speaker 3: just kind of answers. It's very functional, very professional groc
- 32:04Speaker 3: can is. It can be kind of not snarky, but
- 32:09Speaker 3: it has some personality you can either like or not like.
- 32:12Speaker 3: I've you know, and I feel little bit is totally true.
- 32:15Speaker 3: Sometimes I like that and sometimes I don't because and
- 32:18Speaker 3: then there's Claude, which I don't think I've ever done
- 32:20Speaker 3: in my life. And there are some others and they
- 32:22Speaker 3: and so all the even all the a I s
- 32:25Speaker 3: have certain personality traits.
- 32:27Speaker 2: So wow, it's all coming. And on that happy note,
- 32:30Speaker 2: I say, we wrap for another day of the M
- 32:32Speaker 2: and M extra, So it's we're what a world we're
- 32:35Speaker 2: living in it? And look, indeed, so quote a great musical,
- 32:39Speaker 2: What a time to be alive.
- 32:40Speaker 3: I love it every day and I so so appreciate it.
- 32:42Speaker 3: And I hope everybody's having a good time.
- 32:44Speaker 2: Have a great one. See you next time.